Stacie's Place

WHY do I feel the need in my life to have so many choices! I am starting to realize that it just makes things harder instead of easier. Take for example, clothes. Those who know me well, know I have a lot.  I say I wear at least 90% of what I own, depending on the season. I like to have options because I have a lot of colorful shoes that I need to coordinate with my outfits, right? But having so many options gets overwhelming and makes me late for work.  3 pairs of gray pants, 3 pairs of black pants and brown pants, skinny jeans, athletic pants, leggings...I wish I could decide what I liked best and just stick with that, but I cant seem to do that. For awhile I was in to the colored or patterned jeans but lately I just dont want to wear pants. Haha, just kidding. I just want to wear soft , comfortable pants. Not pants that are tight on my legs. It just feels so restrictive. Maybe I need to lose some weight? Or get a little less skinner type of jeans? No! I have too ma...

Tony and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary last weekend by going to southern CA to do some fun things such as Medival Times dinner, Universal Studios and the beach. We stayed the night in Vegas and my Macbook started making a crunchy sound. Tony told me to shut it down and don't turn it on the for the rest of the weekend because my hard drive was crashing. Scary and sad! Luckily we were able to save everything plus most everything was backed up. Friday morning when we woke up, my iPod touch restarted for no reason and did not want to get off the reboot screen no matter how much we tried. There went my camera for the weekend, or so I thought. Once we arrived in L.A. , Tony, who is not a fan of Apple at all, esp iTunes, installed iTunes on his laptop and set to work to fix my iPod. I had already gotten on Craigslist to see about buying another one but by the time we went to Universal Studios on Saturday, he had the iPod up and working again! So amazing he was able to fix i...

My social media marketing strategy class put together this video to help drive donations for Operation Underground Railroad. It was quite the process to put this all together. I was there the day most of this was filmed and my sister brought her boys to be in it. My nephew Riley made it into the scene with the kids at the playground. It's been really neat to watch this all come together.  Check it out and share it on your social media accounts. Plus consider donating $5/month to help rescue a child from slavery. You can visit Operation Underground Railroad on Facebook too to check out a competition going on where you can win some O.U.R swag.

Here are some new blog posts to check out! One of our favorite places to eat, The Habit Free Ice Cream night at Dairy Queen Celebrating Pi day with food and fun As you can tell by the links, they all revolve around food. Oh well, sometimes its like that!

Just wanted to say Hello! to anyone new who might be reading my blog since snagging my card at Build Your Blog conference over this past weekend. I got home Saturday evening and my head was spinning with all the awesome things I learned, people I met and fun experiences. I cant wait to write out everything in the next day or two. In the meantime, I have a big'ish project due for one of my classes on Saturday but I want to turn it in earlier since I may be going down to southern UT this weekend - all depending on the weather. Not sure what happened to the early spring Utah was getting but winter seems to be back. It may look nice outside but it's a trick because it is icy cold! Every time I look at the weather for Kanab, its a mix of snow and rain. Bad bad bad. Hot air balloons can't go up in that kind of weather! Hoping and praying for a miracle. I have wanderlust so much right now. What's new with you? Let me know and link me to your blog too so I can come say...

Many of you reading this are most likely aware that after my job at WGU ended in early November, I've been looking for a job and working with temp agencies. I've had interviews here and there but nothing happened from them. Until last Friday I got a call asking me if I was still looking for a job and would I like to come in for an interview on Monday. Stupidly I said I could, forgetting that Monday was a holiday. Oops. I had badly wanted to go to Capitol Reef National Park to see a friend, hike and do fun things but I was unable to find anyone who could come with so I decided not to change the interview and just stick around town for weekend.  I went in at 10am for the interview...well I got a little lost but luckily was only delayed by a few minutes.  I started filling out paperwork and by the time everything was said and done , about an hour and a half later! they were offering me the job. I was stunned because I never had anyone offer me a job so quickly before, at least, n...

Last Wednesday I got to go to Dev Mountain in Provo to hear YouTuber Stuart Edge speak. If you have not heard of him, definitely go check out his channel . He is pretty funny! He spoke about "How To Be Funny & Make Money" which caught my attention although I did not know that was the topic before I went. What drew me in was who he is (I have seen him before and watched some of his videos) and there was free food afterwards. Spoiler alert - it turned out to be just cookies. All I wanted was real food! However, Sodalicious has fantastic cookies, esp their sugar cookies.  Alright! Here are my notes, enjoy. Figure out what you do. Figure out who you are. Don't paint yourself in a corner We paint ourselves as something. Facebooker. YouTuber. Don't paint yourself in a corner.  What/who does the real world say I am? Give yourself more room to grow. Vlogger? Ok a  reality tv show. How are my ratings. How can I grow? Expand your brand. Figure out how we ...

