Life's To Short To Fold Fitted Sheets

Life update.


Merry Christmas Season!!!!

Remember how I am running a marathon in 35 days 10 hours and 15 minutes? I realize now how flawed my decision making process was, when I made the decision to participate in a 26.2 mile race. I simply overlooked one fundamental fact...  RUNNING SUCKS.  As Ann Perkins once said...

Why not just back out you ask? Change my distance? Thats really just not who I am.  I've invested to much time, and way to much energy now.  Just pray for me.  Not that I finish the race, I am fairly confident I can do that, more that I can have a better attitude, so I can keep the human friends I have (Bob Hope would never leave me).


On a more uplifting note.  I wanted to share about how grateful I am for this time of year, and the greatness it brings out in people.

Today I had to last minute run to the store because we ran out of olive oil, and the missionaries were on their way over for dinner (I refused to change what was on the menu).  On the way home I pulled up to the stop light and made awkward eye contact with the man next to me.  I was listening to Christmas music, and my window was half way down. So, in an attempt to make it more, or less awkward, you can decide, I started singing and dancing.
This man happened to be listening to the same station, and he made me look like the new elf on the block with his dance moves!!!  He made my heart grow 3 sizes!

I am happy there are happy dancing people in the world.  Thank you if you are one of them.

HINT HINT: Dancing enthusiastically makes me happy,  if you have lived with me for the last two and a half years and want to know what I want for Christmas... A choreographed dance performance to single ladies would make me happy. (cough cough Husband)

So We Decided to Run A Marathon

Everyone's doing it. Are you?

Trust me I am super "hip"...  After my brothers wedding last weekend my Grandma told me that I can really "cut a rug", that's right people, who wants to hit the disco? I am super "hip", in large because of my dancing skills, so you should obviously trust me.  Sign up for a marathon.  It cant be that hard right?

http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/arizona  This is the one we are doing...join us. do it...  We are only a few weeks into training. Its not to late. If Chase can find time to train for it, so can you.
 I know, I know, I make a compelling and intellectual argument.

I guess I will finish this blog with another "Liz is Crazy" blurb.

Tamra and I find ourselves playing Snap Chat truth or dare on occasion.  It was one of our favorite games when we were the young age of 20...  Chase was studying in our room, door shut, obviously.  Tamra dared me to slide some spoons under the door. So I did, no big deal. What proves I am crazy is that Chase never said anything about those spoons.  Nothing! 3 days later I brought it up.  He didn't think it was weird behavior for me, and was actually a little surprised I did it due to a dare.

I am a weirdo, and not even the cool kind of weird.  It is also clear to me that I need to try harder to not distract Chase.  The weather is finally getting cool enough to go outside so that's good. Who wants to slackline?

Reactivating Facebook

So I reactivated my Facebook.  Did you even notice I was gone? If you did, true friend award to you! 

Why did I reactivate it you ask?

 The simple answer is, Chase made me. (Also my Birthday is coming up...what would a Birthday be without Facebook? spsh...human interaction, what?)----cough cough November 22---

 I commented on something from his Facebook...He kindly explained that sharing Facebook was like sharing a toothbrush, even though we may tangle tongues and exchange germs from time to time, sharing a toothbrush, and Facebook, is just gross.  

If my analogy doesn't make sense, or maybe offends you, sorry... kind of. 

SO ANYWAY! Fellow bloggers, do you ever look back on posts you made long, or not so long ago and think "What the heck man, I used to be so freaken funny/wise/beautiful/etc?".  Am I alone in this? please someone agree with me, out of pity at the very least.  

NOW, every time I write a post I second guess myself like crazy.  Why in the world is my blog writing voice feeling so squelched?  If you too are suffering from post (haha get it) traumatic stress syndrome, repeat after me.  I'M AWESOME...I'M AWESOME...I'M AWESOME... 

