25 Random Things About Me

I did this for facebook, so I figured I'd post it here...

1. I am a compulsive over-analyzer (like trying to figure out what random 25 facts about me could possibly be interesting...).
2. I am the second of six kids.
3. I have only been out of the country once- no twice (to Tijuana-- does that count?- and I guess I crossed the border into Canada as a baby), but I have traveled lots within the U.S.
4. My whole life I've wanted to go to Europe-- all of it! And Tahiti, too. And maybe Asia... I think I just love to travel in general.
5. I think it's not fair that my husband LIVED in Europe for two years in high school. Grrr.
6. My nickname as a baby was Chicken Licken.
7. I worked a technical writer during the summer while I was in college.
8. I was home-schooled from 5th grade through high school.
9. Yes, I still graduated from college and I'm not a social recluse (at least I like to think so...). I don't even stockpile guns in my basement!
10. I have a masters degree in Piano Performance.
11. I was seven months pregnant when I did my masters piano recital (yes, I could still reach the keys, but barely...).
12. I have moved 10 times in almost 9 years of marriage. I'm hoping to stay put for a while now.
13. I share my middle name with my mother, an aunt and a great-grandmother. (It is Louise.)
14. I LOVE all things having to do with food: cooking, great restaurants, growing herbs, collecting recipes, reading about food. In my next life I might be a food critic or a chef.
15. I discovered as an adult that I love to garden.
16. I also discovered that when I have a baby my green thumb turns brown. (I suppose there's only so many little growing things you can care for at a time...)
17. I love to read. I mostly read classic literature (1800's or before) or non-fiction, but I'm starting to branch out a bit.
18. My mom is one of my best friends. I also have the world's greatest mother-in-law. (Seriously, she is awesome.)
19. I met my husband when I was a freshman in college. We didn't date until I was a senior and we didn't get married until after I graduated.
20. I first knew I really "liked" my husband when he told me my feet stunk. (What can I say? I'm a romantic.)
21. I'm not a big phone talker. I really feel awkward calling people that I don't know or haven't talked to in a while.
22. I was really into ballroom dancing in college. I took a class almost every single semester.
23. I am afraid of heights. I discovered this when I went to the Grand Canyon when I was 7 months pregnant with my first child.
24. I wonder how you know that when someone says something is "blue" that "blue" looks the same to them as it does to you. How do you know that "blue" to them doesn't look purple?
25. I like to write and I use it as my personal mommy therapy sessions. I started blogging this past year. http://lifeaccordingtok.blogspot.com/

26. I don't like to feel obligated to do things, so don't feel obligated to do this (even if I tagged you) if you don't want to.

Time's A-Wasting

So if time is a-wasting, why I am I writing a blog post at 12:26 am instead of going to bed? So I can whine, of course!

Today was a bad day. I woke up at 4:00 am to Jackson crying and never quite got completely back to a deep sleep. I had great intentions, but even though I did make my bed (YES!! I am keeping my New Year's Resolution!), not much else happened. Can it really take 3 hours to make oatmeal, eat aforementioned oatmeal, feed breakfast to a one-year-old, take a shower, give two kids a bath, get them dressed and comb their hair? Don't answer that.

Jackson is still recovering from a cold/flu bug and has a faucet runny nose that he likes to wipe on my shirt/pants/sweater (he usually chooses the most expensive or least washable item to be his handkerchief). He has also decided that certain types of baby food which he previously enjoyed are no longer palatable to him. He indicates this change of preference by swinging his hand into the spoon, flinging mushed peaches with baby oatmeal all over my wool skirt (on Sunday) or pajamas (on Monday).

Today my tummy hurt (whine), my head hurt (whine) and those dang dishes just wouldn't go away, no matter how long I stared at them. Jackson finally went down for a nap and I then wasted all his naptime working on something for choir #2 on the computer. He took a great nap. He slept for a REALLY long time, until I realized that the baby monitor was not turned on and that he was screaming in his crib and for all I knew he could have been screaming for a solid hour. I felt so bad.

Jared and Camryn had an educational afternoon of watching Pokemon and Cyberchase on TV while I scrambled to finish some (take a guess...) choir stuff on the computer and fold the laundry that had been sitting in the hall for a week. After I finished folding, I started to put clothes away and returned to the stacks of clothes in the hallway to find Jackson performing experiments with gravity. He found, remarkably, that neatly folded clothes, when tossed through the wood posts in the upstairs hallway will fall down from the second story to the ground floor and land in a messy heap. Unfortunately, Jackson is not blessed with a mother who has his same keen appreciation for science experiments.

