Ramblings and Randomness

New resolution: Blog more.

2012-01-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

My blog has now become sporadic, slipshod, shoddy, shabby, crappy and carpy.

And poopy and scoopy and Snoopy and droopy.

And...a dog. A frog. A log. A noodle. A poodle. A doodle.

Okay, random association exercise over. (Thank you, Bob Wiley. You may sit down.) I figure that the point of consistent blogging is just that: consistency. It's not all going to be searing profundity or a slice of fried comedic gold.

Speaking of a slice of fried gold, I had a dream last night that Natalie Portman was trying to set me up with Simon Pegg. She was talking about how we were both funny and a little off and we'd be really great for each other. The encounter was going so well that I even touched Mr. Pegg's elbow in a flirty fashion. Then I woke up and realized that a) I was retarded and b) that the man I was dream-two-timing had taken the squalling boy out of our bedroom so I could get some extra sleep. Two-and-a-half hours more sleep.

I got up to make him breakfast, which he said he'd already had. So I helped myself to the same, which was a nuked-up bowl of leftover pasta and marinara sauce that had sat out on the countertop all night.

I swear some days I'm regressing.

What did you learn today?

2012-01-06T15:07:00.005-07:00

Thanks to this post by Louise Plummer, I got to thinking about What I've Learned in 2011, which reminds me of my friend Emily. Back in 2006 when we were all congregating at Sam's apartment almost every night, Emily was always there with the question, "What did you learn today?"

You think I would've come prepared with an answer, but the question caught me off-guard almost every time. Sometimes I had something smart to contribute but most of the time I slung back something like, "I learned that if you tilt your head back all the way and squint, the clouds will get kinda fuzzy."

Here are the things I learned in 2011 about myself and others.

I am strong and mighty.
I have a childbirth story that most women want to slap me for.
Adam is the greatest man in the United States of America.
Adam is also the greatest husband in the U.S. of A.
I can work really hard without complaining (too much).
I really miss my mom sometimes, and she is obliging enough to hop a plane and come see me.
I get endless hours of pleasure from designing my castle in the air.
Given the opportunity, I will preach at you and/or try to fix your problems. This is a character flaw I am still trying to smother with a pillow.
I show my love to others by trying to feed them incessantly.
I love The Boy so much it makes my heart ache a little.
I try to carry my family's pain. It doesn't work all that well.
If I start the day with a round of scripture study, a shower and a proper breakfast, I can accomplish everything. If I skimp on these three, 4 p.m. will roll around to find me sucking down Cheetos and sporting the same greasy pajamas I wore the day before.
Humorous, informative nonfiction is my favorite genre. Bill Bryson is my hero.
Thanks to Brandon Sanderson, I can now read select pieces of fantasy. The Mistborn series bent my mind and crumpled it into a little ball, like tinfoil. (But in a good way.)
I can read new authors.
I can listen to new music.
They make turntables that will record your vinyl onto CD.
Adam wants a big flat-screen TV, and by gum he is going to get one. Someday. Not now.
I think I want an iPad. I am ashamed to admit this aloud.
God listens, and He cares.

What about you? What did you learn this year?

My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)

2012-01-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Friends, there have been manymuch happenings around our Casablanca this last year. For starters, in January and February I was enormously pregnant and then gave birth lightning-fast to a smaller version of Adam.

From March 'til probably July, I slowly got used to having a babe in tow. Our moms came to visit and we blessed our boy and once I got over the fact that I would be sleep-deprived for the rest of my life, the rest of it hasn't been so bad. Vomiting included.

We went on a multitude of trips from July to August, namely from Phoenix to Virginia to Florida to Phoenix to Boise to Albion, ID to Boise to Phoenix. We went to two different family reunions and reunited with two of Adam's favorite cousins in the same flush of trips. (G, I never blogged you, but that doesn't mean you are less favorite.)

Fall rolled in with record-breaking heat and we celebrated the 95-degree-Halloween by dressing up as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Hyrum went as Dobby.

With fall came a few successes to tuck under our belts. Adam was a champion among husbands by completing one clinical rotation, successfully juggling a full class load, working part-time and studying the rest of the time. He passed all his classes, and finals were sandwiched in a two-month span where he was working seven days a week. Seven. We calculated that his time commitments were upwards of 85 hours a week between bringing home the benjamins and working the ol' grey matter. He's thiiiiiiiis close to a PTA degree and I could not be more proud of this man.

I finally stopped whining about not having writing opportunities and got my butt in gear. I've now written for the Republic twice, the White Mountain Independent twice, Modern Mormon Men once (second post pending), and I have a magazine article pending for my cousin's publication called Seeing the Everyday. This all came about between late October and the end of December. It's a blessing that God shook down opportunities instead of giving me what I deserved, which was a smack on the head for my incurable laziness and fear of the unknown.

This year brought about another tightening of the belt financially, which meant we payed our tithing and prayed like crazy. Through the goodness of God and the generosity of family and friends, we have had enough and to spare.

As 2012 takes its first breath, we made a goal for the year: gratitude. We've had less this year than we had even last year, and yet it's been one of the richest years of our lives. How plentiful our foodstuffs! How reliable our car! How adorable our son! How generous our loved ones! We thank God for what we've been given and look for chances to give back to Him by serving others.

I'm on Modern Mormon Men!

2011-12-07T08:13:00.001-07:00

Remember how I was in a five-year writing slump and then all of a sudden I got a gig writing about a Twilight marathon and then got published writing about my old choir director, all in the space of a few weeks?

Well, this is the post that started it all. Click on over to Modern Mormon Men to see the catalyst that inspired me to start writing again. (I'll give you a hint: there's poop involved.)

Breaking Dawn, and how it broke me down.

2011-11-20T08:32:00.001-07:00

A Twilight marathon was not where I expected to land my first bread-and-butter freelance gig, but I know how to take a miracle and run with it.

I stood in line and then sat in a theatre eating, drinking, and breathing in Twilight for 18 straight hours and then wrote about it. This is mildly monumental because I haven't written for publication pay in four years because of a) laziness and b) fear of failing, which led me to believe that my best option was c) to never try at all.

Well that ship has sailed, mi amigos. That ship has SAILED. Behold!

Really and truly, this was such a blast. It the biggest slumber party I've ever attended, and I have the painted toenails to prove it. I had a chance to disconnect the inner cynic and just roll with the mania to the point that when Edward proposes to Bella in the third movie, I cried like a little girl. And then I stood in line for popcorn before Breaking Dawn, completely punch-drunk and demanding my friends to tell me what in the heck was wrong with me.

What happened was (as far as I could tell) that I finally saw the point of Twilight for the first time: that it was a venue to not just dip into romance, you could lay down and roll around in it. And yes, it's corny and yes, there's elements of a humongous creeper in Edward Cullen and yes, Bella Swan is probably the whiniest heroine I've ever read, but it doesn't have to be Shakespeare for people to love it. Sometimes romance is corny or downright ridiculous, but that is okay. If Twilight got me to pull an all-nighter with friends for the first time since college, I can salute it for that alone.

Also because of the half-hour we stood in the parking lot watching cars file out into the night, so slap-happy we were laughing ourselves sick and I was inspired to fits of leprechaun dancing. You really missed a party, people.

So, here's to my first little toe-dipping into the world of freelance. The water is just fine. (Thank you, Lord.)

Clearly Superior, Arizona

2011-11-13T20:22:00.001-07:00

We met Adam's folks and grandma at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, AZ yesterday to frolic amongst the desert plants and enjoy their good company.

As a kid, I'm going to say I drove past that state park a hundred times and never even noticed the sign. This is the magic of Adam's family: they take detours and discover places like this. My family was all about the kamikaze road trips that were frantic blitzes from point A to point B with the occasional potty break. Adam meanders. This used to drive me bonkers, but now I've learned to embrace it. World's Tallest Thermometer? A gas station that promises the cleanest restrooms in the state? Why yes sir, we must stop there immediately, if not sooner.

So, the Arboretum. This was a private collection of desert plants by a wealthy eccentric (Boyce Thompson) that grew into a 200-acre parcel that the state bought and preserved and now when we try to tell people how much we love the Arboretum, they're like, "Ummmmm....plants?"

Their eyes glaze over as you tell about the herb garden, the pomegranate bushes along the lane, the stone cottage built into the canyon wall and the hundredy-seven varieties of cactus that are yours for the viewing. We're still talking long past the point of them caring and then it hits me that something about this park tripped the Bug-Eyed Horticulturist switch in me. And I thought I was normal.

(Then again, I thought I was normal until the time I went to the Phoenix Zoo with my friend Mindi in my new floppy straw hat, Chacos and a skirt and saw 50 other hippie women dressed exactly like me. That was embarrassing.)

Anyways, we picnicked and then tramped along the park for three hours, passing Hyrum around among us and chatting and generally enjoying the beautiful weather and good company. We took a rest in the herb garden and went around sniffing at all the different herbs and peeking into the stone cottage windows. The trip ended with a visit to the local Dairy Queen, where I played my uke for the family and we sang songs and drove home into the sunset in a blaze of glory.

All in all, a truly perfect day.

Momitude: Hulk Mom

2011-11-10T22:18:00.001-07:00

When I was in North Carolina visiting my sister, we had one of those frenzied afternoons where the children were running wild and nobody had done their homework and the kitchen was gone to poo-poo and yet the little dears were clamoring to go to Chick-Fil-A to support their elementary school.

In the midst of all the mad laundry-folding and kitchen-cleaning and weeping over spelling assignments, Jen and I both lost our respective religions and turned into what my sister calls "Hulk Mom." This is where both the love and the logic dribbles out of your parenting and you stop saying things like, "Do this because it's a good choice and will get you rewards" and start saying, "Do this because if you don't, I'm going to knock you into tomorrow."

I find myself turning into Hulk Mom on Hyrum occasionally, which fills me with deep shame. He just barely learned how to sit up properly and isn't even mobile, much less verbal (though he does this adorable butt-scoot to get to whatever contraband I've put out of reach on the floor).

This makes sense, chastising an 8 month old for crying incessantly or screaming at frequencies that would shatter good crystal. Turning into Hulk Mom gets the wailing infant to stop crying, to eat without spitting it back out on your leg and to see reason when it's 3 a.m. (This is the hour when you're both probably weeping, him at the injustice of being torn from the womb and you in sheer rage at being torn from your bed for the fifth time that night.)

Brothers and sisters in parenthood, please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. Because if no one else does, I need to find a parenting specialist who has training in gamma-reversal technology.

Slump

2011-11-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

(Me and my sister at her kitchen table, October 2011)

I've been in a writing slump since probably 2006.

I've got no one to blame for it but myself. At one time, I had decent contacts and the drive to make a career for myself in writing for publication. Then I got into another career, and then another one, and then another one. And then I got fired, and then I got pregnant, and then I got lazy. I spent dozens of hours of free time tweezing my face, or taking a nap, or Internetting until my brains dribbled out into my bowl of cake-and-milk (the breakfast of champions!).

I finally got a wake-up call of sorts and started to put some tiny, tentative little feelers out there. I got a couple of publication gigs, one of them paying. I went down for a nap one morning and got handed a dream so weird and lightly insane that I started storyboarding for another YA novel.

It's one part heartwarming and two parts frustrating that I've wasted all this time making excuses why I shouldn't write for a living and when I finally decide to put myself out there, God sent a few opportunities drifting my way.

God is good. He is really, really good.

A Very Hyrum Halloween

2011-11-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

This Halloween included a visit to a local pumpkin patch, compliments of Auntie Sue. Hyrum was pretty much miserable the whole time, but I attribute that to the unseasonable heat and the fact that I was determined to dress him in a long-sleeved onesie with punkins-a-printed-on't.

Here he is, poor little soul:

We were ridiculously excited to dress up for Halloween this year. Did we mention that we're humongous nerds? We are humongous nerds. So much so that I made us matchy black cloaks last year so we could go as Aragorn and Frodo. A pregnant Frodo. See this photo as evidence.

Adam suggested a few times that I dress up as one of the actual female characters from Lord of the Rings and I was like, "No! I want to be a hobbit!" Because Adam is a good husband and will let me have my way like 99% of the time, he agreed to the cape and also let me put his wedding ring on a chain around my neck as part of my costume, and stood by and watched as I drew hair all over the tops of my feet with a stub of brown eyeliner, giggling maniacally the entire time.

Our dear friend Eric got in on the nerdiness by lending Adam one of his swords and by lending me his very own replica of Sting, which was the sword Frodo used in LOTR and it was the one that would glow blue when orcs were about. So, naturally, we broke open a blue glow stick and coated Sting in the goo for authenticity. I was dancing around the parking lot of our ward's trunk-or-treat in sheer glee.

Like I said. Nerds.

Anyways, fast forward to 2011. We were determined to get our offspring in on the nerdiness this time, so we dressed up as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Hyrum was Dobby the House Elf.

It was one of my better costume ideas. Thanks to Julie for lending us the Yoda-ears, though they did make everyone think that Hyrum was just Yoda and I was like, "No, people, don't you see the one black sock?!" and then I remembered that no one would get it but us because we are HUMONGOUS NERDS.

Adam snapped two sticks off of an obliging shrub and we toted them around as wands. When we got to our first trunk, Adam pointed the stick at the nice gentleman sitting in the back of his suburban and yelled, "Expelliarmus!" The guy hesitated for a split second, and then threw a handful of candy at him.

It was awesome.

I loved the joke so much that I was yelling "Felix Felicisis!" and "Expecto Patronum!" out the window of our car at innocent drivers sitting next to us at a red light. When we passed a Hooters on the way onto the freeway, I pointed the shrub-wand out the window at the establishment and yelled "REDUCTO!" as we sped away.

Adam laughed until his scar hurt.

This last picture is compliments of my friend Ashley, who should win some sort of award for pumpkin carving bodacity every year.

The end.

Our Summer: Florida and the FFR v2.0

2011-10-04T07:53:00.002-07:00

This will (just like the last post) mostly just be a glut of pictures. Plus, I'm tired of playing catch up. Double-plus, you are only here right this second looking for pictures of children and babies. Don't deny it...you know it's true!

The snail hunters with their catch in the white bucket. Everyone is sporting proof of their first real sunburn.

I liked Adam flinging children in these pictures.

Fling!

Pow-wow in the only real spot of shade at the pool.

Keep-away at the poo'.

Al then starts flinging children into the pool.

Fling! Fling away!

Then of course someone shoves Al in. It's the name of the game, fools.

I have to be honest, this is one of my favorite pictures of the reunion. Isn't that incredible?

Hee hee...

These is my boys. Aren't they marvelous?

Biz making real-live butterbeer.

Adam always turns into a giant playplace for children.

These last are pictures of our last dance party, the night before everyone left. The kids and adults broke into dorkdance over Owl City's Fireflies and I stood at the top of the stairs in the condo, snapped pictures, and cried.

Our Summer: Florida and the Frost Family Reunion, pt. 1

2011-09-10T23:33:00.001-07:00

We left Richmond at oh-dark-thirty in the morning of Vacation Day 6. We trot into the airport, see the ticketing line and realize we're running a wee bit late for check-in. So I print off our boarding passes and we check a bag and I think I confused the computer to the point that I got two full sets of boarding passes and Adam got one-half of his boarding passes. The TSA dude told us Adam couldn't go through security without that pass and told him he'd have to go back to ticketing.

I couldn't help it. I just welled up in big dramatic tears, standing there with Hyrum blanketed in my arms, sweating with a light fever and topped with a ridiculous straw hat that couldn't be jammed in a suitcase for fear that it would never recover from the smashing. Adam turned on his heel and ran back to ticketing, all our carry-ons slapping against his body and I went and wandered through that security line, weeping like some soap opera star as everyone tried to pretend they weren't staring at me. I sat down at our gate, still streaming when Adam came running down the hallway at full tilt just in time to make the plane.

We got into Florida and headed immediately for the nearest emergency room. Look, I'll just break it down for you here because I'm sure you're all dying to know THE MYSTERIOUS AILMENT.

Day 6: I see my third doctor in three days. He steps into the room for 3 minutes, looks down my throat, and tells me it's strep. I tell him I've been getting worse and show him the sores on my mouth, tongue and gums (which are now so embarrassing that I haven't shown Adam). He tells me to see a dentist because "they don't cover that stuff in med school." Where are these people going to school?!
Day 7: We finally all convene, all the Frosts in one dead-end street of condos across the street from the ocean. I'm walking around, giving out hugs and kisses like Christmas candy and warning everyone I have strep. That day, I take 1500 mg of penicillin and wake up in the wee hours out-of-my-mind-hysterical over the pain. I spend a half hour sobbing on Adam, and then make him go wake up Joel and Paul to give me a blessing. After it's over, Joel mentions a bout of thrush with Ami and Dane and gentian violet and suddenly, it clicks.

MY MYSTERIOUS AILMENT is THRUSH.

It's basically a yeast infection of the mouth that usually only babies get, but I was the lucky (read: only) adult who got it while my kid stayed perfectly healthy. So I call my OB at 7 a.m., who is the source of all goodness and medical wisdom and who also gets up at like 3 a.m. every day for fun and he gets on the phone with a local pharmacy to call me in an anti-fungal.

I slowly start to mend. I'm drinking water again without pain on Day 8, ate some yogurt on Day 9, tried to eat a banana and OJ on Day 10 (poor life choice) and we went home on Day 11. I spent the majority of the reunion silently hovering at the outskirts of other people's conversations, mostly because I had a sore on the tip of my tongue and so couldn't pronounce consonants, and painting my mouth with gentian violet about five times a day. This meant that I spent what little pain-allowance I had explaining why my mouth was purple to all my nieces and nephews. It cleared up enough by the last day that I could keep the conversation flowing with liberal squirts of that cherry-abomination-flavored throat spray and I kept that on my hip like a gunslinger.

Behold the purple smile!

I'm pretty sure I permanently dyed a few of my fillings purple as a result, which is kind of one giant poop sandwich. More importantly about this picture, we have Monique/Emery and Tess/BabyDot with me/Hyrum as the February Birthing Club. All three of these kiddies were born within 10 days of each other and it was really fun to see them all together and compare who had the most leg meat (Emery), most chill personality (BabyDot, fer sure) and who would be an NBA star (guess who?).

Anyways, on to the fun stuff. There was plenty, plenty of fun stuff. I'll just post some pictures, mmmmkay?

We split our family between three condos, right across the street from the beach. We stayed with Paul and Tess and Co. and Joel/Dane. This is BabyDot (P&T's gallie) and Hyrum. They both started crying at the same second after this picture was taken.

My mom with Hyrum at the beach.

Steve and Dane.

Jake and Erica.

Tess and BabyDot and Hyrum. That psychadelic bench was right off the kitchen.

Naptime with Hyrum and Madeline (Nate and Biz's).

Molly, Noelle, Addison.

Addison right before she made a run for it.

Makenna, who shoved her face in the camera and said, "Take a picture of MEEEEEE" so I did.

Meghan and Emery. I like the contrast here.

Steve and Hyrum. I have to say, there's something just immensely gratifying about seeing your siblings glom onto your children, tote them around and love them sheerly for their cuteness. Steve took to Hyrum immediately and always had a spare arm or empty lap for The Boy.

Steve and Hyrum again.

Lauren/Leslie and Carter/Smith and Gibber and Adi and Claire.

Al and Emery, with Nate and a bit of Biz in the background.

Gibber and Carter and Smith did a Rex Kwon Do skit for the first talent show night (I'm pretty sure there were like four of them). Gibber is Rex, Carter is Kip and Smith is Napoleon Dynamite.

Molly Molly Molly.

Paul and Tess and girlies performed a rousing Vacation Bible School song.

Monique and Makenna doing a cowgirl dance routine.

Frost Family Dance Routine. (Once again, several of these through the talent show nights and they were excellent.)

Cousin Dance Partay!

Hink showing off the first round of his famous dance move, the one that ended with him standing akimbo, bent forwards and punching at the ground with both hands in time with the music. We laughed ourselves silly over it.

Carter and Hyrum. Carter was on Hyrum-Watch most of the day and would come and find him wherever he was. Then he would goo in his face, touch his head, kiss him, call him "Baby Hi-Hi" or "Fathead" and run off to begin the cycle again probably 20 minutes later. This went on for six straight days and it made me laugh and touched my heart every time.

Jen and Hyrum. She got him to sleep several times when I could not.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Me hiding my "Muppet Smile", as Biz called it, behind my adorable little son.

The Babies. I don't know why this picture makes me laugh every time, but it doth.

Stay tuned for more pictures.

Our Summer: Ticks and Poison Ivy and Unicorns

2011-09-10T23:12:00.001-07:00

Okay, that last one was just to throw you off the scent. I could've also titled this "The First Time in Our Marriage I Ever Saw Adam Really Freak Out."

At Casa Murphy, as I was sleeping all day all day all day to throw off the MYSTERIOUS AILMENT, Adam decided to go on a mission to befriend Blake's slightly neurotic dog, Balkie. Balkie is a dog who is all bark and no bite, and when barking won't work for him, will resort to peeing in self-defense when you get too close to his kennel. Adam, dear gentle soul that he is, spent the good part of 45 minutes in Balkie's cage just sitting there and speaking calming words to him before the incontinence let up enough that Adam was satisfied that it was time to take Balkie on a rousing little outing.

