Yellow Wallpaper

I didn't do a check-in post last Saturday because I was exhausted. Tomorrow my youngest brother leaves to go spend three years in Guam with the Navy, so last weekend we had a quick family-togetherness weekend. It even worked out that my second-youngest brother was passing through town on tour with his band so we all got to be together for a short while. Last Friday night I drove up to Salt Lake to watch them perform in a somewhat sketchy location (the music was great despite the surroundings). Then I got a very small amount of sleep and turned around to drive back up to Salt Lake in order for us to have a family breakfast together before he left to drive with his band to Boise. Then I spent the rest of the day preparing for the party we had last night to say goodbye to my little brother. The weekend was quite nice and everything went well, but there were a lot of things crammed into just a few days. I have also spent most of this week feeling exhausted and stressed out. I didn...

Last Thursday night my internet connection went down and I couldn't get it to come back up. I think it had something to do with a power outage earlier in the day. When I got around to calling Comcast on Friday morning, they were able to reset it fairly quickly. I sat down at my computer to catch up on things I had missed the day before and discovered a post called " Club Unicorn " that was being shared all over Facebook. I wasn't really shocked to read the content of the post, but I have been surprised by how many people have shared it and commented on it. I'm now feeling grateful that Facebook didn't exist six years ago when Mr. Fob and I were interviewed in the newspaper and on television . That was the right decision at the time, but I'm glad we turned down bigger offers and that things weren't shared more than they were. We first met Josh and Lolly a little over six years ago. In the fall of 2005, Mr. Fob published an essay he had written in Dia...

Mr. Fob and I attended the Sunstone Symposium today; we really did not have the time or resources to attend the entire event over the last few days, but perhaps at some future time we will. Today was a nice experience for both of us. The sessions we attended--together and separately--were enriching and it was nice to spend a day away from the children focusing on adult contact. I had been a little nervous about asking my sister-in-law to watch them for a full day but they enjoyed themselves and were also happy to see us when we picked them up. I will admit that one of my motivations in attending events like Sunstone is meeting people. After typing that sentence I realized that I made it sound like a bad thing. It's not a bad thing to be sociable and to be part of community. I do feel a little silly when meeting people that I perceive as being somehow 'cooler' than me and acting like a giggly fangirl. It's silly because I realized today that we are all working together t...

Since my summer has not already been completely full, we're hosting a blog party on Saturday night. This is your chance to see our beautiful new home (don't get your hopes up too high) and to meet the fabulous, and elusive, Melyngoch . Party starts at about 5:30. We'll provide some food--right now I'm thinking spinach dip with baguette and maybe some couscous salad. Email me for directions to my home and if you want to bring a food item. Hope to see you there!

This was supposed a cool picture of me and Mr. Fob riding across the Golden Gate bridge on a tandem bike. Instead, it's a photo of me in front of the Asian Art museum. The museum was pretty interesting, but we couldn't take photos inside and so this is what you get. Unfortunately the cold and rain ruined our plans to do something slightly out of the ordinary, so we settled for Gyro King and an art museum . And of course the entertaining ride on BART under the bay. It was good birthday and I want to thank everyone who wished me well, and especially our good friends the Thteed family for watching our kids for several hours so we could go gallivanting around like childless people. They even bought me a birthday cake as a surprise; of course S-Boogie had to choose the enormous chocolate one with "Happy Cinco de Mayo" written on it. I've never had a Cinco de Mayo cake before, but it went well with the massively meaty pizza to create a birthday dinner that none of us ...

When I opened my Christmas letters in December I got a pleasant surprise from my friend Emily--after several years of waiting, she and her husband were able to adopt a baby girl. And then a few months later their baby got very, very sick. She has been diagnosed with a very rare blood disorder that means her immune system is attacking and destroying her blood cells. Right now she is on chemotherapy, and will need a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow donation works differently from organ donation and you cannot volunteer directly for a specific person. However, you can sign up for the national registry and become a donor. Even if you cannot specifically help my friend's daughter, I want to encourage people to look into donation and sign up. Maybe one of you will be the right match for her or someone else. This issue also feels personal to me because my grandfather died of leukemia and I had a cousin who died of cancer (and received a bone marrow transplant as part of his treatment)....

When I started blogging a few years ago, FoxyJ seemed like a perfectly decent pseudonym--cute and fun, kind of like myself. But then I started meeting people in person and having to say it out loud ; there seems to be something a bit embarrassing about calling yourself 'foxy' in person. I hope that most people realize that at least a bit of irony is involved in the name. I had another great opportunity to meet people and make more connections yesterday at the Sunstone conference. I came home exhausted from travelling and from spending all day listening to and conversing with other people, but it was the positive exhaustion of energy spent on good things. I'm glad I chose to go down Friday night and spend some time with my friend Skylark; she was generous in allowing me to stay at her apartment and talk her ear off, and it was a much-needed break from my regular routine. The conference was also a fabulous experience; I attended sessions on a variety of topics and came away...

