Thought Stew

An End and a Beginning

2010-11-18T20:10:00.002-07:00

Hello friends. I have some good news and some bad news. First, the bad news. It is no secret that I'm not really great at updating my blog. I admit it. Sometimes I neglect my baking blog in favor of updating this one, and more frequently I neglect this blog in favor of updating my baking one, and I'm just not liking the juggling thing anymore. That and the fact that I now have two kids is making me take a look at how to better streamline my life, and I've decided that I need to just maintain one blog. And so I've decided that it is time for both Thought Stew and Baking Becca to rest in peace. At least for now. And instead, I have created a new blog that will be home to both my family-related and random posts (which I used to blog about here) and my baking posts (which I would have blogged about on Baking Becca). That's the good news. I'm not going away, just moving and combining. And I'm not deleting my old blogs so if you want to access any old posts such as past Baking Becca recipes, they will still be in the old places. And who knows, down the road I may start posting again on Baking Becca at least, but until then I just want everything in one place. And that one place will be whereitsgreen.blogspot.com. So head on over, update your links if you have any, and I'll see you over there.

Something Wicked

2010-10-07T13:08:00.008-07:00

I don't know what started it, exactly, but I have been so excited for Halloween this year, and especially to decorate for Halloween. I started collecting bottles for the above project about a month ago and have just been itching to finish and display it. In case it's hard to tell from the picture, those are a variety of magical elixirs and potions currently residing on my bookcase. They are bottled in old aftershave, vanilla, syrup, spice, etc. bottles, and one salt shaker, and filled with everything from colored water to old hair gel (in the tall "slug juice" bottle). The labels are from the fabulous Kristine McKay's website, www.kmckaydesigns.com. On the same website you can also find labels to make books like these:

All you have to do is print the labels onto parchment paper, cover a book with scrapbook paper (I found some hardback books for 99 cents at a thrift store), stick the label on and mod podge the whole thing. Super easy. Happy Halloween!

Dress Design for Shabby Apple 'Dare to Design' Contest

2010-10-04T13:40:00.007-07:00

If any of you are unfamiliar with Shabby Apple, you seriously need to check it out. I love so many of their dresses, so when they announced that they were inviting their readers to design a dress for their upcoming spring line, I thought I'd give it a go just to stretch myself. This is my dress design for Shabby Apple Dresses: The Daffodil Dress. I wish, wish, wish I were a more talented seamstress and then I maybe would have attempted to sew an actual dress to enter because I think it would come across much better, but since they only require a drawing and even that was pushing my talent envelope, I went that route.

The top layer of this dress is crisp white with pin tucks along the front of the bodice. The yellow buttons and belt tie in with the daffodil yellow under-layer that peeks out at the bottom of a full skirt that hits just below the knee. For fabric I am thinking it would be great in cotton or maybe a cotton/spandex blend to give it a little bit of stretch for comfort. While my inspiration led me to make this a white and yellow dress (more on that later), this would also be beautiful in white and Wedgwood blue, white and red, or even white and black. Now for my inspiration:

I can think of few things that make me more excited for spring than seeing these babies popping up out of the snow-covered ground. Daffodils are the quintessential spring flower to me, and dresses always remind me of flowers, so I thought, daffodils = a great spring dress. So now all I have to do is wait for Shabby Apple to pick their 15 favorite designs and if I'm very lucky and am somehow one of those, I will then beg you, dear readers, to vote for my dress on their blog starting October 22nd. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for me. And if I don't make it, maybe it will just inspire me to dust off the old sewing machine and attempt to make this dress for myself. We'll see.

Well it's about time...

2010-10-03T18:06:00.011-07:00

...I introduced you to this little cutie:

Meet Caleb, born in June, the sweetest, best natured baby I've ever met (and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mother). I really can't get over what a calm, sweet soul he has. I know I really should have posted about him before now, but the trouble is I used to do my posting during Jonno's nap time, but now I just want to spend that time one-on-one with Caleb--holding him, smelling his head, making him laugh, etc. Or sometimes I have to spend that time doing practical things like laundry or cooking, so my blog has kind of taken the brunt of the neglect.

Here are my two little boys. Jonno has taken a while to adjust. He likes Caleb, but sometimes it's hard when he wants me to play with him but I'm feeding Caleb. He's only made a few attempts on Caleb's life, and none recently, so I think we're making progress.

Now about Caleb's name. We decided to name him Caleb because I came upon the story of Caleb while I was pregnant and couldn't stop thinking about how courageous and humble Caleb was and how I wanted to be like him and have my son grow to be like him. It's not exactly a story you hear or think of all the time, so let me refresh your memory. Or rather, let my have President Spencer W. Kimball refresh your memory because he tells the story so much better than I could because come on, he was a prophet. So here's the story of Caleb in his words:

"Shortly after Moses led Israel out of bondage from Egypt, he sent twelve men to search out the promised land and to bring back word about living conditions there. Caleb and Joshua were among the group. After spending forty days on their mission, the twelve men returned. They brought back figs and pomegranates and a cluster of grapes so large it took two men to carry it between them on a pole.
"The majority of the search party gave a very discouraging report on the promised land and its inhabitants. Although they found a land that was beautiful and desirable and flowing with milk and honey, they also found that the cities were walled and formidable and that the people, the “sons of Anak,” looked like giants. The Israelite scouts said that they felt like grasshoppers in comparison. Caleb, however, saw things a little differently, with what the Lord called “another spirit,” and his account of the journey and their challenges was quite different. He said, “Let us go up at once, and possess [their land]; for we are well able to overcome it” (Num. 13:30).
"Joshua and Caleb were men of great faith, and they joined in urging that the Israelites go immediately, to the promised land, saying:
'If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.
'Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the land; for … the Lord is with us: fear them not' (Num. 14:8–9).
"But the faint-hearted Israelites, remembering the security of their Egyptian slavery and lacking faith in God, rejected Caleb and Joshua and sought even to stone them to death.
Because of their lack of faith, the children of Israel were required to spend the next forty years wandering about and eating the dust of the desert, when they might have feasted on milk and honey.
"The Lord decreed that before Israel could enter the land of Canaan, all of the faithless generation who had been freed from bondage must pass away—all go into eternity—all except Joshua and Caleb. For their faith, they were promised that they and their children would live to inhabit the promised land.
"Forty-five years after the twelve men returned from their exploration of the land of promise, when the new generation of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, was completing its conquest of Canaan, Caleb spoke to Joshua:
'Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me … to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart.
'Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God.
'And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.
'As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me [at least in the spirit of the gospel and its call and needs]: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, … both to go out, and to come in' (Josh. 14:7–8, 10–11).
"From Caleb’s example we learn very important lessons. Just as Caleb had to struggle and remain true and faithful to gain his inheritance, so we must remember that, while the Lord has promised us a place in his kingdom, we must ever strive constantly and faithfully so as to be worthy to receive the reward.
"Caleb concluded his moving declaration with a request and a challenge with which my heart finds full sympathy. The Anakims, the giants, were still inhabiting the promised land, and they had to be overcome. Said Caleb, now at 85 years, “Give me this mountain” (Josh. 14:12).
"This is my feeling for the work at this moment. There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly, 'Give me this mountain,' give me these challenges."

