i love sugar

The elves have been visiting all week. So exciting! Santa's elves have been a missing piece of my life for at least the last 17 years. I really missed them. Today, I got a funny t-shirt. The elves really know my style. I love it.

With spending Christmas in Colorado this year, it was important to me to decorate and bake and put up stockings- all those things that make Christmas fun. This year, I made sugar cookies using the world's greatest sugar cookie and frosting recipes. Seriously. These cookies are so good that my body has insisted on having at least one for breakfast each morning over the last 3 days. Brandon brought a tray to work, and they were gone by 10:05 a.m. I also made peanut butter balls, which are like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but more unhealthy and slightly more delicious. Finally, I made chocolate covered pretzels drizzled with white chocolate.

It's been snowing all day, and the big, fluffy snowflakes are making a pretty blanket of white on the ground.

My Christmas wish is to receive an obnoxious Christmas sweater that I can not only wear to ugly sweater parties, but that I can wear every Christmas Eve because it makes me feel extra festive. I get you, holiday sweater owners- I get you.

home sweet home

Although we LOVE living downtown, Brandon and I have been thinking lately about buying a house. It is much easier thinking about desired neighborhoods when you're in a smaller city, like Sioux Falls or Fort Collins, and a little overwhelming in a place the size of Denver. I was browsing some real estate sites today, and can't believe that I don't have a better sense of the type of place I'd like to call home. I'm 33! Shouldn't this be a no-brainer at this point in my life?

Part of me would love to live a little way up into the mountains. I'd love to have a home with an inspiring view, a place where our dogs could roam off-leash. However, even living downtown, I sometimes resent the fact that the nearest Hobby Lobby is 15 miles away. We have to drive quite a distance to find big box stores. I like to support small, locally-owned businesses whenever possible, but sometimes SuperTarget just fulfills certain needs. There's also appeal in buying a newer house in a newly-developed suburb, where you likely don't have a lot of fixer-upper type projects on the horizon, and you have ready access to conveniently-located stores and restaurants nearby. I also like the idea of living in a charming old home with lots of character in an up-and-coming neighborhood where we could walk to the nearby main street full of quaint shops and non-chain restaurants.

I guess part of what makes life worth living is the excitement of not knowing where we'll eventually end up.

oh, christmas tree

It's been a busy week for me, so going to Michael's and shopping for Christmas decorations after work tonight was wonderfully therapeutic! Nearly all the Christmas stuff is 50% off- even better than shopping for Christmas decorations for me is finding a deal.

I have very few Christmas decorations, in part because I've always traveled home to South Dakota for the holidays. So I'm kind of starting from scratch this year. Brandon and I bought our first real tree this year. Going to pick out our tree was so much fun, and brought back lots of memories of doing this with my family as a kid.

listen closely

Today's message to me, from the Universe:

You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.
- Joan Baez

viva las vegas

Gratitude | Day 2

1. Friday!
2. The anticipation of Saturday morning coffee.
3. Our Wii Fit, which makes me look forward to working out.

Gratitude

Inspired by the Create Beauty Daily blog, I wanted to share some things I am grateful for today. It's been kind of a rough week, so this is really great timing for me!

1. Learning, in spite of the fact that I am sometimes pushed to learn things outside my comfort zone. Some part of me, deep down, knows that I will see the value in this material when I look back at my current life years down the road.
2. Happiness on my dog's faces after they've just returned from a long walk.
3. The fact that my dogs are always cheerful, willing running partners.
4. Having fun with Wii Fit skateboard competitions against my husband.
5. Starting out the day with hazelnut creamer in my coffee, which my non coffee drinking co-worker always says smells like cookies.
6. The view of the downtown Denver skyline at night. I love where we live.
7. Making some new charms after several months of not creating, and realizing that I am still very much in love with jewelry making.
8. My favorite clever TV shows that make me laugh on days that I don't feel like laughing.
9. My sweet husband who hugs me on days I don't feel very hug-worthy.
10. Vanilla beer

This summer is the first time in my life I'd ever kept a gratitude journal, and it was just for a few weeks, but if you've never done this I highly recommend it! The best thing for me was realizing what makes me most happy, and being conscious of trying to include more of those things in my daily life. It's also a really nice way to end each day. It would probably be a great way to start off a day, too.

homemade halloween mask

yes.

