Yellow Wallpaper

1987, Idaho 1985, California And from the not so distant past...

Since I love redirecting traffic to a much more exciting website, the Fobcave, follow this link to an invitation to a party at our humble abode this coming Thursday. The occasion is ostensibly Master Fob's birthday, but we've decided to use that as an excuse to get together all of our blogging friends and such. As stated in the invite, please RVSP via comments and don't bring a gift. You may bring some food if you would like, but we will be providing that as well. (Disclaimer--the alien that has taken up residence in my womb is preventing me from finding any food appetizing lately, so if I reject any food you bring, it's not my fault!)

Random childhood memories: We always thought the Eagles were singing "Take Me to the Lemon " (like this one ) and that Crystal Gale was saying "Donuts make my brownies blue" (not this ) We called "goulash" (macaroni with hamburger and spaghetti sauce) " Jabba casserole" because my brother told my mom that it looked as gross as Jabba the Hut. That fluffy jello stuff with cottage cheese and Cool Whip was dubbed "penguin parfait" after I decided it looked like a penguin being eaten by a seal that I saw in a picture in National Geographic . Chicken, rice and broccoli casserole was called "tree and tooth". Some of my favorite foods from when I was a kid: egg salad sandwiches on pita bread with shredded cheese and alfalfa sprouts cabbage rolls with brown rice and cheese chicken marengo chiles rellenos chili manicotti hamburger stew blueberry strata pie striped delight applesauce oatmeal chocolate chip cookies When we all got in t...

Today we needed to stop by the mall here in Orem in order to pick up some ink cartridges we had filled at Island Ink Jet. We dropped them off last night, but the dude was taking much too long to refill them. So I decided to give in to my cravings for french fries and take S-Boogie to lunch at Chick-fil-A . Many years ago my sister introduced me to Chick-fil-A at the mall in Maryland. I immediately fell in love--they truly have the best chicken nuggets, french fries and lemonade ever made. I know they are a chain restaurant, but they have a very nice business philosophy and refuse to let any of their franchises open on Sundays. And they are giving out small board books with their kids meals. I can support a place like that. Also, this morning for my Don Quijote class we went to Special Collections at the library and looked at the exhibit on Don Quijote and the history of reading . It's pretty cool--and if you are on campus you ought to stop by. They have lots of cool old books on di...

http://fobcave.blogspot.com/2005/10/halloween-preview.html This is the fabulous, no-sew Halloween costume concocted by Master Fob. It almost makes up for the reign of toddler terror that has been happening lately.

Why does she have to ruin all of her cute clothes? Today S-Boogie was wearing her very cute blue-striped shirt and matching blue pants. And she just colored all over them with bright yellow highlighter. Sigh. Can't she ruin some of the stuff that's already ugly?

I just remembered that today was the day I could register for classes for next semester. The fact that I forgot until just now reminded me that I have been here at school for way too long. Registration is so not exciting any more. I only need to register for one or two classes, and now I can just get on the computer and add them in less than one minute. I remember my freshman year making a schedule with my roommates so that we could decide who got to use the phone for registering first. Right at midnight you could start registering, and it always took forever because the sections you wanted might be full and you had to flip through the catalog to find the right registration and section numbers. It was an all-night process fraught with stress over what classes you might be able to get into. I think that my sophomore year was when they introduced Route Y, and it seems like shortly thereafter we could start registering online. It's a much more humane and simple process, although the ...

I feel dirty inside. I spent most of this morning at the mall with S-Boogie. I really don't like the mall, I don't like shopping, and I hate being accosted by vendors trying to sell me cell phones or fancy hand lotion. But today is one of those Saturdays when Master Fob works all day, and they have a tendency to become really, really long days. Also, we have been searching everywhere for red boots to complement the Supergirl outfit for next week. Alas, toddlers no longer wear red boots, as I confirmed this morning at Provo Towne Centre. The trip to the mall wasn't the really bad part, though: I bought her a Happy Meal for lunch. I hadn't really planned on it, but I realized that an Orange Julius sounded great for my queasy stomach, and then when I got to the food court the french fries started calling me. Well, the food court at the Provo mall sucks and the best place (pretty much the only place) for fries was McD's. They have medium fries for $1, but I didn't h...

