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a married couple's blog is no place for serious opinions about current events. but i'm breaking all the rules today. plus, i think one day when i'm dead and my great-grandchildren are looking at my blog (because they TOTALLY will) I want them to know where I stood on the matter of equal rights and same-sex marriage. plus everyone's talking about it on facebook and I just want to fit in.

as a disclaimer, I would like to say, that since I'm the only person who writes on this blog it's obvious probably, but this is not necessarily the opinion of Tayl also. I feel that I am safe to speak on behalf of him concerning what food we eat and how our dog barfed in the car, but this is a little more tricky. Furthermore, based on my religious beliefs, I know people who are on both sides of the fence, and I realize that what I'm about to write (assuming that people actually read this... which... maybe not) may make people feel different about me or frustrated with me. And that's fine. It's a free country.

I am cool with people of the same-sex loving each other, getting married, having the tax and healthcare benefits thereof, raising children, getting annoyed with the way the other squeezes the toothpaste tube, and etc. I do not feel that this will in any way affect straight people of various religious beliefs. I don't feel that this will ruin marriage for the rest of us. (SEE: 50% DIVORCE RATE). I don't believe that a child would be worse off being raised by two moms or two dads. I believe that straight people have just as much of a chance of ruining their kid's lives as gay parents. As someone who grew up in a broken home (or actually, a home that never was non-broken, since my parents were never married) I can attest to the fact that children are extremely adaptive and resilient. The most important thing is that their basic needs are met, and that they are loved immensely. I watch a lot of Teen Mom (embarrassing) and I can safely say that most of those children would be a MILLION times better off being raised by two responsible gay parents than by their mothers who are in and out of relationships/jail.

I don't think that religions should have to change their beliefs to accommodate same-sex marriage. But I certainly think they should stay out of the government making it legal or not illegal. I've often wondered, and sometimes been brave enough to ask, what specifically it is that Mormons fear about same-sex marriage becoming legal. The most common answer was the if it were to become legal, the LDS church could be forced to marry same-sex couples in the Temple. Which is in no way possible, certain straight people can't even get married in the Temple. We need to keep church out of the state and the state out of the church. Freedom of religion is important. (but it shouldn't give anyone the right to shove anything down another person's throat.) The follow-up worry to the temple situation was that they would be allowed to marry in LDS churches. Which I'm not really sure about the details of that, but I've known some pretty horrible, druggy, disgusting people get married in an LDS church just because it was free. Only to be divorced a few months later. SO would gay people getting married in a church be the worst thing that ever happened in the cultural hall?? (SEE: CHURCH BASKETBALL).

PLUS, Most gay men would NEVER get married in a place that doubles as a basketball court. They have taste. But that's just a side note. Anyway, that part doesn't matter.

THE POINT HERE IS SIMPLY THIS: I support equal rights. (But I still eat at Chick-Fil-A, it's not a stance, it's just delicious) I believe everyone has the right to be happy. I don't feel that everyone should be forced to believe something that they don't. This isn't communist China, this is America, damnit.  So everyone just be nice to each other, because same-sex marriage will eventually be legal in the whole country. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe it will take 10 or more years, but it will happen. So if you're adamantly against it, you're probably gonna have to get over it, sorry. But if you just be cool about it, it's not going to change your life in any way. K. BYE.

sweatpants and frozen lakes.

On Friday night we headed over to Bear Lake to visit my Grandma for the weekend. If you don't know anything about Bear Lake, you should get to know it, because it's probably the only beautiful thing in southeast Idaho, and the most beautiful thing in Utah. (the two states share the lake). ANYWAY in spite of being beautiful, the towns surrounding the lake are tiny and in the winter, there is next to nothing. So sometimes when we go visit her, she'll have me stop and pick up a few things for her before we leave civilization. On this particular visit, she asked if I could stop and pick up cat AND dog food for her.

It was very convenient because when Roscoe barfed in the car (like I knew he eventually would) we were driving through Soda Springs so we stopped to clean it up in the parking lot of a grocery store, and I decided to run in and grab cat and dog food. Now, mind you, when we left Idaho Falls, I decided to put on sweats because who wants to wear real clothes while riding in the car for 3 hours? NOT ME. So I go into the store and as I'm lugging the box of cat food and the giant bag of dog food I think to myself, "WOW I look like a loser right now. Wearing sweats in public, in a small Idaho town, buying pet food on a Friday night. And this is my life." When I get up to  the cash register the first thing the cashier girl says to me, [very enthusiastically in an Idaho accent] is, "DOIN ANYTHNG FUN TONIGHT!?!" and I was so caught off guard for several reasons. So I just said, "no." But what I wanted to say was, "I'M IN SODA SPRINGS BUYING CAT FOOD IN MY SWEAT PANTS, WHILE MY HUSBAND CLEANS DOG BARF OUT OF THE CAR, WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW?!"

