Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday Night Movies #3

Dustin and I have been slacking on our Friday Night Movies. We have been out of town and there hasn't been too much out that we wanted to see. In fact, I'm only talking about one today because we couldn't find anything we wanted to watch.

Dustin's parents had talked to us about Warrior a few weeks ago and we finally got to watching it. It was awesome!


Tommy Conlon (Tom Hardy) comes back from fighting overseas in the marines with a lot of anger. His dad was a drunk growing up, his brother didn't join him and his mom when they finally left, he was the only one there when his mother died, and he is carrying around a secret from the marines. He meets back up with his now sober dad (Nick Nolte) to train for UFC fighting. He makes it clear to his dad that he is only looking for a trainer and not a father. While this is going on, Tommy's brother, Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) is a physics teacher who married his high school sweetheart and now has two daughters. Fact is, teaching isn't paying the bills. They are about to get foreclosed on and Brendan who once fought decides to go back to what he knows. Tommy and Brendan both end up fighting in the same tournament where the prize is 5 million dollars. This is no big surprise that both brothers who can't stand to be near the other end up fighting in the same match. Brendan cares about his brother, but Tommy carries a lot of anger of being abandon by his older brother. It was hard to watch them fight because they both had such a reason for the money. Brendan wanted to keep his house while Tommy was trying to send money to his best friend's family who had been killed overseas.

I absolutely loved this movie. If you enjoy movies like Cinderella Man and The Fighter, then you would definitely like this. I had a really hard time watching the actual fight scenes. UFC fighting is just hard to watch in general. I don't really get the need to be beat to a pulp, but hey, to each their own. I definitely recommend this movie to everyone. It was a great story about family and over coming anger that you carry.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Current Obsessions

I decided to start a series of current obsessions that I have. I'm always finding something new that I'm in love with. I try to take pictures of my actual items, but some of it is clothes, and I'm too lazy to get up right now to get dressed and take a picture.

I present to you my Current Obsessions.
I love the new cords that Loft has. I love how you can match them with so many colors. I currently have I think 3 styles and 4 colors of them. They are super comfy.
Infinity scarfs are probably the top of my list right now. This one is from Loft. The link will take you to their scarf page. They have so many more. There was a red one I was out for, but they took it off their page when they ran out. I just bought a gold one from J.Crew that goes with everything!
I would say pretty much everyone owns a pair of riding boots now. These are from DSW. One night Dustin was in a super good mood and took me out for happy hour and boot buying. He's a good one, I know. I wear my riding boots all the time. They are super comfy and really add to any outfit.
I'm posting this from J. Crew. I actually  have the iPad 2 case, but could only find a picture of the phone cover. They have a ton of cute iPad covers and some are even on sale right now. It doesn't have a cover for the screen, but it was so cute I couldn't pass it up. It was only $20 on sale too.
For Christmas I always get one of those Estee Lauder gift sets. This year's lip gloss and lipsticks were awesome. The glosses are Electric Ginger and Orchid Passion. The lipsticks are Exotic Orchid, Candy, and Barely Nude (which is my favorite) I still wear Tiger Eye and Bois De Rose from last year too.
I've been in need of some new tights to wear under dresses and stuff. I hate spending money on those things. I got these for $5 at Target. They had them in pretty much every color. I have some black ones too I wore to church and I really liked them.
Going along with my colored cords, I just got these red jeggings from Gap. They had a blue and purple color too. They are so super comfy.
I had passed this WonderFILE at Bed,Bath, and Beyond several times. I finally picked it up. It folds up like a suitcase, but then comes out to this huge file holder. It has 4 corner pockets, one big pocket in the center, 2 small pockets, and another small one up top. It is perfect for my 5 classes, plus answer keys, and pens to grade with. I was worried it wouldn't fold up well, but here it is with about 150 manilla pieces of paper that are folded. Excuse Ferguson in the bottom picture. He is always up in my business.
My brother's girlfriend, Alexa, got me a whole set of the Japanese Cherry Blossom lotions and soaps from Bath and Body Works. One of the lotions came in this jar that looks like a jewel. I love it. I think when I'm done with the lotion I'll clean it out and use it as a jewelry holder.
I just recently became obsessed with Essie nail polish. I have never been one to paint my nails, but since I started using this about a month ago, I have been manicured up. It is sort of expensive at $8 a bottle, but I can go about 1-1 1/2 weeks without my nails chipping. The first picture is everything I bought the cuticle stuff, base coat, and top coat. The second picture is the colors I've gotten. I love them.
You may think it's weird that I'm showing you a taco salad, but I love these things. The other day I was dying for a taco salad, but knew if we went out to get one the shell would be deep fried, I would get about twice the portion I wanted, and I would obviously have to get chips, salsa, and queso. So while it Target I found these over by the cheese. It comes with these cardboard shapers. You mold the tortillas it comes with to the shapers and bake them for about 6 minutes. They are just the right size for a little salad.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Erin Condren Bliss

