four and a half.

tonight i was asked my very favorite question; "So, you must have been born right after The Little Mermaid came out, right?". no. NO. i was four and a half when the movie came out. my parents did NOT name me after a disney character! for some reason this really irritates me. she was named after ME! it's cute when kids get excited that i share my name with the mermaid. it's the dumb questions from adults that bother me :) honestly, though, i've given in to the fact that my name will be forever associated with the movie. and every time i meet someone new they will sing "ahhhhhh, ahhhhhh, ahhhhhhahhhahhhhhaahahhh" {that's my attempt at typing the song from the movie!}.

also, i was told tonight that i have sarah palin hair. i'm not sure if that was a compliment.

happy friday.

this guy.

I watch Fox 13 news in the morning. Not by choice, however. It's the only channel that has local news on after 8am, and that's when I usually get around to switching on the tv. Anyway, I'm constantly cringing because of this guy. I won't type his name just in case he googles himself and finds this blog post about him {it has happened before with THIS post... awkward!}. He is SOOOO embarrassing! He shamelessly flirts with EVERY woman on the show {anchors, guests, etc.}. It's so unprofessional and I can't believe they let him get away with it all the time! For example, this morning, Big Buddha was out at a boutique in Salt Lake. There were a couple of models {teenage-looking girls} wearing clothing from the store and the owner was telling about what each girl was wearing. She was saying things like "Jane is wearing a navy hoodie with a striped lining. Underneath is a pink tank top with ribbing down the front." And then she had the model turn around and show the stitching on the pockets of the jeans. So they go back to the two main anchors and mr. frosted tips up there is like, "Yeah... we can pretend we were all looking at the pockets..." and Buddha didn't hear him at first and so he repeated it to make sure everyone heard his funny joke. What is that? She's like a teenager, you perv! Anyway. He bugs me. It's kind of amusing to watch him though. Count how many flirtatious lines he can get in. Blah.

useless information tuesday.

yes, i know. it was supposed to be fridays. but i never did it again on a friday {or ever, actually} and i felt like doing it today! so sit back & soak in some knowledge from the encyclopedia of useless information.

The last thing Elvis Presley ate was four scoops of ice cream and six chocolate chip cookies.

Wedding rings are worn on the third finger of the left hand because the Romans believed that a nerve led directly from there to the heart.

According to a survey in 2004, the top ten favorite smells are: 1. bread 2. frying bacon 3. coffee 4. laundry 5. cut grass 6. babies 7. the ocean 8. real christmas trees 9. perfume/cologne 10. fish & chips {what????}.

In Massachusetts, snoring is prohibited, unless all bedroom windows are closed and securely locked.

In the 16th century, Catherine de Medici, Queen of France, decreed that all ladies at court must have 13-inch waists.

On August 21, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris and was not recovered for 2 years. When it was missing, more people turned up to stare at the empty space than had ever come to see the painting.

It takes about 550 peanuts to make a 12-oz jar of creamy peanut butter.

The inhabitants of the South Pacific island of Mangia had never heard of kissing until the English arrived in the 1700s.

welcome, fall!

autumn is definately my favorite season. i'm so glad it's finally here! i won't miss summer at all. i love everything about fall. the changing leaves. cooler weather. pumpkins. caramel apples. jackets & boots. halloween. choir starting up again. haunted houses. the office starting up again. drives through the mountains. the yummy smell of crisp autumn air. toasted pumpkin seeds. corn mazes. apple cider. thanksgiving. crunchy leaves on the ground. it's the best. i even enjoy going to an occasional football game! shocking, i know! it's all part of the season :) so, welcome fall! come & stay for a while.

{image}

sisters.

this post is dedicated to my sisters. a year or so ago i found a book called "sisters, the best (and sometimes the most irritating) of friends" by allyson e. jones. it is oh-so-true and any of you with sisters will appreciate these lines from the book:

"sister" is just another word for "love", or more specifically, love to borrow.

a sister is someone who doesn't just get you, she also gets you in trouble.

she can turn you into a giggling second-grader in minutes... especially in church.

your sister is there when you need her and when you're singing dramatically into your hairbrush and you think you're alone.

they share a secret language which consists mainly of expressions and rude gestures when mom isn't looking.

when you look in the mirror, you see your sister looking back at you... because she is hogging the mirror.

