Things that I've noticed as of late

Here are just a few things that have been floating around my mind recently. I hope you enjoy my random ramblings:

On Soy Milk:

I don't like soy milk. I think it is too sweet. And too watery. Nasty, nasty stuff. But regular milk? I'm kind of intolerant right now. Well, I should say *I* am quite tolerant, but others around me aren't so much when the bad milk farts start coming. Sorry, husband, about the covered wagon I gave you the other day. Still love me, right? And "lactose free" milk doesn't seem to help the milk toots any. So it's either soy or no cereal. And how am I supposed to go 5 more months with no cereal? Now that's just crazy talk.

On smells around the house:

Our nickel plated shower head smells like maple syrup. Just thought you should know that.

Also, speaking of maple syrup smells: Waffle Crisp cereal smells a lot better than it tastes. That is just my opinion. And when has my opinion ever been off? (Don't answer that, ANYONE, please)

On things that Marcelo does in the bed:

Don't let your mind go to a dirty place. This is strictly a PG post. Here it is: Marcelo ruins sheets. And how does he do this? By his constant feet rubbing in the night. I think it is a nervous habit/twitch, like teeth grinding knuckle popping. But this is the second pair we have had to throw away because there are tears in them right where his feet lay at night. And these are REALLY high quality sheets, which I love! I love climbing into a nice fresh bed with good sheets. But there is no way we can afford nice sheets at the rate he destroys them. So I guess we have to buy the $15 Target flannel sheets in a bag.

And it's not just a little tear that could be remedied with a needle and thread. He rubs them BARE and then they shred. Here is a picture:


He tries to play it off like he has NO IDEA why it's only the area by HIS feet that do this. Like different companies repeatedly make JUST THAT ONE SPOT thinner and more tear-able than others. Yeah right! We both know he has the nervous feet rub twitch all night long rubbing it and wearing it down until it shreds. Maybe I need to get him a monthly pedicure so he can sand off all those rough patches. Hmmmm, it would be worth it to be able to get nice sheets again!

On my pregnancy cravings:

I crave totally different things in this pregnancy. I'm not so much about the fries and milkshakes this time around. It's more about Thai food and Panda Express. But I only let myself have P.E. one time a month- the day after my OBGYN visit. Otherwise I would be there every day, I swear and I would gain 1 million pounds like I did the first pregnancy. Because it's all I want to eat! That and some sweet/spicy curry from Bangkok Grill. Oh my, deliciousness.

Also, chocolate doesn't bother me as much as it did my first pregnancy. I mean, I still don't crave it or lust after a candy bar when I see it in the store. But at least now I can enjoy a bite of a Snickers or a brownie and not have immediate heartburn. Same with "sweet breads" like muffins and such. Again, I don't eat them all the time, but now I can enjoy a blueberry muffin conference morning and not feel sick.

I have also started to enjoy drinkable yogurt again. Just like when I was in Ecuador. Drinking it straight from the bottle. Is there any other way? I mean it *DOES* have the word "drinkable" right in the title, and I'm not allowed to use straws right now (more on that in another post) so what should I do? Of course, I should drink it straight from the carton. And I do. And it's delicious. Just don't come over to my house and ask to have a cup of drinkable yogurt: it's full of my backwash.

And finally, the more startling, Jell-O. I know! This was once one my top 10 lists of things I hate eating. Right up there with bananas and pudding. Those two things I still don't eat, but a combo of orange and some berry (raspberry or strawberry) Jell-O is so heavenly. Try it, you'll love it. Throw some pineapple in it if you would like. Or not. Whatever.

So that is a partial list of some things I have noticed as of late. Now I need to go and take a nap. On a bed with new sheets, of course. Because, seriously, did you see what he did to those others?

I'm going to need some new pants

I just saw this on Eric D. Snider's blog:

Wouldn't you know it, I've come down with Bieber Fever just as I was getting over David "Archuletarrhea"

I hear that the Fever hits fast and will knock you out for days at a time. Good luck with that! At least he won't be running to the toilet every 20 minutes. It's sixes, really

Home

It's so nice coming home from a long trip. Even though we live in a little postage stamp of a home, it's ours. We have our routines here, and they are comfortable. It's nice being able to get back to normal.

Where were we you ask? Well the Bibbers my mother and I went to Missouri for about a week. We dropped off the coveted grandfather clock for my sister Sarah to pick up at a later date, and we got to see my brother's youngest daughter get baptized. We got to go to the lake and eat real Kansas City BBQ and it was just a great time all around. Here are some highlights from the trip:

* Taking off just hours after my baby's 2nd birthday party. (Party will be saved for another post) We wanted to get on the road sooner but there was a big issue with the trailer we were driving and the lights on it not working. Uhaul helped us out, though and we soon got on the road.

* Driving all through the night to get to Missouri Monday morning. There were a few times that the Baby screamed bloody murder because she wanted her mother (who was driving) and she wasn't being properly served. My baby gets HYSTERICAL and will do things to get my attention. She'll rip out her hair, stick her fingers down her throat to make herself gag/wretch/vomit, scratch herself, bang things and kick the DVD player. She knows that ALWAYS gets my attention. The good thing is that by the end of the week long trip, we had been in the car so much and traveling so much that she was used to it. The trip back to Utah had no screaming meltdowns at all!

* Going to the lake and getting up on a wakeboard! That hasn't happened in years. Maybe since I was married. I just gained too much weight, and our boat isn't the best for pulling people up on a wakeboard. But my brother's boat has a great tower on it and it's as easy as pulling yourself up on a ladder. I was so shocked I got up. I went around for a while but I was so tired from the previous day (when I went around on the super tube behind the boat) that I didn't have the strength to go very long. Next time for sure. But I got up! I'm just happy I got that far. Especially because as I strapped on the boots and slid into the water I IMMEDIATELY wanted to be out. That old nervousness of "you aren't going to get up, you will make a fool in front of everyone" was there. And I really didn't want that. I think I said "Oh, I really don't want to do this" but I stuck it out and did it! Hooray for me!