“How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilty, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked.” ~ May Sarton

lovely little cake

We had a charity raffle at work yesterday which resulted in me winning this white cake, complete with white frosting and a sparky gold swirl on top. It is quite possibly the sweetest little cake I've ever seen.

beautiful pictures

photos by lightfantasik photography
new york city, new york

My good friend Sarah has a whole series of new pictures up on her website www.lightfantastik.com. If you haven't visited her site lately, go check it out! While I was of course excited to see pictures of our wedding on her site, I mostly enjoyed seeing all the other creative portraits she's been taking recently. Pictures like the ones of the adorable kiddos above make me smile.

Looking at the pictures on her site will increase your happiness by at least 20% today. I guarantee it.

♥ mountains

A Perfect Day for a Walk Through Downtown

Source:+

tricycle race

Some of my favorite things about this photo:

- The look of determination on my face.
- The fact that I'm wearing the tutu I wore for my bachelorette party just three weeks prior.
- The way my orange wig matches the orange cone.

I found this great tutorial on how to make a DIY cardigan using long-sleeved t-shirts. It turned out that I had several ill-fitting shirts in my closet that I don't wear, and in just a few minutes, I'd repurposed them into cardigans! They're perfect for cool nights out on our porch.

Mismatched wine glasses and plates were one of my favorite parts of our wedding. It was tempting to want to keep them all for sentimental reasons, but we're definitely running out of storage space in our new apartment! Plus, when would one realistically use 50 vintage plates? As much as it broke my heart just a little, it definitely made sense to try to resell our wedding dishes. I ended up compromising by saving a number of my very favorite glasses and plates. It was fun going through them one last time this weekend! My mom did all the work in acquiring the dishes in Sioux Falls, and I never quite got to soak in the beauty of the collection as a whole in the whirlwind that was our wedding weekend.

I saved one glass that had an etched cursive letter H on the side. There's definitely this thrifting treasure hunting moment where you realize this item must be yours, and you almost want to turn to the stranger next to you at the thrift store just to ask them if they'll mind giving you a high five. I imagined my mom coming across this glass and getting so excited at just how perfect it would be on our big day.

In any case, our lovely collection was taking over a good part of our computer room, so we decided to sell them through Craigslist this week. We found a couple getting married at the groom's cousin's ranch in August who are now the proud owners of our entire collection. They're serving barbeque, and she's wearing his grandmother's dress! When they came by to pick up the glasses and plates tonight, the bride-to-be said she's really into antiques and thrifting, and that she loves things with character. We wished them well and said our goodbyes, and I realized that our wedding dishes found a very good home.

I was just looking through my stash of puppy pictures, and came across this picture of Roxie which was taken on the first day we brought her home. She's such a sweet dog. A little timid, we think in part as a result of her first few months. She and her litter mates were dumped in an overnight receiving bin at a dog shelter in New Mexico when they were barely 8 weeks old. If the owners thought abandoning a bunch of helpless puppies at a shelter during the night was appropriate, we speculate that the puppies didn't get a lot of nurturing in their first few months. The dogs at that particular shelter are actually kept outside in kennels made from chain link fences, and it really gets kind of cold at night in the New Mexico desert, so not great accomodations. The puppies were on death row in the shelter, so a rescue group from Denver drove down and literally saved their lives.

My husband treated me to a wonderful birthday dinner out on our patio last night, complete with a lovely chocolate cake from the Mermaid Bakery. 33 feels much like 31 and 32- fairly uneventful, yet creeping closer to middle age. The thirties, overall, have been really wonderful, though. Like there's this wonderful sense of comfort that I wish I'd experienced in my twenties.

I'm feeling very introspective these days. I feel like I need to create, like something big needs to spill out, but also feel like it's not quite time.







Brandon got me tickets to the musical Wicked for my birthday. It made me cry, in a happy way.

There's a recap of the bachelorette party night over on my wedding blog for anyone who would like to check it out.

This picture of Brandon and Santa is so endearing. Please note that Brandon is young enough to sit on Santa's lap, yet his legs are as long as Santa's.

