Wordless Wednesday-Yesterday

Random Bits of Useless Information

I know the date says Tues, Sept. 29th, but due to the miracle of modern internet, as I'm writing this, it's Monday. And I have things on my mind, so I'm allowing them to spew forth.

I woke up Monday morning feeling like I'd been hit by a bus. Although in truth, I have never actually been hit by a bus, it just seems to perfectly describe my thoughts and physical-ness this day.

I didn't go to the gym-didn't feel like it.

I couldn't figure out how to start out Monday morning, so I washed towels.
It seemed the sensible thing to do. And brainless.

My new favorite green smoothie is frozen peaches, frozen blueberries, banana, OJ, spinach and now I'm even getting daring and adding a large stalk of kale. I love you, Utah peaches!

I listened to Spanish and spoke Spanish ALL.DAY.SATURDAY....alllll day.
By Sat. night at the Women's Conference, my brain was so tired that I confessed I had breast-fed one of my daughters until she was 18 years old.....yes, I know the difference between the word months and years in Spanish, it just didn't come out right. More hysterical laughter from the Hispanic group.

I did a sneaky thing on Sunday........
TL said to me, why don't you just ditch out on one of your meetings and go see Jen?
That seemed like the most wonderful idea! So I did.
I missed out on a Sacrament meeting and made the long drive to Phoenix where my daughter had chosen to give birth, and I spent an hour smooching and cuddling my latest grandson.
It was heaven.
Just so ya' know I'm not too much of a sinner, I attend 2 Sacrament mtgs every Sunday, for the last 4 1/2 years, so I only missed one.

I haven't heard from Elder Dan yet.
Sniff.

Our internet has been out for several days.
It seems like months.
I think I'm addicted to the internet.

I like giving my hubby a big smooch and a full hug in the morning after his shower before he leaves for work.
MMMMmmm.
(my kids are saying ewwwww)

I just bought a new rosemary plant and I'm going to try growing some lavender.

I opened the front door and left.it.open for the first time this season!
(Unless you've ever lived in Phoenix, Arizona, you don't get it)
The fresh air was heaven.

Cleaning the Teenager Rooms or,

A.k.a. Dumpster Diving in Your Own Home.
Last week I was still trying to get out of the doldrums, not worrying about my kid every minute of the day and checking the email every 10 minutes to see if he had written, and I got the cleaning bug and attacked his room and the teenage daughter room. Here's a sampling of what I found:
School notebooks from junior high.

Tons of extension cords.A basket from 1988.Trash, tons of trash....enough trash to start my own landfill! I don't think garbage can and teenage brain commute. I have been looking for these for weeks!The sacred family backpack. Purple color for Mesa High, which has been passed down from sister to sister through the generations. Sorry girls, it's in the garbage.

Enough money to start my Alaska travel fund.Old gaming systems (this one was in daughter's room......)Now I finally know where the knee brace went.

And I created enough dust to cause 500 people an allergy attack. But now I feel cleansed and purged and we'll see how long it lasts.......until the next cleaning frenzy begins, or I need to find something that is missing.

Guess What We Got Yesterday????

A BABY!!!!

Sorry, I haven't blogged, our internet has been spotty at best, I don't know why. Mommy went to the Dr. yesterday and found out the baby was breech, they tried to turn him, it didn't work. So a few hours later, after a quick C-section, our baby was here.

AFR...sorry I need permission to post a name, but it's an awesome name!

DOB: 9/25/09

WT: 7 lb 10 oz.

LGTH: 20 1/2

TOB: 7:44 pm.

Long fingers and toes, we can't decide who he looks like!

But he's here, and healthy and happy.

Happy family portrait.

Whew, what a month......

If I'm silent for the next few days, it's because there's no internet, we're busy or I'm trying to catch up!

Trying to Get the Gardening MoJo back

Yesterday morning I decided I needed to snap out of it and get cracking on my gardening again. It's my favorite time of year to plant. I'm even a little behind some of the gardening gurus around here in getting my seeds going. So to generate some enthusiasm, I went out in the early morning air to tidy up a bit and inspect the premises. The temperature was in the 70s and fabulous!!!!

Despite my neglect, here's what I found:

Peppers, peppers everywhere! I got a great link from Granny J for chili rellenos and it's going to be great to eat out of the garden again.

