MY DIY TO-DO LIST THIS WEEKEND

I'm sooooooo looking froward to this long weekend. I have so many projects that need attending to, and I haven't showed many of them yet because I hate showing things half finished. Here is part of my to-do list this weekend: 

^Finishing up sewing our drapes. Hopefully I'll do a tutorial on this soon!

 ^I'm almost done with our balcony and can't wait to share the details! I'll be working mostly on my seat cover and pillows for this crate bench I made.

Going to be planting some herbs in this homemade pallet planter on Monday with my Mum.

^Doing some more work with the rug I'm making.

^Start on the second nail art piece that will be accompanying this one on our wall. Hopefully I'll give directions on this soon as well!

^ Finish spraying this once black and white chair and reupholster the seat with some fun white chevron fabric. 

And remember when I bought these chairs back in September! Ya me neither! HA! But they have been sitting at my parents house and the weather finally has been warm enough to paint them. Hopefully my parents are bringing them up on Monday and then I can staple on the new fabric and glue the trim on. Yay! 

Seriously guys I can't wait to do a tour of my house but it's going to be w few more months. Haha. I'm one of those people who wants to have EVERYTHING done before the reveal but maybe I will do it one by one as each room is done. 

Well Spence and I are hopefully off to Seven Peaks water park this weekend (where we first fell in love back when we were 16. So precious). Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day weekend and doesn't have to work!

ST GEEZY

I've been on a little blogging hiatus, since I was in St. George over the weekend and have been sick ever since I got back. Man, I didn't realize you could catch a cold in the summer but I guess you can. If anyone wants to bring me tissues and a Dr. Pepper I wont complain. My sister Amelia (in the yellow shirt above) was getting a condo in St. George for the weekend since her husband and oldest son were going to be canyoneering nearby all weekend. Me and my sister Emilee (red shirt) decided to tag along.  

 On day one we went to an airplane museum and a dinosaur museum. The airplane museum was free and looked as if we had been their only visitors in 5 years. It was hosted by a bunch of retired Air-Force grandpas who were more than excited to have some little kids running around. 

^^ Isn't my niece Lilli just a doll! Literally! 

 ^^Twins

 ^^ Me trying to make an origami Pterodactyl. Epic fail.

 ^^ Of course no St. George trip is complete without a Swig run. This little girl discovered her love for ice. And I discovered my love for Mango Puree Mountain Dew. Seriously people next time you are at Swig get one! Even if you don't like Mnt. Dew, it doesn't taste like it and you won't regret it. 

 ^^My good Friend Mary Beth came along for the trip because her boyfriend lives down south. Lucky for my he worked every night so in the evenings I got this pretty lady to myself. 

^^Another great thing about the trip was that Mary and I got to see our good friend Carly. The three of us were inseparable when we were little and then sadly Carly moved to St. George when we were in elementary but we always kept in touch. Speaking of Carly... she really needs to update her blog. ;) 

^^ St George has a lot of great consignment stores and although we didn't get to make it to many, we did make it to the DI (Utah's version of Good Will) there and had great success. I meant to take pictures of the stuff I bought but for now the only one I have is this dress. Everything else I got was home decor items. 

^^ And one of my favorite moments of the trip is when Mary came to pick me up from the DI and we got in the car, only to realize that the iPod was missing and the windows were rolled down. Mary panicked as she thought someone had stolen it but then when we looked in the back seat we saw a baby car seat. Needless to say we dashed out of that car as fast as possible and laughed our heads off. What are the odds that an identical car with its doors unlocked was parked right next to us. And of course about 10 seconds later the owner of the car walked out. I don't think she saw us getting out of the car, but i'm pretty sure she saw us take this picture. haha.  

The rest of the trip was filled with driving, hot tubbing, and reminiscing. And for your further enjoyment, my nephew {who has a speech impediment} was nice enough to serenade us. Please excuse Siri giving us directions in the background. 

THE HAIRY LIBERATION OF ASHLEY C. HANSEN

So I chopped and bleached my hair, which came as a big shock to everyone since I didn't tell anyone and I made the decision a few hours before my appointment to get my extensions redone! It was a sudden/not so sudden decision. I had been thinking sometime about chopping my hair into a long bob and then bleaching it after I started following a hairdresser named Ashlyn on instagram:

I absolutely loved her hair but I never dared to cut it because there were {and still are} things that I don't like about myself and I have used my hair to hide behind it and detract from those things. But when I had a hair appointment to get my extensions touched up yesterday, after months of thinking about that hair, I decided what the hell. Let's go for it! It's now or never! 

