Katie's Words

Green Polka Dot Box Videos and Blog

2011-11-01T09:28:00.005-06:00

The Green Polka Dot Box (GPDB) has recently started a blog. You can see videos of the founders, employees, and stocked warehouse.

Check it out here: http://greenpolkadotbox.wordpress.com/

What's going on with the GPDB Launch?
GPDB was supposed to launch today, November 1, 2011. The warehouse is stocked with products, ready to go. I've been personally invited to the warehouse and can go see it in person to verify it is there. However, the website is still going through some growing pains, and isn't quite ready. The GPDB team has been working long hours to implement and test features, and I think it's best that they delay the launch a little, rather than open the website with bugs. I was a computer programmer for a while in college, and they have my sympathy!

By the time you're reading this, the free one-year Club membership offer may not be available, but you'll still only pay $50 for a one-year membership. Go to this link and click on "Membership Plans Starting as Low as $50". If you'd like to be able to refer others and earn a small reward (2-10%) off their purchases, you'll pay $125 per year (similar to the cost of a Costco Executive Membership, where you only earn 2% back on your OWN purchases). Click on the same button at this link and you'll see the option for a Rewards membership. If you'd like to invest $2000 in the GPDB Startup and earn $2000 in free product credits back immediately, and $2500 in additional free product credits over 18 months (plus a whole list of other benefits), you can learn about that at the same site too. Just click on "Learn About the Founding Trust Membership" for a 7-minute overview webinar, or click on "Membership Plans Starting as Low as $50" for a more detailed 35-minute webinar.

Green Polka Dot Box - What is happening?

2011-10-29T10:28:00.006-06:00

You've probably seen an ad about The Green Polka Dot Box(TM) and have found me searching for more information. What is The Green Polka Dot Box? Who is behind it? Are they going to launch soon? How long have they been around? Is this a scam? Many of your questions can be answered by watching the webinar on the Green Polka Dot Box website. Maybe you're like me, and you prefer to read over watching a webinar, or you just want the opinion of someone who isn't working for the company. If that's you, read on!

This is really long. If you read it and still have a question, please let me know -- I will do what I can to find an answer and get back to you!

What is The Green Polka Dot Box?
The way I like to describe The Green Polka Dot Box is that they are like Costco + Your Favorite Health Food Store + Amazon!

The Green Polka Dot Box is membership based, like Costco, and prices are reduced up to 50%.
Everyone who shops at Costco pays a membership fee for the privilege of shopping there. There are different levels of membership at Costco, just like at GPDB. With Costco's higher level membership, you get 2% back on your own purchases. GPDB currently has three levels of membership:

Club Member - For now, Club membership is FREE. GPDB is still in pre-launch, and they are offering FREE one-year Club memberships right now. This promotion was supposed to end a few days ago, but if you click on that link right now, you may be able to sneak in and get a free membership. All you have to do is click on "Watch the Webinar and Get a FREE One-Year Membership". The webinar will give you details about how GPDB works, particularly about how their Rewards Membership and Founding Trust Memberships work.

If you don't get in before the Free membership drive closes, you will pay $50 per year for a Club membership. Club members receive unlimited shopping privileges and access to the LEARN section of the website, coming in 2012. Club members do not receive rewards on the purchases of members they refer to GPDB. This is like your basic Costco membership. I've learned that just based on my purchases of spinach and spring mix (I'm a green smoothie girl!) at Costco, I save more than my membership fee each year. GPDB will be the same for my organic non-perishables. GPBD also plans to add perishable foods, including non-GMO-fed/grass-fed/pastured meat, dairy, and produce, soon. They are starting with non-perishable packaged items though.

Reward Member - A Reward Membership is $125 per year, or $75 this year if you get the free membership and then upgrade to a Reward Membership. Reward members receive the same benefits as Club members, plus they can receive up to 5% discounts on everything they buy, and up to 10% PolkaDotRewards on the purchases of members they refer, based on the number of members you refer to GPDB. You only have to refer 20 members to get the top percentages. PolkaDot Rewards are points you receive based on the value of products purchased by those you refer to GPDB. You can use your points to shop at GPDB, or if you accumulate a lot, you can receive them paid to you in cash. One point is worth $1 US.

Founding Trust Member - The Founding Trust Membership offers so many benefits - it would probably be quicker and easier if you watch the webinar. It explains everything in detail. Briefly though, as a Founding Trust member, you get the following benefits:

You will immediately receive 2500 Reward points you can use to shop at GPDB.

Your annual membership fee is waived.

You receive a lifetime 10% discount on all your purchases.

You receive 5 FREE Reward Memberships each year to give to your friends.

If you choose not to spend your 2500 Reward points quickly, you can earn up to 2000 MORE Reward points over 18 months.

You earn a 2% perpetual reward on the cash value of all the memberships of everyone you refer, everyone they refer, and everyone they refer, forever.

Just like Costco, you will receive big savings from GPDB because of their bulk buying power. However, there is one important difference -- GPDB buys in bulk, you do not have to! You can buy one can of this, and one package of that -- regular sized cans and packages! You can save up to 50% at GPDB. Just take a look around the site and compare prices of the things you buy most often. If you don't find what you're looking for, remember that GPDB is adding organic, non-GMO products all the time.

GPDB is like your favorite health food store.
Just like your favorite health food store, Green Polka Dot Box focuses on clean, organic foods. GPDB has promised to never offer products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO). The more we learn about how devastating GMO foods can be to our health and small farmers' livelihoods, the more important this will become. There are more details on GPDB's 'About' page.

The Green Polka Dot Box is like Amazon.
GPDB is all online! You shop online from the convenience of your home. It's as easy as shopping on Amazon. If you buy $150 worth of products at a time shipping is FREE. Wow. The cost of shipping could easily eat up your savings, but with free shipping, you can't lose. If you purchase less than $150 at a time, shipping is still very low.

Who is Behind The Green Polka Dot Box?
I was introduced to Rod Smith, CEO and Founder of The Green Polka Dot Box, in 2009. Since that time, Rod has worked tirelessly to bring GPDB to fruition. I have personally spoken with Rod on the phone and corresponded with him through email. He has always been willing to talk to me and answer my questions. And you know what, I'm not that important to him as far as a financial benefit or bringer of business to GPDB. I've believed that GPBD was a wonderful thing, and wanted to use it myself, but I haven't worked very hard to refer other members. Rod has never seen a dime from me. Regardless, he has talked with me and answered emails quickly whenever I've had a question. GPDB is a HUGE undertaking and Rod has a HUGE vision. Despite challenge after challenge, Rod has persisted in bringing GPDB to the world. If you want to talk to him yourself, give it a try. I'm not going to give out his phone number, but it's worth a try to ask him to contact you. I'm sure either Rod or someone else working directly with him will give you a response.

Rod is an entrepreneur. He was the founder and former CEO and Chairman at InContact. That company is still around today. If you're looking for fancy credentials, Rod can't help you there. He'll tell you that straight up -- look at his LinkedIn page. What he does have is determination, vision, and drive. Just like some of those other "dropouts" we read about -- Steve Jobs and Bill Gates come to mind!

Is Green Polka Dot Box Going to Launch Soon?
If you've been around for a while, you know that GPDB has overcome several heavy challenges. As GPBD was on the verge of launch, and the economy tanked, virtually "guaranteed" funding fell through at the last minute. This happened to businesses all over the country. Most of those other businesses gave up. Rod has persisted through all these challenges, and moves ever closer to launch. He came up with the idea of the Founding Trust Membership to raise capitol, rather than referring on big banks and other sources of funding. As of right now, Rod still plans to launch the buying website on Tuesday, November 1, 2011. But Rod's also committed to getting things right. If the company needs some more time, I'm OK with that. It may be frustrating, and it might worry you a little. But I've seen Rod persist and push since 2009, and he was persisting and pushing even before that. I don't think he's going to give up any time soon.

How Long Has Green Polka Dot Box Been Around?
A lot of people have contacted me asking if I've been pleased with GPBD's service. As I've noted above, GPBD has not officially launched yet. I've been aware of GPDB for 2-1/2 years. Rod was working on it before that. I haven't bought a thing from GPDB yet - no one has - but I have been pleased with their high quality, quick, and personal service in resolving questions and membership issues.

Is Green Polka Dot Box a Scam?
I've emailed Rod Smith, founder of GPDB. I've talked to him on the phone. I talked to him on the phone today, actually. I told him I've received questions from people, wondering when he's going to launch. He invited me to the warehouse here in Utah, offering to give me a tour, so that I can personally see all the products they have in stock, ready to ship. So no, I don't believe Green Polka Dot Box is a scam. I'm a consumer, just like you. I have a Rewards membership, and I've referred a few people to GPBD. I have talked to Rod, but I don't have any special insider knowledge. But from what I see, no, GPDB isn't a scam. Is it fail-proof? No, of course not - no business is. Other than Founding Trust members, GPDB hasn't taken a dime from anyone yet. There is no risk to starting with a Club Membership or Rewards Membership -- GPBD doesn't even ask for your financial information when you sign up. Get your free Club membership today!

That Feels Better

2010-08-11T14:28:00.003-06:00

Up through September 2009, I really didn't write anything personal/emotional on this blog. I did a lot of verbal vomiting about my divorce and other struggles on this blog between September 2009 and March 2010. I just went back and deleted them all (I still have them as drafts) and I feel much better now! Sharing all that really was too much for me -- I am by nature a very private person. I want to be able to help others who are going through the same thing, and I don't mind my closest friends knowing all that I said, but I don't want it out there for the world.

The radio hates me

2010-05-29T12:05:00.003-06:00

I have several country stations on my radio presets. The other day I was feeling pretty crappy about being divorced and having given up on marriage. I got in the car and the first song said:

"They called them crazy when they started out
Said seventeen's too young to know what love's about
They've been together fifty-eight years now"

No thanks; I don't want to listen to that today!! So I changed the station and heard this:

"Ooh, we had our ups and downs
All along the way
She had a chance to leave
But chose to stay
What a beautiful day . . ."

"Day eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty-three
Well, honey that's fifty years
Yeah, here's to you and me"

No thanks; change the station again:

"I could just see you, with a baby on the way
And I could just see you, when your hair is turning gray
What I can't see is how I'm ever gonna love you more
But I've said that before

And now you're my whole life
now you're my whole world. . . "

I love that country songs promote committed lifelong marriage -- it's usually so inspiring! But I do NOT appreciate it when I'm already feeling depressed about my marriage being gone!

Me Ordering Sushi on the Phone

2010-03-12T18:25:00.001-07:00

Me: Can I get a Las Vegas Roll?
Him: I can't hear you.
Me: Can I get a Las Vegas Roll?
Him: What?
Me: A LAS VEGAS ROLL!
Him: A what?
Me: A! LAS! VEGAS! ROLLLLL!
Him: I can't hear you.
Me: Can I place a to go order?
Him: Sure, what would you like?
Me: A Las Vegas Roll.
Him: OK, 10 minutes

First Video Blog: Asparagus Soup Recipe

2010-03-04T00:56:00.004-07:00

Of course this isn't a real video blog with me actually showing my face; you didn't think I was that brave, did you? I might do a video blog outside, but inside my apartment? Noooooo way. So anyway, here it is -- a nice little recipe for Asparagus Soup.

Additional notes:

- This was actually a camcorder test, not intended to be a post, so it's totally unrehearsed and missing half the information. A normal blogger would redo it, but I'm NOT normal!

- I'm kind of congested in this video.

- I start with 4 cups chicken broth/stock made from chicken carcasses. You could also use vegetable broth. If you have no broth/stock, start out by sautéeing some garlic and onions in oil for a few minutes. Even if you have broth, onions and garlic are really good in this soup.

- I used 4 small potatoes this time, but it doesn't really matter; it's really flexible.

- Cut the woody ends off the asparagus before adding to the soup. Also, you can set the asparagus tips aside (maybe steam them separately for a bit) and use them to garnish the soup.

- Blend in small batches and be very careful so you don't kill yourself with boiling hot soup. I like to blend until it's completely puréed.

- I said "one teaspoon" of salt, in case you couldn't hear over the "moooooom". Start with less though. It's really gross if you oversalt it.

- Just add a little lemon. I added the juice of 1/4 lemon to the pot and that was good. Then I added the juice of another 1/8 lemon to my bowl, and that wasn't so good.

- If your broth didn't have any fat in it, add some olive oil, butter, or something fatty at the end. You need fat!

- The amazing thing is that this soup is so good with so few ingredients -- broth/stock, potatoes, asparagus, dill, and salt.

Faith Update

2010-02-05T22:30:00.002-07:00

I've posted a little bit about my crisis of faith over the past few months. I've had struggles with the LDS church for a long time, as long as I can remember. But as I contemplate the options ahead, I am just not content with the agnostic/atheist option. If I was to stop attending the LDS Church, I don't see myself ever believing in any other religion. If I left the church, it would be because I don't believe in God at all, and I just don't see that happening. Well, sometimes when I'm discouraged, I can easily see it happening, but generally I can't.

I don't know if I've mentioned gifts of the spirit here before. The scriptures say that some are given the gift of believing and to some it is given to believe on their words. I think I naturally fall into the second category. And the thing is, I DO believe what others testify of. I believe that often we manifest the answers and feelings that we want to feel, but not always. There are just too many amazing things that I feel cannot be explained away.

It is really weird, because I am hesitant to post this because I don't want to lose any of my friends who don't believe or aren't religious. Of course I don't think they would immediately dump me as a friend, but they'd likely feel that this is an area where we don't connect, and that would cause a small loss to the friendship. But I need to quit worrying about what others are doing and quit choosing the choices others have made. I need to do it my own way.

I've tried to convince myself that I've done the necessary work to receive the gift of believing, but looking at it objectively, I don't think I have. I don't know. I go back and forth. So many doubts, but such desire to believe. It's almost impossible to make sense of this, so as usual, I'll just randomly chop the post off in the middle of a thought.

I didn't copy!

2010-02-01T22:26:00.002-07:00

I just went over to The Pioneer Woman site, which I haven't done in ages. One of her posts is called "What I Love". I SWEAR I didn't copy when I was titling my post the other day!

How is this possible?

2010-01-28T22:08:00.004-07:00

I came across this article about 6 weeks ago in the Ogden Standard Examiner. The part that I want to mention is when they asked potential jurors "Have you or anyone you know been involved in a homosexual relationship?" The article says that "Few among the jury panel of 35 people answered 'yes'."

They don't say how many 'few' is, but I am amazed. I grew up in the geographical area covered by this newspaper. Very quickly, off the top of my head, I can think of 6-7 people I knew from that same area who have been involved in homosexual relationships. It is amazing to me that there are people living in the same area who don't even know a single gay person. I'm guessing that a lot of it has to do with age. I'm thinking that if all the jury panel were my age or younger, the answer to the question would have been yes for everyone.

Oh yeah!

2010-01-28T14:45:00.001-07:00

Created by Oatmeal

Things I Love

2010-01-28T00:02:00.008-07:00

I forgot that I was supposed to occasionally write uplifting and/or happy posts on this blog. Oops.

So, here are two things I love.

I love my curls! My curls are wild and can never be tamed; I love that! They won't give in, and neither will I. As a teenager, I tried to keep my hair as straight as possible. I haven't done that for years. If I wear it up while wet, most of it will be relatively straight when it dries, and sometimes I'll even put it in very gentle steam rollers to relax the curls a bit. But I threw out the round brush and flat iron entirely. A few years ago I set out to truly love my hair, and now I do. My curls are part of me, and I love them. Here is a crazy one.

It starts out thick and spiraling, and then kind of fizzles. I have a whole crop of shorter hair at the nape of my neck, and sometimes it mingles with other curls and I end up with this.

Here is a picture of me and my baby with our lovely curls:

The other thing that I love is my freckles. I refuse to wear any kind of makeup that would cover them or obscure them at all. Sometimes I look in the mirror and despair because I need to get more sun and brighten those freckles back up! This is a marked change from when I was younger. I remember hearing about a woman who got rid of her freckles by religiously wearing sunscreen for two years. I wondered if I had the discipline to do that. Now I wonder why I would ever want that!

I See You

2010-01-16T11:05:00.001-07:00

Arrgh!!

2010-01-15T17:13:00.004-07:00

If comparing the immoral nature of serious crimes such as pedophilia and murder with homosexuality would, in the end, lead one to abandon immoral homosexual conduct and find peace, joy and love, in a straight life, then that act of comparison is worth the effort many times over.

I came across this comment today. This person is trying to defend an LDS person's comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia, bestiality, murder, and rape. Seriously?! Seriously?!???!! No matter how True Blue LDS you are, how is there any way you could defend this? This makes me livid! And no, this guy is not only defending the theoretical comparison of these sins, he is defending saying these things to real, living, breathing, feeling gay people, in order to help them decide not to be gay. And the worst part is, he insists that this is done out of LOVE. Love!!

This is not the place to pick apart the guy's (il)logic. I could go on and on about that. I am just here to discuss my gut reaction to it. I want to scream and rant and shout and explain and convince until I am blue in the face. Yet I can't, because that will destroy me.

Some people can have these discussions and let it roll off them. I can't do that. I used to 'debate' and 'discuss' (argue) on the internet every day. Just ask Chandelle (I am guessing we argued about nutrition and/or the Church). I was miserable. I got angry online and it carried right over to my family life. I take things way too personally and am unable to stay dispassionate and stick to logical arguments. When I see comments like this, I want to respond to be supportive of those who may be deeply hurt by reading the vitriol, but I just end up looking like a ranting lunatic in the end. In the last three months, I've engaged in probably 3 'discussions' that went beyond 'friendly'. And I just can't do it. I don't know if the rest of my life is so out of order that getting involved in these debates sends me over the edge or what, but I can't do it right now.

What do you do? Do you stay silent and let those terrible disgusting words sit unchallenged?

Coconut 'Milk'

2010-01-13T19:45:00.004-07:00

Most nutritional philosophies that I have studied, including veganism, vegetarianism, raw foodism, and traditional foodism, all agree that grocery store milk is bad news. It comes from cows who are raised on feed lots and pumped up regularly with antibiotics and hormones. Bacterial counts are often very high or are reduced by adding bleach. The milk is adulterated during the processes of pasteurization and homogenization. There are entire websites dedicated to the badness of milk, but I'll stop there.

Vegans, vegetarians, and most raw foodists believe that milk of any sort is bad. Traditional foodists believe that raw milk fresh from a pasture-raised cow is basically the nectar of the gods. However, that comes at a price. I used to get raw milk from a farm south of me, and when I stopped buying it, I think it was up to about $6/gallon. In addition, I was paying the drivers who picked up the milk each week. It ended up coming out to about $50 per month for only a gallon and a half per week.

Since raw milk was too expensive for us, I've occasionally tried to find substitutes. I like the taste of homemade almond milk quite well, but my kids think it is gross because I leave the bitter skins on. I also typically need to add vanilla and a bit of sweetener, which can inflate the cost quickly. I keep reading on raw food blogs about how you can make some quick coconut 'milk' for recipes by blending dried coconut and water. I finally tried it today. It's fast and easy and the kids (at least 1) actually like it!

I used 1 part dried unsweetened coconut to 3 parts water and blended it in the Blendtec until it was totally pulverized to a powder. I then strained the 'milk' through a woven towel, squeezed all the liquid from the coconut pulp/flour, and put the flour into the dehydrator to dry it out. The resulting 'milk' tastes fantastic on its own. I tried adding more water to reduce the cost, but if it's too watery, it doesn't taste very good.

I am calling this 'milk' because this is nothing like the coconut milk you buy in can. This is a thin coconut flavored beverage similar to the consistency of 1% cow's milk. I would use it on cereal, smoothies, or to drink. It is fantastic as a base for hot chocolate.

I'm not sure if the leftover coconut pulp/flour is exactly the same as commercially-sold coconut flour, which is made by grinding coconut fiber after most of the oil has been removed, but it's similar. It's definitely similar enough to be used in raw treat recipes that call for coconut flour, like this one at Vivapura.

Cost Analysis
I bought some dried coconut (sulphured) at the health food store. It was $3.50/pound, which is about 6 cups. You'd end up with 18 cups milk using the 3:1 ratio. That comes out to $3.11 for 1 gallon of coconut 'milk'. That is a pretty great price for an alternative milk. If I remember correctly, almond milk or rice milk from the store is about $8/gallon.

Even better, in the group buy I just completed, I sold unsulphured unsweetened dried coconut for $2.08/pound, which included my profit. This would decrease the cost for a gallon of coconut 'milk' to $1.85, which is right about the same cost as grocery store cow's milk.

When considering cost, you also have to remember that in addition to the 'milk', you're getting free coconut 'flour' as well.

Nutritional Profile
I looked up FitDay.com's entry for "Nuts, coconut meat, dried (desiccated), not sweetened". Using my ratios above, there are 6 cups coconut to a pound, and that makes 18 cups coconut 'milk'. So 1 cup coconut 'milk' uses 1/18 pound coconut, or 0.89 ounces. The nutritional profile for that amount of dried unsweetened coconut is:

From FitDay.com

Of course this assumes that you are consuming the coconut pulp, which you will not be if you throw it away or dehydrate it, put it in your freezer, wait 6 months, and then throw it away (like me).

Template Woes, Part II

2010-01-13T14:51:00.002-07:00

I apologize for my layout. I was going to fix it a long time ago but forgot about it. If the post is long, it looks OK, but if the post is short, the banner at the bottom messes everything up. The banners don't fit properly, and my 'Older Posts' link somehow disappeared into cyberspace. Just know that it's on my list of things to do eventually, ha ha!

This Little Piggy

2010-01-13T14:49:00.004-07:00

My mom always plays This Little Piggy with YoungestSon's tiny little toes. This morning as I was putting on his shoes, I grabbed his feet and started "This little piggy went to the market. . ." He immediately pulled his foot away and in his cute 2-year old way said "No, Grandma do it!" I didn't understand at first and tried again with the same result. I guess that is Grandma's game and no one else can do it!

Durian!

2010-01-08T12:26:00.003-07:00

Ever since I heard about the durian fruit, I wanted to try one. The durian fruit is said to be quite delicious, but it smells awful. In Singapore, they've even banned durians from mass transit! You've got to browse through theWikipedia article - some of the descriptions of the durian's smell are fantastic!

So I've been kind of wanting to try one but haven't been too serious about it. Then Carmella of the Sunny Raw Kitchen wrote about durian this week, and I decided I'd definitely try it soon, but I wasn't really sure where to get one.

Today at work, my coworker (she is from China) and I were preparing our lunches and she said "I'm so embarrassed! My car smells so gross. My parents and I bought this fruit. . ." I said "Oh, was it a durian?" It was, of course. She said you can get them at the Thai/Asian markets around here. She was in California when she had hers, but somehow it stunk up her car (even though it was either frozen in a package or unpeeled in the peel/husk) and she can't figure out how to get the smell out. She said that once you start eating it, the smell isn't bothersome. She also said she likes to buy 1 at a time and eat it with someone else so that they can finish it off all at once. She said you DO NOT want the leftovers in your fridge!

So maybe I'll sponsor a durian-tasting party here at work, to be held in the parking lot, ha ha. People around here are sensitive about the smell of COFFEE, so can you imagine how much they'd freak over a durian? I think that most of the women here would try it, but I don't think any of the men would come near it with a 10-foot pole. They stick to things like Wendy's, Lean Cuisine, or the same sandwich every day for years. I guess to get the durian here I'll have to tie a bag onto the outside of the car so my car doesn't get stunk up, ha ha.

I'll Be Back Up On My Feet

2010-01-02T20:23:00.002-07:00

Click here to listen to the soundtrack for this post.

I've got to get back on my feet.

There are a few things I just haven't been doing. Like feeding my kids and myself actual food. We have eaten SO much fast food over the past few months. So much sugar/candy. So much junk. We've had every opportunity to eat well. We haven't been inundated with treats nor holiday parties. We've had plenty of money to buy good groceries. I just haven't gotten around to it. Today we've eaten toast, Wendy's, cookies, and brownies. The youngest two also fought over the last hot dog (and I never buy hot dogs!). Nice. I used to make detailed menu plans and grocery lists and follow them. I looked in my planner and the last weekly menu plan was from August, the week before TheEx left for Houston. I know I've made a few more menu plans since then, but I used to do it diligently. I feel so gross from all the junk. My skin looks terrible. I crave sugar and it does taste good, but I dread eating it because it's just so gross. I just feel 'ick'.

Another big thing is getting a decent amount of sleep at a regular time. I was always so good at that until about 3 years ago. I progressively got worse until I was going to bed at 2-3 am many nights and regularly getting around 5 hours of sleep. I did better for a week or two, but I've gotten back to the very late and wildly variable bedtimes recently. One night it will be 2 am, the next night 9 pm. I feel exhausted and out of it most of the time.

I have a lot of goals or intentions for the coming year. But I think the two I'll focus on first are good food and good rest.

