Life Cycles

Capitol Reef Cowboy Cabin

2011-08-22T19:16:00.001-06:00

Consider Yourself Warned

2011-05-16T14:12:00.004-06:00

It's been an interesting month.

It started a month ago when I finally went to the doctor because my guts are broken. Again. I've gone for four years and kind of forgot that I have a chronic auto-immune condition that can flare up anytime. Until it does-- and then boy do I remember!

Long story short, the doctor tells me I'm way overdue for another colonoscopy and schedules one for April 19th. Yikes!

You see, I can push myself through 100 mile bike rides, I can work just about anyone under the table, and I can accomplish just about anything I set my mind to. The one thing that I cannot do is make myself drink the gosh-awful stuff that cleans you out the night before the procedure. Just. Can't. Do. It.

I think that my guts know exactly what the purpose of the horrendous mixture is and as soon as it hits my stomach, my stomach clenches and chucks it all back up.

No more details. It sufficeth to say, I had a horrible night.

Anyway, I made it through the night and the procedure pretty well, but sure enough, I was in the middle of a huge flare up-- one that required a different course of treatment that I have never tried before-- steroids.

Steroids frighten me-- ever since my mom was on a course of them and actually developed a condition called "steroid psychosis." I worried it might be hereditary.

It wasn't. But over the course of the month of taking them, I have had some pretty interesting side effects.

I am hungry. All of the time. I eat a meal and an hour later, I feel ravenous.

As a consequence of the above, and also I am hoping some water retention, I have gained back most of the weight that I worked so hard to lose after Christmas. Pardon my French but DAMMIT!

I have hot flashes. If this is an indication of what is to come when I am much, MUCH older, then I think you'd better shoot me now.

I am unpredictable. Sometimes I feel manic euphoria and sometimes I feel rage.

I can't sleep. Even with Ambien. That's when you know you're in trouble.

In other words, these steroids have turned me into a teen-age boy.

I will try to remember this when my boys get to be a little older and I want to kill them for eating too much, growing too fast, never wearing jackets and acting like cretins.

When I started experiencing the weirdness, I looked up Prednizone online to see what side effects were listed. All of my symptoms were in the common section. There was also one piece of advice that I think they ought to list on the bottle:

"You should let your family, friends, and co-workers know that you are taking steroids and that your behavior may be erratic."

Consider yourselves advised. :-)

My Proudest Moment

2011-04-26T12:33:00.007-06:00

You'd think growing up in a house of only sisters, I would be a girly-girl. I think that the all-girl thing actually worked against my femininity, because there was no brother to take away my dad's attention. After 4 or 5 tries for a boy, he finally resigned himself to the idea that, if he wanted someone to play baseball with, he was going to have to settle for what he had.

My sister and I turned into sports nuts. I like just about every sport. I kicked trash this year at fantasy football. I know all of the teams in the NFL and I could probably tell you who their starting quarterback was last season. In our Relief Society directory, I am the only one who put Monday Night Football as my favorite t.v. show.

I also like pro cycling, golf, and basketball. However, what I really love is baseball.

My dad was a fantastic softball player. He played on work, city and church leagues. We went to every game. Summer meant ballgames.

My dad taught me to hit a ball. Hard. He taught me how to catch in the pocket of my mitt. And, most importantly, he taught me how to NOT throw like a girl.

Now I have kids of my own and I have waited patiently for them to be old enough to play baseball. When Em was 5, we signed her up for tee-ball. I was so excited! What a let down. Tee-ball is NOT baseball. There are no outs. There is no pitcher. There are a lot of little kids who don't know which way to run.

Next, we found a competitive machine pitch baseball league for Mike when he was 7. Full uniforms and outs and everything.

Just like that, I became a baseball mom.

Here's the problem, though. I think that I like baseball better than my boys do.

They like it all right, but they also like to shoot baskets in their new basketball standard and they like to play Wii. I'm not sure that baseball even ranks top 3. They won't sit and watch Red Sox games with me (even though I redid their whole bathroom in RedSox decor). They don't want to spend hours in the yard practicing.

What the heck? It's probably good-- because if they loved it, I'd move heaven and earth to get them on super-league teams and into camps and stuff. Such is life.

However, last night, we had a moment that made up for my little disappointments.

Mike was playing in his second Little League game. He is on the Indians and his team ROCKS. He is the youngest and the 2nd smallest, so he's having a little adjustment from being THE MAN on his Rookie team last year. Instead of playing 1st base, he warms the bench or plays outfield. He does, however, get to bat.

This is his first year on a pitching league, instead of machine pitch. It scares me a little to see my little guy up there against these 11-12 year old pitchers. I played in hundreds of games growing up and I don't think I was ever as nervous for myself as I am for my son. I was literally praying for him to just do his best and oh, could you maybe just let him hit the ball? 1st time at bat and he gets up there and smacks a wicked curve ball out past second base for a single. Woohoo!

His team was up 12 to 2 when he got up again. (I told you they rock.) He stood up there, took one strike, then on the second pitch, he got smacked in the head so hard that his helmet flew off. I thought my heart stopped. He calmly picked up his helmet, tossed his bat toward the dugout, then trotted to first base. His coach asked him if he was all right. I could see that he wanted to cry, but he is trying desperately to fit into this team of big kids who have all played together for 3-4 years now. He manned-up and stood his ground.

The pitcher threw a wild pitch to the next batter and Mike stole second. They tried to pick him off, but the second baseman missed the throw. Mike stole third. They tried to pick him off there, but over-threw a little and the coach sent him in. He ran faster than I've ever seen him run, slid his little butt into home and was SAFE!

It took everything in me not to run over and smother him with motherly concern and affection, but I didn't want to undo all of his hard work. I glued my butt to the seat.

I don't think I've ever been more proud of him, and it had very little to do with baseball skills. My son took one for the team, showed courage while in pain, then got the job done when he needed to.

He'll probably never play for the Red Sox, or even the high school for that matter, but he is learning some really important lessons.

That's why I love baseball.

And, there's still always Doug. :-)

De-junking

2011-04-12T17:14:00.007-06:00

I've been really excited for Spring Break.

Not because we're going anywhere cool-- we're not. Not because we're sleeping in-- not doing that either. I'm excited because I rented a dumpster and Spring Break is going to be Spring Purge at the Garrett house. And yard.

Most people move at least a couple of times in the first 15 years of marriage. I have one sister who has had 7 addresses in their 14 years of marriage. Not us. We've lived in the same house for almost 13 years.

Our house is 4,000 square feet. It seemed like a mansion when just the two of us were living here. It is still pretty big for just a family of 5. However, all of that extra storage room coupled with never having to move has left us with a lot of crap.

Hence, the dumpster. (Thanks, Uncle Jeff!)

I've been tossing stuff for three days and it feels great-- kind of like when you eat something bad and you puke it up. You're really tired after, but you feel much better, you know?

So yesterday, I de-junked the boys room, cleaned out the very scary shed, dismantled and tossed the rusted swingset, then got to work digging out the old basketball standard to make way for the new one that the boys got for Christmas.

That little project took 45 minutes of digging, an hour of breaking cement with a 10 pound sledge hammer, and another 30 minutes of cursing while I tried to tip it out. The swear words finally did the job, and I got the dumb thing tipped over.

Just in time to realize that it was way too heavy to pull out of the hole.

I called my dad and Layne and asked for help. However, help was already on the way.

An hour or so later, a couple of darker skinned guys show up in a green truck with a trailer. (I am declining to state their race, as I wouldn't want to post any racial slurs on my blog :-) They asked if they could go through my dumpster to get all of the metal out to recycle it. I said sure.

They took about half of the stuff in the dumpster before I got a bright idea. I told them if they could get the big metal post out, they could have it too. You'd think I offered them $100. (Maybe I did-- don't know how much you get for stuff like that.) They worked and struggled for 30 minutes or so and the job was done.

They were happy, I was happy and Layne and my dad were REALLY happy.

Today, I have a crew here filling up the rest of my dumpster with branches, weeds, leaves and other crap from my yard. (This was my splurge from our fortuitous tax refund.) My yard is looking great, my house is junk-free, and I am one seriously happy camper.

Sorry, Anonymous

2011-04-07T19:39:00.006-06:00

For the first time in my illustrious blogging career, I have removed a post. The post which I wrote earlier today, entitled "Gym Rats" no longer exists.

The post was a silly commentary about the funny people I have seen at the gym over the last 6 months. I changed small details so that no one could trace my observations to any specific person. It was sarcasm and made to poke fun at a place that is really an ecosystem all its own.

However, my jabs offended someone. I say someone because the offended party refused to make a comment under their own name. She (or he, but not likely) posted as "Anonymous." He/She wrote "Detailed judgement of others coupled with name calling and racial slurs is not being a very good example to those around you."

I have a couple of things to say to my friend Anonymous.

First of all, I am sorry. I am by nature a people watcher. I am fascinated by the dichotomic and sometimes ironic actions of humanity. One of the beauties of writing my blog is that it is just that-- MY blog. It gives me a chance to "call 'em as I see 'em". It lets me be creative and silly and sometimes a little irreverent. However, that doesn't mean that I should be rude. I made up a funny name for someone and I characterized someone as Latino (quite honestly, that was nicer than what I was going to put originally), but apparently that is a "racial slur." For those things, I am sorry. For these errors in judgement, I took the post down.

However, in my "calling 'em as I see 'em" way, may I be so bold as to point out the irony in Anonymous JUDGING me as judgmental?? And may I also point out that at least I have the guts to state my opinions as myself? I own up to my criticism-- can you say the same?

A couple of years ago, I was sent a letter also signed "Anonymous" which rocked my world. It criticized me for trying the very best I could in fulfilling my church responsibilities. While that letter crushed me on a personal level, it did something even worse. By not signing that letter, Anonymous de facto assigned blame to everyone I met. For months, every time I ran into someone in my ward, I had to wonder, was it you?

Eventually, I made peace with the situation and genuinely forgave whoever wrote it. I only bring it up now to make a point. If you have criticism that you feel is a)worth saying and b) genuinely your responsibility to offer, OWN IT. Very few situations meet both of those criteria.

By offering your unclaimed criticism, you assign a little of the blame to everyone. You are like the kid who throws something at the teacher when her back is turned so the whole class gets punished.

Yep, you are THAT kid.

The fact is, there aren't that many people who read my blog. I could spend a few minutes and trace back the origins of Anonymous, but I won't. After I push the publish button for this post, I won't spend one more second thinking about what some self-righteous, pretentious hypocrite had to say. Quite honestly, if I could figure out how to do it, I'd re-publish the post and be proud of it.

If you don't like what I have to say in my blog, DON'T READ IT. It's as simple as that. Maybe I'm not always a great example-- I never said I was. As Charles Barkley once said, "I am not your role model." However, I am honest and I own what I say. If you can't own what you say, you are no longer welcome to comment on my blog.

I can take criticism-- I will even change my ways if it is legitimate. But ONLY if I respect the person that it comes from.

P.S. Anonymous, that's not you.

Goody Two-Shoes!

2011-04-06T13:04:00.003-06:00

In spite of the fact that nothing with Emalee's broken foot has gone right, for once, things went as expected and she was able to come out of the air cast and put on two shoes for the first time since January. Talk about a happy little girl. And a happy mom, because she is back to normal just in time for my Spring-Break-Clean-The-House-Extravaganza. She's so lucky. I've been thinking about her broken foot issues and thinking about the good and bad associated with this trial. I don't think that she sees much good in it yet-- but as her mother, I can see that this experience has helped her to grow in a lot of ways. She has learned patience through situations she can't change. She has learned that people love and care about her and that Heavenly Father always sends someone to answer her prayers. She has learned that sometimes there is nothing you can do about a situation-- the only thing you can control is your own attitude. She has learned to be grateful for health and strength. It makes me think about my own trials in my life and wondering if Heavenly Father looks down at me and makes a list of the things I have learned. Sometimes I wish that He could just send me an email and let me know what it is that I am supposed to be taking from each experience. Wouldn't it make it a little easier if you knew that you were supposed to be working on gratitude through a certain trial? What I do know is that my daughter is finally standing on her own two feet-- quite literally-- and we are all very grateful that this trial appears to be over. Onto the next one... :-)

School Lunch

2011-03-24T12:50:00.004-06:00

Doug has been asking me for months to come to the school and eat lunch with him. I've been with Em before-- I brought her Arby's on her birthday once. I was the hero.

With good reason.

Anyone remember school lunch? Today was a choice of hamburger or turkey and mashed potatoes. I remember the mashed potatoes very well. (Remember the days of mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy? Don't think they serve that any more.)

I chose the hamburger.

It was still tasteless and cold. The peas were army green. Now, though, kids get to chose fruits, veggies and other sides. They get to put on their own pickles and ketchup. Lucky stinkers.

When we were young, everything got slapped on our green plastic lunch trays-- whether you wanted it or not. I don't remember "fresh" being an adjective for anything served on that tray either.

Now, my kids get 5 Buck pizza and a cookie every Monday. We had hamburger pizza with the weirdest tasting tomato sauce I've ever had. They get orange chicken-- we had fish sticks. Unfortunately for them, however, the schools no longer serve peanut butter bars. Those were actually good.

The funny thing today was that Doug had asked me to pack a lunch. He had a piece of left-over pizza from last night, some crackers, a cut-up apple and a mini-Twix. I tried to trade him his Capri-sun for my milk-in-a-carton. No dice. I tried to swap him my jello cup for his Twix. Yeah right. My kid's no dummy.

I don't remember anyone ever having their parents eat lunch with them at school unless they had started a food fight or something and they had to have parental supervision. It was a mark of shame. Now, I guess, it's cool to have Mom and/or Dad come for lunch. Either that, or Doug started a food fight and this was his tricky way of having parental supervision there. Hmmm. Have to ask his teacher about that one.

Would have been cooler if I would have been like the Mom and the next table and brought McDonald's.

I'm pretty sure that Mike will want us to come eat with him now. I'll know better next time.

I'm bringing Subway.

G.P.A. 2.21

2011-03-17T16:25:00.004-06:00

Report cards came out today. My little brainiacs did very well. Nothing less than an A- and even then, only 2 of those among the three kids.

They get it from their dad.

Got me thinking though, what if someone gave me a report card? I'm the only one who can do that at this point, I guess, so here it goes.

Cooking: B Don't do it enough

Cleaning: A- I scrub it every week, but by the weekend, it looks like a zoo.

Laundry: C What the heck is an iron? Do I have one of those? I do wash and fold, though.

Compassion for my kids: B I've been trying, but it seems like I'm always telling them to "suck it up." Stubbed your toe? Suck it up. Papercut? Suck it up. Broke your foot and have to have a metal plate screwed into it? You got it. Suck it up.

Budgeting: C Is there money in my account? Yep. I can go shopping.

Chauffering: D Hit one car with the other one this year. Double whammy. I'd get an F, but I didn't get a speeding ticket this year, so we're making progress.

Yardwork: F The only bad thing about summer. I asked Layne if with my part of the tax refund (the first time we've had a refund in 8 years!) I could hire a yard service for the year. He laughed. Does that mean no or "of course, dear?"

Time Management: B Getting better at that one, but it's not my fault that things keep getting busier! I can manage the heck out of my day, but if all of the things I have to do add up to 25 hours in a day, I still have a problem...

Crap. If I'm figuring right, my g.p.a. is a dismal 2.21. And, I'm probably going to have to make up yardwork. No credit for flunking...

What happened to my high school 4.0?

Crap. Quite Literally.

2011-03-08T13:37:00.002-07:00

We live in a nearly 40 year old house. We've lived there for almost 13 years and it seems like we've pretty well rebuilt the thing by now. We have installed a new furnace, air conditioner and water heater, fenced the yard and ran an entirely new sprinkling system, and remodeled the family room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, the master bedroom and two bathrooms.

The one thing we have never had to deal with is the septic tank.

Until last night.

Layne thought one of the kids had flushed socks down the toilet. Again. (Don't ask.) I reminded him that our kids are old enough to know better. He reminded me that they are still morons sometimes.

It's unfortunately true.

However, when the 24 hour Rotor Rooter guy came out at 10:00 last night, he told us that our problem is not with empty brained kids-- it was with a full septic tank.

(Insert your favorite "full of crap" joke here.)

I am absolutely disgusted by this concept. As far as this topic is concerned, I want to flush the toilet, run the washing machine or turn on the food disposal and NEVER know what happens to the matter that is disappearing. I would love to stay ignorant to this topic.

Alas, that is not my fate today.

There are people in the world whose job it is to take care of other peoples' crap. They gave me a bill for $3000 today. I gasped, but I still don't think that it is enough.

Got me thinking though, about the metaphor in this story. What other kinds of crap back up in our lives? How many emotions and "issues" do we flush down our internal toilet-- never wanting to know where they are going, until one day, our proverbial septic tanks back up on us and we blow.

There is something to be said for a "sewer system" which constantly takes our "crap" far away from us-- 'relieving' us from the danger of it building up under the tree in the front yard. However, when the sewer backs up, you don't just have your own crap to deal with-- you've got everyone elses too.

I've been hiding out at the office all day. Not because I have things to do here (obviously, I'm blogging from my desk), but because if I go home, I will have to face the sad truth that there are not magic fairies who just come and take away all of the bad stuff in my house.

That stinks.

Literally.

Yes, It's Me.

2011-02-09T16:07:00.002-07:00

I've had many people call, come up and talk to me, email me and facebook me asking if the article in the Ensign this month is mine.

Yes.

It is entitled "His Grace Is Sufficient". You can read it here.

I wrote it almost two years ago. I had an experience one morning and I felt like it was something that other people might benefit from. The problem was that it was a very personal experience and I didn't really want to share it with the whole (LDS) world.

However, there are times as a writer when I feel like the words coming out of me are being Divinely directed-- there is no writer's block, no lack of inspiration. It is at those times that I know that the Lord is asking me to share something, and this was one of those times.

I sent it to the Ensign-- to the same editor that I worked with before for my other article. They immediately accepted it for publication-- which never happens. And then I waited for a year and a half for it to be printed.

I have worried about it coming out because it exposes some very personal challenges-- things I don't really like to talk about. Quite honestly, it's been about as embarrassing as I expected. I even had one well-intentioned (?) sister ask me, "What made you do that?" So, here I am, answering her question.

I did it because the Spirit told me to.

It was hard and uncomfortable, but sometimes using the talents we are given means that we squirm a little. It's okay. It makes us strong. It makes us humble. And it makes us valuable to God. Isn't that worth a little embarrassment?

I'll keep telling myself that...

Errands of Angels

2011-02-08T11:15:00.004-07:00

I've been in the Relief Society Presidency for over 3 years now. When I got called in, I had never served in the Relief Society before-- many things were new to me. I was not a big attender of Homemaking / Enrichment / RS Meetings or whatever you want to call them. I was a marginal visiting teacher-- mostly going because I had a great partner. I went to Relief Society, but I don't know that I considered myself part of the Relief Society, if that makes any sense.

Needless to say, the last three years have been an eye-opening experience. I have had opportunities to serve that I never could have anticipated. I have taken countless meals, loaves of bread, made hundreds of visits for birthdays, Christmas, sickness-- you name it. I have spent entire days preparing for, serving, and cleaning up funeral dinners. My life has been blessed by these opportunities, and I have tried to involve my family in this service as well by taking them with me when possible. I have hoped that my daughter especially has learned a love for Relief Society Service.

However, over the last couple of weeks, we've had an experience in our family that has taught Emalee-- and me-- about the receiving end of Relief Society.

A little background. Emalee has been going through the 11 year old angst of popping out every once in a while with "everyone hates me." Nothing out of the ordinary for her age, but still disturbing to a parent, as nothing I say seems to help. Then, two weeks ago, she broke her foot. Now, instead of just everyone hating her, she's sure the whole universe hated her. The broken foot kept her from going to her brother's birthday party. It kept her from a babysitting job that she wanted. Most recently, she found out that it's keeping her from the 5th grade over-night Space Center trip.

However, in her darkest moments over the past 10 days, Heavenly Father has sent messages to her that He still loves her. These messages have come in the form of Relief Society sisters who have shown up just at the right moments-- angels who have brought her notes, crossword puzzles, cookies, and other little gifts to let her know that she is loved. In fact, the other day, I actually heard her say the opposite of her old phrase, "Mom, I have felt so loved through this whole broken foot thing."

Just last night, she was actually crying on the couch feeling sorry for herself, when a beautiful sister who had been Em's primary teacher, came through the storm just to bring her a note and a candybar. I cannot thank her enough for listening to the Spirit and providing a service for my daughter that I was unable to provide.

I am so humbled to be on the other end of the Relief Society spectrum-- it makes me realize how important it is to follow those promptings when they come and not to put them off. I thank all of those sisters from the bottom of my heart for what they have done for Emalee-- I can truly see how this trial of hers is working for her own good.

Amazing how gospel principles work out just like they are supposed to...

Mission Impossible

2011-02-03T20:33:00.005-07:00

January is over-- (hooray!) and I've managed to keep my resolution so far to help my family to eat better. This means planned out meals (so as to keep the emergency Little Caesar's nights to a minimum), more of those green things on our plates, and less of the crap in my cupboards.

However, past attempts at this goal have taught me something very important-- man (and the Garrett family) cannot live on grilled chicken and brown rice alone.

So, I have embarked on a journey to find new and exciting ways to make healthy food. Food that isn't gross.

I know, Mission Impossible.

Some of my efforts have been more successful than others. For example:

*You can substitute fat free sour cream for regular in just about every recipe with no negative consequences. It is NOT as good on baked potatoes...
*You can choose to go low fat, low calorie or low sodium. All three at once and you are pretty much eating oatmeal. For every meal.
*Special K with red berries is the best of the Special K line. You can eat a whole cup for a serving instead of 3/4. It tastes good and doesn't need the teaspoon of sugar that a bowl of Cheerios demands.
*Fiber One and Kashi stuff gives the whole family gas. Best avoided.
*Harper's Homemade Bran Bread is the best bang for the calories-- more fiber, less sugar and a sandwich made with it actually keeps a nine year old boy satisfied for more than 5 minutes. You can get it at Walmart, but it's cheaper at Macey's.
*Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches-- 140 calories and they will trick your tastebuds into thinking that you actually ate something delicious.
*One "free day" a week keeps husbands on board with the plan.

The trick is to do all of this without making my kids anorexic. You walk a fine line to teach them to make good choices without making them scared of the consequences of bad ones. Anyone got any other good tips for me?

