Yellow Wallpaper

I've been planning on writing another whiny post for a few days, since my week hasn't been going so well. I've mostly recovered from my illness, and S-Boogie has had a great time at her first few days of kindergarten, but it's still been a less-than-stellar week. Thankfully our little mini-vacation today helped turn things around for me. So now we get a positive post instead. My younger brother came out to San Francisco on Thursday for a quick little business trip. He had to leave today at noon, but I thought it would be fun to try and see him for a little while. By the time we drove down and met up with him, we really only had less than hour to hang out. It was still nice to see him and we took a few pictures to prove that our paths had crossed. We stopped by the famous Ferry Terminal farmer's market and got some tasty pastry (and over-priced orange juice). The market is heaven for food lovers like me, but the truth is I'd probably be just as happy with my loc...

Apparently some sort of cosmic force heard last week's rant about church, because I was completely struck down on Saturday night. I went to bed feeling a little sore, but I thought it was just the bike riding we had done. After a fitful night of sweating and bad dreams I woke up feeling dizzy, achy, and delirious. Then I took my temperature: 102.8. Nice. I spent most of Sunday alternating between reading, sleeping, and sweating. I can't believe how exhausted I felt. Monday morning my temperature was back up, but thankfully by the evening it dropped. Unfortunately my throat is still sore and my glands in my neck feel like painful golf balls. All I want to do is lie around and eat ice cream, but my kids won't let me get away with it. But at least I'm getting better and tomorrow S-Boogie starts kindergarten (yay!). The only bad news is that we're having a "mini heat wave" and the high temperature tomorrow is supposed to be 105 (boo!). Maybe next week will be ...

I've been reading a lot lately about ways to save the earth like using your car less often, buying local food, recycling, and all that "crunchy granola" stuff. I'm a big fan of it, but the truth is that I usually end up being lazy and driving my car to the supermarket to get some food that's been shipped halfway around the world. Since moving here, however, we've been working hard to make some lifestyle changes that I hope will benefit the environment. The main reason we've been doing them is because we're poor, but I hope the good karma from earth-friendly living will help us out in the long run. First of all, we've started drying our clothes on a clothesline instead of in the dryer. The weather here is hot and sunny, and we have to pay one dollar per load of laundry, so the choice was simple. Plus we have a little patio on the back of our apartment that's just right for clothes drying. I'm still trying to decide if I want to pay for dryi...

I'll be honest: going to church lately has been hard for me. Not only is taking care of two kids by myself difficult, but I also feel self-conscious about the fact that my husband isn't there. I've been trying to get over it since I know it's mostly in my head, but I still can't help feeling really weird being alone at church. Also S-Boogie has lately been having a hard time since she really doesn't like sitting still in sacrament meeting. She loves Primary, but this morning told me that she "hates sacrament meeting" because it involves sitting still and waiting for too long. I need to work on helping her have a more positive experience. Going to a new ward is also hard. The last two weeks have been good in the sense that I can tell there are a lot of friendly people here. But they've also been very difficult because of the political climate. One of the first things someone from the elders' quorum said when they showed up to help us move in was...

Cicada's post about the squeamish ultrasound tech reminded me of the fact that Little Dude's new favorite word is "penis". He pretty much only talks about it when his diaper is off, but since I have a juvenile sense of humor I still find it hilarious. A few examples: Last month when we were at my family reunion I had to change a very dirty diaper. I took Little Dude into the small bathroom right next to the room where a solemn gathering was taking place in honor of my grandmother. He realized that his voice echoed in the bathroom and suddenly started yelling "penis" as loud as he could. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even breathe, let alone stop him. Thankfully no one could hear us in the next room. Another favorite phrase of Little Dude's is "big, heavy"--said in a very strained voice like he's picking up something enormous. He'll sit in the bathtub and say "big, heavy penis" over and over again. When we were moving Mr...

I think this is probably the longest amount of time I've gone without posting since I started blogging three years ago. We've had some trouble with getting the internet hooked up in our new place, which has been a headache not only for my personal use but also because Mr. Fob needs it for work. Today we finally found out that AT&T delivered our modem to us last week, before we even moved in and despite telling us that they couldn't get service to us before we had moved in. Thankfully the office had the modem and we were able to hook things up, but we are still very annoyed with both AT&T as well as Comcast for being entirely confusing and unhelpful when it comes to installing internet for us. Blah. But we made it and our now in our lovely spacious new apartment. And California decided to bless us with a heat wave this week in honor of moving in. It's going to be 100 degrees today, and the wall unit in the living room mostly just cools the living room and kitc...

The other day my dad was going through some video footage on his computer when we stumbled onto a large video file labeled with S-Boogie's name. It turned out to be about fifteen minutes of footage from her birth--something Mr. Fob and I had never seen before. It was fun to watch her looking around, getting to know people, and (unfortunately) still rooting her little mouth at least an hour after birth since no one let me try breast feeding for a few more hours. Don't worry--that actually went well and she nursed for a full year. Watching the video made me realize how much things had changed, because I honestly have a hard time remembering her as a baby. S-Boogie's birth story is pretty unremarkable. We had wanted an unmedicated, low-intervention birth and so we found a practice of nurse midwives. But S-Boogie decided to spend the last few months of gestation in breech position, and an ultrasound revealed some issues with my uterus that precluded turning her around externall...

Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley I first read Beauty as a twelve-year-old and it soon became one of my favorite books. I was surprised to find out a few years ago that McKinley had retold the Beauty and the Beast story again, but I decided to give this book a try. It's quite a bit different, and longer, but I enjoyed it as well. The writing is beautiful and the story is interesting. I didn't like the main character in this one as much as in Beauty , but it's still a good book. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier I read this book when it first came out, but I didn't remember it at all. This time around I was mostly struck by the beauty of the writing. The characters are all interesting and the plot kept me in suspense. I do admit to being turned off by the ending; I was disappointed because the book is so unique and yet the ending is just like every other best-seller out there. It's a wonderful book except for the last few pages. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann a...

After four weeks of visiting we finally left Utah yesterday afternoon. It was nice to visit all of our family members and friends who live there, but I think we'd all agree that a month is a pretty long time to visit. As much as we like everyone, Mr. Fob and I are anxious to get back into a home of our own. It really was a great visit, and as we drove away with our car packed full of hand-me-downs for S-Boogie and Little Dude as well as birthday presents for them, we felt grateful for the generosity of our family members. Thanks everyone for letting us visit. Now we're in Las Vegas for a few more days of fun. Yesterday we spent two hours in the pool with the kids, and then we had a delicious dinner and dessert. True to form the kids refused to go to sleep in yet another new place. Things were also complicated because Little Dude wanted to sleep in a bed (not his crib) and kept crawling in with his sister in her bed. Then this morning the kids got up at 6:30 thanks to the time c...