Birthday Boy

Well, Joe's birthday has come and gone. I dutifully took pictures so that I would be sure to blog about it, and here I am! Did I intend to do this back when he actually had his birthday? Sure I did. Am I proud that I'm even doing it at all, with my history of sporadic blogging? You bet your big burly biceps I am.

My "excellent strong man" turned 28 on July 22nd. Hooray, successful aging! 

My lucky man ended up getting three birthday parties, so it ended up being more like a birthday week. First, we got to go up to our friends' cabin and spend the weekend fishing, eating, playing games and having an intense horseshoes competition -- but more on that later.

The birthday gents. Scott is the one looking like
 a normal human. Joe is the one looking Joe-ish. 

Joe's actual birthday was a Sunday, and what he really-really wanted to do that day was to not do anything. So, we spent the day in our apartment, watching movies, playing games, and eating his favorite---key lime pie!

We planned ahead and bought some coconut shrimp for his birthday dinner, but after church we decided that "Bacon Spaghetti" just sounded ridiculously amazing and we had to have it RIGHT THEN! So I made some... a ton, in fact. So much that we ended up not wanting dinner at all when it came around. But Joe loves bacon, so he was happy! See picture below:

Happy Bacon Joe

I spent a lot of time decorating the apartment....

And then we had birthday pie! What we lacked in birthday candles we made up for with birthday ingenuity.

I walked into the room to find that pretty princess bow on his head. 

Horn-tooting time! I made that beautiful key lime pie. It was my first pie attempt ever (does cheesecake count as a pie?) and it was all eaten so I guess it worked out acceptably. I made an Oreo crust, which I suggested more as a joke, but Joe thought it was a brilliant idea so it was done. And it was pretty good!

Happy Key Lime Pie Joe. PS - isn't he cute?? :)

You thought I was lame for just decorating with a teeny white board, didn't you? Well allow me to redeem myself with this doozy:

I am so good at decorating!

The last b-day party was at my parents' abode. For dinner we had chickeny-pineapply-pepper skewers. We have had grill withdrawals so this was a spectacular remedy.

Yeah, the picture's sideways. Don't worry about it. 

One of his presents was the game Smallworld, which he was super-de-duper excited about. Adorably so. This picture accurately represents the several hours we spent trying to figure out the rules. Note Joe's face of dictionary-definition perplexity, my mom's eyes turned toward the heavens, and my dad's raptor hand. Actually, I'm not sure what the raptor hand is all about.

Mom's expression is the most accurate. She did that a lot. 

We did eventually figure out the game, and it's really fun. If you're into strategy games and don't mind 10 gazillion tiny pieces, this is (honestly) a great time for all. Just prepare to take more time figuring out how to play than you do actually playing. OR come play with us, and we'll teach you!

With the itty bitty pieces!

And here is his swag. I just got him a billion shirts, cause I'm domestic like that. He got Smallworld, Monopoly Deal, and a bunch of computer games as well. I think he was pretty happy :)

And now my husband is older. Thee. End. :)

The Lodgings

Once upon a time, I got married to this cute, though admittedly silly, boy. Fortunately for us both, he already rented an apartment, which was surprisingly well-kept for a bachelor's abode. Since it's a one-person or married-persons only apartment (aka, no roommates,) it was delightfully easy for me to move in. And we made it all cute and homey with all of our wedding goodies! So today I have for your special enjoyment some riveting photos of our apartment. Be excited! You are about to enter the fascinating confines of my new home.

To start, the bathroom!

Since I don't find bathrooms to be particularly interesting, this is the only photo I took. If you happen to be a connoisseur of bathrooms, I apologize for documenting it so incompletely. We are going for a brown theme...using different shades of browns...and see! We successfully have a brown shower curtain and brown towels.
It looks much better than it used to. And, thanks to the parking garage fire from months past, some of the shower things got replaced, courtesy of the landlord, and we have a fancy, curvy shower curtain rod. I don't know about you guys, but I find that to be pretty awesome. Also, the curtain's not dirty, it's just all fancily crinkled. It looks cool in person, I promise.

Next, the bedroom! This is my second favorite room in our apartment. Unless it's the morning and I'm sleeping in. Then it's my favorite room of all time.Here is the view from the doorway.

The bed was Joe's before, and if you looked at it and said "that's from Ikea!" like Joe does every time he sees a picture of anything from Ikea, then you would be right. And my sock monkey was brought along because I'm still mentally infantile.

