I Better Go Pick up Some Milk

This morning after dropping David off at school I realized we needed milk. Not because we didn't already have milk at home but because our milk had expired on us.... again. I swear everytime I buy extra milk it goes to waste, hah, and everytime I don't the gallon is gone in 2 days.

I walk into Kroger and passed the glass doughnut case..... which brings me to my next point, I need to learn to resist better. It's not that I don't do a bad job, I mean the last time I bought doughnuts was in January and the time before that was back in Idaho. What does that average out to, every 5 months? almost 6? So here's my thing if I could take out one of those doughnut trips it would be like once every 9-12 months! Think of all the sugar, frosting and calories I could save myself from. Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if the box didn't typically last David and I three days.

Maybe you don't like doughnuts, or cake, or ice cream, or it's really easy for you to turn down soda but sweets are my weakness. And we ALLLL have them. It's funny because David and I have been trying our darndest to eat more vegetables, we started buying skim milk, and we check our bread to make sure the first ingredient isn't "enriched flour" but I get faced with this and I crack like a kid in a candy store. So here is my question for you. What item at the grocery store is your weakness and I'm not talking about "Oh I went to the groccery store when I was hungry" because that's when everyting looks good. I want to know what calls your name even when you are full.

Princess Grapes

The other day after work David and I were winding down and getting ready to watch Chuck. When I suddenly hear David exlaim "princess grapes!". He was in the fridge looking for a snack and he found the grapes I bought at the store, funny part is I hadn't even noticed they were princess grapes.

Me- whhat?

David- Princess grapes, you bought princess grapes! DISNEY princess grapes!

Me- Oh, haha, I did?

David- Ya, seeee....

Me- hah, I did, I didn't even know they made disney princess grapes.

David- me either, but I like them!

This is one of the many kinds of moments I have with David during the week that just make my day. Back in early march after we got our new entertainment center I was scouring stores for those cute little wicker baskets that would fit in the shelves. We had already been to Micheal's and TJMaxx and David's excitement was fading, haha to say the least. By the time we got to Wal*Mart I was running ahead of him and leaving him in the aisles. I was about to turn the corner to go to the next aisle over when I heard this,

David- Ooooh, look how cute! I turned around and came back to look at what he had seen. Then he  points to a little jean purse in the craft aisle I had left him in.

David- if I had a little girl and she was like "daddy I want that" I would get it for her!

Haha and the best part about it was that he was totally serious :)

That is why I love him. I've been wracking my brain all morning trying to think of some more specific stories to tell but I can't think of any. These two stories however just scream David, it's just how he is and I love it.

Whenever I complain or worry about my job, school, the house, church callings etc, he is 100% behind me. He always gives me the benifit of the doubt and is the first to defend me (even before I'm willing to defend me). He is an early bird but he lets me sleep in (he loves to let me do this but sometimes I wish he wouldn't even though I do appreciate it) and when he does wake me up it's usually with a kiss and a hug. David remembers to send me a text during the day (almost everyday) to tell me he loves me and that he hopes my day goes well. All I can say is that I am very thankful for him and all the little things he does to make my life easier and more than anything happier. Here in Toledo it is cloudy a lot, but David is my little touch of sunshine everyday! This might sound sappy but I have to brag about him sometimes because otherwise my blog ends up being about me all the time and I'm not nearly as nice as David is :)

Dear Downeast Basics

Hello my name is Kari and I have a few things to say about your products. You are over priced, and the quality of your tanks are at best mediocre, especially the ones with lace. The only reason I prefer your tanks to the ones at the mall or any other store is that they BARELY (and I want to stress barely) cover more. You are charging people $10 -15 for a tank top; I barely spend that on short sleeve shirts! How could anyone afford to spend more on the undershirt than they did on the shirt to go over it? Your fabrics are so thin they get holes in them within 3-4 wears, so you can't use the argument that they are of better quality then a similar one at the mall where I could get TWO for $15. Not only that but your lace from both Modbe and Downeast is terrible and it doesn’t matter if you dry the tanks or not.

 For example I received several tanks for Christmas this year two of which already have holes in the lace and have NEVER gone through the dryer, and because I own so many tanks I know I have only worn them a handful of times.

