We're Not Only Awkward, We're Crafty Too

A few weeks ago I was at home during my lunch break, kicking it on the couch, eating a tv dinner, watching Studio 5. Now, I typically can't stand this show, but they were having a "craft corner" type of thing, and I decided it looked sort of interesting, so I proceeded to watch. This is the moment in my life that I sprang a new lifelong (well . . . maybe not lifelong) obsession with crafting. Yeah, I follow six different crafting blogs now, I have a mental list of random crafty things I want to make, we frequent the DI looking for junk we can make over, and I EVEN have a folder on our computer titled "Crafty Folder." OOOooooooo!

So this is the little baby that started it all, my passion for CRAFTINESS!

This horrificly awesome teapot lamp cost a whopping $198.00 at Anthropologie, a store in Salt Lake.

I had to make it, so James and I scoured DI for plates, teacups, and teapots. The ones we found were pretty hidious, something a smelly old women might have in her home, so painting was a must. We ended up with this:

And after several hours (okay maybe only one hour) of this . . .

And luckily only one of these . . .

We ended up with this . . .

And we put it in our living room right here . . . and I pretty much love it.

It only cost us:

$6.00 for the china

$2.00 for the lamp to tear apart

$5.00 for the spray paint

$9.00 for the lamp shade

$9.00 for the bit to drill through the china

Total: $31.00 . . . and a lot of time . . . for James.

We've also made many other crafty things such as these:

An awesome picture frame made from seashells we found on our cruise.

A gun rack for all James' guns. Obviously, I had nothing to do with this.

A random wall hanging made from a stupid book that I hated, a paper bag, and dried flowers from our anniversary.

A cabniet for the plethora of hunting stuff James has. Obviously, I had nothing to do with this either.

And, a sweet background from the same stupid book for our wedding picture.

Trust me there will be more awesome crafting with the Alveys to come!

A Boogie Birthday

James' big 23rd birthday was on Wednesday, and since I've been busy with student teaching stuff since then, this is the first chance I've had to get a "happy birthday" post put up. Wednesday was a long day for me, and James was sick, so our festive spirit kind of flopped, but we still tried to celebrate the day.


We celebrated Boogieface's birthday with a booger-green party. Literally, everything was booger-green. (I'd like to say that I'm corky and thought up this idea well before I bought everything, but I just happened to only be able to find green cupcake wrappers and it spiralled from there.) James' family came over that night to enjoy green sprinkled cupcakes, green punch, and green ice cream all on a green plate.





And YES, I made those cupcakes AND the frosting from scratch. Let's take one more look at that awesome cupcake tier I made.

I love you Boogie, and I hope you had a boogery, awesome birthday.

POEM TIME and You Will LOVE It

I generally hate quotes/poems/song lyrics of any type on blog/Facebook posts (especially the Facebook posts.) I don't care about your most deep, inner thoughts and how you feel they link so brilliantly to a Taylor Swift or Likin Park song. But, I like them on mine. Probably because it's a poem translated by Ezra Pound, and it's brilliant. It's a poem I first read in my Intro to Poetry class at Snow (thanks, Rosier.) I didn't fully grasp it then, but it means a lot more to me now. So give it a shoot. Be patient. Go slowly. Above all, ignore the line breaks for the most part, and no sing-songy voices please.

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noises overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August.
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-Fu-Sa.


Ahhhh, how refreshing, huh? We'll do this again sometime.

And just to lighten up the mood because you know I have a hard time writing a post without cracking some sort of joke about James, well, I jumped on his lap to give him a big kiss tonight, and yeah, he had a huge BOOGER hanging from his nose, and I told him, and he picked it, and it made me gagge, and THAT is why he should be called Boogieface.

The Past Week in Acrostic . . . Literally

What's acrostic, you ask? Well, according to my good friend Wiki acrostic is . . . a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or a message. Here goes.

T aught small children about the destructiveness of drug abuse.

H ated every minute of riding Wicked at Lagoon.

E dgar Allan Poe was the topic of my lesson on Friday, which I loved.

P anicked over James not wearing enough orange on the deer hunt.

A te at the Rice King Buffet for the first time. Gross!

S creeched when the tire blew-out on the way to Lagoon.

T ook in the news that James' brother is going to Mississippi for his mission.

W ore suspenders, pigtails, and huge glasses to complete my nerd costume.

E rected a duct tape flower for my hair for duct tape day.

E xcited over how adorable Paislee and Porter looked in their Halloween costumes.

K icked my very first students out of class!

