I think it falls under "addiction"...it could be worse...

I'm addicted to crushed ice.

ad⋅dic⋅tion

 

 /əˈdɪkʃən/ Show Spelled P[uh-dik-shuhn] –noun. the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

On average, I eat 4lbs of ice a day. I buy it in 8lb bags and I go through 3-4 bags a week. Sometimes less, sometimes more. I think the most I ever consumed in one day was about 7lbs. It sounds like a lot but if you weighed the water you drink, (or should drink) I think I'm about right on. I drink water too. I prefer ice over any dessert and if I had to choose between ice and a meal, I'd choose ice. When I travel I worry about finding a place that has it. If I'm road tripping I take a cooler just for ice. I crave it all the time and I bet that 99% of the time I can guess how much I can eat in a certain amount of time, and I take exactly enough to get me to my location. I.e, home to Paul's, the gym, church, the airport, etc. I HATE wasting crushed ice, other ice can melt away and I'm fine with it, but crushed ice? its a crime. Unless I'm in a huge hurry I sit in my car and finish it the 1% of the time I'm wrong. I've even snuck it into movie theaters in ziplocs. I also take it camping, but I eat it faster then because I know its slowly melting! I used to buy it at Sonic but now they don't always sell it (depending on their drink purchases that day I guess). Now I get it at Emigration Market. I think they think I'm crazy cuz I'm there so much. I spend about $300 a year on it. (Not including when I buy a drink at Common Cents, just for the ice, but that probably only adds $25 a year though.) Besides Sonic, Common Cents and Emigration Market, you can also get the ice at Bajio's, one of the two machines at Costa Vida in Logan, any hospital, IKEA, a Greek restaurant on historic 25th in Ogden, Red Robin has it in the bar, but you have to ask for it, It's a Grind Coffee Shop in SoCal and TGI Friday's in Keiv, Ukraine. Oh, and Carnival Cruise ships. When I'm down to a half a bag, I get a little worried. The Sonics in California won't sell it in bags and I don't know if little ol' It's a Grind can keep up with me. That's our biggest moving dilemma. I almost never leave the house without a cup of ice. And back in the day when I had friends and a busy social life people would say you're not true friends with me unless you have at least 2 of my plastic cups in your apartment and one in your car.
I hate seeing things like this. What a waste.

Project 365: Week 13

March 23

I was sick tonight. It came on fast and didn't last long. But while I was sitting in my parents basement I noticed these glasses. They are mine that I collected when I lived in Europe. I think I wanted to get rid of them at one point a couple years ago, but now I think they're cool again. I'm glad my mom kept them. Maybe I'll see what else is mine around here...

March 24
I'd been all over Murray and Ft. Union today and was heading to Paul's (my old) apartment for dinner. I had a headache that was almost unbearable and I was way more tired than normal. Not that I'm normally tired or that there's a "normal" amount of tired, but if there is, I was way past it. My eyes had been really sensitive to the light all day and I wore sunglasses even though it was cloudy. I was almost to South Temple and I called my massage lady. (I decided I should finally do something about my mild head injury.) She happened to have a cancellation and was free in 15 minutes, I flipped around and drove back to 45th south. TOTALLY. WORTH. IT. She has magic hands. She's this corky older lady who works at this random little house turned into a salon, but wow. Her name is Ruth, you can reach her at the number in this picture.
March 25

These cooking pictures are probably getting boring, but I'm working on getting better at it so I can have a little side biz in the future. My dad had a work party and had to bring a desert. This is what I threw together for him.

March 26

This picture a day thing gets a little boring sometimes...ok, really its just that I'm boring. Tonight Paul and I went to a study group and after I remembered that I hadn't taken a picture for the day yet. I told him he could be it. Then I forgot again until about 11:30 when I was leaving to go home. So this is it. He's so sleepy. He's such a hard worker. He has so much drive to be good at what he does and he is AMAZING at what he does. I'm so blessed to have him. And I'm thankful for his desire to work hard and be a good provider.

