I'm feeling festive

Well today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me! And we celebrated with my favorite: mac 'n cheese (and ice cream soon)

As silly as it seems, it's fun to get so many wall posts on Facebook on your birthday. And especially from people you haven't seen like the members from my stake back home.

Speaking of which, two such people are in town for conference and I can't wait to meet up with them! He was in the bishopric and she was my favorite flaming redhead (and I mean the actual color red, not carrot. She always dyed her hair the brightest colors, my mother was scandalized hehe). And they're bringing a package from my aunts so of course, how could we not be excited--I'm sensing chocolates. hmmmmmm

We took family pictures late this summer with Andrew's family and of course, the CD happened to arrive on my birthday of all days. Lucky me. So because I really like photos I'll share :)

The Nelsons (minus one)

Did I mention my husband was terribly handsome?

 

 

Just a disclaimer: you will probably die of cuteness after viewing the next couple of photos. Baby-hungry ladies, you've been advised.

I present to you my niece and nephews!

Regardez-moi cette tête de coquin!

 

Andrew with big brother and big sister. And I do believe big brother is attempting to tickle Andrew.

My favorite parents-in-law :)

Here is the photographer.

Happy end of September everybody!

Oh, and did I mention I put up fall decorations? Well, I did. I love the holidays. My little witch and her crew have finally found their home on our front door. Makes the door a little less ugly I say...

And a few other odds and ends around the house that I've been collecting for a few years..

Bats!

People always think this says "Bod", but no.
It says "Boo!" Just in case you were wondering...

Nothing like some mini-pumpkins to... look Halloweenesque

This cat meows. It's awesome.

Birthday flowers :)

Well that was picture-intensive wasn't it. Thanks to all of you who wished me a happy birthday and made my day!

This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

Did I mention I put up fall decorations? Well, I did. I love the holidays. My little witch and her crew have finally found their home on our front door. Makes the door a little less ugly I say...

And a few other odds and ends around the house that I've been collecting for a few years..

Bats!

People always think this says "Bod", but no.
It says "Boo!" Just in case you were wondering...

Nothing like some mini-pumpkins to...
look Halloweenesque

This little cat meows. It's awesome.

Birthday flowers :)

Feels like Christmas

New practice shoes!

Macarons et glace parfum rose... avec une tisane aux fleurs d'oranger

Just found this on my external hard drive... oh, how I miss France sometimes...

Save Paulo's education

Hello my crafty friends. I know there are some people who actually read this blog (I have a secret counter :) and I need your help now.

Or rather, Paulo needs your help. He's a friend from the foreign language housing, and he sacrificed a lot to come to B.Y.U. from Brazil and get an education, and now he's in a bit of a pinch.
All he needs is a small donation to help him stay in school and finish what he came here to do.
I know too well what it feels like to be in school and realize you have no idea how you're going to pay for life next semester. Or even next month. It is a scary, scary situation to be in.
So please, go to this website and donate. It'll only take a minute but it'll mean the world to Paulo.
This isn't some scam, and if it is you can personally come beat me up, I'll take full responsibility.
Now go! Do it!


http://savepaulo.blogspot.com


In fact, if you donate at least $10 and post on this comment, you can have a chance to win this awesome Halloween table-runner that I made!

See, there's even an incentive to donate. So go now! http://savepaulo.blogspot.com

EDIT: goal attained! Paulo has the money he needed now! Thanks so much if you participated! 

Save Paulo's education

Hey guys. I know there are some people who actually read this blog (I have a secret counter :) and I need your help now.

Or rather, Paulo needs your help. He's a friend from the foreign language housing, and he sacrificed a lot to come to B.Y.U. from Brazil and get an education, and now he's in a bit of a pinch.
All he needs is a small donation to help him stay in school and finish what he came here to do.
I know too well what it feels like to be in school and realize you have no idea how you're going to pay for life next semester. Or even next month. It is a scary, scary situation to be in.
So please, go to this website and donate. It'll only take a minute but it'll mean the world to Paulo.
This isn't some scam, and if it is you can personally come beat me up, I'll take full responsibility.
Now go! Do it!

http://savepaulo.blogspot.com

In fact, if you donate at least $10 and post on this comment, you can have a chance to win this awesome Halloween table-runner that I made!

See, there's even an incentive to donate. So go now! http://savepaulo.blogspot.com

EDIT: goal attained! Paulo has the money he needed now! Thanks so much if you participated!

So here's the story

I rocked the genealogy world Saturday, I really did.
Methods of investigative reporting, Comms 308, is KICKING my derrière, quite honestly. But, as you know, according to Newton's second law of motion (hehe) I'm kicking right back with equal and oppositely directed force :)

So this week, we got not one but TWO assignments. One, not so bad, done in about forty-five minutes. The other: Find 10 data items (such as birth, marriage, death) about one ancestor through Web searches. Write a 100-200 word narrative (life history) about your ancestor. Include a source list. Use as many primary documents as possible. Please note the primary documents.

Yeah, not so easy. I ended up spending the better part of my Saturday cooped up in the genealogy section of the HBLL. 


