Can you smell the SPICE?

After the rain last Saturday, I went outside only to discover the air smelled like fall. Not just of chill and damp air, but SPICY. It smelled like cloves, cinnamon, allspice, ginger. I thought maybe someone in my apartment complex was just burning a pumpkin pie candle (or making zucchini bread or something like that) but the smell was found all around town as I ran errands that day. It made me really hungry for a pumpkin shake! Or a pumpkin doughnut!

Like I said before, I'm excited for fall this year. And even for winter, I guess. Something different. It's almost felt like it's been summer for too long. (I know! Who would've thought I could EVER think that?)

Today when I went running at 6am it was raining. It was so delicious and cool. It kept me at the perfect temperature and the run went really well despite the fact that I was soaking. I would give other people running in the rain the head-nod of understanding. "Either you love running in the rain as much as I do, or you are also training for some race" I would think. And then I would think to myself, "Hey girl, you should loose the windbreaker. You aren't doing yourself any favors. Just let the rain soak you. Enjoy it! And then go home and take a warm bath"

I know that's what I plan on doing right now.

Right after I experience some zills, that is.

Snow in April

I don't mind the snow in April. Really I don't. I lets me stay inside and clean (for some reason I always get really "nesty" when the weather is crappy) And we all know how I feel about the rain.

But I think the biggest reason I don't mind the snow in April is because I know that it won't last. Even though it is quite late in the season to get snow, that still doesn't matter for what we have coming up. Trips to the lake, trips to Missouri with my mom and finally fitting into that bathing suit I bought last year. All good things to look forward to.

I think that this is the same reason I don't have horrible memories of high school. I know this seems like a stretch, but follow me here. I know lots of people out there have horrible thoughts and feelings about school. Many of you (like me) changed schools when you were in Jr High and High school and that didn't help you at all with the fitting in.

Just the other day my sister and I were talking about this and she's is thinking about pulling her kids out and home schooling them when they are middle school aged. She just doesn't want her kids to be exposed to all the stuff that they will most likely get in a normal Jr High. And while I agree with her on that aspect, one of her arguments is that school at that age is rough on kids' self esteem. And I just don't see that. I never had that.

I guess I was always someone that had a friend and a past time. I always had someone to eat lunch with, and I had sports after school to keep me busy. Not only that, I was kind of a nerd, so I enjoyed going to classes and I enjoyed learning with the rest of my nerdy friends. We all had the same classes together, and so we all got to be "class friends" at least. Maybe we didn't hang out outside the class, but if I saw them in the hallway they wouldn't spit on me or shove my head in the toilet at least.

However, I think the biggest reason I don't have bad memories of high school is because I never wanted to be something I wasn't (except thinner. I always wanted to be thinner!) and I never wanted to be in a different group. I never looked at the popular kids and said "oh, I want to be in their group" nor did I think that with the Emo kids, the skaters, the band groupies, the goths or the cowboys. I was just happy being where I was. I was happy talking to my friends, hanging out with them on the weekend and playing sports. I was just happy with what I had and with what I was.

And I knew it would all end soon. I knew that I would graduate and most likely go to BYU. If not there, I knew I would go away to SOME college. I knew that I would leave my high school behind and I would continue on with my life and not really have to worry about the clique I was in (or wasn't in) in high school. I knew that it would all end someday and when that happened it wouldn't matter if I was a goth or a cheerleader. It wouldn't matter what I did every weekend. All that I take with me from high school is a love of geometry, a love of Shakespeare and good memories of volleyball games and chips and ranch at my friend's house while watching silly Austin Powers movies. It was just. . .nothing!

There's nothing to get all worked up about, no reason to lament and sob about what was not. It's done. It was high school and it's over now. It was just a little snow in April.
(The view from my balcony today.)

Liar

Is there any smell more delicious than rain on hot asphalt?

Seriously?

If you say there is, I will call you a liar.

I love the rain. The snow can suck it. But the rain?

Hmmmmmm. . . .

The Fall Conundrum

Heather wrote a post about how right now in Arizona it was 94 degrees and she was so happy because it was the perfect weather! I remember those days. See, when I was growing up I always loved my birthday. Even though my birthday was in late September, it was always warm enough to go to the lake. It really was the perfect weather.

