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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Louisiana!

I spent the last four days in good ol' Louisiana!

I have so many pictures and stories to tell! But I decided it would be better to break it all up rather than bombard you with an endless stream of photos!

So be sure to keep coming back throughout the week! I'll have a bunch of posts for you!

My sister's friend Akilah won a sweepstakes to Baton Rouge for the weekend. This included air-fair, hotels and most importantly, tickets to the Bayou Country Music Fest! (More on that later.) She invited Alyson, her friend Kisha and obviously, me! I was pretty stoked!

The trip started out with two different planes. I hate planes. Flying is not fun.

The actually up in the air part isn't so bad. It's the getting up there and getting down from there that freaks me out.

And I had to do it twice in one day.

Gag.

So, after a whole lot of flying, we were all in desperate need of a pick me up when we landed in Baton Rouge.

We hopped in our rental car and drove to New Orleans for some of the best ice cream ever from the Creole Creamery!

One problem. The shop closed at 11. It was 10 and we were just over an hour away from New Orleans.

I feared for my life on that drive.

But we pulled in with four minutes to spare.

And can I just tell you... That Cookie Monster ice cream was amazing! 



I'd fly on two planes and take a death cab just to have some more of that ice cream.

Yup. I would.

More stories to come soon!
Sunday, May 29, 2011

Work?

Thursdays are very slow going for us at work.

So when we have nothing better to do, Burt and I take pictures with the cut out Duke Nukem standee.


Duke likes 'em hairy!


And skanky too, obviously.

Oh work.
Friday, May 27, 2011

Toad's


The cousin's weekend was filled with a mess of fun things to do.

One of the funnest was probably our trip to Toad's Fun Zone.


The place had an arcade, laser tag, go-carts, mini golf, batting cages and probably a lot more.


Most of us had never tried go-carts. I had fun, but crashing is rather painful. Being in the middle of a three cart pile up was not exactly pleasant. I think I still have a headache. 

We played laser tag while we were there. I'd never played before. It's hilarious! But there were a few too many kids running around. We decided that it would be great fun if we got a smaller group of adults together to play. More strategy that way.


Skee Ball is by far the best arcade game there is! It's my favorite and I spent the majority of my arcade points there.


I passed on the batting cages because I'm terrible at sports. But Alyson was awesome!

Pretty much the only thing we didn't do while we were there was play mini golf. But we stocked up on the tickets and I bought some sidewalk chalk and some laffy taffy. It was great times!


What is your favorite part of an arcade?
Thursday, May 26, 2011

Summer Reading List

21 Books. 7,969 Pages. May 26th-September 17th.

Complete!

Click the titles for links to video reviews of each novel!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 




















Extra books read this summer:





Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Downtown SLC


I've always been a big fan of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. 

It's just great fun. The buildings are interesting to look at, there are so many fun shops and the Off Broadway Theater (OBT) is one of my favorite places.

I could just walk around the area for hours and never get bored. Heck, I've done so countless times.

While hanging out with my cousins this weekend, we didn't get to spend as much time exploring downtown as I would have liked (Parking was way too expensive) but it was still nice to see the trees in bloom and enjoy the lovely day.


We hit up a great little restaurant called Cafe Med (which is actually a ways from downtown, but worth the drive). It looks like a total dive from the outside, but the food is great! Mmm Greek food.

I ordered the Salmon Sandwich. I almost died went to awesome food heaven. 


The four of us bought tickets to our favorite Improv group, Laughing Stock at the OBT.


Have you ever been to see one of their shows? It's two hours of hilarity. Symptoms include sore, cramped sides, watering eyes and bruises on the arms from the many elbow nudges and "did you just see his Beyonce impression?!"s.

It's a great show! And very affordable! Everyone that is looking for entertainment in the Salt Lake City area should definitely look into one of their shows.


It was a very enjoyable day. 
Monday, May 23, 2011

Mountains

There are a few things that I don't enjoy about living in Las Vegas.

The heat.

The lack of green things.

But most of all, the mountains.

Yes. There are mountains in Vegas. But they are brown and ugly.


Growing up in Utah, I was always surrounded by lovely mountains covered with green and snow. It's been rough living in the presence of these brown monstrosities. 

