{ losing my religion...and other random thoughts }

not much to report today.  i finally had a shift at work and it sure does make me feel better about my day when i'm working.  something i didn't expect to learn about myself, but makes me realize more and more that i must put more into my non-working days so that they feel as satisfying.

: :

on our drive home this evening i caught the second half of terri gross' program on npr.  it was all about mitt romney and his career/religion/campaign.  i am not a mitt romney supporter, but i don't outright hate the guy...yet.  i may by the time november comes around, but that'll most likely be the case for anyone left in the running.  and if it's gingrich or santorum i don't know what i'll do. 

here's what got to me, though.  and i think it surprised me.  they told a story about a woman in romney's ward when we was bishop in summerville.  she was divorced, had a child from her marriage and was pregnant again, i think by the ex-husband, but it wasn't entirely clear.  she recounted a visit she had with him where she went in seeking council regarding her situation.  she was about to have a second child and was now a single mother and was worried and unsure about what to do.  

she said that romney had encouraged her to give up her unborn child for adoption claiming that her child should be given the opportunity to be raised by both a mother and a father.  and that's what would be best for her child.  this alone upset me immensely , but she went on to say that he threatened her with excommunication if she did not heed his advice.  

this upset me even more!  i started yelling at the radio. "oh, come on!  there's no way a bishop threatened excommunication to a single mother if she didn't put her baby up for adoption.  there's no way!" the narrator then stated that romney did deny the threats of excommunication, but not that he strongly encouraged her to seek adoption.

it was one of those times when you're listening to something and you know it's getting misinterpreted and there's nothing you can do about it.  like your journal is being read over the loud speaker at school and you can't explain all the weird and personal stuff you wrote about.   i was a bit surprised to find myself reacting so strongly.  i certainly have my issues with the mormon culture and what it's become,  but i felt personally attached in a way i haven't in a long time.  it reminded me of how often i make snap judgments about things and people and situations because of what i hear and instantly trust.  most of what i hear on npr falls in that category!  

i consider myself a very open and tolerant person, but that's only after i instantly judge something.  it's true, i do it all the time.  my mind judges and then i usually say "eh, i'm sure they have their reasons, or they're crazy, but whatever."  if they're not hurting anyone, let'em be crazy!  who am i to decide what crazy looks like?  

i'm lauren, i'm a mormon and it doesn't get much crazier than that.

{ i like to move furniture }

i like taking tv's outside, making mega-couch and best of all, bringing the bed out into the living room.  putting furniture wherever i want and drinking as much soda as i want are two things that make me feel like a grown up.

tonight it was eric's idea and to make it better, he suggested we hook up the old super nintendo and rock some old school super mario.  what the what?

so we did.  and it was. 

{ a liv for a night }

guess who came for a sleepover tonight?

we had a pillow fight {her idea} and she helped me make the worst homemade chicken pot pies ever.  but she and peej gobbled them up, so all is well.

i think i figured out why i'm not a very good cook.


i don't like to do it.

{ be better }

woke up in a funk today.  had every intention of being productive and not wasting the day away watching tv.  

i failed.

i got a few odds and ends done, but i just couldn't drag my butt off the couch.  eric told me it was ok that i did so little, but it sure doesn't feel ok.  i just feel like i'm in limbo.  graduating did bring relief and excitement, but also a strange ball of anxiety that i was not expecting.  i suddenly have all this time to do the things i've been longing to, but now it seems i need to learn how to turn this time into productivity.  maybe the internets will teach me.  they're so smart, those internets.

so, i'm putting today to bed and hoping to make more of tomorrow.  

"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.  Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.  Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."   --Martin Luther King Jr.

{ globes }

i do love me some ricky gervais.  he hosted the golden globes again tonight and he was pretty funny, but i think he played it a bit safe this year.  a little disappointing, especially compared to the hilarious performance he put on last year, but he did get some good jokes in.  he looks slimmer this year, huh?

i thought these three looks were especially lovely.

the only thing i could have done without was madonna.  from her awkward speech to her uncomfortable boob squishing.  instead, i think i'll go on remembering the madonna from my youth.

