When the moon hits your eye

Last Friday when I came home from work Brett informed me that he had a date planned. I was instantly excited because Brett always plans the best dates. He is such a thinker, and is always coming up with fun things to do. This particular date was no exception. He had gone to the store and purchased all of the necessary fixins for us to make homemade pizza's!

I love pizza! I could eat it every day of the week, and never get sick of it. We each made two pizza's. I made Brett's, and he made mine. Here is a picture of Brett-the-master-dough-spinner-Scothern working his magic. I swear he should have been a chef!

And here is the finished product, don't they look fantastic? Oh, well that's because they were.

The pizza's all turned out great, and we had so much fun making them that we decided to do the same thing for dinner on Saturday. Cheers to homemade pizza filled weekends!

Thoughtful gifts

I’m pretty sure that it is no secret that aside from my husband, books are my favorite thing in the world. I could spend hours and hours just walking around a bookstore, and never even buy anything. Just looking at the books makes me happy. I hope to someday have a collection so monumental that it will fill an entire room full of shelves.

One of the thoughtful gift givers in my life shares my passion. That would be Brett’s sister Kristi. She is also a book lover, and I think that is a big part of why we get along so well.

For a few weeks before Christmas last year she kept on telling me that she had found the perfect gift to give me. She just knew that it was going to knock my socks off. Despite many attempts to get her to spill the beans, and tell me what my gift was early, she held strong and made me wait until Christmas. It was agony. I am not a good secret keeper at all when it comes to gifts, I just hate the anticipation. I usually tell Brett what he is getting for his Birthday or Christmas a week or two prior to the day that I actually give him the gift. It is something that drives him crazy.

However, on Christmas day when Kristi finally let me open my gift it did not disappoint. She was right, once I saw what it was, my socks were no longer on my feet. It was a copy of my favorite book in the whole world, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Not just any copy though, a special copy. Why? It was a hard back, first edition, and it was signed by the author. I KNOW! Isn’t she great?

Friday frustrations

Some shit hit the fan this week because of a post that I wrote a little while ago. Someone read the post, and didn't like what I had to say. This person is someone that does not know me, but still chose to make some very rude and uncalled for comments about the post, and me personally.

This is my blog. If you don't like it, don't fucking read it.

The whole reason that I started this blog is so that I could tell stories about the things that my husband and I do, and to keep in touch with family and friends. I am not here to make anyone happy but myself. I write because I enjoy it. If you don't like the content that you find when you come to my blog that's fine, don't come back. I could care less. But don't leave me some dickhead comment about why I'm stupid, or why I'm wrong, and then tell me about all of the horrible things that you wish would happen to me. I'm not interested in hearing it. I don't believe that I should have to justify what I write about here. Again, this is my blog, not yours. So you don't have any say in what I do or do not write about.

I don't mind hearing your opinion on something that I write, and I can always handle constructive criticism. Just don't personally attack me, or anything that I write about unless you know the whole story. This is where I am drawing the line. From now on you will no longer see comments like this published here. I won't even read them, so you might as well not waste your time.

The eighth anniversary of tragedy

I still get the chills everytime I see it.

Thoughtful gifts {new segment}

I am a fan of thoughtful gifts. I like it when people take their time to try and think of something that the recipient of the gift is going to absolutely love as opposed to just buying them any old thing. I try really hard when I am thinking of what I am going to buy or make for a particular person for their birthday, or any other holiday for that matter. I don’t always succeed, and those failures drive me insane until the next year when I will have another shot at it.

There are a few people in my life who are thoughtful gift givers, and they try to think of something that I would never think to buy for myself. I have received some really awesome thoughtful gifts in my life, and thinking of this gave me an idea for a new blog segment. What is the most thoughtful gift you have ever received? This is going to be a temporary segment here at PFOB, and I am recruiting some of my favorite bloggers to help me out with this. The first few posts in the segment will be highlights of thoughtful gifts that I have received myself, and then I will post the thoughtful gifts of other bloggers that have decided to play along!

One of the thoughtful gift givers in my life happens to be my husband. He is always thinking of ways to outdo himself, even if he doesn’t have a whole lot of money to work with. With him in school, and not working until recently, he was really stressed out last Christmas about what he could do for my gift. He kept on telling me that he wasn’t going to be able to get me anything great, and I could tell it was bothering him. I assured him that I didn’t have the money to buy him anything nice either, and he shouldn’t worry about it. Christmas is not about gifts anyway, it’s about spending time with the people who mean the most to you. Right?

