Oh Picture Tree Oh Picture Tree

Well one of my big projects this summer (that extended into the fall, and then the winter . . .) was my picture tree. My dad bought this picture three at an auction because he though I might like it. Here is how it came to me:

I thought that I had gotten a good before picture, of what it looked like all put together, but I can't seem to find it. So you are just going to have to guess (think light wood and symmetrical branches that went straight up the tree making it look somewhat like a spider)

My first step was to paint it. I choose Esspresso Brown spray paint from Menards and I went to town (Arty was helping me out :))

Next I ordered some pictures to put in the frames and then came the hard part. Hanging it up and deciding which branches to keep. I ended up with only half of the original branches:

Now you can imagine what it used to look like. Wherever there is a branch on one side, there used to be a branch on the other. Plus two more coming out of the bottom two trunk pictures.

Once I got this up I decided that it still wasn't complete. I wanted it to look more like a tree. So I took the extra unused branches and made some of the branches longer(okay, Chris did most of this part).

That, along with the leaves from dali decals (which were really easy to put up) and I finally got a tree that I love:

And there you have it. My big project, FINALLY done! And I love it.

Christmas

Well Christmas has come to town in the Larson household, in fact, it has been here since mid-October. What can I say, I LOVE Christmas :)

Here is the village this year. I finally bought the grass and brick mats to go underneath it. And the growing "real" snow to go on top of it. The snow hasn't been watered in a while, but you get the idea :) I love the way it turned out.

And here are the annual Nephew Santa photos. this years is classic, Bayler is looking up at Santa and he looks a bit terrified :) Gotta love catching the moment!

We changed around the house and the bookshelves are now by the window. The snow globe collection is slowly growing

And then we have the tree. I am not one of those, get everything matching with bows and white lights kind of girls. I LOVE multi-colored lights and my dream is to one day have a tree filled with sentimental ornaments (everyone, including the dogs, gets a new one every year!)

And then we have the new addition to my snowman kitchen: Love this shelf full of snowman goodies!

And there we have it, Christmas at the Larsons!

MIA

I was being such a good blogger for a couple of months there, and now it has almost been 2 months since I last blogged! I would love to say that I have been super busy with school, but I haven't. Apparently I only blog when I am slammed with things to do at school and need something else to throw in there :)

I will try to be better now that school is wrapping up and I really have nothing else to do!

With that here is a list of what we have been up to the last few months:

Hanging out with some pretty awesome puppies

Celebrating one of my great friend's marriage (obviously this one is not from her wedding day, I was too busy running around playing personal attendant to take pictures then:))

Taking the newphews to the como zoo and to a day in the life of an elf

And many more fun and exciting things!

Kids??

The other night I came home from shopping for Ella. It is her birthday this weekend and she is turning one! Lucky me one of the things on Ella's "list" for her birthday was clothing (for next year when she is bigger).

So . . . I went to TJ Maxx and had at it. They had some pretty cute girl things! When I came home and was showing Chris all of my cute finds our conversation went something like this:

Me: Oh man, I love shopping for little girls.

Chris: yes, I can tell.

Me: I think I want a baby

Chris: No, I think you want a doll.

Me: That's not true, I want a baby

. . . fast-forward to the next morning . . .

I had an appointment with a nutritionist (to talk about my high cholesterol) and I had to wait in the pediatric waiting room. It was fall break, and that place was filled with small children screaming and yelling and carry-on . . .

Me (in my head): yup, I want a doll

:)

Fall Break?? More like Fall work your tail off to get everything done . . .

I figured I hadn't posted about school in a while, so I should probably do that. They have a saying about law school. Maybe I have told you already? but I can't remember, so I am going to tell you again. It goes something like this:

First Year they scare you to death

Second Year they work you to death

Third Year they bore you to death

Now, I'm not sure about that last one, but I'm pretty sure the first two have held true so far.

On that note this is what is on my to-do list for the next week:

1. Finish Long Paper (14 pages and lots of editing to go)
2. Prepare for Con Law on Monday (I am on-call)
3. Finish reading for the rest of classes
4. Prepare oral argument for moot court try-outs.
5. Finish 2 Authority Checks for law review
6. Study for the Multi-state professional responsibility exam (MPRE) that I am taking on November 6
7. Apply for summer jobs (this one never gets off the list . . .)
8. Prepare judicial externship interest letter

Actually, when I write it all out, it doesn't look so bad now that I have finished all of my mid-terms.

Maybe I should explain some of this for you non-law school folk.

