why indie biz is...

a waste of money.

there, i said it.

[disclaimer: if you are not associated with crafty blogs or etsy, etc--you can skip this post. if you are a craft blogger, dont hate me, and please hear me out. thank you]

last year, as some of you may know, darci and i started our partnership of our etsy shops [here and here]. i had heard about indie biz on the blogs and whatnot, and i looked into it some. i thought it could be helpful to us, since we were just starting our business together, and i thought additional help/guidance could be beneficial. so i paid the money ($75) and started getting excited about it.

as the weeks went along and the lessons came out, i started realizing that maybe this was a mistake. instead of business lessons, they seemed to be "lets try to make you creative" lessons. instead of lessons on how to do your taxes or obtaining business licenses or EINs, they were how to craft a "business card keeper", how to make an "office inspiration board", and embracing trends. EVERYTHING they "taught" us is either common sense, can be found for free on the etsy forums, or is present in blog land.

i will say i got one good thing out of indie biz, and that was the networking. i met a lot of cool people. HOWEVER, if i were more involved in blogging, etsy threads, twitter, flickr, etc... i would get that exact same amount of networking (or more).

that is why i feel indie biz is a waste of money. thankfully i was able to write it off on my taxes this year (since i took an actual entrepreneurship class and learned how to do that).

ps: indie biz also spammed me recently to let me know theyre doing indie biz 3, and that they would give me a discounted rate if i wanted to do it again! instead of the new price of $90, it's available to me (an alumn!) at only $50. what a deal!!! what did i do? i promptly deleted the email and rolled my eyes.

pps: dont hate me :) thanks!

it's official...

i graduated!! the ceremony was on friday and it was great! but now it's officially official because i checked all my grades and i passed all my classes! i was worried about two of my classes (i failed the finals) and i ended up getting Cs in both of them! so 2 Cs, 2 A-, and 1 A. yahooooooooooo!

peace and blessings!

thanks to everyone who helped me along the way, it took forever but it is finally over. i start my summer job (being a hydrologic technician for the forest service again) in 2 weeks, so i need to start getting in shape. that hiking can really kick your butt!

well hello there!

hi. i am posting like a crazy person now because I AM FINALLY DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!! ♥♥♥ i might get horrible grades in almost all of my classes but at this point i absolutely do not care. my parents are coming in tomorrow and i graduate early friday morning. halle-freekin-lujah!! now i want to take a nap, since it has been a crazy week so far. unfortunately when i wake up i need to clean our entire apartment because my schooling and laziness has wrecked it. if anyone came over right now josh would probably be so embarassed he would pee his pants a little bit.

[source]

now, in other news: i need a dog. it is thundering outside and i've just been sitting here whimpering by myself because our traitor of cat is who-knows-where (obviously, avoiding me). back home me and little poncho dog would curl up on the couch and whimper together. no joke. i need that now. i guess i'll just kidnap jay-z and hide under the covers.

don't miss my other recent posts:
BESTeam feature: Artesia
nature is cute ♥

it's the final countdown!

i graduate in LESS THAN A WEEK! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!! i keep trying to remember that, just to get through this last week. i had a huge project due yesterday by 5. we had to write an entire management plan for the whole strawberry watershed. i was so stressed out yesterday afternoon i was almost crying. we finally got it all done and it looked beautiful (well, as beautiful as a bound report can look haha). too bad we were 30 minutes past the deadline, but i dont consider it my fault so whaturr.

i'm so relieved now that i actually sort of forgot about that whole finals thing. oops. i'll start studying tomorrow haha. whats comforting is that these will be the last finals I WILL EVER TAKE!! it's taken me five years, but graduation is literally around the corner. hallelujah.

until then, here is my frazzled self. peace and blessings. peace and blessings.

hollaaa

yay for another awesome feature! we have just been rolling in them lately!! maybe i should make a new tab for them or something! (put on to do list for later!)

also, if you havent done so yet, go enter this giveaway for one of our crocheted flower headbands!

