isn't there something wrong here?

The other day Jared and I were catching up on the latest episode of Vampire Diaries (which has really taken a turn South this season, if I may). We couldn't help but laugh at the the cheesy overdramaticized scenes between Stephen and Elena now that she's a vampire (oops, spoiler!!)

During one of their steamy little escapades, my mind wandered - as usual- and began contemplating society's current fascination with vampire love. Based off the past five year's books, movies, and TV shows, I think it's fair to say a large amount of people are enamored with this human/vampire love affair idea. Or even vampire/vampire. But what I was mulling over was... WHY?

I will admit there is a certain turn on to the whole secretive, supernatural, superhuman idea. But that concession kind of disturbs my mind a little bit.

We're intrinsically attracted to cannibalism? That's what it comes down to right? Something inside people clicks on in response to these blood sucking, human devouring vampires. We are disgusted by the thought of cannibals, yet lovestruck with vampires? Interesting...

Does it not seem a little grotesque that society in general finds this blood sucking romance to be so steamy? Perhaps its the feral, feline-like attributes that our minds enjoy?

By this point, Stephen and Elena's little romp in the woods had ended and my mind returned to the plot. But what do you think? Any thoughts??

PS anyone else wishing the whole Damon thing would happen already?!

when life hands you lemons

I am so grateful for your comments on  my last post. After I published it, I was a little nervous and thought "maybe that was a little TOO real for the blogosphere"...  then I didn't get any comments for awhile and was like "uh oh". So it was reassuring to read many of you feel the same way some days (or even some hours)

I've come to realize that many moms have these same feelings of inadequacy, a feared inability to keep up with the supermom next door. Or sometimes on the next blog. Or facebook page.

I'm sure I'm guilty of it as well. We use these blogs as our record keeping. What do we want to remember? The good times - those moments our hearts are overflowed with joy. So that's what we write about. And generally leave out the 70% in between when we're pulling our hair out and chasing our toddler down the street while he rides away on his Lightning Mcqueen scooter in nothing but a diaper (oh that's just me? awesome).

This isn't his scooter, but close enough

There is nothing wrong with being positive and sharing our happiest experiences. Yet the problem lies when you look at everyone else's lives and ONLY see the wonderful things. Then you look around your messy house, realize you're still in your pajamas, and your self esteem takes a minor blow.

Soooo my point is, why do we do this to each other? We're not doing it intentionally, but it seems so many of us feel this competition to maintain our supermom statuses. To prove that we've got this mom thing under control. Stepford husband? Check. Barefoot Contessa quality dinner on the table at 5? Check. Perfectly behaved toddler in his meticulously clean Gap clothes? Check.  Sound familiar? And the reality is... no one has this mom thing under control. It's a continual work in progess, but most of the time I enjoy the journey.

In fact, I'd like to take this moment to share a little story about my shower the other day :) Speaking of things I'd like to remember, I think I'll get a kick out of this a few years down the road:

 Here I was, trying to hurry and wash the shampoo out of my hair before the hot water ran out. Mind you Emmett was in the shower with me, as he usually is. So I close my eyes and start scrubbing the shampoo out of my hair, and all sudden "WAHHHH!", Emmett starts screaming in pain. So I open my eyes to see he's taken my Head and Shoulders, tried to apply it to his own head like Mom, and it has subsequently ran down his head and into his eyes. So I hurry and grab a washcloth, help him dry all the stinging shampoo from his eyes.
Once the crisis has been successfully averted, I return once again to the task of removing the remains of shampoo from my own hair. I turn around to kick the hot water up a titch, turn back towards Emmett... and what do I see? He's gotten a hold of my razor and is shearing his beautiful golden locks like a sheep!!
(Yes this is the cheap disposable razor that doesn't seem to  even work when applied to my leg hair)
I frantically grabbed the razor from his hands and assess the damage, almost in tears. His hair!!! (I had already made sure his scalp had no injuries of course). LUCKILY he has SO much hair, when it's all laid down, you can't see the couple of bald chunks he crazily removed from his own head.
Needless to say the shower ended as quickly as possible.

