wifed up wednesday: because glitter.

Happy leap day!

Glitter has nothing to do with being a wife but today that's what we're talking about.

I am coming out of the closet: I LOVE GLITTER. I can't really pin point when my love for glitter happened but I know I suppressed it for many years. The first reason was because I spent a good chunk of my life trying not to do things that other girls my age did. Because I am stubborn and also because I am awesome. The second reason was; many years ago, I loved Nsync with a fire of a million exploding suns. I read just about every teen mag article they were in. Mostly my main Nsync squeeze was Justin Timberlake which I am not ashamed of in the least bit because I still love JT. BUT unfortunately, there was a  dark time period in my tween years where I did love Lance Bass. I was 900% sure that we would be married.
Once, I was reading an article where they interviewed the heart throbs of Nsync and asked them some simple questions and one of which was "What is your least favorite make-up product that girls use?" and Lance said, "Glitter! It gets everywhere! It's such a mess." (In retrospect, now knowing he is gay, this seems weird. Gay guys love glitter, don't they?) His answer really hit home for me, I knew I had to throw out all my glitter products  in order for my marriage with Lance to go the distance.

Fast forward 12 years, turns out Lance Bass was gay the whole time and I don't have to care about what he says anymore! Thus my love for glitter is rekindled.

Enough about me though, this week I wanted to share with you some projects involving GLITTER. Most of which I found on Pinterest, one of which I am bringing to you exclusively with my very own tutorial. Starting right now

DIY GLITTER TOES

There are a couple of ways to achieve this look.

The first is to go to the Salon, have a nail tech drill into your toe nails and apply acrylic glitter, and spend upwards of 30 bucks.
PRO: Lasts long

CON: Costs money and Damages your nails.

The second is to apply several coats of a glitter polish.

PRO: Easy, Quick, Cheap

CON: Peels and chips quicker.

And the the third, is the way I am going to share with you today.

PRO: Lasts long, Cheap, Looks pretty

CON: Kinda messy in the process

Here's what you'll need:

Toes (any number of them)

Newspaper (or just any kind of paper to work on and catch rogue glitter)

Glitter (what ever color you desire)

Solid color polish (try to match the color of your glitter as close as possible)

Like so.

Nail polish remover

Q-tips

OPTIONAL: Clear Gel Top Coat; it helps the glitter last longer.

It looks like this, and you can get it at Sally's for like 5 bucks or something.

UNFORTUNATELY, this weekend when I did the toes pictured below (my sister-in-law so graciously let me use her toes while we were visiting them) Taylor forgot his camera and we had a 1 year old trying to get into everything so I didn't get to take step by step pictures. but it's pretty simple.

First, make sure sure your toe nails are clean and without polish. Then take your solid polish and paint your toes (you can either do them one at a time-which I do, or paint them all then apply glitter) All you need is one layer and then take a small amount of glitter (I like to pinch it with my fingers) and sprinkle on to the painted toe. Then, pack the glitter on making sure it covers the entire nail.

Once you have completed your first round of glitter, apply a regular clear top coat and repeat the glitter coating process. Remember to pat it down to make sure it sticks good. After you're finished with glitter round 2,  if you have the gel top coat, apply it now. Then wait for it to dry a little. Then just for extra shininess, I add another coat of regular clear coat (if you don't have a gel coat it is a must that you add a final clear coat). 

Wait a few minutes for nails to dry. 

Now at this point in the process you might have noticed that you have glitter all over the place. Take your butt to the bath tub and gently rinse your feet with COLD water. Don't use soap and don't touch your toe nails. (Fun fact: Cold water helps nail polish dry quicker. Ice water works the best.) Once you are finished, if you notice that there is still glitter on your toes (on the skin) you can use the q-tips and polish remover to clean up the edges. And TA-DA! You have glitter toes. 

(You can also do this for finger nails.)

and no, Jen those aren't my finger toes.

As promised, here are some links to some other fun and easy projects involving glitter:

Glitter keys (I did this and it worked really well)
Glitter bottom heels
Glitter vintage christmas lights
Glitter candles

If you have any fun glitter projects, share the wealth!

So. it has come to this.

I think this is funny:

Also, I am depressed.

Not like clinically or forever, but just currently. Remember when we were nearing the end of our time in England and Taylor almost had to go to China without me? But then he ended up not having to go and we got to come home and get settled here in Savannah. 

Well, the time has come for Taylor to go to China for reals. He is leaving on Saturday and he won't be back until March 26th. That's 23 days!

I know that's seems like no time at all for a lot of people (especially, like say, military wives). But TO ME, it is long. Taylor and I have not been apart that long since before I moved to Atlanta. And our whole marriage we haven't spent more than 2 days apart.  So to me, this sucks. 