i will write a proper post later but for now i am STRESSED because i have a huge project due at 5pm. wish me luck! ♥

embarrassing story of the day

ok, so i HATE my physical science class. LOATHE it in fact. i cannot mentally comprehend physics. so today i am sitting in class and its a review day. we sit in an auditorium classroom, with over 100 students. so, the teacher is going through these different experiments or something. i had no idea what was going on, so i was emailing my cousin. i was simultaneously listening to him, but not looking at him or anything. so then he goes, "what is [some term i dont know or remember]? hmm...how about you, in the white hat.....with your laptop open....hello, white hat?" this whole time i'm like *oh good, white hat, not me* and then i look up just to make sure. the teacher is staring RIGHT AT ME. i was like "oh...my hat is green. sorry, thats why i didnt know you were talking to me." to which he awkwardly was like "umm, ok. now.. what is this [term or experiment or something]?" almost panicking, i managed to stutter out, "i dont know, and i would prefer you called on someone else" and then put my head back down. i wanted to disappear on the spot. or run out of the room. or die. ultimately it just added to my hatred of the horrible class. i mean out of 100 something students, he just had to call on me!? rude...

ps: do you know twizzles is an ice dancing term? i just heard it on the olympics haha.


[pps: 41 followers! 9 more and i will do a giveaway!]

mini rant, bear with me

dear physical science 100 TA lab,

thank you for making me feel stupid. i really appreciate it.

i am not a stupid person. i get good grades. i TA a 400 level class. so don't talk to me like i am an idiot. get off your 'TA pedestal' and do your job. when i outright tell you that i do not understand the concept, that means i need you to explain it to me! not belittle me. when my students ask me a question i do everything i can to explain it to them, without being condescending or rude.

get over yourself and just do what you get paid to do. you know...help us?

thanks,
your dumbest student

denver

i'm baaaack. i went to denver for the society of range management meeting. i went there for 5 days with my team from byu to participate in 2 competitions: plant id, and urme (undergraduate range management exam). i havent been to denver since i was eight years old, when we used to live there. it was fun to go back and see it all again. we stayed in the sheraton hotel, where the conference was held, and it was super nice. it involved a lot of studying and a little bit of mulling around.

monday morning was urme, and 209 students took the exam. tuesday morning was the plant id exam, and like 105 students took the exam. wednesday was the awards ceremony. byu placed first in urme! we placed 6th in plant id. i did ok. my score was just a couple points behind our urme coach, so i felt pretty good about it.

also, josh had his interview. he should know pretty soon i think. cross your fingers for him! also, if you know of any jobs, let us know. :]

it's good to be home!

oh, college...

just a couple of interesting occurrences today at school, which i will now share with you.

so, i ta this lab (ta=teaching assistant), and i do it twice a week, for 3 hours each time. it's for bio 430: plant classification. i took the class 2 years ago and loved it, and ta'ed it last year as well. anyways, the thursday lab is the worst because it is at 7am. as you may know, i am NOT a morning person. anyways, i digress...

so i teach the lab this morning and there's an exercise they are supposed to do, so everyone gets to work. occasionally i get up and circle the room to see how everyone is doing, and help if people have questions. people eventually started to wrap it up and move on to the next lab activity. except for this one guy. everyone else had been done for at least 30 minutes, if not longer, so i started to get worried. he was obviously a little slow...so i kept trying to help him out. i would say, "so, did you figure out this?" and he would go "i'm not to that part yet! i dont need your help!" and i was like ok, sorry...

then, about 45 minutes after everyone else was done, he was still on the same problem. so i decided to go over and ask if he wanted to walk through it together. so i walk over to his table, and look down at his book, about to say "hey, want to work through this one?" and he looks up with this face of death and goes "STOP LOOMING!!!" he was completely serious. i was like ohhhhh-k. thinking *no more help for you, buddy!* yikes, right?!

other story from today: i was in a physical science lab, and we were working through these dumb homework problems. the ta announced to the class, "you know the whole reason of this class, right? you dont have to remember a thing, i know you wont after this class. the reason is to make you think critically; to get past your high school thinking." immediately i'm like what am i doing here!? give me my A, this is my freaking 5th year in college!!

see the things that happen at college? and to think that i pay for this... ha!

