Archives for December 2005

1. Paying less than $3.00/gallon for gas. I remember back in college when gas was hovering right under a dollar and I wondered if it would really go that high. Ha! Now I call it a bargain if it drops below $2.50. Yikes. Check this out for tips on saving money on gas. (reminder – I’m only in my mid-twenties…..okay upper-mid.)

2. Funny cool people with a great attitude. Check out posts by the two newest bloggers I link to on my sidebar, Fallible and Rocks in My Dryer. I hope to rotate and change these links around, based on who I’m currently reading.

3. My daddy. He wrote the sweetest seven sevens I’ve ever seen and sent it to me by email. I want to be like him if I ever grow up.

4. Good Great Super-Hero-Type Babysitters — We have a pretty steady babysitter who we’ll call Ruby. We adore her. The kids adore her. I am happy to pay her for the peace of mind it brings me when she’s watching the kids.

We have a “mother’s helper” (read this — too-young-for-me-to-feel-comfortable-leaving-the-kids-alone-with-her-but-we’re-trying-to-brainwash-her-into-loving-our-kids-so-we-can-monopolize-her-on-weekends-for-the-rest-of-her-life-when-she-gets-older) This past week, she spent over two hours sitting in the car (Laylee jumps in at this point and says “VAN! It’s a van Mommy. It’s MY van!) VAN (for the love, stop YELLING at me!) with the kids reading stories every time I stopped to run in and do an errand.

Over two hours of errands without having to unpack the kids from the car ONCE and the whole time with them thinking it was the best thing ever — all for the tidy sum of $6.00, which she argued was too much. She then told me she’d had a “really fun time.” Ahh! I’m in love.

We discovered another awesome babysitter last night. She brought a “kit” of activities for the kids and did all kinds of a great job. People at the Mega-Corp Christmas party asked us who was watching Laylee and Magoo and it felt so great to say we were confident in the care they were getting.

5. Cartridge World. Save the world and save a couple bucks. They recycle your old cartridge and sell you refilled used ones for half the price of new. We tried them for the first time today. One more step towards actually sending out Christmas cards this year. It really may happen….preferably before the 25th.

6. Fun links to my site:

I am quoted on an Indian Cooking Site. I feel like I’m Martha Stewart-style famous now, without the prison record. (Look about half-way down on the left sidebar for a quote by Kathryn. Pst……that’s me.)

Also, I am the second hit if you do an msn search for the word “daring.” Sweet!

Today Blackbird has asked to see some decorations. Here it is:

Just kidding! That still cracks me up until I cry…in a good way.

My favorite kind of decorating involves taking ordinary items and making them look festive. For example, our ever famous train picture. I seem to post it all the time, not because I love it (although I do), but because it hangs over the fireplace in the main living area of our house and it’s just always there in the background….. watching us. Come to think of it, that kind of freaks me out.

Anyway, here’s what we did to make it Christmassy.

Notice the small red flower in the smokestack. I was not always so subtle in my Christmas decorating. In college, I would just make little Santa hats and put them on all the people in the photos in my apartment, The Lady of Shallot, my grandma, the dancing in the rain rich people who don’t give a hoot that their poor servants are freezing in the cold (I still love that picture).

I think it is time to share how I got the train picture. It is a super-cool street vendor creation using ordinary household/garagehold items to create a train. If you look closely, you’ll see the spark plugs, flashlights, keys, washers, hinges, etc.

Dan fell in love with this when he saw it hanging on the wall of my college roommate’s sweet parents’ home in Seattle shortly after we moved up here. I fell in love with it because he liked it so much and never expresses an interest in home décor.

Several months later, the couple was moving to a much smaller home on their way to retirement and wanted to get rid of a bunch of stuff. They told us to come by their garage sale and start thinking of stuff we wanted because it would probably be out there for sale.

I took this literally. So a few weeks later we were over for dinner, they were talking about the garage sale and I said, “If you sell that train picture at the garage sale, I’m calling dibs on it.”

They sort of looked at each other and said, “We….weren’t planning on selling it….”

Awkward silence.

Me: Oh, that’s cool. I was just kidding. We just really like it.