I've been upping my blogging lately and working on redoing what I do, as in, I have too many blogs and I am trying to think of what I can do to get rid of 1 or maybe 2 of them. In the meantime, while I figure that out, you may have noticed that Stacie's Place is now a .com! So excited to finally just DO that. I think it looks great and will be easier to tell people as well. Check out the Valentine's Pinterest Party I hosted last week I also took a quick trip to Idaho over the weekend with my sister and her boys Tony & I got to go to Midway to see the ice castles for our first time ever. School is going awesome!   I blogged about some moving tips for moms (or anyone!) and have you heard of the Great Inflatable Race ? What fun things have you been up to lately? Link me in a comment below and I will come check it out or comment back!

I super love that the daylight is lasting longer. It's happening slowly but each day is a little better. The longer it stays the light, the more I feel like I can get done. Especially things outside. These past few days I have gotten a lot better somehow about getting rid of stuff. Or at least, committing to get rid of it and organizing clothing , shoes, craft supplies and other items into a donate and sell pile.  Unfortunately the pile to sell grows bigger and I am not really getting much sold. I did sell one item from the Facebook yardsale pages. I sold another couple items on eBay. Made less than $30 but something is better than nothing! More things are posted so fingers crossed I can make a few more sales. Eventually though I  will have to decide what to just let go because I just keep re posting, it doesn’t sell and it takes up way too much space. The other day my friend came over and helped me go through my closet full of jackets and sweatshirts. She offered...

My first week (er, day) at LDSBC seemed to go well. I only had 1 fail where I had a smear of chocolate on my jacket. Maybe it blended in and nobody noticed (hopefully). Tony wasnt home to check me before I wrecked myself.  Sigh. Luckily in my classes I dont feel like the oldest one. It feels like mostly a good mix. It will be interesting to go to class tonight and see who has still stuck around. Tony and I are sharing a car at the moment. My poor HHR. Tony's poor truck. I feel like I dont have good luck with cars and I have not even had the HHR a year yet! Both of our vehicles are drivable but need work so its best to avoid driving them. My HHR died last week waiting for my sister in the Smith's parking lot. A kind teenager used his truck to help me jump my car. I got it home and it promptly died in front of my house. I started driving my Mazda again. I heart that car so much, despite its problems. Since Tony had Monday off of work, we went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunc...

Am I going back to school? Yes. Hopefully. I sure hope so. Here's what is going on. Late last year I heard a commercial on the radio I believe it was, for a degree being offered at LDS Business College in Social Media Marketing. It's an AA degree which I have already but that's okay. They offer a certificate starting in summer of 2015. I love being online, I love my social media and that degree sounded really fun to me. So I got the crazy idea in my head to apply. I put it off for a bit but with the encouragement of a friend or two, I thought, what the heck. So I filled out the FASFA and waited. Then Tony told me one day when we were talking about it, that I need to apply to the college I want to go to to find out if I will get accepted or not. WHAT?! I have only ever gone to Woodland Community College in California and everyone gets in, there is no 'applying'. So this is all new to me! I scrambled to start applying. This was in late December. Apparently LDSBC is...

I saw a post on Facebook from a carpet cleaning company called Longhurst Carpet Cleaning. Their deal was great, $1 per stair and our stairs were terrible! We have lived here 3-1/2 years and do not take our shoes off when we come inside so you can imagine that they were pretty filthy looking. In fact, here are some pictures to prove it.  (downstairs) (upstairs) Yea. Embarassing. I couldnt stand it any more and this deal was the best and so I scheduled them to come on a Saturday in October. It was the day of our ward trunk-or-treat party. Tony really wanted to borrow their company vehicle (a hearse!) for the trunk or treat but we didnt. That would have been cool though! The owner and son his scrubbed our stairs from 930 until about 1130am, with a brush , on their hands and knees. I was very impressed seeing them do that. And the results were nothing short of spectacular.  (upstairs) (downstairs) Seriously so clean you could eat off...

I heart Pinterest. It's one of my favorite websites that I can never spend long enough on. I have been known to stay up until unmentionable hours of the night...er..morning, just browsing and planning. If you follow my blogs, you know I host Pinterest parties so I can actually make some of the things I pin on Pinterest with friends. It's fantastic! Last year was the first Pinners Conference here in Utah and it is basically just down the street from where I live so that made it perfect to attend both days, which I did. Now the second conference is here and I am beyond excited to go again! I tried to find my blog post from the conference last year but sadly, it seems like I never did a blog post. I do remember taking some pictures but there was SO much to see and do, shopping and classes to attend that it was all I could do to soak it all in. I imagine this year will be even better and I wouldn't miss it if I were you!  Clear your calendars for November ...

Do you ever feel like life is super and crazy?! That is how my entire summer has been it feels like. Good thing I like being busy, right? Here are some links of what I've been up to! Emergency Preparedness Tips When You Have Pets Crafty Plate with Cricut Explore Exploring Pinedale, WY Walk The Winds Teardrop Camper Meetup Utah State Fair The Color Run Mountain Mike's Pizza SLC Comic Con Blogger Night Out - Hospital Tour Camp Ritchie Day 2 Camp Ritchie Day 1 Slide The City Phew. That'll be enough to keep you reading for awhile I guess! Looking back at all these posts, I sure have had a busy summer. And I still have posts to catch up on so I will link those to a new post on here when they are available.  What fun things have you been up to this summer? Leave a link to your post if you have one and I will come by and leave a comment!