You Never Know

2011-01-27T19:24:00.003-07:00

My baby turned 7 yesterday. I can't believe that it's been 7 years since I popped out my last kid. I wonder if I would have appreciated the experience more if I would have known it was the last time I would go through the wonderfully horrendous experience we call labor? I wonder if I would have appreciated the late night feedings, diaper changes and other baby events more if I would have known that every one of them brought me closer to the end of that era in my life?

Who's to say? I do know, though, that about 3 years ago, I discovered that Doug was the end of the line and since then, I've been in much less of a hurry for him to grow up. Now every event with him seems somehow more significant to me. It's a good thing that he's such a great kid-- I could really spoil him rotten if he wasn't.

Brings me to the next subject, in a round about way-- how you never know what's coming at you from minute to minute. You might think that you've got it all figured out, and then life throws you a curve ball.

Let's say that you woke up one Thursday morning, went to your Spin class, went to work (with a shower in between there, of course), helped in your kids' classes, went to the grocery store, then walked in your house with the intent of running to see the lady that you visit teach really fast before your kids get home. Right as you open the door, however, let's say that your cell phone rings and you see that it's your daughter. When you answer, she might say something like this, through her sobs, that is: "Mom, I think I broke my foot."

You would probably jump in your car, nearly hit your neighbor's dog for the 4th time that day, and drive quickly to the school. You might find your poor daughter being pushed out to your car in a wheel chair by a teacher-- not her own teacher, mind you, because her own teacher told her to be tough, put her boot back on and head home. Nevermind that your daughter can't put any weight on the foot-- and even your untrained eye can see a noticeable deformity in the foot.

If all this happened to you, you would probably find yourself spending the rest of the afternoon at the instacare, where they would tell you that your daughter has a spiral fracture in her 4th metatarsal. Suddenly, all of the plans and routines you have established are out the window for the next little while, as your poor little princess will be on crutches and excused from school for 4 days until they can cast her foot. You realize that you will now be driving Princess to and from school every day for 4-6 weeks. It might occur to you that your plans for your son's birthday party on Saturday are going to need some re-vamping.

I'm just saying.... you never know what can happen in a minute or two!

Kim Can Run

2011-01-20T14:55:00.002-07:00

I'm back.

Sort of.

I haven't made up my mind for sure yet, but quite honestly, I miss writing.

I haven't written anything since, well, probably my last post. No new Ensign articles or even Chicken Soup stuff. Not even a single cheesy Christmas poem this year.

It kind of feels like something is missing.

So here I am. Can't guarantee anything, but at least for today...

So my post today is about running. And how I've always HATED it. I remember the first time I had to run a mile in 7th grade. I'd never run that far before. I ran one lap hard, then had to walk. I felt like my lungs would explode. My heart pounded so hard, I'm sure that other people could hear it. I could taste that coppery (read blood) taste in my mouth. From that day on, running was my nemesis.

I have avoided running since that experience. When absolutely forced, I would run a little (until no one was looking) then walk. I will admit (and repent) that I've even been known to skip a lap. I know. Shocking.

Point being, I have never run a whole mile straight in my life.

Until this week.

In August, I decided to branch out from my nearly exclusive cycling routine and join the gym. I've been cross training. I do the elliptical machine. I lift weights. I've done spin and pump classes. And, I even started using a treadmill.

Yep, I run.

And, for the first time in my life, on Monday I ran a mile. My heart rate stayed around 155. I wasn't sucking wind. I COULD HAVE RUN longer, but I didn't have time.

It wasn't super fast. I'm sure it wasn't pretty. (Think more up and down than gazelle-like grace.) But, I did it. And it felt dang good.

I'd like to say that all of this work has made me a svelt size 6, but truth be told, it hasn't made too much of a difference weight/size wise. However, for the first time in a while, I feel STRONG.

And that's worth it.

Ramblings of the Sleep Deprived

2010-06-01T16:38:00.005-06:00

It's the first day of summer. I know it's not the summer solstice yet, but I swear that this is the longest day of the year.

At least at my house.

We are remodeling our master bedroom / bath, as well as tiling the kids' bathroom, so as to prevent FURTHER water damage to the floor. (Yep, all that splashing has caused a problem.)

I have wanted to do this for 10 years or so. Besides the obvious expense, it has taken me that long to get up the courage to attack the floor to ceiling wallpaper.

Not to mention the idea of having no room or bathroom for 2 weeks.

I've slept in the same bed essentially since I was 14. My parents gave me a waterbed for Christmas that year, and, for lack of another bed, it came with me when we got married. (Along with a student loan-- it made for quite a dowry.) Layne ended up loving the waterbed, so (even though we've replaced the mattress with one of those really fancy waveless ones), on my trusty bed we still sleep.

The biggest problem with the waterbed is that it makes it really hard to sleep on any other bed. Let alone on a crummy air mattress in the basement.

For 2 weeks.

I got a total of about 4 hours of sleep last night. When I woke up, summer had sprung (all but the weather, that is) and I was left to face three kids home all day, the start of every-day swim team, not to mention rain which is keeping said kids (and their friends) inside of my torn-apart house.

I can't even hide in my room-- it's a war zone.

To top it all off, the contractor didn't even start today as promised. I "slept" on the air mattress for nothing last night.

I know, it will all be worth it.

Unless I kill someone before that it ever gets finished and I end up in jail.

Are sleep deprivation and really-long-cooped-up-summer-day-insanity valid pleas in a court of law?

My Own Book Club

2010-05-11T11:01:00.002-06:00

Not even going to try to catch up. Not going to explain my absence either. Does that make me mysterious?

Just going to post about some stuff I've been reading lately.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Free book on Kindle, so why not? It is a little Gothic-- reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe. A little too descriptive in some areas, but very interesting premise-- a young man has his picture painted and makes a wish that he could stay the same forever and the picture would be the one to grow old and show the effects of life. I'll give it a B.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. A little disturbing, but very well written. Only problem for me is that the second book in the series, Catching Fire, is not on Kindle and the waiting list at the library is huge. Giving this one an A-.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. Hilarious narrative about growing up in the 50s. I've read a couple of books by Bryson-- he's great at weaving facts in with his own quirky take on life. Loved the part about the Atomic Toilets. Giving this one an A- too.

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Bought this one on my Kindle on accident, but it was pretty good. Not as good as Shadow of the Wind by Zafon, but entertaining nonetheless. It's a scary story-- reminded me of my Stephen King and Dean Koontz days. I think that he seriously over-estimated the abilities of a 14 year old boy, though. Giving this one a B-.

Never did completely finish The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. Stayed with him until he started talking about String Theory, then had the feeling that String Theory is bunk, so I stopped reading. I had a much better grasp of Einstein from what I read, though. Can't give this one a grade, as I didn't rightly finish it. Don't you get an "i" on your transcript for an incomplete?

Sprung!

2010-03-26T10:20:00.005-06:00

I'm bored.

None of the things that usually entertain me are appealing. At all.

I don't want to read or surf the 'net. I am obviously ignoring my blog. I have no desire to cook or bake. I don't remember the last time that I got my camera out of its bag.

I actually spent two hours on the couch watching Jackass with my husband and boys (and yes, the fact that I let my boys watch Jackass is probably the most telling symptom of all). I did put my foot down when they showed someone squeezing the most disgusting blackhead I've ever seen. I literally started gagging, which Mike found hilarious.

What the heck is the matter with me?

Is this what they call spring fever? If so, consider me

SPRUNG...

(Can you take Advil for this fever???)

They say that gratitude is the best antidote to whining. I'm willing to try anything. Here goes my random list of things for which I'm grateful for on this blustery day in March.

My cute little hyacinths and tulips peaking their way up through the cold ground. They can't wait for spring either.
My nice, warm, comfy bed. I've spent 6 rough nights in hotel beds in the last month or so and I have to say, there's no place like your own bed.
Old Navy. They had an awesome sale last week and Em and I got lots of bright colored clothes. They look kind of funny hanging next to my black, navy and brown blah winter wardrobe. Kohl's should be mentioned here for the great white jacket that I picked up for only $18.00!
Eve. I ended up teaching last Sunday (always the peril of being the 1st counselor in the Relief Society) and had a chance to study in depth about the Mother of All Living. I learned SO much and got a hugely different perspective on her, the Garden of Eden, and the Fall. More than that, I remembered just how much I love to study and teach the gospel.
My bike trainer. Yes, it's true. My time spent on this torturous beast during the winter allowed me to, well, kick my husband's trash on our first ride together this season. (Sorry, Honey.) It will only be this way for the next couple of weeks until he gets his form back, but I'll take it while I can get it.

There.

I do feel better. You can try my prescription too, if you'd like.

I'll just bill Obama-Care.

You're welcome. :-)

Holes In The Knees

2010-03-19T13:37:00.003-06:00

It's been a while. I know.

I'd like to say I have a good excuse, but I really don't. The best thing I can come up with is that my brain has holes in the knees of its pants.

Yep. Holes.

I will explain my weirdness.

In folding my laundry the other day, I realized that every pair of my boys' jeans-- the same jeans that were perfect and new in August-- now has at least one hole in the knees.

Herein lies my dilemma. I like my kids to look nice. I buy them relatively nice clothes. I don't let them wear stained t-shirts or even t-shirts with cartoon characters on the front to school. (Well, except for Doug's Mario shirt that I let him wear as a bribe on the days he balks at going.)

And now, they are the kids with holes in their knees. (Consolation: they aren't the only ones.)

My options are to buy new pants (which they will wear for about a month before their uniform changes from jeans and hoodies to basketball shorts and t-shirts), or to just pretend I can't see the holes until it shorts-time.

I'm leaning toward the latter.

This whole attitude is what I mean by holes in my brain-pants.

I'm just done. With. Everything.

I have reached that point where something has to give soon because I'm half-passed thread-bare. There has been too much work, church stuff, sickness, messes, school crap and cold. I have reached the limit.

My friends think I've become a hermit. My kids are tip-toeing around me. My husband sent me flowers in an attempt to cheer me up.

I'm ready for a good spring clean and fixer-up. I'm not talking about patching the holes.

I'm talking about throwing out the brain-pants for a brand new pair of Capris. Or maybe some Nike cycling shorts.

Bring on the flippin' sun already!!!

Cheerleaders vs. Maleficent

2010-03-05T16:20:00.005-07:00

Four days is a lot of days to spend at Disneyland.

I love Disneyland. I love taking my kids there and just living in an unreal world for however long our funds hold out.

But we've never done four days before.

Two was not enough. Three seemed just right. But, four let us experience D-land in a way that we never had before.

On day 4, we spent most of the day doing things that we never thought we had time for before. We saw the Muppet 3-D show. (Better than I expected.) We toured the sour-dough and tortilla factories. We tried to see Aladdin, but the National Cheerleader Association had ALL of the tickets reserved for the whole day.

Side note about that: I hate cheerleaders. Especially cutsie pre-teen ones with crazy hair dos and glittery make-up on their faces. I 'SPECIALLY loathe the ones who were staying in our hotel and who were playing tag up and down the halls until two in the morning. My hugest bad feelings, however are reserved for their mothers who were walking around in jackets with their names on them and "cheer mom" written beneath them-- packing cans of hair spray and tubes of lip gloss and trying to live vicariously through their shallow little daughters.

Did I mention that they took up all of the Aladdin tickets? (I know-- tell you how I really feel?) My 10 and 12 year old nephews did NOT share my sentiments. If they thought that Disneyland was the happiest place on earth before, then Disneyland flooded with teenie-bopper cheerleaders had transformed into absolute heaven.

But I digress.

One of the attractions in California Adventure is an area where you can learn to draw cartoons, talk to an animated figure from Finding Nemo, and take a test to see what Disney character is most like you.

Both of my boys were Tarzan and Emalee was Jane. Pretty apt, I'd say. Layne was Jiminy Cricket from Pinnochio. I thought that was pretty funny until I got mine.

Any guesses?

Anyone?

I was thinking something along the lines of Mulan-- strong but beautiful, or maybe Elasti-girl from the Incredibles.

It told me that I am most like:

Maleficent.

Are. You. Freakin'. Kidding. Me???

It said that I can put people to sleep. (Spinning wheel, anyone?) It said that I eat people for lunch. It said that I like things my own way.

On second thought. Does Maleficent eat cheerleaders???

Middle Child Mania

2010-03-02T21:28:00.005-07:00

My last post was number 300.

300.

Can you believe I've had that much to say?

Don't answer. I know. You probably can't believe it's only been 300.

But I digress. There are more important things to write today.

For instance, I could write about our FANTASTIC trip to Disneyland, but that might just make you jealous. I could write about the hilarious experience of traveling with 8 children. (I may still do that.) I could write about all of the nice email messages and comments I received from my last post-- I'll have you know that I've done very well with those resolutions, by the way.

Instead I'm going to write a belated birthday message about my wonderful son Michael.

Michael is the perfect middle child. He rarely makes waves. He's always content. He doesn't ask for much-- and because of that, sometimes he doesn't get the attention he deserves.

We decided to make him a rock star for his birthday-- so along with my sister's family of 7, we all flew off to Disneyland to celebrate.

Before we get to his cute pictures, let me tell you just a little bit about how incredible this kid is.

At least 3 or 4 times a week, he runs up after breakfast to make my bed because he knows how much I like having a nicely made bed. He has a fan-club of little girls who love him not just because he's killer-cute, but because he has the ability to make even little people feel important. He had a goal to read the Book of Mormon before he got baptized and he finished a week before his birthday.

This story explains Michael more than any, though.

Mike and Doug were trying to earn as much money as possible to take to Disneyland. They cleaned and worked. Mike even wiggled and wiggled an only slightly-loose tooth the night before we left and pulled it out just in time to get a buck from the tooth fairy.

He kept that dollar in his pocket at the airport. He kept thinking about buying something from the vending machines, but decided to save it for the big D-land.

That is, until the walk over.

On the corner across from the entrance to the park was a homeless lady with two dogs that every one of us ignored or didn't even notice.

Except for Mike.

Mike walked over to her, pulled out the dollar he earned literally with his own blood, and gave it to the poor soul. He petted her dogs and smiled and told her he hoped that she had a good night.

She joined the Michael fan club too.

It's getting bigger all of the time.

Happy Birthday, Buddy! You are my shining example and I can't believe that something so good could come from me. I love you!!!

Mike and crew outside of their favorite roller coaster.

My kids at Mike's birthday party.

Mike and his $15 birthday cupcake. The smile on his face was priceless.

Disneyland is a great place to have a birthday-- every where we went, the Disney employees told him Happy Birthday. One of them even got Mickey Mouse on the phone to sing Happy Birthday to him!

The Universe knew that everyone needs one perfect birthday. Mike got picked to dance in the Main Street parade and also to be a Padawan at Jedi Training. The look on his face says it all...

Man, I love that kid!

Fixing 10 Years

2010-02-23T13:43:00.003-07:00

I've been thinking about this post all week long and trying to decide whether or not to put something this personal on the web. When it comes right down to it, though, the only people who even read this are people that I care about and I think that some of you may experience the same issues that I have had.

I've had some concern lately about my daughter. She is like me in that she is tall and strong. She's hitting that age in school where kids start pointing out differences in others and someone has pointed out to her that she's bigger than most of the kids in her class.

She came home devastated and worried that she is "fat."

She broke my heart and opened up my greatest nightmare.

I grew up thinking that I was fat. Someone close to me who should have known better continually reinforced that to me from the time I was about 6. My wonderful mom and dad tried to contain the damage, but that kind of stuff affects you for a long, long time. (I'll let you know when it's done raking me over.)

I would give anything to keep my daughter from fighting the same battle for her whole life. However, with this conversation last week, I realized that I have already done 10 years worth of damage to her with the bad example that I have set. She has grown up hearing the words "fat, lose weight, calories, etc."

How do you scrub out 10 years of bad example?

In thinking about all of this, I received a crucial and very uncomfortable insight. My weight is not the real problem. My obsession with my weight is. What I have realized is this: even if I weighed exactly what I want to, I would still be obsessed with it. Hitting 145 would not bring me ultimate happiness.

What that also leads me to believe is that I have used my weight as an excuse for every failure I've ever had.

Scary thought: What if it's not? Am I arrogant enough to believe that, if my weight was perfect, that I would be a perfect person? That every problem I have would be gone?

I know that seems stupid, but I think that's where I've ended up.

So, even though I've never liked myself enough to do it, I do LOVE my daughter enough to give it up. I'm done. You will no longer hear me comment about losing weight, diets, or anything like it. (And if I forget, please call me on it. It's REALLY important.)

My new self-constitution is as follows:

I will take care of my body and teach my children to do the same SOLELY for the purpose of being healthy and being good stewards of the bodies with which we are blessed.
I will exercise because it makes me feel good and because it is good for my body, not because it burns calories.
I will make good food choices and teach my children to love and be grateful for healthy food. I will not freak out when we feel like eating a candy bar, but conversely I will try not to use food as incentives or rewards.
I will not say negative things about my body or allow my children to make negative comments about their bodies.
I will build up my children and myself with positive comments about all of the good qualities that I notice.
I will talk freely with my daughter (and sons if necessary) about the fact that different is not bad and that there are advantages in being tall and strong.

I'm not expecting things to change overnight, but I am more committed to this change than I have ever been in my life.

I have to be.

She's that important.

Before I Was a Mom

2010-02-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine sent this to me. I don't know who wrote it, but I loved it and thought that I'd share:

"Before I was a Mom"

Before I was a Mom ,
I never tripped over toys
or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not
my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom ,
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind
and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom ,
I never held down a screaming child
so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night
watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom ,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom .

Before I was a Mom ,
I didn't know the feeling of
having my heart outside my body..
I didn't know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond
between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom ,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom ...
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom .

Namaste

2010-02-17T11:36:00.002-07:00

I learned the coolest thing the other day.

In India, when they greet each other, they bow and say "Namaste". This means, "I bow to the divinity inherent within you."

How cool is that? What a great way to think of every person that you meet. Wouldn't that be the ultimate super-power-- to see the spark of divinity within each person and to be able to treat them accordingly?

Kind of gets you thinking, what traits have I and the people around me inherited from Heavenly Parents?

I know people who are compassionate, who bring out the best in others, who have faith to move mountains. I see sparks of divinity in my own children who are smart, kind and intuitive to the needs of others.

I see divinity inherent in my wonderful husband who I married 12 years ago today (Happy Anniversary, Honey!) He is strong, faithful, loyal, smart and very perceptive-- to name a few.

In short, I am surrounded by divinity-- thank you to all of you-- husband, children, parents, sisters, and friends-- and to each one of you, I bow and say

Namaste!

My Fool Proof Workout Program

2010-02-16T11:10:00.002-07:00

I got back on my bike last night-- one last ditch effort at fitness before I slithered away into the realms of the Couch Potato universe again.

I must be feeling better because it didn't suck.

It could also be my new training program

Because I am a Sharefish, I'll let you in on my newly developed exercise regimen. You won't even have to pay $19.99. Unless you'd like to donate to my Kim-needs-new-bike-shorts-and-is-spoiled-and-wants-the-really-expensive-ones fund.

It's called the Kindle-Olympic Gut Buster.

I did it on my bike, but I imagine it would work equally as well on a treadmill or an elliptical. It is NOT recommended while you're swimming.

The point of this whole thing is distraction and mental imagery. Never leave yourself with a minute to realize that your muscles are burning and your breathing is labored.

You must perform this workout when there is something competitive going on during the Olympics. Skiing, speed skating, that cool snowboard-cross event works well. Figure skating, not so much.

Here's where it gets tricky. When there are commercials on, you pedal lightly and read whatever's on your Kindle. (Or other book or magazine if your husband is not as cool as mine.)

When the Olympics come back on, ramp up your efforts a little, and then when a race actually starts, pretend it's you and pedal your guts out for your gold medal. (You might want to wear a heart monitor for this workout-- a couple of times I found myself just past the red zone into the zone I like to call Almost-Dead.)

Now granted, to be effective, this workout does require a little imagination, but it was pretty gratifying to enjoy my podium moment last night. (It was a little bit of a downer when they played O Canada instead of the Star Spangled Banner, but I have been known to say "eh" a little, so I can see how they made the mistake.)

They always play commercials after those intense racing moments, so cool down a little and read another chapter or two of James Rollins or a vampire book or something.

Then repeat a few times and Voila! You're done.

By the time my workout was over, I had done 4 or 5 kick-butt intervals, but most of all, I wasn't quite ready to get off.

Anything that can make you want to stay on the trainer has got to be good, right?

My only problem is what to do when the Olympics end in two weeks???

Not Fun.

2010-02-12T17:48:00.003-07:00

I've been sick since I got back from St. George.

That little gift from the Universe settled itself into my lungs and refuses to leave. Either that or those disgusting green things from the Mucinex commercial have taken up residence.

Either way, not good.

Consequently, I haven't exercised for 11 days.

That's the longest I've gone without exercising since I had my gallbladder out over two years ago.

The psycho thing is that I have REALLY missed it and had to FORCE myself to stay off my bike. My mind knew that my body needed rest, but I felt that same weird compulsion that makes me eat a bag of peanut M&M's when I know they're not good for me too.

I stayed off until today, but this morning I could stand it no longer.

Guess what? It WASN'T fun.

Apparently, you can lose a lot of fitness in 2 weeks. Not to mention that all those green Mucinex guys in my lungs make it hard to breathe. 10 miles has never seemed so long.

What's worse is that afterward, I didn't have that cool endorphin high that I craved. My lungs were on fire and I felt like I'd been running.

RUNNING! I HATE RUNNING!

I hope that it doesn't take as long to get my fitness level back up as it did to get it there in the first place.

Any more workouts like this and I might have to just revert to my old couch potato ways...

A Mushy Post About Love And Stuff

2010-02-11T11:42:00.004-07:00

I've always put Valentine's Day in the same category as Halloween-- the category I call "Ridiculous, Meaningless Holidays Meant to Put Five Pounds On My Hips."

I'm feeling differently about Valentine's Day this year, though.

During the last week, I've seen some tremendous, heart-wrenching displays of real love-- the kind of love that should be celebrated and have it's very own holiday.

Last week, we had a patient come into our office who is normally a very upbeat, happy guy. He was very downcast and sullen, and when we asked him what was wrong, he told us that his beautiful wife had died of a massive heart attack two weeks ago. He talked so lovingly about her and obviously missed her so much-- he was devastated to be at the end of a lifetime of love and joy shared with his wife.