The fact that we went to the lake even in the third week in September and it was wonderfully warm meant to me that it was summer. So I always thought that September was summer. It wasn't until I was in college that I heard someone refer to September as a Autumn month. And my mind rejected it for a while, because September was warm, and summer was warm, so September was summer!! It's clearly an A=B, B=C so A=C situation.

Since moving to Utah, I have come to realize that there ARE 4 seasons. In AZ you just have 2 seasons: 1)Hot and 2)Getting ready to get hot. And that brings me to my next story. An embarrassing little tidbit from my freshman year of college.

So like I said, AZ has no seasons. So things are either brown or light green. The green comes from the eucalyptus plants. What do you expect? It's a desert people!! Deserts are brown!

But then I moved to Eureka. Eureka is the opposite of Arizona. But I've already written a post about Eureka. Actually, Lisa said that it reminded her of Forks, WA from Twilight when I was describing it. THAT IS MY TOWN!!! When I started reading that book, I immediately thought of my town because that's just what it's like. It's green, covered with forests, there is a Native American Tribe close by. I'm not kidding. If there wasn't a Forks in real life, I would've put down money that they were talking about my home town.

But back to my point. Eureka is green all the time, every day, every moment of every day. All the trees stay green year long, and it's beautiful. I know I've talked about how the trees on the mountains go right into the ocean. It's great for someone like me who loves the color green.

So my freshman year of college I was a young and naive little girl of 17. I loved being on my own, and I loved being at school. I had never lived somewhere where it snowed on a regular basis, so I was looking forward to experiencing that.

One day I was walking home from my Friday anatomy lab and I was admiring the mountains and how tall they are and how they were so close. But then there was something wrong. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew just who to ask.

I walked in and found the person I was looking for:

"Catherine, What is going on up on the mountains?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there is something weird up there. Like some little red dots or something. What's happening?"
. . .Pause. . .
[cue condescending tone] "Uh, those are the TREES, they are changing COLORS."

I felt like an idiot, and her tone let me know that I should feel exactly this way. It's not my fault that I've never seen the trees change color!! I mean, I've always heard of that happening *in theory* but I had never experienced it for myself. And having never seen it before, I didn't know that the trees turned at different times. I thought they all simultaneously turned red together. I think that's what threw me off more than anything: They were just dots of red among the green. It's not what I was expecting.

So if you are from my home town, I want to just clue you in on a little bit of information: The trees in Utah change colors pretty drastically, and they don't change all at the same time. Oh, and the people that grow up in Utah will make fun of you for not knowing this.

P.S. When my brother Jake moved to Utah out here 1 year ago we were driving around with him and I told that story. He wasn't paying attention to my story and only caught the moment when I said, "and then I was walking home and I saw something on the mountain. And I noticed there was something there." And RIGHT THEN he looked up to the mountain and said, "Hey, what's up there on the mountain? What's that red stuff?" HA HA HA!!! See, I'm not the only one!! Eureka will do that to you. You think all trees are supposed to be green always and you will question yellow and red trees forever.

Eureka

I am currently sitting in the kitchen of my youth, with every part of my body freezing. See, I'm from Eureka, CA and there is only one way to describe the North Coast: COLD. Current Temp outside: 54 degrees. And the high is only expected to go to 62. That is it is every day of the year. It really doesn't get any colder than that, nor does it get any hotter. (It does however get rainier)

Many people know my aversion to the cold. However, for some reason I still love Eureka. I love the smell of Eureka most of all. It smells like the ocean, salt water, wind, fresh bread, fish. I love it so much. I just roll down the window and breathe and breathe and then roll it up quickly so i don't freeze.

I love sleeping with three quilts on my bed and having all that weight on me and waking up all snuggled up. I love steaming cups of hot chocolate, lighting a fire in our den and watching TV with my baby curled up by me. I love going for walks and getting damp in the mist and walking through the Redwood Forrest and jumping around on the springy earth. I really love Eureka.

I do NOT love my mom's house. First off, it's old. It was built in the 1930's, and when all the other houses of that era were getting updated and getting bathrooms upstairs, I had a father who didn't want to do that and so I grew up in a nasty house. 4 bedrooms, ONE bathroom. Sunday morning before church was a joke. Literally a horrible horrible joke where the punchline is that there are 3 people crammed into the shower together all trying to wash their hair without crashing into the person next to them.

