A Fisher out of Water

Christmas is over, and all the radio stations and grocery stores are back to playing their old, tired, sappy soft rock. Ugh.
But this blog is about happy things.
So I guess I was really happy for the month or so of respite from the Supremes and Whitney Houston, where we went back even further and got to hear Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and all the other folks who sang all those songs I love.
I love being able to sing along with the Christmas carols everywhere I go.
And while there were times where the sappy, new-age, "soul"-filled, lousy remakes of Christmas songs made me really mad as I tried to find the stupid soap that I couldn't find, and as I ran up and down all the stupid aisles, wishing there weren't so many other purple bottles of cleansers, I could have ripped out that stupid stereo system in the store and felt much better.
But I didn't.
And all the rest of the times I heard the happy Christmas carols, I loved them and loved singing along.
Even if they're a sappy and horrible version, I can always just sing louder than the radio, and then I like the song again.

There is nothing like good friends.
This weekend my friend, Sarah, came into town, and it was soooo much fun to hang out and have a girls' night out! We all went out to eat, got dessert at the Smart Cookie, and then went to Rachel's house and all sat in her bed and gabbed and giggled like teenagers at a sleepover party. It was aawwwesome.... And I stayed out waaaay too late. It was all snowy and icy and cold by the time I drove home, but it was late enough that there weren't too many other cars on the road to hit.
Kevin and I sang a duet in church the next day, and my voice was not as happy as it could have been. It sounded pretty good, but it was rough, since I'd stayed up so late. And I also had to prepare a sunday school lesson for my beehive girls. And I should have woken up early to do it, but I didn't.
Feels like I'm back in high school

I thought I killed my cat.
I like to sew, and my kitten, October, likes to help me. He likes to chew on the string, bat at any loose ends, dig his claws into stuff, and he also likes to bite pins. He pulls the pins out of the pin cushion and out of the stuff I'm sewing. It's quite annoying, but not quite as annoying as when he is right in my face, biting what I'm trying to finish.
But then on Monday, he pulled some pins out of the pin cushion and was chewing on them while I was working. I looked down at him, and he had a pin halfway down his throat. He meowed at me, and I saw the pointy end, but I couldn't see the ball on the other end because it was already out of sight. I tried to do something to have him spit it out, but a split second later, it was gone.
I didn't see it fall out, so I guess he swallowed it.
I was horrified. I couldn't think of any way it would just get processed smoothly, and I kept anticipating that he'd try to cough it up and choke on it, or it would poke him from the inside and tear up his digestive system, or somehow it would kill him.
I cried the rest of the night.
Toby is just a tiny cat, only 4 or 5 months old, and that is such a tragically short life! I would miss him how he meows all the time and is so soft and cute and, well, feline.
But it's now Friday, and Toby's still kicking. He hasn't died. The vet's office said he'd start throwing up if there was really a problem, and that hasn't happened either. He seems to be the same as ever.
Maybe he spat it out when I blinked.
Maybe he's a magic cat that can digest metal.
Maybe cats just have very accommodating digestive tracts for eating mice in the wild and metal straight pins in captivity.
Or maybe this is just one of his 9 lives. I hope he has a few more before curiosity finally kills him.
I hope I won't be writing about Toby and his fascination with our oven. That always scares me too.

Hello! Remember me? I guess it's been a while, but I've discovered other things to do while I'm killing time at work: Facebook!
It's super fun. I graduated too long ago to be able to have a college email address, so my profile says I'm just from Provo, UT. I'm not. I'm from New Mexico. I just live here because Kevin goes to school here. And because I have a cool job.
Speaking of my job. For the last 3 1/2 hours, I've had ONE phone call. It was this Chinese guy from Beijing who really likes to talk. It was fun to talk to him in Chinese for the first several hours. But then I got a little antsy and sick of talking to him while I should have been working. He did have a legitimate reason for calling, but he was very indecisive about that, so it took another 30 minutes to even finish up his order.
But he was nice for the first 2 1/2 hours or so.
He's from Beijing, and he used to play the piano in hotel lobbies. And I used to work in a hotel! He would get paid about a dollar for 4 hours of playing, and I'm not terribly surprised that he left China. He studied music all throughout Europe, and now he teaches piano lessons in Seattle.
He laughed really hard when I mentioned Kevin as my "Lao Gong." He was just laughing b/c it is very very colloquial. Kind of like saying "hubby." But that's what he is!
And he wanted me to set him up with all the Chinese-speaking Americans I know. So if you are one of those, let me know, and I have someone you should meet.