I have to say that I cannot take credit for finding this new little obsession I have. My sorority sister Mandell writes Nameless for Now that I just love. Mandell just got engaged a few months ago and I love following her excitement of planning a wedding. I do have to say it is more fun watching some one else plan than me be the one that is stressing. I loved planning my wedding and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out, but planning one was enough.

Anyways, Mandell did this post, and I immediately went to Erin Condren's site and just about fell in love. It has so many things that you can personalize. It took forever for me to find what I wanted. My mom gave me a gift card for Christmas to buy some things off her site. I spent forever looking and finally decided on a new day planner and a pad of paper to make lists on.

Here comes another little freak part about me... I love planning things. I'm crazy about it. I set a whole day to color coordinate my planner and I carry 1000 markers around with me so that I always have all my colors ready to plan. I love to make lists of all kind: wish lists, to do lists, grocery lists, party lists, book lists. I could go on for forever. I'm obsessed. Literally. I think there is something wrong with me. My favorite aisle at Target is the one where they have all the organization things. They have all those pads of paper for grocery lists or planning out your meals. If you came to our apartment you would see bits and pieces of this organization, but at school every one thinks I'm nuts. I plan way out in advance with my lessons because I just love to plan and I'm super organized inside of my room. I can't wait to have kids and have their little areas organized for them to drop off their back packs and such.

Okay... moving on before you start to think I'm too weird and stop reading. I finally decided on  the 2012 Life Planner. If you wait until August you can get the 2012-2013 one. I almost did that because school wise those calendars are just easiest for me, but I couldn't wait. I chose to the picture collage cover so I could decorate mine with wedding pictures since that is obviously my current phase of pictures I adore. The planner is awesome. It has pages in the front for important dates. It goes week by week breaking your days into morning, afternoon, night. I love this because I can look at a certain time frame, and since I'm trying to lose weight I can monitor my eating habits easier. It has a zipper pouch plus a pocket in the back to keep things in. In my case, I can keep appointment reminders and my 1000 pens to color coordinate.It has great motivational quotes for each month too. I also got a pad of paper to make lists, of course, for my desk at school. Love! Erin Condren has so many other things you can look at on her site. You should totally check it out.
 The box!!! Isn't it cute?
 The wapping when I first opened it. I obviously took this picture after opening. I was just too excited.
The cover of my planner
 It has my name and my favorite bible verse
 The pad of paper I got. It has a notes, doodles, and to do section. I like the calendar at the bottom as well
 From the desk of Taylor Hotchkiss
There was a little envelope inside that had gift cards with my name on them. There were only a few to show as a sample, but I love them!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Tales from a Mute - The conclusion (hopefully)

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I made it 6 days without talking. I was for the most part pretty silent. I seemed to always forget when I first woke up in the morning and when a frog sound came out was quickly reminded. Christmas Eve I started to talk a little bit. It was a little hard getting my vocal chords to work at first. Sunday I tried to go back to not talking, but it was just about impossible. I was over it, and couldn't stay silent for a moment longer. I was a little sore Sunday night, but after that could speak pretty easily.

