The grinch's heart that grew 10 sizes

Confession: I used to be the grinch who stole Christmas.

It's true, when we got married I told Andrew he could forget about any decorations and I only very grudgingly agreed to let him get a tree.

I guess I've gradually softened up, though. Our second Christmas together I made some ornaments, and little by little by decorations have evolved into handmade everything.

On a side note, Andrew and I have a running disagreement about lights on Christmas trees. I think colored lights on trees are hideous/tacky and detract from the ornaments. Andrew thinks trees with only white lights are completely bland and boring. Fortunately for me, it looks like my aesthetics have won (at least for now).

What do you think?

Also, neither of us are red people so most of our decorations are pink and teal (each of our favorite colors).

ABCs of me (aka worst post title ever)

Age: 23.5
Bed Size: Queen, and it's also the canopy bed of my childhood dreams.
Chore you hate: Anything involving a bathroom. Also, yard work.
Dogs: I want a Yorkie SO bad.
Essential start of your day: Putting in my contacts so I can see what the world looks like again.
Favorite Color: Coral, aqua, mustard yellow, navy blue, grey...I love colors.
Gold or silver: Both.
Height: Just under 5'7", but I swear I used to be 5'7.5" so I think I might have osteoporosis.
Instruments you play: I took piano lessons for 10 years...but don't ask me to play for you because I might cry.
Job Title: Substitute teacher who's teaching herself graphic design and very slowly/lazily working on stuff for an Etsy shop. And hoping to go to grad school.
Kids: None, much to my mother-in-law's chagrin.
Live: SLC, UT
Mom’s Name: Michelle. As a child of the 1960s she got the Beatles song sung to her all the time.
Nickname: My family calls me "El" and Andrew calls me "bestie."
Overnight Hospitals Stays: None.
Pet Peeve: When strangers (especially girls who are around my age) call me "hun." Um, I don't know you and I'm definitely not your hun.
Quote from a movie: From Le Fabuleaux Destin d'Amelie Poulain. "My little Amélie, you don't have bones of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance pass, eventually, your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton."
Right or left handed: Right.
Siblings: One sister and two brothers. They're the best.
Time you wake up: As late as possible.
Underwear: Yes.
Vegetables you dislike: Jalapenos.
What makes you run late: Picking out an outfit/changing outfits/despairing at having nothing to wear as I look at a closet out of which clothes are literally spilling.
X-rays you’ve had done: My teeth.
Yummy food you make: Andrew likes my homemade pesto, but I think I'm a little more partial to desserts I make...like chocolate chip cookies stuffed with s'mores.
Zoo animal: I don't like zoos. But I like zebras.

Washington DC

This past week Andrew I were in Washington DC with his family. While I fell in love with the Virginia countryside, the humidity made me rethink my plans of buying a cottage and a farm and settling in. Here are some pictures compliments of instagr.am.

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Great Falls Park

Great Falls Park

Mt. Vernon

Colonial Williamsburg

Richmond, Virginia

On a side note, how did people live before macaroni and cheese was invented (read: we ate some really good Southern comfort food while there)?

Happy Birthday Andrew

Last year was Andrew's golden birthday (26 on the 26th) but this year he turns 27 and since 27 is one of my favorite numbers, I wrote up a list of little known facts about Andrew/things I love about him.

This will probably embarrass him, but I don't care.

1. He is a smarty-pants. I mean he's the smartest person I've ever known. Ask him a question, any question about anything, and he'll know the answer. Try it.
2. He's a photographer. Here's his Flickr.
3. People love him. I get told all the time by strangers, family members, and friends that he's a genius/super talented/movie star handsome.
4. When we got a new wireless router, he surprised me by naming our new network "Cupcake" because I love cupcakes so much.
5. He understands me perfectly and knows what I'm thinking before I even say it most of the time.
6. He's a really hard worker and very accomplished.
7. He takes an interest in decorating our apartment together, and he also cares about his clothing.
8. He's endlessly patient.
9. I've never had a problem Andrew couldn't figure out or fix for me (specifically computer related problems).
10. He loves food and he's good at cooking.
11. He tells me I'm pretty several times a day.
12. He's interested in almost everything and one of the funnest people to go vacations with.
13. He never says something unless he means it, so I can always trust his opinion.
14. His biggest dream is to be an astronaut.
15. He is always willing to help anyone out when they need it.
16. He has excellent taste in music and collects vinyl LPs.
17. He thinks there is nothing better than watching an episode of COPS while eating a big bowl of ice cream.
18. He loves his family's dog he grew up with and promises me we'll have a menagerie of our own someday.
19. Almost every day he thanks me for marrying him and being with him.
20. He's really good at picking out presents for people and he loves giving gifts.
21. He thinks I'm really funny.
22. He's generous and kind.
23. We agree on almost everything (excepting some food and movies).
24. If Andrew could have one wish, it would be to make tomatoes extinct. He believes eating them will cause his untimely death on the spot.
25. He wants to live in a cottage on the beach or the forest with me.
26. We met in the summertime and whenever I think about summer I'm reminded of him.
27. He's the best person I know.

More England and Ireland Pictures

Wow, I feel like I've gotten so behind on reading blogs/writing my own posts I don't know if I'll ever catch up.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from our trip. Andrew still has two rolls of undeveloped 35 mm film, so I might be putting some more up in the future.