Yesterday we had another patient come in who has become the caretaker for his now-invalid wife. I've wondered about this guy-- he often comes in in wrinkled clothing, looking a little disheveled. He brought his wife in because she was the reason he was wanting hearing aids-- her voice is so soft since she became ill that he can't hear her. He brought her in so that we could specifically program the aids to her voice.

I watched him care for her so tenderly-- he fixed her hair that had fallen out of place and he talked so lovingly to her. I bet that she was the one who had taken care of him for many years-- and now he barely knows how to care for his clothing and other details that she always managed for him. Still, he obviously knew how to care for this one, most important thing in his life.

Sometimes men are portrayed as womanizing idiots who have to be tricked into commitment. I don't think that's true at all. After watching these two men, as well as my own father painting my mother's toe nails, or my father-in-law fixing the back of my mother-in-law's hair, or my own husband as he works so hard to make sure that I'm happy, I am convinced that men can be at least as good at love as women-- if not better.

Thank you to all of the wonderful examples of TRUE love I see around me every day. May you all live happily ever after!

More Deep Thoughts by Doug

2010-02-09T20:00:00.003-07:00

Conversation with Doug:

Me: "What do you think would make you be a good missionary when you get older?"

Doug: "If I stay on Jesus' side."

Me: "Good answer, Bud! Why do you think that?"

Doug: "Because Satan is really crappy. Who'd want to be on his side?"

How much would I pay to get inside this kid's head and see how he thinks?

Too Much Time On My Hands

2010-02-08T20:19:00.003-07:00

Can you define "time?"

Can you do it without using the word "time" as part of the definition?

I've been reading a lot lately about space and time and their relationship to us. When it comes right down to it, "time" is the interval measured by clocks. Which got me thinking-- if I have NO way to measure time (not even a sunrise/ sunset, no moon or other 28 day cycles), would time exist?

I know that measured time is at "times" a disadvantage. How much of your life have you spent looking at a clock?

A while ago, a very wise man challenged me (and every other member of the church) to take off our watches when we attend the temple. This was initially difficult for me-- I felt like I lost control somehow. The irony wasn't entirely lost on me-- how can you "lose control" of the one thing that you have absolutely no control over? The fact that I couldn't tell what time it was didn't make it pass any slower or quicker than it would have, had I been wearing a watch. What it did do is make me quit worrying about how much time I had before whatever was next on my agenda. I gave up measuring time and gained a serious increase in the quality of the time I was spending.

I'm not oblivious to the fact that living without a watch wouldn't make me live any longer or shorter (how would I know anyway?) What I am starting to realize, though, is that time is less of a measured interval than it is an unknown currency. We are all busy spending this currency like unmarried men-- never knowing how much is in our account until we come up short. Crazy thing about it is that we can't save it and you can't earn interest on it-- about all you can do is enjoy what you spend it on because who knows when you hit the red?

I think that I've gotten way too deep here.

I've got to stop reading physics books.

Anyone got a nice vampire story I could borrow?

Payback.

2010-02-03T21:42:00.003-07:00

I am still reading The Elegant Universe. It is getting harder and harder to understand. Guess that's what happens when you finish the introduction.

I'm having my own experiences with the Universe. I have decided that, not only is it Elegant, it also has a dang good love of irony.

The definition of "irony" is "a technique of indicating an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated. "

I think that irony, when applied to the Universe as a whole, is beyond that and has more to do with balance in opposites-- yin and yang and all that.

Take for instance the fact that I had a great weekend. I had too much fun, and while I was having fun, my husband and kids scrubbed my entire house. Not only that, but they washed AND folded AND put away ALL of the laundry! Not to mention the fact that, while I was shopping, I found not just one, but TWO pair of awesome jeans-- for less than $20 a piece!

That left me one up on the Universe.

The Universe can't leave a horrific imbalance like that floating around. Too much good Karma might actually cause the earth to spin the wrong way or something. No worries-- there's nothing the Universe does better than even out too much of a good thing.

Wham!

And yesterday morning, I wake up with a heinous cold sore on my top lip. I've never had one before-- it felt like my lip was in that uncomfortable stage of waking up from Novocaine all day long. Not to mention that my lip looked like a Botox treatment done by a 6 year old.

Got to love an affliction that is not only painful, but repulsively humiliating.

However, my weekend was SOO good, that a horrendous blight on my face was not quite enough to even things out.

I didn't want to leave the house. Ever again. However, we had business associates coming in for dinner all the way from Washington. I had no choice.

I tried to cover it up. I wore a HUGE silver necklace to try and draw attention away from my disfigurement. I kept my head down a little bit.

Just when I think I'm doing all right and going to make it through the night, I realize that one of the waiters looks a lot like a guy I used to know.

A guy from Brazil who I only half teased my mom I was going back to Brazil to marry. A guy that I haven't seen in 15 years since I was a hot, tan, 23 year old missionary.

Fan-dam-tastic.

He hugged me and said, "you look great!" I know what he was really thinking-- "What the heck is that monstrosity growing on your face? Man I'm glad I didn't marry you and became a waiter in a foreign country instead!"

Layne got a kick out of the whole thing.

Seriously. What are the chances of running into someone from the other side of the world and the other side of your life on any given night-- let alone on a night when I have the first cold sore of my life?

I hope that the Universe is happy now. I'm pretty sure that balance has been achieved.

On second thought, maybe I'd better just stay in the house for a while.

I think that the Universe might charge interest. . .

"But I'm Still Little"

2010-02-01T21:08:00.002-07:00

Today Doug was looking at our old scripture readers and asking me why we don't use them anymore to read scriptures. Without thinking, I answered, "Because you guys got bigger and now we read the real Book of Mormon together."

To which he answered,

"But Mom, I'm still little."

Talk about rip your heart out.

I've been thinking about it all day. My baby son, of course you're still little. You probably always will be to me-- even when you're six foot three. You've always acted like you were just one of the big kids-- and I've treated you all the same. You seemed to want it that way and it assuaged my own guilt for lumping you all in together and maybe missing the "little-ness" of my baby.

And I thought this:

Snapshots

You only hold my hand
When the Big Kids are at school.
We walk, you reach up;
Your small hand is exquisite
In miniature perfection.

I see you growing
With nearly every step.
Each day changing,
Evolving, becoming
What will you be?

My dreams for you
Involve perfection—
I know it is not fair.
And yet, each day
You provide me
With countless perfect moments.

The smile you flash
When you think that
What you just did, I did not see;
Your arms wrapped around my neck
In a thoughtless, priceless embrace;
The way your eyelashes
Nestle on your still
Slightly-chubby cheek;
And the quiet sigh you breathe
As you lay curled and sleeping.

The pleasure of my motherhood
Is found in these small moments,
Their poignant beauty captured
On the film of my heart.
To be kept and pondered upon
When someday you grow too big
To ever hold my hand.

The Elegant Universe

2010-01-31T20:51:00.003-07:00

I've never been good in a group.

I'm good one on one, or even one on two. Oddly enough, I have no problem being in front of a large group either. What intimidates the heck out of me is a group of about 4-10. Especially 4-10 other women.

I think I'll chalk it up to a slight attention deficit disorder.

It's the same reason that I don't like to play Phase 10. By the time it's my turn, I've totally lost interest.

In my defense, I do have some pretty interesting stuff kicking around in my head lately. Ever since Layne gave me a Kindle, I've been reading like mad. On my sister's recommendation, I started reading some James Rollins books-- kind of like Dan Brown, but he combines a lot of science in with history and action.

These books triggered a desire to learn more about physics, and, thanks to my magic Kindle (and Layne's Amazon account), Ta-Da! suddenly I'm learning all about quantum theory, relativity and superstring theory.

It reminds me of reading in Portuguese.

Instead of reading 2-3 pages a minute like usual, I am now trying to understand The Elegant Universe by Briane Greene. Luckily, Kindle has a dictionary built in, so when I don't understand a word (such as quixotic, gluon, or tau-neutrino), I just highlight it and presto! Definition at my fingertips.

FYI-- quixotic is a very cool word which means "exceedingly idealistic, unrealistic and impractical." I.e. My plan to lose 25 pounds in 3 months is a quixotic dream.)

Back to the group thing. I found myself sitting around recently with a bunch of 7 or 8 friends. Sometimes there were 2 or 3 conversations going at the same time, and sometimes everyone was talking about the same thing. It was all hard for me to follow.

And then all of the gluons and neutrinos and muons and such started dancing around in my brain and I swear I had an out of body experience. In watching the complex ebbs and flows of the group dynamic, I think I came up with my own Unified Theory of Everything. Well, not of everything. Just of women.

Everyone wanted to be heard. Everyone wanted to be understood. This force, like the strong force that keeps particles united into molecules, kept everyone tied together. Just like with particles, there were also certain emotional forces, not unlike electromagnetism, which repel us from each other and try to push us apart. However, the over-arching, Holy Grail is string theory-- which essentially says that everything is made up of strings-- and the resonant pattern of the string's vibrations determine what it is-- be it part of a bar of gold, part of a brain cell, or part of a supernova star.

In other words, at the core, we are all made of the same stuff-- just vibrating in different frequencies. To simplify even further, we are more alike than we are different.

I don't know why that mattered to me-- but when I re-entered reality and applied the idea to the conversations I heard going on around me-- you know the ones all groups of women will eventually revert to such as child birth, mothers-in-law, and shoe shopping-- I realized that we are all the same.

Our experiences may be different, but at the core, what we really need (if not want) is to feel peace, love and acceptance. Our methods of seeking that nirvana are all different, but somehow sitting around talking about everything and nothing at once validates us all.

To my friends, I hope that me sitting in the corner didn't come off arrogant or like I was mad. I apologize for retreating into my own crazy head-- Little did you know that the conversation you were having was providing me with my own little glimpse of the Elegant Universe.

Of women, that is.

The One Good Thing In January

2010-01-25T20:52:00.005-07:00

January sucks.

There's just nothing for it. The news reported the other day that psychiatrists have declared that this week is officially the most depressing week of the year. Your Christmas bills are all here (and you're regretting them.) Your New Year's Resolutions have resolved as failures. And, it seems like winter will never end.

I believe it.

So, in an effort to thwart the blahs, I made-over my blog. (BTW, I lost my blog list, so if you fell off my list, it's because I couldn't remember your URL-- send it and I'll get it fixed.)

The one good thing that has ever happened to me in January turns 6 years old tomorrow.

Six years ago tonight, I was the mother of two, with a wiggly thing in my belly. I was being induced the next day, so we dropped the kids off at my mother's and came home to get one last good night's sleep.

Yeah, right.

By the time all of the finishing touches were complete, it was well after midnight before we went to bed. I slept for an hour or two, then woke up and realized I could hear something that wasn't quite right. That something turned out to be a drip. From our waterbed. Onto the carpet. (No, my water DIDN'T break-- the BED did.)

Goodbye good night's sleep.

The rest of the night was full of frozen hoses, holes burned in carpet (trying to defrost said hoses), wet carpet, and a sad hour or so spent trying to sleep in Mike's toddler bed. Morning came way too soon.

They started me at 7:00 and Doug was born a little after 1 p.m. I was exhausted-- as much from the bad night as from the labor-- but all of that disappeared when they put my darling little son into my arms.

Doug has been such a blessing for me. He was an easy, contented baby. His big eyes and wonderful smile always warm my heart. He has been my little buddy since his brother and sister went to school-- I don't know what I'll do when he starts first grade!

More than all of that, Doug is a wonderful juxtaposition of complimentary qualities. He is a relentless tease-- he uses considerable energy to carry out practical jokes on people. And yet, he can turn around and show a deep side and out of the blue ask, "Was it part of Jesus' plan to hang on the cross, or did it just happen to Him?" He loves to be wild and crazy with the big boys, and yet he has a fan club of little kids who love him because he always includes them in his play. He yells "chicka-chicka-wah-wah" in the microphone after his talk in primary, but he says prayers that reduce me to tears.

Doug is unpredictable, crazy, sweet, tender, smart and kind.

Happy birthday, Little Man. You are definitely my Sunbeam in this frozen hell we call January. Thank you for always melting away my icicles...

Toe Pick!

2010-01-21T16:09:00.007-07:00

Last night was free skate night for Barratt Elementary at Classic Skate in Orem. I'm not sure exactly what possessed us, but we packed up the kids and a couple of their friends and went roller skating.

For the first time in probably 20 years.

A little background. My parents were super-cool. We didn't have a ton of money, but they found ways to entertain 5 little girls. (It was either that, or drown in a sea of estrogen.) I remember one day, our mom pulled out 6 pair of brand new roller skates. (Caree was too little.) Knowing my mom, she must have found them for a good deal or something, but either way, we thought they were awesome. Ours were white with red and blue trim and those bearing-wheels that make a cool sound when they spin. There was even a pair for my dad-- black with neon-orange wheels.

I had one of those gold Olympic jackets (think 1984) which I was sure made me skate better. The coolest part was that we cleaned out the entire unfinished basement and made the whole thing into our personal skating rink.

Now we all know that I am the Queen of All Things Ungraceful. I'm afraid that this title applied for roller skating as well. The first night I had my skates on, doing my best Dorothy Hamil in the basement, I started to fall and jabbed my eye on one of those things that stick out of cement basement walls.

Par for my ungraceful course.

I was not deterred, however, and eventually learned to skate-- forward, backward, and around in circles.

Fast forward to last night. Most of the parents sat around watching their kids. Not me-- I rented some stinky, ancient leather roller skates and out I went-- looking to reclaim some of my former grandeur on wheels.

And then I stood up.

And I remembered exactly how it was that I nearly lost my eye the first time I laced up skates. Who invented shoes that could just roll out from under you anyway?

Now, to my credit, I have to say that I didn't actually fall down. Not even once. Amazing feat for me-- I'll chalk it up to all the core strength training I've been doing. (Which is NOT helping me to shed extra pounds-- but that's a gripe for another day.)

I did remember something, though-- roller skating is HARD! It is also pretty good exercise-- as is evidenced by the stiffness I am feeling over pretty much my entire body today.

I tried to teach my daughter and her friend to skate. My teaching consisted of strapping wheels to their feet, gently shoving them onto the floor, then laughing at them as they fell all over themselves like baby giraffes. I know. Mom of the Year for me.

But it back-fired.

We had a blast and we all laughed about our aches and pains on the way home. Em and her friend both complained of sore wrists from falling down. I didn't think much of it.

Until today, when I saw said friend. With a blue cast on her arm.

I broke Em's friend.

Do you send flowers for that?

I'm pretty sure that the last time I tried to teach these same two girls something-- to throw a baseball not-like-a-girl-- this same friend ended up with a goose-egg on her head.

Maybe I'd better keep my teaching to my own kids.

Gotta go now. Anyone know where you can buy a pony and a card that says "Sorry I broke your arm?"

MAJOR Disappointment

2010-01-20T09:37:00.002-07:00

I knew that 8 pounds in 2 weeks was too good to be true.

I KNEW that, but I'd been working so hard that I believed it anyway.

Chalk it up to the $39.99 stupid scale from WalMart.

Yesterday morning, I stepped on the scale and found myself UP 5 pounds from the day before. I got in the shower in shock-- trying to figure out what the heck I ate the day before that was the equivalent of the 15,000 calories it would take to gain that much weight. While I'm wallowing in my despair, Layne comes in, gets on the scale and I hear, "What the heck?"

Happened to him to.

The good news is that I had not gained 5 pounds in one day. The bad news is that I had not lost 8 pounds either. More like 3. I don't know what caused the scale to fluctuate like that-- but I do have to give myself a little bit of credit for not just saying to heck with it and consoling myself with a hot fudge sundae.

Damn. I hate January.

Lost in Translation

2010-01-18T21:05:00.003-07:00

As always, Doug continues to make me laugh. He picks up on the ironies and nuances of life that should be oblivious to a 5 year old. Well, I guess he will be six next week.

Tonight was Mike's turn to teach the family night lesson. He'd chosen to give a lesson out of the Friend-- one on "Words that Build Up"-- paying compliments to people and not saying bad words.

Family night was held right after dinner-- stir fry which Michael had said was "gross." He earned a pretty severe reprimand for his bad manners. As we started the family night, Doug started to laugh when Mike was talking about using good words. He pointed out quite bluntly that, "Hey Mom, that's funny that Mike is teaching a lesson on using good words 'cause he just got in trouble for using rude ones!

That sent Mike into tears and what could we say? It was pretty ironic. He's also the one who pointed out how funny it was that one of the kids was cheating at the family night game last week-- the lesson was on honesty.

Somehow, we're losing something in the translation between learning gospel principles and living them...

BTW-- update-- down total of 8 as of this morning-- after a weekend and all! 17 more to go!

My Reward

2010-01-15T10:22:00.007-07:00

As of this morning, I'm down 7 pounds and, according to my highly scientific $39.99 scale from Wal-Mart, I'm also down 1% of body fat.

I won't lie-- it hasn't been fun. Things are a little grouchy around my house-- I can't decide if it's because Layne has a pretty serious case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, or if he's just hungry. He's down like 13 pounds-- enough that you can already see it on him.

I'm just happy that my Christmas Cookie (and ham and cheeseball and fudge) weight is gone.

I'm making progress on my 25 pound goal. I've decided that my reward for hitting that goal will be this:

or this:
or this:

on my bike handlebars. The pink camo is so ugly it's awesome and the silver or metallic pink would just look freakin' hot on my bike. Which one do you think? This is my bike:

I'm not very good at waiting for things-- this will be a new experience for me...

A New (And Clearer!) View

2010-01-13T21:29:00.003-07:00

We've lived in our house for over 11 years. My in-laws built it. Layne grew-up here until he was 19, then his parents moved when he was on his mission. A little while after we got married, the house came up for sale and Layne wanted to take me through it-- just to see what his house looked like when he was young.

I fell in love.

Layne's parents wanted the house back in the family as badly as we did and they helped us to get into it.

The house is perfect for a family and we have loved living here. But, like every older home, it is starting to show some wear and we are having to do a few things to take care of it.

We've wanted to put in new windows since we moved in, but it's never been the right time. However, with a huge tax credit, utility rebates and a generous Christmas gift, today turned into the right time.

Here's the house this morning:

And here's this afternoon:

Isn't that awesome? Thank you to Layne's parents for the awesome Christmas gift. Thank you to my fantastic bro-in-law Jared and my sister Nicole for helping us take down blinds, move stuff (including a horrible dead mouse!) and putting everything back together.

My house feels warmer and quieter and who knew you could actually see out of windows? Poor Layne, though-- one change around here usually begets another. Wonder how much it would cost to get new doors? Redo my bathroom? Carpet in my room? Maybe a new roof?

Closer to Love

2010-01-11T21:06:00.004-07:00

I'm sitting here tonight after hearing that the father of one of my best friends in the world died. He's been sick for a while, but it was still sudden.

When the phone rang, I was in the middle of one of the best workouts I've had in a long time. I was blown away with a hundred things running through my head-- where are her kids? What does she need? How can I help? Mostly I just felt sad.

I've been thinking about how quickly your world can crash around you-- how you are usually doing something as mundane as lifting weights when the weight of the world suddenly falls on your shoulders. (Speaking of my friend.)

I think that the first lyrics of Mat Kearny's "Closer to Love" say this all better than I can:

She got the call today
One out of the gray
And when the smoke cleared,
It took her breath away.

She said she didn't believe
That it could happen to me
I guess we're all one phone call from our knees.
We're gonna get there soon.

If every building falls
And all the stars fade
We'll still be singin this song
The one they can't take away
I'm gonna get there soon.
She's gonna be there too
Cryin' in her room
Prayin' Lord come through
We're gonna get there soon.

(Chorus)
Oh it's your light
Oh, it's your way.
Pull me out of the dark
Just to show me the way
Cryin' out now
From so far away...
You pull me closer to love.

As I'm typing the lyrics (somehow there is black magic that prohibits copy and paste for that kind of stuff), I'm realizing how much truth this guy hit without probably meaning to. To function, we all have to pretend that it is a certainty that we and the people we love will be here day after day. It does us no good to become paralyzed by the reality that we have no control and no idea what will happen in the next hours of our lives-- let alone days, weeks or years.

The only thing we can control is our own faith-- a faith that weaves itself around our insecurities and ties us to the Master Plan. We are not spinning out of control. There is purpose. There is reconciliation. There is Love.

Sometimes it takes a good wake up call to "pull us closer" to that Love... and in those moments, we realize that it has surrounded us all the time.

Stay strong, my friend. Reside in His love and let it lighten your heart. You're in my prayers.

And When Does the Weakness Become Strength?

2010-01-06T21:14:00.002-07:00

What is it about January that puts us all on diets?

Is it the average 7 pounds each American gains over the holidays? Is it the pressure of a year ending where none of us were as good as we wanted to be and we're determined to do better? The constant weight-watchers, Bow-Flex, and HCG diet commercials I see on t.v. would indicate to me that I am not the only one who gets caught up in all of this crap.

To be perfectly honest, 2009 was not a good year for me in the weight department. For the first time since I lost the 50 pounds a few years ago, I put 12 of it back on in the course of the year.

It makes me sick.

It was so easy to put on and, after a lifetime of this same war, I know how hard it's going to be to take it off.

I've put the whole family back on the wagon. (If mamma ain't eatin' no cookies then ain't no one eatin' no cookies!) I purged out all of the leftover chocolate and other crap. I filled the fridge with veggies, fruit, lowfat yogurt and cottage cheese. I'm trying to remember how to cook stuff that's not fried.

I'm hungry, dammit! And what's more, Layne is dropping pounds like flies and in 4 long days, I've actually GAINED a half a pound. (And no, it is NOT muscle.)

I am resigned that this is my lot in life. It's not so different from the war on terrorism-- as long as there are chocolate chip cookies, Doritos and mint truffles in this world, my battle will continue.

I have waited and prayed for my whole life for this weakness to be turned to strength (think me turning into Jillian Michaels from Biggest Loser), but now I am just praying for strength enough to get through each weak day.

It's about endurance. It's about committment. It's about faith. And ultimately, it's about forgiveness and the realization that this particular weakness was GIVEN to me by a Heavenly Father who needed some way to tie my rebellious soul to Him.

My goal is 25 pounds by my first century ride in May.

Well, after getting on the scale this morning, I guess it's more like 25 and a half.

Oh crap. Here we go again...

2009 Top Eleven

2010-01-04T16:11:00.002-07:00

2009 seemed to be a rough year for a lot of people. More than one person has told me that they are glad to see it go. I hope that better times are in store for all of them.