A few other things led me to this decision: 

1. Summer has just begun and I wanted something a little low maintenance for all the times I'm going to be spending in the pool and on vacation. 

2. Speaking of pool... my real hair and my extensions look completely different wet {because the hair God gave me is out of control frizzy and curly} and therefore I would look like a straight up fool comin' out of that pool {that turned into a rhyme}. 

3. Extensions are heavy and hot. Not a good summer combo; especially when you just want to throw your hair up in a bun. 

4. It takes sooo long to do my hair. I feel like in winter this is fine because I have nothing better to do, but in the summer that last thing I want is to spend 2 hours doing my hair when I could be out riding my bike and soaking up the sun! 

My extensions however will not go to waste. I can put them back in anytime I want {like when I realize this was a mistake}, but for now they will sit in my drawer because I LOVE LOVE LOVE the new hair. What can I say, I'm an aquarius through and through and I get bored of something easily. Honestly even though this decision was extremely practical for the reasons numbered above, it was also a huge step for me since I vowed never to cut my hair again. I really felt liberated in pulling a "Miley Cyrus" because I do agree that people have this idea that long locks are the most attractive and most feminine. I've never gotten more hair compliments in my life then when I had fake hair these last 3 and 1/2 months. I'm not saying I'll never go back to long hair, but it felt good to get out of my comfort zone and not let myself hide behind my hair anymore. Thank you Kirsten and Bri you guys are very talented hairdressers {and they are still in hair school! Freakin talent right there!}. My hair is still a major adjustment and I still have to do a double take in the mirror, but if anyone is feeling the need to chop, I say go for it! It feels good.  

 I'm off to St. George this weekend to enjoy the sun, pool, a dirty Dr. Pepper, and my new hair. Hope everyone has a good weekend and remember you are beautiful!

* Kirsten and Bri go to Renaissance Hair Academy in Provo, where I have been going for years {because who wants to pay full price for a "professional" right?} They are amazing and they are coloring scientists! Seriously! Make an appointment with them and have your minds blown! 

FAMILY BIKE RIDES: RIDE OR DIE {LITERALLY}

So I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this story, but on Sunday the funniest thing in the world happened to me. Well... it happened to my mother-in-law. So on Sunday we decided to go on a family bike ride with Spencer's brother, his fiance, the hound, and Spencer's mom. However Spencer's mom {Sharon} was reluctant to go because she hadn't ridden a bike in a while. After much convincing we were off! It was perfectly weather and after riding for almost a mile, we were on the home stretch back to his brother's house when God decided to grace us with a humorous memory that will always be with me. We were riding on a narrow street without a sidewalk, when I suddenly see Sharon ride off the lip of the pavement onto the dirt, then plow into a garbage can, and then slam against a fence... a fence that came toppling down and left her flat on her back. But let's face it... a picture is worth a thousand words right?

{amputee Sharon}

Based on the quality of these pictures, maybe they are only worth about 650 words, but classic nonetheless. Anyway, I immediately wanted to laugh. then I wondered if she was seriously hurt and going to cry so then I put on my "OMG are you ok?" face. Then when I realized that she was fine, I of course began my laugh fest. After letting her lay on the ground for 5 minutes while we cried with laughter, we began to realize we needed to fix the fence some how. Luckily there was no one home so we began to draw upon our 1st grade Lincoln Log abilities and put the fence back into place. The only problem was that the fence was never cemented in the ground and the polls had completely rotted {hence why it went down from just a nudge}. So we basically just propped it up with rocks and slinked away. In my professional opinion those people were complete hoarders by the look of their "storage porch" {still not sure how people get to their door}, so I don't think they are too worried about the quality of their fence. All misdemeanors aside though, Sharon has recovered and is ready to go out again. And plus we all have a hilarious story that makes me giggle just re-typing it. Lesson we learned from this: when in doubt, apply the breaks. 

