Yellow Wallpaper

Last week we got some purple potatoes in our produce box. Would you be freaked out by them? What do you think would be neat to cook with purple potatoes? Is it worth buying a salad spinner? We've been getting a lot of lettuce and greens in our produce box, but I always feel bad using up so many paper towels to dry them. I've also tried regular towels, but that's pretty annoying too. I'm excited to write a paper for my American Literature class because I'm looking at translations of two different books that are written in a sort of hybrid-"Spanglish" style. I think it will be interesting to look at what happens when you translate them to Spanish. However, after looking at this book today, I realized that one of the more interesting changes is the profanity (it's a great book, but definitely heavy on the swears). Would you feel weird writing a paper on swear words? It's not like I'm going to be saying them out loud, but for some reason I feel w...

Or, maybe not. For most of my life I have thought of myself as somewhat shy and introverted. I feel uncomfortable in large group situations and I'm generally not very assertive. I don't like to call people on the phone and I rarely go up to people I don't know and introduce myself or start up conversations. I also really hate being in charge of a group; telling other people what to do gives me anxiety like nothing else--another reason why I'm not sure I want to be a teacher. One of my professors shared with me the letter of recommendation she had written: she stated that I had a tendency to be soft-spoken. I've heard that description of myself numerous times and I would agree that I generally tend to have a "quiet voice". On the other hand, I think most people who know me in real life would hesitate to call me an introvert. Once I'm comfortable with people, I tend to take over and talk their ears off. When I come home late from visiting teaching or pre...

Did you know that today (Tuesday, February 24) is National Pancake Day ? IHOP is giving out free pancakes today, so head on down there before 10 pm and enjoy some yummy free food. I heard about it yesterday, and I'm often leery of free food events because they usually end up being too crowded and more hassle than they are worth. But we decided to be crazy and spontaneous for lunch and took the kids down to IHOP . We spent a little money on drinks and some hash browns with eggs, and the kids had a great time smothering their cakes in strawberry and blueberry syrup. I don't know about your IHOP , but ours was only moderately busy. We were the only family in there with the hordes of college students. I can imagine it will only get busier as the day goes on. Just thought I'd share the love--who needs Carnival when you can have free pancakes?

I can tell that the end of the quarter is approaching because my motivation is rapidly dissolving with each passing day. In four more weeks I will be free, but only after completing two enormous research papers. Every now and then I think about them and chant to myself "the only way out is through", but then I ignore that little voice and go back to wasting time on the internet. I've kept up on my homework very well this quarter, but it's hard to carve out the extra time needed for research and writing. I'm also feeling bad because I found out about the upcoming Sunstone West symposium a few weeks ago and thought I might be able to prepare something for it. Alas, the submission deadline is tomorrow and I have nothing to submit. I think even more than the fact that I am pressed for time, I also feel pressed for brain space. I don't have a lot of thinking room left; I've got school stuff and kid stuff to worry about, plus every day I worry about the fact t...

We had a good President's Day weekend; Saturday was spent running errands and making sugar cookies shaped like hearts. That night our home teacher and his wife watched the kids while Mr. Fob and I went out on a date. I had made a nice, budget-friendly plan that would include a stop at the falafel place and then bowling. But then we decided to be spontaneous and try a Thai restaurant. The food was't that great and it ended up costing a lot more than we had planned for our date, but I still enjoyed the chance to have a nice, quiet dinner together without interruptions from little people. I've been tagged by a bunch of different people on Facebook asking me to reveal interesting things about myself, but I'm still deciding how much I want to participate in Facebook and I feel like I've already done just about every meme on the planet here on my blog. But, just to satisfy the curious masses, here are two more bits of weirdness that I'm willing to share: 1. I'm te...

As I've mentioned before, I don't have a problem with Valentine's Day. It's a good thing, because this morning Mr. Fob made pink pancakes shaped like hearts and we put strawberry syrup on them. He also put food coloring in the orange juice; Little Dude said Daddy "put Valentines in it" and that it "tastes like pink". It certainly did. Just another reason why Mr. Fob is so awesome . We're going to make heart-shaped sugar cookies later, and then tonight our home teacher and his wife are coming over to watch the kids while we go eat some falafel and go bowling. Should be a fun day.

This is my seven hundredth post. I can't believe I've been blogging for nearly four years now. I haven't run out of things to say; unfortunately many of my greatest posts end up lost in my head somewhere before I can write them down and publish them. My life over the last few years has been through a lot of ups and downs, and this blog has been a reflection of that. Apparently I still have an audience, so I guess there is still some interest in my life. I'd like to think that I would keep writing even if no one were there to read it, but sometimes I'm not sure how much of this is dictated by the simple need for self-expression and how much is dictated by the positive reinforcement of comments. After four years I still don't feel like I have found my voice or my online identity. We were having a rough evening today and I spent a lot of time writing a really whiny post in my head about how frustrating life is right now. The economy and the possibilities of findin...

I'm taking a class on 'multicultural American literature' and one on trauma in literature & film, so that will explain why most of these books and movies are on the list this month and next. Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson This book hasn't aged well, but it's interesting as a social phenomenon and as an excellent example of nineteenth-century social fiction. It was also a fascinating book to read while travelling in Southern California, in order to compare what things were like two centuries ago with how they appear now. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque I read this book a number of years ago and remembered little about it. It is not an easy read, but an excellent study of the trauma of war and the betrayal of a generation of young people by their leaders. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather I was surprised by how much I liked this book (I've had mixed experiences with Cather). The writing is beautiful and the characters are f...

The other day Segullah posted an interview with artist Lee Bennion about her life and work. I enjoyed the whole thing, but the last two paragraphs really resonated with me: "Do prod your self out of idleness. If you have that urge to write, dance, paint or make music and it just isn ’t fitting in, try to figure out how you can. On the other hand, don’t beat yourself up if the time is just not right for these things and you don’t feel a burning urge to do them. Don’t let others dictate what your time frame should be. If you are immersed in raising children, enjoy it and learn all you can from it. You will know when it is time to start weaving back into your art. Some are just able to do the two together all along. We are all different. Listen to your soul and what brings you peace and joy. I know that when my first two girls were young, I really didn ’t think about painting or drawing much for about five or six years. But as they got a little older, I was feeling the need and us...

This morning I had a few extra minutes before church, so I sat down to read the Ensign from last conference. I opened to President Eyring's talk about unity . It turned out to be just the message I needed: I've got to be more humble and "see a difference in someone else not as a source of irritation but as a contribution." Then I got to sacrament meeting and we sang one of my favorite hymns, "Reverently and Meekly Now". The third verse starts: "Bid thy heart all strife to cease/With thy brethren be at peace." And then the bishop got up and said "I'd like to urge everyone to read President Eyring's talk about unity from the last conference." I had been praying about how to handle my new calling, and I know realize that I've been doing it all wrong. I've been going into it trying to figure out how I can help and how I can do such an amazing job and fix all the problems that are out there. But I've been called to help ...