They took a stroll down the road for probably a half mile or more, Balkie sniffing around at his surroundings and nosing under sticks and what-all, but never stopping the strain on the leash or throwing the occasional wild-eyed glance in Adam's direction. So much for earning the dog's trust, but Bethany assures us that Balkie only stops barking/peeing wildly for Blake and Blake alone.

Adam came back from the walkie with Balkie and came upstairs to check on me and tell this invalid how the world looked outside. He sat on the side of the bed and we chatted for a while, then he swung one leg up to rest his ankle on the top of his other knee. His pant leg slid up a bit to expose a tick on his leg, a ridiculous filthy bloodsucking tick who was too busy burying his head in my husband's flesh to bother to give us a proper hello.

Adam went downstairs in a hurry to ask Blake how to get rid of it. They tried everything in the Anecdotal Tick Slaying Manual: suffocation (oil), burning (matches and then a lighter, which I think are both gutsy for a man with leg hair), and then Adam finally just got a pair of tweezers and popped out the evil little creature.

He came back upstairs 20 minutes later--I'd fallen back asleep, of course--to tell of his conquest and when he called my name, I turned my sleepy face to him, exposing THE TICK CRAWLING ACROSS MY FACE.

To say Adam freaked out is not strictly true. It was more like he went straight up and scattered into pieces of fear and revulsion. I kept asking him what was wrong in the first few seconds and he flat-out couldn't tell me, he was so busy saying, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh," and swiping at my face with four fingers until he had the beast by the throat, so to speak.

"THIS," he said, squeezing the tick between two fingers and putting it before my eyes. "THIS was on your FACE."

I looked at it, still sweating under the power of the last fever I had had, and thanked him profusely for saving my life (and face).

Being saved from the tick didn't save me from poison ivy, which I'm pretty sure I also contracted at Casa Murphy. The poison ivy (or oak or whatever) is a dreadful sneaky plant because it doesn't just infect your skin. It infects your skin and then just sits there, biding its time for many days before actually breaking into a rash. If you get the poison oil off your skin within the first 24 hours of exposure, you may not actually get a rash. If you don't, you have to just invest in your own bottle of calamine lotion and commit to not touching or even covering that part of your body until the rash goes away.

I spent the last half of our reunion in Florida growing a rash on my left leg that spread to my right before I figured out what it was (thank you, Tess!). I spent our entire visit to Boise with a bottle of CalaJel stashed in my purse, which I would slather on my leg when the itch threatened my sanity. I did really well for several days while the rash deepened and spread, thanks to a trick I read online about turning a blow dryer onto your rash to trick your skin to go from "mad crazy itch" to "burning! burning!" mode.

Ironically, it wasn't until we got back to Arizona that I lost my mind over the itch and spent about two days picking off every scab and itching my leg like a dog with a whole colony of fleas. It was immensely satisfying, and yes, my skin scarred like crazy.

Stay tuned for MYSTERIOUS AILMENT and more reunion stories. I promise they're a-comin'.

Our Summer: Richmond and My Mysterious Ailment

2011-09-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

We left our house at some ridiculously early hour on July 12th, not knowing that when we came back Hyrum would be fat and delicious and happy, Adam would be immensely satisfied with seeing two of his favorite cousins in two months, and I would be 10 lbs lighter and be sporting a few new scars.

Blake and Bethany were waiting for us at the Richmond airport in their gloriously long and comfy Buick, which made us laugh at them at first for driving an old lady car and by the end of our stay in VA, we were both rubbing our chins and scheming how to get one from some old person. Those Buicks are like a hotel on wheels--leather interior, big cushy seats, lighting where lighting ought to be, and seat warmers. It was great.

This is Bethany and Blake. They are pretty little people.

We had grand plans of alternately chilling at Casa Murphy (an excellent pastime) and touring Richmond and possibly driving up to Monticello, but that didn't happen, as you will see. What happened was that Adam and Hyrum had a really marvelous time chilling at Casa Murphy.

This is Casa Murphy, aka "Rebel Hill." Don't you just love the South?

Adam stayed up 'til all hours playing board games (by which I mean "getting smoked by Bethany at every board game they had"), playing video games (ditto getting smoked, but by Blake this time), wandering around their property, trying to make friends with Blake's dog (whose primary defense mechanism is barking and, if you get too close, incontinence), taking said dog on a walk, playing HORSE with B&B, cooking amazing things for everyone to eat, eating amazing things, and taking the occasional trip into town.

Blake demonstrated his love of All Creatures Great and Small, or "critters," as Bethany called them.

Hyrum ate, slept and pooped like clockwork, and in the meantime was completely adorable and made friends with Bethany and Blake and was in Bethany's arms about 85% of the day. He was in Adam's arms the other 14%, and in mine about 1%.

I came down with A MYSTERIOUS AILMENT (come back for part 2 to find out what it was!) and gradually got sicker and sicker. Here is a short synopsis of what went down:

Day 1: I'm in good health.
Day 2: I get a sore throat.
Day 3: Throat is worse. I go to the doctor. Strep and mono tests both negative. I go home with lidocaine for the pain.
Day 4: Throat worser. I go to another doctor. Strep tests negative again. I get prescribed antibiotics for strep anyway, plus enough ibuprofen to kill a small animal. The doctor dismisses the sores in my mouth as "curious." (In hindsight, I am "curious" how she got through med school.)
Day 5: I sleep about 16 hours this day, and still get progressively worse. Throat now so sore I can't really drink anymore, not to mention eating.
Day 6: We leave Richmond to fly to Florida for my family reunion.

On the plus side (oh, there were definitely plus sides): the walk-in clinic I went to in Richmond was, by far, the greatest one I've ever been in. The first time I went in they took my insurance info, weighed me, took my blood pressure, my temperature, took a strep and mono test and gave me my prescriptions in an hour. I don't know about you people, but it usually takes office staff an hour just to tell me to "take a seat" and "fill out this paperwork" before they'll "be right with me."

Bethany and Blake's guest bed. For someone who spent at least 16 hours a day in bed for 4 days, you better believe I was grateful for a good one. I would sleep for 2 hours, come downstairs for about 45 minutes, get feverish and go back to bed, sleep for 4 hours, come downstairs for almost 2 hours, and so on. I was so grateful for that bed by the time we left, not to mention B&B's hospitality. They never once said boo about the fact that I was dictating their schedule completely by being a sickie and having to go to the doctor and other such goo. Bethany was a queenly host who made sure I stayed happy and comfortable, and I'm pretty sure no one minded that we lounged at home for most of the week.

We did venture out to see Harry Potter 7.2 in the drive-in, and I have to say that having to ignore crickets and critter noises, not to mention fireflies/an incredibly bright moonrise, was a new experience for me. It was pretty much awesome.

Here are some pictures to wrap this up.

What's that hiding? Oh wait, it's us.

Thanks, Bethany and Blake. You are amazing peoples.

A Letter to Hyrum

2011-07-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

This post was inspired by Rebecca Smylie's Letter to Baby Jane, which you should go read immediately.
~The Editor

Dear Boy,

There are days when it seems laughable to me that I actually birthed you. There are moments, so bright they burn out immediately, when I puzzle over where exactly you came from. You are too beautiful, too bright and sweet and soft to have come from us. Truly, Boy, you are an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

One thing I noticed from you immediately is how indiscriminately loving you are. I've had crusty old ladies and gruff men smile and goo at you from behind my back when we're standing in line at the grocery store. You give out those little grins, dimpled and sporting a tiny triangle of pink tongue, just like my dad handed out pink bubble-gum cigars on the day of my birth--with a lavish hand.

You are fascinated by light and music and the sound of birdsong. You kicked your legs mercilessly when the rockets red-glared above us on the 4th of July, and when you were tired you turned your head into my chest and fell asleep, keeping one eye on the lights show as long as you could before you threw in the towel. I had prepared myself mentally for a wicked screaming fit but you? Afraid? No, you were merely curious.

You are strong, Boy. So strong. From the first night you came to us, you pushed up your little body off your papa's chest to get a better vantage point of this strange world you'd come to. You gave it a look-around with eyes that were far too sage for someone who had been, quite literally, born yesterday.

You are our Boy, our schatz, our wond'rous little stranger. Thank you for choosing to come to us.

~Mamamamamam

Momitude: Baby Talk

2011-06-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

Adam and his mom with the boy, May 2011.

I'm sure I had grand intentions to teach our son correct speech patterns before he came rather abruptly into this world, but that all went out the window the first time I saw him. I open my mouth planning to talk like one human to another, but he gives me a grin between that set of dimples and my resolve melts until I'm gibbering like an idiot.

See, there's a part of me that recognizes that the torrent of garbled mismatched consonants and squeaks that's pouring out of my mouth is just retarded, but I can't seem to help it. Just like I can't seem to help referring to the boy, Adam or myself in the third person. For example:

Scene: I walk in the door. Hyrum is in the crib, kicking his legs and busily trying to shove one or both fists in his mouth.

Me: Hiiiiiiiii boy! How's my littlest son? How's my littlest littlest son? How's my son sunny bun?
Hyrum: [gurgle gurgle squeeeeeeeak]
Me: Yes! Yes! Dat's my boy! Da mama's so excited to see the boy! Yes she is! Yes she is!

At this point, I'm reaching the squealing point and almost hopping up and down, I'm so excited to see him.

Hyrum: [squeeeeak GAG]

He removes his fist from his mouth just long enough to attempt to vacate the contents of his stomach, then gives me a watery-eyed grin

Me: Oh, da mama loves you. Dat mama looooooooooves da boy. Da mama loves the littlest littlest boy.

The boy gives me a huge silent grin, followed by a giant velociraptor squeak and more leg kicking.

This exchange goes on ad nauseam while I scoop him out of the crib and change his diaper and feed him and love him and call him George. Okay, we don't actually call him George, but we have called him every single one of these names in the last four months:

The Boy (or just plain "Boy")
Hyrum Boy
The Lad
Littlest Son
Littlest Littlest Son
Son Sunny Bun
Son on the Run
Mr. Moo
Mr. Moo Moo Magoo
Grumpus Lumpus
Poops Magoo (or Mr. Poopus Magoo)
Little Lump
This (as in, "Can you hold this?" when I'm getting up from the couch and handing the boy off to Adam)

All you who are guilty of baby talk, please share your favorite moments and nicknames.

The Hungry Tiger

2011-06-22T16:41:00.001-07:00

"Fat babies! Don't they sound delicious?"
~The Hungry Tiger, "Ozma of Oz" by L. Frank Baum

I have to say that I have an understanding with The Hungry Tiger for the first time in my life. When I hold Hyrum in my arms and see those big ol' dark eyes looking up at me in wonder and curiosity and the teensiest bit of puckish glee, I want to eat my son.

Just grab him up in my arms and squeeze him and squeeze him first, then inhale a few hairs off the top of his head--the ones that are showing some faint promise of gold. Then I would start with the toes, all ten of those wee little piggies, and take time savoring the dimples in his knees and the rolls thereon, especially the ones that have tan lines where his fat little crevices don't see the sun. Of course I would have to skip the torso for a minute to enjoy the rest of the Dimple Trifecta: his dimples in the backs of his elbows, and the pair on either side of his smooth, delicious little face-cheeks. But don't worry! I'd be back around the little ribs for a side of zerberts (called "blowing a raspberry" in normal families) and then bury my nose in the neck.

Ah, the baby's neck. There is no place on earth more sweet, more soft, more smooth and delectable than this small little spot. I speak specifically of the crevices that get lost down below the fat of the cheeks and that, no matter how much you scrub-a-dub-dub them out, always smell faintly of whatever it was he ate and puked up last. I'd bury my nose and take a great greedy sniff of that smell and close my eyes, fearing that if I opened them that the memory would leak out.

And while my eyes are squeezed shut, the boy gurgles, a sound that means he hasn't yet learned to laugh but the glee has to squeak out somewhere, awash in spit bubbles and sandwiched between a set of dimples that break my heart.

Hyrum Extravaganza and Katy's Graduation

2011-06-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's just time for more photos. You all know that's the only reason you're still stopping by anymore, anyway.

Here's the beginning of Adam and Hyrum Napping Together. This sequence is my favorite.

Sleepytime, boys.

This is the second before the flash went, and yes that is genuine fear in Adam's eyes. I'm not sure what he thought was going on the second before consciousness set in.

These next two photos are ones I call Hard Evidence That Hyrum Is Indeed My Son. Behold!

Hyrum sleeps.

I also sleep. See?

Please just notice that he has rolls on his legs. Also, that he's freakishly tall.

Adam bought me this lovely bouquet for Mother's Day. I had a bit of a mental double-take when my mom called to wish me a happy Mother's Day and I was like, "No wait, that's you...I mean, thank you."

This is the first real smile I caught on camera of this boy. I also pass along that fist-pump free of charge.

When Adam gets home from work, he gives me a kiss and a squeeze, and then makes a beeline for the boy. They chat and cuddle for a little bit.

This is Tyson and Necia Adams' son Traejan. He is fatter than Hyrum and infinitely whiter. We call him Ghostie Boy. He and Hyrum are friends. We know because they bop each other on the head and then barf a little in friendly greeting.

More sleepytime. Hyrum is an unnaturally good baby, in that if he's in the crook of your arm he will sometimes lie there for 30 minutes without squawking or (bonus!) fall asleep himself.

Yep, our next kid will be a total hell-raiser just to even out the cosmic scorecard.

This was an evening of really great lighting and nothing better to do. I present Family Home Photography.

Doesn't the boy look like the baby off of Willow here?

My favorite of several failed family picture attempts.

My favorite picture of us so far. There are precious few pictures of me with the boy since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, so great thanks to Adam for snagging this'n.

I have to mention canning here for a minute: it completely took over my life for about three weeks. It was a combination of several factors: 1) a Relief Society activity where the very charismatic and competent woman assured me canning was not difficult, nor were there great chances of a jar exploding and glass-shrapnel catching me in the jugular and leaving me to bleed to death, which is a very real fear of mine and 2) apricots and strawberries were on sale for ridiculous prices, on top of which a kind relative let me kife apricots off her mother's tree and that meant I had about 15 pounds of very ripe apricots sitting on our kitchen floor for almost a week.

I rinsed and sliced and stewed and canned through an alarming amount of fruit, sugar, and canning jars and ended up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 pints of jam. I make no secret of this: I am totally giving these away for gifts this year, so don't be surprised if Christmas comes and out comes the ubiquitous jam. I'll change the ribbon depending on the occasion, don't worry.

We trekked up to Blowsnake for Katy's graduation from high school and I was flooded with memories of my own as we drove into town. There's nothing quite like graduating from high school, I think. Graduating from eighth grade was an epic display of nerdiness and graduating from college was me sitting directly behind my ex-boyfriend and simultaneously wishing I could poke him in the neck, hard, or that he'd turn around and say he'd take me back.

Neither of those things happened, luckily. But I digress. Graduating from high school really brings a sense of freedom and accomplishment that far surpass your actual freedom or accomplishment. It's giddying.

Adam always happily transforms into a really tall human jungle gym for the kiddies when we pull into town. He's here with his bro and sis-in-law's twin daughters.

Katy and the victory leap. Please notice the blue Chucks she is wearing with her graduation robe. I like to think I had some part in her choice of footwear, but I think that's taking far too much credit for her bodacity.

My mother-in-law. Cutie, no?

Adam's niece Hailee in my favorite picture of the night. Don't judge...both those fingers are performing very important functions right now.

Just being adorable, with our very own KEVM in the background. This stands for Karen Edwards VanMuijen, which makes a more awesome acronym than LJ ever was. I defer, I defer.

We're just so freaking proud of her.

Adam and Hailee. She enjoys the view from above, and I enjoyed just how cute it was.

My in-laws don't have a Pack-N-Play and we are far too lazy to haul it with us when we go, so he's been sleeping the last couple of months in my father-in-law's laundry basket.

Here they are, enjoying a little Sabbath morning conversation.

Adam's grandma and niece.

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Hyrum got the best seat in the house.

My mother-in-law made me promise not to take pictures of her without her makeup, so this one is mostly Hyrum. They had a good chat on Memorial Day morning.

See those dimples? See?
We have no idea where they came from.

Sleepytime. Are you seeing the pattern here?

We had Vicki and Josh Seigfried over for dinner and they brought Callie Ann, who is about 22 hours younger than Hyrum. She was very interested in him and insisted on patting his head and grabbing at his ear while they were sharing blanket space.

So, there you have it.

The Secret To Happiness

2011-05-10T23:32:00.001-07:00

I was talking to Toni on the phone the other day and told her how in our most recent sojourn out to the patch of grass outside our apartment door, Adam and I spread the boy out on a blanket to enjoy the atmosphere while we picked clover out of the grass. (Before I married Adam, I thought clover was just part of grass.)

"You just live an idyllic life, don't you?" she asked me.
I fell silent while my brain whirred a little.
"No, I don't think it's that," I said. "I think it's just that we have low expectations."

I told that to Adam and he just laughed and said I had hit it on the head. I guess this is the secret to our happiness: low expectations. Simple pleasures is another, slightly nicer way to put it. Yes. Much better.

Simple pleasures is the fuel behind my impending birthday celebration this year. As with all good celebrations, my birthday this year is solely based around food. Like the time Haley and I roadtripped to Vegas solely for the excuse to cram In-N-Out, Cheesecake Factory and The Rio buffet into our greedy mouths before calling it a day and wrapping up our Fat Fun in Vegaz adventure. We literally had no other plans besides eating, and screaming our brains out to Queen's Greatest Hits on the way there and back while I shoveled in the Twizzlers as fast as I could grasp them in my sweaty palms.

But I digress. My dear husband has promised me the following:
1. A possible swing by Cafe Rio for two Apple Beers.
2. Dinner at Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles because just the sound of that place has been tugging at my ear since I first picked up the Best of Phoenix issue at the OB's office in October.
3. Cupcakes at Sprinkles. Two of them, and I get to pick the flavors.
4. Window shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square, because there's no place I'd rather get in a good gawk than Williams-Sonoma. (My secret plan is to bring two paper lunch bags to wrap our Apple Beers in and see iffen we can discombobulate the privileged people enjoying their privileges.)

If that sounds like a low-impact birthday to you, let me assure you that there's literally nothing I would rather be doing to usher in the ol' 26 than go out on a date with Adam and eat delicious, fatty, sugary things. I've been on a no gluten, no dairy, no sugar diet for the last two weeks and just the thought of shoving a baked good into my mouth leaves me feeling giddy and slightly weepy with happiness.

Low expectations. Simple pleasures. Apple Beer. This is our secret.
Amen.

Blessing/Easter Weekend 2011

2011-04-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

This Easter weekend was really, really excellent. We drove up to the in-laws where we spent two days eating, laughing, and passing Hyrum around to a myriad of family members. I found the cooing and squealing over the many virtues of our boy to be very gratifying. A general consensus was made that Hyrum was so cute, so sweet, so attentive, so patient, so much a mini-Adam and (my favorite!) getting marginally fatter.

We saw Adam's sister Katy speak in stake conference on Sunday, then got in the car and drove 45 minutes to Joe Town to see Adam's sister Beki sing in her ward. She had texted me earlier that morning saying that they could sure use my high voice in their ward choir. I jumped at the bait and assured Beki that I could do it, and then actually got the music and was slightly dismayed to see how much more difficult it was than I had imagined. I spent the sacrament meeting sight-reading and humming very quietly to myself and long story short, I ended up singing with a Joe Town ward choir because my high F is solid. Adam grinned and rubbed my leg when I sat down (he loves to trick me into singing for him) and then Beki's daughter Hailee told me none-too-quietly that she needed to poop, a fact she repeated to her dad Aaron as we left the chapel.

Like I said, a great weekend. Hyrum's cousins sure think a lot of him. When I referred to Hyrum, Bridger's kids would say, "Hyrum Bridger?" as if to clarify and I would nod and they would nod back, satisfied. Also, Hailee calls Hyrum "brother Hyrum" which I think is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard in my life.

After Sunday dinner--a true Easter feast with ham and scalloped potatoes, which always makes me wonder why there's a holiday devoted to turkey and none to ham--we passed the boy around from cousin to aunt to uncle to grandma to grandpa. I think there were probably about 12 people that held him in-between coming home from church and dessert, and the boy bore all the cooing and poking quite patiently.

Before I reward you all with pictures, I wanted to tell you that I hit another parenting first today: that of being pooped on. Hyrum had a magnificently huge blowout this weekend on Adam's grandma's lap when we stopped by to visit and we blamed it on the chlorine-free-eco-friendly diapers we'd gotten as a baby gift. (Adam calls them "the hippie diapers.") I took the boy to our resident thrift store today as an excuse to get out of the heat and when I looked down and realized that poop was dripping onto the top of my Chacos, I left my vinyl copy of Man of La Mancha on top of a huge wooden-colored TV and rushed the boy home with my hand clamped around the leaking leg, trying vainly to seal the poop in.

I blame the hippie diapers too. Onto the pictures.

BEHOLD MY MOM IN HER NATURAL HABITAT.