March 27
Paul being amazing again. He spent a couple hours of his Friday night helping my mom with her homework. He's so smart.
March 28
Our weekend was really low-key. I wasn't feeling well at all and we spent most of the weekend at my parents house. This was another boring picture-less day. I took this right before he left to go home. He's a babe.
March 29
I thought Spring was here?!? It was a windy, snowy, cold day. This shed is in my parents back yard. It's so cute. I would have loved to play in here if I'd lived here as a kid. (If it wasn't filled with scary spiders.) It has however, served as a good storage unit for all my stuff for several years!
(This picture a day thing is getting boring!!!...but I'm not giving up...)

Project 365: Week 12

March 16

This is a bad picture. But I didn't realize it til it was too late. My dad had hand surgery. Some minor thing that we Greenhalghs apparently inherit from our Northern European peeps. Anyway, I took him in for the procedure and they gave me a wrist band. I don't even think you can see it on here, but my dad's age is 59. He'll be 60 in a month. Strangely, I didn't think he seemed old. I felt old..kinda like a little pressure to make him a grandpa soon! The I realized that my grandpa will be 90 in a couple weeks. And I'll be 3o on my next birthday! (still 11 months away, whew.) -30, 60, 90- Cute!

March 17
Paul's St. Patrick's Day treat, in honor of my last year being Green. I'm excited to be a White!
March 18
I'm looking forward to saying good-night to Paul and not seeing this for 20 minutes before I can go to sleep. 86 more nights!
March 19
My creative side. I found a party mom blog that I'm trying to keep up with. (I guess not really, cuz I can't find it now.) And, I want to be a caterer and event decorator. And Costco strawberries always look way too good to not buy, but the container is way to big to not get creative.
March 20
Road trip to Logan. My younger brother Taylor is in grad school, (And he's gonna have an awesome career. He's a natural and I'm not just saying that.) Anyway, he's had a big week of crazy stuff so us and the parents went up and we all went to dinner at a great Chinese place, then games, then Aggie ice cream, then more games. (My dad was there too, but he took the picture.) We had a ton of fun and I hope it was a good distraction for Taylor for a few hours. I'm not gonna go into any detail, but I'm really proud of him.
March 21
Remember when it was weird to see people bring thier own bag to the grocery store? Now I feel weird if I don't take a reusable. Sunflower Farmers Market is my favorite place for groceries. I ALWAYS forget my reusables when I go there and it's probably the place where I see the least paper or plastic leaving the store, and today was no different. I've bought enough of these bags to fill them with gorceries for a month, but I'm forgetful! How do I remember to put them in my car??
March 22
We went to play games with Grandma and Grandpa tonight. I started doing weird things with my (apparently flexible) fingers. It started because my dad was explaining the hand surgery he'd had. Everyone tried...no one could quite get it though.

idol crushes

I mentioned in a previous post that Paul and I have 5 shows or something like that that we love. Well, these days we're not together as late as usual at night because I'm in Bountiful and even though its close enough we haven't been watching TV or hanging at the apartment as much. And my parents don't have DVR. I know, right? (I told Paul that it's so weird watching old fashion TV.) There are some shows that we both "brought to the relationship" and decided we'd watch together but really we kinda do our own thing now. Besides 24. But this week I watched AI with him, (his show). Wow. There is some diverse talent on that show. I have a crush on Adam Lambert. But I didn't make that public until he announced that Megan Joy was his "Idol crush." Once I learned that we got to have Idol Crushes I announced mine. But then I took a second look (and listen) to Danny Gokey. Hello! How do I choose? I guess if I was actually choosing I'd go with the straight one. But here's what I decided. I get 2 crushes, here's why:

-My #1 probably won't like what I have to offer...if ya know whata mean.
-My #2 had quite a tragic thing happen just before the show so he's probably not ready.
-My #1 and #2 are from...not Utah.
-Paul's girl lives in Sandy, Utah! He could hunt her down in like 5 minutes!