If I could wish anything for my son it would be that he would face the mountains the Lord will ask him to climb in his lifetime the same way Caleb of old did: "Give me this mountain." Not because he thinks he is strong enough on his own, but because he has faith that with God all things are possible.

Updates, Updates, Updates

2010-04-29T15:04:00.011-07:00

I never mean for there to be so much time between posts, but that's just the way it always seems to go. I'm really sorry. Obviously that free T.L. Friday thing wasn't enough to get me to blog consistently. Well, it's about time I posted some updates, the biggest one being that we are expecting another baby on June 9th! I know, I know, I should have posted about this a long time ago, but I kept thinking I needed to make it this exciting, elaborate post and as a result just didn't ever get around to it. So there you have it. It's going to be another boy and Jonathan is so excited. He's always talking about baby brother and showing us tricks that he is going to show baby brother when he gets here, like standing on his head and raising one leg in the air. This is also known as his "hose" pose because whenever he does it he says, "Look! My a hose!" I didn't quite understand this until he started pretending to be a dog and would do it then. Yep...I think he got the idea from watching my sister-in-law's dog Jake go potty. Apparently, Jake has a "hose" attached to him that sprays water. Hmmm.
Rather than just write all my updates, let's take a look at some pictures from the past little while and I'll try to explain what they are as we go. Starting with...

Bike riding. Jonathan is getting better and better at pedaling and steering his little tricycle. With the weather being so nice lately (at least until today. Bleh.), we've been enjoying being outside more. My sister-in-law gave us an old bike trailer so Peter had been fixing up both our old bikes with the plan that we can go for family bike rides. Unfortunately, the first day after he got mine out of the shed, I rode it off a curb with my bum firmly planted on my seat (hey, I'm pregnant--my center of gravity is off, not to mention the extra weight my legs are supposed to support!) and bruised my tailbone pretty darn bad. Ouch. It seriously may have been the most painful injury I have ever had. Here it is a week and a half later and I am just starting to get over wanting to cry every time I move. I still can't sit directly on it. Lame, lame, lame. But that's o.k. because this month we also had...

Easter! This was one of the best Easters so far with Jonathan because he is starting to understand so much. We did our best to talk to him about the true meaning of Easter and he was pretty excited about Jesus being resurrected, but really, the eggs and the candy were his favorite part. He keeps saying the Easter bunny is going to come in the night and bring us more candy. Yeah, he's a little sugar fiend. There was another part of Easter that he loved, though:

Coloring Easter eggs. Really, do you ever get over enjoying this? I know it's still one of my favorite Easter activities.

What's that? You think there must be a story behind this picture? Oh there is, friends. There sure is. Once upon a time Jonathan's large intestine got stretched, so for two months we were to give him a full cap of Miralax a day, followed by another month of a half-capful a day. It pretty much means diarrhea for three months. And the wonderful thing is that these incidents usually happen at naptime and bedtime and his diapers just aren't always able to keep it all in. That's what happened a few weeks ago when Jonathan woke up early from a nap and when I went to get him, I could smell that something was up. As soon as he saw me, he showed me how there was some poop in his bed. Not only in his bed, but smeared on the mesh on two of the crib's sides. I wasn't quite sure how this had happened since from the front his shirt and pants seemed to be clean. Then I turned him around and realized that rather than going down into the diaper like poop should (but doesn't always, as anyone who has ever had a newborn knows), it all came up his back and out of the diaper. I deduced that he must have had his back against one of the sides when it happened and that is how the mesh sides came to be so dirty. Let's look at one up close, shall we?

But wait! There's more! When I walked around to the other side of the crib to see the damage from there, here's what I found:

A delightful little puddle-o-poo. I'm really sorry if this grosses anyone out. I really am not sure I could have handled cleaning this up if it wasn't my own child, but I also kind of had to laugh. And post about it. This is just one of those little moments that keeps parenthood interesting. But it's all worth it for moments like:

This. Ah, my boys. I sure love them. And soon there will be one more!

Free T.L. Friday

2010-01-29T16:09:00.004-07:00

Growing up, my mom had this game that she would play with our family called the TL game. It's a very old game and I've never met anyone else that has heard of it outside of our family, but it was fun. Basically, if someone told my mom something nice about one of us, she would tell us that she had a TL for us. We would then have to tell her something nice that someone had said about her, and then she would tell us what nice thing she had heard someone say about us. So pretty much it was a nice way to fish for compliments. But my mom being the kind of person she is, she couldn't stand to wait to give us a TL if we didn't happen to have one to trade with her, so she would always give us our TLs for free. Thanks mom!

Now, the point of the story. Today while I was blow-drying my hair I got to thinking (I always do my best thinking in the shower or while getting ready for the day), I sure do know a lot of wonderful people. People that inspire me and teach me all the time, but I never really let them know just how much they mean to me. So I've decided to change that, dear friends. Every Friday (or at least every Friday that I remember to do it), I'm going to be doing a little giveaway of sorts. A TL giveaway.

No, not that kind of TL, silly. I'm talking good old-fashioned "I heard something nice about you" TLs that I will be giving away about people I know, starting with the authors of the blogs that I read. Now let me warn you that I might fudge a little and have to just tell you compliments that come directly from me since I don't always talk to people that know all of you, but hey, spirit of the law, letter of the law and all that. I hope these free TLs don't embarrass anyone or make them feel bad because they didn't like their TL as well as the one I gave cousin Skeeter. And let me emphasize that they are free, so please don't think you have to tell me something nice to earn them. I just want a chance to let the people in my life know how wonderful they are (if they even read this) and maybe, hopefully, possibly brighten their day a little bit because that's the whole point of TLs. At least the way my mother taught it to me.

So, without further ado, here is this week's free TL for:
My cousin (o.k., first cousin once-removed) Jordan, whose blog I just stumbled onto last week and who probably doesn't even know about my blog, but her TL is still fresh in my mind, so I'm going to use it. Jordan is one of those people who just brightens any room she walks into. The only time I think I've seen her without a huge smile on her face was when she was a baby and didn't know how to smile yet. Last night I was talking to my aunt, who is her grandma, and our conversation, as near as I can recall, went something like this:
Me: Jordan is such a happy person. She's just like a ray of sunshine.
Aunt/Grandma: She really is. Jordan is just uncomplicated. What you see is what you get with her.
So there you go, Jordan, you wonderfully cheerful girl, you. If you ever read this, please know that even though growing up I didn't get to know you quite as well as I did your older sisters, you brightened our family when you joined it, and you inspire me to be a happier, more positive person.