This is her writing out a grocery list, perched between the baby swing and a gigantic pile of laundry she had washed for us and was getting ready to fold. I think it was around 1 a.m.

Holding the boy while doing some housekeeping.

Blessing weekend! In the Frost corner, we had:

My mom

Al and Q and their four kids.

Boy was I glad we managed to amass so much of my family in one place. (Also: that baby in the middle was born 11 days before Hyrum, and she could've eaten him whole. She was totally amazing.) We also had Julie and Ewan and Alec, and would've had Ben and Crystal and the Tom-Tom, had I not forgotten to invite them. (Hi guys!)

In the Stradling corner, we had:

Adam's parents and sister Katy

Adam's sister Beki and Aaron and two kids

Adam's brother Bridger and son Saxon

Adam's grandpa

Adam's aunt/uncle Kim and Snuff and cousins Tyanne and Marissa

Adam's cousin Jake and wife Molly

Adam's uncle Alex and daughter Raynelle

Adam's grandma

Adam's friends Eric and Noelle and Valette Lara (my friends too)

Adam's friends Pierce and Valayne Lambson and their fetus

Adam's friends Vicki and Josh Seigfried and their daughter Callie

How many is that? Twenty-seven and a half? Compared to my seven peoples? Anyways, it was a par-tay and at one point, we had between 12 and 15 adults in our 700 square foot apartment at one time. It was a little nerve-wracking for me. And hot.

My mom was throwing a tea-party for all the kids in the room, while my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law were killing the fatted calf.

All hail the proudest dad in the history of mankind.

Three generations! I think!

Stradling fambly.

Newborns!

A tale of Two Bridgers. (Also: Saxon has a hole in his head. From where his tooth fell out the week before.)

Grandparents!

Aunts!

Grandma!

Okay, and now for pictures that have nothing in common except that I'm not in any of them. Let the candid photos roll.

I think this was a post-bath cuddle attempt that didn't go over so hot with the boy.

Adam reads to the boy almost every night, and it slays me.

Word.

The closest thing to a smile we've caught on camera so far.

P-p-p-p-pucker face. Isn't he amazing?!

Our little manny.

Alec, who when pressed to say cheese for the camera, pronounces it "cheeeeesh."

Alec sulking because Ewan took the boy away.

BEST PICTURE OF JULIE EV-AR

Dinner last night: trout that Aaron sent home with us from JoeTown, which we stuffed with lemon slices and baked up with bacon. Be jealous...it was incredible.

Adam's version of "sitting up time," as opposed to "tummy time."

This is a Bumbo chair with a nursing pillow stacked on top of it, and the boy in the middle.

He did not love it.

And last but not least, the picture of the boy that makes me laugh myself silly every time:

Yep, it did it again.

Momitude: Vomit

2011-04-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

My little brother Jake once said that what set toddlers apart from regular people was that they were the only humans who would poop their pants while looking you dead in the eye.

I would say that holds true for Hyrum as well. He will expel his rocket-poos without so much as blinking, but I'd add vomiting to his list of talents. Adam and I have had laughing fits at how nonchalantly he will expel the contents of his little stomach all over the nearest available surface, and then relaxes into a goofy pleased grin with remnants of cottage-cheesiness smeared down his chin. The thing is, it's happened so often now that we are nearly as nonchalant about cleaning it off ourselves because truthfully, we're the nearest available surface more often than not.

Today I was eating lunch, which means that I was munching an apple, a peach and great heaping cheddary handfuls of Trader Joe's equivalent of puffy Cheetos and then wiping my fingers on my pant leg so I could turn the page of the book I was reading. The boy was snoring lightly on my chest and then cracked one little eye open.

"Hiiiiiiii boyyyyyyyy!!!!" I say in a mommy-squeal that belies the fact that I'm bone-weary and salty from sweating at my chores all day. "How da baby? How's mommy's littlest baby boyyyyyy?!?! Huh? How's dat boy? How's dat baby boy?!"

He fixed the one eye on me--the one not smooshed shut against my chest--and then his stomach heaved. I watched the steady flow of cottage cheese as it glopped down his face and came closer, closer, closer still to my beloved Muppets t-shirt.

It had pooled a pretty good-sized puddle on said shirt before I even reached for the burp rag. He was just such a cute little barfer, I didn't want to disturb him at it.

There's been a few times we're getting to walk into a friend's house or a restaurant, and Adam turns to me, points to the front of his t-shirt and says, "Did that spit-up stain dry yet?"

"Yep, you're good."

"Great."

You might say we're on our way to being veterans.

Tithing: A Testimony

2011-04-18T00:53:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time, we had money.

Ridiculous amounts of it, especially for two twenty-something kiddies (us!) who had no children, a penchant for fine chocolates and eating out, DVDs, books, travel, and going to the movies. Our pleasures were fairly simple, but they tended to add up more quickly than we realized they would. But we saved some, spent less than we earned, and generally kept two steps ahead of the Credit Card Beast with his tattoo of sixes. All was well. Breezy, even.

Then life descended in a major way. Within eight months there was The Layoff, The New Job, The Pregnancy, The Move, The Other New Job and Yet Another Layoff. These came one after another at a clip that made our heads spin, and then I realized that I was too pregnant to get another full time job and Adam asked the question: "Can we make it on just my paycheck?"

Being the purse string holder in our family, I pulled out my abacus and chinked a few beads around and pronounced that we could do it, but it was going to be tight.

And it was. There have been times this last half-year or so that we have been absolutely dead broke. No more traveling, no more movies, no more shopping for books and DVDs, no more fine foodstuffs. We cut the budget down to the core, paid our tithing and then prayed like crazy that we'd be able to meet our obligations.

To those unfamiliar with Mormon lingo, here's a 'splaination: As members of the LDS church, we pay tithing and fast offerings. Tithing is when we give up 10 percent of our income to the church for administrative, construction and humanitarian purposes; fast offerings are monthly donations that go directly to feed and clothe the needy in our congregations.

You may think that 10 percent of our income is a lot of money to give to a church, and you'd be right. Especially when I'm doing my abacussing (ha!) and figuring that that 10 percent could be trickled into a a month's groceries or an auto insurance payment.

But God promised us that if we paid our tithing first, he would bless us that we would have sufficient for our needs. I was reading the story of Elijah the other day and was struck by the faith of the widow woman. The Lord led Elijah to this woman, who was out gathering fuel to make one last meal for herself and her son with the last of her grain, and then they would starve to death. Elijah asked her to make him a small cake first with the promise that "the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth" (1 Kings 17:14).

Elijah's word proved true and the three of them lived off those last scraps for many days. The grain replenished, and the oil flowed forth and they ate off a miracle while the entire country was withering in a famine, all because the widow woman denied herself what she thought would be her last meal, and gave it up to God instead. Can you imagine making that kind of a physical sacrifice?

It's this story, and dozens others like it in the scriptures and in the lives of people we know, that gave us the guts to cut back, live on the cheap, and pay our tithing first. The blessings that we've received have been incredible, and I think it took us scaling back this far to really enjoy them. Spreading a blanket on the grass outside our door and laying the boy in the sunshine to sleep. Homemade crackers and the fact that we can occasionally spring for fancy cheeses from Trader Joe's. Night walks along the canal and free passes to museums from our local library. I can't tell you the number of times in the last few months that we've looked at each other and said, "Why do we have it so good?"

Our sacrifices have been small, and the blessings have been overwhelming, mostly because God promised us they would be. Happy Sabbath, everyone.

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse...and prove me herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10).

A Fine Reading Frenzy

2011-04-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Remember how I am afraid of reading new books?

Make that "used to be afraid." Booyah!

Of the hours I spend in the rocking chair nursing the boy, I've written letters, I've written thank-you notes, I've watched TV shows on Hulu and never once gave a thought to reading. Which is retarded and completely unlike me. But anyways. This stretched nursing into many hours of the day I spent awkwardly balancing a clipboard on one knee or teetering the Lappy on one arm of the sofa while the boy munched away.

My bro Joel mentioned to me that his wife Ami would read for hours while the boy ate, sometimes just letting him fall asleep for a while and then wake up and eat again without getting up or changing position. I don't know why that clinched it for me (yes I do, it's because I'm an exceedingly lazy person who loves to read), but I finally ventured into the library on a mission: to read an author I'd NEVER READ BEFORE.

Do you know how long it's been since I've done that? A ridiculously long amount of time. Since the first Hunger Games book came out, that's how long.

On Saturday, I walked into the library (we have such an excellent library here) and had the Juvenile Fiction lady lead me to "Eight Cousins" by Lousia May Alcott, which ended up being a ridiculous and preachy book, but which had been recommended to me by a friend.

Standing in the stacks, I took a deep breath, and blurted out to this Juvenile Fiction lady that I had a hard time reading new authors and did she have someone to recommend?

Well, did she ever. I walked out with a stack of six books, and as of this morning, I've read them all (except the sequel to Eight Cousins, which was so stupid I couldn't bear to commit to another one). Here's what I thought of my dipping-my-toe into these new books:

1. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Coraline remains one of the best creepy little books I've ever read, so I was anxious for more Neil Gaiman. This book wasn't as good as Coraline--a bit more violent and less shivery--but still an excellent read. Gaiman is a master at the semi-scary book, and I think it's because his heroes are children. Only a kid would be able to look on the supernatural so coolly, and Gaiman's writing style--say, about a human boy who grows up in a graveyard--makes it seem ordinary. Gaiman's books make you keep the lights on clear into the wee smas, but are wrapped up so tidily that when you finish you're not afraid to get up and pee in the night. Take this from a true Cowardly Lion.

2. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull. It only took me about seven recommendations and two years to finally start the series. The plot exposition and setup took a little too long for my taste (at least the first quarter of the book) but when the ball got rolling, it really got rolling. This was an unexpectedly good little read that dips into several layers of fantasy and mythology and ghoulishness that had me guessing the whole way through. Also, Adam read it and too casually asked if I was going to pick up the second one the next time I went to the library. I said I would.

3. Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy by L. A. Meyer.

Didn't like it.

The first third of it was pretty excellent, with its squalid descriptions of an orphaned girl who leaves her street gang in 1700s-ish London to apply to be a ship's boy. The next third was interesting as she tried to keep up the deception and did a surprisingly good job at it, and the last third was peppered with tasteless sexual references and (surprise!) sodomy attempts. Please don't ever read this book. If it was mine to burn, I would.

4. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. I saved the best for last. This book is what would happen if you took the gang out of The View From Saturday and put them into the plot of A Winkle in Time with a generous helping of Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl for good measure. It was just fabulous. Brainy, good natured, unplottable and I'm tickled to say there are two more in the series and that Adam left me the car today.

Which means I'm going to go pick them up.

Right now.

Cheers.

Momitude: Irrational Fears

2011-03-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

I have always been someone who didn't truly count the costs of my choices. This is why I have a small stash of stories of the Stupid Things I Did That Could've Gotten Me Killed/Maimed/Molested Had My Guardian Angel Not Been Working Overtime.

Now, it seems, that happy-go-luckiness is coming back to bite me in the boo-tay in the form of Irrational Mommy Fears. Ever since the boy came home from the hospital, these fears have been treading on each other's heels in the fight to get center stage of my attention. I give you these examples:

One day, I took Hyrum out for a walk in the stroller. I walked under a tree and was suddenly stricken with a gut-wrenching fear that a branch would fall off the tree, smash the stroller and kill the boy.
This same day (about fifteen minutes later) I walked next to a Cox Internet truck that was parked outside someone's apartment. There was a ladder balanced atop the truck and I suddenly veered to give it a wide berth because I was SURE the ladder was going to POP LOOSE out of its restraints and come skitting off and stab Hyrum and then he would be dead.
Every time I drive in the car and it gets a little quiet, I'm sure that the boy is asphyxiating on his own vomit in the backseat because I can't see him.
I call people when his poop changes color suddenly. (Look, do you think poop is supposed to be orange?! I don't either!)
Whenever I leave him unattended to attend to some personal need (you know, bathing and going pee and stuff) and he cries, I'm certain that he's injured himself beyond repair because I didn't wait until he was sound asleep to act out on this selfish desire.
Last night Adam was sucking the snot out of his nose with one of those little enema bulb things and I had a flash of fear that some of his brains would come out too.
Once I left him peacefully sleeping in the apartment to go walk 100 yards to the laundry facility to swap loads and I ran the last 10 yards back to the apartment because I was sure that someone had broken in and stolen him while I was out.

Now most of the time I can laugh out of this, but some times the fears get a little overwhelming and I fight the urge to curl up in our apartment where we have our own well-known dangers (the sink! the tub! the toilet! the stove!) and our own familiar germs and never set foot into the light of day again.

Veteran moms, please give me some hope that I will someday pull out of this. Please.

Hyrum-flavored Photo Dump

2011-03-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

Because I know none of you actually want to read any pontifications and would rather see pictures of our really adorable kid (and good grief, I don't blame you!), here you go. I'll pontificate in another post.

The proudest dad in the history of man.

I picked this one to share because you can't actually see my face full-on. I ruptured all the blood vessels in my face while birthing that boy because GOOD GRIEF that is a lot for one body to do.

Doesn't this one make you die of cuteness?

It doesn't?

Then you should go drop some kittens in a river or something because you obviously have no soul.

These are ones my mom took of us outside the Mesa, AZ Mormon temple.

This is my mom. Ain't she purty?

This one is my favorite.

This is Adam with his little sister Katy and his parents. They were all so excited to meet the boy.

Three generations! Or maybe two! I can't count this sort of thing!

This is how the boy looks most of the time when he's awake. Kind of pensive.

This is my favorite photo of the three of us. We're so boho, my little hipster heart just thrills to the core.

Featuring Julie's blanket for the boy.

If you enter her giveaway, you may be lucky enough to get one as adorable as this one.

This is where and how I spend a good 75% of my day: nursing the boy in our Lazyboy Rocker.

A couple of the boy's glamour shots.

And now, allow me to present the greatest blessing outfit known to man:

my sister-in-law Ami's custom made commissioned lederhosen!

I have no words, just a fit of foot-stomping-squealy giggles every time I look at it.

This is going to be an heirloom, people

These shoes make me want to weep a little in sheer glee.

He's got his daddy's feet, thank goodness. Maybe he'll luck out and get feet proportional to his height.

And that's all.

The Year of the Letter

2011-02-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

Summer wrote a blog post that really got me thinking about recording things. Her idea of keeping a baby journal is, quite possibly, the best idea ever invented in the entire universe and I'm planning (read: haven't quite done it yet) to do the same for Hyrum. He deserves that much.

I also got to thinking how much I missed getting letters in the mail and I made a decision: 2011 is going to be The Year of the Letter for me. I've always loved getting things in the mail and this year, I want mail that is not just our internet bill or wedding invites (much as we love getting the good news). Good, old-fashioned, lick-and-stick stamp, gum wrappers tucked in the envelope kind of mail. This is what I want. Plus, I have some really awesome stationery I got at a 100 yen store in Fussa, Japan that has sat, flabby fat and lazy in my correspondence drawer and I think it's time to put it to its intended use.

The summer I lived in New York I had several serious pen pals and I got squealy-excited going to get the mail every single day. (Critter, Krista, Jeff, Summer and whoever else: I saved every single one of those letters. They were absolute gems. I got CDs, treats, haikus written on chopstick wrappers, small photographs, original illustrated poems, and a slightly flattened name tag from The Brick Oven that had the name Josh on it.) Emily has been a blessedly diligent correspondent over the last few years, and still kept writing even when I didn't write back. She actually mailed me a letter after The Breakup that was so heartfelt, so tender and so blatantly inspired that I kept it in my purse and read over and over for months.

So, here's what I'm saying: I will write you letters. As a matter of fact, I'll write you first and you won't even be compelled to write back. Heaven knows I've broken the chain of communication a time or two, including not mailing along a hard-copy chain letter that showered dark promises of death, mishap and acne if I didn't send it along to at least three people. I didn't. That's why I got acne.

If you want a letter, drop me a shout out in the comments. If I don't have your address, leave it in the comments or if that makes you feel uncomfortable, you can e-mail me at my regular e-mail address or at lafrobighair@gmail.com and we'll go from there.

Readysetgo.

Supposin' that we should have a third one?

2011-02-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Right now I am sitting in the rocking chair in our apartment, sniffing the head of a little baby boy draped across my chest and taking shallow little breaths.

Ladies and gentleman, he's here. Our little son, our little Hyrum Bridger made his squalling entrance into the world after a two-hour labor and a very terse ride to the hospital, where I had pushing pains not once, but twice. All because I was determined to not bring the baby home to a bathroom where the shower was scummy.

I 'splain this to you.

This little man cub came 16 days early, which meant that I had already spent my first round of nesting in painting and hanging curtains, because it's much more fun to do that than organize your pantry and scrub down the shower. (Stay with me on this...the shower is a very important part of this story. And just saying that makes me feel like the narrator in the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, where he keeps saying, "You must not forget the suspenders, Best Beloved" in a tone that made me simultaneously irritated and wild with suspense.)

So. We spend Friday morning kicking around the apartment celebrating the fact that Adam had the day off--a big fancy breakfast, a soak in the hot tub, and then Adam goes off to retake a test at the college, after which we will go a-temple-ing and buy some groceries.

Except that Adam didn't get home until 4 p.m. and my water broke at 4:15 while I was doing some squats, and my first thought was, "Well, crap, I peed my pants...again." Then I realized that my peanut-sized bladder had not been that accommodating for the last several months and sure enough, it was business time.

Which was why I decided to freak out. I'd been prepping for a natural child birth for months and when it finally came down to it, I was almost inconsolable.

"Why can't you do this?" Adam asked me.
"Because I'm not ready," I sobbed. "I'm not ready and he's coming and the shower is disgusting."
"So...we'll clean it."

Adam gave me a priesthood blessing that I wouldn't freak out, that I'd be calm and trust him and trust God and that everything would be okay. And then I cleaned the shower, packed our hospital bag, and called my O.B. In that order. He encouraged me to go to the hospital since it sounded like yes, I was actually in labor.

"Yeah, but how severe does labor need to be? Like, what's go-time for contractions?"
"Well, if you have 10 contractions in an hour, you're getting really close."

I had had three contractions the half-hour before I called, so I figured I was good.
The next half hour, I had like seven contractions. By the time the last one rolled around, Adam had swept the patio, vaccuumed the boy's room, scrubbed the top of the stove, cleaned the countertops, and I was lying on the living room floor and "thinking what a nice, cheerful thing death would be."

Cutting to the chase here, Adam navigated rush hour traffic on the 101 and commuter traffic on the surface streets like a NASCAR driver. At one point (after my second pushing pain in the car) he forced two cars in front of him through a red light in front of the hospital by laying on the horn and riding the bumper of the truck in front of him. We got to the hospital, he brought me out a wheelchair and a sauntering, pleasant-faced nurse with grey hair who looked at me and said, "Well, she's looking pretty spry to me." And then five seconds later I squalled that I needed to push and she cut the small talk and wheeled me into triage. This was also the same nurse who directed me toward a hospital bed and gown and went to draw the curtains shut, but I was already shucking my modesty in front of God and everybody and she was like, "You know, you can wait...or I guess that's okay."

That nurse was one of a long line of nurses who wanted to make small talk with me in the hospital, and I swore at a particularly perky little gal with brown hair for asking me the same d--- questions over and over about what child this was, if I had any allergies, and how to spell my last name. She explained that they didn't have any of my information in their system, but kindly redirected her questions to Adam after that.

That was about 6:20 p.m. Adam took his place by my side, another nurse at my other side, and at 6:36 p.m. Hyrum came into the world, all grey and waxy and blood-coated and snotty and squalling, and we took one look at him and cried and cried. He was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen. I didn't let the nurses take him away to clean him up for a good 20 minutes after he was born because I couldn't stand to let him go away from me.

We spent our recovery time eating, sleeping, and wheeling Hyrum around the maternity ward and grinning like fools. I'm sure the night nurse was irritated with us because every time she came in to check on us, we asked for more food. The grill was only open from 1-3 a.m. and Adam pointed out that I asked for a grilled cheese sandwich for 12 straight hours before I got one. In the meantime, I kept her running for pudding, lunch boxes, chips, Jell-O, water, juice, cold cereal, fruit platters, and a partridge in a pear tree. And by the way, the cheese sandwich was delicious. Came with a big wad of fries and I ate the whole thing without even waking Adam up to ask if he wanted any.

And now, here is this boy on my lap. We are absolutely, hopelessly, completely conked-out-in-love with him. He's the brightest, shiniest, most beautiful, strongest baby in the entire universe and no, we're not the least bit biased. He's a miracle.

Adam and Valentimes Day: A Pome

2011-02-15T09:59:00.002-07:00

Adam strode in the house at 2 p.m. yesterday
Toting a box of See's Candies as big as my face and a demeanor, soft and sweet
That demanded an immediate cuddle.

We curled up on our faded, flowered, secondhand sofa to exchange cards and candies and to whisper sweet nothings when Adam looked deeply into my eyes and said,
"I really need a nap."

Four hours later, my white knight crawled out of bed.
The same bed he crawls out of in the wee hours every morning in an act of
what used to paralyze me with guilt, and has now faded to a sad inevitability

That I can sleep the extra three (or six) hours without interruption while he sallies forth to bring the bacon.