Anyway, this was actually meant to be a forward-looking uplifting post, because I got thinking of that Monkees song I linked to, and it's a fun happy song :-)

Awesome Christmas Present

2010-01-02T11:41:00.002-07:00

In order to get yesterday's negativity off the top spot on my blog, check out what I got from my mom for Christmas:

Awesome, huh?!?

I Told You

2009-12-26T20:42:00.003-07:00

A while back I told you that soon I would have incontrovertible proof that I am a ninja. Well, it's finally here. And don't be hating my hair/smudgy makeup. This is pretty much right after rolling out of bed on Christmas morning.

On Hold

2009-12-21T20:35:00.003-07:00

The breakthrough will have to wait. Through his actions, theEx kindly reminded me today in mediation of some of the reasons we are divorcing. I'm feeling more like breaking something than grieving. Good riddance, I say. I'll be back on track tomorrow or the next day - I've never been able to hold on to feelings of hate very long. And as for how this feeling actually manifests itself, I get very quiet and shut down. I just want to go to sleep. I've also been stuffing my face for the last hour (Thai curry, a raw date/nut bar, and coconut patties).

Other side of the coin

2009-12-21T14:45:00.002-07:00

I am losing a lot. But there are some benefits too. For example, I can now freely listen to:

- Bolero (TheEx was hazed into his fraternity with that song playing on repeat in the background for hours and understandably hated it)

- Elvis (his mother listened to this a lot when he was a kid and he was all Elvised out)

- military/soldier songs (he really wanted to be in the military and it was hard for him to listen to soldier songs)

You really want that mustard blend

2009-12-12T19:25:00.005-07:00

Google Analytics has been tracking my website for just over 3 years. I assume that's when I installed Analytics, since my blog is actually nearly 5 years old. Over the past 3 years, the top keywords used to find my blog have consistently been some variation of "Texadelphia mustard blend". As of today, my top 10 results are:

1. katie words
2. katies world
3. texadelphia mustard blend recipe
4. texadelphia queso recipe
5. texadelphia calories
6. bajio grill calories
7. texadelphia nutritional info
8. texadelphia mustard sauce recipe
9. texadelphia mustard blend
10. katie's world

I have a few things to say about this. First of all, if you're concerned about calories or nutrition, don't even bother going to Texadelphia. Seriously. No matter what your nutritional concern is, they probably violate it. But it just tastes so darn good. Mmmmm.

Secondly, I posted once about trying to figure out the Texadelphia mustard blend recipe. But I never got around to doing it! So you're out of luck with that. Part of the reason I didn't do it is because the Texadelphia Cheesesteak with mustard blend is an entire experience. The mustard blend is great, but the cheesesteak itself is unique as well. I assumed that even if I found a cheesesteak in Utah and added my own mustard blend, it would never match up to the real thing. I'll just have to wait until the next time I visit Texas (they have locations in Houston, Austin, Dallas, or San Antonio).

Also, as a little dose of reality, I don't really get THAT many hits on Texadelphia. Over the past 3 years, I've had 274 visits to my blog from people looking for Texadelphia. That's a lot, but not really, when spread over 3 years.

I didn't look very closely at my results, other than to skim looking for the word Texadelphia, but these were two of the weirdest results I had:

"women" "typical passwords" "email"
First of all, I don't think you need to use that many quote marks. Second, mind your own business. However, if your wife is cheating on you and you need that password to confirm it, go for it!

average hair grow 40 feet per night
Um, I don't think you would call that average. But wouldn't that be awesome? You could go with a short spiky cut one day, and the next have it floor length. If I ever get my own world, in addition to all the hair being rainbow colored, it's going to grow as fast as the person wants it to.

Worst Christmas Song of All Time

2009-12-11T15:15:00.004-07:00

Which Christmas song do you dislike the most? I think this is one of my least favorites:

The benefit of this video is that it has sweet 80's style!

Why on earth would people do covers of this song?

Even Glee is getting in on it?!?!

And no, of course I didn't listen to all of those before I embedded them. Ew. I did have to at least listen to a few seconds to make sure it really was the same song. The one by Cascada (whoever they/she are/is) is slightly acceptable.

90 Year Old Dancer

2009-12-07T21:55:00.002-07:00

I thought this was pretty inspiring! I hope I'm this active when I'm 90!

Gifts

2009-12-01T14:33:00.002-07:00

I was reading the Dave Ramsey newsletter this week, and I came across this story about a horrible gift:
Christmas 1994 – It was our first Christmas together as a married couple. My husband bought me an ironing board because he needed his shirts to be ironed. He also bought me cookie sheets and cooling racks. I was furious! Now we laugh about it.

Is there something wrong with those gifts? I'll admit that I'm not your stereotypical woman. And 'receiving gifts' comes in last place on my list of Love Languages. So maybe I just don't get it. I mean, of course I like romantic gifts. But I always want the types of things this lady mentions. One of my most memorable Valentine's Day gifts was when I got a gift certificate to Pampered Chef. And last year I asked for an ironing board for my birthday.

Maybe it was the intent behind the gift. I got the cooking stuff because I wanted it. I got the ironing board because I needed it to iron my own clothes. This lady's husband sounds like he got these things to benefit himself. I can see the difference there. But other than that, am I just weird for wanting practical, useful things?

This year I have received or bought myself several nice birthday/Christmas gifts. My parents gave me money for a haircut, and I am going to buy a dress. But my other super-awesome gift that I'm buying for myself is a Bissell Steam Mop! Amazon has got it on sale for $30 off right now. (That link is my friend's affiliate link. She loves the Bissell Steam Mop and has written about it on several of her blogs over the years.) I am beyond excited to get this! I don't think I'll be waiting until Christmas to use it.

Change?

2009-11-29T00:56:00.003-07:00

I really do like to try new hobbies, taste new foods, learn new skills, meet new people, and so on. But on the other hand, I definitely like the security of known things. I usually only end up trying new things when other people initiate it. And I love nearly everything I try. When I was in Houston, my coworkers introduced me to Japanese, Thai, and Korean foods. I liked it all! Well, except the pickled ginger. I usually don't eat that, but I have tried it and don't hate it. There's a Thai restaurant nearby I've always wanted to try. I know I would like it. But I always find myself going to the same gross fast food places when we're out. (I think I've eaten more fast food in the last month than I did in the last year or two. Must remedy!) Today at about 2 pm I realized I hadn't eaten anything except 2 pieces of toast and a piece of fudge all day. I didn't have the kids with me, so I could go ANYWHERE I wanted. But I decided to just be boring and go to Wendy's. Unfortunately, I did not realize there was a BYU football game, so it took me 25 minutes to make a 10-minute trip and I didn't have time to go to Wendy's. Later I did go to the Thai restaurant for take out, and as I knew it would, it tasted fantastic. (Though I spent 5x what I would have at Wendy's.) Why don't I branch out more often?!

I watch the same movies I've always liked. I listen to the same songs (or at least artists) I've always liked. Repeat ad infinitum.

When we got married 9 years ago, I got eggplant purple sheets. I am 90% certain that I had the same color sheets my first year of college as well. Three years ago I wanted to totally change everything, so I bought some cheap scratchy green sheets. But the eggplant purple/pink (from bleach) sheets stayed in rotation. I went to ShopKo on Friday. They had $90 sheets on sale for $30. Luxuriously satiny sheets! I decided that I deserved and needed brand news sheets. I looked at all the beautiful colors in front of me and spent several minutes deciding which ones I wanted. I chose the eggplant purple set :-D Why wouldn't I? It's absolutely gorgeous and I love it, even after 10 years of looking at it. It is the color of royalty, after all! As the family queen, I figure it's fitting :-)

So anyway, though I'm satisfied with the things I do, I want to try more new things. I have always had good experiences trying new things so there's really no reason not to. Oh, except that pesky problem of me being very introverted. That makes it a little more difficult.

More Fun for Country Fans

2009-11-27T22:18:00.002-07:00

A couple of days ago I didn't feel like listening to all the peppy (country) songs in my playlist, so I cleared a bunch of songs out and added a ton of others in. After listening to them for a while I realized that I ended up with a half lovey-dovey and half depressing playlist! Slow country songs are either totally lovey-dovey or totally depressing. I think I am getting a little bit 'down', but I'm definitely not depressed. I'm just taking this lull as part of the cycle of life -- it's all good!

One of my all-time favorite songs that ended up in that playlist is this classic hit by George Strait -- Amarillo By Morning. I love it SO much. I'm not sure why. I think it's mainly because of the absolutely gorgeous violin part that is prominently featured throughout the song. The song itself is alternately hopeful, wistful, and sad. It's about a cowboy who has lost everything (possessions, saddle, leg, wife, girlfriend, money) but is still traveling from rodeo to rodeo, glad that he's free even though he hasn't got much.

One problem with listening to George Strait (versus other country singers) is that his songs really make me miss Texas :(

I didn't think it was possible to improve George Strait's singing, but might I dare say that Kenny Chesney's version is just as good and possibly 0.1% better than George Strait's? Kenny has just got a little 'something' to his voice that is spectacular on this song. But Kenny - what the crap is up with the sleeveless shirt in this venue? This was taped at an awards show, and you can tell they're trying to look nice because the band is wearing suits. And Kenny still wears a sleeveless shirt? Come on! I just found out he's a shorter guy -- 5'8" -- so maybe he's afraid people might not know how manly he is if he doesn't show off his arms.

I did find a Youtube version of a George Strait concert that Kenny went to as a spectator. George invited Kenny up on the stage, and they sang together. But the sound is terrible on this (unless you like listening to screaming).

Oh, here's the original from 1987. The sound has changed a little over the years, which is why I linked to the live version up there.

Really?

2009-11-20T09:01:00.002-07:00

I get 2/3 of the way through NaBloPoMo and then forget to post? Really? Oh well. With my new goals of practicing for The Messiah and getting to bed on time, there wasn't much time for blogging/internetting anyway!

A hippo? With Noodles?

2009-11-18T11:53:00.003-07:00

I know this is a total cop out, but in case I don't have time for a real post later, I'll leave you with this. My kids absolutely love this. I have never figured out if it supposed to be about something (probably something inappropriate, as most humor is). But in the meantime, I think it's really funny.

Heels Experiment

2009-11-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

I wrote about wanting to try to wear high heels a while back. I did wear heels every day for a week and continue to wear the brown ones occasionally. They only hurt 65% of the time instead of 100%.

However, I declare the heels experiment a failure. There are several reasons:

1) Discomfort. I refuse to be that uncomfortable. Someday if I get some better shoes maybe I can overcome this problem, but in the meantime I am not willing to sacrifice comfort for (theoretical) looks.

2) Health. I am not interested in ending up with deformed feet/legs/back due to heels.

3) This is the most important of all -- loss of stealth capabilities! You might not realize this, but I am a ninja. Now, they say that a REAL ninja wouldn't tell anyone they are a ninja. Whatever; that's a total myth. (I will likely have incontrovertible proof that I am a ninja soon.) It's very difficult to be all stealthy and ninja-like if you are wearing loud high heels. In addition to being a stealthy ninja, I am a total INTROVERT. I sneak around silently so as not to draw any attention to myself. Heels have the opposite effect - usually they are very loud (my brown ones have rubber soles, so they aren't as bad). Also, I would be the only one at my company wearing them, so they draw undue attention. Drawing attention to myself is rarely on my list of goals for the day. Avoiding everyone is more like it. Remember the engineering.com swine flu video? Engineers despise public. So true.

Whoops!

2009-11-16T21:42:00.006-07:00

16 days into NaBloPoMo, and I almost forgot to post today.

I'll tell you about my budgeting fail. One of my major rules for following a budget needs to be "only go to the store once a week, and FOLLOW the list." Tonight we stopped by the store to get milk, bread, eggs, and raisins. The milk was the most important thing we needed. I exited the store $51 lighter. How did that happen?!?

When we walked in, I saw the Rice Chex, on sale for cheaper than the generic brand. That's YoungestSon's favorite cereal, so I stocked up. Then I remembered that I want to make my sister some cookies (sssshhh, she reads this blog and it's a secret, so I have to whisper), so I bought some good chocolate chips and some hopefully non-rancid walnuts. Then on the way to the bread, I saw the Hickory Farms display including Summer Sausage and mustard. It's my dad's birthday, so I picked up some of those. Then, bread was on sale, so we got 3 loaves. On the way to the dairy case, I made the brilliant decision to go down the toy aisle. I've been wanting some more dice, so I grabbed a pack of those for $2. The kids saw some sticker books for $1.25 each, and I was feeling very generous, so I got 3. Finally we got to the eggs, and of course I had to add in some butter for the cookies. But I forgot the milk.

Whoops.

Fortunately the budget isn't totally blown. I still have $16 for the rest of the week and plenty of stuff to cook with here at home. Except no milk for the kids. I have homemade almond milk for myself, but they're too chicken to drink it.

30 by 30

2009-11-15T21:45:00.003-07:00

I'm pretty bad at goal-setting. I have all these fairly nebulous ideas of what I want out of life (loving husband, being a stay at home mom, house with white picket fence, financial freedom, etc.) but I'm scared to commit it to paper and determine the actual steps I will need to take to reach these goals. There's a pretty obvious explanation -- if I never actually set the goal, there's no sense of failure or disappointment if I don't achieve it. I am realizing that I am very scared of failure, and that in some areas of life, I set the bar as low as I need to in order to ensure that I don't fail. It's honestly pretty sad.

I thought that putting together a list of 30 Goals by Age 30 might help kick-start me into a goal-setting and achieving mindset. I have just over one year to complete all of these, so they are fairly simple, nothing dramatic or crazy.

(I will strike through the goals as I complete them!)

~~1) Make Nie Nie's Mud Cake Magnifique (I wanted to make this for my birthday this year but didn't get around to it. I'll make this version.)~~
2) Begin a set community service time at least twice monthly with the kids, such as visiting a nursing home
3) Complete all 30 days of the 30-Day Shred
4) Run a 5K race
5) Run a mile in under 10 minutes
6) Read 6 books (I used to read about that many in a week or two)
~~7) Go on a date~~
~~8) Take the kids sledding (I avoid being cold as much as possible)~~
9) Systematically declutter the entire house
10) Take a family vacation
11) Make a treasure map/vision board (astrologists say the best time to do it is Aries New Moon, not January 1st)
12) Make plans for my life on paper
13) Learn how to knit in a relaxing manner (it tenses my shoulders up badly)
14) Have a Lord of the Rings marathon (or Star Wars could be substituted if I wnt to involve the kids and they can't handle LOTR)
15) Give blood twice (have done once)
~~16) Go to a country dance~~
17) Have a (pint or larger) green smoothie every day for a month
18) Clean the house and stick to a program/method of keeping it relatively clean and clutter free (probably Flylady or some variation thereof)
19) Maintain an Emergency Fund savings account of $1000 and replenish it each time any is used (I wanted to do a debt-reduction goal, but this area of my life is SO up in the air right now)
20) Take the kids on a picnic
21) Get a house/dwelling with a backyard and have a successful garden
22) Organize my recipes
23) Go to a concert, opera, or play
24) Start digital scrapbooking (I have software, lessons, tutorials, kits, and Quick Albums already)
25) Start a business
26) Avoid getting married (I have nothing against getting married eventually but I need to be smart about it and not rush into things this time)
27) Determine, accept, and move forward courageously with my religious/spiritual beliefs
28) Become licensed as a professional engineer
29) Make friends with a real-live woman (not just on the internet), including actually doing something with her face to face (outside of Visiting Teaching, Relief Society Meetings [fka "Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment", fka "Homemaking Night"], etc.)
30) Get my kids in bed by 8:30 for 30 days, use the time in the evening to work on these goals or do something for myself (NOT including mindlessly wasting time on the internet), and go to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep (this goal might directly conflict with #25)

Can You See Me Now?

2009-11-14T10:37:00.011-07:00

Sometimes I attempt to wear makeup. I am never consistent about it though. I think when I worked in Houston for 2 years, I wore it the whole time, but that's probably my longest run since age 14. I had to wear makeup for an interview on September 30th of this year, and I decided to keep wearing it afterward. So I've worn it every week day since, except the day I had that big 8-hour test. That day, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Wow, I look SO different without makeup. I look sickly and pale."

Now, it's entirely possible that the makeup had nothing to do with it, and I did look sickly and pale, because that was an awful day and the bathroom had very unflattering lighting, and on average I've been getting about 5 hours sleep per night. But I was a little annoyed that after just a month of wearing makeup, I already felt like I had to have it to look decent. I have decided to continue wearing it, because I do work in a professional world, and statistically, women wearing makeup get a better response professionally, including in their amount of pay. I know a lot of women think makeup is really fun, and I TOTALLY get that (that link takes you to Wisely Chosen's absolutely fabulous and gorgeous makeup pictures), but it's just not me. Stuff like that just doesn't come naturally to me. I'd rather spend my time doing other things, and keep life as simple as possible. Buying makeup, learning how to use it, maintaining it, keeping it out of the kids' reach (or helping them use it safely), and spending the time to use it and remove it each day is NOT simplifying my life.

Darn it, I meant this to be a lighthearted picture post, not a rant about society and makeup. Oh well. Writing is therapeutic for me, so I just go with what comes out my fingers.

The mascara is the main feature for me. My eyelashes are pretty much invisible without it. I wear brown-black mascara. I sometimes wear brown eyeliner, but lately I've been leaving it out because I just can't get it right, even after attempting it for 14+ years. My eyebrows are also mostly invisible (as far as I can see), and someday I intend to learn how to put some color on them, but I don't do that now. I have never, ever in my entire life, plucked my eyebrows, since I think they're invisible. I hope I'm right!!! I did get them waxed once before my sister's wedding.

I own four colors of eyeshadow - white, tan, brown, and pink (not like this). I do know how to use it, kind of, because I had my makeup done professionally by a salon owner/artist when I was 14, and she showed me how to do it. But the high-quality brushes don't work with crappy grocery store makeup, so I just muddle through and hope it doesn't look too bad.

In the past I've attempted wearing blush, lip liner, and lipstick, but that's long in the past. I did buy some pale/nude lip gloss a while ago. I really don't know how to wear lipstick/lip gloss. It's always gone within minutes. I always bite it off. I have never worn foundation or concealer, and hope to not have to. But if my face doesn't get the memo that we are no longer 15 years old, I may have to think about it. But I DO NOT WANT to cover up my freckles AT ALL, and I am not sure that's possible unless I wear an extremely sheer foundation, and then what's the point of wearing one? I do need to get some moisturizer or start using coconut oil or something. I am going to have fabulous wrinkles when I am old, and I am not interested in doing anything other than wearing moisturizer to stop that process.

----> OK, this is where the post was SUPPOSED to start. My coworkers the other day were talking about makeup. I said that my sister says my makeup is too light to see. My coworker said she couldn't see mine! So I took some close up pictures to see if she was right. I guess she was!

Sorry that some of these are so blurry -- I wanted them to be done without a flash, and it's difficult to get good pictures that way, and I'm too lazy to redo it.

No makeup:

Wow, with all that purple under my eyes, people probably think I'm a vampire or something!

With all my makeup (there's even eyeliner):

You can definitely tell a huge difference with the mascara, but the rest isn't all that different.

I decided to do one with the flash. The difference in what shows up is amazing. I wonder which picture is more accurate to what people see in real life, indoors or out?:

Again

2009-11-13T23:38:00.002-07:00

I posted almost the exact same thing 2 months ago, but this one is even better:

What happens when people with curly hair brush their hair:

I had several inches trimmed (at the longest point), and here's what it looks like now:

It looks SO short to me!

Also, looking at that picture is driving me crazy -- it's so uneven on the right side! The problem is that it was trimmed while pulled straight, and the curls all shrink up differently when dry. It should be trimmed curly, not straight. Which is why curly girls need to pay $$$$ for special hairdressers trained in curly haircutting techniques.

Another Experiment

2009-11-12T13:06:00.003-07:00

Today's experiment is totally different, but also food/beverage related. The other day we had salmon and potatoes for dinner. After dinner, I made up a container of leftovers for work, and put all the remainder back into the casserole dish. The work leftovers made it into the fridge; the rest didn't. It was left out for an unspecified length of time. But I couldn't bear to throw it away! I mean, it's salmon! It's so tasty, and so expensive. I decided not to let the kids have it (sad, because they are the ones who need it most), but that I would give it a try. So, I'm eating it today. If this blog goes un-updated after today, you'll know why. I've heard of college kids eating several-days-old pizza and being fine. I've also heard of someone eating a baked potato that was left out and getting very sick. Perhaps the college kids were protected by the vast quantities of alcohol flowing through their systems. Good luck to me!

Caffeinated Soda Experiment Concluded

2009-11-11T16:40:00.002-07:00

OK, I went for the diet mtn dew (usually I would type ‘Diet Mountain Dew’, but ‘diet mtn dew’ is how it’s written on the label – absolutely ridiculous), because it was a 20-ounce and I figured I might as well go for the largest amount of caffeine possible.

(10:30 am) First reaction – it burns!! I don’t know if I’ll be able to do more than sip daintily at it. It burns my tongue and throat and my eyes are watering. Also, it tastes totally gross. I like the citrus flavor, but the nasty fake sweetener grossness is overpowering. Ew. I’d probably have the same problem with a non-diet drink, because high fructose corn syrup tastes really fake and gross to me too.

I wonder how much I have to drink and how long I have to wait before I feel a difference? So far I’ve got about 1 tablespoon down.

(10:50) Still haven’t had more than 1 tablespoon. At this rate I’ll have gone through about 3 ounces by tonight. I’m going to just go for it.

Ugh. . . . that does NOT feel nice. Everything is burning!

OK, now I feel like I’m going to throw up. My stomach is protesting.

Uh, so what am I supposed to do with all the carbonation that wants to come back up? Just burp a lot? How attractive.

Ugh, I don’t know if I can get any more down. I’ve had about 8 ounces.

(11:00) I can see why this is called ‘diet’ mtn dew. The way my stomach feels, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to eat anything ever again. I do feel more alert. Is that because I got up and walked around for a few minutes, or because we're busy today, or is it because I’m engaged in writing this terribly interesting diatribe, or can the caffeine do that this quickly?

Yeowch!! Apparently it burns on the way back up too (burping). Except this time it was all through my nose because I had my mouth closed. That smarts!

(11:10) Feeling queasy. I’m going to try a bit more. . .

It’s burning a little less on the way down now. Oh, weird, it’s almost like I can actually feel it burning in my stomach though. I didn’t notice that so much before since the other burning sensations were so strong.

(11:20) Aah, a drink of refreshing water. Why would anyone drink anything that is so difficult and gross to get down when you could have easy, clear, refreshing water instead?

(1:00 pm) I went to talk to my friend upstairs and was telling her several funny stories about TheEx. (Several months ago they would have been tragedies; now they’re hilarious.) I also told her about my caffeine experiment. She said “oh, is that why you’re so chipper today?” I realized I was acting a bit crazy/hyper. Also, I am a little bit shaky. But I was shaky before I had the caffeine, because of the tiredness. My stomach may be calmed down enough to have a little bit of lunch.

(1:45) I still have about 8-10 ounces of the 20-ounce drink left. I can’t even stomach the thought of drinking it.

(3:25) Feeling tired again. My stomach turns at the thought of finishing the mtn dew.

(4:00) More tired. I might just go for it again. It’s been sitting out all day though and is probably warm by now. Although I suddenly feel like throwing up at the thought of drinking it. Oh well. Bottoms up.

Blech!! Such a gross, slimy aftertaste. I’ve heard that people have to force themselves to learn to like the taste of cigarettes and sometimes alcohol. Is it the same with drinks like diet mtn dew? Does anyone actually enjoy this taste their first time? (That’s what she said!) [I hate that joke, by the way; I think it is so dumb. I've never even seen the Wayne's World skits on SNL, which is apparently where it originated.]

(4:20) OK, about 4-6 ounces left. I am going to bed early tonight, so I’d better finish this off soon in case it keeps me up later.

(4:30) Never mind. This is just too gross. I am not finishing it. I have had about half my normal amount of water today, so I’m done with the diet mtn nastiness and am refilling my water cup!

(4:35) OK, the diet mtn yuck is in the trash. Experiment OVER!

That was so gross. Just so, so gross. I can still taste it and feel it in my mouth, no matter how much water I drink. Yucky. I can’t even tell if it made a difference. On slow days at work, I am really tired. On busy days, I am not tired. Today was busy. So was it the caffeine helping me feel less tired, or because today was a busy one? I have no idea. And I am certainly not willing to try the experiment again to find out. Oh, if I really wanted to, I would be willing to try other forms of caffeine, like caffeine tablets or yerba mate, but I don’t even want to do that. I have a very addictive personality, and I am sure I could get addicted to caffeine quickly. Look at the tagline of this blog – “whining about sugar since 2005”. I am totally addicted to sugar/chocolate. I am sure caffeine would pull me in just as quickly.

