just your typical roast-obsessed blog post.

never mind the fact that it's half past midnight. 

and i'm up waiting for a roast to cook in my new little crock pot and googling recipes for things i can now cook in my crock pot [obsessed much?] when i really should be doing some a little more productive like editing papers for my writing class tomorrow.

oh well, what's a girl to do.

i am so so so excited to have some more time to start cooking again.

i'm gonna be making soups galore.

just watch me!

also, watch my bank account go from x amount of dollars [i can't share the numbers of wealth i have, it would make you all jealous] to zero in 3.5 seconds, because roast doesn't grow on trees.

don't even know what i'm saying right now.

i'm literally blogging about roast right now.

what has my life become?

ehhhh, ask me if i care.

i may be publicly pathetic, but at least i got roast.

but the reeeeal reason i am blogging [besides the fact i gotta wait for roast and i'm avoiding my homework] is to gab about this past weekend, because it was a real keeper, it was.

the weekend, in some particular order.

 [brinn, the gem. gotta say that so she doesn't kill me for this...which she will.]

 [just me and baby claire being twinners. i always know we were gonna be best friends.]

 [feasting with mom and mark. no, that's not my plate of food. just pretend it's all salad, okay? that's obviously what i do.]

 [my crazy mom after she woke up from her nap and told me i could find some juice "between the pirate and the four-tierd fruit stand". naturally.]

 [air show with mom and mark saturday morning. remote control airplanes bigger than my body.]

 [freezing cold rainy storms during the air show.]

 [meeshie no like cold rain. but seriously, i was miserable. the cold does not bring out my finest.]

 [my adorable mom who left her reading glasses on her head under her hood like a kook.]

 ["where's the beef?" always.]

 [mark goes to cheesecake factory without us, we make orange rolls without him.]

 [slowwww drooooooooollllll.]

 [my handsome daddy during sunday school. love that man!]

 [sammy boy showing me how much smarter he is with daddy's glasses.]

 [creepin' instead of reading my book at the lewis' cabin.]

 [me and max play trains.]

 [joe makes peach cobbler. i eat it all. not really. but kinda.]

 [i truly do live in a beautiful place. and i may or may not pretend i'm in germany sometimes where i look at the mountains of trees.]

 [hahaha court's sweet sunburn from laying out mems day.]

lucky me, i had a four-day weekend.

i have no school/work fridays and monday was memorial day, 

so i decided to spend it well with the ones i love.

basically, the weekend consisted of eating it up with mom and mark on friday night, spending saturday morning in the freezing cold rain at the air show, making orange rolls with mommy [those babies dominated me. seriously, they own my life, and i will forever bow down to them because they are the best, tastiest things ever], waking up for church waaaay too early sunday morning with sam, daddy, joe, and the lewis', spending hours at the lewis' cabin sleeping, reading, oogling max and claire [just can't get enough of those sweet cheeks.....on her face....], and eating my body weight in gumbo and peach cobbler, and spending lots of monday at the pool where we continued to get fried crispy [some of us more than others], went dress shopping with brinnalinn, and ended the long weekend writing an 8-page research paper monday night.

top weekend, i must say.

i'm so grateful i got to spend most of it with my family!

i loved getting to relax with them and just not have to think at all about work or school [which sucked in my favor when writing that fun little research paper monday night].

ate too much, slept too little, laughed too hard.

what's new?

gonna go check on my roast/baby/everything.

broccoli with cheese whiz.

just home for a lunch break in between school and work.

note to self: never ever ever buy the frozen broccoli with the cheese on it. it does not taste at all like the cauliflower with fancy cheese and breadcrumbs from the nordstrom blue stove restaurant. in fact, it tastes like broccoli with cheez whiz.

i am going to throw up.

good thing i've got a kickball game tonight [yeah, that's another thing. i'm on my work's inter mural kickball team. pause for uncontrollable laughter, snorting, and any other forms of surprise.] so i can run around with a broccoli cheese shake in my belly.

fun times to be had tonight!

i'm making this worse, aren't it?

oh well.

and now, in no particular order, the pictures from this past weekend on my idaho trip.

 [started the car ride up right with yummy gummy bears.]

 [brinn spending some quality time in walmart analyzing her feet.]

 [my best friend is married. ohhh happy day!]

 [too scared to talk to matt now that he's all married and stuff. this picture is tradition.]

 [the prettiest bride. EVER.]

 [seth is really excited he gets to come sit while we get manicures.]

 [miiiiine.]

 [pretty friends]

 [on da way to da reception]

 [court singing her heart out in the passenger seat]

 [long car rides turn me into michelle gas station snack hands. appreciate it.]

 [note: california usa nails IS in walmart. ohhhh idaho.]

