A new day

Last Saturday I went to a slumber party and then a bunch of us went out to eat. It was a good party and a wonderful evening. If you know what they are (no sleeping over involved), you'll understand, but otherwise, you'll just have to wait till you get invited to one. Good times.

I got up early today and went to work early so I could come home early. That was lots of fun for me, but at least my cough is starting to recede. It's a happy thing for me.

I spent just a couple of hours at work and then came home to watch Felix so Brent could relax. We took a walk (Felix and I) and hung outside for a bit and then my niece Lauren called and asked if she could come over.

When she got here, the three of us bundled up and walked down to the dollar store. We had a nice long walk and trip and we really enjoyed ourselves. My throat is much better, but Brent is still miserable. I guess it's just his turn. Poor thing. This bug going around really is horrible.

I got a new calling tonight. That's kind of surprising because I'm also a ward missionary for the Spanish ward and I had the impression that I was off limits for other callings for the duration. No biggie though. Not a tough calling, just a calling. I'll let you all know after I've been set apart. I wonder if they'll want me to attend church more than just this week, since we've been going only to the Spanish ward.

Really I'm just rambling. Slumber party. I had a good day. My cough is finally letting up. I got a new calling. Um, that's it.

One Year Ago

This really should have been posted yesterday, but here goes.

Two years ago Brent and I were getting ready for marriage. One year ago we were fawning over our brand new infant.


February 21, 2007, I had a midwife appointment. The nurse who measured my progress said it felt like I was having contractions. I couldn't feel anything so it didn't bother me any. And I figured that since I was already out of the house I would go to the work meeting that afternoon. I'd just be sitting and eating and listening. Right?


But about 45 minutes into the meeting, my stomach got real tight and uncomfortable. I paused and groaned and, well, then I felt wet. I thought, "I'm pretty sure I didn't just pee my pants." So I discretely got up and looked at my chair and it was dry. I went to the bathroom and my pants were totally wet.


I called Brent, who was just about to push play on his game with his friend Ian, and he came to pick me up. I went back into the meeting and said, "Um, I hate to interrupt, but I think my water just broke. So I'm leaving."


Four hours and 16 minutes later, Felix made his debut. I was happily drugged with an epidural and completely without discomfort.

Yesterday, we celebrated one year with our baby. He happily squashed a piece of cake, chased a balloon, and basked in all the attention our friends and family gave him. Cute little bug.

The Winter of my Discontent

I don't know what it is about this winter, but it's kicking my butt. Maybe not literally, although I do feel regularly like I've been hit by a truck.

Felix got sick on Sunday. I got it last night (I went to bed with a sore throat and woke up fully congested), and now today Brent isn't feeling great.

Sheesh!

I finally got fed up with the poor grammar/etiquette of some people on LDSLinkup (it's a free site for LDS people, married or single, all ages, lots of message boards and some very interesting and rousing conversations) and posted a topic with some pointers. I think I got up to 9 different things, most of them having to do with correct word and punctuation usage.

Now, I don't claim to be perfect in my grammar, but at least I try to get it right. With one exception (that was number 9 - the difference between accept and except): I will consciously end a sentence with a preposition. I'm a bad, bad person. I deserve to be shunned for my sins.

On that note, enjoy this gem (I don't know what kind of sick person thought this up, but it's brilliant):

Valentine's Day, Friday, Weekend

Lots of stuff going on this week.

On Thursday I came home early from work because there's still very little going on. Brent surprised me by sending me roses (he bought them over the internet). That evening we went out to dinner at Applebee's and then went to see Juno. The service at Applebee's was fantastic (thanks Alex!!!!) and the steaks were superb (thanks Julio!!!!). Once we got to the movie, however, Felix was all sorts of wiggly. Man that kid doesn't want to stay still!


I had gone to see Juno with my friend Erin when it was new in town (yay for free tickets!), which ended up being a very good thing. I had to take Felix out twice to change his diaper and then he just wanted to crawl around. We went up and down the stairs probably 10 times. I got my exercise that night!