So, conclusion: Soda is gross. Especially diet mtn dew with no capitals. Don’t try this at home.

An experiment

2009-11-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

I never drink caffeinated drinks. It has little to do with perceived LDS doctrine (in case you were wondering), it's that I have always hated soda pop of any type, caffeinated or not. It hurts my stomach and my nose. I have TASTED caffeinated drinks, but never guzzled it like some people. There was one time I remember drinking a soda quickly. It was the middle of summer, deathly hot. We'd been in the car for a long time for some reason. I got a Welch's Grape Soda and drank the whole thing down. I also do not drink soda of any type for health reasons (all that sugar or artificial sweetener), and I don't drink caffeinated because I know I'd get addicted.

There was one time I did have some caffeinated drinks. I get drowsy so easily when I drive, so I was terrified to drive from Houston to Provo. I figured that was as good a time as any to try energy drinks. In one morning, I had a 16-ounce and a 24-ounce Rockstar Juiced Mango. That adds up to 400 mg of caffeine. Your average soda has 40-55 mg. So I pretty much drank the equivalent of 10 Pepsis. I ended up feeling all sick and jittery and had to sleep it off at a park in Colorado for a while. But I didn't fall asleep in the car! I'm not sure if that time counts since it was so much all at once.

OK, wow, I can turn the tiniest statement into a whole slew of paragraphs. What I was trying to get to is this -- last night I got 4.5 hours of sleep. So I'm not really doing so well at this 'staying awake' thing today. So today is the perfect opportunity to try a caffeine experiment. Our drink machine has Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Diet Mountain Dew, and Diet Coke. My first inclination is that the diet drinks are automatically out. Artificial sweeteners, no thanks. But why not? The ingredients in Pepsi/Dr. Pepper aren't too great either. I have tasted Pepsi, and I know I like that. I don't really remember what Dr. Pepper tastes like, but I'm thinking it will be way too sweet. Probably all of them will, since I'm used to drinking water or stuff like almond milk, which is a little bitter. Diet Coke - I have no idea what that tastes like. I think I have a vague idea of what Mountain Dew tastes like, but I'm not sure. The Diet Mountain Dew has the most caffeine, so I am thinking I might go for that. It's either that or Pepsi. I will let you know what happens. I have to sneak over to the vending machine when no one is looking - I am supposed to be the 'health nut' at work, not the caffeine swilling HCFS addict.

Not Cool

2009-11-11T01:46:00.002-07:00

Today, OldestSon was sick (threw up on the way to school!), so I stashed him under my desk at work all day. Seriously, I really did. We had dentist appointments in the morning, so I stuck him under the desk, where he slept until we went to the dentist. After the dentist, we brought back a load of blankets, pillows, books, & the computer and DVDs. He hung out, watched DVDs, and slept until it was time to leave. Of course I didn't ask permission -- I'm the 'do it and ask forgiveness later' type of person.

Something very sad happened though. I encouraged OldestSon to watch Napoleon Dynamite, which he readily agreed to. But during the part with 'Do the chickens have large talons?' he didn't want to watch it any more!!! He switched to Wall-E instead. I guess not everyone can appreciate Napoleon Dynamite. Or maybe it takes a really big dork to appreciate the dorkiness.

I found out about Napoleon Dynamite before it was ever released. A woman in our ward was a relative of one of the writers or something. She kept telling us about this awesome movie and I was like 'uh, whatever'. I don't remember when I finally saw it, but I was hooked immediately. I've probably only seen it 3 times but have most of it memorized.

I should probably start taking friends' recommendations about new movies and books seriously. I had another friend who kept telling me about some really weird-sounding vampire books and putting weird vampire quotes in her signature line long before Twilight became really popular. She is a relative of Stephenie Meyer's. I could have totally been the first on the Twilight bandwagon, and started a Twilight store and made billions, but I missed the opportunity. My friend did end up running a Twilight business which made a full-time income for her and her husband for a while.

Yes!! I am safe!!

2009-11-10T22:00:00.006-07:00

Edited to add: This video plays automatically and I can't figure out how to stop it, so I'm removing the embedded video and putting this link up:

http://engineering.com/Videos/VideoPlayer/tabid/4627/VideoId/1174/Engineers-Immune-To-Swine-Flu.aspx

Some of it is REALLY funny; you've got to check it out.

Letter to Me

2009-11-10T16:16:00.002-07:00

Dear Face,
We are no longer 15 years old. I just thought you should know, because apparently you didn't get the memo. Please take care of this immediately. You really aren't that stressed, are you?

Thanks,
Me

All Year

2009-11-09T01:18:00.002-07:00

Well, my plan to go to bed early tonight was derailed, again (by me). So, why not post on my blog since it will count for Monday? So far my November posts have been between 12-4 am, why break the run now?

So, as I mentioned, I love trees. They are so beautiful, most of the year. But then they lose their leaves and look sad and ugly. Of course I notice the beauty of the evergreens more during the winter; that's one benefit of the other trees losing their leaves. And all snow-covered trees are gorgeous, but that's relatively rare. So I have been sad thinking about the pending winter and the pending ugliness of all the trees. I was supposed to be in Houston by now, where trees don't look barren and sad all winter long. That makes facing this winter all the more difficult. But then I thought, hey, why accept the loss of tree-beauty during the winter? Why not learn to find beauty in leafless trees instead? So that's what I've been doing. Most of the trees are still fiery and beautiful with their rainbow leaves, but a few have lost all their foliage already. I have tried looking at them with a new eye, trying to find the beauty in them. You can see their lines and shapes easily, now that they aren't covered by leaves. They are fairly monochrome, which is actually quite interesting. I suspect that now that I've decided that leafless trees are beautiful, I'll begin to see them as such.

(Unfortunately my 'appreciate what God/Nature gave me by not shaving' experiment isn't going so well. I still gross myself out occasionally. It's only been 3 months; I'm not sure if I should stick with it or say 'hey, at least I tried!')

I Have Skills

2009-11-08T03:36:00.001-07:00

Don't look at the timestamp on this post. Tomorrow (today?) is going to be absolutely miserable. So much for getting to bed earlier. I'm getting later by the day. And this post totally ended up all stream-of-conscious, which I guess is to be expected, given the time.

My kids had wanted to go to ~~Crap-Mart~~ Wal-Mart to ~~waste~~ spend their allowance, and I decided that if they had the Napoleon Dynamite DVD for under $10, I would buy it. They did have it, for $9. But then I had the brilliant idea of buying 2 workout DVDs too. Remember how I said I have had my Netflix DVDs sitting on my shelf for ELEVEN MONTHS? I finally bit the bullet and bought the 30-Day Shred and a TaeBo workout so that I could finally send those stupid DVDs back guilt free. So I spent $30 on DVDs, which is a big splurge for me, and really not what I should be spending my money on right now. But at least Netflix and I are back together again.

However, I realized I have failed my kids. The front of the Napoleon Dynamite DVD case says 'Vote for Pedro'. OldestSon looked at it and said "Who is Pedro?" I couldn't believe he didn't know. Obviously I've failed them -- they should have Napoleon Dynamite memorized. Actually, that's the exact reason I haven't bought it until now. There are way too many names in the movie that I knew my kids would pick up on if they watched it a lot. Like "Tina, you fat lard" for instance. So it might have to remain an 'adult' movie.

Can you tell I'm writing this at 3:30 am?

Oh yeah, the main purpose of this post. Earlier, my kids watched Pearl Harbor (which also has a whole slew of fun words for them to copy). I've read reviews that said it is a terrible movie, but I love it. It has Ben Affleck for one thing. And Kate Beckinsale. And the Goose guy is really funny. It really hits me emotionally too. I thought it was very well done and captured some of the emotion you feel when thinking of our soldiers being attacked. But then I thought of the atomic bombs. I showed OldestSon some pictures of what Hiroshima and Nagasaki and some of the survivors looked like after the atomic bombs. Sitting there thinking, I just couldn't believe that humans have used nuclear weapons against other humans. It really is incomprehensible. 220,000 or more people, mostly civilians, died. That number is also incomprehensible to me. That's like half the people in my metropolitan area dying. And to think of the effects of radiation sickness? I don't even want to go there. I've studied that some in the past (like in high school), and I didn't even look it up today.

I was thinking that I'd like to study World War II and Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombs in a lot more detail. Then I thought, no, I really don't want to study that. I don't want to understand where they were coming from. I don't want to understand why all the countries involved thought they had to kill thousands or millions of people. I read on Wikipedia that US and Japanese officials both still agree that the atomic bombs were necessary. Some say that if the atomic bombs hadn't been used, Japan would have been invaded, which would have caused greater loss of life. I have no idea what's true. The whole idea of war is just ridiculous. We really think that whichever side kills the most people or causes the most damage is the winner? Again - it's almost incomprehensible. I get that we need to defend freedom, but I wonder how often wars are truly fought for freedom. How much more often is it for monetary gain by the ones in power? I don't think we can ever know what they were thinking until we die. So, yeah, I'd like to study these wars and see what all the reasons were. But on the other hand, I don't even want to know what kind of things go through our leaders' heads when they decide to bomb and kill for what they feel is the greater good.

Oh yeah (again) -- the reason I titled this post as I did is because when I was reading about the atomic bombs, I came across a sweet publication called Nuclear War Survival Skills. Sounds like a must read to me! The word 'skills' in the title got me thinking of Napoleon Dynamite, which is why I related that story first.

NaBloPoMoing It

2009-11-07T00:49:00.002-07:00

Did you notice that I've been posting every day? I decided to try NaBloPoMo this month. I did it in 2006. I was going to try in 2007, but on November 2nd I forgot to post, so that ended that. In 2008 I forged on despite being sick and having to use a Blackberry to post while in Washington, D.C. for my sister's wedding (I have no idea how people type on those things). But then I missed a day and didn't realize it. So that was over. I figured I'd give it a go this year. I think I'll donate a prize, if I can think of something awesome. Or maybe I'll donate something really dumb as a white elephant sort of prize.

The other night I had another weird dream. I was driving on the freeway and there were some parachuters in the sky. A yellow parachute had a hole blown through it and it was trailing black smoke and falling fast. I saw the person hit the ground right off to the side of the freeway, and no one was stopping. I didn't want to stop; I wasn't sure I could handle the gore*. But no one else was doing anything, so I stopped. Off to the side of the freeway there were jagged lava rocks covering everything, including where the parachuter had landed. I went over to her. She was completely covered by her parachute. I took a deep breath, pulled back the parachute. . . and she was fine. No blood, no gore. She was disoriented and upset, but not seriously injured. I think I stayed with her and kept her talking, but I don't remember what else happened after that.

Interpretation?

*When I was in high school, I thought I wanted to be a doctor or medical professional of some sort. I ended up deciding on being a veterinarian. I took a health occupations class and was not bothered at all by the blood/guts they showed us on slides and stuff. My football-player boyfriend passed out during a presentation once, but I was totally fine. I took a summer course at BYU and got to see a cadaver. That was awesome, and I was totally fine.

The first sign of trouble was when I went to a veterinarian's office to observe for a day and passed out. They weren't even doing anything gross! There was a dog with pneumothorax, and they had a tube going into the chest to draw out the air, but that wasn't gross. Maybe it was the medical smells that did me in. Now that I have kids my tolerance for blood/guts is a lot lower, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't go that route. Or maybe I would have just gotten over it.

Why People are Frightened by Nourishing Traditions

2009-11-06T07:07:00.005-07:00

Nourishing Traditions is a cookbook/diet (way of eating, not weight-loss diet) book by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. Some people are scared off by some of the recipes in it, this likely being one of them:

Fermented Fish Sauce

(I'm scared of the copyright, so I'll just tell you the ingredients)

small fish, including heads, cut up
sea salt
filtered water
garlic
bay leaves
peppercorns
lemon rind
tamarind paste
whey

You put the fish and salt in a jar and press it down with a pounder/hammer. Put the rest of the ingredients over it, plus enough water to cover. Cover the jar tightly and leave it out for 3 days. Then leave it in the fridge for several weeks. Then you strain the liquid and store the sauce in the fridge.

Doesn't that sound appetizing?! I think it actually sounds like a good idea to make this frequently. I mean, think of all the possibilities. An annoying visitor/relative comes to see you? Just ask if they'd like some fermented fish heads and I bet they'll be gone in an instant! A burglar tries to steal something? Open the jar and throw it on him and he'll be gone too!

Now, I shouldn't be so rude -- I haven't actually tried this recipe. It probably tastes great. I bought some Thai Kitchen brand fish sauce for a recipe. It is the most vile-smelling thing I have ever smelled. It smells SO gross. I can't remember which recipe I bought it for, but I think that I should have reduced the amount or left it out. I also have Thai Kitchen green curry paste. The coconut curry recipe on the back calls for the paste, fish sauce, and brown sugar. I tried the full amount of the fish sauce in the curry, and it tasted fine. But I'm still scared to leave fish heads in a jar on my counter for 3 days. I can only imagine what the kids would do with it if they found it. The house would smell for weeks.

More Beauty

2009-11-05T19:00:00.003-07:00

This is a tree that I am privileged to see every day when I leave work. It is stunning in the spring when bursting with white blossoms, gorgeous in summer when verdant and full, flamboyantly beautiful in fall when it's a fiery rainbow, and dazzling in winter when covered with snow and ice. I keep meaning to take pictures of it every season and make a montage. I know I've got fall covered, but I'm not sure which other pictures I've taken of it. This picture is 2 years old, but it looks very similar right now. I will try to get a new picture of it tomorrow to compare to.

This post brought to you by Thesaurus.com. Not really, they didn't pay/sponsor me or anything.

Hmmm

2009-11-04T22:00:00.001-07:00

We have a calendar that's been on June for 5 months. Today my mom turned it over to November, and guess what the picture was? Three rainbows!!!

Complaining Again, Oops!

2009-11-04T00:25:00.001-07:00

If I write my complaints in really small letters, does it count as complaining? I'm trying to think positively, but some things still really get to me. OK, I can't help myself -- I'm going for it. I am very grateful to have a refrigerator, but I really hate the way ours works. It drips water inside. I have a plastic jar that sits under the drip to catch the water. I would say it drips about a quart every week or two. This begs the question -- where is the water coming from? The fridge is not hooked up to a water line. Do refrigerators remove humidity from the air? I have no idea. Nevertheless, every week a quart or so of water appears. When I complained to management, they told me this is just how this brand of fridges are. The dripped water freezes into pretty layers in the jar. If I forget to empty the jar (by running it under hot water until the ice starts to melt and slides out), the water collects in the bottom of the fridge until you open the door, at which point it falls out onto the floor and gets tracked all over the kitchen.

Also, the fridge freezes everything, unless it is perched on the very front edge of the shelves or in the door. When I first noticed it was freezing things, I turned the temperature up (duh). Which led to the freezer thawing. I try to pay attention to which foods I don't want to freeze (sour cream and eggs are the two biggest concerns), and try to always keep those right at the front. It's kind of difficult to keep EVERYTHING at the front though. Inevitably something will end up getting shoved back, and then I'll decide to make fried eggs for breakfast, and will pull out the eggs only to be greeted by a box of frozen and/or exploded eggs. I really, really hate that. Fortunately most foods can be used after being frozen, even if it wasn't the way I originally intended. Sour cream can be used in a heated meal like stroganoff, instead of as a topping. Greens can be used in smoothies. Eggs can be thawed and used in anything, even as fried eggs, but they're not exactly the same. The one thing that cannot be rescued after being frozen is hard boiled eggs. They are destroyed when they are frozen. All the water comes out of the egg white and collects in between the white and the shell. When you shell the egg, you get a layer of ice, with the destroyed egg underneath. Here is a picture of a shelled frozen hard boiled egg from December 2007 (I don't know why the camera timestamp says 2006).

OK, as penance for all my complaining, I will share something really funny. I don't remember if I've posted this here before. This has nothing to do with taste in music -- it is just hilarious. They've taken a music video (Total Eclipse of the Heart, in this case) and changed the words to describe what is happening in the video. They've got a whole series of them, but this one is my favorite. It was hard to pick just two, but my favorite lines are "Emo Kid is throwing Slo-Mo Dove in my face. I guess that means that he just flipped me the bird." and "I walk on to a terrace where I think I'm alone, but Arthur Fonzarelli's got an army of clones."

Sunshine and Rainbows

2009-11-03T00:10:00.008-07:00

Man, I've been all sunshine and rainbows lately, ha ha. It seems like everything I encountered yesterday was meant to tear me down or test me to see if I could withstand it. You saw my post about the LDS Gems quote I got. Then I opened my email and Carol Tuttle (who is supposed to be inspirational) asks me, "Are Your Limiting Beliefs About Money Ruining Your Life and Your Children's?" Why yes, Carol, they are! Thanks for asking!! So nice to hear from you ♥ The day got worse from there.

Anyway, I decided that I've turned into one of those friends who always has to be focused on their own tragedy and sorrow when you try to talk to them or help them. I know I've fallen into the victim role over the last 3 years. Now I just need to figure out how to get away from all that.

To start with I will share some of the world's beauty -- a real rainbow!!

We saw this rainbow a couple of weeks ago. It was an absolutely gorgeous double rainbow. You could see the entirety of both rainbows. I LOVE rainbows, real ones, as well as anything in rainbow colors. I could stare at a real rainbow for hours. They are fantastically gorgeous and magical. Of course I've studied (meaning I briefly stared at the webpage then closed it without actually attempting to understand it) the science of why rainbows appear, but looking at all those angles and rays? Naah, it's just magic!!

The kicker is that this was repeated for us last week. We walked out of the daycare and were greeted by an even more brilliant double rainbow. I don't even know when was the last time I saw a rainbow, and then to see two double rainbows in two weeks?! Wow! I wish I could bottle up a real rainbow and keep it in my backyard (if I had a backyard).

Speaking of rainbows, you have to see these pictures.

Wisely Chosen is my hair idol. I found her photos about a year ago. I think I had googled 'wild long curly hair'. As you all know (ad nauseum), I want really long hair like Dawn's. The first picture I saw of her was with nearly regular colored hair, or at least I didn't notice that it was colored. She already would have been my hair idol because of the length and beautiful curl, but when I saw her rainbow hair, her hair idol status was forever guaranteed!

~~I don't know the laws of Flickr, so I'm not going to put a picture in here, but you've really got to check it out.~~ Dawn gave me permission to post these pictures! Check out her Flickr photostream for tons more. I promise you will be amazed, shocked, or something similar. At first I thought that her hair must be Photoshopped, but if so, she must spend hundreds of hours on Photoshop and have amazing skills at making it look realistic. By which I mean that it's not Photoshopped!

I can't figure out my real personality. When I see Dawn's rainbow hair, something inside me says "YES! That is perfect! That is totally me! I want that!" But in real life, the most dramatic thing I've EVER done to my hair was a henna gloss, and since henna is RED and my hair is REDDISH, yeah, no one even noticed. So maybe THAT is my true personality and I just like to imagine that the rainbow me is the real me. Whatever. Rainbows and rainbow hair forever!

Oh, I forgot to mention -- if I ever get my own world, everyone is getting rainbow hair by default. I haven't decided if everything (trees, grass, animals) will be rainbow -- that might be visual overkill. But at least the hair will be rainbow.

Post-Halloween Hilarity

2009-11-01T16:09:00.002-07:00

YoungestSon was absolutely hilarious today. I stayed up violently late last night, so I was trying to sleep in this morning. MiddleSon and OldestSon keep YoungestSon safe and happy, but they don't prevent him from making messes or from making bad nutritional choices. Eventually, YoungestSon came back to the bed and asked for snackies (nursing). I said no, that the snackies were closed. I told him to cuddle with me instead. He cuddled with me for 2 seconds and then said "Snackies now?" I said no, and he cuddled 2 seconds longer. Then "Snackies now?!?!" 2 more seconds of cuddling, and "Snackies now??????!?!!!!?"

Then he started pretending to bite me and he was saying "Pizza! Chicken!" Then he was making really funny faces and rolling his eyes back and stuff. It was really hilarious; I guess you had to be there. It turns out that all three of them had pretty much eaten all of their halloween candy by the time I got up. It looked like someone blew up a Hershey's factory in our living room.

Google It!

2009-10-31T22:57:00.010-06:00

Periodically I check my Google Analytics to see what people are Googling to find my blog. The consistent top performers are Texadelphia Mustard Blend and Brad Paisley. I took all the Google searches that led people to my blog in the last 30 days and commented on them. I tried several colors out to highlight the search terms and settled on blue. Halfway through I realized that was a really dumb choice, since the default color for most links is blue. Oh well, I'm not changing it now.

"shaken faith syndrome" - yep, I have it

brad paisley 2009 stage - There were lights, and, um, places for the band to stand on up high, a lot of paint, and um, some digital displays, and, um, hey, what's that shiny thing over there?

Here's a picture that shows the stage:

brad paisley bobblehead - they sell these? Oh yeah, it was part of the scrapbook on the digital display. Like this, in the lower left corner:

brad paisley concert 2009 - AWESOME. Maybe someday I'll write a review. Ha.

green smoothies for beginners - spinach, pineapple, and banana. You could even do lettuce instead of spinach. Add an avocado for good fat and creaminess.

katies word - I wrote more than one word.

"almonds" - I'm selling them until next Friday.

"danica anerson" - Who on earth is that? OK, I googled it, and it's one of the kids in the Brad Paisley articles I pasted here.

"it's a daddy thing" - "Cleaning This Gun" is a great song; one of my favorites!

"marty+robbins" matilda - I don't think I've ever written about this song. But in a 2006 post, I shared my list of artists in my music library, which includes Marty Robbins, and I also mentioned listening to Matilda by John Williamson (the Australian folk singer)

"rod smith" green polk dot box - I am pretty sure he's a good guy. I trust him.

