Olympus High School Class of 2000 Alumni Website

I was strongly leaning toward doing a Gung Hay Fat Choy post for the Chinese New Year, but even though I’m not spending the day with my husband, I suppose it would be a little lame for me to pretend that Valentine’s Day isn’t happening.

Hence, the V-Day post:

Valentine’s Day has a pretty bad reputation. Most people either hate it because it’s cheesy/commercial/forced/predictable/alienating/expensive/etc. or they love it and wait for it with baited breath, only to be inevitably disappointed when it doesn’t end of that romantic. Sure, a bunch of people manage to pull of perfectly amazing Valentine’s day date nights or they lose themselves in the holiday parties of their children, laden with pink paper garlands and chalky candy hearts. But most are just glad when it’s over.

I’m one of those people that loves Valentines Day, but more for the mail and the movie marathons than for the date night. I’ve never had a particularly great date on Valentine’s Day and I can clearly remember two really, really bad dates that took place on February 14th. The only thing worse than cautiously venturing out to a crowded restaurant on the most “romantic” night of the year is getting blindsided in a crowded restaurant when someone you’re not interested in pulls out either a soul-baring declaration of love or an engagement ring. (And yes, it happened. Twice. And it was baaaaaaaad.)

Of course, I’m safe from that kind of thing now. The chances of awkward relationship talks blossoming out of V-day dropped pretty dramatically when I tied the knot with Mr. Morgan. Now, my Valentines Days stretch out to the horizon, full of quiet dinners and Hallmark cards and the good type of nothing special. Nice, no? Yes, but I suppose it will be a little while before I stop mourning the lack of future declarations of love from soulmates who run towards me out of the ran after walking out on their six-figure jobs because they just can’t live without me. What can I say? I was ruined by All My Children and Lifetime television.

I was pretty addicted to romantic drama in my youth. My absolute favorites were the movies where one of the lovers died at the end. This is in stark contrast to my geek-gets-the-girl loving husband. In fact, we seem to be made up of pretty different romantic stuff. Take, for example, the top ten lists that our high school selves would have picked as the most romantic stuff in the world:

Happy Valentines Day, Everyone!
(but especially Kyle because I luuuuuv him)

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Isn’t It Romantic?

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Love is Giving Yourself Yummy Food to Eat!

For the past oh six months or so I've been noticing that Riley's left eye just doesn't move quite right. His left eye looks at you as if he had a glass eye, it freaks me out every time he does it.  At first I was the only one who noticed it because it only happened every once in a while.  Then it started becoming more frequent and more obvious.  There are only 4 pediatric Opthamologists in Utah 3 are at Moran Eye Center and the other has a private practice.  Dr. Swoboda sent a referal to Moran in November and I couldn't get in until February.  The private practice had an opening the first part of January so I took that appointment as well.  At the appointment in January he said that everything looked good with his eyes as far as he could tell.  The only thing he saw was astigmatism but it wasn't bad enough to have glasses.  I wasn't quite happy with what he had to say because I knew something was wrong with that eye.  So we went to the next doctor and they did the same tests and he saw the same things except Riley actually did the weird eye movement in the office during the tests.  His decision was that Riley needed to be in glasses to help with both the eye movement and his focus because of the astigmatism.  He told me that most kids with these problems don't come in until they are a lot older because their parents don't notice the eye movement and the kids aren't able to tell them they can't see very well.
So it's a good thing that I was being extra observant and determined to figure out what was going on.  If Riley was a regular kid I most likely wouldn't have noticed anything because I wouldn't be tuned in to every little thing he does or doesn't do. I'm always very aware of anything that isn't quite right with him because even the slightest change could become a huge problem.
Riley's new glasses should  be here with in the next week.  It will be interesting to see if it really does make a difference.  I'm curious to see if it will change the way he plays with his toys or looks at his books.  This whole time they've probably all been blurry.   His eyes will be open to a whole new world.

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Four Eyes

Once upon a time in a land called Ohio, lived Jeff and Debbie…

Late in the year 2009, all of their children came to said Ohio to celebrate a lovely holiday we like to call Christmas…

And these children brought their children…
Many adventures took place, such as making cookies…

And eating cookies…

Frosting was in abundance…
As were presents…..

And Mother Earth gave them a beautiful, bright rainbow on Christmas day to enjoy from the front yard…

And Nick and Chase received their much asked for GEO TRAX from Santa, because they don’t already have enough tracks in their tiny house…

And Chase thought the perfect cuddle spot with Grandma would be right in front of the fridge (and Grandma took what she could get)…

And Grandma and Grandpa were noble and brave and took all 5 grandkids to TWO movies the day after Christmas…

And Chase ate much popcorn…

And Nick enjoyed having a make-shift bed on the ground…

And Chase would crawl on his parents bed and beg to take naps (oh wait, this is a TRUE story)..

