flat leah

Have you ever heard of Flat Stanley?

If not, that's okay because I hadn't heard about him until last semester when I was spending three weeks in a Kindergarten Classroom. If you have heard about him, then you know that Flat Stanley is a children's storybook about a boy named Stanley who turns into a paper doll and visits his friends via envelope. 

Flat Stanley is also an elementary school project where the students read about Flat Stanley and then send a paper version of him to their family members or other students living in a different part of the world. The person who receives Flat Stanley takes him everywhere they go and takes pictures.

After a few days or so of this, the pictures and a letter are sent back to the student. In the Kindergarten class where I observed, the students made a poster and shared it with the class. Flat Stanley went to Texas, Idaho, Washington, and even China!

Alright. You're probably wondering what this has to do with me. Well... my good friend Allissa just got back from visiting my other good friend Meggie in the Caribbean. I was so sad I couldn't tag along, that I came up with a genius idea... Flat Leah. And Allissa was great enough to go along with it. 

me with my flat leah

Allissa taking flat leah out the door

Allissa stopped by the Distribution center to grab a Book of Mormon for the flight

Waiting at the airport

On the plane

All buckled in

At the pool. Look! My very own hot tub! 

Meggie's backyard. I'm in the plant!

Oh just pickin some magos

On a boat ride

So there you have it. Flat Leah in the Caribbean. Too bad the real me wasn't there. But maybe one day!

my first attempt at giving marriage advice

Soooo... I am following a couple blogs that often give advice on marriage; pretty good advice in fact. But sometimes I wonder what makes them credible to give such advice. They aren't a therapist, they don't have a PHD, they aren't a world-renowned book author or anything like that, so why do their readers often go to them with marriage questions? I've decided it's because they have experience, they reflect on their experience, and they are honest in their writing. Well, last I checked, I do all three of those things. So I thought, why not give it a go? Why not share my advice? 

So here I go. Here is my marriage advice. {More like just the beginning of it} 

Ammon and I have been married for a little over a year now. While it has been a blast and I never regret my decision to marry Ammon, it has also been challenging. When you become so comfortable with someone, it's easy to get comfortably lazy with how you treat them. 

For example. If someone at work says something we don't like, or they are acting fist-clenching annoying, we usually just brush it off and just ignore it-or we approach them very carefully to discuss the matter. However, when it comes to spouses, we tend to say whatever first comes to our mind because we've gotten so comfortable. Isn't it sad that the ones we love the most are the ones we tend to say the most hurtful things to? 

From experience, this is my solution: the second you are about to say something negative about your spouse, learn to say these words instead: I... love... you. And even if you don't mean it at first, you will. There are times when Ammon will do something that is completely harmless, but because I'm in a bad mood, I start to get annoyed. I've learned that if I just turn to him and say, "Hey Ammon? I love you." Then the results that come are much more wonderful than if I had said, "stop that." It is the smallest thing, but I think it makes the biggest difference. 

I absolutely love the following quote:

How often do we have this grandiose plan in our head to do something nice for our spouse, but because they say something or do something that we don't like, then we decide they don't deserve it? So then we get hurt and we don't end up serving our spouse at all. 

For example, at the beginning of our marriage, Ammon was still at work and I wanted to serve him. So I executed my elaborate plan to give Ammon a massage when he got home. I dimmed all the lights in the house, I set up candles, and I had Enya playing in the background. In my head, this was going to be the best service. Well, when Ammon came home from work, he didn't want a massage. {not yet, anyway.} He had just worked at Brick Oven, so he wanted to shower and he was also very hungry. Well, unfortunately, I became offended. I couldn't believe he didn't want a massage right when he got home from work? My plan was to serve Ammon, but what I didn't realize, is that by getting offended and not allowing my husband some time to switch from work mode to home mode, my act of kindness was only an intention. A true act of kindness would have been serving Ammon how he needed to be served in that moment. 

This story leads me to my other advice and that is not getting offended. There are so many disagreements and hurtful feelings that could be avoided if we just stopped getting offended. When someone says something or does something that can be taken either way, take it the way that doesn't hurt! Brush it off, turn it into a joke, laugh at yourself, whatever makes it so you aren't offended. And if they do say something that is legitimately hurtful, then pull them aside and talk it out, rather than just saying something hurtful back. {this is something I am still working on}

Okay. Last bit of advice. Pray to see the good.

