NaBloPoMo

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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).