* Texting Lynn while at a BBQ place to ask her the proper protocol of saying "Yes Ma'am" to someone. I feel like I'm being rude when I don't reciprocate a "ma'am". I was told that if the person is older I should always say it, but THEN I got worried that I would offend someone by using ma'am when they were younger than me, and thereby telling them that I thought they were old. Lynn let me know that it doesn't really happen, and that if you are older than them and you still say it, they just look at it as respect. (Did I get that right Lynn?) I still feared doing it because I thought it would sound fake. But now I know the rules.

* Coming back from an outing to the park only to find a WATER MOCCASIN (also known as the COTTONMOUTH) snake chilling in the front yard. Actually, chilling about 3 feet from where my baby was just walking. OHHHHHHHHHHHHH MYYYYYYYYYYYYY CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!!! We ran inside, locked the door and my sister in law proceeded to call everyone she could think of until she found a ward member to come over and kill it. Which is a big deal for her because Tina is a big animal advocate. Example? the day before I found a spider on the floor and told my 14 year old niece to take care of it (I don't do spiders, remember?) and they PICKED UP THAT SPIDER AND PUT IT OUTSIDE! ZZHHHHHHGGGGEEEE (audible shiver) But luckily they were smart enough or cautious enough not to take chances with one of the most aggressive and deadly North American snakes that was just chilling out right by the front door to their house. The snake got it's head taken off. And I rejoiced in knowing my child would not die that day.

Just so you know, while Tina was calling trying to find a snake wrangler, I took the broom from the kitchen and unscrewed the handle. I was not going to let that thing get away. So if it started to move, I was prepared to go out there and beat it to death. Seriously, it was FEET away from my child. I was mad, and it deserved to die.

*Going outside to pick Mulberries. They are pretty good, if you can look over the inch worms that you have to pick out (or eat) and the little stems that come off with the berry. You can just spit those out after you eat them. Don't try to take them off the berry, because it squashes the juice out. But going into the back woods of the Missouri wilderness might get you in trouble. Which brings me to. . .

*My mom got a little bit of poison ivy on her face just to the right of her mouth, close to her chin. (I call it the "zit spot" because every month I get one JUST ONE zit right there. At least it's only one, right? But isn't 30 too old to get a zit when I'm PMSing?) Anyway, as we were driving home and were pretty close to the Wyoming border, my mom says, "This poison ivy is really itching my face. But I'm doing good not to touch it. But I have another little itchy thing in my eye lashes. Can you look and see if I have poison ivy in my eye?" And being the inquisitive nice daughter that I was, I agreed. I should've refused. Because as I looked in her eye, I noticed that her lashes were particularly thick in one area. And as she blinked, they moved in response. And then I saw it. . .The tick in my mother's eye.

Now, I want you all to go get a mirror. Or look at a butter knife you have retrieved from the kitchen. But you need to know where this tick was. Take your eyelid, and flip it up as if you were going to do that hideously grotesque and macabre act of flipping your eyelids up on themselves. Don't do it all the way, just gently tilt up your lid until you can see the teeny tiny ridge of skin running JUST UNDER your eyelashes. The minutely small piece of skin between your lashes and your EYE BALL. And you will know where that tick had its nasty Lyme disease-carrying head buried.

My mom says she wishes she could've preserved forever the look on my face when I realized what it was. I was horrified, and couldn't even bring myself to look at it, especially when it moved its legs. Bleeeggch. I'm getting queasy now just thinking about it. We were going to wait till the next gas fill up so my brother could pull it out himself, but after about a 5 second wait I just couldn't think of that thing feasting SO CLOSE TO HER EYEBALL for another second and I said I would just get it.

If anyone knows anything about pulling out a tick, you know that you have to get the whole thing making sure the head doesn't detach. So I grasped that thing, and gave it a gentle pull thinking that was all I would need to do. Nope, it was really drilled in there. So I just pulled harder and success!! And I was pretty sure I got the head too. That thought was confirmed when I looked at the thing and saw 2 chunks of my mom's eye flesh still visible from its nasty little pincers. Mom bled a little, but was very VERY happy to have it out. She said even with the little blood in her eye it was much more comfortable than having it on her itching her. AND SUCKING HER BLOOD I should like to add.

For the rest of the ride home I kept checking my (and my baby's) hair and all over our bodies for the hidden ticks I knew were at that moment giving us Lyme disease. I didn't find any but that's probably because they saw the death of their comrade and ran for their lives.

* And finally, you will ALL think this is gross, but it made me just so happy. When I got into the upstairs shower that all the girls share, I noticed that there was hair on the wall. Isn't that awesome? ALLLLL my sisters put their hair on the wall while they are taking a shower. I don't know where we all learned it. Probably from each other. But it's so nice to know that the same trait is being passed down to my niece. And you should know that her mother (my sister in law) specifically TOLD her daughter to put her hair on the wall. Because after they pulled a hair ball out of the drain that was the size and shape of a large rat, they figured that was the best way to avoid it in the future. Makes sense to me! That's why I do it!

I love my family. It's good being home. I can't wait for the family reunion in July!

College Education

I'm helping my mom with some of her classes these days. She's only a few semesters away from getting her college degree. . .at the age of 60. It's something she's wanted and worked on for years. I can remember her going to school right after Julie was born and studying at our family's kitchen table. She really deserves it, and I'm very proud of her.

But that's not what I'm here for. See, for one of her classes she has to read essays of fellow classmates and then review them. I'm reading over her review because she asked me to. And this is what I came across. These were the FINAL 2 sentences of the other student's paper. This is how they chose to wrap up all their ideas. I REPEAT: THIS WAS NOT MY MOM'S PAPER. Please to enjoy it: (I have reproduced it here exactly as I found it. Punctuation grammar and spelling all original)

The femininity also causes the characters to change in order to adapt to the world around them, Dee's example, creating a world in which gender is something that one has to realize for one's self and that person must be able to break typical gender roles in order to grow as a person. This situation brought to a real world situation would create a world in which one would not have to worry about what one is doing or looking like all of the time and would caused a world of harmony.

Would caused a world of harmony. AMEN, sister.

AND THESE ARE COLLEGE STUDENTS!! I weep for the future. (NAME IT!!)

This actually reminds me of my 11th grade English class and we had to read a short story and write thesis statements for the story.Afterwards we switched them up and read them aloud to the class. (note to all you teachers out there? Reading in front of class=INSTANT SHAMING!!) Luckily they were anonymous, because when my teacher heard the one I read she almost stopped breathing because she was laughing so hard. It went something like this "When John suddenly came upon the sudden rabbits, he suddenly realized that his life was not what it was supposed to be, and he suddenly felt very different on his birthday" No joke, the person who wrote it used the word SUDDENLY 4 different times in one thesis statement.