View from the opposite corner:

 This is mostly just to show off two of our favorite things - The Shelf, which is just my favorite, because it's full of books. And The Giant Mirror, which we JUST bought a couple of days ago. That's Joe's favorite. It is pretty fantastic. And the white thing peeking out from behind the mirror is a canvas, for one day when we're going to be super artistic and decorate our bedroom walls.

Living room! My new favorite room because we decorated the walls with a perfectly assembled (if i do say so myself) frame collage.

 We did the collage thingy the same night we bought the mirror, which is why there are a bunch of empty frames. They aren't supposed to be empty. But I can't get over how much I love it. The little clock has a swinging pendulum! So awesome.
Joe also owned the couch before I moved in. In fact, he bought it right when we first were dating, and it was a definite upgrade from the last model. He has such good taste. Also he let me put up that mirror, which he thinks is gaudy (it is. exquisitely gaudy.) So you see, he's a pretty grand husband.

From inside the kitchen:

 He also owned the tv. I basically moved into a fully, nicely furnished apartment. I might have married him for that reason. And note the vaulted ceilings. I love them.
Also, if you're curious, on the tv is BBC's The Buccaneers, which so far I wouldn't recommend. It mostly seems annoying.

Our teensy kitchen:

 Which, despite being small, is pretty nice also. And now furnished with all sorts of awesome dishes and other trinkets, like this!:

 Our new butter dish! So cute! I get overexcited about weird things like butter dishes.

And this!:

Kitchenaid mixer! Yes, it's marvelous. I used it to make cookies last night, so just pretend there's a giant shiny bowl with a handle in the picture as well. 

And I almost forgot! This lovely balcony is one of my other favorite parts of our apartment. It's just outside our bedroom, and someday (soon mehopes) I shall put some small patio furniture out there so I can sit and read in the warm outside. I love that there are trees right outside, it makes our balcony feel pretty private compared to some of the other apartments'. Plus it grows pears, so if we ever learn how to pick them without knocking them all off, we'll have tasty snacks too. 

I really love living here, by the way. It's 10 times nicer than I expected as a newlywed. Plus I'm in very good company, so it's just fun. And that's that! Tour complete. :)

Blog Title Confession

So... I also renamed my blog. This you probably noticed. However, I'm not sure I love the name, sooo if you guys are craving a little suggestion box action, here is your opportunity! Answer, if you would, one or more of the following questions:

-Do you like this blog title? (Joe & the Ginger)
-Do you think we need a different title?
-What title do you think we should have?
-If you think we should have a new title, but are feeling as uninspired as I am, what elements would you suggest putting in our title?

If you don't want to bother typing out a whole mess of commentary, I have created for you this handy dandy answering guide. Just put the letter of the comment you would make if you were feeling more typistically* inclined (*nope, that's not a word.)

A. Your new blog name is the most amazing name I have ever seen. Keep it. Keep it forever.

B. Your blog is such a delightful mix of humor, cleverness, and information. No one will even notice the title because you are such a fabulous blogger. Don't worry about it.

C. Your blog's name is awful. Get rid of it immediately. I have no other input to offer. But also you are a beautiful human, and I think everything you do is inspired.

D. I don't think this subject was really worthy of its own post.

That's it. Please help my poor fledgling blog title.

And here's the confession: I really don't mind my title (in fact, I rather like it.) Mostly I just wanted to make another post. Still want your input, though. 

My Blog Grew Up Today

Today my blog put on her big-girl panties and graduated from the frilly thing it was into a nice, clean-cut, grow-ed up blog. Do I miss the crazy colors and ridiculousness of it?...Perhaps a smidgeon. But do I also love the new look and the ability to read all of the words with nary a squint to be seen? Yes. Yes I do. And I hope you do too.

My blog's growing up... just like Ron Weasley. 

My Opinion Rant...and an Update of Sorts

So I'm married, and it's pretty awesome. Our apartment looks great and we are both responsible job-do-ers. I make meals... on occasion... and they have turned out swimmingly of late. And our ward is both large and friendly. Things are going grand. I still like my husband.

That's pretty much it for updates. If you would like to read a rant about internet commenters, please continue reading.

Today I have made an important discovery. A life-changing discovery. A world-turning, magma-bubbling, cloud-wringing discovery.
Lies. It's none of those things.
What I discovered today was that 76% of people, and I promise you that's a completely accurate statistic, go online...anywhere...to find someone to disagree with.