My favorite Christmas carol this year is The Little Drummer Boy. I think I've known it probably as long as I've known any Christmas song, but this year it just stands out. When you first hear it, it just sounds like one of those repetitive songs that keeps getting stuck in your head, but if you focus on the actual lyrics and not just the "rum pa pum pum," it's actually quite a deep poem with a nice message.
And it makes me cry every time I hear it in the car. One time I had to turn the channel when I heard it, because I was on my way to Ballet club and didn't want to look like I'd just been crying. I already looked like I had just rolled out of bed into my leotard, so I didn't want to add to that.
I just don't cry during the David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet of it, mostly because you can't near the actual song over David Bowie's hippie Christmas lyrics.

We have an old house. It used to be a shack, and now it's a cottage, but either way, it's old.
And it doesn't have a lot of things. It doesn't have insulation in most of the walls. It doesn't have walls that you can simply hang something on with a nail. And it doesn't have drainspouts along the roof.
The coolest thing about that is that we have the most beautiful set of icicles known to man. They put all those stringaling lighty icicles to shame... TO SHAME! Only you can't see them at night as well. But during the day they sparkle and drip and make my day.
That is the best part about winter so far.

I love BYU football. I always have. I just love it even more when we win... a lot... especially against Utah. It's been a while. I almost tore my hair out watching this one. And then there was Daniel over in the kitchen telling us that we couldn't win it. That dogpile in the end-zone is what happened to Daniel in the kitchen after the game too!

A while ago I told my family that we were thinking of having a baby. They are really excited about having more grandkids, so every time they see me, they ask how I'm feeling. Then they're always all disappointed when I tell them I'm feeling fine.

They say you can't get a cat to come when you call it. But we have a cat, and it comes running every time I clap my hands a few times. He also comes running whenever you open the refridgerator, but I'm not sure if that's related or not.
But my cat is a beautiful thing in my boring, mundane life. We prefer him to the "pet" mice we had been getting on almost a weekly basis. This new pet cat is much more affectionate (even though he bites) and a little less likely to carry the hantavirus.
And now I can go home from work early.
Life is great.

One of the beautiful things about fall is raking the leaves. I stopped this week to think about how the leaves turn colors. I'm terrible at chemistry, as I mentioned before, but I know that people have studied it and found out that the leaves get less and less water and prepare for winter, and as they do so the different chemicals bring out different colors. I have some general idea of that phenomenon, but then this week I realized that it is different than leaves that just die. When leaves die, they just turn brown and crispy, without the fireworks before falling off.
So I raked a lot of leaves. I know some people wait for all the leaves to fall of the trees to be more efficient in their raking, but I didn't do that this year. I went out and raked whenever I couldn't see the driveway anymore. And I'll have to do it again before winter hits and they're not so dry and easy to take off the driveway with one brisk sweep of the rake.
And I'm also excited about having so many leaves for our compost heap. It's getting pretty big, so I'm hoping it will be big enough to do some serious composting before spring.

