I'm It

So my sister 'tagged' me earlier this week. I enjoy reading other people's blogs when they have been tagged, but I confess I'm not all that eager to do my own. But here goes. 

The rules of this particular game are that I have to link to my sister's blog, and then post 7 random or weird things about myself. Also I'm suppose to tag 7 other people. This I am not going to do because every other person I know with a blog either just did a tag like this or wouldn't do it at all if I did tag them. So this tag will stop with me. Sorry.

All right. 7 things. Here goes.

1. I firmly believe that the Word of Wisdom is a commandment and is good for us and I am committed to keeping it. However, if there was one part of it that I wish I didn't have to follow, it would be the no coffee part. I love coffee so much, I walk down the coffee isle at the grocery store just so I can smell it. I have to rush myself past Starbucks at the mall so I'm not tempted to go inside. Every week I talk myself out of buying coffee flavored ice cream. It truly feels a sacrifice to me to deny myself this pleasure. 

2. I rarely wear make-up and seldom put much effort into doing my hair. I tell myself that this is because natural is good and that I don't really need to paint myself to look good. The truth is that I don't really have the necessary skills to put on make-up and style my hair nicely. 

3. When Sam was born we hadn't yet chosen a name for him. We had a list of 3 or 4 names, but Samuel was definitely not one of the final contenders. However, when I got my first look at him, the thought popped in my mind 'Oh, he looks like a Hobbit!'. And since I couldn't name my son Bilbo, Frodo, Peregrine, or Meriadoc, he became Sam. It is Samuel, not Samwise, however. I am not completely crazy.

4. I love desk calendars. You know the kind that you rip off a page every day and there's something to read for each date? Last year I had a Farside one; this year is Mary Englebright. There's just something terribly satisfying at being able to rip off each day as it passes.

5. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love reading. It is as necessary as food, water, air, and sleep to me. I love new books, but what I love even more is rereading my old favorites. I can't even tell you how many times I've read 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Beauty', 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', 'The Anne of Green Gable Series' and many more. I almost always have an old favorite that I'm skimming through, hitting all my favorite parts, in addition to any new books I'm reading. 

6. I would love to be an artist. I'm not too particular on what branch of art; painting, drawing, music, sculpture, photography, writing, even quilting would be great. Actually, if I had to choose one medium, it would be painting. I would love to be able to sit down and just create something. Sadly, I have not the talent. My drawing skills are not much more advanced then Sam's. Someday I hope to take some lessons, maybe in watercolors. But I know I will never be the kind of artist I want to be. 

7. When I was in high school, a friend gave me the nickname of Springprincess. (19 more days!)

Well, there you are. Not terribly interesting, I know. But that's all I could come up with right now. Cheers

At the tone the time will be...

Within days of Sam's birth I found myself obsessed with time. I always was wondering what time it was, how long it had been since I had gotten any sleep, when was the last time I had fed Sam, how long he was sleeping, etc. We had clocks in our apartment, but they were all downstairs, and our bedroom, (and bathroom), which I lived exclusively in since a painful epesiodomy made stairs impossible, had just my little alarm clock which did NOT have a light on it making telling time at night impossible. It was becoming all-consuming, this need to know what time it was. Finally after about a week of fretting about it, I dragged Rob to Walmart (in the middle of the night) to buy a clock with glow in the dark numbers. Ahhh, bliss. To be able to know the time the instant Sam woke me up with his crying was wonderful. Sam waking me up with his crying was not wonderful, but that's another story. Not only did I know what time it was, but the clock had a radio so I could listen to intelligent conversation on NPR after Rob left for work and I was home alone with  a newborn.

I no longer have this obsession with time. Or maybe I do, but I don't notice it much anymore because in every subsequent apartment I have made sure that there is a plethora of clocks. In our current home there are very few places where you would have to do more then just turn your head to see what time it is. This makes being at other people's homes difficult for me. Especially when I'm there for longer then just a day. Visiting with my in-laws has been especially tough as they don't seem to have this need to know. Rob's sister Karen's house especially. There were only two clocks in her house, the microwave and oven clock, and they were right next to each other. It used to drive me crazy! His other sister, Susan, has a great big, lovely clock right in the central portion of the house that can be seen from many different angles and many different rooms. But it is always, ALWAYS, either not running or hours off. Rob does not share my compulsion, but he is sympathetic. Whenever we were at Karen's he would randomly tell me what time it was, just so I would know. And he got me a lovely watch for Christmas. Bless the man.

All this leads up to what I wanted to write about. We got Sam an alarm clock for Christmas in an attempt to head the 5:30 wake-ups off at the pass. For the last two months we've been drilling it into him that on school days his clock needs to say 6:30am before he can get out of bed, and we're trying to get him to wait till 7:00 on the weekends, with mixed success. He's been excited to have his own clock and loves that it has a night light and is battery operated so he can carry it around, but really, he didn't get time. The clock just had numbers that changed, usually when he wasn't looking. But about 3 weeks ago, he suddenly got it. Somehow the concept of measuring time clicked in his brain; his clock no longer just said six, three, zero, but actually said six thirty and he KNEW WHAT THAT MEANT! This is, of course, very exciting that my oldest understands this concept. What isn't so exciting is that he now feels the need to tell me what the time is ALL the time. Every few minutes he'll come running to me with the latest updates. He'll be playing in his room and then start yelling out to me, "Mom, its 3:30!", really excited and expecting me to be excited too. He'll run back and forth between the kitchen and my bedroom, watching the microwave clock and my clock to see if they change at the same time. And all this is getting really, really annoying. Rob says its just that understanding time is a new thing for Sam and it will wear off soon. I think it may be punishment for my obsessions when he was born. Somehow or other my preoccupation with time got into the breast milk, I just know it, and I'll be spending the rest of my life trying to get away from knowing what time it is!

