REALLY one of those days...

... when I can't even write a blog without something ridiculous happening. Many thanks to my youngest brother, Matt, who hacked my blog with the previous post.

So anyway... Today we had a sweater contest at work. You know the kind. I'll be posting pictures later when I get them from my co-workers. Suffice it to say, I literally borrowed a shirt off of my grandmother's back. Awesome!

At work for the past few days my bosses have been sending out emails with trivia questions to all the employees. The first person to respond with the correct answer wins a gag gift. TODAY, I won a Justin Bieber biography. Oooooh man you should have seen the uproar it caused! There's a girl I work with who legitimately wanted that book. She's 21. The book is hardcover, and the jacket of it had a poster printed on the back. Naturally, the Biebs poster got hung right above my computer next to my Michael Jackson poster which I won at a white elephant party last week. SO cool ;) Anyway, when this girl came in and saw it on my wall, she was livid! You'd think that a 21-year-old would have a little bit of self control. And maturity. Not so. She told me how unfair it was that I got the book that SHE wanted, and that it's NOT a gag gift if someone really wants it. Bahahaha! It was pretty entertaining. All I can say is, I have a GREAT white elephant present for my family Christmas party tomorrow night :)

So, to round out my day, I dropped off some dinner to a lady in my ward who had a baby a few days ago. I was in DJ's truck, and the lock in that thing is a doozie. Sometimes, it chooses not to unlock all the way when you open the door. That definitely happened tonight. I dropped the food off and walked back to the truck to find it locked, with the keys in the ignition and the lights on. The icing on the cake? DJ was on his way to Salt Lake taking Nikki to the airport, and he had the only spare key. I called the Provo PoPo, but, lucky me, they don't have the equipment to open cars for people. So I ended up leaving the truck running in their driveway for an hour and a half until DJ got home. Luckily I live only 2 blocks away, so it wasn't hard to get home. When DJ got home we went and rescued the truck, and all was well again.

And there's my day. Nothing TOO exciting, but funny enough that I want to remember it!!!

Just One of Those Days....

I just feel like the ridiculousness of this day of my life needs to be documented. The day started with me being the lamest person ever and being jealous of how cool my brother Matt is. Also, his curfew is now 3 am. And I owe him a thousand dollars.

Grandma's Apple Pie

Today, I tried my hand at canning. It's something I've seen my mom do my whole life, but never attempted myself. I figured there was nothing better for my first canning experience than to bottle up some of Grandma Savage's apple pie filling. If you've never tried it, you haven't lived. With some help from my excellent mom, I ended up with enough pie filling to last me a good long while! I'm looking forward to treating my family to some homemade apple pies from scratch on Christmas Eve. Marrying into a family that has a Southern Grandma certainly has it's perks :)

A much cuter shower in about an hour

I've been meaning to make a shower curtain for... oh, at least 2 months now. I finally got around to doing it last night. Up until now, we've just used a clear plastic liner as our curtain. Not cute. Last night our bathroom got a wonderfully girly addition:

I tried to get a good picture, but it's hard to see how cute it actually is. I love all the little flowers all over it! My ever-tolerant husband told me it "looks really cute," and didn't mention once the fact that it is decidedly feminine-looking. I really do love him! My bathroom still needs some decoration, but this is one more step in the right direction!

An Eventful Week

Usually, my life is pretty predictable: Go to work from 9-5 every day, come home, make dinner, watch sports, run some errands... just your average life. Not so this week! On Monday night, someone broke into my car. They bashed in my back window on the driver's side. DJ and I could not for the life of us figure out why they would choose my car to break into. It's a 2004 Hyundai Elantra with Wyoming plates and bald tires. CLEARLY it is not the nicest car on the street. Even DJ's truck had all of his sports equipment in the back seat. We couldn't think of anything missing from mine. Later that day, my mom called me at work and asked me if I was missing my temple bag. My immediate response was that I wasn't, but as I thought about it, I realized that it had been in the back seat of my car. I usually keep it in my trunk, but the last time I went to the temple I just threw it in my back seat afterwards and forgot about it. Here' a picture of my temple bag:

Now you might have an idea why someone stole it. It's a purse. Clearly, they thought they were going to get some money out of it. They were obviously disappointed with what they found, because my neighbor, a police officer, found my temple bag abandoned on the sidewalk a few blocks from my house. My initial reaction when I realized my temple bag was stolen was a completely sick feeling. The contents of that bag are sacred to me, and I was so worried about what someone would do with those things that are so important to me. I was so so grateful that my neighbor found the bag, and even more grateful when I got home and checked the bag and found everything still there and perfectly intact. There were pieces of glass all throughout everything, but it was easy to shake it out and wash everything. All in all, it was a crappy experience, but we're glad it wasn't worse. All we had to do was spend some money to fix a window. It could have been much worse.

The beginning of the week wasn't great, but the end of the week made up for it. On Friday, DJ entered a contest at BYU. There were 25 people competing, and they had to do different tasks with basketballs. First they played "Simon Says" while dribbling, then they did figure 8's with two basketballs, then they threw the ball up as high as they could and caught it behind their backs. After all those challenges, there were only two people left, DJ and one other guy. The final task was to see who could spin a ball on their finger for the longest. DJ has been doing that since he was little kid, so that was an easy win for him. Since he was the last man standing, he won a 32" TV! We already have a TV that same size, so we're going to sell it. We basically ended Friday with $350-$400 more than we started the day with, which is awesome! DJ was presented the TV on the basketball court at halftime of the BYU-Fresno State game on Friday night. It was a lot of fun to see my hubby down on the court with our new TV! They kept the camera on him for an awkwardly long period of time, but I got some pretty good pictures of him from the big screen in the Marriott Center!

I'm so proud of my basketball-playing hubby! Sometimes loving sports as much as he does pays off big time :)

Fight Night

DJ and I don't fight. We had a few very minor disagreements since we've been married, but we've never once raised our voices at each other. Until a few nights ago. And before you go thinking that I'm just airing my dirty laundry on my blog, let me explain. I woke up in the dead of the night to DJ literally SHOVING me in the back with both his hands. The worst part? I was on the the very edge of the bed. I was in very real danger of going over the edge, which is kind of a big deal, cause our bed is pretty high off the ground. So, for the first time in my life, I yelled at my husband. All I yelled was "DJ!!!!!!!!!" and he rolled over and left me alone. I'm pretty sure he woke up right next to me and thought I was crowding him, and thought that I was over on his side of the bed when in reality, he was crowding ME right off the bed. What a punk. The best part of all of this? He has no memory of it whatsoever. Good thing one of us does, because it's a pretty good story to tell :)

A Tour of the New Place

This post is long overdue. We moved into our new apartment two months ago, and I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of it. And believe me, this post is going to have a LOT of pictures! Some of you have already been here and seen it in person, but some of you, like my cute sister Meg, haven't been able to visit me yet. So, I'm going to show it off to the best of my ability with the help of my trusty Casio.

This is the front door of my house, down a set of cement stairs. Potentially dreary, but with help from a BYU mat and a pumpkin welcome sign, it got a little sprucing up.

Here's what my entry way looks like completed. I've already blogged extensively about the wall hangings and shoe cupboard on my craft blog, so there's no need to go into more details here. But I do love my entryway.

And, oh... my kitchen. There aren't enough words to describe how much I love this room! First of all, its ENORMOUS! The cabinets are beautiful, I love the appliances, the granite counter tops are to die for, and the flooring in incredible! Plus, it's so huge that I was able to by the table of my dreams: a black, square, counter-height table big enough for 8 chairs (even though I only have 4 for now). Ahhhh... this kitchen is a work of art!!!

Here's my calendar and white board (which, if you don't remember, used to have yellow fabric behind the glass. I gave it a makeover for my new kitchen).

And the hallway, which leads to the guest bedroom and "back door" in the house (which is the door that connects my parents' house to mine). I LOVE the pictures in this hallway. They're "Who Is Your Hero?" posters that we got at Seagull Book. Amazing.