25 lb bag of chia seed - I am selling this too. I would encourage you to buy it. Think of how many chia pets you could make!

back to the future swearing - Oh yes. This is where my kids learned to swear.

bajio mexican grill calories - A lot? I think I've been there once. It still can't beat Don Carlos in Houston.

basic beginner green smoothie - spinach

beginners green smoothies - and pineapple

big green polka dot box - Great company. I think they're going to hit it big.

bob lonsberry - Completely loony.

brad paisley american concert what songs - I am sure I missed some, but I took videos of many of the songs he sang, including these:
Start a Band
American Saturday Night
Mud on the Tires
Wrapped Around
Celebrity
Waiting on a Woman
Water
I'm Still a Guy
Catch All the Fish
I'm Gonna Miss Her
She's Everything
The World
Letter to Me
When I Get Where I'm Going
Feel Like Making Love (cover of Bad Company's song)
Ticks
Online
Then
Welcome to the Future
Alcohol

brad paisley bobble head - I want one now.

brad paisley camp for kids - If so, he is even more awesome.

brad paisley concert line up song - See above.

brad paisley concert people with funny hats - Yep, these people were right in front of me:

brad paisley concert review 2009 - I forgot to do mine, didn't I?

brad paisley concert song line up 2009 - see above

brad paisley concert song line-up - see above

brad paisley concert supposed to end at the amphitheater - It ended at 10:55 pm.

brad paisley concert tour 2009 songs - see above

brad paisley concert what songs he is playing - see above

brad paisley concert with funny hats - yes

brad paisley concerts how long are they - Ours started at 7:30, with Jimmy Wayne and Dierks Bentley up first. Brad Paisley came out at 9:10 and played until 10:55.

brad paisley songs he sung at his 2009 concert - See above

brad paisleys blue jeans - OH. YES. Very nice. I never figured out what brand they were though, sorry. Not that I looked, of course. I'm a good girl (snicker). He had paint on his jeans; did you notice? And he doesn't wear them as tight as Rodney Atkins; bonus! I did notice the nice stitching on the back pockets of the ones he wore at our concert. Of course I was looking at the stitching, what did you think?!!? Here's a partial jeans shot. I have a video that shows them a lot better, but I'm not messing with videos tonight.

can't figure out my love language - keep Googling; I don't have time to explain it now. Do it now though, before your relationship goes down the tubes due to lack of communication.

chia seeds lasts how long in storage - hmm, my friend Robyn says "Chia is a wonderful food for storage, because its crunchy exterior protects it from oxidation and keeps years without rancidity. Buy up to a five-year supply, and keep it in a cool place if possible. (Vacuum sealing it with a Food Saver in quart jars is a good way to keep it on the shelf for years.)"

concert rain wet - I didn't get very wet because I brought my BYU sweatshirt. Brad Paisley got soaked. I would recommend bringing a sweatshirt. But if it's going to get really wet and dirty from the acid rain/smoke in the air, maybe you should bring a University of Utah sweatshirt instead. If not the U, then bring University of Texas.

cooking for families cheap - I recommend a lot of grains and vegetables. Not processed foods. It's surprising how much you can save if you cut out all the candy/junk.

cuddling hold hands falling asleep - Awwww, sweet! I think I would LOVE this, but I'm not sure. I like my space too.

dreadlocks - You should definitely do them. You would look good in them.

elder oaks - Yeah, he's got a lot of supporters and detractors right now.

elder oaks talk on bob lonsberry - Oh dear. Did this really happen? One thing I didn't like about Mr. Lonsberry is how every day was like an LDS church lesson. And then after the Utah show was over, he would do his local New York show, wherein he would make frequent comments about big breasts. Loser.

foamy green smoothie - if mine gets foamy, what do I do. . . . . hmmm. I can't remember. Maybe wait for it to settle, and then stir it gently if it separates.

foamy smoothie - see above

foodsaver - Tupperware?

green polka dot box - definitely do it

green polka dot grocery - you should go for it. Using my referral link.

green smoothies beginner - pineapple

green smoothies for a newbie? - and spinach

how to show the love language physical touch - YES! Something I am an expert on! Let's assume you're talking about a woman. Touch her whenever you walk past. If she's not 'in the mood', keep it on the shoulders, arms, face, or hair. If she is in the mood, grope away! Give her a hug and kiss whenever you leave or get home. Make it into a dramatic kiss if you really want to knock her socks off. Make out a lot. Hold hands whenever you get the chance. Play footsie. Cuddle to watch movies. Lots of sex. Play with her hair. Stroke her face. Hold her. Help her out of the car. Open doors for her and touch her on the back as she goes through. Cuddle while she falls asleep. Is it getting hot in here?

im a tough and suppress my feelings - Yeah, me too. My counselor recommended finding a safe, quiet place, and setting aside time to allow yourself to feel. Start writing what you're going through if you need help getting started. Good luck with that. My counselor recommended I do this about 6 weeks ago -- I have been putting it off.

katie words - yes

love languages of a female - could be any of them

men's touch to show love - From what I hear about men in general, probably there will be a lot of groping involved. Woot!!! If there's too much groping for your tastes, refer your man to my answer about physical touch above. Here's a couple fun facts: Oxytocin is the hormone that bonds you to someone when your body releases it. Women release oxytocin when they are touched. Men release it at orgasm.

nick vujicic orthodox church - is he orthodox? I wasn't sure. Actually, I don't even know what that means.

nick vujicic's doctrine - Evangelical, definitely. Love everyone. Keep your chin up.

people who speak different love languages are not compatible - I don't know if I would go that far, but I'd say it can be VERY HARD for people to learn other love languages sometimes. I would recommend learning to do it while you're in the early stages of the relationship so that you're not fighting an uphill battle later.

polka dot box utah - Yes, do it! Use my referral link!

raw egg in green smoothie - I would do it (unless you're vegan obviously), and to be extra safe, I would use pasture-farmed eggs from a local farmer you trust.

rod smith green polka - He has answered my emails personally. Seems like a great CEO.

song line up at brad paisley concert 2009 - see above

texadelphia mustard blend ingredients - The ingredients to make it yourself are said to be mayonnaise, yellow mustard, Gulden's spicy mustard, Kikkoman Teriyaki sauce, honey, and water

texadelphia mustard recipe - I haven't ever tried to figure it out! In fact, it's been over 3 years since I've had Texadelphia (SAD), so I don't even remember what it's supposed to taste like.

texadelphia queso recipe - I don't know about Texadelphia, but Don Carlos's queso is approximated by Velveeta + milk + jalapenos. So simple and so processed/fake, but tastes pretty close.

texadelphia queso recipe houston - Send me some, will you? How about a regular beef (NOT with extra meat) with 3 mustard sauces? Here's a lovely picture of a Texadelphia cheesesteak with mustard blend. But I don't get jalapeños on mine.

then powertab brad paisley - If you play 'Then' for me on your guitar and really mean it, I will totally marry you.

veterinary school - I wouldn't recommend it if you don't like animals or get sick around blood/guts.

what is the song paisley sings infront of guitar hero? - Crap, I can't think of it right now. . . . I'll have to get back to you. Oh yeah, it's CELEBRITY.

who is in brad paisleys guitar hero video - The old guy with the sweet jackets is Little Jimmy Dickens! I'm fairly certain that everyone in the video is a guitar master, which is what makes it so funny.

who many words can be spelled with kate - Assuming you mean 'how' many, then I find these: a, at, ate, eat, take, tea, & teak

Wow, this was a huge, mostly pointless waste of time. I wonder if it will cause a paradox, because people will google these terms, which will lead to a post about googling, and then the Space-Time continuum will blow up.

Ew

2009-10-30T12:23:00.003-06:00

Remember how I said I learned to cook from a recipe book my sister put together for me? One of the recipes she included was for Beef Stroganoff. It has ended up being one of my favorites. It requires 1 pound sirloin steak and 1/2 pound mushrooms. Over the last couple years I've made the stroganoff with extra mushrooms instead of beef.

Yesterday we went shopping, and I decided that since I've been feeding my kids somewhat crappily (fairly whole foods, but certainly not well-rounded), maybe they should have some beef in their diet. So I bought some ground beef.

Remembering how much I used to love ground beef, I decided to put 1/2 pound in the stroganoff. I am eating leftovers for lunch now, and ew, it is so gross. The stroganoff is too delicious to be ruined by the beef, but it certainly is not adding anything. Every time I bite into a chunk, it's just gross. It has this completely flavorless, too-chewy texture. It might be just the texture that's bothering me. If I used sirloin and cook it gently as the recipe calls for, maybe I'd love it.

Anyway, I just thought that was interesting. I haven't been meat free by any means, but I've had a lot less recently than usual. Maybe my tastes are changing. Although, knowing that my kids refuse to eat the completely mild and non-offensive stroganoff, I made spaghetti for them. I put ground beef in Prego sauce, and wow, it was about 1000 times better than usual. BUT that could have been because it was getting so late and I was STARVING when I tried it. Being starving certainly adds a great appeal to most dishes. Maybe I should challenge my hypothesis with a nice filet mignon!

Here's the stroganoff recipe, as I make it. And after writing this down, I realize I'm not that great at writing recipes. You should be able to follow it easily if you're an experienced cook, but if you're a beginner, sorry :-D

Beef Stroganoff
Makes a lot. For me anyway, since I am the only one who eats it.

Start making some brown rice (I use a covered glass casserole dish and use a ratio of 1 C rice to 2.5 C water and cook it in the microwave on full power for 40 minutes)

Chop 1/2-1 onion and several cloves garlic and sauté in butter or oil. (Sometimes I leave the garlic cloves whole and then fish them out and smash them or put them through a garlic press after the sautéing. The difference is that the first way browns it, the second way doesn't.)

While the onion is sautéing, chop 1 - 1-1/2 pounds mushrooms into large chunks. Sauté mushrooms until they are as tender as you like.

Blend 1/4 cup flour with 1-1/2 cups milk. Add to mushroom/onions and stir/cook over medium heat until thickened.

Add 1 teaspoon paprika, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and about 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Take off heat and add 1 cup sour cream. Add more milk if it is too thick.

Serve over rice. A lot of the flavor comes from the mushrooms, so pick a variety you like! I assume that if you have high-quality paprika you'd get more flavor from that. Mine is cheap, so it doesn't change the flavor too much.

Little Cans of Tuna

2009-10-29T07:18:00.000-06:00

You probably thought that title was a metaphor or something. Ha! It's not. When I was a kid, my mom would make tuna fish sandwiches for two adults and two kids using only one can of tuna fish. We would eat them with chips for lunch on Saturdays. When I make tuna fish sandwiches now, I add onions and chopped Bubbie's naturally fermented dill* pickles. Even with the extra onion/pickle volume, I typically only get ONE sandwich out of it. I can't quite fit ALL of it on my bread, but it's usually only a few spoonfuls left over, and I eat it plain, before I eat my sandwich. I don't usually eat anything along with the sandwich. So what's up? Has everyone's appetite grown since the mid-80s? Are cans of tuna significantly smaller? Do I have an unusually hearty appetite?

*Thinking of dill reminded me that I left a bunch of red peppers and dill in the dehydrator a couple days ago. Oops. Fortunately we're in the desert and it's winter with forced air heating, so the air in the house is about as dry as. . . as dry as. . . (nothing's coming to me). . . as dry as something really really dry!

Darn

2009-10-25T00:00:00.002-06:00

I was going to try to torture you with Brad Paisley videos, but embedding is disabled. I guess to really torture you, I'd have to figure out a way to MAKE you listen, so whatever. Brad Paisley has lots of songs about lust, but he's also got plenty about mature love. I realize popular songs aren't necessarily reflective of reality, but still, the message of this song is so precious. The video's great because the intro is funny, it's got Andy Griffith, and it's got THE GOATEE!! Special thanks to Kim, Brad Paisley's wife, for sharing him and his goatee with the world.

Waitin' On a Woman

One More Try

2009-10-23T20:44:00.004-06:00

OK, OK, I get it - you guys just can't appreciate good music!

How about this? Someone's got to think this is awesome -->

Greg Simpson was my seminary teacher once upon a time. As far as I knew, everyone at my school loved him as a teacher. I definitely did. Plus he was hot and awesome; that sure didn't hurt ;-) He taught us the names of the Twelve Apostles to the music of Journey's Faithfully. He said that he wanted us to think of 'the Brethren' when we were dancing too close at the dances, ha ha!! I also remember him admonishing us for calling him "Brother Simpson" at his concerts. I think he may have also made us try kim-chi (he went on a mission to Korea). Eventually he abandoned our school and defected to Bonneville High School.

When I got to BYU, I found out that one of my floormates went to Bonneville. She said they all thought Brother Simpson was gay and they weren't all that impressed with him! The main reason she gave for thinking he was gay was that he wore vests. At Northridge, that meant he was super sharp. I guess BHS students just don't know how to identify a well-dressed guy!

According to the Youtube comments on the video up there, Brother Simpson is a bishop now. Sweet - he can sing if the talks get too boring. When we lived in Sandy, one of the counselors in our bishopric had shoulder length curly hair and a sweet beard. He was also a musician and is credited on The Singles Ward (I think). Maybe they should get together and form the Bishopric Band!

Appreciation

2009-10-22T21:34:00.005-06:00

I have a big exam tomorrow and I'm pretty much freaking out. So I thought I'd post some good songs to calm me down.

Now, I feel like you guys aren't properly appreciating the music that I post here. That has got to change! Bon Jovi, Rodney Atkins, Oldies. . . . how can you NOT like that stuff?!

This song is great -- it even has sweet hippie girls dancing in the video. This remains one of my favorite songs of all time.

I can't embed this one, but you have GOT to click on it at least for a second and check out:
- a guy apparently wearing a garbage bag (at the beginning, left side)
- some sweet hippie glasses (0:21)
- the worst lip-syncing and instrument-syncing ever (the entire thing)
- some of the worst haircuts ever (entire thing)

The Byrds on Ed Sullivan

Actually, I wish I could go back and 'un-see' this. I was listening to this song today because I was getting nervous and it is one of my all time best 'calming' songs. I've listened to Oldies music since I was a kid, and I never knew what the Byrds looked like. So I looked the song up on YouTube and found this video. I think I was better off not knowing what they looked like, ha ha!

Now that I'm all calmed down it't time to listen to Rodney Atkins to get me in the mood to get everything ready for tomorrow!

Now tell me how anyone can dislike this song. Really! OK, I guess if you're opposed to drinking, smoking, guns, and Rodney's too-tight jeans, I GUESS I could see your objections. But other than that. . . !? It's down-home America! I love it!

If I haven't convinced you how awesome Rodney Atkins is, try this song. Seriously, watch it. Now.

There's nothing objectionable in this one except it's got McDonald's and distracted driving, camouflage pants, and unhelmeted four-wheeling. And that's Rodney Atkins' real son in the video!! How cute is that?

Pay Attention!

2009-10-21T11:09:00.004-06:00

I get a Monday Motivating Moment in my email every week. The story this week is one you've probably heard before, but a good reminder nonetheless. I've copied the entire thing, headers/footers and all, so as not to run into copyright issues:

Monday Motivating Moment
October 19, 2009
Your Weekly Attitude Booster

"Awareness"

It is not unusual for us to get so caught up in meeting our needs, desires, and goals that we lose sight of what is happening around us. From time to time, we may be stopped in our tracks by some unusual event that will cause us to pay attention to what is important. Those lessons can cause "dents" as happened in the following story.

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching as kids darted out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something.

As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and spun the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed the kid who was standing there and pushed him against a parked car shouting, "What do you think you are doing?"

Building up a head of steam he went on, "That is a new car and the dent from the brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money to repair. Why did you do it?"

"Please sir, please. I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do," pleaded the youngster. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop..."

Tears were dripping down the boy's chin as he pointed around the parked car. "It's my brother, sir," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him."

Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair, sir? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay.

"Thank you and may God bless you, sir," the grateful child said to him. The man then watched the little boy push his brother toward their home. It was a long walk back to his Jaguar... a long, slow walk. He never did repair the car door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.

Author Unknown

Everyday, we have the opportunity to be aware of what is going on around us and to notice who might need our assistance or attention. When we are so focused on ourselves or getting where we are going, it may take a brick to get our attention.

Let's slow down and truly "see" what is around us. How many "dents" do we need before we make it a habit to "stop, look, listen, feel and care?"

Affirmation for the Week:
“I maintain awareness and vigilance in my life. I need only a feather to tickle me, not a brick to dent me, to bring my awareness back to the moment when my attention and focus strays.”

Have an observant week!

Mary Rau-Foster, mary@workplaceissues.com

Copyright 2009 by Mary Rau-Foster. All rights reserved.
However, if you find this information helpful, we grant you permission, and strongly encourage you, to print this page and put it on your bulletin board, or download an Adobe PDF file with a printable version. Thank you.

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2009 Almond Group Buy

2009-10-18T20:57:00.003-06:00

The 2009 raw almond group buy is here! The focus of this group buy is raw almonds because they simply aren’t available anywhere else. You cannot get truly raw California almonds anymore through retailers, and if anything says “raw,” that just means “not roasted.” California law in September 2007 mandated pasteurization of almonds, which kills enzyme potential through heat.

Something exciting about this year’s buy is that despite food prices rising all year, I have been able to keep the price for raw almonds the same as last year!

However, I have even more exciting news. This year I am also offering ORGANIC raw almonds, imported from Spain! My price is far below what you’ll find anywhere else.

In addition to almonds, I am also offering several other high-nutrition items, including raw honey, extra-virgin olive oil, organic extra-virgin coconut oil, raw organic blue agave nectar, dehydrated green drink, pecan halves, hulled sunflower seeds, raw pumpkin seeds, cashew pieces, raw sesame seeds, raw hulled chia seeds, organic raw flaxseed, dates (chopped, in oat flour), organic whole dried apricots, and shredded coconut.

Since I can't easily provide an order form through my blog, please contact me if you want to order anything. Prices are as follows:

Raw Almonds: 5 pounds (comes in 50-pound box) - $20.00 ($4.00/pound)
Raw Organic Almonds: 5 pounds (comes in 50-pound box) - $31.30 ($6.26/pound)
Almonds should last up to a year at room temperature in your pantry. You can keep them in jars or freezer bags in the fridge for 2 years, or indefinitely in the freezer. They will germinate (sprout) after they are frozen, so this is a good way to preserve almonds and other nuts.

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil: one-gallon tin - $32.00 (a case is 6 tins)
This oil in the group buy, from Italy, is not only inexpensive, but it is also stored in tin, which helps the oil retain nutrition and not oxidize. (If olive oil is stored in clear bottles and with exposure to light, it will oxidize quickly, and your oil will be rancid within a year.) I have been told the oil will be good in cold storage for 15-20 years in these tins. I personally would plan on rotating it within five years, however, just to be safe. This oil is very green, from the first pressing of the olives, which indicates the highest nutrition levels.

Organic, Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil: one-gal. bucket - $53.00 (a case is 3 buckets)
This coconut oil comes in white plastic (food grade) buckets so the oil is protected from air and light. It is a saturated and therefore highly stable fat, and goes rancid much more slowly than other fats and therefore stores well. Plan on rotating it within a few years, and buy no more than a 5-year supply for your baking, cooking, and beauty regimen needs. If you don’t have a cool area to store the oil in, I recommend buying only a two-year supply.

Raw Honey: five-lb. bucket - $17.00 (a case is 6 buckets)
Honey literally keeps forever, never goes bad. This is in part because it is a natural anti-bacterial. You can put it on cuts and scrapes and burns for excellent healing properties. My source is in Utah, and the bees range on alfalfa. The honey is completely raw.

Organic, Raw, Dark Agave: one-gallon jug - $41.00 (a case is 4 jugs)
Agave will last many years on the shelf. Keep the amount you want for long-term storage in a cool area if possible, and buy up to a five-year supply.

Green Drink: 17.6 oz.-bottle - $53.00 (a case is 6 bottles)
One bottle of dehydrated greens product (brand name available upon request) is a 60-day supply for one person, if you use 1 tsp. daily shaken or stirred into a glass of water. It gives you incredible nutrition and energy, without fillers and at a decent price. Here is a list of the incredible ingredients, all dehydrated under 100 degrees to preserve enzymes, vitamins, and mineral content:
• Six grasses, dehydrated below 100 degrees for enzyme preservation (including barley, kamut, and wheat grass), micro-ground to release the energy in the cell walls
• Juices of alfalfa leaf, broccoli, kale, spinach and parsley
• The best plant protein in the world from freshwater spirulina and broken cell-wall chlorella, both nearly 60% protein and incredibly mineral-rich
• Kelp and dulse, the two best sea-plant foods to nourish the thyroid, needed by most women older than 20 and many men, too
• Every single enzyme your body needs
• A vast range of probiotics and natural soil organisms to promote gastrointestinal health and fight infection

Chia Seed: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bag) - $29.40 ($5.88/pound)
Chia is a wonderful food for storage, because its crunchy exterior protects it from oxidation and keeps years without rancidity. Buy up to a five-year supply, and keep it in a cool place if possible. (Vacuum sealing it with a Food Saver in quart jars is a good way to keep it on the shelf for years.)

Flax Seed: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bag) - $10.40 ($2.08/pound)
Flax oxidizes quickly when ground, so use them right away after grinding (in your blender or a coffee grinder). Freeze gallon bags of flax.

Shredded Coconut: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bag) - $10.40 ($2.08/pound)
The product we are providing in the group buy is NOT what you get in the grocery store, which has two dangerous ingredients, among (potentially) others: sugar, and propylene glycol. What we are providing is pure, without additives.
You can keep it in jars for six months on the shelf, or you can refrigerate or freeze it in gallon freezer bags.

Pecan Halves: 5 pounds (comes in 30 lb. bag) - $31.40 ($6.28/pound)
Pecans do not last particularly long on the shelf, so buy only enough for a few months unless you have freezer space (they will keep frozen indefinitely, and quite a long time refrigerated as well).

Raw Pumpkin Seeds: 5 pounds (comes in 27.5 lb. bag) - $20.00 ($4.00/pound)
Store your pumpkin seeds in the refrigerator in an air-tight container for them to last a year, or freeze them indefinitely. They will remain fresh only a couple of months at room temperature, or 1-2 years vacuum sealed in quart jars.

Dates (chopped): 5 pounds (comes in 30 lb. bag) - $8.90 ($1.78/pound)
Store similarly to other dried fruits.

Sesame Seeds: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bag) - $12.60 ($2.52/pound)
Keep it in jars for six months on the shelf, or you can refrigerate or freeze it in gallon freezer bags.

Cashews: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bag) - $25.40 ($5.08/pound)
At room temperature, they’ll be good for only 6 months, so I recommend keeping them in your freezer indefinitely, or vacuum seal them in quart jars for 1-2 years in storage.

Dried Apricots: 5 pounds (comes in 28 lb. bags) - $18.20 ($3.64/pound)
Store similarly to other dried fruits.

Raw Sunflower Seeds: 5 pounds (comes in 25 lb. bags) - $10.20 ($2.04/pound)
Keep sunflower seeds for years in the freezer. They sprout very easily when you soak them overnight and then drain them. Leave them in the jar for a day or two, rinsing and draining twice a day. Their nutrition is maximized after the end of the seed just barely begins to grow a tail. Refrigerate them immediately at this point so growth slows and they are good for a week.

Toe-Tapping Fun Song

2009-10-18T00:34:00.002-06:00

(Ignore the trashy parts)

Here's Brad Paisley talking about the song, or something:

Freakish Dream

2009-10-16T07:44:00.003-06:00

Last week I had a really creepy dream, and that's about all I remember about it. Last night I had a really freakish/scary dream. My co-workers and I had just finished a meeting and stepped outside a building but several floors up (maybe on some kind of walkway or deck). My one co-worker said "wow, look how low he's flying" as we all turned and looked to see a massively huge black helicopter flying very low. There were hundreds of thousands of people, packed onto the sidewalks, like you'd see in New York City. The helicopter was the size of a C-130 plane, and I felt like it was a military helicopter, but it was shiny black. Then we realized it wasn't flying low on purpose. It was crashing. As it crashed into the people, and started to explode and send debris flying, we realized that because of its size, the debris cloud(?) was going to be like that from a bomb, and it was going to hit us. We turned and ducked, and huge pieces of metal flew over us and past us, hitting me, but not hurting me.

We went down to ground level and started to walk the opposite direction from the crash. I walked past bodies, which I won't describe. The next place I ended up was an LDS-looking chapel. It was obviously some kind of mourning service for the victims of the crash. There wasn't any program going on, just people sitting and talking/crying together. I immediately saw two of my friends from high school who are still single -- each had their own row in the chapel. I went and gathered both of them up in a big hug and we just stood there together. My mom said "she wants to make them into a big happy family."

Then I was at some kind of stake or ward dance!!! I saw a young John Travolta coming through the crowd and stopped him. I said "What you did today was really great. You pushed me out of the way and saved my life." After I woke up, I realized that dreamKatie must have been trying to get a date or something, because he was NOT there during the crash, ha ha! I think the dance part of the dream went on longer, but I don't remember it.

What a strange dream. I guess I have reasons to have dreamed most of these things. I was supposed to go to a meeting with co-workers yesterday. Military helicopters were in the news because of the kid supposedly in the science balloon. I might have thought of the people who were hurt in the crash because of NieNie. I have no idea where John Travolta or the stake dance came from. I watched some clips from "Saturday Night Fever" on YouTube a few weeks ago, and I love dancing, but that's all I've got for that.

Hopefully now that I've written it all out, I can forget it, because it was a nasty dream, and now you can all think of it instead!

My Kidlets

2009-10-13T09:28:00.004-06:00

I need to say something about my kids. I rarely talk about them on this blog. You might get the impression that it’s all about me, me, me, and I don’t really care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are my life. I love them beyond words. They absolutely delight me. They are so wonderful and precious. I worry that if I was always gushing about how much I love them and how much I just want to gobble them up, people might think there is something wrong with me! I feel that I fail daily as a mother, but I love it anyway.

All I ever wanted to do was be a mother. I don't think I had career aspirations. Yeah, I had some ideas of what I wanted to study in college, but I never thought beyond that, or if I did, it was only with kids in mind, or it was a backup plan. I found in my old journal a schedule of how I wanted my life to go. I was going to major in pre-veterinary medicine, go to veterinary school and then have my first baby. I don’t think I planned on working after vet school. Once I got to college, I quickly realized that going to veterinary school wasn’t going to be an option. I knew without a doubt that given the right opportunities (i.e., finding a man and being able to have children), I was not going to last 8 years without having children, and I knew that going to veterinary school with young children wouldn’t work out very well.

Even now, I still think of myself as a stay at home mother with a really annoying problem of having to go to work every day. I say all this only to explain that my lack of writing about my kids has nothing to do with how I feel about them.

So why don’t I write about them? I think there are two primary reasons. First of all, I want to reduce their exposure on the internet. I might share too much about myself on the internet, but at least it’s my own choice. I want my kids to be in charge of what they share (once they’re old enough) and not have to deal with their mom sharing every little thing about them. I’m not really afraid of the internet, but I’d rather share too little than share too much about them. Also, my oldest is 7 and he is already very embarrassed when I share certain stories (that aren't even truly embarrassing stories) about him with grandparents or friends. I remember my mom doing that to me, and I HATED IT. SO MUCH. I can’t even imagine how embarrassed I’d have been to know the whole internet was seeing my stories.

I haven’t shown many pictures of my kids on this blog, but here’s a cute one:

The second reason I don’t write about them is that this is my space to vent or talk about adult topics with other adults. This space is all about me, me, me. My kids get my time when I’m at home. I rarely leave them to go out for fun. The last time I did was for the Brad Paisley concert in September. The time before that was. . . . I have no idea. I looked through my 2009 calendar back to January and didn't see anything that I left them for. I went to a book club in July, I think. Does that count? I leave them to go to occasional church meetings and other necessary appointments, and that’s about it. It might be healthier for me to do more for myself (I’ve wanted to take a clogging class), but my kids are so young that I think they need me more. They are already grievously robbed of the time with me that they rightfully deserve and they so desperately want. So this is the way that I ‘get out’. If I didn’t write and interact with other adults online, I think that I’d only be conversant in baby talk. It’s getting better as my kids get older, but seriously, in the past I’ve had to stop myself from saying something in toddler language at work. Blogging and other forms of online interaction help keep me sane. Maybe if I spent less time online I’d have more time for real life friends that could serve the same purpose, but probably not. I can jump online after my kids go to bed; I can’t go out with friends and talk. If friends come to me, or the whole family goes together, that is great, but otherwise, it’s not happening.