{ for sale }

it's always a peculiar feeling watching total strangers rummage through your belongings, isn't it?  instantly placing value or discarding what once held meaning to you.

usually by the time it's made it's way to the garage sale piles it's lovingly deemed "crap."  one step shy of spending it's next life on the thrift store shelf.

it was a chilly day in long beach as krista and i sorted and dragged our belongings to the curb.  we tried earnestly to keep the young ones from seeing their precious treasures strewn across the lawn.

this picture shows a post-grief stricken ally.  pj, too old to care and liv, too young to really understand were immune to the situation. but poor, sentimental ally was horrified as she bounded out to survey the commotion.

consoling her was a group effort, but eventually she did come around and even joined in the fun when she realized she could earn money from selling her old toys to buy new toys.  brilliant move, sister.

overall it was a successful venture.  we were finished and cleaned up by noon, rewarding ourselves with burgers and fries by 12:15.  we donated the remaining bits and pieces on the way home; our homes a little less cluttered, our silver pigs a tad heavier.

{ grimm }

we took pj over to his friend sebastian's tonight for a grimm party.  sebastian's dad is a director and producer of the show so he gets the screener copy a few hours earlier and they invite the kids over to watch it together.  i wish i had taken a picture of all the kids huddled in the room together, several of them covering their eyes as it started.  then the adults watched it while the kids played.  it was fun to have the producer's live commentary and it's especially fun talking portland with him and seeing the familiar                                 places where the show is filmed.

he's got such a great group of friends at his school; eric and i are torn about what to do next year.  he'll be a 6th grader (what?!) and we could keep him with all of his friends one more year, but then he'd be entering middle school in 7th grade, when most of the other kids would start in 6th.  he doesn't have a problem making new friends and i'm sure he'd figure things out quick enough, but it's just one more thing to decide.

i'm watching the show Homeland right now, so i'm a bit distracted. it won a couple golden globes tonight which reminded me i've heard some

it's only taken me 2 weeks to figure out that finding things to write about and then finding the time to do it might be tricky.

wow, this post is boring.

{ can't talk }

busy.

{ halvy's unscripted }

it's 8:35 and my eyes are very heavy this evening...as usual, the boys are fast asleep and i'm following shortly.

we're closing up shop early tonight at the diaz pad, but i wanted to put up some of the candid photos taken on the fly when dad and the brothers were in town for the grad/holiday festivus.

*the thursday night shows start again tomorrow including 30 Rock's season premiere.  i'm almost too excited to sleep. except not, i feeling like passing out.

ladies and gentlemen. the halverson's.

{ dream catching }

this morning as i was making pj's lunch and he was sitting eating his cereal at the table i heard: "lauren?" you know that tone when your kids call your name and you know instantly that they're going to ask you for something?  i can hear it in pj's voice immediately.

me: "yeah?"  a moment of silence.

{source}

pj: "i was thinking of getting a dream catcher."

i'm so glad my back was turned to the kitchen so i could compose myself before responding.

me: "oh, yeah?  why's that?"

pj: "well, my friend virginia has one and she says she never has nightmares."

how sweet is that?  if you don't know pj, he is deathly afraid of rats.  aliens and ghosts will spook him, but he is absolutely terrified of rats.  he often comes into our room in the middle of the night after being woken up by a rat-related nightmare.

so, we may be in the market for a dream catcher.  who am i to prevent ancient magic from protecting his sleep? or mine?