I do recognize that a large part of having something funny to write about, came from living close to the ever so hilariously, weird, and awesome family that I was born into.  Maybe they just made my creative juices flow more freely?

anyways...

To sum up my blog post for today I thought I'd share a blurb from the "Liz Is Crazy" file.  

Chase studies...LIKE A LOT! I pretty much don't see him except for at dinner every night and church on Sundays...  I wish I was being dramatic.  

This translates into a lot of evenings spent with my friends, and a lot of evenings spent alone.  

Welp, the other night I was alone and made myself laugh...I started to laugh uncontrollably hard and snorted.  At first this made me tear up from laughing even harder....and then the tears turned into "I may be a little bit pathetic laughing here all alone so hard" tears.   

Yep.  Now you can feel better about yourself.  You're welcome:) 

Happy Tuesday!

    

We're at it again.

You know what they say... Work hard, Play hard.  We try our best to live by that mantra.

I LOVE spending time with Chase.  He is full of good advice and knowledge.  I can not tell you how grateful I am that I married this hard working, fun loving man.

SO OUR TRIP!

We started our first leg... a 13 hour drive to Boise, ID.  Why I didn't take more pictures there escapes me.

Chase and I found Idaho extremely beautiful...and it is! But maybe we have been in AZ to long?

We got to play with our good friends Nick and Whitney.  And meet a new good friend Joseph Jensen, Whitneys man.  He took us geo cashing, chalking, and swimming in a dead fish river (aka Eagle Island). AND showed us a fantastic sushi place.  Food and fun? He knows our hearts well. 

Why I didn't take pictures with Tamra, Whitney J. and Neil is a mystery.  But this is Tamra's babe.  My best friend has a baby? weird.  I must be growing up or something.  I also had my first Trampoline gym experience.  LOVED IT! I am in the pre requisite club to the millionaire club (the 5am club),  and if all goes to plan we may or may not have trampoline floors someday. 

I also got to meet for the first time ever my Cuz/Aunt Jennys beautiful baby girl Kaitlin.  This baby girl is one tough cookie.

 On to Oregon/Washington.  My brother got married in the LDS temple!!!! and to one of my dearest friends.  I can not tell you how happy this makes me.  I have always been proud of that boy.  Who wouldn't be? he has accomplished so much.  And he is the coolest.  I love having an extreme professional athlete as a brother! ...It makes me cooler right?

 And we met my nephew baby Sam!!

After dancing the night away at the beautiful reception we left for Yosemite!

 Pictures and words can not describe how beautiful Yosemite is.  Please go. Please? just do it. And don't forget to invite us. There are a plethora of beautiful hikes, biking trails, views, etc.

 The wildlife in Yosemite is fearless, and some animals are overweight.  It breaks my heart.

 We think we could make the Varsity Cheer Squad

(for some reason I find Chase irresistible with a shirt tied around his head, what a sexy beast!)

 ....We love Ansel Adams...and the name Ansel

 We probably ran out of food.  Chase insisted that this can of beans was gourmet.

  One of our favorite things to do while camping is rock scrambling up rivers, and polar dipping.  The water here was SO COLD! so after the first day, there was no force in the universe that could have got me back into that water (in the early am).

 We tried to spend all of our time out and about just soaking in the beauty,

"The harder you work, the luckier you get" -a wise soul

"Here, in this rich wilderness, we dreamed that over the next ridge, beyond the next stream, freedom lay forever" -Newmans

Chase Loves Medical School

Life is grand.

Before Chase and I came to Arizona and started our adventure here, we talked to a lot of people about what our experience might be like.  Everything we were told was so shiny and bright that it blurred my vision.  It wasn't just the good things that seemed like they would be unreal, it was the hardships we were told about as well.  

Well, it wasn't long before it felt like things got real.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  Everything we had been told about what we would experience in some way, big or small, has come true.  

for example

Sometimes it's hard when Chase has exams Friday, Monday, Friday, Monday. (Maybe a Wednesday in there too.)

