The One Inspired by Pinterest

Winter is my least favorite season (I know, you already know).  But I'm actually learning that I don't really like Spring either.  Don't tease me with temperatures in the 70's and then snow the next day!  That's almost worse than a snow day followed by a snow day!!

The one good thing about being inside is I get a lot of crafting done.  It helps me keep my sanity which I have very little of currently.  (Please let the next 6 weeks or so and my dissertation defense pass quickly!!)  Here are some examples of Winter and Spring crafting I finished during this miserable time of year, most (or maybe all) of which were inspired by Pinterest :)

First off, the wreaths.  I don't know why, but this past year I've really enjoyed decorating our front door and I really like making wreaths.  I fell in love with these felt rosettes last winter and finally made them.  It graced our door during the snowy months.  I've since moved it inside, above our bed to fill in the hole left behind when I moved the clock.  That thing ticks way too loudly to hang right above my head at night.  The wreath is much more quiet :)

Classy, no?

The wreath gets a little lost in the white-on-white.  This makes me wish I could paint so bad!!

I actually started this one last summer and got the green "grass" yarn on but couldn't settle on a flower.  I really wanted to use some of the flowers from our wedding decorations but they were too dark.  I saw a small bouquet of these pale pinkies on clearance at Michael's.  Perfect!!  I added the sign in a moment of needed expression :)

Speaking of last summer, did I ever post this patriotic wreath I made?  If I did, you get to see it again!

I found a place for this one inside as well.  In our "Americana" kitchen.

I totally copied this sign from the 36th Avenue blog and cannot wait to hang it next Christmas!  This was the first time I've used vinyl as a stencil and I'll definitely be doing it again!  It would never have looked this nice if I tried to free hand the lettering.  I love my Cricut!!

Just in case you can't read it, that last name is Rudolph!  With a big red "o"!!  Bwahahaha!!

I don't know if this next one is a "craft" per se but it's making my life more enjoyable.  I absolutely hate cooking.  Again, I'm learning maybe not so much the cooking part (or maybe not just the cooking part) but planning and grocery shopping.  Ugh!!  So this has been a God-send.

I'm pretty sure the inspiration for this came from iheartorganizing.  I already had the magnetic calendar that I used all the time to remember dates and appointments so adding a meal planning aspect to it was really easy.  Most importantly, I actually use it!!  Amazing how actually planning out meals can save so much time and energy (and money) later on!

I also currently have a new sewing project in the works (since February).  I'm taking my time and really loving how it's coming out.  Hopefully I'll share some pictures of that soon :)

The One with the Judgment

Every year there is a big regional science fair (SLVSEF- Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair) hosted by the University of Utah.  Winners of this fair go on to the national science fair so the projects are typically pretty good.  My adviser is all about outreach and inspiring young students to continue studying science so I've been volunteering as a judge at this science fair for 3 years now.  Justin and some of the other guys in his research group like to tease me that I "crush the hopes and dreams of little children" because I'm apparently a pretty tough judge.  The lowest score I've ever given was in the 30's and my average score is probably lower than most other judges but they have an algorithm to compensate for that.  You just have to be really, amazingly, extraordinarily brilliant and original to get a 100 out of me.

Most of this teasing comes from the fact that last year I told a girl her project wasn't actually what she thought it was.  Not that it was wrong, just that she didn't understand it correctly.  I honestly wasn't too sure about it myself because she was doing a reaction that is one of only three reactions in a class all by themselves.  But I could tell just by the chemicals she was using that she didn't really understand the role of each reagent (i.e. ingredient).  I actually gave her my email and she contacted me last summer and I helped her figure out what was really going on in the reaction.  I think it's sad that by the time I judged her project she had been through at least 2 other science fairs and multiple other judges at this regional fair and nobody either knew or took the time to explain what was really going on in her experiment.  I like to think that as I'm talking to the kids about their projects they feel like they're doing well and they hopefully learn something.  And that is not crushing hopes and dreams!

This year Justin was a judge at the fair as well and guess what!  His average score was lower than mine!!  Who's the dream crusher now huh?  I was photographed by one of the newspapers covering the fair and actually made it to the paper.

(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune, 4/18/13) Cindy Cooper, a University of Utah graduate student in the chemistry department, judges Viewmont Elementary School fifth-grader Xxxxx project about a shoe's ability to make people jump higher. Xxxxx was a participant Thursday in the Salt Lake Valley Science and Engineering Fair, held at the U.'s Rice-Eccles Stadium.