Jonathan, 22 months

2009-08-04T15:08:00.009-07:00

I think one of my favorite things about this age is how much Jonathan is able to communicate. I love having conversations like this one that frequently occurs when I go get him up from a nap:
Me: Hey, Jonno! How did you sleep?
Jonathan: Good.
Me: Do you want a snack?
Jonathan: No.
Me: Do you want some milk.
Jonathan: Yeah.
It may not seem like much, but it is a definite improvement over:
Me: Hey, Jonno! How did you sleep?
Jonathan: Waaaa!
Me: Do you want a snack?
Jonathan: Waaaaaa!
Me: Do you want some milk?
Jonathan: Waahaahaaaa!
Even though he has been able to sign for some things that he wants for quite a while, I love that he can actually say so many words to tell me what he wants. Sometimes it's not very convenient, like when he is crying for "monkey" when I am trying to put him down for a nap, meaning he wants to watch Curious George for the 658th time, but it's still so fun. The other night we were driving back from a temple open house with my parents and he kept asking my mom and me, who were sitting in the back with him, to sing to him. We would pick a primary song, and every time we started singing a new one he would look at me in wonder for several seconds, the sweetest smile lighting up his face. I think those are the moments you live for as a mom.

Some of Jonathan's favorite things right now are:

Being outside. Especially if it involves the sandbox or playing with "geegawgeegaw" meaning water. *Note: He actually is starting to say "wa-er" for water instead of "geegawgeegaw." Peter and I are debating whether to encourage the change or not. We just loved "geegawgeegaw" so much!

Playing with cousins. This is a picture of him at one of our weekly play groups with two of my sisters-in-law and their kids. He gets so excited when I ask if he wants to go play with his cousins. He thinks they are the coolest thing ever. Unless they are in his personal-space bubble. Then he tries to push them down.

Finally, grandpa. Jonathan loves both of his grandpas so much. This is one of him with my dad. I think Jonathan would happily be grandpa's shadow 24 hours a day if I let him. I feel so blessed that we have lived close enough for him to get to know them both so well. And really, what better role-models could you ask for?

Catching Up on Summer

2009-07-10T13:50:00.019-07:00

I'm not sure why I'm so bad at updating this blog. I think with my baking blog the posts are pretty straight-forward. You show a picture of some food, talk about it for a little bit, then post the recipe. For this blog, though, I think I just have a hard time figuring out how to sum-up all the stuff that has been going on in our lives. For instance, how do I describe Jonathan's excitement when we tell him that we're going to feed the ducks or the pure joy in his voice as he repeats "baby duck" over and over on the way to the pond? I really can't, so I just need to content myself with giving little peeks into our lives in hopes that years from now when I look back on my blogs as a journal of my life in 2009 I'll remember it for more than food.
To start what I hope will be consistent posting from here on out, here are a few highlights from some of our summer adventures so far:

Disneyland: Peter and I went to Disneyland at the end of April. I love Disneyland. I hadn't been in 10 years. It was magical, enough said.

Captain Peter Sparrow:

Me knocking on the white rabbit's door:

Me again, fulfilling my lifelong dream to sail on the ship Colombia:

Peter and me. The Tom Sawyer Island natives apparently wanted to have us for dinner:

Mr. Clean attempts to pull the sword from the stone. Sorry it's so blurry:

Me with the appetizing snacks in the Monsters, Inc. vending machine:

And one last shot of Peter, because he's cute:

Shortly after Disneyland we went camping with our friends Eva and Jeremy and their baby, Mariah, at Flaming Gorge. It was beautiful and fun. However, we probably won't be taking Jonathan camping again until he's ten, considering the fact that we ended up sleeping in the car and driving him around every two hours to get him to sleep.

The family:

Jonathan helped blow up the air mattress:

And then ate a snack of a marshmallow squished in some tongs:

Maybe my legs aren't so big after all:

The whole group:

A dinosaur bone still in the ground. How cool is that?

And finally, some cute ones of Jonno:

Man, I love my boys. And boy do I love summer.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-29T18:31:00.004-07:00

Well it's about time I finally post some season's greetings now that it's New Year's Eve and we're about done with them. I hope you have all had a happy Thanksgiving, a merry Christmas, and that your New Year will be wonderful. Mine have been filled with family and friends and have been great. The picture above is from one of my favorite things I did this Christmas season. Some of you may not know that my friends Mary Ann, Megan, and I go around every month and sing at about four different nursing homes, and we have been doing it for about 3 1/2 years. Our Christmas programs are always our favorites to do, and this year we decided to spice it up a little by making carolers' costumes a la Charles Dickens to wear. Aside from the fact that none of us are the greatest sewers and that the costumes took about three times as long as we expected to make, I think they turned out rather well, and we got a great response to them everywhere we went*. We really love to sing to these sweet people. They are always so appreciative and gracious, and they really made it feel like Christmas to me.
We also had our annual "L.L. Bean Christmas Party" so named for the traditional, cheesy Christmas goodness we try to recreate for our party. Everyone is supposed to wear a festive sweater and we do Christmassy stuff like decorating sugar cookies, having a white elephant gift exchange, and usually playing Christmas carols on chimes, but we ran out of time for that last one this year because of a marathon game of Curses. Seriously, we only had about five cards left before we decided to stop, we had been playing it so long. I love that game. So much more has happened, but my brain is feeling very dull right now and I won't subject you to its ramblings. Happy New Year!

*O.k., so we didn't get a great response to our costumes everywhere we went. All the nursing homes liked them, but when we wore them and went to Kneaders with Mary Ann's husband, we got a couple of strange looks and later when we were sitting around the table with our bonnets and capes off, we realized we looked like a bunch of polygamists. We laughed pretty hard about it and called each other "wife one," "wife two," etc. for the rest of the time we were there. Tee hee.

Short

2008-11-11T13:38:00.002-07:00

Sorry this is kind of a short, lame, post, but I've had a lot of requests, especially from Peter's family, for my oatmeal pancake recipe. This is just to say that I've posted it and my recipe for buttermilk syrup on my recipe blog. Happy pancaking!

Happy Halloween

2008-11-04T10:55:00.004-07:00

Last Halloween Jonathan was a little tiny pumpkin that was just learning to smile. This year he was a gun-toting, candy-begging cowboy. We found a perfectly sized cowboy hat for him at Savers along with a button-up shirt. After a good cleaning and adding gun holster, jeans, and a bandanna, his costume was set. Peter and I were invited to a sweet "paparazzi" Halloween party where everyone had to come dressed either as a celebrity or a movie character. Peter was Yul Brynner in the King and I, and I was Audrey Hepburn. Here's the picture:

The party was so fun with a photo scavenger hunt, a game of "The Price is Right" on DVD (which confirmed my suspicions that I would be no good at that game show), way too much candy, and a great group of people.
For our ward party, Jonathan was also a cowboy, and Peter made a shirt with the Mr. Clean logo on it, "Bic-ed" his head, and made fake muscles to go under the shirt. I wanted something that would go with Mr. Clean so I went as a haggard housewife, complete with messed-up hair under a scarf, a mu mu, slippers, and a mop. We don't have pictures of that one, so I'll have to post them later once I get my hands on some.
The day after Halloween we went to another fun party. Peter and Jonathan reprised their Yul Brynner and cowboy costumes, but this time I dressed as Hermione from Harry Potter. It was fun--especially the pumpkin bowling in the kitchen. I'm still amazed their kitchen cabinets survived my terrible aim.
Jonathan had way too much sugar this Halloween. If there are cupcakes or candy in his sight, it's so hard to get him to eat anything else. At the Halloween party he kept grabbing candy out of the candy bowl and bringing it to me in hopes that I'd unwrap it and feed him some. Fortunately, he doesn't know how big a candy bar is supposed to be, so I could sometimes trick him by just giving him the tiniest corner and then eating the rest myself. Yes, I was willing to triple my recommended daily caloric intake to save my son from too much sugar. Selfless of me, I know.
All in all, it was a great Halloween. How could it not be with three parties?! I hope you all had a great one too!