[le pièce de résistance. she's gonna kill me, but this is my all time fav.]

i had the honor of going up to idaho falls and pocatello this weekend with brinn and courtney to meet up with ashley, caz, tracy, seth, and jamie to see our best friend onnie marry her long time best friend matt otterstein.

first off, they're the cutest couple ever.

made me want to get married the entire time, but what else is new when you slap michelle in the middle of a wedding day? [not a literal slap, a placement...keep up.]

i loved every minute of this past weekend, down to the scream-singing in the car with court and brinn [hey hey clarke, GOOD BYE.], eating pizza and brookies way too late at night, almost missing onnie coming out of the temple, eating at johnny carino's and being the annoying table yet again [my lemon pasta so did not taste like lemon...can i go back to italy yet?], getting manicures with all my girls and troncy's fiancé seth in between the temple and the reception to pass the time [there is nothing to do in idaho falls......at least not in a dress and heels], chugging diet cokes to decorate matt's van [yes, the van was the getaway car, let's not be so romantic now], and dancing it up at the reception to the cotton eyed joe and the cha cha slide [annie is notorious for off-the-hook dance music choices.............................]. 

oh, and finishing it up by driving home on sunday afternoon and laughing my butt off with "ba ba brinn sheep" and courtney "manicurewaring" as i became michelle gas station snack hands and screamed to music again.

and talked in way too many different accents.

i am my mother's daughter.

i love my friends too much and laughing with them about things that make no sense.

i've probably gained five pounds from slaughtering my diet.

and i definitely lost my voice from screaming all kinds of songs.

cool beans.

congrats to the lovely couple.

wish me luck with the kickball and stuff.

i should so be studying right now.

good thing brinn got me a diet coke so i can study my night away for my comms test tomorrow [minus the time that will be spent watching the batchelorette...i'm such a good student.]

and good thing there's a new format to this blogging thing and i'm confused out of my butt.

don't worry about me, i'll figure it out.

and since we're talking about worrying, let's just address the fact that i have got to have an ulcer the size of a large dog on account of the fact that little sister jit is going on a date tonight in boston with a random.

i swear, i've gone from zero to possessive/protective older sister in the last twenty four hours.

[also, let's not address the sad fact that jit gets dates with guys she likes in cities she doesn't live in, and michelle gets none with guys she likes in the city she actually lives in...pathetic much?...moving on.]

but seriously, i'm going to be a terrible mother because i am never going to let my kids ever go on dates/get married/leave the house.

and if they do, i am getting their dates' phone number/address and if they lay a finger on my kid, i will literally saw off choice body parts.

you think i'm kidding.

i need to chill. no, i need to study.

nope!

instead, ima blog. and ima blog about paris londy london.

ridiculously overdue, but i dgaf.

gotta write the mems down somewhere, right?

thursday, november 3rd.

went to daryl's class in the morning, and walked over to the gay bakery after for some food.

the gay bakery is the gay bakery because literally everyone that works there is gay.

and they have male reproductive part shaped bread and candies.

awkward to anyone else?

is it too much of me to say that i giggle every time i walked in/by there?

i know, i know, don't be so mature meesh.

ANYWAYS,

i got a delicious cheesy breadstick thing [not hot] and an almond croissant [even though i don't loooove the almond croissants over there because i was so used to cielo's almond croissants from santa monica].

but seriously, bread is bread aka get in my belly.

[mmmm, can you see how the powdered sugar is hardened into the crust? makes me melt with hunger just looking at it. if only these pictures were like wonkavision and i would grab it.]

then we took off to catch the metro and then the RER train to the airport [me and anna were flying there, the rest [riley, sammie, kelly, madie, courtney, and annie] were taking the chunnel, and then tiff, amber, and ally were going to the airport with us to fly to barcelona for the weekend.]

[seeing this makes me want to cry, i miss it soooooOOO much :(]

we got to the airport suuuper early so we killed some time waiting in mcdonalds and stealing their wifi [and eating over-priced ice cream] and then me and anna left for our gate and boarded our plane.

weirdest thing about flying to london? everything was in english again. for the first time in a long time. such a weird feeling. we waited for forever to go through customs and then finally got to our shuttle bus that was taking us to our hotel. and umm, the driver's seat was on the right side. actually the back of the bus was the front of the bus. so weird. and of course i died when the driver started speaking and had his little accent going. i know, i'm too mature for my own good.

we got off the bus, and took the tube over to where our hostel was [yes, the tube. and we got money in pounds from the atm. you have no idea how posh and british i felt.] sad thing is that when we got to our hostel area, we were all turned around and it was literally pathetic because we were gaffing and trying to find a map and our hostel was literally right in front of us. oops?

we checked into our room but all the other girls had dropped their stuff off and left and fun stuff, our cell phones didn't work in london because it was technically part of the UK, so we didn't really know what to do. luckily for us, our hostel had a pub/dance club in the lobby. we ordered fish and chips [the british fun continues] and ended up sitting down with two OBM [that's original british men for ya]. and we talked their ears off about harry potter and angus, thongs, and perfect snogging, and asked them all the sights we had to see this weekend. and we did our british accents for them and they did their american accents for us. oh, and the fish and chips were amaaaazing [coming from the girl who only likes to eat creatures on land...that are cooked].

finally our girls came home from romping around london and we headed up to bed. to bed, i said!

and so begins one of the funnest weekends of the studying of the abroad for michelle.

time to go watch the batchelorette.

happiness testimony.