Nice Lady: I guess we could sell it to you if you really want it. Right, hubby? We don’t need that picture anymore. We’ve had it forever.

Me: (oh my word! It’s a freaking family treasure) No seriously, it’s okay.

Nice Lady: I’ll sell it to you for $20.

Me: (writing a check) If you’re sure…….

We left our free dinner that night with a $20 painting and a huge blank spot on the host’s wall. Have you ever gone into someone’s home, seen a wall-hanging or piece of furniture you like, pointed to it and said, “I like that! How much do you want for it?” Well I have. You should try it sometime. Then every time someone compliments you on the item once it’s in your home, you can tell them the story of how you got it……or I guess you could ask them to make an offer…..

I will do a meme from a cool blogging momma who tagged me the other day, MyNewFriend at Blest With Sons.

Thanks for encouraging me to move on and post something else tonight. Whew! What a day. I was out all evening with Karli, listening to some beautiful music and feeling a great sense of renewal. I love the feeling of true peace. It’s especially nice after a day like today.

Here goes the Seven Sevens…

Seven things I hope to do before I die:
1. Raise an eternal family who love each other, love the Lord, are smart, compassionate, understanding and happy – and good at playing Rook, the Rook skills are definitely a must.
2. Complete a feature length documentary film and submit it to a major festival (I’m sort of working on this one but too scared to reveal any details).
3. Write and publish a non-fiction book (a novel too but I’m more fascinated by non-fiction).
4. Travel the world, France, Australia, Ireland, India, The Holy Lands, your mom’s house, etc.
5. Show Dan the kind of love and support he showers on me daily.
6. Invent something really cool, make a bazillion dollars and randomly pay off people’s mortgages anonymously.
7. Become an expert kayaker.

Seven things I cannot do:
1. Kayak well.
2. Keep from laughing when DY Dad does his “crazy Monster’s, Inc. face.”
3. Get a speeding ticket. I’m not saying I never speed, but somehow I never get ticketed. The one time I was pulled over, I accidentally evaded the police. I’ll explain more later.
4. Teach Junior High students. I have no patience for this age and too many painful memories, being a former brace-faced, four-eyed, band-member, straight-A-student in grades 7-9.
5. Spell to save my life. In college, I was almost denied a secretarial position because I failed a spelling test. I convinced the person in charge of hiring that I did indeed know how to press the spell-check button.
6. Be rude to telemarketers. I can joke about it, but when I’m on the phone with them, I just don’t have the heart. I try to let them down easily and politely.
7. Let my kids boss me around.

Seven things that attract me to my spouse (significant other, best friend):
1. His patience with my semi-spastic nature
2. His calming presence
3. His love for our children
4. How seriously he takes everything he does. He is the most dedicated person I know. One of his favorite quotes is from jazz musician and composer Wynton Marsalis, “Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.”
5. His interest in everything I do and his burning desire to help me achieve my goals and even my craziest dreams.
6. His gorgeous blue eyes and his back (it’s true, I love his back).
7. His ability to be still and see the goodness in everyone.

Seven things I say often
1. Like….
2. For the LOVE!
3. (fingers snapping)…umm…What were we talking about?
4. Cheese. (This word has many uses. Ex — I’m tired as cheese. What the cheese are you talking about? Don’t lay there like a piece of dead cheese.)
5. Do you want a story tonight? Okay, I’m gonna count to three…..
6. That’s too bad. Those are the consequences (yes, she’s only 2 but she talks about consequences and fully understands what that means).
7. I love you. (I say this to my family members every time I talk to them in person and on the phone, which is often since none of them live around here. Lately, I’ve started accidentally saying it as I say goodbye to my friends. Un peu embarrassing. Not that I don’t love them, I just don’t like to say it so casually and randomly to people I’m not related to.)

Seven books or book series I love:
1. The Scriptures
2. Annie Dillard books (specifically Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Go read it NOW!)
3. C.S. Lewis, The Narnia books, Mere Christianity and A Grief Observed, to name a few.
4. George Elliot and Jane Austen (I think I can safely glump them together)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. King Lear by Shakespeare
7. Recently I have loved These Is My Words by Nancy Turner, a frontier romance, fun reading, not classic literature.