When we're going through those weeks I feel like marching right up to some professors and asking why they feel the need to torture my poor sweet innocent husband. I mean for heavens sake its not finals week, and the overwhelming majority of what he learns from courses like Neurology, he will never use during his career as a Podiatric Surgeon (sounds cooler than Podiatrist). ...Wait, what do you mean year two is harder?

Oh, and by the way Mr. Fantastically rich and in charge of Midwestern University, (Chase says I sound bitter) why does Neurology account for 7 credits in my Husbands GPA?  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the flaw in that logic.  Give it some thought ...I'll give you $40,000 a year ;)

Anyways,

We survived year one, and overall it has been an amazing year.  We have made so many great friends!  We really could not have been more blessed.


So far, not too much of our personalities have been sucked out of us.  Once in a while though someone who is in a residency program bears their testimony.  They remind us of how good we have it now, and how much of a personality sucker residency can be. Those are the testimony meetings I always leave feeling ridiculously scared of what our future holds...ha...ha..I'm joking...kind of.

It's no big deal really though right? Our friends and families will beat personalities back into us when its all over? right?

There are day's that are hard for me, and days I think are the best days of my life.  Other days are spent in the quiet calm of the temple.  I love those days.  I need more of those days.  Who wants to go to the temple? It means we get to go to Cafe Rio (YUM!).


Anyways this is my medical school rant.  Doesn't make sense? Sorry mate.  Happy Fathers day everyone! And if you can, watch Doctor Who, it's the best thing that will ever happen to you.

Failure

How many times in how many ways do you have to fail? Can you handle it? Can you persevere and come out on top? Can you come out at all? 

Sometimes I feel like the emotions that come along with throwing my heart into something, only to completely and utterly fail,  grab a hold of my throat, block my precious air tunnels, and suffocate the small flame that kept my soul on fire.  

This, this is the same flame that at the beginning of my journey was ablaze!  It made me a dangerous weapon, a force to be reckoned with, ready for battle, intent on destruction, and content with nothing less than the best I had ever given. 

Its no wonder to me that when people show such loyalty to the task at hand , that to  fail, not only looks and feels like failure, but they can literally taste the sickly sour flavor that can so easily turn into a permanent staunch on your soul.  

Your soul, it needs oxygen! Fire can't exist without it and at some point you will have to allow your soul to com-bust again into flame.  You will, again, find the passion that is such a beautiful part of life.  

God asks us to be perfect, so why then do we have to fail? what I forget so often is that the perfection he is asking of all of us isn't in our everyday tasks, work, school, relationships, etc.  He wants our hearts to be perfect. He wants our souls to be on fire with a passion for the good.  He wants to use the inevitable process of failure to teach us how to get one step closer to perfection, which to me, sounds a whole heap better than failure.  

Perfection to you sounds boring?  If it didn't put one more rock in my backpack labeled failure I'd bet you that neither of us will know what perfection feels like in this life anyway.  

How do we pick ourselves up after one of these complete and utter failures?

 My Immediate, favorite, and most ineffective way of handling failure  is what call "photo synthesizing" aka sleeping in the sun with my arms and legs spread starfish style.  

(Yes I know I'm not a plant)

Note: long term this will get you no where

This is my method of clearing my head.  Anything to clear the mind and gain perspective helps me prepare my heart and get me ready to once again fan the flame.  

The only thing I feel left to do is dive right back in, with even more of your heart, even if it feels impossible.   Burn so bright that you can light up the lives you touch on your own little journey!

The End 

Meet Bob Hope

So I got a puppy, 

 If you are my friend on Facebook or follow me on Instagram then you probably know already, and may even wish that I would stop obsessing about my ultra super mega adorable cuddly friend.   

There is also the high possibility that I have sent you multiple picture/video texts of my furry friend.  

(really what are the chances that you actually read my blog, and are not covered in one of these three categories?)