1. Long paper is a graduation requirement, but Law Review students are required to finish it their Fall semester of second year. It will be nice to have it done, but it is killing me right now! Okay, not really killing me, but slowly sucking all of my time away.
2. no explanation needed
3. . . .
4. Moot court comes in many forms. They usually consist of a first round where your school picks a team or two to represent them, next those teams write a brief and practice, practice, practice. Once the competition roles around the school pays for your team and coach to go out to the competition and, well, compete. The competition involves lots of judges judging you brief and your team giving an oral argument (sometimes multiple oral arguments) as if you were in a real trial. Our school sends teams to quite a few different competitions, but the one I am trying out for is the Hispanic National Bar Association one. I made it through the first round (of submitting a writing sample and letter of why you want to be one the team) and so now next week I have to give a short oral argument on my writing sample. I would really love to get on, I know it would take up more of my time, but it would give me some great experience (and the competition is in New Orleans this year!).
5. my weekly law review assignments . . . slowly sucking away my time, but again, totally worth it!
6. This exam is required to get admitted to the bar in any state. No, it is not the bar. It is just an exam to test how well you know the rules of professional responsibility (you know don't steal from your client, don't sleep with your client, etc etc). Me and some friends are taking it because we are taking our required Professional Responsibility class this semester. Turns out our PR professor SUCKS and isn't teaching us anything, so we are left teaching it all to ourself before Nov. 6th, fun!
7. ah, the never ending task, hopefully one will come along eventually
8. Every semester the school has spots for a couple of students to be judicial externs for some federal judges in the area. You have to apply to get the spots, but if you get it, you take it like a class and get credit for it. So of course I am applying . . .

As much as I long for the days of free time in the evenings and on the weekends to spend with my husband and puppies, I wouldn't trade this time for anything. I love being challenged and I love being able to have some awesome friends to spend every day with. And well, lets face it, I love being busy, because I am a busy body :)

So Proud

This weekend we got to go up to Grand Forks, ND to visit my brother at college. He took us all around and showed us all of the cool things, and we fed him restaurant food that is usually foreign to the dining hall eating college student. It was a great weekend, and I am so proud of him! He is going to make an awesome pilot!!

Here he is in front of the UND single engine fleet (did I remember that correctly?). He gets to fly those with his instructor a couple of times a week! It's an awesome picture if you ask me.

This is the UND hanger. We got to tour around the airport because Paul has his fancy TSA badge now.

Next we headed over to the hockey stadium, where Paul gets to have season tickets this year. Lucky guy.

Next he showed us the building where he takes classes. They have some awesome simulators, it looks like a lot of fun. This is Chris and Paul waking through the cool tunnel.

They we headed to his dorm room and helped him fix his ethernet cord. Was your dorm room this electronically tricked out?? Mine definitely was not (two x-boxs??? I guess that is probably pretty common these days . . .)

We had a really great weekend hanging out with Paul. On the way home we picked up Arty from training. It is great to have the whole family home now!

Houston, we have a problem . . .

. . . A boot problem:

You see, it all started here when I got my first pair of bearpaws for super cheap and revamped them with some awesome buttons. I finally got around to wearing them, when MN's crazy weather turned cold for a bit, and found out that they were the most amazingly COMFORTABLE boots I had ever worn. Yes, my friends, they feel like slippers on my feet. Which is to be expected from a company whose motto is : Live Life Comfortably.

For those of you who know me and how much I love things being comfortable (case-in-point: I wore sweatpants and hoodies for just about EVERY class in undergrad) you know that this was an amazing find for me. After wearing my brown boots a couple of times (and never wanting to take them off) I knew I needed them in another color. I choose grey because it would go with all of my black clothes and then I could essentially be wearing bearpaws anytime I wanted. Well DSW was sold out of my size so I searched them on google, come to find out I could buy them for WAY cheaper on Amazon. Since they were so much cheaper . . . I bought them in every color(and got all four for less than the price of ONE pair of sweater boot uggs!!):

Yes my friends, I am that obsessed with these lovely boots. They are truly amazing! Some people may say I have a boot "problem." I call it a healthy obsession :)

P.S. Why do I keep my boots on top of a bookshelf you ask? Well, when two of my heels were turned into chew toys I decided that shoes had to be kept completely out of reach of little puppy mouths . . . and this was the best spot for the boots!

Growing like a weed . . .

I have been missing my Artemis while he has been away at training these past two weeks, so I thought it would be fitting to post some of his "growing" pictures . . . man he has gotten big and he is only about half way to full size!

Tiny little peanut:

Getting bigger:

my big 35 pound baby:

We'll see how big he has gotten when he gets back on Sunday!

why we eat what we eat . . .

It has been about a year since we started our journey to eating organic/"real food" so I thought it would be a good time to write about our journey.

1. What is "real food"

Real food to me is something where you can read the ingridients and know what everything is on the list. None of this chemical crap that my body doesn't need. There are different scales of chemical crap. Some are in the "you should never eat this" category. Others are in the "there are some products that are always going to have this (thickening agents) so you are going to have to eat it sometimes" category.

