The Little Things

Locker Room Revisited

2011-10-21T10:22:00.003-06:00

A couple of months ago a friend asked if she could use one of my blog posts as a monologue when she auditioned for a play. She found a post she thought would work and we worked together on revising it. She auditioned for the play, scored the lead, and the highlight of my life was that I got to see the play AND see my name in the program (she thanked me in the program, that's huge!). Anyway, it was really fun and just yesterday I saw something in the gym that reminded me of this monologue inspiring experience...someone was combing their eyelashes with a toothbrush. Is this normal? I should make a poster "Everything I Need to Know About Personal Hygiene I Learned in the Lifetime Fitness Locker Room". Because really? It's true.

Locker Room
by Kristi Bassett

I grew up in a family of five. But it was kind of a weird family of five because I had three siblings who were older....like, WAY older (I may be slightly off here but I believe my older siblings were ages 17, 14 and 13 when I was born). And my brother Shawn, who was just four years older than me, was too busy plotting ways to raise my parents blood pressure to pay much attention to me. So - for all intents and purposes I was basically raised as an only child, with some of the joys of having siblings thrown in there - like being impaled by horse chestnuts each fall and having to watch Shawn turn his eyelids inside out just to torture me while riding in the backseat of the car (gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking back on it).

What I am trying to say here, is that I never learned how to be a girl. Really, I didn't. I mean sure, I would sneak off with Stef at recess and discuss the intricacies of menstruation. And once on a shopping trip with her family we even pooled our money together and bought deodorant (which we secretly applied while riding in the back of the station wagon). But I didn't exactly have anyone around who I could mimic- who could teach me the ins and outs of being cool, boys, and most importantly of things like make-up.

I mean, sure, I tried to mimic my mom - which is how I assume most girls learn how to primp and pamper. Growing up in the 40s she clung tightly to the trend of nearly shaving off your eyebrows and then penciling them back on, creating a look of permanent surprise. But when I tried to do the same thing I wound up shaving an eyebrow completely off and cutting my eyelashes precariously close to the lid. And maybe some people can pull off the uncle Fester look, but unfortunately, I am not one of those people. My quick thinking saved me a punishment when I falsely accused Jimmy, my childhood friend, of being the mastermind of the assault on my face. And though my eyelashes and brows have long since grown back, she’s still working on treating Jimmy civilly.
What I desperately needed was someone two or three years older who was infinitely cooler than myself, who could be my mentor. I needed DJ from Full House or Topenga from Boy Meets World, but unfortunately I hung around with more of the Kimmy Gibbler crowd, and it showed.

The moral of the story is that the locker room at the gym baffles me. I’ve never been around so much estrogen! There are women in there primping and prepping in ways that I never even imagined. Straightening Irons, finishing creams, powders, potions, it’s overwhelming! These women are dolling themselves up more for an afternoon play date than I did for my wedding! I can’t say I blame them, rather, I admire them! I want to look nice, I want to pucker my lips and trace them and make kissy faces in the mirror without looking like a moron. People probably think it's a bit odd to see me gawking as they meticulously apply their make-up, but I simply can’t help it, I want to learn!

The bottom line is.... I saw someone blow-drying their eyelashes yesterday. And I don't understand why. Is this something I should be doing? Am I unaware of some health hazard resulting from simply letting your lashes air-dry? Does it make them darker? Curlier? Or have damp lashes just gone the way of my beloved boot cut jeans? Are they sooooo 2009? I am kind of panicky about it because as much as I want to embrace my femininity and apply the knowledge I gather from the gym locker room, I can sense a revisiting of the whole "shave the eyebrow" incident, only this time involving fire and eyesight impairment rather than just social suicide. But on the other hand, they do say that pain is beauty...

What else am I missing out on? And for the love, will someone just invite me over for a sleepover and teach me the fine art of putting on eyeshadow? I'm 28 years old, I think it's time I know.

4

2011-09-18T22:31:00.005-06:00

Wow. Time flies when you are having fun, eh? Not sure how this little guy went from 0 - 4 in about two seconds, but he did! Having Bentley and Ivy so close together really through me for a loop (I know, you are thinking...really? She's not over it yet? But nope, not over it yet.). I think the hardest thing about it (besides trying to care for a newborn while puking my guts out) was that I felt like I didn't really get to pay enough attention to Bentley while he was just a little guy.

So it has actually been kind of fun this past month as Gwen has been gone at school all day and I just have the younger two at home. I feel like I am getting to see a fun side of Bentley (and Ivy). It's been fun to get to spend more time with him and to make up for some serious lost time while I was in a state of "two baby delirium" for a couple of years (I can hear twin moms laughing hysterically, I know dudes, I'm not as tough as you. I admit it).

Anyway, just thought I would give a little Bentley update for posterity's sake here on Bentley's fourth birthday.

Bentley finally started preschool, which he absolutely loves. He's been dying to go since he first found out about preschool about two and a half years ago. I am so grateful that he is finally old enough to go (misses the school deadline by two weeks, sigh). He goes to a little preschool a few houses down and looks forward to it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 12:30-3.

Which is when he used to take a nap. And which is when he still does take a nap on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One of my very favorite things about Bentley is that he still takes naps. Willingly, readily and most of the time happily.

He is really in to puzzles right now. It's kind of fun as Gwen never really got in to them so much. He's conquered the 24 piece puzzle and is now loving 48 piecers. And I love Dollar Tree for having such a nice selection of puzzles for $1. When the puzzles get too easy we take two of them and mix all the pieces together for an added element of fun.

He's a master at the bigwheel. That happened over the summer. At the beginning of the summer we had a bike parade and we were kind of the laughing stock of the ward for a while because of how slow we were. But he really picked up on it and I think he is ready to move on to training wheels. Luckily he just got a spiderman scooter ($3 at a garage sale!) and a wiggle car for his birthday. We'll have to get some good time in before the snow starts to fall!

Bentley LOVES to sing. And he loves to sing loudly. It's really made me reconsider the music I listen too. I never thought it was bad, but nothing makes you realize how bad the music you listen to is like your 3 (well now 4) year old belting out songs at Costco. His very favorites are "Tonight Tonight," anything by Owl City, and basically any song you hear on the radio more than five times a day. Yeah, I think I am going to invest in some educational songs and start playing those because that kid can memorize lyrics so quickly! He'll hear a song once and then start singing it.

He is so sweet. Seriously. Gwen is so tough and stubborn that I have kind of learned that I have to be stern with her. But Bentley as soon as he can sense you are upset with him quickly apologizes. Most often he will burst in to tears as well. He just wants to please everyone so much. It is such a relief to have a kid that actually...I don't know... like feels remorse. The other day I was rushing to get the kids in the car so we could pick up Gwen in time. I had told Bentley to grab his shoes and get in the car. I then took out the garbage. When I came in I hollored "Bentley, get up here!". No response, then "BEN!", then forgetting how tender he is "BENTLEY, GET UP HERE RIGHT NOW!". Then I heard some crying. I went downstairs to find him, but he wasn't there. I finally found him in the van, in the garage, with his seatbelt bucked, sobbing. He heard me yelling for him and he couldn't get out of his seatbelt to come find me. And the whole time he was exactly where I had asked him to be, he was so quick that he got out there in the two seconds I was outside taking out the trash. What a sweet, obedient boy.

On the Fourth of July he was tossing a pillow around and somehow fell backwards and hit the back of his head on our coffee table. The corner of the coffee table. I could hear it. I knew it was going to be bad. He cried but I didn't see any blood. It was kind of weird. Then I moved my hand and my hand had blood on it. Then I almost passed out when I saw his small puncture wound on his head. We took him to the instacare where he got two staples put in. This is the first instance of stitches/staples in the Blaine Bassett family history. And I learned that I don't think I can ever. EVER. Be a nurse. I almost tossed my cookies like ten times throughout the whole experience.

He LOVES church. He talks about his primary teachers nearly every day. One day he came home and said, "Mom and Dad we have a big problem". The big problem was that Sister McCorriston (his teacher) wasn't there that week. A few weeks later he excitedly came out of primary to tell us he had figured out why Sister McCorriston had been missing for a couple of weeks - she had had a baby. So cute. He really listens to his primary teachers too and can tell us every week what he learns.

Whenever we ask him to do something, particularly something not fun like going potty, his shoulders immediately slump he looks down and says in a droll voice, "this is gonna take forevvvvvver". I don't know why, but he always says it, and I always think it is hilarious.

For our family reunion this summer we did a family marathon. For two hours we all ran as much as we could and tried to see how many marathons we could collectively run. I thought Bentley would stay in the stroller the whole time but oh no! That kid ran. A lot. In flip flops. When all was said and done I think he logged in about three miles by himself! We really need to get him some running shoes!

He loves to give kisses, and he has some seriously huge lips. No one but me really likes receiving the kisses though, and ironically he doesn't like to receive kisses either, just give them. To his sisters. Blaine and I pray often that he isn't going to be that kid in elementary. You know, the one that runs around kissing people.

The other day when I gave him a haircut I guess I had cut it too short and he said, "this haircut makes me look too much like Grandpa Genessy". Grandpa Genessy is bald. Ha ha.

Bentley is a pure delight to have in our family. He seriously makes me so happy. I love being with him, and everyone he meets just loves him. I feel so lucky to be his mom and so sad to see how quickly he is growing up. I tell him all the time that I want him to stay little but he says he eats too many vegetables so he is going to keep growing. Darn it all.

Sophie's Choice or: Why My Children Will Prefer to Take the Stairs

2011-08-18T17:02:00.003-06:00

So, I'll save you some grief for when your youngest child is no longer in a stroller. Kids are afraid of escalators. I had absolutely no idea. See I have had one, if not two, kids in strollers for the past seven years now rendering escalators impossible. And even if I were to be naughty and fold up my stroller and take the escalator the child in question was probably small enough that I carried him/her up the darn thing.

So today I had a return to make at sears (side note, never buy anything from sears.com unless you know for certain that you won't be returning it, I am 2 for 2 on nightmare return situations). So I took the three kids with me, we made our return and wound up with $15 on a gift card. I figured it would be easiest to just use it while I was already there. The kids section was on the second floor. And that, my friends was when the "shizzizzle" hit the proverbial fan.

The way it goes in our family is that Ivy and I lead the way while Bentley and Gwen fight and bicker and putter along behind us. So, proceeding in our typical fashion I had Ivy's hand and got on the escalator going up. 1.5 seconds later I realize that Gwen had made it on the escalator but Bentley was still at the bottom quivering like it was a death trap. I urge him to just step on, certainly he had done this before, right? Meanwhile Ivy and I are drifting further and further up and away from Ben.

He finally gathers his courage enough to make a move but then freaks out and tries to go back down off a stair. He's completely panicking as he realizes that he could be stuck there forever and is not getting any closer to the bottom. He starts trying to go faster and... faceplants it on the escalator. He's wailing. Absolutely wailing, but Ivy and I are approaching the exit and as I think of her trying to get off the escalator alone horrible stories from the past of people's shoelaces and hair and phalanges getting gobbled up at the top of escalators flash before my eyes.

It's a real pickle. I felt like Sophie in Sophie's Choice. I really did. I quickly made a plan of action, despite Bentley's situation looking awfully precarious, I figured I would have time to get Ivy safely to the top of the escalator and then run down and catch Bentley before he made it to the top. It was kind of a nightmare all of the sudden as I contemplated the possibility that I could lose two children to the monstrosity.

Then a nice old man (who looked at me with utmost disdain for so carelessly abandoning my son-- can't blame him) saved the day. He picked up Bentley and carried him up the escalator to me.

Whew.

So life goes on and ten minutes later we are ready to leave the store, we have to go down the escalator. Having graduated the school of elevator hard knocks I picked up Ivy and Bentley and proceeded with caution to the mighty beast. It was then that I noticed Gwen cowering and nudging her way backwards away from the escalator.

For twenty minutes we sat there at the top, trying to help Gwen muster up the courage to get on the escalator. Ivy, Ben and I went up and down ten times to try to show her that it was going to be okay. Now, I could have understood if Bentley had a little post traumatic stress but Gwen? Really. I got lots of fun looks from passersby as I gave my best motivational speech about how if she was afraid of escalators she would be stuck on the "first floor of life" for ever. She didn't care.

Finally, finally, after much bribery and much motivational speaking we finally made our triumphant return to the first floor of Sears. None the worse for the wear but having learned some valuable life lessons. Like that you should maybe not just assume that kids know how to use escalators. Or at least put them on it first. Or better yet...just take the elevator.

Chipmunk Cheeks

2011-08-04T17:55:00.007-06:00

That was my nickname. Chipmunk Cheeks. We did a lot of things with my great aunts when I was a kid. Our Christmas traditions involved lots of great-aunt visiting. We enjoyed eating talerina with Aunt June (and getting a pair of socks with a fifty cent piece inside), then going over to enjoy Aunt Audrey's vast collection of cuckoo clocks and birds (of the real, non cuckoo variety). It was a fun childhood. Except for that they both called me "chipmunk cheeks" like all the time.

Anyway, flash forward two decades later and Bentley's favorite thing is to play "Chipmunk Cheeks" by stuffing whatever food we are eating in his cheeks before chewing and swallowing. It's endearing, and...kind of gross.

So last weekend was our family camping trip to Fountain Green. At the end of the trip my dear sister-in-law Stef offered to take Bentley for most of the next week (WOOHOO*)

The kids were exhausted when we finally got all packed up to go to our respective homes, and Stef sent me the following images of the first five minutes of their drive.

Woohoo! Riding with cousins is the best. thing. ever! (Note that poor Bentley gets lobsterfied anytime the mercury creeps past about 75 dgs, good thing we aren't in Texas anymore eh?)

A few minutes later Stef's kids had fallen asleep and Bentley looked a little...distressed. She asked what was wrong, he replied, "I'm doing schimpmuch sheiks". It took a minute to figure out that he was, indeed, doing chipmunk cheeks. But then he fell asleep.

And since he was asleep she decided to help rid him of the Chipmunk Cheeks.

And the grapes kept coming, and coming, and coming. I am not sure I know what the final count was, but I am certainly glad that the poor kid didn't choke to death!

It sure has been quiet around this house with little Bentley gone. Gwen and Ivy have been downright civil to each other. Not sure what it is with Gwen and Bentley, but they fight incessantly. But despite the peace and quiet and calmness that has presided over our home the last several days, I miss this kid! He is like a walking exclamation point and I can't wait to kiss his face off when I see him again tonight!

* I remember one time when I only had one kid someone who had two kids saying something to the effect of "well you only have one kid so you don't understand". It really bothered me. But, I have to admit in the last two months I have had the chance to only have two kids a couple of times (thanks Stef!), and it does not matter the combination of kids but in my personal experience two kids is WAY, like tremendously, extraordinarily, extremely and downright miraculously easier than having three kids. That is not to diminish anyone's one-kid or two-kid lives at all, those times were hard too. But jeepers, two kids is like a stroll in the park compared to three. But that could just be because I never really got a chance with two kids. Remember how I was pregnant with Ivy when Ben was the tender age of seven months? yeah. I am sure that three kids is a walk in the park compared to having four. Which is why I only have three :). The end.

Why I Should Not Be Your #1 Choice for Family Portraits

2011-07-24T23:25:00.001-06:00

Oh blurgh. Twenty pictures and this is the best one I can get of my three children together? Not exactly mantle worthy.

On the bright side though, I'm starting to get the hang of taking individual shots.

PS Gwen is the only person who can hold still long enough for me to adjust my settings to take a decent picture though. Oh well : )

gaga ooh la la

2011-06-22T08:28:00.003-06:00

Bentley is a loud guy. Not in a bad way, he's not usually whining or complaining. He's usually singing. His current favorite is "Tonight, tonight"
La, la, la whatever
La, la, la it doesn't matter
La, la, la oh well
La, la, la

Really, he knows the whole song. It's really sweet and fun, but it can get quite loud, and perhaps a little embarrassing. You never realize what song lyrics are actually saying until your innocent child starts blaring out pop music at Costco (that one was Bad Romance, by Lada Gaga, "rah rah ah ah ah roma ro ma ma gaga ooh la la). Yeah, nothing like wide eyed glares from passersby as he belts out at the top of his lungs.

Anyway the other day I had a really bad headache and he was singing in his typical boisterous way and I looked right in his eyes and said "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" to which he responded "why?" (usually Gwen is the shusher in this family and I try to tell her to only shush bad sounds not happy singing). I responded "sorry bud, but I have a headache" and then he said, "well, what is your headache trying to sleep or something?"

I love the things kids come up with!

Clarification

2011-05-06T10:14:00.005-06:00

My child is NOT named after a car. I just want to clear that up. Because when Blaine clicked on an article about, and I quote, "the most despised baby names" we were a little horrified to see that Bentley was near the top of that list.

I have a thing about names. I like awesome ones. I take a great deal of deliberation when choosing them. I don't want a common name. Ivy's name was on the top 1000 (#299) when we named her and that was pushing it. But I loved it so much that I made an exception.

When I named Bentley it wasn't even in the top 1000 baby names. I practically invented using the name. Bentley was born in 2007, and the social security rating for his name in 2007 was #995 (it wasn't on the list for any year prior, ever.). But apparently there is some famous teenage mom (from one of those crazy shows that advocate teen pregnancy) that named her child Bentley and now, what do you know, for 2010 Bentley ranked #101 on the list of baby boy names. What a sham. And on top of being a now extremely popular name, people apparently hate it, because they assume people are using it because of the classy Bentley car. I kind of want to pull my hair out.

Let me tell you a brief history of my childrens names, lest you think I am a Bentley driving Gwenyth Paltrow fan whose favorite plant is Ivy (can you see the steam coming out of my ears?).

Gwen. Gwen is named after Blaines Grandma. Blaine's Grandma is absolutely the most Christlike person on the planet today. I am sure of it. So selfless, kind, caring, sweet. The salt of the Earth. If asked who I most wanted to be like on the planet, it would most certainly be Grandma Gwen. Gwen's name was 100% going to be Adilyn. Adilyn Paige. Up until the day she was born, when it just didn't feel right. And thank goodness for that. Little Adi would have been lost in a sea of Madi's, Abby's and Adi's. Dodged that bullet.

Bentley. My Grandma's maiden name was Bentley. It seemed perfect. We loved the name Ben but didn't want to use the common name of Benjamin. So one day I had an epiphany (I was in the HEB parking lot with Ralphie) to use my Grandma's maiden name. She was also a very sweet, kind, give you the shirt off her back, kind of Grandma. And bonus! We could stick with the using of the family name thing, which we never set out to do, but hey! Why not!

Ivy Jane. Now this was a hard one. We had used family names twice, but was that going to be our thing? I didn't want to commit to a trend. We stewed and stressed. My desire to name my child something unique reached an all time high. I really really loved the name Scout. I thought it would be darling for a little girl. I could not sell Scout on Blaine to save my life (much the same as Charlie with Bentley). One day on the phone I was teasing my dad, Ivan (goes by Don), that I was going to name the new baby after him and call her "Ivy". It was completely a joke. But then...I really liked it. In the hospital we had the names narrowed to Lyla Jane or Ivy Jane. We had penciled in Lyla on the certificate. Then I told Blaine I was sick of trying to figure it out, and that he was to leave and not come back until he had for sure named our new baby. He came back with tears in his eyes and said her name was Ivy Jane. He really wanted to honor my parents (Ivan and Jan). He new I wasn't the best at showing grattitude, and I really did have amazing parents. He wanted to show them how much we love and admire them by naming our daughter after them (in a round about way).

So SEE. My kid is not named after a car, nor was his name inspired by teenage pregnancy.

Now, if your kids name is popular, that's great. I love popular names too. And if you named your kid after a car, more power to you. I just didn't and I want to clarify so that if you think Bentley is a very uppity thing to name your kid you can realize...I named my Bentley after a humble old lady, who lived in a tiny house in Ogden and had a heart of gold, not a pot of it.

(PS the spacing on this post will not be fixed. I tried. Repeatedly. It's like hard wired in here. Sorry)

Fever Pitch

2011-04-28T22:26:00.004-06:00

I've never been much of a runner. One of the many reasons I feel like a social outcast in the stay-at-home mom community. I've tried really hard to love it but I just....don't. On January 1, 2005 Blaine decided that he would run the St. George marathon that October. He wasn't much of a runner either. I sent him out on his first run with a big pat on the back and an enthusiastic "you can do anything you set your mind to Honey!!". He hobbled back heaving and ho-ing about five minutes later after having made it about half a mile.

He persisted though and his runs became longer and easier for him, until he was consistently running several miles a day. That summer we had the opportunity to live in Portland, OR (which ranks #2 on my "Places I Want to Live" list, right behind Round Rock, TX). Throughout that summer I would sporadically try to run. It usually didn't go well and would turn more in to a leisurely stroll.

Rarely did Blaine and I go running together because, well, what was the point? He would run at a much faster pace than me and he would actually, you know...run. But one day I was feeling particularly pudgy and I decided I would do my very best to go on a run with Blaine. I loaded Gwen up in the jogger and we were off.

It was sunny and warm, the scent of pine trees wafted through the air. I was at the top of my game. We started out kind of together but eventually, and you may want to sit down for this part, I got ahead of Blaine.

Now I had never actually gone running with someone and gotten ahead of them before. I am usually panting and puffing and clutching my side, urging for the sweet release of death. This feeling of leading the pack was absolutely invigorating. I found a strength deep within myself that I hadn't known existed before. I ran and I ran and I watched Blaine grow smaller and smaller in the distance. I had never felt so alive.

