i-15 southbound.

the last two weekends we have traveled outside the grasps of potato hell. the first was Easter weekend where we went down to Manti, UT (my hometown). It is typically--- supposedly a 5 hour drive. But for us it turned into a 7 hour drive. On account of the fact that poor Tayl got food poisoning that LUCKILY, kicked in 2 hours into our drive. Barfy McGee had a real rough trip and I was tired and grumpy so I wasn't nice. Until we finally got there and I saw him in the light and his face was actually GRAY and he was shaking like a Polaroid.  He luckily recovered in time for Easter lunch and we had a short little less than 5 hour ride home.
The thing that changed my life Easter weekend: Discovering Dr. Pepper with coconut syrup at Sip It. *DROOL*

NOW this weekend we decided to sneak away for a lovers night getaway to SLC to celebrate our 2 year anniversary a little early. I looked forward to this little trip for two weeks. It's almost all I thought about at work. AND LUCKILY we were able to catch sessions of conference on the radio on the ride down. We decided to eat at Tucano's a Brazilian Steak house (unlimited MEATS) for lunch and then catch an early showing of JURASSIC PARK 3D IN IMAX (WHICH WAS AWWWEEEESSSOOOMMMEEE). Then for dinner we went for sushi at a tasty little place called Simply Sushi. Which has endless sushi for 21 bucks. ANYWAY, We did more than just eat and watch a movie. But for the sake of censorship, I will spare you. But in closing: I love Salt Lake City, and I love my Tayl.

Lately in our mediocre lives.

Recently I was going through my old instagram photos from last year and it made me sad. I've always said that our life was mediocre, but really until we got to Idaho, it wasn't. I mean we lived in England for 3 months, then we lived in Savannah for a year and there was always something fun to do. The beach, good eatin', historical landmarks, events at the park, going crabbing, St. Patricks day festival, New Years Eve, 4th of July, road tripping to Charleston, kayaking, fishing etc.

It's not to say that I'm miserable here, it's just you never realize how good you have it until afterwards, and perhaps, I hope I will feel that way about Idaho when we leave. (Cross your fingers that one day we leave!)

And now, the purpose of this blog was to update with the actual mediocre things that we've been up to. Which most of you, I will warn you, it is boring, but it's for my personal records. Since Taylor is always printing our blog at the end of the year, our book from 2012 was much smaller than our book from 2011 (and it had four months less!) So I am going to make a better effort, maybe.

I'll start from where I can remember in February
I started a new job! Nothing fancy, but I definitely don't hate it, and that's important. I am a full-time receptionist at a car dealership here in Idaho Falls. I've been here for about a month now and it's going well. But it's given me a reason to hate Mondays again, so that's fun.

My BFF!! came to visit me all the way from Vegas. Well technically she only came from Lehi, but still. It was a blasty. We love eachother and her baby is the COOLEST! and best dressed, even Joan Rivers herself couldn't deny it:

After that weekend Valentine's day was approaching, and to be honest, I don't really care about Valentine's. I think it's much more fun when you're a little kid or you have little kids. I don't HATE Valentine's it's just silly that it's a commercial holiday that gives women a sense of entitlement to expensive gifts. But still Tayl got me roses, which looked like regular roses so I didn't take a picture of them because nobody really cares, except me. And ON Valentine's I threw this little ditty together in like 30 minutes:





 Then the following weekend we headed up to SLC, because said BFF's parents were having their mission farewell. That was sad for me because they are literally like Chicken Nuggets to me. and Chicken Nuggets, is like my family. The trip up there was ridiculous because we learned that Roscoe gets car sick and so he barfed like 12 times. Twice on me.

The last little bit of February, the dogs were a real hassle. Roscoe kept losing his teef. And then one day I came home for Lunch and the dogs had gotten into some of Tayl's specialty dark chocolate I gave him for Valentine's SO, I was freaking out and had to rush them to the vet. Which was 0% fun and 100% expensive. But they are alive.

And other that near death experiences and visits from loved ones, nothing else new exciting.