I want to update my claim to being an applesauce making fiend. I stand corrected.
The folks I had over to dinner the other night-- without knowing about my stint as the applesauce queen-- brought over 2 jars of applesauce for me and mentioned they'd be "doing applesauce again on Monday," and invited me to come.
Now I know what a true applesauce making fiend is like. This family was spending their second day making applesauce in its truest sense. There was a trailer about the size of a medium U-haul trailer, and it had been full, I mean FULL, of apples. Then in their side yard they had set up camping stoves, about 8 of them, simmering stock pots full of apples, and 2 of them had pressure canners. Apparently on Saturday when the true applesauce making machine was at its hayday, there were a total of 14 burners, not to mention the folks working the assembly line.
They had a crank-turning applesauce squisher. One person would pour the apples in the top, one would plunge them down into the squisher, while another person would turn the crank as fast as their little arm would crank. Then someone would be washing jars, one person filling them, while another person would wipe them off, cap them, and put them in the pressure canner.
On Saturday they canned 146 quarts or something, and we probably did upwards of 70 or 80 quarts last night. They were really scraping to find more jars. I was told to come only if I could bring some jars. :) But we had enough.
This applesauce factory apparently is an annual event. It started back in the day when the mom decided to learn how to can stuff. She would spend all day in the kitchen and finish the day with like 4 or 5 quarts of canned goods. The dad, an engineer, saw all this effort and didn't believe that the purpose of canning was just to learn how to can stuff. He then engineered the applesauce factory, saying that if they're going to go through all that effort, they are going to get results!
And this year I get to take home about 6 jars of that result!

I realize I've kind of been veering from my original design in starting this blog, which is to write about the simple, beautiful things in life.
And one of those simple, beautiful things is this: when you can finally get a sulky, sullen teenager to smile. At church I work with the Beehives, 12 and 13 year old girls who are generally really giggly and silly. But one of my girls doesn't smile or laugh as much as the others. Sometimes it seems like she doesn't like me or doesn't like what we're doing. She doesn't seem sullen or sulky, but she's definitely hard to read.
Then last night I had some people over to dinner, and she came over with them. It was really cute to get her to laugh or at least smile once in a while. And then she would just start talking with me like I was just one of her friends.
And that makes me happy.

I ride my bike to work. I used to think it took 10 more minutes riding my bike than driving. Then I thought it took 5 more minutes. Then today I realized it takes me just the same amount of time either way. So I either sit in my freezing car for 10 minutes while the heater warms up or I ride my freezing bike until my body warms up. And option B makes me keep in shape, saves gas, saves money from the gym membership I don't need, and gives my hair the nice squished, windblown look I've always wanted. :)
I don't know why more people don't ride their bikes.
Maybe they like gym membership fees.
I know, I know. I'm soooo funny.

Hi, I'm the Pink Panther.
I just forgot to paint my nose pink or put whiskers on my face, so I'm actually just a person with a bunch of pink clothes and a tail and ears.
Anyway, happy Halloween!
At work we had a costume contest, but I didn't start my shift until an hour later than that. Then we had pizza and caramel apples, which I didn't miss. I picked up a couple extra hours today, so I think I'll be here for the morning pizza and then again for the evening pizza. I love getting free stuff at work!
And this morning I spent about 20 minutes throwing my costume together, making the tail and ears that I'd procrastinated about. They turned out well, if I do say so myself.
But what I actually spent all morning doing was leveling out our front walkway so no one would twist their ankles and sue us while they came for Halloween candy. See, we used to have a sidewalk that, after 70 years of tree roots growing beneath it, was impassable. So we ripped that out and still haven't decided what to put on our front walk. All we had for our guests (few and far between) was a hole with chunks of old cement in it. But now it's all smoothed and leveled and watered into place. They shouldn't be able to sue us for that. :)
And I really hope we have trick-or-treaters come this year! We actually bought candy. Kevin's been eating it as if I bought it for him, but we should still have enough.
Happy Halloween everybody!

I like being smart.
I don't always feel smart, but I do like when I'm able to answer people's questions and give enough information that people are satisfied with my answers. I'm specifically talking about my job here. I take phone calls and help people place orders, and I love the feeling of helping people. I love when the customers have a problem that they think will be a huge deal, but then I'm able to do something simple (or even not so simple) to help them through it.
This is in contrast to the calls I get when people insist on asking me questions about areas that I'm not trained in. I've gotten good at just transferring people to the right department, but then you always get those calls where someone insists on keeping you on the phone and asks you the same questions over and over-- in different ways-- just so you have to keep telling them over and over that you don't know.
And then I feel stupid.
But I'm actually a smart person. I know lots of random facts and details, and I'm really good at remembering names. I'm also really good at a lot of other things, which is why I notice such a drastic contrast when I'm really bad at things.
I can't skateboard.
I can't play the guitar.
I can't remember numbers.
I can't remember Utah addresses (refer to above).
I can't do chemistry.
I can't keep my room clean.
Otherwise I'm pretty competent.