Now you might think that maybe Blaine wasn't trying. Oh, he was trying. I could tell. He looked how I normally looked during runs. Once we got home I went on and on about how wonderful I was, I had really shown him who was boss.

And that's when he nearly collapsed. And that is also when we took his temperature and saw that he had a 104dg fever. And then spent the night in the Emergency Room. Yeah.... that explained a lot.

And that was the last time I went running.

Zumba anyone?

Seek First to Understand

2011-04-27T12:33:00.004-06:00

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of working at Franklin Covey for several months right after finishing high school. I truly loved the job. It was a typical post-high school job, I took inbound sales calls. The beautiful thing though was that my shift was from 5AM-9AM every day. Being done with work by 9AM? That was something to rejoice about. Going to bed at 8PM though...was social suicide, but that's beyond the point.

One of the perks of being an employee of Franklin Covey was getting the chance to attend lots of seminars and things that other people had to pay hundreds of dollars to attend. For all of the seminars and motivational reading material I received there's only one thing that really stuck with me, "seek first to understand and then to be understood." I think that's one of the seven values of highly effective people, or something like that.

Even through my numbskull teenage head that phrase seemed profound. I made a concerted effort to apply it in to my daily life, and it's been my go-to wedding shower advice for nearly a decade.

It served me well when we were first married and Blaine was really really late getting home from work and I was worried (and we shared a cell phone - the horror! - so I had no way of contacting him). I was borderline call-the-police worried when he finally walked in the door. It's funny how as soon as you know the person you were worried about is safe that worry can turn in to anger real quick. Turns out he had stopped to help someone (or given someone a ride home and then stopped to help someone, something very selfless and kind), and I was sorry that I hadn't sought first to understand before I verbally assaulted him once he finally came in the door.

Anyway, I think it is a wonderful motto, seek first to understand and then to be understood.

Blaine just got home last night from a four day trip to Boston. A lot of yelling rang through the halls of our home while he was gone. Turns out single parenthood is emotionally taxing. And for some reason, completely beyond my scope of comprehension, I decided that while Blaine was gone would be a good time to dejunk Gwen and Bentley's room. After a very tiring day of sorting, cleaning, and dejunking I got to the last drawer of Gwen's dresser. And it that drawer, I found this...

*shudder*. What the WHAT? My mind raced thinking of how I had one time found an entire measuring cup full of sugar in her closet, all the candy wrappers I had found behind her bed, all the distrust she has earned recently. I assumed it was probably a hunk of cheese she had squirreled away to eat after bedtime and then forgotten about.

I took a breather, before berating her about sneaking food I decided to just try to seek first to understand. I asked her what it was.

Her response? "Your Mothers Day present!"

Boy did I feel loved. But then she continued, "remember a few weeks ago when we had pineapple with *salt on it and you wanted another piece but it was gone? I saved a piece for you to give to you for mothers day!".

Ahhhhh. See! Good thing I hadn't yelled at her, right? It was a sweet gift. I mean certainly what I want most of all for Mothers Day is for my kids to stop fighting for even just ten minutes, but a very close second is a moldy piece of pineapple that had been squirreled away with utmost care, remember it truly is all about the little things.

Happy Mothers Day, may you receive gifts as thoughtful (though hopefully not as smelly) as mine!

*Am I the only person who salts my pineapple, my husband and children think I am a such a freak show, but it is so much better that way!

Tutorial Tuesday

2011-04-26T12:44:00.007-06:00

I mentioned a while back on facebeook that I was considering applying for a blogging position. I was really excited about it. I would love the opportunity to earn money from home while Blaine is in school. Well, I never applied. The main reason is because the blog was a homemaking blog. And that's great and all, since homemaking is my full time profession, but...I'm no good at it. As Kayla once noted, I write about the black eyes of homemaking, the epic fails. To be frank, I am kind of tired of that, of being the person who can't do anything.

I mean, I've tried photography. Fail.
I don't dress well. At all.
Can't grow a garden to save my life.
We all know that my handyman skills are dire, and that's being generous.

Everyone who is anyone (or at least anyone who is a stay at home Mom in the Mormon community) is good at something homemakery like. Take for example a small case study of my friends. We've got the photographer, the gardner, the fashionista, the crafter, and finally the decorator/crafter/entrepreneur extraordinaire; it kind of begs the question...what am I contributing to the world?

Well that's about to change folks. I present to you my first first do-it-yourself tutorial.

See I noticed the other day that the bottom of my stools were kind of scratching the wood floor. I knew Laurie, Kayla, Meleah, Ralphie, Janssen et. all would be able to solve this type of problem on their own, using their mad homemaking skills. So I figured it out by myself and took pictures along the way, so I could contribute.

Be edified my friends.

Homemade Floor Protecting Mittens

by: Kristi

First you will want to gather your needed supplies. I decided to repurpose all of the socks from our mismatched sock bucket.

Now, take the sock and place over the leg of the stool. Like so.

When sock is completely over stool leg...

Get a rubber band. Any kind will do. For this project I chose one of Ivy's hair bands.

(that's sparkly blue nail polish from the Easter Bunny, it looks really gross in this picture and I'd be lying if I said it looked better in real life.) Now, be careful here to not snap the rubber band. I found that doubling the elastic around twice, to make an 'x' pattern was very visually satisfying.

And voila! Now not only have you added to the warmth and loveliness of your home, accented your decor (and the random piles of laundry hanging around), but you've also protected your wood floors. And it didn't cost you a dime.

Go and feel validated in your homemakery my friends. I feel like an official crafty Mormon housewife now. Whew!

Fairies gone wild

2011-03-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

And while on the topic of Gwen....she told me some of the kids had decorated their homework folders and asked if she could do the same. I consented, and I can only imagine how excited her teachers are to see this little number every day! Boom chicka wow wow!

Fred

2011-03-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

You may have already heard how Gwen busted open Bentley's box of valentines and labeled them all "To: Gwen From : Bentley" but did you hear how she labeled all of her valentines?

I'm not sure who this Fred kid is, but apparently she has the hots for him :) Just kidding, I told her to label them all "To: Friend" but apparently I need to enunciate better : )

Important

2011-03-07T11:05:00.002-07:00

You know, I'm a self professed bad teacher. I'm just not good at it. I have lots of talents (most of them have something to do with changing two diapers at a time), but teaching simply is not one of them. I've taken strides, however, to make sure that I teach my children the important things in life. That they are children of God, that they should be kind, to only buy things that are on sale, and so on. And every once in a while I get what I like to call a "parent payday" when the efforts of my tireless teaching and patience pay off. I got one of those yesterday. Now that Gwen is getting older we've tried to teach her about stranger danger and what to do if someone attempts to kidnap her. Yesterday, out of the blue, she wrote down a step by step plan for what to do if a "bad guy, or almost bad guy" tries to kidnap her.

Because many of you aren't fluent in kindergartenese I'll first rewrite what she wrote with her own spelling, and then I will interpret it for you.

1 AKT lik u dum kid
2 Yel Help!"
3 puch the priuris if is u Boy if is u grle puch hr in the nipl

And now, for those of you who use regular English rather than phonetic English

1. Act like a dumb kid
2. Yell help
3. Punch the privates if it's a boy, if its a girl, punch her in the nipple

It's nice to know that she is retaining the important things that we are trying to teach her : ) Also how cute that she puts a dot in between every word, attempted to use punctuation, and...I don't know, she's just so darn cute. And don't you dare try to kidnap my kid, unless you like a good punch to the nipple!

Surprise! I posted!

2011-03-01T07:38:00.006-07:00

Well if I have learned one thing in my short life, it is that if I get behind on writing in a journal (or blog for this matter...) I will get intimidated and never start writing again. It's really sad isn't it? You keep thinking how you are going to just sit and catch up and write a thousand posts in a day but then you never do.

But the good news is I think the whole reason I haven't written is simply because I don't have time. First off I got a job! And it's a job blogging! Blaine's cousin owns a Utah real estate business. Did you notice how I made the link the key words that we are trying to get up on the google page for? See how I am learning all about SEO and so when I decide to become a rich famous blogger sometime I actually maybe can. I am also learning a lot about html* < / slight exaggeration > . So everyday I take Gwen to school, come home, wrasstle the young 'uns in to their naps (getting harder and harder) and then spend exactly two hours down here blogging on a real estate blog. Don't judge my posts yet, I am still getting the hang of it, and it is more factual than entertaining, but it's a start! My first humble paycheck is on the way.

And what will I do with that paycheck, you ask? Well, for starters I will put a deposit down on the SIXTY DOLLARS WORTH of donuts Blaine bought yesterday. You heard me.** He got a special clearance at work a few days ago and can now go in to a different part of the building and apparently you have to bring donuts (specifically not the crappy kind). We wound up taking gourmet donuts that cost their weight in gold. Anyway, let's let bygones be bygones.

Another reason I am busy is because I freaking LOVE the gym. Remember how I posted that one time about Zumba? Turns out, I LOVE IT! And also turns out that trying to fit the gym in while shuttling around a kindergartner is nearly impossible. But I'll be darned if I don't try. Anyway love zumba, and am trying to work up my courage to become an instructor. Not sure if they allow people with ZERO rhythm and coordination to actually teach, but I can't imagine a better job (if the whole real estate blogger thing doesn't pan out).

So.. it's been a while...over a month and then before that it was another month. It pains me, especially because for Christmas I printed out ye olde blog and gave it to Blaine and it made us happy that we have some documentation of our lives the past few years.

So, in honor of me getting overwhelmed and knowing deep down that I never will really catch up, I present, my list of things that deserve their own blog post but simply wont get one.

Law School - Just the very words make my heart beat fast. To go or not to go? Blaine applied to ten schools, we've heard back from seven (all yes!) Blaine got full tuition scholarships to two (University of St. Thomas - not in St. Thomas, unfortunately, in St. Paul, big difference AND Baylor), and a meager scholarship to another (George Mason in DC) we've yet to hear from University of Texas, University of Washington and University of Colorado (ironically our three big dream schools). My thoughts? Wellllllllllllllllllllllll, originally I was the reason we started this whole thing because I wanted to get back to Austin, RIGHT then. Life was miserable (a true blue depression I've decided, brought on by a big move, a friendless ward, a dark basement, financial woes, having three young children at home - one who was really really ready for school- and last but certainly not least, really bad renters). Last March we got new renters, then in June we moved to a beautiful non-basement house, I got some friends (Hello Bunko Group, Dinner Swap, Movie Nights!), Gwen started kinder (hello sweet sweet freedom) and so on. Turns out being not depressed is freaking awesome. So I kind of hesitate to shake things up again, because we always shake things up just when they start getting to awesome. But I agree higher education is important and I want to do this, but then again.....how are we going to afford things like...oh say diapers, let alone insurance for the children. Anyway, look at how I sneakily turned this in to its own blogpost within a blogpost. Sorry, won't happen again.

Bentley got a $1 watch for Christmas and it has turned in to his personal decision maker. He'll be like "Mom! My watch says it's time to go to a movie!" or "Mom! My watch didn't say that it is naptime, so I am NOT taking a nap". I kind of hate that thing, but I am super impressed that he keeps it on him at all times. If I could only be that way with my keys.

Turns out my incredibly trustworthy daughter is not so trustworthy (guess I should have figured that out last year). She's been snitching up a storm. It started out with me finding finger marks in the sugar bowl. Then a bunch of Valentine candy wrappers in her room, and culminated in me finding a sugar encrusted measuring cup on a back shelf in her closet. I don't even want to think about how full it had been and how fast she ate an entire cup of sugar. Anyway, any awesome parenting tips? Do I lock every cupboard? Forbid her from going in the kitchen? I'm a bit at a loss. She is big enough to get in to everything if she wants to.

I am a professional matchmaker. Remember the last ward I was in? How I kind of only made one friend? On about the first time I met the friend I found out she had a single, handsome, awesome brother and as it turns out, I have a single, awesome, amazing sister-in-law. A few weeks later I had a bday party for Ives(uh, nickname for Ivy) and my sister-in-law came as did Katie (the friend), when Katie met Janey she gave the go ahead to her brother to call her up. And they are totally getting married in June. Aren't I amazing? And won't they be conflicted on September 23, October 23 and December 9th (read hyperlink)?

I would be remiss if I didn't say something about IJ. Where did that girl come from? She is about the naughtiest two-year-old I've ever met, but she has the guise of an angel. She looks like she is about 12 months old (though she is now over two), still barely has hair and what she does have is all cornsilky and blonde, gorgeous blue eyes, but a fiery fiesty temper that will scare the bejeebies out of you. You would just have to see it to believe it. So naughty. And on the bright side her new favorite phrases are a) "HELP ME" and b) "______ hit me! Help!" no one actually hits her, so..... its made for some awkward situations, especially because if I say "no, Bentley didn't hit you, he's not even in the room" "her eyes open wide, her lips start to quiver and she says, "MOMMY hit me! Help" so if I get hauled away for child abuse ... I swear, I didn't do it, she is just playing the innocent youngest child a little too well. I bought her a leash for her second birthday and life has been happier since. What a crazy child. I love her though, too much for words!

So there you have it a brief (kinda) synopsis of where I've been, what I'm doing, and the plights of everyday motherhood. Now I can write another post of things that I am doing that you should be doing too, without feeling guilty about shamelessly plugging programs that I get rewards for.

Is anyone even still out there? If I promise to write more will you come back? I have funny stories, they still happen every day....lots of them involve poop, I promise I'll share! Missed you guys. Okay, peace out.

*The funny thing is that I tried to do the opening and closing tags for that sentence as a joke, but it kept doing funny things, like striking out my whole post, so really I have quite a bit more to learn about html : )

** Note the vagueness, because I kind of am in fear that Russian Spies will read that and come kindnap Blaine, I promise it's not THAT BIG OF A DEAL. Geez, I am kind of nervous though. Stupid blog anonymity, I crave you!

Skintimate

2011-01-24T21:33:00.003-07:00

Blaine and I got married during his first semester of college. Very nearly in his first month of college. See Blaine and I dated all through high school and got engaged about ten seconds after he returned home from his mission in Spain. He started BYU in January of 2003, and we got married on Valentines Day of the same year [insert big romantic sigh here, but it's really unnecessary since we only got married that day because it was a three day weekend and we had a day off of school--and as an aside to this aside, do yourself a favor and get married when you can have longer than a 48 hour honeymoon].

Needless to say, we were poor. For a looooooong time. Two college students, random low paying student type jobs. I mean sure our 350 sq ft apartment was only $395 a month, but that was about all we were pulling in at that time. You may think I jest at the size of the apartment, but I assure you...I do not. You could sit on the loveseat and cook a meal on the stove at the same time, and if you are good at multi-tasking you could probably be cleaning out the fridge all the while. And, no joke, the bathroom was like one foot by five feet, very long and skinny, so you actually had to sit sideways on the toilet. Ahhh, those were the days. Yes, I am certainly glad that I can now plug in two appliances without burning a fuse and sending our apartment into blackness until the landlords got home (because the fuse was on their side of the basement).

But I digress.....we were poor. Did I mention that? And on top of being poor we were frugal. Didn't spend money on much. We scrimped and saved so that Blaine could buy this. Which was like...the first ipod, but like three years before ipods. (not sure why I am throwing that in here, other than the fact that it is SO HUGE compared to what everyone uses for music these days and we saved so long and spent so much on that sucker!).

One day I was quite sick of being poor, sick of living in an apartment with no sunlight and no space at all, I was sick of being a student. I had just had it. And Blaine made me mad. Real mad. I really can't remember what he did (probably nothing!), but I decided I had had enough.

And I went to the store and I bought Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner AND even splurged for some face wash. It was my way of rebelling. My way of sticking it to the man.

Not real sure my logic there since I did the finances and likely Blaine never knew or cared about my spending spree. But it felt good. It felt good to be able to comb through my hair after the shower. It felt good to smell nice. It felt good to wash my face.

Well after four long years we finished school. We got our first job, got our first house, had some kids, and so on. And we've never been rich by any means, but we've certainly been very blessed and very comfortable. Able to buy things like diapers and....food.

And now that we have been in the working world for four years, I finally had another breakdown. And I did something I've been wanting to do for about eight years now. I bought shaving gel.

I know right? Gluttony in the very sense of the word. I have no idea in the world why I haven't ever felt that I could drop the two dollars and eighteen cents that shave gel costs, but I haven't...till last week. And oh baby. Life is pretty much complete. And for some reason, I thought you all might like to know...my legs are shaved, I didn't cut myself, and life is good!

Now....who's ready to go to law school and plummet in to debt again? ! Yay! (maybe I will stock up on shave gel....)

Treasure

2010-12-16T18:32:00.003-07:00

So, I never win anything. Right? Everyone says that. But I finally won something, and it made all of the other things that I never won totally worth it, because even if I would have won every other thing I had ever tried to....I would so much rather have this!

Thank you Pointe Digital for this awesome opportunity. I am such a cheapskate that I would never even think to buy a family video or even a professional photo shoot, but now I see that it really is a bargain for the awesome memories it captures.

This is the best Christmas gift ever!

Bassett Family Photo/Video from Davey Orgill on Vimeo.

I take and I take and I take

2010-11-21T19:57:00.004-07:00

And finally today I got a chance to give back.

I don't want to brag or anything, but I am kind of a big deal in the online deal finding community. That's right! Well, normally I am not, but today I am! Usually I go to sites like freebies2deals, or pinchingyourpennies, or fatwallet and peruse the deals and reap the benefits of buying things at screaming deals. But yesterday on my own volition I went to walmart.com to check prices on the Barbie movies. Low and behold they were a screaming deal! Some of the movies were as low as $3.50 a piece! Yeah sure normally you can find a Barbie movie here or there for five bucks but ALL of the Barbie movies were in the $4-6 range. So, I thought I would do a favor for humanity and post the deal on the fatwallet forum. And then all of the sudden my email inbox was flooded (well, two emails) from fatwallet saying I won all of these awards and that my deal was one of the hot deals of the day. So yeah, you should go buy a Barbie movie for all of those near and dear to your heart and be sure you go to ebates first so you can get it even twenty cents cheaper ; ). And be sure to check out the "Best Deals" page today on fatwallet...look for the picture of Barbie...and then look for the itty bitty text at the bottom that says "thanks to fatwallet member kadagagaba". That's me, *kadagaba.

*kadagaba is a nickname affectionately given to me in highschool when someone figured out my initials would be kdgb if I married Blaine. Random I know. I stick the d in there so as to not get myself mixed up with the Russian Mafia.

MAJOR AWARD!!

2010-11-19T08:22:00.005-07:00

Say hello to our most recent family photo!

Notice any glaring omissions? Like, say, our youngest two children?! Yeah. It's been a while. But the good news is that now you can say GOODBYE! To that picture because I WON A MAJOR AWARD from Pointe Digital!

I am beyond thrilled! They do an amazing job! Amazing. Seriously one of my bigger regrets in life is that I got married before they started doing wedding photography/videography.

Pointe Digital is owned and operated by some life long friends of mine, the Orgills. I love the Orgill's! Julianne was my same age and my best friend all growing up. We lived two houses away from each other and there was always something exciting going on at their house. I have vague recollections of her brothers lighting fireworks inside to see if they could make it all the way outside before they went off. See, exciting! Julianne's mom would plan the best birthday parties for her kids too. At Julianne's birthday we were always doing something creative, most notably was the year that we chased a chicken around because she had tied five dollars to the chicken's leg and whoever caught the chicken got to keep the money. They Orgill's had a whole zoo of animals, from dogs to guinnea pigs and chickens and rabbits. I remember they even taught me how to hypnotize a chicken too. They also had the worlds most incredible tree house, complete with a TV inside. I remember many an early evening spent hiding in Julianne's closet because friends weren't allowed over after her Dad got home from work and sometimes I wouldn't make it out in time so I'd have to wait for a prime opportunity to sneak away. When Julianne's older sister went on a mission I remember reading her letters and hearing all about how she had found a little turtle (or frog? or lizard?) or something and kept it in her pocket every day for her whole mission. Cool right? Roseanne would take us toilet papering too. Talk about a cool mom!

The Orgill's are everything a person could hope for in a large family. There are six kids alternating boy/girl/boy/girl all about two years apart. As kids they would all clog in their coordinating outfits at the fair and other functions. They are just so darn cool! Even now they get together and have dance parties and talent shows.

It's my dream really. To have a big, supportive family who all love each other and stay close even as they get older. The kind of family who wants to get together and sing and dance and laugh.

We're off to a fairly rocky start here though. Gwen and Bentley fight like cats and dogs, all day every day. They drive me crazy. Is it their personalities? Their age gap (just three years...but is that too far?), the fact that they are boy and girl? I have no idea where I went wrong, but man I see my dream of our family talent shows in fifteen years going up in a blaze of smoke. So...any ideas for how to make my family more close knit? How to foster love and happiness and reduce the amount of choke holding? I would love to hear fun things your family did together, and things you do together now to stay close.

Anyway, kind of a scattered post but I want you to take three things away from it.

1. The Orgill's are AWESOME.

2. I WON A MAJOR AWARD!

3. You should have Pointe Digital take your pictures because they do an amazing job! Check out their new website www.pointedigital.com and stay tuned for our photo/video shoot!

