makeup

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with makeup, as most girls are, I think. I wouldn't leave without it
in the morning, I carried it in my bag with me. I reapplied lipstick after lunch and several times during the day. When I moved to college, I kind of gave up. I wore makeup as needed- when I went out or had something special going on. But I was in technical theater. I worked and sweated and generally most of my makeup wore off. When I moved to UT, I wore makeup to work, but mostly because it was expected of me. I had gotten to the point where I didn't really think makeup made that big of a difference to me. I always wore makeup to Verite because I was supposed to look good and professional. Then I had Claire. And got laid off. And I stayed home all day. And so I quit wearing makeup. Because really, a baby doesn't care if you have makeup on or not. And I haven't really cared what other people think about my appearance for a while. Alann likes me with or without makeup. In the two years since she was born, I have worn makeup less than a handful of times. Teene told me I had to wear makeup to the wedding. =P So I've been wearing makeup to get used to it again. Which was a good idea. My foundation was making me break out. So now I have new foundation. And I've been wearing makeup any day I am going out. I'm just kind of trying it. I'm trying to decide if it is something that I need in my life or not. I can't say it makes me look a lot better. And it doesn't really make me feel any better about myself. And it takes time and effort. So I don't know. I am torn. I may keep wearing it only when I am going out. Or I may stop wearing it again all together. Maybe when I'm 30 I'll start wearing it all the time again. So that's my random musings for the day.

random observation

I didn't want to post this thought on Facebook, because I know my friends who follow my blog are a little more understanding (closer to me) than the ones on Facebook.
I am seriously shocked / appalled by the number of my friends who are engaged, getting married this summer, but apparently couldn't wait for the marriage before getting pregnant. (They have all announced the engagement several weeks / months before announcing the baby, and aren't far enough along to have been pregnant when they got engaged.) I don't know if they are just too excited about the marriage to worry about birth control anymore or what. But it is kind of disturbing. Not to mention, the first year of marriage is hard enough. Why add a baby to the mix that soon? Getting pregnant on the honeymoon at least gives you 9 months to figure out marriage before the baby. But when you are already halfway pregnant before your marriage? I don't want to offend anybody. It's just something that's been on my mind.

Yay!

Wow. I almost don't feel like a new mommy today. Except for the baby crying who won't sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. Excuse me...
Anyway, today, for the first time, I am wearing regular jeans. That's right, no maternity jeans for me! And, I didn't have to lay down to zip them up. How awesome is that? (And no, I didn't buy new jeans. These are my pre-baby jeans.)
And, on top of that, I'm not wearing a nursing bra. They are all in the wash. Bad planning on my part I know. Is that TMI? I don't care. I feel like a normal person today. I had to share the joy. I'm clean, I'm wearing non-maternity clothes, and I feel great!

If you don't get this one, I am sad for you. Go check out Douglas Adams.

Yes 100% with the not taking off my pajamas part. Alann was teasing me yesterday because I changed from my stretchy "dance" pants to my pajama pants for bed. Come on, I have to have some kind of change in my day. I can't sit around in my robe and pajamas all day long...Ok, well I can, but then I feel really gross after a while. So I put real clothes on at least part of the day.

Laughter is the best medicine.

Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like this is how people see my dogs... (though Tanner has never tried to jump the fence again after he got his paw stuck when he was little. It was tramautic.)

This one just makes me laugh.

Coats

Growing up in Phoenix, AZ, I never had much need for coats. I had a sweatshirt or a zip-up hoodie that served me well the few months that it was actually less than 60 degrees outside each year, but that was it. When I moved to Missouri, I was thoroughly unprepared for the necessity that is a winter coat (not to mention scarves and hats and gloves and snow boots).

The first coat I ever bought, and I believe the most expensive single item of clothing I have EVER owned was my wool pea coat. (Even my prom dresses didn’t cost as much as this coat, but I never paid more than $20 for those.) Ok, my wedding dress cost more, but not by much. Anyway, my (male) friend took me to Target when winter started in earnest and I was FREEZING my butt off in just a sweatshirt. He explained all the different options surrounding coats and we decided I should buy the $50 (or maybe $70- it was a lot) black wool pea coat. This coat is great. Since I don’t walk much anymore, it has unfortunately been relegated to church or going out coat. It isn’t really comfy to drive in, but when I walked all over campus, it was great. Unfortunately, I cannot button it any longer…

The second coat I bought when I moved to Salt Lake, where it gets even colder than Missouri. (And actually now that I think about it, I think it was a christmas present from my mom.) It’s an LL Bean coat that is two parts- one fleece jacket and one wind-breaker jacket. I love this coat because together, it is just so warm, and it’s also great to wear one part or the other when I need to. It has a hood on the wind-breaker, but the hood folds up and hides away when you don’t need it. This is the coat I wear 80% of the time probably. Unfortunately, if I zip it up now, I can’t put anything in the pockets. This makes it difficult to carry keys or gloves or a phone, or my hands. So it has been put back in the closet.

