Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I love you all.

Coping mechanims

Yes, I know my blog has kind of been a downer lately. So, here is a picture of holiday merriment and cheer taken at our ward Christmas party yesterday. Mia decided she didn't trust the santa enough to sit on his lap and made him stand next to her in the picture instead. The power of a determined not-quite-four year old is a sight to behold.

Today was another relaxing (Ha!) Sunday in the Hanosek household. I was languidly aroused from sleep by a cheerful little angel insisting that she needed me to play snake family (Mia's newest rendition of playing house...thank goodness she has moved past spider family, it was icky). And I jaunted merrily down the stairs to make a well balanced breakfast, simmered in love...in my mind. In reality I sat Mia down in front of the TV with a sippy cup of pink milk and went back to bed with my full blown case of mono. Charlie eventually felt guilty enough to get out of bed and make the poor child pancakes. We cleaned ( I recently discovered that if I tell Mia that we are playing Cinderella she will pitch in a little bit with chores. Yes I am a genius, tell your friends). I started stuff cooking in the crockpot, feeling quite smug with myself since I was obviously a successful little housewife with dinner started already. Then I looked at the clock and realized that I only had about 20 minutes until I had to be at church. I tossed a dress at Mia and prayed it didn't have any stains on it and decided that I just wasn't going to have time to do my hair, or shower, or any such nonsense and grabbed my "nursery uniform" (aka a long enough skirt that I can crawl around on the floor and a shirt with a high enough neck line that I can lean over and break up fights without exposing myself) and tugged it on while running out the door. (don't worry, my neighbors are used to me.)

Once there, it became obvious that either I had buttoned my top crookedly or someone had spread the word that I was not only disease ridden, but in the process of watching my mom lose her battle with cancer. I hate pity even if it is just for an unfortunate haircut. I can handle just about anything with my sword of scathing sarcasm and sheild of inappropriate humor, but the minute someone is sweet and caring about me I generally fall apart. Sympathy quickly reduces me to a blubbering mess, and I was already a mess with my lack of shower and what not, so church couldn't be over too soon for me. Luckily I got to hide in the nursery among the three year olds for most of the time. Preschoolers don't care about the health of your mom or what sort of diseases you are carrying, they only care about who has the fruit snacks.

So, now I have three choices. I could either hide in my house and not talk to anyone until I have reinforced my hard candy coating of self depreciation and can deflect all well meaning relief society thugs, or I could just take it and allow everyone in a five mile radius to see that I am a mere mortal, and an emotionally unstable one at that. The third option I have come up with is to trip anyone who comes up to me with a somber and sincere look on their face and point and laugh at them to break the tension. So, who wants to guess which one I am leaning towards?

Ok, really, here is my moment of serious gratitude...are you ready?....take a deep cleansing breath because here it comes... I never realized how many amazing wonderful people actually care about me and what I am dealing with. I am a very lucky girl to associate all of you. And if I trip you and point and laugh it is done out of love from the bottom of my heart.

What happened to Santa?

Mia's one and only true wish this Christmas it to have a flying Barbie. Yes, I know that there is no such thing as a flying Barbie, but I haven't been able to effectively convey that to her and she is generally pretty sure that she is right about everything and her mom is kind of an idiot. Now, I haven't had much practice at this playing Santa gig that all parents are suppose to do, this is only my third go at it. So I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. I got her a Barbie with huge butterfly wings ( I don't know why, but it kind of creeps me out) but I know that the minute she opens it she is going to launch it into the air and be bitterly disappointed. So, do I just not give it to her, or would that be a bigger disappointment? Or do I explain that Santa's elves are huge slackers and didn't make the Barbie properly and they will be receiving a letter from my lawyer? Ooo! Or maybe I could create an elaborate system of fishing line and pulleys all over our house and hook it up so it appears to be flying and just hope it never crosses her mind to take it anywhere else. Suggestions? Comments?

The other things she has asked for are: a puppy, an iPod, and a pony. Now I am kind of secretly asking Santa for a puppy too, but my husband has threatened something akin to a Hulk type reaction if a dog ever comes into his home. So, a puppy may be on hold until he softens up a little...or goes senile or something. And a pony wouldn't be too happy in the back yard of our little home with .15 acres so I'm pretty sure that one is dead in the water too. However, I do have an old iPod sitting around since I got my new one so I suppose I could easily download the Wiggles (and her other favorite songs that I won't admit I let her listen to) and wrap it up for her, but there is something fundamentally wrong with a three year old with an iPod. Wouldn't it be kind of unnerving to see a little girl who can't even read yet wandering through the mall with the little ear buds in? I'll have to think that one through some more before I decide what to do.

Oh, and the one thing that makes me do a little happy dance is that she has asked for lip gloss...lots and lots of lip gloss. I have a bit of a penchant for any sort of lip covering (Yes, I know that is an understatement, stop rolling your eyes) and it sort of warms my heart that I have passed that trait on to the future generation.

So, I'm wondering, does this Santa gig ever get any easier? Should I be rooting for the day she is a teenager and I can just hand her a wad of cash and say "Merry Christmas, kid" and still be a good parent?

let the breakdown commence

In this morning's entry I mentioned that I was expecting a holiday induced meltdown of some sort. And here it is. In the last few hours I have had phone calls informing me of a few stress inducing incidents. For example; first, my dad called to explain that my mom has taken a serious turn for the worse (which, given her two year battle with cancer is not completely unexpected, but still it sucks all the same). Shortly after I received a call from my doctor's office informing me that my routine blood screenings have confirmed that I am in the throe's of a mononucleosis extravaganza (seriously, after high school that is just embarrassing...however, come to think of it, of all the people I know who have had mono, none of them have procured it through make out sessions with random strangers.) Oh! And then I got a call from Mia's preschool teacher who wanted to inform me that my sweet angelic little girl had kicked another teacher in the shin when she tried to help her put on her hat (Mia has a thing about not getting near her ears...touching her ears usually instigates a full blown nuclear holocaust.)

So, here I sit, with nary a present purchased or wrapped, with the energy level of a ficus, crossing my fingers that my three year old doesn't get charges pressed against her, and desperately wishing I were a drinker so I didn't have to think about the manilla envelope that has been sitting on top of my fridge for the last six months that contain the plans my mother has made for her funeral.

I may not be much for Christmas cheer this year, but I definitely throw a rockin' pity party. Everyone's invited.