[it's noon and the lights are still off in my room. and i'm wearing yesterday's shirt and hair. rock on.]

the following post goes on to repeat the word "happy" and "love" about a bajillion times, and it's one of those "i love life" kinds, so if you hate life right now, don't read. 

you'll throw up.

cuz i is about to go on a happy rant right now.

you've been warned.

i just wanna say how happy i am right now.

there are a million and one things i should be doing and stressing about right now, but i don't even care about them.

i love my friends. all of them. more than anything. they bring out the best and the worst in me, and i just love it.

and i love my family! they are the best thing ever in my life, and just give me endless joy and smiles. 

i'm so grateful for them, it's not even funny.

i'm so happy that spring's here and summer's coming up. something about that sun just drives me wild and makes me happier than anything when i walk out the door.

i'm happy with where i'm at right now and who i am.

i can definitely say that there have been times in my life that i've been bitter or felt like i couldn't really be myself with people that i was supposed to be able to be free with. 

but i really feel now that i can be completely myself and be happy doing it, because i love who i am. 

i love seeing how the people in my life and the environments around me have added to me and changed me.

it makes me feel really good to feel like who i am right now is purely my soul leaping out all over the place.

i'm being me.

and the silly thing is it brings me so much joy being myself! it's one of the most rewarding things in my life.

and any of those who didn't accept me along the way or made me feel stupid for who i was only make me appreciate myself more for how i am now.

i don't really know if any of this makes complete sense. like i said, it's just a happiness rant where your heart is so happy and you've got a permanent smile [for the time being] and things are just nice. and i understand, i really should read up on the thesaurus every now and then to find a different word to describe happiness.

but hey, i threw a "joy" in there for you.

coulda used "happy".

just saying.

it's a really good life. 

and it's a great day [last day of school and i'm supposed to be working on a paper due in a matter of hours....whoops].

and i am one freaking happy girl.

according to my iphone, and my life.

 [spring's here. finally.]

[love rocking out to this like i actually know the song.]

 [idaho breakfast.]

 [jcw's for the first time with mitch!]

 [bingo at applebee's with butters and some study abroad girls.]

 [troncy is by far my funniest friend. i will forever cherish this video.]

 [gotta take a picture of the parking so you know where how to find your car after you city creek it up.]

 [cpk pizza with trace, carly, and brinn=funniest night of my life.]

 [waiting for the light to turn green with daddy. what a kook.]

[mommy/favorite daughter pedicures.]

gosh, what a whirlwind of a week it's been.

seriously, i think i have whiplash from the ups and downs that have been thrown at me this week.

basically, boys and school are rotten. just don't get tangled up in them. 

they'll really try hard to take you down.

that's okay though.

a few more weeks and i can dgaf through life for like, four months, right?

besides taking spring classes [why am i doing this? somebody slap me back into reality.]

but i've decided i'm gonna do a retake of last summer.

okay, besides the fact that i won't have a beach steps away, my dream job, a hot gangster volleyball player man, or be living with my sisters.

BUT,

i'm living with some best friends in a nice house [no more of this washer-in-the-kitchen-dirtiest-roommates-of-my-life crap],

utah's delicious in the summer [the trees, the weather...um, the boys],

i'll be working at a really nice job [good phone talks with interesting people],

running outside again [FINALLY],

eating healthy again.

for this summer, i have a few goals that i just want to put out into the world so i don't neglect [or run away from] them:

-teach myself the guitar [i've always wanted to learn. i'm doing it, just watch me.]

-run and do yoga multiple times a week [yoga! oh, how i've missed you and your leanness.]

-have some kind of tv/movie marathon [don't laugh, i live for these. it was star wars a few years ago, psych last summer, so it's gotta be something' bangin' this summer]

-speaking of bangin', get bangin'. as in my body. not the verb, you sickos.

-take trips [i'll be going to idaho twice, and arizona, but i definitely want to sneak off to california a few times, and hopefully south carolina for some time with my holts.]

-um, go on a cruise [$400 for 5 days of endless food, beaches, swimming, shows, and laziness? i'll do it.]

-explore provo [i know there's got to be crap i haven't seen before].

-eat at new places/restaurants.

-do a complete hair makeover. i know this one sounds stupid, but i haven't really ever changed my hair before besides cutting it, and i'm ready for it.

-convince my nephew max that i'm his favorite person EVER, and more importantly, my new niece claire that will be my new best friend all summer.

that's what i got so far. 

i know i'll be adding to it, but it makes me happy to have some ideas. i also love that it's already almost summer again! it's crazy how happy the sun makes me feel.

 i think i live and thrive off of it, so summers are my best times. and i feel really happy with how my life is right now, and how it's changing me, and i'm excited to see how this summer turns out and to be able to look back on how much i've grown.

it's gonna be big.

so here's to new beginnings, leafs, and any other cheesy sayings that equal fresh starts.

i'm so ready.