Brandon was always quite a bit taller than most kids his age throughout all phases of childhood, and I'm guessing maybe this Santa was a shorty. And also, Santa looks like he might be drunk. I'm just sayin'.

I'm back!

Today was my first day back at work. In addition to a post-it note on my computer monitor that said, "Welcome back, Mrs. Hess- we missed you!" I had a jar with garden-picked flowers from another coworker waiting for me on my desk. What a sweet return after a wonderful week off. How often do you get such a happy time, full of friends, family, and desserts galore? It was magical.

My coworker printed off copies of her photos from the wedding and gave them to me today. She didn't take a lot of photos, but the ones she did take were good! She printed them on her inkjet, so as a result, the photos scanned in a little grainy from my scanner. I had fun playing around with the color tinting, and actually like how this makes the photo look like it's some late 70's wedding picture. The black and white version is kind of fun, too.'


It's the strangest thing. I had this terrible fear the day after our wedding that nobody outside of our professional photographer took any pictures of us. I don't remember video cameras or anyone asking us to pose or camera flashes at all. I barely remember Cindy taking this photo, until she told me the story of how I said to her, "Oh, no- I looked away!" I kind of remember that part. In any case, I'm so happy to see these new photos.

My groom looks so handsome in his suit!

My green dress and his yellow tie really did look good together!

I look like a bride from 1956!

My fake eyelashes didn't fall off!

I even like the part with him staring at the camera and me looking away.

I am not even sure I can put into words what a great week we had, and I can't wait to see more photos from that evening. Even though I was convinced that my groom and I would eat on our wedding day, and that I would be in the moment and not let the day slip away from me, the little details are kind of a blur. I remember looking at all the beautiful faces of everyone as I walked up the aisle, I remember the kissing menu performances and the toasts and the hugs and dancing and photo booth shenanigans. I'm just not sure I took the time to soak in how delicious the dessert table looked, or what the decorations looked like all together, or what the room looked like full of all the people. It's probably perfectly wonderful that I remember who was behind me in the conga line, how beautiful my flowers looked, and how we tried to convince my dad he needed to wear a certain costume in the photo booth.

I think part of me is afraid that in a decade, I'll remember the details so broadly, whereas I want to remember all the tiny little things that made up the whole day, like Sarah's son Jack coming down before dinner even started in a flashy pink hat with an American flag in his hand. I've started a document that quickly became 3 pages of wonderful wedding memories- like the fact that a bunch of people took time to make and bring desserts for our dessert table. My sister Kelli told me the story behind her daughter getting up to sing the Barney song on her chair during the dinner, and I was touched and amazed and LOVED hearing how it all came about. I started a conga line not once, but twice, per the request of a certain 4-year old who just had way too much fun the first time and kept asking her mom if we could do it again.

We had so much fun with all our friends and family at our wedding this weekend! From the Thursday night bachelorette party to the multiple conga lines on Saturday night, it was amazing and seriously one of the best weekends of my life.

Our Flickr photo sharing site can be found here. I am so enamored by the photo booth pictures! We passed out cards with the login and password to our Flickr site, and are hoping guests add their photos using the username and password we shared at our wedding. If you lost your card with this info, drop me an email and I would be glad to share with you!

it's almost time!!

I can't believe our wedding is less than two weeks away! In just about a week, we'll start seeing the first of our friends and family roll into town. Brandon picked up his new fancy wedding shoes today, and after a long weekend of non-stop wedding projects and planning, our to-do list is becoming amazingly short!

Can you believe it?

My poor blog has been so neglected! We moved two weeks ago, then my wedding shower was last weekend, and now our wedding seems to be coming up sooo quickly. Wow. At times, it feels like we've had so much time to plan ahead, so we're in a really good spot, and other times it feels like there are so many little details to remember and things to accomplish before June.

We're still trying to get settled into our new apartment. We have yet to put anything up on the walls. That's always so hard for me. I look at magazines for inspiration, and wonder how people make their places look so creative and inspiring and lived-in, then I just freeze. I think I actually over-think where things should go. In our last apartment, it was so bad that we lived there an entire year and never put a single thing on our bedroom walls.

