Just a quick drawing

For some reason, I think it helps get the writing juices flowing to draw out a scene, so that I can better picture it in my mind. It's all done in pencil, and I'm no artist, but you're welcome to see it just the same ;)

~Shelby

Amazing Low Carb Ideas

I found a bunch of great low carb ideas that are pretty easy and delicious. Especially lately I feel like I have been on a sugar craze! I just cant stop eating sugar. So here are just a few of the healthy yet delicious ideas from Top10Kitchen.com.

 Bacon Wrapped Dates. 'Nough said. :)

 Genius! Bake string cheese inside of a sliced pepper of your choice, 

this would be a great side dish for dinner or a mid meal snack. 

My personal favorite! Zucchini Parmesan. My family actually fry's zucchini or eggplant with just eggs and olive oil and it always turns out amazing, next time we are so going to try it with Parmesan. I'll let you know how it goes! 

For more visit http://www.top10kitchen.com/top-10-low-carb-snacks/

Beautiful typography inspiration

Here is a collection of typography I found that just breaks my heart! I wish I had done it (or had time to try) !

Some Quick Easy Editing Tips

Because these are things that everyone should know, and I have easy ways to remember them.

Grey vs. Gray

Although this is mostly a stylistic choice for a lot of people, there is actually a different. GrEy with an E is English/British. GrAy with an A is American. Because Americans are weird, man. We just are.

Effect vs. Affect

Affect with an A is an Action. Effect with an E is not. Therefore, affect is a verb; effect is a noun. (For the most part. Sometimes effect is a verb, but it means something totally different and 9 times out of 10 you're wanting to use affect anyway.)

Who vs. Whom

I like to use something I call the substitution trick here.

"Who has the ball?" "He has the ball." 

"To whom does the ball belong?" "The ball belongs to her."

If the answer to the who/whom question is him/her/me, then it's "whom." If the answer is he/she/I, then it's "who." Work in non-questions, too.

Susie Jones, who had the ball (she had the ball)...

Calvin Park, to whom the ball belonged (to him the ball belonged/the ball belonged to him)...

But most people just tend not to use "whom" at all because it can be pretentious.

So there you go! Quick, easy help. :)

Write When You're Angry

Write when you're angry.

Write when your blood is boiling and you can't contain the diatribe inside your head. Write when the words come to you, and let out everything you're feeling.

Write when you can't close your eyes and sleep for the fierce emotion inside you, and write when you can't think of anything but that fierceness.

Write when you're sad.

Write when the force of everything threatens to overwhelm you. Write when you've just spent an hour standing in the shower and crying.

Write when you can hardly breathe and the sensation of life becomes a source of terror.

Write when you're happy.

Write when you can't stop the smile on your face even if you probably shouldn't be smiling just then. Write when everything makes you giggle.

Write when you can't help but sing Taylor Swift at the top of your lungs, complete with a dance routine.

Write when you're feeling.

M.I.A.

We just wanted to update as to why we have been M.I.A. 

The last part of March all three ladies were either finishing or starting their move to a new home. That transition continued for most of the beginning of April. 

Then due to some family situations we have needed to take a breather for a little. We hope to resume regular blog posts shortly. 

In the meantime, keep creating!

Love,

The Ladies of Ographies 

Editing Please Don't: Dialogue Tags

Okay, y'all, here we go again. I've decided to take one of my Please Don'ts from the annals of bad fiction writing (lots of it my own in my teenage years; ugh).

Please don't use weird dialogue tags/use actions as dialogue tags.

Okay, let's get something straight. 

"Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!" Shelby greeted.

^^DO NOT DO THIS THING.

I can say:

Shelby greeted her readers: "Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!"

or

"Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!"

But please don't try to make dialogue tags out of action words.

*sidenote: Did I use the word "greeted" because besides being an action verb and therefore not a very good dialogue tag it is also impossible to use as a dialogue tag because it requires an object and therefore cannot be used in any other way besides "Shelby greeted [person]"? ...Possibly.

**second sidenote: I'm side-eyeing you people using this as a dialogue tag so hard every time I read it. Including in actual published stuff. So much side-eyeing.

Let me introduce you to my much-maligned friend, "Said."

Said would like you to remember that it is, in fact, a totally acceptable dialogue tag. For example:

"I was thinking about doing a Please Don't for my blog piece," Shelby began.

"Which of your pet peeves were you thinking of doing?" Matt questioned.

"I wanted to talk about dialogue," Shelby stated.

"Dialogue has a lot of rules," Matt sighed.

"Yeah, I wasn't going to talk about comma usage in dialogue or what order to put the speaker and dialogue tag in," Shelby groaned.

"That sounds like it would be a lot of work," Matt observed.

"Yes, but coming up with trite dialogue for a really long example is even harder," Shelby pointed out.

"How so?" Matt asked.

"I'm trying to keep the dialogue going as long as possible so people can begin to get distracted by the dialogue tags," Shelby explained.

"Do you think that will work?" Matt whispered.

"I don't know, but it's worth a try," Shelby replied.

"Are you running out of dialogue tags to think of?" Matt responded.

"Oh, no," Shelby chuckled. "If I were to bring in other things, like dialogue tags as action words, which I just told them not to do, I could go on forever."

"Do you really think they could handle it?" Matt exclaimed.

"Watch. They might not even realized that I threw a couple in before I even started telling you I was going to," Shelby laughed.

"Well, some of them are very subtle," Matt nodded.

"Do you think we should stop now?" Shelby pondered.

"I think they get the point, yeah," Matt grinned.

"Okay. I'll go back to talking to the readers," Shelby proclaimed.

.....

You back with me? You're still here?

Phew. That was a fun read, wasn't it? Did you get distracted by some of the tags? Did you notice that some worked better than others? Did you notice that I just wrote an entire piece without using the word "said"? Did you notice that it started to get sort of repetitive and that you didn't realize the action was happening with the dialogue because it was all jumbled in there?

Good. You're learning.

Now let's try a different approach.

.....

"I'm back," Shelby said with a grin.

"Oh, good. Do I get to be part of the story again?" Matt asked.

"Of course you do. You're the only other person in this house." Shelby laughed and shook her head.

Matt smiled. "Okay, fine. But we should talk about something different."

"Okay," Shelby said. "What would you like to talk about?"

Matt shrugged. "Anything. How did your day go today?"

"It was pretty good. I worked a lot and wrote a blog piece about dialogue," Shelby said.

Matt sighed. "See, there you go again."

"What?"

"Talking about your blog piece!"

"Oh." Shelby frowned. "I guess it's hard not to do that when I'm still actually writing the thing."

"Maybe I'll tell you about my day?"

"Yeah," Shelby said. "Yeah, that sounds good."

....

Hello again! Okay, so do you see what I'm saying? Action words like "laughed" and "smiled" and "frowned" are set off in their own sentence, not as part of the dialogue tags. What's more, I used "said" a lot more because it doesn't distract from what's actually being said in the dialogue itself. I can use "said" as a placeholder to pause in the dialogue such as in this sentence: 

"Okay," Shelby said. "What would you like to talk about?"

See how that works?

Not to mention the fact that some dialogue doesn't even need a tag. Use them sparingly, use "said" lots more, and stop trying to "spice it up" with weird. Nine times out of ten, it's just annoying.

Now go to, my pretties, and reacquaint yourself with my friend "Said." He needs a home, and he'd love to stay with you if you'll just give him a place to stay!

Great Things, Little Packages

The greatest things come in the smallest packages. 

I don't think that is true when it comes to living space however. My husband and I moved into my parents home for the summer before moving away for school. We got a "large" room to ourselves. We have most of our stuff stored in their basement, but our essentials out in the room with us. I documented our journey/struggle to give some ideas on how to make small spaces liveable and your own. 

First we got two of these clothing racks from IKEA since we do not have a closet! Not ideal, but they work pretty well! There is one for me and one for my husband. 

We slide them into a cubby and are in the process of making curtains to hide them. 

This picture, I want to emphasize the entertainment center in the background. Storage bins will be your best friend! They hide things really well and they add a cute flair to the room. 

Bedding is one of my favorite things! I love that it pulls a room together. I just wanted to share this shot and say regardless of where you lay your head down to sleep, you can always make a space your own. 

General Conference Quote

Brain? Brain? Hello? It's Me. Your Body. I Would Like to Go to Sleep Now. Can You Stop Writing for a Sec?

Picture source 

Dear Brain,

Hello. This is your body speaking.

I know we talk all the time, and I know you think we've got this communication thing down. I mean, I'd think after a twenty-four-ish year relationship, we'd really have something real, right?

And I mean, I love you. I really do. You're all that keeps me going in life.

But darling, we have got to talk about your sleeping habits. Because you don't seem to have any.

Now, I don't mind if you go all daydreamy on me, because heaven knows life is five hundred times as interesting when I'm sitting on the couch dreaming up new ways to make my quadruple agent character even cooler than he already is than when I'm just ... sitting on the couch.

And I don't even mind if you do a little thinking before we go to bed, because we all know that when I'm relaxed, that's when you start getting ideas. I've even started keeping a notebook by the bed so I can write while you spew your nonsense.

It's just that you don't stop.

I know, I know. It's our passion. It's our life. It's writing.

But, like, I need sleep. Really badly. 

I know you're trying. I know that when you start drifting off into the Land of Plotting that you try to counter with something else. I know we've got one particular dream in which we get as far as "I've arrived at this place and this is what I look like and here are my bags I'm about to unpack" before we're dead asleep. So, you see, I know it's possible.

So how come you're still going?

At one point do I start looking into research into an off switch?

Because I know you get frustrated when we're tired. You can't work properly. How feels?

Seriously, just shut up for eight hours a day. Can you do that for me? Just stop, turn off, and let me sleep.

I'll even let you pilot the dreams. Pick whatever you want. Just get to the REM part of dreaming first, not the daydreaming part. Okay? That's all I ask.

Pretty please?

Love,

Your Body

General Conference Quote

Avengers Easter Eggs

If you're like me, you've got a list of family traditions a mile wide. I've been living thousands of miles away from my parents for the past six years, though, so this was the first time in a while I got to paint Easter eggs with them.

I forgot how much fun this is!

My family does Easter eggs all out. We're not just painting; we're creating works of art!

We get out the dye and put the separate colors in little mugs, and then we bring out the crayons and markers and colored pencils. . . .

And then, we get to work.

Here are two of the eggs I did this year. As you can see, we usually have "themed" eggs, and my baby sister requested that I do a superhero/Marvel thing with mine because of Age of Ultron coming out next month and also because of the collaboration I was telling y'all about a few posts back.

With that said, please enjoy these Crayola masterpieces. :D

General Conference Quote

General Conference Quote

Why Do We Have So Much Stuff?: An Attempt at Helping to Organize

Hello, yes, I would like to report a disaster.

It's me. I'm the disaster.

I have too much stuff. I'm not just talking about the usual like too many shoes or whatever else. I'm seriously talking about unpacking going *Gandalf voice* "I have no memory of these things."

But, like, I need them? Maybe? I dunno; I like those stuffed animals, and they're cute and cuddly and could possibly be used by any future children I have?

But what do I do with them?

Well, okay, let's start with some basics.

Ah, the filing cabinet. My old foe . . . I mean, friend.

Seriously, I've put off getting one of these for my office for a while now because filing cabinets are for adults, and I'm not an adult, right?

Yeah, I'm a full-grown woman. I need to start acting like it.

Anyway, this is great. I've got my piano music in the bottom drawer, my financial files in the middle, and the top drawer has an assortment of other important things.

Look at those hanging files! Seriously, if you don't have manilla folders for every separate year of taxes, a separate folder for car payments/house payments/other bills . . . you just aren't doing organizing right.

I actually got the idea for cloth boxes from my mother, who used them in the room she let us live in for a while, back when we were in between living arrangements. They're really lovely for storage, and they come in any color.

Banker boxes! I love these things. They store pretty much anything and everything, so when you've got a whole heck of a lot of keepsakes handed down to you from both sets of in-laws, at least you have a way to store them!

And finally, plastic bins. The labels aren't on these yet, but what I usually do is take an index card and write in sharpie things like "Markers and Crayons" or "Stuffed Animals" or "Christmas Storage" or whatever else. These are some of the smaller selections. For really big things (see: Christmas Storage), you can get some the size of small suitcases!

Remember this as a kid?

Design - Kids Clothes Fav!

Ok, so this is a quick plug, but trust me it's worth it!

I am so blessed to have such a talented mother, she is a graphic designer and very artistic. She just recently started a kids clothing line and Oh. My. Gosh. Adorable! 

Since we love design so much, we wanted to share our love for Nite N Day!

Follow them on Instagram @nite.n.day or visit their shop http://shopnitenday.bigcartel.com to purchase this Bananas tee and more!

There is Beauty All Around

We live in such a beautiful world and sometimes I think we are so busy to even look up to see it. Taking pictures of inanimate objects, buildings, and landscapes to me is one of the ways I take time to look at what is all around us. 

Here are some tips for inanimate objects, landscapes, and buildings:

1. Angles - angles are everything. Sometimes you won't be able to get straight on from the subject of your photo, but that's ok! Angles give your picture a dynamic that is hard to create any other way. 

2. Color - The exact color you see is hard to create in photography. The world is so fluid and changing. Be ok with the colors you get, use photoshop if you want to. But most of my landscape pictures do not have color editing. 

3. Impeding Objects - use them to your advantage! I love obscuring buildings with trees or flowers! It gives dimension and life to your picture. Not to mention a personal touch. 

4. Be adventurous! - crawl in the dirt, climb a tree, stand on a cliff (carefully). You will get some really fun shots that will be really hard to recreate giving them a one of a kind look! 

Moving in and Cleaning up: A Few Tips for a Clean New Home

Oh my gosh, y'all. Moving is hard.

Seriously. I'm still exhausted. I need like five hundred naps. And I still haven't even unpacked everything. All the boxes are just in my place.

Anyway, here are some quick tips that I've learned from this craziness. These tips will all be about cleaning your house pre-move since clearly I can't give packing/unpacking tips when everything's still in boxes haha. (Maybe next time!)

Tip #1: Shelf Liner

I love this stuff! Use it on your shelves, in your drawers, and wherever else you want your stored items not to get all guffed up from the drawers' wood shavings. (Yes, guffed is a technical term haha.)

Tip #2: Floorboards

Okay, I'm not just talking about like the tops of these. Get all the crevices. 

Tip #3: Doors

Yes, you really should wipe these down. See all the little nooks and crannies in the door? Yeah, you should get the dirt out of there. Also wipe down the area around the handle, because that's where people touch it, so it gets pretty gross.

Tip #4: Blinds

No, that's not a shadow on that picture (though, yeah, sorry about the image quality; took these on my phone). The blinds on the top have been wiped down; the blinds below have not. Seriously, look at the difference just one good cleaning can do!

Tip #5: Cabinet Handles

Do these especially for your kitchen handles. You'd be surprised all the dirt and gunk that gets stuck there! In fact, it's a good idea to wipe down all of your cabinets, inside and out, because ew.

Tip #6: Windows

Isn't it so nice to be able to see?? Make sure you wipe these down on the inside and outside (where possible; this is a ground-floor window, and I don't want you leaning out of second story stuff!), and you'll be surprised how quickly your room brightens up (and looks better kept!)

10 Healthy Alternatives by Picklee.com

I just had to share this great alternatives chart I found on www.Picklee.com. 
http://www.picklee.com/2012/09/05/10-healthy-choices-make-healthy-living/
These are really easy things to add to your meals that are just as delicious (if not more so!). Thanks for reading guys!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hope you have all the luck of the Irish today! Don't forget to kiss a Ginger! 

This Post About Reading is Secretly About Writing

It'd been a long time since I really sat down to lose myself in a book.

I had lots of good reasons. I was in the middle of a massive rewrite and didn't want to have other stories in my head when I was trying to focus on that one.

I was getting my husband through his last year of college, and he'd just lost his job, so I had to choose how I used my time.

I was tired. I was making dinner. I don't know. Lots of other excuses, I'm sure.

But it was Christmas Break, and we were going to be on a plane for six hours on our way to vacationing with the rest of the family. And I packed six books.

I was ready.

Ultimately, I only read one of them, but that's okay. It was amazing.

I bet you've heard of it. It's called The Book Thief.

I opened up to the first page, and before I even got a few lines in, I literally gasped out loud with delight. I'd never fallen in love with something this quickly. The poetry of even the first page, the unique narrator, the asides, everything about it was perfect.

I turned to my husband excitedly and waved the book in his face. "This book," I said, "is amazing."

He looked at me with this expression sort of like, "That's great, honey, but stop disturbing the other passengers."

I devoured the book. I was a third of the way through it before our flight even landed. Then, of course, I got distracted. I took all sorts of pictures of everyone at the beach because I was the designated photographer for our family. Not because I'm good at photography (seriously, Becca is clearly the photographer here on Ographies) but because I'm terrified of the ocean and the only way I was going to get involved in beach shenanigans was by documenting the whole thing.

We were out in Hawaii for ten days. On the eighth day, everyone went snorkeling except for Mom and the littlest kids . . . and me and my husband.

He took a nap. I finished The Book Thief.

I don't think I can adequately describe what it's like to read that book. It's just . . . perfection. Every single line seemed to dig its claws deeper into my soul. I was so tightly hooked that I managed to forget that the narrator had spoiled the ending at the beginning of the book and as I sat there in disbelief at [SPOILERS] massive character death happening all around me, well, I just cried.

I cried and cried. Silent tears, the kind that you cry when you're reading because, wow, you've got to read the words on this page, and those tears are very definitely in your way of getting any reading done.

It's something very private, I think. The crying while you read. Because in that moment, you are inside the world of the book, so taken in that you feel the emotions the characters feel. You are drawn into the world, and it's real to you in that moment, and that's why we read. Because it's a new place and old emotions.

I managed to clean myself up just as everyone was getting back from snorkeling, but I never did quite recover. I still cry just reading reviews of that book.

And that's what books do, I think. I still grin like a loon whenever I read the line: "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." I am still a proud member of the "Fred Weasley Death Denial Support Group." I even flipped through the Jewel Princess series I read when I was, like, eight, and I still smiled through the whole thing.

Books are our companions. They are milestones in our life journey. They mean something to us the first time we read them and then something new the second time.

That's why we read them. That's why we write them. Not out of some grand, deluded idea that we can influence the world, but maybe we can capture it. That small little piece of truth, a memory, a feeling, preserved in pages.

A little slice of humanity, bound and printed. That's what a book is.

Cookbook Hoarder

Hello, my name is Rebecca, and I am a cookbook hoarder. I am going to sidetrack from our normal Kitchen Corner segments and bring to you a message about cookbooks!

Cookbooks are a few of my favorite things. Now that I have the Sound of Music stuck in your head, let me explain why. I know a few people who seem to be very gifted in the culinary arts, and sadly, I am not one of them. I really need a step-by-step guide to show me my end result when it comes to cooking. I prefer ones with pictures too (that way I can compare and know if I screwed it up too much). Having all these meals in one place is also so helpful. 

That is why I want to share with you one of my favorite cookbooks! Our Best Bites by Kate Jones and Sara Wells.

I am not a mother yet, and I know the catchline is "Mormon moms in the Kitchen," but I adore this cookbook. This was one of my favorite wedding gifts. There are so many wonderful recipes, and I have yet to try them all. One of the best things about it is the fact that these meals are so easy! (I love the fix-it and forget-it type of things and anything that is easy to cook and doesn't take to long to prepare.) Novice cookers will be considered head chefs after using this book!

Like most cookbooks, this one is organized into sides, main dishes, salads, soups, drinks, etc. They actually have another book that is a seasonal one where the dishes are organized into spring, summer, fall, and winter. You can purchase it at Deseret Book. 

I highly suggest this cookbook for anyone! Even kids can help cook the meals in this book. If you have this cookbook or end up getting it, let me know what your favorite meal is, and I might have to try it (or try it again!).

Design Do's and pretty please Don'ts

Through the Eyes of a Child

Have you every thought about how the world looks through the eyes of a child?

How big everything is compared to you, yet still being willing to try new things. Children are some of the bravest individuals I have ever met! That has been made clear to me on multiple occasions by my baby sister. Every time I take my baby sister (I do mean BABY, she is two years old) to play at the park, I am astonished at what she is willing to take on. Today alone, she climbed up a ladder that was twice her size and wanted NO help from me going down the slide.

I have started to capture some of these moments, so I am starting a "line" of photos that I am going to call Through the Eyes of a Child. Mind you, I will limit what I display on the blog for safety and anonymity of my sister. Sadly, my favorite pictures I capture include her face! Drat!

Since I do not take a camera with me everywhere, which I really should start doing, a majority (if not all) of these images will be taken on an iPhone.

If you have any ideas of what activity I should capture, please email us at ographies@gmail.com.

Here are a couple of images from the last few visits to the park!

"I freezin' sissy!"

"I chasing it."

5 Editing "Please Don't"s

Okay. Let me sit y'all down for just a bit.

Comfy? Okay. Good. Because I've got to level with you: you need to stop.

Yes, I'm talking to you, person who insists that "your" and "you're" are the same thing. And you, person who thinks commas are for crazy people. It's time you learned about the English language.

I'll probably make this an ongoing series, with various Please Don'ts added in for writing, editing, whatever else. I was going to make this a "Top Five" list, but I realized it's really hard to pick just five. And to make them not the usual "it's versus its" argument.

So, in no particular order, here are my Please Don'ts for the week.

1. Please don't ever, ever say "The reason is because."

Please. Never. Never ever. 

Why? I'm glad you asked.

"The reason is" literally means "because." Literally. (Not the "literally" when used to mean figuratively, mind you, although that somehow made it into the dictionary.) 

So when you say "the reason is because," you are actually saying "because because" and unless you are singing along to "The Wizard of Oz," there is pretty much no valid reason for that.

"But Shelby!" I can hear you saying. "I say that all the time!"

Yes, well, saying things out loud and writing them down are different. When we speak with our mouths, we are speaking off the cuff, as it comes to us. We break all sorts of rules when we talk, but that's because we're still thinking about it, and our listeners can usually pick up on things like hand gestures and expressions to fill in the gaps. When we speak with our pens/pencils/laptops/other writing devices, we have time to think through it and to read through it. 

*note: Reading through does not mean using spell-checker to automatically do this for you. I'm looking at you, pre-teen me.

2. Please don't ever try to make something plural by added apostrophe-s.

I don't know who started this trend, but I would like them to stop. Seriously, in what universe does making something possessive make it plural?

Okay, so let's sit down and do the middle school thing.

My friend's jelly beans = The jelly beans that belong to my friend
My friend's a jelly bean = My friend is a jelly bean.
My friends love jelly beans = I have multiple friends, and they all love jelly beans.
My friends' jelly beans = The jelly beans that belong to the multiple friends I just mentioned.

Oh man, I should have picked other examples. Now I want jelly beans. And friends.

I understand that with things like "the 1980's" there can be an apostrophe (though I prefer "the 1980s" myself) depending on what style guide and rulebook you prefer but for crying out loud that is the exception and please stop pretending that's an excuse to run amok throwing apostrophes around willy-nilly!

3. Please don't use "where" when you mean "were" (or vice versa).

I understand. They are very similar, except one has an "h" and the other does not.

Here, let me explain.

"Where" = place
"Were" = the past tense of the verb "to be" 

The jelly beans were where we left them.

The jelly beans at a previous point in time happened to be at the place that we left them.

Yep, I still want jelly beans.

4. Please don't write sentences that try to hide your verbs.

This one's a little trickier to explain. I'll try to do it by example.

Okay, so let's say I want to tell you that I ate the last of the jelly beans. 

"The eating of the jelly beans, which previously had been in a full container, had the result that no other person got to eat any jelly beans besides myself."

That was a really awful sentence, y'all. I cried a little bit writing it.

First of all, let's look at the actual verbs, okay?

"The eating of the jelly beans, which previously had been in a full container, had the result that no other person got to eat any jelly beans besides myself."

Oh my gosh, I hate this so much. 

Do you see what's happening here? I've hidden all the blame and all the action in so much garble-dee-gook that it's very hard to tell that I'm the one who ate all the jelly beans.

*note: This is why legal jargon follows this pattern. Stuff gets hidden in bills all the time because why would we just speak plain English?

Now let's use more exciting verbs!

"I ate the entire container of jelly beans myself, so no one else can have any."

Look at that! CLARITY. *cue the Hallelujah chorus

Please, please, please do this when you write. There is nothing more obnoxious to me than reading a piece that tries to hide its verbs.

5. Please don't noun verbs.

*Please read Calvin and Hobbes. You will be enlightened on the joys of "verbing weirds language."

This is another one that's best illustrated by example, and it sort of ties into the previous point. Remember that awful sentence?

"The eating of the jelly beans, which previously had been in a full container, had the result that no other person got to eat any jelly beans besides myself."

Oh my gosh, why. 

Anyway, "the eating of the jelly beans" is the most awkward construction of all time, but I did it on purpose because I see you do this all the time, political science major self. 

I don't know why we like to do this with our language, but for some reason, we are absolutely convinced that we sound more distinguished or smart or whatever if we take all our action verbs and make them into boring nouns.

Spoiler alert: it just makes you sound like a badly-written lawyer in an over-hyped legal drama.

"The eating of the jelly beans was done by myself" 

Oh gosh I made it worse.

Please stop doing this. Please just write, in plain English, "I ate the jelly beans."

"But Shelby!" I can hear you saying. "I need to vary my sentence structure!"

That's fine. Let me show you how to do that in a not-stupid way.

First, the wrong way:
I saw the jelly beans. They were in a jar. The jar was full. I pulled the jar off the shelf. I ate everything in the jar. I put the jar back on the shelf. It was empty. I was sorry for eating all the jelly beans. I told my roommates I ate all the jelly beans. They were mad at me.

See how boring that is? Subject-verb, subject-verb, subject-verb.....

"But Shelby!" you're saying right now; I can just feel it. "Doesn't that prove the point?"

NO. No, it does not! 

The right way:
I looked up and saw the jelly beans, sitting in a jar on the shelf. It looked like most of the jelly beans were still there; it was almost full. So, I pulled the jar off the shelf, and I proceeded to eat everything in the jar. When I put the jar back on the shelf, it was empty.

Almost immediately, I felt sorry for eating all the jelly beans, and when my roommates arrived, I told them what I'd done. They were, justifiably, mad at me.

Look at that variation of sentence structure! Look at those action verbs! Look at the ebb and flow of the story!

Feel the hunger for jelly beans! (No, that's just me? Okay.)

My point is, you can vary your sentences and have your story ebb and flow without noun-ing your verbs. So please stop. The rest of us will thank you for our sudden ability to understand what the heck is happening in your sentences.

Well, thus ends my Please Don'ts . . . for now. Please do go out and stop doing all these things, and come back next time when hopefully I will be less hungry while I'm writing my blog posts . . . .