Oh what tangled webs we weave

So, this morning I woke up way too early, did all the normal morning things, and then rushed Mia to get dressed and get her hair done so that we could go....nowhere. After I had us all ready for the day I got a text that there was no work for me to pick up this morning. I then realized there was not a real need to go to the grocery store today, and I don't have to drive the preschool car pool for another two hours. Hmmm. Free time kind of baffles me. I suppose it is now time to start cleaning my house, but sitting here checking facebook and reading all the news headlines is more fun, and no one will ever know that I was lazy on this frigid Monday morning...except you. But you won't tell, because then I will have to spill the dirt on you...you know what I'm talking about, don't make me say it.

Facebook is an odd phenomenon. I have been a proud member for a week now and I still fail to see the point. I have reconnected with a bunch of people from my past, whom I love, but I have nothing to discuss with them on a regular basis. And the ones I do have stuff to talk about with I could just call, because they're the people I talk all the time anyway, like my husband, or my next door neighbor. Weird. Maybe I'm not doing it right. Perhaps if I stopped to ask my ex-boyfriend's roommate from college why he ended up working in the coroner's office a whole new perspective on life would open to me. Or maybe the girl I sat next to in sixth grade has some vital information to share with me that would make my life more meaningful. Or, maybe I am doing it right and it is just a way for bored housewives to avoid their chores when they are feeling lazy.

The thing I have noticed is that people who communicate on the web have a very unrealistic sense of anonymity. They say and do things that a normal person wouldn't do in public, because hey, who will know right? I, on the other hand of paranoia, am all too aware of who may be reading this. I have refrained from sharing my latest waxing escapades or irritations with my neighbors (no, not you Bonnie, or Ashley, or Joy (see what I mean? You never know who you might be typing to.)), because my dad or home teachers could happen upon this little online journal.

P.S., I'm sorry entries have been a little sparse of late. It's the holidays, and I am doing my best to not have my annual nervous breakdown.

RIP selfish Amy

Yesterday, disaster struck. My eyelash curler broke. Because of my monumental vanity this is akin to some sort of civilization ending tragedy. Ok, not really, it's not like I notified FEMA. I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect. Sheesh.

I am a self proclaimed product junky. I can spend hours and hours perusing all the magical potions and creams that are suppose to make me pretty. The only reason I am not bankrupt from this is because my nearest Sephora store is in Las Vegas. When I was single and could spend my money as selfishly as I wanted, I could easily spend 20bucks on a new eyelash curler without even thinking about it. But now I have a problem because my eyelashes don't rank very high on the family finances priority list. So, instead of actually buying the fancy shmancy one I have been partial to in the past I gritted my teeth and bough one from Walmart. My eyelashes survived and all is well in the world again.

Now I am making a mental list of the little luxuries I have bid adieu to over the years in the name of financial security. The monthly facials that once seemed mandatory are but a faint memory, the afternoons spent getting my nails buffed an polished are a distant dream. A few of the items on my list came as as a shock. I realized I have only bought 3 new dresses in the past six years. (This wasn't a conscious sacrifice, it's just too much work to go shopping and try stuff on now, plus it is so much more fun to buy Mia's dresses, they have ruffles and stuff). And purses...oh, how I loved to buy a new purse for no reason at all. Now when I start eyeing them Charlie rolls his eyes and ever so gently reminds me that I have a closet full of them in every shape, size, and color,that I never use (he's a killjoy but he is right...dang it.)

New bored housewife Amy now has new luxuries that are vital to existence. Yesterday I bought a case of chicken stock. I was giddy all the way home with my cache of chicken stock. I am rich in broth. And I am depressed that this makes me so happy. OH! and you should have seen me on the verge of joyful tears when I found that Charlie had bought my five cases of Diet Coke. I think I need a small vacation from being so responsible. Perhaps a quick jaunt to my old neighborhood for a vanilla steamer and a crepe with Jilaine will restore my sense of self. Call me, Jilaine and we'll set it up.

Things that freak me out

Now, most of you know that I am not easily fazed. Any sort of medical trauma of blood spurting merely causes a raised eyebrow. The threat of impending doom by various terrorists? It's hard to take personally so I've just accepted the fact that it may happen, and I can't stop it so why worry. But there are some things that just shouldn't be allowed. And here is my list of them.

1. Clowns. They are the embodiment of evil and doom. Their creepy exaggerated smiles are a front to hide the dark and insidious soulless creatures that they really are.

2. The power of Oprah. Why does everyone listen to her? I don't understand why she gets to decide what everyone buys, eats, thinks, and worships. The power she wields sends shivers down my spine.

3. Christopher Walkin. if you need a reason search for the Weapon of Choice video on youtube.

4. Seafood. I don't understand the appeal of eating sea creatures that resemble grotesque insects on steroids? Why is it ok to eat a lobster but not a scorpion? THEY ARE THE SAME THING.

5. Drunk naked guys. I was attacked by one once while working in the ER, but that is a story for another post.

6. Those housewives who drive minivans with little vinyl pictures of their entire family,sometimes including their dog, on their back window. What is the point of this? We know you have a large family, hence the minivan. Why the need to publicize the number and age of your children? if the dog dies do you remove his picture and replace it with whatever your replacement pet is? Sitting behind these cars at traffic lights gives me a lot of stress, because I don't understand it, so I naturally fear it.

7. Carrot Top. Why is he allowed?

Misty Water Colored Memories

For those of you who don't know, my mother is battling cancer. I am not saying this to depress anyone or garner sympathy points, but I want to explain why yesterday was spent cleaning out my parents storage room. It was dirty and gross and a chore I avoided like the plague when I actually lived in my parents home. But, as my mom has been stressed out about the state of her storage room for the past few months and was going to be at the hospital for various procedures most of the day my brilliant sister in law made the suggestion that we actually take action and clean it out instead of sitting around worrying about her for a change.

So, armed with a box full of trash bags I sat in my car, parked around the corner from their home waiting for my parents to leave their house. A few minutes later I saw their front door open and shouted at Mia to duck (she thought we were pretending to be spies so she thought this was awesome.) A couple minutes after their car pulled away I went in and raided their fridge while waiting for Russ and Amy to show up, (the prospect of being covered in dust and cobwebs all day gave me a hankerin' for doritos, what can I say) When they showed up we quickly went to work.