Example A:
As I was practicing my finely honed skill of time-wasting this morning, I happened upon a list of fantastic April Fool's pranks (their claim, not mine.) I am not a fan of April Fool's, or pranks generally, mostly because I think a lot of the time people take them too far and ruin things or hurt people or, ya know, some other horrible thing.  But I don't mind other people doing pranks. I can see how it's fun. And I can definitely appreciate a tasteful, harmless prank (...played on someone else.) Like rubber-banding the sink sprayer so it sprays on whoever turns on the sink. That's funny stuff!
Anyway, as I was perusing the list, I read a prank that goes something like this:
"-For rooms across the hall from each other.When your children (or roommates or squatters, whatever) are asleep or in their rooms, tie a rope around each door knob, leaving enough length for one of the doors to be opened slightly. Knock loudly on each door at the same time and watch the poor suckers play tug-of-war with their doors! Ha ha!" (transcription very loosely follows the actual quote)
I thought, "oh ha, ah ha ha, that would be funny" or something similar to that, and moved on down the list.
I finished the list. I saw there were comments. Because I am an accomplished waster of time, I read ALL of them. One of them is the reason for this blog. It went something like this.
"I am a resident assistant at a college and these jokes are not funny, and some of them are actually really dangerous. Tying ropes to door knobs is a fire hazard and is so dangerous, no one should ever do that. Jokes aren't very funny when people can get hurt or even die."
Whew, downer.
I get the fire hazard thing. Putting people in danger = not cool. We can all agree. But you are not going to tie the doors closed and then leave the house for the rest of the day. You aren't going to see a fire and take off, leaving the poor prankees to their fate. It's a 3 minute prank that you hang around to watch, then take down. Don't be dumb and leave it all day, that would be like having to explain a joke when someone doesn't get it -- it loses its charm quickly. To me, this rope prank is as much of a fire hazard as tucking in your sheets before you sleep under them. Just...relax about things. And don't use your RA job to add credence to your statement about dangerous things. It's silly.

Example B:
I've also come across this argument phenomenon on Pinterest often. I have found that if there is any picture of a woman, whether skinny (healthy or not) or fat (healthy or not), I can click on it and enjoy a whole delightful smattering of argumentative comments about whether or not she is beautiful/admirable/healthy. I have made a kind of game out of clicking on those pictures just to see if once -- just one time -- I will not see  a string of comments that goes like this:

1st comment: Wow she is so skinny and beautiful, I hope I will look like her after I do this amazing workout routine I've started.
2nd comment: Um excuse me 1st commenter, you do not have to be skinny to be beautiful for all we know she could be really unhealthy its ok to be big and just for the record i dont think she's that pretty.
3rd comment: Big or skinny everyone is beautiful plz stop saying she's ugly just cause you don't like it everyone is perfect just as they are.

While I more or less agree with the last commenter in these situations, I still think commenting on these at all  is generally a bad idea because someone will have something to argue about and the process will continue endlessly. Because three-fourths of people plus a few more will always search out something until they can find even the minutest reason to get in your face.
I realize this post is sort of contradictory to my whole point, since I'm basically arguing against internet arguers...on the internet... but since it's a blog I find it to be acceptable.
And that's my two cents about silly internet arguments, and how they are both eye-roll inducing and amusing.

Mawwiage!

It happened! We're married!

It's wonderful. Look how cute he is! I love him. :)

Five days, five days!

Five more days and I'll be married to that guy! 

The Sights of Springville

So, this post won't have any actual sights of Springville... well, that's not true. There's one semi-distant photo of the museum! Ready yourselves for that.

My ex-roommate/current friend Jenna came to visit ex-fake-roommate/current friend Sarah Singleton and myself in "the Ville" {as Sarah calls it} and we showed her all of Springville's wonders!

In the museum. Dunno what Jenna's doin.

Jenna... doing her thing. 

Sarah... doing a leprechaun dance? It WAS an exciting
tour of Springville's finest. 

This is probably clear by now, but we went to the museum.
See? There it is! Behind them! 

Jenna in her tourist hat, on her way to see more
exciting things!

And we didn't stop at the art museum! We also dined at the Trolley, which is one of the only restaurants around here, and it was way better than I even remembered. So tasty! But, I have sad news. They changed their menu! I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing, except that they don't have my favorite thing anymore. I haven't tried the new things so I'm sure it's still wonderful.

We also enjoyed lounging on my front yard for like... an hour. That's sort of a Springville specialty, I guess. And we saw Sarah's kajillion cats, which is definitely an oddity that you won't find anywhere else.

All in all, I'm fairly sure Jenna is convinced of all the amazing things Springville has to offer. If I remember right, she mentioned something about moving here after school, because she just couldn't stay away. Right, Jenna? Right?