gold gold gold

Nothing but gold today folks. I have a midterm, two papers, READING, and a project or two that I need to do but sometimes art therapy is very much needed.

The second one has to be my favorite. Sometimes this is all you have to remember to have a night turn from sour to sweet. 

taylor inspires me

I don't like people who don't like Taylor Swift. That and Harry Potter.

I'm going to accept that I can't catch up but I will try to letter as much as I can. Family and school comes first! So here are my 1989 inspired quotes for you to have a better day. Peace. 

I heart valentine's day

But really. Who doesn't love a day devoted to love?!?! Yes, I know, single bitter people who like being miserable... which is yet another reason why being married is the best. 

Last night we couldn't wait and surprised each other with our Valentine's gifts. It had been a LONG day and we decided to stay in and do homework so we wouldn't be so stressed over the weekend. We had ordered pizza and after a half hour Tyler went to go pick it up down the street. A few minutes later I got a call from him saying that they had forgotten to put in our order. While he's at the pizza place in trying to figure out health insurance (bleh). 30 minutes later, we are sitting on our living room floor about to eat our pizza, only to find that half the cheese had slid off. Not cool Barro's. Then Tyler says, "hey can you turn on the TV?" So I get up to open the armoire and placed in front of the tv is a canvas picture of the Gilbert Temple. "I made it myself!" Which he actually did. It was the sweetest surprise! He also got me the prettiest phone case with hand pressed flowers. I laughed because I had gotten him chocolate truffles from See's (he's a chocoholic) and a radio transmitter for his phone that he's been looking for. We like our phones. I'm a secret romantic and I eat up all those lovey dovey moments that seem to bother some people. Thoughtful gift giving is just one of the many ways to show how much we lice each other. There have plenty of random days where Tyler has left a bag of gummy bears for me or flowers or a smoothie. Valentine's Day just has more red and pink hearts everywhere and I think that is A-okay. 

For Valentine's Day we had the cutest day date at Schnepf farms. They sold all kinds of organic and homemade so Tyler got a jar of tomatillo verde salsa + a cookie + a dr. Pepper and I had a giant peach cinnamon roll. THE YUMMIEST. I always seem to soak in in moments when we are eating tasty things outside in the leafy shade with a breeze. After our snack we took a walk through the flea market and down to the peach trees that were blossoming with gorgeous pink flowers. Then we sat in the reception area they had with more flowers and benches and trees and grass. If we ever got married again it we be there (haha). We walked a little further to see a bunch of deer who just stared at us even though the deer food machine ate my quarter. Nothing beats the baby goats though.  Tyler and I seriously considered putting one in my purse and taking him home to live in our backyard and eat our weeds. You could just pick them up and snuggle with them! 

We had a fun time.

For dinner we ate at Tia Rosa's,one of our favorite restaurants that went to last year for Valentine's! We had a long deep conversation about the future and it felt so good to know we will always be able to work things out because we care about each other so much. Those are best conversations. I thought it was so funny when one of the waiters handed out small boxes of hot tamales candies. Tyler really is my hot tamale though. 

Sorry(not sorry) for the overload of pictures. xoxoxo love ya.

mars is cool

For my science methods class everyone is required to attend a workshop for teachers called professional development. When I become a teacher I'll have to do this, so the more experience the better! On Saturday a couple of my NAU friends and I met up at ASU to go to the NASA Mars Educator Conference or Maker Mars. We were all in a large conference room filled with tables of teachers separated by grade levels. I met Scott and Marmi who were super nice teachers. I also met the ASU underwater robotics team, also nice and wayyyy smart! There were other robotics programs for all grade levels, including elementary, and now really wish I could have my own robot. My inner geek really came out that day! 

We were able to hear from one of the engineers who worked on the Mars Rover and he described his journey at NASA. I really just loved how humble and honest he was about the whole process. He pointed out how many of the rovers had crashed or were lost in space even after decades of work, and how those failures helped them to reach the success of finally landing on Mars. MARS GUYS. It was through trial, error, exploration, discovery and, most importantly, failure. He related education to landing on Mars by stating that students and children need to fail and learn how to fail quickly. It helps them to learn, grow and improve. It was such a great speech! We were able to experience failure when we did the "marshmallow challenge" where you are given some uncooked spaghetti, 3ft of tape, and a piece of string.  we had to use everything to try and make our marshmallow the largest heighth form the tables with the marshmallow on top. Some people had elaborate and pretty toweres (the robotics guys) but ours was messy and broke miserably at the end of our time to build. There was no doubt that we definitely tried!

We were also given a task to create a prototype with a box full of dollar store items for something humans can use on Mars and we made a "bone saver" or a weighted suit to help prevent bone loss since Mars does not have a strong gravitational pull like Earth. As sciency as that sounds, it looked pretty ridiculous since I was the one in my group that was putting this suit on. After we finished inventing they wanted me to stay there, while everyone else got cake, so other groups could take pictures... UM NO. Other than that, I really enjoyed my time since I also won a giant framed poster of the Mars Rover for my future classroom! 