2. What made you start thinking about eating real food?

It all started with water and sickness. You see, a couple of years ago I got pretty sick with some really bad heartburn and GI symptoms. It took them a while to figure it out, but eventually they found out that I had H-pylori bacteria. Two weeks of hardcore antibiotics later and I was "cured." My H-pylori came back twice over the next year and a half and it was really hard on my body. Specifically my stomach. I haven't had H-pylori since, but it left me with a much more sensitive digestive system. I could no longer drink milk or orange juice, and cilantro was off the list as well. If I ate any of these I would get horrible heartburn and end up drinking milk of magnesium for 12 hours. The next thing that ended up on my no-eat list was fried foods. I could take them in small doses, but a whole fast food meal always put me over the edge. This was just the beginning. I started having to look at ingredients when I bought food and I became more aware of what I ate. I also cut most fast food out of my diet (with the exception of Arby's, I could still handle Arby's)

Then came law school. I met a girl who always had water with her (Maureen), she said she couldn't be without it, she was always so thirsty. I thought that was really healthy of her, but I didn't think more of it until I showed up in the urgent care three times in a month with a sickness that they said could possible be prevented if I drank more water. I wondered how much water I actually drank in a day and decided to keep track. To my horror my running total EVERY day was . . . two sips, when I took my pills at night. I knew that could not be good. So i decided to be more like Maureen. I bought a water bottle that I liked (it had a straw) and made sure to have it with me at all times. It was amazing the difference it made. I felt better, didn't end up in the urgent care, and I also noticed a difference in my skin.

Those two events made me more aware. Aware that what I put in my body makes a difference. I wondered what else I could be doing that wasn't good for me.

My first chemical cut was high fructose corn syrup(HFCS). Why do I need chemicalized sugar when i've got the real stuff? It was shocking to me where I found HFCS, it was in EVERYTHING: Soup, stuffing, and other things you would never imagine needing sugar in!

After that eye-opening experience I started checking labels like a maniac and wondering what the other chemicals were. It was then that I decided to cut most of them out. I don't need antibiotics in my meat, or pesticides on my apples. So they look less red and delicious, they still taste awesome and I can feel good about eating them

3. Does it cost more?

Meat definitely does. Other than that our grocery bill hasn't gone up. Why do you ask? We make more "real" meals rather than just eating frozen, processed stuff. These meals last for a while with leftovers and are usually cheaper to make. I think it also makes a difference that I was never one of those "coupon cutter deal finder" shoppers. So our grocery bills haven't changed much.

4. Have you become a crazy nazi organic food person?

No. To each their own is my opinion. Eating like this makes sense for me and my health. I can know what I am putting into my body and if something affects me, it is easier to figure out what it is. However, we still order little Caesars pizza when we are feeling lazy, and it tastes as good as ever :)

(as a side note, **said in the kindest voice** now you also know why I get annoyed when pregnant ladies complain and complain about how horrible heartburn is . . . at least yours leaves in 9 months)

My Office

I get an office this year at school. Okay, not really, I just get a study carrel in the library as the schools way of saying "you are going to be spending so much time here this year, you should have a place to house all of your stuff."

Yeah, thanks school.

Here it is, the place I spend countless hours writing my long paper, editing articles, and studying:

It even has my name on it . . .

well, at least it is close to a window!

My Brain Hurts

It really does.

But I just watched the biggest loser last night for the first time and now I have been inspired. They pushed through all of their physical pain to get to 500 steps, or run a mile. They did it because they knew it would help better them in the long run. Even when their body said, "stop" they pushed through because they knew they could do it.

In comparison.

I know I can keep studying even if I don't want to or if I think I can't. I can push through the "mental pain" that my brain thinks it is having. I set a time that I can stop tonight, and I will go until that time because I know it will make things easier in the long run. It will be easier to study at finals time, easier to get that A, and easier to get the job because I have that A.

Okay, motivational post for myself . . . now back to studying Agency

Kitchen Chalkboard

We've had this old mirror sitting in the garage for about two years:

I found it in Chris' attic and thought that it would great addition to our house. It turns out the mirror was too far gone for me to be able to use again, but I didn't want to waste such an awesome frame. With inspiration from this girl, who loves herself some chalkboards, I decided to turn the mirror into a chalkboard for my undecorated 10ft kitchen walls!

I ran into some trouble when Chris informed me that this plan would not work. He said that if I were to paint chalkboard paint onto the mirror, it would chip off instantly. Putting anything in place of the mirror was impossible because the frame was so old and we knew it couldn't handle any changes. So I decided to do a "test frame" to see if my original idea would work. I took a tiny frame that I wasn't going to use for anything else and tried it out. Low and behold, if you put enough layers of paint onto the glass/mirror, it holds without scratching (ahh . . . it's nice to be right sometimes).