Best part about that? The author was my best guy friend. Others had written silly statements as an obvious joke and the teacher thought it was as well. But we later asked him if he was kidding when he wrote that and he said no. Again, the shaming. Delicious delicious shaming.

AHHHHH, HIGH SCHOOL!! Don't you miss it sometimes?

But seriously, the student in my mom's class is one intellectual step up from a boiled potato.

TCOB

In on of my favorite episodes of Sunny (ok, let's be honest, they are all my favorite) Sweet Dee has a heart attack. Mac and Charlie decide to get jobs solely for the health benefits. When they arrive for a job interview, they only have one resume to share between the two of them. They say it's because they are "going green" and it's easier to just have the one because they are basically the same. And one of their lists of accomplishments is that for the past 10 years they have been managing every aspect of their own lives. "You know, TCOB. TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS".

I must agree with them, I also am TCOB today and mostly every day of my life. And right now I am taking care of some bloggin' business. Just, you know, random bits of my life. As if you cared.

My mouth felt really dirty about 5:30 pm in the afternoon the other day. Probably because i was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon and you know about sleep breath. Anyway I got up and decided to do the whole mouth cleaning cycle. I flossed first, then brushed firmly but not vigorously, and then used mouthwash. It's my special "Crest Nighttime" mouthwash, guaranteed to "protect your mouth" for up to 8 hours.

See, I made the mistake of doing this about 30 minutes before dinnertime and was very alarmed to discover that all my food tasted really weird. I immediately knew it was the mouthwash, and so went and rinsed and even re brushed my mouth. But there was no getting rid of it. It was there for the next 8 hours. I will tell you this: CREST IS NOT LYING!! They will never be dragged into court for false advertising.

It made everything I ate for the rest of the night have a weird "chewing on a piece of tin foil" mixed with a "2 hours post-dentist, mouth just coming out of Novocaine deadening" taste to it. It seriously ruined my night. Because I'm really restricting my calories and I get really hungry for dinner. And then all my food was ruined? CURSE YOU CREST AND YOUR EFFECTIVE CAVITY PROTECTION!

Next item of business. I have been reading lots. And all good books (mostly) but listening to books as you are at the gym running is SUPER less effective when it comes to keeping you motivated. I know that they always say to listen to good music to keep you going, and there must be some truth to that. I always go to the gym's very dark "cardio cinema" room (Motto: Created with Fat Girls and Old Men Who Fart While Working Out in Mind) and watch a movie in near pitch black while I try to not fall off the treadmill. However, many of the movies are NOT good for gym time. Examples: 50 First Dates. That's Raven Symone movie about a road trip to see colleges, Pink Panther 2. Not great movies to keep you pumping.

Yesterday the movie was "Pearl Harbor". While Citizen Kane it is not, it does have a good amount of action and suspense in it. Especially if you've forgotten what happens in it because you saw it 2 months before your mission. (Remember that, Amy? Remember how I was at your house for like a week and we saw like a bazillion movies before you left for Brasil? Awesome) Anyway, great acting? No. Suspenseful with air jet fighting? ABSOLUTELY!! I ran constantly with my treadmill at a 1.0 incline (don't judge. I'm very large. Please congratulate me for running at all) for about 20 min and didn't even realize it.

And today was the last 40 min of "The Dark Knight" which is also super suspenseful. And kept me focused so I didn't notice my legs throbbing and how I was gasping for air. Really, it works!! the adrenaline pumping in your veins really keeps you focused. EXCEPT for one type of movie. The HORROR movie. They will show PG-13 horror movies (no slasher types) which are all played up by the suspenseful music and then having something jump out at you. Someone ALWAYS falls off a treadmill whenever that happens. One guy fell off a stationary bike the other day, but poor kid was like 4 feet from the screen, so I can't blame him. But why do they do this? I have a secret suspicion they are taping us and there will be a Youtube video up soon called "Hilarious morons at Gym!" I will be playing the part of moron #4.

Have you ever been that person falling off the treadmill at the gym? Please tell me your best treadmill biffing story. I love a good wipeout.

That's all my business for today. I'm going to try to blog more. I don't promise GREAT blogs. But I do promise more. Please let me know if you want me to go back to the "Quality not quantity" method. Oh wait, my blogs were never very quality. Nevermind.

One of these things is not like the other. . .

I love zappos.com. Its the only place that someone with my giant size of a foot can find a shoe in their size. And cute too! And they have free shipping and returns. And because I'm a VIP member (insert ooooh's here) I get free overnight shipping on all my orders. So when Marcelo's gift was ordered and shipped on the "10th" (so they said, hmmfphf) it didn't arrive till the 24th. Almost missed Christmas. But I procrastinated buying Jules' gift this year (she was my secret santa) and I bought it on the 22nd and it was at her door the next day.

I LOVE YOU ZAPPOS.

However, I'm on the hunt for some new church shoes. The shoes I wear EVERY Sunday are hideous and my mom bought them second hand at Savers when I was 8 months pregnant. Yeah, so basically they are nasty and gross and nasty. Did I mention nasty?

So I went to look at the website just to put a few shoes on my "wishlist" in preparation for when I get to buy myself some new shoes. (That gets to happen when I lose 30 pounds. It's a mini goal)

As I'm narrowing down my search, I chose 4 categories or themes that my shoes should fall under. I choose the words "Dress, Feminine, Elegant, Formal" because like I said I need church shoes.

Here is the shoe at the top of the list they gave me. Please tell me which of the 4 words this shoe falls under.

Would you say more formal? or more elegant? or a mix of the two? Please let me know what you think.

P.S. They wanted $60 for these shoes. I'm going to go vomit right now.

Great First Impressions

I'm a real estate agent. I just thought you should know that. I'm going to put it out there in case anyone wants to use me for my mad house buying skills. (or selling for that matter. I'm good at both)

Anyway, a friend of a friend has asked me to help she and her husband buy a house. I agreed. This buyer and her husband, who we will call "Mr. and Mrs. Awesome" met me at a house yesterday afternoon so we could take a look at it. Now, you have to know that up until this moment, I had never met Mrs. Awesome face to face. Mr Awesome and I met several years ago, but not his wife. But I feel like I've known her for a long time, I really respect her, and I didn't want her to think I was a mental patient. I wanted to be "super effective real estate girl" and show her my house savvy and showing expertise. Basically, I wanted to make a good impression.

