Yellow Wallpaper

The other day I was driving Little Dude home from preschool when he mentioned something about holding a clover in his hand. For some reason that triggered a memory from my life when I was the same age. I can vividly remember sitting on my lawn in March, hunting for clovers. The grass was soft and slightly slippery, the air rich with the scent of dirt. Many of my memories from my early childhood are similarly vivid recollections of my time outside, close to the ground and the plants. Then I looked around remembered that March in Utah means that things are still barren, brown, and cold. In California, March is the greenest month. Winter rains bring a wash of green to the hills and make the grass and flowers lush. I felt a little pang at the fact that my children do not have the same childhood experiences that I had--the same freedom to explore outside year-round. I miss California most in January; it's not the warm, sunshine of summer that I miss, but the cool, green, misty winters I...

When the "new" Children's Songbook for Primary came out I had just graduated and moved on to Young Women's. I can still remember when we received a new songbook in the mail and how wonderful it was compared to the old orange book. There were so many new songs, plus the pictures and layout were so pretty. The other day I was playing through the songbook and realized how many songs I used to sing (that are still in the book) that just aren't emphasized in Primary as much as they used to be. Here are some of my favorites from days gone by: Give Said the Little Stream : I always loved both the tune and the words of this song. Although it is still around in LDS culture, I know my kids don't sing it as often as I did while I was growing up, and the two times I've served in Primary we rarely used it at all. I'm not sure why; it's a fun song to sing and it has a great message as well. Children All Over the World : I loved the different languages in this...

The other day I noticed a link to a post on a blog that I don't normally read and I really liked it. She writes about the last decade and sums up her life during those years. I realized the other day that we have already spent one decade in the 2000s, and my brain keeps thinking it is still 1998. A decade went by fast, but it was one-third of my life so I think it is interesting to look back. The year 2000 started for me on my mission in Spain. I spent that entire year in Spain and came back early in 2001. I lived with my parents in Maryland for a few months, then came back to school at BYU in Provo. My husband and I got married at the end of 2001 and spent a few more years in Utah. We moved to Seattle and then to California before coming back to buy a house in Utah. When this last decade started my parents lived in Maryland but they have moved closer to us in Las Vegas. My mother-in-law lived in Hawaii during the first few years of marriage but she has also moved to Utah. My husb...

Today STM wrote a post about a playlist that would reflect her life, and I like the idea so much that I'm copying it here. It's also been a while since I wrote a really interesting post so hopefully this will fill that gaping hole in my blog. I listened to a lot of music while I was growing up and I feel bad that during the last few years I really don't listen to it much anymore. Most of the people in my family are 'music people' and I think I'm not. Maybe I'm just not relzxed enough anymore because the chaos of life with kids is usually just too much for me to handle without adding some background music to the mix. So there aren't really too many songs from the last five years or so, but here's the rest of my playlist: Much of the music we listened to when I was a kid was country music. Old, classic country music. Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc. When I was very young we didn't have a television, but we...

Right now I think fall is my favorite season. Of course if you ask me next year I'll probably tell you that spring is my new favorite, but I really like the fall. Where I spent most of my growing up years we didn't see a lot of change in the seasons and it wasn't until we moved to Maryland before my senior year of high school that I understood what kinds of colors the leaves could turn. I love the the colorful trees, the yummy fall foods, and that clear, cold sharpness that shows up in the air one day to signal that fall is here. After spending so many years in school fall also feels like a new beginning to me. I keep remembering my first fall in Utah, settling into my new apartment, learning to live on my own, buying books, making new friends, going to bed with aching legs from walking all over campus. Before coming to BYU I had not spent much time in Utah, especially not in Provo. Each fall that I live here I seem to remember the first time I saw all these places that ar...

Shortly after we moved in to this house my parents brought up my cedar chest that I've had since high school. We've never lived in a place that's really been big enough for it, and we've moved around a lot, so they've been storing it in their house. Obviously I haven't put anything in it or even looked in it for a number of years. I had a lot of fun when I opened it up and started going through it. I found a few wonderful gems that just have to be shared. The first one comes from a journal I kept for a while when I was eleven and twelve. I've never considered myself an artist but for some reason I felt a need to add illustrations to my entries. I think they are the best part:

So there's a meme going around that asks you to post the fourth photo in the fourth folder of your pictures on your computer. I'm posting two because the folder arrangement was different each time I looked at it. And the first one is boring. Here goes: May 2004. Luckily this actually is a random photo without people in it. I don't know why we have this, but it's from before we had our digital camera so I guess I didn't realize I'd taken four pictures of the floor. This is our hideously ugly apartment in Orem that had brown paneling, brown carpet, brown drapes, and brown doors. And it was semi-basement. I don't miss it at all. June 2001: this is me fudging a little because the fourth picture in my "old pictures" file had people in it that I'm not sure want to be put online. Especially old photos of them from 1997. This was shortly after we got engaged and were showing off the ring. Remember when I used to wear contacts? That was so five years ...