Children of the Corn

2010-11-17T21:02:00.007-07:00

There is a peculiar situation presented to college graduates when they become parents. It doesn't happen until about six years after the birth of their first child, but eventually they will face this somewhat awkward situation. The situation is the first major project that their child is assigned in school.

Gwen's assignment seemed simple enough - a three minute presentation on corn farms. And certainly it would have been simple enough. Except that the parent designated to help her with this project was Blaine. And the last presentation Blaine gave in the world of academia was a two hour presentation on Field Programmable Gate Arrays designed to process digital images in real time to find roads as part of an autonomous driving system blah blah blah yadda yadda *yawn*. He spent over six months researching and testing his programs and theories, writing thirty page papers and designing websites to support this project.

So you can see the problem right? Asking someone who is used to giving thorough, intense, groundbreaking presentations to rooms full of engineers to create a simple and succinct presentation on corn farms. Well, it would be like asking Shakespeare to write the script for a Velveeta commercial. Or having Pdub do a guest post on this blog. You get the picture--overqualification.

But!

You should have seen his bloodshot, horrified, fearful eyes when I explained the details of Gwen's report to him. You would think I had just assigned him another senior project.

This unexpected reaction wasn't because I had asked him to help on her project; he was eagar and willing to help. But man, the stress! You wouldn't think someone with his experience and qualifications would be so terrified of a three minute report!

They worked on it. And worked on it. And WORKED on it some more. They went to a corn farm, they went to a grocery store to find all of the things that used corn as an ingredient, they made a poster, they rehearsed and memorized, they colored and googled.

Blaine had the kind of parents who stayed up until unearthly hours helping him do posters for school projects, I had the kind of parents who consoled me when they found out I only got a 4 on the AP physics exam (as they assumed it was out of 10 or 100...either way a 4 didn't seem too hot). Both of us wound up on full tuition scholarships at BYU, so there is no real saying which way is the right way. Lucky for Gwen she has one of each. One who will stay up late doing posters, and one who will pop the popcorn and deliver it to the hard workers before she goes crawling back to bed.

I think Gwen is off to a healthy start. Her presentation was today and she nailed it (or so I heard from Blaine, who took the morning off to go and see it). I am really proud of Gwen.

But I am even prouder of Blaine. I may complain that he isn't a good handyman(did I ever post about the shelves he built me?). I may say he is the girl in this relationship (he cried in Mission to Mars people). He may be more afraid of mice than me (you should have heard him scream the other day when we saw one in the garage). But he really has everyone beat in the fatherhood department. And if we are being honest, that's about the biggest and most important department there is. He took on as much stress for a three minute report on corn farming as he did for his own senior project. That's the sign of a quality father right there.

So here is to my electrical engineer husband, who stayed up until who knows how late with his six-year-old to make sure she was overly prepared and qualified to give a three minute presentation on corn farms; all while I was ~~snoozing in bed~~ reading my scriptures. I'm glad he is willing and able to take on projects like this, and to help Gwen take them seriously, because I would have just had her memorize the wikipedia article.

Salad Queen

2010-11-15T13:42:00.003-07:00

Somewhere along the way I became the designated salad maker for our family functions. It's probably not what I would have choosen to become, but it is how it is so...(on the bright side salads are like...the easiest thing to prepare and the thing I always have the ingredients for, so even though it was unintentional, I have grown quite accustomed to being the salad person)

I thought I would share with you some salad making tips. Since becoming the salad maker I have learned two things about what makes a salad great 1) lots of "stuff" and 2) a special dressing you make especially for your salad. These things always please the peeps.

I think I aquired my title of "Awesome Salad Maker" by making Ralphie's Avacado Feta Salad.

Here's the recipe, I love it!

Salad

1 package of baby greens (I love the big package of baby greens at costco, and only like $3 for a weeks worth of salads)
1/4 C chopped red onion
1/2 C chopped walnuts (raise your hand if you hate walnuts! Me! I use pecans! or almonds)
1/3 C crumbled feta or blue cheese (raise your hand if you hate blue cheese! Me! I always use feta, and for some weird reason I prefer it grated instead of crumbled. You can get a big ol' pack of feta at costco for cheaper than anywhere else)
2 tsp lemon zest
1 apple - peeled, cored and sliced
1 avocado - peeled, pitted and diced

Dressing

4 mandarin oranges, juiced (I use half a can of mandarins and squish them with a potato masher)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/2 t lemon zest
1 clove garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
salt to taste.

This is a surefire crowd pleaser!

Then a few weeks ago Katie came to dinner and brought an awesome salad, and it took two weeks of harassing her but I have finally secured her dressing recipe for you! This got RAVE reviews last night. Rave.

The dressing

2T Red Wine Vinegar
3T sugar or honey or agave ( I used more like 2)
1/2 C Olive Oil
1/2 t dry mustard
1/2 t salt
1 C strawberry or raspberry jam

The salad

mixed greens from Costco
feta
blueberries
apple - peeled, cored and diced
candied pecans (recipe forthcoming!)
avocado

Seriously, it was amazing.

So, if I am making a sweet yummy type dressing I use a medley of any of the following

spinach or mixed greens
blueberries
apples
strawberries
mandarin oranges
avocado
feta
toasted nuts
candied nuts
red onion

If I am wanting a salad with just plain old ranch dressing (which I loooooove) (hey maybe Janssen will post her homemade ranch dressing recipe....mmm? pretty please?)

Then I use whatever type of lettuce I have, I always get something fancy in my bountiful basket
croutons
snap peas, cut in smaller pieces
red onion
tomato
cucumber
feta
green or red peppers
toasted nuts

and, here is a little super salad maker tip for you...if I am doing a non sweet salad - I always salt and pepper the whole salad. Always. It makes a big difference for me. So now you know.

But please still assign me salads if you invite me to a party. It's kind of my thing.

2010-11-14T01:36:00.001-07:00

PS Do you love the gargantuan picture? I thought 1:36AM might be a good time to redesign my blog, but now I am too tired to mess with it. So it's going to stay this way until I gather some gumption. But at least it's a cute giant picture, right?

PPS Can this count as my post for Sunday? Is that cheating?

Detour

2010-11-14T00:50:00.005-07:00

I know, I know, I KNOW that it is 12:50AM on 11/14/2010 and therefore technically I missed a day of Nablopomo, I KNOW. But seeing as how I have not yet slept I consider it still 11/13/2010 and we are just going to run with that.

Why am I posting at such an unearthly hour? Mostly because of red peppers.

See, I hate going to the grocery store like every. single. day. Hate it. Dragging the three kids, telling them no to all of their requests while we are at the store, so on and so forth, so much work for one or two items. So today I sat down and made a menu for the upcoming week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday if you must know). And I was going to do all of the shopping today so I wouldn't have to take Things 1, 2, and 3 with me and so I could go the entire week next week without stepping foot in the grocery store. This was the plan.

At about 2 PM Blaine took Gwen and Bentley off in search of a corn farm (she has a report...bleh, I thought I was done with reports for life!), and I took Ivy to get an *oil change. After the oil change we ran to Costco to purchase a bunch of the items on my grocery list, meticulously made from my carefully planned menu, then I was planning a quick trip to the other grocery store to get the things that I didn't need in bulk.

But I ran out of time! See, I had a girls night planned with Laurie, my long lost BFF. We were going to go eat, shop and watch Inception. So I figured I would just stop at the second grocery store after the movie.

Girls night started, I had buckets of fun. Inception was sold out when we stopped to pick up our tickets TWO HOURS before the show began, so we got tickets for Wall Street instead (not worth my dollar and a half.....at all). We ate our dinner and did our shopping and watched our painfully long and in depth and kind of scattered movie. Then we talked in the car for a while. Then finally around 11:20PM I made it to the store.

Merciful Heavens! You would think the Apocalypse was coming tomorrow! The store was packed, the shelves were barren, the lines at checkout were a mile long. It was a nightmare! I eventually found most of the things I needed (except for Red Peppers, Strawberries and bacon - well they had bacon, but it either was laced with gold or there is a major bacon shortage in Utah because hot diggity--- $4 for a pound of bacon? No way). I stood in line forever. While standing in line I noticed a vintage Dr. Pepper in the cooler near the register. It was calling to me. Dr. P made from real sugar. I needed it. It was my reward for standing in line for thirty minutes without killing anyone.

The whole time in line I debated about whether or not I would stop at a different store on the way home to purchase the remainder of my items. It sounded hard, I was tired....but I had my list and my goal to not go shopping next week. It was a dilemma indeed. As I walked to the car I decided that I would just go home, and get the other items I needed on Monday.

I get to the car, buckle up, sigh a big end of day sigh and crack open the DP.

*FZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz POP*

It freaking exploded. All over me, all over Blaine's car, on the steering wheel, on the seat, everywhere.

Alright, I'm covered in pop. No problem, I've been covered in much worse things. I'll just clean it up when I get home.

I get on the freeway and go about one mile before I am forced off of the freeway because the ENTIRE freeway is closed. Shut down. Nada. Nill. Zip. No freeway.

There is a quote I once heard that inspires me often in situations like these...

'When life hands you lemons, squirt lemon juice in your eyes without blinking, just to show life you don't mess around".

Fine. You know what, this detour is taking me right by Macey's. That's perfect. I will get my shopping done after all.

Except the detour was about to let me on a little bit before Macey's, but I decided to stick with my plan and drove the extra mile out of the way to get my shopping done. Macey's is open 24 hours so I'll be in and out and in my bed in no time.

Exept I got to Macey's at 12:05AM and while it is, indeed, open 24 hours it is not open on Sundays.

*squirt*

So I persisted on the backroads, to the next grocery store. Also closed at midnight.

And so here I am. It's 1:16AM and I am red pepperless. And I missed a day of Nablopomo. But can't you give a girl who is covered in soda, was diverted off of the only freeway, and who was rejected by not one but TWO supermarkets a break?

Goodnight bloggerland!

* I am not a woman with much brand loyalty. I normally go the cheapest route, but when it comes to getting oil changes I will now forever and always go to grease monkey. Let me count the whys...1)free popcorn, hot chocolate and soda while you wait 2) they put a carnation and a mint on your dashboard for you 3) free car wash 4) always at least a $7 coupon 5) they're nice and do a great job 6) They don't bug you about repairs and such unless you actually need them and finally 7) I SAID FREE HOT CHOCOLATE! Seriously, getting the oil changed has become this frazzled mother's day spa. I especially like the Grease Monkey in Pleasant Grove, FYI.

Life is like a table

2010-11-12T22:09:00.003-07:00

Parenting is a spectrum of emotions. Sometimes it's all peaches and cream, and your kids are drawing sweet happy pictures of you and them and a giant gumball machine....

And sometimes it's infuriating, like when the scallywags color all over your table. And you can't get it out.

And on the kitchen table of parenting sometimes you've got both of those things going on at the exact same time. Both of the emotions, the infuriating ones and the lovey dovey ones. And your head starts to spin.

And since your head is spinning you take a step back. A literal step back. And you step in to a giant puddle of water. A puddle of water that has been sitting on the hardwood floor for who knows how long. Then after cleaning that up you might go downstairs to do the laundry, and see the mountain of toys that has yet to be cleaned up, find a collection of soiled underpants in the back corner of the closet, and/or step on a pokey tinkerbell tiny plastic wing for the umpteenth time.

Then you start to see life as the colored upon table more so than the beautiful drawing. And you start to get mad. Real mad. You might yell a little. You might throw all of the toys that were on the floor into a garbage bag and "throw them away" (but not really).

But I am just warning you, you may want to reconsider this reaction. You maybe, instead of yelling, should go into your room. Take a couple deep breaths. Do a little of this. Maybe draw up a hot bath and lock out the children (though the last time I did that Ivy climbed on the counter, opened the cupboard and threw out four glasses and dumped out an entire gallon of milk). Anyway, I am just begging you to keep your cool because if you do those things I said before...

Someone might take their beautiful picture they drew of you and change your smiley face to a frowny face. And it might make you feel real bad.

But at least there isn't a speech bubble with expletives coming out of it, right? We can count our blessings for that.

Here's to a better day tomorrow. A little more patience, a little less anger, and hopefully a smiley that will last the whole day through.

Your go to girl...

2010-11-11T00:01:00.001-07:00

Nothing makes me happier than a good Youtube clip. A drawing from Gwen, hand picked daisies from Bentley or a wet sloppy kiss from Ivy (or Blaine for that matter) all pale in comparison to the joy I get from watching the Stay at Home Dad Workout, or Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions. Alright, that might be a slight exaggeration, but still - nothing beats spending an hour laughing until you cry at the collective genius of the human race. It's true what they say, people are awesome. (I had seven heart attacks watching that video, six of which were when the guy does the finger handstand).

Anyway, as your personal "go to" person for what's hip in society I feel like it is my solemn obligation to share the best of Youtube with you.

So.....I just saw this one today...and for the first time in my life I am not the one millionth plus person to see the video!

I LOVED it. What a brilliant idea. We could make so many awesome videos using this format!

Enjoy

Um....also, I really really have wanted to share the Antoine Dodson video with you but I hesitated because, well, the subject matter is heavy, but really....it's a really funny video. If you happen to live under a rock and have not seen it yet then I must apologize for failing to share it with you.

First you have to watch the news clip, which is not so funny ...

And then watch this video, and have a nice laugh....homeboy.

And the great news is that money made from purchasing the song on itunes goes to Antoine. I love it, "e'er"body wins.

Excuse me, I have to go and hide my husband. :)

Very well, indeed.

2010-11-10T09:21:00.007-07:00

Well, I did it. I finally finished planning the agenda for my birthday. The blessed occasion is in one day less than a month, so really I finished just in the nick of time.

I thought you would all be curious about my plan for the day, so please enjoy the following itinerary...

7:30AM Free Grandslam Breakfast at Denny's (795 calories)

9:15 AM Free Starbucks hot chocolate (330 Calories)

10:00 AM Free bowl of Penne Rosa from Noodles for brunch. (810 calories, wow, could have gone my whole life a lot happier if I had not known that!)

11:30 AM Free sub from Firehouse subs for lunch (690 calories) (not sure which sub to get yet, any ideas?)

12:30 PM Free second lunch from Rubios - free fish taco platter! (700 calories)

2:00 PM Free Early afternoon treat from Coldstone (approximitely 700 calories, depending on mix in)

4:00 PM Free meal at Tucanos for supper(the trick here is going at 4 before it is technically dinner and therefore whatever sap you get to do the "buy one" part so you can "get one free" only has to pay $15 instead of $20) - the calorie count up here is left to my wild imagination, but I'll go with (1300 calories)

6:00 PM Free meal at Benihana - again, only guessing on calories here (900 calories)

7:00 PM finish up the day with a free scoop of ice cream from Baskin Robbins. (190 calories)

9:00 PM Die of cardiac arrest

And since my caloric intake for the day will be over 6,400 calories I think I will call it quits at that point, and save my free sonic slush, free $15 at the happy sumo, free meal at Rodizio as well as my free burger at Ruby Tuesdays for another day.

I guess I better start kicking my zumba up a notch eh?

A lot of these deals you may want to sign up for before hand, like a month or so before since they mail your postcard. Also a lot of them you can use throughout the entire month of December. So do yourself a favor and eat well during your birth month. Very well, indeed. Oh and when you get your coupons and eat free in your birth month, consider it a little birthday gift from me. Because as we all (especially Ralphie) know, I stink at sending birthday presents. Happy Birthday!

P.S. I totally have a bum email address for all of these places that I only check if I am expecting something. I use this email address for facebook and goodreads too so that I am not bombarded with emails all day long. It's nice having it so I don't get updates from these restaurants for the entire year, but you better bet I will check on it every day in December!

P.P.S. Here's hoping that my parents don't read this post so that when I "treat" them to Benihanas for their birthday they won't know I did it for free.... : ) (Yep, totally signed them up for it).

It's like raaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn on your wedding day...

2010-11-09T06:58:00.003-07:00

If we are facebook friends you probably know that I have cruisebrain. Cruisebrain is the insatiable desire to plan, and go on, a cruise. It all started a few weeks ago when I got an email from Orbitz announcing their end of year cruise clearance. I found a four night cruise leaving out of LA for $185 per person. Hello! That's an awesome deal. I was thinking at that price we could even take our kids and call it a family vacation (because who doesn't want to enjoy a fancy lobster dinner with their unruly children? Actually let's be honest, because people aren't exactly knocking down my door and asking to watch my kids for a week : ) ). Gwen has a school break coming up in February and the stars were just aligning up smashingly.

Until I realized that on a cruise I would still have to put my kids to bed, deal with their snarky attitudes and hear them complain about eating fillet minion. Then I started thinking about taking this cruise as an 8th anniversary celebration with just Blaine (and any other people over the age of 25 who wanted to join us).

So the four day cruise turned in to a seven night cruise.

This one, to be exact

I am totally excited. Besides the minor hurdle of finding some poor sap to watch my kids, we are set! I haven't actually purchased the cruise but I fully intend to.

And then I go and check the news this morning and...

Our cruise ship is on FIRE.

Ahem. Wow. Is that a sign? Because...it kind of seems like a sign. Actually though....the passengers are getting full refunds AND sent on another cruise for free AND are being reimbursed for transportation costs. So they can start my cruise ship on fire any day! Preferably a day towards the end of the cruise though....

*as a note, my parents were scheduled to go on a cruise on 9/12/2001. They were supposed to fly out on 9/11/2001 but their plane was unavoidably delayed by about a week (as you may recall). The cruise line issued those passengers unable to make it to the embarkation port a voucher for a new cruise. It took about a year or two for my parents to reschedule the cruise. So they finally got it figured out, go on the cruise, and then there was some sort of pandemic on the cruise and my mom spent the entirety of the cruise very ill (as did like 70% of the passengers). So they were issued another voucher to go on another cruise later. I can't remember how long it was till they used that voucher, but man, it was probably like 2007, talk about having a hard time getting on a cruise!

*as another note, I guess my days of "taking my chances" and cruising without a passport are over. Though I have to say, being unavoidably detained in any place that a cruise ship visits doesn't sound so bad to me. I can really see myself starting a new life in Belize., or Cabo San Lucas, or ....

Stacy and Clinton

2010-11-08T21:13:00.003-07:00

So, my friend Kayla is doing a fashion challenge where she gets to choose 30 items from her wardrobe and only use those thirty items for the next thirty days and she must reconfigure the items to make a new outfit for each day.

I can barely type that without my brain imploding. So I thought I would assess the situation in my closet, and doing so I realized that there is something that you all should know about me. Most of you have probably noticed already, but for those of you with an untrained eye I'll just say it - my entire wardrobe consists of thirteen identical shirts in varying colors.

(not pictured here are the brown and teal shirts, as well as several repeat colors in different sizes. That's right.)

*gasp*

I know, right? Stacy and Clinton are rolling over in their proverbial graves!

I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I guess I just found a type of shirt that I felt comfortable in and then.....went for it, really went for it.

I'm not proud of this little fashion crisis of mine, I'm really not. But what is a girl to do? Remember how I lacked a mentor to help me navigate through things like puberty and make-up? Same holds true for fashion, and now I just feel hopelessly lost. So yeah, I will not be taking the 30 day outfit challenge this go around, but there's always next year, right?

P.S. I will totally not be offended if you nominate me to be on What Not to Wear. Here is the link for how to submit my name. I'll even provide the frumpy pictures of myself for you. And I am also willing to fly for this occasion, that's how dire this situation has become.

Good Eats

2010-11-07T20:45:00.003-07:00

I am not sure when I decided that I liked cooking. It certainly wasn't in my youth. I kind of shudder at the nonsense I would eat back in those days. I did have a knack for making spaghetti on the days that I would get my braces tightened (I had those bad boys for FIVE years, that is a LOT of spaghetti my friends!), but other than that I would get most of my nutrition from vending machines.

Blaine was nice and always told me I was a good cook even back in the days when we were first married and my dinner rotation consisted of three recipes I learned from my mom and a wide variety of cold cereal.

At some point in life I mastered the art of making my mom's chocolate chip cookies. It was a proud day, and actually it is a proud day that I got to relive about seven times since every time we moved across the country I would have to relearn how to make chocolate chip cookies in our new elevation.

But that was about it...chocolate chip cookies, a handful of newly acquired recipes, and so on. Then when I moved to Texas and showed up to my first social function with a plate of cookies I was a little embarrassed. Ralphie and Janssen had brought amazing delicacies, I can't remember exactly what, but they were good...and they looked way more impressive than cookies. Knowing Ralphie and Janssen they probably even had special serving dishes for their culinary masterpieces.

I knew that if I were going to fit in I would need to step things up a notch. It was then that I discovered www.allrecipes.com. I love that website. I still love it. I love the star rankings by the recipes, I love the viewer suggestions, I love that you can do a search based on the last three ingredients in your fridge and that it will find something for you to make. Love it. And eventually through the grapevine I heard of new cooking blogs and branched out and tried new things.

And all of the sudden I realized that I really like to cook. I'm not always good at it, for example two nights ago for a family function I served key lime soup that, at one point, was intended to be key lime pie. I have all sorts of disasters on a daily basis, but when I succeed......oh man, nothing makes me happier than getting a nice compliment on a meal.