Introducing. . .

2008-10-21T15:14:00.004-07:00

. . .my new baking blog, Baking Becca. Just so you know, this is not because I consider myself an amazing cook or anything, I just really love to bake, I have some really great recipes that I have inherited from family members who really are amazing cooks, and because I think people can learn as much from my kitchen disasters as they can from the kitchen triumphs that abound in other cooking and baking blogs. Also I wanted to use that cute cupcake background that I found on the same site where I found this background. Go ahead and give it a look. Enjoy!

First Birthday

2008-09-26T14:19:00.007-07:00

Since Jonathan is taking a really long nap, I have time to post! Yay! We had his first birthday celebration last week, and it completely blows my mind that he's been with us for an entire year. I can't believe so much has happened since last September because the time has gone so quickly. To celebrate I made him his own cake, which he wasn't sure about at first. After some patting it and testing it with his fingers, he began to squash it all over his tray and then fling his hands around which meant cake bits got all over the bookcase, the floor (even the parts we hadn't covered with plastic), the trashcan, the chair, etc. Here's a picture of the aftermath:

After that we had to bathe him before he could open presents. We probably should have thought of that before hand and had him do presents first.

He then got to open presents.

And what baby doesn't like playing with the box more than the actual present?

We had fun even though it is a little bitter-sweet that my baby is growing up so fast!

Letterboxing

2008-08-21T19:18:00.008-07:00

O.k, so maybe I'm kind of a nerd but Peter and I have become hooked on something called letterboxing. I found out about it through a magazine article a while ago, and since then we have been hunting down letterboxes both close to home and while on vacation. Basically, letterboxing is kind of like treasure hunting. It started in England and then came over to the U.S. and kind of morphed into what it is now. You find clues to get to a letterbox on the Internet (I usually use http://www.letterboxing.org) and you follow those clues to a hidden box. In the box is a notebook and a stamp which is usually hand carved. You also should have your own stamp (preferably hand carved but it can be store-bought) and a notebook. You then stamp the box's stamp into your book and your stamp into the box's book. It's pretty fun, especially when you find a box someplace that you've unknowingly walked past dozens of times. Peter and I like to do it as a family home evening activity.
On Monday we finally planted a box ourselves up a canyon that we like (naturally I can't say exactly where or I'd have to kill you). It was a fun adventure. Here are some pictures to document the fact that I do get out once in a while:

Here is Adventurer Peter. He is excited to be wearing a purple baby carrier.

Adventurer Jonathan finds nature very relaxing.

Adventurer Becca making use of a thinking log.

Adventurers Jonathan and Becca at the entrance to a sweet mine up the canyon. Unfortunately, Adventurer Becca is a bit of a pansy when it comes to dark underground places and wouldn't stay in the mine long enough to get a picture actually in it.

Adventurer Peter is much braver and didn't mind being inside the mine. It really is him, even if he just looks like a floating t-shirt.

So there it is. Good times. Great oldies.

I Like July

2008-07-10T20:45:00.008-07:00

Independence Day is one of my favorite holidays. I'm a sucker for parades and barbecues, and it was fun to share it with Jonathan this year. We hosted my parents for breakfast and then found a great spot to watch the parade with the shade of a big tree and some very nice clouds. Jonathan got increasingly serious as the parade wore on. I'm sure it was because he was contemplating the meaning of the day. Here he is all happy at the beginning:

And feeling really cool wearing Peter's hat:

With his flag shortly before he ripped it off of its stick and I had to take it away:

And finally, watching a big balloon very seriously. Doesn't his profile look kind of like something from a Peanuts comic strip?

It was lots of fun. He also started to officially crawl at a barbecue at Grandpa and Nana's house that day, and today he learned to clap. This is such a fun age--he seems to learn something new almost every day. How amazing to see it all happen!

Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime?

2008-06-10T11:37:00.006-07:00

Argh, I've done it again. I've let too much time pass between posts. Since my last post I went to St. Louis to visit my sister and her cute family (and had the best frozen custard of my life at Ted Drewes), Jonathan has increased his tooth count to four, and I shaved off Peter's hair (with his permission, of course). I could easily write three good-sized posts about these topics, but it's late and I want to finish watching "Dan in Real Life" with Peter. So instead, I'll tell you about my plans for this summer. I've been inspired by a girl in my ward who has decided to make this summer the "Summer of Megan" and do all the fun things you always wish you had done when summer is over, so I'm doing something similar. Having borrowed heavily from the primary song, "Oh What Do You Do in the Summertime," here is my list of what I want to do this summer:
1. Lazily dream on a bank as the clouds roll by.
2. Swim in a pool to keep myself cool.
3. Swing in a tree up high.
4. Watch a parade.
5. Drink lots of lemonade.
6. Star gaze.
7. Make s'mores.
8. Host a barbeque.
9. Make homemade ice cream.
10. Go camping.
Kind of pathetic how many of those involve food, huh? Now I'll have a little more pressure to do what I'm saying I'll do, since I'm now accountable to whoever reads this.
Well, since I still have a little more time to write since Peter's studying, I'll do a quick Reader's Digest condensed version of all the topics I mentioned earlier. My sister Rachel is the closest in age to me and we have been best friends since I was born. She has two adorable boys, a very smart doctor-husband, and three huge-but-sweet dogs. We had a lot of fun visiting them and enjoying the many incredible attractions around St. Louis, many of which were free like the St. Louis zoo. One of those attractions was Ted Drewes where they don't even write down your order no matter how complicated and still manage to get it right and get it to you quickly. I would have made the words "Ted Drewes" in that previous sentence a link to their web page, but I don't know how. Anyway, they have phenomenal frozen custard. I got a "Christy" which was a brownie, custard, and hot fudge sauce. Yum. Peter and I also got to go to Nauvoo for a day and we got some pictures of where our ancestors used to live. Here's Peter's great-great, etc. grandmother's cabin:

And here are two lots that my great-great etc. grandfather lived on. On my right is the one he owned, and on my left is one where he was a tenant for a while:

Jonathan just keeps amazing me at how fast he can change in just eight months. He has four teeth, still isn't crawling but is really good at scooting and rolling to where he wants to go, and has learned to roll a soccer ball off of his lap towards anyone sitting in front of him.

Peter finally got tired of his thinning hair, so we buzzed it on Friday night. I think he looks quite dashing. (And no, he doesn't usually smile like this.)

