So . . . um, it's snowing

In September.

Not cool.

Also I am not dead, just in case I caused anyone to wonder about that. I am quite alive but just haven't had any good stories/rants/whatever to tell the Internet (at least none that I can tell without getting fired but trust me, there have been some reeeeaal psychos wandering through my doors lately). So I did myself a favor and just didn't worry about posting anything--which was quite a liberating feeling. I highly recommend it.

But here's what's been going on in the last weekerso:

Finished a couple of knitting projects and started working on a pair of knee socks for Savvy. This is my first foray into sock yarn. To get a taste of what that is like, go fetch some dental floss and two darning needles. And then turn that into socks.

Married off the Gentleman Husband's baby sister over the weekend. Everything was lovely, except for the group waiting for the wedding after ours who possibly felt that the inside of a temple is the equivalent of somebody's barn and therefore chose to carry on an incredibly loud reunion therein. No lie, when the temple worker came in to shush them, they didn't even notice him. But the bride was beautiful, the sealer did a great job, and everyone was happy. Afterwards drove through Utah's Fruit Way (scored amazing peaches, corn, butternut squash, and pumpkins) to Maddox with GH's family, where we stuffed ourselves on the fabulous food. Fact: One of the ways GH wore me down back in the day was by taking me to Maddox so that I could have quite-possibly-sinful relations with their steak. Pavlov would be proud.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go defrost my feet.

Read More

Yet another reason to love the Dollar Store

I was in The Dollar Tree today buying $1 fall decorations. (4 dollars later my house is now at least 55% more festive--go me and go the Chinese!)

I have decided they have the best music playing over their sound system. It's no-holds-barred shameless cheesy stuff, and yet. You cannot resist its lure. I caught a woman browsing next to me singing along under her breath. One time I possibly bopped around in the aisles at some completely embarrassing ghetto song from my junior high years (and no, I don't remember what it was). Today there was David Bowie and "Afternoon Delight."

I didn't notice the music so much during my last visit because the elderly woman behind me in the motherlong line was having back trouble and so to distract herself she engaged me in conversation. Unfortunately, most of the "conversation" consisted of her remarking on every item included in the at-register display and expecting me to say something back. This including the ovulation calculators, at which point I was at somewhat of a loss. I finally tried, "Yeah, I hear they have good pregnancy tests too." To which she answered "No, dear, this isn't a pregnancy test, it's a test to tell you if you can get pregnant." Ooookay then.

But anyway, I'm interested to know what company comes up with their playlists because the style is very much "Music People Would Never Admit Liking But They Will Still Find Themselves Singing Along and Bopping and Possibly Having Arrested Development Flashbacks."

They are evil geniuses, I tell you.



And now for the challenge: when next you visit your local dollar store, especially if it's a Dollar Tree, take note of the music. I shall do the same.

Read More

I am sorry if your family is perhaps not as photogenic as my family

(Note: This may also have something to do with the part where I am in none of these pictures.)

After Baby Hudson's baby blessing last month, my b-in-law held a little family photo shoot.

You may want to clap your hands over your mouths now, because you are about to see The Baby Sweater COMPLETE WITH BABY.








. . drumroll . . .






YEAH. Can you even deal with that???? I certainly can't, and have been whimpering at my desk now for about the last hour. If anyone asks what's wrong I'll just tell them I have a disorder. And that, you know, my right ovary just exploded. Or I'll just show them the picture and they can start making baby animal yelps right along with me.

Here is my hot mom holding Master Precious III.

And here's my dad, who pretty much turns into a puddle of (very manly and tough) goo over babies.



(See also: From Whence I Inherited The Eyebrow)




And here are the happy grandparents with their grand-progeny. Please don't ask me what Ethan is doing--this is the same boy who, in all of my wedding pictures, is trying to pull his shirt up over his head.

Read More

Feeling Glee-ful

Reasons why I am enjoying the new show Glee perhaps a little too much:

I am a geek who did band/orchestra/drama in high school.

The music, like this number from the premiere.

Cutie-pie Matthew Morrison as Spanish-teacher-turned-Glee-coach Will Schuester

Jane Lynch as cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester

Sue Quotes:

"You think this is hard? Try being waterboarded, that's hard!"

"Lady justice wept today."

Sue (while offering Will an iron tablet): "Keeps your strength up while you're menstruating."
Will: "I don't menstruate."
Sue: "Yeah? Neither do I."

Waiting for Rachel and Finn to get together.

Waiting for Teacher Will and Guidance Counselor Emma to get together.

