I was moseying around tonight and found this talk from www.lds.org. Its called Television and Time by Elder F. Burton Howard of the First Quorum of the Seventy. It really hit home. I wouldn't say I spend a lot of time watching television - but I certainly waste plenty of time doing other things just as unimportant and unproductive. My biggest excuse for things left undone is always "There wasn't enough time!" Here is a part of what he said - I can't believe it was back in the 70s! Imagine if he could see us now....

     "Now, brothers and sisters, one of the great cries of modern man is we don’t have time to do the things we should do. We don’t do our genealogy because we don’t have time. We don’t love our neighbor because we don’t have time. And yet we spend more time watching television than any other single elective thing in this world. I don’t believe the excuse is going to hold any water with the Lord. I don’t believe that we can ever say we didn’t have time. I think all we’ll be able to say, rather lamely, is that our priorities were not the same as the Lord’s."

I'm setting a goal to prioritize more and set weekly goal of things I want to get done. Here are a few for the rest of the week.

For me:
1. Go on 4 walks
2. Everyday make 10 minutes of quiet time for myself

For me the wife:
1. Make Matthew Eggs Benedict

For me the house keeper:
1. Vacuum both staircases
2. Wash the front of the refrigerator

For me the student:
1. Read Theories’ of Physical Science chapters 2-7 for class and get my home work done the night before (ugh...literally like 100 pages...)

While that may seems like a weak list, I would feel really happy at the end of the week if I knew those things had gotten done.

Have you read, "Don't be in a hurry" from this months Ensign? - also priceless. I need to frame it somewhere as a reminder. :)

We had a happy surprise this week! Our "container garden" has been doing awesome - but I thought it would still be weeks before we would have blossoms. When I went out to water our tomatoes they had some little shining faces to show off! Yeay!

Today is the two year anniversary of the day I think Matthew and I met. :) We have agreed to disagree on the actual date - was it the 15th of June or the 22nd? Some of you were there! :) Either way - one Sunday morning, two years ago I got up in church to give a talk and my eyes fell on the most handsome man I'd ever see - and the voice in the back of my mind said "He is going to be soo much trouble."..... Turns out.. it was right!

In honor of this pseudo-holiday here are 101 things I love about you Hottie Honey

I love the way I know you'll never give up on me.
I love that you are honest about your opinions – even when I don’t want to hear them.
I love the way you look at me.
I love how beautiful your eyes are.
I love the way I can't imagine a day without you in my life.
I love the way if we were ever separated I wouldn't know how to go on.
I love the way you let me cuddle with your arm.
I love your great butt.
I love how I know you'll always be there when I need you to be.
I love the fact that I will always be there for you too.
I love how when I dream of my life partner, the only person that I can see is you.
I love how complete I feel when I am with you.
I love how our bodies just fit together.
I love that you are everything that I could ever dream of.
I love the way you make me laugh.
I love how dang sexy you are.
I love the way you laugh.
I love the way you don't compromise yourself.
I love your mind.
I love your thoughtfulness.
I love your tenderness.
I love your hands.
I love that you are that you are the man and I am the woman – YOUR woman.
I love the way you tell me you love me with your eyes.
I love the way you treat my friends even the weird ones.
I love how sometimes I have to tell you no.
I love how delicious you are to me.
I love how you demand respect but are far from controlling.
I love how I would do anything in this world to make you happy.
I love how you water the plants when I forget.
I love your voice.
I love that I STILL get chills I get when you kiss me.
I love how valiantly you honor your priesthood.
I love your sensuality.
I love how our love feels like the perfect romance movie.
I love the way you handle stressful things.
I love the way you respect me.
I love the way you protect and defend me.
I love the way you kiss.
I love how you feel when we cuddle.
I love that you are the hardest working person I know.
I love the way you support me in my ever changing hobbies most recent obsessions.
I love that so often I close my eyes and I still see you there.
I love waking up to find we've been cuddling for a long time.
I love your intelligence.
I love your ability to make friends where ever we go.
I love your love for life.
I love your passion for your hobbies and interests.
I love how every time I look at you, my insides tighten and I fall in love with you again.
I love how patient you are with me.
I love how even though you are a crazy nascar driver I still feel safe with you.
I love how my spirit smiles whenever you walk into the room.
I love how you love me.
I love that I can’t really remember life before you.
I love the ways you choose to show your affection for me.
I love the way you inspire me to be a better person.
I love the way you spark my creativity and imagination.
I love how you let me stand very very close to you when we walk.
I love the way you make me feel like anything is possible as long as I'm with you.
I love your sense of humor.
I love the way you make me feel like royalty.
I love the way you dress.
I love you just the way you are.
I love your spontaneity.
I love our life together.
I love how if I died right now I would be the happiest person alive knowing I found my one true love.
I love that the idea of always being with you actually makes me excited to grow old.
I love you are honest with your feelings.
I love the way you look when you’re sleeping.
I love your willingness to share everything and most especially your heart with me – except milk. You don’t share milk and that is just fine with me.
I love that you listen country music, just because you love me.
I love the way you treat me.
I love that you are a good man.
I love the way you take care of us.
I love how sometimes you are a cocky son of a gun.
I love how turned on I am watching you cook.
I love the way you show your affection when we are around friends or family.
I love it when I buy the wrong ranch or jelly and you demand that I return them and get the right ones. :)
I love the confidence you have in yourself.
I love that you have so much faith in our Father.
I love your ability to make me feel better when times are tough.
I love how much you love my siblings.
I love that no matter what we do I cannot get enough of you.
I love the way we make up after not getting along.
I love how you treat children.
I love how much you love my family.
I love that you are a dork.
I love that you respect my parents.
I love the way you support me when I'm off track.
I love the way you take the time to show me how much you love me.
I love your great hair.
I love your body – every piece of it!
I love your openness to try new things.
I love your ability to talk things through.
I love your courage to be you.
I love that even though it annoys you, you let me sit very very VERY close to you on the couch when we watch TV.
I love your greatness.
I love the fact that you want to be with me and only me.
I love your scrambled eggs. They are one of the seven world wonders.
I love the way you prefer vegetables and fruit to junk food.
I love that you have an endless amount of patience for my siblings. Lol.. and me.
I love that you encourage me to learn.
I love that you always always smell good.
I love that you put tomatoes, avocados and Parmesan cheese on everything.
I love that you don’t change you to fit me.
I love that you open the door for me.
I love how you will go out of your way to make sure that we are still dating each other.
I love you because you are you!