What some people MIGHT not know is that I have been BEGGING Chase for a puppy, basically since before we were married.  

So why now? Why did Chase make this impulsive decision? How did I persuade him to make an impulsive decision at all? (Chase is not a man of impulse)

Welp!

Chase is a salesman, and a very good salesman.  I have picked up on a few things here and there, and finally figured out how to sell Chase on the idea of a puppy.  

Here is what I realized

I needed to appeal heavily to Chases emotions.

His logical side would always find a creative way of saying H-E double hockey sticks NO.

 

So, last week when a little girl in nursery looked up at Chase and sweetly told him 

"I love you very much" 

I knew the iron was hot and that I had to act quickly. 

that afternoon we had our friends Mike & Kelsie over for dinner and we all ended up looking at pictures of dogs online.  This quickly turned in to looking at pictures of dogs on craigslist which by the end of the night turned in to going to look at puppies.  

Once I had him holding a puppy there was no turning back. 

And that is how Bob Hope came to be a part of our family.

Do you know what a Nigglywiggly is?

Last night I realized that my journal entries (the one that's a paper/pencil situation) have become shorter and shorter.   I also realized, over time, I have started blogging less and less.  oops? 

So here is a quick catch up:)

• Chase has turned into a master of getting in bed without waking me up!!!:)  If by chance he does wake me up, I am told that I not only become angry, convinced he has some diabolical plan meant to keep me awake and miserable, but that I regularly quote Harry Potter as well. 

 

• In Relief Society we played two truths and a lie as a warm up.  No one was able to guess my lie! (is that something to be proud of?)  Can you figure it out?

1. I am double jointed in my pits (as in arm pits).
2. I can say the ABC's backwards.
3. I can do a double back flip on a trampoline.                                  

• I planted a garden!!!!!!!....!!!!!!!!! This is basically a dream come true for me.  Sometimes while I am daydreaming that the ocean is right outside our apartment, I daydream about my huge garden too. For now my garden is in planters on our deck.  BUT, someday I will have my very own yard to turn into one. 

• I have a brand spanking new Nephew!!!! his name is Samuel.  His big brother N8 calls him Sammie:) I can not wait to meet the little guy. 

• I have a slackline that I don't get to use NEARLY enough.  Sometimes it makes me miss my little brothers even more fiercely than I already do.

The End. 

p.s.  A Nigglywiggly is the little piece of paper that comes out the top of a Hershey's kiss.

Fear is a friend who's misunderstood

I got a sketch book!!!!!!!!!

no more drawing pictures on the back of work and school notes for me!

I am perfectly aware that I am no Bob Ross... but maybe I will be someday? ha...

anyways,  Don't be afraid of being great!  Chase isn't...He is my inspiration, and if you want he can be yours too:)

Happy Friday!

I tried to kill her with kindness first

----I just re read my post and realize that I sound and that I probably am a little bitter.  If you would like to think that I am kind and sweet then don't read this one----

I am having neighbor problems.

From the very first day we moved in our neighbor below us has played her music VERY loud.  So loud that I always know exactly what she is listening to.  So loud that if the song has a good bass part it shakes our cute little floors.

I made the decision basically from the beginning to let this bug me.  At first I tried to manipulate her.  I brought her cookies, gushed over her adorable dog, and was a good neighbor.  Then, I would just go down and politely ask her to turn it down since Chase has to study and I have to remain sane.

There was even one night when I went down to ask if she could keep it down when she had friends over (it was super late).  Her drunk friends were kind of rude, but still, I let it slide and remained cordial.

WELP, finally, about two weeks ago I declared war on her.  One morning I just lost it. (I still haven't found "it" but I am trying to Mom, I know she is a daughter of God too)  I put my speakers face down into the vents, turned up the bass, and blasted it.  I decided to put on some Imagine Dragons and Phoenix, This girl needed to hear something besides the genre "typical radio crap" (that's a station right? wow I'm sounding bitter) Did this work? I don't think she could hear my music over her own.