Oh and I made this wreath on Saturday and BARELY took down the Christmas-y one. At first I thought it was too plain. Because I literally went to Michael's and randomly grabbed stuff. But it turned out pretty good. I like it much more now that I've gone in and out of my door a few times:

That's all the mediocrity for now, folks.

HOW TO COPE WITH UNEMPLOYMENT.

look, I already look kind of homeless and it's not so bad.

sometimes your husband gets laid off, and sometimes you need to do things that keep you from being depressed while taking a break from near constant job hunting.

 here are things we've been doing instead of crying:

well for starters, I've been cooking/baking a lot. Like almost every night. And I'm sure better housewives (and mothers) than me would scoff at that, but I mean I've been going HARD in the kitchen. Like I am getting in trouble because we have too much leftovers.

For example, I've made this (as pictured above). and this. and this to go with these. and this. and these.

And most of it was with the help of my lovely new kitchenaid!

Which I'd like to point out was pretty much free.

We spent almost 5 days straight in the house in attempt to find a job for Taylor and also save money, obviously. BUT yesterday we caved and decided to go see The Dark Knight Rises. DON'T WORRY, it was the super matinee so it was only 5.50 a ticket. And Batman is my favorite so I had to go, finally.

It was sooo grood.


To supplement our income and also to be nice we have been dog sitting for the family that I "nanny" for while they are out of town for the week. It sure is different having  TWO regular sized shedding dogs in our house on top of my sassy little virtually shed free cotton ball. But they are really sweet and Lux likes to boss them around and make sure they don't get on the couch and they think she is an idiot, but strangely, they are also scared of her. Also they are basically in love with Taylor.

the boss

lily and ella

And then today we decided to plant some flowers in our ugly back yard.

IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL I MIGHT NEED TO HAVE A GARDEN PARTY!! and get some G.D. garden lanterns.

If you're wondering how the job search is going, it's going well. I mean not well in the sense that we have any specific leads but there are plenty of jobs for Taylor to apply for. In fact, so far I've compiled a list of about 80. And that was a list I made while being picky about locations. Currently Tayl is thinking about switching to teaching so we're trying to get more information about doing that. So if anyone knows anything about becoming a teacher in the state of Georgia (for someone with a Masters Degree), holla at us.

All of your kind words and prayers and helpfulness and well wishes are GREATLY appreciated. We love you all! We're gonna be okay. Probably. But if not, I think I could find a way to make a cardboard box a home. I'm resourceful.

a bee sting, a stupid concert, and the slaying of an armadillo.

I know I haven't blogged in awhile and now that I am about to, I'm going to be complaining. 

you know when you find a recipe you want to make and you have all the right ingredients for it and you're totally excited but somewhere in the process something goes horribly wrong and your souffle (or whatever) turns into basically dinosaur poop? Well that was pretty much how my day went on Saturday.

I can't pin point exactly what went wrong but I know that when we got home in the wee hours of the morn and got into bed I wished I had never gotten out of it.

 Here were the ingredients for my "wonderful" Saturday:

1. Sleep in

2. Receive my make-up stuff I ordered online from Urban Decay

3. Get lunch at Zunzi's

4. Go to City and Colour concert in Charleston, SC

5. Walk around Charleston and get dinner before concert

That sounds awesome, RIGHT?

I guess you could say it all started to go downhill when I got up kind of late and since we were going to eat lunch pretty soon, I decided to skip breakfast. (Chill out health freaks. I know how important breakfast is.) But then we didn't eat lunch quite as soon as I had expected. So naturally, I turned into a monster. Because I am absolutely the opposite of delightful when I am hungry. (FATTY GOTTA EAT!) Zunzi's is a take out place so you walk in, order, pay, and take your food to either sit outside or leave. We decided we were going to stay and I walked outside to the corner to where Taylor was. I had my back turned to the building and Taylor goes, "Hey, watch out." (VERY CALMLY, the kind of tone you would use to say, "hey watch out you're about to step on hundred dollar bill.") and points to the side of me. I turn to see what I am about to step on and right as I look down I see a red wasp and and I get stung on my arm. (Mind you, this is while I am still a hungry monster) I immediately become enraged and obviously put all of the blame on Taylor. Now looking back on this with a clear head, I realized that it wasn't entirely his fault but if he would have just said, "WASP" I would have ran away and probably avoided being stung. So. Kinda his fault.

the victim: my right arm. not pictured: my pouty face.