A few posts ago I discussed things that people say that change your life. Well, one time while visiting Texas my Mother-in-Law and I decided to make bread. Even though I had branched out and really started to love making things like dessert and dinner...bread still baffled me. I had tried, oh how I tried! My bread usually turned out like something between a brick and loaf of flour flavored chalk. I don't know what the problem was. So I asked my Mother-in-Law to help me make bread. And I was scared out of my ever loving mind. Anyway so we are making the bread, and the bread is sitting in the Bosch all in one hard lump spinning around (which is where things always started to go wrong for me), and she told me to add more water. I was concerned because the recipe did not call for more water. Anyway, in a profound moment that completely changed my baking life she said, "It's just bread dough, it's nothing to be afraid of". It's just bread dough. It was a total epiphany. I could add more water, I could add more flour. Gosh I sound like a freaking moron, but that....that... is when things turned around for me in the bread department. I stopped being afraid of bread dough.

And soon I was the one bringing rolls to important functions, and one time Janssen said she didn't normally even love bread but she loved >>my<< bread. And obviously that compliment meant a lot since I am still talking about it as we approach the two year anniversary of the compliment : )

So for today's nablopomo post I am just going to throw out a plug for my recipe blog (thanks fo the idea Jo!)

itwasamazing.blogspot.com

I started it a couple of years ago. It's not really a pretty blog. I don't always post pictures, but I post real recipes. Ones that I actually use, and I tell you what I change about them. If there are funky ingredients in the recipes it is because I actually have those funky ingredients and recommend you get them, but really there aren't even too many of those. I tell you what I change about the recipe, what I substitute, what I omit, how I would do it better the next time. And you can post there too, I would love it if you did.

I just tried some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins from there today, posted by a friend of a friend, they were absolutely delicious.

So anyway, hop on over if you like. And if you feel like you've got recipes to share shoot me an email and I can add you to the list of contributors, I would love to see what you are eating for dinner and try it myself!

And for Pete's sake, if you try a recipe and like it leave a comment, it makes me (or whoever posted the recipe!) feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And if you are overwhelmed by the selection of recipes, here are some of my favorites to help you get started....

Let's see here, for dinner how about...
Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Broccoli and Bowties
Italian Beef Sandwiches
Santa Fe Veggie Wraps
Black Bean Soup with Cilantro Lime Cream
Pesto Pizza with Feta and Pine Nuts
Lettuce Wraps

Or if you have no regard for calories you should definitely make this alfredo or this one.

And, since you don't care about calories, go ahead and try these dessert recipes

Magic in the Middle Cookies
Chocolate Eclair Cake (um, you could so make this one low calorie!)
Andes Mint Brownies

And for breakfast don't forget to try Blender Pancakes or German Pancakes

And don't worry, if you are counting calories know that I always am too (well, sometimes more than others). And I post lots of healthier recipes as well. Like light lemony chicken.

And this always gets lots of attention at parties, and this will just knock your socks off.

Let me know in the comments if you want to be added to contribute!

"You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away...."

2010-11-06T00:01:00.003-06:00

Every once in a while I surprise myself and take a pretty decent picture. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it happens I get excited and tell people all about it.

And I usually throw something dumb in there like, "yeah so if you ever want family pictures I would love to take them so I can practice!" But the thing is, no one usually takes me up on that kind of offer (because they all know my history as a photographer). But then one day my sister in law did.

And the pictures, to everyone's astonishment, turned out alright. I mean, I'm no Ralphie, no Meleah, no....anyone who is actually a photographer. But I was kind of bustling with a little sense of accomplishment.

And then Laurie asked me if I would take her family's pictures. And some of them turned out alright too.

But also.... some turned out like this...

And while I've never understood why people take pictures of their children prancing along railroad tracks-- like it's something they do every day just for fun -- I can appreciate that they usually turn out cute and fun. But this? This looks like I tied my friend and her family to railroad tracks and then photographed their final moments together or something. But....practice makes perfect, right?

Can't we all just get along?

2010-11-05T00:01:00.004-06:00

Has someone ever said something to you that just sticks with you? Maybe it changes the way you do something or changes the way you think about something. There have been so many instances in my life where something that someone says sticks with me and makes a significant impact in my life. I am not talking about profound things we read or hear from significant leaders or anything like that. Rather I am thinking of just something that someone says in passing.

It can be for good or bad too. I remember once at a Young Women's activity I was being a little rambunctious. We were walking around in downtown Salt Lake City and looking at the Christmas lights. I don't remember what I said or did but one of the leaders snapped around, looked right at me and told me I was being annoying. She probably didn't think twice about it, but boy, that sure changed things for me. The tiny sliver of self confidence that I had at that time was shot. Completely gone. I didn't want to show my face in her class the next Sunday. So I stopped going to Young Women's altogether for a while, and I started to think of myself as annoying. I am certain that people had probably told me I was annoying a million times before and it had never bothered me but for some reason, this time it stuck. And I know it is silly that it hurt so much, but silly or not doesn't really matter when you are 13.

Remembering that instance horrified me when I became a leader in the Young Womens program. I was so careful about everything I ever said because I was never sure when something would stick. I think about it a lot as a mother too.

I can think of other things that people have said too. Things they weren't meaning to say to alter my way of thinking. But things that did.

One time while sobbing to Ralphie about being so sick (and pregnant) and feeling so ugly she told me "you know, you just gotta get up in the morning and shower and do your hair, everyday, even if you don't feel like it". That was asking a lot at that point in my life, and I was pretty darn perturbed that she would say that to me. I could barely walk without vomiting three times.And even if I spent hours getting ready each day I surely couldn't look half as amazing as she does. But it made me realize that I have no right to complain about feeling ugly if I'm not even trying to be presentable. And so now, I shower. I do my hair. And it's certainly a lot easier now that I am not pregnant : ) But on days that I just don't want to get ready mostly on the pretense that no one will even see me that day, I still do. Because Ralphie said that thing, that one time.

I remember in highschool my friend Jed, when asked how he was doing, would respond, "it's my best day ever!". He'd say it with such enthusiasm that you almost had to believe him. I've caught myself using that answer a lot of times, it is fun to see how people respond to it. It really does give you a unique perspective on life when you take on that approach.

What I really wanted to talk about today though was something that Laurie said a long time ago. We were in the same married student ward and she was called to visit teach a girl named Jen. I was a little bit intimidated by Jen. See, at the time, I was the furthest thing from a granola that you could imagine. Not only would we eat *Cookie Crisp for breakfast, sometimes we would just eat plain old chocolate chip cookies! I thought homeschoolers were ... well, insane. And you would have had to pay me a million dollars to even consider cloth diapering. And birthing without an epidural? I would rather rip out my own eyeballs. I knew all of those things were admirable and good, but I simply had no interest, whatsoever, in doing them. And the thing about Jen was....she did, or wanted to do, all of these things. She wore her cute little baby in a sling, was knock out gorgeous, super healthy and into organic stuff, etc. I figured if she got to know me, and knew that I ate cookies for breakfast and placed my order for an epidural when I was only 5 weeks pregnant etc. that she would try to convert me, or judge me, or just think I was less of a person. So I never really bothered to make an effort to get to know her, I figured we were way too different to get along well. Since Laurie and I were pretty similar I figured things would pan out that way for her.

A few weeks later I asked Laurie how things were going with Jen. "Great!" was her response. I was puzzled. I asked her "but...well...what? How are things going great? Doesn't she make you nervous?" Now it was Laurie's turn to be puzzled. "Nervous? Why?" "well, because of all of her nutty granola stuff..." Laurie just kind of chuckled and was like..."I just laugh with her about it! She knows I don't do that stuff and she doesn't care. She doesn't take herself too seriously. She is so nice!".

My brain kind of imploded. I don't know, I guess I had just always assumed that people who were better than me....would act....better than me. So....I got to know Jen. And guess what? I love Jen!

I am so grateful for her friendship and I kind of get sick when I think about the fact that I could have missed out on a marvelous friendship just because she did things a different way and we didn't agree on somethings ( My feet are firmly planted in the epidural camp!! Firmly!)

So. Freaking. What. if you do things differently. People are awesome. People who you don't think you have much in common with, are awesome, and they will probably think you are awesome too. This seems so commonsense to me now, as I am sure it does to you too.

I am so grateful for Laurie's little comment "I just laugh with her about it". Empowered with that attitude, and realizing that people don't care if I do things differently or don't care about the same things they care about, has allowed me to be friends with all sorts of people that I normally would have just shrugged off as not a good match.

So, go on...if you are reserved don't be afraid to talk to people who love a good debate. If you eat mac n' cheese every night, don't fear the aspiring chef. If you need a cherry coke to make it through your day, don't worry about the person who only drinks water (and I've gotta say I am so with you on this). If your midsection has seen better days, fear not the supermodel. And for pete's sake, if someone homeschools - - it doesn't mean they are freaks, they'll still like you if you ship your kid off to boarding school (I have one foot on each side of the fence here). And all the while just think about how you will be able to laugh about your differences, and learn from each other. You don't have to change. They don't have to change. It's a beautiful thing, really.

*I use this example because when Blaine and I did our first shopping trip as newlyweds he approached me in the aisle ashamedly holding a box of Cookie Crisp, he looked up at me and asked if we could buy them. I said "sure!" and threw like three more boxes on top of them. He explained to me that his mom had always said that "we don't eat cookies for breakfast" which I laughed at and responded "wow, sometimes my mom would actually make us real chocolate chip cookies for breakfast!". So we've always had a good laugh about eating cookies for breakfast.

Locker Room

2010-11-04T00:01:00.002-06:00

I grew up in a family of five. But it was kind of a weird family of five because I had three siblings who were older....like, WAY older ( I may be slightly off here but I believe my older siblings were ages 17, 14 and 13 when I was born). And the brother who was just four years older than me... well lets just say that for all intents and purposes I was basically an only child, with some of the joys of having siblings thrown in there like being impaled by horse chestnuts* each fall and having to look at him turn his eyelids inside out while in the backseat of the car (gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking back on it).

What I am trying to say here, is that I never learned how to be a girl. Really, I didn't. I mean sure, I would sneak off with Stef at recess and discuss the intricacies of menstruation. But I didn't exactly have anyone around who I could mimic- learn the ins and outs of being cool, of boys, and most importantly of things like make-up.

I mean, sure, I tried to mimic my mom, but when I did that I wound up shaving off an eyebrow and cutting my eyelashes off. Still not sure what happened there, but I was just trying to do something that my mom did.

What I lacked was someone two or three years older who was infinitely cooler than myself, who could be my mentor, and I simply didn't have that.

The moral of the story is that the locker room at the gym baffles me. There are people in there primping and prepping in ways that I never even imagined. People probably think it's a bit odd to see me gawking as they pucker up and apply layers of make-up, but....I still don't know how.

Basically what I am getting at here is.... I saw someone blowdrying their eyelashes yesterday. And I don't understand why. Is this something I should be doing? I am kind of panicky about it because I can sense a revisiting of the whole "shave the eyebrow" incident, only this time involving fire and eyesight impairment rather than just social suicide.

What else am I missing out on? And for the love, will someone just invite me over for a sleepover and teach me the fine art of putting on eyeshadow? I'm 28 years old, I think it's time I know.

*What is a horse chestnut you ask? The most ridiculous, pointless, stupid kind of nut there is. It's like a poisonous nut wrapped in, basically, the thorniest, pokiest, weapon like shell. We had a giant horse chestnut tree out back which rendered our backyard completely useless. Give me fire ants any day. Apparently it is tradition in our family to pass on a horse chestnut tree start to your posterity while on your death bed. It's totally beyond me. Not only will I burn the start if I ever get one, I will also take the opportunity (probably before memorial services are even complete) of destroying my parents tree. Whew...I've got some pent up issues here.

Kinder Picture

2010-11-03T00:01:00.001-06:00

Well it certainly turned out better than any of my school pictures EVER did. But don't take my word for it . . .

Fairies

2010-11-02T08:40:00.004-06:00

This little beauty turned six about a week ago. Thank goodness too. Is it just me or are ages 3-5 like the worst. For reals, I almost called it quits there a few times, but things seem to be on the up and up. I mean, sure we still get glimpses of the old "Grumpy Gwen," but only occasionally, and I can deal with occasionally : ).

Anyways, I can't believe six years have passed. The days go slow but the years fly by when you have little kids running rampant in your house.

I have a few tips for you when planning your child's first real, awesome, amazing, invite your friends birthday party.

1- That rule about only 50% of the people you invite showing up? Not always true. Sometimes 100% show up. Which is really, really, really awesome unless you forgot to count your actual kids when shopping for the goody bags. See, while the kids were making a craft they found a note sent from Tink (her signature was even all sparkly guys!) sending them on a wild scavenger hunt, filled with laughs and giggles and squeals of delight. Until those squeals of delight turned to screams of terror and rage once the booty was found and Blaine casually threw in there "oh...uh...looks like Tink didn't bring enough treasures for Gwen and Bentley....but that's okay because we are going to go open Gwen's presents now which are WAY better than these little dinky things" MAYDAY MAYDAY *boom* there went the party - at least for our kids. See it wasn't just that their lame-o parents didn't prepare well. Tinkerbell, her perfect self, forgot them. Yeah, it was bad. So yes, over-prepare your little hearts out. And your kids need goody bags too.

2- If you are making fairy pens and the birthday girl herself is clamoring for your attention- even if three hundred kids are in line for you to help them with their pens and you are kind of having an anxiety attack thinking about all of the glitter you will be picking out of your teeth for the next month - take the time to help the birthday girl. First, preferably. Because if you don't, you may finish the craft and notice that the birthday girl is AWOL, and find her in her room, in her closet, sobbing, because you don't love her. She doesn't care about the $100 of supplies, she doesn't care about the stress of cleaning, she doesn't even care about your shortened lifespan from glitter inhalation. You simply do not love her if you do this to her. And good luck getting her out of that closet. Good luck indeed.

3- Now, for a positive note...you remember the emotional breakdown that was Bentley's dinosaur cake?

I vowed to purchase a Costco cake for the next party. But when push came to shove, I simply cannot spend money on a cake. I can't do it. Impossible. But two glimmers of hope here 1) Bentley STILL talks about how awesome his big dinosaur cake was ("it was the BIGGEST DINOSAUR CAKE I EVER SEEN"). It looked like moldy frosting mixed with cake chunk vomit, but he loved that thing. Tells everyone about it, still! and 2) Luckily I had purchased four boxes of Tink fruitsnacks for the party and there were pictures of all the fairies on the back of the box. So I cut them out, stuck them on toothpicks and stuck those toothpicks in the cupcakes and BAM, fairy cake. Total smash hit. And also, I used a cake mix and premade frosting. It was almost sacrilegious for someone who loves to bake to do that, but you know what? It was so much easier. Maybe when those little kid taste buds are refined I will spend the time to make an awesome cake, until then though I am passing the buck to my good friend Betty Crocker.

All in all the party was a success. She eventually came out of her closet. Played the games (boy howdy we let her go first in everything!), she loved the attention, loved having her friends over, loved everything. I was glad we made the effort to have a party for her while fairies are still magical. What a fleeting, sweet, awesome time of life it is!

NaBloPoMo

2010-11-01T20:04:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year again. Rather it's that "day" of the year again. The one where I have to decide whether or not to participate in NaBloPoMo, a month long challenge to blog every. Single. Day. Since doing that this month would quadruple the number of posts I have written in the past year I think it might be a worthwhile challenge.
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Gee...I'm kind of pulling a blank here. This could be a long month if I already don't know what to say on day 1!

How about I just tell you three random things? Okay good.

1- LOVING Zumba. Actually no, I just love the gym period! I think I go to the gym for different reasons than most people. It is a little humiliating when the child care center people ask where I will be for the two hours and I say "Well, (*nervous chuckle*) actually I will just be in the hot tub, and then the steam room or... no wait! The sauna, I'll definitely be there......agh, I don't know, I might go to both of those" I may as well add...."anywhere but where people are actually sweating....ewww!" Ha, that's not entirely true. I do go to my zumba class (which I totally looooove!) and every now and again I straddle ye olde elliptical machine. But man, that gym is worth the drive even if I just go there to have my children entertained while I shower (avoiding incidents like these), and the best part is I have to drag my kids kicking and screaming out of the child care center. They freakin' love that place. Many tears are shed by all parties as we drive away from the gym. As a side note, I may have to start working the night shift at 7/11 to cover the cost of the membership, but it is a sacrifice I am completely willing to make. I think having a membership to this place totally would have staved off last years major depressional funk I was in. Just sayin'...

2- Man I sure did a fine job of complaining how miserable I have been the last year, but I have neglected to mention how much better things have gotten since about June. We are loving our new place. Love the house, love the neighborhood, love the ward, love the view, love the carpet, love the high ceilings, love love LOVE IT. Seriously. Within two months of being in this ward I was invited into a BUNKO group (thereby making it official that I am, indeed, a Mormon woman- and incidentally I made my first jell-o today, no joke!), a preschool group, a dinner swap group, and so on. Things are going way better. And aside from loving our new place our new renters have been completely fab. At least I am assuming, I mainly just judge from the fact that they actually pay the rent, and so far my neighbors haven't called to tell me about giant dogs terrorizing the neighborhood children and such. So, I am taking it as a sign. I also like that they have their own website (www.cowboysyndicate.com). I dunno, it's cool. So yes, things are going better (knock on wood). The summer was good to us, now I am just bracing myself for the cold, dark, freezing, abysmal winter....but we'll tackle that when we get there (I'm considering buying a happy lamp, is that weird?)

3- Kindergarten is kicking my can. Seriously. I had no idea it was so hard to have a kid in school. Good golly it's only three hours a day but it is a black hole that is sucking every second of our lives. It's a good thing though, I love to be busy, but I feel like I owe a big fat apology to every one of my friends whose kids started school earlier than mine did. I thought you were lying when you said you were busy. I thought you were big fat stinkin' liars. But I get it now. Sorry dudes. On the other hand Gwen is loving Kinder and learning a lot and has a cute little friend Sam who gives her flower sillybands and gave her a Tinkerbell pez for her birthday. I totally dig Sam and I've never met him, but .... come on! How cute is the five-year-old boy who gives girls flower sillybands at recess. Be still my heart! It's so cute.

Whew good! I managed to eek out three things. I hope my Nablopomo lives to see another day. Maybe I will tell you about the day a few weeks ago where I had to fish Gwen's wallet out of a duck pond. That was excitement I tell you.

The Social Network

2010-10-27T21:12:00.003-06:00

We all know that facebook is a big, fat, giant time suck. I was spending way too much time on there and decided to take the app off of my iphone, which was an awesome compromise. See, before I would try to just delete my account or something like that. But facebook isn't all bad. I really appreciate being able to keep in touch with friends and connect with other adults during the day, and we all know I am a sucker for a good youtube clip.

Lots of good things have come from Facebook, I scored a sweet train table from my childhood friends older sister (like that would have happened in an era before facebook), have been alerted to awesome deals on diapers from old highschool friends, have been inspired from quotes posted by a friend of my family that I haven't seen in two decades, and I've kicked Gretchen's trash on WordTwist more times than I can count ( :) ) .

But the best thing?

Is when I log on at night and see an update from a deal website telling me that I can print off a voucher for the local pumpkin farm. I bought two vouchers for $2.50 each. Each voucher was good for two pumpkins, any size! So for five dollars I got four giant pumpkins and one medium pumpkin (which they threw in for free), and we will have a years worth of pumpkin seeds.

Seriously, these are BIG pumpkins.

Sometimes I really hate technology. But today, I really love it.

Soccer Mom

2010-10-06T12:51:00.003-06:00

So it turns out being a soccer mom is hard.

And I just have one soccer aged kid.

The day of the first game I was running late, parked in the wrong parking lot and wound up carrying two kids, a large blanket, a camera, and a video camera about half a mile across the sports complex. And then Bentley pooped, and then Ivy pooped and so I had to walk half a mile back to the car to change their diapers. And then we were late, and I was crying real tears. It was miserable.

But she has been wanting to do soccer since she was three. And I was too busy birthing babies to afford her the opportunity till now. So we did it. We completed our first soccer season.

We never made it to a practice because, come on, one day a week for games was hard enough. Especially since somehow she got put on a team that met about as far away from us as you could possibly be and still be in the same city.

But she tried really hard in games. Well, actually, I got the impression that she wasn't trying that hard. She kind of ran around in the pack of kids. Never trying too hard to kick the ball.

And the problem was that if she did get in the general vicinity of the ball we would all cheer wildly. And for some reason when we would all cheer wildly, she would take her eye off the ball, flash us a winning smile and give us two VERY enthusiastic thumbs up.

Every. Single. Time.

My kids a brainiac, she's been very interested in reading and spelling since before she was three. But she can't do a summersault to save her life. I thought soccer would be a prime opportunity to teach her about teamwork, foot-eye coordination, endurance, rules, etc.

And I am sure it taught her some of those things. Or at least it would have if we would have made it to a practice or two.

But the greatest lesson? It was one that she taught everyone on the soccer field the day that she realized one of her friends from our old ward was on the opposing team.

And she ran around, in the general vicinity of the ball, but smiling and trying to hold hands with her long lost BFF.

It was so cute.

And I hope that putting her in soccer won't ever change her. She already knows the important thing. A friend is a friend, no matter the team.

Good job Gwen! I've never been so proud as when you would run by me a big thumbs up! And when you would try to hold hands with your teammates and sometimes your opponents, it made me far more proud than scoring a goal ever would.

P.S. Thank goodness it is all over though. Whew, kudos to you soccer moms out there!