Warm and tousle-haired, he stumbled out into a mostly clean house

(sans vacuuming, of course)
and we resumed our sojourn on the couch.
I took his bearded face in my two hands and looked deeply into his eyes,
speaking some of the truest words of the evening:

"I really don't want to cook tonight."

So I didn't.

We ate our Cafe Rio by candlelight, sloshed through a cold Apple Beer and half a bottle of The Mormon Bubbly in long-stemmed glasses from Dollar Tree
and then sat in the same glow to read poetry from Robert Frost and one Shakespeare and one From the Portuguese Sonnet, ending with I Like You by Warburg and Chwast

We fell asleep, saturated in Sees Chocolate and a fresh creme brulee
(I did cook something, after all)
in the glow of the laptop playing our favorite Parks and Recreation episode
to a tangled nest of blankets and pillows on the living room floor.

On Parenting

2011-02-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

Adam and I have been making a short list of will-do and won't-dos in parenting ever since we've been married. Now, faced with the prospect of an actual kiddie, I have a feeling that most of our best-laid plans will be flushed away out of weakness, sickness, laziness, and the fact that our kids can't be the robots of obedience we've dreamed they would be. Here's what we've vowed at some point our kids will never do:

Throw temper tantrums
Talk back to us
Turn up their noses at their food
Sleep in our bed
Destroy our belongings
Ditch out on their chores
Compromise our relationship
Sabotage our date night
Vomit profusely (I've never actually vowed this one aloud, but I'm a desperate vomiphobe and fear that the "it's different when it's your kid" adage is a bunch of bullhonkey)
Be the boss of us

This list only covers through about grade school and doesn't even cover the adolescent madnesses of sexual deviation of any kind, drugs, alcohol, porn addiction, video game addiction, stealing from us, and generally paving the high road to jail.

Looking over that list, I always have a sinking feeling that denotes the future crumbling of our ideals or, more appropriately, the fact that some of you veteran parents are laughing your brains out at us right this second.

Let me temper this with the things I actually believe about kids, having never really interacted with them consistently or up-close. The facts are these, as I see them:

Kids come how they come. Our kids will probably look a little like us and may mimic some of the things we do, but fundamentally they are their own people. This simultaneously scares the crap out of me and comforts me. It's scary because if they're not like me, how can I understand them? What if we ended up with a passel of exceedingly ditzy daughters who insist on treading the path of high fashion? What if our sons all turned out to be ferociously gun-toting Daniel Boones who religiously follow sports and hate our No-Super-Bowl policy? (It's true that we don't watch TV on Sunday, but we also don't follow any sports at all, so it wasn't much of a sacrifice.)

What in the world would we have to talk about? And why would they ever listen to us?

The fact that our kids won't be exactly like us is comforting to me, though. On the totally pragmatic side, it seems a kind of insurance policy for me as a mom to know that if they end up in jail at some point, it's not going to be my fault because I will have beaten my brains out to teach them to do right, and then prayed like crazy they would stick to it after they stopped listening to me.

On the idealistic side, I'm just kind of excited to see what sort of melange our family is going to be. After my siblings and I squished through the one-size-fits-all parenting mold, we still ended up with twin Short Fuses, the Negotiator, the Pragmatist, the Funny Guy, the Gentle Giant, the Space Cadet, and the Golden Boy. I am dying to see how our mess of children will pan out, even if that does mean a Daniel Boone and a Barbie or two.

Kids will make me insane some days and I will collapse, weeping in frustration, into the middle of the kitchen floor in a big dramatic heap. I think this speaks for itself. Even not being a mom but only a Primary Chorister, I have seen first-hand the sixth sense that older kids seem to have for identifying your pet peeve or Achilles Heel and then jamming their stubby little finger into that button over and over and over.

I know this because I did this myself. I was in a Sunday School class of virtually the same group of six kids in the Pinedale Ward and for about seven years, we ran through teachers like they were going out of style. Every six months or so we'd get a new one and after getting a dose of these six smart-alecks, they'd be begging to be released. We finally got Brother Peterson to teach our class, and dished out the crap as fast as we did. We were totally floored, and finally succumbed. We'd been beaten at our own game. He rewarded our cooperation with homemade cinnamon rolls and class parties in their backyard, and three years later when I left for BYU, he was still teaching that class.

Kids will destroy everything we own. I actually got this from Jim and Jana Parker, when I was telling them the story of how Adam sat down on a pen that he'd left on the bed and drizzled two big ink blotches on our brand new wedding bedspread. We'd only been married a few weeks and I was almost weeping in fury as I scrubbed at the spots with rubbing alcohol and an old towel. Jim informed me that if I took that same scenario and multiplied the destruction and emotion by about twelve, that's what would inevitably happen to everything we owned.

"Yeah, did you know we have a full olive wood nativity from Jerusalem?" he asked me.
"No way! I've never seen it."
"That's because we've never unpacked it. It's been in the garage for about ten years because I know the second I bring it out, the kids will destroy it."
"Ah."

Kids will be their own reward. No matter how much everything is insane or crappy or we get no sleep or our hands tingle with the primal desire to beat our children just for asking "Please?" for the four hundredth time, I really believe that there will be the moments that make it worthwhile. For example, the fact that I'm giving birth soon is tempered in part by the fact that I'll get to see that look on Adam's face when he holds a new baby much, much more often. Also, that I'll get to hold that baby myself and feel that rush of hopeless, helpless love, as if a cartoon anvil is dropped on my cartoon head (to quote A Girl Named Zippy). I've never known what it was like to actually think a newborn is beautiful, and I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Oh, and also having my bladder back.

Nesting

2011-02-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

I just hit the 36-week mark out of 40, which means I'm basically a month (give or take) away from delivery. I've decided that I'm okay with him making his appearance anytime up to 10 days late, but not 10 days early. I want him to be a March baby because that makes him technically a spring baby, and I'm a spring baby, and I've secretly always felt sorry for people who couldn't manage to be spring babies. (No offense to the 80% of my siblings and in-laws born in fall/winter, or my own husband.)

So. This last week was a latent fit of nesting that started out with no projects and ended up with us buying fabric for curtains for every window and a different color of paint for every room in the apartment. I had totally been bragging to my sister that I hadn't felt that "nesting" urge of wacked-out activity that most poor new mothers did, and then like three days later I ended up eating my words, but not until they were wrapped in upholstery and dipped in a shade of Behr paint known as Aspen Glade or something like that. (It's lovely, by the way. It reminds me of those wacky colonial colors in Mt. Vernon decor, which is the highest compliment I can give to a slick of paint.)

This has also included me demanding that Adam move all the furniture in the living room around so I could finally find my feng shui or whatever in the heck that is when you look at your living space and feel zen instead of feeling like "Good poopstain, if I don't move that bookshelf somewhere else I am going to start eating off my own leg out of spite." Which was how I've felt every time I looked at one of our bookshelves in the living room for the last two months. Adam squeezed and coaxed and then hammered the thing into an alcove in the living room with one of his 25-pound dumbbells and when it was set up, I just sat back in our rocker and grinned at it like a fool.

Per Ami's request, I will post pictures. Just not right now, because my pretty projects are coated in last week's laundry and tax forms. I also need to take a picture of my gut, but I can't do that until I get up and shower and do my hair, and quite frankly, I can't do any of those things until I watch the next Parks and Recreation episode while eating a bowl of generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch. You understand, don't you?

On Cooking, Reading, and Technology

2011-01-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

Cooking

Tonight I accidentally turned a half-and-half whole wheat/white flour bread recipe into a 2/3, 1/3 batch of soggy, crumbly bread and I almost threw out the entire chunk of dough. So I let it sit out on the counter for two hours while we went shopping for random things, in which time the dough soured. (This was the same philosophy that had me pushing leftovers to the back of the fridge in college, and only "remembering" them and pulling them out when they were getting a little fuzzy.)

I was going to throw out the dough, and then I thought of my mother-in-law, who runs blithely into cooking mistakes and most of the time cooks her way out of them. This is how my slightly-soured wheat bread dough is now dotting the counter in the shape of about five dozen little slightly soured, crummy whole wheat rolls, which are much more charming and less depressing than a loaf of the same.

On the upside, Adam treated me to a bowl of pho tonight at our favorite Vietnamese restaurant, which is called UnPhoGettable. I'm a sucker for corny puns, and the soup is also delicious, thanks for asking. We've realized for some time now that our only real hobby is food, and that we would spend our absolute last dollar on something delicious to eat. Food just can't be over-emphasized, especially if it involves coagulated dairy fats and chocolate.

Reading

I don't want to discover new authors. Let me restate this: I am all for new books and new authors and for crying out loud, I want to be a young newly-discovered author myself, but for some reason the commitment of seeking out a new author to love overwhelms me. Even walking into a bookstore and seeing all the new books by fancy new authors I could be reading throws me into a gigantic tailspin and I run home to my stack of L.M. Montgomery novels and read until I can uncurl from the fetal position. Truly. I buy books that I love so I can have them safely near me when the urge strikes to read them. Maybe this is why new books seems so foreign to me. I can handle maybe two, three bestsellers a year, and only if I get a strong recommendation from at least four people I trust. If someone has some insight about how to overcome this, please share.

Also: Adam thinks we own about 800 books. I'm saying it's probably closer to 300, but that's because I cheated and counted the contents of one shelf and multiplied it by the number of shelves. I'm going to have to pin this down someday.

Technology

I know it's called a USB drive or a flash drive or a thumb drive, but my mom was the first person I knew who owned one and she called it "a disk key." It's been seven years now, almost eight years ago that I first heard the term, and I can't shake calling it that.

Also: I may be the only person of my generation who doesn't own a touch-screen phone, and who also desperately doesn't want one. I admit this here: I can do computers, and I can do cell phones--though my texting skills are laborious at best--but I can't handle it when the two meet and make a little baby. I'll fully admit this here, that those smart phones are too smart for me.

The real point of this post
If anyone wants some slightly soured whole-wheat rolls fresh out of the oven, I have about 58 to spare.

The Pregnancy Chronicles

2011-01-11T23:53:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I watched the boy try to beat his way out from the inside, I thought once again how much weirdness is wrapped up in pregnancy. There's a little man inside of me, a little man who has really sharp fists and elbows and who has an absolute genius for connecting them against my right-hand short ribs when I least expect it. He doesn't like me to skip meals, run, sleep on my side, or test the limits of my bladder. He lets me know immediately when I push the envelope, which makes me wonder who the boss really is in all this.

He punches and kicks on his own time. I have tried to trot out the strength of the little guy's kicks as a kind of dog-and-pony show for Adam and other family members, and the boy goes narcoleptic anytime anyone so much as touches my tum.

However, this has not stopped Adam and I from using him as a sort of Magic-8 Ball to solve family disputes. We ask the lad questions like, "Should your dad stop pinching me?" or "Should Mom not be a back-seat driver on the freeway?" and we wait for the affirmative kick.

Which never comes. But it sure is fun anyway.

Symptoms not directly influenced by the boy's break-dancing in my innards are wide-ranging. My current demons are heartburn and incontinence, closely followed by the fact that I can't get in or out of bed without assistance. I can't even get into our bed without a footstool--it sits a good four feet off the ground because we're the Mormons who sleep on top of our food storage--and I can't get out without crab-walking off the end or rolling off the side. Like a sausage. A lumpy one.

Also, I can't perform the following tasks without grunting:

putting on my socks

putting on my shoes

taking off my shoes and socks

putting on my pants

taking off my pants

getting into bed

getting out of bed

rolling over in bed

sitting down

standing up

Basically, any change in position sounds like it's costing me enormous effort because, frankly, it is.

This leads me to the pregnancy benefits. I have really excellent hair right now. I mean, really, really great hair...all glossy and thick and wavy and honestly, it's a joy to do my hair every day. And what's best about it is that I'm keeping it, for now. I shed an uncommon amount of hair in normal circumstances, and it's been nice to have it stay on my head. Very convenient, that. I realize that the good hair can't last forever and I've heard that it falls out in gigantic clumps when pregnancy is over, but I guess that's to be expected. Good hair can't last forever.

Another benefit is the clothes. I'm serious. My wardrobe has been stripped down to the bare minimum--three or four pair of pants, maybe ten shirts, and about three Sunday outfits--and I'm kind of enjoying it. As anyone who knows me personally can attest, I've never had much prowess at dressing myself, and so have found a special kind of peace of mind with having no options. Black pants or jeans? Grey shirt or blue? Or shall I shake it up and wear one of Adam's polos? I have also learned to be grateful for the elastic panel pants because that means it's saved me the effort of undoing buttons and zippers.

But for all the discomfort and body weirdness (did anyone else know that stretch marks could tear vertically? I sure didn't...) I've felt fantastic. Aside from a cold that crippled both of us for most of November, I've been disgustingly healthy. And can I say I really like having this gut without sounding like a weirdo? Because the preggonancy tum is just a very globular and excellent thing. I highly recommend it.

Holiday Photo Dump 2010, or, "How Adam Split His Jeans In Half this New Year's Eve."

2011-01-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

We spent Christmas this year in the hometown with Al/Q/Co., Jake and Erica, and Mom. Here are some pictures from the Nativity re-enactment on Christmas Eve.

What we have here is the Holy Family: Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesusina (who is decked out in a dress my mom made me in 2nd grade).

Jake as the donkey, to which Adam made some smart remark like, "Of course Jake would choose to be the jackass." Hee haw, hee haw...

Al as a Wise Man. I laughed myself silly over the mortarboard. Nice touch, eh?

Baby Jesusina reclines comfortably in the manger.

Mom as our illustrious narrator, reading from Luke II.

Monique as the angel. We were sore afraid.

Erica and I were the shepherds, wielding an ax handle and the bottom half of a folding music stand as our staffs. And did I mention all we could find was pioneer clothes to dress up in? Hence the mop cap.

Adam and Al bring gifts to the Baby Jesusina.

Not the Holy Family, but we probably fit the profile better. Jake remarked that it was ironic how we had two pregnant women in the pageant, neither of whom were playing Mary, and then thought aloud that that was probably just as well, since we'd be riding into Bethlehem on his back.

Christmas Day was just a passel of glory. We watched Al and Monique's kids gleefully tear into a massive pile of loot and I have to say that Christmas is that much more fun when kids are around, the kind that still believe in Santa Claus. What a blast. The adults passed around a few gifts apiece, and Adam bought me a basket for my bike and Beauty and the Beast on DVD. I was squealing with glee. Adam opened the last Wheel of Time book that I had bought for him at Costco a few days before, which still had a bookmark tucked in at about the 1/3 mark. I also bought him a fancy memory foam pillow (which was so hard that it gave him a kink in his neck that night...I'll have to speak to Ikea about this) and a stack of edited DVDs I bought him back in February. He just finished watching The Godfather yesterday, thank you for asking.

We spent Christmas Day and Jake's birthday eating ourselves into a stupor. Adam observed that in about 36 hours, we only moved as far as it took to get us from one feeding place to another, and he was right. We both suffered magnificent heartburn every single night of Christmas vacation, and Adam totally had to get up and go running at midnight on the 26th just to manually jump start his digestion. Ironically, that was the only night of the break I didn't have heartburn, so I didn't spend much sympathy on Adam's plight. I just stayed in bed and tapped away on the laptop and ate some more chocolate.

Christmas afternoon we spent over at Adam's folks' house, where we saw Bridger and Carin's kiddies:

They were, as always, just pants-wetting excited to see Adam.

And deliciously fat and placid.

And feistily wielding a Hulk fist.

And playing princess.

And grudgingly smiling for the camera.

As I said before, we spent Christmas Day eating ourselves into a stupor. Adam had leftover Tom Kah Gai for breakfast (we had it with Vietnamese egg rolls for Christmas Eve dinner and it was a thing of beauty), I think I just had candy out of my stocking and then ate a tangerine out of guilt. We snacked and munched for about five hours, then showered and headed over to his parents' house. Adam's mom was just pulling a full turkey-and-ham spread out of the oven with all the turkey trimmings and ham fixings and we just looked at each other and said, "I could eat."

So we did. We followed up that meal with cake, pie and homemade candy, then sat around and fielded children and watched some TV, and then went home to another full meal that night.

On Jake's birthday my mom hosted an open house for Jake and Erica and we sat around and jabbered for four straight hours with our friends. Al and Q took off for home about two hours in, and after it was over Adam and I went to Mike Williams' parents' house and ate and jabbered some more.

On the 27th we sat around, ate some more, watched some more TV, and then went to see True Grit in the theatre. I had totally hated the original True Grit with a purple passion--not even The Duke could save that movie from the whiny, whiny main girl--but just leave it to the Cohen Brothers to remake a John Wayne movie better than the original. The look! The dialogue! Oh, the dialogue. I was swooning over it. It was needlessly elaborate and to hear Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon and the gal playing Mattie Ross giving ten-dollar soliloquies (Bridges' in a mushy, tobacco-riddled accent) was almost more than I could handle. I was giddy.

Before I go on about True Grit, let me stop and say this: DON'T WATCH THE CABIN SCENE. Seriously. That is one of two scenes that are gratuitously violent, and the other one is when Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross find a hung convict in the forest. Just cover your eyes for about two minutes apiece per scene, and you should be good.

The little gal that played Mattie Ross was totally and sincerely boss--shamelessly articulate and naggy and mouthy and unflappable and I was completely in love with her. She reminded me of my niece Lauren. Give her nine or ten years, and she's going to look and talk exactly like that.

Also: Jeff Bridges was better than John Wayne as this Rooster Cogburn. Don't be mad. It's true.

It was a perfectly excellent way to spend an evening, especially when finished up with a round of Grumpy Jake's BBQ. Man, I miss that place.

So, on to New Year's Eve. We spent the evening with Julie and Brian (who have documented the adventure as well, and better, here) and spent the evening enjoying a few firsts. First first was Brian's homemade mustard chicken bake. Oh mercy. Who knew mustard and corn syrup could make such a holy union when baked over chicken? Luckily, Adam and I had spent enough days eating our own cooking again to enjoy a great meal and I hope we did it justice.

We went out and lit off fireworks in the Seavey's cul-de-sac and had a total blast, wherein there were dramatic crying fits from Alec and screaming-for-joy from Ewan and me almost singeing off my eyebrows in a sprinkler fountain and Adam figuring out how to make the little snake-pellet things go off and Brian being the master pyro and Julie documenting the whole thing. And then the cops came and broke the party up, right after we lit off the last firework. It seriously couldn't have worked out better.

Julie was kind enough to let me make a Texas sheet cake and Adam was kind enough to split his pants open while playing the Kinect with Ewan. He lunged a little too far to one side and most of the back seam parted company to make a hole big enough for him to stick his head through, as evidenced here:

After we scraped our laughing, weepy-with-mirth selves off the floor, Julie got Adam a pair of Brian's Call of Duty pajama pants, which Adam gratefully wore for the rest of the evening.

Also: Adam won every single game that night. We don't know how, especially since we played a Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit game against Julie and Brian both and by all rights they should've spanked our butts in that game. Beginner's luck?

Anyways, here's what would've been our Christmas Card Photo, had we sent out Christmas cards (Meghan, this one's for you)...

...and also a picture of our family motto for 2011, or "The project I finished yesterday while watching 3.5 hours of Parks and Recreation reruns."

Happy New Year to you and yours. Cheers!

A Cake in the House

2011-01-03T23:20:00.000-07:00

I bought a Mennonite cookbook called "Food that Really Schmecks" earlier this year and it's an absolute joy to peruse. The recipes I've tried are solid and the running commentary by Edna Staebler is worth the read. There's an entire section on cakes--one separate from desserts, candies and sweets--called "A Cake in the House" where Edna explains that her mother loved cake so much that she made them constantly. As soon as one was et up, she would say, "I haven't a cake in the house" and would instantly make another one.

I confess this to you now: I love cake. Really and truly. I would rather have cake than pie, cookies, candies, fancy beverages or ice cream. A good cake is a godly thing, and a good spongey cake with solidly good frosting is even better. Especially when served out in a generous wedge in a bowl, milk poured over it and eaten with a spoon for breakfast. Don't judge: you all know you're going to try it next time there's a cake in your house.

Just before New Year's, I was struck with a desire for Texas Sheet Cake so intense that I made two in two days. (One I left at Julie and Brian's house out of respect for my sugar sabbatical, and one I parceled out at Eric and Noelle's house and still came home with half of it. And ate almost all of that half.)

Because it's a new year, and because apparently I'm in a spurt of generous blogging, I will now share my mom's Texas Sheet Cake recipe with y'all, because it really is a great, great cake. And more importantly, it's not a chocolate cake that requires fancy ingredients or an exorbitant amount of eggs or Dutch cocoa or a double boiler. You could probably slap this puppy together with what you have on hand right now. Which makes this the second-most-dangerous cake recipe since the Five Minute Chocolate Cake.

Laurie Frost's Texas Sheet Cake

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together:

2 C flour
1 1/2 C sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

On the stove, melt together in a small saucepan and bring to a boil:

1 C butter (2 sticks)
1 C water
1/2 C cocoa

Add chocolate mix to dry ingredients. Then stir in:

1/2 C buttermilk
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes in a greased jellyroll pan or a cookie sheet with at least a 1" lip. While it bakes, put together this frosting.