This past weekend I was in Salt Lake visiting my cousins (more pictures to come soon), and I ran around feeling giddy about how gorgeous the mountains were.




I don't miss how cold it is in Utah, even in May.

But I do miss these mountains.
Friday, May 20, 2011

Scrapbooking

I was browsing through my old computer files this morning.

I like to do this from time to time. There are so many hidden treasures buried in those folders that have been lost or forgotten.

Today, I came across my digital scrapbook pages.

I spent so much time looking through them all and it made me want to make a few new ones. Maybe soon.

But in any case, I thought I would share some of my favorite pages with you.


This was my first digital scrapbook page. My sister Alyson had started scrapbooking in Photoshop. But back in 2006, I didn't have access to Photoshop. So I pulled out Microsoft Word and after a lot of aggravation, made this page. It's still one of my favorites.





I did mostly two page spreads for two years. Until I decided that the one page spread was my best friend. 











It's just so much fun! And how many photos of my niece and nephew have I not yet made into pages? Countless. 

I should definitely make a few more.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Sleep

Sleep and I have a very intense love/hate relationship.

Dreaming is lovely. Dreaming only happens when you're asleep. I like to dream.

However, I can go to bed at a normal hour and still wake up at 3 in the morning, wide awake, only a few hours of sleep under my belt. 

Unfortunately this means that around noon, I start to get sleepy and crave the five hours my body missed feels it deserves.

Now that I'm working, this is especially difficult. I don't want to spend my entire time away from work sleeping or thinking about when I can let myself sleep. That's not a life. Not a fun one anyway.

I've decided that sleep is stupid.

I want the option to sleep, but only to dream good dreams. In all other cases, I want to be able to stay awake and never sleep again.

Sound fair? Good. 

The first day on the job went well, by the way.
Monday, May 16, 2011

Great Things!

There have been some great additions into the world of Simply Kate.

One:

I've been reading like a maniac.

I love to read, but with chaos and distraction, I don't always read as much I want to.

But after purchasing three new books with the Amazon.com gift card I was given for my birthday, my interest in books has flared back into life!

As such, I added a new feature to my blog's menu. All about the books I read! You see the link on the menu bar under my header!

I thought it would be great fun to share the books I am reading with all of you. The page is separated into two different sections. What I am currently reading and what I have recently finished, which will feature the last twenty books I have read and where you can find the video reviews I have made for them! 

I'm really excited about this new project and hope you will all check it out and even read some of these books along with me! 

And I am always on the lookout for more books, so if you want to recommend something you've read that you think I'd enjoy; please tell me about it!

Two:

I am now a proud associate of GameStop!

That's right. I'll be working in a video game store! Perfect right?

There are some great perks. I get to rent any game for four days so I can better recommend it to customers. How cool is that?

It's only part time right now, and I'm still looking for a second job, but because I have been hired at GameStop, I am now able to stay in Las Vegas! Yay!

These little updates have me very happy and excited! It's a good day!

In other news, this guy also makes me very very happy!


He's just kind of perfect for me. That's all. 

What is good about your day?
Saturday, May 14, 2011

Sunlight

I'm a night owl by nature. I love being awake all night and sleeping all day. 

The problem with this is that I don't get to see much sunlight. I'm like a self proclaimed vampire most days.

And whenever I'm out and about when the sun is up, I'm either too preoccupied to really notice, or walking around like a zombie who is craving a nap more than brains.

But on the rare occasions when I actually take the time to appreciate the beauty of sunlight and how it affects the every day things in life, I can't help but sigh at how lovely the day time is.










It's enough to make me want to sleep at night like a normal person.
Thursday, May 12, 2011

Happy Birthday!


Cake smashing goodness.

Today is going to be a pretty low key day. I don't have any plans, but I almost prefer it that way. 

(That's a lie! I wish I was partying it up like it was 1999! But I have no friends. Poor me.)

But even so, I'm happy to start a new year of my life. I'm excited to see what adventures twenty-two has in store for me!