***Traditionally, the Sioux construct dreamcatchers by tying sinew strands in a web around a small round or tear-shaped frame of willow (in a way roughly similar to their method for making snowshoe webbing). The resulting "dream-catcher", hung above the bed, is used as a charm to protect sleeping children from nightmares. As dreamcatchers are made of willow and sinew, they are not meant to last forever but are intended to dry out and collapse as the child enters the age of wonderment.  {source}

{ the witching hour }

my witching hour is right around 8:30 every night.  that's when my night chores come out to greet me.  dinner is over, the boys are in bed and we're alone.

tonight i didn't even give them a chance to rear their ugly heads.  dinner was early, pj got dish duty, i ironed eric's shirt before i let my body sink deep into the couch.  i even baked.  bread and chippers.  i know, i got the fever. 

here's the proof in case you doubt.  but come on, just believe me.

: : 

work is really slow right now, so all of a sudden i went from 3 years of nonstop rushing and racing and juggling schedules to hours and hours of spare time.

i'm trying to enjoy it.

doesn't it seem wonderful?  it should.  i need to

shut.

up.

and enjoy it while it exists.  because it'll be gone soon, right? one of my flaws is my lack of focus and drive when i have too much time.  

give me 2 hours of free time a day and 10 things to do and i'll get 12 done.  no problem.  but give me 12 hours?  i'll find 10 reasons why i should do these other mundane things.  

anyway, because i was feeling down today about not working and stressing about finances as a result, i decided i needed to fill my head with more motivating thoughts.

: : just because i'm not getting paid to design, does not mean i shouldn't do it on my own, for fun.

: : i spent the day with my sister, got an email from my dad, phone calls from both my brothers and had a sit down dinner with eric and pj.  charlie sheen would definitely agree that today i was #winning.

: : the sun was out all day today.

: : the sun is out all day almost every single day.

: :i have a blessed life.  one many would envy.  i need to remember to act like it.  i'm going to go fall asleep to some louise c.k.  goodnight!

{ lazy sunday }

our schedules are ever-changing, so it's rare when eric and i can both sleep in together. today we got to do just that and it was great.  pj was sleeping over at a friend's house so we had a nice lazy morning to ourselves.

we took a walk around the neighborhood and dined on some rooty-tooty fresh and fruities.  the rest of the day followed suit.  it was a lazy, loungey day all around.  loved it.

                                                                                   : :

after another walk in search of a super big gulp, i finally rallied as the sun was going down to take the Christmas tree and other decor down.

usually this is a sad day for me, but this year i'm ready to pack it up and move on with the year.  Christmas took a backseat to my portfolio and graduation this year.  our first attempt to get a tree resulted in 2+ hours of driving and no tree.  so i asked eric to just pick one up one day when i was at work.

i finally got it decorated, but the totes never went back up, they just surrounded the tree as decor.  kind of a bummer.  if you know me well, you know i LOVE to decorate for Christmas.  next year i've decided to go balls out.  game on, 2012.

{ post-holiday holiday party }

tonight is eric's holiday work party so I'm attempting to make a dress this afternoon based on one i've been eyeing at work. at some point i hope to write a "knock-off" tutorial, but because i'm racing the clock to get it done, i'll just describe my steps briefly:

1. Find a similar fabric. This makes a big difference. The more alike the fabrics, the more successful you'll be.
2. Find a medium-weight plastic. Heavier than plastic wrap (although this is what I used since I was in a hurry and it's all I had), something resembling ziplock weight.
3. Section by section pin the plastic as smooth as possible to the piece and trace a dotted line around the seams.
4. After tracing all the sections, pin the plastic to your pattern paper. I was out of pattern paper, so I used the back of some leftover wrapping paper.
5. Using a tracing wheel, trace your rough lines onto th paper, remove the plastic and clean up the lines. This part may take some eyeballing to smooth or "true" the pattern pieces.
6. Add seam allowance and sew it up!

                               : :

UPDATE: the finished product turned out better than expected. i actually wore it to the party and the best part was that I only spent $6.53! now I have a dress, a pattern and $100 back in my pocket. the pictures were taken with the iPad so they're not super clear, but here's the final product.