Despite my most hopeful, wishful thinking, no dish fairy appeared to clean up my kitchen. So we had pancakes for dinner (yes, it was a mix, but hey- at least it was whole wheat) and I finally did the dishes myself. It really wasn't so very bad. I cut Jared's hair (to Jackson's great amusement), attempted to remove some of the rubble of Jackson's dinner from the floor and had Family Home Evening with the kids.

We sang a couple of songs, read a scripture, told the story of the Brother of Jared (Jared got a kick out of that) and talked about how sometimes when we have problems and pray about them the Lord asks us what we think we should do about it. We talked about Nephi building a ship and how sometimes we get asked to do things that are hard, but the Lord will help us do them if we have faith. And then we played "Simon Says" and sang a closing song. We also sang "Jumbo Elephant" and "Whirly Twirly" at the end, just for good measure. We figured Jackson would get a kick out of the older kids swinging their arms like an elephant trunk.

So often, Family Home Evening can be a fight to get the kids to sit still or it just seems like an unnecessary delay of bedtime, but tonight I actually enjoyed it. I still got the kids to bed late. Dave still had a super-late night at work. I still have a million choir details to try to work out. My list of home organization to-dos hasn't gotten any smaller. But hey- at least I accomplished something today. And don't forget, I made my bed.

Resolutions

Now that it is a new year, it is the time for resolutions and new starts. I decided that maybe I should break out of my no-resolutions habits of the past year or two and actually give it a shot. So I did. Of course I want to do all the normal things: get up earlier, lose weight, fit into my skinny jeans, eat better, exercise, use my time efficiently and effectively, keep my house immaculate, be the perfect mother, read my scriptures, keep up with my book club reading, get the laundry folded before it has sat in the hall for a week.... But this year, I decided to make a resolution I can keep. My new year's resolution is: (drumroll..........) to make my bed.

Don't laugh. It's not funny. Besides that, I have actually done it every single day. (Well almost- I usually miss Sundays, but we have 9:00 am church, so can you blame me? Besides, can you say as much about your resolution to stay away from chocolate?) You may think it is setting my sights low, but every day in five minutes or less I can feel like I have accomplished something I set out to do. Really.

C'mon... it's really not that lame. It also sets a tone... you know, you can't just climb back in bed, even if you feel like it. That I am actually going to TRY and keep up with things. That I start my day out being tidy. OK, fine. Maybe it is lame to actually have to resolve to make your bed, but for me it is progress and I am happy with it, lame or not.

And the funny thing is, that the rest of my house started staying really clean too. My kitchen was clean every single day for a whole week! It was like magic that spread to the rest of my life. Until it didn't. My house is a mess again. Even though I made my bed. Oh well, it was worth a shot.....

Easily Distracted

Oh yeah, so I was writing about Christmas break. We had a great time, even with our slightly delayed Christmas. Dave got me the American Idol game for Wii as one of my presents. Multiple fierce tournaments ensued... until we figured out that Dave's sister Jen was hands-down undoubtedly the best out of any of us. She basically kicked our trash every single time... but it was still fun. We did the usual Utah stuff... swimming at Papa's pool, Cafe Rio (yum... did I mention how terrible it is that the nearest one is in a different state?), Tucanos, and before long it was time to go home again. Luckily, our flight home was very unremarkable and we got back home as originally scheduled.

Ski School

I have been watching the date of my last blog post creep farther and farther into the distant past (last year even...) but every time I go to write a new post I get distracted by reading my friends' blogs instead. Not to mention that at my stage in life it is difficult to start- let alone finish- anything without getting multiple distractions throughout in the form of breaking up arguments, dishing out snacks, making dinner, please for attention, etc. If you add to this the feeling that I need to "catch up" on everything I missed, you have a sure-fire recipe for no blog posts for a very long time.

So Christmas break... despite the rough beginning, we had a great visit to Dave's family. Dave actually got a break from work for a few days and we basically just enjoyed ourselves. We have been promising Jared that we would take him skiing since he turned 5, but this year we finally got around to it and, just to add to the fun, took Camryn too. I had somehow conjured up blissful images of our happy family gently swooshing down the bunny hill or at least Dave (the ski expert of the family) spearheading the teaching part of our little family ski school. I guess putting the kids in ski school wouldn't have been too bad of an idea either in retrospect. We rented skis and headed out to go night-skiing. We took the kids to the bunny lift and Dave asked me, "So are you going to ski with Jared or Camryn?"