Well that's it. I just remembered I haven't mentioned our bathroom remodel, but I'll do that another time. Happy summer, everyone!

Green-ish

2008-04-22T21:35:00.007-07:00

“We recommend to all people that there be no undue pollution, that the land be taken care of and kept clean to be productive and to be beautiful”
--Spencer W. Kimball (Ensign, May 1975).

Happy Earth Day! So for a while now I've been eyeing the canvas bags in grocery stores that you can buy and use instead of paper or plastic, reading articles about cleaning your home the "green" way, etc. and thinking I really should start doing that sometime. Well, Earth Day and my friend Heidi inspired me and I finally took the green plunge. Yesterday while out grocery shopping I bought two lovely reusable canvas bags which they then loaded my groceries in. As you can see, Jonathan is very proud of me. Then today I cleaned my bathroom using only white vinegar, baking soda, and lemons. Here's the low down on how well that worked:

Vinegar: Despite the fact that this made it smell like I had been dying Easter eggs in my bathroom, this was my favorite cleaning supply of the day. I put a little on a cloth and wiped down the mirror then followed with a dry cloth and it worked beautifully! I used vinegar and water to clean the sink, vanity, toilet, and floor and it seemed to do just as good a job as the usual products I use. In the shower the vinegar seemed to do a slightly better job at dissolving the hard water deposits than my usual stuff. The smell even wore off as it dried so now there's only the slightest smell of vinegar in my house which could actually be coming from the cleaning rags in the laundry closet.

Baking Soda: Thumbs up for this one as a way to remove soap skum and hard water from the shower floor, although it did take a little extra elbow grease to do it. I just need a new box of baking soda now.

Lemons: These were supposed to do a good job at removing hard water deposits, and they did on the sink faucet, but the shower walls didn't show much improvement so I had to bring in the vinegar. They sure did smell good, though, and later I was able to run the peels through my disposal to make it smell nice. :)

The finished product:

So I know I'm still just light green, having just done these two small changes to be more eco-friendly. I still have a ways to go before I'm on par with, say, my parents who drive a hybrid, recycle most of their trash and compost a good portion of the rest (honesty, you'd think they were democrats), but at least it's something. And maybe next year I'll be brave enough to switch to cloth diapers. Maybe.

Kindergarten Day

2008-04-21T20:43:00.005-07:00

I love random holidays. I stumbled across a site that lists all kinds of weird holidays back when I was teaching junior high, and I filled up my calender with them. Lately, though, I've been out of the habit of observing these holidays, which is a shame because they give you a reason to celebrate almost every day. So today I decided to start up again with Kindergarten Day. Because I love any reason to eat macaroni and cheese, dinner became a conglomeration of all the foods typically eaten by a kindergartner. We had mac and cheese with hot dogs cut up and mixed in, carrot sticks and apple slices with peanut butter, and little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (with crusts cut off, of course).

Here are my boys with Peter's meal (which Jonathan was deeply coveting):

Sorry, Jonathan, just some mashed up banana for dinner for you. Peter is such a good sport about all my weirdness. He ate everything without once complaining that it wasn't the most filling meal for a 6'2" man, bless him. Happy Kindergarten Day!

Bookmarked

2008-04-16T18:11:00.003-07:00

Yay! I've been tagged by Ruth. I love books and reading, so this one's a good one for me. Here's what I'm supposed to do:
1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages)
2. Turn to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog
5. Tag 5 people

The book nearest me is one I just finished, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. What a beautiful book. Anyway, here's my sentence:

"If Marmee had begged Jo to go cut off her hair and sell it," Swede hypothesized, "I wonder how heroic a thing it would have been."

The context is the protagonist's little sister is trying to convince him to use some money he's just earned to buy food instead of to buy a canoe he really wants by referencing Little Women, another great book. So there you have it. I now tag New York Lindsay, Charmain, Beth, Christian, and Heidi.

Touchdown for the Tender Mercies

2008-04-11T09:35:00.003-07:00

(Thanks to Katie for the title.) You know that the Lord is looking out for you when the morning after posting that last entry you get a call from a girl in your ward inviting you along with some other moms to go to the museum and you have a really good time just talking and being with other adults. Yay for tender mercies and for people who listen to and act on promptings!

Mama (didn't say) there'll be days like this...

2008-04-09T10:44:00.009-07:00

One thing no one ever tells you about being a stay-at-home mom is how lonely it can be. Not that I didn't kind of see it coming, but it's still been more of an adjustment than I thought it would be. Sure I have Jonathan and he's more than happy to be with me all the time and that is sweet and fulfilling, but sometimes I just miss my circle of friends. You see, I really like people (although I have a hard time remembering that at Costco on Saturdays). I love having friends around me. I'm a little embarassed to admit how hard I've cried over various friends that have moved several time zones away. Sure there's phone and email and blogs, but those just don't seem to fill the same void for me as actual face-to-face interactions. I still have friends locally and am making more, but at this stage of life people either seem to think that I'm to busy to do anything with them or that they're too busy to do anything with me, and that makes me a little sad. If we don't have time for people in our lives, what's the point of anything we're doing? I'm really not as down as this post is probably making me sound, but this has just been on my mind this morning. Maybe I should just enjoy the solitude for now because maybe someday I'll be standing in my kitchen with five kids running around, knocking things over, begging for my attention, and I'll miss being lonely. We'll see.

Time for Frivolity

2008-03-28T10:24:00.005-07:00

I realized today that I haven't been blogging about frivolous things enough lately. It seems like the only times I think to post are when something big has happened like getting married, having a baby, or finding the worst music video on the planet. What of the everyday adventures like learning to make fried rice last night, or the sour-lemon face Jonathan has just learned to make, or the planters full of pansies and primroses that are currently making our deck a little more spring-ish? They make up a life as much as the big things (if not more so). So here's a start:

I have finally conquered no-bake cookies. Growing up, I never had a problem with them. In fact, they were sort of the starter cookie you would make before you were old enough to use the oven. But then I moved to Utah and have had the darndest time getting them to set up since then. I have no idea why. Okay so once it was because I accidentally used 3 cups of karo syrup instead of 3 tablespoons. Ahem. Yeah. I was talking to my mom and was really distracted at the time. But even when I used the right amount of karo they wouldn't work. My best guess is that things boil much faster at 7,000 feet where I grew up than they do here so they weren't getting enough boil time. Well finally I started boiling them for exactly two minutes before adding the oats, peanut butter, and vanilla, and they have worked the past four times I've made them! Yes! Victory is mine!

Some Updates...