I'd like to say this event was a rare, one time occassion. But that would be a lie. In fact, I'm feeling pretty generous tonight so I'm going to share one more "Emmett-capade".

Just the other day Emmett decided to run out front in nothing but his birthday suit and his black slip-on dress shoes. (I'm laughing out loud now just recalling this situation). I was calling after him humorously "HEY! Get BACK HERE!!". And he thought it was hilarious. So he just kept standing outside our window on the porch. taunting me, laughing at his own hilarity. I was worn out and figured "eh, there's no one out front right now and he's just on the porch... it'll be fine for a minute". (At this point he's climbed up on the little bistro table on the porch and is beating on the window screaming and laughing himself silly) Then I hear it. Laughter. Lots of it. Coming from next door. And we're talking the non LDS, tattooeed family with a bunch of twenty-somethings next door. So I feel a little embarrassed and figure I should probably at least put a diaper on the kid.
I grab a diaper, head outside, and of course when Emmett sees me he scrambles down off the table and tries to take off running (which causes the group hanging out in the front yard next door to laugh louder). So I scoop him up, carry him inside, and lay him down to strap that sucker on him. And whaddya know, that wiggle worm wrestles his way free, and goes tearing back out front in his birthday suit (and dont forget the dress shoes, they're still on) squealing in delight. Of course my audience next door erupts even louder. and at this point all I can do is smile, wave, and take a bow. I didn't reeeeally take a bow, but you know what I mean.

Pretty much, my life is fun(ny?). Crazy, but fun. There's never a dull moment in this casa.

25 random facts about yours truly

I wrote this about 2 1/2 years ago for a chain-letter type thing going around Facebook (was it really that long ago??) I came across it the other day and had a good time re-reading it. Check it out, you may just learn something about me you never knew :-)


1. My middle name is Farrell. No significance or meaning at all, but I like that it’s unique.


2. I have an obsession with Oreos and milk. Double stuffed oreo’s to be exact, and they must be eaten with milk. Oreo’s are kept stocked in our apartment as essentially as bread and milk.
* I must say, I've improved on this one. I had to force myself to stop buying Oreos so I could prevent binging


3. I am a scent-fanatic. I love everything to smell good, and live by aromatherapy.


4. I love books, and I read like crazy. I could easily spend an entire day inside a Barnes and Noble, and my dream is to someday have a huge library in my house (sliding ladder and all).


5. I am weirdly paranoid about food poisoning, but raw meat in particular. I don’t like touching it, cutting it, looking at… Raw meat in general just grosses me out.


6. I am also OCD about teeth. I brush mine several times a day…every time I leave the house, usually after every meal. I am addicted to the minty, fresh feeling but don’t like always chewing gum.


7. On that same note, I am a little bit of a tooth nazi in my judgments of others. To be honest I have a really hard time with people who have yellow teeth, or teeth with gaps in them. It’s hard to look past!


8. I was in the spelling bee for three years in elementary school.


9. I have an addictive personality. This can include people, working out, TV shows, books, hobbies etc. When I find something I like, it tends to become an obsession.


10. I think massages are the absolute greatest discovery of mankind. I could get one everyday. In fact I try… but Jared doesn’t go for it.


11. I love organization in every form. Day planners, Home décor, school work, calendars…I especially love when it involves buying new, cute things.


12. One of my biggest pet peeves is people bragging about the wildest, stupidest things they did “back in the day.” Grow up, move on, get over it.


13. I am a huge dog lover. I get attached to them as if they are part of the family. I can’t wait to finally live somewhere where I’m allowed to have one again!


14. Actually I have an abnormal affection for all animals (besides reptiles) and Jared teases me all the time that I should join PETA.


15. I get really annoyed by the complete lack of morality on TV.


16. Due to a hard snowboarding fall, I now have a dimple on my left cheek that did not used to be there. People just assume I was born with it, but apparently it’s a calcium deposit that will go away over time.


17. I am a major sweet tooth. I’d choose to sacrifice dinner for dessert any day.


18. I could speak French fluently, but doubt that I can anymore due to lack of practice. I am still dying to go to Europe.