The coat that I have been wearing, because I can still zip it and continue to breathe, I did not buy. My older sister bought it in Flagstaff, AZ when she went to school there. Yes, it snows in AZ. It’s a big, puffy, down (or down alternative, not sure), reversible coat. Teene gave it to me when I moved to Missouri (actually I think it was the first Christmas I was back when I was complaining about how cold it was). She decided she wasn’t going to live anywhere cold ever again, and gave it to me. How thoughtful. I love this coat because I can wear it with the black side showing or the red side showing. I also love that it is a very slick material, so I can put it on easily over a long-sleeve shirt (not so with the fleece inner of the LL Bean coat). Unfortunately, there has been a tragic occurance with this coat. Somehow, I’m guessing someone stepped on it, the zipper pull got crimped and I couldn’t zip it up. So I very cautiously pushed it back open enough to use, put the coat on, zipped it up, and the zipper pull broke. I nearly cried. Does anyone know if I can buy just a zipper pull and put it back on this coat? I need this coat!

So anyway, the last few days, with snow coming down all around, I have been without a coat that closes. So Saturday we went to Ross because we were in the area, and I managed to find a nice long slightly puffy coat. It’s warm enough and it covers my belly. I can zip it and there is room to grow in it. It was only $15. So I can’t complain too much. But I will be glad when I can wear my regular coats again. And I really hope I can fix or get fixed my puffy coat. I haven’t seen anything like it. Almost everything that is puffy has fur on it. (Luckily mine doesn’t.) Who decided that the world wants to wear faux fur on their puffy coats??? And all the “puffy” ones I have seen (at least in my one trip to Ross, very scientific I know) aren’t that puffy, or that warm. It’s like a fashion coat instead of a useful coat. Sure, my puffy coat is annoying sometimes, like in restaurants when I put it on the back of the chair and it sticks out into the walkway, and it might make me look a bit like a linebacker (or with my beanie on, my friend used to tell me it made me look like a gangster or a thug and wouldn’t go out with me in it), but at least it keeps me warm!

Another good time waster

This is a site I go to every now and then. Some of the stuff is funny. Some of it is raunchy.

Overheard in the Office

This quote just makes me giggle:

IT guy: Dude, your computer is so messed up! I just don't know what's going on here!

Engineer: I probably should have told you this before, but my computer rests on top of an ancient Indian burial site, so you are probably going to need a priest.

Holiday Crunch Time

I went to Walmart on Monday, and they were playing Christmas music! Ugh. I am starting the "Save Thanksgiving" campaign. I HATE that Thanksgiving gets totally overrun by Christmas. I love Thanksgiving. The cook in me loves cooking so much food. The glutton in me loves eating all the glorious food. I also hate that Christmas has become totally commercialized and not about Christ at all, but that is another topic entirely. I love the harvest themes of Thanksgiving. I am totally bringing the Thanksgiving tablecloth with me to my mom's house. I don't care if it doesn't fit her table, though I think it probably will.

I am freaking out a little about how close Thanksgiving is. I have set a bunch of deadlines for myself of stuff I want done before then- like Christmas shopping for my family so we can take the gifts with us instead of shipping them, baking bread, making pumpkin pie filling. I try not to stress about it. I also need to make at least one diaper to see if it works, because Jo-Ann's is having a sale on suedeclothe next week, which I have been informed makes excellent diaper interiors and is MUCH cheaper than the other options I have pursued (at least while it is on sale). So I have a lot of sewing and shopping and general home-making in my future. Then after Thanksgiving, I can rest for a while, though I do have a new tablecloth I want to make for Christmas. I don't want to give it away, but I am excited for the pattern I chose. (Why do tablecloths make me happy? I don't know. I don't want to know.)

Random Thoughts

As far as baby names go, I don't want people to think we are being conceited by using all of our names in naming our children. It just kind of happened that way. I always knew I wanted to name my first boy Michael Alan. That was going to be my name when they thought I was a boy, or any other boy born to my parents. So it has been special to me. My dad's middle name is Alan. The fact that my husband's name is also Alann kind of cemented the deal, though it did change the spelling a little. I have also wanted to give my middle name to one of my girls. Then when we started talking about kids and names, Alann mentioned that he wanted his first son to be named after him, because he is named after his dad. I can go with that. So it just kind of fell into place that we ended up with names that used ours.