Seven movies I could watch over and over again:
1. Ordet — my favorite film of all time (strange timing, it concerns two small-town religions battling over doctrine, only to be healed by a miracle from God)
2. The Man Who Planted Trees
3. Babette’s Feast
4. Lord of the Rings
5. A&E’s Pride and Prejudice
6. Sleepless in Seattle
7. White Christmas

Seven people I want to join in this “Seven Sevens” meme:
1. Karli of Eulallia – my blogging mentor and the best pumpkin pie sharer and comforter I’ve had all day
2. Moonface of Midnight Musings – the best quiet chronicle of a satisfied life I’ve found so far
3. Stephanie of Princess Mom – funny as heck and puts it all out there for us to laugh our way through motherhood
4. Kim of Life in a Shoe – a real inspiration, awesome mother and kick-butt blogger
5. Heather of Pieces of Cheese – If I make a list, she’d better be on it. She rocks.
6. Liz of My Corner of the World – a sweet and encouraging future daring young mom
7. RGLHM of The Reluctant Good Little Homemaker – a great new blogger I’m glad to have discovered

***update – the writer M**** is no longer blogging publicly and has asked that I help protect her privacy so I’ve removed her name from this post and comments and removed any links I had up to her previous site, which no longer exists but which had a URL bearing her first and last name.***
I may be a festering, Satan-worshipping vegetable, lurking under the bedsheets of Christian Beauty, but at least I’m still funny. So says M**** of “Always Thirsty.” I think this is my first official “review.” How nice.

A couple of weeks ago I was nominated for a Blogs of Beauty Award. I still do not know who nominated me. No one will admit it. I was touched and pleased and surprised that someone or someones could see through my sometimes sarcastic humor a deep and abiding love for the Savior and nominate me alongside these other excellent women.

The days went by and I tried to say I didn’t care who won. It was so cool just to be nominated. But I can’t say I wasn’t beaming when Sallie (the creator of the awards) announced on her blog yesterday that I had won. It is SO nice to be recognized for my writing and I felt honored that it was an award given by other Christians.

I do not consider this a “Mormon blog” but rather a personal blog by someone who happens to be Mormon. I want this blog to be a support group for moms, a place where people of any religion can come, laugh a little, share in the excitement, fun and heartache of parenthood and feel a touch of grace and tolerance.

You can rip on my writing all you want and it won’t make me cry. But there are two things I must ask you never to do, post angry hateful things about my most sacred core beliefs or say horrible nasty things about my family.

Number one has already been accomplished and I’m still bawling. If someone writes a blog entry about how stupid or ugly my kids are tonight, it may just send me over the edge (and we don’t like the edge. The edge involves large amounts of extra calories and way-too-long bubble baths. Well, we like the edge, but we shouldn’t stay there for long.).

I found her post as I was looking at my traffic today and noticed a lot of hits from her URL. So I went to the site to see who my new “fan” was…..WHAM! A hit to the gut.

As I was getting Laylee ready for bed tonight (complete with Christmas carols and prayers in Jesus’ name. Gasp!) I had a hard time hiding my tears. Daddy explained that I was crying because someone had written something very mean about me on the internet. When I left the room Laylee exclaimed, “Oh Daddy! I want to write something very very very nice to Mommy.” I guess I still have a couple of fans.

What really makes me sad about this is that Sallie set up these awards as a way to promote the love of Jesus Christ and she did so right during the holiday season. She is a wonderful, caring and deeply religious person who has spent hours putting this together. It makes me sick and sad to think that people are sending her bitter and hostile emails because she didn’t dig deep enough to find out “what I truly am.”

If I gave up the award and passed it on to Amy’s Humble Musings or Jeneric Jeneralities, would you stop harassing Sallie and let us pass the holidays with the true Spirit of the season?

On her site, M**** stated, “I wonder how you would react if a Jehovah’s Witness won a contest showcasing the blogs of Latter Day Saints. I’m not here to convert Mormons, but it is my duty as a Christian to make people aware of false teachers, especially those who claim the name of Christ but add to his words (the Book of Mormon) and falsify his very essence, thus stripping him of his divinity.”