"goals"

so recently ive found in the blogging world that you should call your resolutions "goals" so it seems less cliche, and more lasting. i dig it. oh, and people make cute signs to put somewhere in their house or something of their goals, so everyone can see how crafty they are. im sort of lazy, especially today [since theres some sort of sickness im trying to fight off], so that isnt gonna happen right now. maybe later...

anyways, ive been thinking about my "goals" lately, and i think it would be good to document them since its in writing and stuff, you know? i just found my goals from last year:
1. do all my 22 by 22 goals
2. get good grades in school
3. make an etsy store

looking back, im feeling the success. i did all but maybe 2 of my 22 by 22 goals, i have gotten increasingly better grades in school, and i have my own etsy store! so i feel pretty good that at least my goals were achievable.

so...(drumroll)...here are my 2010 "goals":
1. graduate from byu
2. make up my mind if i want to go to grad school or not (any input?)
3. open a store with my bff darci (in the works!)
4. get a career
5. make my blog cooler, get more followers, pump up the jam, etc

those may seem lofty goals, but i feel good about them. i mean, unless i fail classes this semester, #1 is golden. im kind of waiting to see on #2 based on where josh gets a job. #3 is in progress, like i said. #4 is probably the most lofty, but again, doable--i have some leads and we'll see where things go. #5 is just thrown in there for fun, mostly because i love blogging so much.

oh, and #6...be more cute. im chanelling the lovely zooey on this one.

how we met.. cute, right?

i cant remember if i ever wrote this story. maybe? i tried to look back through my oldest posts and i didnt see anything. so if ive wrote about this before, i apologize. just read it anyways, cuz you like me :] also, its long. sorry again...

ok, it was january 2007. i went to my first class of Range Management. borrrring. i came in a little late because my previous class was far away. my friend sarah was in this class so i looked around for her, but she was already sitting by other people. there was a chair open by this really cute boy, so i sat by him and briefly introduced myself. his name was joshua. he was from florida.

for the next few classes i kept coming in a little late and therefore kept sitting next to him. he wasnt super talkative so part of me figured he wasnt into me. eventually i got to class early and sat by my friend sarah. we got in the habit of sitting by eachother in the third row, so there was always a seat saved for me (next to sarah). even though i wasnt sitting by josh, i would try to find random reasons to talk to him. one time i said, "i heard they're having really bad weather in florida!" and he was like "umm...yeah. i heard that too." (true story).

finally, in late february, josh came in a little late and people were sitting where he normally sat. he looked around like "ugh...what now?" and i siezed the opportunity! i called him over to come sit by me. success. i decided to be gutsy and ask him out. but not too gutsy, since i asked him via a note in class haha.

(i had to black out his phone #, probably wouldnt have appreciated that being on the internet..)

again, success. josh answered all the questions correctly, and we planned to go on our first date.

i think it might have been that weekend or the next week, i cant remember, but we went to coldstone for our first date. it was awesome. we got along extremely well, it seemed like we had known eachother for years. i even heard a guy the table over say something along the lines of "look at the rapport between those two!"

after our date we would text message occasionally, and see eachother in class. we'd always be writing silly notes to eachother or doodling. we were a riot, and us combined with sarah made that class.

sarah took this goofy pic of us in class

so, the rest of the semester went along. josh and i became pretty good friends. the only problem was that josh never asked me back out. one time we walked down to j-dawgs together to get hotdogs, and josh claims he paid for it, but it was by no means a date. after about a month of this "just friends" business, i figured that was all that josh wanted. to just be friends. i still really liked him, but he never asked me out!

so, around my birthday (march 23, write it in your calenders!) this boy from my church asked me out. i said sure. lets call him 'Ross'*. so ross took me out on a picnic and had everything made and planned out and it was pretty cute. he kept asking me out and we hung out a lot, so we became bf/gf. ross was ok, although i really should have known from the beginning it wouldnt work out. first of all, he was from texas. ew. second, he wasnt as laid back as me, which was awkward sometimes. there were other things too. but ultimately, we had nothing in common.

me and "ross" at a friends party
(i had my foot up on my seat which is why my knee is right there and weird looking)

sometime near the middle of april i was joking around with josh in class by pointing out girls he should date. to which he kept replying "ew...not my type". i was still dating ross, and at this point i still thought josh had zero interest in me. finally i asked "what is your type!?!" and then his response typified me. i was so bugged!!

