Baby Leonardo DiCaprio

Remember when Leonardo DiCaprio was like...literally, the king of the world? I remember reading about him in my friend's teen bop magazine, watching him in Growing Pains, and secretly wishing I were Rose on the front of that boat. These pictures actually remind me of Justin Bieber. Is that bad? Don't hate me. It's true, and I speak truth. My favorite one is #6. Doesn't he look like Matt Damon in #2 and that burglar from Home Alone in #7?

PS, can't wait to see this.

Morning Pep Talk

Do you ever have to give yourself a pep talk?

Sometimes I do it before going into a job interview. (When I was jobless right after graduation, this happened a lot). I'd bump Lupe Fiasco's "The Show Goes On" basically the whole drive there, remind myself that I'm awesome and that a job's a job, and life is for joy, not jobs. Joy, not jobs.

I like Mindy Kaling's version of a pep talk...

"Sometimes you just have to put on lip gloss and pretend to be psyched."

Sometimes that's all you need to get through a day.


Remember this girl? She might be the most positive person on the planet, and I appreciate that. I could definitely take a cue from her. My favorite lines from her morning pep talk:

"I like my Allisons!"

How many Allisons do you have, kid?

"I can do anything good!!!!"

Yeah, girl. Get it girl.

"Look, I can be a sark!!!!!!!!!!"

You mean shark? Awesome. Me, too.

A Shopping Tip

When you have Best Friend Day, and you don't really have plans besides "going to lunch" and "window shopping", here's a tip: never bring your debit card with you and accidentally drive yourselves over to the fanciest mall in all the land. Bring only cash. Don't ask me how I learned this...



















...the hard way.

When I get home from a long day at work

A Love Poem to Kristen Wiig

your expressions, induplicable
seriously, how do you get your face like that?
my kristen wiig laugh includes crying
tears of awesome
let's be best friends

Be A Party

Have you seen Kid President yet? What am I saying? Of course you have! Remember how I'm always the last one on the boat when anything cool happens? I don't know why I'm like that...but I've seen KP's videos get re-posted a kajillion times and never clicked on them until my co-worker sent me a link this weekend. 

He's basically just a kid in a suit who dances around and gives pep talks to adults, because adults are boring. He's awesome.

My favorite advice from him so far?

This may or may not be my new motto for the week. So happy Monday, you beautiful people! Go out there and be a party! 

PS: My two favorite videos to date.

Confession: I'm Scared of My Gym

Guys. Do you have a workout that makes you feel like a champion? I'm talking about the kind of workout that you've done so much you could probably host a perky YouTube video and get like....100 likes. 

Wanna know what mine is?

The elliptical.

I. have. that. shiz. down.

When I walk into the gym, I swagger up to that beast and stare it down like there's no tomorrow. I hop on, tune into some Kardashians if I'm lucky to find them, and rock it out like nobody's business. For like an hour. When I step off, I feel awesome. And then I walk on out of there and ignore the rest of the machines like I'm 13 and I have crushes on all of them.

When it comes to doing other stuff at the gym, I feel like that kid in kickball who always gets picked last. I'm always worried I'll look dumb using the other machines, so I don't even try.

I realize to get in shape you need to work your muscles on other things besides an elliptical. My brain gets it.

But it's not all my fault. The gym I frequent seems to be disproportionately populated by men whose spirit animals are 'roided out bulldogs, and orange women who strip to their neon skivvies during a 5-minute mile. They don't even stop their treadmills. They do that douchebag step-to-the-side move. and proceed to strip. 

Every ten minutes they all seem to meet at the water fountain and flirt.

This is what I'm dealing with here. It's too much pressure.

So in the spirit of "doing what you've never done to achieve what you've never achieved" (ie. an alright body), I've turned to internet workouts to get my body moving.

Workouts I can do in my living room while my husband watches a movie in our bedroom. Workouts that can let me feel like an idiot in the privacy of my own home. Workouts that will help me tone and stretch and huff and puff on my own time in weird weird clothing. 