There's something about Utah in the summer that scrambles my brain; although I lived here for a number of years, it seems that most of my memories are from the summer. Mr. Fob and I started dating and got engaged during the summer; both my children were born in summer; I've attended a number of funerals in the summer. Now that we're back here during the summer, I keep having weird flashes of memories. That one ride we went on up Provo Canyon with my baby niece? Oh yeah, she's turning seven now. The birthday party we had for S-Boogie at the pool? That was three years ago. I don't feel that old, but for some reason lately I keep feeling the weight of so many years of experiences coming to my mind, and I realize how far I've come from my life years ago. It's a good feeling, but also bittersweet. I think that many of the ways I have changed are positive, but I also can't help but remember when we were younger and more innocent. I'm not sure that innocenc...

My mom bought me these shoes at Price Club about fifteen years ago. At first I didn't really like them; I thought they were clunky and looked funky. Since I usually only wore jeans and T-shirts with airbrushed pictures of wolves on them at fifteen, I find it kind of funny that I turned my nose up at a good pair of Birkenstocks . Thankfully over the years I came to love the way they fit my feet and to realize that they didn't look that bad. I had them resoled a while ago when they started wearing through to the cork on the bottom. About two years ago I realized that it was probably time to do that again, but I procrastinated. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the heels are now worn clean through to the footbed . The footbeds are cracked across my instep, the straps are coming unglued, and they are filthy. My mom bought me new sandals when I was in Las Vegas last week and I'm excited to wear them (they're not Birks ). But for some reason I still can't bring...

The other night on the freeway I saw a Jeep and suddenly had a flashback to that time in my life when I thought that was the coolest car in the world. I'm not really a "car person", but over time I have been obsessed with a few. I thought it was interesting to look back on them and what they say about the kind of person I was at the time. Toyota Corolla I remember being about five or six and deciding that I wanted a Corolla. It had to be almond-colored. I don't think I really even knew what a Corolla was, but somewhere I had heard the phrase "almond-colored Corolla" and decided that it sounded fascinating. There were a lot of phrases I fell in love with as a kid, even though I didn't really know what they meant. For a number of years my sister and I were obsessed with Weight Watchers, even though we had no clue what it involved. I just loved the alliteration of the phrase. Geo Storm When I was about 11, the Geo Storm appeared on the scene. I thought the...

The summer before my freshman year of high school I decided to try out for the drill team. Even though I was pretty much a nerd, I secretly envied the drill team girls. My tryout experience was pretty much like something out of Beverly Hills 90210. For some reason I decided to try out for "banners"--the girls who marched in front with the metal signs spelling out my high school's name. There weren't very many spots, so this was the most competitive section of the drill team, but I didn't realize that before I got involved. I lasted for only two days in the tryouts; the other girls laughed at me, wouldn't give me a practice banner, and basically made my life miserable. I went home, cried, and decided that I was just a nerd and that was never going to change. Thankfully I soon found a way to use my nerd cred. I'm not even sure how I heard about the Knowledge Bowl team, but it was a perfect fit. I loved Jeopardy! and the only physical skills I needed were fa...

I just set up my new printer/scanner/copy machine. This is the first time I've ever had a scanner, so it's pretty exciting. One of these days I'm going to scan in all my mission photos just so I can write fun posts about them. I'm not sure this file is the highest quality I could get--I need to fiddle around with it some more. But it's still pretty cool. Oh, and that's me and my super cool Spanish companion with the Bolivian family that we taught. The entire family got baptized (I don't know why the dad isn't in the picture) and they are really neat people. I wonder what they're doing now, since I haven't heard from them since I left Madrid. PS--Don't you love my ugly jumper with the stains on it? It's amazing what you'll wear after having no new clothes for nearly a year. The jumper came from our stock of piso clothes--items left behind by departing missionaries that ended up being community property. At least it was comfortable.

This morning my sister-in-law and I took the kids to the animal museum at BYU so they could run around a bit and learn more about wildlife (like the wild " cantaloupes " of the African plains that S-Boogie saw). There was an exhibit on the food chain that suddenly brought back a memory of a lesson I learned in fourth grade. It's interesting to remember those moments when my understanding of the world suddenly increased. I don't remember learning how to read, and I never had a single "talk" that revealed the mysteries of reproduction, but there are other facts that I can vividly remember learning. The food chain is one of them. I was living in Idaho at the time, and we often had lessons on Idaho history and ecology. I'm pretty sure this lesson was sponsored by the nearby center for birds of prey. We went outside on the playground to play a game. Most of us were "prey" and a few got to be "predators". The prey had to run around picki...