fast forward to finals week, the end of april (i believe). ross and i had been dating for a month. during one of my last range management classes i told josh i wanted to go to his house and see his dog. we had always talked about it during the semester, that i loved dogs--and that his parents lived in pleasant grove and his dog Hunter was there. so umm yeah...i invited myself over to his house to meet his parents and see his dog and everything. [while i was still dating ross...]

the saturday of that week we went to pleasant grove, i met his parents and his sister, and played with hunter. after we left we decided to go see a movie, so we went and saw some horrible dud of a movie. then we went to get food, and then went back to his apartment. we ate and watched family guy with his roomates. BASICALLY, it was an all-day ordeal. [months later josh's mother confessed she knew from that day on that me and josh would get married. crazy, huh?]

i had conversations afterwards with some of my best friends, saying how i liked josh so much and how i was just dating ross cuz he was nice to me and stuff, and what in the world should i do!?! to which my wise bff replied, "i didnt want to tell you this before but you and josh are perfect for eachother, and with ross* its like an element of your personality is missing."

long story short, i broke up with ross the next day. josh and i started texting, and i went home to maine for the summer. i came to utah in late may and went on a camping trip with josh and two of my bffs. there, i asked josh to be my boyfriend. it was done in a silly/corny way, but the words were spoken. we were together ♥

camping, may 2007

*name has been changed and eyes have been blacked out for ex-bf's privacy. we havent exactly spoken since i broke up with him..

yay ♥

first of all, two years ago from today josh proposed to me. (awwww). thats what we looked like 2 years ago. we only get hotter with age.

today i had my last presentation of the semester. thank goodness!!! it went really well and i was happy with it. at the end when everyone was clapping i curtsyed and everyone laughed.

later i saw the professor and he said that we did a great job and he really liked our presentation. then i was talking to him about my future and stuff, blah blah blah. and i told him i was thinking about grad school, but that no one would want me. this is the convo:

prof: who wouldn't want you as a student?
me: i dont know...
prof: your grades are pretty good, right?
me: meh...so so. i have a 3.25
prof: that's good enough!
me: for byu even?
prof: yes! anyone would be lucky to have you as a grad student!

the whole time i was thinking about last year when that one teacher told me my gpa was bad and that no credible grad school would accept me, etc. take that you nasty teacher!!

[disclaimer: i am only thinking of grad school right now. just putting the feelers out. we'll see what happens...]

frazzle-icious

sorry if i seem stressed at all. i am.

two presentations this week. ouch.

11 page paper due this week. gross.

josh graduates in less than 2 weeks, jobless. i hate the real world. anyone hiring?

finals are next week (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!)

building relationships with friends? not really happening. if you think i am ignoring you, it is not intentional. give me a few weeks and a vacation, and i'll be back to normal (whatever that means).

also, both my grandma and father-in-law were in the hospital last week. yikes.

so please forgive me if i look like a hot mess or dont shower for a few more days. thanks♥

how refreshing

we had a guest lecture today in my business class, and he was awesome. he was really down to earth, funny, and laid back. he did the whole lecture from a chair on the front row. the room is shaped like a semi-circle, so everyone could see him and stuff, so he was just chillin in his chair and talking to us. apparently he teaches the same class as the one im in, and i almost wish i had been in his class! he was a riot! although i am learning a lot right now, but i digress...

the guest lecturer said something that i really liked, and ive been thinking about ever since. he said: "youre only young once! live your life, and get more Cs in college! everyone needs to mellow out, this is not the real world!" i think it was sort of meant to be because i have been stressing myself out with school. i went to bed last night at 3am, and then woke up at 7:30 to run up to my 8am class. i over obsess about everything school-related, as in im not good enough and then stress out. your life is made of experiences, so have some!

he also made fun of this girl that was asking all these questions at the start of class (and then later left). he goes, "good grief, did you see that poor girl obsessing about an assignment in a pass/fail class!? its pass/fail! all these nerds at byu need to calm down!"

anyways, it was just refreshing to hear, especially at such a prestigious school like BYU. he was saying how jumping through all these hoops and doing busy work is a waste, and that is not the real world. so live your life and get more C's!

clawing my way to the top...

after being sick and in quarantine for a week, i made my debut back into the world yesterday. and by world, i mean school. its been kicking my booty. i need to get back into the school-groove. i have at least 2 exams next week and i dont even know whats going on in those classes.