Idahoans are so dumb. They say things like supposably. And I'm not saying this because I'm bias, I really saw on the news (which wow, you should see the local news here, it is comedy gold, it's like it's produced by elementary school kids from 1996) that Idaho is ranked SECOND TO LAST in Education and also, only 1 in 10 Idaho students will get a degree. Now yes, I am a college dropout, but if you pulled me and 10 of my friends from high school I would be like only one of two that didn't get a degree.

But that's just a side rant. So our weekend with Grandma went well. We helped her drive her 20 year old dog (that she inherited from her twin brother when he died in 2006) to the vet to get put to sleep. Nobody was really sad about it because it was a really big relief, dealing with a dog that old is no bueno.

Then as we always do when someone dies in our family, we went and bought pie.

my cute grandma

Then Taylor gave my Grandma's OTHER dog a hair cut, and then decided to give Roscoe a haircut too.

"all that remains of my old life" -Roscoe Dash

And the lake up there was still frozen so Tayl took a thousand trillion billion photos because snow is still more a novelty than a nuisance to him. But I wasn't as annoyed cause it's Bear Lake.

Then we went home:

Also this:

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.

Roscoe Dash.

OH MY GOOOOOOSSSHHHHH YOU GUUUUYYYYYSSSSSSS....

We are alive!

Barely.

Basically what happened is that my battery on my laptop wouldn't hold a charge and so it had to stay plugged in all the time. But then my charger stopped working so I couldn't use my laptop and if I can't watch TV while I blog, then it ain't happening.

Anyway, I'll try harder now. But I figured it would be a good time to go ahead and introduce the latest addition to the Giddens' clan.

He's established a fairly strong presence on facebook and instagram, but not on our blog. So without further ado, I present to you:

Roscoe Dash

He's the cutest puppy in the world, after Lux of course.

Let me tell ya'll the story of how this sweet poopin machine came to be a part of our family.

I knew I wanted to add another canine to our clan, it was pretty depressing to watch Luxie throw her own toys in the air and then chase after them. Also, let's me be totally honest, I'm THAT girl. The dog girl. I am obsessed with dogs and I have been basically since I came to the earth. If I could have 75, I would, but I'll save that for 50 years from now when I'm ready to be featured on an episode of Animal Hoarding. So ANYWAY, you may remember a post in which I tricked people into thinking I was pregnant but it was actually that we were going to adopt my aunt's havanese. Well, in the end my aunt decided she couldn't part with her dear doggy. And I don't blame her, but in the end I was glad. Because Roscoe is my sweet baby angel.

The plan was that we were going to get a new puppy after the holidays so as not to add additional stress to our holiday traveling. SO Naturally I began browsing online, I checked the shelters to see if there were any hypoallergenic dogs for adoption (there weren't, those get snatched up pretty quick) and then I looked on ksl.com and I stumbled upon some "Shorkies" that were available locally and they were so cute, I was dying. I contacted the people to ask if we could just go "LOOK" at the puppies, and they said yes. I called Taylor and told him I would pick him up on his lunch break to go "look" at the last puppy they had available. We got there and immediately fell in love. I told the lady that we would not be able to take him until after the holidays and she said that was fine. But then Taylor suggested that I take him home for "just a little bit" just to see if Lux liked him. So I did.

Lux mostly liked him. Sometimes she just wants him to shut up and leave her alone, but she lets him know. As you may have guessed, I never took him back. I just kept him.

Having him has been fun, and frustrating. He has so much energy and is growing SO quickly. He's already bigger than Lux. He's almost getting that we don't go potty in the house, and I'm proud. His favorite food is anything. His favorite band is Journey. His full name is Roscoe Dash, after the rapper.

The naming of this dog did not come without much suffering. We changed his name about 3000 times, and I called him Puppy and GirlGuy, like a lot. Nothing felt right. We tried to name is Russ for awhile. But that sounded so wrong whenever I said. I really liked Roscoe all along, but I felt like people would judge me. But then, I didn't care because he's my dog.

Anyway, I'll shut up. We love him. He's snuggly and he's my sweet fat boy. Here are more pictures:

as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines.

I hate not being content with where I am but it's just that Idaho will never compare to Georgia for me.

I miss my in-laws, the warmth, the southern drawls, the humidity, the trees, the seafood, the hospitality, the sounds, the food, and sometimes I even miss the sound of gunshots in the distance, lulling me to sleep. (But maybe I'm just acting desperate.)