When we found out he was going a couple of weeks ago I was trying to pretend that it wasn't a big deal to me but as each day ends and we get closer to Saturday, I get more and more sad about it. I am getting a little emotional right now just writing about it. I just want to crawl into the bed and sleep the whole month of March away. I love Taylor, he is my best best friend and I love being married (it's really better than anyone ever led me to believe that it would be... and I'm not just saying that to make my life seem cool.) 

I don't think that being away from him is going to be any fun at all. It will be stupid and boring.

PLUS, Lux acts like a real lady bastard when Taylor isn't around in the night time. She sleeps at the foot of the bed (instead of her usual against my back shoving me off the bed) and just growls at EVERY SINGLE thing possible. And I know she's going to be even worse knowing that her father is in a country where people have no problem eating dogs. She'll probably take it personally.

The bright side is that he will be home for our anniversary so we can go back to Maui....

Just kidding, I wish we were going to Maui. 

If anyone wants to come stay with me while he's gone and entertain me that's okay by me.

wifed up wednesday: the two A's of an ideal homemaker

this week, I present to you, a lesson in homemaking.

You may find yourself scoffing "WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HOMEMAKING?" Well, I know what I've learned from reading this book.

You see, I found this book several years ago at the D.I., I saw the title and I saw the year it was published (1967) and I knew it had to be mine, because I knew it would be filled with sexist gems.

Since then, I haven't been able to get past the first chapter, but I've decided that from here on out I will pop in every now and then on wifed up Wednesday with a lesson in homemaking which I will learn from this book, which will require me to read it.

In the beginning of the book, she compares homemakers like unto a diamond. "Perfectly cut so as to bring out countless beautiful highlights. In both homemakers and diamonds, certain qualities must be present if each is to sparkle brilliantly and thereby be valued and cherished."

She then goes into listing a the twenty "facets" of an ideal homemaker....

Today, I am going to teach you about FACET NO. 1: "the two A's" that have the ability to completely change your world (assuming that your are a "real" lady and your whole world only exists within your home, as it should.)

The first is "A" is ATTITUDE

Your attitude can MAKE or BREAK your homemaking experience. You should not simply view your housework as a necessary evil that you must complete each day in order. If you don't enjoy your housework but complete it anyway, this is not good enough. You must love those dirty dishes, the skid marks on the toilet, the cooking, and the mountains of laundry. Otherwise, no one is going to appreciate what you do, and no one will like you. If you're struggling with this, it might help you to take your wedding picture and remind yourself of what a "SWEET" bride you were. Strive to be that sweet girl that your husband married, EVEN while cleaning the litter box.

The second "A" is APPEARANCE

BEAUTY IS A DUTY! Every morning you should get dressed VERY first thing in the morning. Getting dressed includes putting on comfortable clothes, combing your hair, applying make-up (EVEN A BARN LOOKS BETTER PAINTED), and putting on shoes. The reason most husbands are unhappy is because their wives have neglected their appearance. They find their wives slopping around in housecoats and curlers in their hair! CAN YOU IMAGINE? (Oh, don't forget about perfect posture!) 

Remember, if you LOOK THE PART of a perfect housewife, you will ACT THE PART.

Are you still confused about what you should look like right after waking up?

Let me help you:

or actually, prettier than this.

We were bored, so I curled Taylor's hair.

it got really weird, really fast. 

but hey, at least I didn't put make-up on him.

wifed up wednesday: best pizza dough ever + DIY Fat Sticks!

yo yo yo. so today i am bringing to you a fail-proof pizza dough recipe which I found on pinterest from the website  "Lauren's Latest".  Unfortunately this blog post will not help you lose weight and it's really long but I've got TWO recipes up in here and I promise it will be worth your time. If you're into this sort of thing.

She has a pretty awesome and easy tutorial to follow if you click that link above, BUT I made you a tutorial too. They really aren't that different except a couple of things. FIRST, her tutorial is using a kitchenaid stand mixer, which I am poor and do not have, so mine involves a hand mixer with dough hooks. SECOND, her recipe on the tutorial for the garlic cheese breadsticks, is different from mine, I made some adjustments as I don't really love garlic or handling things such as garlic or onions.

Here is what Lauren said you need to know about this pizza dough:

"{1} I use warm water-not hot, not cold. Pleasantly warm. Yeast likes warmth. And I don’t ever use a thermometer because thermometers are annoying for this kind of stuff. Don’t over think this step. If it feels nice and warm like baby bath water, then you’re good. {2} I use honey- I seem to get better results with honey. I don’t know why. You can use sugar if you prefer. {3}Bread flour- you must must must use bread flour. Bread flour means more gluten. More gluten means chewy crust. Chewy crust = good. The end. {4} Knead, knead, knead. Kneading means gluten! And we all know what gluten means. Knead  your dough for 6 minutes pretty please. {5}Use a pizza stone if you have one. Put it in your cold oven, and then crank that baby up to the hottest temperature it will go to. For me, it was 500 degrees. That will really give you a crispy bottom, like you get at the restaurants"


So, this is the third time I've made this recipe. I want to tell you that I know for a fact that it is the best. I know this because 1) Taylor loved it, and he is SO particular, and he never likes homemade pizza dough. 2) April and I tried a couple other recipes and none beat this one.