it's a well-known fact that no two sisters can enter a drugstore together without spending time in the makeup aisle.

making fun of your sister is off-limits to anyone else but you.

it's hard not to love your sister. after all, she is so much like you {insert picture of 2 sisters wearing the same shoes... AH! pet peeve!}.

the sister who looks best in the picture will have it up on her fridge.

she helped make you what you are today, loyal and protective of your jewelry.

sisters can communicate with very few words. MINE! is sometimes all it takes.

you will never be able to forget your most embarassing moments as long as your sister is alive.

even when someone irritates the crap out of you, you can still love her. sisters teach you that.

she is as precious as mom's diamond earrings, which she thinks she has dibs on.

i love you sisters!

loves.

1. junior mints
2. looking at sean's smiling face all day at work :)
3. pretty scarves
4. tina fey's impersonation of sarah palin
5. a clean bedroom
6. raspberry-blackberry sparkling water
7. sean's clean-shaven face {finally!!!!}
8. reading wedding magazines with annette
9. "droughts are for poor people."
10. legacy parkway finally opening
11. trying new recipes {even when they fail miserably like my recent lemon bar debacle}
12. morning walk/jogs
13. singing in the kitchen
14. playing hearts with my family
15. going to bed at 9pm {which i might just do tonight...}

hello from texas.

I'm here in Texas for a seminar and I brought the newly engaged Annette with me. She hasn't been TOO depressed/whiny so far. This is the longest she & Brad have been apart since they met. Anyway... we haven't been doing much besides lounging & eating yummy food! Tonight we sat out by the pool for a couple of hours. It was cloudy and we were fully clothed, but it was still fun! It's SUPER humid here, but so far no hurricane! Whew! I'll be back in Utah tomorrow and I'm excited to see Sean!!! We said a prayer before we left and I prayed that Sean would be able to find dinner without me. I should have prayed specifically that he would eat the leftover lasagna, because I think he's eaten out for every meal since I've been gone...

XOXO

Ariel

puppy love.

A couple weeks ago Ariel and I hung out with the Catenzaros from our "old" ward. As everybody knows, once the ward splits one can no longer be friends with old ward members. We really enjoyed getting to know them and wish them the best...except when it comes to ward basketball. Anyhow, that night we stayed up pretty late telling stories. I happen to tell a mission story and really don't remember why or how I even thought of it. I've had a few people ask me about the story and also realized I told the story wrong. So I thought I would post it for all to hear. The story begins in Brazil. I thought my mission companion at the time was Elder Cook, but I talked to him today and he let me know that he was not with me. So now I'm all confused on which companion was with me. If one of my companions reads this and you were the one with me let me know. It is driving me crazy now! It's like when I ask Ariel if she remembers the time we did this or that and she responds..."You and I didn't do that, who did you do that with?!" Cook was the companion all my stories were with because we were companions for almost 6 months. Back to the story: It was a hot and humid day in Brazil. (Just like everyday) Elder (Insert name here) and I were out knocking doors. We learned to walk up to the top of a street and work our way down so that rejection didn't have to involve walking up a hill. Walking down was much easier. We had walked up to the top of a hill and started knocking. On probably our third or fourth door an older woman answered and said, "He is in there." and was pointing into the house. We answered with an "excuse me?" She just walked off and pointed to the house, "He is inside just go in." My companion and I were confused and walked towards the house. The woman told us to walk in and go the first room on our right. We walked in and knocked on the door and opened it. To this day I shock myself when thinking about this part. What we saw was an older man that probably weighed close to 350 lbs laying in his bed. He was naked except for his whitie-tighties. Now that was not the shocking part, as shocking as it sounds. I would have preferred to leave it at that. The shocking part was that there were about 10 puppies (eyes still shut, new born puppies) running and crawling all over his body. He just stared at us probably thinking "Who are these two weird looking white boys wearing ties and standing in my room?". I quickly told him we had the wrong house and sorry. My companion and I left. I have no idea where his wife went but she was gone. After something like that, the only thing we could do to cleanse ourselves was to buy ice cream and drink Fanta. And that is exactly what we did. It was one of the most shocking moments of my life!

tagged.

thanks for the tag, janessa! it's been a while since i've done one.

♥ Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
♥ Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
♥ Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. i'm super obsessive compuslive about having a tidy house. i follow sean around all day, tidying up after him. i'm especially weird about having the pillows on my couches arranged just right and making sure the coffee table is exactly parallel to the couch :)

2. i pretty much only use pilot precise v5 rolling ball pens, extra fine. i hate regular ball point pens! blah!