Please welcome the newest member of our family! A few weeks ago an online nursery had a sale, $20.00 off of a $20.00 or more purchase so we thought "What the heck! Lets buy something!" So today this little Improved Meyer Dwarf Lemon Tree was delivered to our door. It looks a kind of sad, but I would be too if I had been shipped in a box all the way from Penn. Hopefully within the next year or two it will look more like this! lol.... but we'll see what happens.

Who IS that handsome devil? Aw... thats my hottie honey! Happy Birthday baby! Thanks for being the greatest husband a girl could ever have! You're all the things I wanted when I was young and didn't know any better and still everything my mother prayed for! :)

umm delic! Tonight for dinner we took Matthew's dad out to Rooster in Provo. yuum. I could have died. Although I'm pretty sure the men would have preferred bbq somewhere I had wanted to try this place for a long time. I found a $25.00 gift certificate for them off of CityDeals for only $12.50 so I thought it was a good time to give it a whirl! (what? you've never heard of CityDeals? They are awesome- really. 1/2 off gift certificates - what more could you want? okay… more than half off and that happens too!)
I'm a diehard potsticker lover. We ordered a half a dozen each of the pork & chive and the shrimp with roasted red peppers dumplings (potstickers) (9), udon noodle stir fry with oyster mushrooms (11), a small plate of Shrimp and fresh herb fritters (5) and two orders of their grilled asparagus and grilled cotija cheese (5).
I really couldn’t have been happier! The dumplings were the best I had had in at least 8 years - seriously. I still remember the last time a had great dumplings, I was in Hawaii and my aunt had just made a massive platter full for a family outing. (When i say dumplings think oriental style not southern grandma - those are a whole different love story) The asparagus and cheese was also some of the best I've ever tasted and I'm super picky about how I will eat it.
Next time I go I will try something besides the udon noodles, but its not because I didn't like them - there were just a few to many mushrooms for my taste - but the think doughy noodles were scrumptious
We went a little over board for dessert and got both the chocolate lava cake with hazelnut whipped cream and the cheesecake wontons with blueberry sauce to split. (7 a piece I think) The wontons were to die for. um.. I'll be dreaming food in my sleep!
When its just Matthew and I eating out we don't usually order so much food. We skip the appetizers and a lot of times will share a meal because we never finish two. But I'm so glad we tried so many things tonight! Sometimes you just need to get out and try a new place! I absolutely recommend your wander over to citydeals.com, grabyourself a certificate and then head to Rooster on a date night!  - I will GLADLY come with you!