And the week after Christmas (after they all passed around a 24 hour miserable stomach bug) Jeff and Debbie treated everyone to an indoor water park for two days, where these two brothers stayed in their first hotel room…

And they played with Brennen (and Ella and Preston, but Nick and Chase’s mother is horrible at taking pictures)…

Afterwards, back home, someone turned 28…

And Mallory is still pretty…

And we brought in the New Year with the traditional and wonderful and delicious appetizer party…

And Grandpa told Nick incredible bed-time stories each night…

And Sunday afternoon looked like this for the adults…

And this for the kids…

And after all that fun, we had to return to the Land of the Freezing, PA, and create our own fun with shaving cream and trucks….

And sitting on the counter to help mom cook…

And we hit the books…

And found out that our voices sound super cool when we yell into the fan..

And the only real entertainment we now have is from this guy…

who makes our faces look like this for half an hour a day…

And the mother of the house refused to take out her recycling (this is the land of the FREEZING after all), and so the pile on the back patio now looks like this…

Because you have to walk THIS far to the recycling bins (do you see them? Yep, neither do I) and then you have to stand there and sort the clear glass, colored glass, plastic, paper, and metal cans…

But we’re still enjoying our milk…

And we still cry to go play outside in the cold…

So that we can see our cute neighbor Russ
And we still drink green smoothies in the morning…
And pretend to be pirates, amoung other things, all day long…
And we believe, despite the sub zero temperatures and having to part with our families after the holidays, that we will indeed live HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

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A story

No- this isn’t a post about my soon-to-be nursing habits… it’s a chance to boast a bit. One thing people don’t tell you when you become a mother is how mundane and everyday tasks become huge accomplishments worth bragging about. Things like eating, personal hygiene and accomplished projects.

Cases in Point:

1. I got Lyvia to take a nap today. It only took 1 hour and about 30 minutes of crying. Combined between the both of us. Yes- this is improvement over the past week. I’m hopeful for a 20-minute routine again later this month.

2. I hung out with my friend and her kids on Tuesday. Lyv was happy and even shared toys. I had much needed grown-up conversation with an understanding female. (“Adult conversation” makes it sound gross.)

3. Last night, I cleaned the kitchen after Lyvia had gone to sleep and before Jason got home from meetings. (No one ever tells you how cathartic having clean counter tops are.)

4. My doctor wants me to eat only vegetables and meat my entire pregnancy. I may be slightly exaggerating- but only slightly. My body begins to rebel against me if it doesn’t get fruit and toast on occasion. As a compromise- I’ve been eating homemade granola for a snack and Grape Nuts like they are going out of style. Wait, is that a compromise? Anyway, I’ve gained a healthy, respectable weight with this baby so far- so I’m losing the worry.

5. After a “holiday sabbatical” from reading- I’m back into the swing of things with four books crossed off my list. And running my household didn’t even take a hit!

6. All the trash cans in my house were emptied this week. All. The. Trash. It’s a good feeling, people.

7. Baking with a helpful two-year-old. Tricky, but so fun.

So, later this month when I’m posting about checking my email twice in one week (shock!) or painting up this cute little kitchen that my aunt gave me- you will all know that it’s tough work being a mom and mini-victories are totally worth blogging about.

But as I like to say, “Life is too short to be anything but happy!”

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Well, Bust My Buttons…

Some thoughts, early in the morning…

I’m still going through my little journey of change. People who are intimate touchstones in my life won’t be surprised by this. It’s actually a bit of an annual event, this retreat into myself, and was even a biannual event when confronted with the stress of law school. In response to complaints about my sudden social disappearance, I used to tell Janean that I was feeling very Zen these days. This announcement was always met with groans and more complaints as my Zen phases were synonymous with me suddenly becoming a pain in the ass as I refused invitations to the bar, locked myself in my apartment with my books, and systematically deleted all of my Facebook photos.

In reality, these phases aren’t very Zen. I do tend to lean towards complete simplicity, shedding my worldly possessions and breaking off all connections, but I don’t do this to achieve a balanced inner peace. I do this because the chaos and clutter of my life seems overwhelming all of a sudden and it’s all I can do not to just throw a blanket over my head. In truth, these phases would be more accurately described as having a nervous breakdown in slow motion, the only cure for which is time and Facebook-photo-destruction.

So why am I telling you all this? Wouldn’t the very nature of these moods (my strong desire to pull away from the world until the dust settles) mean that I’d be less likely to pour my heart out on this random public space? Well, yes. That’s why I haven’t been blogging much. But I have been receiving emails from readers even without blogging. Many of them have questions about other things, a few were gentle inquiries as to why I wasn’t writing, and a couple were complaints that I wasn’t supplying anything to entertain them and where the hell was I? I received one yesterday, though, that really snagged my attention and brought me back to the computer. It’s this email that I really wanted to write about today.