We had a really good year-- so good, that I almost feel guilty about it when I think of all of the trials that many around me have faced. However, I know that gratitude is the beginning of humility (which we all know that I could use a little more of), so here's my list of things I'm grateful for in the last year. (Top ten lists are cheesy. Top eleven lists are cool.)

11. My iPhone. I know that this seems like a really superficial thing, but it has done some really fun things for me. I've become more organized, I always have a camera, my tunes, and the scriptures with me-- not to mention Scrabble for when I'm bored, and a bunch of other games for when Doug is bored. I seriously don't know how I would do the part-time working mom / Relief Society / PTA / crazy life thing without it.

10. My bike and the two thousand or so miles that I put on it this year-- including 3 full century rides. That was the one goal I set last January that I actually accomplished.

9. Our hot tub. I know-- another superficial thing, but that's me. The reason I love that hot tub so much is that when we get in it, there is no t.v. and we can't hear the phone or the doorbell. For however long we are in there, I have my husband's undivided attention. It's cheaper than marriage therapy (in the long run, that is), and it feels pretty dang good on tired muscles too!

8. Our business. Going back to work with Layne has been eye-opening as to how much stress it is for him to support our family. It is very gratifying to work in an industry that can really help people to live better. I work with amazing women and I am grateful for each of them.

7. My calling. I switched from being the Relief Society secretary to being the first counselor this year. Honestly, I don't know which is more demanding. I do know that I work with some wonderful women and that getting to know the amazing sisters in my ward is a huge blessing in my life.

6. Fun trips. At the first of last year, I didn't have any trips at all planned for 2009. In spite of that, I found myself going to Rome, Las Vegas (twice), Bryce Canyon, and New York City. All were very fun and opened my eyes to just how big our world really is.

5. Good books. I have made a lot more time for reading this year-- a past time which I had almost forgotten that I love. Thanks in part to my new Kindle, now I never have to be without a good book to read. That is, unless I forget to charge the darn thing!

4. Family and Friends. I have the best of both and there's nothing else to say, except for thank you!

3. My children. Should they count as their own top three? People tell me often how great my kids are and I always laugh and say something trite like "not always!" or "you should see them at home!". However, they actually ARE almost always good and at home they are sometimes even better than in public. I really do have fantastic kids and I can only take about 10% of the credit for them.

2. The Book of Mormon. At the risk of sounding like a zealot, I can't say enough about how reading the Book of Mormon has helped our family this year. It started with Mike wanting to read it before he gets baptized in March. We all decided to help him and read it together. Every night, we've read 2 or 3 pages with everyone taking turns. We've even read in the car when we've been out doing things late. I can't tell you what a great spirit that has brought into our home. You hear that all of the time, but until you actually try it for yourself, you just don't realize what a difference it really makes.

1. My awesome husband. You know, the tall handsome guy who puts up with all of my crap 24/7 and very rarely calls me on it? He is my greatest asset no matter what kind of year we've had and he just keeps getting better.

Season Summary

2010-01-04T15:36:00.004-07:00

It's all over.

I don't know how I feel about that. I usually love the holidays, but I had a pretty big roller coaster ride during this season and, even though there were some great highs, I find myself a little bit relieved to be on this side of the calendar. Between sick kids (including a visit to the emergency room), family "issues", and a general PMS mood on my part, I think that calling me the Grinch this year would not be a stretch. (I'm talking the Grinch BEFORE he met that annoyingly cute Cindy Loo.)

I've avoided posting about the holidays because, well, I wasn't quite sure I wanted to talk about any of it. I still don't, so I am offering a small picture summary of our holiday, then I am MOVING ON.

Below: Sledding at the cabin on Christmas Eve-- one of my favorite traditions. The mountains were cold, but beautiful.

Our family at Zoo Lights-- not to be sacrilegious or anything, but I think this is more fun than Temple Square.

Here's carolling on a blasted cold Christmas Eve. I thought this picture was kind of fun-- everything was in motion except for Emalee.

This is what Christmas morning looks like for 25 people at Layne's family's house.

Here are the kids at my mom's house-- they made puppets of themselves and put on a puppet show for my mom for Christmas.

This is New Year's Day. We went sledding at the cabin again and had a blast.

Here's Em after a "white wash" from Layne.

And in a nutshell, that's it. Lots of fun, busy stuff, too much food, and now it's onto a cold January...

"Brace" Yourself for a Heck of a Week!

2009-12-20T19:07:00.003-07:00

This has been one heck of a week. Ups and downs. And more downs.

First off, here's Em with her new braces. She was really excited for them-- she thought they'd be cool. As a former brace-face, I tried to warn her that all that tooth-bling is actually quite painful, but, like most things, that's something you find out the hard way, I guess.

She didn't think they were so awesome the next morning.

Here's the kids at Zoo Lights. This was a blast-- Hogle Zoo really does a pretty good light show. We had a lot of fun-- except for the 10 minutes or so when we lost Michael and Payton. Mom's second worst nightmare.
Here's a picture from our Temple Square jaunt. Anyone notice less and less lights there every year?

So for the mom's first worst nightmare. Yesterday was a hectic up-and-down day all by itself, but by the end of the night, we had everything all ready for a fun day today. Layne and I finally got to bed about 11:00 or so and were watching a show about 9/11. As I was watching, I was thinking about all of those poor people and how when they woke up, they had no idea what was in store.

Thinking thoughts like that never goes well for me. Just then, Mike walked into my room and said that phrase we all dread,

"Mom, I barfed."

Man, did he. And he kept puking every 15 minutes or so all night. Essentially, for the second time in a month, Layne and I stayed up the entire night, although I'd take Black Friday a hundred times over a night of puking kid.

Needless to say, our traditional plans of going to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance and to Little America for brunch went out the window. Layne took the two non-sick kids and I stayed home with Michael.

He wasn't feeling so bad at first, so we actually had an enjoyable morning reading Christmas stories.

That is, of course, until he stood up, passed out, then went stiff and started to shake. Emergency room, here we come. (Why is that always on a Sunday?)

He was severely dehydrated and they had to put in an i.v. to get him some fluids and anti-nausea meds. They also did a scan to rule out appendicitis. They gave him a c.d. with the scans of his guts, which he thought was cool.

I don't know what this means for the rest of the week, but scary stuff with your kids always puts things in perspective, you know?

Re-Cycled Poetry

2009-12-16T22:09:00.004-07:00

After my very serious poetry from last time, I thought I'd better remind you all of the irreverent cretin that I really am. And, because I'm lazy, and also because my blog is called "Life Cycles", I am going to RE-CYCLE one of my favorite posts from last year.

"Santa's Makeover"

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and all through my house,
Every creature was stirring, each dog, kid, and mouse.
The kids ran amuck, fueled by excitement and candy
(About now, some Benedryl would come in quite handy!)

The presents are wrapped, well, most of the lot,
And I was sitting here wondering who I forgot.
I fought all the crowds in search of a deal,
I’ve fixed salads and cookies for the pre-Christmas meal.
The house is not clean, but not too dirty either
And I decided it was time to sit down for a breather.

When what to my dozy eyes should appear
But a cool looking sleigh pulled by 8 well-groomed reindeer.
The man that jumped out was no jolly old elf,
My jaw dropped when I saw him, in spite of my self.
He was dressed in Armani from his head to his toes,
Not a speck of ash could be seen on his clothes.
His skin was all tan, like a native Hawaiian
His muscles were flexed, without even tryin’.
His hair was dyed black, cut and gelled to perfection
It seems dear old Santa’s had a change of direction.

I cleared my throat and he looked over my way
He winked and I blushed, hey, what can I say?
The fat, red old Santa, this guy’s certainly NOT
I have to admit, this St. Nick sure is hot!

When I asked him what caused change in such a degree,
He admitted to watching reality t.v.
Seems that during the year, he let the elves all take over
And Santa flew to Hollywood for a serious makeover.

Even the gifts that he brought were just way too much
All iPods and gift cards and cell phones and such.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
He filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
Then tossing his bangs like some super-cool skater,
He winked and he said “Hey Babe, Catch you later.”

My heart skipped a beat as up the chimney he flew,
And I ran to the window—trust me, you would have too.
And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a wicked cool night!

Bethlehem

2009-12-13T17:22:00.002-07:00

I was sitting this morning before church reading a story about a visit to the Holy Land and I was struck suddenly with a huge feeling of gratitude for the birth of Christ. I wrote this and thought I'd share.

"Bethlehem"

Bethlehem.
The name itself means "house of bread"--
Calling to mind that one scent which smells like fresh baked comfort--
Home.

How different was the smell that greeted the Newborn Babe!
The earthy tang of fresh cut hay in a manger bed
Mixed with the pungent essence of raw animal scent.
(Somehow fitting that the Lord of All should make His first Home among His own creations.)

Bethlehem.
Before that day, mostly unknown--
No "form or comeliness" that it should be desired.
Poor and lowly-- the very name ironic,
Almost.

Until into the world was born God-As-Man--
He who called Himself the
Bread of Life,
And made "House of Bread" a perfect name.

The symbol so strong--
That which reminds us most of all things good and worthy in our own
Earthly home
Is also symbol of Him who is
All good and in all ways worthy--
He who points the way to our
Heavenly Home.

Nourishment.
Sustenance.
Fulfillment.
Comfort.
Peace.
House of Bread,
Bread of Life.
Bethlehem.

Nativity Scenes

2009-12-13T16:20:00.005-07:00

I guess that the best indicator that I am having a fun, busy time of life is my lack of time for posting on my blog.

Either that, or I am using all of my computer time to do a little online shopping.

We have been doing some really fun things as a family, though. We've been trying to keep things a little more Christ-centered this year and so far, we've done pretty well.

Last week, we went to the Star Mill to see Santa Clause with my sister Nicole and her family. Here is my beautiful little niece Olivia.
Em with Santa

Doug at Star Mill.

After that, we drove up to Midway for their Nativity Display. This is one of my favorite things to do. It is an inter-denominational display of hundreds of nativity scenes from all over the world. Here is a picture of Mike by one that was carved out of ice.

On Thursday, we went up to a house in Riverton to see more nativities. The Garick family started a project to help people in 3rd world countries by helping them to make nativity scenes out of materials locally available to them, then they import them. They've raised over $69,000 in 3 years to help people in South America, Africa and Asia.

My mom collects nativity scenes-- she has well over 100 if you count the ones on her tree. We always bring one back for her when we travel anywhere, and in the last few years, we've started collecting a few for ourselves as well. We've started our own tradition as a family of getting a new set each year and saving it for Christmas Eve morning when we have a special breakfast, then read Luke 2, then put out our new nativity set.

Layne looked and looked for one from Ghana both times he's gone, but was unable to find one. This family had a bunch of them-- including this ebony one that we bought.

I wanted to display it for the season, so we also bought one from China to put out on Christmas Eve.

I'm amazed at how much my kids have loved seeing all of these nativity scenes. You'd think they'd get tired of it, but they really seem to enjoy it.

It is fascinating to see how the Nativity story is so universal and can translate into any culture. The African ones have hippos and cheetahs instead of sheep. The Chinese ones have dragons. They make them out of stone, wood, clay, beads, and even soda cans. The story is the same-- it crosses boundaries and loses nothing in the translation.

I love Christmas!

Sorry, Mom.

2009-12-07T21:02:00.006-07:00

I decided today that I must apologize to my mother.

Sorry, Mom.

Here's why.

I have discovered recently something that I never expected to be true. I get far more nervous for my children than I ever have gotten for myself. Assuming this is true for all mothers, I am only beginning to understand how much stress I caused my own poor mother.

Take today for instance. Our school participates in a story-telling contest. Each kid performs a story in their own class, the class chooses a winner, then the winner competes in the school competition.

Emalee won her class competition last week, which meant that today she had to tell the story in front of the school. I know that she had practiced and was excited, but I was a nervous wreck for her all morning. When she went up on stage, I was praying so hard that she'd do her best and not choke. I think that I held my breath for the whole 4 minutes that she was up there.

She did fantastic.

More and more, I realize how much she is like me. (Except that I'm not always fantastic.) She loves to be in front of people-- she loves to talk and teach. She loves to write and is always entering contests at school She loves hitting in softball and playing pitcher and first base. All of these things are things that I've loved doing too-- and I never once realized that I was killing my mother.

Every time she got up to bat, every time she competes in a writing contest, every time she puts herself out there, she takes few days off of my life. I want so badly for her to succeed-- I get sick at the thought of how crushed she will feel if she fails. Which she will. Because she needs to-- just like we all need to fail in order to appreciate success.

I think of all of the things I did growing up-- playing softball (of course I had to pitch), debate, running for student council, applying for scholarships, taking AP tests-- even crushing on boys that were way out of my league-- and I never once thought of how hard it was for my mom to watch me.

I remember the night I lost a really close election for student council. They announced the winners at a dance that night and I was devastated. I left in tears and drove around for a while before going home. I wanted my mom to be asleep before I got there because I wasn't ready to talk about it.

I was such a dork! Of course she wasn't sleeping-- she was waiting for me. I walked in and she threw her arms around me and I just sobbed.

Now that I'm a mother, I realize how hard that day must have been for her as well.

Luckily for both of us, I haven't always failed so miserably.

I hope that I can be as supportive for my children as my mother was and is for me. She encouraged me in 5 years of piano lessons, even though I am pitifully rhythm disabled. She came to my 8th grade dance concert, in spite of the fact that I am as graceful as a rhinoceros on roller skates. She helped me ask a boy to a dance who was way too cool for me. She supported me on a mission to a strange country -- even though my dad told me she was ready to fly there and get me after she read a few of my more discouraging letters.

I bet that she was praying all the time too. (Ever notice how the commandment to "pray always" definitely got easier when you became a parent?) Actually, I don't bet that she was praying-- I know she was. I have felt those prayers many times in my life, and I know that they have helped and saved me.

Anyway, sorry for the stress, Mom. And thanks.

The Great Purge

2009-12-04T17:05:00.002-07:00

Doug finally went back to school today. I don't think that he was too thrilled about it-- he liked staying home with me and wearing his pajamas all day. (Who wouldn't like that life?) It was Polar Express day in kindergarten, so they got to wear pjs to school-- I figured that would help him transition back into normal life.

Being stuck at home for three days was good for my house. As it sometimes does, cleaning out one thing lead to cleaning out another, and before I knew it, I had filled the van with a load of stuff for the D.I., as well as one of our garbage cans with stuff I didn't even think that the D.I. would want.

I finally cleaned out the closet of the nursery-turned-exercise room. (Isn't that an ironic shifting of uses for a room?) I decided that all of the teddy bear stuff was not conducive to sweating- my- guts- out inspiration, so I tore it all off the walls (except for the wallpaper border-- what the heck do they use to make that stuff stick, anyway?)

Next, I attacked the closet. When I moved Doug into Mike's room, I stashed all of the old baby / nursery stuff in there and pretty much haven't opened it since.

I felt a funny, unexpected twinge as I packed it all up. I've given away most of my baby clothes and things to sisters and friends who needed it-- and I've never missed it. Getting rid of the nursery stuff felt different-- kind of final, I guess.

We tried to have a baby a couple of years after we had Doug. Things didn't go well, and going to the doctor to figure out why uncovered some major health problems that I was having which made it impossible for us to have a baby-- at least until I got things under control.

Luckily, with some good medicine and a great doctor, I was able to get better. However, as my illness disappeared, so did the desire to have a baby.

Mostly, that is.

I've said for a couple of years now that we are done. We are. But, as much as your head and even your heart know that is the case, the parts of me that make me a mother are more reluctant to let that part of life go. A friend of mine recently said in her blog that those feelings come from the tendency of the Love inside of us wanting to begat more love.

That may be true, but it was not strong enough to overcome the other urge I had to clean everything out and use the space for something more relevant.

Like storing bike stuff.

And Christmas presents.

I wondered if I'd feel regret for giving the stuff away, but as I drove off from the D.I. today, I just felt lighter. It's as if giving away the baby stuff purged not only the clutter, but also the small piece of me that was still holding onto the "maybes" and "what ifs?"

Wonder what's hiding in my other closets?

Sick Days

2009-12-02T14:27:00.003-07:00

We've got the Goombah at our house. (That's what we call the flu, but I don't know why. I think that the name started with Layne's sister, but I can't be sure.)

I knew we were in for a bad one when I woke up yesterday morning and nearly tripped over Doug in the hall. He'd been too dizzy to make it all the way to my room (all 15 feet)so he curled up right there. Mike found him and felt bad for him, so he brought him a blanket, pillow, and a teddy bear and plopped himself right beside his brother. (Yes, he is a very good kid.) I asked why he didn't just come get me, and the sweet little guy just said that he didn't want to wake me.

I must be a monster in the middle of the night.

His fever was 103 and his head hurt. And I knew that any plans I had for the next couple of days were immediately cancelled.

This sucks, of course, because most of our favorite parties and activities of the Christmas season are this week. Not to mention the fact that my poor little boy looks like death warmed over and I think he feels even worse than he looks.

That being said, I have really enjoyed having 2 days where I can't leave my house. I cleaned out the spare bedroom and finally got rid of the rest of the baby clothes that I have been saving for who knows what reason. (Well, being as I can't go to the D.I., they are in bags by the garage door, waiting for my re-emergence into the world.)

I spent yesterday afternoon working on the Christmas present that I have intended to make for my mother-in-law all year, but secretly never thought that I'd get to.

I made roast beef, mashed potatoes and even home-made rolls for dinner last night-- my kids thought someone must have died.

I've even been making a scrapbook for poor Doug who is 5 and I don't know if he's ever seen a printed picture of himself, other than the ones from Kiddie Kandids that I hang on the wall.

My house is tidy, the laundry is finished, I got in two really good workouts. I'm thinking that it really would be kind of nice to actually be a stay-at-home mom, instead of the crazy-runaround-mom that I've turned into.

I may feel differently tomorrow, as I'm starting to get cooped-up naggings gnawing on the back of my brain, and I don't see this situation changing for at least another day or two. However, for right now, I am thankful for a little bit of time to spend in my house taking care of my sweet little boy.

The Black Friday Assault

2009-11-28T22:35:00.006-07:00

I did what I swore I'd never do again. I did Black Friday.

My first time was last year. I called it Black and Blue Friday, if that gives you an idea of what kind of experience it was.

I wasn't planning on going-- it never even crossed my mind.

That is, until my sisters and mom all started looking at the ads after Thanksgiving dinner. I started to feel a little twinge inside. I can only describe it as similar to what I used to feel before pitching a fast pitch softball game. And then I knew.

Black Friday shopping is a sport.

I was still resisting, until Layne started to make comments about going with me. That has never happened before, and suddenly, a plan was born.

We shipped some kids of to my parents house and left a few home with the oldest cousins. And then the fun began.

Nicole and I were accompanied this year by both of our husbands-- who got progressively funnier and consequently more embarrassing as the night progressed.

Toys R Us was starting their sale at midnight, so we drove over to Orem. So did the rest of Utah Valley. We got there an hour early and the line was already around the block, so we went for plan B. We drove to WalMart and went to scope out the goods there so we'd be ready for our 5 a.m. assault.

In the toys, we found a Lego astronaut. Jared decided to do a little re-arranging of some of his parts. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out.

That was about 1:00 am. Old Navy didn't open until 3, so we went back to Nicole's house for an hour's rest. I crashed on the couch, while Layne and Jared appropriately enough watched Beavis and Butthead on t.v. Come 2:15 and we were at it again.

Here's the Old Navy line. The first 30 people in line got Lego Rock Band free with a $25 purchase-- it was nuts. There were a lot of crazy teenagers in that line-- I think they might have been the same annoying crowd that was in the vampire movie with us. (I'm absolutely certain my friends and I were not nearly that stupid when we were that age.)

I didn't have anything on my list at Old Navy, so we just helped Nicole. Jared and Layne got in the checkout line first thing. Nicole and I ran around looking for her items and trying to find them before the boys got to the front of the line. We were a well-oiled shopping machine.

Kohl's was next at 4:00. I had a big list here. However, we got there at 3:20 and I was too chicken to stand in the cold for 45 minutes. We decided to chance it and sit in the car until it was almost time. We played Scrabble--I kicked butt.

Kohl's did not go so well. Our gamble cost me, as there was only one thing on my list still there by the time we got in. We also got stuck in line behind two of the dumbest people I've ever met who were trying to get Kohl's credit cards and bounce checks.

After Kohl's, we went to WalMart-- the holy grail of Black Friday. Thanks to our earlier recon, we knew just where to go. They had pallets of the good deals all wrapped in plastic, guarded by unfortunate employees. We all picked an item to stand by and dug in for 45 minutes. At 4:59 by my watch, a bell rang and all hell broke loose.

I was trying to get $7 snow boots, along with all of these people:

I was lucky, and found a pair of size 13 boots for Doug. Without getting mauled. Nicole was not as lucky. She got the games she wanted, but got shoved into a cart in the process. She might get a purple heart. Our husbands muscled their way in for a few MP3 players. Then we all ran for the check out line which looked like this:

We were about 6th in line, thanks to Nicole's mad dash. However, the first person in line was a moron who was actually price checking every item he had. He took FOREVER! When he finally left, our whole line erupted in applause.

We had a frustrating trip to Target-- by far the longest lines of the morning, and then a successful trip to Game Stop where we ran out of energy. And money.

We'd been up for 24 hours, drank nearly a whole case of diet coke and eaten a bag of jerkey for breakfast. (Pause to vomit.) However, we found nearly everything we were looking for and honestly had a great time. Don't know if I'll ever get Layne to go again, though....

Kim's Rules of Order

2009-11-25T16:42:00.003-07:00

I've been in a blog-bog lately. Nothing good to say, so I've kept my keyboard silent.

(Actually, I've been reading. A lot. Like thousands and thousands of pages. I'll post a review soon.)

Anyway, I've been bothered by something recently that I wanted to throw out to the cyber world. It goes like this.

There are unwritten rules of personal and social behavior. I've been noticing too many of them being ignored lately-- so in an attempt to remedy that, I'm WRITING them down.

Thus let it be written, thus let it be done...

1. You should respect and maintain the bubble of personal space for all people around you.

Case in point. My sister and I went to see that vampire movie the other night. (We'll save most of that topic for another post.) There was a 14 year old boy sitting next to my sister. He had come to said vampire movie WITH HIS MOTHER. (We'll also leave that topic for another day.) This kid was obnoxious. He was sprawled all over the place-- feet, legs, hands. He actually PUT UP the arm rest between him and my sister, in order to take more of her space.

