You're the One that I Want

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I LOVE it. There's just something about planning and executing great outfits that I've always loved, and Halloween takes it to the max with fantasy and costume. I love planning each detail of my costume and the awesome parties that cannot be matched at any other time of year.

Halloween in college is one-of-a-kind. There is no end to the costume dance parties all over the valley. You have the unique opportunity to dress up for upwards of 4 dance parties, maybe a ward Halloween party, even school if you're THAT student. I love it.

Friday we attended a great party at my friend Katie's house, and today at school I'm a blonde Hermione. Party at the Holdaway's to follow. I love today.

So, following Katie's suit, I'm sharing a few of the past Halloween costumes I've donned for this most festive of holidays. Enjoy!

Danny & Sandy from Grease (this year)

With my girls

The Devil (sophomore year)

Greek Goddess meets President Obama (Freshman year)

This last photo may be my favorite. It inspired many cartoons by my friends Collin, Austin and Spencer. I'm famous.

Happy Halloween!

22

When I was little, I wanted to be old. When I'm old, I'm sure I'll want to be little.

But right now, I'm completely content. Here's 22 reasons why.

1. I'm alive!

2. The Gospel in my life

3. My everything. (Ryan)

4. My incredible family that doubled over the summer and just keeps growing. :)

5. The Office (see babe? I put you above The Office!!!!)

6. Arrested Development

7. Besties. I don't know what I'd do without Eliesa, Katie, Jeanette & Courtney. Even if we go days/weeks without seeing eachother/talking.

8. Tina Fey. (I'm reading her book right now and loving it.Also, Mean Girls had a huge impact on me)

9. My job. I love teaching. There must be something wrong with me.

10. The kids. Crazy? Weird? Gross? Selfish? Lazy? Lovable.

11. Orville Redenbacher's Pop-Up Microwave Popcorn bowl. Also comes with free redbox rentals.

12. Just Dance 2. The only way I work out anymore. I'm so freaking good, you guys.

13. Twitter. You may call me an addict. But I really, REALLY love Twitter. (Follow Me.)

14. CDP. If you have to ask what that means you don't get it. (It means Classy Dinner Party)

15. Allure & Elle Magazine on Newsstand and the new iCloud. The Beard is introducing me to a whole new world of technology.

16. Star Wars Collector's Edition. Best early birthday present of all time.

17. Pinterest. You get it.

18. Our cute little house that I'm slowly learning to domesticate (pictures to come... someday).

19. Being done with school. Every time I see my friends tweet/post about homework, it makes me sick for a second before I remember "suckas!"

20. Missionaries. Jessica, Justin, Jake, Jesslyn. Wow. Just now realizing all my missionaries are Js. Love you all. Thank you for your great example of selfless service.

21. Kindle and iBooks for iPad. Welcome back, Bookworm Danica. We've missed you since 2008.

22. Knowing there are great years to follow these past amazing 22.

Thanks for all your love! I love you all!

Marriage, or the Death of Dessert Parties

Marriage is awesome. Everyone knows that. But sometimes it's painfully obvious HOW awesome it is when you're thrown back into the single world.

Several weeks ago, I had to run up to campus for a meeting with my BYU Education Program peeps. Being on campus kind of made me sick. Not only was I overwhelmed with the general happy anxiety and well-intentioned stress, but the awful singleness. Also, loads of chaste sexual frustration with the opposite sex. When you're single, you don't realize how much stress your life inherently includes. You have to:

1. Look cute so you can attract someone.

2. Be smart to attract someone/keep your scholarship/appease your parents/avoid misusing your student loans.

3. Be active in the Church to attract someone/appease your parents/be a good Mormon.

4. Make a lot of friends to attract someone/be popular.

5. Learn life skills (i.e. Domestic flourish for girls) to attract someone.

6. Attend every single possible event - dessert parties, ward prayer, FHE, BYUSA activities, sporting events - of course to meet and attract someone.

There's just this intense level of optimistic stress that is absolutely exhausting. Always the anxiety of finding someone to study/eat lunch/walk home with. Always the anxiety of making weekend plans or getting another date. Always the anxiety of trying SOOOOO hard to be the cutest, coolest, most righteous (and sometimes fake-st) version of yourself. And there's that sneaky, invisible element of competition. There is no abundance mentality on a college campus.