I am clearly setting the stage here for disaster. Wait for it. . . .

All was going well, until we went in the back yard and looked around. There was some talk about my bulimic child, some talk about the serious hedge trimming needed in the jungle of a backyard and then we moved on. But not before I noticed a definite poop smell. I looked around, but couldn't see anything so I chalked it up to the fact that we were walking by the trash can.

Proceed to more talk about the random chimney coming out the west side of the home and the spidery basement with a very large and very suspect weed growing INSIDE the bottom window. And there again, was the wiff of poo. At this time, Mrs. Awesome lifted her shoes to look at them, but they were clean. I said that I suspected the trash. I assume she believed me. Or maybe she thought that I had farted and was blaming it on the trash. Who knows. But I bet she didn't. She is, after all, awesome.

After she and likewise awesome husband are done looking at the home, I tell them there is a paper I want them to have and so we walk to my car. It is at that time, that Mr. Awesome says the first complete sentence of the afternoon. (previously he was communicating in mono-syllabic responses, head nods and shoulder shrugs) His words to me? "You hit a land mine"

I thought he was talking about my car, which was my brother's car I was borrowing for the day, and I was worried he was saying I hid something with it. I was worried. But oh no, he pointed to my shoe where a very obvious and very squishy dog turd was still clinging to BOTH sides of my brand new shoes. Brand new, $100 running shoes that took me 3 weeks and many returns to find the right fit and style I wanted. (I have to order shoes online because I have what Marcelo calls "patas" meaning animal feet. THANKS HON!! oh, and THANKS MOM for the large foot gene you passed down)

I don't have lots of money. These shoes were a sacrifice. And they are now completely wrapped in poo. Going up the sides of the shoes, in the bottom nooks, crannies and crevices of the tread. THERE IS POO EVERYWHERE. And I am humiliated. How else can this appointment go wrong? Can I maybe fall down and put my hand IN the poo? Can I lock my keys in the car? Can I do my Chris Rock impression and be racially offensive? Let's try our best to make a total spectacle of ourselves now, Alicia!

I go over to the grassy part of the front yard (hard to find because there is much lacking in the landscaping) and try VERY UNSUCCESSFULLY to get this dingle-berry off my shoe. It is not cooperating. I look silly, feel stupid, and want to just crawl in my car and die. And then I notice that Mr Awesome is digging around in the trunk of his car. He comes up with a plastic bag and says, this is for your shoe. MR. AWESOME!! YOU SURELY LIVED UP TO YOUR NAME TODAY!!! And that's not the end of it. He goes over and finds a wood chip on the ground and then tries to talk me into giving my shoe to him so he can scrape the poo off of it!!!!!

Can the humiliation never end? My client is trying to scrape the poo off MY shoe? Absolutely not!! I told him that I would just take off my shoe and drive home sock-footed. He didn't want to let it happen. I think he was moments, seconds away from crouching down on the ground. I seriously had to get out of there!! Next he was going to tell me that I should wear his shoes home so I wasn't driving with just a sock!! I have to flee!! Which is what I did. In one shoe. But not before I told them right as we parted that I was just lucky that it didn't get anywhere else. (like on the cuff of my pants)

But then I discovered some things when I got home:

1)This turd was the size of Texas. I think it was from like a great dane or maybe several dogs all pooping in the same spot. It must've been the size of a grapefruit. And how did I miss it? Because of the really tall grass. Did you miss the part about how the back yard was a jungle?

2)I did get it on my pants. But not on the cuff. On the back of my calf. How did it get there? And before I found it I was traipsing all over my house, and picking up my baby and sitting on chairs with the poop pants! UGH

3) I went home and started scrubbing my shoe, and I pulled about a half a cup of poop out of my shoes when I got home. And not just poop, but leaves and grass and small rocks. I gagged several times. I scrubbed those little tread crevices for what seemed liked hours, and the poop still didn't come out. I used toothpicks in the grooves, and the stench of poo was still there. Seriously, how did I not see a pile of poo that big?

4) After doing all that I woke up this morning and I went to look at my shoe and found that it was STILL smelly. After all that! So I gave up and threw it in the washer. (Thanks Sister In Law Tina for teaching me how to wash my running shoes in the washing machine!) And then I threw the other shoe in there as well for good measure. And everything I was wearing yesterday went in too. Because apparently that poop has magical powers and can leap from my shoe to the back of my pants and then from there who knows?!?!? It's better safe than sorry. DAMN YOU MAGICAL POOP!!

The point of the story? If you want to impress your super Awesome clients, just be aware that deceptive and thwarting poop will make you look like an ass every time. Guaranteed.

And if you hire me as your agent, I JUST MIGHT put on Act II of the "Great Poop Caper '09". Maybe this time I'll get BOTH shoes. Just you wait and see.

Tricked

I'm into reminiscing. Which is what Lobster do for hours and hours when we get together. And she reminded me of this little incident from when we were on our mission and serving together:

On the mission, I hated tracting. Hated it like nothing else. I think this is due to the fact that recently I have come to realize that I am VERY passive aggressive. Secretly recording my boss's conversations, avoiding conflicts, letting things continue to bother me so that I don't have to confront a person. DEFINITE SIGNS OF PASSIVE AGGRESSION. And I think that door knocking was the MOST aggressive things that we as missionaries did. It had built in conflict right in it. And I hated it.

I mean, I had NO problem talking to people at other times. On a bus, in a cab, in the grocery store, walking down the street, in the park, waiting in line to pay my light bill. I had no problem doing this. But I absolutely hated knocking on someone's door, pulling them away from cooking or spending time with their family, and then giving them a message in my crappy Spanish. And then have them try to pretend that they didn't understand me. Or have them slam the door in my face. I HAAAAAATED tracting.

Judd knew this. Well, she found this out after a few days together when she said, "are we going tracting?" and I said "I hate tracting. I don't want to do it" and the message was pretty clear then. Plus, me being senior companion I got to make decisions like that.