We have decided to still go on our wild and crazy adventure for spring break, which will include driving to San Francisco, then to Orem, then back up to Seattle. With two small children in the backseat. Because we're insane, that's why. I haven't been all that excited about this trip (see above). Then I decided to Google one of my favorite restaurants in Berkeley. I remember this place fondly from many College Bowl trips down there. And they're still open and still serving crepes! I'm already trying to decide between ham, egg and cheddar or smoked turkey with avocado and bacon. Mmmm.... Even better, guess what's just around the corner? I think that Master Fob and Thmazing can go have fun while Lady Steed and I eat our crepes. I guess some things are worth driving twelve hours for after all.

It's an innocent question, but I still hate answering it. I usually say "California", even though I haven't been back there for over ten years now. These days I often reply "we've been in Utah for a while, but I'm originally from California". I know a lot of people have had nomadic childhoods as well, so I don't know why it's so hard for me to just say "I moved around a bit" (sometimes I do). I was born in San Diego and we lived there until I was eight. I have lots of fond memories of San Diego: Sea World, the beach, our funky house with the pepper trees in the yard, the house with a macadamia tree, our other house with the cholo neighbors who raised pit bulls in the back yard, beautiful weather, the zoo, Balboa Park, the smell of oleander blossoms, eating Chinese food at the Peking Cafe, flying kites and riding the carousel at Seaport Village, and so many other memories that I can hardly name them all. The year I turned eight, my ...

I was excited to start college my freshman year at BYU , but also a little nervous because I had been warned by a number of people that I would be plagued by RM's who would want to marry me before my first semester had even ended. In a small way, this also excited me because I had precious little experience as the object of male affection and looked forward to a change in my dating life. Unfortunately, I was the only one of the six girls in my dorm room who ended the year with virgin lips. And I kept those virgin lips until shortly after my twenty-third birthday. But that doesn't mean I didn't have a few crushes along the way. My biggest crush my freshman year was on a fellow teammate from College Bowl. Not the famous one, and not just the other freshman guy who sort of dated me. That was a crush too, but it's not quite the same because we actually did go on a few dates, talked on the phone a lot, and even snuggled in the BYU van on the overnight drive to Berkeley. No...

S-Boogie completed her first full week of preschool today. She spends four hours at school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings and is really enjoying her time there. I feel much better about her going than I did before she started. I was feeling guilty because the initial decision for her to go to school was precipitated more by my needs than hers and before she started I felt a lot of anxiety about this being a good idea. It turns out that it is, and I've been able to use my mornings for getting a lot of work done on thesis research (hopefully I'll start writing soon; I tend to do a lot of planning before writing). I had wanted to find a setting that was a little more "school" and a little less "day care", but I've realized that the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. She is attending a child care center and most of the kids are there all day. But she has two wonderful teachers and their schedule is filled with a nice mix of learning a...

Since Master Fob has been doing a series on his girl crushes, I decided to follow his lead, however painful it might be for me and the parties involved. I know I've already written on here about how my love life pre -Master Fob was a series of unrequited crushes and painfully awkward attempts at connection with guys. Now you get the full story with all the ugly details. I don't remember having any crushes until fourth grade. When I was in first and second grade, my friend and I would spend recess " cockroaching " the boys--we would chase them around, and if we managed to touch one, they were " cockroached ". Not sure where we came up with that one. In fourth grade I was living in Mountain Home, Idaho and I had a crush on a guy in my primary class. His first and last name started with the same letter and I loved the alliteration. Also his big sister taught me piano lessons, so every week I got the chance to sit in his house on his couch and even use his bat...

When I was a kid, we had a set of Tupperware dishes that came in groovy colors like yellow, orange, avocado green and brown. For some reason, if you were lucky enough to get the brown plate, you were very special. And if Mom happened to give you the brown plate with the matching brown cup, you were definitely better than anyone else in the family. I've often wondered about how the brown plate acquired it's mystique, especially since that coveted status was later transferred to the blue spoon (the one spoon with a blue plastic handle that came in our flea market assortment of silverware). S-Boogie has already assigned special status to the blue diapers, for some inexplicable reason. Luvs come with a little design printed on them, either red, yellow, orange, green or blue. So only 1 in 5 diapers is blue. I've tried explaining that eventually the blue diapers will be gone and we'll be left with only the other, lesser colors. But, logic has no place in the toddler world. Lu...

I just realized that Wednesday marked one year of blogging for me. I hope everyone has enjoyed the journey. I wasn't sure what I'd be writing about when I started, and I didn't really mean to turn this into a forum dedicated to pregnancy and bowel troubles. But, that's what's been on my mind and that's what ends up on the web. I've met lots of new friends through this past year and I'm glad to get to know you, even if I haven't met some of you in person yet. I hope this next year will be just as interesting! I think I need to go make some brownies to celebrate this occasion...