Simply Living {And Rambling}

Sometimes I swear I could just live in my bathrobe. 

Making a shirt from scratch is more time-consuming than I thought. But I am persevering. Maybe you will get to see it one day.

I made the MOST. COMFORTABLE. PENCIL SKIRT. EVER. {tutorial soon!}

My little bro graduated high school.

How is he even that old??!

At primary last week a little 5-year-old very seriously stated as he shook his head, 'Man, I hate dying."

{seriously. dying is just the pits, isn't it?}

It was just about the most hilarious thing I've ever heard. 

Despite only needing one house out of all that are being sold, it is impossibly hard to find that one. House-hunting for 4 months now and I say ugh. 

How does life go by so fast? June is over! But that means my birthday month is almost here. {Yippee!!!}

I want an awesome one-piece swimsuit. Suggestions?

Journalings of a Primary Teacher {5-12-13}

This Sunday was not the best of Sundays. Whenever holidays come around, all the kids seem to get antsy and twitchy and chattery and reeeeeeally hard to calm down. My only comfort is in seeing all the other classes acting just as bad as mine when we sit down in primary {sorry presidency....you've got it tough}.

My partner was out sick, so I snatched Chris to come sit in on my class. And man am I glad I had a second person there, because they were all. over. the. place.

If there is one thing I have learned from teaching Primary so far, its that you really can't base your teaching skills or self-esteem off of how your class is acting some weeks. Because honestly, they are going to be naughty. They are going to throw paper airplanes at each other. They are going to look at you with that know-it-all face and tell you exactly why they don't have to do something. They will tell you you're a bad teacher. They will threaten to tattle on your bad teaching skills to their mothers. They will loudly whine in sharing time because you didn't let them color.  

They will be kids. 

And sometimes I frantically bust out of church like I haven't breathed fresh air in years. Sometimes I just have to let out a big ole' sigh because I'm pretty sure they didn't absorb an iota of the lesson I just taught. But that's primary. That's learning to be a teacher. And the funny moments always overshadow the bad ones.

Like during a discussion on the bishop's storehouse when one boy pipes up and says, "I bet I could do some calculations to figure out the amounts!" 

And the girl next to him sassily says, "You're not old enough to calculate!"

Or when the sharing time leader asks if anyone has a mom who follows the commandments, and one boy stands up and anxiously says, "My mom is obedient! But she didn't want to raise her hand so I had to tell you." His mother, also his teacher, turned bright red.

Like the times when you tell one girl who has the hiccups to hold her breath to get rid of them, and it turns into a traffic jam in the hallway because all the other girls stop and want to hold their breath too.

{who knew it was so much fun?}

Or when you ask them to explain what 'enduring to the end' means, and one girl compares it to having to re-build her lego castle multiple times. "I just kept having to re-do it because it would break, but I never gave up! And that's like enduring to the end."

I'm learning to be {extraordinarily} patient. I'm learning to say no and not worry about how upset a child may be because they will promptly get over it in the next 5 minutes. I'm learning how to find the humor in everything. And I'm learning how to tie lego castles into teaching the gospel.

And I love it. 

Adding Sleeves to a Tank Top

I was having a rather bad day yesterday, and when I have bad days....I become a {secret} spending addict.

No judging.



So ahem, yesterday was a bad day, and I ended up buying this top:

Because how could tiny bikes not make me feel better?!

It made me think of summer, which was both good and bad. Good because, well...DUH. It's SUMMER. And bad because summer is hot, and I don't like wearing a lot of layers. And because I'm LDS {check it out} I wear sleeves. And I really didn't want to cover up this cute tank with a cardigan {plus....hot.} So I decided to make sleeves.

Easier said than done. I searched madly all over the web and Pinterest for a tutorial on how to add sleeves to a tank top. There are a few out there: Cut off the sleeves from an old tee and sew them to the tank, or add long flutter-y sleeves also made from an old tee. Bleh. Nothing was what I wanted. 

And thus this tutorial was born. 

You need:

Matching fabric & coordinating thread

tank top

buttons {optional}

1. Fold your fabric in half. Measure from the top of your tank top to the bottom of the arm hole--this is how wide {top to bottom} your new sleeves should measure. Use another tee that you like the sleeves of to measure the length {shoulder to elbow}. Cut them out with seam allowance.

2. Cut out the "J" shape where the sleeve will attach to the tank top {forgot to take pics of this part}.

3. Sew the sleeve to the tank, right sides together. Then, sew down the length to close the sleeve {you could do this vice versa, but it worked better for me this way}.

4. Hem your sleeves to the desired length.

5. Attach button and strap if you want the gathered look.

And there you go, it's that easy. 

P.S. Don't judge me for my lack of real pants. 

Still Adjusting

I love Christmas. Like, looooove Christmas. 

In past years, I've dragged Chris with me to all sorts of Christmas-y things: the Festival of Trees, the Tree Jubilee, Temple Square to see the lights, ANY park to see the lights, sleigh rides, walking down Main Street in Cedar with cups of hot chocolate....

I'll take almost anything, people. 

But this year, with Chris working every night and me working most of them, I've realized we won't get the chance to do the Christmas things I love so much. 

And it will be a big adjustment for me. 

I miss a lot of things from our life in Cedar. 

I miss our giant Thanksgiving parties.

I miss seeing people I know around town.

I miss the cute cafe's that are open late.

I miss being able to get a freakin' scone. {SERIOUSLY. What kind of city doesn't have a good scone place??}

I miss the random late-night hangouts with friends.

 I miss friends, period.

I miss going through the drive-thru on Taco Tuesday with ten people shoved into the car. 

I miss the un-plowed roads in the winter, the cops who have nothing better to do than bust up our bonfires, and I even miss ducking my head to avoid my professors in the grocery store {because what can we possibly have to say to one another, anyway?}. 

But I suppose this move has given us a few things, too. 

I like being close to family. A 45-minute drive is immensely better than a 4-hour one. 

I like not having a bunch of single, loud, pretending-they're-not-smoking guys living above us.

I like learning to explore by myself. 

I like developing closer relationships with the few people we do know here. 

I like not having I'm-falling-off-the-edge-of-the-world gutters on every street.

And just as of a couple weeks ago, I like having my first-ever calling that does NOT involve playing the piano {i've literally only had piano-involved callings for the last TWELVE. YEARS.}.

So I guess I'm not really complaining, but I'm not really celebrating, either. This move has been full of lots of ups and downs, and I suppose I'm just going to have to learn to live with it. 

Because hey, c'est la vie.

{those four semesters of french weren't entirely wasted.}