19. I think I may legitimately suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I am significantly happier on warm, sunny days.


20. It freaks me out when my hearing is blocked and I’m alone. Examples: Vacuuming and showering while home alone both make me nervous because I can’t hear what’s going on around me.


21. I thrive off of human interaction. I have a really hard time and get depressed when I’m not genuinely connecting with people.


22. I am an eighth Filipino, though I’m usually told I look more.


23. I can be really indecisive about trivial things. Like spending 5 minutes deciding what dish soap I want to buy, then getting home and wondering if I made the wrong decision…haha


24. I miss my family a LOT, and it’s been really hard for me to adjust to not going home anymore.
* I FINALLY have my family near and don't have to be homesick anymore! Yay! It's so fun being able to get together with them on a regular basis.



25. There is nothing better than “Neopolitan Dynamite” ice cream by Ben & Jerry. (And Leatherby's ice cream of course)

There you have it! An indepth look at moi. Other than a couple corrections, I haven't

changed much in these past couple years! Now it's your turn to do one!

.

Sporadic

That is my word when it comes to blogging. I'm known for either posting 7 days in a row or going 3 weeks with ZERO posts. Feast or Famine I guess. Speaking of the word sporadic, by sheer luck I caught a midnight showing of the movie Clueless on Oxygen a couple weeks ago. Talk about a movie that defined my childhood (pre-adolescence?). Watching it was seriously like stepping into a timezone. I immediately was flooded with all the memories of 5th grade, the four of us who referred to each other as Cher, Di, Ty, and Summer, and dressed in plaid skirts and knee highs. Pretty sure we even modeled our parties after that movie. (I know, great role models we emulated in our impressionable youth, right?) When the movie first started, I was like "oh my gosh, this is SO cheesy, I can't believe we all thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread" Then 45 mins later... I was sucked back into the world of valley girls. It was past 1 in the morning and I was trying to hard to keep my eyes open because Cher was being held up in the gas station... but I failed. Sleep overtook me. By the way, did you know the movie was loosely based off of Jane Austen's Emma? I never did!

So back to real life... we have been busy busy but enjoying it! Better to be busy than bored I always say. I recently started managing our apartments which has actually been a lot of fun. I love real estate and managing things, so it's kind of a perfect gig for me! I have also been continually upgrading our aparment, painting, redecorating, swapping furniture... I kind of got the bug.

I have been having so much fun as Emmett is learning more and more about language and how the world works. He has been picking up sign language so fast since he's started watching the Baby Signing Time DVDs, and I feel like that has helped him really improve his verbal language. The signs he uses most are more, hat, shoes, dog, and wash.  But he will randomly do a lot more, and I'm learning he does ones sometimes that I don't even recognize at first! He pinched his finger in the door yesterday and used sign language to tell me it hurt. It was sad but so adorable!  It is hilarious to secretly watch him watching his DVD, and watch him mimic the sign he was just taught with a look of intense concentration on his face! He is starting to say more things i.e. (ball, cheese, bath are just a few that I can remember right now) and understands so much more of what I say. I gave him an Old McDonald book to look at while we were shopping through Costco the other day, and all the sudden I start hearing him singing the tune to "And a Moo Moo here, and a Moo Moo there" except all of the words were replaced with "Moo". It was so funny to me that he just busted it out by himself!

Jared is finishing up the last days of his internship, which officially marks the end of summer (so sad!!) I am going to have to look into an indoor pool or something, even though it wont be the same without the sun!

PS random question... Anyone know how to get rid of fruit flies? I don't even have any fruit in here for them! So annoying! If you have some tips let me know!

Up up and away

So I just found out from a friends blog that they are building a replica of the house from Up in Herriman, UT! It's going to be added to the Parade of Homes this year (which I was already wanting to check out, but even more so now!)
 Apparently a few brothers that build custom homes had the idea and got special permission from Disney itself.  They made a few changes to make the house modern and livable enough, but basically kept it as true to the movie as possible. There is even the mural of Paradise Falls above the fireplace, and the the one that Ellie painted in the nursery! And of course the Carl & Ellie mailbox.