"Huh??" I guess it hadn't occurred to me that Dave couldn't ski down the hill with both kids. So I spent the next 90 minutes skiing down the bunny slope multiple times with Camryn between my skis, alternately sitting on my squatting legs with her full 50 lbs. and stepping on my skis with hers. I've never done a "Thighs of Steel" workout, but it could not be harder than trying to do turns on a snow-covered hill on skis with a 50 lb. weight sitting on your quads. You add to that trying to turn when someone is stepping on your skis half of the time (which leaves you with no recourse but to pick them up off your skis with your arms-- don't forget you're still moving this entire time) and you have the world's newest psycho workout.

At the end of 90 minutes I was totally trashed. Gone were my Norman Rockwell-esque pictures of our happy family skiing in the winter sunset. They had been replaced by visions of a full body massage and the hope that I wouldn't have to stand or sit for several days until my legs had recovered from the near-permanent injury I had inflicted on them. Luckily, Camryn was tired too (it's gotta be exhausting being carried down the ski hill), so we went in and took a break for hot chocolate. Then Dave and I each took a turn skiing a regular run by ourselves (amazing how much easier it is without the 50 lb. weight). By the time we were finished Jared was ready to ski again, so I took Jared back to the bunny hill while Camryn played in the snow off to the side. After a while even Camryn felt like attempting to ski again. I do have to admit that our second attempt went much better than the first (Except when I got over-confident and let go of her so she could do the last little flat part by herself. She didn't fall... she kept going and going... right up into a metal fence that kept her from going over the hill down to the parking lot. Oops.).

So in the end we did have a nice family outing. And I had burning quads for the next 4 days.

A Tale of Two Trips

Most of you have already read or heard the tale of trip #1: on Monday we braved snow and ice to go to the airport only to find our flight was canceled. Meanwhile, Jared and Camryn were already in Utah with Grandma and we faced the prospect of our first Christmas without most of our kids.

On Christmas Eve, the snow finally started to melt. We decided to go deliver gifts to our friends. We pulled out of our driveway and into the street... and that was as far as we got. The 15 inches of snow had melted into 8 inches of slush. And while chains can make even very slick snow drive-able, they are no match for slush half as deep as your tires. It was like driving through sand or trying to swim with our car... less than successful, shall we say. So we had a very jolly Christmas Eve spent cleaning the house, doing some laundry, re-packing some bags, addressing Christmas cards and making a simple Paella (which was fabulous, by the way, and remarkably easy and mess-free).

In the midst of our cleaning, we realized that it was a few minutes to midnight and we had to at least try to celebrate Christmas Eve a little bit, so Dave and I stopped and took a break to sing Christmas carols at the piano. Even though we had already taken down our Christmas Tree and decorations before our first trip to the airport, even though two of our three children were in a different state and the prospects of us getting there the next morning were less than certain, suddenly it felt like Christmas. I felt very grateful: grateful that despite being unintentionally separated for the holiday I had a wonderful family that were all safe and well with a warm house and food to eat. I was grateful for a wonderful husband who was willing to spend an entire evening cleaning house with me and helping me finish up Christmas cards. But most of all I was grateful for the birth of a baby in Bethlehem a very long time ago.

Christmas morning we piled our stuff into Dave's car (the one with chains) and I held my breath as we braved the mounds of slush filling the streets of our neighborhood. I exhaled a sigh of relief when we finally made it to the main road. The weather was clear: so far, so good. On the way to the airport we mailed some letters and returned a movie. There were people coming out of the grocery store, holding their Starbucks cups, just like any other day. But the one that perplexed me was the lady who was recycling soda pop cans out front. Who wakes up on Christmas morning and thinks, "Hmmm, this would be an ideal time to go recycle some cans!"?

We allowed plenty of time so the fact that the lines to check luggage looped around half the airport didn't faze me. The plane was even on time. We boarded the plane, got de-iced and pulled away from the gate. And then it started to snow... and snow... harder and harder. A few minutes later we pulled back in to the gate. We had enough snow accumulation that we needed to be de-iced again. We waited for the de-icer. Then we had idled so long that the plane needed to be refueled. By this time it was almost blizzarding. By the time we were ready to go again there was an accumulation of slush on the runway and we needed to either wait for it to melt or wait for them to call back in the snowplows that they had sent home.

We spent 3 hours sitting on our plane at the gate. During this whole ordeal Jackson sat quietly on my lap like a little angel. (Haha, that was a funny joke.) Actually he spent this time dumping the diaper bag, opening a bag of crackers and emptying its entire contents onto the floor and randomly flailing about, ripping magazines and bumping his head. A few minutes after we took off he FINALLY went to sleep.