On Friday I got to work a little late because Felix was being clingy. When I got there my team was celebrating two birthdays with Filipino food. Yum again. I think I worked a total of 2 hours, but most of the afternoon was spent just goofing off. I really do love my team.

After work I went and picked up my niece Becca. We spent some time moving things around, but mostly we just bought fish. We took Felix to a pet store and looked at goldfish and stuff, and then we just went to Wal-Mart. I ended up buying a tank and rocks and about 30 fish. They are mostly goldfish, but there are about 4 shubunkins and 4 fantails. I've only named about 5 of them, but they're fun to look at.


Yesterday morning I moved things around quite a bit while Brent was off helping a friend move. We were both exhausted by the evening but we really had fun eating with our friends and hanging out. Ian made albondiga soup (meatball) and we took over couscous. It was a good combination and then we had brownies (from my mix) and ice cream for dessert. It was a very pleasant evening.

With the help of a couple of nieces and Brent, I moved the rest of the stuff around today. We took the TV out of the family room (that my family calls the cultural hall) and brought in the big brown chair. It's much more of a family room and much less of a TV room. That was especially nice tonight when my brothers and their wives came over to play games and hang out.


Felix hasn't been feeling very well lately, but I think it's partially because he's teething. Poor kid. Oh yeah, while I was setting up the table for play tonight it fell over and Felix was too close. It clipped him right on the forehead and now he's got a big welt. Seriously poor kid.

Of migraines and stuff

Yesterday being Monday, I think it was entirely too fitting that I got a migraine. It's been a long time that I got one that wasn't drug-induced (severe sensitivity to Lortab), so getting essentially all of the symptoms just for the heck of it wasn't much fun. I'm still dealing with a huge headache this morning (come to think of it, I had one all day yesterday before the migraine hit - I should have prepared...), but at least most of the rest of the symptoms are gone. Thank goodness for Dr. Pepper and generic ibuprofen!

On Sunday I tried typing up something using google documents but my computer gave me an error and said my browser didn't support it. I've already been really frustrated with my computer because I'm just not used to using a Mac yet. I finally got my internet totally set up and then this error. But since I don't have any kind of word processing software and I really needed to type something up, the error was a bad thing.


I got a couple of options, and Brent said I should use Firefox. It took me longer than I was patient for to download, but I finally got it and then it was totally different from Safari. I was completely frustrated and snapping at Brent for not helping me so he took over and somehow imported all my preferences.

And now? I have all my important web pages across the top in handy buttons, I can use google documents (awesome!), my gmail chat is finally working again (apparently not supported by Safari), I can add video and links to my blog (couldn't under Safari), etc. I'm officially in love. Seriously. I'd recommend Firefox to anyone (and it's free!!!!!).

It kind of makes me long for the days when I took computer classes in high school. I see my 13 year old computer-genius nephew on his computer and I'm jealous of how much he can do. Heck, I see my 2 1/2 year old nephew working on his computer and I know he'll pass me up by the time he's 10. Now I officially feel old.

The quote today makes me laugh more than anything, so I have to share:

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
- Samuel McChord Crothers

Long day at Church

Church isn't supposed to be boring. Thank goodness I have an active little kid to entertain me (and everyone else).

This morning Felix woke up about 4 and stayed awake for probably 2 or 3 hours. We tried just ignoring him and going back to sleep, but he was crawling all over my head for most of that time. I finally got up to go to the bathroom and I laid down in the spare bed in Felix's room and slept till Brent woke me up because it was time to get ready for church. I'm sooooo tired!!!

I used to complain all the time about the ward pianist in my ward in Spain. She would play the melody and then make the rest up. apparently she had been some kind of a concert pianist because she would get all sorts of fancy. She actually refused to play the bottom hand from the hymnbook because she said nobody would sing those notes. Well, they wouldn't sing them because she wouldn't play them!

So today in relief society (spanish ward), our pianist was even worse. I wonder if they were related. We tried singing The Iron Rod (which is already pretty funny in Spanish because it's not a hymn they sing often enough to know) and it didn't go well. We could barely tell what the melody was (I hate it when one of my favorite hymns is butchered like that). She had no concept of time and would quite regularly squish a bunch of notes together that were supposed to be spread out. Then she would add all sorts of extras, and slow down things that were supposed to be quick. All the sisters kind of mumbled along, which would have worked had they mumbled together. But some were following the timing and others were following the notes.