Well M**** — When the Jehovah’s Witnesses stop by and offer to share a scripture with me about Christ, I invite them in. No one can strip Christ of his divinity.

A note to my well-meaning friends: I don’t want anyone else to feel like this. So, please stop the cycle and don’t give my “reviewer” a hard time. I don’t want to have to delete you when you’re just trying to make me feel better but I’ll have to if you turn my comments section into a rip-fest.

It looks like I won that Blogs of Beauty award by a very slim margin. Thanks to whoever nominated me and to all of you who voted.

Most of all, thanks to everyone who stuck with me through “the twinge” and stoked my ego in the process.

Now, no matter where I go, no matter what I do, no one can ever say that a couple of people on the internet don’t think I’m funny. And that’s saying something.

You know the ones I’m talking about. Your Uncle Biff or your Father-in-Law, your 30 year-old Dual Income No Kids neighbors, your babysitter or your kids’ school teachers.

These are the people who either have EVERYTHING, don’t want ANYTHING or maybe you don’t really know them at all but feel obligated to get them a gift for some reason. So what do you get them? Think of the hardest people to shop for on your list and throw us some clues.

Often I choose topics for tip days because I have some great info to pass along. Today, I want to suck you dry. I’ve got next to nothin’ here, people. Help me out.

My ideas:
-Find something totally out there at some small online boutique. Get into the “they-would-never-find-this-stuff-in-a-million-years-unless-they-spent-every-waking-minute-surfing-the-internet” territory. These gifts are at least original and will have the, “wherever did you find this” factor, if not the “wow.”

-Books are almost always a good idea (First find out if said person is literate. Then you can decide whether to get one with words or pictures.).

-Buy something you would love for yourself but would feel guilty indulging in. I do this for my parents and in-laws sometimes. They have a lot more dough than we do and anything I could get them for 20 bucks, they could go buy themselves. The trick is to buy them something they see as frivolous or a luxury but that they would secretly love to have.

Your ideas:
(insert here)

* “Those one people” is probably my favorite misuse of the English language in the history of the world. Ex — “Who sings this song? Isn’t it those one people?”

Random Trivia – Dan and I own the domain name — www.thoseonepeople.com. We haven’t used it for anything yet and it cracks us up to tears but no one else really thinks it’s funny………at all.

This is a picture of me taking the picture to go in our Christmas cards this year. I didn’t put the picture we chose up here because if you are a real, flesh and blood friend or relative, I will send you one and I want you to be surprised. It is RIDICULOUSLY cute!

Laylee loves Christmas so very much. I’m going out on a limb here but I think she loves Christmas even more than she loves her birthday, maybe even more than she loves Ducky. I know, I know. That could be taking things too far.

This is the first year she really really gets it. (we said that last year and I’m sure we’ll say it next year, but the point is, she gets it more this year than she has in the past.)

She’s stopped calling Rudolph Bambi and if you ask her what Christmas is, she’ll say, “It’s Jesus’s Birthday.” Then she will probably ask you for some cake. What’s a birthday without cake? (I have promised her that on His actual birthday we will make a beautiful white cake to celebrate, something my mom did every Christmas when we were kids.)

What I’m struggling with is striking a balance between the excitement and fun of all the celebrations that surround Christmas and the meaning of Christmas itself.

The world largely views Christmas as a time about Santa and snowmen, candy and presents. I want to teach my kids that all of these wonderfully fun celebrations have a root in something much more satisfying.

A log of a couple of my attempts to combat Christmas commercialism while still “putting the cookies out for Santa”

-Handel’s Messiah sing-along in our living room today. I do a really sweet Tenor on that chorus that sounds like they’re saying “Oh WE LIKE SHEEP.” Picture me singing in a man’s falsetto “have gone a-stray-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay.” Nice.

-I try to explain about the symbolism behind things (candy cane=shepherd’s crook, Santa~charity, love and giving, Rudolf=I don’t know who came up with the glowing Rangifer tarandus etc.)