I really hope that one day life will take us back to Georgia (OR EVEN TENNESSEE). I want my babies to be little peaches that talk real slow and charm the pants off everyone, but not literally off, just metaphorically, unless they're married. Then it's ok.

just an old sweet song, keeps Georgia on my mind.

Happy THANKSGIVING Pilgrims!

Phew! What a fun crazy week we had.

We've been in Georgia all week for Thanksgiving/one of our best friend Kyle's wedding (congrats ya'll!). It's been nice and warm and relaxing. I'm not quite ready to get back to the Idaho winter that awaits me.

If I had to pick one picture to sum up our week here it would be this one:

That's Paisley. (and my Kristen Stewart buck teeth. I own them) She's our niece and the daughter of my sis-in-lawbff, Jamie. and I'm just kind of obsessed with her. Like, if you saw my cell camera pictures (my instagram photos are just the tip of the iceberg) right now you would think that she was MY child because I have so many pictures of that girl. but I can't help it, she is just too beautiful and sweet. and also really advanced for a four month old, she can already do math, probably.

I could tell you about every single detail of our vacation, but I'm not gonna. I just really wanted to brag about how precious Paisley is. Just know that we've been talking real southern up in here (can't help it) and that we ate waaaaaay too much (all week, not just on Thanksgiving) and lost all our eating inhibitions. back to dieting on Monday... until Christmas of course.

Also, I just realized that all my best friends have beautiful babies, see evidence here. 

I guess I just know how to pick em. 

one smelly giveaway.

did you guys know that I sell scentsy? well I do. and also sometimes I also give it away. For instance, right meow, I have a giveaway going on over at High Heels & Grills. Which is my friend Sarah and her husband's (seriously though her husband contributes, it's not like over here where I have to do all the work for the two of us) delicious little food blog. SOOO if you're interested in hitting that up click HERE. And while you're over there why don't you try some of her tasty recipes! You won't regret it.

Also, tell all your friends! Because Scentsy is the BEST. and free Scentsy is even better.

GET IN MY MOUTH: Low Country Boil

So lately, I've been missing Georgia. Sometimes it literally makes my heart hurt because I miss it so bad. Which luckily, is not because I am totally miserable in Idaho, because I'm surprisingly not (yet). But, ANYWAY, I decided that there was one thing that could help curb my Georgia yearning; some good old southern food.

So, I pulled out Aunt Martha's cookbook (which if you are ever going to buy a cookbook, let that be your next one because Martha is amahzing. She's used to help write Paula Deen's cookbooks. She basically a Savannah celebrity!) and after looking through it, decided to invite some of our peeps over for :

LOW COUNTRY BOIL
Adapted from "Savannah Celebrations" by Martha Nesbit

Thanks to Sassy YGBG for the photo

Here's what you need:

Serves 8

2 pounds kielbasa Polish sausage, sliced into 1 inch pieces.

20 red potatoes, halved or quartered, depending on size.

4 to 6 ears of corn broken into halves or thirds

3 pounds large shrimp 

1/4 cup Old Bay seasoning (this is optional but I HIGHLY recommend using it, and being generous with it!)

Allow 1 hour to heat water in a 20 gallon pot*, filled about one-third full. Add the Old Bay seasoning if using (which you better be). 45 minutes before serving, add sausage. 20 minutes before serving, add red potatoes. 15 minutes before serving, add corn. 5 minutes before serving, add shrimp. When shrimp are pink and cooked through (about 5 minutes or less - you can tell because they curl up like they're prepping for an earthquake drill.). Drain and serve hot.

*Alright so, if you're anything like me, you don't have a 20 gallon pot and when you saw that you were like, Whaaaaaaaaaaat? But don't worry, it's a little bit of work but it's still possible. What I have is just two 5.5 quart pots. So, to make the full recipe (which you can half it, or even quarter it if you're cooking for less people) I had to split it up into 4 different rounds (so two for each pot for me). So I did MATH (which I suck at, but I did it) and split the ingredients up into fours. And then you follow the recipe the same (except that you don't have to wait an hour for the water to heat up). 

The best way to serve this is to just lay out some news paper (or craft paper or a plastic table cloth) on your table and dump it right on to the paper (but if you wanna be civilized you can leave it in a bowl, sometimes that's a good idea too) and serve with: Soft Butter, Sour Cream, Cocktail Sauce, Slices of lemons, and Ice Cold Coca-Cola. 

you can just see the humidity in the air from all that boilin! felt just like the south!

my special juice is gonna help me bloooog.

i was really feeling like i was keeping up with blogging until i realized that it's been a WHOLE month since i last blogged.  so geez.

well, basically everyone already knows this but...