Second: There is a funny smell at my mom's house. I think it's all the wood. Wood absorbs smells, and it's hard to get them out. Also, there is lots of moisture here, so it smells like damp, stinky wood almost everywhere. She got rid of the carpets and re-did the hardwood floors. But the slight smell still lingers. I don't know how to get rid of it. I don't know if it can be done.

Third: My mom has a giant house to clean all by herself. She is living alone now, for the most part. Her sister + husband are here lots, and they don't do anything to make the place cleaner. They leave their messes everywhere, and then my mom has to come home from work and decide whether or not she wants to clean them. Basically, if my mom had a fully cleaned house it would never get dirty. She's at work all day, comes home, eats a little food, and then is of to walk the dog. So when others come and leave messes, she won't clean them up. (And why should she? She was working all day and she didn't make the mess) Anyway, because she's almost never here, she really doesn't care what it looks like.

But I do care. I have to be here for the next 2 weeks, so you'd better be sure that I'm going to clean it. (which is what I should be doing now because my baby is still asleep at 9:44 am)

Finally, I have a problem. I forgot to bring warm pants/PJ pants. I'm used to sleeping in my chones. I mean I do have warm fleece PJ's, but I just forgot them back in Utah. So I'm freezing once I get out of bed. I also forgot a SWEATSHIRT!!! I'm not going to be able to last too long without that.

Luckily, I brought plenty of warm stuff for Evi. She's going to be bundled up all the time and I'm so excited to put on this ADORABLE outfit that Melanie got me. But as for me? I'm in trouble. Serious butt freezing trouble. But at least I'm in Eureka!!

Sweatin' to the Oldies

The reason I have been off the map lately is because we have been moving to another apartment. And we don't have Internet there yet until Thursday. So I have to some back to the old apartment to do my email, fill out forms online, look for jobs and watch TiVo. I do miss Tivo. I'll be so excited to get my TV and internet all set up for good. (I feel like Miranda in that one episode where she needs her DSL installed and as soon as she gets it, she's desperate to look at her Tattler online. I have no desire to look at the Tattler. My needs are Blog based)

The good news is that with all that non-TV time, I have finally made it through "100 Years of Solitude" which was much longer than I thought. I'll have a review for you soon. Let's just say it was awesome and fanciful and full of magic. Not like the lame kind of magic where they make a rabbit come out of a hat. But the awesome life lengthening, sleep preventing, ghost seeing type of magic.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a quick blog and tell you that my apartment is hotter than Satan's Balls. I'm sorry if that image is tough for you to take, but it IS. I know some of you say, "oh, I live in Arizona, It's 115 degrees out today" or others say, "In Texas it's been about 100 for 3 months now AND we have 88% humidity" To you people I say the following: Do you have A/C? Do you stay indoors most of the time? And do you have a car with functioning A/C? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then I win.

I am not kidding when I say that it was 100 degrees INSIDE my house yesterday. Inside, under the shade, in my front room, in the bedrooms. There is no relief anywhere I go. I'm not messing around when I say that I wanted to die. There is a thermometer in our kitchen stuck to the fridge and I looked at it yesterday. I was thinking, "It has to be a hundred degrees in here!!" and then I looked at the thermometer and it confirmed my wild postulations. There is no A/C in the house. The oven is close to the living room and it's "old fashioned" which is a quaint way of saying "no insulation around the metal box pumping out 400 degree heat."

The main part of the house including the living room and the baby's room have windows facing West. That means that from about 3 pm to 8 pm every day, I can cook an egg off my window. And there is no A/C. I did mention that, right? We do have a million fans up and running. But they are only pushing around 100 degree air. We have to suffer in silence until the sun goes down and then the fans can suck in cool air.

But we are looking forward to fall. And I think in winter we'll be toasty warm. Even though the house is old (like our first home. Remember that hell hole, Reagan?) I has better insulation than that, and I think we will be really happy there. And we do have 2 of those window A/C units. But we were just trying to do without them for a while. I think the time has come when we need to suck it up and put them up, however. My poor baby was covered head to toe with a heat rash yesterday. I can't let that happen again.

Anyway, It's hot. My baby is suffering and it's time to fix this.