Here's my little salon, which I'm in love with! My amazing mom re-upholstered my salon chair, and it looks so great! It's really nice to have a place in my house that's really meant to cut hair in!

I couldn't show you the kitchen without doing a shot of the floor. Isn't it beautiful? It's secretly laminate, but looks like real tile, right? My dad did such an awesome job of putting it in!!!

Here's the living room, which is right off the kitchen. I love the open floor plan! Our huge couch finally has a home big enough to actually look good in! (And no, I did not clean my house before taking these pictures. Obviously. Don't you judge me).
Another angle of the living room (Mario Kart has clearly been played today...video games all over the floor...)
Little side wall in the living room, gives you a perspective of how it opens up to my kitchen. AND I just realized I didn't take a picture of my laundry closet. But the little wall that my salon chair is backed up against? Is a closet that has my washer and dryer in it. Love it!
These are pictures DJ and I made for our living room. Joseph Smith, The Savior, and us with the Manti temple, where we got married.
Other view of the living room... bet you didn't know we had a big desk hiding behind the couch! This room is seriously massive! It just keeps going!

Our little bedroom... mostly we have a huge bed, so it makes our bedroom feel small, but who spends a lot of time in their bedroom anyway? Our living space is huge, and that's what matters most. Also, I have done NOTHING in the way of decorating our bedroom. When I do, you'll hear about it :)
Bedroom from the other side

Bathroom... it's a galley bathroom, long and narrow, and that works just fine for us. I also have done nothing to decorate the bathroom yet. Including making a shower curtain. Right now we're using a clear liner. Not. Very. Cute. But it will look better soon.
The crowning glory of the bathroom... my beautiful shower! DJ, Jordan and Sean did a great job on the tile!!!
Bathroom from the opposite angle.

View of the back door from the living room, the guest bedroom door is just to the left of the double doors, on the adjacent wall. Also, notice that adorable rug on the floor. My mommy is so cute, and bought lots of matching rugs for my new house! I love them!

Guest bedroom, AKA my closet and craft storage room, AKA the sports bedroom. It's all decorated in BYU and Braves stuff. DJ had so much fun with this!
BYU sports posters and the BYU quilt I made.
DJ made this table for me at the beginning of this year, and when I decided to put it in the extra bedroom and store boxes of crafting supplies under it, he had the idea of mod-podging BYU and Braves pictures on it. He did it all by himself, and I love it!
Pretty cool, right?
View of the sports room from the opposite side.

The house from the far end, coming out of the sports bedroom. This shows you the open floor plan.

The hallway... the door at the end is the furnace room, and the one on the left is a huge storage closet that runs the length of the hallway. Perfect!
So, there's the new place! I love it sooooo much! I especially love that DJ and Jordan built it from cement walls and floors into this beautiful space! It's seriously awesome, and I couldn't be happier with it!

B-Ball

I have a confession to make. I'm not a basketball player. I know, I know... it's shocking. Because clearly, I was made to play basketball. Oh wait.... So, this fall DJ is playing intramural basketball, as usual. In the fall it's co-ed ball, and ever since last season DJ's been trying to convince me to play with him. Needless to say, I've adamantly refused. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE watching basketball. So much. Whether it's BYU, intramurals, or my little brothers, there's just nothing quite like watching a good ball game. But I DO NOT play! I was a volleyball player in my glory days. Well, the season was getting close to starting and there were still only 2 girls on the team (you have to play with 2 boys and 3 girls on the court at once, or play a man down with 1 boy and 3 girls, or 2 boys and 2 girls) The day of the first game, DJ signed me up to be on the team. When he told me, I literally thought I was going to throw up. I was SO scared! Not because I thought anyone would be mad if I was bad, but because I'm so competitive that the thought of playing a game I wasn't good at just made me really nervous. Well we went to the first game and it wasn't terrible. I just didn't want to shoot. Keep me under the basket to get rebounds and I'm good to go. Jumping is something I can definitely do, an ability which I have to thank my father for (you should ask my mom about her "fine hops" sometime). The switch from volleyball to basketball has been a little rough. I find myself going up for a rebound and instead of getting two hands on it and coming down with it, I swat it out of the gaggle of girls in the key (boys are not allowed to rebound in the key...welcome to BYU co-ed sports). Problem: the chance of one of OUR guys getting it rather than the other team is literally 50/50. It's frustrating. I'm a SETTER for heaven's sake! I'm used to tipping it on people. Anyway, I'm working on the whole basketball thing. Cause, even though I don't love playing basketball, I love my husband more than words can say, and I'm willing to do things with him that he loves. He is ridiculously patient with me, even when I'm struggling to be of any help on the court. Clearly, becoming a Savage does not mean you inherit the mad Savage Family basketball skills.