Where is the Taser when you need one?

When you are sitting in a seat-- be it a movie theater, stadium, or the back of a car, you should pretend that there are walls in between you and the people next to you and keep all of your crap (arms, legs, feet, coats, stinky breath, etc) confined in that space.

2. You should not stop to chat with people (be they live or on your phone) while you are in a flow of traffic. I'm not just referring to cars-- I'm also talking about the morons who stop their shopping carts right in the middle of the store aisle and just ignore the fact that everyone has to wait or go around them.

3. When sitting in a movie, ballgame, play or restaurant, you should keep your conversation at a decibel that only the people who care have to listen to you talk.

For instance, last night, Layne and I went to a Jazz game. There was a group of people behind us who thought that the whole section would like to hear about their co-worker who got sick and blah, blah, blah. I was really hoping that the Jazz Bear would come and spray them with silly string.

4. Speaking of things that you shouldn't do in movies or theaters, the suggestion to turn off your cell phones during the movie applies to EVERYONE-- not just EVERYONE ELSE. Again with the vampire movie-- the girls in front of us kept taking pictures of the half-naked werewolf boy on the movie screen and texting them to their dumb little friends.

Wish I would have had their cell numbers. I would have gotten up and gone in the hall and texted to them "Turn off your phone, morons." (Did you notice the get up and go in the hall part???)

5. Tied closely to this one, if you bring candy into the theater, open it BEFORE the event starts. The only thing more obnoxious than the guy who rips open his bag of chocolate covered raisins quickly is the guy who is trying to be sneaky about it and takes 15 minutes to get in the bag, thinking that he's being quiet.

Sat by that guy at Wicked. Nearly grabbed his box of Nestle Crunch bites and opened them for him.

6. Flush. Need I say more?

I'm sure there are more, but those are my top pet peeves right now. If you could all please print them and post them on every bathroom stall door that you are unfortunate enough to use, we'd all be better off.

Especially if everyone obeyed #6.

Lucy the Cow

2009-11-15T19:29:00.002-07:00

There are some really funny things about being part of a family. Everyone has them-- you know the jokes that only family members get?

I was reminded of one of ours tonight as we drove home from my parents' house. A few early birds are starting to turn on their Christmas lights-- especially the ones in Highland and Alpine who pay people to put them up. (Guess I might turn them on every chance I got too if I paid good money to have them hung!)

Anyway, like the rest of the kids in the country, when the lights start to go on, our kids try to spot them first and they keep score for the entire drive. However, what makes this game different for our family is that when they see the lights, they yell out "Lucy the Cow!"

What does that have to do with Christmas lights (or anything else), you ask?

Years ago, my kids were fascinated by the idea that I could speak Portuguese, as I served a mission there. They would often ask me how to say words or phrases. One of the things they wanted me to translate was "Christmas lights." I told them "luz de Natal", which is roughly pronounced "Looz jee natow". Which sounded to little children like "Lucy the cow".

Thus a family joke was born.

They don't remember any other thing I've tried to teach them in Portuguese, (except for how to say "Peidei" (pay-day'), which means "I farted"-- go figure) but every year, come the first bright lights of Christmas, "Lucy the Cow" comes to stay for the season.

Welcome back, Lucy!

My New Favorite Toy

2009-11-12T21:49:00.003-07:00

This is my new favorite toy. Well, actually it is Layne's toy, but it's still my favorite. It's a Kindle and it's the coolest thing ever.

This thing can hold like 1500 books. It weighs much less than a normal book. Some books on it are free and the rest cost like a third of normal. Those are all cool things, but there is one more feature that has earned it's status as New Favorite Toy. (Well, not to mention the fact that the old favorite toy, my iPhone, is on the fritz.) The Kindle reads to me.

Reading a book and feeling guilt because I should be folding the clothes? No problem-- Kindle reads to me WHILE I do my work-- right from the place I was reading.

Gave up reading while driving in college (I know, we're all grateful for that), but now I can just plug it into my car stereo and we all stay safe.

Riding on the trainer has been , well, less sucky for the past couple of days-- I actually finished before wanting to slit my wrists because it was 30 minutes of uninterrupted story.

Layne wants to go to bed and I don't want him to realize that I'm still reading? Plug in the earphones and listen in the dark.

I'm a third of the way through the second Mistborn book, written by Brandon Sanderson. Who happens to have the #1 New York Times best seller right now. And he and his family just moved into our ward. How cool is that?

The only really sad thing about this whole experience is that when Layne bought the Kindle (for him), he offered to buy one for me too at the same time. I thought it looked kind of stupid, so I told him not to bother.

Man, I'm an idiot.

So is he, I guess, because he knew better-- whenever he gets something cool (carbon bike, iPod, iPhone), he automatically orders two. Now he has to order another one. For him.

Thanks, Honey.

Happy Birthday, My Beautiful Daughter

2009-11-10T16:59:00.003-07:00

Ten years ago today, I embarked upon the never-ending journey of Motherhood. I had no idea what joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, sunshine, and storms I held in my arms!

There is something incredible about having a daughter. In many ways, looking at Emalee is like looking into some kind of magic mirror which shows me my past, my present and both of our futures all at once.

The Past

In so many ways, Emalee's childhood has been much like mine. Physically, she is one of the tallest in her grade, just like I always was-- and I see her deal with that awkwardness in much the same manner that I did-- although I think that she owns it much better than I did. I'm glad-- it has taken me years and years to realize the advantages in being tall.

She is also very smart-- which also causes her to stand out a little bit. She reads super fast-- also like her mother-- I think that she has my same impatientness (is that a word) to get to the end. I hope that she's not as anxious as I was to just be grown up.

The Present

Sometimes I find myself being harder on her than I am the boys, and I think that it is because she is so much like me-- including some of my weaknesses. When I get after her, I have to stop myself and ask if it is really her that I am upset with, or if it is myself. Sometimes it is not a pretty picture. I think Heavenly Father made things this way to show us that, if we can love our carbon copy children (faults and all), maybe we can love ourselves too-- or at least stop being so hard on ourselves!

The Future

Emalee is so talented, beautiful, responsible, and kind-- I know that she can do anything that she sets her mind to do. It is hard for me to wait to find out what wonderful things she will do. I guess that's part of the parenthood lesson as well-- learning to be patient enough to enjoy the wonderful things that they ARE doing right now...

Happy Birthday, my Beautiful Daughter. Thank you for making me the luckiest mother in the world.

Chocolate Review

2009-11-09T20:07:00.003-07:00

For a long time, we all lived quite happily with plain old Hershey's Kisses and M&M's. Sure, there were the peanut variety (of M&M's, that is), but for the most part, that was it.

Then things got creative, and like any artistic endeavors, some of their creations were better than others.

For instance, today I got suckered into buying Irish Creme flavored Hershey's Kisses. Bad call on my part. They are horrible. As are the caramel ones, the orange creme ones, pumpkin spice, vanilla yogurt, and hot cocoa. As I have a general aversion to chocolate paired with any fruit, I'd have to say all of the fruity ones-- strawberry, raspberry and caramel apple are also disgusting.

The ones with almonds are good-- as are the mint ones and the white chocolate hugs and truffles. But all in all, I'll take the plain ones any day over all of these.

I think that M&M's have faired a little better with the experimentation. I love the almond ones. The peanut butter ones are pretty good and the Mint ones are one of the only reasons to look forward to the winter. The dark chocolate ones are also good. But, who in their right mind came up with those terrible peanut butter and jelly ones? THAT was a bad idea.

However, when it comes right down to it, I'd rather have a big ole bowl of regular old peanut M&Ms.

Maybe there is something to the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Who knows? Maybe they'll come up with something fantastic-- I'll probably keep trying them just to see. But please take my word and leave those Irish Creme ones on the shelf.

Grab the plain ones instead.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2009-11-05T21:32:00.003-07:00

I never knew that it was going to be so hard to be a mom.

I suppose in a way, that is a tribute to my mother. She made it look easy and fun. She always wanted us around and was a good friend.

My mom raised 5 girls, plus some of our friends. That is amazing to me-- as being the mother to one girl is incredibly challenging for me.

We're dealing with mean girl issues right now. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my little angel may not be 100% innocent in this situation-- but according to her and her friends, they really aren't at fault here. Be that as it may, all of the girls are getting in trouble with the teacher and the administration.

I want to beat this little stinker. At very least, I want to call her mother. What do I do in a situation like this? Where is the manual for raising girls?

I told Emalee that the really sad thing is that it doesn't really get much better. As evidenced by my own little issues last week, even some grown-up girls can be mean.

I told her to do her best for a couple of days to ignore the little s$*#, and if this girl purposely tries to find her and her friends to give them problems, to let me know. I'll turn on the mama-bear mode and kick butt while takin' names.

Or maybe I should just go back to my plan from last week and move some place where no one knows us. Nothing like teaching your kids to run away from their problems...

Wanted: Fashion Advice

2009-11-04T17:32:00.002-07:00

So, as part of my going back to work experiment, I decided I had to buy some new clothes. We'll say that it's because all I owned was jeans and sweatshirts, but there might be something to the 8 pounds that have mysteriously stuck themselves to me over the last year or so.

For whatever reason, I have purchased the first pairs of dress pants I've owned in I don't know how long. Actually I do-- my daughter turns 10 next week, so I'd say it's been roughly a decade.

Anyhoo, I found these pants at Kohls that I love because they look good, they're comfortable, AND they come in TALLS. I bought black, brown and navy.

Herein lies my problem: I don't know what shoes to wear with the navy ones, as I definitely do not own a pair of navy shoes. (Once upon a time I did, but they disappeared sometime when I was on my mission. Go figure.)

I am such a fashion moron-- can anyone give me a clue here?

Spiral Staircases

2009-11-03T21:12:00.004-07:00

I don't know why, but it feels like this year has gone by really quickly-- it seems like I was just in fall-- enjoying the leaves and dreading the approaching winter. And suddenly, I find myself here again.

I think that it has to do with my blog.

When you document so many of the events and thoughts of your life, they become more a part of you than just fleeting moments. The act of recording them in a way that you want others to read about them makes them even more real somehow.

Take for instance my bike ride yesterday afternoon. I knew that I should be doing other things, but I couldn't resist the beautiful fall weather, so I ditched my life and rode hard. As I was riding, I was mentally composing my blog, when I realized that I'd said this all before.

That lead me to wonder why I haven't been blogging much lately-- and, in spite of my excuse of being too busy, it really comes down to the fact that I just don't have anything new to say.

I sat down and reviewed through my blog posts over the last year, and my impression is that I feel like I've lived the same year twice.

I guess that in naming my blog "Life Cycles", I was unwittingly defining the tendency of life to go round and round. (I actually chose the name just to show that I would like to spend more of my life riding my bike!)

There is something discouraging about the idea of living in "Groundhog Day". (Everyone remember that movie?) However, without getting too deep (it's only Tuesday, for Pete's Sake!) I have to hope that instead of my life being like a bicycle crank-- continuously circling around the same point, that it is more three dimensional than that. Maybe it's more like a spiral staircase, where even though I am still going around in circles, I am getting higher with each revolution.

Granted, some years show more upward progress than others, but even a little bit of up is better than nothing, right?

Another Reason It Might Be Better To Be A Man

2009-10-28T21:09:00.002-06:00

I'm in a crazy place right now-- hence the lack of good new blog posts. Between my normal mom stuff (basketball, swimming, piano, PTA, homework, house-- you know the drill), Relief Society, and trying to fill in at work (hooray-- our new staff starts tomorrow!), I've been running.

I've been doing all right with it, I thought, except that I find myself getting a little emotional and ragged come evening.

Take last night.

I found out that one of the sisters in our ward is upset with me for something that she thinks that I did. It's not really a big deal-- in trying to help someone else, I unknowingly stepped on her toes.

When I got home from a meeting and started talking to Layne, I fell apart. I told him that I wanted to move somewhere that no one knew me. He said no-- he's never moving. I told him that I was just going to quit going to church. I wanted to be THAT family. You know the one that is active then suddenly stops coming to church and no one ever really knows why?

He laughed at that too. I told him my sad tale and he just looked at me like,

"You've got to be kidding me."

He absolutely could not understand why I would give a rat's arse whether someone I don't know very well likes me or not-- let alone why it CRUSHED my feelings.

It was so easy in my tired state to revert to my junior high self and let all of that self-pity, jealously, resentment and illogical assumptions take over. All the while, Layne is sitting there, trying to be supportive, but really just thinking,

"Who is this bag-of-crazy and what has she done with my wife?"

I went to sleep and woke up feeling much better and laughed at myself for being such a nut-job. It got me thinking, though, how much easier it would be to be a man and have my major problem in life be that I was horny all of the time.

If women are from Venus and all of that, I'm thinking that Mars might be an easier place to live.

They sure as heck wouldn't need as much Kleenex there...

Crazy Hair Day

2009-10-23T19:37:00.004-06:00

Today was one of my kids' favorite days of school-- Crazy Hair Day (CHD). It's part of ribbon week and what it has to do with saying no to drugs, I'll never know. But, the kids love it, so I guess it's all good. (I don't know how the teachers feel-- probably not so much love from them...)

Doug has waited for years to get to go to school on CHD. He made sure that I had plenty of gel and red spray.

Here's our creation. We called him FireHead.
Here's Em. Cheerleader gone wrong.

Mike liked FireHead so much that he wanted to do it too. I couldn't get a very good picture of him, though because we had one of those right-before-school-starts drama moments where someone dropped something on his toe, he started bawling like a baby, I told him to suck it up and go to school, that made him madder-- you all know the drill.

I need to go wash it out. I am dreading that because just washing the extra off my hands this morning turned the sink pink.

I'm about to get a pink tub.

Don't know if I like pink that much...

What a Relief!

2009-10-20T13:43:00.002-06:00

For the first time in many moons, I put my bike on the trainer. (a.k.a. torture device.) I got things all set up and then spent a very long 30 minutes sweating and pedaling my guts out.

(Why is it that 30 minutes on my bike outside seems like nothing, but inside it's an eternity?)

Anyway, as I came to the end of my 10 miles, I noticed myself counting along with the mile counter.

9.75

9.8

9.95

9.96

9.97

9.9

And then, finally, RELIEF. I was so happy to see that 10.0 flash on the screen.

It got me thinking about other things that give me such great feelings of relief. Here's a random list:

*Making it to the bathroom-- just in time.
*When you think that you've overslept, panic, then see that you still have a couple of hours left to sleep.
*Taking off uncomfortable shoes or tight jeans after long day.
*Realizing that you still have money left in your account after all of the bills are paid.
*Thinking that you've run out of Diet Coke and then finding one in the back of the fridge.
*When the car inspection guy comes out and tells you that you don't need to have anything done to pass inspection.
*Same with the dentist.
*When the laundry is washed, folded and put away before the boys can get it and have a clothes-war.
*Getting in bed after a hectic day and realizing that everything got done.
*When your medicine kicks in to take the edge off of a killer migraine.
*When you find your child in the next aisle at Walmart-- just as you were ready to call for a Code Adam.

Anyone else want to add to my list? Or are you just RELIEVED that my post is over? :-)

I'm Number One

2009-10-18T21:11:00.003-06:00

Those in my fantasy football league probably think that this post is about the fact that my fantasy team has scored 149 points today-- more than anyone else AND I still have two good players left to go tomorrow night. (We won't talk about the fact that before today, I have lost ALL 5 games.)

No, this post is not about that.

In fact, when I say that I'm Number One, I don't mean it as "I'm the best."

I mean it in the Star Trek definition.

As in Captain Picard saying to Commander Ryker, "You have the bridge, Number One."

You see, I am the first counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. It is quite honestly, more responsibility than I am comfortable with. However, as our Fearless Chief has been out of town since Wednesday (and won't be back for 3 more days), I have decided that being Number One is definitely better than being Commander-In-Chief.

What I've learned about myself during the last week is that I am a better right-hand-woman than I am the leader.

I don't like it that as things have gone wrong this week, people keep calling and asking me what to do. Don't they remember that I am the bike-riding goof-off whose job in this presidency is to keep everyone from taking things too seriously?

I am all too happy to be a buck-passer. Please go away, Buck-- whatever the heck you are-- I'm not the place where you should stop. I shouldn't be in charge.

Of anything.

Ever.

I'm happy to be a worker bee. I'm happy to provide "counsel" as a good counselor should do.

Just stop asking me to make decisions.

I can barely pick a breakfast cereal in the morning.

How many days until Wednesday?

Doug 1, Mom 0

2009-10-14T21:45:00.003-06:00

Monday morning, I got on my bike for the first time in 10 days. It was a bit chilly, but otherwise a beautiful day.

Joy and I decided to ride down toward Lakeside in Orem. We were having a great ride, and I had just finished telling Joy how much I really like my new cycling knee warmers-- keeps your legs warm without having to wear tights.

We were riding on the trail that goes along the Lindon marina on Utah lake. Up ahead, I could see a scruffy looking guy with two dogs. Off leashes.

That always spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

The dogs were about 50 yards up ahead of him. There was no way off of the trail and he made no motion to call the dogs in. I knew it was a bad plan to get between him and the dogs, but there was no other option. I slowed down a little, so that if the dog jumped out in front of me, I wouldn't hit him at 20 mph.

That's when the stupid dog charged me and actually BIT MY LEG.

Worse than that, he ripped a hole in my awesome knee warmers!!!

I finally got my foot unclipped and gave the dog a taste of carbon sole, steel cleated cycling shoe right in the kisser.

Then I gave the scruffy guy a HUGE piece of my mind. (As if I had any to spare.)

That's just background to the funny part of my story.

I was mad all day long. While Doug played Wii, I was sitting on the couch, talking on the phone to two of my friends, telling them about the "Dumb A$$ with the dogs".

After I hung up the second time, Doug looked at me, turned off the Wii, sat down in front of me and very seriously said,

"Mom, you shouldn't call that guy a dumb a$$ you know."

Somewhat shocked, I said, "Doug, you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't know that you even knew that it was a bad word."

To which he replied,

"I'm five. I'm not stupid."

Ouch.

My reply:

"You're right again. I'm sorry. I didn't know that you were listening." (In my defense, usually he's so engrossed in his Wii games that Santa Clause could come into the room and he'd only notice enough to ask him to move so that he could see the t.v.)

Doug's answer to that,

"What do you think these things on the side of my head are, Mom? I hear everything."

When am I going to learn? And what is my life going to be like when this kid is a teen-ager?

One thing's certain-- life's never boring when Doug's around!

New York Debrief

2009-10-12T21:17:00.009-06:00

I meant to blog from New York.

I really did.

Just like I meant to finish a spreadsheet for work.

Instead, I played the whole time. It was great!

What I loved about New York was that there was not only high quality freak watching to be done, but also some really nice people too.

Here's me on Times Square. This was just outside of our hotel-- the Marriott Marquis.

Here was the first show that we saw-- I was not as excited to see this one, but I ended up loving it. Great acting and cool effects.

Here's inside the Lion King theater-- I think I could go to jail for taking this picture. We were on the 13th row-- it was fantastic! I loved all of the puppets in this one, but the acting wasn't as good as Mary Poppins.

Here's my dessert from the first night. We ate at The View on Times Square-- a rotating restaurant on the 48th floor of the Marriott. A little disconcerting to be in constant motion, but very cool. This is passionfruit truffle with pomegranate ice cream. Almost too pretty to eat!

Here's my #1 most-important-place-to-visit-- The American Girl Doll Store. It was awesome! The only bummer was that Em wasn't there to see it with me.

This pic is inside the bathroom stall at the AG store. This is a doll holder so that your doll doesn't fall in the john. This place has a doll-only hair salon, a restaurant with doll chairs next to yours, and a photo studio for you and your doll to get a pic done. Too cool.
Here's me at Rockefeller Center. This was one of my favorite places-- maybe because I've seen it on the Today show so much. Lots of energy here-- I'd love to see it at Christmas. (And yes, you'll notice that my hair is curly in every picture. New York is WAY too humid for me to even consider straight.)

This is the construction site at Ground Zero. If ever a place had ghosts, I think this is it. So much sadness here-- it weighs you down.

Here's from the bottom of the Empire State Building.
And here's from the top. Well, not really. It's $20 just to go to the 86th floor, but you can pay $15 more to go to the 102nd. No way. Rip off.

This is a cool thing I saw. An old lady couldn't get her shoe tied, so one of the workers offered to tie it for her. The pic is off center because I was trying to be sneaky and get it without being obvious. I'm sneaky that way.

This is Layne's parents on Statue of Liberty Island. Aren't they cute? It was so fun to spend 5 days with them and see how great they treat each other after all these years. Thanks so much for a fun trip!

Here's me with the grand ole' lady. Finally, another woman who's taller than me! :-)

Here's Layne and me on the ferry to Ellis Island-- Manhattan skyline in the background. What the heck do all of those people do in those huge buildings?

Here's a funny thing I saw in Battery Park. How many New Yorkers does it take to cut off a tree branch? Apparently 10.

Here's the Late Show studio. Who knows what's going on inside there?

I want to buy this building.

And live in it.
Here's the inside of the Wicked theater. That show itself is worth the trip to New York. If you ever have a chance to see it, do. I hate the Wizard of Oz, but I see it in a whole different light now.
One of the funny freak things. Some guy was driving around in a high heel shoe. Speaking of high heels, I actually watched some lady get her high heel stuck in the storm grate while crossing the street and her boyfriend had to rescue her. Was it rude to laugh and point?
Here's Layne at the Intrepid Museum. This is the place I would love to have taken my boys. Totally cool and interactive. Someday...

We never made it uptown-- I still can't say I've seen Central Park or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Guess I'll have to go back. Wonder if I can find the awesome cheesecake place again?

From Somewhere Over Michigan

2009-10-07T11:18:00.004-06:00

So I am sitting on an airplane, blogging from my iPhone. Here are my brief observations-- as typing is a little difficult right now.

1. Wi-fi on airplanes rules. Big time.
2. Flying coach does not rule. Never fly first class unless you plan on doing only that for the rest of your life.
3. People who recline their seats SUCK! I cannot say that strongly enough. I hope the insensitive shrew in front of me is enjoying the healthy dose of knee-in-the-back that I'm serving up.
4. I really have to pee, but there is 1 hour and 20 minutes left of the flight. I choose to spend them in discomfort rather than using the bathroom on the plane. I hate those things.
5. Should it make me nervous that the guy sitting next to me and the guy in front of Layne are passing notes in Arabic?
6. Reclining Shrew just went into the bathroom to bathe herself in cheap perfume. Thanks for the migraine, Shrew Lady. Seriously Lady-- you REEK!!!
7. Do I really have to keep this seatbelt on? It's putting pressure on a very distressed bladder right now.