Frosting Recipe

First, melt together in a small saucepan:

1/2 C butter (1 stick)
2/3 C cocoa

In another bowl, pour cocoa/butter mix and beat together with an electric mixer:

6 T buttermilk
3 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Spread the frosting on the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. The bottom layer of the frosting melts into the cake, but the top stays solid enough to give you that smooth, dark, slightly sugary cocoa taste that signals a chocolate frosting worth its salt.

Please make this cake. And then bring me some of it. We just ate the last of ours, and I haven't a cake in the house.

More Longing for Home

2011-01-02T21:42:00.001-07:00

Tonight we found ourselves guest-less and mostly free of dishes and laundry, so I got out my violin and ukulele and played Adam whatever he wanted to hear. I ended the impromptu concert for the night on a little number I first heard sung by the BYU Men's Chorus around 1998 at an auditorium in Castledale, Utah. It's called "Song for the Mira", and the second-to-last verse of the song goes like this:

Out on the Mira the people are kind
They'll treat you to home-brew and help you unwind
And if you come broken they'll see that you mend
I wish I was with them again

I have a faint memory of sitting in the dim concert hall, the line about "and if you come broken, they'll see that you mend" stirring me to the depths of my thirteen-year-old heart. Tonight, I revisited that memory as I plunked away on the uke to sing this song for Adam. Except this time I was singing it, that same line stirred a deep surge of homesickness in me to the point that I broke down and wept like a small child into the front of Adam's sweater vest. I partially blame it on pregnancy hormones, but I also think that the "longing for home" that Mormons sing about digs deeper than to the place where we grew up.

I had a good childhood, surrounded by good people who told me straight if I was stepping out of line, but who also picked me up and dusted me off when I fell on my face.

They weren't glamorous people, these home-folk. There was something about dealing with harsh weather and dirt roads and unreliable vehicles and livestock that buffed the varnish off most of them. We didn't sit around in wing-backed armchairs and discuss the classics while nibbling dainties. Most of my friends (myself included) would've chosen a Navajo Taco over a fancy cheese. Most of our families owned firearms of various sizes and we knew how to use them. We also knew how to change a tire, brand a calf, stretch a fence, dig a snow cave, get a 15-passenger-van unstuck in a muddy driveway, light a fire, siphon gas out of a tank, saddle a horse, and navigate a bike through three inches of cinders. (Also, we knew what cinders were.)

As I said, these were not glamorous people, but they were real. They didn't mince words, but they also showed up when they said they would show up. When it came time to pitch in, they came early and stayed late and worked their butts off for little more than pats on the back. When my dad died, some good souls took to heart the scripture in James 1:27 about "visiting the...widows in affliction" and by the time winter hit, my mom had four--count 'em, four--woodpiles to choose from to keep the fires going in our home. These were the people I knew and who took care of us without criticism or expectation or repayment.

I think that there are a lot of us, probably most of us, that are still looking for that semblance of home, of belonging somewhere. I think that most humans' actions can be traced back to this. From political activism to church worship to gang activity to the NRA, the desire to belong to something bigger than ourselves is strong in all of us.

For me, the desire to belong, my "longing for home", is just finally getting to a place where my family and I can all sit together in love and harmony, to go no more out. I already have a place where I belong, but between distance and death and birth and births-to-be, a few of the chairs stand empty. Someday I will see them all filled, and then I will finally be home.

The Ostrich Factor

2010-12-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

My little bro and sis-in-law and I were having a discussion (ie, a heated debate) over the Christmas break about whether it was in one's best interest to willingly engage in information or media that make you uncomfortable, sad, angry, or depressed. The criteria of what was acceptable was a) the media had to be hard to partake of for a reason, such as educating you about deep societal ills or social crises in other parts of the world, and b) not just depressing for the sake of being artfully depressing.

I said that I chose not to watch movies or read books that were sad without resolution or hope because I'm an escapist. I figure that I can get a cold dose of reality whenever I want, but I can only be entertained or, dare I say, enchanted at the movies every so often. It doesn't happen a ton that I get really truly sucked into a good story or smacked with some really excellent dialogue or have my wimpy little heart give a squeeee at the romance playing out on the screen, and I cling to those moments when they come.

My little brother asked if I was an escapist because I needed that outlet to flee from the cruelties of real life and I said no. It's true: my life is not hard. It's pretty great, a majority of the time. He made a good case for hard-to-watch movies because they are a type of education and perspective that some of us couldn't get any other way. I said yes, that's right, but I figure that in my life I will have my crosses to bear and my battles to fight and I don't see the sense in gearing up for them in advance with Hollywood depictions of social malaise.

I told the story to my sister the next day, and asked her straight out if I buried my head in the sand. She said yes, I did, but it was just my way of dealing with things that scared me.

Here's the thing: everyone's entitled to be what they want to be, and care about the things they want to care about. With this in mind, I find it interesting that I have been patronized, accused of being thick-headed and warned to just grow up for expressing the following opinions that I hold:

Most of the time, everything is basically okay. Sometimes things go to crap, but mostly they turn out okay.
Worrying about bad things before they happen will not compel them to turn out okay, or even affect their outcome in any way, but it sure as hell gives me an ulcer in advance.
People do the best they can, most of the time.
I don't really believe in politics, nor do I see the sense in political discussions for sport. This is because political discussions also give me ulcers, mostly because I walk away feeling like an idiot.
I will have an opinion on almost everything, and I promise you that I don't want to defend it. I just want to have it without backing it up with logic.
When I am compelled to defend my position with logic, I will talk in circles for an hour before finally coming to the one solid nugget of sense in my argument, by which time entire nations have fallen and my audience is cleaning their nails with a pocketknife.
I don't have to be busy, and I don't have to make myself busy. I can barely keep up with basic responsibilities as it is, and I will never try to fill up the extra hours I have with something else. I think this position will solidify my stance as the only lazy kid in my family.
I don't think I'll ever hold a position of public office in my entire life. Period. My short career in government work burned that out of me.
I can be a kid for the rest of my life. I will absolutely go down fighting for that right until I die, along with the right to see kid movies in the theatre.
My husband is the greatest man in the world, mostly because he came that way and also because I treat him that way.
Goose liver pate is disgusting, no matter how you dress it up.

Well, there you have it. My entire life philosophy in one blog post. Happy freaking New Year!

Das Buch Too

2010-12-30T06:53:00.000-07:00

The book is finished.

It is going in a padded envelope to New York today.

It is a teen rom-com. It's corny. It's riddled with cliches. It didn't have a title until 2:30 p.m. yesterday. It's overly sentimental in places, not sentimental enough in others, and doesn't sport a single supernatural creature of any kind. (Though Ben/Crystal/Krista/Holly encouraged me last night to write a sequel with zombies in it to ride the teen paranormal romance wave, and I thought aloud that Simon Pegg would come for my brains if I did.)

But but but, it is done. That's the point.

And it's going to New York today.

In a padded envelope.

Wish us all luck.

And check back in April.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

2010-12-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

I sit here tonight in the living room in the glow of the Christmas lights on our real, live, Christmas tree. Adam is stirring slightly in the bedroom, where he has been lying fully clothed in our bed, absolutely dead asleep for the past two hours. The man has been burning the midnight oil at both work and school, leaving at 5:15 a.m. some days to catch the train to work and wandering back in right before darkness sets in. He finished up his classes this semester with alarmingly good grades and has been using his free time to pick up any extra shifts and so is mostly exhausted, most of the time. We were going to the temple tonight and after finishing an episode of Lie to Me on Hulu.com, looked at each other and said, "We'll go tomorrow morning." We even picked a specific time to hold us to it. Ten a.m. We'll be there. If we wake up in time.

There's something about this lighting that makes me feel all soft and pensive and wonder a little about things. I figured now was as good as any time to blog a little bit. I've actually been embarrassed to be a consistent blogger at times in my life, thinking it was a mark of someone who didn't have the confidence or a real confidante to express their deepest feelings to, and so used the World Wide Web as a dumping ground. I married Adam and found a safer place for me to vent my spleen and weep my little weeps, and so outgrew that need for the blog. However, this is the only semi-constant record I keep of our lives, which makes me wish I was more consistent.

Twenty-Ten was the year of shake-it-up changes. Two-thousand-nine ended with me getting sick over the stress of my 2.5 year job, then getting sick enough of said job to consider looking for another. Twenty-ten began with me miraculously landing another job I really liked, which I maintained for about seven months. In the meantime, Adam was accepted into a physical therapy assisting program in Phoenix, and landed a job at a Phoenix hospital, and all of a sudden we were moving.

I was just so freakin' excited. I had loved the last few years back in the hometown, among the home folks, and suddenly I was dying to be among people who I didn't know and who didn't know me. I worried a little about Adam, who wasn't used to being away from his family, which was an area where I, lamentably, was the expert.

I shouldn't have worried. We moved, we settled into an apartment, a really nice little apartment and I actually took to our new city like a little duck to a small, lukewarm, slightly scummy pond. The shopping! The access to good food! The paved roads wherein I could ride my bike around! Adam even took to a change in scenery--and being in a ward where people didn't accidentally refer to him as "Brother Frost" in his calling--and became the chattiest, most outgoing version of himself that I had ever seen. (He suffered more in the heat and traffic, though.)

By this time, I was pregnant. Just a few months pregnant, just enough to be feeling the last few waves of the nausea before settling into a new body that was achy and itchy and twice my size, though with incredibly good hair. I spent three weeks looking for a job, and six weeks in said job. Those weeks were spent quietly eating away the nausea and trying to figure out how to tell my boss that I was pregnant.

And then, as quickly as I was hired, I was let go. We spent several days wracking our brains and praying what we should do, and the only thing I felt good about was to not go back to work. My inner skeptic scoffed at this, saying that this was the type of feeling that also inspired people to quit their jobs and try for a new second career as a standup comedian. My skeptic lost the battle, and I've never looked back or regretted my decision. Adam stepped up to the plate as sole breadwinner, we mercilessly slashed our budget and paid our tithing, and God made up the difference.

I cannot spell out fully all the blessings that have been showered down on us this year. The mere fact that we could afford a fresh, live Christmas tree and a box of oranges and the fixings for homemade Christmas candy and still pay all our bills and obligations is a testament to a lot of things: Adam's consistency, my housewifely skill of stretching-the-dollar, the generosity of our families, the kindness of neighbors, the goodness of friends, the goodness of God. We're happy, we're healthy, we're alarmingly well-fed, the little laddie kicks me mercilessly in places I didn't even know he could reach, and I think about all these things, one after another, as I sit here and tick away on my working computer on a comfortable sofa, breathing in the sharp smell of a fresh Christmas tree that is lit by the bacon my husband brings home every day.

These are all Christmas miracles enough for me.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

Das Buch

2010-11-30T07:25:00.002-07:00

I haven't been on here for a few reasons:

1. I have nothing relevant or interesting to say.

2. Adam and I were sick-as-dogs the first two weeks of November with the Granddaddy of All Colds, and spent our free time sleeping and reeking of onion poultices by turns.

3. We've been in Snowflake for the last three or four consecutive weekends, getting babied and fed and coddled and baby-showered (bless you, Beki!) by his family. While Adam works for his dad to keep bringin' in the Benjamins while hours at the hospital are slow.

4. His parents don't have internet at their house, but I do occasionally wrassle with Katy's (Adam's little sister) fancy touch screen phone to check e-mail or search for road closures online (curse you, ADOT!) and vow every time that I will never own one. Mostly because it's so complicated that it makes me feel stupid and fat-fingered.

5. Penguins.

Okay, but here's a real update: I AM WRITING A BOOK. When October met me with the combined gifts of unemployment, full-time gestation, and finally getting our house in order, I was finding myself with inordinate amounts of free time, which I spent perusing Google Reader's recommended sources section for something like four hours at a stretch.

So, I decided to kick off with National Novel Writing Month, which is November 1-30, and really adorably named "Thirty Days of Literary Abandon!" The goal is 50,000 words in 30 days, but I already cheated since you were supposed to start from scratch and I brought 20,000 words to the table that I had written while doing this last year (bless you, Alicia!).

Nonetheless. I am on 159 pages, my word count is currently 39,814, and I am following a hard writing deadline for fiction for the first time since probably 2005. Maybe 2006. And it's the last day of the contest. Which means I have to crank out probably another 30 pages before I hit the pillow tonight. Oh, and do some laundry. Poop.

The point of this whole meandering post is to say this: I am doing this entire thing to enter it in the 29th Annual Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel, which, I told my family, I have slightly more chance of winning the lottery as winning this contest.

This is not false modesty. This story is crap. I have never written so much consecutive crap in one document in my whole entire life and it hurts me deeply in some ways, and in other ways thrills me to the core. I am just about to finish my first book. It's riddled with plot holes and tired similes and unbelievable scenarios and trite, overarching and crapulous dialogue and it follows the plot of probably 35 rom-coms, but it is mine. By this same reasoning, on the off chance our kid inherits my side of the family's Monkey Baby gene, we will still love him desperately because, hey, we made him that way.

So. Wish me luck. Wish Ami luck, for she's going to be the first set of eyes to see my literary firstborn in all its glory. And, if it's as spectacularly bad of a screwup as I imagine it will be, she might be the last.

Thoughts of a Stay-At-Home-Gestating-Wife

2010-10-28T09:25:00.003-07:00

So, in case you were wondering about the uptick in Facebook activity or the magic sprinkling of excessive free time over my life, the fact is that I lost my job almost a month ago.

Easy come, easy go, I guess.

We made the decision to wind it back to a one-income family to prepare for the birth of the Man Cub, mostly because a) we'd decided I wouldn't work full time after the lad was born anyway and b) who in their right mind is going to hire a 4.5-months-pregnant woman for work in any capacity? I'm a time bomb.

So. I've been realizing that depending on the day, the dawn-to-dusk either has six-and-a-half hours, or thirty. It depends on how long my nap is, or how much time I waste on the Internet, or how many places I choose to ride my bike.

Which brings me to my next point: for the first time since 2002, I've been grounded from driving. This is because I tried to occupy the same space as another car, which we all know from our physics class is impossible, but I was trying to warp matter with my mind. Instead, I warped the front right bumper, smashed out the headlight, screwed up the alignment and had to take a defensive driving class (first one since 2001). Adam was very nice about it when I called to tell him, but he grounded me from driving.

All in all, my little physics error is going to cost us about $700, but I've gotten pretty good at enduring long distances on my bike, or making excuses not to leave the house.

Though this has been a blow to my mobility and my pride--seeing mostly that Atticus looks more like Rocky Balboa these days--it's been good for keeping my weight down with this pregnancy, and making me a bit more creative.

It's amazing what a really strict budget (read: no money to do anything, really) will make you do. I've been scraping and hoarding foodstuffs in a way that would make my mom proud. I made my own purse when my other one went to crap. I made bread when we ran out and it turned out not very terrible. I've turned to thrift stores and SAS Fabrics By The Pound for retail therapy and am using a library card religiously for the first time in my life.

And speaking of budgeting to all you people of the Valley, where is a good place to get cream and butter at wholesale prices? Also, milk? And eggs? These are the things that eat a hole in our food budget because we are too snobby to cut them out or even use less of them.

Some real conversations we have recently had

2010-10-28T09:14:00.003-07:00

Scene: Adam and I walk into the house after an FHE/date at the Desert Botanical Garden. The dishes are piled high, the garbage reeks, and there's a five-day-old felt sewing project scattered in front of the sofa and strewn around the house. I dash to the sink and try to obliterate the mess with my mind.

Adam: So, honey, what did you do today?

Me: [beat]...is it that obvious?

Adam: Yeah, yeah it is.

Scene: We're getting ready for the day.

Adam, from the shower: Honey, what are you going to be for Halloween.

Me: The White Rabbit. I need to buy a t-shirt today. What are you going to be?

Adam: I dunno. What should I be?

Me: You could be the Jabberwock.

Adam: How would I do that?

Me: ...we could paint "JABBERWOCK" on a green t-shirt.

Adam: No. [thinks] I want to put a pumpkin on my head.

Me: Um, okay.

Scene: I'm making Adam breakfast this morning like a good and virtuous wife, which never happens because he leaves so dadgum early.

Me: You could wear your "With great moustache comes great responsibility" shirt and a cape.

Adam: And be what?

Me: Um...Moustache Man.

Adam: No. [thinks] I want to put a pumpkin on my head.

Me: Um, okay.

[silence and munching]

Me: Honey, the size of the pumpkin you'd have to find to actually fit over your head would be gigantic.

Adam: Thanks.

Me: No, seriously. Think about it.

Adam: Yeah.

[silence and munching]

Adam: How about I drape my head in fabric and wear a cape and carry a pumpkin? Then I'd be the headless horseman.

Me: YES.

So, on the docket for today is to find some material, make a cape, and get a t-shirt to paint "I'm Late" and a gigantic pocket watch on the front and "For a very important date" and "March 6, 2011" on the back. Thanks to Alicia for the idea...the best Halloween costume idea I'd heard of to date was a pregnant nun.

You wanna be a man, man cub?

2010-10-19T21:48:00.003-07:00

This, friends, is our man cub. We are preparing to welcome this little guy into the world around March 2011 which mean yes, I'm about halfway pregnant and no, I haven't told all of you until right this second.

The story is this: we got a really beautiful baby blanket on Christmas Day from one Toni G. Gaines and started talking about how cool it would be to make a baby to go into that baby blanket. Which we did, obviously.

Except here's the funny part: this was a girl. I mean, it was a girl baby blanket and besides, Adam was sure this fetus was a girl. I felt kind of like I had no idea what the baby was going to be, then thought it was a boy, then was absolutely dead certain it was a girl. Dead certain. Like, I felt it in my mind and in my heart that it was a girl just last night.

And then, today, Adam and I sat in the office, me laying on the table with the technician rubbing that weird warm goo on my gut and trying to get the fetus to cooperate and it was like, "Um, do you mind?" and holding its hand strategically so we couldn't really see anything.

And then, there it was. That little nub that announces that this is a man cub, and all our preconceived notions of parenting our first, perfectly adorable little girl go sailing out the window and I'm like, "Oh wow. Oh WOW." And Adam is laughing fit to kill and we're both calling it "he" for the first time in four months and it feels mostly really weird. And also really, really exciting.

I did have a moment of panic. I was sitting in the bathroom (the technician asked me to go empty my bladder to see if we could get the lad to move around a bit more and I was only too happy to oblige) and all of the sudden I thought, "Oh good crap, I'm going to have to give him The Talk in like 14 years." And then I realized that Adam would do that, of course, and then the sun came out again.

Also, apparently the entire sentient universe was on the "This fetus is a boy" vibe except us. Adam's mom, two to three of my sisters-in-law, two of my brothers, one of Adam's nieces and our friend Freddy all said, "I told you so" when we called with the news. Adam's niece Hailee actually called Adam right before he stepped into the doctors' office and said, "You have a boy." She's three years old. And she totally called it.

There are so many things we want to do with this kid. For one, thanks to Everett Lowder, I want to dress him up in overalls and go pick fruit in an orchard. I want to take him fishing, Adam wants to take him camping. We want to read him books and sing him songs and teach him to cook and spank him when he's bad and love on him when he's good. And teach him to protect his sisters (my gut is that we'll tend more to girls at the end of the day) and ride a bike and make a fist and sew on his own buttons and wash dishes and a million, billion other things.

Welcome to the world, Man Cub. Or at least the Internet. We're so happy to have you around.

Year Two

2010-10-05T07:32:00.003-07:00

We went camping for our anniversary up by Big Lake, AZ, which is on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. It's one of the most beautiful spots in Arizona, and we finally got to experience a proper piece of fall for the first time this year. We were almost weeping with joy to finally roll our car windows down and be able to inhale the spicy-sweet smell of rotting aspen leaves and pine and creek water and damp, rich earth on the air.

That smell...I never think I'll actually get over that smell. It's so evocative of the best parts of childhood summer, the times where you fished and hiked and got gradually smokier from sitting around a campfire in the same red sweatshirt and not changing your shirt for two days and wiping your dirty hands on your pant leg as many times as you dang well felt like it.

Adam was so excited he kept being like, "Quick, take a picture!" to which I'd say, "It's getting kind of dark" or "We're driving kind of fast, aren't we?" to which he'd say, "Can you just take a picture anyway?" and I'd say, "Okay." And this is what I got:

Photography by Flash Gordon.

We set up camp in the dark by the light of an itty-bitty Coleman propane lantern that Adam bought on a whim right before we left from our apartment. I was incredibly grateful for that lantern over the next two days and nights because it was like Mighty Mouse. And luckily, the second mantle-meshy-lighty thing on the lantern withstood our general ignorance of How To Prep a Propane Lantern, or else we would've been up a creek. (Hee!) I blamed my dad for never letting me light our gigantic Coleman propane lantern as a child, but after watching the flame billow around the globe of the lantern in a puff of propane when the lighter strikes, I couldn't much blame him anymore.

We set up the tent, shivered down into our doubled-up flannel sleeping bag, and slept for 10 hours. I should say that Adam slept for 10 hours without even rolling over, because he inexplicably is more comfortable sleeping on the bare earth than anyone I've ever known. I woke up around 3 a.m., and just laid awake for an hour looking up at the stars and breathing a small prayer of thanks that we could see the stars at all. So, I only slept 9 hours. You may pity me now.