The goal? To graduate from one-trick-pony elliptical status to champion I'm-not-embarrassed-to-work-out-at-my-own-gym status. 

I'm slowly finding new workouts that make me feel like an elephant doing ballet. But it's better than nothing.

We'll see what happens.

For tonight, voila.

Top 30 Memes of 2012

You should all know by now that I think memes are hilarious. I've been saving my favorite ones because it's double funny to forget about something you thought was funny, then laugh about it when you find it again. Here are 30 memes that make me laugh harder than they should. Please leave a comment and vote for your favorite one. I'll announce the winner as the BEST MEME OF 2012!!!!!

Check out 29 more awesome memes after the jump! 

End of the World Favorites

Happy End of the World! We are safe and sound in California. It's been a great 14 hours so far, and no Zombie Apocalypse! Here are a few of my favorite things this week:

Look at this octopus!

Paint your own matryoshka dolls?!?!?!?!?!

Super fun wrapping ideas for kids presents.

A gift that anyone would love to open.

72 years of Batman logos on a single poster.

If the Apocalypse actually does come today, I hope that I am holding this when it happens.

Oh my gosh, look at this print!

My friend told me she was attending an End of the World Party. What does an EOTWP look like, you ask? I guess people bring their favorite food and do fun stuff that would look cool if you were found dead...that's actually a guess. They probably just played Wii or something. Either way, FUN. What are you doing for the End of the World????? (I'll probably spend it trying to make my nephew love me more than my husband, and eating bacon.)

A Sunday Quote

I hope you had some of both of these this weekend. I know I did. If you didn't literally laugh out loud when you saw this cat, keep looking until you do. This picture makes me so happy.

We just got back from seeing The Hobbit. That movie is so long and epic that I felt like I had a reality hangover when I walked out of the theater. We also got to try out Texas Roadhouse with our friends who just had a baby. We were there for their first night out since she's been born!

In other news, I may have gone extra hard at the gym today just so I could nosh on the gingerbread house we made at cousin night.

I'm also pretty sure I'm starting a book club. Message me if you're interested in joining! I'll probably post the book on here so anyone who wants to can join in!

The Best Thing Matt Has Ever Said To Me

So Matt and I spend a lot of time at home relaxing. Work is crazy, and home is this blissful sanctuary where we watch tv and google crap until the cows come home. We go on real dates on the weekends and go to the gym or the store, but we do spend a lot of after-work time at home. Last night I did yoga and Matt got pumped on his doorway pull-up contraption. And then we ate dinner on the couch. Something on tv must have referenced a chicken (I wasn't paying attention), because all of a sudden, Matt blurts out,

"Babe, did you know that I know how to hypnotize chickens?"

I mean, you can't just spring something like that on someone who's knee-deep in Pinterest. It's just too random! It was so out of the blue that I couldn't stop laughing for like 3 whole minutes.

Just the image of him trying to calm a chicken down makes me crack up.

I didn't even know chicken hypnosis was a thing! Apparently you do that before you kill it. Which makes me sad.

But there you go! Now you and I know about one more crazy strange thing that exists in the world.

So this is officially the best thing Matt has ever said to me, besides all that romantic stuff he said while we were engaged haha.

Happy hump day, y'all.

The Best Christmas Movies Of All Time

Remember when I talked about my favorite family Christmas traditions? Watching movies together is a big part of that. In honor of one of my favorite traditions, I have compiled a list of the best holiday movies to watch this month to get you into a festive mood. This post could also be called:

"The Best 17 Movies to Watch At Christmas Because They're Awesome And I've Seen Them And They Mention Christmas At Some Point". Enjoy! 

1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

2. Home Alone

3. Meet Me In St. Louis

4. The Santa Clause

5. The Polar Express

6. Elf

7. White Christmas

8. To Grandmother's House We Go (Oh yeah. This is happening. I was addicted to MK+A growing up. Watched every movie 10 trillion times. This is staying on the list, mostly because it makes me happy to see them pre-hobo.)

