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?!

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!

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?!

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 :-)

Cassie in Real Life

The problem with the blogosphere is the overwhelming amount of blogs that gush about their perfect, Brady Bunch, unrealistic lives. Either that or most the people I read about happened to find the worlds perfect man and gave birth to angels.

I know we are supposed to focus on the positive, and for the most part I try to do that too. But journals/blogs are supposed to be an accurate glimpse into the daily life of the writer - Flaws and all. I want to look back 20 years from now and remember the real, raw emotions of this time of my life and not just the facade that gets put on for others. I hate the competitiveness - people having to prove their life is as wonderful as their neighbors.

And it's not that I'm not affected by it. I hate the guilt I feel when I get sucked into looking at others blogs and wondering how they just seem to have it all together.

Granted this post is fueled by the difficult day I've had today. Really when I lay it all out, it's not that the events are that horrible, it's just one of those days. My family left this morning to go to Newport Beach and Disneyland for a whole week. I would love to be there with them. But Jared couldn't miss class and it was planned with pretty short notice, so here we are. The guy my sister's dating is even on the trip. And I'm not going to lie - I have feelings of hostility about this. Why is he on my family vacation I can't go on? I know it's not his fault he happened to have the money and time, but I still can't help resent it.

While my parents are gone, they needed someone to come take care of the animals. So for the next week I will be staying at their house. This morning I woke up and tried to get everything in our apartment packed for a week (which is a big deal when there's a baby involved) while simultaneously getting myself ready, feeding Emmett breakfast, entertaining him, bathing him, and getting him dressed as well. I loaded the car up, stuck Emmett in, and headed up the hill to my moms (it's about a 25-30 min drive depending on traffic.) It was Emmett's naptime and I was hoping he'd fall asleep... but instead he ended up screaming most of the way. So there I was trying to sing Pat-a-Cake, Old McDonald, and other songs at the top of my lungs to ease his tears.

We arrive at my Mom's, and I set Emmett down to let the dog out and get things unpacked out of the car. Emmett still hasn't taken his nap, and now that he's in an unfamiliar place there's no chance of it. He's clingy and hungry but won't let me set him down to make him a bottle. I am on the verge of tears, wishing Jared was out of school to help me with all this, and even more so wishing I was at Newport Beach too. Eventually we both got so worn out and exhausted, that he finally fell asleep in my arms and I joined him not long after. It was a blissful 30 minutes until the dog started pounding on the glass and woke us both up.

(Deep Exhale) Let's just say I am excited to watch a movie and go to sleep tonight. Here's to hoping that Emmett at least somewhat sleeps in his unfamiliar bed.

PS- Sorry about the rant, sometimes a good vent session is just therapeutic. And I have to say, I feel better already :-)

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!