I went to early voting last night. It took me just about an hour. I saw Alann's truck in the parking lot when I got there, but didn't see him in the line. I thought about cutting, but decided I should probably not. If I had, it would have saved me probably 20 minutes. Oh well. As I was standing there, I started wondering if maybe I should have just gone on Tuesday to the real thing. But people are predicting horribly long lines on Tuesday. And it is kind of nice to have gotten it out of the way. I thought about taking some time yesterday and going at a random time- like 3:45. But I don't know if that would have helped.

There have been 5 accidents in the same intersection here by work in the last month. I can't remember a single one in the rest of the time I have been here. Seriously people, stop running red lights! Pay attention to what you are doing (as in driving, not eating, talking on the phone, shaving, makeuping, or whatever)! I always thought that Phoenix had the worst drivers. But I am starting to think it is Salt Lake. They go on red and not on green. They waste green arrows for opposing traffic by turning after their lights turn red. Ok, one car that has been in the intersection, you are allowed to turn after the light turns. But I routinely see 4 or 5 cars go through after the light turns. At this morning's accident, I watched a truck run a red light, with a cop standing right there! The cop was already motioning for the other traffic to go. That takes some guts. I try to be a respectful and patient driver. Sure, I break the rules once in a while. But you can bet I don't break them with a cop standing there. I think people should be required to take a written driving rules test every few years. And not the obscure rules like who has the right of way, a bike going straight or a car turning. The ones that are broken every single day. Should you cross a solid white line? NO. Especially not when the person in front of you has their turn signal on and they have already passed the solid white portion. People do that almost every day here. Getting off the freeway for our work exit, you have to get over almost immediately to make the left turn for our road. But there is enough time to wait until you pass the solid white line to get over. What kills me are the people who get all the way over (it is three lanes of traffic to cross) and then don't turn at the light. They just keep going. Really. Was it that important to cross three lanes of traffic, and cut off numerous people, just to go straight through the light? There is plenty of time between this light and the next if you need to turn left there. Another good question for the test is "what does a yellow light mean" and if you answer speed up, you fail and get your license revoked. Of course, that wouldn't stop people from driving anyway. Maybe what we need are cars that have a slot for your driver's license. If you don't have one with the proper authorization, the car doesn't start. The license would need a chip of some sort, but that is easy enough. Of course it would be a pain if the card reader shorted, and people would find ways around the system. But maybe it would help a little.

I have this awesome idea for a business. It relates to car maintenance. But I think that it has to wait until the economy turns around a little. It is a bit of a luxury service. I don't know how many people would agree to pay for it right now. I think of it every time I need to get my oil changed. Someone already has the name I wanted, but we can work around that. They do a different service anyway.

I am discovering the awesome power of baking soda and vinegar. I have this one pair of shoes that I really like, but they smell. They have smelled bad since the first time I wore them. They are meant to be worn without socks. They should have designed them with Odor-Eaters or something. I have tried everything- baby powder, washing them. They always stink. I scrubbed them last week with baking soda and vinegar (it bubbles like a volcano). They look on the outside much better, and the overall stink has gone down significantly. I didn't get all the smell out, because I was being impatient. But they are better. Once Alann finishes the bathroom, I want to try baking soda and vinegar on the bathtub. It is really gross looking. I usually use Kaboom, but it has a weird smell to it and makes me kind of nauseous. And I am out. And didn't buy more. I find myself leaning more and more to natural ways of doing things. Uh oh- soon I am going to be calling myself green! I think chemicals have their place, but in some cases, the natural items just work better and are cheaper. I am even toying with the idea of not buying myself more shampoo when I run out. I know. Crazy huh. You can wash your hair with baking soda and rinse with vinegar as a conditioner. Just rinse the vinegar out before you get out of the shower or you will stink all day. I haven't tried it. That is just what I hear. Now don't worry, I'm not going to go all hippy on you guys and stop shaving and wearing deodorant. That's just gross. (Though I hear baking soda makes a good deodorant too!) Seriously though, my seminary teacher smelled like BO all the time. That was unpleasant. I don't want to do that to people. I am all for green practices, as long as it doesn't compromise how I look or feel about myself.