We went to England with my family because my dad was invited to speak at a conference at Oxford University and my parents decided to rent a house and said Andrew and I could stay with them for free. My dad has a Masters and PhD from Oxford in Anthropology and I was born in England while he was attending school. When I was little we lived in England and Africa (where my dad completed his anthropological fieldwork) before moving to the United States when I was almost 5 years old. Before this trip I hadn't been back to England since I was 15, so needless to say, I was really excited. I think I have Andrew almost convinced to buy a cottage in the Cotswolds and move there permanently. We'll see, haha.

Haircut

Because I force Andrew to get his hair cut at the same salon as I do so his hair can look stylish/adorable, our haircut expenses are $$$. I forgot to take into consideration the fact that boys get their hair cut every few months or so, whereas I get mine cut maybe twice a year if I can get the nerve up (does getting their hair cut give anyone else extreme anxiety?).

For the past little while I've been begging Andrew to buy a clipper set and let me cut his hair. Despite serious misgivings, he finally broke down last week, and after watching exactly one Youtube tutorial (did I mention I've never cut anyone's hair before?), I started snipping away. Up until the first few hairs fell, I was all confidence and Andrew was all nerves.

About 1.5 minutes into the haircut, it proved to be a lot more difficult than I had anticipated and panic welled up inside me. I hesitatingly informed Andrew that I had never felt less confident about anything else I had ever done in my life. Mr. You're probably going to scalp me/accidentally cut my ears off replied (cool as a cucumber) to just keep cutting and everything would be okay.

1 grueling hour later Andrew declared his new haircut a 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 10 and I nervously patted myself on the back like 5 times because our experiment didn't turn out like Even to Save Cash, Don't Try This Stuff at Home.

Before:


After:


Note: this haircut took place a few hours previous to the demise of my elbow.

Fractured Elbows/Pillow Pets/Turquoise Dressers

For the past several days I've been lying in bed because I fractured my elbow and my right arm has been essentially useless/extremely painful to move.

How does one fracture their elbow, you might ask?

Doing laundry. And hitting my arm very, very, very, hard on the coin slot on the washing machine while vigorously throwing in a batch of clothes. I never knew I got so excited about doing laundry until I injured myself.

This several day stint in bed has provided me with ample time to watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and True Blood. During the scary scenes having the unicorn pillow pet I begged Andrew to buy me has come in really handy for squeezing (with my left arm). Amethyst (my pillow pet's name) has also proved her dual usefulness by being the only thing on which I can rest my elbow without it hurting.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you watch scary things or fracture your elbow, you should get a pillow pet.

Now, onto the real point of this post. During all the time I spent in bed, I re-evaluated our bedroom and decided Andrew's dresser needed a makeover.

So it went from this...




To this.



With owl knobs from Anthropolgie.

(One day I'll use Andrew's nice camera to take pictures for this blog, but until then, iPhone + Instagram it is.)

Park City

I've been in Utah the longest of any place in my life, but it's probably my least favorite place I've ever lived. Since we might be moving in the next year or so, depending on where Andrew gets into grad school, I decided we should explore places in Utah we've never been to before. What Utah lacks in city life it more than makes up for in natural land formations and random little towns in the middle of nowhere. Andrew just quit his job to work from home, and my teaching job doesn't start until the fall, so this summer will be the summer of adventures.

Even though we've been to Park City several times, we decided to head up there today because it's a short drive from Salt Lake City. Park City was a mining town, then a ghost town, and now it's a big ski resort town and home of the Sundance Film Festival. Here are some pictures from our adventure.








I think this is a Banksy original that he secretly did when his film Exit Through the Gift Shop (which is great) premiered at Sundance.


My eyebrows look like Brooke Shields, but this was the only picture I could get Andrew to agree to take with me, haha.

Conversation

I'll probably stop posting about my new glasses sometime in the near future, but right now I'm obsessed.



Ellie: Andrew, I'm worried. Do my new glasses make me look like Woody Allen?
Andrew: Uhhhh, no. You don't look like a 70 something year-old man who married his daughter.

I sighed in relief.

Picnic Please?

Mother Nature is officially on my bad side. I am over her. I have planned not one, but five picnics this year that had to be cancelled due to last minute weather changes.

The latest picnic I planned was for lunch today. I picked Andrew up from work during his lunch break and we headed for a nearby park, but it suddenly started raining. We decided to just eat in the car. Andrew opened the lid to his cream soda and it erupted like a volcano. By erupted, I mean cream soda sprayed all over both of us and onto every surface inside our car. We were both both stunned at first, but it was actually pretty hilarious. If the cream soda was Mt Vesuvius, we probably would have died.

I don't know what Mother Nature wants from me, maybe a peace offering? I try to recycle when I can, but I guess I'm going to have to come up with something better if I ever want to go on a picnic again.

Here are some pictures from the last picnic we went on, which I think was in September of last year.

Toms

This weekend Andrew and I got some off-white Toms and used fabric markers/fabric to make our own designs on them.

Andrew's had a tree design.





Mine had pink flowers.





I secretly like how his turned out better than mine, but I'm still excited to wear them when it finally stops raining.

Magic v. Space Travel

Ellie: I know you look down on me for liking Harry Potter, but if you got a letter saying you were accepted to Hogwarts and magic existed in the world, wouldn't it be the best day of your life?

Andrew: Does Harry Potter get to go to space?

Ellie: Um, no.

Andrew: Then it wouldn't be the best day of my life.

Conversation

Andrew: Okay fine, you can cut your hair off really short. But only if you really want to.

Ellie: Is this like when I say "You can shave your beard off if you really want to" but it actually means "If you shave your beard off, I'll die" ?

Andrew: Yes.