So, the moral of the story is – I love my kids beyond words and don’t ever think differently because I don’t write about them. No one has ever accused me of this, and I don't think you don't love your kids because you don't write about them, but you never know what people are really thinking.

Lifelong Learning Organized Tree Hugger

2009-10-10T23:02:00.003-06:00

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Lifelong Learning Organized Tree Hugger

As I was taking this quiz, I was thinking wow, there's tons of these that I want to do. But I haven't actually done them. I thought it was going to return the result that I was a slacker who imagines that I do a lot but doesn't actually follow through :-) Maybe "lifelong learning" is a nice way of saying "hasn't done much but will eventually". I guess it said tree hugger because I checked off eating locally grown food, using cloth grocery bags, and recycling. I go to the farmer's market 2-3 times a season. I always mean to go but rarely follow through. I used cloth grocery bags approximately twice. Since then, I always forget them. I recycled for about 2 weeks, until I changed my work schedule and could no longer make it to the recycling drop off before 5 pm. I hate putting my reality into print because it makes me feel like a total slacker.

Sara Janssen and Dreadlocks

2009-10-10T16:40:00.000-06:00

In my last post, I had originally written a little bit about Sara Janssen and dreadlocks and my midwife's assistant. But then I decided it was totally irrelevant and took it out. "Since when has a story's relevancy ever bothered you before, Katie?" you're probably wondering. Yeah, I know. Whatever.

Here is what I wrote about Sara.

Sara Janssen has got to be one of the awesomest ladies ever. Look at this face. Really, click on the link and look. Look at her smile. You know just from looking at her that she is happy. You cannot fake the light that she radiates (no matter how much you Photoshop it). Sara is living a fabulous life, traveling around the country in an RV, living on the money they make from doing photography, raw food demos, raw food coaching, etc. They stopped in Bozeman for a while (a year?) to have their second baby but they’re headed out on the road again soon. Sara is such an inspiration. I promise you will be uplifted by reading her blog(s). She doesn’t even know who I am, but I think she is great. The main reason I admire her so much is not because she lives in a sweet RV or because she eats raw food, but because she decided what she wanted out of life, and she did what she needed to to get it. I tend to allow myself to be a victim of circumstances, and I whine and complain a lot. Sara is the opposite, and I am totally inspired by her. I love her decorating and her ability to make a beautiful, uncluttered home out of a small space. Before starting the RV trip, Sara, her husband, and their daughter lived in a 300 square foot home.

Sara is growing dreadlocks. Sometimes I think dreadlocks look so awesome and then I think they look like pieces of poop. See, I'm a walking contradiction, yet again. Strong, awesome women and dreadlocks seem to go together. Maybe that's why I like them, rather than actually liking the look. Chandelle tried dreadlocks once, which proves my theory about strong/awesome women having them. One of the midwife's assistants when I had YoungestSon had great dreadlocks. Her name was Katia, which I liked. I never got to see her dreadlocks down, but she said they were hip length. She was so awesome. I only got to meet her twice, but she really seemed to be a strong, confident woman. I'm not sure where she was from originally, but she lived on a farm in Costa Rica and (obviously) wanted to go back there to be a midwife. One of the silly 'societal questions' I struggle with is whether women should shave their legs. I know that the practice has been around for thousands of years (see Egypt), but here in the U.S., it was popularized by the razor companies around the time of World War I. I am grateful for razors (because men need them to have goatees), but I think that advertising campaigns by razor companies is a stupid reason for an entire nation of women to shave their legs. So sometimes I decide that I'm never shaving again. I can't shake the perception that it's gross if I don't, but I try. Anyway, before my baby was born, I shaved my legs so my midwives wouldn't think I was gross and uncivilized. My main midwife is a total hippie, so I should have known this was a non-issue. And during my seemingly-eternally-long labor, I discovered that Katia had unshaven legs. Far from thinking it was gross, it made me think that she was strong and confident. I realize I only met her twice, but from what I saw, she was worth admiring.

People Pleaser?

2009-10-09T21:01:00.011-06:00

I think one reason it has been difficult for me to find my true beliefs and desires is that I tend to be a people pleaser, sometimes. Sometimes I want to debate and offend everyone, but other times I just want everyone to like me, and I think that if I agree with them, they’ll be my friend! In reality, that’s probably not even true, because most of my friends and acquaintances are confident and outspoken and would probably rather hear my true feelings and debate with me than have me agree with everything they say. And they are mature enough that they can still be my friend despite serious differences. And if they couldn’t do that, they’re probably not the right friend for me. But nevertheless, sometimes I just want to be agreeable. Or maybe I’m just spineless? That’s a possibility.

Another possibility is that because my experiences have been varied, I can truthfully agree with opposing viewpoints:

“Oh, you’re a raw vegan?” ME TOO!!
“Oh, you eat traditional foods, including lots of animal products?” ME TOO!

Both of those are true, or have been true, or at least I like the ideas. I haven’t decided which way I want to eat, so I really do agree with proponents of most diets (diet as in ‘way of life’ not ‘temporary/unsustainable plan to achieve weight loss’).

“Oh, you are a true believer and you really do believe that everything we are taught is literally true?” ME TOO!
“Oh, you have so many doubts that it even goes as far as wondering if God exists?” ME TOO!

I have felt both ways, sometimes all in the same day.

Another possibility is that I’m empathetic or sympathetic. I’d like to think I have those qualities. But maybe I have too much of them. When someone tells me their opinion, I try to see the benefits or positives of it, and I sometimes ignore the negatives. So if two people have opposing views, I can see the positives of both sides, and I think I agree with both sides.

I guess I’m just a walking contradiction!

So I started thinking of ways to be sure that I am making my OWN decisions (on religion, diet, and other societal issues like wearing makeup and dressing fashionably) and not trying to please anyone else. Of course I need to keep my kids in mind when I make decisions, but other than that, I really don’t need to worry about what anyone else will think.

I decided to imagine myself all alone, living in the wilderness. I wanted to imagine how I would feel, making decisions for only myself. What would I do? What would I believe? It was lots of fun to think about, but I don’t think that the exercise served the purpose I thought it would.

I pictured myself constantly on the move, walking through meadows, wandering through forests, swimming in my lake, gardening in my square foot gardens. Sometimes I would be inside my cabin, cooking or cozied up in a blanket in front of a fire, reading, doing some handwork, or just rocking and thinking.

My hair would be down loose and wild and flowing all around me, or sometimes subdued in two French braids. Clothes would be solely for warmth or to prevent injury. I would wear long, flowy dresses or funky long johns from Hanna Anderson.

(From HannaAndersson.com)

I would never wear anything restrictive or uncomfortable (nylons, bras, tight shoes). Shoes would be something moccasin-like – soft and flexible. I wouldn’t shave or wear makeup. Bathing and hair washing would be accomplished with frequent swims in a beautiful clean lake (this is my fantasy world; there’s no animal poop in this lake).

I would grow a huge garden and gather nuts and berries and anything else I could find. I couldn’t decide if I’d be able to kill any animals come winter time. I imagined that I wouldn’t have electricity, so it’d be difficult to preserve enough vegetable food for winter.

I pictured myself communing with God and nature every moment of the day, but religion suddenly became meaningless. When you’re the only one in existence, good works become irrelevant. Since I was the only one, God would commune with me directly – there would be no scriptures, no ordinances, no temples, no meetings, no advocacy, no fighting evil, nothing.

And there’s where my vision broke down.

I realized that even though it was fun to imagine, this exercise would not assist me in the slightest in figuring out how I want to function in real life, particularly with regard to religion, but with the societal questions as well. In real life, there are other people around. Even if I could, I don’t want to be a hermit. Society affects us, whether we want it to or not. If I went to a professional job interview looking the way I looked in my vision, I probably wouldn’t get the job, even though I fit in very well in the forest.

But most of all, the religion part of real life is different. To me, the ultimate point of religion and spirituality is how we treat others. Every single part of religion does or should point back to how we treat others. In my vision, religion became meaningless because there was no one to help, comfort, uplift, encourage, or love. So basically, this daydream did nothing to help me decide what I want to or should believe or think. But it was fun to imagine. And I’d definitely like to include some of the elements I imagined in my ultimate plan for my life.

My daydream definitely helped remind me that it really is my ultimate goal to treat others kindly. I have a major struggle with this. My first impulse is to be sarcastic and critical. My desire is to be kind and encouraging, to be the person that everyone feels loved by.

In the past I’ve struggled with my beliefs because I wasn’t sure what my measuring stick was. What do I hold up each belief next to, to see if it measures up? Is it the Book of Mormon? Is it the Bible? Is it a Conference talk? What? I realize now that ‘treating others well’ is a great measuring stick. I need to refine that a bit, and define exactly how I want to treat others. Some things can’t be completely measured by that one criteria, but I think it’s a good start.

And I think I’m going to end this here, because I’m not really sure where to go with it now.

Misadventures In Cooking (Epic Length Version)

2009-10-09T00:29:00.005-06:00

I am frustrated by my cooking skills. I LOVE cooking. If I could do anything with my life, it would be related to cooking or food (or dancing). But honestly, I am not sure I'm all that great of a cook. My kids certainly don't think so. Unless I make them hot dogs or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, they're not too impressed. (It’s my fault for ever allowing that crap to cross their lips; I know!) TheEx wasn’t always very appreciative of my cooking, so I asked him for a list of meals he liked. He gave me a list of seven dinners -- the same seven he’s liked for years: steak, baked chicken with BBQ sauce, chicken parmesan, vegan lasagna, salmon, sausage/beans/rice, and what we call ‘goulash’, which is elbow macaroni + stewed tomatoes + creamed corn. I like these dinners, but not EVERY WEEK. And not when I’m trying to have us eat vegetarian. Literally, he would have liked to have only these, every week. I need way more variety than that, but I made them as often as I could stand them (which frequency decreased as time went on).

Within the last year or so, TheEx got better at complimenting me or at least thanking me for cooking dinner, especially when I made these meals. Mainly the way it would work is that he wouldn’t even come to the table – he would just take his food to his computer and eat in there. In the last year he did start eating at the table, but would jump up as soon as he was done. When I informed him that traditionally, families would stay at the table until everyone was done and then help clean up together, he informed me that traditionally the mother would do the cooking and clean up afterwards. I am sure this has affected the kids’ understanding of how to be grateful for their mother’s cooking, and I will be working on that with them. Part of it is my fault – I let them skip dinner if they don’t like it, and up until the past couple of years, I would even make something else for them. Now, they don’t have to eat their dinner, but they can only eat bread or whatever else they can come up with on their own. I know I need to put a stop to that – it’s not compassionate parenting, it’s ridiculous, permissive parenting.

So anyway, why am I not as good at cooking as I’d like to be?

1 - I have a real problem following directions. I never follow the directions in recipes (or I just make them up entirely), and I usually pay for it. This is especially true in baking. I KNOW you cannot mess with the ingredients in baking, but I always do. EVERY time. I know that the adage “if a little is good, a lot is better” DOES NOT APPLY when you’re measuring spices. But I always ignore that and use more anyway. Maybe I'm just rebellious.

2 - I have little patience for or knowledge of aesthetic food presentation, so when I make something that tastes great, it doesn't look quite so nice. I am always just trying to get it on the table as fast as I can. For instance, I make great vegan lasagna (at least I thought it tasted great until I got sick of tomato products). When I started making it several years ago, it was a 3-hour recipe. I have it streamlined way down now, but even so, I get impatient and can't wait 10 minutes to let it cool after it is cooked. I end up just slopping it on to the plates, where it completely falls apart. Classy!

3 - I am easily distracted and I am always thinking about other things. I am not the best multitasker. I have very little cooking time and very ravenous kids. These three things combine to make me a very scatterbrained, rushed cook. That's just not a good combination.

At least 50% of the time when I cook, I burn myself. I think this is related to being easily distracted. It is also related to me having a trashy oven wherein the springs on the door are rusted, so the door doesn’t actually open all the way. And if you try to force it open without bracing it, the stove starts to tip over. It is also related to me being a cheap, forgetful procrastinator. I use ancient potholders and have needed new ones for years. I don’t even have oven mitts any more. 98% of the time I forget to buy them when I go to the store. 1% of the time I remember, but then see that it will cost $10, and I’m too cheap/broke to spend it. 1% of the time I remember AND have $10, but think I think “oh, well I might change the kitchen color scheme* soon, so I shouldn’t get new stuff!” (*The ‘color scheme’ includes the valance I made to go over the window. It’s not like I have a kitchen full of only one color.)

I have a row of scars on both wrists where I've burned myself getting stuff out of the oven. I circled the biggest ones in this picture:

I’ve burned myself in various other ways as well, thankfully never severely. I specifically remember two burns from this weekend. On Friday night, I was 'deep' frying 'scones' (fry bread) in my cast iron skillet, and then I decided to GRAB THE HANDLE to move it. I capitalized this part because I am blown away by my cluelessness. I have been cooking with that skillet for 3 or 4 years. Every single time I have cooked with it, the handle has gotten VERY HOT. Why on earth would I suddenly forget that fact?

My second burn of the weekend came about because I don't like to clean up cooked-on splatters. I was making gel Fels Naptha laundry soap (yes I know just as toxic as anything, but it’s CHEAP) Saturday night and decided to be PROACTIVE and clean up the spills as soon as I was done with the stove. Yeah, I grabbed the burner grate within a few minutes after I had turned the flame off. I am SMRT!!! (Also, I had to Google for at least 5 minutes to figure out the term ‘burner grate’.)

Last night I made pizzas using a stoneware pizza stone (thanks, Alisa!) and a stoneware baking sheet. The pizza stone doesn’t have any kind of lip or handle, so you would think I would definitely burn myself getting it out. I didn’t!! I was so proud of myself. But get this – I was wearing dangly earrings made out of a bunch of thin metal discs. I was leaning over the oven for a long time while I was switching the pizza pans from rack to rack halfway through the cooking time. I started feeling like my NECK was burning. It was! The heat from the oven heated up my earrings and they kept smacking into my neck. They didn’t give me an actual burn, but they were pretty hot. Crazy. Also, a couple hours after dinner, I discovered that I had shredded a knuckle while shredding cheese. Oh well. At least I didn’t burn myself directly this time.

I have shattered at least 3 glass baking dishes that I can think of. Each time it was because I was adding room temperature liquid to a hot dish. One time I was making a chicken or a turkey and basted the turkey with broth. It hit the baking dish, and CRACK! Another time I was making Chicken Parmesan and the dish shattered when I added the tomato sauce. A third time I was making squash and was cooking the squash flesh up, filled with butter. Apparently the liquid in the hollowed out squash was not as hot as the glass dish, because when I pulled the oven rack out, the squash tipped a little, and when the liquid hit the dish, it shattered. I think I did some of these twice, so I have probably broken more than 3 dishes.

The story of “deep frying” the “scones” is a good example of my unique cooking style. My poor MiddleSon had been sick all day last Friday. He slept 7 hours straight, except for waking up to drink water and go to the bathroom. About 8 pm, he was hungry and asked for scones (meaning UTAH scones, which is basically fry bread). I knew scones were not a quick recipe, but I figured I’d start it anyway since he’d been sleeping all day – he’d probably be awake for a couple of hours. Then I found a recipe that didn’t require rising time. Even better! A couple of years ago when I finally got a wheat grinder, I insisted on getting a steel burr grinder. I decided this was preferable to an impact grinder because it wouldn’t superheat the wheat. Why I thought this was essential, I have no idea! If you’re grinding wheat, you’re going to be BAKING it anyway, so who cares if it gets hot? I cannot for the life of me remember why I thought this was so important. There is the principle of soaking grains/flour overnight in an acidic medium before using them – maybe I thought it wouldn’t be effective if the flour had been heated? I don’t know. The other reason I insisted on getting a burr grinder is that it could be used in an emergency if there was no power. Now, that IS a valid reason, so I am glad I have it. (Mine attaches to my Bosch, but also has a hand crank for emergencies.) And I wanted to get a grinder that could do various sized grinds. Regardless of my reasoning, I now have a burr grinder instead of an impact mill. Unfortunately, the burr grinder does NOT grind finely enough for some things. It’s great for bread. It’s fabulous for making cracked wheat and farina (like Cream of Wheat), which an impact mill cannot do. But it’s no good for cookies and other pastries. Yet I insist on continuing to use it for those things.

So I had this sub-par recipe for fry bread, and coarsely ground flour. When your flour is the consistency of fine corn meal, guess what? Recipes aren’t valid! Coarsely ground flour doesn’t soak up near the amount of liquid as impact-milled flour. So of course I was improvising the flour amount. Then, I was supposed to deep fry the fry bread. Despite working at Burger Bar for at least two years, I have no idea how to deep fry. I was never advanced enough at Burger Bar to be allowed to work the deep fryer (maybe this should’ve been a warning about my future cooking skills). I know that you’re supposed to have a lot of oil, and you’re supposed to get it hot enough, but not so hot that you burn your food. Well, I was going to be frying with organic extra-virgin coconut oil, and there was no way I was going to waste even a drop of it. So I was trying to fry with probably ½-3/4 inch of oil. Anyone who has deep fried anything, particularly puffy fry bread, is probably shaking their head at my cluelessness. After it had heated up for a while, I tested a bit of dough in the oil and it seemed to be frying well – sizzling/bubbling nicely, and not burning immediately. I am not really sure what the problem was, but those fry breads soaked up TONS of oil. After they were done, if you tore a piece off, you could see how far inside the oil had soaked. Gross!! At least it was coconut oil, so it still tasted good.

Despite my cooking disabilities, I still love cooking, and I think I always will. I think the more I learn about cooking, the better I will get. I knew nothing about cooking when I went to college. My sister did a lot of the cooking at our house, and she made me an awesome recipe binder as one of her Laurel projects when I left for BYU. Everything I know has been self taught, from that binder, or other cook books. I would love to take a class or cook with other people and see how they do things. There are also a ton of scientific cooking books and cookbooks out there that I think I would really like. I am burned out on the recipes I have been making for the past 8 years, but I am always collecting new ones. Check out my highly-organized recipe binder. The stack of papers stuffed into it is almost as thick as the stuff actually in the binder.

It looked very nice and well organized when my sister made it for me. I’ve crammed it full of stuff since then. I’m not sure how I want to organize my recipes, but I think it might be good to have one binder of traditional recipes, one with healthier recipes (no refined flour/sugar, vegetarian/vegan), and one with all-raw recipes. That way, when I decide to go all raw for a week, I won’t have to be tempted by looking for a raw recipe and accidentally running across a Ribeye with Blue Cheese Cream Sauce recipe!

Here are my other cookbooks. I've tossed out tons of cookbooks, usually when I suddenly become committed to being vegan or vegetarian. I'd like to start up a new collection of instructional cookbooks and those that focus on whole foods (whether Traidition, vegan, vegetarian, or raw).

One resource for cooking that I LOVE is Cook’s Illustrated (also see Cook’s Country). I wish they had more color photographs, but I love their scientific approach to cooking. I started to get a subscription to the magazine, but I decided it was too expensive or something, so I didn’t go through with it. Every time I go to the library I check out at least one issue and love reading it, even if I don’t end up making any of the recipes. The magazine’s front and back covers are always gorgeous, which I really like. They have an extensive subscribers website (as well as a lot of free information), and when I have more time to spend on cooking, I’m definitely signing up for a subscription.

Another site that I haven’t checked out too much, but looks really helpful, is Cooking for Engineers.
Some of my favorite food blogs are:

Smitten Kitchen So beautiful, and she works in a TINY NYC kitchen. I was always whining and complaining that I didn't have enough space to cook properly. No more excuses -- her kitchen is TINY.

Kayotic Kitchen Beautiful pictures.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks Most of her recipes are very unhealthy, but I have learned a lot from her picture-by-picture instructions

Whole Food Whole Family
Chandelle has blown up every blog she’s ever started, so seriously, copy the entire thing. I have a copy of her previous food blog on my computer. She hasn’t blown up Whole Food Whole Family, but she’s now posting at phytophiliac (LOWERCASE, people!)

The Sunny Raw Kitchen Carmella's raw food blog.

Adventures of Raw Goddess Heathy Heathy's raw food blog.

Nourished Kitchen I figured since I had some raw food blogs, I'd better throw in some Traditional food blogs. This one is a new find.

The Nourishing Gourmet This is also a new find.

Green Smoothie Girl You all know I love Green Smoothie Girl. Go there now and buy her Twelve Steps to Whole Foods program -- it will take you through a year of transitioning to whole foods. It's a $29 ebook now. Or you can wait - Robyn is beefing it up to a whole educational program with audios, DVDs, etc. But I assume that's going to be a lot more expensive.

Baking Bites Probably not a healthy thing on here, but IT LOOKS SO GOOD!!

Vegan Lunchbox Lots of good ideas.

Clarification

2009-10-05T00:46:00.002-06:00

I need to add some clarification to a few of my religious-themed posts. I have been aware that I was leaving things out, but it's so hard to explain everything without getting into epic-length posts.

Anyway, some of my posts, especially Sunday's, make it sound like I believe the only reason a person would lose their testimony was if they aren't doing everything right (prayers, scriptures, etc.). I absolutely DO NOT believe this and know that the opposite is often true. I have read about many testimonies being lost because the person studies the scriptures and other official Church publications and they make comparisons and think about things and realize that things within the Church don't match up, or they don't match up to the person's beliefs. I do recognize this and don't mean to imply that you would only lose your testimony if you weren't faithful enough at scriptures, prayer, etc. I think that people like to believe that because it's a talisman against the loss of their own testimony -- if they can just do everything right, they'll be OK. Maybe I shouldn't extrapolate that to "people" in general -- but that's how I've felt in the past.

OK, it's really late -- this probably makes no sense. I plan to expand on this later.

Nick Vujicic and Conference

2009-10-04T16:07:00.008-06:00

Before I talk about Conference, there are a couple of things I've been thinking about over the past week or two. The first is my annoyance with all the requirements you have to fulfill in order to keep your faith. You have to read scriptures in various groupings (individual, family), pray in various ways (family, individual, couple, meals), pay tithing, attend church, attend the temple, serve, love, etc., etc., etc. Even though the Church doesn't have any mechanism for requiring these, everyone pretty much agrees that if you don't do these things, you'll lose your testimony. I've felt like it's ridiculous, and that if testimonies were real, we would maintain our faith regardless of what we do.

But I realized that's not some conspiracy of the LDS Church to keep us locked into the mold. It's a human principle. If you are a runner and you get to a point where you can run 8-minute miles, and then you slack off and stop running entirely or even start skipping runs and workouts here and there, you WILL lose ability. You will slow down and lose endurance. If you go long enough without a run, you'll probably lose the ability to run entirely. Of course once you start back up again, everything comes back fast. This seems to be true of everything in life. If you abandon your viola, you won't sound so good when you pick it up 5 years later. I've hated when they say that a testimony is found in the bearing of it. That sounds so false. But then I thought about studying language or dancing. You can read Spanish or read about dance moves all you want, but until you start speaking it or doing it, you're not really going to learn anything. I believe the testimony principle is similar. Before, I was beginning to believe that doing all those 'basics' was just a plot to keep us all active for whatever reason. But now I believe that that's just life, and it truly is for our benefit.

The second thing I've been thinking about is that I want to do life BY MYSELF. I do not want to have to be reliant on anyone, even Jesus Christ or God. I want to be independent. I don't think I should have to rely on anyone else.

I already posted this on Facebook, but in the last week, I discovered Nick Vujicic. He was born with no arms and no legs. He is now evangelical Christian and is a motivational speaker. I was so inspired by his speaking. He went through years and years lacking faith, but then gained the faith he has now. He attributes his joy to his changed heart and belief in God. His whole message is inspiring, but there was one little part that hit me because it specifically addressed what I was thinking about. I can't find the YouTube video where I saw him say it, but he talks about how the world is teaching us now that we do not need to rely on God, and THAT IS A LIE. When he said that, I knew that I had been thinking the exact same thing, and it hit me that he is probably right. I'm not 100% there yet, but I think he's probably right.

I was pretty disappointed to find out that Nick spoke in Utah (at the Tabernacle and at some other churches) last month, just a few weeks before I discovered him.

