11 confessions of a girl who doesn't care.

Lately, or maybe it's been for awhile and I just haven't noticed, I feel like the blogging world is getting out of control. I feel like women everywhere are trying ever so desperately to make their lives look perfect in hopes that they will gain another follower for their blog and make people jealous of them. Which I can totally respect the whole becoming a famous blogger and making money off your blog, but I just do not care enough to make my blog be something that people are obsessed with. (Sometimes I even post posts with NO PICTURES! GASP! ) and I think it's crazy to try and make your life something that it isn't to impress people you don't know, or worse people you don't even like.

So today, I am going to tell you things about me so that you know how not perfect my life is. I guess these can be considered confessions

1) I am super stoked for my baby bump to start showing so I can stop trying to suck in my fat belly all the time. I can finally be so fat for a reason.

2) The other day I found dog poop in my closet. How long had it been there? I have no idea. and I didn't clean it up right away. Because I never go in my closet.

3) The other day I ate a sandwich, immediately barfed it up and was hungry again so I ate the rest of Tayl's sandwich.

4) We've lived in our house for 6 months and I have done next to no decorating. Decorating is hard.

5) The other night I didn't want to get out of bed to brush my teeth so I made Taylor bring me a wisp brush instead.

6) When I'm at work and I need to pick a wedgie, fart, or itch my breast (WHY ARE THEY SO ITCHY?) I go in the supply closet so I can do it privately.

7) Clean clothes? They stay in the basket. Or go on the floor. I haven't folded clothes in months.

8) I made Taylor drive me to 6 different Gas stations for a hot dog and then I didn't even finish the hot dog because it wasn't that good.

9) Febreeze and Wrinkle Releaser is just as good as a wash and dry.

10) I haven't cleaned my kitchen since February. Taylor has. But I have not.

11) The other day I made mac n Cheese and the noodles overcooked so I let them sit there for 3 hours, dumped them out, washed the pot and made another box. Those over cooked too. So I threw those away too.

SO TO ALL OF YOU, people who think you're tricking people on the internet into thinking your life is cooler than it is, I KNOW YOU CAN'T BE THAT PERFECT IN REAL LIFE. You might not be as weird and lazy and gross as me, but I'm not jealous of you.

GET IN MY MOUTH: heart-stopping creamy cheesy chicken jalapeno enchiladas

I think things are getting better for me. I haven't been able to make dinner since I was impregnated. I neverknew when just stepping into the kitchen would make me hurl. But tonight, I did it. Without throwing up. So yay!

One of my favorite things about being a grown up is that I can make whatever food I want and I don't have to put things (LIKE ONIONS, BLEH) in food if I don't want. I LOVE white chicken enchiladas, but they always have onions in them and that kinda ruins it for me cause I'm basically a child. Anyway today I wanted chicken enchiladas so I made this recipe up and they ended up being really good they even have Tayl's approval. So here. Feel free to tweak it anyway you want. I'll probably top with sliced jalapenos next time.

3 cups shredded cheese (I used mexican blend)
1 8 oz block Cream Cheese
2 lb chicken breasts
1 can diced Jalepenos
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbs sour cream
1 cup whipping cream
1 can green enchilada sauce
10 medium flour tortillas

preheat oven to 375 degrees. cook chicken (I like to boil mine) shred, mix with block of cream cheese, 1 cup shredded cheese, jalapenos, and tablespoon of sour cream. Lightly spray 9x13 glass pan. stuff with mixture and roll tortillas and place in pan seam side down.  set aside. pour whipping cream, sour cream, and enchilada sauce in a bowl, mix with an electric mixer until mixture is a slightly thicker. Pour over rolled tortillas. Then top with 2 cups cheese. Bake for about 30 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. Let rest for 5 minutes before serving. Shovel into yo mouth, enjoy.

FAQs and Pregnancy Promises.

When you tell the world that you're with child, many questions arise. So, I have decided to place here some answers to a couple of frequently asked questions as well as some of my promises to my social networking pals now that I am publicly pregnant.

FAQ #1: When are you due?

My due date is confusing. It is sometime between Halloween and November 4th. But if I have learned anything in my quest for knowledge about child birth, it is that Due Dates don't mean jack SHMIT.

FAQ #2: How far along are you?

As of today, I am 11 weeks and 3 days. if you want to get technical.

FAQ #3: How are you feeling?