But what to do when you have no one to teach? Judd came from a long history of tracting, and I did not. And it pissed her off when we had nothing to do. And she had one answer for it. But I didn't like what she suggested.

So one day, one of our appointments blew us off. We started to walk somewhere. I don't remember where we were heading, (home maybe?) when all of a sudden, Judd stops in front of a door and knocks on it. I was super confused. So I asked her, "Who's house is this?" and she said, "Somebody's". I said, "Do we have an appointment?" And I don't think I was met with anything more than a "hmmmm"

I looked around. What street were we on? How did she meet these people without my knowing? I've been in this area longer than she had, so how did she know them and I didn't? Then I look up. I look down the street. I looked back the other way. I looked behind me to find out what manzano we were on. I look at Judd's face. And she won't return my gaze. AND I KNEW. We were currently tracting. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I can tell you that I know EXACTLY how a dog feels to realize that it's been trapped in the car and it being taken to the vet for a series of shots. Betrayal, horror, fear, shock, hurt. You name it, I ran the whole gamut of emotions in that one moment.

And we did it. And it wasn't so bad. We didn't find any golden contacts or anything, but no one tried to kill me. And only a few people slammed the door in my face. And when we left that house she very bluntly stated, "We have to go tracting. We have to. You have no choice." She was right of course. And we did it a few more times while we were together. And I'm sure I whined and tried to weasel out of it each time. But she didn't take any of my BS. Because that's what a lobster does. They don't take crap, even from their senior companion best friend. They just don't.

I love you, Lobster.

We Inerrupt this Vacation for a Very Important Question. . .

I’m in a third World country. I’m paying $1.50 an hour to use this computer. Instead of throwing my toilet paper the toilet and then flushing, I’m throwing my toilet paper in a trash can next to the toilet. I have a huge story to tell you about our travels here. I need to tell you all how much more I love my hair in South America. And about how my brother-in-law speaks more English now so Marcelo and I can’t talk in “code” around him. And yet I have a very important question for all of you:

Is the Blue Wiggle (Anthony) gay? Can someone find this out for me? Not that there is anything wrong with that. I’m just wondering.

Gawl, I need to stop watching the Wiggles.

Funny Things From Our Home

The Bibi has been doing some funny things recently. I've included some pictures and video.

1) Eating things and picking things up with her mouth directly. NO NEED FOR HANDS HERE!! Marcelo and I noticed this about a week and a half ago. I just have to make sure EVERY surface is clean now cause she sticks her mouth right to it. ( I don't have a picture of this. She wouldn't let me capture it on film. Trust me when I say it's the funniest/cutest thing you will ever see. It will make you puke rainbows, it's that cute) But I do have pictures of her eating other things:

Cheerios right from the bag















And then a nice combo of Worchester sauce/Syrup. Delicious!















2) Putting things in my shoes. I've so far lost keys, toys, iPod, batteries and found all of them in my exercise shoes. It's now my #1 place to look for things. Here are some things in my shoes right now:

3) Magnets. She has these kitchen magnets that were a gift from Aunt Jules and for a long time I put them up high because I didn't want them to get lost. What? Does that even make sense? You don't want your kid to play with her own toys cause maybe she might lose some of them? I don't know what I was thinking. Plus I think I just wanted her out of the kitchen (this was at the old place) because it was so filthy. But I finally got some sense in my head and I put them down low here at the new place. SHE LOVES THEM. She carries them around and tried to stick them to everything. Last week I watched her try to stick them to Raya. I don't have a picture of that either. Sorry!

4) FIRST WORD!! I called it. I soooooo called it months ago. When I realized that she was responding to the word "Raya" (she would turn and look for the dog whenever I said it) I told Marcelo I was 99% positive it would be her first word. It came out Sunday. She says it "Yai-ya" I wasn't sure it was really it, until I took them both to the park yesterday and as Raya ran around Evi would scream after her, "Yai-ya! Yai-ya" and then giggle like mad when she came close. Does she say anything else? Mama? Tata (Dada)? NO WAY!! But the dog is covered.

Here is a video of her with Raya. She says her name half way through it. And at then end she does her "drunked sailor" walk. My favorite.



Raya is her best friend. She brings her things, and tries to make her happy. She loves to snuggle with her and give her hugs. Here are some things I found in Raya's cage. Remote, toys, spoons, Etc.















And then where Raya sleeps on the bench seat? There are always a bunch of bowls and toys around her. Raya's happiness is very important to Evi so she brings her things to make sure she's taken care of. Evi will pull my dish out of my hand while I'm eating so that she can put it down on the ground for Raya to lick. Serious devotion to the dog. She doesn't even care when Raya knocks her down in her exuberance. Here is a video of Evi playing peek-a-boo with her.



Finally. The Wiggles. She's obsessed. Please enjoy a video of her getting down.



And here are just some more pictures of her, because I couldn't resist. She's "helping" me with my lower drawer. And then she pulled an egg out of the fridge. Can you say salmonella?




























Of COURSE she shares the egg with Raya? Haven't you been paying attention at all?

Have a good Sunday!

Not Satisfied With My Purchase

I just bought some new soap for my bathroom. I usually like the foaming soap because it's cool. (Yes, I'm kind of like a 4 year old in that way) but this soap was SO MUCH CHEAPER I just couldn't pass it up. I bought two bottles: One for my bathroom and one for my mom's bathroom.

I was sucked in by the word SPA in the name. Ohhh!! Spa-like! Maybe it will cure my horrible cracked and bleeding cuticles that I got from scouring my old AND new house for 4 days! I'm sure it will smell like tranquility.

It does not. It smells like a hamster cage.

First off, don't doubt my sense of smell. I can determine if someone has been working in the anatomy cadaver labs 4-5 hours after they were last in the labs. I can determine which woman in the room is wearing Lovespell lotion (I call it barf-smell lotion) and if that person is a friend I do NOT feel badly asking them never to wear it again. (Several of my readers will attest to that). I can smell a banana peel in a ziplock back buried under 3 feed of trash. Seriously, I rule when it comes to smelling.

Secondly, I am ACCUTELY aware of what a hamster cage smells like. In my APL class in Elementary School (WHAT'S THAT?? YOU READ THAT RIGHT!! I JUST DROPPED AN APL REFERNCE ON YOU SUCKAS!! WHAT WHAT!?!?) anyway, in my class we had a class gerbil which died and then we replaced with a hamster who died who we then replaced with a guinea pig. Which we ate.