Kids These Days

2010-09-28T00:14:00.002-06:00

We went swimming at the gym yesterday. Gwen was throwing a tantrum and not getting in to the pool because she was under the impression that we were going to an outside pool, so when she realized that it was an inside pool she kind of freaked. Mostly because "no mermaids would even WANT to be in this kind of pool". So we left her to wallow in mermaidless misery on the shore while we took tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum swimming (I really call them that). I had IJ and was bouncing around in the pool and started chit chatting with a guy who was holding a baby about Ivy's age.

We were having a pleasant enough conversation, discussing whether or not the gym was worth the exorbitant monthly fee, when his five-year-old came up to me and said, "you have pee on your head"

I was astonished! What a rude thing to say! Who the heck is this kid? Little twerp.

But then the dad looked at me, did a double take and said "oh my gosh you have pee on your head!"

Well, the apple apparently does not fall far from the tree.

But then the dad said with an increased sense of urgency "Seriously there is a BEE on your forehead!"

and then it all made much more sense.

And I probably looked like a maniacal idiot jumping around and splashing in an attempt to get a bee and possibly pee off of my forehead.

I cry zumba zumba zia!

2010-09-23T13:55:00.004-06:00

I like to think that if things would have gone a little differently for me in life, that I could have been a professional dancer. True, I never took dance lessons (though I did take a tap dancing class at BYU), but it seems to me like I have some innate talent. Somehow in highschool I got all caught up in the nerd scene and never really had a chance to try out for dance company and really exlpore my talent. But, I can really shake my bon bon late at night in the kitchen while doing dishes.

Sure I'm probably not as awesome as I was three kids and thirty pounds ago, but I've been told I've still "got it".

I've heard all the craze about zumba, an ultra hip way to exercise to awesome music. Pretty much it's just like an hour long dance party. Seems perfect for a would-be dancer, such as myself.

We are doing a two week trial of Lifetime Fitness (ie Heaven) and last week I went to their 6:15PM Zumba class. I was stoked.

I got there a few minutes early and nervously started chit chatting with the two others in the room. They seemed nice enough. As the clock struck 6:15PM all of the sudden the room was packed- wall to wall- and here's the kicker, there was not a slightly overweight person in the room (myself excluded). I had to go and double check the schedule to make sure I wasn't in some cheer practice for the Dallas Cowgirls or something.

I noticed a few things right off the bat, besides me weighing the most in the room, I was also the only person wearing a baggy t-shirt. Excuse me, but isn't a baggy tshirt like required gym attire? I had no idea that I was supposed to be looking...like....gorgeous. Secondly, I was the only person without a water bottle.

So, in walks our Zumba teacher

And with nothing but a wink and smile she starts dancing furiously.

I feel really bad for the one man in the room. He was probably hoping to catch some hot booty shakin' but somehow he wound up next to me. And I collided with him on more than one occasion. It was especially awkward when we shimmeyed around in a circle.

I have never been more relieved to see the day care people walk in with the dreaded white board of shame (with your name on it meaning your kid is either inconsolable or poopy). I think that is the first time that the people in zumba had seen the white board because I was obviously the only one in there who has had the pleasure of bearing children (trust me, I saw a LOT of tummies in there).

The moral of the story? Zumba is awesome. Zumba is hard. I need new, sexier gym clothes, and now I know that that business about me being a really good dancer, it's total crap.

I consoled myself and my inconsolable child (the reason for the white board) with a trip to chick-fil-a. And then we got home to find that our house had nearly blown up while we were gone. So, in a way, zumba saved my life.

But more on that another day...

Turn a profit

2010-09-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

I had to dig through my memory box for quite a while yesterday when I was looking for the email Blaine sent me to ask me to homecoming twelve years ago. So the next thirty or so posts on the blog might be nostalgic (but funny!) stories from yesteryear.

Like how the week after Blaine opened his first checking account we were sitting at his kitchen table doing homework (wink, wink! No for reals though, we were!) and I saw a twenty dollar bill laying there. I snatched it before he could see and told him I thought it would be "so cool" for him to write me a check that I would be willing to give him a twenty dollar bill if he would write me a check for $18.60. Blaine's not one to turn down a profit, so he quickly obliged.

Once I had the check in hand I burst in to laughter. I told him he had been bamboozled and that the twenty dollar bill wasn't even mine, it was just sitting on the counter. He turned furious so quick, snatched the check out of my hand and made darn well sure I would never be able to cash it.

But I SO got him. Zing!

Happy 9/11

2010-09-11T21:56:00.005-06:00

That phrase sounds so eerie now, but it didn't always. See, back in our sophomore year of high school (1997/98) a strange thing happened to Blaine. It seemed like more often then not when he looked at his watch it was 9:11AM/PM. He didn't see it every day, and it didn't always read 9:11, but it happened enough for him to take notice.

"Something special is going to happen on September 11th" he'd say. He wasn't sure what, but he knew it would be something big.

As the day approached I kept egging him on... "it's almost the big day!" or "you better watch your back, it's coming!" that sort of thing.

Then on September 11th 1998 I was sitting in my kitchen when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find a package. In the package was a box of oreos. But it wasn't just a regular old package of oreos, it appeared as though I was being asked to Homecoming.

In all the oreos I found slips of paper, each with a letter on them. It took a while but I finally figured out that the papers were giving me an email address and a password.[I should point out here that email addresses weren't totally commonplace at the time, and also I had a pet dinosaur (I'm SO OLD!)]

I logged on to the email dress and found a message in code. . .

A little background info. Blaine and I became friends in the beginning of 10th grade. I was always boy crazy. I have a journal from that time of life and at the end of each entry I listed the top 5 guys I liked. The list order changed daily. The same five guys would stay on for a while then some would slip off and others would enter in (Bryce C. and Richard S.) usually hogged most of the room on the list, but there was one guy who was always on my list. He wasn't always on the top, but at least he was always there. And I referred to this guy as my "constant".

Apparently in an email in late August of 1998 I confessed to Blaine, in code (obviously), that he was, in fact, my constant.

Anyway the decoded email in the mysterious inbox read...

Yes, if you didn't know, this is your own code. This being the case, you realize that I know that I am your constant. It is appropriate that it is 9/11 because this is the first time I've ever told a girl that I like her. But you may as well know, if you don't know already that I do like you (a lot). Well, I'm glad we're friends. Hopefully you will reply soon. -Blaine

Be still my heart! A real love confession! And not only that, but he thought it was "appropriate" that it was 9/11. He knew something life changing was going to happen on September 11th and a confession of love, er.... "like", for me, was it!

And so it began. We always had a little kiss at 9:11PM if we were together. It was our little secret..."happy 9:11!" we'd say with a wink and a smile.

[Ironically enough, precisely one year later on 9/11 Blaine took me up on a hike and commenced to rip my heart out and throw it in to a blender, but I digress....]

We've had good 9/11s, we've had bad 9/11s (see note above). And we all know that September 11, 2001 was NOT a good 9/11. And after that, it almost seemed wrong to celebrate such a devastating day. It seems downright sacrilegious to wish Blaine a "happy 9/11" and certainly we get weird looks from anyone who overhear us.

But anyway, September 11th is a day of mixed emotions for me. But it all started as the best day of my life.

For 9/11 this year we went out to Olive Garden and got a never ending pasta bowl. Then we drove up on top of a mountain and he read me his "Do You Remember" letter. The Do You Remember letters are a tradition we have for our anniversary (Feb 14th). He takes a lot of time and makes a big list (22 pages this year!) of memories. He was really busy this February so the list had to wait this year till our other anniversary, September 11th. When I heard that he was going to read me the list, I asked him not to. It's been a really hard year for me (you may have noticed!). I've never been so stressed, depressed, boggy, and sad as I have this past year; why on Earth would I want to relive it? But you know what? He took my hard year, and our hard experiences, and put them in such a beautiful way, and he found so many positive things about our year and brought them to the surface.

And that's what Blaine does. He can take the dark and the dismal and the depressing, and find the good and the funny and the happy.

Just like last week when I was an emotional wreck after TWO failed attempts to make cookies for a family function. I was out of patience, out of eggs, out of butter, and it nearly seemed I was out of my ever loving mind. I hucked a tomato across the kitchen, dumped out a double batch worth of "wasted" cookie dough in the garbage and told Blaine I was refusing to go to the family meeting. He looked at me, bewildered (we had just had a really fun afternoon laughing and talking), and, refusing the urge to call me insane, instead just insisted that he was making the cookies, without eggs and without butter and without a recipe. He insisted that he would do it and that we would go to family meeting and that he would tell everyone he wanted to surprise me by making the cookies. I think he put in about a half a cup of vanilla. I've never laughed so hard. And usually I am stubborn enough to still be mad at him and the world when I am in a mood like that, but for that day I stepped back and saw that he was just trying to make things better. He knows I'm not crazy. He knows I have bad days, bad years. But if he can make it better he will. That's love.

Happy 9/11 Blaine, I am so glad that you like me (a lot).

To Janssen

2010-08-25T13:20:00.001-06:00

Dear Janssen: I am so thrilled that you have little Enna, and I just wanted to pass along some wisdom that I've gained in my nearly six years of experience being a parent.

Don't

Blink

CityDeals

2010-08-18T20:34:00.002-06:00

If you don't use citydeals, you are seriously missing out !

It's been around for a long time, we have used it many many times and have always been happy. It's much like groupon (but better since there are several deals available all the time). They mostly have Utah things but recently I noticed a lot of Arizona deals as well.

Today they opened a new deal for JCWs, a yummy burger joint .0001 miles away from my house. I can get a $25 gift certificate for $12.50, booyeah! One thing I really like about citydeals is you have the choice to pick up the certificate or have them shipped to you, they are real certificates not printable vouchers, it makes me feel less cheap when I am giving them as a gift!

Check them out! They have passes to Cherry Hills, Cowabunga Bay, Classic, etc. They also have discounted movie tickets, restaurants, spa services, carpet cleaning, etc. I love citydeals! As always tell them I sent you!

If you build it, they will come....

2010-08-17T07:28:00.002-06:00

I am not a prideful person. I am not an expert on many things. Except maybe on how to simultaneous change two explosion diapers while fending off two dogs. But I digress... I used to be a professional pest control appointment setter. Our products were good and could remedy all sorts of pest problems, like bees, wasps, bedbugs, spiders, and so on. One type of bug though presented a particular problem, fruit flies. See, I don't know about you but I wouldn't want my produce sprayed with pesticide (even more than it already has been). So when people would call with a fruit fly problem there wasn't much I could do for them. Until my good friend Laurie showed me this little contraption...

You get a jar, you put a slice of fruit in there, make a funnel out of paper, put it in the jar and voila - you have a fruit fly death trap. Or a fruit fly catch-and-release trap. Your choice.

Being the bountiful basket consumer that I am, I always have piles of fresh produce on the counter and fruit flies are a major problem. Five minutes after setting up this trap I had caught twenty fruit flies. Hope this little contraption will make the harvest season a more pleasant one for you!

I stand at the door and knock

2010-08-11T08:44:00.003-06:00

It must have been quite a spectacle; me in my bathrobe pounding on the front door furiously. Even that alone may not have raised too many eyebrows. It was probably the enthusiastic jig I was doing while pounding on the door, and the terror in my voice as I nervously glanced over my shoulder and starting kicking my heels up higher and higher off the ground. All the while shouting very threatening punishments to my children. "You gall darn good for nothin' kids better open that door this second or you will never see the light of day again! EVER. EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

They had locked me out. It's one thing to lock someone out when they are fully clothed. It's another thing to lock them out when they are fully clothed and in imminent danger.

See, we have a wasp infestation. It's been growing steadily bigger. My can of wasp spray informed me that it is best to spray them at night or early morning when they are less active. These little buggers are crawling into a crack that, I presume, goes up into the attic. At mid-day there are thirty or so hanging out on the eaves, but in the "early morning" or "early evening" they all disappear in to their secret lair.

So I waited till about 8AM and went out, armed with wasp spray. As you know, I am paranoid about everything. So I left the door cracked open so I could sprint back inside to the safety of my home once I had sprayed them with death spray. The tricky thing was that I would have to run right under their nest in order to get back inside.

I was horrified.

The huge nest dwellers were all still inside, but apparently they had set up another camp and there were ten wasps working vigorously on their second home.

I mustered my courage. Ran out, in my bathrobe (with no tie because Ivy uses that as a scarf). So clasping my robe closed with one hand, I shakily rose the can of wasp spray in the other, aimed, and fired! I sprayed for a good five seconds. Then ran like a panther back to my respite.

But no! My security plan of having an open door to fling shut and lock after maddening the wasps somehow got ahead of itself! I was still outside and the door was shut and locked. I very nearly died of heart failure.

It took the kids five minutes to figure out how to unlock the deadbolt. Five minutes. If I didn't have such good aim with wasp spray I would totally be dead right now. And it would have totally been their fault. I hope someone would tell them that as they mourned my loss. That while they sat there laughing and pointing - thinking that my dance was just a silly antic to bring them entertainment- that I was actually being stung to death by angry wasps. I would want them to know that they were that naughty.

Kids. Psh.

P.S. Despite their naughtiness, I still love them. And if I die at their hand, don't really tell them; rather just emphasize that good behavior can, at times, be a matter of life and death.

0.43

2010-08-06T22:21:00.002-06:00

I know a great deal when I see one!

This is not one.

That's 0.43% off folks!

Troublesome Thyroids

2010-08-05T10:49:00.002-06:00

As most of you know, I embrace technology. I am always online; paying bills, booking hotel rooms, reading reviews, and so on. I recently learned that now I can deposit a check via my iphone. Deposit a check! Pretty soon I will be a recluse. Cashing checks was one of the few things left that made me go out in to the real world.

But one technology I have not embraced is texting. I mean...emailing is easier, cheaper, faster, etc. A phone call relays the message more quickly and is more personal. We all know I hate the phone, but for a while I would rather call someone than use my thumbs and the cumbersome numerical keyboard to communicate with people.

Not to mention I think people who texts while driving are moronic idiots who should be banned from the planet. [Really I think I am going to die in a crash where the other driver was texting because I feel really really fiery about this issue. It's personal people, use your brain, it's my life..your dang texting can wait]

But! Everyone in the entire world communicates almost exclusively by texting. So...I ordered 200 texts a month. But pretty soon I learned that wasn't enough if I am to maintain friendships, serve in my church, manage my Texas property and pretty much to simply live my life. So last month I upped it up to 1500 texts a month.

Not one day in to my new found freedom to text at will (except while driving, obviously), I was able to recall another reason that I hate texting. You may recall that I also hate proofreading, and not proofreading + texting turns out to be a potent combination for disaster. And though it isn't nearly as hilarious as what happened to Kate, Lately. Here was my recent texting debacle.

I was texting my renters and trying to ask them about our garage door (which incidentally collapsed again...is it normal to have to spend hundreds of dollars on a garage door every few months? Mercy me)

I was trying to text this...

"Is the garage door working better? That door is nothing but trouble!"

My renter normal texts back after a few moments but about after an hour I went back and reread my text, which read...

"Is the sage door working better? Thyroid is nothin but trouble!"

Me "..."

What the heck were they supposed to respond to that?

I hate texting. Have I mentioned that?

The Hood

2010-07-28T21:31:00.002-06:00

You may have noticed that I have been suspiciously quiet in the blogosphere. It's mostly because we have been without internet for several weeks (the horror!). We got it up and running today so I look forward to ramping up the blog posting! For now I just wanted to say that life is looking up. I am loving our new place, loving the new neighborhood, loving the summertime and loving having responsible tenants in our house (except for the part where our garage door comes crashing down on them about once a month, but I digress...).

I was out garage saleing the other morning and saw this sign taped to a street sign at the top of our street.

And I kind of had to laugh.

Really hard.

And here it is several weeks later and the sign is still there. I wonder what DVD it is...and more importantly, where it's at!

And I quote....

2010-07-15T10:39:00.006-06:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

-Nelson Mandela

"Strength isn't something that you have, it's something that you find"

- Emma Smith (at least it is in the Emma Smith movie)

Now these are quotable quotes. I can see people putting these quotes on vinyl and slapping them on their wall. I can imagine them cross stitched and lovingly framed in the entryway to a home, put on a plaque, embossed on a pillow...whatever. They inspire, they are memorable, and so on.

I hope to say something quotable one day. Something that people will remember and recite and feel inspired by.

Bob Harper (the trainer on my weight loss video) had a similar dream to me. The only difference though is that he has the authority and popularity to make his dream a reality. And the quote that he has printed and framed in size ten billion font? The quote that he shows at the beginning of his video to inspire and motivate?

Can you see it? It's "Are you ready? You bet you are!" - Bob . Really? Really? I mean it's not even really a statement, more of a question really.

I've felt inspired though and have, since seeing Bob's quote, made some plaques of my own around the house.

In the bathroom : "Are you ready to remember to flush the toilet? You bet you are!" -Mom

And the kitchen : "Are you ready to eat all your broccoli? You bet you are!" -Mother

The Family Room: "Are you ready to put away all your stinking tiny sharp toys so I don't step on them anymore? You bet you are!" -Mom

Thanks for the inspiration Bob!

Hugger Mugger

2010-06-28T08:35:00.002-06:00

We had an excellent day on Saturday. Actually now that you mention it, it was a pretty rockin weekend. Full of mountains, friends, family and food. Saturday we went up to Park City with some friends and hit the outlets and the alpine slide.

After going on the slide, however, I got a gnarly headache. The kind that makes you want to rip your eyeballs out of your head. You know the kind. We were going tos top and grab a bite to eat before we headed back to Salt Lake. I was driving, it was 8PM but the sun was still shining, fueling the desire for me to rip the said eyeballs out of my head. We were having a hard time finding a place. Probably because my head was pounding so hard that I couldn't tell left from right and was having a hard time following the directions Blaine was offering.

Finally we switched drivers and he started heading towards Salt Lake, we planned to just stop at the first Chili's we came across. Even with not driving anymore, a friends sunglasses and my head buried in my lap I thought my head was probably going to explode at any moment.

By the time we got to the restaurant I was also feeling nauseous. I went inside to get a drink of water (and if we are going to be honest, to have our friend - who happens to be a chiropractor- try to fix my headache with a little head twistin [I am still working on gaining a testimony of chiropractory since I worked for a physical therapists office who was very anti- this experience helped ; ) ]).

After the water and adjustment I decided to go out to the car and lay down while they ate their dinner. On the way out a very Chili's employee, who was a man but had a very, um....distinctively feminine voice, opened the door for me on the way out. I went out to the car, rolled down the windows, and tried to sleep. I felt a little vulnerable, what with all the windows down, but my head hurt so bad I didn't care at all.

A few moments later I heard the distinctively feminine voice once more. Apparently he had walked one of his co-workers out to her car, which was parked next to mine. She thanked him profusely for walking her to her car and then he responded "Oh I always walk people out to there car in the evening, I mean, we just have WAY too many muggings in this parking lot for anyone to walk to their car alone."

I layed there.

I assessed how I was laying down in the backseat of the van, all the windows down, keys sitting on the passenger seat, practically screaming "PLEASE, MUG ME! HECK, STEAL MY CAR WITH ME IN IT !"

And so then I rolled the windows back up, hid my keys, and tried to sleep in a sweltering hot car still somewhat nervous about being all alone in the worlds most mug prone parking lot.

The end.

P.S. Since I know you all love and care about me. I felt better the next morning. And I need sunglasses. Fo' sho'.

Picasa

2010-06-17T21:44:00.004-06:00

So....do you use picasa? It's an awesome photo program that google makes. It rocks.

Anyways, the newest version of picasa has a feature where it will go through and do facial recognition on your photos and create albums based on each person you have a lot of pictures of. It puts all the pictures it thinks are of you all together and then you click yes if it is a picture of you or no if it is not, and it adjusts the album accordingly. It's pretty sweet. It makes it way easier to find a specific picture of a person because you can just look at their file of photos.

Anyway, it totally has me pegged. Fat or skinny, long hair or short....red hair or brown or blonde... every picture in my album was identified correctly as me. It probably has to do with my huge schnauz. I thought it was kind of weird because with other people there were usually a few random people in the set of pictures (Blaine looks a lot like his sister Rosey and so it got a few of those mixed up, Max and Nick look a lot a like, etc.), but me? Apparently I don't look like anyone.

Well...except in the middle of all of these pictures of me there were three pictures in a row. There's something about the Bassett girls and our big mouths I guess!

*Um, as a note: If anyone can think of an excellent blog post that would require me to post pictures of myself where I look awesome, I'd appreciate it. The self deprecating photo thing is getting old.

Fifteen Minutes

2010-06-11T14:38:00.002-06:00

So, pretty much Gwen is famous. And Ben too. She is in photos 1, 6, and 7

We had lots of fun at the Princess Tea Party yesterday, woot!

History of a mover

2010-06-02T11:35:00.003-06:00

5 years ago - Ho hum....we are moving to Oregon tomorrow, I guess we better buy some moving boxes. Holy Moses, they are EXPENSIVE!

4.5 years ago - move back to Utah, grateful to not have to buy new boxes

4 years ago- move to Minnesota, grateful to have those gulldarn boxes laying around

3.5 years ago - move back to Utah. Whew, glad we kept these boxes

3 years ago - move to Texas, woohoo! The company is paying for new boxes! Let's get rid of this heaping pile of crumbling cardboard! Blaine: but, but, but....we might need them again someday! Me: Never! We will never ever move again unless a company pays for it.