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

She's so cute right? I mean I would someday like to paint the house on the outside, but whatever.

In other news in Idaho; nothing.

Oh except that last week it snowed so I woke up to this:

but this week it has been in the 60s so I was like whaaaaat. is going on. But I'm totally not complaining. I'll take what I can get in this spud ridden frozen tundra. 

We are mostly moved in to our house except that my clothes are still in space bags and covering my bedroom floor. DONT JUDGE ME, I need a dresser. and I'm lazy. But anyway, this house is HUGE (to me) and I feel like I need to buy a bunch of crap to fill it up (aka hoarding). Luckily I'm basically obsessed with target clearance/the D.I. so that should be happening in no time at all. Look for me on A&E or TLC soon. 

Wednesday, as you know if you are a regular person, was Halloween. Our Mexican friend, Vickie had a little Halloween shindig giving us an excuse to dress up. So, I got Lux a dog-wig

She's a pink lady if you didn't catch that.

 and we dressed up as old people/Florida retirees. 

I'd like to inappropriately note that those are not my real breasts.

So that happened. The best part was when a girl showed up to the party we were at and thought she was at the wrong party because we were the first people she saw and she thought we were legitimate old people. So that made me feel good because I put minimal effort into these costumes. (the fact that my shirt and pants matched so dern good was an act of God, found them separately at the D.I.) 

This evening we had our friends over for LOW COUNTRY BOIL! which I will be blogging about TOMORROW, to give you pics AND the recipe. Cause seriously, you haven't lived until you've had a good old low country boil, says me. 

Also I made everyone try go-go juice, which if you live under a rock, is part red bull part mt. dew.

 In other words, I am super buzzin right now and maybe gonna die. If that's the case, I have to apologize for not giving you the Low Country Boil recipe sooner. 

But lets hope we make it through the night. 

livin on a prayer & a travel sized bottle of wrinkle releaser.

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.
okay. hi. remember us?

so we're in Idaho now. I don't necessarily want to say we LIVE in Idaho because it technically doesn't feel like we do yet.

let me rewind.


so we packed up all of our crap and drove across the country. the few and the proud who follow my instagram were tortured for 3 days straight by my constant road shots from the passenger seat (sorry about thaaat.) . let's relive a few of the highlights:

WHAT UP GUYYSSS?

St. Louie

Mom Jeans in Nebraska. I'm not a woman anymore, I'm a mom.

Ohhh I was so jealous of her.

That all seems so long ago...

So here's what's happened since we've arrived in Idaho Falls:

Taylor started his job. He likes it so far. Some really devastating news for me is that he has to wear a respirator mask AND SO HE CAN'T HAVE A BEARD!!! I mean, it makes my heart hurt just to type it. So he's keeping the mustache but it just isn't the same.

Our first week here, we stayed at the super 8 while we decided to look for rentals. That didn't go great. On Sunday at church we met a lady who is a mortgage officer person lender guy madam sir. Whatever they like to be called. We ended up getting pre-approved with her on Monday for a home loan and decided it would be a good time to buy, instead of throwing away money on a stupid rental again. The mortgage sir lady gave us the name of a realtor who we decided to go with and he is great.

So, we house hunt while staying in the Super 8 and house after house we don't have a ton of luck, until Friday when I find this adorable perfect little house. So we put an offer on it and our offer got accepted! Yay! But less yay! after the inspection happened.

By this time it's week two and we're staying in an even WORSE hotel hoping to be able to move in to this house early but it turns out, this little dream house was actually a wet dream and I don't mean that in a perverse way. The basement was wet and moldy and the only way to fix it would be to excavate from the outside and fix the foundation. This was a very stressful time for us because we did not want to keep living in hotels because IT'S EXPENSIVE! But then by the grace of God and the goodness of the people of Idaho, we got hooked up with an RV in an RV park. So yep. We're living in an RV. It's okay, you can call me trailer trash, I won't even be sad.

I know what you're dying to hear, WHAT HAPPENED WITH THAT ADORBS HOUSE? Well, they refused to fix the foundation before we bought and so today we were like SEE YA!! Which I'm not really sad about that either because I can't deal with wet basements. I really hate em.

This blog just got way too long, even for me. And Taylor is eating an apple way too loud so I'm in a bad mood right now.

But to sum things up, we are starting the house hunt over tomorrow, we are RV trash, we are doing okay, and we have some really cool friends near by. Also it's getting cold, which sucks. But, I love to be fat and wear sweatshirts, so BONUS.