How’s that for the longest introduction in the world? I feel like Victor Hugo.

This email is from a friend. Granted, I do not “know” this person in my “real” life (excuse my “overuse” of quotations there), but this person is a long time reader and someone that I’ve had many conversations with on another forum. So while we do not actually know each other, there is a comfortable intimacy in discourse between us and, as such, she felt fine making inquiries into my personal life. Her email, gentle but blunt, simply asked if Kyle and I were having marital problems and if we were thinking about getting a divorce.

The email struck me as funny at first. With all of the unemployment and non-direction and living with my parents that’s been going on in my life, leaping straight to “are you getting divorced?” seemed to be quite the stretch. Then again, Kyle and I are still in that starter marriage part of our relationship timeline and we both have many friends who took vows and found themself divorced before the anniversary of those vows caught up to them. So maybe the inquiry wasn’t so strange?

In a simple answer, no, we’re not having problems. My life is chaotic and overwhelming in its sheer lack of importance, but Kyle is still the thing I’m holding onto to steady myself.

Honestly, if we were having problems, I would not be above writing about them on this public space, provided Kyle didn’t mind. We don’t have a Leave it to Beaver marriage and there’s no sense in holding it out as one. I once read a quote that someone had put up that said, “We have the greatest prenuptial agreement in the world. It’s called Love.”

I found that quote to be offensive on two levels. One, (as a lawyer) that’s just crap planning if you have any assets going into a marriage. Two, (as a wife) it would be arrogant for me to spend the rest of my life dependent on the emotions that we were feeling when he slipped the ring onto my finger. Things change, people change, and it isn’t too often that people walk into a marriage saying, “I doubt this will work out, but what the hell.” There’s a whole lot of love that precedes a whole lot of divorces. It’s unfair to assume that someone who is divorced just didn’t love the other person enough or wasn’t loved in return. Like marriage, there’s more to divorce than love.

That being said, I will of course qualify prior statements by saying that I don’t believe Kyle and I will get divorced and we didn’t get a prenuptial agreement either. Of course, neither of us own anything or have any real prospects, so our agreement would have just been a note to ourselves that said, “You want out of this? Well, maybe you should go home and try a little harder.”

You know, we’re almost to our one year anniversary, a thought that sends up a flutter of panic when I realize that I may only have 70 or 80 more years with Kyle and I’ve lost this first one so quickly. It’s been an amazing journey, this marriage stuff. I’m not one of those people who believes that you really get married on the day of your wedding. I feel like that giant party is a joyful celebration of the start of a really long walk. It’s in the days and weeks and months and years that follow that you start to knit together with someone, joining up a thread at a time, getting closer so that you will be stronger together when life tests you.

Our marriage is doing very well for only having one year behind it. It’s still a green, puny sprout of a thing, but we’re doing what we can to keep it healthy. You know, my husband is something of a physical hypochondriac, constantly concerned that we’ve got this or that illness or that we’re showing symptoms of chronic and life-threatening diseases. Heaven help our children on days of runny noses or bumped heads.

I, on the other hand, am something of a relationship hypochondriac. The first time I sense that we’re drifting apart or not truly communicating or snapping at each other a bit too much, I start Googling marital problems and imagining all of the horrible things that could happen to us if we don’t get back on the same page. The result of our hypochondriac double-teaming is that we take more vitamins and pills than you’d even believe and at least once a day we have earnest, soul-bearing conversations that are all full of eye contact and validating statements.

Is it overkill? Oh, definitely, on both accounts. But, it reminds me of something I recently read:

The average couple is unhappy six years before first attending therapy, at which point, according to “The Science of Clinical Psychology,” the marital therapist’s job is “less like an emergency-room physician who is called upon to set a fracture that happened a few hours ago and more like a general practitioner who is asked to treat a patient who broke his or her leg several months ago and then continued to hobble around on it; we have to attend not only to the broken bone but also to the swelling and bruising, the sore hip and foot and the infection that ensued.”

We may get the occasional emotional fracture, but you can bet your ass that I’ll have us knee deep in relationship books and marital counseling before you can even blink. And I’ll probably be blogging about it.

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Some thoughts, early in the morning…I'm still going through

Speen and I went and saw New Moon last night. His suggestion, which was impressive. Probably cause we rented Twilight a couple of weeks ago and so we were kind of in the mindset.

Anyway, the movie surprised me. I didn’t love the books until book 4. I thought the first three were a little slow. And I didn’t like Jacob in the books, I thought he was annoying. I was surprised at how much I absolutely loved him in the movie last night. He was so charming, enduring, and real. I felt a way stronger connection between him and Bella than Bella and Edward. At the very end of the movie when Edward said “Marry Me” I didn’t really feel any passion when he said it. Maybe because he’s “cold” and all that, but I felt when Jacob was begging her not to go with Alice, I felt way more passion and love from him.