Today at Maceys I used the fact that I am pregnant to justify buying the following items: strawberries large box of Wheat Thins cherry pie filling 3 boxes of cake mix cashews frozen dinner rolls Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights

Since I am sure that everyone is dying to know how my day went today, I'll guess I should tell you now. I hope those of you who could watched the forum, more so that you could become more enlightened about Don Quijote and not just because there was such a fabulous prayer at the beginning. I got to the Marriott Center at about 10:50, since I had been directed to arrive no later than 10:55. I've never sat down on the floor, so it was weird enough to be down there. Most of my classmates from my Quijote class were sitting down there, so I briefly sat by them because I didn't want to be the first to go sit up on the stand. When a few more people came in and sat up there, I went up. The lights were very, very bright and so I felt a little disoriented. Then I noticed that when they directed the camera to Dr. Friedman, you could see a little of my chin behind him. I also started to worry about the height of the microphone, but when I got up to give the prayer, "do not touch th...

Actually this is just Master Fob honing his fathering skills with our new nephew. According to one website I found, our baby right now is the size of a sesame seed and looks like a tadpole.

After I got back from my presidency meeting this morning there was a message on the phone from the secretary of an office on campus. I actually listened to it a few times before I realized that I had no idea whose office it was, and decided that I might as well call back. I think I was nervous because I received a somewhat threatening email from the graduate coordinator reminding us that it shouldn't take longer than 2 years to complete the program and that they are going to start monitoring grad students more closely. Well, to get back to the original story, I called and the woman informed me that she was assistant to the "Associate Academic Vice President" and that Dr. Rosenberg had suggested that I give the opening prayer at next week's forum. I was a little surprised (pleasantly surprised, of course) and immediately said yes. So I get to sit on the stand, say the prayer, and ride in a golf cart to the hosting center for a luncheon afterwards. Wow. The forum is bei...

Most of the time I'm not that great at making decisions. I have a tendency to either make a really quick decision based on impulse and gut feelings (I especially do this when taking tests) or else I put off making a decision and stress about my alternatives for much too long. The impulsive decision making has generally served me well in places like school and on the College Bowl team, but it isn't always the best thing when applied to life. But, the dithering and hemming and hawing don't work out so great either. I was thinking about decision styles today for two reasons. First of all, S-Boogie has been sick again for the last few days (see here and here ) This morning the cold migrated to her chest and has made her very congested. Given her history of hospitalization for not breathing right, this naturally makes me very nervous. Most of all, because as parents it is up to us to decide what to do. Is she wheezing yet, or just breathing heavily? Should we use the nebuliz...

The thing is, I generally love my calling. I like being in Primary, I like the people I work with (most of them), and it's better than going to Sunday School since that always makes me fall asleep. I've also generally gotten over the fact that I am the president, since it's been a little over a year now. The thing that I am tired of is the relentless parade of problems. There is always something I have to take care of: some calling that needs to be filled, kids not behaving well, an activity to hold, stake reports to file, etc. I never get a break from it! Last week was heavenly because I just had to sit on my couch and watch TV (i.e. sleep). After that nice break, church today kind of felt a little like hell, to put it bluntly. For one thing, we have church at 1 in the afternoon. The kids are all tired, cranky, bored, crazy, etc. by the time they hit Primary at 2:15. Today we also had a kid who is inactive show up with a friend of his. This should be a good thing, but the...

I don't know if it's just the fact that the medication is working, but things have been going quite well for me lately. I hesitate to even think this, let alone say it, lest I be struck down in my moment of pride. But that's OK; for now I will relish the fact that I'm finally having a good time. Here are a few highlights from today: --We got to be among the first people to meet our brand new nephew this morning. He is very adorable and managed to break the family curse of the bald headed babies. Lots of black hair and very chubby cheeks. --My Don Quijote class was quite interesting today; we had an exhilarating discussion on history, literature and truth. I felt proud of the fact that a comment I made was referred to later by the professor as being particularly brilliant. --After DQ I rushed over to meet Master Fob at a talk being given by one of my favorite YA authors, Chris Crutcher . Chris discussed censorship and bad language in books and stuff like that. It was pre...

Wrapped in the feather boa of The season’s premier snowstorm, October makes her entrance. But, after the introduction, She drops the frozen front and Gleams gold so bright That wild geese echo the musical applause Long after the last curtain call That cuts into November’s icy act. --Judy Kay Welch, New Era 1974

One of my favorite things about Conference is the really lame commercials they play right before and after sessions. Some of my current favorites include: " FHE on DVD"--Now you don't have to spend any effort to have family time. Hey, you don't even have to talk to each other at all! "You've waited two long years for it. You've waited long enough"--"It" is Richard Paul Evans' new book. Yeah, since two years is such a long, long time for writing and publishing a new book, especially one of such obvious quality. " LDS Realtors.Com"--Making it even easier to avoid getting to know people of other faiths, no matter where you go. Oh, and I love the fact that just after hearing talks about staying out of debt and living moderately we get all the commercials for things like the "collectors' editions" of books like Lectures on Faith that cost 4 times as much as a simple paperback would...