there are so many things i would rather do right now than do homework. like all the things i feel like i need to do, like exercise, improve my blog, improve my etsy shop, look at peoples blogs, craft, etc. its quite distracting...

sorry for the boring post. feel free to stop by with candy. haha.

embarrassing story of the week....

remember when i used to have these posts like every week? see here or here (yikes) or this. haha. either embarrassing things havent been happening as often to me lately, or i just ignore it. (actually i think really i just try to block them out in my head because i can remember a few recent ones...)

so today...i am in my annoying music 101 class. i am only taking it because i dropped ornithology (ew) and had to take a class to keep my scholarship--only leaving dumb block classes as options. so here i am stuck in music 101, a class i dont even need to graduate, which is turning out to be a lot of work. for instance, as i am writing this i am simultaneously listening to Handel and trying to figure out which song it is. oh wait, it just changed to Bach. ok, anyways, off track...

so in class today our teacher was talking about some style of music blah blah blah and then he asks the class "do you know what the word chorale is? ....anyone? it doesnt sound familiar to anyone?" ...now....say the word chorale out loud. (do it). does it or does it not sound like corral? here i am thinking why is he being such a jerk about this word? is he going for some kind of pastural theme? should i just answer the question to shut him up already?

so, out loud and making eye contact with the teacher, i pipe up and say "you mean like where cows live?" instantly the teacher laughed out loud, and the entire class joined in. i felt like such an idiot. really i forgot the word chorale even existed, so im sitting here going ohh my worrrrd... i just sunk down in my seat and felt my face turn red as he explained to the class that "chorale" means a Lutheran hymn. silly me.

moral of the story: dont answer questions in class.

recycle!!

i wrote a recycling paper for my english class and i really like it. so if anyone is interested, im posting it. if you aren't interested i will just secretly think poorly of you. ok, just kidding..

(oh, and this is my first draft, so if it stinks just ignore that..)

Does throwing away one soda can make a difference?

About half the volume of America’s municipal solid-waste stream is composed of packaging materials. This is equal to 300 pounds per person, per year. “It is interesting to note that we talk about streams of waste, as if they were naturally occurring features on the landscape, and yet there is nothing resembling such degradation in a healthy ecosystem. Perhaps mountains would be the more appropriate analogy” (Imhoff 24). With mountains of waste accumulating across the globe, less than 2% of the annual waste system is ultimately recycled. The rest of the waste? This is transformed into nonproductive solids and gases, stuffed in landfills or incinerated. Most of these products are harmful to the environment, as well as human health. Yet people do not seem to realize this phenomenon, or even care.

As a Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation major, I am very passionate about the environment. One of my biggest passions and largest concerns is recycling. If you have read editorials in the Daily Universe in the past or the BYU political review, you may have seen me write about this topic before. I was constantly complaining how BYU did not recycle plastic bottles, even though most beverages on campus are sold in plastic bottles. Finally, this past summer BYU Recycling ran a trial of recycling plastic bottles in the Wilkinson Center and other select buildings on campus. It was a success, and in my mind a major achievement. Now that we have basic recycling resources on campus, it is up to us to expand it to our own housing situations.

In the fascinating book “Paper or Plastic,” by Daniel Imhoff, a phrase is addressed that every American has heard since youth. “’Paper or plastic?’ This seemingly innocuous question assumed almost existential dimensions during the early 1990s, as it became a daily reminder to most of us that our industrial consumer society (in a world approaching six billion people) was running a collision course with the planet’s ecological life-support systems. The query was innocent enough, attempting to narrow a dilemma of immense complexity into a simple choice between materials. Do we clearcut forests, grind them to chips, and pulp and bleach them with chlorine-based compounds (generating carcinogenic byproducts) to make boxes, bags, and to-go cups primarily for one-time use? Or do we make a pact with demon hydrocarbon, refining ancient sunlight into lightweight, easily compactable bottles, wraps, and foams?” (Imhoff 8). Each year in the United States, over 75 million tons of potential resources are buried in the form of discarded packaging. The danger of landfills includes leaching of chemicals into soil and groundwater, and gases into the air.