2008-03-15T21:14:00.007-07:00

I'm really sorry I'm so bad at updating my blog. I'm also sorry that I seem to begin every post lately with some kind of apology or excuse for being bad at updating my blog. Ah well. Time just keeps moving so fast. I can't believe on Tuesday Jonathan will be 6 months old--that's half a year of watching him grow taller and a little chubbier every day, of delighting in the smallest things that he learns to do, of not sleeping through the night, etc. etc. etc. He really is so much fun. Exhausting, but fun. His latest milestones are starting solid foods on his 5 month birthday (February 18th) and then learning to roll onto his belly from his back four days later. It's kind of funny--after he gets onto his belly he can't get back so he'll start to fuss, so we'll flip him back over and a minute later he'll roll again, then get tired of it and start to fuss to be flipped again. We call it the pancake game because we just keep flipping and flipping. He is really laughing a lot lately too, especially at Peter. Bath time is their favorite time to play. Peter will be getting Jonathan undressed and I'll be filling the tub and I'll hear Jonathan shrieking with laughter in the other room and I'll go in and Peter will have him in stitches tickling him and smiling at him. Oh, he's starting to fuss in the other room so I'd better go soon. Here's the latest picture of him from this afternoon when he kept wrapping himself up in the blanket while he was rolling over. Pardon the blurry feet, but he pretty much is always kicking. His feet never hold still. I'm pretty sure he's going to be the next David Beckham.

Happy (Late) Holidays

2008-01-05T11:46:00.002-07:00

Wow. I'm really bad at getting around to posting. But be that as it may, I still wanted to post some pictures from our Christmas festivities. We had a really great Christmas. It is so fun to have a little baby--even though he really has no idea what's going on, it's fun for us to experience his first Christmas with him. This first picture is of him at our 3rd annual L.L. Bean party. It's basically a party thought up by my old roommate, Heidi, where we just have all kinds of cheesy Christmasy fun like decorating sugar cookies and wearing festive sweaters. This is a picture of me modelling my festive sweater and Jonathan showing off his cute Santa suit that my sister sent him:

And because Peter's pretty proud of his modelling skills, here's his festive sweater photo:

Katie, Peter's sister spent Christmas with us. We were supposed to be at our condo, but a water line broke the Friday night before Christmas, so we ended up staying with my parents and Katie was invited along. Here's the group pre-gift opening on Christmas morning:

And finally, here's Jonathan in his first gift opening experience. He stayed awake long enough to open the llama in the second picture, then he conked out:

I really wish I could write more in detail, but Jonathan is on my lap and has decided he's been patient enough as I've posted this much. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. Happy 2008!

Why I've Disappeared Lately

2007-09-25T13:08:00.002-07:00

Well, first of all, Peter and I ended up moving into our new condo about two weeks sooner than expected, and it also had tons more work needing to be done to it than we anticipated. So that's been taking up my time from mid-August until recently. And then, on September 18th, I got something else to occupy my time (although in a wonderful way). May I introduce the newest arrival to our family: Jonathan.

Born September 18, 2007 at 10:40 a.m. He weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. and was 18 1/2 inches long. My actual due date wasn't until September 30, so I still thought I had some time and wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been for his arrival, but he had other plans. About 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning I woke up with contractions that were definitely more painful than the usual Braxton-Hicks ones. They were about 8 minutes apart, so I woke up Peter to tell him what was going on and that I was going to go take a bath to see if that would help me relax. Being Peter and one of the heaviest sleepers I know, I'm not sure he fully grasped the fact that I could be going into labor because after a sleepy acknowledgement that he heard me, he fell right back asleep as if I had told him nothing more interesting than that I was taking a potty break. Anyway, as the time progressed my contractions got closer together and more painful and I began to think, "wow, this could really be it." By 3:30 the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and I was on the couch in the living room sort of moaning in pain. Thank goodness that our condo is small because somehow I managed to wake up Peter. We decided to wait an hour and make sure they were consistent before going to the hospital. Around 4:15 I told Peter to start packing our bags which he did, although so slowly I was considering doing it myself if I could only have moved without setting off another contraction. It's not that Peter wasn't concerned about me, he just really has a hard time getting going in the morning, especially before 5:00, bless him. Finally we left and got the the hospital around 5. Let me tell you something, folks, contractions are extremely painful. When we parked the car I was right in the middle of a contraction (which by now lasted about 1 1/2 minutes each, leaving me only about 1 1/2 minutes or less to rest before the next one), and couldn't get out of the car. The man driving the sweeping machine around the parking lot was kind enough to stop and offer to get us a wheelchair which we gladly accepted. When we got upstairs to labor and delivery, Peter picked up the red phone which is only for patients in labor (yeah, I felt cool that we could use that one), said something like, "Um, I think my wife's in labor," to which I felt like saying "Of course I'm in labor! This doesn't exactly tickle, you know!" and they let us in. After getting me to a labor room the nurse checked me and told me I was dilated to a 6 and could get an epidural right away if I wanted one (which I definitely did). After that it was a lot more pleasant. By about 10:00 I was progressing nicely but my water hadn't broken, so the doctor came and did it. After that it went really quickly and soon I was ready to begin pushing. Five good contractions worth of pushing later, out came this little head and body and out came the most beautiful little cry I had ever heard. That cry was the cue for my water works to start and tears just started rolling out of the corners of my eyes. He was so tiny but so perfect. I'll admit he did look a little funny because his nose was squashed and his lips were swollen after the ordeal of coming through the birth canal. There's one picture of him right after he was born which Peter calls the Haan Solo picture because it looks like when Haan Solo was frozen in all the weird metal or whatever it was. I'll post it here and you can see what I mean about the nose and lips:

After the swelling went down, we could see that he looks just like his dad in the eyes and nose and just like me when I was a baby in the lips and chin. Here's one of him awake:

Man, I'm so in love with this little guy. In fact, I'd better go pay attention to him because I've been writing this a little too long. Here are a few parting shots. Enjoy!

My Inner Austen Heroine:

2007-08-08T10:41:00.001-07:00

My friend Lizardbreath posted a link to a quiz to find your inner Jane Austen heroine. Here were my results:

Take the Quiz here!

You are Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice! You are intelligent, witty, and tremendously attractive. You have a good head on your shoulders, and oftentimes find yourself the lone beacon of reason in a sea of silliness. You take great pleasure in many things. You are proficient in nearly all of them, though you will never own it. Lest you seem too perfect, you have a tendency toward prejudgement that serves you very ill indeed.

Man, it feels awfully vain to post that description, but oh well. It's all in good fun, and I really think my answers to the quiz were so varied that just one or two different answers could have easily put me somewhere else. Feel free to try out the quiz for yourselves and comment on what you get. And stay tuned. I got tagged a while back to list seven random facts about myself and am thinking I'll do that today.

The Worst Music Video Ever

2007-06-28T12:25:00.002-07:00

Please direct your attention to a new link entitled "The Worst Music Video EVER" on the left hand side of this page under LINKS. I am quite fond of it. It's hard to decide just what makes this Finnish music video so bad. Is it the cheesy choreography? Is it the total lack of chemistry between the two lead singers? Is it the lanky dancer guy with the too-short sweatshirt? Is it all of the above? It's hard to say. But even so, there's a little part of me, buried in the depths of my weirdness, that secretly would love to get a group of friends together, learn this choreography, and perform it at a ward talent show. I know. I need therapy.