I wish I knew how to make larger bell and red bell peppers. Probably add tons of chemical fertilizers, which I don't. Any ideas?A ginormous cucumber! It's not fit to eat but it makes for a good memory. I sacrificed its mother plant for the space.Even the zinnias are perking up.So I'm headed off today to my favorite nursery, Baker's, and salivate over seeds. We are going to add some good stuff to the soil and TL will till it for me, which technically you aren't supposed to have to do in a Square Foot Garden, but I guess we do things our own way here. (especially with regards to men and tools)

Letter To My Son

Dear Elder D:

Glad to hear that you made it to the MTC yesterday. Man, was I ever glad to hear that your Grandma intercepted you at the door, even if it was for only 60.34 seconds. It made me feel better seeing your picture and that you looked the same after 2 1/2 hours.

So anyways, after arousing myself from my stupor of thought, I got busy and cleaned your room. Take a good look at it, it looks way different than when you were here.Don't worry, I didn't throw EVERYTHING away. Just packed it away. And I just wanted to thank you so much for the $4.89 that you left scattered for me all over the room. That makes my cleaning pay about $1.89 per hour, which I am going to save up for a trip to

Alaska in two years.

The Testosterone/Estrogen level in our home just equalled out

Well, he's gone.

Here's a recap of the last 24 hrs, more or less:

Last minute playing with all the electronic devices, video games, texting and facebook.

The ritual passing of the keys of the teenage car to the next generation.

The destruction of the devices of Babylon, aka, the ipod (don't freak, it didn't work anyway-the Stake Pres. loved it!)

He's officially an Elder.

Final family portrait at the airport.Gotta give your mom one more squeeze.Man, let's get the show on the road. He was dancing around in his typical Daniel fashion.Hasta la vista baby! See ya' in two....So he should be landing in SLC as this posts.

So how's mom?

Kinda numb.

Tuesday Tip

Life has been so crazy these days, that I haven't posted any tips or any other exciting motivational news on the blog. But I have a tiny idea today that is pretty quick and easy.


The goal around here has been to eat more whole grains. Sure, I have these white bucket things full of all sorts of good nutrition stashed in various corners of my house. Well, in order to eat more whole grains, they have to be easily accessible. It's just too dang hard to run around trying to find the whole grain sorghum for my power pancakes, especially when I need only 1/3 of a cup.


So I decided to put little stashes of my whole-grain goodness closer to where I needed them. In my pantry cupboard in the kitchen. Illustration:
I have all sorts of little plastic thingies, PETE containers and empty canning jars that I can put a couple of cups of this and that in them so they are easily available when I need a 1/2 of quinoa for a pilaf or 1/3 of sorghum for the power pancakes. Maybe someday I'll get the color coordinated Tupperware, or whatever for all my grains but for now, this works for me.


For those of you out there who are way further advanced than I on the nutrition and homemaker scale this may have been a well, duh, tip, but for me it was kind of an ah-ha moment.


You can even copy my ghetto labeling system. I won't mind.


P.S. Daniel leaves in exactly 24 hours-so if you haven't already guessed, this is a post-dated post.

Little CMB

This morning, because I am a proud grandma, you'll just have to suffer through a couple of photos of my latest sacred grandchild. He spent most of last Friday with his Grandma (well, his mommy tagged along too) He wouldn't cooperate with the camera too much but for the benefit of the out of town family, here goes.

We decided he must have hand his hands over his face "en utero" because he always has his hands up by his face.

Dontcha' just love the way new babies are so squishy and sweet and soft and cuddly? To put his size in perspective, he's laying on my legs. Such a tiny guy!

This is the look he gave me right after I pulled the binky out of his mouth-hence the puckered lips look. I figured I needed a little variety in this photo shoot. I still haven't captured the dimple yet. Well, I wish I could tell you that he recited his ABCs, quoted the first chapter of 1st Nephi and did a dance around the couch, but that's pretty much all he did Friday: sleep, eat, poop and look cute.

We'll save the rest for another day.

Guess Who got Asked on her First Date??

The doorbell rings, no one is there, except Wait..

A mysterious package.

Wonder who it's for?

Following the instructions.

Aww, she knows who it is.

October 10, 2009

Mark that day in your history books.

Capture the Moment

Ok call me crazy, but this year I volunteered to be the "official" photographer for my daughter's high school swim team. Uh yea, like I have nothing else to do. But since I have to be outside sweltering in the heat to watch her anyway, I thought, hey, this will be fun. I can get close to the water, get splashed occasionally, interact with the kids and generally have a grand time. And of course it's a great excuse to get a new camera lens! I am by no means a professional in any sense of the word, but for me, the funnest part is to

Capture the Moment

The intensity of effort

The emotion

The camradarie of the team

And then of course there's my kid too.(who happens to be a great swimmer-she qualified for the varsity team last year as a sophomore and went to State -ahem)