The sister sitting next to me and I giggled about how bad it sounded. I would honestly pay money to hear her in concert...

This evening we went to my sister's house to have dinner and hang out. I even talked my sister into taking some family photos of us. For some reason Felix refused to smile. Usually he's super happy when people pay that much attention to him, but he wasn't very happy tonight. He does like hanging out with all the little kids, but I think he may be teething again. His second bottom tooth is almost as big as his first and he has four top teeth that look like they're on the verge. Poor kid.

Thought for the day:
As I grow older , I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me.
- H. Rider Haggard

Make a Mix

Today I made mixes with my friends. It was fun and now I have three mixes - brownie mix (I just add oil, egg, and maybe water, I can't remember), buttermilk pancake and waffle mix, and hot roll mix (it makes like 12 super duper yummy-sounding recipes and I can't wait to try it).

Afterwards I went to Hollywood Video and picked up Dragon Wars (it looked horrible and Brent and I needed something to laugh at) and Balls of Fury. Then I tried to find Papa Murphy's Pizza but I couldn't find it so I went to Papa John's (took me forever to remember which was which). I found a good pizza for Brent, but then nothing looked good for me. We started having to order different pizzas because I can't do the meat pizzas anymore. Not since I was pregnant with Felix. Now I get heartburn really bad. Anyway, I was complaining to the people at Papa John's that their toppings weren't as good as Papa Murphy's but I went to the address in the phone book and it wasn't there and the guy behind the counter told me it was just two blocks away. So I ordered the meat pizza for Brent from Papa John's and then ran over to Papa Murphy's for a gourmet veggie thin crust pizza for myself. YUM!!!!!!

Dragon Wars was appropriately awful. We had lots of fun making fun of it till Brent fell asleep. I watched the end anyway. It's so bad. I want to own it now and inflict it on all my brothers and nieces and nephews. My sisters might even get a kick out of it. Good times.

Now I'm thinking I need brownies...

Quote of the day

(This picture is the one I sent in to apply for Biggest Loser. I would normally have deleted it immediately, but I think this one pretty accurately shows just how chubby I've become. sigh.)





I've decided that my life isn't all that interesting most of the time. So I'm going to beef it up by giving you fun thoughts and quotes. We'll see how long I can keep it up.

To start:

The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we have of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.
- Quentin Crisp

Lost and Found

Nothing is really found, but I'm watching Lost right now and loving it.

This winter has been really quite stressful. There has been lots of sickness, financial weirdness, tons and tons of snow (that's not really a bad thing though - just different), not enough work, etc. Just this last weekend Brent had stomach yuckiness and Felix had an allergic reaction.

But in the midst of all of it, I'm still working on Italian translation and transcription, I started a business making custom-fitted slipper socks (Leg Lovers - email me if you're interested, I'll be linking a website as soon as I get one), and I've made some of the best friends any woman could ask for. And I applied to be on Biggest Loser (everyone cross your fingers for me!!!!).

So all in all, things are okay. But I really am ready for something to change. Or maybe just for chocolate.

oh yeah

Isn't my baby beautiful?

Hello February!

Well, I'm glad January is over. It was a tough month. We had less work, more sickness, and tons more snow. It's quite beautiful outside, but it just keeps going. I kind of want spring, but I don't really want summer.

I got to spend lots of time with my good friends (thanks again to CarrieAnne for pulling me into the group!) but it didn't seem enough. I guess a lot of people had a hard January.

I started talking more about Leg Lovers and I finally had a couple people start getting interested in them. I finally got to meet my wonderful friend Paige and her husband Josh. They came over this morning and picked up some LLs for her and their baby. I don't know how we possibly waited for so long before we met. It feels like we've known each other for a very long time. Funny thing, turns out that Brent and Josh were in a singles ward in SLC a couple of years ago.

I took some fun pictures of my brother's kids this week. They had lots of fun posing for me. Aren't they adorable?