The Darndest Things

2007-06-27T07:20:00.002-07:00

The other day I was going through some of my old papers and I came across three index cards on which I had written some random, funny things that my students said. You really have got to love junior high. I mean, where else do you hear things like this on a daily basis:

"We're all God's earthlings." --Dillon T.

"Doughnuts are bad for your health, but I love 'em cause they're good for your soul." --Nate N.

"Do cows sleep walk?" --Scott K.

(Talking about a ride at a nearby amusement park) "I want to go on that one boat that goes weee and your stomach goes wooo." --Wacey M.

"I'm not a freak. I'm a natural human bean." --Wacey M.

"Can you walk with nine toes?" --Andrew R.

"[Austin McGee] has the coolest hair. It's wild and free like the mustang." --Jake M.

"I could totally go for a pancake right now." --Scott K.

"He can go to fat camp. And stay there for six months." --Wacey M.

"Listening to screamo's like listening to dinosaurs." --Wacey M.

"What if God was black?" --Wacey M.

"I don't get everything from Walmart. You don't hear me saying, 'I'll bet you get all your clothes from Chuck-o-Rama.'" --Wacey M.

(Two students playing catch phrase while one tries to describe the word "monk"):

Trevor: Um, Buddha. Gandhi!

Casey: (Guessing) Indian.

Trevor: What religion was he?

Casey: A monk!

Trevor: Yes!

So there it is. You'll notice many of them are from a student named Wacey. He was a funny kid. Sometimes you'll just have a student like that who will make all kinds of funny comments at just the right moment. Ah, I miss it.

I Break the Long Silence

2007-06-26T12:49:00.001-07:00

Wow. It's been a really long time since I last posted. Not that I think anyone has really noticed since I've only told three people about this blog, but still. Even if this is nothing more than my journal online and I'm the only one who ever reads it, I feel bad letting it sit so long neglected. So, it's time to brush off the dust and do a quick update on what has happened in the past year:

1. I got married. And miraculously, the day before my wedding I went in for another appointment with my doctor about my mono and he declared me completely cured. He had been sure I still had the worst of it ahead of me, but prayer is a powerful thing and I was back to full health for my wedding. Yahoo!
2. About three weeks before school started in the fall I was hired to teach 7th and 8th grade history at a different junior high than the one where I had been teaching study skills, so I packed up my classroom, moved into a new one in another school, and settled in for a year of actually using my history teaching degree.
3. In January I found out I was pregnant, which my husband Peter and I were very excited about, and in May we learned that it is going to be a boy. I am due on September 30 which means I am now in my 6th month of pregnancy. I was really lucky the first trimester--even though I had quite a bit of nausea, I only threw up about five times, and never at school. Not even when I had a kid get sick and throw up all over the floor (and the binder belonging to the kid sitting next to him). Good times.
4. In May I left teaching for now, since I have decided to stay home with my baby when he is born. It was surprisingly hard to leave since I really enjoyed the school I was at, but I'm sure I'm making the right decision for my baby and me right now.
5. Peter and I bought a condo in the town just south of us, so now we are home owners. It is definitely a fixer-upper and that will occupy most of our time in August, but Peter loves projects and is enough of a Mr. Fix-it to get it looking like a home by the time the baby comes.

Well, I think that's it for the really big news. Hopefully I'll be better at posting, and then maybe I won't feel so bad about telling people to come read my blog.

Marriage and Mono

2006-05-17T14:26:00.001-07:00

So, I just found out I have mono. And I'm getting married in 17 days. Why? I wanna know why?! My doctor is not terribly optimistic and thinks I will still be in pretty bad shape on the day of my wedding--complete with the puffy eyelids that I've been sporting since the beginning of last week. Yeah. That would be cute in the wedding pictures. However, I refuse to believe I'll stay sick that long with my killer immune system. After all, of everyone that went to our ward's Halloween party, I am one of only about four other people that didn't come down with nasty stomach flu the next day. And if it was food poisoning from the drink like some people think, I am the only one who drank it and didn't get sick. I haven't been to the doctor since I was in fifth grade, and I eat my fruits and vegetables. That means my immune system is in pretty good shape, right? And to top it all off, I've got people praying for me and that's the most powerful medicine of all.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!

2006-03-08T11:38:00.001-07:00

Well, it finally happened. I'm engaged. No, hell has not frozen over. No, the second coming will not take place tomorrow (as far as I know). And no, Paris Hilton has not been invited to join Mensa. I realize this may come as a shock to some of you (I mean my getting engaged, not the thing about Paris) because most of you didn't even know I was dating anyone, so I apologize for not giving you some warning. But in a nutshell, I met my fiance, Peter, last spring. He came to some of our ward activities a couple of times because his cousin, Ryan, is in our ward. My first impression of Peter was that he was very kind, funny, and had one of the greatest smiles I've ever seen. After a while, though, we saw less and less of him, I got busy with my own life, and I nearly forgot about him. Then my friends Megan, Mary Ann, and I joined the institute choir, and who should we see over in the bass section, but Peter! He started coming over to my apartment a lot, he moved into the ward (into the apartment downstairs from me, actually), we started going on dates together in October, and after some brief turmoil when I couldn't decide how I felt about him, we started exclusively dating in December. That's how we got to this point, now on to the engagement story:
We've sort of been unofficially engaged since January (I mean, I knew he was going to ask and he knew I was going to say yes, and we had a date picked out and everything), but it took a while to get a ring because I have this annoying nickel allergy and they put nickel in white gold, so my ring had to be custom made using palladium instead. We even had the temple reserved because we were afraid the day we wanted would be completely booked before the ring came in. Anyway, Sunday night, instead of going to ward prayer (naughty us, I know), Peter suggested we go for a walk and we ended up at a park near our apartment building. I really love this park, except for the fact that the streetlights there don't stay on for more than two minutes each, so they're constantly going off and on. But moving on with the story, Peter and I swung on the swings for a while, and I could tell he was kind of nervous about something. After a while he said he was cold and needed to keep walking, so we headed for a stage area in the middle of the park. It was kind of a chilly night, but the sky was clear and the stars were beautiful. I stood there on center stage looking up and the stars, then I felt Peter take my hands and turn me around to face him, and he was smiling that great smile, and I knew what was about to happen. It took him a minute to get the ring out of his pocket, and no wonder! The box it was in was about the size of my fist! You'd think the jewelry stores would think to put engagement rings in nice little discreet boxes. It's a small miracle I didn't notice it in his pocket. Anyway, he opened the box and I saw something sparkly--that's about all I could see because the streetlight by the stage had gone off just moments before, but I didn't have to be a Mensa candidate to know what he was holding. It's important to understand that when a girl is getting proposed to, her mind is working at about four times its regular speed. According to Peter, when a boy is proposing, his mind is working at about 1/4 its regular speed. So here's what happened, with an inside view from my mind:
Becca: Oh my gosh! This is it! There's the ring! Why doesn't he say something? Is he going to say something? What am I supposed to do?!
*Pause*
Peter: "I love you."
Becca: Am I supposed to say yes now? Wait, he didn't even ask the question yet! He's still standing. Is he going to get down on one knee? What am I supposed to do?!
*Pause*
*Peter gets down on one knee*
*Becca covers her mouth with her hands and starts to cry*
*Pause*
*Pause*
Peter: "Will you marry me?"
Becca: "Yes!"
So there you have it. Now, please forgive me for waxing a little cheesy for a minute (after all, I am a girl that just got engaged), but the thing that stands out to me most about this whole thing is how quietly it has happened. I didn't see Peter for the first time and hear music playing or birds singing. One day I just realized, "Huh. I like Peter." Then later on I thought, "I love Peter." And now it's, "I want to marry Peter." None of this has happened dramatically with a lightning bolt or anything, and you know what? I don't mind. It reminds me of a song from a lesser-known musical called "Flora the Red Menace." Flora sings a song about landing her dream job that I think applies to this situation too. She sings:
When it all comes through just the way you've planned
It's funny, but the bells don't ring.
It's a quiet thing.
When you hold the world in your trembling hand
You'd think you'd hear a choir sing.
But it's a quiet thing.
There are no exploding fireworks.
Where's the roaring of the crowd?
Maybe it's this strange new atmosphere
Way up here among the clouds.
Happiness walks in on tiptoe.
Well, whaddya know.
It's a quiet thing.
A very quiet thing.
O.K., I'd better stop before I give people cavities or indigestion or something. But on June 3rd I'm getting married. Wahoo!

