The spirit of the season

Last night I was putting S-Boogie in the car so we could go to Queen Zippergut's wedding reception. I explained to her that we were going to a special party because QZ had gotten married. S-Boogie repeated "got married" (at least it sounded like she did), and then she looked up and asked me "Got Joseph too?"

Christmas day in the afternoon

The present opening orgy has ended and we have consumed the roast beast and mashed potatoes. S-Boogie is cutting up fake fruit while watching Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar on the big screen TV. Life is good.

Home for the Holidays

As you may have figured out, we've been hanging out at my parents' house in Las Vegas this week. This trip has been pretty exciting for me because this is the first time I've been at "home" for Christmas since 1998. My parents came out to Utah a few years ago, but I'll admit that I spent most of that vacation grumpy and nauseated from being newly pregnant. It has been a kind of weird trip, though, because my parents just moved out here and their stuff didn't arrive until this morning. So it feels like home and yet it doesn't. We're also still in this weird stage where things are adjusting to having grown up children and traditions are in flux. But, we're still having a fabulous Christmas Eve here.

Most of the boxes are waiting out on the patio and won't be unpacked until later. But we got the living room unpacked today and it feels quite cozy. My dad also decided that it was time to replace their old TV and got a very large flat screen at Costco this afternoon. Once he got the audio system stuff all set up, we tested it out by putting on a DVD of U2 in concert. It was awesome. Master Fob helped my parents by alphabetizing their DVDs and CDs for them. After we got things calmed down we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas with S-Boogie, read the Bible as a family, and put her to bed. Now all I need to do is stuff her stocking and we'll be set for tomorrow morning. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Problem solving

Today I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and let S-Boogie outside to play on the nice patio attached to the back of my parents' house. I feel bad that I haven't let her out to play more often this week. The weather and the fact that we live in an apartment keep her from playing outside very often when we're at home. So my mom decided to attach the little Nerf basketball hoop to one of the posts holding up the patio roof since we figured that S-Boogie might enjoy shooting some hoops. Unfortunately, the child has never played basketball before or seen it played by anyone. She didn't understand that the point is to try and throw the ball into the basket. Instead, she wanted to be able to just drop the ball in and was angry that the basket was positioned over her head and made this impossible. I tried demonstrating a throw a few times and encouraged her to try it. She wasn't buying it. Then her eyes lit up and she ran back into the house. She came out with her baby doll, placed in on the ground and tried standing on it. That didn't work, so then she tried her ducky. When he didn't do much good either, she finally dragged out a pillow. Unfortunately, that wasn't the right solution either. After some tears of frustration, I gave up and suggested that we go back inside to watch a video and take a nap. Maybe tomorrow we'll try it again.

Bright light city

We are currently posting from my parents' home in Las Vegas. They just moved out here after a number of years back east. Before that, we mainly lived in California, so they were trying to find a way to get back here closer to the grandkids that wasn't quite so expensive. We'll be here for a week, and then next Monday we'll go back to Utah.

It's been a really fun vacation so far. The rest of my family that is coming (one brother is in Russia and the other is in Maryland) won't be here until tomorrow and Friday, so on Monday Melyngoch and TB came down with us, and then on Tuesday morning Th and Lady Steed drove up to meet up with us. We've had quite the party together, and you can view Master Fob's blog to get the full scoop on the shenanigans.

Las Vegas is still not my favorite place in the world, even after seeing the full-size replica of David at Cesar's Palace and eating overpriced pastry in Paris. The last few days haven't been very restful, so we'll probably spend the rest of the week just hanging around my parents' house while I stare longingly at the hot tub that I'm not supposed to sit in.

Hopefully more exciting things will happen that I can blog about it, and when they do, I'll let you know. In the meantime, turn on some Christmas tunes, eat some gingerbread, and have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Sneak Peek

Well, we got to try out the big screen ultrasound set-up sooner than I had anticipated, and it was pretty cool. Yesterday I spent most of the day on the couch resting because I was having some cramping and spotting. Today I was feeling better, but we went in for a little peek to make sure baby and everything else was OK. It was and baby looked very cute. Still a little too small to figure out the gender, but Skye offered to sneak me into labor & delivery to play with their machine, so we might do that in a few weeks. The best part is, I'm supposed to rest for the next 10 days until my appointment, which means I get out of cleaning the bathtub and vacuuming. It's a good thing I'm on vacation!

This should make things interesting

I had my presidency meeting for Primary tonight, and it came up in conversation that I'm pregnant. Well, then both my counselors told me that they are too. One is due in May and the other in July. I'm sure the bishop will be overjoyed to hear about this...

Check up

I have either grown a second heart in my lower abdomen, or there is a little baby in there growing away just fine. I kept my appointment with the midwives today, since Dr. Judd can't see me until the 27th. They checked me out and everything looks and sounds fine. My uterus is measuring bigger than it should, but that's not surprising given the state of my anatomy. I also signed the little forms that give them permission to transfer my records over to the doctor's office. That made me feel a little sad. But then the nurse told me that Dr. Judd has an ultrasound machine that is hooked up to a large-screen plasma TV. That sounds somewhat exciting.