Porter the biker dude...............Me the nerd...................Pailee the Minnie

Anniversary Weekend: Yeah, You Want to Know What We Did

Friday, after I was finished teaching, James and I headed to Salt Lake to spend a weekend together for our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY. Here's a play-by-play of what we did . . .

Once James returned home from a suspicious venture while I was at work, we piled in our crappy, non air-conditioned car and headed out of town. Of course, we only got out of the parking lot when I realized I hadn't turned off my curling iron, so we quickly turned around, and then we were off AGAIN! And, of course we got on the freeway when I realized I had forgotten the camera. We decided to stop at my mom and dad's house on the way to steal theirs. Conveniently, dad took pity on us and lent us his much nicer, air-conditioned car for the weekend. THANKS, DAD! So, we picked up the camera, repacked in the new car, and we were off AGAIN. I quickly fell asleep.

I eventually woke-up for our first stop, Cabelas. James got (is getting) a gun for his present. We waited an hour to have one of James's pals help us with choosing a gun, eventually got sick of waiting, had a old guy working there tell us that the gun James wanted wasn't even there, looked at a few other guns, decided he was just getting a gun at Jorgenson's, and finally after FOREVER (I'm starving at this point) we left. When we finally did get to Salt Lake (James cussing the whole way from Provo to Sandy about the traffic, which by the way really did suck) we headed off in the direction of Holladay to attend a friend's reception. (We didn't know where we were going). After several minutes of driving around aimlessly, back-and-forth, up and down one road, we finally found the church, did the awkward line thing, chatted with some of my old friends, ate the ice cream because we were both STARVING, and head off to Salt Lake to find something for dinner.

Finding a place to eat turned into a DISASTER! We wanted to eat somewhere moderately cheap, somewhere we were familiar with, somthing like Olive Garden or Applebees. We drove around downtown Salt Lake for AN HOUR not finding anything. I know, you're thinking, "It's Salt Lake. There are resturants everywhere." Welp, James and I struggle apparently. We finally got so annoyed we ended up eating at Wendy's. Yeah people, Wendy's. Then, on the way to the hotel, we pulled on a oneway street going the WRONG direction. Don't worry, dad, your car came out just fine. So, basically dinner was a disaster, and we were both ornery at this point. We ate our nasty fast-food meals, James surprised me with flowers (aww so that's where he was at when I got home from work, so cute!), and we went to bed.

Saturday we woke-up, ate at the "complimentary" breakfast (not to be confused with continental breakfast or the hotel workers will bite your head off with their snobbery), and met Chad, Amanda, and Paislee Mae at the Hogle Zoo.

Then, James took me shopping in Sandy, which I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED, and we head back to the hotel to take a quick nap and prepare for round-two of resturant finding for dinner. This time we confided in Google before heading out to eat. We decided on the Blue Igauna. Food was great, boring Asian waiter dressed in cheesy Hispanic costume sucked, and nasty group of teenagers dressed in stripper clothing apparently attending some sort of dance were ANNOYING. Dinner number two bombed as well. We took a walk through Temple Square after said sucky dinner, and then went to Inception, which I know we're a little late for jumping on that bandwagon, but that was the BEST MOVIE EVER!

Sunday moring we slept in, ate at the "complimentary" breakfast again, and headed back home. I quickly fell asleep again. Two hours later we were back in Aurora at my parents home to pick-up our nasty, frozen, year old wedding cake. When we got home we unpacked and fell back to sleep for a LONG, cozy three hour nap. I know, we're sleepy people sometimes. I finally woke-up about 5:00 and got started on the "romantic" dinner I had planned.

The rest of the night we watched "Life," the documentary on the Discovery Channel. Yeah, we're kinda lame, but THANKS Oprah for teaching us so much about animals!

Meet the Daniels

Seeing that (1) I have nothing better to do with my time, (2) I got an upset phone call from my sister Trisha for having a seeming love afair with Chad and Amanda and leaving her out of my blog, and (3) finding myself extremely funny . . . but mostly 2, I'm blogging again today about my sister and her family.

The Daniels Family

Kevin Daniels: Brother-in-law. Law student. Talker. Bearded man.

Trisha Daniels: Older sister. Bizarre. Prego. Stealer of everything. Happy.

Porter Daniels: Cutest little boy EVER! So cute, three pictures were needed. Makes me concerned that my own child won't be as adorable as he is, and thus I won't like he/she as much. Dancing fool. Has tradgic pooping problems. Very tiny.

(Ultrasound picture that Porter is holding) Unknown Baby: Even smaller than Porter. Probably will be painfully cute as well. Unknow sex and name.