I also thought the movie was extremely well made. Trust me, vampires and werewolves aren’t really my thing (I never liked Harry Potter), but I thought they did such a great job with the transformations and making everything extremely believable. If you are on the fence of whether or not to go, I would definitely say go, I was pleasantly surprised.

What did you think?

And I gotta say, one of my favorite parts of the movie was seeing the preview for this. It looks amazing. Spence and I both shed a tear during the preview!

(Letters to Juliet)

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My Thoughts!

Speen and I went and saw New Moon last night. His suggestion, which was impressive. Probably cause we rented Twilight a couple of weeks ago and so we were kind of in the mindset.

Anyway, the movie surprised me. I didn’t love the books until book 4. I thought the first three were a little slow. And I didn’t like Jacob in the books, I thought he was annoying. I was surprised at how much I absolutely loved him in the movie last night. He was so charming, enduring, and real. I felt a way stronger connection between him and Bella than Bella and Edward. At the very end of the movie when Edward said “Marry Me” I didn’t really feel any passion when he said it. Maybe because he’s “cold” and all that, but I felt when Jacob was begging her not to go with Alice, I felt way more passion and love from him.

I also thought the movie was extremely well made. Trust me, vampires and werewolves aren’t really my thing (I never liked Harry Potter), but I thought they did such a great job with the transformations and making everything extremely believable. If you are on the fence of whether or not to go, I would definitely say go, I was pleasantly surprised.

What did you think?

And I gotta say, one of my favorite parts of the movie was seeing the preview for this. It looks amazing. Spence and I both shed a tear during the preview!

(Letters to Juliet)

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My Thoughts!

Well, I had an odd morning.

I had to drive Kyle in to catch the train this morning, since he’s staying late for an event at work. Since I was out and about with errands to run, I found myself with a little bit of time to kill before everything would be open. When I was in college, I used to pop up from the Sandy train station to hit the Deseret Industries on 7th and 94th before I went home.

For those of you not from around here, Deseret Industries is the Mormon answer to Goodwill thrift stores. The store sells donations, employs people who need employment, and donates goods to different communities all over the world. Like Goodwill stores, shopping at Deseret Industries sometimes takes a big of scrounging and a lot of tolerating your fellow shoppers, but I have a soft spot for the D.I. because it furnished my adolescent years in the drama club with numerous costumes and props.

I wasn’t in the market for anything this morning, but I thought I’d pop up for old times sake and drop off a few old hair straighteners and pairs of shoes that I was no longer using. I thought the store opened at 9, but as it turned out, it didn’t open until 10 and I found myself with a bit of time to kill in the parking lot. I called my mom to chat and settled in to wait for a bit, when all of a sudden I noticed that there were people congregating outside the glass doors, waiting to be let in. At first it was just five or six people, but ten minutes before the store was open, the line had grown to be 25 or 30 people long.

As the parking lot filled up and people began to park across the street, I started to get nervous. I’ve inherited a certain level of shopping competitiveness that can only be described as athletic. I’ve never missed a Black Friday and I’ve been known to buy things I didn’t even want or need simply because it was a good price and other people were clamoring and shoving to get to them. (This is, in fact, why Kyle and I have two Guitar Hero guitars, three DVD players, three blenders, and two electric griddles.) I watched all of these people lining up outside the thrift store this morning and, knowing full well that I didn’t even need anything, I hurried to get in line.

Two odd things about this line. One: Everyone was very middle class. People were wearing designer vests and track jackets and everyone had a bluetooth and an iPod and a PDA. The women were carrying large tote purses with labels like Coach and Juicy Couture and all of them had nice haircuts and well-manicured hands. Not exactly what you’d expect to see in a thrift store. Two: Everyone knew each other. As I got in line, I realized that they were all talking to each other and saying things like, “Oh, I meant to get this over to you,” and “I’ll show it to you when I see you on Friday.”

I was starting to think that I’d stumbled into some weird family reunion treasure hunt at the D.I., when the woman in front of me asked me what I was looking for. I said I just popped by to browse and immediately she said, “No, you have to know what you want. These people will run you over if you don’t!” Apparently, all of these people come to the D.I. looking for collectibles and other things they can sell. As I talked to them, I learned that there were some that come every day and others that hit different thrift stores on different days of the week. I was pretty much the only person in line who didn’t have a game plan.

As the woman pressed, I admitted that I usually keep an eye out for Disney collectibles, at which point she turned over her clipboard (yes, she had a clipboard) and drew me a map, with big x’s to show me where I shouldn’t go and circles to show me where to head directly. When the doors finally opened a few minutes later, I got caught in the throng of calm (but hurried) shoppers, who went completely silent and filed into different parts of the store as full of purpose as assasins.