You'd better watch out

Over the last few years, I have suddenly become aware that there are gay people in the world (if anyone here also reads Master Fob's blog, you will know why). I honestly don't remember thinking much about gay people during high school or even my first few years at school before my mission. I went to high school back when it wasn't that cool to admit to being gay, and most people at my school were members of ethnic groups that still don't think it's very cool to be gay (don't mean to be racist, but it's still mostly OK to be white and gay, but not Samoan and gay). So yeah, didn't think about it, and I honestly didn't care that much.

But, now that it's become more of a personal issue for me, I have to confess that I spend way too much time lately fixing up my "gaydar" and trying to figure out who just might be hiding something. Especially since I live in an environment where very few people are out and most are hiding way in the back of the closet.

For instance, I have this professor that I really wonder about. A lot. I'm dying to know if he is or isn't. I don't think I should even describe him, but if you knew him, you'd wonder too. The thing is, it's not anything malicious or anything. I actually would love to know just so I could talk to him about it and maybe offer some sympathy about things. I like him a lot, so it really is just a curious concern sort of thing. Also, there are these two old ladies at church that have lived together for years (both have never married). They act like they are way more than roommates, and even refer to each other with things like "my dear companion". I'm pretty sure there's nothing sexual about their relationship, but I'm curious about them. I wonder what's going on in their heads and how they feel about their friendship. Maybe there really will be polygamy in heaven and they can be sister wives or something. That would be nice.

So, that's my confession for the day. I just might be analyzing you, so maybe you should put down your violin and go play some rugby.

Insanity is...

Every semester I start out thinking that I'm going to stay on top of my work and start my research papers early. And every semester I wake up one morning a week before classes end and start hyperventilating because I still have to research and write several papers. Once again, I have shown just what a true procrastinator I am. I have two papers due Monday morning. They are both supposed to be about 12 pages long. Paper One is nearly complete--I have eight pages written and hope to finish it tonight. It's not going that well, but I'm banking on the fact that the professor likes me and is usually a nice grader. Paper Two has not been started. At all. I've been putting it off because I'm scared of it. In theory, I have all day tomorrow to work on. In practice, I'll probably be up really late Sunday night finishing it. Someone please shoot me now.

100 things you didn't know about me

I was going to post something else, and then I realized that I was at post number 100. So I thought I'd make it special. And, since pictures are worth at least 1000 words, this actually adds up to more than 100 things:


I was a biker chick in a previous lifetime.

Even though I object to Barbie and don't want S-Boogie to play with them, I did and I turned out all right. Also, I don't know why I am wearing boy pajamas at my birthday party.

I totally loved my pink bike with the banana seat and I was very sad when it got left in the driveway and run over by a car. And I thought that rainbow suspenders looked really cool with my bright pink pants.



When I was in first grade, my teacher had some pet rats in the classroom. One day, they had babies. We could take one home if our parents said yes, so I got my dad to agree to it. This is me and Ratty with our first "Rat Day" cake. Every year for many years thereafter we would celebrate the anniversary of my first cake by making a rat-shaped cake and buying presents for my current pet rats.



I played the trombone in my high school's marching band for two years. I never could figure out how to memorize the music (strange mental block I have--I've never been able to play from memory), so I'd just pretend and play some random notes as we marched along.

This is what I look like when I am nine months pregnant. It's Ok to think that it's kind of grotesque, because I think that too. I'm really glad we didn't have a full length mirror in our apartment at the time.

Making peace

One of the semi-profound lessons I have learned during the last few years is that life will never go the way I want it to, and it always takes me a while to adjust to this fact. Before I left on my mission I still assumed that I wouldn't get married and would simply graduate and go off somewhere fun (and near the beach) for grad school and such. I also made fun of people who married someone they had known as missionaries. So then I married a fellow missionary a little less than a year after we both came home. I also planned on getting out of Utah as soon as I could, but it's taking a little longer than I had originally planned on. And then I thought that we would wait a while before having kids, and "a while" was not as long as I'd originally planned. The thing is, I'm totally, completely happy with my life as it is right now. I don't know how I would feel if my original "plan" had all worked out. Who knows. I've tried not planning on things, but I'm a planner by nature. My latest cosmic kink that I'm trying to work through is the fact that my body does not want to have babies the natural way. I know there's not much I can do about it, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting over it. Logically I've accepted this fact, but there's still a little part of me pouting that I can't just have a baby and be back on my feet in a few days (or even a few weeks, blah). But I think I'm really beginning to accept this fact. I think tomorrow I will call the midwives and volunteer to just switch practices. They're right--no point in seeing them when they can't help me have the baby in the end. And I might be doing the doctors a favor-they thought my uterus was pretty interesting during my c-section before, so now they get the privilege of seeing it again.