After a few minutes I remembered that Russ is a big cry baby when it comes to throwing things away (The umbrella stroller that only has one wheel that mom used when I was a baby!!! We can't throw that away!) So I put him and my brother David on brute duty and they carried huge boxes and bags outside to Russ's truck to be taken to the dump. Amy (my brilliant sister in law) got stuck going through old photos because I am not patient enough for that, she also was keeping an eye on the little girls so that none of them would wander into the cleaning zone and get the Hanta Virus from all the evidence of rodent life.

After about an hour we invented a game of seeing which one of us children had kept the most things at mom's house over the years. Heidi won, she even had an old laundry basket full of dirty clothes thrown in there, along with about 40 boxes of letters to and from her while in Ireland on her mission. Russ came in a close second with folders full of incompleted assignments from high school and a shoe box full of self addressed stamped enevelopes that people gave him as he was leaving on his mission to France that he was supposed to use to mail all his friends letters. I however, lost by an embarrassing margin when all I could find of mine was my wedding bouquet and a mix tape given to me by a friend in fifth grade. (I lost the arguement that the gallon jug of water in the food storage labeled from the year of my birth should count.)

So all in all, it was a day of discovery. I discovered that either I was my parents most considerate child and took all my junk with me when I moved so that it wouldn't litter their house, or that they threw all my stuff away the minute my car drove out of their driveway because they really don't like me that much. And I discovered that my dad has an unhealthy amount of books that have to do with healthy eating. Seriously, I didn't know there were that many in existence. Also, Groovy Kind Of Love by Phil Collins was popular when I was in fifth grade.

IM-apalooza

So, my typical day consists of being woken up at 6 a.m. by Mia, who wants to know if it is morning yet, then we fight over what to eat for breakfast until someone is sent to their room. Then I work. For those of you not familiar with me, I do medical transcription so by work, I mean I type like a little typing robot. I wear my little ear phones and play dictation tapes as I type so fast that my fingers are a blur...for 20 minutes at a time,just long enough to finish typing up one patients adventures with STD's, until Mia is yelling at me because there is a commercial on the TV, or she wants me to come see the sculpture she just created out of couch cushions, or sometimes I think she just yells to see if I am paying attention. Anyway, this goes on all day.

ME: type type type type.

MIA: MOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!! I need you!!!!!

ME: (sighing I take off my headphones and run down stairs) What, sweetheart?

MIA: Birds eat worms.

ME: Yup, thanks for telling me. (I turn to head back up stairs)

MIA: MOOOOMMMMM!!! WAIT!!!!!!

ME: Yes?

MIA: Um, let's make cookies.

At this point I give up on work for a while and do a few activities with the poor lonely kid.

If I had a nanny to whisk away my daughter when I was too busy, my job would take an hour and a half, tops. I type really fast, the last time I tested I was up to 80 words a minute. But, with our current method of working it takes about 4 hours typically. Not that I'm complaining, the whole point of being a work at home mom was so that I could raise my own child, but sometimes it feels like the TV is raising my child, and doing a pretty good job of it. She can name all the planets in order, which is something I definitely didn't teach her so I give the credit to Blue's Clues. And Yo Gabba Gabba (a show that may have been created by Satan) taught her that it isn't cool to bite your friends, so hey, thanks demonic children's programing!

Oh, but my point in writing this little entry is to let you all know that my computer is on all day, and I am usually sitting in front of it for a few hours. My sister, Wendy, has figured this out and IM's me on and off all day. It's awesome. I only get to see her a few times a year, but I can usually tell you exactly what she is wearing and why, when she has to do the laundry, what she is making for dinner, and what crazy shenanigans her teenage boys are getting into, and when she has to go to the bathroom. Or sometimes when Mia refuses to listen to me about something I have her call her Aunt Wendy on the computer so Wendy can tell her to do it, because Mia thinks Aunt Wendy is the coolest person ever. Because of this I can pretend that I actually have a social life, because I talk to her all day, and sometimes my dad and brother chime in too. Family togetherness through technology. I could do a commercial for yahoo messenger.

Long time gone

Man, it's been a while hasn't it? I haven't gone anywhere or been busy or anything, I log into this site every day, stare at the blank "new post" page for a few minutes, sigh, and then click over to snopes.com instead of doing anything constructive. Yes, I have been suffering from writer's block. It's hard to imagine that I have run out of things to rant about, but here we are.

Here's a little writing exercise I remember from my Snow College days. My teacher was an overenthusiastic old dude with claw like hands and a weird penchant for ignoring all punctuation rules because he thought that meant you were creative (I don't remember his name but my roommate Alicia used to do a really creepy impression of him). But, the one useful thing I remember: When you hit a writing wall, change your format. So today's post will be written in list form, as an ode to my friend Tiffany, the queen of lists.

Things that are really bugging me right now:

1. I planted bulbs yesterday but I couldn't remember which end was suppose to point up so only half of them are going to grow.

2. I can't really grow anything so probably none of them are going to grow.

3. I have an obnoxious zit on my nose.

4. Mia wants to wear her snow man pajamas to school today.

5. I have to go to Charlie's work party which is being held at my favorite restaurant, but I will have to deal with "teacher talk" while I am eating.

6. Oprah.

7. Mia hasn't eaten anything that could be construed as real food in six days.

8. Charlie is in the middle of "State Cup", the final soccer tournament of the year so I have only seen him in passing for the last two and a half weeks.

9. Yo Gabba Gabba. Honestly, it's like they go out of their way to be distubing on that show.

10. I love my clinique free gift with purchase I got last week, but I'm not so crazy about my actual purchase.

Alright, that is it as far as complaints for this morning. Thank you for bearing with me during this little exercise. I hope to be back to my witty self soon.

Germany needs an intervention...

So, a couple of weeks ago I went to Oktoberfest up in Snowbird. It's taken me this long to properly wrap my head around the whole concept in order to write about it. Attending Oktoberfest every year is apparently a Hanosek family tradition that I had escaped in the past, but this year there was no getting out of it. I tried to imagine why someone would attend who doesn't drink or own a pair of leiderhosen, but I gave up and just went. Plus Charlie told me there was lots of German chocolate cake, so hey, I was in.