3. i have been to branson, missouri and experienced several of the cheesy osmond-esque family variety shows. awesome. {i just realized this isn't necessarily a "quirk"... oh well.}

4. i like to edit my books as i read them by crossing out the naughty words. it's pretty pointless, really. if i ever read the book again, i find myself trying to figure out what the crossed-out words were. and i'm sure if i lent it to someone, they would be doing the same thing!

5. i stopped eating blue foods {candy, yogurt, ice-cream, gum, drinks, popsicles, etc} in high school because my friend, jamie, wouldn't eat purple food & it bothered me. i did it just to bug her, but to this day i still won't eat anything blue.

6. one of my pet peeves is when the chalkboard doesn't get erased all the way and you can still faintly see what was there before. drives me INSANE. especially when the teacher starts writing over it again.

i tag: gina, jamie, jaimie, shawnee, katie d & kim

a very italian weekend.

-had a spaghetti girls-night-in with Jamie & Kess
-watched Only You {set in Italy}
-enjoyed delicious macaroni and cheese & good company on friday night!!!!!!
-had gelato 2 nights in a row {the guava from bellissimo is amazing!!}
-i've been reading the first book of Eat, Pray, Love, which is set in Italy.

yeah... that's about all...

unless you want to count the fact that i'm currently using my knock-off prada bag that Sean got in Italy... and that I scared Kess yesterday with the mask Sean got in Venice... and that I'm going to Spaghetti Factory tomorrow...

but that's stretching it :)

engaged!

annette & brad got engaged yesterday! they're tying the knot on december 16th and my baby sister annette sheffield will become mrs. field :) awwwww i'm so excited! congratulations, love birds!

what we've been watching.

don't worry... these weren't all in one weekend.

-bella {which I read about on shawnee's blog} was amazing.
-for some reason i felt the urge to watch the village the other day. i liked it. just enough scariness/suspense. not too much gore/satan worshipping/etc.
-two weeks notice cracked me up! i had totally forgotten about this movie. "did you say, 'billy, i love you?'..."
-we finished the whole 2nd season of heroes in 2 days {it was only 11 episodes}. loved it. and i ♥ mohinder.
-i got sucked into watching the first episode of the new 90210. dumb. i much prefer my gossip girl {which by the way started out the season with a bang... just as scandalous as ever.}
-august rush is a new favorite. i cried a lot {when do i not?} in a good way. sean liked it too.
-i hated the nanny diaries. it was disturbing & sad.
-after reminiscing with kess about it, i looked up ghostwriter on youtube. awesome. if i could find it on dvd i would totally buy it.
-the democratic & republican conventions. blah. i'm not too excited about any of the options.

what have you been watching?

salt lake symphonic choir.

I had my first rehearsal with the Salt Lake Symphonic Choir tonight and I'm so excited! I'm still sad about the UMC, but this new choir is going to be a lot of fun. For one thing, it has around 100 members, which really takes the pressure off :) I often felt like I was singing a solo with the UMC, so this will be a nice change! AND there are MEN! hooray! AND they have a rich, full, wonderful sound! They would love to have even MORE men, however, so if you know anyone who might be interested, send them my way! And now... for the most shocking part of it all... I, Ariel Smith, will be singing SECOND soprano! I know, I know. You're all in awe. You all thought I was a die-hard first soprano. Well, it wasn't my choice :) But really, I'm excited about it. It will be good for me to actually have to sight read for a change! And I will definately not miss those high A's & B's and whatnot. Juliann will just have to elbow me when I start singing the Soprano 1 line! Anyway, I am looking forward to my first season with the Salt Lake Symphonic. It's going to be a blast! {um did I mention that at our first rehearsal we sang the Hallelujah Chorus? and everyone knew it but me?? haha! I felt kind of dumb}

#22

The polls came out yesterday and the mighty Utes are ranked 22nd in the AP and 23rd in USA today. I’m curious to know which friends of ours are Red and which are Blue. Don’t worry I have nothing against BYU. We actually cheer for BYU to win, but when it comes to the “Holy War” there is no question on where our loyalty lies: GO UTES!!! (If you comment that you are a BYU fan and don’t hear from us during the season….you know why.)