He has better odds. That's all I'm saying. I think that's enough info to earn me a #2.

My #1

Paul's #1 (and only)
P.S. Colorado City called and they want their dress back. (Maybe I'm just jealous cuz she can kinda pull it off.)
My #2

If you want to see my #1 in action, check this out. It's really only like 3 or 4 minutes if you don't listen to the judges, and it's totally worth it. It will leave will feeling weird and intrigued. Also maybe a little scared. But admit it, you want to see more.

california hates me.

We were in California this past weekend to find a reception location. When we left to come back to Utah we didn't have anything secured, but we were feeling pretty good about a couple of leads. Now we're down to nothing. I've been on the phone and the internet for the past two hours with everyone in California except Arnold. And still nothing. It's either, too far away, not available, machines talking to me instead of people, nothing close to the type of party we're looking for, too much money, etc. (Since when is a $10,000 minimum a "Great deal!" for a small, simple open house??)

My future in-laws have a beautiful yard, but it's under construction right now. And they don't have near enough parking. It's actually quite a large driveway and garage area, just not 200+ people large. So, if they (and/or we, if we go out again) put in a lot of time, it might be ok by June to do it there. I just don't want to put that stress on them. And we'd have to hire a valet service. My next career is going to be the owner of an amazing reception center and catering service where everything is simple to understand, beautiful, delicious, and affordable.

To say I'm a little stressed and overwhelmed right now is an understatement. But look how cute we are!
Thanks to Kylee in Utah and CJ in California!

Project 365: Week 11

March 9

I love wheat grass. It's my new favorite thing. Not to juice and drink, just to look at. I could look at it all day. I took a nap last Sunday for an hour and I was right by the grass, when I woke up I swear it had grown it little. The roots are amazing, and the look of the grass is amazing. Look at the seeds on Feb. 26th here. Today it's a couple days overgrown, It only took one week to go from boring seeds to awesomeness. I'm gonna grow more, just to look at it.

March 10
I know this photo doesn't show any proof of the story I'm about to tell, but I had to take it just so I could remember what happened. Paul and I were at Trolley Square tonight and we were on our way down a flight of stairs. There was a banister down the middle and he was on one side and I was on the other. I was a step or two ahead of him and I noticed him boosting himself up on the banister to slide down. He quickly lost his balance and began to fall backwards. I tried to reach back and grab his arm but was too late. He wrapped one arm and one leg around the banister to try and make the impact a little lighter but as a result his entire body quickly swung under and his other leg flipped over the top and he kicked me in the head. It hurt so bad! So, so bad. I blacked out for a second and the grabbed the railing on the other side. I started to cry. It took a few minutes to pull out of it and get my vision back in focus, but I seem to be alright. Poor Paul felt SO bad, and he hurt his ankle bad. He's pretending it doesn't hurt because he's so sad about hurting me, but I can tell it's hurt. I think we'll both be ok. I'll let you know if we're not. I'm really glad I don't have a black eye or a missing tooth, but on the other hand I kinda wish there was SOME evidence of the pain to make the story and picture better!
March 11
A group from Wheaton College is here from Illinois for spring break. Dave, the group leader is the one who interned with Paul last summer and Katie the other girl in the picture is directing the team with him. We met her in October at the NSDC II. I love them both. Tonight they, and the other students, 11 people total took us to dinner and to Spoon Me as a thank you for picking them up from the airport last week. It was a lot of fun! (Change this to group)
March 12
I love this place. I tried for a long time over the phone once to get them to give me a tour, but they won't. I'd actually never been inside, I just love driving past it. I went in it today and bought 3 lbs. of taffy to take to California. The Whites really like it, and its the 'World's Best' right here in the SLC.
March 13
We flew to California today. The goal for this trip is to find a location for a CA reception. We don't like this place, but I love gazebos. (Our plan was to take pictures of all the places we visitied...we only took pictures of the places we don't like...oopsie.)
March 14
Our good friends Robyn and Dave got engaged this weekend! They live in CA and there was a surprise engagement party for them tonight. It was so fun to see them! And I'm so happy for them! (Left to Right: Robyn, Dave, Me, Paul, Ryan, Leanna)
March 15
My future mother-in-law is pretty creative. She took a glass bead making class a while back and has all the stuff now to do it at home. She taught me this weekend and this is my first set...not bad for a beginner!