Check out this super cute recipe card! Its a free pdf from the blog Vol. 25. (She has some other really cute downloads too - like love notes for your lover!) I'm trying to do better at meal planning and right now my recipe binder is just a billion printed pages that I can't never seem to sort through so I'm excited to put them on real recipe cards!

Do you meal plan? I'm not very good at coming up with something to make off the top of my head at the end of the day when we are both tired and hungry- I'm too much of a planner for that. So I have been gathering recipes I know we like to have on hand, picking two of them on Sunday night and adding whatever ingredients we don't already have to my shopping list for that week. That way I know that when hottie honey's stomach growls we have at least two options for a home made dinner. (Sometimes we still opt for pizza but who doesn't like a good pizza once and while! :) )   Do you have any easy-breezy dinners you love to make? I would love to give them a try! :)

Have you looked outside? Yep- a rainy Sunday. Thanks Lord. You rock.

Tonight we went with Matthew's family to see Jerry Seinfeld live at Abravanel Hall! HILARIOUS! I loved it. If you ever get the chance to go see him, its worth it!
We followed it up by a scrumptious dinner at Hires and playing sardines with Matthew volvo - squishing 6 of us in. :) What a great night! Happy early birthday hottie honey!

It was a crazy morning. But I guess the whole last week has been. Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-

Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday all blurred into one long never ending day. I had woke up late again, and though I had only been awake for 25 minutes I could already feel the tired frustration growing.

So in a huge rush, I kissed my sleeping honey on the cheek and make a b-line exit for the bedroom door. "ugh..." I thought..."again with the rushing everywhere... this isn't worth it!!" I could have just cried.

"Wait!" Matthew shot up in bed - clearly more asleep than not. "Lets pray!

My heart melted. I wasn't in the mind set for it and I certainly didn't have time. But it was exactly what I needed. I'm so grateful when Matthew forces me to take a quiet moment. No tv, no radio, internet or car, no rushing. Just quiet.

Have you listened to Keith Urban's song "Raining on Sunday"? Its an old one, but remains on my list of - "Top 5 Songs That Make Me Feel Better". Some times I sing it to myself on crazy days.

It ticks just like a Timex
It never lets up on you
Who said life was easy
The job is never through
It'll run us 'til we're ragged
It'll harden our hearts
And love could use a day of rest
Before we both start falling apart


Pray that it's raining on Sunday
Stormin' like crazy
We'll hide under the covers all afternoon
Baby whatever comes Monday
Can take care of itself
'Cause we got better things that we could do
When it's raining on Sunday


Your love is like religion
A cross in Mexico
And your kiss is like the innocence
Of a prayer nailed to a door
Oh surrender in much sweeter
When we both let it go
Let the water wash our bodies clean
And love wash our souls


I pray that it's raining on Sunday
Stormin' like crazy
We'll hide under the covers all afternoon
Baby whatever comes Monday
Can take care of itself
'Cause we got better things that we could do
When it's raining on Sunday

What helps you get through the crazy days?

For you who are using printable coupons only, this blogger (HERE) does a really good job of posting new links. This Coupon Databse (HERE) by the Krazy Coupon Lady is also a great resource. To use it I hit CTRL+F to search for items that are on my grocery list that I don't already have coupons for. For example, I type in "foil" to search for any coupons for aluminum foil. If the word you typed in is listed on the page it will highlight it, to see if there are any more, hit you enter key. Don't forget to print them twice!

Here are a few of my favorites right now -

• 0.70 cents off any Pillsbury Cresents (HERE)
• $1.00 off of any Gold'n Plump Natural Chicken (HERE) (I love this chicken - its MUCH better than the frozen bags)
• $1.50 off and Pond's cream, towelette or cleansing product (HERE) (My favorite wipes for removing make-up)

Enjoy! :)

Last weekend was the Utah Special Olympics Summer Games! My work was great to let me take time off to spend with Sarah! Paul usually competes too, but this time he stayed home. She did a GREAT job running the 25, 50 and 100 meter dashed - bringing home 3 ribbons! I'm so proud of you Sarah!

Did you know you could salvage hard brown sugar? I had no idea! If you DID know - shame on you for not telling me. :) How may times have I thrown out a nearly full bag because it had gone hard? 
If you notice your brown sugar has gone hard and you don't immediately need it, place it in an air tight container with a piece of bread on top, within a day or so the moisture in the bread will have softened the sugar and its ready to you! If you need it right away, place a few chunks in a microwaveable dish. Slide the dish into a ziplock bag with a few tablespoons of water in the bottom. Zip it tight then microwave the bag for 5-10 second until the bag is steamy. Let it sit for a few minutes, then open it up and your ready to go!