When Joel (Justin's adviser who saw this in the paper) announced this at an analytical seminar, Mike (Justin's group-mate) asked "Is the kid crying?"  He's lucky I have a good sense of humor and found that funny :)

Justin's picture was taken by one of the SLVSEF staff and is up on their website.  She must have thought he was cute because there were two pictures of Justin and none of me.

I also judged this last project and thought it was pretty cool.  These kids were using a soda can bomb calorimeter to test homemade vs. store bought rocket fuel.  The boys were pretty excited about it and that's the important thing.  Yay for science!!

PS- I cannot wait for our kids to go to science fairs!!  They're totally going to dominate :)

The One that Stays in Vegas

Maybe my love of birthdays hasn't exactly rubbed off on Justin (I think that's just because he's older ;) but he has thankfully picked up on the fact that my birthday at least is a VERY BIG DEAL!  Way back in January he was already saying he had my present and I have to admit I was on the lookout every time I cleaned the apartment.  But I never saw anything!!  He finally had to spill the beans a week before my birthday and surprised me with tickets to the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament in Las Vegas!!  Woot!!!  My two loves- Justin and Arizona basketball :)  Life doesn't get better than that folks!

Other amazing presents: new slippers from Mom (I find them to be an absolute necessity up here), a new book and these gorgeous flowers from Misha.

 

We woke up early on Thursday and drove all the way to Vegas.

Justin found a really cheap hotel less than a mile from the MGM Grand where the tournament was being held.  We checked in and walked to the arena.  Or maybe I skipped a little.  We had student tickets and they were supposed to mail them to us but of course through some administrative errors (blah, blah) we had to pick them up at the arena.  Only the MGM Grand is HUGE!  And not very clearly marked.  We were waiting in (the wrong) line when the Utah Pac-12 rep who helped Justin buy the tickets walked by.  He had some tickets on him and gave them to us.  Here's the best part about that: our ticket package came with one session of two games for each day of the tournament.  We missed the first round on Wednesday because Arizona had a bye and we didn't want to take 3 days off work so we forfeited those tickets.  We thought that might have been the only day Utah would play and had to decide to miss that game.  Utah, however, surprised everyone and made it to the semifinal round.  So when Justin and I got to Vegas on Thursday we had to pick Session 1 to watch Arizona or Session 2 to watch Utah.  Really not a hard choice for me but since the Utah rep gave us extra tickets and let us know where we could pick up the tickets we had bought, we got to go to both sessions and watch both our teams play!!  Yay!!  We watched 4 basketball games in a row!!  Good thing we're fans :)

 

There are always lots of things going on during timeouts these days.  Contests and giveaways, etc. and Vegas was no exception.  There was a man who would come out during the first media timeout in the second half of each game to give away tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show.  He was looking for the "loudest fan."  You guys know I can get loud when I want to and I wanted free tickets.  During the first session our seats were in the corner so I'm pretty sure I had little to no chance to win tickets in those seats but our second session seats were amazing.  Just off half court and about 5 rows up.  I was so certain I was going to get those tickets.  The guy came out during the 3rd game and stood right in front of us.  I stood up and screamed and shouted "It's my birthday!!"  We made eye contact!  And then he ran right by me and gave the tickets to someone else :(  But now he knew where I was and I still had a chance.  I even got the support of the other fans sitting around us.  Apparently other people think birthdays are big deals too.  The second half of the 4th game started and the first timeout came, quickly followed by the Cirque ticket man.  He stood right in front of me and I jumped and screamed and everyone around me screamed and pointed at me and I knew he was going to give me tickets!!  But the poophead gave them to someone else.  Again.  What a stinker!!  All I got was a sore throat and a blister on my toe.

Arizona and Utah both won on Thursday which was better than Cirque tickets anyway and meant we got to watch both teams again.  Friday and Saturday only had one session each so we didn't have to choose which team to watch.  I was certain Arizona was going to beat UCLA on Friday and make it to the championship game.  Partly because everyone else thought so too and partly because Justin and I took advantage of the morning off to go to the temple.
 