In case you're wondering, I am on my way to New York City. I've never been there before-- should be interesting:-)

More later...

45 minutes later.

Math equation:
Full bladder + bumpy flight = ?

Conference Weekend in Pictures

2009-10-04T13:26:00.004-06:00

We've had a great, very family-oriented weekend.

This is Friday night. We decided to go to Lagoon's Frightmares. I don't think that we've ever taken the boys to Lagoon-- we had a blast!

Emalee finally discovered the joy of roller-coasters and other thrill rides this trip. She LOVED Tidal Wave. We went on it probably 10 times in a row. (Side note about Tidal Wave, anyone else remember when you'd ride the Tidal Wave and one side would yell "Tastes Great!" and the other would yell "Less Filling!? Good Times.)

This is about the only ride that Doug would ride. 15 times in one night.

Here's the kids in their "King Benjamin" tent to listen to conference. Quite honestly, between the tent and the activity books (well, and the skittles, Mike & Ikes, and chocolate), so far, the kids have quietly watched all 6 hours of conference. No matter what happens during the last session, I'm calling it a success.

Saturday afternoon, we went for a ride around the loop to Cascade Springs, then up to Midway and back down Provo Canyon. I don't have good words to describe how beautiful the canyon is this year. My pics aren't as good as I would like because it was very overcast, but here they are:

I've felt so blessed during this weekend. So many of the talks have been about obtaining personal revelation. One thing said really struck me-- we receive revelation because we believe in a living Christ, we belong to a living church with a living prophet on the earth. It is amazing and humbling to think-- especially when you consider the majestic works of God-- that He cares enough to hear and answer our individual prayers.

Like I said-- we are so blessed!

Need a Job?

2009-10-02T09:34:00.002-06:00

Due to some strange and funny circumstances, we are looking to hire a part time front office person.

I hate hiring people-- it's such a crap shoot.

Not to mention that I hate doing the interviews.

"So. Tell me about yourself."

Yuck.

It's not going well.

The girl yesterday was about 13 years old and had so much perfume on that, not only did it give me a migraine, but it left our office smelling like teen spirit for hours.

No thanks.

How about I hire this girl? This is what she put on her resume under Honors and Awards:
*Homecoming Court (12th grade)
*Prom Princess (11th grade)
*Stake President's Honors Award
*Most Friendly Girl Award
*State Champions Cheer Squad (9th grade)

Hey, Guys! Hire me! I'm your prom queen!

Seriously.

The scary thing is this: We are working with a human resource agency- all of the resumes went to them. They've had over 50 people apply and they sent me the 6 that they thought were the best.

Prom Queen was one of them.

No wonder the unemployment rate is so high...

GC Weekend

2009-10-02T09:26:00.002-06:00

Short post today, as I am at work and there are a ton of things that I should be doing.

I've been trying to figure out how to make General Conference special for my kids-- as I kind of remember dreading it when I was little.

Here's my plan:

I'm letting them build a tent out of blankets (with the door facing the t.v. :-) like in the Book of Mormon. I let them each pick out one bag of whatever treat they wanted. (Em picked out Dove chocolate-- that's my girl. Mike picked out a big box of Mike & Ike's- more because they have the same name as him than because they are good. Because they are not. Doug picked out one of those Costco sized bags of Skittles. Go Doug!)

I printed out the packet from here http://deseretbook.com/misc/Conference_Packet09.pdf and I'm going to give them each a new box of crayons to use. The packet has bingo, finger puppets, graphs, etc.

That should last me through the first talk.

What do I do for the next 7 1/2 hours?

Falling.

2009-09-30T15:17:00.004-06:00

Did you all enjoy our week and a half of fall? I'm pretty sure that I woke up to winter this morning.

At least we knew that it was coming.

We drove up to the cabin on a whim on Monday night (thanks, KFC) to admire the leaves.

Before the snow.

What the heck?

How beautiful is this?

I decided that I need a new profile picture for facebook, as in my old one I am in a sleeveless bike jersey and it occurred to me that, as I often judge people I haven't seen for a while by what they are wearing, others might think I've gone to the Dark side from my current pic.

My sister, her husband and darling two girls came with us. They are so cute!

Here's my little brood.

I love this view, but unfortunately I had really crappy light. You get the picture.

This is looking out over Tibble Fork Reservoir. It looks like a patchwork quilt.

Yesterday, leaves fall.

Today, snow fall.

Tomorrow, sun, yes?

Wearing Hats

2009-09-27T20:38:00.010-06:00

For many years, if anyone asked me what I did, my only answer would be that I was a wife and mother. I guess you could say that I was a specialist-- kind of like a dermatologist or a podiatrist or something. I did one thing and pretty much that was it.

Quite honestly, when your kids are tiny, you don't really have a choice. When they need you to meet every single need they have, you're lucky just to keep up, let alone to ever get ahead. It was sometimes frustrating, but there's something very fulfilling in being EVERYTHING to three little people.

However, in the past few years, my children have started to figure out how to meet some of their own pressing needs (i.e. I haven't had to wipe anyone's butt for a few years now) and I've found myself with more time. Funny thing, though-- just like they taught me in my high school physics class, nature abhors a vacuum-- meaning that as soon as "free time" is created, there are many things waiting to fill it.

Sometimes I wish that it was as easy to switch gears between all of the things I'm doing as it is to take off one hat and put on another.

On any given day, I could wear my mom hat until the kids go to school in the morning. (It would probably be my tie-dyed do-rag which I put on to keep my hair out of my face when I clean the bathrooms.)

Next, I'd put on my bike helmet (that's a hat, right?) for 45 minutes or so and get a little exercise.

Next, I'd put my work hat on and go into the office. (What hat would I wear at the office? I think that a firefighter helmet might be most appropriate, as I spend most of my time putting out small fires.)
In the afternoon, I'd usually have to put on my Relief Society hat or my PTA /District Community Council hat. The Relief Society hat probably is one of those giant purple things with flowers on it-- you know the ones you see women wearing in old movies when they went out to "make social calls"? The PTA/DCC hat would be one of those frat boy hats with cans on either side and straws coming down. Not beer, though. Just Diet Dr. Pepper.

Come 3:30, I'd switch for a chauffeur hat to take the kids to swimming, piano, sports practice, the dentist, etc.

Around 5:00, I quickly switch for a chef's hat.

At bedtime, I'd switch for the cowboy hat because it feels like herding cattle to get my little brood into their beds at night.

From 9:00 to 10:30, I try to wear all of the hats at once. I have two precious hours to get everything done that didn't get done during the rest of the day. It would be easier if I had more heads to wear the hats-- and more hands to do whatever the heads need done.

Maybe for that time, I ought to put on my awesome Trek cowboy hat that looks totally stupid but makes me happy to wear. It could be the Kim hat-- the one I wear to do whatever the heck I want to do. Read a book, write my blog, paint my toenails-- wouldn't it be cool to have an hour every day to yourself?

Or maybe I ought to order this one-- what do you think?

The Lost Symbol, by Mr. Predictable

2009-09-23T17:02:00.002-06:00

I spent every spare second of last weekend reading Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol. I can descibe it in one word:

Predictable.

It's just like the DaVinci Code. Here's how predictable it is:

Layne read the book the week before I did. I told him when I was about half way through it that I had it all figured out. He thought the same thing, but he said, "There is one pretty big twist at the end."

To which I replied,

"Oh. You mean that _________ is _____________?" (I won't give it away for those of you who still want to read it.)

He laughed and wouldn't confirm or deny, but when the end came, I was right. I was also right about what the lost symbol was and where it was hidden.

Seriously. I could have stopped reading the book with 100 pages left and told you exactly how it would end.

Dan Brown is just too formulaic for me.

The major theme in the book is the Masons (as opposed to his typical rant against the Catholics.) He actually treats them pretty fairly, I thought. Layne said that he heard an interview with Dan Brown where he said he was tempted to become a Mason after researching them, but didn't want to take a vow of secrecy because then he couldn't write his book. (Anyone else find that hypocritical?)

My problem is that Dan Brown is so liberal in his mixture of fact and fiction, that I don't trust a single thing that he listed in the book as fact-- not about the Masons, or about American history.

I don't think that you can even call his books "historical fiction"-- I think he's firmly placed himself in the category of "fantasy."

That being said, if you are going on a trip and need a good airplane/beach read, let me know-- you can borrow my copy. I won't even ask for it back. :-)

Superstar

2009-09-22T20:59:00.003-06:00

Have you seen me on t.v.?

I'm famous.

About a month ago, the guy who did my kitchen called and asked if I'd be in a commercial for him. I didn't want to do it, but Layne reminded me that we ask our patients to give us testimonials all of the time. Reluctantly, I said yes.

These guys moved out all of my chairs and set up tons of lights and cameras. They stuffed a microphone up my shirt, posed me like a Barbie doll in front of my sink, then told me to "act natural."

I don't think you really want me to do that. "Natural" me is a total klutzy nerd.

I made some jokes about valium and beer and stuff-- then realized that I everything I said was being taped.

Man, I'm a brain surgeon.

At least my kitchen was clean.

I kind of forgot about it until Sunday when I was conducting Relief Society. I told all of the sisters that whoever went to the General Relief Society session at the Stake Center was invited to my house for my fantastic hot fudge sundaes after. That's when someone from the back piped up, "Is it a housewarming party for your new kitchen? We saw you on t.v.!"

Great. Conducting makes me nervous already, so bringing up that little fact really made me forget what I was doing.

Valium and beer anyone?

So today, I'm folding clothes, watching the 5:00 news, when Emalee pops up, "Hey, Mom! You're on t.v.!" (Apparently I forgot to tell my kids what I'd done.) The funniest part was that I think that I've seen that commercial before and just not noticed myself. I've developed the strange (but useful) talent of tuning out whatever is on the tube.

Even if it is myself, I guess.

When it comes down to it, I'm really ignorable. You've probably seen me too and just not paid attention.

I'm fairly certain that the camera really does add 10 pounds. Or 20. So, if you do happen to notice my 3.4 seconds of fame, try to take off a few pounds.

And don't mention to me that you saw it.

I'd like to pretend it never happened.

I Lost The Battle. Again.

2009-09-16T21:49:00.002-06:00

Every spring, I get delusions of grandeur. Yard grandeur, that is. I envision beautiful flower gardens, a perfectly manicured lawn, and a garden that will fill my shelves with bottles of food for the winter.

Yeah, right.

I always start out with a bang. I planted the garden. I mowed, edged, trimmed, and weeded. Things looked fantastic.

Until July.

That's the point of the summer where I always just start to fizzle.

Take this year, for example.

My beautiful lawn definitely enjoyed the luxury of regular watering which came with the new sprinkling system. Enjoyed it so much that I had to mow it twice as much as usual. Enjoyed it so much, that it invited a whole bunch of thick, gross weed-friends to come live here too. (I'm not kidding-- these weeds are so thick that they stall out my lawn mower when I go over them.)

Speaking of my lawn mower, I think that dumb thing has had it with summer too.

After losing one of my children as he waded through the grass this morning on the way to school, I decided it was time to mow. When I start up the trusty Ranch King, he starts making a HORRIBLE racket. (Sorry to my neighbors. And to the residents of surrounding states.) Seriously-- this was BAD.

I open up the hood and find that the muffler has detached itself on one side. I get my pink tool set and get to work. Two burned fingers (Dang! That thing's hot!) and a FEW (ahem!) bad words later, I think I have it fixed. I mow the front and half of the back before I hear the bad sound again. This time, come hell or high water, I'm finishing the lawn.

I'm hoping to recover my hearing (and the goodwill of anyone who lives within a 5 mile radius) tomorrow.

I didn't edge.

I didn't blow.

(I did find a heck of a lot of dog poop that was much too small to be from my dog. If it belongs to you, PLEASE come get it.)

As for my garden, it's been disappointing too.

"Big Boy" tomatoes the size of small prunes. (Have to cut 4 of them to make a sandwich.) Earwigs in my corn. 4 tiny pumpkins. Cucumbers that look like feet.

Ahhh, but the good old zucchini. Is there a category for biggest zucchini at the state fair? I have one out there that I may carve into a canoe next week.

I don't like the cold, but I have to say, I am looking forward to a blanket of white to cover my pitiful excuse of a yard.

I surrender.

Again.

Until next April, that is...

Being Peculiar

2009-09-13T21:16:00.003-06:00

I don't know if I've mentioned yet that I've gone back to work.

That could explain in part why my blog posts have been cut pretty drastically. (Probably no one has noticed but me.)

Luckily, my boss is pretty dang awesome and I can work whenever I feel like it. (He has to be nice or I will make him sleep on the couch.)

Anyway, this was a pretty good weekend to choose to go to work, as Layne took the whole office to Las Vegas for some staff training.

For the most part, we repeated what we did in Vegas a couple of months ago (without kids this time). Stayed at the Palazzo. Went to see Blue Man Group and Phantom of the Opera. Ate too much. Saw WAY too much on the Strip.

It was interesting this time because, as my mom works for Layne too, she and my dad (along with our other audiologist Jeana and our other front office tech Sharon) came with us. My mom had never been to Vegas before.

She was dumbfounded. On the night we got there, a drunk guy in the elevator used the "f" word and shocked my mom. She'd never heard that word used in real life before.

I like to think that I've been places. Really, though, when it comes right down to it, the whole Vegas thing dumbfounds me too.

Take last night, for example.

The closing dinner for this convention was at a nightclub called Tao in the Venetian. This is a pretty exclusive club-- people line up for hours to get in. The plan for the group was to have dinner from 7-9 and at 9, it switches over to a nightclub.

I got pretty gussied up for the evening. I wore a red and black dress that comes to my knees (as opposed to my mostly shin length skirts.) I wore black high heels and shaved my legs. I made my hair big and even wore eye shadow AND lipstick.

I asked Layne if I looked too slutty. He said no, but he also looked at me like he hadn't met me before. (Maybe I should wear makeup more often?)

So, we walk into the night club-- Layne and I along with my parents and two other 50+ women and I really had to laugh at myself.

You see, in spite of my best efforts to not stand out, we definitely did.

It could have been that no other woman in the room had sleeves.

It could have been that most skirts hit mid thigh. Maybe.

It could have been that everyone else was taking advantage of the open bar and doing their best to get sloshed before 9:00 pm.

The six of us sat in a corner eating our Kung Pao chicken and drinking our fruit punch (which the waiter brought with a noticable smirk on his face) and looking about as out of place as a rock star would look sitting in sacrament meeting.

This is the stamp they put the inside of my wrist as I walked in.

It looked like a tattoo.

I hated it.

It took me about 10 minutes to realize that:

a. No matter what I picked out of my closet, I would never fit into this crowd.

b. I had absolutely NO desire to fit into this crowd.

c. I would rather be back in my room watching football and enjoying this view from the 34th floor:

We said our thank yous and good-byes, then walked our country-bumpkin selves past the beautiful people who were drinking and gambling and laughing too loudly. We were out of there before 7:30.

Honestly, the whole experience made me thankful for standards and for a sheltered upbringing. When we went to leave this morning, all of those party people looked like death warmed over.

It was so great to fly into the peaceful Salt Lake airport and drive home to my family and kids.

I've decided that, if dressing modestly and not drinking, swearing, or gambling makes me not cool, then so be it.

I'm okay with that. Actually, I'm proud of it.

I've also decided that next time we go to Vegas, I'm not even going to try to blend. I'll just wear my Levi's and BYU sweatshirt and walk around in my Reeboks. If I'm going to be uncomfortable, I might as well be comfortable, right?

The No-Labor Day

2009-09-07T20:25:00.004-06:00

I was born on Labor Day.

I thought for a long time that it was called that because my mom was "in labor" with me. (Kind of like when I was little I thought that the line in "We wish you a Merry Christmas" that says "Good tidings we bring to you and your kin" really said "good tidings we bring to you and your KIM". I know, I know. I was a very self-centered little kid.)

It was a while before I could see the irony of having a day off of work to, well, celebrate work.

I had a few projects that I thought about doing today, but true to Garrett fashion, we decided to play instead.

We went for a 30 mile bike ride.

We hit the REI Labor Day clearance sale. (can't beat $20 Keens!)

And then, we went to the last Salt Lake Bees game of the year.

Layne's dad had 3 tickets for our family to his company's suite. Layne, ever the gentleman, insisted that I stay in the suite and he and Michael got tickets in the seats below us. Here they are:

The suite was awesome. The Bee paid a personal visit to us. He danced with Emalee and they put it on the JumboTron. Here's Doug with the Bee:
We were in the best suite in the stadium-- right next to the announcers, right behind home plate:

This is what a suite looks like inside, in all of its air-conditioned, catered glory. There was a fridge full of drinks. There were gourmet hot dogs and hamburgers. There was a tray full of cookies and brownies. And, yes, there was even a big ole' bowl of peanut M&M's.

Here's the thing about the suite, though-- with my husband and my son sitting below me paying $6 for small drinks and sweating in the hot sun, I couldn't really enjoy my luxurious surroundings. It made me wonder, is this what it would be like if only half of my family made it to the Celestial Kingdom and the other half were somewhere below? How could I really enjoy an endless and eternal supply of M&Ms if I knew that the people I love had to settle for stale churros?

I know it's a silly comparison, but it was definitely a learning moment for me. One of those moments that made me re-commit myself to doing everything in my power to make sure that we ALL end up in the BEST place TOGETHER.

It was a lot of work to get that analogy all put together so nicely.

I guess I did some LABOR after all . . .

Be Here.

2009-09-02T16:10:00.005-06:00

Today is my birthday.

I have now left that survey category for 25-34 year olds. I am now closer to 40 than to 30.

I'm okay with that.

I've been thinking a lot about how my life has changed-- how I thought I'd be so much less busy this year, but I've let myself get even more busy than I was. (I forgot "no" again, dang it!) I thought I was handling it pretty well, but I keep getting this message in my head that tells me that maybe I'm not.

The message is simply "Be Here."

You see, when I'm talking on the phone, I'm also doing laundry, paying bills, or peeing. (C'mon. You know you do it too.) When I'm talking to Layne or the kids, I'm also trying to figure out what to fix for dinner. When I'm blowing my hair, I'm also reading my email.

I guess it means that when it looks like I'm "here", I'm really "here, there, and everywhere."

The news had a story the other day about a study done on multi-taskers and how they were actually less efficient than people who focus exclusively on what they are doing. I think that there's something to that. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and I feel like all that I've done is check things off a list. It seems like I am always looking forward to something else-- even if I'm in the middle of doing one of the things that I was looking forward to!

I've never been a "joy in the journey" kind of person-- I'm always rushing to get wherever I'm going. (Just ask anyone who tries to keep up with me when I'm walking!) I don't know that I will necessarily stop doing that-- some things (like walking and driving slowly :-) still seem like a waste of time to me.

However, my goal for this next year is to really BE wherever it is that I am-- especially when I am with family and friends.

I guess that means I had better stop typing and pretending to listen to my son read.

Some habits die hard. . .

Big Fish and Little Fish

2009-09-01T15:35:00.002-06:00

Sorry in advance.

Another Doug post.

One of Layne's patients is in charge of the fish tanks at Cabela's. He's told us a few times to bring the kids down at feeding time and he'd let them feed the fish. Last Wednesday, we took him up on it.

We were supposed to meet him at 5:45 for the 6:00 feeding, but somehow missed him the first time, so we decided to watch the feeding just like everyone else. It was really interesting to see how the fish knew the food was coming even before they started throwing it in the water.

At first it was just pellets. The kids were fascinated to see how quickly the fish would snap up the pellets as they floated down in the water. That was all fine and good.

Until it was time for the goldfish.

They threw in bunches of goldfish, which the huge trout snapped up even quicker than the pellets. They were so quick, that it took us a moment to even realized what the big fish were eating.

That's when tender-hearted little Dougie started crying his little eyes out and begging for me to make the big fish stop eating the poor little fish.

Mike feeding the fish.

Fish frenzy

Before I could run him out of the observation area, he witnessed one trout swimming around with half a goldfish hanging out of its mouth-- with many other large trout nearly attacking the gluttonous fish because they kept getting glimpses of orange.

It really was brutal.

Our friend came down and found us about then and offered to take the kids up to the tank to let them throw in a few more pellets. The other kids (who thought the fish feeding was awesome) were very excited to go up. Not Doug.

He wants NOTHING more to do with the fish. He burst into tears every time we even walked near the fish tanks from then on.

That right there is one of the reasons that it was so hard for me to send Doug to kindergarten last week.

My funny, crazy baby boy has a kind, tender heart and I'm afraid that school is going to beat that out of him. Dropping him off at school on Thursday-- then walking away without him might have been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

I absolutely understood his crying about big fish eating little fish. To me, he's the little fish entering a really big fish tank. I'd like to keep him in my own little bowl-- for only me to enjoy, but I know that he's destined for bigger oceans than that.

Sometimes it's really hard to be the mom. . .

Why I'm Starting to HATE the Color Orange

2009-08-30T21:36:00.007-06:00

I've always thought it was a myth that bulls get pissed off when they see red. Seriously, how could a color tick you off?

However, I'm starting to empathize with the bulls-- except that my trigger is now the color orange.

Orange has never been my favorite color, it's true. I don't think that I've ever owned a single orange piece of clothing, and I can't imagine using it to decorate my house. I like oranges and orange juice, but I've always wondered why they named a fruit after a color? And, orange is one of the few words in the English language that you just can't use in a poem because NOTHING rhymes with it.

My negative feelings toward orange began when I got married and my husband went hunting with his brothers. Not only did he get to leave to play all weekend, but then he came home and dumped his orange-covered hunting crap in the entry way. My dad used to do that too. Must be a primal thing.

Man hunt. Then take shower and nap.

Woman clean up the crap.

All that being said, my reasons for HATING orange have nothing to do with any of that. I hate orange for one reason:

Road Construction.

I don't know how the karma has gotten so misaligned this summer, but between the American Fork Irrigation Fiasco, UDOT's SR-92 projects, the AF trails project and regular old road repair, I swear that EVERY road that goes ANYWHERE from my house has been under construction.