A few days into this warfare I realized a few things.  I was A. probably bothering our other neighbors. B. fairly positive she just strait up didn't care.  C. no wonder neighbors from college hated my apartment for all the noise we created. and D. that Chase and I are getting old...

  If anyone who happened to live above or below me in the past every reads this post you can count this situation as my carma...  and I am so so sorry.

anyways after a very thought out note left on her door and many calls to the office I am throwing in the towel ;) .  I am now counting down the days until she graduates Dental School (which is sometime this spring HALLELUJAH).

Chase and I also are considering laxative treats.   Hopefully I find "it" soon so I can be reasonable about the constant party happening over here.

It can't be that hard...

Today at the gym (the one in my apartment complex) I found myself all alone at 6:30.

What the heck right? Aren't people supposed to be forcing themselves to the gym this time of year?

ANYWAYS I saw this video on facebook a few days ago

(Thank you yuppiside1138 please don't block this video on my blog)

I found myself looking around, checking every window to see if I saw any signs of Human life.

After some not so careful contemplation I did my best dancing on the treadmill to Shake it by Metro Station.

Hats off to this lady she has some serious skill.  While I managed not to fall on my face I am 100% sure I didn't make myself look to good.


 P.S. my new job title for soccer shots is Director of Communication (fancy right).  AND I am working as a trainer and love it.  Life here in AZ is treating us well.

I have been cheating on my blog with my journal

soooooo much to tell!!!!!

I guess first I should say Merry Christmas and Happy New year!!! I hope everyone had a delightful holiday:)

For Christmas this year my parents asked each of my siblings and I to perform an act of service and write about our service in a card telling them about it.  Chase and I recruited our friends Mike and Kelsie and made a Christmas basket with a gift card containing what to me is a lot of money, then we gave it to a family in need.  I LOVED doing this as a gift to my parents.  The entire experience made me feel all warm & fuzzy inside.

I really love my parents, but I also like them.

For my Dad's Birthday (which is also Christmas) I put together a memory book with letters from old friends, new friends, and in between friends (and when I say friends I mean family too).  I would like everyone who helped me with this project to imagine me giving them a huge hug and melodically singing thank you (my voice is in fact dove like...).



During Christmas break we spent our time climbing

Shooting (We got a gun for Christmas)

Dancing

and we ALMOST went snow shoeing around crater lake.  For those of you who live near Crater Lake this is a must.  During winter months on Saturdays at 1pm they offer a free 90 minute ecology walk around the lake, AND they provide the snow shoes.  It is SO much fun.


Chase and I spent New Years Eve in San Francisco.  It was a fantastic day.  We are however getting old,  at about 8pm an Elderly Chinese man took us on his bike buggy back to our car (We are 98.4% sure he kept letting them rip).  We then drove about an hour out of San Fran and found a hotel to sleep in for the night.  WE BOTH fell asleep before it was 10pm.

We are old...but I am totally okay with it.  We had a really fun day and I would much rather wake up early to start the new year than wake up feeling like I got hit by a mac truck.



ANYWAYS

That finally brings me to my summary of last years resolutions and this years.

I did okay...!

2012 GOALS

I ran in a race. I tried MORE than 12 new recipes(but at least one every month).  I read the ensigns.  I did not read my scriptures for 10 minutes everyday.  I didn't ever do the splits all the way.  BUT I will soon.  and I did not consciously work on a different attribute of Christ every month.

dangit.

But I do feel like I kept my goals in mind and worked towards them.

THIS YEAR!!! 2013!!! WOOO

I want to write in my journal most days
 Run a half marathon
 Read my scriptures everyday
ensigns every month
Try a new recipe a month
be a better listener
wake up by 6:30 EVERY day. (except if sick)

Okay that's it for the longest blog post ever.  If you made it through, I LOVE YOU.