The world seems to be filled with “less bad” solutions, such as using a paper plate that will be thrown out, or a ceramic plate that will be washed in the dishwasher. With the case of ‘paper or plastic?’ what are we supposed to do? Our answer should probably be “neither.” We need to eliminate, reduce, refill, and recycle as much as possible. This may be less affordable, convenient, or appealingly packaged at times, but will reduce our waste and limit our overall negative environmental impacts.

Recycling may sound nice in theory, but people often question if it really does have any impact. The answer is a concrete yes. Recycling saves both energy and natural resources. For example, to make aluminum cans, the process starts with 1 ton of mined bauxite ore. This is the amount required to produce a half ton of aluminum oxide. From the half ton of aluminum oxide, a quarter ton of aluminum metal is produced. So much energy is consumed in the process of smelting aluminum that it has earned the nickname ‘congealed energy.’ In contrast, when an aluminum can is recycled, 95% of the energy is saved in creating a new can. This means that 20 cans can be made of recycled material with the same energy required to make 1 can out of new material.

In terms of paper, producing one ton of paper consumes over 98 tons of resources. We are using paper faster than trees can be grown. It is estimated that loggers cut down 2 million trees every day in the US, yet Americans throw away about 42 million newspapers every day. This issue has been an ongoing one, even in the early days of Utah. Brigham Young had men travel by wagon from town to town collecting cotton rags. The cotton fibers from these rags were then used to make paper. It is interesting that even in the early history of the church, conserving natural resources was important (Recycling Coalition of Utah).

There are several scriptural references that depict us as stewards of the Earth. In Genesis, the Lord constructed Adam to have “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In Doctrine and Covenants 136:27, it reads: “Thou shalt be diligent in preserving what thou hast, that thou mayest be a wise steward; for it is the free gift of the Lord thy God, and thou art his steward.” One of our important roles in this life is to be stewards of the Earth. All resources that we need were given to us through Heavenly Father’s creation, and it is our responsibility to conserve those resources. As a steward, we will be held accountable for how we treated the Earth and the natural resources given to us by our Savior.

So how can we do our part here in Provo, Utah? We can start by recycling and being more conscious of the impacts our personal actions have on the environment. There are recycling bins on campus and in some student housing. Since curb-side recycling is not a mandatory program here in Provo, it is our responsibility to obtain it. After I moved into a new apartment this past fall, I constantly asked my landlord to obtain a recycling bin for our four-plex. He obliged, and as the tenant who requested it, it’s my duty to pull it to the roadside every week for collecting. Most landlords should be willing to make some sort of compromise like this, you just need to ask!

Provo City has contracted with Waste Management to provide optional curbside recycling. It costs $5 a month per blue bin. To obtain further information, look up www.provo.org and look under Services; Garbage Collection, or call #801-852-6000. This same website can be a reference tool to find locations to drop off other recyclables that the program does not currently accept. If you do not want to pay the $5 per month, there is a drop-off recycling bin located at the compost station at 1625 South Industrial Parkway. There is no charge to make recycling drop-offs, and hours are typically 8-5 Monday through Saturday.

I urge everyone to become more involved in recycling. Your actions and your example in this matter can only cause good for the environment and our future. Take advantage of the recycling programs that are available to you, and press for more. The next time you go to throw away a soda can, think twice about how much energy it cost to make that can before it goes in the trash.

electroshocker by day...

ok, so these pictures are not of us, i got them from google images, but they show what we did today in our lab. we went to the provo river and did electroshocking. this sends an electrical current through the fish and draws them up like a magnet, and then people with nets catch them. then we put them in a bucket, and then measured them. they were tricky to catch sometimes. at least for me. i liked touching them tho and looking at them in the bucket and going "fishiiiiiies!!!"

this is the measuring part. we measured mostly brown trout, just like in this picture. the largest fish we caught was 48 cm. it was fun. we had big old chest waders on, and we were stumbling around in the river. it was really cold, and my nose and hands were freezing. but it was fun.

so that was our lab today. now, on another note...

i think our cat broke his leg. if he is still limping tomorrow morning i am going to call the vet for sure. here is a picture of him tonight when i was putting away dishes and he jumped in. he is so cute. so i had to take a picture. i promise our dishes are clean tho haha.