9. The Harry Potter series

10. Little Women

11. Mean Girls

12. Serendipity

13. The Holiday

14. Sleepless in Seattle

15. When Harry Met Sally

16. You've Got Mail

17. The Family Stone

I won't apologize that 3 of those movies feature Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks/Billy Crystal. While googling Christmas movies to refresh my memory, I stumbled upon this gem. I've never seen it, but I might pay a billion dollars to find a copy.

Your turn. Do you have a favorite Christmas movie?

How I feel on a day off from work

Am I the only one who likes being home more than being outside? I work crazy hours sometimes, which means I get days off in the middle of the week. Normal people might use those days to run errands or go to the gym, or see people or even go outside, but not me! A day off for me means waking up when I'm ready to wake up, blogging, reading, catching up on TV shows and not putting a bra on.  

What can I say, I love being at home! I need that time to rejuvinate and prepare myself to be at work for the rest of the week.

I realize that days like this won't last forever. I feel like I've caught a magical unicorn. There is no homework to stress over, and no kids to take care of yet. I do my work at work, and the days off are  magical stress-free days that I know will go away soon. So I'm relishing them!

Weekend Update

Strange Thanks

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Confession #2

Guys...I have another confession to make.

Yesterday, Matt found out that he got into BYU. I was thrilled, because we have a life here in Provo, and it would be sad to leave it. Also, he didn't apply anywhere else. Basically, we are two lucky ducks!

As a Facebook friend said, "I love that he got into the only place he applied! It's like betting on yourself and winning!"

He asked me for advice on scheduling classes, and I got SO EXCITED....Like, beyond words excited. I was so visibly excited that he let me do it all by myself.

That's right. I'm the girl who loves planning school schedules more than most things.

In fact, I love basically everything about school. This might just be my post-grad adult self talking, because I'm pretty sure that when I was actually going through college, I kind of had a hard time. I also just think that's my personality, to see the grass on the other side as greener than my own. Since graduation, I have found myself missing school. That's right, I said it. I miss school. 

I'm like Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail. I love the excitement in the air throughout fall, the bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils.

I love shopping for school supplies and new clothes. I love organizing my schedule and writing in my planner. I love checking homework off of lists, reading and learning new things. I love not knowing what I'll be learning that semester, and the possibility of new ideas. I love bundling up to walk to school in crisp morning air. I love working with my mind. To me, fall time + a new school year always felt like a chance to start over again.

Mostly, I think I love school because I'm good at it. I'm not great at a lot of things, but I've got this school thing down. I'm pretty sure I was built for the structure and set expectations that school brings. I may not be able to hit a baseball farther than 3 feet, wrangle a crowd with my awesomeness, or care about politics, but dang, I have this school thing down.

So I miss it. Almost every day I think about going back. I'll just have to live vicariously through Matt. I guess, for now, that will be enough.

The Little Brother Test

Guys. I have this theory.

Let me back it up to the good ol days of 2008. Matt started doggin on me HARD at Jacob Lake, and I was so baffled that a boy smaller (circumference-wise) than me could ever be into me. I'm a curvy lady. He's 6'5" and very slim. I'm used to having no romantic hope for anyone besides football players,. My friends and I even had a joke that I would only date Triple B's (Big Boned Boys)....until Matt.

The first year of dating, I kept wondering how he could ever be attracted to me, and what people thought of us when they saw us in public. I always wondered if we looked like a "normal couple", or if people were wondering about us behind our backs. Yeah, I'm that girl. Then I came up with a theory to validate my obsessive insecurities!

The Little Brother Test

Usually, when a girl dates a boy, the boy has to be at least one of the following three things for the girl to feel feminine enough to date him:

1. Older (in age, or in personality)

2. Bigger

3. Taller

If he's not at least one of these, the girl often feels like she's dating her little brother. 