We left out home on a crisp autumn afternoon, and Charlie warned me that I would have to eat Bratwurst and saurkraut before I could have chocolate cake. Then he wouldn't turn the car around...sadist. So we arrived. Mia was excited when she learned that we got to take a shuttle bus from where we finally parked our car up to the party. I was still excited about the chocolate cake. Charlie was just excited to be ummm...out. We wandered through the booths and hoards of beer swigging, leiderhosen clad partiers until Charlie's mom and brother's showed up to teach us the proper way to "oktoberfest".

Apparently you have to sit right next to the speakers when the polka bands are playing. If you don't have accordian music bleeding out your ears for the next week you didn't do it properly. Secondly you have to dance with whatever crazy old german lady wanders past your table and grabs your arm. I escaped this fate by claiming that my daughter needed me to do something (the music was loud, I'm not sure she was even speaking english to me). But a brother in law or two got caught in the old ladies german frenzy, and like a good mother, my mother in law laughed and got pictures of them. It warmed my heart.

Then the bratwurst showed up. Gross. I took a bite, and then I smelled the saurkraut and ran to find the crazy old polka lady to put me out of my misery. I hid behind a crowd of drunk college guys until everyone had eaten and then showed up magically in time for desert. The cake was totally worth it.

Now, cake aside, this isn't an activity I would recommend to many people. Especially if you are the sober type. I'm sure it is much more enjoyable when you are drunk, kind of like walking the strip in Vegas. Or maybe if you have a secret yearning to wear a german wench dress or leiderhosen and a Von Trapp hat. I guess there aren't too many outlets for that crowd.

The hills are alive

Do you ever find yourself promising yourself that you will do something? I do it constantly. Just this morning I swore I would actually tackle the ironing piling up in my closet. I have had an almost violent aversion to ironing since working in a dry cleaners as a teenager. It was just so steamy and hot, and not in a good way. It was also burny. And sometimes people yelled at me. Including my brother in law, because I lost his shirt, but that is not my point. My point is that my ironing is still sitting in a pile on my closet floor, increasing it's wrinkle intensity as I type.

I also find myself promising me that I will no longer burst into song at random moments, especially in public. But, gosh darn it, what are you suppose to do when you are at the bank and you are standing in line with your little check book and the cashier gives you the strangest look (it's a Judd's song,for those of you with a slightly more narrow musical universe. Therefore, you must sing the above line with as much of a twang as possible). Now, these outbursts don't cause much alarm around my house, Charlie doesn't even look up from whatever he is doing when I burst into a musical number complete with choreography, and Mia just tries to sing louder than me. However, when you do this at the grocery store or library you mostly get frightened looks from old ladies who assume that you are high on crack. So, that is another personal resolution, stop freaking out old ladies with my uncanny ability to find a song for every situation.

The other thing I vow to stop doing every night is preparing too much food for dinner. I blame this on my mother. As a child I grew up helping her make dinner for seven people (or nine if the missionaries are coming over). Now there are just three people in my home and one of them will only eat things that a) contain cheese, b) are pink, or c) a cookie. So, I end up with a huge storage container of whatever the main dish was stuck in the back of the fridge every night until I run out of plastic containers and realize that some of my leftovers have been sitting in the dark recesses of my fridge for a month. So I clean out my fridge, making gagging sounds the whole time. Also, the storage containers are usually too scary for me to deal with so I just throw them away and buy new ones. This has to stop, I vow every night to make it stop. Yet somehow, the next evening I end up with enough food to feed seven hungry adults, again.

So, if any of you are in my neighborhood 'round about six o'clock, stop on by for dinner, I probably have plenty to go around. Also, there will probably be a floor show including me singing about whatever the side dish is and Mia singing her abc's at the top of her lungs. Good times.

TV bounty

So, a friend who shall remain nameless gently reminded me that it had been a while since I have updated this blog. Gosh, you people must be starved for entertainment. Well, I'll do my best but really all you have to do is turn on your TV, it's premier season (hoorah!). I love TV premier season, it is my favorite holiday. It's like Christmas, except instead of someone giving me a scrapbooking starter kit which would end up mysteriously in the trash the next morning, I get a brand new show or two to while away my evenings.

My usual plan of attack come September is to set my DVR to record everything, even if it looks painfully dumb. Then, after Mia is in bed and all the dishes are clean I settle down into my awesome comfy circle couch and start the first show on my list (alphabetically, chronologically is too confusing for me). Then after ten minutes I either hate the show (most reality shows or shows that take place in a high school of any sort) or I am in love (tortured souls like Dexter or Charlie Crews from life make my world go round). Then, I have a formula that evaluates the entertainment value versus the time loss....ok, not really, actually I just see what I actually remember to watch as the season wears on. Usually I forget about most of them. It's just TV. I have more important things to do like go to Charlie's soccer game du jour...or fold laundry (ha!) or write my highly entertaining blog before someone wilts in front of their computer screen waiting for me to update this here blog.

Christa Tagged me...

I usually just ignore these things because I assume I am too boring for people to care, but I don't have anything better to do right now and Christa has laid down the challenge.

Pertinent information about me

10 years ago I:
1. Went to UVSC
2. Lived at Belmont Apartments with some of the coolest roommates ever.
3. Started my careere in the medical industry at.
4. Met this dorky guy named Charlie and talked him into being a teacher because he would be good at it.
5. Sat around and wished I was as brave as Christa and moved to Hawaii, just because I could.

5 things on today's TO DO list:
1. Fold the laundry
2. Pic Mia up from school
3. Go grocery shopping
4. Figure out dinner
5. Figure out why my hair is suddenly so limp and lifeless (vitamin imbalance?)

5 snacks i enjoy:
1. Those tiny babybel cheese wheels.
2. Flipside crackers.
3. Chocolate
4. Chicken/artichoke lean pockets
5. Diet Coke.

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Pay off house, car, and any debt.
2. Buy my husband his Mazda 6 that he has been drooling over.
3. Travel to Europe (Italy and Ireland)
4. Design my own house and build it and decorate it.
5. Go on a cruise a year for the rest of my life.

5 places I have lived:
1. Kearns
2. Ephraim
3. Provo
4. Downtown Salt Lake City
5. Spanish Fork

5 jobs I have had:
1. Podiatry assistant
2. Assistant to the director of Desert Star Playhouse
3. OB nurse
4. Dry Cleaner cashier
5. Pulmonary tech

Ok, that's it. Now I am suppose to tag other people, to fill this out on their blogs, so go on Amy A. Other than that I don't know who has blogs, but I think you should all fill this out. It is fun to talk about yourself.