The house will be for sale and is going to be 399,000. It is a 2800 sq ft, 4 bedroom home. All they need now is to throw in Dug!

You can read more details about it here and here if you'd like.

How fun! I'd love to go see it! Probably another thing I'd have to blackmail Jared into doing with me... haha. Any of you out there want to go with and save me the hassle?

No thank you, I'm not Pinterested

So by this point most of you fellow bloggers have joined Pinterest. The wonderful world of pinning has introduced me to all sorts of delicious new recipes (I've already made quite a few of them), great project ideas, organization inspiration (my laundry closet just recently went through a major organizing makeover complete with the free labels I found), hair ideas (I've been sporting tons of new cute and easy styles lately) and so much more.

Amidst all this sea of wonder, there is the....well not so wonderful. The things where DIYer's are just going too far, and it's like, "no sorry, that's just plain ugly. And sucks you spent so much time and effort on it." haha.

There are also things that I like or did like until the Pinterest nation went crazy pinning the heck out of it, and it became subsequently ruined for me.

Examples include but are not limited to:

Yellow and Grey - Great color combo but if I see one more picture of a yellow and grey living room with the caption "LOVE Yellow and Gray!", I'm going to boycott the combination forever!

Chevron Stripes - also very cute. But I don't want to see that you happened to find it on rugs, t-shirts, pillowcases, blankets, walls, tables, baby diapers, dishes and every other random object you can come up with.

                                            and look a perfect picture to conveniently tie in both!

Wall Stencils - So over these already. 1. They're overdone 2. They're trendy and are going to be so dated in lets see... like 4 months. And 3. They make me feel like I'm going to seizure.

Smorgasboard Desserts - I'd never head of these until pinterest, and I'm going to be honest - they sound disgusting. You know what I'm talking about, the layer of brownies, topped with a layer of chocolate chip cookie, topped with a layer of cheesecake, topped with ice cream etc etc etc... It reminds me of Buddy the Elf

Mason Jars - Cute, timeless, a billion uses. But everytime I log on I'm bombarded by people using them for vases, soap dispensers, baking mix gifts, drinking cups...and then there's the more "creative" uses - light fixtures and "picture jars" (either empty or filled with olive oil, but both weird), and my personal favorite, birthday cake in a jar.

Reclaimed Wood - taking over the "artsy" world. Once again, cute- but growing too much, too fast for moi.

whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay in this picture we have the reclaimed wood wall, yellow and grey decor, AND the stenciled print carpet. Can we say Pinterest overload?!

So in a nutshell, here's my thesis. Pinterest is causing trends to get overexposed and therefore over with before they even start! While it gives me totally great ideas and inspiration in some areas, it makes me rethink my decision in others. It would be interesting to see the statistics of what states Pinterest-ians live in, because is it just me or is the whole site soooo... Utah? (No offense intended, the style really does just seem like Utah to me!)

Now that I've probably offended every single reader by bagging on their current fave, I think it's my queue to take off.

To each their own, right? Happy Pinning :-)

Dear Fringe (Season 2)

Please go somewhere. And don't end up like LOST with a million unanswered questions. I know how you work J.J Abrams, and your shows are simultaneously enthralling and entirely frustrating at the same time. WHY do you insist on creating a plot, and then making the next FIVE episodes have nothing to do with it? Why do you create these huge, fascinating mysteries and never solve them? I wish I could quit you. But for now I will continue to watch.

Your undecidedly faithful viewer,
Cassie

PS- Right now some Asian people on a boat were given "seasickness medication" which caused disgusting snake like parasites to incubate inside them, kill them, and then come out their mouth. I just threw up in my mouth like 3 times and I cant bring myself to look back at the TV. HORRIBLE episode!! What were you thinking?!

Pause Button

You know those moments where you just sit and reflect on life, love, memories, family, and feel so blessed and content that you just want to hit the pause button and stop time? That's how I'm feeling right now.