I'm getting to the point where my blood pressure rises when I see so much as an orange cone on the side of the road. The flourescent orange paint that they use to spray-paint the road before they dig it up makes me shake. And, when I see one of these:

I want to go CRAZY.

Orange is REALLY messing up my cycling. I have about 5 standard 10-16 mile rides that I do regularly. Last week, 4 of the 5 were impossible to ride due to orange.

Nothing ticks me off more than waiting forever in a line of cars because they've closed a road down to one lane of traffic-- and when you finally pass the area where the work is being done, you see maybe one guy dinking around with a shovel while 4 or 5 others are smoking cigarettes on the curb.

All of them, of course, are wearing ORANGE vests. Their orange vests make me see red.

Can you feel my pain? It's no wonder to me that they make prisoners wear orange jump suits.

It's part of their punishment.

Hard Stuff

2009-08-29T21:06:00.005-06:00

I don't live on a farm.

Granted, sometimes it could pass for a zoo. And, according to my dad's old saying, my children obviously think that they live in a barn because they are always leaving open the doors.

Be that as it may, there aren't a lot of opportunities for my kids to learn to do hard things. Not like when I was young. :-)

I remember my parents put in the yard of our house. As they chose to live in the rock farm which is called Highland, I remember picking up TRUCKFULS of rocks before we could plant the grass.

My grandparents also owned a fruit farm, so we carried TONS AND TONS of peaches from the pickers to the sorters. We weeded flower and vegetable gardens. We planted and harvested acres of corn.

Now that I think about it, we were virtual slaves! :-)

But, we learned to work.

Like I said before, though, I don't have a farm. So, we've had to come up with other ways to teach our kids to do hard things. Coincidentally, we found a way that we could teach them this lesson AND ride our bikes at the same time.

It's a talent, I know.

Mike told us a while ago that he wanted to do a 20 mile ride this summer. We found one called the Jared Hess Cancer Foundation ride. They closed down the Legacy Highway for the morning for a 20 mile out and back ride-- perfect for kids.

This is us at the start of the ride-- in all of our Lycra-clad glory:
Here is Emalee. We expected her to struggle a little bit, but she surprised us and led us out nearly the entire race (once she warmed up up after a couple of miles!)
Here's Doug-- he rides on a tandem attached to the back of my bike. He and I ride together quite a bit. (Well, we did before I had to send him to kindergarten last Thursday. I'll have to post about that trauma (for me, not him) one of these days...)

Here's our little Michael with his chicken legs that are so scrawny that his spandex bike shorts are actually BAGGY on him:

Poor Michael-- he struggled. Before we were even 8 miles in, he was already having a hard time. At one point, he started crying and I asked him if he wanted to quit. He said no. I thought about trying to bribe him with a new video game or something, but that "be a good parent" voice in my head told me that he needed to push through this on his own, just for the satisfaction of finishing. I prayed for him, distracted him by talking with him for miles and miles about what Wii games he'd like for Christmas, and finally we got him to the end.

Here's Doug with his medal. I love riding with him-- he's such a cutie! They were running a half marathon at the same time, and Doug would yell to all of the runners we passed (who all looked miserable, by the way) "Good Job!" or "Way to go!" If he saw cyclists stopped on the side of the road, he'd yell and ask them if they were okay. He's such a good kid.

Here's Michael with his medal. When you figure in entry fees, gas, dinner and hotel for last night, etc..., this little goal of Mikes probably cost us $300 or so-- but every cent was worth it. I don't know how else you could give a 7 year old such a sense of accomplishment. I was so proud of him for sticking it out!

Here's my daughter-- who I decided rides just like me. She doesn't like to ride behind anyone. She will kill herself to keep her brother from passing her. She speeds up when she sees a "Wabbit" in front of her. I'm super-proud of her too.

You never know if the lessons you try to teach your kids really sink in. I know that our kids will have to do hard things in their lives-- probably much harder than the things that I've faced in mine. I can only hope that experiences like today will get them through.

And if not, at least we had fun, right?

You Know You're Done When...

2009-08-26T16:31:00.003-06:00

My mother announced to me out of the blue the other day that she thought that I should have another baby.

I had no response to that.

Well, other than that word that I learned a few months ago-- remember? However, I didn't say, "Hell no!", I just said, "No, thank you."

She is my mother.

But it got me thinking again-- how can I be so sure that I'm finished? I've come up with a few good reasons:

1. I was late once this summer and, instead of feeling that little flutter of "could it be?" I felt what I can only describe as holy terror.

2. In a week or so, I MIGHT be turning 35. This is the age where you are considered "High Risk" and they have to do amniocentesis to make sure that your baby doesn't have two heads and stuff. I've heard that this "amnio" test thing hurts really bad. Hence, I must avoid it.

3. Speaking of pain... they say that you are ready to have another one when you forget the pain of the last one-- it's the body's natural way to encourage procreation. I haven't forgotten-- must not be ready.

4. In reference to the getting old thing, I must say that I need sleep more than I ever did before. If I had a baby, it would leave us with three options:

I get up with the baby, live on very little sleep and one day snap and kill everyone around me.
Layne gets up with the baby, hates me for it and eventually leaves me for some hot chick who refuses to have children all together.
Emalee gets up with the baby, flunks school because she falls asleep all of the time, and grows up to work at McDonalds with all of the Mexicans, where she meets Jose' and all of my grandchildren end up speaking Spanish.

5. As we are self-employed and have no maternity insurance, having a baby would cost us like $15,000. We might as well adopt a two year old and save ourselves the baby stage. I saw these beautiful kids from Chile' the other day-- how do I get one of those?

6. I've gotten really used to carrying a purse and not a diaper bag-- I don't think that I could ever go back.

7. I turned the nursery into an exercise room.

8. Speaking of exercise, I worked REALLY hard to lose 3 babies worth of weight-- I CAN'T go there again!

So, in spite of the fact that, when Dennis Smith painted our picture, he mysteriously added a 4th child into it, I have to say I'm done.

This is me with the extra child. It's not mine. It's one of the neighbor kids that are always at my house. Or maybe it's my niece Olivia-- she could come live with me any day.

Either way, I'm sorry, Mom, but I'm afraid that you're only getting three out of me.

Unless I can figure out how to adopt one of those cute little Chileans...

What Goes On In Doug's Head?

2009-08-24T16:20:00.002-06:00

I know, I'm always posting about Doug. If you lived with a five year old as interesting as this kid, you would too.

Two funny things he's said in the last few days:

First. Doug has been telling me thanks for everything lately. "Thanks for fixing me my favorite cereal, Mommy." "Thanks for letting me have zucchini casserole for dinner, Mom." (What? I know-- just one other way Doug is wonderful-- he LOVES vegetables.)

We're driving along and I tell him, "Thanks for noticing all of the things I do for you and telling me thanks, Doug. I like that."

Doug replies, "I was wondering how long it would take you to notice that I've improved."

Second. This will embarrass him if he ever reads this. He wet the bed last night. I was thinking that it was some deep psychological reaction to kindergarten or something. When I asked him in the morning what had happened, he told me that he'd had a dream that he was in a swimming pool and he really had to pee. (That was probably due to the huge drink he had before bed.) He got out and went to the bathroom-- and then woke up wet.

I laughed and told him that happens sometimes. He says,

"Dream-Doug is luckier than me."

Me: "Why is that, Doug?"
Doug: "Because he made it to the toilet."

I laughed so hard that I almost didn't make it there myself.

How in the world am I supposed to share this kid with school for half a day?

This Story May Be True

2009-08-22T22:06:00.005-06:00

Once upon a time there was a queen who lived in a house on a quiet cul-de-sac. The queen was the mother of two princes and a princess.

While the king went to work every day ruling the kingdom and helping deaf and dizzy people and such, the queen spent her time battling her most fearsome foe-- Mess. Armed with a broom and a dust cloth, the Queen bravely fought day by day to overcome her mortal enemy.

Some days were better than others.

On one day, (we could call it last Monday), she planned a vicious attack in Mess's strongholds-- the children's rooms. It was an epic battle-- and the fate of the queen hung in the balance for a time, but finally she was victorious. At the end of the day, the rooms were clean and she was left with 6 bags of trash and 6 bags of items which she quickly took to Ye Olde Deseret Industries-- before Mess had the chance to reconquer the items and reclaim his territory.

She was tired, but proud of herself.

Until that night.

When it was time for Small Prince to go to bed, he suddenly noticed that something was missing from his bedroom. Out of all of the items that had fallen victim to the Great War, he noticed the absence of one red fury monster (we'll call it Elmo) that used to do the Hokey Pokey. This Elmo had belonged to his sister and had been in the Small Prince's room for a few years-- residing mostly under the bed. The queen had never seen her son play with the toy, and hence did not expect this reaction.

The small prince figured out quickly that his mother, the queen, had taken Elmo to the D.I. (Something similar MAY have happened before.) She tried to comfort him-- figuring that, if she could get him to go to sleep, he'd forget about it by morning.

She was wrong.

Throughout the next day, she often found the small prince with a sad look on his face. (Small Prince is very good at making sad faces.)

Small Prince missed Elmo terribly and began to experience what the queen could only assume was the stages of grief. Panicking and feeling guilty, as any mother would, she decided to mount a recovery operation.

She and the small prince went to the D.I. to search for the lost toy. She gave the expedition a snowflake's chance in hell, but as some say that hell may be made of ice, she thought they'd try.

Elmo was not to be found on any of the shelves. (Other very strange things were there, but we'll save that for another story.) The queen asked to see the manager of the store. She explained her predicament. He was not terribly helpful. In fact, he seemed to mock her for even thinking that perhaps she could recover the toy. He did, however, offer to take her name and number and "call if it turns up."

The queen tried to distract her son by taking him to a store to find another toy. Small Prince, being very wise for a five year old, saw through this ploy quickly. When they could not find another Hokey Pokey Elmo (apparently they stopped making those a while ago), Small Prince looked up at his mother and said,

"You see mom? Wouldn't it have been better if you would have listened to me and not taken my stuff to the D.I.? You would have saved yourself all of this trouble." Well, really it sounded more like "twubble", because Small Prince still can't say his "r"s and his mother thinks it's cute and doesn't really want him to learn yet.

She took his hand and told him how sorry she was and how everybody makes mistakes. Small Prince looked up at the queen and said, "Yeah, even moms. Sometimes they make wee-lly (really) big ones."

The queen thought this might be a teaching moment, so she tried to explain to Small Prince how when we are really sad, we can pray and Heavenly Father can help us to feel better in our hearts. Small Prince looked at his mother and said, "My heart is too torn up for that."

The queen didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She took the small prince home and, as penance for her crimes, played video games with him for a very long hour and a half.

The queen formulated a plan. As there may be spies out to get her secrets, she will only mention that she is searching for Hokey Pokey Elmo on ebay. Wish her luck.

Meanwhile, Small Prince keeps hoping that the nice man at Ye Olde D.I. will call to say he found Elmo. He is trying to forgive his mother. In fact, Small Prince even let his mother rock him to sleep tonight-- something which he hasn't done for years.

Small Prince is growing up. He starts kindergarten this week. The queen knows that he is ready, but she thinks that she is not. She is not ready to be the Queen-Whose-Children-All-Go-To-School yet (even if it means that she can ride her bike more often.)

This could be a rough week for the queen...

My Better Half

2009-08-20T21:30:00.003-06:00

Last Friday was Layne's birthday. For a few years now, Layne has let the kids decide what to do for his special day-- and some of their choices really have been "special". (I'm sure that every guy wants to spend his 35th birthday at the Children's Discovery Museum?)

This year was no different-- the kids helped us to plan a camping trip to Bryce. He got to eat PB&J for lunch and cook his own dinner on a camp stove. What a party.

We've been so busy all week, that I haven't had a chance to make a bigger deal of his birthday than that. He hasn't seemed to care, though-- Layne is that kind of guy.

Layne and I are the poster children for late 90's couples. We actually met on the internet in a chat room. I was goofing off at work and he was pretending to do homework for graduate school. We talked for a couple of weeks, then after much flirting on my part (seriously, was this guy ever going to ask me out?) we finally went on a date.

He picked me up driving his Infiniti G20 (that was impressive), wearing a pink shirt (not as impressive.) He took me to dinner and then to a haunted house. (How was he to know that I really hate those places?) This is the one scene I would most like to see replayed from my life when I get to heaven-- he swears I grabbed his hand, and I'm certain that he grabbed mine. Either way, we were holding hands when we came out.

He didn't want to take me home yet, so we drove up to Salt Lake and went on a carriage ride around the city. Who does that? We just talked and talked and by the time he took me home, I was fairly certain that I was going to marry this guy-- in spite of the fact that he admitted to watching rated R movies which offended my newly returned-missionary sensibilities.

When he took me to the door step, I figured (as he had already grabbed my hand and all:-) that he might kiss me goodnight. Instead he just said, "That was fun. We'll have to do it again sometime." And away he went.

Talk about a brush off! Every girl knows that really means "You'll never see me again."

However, two nights later, as I am sitting playing Rook with my family, the phone rings, my crazy brother-in-law Jared answers it, and a guy on the other end says, "Hi. Is Jill there?" Unfortunately for Layne, we had caller i.d. and I knew that it was him. He's taken a lot of crap over the years for forgetting my name.

However, he came over that night and played games with my family-- he stayed and even seemed to have fun in spite of my family's quirks and insanities. (Jared, did you really have to burp and blow in front of my new friend?)

And, in spite of continually discovering my own quirks and insanities, we were engaged 6 weeks later, married 10 weeks after that, and now we've been married for 11 and 1/2 years.

Layne is such an incredible husband and father. He's changed half of the diapers, cleaned up at least half of the barf and he even does the dishes on most nights. He's never surprised by anything I do-- he thinks that I can do anything (and how could you fail when someone believes in you like that?) He is freakishly smart, plays romantic songs for me on the piano, and have you seen his calves? Michaelangelo could have used him for a leg model.

One of my favorite things is to run into Layne's patients when we're at the movies or the store and for them to tell me what a wonderful doctor he is and how much he has helped them. I am so proud to be married to a man like that.

So, I'm sorry to you all for the mushy post-- I promise to wait a good long while before I do this again, but every once in a while, you have to break down and give the world a diabetic coma, you know?

Happy Late Birthday, Honey. I love your guts.

Is It Over Yet?

2009-08-19T20:24:00.004-06:00

Getting ready to go back to school has not gone as smoothly (or as quickly) as I would have liked. Yesterday was not a good day. Everyone wanted to do something different and as a consequence, we didn't really do anything and everyone was grumpy. (Have you ever had that day where nothing you do makes anyone happy, so you might as well do whatever the heck you want? That was me.)

To top it off, Doug got bitten by a hornet at the school playground. Within an hour, his hand looked like this:

He called it "balloon hand" and thought it was funny. I was worried about it, as it actually got about twice as big as this photo at one point and I didn't sleep well thinking about it. When we got up in the morning, it was huge, so I took him to the doctor where we discovered that the bug bite had turned into cellulitis. (Which is NOT the same thing as cellulite, but both make you look fat. :-)

Doug is now on a course of steroids, Benedryl, and antibiotics with instructions that, if he's not better by Friday, I have to bring him back for I.V. antibiotics.

My bigger concern is that Doug may never play on the playground again. This could make for a rough 7 years of recess. Not to mention the fact that his hand is too swollen to hold a spoon, let alone a pencil and his kindergarten assessment is Friday. His teacher is going to think that either I've been a total slacker mom or that Doug is retarded.

No, Mrs. Hurst, Doug doesn't need resource. Just more Bendryl.

I tried to make today better, but with all of the doctor's appointments and running around to get prescriptions, my best laid plans were, well, laid aside. I totally skipped the PTA teacher's luncheon (good thing I wasn't in charge of it this year!) and my kids were seriously ticked off because they missed a good chunk of their slip-n-slide party.

I think they were lucky to get there at all. Here's Mike and Balloon Hand racing down the hill:

Here's Emalee sliding down in the swimsuit that's just about worn out it's welcome this summer:

Just to cement my "Mom of the Day" award, I took the kids to the pool for the afternoon. Have you noticed that the pool is NOT as much fun as it used to be since you became a mother?

I have.

Em and Mike had fun, but I think that Doug's Cellulitis Cocktail made him a little loopy. He was happy to sit and eat Doritos.

Yes, he is my son.

It is now 8:30 pm and my kids are in bed and I am experiencing peace for the first time in 3 months. Sure, I'm going to have to start getting up early, but I think it's worth the trade...

House of Order

2009-08-17T19:15:00.003-06:00

Monday is my "scrub day". I think that it's the masochistic side of me that says, "it already sucks that the weekend is over-- let's make it even worse by scrubbing the house and doing laundry Monday morning!" Actually, it's not really a choice. Every Monday morning, my house has a hangover that must be addressed.

And so, when I woke up today, out came the Ajax.

The downstairs went pretty well and I was happy to have at least part of my house in order.

Until I went upstairs.

And I made my grand mistake.

I went into the kids' rooms to put away their new school clothes, but there was no room to put them. So I started to clean out their dressers. Which lead to cleaning their closets. Which lead to under their beds. Have you ever done that? Half way into the project you start to wonder if it wouldn't be better to just move.

Four hours later, I had 6 trashbags full of trash and 6 trashbags full of stuff to take to the D.I. (which I did quickly before anyone could whine about missing stuff.) I also have two perfectly clean kids' rooms.

I told the kids they will have to sleep somewhere else because those clean rooms are now art to me and you don't sleep in art, do you?

I did find some funny things in those rooms, I have to say. Things like:

*a molar with a filling in it (did the Toothfairy drop it on the way out?)
*water balloons-- fully inflated
*the missing pair of church socks for which I have been searching for months
*2,504 Nerf darts (okay, maybe not quite that many, but there were definitely more than there should have been!)
*petrified pizza crust (shouldn't that belong in a museum?)
*Hannah Montana everything. Which I am now going to have to confiscate because of her risque' performance last week.

I've already had to apologize to Doug for sending Hokey Pokey Elmo to the D.I.

Just wait until the little pack rat figures out what else is missing.

Coming Around Again...

2009-08-16T16:55:00.005-06:00

Have you ever had the chance to take your children on a trip that you went on as a child?

My mom worked really hard to always make sure that we had some kind of family vacation in the summer. My favorite memories of my childhood are mostly from those trips. We've tried to do the same thing with our kids.

This weekend, we took our kids down to Bryce Canyon National Park. I remember going down to Southern Utah and hitting Zion's, Bryce, Grand Canyon, and Canyonlands one year as a child. We weren't that ambitious, though-- we only hit Bryce.

Confession time--Layne and I realized this summer that we have never taken our kids camping. Sure, we've gone on lots of trips, and we've even bought tents, sleeping bags, camp stoves, lanterns, etc., but we've never even gotten some of them out of their boxes.

Until this weekend.

Quite honestly, we had a great trip. I never realized how much work it was for my parents when I was a kid-- until I became the parent and my dad wasn't there to do the cooking and my mom wasn't there to buy the groceries and pack and keep things clean.

I do have to admit we cheated a little-- we stayed in a tipi that was already in place. There were flushing toilets and showers and even a pool. But, you've got to start somewhere, right?

Tipi, Sweet Tipi

Down into the Canyon. Which isn't really and canyon. (No stream in the middle.)

The Kids and I at Rainbow Point

Bet you wish you had my hat.

Emalee was pooped after 5 miles of hiking.

Happy Birthday to Layne. (I love you, Honey!)

Breakfast in the morning (That was always my favorite part of camping when I was little. Not as much fun now that I'm grown up and Dad wasn't around to cook.)

Going down Navajo Trail into the canyon. (Again, not really a canyon.)

Wall Street slot canyon. Em hated the heights getting there and I hated the walls once we were down.

Doug and Layne.

Weird things about Bryce-- everyone we ran into was German. I don't know what the draw is, but English was definitely in the minority. They even brought their own buses to sleep in-- European plates and all. I didn't appreciate them smoking in the jacuzzi, but other than that, it wasn't a big deal.

We had a great time-- it went way too fast. There was no cell service, so we actually went without phone, email, etc. for a whole weekend. Just what we needed.

Layne and I both found ourselves wondering why we don't do stuff like that more often. Now, we're going to start planning small weekend trips to Zion's, Canyonlands, Arches, etc...

Who's in?

This Bugs!

2009-08-13T17:38:00.006-06:00

My boys came running in from their grandma's house yesterday and told me that they found something scary in the backyard. I ignored them for a few minutes, then I decided to follow them. This is what they found:
They were totally disgusted and I thought that my mother-in-law was going to puke. I picked it up to take its picture.

It reminded me of the good old days as a missionary in Brazil. I remember one night in a new apartment (that is a generous description-- it was more like a cement shack) when I awoke to a strange sound. I went to investigate (my first mistake) and found the source in the bathroom. I turned on the light (my second mistake) and the floor was moving. Hundreds of roaches about this size were crawling up from the shower drain and onto the bathroom tile. The strange sounding was the clicking of their grody little feet.

My options were either to scream or to go to bed and to pretend I didn't see any of it.

I chose number 2 and slept with my pillow over my head for the rest of my 3 month stay.

Good times...

Reviews

2009-08-11T21:52:00.002-06:00

I've been a blog-slacker for the last few weeks. I could give all kinds of excuses, but instead I'm just going to call it summer vacation. I have been seeing a few movies, watching tv and reading a few books, though-- so I thought I'd share a few thoughts.

Book List:

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières This book is a World War II book written about the role of a Greek Island during the war. I loved that this book "had it all"-- love, humor, great characters, drama, irony, tragedy, and history. I was getting mad at the end because I thought I'd been duped into reading another one of those books that just ends badly, but it was saved in the end. There is a little bad language in the book-- but it's more contextual than gratuitous. I'd recommend it, as long as you don't mind a couple of "f" bombs.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I checked this one out because it was on the "if you liked Captain Corelli's Mandolin, then you'll also like...." list. But they were wrong. I can't give you a full review on this one, as I couldn't make myself finish the book, but they are definitely not in the same class. I think that the story had potential, but the writing is so disjointed that you can barely find the story for all of the extraneous words. It's a dud.

Movie List

Knowing with Nicolas Cage (on DVD). What a bummer. I like Nicolas Cage and the first of the movie was dramatic and had chills running up and down my spine-- I really thought it had potential. Half way through, though, I started to see that there was no good way for this movie to end and it was like watching a train wreck. At the end of it, I sat there in disbelief thinking, "really? This was the best you could do?" The special effects during the last 10 minutes were totally cool-- especially on Blu-Ray with surround sound, but overall, I'd like those 2 hours of my life back.