Since Matt fit #3, we were golden! He was also pretty mature for his age, which helped a lot with #1.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's see how celebrities did on the Little Brother Test:

Exhibit A: 

Jennifer Aniston can do whatever she wants. But John Mayer fits the 2nd and 3rd rules, so they can "break" the 1st rule. Bam. Winners. Normal couple.

Exhibit B:

Immortal Cher + Young Tom Cruise. 

Apparently there's a rumor going around that they dated in the 80's? They break #1 AND #2, and this picture looks like the backstage of Tom's high school choir concert and Cher is his mom. It just doesn't work. Un-win.

Exhibit C:

Old Tom Cruise + Brainwashed Katie Holmes.

They are on another planet. Any relationship test you give them, they. will. fail.

Their answer is cat.

I realize that relationships are more than looks. But let's be honest...girls think about bizarre things like this. Now, all I care about is that Matt and I make each other happy; and that trumps and kind of dumb Cosmo test I make up and post on my blog.

But still... Does a relationship have to pass the Little Brother test to make a couple "normal", or am I cray?

Reality TV

Admit it, there is at least one reality show out there that you die over. Watching the cray crays on reality tv is my sick way of validating my life choices. It goes something like this:

Unsure about how life is going. 

Turn on tv. 

Find a juicy reality show with bizarre drama.

Watch it for ten minutes. 

Immediately feel better because my life doesn't resemble Snooki's/ I wasn't raised by Honey Boo Boo's Mom/ I am not mocked publicly by others.

Feel awesome. 

Go on with day.

(I have to admit, though..this girl's got swagger)

I know this is a sick habit to have, but I can't help it. It's a disease

But if I ever got the guts to make it onto the small screen, I would most def be on THE VOICE!!!

This. Is. The. Voice! 

I would come up with some way to highlight an amazing life trial that was overcome through song.

I would look endearingly and physically shocked if one or four judged picked me for their team, but 

keep singing like nothing happened.

I would deliberate for entire minutes if I had to choose a judge.

I would be so heartwarming they would use a shot of me singing in highlight reels.

I would pick Christina just to make Blake mad. 

And I would definitely become so famous as a result of the show that I would honor Cee Lo Green by walking around with a bird on my head for the rest of my life.

Ok, maybe not the last one. But I'd definitely consider it.

If you had the chance, which reality show would you try out for?

Celebrity Heaven

Here's a list of famous people I think I would be best friends with if we both died and went to Heaven:

By the way, my personal version of Heaven includes a perfect night's sleep, zero-calorie food, and teleportation.

Tina Fey

Tina Fey, for my generation, is the original funny girl. She started saying what the average woman was thinking, on Prime Time! And she's doing it with style. If I were deserted anywhere, I would read her book 1,000 times in a row instead of going all Survivor Man and trying to stay alive. I would read her book instead and wait to get rescued. It's that funny.

Stacy and Clinton from What Not To Wear

I would love them to make over my wardrobe, if not my entire life. I also enjoy their ability to give honest criticism with love. They found a way to give fashion a soul, so they should probably deserve an Olympic Gold Medal or maybe a nice lunch with the Pope or something. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The man survived 3rd Rock From The Sun and moved on to be the most lovable sexy hipster nerd in Hollywood. One more word: Looper. Enough said.

Amy Poehler

Baby Mama.

Emma Stone

Homegirl's got some talent, which is a rare thing for our generation! In a world where Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian can get famous for nothing, Emma Stone is taking one for the badass team. 

I would also ask her exactly what it's like to kiss this guy: 

Michael Scott

Not Steve Carrell. Michael Scott. I would try so hard to get him out of character, like those annoying Americans at Buckingham Palace. I'd be that person. I would have no shame. I would set him up so good for That's What She Said jokes that he would want to come back to The Office for 10 more seasons. I would do it. I would.