We finally landed more than 4 hours behind schedule. We drove to Dave's parent's house and it started to snow again hard. We finally made it home... home to Dave's family, to Jared and Camryn. I didn't realize how much I missed Jared and Camryn until I saw them again. After a week of only having a one-year-old they seemed older. We immediately started with our traditional Christmas Eve dinner: a buffet with Susan's famous dinner rolls, cheese, meat, cranberry salad, shrimp dip and chips, vegetables and dip, mandarin oranges, homemade fudge. It was good to finally be home... away from home.

I'll Be Home For Christmas... Unfortunately

True to the title, I will be home, here in the great Northwest, for Christmas. This was not planned. In fact, the entire day Monday ran like a slightly messed up rerun of "Home Alone." Dave and I had tickets to visit his parents in Utah that left on Monday. But on Monday we had 15 inches of snow in our yard and it was still snowing (understand that in a typical winter we get no snow that sticks and our area of our great state does not have de-icing equipment or plows for snow removal).

Dave and I were getting ready to leave with Jackson for the airport when a friend called us to say that the power was off in their house due to the snowstorm and it was getting colder by the minute. They have a newborn baby and soon the temperature inside would be close to what it was outside, so they wanted to know if they could come hang out with us where it was warm. So they came on over, bringing some other friends of ours who also had their power out with them. They had no idea how long the power would be out for, so they brought bags with food, changes of clothes, etc. which soon covered our front rooms (not to mention the piles of our bags that were out for us to take to the airport). Soon we had 11 extra people milling about and I was throwing towels in the washer and trying to figure out where we could put makeshift beds, if necessary (this honestly was not a problem at all except that the thought of having people, even close friends, see my upstairs rooms and kids bathroom at their current state of tidiness was raising my blood pressure slightly).

Despite taking all precautions and leaving 5 hours early for the airport, chains on our car, just before we got there we found out our flight was canceled. This was very disappointing, but not hopeless. We went to the airport anyway to try to harass the people at the ticket counter and see if we could get on something. It turned out that ALL Southwest flights after 2 pm were canceled. Not to be deterred, I stood in line at the ticket counter for every single airline that had flights to Utah. (At this point a man in line with me suggested that maybe I should hitch a ride in the back of a U-Haul with a jazz band.) =] The soonest flight available on any airline was Dec. 27th. To even get on standby on another airline I would have to be a ticket for later in the week, knowing that I had 40 people in front of me already. This was very disappointing but would not have been fatal, except that Jared and Camryn were already in Utah at Grandma's house. I found myself going from counter to counter searching for any way to Utah-- or anywhere even close-- but there were no flights to be had- for any price. (I guess this is one of those few exceptions to my Uncle George's theory that there are few problems in life that cannot be solved -or at least helped- with a good credit card.) Even the highway to Utah was closed.

What do you do in such a predicament? When you realize that after exhausting all possible options to no avail you are going to have to spend Christmas away from two of your three children? You go out to dinner. Dave and I went with Jackson to the nicest sit-down restaurant in the airport to wait it out just on the off chance that they decided to un-cancel our flight. They didn't, but by the time we had both finished our dinner we felt much better about life anyway. We also were happy that we weren't one of the people settling down to sleep in the standby line for the flight leaving the next morning. We drove home via my favorite pastry shop and then tried to figure out our options.

Southwest Airlines helpfully informed us that didn't have any flights available until the 27th. But as it so happens, our friends whose power had gone out (who were still at our house enjoying the warmth) had tickets to go to Utah on Christmas Day that they were not going to use because he had gotten behind in work because of the storm. We were able to call Southwest and finagle them into giving us their spots on the Christmas day flight. This negotiation was actually quite easy compared to calling Jared and trying to negotiate with him to write a letter to Santa asking Santa to come a day later so mom and dad could get presents too. ("But mom!! I've waited so long already that I even told Camryn that Christmas was tomorrow...") But, as it turns out, Santa wrote Jared a letter, telling him that an elf had informed Santa of his mom and dad's predicament, so Santa would come a day late-- just for them.

So cross your fingers for us that the airport isn't snowed in again tomorrow and that we can make it to the airport. We tried to go out to deliver Christmas gifts to some friends today, but after attempting to drive down our street in six inches of slush we decided it was inadvisable- even with chains. So here's hoping that we'll at least get to spend part of Christmas together as a family. And if not, I suppose we can always go out to dinner.