September and October are my favorite months of the year, weather wise. And since they are almost over, it's really hitting home to me how much I enjoy them.
I love that it's nice and warm in the sun but pretty cold in the shade. I love that the trees (especially the cottonwoods in New Mexico) turn yellow. I love that there are still really pretty flowers everywhere except on BYU campus where they've already ripped everything out and planted fields of pansies.
I spend most of my Septembers and Octobers in high school outside doing marching band, and I guess I had so much fun then that just the weather reminds me of that happy time in life. I didn't like summer band. You had to stand in the sun learning your spot in the marching drill. And while the flutes or someone had a really hard drill, we were usually standing in one place for 48 counts marking time, getting socklines that ruined our hard-earned summer tans.
But then by the time September started, we knew enough of the drill and enough of our colorguard routines that it was actually fun to practice the drill. Plus there were football games and Monday Night Rehearsals and sectionals, which we would always pause for a few minutes to go talk to the cute trumpet or French horn players who were doubtlessly running amok through our rehearsals, complaining if we accidentally hit them with our flags.
After a couple months of this, by the end of October, I usually had a few complete changes of clothes that I'd keep in my band locker, all of which I would wear on Monday Night Rehearsals. And then we had the State Fair Parade, Pageant, and Zia down in Albuquerque. Those were certainly a kick in the pants. Seriously, you get that many teenagers with that much sleep deprivation, who are all nervous and excited for the same event.... it's a gas.
So I still love the fall, and apparently I always will. In the future I want to talk to a high school and be able to volunteer to help their Colorguard. I had such a blast with it when we were successful, and I'd love to help other people love it that much!

I make the world's best chili, if I do say so myself.
And I eat waaaay to much of it, and I also say so myself. Wow, does my stomach hurt! I'm sitting here at work trying to sound much more cheerful than I feel, but what I really want to talk to all these customers about is how much my stomach hurts.
But it was worth it!
I've learned that if you cut up fresh vegetables (tomatoes, onions, bell peppers) and add them to the beans and ground beef, it is very very scrumptious.

Wild sunflowers. I think they're my new favorite flower. I can't say for sure, but they're really high up there at least.
I love that they're so pretty and flashy, and they grow without any help or too much water. I know that can be a bad thing if you're a farmer in the Midwest or something, but I'm not. I'm from the desert. I love pretty flowers that grow with hardly any water.
We drove through the Salt Flats in Utah a couple weeks ago. This place defines the word desert. It is so flat and ugly and brown, especially when it's raining. But then when we drove by some sunflowers along the side of the road, the storm and the dry field behind them just framed the already-beautiful picture. It made my day.
So today during my break at work, I went out to the little field behind the parking lot and got some seeds from the old wild sunflowers so I can plant them at home. We have quite a wasteland behind our house, and I think wild sunflowers would be a perfect addition-- or barrier. :)
So yay for sunflowers.