KIDDING!! Sort of. I ate a ginea pig in Ecuador. It was greasy.

Anway, I was right next to the cage and I promise you that this soap smells JUST LIKE IT. It's a stale-urine-soaked-wood-chips-needing-to-be-changed-but-that's-not-my-job-so-don't-look-at-me-to-change-it smell. That's exactly what it is. Urine soaked cedar chips, to be exact.

If you don't believe me you are welcome to come over to my house and smell the soap. Or give me your address and I will mail you a sample. I'm not making this stuff up.

So back to how that guinea pig tasted. . .

Dear Kind Sir. . .

Dear Gentleman panhandling for change outside Sam's Club in south Provo today:

I might be more inclined to give you my spare change if you weren't chatting on a cell phone while you sat on the curb holding a cardboard sign which professed your dire need for money because you are hungry.

Just in case you were wondering why I gave you a crusty when I drove by: it was the cell phone.

Love,
Me

Stranks and Weaknesses

Marcelo is really liking his drafting classes. I'm just glad he found a major he likes. Now maybe we can get this graduation thing going. Anyway, in one of his classes he has to type up the minutes from the previous class and then read them out loud in front of the whole group. He's the class secretary (insert obligatory gay joke here).

Well last week, they had a guest speaker come to their class and talk to them about what they might encounter in a job interview. He gave them some potential questions that they might be asked, and one of them was "What are your strengths and weaknesses?"

Marcelo took one look and tried to find some other way of wording that phrase so he wouldn't have to say "strengths" in front of the whole class.That word scares him.

So I took a piece of paper and on it I wrote:

STRANKS

I told him to say the word "stranks" instead of "strength" because when you say it fast, it comes out as "stranks" anyway. He did, and it sounded perfect. He's lucky he has such a freaking brilliant wife that can make up semi-gross sounding words for him. I really need to start being paid for these ideas.

But first I need to jump in the shower. I just got back from the gym and I'm smelling pretty strank right now.

I'll make a Dill with you

Last Sunday, when I was festering in my anger from in my nursery classroom, I overheard a lurking parent say the following, "I'll make a dill with you. . ." A dill? How do you make a dill with someone? A dill pickle? or a dill like "your kid is being a total dill today"? That kind of dill?

And then she continued on: "I'll make a dill with you, You stay here and play games and I'll read you 3 stories when I get home." It then hit me that she was going to make a DEAL with her child.

And then on the radio, I heard they were advertising some sort of cheap airline trip that you could take with the hosts of the show. They said, "This is a great dill, so you won't want to miss out". Again I had to stop and think about why they would say "this is a great dill." I thought those TV and radio people were supposed to be trained to make sure they got rid of most of their accents. Oh well, I just laughed and moved on.

I still haven't gotten over the strange accent I hear around here. The funny thing is that I'll catch myself saying fill instead of feel and I'll stop, go back and correct myself. So I'm aware of it, and yet I still do it myself.

Eric Snider found this funny story about this same thing that happened right here in Utah. You can find it here. Go read it. it's short. I'll wait for you here. Isn't that funny? I told my mom that story and she laughed right out loud.

Anyway, so as to be an equal employing mocker, I'm going to tell a funny story about Marcelo. On Sunday I told him that I nursed Evi to sleep, but I was worried she wouldn't stay asleep. And he said, "Oh, she didn't Furbp?" I said, what did you just say? Say that word again. And he said, "Furbp". Ohh, the hilarity. Obviously he was trying to say BURP, but the past 4 and a half years he's heard me say it, he thought I was always sayin furbp. I do love my husband

Shout Out

My freshman college roommate Mindy W. Burns has started a scrapbooking blog for digital scrapbooking. I personally don't digitally scrapbook for the same reasons I stopped paper scrapbooking: no money and no time.

But Mindy worked hard and has this great page where you can submit your own pages, win prizes and see what others are doing. If you have any interest in scrapbooking (digital AND/OR "original" paper style) you should check out her website.

Click here to go to the page and add her to your reader.

Let's get scrapin'!

The Nursery

Marcelo and I are going to be booted from the Nursery. I already know this. We've been told that we will only be in the calling for around 6 months, but I don't think that we will make it that long. I think we will be asked to resign long long before that. We are the General Patton's of the Nursery.

Our complaint list is long and our demands are many. I'm sure many parents will ask to switch their kids into one of the other 2 nurseries in our ward. Here is just a partial list of our many complaints and things that we will be implementing during our reign of terror. . . er, I mean during our time in this calling:

Exhibit 1: Snotty nosed and sick kids. We will not put up with it. We will be returning kids to their parents if we hear more then 2 coughs per a 15 minute period. Also, if there is persistent muckage from the nose, I'll give your kid 10 minutes for it to dry up, and then I'm pullin' the plug. It's better that you don't drop your kid off if they are sick or are thinking about getting sick. It's just rude.

Exhibit 2: Child retrieval tardiness. The first counselor of the bishopric made an announcement last Sunday that it is very important that you come pick up your Junior Primary kids PROMPTLY. Not only do the teachers need their sanity after entertaining 6-10 wiggly kids after 2 hours, but there is another ward coming in that needs the room. Quit picking your nose, come pick up your kids. Despite what you may think, Primary isn't free daycare. We will not be here forever. We have lives too, so pick up your kid and let us out of our prison.

Exhibit 3: Lurking Parents. Drop your kid off and move on. Cut the cord. Maybe it's time that you set some boundaries and limits. I don't need you coddling your kid for 2 hours. I promise I won't smack your kid in the face, no matter how many times he throws pretzels at me. Nor will I spank him, no matter how much he deserves it. We had FOUR lurkers today. FOOOUUURRRR!! Not doing anything, just sitting in a chair as their kid played happily. I really think I know the reason your kid cries when you leave: Because you are teaching them! Boundaries, people.

Exhibit 4: Kids that don't belong there. The beginning of the year is hard for ALL primary kids. They ALL have to leave their teachers that they have become attached to for the past 12 months. They all have to move up a level and face the fact that maybe there won't be goldfish crackers and crates of toys at church. Maybe they will have to use the reverence skills that YOU as parents were supposed to teach them and sit and listen to a lesson. Change is good, and necessary. Primary it's not all bad, though. There are some songs to be song, maybe a crafts project. It's not Nazi Germany, after all.