I signed up for a free subscription to Parents magazine, because it was free. I had forgotten how high a percentage of ads to actual information exist in magazines. Sheesh. I used to get Time and Discover, both of which are fairly ad-free. We get the Ensign now, which has NO ads. The Parents magazine is probably close to 50% advertising. I don't know that I want to continue the subscription. I try to limit the amount of advertising I am exposed to. I don't like it. It annoys me. It also influences me, and I know it will influence our children even more. Do I really need toy X which lights up and will make my child smarter? No. I can play with my child and make her smarter by interacting with her. But what if she sees the ad and wants it. Will I be able to resist? I certainly hope so.

I burnt my arm on the iron on Tuesday. I have a nice red line across my forearm now. I just scratched it without thinking. Now it hurts a whole lot! I will post some pictures of what I have been sewing as soon as I am able. I want to make an adjustment to something and see if it works a little better. I think my urge to sew is my nesting impulse manifesting. I've also been trying an experiment. I managed to get all of the dishes washed on Saturday. Since then, I have been washing the pots and pans and making sure we can load the dishwasher. I am pleased to announce that 4 days later, the countertop is still clear. This is a record for us. If you have ever seen my house in its "natural" state, you know what a big deal this is. Now, if I can just keep the writing desk clear. Though I have been making the effort to go through the mail as I bring it in and toss the junk immediately. That has helped significantly. Right now it just has the curtains on it, which I thought I asked Alann to clean off and put back up, since he was the one that shoved them behind the couch last time the dogs pulled them down... (hint, hint)

Some pics

Brought to you by my new Canon Elph... oooo ahhhh. It's pretty nifty.

This is Weston's "silly face". I think you have a model in your future Shan.

We took a birthday picture together.

And of course, devil cat, aka Jersey. I was taking pictures of the dogs and she felt left out.

I had a pretty good birthday overall. It was laid back, and not too exciting, but nice enough. I got some good gifts and we camped out at the Bowles most of the weekend for conference. (Thanks again!) That was fun. I practiced/learned about my camera by taking about 50 pictures of Davin after conference on Sunday. He's a good subject, since he just lays there and doesn't seem to mind the flash. I'm still trying to figure out what I want from Alann for my birthday. I/ we have a few things picked out, I just need to actually decide what I want.

It rained all day Saturday and half of Sunday. The rain was good, but I hope it didn't set my tomatoes back. They were ripening well. I need to go pick some tonight. The stupid things are still flowering. I pull the flowers off as much as I can, but it seems like every time I go out there, there are more. Maybe the cooler weather will convince them to ripen.

I opened a jar of pear butter this morning. MMM. I read a blog post about pumpkin butter, and I am intrigued. I don't know if I want to try it or not. I am also tempted to buy some cheap pumpkins and make pumpkin puree myself for use in ice cream, black bean soup, and maybe bread or a pie or two (or more pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, which as Alann pointed out, are just big cookies). I made stuffed squash for the first time the other night, and Alann actually liked it. He hasn't liked any squash dish I have made yet. This was rice, sausage, apples, broccoli, and cheese mixed together and put in a "sweet meat" squash half. It needed a little more liquid, because once you got a bite of the squash with the filling, it was a little dense. That could probably be solved with a splash of milk. But very tasty. We had leftover stuffing, so I had that for lunch yesterday. It was good without the squash too. I want to like squash, since it is currently in season and pretty cheap and good for you. I just haven't found many good recipes yet. I don't really care for it as a sweetened dish. Maybe a butternut squash soup. Of course that brings back memories of the gallons of pumpkin soup I made once, that ended up making better pie than soup. (One of the few times Alton Brown let me down.) Good thing my sister likes pumpkin pie. I've gotten significantly better at judging/ adjusting serving sizes and recipes to make just enough or enough for leftovers.

If I haven't suggested the pumpkin black bean soup to you yet, this is me, suggesting it to you. I will send you the recipe if you want. It's awesome. The pumpkin puree doesn't add pumpkin flavor, but it does make the soup nice and creamy. It doesn't require any meat, and is pretty healthy, filling, and did I mention, awesome. I make sure that I keep enough pumpkin puree on hand to make it several times every winter. Now that I am thinking about it, I should put it on the menu for the next rotation. I love soup, and luckily Alann does too. We eat a lot of soup in the winter. I am not such a fan in the summer. It's too hot. But any time that the temperature is below 60 as a high, I am all for soup. So if you have any good soup recipes, send them my way!

weird happenings

I met this guy in college. He came from Phoenix (as did I, for those who don't know). We went to college in MO. His older brother met my younger sister, in AZ. Somehow, his older brother knew that she was my younger sister. I don't recall ever mentioning my sister to my friend, and I know I never met his older brother. Weird how things happen.