Moving a month before the wedding, and now car problems 4 days before moving day.

The universe has a strange sense of humor sometimes.

There's an outdoor flea market near our neighborhood that takes place monthly. After coffee and french toast this morning, we took the dogs and headed out. It's a little over a mile away, which ends up being a pretty good walk for the dogs.

I found some embroidered hankerchiefs, old table cloths, and a sweet flower painting.

I just got new glasses this week.


I'm pretty sure I channel my mom, circa 1968, just a little.

I started with a goal a little over 6 weeks ago to work out 3 times a week over the course of 9 weeks leading up to a 5k. For the most part, it's been a success! Some weeks I worked out 4 times, and a couple I've just managed to make it to my bi-weekly cardio boot camp, so it kind of balances itself out.

I think the biggest thing I've learned is that on the days when I least feel like working out, those are the days when I need it most. One day in particular during finals week was rough. I'd stayed up late working on a paper on Friday night. I woke up Saturday morning, and proceeded to spend the next 6 hours typing a final paper. My back and neck hurt, and all I felt like was laying on the couch to recover, with perhaps the new Oprah magazine or a glass of wine. Instead, I grabbed the two dogs and headed outside. We went on a fairly long run (for me) that day, and I remember walking back into the apartment thinking what terriffic therapy it was.

Sophie the Bear Tours Denver

My niece Danni is involved in a school project where her bear Sophie is touring the U.S. We took her out to show her our neighborhood yesterday.


Next to the nearby train tracks


Outside Coors Field


Outside Union Station, one of the prettiest historic buildings in all of downtown Denver


Next to the nearby train tracks


Roxie thinks the bear is a toy. The nerve!




The view off the Millenium Bridge


Brandon in front of one of our favorite book stores, The Tattered Cover

This will be us in a few months! This is an actual photo of our wedding venue. Hopefully they don't have any nude art on the walls behind us because I'm just sure I'll start stifling giggles as I'm saying my vows in the way that only causes them to get worse because you're trying to hold them back. In front of all my friends and family, nonetheless!

I just finished another quarter, had just a week off, and already started a new database design class. I'm busy, but trying not to be one of those people who proclaims how busy I am every other sentence, but am afraid I've become just that person. I am super excited about making progress towards my next degree. I'm starting to get into really challenging classes, and am hoping that before I know it, I'll be a web page design pro. I thought I had 2 weeks off school between quarters, and in the weeks leading up was daydreaming about all the amazing wedding projects I'd complete, and all the fun shopping I would get to do, but it really didn't quite happen as I'd imagined. C'est la vie.

Luckily I've got a pretty independent spirit in that I kind of enjoy the nature of tackling projects in seemingly impossible timelines and the happiness that comes with realizing toward the end that- I did it! Pretty sure it's that same part of me that takes on a holiday jewelry show while I'm going back to school, or takes on 40 custom charm orders that I complete between December 1 and December 23. Ask Brandon- at times, I just think I'm an overachiever, and other times, it feels a little bit like insanity. Apparently I can't sit still for too long.

I've had several offers from some local friends and co-workers to help me with wedding projects, and I keep saying, "I'm not quite there yet, but when I get to that point, I'll call you." I'm nearing that point! I'm looking forward to a craft day, and wish I could fly in all my best girlfriends, mom, and aunts to partake in wine and making stuff. Instead, I'll stock up on wine and we can eat cupcakes together when you're here in June. You don't realize how much you miss people until you think about all the ways they've collectively influenced your life. My heart swells thinking of having all these people- new friends, old friends, people who changed my diapers, people who have changed the way I thought about myself, people who encouraged my creative endeavors, people who taught me lessons, people who taught me how to be a good person and a hard worker, people who took me to teenager events with them when I was a nerdy 12-year old- all those people in one place at the same time? *sigh*

Speaking of our wedding, we are hoping to have a "community" ceremony where people can get up and read a quote, tell a story, read a poem, or say any words of their choosing- either planned or off-the-cuff- in the spirit of the day. We hope to take the pressure off our future officiant, and think this would be a nice way to do something different for the ceremony part of our wedding. If anyone would like to participate in this part of the ceremony, we would be grateful.