Thanks for asking! I feel like crap 80% of the time, and I throw up almost every morning. But when I saw that baby's heartbeat on the ultrasound, it made every gag, every heave over the toilet, every getting up to pee 50 times in the night, every sore breast, every time I feel so tired I can't move off of the couch and even the fact that I can't eat cold deli meat, TOTALLY worth it. Plus, I know that my sickness isn't even close to the worst.

FAQ #4: Was it planned?

We've been married for two years, Tayl has a permanent job, we're homeowners, we've reached our limit of dogs before it starts to get weird, and we're not getting any younger. SO no, it wasn't strategically planned, but it wasn't all that surprising, and it's pretty good timing. SO WE'LL TAKE IT!

Just had to put this up for documentation.

Now with that out of the way, I would like to take just a moment to make some promises I would like to make to you, my peers. (These do not apply to Taylor, namely #1)

Promise #1: I promise that I will not complain about the discomforts of pregnancy on my facebook page, or my blog. The first reason being, it's annoying as hell. The second is that I don't think this is fair  to women who can't conceive, are having trouble conceiving, or have lost babies. And I am so so grateful that I am able to carry my own babies. 

Promise #2: I promise not to over exaggerate the joys of pregnancy.

Promise #3: I promise that I do not want unsolicited advice about the birthing process and I promise that my birth plan is not something I will discuss publicly. 

Promise #4: I promise that I will do my best not to let motherhood make me lame. 

That's really all. I can't promise much more than that. Sorry ya'll.

a slightly sporadic and moderately vague post about love.

Something about the anniversary of things makes everyone sentimental. And today is no different for me, so I apologize in advance.

today we have been married for 2 years. It has blown by so quickly that I can hardly believe it's really been that long. it's so cliche to talk about how quickly time flies, but it seriously does. I'm afraid if I blink I'll open my eyes and it we'll be celebrating 50 years together.

If you could be a fly on the wall in our house (which isn't to say we have a lot of flies in our house...) you might catch me every once in a while saying something along the lines of how sad it is that Taylor and I don't have the kind of "love at first sight" love story. Because it was more like a "Hi, you're a person. Nice to meet you." story the first time we met. But in all seriousness, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. My whole life, all of the best friendships I've had are with people who had a different impression of me than who I actually was (It's probably because I seem mean and disinterested, but that's just the way my face is, sorry.)
and then as they invested time in me, I grew on them. Because they really got to know me. And getting to know the man who is now my husband was no different.

I could just make a over-zealous facebook status about how MY HUSBAND IS THE BESSSTTTT!!!!! HE BOUGHT ME FLOWERS!!!! But my husband is so much more than that to me. If I could ever even put it in to words, I would. However, I don't know how to. I don't know how to properly explain that after four years with him, I have never for one second thought, "am I with the right person?" even during the times where we don't see eye to eye. It's more than just the butterfly magical feeling that happens at the beginning (which is an amazing feeling nonetheless). And I know this isn't necessarily rare, but with such a high divorce rate in this country, it gives me hope to know that even when I HATE HIM AND I WANT TO PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE FOR BEING A TOTAL IDIOT, I still love the hell out of him and even in those moments I'm not too proud to tell him I love him out loud. And I would literally ruin the life of any person that ever tried to harm him or speak ill of him. I'm being dramatic, but it's true.

I have literally followed this guy all over the world. I married him in Utah and he took me to Hawaii to celebrate, and then to South Carolina for a temporary job, and then to England for training and then to Savannah  and now to Idaho (the glamour of my life has basically completely diminished) And I'd do it a hundred more times if you gave me the chance.

Taylor Giddens is not perfect at all, and neither am I, and even as a couple put together, we are not perfect. But we are perfect FOR each other. (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) I keep trying to spit this all out without saying all the things that have been said or things you expect me to say, but sometimes romantic things are hard to express without sounding overly cliche.

Here are some links to some other times I tried to explain my feelings for this guy publicly on the internet like a freak girl:

This time when it was way too early on to be talking like this but I already knew.

This time when I was being dramatic about how much better Taylor was than my ex-boyfriend (he is though. It's been scientifically proven in a social science experiment I conducted.)

This post where I was trying to be sweet but I am actually kind of rude to single people. Sorry.


Here's to a 1000 more years Tayl. I love you.

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.

=

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.