Blog blog blog, here I go!
Ok, the purpose of this blog is to write about some of the boring and mundane things in life, because sometimes the boring and mundane are actually kind of exciting if you choose to see them this way.
That is my excuse for not writing about Kevin as my first item on my list. He's the best thing in my life, by far. But he is not one of the boring and mundane things, so he probably won't get an entire entry devoted to him.
For example, today's blog is about water. Specifically, it is about the water in my washing machine. I just moved into a house where our landlord had bought a new washer/dryer. I don't know if it was on purpose or just cheap, but it seems to be a low water usage washer. It always seems a little wasteful when you have like 3 items to wash and you have to fill up the whole washer! But this is a front-loading washer, and it doesn't even fill very much at all. It just sloshes the clothes around in enough water to make them clean and sweet smelling.
And speaking of clean and sweet smelling, is there anything to compare to the smell of fresh laundry (fresh as in just finished drying). Whether I put it in the dryer with a scented dryer sheet or hang them out to dry on the line, they smell so good when they're done! That's how I know the washer isn't broken. My laundry gets clean. It just doesn't waste water.
And speaking of drying on the line, I'm super happy about my clothesline. My mom bought it for me a couple years ago when I asked her to get me some clothespins (which she also bought, btw). Even though I didn't need it at the time, I'm glad I have it now that I strung it up between two trees in my yard.
Seriously, stepping in to my yard is like stepping back in time. I have a laundry line. I have no dishwasher. Our house is over 70 years old. We have a cellar. I make applesauce like a mad fiend. Life is great.

Welcome to the new and improved blog... this time with paragraphs!
I hope that worked.
Anyway... At work again. Still like it. We're all good.
And as far as wonderful things go, today's shout out goes to Harvest Fresh Market in Orem, Utah. I love that store. I always have a favorite store, and they're usually grocery stores. Where else do I shop on such a regular basis? Well, there is a wonderful new grocery store about 15 minutes away from my house. Usually spending 15 minutes in the car, in traffic, burning gasoline and pouring all that crud into the air would encourage me to go to grocery stores closer to home.
However.
The closest grocery store to me is Allen's. I have a cousin named Allen. He's a great guy. It is not his grocery store. It is awful! It is just averaged price, nothing terribly expensive, and nothing ever on sale. But the worst thing about it is that they never have anything fresh. I bought some carrots. Half of them were rotten. I wanted to buy lemons. All they had was canned lemon juice. Their produce department is tiny with nothing but old produce. Boo! If I ate nothing but canned stuff or potato chips, this would be a fine grocery store. But I don't.
Then there's Smith's. Smith's is nice. It has a huge variety, but it gets kind of expensive. And then Macey's is fun. They have sales and specials, free popcorn, and weird contests at midnight sometimes. It's a fun college student grocery store. But it's a bit farther away from where I live, and as long as I'm going to a store that's out of the way, I'm going to go to Harvest Fresh.
It is cheap and fresh and inspires me to eat healthy, fresh food. Most of the store is an organic health food store, the kind of store like Wild Oats Market that I would generally go to and laugh at all the hippies buying soy ice cream and overpriced vegetables.
And the first time I went there, that's what I expected to find. I was in the area, and I was only going to buy one item, so I didn't really care about the price as much. But I went in and found that the produce items were about 1/3 of the prices of Macey's and Smith's. I got a huge bag of groceries for only like 5 bucks!
So now I go back and buy all sorts of cheap food. Not only is it a health food, but it's a local farmer's market. So all their fruits and vegetables are super cheap and super good. Plus their meat and cheese are on sale sometimes, and those are nice.
Let's hear it for Market Fresh! Yay!

Hee hee. It looks like I posted that entry a few years ago, but it was actually a few minutes. Yup, that's right. I've invented time travel. MWoooha ha ha!!
And then there's also the fact that I may have started this blog a few years ago, not posted anything for a few years, and then changed the subject of the blog. But time travel is much more exciting.
So time travel, huh? Good stuff.
This blog is going to be mostly a bunch of random stuff, but partially a bunch of positive, beautiful things like I mentioned in the previous post a few years ago. :)
Positive stuff: I like my job. That's where I am right now, so that's what I'm thinking about. I work at a call center, so I talk to people on the phones all day. And when I'm not on the phone, I can talk to my co-workers (when they're not on the phones). Compared to my last job, which was eight hours of solitary confinement translating boring manuals from Chinese to English, this job is just the best! And as far as normal, cubicle jobs go, this is quite nice.
In my last job, I would complain that my job was boring, and people would tell me that, well, that's just how jobs go. I was horrified. I mean, I have 5 years' experience working at a day camp, and I knew nothing would be as fun as that. But I didn't know I'd have to cry myself to sleep every night before going to work in the morning.
But now I don't.
And I like my job.