And in other news: We're home from CA and still don't have a location out there booked. We're waiting on an email response and we're crossing our fingers... P.S. I really like California.

Concussion or Insomnia??...I'm too dizzy and anxious to look it up...

I feel like lately I've been blogging list stuff and Project 365 stuff. If anything cool happens on any given day I take a picture of it and then save the story for Sunday night. I'm not sure if I should keep it that way or try and tell more stories during the week and then repeat them on Sunday. I want the story on the 265 post because I'm going to make a scrapbook of all the pictures and details and it'll be easier to get the info from the week post rather than find stories throughout each week. But I'm going to tell you what happened a few hours ago right now, and those of you who keep up on this blog you'll see a similar story on the Sunday 365 post.

I'm awake right now because my dad has got me worried about maybe having a concussion and so I'm afraid to go to sleep. Here's what happened.

This is a (now) funny story, but at the time kinda scary. I bought Paul's wedding ring at the same place he bought mine. Payne Anthony at Trolley Square. It came in this week so we went to pick it up tonight. We'd gotten the ring and done a little shopping and we were on our way down a flight of stairs. There was a banister down the middle and he was on one side and I was on the other. I was a step or two ahead of him and I noticed him boosting himself up on the banister to slide down. He quickly lost his balance and began to fall backwards. I tried to reach back and grab his arm but was too late. He wrapped one arm and one leg around the banister to try and make the impact a little lighter but as a result his entire body quickly swung under and his other leg flipped over the top and he kicked me in the head. It hurt so bad! So, so bad. I blacked out for a second and the grabbed the railing on the other side. I started to cry and was breathing weird. He jumped up and grabbed onto me to see if I was ok. It was a crazy feeling. It took a few minutes to pull out of it and get my vision back in focus, but I seem to be alright. Poor Paul felt SO bad, and he hurt his ankle bad. He's pretending it doesn't hurt because he's so sad about hurting me, but I can tell it's hurt. We went back to his apartment and I took some pills. I felt like I kept going cross eyed and then my back kinda started to hurt. My head had (has) a lot of pressure and above my left eye is tender. I kinda feel like a turtle in a shell and I can't get my head and neck fully extended out of my body. Everything is kinda compressed. I think we'll both be ok. I'll let you know if we're not. I'm really glad I don't have a black eye or a missing tooth, but on the other hand I kinda wish there was SOME evidence of the pain to make the story better and more real sounding. At Paul's house I kept pretending like I was tipping over and that I couldn't remember his name. He didn't think it was too funny. Later I mentioned that we should go see if there are any surveillance tapes at the mall. I really want to see how it all happened. The crazy, random, really painful accidents are always the funniest to watch.

In other news:

Living with the parents til the wedding is going well. We have a lot of fun.

The ice and snow on this nice spring morning caused me to ask Paul if we can move to California sooner rather than later, but when the sun came out I decided I'm ok for a while longer.

Speaking of California, we're going there Friday morning til Sunday night to try and get the Cali reception details all worked out. I'm a little stressed about it, but I'm feeling like it'll go ok.

And speaking of wedding, I really love planning. I get all caught up about the weirdest details. For a while it was rehearsal dinner favors, and this week its wheatgrass and green candy.

Ok, I think I'll try and go to sleep now. I'm sure I'm fine, but just to be sure my dad informed me that he'll be checking on me before he goes to work at 6:30, and I'm sure I won't go back to sleep after that so I better try and get a couple good hours in. (I'll be tired, but I'm glad he cares.) Good night...