TV

Man vs. Food Have you seen this show? It's disgusting and awesome at the same time. This guy travels around and visits local restaurants in big cities-- usually culminating in some food challenge (eat the 72 oz. steak and get your picture on the wall, etc.) My boys love this show-- Layne included.

The last episode, they showed a 3 1/2 foot diameter pizza that weighed over 30 pounds. It looked so good, that my boys almost had me talked into calling Pizza Hut for a 9:00 pm delivery. For the challenge, he had to eat a burger covered in ghost chilis-- the hottest chilis known to man. You shouldn't eat anything that you have to wear surgical gloves to touch. Bad in, bad out, if you know what I mean.

With school starting up in a week, I'm hoping to maybe have a little more time to do more quality blogging.

Who am I kidding?

I'll probably just spend more time on my bike.

As soon as my butt stops hurting from the last ride, that is...

Never Again.

2009-08-08T21:39:00.002-06:00

At the start. Who knew what was ahead?
At lunch. Still able to smile

113.2 miles.

50 of them in headwinds of 14 mph with gusts up to 33 mph.

Not enough food.

Pure Hell.

Never Again.

(P.S. At least all 6 of us finished-- way to go, Team!)

Holy Terror, Holy Grail

2009-08-05T09:47:00.003-06:00

Have you ever been so scared of something that every time you think about it, your stomach turns?

That's me and my bike race/ride this Saturday-- most appropriately named the ULCER. (Utah Lake Century Epic Ride) Appropriately named because the closer it gets, the more certain I am that I'm getting one. (an ulcer, that is.)

This ride is 111 miles long. It starts at Thanksgiving Point and goes all the way around Utah Lake and back.

I've tried this ride before and only succeeded in 70 miles of it. Both times before it was 100 degrees or more by the end and I felt like death on a stick. (or on a bike seat, if you prefer, which quite honestly often feels like not much more than a stick.)

I've done two centuries this summer already-- you'd think I'd just be happy with that, but for some reason, this particular ride is my Holy Grail.

A "metric century" is a 100 kilometer ride. A "century" is a 100 mile ride. And an "epic century" is a ride that is over 110 miles.

Why the different name, you ask? 10 more miles is nothing, right? Wrong.

There is a mental shut down that happens when I hit 100 miles. The hardest miles I've ever ridden are from 100 to 104 to the end of the Tour de Cure course. I don't know the psychology behind it-- and I'm not even sure that it's not unique to just me, but I do know that when we hit 102 miles on the Salt Lake Century and realized that we'd made a wrong turn and had to go another mile or so, I could have fallen off my bike and cried.

So, I guess what I'm really scared of on Saturday is those extra 11 miles.

You'd think after doing so many of these, it wouldn't be such a big deal. However, it's like childbirth. I was much more terrified with each child because I knew more and more what I was getting into.

Luckily, the weatherman says we should only be in the low 80s-- which will make things much more comfortable. (on a bike? I think maybe tolerable would be a better word.) And, we're riding on a team with a bunch of friends, (the team is aptly named "We Could Go All the Way"-- thanks Cal!) so that should be fun as well.

I know it will be good and I'll feel relieved to finally have this monkey off my back, but Dang! I wish it was over...

Swine Volitation

2009-08-03T16:42:00.008-06:00

I went on a bike ride early Saturday morning and this is what I saw:
Here is the close-up:

Yes, my friends, that IS a flying pig.

And that means that for some things I swore I would never do, I now have license.

For instance:

My grandma always kept her scriptures in a drawer in the bathroom-- right across from the toilet. I always found that offensive somehow-- perhaps even a little sacrilegious. One of the things I swore I'd never do.

However, with the event of flying pigs, I have moved my triple combination into my water closet (adding a little British lingo) and have had a few good moments with my scriptures. As with most things my grandma did, I am finding it a very efficient use of my time.

Also, since the swine volitation (don't you love that word? I'll link you to the definition, if you missed that day in English class) I have decided to try a few other things I had sworn not to do. Things like making peach cobbler for dinner and eating leftover pizza for breakfast. (That one is still yucky.)

Perhaps now that pigs are flying I will learn to like country music (I doubt it) or eat fish or plan a trip to China. These are all things I have shunned in the past, but you never know.

Perhaps a flying pig isn't enough to overcome some barriers.

Maybe I'll watch the weather forecast to see if hell is freezing over any time soon.

Working Against Me

2009-07-28T20:17:00.007-06:00

We all know that my language could use a good scrubbing. There are a few 3, 4, and 5 letter words that should be expunged from my vocabulary.

When I say this, I feel like I am talking about starting to smoke or something, but I started swearing about the age of 17. All the cool kids were doing it... at least all of the cool debate nerds that I hung out with. (Is there such a thing?) It made me feel grown up.

As I've gotten older, though, I find that the swearing is not about being cool so much as it is about being accurate. I know, it shows a lack of intelligence on my part, but I've never come across any words that make my point like swear words.

But I'm going to have to.

I tell you, it's like drinking. For a long time, I tried to hide it from my children, but I think that I must be slipping. Trust Doug to point that out to me. The other night as he was praying, he said, "and please bless that NO ONE in our family will say any more bad words."

No one means me.

So, I've been trying.

But life is working against me.

Take today, for example. I went for a ride with Jedi Joy. We had a great time. We went 26.5 miles and had 1/2 mile to go. We're riding along, when some _____ _____ on his cell phone goes to cross the road right in front of us. We both pull our brakes and he finally sees us. The moron freaks out and stops in the middle of the road-- still on his phone-- only feet away from us. He is just stopped there for a second right in front of us and we can't figure out whether to go in front of him or behind. He waves us through, then thinks better of his position (being stopped in the middle of a busy road and all) and steps on the gas anyway, nearly mowing us over again.

Who wouldn't call the guy a dumb ass?

Later on in the day, as I am cutting up canteloupe with my awesome new knife, I slice my finger. This knife is so sharp and the cut is so clean that it doesn't hurt at all, but by the way blood started spurting out, I knew I was in trouble.

Out slips the s-word-- right in front of Emalee. She just looked at me sweetly as she was getting me a band-aid and cleaning up the blood on the counter and says, "Don't worry, Mom. I probably would have sworn too."

Ouch.

She did say something that made me laugh. She said that she heard her grandpa (my dad) say that word when they had all of the grandkids at the cabin last week. She said they were all fighting a little and my dad told them they were being little "s----s."

Like father, like daughter, I suppose.

Viva Le Tour!

2009-07-28T15:49:00.002-06:00

The Tour de France has been over for 2 days now and I am in withdrawal.

Lance didn't win-- exactly. He did get third though-- not too shabby for a 38 year old who's been out of the sport for 4 years. (Seriously-- they showed pictures of him watching the Tour from home last year drinking beer with a little pot belly.) Way to go, Lance.

Watching the world's best cyclists is inspiring. And then discouraging. Why? Because you'd think that riding a bike is riding a bike. When you watch basketball or football or gymnastics, you see the athletes do seemingly inhuman actions and realize that they are special people born with certain talents and characteristics. But, riding a bike seems like something that everyone should be able to do, right?

Wrong. The riders in the Tour de France ride 100 plus miles everyday for 23 days, with 2 rest days in between. They cover over 3000 miles. They climb thousands and thousands of feet. They ride up hills that are 8-12% grade (think Suncrest) at 18 miles per hour. That's a pretty dang good average for me on a flat road, let alone on an incline!

I can't imagine the suffering these guys can handle to put themselves through that kind of ordeal. I rode up to the windmills by the point of the mountain the other day without stopping on the steep part and was pretty dang proud of myself-- even though I was sucking wind and seeing stars for 2 minutes when I got to the top-- and that was only a quarter mile climb!

My point is that, just like running, even though riding a bike is something that nearly everyone can do, there are definitely some people who do it on a level that is incomprehensibly better than most of us.

Maybe that's why I just spent the better part of a month watching them do it. Some people find God in music, art or nature. I see Him in the beauty of watching His most wonderful creations in an impossibly long, difficult, and supremely graceful feat of endurance.

How long until next July?

Why Not to Ride Your Bike in 100 Degree Weather

2009-07-23T17:39:00.004-06:00

I had every intention of getting up today at 6:30 and going for a ride. I really did. I even made plans with Jedi Joy to meet at 7:00. However, when 6:30 came around and the alarm sounded, Layne rolled over and put his arm around me and wouldn't let me up.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I dragged my butt out of bed somewhere closer to 8:30 and decided that I'd better do the yardwork before I did anything else. (It is Thursday, after all. Me and my schedule.) The kids were moderately helpful and we had the mowing, weeding, edging and blowing done by 10:45. (Ok. The edging wasn't all the way done, but it's not my fault. The battery went dead.)

I really wanted to put in some miles today, and, as I am still trying to get ready for the 111 mile around-Utah-Lake ride (ULCER) in two weeks, I figured riding in the sun might be good practice.

So off I went.

I didn't have much time, so I decided to make the most of it and ride up to Alpine and back as fast as I could.

Probably not a good idea in 94 degree weather. By the top of golf course road, I was seriously sweating and my heart was pounding. I noticed that, unlike when I ride in the morning, there were very few other cyclists on the road.

All smarter than me.

I got to Alpine in good time and turned around to find a nasty surprise. Apparently, I had a tailwind the whole way up that I hadn't noticed. Going the other direction, the tailwind turned into a hot, nasty, dry-out-your-lungs kind of headwind.

The real bummer about that is that the whole reason I like climbing into Alpine is that it means I get to descend fast on the way down. Not so with a head wind. That makes the downhill at least as hard as the uphill.

I knew it was getting hot, but didn't realize just HOW hot until I stopped at the four corners in Highland. Standing still there in the hot sun waiting for the light to change, I could feel a river of sweat running down my back. I grabbed my waterbottle and squirted a bunch of it down my neck-- much to the delight of a crew of Mexicans in a nearby car. You're welcome, boys.

I started feeling a little sick about a mile or two from home. I was ever so grateful to turn down the street to my house. I parked my bike and stumbled into the house, where my kids told me I looked like a tomato face. All I could do was lay spread eagle on the floor under the ceiling fan.

When I stopped seeing stars, I climbed into a cold shower-- which felt good for a minute, but did little good, as I was still sweating when I got out. My face stayed red for 3 hours and my head still hasn't stopped throbbing.

Today's ride leads me to two conclusions-- first, no more 11:00 killer rides to Alpine. And, second, I am in REAL trouble for the ULCER in two weeks. If 12 miles in 94 degree weather almost killed me, I think that I'm screwed for 111 miles in the 100 degrees we'll probably have then.

I don't think that I'm ever going to accomplish that goal...

Did You Ever Have That Dream?

2009-07-22T15:53:00.003-06:00

Do you ever feel like you're living in a dream?

Not the really good kind where you wear a size 4 swimsuit and you live in a mansion.

I mean the kind of dream where you're back in high school and you can't remember your locker combination or if it's "A" day or "B" day.

Oh. And you forgot to wear pants.

I've been having that feeling for the last few days. The only reason I can figure out is that with the end of PTA and Tour de Donut, I have nothing to do.

I haven't had that luxury for a very long time. For well over a year, every time I've sat down, I've thought to myself, is it worth sitting down when I have ___________ and ____________ and ______________ that need to be done? That's actually the reason I ended up with a laptop computer-- so that I could sit in the family room with Layne and work on whatever project needed doing.

Now, I look at my calendar during the day and actually see white space and, quite surprisingly, I don't know what to do with it! I get in such a quagmire of indecision (should I read a book, clean something, call someone, work in the yard?) that I don't really do anything.

I go to bed wondering what the heck I did with my day?

I'm glad there's only one more month of summer vacation. I'm ready for something new to do. The danger is that I'll get so bored with all of this nothing, that I'll unlearn my "no!" word and start saying yes-- just to have something to do!

I'll never learn.

State of Grace

2009-07-17T21:46:00.002-06:00

I've been watching my kids in varying stages of learning to swim this week. Like I mentioned before, they've had a really good teacher and they made much more progress in a week than I expected.

Their teacher is an interesting woman. Short hair, deep voice, short, muscular build-- not what you'd call feminine or svelt. But, put her in the water and it's a different story.

She turns into a mermaid. It is beautiful to watch her swim. She is so fluid and graceful-- it's more like a dance than a sport.

Making that observation this week gives me the answer to a question I've asked all my life. Why can't I swim?

Because I am not graceful. And, apparently, grace is what keeps the water from going up your nose and making you cough. Grace is what makes your kicks actually propel your body and not just splash everyone around you. And grace is what makes a backstroke look like an efficient windmill and not a drowning rat.

Dictionary.com defines grace as "elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion or action." I don't know what the opposite of graceful is, but me running, swimming, walking or even breathing is probably posted right by that word.

I remember meeting my kindergarten teacher right before school started-- you know, in the old days where they didn't test your alphabet and reading skills, but instead tested your colors and if you could walk on a very short balance beam? I couldn't do it and I remember my mom and my teacher trying not to laugh at my efforts.

Oh, the scars. :-)

It's never been a big deal-- I've learned to entertain others with my klutziness.

But today, watching that dolphin-lady dance in the water, I realized that she is one of the lucky residents of the state of grace.

And that's a place I just can't seem to find on my map.

Why I Want Lance Armstrong to Win the Tour de France

2009-07-15T20:18:00.003-06:00

I can't say that I am a huge Lance Armstrong fan.

I admire what he's done for cancer research.

I am in awe of his 7 Tour de France wins.

After reading his autobiographies and also a couple of books written about him, as well as a couple by some of his team mates, I think he's a megalomaniac and he'd be hard to be around.

He also makes bad choices in women. Really, the Olsen twins? Come on.

But, even though I am a Garmin-Chipotle fan and Lance rides for Astana, I still want him to win.

Why?

Because he's old.

He's 38, which is old for a professional cyclist. He's been out of professional cycling since 2005.

It doesn't matter. Right now, he's sitting in 3rd place-- only 8 seconds behind the leader.

I'm turning 35 at the end of the summer. It's one of those monumental birthdays divisible by 5, and I'm starting to realize that I am older than most of my close friends now.

Every once in a while, I am noticing that a few of my hairs are a strange color of blonde. You know, the shade that looks like gray?

Pretty soon, I might have to buy some polyester pants.

Except for Lance. He's older than me. If he can come back and kick the trash of 180 of the world's best (and youngest) athletes in the world, there might be hope for me.

Maybe I can work a little harder and stay out in front of Calli up the golf course hill.

Maybe I actually can finish the 111 miles around Utah Lake in 3 weeks.

And, maybe if I train really hard, I can take advantage of the fact that I am on the 35 side of the 35-54 year old category B in the Utah Tour de Donut next year.

I'm bringing home the trophy, baby.

Just like Lance.

How to Get Your Kids To Do What You Want

2009-07-14T19:50:00.004-06:00

I've sufficiently discussed in this forum how I can't swim. It's true. I tell myself it's because I'm so muscled up that I just sink.

I'm determined that my kids won't be the water-weinie that I am.

For this purpose, I have enrolled them in private swimming lessons.

We've done the rec center thing-- talk about scary. Hundreds of kids in the pool being "taught" by horny 16 year old lifeguards flirting with each other while my kid is drowning.

No thanks.

But what to do? I've tried to teach them what little I know about swimming, but I couldn't get them to get their faces in the water.

Enter Sheila Morrison.

She has the coolest indoor pool I've ever seen. She's expensive and no-nonsense, and after 2 days, my kids are swimming. Better than me.

She tells them to put their faces in the water, they do it. She tells them to blow bubbles out their noses, they do it. She tells them to breathe from the side, they do it.

Like I didn't tell them all of those things before. I even tried to help Michael when we were swimming in Vegas. He wouldn't put his face under water so I gave him a little assistance. :-) He wouldn't talk to me for an hour.

Here's Doug, jumping into the deep end of the pool without even plugging his nose. When he was in the pool with me, he made me hold his hand when he went down the ladder so he didn't get his eyes wet.

What I'm thinking is that my kids do better when I pay someone to tell them to do it. Piano, soccer, swimming-- they all seem to do better when it's not me telling them.

Perhaps I should get a paid-parent. Like Alice on the Brady Bunch-- remember her?

"Alice, the kids' rooms are a mess. Please tell them to clean them." Done.

"Alice, the kids need to do their homework." Done.

"Alice, the kids are burping at the table again. Tell them to stop." Done.

So, what I want to know is, if I paid myself, would they listen to me?

Tour de Donut

2009-07-12T21:55:00.005-06:00

It's finished.

I've been dreading July 11th for a year now-- ever since July 12th of last year. Why, you ask?

Tour de Donut.

A couple of years ago when Layne was president of the Rotary club, we were looking for a better way to raise money for service projects than a fireworks stand. We read a funny story in Bicycling magazine about a race back east called the Tour de Donut-- and we decided that was something we could try.

Just like that, we gave birth to Hell-Day (for us) and a really fun time for a lot of other people.

The first year went so well, that somehow Layne and I suddenly found ourselves major event organizers.

Here I am starting the race.

We've spent the last month or so designing and ordering tshirts, designing, programming, and updating a website, planning a course, talking to the police, ordering donuts, creating registration databases, finding and organizing volunteers, and a host of other tasks. It takes an incredible amount of work to organize a bike race for 300 people!

The gist of the thing is this. The course is 7 miles. You ride it once, then eat as many donuts as you can choke down. (You get 3 minutes off your race time for every donut you eat.) Ride the loop again, eat more donuts, then ride one more loop for a total of 21 miles.

The winner ate 28 donuts and ended up with -13 minutes. There were over 1300 donuts consumed-- 6 of them by Doug. Some people squished the donuts up and poured water over them to make them slide down easier. It was disgusting.
At least no one puked this year-- at least not where I could see them. We definitely got an interesting mix of people-- serious racers, families, and--well-- whatever this guy is.

Amazingly, it went really well. There are always things that can improve, but it was smoother than last year and everyone seemed to have a good time. We raised $7400 for some really good causes (Kona BikeTown as well as local rotary projects).

Here's the thing though-- when everyone assumes that Layne and I are going to do it next year, I'm going to practice that word I learned a couple of months ago. You know, the one that starts with "N" and ends with "O".

Depending on my mood, I might even add a "HELL" to the first of it. I'd be happy to help-- get the shirts or something, but I'm not being in charge again. It's someone else's turn to be in charge of stuff.

It really screwed up my riding schedule.

You know we can't have that.

Lavender and Pond Scum

2009-07-09T14:21:00.006-06:00

Today my friend Helene invited my kids and me to go out to Mona to the Young Family Living Farm. I've seen this place as we've driven to St. George before-- fields and fields of purple. Today, we decided to check it out.

The whole place smells like lavender-- which, to tell you the truth, is not my favorite scent. They sold lavender ice cream and lavender lemonade. I didn't try either.

Sorry about all of the over-exposed pictures-- I forgot my filter and it was a BRIGHT day. You'll notice 6 kids-- 3 are mine, 2 are Helene's and one (Kyle) we had to import so that Mike could have a buddy.

I've got to get me one of these stocks. What a great time-out place that would be!

They have a medieval village there with some really cool toys. This is a giant swing made of a huge barrel.

This is a human-powered merry-go round. As all of the kids wanted to ride, I guess it was a "mom-powered" ride.

When we got tired, Mike decided to give it a try.

They have two activities that you can pay for down there-- a rock climbing wall and paddleboats. I tried my darndest to get my kids to choose the rock wall, but to no avail. Of course you had to have someone over 12 in the boat, so against my better judgement, I found myself in a paddle boat with a wet booty. Here's my self-portrait in the boat.

My friend Helene was not as reluctant as me and talked me into it. Unfortunately for her, the bad luck / klutzy karma that usually follows me around somehow stuck to her today. When she brought the boat in and went to jump onto the deck, she hadn't tied up the boat and it slipped right out from under her. I was watching and it was like slow motion-- I knew what was about to happen, yet was powerless to stop it.

Her feet stayed on the boat, her hands were on the deck, and those two things were quickly traveling away from each other. Suddenly, Helene found herself in scummy pond water-- which DID NOT smell like lavender.

Here's the thing about my friend Helene-- and the biggest sign that she is several thousand steps ahead of me in the journey to heaven. Had that been me, all 6 kids would have come away from the day with a new vocabulary full of 4 letter words-- especially considering the fact that she had her camera in a bag around her waist. Helene just laughed. No bad words. No bad attitude. Just soggy clothes.

If you're wondering, I didn't get a picture of her in the water-- I wanted to, but instead helped her out. I did get this of her when she was safely removed from the scum.

I'm really sorry that Helene got dumped in the water-- but I do have to laugh that it happened to someone other than me this time. Usually I have to write these posts about something dumb that I've done...

Lost My Marbles, Quite Literally

2009-07-08T18:51:00.004-06:00

When I woke up this morning, I had every intention of putting in 12 miles or so on my bike. I jumped up and headed into the bathroom-- and tipped right into the wall. Who tilted the room?

I made it to The Throne and the world stopped spinning a little, until I turned my head quickly and woosh! Same thing. About fell right off the toilet.

Needless to say, I did not get on my bike, but instead sat down in my Laz-y-Boy and waited to feel better.

Except that I didn't.

By lunch time, I knew something wasn't right. Lucky for me, I'm married to a balance doctor.

I drove myself carefully to Layne's office and told the good doc about my symptoms. He told me to get on the exam table and he was going to lay me down quickly and I was supposed to keep my eyes open.

He laid me down with my head off the table and suddenly, I had one of the most horrible feelings I've ever experienced. I felt like I was tumbling inside, outside, and upside down, and I wanted to hurl. My inclination was to close my eyes and make it stop, but Layne told me not to do that-- it would make it worse.

He said I had BPPV.

No, it's not some kind of STD. Here's the technical definition:

Within the labyrinth of the inner ear lie collections of calcium crystals known as otoconia. In patients with BPPV, the otoconia are dislodged from their usual position within the utricle and they migrate over time into one of the semicircular canals (the posterior canal is most commonly affected due to its anatomical position). When the head is reoriented relative to gravity, the gravity-dependent movement of the heavier otoconial debris (colloquially "ear rocks") within the affected semicircular canal causes abnormal (pathological) fluid endolymph displacement and a resultant sensation of vertigo. This more common condition is known as canalithiasis.

Essentially, my marbles came loose.

It was inevitable.

Like I said, lucky for me, I'm married to the guy who fixes loose marbles. In more ways than one.