Cozy Mornings

So, it is Sunday morning, 6:00 a.m. and I am awake. Darn it. Mia's got me trained to be up every three hours or so looking for bugs, so when she actually sleeps all night, like last night, my internal clock gets all mixed up. However, the upside of this is that I actually have a few minutes to myself to do something productive before the rest of the family is up begging for attention.

This is what is known as a cozy moment in my house. My sister Wendy is obsessed with being cozy and has rubbed off greatly on Mia. We can't just have a bath, we have to turn out the lights, light a candle and have a cozy bath. We can't just drink hot chocolate, we have to get really cold somehow, turn off the lights and put on christmas music and drink cozy hot chocolate. So, I figure me being up all by my lonesome, cracking open that first Diet Coke of the day, listening to the trains go by and the Spanish Fork wind blowing in the new day would be a cozy moment too. (I don't know why but my last four placed of residence have been close to train tracks, I've gotten used to train whistles at all hours and now find them soothing.) I think I will tell Mia about this so that she will let me do it more often, cozy moments rule here.

Ok, but here is my point for the day. I feel that as a young LDS housewife I have an inordinate amount of guilt about sitting still for a few minutes. My first thought when I woke up is that I should hit the treadmill before anyone woke up to stop me. Or perhaps study my scriptures. Or plan next weeks menus. Or maybe repaint my living room. But, I decided to brave the guilt and read the celebrity gossip sites for a few minutes instead. I'll have to deal with my over active conscience later.

School days

Mia started preschool yesterday. I know, I am an old lady, I don't need you rubbing it in. I have been preparing her for weeks. We bought a lunch box, and practiced using it (she loves packing up her lunch, walking around the block, and then coming back in the kitchen and eating, her grandpa would be proud). We visited her classroom the day before and met her teachers (there are four of them, which seems excessive to me but I guess if I were going to be stuck in a room with 10 to 13 three year olds I would want as much back up as possible, they might gang up on you and kick you in the shins.)

Anywho, this has been a very stressful week because when we went to check out her class room I saw where we were going to have big issues. The class potty. They have one in their room, which is great, but it is an automatic flushing one, which gives Mia nightmares. I recall the great "Vernal Mcdonald's Potty War of '07", those of you that are there are probably still having post traumatic stress flashbacks where you hear Mia's shreiks of terror ringing out from the bathroom. To this day, any time she has to use a public restroom we have to have a heart to heat talk about whether the potty is "normal" or "automatic" (my three year old can say "automatic" which probably isn't a big accomplishment but it makes me proud.) So, automatic flushers are bad, that is my point. I thought for a few minutes about warning her teachers, but then I thought that maybe if I didn't make a huge deal out of it she would forget her terror and just use the darn thing.

Finally the big day rolled around. Mia actually sat still to let me do her hair, she put on her favorite new outfit and sat by the door at exactly 9:48...her class didn't start until 11:00. So I tried to distract her with errands I made up and her favorite show of the moment. Finally it was time to go. I read over her checklist the teacher gave us to make sure she had everything in her new Tinkerbell back pack and realized I didn't pack her an extra change of clothes. So I ran up to her room and grabbed her ratty old sweat pants and a t-shirt, thinking "the class is only two and a half hours, she won't need this". And we walked to school half a block a way. Well, I walked, Mia ran like a giddy horse. We walked hand in hand down the hall and into her class room, and at the door, she turned to me and said "ok mom, this class is for kids, you need to go home now."

Oh the pain she stabbed through my heart with those words. I guess I could be happy she is well adjusted and stuff, but secretly I think she was just so darn excited to get a break from me. Yes, I have self esteem issues, what is your point? So I walked home with tears in my eyes and stared at the clock until it was time to pick her up. I ran back to the school and entered her classroom, trying to look semi-dignified and not like that pathetic mom who has no life outside of her children.

I found Mia, and one other little kid alone in the classroom with the head teacher. At first I thought maybe they were in trouble, but it turns out that all the other kids in the class had to ride the bus home so they had left a couple minutes earlier. Mia was gleefully shouting through the aquarium glass at the class pet, a tiny frog and the little boy was staring in to space picking his nose. When Mia saw me she looked a little bit perturbed that I had shown up to ruin her fun. I gave her a hug, which she gracefully allowed, and as I pulled back I noticed that she was wearing her ratty sweat pants, not the pretty ballerina outfit she had so carefully donned that morning. Crap.

The teacher must have seen my face because she quickly came to Mia's defense. She stated that she made it to the bathroom and everything, and stuff wasn't her fault, blah blah blah...I smiled and apologized and whisked Mia away. I know exactly what happened. It was the automatic potty. I have a new foe to defeat. It will be a super fun project for the year.

Super fun phone drama....

So here's what happened to my phone. Charles and I are trying out having no land line in our home and just using cell phones. This has worked ok so far, but since we got our phones while living in Salt Lake, all our neighbors have to dial long distance to call us. We talked about changing them every once in a while but never seemed to get around to it. But now, Mia is starting preschool and the school does not have long distance access (I guess the district found a way to cut financial corners). So, for the sake of Mia's education we finally went in and had our phone numbers changed last night.

In a whirl of excitement, I texted and emailed everyone I could think of and sent them my new number. (This actually turned into a fun getting-in-touch-with-people-you-haven't-spoken-to-in-years exercise. Hey Jules, nice to talk to you last night, I'm glad your still breathing.) Then this morning I wandered over to a few neighbors homes and gave them our brand new local number (hoorah!! we can have friends now). And then one of them tried to call me....and it was still long distance. Grrrrr....

So, I called the cell phone company and told them that they weren't the brightest crayon in the box collectively (individually they might all be MENSA candidates, who knows). After explaining it to them three times, calling a local store to confirm the Utah County code they need to find the right phone number we had the numbers changed again. This time I sent Charlie to the neighbors house to call before I bothered everyone with more text messages and he says it works. I am half tempted to give out my phone number here but I'm not dumb...some of the time. Email me if you need it.

house of disease

So here's the thing about me. I am the worst sick person in the world. I get whiny and grouchy the minute I feel any sort of sick. Last weekend I was so sick I am pretty sure I died. It was like something out of the Exocist. I won't go into detail but it wasn't pleasant, for me or anyone within a five mile radius. And since it was the first week of school I wasn't even allowed to cry on Charlie's shoulder, lest he should get the sniffles on the first day of teaching. So, I wallowed in my misery all by myself, with nary a caretaker mopping my feverish brow. Poor poor me.