The whole theme of the conference was to  encourage students have the courage to make things whatever it may be. I learned that by creating these types of opportunities, I can help inspire that one student to have a desire to become an astrobiologist, an astronaut, an engineer, or anything they think might be too hard. This made me think of a quote that I saw on President Monson's Facebook page literally a few days before the conference and it made me love our prophet and Heavenly Father even more.
"I urge youth not to take counsel of their fears. I hope they will not say, "I'm not smart enough to study chemical engineering; hence, I'll study something less strenuous." "I can't apply myself sufficiently well to study this difficult subject or in this difficult field; hence, I'll choose the easier way." I plead with youth to choose the hard way and to tax their talents, and our Heavenly Father will make them equal to their tasks. If one should stumble, if one should take a course and get less than the A grade desired, I hope such a one will not let it discourage him. I hope that he will rise and try again."

 Obviously I've had a fun weekend but I'm SO behind on my lettering. And I plan on squeezing all my missed days together. I have a lot of ideas so I'm excited to get them all down on paper. I'll be posting those soon! 
Im off to do some more homework so here's a sunset picture from the other day you can look at (insert heart emojis here).

life is tough

After work I broke one of my favorite cooking bowls. And it shattered conveniently under the table. I also broke off this long piece of wood on our bookshelves. Only I would manage to do that. And I dropped about ten other things. It must be Clumsy Wednesday! And I read the longest article off my life for a class tomorrow and I still have two more to read but sleep is more important. Friends on Netflix is making prioritizing soooo hard! I know I have a tough life.

But really life can be tough.

Being a young married student while working can be a pain in the butt sometimes and I wish I could just be young and married and not have to worry about all the other the other stuff. If you are married you know exactly what I am talking about. If you are not married than you probably don't care and think I'm annoying. (Hopefully not). But I promise it's the hardest, best thing that you will ever do. 

Apparently I have nothing else to talk about! But love is real and that's all that matters. Plus it's February and it's almost Valentine's Day so it's allowed I guess. 

Hopefully some more interesting things will happen soon so my posts aren't so short and rambly! Peace. 

treat yo self

So I will definitely be going off my own list for all my lettering because one of my goals for this year was to paint for me. Sometimes you have to catch yourself going back to your old habits. And admit it. I still want to practice my lettering though!

Instead of worrying today I wanted to treat myself to a bottle of dr. Pepper because Tyler made me lunch and I only have one class today and this just made it better. 

#letteritfebruary

I've recently gotten into this whole world/community of hand lettering thanks to Instagram. I probably follow more artist friends that I've never met than actual friends. That's normal right? Oh well. Anyway, it's super fun to just write out my favorite quotes in pretty lettering whether it's with whatever pens I can get my hands on, watercolors, or my new calligraphy set (thanks Farr fam!). Maybe one day I'll actually sell some of my work! Before I do that I hear that the only way to get better is to practiceeeeeee. So I wanted do this thing called #letteritfebruary that one of my artist friends started where she gives prompts for people to practice their lettering everyday (although I might just use my own quotes because I don't like to follow the rules). It's kind of like those photo challenge things. I want to post some on Instagram but all of them on here. So here it goes! 

(1.1.15) This is a pretty hard thing to believe sometimes. I deserve to look pretty. I deserve to be strong and healthy. I deserve love. The amazing thing is we ALL derserve those things. I've learned (out the few short years of my adult life haha) that it takes some work for me to feel like I'm worthy of all those things. That work makes it so much better though! Ever since I could remember I dreamed of marrying the perfect man in the temple and having a family that I adored. I haven't had those kids yet but I didn't get to marry Tyler in the beautiful Mesa temple just because. I lived my life so that when that day came I would be worthy of it all. I prayed and read my scriptures whenever I struggled and I kept in mind my future. 

Nobody is perfect but our Heavely Father is happy when you are trying. And He believes you are worthy of it all too. 

"He that receiveth of God, let him account it of God; and let him rejoice that he is accounted of God worthy to receive."

D&C 50:34

(1.2.15) How can I not believe this when I'm going to be a teacher??? It is so true though and it all depends on your attitude. Things always end up working out even though I never seem to think that when I'm in the middle of something super stressful. 

Yesterday we went to my cute little nephew's baby blessing and after the blessing we listened to everyone's testimonies. We were in a Spanish ward and even though my Spanish is pretty terrible I was really touched by one woman. She was crying up at the podium and you could just hear and see how hard her trials had been on her. At the same time she seemed so strong and faithful. I was so grateful for that example of hope I was able to see through her. 

ps even if you paint and go on a run your homework will still be waiting for you. Bye.