{ mr. brainwash }

last week eric, pj and i went out to the free mr. brainwash exhibit.  if you haven't seen the documentary exit through the giftshop, you should.  it's on the instant watch list on netflix and it's pretty entertaining.  all about graffiti artists and what they do.  i'm not a graffiti enthusiast, but i enjoy artists like banksy, who can create original, thought-provoking work out of an art form that is so taboo.

street art has really gotten a lot of attention over the last year and even though i was skeptical of mr. brainwash and his quick rise, i was thoroughly entertained as we perused the 4 floors of the abandoned building he rented to create his display.  every single inch was covered with something.  can you imagine the toll that would take on your creativity?  it just kept going and going!  displays in little rooms and closets and stairwells.  i snapped a few camera photos.

this room was one of my favorites.  you can't really tell from the photo, but this is the doors made entirely out of broken bits of record.  there were several images including a really great one of the young michael jackson.

love steve jobs as marilyn and a GIANT mr. potato head!

his trademark is the campbell's tomato spray paint can.

{ photobooth }

i'm feeling a little over tired and under-inspired this evening so instead of thinking of thoughtful things to write about, i'm listening to coldplay and playing with photobooth on eric's ipad while he sleeps next to me on the sofa.

: :

i hope that if you're reading this, that you had a good day.  i worked a regular grown up work day today and i'm embarrassed to say it made me extra tired.  i need to remind my body what work is.  that sounds fun.

{ it's hard to dance with a devil on your back }

every once in a while, usually twice a year or so, we hit a perfect storm of bills and/or holidays and/or unexpecteds that put us in a financial pickle.  do you have those?  where you break into the silver pig on the dresser and turn  in your change for gas money?  this is one of those times.  i don't stress 'em too much anymore.  i do the usual shuffling and stretching, returning and well, recycling and then we get paid again.

but sometimes i get to thinking and stressing more than i should.  eric and i have become good at taking turns at panicking and breaking down (not so much him with the sobbing break downs.  that's reserved for me, i think, because i'm better at it.  i can really break it down).

do you have this give and take with your significant other?  it's an unspoken rule that if we both enter panic mode and become hysterically stressed (alright, again that's more me with the hysteria) that the walls will come tumbling down.  so, we don't.  the other bears the burden of {at the very least} pretending things will turn out ok and we'll make it through another troubling situation.  and, of course, we always do.

but lately, having recently graduated and finding myself in unfamiliar territory, owing some people somewhere a many several {cough, thousand} dollars, i panic a lot.  i have many internal panic attacks throughout the day. when they surface they often take the face of a short-tempered mother, wife, driver, sister, grocery shopper, pedestrian, what have you.  and then in my mind it boils down to the same sentence every time.  get your bleep together, lady.

so here's my panic.  i just brought upon our family a big pile of school debt, we live in one of the most expensive cities in the country, i'm working retail part-time, eric wants to go to school and i'd like to have a baby this year. i feel like i should have a name for this stress ball that has formed inside my belly.  harriet, i think?

now that it's down with ink and keyboard clicks, i can move on.  i'm going to try and drown harriet with some buttermilk chippers.  they've been moved to #2 on tonight's night list after those damn dishes.  always with the dishes.

: :

source

and because i only like to read posts that include pictures, let's lighten the mood with something nice.

wouldn't it be nice to stroll along this beach tonight?

it was 80+ degrees here today!

p.s. this song may also help if you too are feeling overwhelmed.  keep in mind that it's most effective while performing an interpretive dance of your own design.
here's a nice acoustic version.  i love me some florence. 

{ annual recycle day }

i'm not sure why i think i'll have so much energy in the evening.  i create mental lists throughout the afternoon of things i'll be able to do when the night duties are done.  i'm not even to that point tonight and my energy level has plummeted.  dinner is done and peej is in bed, but the dishes need doing and the living room picked up.