On Christmas morning Brett surprised me with something that I never would’ve expected. It was by far the most thoughtful, and awesome gift he had ever given me. It was beautiful! Just looking at it, I couldn't believe that he had made it specially for me. My very own handmade, custom designed long board! I absolutely love love love it! Isn't it great? This is just one of the reasons that he is my favorite!

If you want to play along and submit your favorite thoughtful gift to be posted, send us an email!scothernsblog@aol.com

9 random facts about 9

1. Tim Burton's new movie 9 was released in theaters today. {I can't wait to see it!!}


2. Nine ball is the standard professional pocket billiards variant played in the United States.


3. Nine is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "long lasting".


4. A human pregnancy normally lasts nine months.


5. Bart Simpson's hair has nine spikes.


6. Nine justices sit on the United States Supreme Court.


7. A full moon is nine times brighter than a half moon.


8. Important Buddhist rituals usually involve nine monks.


9. A polygon with nine angles and nine sides is called a nonagon.

Friday frustrations

This is going to be my new Friday segment, I'm going to call it Friday frustrations because it is going to be nothing other than me bitching about things that frustrate me or get on my nerves. If you don't like it when people complain about things that bother them, this is one segment you will want to skip over in the future. Sometimes I just need to vent, so I thought that making my rants into stories for you readers {all five of you} would be a good way to get it all out.

On January 31, 2008 I was driving to work when my allergies flared up, and I started sneezing uncontrollably. This is not an uncommon occurrence for me, in fact I probably sneeze an average of 20 times a day, and this is not an exaggeration. You can ask Brett, he'll clarify it for you.

So anyway, I'm driving along, and the traffic had been the standard morning 'stop and go' that I encounter during nearly every commute, for the last 30 minutes. This is where the sneezing starts. I can't make it stop, and as a result my eyes are closed for a good 10 seconds. When the sneezes finally subside, and I can open my eyes again, the traffic in front of me is at a dead stand still. Shit! I didn't have the time to stop my car, and rear ended the woman in front of me. At this point I am hysterical. Crying, I call Brett to let him know that I had just wrecked my car, and ask him to come to my rescue. I get out of my car, and approach the vehicle in front of me to find a morbidly obese woman on the phone with the police. She gives them the location of the accident, and hangs up the phone. I am still crying and ask her if she is okay, and apologize profusely for the accident that has just occurred. She tells me that she is fine, and nothing is wrong with her, so I am a little relieved.

The police officer shows up, and follows the standard procedure for dealing with this situation. We move the cars off of the freeway to a safer location, and fill out our statements. By this time Brett has arrived, and is trying to calm me down. After we fill out our statements, we trade information and the officer leaves. After he gave me a ticket, that is. Brett and I are standing at this woman's vehicle talking to her to make sure she is, in fact, alright. She reassures us that she is fine, and proceeds to tell us that the last time there was damage to her car, it was hail damage if I remember correctly, she didn't even use the insurance money to fix it. Instead she spent the money on something else. She apparently didn't care about the damage that I had caused, which was a very minimal crack to her rear bumper, because she didn't get out of her vehicle once to inspect the damage. Not once.

Our insurance allows one accident every five years or so without raising our premiums, so after a few weeks, once my car was fixed, I had pretty much forgotten about the whole situation.

Fast forward a year and a half to this past May. Brett's dad {who's insurance policy we are on} gets a letter from the insurance company saying that the woman who's car I hit sued our insurance. SHE SUED OUR INSURANCE FOR $78,000!!! Can you believe it? $78,000 for being 'just fine' when the accident occurred. Her car isn't worth $5,000 and she told us that she didn't have any injuries. She was suing for medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, and the value of her vehicle. The worst part of this whole thing is, our insurance settled with her instead of fighting her in court, and wrote the bitch a check for $25,000.

I hate liars! It pisses me off so bad when people do shit like this, and get away with it. There was no reason in the world for her to sue. My car is the one that took all of the damage, and she had no injuries when it happened. She was totally dishonest, and now she has a fat check in her pocket, that she's not even going to use to fix her car. I wish I could send her a letter and tell her how rotten she is.

Karma is a bitch though, and I know that she'll get what's coming to her.

Guess what?

Today is Brett's first day working at Home Depot! He has been trying to find a job for a few months now, but with the economy in the shitter like it has been, no one has been hiring. He had an interview about a week and a half ago, and they hired him on the spot. Today he went in to start his training. Isn't this news wonderful? I am so happy for him!

Congratulations babe!