1 year ago - Moving back to Utah - really? You really want to haul these boxes back to Utah? The company is paying for awesome new moving boxes. Why? WHY! WHY do we lug these boxes everywhere we go.

Today- moving from Lehi to Lehi. No one is paying for boxes. In humility I would like to thank Blaine for insisting we move our boxes around the country with us.

I went the first 21 years of my life without moving once. I think I have more than made up for it by now!

WDR

2010-05-30T07:51:00.005-06:00

WDR is the name of the poem I found tucked away in a box of treasures that I was sorting through the other day. I have no idea when I wrote it, my guess is that it was for our first anniversary or something. You'll need a little background information before the poem will make any sense.

Blaine and I started dating when we were 16. Our sophomore year of highschool (before we were 16) we hung around in the same group of friends. I really wanted to break in to the inner circle of boys within our group, and so I kind of invited myself to play hockey with them in the afternoons and on Saturdays. It was the most fun thing ever! Hockey is a blast.

I am sure it probably bothered them that a girl came out to play, but I really tried hard, even breaking my hand in an effort to impress my friends. Well actually, I broke my rollerblades in an effort to impress my friends, the breaking of my hand was a really embarrassing result of breaking the blades.

So we played hockey our sophomore year and the following summer, we got lagoon season passes. A girl will do funny things when she is in love with the two boys she goes to lagoon with every day. Like the time I strapped myself between them and got hoisted up a ten thousand foot tower, where one of them pressed a button and sent us plunging towards the earth and our imminent death. Any of you who know me at all, know that I must have really been in love with Blaine to do that. Like....for real.

When I was 16 I started working at Winder Dairy. I worked in the "Country Store". A little store that served lunch and sold milk and other dairy products. I also had a night job there answering the voicemails that had come in throughout the evening and changing customers orders accordingly.

Blaine's uncle was a pretty high up manager at the dairy, and Blaine's family lived across a field from the office. So Blaine got the opportunity to do some pretty classy odd jobs. He got to get all the milk that had gone sour and dump it out (which explains why Blaine doesn't like milk!), he worked in the icebox pulling orders, he stapled advertisements to bills (which had to be done late at night and I sat in an office off of the room where he and his cousins would staple the ads on), and most importantly - he got to bag compost.

That's right! Behind the Country Store where I worked there was a heaping pile o' compost. And Blaine's job was to take that heaping pile o' compost and stuff it - with his bare hands - into bags and seal the bags, stack them on pallets and get them ready to sell.

It was a glamourous job.

You may not know this about Blaine, but he is extremely motivated by money. He is a hard worker and always has been. So while my crush for Blaine intensified through playing hockey and going to lagoon, etc. If I wanted to spend time with him, I usually had to go out after work and sit on a heap of cow manure and talk to him while he worked.

Yeah.

That's love.

Flinging yourself off of a giant tower, sitting on heaps of compost, etc.

And now, my poem.

When I Fell in Love or WDR (Winder Dairy Romance)

When people talk of love and various romance

they always mention moonlight and a special sort of glance

they all claim they fell in love with just a look or two

funny, cuz that's not the way it was with me and you.

When I knew I loved you it was no starry night

we were hot and tired, playing hockey in daylight

And if there was a special glance, there was no candle glow

it was likely one of fright, Scott's hockey stick in throw

Though now I see your features with the tenderness of silk

when I fell in love with you, you smelt of sour milk

You'd always wear that old sweatshirt, it looked better than a tux

and ever doing all you could to earn a couple bucks

I dare not think of where we'd be without the aid of Bill*

or conversations in the compost with many bags to fill

Many folk would cringe to think of shoveling cow manure

but my best memories were made while smelling like a sewer

Though the contents of this poem seem silly or untrue

it was under these conditions that I fell in love with you

It did not happen all at once, there were no trumpents sounding

but through the years my best friend started making my heart pounding

Winder Dairy is renown for milk that is quite awesome

I'll remember it, however, as where our love began to blossom

I think I have a career ahead of me in poetry, no?

*Bill was a funny older guy who worked at the dairy late at night and would talk to Blaine and I individually, and much like we were in junior high school would relay messages (without our express permission), and it was kind of through him that we both figured out that the other was interested in us. As a side note, Bill looks 100% EXACTLY like Mr. Noodle from Elmo's World. I am not thoroughly convinced that Bill is not moonlighting from his Dairy job as Mr. Noodle.

Apples to Apples

2010-05-28T21:27:00.002-06:00

The next time you think that you should postpone dinner by an hour so you can run to the store really quick - you should probably consider that if you put your hungry toddler in your basket and your fresh produce in your basket, when you unload your groceries you will find a whole lot of things that look like this....

Costa Fortuna

2010-05-21T16:57:00.004-06:00

So, um, I know that I was like the last person on the Earth to get my hands on an i(insert type of mp3player here). Luckily I went straight to the top and went for an iphone. I just don't listen to that much music so it never seemed important. Plus Blaine has had like.....every type of ieverything that has even been invented. So I keep trying to download these apps that were saying I needed some sort of software upgrade. So today I figured out how to plug in my iphone and update the software. And all sorts of magical things happened when I plugged my iphone into my computer, who knew? Probably my favorite thing is my computer sucked all of the pictures off of my iphone so now I have all of these great photos from times when I didn't have a camera.

Like the day on our cruise when we woke up at port and there was a cruise ship parked next to us named "Costa Fortuna" but when I looked out the window I only saw "Costa Fortun" which I thought said cost a fortune, which I thought was a hilarious thing to name a cruise ship. You won't find Janssen or I on a ship that so blazenly announces that it is expensive.

Or the time that we got to go to the jazz game on Thanksgiving. (When I am a professional photographer I think I am going to specialize in self portraiture)

And when we saw Brian Regan LIVE !

And that time I drove all the way to Oregon to visit one of my besties there. Again, try to not faint in awe of my self portraiture skills.

And a personal favorite when I woke up one morning to find minnie mouse (complete with bows!) sitting at the kitchen table. I love the nose. LOVE.

The only picture of my kids with the big man himself.

And last but not least, there were over 200 images of my carpet. Every angle, every lighting, every inch of carpet has been captured on my iphone. Thank you, children.

Opinions

2010-05-12T07:36:00.002-06:00

Okay, this post is neither funny nor interesting so if you are not a deep blue true and true friend who wants to voice their opinion about where I live, you are excused.

So, we live in Lehi. In the basement of a really nice house. It's a really nice basement. Seriously, I've never seen such a nice kitchen. We have tons of living space, tons of storage space, and it seems to me that we are getting a pretty sweet deal. We like our upstairs neighbors (important when sharing a house!) our landlords are very nice and accomodating, BUT it just hasn't clicked for us here.

Perhaps it was the rodent infestation in the fall. Or that, even though it is a nice walkout basement, with a lot of light....it still is kind of dark and even the lightbulb lighting isn't too good and I think that did nothing but contribute to my boggy depression for the last eight months. I really do think that I suffer from SAD.

And the commute. Well, I don't use this word lightly, but the commute sucks.

It's about 35 minutes if the weather is clear and Blaine leaves at the crack of dawn and all the stars align. But usually it is more like 45, and if there is a BYU game, or (Heaven forbid) SNOW...it could take up to an hour and a half.

It's the worst.

So, we kind of want to move.

It is written into our contract that we can sell our lease. Which we would have to do because our lease isn't up till the end of August and I would want to move before Gwen starts kinder.

So that's the other thing, Gwen got into an awesome charter school near here. She will have the opportunity to learn Spanish, Aarabic, and Chinese in kinder and then choose which language she wants to persue for the rest of elementary. There are 160 kindergartners on the waiting list for this school. I am not sure what miracle of miracles got us in. But we got it. And her class would only have 19 kids. And I have a friend who will carpool with me, and I already bought some uniform clothes (uniforms! Call me crazy but I love that!).

So we've been causually looking around for a new place. At one point I decided that the Charter school was reason enough for us to stay in Lehi and we went and looked at a townhome nearby. It was about the same price we were paying. I thought it was great, Blaine was indifferent. So I just kind of forgot about it.

And now the people who are renting it out wrote me and offered us a free month and reduced rent if we move in. Hello! Awesome! It is slightly closer to Blaine's work, Gwen could still go to the charter, and it would be cheapity cheap. Plus it is in a set of townhomes filled with people just like us, with two or three kids not yet in school. It's next to a park, we would have a carport instead of just having to park on the street. Etc.

But it's still a beastly commute.

So I guess my question is this.

Is an awesome school and cheap housing with younger families worth a beastly commute? It's been really great for us to be somewhere less expensive right now (thank you idiot renters! Not you current renters, the old renters who smoked and had the three giant dogs and stole my lightbulbs), but we miss Blaine. He leaves at 7AM comes home at 7PM and somehow in all that only gets about 9 hours of work in. Imagine if he had a shorter commute.

I hate to sound all school snobby, I'm really not, but how could I take a really great opportunity for Gwen away?

I guess I could be consoled by the fact that after we went to the kindergarten registration she said she would have rather stayed home and gotten kidnapped than gone to that school.

Hmmmm. What would you do?

subconscious

2010-05-05T21:27:00.001-06:00

The other day we went out as a family. Everyone that I got ready was wearing light blue. Me, Gwen, Ben, and Ivy.
It wasn't on purpose.

But that happens more often than not. Apparently when I feel like wearing a certain color I subconsciously also choose that color for my kids.

Though I don't think about it, or plan it, I just randomly grab their clothes and yet we always look like some insane family that always color coordinates.

Happened again today.

And I was extra impressed with myself because I didn't even realize they had dresses this similar until we had been out sidewalkchalking for a good thirty minutes.

I have a pretty stylin' subconscious.

In other news. I am taking a week long hiatus from facebook. And I am ashamed to admit...it is KILLING me. I didn't get to whine that I forgot to make a special dinner for Cinco de Mayo. I didn't get to ask the masses if they would prefer Disneyland or river rafting in Moab for a family vacation. I didn't get to tell everyone how much I hate being a landlord (the freaking garage door crashed down on my renter!). I didn't get to ask for tips on using gimp or post the hil.ar.i.ous photos I tried to edit (I accidentally turned Ivy into a very alienesque looking creature).Or how sad I was when fifteen minutes after starting to swim with our family the childcare lady from the fitness center came in because Ivy was still freaking out. And how I was mad at the lady for not letting Ivy take in her pacifier. Or or or or or.....

So did the world end? Does the facebook world miss me? I like to think so, I like to think things in the cyberworld has come to a grinding, lifeless halt in my absence. No funny stories, no hilarious videos or witty status updates. Just boring old boringness because I am missing from the perpetual party. I've gotten two emails from concerned friends (thanks Mom!). That was nice.

But I will press on with my hiatus. Though I have noticed I am filling up the time in my day that I used to spend on facebook with drinking cherry coke, so I am not sure that I am better off.

And in other other news. Did I mention our Texas garage door crashed down on my renter? AGH. If it's not one thing... I need to plant a money tree.

I miss you facebook.

Lots and lots.

Someone tell me if the world ends and I don't know because I am not on facebook.

Puhleaseeeeeeee.

Pretty please.

P.S. If someone knows any gimp tutorials just post the links on my wall.....er...email them to me. Or Heaven forbid call me and tell me about it. Send me a letter. Smoke signal, whatever people who don't do facebook are doing these days.

Okay, the end.

Fairy King

2010-04-27T10:03:00.000-06:00

It takes a special kind of guy to be sandwiched between two sisters.

Give me your tired, your poor...

2010-04-25T07:30:00.000-06:00

Apparently it is Gwen week here on the blog, and to finish off Gwen week, a little story...

So this morning Gwen has been busily dumping all of the change out of her piggy banks and dividing the money into piles. I just watched as she went and got some of my baggies and put equal amounts of change into each of them.

She then asked me if we could drive around and look for poor people holding up signs and give the money to them. I told her that was a great idea and we could put the money into the car and wait until we see someone holding up a sign asking for money. She thought for a minute and then came up with a better idea!

"Hey! Instead we could just put a sign on our fence that says 'we have plenty of money, please come and take some from us so you don't have to be poor anymore'".

And I thought, well, that's just plain brilliant, I am a little hesitant about carrying through with that plan though : )

Double Entendre

2010-04-24T09:11:00.003-06:00

I was really rather proud of my reaction when Gwen cut her hair. I'm not a patient person (blame the recessive red hair gene, thanks ma!), but somehow I was blessed with great patience and understanding when my daughter woke me up from a nap to show me a baggie full of her hair. Sure I said, "Gweeeeeeeeeeeeeen, why did you do that?!" and so on, but I didn't tell her she was a horrible, irresponsible, ungrateful child or anything. After a few minutes of being in awe of the whole situation I politely asked Gwen to go to her room for a few minutes, I needed a few moments to contemplate my next move.

A few minutes later Gwen crept out of her room and handed me this note.

And my heart melted. She loves me. She knows she made a mistake. She's just a kid for pete's sake. All kids do stuff like that. What a sweet, sweet, little responsible child I have. She messed up but she is willing to take accountability for it.

So today I was cleaning off my desk and I was going to put the note in with the baggie of hair. When I grabbed I realized there was something else written on the back of the note. I had only gotten half of the message! So I turned it over and read...

That she forgives me. I have been forgiven for her cutting her hair. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I think I did a little bit of both!

Triple D

2010-04-23T15:31:00.001-06:00

Gwen looooooves fairies. She draws them all the time. Lately though they have become a little more "anatomically correct". It makes me laugh!

Trendsetters

2010-04-14T15:50:00.004-06:00

I wasn't born with hair. I was born with feathers. Seriously. Fluffy, non substantially, frizzy feathers. If I gather it all in a ponytail it's about the thickness of a straw. A very small, very thin straw. It's been a curse all my life. Especially as I got to hear the complaints of people like Julianne and Laurie who had gorgeously thick, amazing hair.

And while I fear that I have passed on my bad hair genes to Bentley and possibly Ivy. Gwen hit the lottery. Gwen got Blaine's hair. Thick, gorgeous, naturally highlighted hair.

The kind I will curse when I have to buy the "extra thick" barrettes for in high school.

The kind that people comment on.

The stuff of legends.

And I knew this day would come. This idle Wednesday. Deep down in my heart of hearts I knew.

Actually, no. I used to figure I knew it would come, but at this point. I thought we had escaped.

I had no idea when I laid Bentley and Ivy down for a nap this afternoon and wearily climbed into my bed, weary and longing for just a moments rest. As Gwen sat busily playing with play dough I knew the moment was fleeting and that I would get fifteen minutes, at best, of uninterrupted sleep.

So when she came in. I wasn't surprised. And when she held up a ziploc bag and said, "Mom! Look! I want to show you something!" I wasn't surprised either.

But, as I sleepily got my eyes into focus I noticed she had a baggie full of the most beautiful corn silk.

But wait...

and that is when the surprise came

No! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I shouted. "UNDO!" AGH. NOOOO. NO Gwen, not now.

Not three months away from starting kindergarten.

Not now when your hair has finally grown back from three years ago when I cut it. On purpose.

No!

It was karma coming back to get me for the time I shaved off my eyebrowns and cut my eyelashes.

The mothers curse rearing its ugly head.

I wasn't mad. I was sad. Really really sad.

Because it is short folks. Really, really short.

On the upside. I think we may just be cool enough to single handedly bring

the mullet back into style.

Excuse me while I grab a box of tissues.

Um, seriously though, look at the below picture. Do you think I could fix her hair like this for...I dunno the next THREE years while it grows out?

On the bright side. She completely blames her grandma. She claims she cut it because she wants to remember what color it was when she was five, just like Grandma has a baggie with her hair in it from when she was young. Who needs a digital camera when you can have a gallon size baggie of your own hair?

Life goal #75

2010-04-09T09:37:00.000-06:00

Is it wrong that one of my life goals is to be part of a flash mob?

They make me cry. I really don't know why.

Thanks Shauna Jones!

[Dipdive] Black Eyed Peas Video+Audio » Oprah Feeling / I Gotta Feeling Live at Oprah's 24th Season Kickoff Party

Groupon

2010-04-08T08:27:00.002-06:00

Have you heard of Groupon yet? It's a website after the heart of citydeals.com and restaurant.com and woot.com. I just bought my first groupon. They offer some special deal (today it was a $30 gift certificate for a car detailing place for $9- saweeeeet, we have to turn in our leased car in a couple weeks), and if enough people sign up for the deal it goes through and you print your coupon and life is happy and good. They only offer one deal a day and will send you an email about what the deal is. Anyway, I get a $10 credit if you join, so...uh....join.

And click on this link to do so!

Groupon Link

Easter - 2 Bentley -0

2010-04-03T13:43:00.002-06:00

So far, Easter has not been kind to poor little Bentley. Not kind indeed. He fell down a rocky cliff not once, but twice. And as I wiped the quarts of blood off of his face and tried to straighten his nose back all he could mutter through his cries was, "MY EGGS! I DROPPED MY EGGS! WHERE ARE MY EGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGS???"

Right there on your head buddy, two giant new goose eggs.

Here's hoping tomorrow isn't nearly as traumatic.

More than I bargained for...

2010-03-30T16:29:00.003-06:00

I love a good bargain. I am always telling people how much I love things like priceline, ebates, and restaurant.com. I've gotten some great deals, stayed some awesome places and eaten at restaurants that I would have never been able to afford or would have never heard of otherwise.

The bad news about Salt Lake is that they don't have too many restaurant choices on restaurant.com but anytime we ever go on vacation I am always excited to print off a couple certificates and eat for cheap while traveling. Portland had about twelve pages of restaurants. I chose a random couple of restaurant coupons to print off. I always check the menu to make sure the restaurants are affordable and check reviews, etc. to make sure we don't end up in some grungy yucky place.

Well one of the certificates I printed off was for a restaurant called Starky's. It was a little on the expensive side but they had some hamburgers and salads that were very affordable. A quick check on google maps showed that it was close to our hotel and that people had rated it about 4.6 out of 5 stars. We were golden.

So we pull in to Portland in the early evening last Wednesday and decide to go straight to dinner. My Dad was a little nervous about the neighborhood it was in, since there were lots of .... um....downtownlike people around. It didn't bother me, I loved downtown Austin and all the unique character and flare there, and the shops/people in this area seemed pretty similar.

We pulled in to Starky's and my dad wanted me to go check it out to make sure it wasn't full of hoodlums.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a really nice restaurant, tablecloths, candles, the works. I checked over a menu and that looked fine too, if anything the restaurant seemed a little too nice for my three tired, sick-of-sitting-all-day, children. But I was hungry and tired and wanted to use my coupon.

I went and shared the good news that the restaurant looked fine, though there weren't any other children there.

So we go in. No one was there to show us a table. Weird. So since my kids were bouncing off the walls and crawling under tables we showed ourselves a seat and waited. My kids were real heroes on the trip. They traveled so well, but they had really had it. Ben was trying to through the dishes off the table. Gwen was under the table, and Ivy....well there were no high chairs around so she was a handful. I was debating just leaving but decided that we should just order and hurry up.

I hadn't really noticed the table of twenty-something guys that was seated directly behind our table, but then a group of three new guys joined them, all the guys at the table stood up and there was....uh....mmm...well the other guys were really happy to see the new guys. Lots of hugging, lots of kissing, and I've never seen my mothers eyes open so wide.

As I was averting my eyes from the PDAs taking place at the other table I noticed that....well, everyone at every table was male. And there were no kids, and... it was just kind of different.

At that point I decided that our crowd was probably better suited for a Wendy's. You know, the kind of place with a slide rather than China.

Once we got out to the car I googled "Starky's" in Portland again. This time I went past the star rating and actually read the reviews and yeah....totally a gay/lesbian friendly restaurant.

I took my parents, and my children to a gay restaurant.

I'm sure the food was good. I am certain the people were lovely people, but I am having a hard enough time explaining the birds and the bees to my children, and I didn't particularly feel up to the task of explaining same gender attraction. I'll save that conversation for Blaine to have with them.

So that is how we wound up at Wendy's. And to the lucky couple at Starky's seated at the table nearest the exit, I hope you enjoyed the $25 gift certificate : )

Revenge

2010-03-18T10:17:00.002-06:00

I think we can all acknowledge that I am not the type of person who is very organized. When you own a home, however, and a car, and have kids with birth certificates and shot records, it becomes vital to get a drawer to stuff important papers into.

Ivy is no respecter of drawers. She doesn't care if it is a drawer of pots and pans or a drawer with the title to your house enclosed, she loves them all the same. She scatters their contents freely about and nothing, absolutely nothing, brings her more joy.

But today, when for the umpteenth time she scattered Blaine's mission journal across the living room floor, something had to be done.

And, as a side note, if you are ever writing a journal maybe consider numbering the pages. Just sayin'....

Anyways, today I took matters into my own hands.

And for the billionth time since I have been a parent I add my voice to parents everywhere who proclaim on at least a daily basis, "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!"

Because imagine how silly duct taping a nice wooden cabinet would be. But the stripes of duct tape on my cheapy ikea filing cabinet, I dunno, it kind of has a nice look to it.

You should see the ice and water dispenser on our fridge (also covered in duct tape), because that is downright classy.

Now...how to keep her out of my purse...

Thing you should buy that you maybe don't already have Tuesday

2010-03-09T23:53:00.002-07:00

On December 31, 2007 at 11:45PM I was not eating fattening appetizers. I was not playing silly party games. I was at an overpriced grocery store, buying overpriced medicine that I did not need, with the $200 left on my flex spending account for the year.