Also I ordered clothes from you recently (February) and when one of the shirts arrived it had a hole in it. I sent it back and got another one. Then just yesterday after the FIRST time I washed another one it had a hole in it, which means I paid $15 for a shirt that I only got to wear to church twice. At first I thought maybe I wasn’t being gentle enough but I have clothes from places like Wal*Mart and Family Dollar that don’t have holes in them and I have worn them way more often and done much more vigorous things then go to church in them.

Your shirts LITERALLY come apart at the seams and I have a dozen holey shirts to prove it.

Two shirts that have holes in them

My "new shirt" washed ONCE

You used to sell your clearance at Seagull book and honestly I bought just about everything from you at that store. Your regular store is OVER priced if I want to pay $20 for a t-shirt I’ll go to the mall so that it can at least be a brand people who live outside of the Mormon bubble know. Same with your jeans, I can go to the Buckle and get NAME brand jeans for $50-60 why would I buy yours? You aren’t reaching your customers. My friends and I used to love shopping at Down East but lately everything is just so expensive we would much rather spend our money else where.

I used to think that as a company you were geared towards the “Mormon” population, my thoughts being based on the fact that you function and sell within that populace. Now I have no clue who you are designing clothes for. Most of your dresses are an inch and a half to two inches too short for an average Mormon woman to wear and still feel modest.  Every time I buy a shirt that is NOT a tank from you I have two options, it comes all the way up to my neck

 or the neck is too wide and it reveals my bra strap and my garments.

For a short while you had “the tank” with thick straps and everyone I know loved them and bought them to go under everything. Just like all your tanks they still could have easily used another inch at the bottom and a slightly bigger neck line but they covered us, without totally suffocating us; you discontinued them.

 I am in every way an averaged size person, I am 5”5, I weigh 127 pounds and I’m a little bigger then a B cup. When I buy women’s clothes I am typically a small; when I buy yours I’m a large.

 I can honestly say that unless your company starts gearing their clothes towards people who want to be able to wear an undershirt as an added way to feel comfortable and modest you will lose a large part of your clientele; including myself. I’m sure I will never hear back from anyone, but I hope you take it into mind when you continue your tanks and t-shirts, there is a great need for millions of people in this country to feel and be modest without breaking the bank. If not I will continue to buy less and less of your apparel and make sure my friends do the same.

Sincerely your fed up consumer,

Kari Warden

Dissatisfied

Not everyone will agree with me on this and that is fine. These are MY opinions that I believe to be based on facts. Anyone else who agrees with me feel free to write them your own e-mail and mention my name. Maybe they will actually start listening, and we can have clothes that ARE modest not almost, or as close as it gets. Their e-mail -service@downeastbasics.com

Exciting

Summer is just not coming fast enough... and yet it's coming way too fast! To off set yesterdays bad day post I decided to make a list of things David and I are both excited for this summer. And just and FYI today is going MUCH better than yesterday, mainly because there is almost no way it couldn't.

1. IDAHO!! And not just Idaho, Idaho in the summer time. My favorite season in Idaho. Everyone always complains about Idaho so much but I really love it. It is one of the best places to live.
2. iPhone :) Not that the brand matters any new phone would make me  happy at this point because mine is going on 2 and half years of life. Yes. I really did keep a phone working for that long.
3. Hitting up some new states when we drive out.
4.  A certain special trip :) I will openly blog about it after ;) it will be good trust me
5. Getting married in the temple.
6. Going to Cali to see Shrek the musical!
7. Hanging out with some friends!
8. Warm weather in ANY form
9. Melina's and some other good Mexican food, FINALLY! Haha there is no such thing here in Toledo :(
10. Having a non- hair job. After this last year I'm burnt out.

Here are some pictures from last Saturday's date night. Remember my confessions post about being addicted to Taco Bell? Well I have a new love now it's called Chipotle, it is just so fresh and tasty! Everyone has to have a couple addictions, at least Chipotle is more than one step up from Taco Bell. Saturday afternoon was perfect take a walk with a light jacket on kind of weather, so that's what we did.

We live really close to a metro park and we went throught the neighborhood in hopes of checking it out and we ran into a fence.

This is me showing off the fence, I was pretty bummed but I'm sure we will make it to that park some day soon.