Let's get started, first, here's what you'll need:
[this makes about 1lb of dough. which is enough for two 12-inch pizzas]

Ingredients:

1 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (You have to use active dry and not fast rising, it makes a difference)
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar, like Lauren I also used honey)
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons  olive oil
3 cups bread flour (give or take 1/2 cup depending on head and humidity)

In a large bowl, add the yeast and honey (or sugar) to a cup of warm water. Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes until the yeast starts to bubble and foam so you know it's alive. Pour in the salt and oil then add about half of the flour.

This the part where if you have a stand mixer you can use it to do all of the work. Other wise, pull out your dough hooks for your hand mixer. (Just so you know the first time I made this, I didn't realize that I had dough hooks so I just used the regular egg beaters to initially get the flour incorporated then I hand kneaded it to avoid burning up the motor. It was a pain in the butt, but it worked.)

Then gradually add the rest of the flour until the dough is at the right consistency. It should be slightly tacky but it shouldn't stick to your fingers when you touch it. When you get here it's time to KNEAD!! Knead for 6 minutes with either your hand mixer or stand mixer or your hands. After I discovered my dough hooks, I kneaded with those and then kneaded for an extra minute with my hands, just to cover my bases.

Once you are done, the dough should be smooth (like a baby's butt!) and easy to work with.  Lightly grease the bowl so the dough doesn't dry out and cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise 1-2 hours.

While you are waiting, clean up your mess right away. It makes life easier. it also makes you seem like an awesome wife. ...or husband.

Then you're done and you can do whatever you want with the dough. You can also keep it in the fridge for a few days until you're ready to use it and I haven't tried to, but I'm sure you can also freeze it.

Today, we're going to make what I like to call "Fat Sticks" fat sticks are cheesy bread sticks that they serve at the pizza place (Roy's Pizza, formerly: FAT JACK'S) in my hometown. Sometimes when I'm homesick and reminiscing, I think of them and drool. This recipe is pretty close, and I kind of made it up.

Ingredients

1/2 of the pizza dough you just made
1/4 pound of grated mozzarella cheese (let's be honest, you can be much more generous w/ cheese if you want)
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder (or more if you like garlic, or you could use minced garlic if you want)
salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees with your pizza stone in the oven. (If you don't have a pizza stone, you can just flip a cookie sheet upside down.)

Prepare your dough on some parchment paper (makes it easier for transferring to stone or cookie sheet) and flatten it out to about 12 inches (if can be a circle, a square, a heart, a misshapen blob, it doesn't matter.)
*Here's a fun tip, if you're a poor newlywed without a rolling pin, you can just just use a round cup instead. That's what I do, because every time I go to buy a rolling pin the cheap ones are out of stock and then only have the 20 dollar ones.

In a small bowl melt the 2 tablespoons of butter in the microwave. (about 10-15 seconds on high should do it) once butter is melted add the oregano, garlic powder, and salt&pepper to butter and stir. then dump the butter mixture onto the flattened dough and spread it all over that baby. (i recommend doing this when you make pizza too, it makes the crust better)

 

Then sprinkle the cheese all over and pop it in the oven for about 9-10 minutes or until bubbly and golden (I think you'll know when it's right.) Let it cool about 2 minutes before serving. Serve with marinara or my personal fave, ranch.

So, I accidentally bought reduced fat mozzarella (don't do this! gross.) and it did not cook pretty. I refuse to show an unappetizing picture of this. So I'll so what it's supposed to look like instead.

                             

Let me know how you like it!

a valentine's public service announcement.

Happy Valentine's Day, cute people.

Isn't this the cutest thing?

Today, we are poor so we are not giving into the commercialism of Valentine's day. I'm not really sure that Taylor will even do anything cause if he can't buy me stuff, he is completely hopeless. (He's SO romantic) Last night he did the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher, remember, so this is a big deal) and cleaned the kitchen and declared "THIS IS PART OF YOUR VALENTINE'S PRESENT." I'll take it.

Whenever I hear stories of girlfriends and wives getting offended that their man forgot Valentine's day, I think that's silly. Don't get me wrong, I like Valentine's day, but I don't like the sense of entitlement (or lack thereof) that it gives people. I don't like that it's a day where people expect gifts because they're in relationships or they feel sad because they aren't romantically involved with anyone. It's should be a day about ALL KINDS of love, cookies, and cutting out paper hearts. It should be a day where you get to creatively and openly express your love for the people in your life, whether that be your spouse, sibling, grandma, cat, child etc. 