Here is a 4-part talk by Nick:

Conference
I always look forward to Conference, and it seems to go by SO fast, and I only hear 10% of what I want to. I don't ever have time to watch movies, but my kids watch a lot, and so maybe we're just used to 2 hours at a time flying by. And as for not hearing it, at one point I even threatened that the next person to speak would get sent to their room ☺

It's so true that each person will hear what they need. I don't know if my faithful friends heard this, but to me, nearly every talk was directed to or mentioned nonbelievers/unbelievers/struggling believers. So many topics of concern to me were addressed. I loved Eldar Bednar's talk -- so much good stuff, and so comforting for parents of normal children! Elder Oaks' talk was one that I didn't hear much of, but it seemed harsh to me, because he called out things that I struggle with. For example, I do think that a loving God would not keep a family apart because they weren't sealed for many reasons. (I haven't reconciled that belief with the Church's doctrine yet.) But I didn't hear the whole talk -- I need to go over it again before I decide what I really think of it. I didn't take notes, so I can't discuss very many points specifically, but I really enjoyed most of the talks and felt that every one was directed to me in a way that could help me. When the doctor spoke about missing church for a nap, I am afraid that I could not relate with him. Whenever I've left sacrament meeting in a fit of craziness because the kids refuse to cooperate, and I've gone home to take a nap, I've NEVER not been able to sleep. It's more like I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow and I'm so grateful for the extra time ☺

It seems that I am at a crossroads. I don't see myself staying where I'm at, dissatisfied and struggling. I will either leave the Church, or gain a new kind of faith in the LDS Church. If I had to guess right now, I think that I will choose the second -- a new faith. For many years, I'm not sure how far back, I've pictured myself leaving the Church. It was always something far off in the future. So it is possible I could go down that road. But right now, I'm thinking I won't. I love so much about the Church, regardless of the doctrines I struggle with.

Though I have not listened to the podcasts the Faithful Dissident references, she perfectly describes how I feel. I love the final quote:

"It's not about "getting my faith back." My old orthodox faith is gone and it's never coming back. But a renaissance is possible. And who knows what it will look like then."

I didn't hear this part of the talk myself, but I understand that President Uchtdorf spoke about focusing on doctrine, and not the man-made add ons. I love that, and I think that is going to be key in my new faith. I have always been a very black and white type of person, and I believed that pretty much everything the Church released to us (in Conference, lesson manuals, letters, magazines, etc.) was True Doctrine. But last week I stumbled across an article on Imperfect Scriptures at Mormon Times. It helped assuage some of my concerns, but even better, it led me to a book the author wrote, called Shaken Faith Syndrome. He has posted a sample chapter on his website. I haven't bought the book yet, but the sample chapter, which is on Confusing Tradition with Doctrine, has some great stuff. He gives examples of how traditions can turn into perceived doctrines. He says that he believes that very few LDS teachings qualify as true doctrines. Reading this was an epiphany for me. I know that I can't write off everything I don't agree with as 'not doctrine', but the concept is absolutely worth exploring.

Best Music Videos

2009-09-30T19:25:00.000-06:00

This has got to be one of the best music videos ever:

Goals

2009-09-30T19:20:00.003-06:00

I think about goals a lot. Mostly I think about them and don't actually do anything to accomplish them. But anyway, one of my goals is to make a good French Silk Pie. I'll have to do this before I become vegan or raw, because it's definitely not anywhere close to vegan. I've tried several times and never got my filling to look anything like The Pioneer Woman's (click for pictures).

This looks closer, but mine was still more dense than this.

Faith-Related

2009-09-27T21:17:00.003-06:00

I've had so many things I've wanted to post related to my faith, or lack thereof, but I don't think I will post them. It would take pages upon pages to write out all the intricacies of what I think, and I don't have that much time, and you would die of boredom before you got through it. And if I just write out the basics, there would be mis-assumptions and misunderstandings and questioning, and I just am not ready to deal with that. Here are a couple of little things that are at least tangentially related to faith/religion, and I made sure to leave out some controversial parts.

1) I went to the Relief Society General Meeting with some ladies from my mom's ward. It's kind of strange, because regardless of how faithful or faithless I am feeling, I have always loved Conference as an adult. I hated it as a kid, but I love it now. Maybe if I had to get dressed up and spend 4+ hours at the church wrangling kids, I would still hate it, but I don't. So I was looking forward to this.

I was exhausted and slept on the way to SLC. When I woke up, I was in A VERY BAD MOOD. I am not usually like that, but apparently I got the perfectly-wrong amount of sleep and it was not pretty. I was thinking "If ANYONE even TALKS to me I am going to CUT THEM." When I'm feeling this way, I basically need to be alone so that I don't say anything I will regret. Everything that everyone says or does is wrong and I am critical of every single thing I see and hear. At least I've matured enough that it all stays in my head rather than being spoken aloud. But nevertheless, that's not really the attitude you want to attend Conference with.

Before the meeting started, we went to the bathroom, and right by the water fountain was a painting with motifs of Christ and His apostles. I can't remember now what region of the world it was from. Somewhere in or near India or Asia. I'm thinking Tibet. It was very interesting to me because the artist, who is LDS, had drawn Christ with Tibetan (or whatever region it was from) features. I think that probably everyone imagines Christ as looking like themselves. I was glad that they displayed the painting in the Conference center.

Our seats were on the 11th! row! down on the side. The exclamation marks are for the other ladies we were with, not for me. I was much more excited about being close at the Brad Paisley concert (and I realized the irony at the concert). We were waaaaay on the side, so it wasn't as if we could see anything anyway. By the time the meeting started, I was mostly recovered from my attitude problem and was able to listen without being critical of every single thing.

We could see the speakers from the side, and I liked seeing the ladies' dresses. I always imagined that they wore monochrome suits, but none of them did. Sister Beck wore a black top, but a long cream colored skirt. Nothing remarkable; just not like I assumed/imagined. I was interested to notice that the colors that show up on the TV monitors weren't very close to what I was seeing in person. Sister Allred was wearing a pale pink suit top, and on the monitor it looked practically fuschia. I also noticed that everyone's eyes looked really shiny on the monitors. It reminded me of Count Olaf in the Series of Unfortunate Events books. I think he's described repeatedly in the books as having shiny eyes. Is that blasphemy to say that? Also, lots of people in the audience/congregation were coughing a lot. Yeah, you can see that I was definitely focusing on what was really important.

I actually did listen to some of the talks and took some notes of that nature. I liked what Sister Beck said about Visiting Teaching being a way of life, not a task. She talked about eliminating non-essentials, which is always good. Sister Thompson was entertaining and talked about some topics that were extremely pertinent to me. I was actually surprised when she listed them off - how could anyone else deal with the things I deal with? Yeah, I guess that's pretty narcissistic. The first one was minding the gap between believing that you are a daughter of God and KNOWING IN YOUR SOUL that you are. Huh, so other people struggle with that too? Apparently so.

I kind of tuned out most of President Eyring's talk, but he was pretty funny too. I've felt like he's somewhat of a kindred spirit, because he's a scientist, but I'm mostly guessing -- maybe he's really nothing like me and has never doubted at all. But from what I can see, it seems like most of the people I know who are analytical struggle with their faith, at least from time to time. I wonder if it was ever the same with him? My friend's 15-year old son is very analytical and struggles big time with his faith. One time while we were at a VT appointment, she turned to me and said "You're analytical just like him; how have you overcome that?" I just muttered and hemmed and hawed until I was saved by someone else saying something. I guess I fool people pretty well if she really thought I could provide some insight on that topic.

2) I wonder if I should be teaching Primary. I've become a huge slacker, so I usually skim through the next week's lesson once as the kids are coloring at the end of class. Then I forget about it until Saturday between midnight and 2 am. Then I finish preparing the lesson between 11:00 and 11:15 as the kids are getting to class. And then sometimes there are parts I have to skip or modify. For example, today one of the questions and answers was:

"How will people know that you follow and believe Jesus Christ?
If you show love to others and try to do right in all that you do."

My mouth stopped working when it was time for that one. I couldn't even make myself say the words aloud. How on earth can you make the conclusion that someone follows and believes Jesus Christ because they love others and do right? If I see someone who loves others and does right, I'm going to make no assumptions at all. They could be any religion or no religion! I absolutely think that if you follow and believe Jesus Christ, you will show love to others and do right. But the reverse is certainly not true. Maybe I am splitting hairs, but I just couldn't tell the kids that answer.

Full Circle

2009-09-22T23:23:00.003-06:00

Up until about 3 years ago, my main requirement for a car was "Does it drive?" My dad had the knowledge and resources to fix anything on a car, so my parents always drove old cars. There was just no need for a newer car. In high school, I inherited the 1974 Chevelle that my parents had bought used in 1980. It had a sweet 8-track player, and I remember my friends and I rocking out to the Sesame Street Fever 8-track.

(not my car; picture from http://www.superchevy.com/events/sucp_0812_2008_indianapolis_super_chevy_show/photo_15.html)

I also remember a kid in my chemistry class sitting in the back seat and beating me over the head with a vintage glass soda pop bottle while I drove (not sure why that was in the car or where it came from). He's now an EMT and/or nurse or something, and I sure hope he doesn't sit in the ambulance and beat the driver over the head with bottles.

My grandma's eyesight eventually failed her and at some point my sister and I inherited her gold 1986 Delta 88 Royale. We thought it was so new and awesome. I totally lost out and my sister got to drive it while I continued to drive the old Chevelle. I drove the Chevelle until it stopped going in reverse sometime in about 2003.

After the Chevelle, TheEx's aunt gave us her grandma-car, and I don't remember what kind it was exactly. It was fantastic because it had an automatic starter! You could start it from inside the house and get it all warm and toasty before you ever set foot out the door. Eventually it needed the head gasket replaced and wasn't worth the $1500 it would take to fix it.

So we went car shopping. This would be my first car payment ever. I had been raised as a GMC/Chevrolet girl, but TheEx decidedly was not, so I had to think foreign. I wanted a VW Jetta. We went to see a Jetta, and there was this super-ugly frumpy car next to it. It had 70,000 miles on it and I thought it was a terrible deal. TheEx fell in love with it, so that's what we got - a 1999 Volvo S80. I eventually came to appreciate its' beauty and LOVED driving it. It had so much power and was just a great car to drive. It got 33 mpg on the freeway if I was careful. Over the first couple years we poured well over $10,000 into it - thank goodness we had an extended warranty!

(not my car; picture from http://www.mycarwallpapers.com/volvo/)

In March 2007 TheEx decided that he was going to go work 1500 miles away, so he needed his own car. I figured he should pick out a cheap clunker that could make it to the new city, then work until he had enough money for an awesome car. He figured differently. He told me he had to have a REALLY NICE car for his sales job. I reminded him it was phone sales and clients would never see his car. That didn't change his mind. He picked out a 2004 Volvo S60R, which is a smaller, way more sporty version of the S80.

(not his car; picture from http://www.mycarwallpapers.com/volvo/2004-volvo-s60r/10/28930/)

By this time, I fully appreciated the beauty of the Volvo line, and I had to admit it was a smokin' hot car. Dark gray exterior with orange leather interior. 0-60 in 2 seconds, or so it seemed. Like an idiot, I signed the loan papers for the car even though it cost about $25,000 more than any car I would have chosen. And then TheEx refused to ever let me drive it! I am not all that great with a stick shift, but I *can* drive one, so I was really put out that he wouldn't even let me try it. I paid for 2/3 of it; I felt like I should get to at least test drive it! If he was concerned about the transmission, he could teach me exactly how to baby it. (Eventually I found out this is the car that Stephenie Meyer's EDWARD CULLEN drives in the book!!)

(not his car; pic from http://forums.subdriven.com/zerothread?cmd=print&id=3889626)

One time we drove to Las Vegas and TheEx was doing 90-100 mph through the Virgin River Gorge. I thought he was absolutely insane for driving like that, especially since the kids were in the car. The car could handle it, and he could handle it, but who knows what would be around the next bend stopped in the middle of the road? If he drove like that with me there, I have no idea how he drove when I wasn't in the car! Based on the huge tickets he's received, I can only guess.

My Volvo has been broken down since this past February. It is worth about $3000 if it was in great condition and it needs a $1500 head gasket repair plus $1500 of body work (I had a minor sideswipe last summer). So it has been sitting there dead for the past 7 months. A few months ago, TheEx FINALLY LET ME DRIVE his car! It was SO. FREAKING. AWSEOME. If you have never driven a car with that much power, you have to try it. Even if you're a girl and don't think you like fast cars. Now, maybe I am different, because auto racing is in my blood (my dad was a drag racer and my mom was pregnant with me while she was my dad's pit crew), but I LOVED IT. It was absolutely thrilling. My kids would insist on taking my cell phone when I drove and every time we left a stop light, they would call Daddy to tattle on me and tell him I was speeding. I would explain that I wasn't actually speeding, but that I just might have accelerated a little bit quicker than most people. It was SO fun. I still thought TheEx was an idiot for driving 100 mph through the Virgin River Gorge, but I GOT IT. It would be very difficult NOT to drive like that in that car.

OK, this has dragged on so long I've forgotten the whole reason for writing it. Sometimes I just like to write and reminisce with myself. I don't get out a lot, people ;-)

On July 29th, something on TheEx's transmission broke while I was driving it. Either he was justified in his resistance to me driving his car, or it was just a coincidence that it broke while I was driving it. Given the many problems it has had in the past, I think it's just a coincidence. But nevertheless, that was the last time I drove it. I still miss it. He has his car now, and guess what I have been driving? My grandma's old gold 1986 Delta 88 Royale. Oh yes. Take that LittleSister, I WIN. You got it in high school, but I get it now!

(not my car, mine is GOLD; pic from http://hotrod205.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/delta88front.jpg)

OK, yes, that's just my way of trying to feel less pathetic. It is so embarrassing to drive. Like I said, I used to not care about what my car looked like or how old it was. But after driving that Volvo, I got used to driving a NICE car. So now the granny car is embarrassing. The clear coat is entirely gone and half of the paint is bubbled or peeling. The best part about the car is that the odometer doesn't work (permanently stuck on 138074) AND the gas gauge doesn't work. You just get to guess when you need gas!

The second best thing about the car is the radio. When my parents brought the car to me, the AM/FM radio was working, but you had to have a pen jammed into the cassette player to get it to work. At some point, this stopped working, so I had no radio. My dad replaced the radio with an old AM-only radio. He quickly set the first 5 presets that came up, and off we went. By the time I got home (70 miles away) the 'tune' dial wasn't working. So I was set with the presets my dad had set. And the 70 miles makes a difference - you need a bit of tuning to get the station in clearly. So basically, I was left with one non-staticky station - the local conservative talk radio! I carefully arranged all work trips for after Rush Limbaugh's show was over. I can listen to Bob Lonsberry, Dr. Laura, Glenn Beck and I love Dave Ramsey, but I won't listen to Rush Limbaugh. And now the talk radio station has switched stations. So my current options are an oldies station that switches to NASCAR in the evenings or a 'classic country' station. I watched enough NASCAR growing up to get my fill for life, so classic country it is. Today I was listening to the country station, and Kenny Rogers' "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" came on.

I had come full circle! We used to listen to that album on the 8-track in the 1974 Chevelle! And by the way, that is a really weird song. It's about a paralyzed Vietnam vet whose girlfriend/wife is going out on a date. And then he says if he could move he'd get his gun and kill her. Nice. I never listened to the words before.

Anyway, at least the car drives!! I am grateful for that. Someday I'd like to move *forward* and buy a car with less than 140,000 miles AND an FM radio, but for now at least I have a car that drives! I am so glad that I'm not hauling 3 kids around on a bike, or walking.

Brad Paisley Concert, 2009

2009-09-20T22:57:00.003-06:00

I'll add my comments later; I'm just copying these news stories for future reference.

Energetic Paisley charges USANA crowd
By Pat Reavy

Deseret News
Published: Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009 9:42 a.m. MDT

Country superstar Brad Paisley gave summer one last big "Hoorah!" Saturday night. And judging from the weather, he did it just in the nick of time.

What started off as a pleasant summer evening ended with on and off rain and frequent flashes of lightning from a distance. But it did little to dampen the spirits of Paisley or the 14,000 fans at the USANA Amphitheatre.

"We'll play as long as they let us," he told the crowd which met with roaring approval. "I don't care if I get a little wet out here."

Paisley showed why he is one of the best all around entertainers in any music genre, combining hit songs, fast guitar licks, and a full stack of laugh-out loud funny videos to compliment his music.

He took the stage, however, with just his acoustic guitar and a microphone with a "Grand Ole Opry" sign wrapped around the stand, and sang "Start a Band" off the "Play" album. At the end of the song, the rest of his seven piece backing band emerged as all the lights from his elaborate stage production, including a large video screen in the rear with five smaller screens spread out around the stage, were turned on and Paisley launched into the title track of his latest album, and the name sake of his tour, "American Saturday Night."

"It's still summer here, at least until the night is over," he said.

Throughout the evening, Paisley ran around every inch of the large USANA stage, including a catwalk that went several rows deep. At one point, Paisley got off the stage altogether and played his guitar from deep in the crowd.

Favorites like "Mud On Tires," "I'm Still A Guy," "Letter To Me" and "Wrapped Around" were combined with newer songs like "Water." Paisley paid homage to fishing by combining a song off his new album, "Catch All The Fish," with "I'm Gonna Miss Her."

Many of Paisley's biggest hits are love songs and he had couples in the crowd embracing for "Waiting On A Woman," "She's Everything" and "Then."

The good natured Paisley, who has made some notable funny music videos in his career, had new videos to show on this tour to compliment his music. Some of the standouts included a hilarious video for "Celebrity" which found the song turned into a video game, ala Guitar Hero or Rock Band. The video included cameos from Little Jimmy Dickens, Taylor Swift and opening act Dierks Bentley singing the second verse. During "The World," there was a video that showed a Brad Paisley bobblehead doll being stolen Indiana Jones style, and then being photographed around the world, similar to the Traveling Gnome.

Paisley, wearing a red T-shirt, jeans and his trademark white cowboy hat, was personable with the crowd all evening, at one point joking about going skinny dipping with everyone in the Great Salt Lake after the show.

"They can't arrest all of us," he laughed.

Paisley, whose voice and guitar playing were strong all evening, finished with some of his biggest hits, playing a snipet of Bad Company's "Feel Like Making Love" before launching into "Ticks" and "On-Line." For the encore, "Welcome To The Future" included clips from several Utah children who submitted videos telling what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Equally energetic was opening act Bentley who ran around every corner of the stage with a crowd pleasing one hour set that included "Sideways," "Feel That Fire" and "What Was I Thinking."

Review: Paisley a true boy of summer
Country star doesn't let rain dampen his parade of hits.

By David Burger
The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 09/20/2009 09:02:41 AM MDT

Near the beginning of the last concert of the season at Usana Amphitheater on Saturday, country star Brad Paisley told the crowd that "there's nothing like summertime in the United States of America." And, he added, despite a chilly night of rain, it would be summer as long as the concert lasted.

And no one wanted the summer, or the concert, to end.

With his signature white cowboy hat and blue jeans, Paisley, on his "American Saturday Night Tour," demonstrated the showmanship, guitar work, wit and -- most importantly --- the songcraft that have made him one of the best performers out of Tennessee.

While many Nashville stars believe that pyrotechnics is all they need to entertain a crowd, Paisley has a catalogue of humorous, poignant songs that connect with the minds and hearts of his fans, who nearly sold out the amphitheater. Whether it is a tongue-in-cheek lust song called "Ticks," or just a plain ol' tune about getting mud on the tires of your Chevrolet pickup truck, he always has a clever line popping up in pleasantly surprising ways.

And, boy, can he play the guitar. At some points, the guitar solos bordered on being ostentatious, but they always served the song. With his Bakersfield Sound roots showing, his nimble electric guitar work stayed away from sloppy power chords but seemed more like he was furiously picking away on a banjo or mandolin.

That doesn't mean he skimped on the stage show. With six high-resolution video screens flanking him, he and his crack 7-piece band played in front of endlessly amusing video montages. In one, he competed against Taylor Swift (on video) in "Guitar Hero," and in another there was an entire video consisting of his relatively crude, but entertaining animation talents.

Before the concert, the gracious Paisley held a meet-and-greet with a number of local children who submitted videos of themselves filling in the blanks of the sentence :"I want to be a ...."

Their videos, chosen by local radio stations and then sent to Paisley's camp, were shown during the encore, when he performed "Welcome to the Future."

The lucky children were Trey McEnvoy of Provo (who wanted to be a scientist), Kylie Bouwmeester of West Point (country singer), Tally Warren, of West Jordan (biker), Gracie Bowen, of Taylorsville (cheerleader), Trevor Westmoreland, of Bear River City (farmer), Gracie Westmoreland, of Bear River City (teacher), Aspen Brinkerhoff (no town given, rodeo princess), Danica Anerson (no hometown given, vet), Jae'Sha Hall, of Tooele (motocross racer), and, my favorite, Heather Fields, of Park City, who wanted to be a ninja. "I like swords," she said.

Hmmmm

2009-09-20T16:02:00.005-06:00

I've talked about how I need to figure some things out about myself, and what I want. But doing that is very tiresome for me. I wonder how much I really need to 'figure out'. Aren't people always changing? If you waited to live your life until you knew everything about yourself, you would never live. I don't want to shortchange myself; I want to do what I need to, if I really need to do it. But in the meantime, it feels very self-focused. I have wanted to try to serve others more and have rarely actually made it out the door. So adding one more self-focused thing to my plate seems the wrong way to go. The advice from Bryant S. Hinckley to Gordon B. Hinckley to "forget yourself and go to work" seems applicable here. I hope I am not just trying to avoid difficult things, but it seems that forgetting myself might be the best route to finding myself.

As for actually getting out and serving. . . I want to do something that makes a real difference, that isn't too stressful for our family. The thing I keep coming back to is visiting lonely men and women in nursing homes. I am scared to death to do this - I'm so pathetically shy. Seriously, I have wanted to do this since I was a teenager, but have always talked myself out of it. Pathetic. Doing this certainly wouldn't make a society-wide difference, but it would make a difference to one person. But then I picture my kids running around like deranged animals and ripping out some guy's oxygen line or something. I guess we could try it and see how it goes. If they give someone a heart attack, we won't go back ;-)

The main thing that my kids have expressed an interest in is helping homeless people. We have talked about making up food bags to give out when we see someone in need, but have not done it. We have given a few dollars here and there when we see someone who seems to need it. We did try to volunteer at the food bank, and they told us that first we should come by for an educational family night. They had the kids make some Valentine's cards (it must have been last February when we went). It was OK, but they didn't tell us how to actually move on to volunteering at the bank. I looked up the criteria again the other day, and you have to be 12 to help. I think that's rather ridiculous, because my little kids would love sorting food. I am sure it's a safety issue, as they've probably got forklifts and such that would run over them.

What else can or do you do with very little kids? I would assume that for most things, I would wear my 2-year old on my back to keep him contained, and so it would be my 5 and 7 year olds that would be helping.

It's a Daddy Thing

2009-09-18T19:57:00.004-06:00

Friday evenings are fantastic around here. Every Friday night, our neighbor two doors down holds a drunken party for his BestFriend and our upstairs Sex Offender neighbor. I guess I shouldn't say it's a drunken party -- I just ASSUME it's a drunken party based on the way the spend the entire evening screaming their guts out at each other. For example, just now:
Neighbor to SexOffender: Don't you call me no f****** b*****, SexOffender, or I will f*** you up. I will f*** you up.

It especially makes me feel nice and comfortable with the three of them since SexOffender's offense was rape. Nice.

Which is a great lead-in to my next topic.

Has anyone heard 'Cleaning This Gun' by Rodney Atkins?

He says the only speech he remembers from high school was

". . . so you like my daughter, do you now?
yeah, we think she's something else. . . .
She deserves respect, that's what she'll get -
Ain't it, son?
Now y'all run along and have some fun.
I'll see you when you get back,
Bet I'll be up all night,
Still cleaning this gun."

And then he talks about giving that speech to his daughter's dates.

The last time I dated was 9 years ago. I don't have anyone to give the "Daddy Speech" to my (future) dates (if I ever date). And now I have drunken SexOffender neighbors. So what do I do?

Actually, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon these companies/sites:
Women of Caliber
Cornered Cat
RAD Women

All of these are about self defense or training women in the use of firearms. I used to target shoot when I was a kid, and I loved it. I was pretty good (in my opinion). But as an adult I've never wanted a gun in the house. I doubted that I'd ever be able to use it, and if that's the case and you do have a gun, it will probably be used against you. But now that I'm facing a new stage in my life, and feeling a little independent, I wonder. Could I really use a gun on someone? Would I? If my kids were threatened? If I was threatened? I'm still not sure, but I think it's worth exploring. My biggest hangup still is that in order to use a gun for self-defense, it needs to be loaded and easily accessible. If you're fumbling around for ammunition and unlocking the case, etc., etc., etc., it's pretty pointless to have a weapon in the first place. But having a loaded and accessible gun would be very bad in my house. Did you see my toaster post the other day? Yeah, that's what my kids do with bread and butter. I just don't think that I'd be able to adequately keep a gun out of their reach. I think I would like to explore this a bit more though.