Two rather nasty pictures of myself but hey I'm just being real, no one can wear makeup and look cute all the time, right??

I love this guy right here :) just looking at this picture makes me want to hug him.

Oh and I just rememebered one more thing to be excited for...

11. Idaho Falls distribution Center! Hurray for new underwear!!! (and yes I know you can order them online, but it's just not the same)

Kari and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Some days are good and other days... you wake up, have cake for breakfast, which you know is a BAD choice but you do it anyway, go on to suffer from a horrible tummy ache and nausea for the rest of the day, have to go to work anyways because you are one of only three people that work there, have absolutely no walk-ins while at work until a little over an hour before you close, you go over on that appointment and they don't tip you, which makes you late closing the salon, you get home and think finally a good thing because you get a $60 refund check in the mail from BYU-I, only to realize that you also got a traffic violation for twice that amount, your first ticket in five years I might add, and all because you didn't stop before turning right on a red light..... Tomorrow better turn out better or I'll just go back to bed.

April General Conference 2011

This general conference I only missed one session because of work, I was so excited! It seemed like all the sessions were extra good this year. I found myself all teary eyed  so many times I can't count, but I loved it. Our internet/ the internet feed was really spotty so for the second session we went to our church, which ended up being much better haha and getting to watch the talks without gaps made them a lot easier to understand :)

Getting ready to into the building and watch the second session.

Did I mention that other than the missionaries we were basically the only people in there? It was great and gettting a seat was a piece of cake!

 

Third times a charm, love you David!

We decided that our new tradition is to go to PF Changs for every conference. It was such a tasty treat especially becuase it's been 6 months since the last time we got to go. I think the biggest down side was the hour and some change wait! Uhhg I have never waited that long to go eat any where! Next conference we will be going BEFORE the second session on Saturday.... or we could just call in a reservation like EVERYONE else who was before us. Minus being a little starved the day was great and so was the food.

Forgive me these pictures are awful. We were supposed to get our waiter to take one of the two of us but it just didn't happen that way.

David!

Obvisouly you can see where my mind was.... yummy!

Doesn't everyone just love conference??? No need to answer, I already know you do!

More Dancing Sheep

Our dancing sheep nights have begun to grow. About two weeks ago Dannielle and I got to go with David and Tyler to their home teaching family and we got to play a 6 player game of settlers! I can't say it was super fun, at least for me, it was one of those games where I could do basically nothing because I didn't have enough supplies. For those of you who don't know what that means it's the equivalent to having no money in Monopoly. Anyways it was still a good night and it was good to meet our hubby's home teaching family.

Then this last Friday we all got together at our with our friends Lindsay and Branden. I had to leave in the middle to do my visiting teaching, and I might add I did mine for the month yay!! I should just say that we all had lots of fun and it was great to hang out with everyone all together.

Lindsay and I

Everybody. There's nothing like a game of settler's with two med students and a lawyer. Haha, it is so funny to hear Tyler try to strike up "contracts" with everyone. And kudos to my David for winning his first game of settler's. Even with a TOTAL embargo on all his goods and other players literally giving each other things to help keep him from winning he still dominated, you go boy.

Say cheese!!

The ladies

and the gentlemen

Haha, oh these three are so funny.

If you haven't ever played settler's I would say it is a must, we all obviously love it. Not only that but it has furthered my pre-exsisting opinion that board/ card games are great ways to have fun with people and not ever turn on a TV. It is so awesome to see how competitive people are and you can still talk with them, which is NOT something you can do while watching a movie. Last but not least I can't begin to say how thankful and lucky David and I are for being able to find such great friends, it has made our life here in Ohio so much more rewarding.

Fake "O" Natural

As you all know I have decided to grow my hair out to it's natural color. Recently I have decide that I am no longer going to even to dye my hair with a demi permanent anymore. At first I was having a pretty difficult time with the new color change because I LOVE my blonde hair :( even if it isn't natural. The last week or so I have decided that I think I will be able to live with the natural color... for a while. So without anymore further chit chat,  my new "fake natural" color.

I actually really like this one

I think that is about as close as I am going to get to my natural with a bottle of dye, now for the waiting

Feel free to compliment me and tell me it looks good, haha I need all the convincing I can get!!