We've been looking for an internship for Jared this summer, and since internships often lead to job opportunities, we've been thinking hard about where we would want to end up. As exciting as it is to think about finally leaving the world of college students and entering "the real world", I will be sad to leave this part of our life behind. The time where we still have the world at our feet.  I know we will always look back at our college years with fond memories, and I try to make the most of them.

Since getting married, I have come to appreciate and love my family even more. Apart from the realization you get of how each person in your family shaped you and made you who you are, you just flat out miss (and need) them. When I was a single college student, my role in life was school (and let's be honest - fun), and in the back of my mind I always knew I'd go be going home for Christmas, or summer, or whatever the next break was, and I kind of took it for granted. When we first got married, it was kind of a struggle for me. Since Jared happened to be from the town I just finished college in, I graduated but never left - and although my family was far away, his was just a few blocks over. It was a great blessing for us to be so near his family, but sometimes it was hard to feel like I had started a new, married life; I just felt like I had joined his. And I missed mine. I missed my home, I missed my family, I missed our traditions and holidays, I missed the warm weather, I missed the city. Somedays I just felt so out of place.

Now that we're down at BYU (and my family ended up moving about a half hour away), I can really appreciate having the people I love so close. I know we're at a stage of life that won't last forever, and I am just cherishing it while it lasts. Jared is getting close to graduating, and we don't know where his first job offer will be. My sisters in college are not married yet, but it will be interesting to see where their futures take them. Kendall only has one year of high school left and then will go to college. It's nights like tonight where we can get together with my sisters and go bowling on a whim that make me want to just hit pause. In a few years we could all be spread out going about our seperate lives, but for the moment I love being connected to each other.

So here's to cherishing the ones we love most, and appreciating each moment and stage of life we're in. Every stage of our life is so unique, and I don't ever want to feel like I let any of it pass by.

What can I say, I'm gifted

At BYU the Engineering Society has a blog that has all the announcements for the engineering students. Every week it posts a new game from addictinggames.com.  A couple weeks ago, the game happened to be "Potty Racers", which consists of a little stick figure that pushes over an outhouse, rides it down a hill/ramp, and tries to get the most distance possible.
Jared had been sitting there playing this game for about half an hour while I was making dinner. I finally said "Hand it over, let me show you how it's done." On my third try, the little stick figure soared up past the sky, past the stars, past the planets, then came back down to the road eventually .... where it continued to race at full speed for the next TWENTY minutes. We left it up while we ate dinner, and lo and behold, when we finished eating... she was still going strong.

I'm pretty sure Jareds high score was like 16,000. Can we just look at mine for a second? 1,804,267!!

We finally stopped her out of impatience. Supposedly the Engineering Society gives a prize to the highest score each week. I know it would have been me. But Jared said he didn't know how to submit the score. I think secretly he was just jealous. Guess we'll never know what I could have won... He tried to pass it off like I "must have found a glitch". But I know the truth.
I am the Potty Racing Queen.

Hmmm...

I saw the most "interesting" discussion earlier on Good Things Utah (Utahs version of The View) that I couldn't help but post about it. They advertised the segment by saying "Stay tuned to see what addiction women are struggling with - the equivalent of pornography for women." So I'm thinking... shopping? tanning? working out? You know, the normal addictive behaviors for women.

Turns out their guest speaker was talking about reading. At first they began by saying "romance novels" (which would make more sense), but upon further clarification they explained they meant books like Twilight. She was crazy! She went on to say how women are getting addicted to being "turned on" by Edward, to the point that they are holding their spouses up to an impossible standard, and even failing to get turned on in their real life relationship anymore. Wow. wow. I don't know who the people are that led to this lady being on the air, but they must be some unbelievable Twi-hards.

Her thesis was that men are very visual and women are emotional, therefore reading is our porn.

THEN she said we should moderate how much we let our children read, in order to prevent them from getting unrealistic expectations about life and relationships, and to prevent them from getting turned on at too young of an age.

Here is my argument with this whole ludicrous theory:
We might as well ban every romantic movie ever made for "giving girls unrealistic perceptions of life." Ladies probably shouldn't have fantasized about Clark Gable all those years ago, considering it supposedly has such ramifications in marriages.