Despite my best efforts, it seems that Charlie is now coming down with the flu of death. He is starting to get a glazed over look in his eye and looks like it is painful to move. He hasn't started complaining yet, but looked at me like I was satan a few hours ago, so I think he knows that I have infected him. I now amend my previous statement as I am starting to recall that I am only the second worst sick person in the world, with Charlie beating me by a mile. He needs constant sympathy for the smallest cold. So, this is not going to be pleasant. It may take a few days before I have the time or strength to write again. I may be too busy nursing my poor husband back to health...by Monday or there will be heck to pay.

The disease continues...

Ok, Charlie didn't really get sick, he just had body aches and was whiny for a day. But here's the new twist. I have a disgusting eye infection. I hid in the house all day yesterday, but today I desperately need groceries so I am trying to figure out if I would creep people out by wearing my sun glasses all through the store. Maybe people will just assume I am hung over. I also need to go to the bank, but I don't want anyone to think I am a suspicious character, so I don't think my sun glasses can protect me from public ridicule there.

It's amazing how vain I find myself being. I am skipping my kickboxing class as we speak because I don't want any of my neighbors to be grossed out by my swollen left eye. Yes, the logical part of me knows that probably no one will pay attention to me enough to even notice, but there is no logic involved in my vanity. I've been known to call in sick to work when I had a particularly bad break out. (Yes, I know that therapy might help me face my fear of my debilitating fears, but who has the time).

So, for this post I am very happy that I am not in the habit of posting pictures. You don't want to see this. And I don't want to document it for posterity. I am determined that my grandchildren never know that I had human flaws.

farmer's market

So, round about August in Spanish Fork the farmer's market opens saturday morning in front of City Hall. I have an unusually excited reaction to this every saturday. Maybe it's because I've never successfully grown anything,(seriously, I killed a chia pet and a cactus in quick succession) so the wonder of meeting the people who actually produced the produce gives a certain amount of reverence. Also, Mia likes to eat whatever picks out at the market, which is weird because she doesn't like a lot of stuff that isn't pink. Today she picked out summer squash and is still dancing around the house about it. So I feel like a good mom and a good citizen for supporting my local farmers today. I get a gold star.

Also, I threw away a dead little pine tree I had in a pot on my front porch. I had high hopes for this tree. I was going to decorate it with twinkle lights come Christmas time, and maybe even a few ornaments. But it died. Like everything I plant it quickly dried up and turned brown, despite being a vigilent waterer and generous with the miracle grow. My heart still hurts from this bitter disappointment.

My new idea is to just stick a fake tree in the pot of dirt and pretend. I am nothing if not great at pretending. I will plant a fake tree and dare everyone around me to tell me that it isn't real.

meditation...

A few days ago I made an astounding observation. People pick weird times to meditate on the meaning and direction of their lives. For example, I was at Red Robin with my friend, Christy after a fun girl movie (Mamma Mia, still makes me giggle). Upon walking out of the restaurant I encountered another one of my "Amy's awkward navigation of polite society" foibles, a rotating door. Some rotating doors are not so bad, kind of fun in a weird way. But some of them, such as the one at Red Robin, are an odd size. I always have a moment of panic trying to decide if I should join who ever is in the stall ahead of me, or should I let them have their alone time and jump in the next stall? What is polite? I don't want to crash anyone's solitude, but it seems wasteful to no "carpool".

I know I am rambling, but I have a point. Pay attention. After I awkwardly jumped in the same stall as Christy, probably maiming her with an elbow or something I felt the need to explain my behavior and tried to explain my irrational fear of rotating doors. This got a weird look (I've known her for 10 years or so, but I guess i must be getting weirder because no one seems to be getting used to me). So I further tried to explain what I meant about interrupting someone's quiet time. When I brush my teeth I am usually so deep in thought that the rest of the world disappears. Teeth brushing is my time to think about the direction of my life and my beliefs. I know of at least three people who believe that the universe is more clear in the shower. My mom seems to completely bliss out into a zen like state when she is polishing her sink. And a certain underground mormon sub culture that I like to refer to as "scrapbookers" seem to go into a complete other plane of existence while using their pinking shears and di-cuts. To each his own. I'm not judgy. Except for scrapbookers, that gives me the heebie jeebies.

So, this is a call for all of my loyal readers to try to be more sensitive to whatever form of meditation those around us seem to observe. That reminds me, I need to buy toothpaste.

Sundance spectacular

I know it has been a while. How are you? Have you missed me? I was on "vacation" in Park City. My "vacaction" deserves quotation marks because it was the Hanosek version of a family outing. Charlie refereed six soccer games a day while I sat around in the hotel room and local attractions trying desperately to entertain a three year old. FOR THREE DAYS. THREE. Soccer and a dirty hotel swimming pool for THREE days. I just want to make sure you understand the severity of the situation. THREE. (I feel I need to take this opportunity to say that I dearly love my husband, but the man has no idea how to take a vacation. Once I dragged him to Zion's Canyon for a weekend, thinking that at least there would be no soccer there, and he managed to turn it into a soil collecting excursion for his science lessons the following year. Grrr.)

Here's the thing I noticed about Park City. Everything looks the same. Police Station, Taco Bell, Library, Albertson's, gas stations, all dressed up like cabins as if they are in the witness protection program. I even saw a dumpster or two masquerading as Swiss chalets. Who do they think they are fooling? I know that Park City has gone all Hollywood thanks to Robert Redford, but honestly, I don't think anyone is walking around the town wishing they could find a dumpster to throw their gum into, saying to themselves "Oh, I better not throw my gum in that almost dumpster looking Swiss chalet, I'm sure it's just a tiny home for enchanted wood sprites."

The other thing that kept nagging at me on "vacation" was what if someone weren't paying attention and walked into the wrong rustic wood building. I could just see the same poor chap (in my head I am picturing Paul Schaffer, but you may picture who ever you want in this scenario, I'm not the boss of you, that's Oprah's job) So, poor Paul Schaffer is wandering into what he thinks is Burger King, hoping to find comfort in a Whopper, but he has accidently walked into the Post Office because all the buildings look exactly the same like a derranged woodsman was let loose on the city planning committee.