I was fuming mad. FUMING MAD. I was buying enough Tylenol to supply an army of achy pregnant women, and enough bandaids to last the rest of our lives. Boy was I ever mad. I think flex spending accounts are the worst things ever.

But that's another story. In my shopping spree of medical supplies I happened to pick up this little product called "orabase" for cankers. And the quality of my life has improved about ten billion percent.

It's kind of on my mind right now because I have two gargantuan canker sores and cannot eat or sleep or focus on anything else. For a brief moment in time I thought I wasn't going to be able to find our precious tube of Orabase, but never fear! I found it, and life can continue as normal.

Seriously, if you are toughing out canker sores the old fashioned way....spring the $3.50 and pick yourself up some orabase.

And I feel really pathetic that my blog fodder has come to this. Canker medication. I need some more adventure in my life.

Confession

2010-03-06T19:41:00.001-07:00

Okay, so maybe Utah can be kind of, sort of, mediocrely fun.

Sometimes.

But not always...

And yes, Bentley is wearing pink mittens.

#2

2010-03-04T14:59:00.003-07:00

I have proof that children are more precious than "things".

I had always heard it, and I had always believed it, but I had never really had it put to the test.

I think I may have mentioned on here that Bentley is a budding exhibitionist, right? We'll go in to give him one last kiss after he's already asleep and find him buck naked in his bed, all sprawled out and comfortable.

Often he'll come running into a room and streak through wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

You would think that this is a sign that he is ready to be potty trained. Not true. We tried for like a day, and it wasn't working. So I am going to persist in my plan to wait until he is five. Is it just me or is potty training hands down the absolute worst responsibility of a parent?

Anyway, so yesterday, loving mother that I am, I was letting Bentley play with my iphone in my bed. Gwen needed a shower so I was helping her with that. We were running late for preschool. I walk into my room to find Bentley on my bed in the buff. Normally it would be kind of annoying but mostly cute. I'll tell you this friends, there was absolutely nothing cute about my white down comforter being covered in streaks of brown.....waste material.

I don't own a lot of nice things. I mean, we're still on our first set of couches and table, all purchased on the budget of two starving students. We make it work. But I just barely bought the bedspread, a year ago, and I love it. Totally love it. I think you all know how I feel about my bed.

But, turns out, I love Bentley more. So after being confined into his bed for two hours while I attempted to clean the disaster, he was back to being one of my favorite people. But seriously, I like him so much more with his diaper on.

And I have to offer my sincerest apologies to those of you who I recommended getting a white comforter too. You asked me if I had any problems because I didn't purchase a duvet cover and I said no. I take that back. Buy a duvet cover and buy a chocolate brown one. You'll be happier when your day of reckoning comes.

Lazy Sunday

2010-02-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

A little lazy Sunday fauxhawk action for you!

I'll never stop being amazed at Ivy's blue eyes. Ever.

Have I mentioned how much I love Bentley?

And how much Gwen hates being in any and all pictures?

Dinosaur ROAR

2010-02-27T19:49:00.003-07:00

Blaine is off on a date tonight. I am a little jealous because his date is very beautiful! They are going ice skating, which left his date in a real predicament about about to wear. She wanted to wear a dress to look beautiful, but she didn't want to fall on the ice and scrape her knees. The resulting date outfit was the stuff of legends. Her Easter dress from two years ago, with jeans underneath and a purple zip up jacking that is a size too small over the top, with a winter coat on top of that. Add to that gloves that are three sizes too big, a winter hat and Christmas socks. Underneath all the layers her skin is covered with sparkly body spray, and I was asked no less than twenty times today if her lips were still sparkly from the lip gloss. She's been counting down the days. She's been thanking Heavenly Father for dates in all of her nightly prayers. She's been telling her friends. She wouldn't hold my hand today in the parking lot, insisting instead on holding on to the back pocket of Blaine's jeans, even though Blaine had Ivy on his shoulders and Bentley by one hand....she wouldn't hold my hand because today is her special day with her dad.

I know my relationship with her will always pale in comparison to the relationship she has with her dad. Her dad is a superhero. Her dad is her everything.

All I can say though, is that while they were out ice skating ( I think...I got a text from Blaine that said "my date fell asleep on the drive here! That's a first!"). I was here eating frozen gogurts and reading Dinosaur Roar! six times in a row. I was wrestling and headbutting, squealing and laughing. I even snuck a kiss or two, even though I was informed today by Bentley that he is "too old for kisses".

There is something about fathers and daughters, but I am so glad that there is also something really special about mothers and sons.

I LOVE YOU BENTLEY!

Bounty Hunter Revisited

2010-02-27T08:19:00.002-07:00

It's been three weeks since I got my last Bountiful Basket. I know you've been on pins and needs to hear how it all turned out, right? It was so awesome! We loved the things that we had never purchased before (jicama, tangerines, etc.) it was really fun to have the things I am too cheap to buy (fresh pineapple!), and using fresh garlic has been way fun! Anyway, the only thing that didn't work out was the corn, I didn't get to it fast enough! I'll be better this time!

So I was able to go and get my bounty once more, and so for my $16.50 I got

5lbs potatoes
Swiss Chard (Help me!)
Fancy type of leafy lettuce
12 cucumbers (any ideas?)
9 bananas
2lbs asparagus
1 lb strawberries
2 lbs baby carrots
broccoli
2 lemons
6 oranges
7 braeburn apples

I'm very pleased once again !

They contacted me about possibly starting a drop site in Lehi. I am, generally speaking, not the type of person to head up major projects that require me to...I dunno, be responsible. But I am thinking about it, because...there's got to be more to life than Bejeweled and poopy diapers : )

Fly

2010-02-26T07:24:00.002-07:00

I overheard this conversation this morning while Blaine and Gwen were eating their breakfast.

Gwen: I don't really believe in imaginations
Blaine: Why not?
Gwen: Because whenever people imagine things they come true, but whenever I imagine things they don't come true
Blaine: Really? Like what?
Gwen:Well in Barney when they imagine he comes to life he really does but when I imagine my stuffed animals come to life, they don't
Blaine: ....
Gwen: I think my imagination must be broken

Sayid

2010-02-25T17:50:00.002-07:00

Oh. My. Gosh.

So, remember the butterfly garden? Well, it was awesome. Really fun to watch the caterpillars turn into chrysalids and then emerge as butterflies. They had to live in captivity for their whole lives since it hasn't been over 55 dgs here to release them. They lived for a long time but have started dropping off one by one lately. The last one kicked the bucket today.

I thought.

I dumped the deceased butterflies (two since the last purge) and cleaned out the habitat for the next go around (in a few months). Then I went about my business. I changed my scentsy, I dumped the hot wax into the garbage can. And then I heard a noise. I thought it was a mouse rustling in the pantry...nah, too quiet for that. Then I thought it was my pant leg brushing against the garbage sack. So I moved away. Then I heard it AGAIN.

So I look in the garbage can.

The butterfly is alive! And COVERED IN WAX.

I am like a torture master.

I cried, real tears.

I dumped hot molten wax on a defenseless nearly dead butterfly, which I had already dumped in the trash.

So, since it was half covered in wax and probably nearly starved to death I just dumped it outside. Certain to meet its ultimate demise since it is only 30 dgs outside. I figured after the torture session the least I could do was let it enjoy its last few moments out in the wild.

Either that or I am not man enough to hear the suffering and struggle of a strong willed butterflies last feeble attempts to survive.

I do bad things to good people. And insects.

Tobb

2010-02-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

The spacing in my family is really weird. I really only grew up with my one brother, and the others were all quite a bit older than us, so I grew up hearing stories about their childhoods. One of my particular favorites was when my parents found the word "Tobb" etched into their car (was it your car mom?). At the time my brother James was 7, my sister, Jennifer was 3 and my brother Todd was 2. James swears up and down to this day that it was Todd (er...Tobb) who did it. James also traced the bricks of my parents white home with black magic marker, he was a sneaky little devil.

But, now we have our own budding artist in our home. It seems that, though Gwen has never colored on walls or tables, etc. now that she can actually write something she will write on any surface available.

Like on our mouse pad.

She swears she didn't do it. Which is a shame, because I like the mouse pad ten thousand times more now that it has a stick figure little girl on it and a name written in someone's best handwriting. I think I owe the artist who did it a dollar or something. If I only knew...

Rosetta Stone

2010-02-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

I am the first to admit that I am not qualified to be a parent.
But I am especially not qualified when it comes to the hieroglyphics department, I had no idea that was a parenting requirement.

Gwen is learning to write, it's really fun! We find these sticky notes all over the place, there's a really cute one on her bed right now. I'll have to post that one later. In the mean time....care to take a stab at translating this one? Go on venture a guess. Her pen ran out of ink at the end. So as a hint for you I'll just tell you the last line is "and give me....(it's supposed to then say "a vitamin" darn pen!).

chickacherrycola

2010-02-18T08:50:00.003-07:00

I'm addicted to Cherry Coke. There. It's out in the open. Not sure when my addiction switched from Dr. Pepper to Cherry Coke, but it did. Anyway, in honor of my new found addiction, I am doing this for Lent.

Wish me luck!

Viva Las Vegas

2010-02-14T23:38:00.004-07:00

And just to let you know how addicted to LOST I am, I accidentally first typed the title of this blog post as "Viva Lost Vegas". Not kidding.

So! The Bassett's, in the spirit of spontaneity, decided to take a trip to Sin City!

An excellent place for impressionable young minds.

Gwen asked why there were so many "mommy pictures" on the ground.

Yowza.

Seriously though! It was a blast! Look how much fun we had!

Approximately thirty seven minutes after arriving in Las Vegas Bentley spiked a 102.5 fever!

So we spent the majority of our time eating these...

And, just because it is so rare to catch her smiling for a camera...

and just to spare Ralphie a coronary I have to mention that I didn't even tell her to say "cheese" she was just this happy to see real live flamingos, and happier still that she was wearing her pink shirt to match them. Good to know that so long as I book a photo shoot near live flamingos we'll be golden.

And how I love little Miss. She waited a whole 24 hours after our arrival in Vegas to spike her fever.

But she's still really cute. Even when feverish.

So, to the good people of Las Vegas, I am so sorry if you get what they've got. We still went out and about. We just had to spread the love. And I know it makes me an irresponsible citizen, but we kept them confined to the stroller, so that's good right?

And I really wanted to share a picture with you of Ivy's fauxhawk. It rocks. Sticks up like four inches right on the crown of her head, but the pictures of her fauxhawk did not do her baby blues justice. So you'll have to wait.

And here we are, home from Vegas, 24 hours earlier than planned, because that's what happens when your family starts dropping like flies to the plague.

But it was worth it baby, so worth it!

*and as a side note, does anyone in the world know why when I blog directly from picasa it will only let me center justify? For reals.

**um, also everyone pray really hard that someone will rent our house this week and, more importantly, that that someone will be an honest, law abiding, rent paying citizen. And also, while you are praying, add in there that the renters who are leaving really will do all the things they said they would do before leaving. Like clean and stuff. Thanks.

The Stupids

2010-02-08T19:53:00.002-07:00

So, you may not want to read this post if you are not in to people who rant.

This is going to be a ranting post, and I use the word stupid no less then about ten thousand times.

And first a note: I am going to rant on the condition that you know that I know that things could be worse. We've all got our health. I feel like whenever I complain how things are going they inevitably will get worse, and worse in such a way that matters more (ie...affects health and family as opposed to just money). So...I am not begging for more trials or burdens or ailments. Fate, are we understood?

But, seriously, what is the point of having a contract if there are no repercussions for breaking it? Our renters signed a two year contract. They signed their name to it. First off in the contract it states that they will not have pets. Upon visiting the house we found they have three dogs, at least one cat and a giant aquarium. Okay, whatever. The contract also said that they would not alter the house cosmetically without our permission. Okay, every wall was painted, my favorite bush was taken out, light fixtures were changed, and they put some funky stained glass thing on the back door glass etc. etc. etc. Fine, it was all in pretty decent taste, whatever.

But...seriously, folks, you signed an agreement to live there for two years and to pay X amount of dollars for every month for the entirety of those two years. So, I kind of feel like you owe me... Lets see here...$27,900. That and the last year of my life back.

You were having a hard time financially so we worked with you on the deposit. You were also having a hard time financially for like, every month thereafter, so we worked with you. Everytime you used the excuse "with the expense of moving we just dont have the money for x and x and x" I thought....well what about me? I had the same expense of moving. No one waived my security deposit. In fact, we had given a verbal agreement for a duplex and then backed out of that and though we had not signed anything we still forked over the $500 deposit we would have paid if we would have signed something, because we have an active conscience.

At the very least, if you are to break the contract that...you know, you signed, you are supposed to give thirty days notice. Not seven.

Seven days notice. You couldn't have told me while I was in Texas and could have done something about it. No no.

Am I the only person in this world who feels obligated to something when I sign my name to it? I wouldn't dream of walking away from a contract. And if I had to, absolutely had to, I would give the required notice, I would expect to pay some sort of fee. I don't expect my landlords to compensate for my financial hard times. I don't expect the realtor we are going to use to accept less of a commission because I don't have enough money to sell the home.

Where's my break? Where's my person I can push over and walk over and manipulate and cheat?

Okay, rant is done.

I don't hate many things, but I've pretty much hated the emotional roller coaster that has been the last six months.

I want nothing more than to pick up next week and move back into my Texas house. The house that, for some reason, no one else in the world wants. And yet instead I am going to pay thousands of dollars to NOT live in that house. It's quite messed up actually.

Stupid renters. Stupid stupid stupid renters. And stupid economy. And STUPID housing market.
And stupid me for being so easy to walk over.

-----------

Wish I could say my rant made me feel better. It didn't.

But with all my ranting now over, I wish to re-emphasize that I am grateful Blaine has a job. I am grateful my kids don't have cancer. I am grateful that we have food to eat, a family who loves us, a God who is looking out for us. I am grateful for so much, and I know things could be so much worse off, I really really know that (you hear me fate? Don't teach me a lesson because I already KNOW!).

The end.

P.S. Anyone want to drive with me to Texas or put me up for a while while I prepare my home to sell. Stupid stupid stupid house.

A tale of two milestones

2010-02-07T20:30:00.003-07:00

Today was a big day for Ivy. She finally has enough hair to do a pitiful pony tail and she grew two teeth. I was kind of beginning to wonder how we were going to afford baby dentures. Whew, dodged that bullet!

Bounty Hunter

2010-02-06T12:17:00.005-07:00

Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets? Kayla blogged about them a long time ago and my interest was piqued, they weren't available in Texas though so I moved on with my life. Bountiful Baskets are a food co-op in the Western US (mostly Arizona, Utah...I think like Washington too), you make a contribution on Wednesday and then go pick up your bounty on Saturday morning. You don't really know what you are going to get, you just know you'll get fruits and vegetables. It's kind of like Christmas morning really. The bountiful baskets are $15, with a $1.50 handling charge, and then there is a first time charge of $3. They also have add-ons that you can do; bread, granola, cookies, different "packs"-- like an Italian pack, or hostess pack, which have different foods in them. This go around I ordered the regular Bountiful Basket as well as a "dip" pack that was hopefully going to have all sorts of good things in it to make dip with.

So, you ready to see my Bounty?

1 pineapple

6 corn

11 bananas

some type of fancy lettuce

jicama

head of cauliflower

2 packs of asparagus

8 pink lady apples

4 zuccini like squash (are they zuccini? Not sure)

4 Asian Pears

3 cloves of garlic

8 tangarines

Sweet mercy, I am excited!

Okay and the dip pack?

2 Onions

celery

pkg grape tomatoes

1lb carrots

cilantro

5 little bitty limes

7 avacados

I think the dip pack was like....seven bucks or something.

I am pretty darn happy about it and best of all, I went and volunteered to unload the truck and get the baskets ready and it felt SO good to get out and do something besides clean my house and parent (not that I don't love those things). There isn't much time in my life for volunteering, which is sad because I would love to do it. Well, I do have lots of time, but there isn't much that I can do with my three children in tow, so it was nice to get up early and have some alone time and do a little service for the world.

And the OTHER best part is that I am excited to see how this will challenge me as a chef. I normally wouldn't buy things like jicama (but my Grandma used to and I love them!), or tangerines or asian pairs; but I am excited to try them! I am going to get my BB on Saturday mornings and base my menu around my produce and see what I can come up with and hopefully be able to incorporate more fruits and veggies into our diet!

P.S. Texans, have you heard of Angel Food Ministries?It's a similar type co-op but with things like meat and stuff. I never tried it but really wished I would have!

Up & Up

2010-02-01T16:00:00.002-07:00

It's Targets new brand name of diapers (and everything) and they aren't so bad, especially when you consider they are cheaper than Luvs even! We've been using them for a while and like them a lot. And hooray, they are on a good sale!

If you buy 4 packages online you get 15% off and free shipping! Plus if you use the code URTYJLI8 you get an extra 10% off. And, of course, don't forget your 3% cashback from ebates.com.

Remember, tell them kristi.bassett@gmail.com sent you so we can each get $5 back!

It works out that you can get the smaller sizes for about nine cents a diaper, and the bigger sizes for about eleven cents, not bad friends! Too bad the wipes aren't available online, because the up & up brand are the best wipes ever!

Happy Diapering!

525,600 minutes

2010-01-29T22:18:00.004-07:00

It's amazing how much things can change in a year.

This little girl is the sunshine of my life. She came as a total surprise. I wanted to hit the "undo" button, but boy was I wrong. This girl has brought me so much joy and happiness in just one year of life, I can't imagine how much I would be missing out on if she weren't here. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ivy Jane is the best mistake I ever made.

I simply can't get enough of her.

Isn't she gorgeous?

Happy Birthday my dear Ivy Jane!

Surfs Up

2010-01-28T14:15:00.005-07:00

I think a keychain says a lot about a person.

And I didn't particularly like what my keychain of nearly twenty years was saying about me.

Back when I received the keychain as a souvenir from one of my parents trips many years ago, it was a symbol of happiness, youth, hope...that kind of thing.

And "not that there's anything wrong" with what it symbolizes now, it's just that I am not particularly qualified to be carrying such an icon on my person at all times.

I am much more qualified though to have this new, super hip, gnarly keychain...

Ronjons Surf Shop baby. I've been upgraded from a rainbow to a surfboard, let's hope that surfboards will forever and always symbolize the beach, good times and sunshine!

Proof

2010-01-27T18:19:00.002-07:00

Luckily Wayne did get a picture of me scuba diving, and it may just be the hottest picture of me ever. But I digress, scuba diving rocks!

Imitiation is the highest form of flattery

2010-01-27T18:01:00.003-07:00

In the spirit of Janssen's "tell me what to read" blog posts, I think you should tell me what nutty froo froo thing I should do for the month of February....should I ditch teflon as Janssen suggested? Buy only organic produce? Buy a prius? No fast food? Eliminating food dyes? Eight glasses of water? Any simple ideas of little things I can do would be appreciated. My goal is to stave off disease, make our lives healthier, reduce waste, that sort of thing. So, um, don't leave me with chirping crickets here!

Duke Nukem

2010-01-27T14:23:00.003-07:00

Hi, this is your friendly neighborhood aluminum-free deodorant wearing fence sitting granola speaking. My new thing is that I am morally opposed to microwaving plastic (thanks Allison!). And I just wanted to let you know that I found a sweet deal on glasslock tupperware at Costco, this set was $30!

So not only are nasty plastic chemicals not going to get in my food, but no more stained tupperware. It's a win-win.

The "vis"

2010-01-26T13:39:00.009-07:00

I know it might be hard for you to believe, but I haven't always been as cool as I am now. That's right. In Junior high I wasn't on any sports teams or cheerleading squads, I was on the journalism staff (as a photographer, that's right, I taught Ralphie everything she knows), and on several of the "academic teams" (you know, Math & Science, English & Social Studies). Our uniforms were sweaters. Social suicide, I know, but dang it was fun! I was also on the environmental club (*ducking thrown tomatoes*), and even (brace yourself ) the space club.

That's right, space club. And would you like to know why I risked the very little dignity I had in Junior High and joined the space club? Why I went to weekly meetings and planned fake space missions with even bigger geeks than myself?

It's because Eric Fenstermaker informed me that at the end of the year the good people in space club got to go scuba diving, in a real live swimming pool.

The idea was exhilarating. I always loved the ocean, ever since I got that Lisa Frank pencil box in elementary school that had Orcas on the cover. Admittedly they were hot pink and purple sparkly orcas, but that is far beyond the point.

I wanted to see the ocean. Well, I didn't just want to see it, I wanted to be in it! Adding to my fascination was the release of the film "Free Willy". Good grief. I was obsessed with the ocean. I was going to be a marine biologist, I was going to live on a shack on the beach and spend my days on a research boat diving with whales and dolphins. I was going to have long curly sun bleached hair. It was quite the fantasy really, and space club was my only realistic "in" to that world.

It's a discouraging thing to be an aspiring marine biologist in a landlocked state where the most fascinating water species is the brine shrimp. But, I had a dream. And I would do anything I had to do, including spending many hours in a fake rocketship made out of two by fours.

I think the space club advisor knew that some people maybe only joined space club to go on the scuba diving trip. So in order to go it was required to attend something like 90% of the club activities. So I was there man, I was there for everything. I would never let a little social suicide ruin my chance to live my dream.

