Personal Happiness project: week 3

This week is brought to you by the letter C and the week's challenge is "Create something exciting." I have a few ideas for this. I'm going to focus on the artsy-craftsy aspect of this challenge because that is more exciting than creating a family budget or creating an empty receipt box.

I bought a canvas a few months ago that I have yet to do anything with besides shove it in a cupboard. But the challenge in a few weeks is to paint, so maybe I'll save it for that. There are a few crafty things around the house I want to try, but they're not super exciting, just moderately. Pottery is my go-to creative outlet because I'm good at it and there are a few techniques I've been reading about on Ceramic Arts Daily that I want to try. I'm looking forward to the products from this week's challenge because {hopefully} it will be something tangible. Pictures to follow!



In other news, we harvested our first tomato and it was delicious! It was really sweet. We will soon be harvesting another one that is bigger than the first, and when I checked yesterday, other tomatoes are starting to change colors too! I love having a garden.

previous week's challenge

The best 2 years so far

It's weird to think that Kyle and I have been married for two years and that we've known each other for three. It feels like we've known each other for ever, yet it wasn't so long ago that we didn't. We've grown together and he is perfect for me. Our anniversary was actually a few weeks ago. We went to dinner at Mimi's Cafe and Kyle gave me a card that included our itinerary for our actual celebration: dinner at Chef's Table, show at the Hale Center Theater, stay at the Hine's Mansion bed & breakfast, stroll Downtown Provo, and watch Stadium of Fire and the Beach Boys! Lots of fun and nice to have a midweek vacation with the man who makes me happiest.

 

 

  

Happy anniversary love! The best is yet to come *clink*

Our little garden

We have a couple of window boxes in which we planted some stuff. We've also gotten to harvest some stuff!

Strawberries!

My big, strong hunter gatherer

 We also have a tomato plant that produced a lot of flowers but no fruit until May 23rd when I saw...

 Since then, the plant has just exploded with fruit--we have over twenty tomatoes! Unfortunately they're all green. Except the other day I noticed our first little tomato...

It's red! Well, orange. But it will be red soon! Then we shall feast! Well, it's only about the size of a golf ball. But it's ours and it's cute! The strawberry plant only produced four berries. I'm really bad at remembering to water the plants so I think it's almost dead. The tomato plant is alive and well though. So is our geranium. The ranuncula we had died and I guess I didn't get any pictures of it.

This is almost exactly what ours looked like. Yellow too. *sniff* It's my favorite flower. 

Anyway, things are blooming in the Jepson home!

 

Photo credit here.

Personal Happiness Project: week 2

This week's letter of emphasis is "B" and the challenge is to "Be present. Be bold." So I will try to focus on what is going on now. Kyle has been looking at grad schools and started making plans for taking tests and applying to programs for next fall. Our future is super fuzzy right now, which is super scary, but the time we are spending together and the habits we are developing now are what matter (and a plan is developing, which has a significant calming effect). We still don't have an apartment, but things have been crazy so the search will resume...umm...soon.

Speaking of crazy, this week we will be celebrating our anniversary that was a few weeks ago. Two years has gone by so fast! Also we are going to Stadium of Fire to see the Beach Boys (ahhh!!). So excited! This will be an awesome week to live in the moment and focus on the memories we are creating.


"Diligently doing the things that matter most will lead us to the Savior of the world."--President Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

As for the second part of this week's goal, yikes! I guess this is also face-your-fears week! Maybe being bold with sharing the Gospel? Saying hi to strangers? Trying new things? I'm not sure how this one will play out, but we'll see. It'll take some work.

Either way, being present and focusing on the things that matter most in our lives will bring us closer to our Heavenly Father, which will help us to love our families, friends, and others around us more.

previous week's challenge

Personal Happiness project: week 1

My friend posted this picture on their Facebook, which showed up on my newsfeed inbetween pictures of what someone made for dinner last night and invitations to Farmville. I thought it was pretty good and I want to try something. It is about 6 months until Christmas/the end of 2012. I want to go through the list and make each part of my life for the next 26 weeks. Definitely some are going to be worked on before I actually get to them (e.g. Exercise daily: check. I ran a mile today.), but I will focus on that particular one for that week. Sound good?

So this week is "Accept your reality." Done. I mean, not done. I'm trying to recognize that there is something missing in my life and I am trying to find it. Also, I should admit that the post previous to this one was actually written this morning...not a month ago (bad blogger!). I think the first step for this week, as well as for weeks to come, is to establish a relationship with God. Through Him we can do all things because He loves us. I have a wonderful husband who I don't appreciate nearly enough. So for this week, and the future, may we realize the awesome blessings we have and accept the life we have been given. We may not have been able to choose the circumstances we were brought into, but we are responsible for what we do with them.

The future is ahead of us

So I'm officially graduated! I finished up my last class through independent study (New Testament minus the four Gospels in two and a half weeks = worst idea I've ever had) and am headed to my sister's house to help her out post baby delivery for the next ten days. But after that...nothing.

I'm really worried about this time in mine and Kyle's life because we have nowhere we have to be. We're both graduated now, he has a stable job with salary and benefits, I have a good job. We've put off really deciding what to do with ourselves for the last year because he was waiting for me to graduate. But now I'm there; we're there. Do we look at graduate schools? Do we stay here since Kyle's steady income is paying off student loans? Do we pick up and move somewhere we've never been for the adventure of it? There are just too many options and I'm a little nervous. Up to this point, we've had a goal: graduate from BYU. Check. Anywhere we moved and any jobs we took had to be within walking and commuting distance from school. Now we have no ties. Kyle's job just moved north a few cities (towns maybe?), so we've been looking northward for apartments. So far nothing we'd be willing to pack up and move for. And we have great friends around us now and Utah valley is really pretty and really the commute isn't that bad is it? (actually Kyle has informed me the commute isn't bad at all.)

So we need a plan. Our lease in our current apartment is up in August, so we have about 3 months to find a new place. Which is actually plenty of time, if you're not picky (we're slightly picky which is why we've begun looking). I want to keep my job, so our area to move to is limited to four towns (cities?). Kyle will probably keep his job for a year or so more and maybe I'll go on to get more schooling in the meantime. I know he wants to get more education but neither of us know in what yet. I scored mega wife points when Kyle told me he didn't think he wanted to be a lawyer or go to business school and I told him maybe he should study linguistics since that's what he likes. He felt pressured to find a job that would make tons of money at the expense of doing what he wanted (granted, he still doesn't know what it is that he wants). For now, he is working full time, doing something he doesn't hate, and things are okay. Maybe someday, we'll have a plan. I'll keep you posted.

In case you want to run to the post office...

...my birthday is in less than a month!! Kyle's present to me is hiding in the closet. Last year, he gave me a 25 lb. bag of clay. I've almost finished with it; there are probably only about 8-10 lbs. left. Maybe I'll just throw it all in one go and make a really big pot! I'll put pictures up of the pots and things I've been working on. Nothing is glazed yet because I like using high-fire glazes and the closest kiln around that does firings that high is in American Fork. Firing at high temperatures makes pieces more, how do you say, "structurally sound." They don't break as easily. And they are food safe. Definitely.

I overheard a guy talking about kilns you can buy that fire to cone 8 (around 2212-2320 degrees) and plug into a clothes dryer outlet. That's pretty cool (actually it's really hot!*). 

For more info on cone firing, go here. Clay rocks!*

 *Please excuse any lame jokes. Still recovering from spending time with my dad. :)