Oh, on another note, it's Education Week around here. I think I might go to some classes while my mom watches the baby. We'll see.

And finally, I need to tell you about how I've been waking up at 6 am to exercise. I'm too tired to talk about it right now. Good Night!

Spring, Spring Spring

My little girl loves the sun and loves to be warm. (She must get that from me) I think it's because she has such short hair and no body fat. (She does NOT get that from me :) What am I saying, she's a freaking DOG. She gets NOTHING from me!)But when I come home from lunch, she'll jump up on me and get a few moments of head scratching and then go right over and lay on the carpet in the sun. Her favorite place is right by the couch.

But now that the weather is getting better, I'll open the back door during my lunch break so she can run back and forth freely. Her schedule usually goes like this: Watch me eat my lunch and try to beg some food off my plate. When I finish eating, then it's time to go outside. She'll perch herself out the back door for about 10 minutes just listening to the birds. When she gets a little more brave, she goes and walks down the next step and points at the birds for another 10 minutes. Then she comes inside and makes sure that I'm still here. When she's secure about that, she goes out and listens to the birds for another 15 minutes. Near the end, she'll lay down on the warm steps and just relax in the sunshine. See what I mean?

Well, anyway, I got a picture of her just enjoying the sun yesterday afternoon. I can't wait until it warms up even more and I can bask in the sun with her. I'm tired of it being cold. It's time for SPRING.

And the phrase "Spring, spring, spring" needs to be sung, like the version from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." If you don't know about that movie, you are missing out on a cinematographic masterpiece. Make sure to take note of the painted back drops and fancy dancers. Gideon is my favorite.

Change of subject. Yesterday on the radio they were talking about how they were taking new photos of all the employees. One of the girls said that she had gained a little weight, and her pants were tighter than normal. So when she came into work, she went up and asked her co-worker if she had a little camel toe going on. He said that she didn't, but she still felt self-conscious about it, so she proceeded to ask the other two men in the room the same question, and waited as they all LOOKED and then gave her their opinion. Do you think that was a little AWKWARD for them? Anyway, this led them all to ask their listeners: What is your most embarrassing moment ever?

Now, my close friends will know that I am constantly humiliating myself. For example, Lynn had only been working 2 months before I farted in front of her. And then I did it again another 2 months later. Now, in anyone else's book, that would be VERY high up on the "most embarrassing moment" radar. But that was old hat for me!! I'd already done that way back in the 7th grade, when I was 11. I'm nearly 28 now. I have filled up those years with much worse humiliation galore.

So, what sticks out in my mind as my most embarrassing moment? That's easy. BYU sophomore year: Physiology class. (I know Judd knows this story. She also got a visual because I acted it out for her when we were in Ecuador. The rest of you will just have to use your imaginations.)

You should know that back in these days, I was just as large as I am now. That is to say, I was heavy AND carting around an extra 50 pounds in the form of a butt load of books. I think on the day of this particular incident I was going to be at school studying and taking multiple tests. I had brought all my book because I didn't want to go home and risking getting distracted. So I had a backpack FULL of books.

Well, physiology class was held in the MARB at BYU. The MARB has 4 large lecture halls, and each one holds around 300 students. The classroom is set up at a pretty steep angle to maximize the amount of students that can be squeezed into a room. At the top of the main seating section, there is a walkway leading to two exits on either side. Lining the wall were boxes with letters on them. My teacher would review our quizzes and tests and then return them in the box that corresponded to our last name.

The worst part is that at the end of class, 300 students rush the boxes on their way out of classes. It creates a very nice bottleneck traffic jam at the boxes, and it can be very difficult to navigate. ESPECIALLY when you have a huge backpack strapped to you messing up your balance and equilibrium.

So I go to the box that has my paper in it, and get it. I and trying to navigate my way out of the horrible bottleneck, but I'm looking down at my paper and not really paying attention to where I'm going. And then: disaster. I somehow make a misstep and get my foot tucked in my pant leg. And then it's happening. . . I'm going down. . . down. . . .down. TIIIIIMBER!!!! And the fall thereof was great.

And now I'm on the ground. And about 75 people are surrounding me, staring at me, trying to walk over me, to get to their papers so they can just get the heck out. And I'm trying to get up. But you try to get up when people are walking over you and more and more keep coming. That was only half of it. The other half, and the worst part about it was the backpack. It was pinning me to the floor, unrelenting.