The next day we had grand ambitions to hike Pacheta Falls and for me to fish at Pacheta Creek, which was the fishing spot of my childhood. After driving around for a solid two hours on washboardy Reservation roads, Adam dodging boulders like a Nascar driver, boulders that lurked in the shadows across the road and jumped up to tear out Atticus' undercarriage and puncture the oil pan, we finally called it quits. A Tribal official told us the area was a) at least another 30 miles over that road and b) closed for the trophy elk hunt that was taking place that month. So we drove back to camp to prep for Adam's parents and Katy to come visit.

Speaking of fishing, Adam bought me a fishing pole for our anniversary and I caught three extraordinarily small trout with it on our way back to camp that afternoon. I found that I'm actually more squeamish than I used to be. The whole pinching-a-nightcrawler-in-half, threading-it-wiggling-on-a-hook and pulling-a-gasping-fish-out-of-the-creek system has finally caught up with me. I got the hook stuck pretty deeply into a small fish and I called Adam to help me pull it out. I gave it a few limp tugs, and Adam gave it a few slightly stronger tugs, and when the blood really started rushing out of the hole I finally said, "Do you not have the guts to rip it out either?"

"No, I don't."

"Okay. Let's just cut the line loose."

Guess a pair of needle-nosed pliers are the next thing on my list of Camping Items to Buy.

Here are the two extraordinarily small fish I caught and which we carefully gutted, roasted, pulled apart and ate. And somewhere, Katie and Cameron McNeil are laughing at me right now.

Adam's parents and sister Katy came to our campsite and we proudly showed them our hammock, a small canopy we'd strung to have a place to sit out of the rain (consisting of three trees, a piece of binder twine, a 10x10 tarp and a tall sharp stick) and our campfire. Then we made hobo dinners and ate them and generally enjoyed the really, really excellent night.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference for the Mormon church, so we watched our church leaders give talks on TV for most of those two days, inbetween which we ate and ate and ate Adam's mom's good food and fielded nieces and nephews and generally had the beautifully relaxing and chaotic-with-children weekend we were expecting.

This is Adam with our Wonder Niece Mairead (pronounced muh-RADE).

When I expressed envy at her fatness, her placidness, her good temper and general good nature, Adam's brother Bridger said she was what they called a Mercy Baby. Like, the Lord sends you a baby like this when He knows if you get another tough one you'll curl up and die. So he said our chances of getting a Mercy Baby right off the bat were slim.

In short, out of two anniversaries, this one is by far my favorite. Year Two is over, and we begin Year Three with a new city, a new life, new job and new friends. Thank you, honey, for being my rock, my one constant in a sea of unfamiliarity. Here's to Year Three and the changes it brings.

Lord of the Flies Discussion: Everybody Participate.

2010-09-23T21:56:00.004-07:00

Adam and I were talking over our dinner of grilled cheese and Italian wedding soup (a really bad combo, by the way, which was born of necessity since we were out of tomato soup and that Italian wedding soup was the can closest to me when I opened the pantry).

Here was the discussion that sparked up: had Lord of the Flies happened with a plane-full of little girls instead of little boys, what would the outcome be?

I said since girls are naturally hard-wired for preservation of the needs of the whole over preservation of the needs of the individual, they would bond together and survive longer.

Adam said that girls would take longer to snap, but snap they eventually would, and they would kill and eat each other with more vigor than the boys could possibly muster.

So here's the question to you all: what would happen if a plane-full of little girls, ages 9 to 13-ish, crashed on a desert island and no adults survived the crash?

Discuss.

No, really. I want to know what you think. The only reason I'm posting this is genuine curiosity, so leave me a comment and give me your two cents.

The Night the Bed Fell, and Other Night Terrors

2010-08-27T18:08:00.002-07:00

I have a sneaking suspicion I've written a post of that name before...hmm.

Oh well.

~L'Editeur

I tend to sleep close to the edge of the bed, especially now when the weather is ridiculously hot and soggy and there ain't a breeze to speak of in 50 miles. This is the time that tries my mountain-air-loving-soul, and makes me sleep with one leg dangling over the edge of the bed.

Adam went to sleep before I did one night last week, and after a wee (and on his part, comatose) cuddle, he of course was burning me to a crisp. So I positioned myself next to the edge of the bed and duly stuck one leg out to catch a cool spot.

All of the sudden Adam has leaped across the bed and both hands are locked under my rib cage, hauling me back into the middle. Away from the cool spot.

"Honey," I say. "What are you doing?"

Adam blinks awake.

"I'm so sorry, honey," he says. "I dreamed you were falling off the bed."

"Nope," I say, stifling a giggle. "I'm fine."

He bemusedly retreats to his side of the bed, I turn on my back, and he drapes one leg over me. When the heat from his limb threatens to sear my skin off, I nudge out from under it and wiggle my posterior to my side of the bed, praying that the AC will come on and blast me.

Again Adam bolts upright and drags me away from the edge of the bed, away from the cool spot in the room, and then wakes up enough to apologize for thinking that I'm falling off the bed.

It wasn't until the third time that Adam dragged me over (this time by seizing my upper thigh and pulling me by one leg across the sheets) that it suddenly wasn't funny anymore. I was furious. Adam was mightily embarrassed.

A compromise was struck: I would stay close enough to him that I could sleep with my foot touching his leg, and he would know that that contact meant that I wasn't actually falling off the bed and stop waking up to drag me bodily away from the cool spot.

It worked like a charm.

More Dreams I Have Had, and Moving Goo

2010-08-11T09:37:00.004-07:00

We moved. We survived. We are still up to our eyebrows in boxes and stuff, but at least the kitchen is unpacked. And the bed is set up. I will have to show you pictures of it, because it's friggin' hilarious how high it is off the ground.

Also, last night I had a dream that Adam booked us a room in a really nice, old-fashionedy hotel for our second anniversary. At the last second, the lady who was showing us around said she'd accidentally given away our room, but would we mind sharing our room with three other couples? Adam said no, not at all, no problem and I was completely livid. When I woke up at 3 a.m., I was still mad at him.

I was mad at him for the rest of the night. At one point, there was a pile of pillows and blankets in the middle of the bed between us and it was making me too hot, so I sat up and THREW them off the bed with all my strength. (Adam told me later that he had one eye open for that and thought I was being unnecessarily vehement.) Then twice Adam stuck his hand under my pillow, which made a lump under my head, which made me SO MAD again and I sat up and gave him the crustiest look, which of course he missed because he was mostly comatose. And then I turned my back to him and scooted away.

I had a good laugh when I woke up this morning, because I had spent the night giving Adam crusties and the cold shoulder for no good reason, and he missed the whole thing anyway.

A Leap from the Lion's Head

2010-07-26T19:09:00.003-07:00

We are counting down T-minus two weeks from Adam's start date at his new job.

I still haven't found a job.

We still haven't found a place to live.

To comfort myself, I keep reminding me about the time my brother Nate got a call from a law school in Las Vegas no one had heard of TWO DAYS before he was supposed to report to another law school in southern Utah. The Vegas school offered him some sort of incentive that sweetened the deal to the point that he called the other school that day and said he wasn't coming. TWO DAYS before he was supposed to be there, he changed horses in the middle of the stream and moved to Vegas, met Biz and then they married and made very blonde children. All the knee-jerk work of TWO DAYS rapid decision-making and he ended up where he was supposed to be.

I am hoping for a story like that for us. I'm about to be unemployed. We are traveling to Jake's wedding on a laughable shoestring budget. Then we drive home, pack, pay for a moving truck, and drive straight into the unknown.

Except by then I'm hoping the Lord drops a home and a job in our lap. God, if you're reading this, two days' advance notice would be mighty handy.

How I really feel about my iPod, and music I wish I had.

2010-07-23T09:20:00.003-07:00

I have to be honest with you right now. I am a little bit scared of my iPod.

The convenience is awesome, to be able to carry obscene amounts of music around at my disposal. However, I secretly own a poopload of music. I now own so much music that I haven't even listened to all of it. My iPod has turned into something like my file cabinet. I have no idea what's lurking around in there, and sometimes I'm a little nervous about what I might find.

I really miss the days of just putting in a CD--one good, reliable album that I knew by heart--and singing along with every word. This is why really, truly, I want to stash up on full albums that will serve that purpose.

Here are albums I wish I had on disc.

1. Glee Season 1, Vol. 3

2. The entire line of Disney's Greatest Hits CDs

3. The Hazards of Love by the Decemberists

4. The Muppets 25th Anniversary album. I lent it to Jake and he lost it.

5. Dan in Real Life soundtrack

6. Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor (and her Live in California album too)

7. Furr and Wild Mountain Nation by Blitzen Trapper

8. She and Him, Volume One

9. New Moon soundtrack (don't laugh, there are some embarrassingly good tunes in that movie)

Here are artists I wish I owned a lot more of:

1. Mahalia Jackson

2. Marty Robbins

3. Johnny Cash

4. Spoon

5. Travis

6. Oren Lavie

7. A mess of artists I never heard of before I signed up for the KEXP Song of the Day podcast: Laura Veirs, Bishop Allen, Larkin Grimm, The Duchess and the Duke, The Fruit Bats.

8. Ben Folds

9. Shara Worden (she did a cover of Michael Buble's "Feelin' Good" that had me stomping my feet in glee)

Here are the albums I'm actually listening to, over and over:

1. Give Up, The Postal Service

2. Far, Regina Spektor

3. Muppet Hits, The Muppets

4. Picaresque, The Decemberists

5. Queen's Greatest Hits, Queen

6. Plans, Death Cab For Cutie

7. One of those Artist's Choice compilations of Johnny Cash's favorite artists (including Linda Ronstadt...who knew?)

Home

2010-07-19T09:36:00.003-07:00

I watched The Wizard of Oz on Friday because we've packed up all of our DVDs and I've resorting to robbing my mom's VHS stash upstairs.

I was sitting on the couch, doing a cross-stitch and watching Judy Garland do her thing. I've always been floored by how badly she wanted to get out of Oz and go back to Kansas. She could live in color for the rest of her life! She could be surrounded by beautiful people and magic and I bet the food was better, too! But no, she spends all her energies in getting back home to the people she loves and at the end she's sitting up in bed, all sepia colored and clutching Toto and repeating over and over, "There's no place like home!"

That's how Friday afternoon found me curled up on the love seat and weeping sore over the end credits of The Wizard of Oz. There really is no place like home, and it's starting to kind of punch me in the gut that we're leaving.

Loose Change

2010-07-12T09:42:00.003-07:00

So.

We are moving.

We decided about six weeks ago that we needed to get Adam in closer proximity to his PTA program in Phoenix. He applied for a job in the neurotherapy ward of a hospital downtown and had the job wrapped up about two days later. We have had a chuckle about the fact that I'm the college grad and yet I have no marketable skills. Not even nun-chuck skills.

The last few weeks have been feverishly sifting/sorting/throwing things out/trying to find a place to live/trying to find me a job. I could not fathom all the things that we owned and didn't even know we had. We have taken four or five truckloads of stuff to The Dog House, I've pawned off almost every formal gown I owned on my sister in law Katy, we've pared down probably five boxes of books and 20 DVDs and mounds of kitchen goo and winter wear and yet this house is still breeding stuff.

I am sincerely dreading opening the tote of mementos from my childhood, getting two gigantic drawersful of socks mated and the singles thrown out, paring down jewelry, throwing out half-empty toiletries, sifting through our camping gear, and finally finding something to do with a stash of bath salts and lotions that have been waiting patiently to be used since 2001. Oh, and the Suitcase o' Fun* has exploded in the last five years. It must be cut to the bone.

I have sifted through two of five drawers in two filing cabinets (ie, the black hole of papers doomed to remain with me through eternity) and marveled over the fact that I've saved 7th grade algebra notes, awards for Dancesport in college, birthday cards from friends long forgotten, and yet STILL can't find either our marriage certificate or my social security card. Beer me strength.

*The Suitcase o' Fun is a stash of manky 70s dress up clothes I've been patiently collecting since 1998. It now is a suitcase, two bedding bags and a box. Lately it's been an excuse to keep all the fun wonky clothes I've owned and worn in my wild youth, and can't seem to part with. I think I could get through getting rid of a lot of them if I could just hold a ceremonial burning in the backyard.

Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity

2010-06-15T10:36:00.004-07:00

I have finally fulfilled my childhood dream of having a constant fashion accessory in the form of a pair of real glasses. On my face. All the time.

Behold:

No matter that I've lost the chance to be everyone's maiden auntie. I can still perfect the over-your-glasses scowl of Tom Sawyer's Aunt Polly. She was such a kill-joy.

Turn in your library books on time, or die a fiery burning death.

Also: Adam has suddenly started wearing his glasses again in sheer envy of my good lookin' specs. Nerds unite.

P.S. It's really hard to take a picture with glasses and not get the glare. Remind me to scan and post the family picture where the photographer made Paul tweak his head to about a 45-degree angle to stave off the glare. That picture still makes me laugh.

P.P.S. Ami, I will pay you $10 if you post The Nerd Family picture on your blog. That is a thing of beauty.

Dreams I Have Had, pt. 5

2010-05-27T13:14:00.002-07:00

Last night I dreamed that I was propositioned by an old, white-haired and slightly rotund gentleman in a ringmaster's uniform to be his bride. He seemed nice enough, and he was filthy rich, and I forgot I was married to Adam (as I always do in my dreams, which irks Adam to no end), so I said yes.

Turns out he was a member of the Russian mafia and I'm pretty sure he was trying to kill me. He killed two people who were trying to protect me from/warn me about him by shooting them with what looked like bullets but were actually bullets topped with little razor blades that gouged them from the inside.

I finally realized who he was, and what he was doing, and so I ran away. And not in that sluggish cement-feet running that I always do in dreams; I was bookin' it.

All of the sudden, I ran into Adam in our backyard. It all came back to me in a flash. I was married already! To Adam! Who was for some reason digging a giant water-filled trench in the back lawn! It was actually a canal, and I knew this because it was marked on its banks with a giant C.

"Hide me," I gasped.

"Jump in the canal," Adam said, and pushed me in.

I spent a few frenzied moments digging out a place in the side of the bank that would not only hide me from the Ringmaster's eye, but would leave room enough to keep one nostril up out of the water. It was maddening because no sooner would I dig a suitable slightly-submerged spot, the banks would crumble away and I would be slowly bobbing toward daylight.

All of a sudden, through the murky water I could see (through my one nostril?) a tall dark man standing at the edge of the banks. He was asking Adam something. Adam shook his head. The man pulled out the same gun that shot those little mini razor blades and I knew that the Ringmaster had sent him.

Adam pushed him into the canal and I stood on the man's shoulders to try and drown him. It didn't work, though for some reason when we both broke the surface of the water, spluttering and coughing, he was magically rehabilitated and a solid good guy who promised to hide me from the Ringmaster.

Then I woke up.

Possessions

2010-05-25T09:34:00.003-07:00

Adam and I laid awake on Sunday night, talking about our plan of what we'll do with our stuff when we die at ripe old ages.

First off, every red cent we own is going into the Perpetual Education Fund for the LDS Church, just so our kids can't ever complain that one of them got more than the other did.

We're having our friend Tyson be our family lawyer (believe me, I've tried to argue with him through high school and he ran intellectual circles around me) and he'll divvy out our possessions and property to of our kids crazy enough to actually want them. Any possessions that are fought over will be immediately pulled off the table and sold on Ebay to the highest bidder.

And if we died today, here's a possible distribution of all our crap to the following unfortunate people:

iPod and speakers: Adam's sister Katy

Pieces from our ceramics class: Adam's dad

Our bed: Jake and Erica

Adam's dresser: whoever wanted it

My thimble collection: equally divvied out between my nieces

My sewing machine: Ami

My Wizard of Oz books: Jana, so she can figure out how to re-bind them.

My Anne of Green Gables books: Eva

Our couches: Beki

Our TV: whoever wants a 13" screener with a VHS slot. Don't all jump up at once.

That rad Peruvian jungle painting of us Jake commissioned for our wedding: back to Jake, probably. And I actually think it might fit in with Meghan's decor.

Our square foot garden box: Tess

Adam's 1978 Ford Ranger: his cousin Andrew

My Honda Civic: Katy again (she's going to college soon and needs these things)

The t-shirt quilts I made: Summer and Krista

My books: divvied between whoever wanted library-sales dog-eared paperbacks of the classics and the definitely non-classics. But my copy of Austenland goes to Julie, and my Zippy books go to Toni. And the Hunger Games will be split between Jake and Kristi.

My Calvin and Hobbes books: back to Jeff.

My scrapbooks: Biz, because she's the only one that's gut-busted laughing over them.

My avocado green cedar chest: Monique

My avocado green chicken soup tureen: Monique

My French books (touristy and otherwise): Cate

My cake dome: Cate (of course)

Our porch swing: Eric and Noelle

Our Blokus game: Ben and Crystal (so you have extra pieces in case Tommy eats one)

Adam's green Lazy Boy rocker: Adam's mom.

My basil plant from Trader Joe's: Jana (and by that, I mean Jim)

Adam's quillows that his mom made for him: back to his mom, to be divvied among the nieces and nephews.

Our snail wind chime: Haley and Bryce

My guitar: back to Tyson

My ukulele: Erica

My lap guitar: Moirah, Moriah and Mairead.

My violin: Chris DeWitt, my old violin teacher.

My double-boiler, rolling pin and my two sharpest knives: Krista

If you want something willed to you, speak now. It's raining goods of questionable value, hallelujah.

Aftermath of a Birthday

2010-05-17T06:54:00.003-07:00

My birthday included the following excellent things:

Adam's cousin and wife making us dinner the night before and taking us to see Robin Hood
Homemade omelets and crepes for breakfast, cooked by Adam, while I laid abed for an hour
Three thimbles for my collection: one Memphis, one antique, and one (my favorite) with the Tabasco emblem printed on the side
One square foot garden box, divided into 21 squares, now planted full of tomatoes and peppers and squash and lettuce and a partridge in a pear tree
About 20 ranunculus bulbs: one planted in Adam's first pot from our ceramics class (the one he accidentally shaved a hole in the bottom while trimming it) and one in an old Wells Fargo bank box from the turn of the century. (We hope and pray that they come up well, and that the rabbits don't eat them.)
One fancy creme brulee cake, topped with real Swiss buttercream frosting and made by my beloved Diane Lara of America's Pie Company in Show Low, AZ.
The chance to sit and shoot the bull with Diane and Freddy on their front lawn and eat gazpacho and cake for a couple of hours.
A hike on the Rim Walk trail, where Adam picked me a lovely wildflower bouquet.
A stop at The Dog House (my favorite thrift store) where we dropped $13 and walked out with a stack of records, including original cast recordings of The Sound of Music, West Side Story, A Prairie Home Companion and (my favorite!) Sesame Street. I inherited my brothers' turntable/tape deck from the mid-80s, which is metallic grey and bulky and works perfectly fine, and did I mention that we just really love to listen to records?
A showing of Ironman 2, which was mostly crap, but we did have free tickets and PLUS we snuck in ice cream, Junior Mints and Raisinets in my purse.
Dinner at Grumpy Jake's BBQ, which was leisurely and I got free peach cobbler a la mode with cinnamon sauce, which was just really delicious.
My birthday party the next day at my in-laws, where I secured:
- Two blouses
- One necklace
- One set of earrings
- Two homemade ribbon-and-pearl bobby pin flowers for my mess of hair
- One Irving Berlin piano/ukulele songbook (printed circa 1947)
- A really excellent meal and a millionaire pie.
- The chance to sit on the front lawn and shoot the bull with my husband's nearly entire family and laugh and laugh and field small children
Continuous birthday calls and texts all day long and into the next day

Thank you for your love and well-wishes. This was the best birthday I've ever had. Which is why I actually woke up a little sad this morning. I guess that's the logical aftermath for a beautiful birthday.

The Pressures of Being Pulchritudinous

2010-05-14T08:51:00.002-07:00

P.S. I totally had to look that word up, for definition and spelling both.

~The Editor

There really is too much pressure to maintain a good blog. I've had dreams of launching some wildly famous bloggy-blog that gets me advertising gigs and a fan base 100 times bigger than my hometown.

Alack, I cannot. Mostly because I don't care enough, and my writing is not good consistently enough, and I find that I'm only truly clever a) around Adam, b) late at night, c) when I'm slap-happy or d) when I'm on Gchat with my little brother Jake.

All of those conversations and social bypasses that make me squeal with laughter and pee my pants a little bit are not usually funny in the retelling, or they weren't funny in the first place.

Anyhoo. Tomorrow is my birthday. I told Adam exactly what I wanted to do, where I wanted to eat all three meals, reminded him that we only have $47 in our bank account right now, and therefore rescinded my demand that he purchase me a new purse on my birthday like he did last year. I did this all while we furiously shoved dishes in the dishwasher and put away the half-empty box of Wheat Thins on the table. Right next to the two other half-eaten boxes of Wheat Thins in the pantry.

Suddenly I thought I was being too demandy-pants, so I posed the question.