In-laws visiting

So, thanks to my in-laws coming to visit, I've been wanting to clean the house pretty hardcore. Last night I was cleaning and was motivated to clean a spot on the wall. I just noticed it last week or so. It's in the hallway, on the wall near the floor, where Tanner lays because the evap blows there. It was pretty dark and dingy and gross looking. If you have dogs, then you know the nose-gunk that gets everywhere from them pushing doors open or pressing their faces on windows. It was like that, but all along the wall. And it just snuck up on us somehow. So anyway, I start wiping it and it's coming clean and I realize that there is another long line of dirt a little bit higher on the wall. I cannot for the life of me figure out where that came from, but now that the other dog spot is gone, I can see this one that I couldnt see before. I ponder, and then laugh, because I realize that it is exactly Nicki height. This happens to be her place to stand when she gets banished from the TV room. She stands against the wall and stares longingly in at us. I knew Tanner laid in that spot enough to make a mark, but I didn't realize that Nicki stood there often enough to leave her own mark. Then I tried to clean the nose smudges off the bedroom door, but the doors were never painted, so that wasn't happening. It will have to be painted over. Oh well, at least the wall is clean.

Otherwise, things are much the same. The nausea is going away. I am still HUNGRY or FULL all the time. There is no happy medium. Right now, I could eat. But I won't, because I don't want to ruin my dinner and I just ate a piece of pie. Alann calls my tummy the black hole, which sometimes it is. It seems I eat and eat and eat and eat and get sick of eating and then eat some more, and I am still hungry. But then sometimes the black hole suddenly gets full. Usually when we eat non-home food. It's weird how restaurant food fills the black hole, but no amount of home-cooked food does. I'm sure there is a reason behind it, I just don't feel like reasoning it out. My head is still stuffy and I still sneeze ALL THE TIME, and I wake up feeling dehydrated even though I drink enough to satisfy a camel every day. Of course I go to the bathroom more at night than I do during the day, so that probably has something to do with it. Oh and I am not sleeping. Ever. At least that is what it feels like. And I have the strangest most lucid dreams. Last night I dreamt that I stole airplane tickets from work (I didn't buy tickets with the company card. Some tickets came in the mail, and I took them. I know, that wouldnt really work.) So Alann and I and a couple of people from work went to Paris. That's all I really remember, except I felt really guilty about it. Then later I dreamt that I had a conversation with Alann, though I don't remember what it was about. But we were just sitting there talking. I need to quit telling him about these dreams, because he is starting to accuse me of thinking I tell him stuff when I really just dream it.

Bad mean things (in jest)

There is a billboard near my work that changes rather frequently. Right now, it happens to be promoting my credit union. I rather like my credit union, but this ad leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It is a picture of a smallish TV on a stand, with a dotted outline of a big-screen and built in entertainment center around it. The text is “Imagine the possibilities” and underneath that “Home Equity Loan”. My response is “really? You are encouraging irresponsible loan usage in this particular time of trouble for the economy? Do you really think you should be encouraging people with falling home values and no way out to take out a Home Equity Loan for a TV?!? You have got to be kidding me.” Ok, I understand you need to make loans to make money, but at least encourage responsible use of the loan. Maybe renovating an old bathroom or adding an addition to increase the square footage and value of the home. But a TV? That is not going to help you when you sell your home. When will people wake up and start making more responsible choices? I am not against TVs in general. If you have the money, in cash, sure, buy it. But not on credit. What happens when it breaks or you want a new one? Will the old one be paid off before then? Maybe I just don’t put enough stock in owning a big TV. We only have the monster we have because my mom very generously bought it for our wedding present. Otherwise, we would probably still be watching the little 13” in the kitchen. I am probably one of those people that could not have a TV, and be totally happy.