The moment when Teacher Will, um, sort of takes his jacket off and starts dancing around and suddenly it's kind of awesome because I did not even know Teacher Will was just walking around with arms like that. Even if he is singing a song that Kanye "I Kick Puppies and Clearly Have a Disorder of Some Kind" West wrote. (See below.)

Read More

Check out my new baby

Yeah. She was my birthday present from GH, and I have named her Flip Mino Camcorder. Or maybe somebody else named her that. I forget. Anyway, turns out that ever since I mentioned, months ago, that it might be cool to one day get something like this, GH had been watching the deals websites and came across a gorgeous refurbished one for a ridiculous price. Which I find insanely hot. The thing weighs less than my cell phone and is tiny and fits easily in my purse. (Or in my knitting bag, which I may or may not have taken to work so that I could show off my bunny and then left sitting underneath the information desk with the video camera inside it. Not that we are ever telling GH that part. Ever.)

Thank you to everyone for their lovely birthday wishes, I did have a great day. Friday night GH obliged me with a screening of Julie & Julia (Meryl Streep + France + food + bloggers = fab). Truthfully I was more interested in the Julia Child half of the movie than the Julie Powell half, but whatevs (as my sister Spitfire would say).

Mom and Dad sent a package with a really cool bag and some Bday money. My dad sent me flowers and told me that no one had prepared him for the trauma that comes when one wakes up and discovers one is now old enough to have a 30-year-old child. So . . . everyone please feel sorry for my dad. Because it was a hard day for him. The flowers are amazing, though.

GH's sweet family got me gift cards to Knit Picks, which means that soon, oh so very soon, I will own the set of knitting needles I have coveted ever since Daltongirl taunted me with hers. Now I can join the ranks of People Who Perhaps Enjoy Their Knitting Needles A Little Too Much.

Jenny & Co hosted an afternoon birthday event, complete with chocolate-raspberry cake, fresh raspberries, and vanilla bean ice cream. Special guests included Daltongirl, Daltonboy, Cicada, Murray, and baby Gulliver. Both Daltongirl and Cicada made me delightful, thoughtful birthday gifts (a knitting needle organizer and a very cool desk calendar). Cicada's desk calendar might be one day available for you to purchase and enjoy. But Daltongirl's gift was just for me.

Me, GH, and a too-cool-for-this-picture Savvy

Jenny and Ed

Cicada and Murray. Realized too late I did not have a picture of Gulliver. Please go here to see his sweet face. (Note: Once you see these pics, your birth control might stop working. You have been warned.)

Coolboy and the very cool Aubrey. She will need to tell me if she wants a sweet code name. (Note: Not their baby.)

Heh. Ethan, who was very invested in me getting good shots of him enjoying his cake.

After the cake and ice cream, GH and I went to dinner at Tucanos (story coming) and then hit the Laughin' Nite of the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival. We ended up sitting near the lovely Marie from Make and Takes, who was soon joined by Ali from Petit Elefant. And she sat right next to me and was hilarious. Because awesome things happen when I turn 30. Ali and I met at Cicada's wedding but I hadn't seen her since. And during that moment of Hi, I'm so-and-so, Cicada's friend, yadda, she said, "That's right, and you're Jenny's sister!"

Friends, I called Jenny as soon as I could to tell her what just happened ("and then she said, 'Oh, you're Jenny's sister!'") and if the triumphant donkey-braying I received in response is any indication, that pretty much made her Middle Child Syndrome year.

It was a Birthday Miracle.

Read More

The Labor of my Labor Day

Have much birthday loveliness to report on, but first I have to show you what I did yesterday. I watched Pride & Prejudice (you can read my original fan-girl review here) and finished making a little something for my brother Dave's soon-to-be baby girl.

Dave & Valli, if you want to be surprised then you'll need to not scroll down or turn images off or something.





. . .









Ready?

Tah-dah!

I flatter myself it's quite adorable, even if I did come really close to chucking the thing off the balcony a time or two.

Read More

Languages of Luuuuuuurve

Some of you may have heard of the 5 Love Languages, as outlined by Dr. Gary Chapman. (I've also heard other people refer to it as "love currency.") The basic idea is that people give and interpret love differently, so it's important to understand how to best show love to those around you and to let them know what kind of gestures are the most meaningful to you.

I started thinking about this a couple of months ago and wondered if it might be helpful to see if GH and I are actually doing the things that mean the most to the other.