I was originally going to look up my aunt Martha (well really she's my great-great-aunt) who had just passed away this month, but I couldn't find ANYTHING about her so after an hour and a half of beating my head against the computer I gave up and decided to research her husband. And then began my adventure. I had to relocate to campus because you have free access to awesome genealogy websites there, and it ended up being a good thing since I actually needed a real book later on. But we'll get to that soon enough...


After some searching around I eventually found him (George Gladwell Shilling, to be precise) in my aunt's family tree. She is a super genealogist and has done tons of research on my mom's side of the family already, so it was a great starting point. There were a few census records, a draft registration card and a New York Passenger List, and that alone was pretty cool. Check this out!

If you look closely, you'll see him, Shilling, George G. This also indicates that he had had schooling at the time and could read and write. He was still single in 1920, at age 21.He actually got married pretty late, at around 36-37 years old.


But now here comes the cool part. The passenger record from New York shows that he traveled from England to New York in 1933, and on those records he listed as his home address "31 chappel rd seat pleasant Md." Hmm, Chappel Road.. sounds like the address of the priest of a congregation right? I knew he was an evangelical priest during his lifetime, so I figured it was possible that he served a congregation in the city of Seat Pleasant. I looked up the city and the website had some useful tidbits about historic Seat Pleasant, including the fact that there are two chapels still standing from his time, and guess what: one of them happened to be an evangelical church! So at this point I'm pretty excited, but it's really all just speculation. After all, he could have just put down his mother's address for all I know. 

But here comes the best part. The chapel is called Addison chapel, and is also known as st Matthew's. I did some google searching and stumbled upon a book called Directory of ministers and the Maryland churches they served, 1634-1990 by Kanely, Edna A. BINGO! of course google book only previewed a few pages, and not the ones I needed, but by this point I'm hot on his trail. 


And this is the part where I am very, very grateful to have access to one of the best campus libraries in the nation: it just so happens BYU has that very book in the library! So at this point I'm really, really excited and I march on down the stairs, into the U.S. historical records department, find the right aisle, kneel down and start from the bottom up, lift my eyes...

There it is! Both volumes! 
Now I'm really nervous that he won't even be in there and I speculated a whole bunch of nothing. Pull the book off the shelf, flip to "s" ... 

Shilling! Served the St Mattthew's/Addison parish from 1931-1934! WOOHOO!!


And some more google searching unearthed these few gems: 

yep, that's it, Addison Chapel, photos archived at the national library of congress.

So a project that started out impossibly difficult was, in fact, terribly difficult, but WOW I found stuff that no one in my family has, I'm pretty sure! HOW COOL IS THAT?! Moral of the story: genealogy is ridiculously hard work, but it is so cool when you do find something you've worked hard to find. I can't wait to get started on my own tree and let me tell ya, I'll be that little old lady who has her genealogy back to Adam in a few decades :) 

WOW


Also, on a completely unrelated note, I made this for dinner, and it was awesome. (Served with sour cream, grated cheddar and nachos)

I liked it so much, I'm writing it down immediately for posterity. See, you've just witnessed the birth of a family tradition!


This whole assignment and class has also made me aware of how precious documents are. They are the only things we have that give us clues about our ancestors! And even though all my and Andrew's temple work is done (wow, that's a weird thing to realize), I want to begin indexing all of our information. Social Security cards, birth certificates, photos, important documents, journals, letters, mission call, even some pay stubs and videos I did as a reporter. EVERYTHING. And I want to compile this all in a (private) online database (Picasa is an awesome resource that I think might suit this project quite nicely). Someday, one of my grand-daughters will have a class project, and she will hate it, and then she will find all these documents neatly stored together and praise the day I took investigative journalism in college :)


Documents people! it's all about documents!


Oh and also, I have to note this: I got 100% on my first physical science 100 midterm! That's right, the testing center screen said "perfect score!" and it pretty much made my day. No, my weekend. WOW. What a good week that started out pretty crazy.. And now I'm off to bed to start another week.



I do apologize for the excessive number of exclamation points in this post. Forgive my excitement, but believe it or not genealogy is actually very thrilling.

Bow to your queen, data

Honestly, data, resistance is futile. You should just throw yourself at me, because you know I'll get you anyway in the end, even if it takes me six hours in the library. (And I'm talking about actual data as in the plural of datum, not the robot. It's pretty sad how many star trek references there are in this post)
The whole story is coming soon, and it involves the internet, vital record databases and a little chapel in Maryland... so exciting :)

"You again" looks like a good movie. And I could use a good chick flick and some girls to watch it with.
On a completely unrelated note, I was just putting in earphones while staring at the computer screen and wiggling my itchy nose when all of a sudden I caught myself trying to stick the second one up my nose instead of my ear. When I say I have depth perception issues, I mean it.

These sound really good right now...

Pink lemonade cupcakes anyone?

Because what you really need is another ruffle shirt tutorial...

It's true!

This shirt always felt a little off, sleeve in between long and 3/4 and the scoop neck was just wide enough that I always have to tug at it... so it's a perfect candidate for a remake! :)

The neckline is easily fixed with a few gathers..