If memory serves me correctly, I think our scuba diving trip got cancelled at the end of the year. Not sure, but pretty positive. Wish I kept in touch with all of my space club buddies, but I am pretty sure they are all astronauts by now. Either that or institutionalized.

Anyway the dream was still vibrant in my heart but as I grew older and more realistic I began to realize that being a marine biologist, oceanographer, underwater photographer or even SeaWorld garbage taker-outer were not realistic career choices for me.

But when Blaine went on his mission, I was all the sudden left with vast quantities of free time and a decent amount of money, and, as luck would have it, no friends. So, the obvious thing to do was to get my scuba diving certification.

I talked my brother-in-law, Wayne, into taking the certification class with me. So every Wednesday night for several weeks we would drive to Murray High School and take a two hour long class to get our certification.

It was awesome. Except the time I forgot to turn on my air tank. That was not so awesome, but luckily my dive buddy, Wayne, caught me before I jumped into the water without air. That's what good dive buddies do.

The class culminated in a trip out to Blue Lake, Nevada. This was in January, mind you. Jumping into the middle of a lake in January is not an exciting thing to do, I'll tell you that.

I completed the certification and couldn't wait until I could go scuba diving in the ocean. You know, the warm ocean. That's not to say that diving in Utah or Nevada lakes isn't fun. It is, in as much as not being able to see a blasted thing in the murky freezing water goes.

The thing about having a scuba certification is that you need to go once every two years to keep it current. I got my certification in 2001, and I haven't been scuba diving since....2001.

I thought about trying to figure out what I needed to do to go diving on this trip, but Blaine wasn't all that excited about getting a certification, and it would be kind of spooky to go by myself. (Note: if you ever want to go scuba diving don't ever watch Open Water, not even the edited version *shudder*)

So I didn't worry about it. But then on the cruise Wayne went diving in the Caymans (one of the best places in the world to go), and I was stuck with the ten billion other snorkelers, up on top of the world. Looking down on the most fascinating things but not having the lung capacity to go down and take a good look at them.

But in Cozumel when I was renting my snorkeling gear I saw that they had an hour long shore dive for just $30 more than what my gear was going to cost me. I told them I didn't have my card, but that I was certified and they let me go! Wayne came too.

was

awesome

It's amazing how you can walk out to the water and waves are splashing in your face and you start to feel panicky but then you drop down beneath the surface and everything is calm and serene and...amazing!

We saw rays and eels and thousands of fish. We went in a cave (which is when I nearly died from an anxiety attack!), but it was SO awesome and I saw a fish that was the same size as me! We saw lobstery looking things and crabs, we saw lots of snorkelers, forty feet above us...the schmucks!

And so now I am bound and determined to become a marine biologist again. Or at the very least go diving more than once a decade. I want my kids to dive. I want Blaine to dive. I want to be the kind of family that dives. Alllllllll the time.

I want to own scuba gear.

and most importantly, I want to live in Cozumel, or Grand Cayman (not Jamaica so much).

So *fist up in the air* who's with me?

*wouldn't it be awesome if the picture on this post was actually a picture of me diving? Dang Target! Our underwater camera wouldn't work. And also...this diver is in the correct diving position, with arms placed calmly at your sides or clasped together in front of you....I looked more like a frightened flamingo or something with my arms flapping all over the place, but still...

A world away...

2010-01-25T18:50:00.003-07:00

It's been a rough day. Our flight got in around midnight last night. We crawled into bed at 1:30AM at Blaine's parents house (bless. them.), Blaine woke up early and got to work and I loaded up the children (with the help of Blaine's mom!) and drove the lot of them home. There's been lots of crying, lots of fighting, and about two hundred poopy diapers.

Blaine is working till 11:00PM tonight

Gwen just peed her pants and while I was busy cleaning that up Bentley disrobed and relieved himself on my pant leg.

It's hard to believe that only 56 hours ago I was sitting in a beach chair with sand in my toes and with this as my view.

I had an amazing trip! I can't wait to write about it! But I've got urine soaked laundry to do and two very naughty children in the tub. Very. Naughty. Children.

I still love them though. I'm not denying that...but I may have loved them more from a distance.

: )

Set Up

2010-01-14T10:44:00.002-07:00

It may have been hard to tell from my generally happy overtones over the past several months, but I really kind of regret moving from Texas. Sure it is great here and all, I love being around family and the mountains, but overall I think Austin is where I want to be. I know, you're shocked, right?

So the thing is, I was planning a trip for the middle of next month but my travel companion has had something come up and we are probably not going to be able to make it. So sad, right?

But, we are flying in to Houston on Saturday at noon and don't have to be on our cruise ship until Sunday at like 1 in the afternoon. So I had this crazy idea to rent a car so we could drive to Round Rock and visit our peeps (and certain shaved ice stands) for a crazy 24 hour whirlwind trip.

But now that I am getting closer to the actual date, what was I thinking? What do I think I am going to do, just show up on peoples porches and hug them and then move on to the next person? Good grief. It's kind of a ridiculous plan.

But, I do want to check in on my Texas house (or do I...?), and I am aching to see my Texas friends, but am I just setting myself up for a collassal return to depression? Is visiting the place I so love and miss going to do nothing but drag me back into my sorry state of depression?

But if I don't go...what's a person to do with 24 hours in Houston? And how could I possibly get that close to seeing my friends and not actually do it?

Things have been getting better here. I made a friend ( I think) and it is amazing how that can make the world of difference. I don't need a bazillion friends, just like one or two, and it's amazing how the world can turn into a cheerier place. So that's good. Plus I am most certainly looking forward to summertime. It was hard to come straight from a Texas summer to a Utah winter. We had a good month in there of nice weather, but it was a month where we were in temporary housing without any stuff, plus I was in a funk, plus Blaine was new at his job and had no vacation days. One of the main things we were looking forward to about living in Utah was not having to use all of our vacation days to come and visit Utah. I am kind of looking forward to three day camping trips, fishing on Saturday mornings, and being able to go on little trips with my family even if Blaine can't come with us.

So...there is a light at the end of this move induced funk I've been in, am I just hurting myself by going to Austin long enough to just stir the dust that has recently settled?

Would you do it? Would you go and just try to visit as many random friends as possible or would you go explore scenic Houston? Decisions!

1,641

2010-01-14T01:02:00.003-07:00

I really wanted to post about the mutant cheerio we found in the box this morning but some fool ate the darn thing before I could take a picture. Let me just tell you....it was awesome. Looked like a piece of penne pasta. I hope whoever ate it sure enjoyed it, but since I can't bring you a picture of the penne shaped cheerio, I'll write about something else, equally awesome.

I embrace the internet. I love the internet. Love it. And one thing I especially love about the internet is the ability to read reviews. I have a deep seeded trust in the opinions of the masses. I think that is why I am so willing to try so many recipes from http://www.allrecipes.com/ but hesitant to try any from a plain old paper cookbook. I need reassurance, from many many people, that the thing I am going to try is going to be worth my time.

We even bought our mattress online. Never sat on. Never saw it. Just bought it, based off of the reviews of the good people at http://www.overstock.com/. And I think you all know how I feel about my mattress ( I want to link to my post about my mattress but can't find the durn thing). Needless to say the masses have hardly ever let me down.

So our vacuum cleaner sucks. Figuratively. Literally it doesn't suck at all. Horrible piece of machinery. We bought it after we had been married about six months. Cost us about thirty bucks. I didn't care back then about the masses or what they thought. Oh how misled I was!

So seven years later our vacuum doesn't pick up anything. Actually I bet it hasn't picked up much for about six years now, but between the dogs and the children....it never seemed to be a big problem.

The thing is, now my kids are old enough to break in to the pantry at will. And when you've got the stomach flu and have locked yourself into your room for one meager moment of solace, and your hungry children are left to forage for themselves from the pantry, well... bad things happen.
Saltines, everywhere. In every room, on every surface, in every hole, everywhere.

My vacuum wouldn't even pick up one crumb.

I have some Christmas money. I was ridiculously close to buying a Dyson. I've heard great things... Plus through my deal forums I heard of some good deals. But the thing was still going to cost me over $250, and for a vacuum? Really? I've got mouthes to feed here people. Lots of em.

So I started searching for lower cost options and found two vacuums for under a hundred dollars that were getting rave reviews.

I decided on this little number. Now, if sixteen hundred and forty one people rated this vacuum and it still gets four and a half stars....well dad gum, I'd say it is worth my $76 to check it out. Even if it requires the use of vacuum bags (what is this the stone age?). But ohhhhhh baby! Hoover Tempo U5410-900 where have you been all my life?!?

And why is it important that I tell you this at 1:19AM? Not entirely sure. Other than I am trying to NOT write what is really on my mind, which is something like...

"Aggggggggggggh! I have to get on an airplane in like 54 hours and I want to cry my eyeballs out!".

See, talking about vacuum cleaners is way. WAY. WAYYYYYY better than another "I'm afraid of flying" rant.

So go and read reviews and rejoice in the masses! Just don't follow them if they start jumping off of cliffs!

La Mer...

2010-01-07T15:20:00.003-07:00

I know you have all been waiting on pins and needles for my list of resolutions. It's kind of tricky because I am not setting any until January 25th. Well, I guess that is not true, I have a different set of resolutions for January 16-January 24th 2010

* I will NOT die in an airplane crash, or be involved in any hostile terrorist takeover, or experience anything more than extremely mild turbulence which will likely rock me to sleep for the flight.

* I will not count calories, nor will I hen peck Blaine about counting his calories.

* I will go scuba diving in the real live ocean and will not get eaten by a shark or forgotten by the scuba diving company and left out in the ocean to die a mysterious death.

*I will eat dessert every night

*I will go dancing with Blaine at least three times a week

* I will not miss my children. I will not not not. I've been wanting a break from them for like five years and I will not ruin a perfectly good trip by being concerned for their welfare. This resolution is going to be particularly hard.

* I will see dolphins

* I will see sunsets

* I will not catch the swine flu

* I will have a week to remember, in a good way

* I will stay up late and wake up early

* I will visit the midnight buffet

* I will go to shows

* I am going to love this!

See, these resolutions might lead to my ultimate demise if I set them for a whole year : )

Sharing Time

2010-01-05T11:47:00.005-07:00

You know, sharing a house is the way to live. It really is. I mean, in a perfect world I would be in the upper half of the house, but for now I am quite content here in my basement. Except for the little mouse ~~infestation~~ "situation". Really if it weren't for the mice and the beastly commute I would say our living situation couldn't get much better. House sharing, of the non rodentia variety, is the wave of the future.

First off, the house we live in in general is just a sweet house. The very first basement we ever lived in was about 300 sq ft big. You could sit on the pot while cooking your dinner and making the bed. Seriously. Now this, this is a nice basement. Square footage-wise, it is bigger than our Texas house. The kitchen is one of the biggest, nicest ones I've ever had the priviledge to cook in. Cupboard space galore. Nice carpet, and so on. And because technically we are living in a mansion (they had it listed for sale when we moved in and were asking over $450,000 - pretty sure), we live in a nice, established neighborhood. And all of these, including all of the utilities (internet and cable!) for a hundred dollars less than our mortgage alone was in Texas.

Now aside from the actual house we are living in, the actual sharing of the house is a huge perk of living here and one that I didn't even think that much about when we signed on.

First, a little disclaimer, I am not entirely sure our upstairs neighbors are as delighted with the situation as we are. I mean, we have to tromp through their house every time we park in the garage, we are definitely on the receiving end of this little relationship.

For ease in communication I will call our upstairs neighbor "Kristi". It's convenient because that is my name, but as luck would have it, it's hers too. (now that has never caused any embarrassing situations, like for example if Kristi's husband, Matt, came home from the store and said, "Hey Kristi, I got you some Dr. Pepper!" it's not like I would leap to my feet and thank him profusely for it before realizing that I was not the Kristi for whom he had purchased Dr. Pepper or anything, because that would be embarrassing.). But, personally, I think it's a pretty sweet situation for all involved.

For starters Gwen and the little girl upstairs, Maleah (I've only called her Meleah about ten billion times), are best buds forever. They would play from dawn to dusk if given the chance, and many times they are given that chance. It's insanely convenient to have a best friend upstairs to play with. They run up and downstairs all day long. Kristi and I co-watch them. It's freaking awesome. It's sad times at our house when Maleah is gone for the day.

And sometimes if I need to run to the store Gwen stays here and plays, and that makes my life about a thousand times easier.

Secondly....hello, best friends for us right upstairs too. Last night I was upstairs playing Mario Wii until unearthly hours with good friends without either of us ever having to leave the comfort of our own home. It solves the age old problem of adults wanting to stay up late hanging out but having kids that need to get to bed. Every Thursday night we eat dinner with our friends upstairs and watch The Office and 30 Rock, all the while with our babies snoozing and our big girls playing princess. Sometimes we play Settlers of Catan till unearthly hours too. Did I mention they have like a 500 inch tv? Seriously.

Thirdly, between Kristi's house and mine we have three ovens. Three. This has cut my bread making time down by a third. Likewise, two fridges....sometimes she's out of eggs, sometimes I am, but there's never been a time that we both are.

Third and a halfly- when Blaine was gone for the night there was no need to fear, plenty of people upstairs to hear me scream if bad guys came. Not to mention the two man-eating dogs they keep upstairs (I used to say that jokingly about our dogs, these dogs are seriously gigantorian)

Fourthly, they go to Costco at least once a day, sometimes like four times (; ) ). How nice is that that if I need milk or something there is a guaranteed Costco run?

Fifthly they have extra room in their deep freeze, and they let us use it.

Sixthly, their vacuum works and ours doesn't, so they let us use it.

Accidentally go somewhere and leave a candle burning? One phone call and the flame is extinguished. Forget to Tivo your favorite show? Never fear! Need to run up the street real fast and don't want to pack up your gaggle of children to go with you? No problem! Run out of diapers? Presto!

Not to mention the regular benefits of renting in general: dishwasher break? Who cares! Lawn need to be mowed? Not my problem! Sudden move across the country? See you later!

And so on and so forth. Communal living is very, very awesome.

So I think when Blaine and I buy a house again (which I don't think we will ever, buying a house was probably the worst financial decision we ever made!), we will buy an extra huge nice house with a very large basement apartment, because having lived this lifestyle, I can't see myself going back.

I don't think it would work with any two random people. If it were family it might feel too intrusive, if it was a friend you already were tight with it might be weird. We came in to this not knowing our upstairs neighbors at all. They have their lives, we have ours, but we share a house, and it rocks.

Now...what to do about these pesky rodents....and that pesky commute!

Christmas morning

2009-12-29T15:51:00.001-07:00

It seemed like such a great idea at the time.

But only ended in tragedy.

Infamy

2009-12-24T08:32:00.001-07:00

And this Christmas will go down in infamy as the year my children received frozen dead caterpillars for Christmas.

Yep, forgot to check the mail yesterday and of course the caterpillars for the Butterfly Garden came. Whoops.

Omen

2009-12-23T08:24:00.002-07:00

I know many of you can't understand my fear of flying. In fact >> I << don't really understand it. I understand numbers and statistics, etc. but for some reason my fear is ever intensening even though reason tells me I am safer flying than eating cheetos.

Just to give you an idea...when someone says to me "you know, flying is actually safer than driving" it would be the equivalent of someone telling you that "walking on a tightrope between two skyscrapers is actually much safer than walking across the street on the ground". You think "YEAH RIGHT!" and even if it is safer, you don't want to go through the anxiety and the stress of actually having to walk on that tightrope. You want to keep your feet firmly planted on the ground, you're comfortable there, you are in control there. It's safe. No anxiety.

When my parents announced over a year ago that they wanted to take the entire family on a cruise, I was SO excited! Especially because we were living in Austin and Houston was a mere three hour DRIVE away. It was so perfect!

Well...here we are in Utah and the cruise is about three weeks away. I simply cannot bring myself to book my airline tickets. I was really close the other day, I had the tickets up on the screen. I was about to call and then my chest would tighten up so I could hardly breath, and my heart was beating so fast it hurt.

Some things that I go through that you might not when booking airfare...

* I stew about which flight I choose becaus I am choosing my destiny! What if I pick the wrong one and it is a horrible flight?
* What is the weather going to be like? Houston has lots of thunderstorms, I want no part of landing or taking off in a thunderstorm!
* I research the type of plane that each flight is...what is the plane's safety record? Etc. It's really awesome (not) how wikipedia articles about different types of planes list all of the accidents and incidents that type of plane has been in.
* What time of day is the flight? I don't want some pilot who was out drinking the night before flying me out at 6AM. Nor do I want an exhausted pilot who has flown 24 hours straight to fly my plane at 11:00PM.
* What if the pilot has a death wish?

I know these things seem silly to you. I really can't explain it. Certainly you are slightly crazy in your own little ways too. And your fears probably seem irrational to me. For instance, what stresses Blaine out about flying is making sure he checks in properly and finds the right gate. Are you freaking kidding me? What is scary about that? Finding a gate number???

We watched a 20/20 recently about Howie Mandel and his battle with being OCD. The guy washes his money. He was on a vacation with his kids and one of hids kids pants brushed against his hand (or something!) and he had to go back home to shower and change. So he goes through all of this angst and horror in his everyday life and then has no problem hopping on a personal jet and flying 300 days a year. I cannot understand that!

I cannot understand his personal fear, but I can relate to the dilemma.

Anyway. I finally sucked it up, again. I was going to book the ticket. I was driven because I had missed so many sales and the airfare price went up AGAIN and I know that soon I am going to have to fork out TONS of money for these tickets. So I log on and prepare for the battle to purcahse tickets, which certainly will take most of the day ... and first I check the news. Awesome.

Now I physically and emotionally won't be able to do it. At least not for a while.

Anyway, pray for me because man, I HATE THIS. I don't like being this way. I want to be excited about my cruise but I can't be until I am there because of this ridiculous obstacle. That's right, I know it is ridiculous thank you very much : )

Merry Christmas !

This can't be sanitary...

2009-12-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

I used to have no good reason for why my behind was glued to the computer chair all day, at least now I can say, "because when I leave the computer chair Bentley takes off his diaper and pees on it.".

I'm an eternal optimist.

Proof

2009-12-15T12:06:00.002-07:00

And this is so ironic given my last post, but my day went something like this...

9:30AM : Ho hum, I suppose if I am going to order any Christmas presents online I better order them today or else they wont get here in time.

9:30AM-10:30AM: * mulling over gift options *

10:31AM: Eureeka! I've got it! I'll order him a book of LSAT tests...hmmm...there are two different options..."10 Actual, Official, LSAT Preptests" and "The next 10 Actual, Official LSAT Preptests". Hmmmm... I don't think he has one of these books but just in case, I will order "the next ten".

10:32AM: Place Amazon order

11:30AM: Email from Blaine "here are a list of books I might like to help me study for the LSAT...blah blah blah... oh and a book of official LSAT tests, I already have one so be sure to check and not order the same one

11:32AM: * open the nightstand drawer to see The Next 10...."

11:33AM: Lots of stomping and mormonized cursing

11:40AM: Log back in to amazon, maybe I can cancel it! Nope, it is already being prepped to ship! How did Blaine's LSAT book become Amazons #1 priority this morning? I have no idea.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

GRRRRRRR.

The end.

Torn Soul, er...sole

2009-12-14T10:05:00.003-07:00

I hate when Blaine ruins surprises. The funny thing is that he never tries to (like me). He just innocently says something like, "wow, it would be really awesome to get some new socks for Christmas this year". Then I throw my hands up in the air, roll my eyes very exaggeratedly and storm out of the room. I throw myself upon the bed and cry out, "Why! Why do you have to ruin everything! WHHHHHYYYYYY!" Then I grab the tube socks out of the drawer and thrust them into his arms and pout "here, here's your dang tube socks! I hope you like them". And then I don't talk to him for the remainder of the day and he is left with a puzzled look on his face and a bruised ego.

Yeah, Christmas time is stressful at this house. I'm not sure where my freakoutedness comes from. I, for one, am all about sneaky around and finding my Christmas presents early. It's a habit I developed early in my youth when my parents would sleep in until some unearthly hour on Christmas morning, like 6AM, and I simply couldn't stand it, so at 3AM I would go sort through my stocking and have my own little pre-Christmas show.

But whoa baby, if I get you a present you better not guess what it is. Or it is sooooo over.

Yesterday we were forced to walk through three feet of mooshy snow slush to get to church. It was awful. I was wearing dainty little flats and Blaine was wearing his decade old Sunday shoes which are cracked right down the sole. We may as well have just had our feet sitting in an ice bath all Sunday long. He said, he needed new church shoes. I demanded he carry me and all three children directly to the shoe store to buy boots, the ox was definitely in the myer. (meyer? Mier? My-errrrr). He wouldn't concede to that. I happened the mention that maybe someone would get him Church shoes for Christmas. I like to mess with his mind like that.

So today I sent him this email...

"So um.....I am writing this blog post about shoes and I was just wondering your opinion. In general do you prefer black shoes or brown? Do you find that regular shoes wear out as fast as dress shoes? As a shoe wearing person, do you prefer church shoes that can double as regular shoes or definite, shiny, blatantly obvious church shoes? Thanks, your information will definite help with my...blog post".

He for sure thinks he is getting shoes for Christmas, and all I have to say is....I hope you are all excited for this blog post coming down the pipes about shoes, cuz, whoa doggy, it's gonna be good.