Here is the practice run:

After proving myself right, I set off to paint the big frame. First I sanded, then I washed, and then I sanded and washed again. Once all was dry I painted the frame a midnight blue to match my plates, and the mirror with chalkboard paint. (sorry I didn't get any inbetween pictures).

We decided to use the chalkboard to keep track of our "settlers season" winners (cause we're cool like that . . .)

I love the way it turned out:

It looks so great in my kitchen (and it covers up some of the holes from the old cupboards.)

As for the rest of my in progress DIY projects . . . my frames are waiting for pictures, which are going to be taken on Nov. 11, so seeing those hanging on the wall is going to have to wait until then. My "big" project just needs some wall decals (which are set to arrive this week) and then it will be complete.

famous . . .

http://www.leonard.com/careers/law-students

. . . okay, not really, but kinda cool anyways :)

Spain Sunday: What I learned

Spain was such an amazing experience filled with many firsts. First time traveling abroad by myself, first time to Europe, first time taking the train every where . . . you get the idea. Spain provided me a wealth of learning opportunities that I hope not to forget.

I learned . . .

• I can safely travel by myself, the world isn't as scary as people make it out to be.
• Traveling smart saves you the headache. I tried not to be a dumb tourist and kept track of all my belongings, this allowed me to come back with everything that I brought :)
• Traveling alone is fun, but traveling with your best friend is amazing. I can't imagine my trip without Chris being there for part of it, he really is my best traveling companion!
• Learning a new language is hard and frustrating, but having your first conversation with a local (and having them understand you) makes all of the work worth it.
• I am really interested in history. At every site I couldn't wait to hear more about the history of it, and of Spain, and of the World. I even bought a book on Spain history so I could learn more . . . nerdy, I know.
• I need vacations. Away from home, away for "my world" vacations. I can really relax when no one can get a hold of me while I am laying at the pool :)
• The world is filled with amazing people, I was lucky to meet some of them on my trip

And so many other things I can't think of right now. I was so fortunate to be able to go on this trip and I can't wait to start planning our next adventure.

Spain Sunday: Food

Well the food in Spain was not the greatest in my opinion. Apparently some people disagree with me because when I was at the doctor's office I picked up a newsweek and they had labeled Spain as the country with the best food! I guess I just don't have much of a taste for seafood, and that was most what they had for specialties.

My favorite food was Gazpacho. It is a pretty simple soup served cold. It mostly consists of tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers ground up into liquid and served with bread. It was excellent for a warm day.

Main meals usually consisted of a HUGE slab of meat. I had some good veal, but most of the beef was chewy and gross. We also had some amazing pork at our favorite Salamanca restaurant which also had the BEST green olives EVER!

Big slab of meat:

Best pork at our awesome Salamanca restaurant:

My other favorite was Catalan soup. This was a garlicky, oniony soup filled with bread. It was delicious:

I also loved the stuffed peppers. I got them everywhere I went, but somehow I never got a picture of them, oh well.

Stay tuned for next weeks last Spain Sunday post!

Spain Sunday: My Favorite Sites

Although my favorite sites in Spain were definitely all of the castles and palaces, there were a couple of other sites that were very cool and are worth a mention.

Spain was a very popular region during the Roman Empire, so the country is speckled with some really awesome Roman ruins. I was in awe of how technological they were in those days. And also in how a single ruin can be filled with so much history. My favorite Roman ruins were:

The Roman Baths

The Roman Theater

And the Roman aqueduct in Segovia that is still in use today. The interesting about this one is that the Romans did not even have a town in Segovia. It is only where their armies stayed to make sure all of the overtaken cities surrounding it were following the laws. They built the aqueduct as a symbol of Roman power.

The other amazing sites were the churches. This was the Pilar in Zaragoza. Unfortunately the lift in the tower was under construction so we could not go up. But it was still a really amazing building.

Next up is the architect Gaudi's last work, the Sagrada Familia. It still is under construction because he died before it was able to be completed and it was lacking in funding for a while. It was really an awe inspiring building fit for a church. You can just see his architectural genius in the creativity throughout the building.

The inside was made to look like trees:

One side of the building depicted the birth of Christ. It was detailed and ornate and filled with nature. Gaudi wanted to show the emotion of the event.

On the other side was a depiction of the Passion. It was less detailed and very somber, again to show the emotion of the event.

There were four towers on each side, one of which had a lift so you could ride up to the top

There were scary rock balconies on the way down the stairs

As well as the most amazing spiral staircase that I have ever seen

And that is all for my favorite sites. Stay tuned for next week's Spain food blog . . .