I went to the doctor on the 27th. He said that my vocal chords looked great, but my voice didn't sound like it should. It was still a little hoarse and not strong at all. His directions were to not strain my voice for two weeks. I was good for the rest of Christmas break, but I had to tell him once school started up that would be near impossible. He told me to do my best and that I couldn't coach my game on Thursday. School on Tuesday was really hard. I was not used to talking that much, and by lunch was in a lot of pain. The rest of the week was alright. I tried to do a lot of independent activities so that I wasn't talking to the class as a whole. Projecting my voice to the entire classroom was hard after awhile. I didn't call any of my friends or talk much once I got home. It was just sort of uncomfortable. Thursday night was pretty bad though. I did pretty good not yelling in my game until the end. My assistant coach did most of the yelling until we were 25-25 with about 2 minutes to go. I gave up there. I had to yell, my girls needed me. This is my first year to be the A Team 7th grade basketball coach. I was really nervous at first. I don't know all that much about basketball, enough to get me by, and I have never lead something like this before. I was luckily blessed with two great assistant coaches that understand I'm learning and a team of girls who have enough skills that make it look like I know what I'm doing. They, too, get that this is my first time to be the head coach so they are patient with me. Anyway, I was in a lot of pain Thursday night. Took a pain pill and woke up crying in the middle of the night. Friday was pretty hard too. I go back to the doctor today, so we will see what he says. Hopefully, he'll have some answers for me.

Have a good rest of the week!

Monday, January 9, 2012

New Years Resolutions...a week late

Like I said, I'm way behind on everything. We had a laid back little New Years Eve this year. I think we are past the getting super dressed up and going out to places where you pay $50 or more to get into the door. Especially, when it is a place that you could get into for free any other day of the week. Also, driving on NYE just scares the daylights out of me. We had a small get together at my parents house. I mean incredibly small. We somehow still managed to stay up until 5am. I'm shocked my body even knows how to stay up that late any more. Dustin and I were absolutely worthless the next day though. We couldn't keep our eyes open and I refused to take a nap so that I would sleep the next day.

My resolutions for the year...
  • Not be so lazy when it comes to cleaning up around our apartment
  • Tell Dustin how much I love and appreciate him every day
  • lose weight. I have a little goal in my mind that I want to lose which I'm way to embarrassed to post right now. We'll see how it goes.
  • Actually finish a half marathon since I didn't finish my last one.
  • Be a better friend to every one
  • Put a smile on my face every day at school even when I'm not feeling it
I'm sure there are a few more I could come up with, but that's it for now. I think I was sort of sad to see 2011 go. It was such a great year planning the wedding, getting married, the birth of our niece, and more It's weird to sort of think what happens next? Only time will tell I guess!

Here are a few pictures from our New Years Eve party
Dustin and me. Our 4th New Years together
 My brother, Josh, and his amazing girlfriend Alexa
 The Girls (Alexa, me, Kendall, and Morgan)
 Chase and Jasmijn. Jasmijn was one of my little sisters in Theta. She moved this week to live with Chase in L.A I'm so sad she won't be around anymore!
Ferg partied way too hard!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

A Very Belated Christmas

Well, I'd say I fell off my rocker just a bit! After our 6 Christmases (is that a word?), I was exhausted and going back to school left me super tired!

We had a great first Christmas as a little Hotchkiss family. We went to Houston where I got to finally see Stefanie. I talked a little about her here. I had not seen her since the wedding because her adorable little family moved to Idaho and just moved back to Houston. I had so much fun getting to see her cute kiddos minus the fact that I couldn't speak a word to her. Now let me tell ya, that was awful! Not getting to talk to one of your best friends that you  haven't seen in almost 6 months! It was the worst. Especially, because her two year old son Easton had no idea what was going on. He just kept saying my name over and over, but didn't understand why I couldn't answer him. We had a great time with my family. I forgot my camera though and only was able to use my phone.

Our Dallas Christmas was great. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' opening presents and went home to open presents of our own. Dustin got a new iphone, shirts, and books while I got a new camera that I was super excited about. The next day we went to church and hung out with my mom's side of the family. We had a blast playing games. At this point I gave up not talking. I went 6 days, but it was just impossible to go any longer. I was over it!

 Aiden playing with his toys
 Easton was completely into the trains

 Dad playing with my cousins Nate and Gwen

 Our first Christmas
 My brothers, Jared and Josh
 Two of my cousins Celine and Jocelyn. Aren't they gorgeous?
 Playing Catch Phrase. I wasn't allowed to yell so became the photographer/score keeper
 My family's favorite game! Mexican Train dominos. If you haven't played you totally should