I ended up in front of the collectibles counter, where that woman caught up to me, pointed at the three Disney collectibles in the case, and told the woman standing by with the key that I wanted them. They were taken out and handed to me and then the woman vanished and I ended up in the back corner of the store with the books, trying to stay out of everyone’s way. You should have seen it…by the time we all got in there, there had to be at least forty shoppers, the vast majority of whom looked like they live in a higher social class than I do. There were women poring over toys, men trying out cameras, and a whole batallion of people scanning the barcodes on all the DVDs with their iPhones.

Caught up, I ended up leaving the store with the three Disney figurines (which I’m not sure I wanted) and $30 worth of books to swap on paperbackswap.com. I left with four bags, and as a woman in the parking lot called, “You did good!” and then ran into the store herself, I felt elated…triumphant! It wasn’t until ten minutes later, when I realized that I had spent $35 and I didn’t know why, that I decided I might have been out of my league this morning.

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Well, I had an odd morning.I had to drive Kyle in to catch

Ok, guys. I could be posting about our Disneyland trip. I could be posting about taking Ella to see Disney on Ice today. But instead, I’m posting a big thought. A BIG THOUGHT.

And I want feedback.

Ready? (…wait for it…)

I think I’m going to go back to school.

Just typing that out makes me want to duck in anticipation of the WTF?s that will come flying out of the computer. After all, I just finished school. A lot of school. I can actually say that I’m more educated than most of the people in the country. So why…in the hell…would I want to go back?

I’ll let you guys in on a little secret. Actually, most people around me in my real life know that this isn’t a secret at all, but I don’t post about it on the blog too much because I’ve been applying to jobs and didn’t want this info out there. Since nobody is beating down my door at the moment, however, it’s a good day for a revelation.

You know how I went to law school and came out and just threw my hands up in the air? Here’s the facts: the problem isn’t that I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Even though I’ve gone on and on, wondering what I’m supposed to be doing, I actually know exactly what I want to be doing. I’ve known it for years. I just didn’t trust it enough to actually do it.

No, it isn’t writing. It isn’t blogging. It isn’t photography. It’s not even being a stay-at-home mom. (Although, how awesome would that be?! C’est la vie, in another life…)

What I want to do and have wanted to do for years now is very simple. I want to be a teacher.

Doesn’t that just make no sense whatsoever? Who goes to law school if they want to be a teacher? Well, here’s what happened. I was a teacher. I took a year off in college and was a substitute teacher here in Utah when I was 19, because I knew that’s what I wanted to do and I wanted to experience it first hand before I studied it.

Result? Baptism by fire. All I got was a 30 minute speech on how to avoid getting injured by a student and then I was allowed to teach any K-12 classroom I selected. I bounced from school to school and had no idea what I was doing. I loved it, but I was also nervous, unprepared, and clueless. I didn’t know how to discipline students or manage a classroom or deal with the high school kids who hit on me (which isn’t surprising, since I was their age). So, after a year, I burnt out and gave up. I decided that I didn’t have it in me to be a teacher and I ended up with an English degree instead.

The thing is, I never lost the interest in teaching. Even as I was getting my English degree, I was working as a children’s bookseller, making reading lists and showcasing the books that really got kids reading. And when I went to law school, I ended up leaning towards education law and then got a job working with Ohio schools. By the time I lost my job last summer, I had spent three years in classrooms, using the stuff I learned in law school to teach teachers how to deal with conflicts between students and showing students how to talk to each other to avoid violence.

And I LOVED it.

So now? Well, now I’m in Utah and the work that I was doing with conflict in schools doesn’t exist. I’m a friggin’ expert at it, but it doesn’t exist. And every time I hear that someone gets to wake up every morning and stand in front of a classroom of students, helping them reach their best selves, I feel so jealous I can actually taste it.

I’m desperate to teach.

BUT…

There’s that whole going back to school thing. We have so much debt from my student loans that I’ll honestly be paying it off for the rest of my life. At a certain point, it has to be irresponsible to go back.

There’s also the problem of me being too passionate about schools. Trouble students and problems with teachers used to suck the life out of me in my last job and I’d often come home stressed and upset. When I was actually working as a teacher, I had to work a second job because I was spending all my money on extra supplies and things for the classroom. So there’s the possibility that being a teacher would actually be bad for me.

I’m at a crossroads. If I’m going to be a teacher, I need to apply this spring so that I can get my Masters in Education in two years from the University of Utah and if I’m not going to be a teacher I need to find a way to pull my brain out of the classroom once and for all.

What to do…what to do…

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Ok, guys. I could be posting about our Disneyland trip. I could

So, I’m still lovin’ on my 101 in 1001 list. I appreciate all the offers to help…it sounds like I’m making popovers with Bryttin, playing Backgammon with Schovy, and meeting a whole bunch of people from the internet in the near future. In fact, I got so many responses to #70 that I’m probably going to have to break the California people into bunches and spread them across a few trips! I even got an invite down to Mexico to meet a reader, so soon I could be blogging from south of the border…

Oh yes…and thank you to all of my friends who let me know that I could send them cards and care packages randomly. It’s not random if you guys tell me to send something. Just sayin’. Now I’m going to have to send all those care packages and cards to everyone who doesn’t read my blog.