The Best One Year . . . Yeah, that's a Play on that (Cheesy, LDS) Movie The Best Two Years

So, James and I have been awash in marital bliss for pretty much a WHOLE year now. Thank you, thank you, but no applause are needed, really. Our anniversary is this Sunday, October 10th. And, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I'm devoting this entire post to my beloved Boogieface. I want all my readers, (which is like Amanda and Chad . . . Yeah, my own mother doesn't read this . . . and yeah, I'm offended by that) to know, understand, and think "oh, that's so adorable" about all my favorite things about James Lewellyn Alvey aka Boogieface, so I've decided to make a list of 50 (YES! 50) of the best things about James, and I'm going to try to be very nice and only minimally sarcastic. Here goes . . .

50 Amazing Things About Boogieface

1. He is manly. James loves to build things, fix things, kill things, and get dirty, and I think this is pretty cute.

2. James is great with fixing cars, which is convenient because my car always has something wrong with it.

3. James is a far better speller than me, and while . . . yes, this is annoying, it's also greatly appreciated because now I don't have to Google all the words I can't spell when he is around.

4. He is really tall, which I really like. I mean, I never have to struggle getting items off the top shelf at grocery stores.

5. James will eat anything, and he never complains about the food I make.

6. James loves (kind of stupid, ahem) action movies. See, I said he was manly.

7. James always changes the toliet paper roll . . . because I hate to and never will.

8. One time, I broke my beloved Jesus sandals, and James fixed it with super glue.

9. I grind my teeth at night, which is loud and probably annoying, and James will grab my face (very nicely, might I add) in the middle of the night and tell me to stop.

10. James is a fearless driver and deals with all of my crazied, pretend stomping on the break when we drive in the city.

11. He is not a whinner. Like, ever!

12. He is a horrible dancer, but still has a strange love for it, so I get lots of laughs.

13. James is a grilling master, and he even rebuilt the grill we have. Duh! Manly, people!

14. He loves Kesha. Bahahahaha

15. Babies love him. Some people think it's because he is like a cartoon character, which brings me to #16.

16. James is like a cartoon character; he is very animated.

17. He is very easy-going and gets along with everyone.

18. He loves to go shooting and took me to shoot my very first gun.

19. He has killed a buffalo before.

20. He loves, loves, loves techno music, which I can't really figure out, but whatever.

21. James is really passionate about vehicles, and absolutely hates anything Toyota

22. Need to know something about wood? Well, James knows everything about it. (No, Chad, that is not what I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

23. He can also tell you anything you need to know about hardware.

24. James is like the energizer bunny; he never gets tired.

25. When James gets mad, he goes on crazy rants . . . and they can get pretty random sometimes.

26. James can't whisper AT ALL, but he thinks he is.

27. He isn't shy at all.

28. He hates to sit around, so on our days off we're always going off to do fun things.

29. Unlike me, James is too nice to tell people off.

30. He doesn't hold grudges at all.

31. A few times, even though he probably hated it, James let me read poetry to him. He tried to look like he really cared about it too.

32. James has watched several super girly movies with me, even though I know he would have rather watched a movie where something blows-up.

33. Whenever I'm too tired to make dinner, James always lets us eat out.

34. Even though he never whines, James never gets mad at me because I'm whinny.

35. Sometimes, well a lot of the time, he yells random things out like, Buckwheat, Gooberhead, Crazy George, beauty Clark, whoopie, and take it easy.

36. James loves youtube.

37. James will always listen to my passionate rants against racism.

38. James loves the outdoors.

39. He has the prettiest eyes (so blue with the longest eyelashes) and this is why are kids going to have gorgeous eyes too.

40. Don't freak out people, but this has to be said . . . James Alvey has the cutest butt ever!Really, I mean it.

41. James loves sweets. Cookies, cake, pie, ice cream, he loves them all.

42. I've never known anyone to drink so much at dinner time. He has to have lots of liquids when he eats.

43. He really hates it when I don't rinse off my plates before I put them in the dishwasher because he ALWAYS rinses his off.

44. Did I mention that he is really manly!

45. He is extremly useful in moving situations because he can spackle all the holes I make him put in the walls.

46. James is always happy!

47. James says whatever comes to his mind, even if it shouldn't be said out loud.

48. He is pretty awkward, which I love most about him.

49. He doesn't even get mad when I call him Boogieface.

50. In all honesty, James is the most caring, sweetest husband anyone could have. AND HE IS MINE, PEOPLE!

Happy Anniversary, Boogie!