AFTER those things were done i intended to take the ornaments off the tree and run the overflowing recycling bins and subsequent bags down to the garbage room. oh, the garbage room {shudder}.

speaking of recycling, sister and i and girls took our cans to the recycling station today.  i hadn't done this in an entire year.  i had an entire year's worth of cans piling up outside our balcony which resulted in 4 giant black garbage bags, nearly an hour of sorting and very dirty hands.  i feel i should mention how involved liv was.  she insisted on handing me the cans one by one from the big black bags.  it was actually very helpful.

the recycling machines behind the albertson's in long beach are not exactly desirable.  my efforts yielded $30.05, but it was a humbling experience. sorting my cans among others who rely on the money they get from scrounging recyclables throughout the day as their only source of income.  they were all very friendly;  giving us tips and pointers for getting the machines to work in between strings of friendly swears.  

needless to say, my burdens felt lighter.

: :

i searched recycle on pinterest thinking i'd see lots of pictures of bottles and cans, but instead i found several fun projects using reusable products.  some for practical use and some just for beauty.  i thought i'd share a few.

top left to right: rustic pallet bed {source}, dyed corks {source}, covered shoe box tops {source}.

bottom left to right: such a beautiful color pallet, i think i'd like to create my own version with various papers and fabrics {source}, shabby pallet shelves {source}.  i'm not sure why i'm so drawn to recycled pallets.  eric shudders a little every time i bring one home.

: :

alright, i've burned through 3 episodes of 30 Rock, sinking deeper and deeper into this couch.  it's time to either rally and clean the kitchen or call it quits for the day.

but, what about the buttermilk chippers i planned to eat?  they were #4 on my night list.

{ a new year }

i couldn't decide between two themes for this new year, so i've decided to go with both.

the first: { be present }

the second: {save more, have less}

the first is inspired by the recent realization that pj is a hop, skip and a jump away from being a teenager.  since getting his own laptop for his birthday, all he wants to do is hang out in his room and chat online with his friends or play video games, usually jumping back and forth between both.  he's still his sweet, lovable self, just with justin bieber hair and girlfriend drama. 

i feel the time is drawing near when he won't want to spend time with his parents, so i better make the most of it. i remember riding around with my parents one day as they ran miscellaneous errands together.  we were riding in the red pickup truck so i must have been small enough to fit in between them on that small bench without the stick shift jamming into me.  i think it was my mom who said "one day, you won't want to come along with us all day."  i remember thinking that was such a crazy notion.  why wouldn't i want to spend the day with my parents?  i do everything with my parents!  i'm sure she was right and at some point i realized it, but what i wouldn't give to have a day with them in that red pickup now. 

so this morning pj and i played a board game and went for a bike ride to the 7-eleven, taking a detour and riding the beach path back.  it was easy and wonderful. a definite win.  i've also committed to co-coordinating all the costumes for his spring musical; Peter Pan and Friends since he still thinks it's cool for me to be at school around his friends.

: :

the second theme has been rolling around in my mind for the last several months.  i feel, more often than not these days, that the walls in our meager loft are shrinking little by little.  ever so slowly when my back is turned they're creeping closer and closer together.  it's got to stop and my solution is simple: have. less. stuff. in addition, save more.  get a nice buffer in the bank so that we're not always living paycheck to paycheck.

: :

some additional things to accomplish in 2012:

: learn to cook 12 meals really well.

: decorate my space so that it feels like a home

: go on a family vacation
: start learning code
: improve my word working skills, aka: acquire some.
: pay off our credit card by my birthday.

{ as for me }

source: pinmarklet via pinterest

i'm a recent art school grad, winding up the end of my twenties.  i live with a husband{eric} and boy child{pj} in downtown los angeles.

and, i'm back.  in the land of the blog, hoping to catalog an entire year.  one of my goals for 2012 is to write everyday.  i thought it might be fun to see what a whole year looks like in words and pictures, projects, recipes and adventures. 

so, here's to 2012!  A year more productive, spontaneous, organized. more beautiful than the last.