-One empty clear ball hangs on the tree. We explain that it is full of the Spirit.

– We have a little carved “wiseman box” and each year on Christmas Eve we each put one “gift for the Savior” in the box. It’s something like a resolution, something that would make Him happy. It’s Laylee’s first year to do this and I’m sure it will be something like, “Keep my panties dry for seven days so I can go to CHUKEE CHEESE!” but I’ll let her decide. I’m sure that would make Him happy too.

-Her favorite bedtime songs are The Angel Song (Angels we Have Heard on High) and Silent Night (and the “Turtle Song” but we won’t talk about that…not here…not now…not like this).

-Loveable, suckable nativity insures that she knows the names of the Holy Family and their posse of worshipful friends before she learns the names of Santa’s Reindeer.

…I know there are more and maybe I’ll post them when my brain returns. Has anyone seen it recently? It’s grey, bumpy, smallish….

Oh, here’s an outtake from last year’s Christmas card photos.

For show and tell today, I’m so excited to show off my NEW VAN! Well, new used van. It’s a few-year-old Toyota Sienna and I love it so much. Our trusted mechanic spent the day with it and said it’s in the best shape of any car he’s inspected in the last 3 months — nothing to fix.

My very favorite thing:
-Tinted windows in the back so I won’t have to hang 50 sunshades and pieces of brown plastic wrap on the windows of the car, only to discover that the one spot I missed is a hole the size of a pinhead, pointed directly at Laylee’s eye, burning it to a bubbling, boiling mass in its socket while she screams, “Mommy! Mommy! S’that BETTER?!!!!”

(she started saying, “S’that BETTER?!!!!” to mean, “There’s some light shining in my eyes. Please fix it now or so help me I will leap from this car seat and smash every last window in this piece-of-hud HOOPTY!” one day after I spent a lot of time swerving in and out of cars trying to get her into some shade and asking, “Is that better baby? Is that better?”)

Unfortunately, in with the new also means out with the old. And so on this December day, we say a fond farewell to a faithful friend, the Flying Smurf:

You joined our family during Dan’s formative college years. As Dan lovingly reminded me on Wednesday, you joined our family before I did. He loved you with a great love. You were his first car. In you, I sat close to him for the first time, riding love gun, when a group of us went out for milkshakes. I licked the ice cream running down the side of Dan’s cup to avoid spilling on your grey plush seats.

Dan kissed me for the first time in your front seat. We have laughed, cried and prayed in you. You took us on our first date. You carried us as we had our first talk about marriage — about how we didn’t want to rush into it. You carried us to the place in the mountains where Dan proposed — 3 months later.

You were the roomy vehicle who carpooled to book club and girl’s night out. You were a special part of this family and you will be sorely missed. You are the car we spent thousands “pampering” the past few years and then traded in at the dealership for a pittance. Sorry to sell you out. We don’t be hatin’, we just needed a new ride.

An addendum from DY Dad: “Dear smurf, I loved you. I bought the Chilton’s manual for you. I took care of you. I jiggled the wiring on the starter to get your solenoid to fire. I noticed right away when you blew your head gasket and got you taken care of, and I took you to get your transmission rebuilt. I personally replaced your sway bar links, brakes, and a tie rod end. I changed your oil, brake fluid, and rotated your tires. I loved the power you gave with your extra-big 3.8 liter V6. You only played the radio and tapes, but I loved your sound system, especially the conveniently placed volume lever. I loved sticking my gas receipts under your lovely carpet dash covering. You were worth so much more than that dealer gave us, baby, I know. But it was for a good cause, because I also got him to lower the price on the van, so in my heart I feel I got more for you. Good luck to you. I will never forget you. Farewell.”
~Flying Smurf 1998-2005~

Oh, really?

So LATE Thanksgiving night, my family was all asleep and I was up planning my shopping strategy. When I went to go to bed, I climbed up on the window sill to turn off the really tall pole lamp that should be hooked up to some sort of normal-height light switch.

I fell down.

Hard.

All —lbs of me, on the front of my left foot. It killed. It still kills!