Project 365: Week 10

March 2

My wedding dress came in today and my mom and I picked it up. It needs alterations still, but I love it! I'm convinced that they make wedding dresses weird so they can make more money through alterations. The top, the length and above the hips fits perfect, but my butt and thighs could be twice as big and I'd still have room to grow...don't worry, I don't plan on growing, I'm just gonna pay to have it taken in.

March 3
Paul and I "officially" started dating 6 months ago today. I'm not a 'month celebrator' but it's been a hectic few days so I wanted to do something nice for him. A card, malt balls and cookies. That's nice, right? Oh, and I made dinner too. For the first time in like, ever.
March 4
I'm such a fantastic fiance. This little package came in the mail today. One day he'll be a Seahawks fan...baby steps...
March 5
Wedding planning-- I'm really enjoying the fun parts, but I'm really getting overwhelmed with the not so fun parts. I won't bore you with the stress details. But just know that Paul and I are still in love...and I like the nights when the reminder that he loves me comes with flowers. That's what this picture is.
March 6
My cousin Angela got married today. Here she is with her new husband Jordan. It was a really beautiful BIG wedding. My cousin Sara and I were talking at the reception and she asked me if I'm glad I'll be having a small wedding-- her reasons for assuming it will be small are, I only have a big extended family on one side, my fiance is from California so not a lot from his side will come to Utah, oh, and I don't have any friends. Ok, so it will be smaller than Angela's wedding...which is fine with me.
March 7
Paul and I got our engagement pictures taken today. I'm so glad it didn't snow and the sun even came out. Kylee did a GREAT job! We were running from place to place to get the perfect shots. It took 3 hours and she took 400+ pictures. I'm so excited to see them! ...This one won't be used, but it's funny. I think I was telling Paul to smile normal and be straight. He loved this little wedding outing more than any man I've ever known. It was great that he didn't complain like most men who have to pose for 3 hours!
March 8
Today at church a little boy came up to me and held out these glasses. I told him I really liked his cool glasses. Then he said, "No, they're for you! They're for your kid!" ...my kid will be thrilled.

Project 365: Week 9

February 23

I had a really successful wedding shopping day. You can't tell much from these bags and piles, but I'm loving our green and white theme. I'll take more pictures as everything starts to come together. I'm so excited!
February 24
This might be a week of wedding stuff. I'm working on a lot of the little details right now. Maybe I'm doing it backwards, but I'm having fun. This is step one of four with these flower pots. I'll keep taking pictures...probably more than you'll care to see.
February 25
Anne took me to lunch today for my birthday. Our birthdays are so close to each others that we spread out the celebrations. Look at the purse she made me!! I LOVE IT!!! Anne is the most thoughtful and creative person I know. She has so many talents. I want to be like her someday. (I'm stealing one of her creative party favor ideas for our rehearsal dinner.)
February 26
I'm experimenting with wheat grass. Not for the healthy organic nutrients, just for decoration. I'm turning my spare bedroom into a greenhouse.
February 27
Paul is moving to my apartment this weekend. I'll be heading 10 miles north and hanging with my parents for the next 3 months til the wedding. I hope the time goes by fast. We figured we'd save on rent and get him all moved and settled in so we don't have that to add to the wedding stress. I've decided that the spare bedroom can get as full and messy and packed as he wants...but I need order in the rest of my (his/our) apartment. We'll see how it goes.
February 28
Right now my 'no clutter in the rest of the apartment' rule isn't working. We'll see if all the stuff finds a place in the next few days. This is just one shot of the master bedroom. The apartment in general really isn't as bad as I thought it might be.
March 1
*Sidenote* I typed February 29 first before remembering that it's March. I was born in a leap year and when I was younger I remember wishing my mom would have waited 9 more days to have me. I thought it would be cool to only have a real birthday every 4 years. I would have turned 8 last year. Anyway, March 1st.
This is Paul getting creative with a garden arch that we bought over the weekend to use at the wedding.
*Another sidenote* This has been a busy/full/fun/stressful week, but sorry the pictures are mostly boring...I'll do better next week.