Alann did a really mean thing to me last week, and I only recently figured it out. He moved the bed about 4 inches towards “my side”. He doesn’t understand why it was mean, and when I explained it, he laughed at me. Maybe you guys will have more compassion. Most of you know, I am pretty much blind without my contacts. I can see about a foot clearly, then everything blurs out. Driving without contacts or glasses is out of the question. Going outside my house at all is pretty iffy. So like any self-respecting blind creature, I memorize the layout of a room so that I don’t make a fool of myself and run into the furniture. This is why when we first move or if Alann rearranges the house as he is wont to do, I run into things A LOT until I can memorize where the things are. He thinks it’s funny. I think it’s painful. So last week sometime, I started running into the corner of the bed with my knees. Luckily, not my toes. I probably would have broken something. But my knees have been getting rather beat up. I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on, and attributed it to the baby messing with my coordination (which is not that great normally). (Yes, I blame everything on the baby. Ask Alann.) Then Monday night (I think) I realized that there was less space between my side-dresser and the wall. This was the original plan, but it had been moved away from the wall pretty much since we got the furniture, thanks to our water system needing constant attention! (The shut-off is in the bedroom. No one knows why it isn’t in the foyer, which is just on the other side of the drywall.) So he moved the bed, didn’t tell me, and then laughed every time I ran into it. Last night, after asking him about it and explaining why I keep running into it, I smacked my knee, again, and started bleeding, which made him laugh more. He just doesn’t understand that it takes time to learn new placement of furniture. Just knowing that it is in a new place doesn’t help until I remember that it is in a new place subconsciously. My knees will heal, eventually, and I will learn where the bed is, but it is a painful process. So please, if you come to visit, don’t move the furniture into the “safe walking zone” on me. Or I will run into it. Continually.

Holiday

Today is a holiday here in Utah. It’s called Pioneer Day and it commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon Pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. (Only Native Americans lived here before that.) When I first moved out here, I was told I would start work on July 25th, a Tuesday, which I thought was odd, but figured there was a reason. My uncle asked me “Don’t you know why you are starting on Tuesday instead of Monday?” “No, that’s just what they told me.” And he laughed and explained that the 24th was a holiday and no one would be at the office. So life went on and last year I had the 24th off. I don’t even remember what I did. Probably something around the house. When I started working at Vérité, I was told very explicitly that I would not have the 24th off, but I had a floating holiday to make up for it. That makes sense. The school district went by what the schools did, and since Pioneer Day is an official state holiday, they had it off. We work with national clients who wouldn’t understand why we are closed one random day in July, so we don’t take it off. It doesn’t really bother me, other than the fact that EVERYTHING ELSE IS CLOSED! I can’t get office supplies delivered, it was very difficult to get a flower delivery coordinated. I had one local person call and ask for someone who was out of the office for a few days. She asked when the person would be back and I said “oh Thursday.” She laughed and said “No Thursday is the holiday.” “Oh, we don’t close for that. We have too many national clients.” And she was appalled. How could we not close for the holiday? What about the parade (yes, she asked that)? I told her “Well, I’m not from Utah, so it doesn’t matter to me.” And that was the end of the conversation.
I’ve heard some non-LDS people around here complain about how the 24th is celebrated more than the 4th. My comment is “Yeah, and?” Do you have a problem with people celebrating their heritage? If it wasn’t for those darn LDS people, you wouldn’t live here either. If you don’t like it, LEAVE! Alann and I had this conversation a few days ago. I don’t know that this particular spot would have been civilized as early or as much if it hadn’t been for the Mormon Pioneers. Same with most of the desert in the West. It took a lot of work, a lot of irrigation and technology, and I don’t know that people would have done it if they hadn’t been forced to. He thinks that someone would have settled here anyway, because it is a nice enough place, what with the mountains and the stink lake. I am just not convinced.
So happy Pioneer Day to all those celebrating. Happy regular 24th of July to all those not celebrating.

Sad and happy things

The other night, I paid more than $4 a gallon for gas, for the first time. Our Smith's gas station has been fairly low, comparatively, and even when it was at $4.01, I had a coupon that put me under. But Tuesday, there was no coupon. I paid $4.15. And I was sad.

Otherwise, things are good. Just getting ready for DOP. I am glad my sister loves me though. She sent me this email yesterday. "So when is your due date prego?" That's it. I can definitely feel the love coming through on that one... (I'm just teasing Yma.)

And yes Dan, Alann is the one responsible for my being sick, but I can't really spare him right now. (He's building a fence for a friend.) You can have him in August. I'll even let him go to your bachelor party, assuming you have one while we are there.