So, you feel like this is Singles Awareness Day? Instead of focusing on yourself, and what you feel like you're missing out on, focus on the people you do have in your life. They love you. And you love them. And that is a wonderful thing.

If you just flat out hate Valentine's day and don't celebrate it. That's fine. But I think you should still take every oppourtunity possible to let the people you love, know just HOW MUCH you love them. Not JUST because you never know when you'll never get a chance. But also because it helps them feel good. I know I feel good when people tell me they love and care about me. Don't you?

Oh, and it just wouldn't be a married blogger valentine's post if I didn't say, OMG, I LOVE MY HUSBAND! I also love my dog. She is the cutest.

I love all of you, too!

Giveaway Winner: ANNOUNCED

First of all thank you all soooo much for your participation. All you guys waiting until the very last second are procrastinators after my own heart.

Anyway, I did this the old fashioned way as promised but, with a little twist, I let my dog pick the name out of the hat (beanie). I wasn't sure that she would be able to actually just grab one name out but, SHE DID. It was awesome.

                                            

AND

THE

WINNER

IS.....

JENALEE JOHA!

This was Jenjamin's submission which was super presh and awesome of her perfect child Gracie:

Congratulations Jenna, I hope you and Spreej use your fandango gift card wisely. 

Thanks again to everyone who participated and if you missed the deadline for the giveaway just know that you can submit an art is picture anytime you want on the Victus Creus facebook page.

"remind me of your name again?"

So last Friday we went to the Chili Cook Off at the church. We've actually gone to quite a few church activities which I am pretty proud of myself because I am normally a church anti-social. Where I come from I didn't need to be friends with people at church cause I had my own friends, also where I come from people at church suck. Here, people are friendly and cool/interesting.

Anyway, we've been in the ward for about... 4 months. Long enough that we're not really new. Long enough that we've met the same handful of people enough that we should remember their names, because they definitely remember ours, but for some reason my HUSBAND, can not remember anybody's names.

I was so embarrassed of him at this particular church function because people would be like, "hi taylor & kynslie" and Taylor would be like, "Remind me of your name again..." in a friendly tone, of course. But the time limit has passed where you can ask these people that without sounding like, "Hi, I'm an arsehole and you weren't significant enough to remember." I started keeping count in my head of how many times he said this to people that night, I got to 9 times and then got distracted.

He would even say that to people that we had never even met. Like instead of just saying, "Hi, I'm Taylor, what's your name?" He would say, "I'm Taylor, Remind me of your name again." and I just stared at him. I was in such awe of him, awe and embarrassment. There are other ways of talking to someone who's name you forgot. First of all, we're at church so you can just be like, "Brother" and "Sister" which to me is weird and what old people do, but it is acceptable, at church. There's also, buddy, guy, sir, ladyguy, ladysir, dude, bro, champ, sport, madam, girl, etc.

I'm not really sure how Taylor thrived and flourished so well in the single's ward before I came a long, with his blatant disregard for important personal details like someone's name. Maybe he lost his tact after he married me. Or maybe it was because he put out.

If you are reading this, and at some point this man of mine has forgotten your name, just ignore him. He called me Kinesly (pronounced Ka-eye-nz-lee) like the second time I met him, and I still married him. So he's obviously got some good qualities too.

wifed up wednesday: sigh, tissue pom poms.

today i realized it was wednesday. i came home from work and i got distracted by video games. because i'm not really a good wife, i just pretend.

i was going to do a picture tutorial like last week but then some other things happened so i made this video. i realize that probably everyone on the planet knows how to make these.

sorry that i look disgusting and sorry that i'm so large. and sorry about my weird hair. and sorry about my dog. but really i'm not sorry about any of it. but i'm truly sorry for the aeropostale hoodie, I don't even know where it came from. i think my friend's exboyfriend. awkward.

here you go! enjoy. next week will be better, i swear.

Tay edited this video for me. I am grateful but I wasn't supervising so weird things happened.

Also, I took way too long and the camera cut off so there's no ending. but here is the end result, in my mouth:

i really hope i don't make a habit out of this video thing or it will defeat the purpose of a blog...

the time Taylor's neighbor got shot.

throughout our travels i have found that when men tell stories to a group of people, their women (wife, girlfriend, fiance) like to "help" them tell the story. even, though, typically, it's a story that the woman was not around for, so most of the time their additions are either embellished or completely inaccurate. and so when this happens, it takes at least double the time for the guy to get through the story because she interrupts, or he has to constantly correct her.

in this video, Taylor tells the story of the time his neighbor was shot in the middle of the night. This was several years ago before we even met, but I help him tell the story anyway.

and sorry, a couple of times I almost busted up, because I think we are so hilarious.

ENJOY. (Nice thumbnail huh?)

 

don't forget about the GIVEAWAY.