One of Those Stupid Things that are Actually Pretty Cool for Learning About People

The title is a tribute to my sister. She emailed me something very similar to this recently and the subject was something like that. The subject was the only reason I answered it. This time I'm doing it because I'm willing to humor Ralphie, who "tagged" me. I'm not sure exactly what this means - for me it conjures images of Ralphie's stylized gangsta name being plastered with spray paint across my forehead in the dead of the night. (Wow, wouldn't you love to see that? Ralphie, or should I say Ralphmaster J, you'd better get cracking...)

What I Was Doing 10 Years Ago: Well, ten years ago I was just beginning my senior year of high school. Filling out college applications -- okay, who am I kidding, I only applied to BYU and then focused on scholarship applications. I was co-captaining the ID Unit of our marching band, so let me paint a mental picture for you. On Fridays I wore something akin to a cheerleader skirt with a polo shirt embroidered with my name and I sported gleaming white keds. On Saturdays, picture me in sequins, spandex, dance shoes and tights, gobs of makeup and spinning around a big sign with the letter "R" on it. Are you laughing yet? Also, I was trying only somewhat successfully to combine early morning religious classes with reasonably advanced high school classes with a late night math class at the community college. Last and definitely least, I was starting a relationship with a guy that really didn't work out (a high school relationship not working out, who'd-a-thunk?) On the up side, he helped scare off the creepy over-eager guy in my college math class that wouldn't leave me alone.

What Was I Doing 5 Years Ago: I was a newly-wed finishing my last semester of college. We lived in a stylishly cute little apartment with no furniture to go in it. I was taking floral arranging with my sister since this was the only semester we overlapped at BYU. We lived down the street from a florist, and M would frequently get suckered into buying me flowers on his walk home from school (not that I'm complaining). I had a comparatively easy course load since I only had a final few classes that I hadn't been able to squeeze in within 4 years. I worked part time as a TA for Electrical and Computer Engineering 485: Introduction to Digital Communication Theory (geek-o-matic, no?). I was debating whether to start my masters degree, a decision that was in no small way influenced by the misery of another class I was taking that semester, EcEn 580: Stochastic Processes. This class was at 8 am and taught by my least favorite professor in the department. The TA kept incorrectly grading our papers. The TA was completely inaccessible (as was the professor). The TA barely spoke English. Unfortunately, I needed this class to be able to do anything useful for my graduate work the next semester. M and I even went on an all expense paid by BYU trip to San Diego for a technical conference because I was intending to start my graduate work in that field. It was an agonizing trip. I was surprisingly bored even though I did know what they were talking about (imagine if I hadn't!). I think M enjoyed the conference more than I did, and it wasn't even his area of focus. Needless to say, I wasn't that upset when I decided the Lord's will for me was for me to move on to learning new things, and I gave up on electrical engineering grad school for the time being and dropped that cursed stochastic processes class. You know the class must have been bad since I'm still whining about it 5 years later!!!

One Year Ago: This one is the most boring of the three. I was living in our apartment before our last one. It was a nice apartment. Big kitchen (possibly bigger even than my house!), 2 bathrooms (unlike our last apartment which only had one), master bedroom closet big enough for Scott to sleep in (which he did sometimes - don't go calling child protection services on me though, it really was a big closet). I have nothing interesting to say about 1 year ago, it was merely a pleasant way station before we bought a house.

Yesterday: I took Scott to the doctor so I could pay $20 to have them tell me that essentially, they don't know what caused his 5 day upchuck festival. Came home and called about our broken fridge. Called about our dripping AC secondary drain line. Noticed our fridge was breaking even more and transferred all the contents of our fridge into coolers with ice. Made dessert for the bible study group I go to on Wednesday nights. Frantically searched the house for our refrigerator receipt (I seriously need to unpack more boxes). Fell asleep on the couch in a mixture of exasperation and relief when Claire fell asleep for her quiet time. Woke Claire up from her nap and dealt with cranky "you woke me up" Claire (but I didn't want her to be up until 11pm). Went to potluck dinner/bible study group next door. Came home about the same time as M got home from his meeting at church. Exerted every last ounce of my waning strength to get the kids to bed before it was 11pm. Collapsed on the couch with M and we finished watching "Stranger Than Fiction," which was quite possibly the best new movie I've seen in something close to a year. LOVED IT!!! Still thinking about it. Gotta buy it...

Five Snacks I Enjoy: Well, if by snacks you mean desserts, I'm set! OK, I'll try to lean a little more snackish...
1. graham crackers with peanut butter and milk (but sometimes Nutella and sometimes substituting chocolate chips and marshmallows to make s'mores...ok, let me be brutally honest, I enjoy any combination of peanut butter, Nutella, chocolate chips, and marshmallows on either graham crackers or tortillas for a sort of dessert quesadilla! whoops, I ended up with dessert after all - I'll try harder)
2. cheese
3. banana, Nesquik, milk/soymilk, and ice smoothies (there I go again so I'll append:) and fruit and smoothies
4. trail mix
5. Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Nut granola bars

Five Things I Would Do With 1 Million Dollars:
1. pay off my mortgage
2. landscape my entire backyard based on my sister's design
3. buy furniture for my whole house, all in one coordinating chunk
4. remodel my kitchen
5. invest, invest, invest (I don't think that has to count as 3 things, does it?)