And since I'm shortening the sleeves and have some extra fabric left... How 'bout some ruffles?!

Go here for a quick and easy ruffle-making technique.

 
Then sew them on. You can put a few in a row for longer ruffles

Tadaam!

They also help cover up the awkward gathers in the front.

Really quick, but now I have a brand new shirt. Best part is my husband really liked this one :)
I'm linking up over here:

Going to the dark side...

:) It's called a "melt," and when the hairdresser first suggested it I got pretty nervous, until I realized it had nothing to do with heat.
She essentially dyed it dark at the top and progressively lighter towards the tips, leaving them the way they already were. I'm happy with how natural it looks, and this means I can be lazy and let my hair grow out for much longer before coloring again.

Never mind the purple bangs too... she said it'd fade a little after a couple shampoos. But I really like the technique, it's a great way to let your hair grow out naturally without hideous roots or drastic change. The color at the top is my natural hair color.
And the cameras on set won't freak out now at the enormous contrast between my hair and, well, everything else. haha

Dress... done!

But I'm an idiot and made it too tight... ARGH!
I can fit into it, I can even move my arms around and sit, but I need to either go on a drastic diet or just continue to look... well, pregnant. No, I am not. (sadly) The sleeves are a little too perky, but oh well. The biggest issue is that it's too tight across the chest. I have depth perception issues a wide ribcage. Blech. I'm planning on convincing a friend or two that is skinnier to try it on and see if it at least works better for them. I still want to enter it into the Shabby Apple dress contest, I'll just have someone thinner model it.

But here's the result!

Don't breathe... don't breathe...

Neckline -- see, I even used darts! But still too snug.

Invisible zipper!

This is how I did the edges.. Unfortunately, going around curves didn't work as evenly as the straight bottom hem, but oh well.

Turned out quite nice on the bottom!

Smurfette toes :)

And I put so much stinking work into this dress that DANG IT I'll wear it on Sunday anyway.

Edit: Turned out not so bad with a cardigan :

You know you're in the right major...

when one of your professors calls you a "Rock Star data sleuth." 

Mouahahaha

Is it terribly selfish of me to really really hope that our first baby is a girl? (And no, this is not an announcement)

My favorite sentence....

.... from Andrew's latest paper:

"political schizophrenia may ensue among the populace"

Mass mayhem and destruction, people running naked in the streets... I can just see it now :)

Dress

No, nothing very exciting to show... Mostly, the dress is not cooperating, so at this point I need a longer torso for it to fit correctly. Blegh!

 
It's bunching at the waist and small of the back, and it's driving me nuts. Stupid dress. Apart from that, everything was going so well :(

Squaw peak and other adventures

Once upon a time, we went up to squaw peak on a lovely Sunday evening to enjoy the beautiful weather and the view, and some good company.

I might mention that we had just feasted on a crepe bar that was quite yummy.
Upon arrival at the top, however, Andrew left the keys in the car. Luckily, we left the mini back window open! so Danielle climbed to the rescue..

And with very little effort...

Popped right through! Isn't that window tiny?!

Sadly, her efforts were futile, because it turned out the keys had been in Andrew's pocket all along. :)

So we went off to enjoy the view (and in the boys' case, shoot at bushes)

Andrew giving us the tour of Provo

Do you like my purple desert flowers?

Just ignore Andrew's face... I think he's trying to be all hardcore with his gun. I sometimes have mixed feelings about having gotten him that for Christmas...

Oh and incidentally, Andrew helped me to make a decision about team--using excel. It looks something like this:

Yep, Andrew has mad skills. 

The moral of the story is that since I didn't get moved up today (one girl dropped tour team this week, which gave me false hope for nothing) I am so done. This is my last semester. FINITO. Moving on to more exciting pursuits in journalism. I'll be applying to become an executive producer of the program's show (doesn't that just sound so.... powerful? I think I have a good shot since I did really well in the producing class-- remember, that class I set the curve in? haha forgive me for my bragging, but I could really use the ego boost right now..) and auditioning for anchor positions. And looking for internships. Oh, the possibilities. This is my chance to finally launch myself full force into my major and hopefully get myself out there enough to earn some scholarships, awards... who knows what else?

As depressing as it is to quit team, I still plan on competing from time to time (although leaving team makes me a pariah as far as partnering goes... oh well, I've got my husband, who truly is my favorite dance partner of all time!) And it's about time I focused more on school anyway, instead of desperately trying to fit into a mould that just doesn't seem to be made for me. Now I can do my own thing.

And let me tell you, this investigative reporting class is getting me so excited. I'm planning on going all out in my next reporting class and requesting FOIAs, doing data sorting and the whole shebang to get the truth (or should I say the dirt) on Provo's student housing market. OH YEAH. This (from 3:47 to 5:02) is the story that got me started on the topic and I seriously barely scratched the surface. It isn't my best story, but I want to attack it from a better angle and really do a good job with it. There are so many horror stories out there, I'm certain there are some unethical business practices going on here. I ran into so much red tape on this story, but this time I have the right tools and I can't wait to get started!