My name is Laura and I have a guest post reviewing Idealshake! My husband Rocky and I got a chance to sample the chocolate Idealshake, a meal replacement shake that naturally reduces hunger and cravings. We were so excited to try this product because we were constantly on the search for the best meal replacement shake due to the fact that we are always on the go, and secondly because Rocky has a consistent workout program he follows at the gym and would always come home hungry!  Rocky has tried many protein powders and meal replacements and I have always sampled from the huge bottle of whatever he decides to buy. It was always something new because the anterior never lived up to the hype. We both dislike having a chalky or artificial aftertaste!  We both sampled Idealshake as soon as we got it, I wanted to see if the "tastes great" would live up to its reputation. We had never heard of Idealshake before, however, after sampling, we won't forget their name! ...

Trying to catch up on my blogging to let you all know what I've been up to!  Since it's my birthday month and I subscribe to tons of emails, I've been getting lots of birthday freebies and deals. I posted all of them here so take a look and see if you could use any for your birthday! They are specific for Utah but some of the deals can be used in other states. Recently Tony & I went to Lagoon and had a fantastic time! It was so so fun. I wrote about what we did and also some tips/tricks to know before you go.  I'm a huge fan of hot air balloons and will travel near or far to go see them. Lucky for us, around the 4th of July in Provo they have 20-30 hot air balloons come and last Saturday we got to go see them take off. In other news, I'm still looking for a job and getting some interviews here and there. In all my free time I decided the guestroom/office needed a makeover. It's still in the stages of being completed but you can read a little about...

If you know me well, you know how much I love to roadtrip and not going anywhere on a rare three day weekend is a waste. We had three ideas of places to go this weekend, Montana, Wyoming or Colorado. On Thursday we decided that we were going to Colorado. Tony got home early afternoon and we did a few things, then he had some homework to finish at Byu so we went to Provo and found a Peruvian restaurant to have dinner. Well, we were both dragging and tired and I don't think we were ready for another roadtrip so soon after getting back from the Panguitch weekend just a few days ago. Are we getting old?! We've been out of town the past few weekend and I guess we overestimated ourselves. I was a little hasty and texted my uncle to let him know we were coming and then I had to call him this afternoon that we were not coming this weekend after all. I was so disappointed! I don't know if the heat is zapping our energy or what. It's been in the upper 90's, close to 100* some...

...by not 1 but 2 girls online, I had to get this up as a blog post and it is way overdue!  I was nominated for the by Nicole and Jessica - thanks girls! The award has three parts: Answer the interview questions from the nominator. List 11 random facts about yourself. Nominate other blogs that are just getting started. Here is my interview: How long have you been blogging and why did you get started? I started in 2007 when I moved to AZ. I started it to keep in touch with my family who had moved to Idaho and my friends in California What is your favorite recipe of all time? My dad's noodles, meat and veggie dish. I dont know how he makes it, I just know that it is so so good. Are you a part of any public groups? I am not sure what a public group is...so probably not. What was your favorite show growing up? 3-2-1 Contact on PBS. Shining Time Station, Reading Rainbow, Ghostwriter, Zoom and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Yea..we watched quite a lot of PBS shows D...

I came up with this "motto" about half way through my mission one day, the words just popped into my head.  I think it helped me become a better missionary.  When you live life with this thought in mind I think you do a little more to be a little better because we don't know when our last opportunity will be to make an impact.  I forget my motto occasionally but I remember it better when I'm on a roadtrip and see something I want to take a picture of and remember.  Sometimes I think, oh we don't have time  to stop or, it'll be inconvenient to turn around but when I shove these thoughts out of my mind, I'm so glad I do because  I get some of the best photos or memories.  It's not always a photo but it's doing something that when you have a tiny thought of something you want to do and instead of dismissing it, you act on it, it creates some of life's best opportunities.  What have you done lately to 'leave no regrets' ? 

  Salt Creek Imports is located in Springville, UT and recently started renting out a few trailers they acquired to people who wanted to take them camping. It's a nice way to test out a trailer for a few days (if you are in the market for one) or just try a different way of camping.  It's so easy to have access to a tent but not always as easy to get access to a trailer. But now you can! Salt Creek Imports is so easy and friendly to work with.  Last weekend, Tony & I and our friends Lindsay, Garrett & their son Rylan , we all headed down to pick up a trailer to camp with for the weekend.  Dave is the owner and he met up with us when we arrived to give us a tour and information about the trailer , to sign a waiver form and put down a deposit. We rented the 31' trailer which weighs about 7700 lbs. Garrett's diesel truck was able to pull it with no problems.  We were headed down to Goblin Valley and we stopped about 30 minutes outsid...