Let me say there was no mercy for a poor cripple at the Day After Thanksgiving Sales, no mercy whatsoever.

It slowly started to get better but when I woke up yesterday morning, it was hurting again and I thought, “What the hay? We’ve got the best insurance in the world. I might as well go to the Doctor and let him have a look-see.” He referred me to the Urgent Care facility so I went late at night after the kids were in bed and so the experience would sound more dramatic and urgent on my blog.

Once I got there, I was really embarrassed. I wasn’t urgent and I really didn’t need much care and it probably wasn’t broken anyway. But they took the pictures and I must say I was startled at the loveliness of my bone structure. I have exquisite feet!

It was getting awkward in the little room with the X-ray guy as he kept taking pictures of my perfect feet in silence so I started blabbing away. I thought, “What do me and this guy have in common? Why, X-rays of course!”

So here’s where I got into trouble. I started telling him my history of X-rays. When I was in early elementary school I had a dream. Bobby-Joe Somebody-or-other had shown up at school with a cast on his leg and received no end of attention for weeks. Everyone got to use the Forbidden Sharpie Markers to sign all over his cast how much they liked him, BFF, Keep in Touch, U R A Q-T, etc.

I wanted a cast so bad that I started throwing myself out of trees in an attempt to break something. My mother put an end to this one day after watching me from the dining room window, climb to the crook of the tree in our front yard, stand stalk still with my arms outstretched and fall like a log to the ground….several times.

The problem was, I was too chicken to really “go all the way”, so I would bend my knees and catch my fall right before the bone-jarring landing.

I stopped taking the falls after our little “talk” but every time I got hurt in the slightest, I would beg her to take me to the doctor, limping around for days saying that I KNEW! THIS TIME IT WAS BROKEN. She’d take me in for X-rays. They’d say I had a contusion and send me home, a very disappointed little girl. (I was really impressed with the diagnosis at first. Until my mom said, “A contusion is a bruise, Katie. Get in the car.”)

Lots of X-rays in my formative years, no protective lead helmet. Explains a lot, eh?

…And I’m telling all of this to the X-ray guy whose job it is to see if I have a broken bone or not.

Me: Yeah, I used to always try to get a broken bone so I could get a cast. I would throw myself out of trees and ram into things. Pretty hilarious, huh? Heh heh….. um…. yeah…..”

X-Man: You know that’s a real disease?

Me: Huh?

X-Man: Yeah, that’s a mental illness.

Me: Um, yeah. I was seven.

X-Man: (silence)

Me: I don’t do that anymore. I never get x-rays. I haven’t gotten an x-ray for as long as I can remember. Except earlier this year when my son was born. But then, we thought he’d damaged my pelvis so……(blabbing on and on and on)

X-Man: (silence)

Me: Yeah. He was 10lbs 8oz.

X-Man: (silence)

Me: Yeah so this experience reminds me a lot of that one. Ha ha. (nervous laughter)

X-Man: Hmm?

Me: Well, like I kept telling everyone he was really big and they didn’t believe me and I thought that if he really was big that would be good because “I’d show them” but then if he was small that would be good too because…um…he’d be small and the labor would be easy and that’s like this experience because…um…because…um…well, it would be a good thing if my foot isn’t broken, but then if it is broken it would be good because I wouldn’t feel so dumb for coming in here and then I’d get the help I need.

X-man at this point is walking out of the room and motions for me to follow him.

The doctor looked at the X-ray and his diagnosis was not mental illness but a “sprain”, which is the appendage equivalent of a “virus.” As in, “Dude. Your foot hurts. Go home.” But to make me feel better, he did prescribe a “special shoe.” I have an actual prescription for a “Bunion Boot.”

Problem is, I can’t find anyone who will fill the prescription so I have no “special shoe” pictures to show you. But when I do, no “Run Forrest, Run!” jokes, okay?

11.29.05 Keeping a Toddler Occupied on a Rainy Day

11.22.05 Making Time for Yourself

11.15.05 “Cleaning” Your House Quick – somebody’s coming over

11.08.05 Eating More Vegetables

11.01.05 Dejunking without Waste