When Ammon and I were attending the single's ward, we went to a few firesides specifically given for couples who knew they wanted to get married. During the firesides, my stake president would always give the 80:20 advice. He said that when you get married, you will love 80 percent of the things your spouse does, and the other 20 percent, are going to be things you can't stand. Focus on the 80 percent and ignore the 20 percent. You will continually struggle with the grass is greener syndrome if you can't learn to focus on the 80 percent. I got really lucky, so it's usually really easy for me to see Ammon's 80 percent. In fact, it's more like 90:10. Haha.

Elder Eyering gives great advice on how to see the 80 percent:

Oh! And one more thing:

dirty dash

The Dirty Dash was SO. Much. FUN! 

Picture running 5 miles or so with the heaviest and most soaked shoes you've ever experienced, crawling up, down, and through muddy obstacles, cheering on strangers because you feel like you're in it together, drinking chocolate milk right in the middle of your race, receiving a couple battle wounds along the way, and simply having the time of your life. 

That's what the dirty dash was for me and Ammon. 

We loved it and we definitely want to do it again next year! {Anyone else wanna do it with us?}

Here are some epic pictures.

Before:

During:

After:

brave

Sooooo, my friend Brianna and I made a music video. It's to my new favorite song. Not only are you going to watch us dancing around like a couple crazies, but you're also going to listen to one of the best songs ever! As soon as Brianna introduced this song to me, I listened to it at least 3 times in a row, downloaded it on my i-pod, and now I listen to it every single time I go for a run or I'm cleaning my house! Oh, and then there's the fact that we made a music video.

So there you have it folks. Without further ado, 

Brave: by Sara Bareilles. Music video featuring Brianna Call and Leah Lott

And then we took these:

I seriously love this girl! We have have so many things in common that it's no wonder we became instant friends. She brings the crazy side out of me and I like confiding in her because we always end up having these deep conversations on life and different ways to look at it.
{More to come on this girl when I finally blog about her}

restaurant memes

Many of you already know I work at Brick Oven as a waitress. 

All of us servers have a facebook page where we can desperately ask for someone to pick up our shift or to simply invite a bunch of people to an event. 

However, lately a lot of servers have been posting memes that perfectly capture those awkward moments spent at Brick Oven. Some of them are more applicable to Brick Oven, but I think most waiters and waitresses can relate and will find them hilarious. Check em out.

So then, I thought I'd give it a try. Here's the one I made:

DIY bleach shirt (a great way to make team shirts)

This Saturday I am running the Dirty Dash race with Ammon and a couple of friends from work. 

A long time ago, we decided that our team name would be: The Septic Tanks. (Ammon's idea) 

It's brilliant.

We've been wanting to make team shirts for quite some time, but didn't exactly know what to do. 

I was so excited when I finally found a cheap and easy way to make team shirts. 

There are many different ways you can use bleach to design your own shirt, but I'm going to show you how I made my shirt. Here is the final product:

Pretty sweet eh? It's not perfect, but not too bad for my first try. 

Alright. Here's what you do. 

Step one. Buy everything you will need. This includes a dark shirt that is 100% cotton, liquid bleach, a spray bottle, and label paper. (The whole piece of paper is one giant sticker) I couldn't find the paper at wal-mart, but you can get 25 sheets at Staples for only $13. As for everything else, wal-mart is perfect. 

 

Step two. Type up the words you will need on Word. Pick a font that will be easy to cut out! To make our team shirt a little more exciting, I found the following clipart online:

Again, pick something that will be easy to cut out. 

Step Three. Print out everything you will need onto the sticker paper. 

Step Four. Cut out everything carefully and place the stickers where you want. 

Step Five. Pour bleach into the spray bottle and add almost the same amount of water. (The darker the shirt, the less bleach you will need) Now you are ready to spray your shirt! It is ideal to do it outside, but I didn't have my own yard, so I did it in the shower. Wear gloves. Be careful because bleach is potent. BEFORE YOU SPRAY: understand that the bleach doesn't work right away. So if you don't see anything at first, don't go crazy and spray a ton. Wait it out and you will start to see your results. If you want your shirt to be speckly, then tighten the spray bottle. If you like drips down your shirt, then loosen the spray bottle and spray dart like streams at the shirt. I did a little bit of both.  

Step six. As soon as it looks how you like it, peal off the stickers and rinse in cold water. The more you wait, the more the bleach will take effect on your shirt. 

Step Seven. Wash in the washer like normal but with COLD water. Dry like you normally would and enjoy your new shirt!!