Being on campus and walking into the library to say hi to my library peeps brought back emotions, just like hearing a song from a sad time in your life making you cry, or a song from the best night ever making you smile. I remember walking into that library annoyed, too much homework, no sleep, hungry and caffeine-deprived, anxious to get off work and meet up with The Beard. I absorbed by osmosis the stress of everyone rushing to get to class, but trying desperately to look approachable. I observed with disgust the excessive PDA of zoob couples.

After my meeting I met up with my friend Jesslyn- our last chance before she went into the MTC (Anaheim, Spanish). She lives in the Mormon Dating Epicenter, commonly referred to as "South-of-Campus." While driving to her apartment, I saw a group of kids gathering for FHE outside a complex. Girls playfully shoving guys, guys constantly readjusting their wayfarer shades and closing digits with various groups of girls. I especially liked seeing girls all dressed up in their cutest outfits (yeah. We can tell when you spent more than 10 minutes on it).

I truly do not mean to insult or offend. This is just the culture. We have all done it. I've done it. (No, I haven't.)

The Beard and I went to the BYU Football game a few weeks ago. I haven't been since I was a freshman and remembered why. It's all BYU Football zealots and freshmen. The ignorant comments and general stupidity was obnoxious. The Beard even yelled at a guy for being disrespectful towards the other team. His date was embarrassed. No awkward doorstep hug for him tonight. But the best part of the game was our newfound love - Photobombing. Freshmen LOVE taking the "myspace pic" (extending your arm up and out to capture the pic, heads together with a funny/sexy/cute face). We love messing it up. With some pretty impressive investigative work (If I do say so myself), I found THIS little beauty on a girl's non-private Facebook page.

You are welcome.

Though I live in Mapleton and don't attend classes on campus anymore, I never feel to far away thanks to my social media. Here are my favorite "Provo" accounts that help me stay close to my roots:

Mormon Girl Probs - Hilarious twitter account that is disturbingly familiar.

Provo All Star - The male counterpart for Mormon Girl Probs. And the source of all Mormon Girl Probs.

NiceTryZoob - Making fun of the "Peter" zoobs we all know and love.

Seriously, So Blessed - Blog mocking young, married Mormon girls. Horrifyingly accurate. Even if it stopped posting in January.

Seen @ BYU - Fantastic Facebook group for those who appreciate the ridiculous things around BYU.

It's fun to hate on BYU culture and the ridiculous dating world. At times it's hilarious, and at times it's incredibly frustrating. But it's all changed for me now.

The overwhelming take-away is that I'm so grateful I found The Beard. I'm so grateful that I no longer have to go out every night of the week, to every FHE (ok, I never went anyway), on every blind date and "Date Box" encounter (THAT is a great story. Maybe I'll share that one soon. You'll LOL for sure).

I don't have to stress that I'm being what someone's looking for. I don't have to kill myself adjusting my hair, makeup and clothes every day (I still do that sometimes. My choice.). I don't have to figure out who someone wants me to be. I don't have to fake it to make it. Dating is over. I have someone who accepts me for who I am, no matter what. Someone who makes me feel more ME than I've ever been. Someone who is completely happy to sit on a couch with me watching Netflix every night of the week. And that's what love is. Boring comfortable familiarity that you can't get enough of.

See ya later, dating. It's been a treat. But not really.

The Terrible Awful

Ok this isn't the real Terrible Awful (go read The Help if you haven't yet. Right now), but it is A terrible awful. And I've been paranoid ever since.

Yesterday morning I was blow-drying my hair. You know. Doo-doo, just a-blow-dryin my wet hairs, doo-doo.... when I see something on the floor a few inches from my toes. I wasn't sure if it was a some weeds I'd tracked in from outside, or something more sinister. So, naturally, I give it a little blow with my dryer. IT MOVED. IT MOVED THOSE GODFORSAKEN EIGHT LEGS.

I shouted. But my in the adjacent room didn't wake up, because my voice lacks the decibel volume of a KISS concert. I flatter myself that I usually don't startle too easily, but spiders have never been my thing. They always make me feel, in the eloquent words of Shakespeare, "Icky."**

**Not the words of Shakespeare.

I finish up my wet section and then decide I can delay it no longer. Something must be done about this spider. I grab a trusty can of Paul Mitchell hairspray. It's a cure-all. Flyaway? Loose earring stems? Wrinkles? Oh yeah. Spray some stuff on that. I corner him at the base of my garbage can. Sucker's got no chance. I spray him like my life depends on it, extending my arm while simultaneously retracting every other cell in my body.