So picture this: I'm a large girl, with a very large HEAVY backpack strapping me to the floor. I'm like a potato bug on it's back. Picture my legs kicking futilely as I'm trying to get them under myself and stand up. But it's all to no avail. I twist right, legs flailing. Not happening. I twist left, now sprawled out across the floor, doing a sort of "snow angel" on the filthy floor of the lecture hall. The bastard backpack was mocking me with it's weight.

I am a beaten woman. I finally figure out that I've been on the floor for FAR too long, and I just want my humiliation to end. But to make it end, I'm going to have to stoop to the lowest of lows. Here I go: I curl up in a ball, roll over onto all fours and FLING my body to the left. My backpack is now ON MY BACK where it belongs, and I can continue to get up. I crawl for a little bit on my hands and knees so I can get to a more "open" area of the mass, and then FINALLY I get up.

Is that horrifying enough for you? Let me tell you, for a very shy, un-attractive BYU sophomore who could never get a date, this was my version of hell. Well, if you have a hard time visualizing what I've said here, come over to my house. I'll be happy to give you a nice little demonstration.

So, I hope you enjoyed that trip down horror lane. Oh, by the way, Marcelo and I are assigned to speak in church tomorrow. Have I even THOUGHT about my talk? NOPE!! At least I know what my topic is. We'll see what time I start planning my talk tonight. . .or tomorrow morning. Oh, and I have to plan my lesson for my 9-year olds tomorrow too. When will I get to that, I wonder?

Oh well, off to eat another Toaster Strudel.

Rain

I love the rain. I really do. I actually prefer the rain to the snow. I have heard people to say that when it's snow, you can brush it off you before it melts and gets you wet. But with the rain, all you are is wet. That's bull crap. I'm sorry, but there is something infinitely more beautiful about the rain. Plus, the next day, all done!! No piles of snow to avoid or smash into with your car.

However, my dog HATES to be wet. She's terrified of the rain. She REALLY has to go pee right now, but she refuses to go outside because it's raining. She just looks outside and whines. Here is a picture of her avoiding going outside to pee:


YES, I do feed my dog. The ribs poking through her skin is characteristic of her breed. And notice the tension in her legs She's really afraid of that rain. And please don't look at my messy house in the back ground. Yes, that is a giant bottle of TUMS next to the chair. I eat several of those a day. It's ridiculous, because I'm only 16 weeks pregnant!! I should not have heartburn this early, nor should I have morning sickness this late. Actually, the morning sickness is getting WORSE, if you can believe that. But back to my dog.

So she whines, which is her signal that she needs to pee. But then she goes like this while she demands that I keep the door open and let all the cold air in. So she stays like that for 10 minutes and my toes are freezing and then at the last minute she jumps back inside. What you can't see in the picture is her trembling at just the THOUGHT of going outside.

But she's dying!! She HAS to pee. She keeps looking at the door, crying, begging me to let her out. So I did. I pushed her out the door. And what does she do? She presses herself up against the door, keeping herself out of the rain by staying under the overhang of my 2nd story. And then she puts her little paw up on the glass and gently taps it, which is her signal to say, "I'm done, you can let me in now."

So after trying to leave her outside for a few minutes so she'll just give up and go and pee, I finally admit defeat due to her persistent whining and give in and let her in. (I'm going to be a great mom, right?)

I then tried to get her to go out front. I stayed under the front porch while she walked out a little bit and then immediately dashed back under the porch. Apparently she's smart enough to know the difference between the words "leave it" and "sit" but she doesn't understand that if it's raining in the back yard, then it's probably raining in the front yard.

So we go back inside. After one more failed back door open, I decided that I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go out there with her. So I put on some shoes and walk out there. SUCCESS!!!! She immediately went out and peed. And then ran back inside like someone was trying to murder her.

She's currently drying herself off in front of the fire. That's my pampered little girl. Look at her drying off her booty.
And once again, please don't look at my dirty house. Thankfully Raya is covering up the worst part of it.

So what is the point of this blog? I love rain, but Raya is scared of it. And I'm waiting for Marcelo to get home so I can eat dinner and take a long bubble bath. I'll let you know how that goes.