I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. haha. Forget about enchancing your literary knowlege, increasing your vocabulary, cultivating yourself, and learning the power of creativity and imagination... apparently reading is something that we should limit for our children these days. I am all for censoring the content of what they are reading, but other than that I will fully encourage reading in our home. I would so much prefer my children read than waste their life away in front of a TV or video game.

Anyway, I just got a kick out of that interview and thought I would share!

*In the defense of Good Things Utah, the show is not normally so odd and I enjoy watching it. They just happened to have a special guest on today :-)

Salivating

I really, really want this watch.

If only I happened to have $100 to drop on a whim...

 Until then I'll have to satisfy my craving by posting about it instead. I'll let you know if it works. Although if it does, you might find me posting about things I want daily!

Footnote: I've been giving my living room a total facelift the past few weeks and I'm really excited about it! I have a couple accessories I want to paint and then I'll post pictures!



Yours Truly

I never wanted my blog to become one of those that only posts pictures and updates about their babies, that no one particularly cares to read besides family. I am realizing though how quickly it's becoming that way. It's hard because you are so excited and in love with your little bundle of joy that you can't help but gush! And let's be honest, what life of her own does a stay at home mom really have left in that first while after bringing a new baby home? Unless you want to read about how walking to the mailbox to check the mail, and going to the dumpster on the other side of the parking lot have become eventful enough that I actually look forward to it each day?

It is late and both Jared and Emmett are asleep. I should probably be sleeping too, but it's hard to close my eyes when this moment of pure, interrupted peace is so rare. And so, for the sake of my blog, and for that little part of "me" that is down there hibernating somewhere, I am going to try to dig down deep and post what little I can pick out of my brain that doesn't have to do with bills, diapers, Jareds school schedule, or the sink full of dirty dishes.

Yesterday while I was clearing out the last of the medical bills I've had stacked up on my kitchen counter (yes, I had so many that it's taken me 8 months to deal with all of them. Thank goodness the state is footing the bill for my million dollar baby!), I came across three giftcards to Target clear back from our wedding. When we moved to Utah I wanted to bring them with us just in case there was a balance on any of them. I got online and found out that I had $90 on one of them! I was totally surprised, and so grateful I fought the urge to chuck them! So tonight we went to Target and bought a whole bunch of bath/toiletry items we're out of, and the board game Stratego. An entire cart full of stuff and not a penny out of my bank account! I was stoked. Not to mention, I'm a product junkie so my new bath stuff gives me a little bit of excitement. There's just something about new conditioner to wash your hair with, and new shaving cream to shave your legs with that gives a girl something to look forward to!

Speaking of beauty stuff, this past weekend I splurged and went and got a pedicure with my sister Kaity. And here I am 4 days later, the nail polish is already missing off my big toe and my pinky toe! I am so mad! Who pays $25 to have nail polish put on that lasts 3 days? I could have got better results with a 99 cent bottle of nail polish at home! And it's not like I've spent money and time on myself often lately, which just makes me that much madder! I think I'm going to march back down to the nail salon and tell them their nail polish was poor quality and insist that they repaint my toes! I don't mess around.

I recently read "The Other Boleyn Girl" and have since been fascinated by the history of Anne Boleyn. She was King Henry VIII's mistress who schemed to work herself into the Queens's throne, and eventually ended up getting executed with charges of adultery, incest, and even witchcraft. It was alleged that Anne wanted so badly to carry the Kings son (and thus ensure her position as queen) that she slept with her brother George hoping he could impregnate her. Both she and George were beheaded along with an entire group of men at court, with accusations that Anne had committed adultery with them all. It is still unknown whether these accusations have any truth. It is possible that Anne was so determined to rise to power that  she basically "sold her soul to the devil", but then again Henry VIII had about seven wives during his life (at least I think it's seven) and had to find ways to get rid of the old one when he found a new replacement. So who knows? I just don't think she really could have done that, I'm skeptical. If she did, she puts todays golddiggers to shame!

Anyway I should probably go to bed but thanks for listening to the ramblings of my crazy, chaotic mind! Hopefully it was somewhat entertaining. Until next time!