At this point, my arm was throbbing and I was trying to hold back tears. Have you ever tried to eat while crying or on the verge of crying? It makes food not taste as good. So that was crappy too. Luckily where we parked downtown there was a CVS right across the road so I got some benedryl spray and it helped a lot, even though my sting still hurt a little on and off through out the day.

We arrived in Charleston, walked around. Had dinner. Went to the show which was at the Music Farm. The Music Farm is a very cool little venue. The show was at 9 and the doors opened at 8. We got there at about 7 45. When we walked in there was this spot about 6 inches higher than the rest of the main floor and there was railing so to me, it was as good as being in the very front because I could actually see and not have to be crowded by people. 

Finally at 9, the opener walked on. He plays the guitar for city and colour but he was doing some solo stuff. MUCH to my dismay, it was country. It was absolutely the most torturous opening act I have ever sat through in my entire life. It wasn't that he wasn't talented in his own right, but good lawd, I HATE HATE HATE country music. And unfortunately, I think it set a really bad precedent for the rest of the show, HOW COULD DALLAS GREEN SUBJECT ME TO THIS FOR AN HOUR? I know I'm getting old when I no longer feel that the musicians I adore can do no wrong. He did me wrong, and I don't know if I'll ever forgive him fully.

So basically we had to stand for about 2 and half hours before City and Colour came on. I was feeling really uncomfortable and a little nauseated so I decided to sit down for just a second. I was sitting there when behind me a really drunk troll like guy, came up to Taylor and was barely coherent and sad something about Taylor being too tall. Then instead of walking behind us and around he decided wanted to climb through the railing where I was sitting so he could get down to the main floor. Then he yelled, "MOVE!" at me and I instantly became furious, I turned around and briefly considered punching him in his knee caps. I shouted at him that I wasn't moving one inch until he asked me like a normal person. Then he leaned down and said very calmly, "You're a person." I rolled my eyes at him and scooted over so he could crawl through the rails. I hate drunk strangers almost as much as I hate country music. 

Almost immediately after that, this girl who had been standing down in front of the railing below us with her boyfriend acting like idiots making out and looking at each other dramatically crouched down through the railing and was like "HEY HEY COME HERE" like all excited and she was like "YOU GOTTA GET UP ITS DALLAS GREEN." I stared at her for few seconds and asked her if it was starting because I was really confused about her motives. She said "No not yet but it's about to, come on get up!" And I was like, "No." and I couldn't totally hear her but all I heard was, "Okay look my boyfriend is standing here so it's awkward." Or something and I was like, "I'm not getting up yet, I was here first." But I wanted to choke her and tried to convey that in my tone to her and I think she picked up on it cause she was like, "okay okay" and backed away and then they left. I was kind of hoping she threw a drink on me after the show so we could scrap like Jersey Shore style cause I was in that kind of mood, but it didn't happen. But just so you guys know, if it did go down like that, I would have won.

They finally came out and after one song I was ready to leave. The people in the audience were some of the most annoying and retarded people I've ever experienced in my life.

Where the idiot couple once stood there was now a girl. She was much more concerned about her instagram and facebook friends knowing that she was at the concert than anything else going on around her. She checked her facebook at least 2000 times, and she was texting her friend about how she had slept with this guy and bought them tickets to the show but he met up with his best friend, talked about other girls in front of her, and ditched her to be alone at the concert. But she kept saying how she liked him. WHAT IS WRONG WITH WOMEN IN THE WORLD? More on that in another blog on another day.

Anyway, it was 1 AM before the show got over and we had a 2 hour drive home. On the way home April was driving and she ran over an armadillo. I didn't see it because I was turned around talking to Tayl in the backseat. But I felt like it was a pretty good way to sum up how I felt about that day.

Oh and to answer the burning question, no not even the concert made it worth it. It was way better in London.