Next stop WNBA? Not on your life.

2006-02-24T17:00:00.001-07:00

We won, 38 to 35, and I didn't make a fool out of myself. Okay, so I only touched the ball a grand total of three times. I still had a blast. And whaddya know--bad players get to experience the winner's high right along with the good ones.

Alright, Eleanor

2006-02-24T08:09:00.002-07:00

Today I'm playing in the faculty vs. student basketball game in which the women faculty are going to be playing against the 9th grade girls' team. Now this wouldn't be an especially big deal if it weren't for the fact that I don't play basketball. At all. In P.E. I was always picked second to last (unless my best friend was absent, in which case I would be picked very last). I sometimes would play poison at lunch time, but that was in junior high and I can count on one hand the number of times I've touched a basketball since.
The thing is, I'm not that uncoordinated. I love dance, and I can confiscate a hacky sack from my students in mid flight. It's just taken me a while to get to this point. My older sister that I always wanted to be like hated P.E., so I hated it to. She didn't do sports, so I didn't either. I grew up thinking I wasn't athletic, so I would psych myself out. It even got to the point that I hated having teachers toss candy to students for giving the right answer, because I knew I wouldn't be able to catch it. Pathetic, I know. Then an amazing thing happened--one day I stopped caring whether or not I looked like an idiot and I actually caught it. Up to that point I hadn't considered the possibility that the problem wasn't so much in my muscles and reflexes and it was in my mind. Now if this were a story in "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul," I would now say that this realization made me an incredible athlete overnight and I went on to lead the school basketball team to the state championship. But it didn't. A lifetime of avoiding sports hasn't exactly made me in touch with my athletic side. And I still get cold sweats when they announce that we'll be playing volleyball at the ward picnic. So when they asked me to play basketball, I wasn't exactly skipping though the halls with joy.
In hopes that they could help me not make a fool of myself, I had my friends Mary Ann and Ben give me a crash course in basketball yesterday afternoon. It went surprisingly well, and after we were done I was actually a little excited to play. Today though, my shooting arm is tired, my right buttock is sore, and the anxiety is starting to come back. Don't get me wrong, I know I'll suck it up and have fun with it no matter what, it will just be a lot easier to have fun if I'm not terrible.
So why, you ask, did I agree to play? Guilt, pure and simple. There were only four other faculty members that were going to play, so I would feel bad if the whole thing got canceled just because I wouldn't play. Stupid conscience. Well, I guess there's nothing for it but to play my guts out, not worry about what other people think, and laugh a lot. At least I know Eleanor Roosevelt would be proud of me--I'm doing something today that scares me.

Chocolate Adolescence

2005-11-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

You've got to love junior high bathrooms. If you haven't been in one in a while, you really should pay your local school a visit just to see one. At my school the faculty bathroom is clear up by the front office, which means it's much easier to just use the student one down the hall from my classroom. I really don't mind because despite the fact that the faculty bathroom has cute pictures on the walls and nice smelling lotions, the student facilities are ten times more interesting because they've got reading material. Yes, every stall comes complete with it's own graffiti and reading it has become one of my favorite pastimes.
I should explain that I don't particulary enjoy foul language or finding out that so-and-so is a *insert colorful term here*. I remember being in junior high and being terrified that someday I would see my name written on a bathroom stall and then my life would be over. But now as I read the bathroom walls I get a kind of satisfaction out of knowing that if I did see my name now, I wouldn't be crushed. In fact, I'd probably laugh and go home and brag about it to my roommates. It makes me feel wonderfully free to know that I have grown out of needing everybody to approve of me and to tell me that I'm o.k. because it's an uphill battle otherwise. No one ever has everyone on their side all of the time. What was it that Ben Franklin said about not being able to fool all of the people all of the time?
My favorite pieces of graffiti, however, are the declarations of love that you'll find scratched onto every blank surface: "I love Ryan B." "Justin is sooo hot" "M.B. + J.S.," etc. It's hilarious. It's also the only time I wish I was 13 again. I don't want the awkwardness or the identity crisis or the bad hair. I would like to be able to feel things the way I did back then when every emotion would build up inside you until it felt like you were going to explode if you didn't find some outlet for it--even if that outlet was just to declare your undying love in pencil on a corner of the toilet paper dispenser. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because sometimes I wonder if the ability to really feel things deeply is something I've lost along the way, kind of like the braces and puffy bangs.
My friend Mary Ann and I have a theory that most people can be put into one of two categories: chocolate and vanilla. Chocolates are emotional and passionate, and while they can be moody, they also feel things deeply. Vanillas, on the other hand, are even-tempered and easygoing. Not much ruffles their feathers or gets under their skin, but that sometimes leaves them feeling like they're missing something. "What about white chocolate or caramel or strawberry," you ask? Alright, so the theory's not perfect, but it's something to think about anyway. I am vanilla. Adolescents are chocolate. Little chocolate dipped students walking around writing on stall doors, getting into fights, laughing one minute, in the depths of despair the next, and utterly alive. That is why I love being a junior high teacher. And that is why I envy them a little every time I read the bathroom walls.

Just in time for cold season

2005-11-09T12:44:00.001-07:00

I found this link today that reminded me of the old MST3K days with Christian and Beth: http://www.jengajam.com/r/19457 To think I've been doing it wrong all of these years.

Webster says...

2005-11-07T15:44:00.001-07:00

thought, n. 1. mental activity. 2. idea. 3. purpose.

stew, n. 1. A dish cooked by stewing, especially a mixture of meat or fish and vegetables with stock. 2. A mixture likened to this dish.

thought stew, n. 1. A conglomeration of the often random and somtimes coherent brain waves of yours truly. 2. A zombie's favorite soup, heh heh.