Aaron Barker photography

Side note: I love the Vegas temple!  It's actually my favorite celestial room.  I've even been to the San Diego temple which everybody else seems to love and personally prefer Vegas.  Salt Lake has a special place in my heart of course and is probably my favorite temple silhouette but they recently redid the Vegas celestial room and it is so gorgeous and peaceful.  I was very tempted to put Sean Miller and Nick Johnson on the temple roll but I didn't.  God doesn't play favorites in sports people, no matter what the athletes say :)

Sad news- Arizona and Utah both lost in the semifinals.  Originally I had told Justin that I didn't care who was in the championship game and we should stay to watch it no matter what.  Turns out that I didn't think that through and I did not want to watch UCLA in the final.  By the way, their win was highly controversial and has actually now resulted in the resignation of the Pac-12 commissioner of officials.  Just sayin'.

So Saturday morning (which was actually my birthday) we checked out of the hotel and drove all the way back to SLC to go to the Florida-Utah gymnastics meet that night.  Florida and Utah both have excellent gymnastics teams and alternate hosting a meet every year.  Justin and I go to the Utah meets pretty often and never miss when Florida comes to visit.  That was the original plan before I knew we had tickets to the basketball tournament anyway.  We ended up seeing some new friends from the ward at the meet and they went out for Fleming's chocolate lava cake with us afterward.

Which is still so good it almost made me feel better about the Arizona loss.

 

Almost.

 

The One with the Quotes

Sorry for the leave of absence there.  I started writing this post over a month ago!  Birthday post to follow shortly :)

The first weekend of March was graduate recruitment weekend for the Chem department.  It's for students who have been accepted into the grad program starting next year (and are possibly choosing between several programs) and current students are their "hosts."  Justin and I like to help out because you get a lot of free meals and even a free lift ticket!  I feel like it's kind of cheating but our department takes the students skiing on Saturday.  It's a huge dangling carrot, especially for students visiting from the east coast.  Meaning those who know how to ski but have had to deal with crappy east coast hills and ice.  I've never even skied out there and I'm already a Salt Lake resort snob!

The weekend wasn't really that exciting but I somehow managed to use two of my favorite sitcom quotes.  In real life!!  The first one was this: (in response to a comment about first world problems)

Chandler Bing

Grrr.  It won't let me embed the actual video, skip to 0:45.

And the second was this: (introducing Justin to my friend's boyfriend)

So I actually said "Haaave you met Dave?"  I've always wanted to use that!!

The One with 31

Tricky title!!  I don't have any more "things" to write about.  Just a quick update on our February.  Justin had a birthday and things have been crazy so I didn't plan anything big.  And despite all my efforts, Justin is still not a huge birthday person and never wants a big party anyway.  We've been talking about learning how to play racquetball so I bought Justin a couple racquets.  And one of them came with some cool eyewear :)  The best part was probably the wrapping.  How awesome is this bag!!

You may have noticed the name on the card.  It's a joke from one of my favorite Justin stories.  Back in college (aren't we still there?) Justin used to have movie marathons with a group of friends.  This usually involved a day (or entire weekend) of watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended edition, or all 6 Star Wars.  What a nerd!  Hahaha!  I totally would have gone :)  After one of their LOTR parties, Justin thought it would be cool to have a name like the characters in the movie and came up with "Justin, son of Bustin."  This makes me laugh every time!  (If you recall, Justin really likes the LOTR trilogy)  Also, I bought the bag at Smith's during a grocery shopping trip and for some reason there were 3 guys at the checkout stand.  All 3 commented on the bag and when I explained it was actually for my husband and not a 6 year old nephew they thought I was the coolest wife ever :)  This evolved into a conversation on how "edgy" the new Batman movies have been to which I replied that the comics actually were pretty dark, not campy like all the previous movies and the TV show.  Why do I know this?!  I've honestly never read a comic.  That either made me look even cooler or way nerdy.

 
Justin's birthday landed on President's Day this year which is one of those holidays that means the University is closed but we sometimes choose to still go in to work.  We opted for skiing this year :)  It was a little cold so I really bundled up.  Justin laughs at me when I'm "all bundly."

Awesome views on the backside of the mountain.  And Justin's head isn't really that big, he's wearing a helmet under his hood.

I "treated" Justin to dinner at Fleming's Steakhouse that night.  Thank goodness we had a gift card because after tip it was still over $100!!  I think that's the most we've ever spent on a meal but it was so worth it!!!  I would highly recommend eating there at least once in your life (most likely for a special occasion).  And you absolutely have to get the chocolate lava cake.  They really should name it something else because that's a pretty common dessert but no other cake holds a candle to that one.  The waiter said the chefs use some kind of black magic that he can't do to make it and I believe him.  I'm drooling just remembering it.