Redbox: A Conspiracy

James and I have nearly been married a WHOLE year. We've had a lot of fun moments together so far, like going on a cruise to Mexico, tons of fun times camping, lame family reunions, lots of scattergories games with Chad and Amanda (we still have yet to win them), SEVERAL awkward moments, and lots of fun times just hanging out laughing together. . . . Last night may have topped them all.

It all started yesterday afternoon when my mom and I went to Monroe to visit my grandparents; we stopped at Chad and Amanda's on the way. I missed my Paislee Mae, so I needed to visit her. She was as cute as ever . . . once she woke up from her nap and finally warmed up to her favorite auntie. Anyway . . . that's kind of besides the point. The main thing we need to focus on here is that Chad gave me the Redbox movie Iron Man II to take back for him. I seriously thought about paying him a dollar, so we could keep it for the night because James has been wanting to see it, but I didn't have a dollar on me to pay him. I didn't want to hear for the next year that I caused him a dollar late fee, so we just took it back . . . and this is when the chaos insues.

When James got home from work later that night, we went to Lin's to go grocery shopping. We stopped at the Redbox there and returned the movie, but we still wanted to see it, so we then rented it again. No problems we thought. No big deal, just put the movie in, rent it again, and pay for it. Then we were off to buy food. We got home, put our groceries away, and sat down on the couch to cuddle up and watch a movie. The movie begins to play, and I'm totally into it. I don't notice anything odd. However, it's only playing for just a few minutes before James sits up a bit annoyed and says . . .

James: Is this the first movie?

Chelsee: No. We rented the second one.

James: Grabbing the remote angerly, fast forwarding the movie.

Chelsee: Still oblivious to what is going on . . .

James: Very angery now, storming over to the DVD player and ejecting the movie. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! THIS IS IRON MAN THE FIRST ONE! Throwing the DVD across the room.

Chelsee: Don't get mad. It's not that big of a deal. It was only a dollar.

James was pretty irrated at this point, but I convinced him to go back to Redbox to get the right movie. And this is when the story gets really good.

James (dressed in a blue t-shirt, black basketball shorts, and his hidious black basketball shoes) and I (dressed in a green flowered t-shirt, gray cut-off sweats, and my beloved, worn-in Jesus sandals) head out to find the actual Iron Man II. Our first stop is Fresh Market. James returns the wrong movie we just bought, and storms back to the car (angerly might I add). No Iron Man II at this Redbox. Next we aim for Maverick, but James quickly starts cussing about how many people are in line for that Redbox, so we head to Mcdonalds. On the way there, he begins his crazed rant about Redbox stealing his dollar. We pull up to Mcdonalds, and he pretty much drives through the door. I politely comment on the fact that we aren't parked in a parking spot, but he ignores me, and storms to the Redbox there. Only a few seconds later, he storms back out with hands empty and angery words flying from his mouth. He then announces that we're forgetting about it and going home, which is fine with me, but I find we are heading to Walmart to look at the next Redbox in town. He parks, walks in, notices that the line is too long, walks around the self-checkouts, says hi/bye to the greeter, and storms back out to the car. Again, he announces we are going home. We then head back towards Lin's . . . the last Redbox in town. James has a tendancy to get mad and rant crazily about random things, so as we pass Sears he notices two cop cars sitting in the parking lot. He begins to yell about stupid cops, which obviously has nothing to do with the plight that we are in, but . . . he is REALLY angery now. On the way back to Lin's he carries on about Redbox purposely pulling up the first Iron Man, so he would click on it and waste a dollar; then have to return to spend another dollar on Iron Man II. I just politely nod my head in agreement because of course Redbox is conspiring against us, forcing us to spend an extra dollar! We pull into Lin's, he storms back in, and finally he comes out with the movie in hand.

The kicker . . . we finally get to watch the movie after driving around in a mad rage to five different Redboxes, and of course it was stupid.

James Alvey: The Photo Hog

So, we just got back from The Lloyd Family Camp-out on Sunday, and my family are freaks about Facebook, so of course they started tagging people the second we got home. I've realized that James (the in-law) is in like 90 % of the pictures . . . I'm randomly placed in like maybe five photos. This could be for a few reasons: (1) James is a photo hog, (2) my family likes James more than me, or (3) James actually went and did things while I stayed at camp and slept.

Here is a sampling of the pictures from The Lloyd Family Camp-out, you decide for yourself, but I'm saying reason 1 . . . James is a photo hog.

Stupid pictures of me:

James' photos:

Okay, so it's really only like a million pictures of James fishing with my niece, Derian, but still out of the four pictures of me (FOUR!) two of them are of my eyes (and yes, Bryan took those while I was trying to take a nap).