SO. Here are the different Languages of Luuuurve, according to this one guy:

Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch


Turns out my "primary love language" is Physical Touch. I have been suspecting this for a little while. Also this is funny because I'm not an incredibly touchy person normally. But it turns out that in romantic relationships I'm a big toucher, which makes a lot of sense when I think about how as a dater I was always about thiiiisclose to getting myself into trouble. This is probably why Heavenly Father thought it would be best for my eternal soul if I didn't date very much. (Note: it would have been helpful to know if that was the reason my ovaries were spending all that time shriveling.)

Now, it would be nice if GH could be one of the Physical Touch people too. Then we could just spend every day fused to each other and both be happy as clams. He is very good at being married to a toucher, though, and never even says words like, "What the heck, Remora Woman, give me my space!"

But it's not the remora action that makes him feel the most loved and appreciated. Instead, he is an Acts of Service person. Which means that to make him feel special I may actually have to get up off my butt and do stuff for him. To him, nothing says "I love you" more than "Hey, I just took care of your oil change and your car registration so now you don't have to do it."

So here's him: "Wow, if Nem would take care of those errands for me that would be amazing. I would feel so loved."

And here's me: "What am I, your mother? Don't your legs work? I don't ask you to run MY errands, do I? GOOOOooosh!"

This was before I got it about the Love Language thing. Sure, I think it would be easier if I could just, like, touch his knee every now and then. Cuz that's free and I don't actually have to expend much energy to do it.

But I'm trying to be better. I even conducted an experiment last week to see about filling GH's, ahem, "love tank." His younger sister is getting married at the end of the month, and he's doing a video for them (like the one he did for us). She gave us a whole bag of photos, but we needed to pick which ones to use and then scan them. GH was not looking forward to this part. So while he slept I chose the best 40 pictures, scanned them, cropped and edited them, and got them all organized in one folder, which I left open on the computer. I also went to Costco and bought a huge pack of paper towels, which I'd been holding off on doing on account of they kill trees. Except GH loves them and has been sad and mopey and (and this is the real problem) less kitchen-cleany ever since the previous Costco pack wore out. So I bought them and put them in the middle of the living room floor. Because our kitchen table would have collapsed under their bulk.

The plan was that he would wake up and when he went out to get his cereal he would see the paper towels. And THEN when he sat down at the computer to catch up on all his nerd websites, he would see the folder with all the scanned and ready-to-go images. And then he would be all overwhelmed with love for me and might even send me an email at work declaring said love.

Which is pretty much exactly how it happened, so I think I am possible on to something here.

And now am off to work like a busy beaver until I can go home and begin my birthday weekend. I turn 30 tomorrow, y'all! Will be bidding farewell to my twenties with homemade chocolate raspberry cake courtesy of my sister Jenny. Which will take quite a bit of the sting out, I am sure. I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!

Read More

No tights, just leather pants. Which, hey, I'll take it.

Cedar City was marvelous. I did not go with GH, I actually went with a lovely L**** friend whom I will refer to as JJ. She's the one I went to Hawaii with last year and the Shakespearean Festival (again, some more) the year before that, and a better traveling companion you will not find, I tell you. She actually likes driving, so I didn't even have to do any of it.

One thing I've noticed is that whenever JJ and I get together, even though we are generally upbeat people, the conversation always tends to turn to dark topics. And since we had quite a long drive there and back, I joked with her beforehand that I was going to time us to see how long it took before we were earnestly discussing self-mutilation. We never got there, but instead covered health care; racism; spinsterhood; bipartisanship; family issues; gender politics within the Church; education; food production; and our country's high C-section rate. We are pretty much a laugh riot. But hanging out with JJ was the biggest highlight of the trip.

The second biggest highlight was the part where I only heard ONE cell phone go off during a play. (Which is one more than last time, but whatever, I'll take it as long as it's not the complete cell-phone-insanity-fest that was 2005. It seems that maybe the old people got their grandkids to teach them how to turn their phones off in the last 4 years). The phone that did ring had the same ringtone, however, as mine. Which made me crap an absolute brick until I reminded myself, "You turned off your phone outside and then you double-checked just before the play began. You know that's not your phone. Please resume breathing."

But still. It was pretty terrifying. Because if that had been my phone ringing during the first act of The Secret Garden when poor Archie and Lily are singing about their doomed love I would have had to throw myself off the balcony. Which would have likely injured the people below me.

Anyway, for those who asked, we saw The Secret Garden, Henry V (wherein Brian Vaughn did indeed spit him up a storm), and Foxfire. All were wonderful, more on that to come!

Read More