Tub o' Love

Since a few people have asked about the tub in my header pic, let me explain. It is not our tub, more's the pity, but belongs to Rob's mom, or at least it belongs to the apartment that Rob's mom is renting. The apartment is a one bedroom that connects to this guys law office. Apparently he and his wife and two kids lived in the one bedroom for YEARS (two kids= boy and girl into their teenage years. Talk about hellish!) until he decided to upgrade and now rents out the apartment. Unfortunately the tub is pretty much the best thing about the apartment. Its really old and so mustily smelly; not in such a great part of town and is right next to a vet's office that has kennels for pet-sitting and in the summer time you wouldn't believe the racket!

Today at lunch

Sam: Mom, can we have wine with our lunch

Mom: Ummm, no

Sam: Ok

pause while mom tries to figure out if this is a teaching moment or not

Mom: So, how do you know about wine?  Were you talking about wine at school with your friends?

Sam: No, it was in the scriptures

slightly panicked mom tries to figure out where in the scriptures we were reading about wine.

Mom finally says something about the wine in the scriptures really meant grape juice which yes, I know is not true but will do for an explanation for a 5 year old. Later I realized that we read about King Noah being a wine bibber a few weeks ago which would have been a good story to review to talk about NOT drinking wine. By then the moment had passed. Alas

Things

We've increased the mass of our possessions by quite a bit this last week. On Saturday I was checking craigslist to make sure that no one was posting a great deal for a treadmill since I just bought one new (not like I could do anything about it if I did miss a deal), and found that there was a bunkbed posted. In my experience, bunkbeds, at least good ones, are not often offered up for sale and at such a price ($125, hard wood). So we called up the people and ran over for a look. This terribly nice older couple were clearing out their kids rooms to convert to studies and had asked all the kids to take the bunkbed because they did NOT want to get rid of it, but all their kids decline. We liked the bed, especially the fact that it is at least 20 years old but still in really good condition; hardly any nicks or scrapes at all and still really solid. Since it is so old, the safety features aren't as rigorously up to standard as a new one would be, but we are confident that Sam wont be rolling off or through bars in the middle of the night. We offered to pay 100 for it and they accepted! When Rob went back that afternoon in a borrowed van to pick it up (thanks again Edges!) they had discovered that one of the beds didn't have a supporting board. They had been using a box spring on it. They knew that we didn't have box springs so they called up the hardware store to see how much a sheet of plywood cut to fit would be and gave Rob cash for that. Very nice of them. We set the bed up yesterday and the kids have hardly gotten off of it. They are so excited! The only drawback to it that I can see is that there is no storage space under the bed, which in our tiny living space is a big drawback, but hopefully the added space in their bedroom with the toddler bed and crib out of the way will make up for that. Grace is especially proud of her new Princess sheets. 

Sam and Grace on their big kid beds!

My treadmill. Hopefully the set up isn't too complicated and I will be able to be running on it tomorrow morning!

Grace looking sad and pathetic

Odd Comment

The other day Rob was walking home from campus with one of our neighbors who is also in our ward. In the course of their conversation, this person commented that he thought Rob and I must have come from more affluent families then he and his wife came from. I laughed when Rob told me this since both of our families went through times of severe financial struggles and even now no one would ever classify either my family or his as wealthy, at least not looking only at monetary value. I also thought it an odd thing considering both this person's family and my little family are living in low-income housing, which you have to be POOR to qualify for so its not like we have anything more then this family has. So it leaves me to wonder. What is it about me and Rob that exudes the idea of money when money is something that we've never really had?

Long Night

Just as I was getting into bed last night, Rob came and said, 'go see if you think the kids room smells like vomit'. Or words to that effect. Lovely. Well, it did, and for good reason. Grace had lost her dinner, though surprisingly, I think she slept right through the experience. She was sound asleep and even after I picked her up and took off her jammies she laid down on the floor and slept. When she finally did wake up (a bath will do that to you), and I was asking her about it, she couldn't remember anything. She must have thought I was a little crazy to wake her up in the middle of the night to bathe her and change her bedding. I think she thought it was some new game. Anyway, she was in a great mood and said her tummy felt fine, so we put her back to bed and hoped for the best. Interestingly enough, Sam, who shares a room with her, slept through all the excitement, if you can call it that. 

So we got to bed about an hour later then planned.  You know how it is when your kids are sick and yet you're trying to sleep. Every odd or imagined noise jolts you up, wondering if that is them in distress. Anyway, I finally fell asleep around midnight, but abruptly awoke at around 2:3o to hear Sam yelling at us. It was his turn. Grace woke up, of course, but she was still happy and didn't complain when we packed Sam and all his soiled bedding out of the room and shut the door on her, hoping she would fall back asleep. Luckily Sam missed most of his body when he,... well,... you know, so no bath was necessary. He, however, is feeling much worse then Grace. We got him back to bed, and then again went through the arduous process of relaxing enough to sleep. Sam woke again at 6:30 being sick, but Rob was good enough to handle it himself and let me have a bit more sleep. 

So now we're all laying about in our jammies and robes watching Peter Pan. Grace seems to be doing fine; Sam can't keep anything down. Rob has classes to get to. Long night turns into long day. 

The Birth of a Soup

May I Present...
Lentil Beef Soup