"Honey, do you feel bad that I told you exactly what I wanted?"

Adam scoffed. "No."

"You mean, it's okay that I told you exactly what I wanted to do for my birthday?"

"Honey, it's what every husband wishes his wife would do. You tell me what you want, I might surprise you with something else along the way, and everybody wins."

"So it's a win-win-win."

"Right."

So, stay tuned for details ad nauseum (I had to look that one up too) about eating fancy breakfast, gardening, eating fancy cake with our friends, Grumpy Jake's Barbecue, and--if I am very lucky--a showing of Ironman 2.

Dreams I Have Had, pt. 4

2010-05-11T14:59:00.002-07:00

Last night I dreamed I working as a secretary to Dwayne Johnson (a.k.a. The Rock).

"Laurie," he says. "I'm taking you to a secretary training."

"Okay," I say.

We drive and drive and drive outside of Tucson, AZ until we get to a squat adobe building where they are serving only Navajo Tacos and nothing else. The Rock disappears through the swingy double saloon doors into the back room, so I sit down and eat a Navajo Taco (because seriously, why would you pass up a Navajo Taco?)

The waiters and waitresses keep giving me odd looks and occasionally they ask me why I'm there, and why I'm eating yet another Navajo Taco. (I'm into my second by this time.)

"Well, my boss is Dwayne Johnson and he brought me here for secretary training," I say.

Blank stares.

"Perhaps you've heard of him. He's in movies and stuff as 'The Rock.'"

They shift away slightly from me, the crazy person, and serve me another Navajo Taco.

So, all of a sudden The Rock comes back through the doors from the back room and tells me to come on back. I go in the back room, down a windy little staircase and find myself in a gigantic underground cavern.

"Laurie, we've brought you here to train you to be a warrior."

"Um, what? I'm not...what..."

"First off," The Rock says, speaking loudly over me, "we've got to teach you how to fly."

Oh holy crap. He takes me to a shelf in the rock, whereupon are stacked what looks like sheets of flaky drywall in neon colors. The Rock says they are confident they can teach me to fly by coating me in this flaky, neon drywall dust. He explains that all children inherently know how to fly, and most adults can't fly even with the dust. But since I'm kind of like a child, they chose me to be their warrior.

He shakes a huge fistful of the colored dust on me and I levitate, very slowly and precariously swooping around the cave and running up the walls like I'm belaying backwards.

All of a sudden, The Rock declares that we need to show our toughness by challenging the other warriors to a chariot race. Across the cave floor. The problem is, the race is so wild and reckless that out of the 20-ish or so other people in chariots, only 6 of us survive. The others are smashed around on the rocks and got run over and stuff like that.

Then all 6 of the warriors are over at my house, and they're all girls. Except The Rock. But anyways. Since tomorrow is the big battle day, they all want to take showers and curl their hair. Except we're out of free outlets for the youngest girl to plug her curling iron into, so I tell her to take an extension cord and plug it into the outlet outside the front door.

Suddenly, I hear a huge scream and I go outside to see some invisible force wrapping the extension cord around this girl and electrocuting her. I run out and yank the cord out of the wall and jerk it off her body, unrolling her across the lawn in fast motion. She's okay, but I've had the poop scared out of me. The only thing I can figure is that the enemy practices something like long-distance telekinesis and they are really good at it.

I calm down by practicing my flying loop-de-loops in the living room. Then the clock beeped 7 a.m. and I woke up.

Boston

2010-04-26T15:52:00.004-07:00

There was this one time we went to Boston to see my brother run the Boston Marathon.

I saw 4 of my siblings and 2 cousins and there was a pile-up of pizza boxes in our hotel room and half-eaten yogurt in the other room and it was seriously one giant mess of eating and talking and laughing. It was a slumber party where the median age was 31 years old.

Things I learned:

1. You can run a "bad time" in the Boston Marathon. My brother ran a 3:27 and was really bummed out and I was like, Dude, you just RAN THE BOSTON MARATHON!!!!!!1!!

2. There are Trader Joe's's's in Boston. For some reason in my mind the chain is exclusive to sunnier climates.

3. The Harvard Bookstore is like a smaller version of Strand's Bookstore in New York. I actually liked this one better, especially with the homeless guy checking out the low-priced paperbacks in close proximity to me. I now own a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

4. No matter how light Adam packs, he will still accidentally come home with more clean clothes than I do.

5. Do not count on there being laundry services in the hotel.

6. Qdoba's is still real Mexican food, though it is on the east coast. As a rule, I don't order Mexican food east of Oklahoma.

7. Boston is pretty much amazing.

8. Adam and I mowed some chowder at the Union Oyster House by Faneuil Hall and Adam looked up over a handful of oyster crackers and said, "I'm in love with this town."

9. Faneuil Hall is pronounced "FAN-yull Hall." I must have repeated that to myself 16 times on the way back to Logan International so I wouldn't forget it.

10. Adam loves Boston. More than New York.

11. The Boston Temple is incredible. Adam has finally found a rival in his esteem for the Snowflake Temple. (Yes, we have not been to very many.)

12. My brother Paul is really good at figuring out bus lines and schedules. He was the boss of this.

13. I am really good at figuring out subway lines and schedules. I was the boss of this.

14. Al Dente on the North End of Boston was the boss of making the most amazing homemade ravioli I have ever had. Pumpkin ravioli with brown butter sauce. I died.

15. Adam says that his dish was better. Homemade pasta with spinach, chicken, prosciutto and fresh mozzarella layered over it and baked.

16. Mine was better. His was good, but mine was better.

17. There were 27,000 people running the Boston Marathon this year. Nate was number 7017.

18. You can walk right up to the finish line before 9 a.m. on race day.

19. You can also run across it, which I did. Going the wrong direction, I found out later.

20. Watching the Boston Marathon is watching a lot of people who are skinnier than you and going to live longer than you.

21. When you see these same people stiff-legging it down the stairs of the subway, you feel like they're not actually going to outlive you.

22. Boston makes a pretty decent pizza. I was surprised to find this.

23. Boston is a lot smaller than New York. I was also surprised to find this.

25. Being used to the don't-ask, don't-tell, don't-make-eye-contact mentality of New York, I was surprised and slightly suspicious when Bostonians were friendly. And they were. For reals.

26. We walked half of the Freedom Trail with a tour guide in traditional colonial attire, bustle and all. I thought I was going to hate her by the end. I didn't. I was entertained and learned a ton. I was surprised to find this. This is why we gave her $3 of our hard-earned money at the end. (It was all the cash we had left.) She was gracious enough not to call us cheapos.

27. The Boston Stake occasionally has Stake Conference the Sunday before Marathon Monday. We did not know this. Hence, Al Dente.

28. We love Boston. We're going to live there someday.

29. Here is a picture of my family and Adam acting like The Jets off West Side Story. This is one in a long line of photos of this trip I like to call the "Nate Hiding Behind Someone Else On Accident" series.

30. I love my family. That's all.

Death of a Windchime

2010-04-11T20:01:00.006-07:00

Remember the time I prophesied the death of my windchime?

Twice?

Well, it happened, just like I said it would. Behold:

All of you who laughed at me, take it back. My windchime met a miserable end on the pavement, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT.

P.S. I kid. 'Tain't your fault. I should've just fashioned a heartier fastener for it, since the day it happened we had 60 mph winds for six straight hours. Also, I'm going to take the little copper thingy off the end and make a new one in my ceramics class.

P.P.S. The skeleton is a decoration from Halloween. Poetic, no? Or just a tribute to our laziness when it comes to taking down decorations, such as the time we left our Christmas tree up 'til mid-March? You decide.

A Conversation We Had Today

2010-04-11T19:55:00.002-07:00

Adam: Honey, I want to start watering the lawn.

LJ: Yeah?

Adam: Yeah. I've wanted to go sit on the lawn like three times this week, but I only last for five minutes because it's all sticky and prickly.

LJ: [thinking of my favorite joke] Honey, what's brown and sticky?

Adam: Poop.

LJ: [silent paroxysm of laughter]

Adam: [tries again] A masticated Tootsie Roll.

LJ: [silent mirth, followed by tears]

Adam: Okay, what?

LJ: A stick. That's the answer to the joke.

Adam: Oh. Heh.

LJ: Your answers were a lot better.

I love dis man.

Sleeptalking, parts 1-3

2010-03-25T21:06:00.004-07:00

I have been a devoted sleeptalker my entire life. My brother Joel (or was it Steve? Or Paul?) tells a story about staying up late one night to finish some homework. A voice comes from down the hallway and he stalks toward the sound, armed with a Bowie sheath knife and sheer dread, only to find me loudly pontificating to myself. While dead asleep. I was 4 years old at the time.

I've attributed most of these epic sleeptalking episodes to being in new places (ie, the night I shared a hotel bed in Europe with my cousin Emily and apologized to her profusely--in FRENCH--for kicking her in my sleep), but I think it's related to something more arbitrary, like the lunar cycle or whether or not there are crumbs in the bed. Which there usually are.

Incident 1, Dec. 2009: Adam stays up late reading, where I have been asleep next to him for a couple of hours. This is a common occurrence in our house. Suddenly I cuddle up closer to Adam.

"Honey," I say. "I want you to be happy."

Adam sets down his book. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," I say. "I want you to be happy because...because I'm your Christmas card."

Incident 2, February 2010: Once again, Adam is up late reading.

"Honey," I say. "What was the size of the sheep I was writing on?"

"What?" Adam once again sets down the book.

I open my eyes and look innocent, and remarkably lucid. "If I don't ask, how am I supposed to know?"

Adam can't refute my logic, and besides, I've already gone back to sleep.

Incident 3, March 2010: We are staying at a hotel in Scottsdale and I've fallen asleep in record time. Adam is up watching TV.

"Honey," I said, cuddling up to him. "Why were you looking up stuff on fish food?"

"What?" Adam sets down the remote. "Honey, are you...?"

"Yes, I'm awake," I said, getting irritated. (Apparently the closer I get to lucidity, the more upset I get that Adam's not understanding my drivel.)

"Honey, I'm not on the internet," Adam says. "I'm watching TV."

I growl, roll over and go back to sleep. I wake up again an hour later and roll over to look at Adam. He tries to finish the conversation.

"Honey, do you remember saying something about...?"

"Yes, fish food." I was short with him. "You were looking something up."

Adam laughed at me and switched out the light.

Luckily I married a patient man, because I'm now chattering his ear off in the wee hours as well as the daylight ones.

The Optimal Change

2010-03-20T19:43:00.003-07:00

This is the funniest thing I've seen all day. Thanks to Brooke for the link, and to Mr. Obama and Optimus Prime for making this all possible.

Parked All Skeewampus

2010-03-11T09:37:00.003-07:00

Yesterday I came out of Safeway with my bag of egg noodles for beef stroganoff. As I approached my car, I saw in my peripheral the blue Jeep Cherokee next to me, and the woman getting in the driver's side.

"That's so rude," she said.

I looked up from my handful of keys. "Pardon?"

"You parked so close that I couldn't even get my door open to put my groceries in." She shook her head and huffed.

I looked at her, and then at the three additional available doors that were not blocked by my 45-degree parking job. I decided not to push it.

"Oh, it wasn't malicious," I said, emitting a very small measure of beatitude sans the humility. "I'm just a really crappy parker."

She said nothing.

"Have a nice day!" I chirped.

"Okay," she said.

I backed up behind her and had a perilous 30 seconds or so there where I was afraid she was going to back up swiftly and ram into Atticus in a fit of retribution, but she didn't.

All in all, the most amicable rude experience I think I've ever had.

A Cooking Experiment

2010-03-07T21:15:00.003-07:00

Back in 2005, I almost went home with a Mennonite cookbook, Food That Really Schmecks by Edna Staebler, that my sis-in-law's mother offered to me. I was falling in love with the down-home recipes, scrawling them on pieces of loose-leaf and she told me to take it.

Friends, the only thing that stood between me and that cookbook was an inscription on the inside-left cover that made me drop the thing in sheer guilt. I walked away from it, and I've regretted that decision ever since. Of course, when I came to my senses I found out that a) the book was out of print and b) there wasn't a copy to be bought for love or money on the entire Interwebs for less than $85.

Here's the point: I found a copy online about two weeks ago, for the mighty reasonable price of $8.74, plus $3.99 shipping and handling. I bought it instantly, and then bought a copy for my sister and mailed it to her, sight-unseen.

Here's the second, more important point: Toni challenged me to cook my way through this Mennonite cookbook, a la Julie and Julia. Except less French and more German, and without the luxury of specialty food item markets as a backup. (Let's just say the first time I ever saw nori paper for sushi in our local grocery store, I bought three packages of it and hoarded them in my pantry. Later I figured out that our store was just increasing its specialty food aisle beyond its usual array of Kosher egg noodles and teriyaki sauce.)

What do you think, gentle readers? I'm already imposing a few shall-nots, like striking out the section on bottling homemade wines (because I'm not a drinker) or canning homemade saurkraut, jams and pickles. Canning strikes dread into my heart that the pressure-cooker thing is going to explode and catch me in the jugular with a piece of glass shrapnel. I'm serious. This is a pants-wetting fear of mine.

My second fear is that Mennonites, bless them, believed in aspics as well. Beef-flavored jello with beet chunks in it, turned out on a bed of lettuce and served with melba toast kind of makes me want to yammie. (Which is ironic, since Mormons were the first ones to think of suspending pineapple chunks and carrot shreddings in Jello and topping the whole melange in whipped cream. Or mayonnaise, as my Grandma used to do. True story.)

But but but, not only is this cookbook is a wealth of recipes that are hearty, homey and delicious, they're mostly concocted with stuff that I can get in our local Safeway. There's the occasional recipe for smoked tongue and Spanish onion salad, but it's also jam-packed with cookie and cake and bread recipes that look like the last word in baked goods. Also, simple tips for doing pioneery-type things like Making a Pot Roast From Scratch (Sans Crockpot) and Rolling Your Own Egg Noodles.

So, what say you? Cook through a Mennonite cookbook in the next year or so?...

...or just dump the idea and buy another box of Girl Scout cookies?*

*We already ate our way through two sleeves of Thin Mint and a tray of Samoas. This needs to be remedied soon.

Oscre

2010-03-07T07:03:00.001-07:00

This is a blog about the Oscars.* I'm just sayin'.

In a frenzy of Red Carpet Googling and Go Fug Yourself reading this morning, I relied on my two favorite witchy women blogging about the ridiculously wealthy wearing terrible, terrible outfits at the Oscars.

All you celebrities reading my blog, please listen. I'm only going to say this once.

Ahem.

"If you're worth a gajillion dollars, why in the poop would you dress like that?!"

When I see you wearing lava-lavas, feathers, sunglasses, fedoras, butterflies, gigantic bows, necklines that expose your bellybutton, and a dress that for some reason instantly reminds me of the EMP in Seattle, all I can think is how your designers are laughing their butts off that they got you to wear that on national TV.

This is like our own American take on H.C. Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes except there is no little kid to yell out that you're mostly naked, and trying to fake like you weren't.

On another tack: in my perusal of red carpet photos this morning, I found some that made me very, very happy.

May the Good Lord bless me with this good of a head of hair in my next life. Amen.

I have no idea who this couple is, but don't they look like they totally don't fit on the red carpet? Which is why I love them. That woman is rocking those tortoise shell rims.

Yet another person who doesn't look totally at ease at the Oscars. Please do yourself a favor and watch The Blind Side, and you'll see why. I have a feeling this guy is just as shy and awkward in real life.

For the last photo of the day, I bring you Pete Docter--the guy who directed Up--and his wife Amanda. I saved this photo for last for two reasons. 1. This was my favorite photo of the bunch, simply because they are a far-from-glamorous couple. 2. They just look really happy. These are two reasons why they look so out of place.

I'm done now.

*I actually didn't watch the Oscars last night because not only do we not have TV, I was far too busy sitting on my sister-in-law's floor and crocheting a shawl for myself.

Fairy Tale Mad-Lib

2010-03-02T14:00:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Cate for supplying this link.

I wrote this story (by which I mean, I inserted a handful of parts-o-speech in a mad-lib generator that put it in a fairy tale setting) and had a little giggle.

Here you go.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a Bear in the kingdom of New Orleans, there lived a(n) Spitty adventurer named Laurie. The kingdom of New Orleans was a peaceful kingdom, where the Lemurs roamed free and the Chocolate Macaroons was plentiful. Ruling over the kingdom was Wispy King Nicklaus, who became king when he pulled the magical Guts from its place in the Shoe. Everyone was Pimpley in New Orleans, until one day when the Feathery villain named Grandpa snuck into Nicklaus' castle and stole the sacred Guts. King Nicklaus was instantly Slipped from his throne, and he wandered the countryside for 7 days not knowing what to Nuzzle. Finally, he met Laurie, and explained the Gritty situation. Laurie told Nicklaus not to worry, and set off to recover the magical Guts. Laurie found Grandpa at the castle, laughing Quickly as his ferocoious Chihuahua guarded the magical Guts. Laurie thought for a moment, then exclaimed, 'Poopstain!! It's a gigantic Coin!' And while Grandpa and the gigantic Chihuahua were looking away, Laurie grabbed the Guts and raced back to King Nicklaus. Nicklaus was so grateful that he gave Laurie a solid gold Muffin. And Grandpa was given a 8-minute time-out. The end.

Want to write one of your own? Go here.

Dreams I Have Had, pt. 3

2010-02-16T09:16:00.003-07:00

Last night I dreamed I had taken my Primary children on an activity in New York City. What we were doing was enjoying the view, but from atop aluminum bleachers that were loosely strapped to the top of a high-rise. The bleachers screeched back and forth in a high wind, with kids skittering to one side and then another, barely clinging to the railings and halfway slipping off the edge. I'm trying to keep up conversation with the few parents who have come as chaperones, occasionally interrupting to remind said parents to take hold of their kid before they are flung off the side.

Disaster struck. Three little boys from Sr. Primary get flung off the edge and I watch them fall from the bleachers down to the asphalt below, which seems at least a mile down there. They fall into an intersection and I watch as one gets his chest run over, one gets his leg crushed and the other crawls to safety.

"Noooooooo!" I scream, and start scaling down the building as fast as I can.

Suddenly I'm right down there with the boys, looking down into the rib cage of the little boy who got his torso run over. My brother Steve is inexplicably on the scene with me, and I ask him to take off his shirt so I can stuff it into this gaping hole. The rain starts falling. Steve runs over to take care of the one who got his leg cut off, and the boy returns with a perfect prosthetic about 30 seconds later.

All of a sudden, I'm in the middle of a Twilight-type situation, but instead of being a gorgeous vampire, I'm a zombie who can move really really fast. Me and this other zombie girl (who had long red hair and was dressed in my purple nightie from 4th grade, the one with flowers on the collar) were trying to infiltrate this preppy school and sniff out the zombie clan that had a plot to eat all of Los Angeles.

Since we can move basically at the speed of thought, we sit in on a choir concert, take a peek into all the classrooms, and basically map out every zombie at the school. (As zombies from a public school, we are both in awe and envious of how nice their school is.)

We get ready to leave, and a scrawny boy with swoopy bangs and acne says we're hotties and he wants to date us. Note: remember how I'm not a gorgeous vampire. My partner zombie is good looking as zombies go, but I'm very big boned with a heavy jaw and big feet. So we laugh at him and flit down the hallway like Flash Gordon.

We've stopped a few times before we realize that the emo kid is still following us. Not only is he following us, he's talking into his lapel and telling the preppy zombies our every move. We turn on him.

"Go get him," I say to my zombie partner. I am too chicken to beat him up, though my strength is enormous.

"Okay," she says. She picks him up and slams him into the ceiling so hard that it buckles under the shape of his body like a police outline. The popcorn starts to fall, softly.

"You listen to me," she says, suddenly like 15 feet tall. "You stop following us. If I even see you behind us, I'm going to punch you in the throat."

"Okay," he squeals, and begs to be let down. She lets him fall, and he scurries off with his artistically torn khaki jacket whipping behind him.

Then I woke up. I'm thinking this nightmare was a combination of watching Adam play Plants vs. Zombies before going to bed, and being too hot.

Pottery Poutery

2010-02-04T09:07:00.003-07:00

Adam and I have been taking a pottery class together at our local community college. I wanted us to take this class for many moons because not only would it supply an endless supply of cheap gifts and dinnerware, it would also make us look really artsy to our friends.

On Tuesday night, I finally met my waterloo. Adam is like the karate kid of the pottery wheel, and his dad is like the Mr. Miyagi. I sat at the wheel on Tuesday night, trying to wrestle the mound of clay into submission while the senseis whipped out pieces of amazing dimensions and beauty. Meanwhile, I was flicking bits of clay into my eyebrows and getting so mad I was, as the Coz put it, swallowing curses like after-dinner mints.

In two hours at the wheel, Adam made a planter bowl. Dad was soldering an ornate handle onto a water pitcher. I had acquired more clay in my eyebrows and about 10 pounds of soggy clay that would not center on the wheel.

I started eking out tears of rage almost as soon as we left the classroom. I railed on my stupidity and general suckiness at clay and Adam, who is all sweetness and light, had absolutely no sympathy for me.