Another Stroke of Cosmetologenius

Today, my sister in law Jill asked me to do one of my very favorite things: a dramatic change to her hair. I LOVE changing hairstyles for people. I didn't take a "before" picture, but I found this picture from a couple months ago on Facebook:

Jill is on the far right with the BEAUTIFUL long curly hair. She has such amazing natural curl! I love it! Tonight, I got to cut her hair off! I cut about 8 inches and did some really cute short layers. I straightened it to make sure it was all even, but I'm sure she's going to look equally amazing when it's curly. Here's the "after" shots:

Cute, right? I love it!!!!

Love her! Oh, and speaking of changing hair, I clearly changed mine recently as well :) Gotta love a good change every once in a while!!! (Ranee, it's your turn now... you better come visit!)

Outside The Box

Today at work, I decided to make a crafting blog with two of the girls I work with. If you want to follow our crafting adventures, check us out at www.bedazzlethebox.blogspot.com (Or just click on the link to "Outside The Box" over under "My Favorites") I'll keep posting on this blog, but probably more family updates than crafting stuff. Let me know what you think of the new site!

My New Love

I have a new love in my life. Refinishing furniture. I'm hooked. Now I'm going to brag a little bit and let you all know that I've always had a creative mind and have been able to put my creativity to good use. So, naturally when I saw these babies for $10 a piece at DI, I had to get them:

What's that you say? They're hideous and don't deserve to go anywhere but the dump? If you think that, then you my friend have not been blessed with the eye for beauty that I have. DJ sanded them down for me, and we painted them the lovely shade of "Guacamole" together. (By the way, my husband is the COOLEST! He not only tolerates when I come up with hare-brained schemes like this, he actually HELPS me and on top of that, he ENJOYS it! Man, I love him!) After 2 coats of green we painted the table tops "Glazed Pears." (Don't you just love the names of paint shades? I sure do!) After they were painted, I sanded the corners and crevices of the table tops so the green shows through. Then Nikki and I Mod-Podged some adorable scrapbook paper to the sides, and here's the final result:

I absolutely refuse to believe you don't love them. They look amazing with our big chunky couch! (I'll post pictures of my cute new place soon... until then you get a sneak peek of my sweet flooring and carpet in the pictures above.) There's just something I love about taking something beat up and unattractive and creating something beautiful out of it! I also love that my creations are unique, not something anyone else could just go pick up at Ikea or something. I told DJ that when we have a house we're going to need a little shop in the yard behind it so we can refinish furniture together. Wouldn't life be lovely if i could just craft and refinish furniture and make a living off of it? Maybe someday I'll be so lucky :)

Craftaholism

Hi, my name is Ashleigh, and I'm a craftaholic. No seriously though, I may or not be thoroughly addicted to crafting. It's been a really great outlet for me these past couple of weeks, with all the stress I've been feeling with work and living in an unfinished space. I'm running out of space in my home for the crafts I'm making, and so I'm hoping other people will let me make crafts for them. Below are some of my recent crafting adventures:

This is a cork board I made for my office. I bought a cheap board from Wal Mart and half a yard of that adorable fabric and hot glued it on. Then I hot glued ribbons around the edge to make a cute border. I found those super cute flowers in my mom's crafting supplies and I just knew I had to use them! I attached them to little clothes pins, which I then attached to the frame of the cork board, so I can hang papers from the clothes pin as well. I'm kind of obsessed with it, and now I don't even want to hang anything on it and spoil it's beauty. Ah, well.... such is life.
This was SUCH a fun project to make! Nikki and I went to Lowe's and bought some wood (which was an adventure all by itself) and then we had DJ cut it for us. We bought those cute paint colors at Lowe's as well. (By the way, they sell "sample" jars of paint, which are a half pint each, for 3 dollars! It was perfect cause I didn't need much, but they still mix whatever color you want, just like if you buy a whole gallon. I'm hooked.) The flooring, counters, appliances and furniture in my house are a combination of blacks and browns, so I decided to go bold with my accent colors, and I'm so excited to see it all come together! After Nik and I sanded, primed, and painted the wood, we printed out pictures on cardstock and mod-podged them to the boards. The ink did bleed a little bit, but it actually looks really cool. Also, there were bubbles in the paper when I applied the mod-podge, but they flattened themselves out beautifully. This is such a fun project, in fact, that DJ is in the process of making his own little wood picture. Naturally, his will be of the Braves, and will go in our "Sports Room" (aka the guest bedroom...and yes, decorating it in sports stuff WAS my idea... I know, how did DJ find such a cool wifey, right?).
Okay, THESE are probably my favorite. Nik and I bought a 2x4 at Lowe's, and brought it home (get this) in her... COBALT! bahahahaha we had so much fun getting a 2x4 in there! And THEN, once we got it home, we realized that there is a HUGE pile of scrap wood in the yard from when the boys have cut wood to finish the basement so there was no need to by more. DUH!!! So we plopped ourselves on the ground and went to town, looking for good sizes of blocks. Oh, it was seriously so fun! We then sanded them, primed and painted them with the same colors as the pictures above (p.s. I still have LOTS of that paint left... that 9 bucks was totally worth it!) After we double-coated them with paint, I got on my computer and chose cute fonts for each letter and printed them out on scrapbook paper. I attached the letters with mod-podge and voila! I have a cute decoration to go on the coffee table DJ made me.
The idea for these wall hangings I stole from a craft blog. The tall skinny frame I already had, but the glass was broken in it, so this was a perfect use for it. The other frames I got at Wal Mart for 3 bucks each. I got my fabric in the same bold primary colors as above and went to town with them. First I covered the glass in the frames with the background fabric. The rose was super easy to make, you just take a long piece of fabric and swirl it around from the center out, twisting it occasionally. For the petaled flower I cut out a bunch of petal-shaped pieces and glued the ends together to make a 3D effect. Then I glued them around a center piece of the fabric, which was just rolled up like a cinnamon roll. These cute hangings will go on either side of my mirror which I'm hanging up to use for my salon, which is really just a corner of my kitchen that will have the mirror and my stylist chair in it. It's going to be so nice to have my chair out and have a good place to do hair!

So, there's my most recent stuff! I seriously want to make more crafts, especially the blocks. If ANYONE wants some, let me know. I have lots of scrap wood I can still use, and I could make it say anything you want. If you pay for the paint in the colors you want, I'll do the rest. Seriously. Or we could do it together, cause it's really fun! One of my cousins suggested I start selling my crafts, but for now I just want to do them for free. I don't have the time to produce them in large quantities because I work over 40 hours a week. Maybe one day I'll have more time to start a little crafting business, but for now, I'm serious here... PLEASE LET ME CRAFT FOR YOU!!!

When you live with teenagers....

..... Things are bound to get a little crazy. DJ and I had to be out of our old apartment this past Tuesday, and our new place in my parents' basement isn't completed yet. SO... We moved in to the space that IS completed, but are kinda living WITH my family.... which is something none of us EVER wanted, but such is life I suppose. Our bedroom downstairs is finished (and currently looking like it belongs on the show 'Hoarding: Buried Alive' because of all our stuff we have piled in here waiting to be put in other rooms of the house... yikes...) and the bathroom is (mostly) finished. My family has been very accommodating, which we're grateful for, and we're all hoping it only lasts a a short time.