♥

yayyy

we got a recycling bin!!!!!! for anyone who doesnt already know, i'm a little cuckoo about recycling. i used to save up all my paper, cans, bottles, etc and i would have to drive them up past provo town center mall up to the recycling place (which is kind of scary to go alone for the record). then in this apartment the complex across the street has 2 bins so i usually stash all my recycling over there. so i asked my landlord if we could get one for our four-plex, and he ordered one! it came today, and was just sitting in our front walkway when we got home from school. i got so excited. since i was the one who asked for it i am just responsible for wheeling it up the driveway every tuesday. yippee.

in other news, today we went up to hobble creek for our lab, to set up cameras in trees that have motion censoring so they take pictures when animals walk by. we set up 2. we also took barbed wire and wrapped it around a tree base and then put scent all over it. this attracts the animals so they come and rub on it, and then their hair gets caught in the barbed wire and you can do dna testing on it. i was (of course), the one who got to splash the tree with scent. our group had "bear lure" and i splashed it all over the base of that tree. a little bit got on my hands which was kind of gross and then i was all nervous that i stank. on the bottle it says "do not get this product on you because you may be attacked." it was kind of funny. but josh smelled my hands and said they kind of smelled like trees. which im not opposed to, so it was ok. even though who knows what was in that bear lure....ew. also, a huge rock almost fell on me because our teacher was scrounging around the steep upper bank above us and i was standing like right under it. too bad it didnt hit me....maybe my sense of smell would come back... (haha just kiddddding)

anyways, it was a fun day. playing with bear lure and nailing barbed wire into trees and then coming home to find a beautiful new recycling bin waiting for me :]

my week..

job update:
so i stayed with the job. my boss has been much nicer towards me, and its been a little better.

hair update:
i got it dyed at paul mitchell and it took 3 hours. its just black permanently now. i like it.

highlight of the week:
thursday. we had a killer lab (literally), and then i went to a wildtree party

so first, the lab was for techniques of wildlife investigation and management. this week was all about gun and bear safety. we practiced spraying bear spray (not the real stuff, that could get dangerous). we used blow darts, which was kind of hard, but josh was good at it. we used a shotgun that shot out darts, i did okay but i was a little low of the target. there was also the jab stick, which is a big metal pole with a tranq needle sticking out of it. this, of course, was joshs favorite (because it most resembled shanking). then we did this thing, it was some sort of pyrotechnics stuff? you have this little gun and put a firework thing in the end and then pull the trigger. one kind shot out and made a loud 'screaming' noise as it twisted through the air. the other kind shot out and then exploded. it was cool when it exploded in the water, but sometimes it did in the air. i thought this was really fun, minus the fact that it was extremely loud and i hate loud noises. then, there was the pistol and shotgun part. this i did NOT like. it was extremely loud. i don't know how hunters can use those and not get major hearing damage. this part i was not into at all. i just walked away to the other stuff that was still going on. so anyways, that was our lab. probably the best lab we've been on this semester.

then, the wildtree thing. ok, this was awesome. when i went i was kind of skeptical. but then i walked in and there was all this food and veggies and chicken and all these dipping and cooking oils and all this desert etc etc etc. it was food heaven. wildtree is this company that started in rhode island, and its just seasonings, oils, mixes, etc that are all natural. absolutely no preservatives, msg, anything. it has a shelf life of 18 months. there was this alfredo (you buy the alfredo mix and add it to milk and stuff) and it was delicious. this is coming from a girl who HATES alfredo. i hate it. its always really thick creamy sauce that makes you want to barf and its this weird white color. anyways, alfredo is gross. THIS alfredo however was light, had delicious seasonings in it, and was more of a light cheese/butter taste. it was delicious. i am actually salivating right now just remembering it. my other favorite thing was, of course, the oils. its actually grapeseed oil, which is (allegedly) healthier than olive oil. it can cook at higher heats so it doesnt steam or lose its consistency. there was a dipping basil pesto one that i ordered. and then a buttery tasting one. anyways, it was delicious and i highly recommend everyone checking it out. if i was the selling type, i would become a rep for it. apparently theres a booth at the provo farmers market.

so there is this week in a nutshell. sorry if this blog (or parts of it) were boring, but really i don't care :]