"Honey, you're awesome at everything you do," he said. "I'm not going to lie that it's kind of nice to be better than you at one little thing."

The entire evening continued in this same theme. Me crying, Adam refusing sympathy. At one point I was hovering in the kitchen doorway in a fluffy bathrobe and slippers, working up my best trembly-lip puppy dog look while Adam rummaged in the fridge. I finally dropped the guise and made a bald demand.

"Why don't you sympathize with me?" I said, nearly stamping my foot.

"Because," Adam said, crunching on a carrot. "Because you're faking it and because maybe it's good for you to not succeed at something for the first time in your life."

I responded by flouncing out of the room and taking a solitary bowl of ratatouille in the bathtub.

Turns out some of my grumpiness was because I was hungry, because I crawled back into bed after the ratatouille and asked forgiveness for being a whiny wife. Adam instantly forgave me and we shared some ice cream and watched the latest Chuck episode online.

I told this story to my old roommate Haley yesterday, and she told me she had taken a ceramics class at Timpview High and her pottery was so bad that her instructor said it had ruined his life. She responded by dropping out of the class and vowing never to throw a pot again.

I'm not going to lie, I felt a lot better after that. Turns out there's some balm in Gilead.

A Christmas Backpedal and The Big Snow

2010-01-25T10:04:00.009-07:00

Here is an index of the photos you are about to view, in chronological order: Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and The Big Snow. I don't have the strength to be very verbose right now, so everybody wins!

Christmas Eve:

Don't be mad, but our Christmas tree was probably the best one in the United States, and it was a freak accident of good karma that we ended up with it. A friend of mine said a the husband of a friend of hers (who, incidentally, was my Young Women's leader) lost the top off the fir tree in their front yard in a big windstorm and was looking for someone who needed a Christmas tree. Between insane finals and crazy work schedule and stuff, there was no hauling out of the holly in our house at all (and it was already Dec. 21st), so we kindly offered to relieve them of their fir treetop and finally decorated the house four days before Christmas.

Adam made this wreath. By hand. Out of the fir treetop remnants. When I was too tired and grouchy to do so. Thank you, dear.

Joel and Ami came, and we Nativity-ed with the family. Here is Dane and Grandma.

The Holy Family. Dane, of course, insisted on being a shepherd and not the Baby Jesus.

Here is some bum off the street that we invited in out of the cold.

I liked the turn of events this year. Also, please adore Dane's look of sore afraid-ness. Also, my Aunt Jemimah hairdo. I was a Space Angel.

Christmas Day:

First, let me say that Dane took like three hours just to pull all the gifts out of his stocking. He would pull out one individually wrapped gummy, carry it over to Ami, and ask her to open it. She would kindly direct him back to the stocking, and he would pull out...another gummy. There were like 30 gummies in there, and he gave each one its due allotment of joy and wonder. Needless to say, we were busting a gut laughing by the time he finally got to the bottom of the neverending-sock. It was pretty dang awesome.

Also, Mom ended up getting Chucks for all the grandsons, and got herself a pair as well. I about died over the cuteness of Dane's little bitty Chucks. Also, Mom is the coolest.

Attack of the nerds! We both accidentally bought each other the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy for Christmas this year!

Also, speaking of coincidences, Adam kindly offered to shave his face in honor of Christmas morning. He shaved his chin clean, busted up laughing, and asked if he could keep the Sabertooth facial hair. He was sporting this exact same facial hair when he unwrapped Joel and Ami's gift to him: this t-shirt. Which says, "With great moustache comes great responsibility."

It was too good to be coincidence.

New Year's Eve:

This is Adam's cousin Andrew, who puts both Adam and Jake to shame for sheer force of pyromania. He spent most of New Year's Eve like this after offering to bring over his $300-worth of fireworks and light them off in our yard.

Sherry and Brock (Andrew's wife and son), me and Mom huddled for cover. Also, please notice that giant boot flower pot in the foreground. That will come into play later.

Smoking on some incense stick things. Are you seeing James Dean here? Because I am.

Thanks to Jana and Clifford Goodman for making lead-pouring possible this New Year's Eve: you take some lead (in this case, a bag of tire weights from Big O Tires), melt it in a spoon with one of those little torches you use for creme brulee, pour it into a bowl of cold water and then interpret the shapes the lead makes. This is kind of like fortune telling, only with more fire. It was probably the best New Year's tradition in the whole United States. Except it's actually German. Look it up.

Also, that is Jake and his girlfriend Erica in the picture above.

I mostly just like this picture. Andrew and Sherry are on the A list of people we hang out with all the time.

Oh yes, about the flower pot. When we looked like we were running low on fireworks, Jake and Erica ran off to town to buy some dry ice to make dry ice bombs. Basically, they packed a dry ice bomb into that boot-shaped flower pot (which had held lovely decorations during our wedding reception and had been grounded to the front porch to bleach in the sun) and obliterated it. Seriously, when that bomb went off, there weren't any shards bigger than about a 50 cent piece for a five foot radius. It's times like this that I just really love living in a rural area.

Babysitting/The Big Snow:

The Boss Man (with the new job) offered to pay Adam and I to stay at their house and babysit their kids for several days while they went out of town, and we agreed to do it.

Eight hours after they left, the biggest snowstorm I've seen in 3 years rolled in and dropped 3 feet of snow. There was no school on Thursday or Friday, and Adam and I went out to survey the wreckage on Saturday. This is where Adam got inextricably stuck in their circular driveway on Thursday morning when he tried to go to work.

We thought we were just going to have to leave it there for a week, but a kind gentleman from our ward drove over in his tractor and had Adam's truck pulled out in about five seconds.

If we had just waited for a few hours on Saturday, we could've had this same kind gentleman dig out our driveway with his tractor and not had the insane idea to shovel out The Boss Man's driveway by hand.

But we did anyway.

We calculated that between one snowshovel, one regular shovel, and one kind neighbor man who had a snow sled thing, the three of us shoveled almost 6,000 cubic feet of snow in 2.5 hours. I felt like I had been beaten severely when I woke up the next morning. But we had that special pride that comes from an unnecessary job well done.

Another unnecessary job well done: Adam teaching all of us the art of igloo construction. It took us two days, but we finished most of an igloo by constructing bricks out of stomped snow in a giant Tupperware bin and the tenacity of two children who wielded shovels and packed snow in the cracks and just generally were awesome.

Here's the finished product, and I totally sent this picture in to the newspaper. You must be rewarded for awesomeness with small-town fame, especially when you build an igloo in the backyard just for fun.

Well, there's our stories. Thank you for listening. Signing off.

A quibble of disjointed thoughts

2010-01-05T19:51:00.003-07:00

Adam woke up sick at 4 a.m. this morning and I was just a regular little Flo Nightingale, drawing up boiling hot bath water and getting tea with honey and all that. I do just fine with tidy little illnesses like congestion, but had Adam been ralphing, it would've been a different story. At the barest possibility of vomit in the vicinity and my heart races like a rabbit's in sheer dread. There was this one time Jake puked in front of me and I was mad at him for three days. In my heart of hearts, I believe that people vomit just to spite me.

While Adam was soaking and thumbing through an Agatha Christie novel, it suddenly became vitally important for me to import my new Michael Jackson CD and transfer eleventy-five KEXP Song of the Day podcast songs onto the Mac and, well, I never went back to bed after that. Adam chastised me roundly for thumbing my nose at my own immune system. I bowed my head in shame.

Tonight I came home from the dentist in good shape. This is because I sat in the chair and the good doctor told me that I didn't need a filling after all, so I thanked him and got up and went home instead. It was a really excellent way to end the visit. Most times I come home with 2/3 of my face feeling kind of vague and lukewarm and my molars throbbing. Mere anaethesia doesn't do it for me and so I get injected with the stuff that takes six hours to wear off and in the meantime I've eaten half of my inner cheek without realizing it.

For dinner, I made myself a pot of lemon-egg-orzo soup and made Adam a pot of canned meatball-and-rice soup. This is not because I am a bad wife. I am just a self-interested wife. Adam really genuinely doesn't like the lemon-egg-orzo soup, which I think is a leetle kooky.

I just looked through the Pottery Barn catalogue I'm still receiving after a rash purchase of a beautiful quilt for our weddin' beddin' more than a year ago. The decor in the catalogue mostly makes me happy, and also makes me think that owning white sofas is inherently a really, really bad idea.

Also: eight more days of the government job, and then I'm free as a bird. I can't tell you how happy I am, and how bad I've got senioritis right now.

So here I am, piddling around on the Interwebs while Adam plays Plants and Zombies next to me on the other laptop. I'm just so dang contented with it all.

2009 In Review

2009-12-31T08:44:00.002-07:00

Shamelessly stolen from my sis-in-law Moniki. Enjoy!
~The Editor

What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?

I got married. Wait, that was 2008. Okay. I swore off sugar, leaven, fruit and almost all grains except brown rice for about 2 months.

Did you keep your new years' resolutions?

I didn't make any, I don't think.

What are some of your resolutions for 2010?
That diet I was talking about, I have to go back on it in about two weeks. So I guess that's like a mandated resolution.

Did anyone close to you give birth?
Two of my sisters-in-law.

Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year (knock on wood).

What countries did you visit?
None, sadly.

What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
I lacked a decent sewing machine, but I think that's going to change soon.

What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The day we wandered downtown Charlotte on our "honeymoon" and the day we spent in Durham, NC with Tess's family. I'm still in love with Chapel Hill and would give up my right leg to be a Tarheel someday.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?
The day we paid off both our cars. That still gives me a warm fuzzy.

What was your biggest failure?
Probably my first job.

Did you suffer illness or injury?
When Montezuma's Revenge struck the entire household over our Frost Family Reunion, I had a technicolor yawn for the first time in 11 years and Adam lost 12 lbs in one day.

What was the best thing you bought?

Adam's green-and-white '78 Ford Ranger. It's still the sexiest car I've ever seen.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I will judge people anytime, anywhere, anyplace. I'm thinking that should be my New Year's resolution. No judge-ee.

Where did most of your money go?
Into car payments.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The fact that Adam bought me candy and baked goods ANY TIME I ASKED FOR THEM when we were visiting NYC.

What song will always remind you of 2009?
The Calculation by Regina Spektor. Actually, her entire Far album.

Compared to this time last year, are you: much happier, richer, nicer?
Happier: oh very much yes. It gets better every single day. Richer: not even a little bit. Nicer: golly I hope so.

What do you wish you'd done more of?

Laid in bed and watched TV on the Internet. Lazy Saturday mornings have dwindled substantially in the last 6 months or so, and they are the best thing in the world. But I should say exercise. We have both fattened considerably.

What do you wish you'd done less of?

Laundry, but it can't be helped.

How did you spend Christmas?

With my family, and it was a glorious holiday. Doesn't beat last year's Christmas, though...that was the world's greatest Christmas morning.

Did you fall in love in 2009?

With Adam, yes.

What was your favorite TV program?

This was for sure the year of TV. We have consistently watched Lie To Me, Community, The Office and Castle. I have been off-and-on about Glee, Adam watches FlashForward when I'm not home, and we both are starting to get into Parks and Recreation. By which I mean I laugh my guts out at Parks and Recreation because I know what it's like working in government, and Adam is finally starting to warm up to it because it's finally getting legitimately funny.

What was the best book you read this year?

Probably Freakonomics, actually. That's the one I refer back to most often in conversation. But I read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and they stressed the heck out of me and I couldn't put them down and I'm waiting gingerly for the third novel so I can finally get some resolution! Aughhhhhh!

What did you want and get?

I wanted a Macbook, and convinced Adam that he wanted it for school and so we bought it. Now we are in the process of getting Adam a PC for school and he is having a merry time pointing out the usurpation. Also, I wanted fluffy moccasins, and I got those. Adam wanted a hatchet, and I bought him one. He was ridiculously happy about it.

What were your favorite films of this year?

Me: Julie & Julia. Adam: probably The Blind Side. We both really liked Up and really, really, really liked Star Trek.

What were your least favorite films of this year?

The Dark Knight, Night at the Museum 2 (yes, we saw this one in the theatre! I begged for it!), Transformers 2 and Where the Wild Things Are. We wanted our money back.

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

24, and Adam bought me perfume and then let me trade it in for an awesome green purse because the perfume made me headache-y. And my mom-in-law took us to dinner at our favorite Italian Place and we saw Star Trek, which was just really excellent.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Nothing, actually. I was pretty much ridiculously happy as it was.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Making the green purse work with every outfit means just wearing it and ignoring if it doesn't match.

What kept you sane?

Adam. Always. And Jana. And Alicia.

Who did you miss?

My family. All of them. And this is even an on-year for the reunion!

Who was the best new person (people) you met?

Alicia Freaking Deets. Thank you for joining my very weird world.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

When in doubt, just don't speak. Also, don't speak after 10 p.m. unless it's to Adam.

What are you most excited for in 2010?

Going to Boston to see Nate run the Boston Marathon. Booyah!

What are you least excited for in 2010?

Laundry. I just really hate doing laundry. But at least Adam always does the vacuuming, which I hate more than laundry.

Seven Days* Until Christmas!

2009-12-16T10:40:00.003-07:00

*Seven days 'til my family comes home for Christmas!

This means I have about six days to squeeze in a white-glove cleaning of the house which has stood half-empty for more than a year. I have turned a blind eye to things like dust, clutter and my mom's houseplant (which has a strong constitution, thank goodness) for the last howevermany months and now I have to repent for that. I hope I have the strength for a good cleaning spree, because I have from the evening of the 22nd to the evening of the 23rd to get things cleaned, polished, and shoved into closets.

Also, here is a story of a Blessed Husband: I came home from work yesterday afternoon to find Adam folding 3-weeks'-worth of laundry. And he had cleaned the sink. And there was much rejoicing. The End.

Okay, so here is the tentative itinerary for when the family comes:

Eating
Reading
Sleeping
Watching movies
More eating
Staying up late talking
Sleeping in
Eating again
Eating some more
Maybe venturing outside
Figure it's too cold out. Stay inside and eat instead.
Sleep
Field children
Eat more

Also: Adam finishes up his semester today. Which means we'll start decorating for Christmas tomorrow. Which means I'll finally get to debut my Bing Crosby "White Christmas" record I found at a thrift store for 50 cents. Glory, glory hallelujah.

Things I Want in my Dream House

2009-12-13T14:48:00.004-07:00

Once again, this is horribly premature, but I can't seem to help it.

Here is a list of things I want.

A red front door

A woodstove in the basement, and another one in the living room.

I've tinkered with the idea of laying down Spanish tile underneath the woodstove, which would look something like this:

Or maybe just a slab of red sandstone. Good thing I have like 12 years to decide.

Scruffy wood floors in the living room/kitchen/dining room area. The scuffier and nastier the better, because then I don't freak out about the finish. Plus, I've always wanted to have wood floors with a big shaggy rug in the living room, so we could roll up the rug and dance. (My parents did this occasionally for Family Home Evening, and busted out their favorite dance records. It was something truly awesome.)

Plus, another advantage with wood floors: we have neighbors up the road who bought reclaimed barn wood to lay down in their living/dining room, and the knotholes were so huge that she dropped a marble in one and laid the varnish over it. And a penny in another knothole. I fell in love.

More scuffiness! More!

Actually, an interesting story about scuffiness. Back in the 30s, there was a famous architect named Mary Jane Coulter who was in charge of designing a Harvey House (read: a railroad hotel) for the Santa Fe Railroad in Winslow, AZ. The project and furnishings ended up costing like a bajillion dollars--expensive rugs, ornate woodwork, decorative windows, custom frescos, etc. However, Coulter wanted the place to look lived-in. So she gave chains out to the workers and explained to the stunned workmen that she wanted them to beat the furniture with it. She would also follow these same workmen around and lay down these same expensive rugs in their footpath. They tried to tiptoe around them (thinking they were going to lose their jobs if they didn't, I'm sure) and she would yell at them to stay on the rugs.

Somehow, I kind of love her way of thinking. Moving on:

A tin ceiling in the kitchen.

Truth told, I would not cry if my kitchen looked like this. Except with wood floors. (This is my sis-in-law Tracie's bro and sis-in-law's house, which is right across the street from UNC Chapel Hill. They bought it as a fixer-upper, and it made me die slightly of awesomeness.)

Actually, I changed my mind. I want Julia Child's kitchen.

But with cabinets like this.

A living room with book-nooks built into the walls. (Also compliments of Tess's bro and sis-in-law.)

A window seat that's big enough to sleep on. I mean, at least as big as a twin bed.

An attic library (but cozier-looking than this one).

Exposed beams in the ceiling of the basement so kids could string a hammock indoors. I always wanted to do that.

A veranda with pillars that look like this.

And a porch swing.

Yep, I think that about covers it. Something small, easy to heat (that's our main concern these days), with lots of storage space and old-timey charm. I'm not going for authenticity or even continuity, so it should be just about perfect.

Trapped in the Tomb

2009-12-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

We had book projects for several years in elementary school, which was that we got a blank white book and had to write an original story in it. Adam found my 5th grade book project, which was called "Trapped in the Tomb" with a picture of a girl on it who is apparently screaming. Or yawning. The point is that you can see her tonsils.

I saw this on the bookshelf a few weeks ago and mostly tried not to think about it. My past writing projects (even on this here blog) mostly instill me with a sense of deep shame. I was slightly dismayed when Adam discovered it. And read it. Out loud.

I will spare you the contents of the entire book (including the illustrations), but I will share the best moments.

At the beginning my heroine, Kelly (who was named for Kelly Cheney, a girl in the grade above me who was so pretty and smart that I aspired to be her) wins a trip to Egypt. Here was Adam's question about the accompanying illustration:

A: Did you fart and go through the ceiling?

L: No, that's Kelly leaping for joy.
A: Oh. Right.

Adam then proceeded to begin reading this atrocious book out loud and this is the part where I literally ran out of the room screaming so I couldn't hear him. Then I locked myself in the bathroom. I threatened through the locked door that I would throw the book out, and Adam made me promise I would do no such thing, but would instead give him the book for safe-keeping. I promised.

I let Adam keep reading it, as long as it wasn't out loud. He focused instead on commenting on the illustrations.

A: Oh, look how this little two-inch snake left gaping fang marks on the guy's leg.
L: [silence]

A: Look how you put abs on this guy's forehead to make him look old.
L: [silence]

A: Honey, you sound just like Stephenie Meyers.
L: What?!
A: Seriously, listen to this sentence. One hot morning, Kelly was browsing about in an arabian shop buying a few trinkets for her family when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She whirled around, startled, staring into the face of a boy, about 12 or so, with dark golden skin and large, deep, dark eyes. Honey, you were Stephenie Meyers. When you were 11.
L: [finally laughing] Thank you. I hope I grew out of it.

Adam read a sentence where the boy (who of course is named Abdul) conveniently overheard his father talking about looters stealing the tomb of King Hatshepsut in 1300 B.C. I had a chronic disinterest in historic accuracy in fiction even then. Like how Hatshepsut was actually a female pharaoh, a fact I conveniently forgot to include. Adam pointed out how it was cool how the looters stole the entire tomb.

A: Oh, here's another Stephenie Meyers moment!
L: [steeling myself] Go on.
A: [reading] Tears sparkled on Abdul's face. Kelly felt overwhelmed in pity. "I will help you, if you will PLEASE call me Kelly," she laughed out loud.

Then Adam moves on to the moment where Kelly and Abdul are galumphing across the desert sands on camels. Kelly hears a shriek and turns to see Abdul fall off his camel.
A: [reading] All she could do was search for the cause. She lifted his robe...Oooh!...and there lay and asp on his leg. The deadly snake turned, coiled, and struck at Kelly.
L: [silence of shame]

A: Mostly I like the chapter titles. Chapter 1: The Announcement. Chapter 2: Lost. Chapter 3: Will I Live to See Tomorrow?

This was the part where Kelly the heroine proves herself not only a heroine, but also a really strong heroine. She picks up Abdul (a boy her same age and size, as the illustrations note, but was also teetering on the edge of life and death and needed special care immediately, or he would die) and swings him up comfortably in the saddle.Then she rides to a mud house that magically appears, ties up the camel, picks up Abdul again and runs up the footpath to the mud house.

When Kelly seeks for care for Abdul's snakebite, the hosts of the house (Henry and Mary [note: not Egyptian]) are nothing but reassuring.

Can you help him?! Kelly squeals.
Of course, of course, said the old man patiently. I had to work on a snake-bitten patient to get my doctor's degree.

The old guy saves Abdul's life, and Kelly is led to a pink frilly room in the mud hut. (Again, historical accuracy.)

Then Kelly (magically!) finds the tunnel that leads straight from the mud hut INTO THE TOMB. Then she overhears this conversation:

"I have a sneaking suspicion that brat of a girl is after my treasure, Henry."

"I'll kill her when she returns, Mary."

"Kill the boy tonight, Henry!"

"Nah, I'll poison him tomorrow."*

So Kelly runs into the house, gets Abdul, and they flee back to America. Kelly leads back explorers to the tomb, gets filthy rich, and buys a mansion/yacht/plane, and lives happily ever after with Abdul in Texas. All of this happens inside of four sentences. Adam hypothesizes that I must have run out of pages.

*original emphasis preserved