And two side stories: 

• On a side note, yesterday I walked into a bathroom that smelled exactly like delicious Italian food. Seriously I don't know if it was the cleaning products or what, but I had to double check that the sign on the wall said "restrooms" and not Olive Garden. I didn't know whether to be disgusted or hungry. It was very perplexing.
  
• This week I had a stranger compliment me on my nails and ask if I did them myself. I said "No a very talented Asian woman did them." Then I noticed an Asian was standing right behind her. I never know what things are politically correct or what things will offend people. In my defense I did say "talented Asian." And as my friend Molly {Peters} Pilivi once said "I would never trust someone to do my nails who wasn't Asian." Asian friends feel free to weigh in on this. 

Up on the agenda this weekend. Crafts, projects and DIYs! Shocker! One day my house will be finished... one day. 

THE THINGS I HATE ABOUT PINTEREST

Pinterest is one of my favorite pastimes. Some would call it a "time waster" but those are only people who don't actually use their pins. I'm constantly cooking and crafting up things that I have found on Pinterest, and I've even bought a few items that people have pinned. Seriously 3 cheers for Pinterest! I still remember where and when I first heard about this magical site. I was at a girl named Cathrine's house working on a group project for one of my advertising classes in the summer of 2011. The concept was so confusing to me but she said I must try it out. Back then you had to get invited to be on it {weird} so she said she would send me an invite and low and behold madness {and a wild love affair} ensued. 

BUT...

There are some things that make me feel like this:

So therefore let me tell you the things I loath about one of my favorite websites: 

1. When people do not change their captions on Pinterest and leave the caption that the last person put. Man oh man does that BUG. I mean sometimes I do that, but it's intentional because I like their caption. But there is nothing that makes me want to rip out hairs more than people with captions that say "pin now, read later," or anything starting with "pinner said." Examples: "pinner said this was the best recipe she ever tasted," "pinner said this worked magic on her shower doors." That is when I know for sure that you didn't change the caption. Or if your caption is outrageously long.  
2. When I click on one of your pins and it takes me NO WHERE! There is nothing worse then when I find a recipe that a friend just pinned, and then click on it to take me to the link to show me how to make it, and it doesn't even take me to the right place! Why on earth people are you pinning "recipes" with no recipe!? Here is one that has been going around a lot in my circle of friends on Pinterest that I'm sure everyone has seen: 

I originally pinned this from my friend Laci Ence {sorry to call you out Laci} but when I clicked on the pin in took me no where with a recipe. So I did what I always do with pins like this {call me anal}; I Googled the dish, found the recipe, and edited the URL on the specific pin to go to the right website. Ta-Da! Low and behold about 10 more of my Pinterest friends pinned this with in that next week and all of them but one {who pinned it from mine} went to dead end websites. 

3. I hate that Pinterest wont let you make boards within boards. I've also emailed them twice with this suggestion but I doubt they even read their emails {yes I know I'm crazy}. Seriously though people... my food board has like 350 pins! It makes it a pain to scroll through and find things. I just don't want 10 million boards on my home screen that are labeled "meats," "appetizers," "bread," "salads," etc. Give me sub-categories gosh dang it!

4. I hate that you can't use the search box to just search your friend's boards. I'm one of those people who pretty much strictly repin from friends, so there is nothing worse then when I remember seeing something a friends pinned and wanting to find it, but I don't have the strength to sift through my 150 friends and their combined 50 billion boards to find it. Or one time I was pinning things to help a friend design her wedding and instead of scrolling through 10 gazillion pictures of millions of users with different tastes, all I wanted to do was search for wedding boards within my own friends {since I trust all your styles} BUT I didn't know which ones had wedding boards and didn't want to visit 150 people's profiles to find them. Once again: dang you Pinterest {shake my fist}!!!  

5. On that note I also wish I could search within my own board. I can't tell you how many times I pin something and can't remember which board it went in because sometimes the things I pin fall under multiple categories. AKA I'm drowning in pins {2,060 to be exact} {Ok now 2,061}. 

Well that's all I can think of now, although I am sure there are 100 other ways I can improve Pinterest. Seriously give me something to play around with for a few weeks, and I promise I will be able to come up with a dozen things that suck about it and could make it totally more awesome-er. Is there a job for that? 

Happy Pinning!