I’m actually pretty close to having a bunch of them done, probably. A couple of people have said that they’ll put up their own lists, so when I actually see one I can check that one off. I’m hitting a new restaurant on Monday with book club that I’ll be joining, swapped four books on paperbackswap.com, and I bought the piano music for “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” I’m even at 90 followers on my wedding blog, which is awesome. I thought I was in the mid-60s still…it’s going to be a lot easier to get 10 more instead of 40 more before Kyle turns 30!

I have to admit that there are a couple I’m nervous about. For one, I’m not sure if there’s a historical monument in Utah that I haven’t been to. My parents were pretty ecstatic about all the old crap in this state when we moved here and as far as I know nothing else has been deemed monumental. There’s also the water one…I had to chug two glasses of water last night before going to bed and then I had to get up and pee all night. I hate drinking. Honestly, I’m not putting a requirement on the amount I drink because if I have to do three shotglasses of water and call it good, I want to make sure I have that option!

(And don’t even get me started on why I hate drinking…it’s just one of those things that I can’t explain. Some people hate green vegetables and some people hate stinky cheeses. I hate the act of drinking. It’s boring and it makes me feel like a water balloon. I can’t explain it.)

What else…oh, it turns out that Kyle doesn’t want to go camping and I’m not that crazy about camping, actually, but since it’s on my list I guess we’ll go. Do you think being in a cabin in the middle of the woods counts as camping? Or maybe building a blanket fort in the living room and sleeping in that? It’s going to be a little silly if I drag Kyle out into the forest and make him sleep under the stars because I blogged about it once, especially if we have to buy camping equipment. I guess I should have thought that one out a little bit more…

Anyway, I’m starting to think about my holiday shopping, so if anyone has any recommendations from Etsy, let me know so that I can tackle #9…

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So, I'm still lovin' on my 101 in 1001 list. I appreciate all

The month of September is arguably the most intriguing month of the year.
Here are a few of the happenings and observations:

September 1
Library storytime begins. I wonder if people understand the difference between “Preschool” and “Toddler” storytime. A five year old comes to our Toddler storytime and looks like she is going to die of boredom.

September 3
There is an abandoned house up the street from me. It’s been vacant for over a year now, maybe more. Somehow the lawn still gets mowed and watered. Hmmmm.

September 6
Road construction on our street is getting out of hand. The filled areas have turned into massive trenches that line both sides of the street. So unless you have 4 wheel drive, you are forced to drive down the center of the road, expertly dodging oncoming traffic and weaving through the parked cars.

September 8
Having morning sickness reminds me why I appreciate a clean toilet.

September 11
Lyvia turns two. She keeps telling me “Happy Birthday” and wondering about opening presents. I’m glad to introduce her to the Bowthorpe way of doing birthdays- week-long style!

September 13
I am part of a book club that I’ve never actually attended. I read the books. I get the emails about time and place. I just can never go. Does this mean I am still a part of the club? Or is it like if you miss 3 meetings you are out?

September 14
A article in a magazine claims that I’ll save $73 a year by purchasing a head of lettuce instead of bagged salad greens. I wonder how they measured this and how much salad you’d have to eat to get those numbers.

September 18
I notice the book list on the side of my blog is taking a nosedive. I whip out my list and start madly checking out books from the library. I have not read anything yet.

September 21
As Lyv and I are walking home from swimming lessons, we see a man smoking a pipe. I did not know that men still smoked pipes.

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Neighborhood Watch

This is a blurry picture but it shows his new haircut. I almost cried when it happened because I LOVE his long fluffy hair. It was an accident. Here are some of his friends he sees and plays with at the Library when we go for story time.

Here is Logan soaking up all the books he can at once! He loves books!

This is our other friend Gabrielle from church that we see every week. She is only a day older than Logan and soo cute!!! We went to story time today and afterwards hung out in the baby section of the library where they had these little rocking chairs!!

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Random Pictures

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Walking with his Walker

We’re actually moving. Thank you, sweet heaven, we are actually moving. As of Thursday night, we will no longer be in Columbus.

Mind you, I’m still sad about leaving Ohio. I will miss it a ton and I’m going to homesick for Columbus for a pretty long time. But I am so ready to not be in this furniture-less apartment, where I don’t buy groceries because I don’t know if we’ll be here to eat them. I’m ready to see my clothes (currently in Utah) and my books (currently in Utah) and, oh yeah, my family (currently in Utah).