What I DON'T want is for you get frustrated that your emotionally and socially stunted child isn't adapting well to Sunbeams and so you dump him in my Nursery class telling me that I can bring him back to his class in 45 minutes. And then when I go and drop him off at said Sunbeam class and try to leave him you only bring him back 5 minutes later because he isn't behaving well in his class. Guess what? If he can't behave well in Sunbeams, chances are he won't behave well in Nursery.

And that's just what happened. Your snot-nosed kid was grabbing things out of kids hands, running around screaming and demanding more cheese when it was all gone. And 1/2 of my kids followed his lead. Thanks but no thanks. If your kid isn't on my roll list, he isn't welcome. End of story.

So what do you think? Does this post make me officially going to hell? Most of the kids in my class I like. There are a few exceptions, of course. And one BIG exception with the kid that's not supposed to be there. I think I'm going to post this blog on the door of our classroom and see how parents react.

I think we will be released very very soon.

I'm Back Ya'll

Marcelo and I have been having computer problems. Serious computer problems. I only know enough computer stuff to get myself into trouble. Which is what I did Monday after our laptop when kaput. Even when the laptop is gone, we have a desktop!! So I got on the desktop and I tried to download a driver for the printer and ended up deleting the driver for the wireless card. How did I do that? I don't know. Like I said, I only know enough to get myself into trouble. I couldn't get it to work again. So we ended up buying a whole new computer.

Just kidding, sort of. We DID buy a new computer, but it was mostly because Marcelo needed a bigger fast computer to run his drafting programs. So for VERY cheep, we were able to get a brand new super computer. It's so fast, it gives me whiplash just booting up.

So I'm back. And now I can finish the post I started on Sunday, and write this other post that came to me in the shower just now. I bet you are all dying of anticipation, aren't you? Well, you'll just have to wait. You have to experience just a little bit of what I went through for the past 4 days.

I'm back!! Commence rejoicing!!

Oats and Hay

Hermana Storhow once told me about the story of the oats and the hay. She said that horses really want oats to eat. It's the best tasting to them, and they love it. However, it's expensive, so lots of time the farmers will give them hay. They don't like it at first but then they start to get used to it, and then they start to see it as the only food source possible. She said that you shouldn't sell yourself short, ALWAYS REMEMBER THE OATS.

So as part of my "count down" to Ecuador series, I will share with you some of my "oat" stories from Ecuador. Things that you did (or didn't do) because for so long all you saw was "hay" in your life. And I would ask all of you to please share your stories with me as well. They don't have to be mission stories. They can be life stories.

The first moment I have is when I made someone else realize they were eating hay. See, in Ecuador, the mail system works like this: You have a letter ready to be mailed, you take it to the Post Office. They stamp it for you, and then they put a whole bunch of rubber ink stamps on it and send it off for you. When I had been in the country about 3 weeks, we went to the Post Office and did our little routine. But then I asked to buy like 10 extra stamps.

The mail worker looked at me like I was crazy. Hermana Rose looked at me like I was crazy. And then she asked me why I did that. I said. "You know, so I can write my letters and mail them off and not have to take them to the window every time." Rose said, "I never thought of that. Ha! I never would've thought of doing that."

I was thinking to myself. "What? Why wouldn't you think of buying stamps and then affixing them to your letters and then dropping them in the mailbox? THAT'S HOW YOU MAIL A LETTER!!" See, she had forgotten the oats. She was so used to doing it that way she forgot about how you really should mail letters. Later she told me that she thought that we had to take them to the window so they could rubber stamp them. Like the paper stamps weren't valid without the rubber ink stamped on them too. She told me this AFTER I had sent about 5 letters to friends and family. THANKS!!! (I acutlaly think that the letters got there anyway)

However, I think that my favorite "oats and hay" moment came with Hermana Godfrey. OR was it Judd? I'm pretty sure it was Godfrey. But any of my past missionary companions that read my blog feel free to correct me if wrong. This is how the conversation went down:

Missionary 1: Oh, when we go home for lunch, remind me to call our afternoon appointments to make sure they will be there.
Missionary 2: YOU CAN CALL PEOPLE?!?!

I'm pretty sure I was Missionary 2. In my first, third and last areas almost no one had phones. You had to go to their house at the appointment times and hope that they remembered and were there. And if you had to walk, take a bus and then walk again for a total travel time of 4 hours round trip and they weren't there? Well, that was all part of being a missionary. In my second area, many of our people we taught had phones and we could call ahead.

However, I think that most of the time we didn't. It was just habit. We were enjoying the hay, forgetting all about the oats.

Other hay/oat items:
* Washing your clothes and dishes in cold water and not realizing you can wash them in warm water.
* Realizing that you don't have to be electrocuted during a shower.
* Flushing toilet paper
* Putting up with those nasty horse blankets that have been in those houses since primordial man first crawled out of the ocean.

I realize this post is very Ecuador specific. But please feel free to comment on any experiences in your life when you realized you were munching on hay when there was a big bowl of oats right next to you and you smacked your head realizing that you too had forgotten about the oats.

phone calls

Rediculous Christmas Songs

I like the Christmas songs on the radio. I'm not one of those people that gets annoyed with them being played on November 1st at 12:00 am. Actually, I WAS one of those people, but I am reformed. That used to make me mad, but not I look at it as a good thing. I mean anything that makes you think of Christ as early as possible isn't bad, is it? I don't think so!

But as I was traveling home from Lisa's house last night and listening to the tunes. I was thinking about certain songs and certain VERSIONS of songs that annoy me. So here they are in no particular order, my biggest Christmas song pet peeves.

1. In the song "Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" there's a line that disturbs me. It says, "There'll be parties for hosting , marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glory of Christmas's long long ago." Um, did you catch that? Scary ghost stories?

How is that good? It's like "Come on kids!! Everyone grab your cup of chocolate!! We are going to go on a sleigh ride and sing jingle bells, and then Aunt Patsy is going to tell the story of the homicidal one armed maniac that escaped from the state mental institution and roved the countryside hatching people up!! Oh, this is going to be the best Christmas EVER!!!