Now, there is a story to be told here, I just needed to give some background. Last night DJ, Matt and I watched a movie and afterwards I really wanted to go get a Slurpee. My mom started pulling containers out of her cupboard, telling us it was cheaper to get a refill than a normal Slurpee. So I took the cup that I always took as a kid, DJ took a hospital mug, and my mom got a big water bottle. DJ told Matt he'd pay for his Slurpee if he got a refill in a 32 oz. peanut jar. Naturally, Matt had no problem with this:

Then things REALLY started getting out of control. My dad suggested Zach try to get a refill in a HUGE mixing bowl. We're talking like 2 gallons. I was begging him not to cause I was embarrassed, but he's a 17 year old boy so of course he took the challenge. The 4 of us went down to the sev, and we made Zach wait in the car while Matt, DJ and I got our drinks. The lady looked at the peanut jar a little weirdly, but then told us it was so good of us to be doing our part to save the environment by getting refills. We got back in the car and let Zach go in for the big one... and man I haven't laughed that hard in a LONG LONG time. It took him FOREVER to get the thing filled up, and when he plopped that big bowl on the counter, we couldn't stop laughing. There was a discussion going on that we naturally couldn't hear, but then he came out empty-handed. He asked me for more money and then went back in. He came out, bowl in hand, and here's what had happened:

Zach plops his huge bowl on the counter.

Asian cashier turns around and looks at it incredulously, then says to the other cashier, "You're ringing this one up."

Female cashier: "What in the WORLD?"

Zach: "Refill. Over 32 ounces."

Female Cashier: " I think I'm going to have to charge you for two..."

Zach gets more money from me, goes in and pays, and walks out with a mixing bowl full of delectable blue Slurpee, all for a price of $2.50

Good, clean fun on a Friday night. That's what you get for living with teenagers.

Lovell, WY: The happiest place on earth

Okay, so naturally anywhere I happen to be with my hubby is my happiest place on earth, especially when we're in the temple. But I truly love the town of Lovell. I feel more myself and more at home there than almost anywhere else. I really hope I get the chance to live there one day.

DJ, Nikki and I went home to listen to their younger brother, Sean, speak in church after he got home from his mission. It was a quick trip--we got there late Friday night and came home Sunday-- but it was super fun! In our short visit we played "What Not to Wear" with Mama Savage (she's such a good sport), we had a blast doing everyone's hair and makeup together on Saturday morning, we played softball, went "to the show," ate at Taco John's, and I learned how to make pie crust from Grandma Savage! Those Savages sure know how to pack a lot of fun into a short period of time! I just have to mention this... there is a movie theater in Lovell and it only plays one movie at a time. When you go see the movie, everyone says you're "going to the show." Not only do I love how cute and old-timey that sounds, listen to this: They have a date night special, where you get 2 movie tickets, 2 drinks, and a large popcorn for.... get this..... 12 BUCKS! Now, seriously? You couldn't even get one ticket and a drink for that in Provo on a Saturday night. My favorite part? You have to be 16 years old to be eligible for this deal. Oh, I can hardly wait to move to Lovell!!!

We love each other! The highlight of this picture: Nikki's smashed face. The lowlight: My bangs split so that it looks like I have a middle part. In reality I have much more style than that.

Me and my beautiful Nikki... now seriously? How many girls get married to their BFF's brother and get to be sisters for eternity? I'm so blessed!

My wonderful husband (with his newly shaven head... do you like it? I do!) Words can not describe how I feel about this man! I don't know if anyone has ever been as blessed as me :)

Grandma teaching me how to make pie crusts. You know that Primary song that says, "I wish every child in the whole wide world had a grandmother just like you!" well, that's how I feel about this woman. She is simply amazing and I'm so glad I get to have her for my grandma now!

I had a little meltdown when I discovered the the cute little house next to Grandma and Grandpa Savage was for sale. I wanted to buy it so badly! After crying about it for a few minutes (yeah I know I'm a little ridiculous) I decided I could be patient and wait a couple years for DJ to be done with school so we can just build a house there. It really will be awesome, but for now I'm going to make sure I appreciate the time I have living close to my family, being right by BYU and, oh yeah.... having stores to go to other than the Red Apple :)