So the kids are finally sleeping better, and we are too. We figured out that they need cool rooms to sleep in and that they need to sleep apart, at least until Little Dude gets over his climbing out of bed fetish. Yesterday we put some doorknob covers on the inside of his room and on his closet, so now he can't escape or play. It still took him a while to fall asleep last night (and he's reverted to needing a parent to help him fall asleep), but he stayed in bed and slept all night. So did I. It was fabulous. My day has also been fabulous because we met up with the McCullochs in the park today, and Jenny is such an awesome friend that she made me chocolate croissants. I feel so special! They were fabulous, and S-Boogie was so happy to have a friend to play with. We're going to get together again next Monday. Speaking of getting together, I think that some time during the next two weeks I want to have a picnic with my Utah friends and blog readers. I'm kind of thinking ...

This is a picture of me and my roommates at the beginning of my junior year of college. The girl in the pink dress is my roommate Lexi. She moved into our apartment the year before, when I was a sophomore and she was a freshman. I had moved into the apartment with two of my roommates from the dorms the summer after our freshman year, and so we were a little hesitant when someone new moved in a few months later. Even worse, she was a brand new freshman (since we were so much more mature as sophomores). I really wasn't sure if Lexi and I would get along. We were opposites in so many ways. She always had lots of friends, especially boys, over to hang out; I was socially awkward and had trouble convincing guys to even talk to me. I loved to cook and sew, but Lexi had no domestic skills. She was an engineering major because she loved science and math, and I was an English major. I'm neurotic about details, and she forgot where she parked her car (more than once). But we lived toget...

In case you are wondering, our trip to Vegas was quite a lot of fun. On Saturday S-Boogie spent even more time in the sandbox and the pool, and then that evening the Thteeds showed up on their way back to California (so far my parents don't seem to mind that we keep inviting our friends along when we visit their house). We all watched New York Doll on Saturday night and I enjoyed it quite a lot. My parents have 9:00 church, so we ended up being heathen and skipping it completely. Perhaps that wasn't such a great idea, since shortly after the Thteeds left on their merry way we received a phone call that they had run into complications before even reaching the freeway. They ended up staying another night--not for the best of reasons, but hopefully the meatloaf, angel food cake with strawberries, raucous stories and photos, and the hot tub made up for all of it. On Monday S-Boogie and the Big O spent several more hours playing together. I'm not too hopeful about their futu...

We watched the Academy Awards last night. It was a lot of fun, mostly because we had a party with a bunch of friends and way, way too much food. I woke up this morning with a nacho cheese hangover, but it was worth it. Whenever I watch the Academy Awards I think I need to watch more movies. I had seen hardly any of the movies that had been nominated. I also have never seen anything by Robert Altman, even though I've heard he's very, very good. This fact embarrasses me a little, since I'm writing my thesis about literature and film. But, I have watched a lot of old movies. I love film noir--now I just need to catch up on the last 10 or 15 years of film. I also realized that over the last year or so, most of the movies we have gone to see in the theater have been at the insistence of Master Fob ( Batman Begins , Brokeback Mountain , Dave Chapelle's Block Party). I'm not sure if this means that I no longer have my own opinions, that I don't care about movies as mu...

This afternoon I stopped by the JFSB to talk to a professor on my way home from campus. As I waited for the elevator, since I have pretty much sworn off stairs lately, a somewhat familiar looking person approached and said "Hi!". Then she joined me in the elevator, all the while trying to make conversation while I continued to stare in obvious discomfort, because I couldn't remember who in the heck she was. Then we got to the first floor, parted awkwardly , and as I left the building I suddenly slapped my forehead and said "[Cicada]"! D'oh! Lately I have been having some very space cadetish moments. So, Cicada, I'm sorry for treating you like some sort of wacko this afternoon. I was the wacko. Oh, and Tolkien Boy, I've finally remembered that I do know that person who professes to know me. For some reason I can never quite remember her, even though we've had several classes together. To all my friends: it's not that I don't love you, I ...

I think I get a little bit giddy when people come over. Last night I managed to tell people that I have been logging my bowel habits online, that sex is a wonderful free present for birthdays and holidays, and that I needed to eat more cake so that I could "fill up my pants" (I really did mean to say "fill out my pants").

1. S-Boogie slept in until 9 this morning, so I had a little time to myself to do things like wash the dishes and surf the net with out her destroying the house or clinging to my leg whining like a dejected puppy. And I read her a scripture story from the Friend while she ate breakfast, so extra mom points for me. 2. S-Boogie played by herself for nearly an hour while I read Don Quijote 3. I went to the gym and it's starting to hurt less. Afterwards I tried my new pear-scented deodorant and I like it. Mmm, fruity. 4. Fabulous brownies and cool tunes from editorgirl 5. Tonight I do not have to cook dinner because I am going to a mission reunion where there will be a giant paella

I haven't posted for a week because we have been gone on a wild and crazy vacation in the land of cold and fog, otherwise known as San Francisco. We drove over there to visit our friends, the Thteed family. They actually live elsewhere in California, but were visiting Lady Steed's parents who live near San Francisco, so we were kind of crashing their family vacation, but apparently it was cool. Last week: Sunday: We left after church (5 pm) and drove to Reno. Nothing really exciting happened. We found a surprisingly nice park in Wendover and ate dinner there. The best part of the day was when we arrived in Reno at midnight and had to wake S-Boogie up to bring her into the hotel. She looked like she was having a bad trip from all the lights and noise in the casino. Monday: Took our sweet time driving to San Francisco. Stopped at the Jelly Belly factory for their tour and loaded up on free samples. If you are ever driving across northern California on I--80, it is definitely wort...