Five Places I Would Love To Run (Away) To:
So I'll take this as travel dreams:
1. Europe (pretty much most of it, do I have to break it down?): Most interested in Italy, England, Scotland, Norway, and France (but only for the Louvre)
2. New York City
3. Anywhere terribly tropical and beachy
I get to stop now because #1 was really like #1-#5

Five TV Shows I Like: I'm really only a movie person but I love the Berenstain Bears and Sesame Street because they mean I get to go upstairs and sew. M and I do occasionally indulge in the Biggest Loser or Letterman.

Five Things I Hate Doing:
1. Cleaning. Period. (not organizing and tidying, just actual cleaning)
2. Making phone calls to people I don't know.
3. Waking sleeping children
4. Doing anything without my contacts in
5. Getting into a hot car without the AC already running full blast at my face and feeling my makeup pool and drip mixed with my copious sweat (READ: May through October here in Texas)

Five Biggest Joys Of The Moment:
1. Scott blows me kisses as I leave his room when I lay him down to sleep (I'm SO lucky that I got a good sleeper this time around)
2. Listening to Claire wonder what two numbers added together is and then figuring the answer out herself
3. Letting the kids jump without worrying about neighbors, washing our car as a family in the driveway, and debating paint colors - in other words, living in our own house
4. Having my own sewing/craft room. We'll see how long it lasts, but it's great for now.
5. M and everything about him - though I'd like to think this isn't just a joy of the moment :)

Five People That I Tag: I dunno. Ralphie already took most of the people I know really well, so I guess I'll inflict this on some unsuspecting acquaintances with blogs. Who knows if they'll all actually see this post and realized they've been tagged, but I guess then they'll luck out and be off the hook. Mary Beth Glauser, Jana Greenhalgh, Debbie MacKenzie, K King oh, and Janssen (though I can't help but wonder if she'll hate me for it - why didn't Ralphie tag her? does Ralphie know something I don't?).


Oh, and Ralphie, if you don't like the moniker I gave you, feel free to change it. When pretending I come even vaguely close to running in those circles, I go by the gangsta name Chili G Dawg. I wasted a lot of time in years past deciding on the perfect rapper name for myself, so don't let some whim of mine make you rush into yours :)

Scott's Morning Sickness

For awhile I was beginning to doubt the impossibility of my 19 month old son being pregnant. Scott threw up once each morning from Friday morning of last week through Tuesday morning. (For those who are counting, that's 5 days.) It was so weird. Poor kid. I think the hardest part for him was the fact that we wouldn't allow him his usual daily ration of a quart of whole milk. He still wanted all our food, but you know what they say: good appetite doth not a stable stomach make. (I think that's a proverb or something, right?) It broke my heart to refuse him food. (This furthers my suspicion that I have unhealthy attitudes towards food...)

Every time "it" happened it was before noon, sometimes in his crib before I got him in the morning, sometimes in my living room, and then nothing for the rest of the day. All I can say is hallelujah for the fact that my entire downstairs is tiled. I've never before experienced such calm feelings around a volatile volcano of vomit. (You didn't actually think I would spare you the gory details did you? I held out as long as I could, but I am still me.) I was very nearly cheerful even while cleaning up spew since there was no carpet involved. I would have to say that the award for most entertaining upchuck goes to Tuesday morning's remnants of a green popsicle from the night before on Scott's white crib sheets. Talk about "the technicolor yawn."

I still don't really know what it was that caused it all, I'm just glad it's over. His pediatrician suspects the culprit was "mucus buildup" from a nasty cold. All I know is that I'm almost going to miss Claire talking on her toy cell phone to the "throw up cleaner guys." Man, who are they and how do I get them to come???

Look for my impending post on our broken refrigerator adventures... anybody have a spare fridge they wanna let me borrow?

Posting for the Sake of Posting

I'm dying to post, but everything I want to write about right now will take more time to compose than I have right now. Why, why can't I be more concise? Well, at least this post will be short.

My Craigslist Handicap

Craigslist is great. I'm so excited to actually get to utilize it now that we have a house. Most recently I've been obsessively watching Craigslist looking for a bookshelf for our playroom. I know what I want, but I don't have much money I can let myself spend on it right now. That's the whole reason I'm looking on Craigslist, right? But even then, slim pickings. My "dream listing" would be in my immediate neighborhood and start something like this :

"FREE Brand New White Bookshelves"
"4 shelves, 36" x 42" solid wood"

But then, knowing my luck, it would end like this:

"No access to email, please call"

And that would probably be the end of it for me. I HATE calling people on the phone. It's not so bad if I already know you. In fact, occasionally I enjoy it. But engaging complete strangers in phone conversation? Torture. So even if I see shelves that look great (or anything else for that matter), if I can't email about them and I have to call, I'll wimp out. I'll rationalize that there's something wrong with them, or that they're not quite what I'm looking for. It's pitiful. I guess you could call it telephobia Craigosa. It has a nice "ring" to it. Ha ha! I'm so punny! I better just stop writing now...

Life Story of a Vegetable?

The other day M and I mentioned the movie "The Bourne Ultimatum" in front of Claire. She looked at us quizzically and asked, "The Born Old Tomato"???

(Seriously, let's not get into the fruit vs. vegetable debate. I feel sorry for poor tomatoes, caught in the crossfire... For the purposes of this post, I speak from a culinary rather than botanical standpoint. And if any tariffs come into play, at least we have the Supreme Court ruling Nix v. Hedden to settle things.)