Less Effective

2. How did "The First Noel" make it past the rigorous Church Music Screening Committee and make it into the hymnal? I quote a line: "In fields where they lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter's night that was so deep" Uh? Hello? Christ wasn't born in Winter, yo. How did the church let that little ditty slip through the cracks? Anyway, That annoys me. What other hymns erroneously talk about Christ being born during winter time? Can you think if any?

3. People changing the classic songs. Right now there is a version of "O Holy Night" on the radio. I heard it last night and at first I thought it was from Faith Hill, but now I think it's probably Martina McBride. But I don't like it. Why? BECAUSE IT CUTS OUT THE SECOND VERSE!! Here are the words to the second verse, let's see what in them might be needed to be cut out:

Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother,
and in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise his holy name.
Christ is the lord, that ever, ever praise we.

What do you think it is? Is it the "Christ is Lord" part? A little too Evangelical Christian for the Martina McBride? Maybe she forgot to bring the words into the studio and they were like "uh, Martina, Sweetie. . . .Yeah. . .we don't have them" and she was like "I'll just sing the first verse twice!! No one will notice."

You know what Martina? I NOTICED!! I noticed and I missed the second verse. Boo on you, Martina McBride, BOOO INDEED!!

Ok, that is all I have for today. Merry Mish-Mush!!

Dude, that Mountain Dew is Jacked UP!!!

It has been the craziest 36 hours. Sunday night Mom made a spaghetti dinner and it was pretty good. However about 9 pm that night I started to feel funny. I just felt "woozy" all night and I didn't know what was going on. I figured it out at about 3 am. I was sick.

Here are the reasons I think I was sick with the flu:
1. I had a fever
2. I had cold sweats
3. I was vomiting

Here are the reasons I think it might've just been some food poisoning:
1. I was vomiting, VIOLENTLY
2. I had diarrhea
3. It's gone now

So now you have a picture of what my night looked like. My poor husband. First listening to me vomit and then having to smell me as I crawled back into bed with him. (Some of you will say, "why not poor you?" Well, I'm getting there. ) So I got vomit on my daughter's head. She heard me and woke up and I tried to pull her out of her crib but I was too weak to get her up all the way, but not too weak to smear vomit on the back of her head. So poor EVERYONE!!

Anyway I wasn't feeling too well. The morning was bad. I was shaky, weak, continually nauseated. I could barely stand up to go pee. So I DEFINITELY didn't feel good enough going to church and I asked Marcelo to stay home with me. I know, it was selfish of me. But because he stayed home, he watched the baby for me while I got some much needed sleep. (Thanks Angel Loaf!!)

Even with the naps, the whole morning and most of the afternoon I had a SPLITTING headache. The vomiting had stopped by then so I decided to go get a caffeinated soda to drink. I chose to get a Mountain Dew because I've been told that Mountain Dew has the highest level of caffeine of all the caffeinated beverages. And I needed the caffeine for the headache.

I know. How many sins can I commit on Sunday? Let's count them up, shall we?
1. Not going to church
2. Asking ANOTHER person to also miss church
3. Buying a soda
4. The soda is a MOUNTAIN DEW!!

So I'm walking home from the Taco Bell (where I purchase my SIN SODA) and I'm taking small sips of the drink. And it's horrible. It has a nasty aftertaste that tastes like a lemon Halls cough drop. Very medicinal. No joke. I'm thinking to myself "Who likes this drink? This tastes like ass. Ass soda. I hate this stuff. No wonder I never drink it" I had already decided then that I would give the rest of my soda to MaxKyle, because he loves soda and I know it had probably been a couple hours since he had had some, so he would be jonesing for it big time.

So when I get home, I had probably finished 1/3rd of it. I talked about how horrible the soda was and then offered it to MaxKyle. He JUMPED at it. I got him another straw, and he started drinking. And then he stopped. "There is something wrong with that Mountain Dew". Ha!!! I knew I wasn't crazy! Marcelo also confirmed the same thing MK said: There was a horrible aftertaste to my drink. MaxKyle said that someone at the Taco Bell was playing some joke on me. Whatever the case, It confirmed to me one thing: If you buy a Sin Soda on Sunday, as a punishment your Mountain Dew will taste like Halls medicine.

Moving on. As we prepared for bed, we had to do a little bedtime shuffle. Jules and her friend Kristen (who is only in town until tomorrow) are sleeping on the twin bed in the second bedroom. That means my mom is on the couch. This becomes a problem when Marcelo needs to wake up early and do some drafting homework. But he just kicks her to my bed, so she still can sleep.

But that wasn't the worst part of it. See, Marcelo and I silently decided last night that we should start making Evi try to sleep more at night again. She's back in the habit of waking up at 2, 4 and 6 and then finally getting up at 8:30. And she's playing at those times. We were being kind to her for a while because she was sick. But we are done with that. Because last night she was up at 10:30, 11:30, 2:30, 3:30 6:00 and then at 8:30 for good. I know, I know. She must be stopped.

So last night we silently made a pact to just let her cry. The first time she woke up wasn't so bad: I got a burp out of her and she went back down again. But the 11:30 time? Oh man!!! She screamed for more then an hour.

My mom later told me that she heard her from the other room and she felt awful!! She said she thought that maybe through my sickness I couldn't hear her or I couldn't get up and get her. And she was worried that my baby was going to be permanently scarred from being left to scream. (And my baby WAS screaming. Freaking screaming for her life! She was PISSED that she was being left alone. Turns out my baby is a little crap-head) So in the middle of the night my mom got out the computer and started to look up the book "Solve Your Child's Sleep problems" so she could see what it said about crying it out.

She only did this for herself. She didn't tell me she did this until the next morning. But she said she was really worried that we were just letting our child scream until she hear Marcelo's voice in there comforting the baby. So she at least knew that we were soothing and being attentive to the baby's needs and not just letting her suffer unknowingly.

And the final straw? At 3:30 am the smoke alarm RIGHT over our bed started going off. Was there any smoke around? NOOOOO!!! Why then is this horrible beeping machine going off right above my head? Nearly in my ear?UGGH!!! The perfect end to the perfect day. Here's to a million more just like it!

Oh, just so you know, the Sin Soda totally worked. My headache started letting up after I drank it. So I guess there was SOME good that came from it.