Quickie

2009-09-17T22:09:00.003-06:00

Follow up from today's post on love languages:
I have ALWAYS identified with Scarlett O'Hara. Her name is KATIE Scarlett, you know. Anyway, this is TOTALLY my problem:

And here's a longer version for the Gone With the Wind fans:

I can absolutely forsee a viewing of GWTW coming up, at least the Rhett/Scarlett parts.

Clothes Yesterday
I take full responsibility for this outfit; Megan did NOT give me this.

What color shoes are you supposed to wear with those color pants? My shoes are dark brown, but they look black here.

Nap Yesterday
I took a nap after work and my 2-year old didn't want to sleep. I stayed in bed anyway! Every parent knows exactly what happened next:

I guess we need to have some more lessons in proper toast cooking techniques.

Clothes Today

The pants may look black in the picture, but they have RED PINSTRIPES. Isn't that absolutely awesome? See:

ALL of my favorite clothes have pinstripes; I love them (on myself). My favorite pants ever were dark gray with pink pinstripes.

Love Languages

2009-09-17T10:05:00.004-06:00

(I know I said I wasn't going to write huge blog posts any more, but this is another one that was already mostly written.)

Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. The concepts are incredibly basic, but yet so profound. It's one of those books that changes your perspective, and once you've learned the principles, you wonder how you never knew them before. The principles can apply to any relationship - romantic, family, workplace, friends, etc. I'm going to write from a romantic perspective, because it's the most familiar and obvious, but these really can be modified to fit any relationship.

The basic idea is that we receive love in one or more of the following five ways:
(See Gary Chapman's site for a more detailed explanation of each.)
Words of Affirmation - Verbal appreciation, compliments, and offering encouragement
Quality Time - Focusing all your energy on the person, quality conversation, sharing experiences/thoughts/feelings/desires, sympathetic listening, self-revelation, and quality activities
Receiving Gifts - Any kind of gift, from a flower picked from the roadside, to expensive items
Acts of Service - Household/outside chores done out of love (not out of guilt/duty)
Physical Touch - Massages, holding hands, cuddling, caresses, hugs, kisses, sex

Dr. Chapman's books have detailed quizzes to help you figure out which is your primary love language. Many men will assume their primary love language is physical touch, because they like sex, but physical touch is usually different. In Dr. Chapman's book for men (which is the one I read, since it's what the library had), he completely separates physical touch from sex, but on the website, he blurs the distinction.

Problems arise in relationships when the parties speak different love languages, or even different dialects of the same language. Think of a wife whose love language is quality time. Her husband's love language is acts of service. He spends his entire Saturday cleaning the house, washing the cars, and mowing the yard. At the end of the day, he is pretty pleased with how much he has done to show he loves her, and she is feeling terrible because he hasn't spent time with her. Once you figure out your own love language, you need to figure out which one your spouse/child/friend prefers and learn to speak it. This can be a very difficult process, as many families grow up expressing love only in certain ways. It's very hard for some people to break out of those habits and learn to express love in different ways.

My primary love language is physical touch, no question about it. I have a very strong desire for all the things I listed above - holding hands, cuddling, massages, and hugs. I like frequent sex. I also desire quality time and words of affirmation, but they are not quite as important to me as physical touch. I do appreciate gifts and acts of service, but they just don't speak 'love' to me strongly.

Even though my primary love language is physical touch, I have never been comfortable with casual touching from acquaintances. I need to be close to someone before I can feel comfortable touching them. At work and even with women friends, you'll find me backing away when people get into my personal space. They move closer, and I move back. Sometimes we move several feet down the hall! If I am 'trapped' I feel very uncomfortable. (If I am attracted to the person, I feel completely different - go ahead, lean in closer! Woot!) I am OK with a short/medium-length hug from a female friend at the end of a conversation, but anything other than that feels weird. As I read blog posts about women getting ready to go to BlogHer and spoon with their roommates, I realized that either the bloggers I read are really strange, or I am not normal (likely a combination of both). I find it very strange that I feel this way. I intensely desire these things, yet reject them under most circumstances.

Now That I'm Single
Having Physical Touch be my primary love language presents quite a bit of a problem to me as a single person! Male and female friends can appropriately show love/concern/friendship through any of the other love languages, but not very much with physical touch. I guess friends can share a hug here and there, but that's about it.

Is love from others in the form of physical touch an actual need for me, or is it just a want? I'm sure you could get into hours-long discussions of what are needs and what are wants, but here are two theories: Maslow's Hierarchy and Max-Neef's Fundamentals. They list sex/sexual intimacy (Maslow) and affection (Max-Neef) as needs. That doesn't really clarify whether this is an actual need that I should seek to fulfill or a want that I should 'get over'.

Since I mainly desire physical touch from men I am attracted to, that leaves my options pretty limited as a single woman. I figure that I can do three things:
1) change myself so that I no longer have this perceived need/desire,
2) acknowledge the need/desire, but suppress/ignore it, or
3) fulfill the need/desire

I am actually pretty good at turning off my feelings or talking myself into something. I could probably talk myself into no longer desiring physical touch, or at least not desiring it as intensely. And I've done this before. My husband was not able to speak this love language the way I needed him to. He tried, but it wasn't easy for him. So for the past 8 years, this desire has gone somewhat unmet. A quick example: I love to cuddle at night. My husband would lay there like a board and 'allow' me to cuddle 'on' him (not really 'with' him). Then after 5 or 10 minutes he would say "OK, it's time to go to sleep now." Just as I had a hard time falling asleep without cuddling, it was hard for him to fall asleep while cuddling. It doesn't mean he's bad, we were just not compatible on that issue.

Now that I write this out, I think that changing myself to no longer desire touch and suppressing the desire are probably the exact same thing. Dr. Chapman says that love languages shouldn't change over time. I'm fairly certain that phyical touch is my love language and don't think it would change no matter what. And of course life isn't fair. *Everyone* has unmet needs. Sometimes you just have to cowgirl-up and deal with it.

So what if I decide to try to fulfill this desire? I've thought of a few ways. I could go get massages from students (female!) at the local school. I could go dancing. There's a local country dance every Saturday for ages 0 - 99. The kids and I would all love that. I think that other types of exercising would help. It wouldn't fulfill the need directly, but I would be using my body in a healthy way and it just seems like it would help. The final thing I could do is obviously to seek out touch from men.

Having a strong desire for touch has and will complicate my friendships with men. I can't picture being just friends with men, because I desire to show my friendship through touch. And in our society, you just don't cuddle with a friend! In my lifetime, I have kissed four men. I have held hands with six. You can see that I don't just hold hands with or kiss anyone who comes along. So when I do those things, it's a big deal, and means a lot to me. But I'm not ready to have a relationship of that magnitude any time soon. But I do want that kind of touch. Such a dilemma!

If you lived in Provo within the last 10 years, you've probably heard of NCMO - Non-Committal Make Out. I don't think I'd ever go for NCMO. But I might be up for NCCHH -- that would be Non-Committal Cuddling and Holding Hands! I guess cuddling and holding hands are probably what normal people do on dates, but as we all know, I'm not exactly normal. Everyone else just does it; I make it into a huge dilemma with a 30-page blog entry.

If you've made it this far, what is your love language? Any advice for me?

Brad Paisley, Rodney Atkins, & Chuck Wicks - January 2008

2009-09-16T23:22:00.001-06:00

In December 2007, I wrote on this blog that I was going to throw practicality and caution to the wind and buy Brad Paisley concert tickets. I went to the concert, but never wrote up my review. I am going to my second Brad Paisley concert on Saturday, so this is my last chance to write up 2008's concert!

I planned for the concert to be a date for my husband and I. He was sick the day before the concert and then told me that he couldn't possibly miss another day of work for the concert. So I took my then-6 year old son. After I got home from the concert that night, I found TheHusband still at home in bed -- he had never even gone to work (he worked graveyards at the time). Slacker. This was how most of our dates turned out though, so I wasn't exactly surprised.

We parked in Sandy so that we could ride Trax, because my son loves trains. On the Trax train, we sat behind two families who were obviously from a real live working ranch! I was glad to see they had a little boy with them because I wasn't sure if I should have brought my son or not. The men were stoic and uninterested and wore plaid shirts, Wrangler's, boots, cowboy hats, and vests with the name of their ranch on the back. The women had big hair. The kid wore Wrangler's and boots. We got off Trax and made out way to our seats. Lo and behold, there were the ranchers, directly in front of us.

Chuck Wicks was up first. He wore this really long gray scarf. Some people in the audience made fun of it. That's all I remember about his set.

Rodney Atkins was next. According to the note I wrote myself in January 2008, his set included:

These Are My People
About The South
Watching You
Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)
In The Middle
Invisibly Shaken
If You're Going Through Hell

Rodney Atkins was absolutely awesome. All of his songs are about small town country life, and I've always imagined myself as a small town country girl, so I love his songs. He had a great rapport with the audience as well. I'm sure he says the exact same thing to every audience, but he makes you feel like you're really talking to him personally. He told us the stories behind some of the songs, especially Watching You and Cleaning This Gun, which were written about his little boy and his stepdaughters, respectively. At one point he even uses a huge spotlight to look out into the audience, and he seemed like he really did want to see who all these people were that love his singing so much. The most awesome part happened during "In The Middle". It's a song about a dad coming home. One line says "Two little boys sayin' daddy's back; Next thing I know it's a wrestling match". When Rodney sang that, he was standing on the catwalk on our side of the arena, which made him right at the same level we were. When he sang "two little boys", he pointed DIRECTLY at my son and the little boy in front of us. That was so cool! Even though I was there to see Brad Paisley, I was quite disappointed when Rodney Atkins' set was over.

I had never been to a concert before (other than OldiesFest and about 30 minutes of Ricky Martin, both in 1999 or 2000), so I had no idea how to act. Should I pretend I was a Beatles fan and scream my guts out and faint? Should I sit there quietly and do nothing? What? Fortunately the ranch men in front of me were way more serious than I was, so no matter what I did, I didn't look as stiff as they did. They sat there most of the time, until their wives made them stand up. Then they stood their motionless with their arms folded. I was so glad to have them in front of me :-)

Finally, it was time for Brad Paisley. It was already very late, around 9:00. That's not too late, except I had my 5-month old at the babysitter's house, and she was expecting us back by 11 or so.

Brad Paisley's set included:

Online
Letter To Me
Mr. Policeman
Better Than This
Mud On The Tires
Celebrity
Whiskey Lullaby
The World
She's Everything
When I Get Where I'm Going
Wrapped Around

I love most of Brad's songs, and being there in the arena with the sound literally permeating every part of your body was absolutely awesome. For me. It was not awesome for my son. He was overwhelmed by the sound and the lateness and fell asleep. In the middle of a concert, on one of those hard plastic Energy Solutions Arena chairs! I piled the coats on him and let him sleep. Brad was a lot less personable with the audience. He went directly from song to song without talking in between. I am sorry to say that when comparing him to Rodney Atkins, he came up short because of this. But his music and effects and animations were great. Most of his songs are so funny; they put a huge smile on my face. He only went out onto the catwalk on our side a couple of times, so we didn't see him up close very much. I really don't remember much more than that. At one point, he took a break and then was going to come back with acoustic songs after the break. I was disappointed that we had to leave early, but it was already 10:30 or so and we just had to get home. We went home and the baby was fine, sleeping at the babysitter's. It was awesome and I would definitely go again.

Huh

2009-09-16T22:48:00.001-06:00

Now that I'm working on my résumé, it appears that I'm more accomplished and less of a loser than I thought! Sweet!!

Crappy, Awesome, Clothes, Dinner, & So Dead

2009-09-15T21:35:00.009-06:00

Crappy
The day started out crappy. Baby cried when I left him at daycare, so I went to work and posted a self-pitying status update about it. Then I went on to self-pity status 2 when my friend posted a link about school and it reminded me that I'm not a homeschooler. And then I realized it was September 15th, which was the date I had mentally given myself to turn down my old job. I was really looking forward to going back to that job, so that was incredibly hard and launched me way into self-pity mode.

Awesome
But then I remembered it was only four days until the BRAD! PAISLEY! CONCERT! and decided to get out of self-pity mode. The rest of the day was mostly awesome.

Clothes
Here is what I wore today:

This dress BEGS to go dancing. Seriously, it's like the dress is asking me to take it dancing. It is just so swingy and swishy. I even had to look up West Coast Swing steps on YouTube and remind myself of the basics.

Dinner and More Awesome
After work I immediately made dinner, and it was very fast and easy. Several years ago, it would have taken me forever to make this dinner. But tonight it was super fast. Granted, I skipped some of the more time-consuming steps. We had quesadillas -- leftover chicken seasoned with fajita seasoning, extra cumin, and lime, sautéed onion and red pepper, cheese, fresh guacamole, and sour cream. (I cheated by using leftover chicken and I skipped making fresh pico de gallo).

After dinner I got tons of cleaning done (tons for me anyway). MiddleSon was very naughty at school, and OldestSon helped him write an apology note to his teacher and then MiddleSon added a cookie and a balloon and wrapped it all up. This was entirely their idea, and they looked so cute working together on it. Usually they just try to kill each other, so this was so awesome.

So Dead
In order to become a real-live civil engineer, you have to get a Professional Engineer license. In order to do that, you have to graduate from college, work full time for four years, and take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (FE), an ethics exam, and the Principles and Practice of Professional Engineering exam (PE). Most people take the FE when they are in school. When I was in school, I signed up for it, but then I thought "HEY, I'm NEVER going to work, so I don't need to take this!! YES!!!" So then plans changed and I worked. I was scared of the FE, so I put it off until April 2006. I was absolutely terrified, studied for a few months, and then passed it the first time.

I was almost eligible to take the PE last October, but needed just a few more weeks of work experience by the sign up deadline for the test. I was definitely eligible to take it last April, but just like with the FE, I was terrified. By the time I got to the last day to sign up, I hadn't started studying yet, so I chickened out. I did finally sign up for it a couple months ago and am taking it October 23rd. Most people study anywhere from 2-6 months for the PE. I have 37 days left and I haven't even OPENED a book. I am totally going to die. I am not looking for compliments. I am serious.

My boss and co-worker told me not to bother studying much, that I'll do fine regardless. But I have serious doubts. The test covers five completely different areas of civil engineering - geotechnical, transportation, structures, water resources/environmental, and construction. My co-worker who told me not to bother studying worked for a year as a geotechnical/structural engineer and now uses all five of those areas in his job. I have only ever worked in water resources. So yeah, I am feeling completely terrified.

So why am I writing another epic-length blog post instead of studying? Good question. I think I need to continue to blog or Facebook or something in order to stay sane, but perhaps I could tone it down a bit.

Tomorrow I will post my review of the Rodney Atkins/Brad Paisley concert I went to in January 2008. Since I am going to another Brad Paisley concert on Saturday, this is pretty much my last chance to post it!

Of Sprouts, Swearing, and Strawberries

2009-09-14T21:34:00.005-06:00

There is absolutely nothing tying these subject together, other than all of them starting with S. Also, every time I re-read my posts, I cringe. Just remember that this blog is not supposed to be a great literary work -- it's a place for me to brain dump and write whatever is going through my mind at that moment! So if it seems stream-of-conscious, that's why.

Sprouts
I made French Garden sprouts this week. This is a combination of clover, arugula, cress, radish, fenugreek, and dill. Yummy! Actually, it tastes pretty much the same as plain alfalfa sprouts. Maybe if I actually pay attention when I'm eating them I could tell the difference. This jar started out with 2 tablespoons of seeds, and now these are packed in here tightly:

Swearing
I swear now. Really! Are you shocked? I started swearing, oh, probably about 2 years ago. My kids learned how to swear from watching Back to the Future (and from The Ex), and I started copying them. Yes, I am so mature that I copied 3 and 5 year olds. I am not sure if I was trying to shock them, or be funny, or what. But anyway, it became a habit, and now I swear sometimes. Never at work, never outside the house. And only when I'm angry. I figure I'm at a tipping point now. I can either move on to hard-core swearing, and start swearing all the time and add in the 'F' word, or I can stop swearing. I think I'm going to stop. It's just not me. It definitely comes naturally, but it just isn't how I want to sound. My goal is to sound gentle, loving, and kind, and swearing doesn't exactly do that for me.

Strawberries
I went to the grocery store and saw strawberries on sale for $1/pound. Usually if they're that cheap, you know they're going to be disgusting, but these smelled good, so I thought they might be OK. I use frozen strawberries in the Hot Pink Smoothies that I sometimes eat for breakfast. They would also work well in Green Smoothies. Frozen strawberries are regularly $3.49 for 12-14 ounces, so if the bet worked, I would save $$$$$.

First I washed 4 pounds of strawberries in the sink. I cropped out the timestamp on this picture so that you wouldn't know I was doing this at 2 in the morning. Oops.

Then I cut the tops off and put them on a cookie sheet:

Then I carefully stuffed them into the freezer, hoping that they wouldn't come crashing down the next time I opened it:

Freezer commentary: There's butter in the back - it was on sale for $1.58/pound this week. In the lower left corner is the frozen yogurt the kids chose. I said they could choose ANY ice cream. ANYTHING. And they chose that. Gross. I am obviously not raising them well. On the bottom, next to the ice cream is some asparagus that I got on sale LAST OCTOBER, whoops. Next to that is some bread crusts for making bread crumbs. On the right is some chicken. Everything else is fruit or vegetables. I bought a couple 1/2 bushel boxes of peaches over the past 3 weeks and those are in there.

The next morning, I put the strawberries into freezer baggies. I realized that since I am going to be using these for smoothies, I didn't have to worry about cutting the tops off - that saved a TON of time. I was running out of room in the freezer by the time I got to the last 10 pounds, so I streamlined the process even more and skipped the tray. After washing the strawberries, I put them straight into the baggies and into the freezer. They got all frosty, but oh well. Hopefully that doesn't ruin them.

And here's the freezer once I had added about 27 pounds of strawberries:

The bag on the top center is cubes of coconut liquid. The hot pink smoothie calls for the liquid from 1 fresh young coconut, but if I buy a whole box, I never use them before they rot, so I process them all at once and freeze the liquid in ice cube trays. I freeze the flesh in baggies and use it to make the most delicious vegan chocolate pudding ever.

This morning I had some of the strawberries in a hot pink smoothie. They smelled really gross when I opened the bag, but the smoothie was OK.

Oh, and Clothes
My outfit for the day. My posture looks so strange in these pictures. I am sure it is because my kids hold the camera really weird. Yeah, that's it. I actually wore these heels all day and didn't die. Mostly. My legs felt like they were broken because of the hike, but the heels themselves were OK.

I am not cut out for this!

2009-09-13T16:42:00.004-06:00

I am SO not cut out to be a single mom, especially a single working mom. I finally decided that this is because I am very bad at multi-tasking. When I'm working on something and I get a phone call or any distraction at all, it takes me 10 minutes to get back into what I was working on. This works the same way at home. I'll start cooking dinner, and 2 hours later I wonder what on earth could possibly be taking so long. I just can't cook, monitor the kids, and clean up the messes they're making all at the same time. Every time I try to do anything around the house, I fall farther behind because of the messes the kids make while I'm cleaning something else. Baby can absolutely destroy an entire room while I'm engrossed in doing the dishes, and I don't even notice, even if he's doing it right in the next room.

Today my parents came to our ward for the Primary program. They came over after church for a little while. I got SO MUCH DONE while they were here! I cleaned the kitchen (a bit), made dinner, cleaned up (a bit), and got another batch of strawberries ready for freezing. Reading through, that really doesn't sound like much, but it was so easy and effortless. Usually when I'm trying to do these things, it's like swimming through mud.

Contrast that with this morning. While I was ironing, Baby broke into the kitchen and got a bowl full of cereal and milk and proceeded to distribute it randomly throughout the apartment. Then, I had the audacity to take a shower. While I did that, he broke into the kitchen (again; the older kids left the gate open both times) and proceeded to fling a pound of strawberries all over the place. That's fun if I miss one and then find it a week later only because the swarm of fruit flies leads me to it.

I've thought of doing all the housework after the kids are in bed, but I hate that idea. I don't want my kids to be the ones whose mom does everything for them. I love the idea of Family Work, where the whole family works together to do everything. I may have to put that off for another couple of years though - at least until Baby is old enough to not make worse messes while the rest of us clean. Or, we can do tasks where I can stay right by them, and I'll save the more intense cleaning for after they're asleep.

I know I can make changes and get on top of things. In my past life, I have always been able to do hard things and meet challenges. Somewhere along the way I forgot that I had that capability, but I remember now, and I can meet this challenge!

~~

I am getting extremely bored with the outfit of the day. This is why fashion will never be my forté -- I just don't have much of an interest! Anyway, this is what I wore today:

The skirt was given to me by my sister in 1999. I always leave my hair until last, which usually means a dowdy librarian bun. I did paste down my flyaway hair after taking the picture though. I have to wear nursing-accessible clothes to church and it is getting REALLY OLD. I would love to just be able to wear a regular dress. Sometimes I wear one anyway, and it's a great excuse -- whoops! I can't nurse in this dress! Guess we'll have to sit (sleep) in the Mother's Room during Sacrament!

Timpanogos Cave

2009-09-13T02:17:00.005-06:00

Today's outfit was jeans with a black t-shirt, a beautiful comfortable mei-tai made by Julie at Little For Now, and 28+ pound baby.

We hiked to and toured Timpanogos Cave today. The plan was to get up at 8, go to the trailhead and buy tickets for early afternoon, come home and go to swimming lessons, eat lunch, and go hike. Of course I overslept for some strange reason (i.e., staying up until 2), so we didn't get the tickets early.

We left the house at 11:30 and got our tickets at 12:00. Our hike time as 2:40 and our cave tour time was 4:10. So we had 2.5 hours to kill. I decided we should go see a movie. I looked for dollar theaters in the phone book and found one that looked promising. Their phone message didn't say if they were a full-price theater or not, and I'm so clueless about which movies are out that I couldn't tell from the movies that were playing. A little part of State Street was closed and we ended up taking a massively huge detour. Once we got there, we would have only been able to watch 1-1.5 hours of a movie that had already started, and it would be $15. I refused to pay that much, so I suggested we go out to eat instead. So we did, and spent $23. Since our hike time was so late, we would have had to eat somewhere, but I probably could have gone to a grocery store and done it a lot cheaper.

One reason I like hiking is that it's very inexpensive recreation. Today was not cheap though! We had the $6 entrance fee to the canyon, $15 for the cave tour, and $23 for lunch. Oh well. We tried to tour Timpanogos Cave last year, but we didn't get there until the last day of the season, and of course the cave tours were sold out. We hiked anyway but were excited to go through the tour this year.

At lunch, I made the brilliant choice of eating a BBQ bacon cheeseburger and fries. I was well aware that this would make me feel awful on the hike, but decided I needed the calories (see this post). As soon as we left the restaurant, I was about ready to fall asleep. We started hiking and I felt OK. Somehow we made it up to the top. The trail rises 1100 feet over 1.5 miles. My lungs/breathing were OK, and my legs weren't really burning, but I felt like I was dying! I took my pulse, and it was at 160. I guess I need more cardio work. I don't know how backpackers can hike with 50+ pound backpacks. I was dying with 28 pounds of baby.

It turned out that our tour was 16 teenagers and us. Before we went in, the ranger warned the other ranger to watch out, because one of the girls had been standing up on the ledge that looks out over a sheer drop-off. Greaaaaaaaaaat, I thought. Teenagers, and worse, choir kids. At my high school, only the cool kids were in choir (do my high school friends perceive it this way?), and I was not in choir, so I was an enemy of choir kids :-) I figured they would be really annoying and sing annoyingly while we were trying to hear the guide.

Then the karma bus hit me, as my beloved child was the only one to make it difficult to hear the guide. But that only lasted about 15 seconds 2-3 times. The guide told the students before they went in that he would give them an opportunity to sing. So they behaved themselves and only sang at the appointed time. Their song was absolutely gorgeous. They were obviously part of the school's elite choir, maybe even an a cappella choir. The song was a hymnal all about Christ and the Atonement. "Only at Orem High" I thought. Nevertheless, it really was beautiful.

So, we survived the tour, got home more than 7 hours after we left, and can't wait to go again!

Baptism

2009-09-13T00:44:00.003-06:00

Some of you may wonder what exactly are the religious issues I struggle with. Sometimes I forget what they are entirely; sometimes they're all I remember. I will share just one (kind of two actually), and I am not going to provide much commentary - I am not ready to get ex'd for being an apostate on the internet!

My oldest son will be turning 8 in November. I have always thought there should be no set age where everyone is encouraged to be baptized. Some children are very spiritual from young ages. Some are just going along with what everyone else is doing. I have always tried to present it as a choice: "if you believe the Church is true and decide to be baptized" rather than "when you get baptized when you turn 8". But there's my first problem - I don't like that baptism is considered pretty much automatic at age 8.