Now I am not an advocate of graffiti, but perhaps next time you are in Park City you can aid the population by doing your part to distinguish one building from another. Perhaps you could spray paint a happy face above the door of all fast food chains and a scowly face above all public offices, and maybe dollar signs above the hundreds of real estate agents doors.

* I just read my sister in law's comment on this and realized I forgot to mention that she rescued my sanity and took Mia to her house to have a sleep over with her cousins. She is my hero. I am going to build a shrine to her...later...when I get around to it.

Answers to your burning questions!

Anonymous said...
Dear Miss Amy
How do I get ground in grass stains out of my sons jeans. i have all ready washed them in hot water and dried them in a hot dryer.

signed,
hopelessly stained
July 15, 2008 2:44 PM

Dear Hopelessly stained,
Throw them away and buy new ones.

Anonymous said...
any why are you so funny in your writings? You remind me so much of your sister Wendy. Is it possible she is writing your blog for you? Please be honest
July 15, 2008 2:45 PM

Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for the compliment. Those of you who don’t know my darling sister Wendy she is a true gem and one of the inspirations in my life…or at least she was before we discovered that she was in league with the local drug cartel and had been smuggling drug mules across the Colorado Border and into Utah. She should be out of prison in three to five years with good behavior, everyone keep your fingers crossed for her.

LPP06 said...
1. What do you think of this "Dr. Horrible" blog?

2. Do you wish to join the Evil League of Evil?

3. What would you do to get in?

http://www.drhorrible.com/

A must see!!! (If you want to laugh!)
July 17, 2008 9:14 PM

Joss Whedon, is that you?
How can you not be smitten with an internet show whose main bad guy is a literal horse? The thorough bred of sin. Awesome. Like Mr. Ed, but menacing.

Kirkrocks said...
A serious question...

How can a person know all of the ***gross, utterly stomach turning*** stuff involved in the physiology of human reproduction and still want kids of their own?
July 18, 2008 1:11 PM

Here’s the thing about women: Pain doesn’t faze us. We seek it out and conquer it on a daily basis. We get things waxed and plucked just for the adrenalin rush. So, childbirth? Not so big a deal. Just don’t ask me to kill a spider. That is gross.

Anonymous said...
Amy,
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
July 18, 2008 3:58 PM

5

Anonymous said...
If you were one of the New Kids on the Block, which one would you be?
July 18, 2008 4:00 PM

I would be Danny. He seems to be pretty well preserved and hasn’t tried to cash in on his peak teenage years. That being said, Jonathon is hot.

Anonymous said...
What are more afraid of? Clowns or spiders?
July 18, 2008 4:01 PM

Good question, Anonymous. How about a clown covered in spiders? Actually, I would have to say clowns. They still have the shock value that spiders don’t. If I saw a spider in my basement I would say “ewww, a spider” and then make Charlie kill it. If I saw a clown milling about in my basement I would have a heart attack and die.


Anonymous said...
Will you make me a cake?
July 18, 2008 4:02 PM

Yes. I enjoy making cakes. But you would have to come to my house to eat it because I don’t enjoy cake smeared across the trunk of my car.

Anonymous said...
Dear AmyLyn,
Are you ever going to answer all of these questions?

Curious in Vernal
July 22, 2008 10:50 AM

Yes I am. Stop nagging.

Nightmare on spanish oaks blvd.

Once upon a time in a far away kingdom there lived a fair maiden with big dreams to be a rock star…or chef to the stars…or maybe an actress portraying a rock star…or maybe just writing a really good poem about stars or something star related like the Hale-Bopp comet …or heck, she probably would have settled for discovering a star. But, as she grew older and older and more and more distracted with the mundane details of life like paying mortgages and trying to figure out what to make for dinner, her dreams grew more earth bound and she started to dream about someday being able to sleep for a solid eight hours.

Mia has a recurring nightmare about bugs in her bed. When she had her monsters under the bed phase I knew how to handle it and armed her with a bottle of monster spray (a.k.a. sweet pea body spray from Bath and Body Works because monsters HATE sweet smells). But, I have yet to find a defense against imaginary bugs. Every night she runs in to my room in a deranged kind of panic screaming about the bugs in her bed. Every night I calmly mumble that they aren’t bugs. Every night I take her by the hand and walk her back to her room, turn on the light and smooth out her sheets so that she can see that there were no bugs, just shadows and some mysterious crumbs that found their way up from the kitchen table. Every night I gently usher her back into bed and turn out the light and try to keep from falling out of her rocking chair as she falls back to sleep. Every night, 20 minutes later she is in my room again, this time getting her dad because she is sure that mom doesn’t know what she is talking about. Every morning we discuss her bug fixation and she looks at me like I’m speaking German and states “Mom, I like bugs.” Grrrrr……And apparently bugs are not afraid of monster spray. Mia says she has already tried that and I am an idiot for suggesting such a thing (ok, she didn’t say I was an idiot but her tone implied it.)


So, for now, the dream of a full night of sleep is on hold. But some day, you just wait. I will hide somewhere, perhaps the bath tub, and sleep ALL NIGHT LONG. Mark my words.

Taking a hike

You know how in any new social situation someone inevitably asks you what sort of hobbies you enjoy? I hate this question. I don’t want to be a loser and admit that any free time I come upon is spent reading fashion magazines or eating Ben and Jerry’s while watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so usually I lie. My stock answer is that I am passionate about hiking. The truth is that I grew up with a grandfather who was as passionate about hiking as I am about Johnny Depp. The minute I was old enough to find something better to do on “hiking Saturdays” I escaped this ritual (although to be fair, it might have been his death defying driving that turned me off on these outings as much as the actual hiking). So, somewhere deep inside I have hiking genes (probably being crushed by my mom’s obsession-with-Egyptology genes) so I don’t really feel like this is a 100 percent lie.

Most of my real hobbies would have to do with a couch. Can you be a couch potato if you don’t watch TV on said couch? What if you are just reading a trashy novel or updating your fantastic blog. Maybe there are different degrees of couch-potatoeness. For example, someone who wakes up in the morning and immediately is glued to the Home Shopping Network every day is a huge-gigantic Idaho russet couch potato, whereas I am really more of a tiny new couch potato that you would roast gently in the oven with some rosemary and olive oil.