My favorite kind of art

{Photo found HERE}

I have a ridiculous fear of needles. Every time I have to get my blood drawn I cry at the thought of a needle penetrating my flesh. I'm not kidding, before the nurse even gets the needle out. All she has to do is tell me that she is going to draw my blood, and I cry. Every time. To be honest with you, it's really quite embarrassing. I am so terrified of needles that when we are watching a movie or TV show, and someone is getting an IV put in, having their blood drawn, or shooting up I can't watch. I turn my head and cringe. Every time.

There is one exception to this fear: Tattoos.

I am incredibly intrigued by tattoos. I have one, and plan to have many more someday. I love watching people get tattoos, and if I had any artistic ability at all, I probably would've been a tattoo artist.

What do you think about tattoos?

The one where my head explodes

About two months ago I entered a giveaway on a blog I had never read before. It was a giveaway hosted by a woman in the Salt Lake area who is trying to get her photography website up and running, and she was giving away 15 photo sessions. With how expensive professional photography is, we have never been able to afford to have our pictures taken. We didn't even have the money to hire a professional photographer for our wedding. Instead, we recruited one of Brett's sisters to do pictures, and another one of his sisters to do video.

I'm not a particularly lucky person, and I've only ever won a few things in my life, so naturally I was ecstatic when I received an email a few days later informing me that I was, in fact, one of the winners. This kind of thing never happens to me.

After going back and forth with her for a few weeks to try and decide on a location and time that would work for both of us we finally had an appointment set, and the perfect spot in mind. I wanted to do something a little bit out of the ordinary, and thought that it would be fun to go somewhere with a lot of graffiti. There is an old abandoned building out by Saltair on I-80 that is covered in graffiti, and there is an old train car out there too. It seemed like a great spot, and she agreed that she would meet us out there. I was getting so excited! I am a really impatient person, so waiting another five weeks was the hardest part.

We are not usually the type of people who go all out for this kind of thing, but we decided that since we were going to have our pictures done professionally we should get new clothes. We had been looking for something to wear for weeks, stopping at any store we passed, and didn't have much luck. We finally found an awesome shirt for Brett, but now I needed something that matched, and it didn't seem to exist. Saturday morning we went to the mall, which Brett hates, to keep searching. After a few hours we finally found something that I loved. We ended up spending more than we wanted to on the clothes, but after the pictures were done it would all be worth it. At least that's what I kept telling myself.

After we had the clothes picked out it was time to get ready. I had my hair styled professionally so that it would look perfect, and I even went crazy and decided that I was going to wear heels. I never wear heels. This was obviously a big deal.

The time came on Saturday for us to go, and I could barely contain my excitement. We had waited a long time, and the day was finally here! We were going to have our pictures taken by a real live professional.

We got out to Saltair about fifteen minutes early, and got out to walk around. As we were waiting, a few car loads of people showed up sporadically for photo shoots of their own. Apparently we had picked a great location, and we determined that it must be a hot spot for photographers to bring their clients.

Fifteen minutes go by, and our photographer is still not there. I was starting to get annoyed, but I figured she must probably just be running a little late. We continued waiting, and watching the other people that had shown up after us as they got their pictures taken. I was getting anxious. Where the hell could she be? After another fifteen minutes goes by Brett can tell that I am really bothered by how late she is, and suggests that I call her to see what's going on. I had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that she wasn't going to show, but I kept trying to convince myself that I was just being paranoid. I had sent her an email to confirm the appointment a week ago, there's no way she is going to blow us off.

This is the part where my head exploded.

I got her on the phone, explained that we were waiting for her, and that our appointment was supposed to be twenty minutes ago. She then proceeds to tell me that she completely forgot about our appointment. COMPLETELY FORGOT!! Are you kidding me? Then she has the balls to say "do you still want to try to do it tonight?". NO, I don't. I don't want to wait here for another hour until you can get around to showing up to take our pictures. You've already wasted my entire day, and now I would like to at least salvage what is left of my evening. Jerk.

After everything that we went through to prepare for this photo shoot, we got stood up. Now I don't know how long it will be before we'll be able to get our pictures done professionally. I can tell you one thing though, when it happens again, I will make sure to go with someone that has been recommended to me by a friend. I want to do anything I can to avoid a mess like this in the future.

Needless to say, I am extremely disappointed in the whole situation. I don't see how she will ever be able to build up her client base operating her business this way. If anything, I hope to help other people avoid having a bad experience like mine. I would highly recommend that you DO NOT have your pictures done by Rebecca Terry Photography.