Utahrds.

Congrats, Utah. Apparently It's now cool to wear flip flops and socks in winter.

After all these years, I'm now thinking that maybe I shouldn't have made fun of all the BYU zoobies in shorts and sandals every snowy winter. Apparently they were under cover fashionistas.

The 80's Called

And it wants it clothes back.

To say that I am completely underwhelmed with the recent fashion trends would be a grand understatement.

I work with the youth at my church and have recently had several healthy doses of: Are you kidding me? I wore that when I was a kid.

Ironically enough, I recall my mom saying the same thing when I was wearing flare bell bottoms in seventh grade. Ladies and gents - we have come full circle.

Side pony tails, zipper jeans, neon wannabe Rayband sunglasses, neon everything, stone wash denim, Keds, plaid, splatter paint apparel . . . and other ridiculous things that seriously should have skipped this fashion resurface cycle I am just discovering. Although, I haven't seen banana clips resurrect . . . yet.

Now on the other side of the dime, I would be thrilled if 80s butt rock music came back. I am not lying when I tell you that Monster Ballads is on my top 5 list of albums I own. Just saying.

Too Much Time on my Hands?

Because I am slightly a type A personality that thrives on being busy and productive, I have found the hardest part about being unemployed (minus the whole sans income thing) has been staying productive and doing legitimate things with this newly acquired surplus time. Sure I enjoy a good vacation as much as the next person, but I actually enjoy having a full plate. Dare I say that I like being stressed to some extent? I dare.

So far I have found several things and random projects to occupy my time while seeking new employment. It has been nice spending additional time on things I already enjoy doing like cooking, gyming, reading, hanging with Niels, etc. But I have also picked up some things that I wouldn't normally do if I was busy with work. Things like trying to learn how to sew (?!!?!?), or paroozing through my 8th grade Spanish class notebook to refresh the skills, trying to figure out how the heck to do genealogy, etc.

Well I decided to venture into another unfamiliar realm and dedicated one of my weeks to creating my two-year-old niece's birthday present. Now I would say that I am creative, but I would argue that being crafty is a whole other beast. I embraced this fact, I found my inner Martha, and soon a project was born.

To sum it up, I would say that Avery is a wild child. So freaking cute, but a handful. So I thought I would make her some quiet activity folders that I have seen all these kids play with at church. They are genius! Now most people won't see my project as a crafty endeavor, or will think it is not a big deal. But this was pretty huge for me people. It required:

A ton of coloring, and I mean a TON:


A ton of cutting:


Luckily I had a part-time employee at the sweatshop:


Lots of laminating:


Some more cutting:


I'm really ok with not seeing scissors for a while . . .


Some of the finished products:


Good thing that she's totally worth it: