A Fisher out of Water

When I quit my job at the beginning of October, I was relieved to have so much free time on my hands! I could finally practice the piano, keep up on my housework, work in the yard, and sew my projects. In fact, I had so much time I could do all this PLUS waste hours playing computer games, checking my friends' blogs every day, sleeping in, and re-reading all the Harry Potter books.
Life was great... for a while.
I have finally defined myself as someone who needs external structure. There would be days that all I had accomplished was... doing the dishes. The rest of my day had been frittered away. So much for getting so much done in my free time!
So I started adding activities: I decided to make all my Christmas presents this year, I enrolled in classes at U. of Phoenix, I got a new job, I added extra hours to my ballet job. And now I am always busy!
I feel a little frantic at times, like when I realize on Wednesday night that I haven't even started a group project for school, and it's due Thursday and no one in my group will answer my messages. (!!!).
But for the most part, I LOVE IT! I love being busy. I love the challenge that comes from having so much to do that you have to be organized. I did this to myself in high school, with all my extracurricular activities and schoolwork and everything, but I think I overdid it. I didn't get any sleep (hello, seminary!), and I never saw my family. I felt like if I ever failed in any of these activities, I would let everyone down, so I stressed out about it. I couldn't quit anything, because that would let them down even more!
But I'm trying to keep things balanced now. I make sure to spend time with Kevin, and I realize that I can quit any of these activities at any time, and while some people might feel let down, it is not my problem (if I give adequate notice and everything).
I have a few regular hours of free time: every morning during homeroom (I supervise kids in the computer lab), I have time to read, relax, blog, or write. And in between school and ballet, I have an hour which I have decided will be my exercise time. It's sad, but those 2 hours a week will probably make all the difference (that, and being up and about during school, not on my butt playing computer games).
And so much for the homemade gifts this year! Problem is: I still have this hope that I'll make the homemade gifts, so I haven't broken down and bought gifts for anyone yet.
Family: You may not get anything this year. Consider this your warning.

It's finally here, the Day After Thanksgiving! I love this day, because it is the day I get to stop feeling bad for listening to Christmas carols, get out my decorations, and go to town! I don't mean literally going to town, because the idea of being joining the hustle and bustle (i.e. frenzy) of shopping on this day makes me queasy.
But I love celebrating Christmas!
We started of this year's celebration by raking up all the dead leaves. We'd been waiting until the last leaf was off the trees so as to prevent the counterproductivity that comes with raking while leaves are still falling. While Kevin finished that up, I started putting up the Christmas lights on the house, which hadn't been done for a long time. I'll come back to that.
Now we have a ton of Christmas lights, because every year I either lose the bag of lights and have to buy more, or else I buy up a bunch when they're on sale after Christmas is over. What this means is that this year, since I've already bought some on sale and found all the ones I've lost over the years, we have millions (well, thousands) of Christmas lights. I also got some neat plastic clips that slide onto the shingles or roof drains (shingles in our case).
Our house (as I have mentioned several times before) is a cute little cottage in the middle of a big, open field. It was built in the 1930's, and the same little old lady lived in it up until recently. The neighbors tell us about how she was your typical old cat lady who gave candy to the kids, but they werere still scared to come to the house because it was all old and overgrown.
The house has undergone a major transformation, and now it is a cute little cottage that I new would look stellar decked in Christmas lights.
So I got out the ladder and started clipping lights up. I made Kevin do the highest part on the roof while I held the ladder for him. I carefully outlined the roof on the side, front, and little porch thingie of the house.
Now I've painted our house, including the trim of the roof and the entire porch thingie (although come to think of it, I used a step-stool and never actually looked inside it before). Well, today I looked inside.
There were a bunch of cobwebs covering the remains of an old porch light and a bag of something. It looked like a dead animal of some sort, but I remember poking and prodding it at some point last year and realizing it was a bag of something.
But wait! That was in the basement. I've never looked up here in the porch. And now that I'm looking at THIS bag of something, I'm realizing that it has a face with teeth poking out of its shriveled face and the remains of hair all over it.
I carefully, silently got down the ladder and then RAN over to Kevin yelling, "Glglhghglkkkkk!" and trying to shake imaginary cooties off of me.
"Kevin, there's a dead cat in the roof!"
Kevin got his rake and came to investigate. I made gagging noises again and told him how horrified I was that he was using a rake to get it out.
"How else do you expect me to get it out?"
I ignored him and ran to go get a shovel. This cat may be all dead and shriveled, but he still deserves a proper burial (or at least a hole in the ground). Once I realized the ground was too hard to dig, I ran inside for my camera.
You guys should be lucky I couldn't find it.
So we buried the cat in a pile of leaves in the ditch.
And our house looks beautiful for Christmas.
So merry Christmas, one and all! Maybe you could make a copy of this and send it out with your Christmas letter this year. Or print it out and keep it in your pile of O Henry Christmas stories.
Or just be sure to wear gloves when you put up your Christmas lights this year

Baseball and Perspective

At church this Sunday, our ward organist (who is excellent) gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting (which was excellent). He is a physics professor at BYU, and his talk was about how he reconciles scientific theories with his testimony when they appear to conflict (i.e. the Big Bang theory, evolution, etc).
He started out by making this analogy: Say you got a ticket to a baseball game, but you got a seat where you could only see the pitcher and the batter. You couldn't see the umpire, the catcher, the other fielders, or even the other bases or the scoreboard. This is a really terrible seat!
But as you watch the game, you start to notice patterns. This is like a scientific theory. You figure out that when the hitter hits the ball, he takes off running. You figure out that there must be a catcher, since the ball keeps being thrown back to the pitcher. And after a few games (you got a season pass in this awful seat), you start to figure out more technicalities, like balls and strikes. You start feeling really confident in your theory. Every time the ball is thrown, it fits into your theory of baseball.
But then one time when you're watching the ball, there are three strikes and the runner takes off towards first base. What?! That doesn't fit into your theory at all. So you modify your theory. You add the "third strike drop" rule that accounts for when the catcher drops the ball on a third strike, then the hitter gets to run to the bases. Now your theory works again.
But do you really understand what it is to watch baseball? Do you really understand all the rules? I'm sure you don't. But from your terrible seat and limited perspective, you've done a lot to figure out what's happening.
Scientific laws and theories are actually both theories. Newton's Laws are called laws because that's what HE called them. And they've been proven to be wrong in some situations, but they're still called laws. Then we have Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which has never been proven wrong but is still called a theory, because Einstein called it a theory.
So going back to the religion thing. How can someone believe in the Big Bang theory, the theory of evolution, AND Adam and Eve? Well, it all comes down to perspective. We don't know exactly how anything worked out. The account of the creation in the Bible is very brief and doesn't go into too much detail on HOW things were created. And from our limited standpoint, we've found a lot of evidence that supports the scientific theories. Should we just throw away that evidence because we can't make it fit in what we know to be God's truth? No. But neither should we throw away God's truth just because we found some evidence supporting some theories that seem to contradict it.
We just keep studying and keep learning, realizing that we have a limited perspective and that God knows all. Maybe once we die and get to heaven, we'll get a better seat.

You know that scene from You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan's character has just lost her job, and then she gets sick? I love the part where she gets a knock on the door, so she has to scramble around and get rid of all the tissues she has lying around the house.
So I am working through my second cold in the last month (not November, but the last 30 days). Ugh! The first one lasted like 3 weeks, starting right as I was finishing up my last job. Then this last one started on Sunday. This one's more of just a sniffle that should go away in a couple more days.
But there are so many more things I'd rather be doing than laying around sick! I guess the big question is whether I'd actually be doing them if I wasn't, and the answer is, probably not.
Maybe that's what I'll learn from it this time around: to appreciate the ability I have to do other things besides sitting around.

Yesterday, I got dressed in possibly the most frumpy outfit ever, and this is because most of my cold weather clothes are worn out or frumpy. So even though I was sick, I decided to go out clothes shopping. I didn't find anything I liked (it's hard for me to like anything when I'm sick), but I did buy a sheet. I plan on making a dress out of it. If it turns out well, I'll post a picture of it on here. If not, you may never see it, as most of you didn't see the last dress I tried to make.

I'm not saying our culture doesn't have anything weird in it (cheerleaders or Slim Goodbody, anyone?), but we don't have THIS.

I just about drove Kevin nuts watching this (and a couple more episodes), but I couldn't stop laughing.

I think it's important for women in every walk of live, in whatever country they're living in, to be prepared for being mugged by their taxidriver who turns out to be really quite a catch! :)

Ew ew ew ew ew ew ewwww!
Ok, so I was just in my basement sweeping up the last of my tomato bushes (don't ask). Right outside the basement door is a little crack inbetween the bricks and the house. As I was sweeping towards the door, I noticed some movement, and I wasn't sure if it was a stink bug or a really big spider.
After ensuing investigation, I determined that it was, in fact, a REALLY HUGE SPIDER. Not just a spider, but a black widow! Seriously, that thing could have been diced in quarters and still been significantly huge spiders.
But as it was, this mostrous, LOTR-worthy thing was living right outside my basement door. Not for long! A can of spider killer (along with several choruses of "ew ew ew ew ew ew ewww") took care of that.
I had Kevin go down and look at it, and he offered to bring it up and pin it to our wall.
That's disgusting.
It is currently shrivelling up in its hole. May it rest in peace. And not spawn anything.

It's raining, and it's nighttime.
It didn't rain all day, and it was beautiful weather! Not hot at all, but not cold. Just perfect, autumn weather.
But whenever it rains at night, while I do enjoy listening to it drip, drip, dropping, I have a few moments of panic while I try to remember what I might have left in the rain that would get ruined.
Did I leave the shovel out (again)?
Are all the windows shut?
What could I possibly have left out there that would get ruined?
And do you know what? Tonight I think the answers are: no, yes, and nothing! Yay!
Now I can just sit back, relax, and let the rain lull me to sleepies.

So this is Toby, our cat. As of this evening, he is our only cat.
Inca, which is what we ended up calling the Siamese kitten after going through names like Princess Christina, Tina, Alexandra, Alexandretta, Allie, and Yzma, has moved on to a new home. We decided from the beginning--before we even got Inca-- that if the two cats didn't get along, we'd find her a new home. And they sure didn't! They fought like cats and dogs, even though they are both cats, which is apparently worse.

Football!!!!
OK, so I LOVE watching BYU football. It is so fun to have a team to root for and a cause to have opinions about.
Well, last night was the BYU vs. Omaha game. Kevin and I don't have a TV at our house, which we love, but it does make it a bit of a challenge to find a place to watch a game. And now BYU has started broadcasting their games on channels like CSTV and The Mountain, so no one who hasn't purchased the Comcast Football package or something can watch the games.
Besides how stupid that is and how fans can't watch the games and our team doesn't get any publicity outside of, well, Utah, there is one plus to this dilemma: we are forced to be social.
So last night we went over to the Legends Grille on campus, where they had about 20 screens showing the game and probably 500 people there watching it. It was the closest thing to being in the stadium, except that the team was in Omaha, and we were in Provo.
The game was pretty... well... we lost. We did some things well-- a lot of things well, in fact. This isn't a team where I cringe when I watch them and then wish that we actually had a decent team this year. No, I think they're a pretty good team. They just do stupid things and lose games.
For instance: our quarterback is new and throws interceptions. Our offensive line starts early, holds people, and aids the team in racking up 14 penalties. And that is how you lose games.
Omaha was pretty good, especially when you consider they have less than 3,000 students at their school. They're the smallest school in NCAA football, I think. We were pretty good at crushing their running game. And their short passes were pretty well ground into the turf. But it was those sneaky 60-yard passes for touchdowns (what, four of them?) that really got us. That's how you win games.

Yesterday morning, bright and early (about 9:00), I answered my phone to my whole family (parents and little brothers, at least) cheering, "Happy Birthday!" on speaker phone as they drove to Stake Conference in Santa Fe. "Your life is now officially 1/4 over," my dad assured me.
Yes, yes, I am now 25 years old.
I never thought it would be a big deal, but it turns out this "milestone" of a birthday really made me stop and reflect on what I have and haven't accomplished in my life.
I'd just watched an episode of "Friends" where Everyone Turns Thirty, and I thought it was kind of funny how everyone had such ridiculous reactions. I mean, it's just a number, right? But I guess at these milestone birthdays, you automatically start to take inventory of your life. Even though I've never made a list, I'd always assumed I'd accomplish certain things by the time I was 25.
I've done some, and I'm still working on others. In fact, I'm starting a few things that should make my life quite a bit busier (which is a good thing). Tomorrow evening I start a job at a ballet studio accompanying a ballet class on the piano. I'm hoping that this will help me get some good contacts to start teaching piano lessons. And I'm also thinking about getting a teaching certificate or continuing my education in some other way.
We'll see about how all that goes. Hopefully I'll have some sort of update next year, when I turn 26 on the 26th!

I love reading my friends' blogs. I check them, oh, every couple days or so. I just go down the list and check if people have anything new... which is SO HYPOCRITICAL. I have slumped, and it's time to do something about it.


So not only will I post, but I will post pictures!
Here are some before and after pictures from my garden.
Before:

After:
I must say that this is not as impressive as it looks in real life. The biggest change you can see on this is that the surrounding field went from green and growing to dead. But I've harvested about a hundred zucchinis so far, and just this morning I picked 23 bright red tomatoes off of those two tiny bushes. It's been a good little garden so far!

And here's another before:

And another after:
It's not exactly the same angles, but man, these bushes--especially the tomato bushes-- have taken over the area! :) There won't be room for them next year, since the other bushes are trying to make themselves a presence, and they're supposed to be the permanent ones.

And my camera died before I got a good shot of the "lawn." It's trying.

I made a dress this week. I finished it last night. It.... looks.... AWFUL on me!
I am so sad!
It is a wrap-around dress from a retro 1952 Butterick pattern. It was under the category of "very easy" so I figured I could probably handle it. Oh, I handled it, all right. I cut out the pieces and kind of draped them over myself, and I wasn't too cheered by the result. I figured, though, that since I wasn't finished yet, it would probably look much better once it was sewn.
Halfway through, I repeated the process, and I still wasn't terribly impressed by the dress.
Last night I finished it and dressed myself up in my newly completed dress. It looked terrible! Everything that I try not to accentuate (broad shoulders, flat chest, very broad shoulders, non-defined waist, etc) was accentuated as the primary focus of the dress. Then whatever positive aspects I have in my appearance were completely forgotten in the massive, hugely, broad shoulders of the dress.
And the waist was too big, so it kind of sagged and drooped and looked frumpy.
Yes, I think it is safe to say it turned out to be a FRUMPY dress.
I'm sad. I was super excited about making my own dress and having it always to keep and cherish and know that I had made it myself.
I think I'll stick to skirts from now on.
I am thinking, though, that this dress will make several cute aprons!
Live and learn.

Operation Lawn

I have finally discovered for myself the wonder that is Ikea.
When Kevin and I lived in Beijing, people were always squealing about the cute stuff they had seen or bought at Ikea: furniture, cups, napkins, pillows, you name it. Beijing even had a knock-off Ikea (actually Ieka), so you know it was pretty awesome if it was worth knocking off.
And a few weeks ago, Utah got its first Ikea. I went visiting teaching last month to my friend Lonnie's house. She said we could come, but we had to make it quick because she had something going on that night. Turns out she was planning to camp out in front of Ikea the night before the grand opening. She was so excited!
Then a couple weeks ago, Kevin's mom came and stayed with me for a while, and we planned on going to Ikea to check it out and buy some kitchen chairs (all we had were random, unmatching folding chairs and rickety old wooden chairs). But while she was here, we didn't have an opportunity to go. Before she left, she gave me some money for me to go buy chairs at Ikea.
So last night I went.
And it was pretty much cool. I tried all the chairs and discovered that the cheapest ones were just as comfortable as the ones 3x as expensive, and way more comfortable than the cute ones I almost bought. So I bought 6 of the Jokkmokk chairs (which perfectly match the wood in our kitchen cabinets, btw), 6 seat cushions, a rug, a paper lantern, lightbulbs, a cord, some cutting boards (not exciting enough to include pictures), and an old fashioned alarm clock just like in Mickey's Christmas Carol-- all for just $204!
The biggest mistake I made in that store was to go sit in some chairs that I knew I couldn't afford. There was a big cushy leather recliner for like $120 or something. I thought it was really cute, but I had NO IDEA how comfortable it would be!!
But as you can tell from my purchase list, I left the store without it. I may have to go back and visit it sometime soon.

Hello, world!
I made it through Girls' Camp, and I'm all cleaned and scrubbed and now smell decent enough to brave it into the real world again. It took me a couple days. ;)
Camp wasn't what I expected. This is mostly my fault, but partially just a difference of expectations. I'd been to Girls' Camp for 6 years when I was growing up, and it was always a blast! And then I did Bear Camp every day all summer for 5 years, and man, I LOVED it! I always had tons of energy and sang songs and enthusiastically did crafts and dodgeball and everything else.
But fast forward a couple years, and you have me at YW camp this year: I didn't get any sleep the night before I left (I was packing and sending cute e-cards to Kevin all night), and then the first night at camp and every time I tried to take a nap, there were girls giggling and talking and NOT LETTING ME SLEEP. But I always hated it when the leaders would come around and tell you to go to sleep, so I just let them do it.
AND... I was kind of looking at camp as something to fill up my time. I knew it would be fun and time would just rush by. It did, but when that's all you're at camp for, it's not as exciting as it could have been.
It was awesome to get to know the girls better, and there were some fun times. There's this activity set up in the Confidence Course where there's a big steel rope tied around three trees, a couple feet off the ground. Basically, you and a friend start at one end where the ropes are close together, and then you lean towards each other as you walk on the ropes, getting farther and farther apart and leaning more and more against each other. I did this course with my neighbor, Deon, and she and I were the only people who made it to the end. We are so cool!
I "got" to talk in church about camp, and Deon got after me later about not mentioning the Confidence Course in my talk, so this is to make up for that. :)
Camp was nice, and time has passed, and now there are only 3 more days til Kevin gets back. Yay!

It is waaaay too late for me to be writing this, but here goes it:
I'm going to YW camp in the morning at 6:30! Crazy huh!
I'm excited to go. For years and years I went to YW camp. First I'd go for a night a year when my dad would go up. I thought I was soooo cool being the one little girl with all the cool older girls. Then I went every year as a teenager. Now I get to go as a leader! Rock on!
I still have some packing to do, and I should be in bed a long time ago. But oh well. That's how it goes.
I'll give a lengthy report once I get back.

This is from my friend Beth's blog. It caught my eye b/c the first question is about aprons. Obviously, this is going to be a survey worth answering! Then as I kept reading, I realized that these were all my soapboxes. My favorite hobby right now is my house, so read on, dear friends:

Aprons – Y/N? YES! I made one out of some dishtowels that I didn't like, but since I didn't like the towels, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I didn't like the apron too well. In Hawaii last month, though, I got a way cute apron that is a cute little halter-top sundress in the front, with big sashes that tie in the back, and of course some pockets.
Baking – Favorite thing to bake: Cookies. I make EXCELLENT cookies. I even taught Kevin to make EXCELLENT cookies. My top 2 recipes are chocolate chip and gingersnaps.
Clothesline – Y/N? YES! I have a lot of trees and a lot of room, so I tied a rope between two of them, and I hang out as much laundry as I can. I love how it makes them smell so good and also saves electricity.
Donuts – Have you ever made them? No. I think one time in Young Women's, we tried to make them using Pillsbury biscuit dough. But they accidentally got the kind that had butter chunks in the dough, so it was pretty nasty. So no.
Every day – One homemaking thing you do every day: Make my bed. Hahahahahahahahahaha!!! sniff. Ahhhh.... I suppose I make some sort of food every day.
Freezer – Do you have a separate deep freeze? No... it's connected to my fridge, and it's quite handy.
Garbage Disposal – Y/N? No. And our drains all go into an ancient septic tank, so we have to be super careful about what goes down them.
Handbook – What is your favorite homemaking resource? Moms, Grandmas, and Relief Society.
Ironing – Love it or hate it? Neither. It has its place, and it is quite useful. But if I have an extra half hour here or there, I'm not going to go run to the ironing board.
Junk drawer – Y/N? Where is it? I suppose yes. But it's more of a junk room. I'm really going to have to work on that.
Kitchen – Color and decorating scheme: Red, yellow, green, blue, and white. Sunflowers.
Love – What is your favorite part of homemaking? The satisfaction that comes from accomplishing things. And not just mundane, lame things like dishes or cleaning toilets, but when I can transform a place and make it look amazing. Doesn't happen very often, so I have to relish it when it does.
Mop – Y/N? Yes. But our kitchen floor isn't sealed between the "tiles," so it has to be a very dry mop. Fortunately, it doesn't need it too often.
Nylons – Wash by hand or in the washing machine? Washing machine.
Oven – Do you use the window or open the oven to check? I usually check through the window first, but since I can never tell what color things actually are through it, I always end up opening it too. Same goes for rice. ;)
Pizza – What do you put on yours? Pineapple. Beyond that, as long as it has pineapple on it, it is a good pizza.
Quiet – What do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment? I have a part-time job and no kids. My day is full of quiet moments.
Recipe card box – Y/N? What does it look like? It looks quite a bit like my computer
Style of house – What style is your house? It's a 1930's cottage on a big lot that used to be part of a cattle ranch, but now it's the last bit of undeveloped land in a middle-class suburban neighborhood. I love it!
Tablecloths and napkins – Y/N? Nope. Not that we don't need them, but nope.
Under the kitchen sink – Organized or toxic wasteland? It's organized, but it kind of stinks.
Vacuum – How many times per week? Per week? What? Once. If that.
Wash - How many loads of laundry do you do per week? ditto: once, if that. But sometimes like 3. It depends on if I decide to be thorough.
X’s – Do you keep a daily list of things to do that you cross off? No. Lists drive me crazy. I figure I spend so much time making the list that I could have already done half the things on it.
Yard – Y/N? Who does what? Yes. I spend much of my "quiet time" working out in my yard. I just killed the "lawn" and will have to rent a roto-tiller sometime in the next couple weeks so I can actually plant decent grass. Kevin usually helps me mow, and he comes and does manly stuff like digging and things like that when I need help.
Zzz’s – What is your last homemaking task for the day before going to bed? Does locking the doors count? I don't really have that much of a routine at night. My brain shuts off way before I actually crawl into bed, so I'm lucky if the doors are locked.

Congratulations. You now can imagine that you are me, since a lot of what I do when I'm not at work was just summarized above.

Tonight was the biggest party ever! Sarah asked me if she could have some friends over and roast hotdogs and marshmallows. We have a big empty lot behind us with random bits of dead wood throughout, so of course she could!
After work today, I got home to a sound system with a DJ playing some Latin music while people were setting up fancy chairs for what turned out to be a huge (well, loud at least) wedding for some Hispanic folks at the park behind our house. And then on the other side, one of the neighbors just turned 14, so she was having a birthday party with her friends. When you turn 14, your celebration involves much giggling, laughing, and screaming.
So between these two events, we started a bonfire and had a blast. I knew no one except Sarah and her roommate, Brianne. But they have cool friends who brought the food, so they were very welcome.
They went on to someone else's place to watch the "game," so now it's just me and the Latin music. It's been quite windy, so the little girls at the wedding party are all screaming, and the DJ said something about "un tornaaaado."
Either way, I love Latin music, so I'll just be jammin' out here.

From the home front: just a few observations and deep thoughts.
While we were on vacation, we had one of our neighbours come by every day to water, pick up the mail, etc. When I came back, strangest of the strange, one of my plants was missing. MISSING! There weren't any signs that it had been dug up (loose dirt or anything), and there weren't any short stems sticking up signifying it had been eaten by a passing deer. So I was quite confused.
I asked Sara, the neighbour taking care of our place, if she'd noticed anything. Not being on the lookout for wandering-off plants, she hadn't.
Hmmm....
Now its growing back. Apparently, the deer must have thought it extremely tasty and chomped it down to where there was nothing showing. Strange, because the identical plant just a foot away from this one hadn't been touched.

Deep observation #2: I hope algae isn't bad for you. Well, not you, but me. I hope it's not bad for me.
You know how when you leave your fishtank in the light for a while, it grows algae all over its walls and then it's all green and nasty? Well, my water filter pitcher is on its way to being so. Gross, huh!

I've never been a person that spent a lot of money. Maybe it comes from growing up in a small town where the nearest mall was an hour away. Or maybe it comes from the fact that the more money I didn't spend, the more money I had.
Either way, this whole "being on my own" thing is sort of new for me. I work a part-time job-- actually a couple of them-- and then I spend my time doing yardwork and going to the library and reading: very cheap hobbies.
One of my goals for this summer, though, was to: 1. standardize our living room furniture so it matches, has a theme (besides "we got these for free, aren't they ugly"), and 2. put together my wedding photo album. This was until I realized just recently, that I cannot afford to do either. I do not make enough money, especially when I leave work early because it's slow or when I take off work to travel.
So what shall I do instead? Um. Hmmm...
Then today it hit me: why am I so worried about my furniture matching if I can't even keep my house clean?! Whether I have ugly furniture or beautiful, classy, "themed" furniture, it's gonna look ugly if it has papers, junk, and dust everywhere. And if I can't even keep my house clean when it's just Kevin and me (and Toby), how will there be hope for me when I have kids messing the place up?
So these are my new goals: 1. clean our living room. keep the kitchen clean. put my clothes away once in a while. remember that just because I'm "in the middle of something" doesn't mean I have to physically be "in the middle" of the project 24/7. Putting things away is part of doing things. And 2. maybe I'll put together a scrapbook of the pictures I do have printed out. High school, mid school, girls' camp. These are fading fast into the realm of "things I don't remember doing," so it will be nice to have the pictures with labels before I go completely senile.

Sarah, my sister, is coming over after work today to play in my yard with me. I love working in my yard and would happily play by myself, but for the fact that I have about 90 things that need to be done this week, and no possible way that they will all get done. And the problem with gardens is that if you don't get it done at the right time, you have to wait another year. A whole year! That can't happen.
So this is my "to do" list. I hate making these, since I feel like the time spent making them could be better spent actually doing them, but here it is:
- Clear weeds by mailbox, along driveway
- Put in lawn edging
- Saw down lilac and forsythia bushes
- Plant lawn seeds
- Order lawn seeds (this is not in order)
- Dig out crab grass
- Cut grass by pond
- Dig out mulch (the tree that got cut down and chipped)
- Sift and move compost pile
- Improve soil by said mailbox and driveway
- Weed veggie garden
- Weed flower garden
- Prepare bed for tomatoes
- Put new Y-jack on hose (the last one kind of exploded)
- Plant bulbs
- Move fence beams
- Put up fence
- Mow on Mondays
- Plant trees
- Put up screens
- Chop off dead branches

I'm living in the Secret Garden.

Especially now that spring is here, I feel like I'm Mary or Dickon running around the garden finding all these amazing things that, as of last fall, either looked dead or just plain weren't there!

Read this to see what I mean:

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th' safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles o' trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't build here."
Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.
"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead."
"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!"
He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.
"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An' there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.
"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive quite?"
Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.
"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."
"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there are."
She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.
"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an' growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might think this was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut it low down an' see."

That's what I do all day. I run about and exclaim over things that I find in my yard! There's green grass everywhere, whereas last year there was just dry, dead grass and lots of dust. There are tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils coming up along the driveway. There must be hundreds of them!

Then back along the banks of our little fish pond (although currently sans fish) the ground is covered in grape hyacinths. We have about a million rose bushes in various stages of overgrowth, undergrowth, or just plain trampled. Some of them bloomed last year, but others haven't been taken care of well enough to have bloomed for some time now. I'll change that!

We have a compost pile and a vegetable garden. I've planted about a third of it so far. Now we're just waiting for the danger of frost to pass, and we'll plant the rest of it near tax day. I have tomatoes and peppers and pumpkins growing indoors just waiting to be put outdoors to grow me a bumper crop! I can hardly wait to be swimming in fresh, free produce.

My mom came and visited me last week, and she brought me some plants. I've been planting them over the last couple days: chives, oregano, day lillies, and bleeding hearts. This is going to be the most beautiful house EVER!

There are a lot of movies out there about penguins. When we were little, one of Sarah's and then Alex's favorite movies was Scamper the Penguin. They really liked it when they were about three. It told the (unending) story of a little blue penguin named Scamper. He liked to scamper around and explore all the exciting things around Antarctica. This means that as the viewer, you are dragged around, watching him slide around on the snow and ice, meet the predatory birds, get chased by a leopard seal and then later by orcas. Then I think he got captured by humans on a boat taking him to a zoo, and he later escaped. Then there was the friendly scientist and his big dog.
When Sarah and Alex were 3, they really liked it. But I, being sooo much older and more mature than both of them, hated it! It was the longest, boringest, most cheesy movie in the world! But having the slight ADD tendancies we all have, if the TV was on, I would watch it. So I've seen this movie probably a hundred times.
Last night Kevin and I went to see Happy Feet, the movie about a tap-dancing penguin. The first 20 minutes were kind of funny. It was a bunch of singing and dancing penguins jammin out in Antarctica! Sometimes it was a little awkward, as it was a children's movie and they'd be singing raunchy love songs ("Let's talk about eggs, baby. Let's talk about you and me"), but I guess since it was animated, it was ok.
But that was the only original, fun part of that movie. As it dragged on and on... and on, I realized that how Happy Feet probably came about was that the writers stole the script from Scamper the Penguin, and then gave it to Al Gore to rewrite.
When I was little, I thought Scamper was about as bad as it got. But throw some preachy politics into any lame movie, and then you'll make your audience sorry they wasted a whole dollar (and 2 hours of their lives) that they'll never get back.
If you must watch a penguin movie, watch March of the Penguins.

So this week has been.... eventful.
On Saturday, I babysat my neice, Rachel. She's a doll. We went out shopping, and after driving around a bit, my car started making these awful grating, clicking, rumbling noises. Everyone (at least all the men I saw) gave my car these horrified looks and then looked at me as if to say, "You idiot! You're not supposed to drive a car that sounds like that!" So once I got to the parking lot, I decided to find a different ride home.
I called a bunch of people and finally got a hold of my sister-in-law, and she and her dad came to get us and bring us home.
About 20 minutes after we got home, Rachel was walking across the kitchen and tripped over a bag of onions. She's almost two, so tripping and falling is just what she does. This time, however, there was the corner of a refridgerator right in her path, and she busted her head open on it.
Now, this was not life-threatening, but neither was it a band-aid job. It was a pretty deep gash, and I knew it would need some stiches.
Here I will remind you that the broken car was back in the parking lot of Joann's Fabric, about 4 miles away.
So after a few more frantic phone calls, some neighbors (the same ones that plow our driveway when it snows) came and drove me and a screaming Rachel to the Emergency Room.
Erik and Barbara came later (after they came to pick up Rachel and instead were told that, well, she was in the Emergency Room), and they brought Kevin.
Now we had to find a ride home. :)
Life can get exciting sometimes, even in Provo, UT.

You get what you pay for.
And some of the free things in life are worth just what you pay for them.
Sarah and I went to that cooking class tonight. The teacher was cute with a unique (ok, obnoxious) laugh, and she was nervous so you heard it after everything she said.
She taught us how to make bratwursts on the George Foreman grill, make semmel knudel from the box with instant brown gravy, and potato salad with German dressing.
I guess we did get something out of the class: free samples (they were quite tasty), a couple recipes, and most importantly, some motivation to get out there, search the internet, and learn how to actually make semmel knudel from scratch.

Some of the best things in life are free. For example, Sarah and I signed up for a German cooking class at Macey's. We're learning how to make Bratwurst or Saurkraut and also some kind of semme kenudl, which is apparently a dumpling.
I obviously will be learning a lot.
I like cooking, and Sarah likes German stuff, so between us it should be a blast! And it's 100% free!
More free stuff: the public library. I love the feeling of being able to take home anything and as much of anything as I want. Last time I went to check out books, I got a whole pile that I had to steady with my chin-- and then they were out of bags! So this time I brought my own bag full of books to return, and then I filled it back up with new ones to read. It cost me... absolutely nothing!
This is in comparison to amazon.com, where I would have paid $25 dollars for just two books. I ended up buying one of them (I had a gift certificate), but I wasn't about to lay down money for the other book, which I hadn't read and wasn't sure I'd like.
And speaking of not spending tons of money, my third item today is not free, but it's almost free. My favorite place to spend little bits of money is at the remnant bin at the fabric store. At some fabric stores, the remnant bin is a whopping 20% off the regular price, but at Joann's, it's 50% off! They're only little pieces, but that's perfect when I want more variety (I only ever do small baby quilts anyway, so I don't need much of anything).
Today I spent the day shopping, so this note is a reminder to myself that, although I did spend too much money (any money is too much money), I didn't spend money on a lot of things I'm getting.

I've written before about my favorite blog to read, www.dressaday.com/dressaday.html. If you haven't yet (and if anyone reads this), go check it out!
Erin, the author of that blog, tagged all her readers. And since I've read that blog for several months now, I feel I must comply.
If you are tagged, you
1) Post 5 things about yourself that you have never posted
2) Tag 5 people whom you'd like to know more about

There are tons of things I've never posted, but now trying to think of some, none come to mind.
1) I hate the sound of ice. Now, ice in-and-of itself doesn't make sounds, you may say. This is true. But if you scratch it, scrape it, ice skate on it (let's not even go into hockey stops), crunch in the squeaky snow, anything-- It gives me chills like nails on a chalk board.
2) I think most Chinese pop music is cheesy and awful... and it is. But there's one talented artist that I enjoy, and her name is Sun Yan Zi, a.k.a. Stephanie Sun. There's actually music in her songs. And variety even. She's got talent, she has.
3) The sunlight in the morning makes my kitchen glow. It feels just like being at Grandma's house, especially when I get up early to make hotcakes. We have a view of what used to be an irrigation ditch, and with all the trees and snow around it, it always brings to mind Robert Frost's poem: Who's woods are these? I think I know. His house is in [Beijing] though.
4) It is my goal to always be frugal without being stingy. I hate wasting anything or spending more money on things than I ought to. But then I want to change Provo's stereotype for terrible tipping. So if we ever go out to eat (not often) or order pizza (basically never), I always try to leave a generous tip. Hey, they're poor college students too!
5) When I was little I loved adventure stories where kids would eke out a living for themselves in the woods. I loved the Boxcar Children #1, Caddie Woodlawn, My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet, and Kirsten's books in the American Girls series. I haven't enjoyed reading since middle school, and now that I'm done with college, I'm going to start reading what I love again. I went to the Juvenile Fiction section of Provo's BEAUTIFUL library, and I came home with more books than I could even hold (and they were out of bags, of course!). I'm so excited to read them!

OK, now for tagging other people. I'm not sure who all reads this, but I tag
1) Kevin
2) Sarah
3) Calysta
4) Julia
5) Amy

and whoever.... if you have a blog, do it there. If you don't, you can just leave a response to my entry.
Either way, you've been tagged, so you have an obligation!

Attention all car thieves: Provo welcomes YOU!!!
At any public place, whether it's the library, post office, bank, or grocery store, you can find a large assortment of cars sitting in the parking lots, doors unlocked, keys in ignition, engine running. These cars come preheated!
But seriously, I can understand if people leave their car doors unlocked. Maybe they don't care about their stereo or the CD collection under their seat. But you'd think that no one would leave their car in the parking lot with the smoke signal pouring out the exhaust pipe, unless they were inviting thieves to take it.
So take all you want, car thieves. Maybe people will learn.

I love disposable tupperware. No one I know actually uses them and throws them away every single time like they're sandwich baggies, but I love that no one is uptight about them. It seems like everyone, rich or poor, is happy to give you something in one of those throw-away ziplock containers and won't worry about getting it back any time soon.
I also love g3 juice. It is a product sold by Pharmanex, which is where I work. It is fruity and tangy, and has tons of vitamin C (translation: if you accidentally swallow it down the wrong pipe, it is painful for a long time) and beta carotiene and stuff. It's healthy. My mom came to visit, and I gave her a drink of it. After several moments of pensive lip smacking, she told me it tasted like it had crunched up vitamins in it.
It doesn't.
But it's good.
Other good things: On Saturday, it snowed. This isn't the good part. What that means for us is that we have to instantly run out and shovel our driveway, or else it will turn into a large sheet of ice that will stay 'til next spring unless we hack at it on warm afternoons.
But it snowed, and I was late for work. So I drove on our driveway, smashing down all the snow into what would soon be the start of our huge sheet of ice.
I came home from work, though, and our street was plowed (the city tends to ignore the fact that we live on our "no outlet" dead end, so they never plow for us). Then I was even more surprised as the dirt road leading to our driveway and then the entire driveway were all plowed!
Turns out, our neighbor had gotten a new snowplow front for his 4-wheeler, and he came by and plowed our entire yard. He was apparently very excited about his new toy, as after he finished with our yard, Kevin said he saw him plowing the church parking lot behind us at full throttle, yelling and screaming "woo hoo!!!" as he did doughnuts at the end of each run.
Ok, so I made up the 'woo hoo' part.
But that's what I imagine.

I like meeting Kevin's old mission buddies. Especially now that I work at Nuskin, where a bunch of other people learned their Chinese from serving missions in Taiwan, I run into people all the time that served in GaoXiong and know Kevin.
And without exception, the conversation always tends towards this:
Mission Buddy: "Yeah, I was in Gao Xiong from 2001 to 2003 (or whatever)"
Me: "Oh, really. Did you know Kevin Fisher?"
Mission Buddy: "Yeah, Elder Fisher."
Me: "I married him."
Mission Buddy: "Oh, I LOVE Elder Fisher!"
Me: "ME TOO!!!"
Then we marvel about how much we have in common. It is a great conversation.... every time. :)