Secondly, I mentioned to my son that The Ex probably wouldn't be able to come back here to baptize him (I did not mention anything about him being able to do it, just treated it as a distance/travel issue). I asked him who he would like to have baptize him instead. He chose me. I was very sorry to tell him that that simply was not a possibility. He was very sorry to hear it. I am far from a stereotypical feminist, but I do have some feminist leanings. Despite those leanings, I've never been upset that women can't hold the Priesthood. I know many women want it, but I never have. But I was very sad that if my son's father couldn't do this for him, that I couldn't step up -- I didn't even have the option. His next choice was his friend's father. The father was recently baptized himself, and I'm not sure if he's ordained. If he can't do it, my son will be baptized by someone who has very little personal influence on him. Of course the ordinance will still be just as valid, but it's nice to have it be a personal thing too.

Can I Be Open Here?

2009-09-12T00:52:00.003-06:00

Can I be open and honest on this blog? I'm sure that my readers would be fine with that, but I'm not sure I can do it. I have had this blog for nearly 5 years and have carefully avoided saying anything about my true feelings, problems, joys, sorrows, etc. that entire time. I'm not sure if I should continue on that way, or open up. What I'd really like to do is get together with a few friends in real life and open up to actual flesh and blood humans. I'm not sure how to do that though, so for now, it's broadcasting it to the world or nothing. . .

I can see how it would be very therapeutic for me to write some things out, but I don't know that it would help to write them on the internet, for everyone (including future employers) to see. I am an intensely private person, and it terrifies me to think of anyone except carefully selected friends knowing my true feelings about ANYTHING. It doesn't really matter if it's embarrassing or not - I just don't want most people to know anything about me. The article I read about Soulful Relationships may help me change that point of view, and realize that it's not scary to let people see who I am. I already write out my feelings to a few friends by email and anonymously on a forum specific to my situation, and both of those are very helpful. I am hopeful that putting this out there will be helpful to someone else and will keep me more accountable for making the changes I say I am going to make.

The whole reason I am thinking about this is because I am getting divorced. You may have noticed over in the sidebar that I changed the 'husband' status to 'STBXH' which means soon to be ex husband. Readers of my blog never really 'knew' my husband anyway -- I only wrote about him 2 or 3 times. He barely even knew I had a blog and he never read it as far as I know, so I didn't feel it would be fair to write about him.

I want to tell everyone the reasons for my divorce, so they won't think that I just fell out of love or gave up over something silly. I will not share the reasons, but I will say that probably without exception, every one of you would say "yeah, a divorce was a good choice" if you heard the whole story. The story is not secret; I'm just not going to publish it on the internet. Anyone can email me if they would like to hear more. I waffle between telling myself that ANYONE would get a divorce in my situation and knowing that anything COULD have been overcome if we were both willing to do the necessary work.

The Ex and I did not ever have very good conflict resolution skills, and he would suggest divorce frequently, throughout our whole marriage. I first considered divorce seriously in June 2007, but only because I thought I had to. We decided not to go that route and things seemed to be getting better. The Ex was not satisfied at work and decided to move back to Houston for work. I found out he was thinking about Houston two weeks before he moved. I do not deal with things quickly -- I need a lot of time to process. But I came around and was very excited about Houston. I was especially excited about not having to deal with snow! I called up my old boss and got my old job back.

Before he left, I realized The Ex was making plans to do something that I could not live with. I was so overwhelmed by the idea of the move that I didn't do anything about it. Then The Ex left to drive back to Houston. I talked to a friend and realized I did have a choice. She told me that I was worth being emotionally safe, and for the first time, I began to believe it. I didn't have to sit around waiting to see what The Ex would do. So I called him. I said I was very concerned about our family, and that I didn't think we could make it as a family if he did what he was planning to. I was very careful to say this was not a threat or ultimatum, but he took it as such. He blew up and during the conversation said we were getting a divorce. He had said this many times before, but it felt a little different this time.

I prayed and fasted (a huge deal; hadn't done that for 8.5 years) and attended the temple. I felt very calm about divorcing. I had refused to consider divorce in the past because of the devastating effect it would have on the kids. But suddenly it felt like it would be a good choice. I didn't get any sudden clear answers, but I felt calm and happy and I came to an understanding about the meaning of a scripture that really helped. I've always wondered why we have the story of Nephi killing Laban in the Book of Mormon. Most modern day LDS aren't going to have to kill someone. But I had an epiphany and felt that divorce was the modern day analogue to murder. Usually, people will not be given an answer from God that they should divorce -- it just shouldn't happen most of the time. But occasionally, it needs to happen, for the better good. I felt like I had been given this understanding of the scripture. Things like this almost never happen for me.

I'm alternately devastated, ecstatic, sad, calm, agitated, happy, sad, hopeful, and hopeless. It is a bit of a roller coaster, but it is tolerable because the intensity of these feelings is nothing like the intensity of the roller coaster I've been on during the marriage. The worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life happened in May 2007. I am scared that I may go through that kind of pain again. I'm hoping that since I went through it 2 years ago and to a far lesser extent went through it continually over the past 2 years, that I'm done with it and I can just move forward. But I worry that I may just be burying things and will not deal with them appropriately.

The Ex and I were in marriage counseling over the past 2 years, and I have continued to see the counselor as an individual counselor. I asked him how I could 'make' myself feel what I need to feel, to be sure I didn't sweep it under the rug. He said I was probably so busy that I didn't have time for a breakdown, so I was just keeping my mind off of it. He suggested I find a safe space, where I am all alone and have no demands on me. He said I should intentionally think about everything that is happening and even write it out. I have not done this yet; even while writing this huge blog post, I carefully keep the most painful parts sealed safely away in my mind. I guess I need to do it soon, at least to get a feel for how much pain I am hiding.

The other big thing I'm dealing with in counseling is that I feel that I don't deserve to be happy any time soon. I feel that I have absolutely, thoroughly, and completely failed and destroyed my kids' lives and happiness. I'm not much worried about myself, but I am devastated about the kids. I feel that I don't deserve to be happy because I need to pay in some way for destroying their happiness. Now, that all sounds very dramatic. I don't think about it in that extreme of a way most of the time. My kids seem to be doing fine. I have no idea what is really going on in their minds, but they appear to be OK. The Ex worked out of town for 15 months out of the last 3 years, so the kids have dealt with him being gone for up to 5 months solid before. I also recognize that my mindset completely denies the efficacy of the atonement, and I don't want to think that way. I also realize logically that if I keep myself unhappy, that will be WORSE for the kids. Intellectually I understand all those things. But it's hard to convince my deeper belief that this is the case.

I don't have a solid, workable plan for how to move forward, but I do have some ideas. I've always been a great sleeper, but once The Ex started working out of state 3 years ago, I started staying up until 11, 12, 1, 2, or 3 in the morning. I've been utterly exhausted ever since. Look at me now - it's past 1 am already and I am supposed to take the kids on a difficult hike tomorrow! Anyway, the first big thing I could improve upon would be my sleep, and related to that is my self-discipline, since for me it requires a great deal of self-discipline to not waste time on the internet and go to bed.

Directly related to spending time on the internet is having real life friends. I am absolutely starved for flesh-and-blood human relationships, male or female. I do not get together with friends, ever, and have rarely done so at any time during my marriage. Our first 2-3 years of marriage, we would get together with other couples occasionally. In the past 3 years, I've been to a playgroup 3 or 4 times. I've gone to book club once. In Houston, I went to a friend's house a handful of times. I have no idea how to start up new friendships. The main problem is time. I work full time. After 5 years of doing it, I have no better handle on running a household, spending time with my kids, and working. I just don't have time to be sitting around hanging out with friends. I absolutely do not want to leave my kids in order to see friends. That would not be fair to my kids. Although in order to be a good mom, I do need to get a handle on the friends thing, or I likely WILL go insane, and then I'll be a much worse mom. The second hurdle to starting friendships is that all my acquaintances are married stay-at-home moms. They see their friends during the day. After the kids' bedtime, when I'd be available, is their time to be with their husbands, as it should be. I haven't kept in touch with any single girl friends, nor do I think I would be the first choice for them to hang out with if I had!

Another HUGE thing I need to do is figure out who I am and what I believe. I skipped that process. I got married at age 20, the typical age when people are figuring these things out. Particularly I need to figure out what my religious beliefs are. I have never had the courage to do that. I bend to the opinion of whomever I am talking to at the time. If I am emailing my ex-LDS agnostic/atheist friends, I am free to express doubts and concerns. If I am at church or visiting with a church friend, I am free in expressing faith and hope. But I've never had the courage to figure out what *I* believe and what I want to do with that belief. Getting divorced has released me from The Ex's expectations, but I still do not feel any more courageous about it.

I have emailed most of my readers privately about at least one of these issues at one time or another, but this is about 1000 times more open than I've ever been publicly on this blog. So I will probably wake up in the morning and freak out and want to delete the whole thing. Just so you know, it very well could disappear.

OOTD - September 11

2009-09-11T21:46:00.004-06:00

Today's outfit consisted of a soft berry-red velvet hoodie donated by Megan, a brown t-shirt that I already had, jeans that I bought at Plato's Closet, and black flat shoes. You may be thinking "Wait a second Katie, isn't it still 85° outside?" Yes, that is true. However, at my work, when the engineers designed the building, they decided it would be a good idea to make it freezing downstairs and hotter than hellfire upstairs. So I have to have a removable sweater/jacket/parka of some sort every day. Some of the drafters wear sweat shirts year-around.

Shot from the back to prove that, for the first time in my life, I am not wearing Mom Jeans!

Outfit of the Day - September 10

2009-09-10T22:06:00.002-06:00

Today's outfit, dress donated to me by my hot/fashionable sister:

My posture looks really weird in this picture, like I'm totally stiff and leaning back or something. Weird.

I am actually wearing 3-inch heels in this picture!! Go me! I'm not sure I will make the effort to continue this trend. I'm kind of a basics/natural girl, and high heels are pretty unnatural for your posture/joints/etc. I think they are hot though (not these specific ones necessarily).

(Refer to the previous post for the rules before you comment.)

Outfit of the Day - September 9

2009-09-10T21:49:00.003-06:00

My friend Megan decided that I need to stop being frumpy and look hot and young. I have always wanted to look less like a grandma/librarian, but don't have the knowledge, motivation, and/or resources to actually follow through. Well, Megan has always been a great dresser and she took me shopping in her closet, so that solved the resources problem to some degree. (I bet I can still frumpify the clothes she gave me though.)

I decided to post pictures of my outfits each day, especially if it's one Megan gave me. Here are the rules:
1) I am a delicate flower, so no harsh criticism. I will delete it if it's rude.
2) You can tell me what you would do to make the outfit less frumpy or more awesome.
3) If it's really bad, you could say "maybe reserve that outfit for housework" or something similar.
4) Try not to look at my face. I always look so weird in these pictures, probably because I'm saying things like "Is something wrong with the camera? What did you do to it? Why aren't you taking the picture? Just take the picture; hurry, we're late!!" (My photographers are unwilling 5 and 7 year olds.)

Megan gave me this black jumper and I supplied everything else. I should have worn heels with this for ultimate awesomeness, but don't have any. (Actually I do have one pair of black heels, but I had forgotten about them.)

Here's a hair length update:

My hair is SO thin! Sometimes it looks like there's a lot of it because it's curly, but really it's thin -- when I braid it, it ends up as these teeny little braids.

After my run last night I was feeling dorky and decided to demonstrate what happens when curly-haired girls brush their hair. This is why curly hairs aren't allowed to own brushes. (Also, my glasses always look terrible with the flash; I swear I am getting contacts as soon as the money magically appears!!)

Relationships

2009-09-10T10:31:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking about relationships of all sorts (friendships, romantic relationships, work interactions, interactions with strangers) a lot lately -- Mainly how to initiate them, and how to have better ones. I found two relationship articles that really resonated with me.

Soulful Relationships

Initiating Relationships with Honesty and Directness

Both are by Steve Pavlina, a Personal Development Guru. I disagree with Steve on a lot of things, but I think he has nailed it with both these articles.

Soulful Relationships is applicable to any relationship, even your relationship with someone you pass on the sidewalk. I think it describes an absolutely beautiful, compassionate way to see other people, and I'd like to align my thinking to these ideas.

Initiating Relationships is mainly applicable to romantic relationships, but could be modified and applied to other relationships as well. Honesty and directness could be used more liberally in most interactions. I see the principles in both these articles as goals for me to work toward -- I am certainly not there yet. I have been very non-direct in the past, and it just doesn't work well. I have very few in-person interactions with people because the indirectness of email/message boards/social networking sites is far easier and less scary. But it doesn't fulfill my need for human interaction.

To me, directness is really scary! It's actually hard for me to even say hi to co-workers without feeling awkward. I can't even imagine how terrified I'd be at applying these ideas to a romantic relationship. Steve explains that fear of being direct is actually fear of rejection, which makes perfect sense. He also explains that it's OK if you get rejected -- you feel grateful for the knowledge that it wasn't a match, and you move on. That sounds great in theory, until the person you want to talk to is looking you in the face and you have to actually speak up and be direct. I imagine myself being confident, honest, and direct in my mind, but a lot of times what I see in my mind is hard to apply in reality.

Well, I meant this to be a 2 line post with just the two links -- oops!

West Provo Story

2009-04-29T21:47:00.001-06:00

Our stake had a movie night, with each ward contributing a short film. The youth in our ward made our movie, called West Provo Story. I thought it was hilarious. I think you'll like it, particularly if you're a Twilight, Star Wars, or The Princess Bride fan.

The movie should be hosted at http://www.westprovostory.com/ but I cannot get the site to work.

Green Polka Dot Box

2009-04-13T20:37:00.005-06:00

I just found out about a great new online health food store buying club. It's basically Costco + Whole Foods + Amazon. You pay a yearly membership fee, just like Costco. Also like Costco, you get very low prices -- lower than you will find anywhere else online and definitely lower than you'll find at the health food store. You shop online, and your order is delivered to your door in a green polka dot box! What could be more awesome than that? If you spend $150 per order, shipping is free. If you spend less, it's only $9 (flat fee)! I think that is fantastic.

Green Polka Dot Box has products from about 50 companies right now, but they will have products from 150 companies within the next few months. They are starting with shelf-stable dried goods. Then they'll add frozen products, and eventually they will even have produce!! The day they start delivering produce is the day I never leave my house to grocery shop again!

Check it out by clicking here --> Join Green Polka Dot Box

You can refer people to the store and get 'rewards' by doing so. If you refer 10 or 20 people who shop regularly, you could even get all your groceries for free! Basically, you earn a percentage of the amount your referrals spend. The more you refer, the higher the percentage goes. They want people to sign up ASAP (of course), so there is an incentive to sign up now -- if you sign up by May 31st, you will automatically get the highest percentage reward, no matter how many you refer. Typically, you'd have to refer 20 people to earn 10% rewards. But if you sign up by May 31st, you earn 10% rewards even if you only ever refer 1 person. I have signed up already, so if you click on the graphic/link in this post, you will be one of my referrals :-)

If you don't want to bother with referrals and rewards, you can sign up as a club member and still get the same prices. Your annual membership fee will be cheaper too. If you want to wait until you see the full lineup of products a couple of months down the road, that is awesome too. The only difference is that you'd have to refer more people to get the full rewards percentage. But if you don't care about the referrals/rewards, there's no difference at all.

Even before I found out about the rewards (I usually don't get into that kind of stuff) I was so excited for this! Cheap health food store products delivered right to my door?! Sign me up! I HATE shopping, especially when I've gone to 3 stores already (1 health food store has this cheaper, one has that, and don't forget the regular grocery store too!) with 3 kids who are starving and tired. I think The Green Polka Dot Box is going to be really big, and I can't wait to start shopping!

Go check it out right now -->
Join Green Polka Dot Box

My referral link is http://www.greenpolkadotbox.com/invite/345

Oh, and tell all your organic/crunchy friends. And give them my referral link (or your referral link, if you're signing up) :-D

Time to Get Serious!

2009-03-27T06:07:00.003-06:00

I've never been one to gain weight. I've fluctuated in weight quite a lot, due to pregnancies and nursing and things, but I don't recall ever gaining weight outside of pregnancy. Last December, my sister sent out a family email about doing Body for Life so that we don't gain weight over the holidays. I was thinking "??".

I've gone all winter wearing the same pants - no apparent change through Thanksgiving or Christmas. But now, suddenly within the last month, my pants are fitting quite differently! Two months ago, everything was loose and I figured I'd have to go down a size soon. Now everything is tight.

So I guess this means it's time to actually start exercising instead of thinking about it. Last summer I decided I was going to become a runner. So I started walking/jogging. I completed 9 weeks of a couch to 5K program, which got me going from 1 minute jogging at a time during the first week to 30 straight minutes of jogging by the end. I did not make it to 5K distance because I have to run VERY SLOW to be able to go for 30 minutes. I could walk faster -- literally. I abandoned that effort in October and haven't done anything since. I rented a TaeBo video from Netflix in November and didn't touch it until last Friday.

I guess there could be one other option, but I don't think it's very likely. I thought my husband was kind of ambivalent about having more kids right at the moment, but apparently he's not ambivalent, because when I told him about my pants issue he got all excited and asked if I had been feeling sick and was waggling his eyebrows a lot :-P

I did start a fitness blog last summer, but I never wrote anything in it. I'll try to flesh it out a little and then maybe share the link. Then I can quit writing in it again, just like my Beans & Rice blog.

Brownies

2009-03-20T21:45:00.002-06:00

The other night after the kids went to bed, I needed a treat. So I made brownie batter, without the eggs. (I will eat raw eggs, but only fresh ones from a trusted local farm. I didn't want to be eating raw eggs that had been sitting in brownie batter for several days.) I added a little extra water to compensate for the egginess. But it was late and I measured wrong, so then I had to add flour. It was still pretty thin. I put it in the fridge and the kids and husband never discovered it. I've had a delicious brownie batter treat every night since then!

Very Troubled

2009-03-19T20:55:00.006-06:00

So I've been listening to a great song lately:
(warning: none of the songs below are appropriate for Molly Mormons, including myself)

Don't they have the greatest hair? The song came out in 1993, so I guess this is mid-90's former-glam-metal hair.

What troubles me is this --
What on earth does "With an ironclad fist I wake up and French kiss the morning" mean??

How about "This hotel bar hangover whiskey's gone dry"? That's part of the bridge, which strangely enough does not show up in that music video above. Weird.

Apparently, other people have been baffled by the lyrics too, because in this 2003 version, he changes both of them:
"With an ironclad fist, I wake up and French kiss each morning" (Still don't know what an ironclad fist is)
"The hotel bar hangover whiskey ran dry" (makes marginally more sense)

Bon Jovi is one of the acts I would love to see in concert. I remember my first encounter with Bon Jovi songs. In 1986, the Monkees were popular, as it was their 20th anniversary concert tour. They also had a few new songs that year. I was 5 years old and LOVED the Monkees. I desperately wanted to go to their concert, but it was way too much money for the whole family to go to, and I was only FIVE, so it wasn't like I could just hop on down there myself. I would watch MTV all the time, waiting to catch a Monkees song. I have no idea how my mom was OK with this. I remember hearing Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer and thinking that it must be a good song because it was about praying.

If you thought that 90's hair was good, check this out:

I really hope 80's glam metal hair comes back (but for women), because my hair totally looks like that when I wake up in the morning.

The other 80's metal group I love is Def Leppard.

My favorite is probably Pour Some Sugar On Me:

My freshman roommates always used to listen to Love Bites, particularly when love wasn't going so well for one of them:

Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad is probably my favorite Def Leppard ballad:

Other than the brief encounter with Living on a Prayer in 1986, the real reason I got into Bon Jovi and Def Leppard is that I had a boyfriend who liked them. Around 1995, he made me a mix tape with several Bon Jovi and Def Leppard songs on it. (Surely if you had a boyfriend in the 80s or 90s, he made you a mix tape too.) I've liked some of their songs ever since. My husband was a teenager in the 80s, so naturally he LOVES Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. He used to own all their CDs, but after we got married, we decided to throw out all our secular music. Bye-bye Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. Fortunately we now have subscriptions to Rhapsody music service, so we can listen to Bon Jovi all the time. Rhapsody used to have all of Def Leppard's music, but they removed it. Sad.

I could totally rock Karaoke night if I got to sing Bon Jovi or Def Leppard. Sometimes I listen to Bon Jovi to keep myself energized at work (if I'm doing something that doesn't require much concentration), and I have to really watch it so I don't bust out singing at the top of my lungs. It's great to do at home though!

~~~~~

Unrelated question - for those of you using feed readers, do my posts come through several times each? My typical writing method is to write the post, go through it several times, then post it. Then I find more things to change, probably 2 or 3 times, requiring several re-publishes. Do all the versions show up in your feed readers?

Going to the Symphony?

2009-03-06T20:42:00.005-07:00

When I was a youngling, I went to the symphony a few times. I have always liked cultural events, like the symphony, opera, ballet, etc. When we lived in Houston, they had a family series at the symphony, and we went to that one season. Oh, look, I actually have a picture:

I have always wanted to go to more cultural events, and I'd been feeling a little sad that I haven't been to any recently. My husband is not interested, and my kids are still too young to go to full-length concerts. Over the past month, there were ads on the radio for the Utah Symphony's performance of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto. I really wanted to go! I looked the tickets up to see how much they cost, thinking maybe I would just go alone, and I remembered the main reason I don't go to cultural events/concerts. It's a VERY EXPENSIVE NAP. Most tickets for one performance at the Utah Symphony range from $32 to $51, with a few $26 and $16 seats. There are so few $16 seats that it makes me wonder what is wrong with them. I mean, it's the symphony, so it's not like you need to see, but maybe the seats are at the perfectly wrong spot acoustically, so you can't hear anything.

Anyway, I remembered that for me, cultural events nearly always turn into a nap. As I've mentioned, I've slept through the Phantom of the Opera at least twice. (I can't remember if I fell asleep when I went to see it the third time in Houston.) I have slept through Cats on Broadway in New York City. I am pretty sure I've slept through every other cultural event I've ever been to.

Now that I've remembered my tendency to nap, I'm not so concerned about going. I am, however, very grateful to my subscription to Rhapsody. I pay $13/month and can listen to almost anything. So I downloaded Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto. It fits perfectly into my playlist, right after 'Africa' by Toto, and right before 'Bed of Roses' by Bon Jovi. I also added the orchestral scores of all six Star Wars movies. It's fun to teach kids that orchestral music includes cool stuff like movie scores.

Oh, and best of all -- when I was looking up those ticket prices, I found that the Utah Symphony DOES have a family series! I am almost sure I looked this up when we moved back to Utah in 2006 and they did not have it then (or I am a bad Googler). The next concert is the Cowboy Jamboree. We are planning to go.

I Win!

2009-02-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

110%

You can see that I still think it's a great trick to edit the HTML in these quiz results.

Here are my REAL results:
28%

Template Woes

2009-02-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

I think this template needs an update. I've had it ever since I started this blog. I just realized that when you get to the bottom of the first page, there's no link to 'Older Posts'! How that got left off, I have no idea. I could just stick a new template in here, but then some custom options would disappear, so it will have to wait until I get a few minutes to check it out.

Hair/Fashion Update

2009-01-17T16:05:00.002-07:00

Here are a few pictures of my hair and "fashion" in the last few months. This is for a little contest, so don't feel obligated to say "Oh, that looks. . . nice. . . " ;-)

My typical bun:

Bun with a little twist that is supposed to give it some fulness from the front:

Not a bun! But still slicked back and frumpy:

How it looks from the front when I wear a bun or braid:

I'm still wearing my skirt from 1999:

I missed a day?!

2008-11-11T05:25:00.002-07:00

After a week of crappy updates and fighting to get to an electronic device, I FORGOT to post yesterday. Sigh. I'm still sick, just with different symptoms. I went to bed at 9 last night and was up at 11:15 with my sobbing son (he says he got scared when the baby rolled over; also his throat or something hurt). Then I was up to hang out in the bathroom about 4 times between 2:30 and 4:30. My alarm goes off at 4:40, so I got up for good at 4:30. Fun times.

Late night post

2008-11-09T23:43:00.002-07:00

I didn't bother trying to use the evil Blackberry today because I knew I could post on my regular computer when I got home from the airport. When I got home our living room, including computers, was torn apart. My husband had removed our nasty old carpet while I was gone and was installing faux wood flooring! Woohoo! I set my alarm for 11:00 pm, by which time my husband was supposed to have the computers set back up again. I woke up at 11:38, when he came to bed. Thanks alarm, for being so reliable!

I hate this Blackberry

2008-11-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

It took me another half hour to get here again today. I would probably love the Blackberry if I knew how to use it! The happy couple went through with the wedding and now my mom and I are hiding from the reception.