The weekend

Not much has been going on. I had Friday off work, which was nice. I did the grocery shopping, cleaned the house, and then we had Shannon and Ian over for dinner. We didn't go see fireworks because we had big sissy dogs to deal with. This is another case where I think Nikki's neurosis rubs off on Tanner. He doesn't seem too upset about it, but if she gets upset about it, then he does too. Like the post man. And kids outside on bikes. And other dogs in the area. And people being outside when he is inside.
Saturday morning was interesting. We didn't have anything planned. Nothing. Since I already did the shopping, we were set for that. So we puttered around the house. I played in the garden a little. We finally dropped my car off for its LONG over due oil change. We washed both our cars in 12 minutes at one of those self-serve car washes. Alann changed his oil and did some minor repair work on the truck. We can't change my oil because we can't get under the car, and we can't get the car up on anything because the bumpers scrape. Darn low-rider! And at the shop I go to, it is only $24 to get an oil change, which is comparable to buying our own stuff. It was a rather pleasant day overall.
I did learn that my car's air filter is dirty, the coolant is low and the serpentine belt is cracked. Since I bought that fix-it manual a while back, I didn't tell the shop to fix it. I looked it up and it looks pretty simple. Unscrew one part, take old belt off, put new belt on. I'm going to stop and get the belt today on my way home. Who knows when we will install it, but at least I can carry it in my car in case it snaps while I'm driving. And maybe with more coolant, a clean air filter, and a new belt the air conditioning will be cooler and the gas mileage will be a little better.
Otherwise, I had a strange dream last night. Teene, Amy, Mom and me were living in Dad's house. (Dad wasn't there.) I was trying to cut a coconut in half with a weedwacker. Teene came into the living room (where I was) and started yelling at me about how I was doing it wrong and they should have never asked for my help because I always just take over everything. So I left the coconut for her to deal with and walked into the kitchen/ dining area near the sliding glass doors. Amy is standing there smoking. I tell her to go outside and get the smoke away from me and she starts coming farther in the house and keeps yelling at me that she can do what she wants. I tell her "but I don't like it!" and then Alann woke me up. I must be anxious about something. I have had a couple of dreams about fighting or being kidnapped lately.
I'm eating a plum, and I rather like plums, but I hate the skin. At least it peels easily. It is kind of like peeling a radish with your teeth. Or rather, it is like the way me and my sister used to peel radishes when we were little. I still do it, I don't know if she does. I like getting all the spicy out of the way so you can enjoy the rest of the radish. Except I don't eat the plum skin. I spit it out. Cause it's gross.

Books

Shannon posted this list and I thought it would be fun to do to.
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.Look at the list and bold those you have read.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin- listened to on audiotape at the PO, and have seen the play, many times
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein- at least the first one- I was under 10
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte- listened to on audiotape at the PO
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling- um no. not ever
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - New Testament - most of it
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell loved it
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott- I cry every time
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare all the major plays and some of the sonnets
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier- I picked this up when I was young (for obvious reasons) but really liked it.
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien- when I was young
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger- hated it!
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy- wanted to, but it wasn't available on audiotape
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams- LOVE THEM!
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy read and audiotaped
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen- audiobook (aren't they wonderful?)
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen- I don't remember. I did go through a jane austen kick
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden- I looked through it at my mom's house and decided it wasnt for me
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 3 or 4 times
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding only because I had to
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen audio book
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens- read and audiobook
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck- I never had to read this. It was the "general" english class book, not the honors that I was in
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville- another one I wanted to "read" but wasnt available on audiobook
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens- audio book
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker I went through a dracula/ vampire stage
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce- after A portrait of the artist as a young man, there was no WAY I was going to read any more joyce!
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath- I hated this. probably because I had one friend who really was depressed and suicidal and another who pretended to be while I was reading this.
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker- awful awful book!
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert- so sad
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -audiobook
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad- we had to read not one but two conrad pieces! UGH!
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery- in english and french and I've seen the play.
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

31 out of 100. Not too bad. Of course, even if I started on this list, the list would change before I finished. Oh well. I was a TA in high school for my english teacher, and I worked in the book storage area. So I read a lot of books that I wouldn't have otherwise read. She would loan them to me over the weekend. Also, I only used free audiobooks (that I downloaded while at work) while I worked at the post office, so they were in the public domain and more of the "classics".