I’m also really looking forward to the drive. It’s not the most scenic of routes, but I love being in the car with Kyle and this will be about 30 hours worth of being in the car with Kyle to look forward to. I’m hoping we even have time for a few pit stops to see some friends…

Right now, I’m trying to prepare for the trip. In addition to packing everything up to get it ready to go, I’m thinking of things that we might need. We have a small cooler, so some water and veggies make sense…and I got some books on cd from the library that I can burn…and we have an atlas and our AAA membership…what am I forgetting?

I feel like I should be buying spare wagon wheels and bags of flour and cases of iodine…

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Wagons West

What is it about large changes that makes you re-evaluate who you really are? Whether it’s moving or graduation or a breakup or a divorce or a child…all of these are points in life where you take a step back and think, “is this really who I want to be?”

I’ve had these life-evaluating points in my life very often…more often than most, probably (self-obsession rears its ugly head)…but the life-evaluation phase that I’m currently in is hitting me like a hurricane. Who am I? What am I doing? What have I done with my life? Where is my path? What does it all mean?

I’m having a mid-twenties, mid-life crisis.

I gave myself the day off today, which is the first time I’ve done that since I lost my job. This isn’t to say that unemployment has been strenuous, but I’ve tried to get at least one grown-up thing done every day since I stopped working so that I can rationalize the fact that Kyle gets up and goes to work and I do not. Until this week, my life was pretty consumed with packing and since the moving truck came my life has been consumed with cleaning, painting, and using plaster to cover up some major points of damage in this little rental of ours. Oh, and there was that whole kitty rescue thing that I decided to throw in there for good measure.

Today, however, I made myself sit on my butt and do nothing. I read magazines. I watched Netflix on the iMac. I played with teh kittehs. And then…an hour into my day…I ran out of stuff to do. So I spent the rest of the day in deep thought about my life.

To be honest, I was a more interesting person before I moved to Ohio. I may have been much less happy, but I was a lot more interesting. I read almost two books every single day and could give you plot summaries for the top 20 on the New York Best Sellers list at any given time of year. I volunteered in the community and regularly donated my time. I attended free concerts and community theater and student art shows and all the other crap that shows up in those papers that are always laying around Starbucks. Oh, right, and I drank coffee from hole-in-the-wall local joints and bought all my books from independent book stores and made my own clothes. So I guess I wasn't really hanging around Starbucks in my Old Navy Jeans reading whatever was on the B&N clearance shelf. You know, like I do these days.

It’s true that the things I remember about my life are probably the things most people do in college and it could be age and not geography that’s the culprit, but I feel like I really sold out when I moved here. My first year of law school was like a massive meteor strike that sent my life spinning out of orbit and into this whole other pattern. Within two months of moving here I had changed the type of clothes I was wearing, where I was buying them…I totally chickened out and slipped into whatever I saw other people doing. That’s how freaked out about law school I was.

I’m not freaked out anymore, but I still feel like I’m eons away from that younger, cooler version of myself. Just last week I wandered into a local music store while waiting for Kyle to finish up at the DMV and I happened upon a fairly obscure Grateful Dead cd that I hadn’t seen in ages. Someone I used to work with owned it and we used to put it on all the time. I bought it and the car ride home was full of memories of all the interesting and creative crap I used to be into.

How did this happen? How did I end up being exactly the type of boring grown up I used to feel sorry for? I used to dye my hair purple. I used to be a regular at poetry slams. I was a nude model for college art classes, for God’s sake! What the hell happened to that person?

I’m deciding here and now that this move is going to be more than a catalyst for career change and weight loss. I’m going to try hard to get myself back on track so that I’m actually moving toward being the person I want to be. It took three years for Michaelangelo to stare down that massive block of marble and turn it into David. I sure as hell should be able to do this.

25 Things that My Ideal Self Will Do:

1. Get back into photography and take it seriously.
2. Get back into charcoal portraits.
3. Write things that have nothing to do with blogging, journaling, or academics.
4. Make her own clothing.
5. Read library books and buy old editions from secondhand stores.
6. Buy and redesign secondhand furniture.
7. Use public transportation on a regular basis.
8. Attend community events, especially the arts.
9. Not tempt herself by having cable.
10. Go to church at least twice a month.
11. Put real effort into collecting family history.
12. Run my own business.
13. Shop local, especially the farmer’s markets.
14. Be involved in social groups formed around common interests.
15. Mentor a child or find another way to give back.
16. Brush up my Spanish and start learning French.
17. Surprise friends and family with mail.
18. Handmake presents and other items.
19. Wear my favorite perfume every day.
20. Buy really fun socks and wear them without embarassment.
21. Paint my nails.
22. Take day trips with my husband whenever we can.
23. Learn to play the guitar.
24. Kick ass at Tomb Raider without feeling like a teenage boy.
25. Listen to my folk music (even though nobody else does) and lose track of MTV’s hottest.