Happy Birthday to Me!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Birthday Guests: Kari

Kari from the blog Lime Green Movie Girl is our next wonderful birthday week guest poster! I love her blog! She's got great style, great posts and great taste in movies. Definitely go and check out her blog!

well hello followers of simply kate.

i am the great lime green movie girl.

yeah, in the flesh. 
well, my flesh is typing these words. which the internet will turn into binary and then convert back into text for you to read.

someone once asked me why it is i blog. 
[and by someone, i mean a fictional character made-up in my head.]


i was far too tired to answer them appropriately. 
[because i often stay up till three in the morning doing absolutely nothing.]


so in order to redeem myself, i will tell you now.

i blog, because i think i am funny. witty. and an insanely good [looking] writer.

i blog, because my love language is ‘words of affirmation’ and people often compliment my blogging skillz.


i blog because my therapist recently got a girlfriend and is no longer at my disposal 24/7. 
[nevermind the fact that i set them up.]


i blog because my fingers need a work-out after dunking oreos.



i blog because people kept defriending me on facebook due to my constant status updates. 
[and stalker-ish tendencies.]


i blog because no one except my mom reads my twitter account.

i blog because i will be famous someday, and want you to feel cool for knowing me before i was.


i blog because ‘i just have a lot of feelings.’ – Mean Girls


...

and for the fine details:

props to miss katie for helping fate select my name from the jar so you could all be graced by my awesome-ness.

props to sarcasm for aiding me in my boastful post.

props to we heart it for the above picture.

She's adorable, is she not? I love this girl and you should too! Go and check out her blog, Lime Green Movie Girl! Thanks again Kari! 


Also, I did a guest interview over on Tristacio's blog. She asked some pretty hilarious questions, go and check them out and hear my answers. Did I mention it was a video interview? It's awesome!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Birthday Guests: Jenn

I'm featured over on For The Love of Blogs! It's a pretty awesome feeling! Go check it out!


Our next guest poster is the lovely Jenn from Worth a Fig! She has written a tutorial for us that sounds so awesome! You should definitely check it out!

I sat down at the table in the morning with my three year old daughter to enjoy a breakfast of a wholegrain bagel with cream cheese and orange marmalade. I was feeling a bit under the weather and I seriously needed a pick me up. I was tired, bored, and my hair looked simply hideous. With a sigh I sipped my coffee and leafed through a book called The Beauty Cookbook. I was looking for ideas for my weekly feature called Makeover Monday, and I also wanted to whip something up for my guest post here at Simply Kate. That is when I stumbled across something that made me laugh out loud. The recipe was called “my hair needs a bagel with that conditioner” and I had everything I needed sitting right on the kitchen table. So I pulled out the blender and whipped up a pick me up for my tired, limp hair... and I hoped that my spirits would lift right up with it.



Here is a shot of my dry, brittle hair before the treatment.



All I did was combine 1 egg, a tablespoon of cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of water in a blender and processed it until it was smooth. I combed it all through my hair and let it sit for 15 minutes while I checked my email. It smelled kind of odd. I'm not used to applying cheese and butter to my hair... but it was thick so it stayed put and didn't drip on my clothing. That said, I would put on an old bathrobe for this one and not that sexy silk kimono.





After the timer when off I jumped in the shower (actually I stepped into the shower... you should never jump in the shower) and rinsed the eggy-cheesy gunk out of my locks. I shampooed twice just to make sure that I got all the oily residue out of my hair. I was planning on letting my hair dry naturally because that is what I usually do. My curiosity got the best of me, however, so I got out the blow dryer to speed up the process.



I was pretty impressed with the results. I wouldn't recommend this treatment for everyone, but since I wear my hair in a bob it worked great for me. The treatment gave my hair a glossy shine that might not work for people who wear styles that need more lift and volume. My hair also felt more plump... and for a person like me with very fine hair that was a nice thing. I don't think that I'll do this treatment often. For one thing the smell of the cream cheese kind of clings to your hair and when you blow dry you get a sudden craving for cheesecake or fondue. I also think that it would lead to a waxy build up after a while. It is a great way to add shine to over-processed hair, however, and a great way to add a moment of pampering into an otherwise busy day.


My husband told me how nice my hair looked when he got home from work... with absolutly no fishing on my part at all. He didn't even know that I had put cheese in my hair when he said it. It really must have done something... or maybe I just smelled like breakfast.

Stop by on Monday and join the fun!

Thanks for the great post and the awesome tutorial! I might have to try that sometime soon!

Go and check out Jenn's blog, Worth A Fig! She's fabulous!