some observations

There’s a joke I have heard a couple of times that goes like this: You know you live in Utah if the four seasons are almost winter, winter, almost winter, and road construction. Man is this true! On the main road that I take to get to the freeway, they have not one but two separate spots torn up. The first time we go right to avoid the big hole in the road. And they had about zero warning. I had to cut off a bus in order to get over in time to not hit the flashing sign. (It was just past a hill, so the hill blocked view of said sign until it was almost too late. POOR PLANNING!) Then after about half a mile of smooth sailing, there is about 20 minutes of back up. Then we go left. And everybody has to merge. Why they can’t block off the middle left turn lane for travel, at least during rush hour, I don’t know. I meant to take the other main road to the freeway, but totally forgot until it was too late. Why can’t the construction start AFTER rush hour? I mean come on. They know it is going to be super busy. Why do they have to start working when there is the most opportunity for danger to the workers? Not to mention headaches for the drivers.
I am a total creature of habits. My ruts are so engrained that I will completely forget to do normal things like brushing my teeth if my rut is thrown off. This morning, I was about halfway through my shower when I realized that I could read the words on the shampoo bottles. Now, this is significant because I cannot see 6 inches in front of my face without my contacts or glasses. Also, I had been awake for about 20 minutes at this point. My first reaction: I’m healed! It’s a miracle! Then my brain also woke up. I thought about last night and realized that I started brushing my teeth before I took my contacts out. From there I washed my face, said my prayers, and went to bed. Since it was dark everywhere except for a small light in the bedroom, I didn’t notice that I could still see. Someday, I will get Lasik, and then seeing without contacts will be normal. My eyes are slowing down in their progression to total blindness, so maybe someday they will stop completely.

Sad shape

They say if your dog is out of shape, you probably are too. We knew Tanner had gained some weight, but we didn’t realize how bad it was until last night. We are leaving for a few days to go to Missouri tomorrow. The dogsitters fell through, again, so the poor mutts have to stay home and have people come over and feed them and let them out. They hate that. They also get really antsy when they see the suitcases come out. I started packing last night so that I can go do something else tonight, and sure enough, they started getting nervous. They know what it means. So we decided to take them to the school down the street so they could run around and wear off some of their nervous energy. I put the harness on Tanner and even without all his hair, I had to loosen it. He wore it not too long ago, maybe a few months ago. Then I was looking at him and realized that he looks like a sausage- the same width from shoulder to hip. Most of it is muscle I am sure, given his Rottie background. We walked down to the school and threw the ball for maybe 15 minutes, tops. We had to stop because a) it was getting dark and he can’t find the ball in the dark and b) he was foaming at the mouth. Nicki was also acting tired- not running as fast as usual and not caring to get her toy away from me. As we walked home (a whole 8 houses away), he was dragging his back feet. Then he proceeded to mop my entire floor with a combination of drool and tail-wagging.
I remember the days of his puppyhood when we would go to the dog park for HOURS and he would still not be tired when we went home. He could chase the ball for at least an hour straight, either swimming or dry, and not be tired. On Saturdays, the only way we got anything done all day was if we spent at least 2 hours at the dog park. He would give the (super high-strung) Brittany a run for her money. They would swim after the ducks together or run around chasing each other. Then there was the time he retrieved the log (seriously, at least 6” diameter and 3’ long, 20+ pound log) 3 times from the middle of the lake. He swam out, dragged it back, and pulled it up a foot high shore. I’m sure he would have gone again, but I didn’t let the Brittany’s “dad” throw it again because I was worried he would drown. Now he can’t even chase the ball for 15 minutes without seriously worrying me that he is going to have a heart attack. We obviously need to get that dog more exercise.
I also may have killed my brand new tomato plants. It was really cold Monday night, much colder than I expected. And I didn’t cover them. And they are really sad. I am hoping that it was a lack of water more than anything else. I gave them a good drink and hopefully they are a little perkier today.

gas prices

I love that I only have to fill my car every other week. But when I do fill it, it is VERY shocking. I can’t slowly absorb price increases. If every week the price goes up 10 cents, then the price is the same whether I fill every week or every other, but it’s a bit of sticker shock. I went from a little over $3 last time to $3.30 this time. I don’t know that it has ever cost my $40 to fill my car. Well, maybe last winter when prices were ridiculous for a while.
As I was filling my car, a big black Cadillac Escalade truck pulled up to the pump in front of me. Out stepped one of those women who you can tell only cares to impress people. She’s fixing her makeup while pumping gas, has the nails done and the super-highlighted hair, high heels, suit. But when I left, I was amused to see that her gas cost $90. And she probably fills every week. Suddenly my $40 didn’t seem so bad.
I love people who seem to be a contradiction. Here is this “high-maintenance” woman, driving a high-class car, filling up at a Smith’s gas station in Kearns of all places, to get the coupon off gas (I saw her use her Smith’s card.) Then she turned towards our neighborhood when she left. I don’t know of anything near us that supports the kind of lifestyle that I assume she has or pretends to have, based on what I did know of her. It’s kind of like the Mustang delivering pizzas. Makes me laugh.