Only after I'm done spraying do I realize I've been shouting the entire time. [I prefer not to use the verb 'scream,' thank you.] But then I realize. "Oh. You just used the heat seal spray. Maybe something more firm with a higher alcohol content will work better. Double Tap." So I grab my Freeze and Shine. Let me tell you. If I was going to die by hairspray, I'm certain Freeze and Shine would be the weapon of choice for any assailant. I gave him another 5 good, hearty sprays. He was all curled up and dead. But no way was I going to touch him. I have a husband for that.

So I finish getting ready, go in to wake up my husband and then run out the door to work. I'll make The Beard clean him up later. Or maybs vacuum him. Both valid options that do not include me getting near him at all.

(Also. Why am I calling it a him? Anthropomorphizing as a consequence of my guilt? Probably.)

I come home from work. Do my thing.

My thing: Just Dance, maybe a chore on a good day, more Just Dance, reading fashion blogs, making dinner, watching The Office.

Then later I go into my room to show Ryan where he is so he can clean him up.

HE'S NOT THERE. HE'S NOT THERE!!!!!!! I gave that spider a full 90 seconds of cosmetic torture, effectively sealing him to the carpet and garbage can base. But he lived through it the little b_____d. I freaked out. Somewhere in my house, probably in my room, is a large brown spider (not a Brown Recluse, thanks) is still alive and 100% pissed at me. I freaked. The Beard starts lecturing me about killing spiders appropriately. Like I'd ever do that. I felt like a target in my own home. This guy was coming for me.

A few hours later, after constant shoe-wearing, I went into my room to change into my pjs and the little bugger had the nerve to stand at the scene of the crime. I obviously shouted like a crazy person till the Beard came in and promptly squished him, gingerly sliding him onto a paper and into my garbage can.

Ew. I didn't take that garbage can out. Just realizing that now. Either his corpse is in there haunting me or he has risen once again like the Rasputin of spiders, and is slowly working his way back onto my carpet, waiting for my fleshy, warm, bare feet.

1 Spider was harmed in the making of this blog post.

The Post You've All Been Waiting For.... (Right?)

Make(up) Not War

Secret obsession of Danica Budge Holdaway? Makeup. All the way. LOVE it. I've been a huge makeup fan my whole life. And how lucky am I? I've got a salon stocked with Mary Kay at my fingertips. Don't tell my mom this, but I'm starting to cheat on her. Mary Kay is great for certain things - pressed mineral powder, foundation and liquid eyeliner. But I'm not in love with their lip products, blush or concealers. They're fine. They do the job. But I've been branching out. I have the hardest time walking past the MAC counter at Nordstrom. All I want to do is buy the new Illamasqua fall products. Urban Decay eyeshadow palettes. NARS blush. Ahhhhhh my mouth is watering.


My latest purchases that I recommend:

Mary Kay's brand new I Heart Mascara. I'm a sucker for mascara.

Maybelline Dream Mousse cream blush in Peach Satin. Goes on like a dream.

Sonia Kashuk Limited Edition Brush Set. I'm SO glad I got this. It's almost perfect. I had to buy a few more brushes to add to my set in addition to these, but it's a great set. Very nice quality. And my next Pinterest project? Chic makeup brush storage. :)

Best fall trends I recommend:

Cat Eye. Never out of style. The September Allure (my favorite beauty magazine, by the way), had a great tutorial on various cat eye options. Mix it up, you guys.

Metallic Smoky Eye. I'm loving the silver and even a green metallic look.

Blue Shadow. The girls of The Beauty Department told me it's back. So much better than our first try in the 80s.

Wine Red Lips. The scariest fall trend for me. Still working to find my "right" shade. But be bold you guys.

Feeling bored with your makeup routine? Here's what you should do.

1. Watch Pixiwoo videos. All of them. Especially their Halloween and crazy makeup ones. So fun.



2. Mix up your base routine. Big liquid foundation user? Try a tinted moisturizer. My new favorite foundation routine is a little mineral pressed powder. Try a primer under your powder routine. Remember to account for a lighter skin tone during the winter. Unfortunately.

3. Buy something fun that will make you WANT to try new things. I bought a teal Maybelline eyeshadow on sale the other day. Still haven't found a good opportunity to use it, but I'm dying to. Find a new lipstick shade. Try lining your brows with a pencil or shadow.

Makeup is so fun. Never let it become a boring hoop to jump through each morning. Be a woman and enjoy it.