Now I just have to follow through…

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She’s Just Ideal

We celebrated the Goose’s birthday with a family and a few friend birthday party. He had a blast. Here are a few (but really a million) pictures from the big day.

We went to a ward party at our neighbors house, and Lance went nuts over this house. Lucky for us they really wanted to get rid of it. He calls it “Lance’s House!” He could play in it all day.

Of course Spence had to give him his first set of golf clubs! He was a lot more interested in all of the balls!

Here is a picture of the party. It was such a nice evening, and the company was amazing. I also thought the balloons hanging in our weeping willow tree were so cute!

Papa and Jojo!

Some of the fam. I love that my friend Bekah is in the background managing all the little kiddos. They loved to take Lance’s golf clubs and swing at the balloons!

More family and friends

Lance is obsessed with “Rosies.” (ring around the rosies), so of course all the kids played. The two girls in the matching pink headbands are two of my little cousins I nanny every day. They are amazing to Lance and were really so cute to him and all the kids at the party.

All the kiddos

Lance opening some presents. (Thank you everyone, he was so spoiled!)

Family picture with the cake I decorated (well 75% of it, some of the hard parts my mom did!) You can’t really tell, but it is Big Bird. I thought it turned out pretty darn cute for my first try.

Cute Charlie and Michelle

My parents spoiled Lance with this jeep. I love this action shot of Lance and Ella!

Lance with his great grandmas

My cute parents with the gift of the night. Lance was getting pretty tired and then we brought out the jeep and he went nuts. He was screaming and stomping his feet. A very cute reaction. Now, we just have to teach him how to push the gas and get it to move.

Lance waving goodbye to everyone. Thanks to everyone for their comments, phone calls, happy birthday song renditions and all the love you showed to Lance. He had such a fun day and me as the mom, I thought it was a perfect 10. Such a great day!

Now is my time to brag about my boy! I would have to say Lance’s favorite things are BOOKS!
I seriously think that is why he is so darn smart. He could read books all day. Every night we let him pick out one book to read before he goes to bed and every night he says over and over again “more books, more books!”

Lance refers to other kids as “guys!” He always wants to “play with the guys.” The best way to describe his demeanor is kind hearted and sweet. He is honestly the sweetest little guy in the world. He is not a bully, he doesn’t get mad if someone steals his toys, he is just a love. He tends to get a little beat up in nursery at times, but instead of getting mad and punching back he is such a peace maker.

One of the things that we are most impressed about Lance at this age is that he knows every alphabet letter. And I don’t mean, just singing the song. I can show him any letter of the alphabet (I would say probably either upper or lower case) and he knows what they are in any order, plus he probably knows the sounds about 10 of the letters make. He just blows us away. He also knows his numbers 1-10. He has done such a great job with all of his verbal skills. We are so proud of our goose!

Ok well that is my never-ending birthday and brag post about my little man. We sure love our Lance!

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The big birthday post!

Ready for the randomness?

-The kids in my neighborhood have been playing “night games” every night this week. But not the night games of my youth like Kick the Can, Sardines, Tag and Hide & Seek. These are more like “ride-our-bikes-up-and-down-the-street-as-fast-as-we-can-and-try-to-jump-off-random-chunks-of-wood-or-rock” or “a-football/basketball/rugby-type-game-played-in-the-middle-of-the-street-so-we-have-to-head-dive-into-the-lawn-everytime-a-car-drives-by”. To each his own, I guess. At leas they are having fun!

-I’ve been adding more and more books to my “to read” list. It is getting a little ridiculous! The list sort of has a mind of it’s own. The thing is- I rarely take it to the library and actually get the books on my list. I usually just find something there that looks great or is by an author that I’ve heard good things about and check that out! Then more and more books keep piling up on my list. Oh dear.

-Lyvia has been saying the cutest things lately, that sound so grown-up.
Things like: “Don’t worry, Momma.”
“I’ll help you, Tato Head.” then gives him a kiss
when the phone rings- “I’m coming!”
while piling plastic animals in her truck- “You can fit, fish.”
“I love you, Daddy!” while waving her hand with the sign
“Cute hair, Mom.” This doesn’t mean I have cute hair, it means she wants me to make her hair “cute” by putting piggy tails in!

-A bit of belated advice: Do not watch a TV show entitled “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant”, no matter how late it is or bored you are. It’s like a train wreck.

-I think I overuse the word “amazing”. I should reserve this word for things that are truly amazing. Otherwise, “amazing” will just become like an overused antibiotic and have no real value or meaning. I will reserve my use of “amazing” to keep the integrity of the awe that the word should inspire. Come to think of it, I could do the same thing for the exclamation point. We’ll see…

-Lyvia and I saw a deer on our walk this morning. She was nibbling leaves or fruit off of trees in an orchard right by our house. I was surprised to see the deer but Lyvia thought it was so cool and kept throwing the deer kisses. Neat!

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Hello Wednesday.