So, here I am coming clean about a deep dark secret again. I have no interesting hobbies. I don’t craft or sew, or do wood work. I don’t play any instruments (not for lack of trying, I just always seemed to have commitment issues with whatever instrument I was trying). And I don’t volunteer as a tour guide at the local art museum. I just kind of sit around in my free time. Wow, this blog is better than a confession box.

Q and A with Me!

Someone who shall remain nameless suggested that I answer a few of my adoring publics questions. So go ahead and post whatever it is you have been dying to ask me in the comments section and I will have an answering extravaganza soon.

Only, don't ask me about laundry. I'm really really bad at laundry.

My Amy Vices

See what I did there with the title? It's like Miami, but it is My Amy. Wow, I am on a roll already. Also, I am on some pain killers. I had a neck injury while bowling (shut up, I know I should be in a bubble) so now I am flying high, although I do not endorse the use of pain killers for anything but pain killing so don't blame me for whatever vices you have.

Speaking of which...I love Diet Coke. I know this is a shocker because I come from such a puritanical family, where we are not allowed to have bodily functions, let alone a habit, innocuous or otherwise. Some of you loyal readers out there (all three of you) know that I have also claimed a love of chocolate, which is pretty much a given since I have ovaries, so I don't think that counts as a personal vice, but Diet Coke is different. If I could buy it in barrels off the black market I would. I used to have a dealer (literally, Charlie's brother was a Coke delivery guy for a while and would pull up in his huge Coke truck and bring me crates of it for a small fee, it was like that scene in The Music Man where they are all singing about the excitement of the Wells Fargo Wagon, except that I knew what was in the truck and that it was for me, and I couldn't really find anything that rhymed with coke truck that had the right rhythm.)

I realized my habit may be getting out of control when I was in a grouchy mood yesterday and Mia stared at me for a minute and said "Do you need a diet coke mom? Daddy will go get you one." I stared in amazement and confusion. Proud that my little girl was so empathetic and intuitive, ashamed that she was aware of my substance abuse problem, and irritated that she was stalling because she didn't want to go to bed. Am I a bad mother who needs diet coke rehab? I had these same feelings last week when Mia told me that her favorite song was Shorty Got Low by Flo Rida after I realized she sang most of the chorus to me in the car. (If my local DCFS representative happens to read this please don't take my child away, she also is really good at eating vegetables and takes baths on a regular basis, I don't just sit around drinking diet coke and blarring rap music all day while she is wandering around the neighborhood on her own).

So, there you go. I have my vices and I am doing my best to not let them interfere with my daily functioning. Unless Mom is reading this, then I am just kidding. I never ever drink anything besides water and sugar free juice while reading the scriptures and thinking about oatmeal.

Suart Little must die

So, here’s what happened. I went to Mia’s Wednesday Morning Movie (where they play a dumb kids movie you really really don’t want to watch but you do it anyway because it occupies your child for at least an hour and fifteen minutes) and they were playing Stuart Little. It was horrifying. I avoid movies where animals talk and have facial expressions as a rule. It’s just too creepy. Add to that a possessed cat and as many over used platitudes you can stuff in a kids movie and you just have 80 minutes of pure psychological torture. For me. Mia loved it. Kids are dumb. To make things worse I dragged Charles along today because he had the day off (Woohooo! Summer!) and I told him it would be “fun”. Now we are having trust issues.

To make up for killing some of Charlie’s brain cells I cleaned the house from top to bottom when we got home. I know a lot of you are saying to your computer “Amy, how does scrubbing your bathroom floor relate to forcing your sweet husband to Guantanemo Bay type torture in the name of family togetherness?” And I have an answer for you because I know on a surface level it’s just a silly idea. But if you dig a little deeper and spend some time with my husband you will understand that he is a clutterphobe. I myself am irritated by useless objects that lay around my home, but he outshines me my far. But here’s the other thing. He hates to throw things away. I know, your wondering how I can handle such a delicate combination of crazy. Well, I have figured out that the perfect solution is to wait until he is in the bathroom and then I throw piles of stuff away. He comes out and sees nothing but gleaming countertops and thinks “Wow! I know that there was stuff there before, but it is now gone of it’s own volition back to it’s place of origin.” (Because sometimes boys are dumb like kids).

I know I am outing my secret cleaning strategies because Charlie reads this blog every once in a while. But I feel better. I have shared the pain instilled by Stuart Little, and I have confessed a dark secret in one fell swoop.

Character Flaw

A certain special little brother of mine has remarked that I need to add some pictures to this blog because there were too many words. My first instinct was to offer to hire him a reading tutor. Then I thought, why am I so technologically impaired that I can’t figure out how to put pictures to illustrate my manic thought processes throughout this blog? I’ve come to the point where I’ve realized that there are certain things I just cannot do. Like pass up a desert containing peanut butter...or care about who Leonardo DiCaprio wants me to vote for, or learn more than the bare minimum necessary to carry me through the age of I-things. These character flaws are what make me special.
In order to cope with anything that comes up I have married a techno-idiot savant that is happy to push me aside and figure out how to load my favorite game onto my PC or what happened to the last four hours of work that I’ve done on my computer and then somehow deleted. This is called team work. I make sure he isn’t wearing black socks with his shorts and his hair isn’t plastered within an inch of it’s life before he walks out the door in the morning, and he makes sure I don’t accidently purchase a 70's era skate from Ebay for $500,987.04. Sometimes, when my boss calls me to inform me that my margins are somehow misaligned on the latest set of dictations I’ve typed I silently hand the phone to Charlie and sit in the corner while he fixes everything with a few keystrokes. Maybe this makes me less of a self-reliant woman of the new millennium, but I don’t care. Thinking about any sort of programming gives me wrinkles and we all know that my vanity trumps any other conerns.
So, yes, Russ. I don’t know how to put pictures on my blog. Sorry. Maybe you can read every third or fourth word so you don’t get a head ache...or maybe Whitney can read it to you instead of Good Night Moon at bedtime. I’ll work on getting Charlie to fix it, after he figures out how to stop making my mouse quack like a duck instead of making the little clicking sound.

Hey Good Lookin...

I don't know if you know this about me, but I am a brilliant chef. Shut up, I AM a brilliant chef, stop laughing. Ok, I am more like a brilliant chef that just got lazy and stopped trying, but still I am brilliant deep inside as I cook. I watch the food network religiously, unless someone irritating is on (I'm looking at you Sandra Lee and you too Rachel). And in my mind I am cooking right along with the greats and am a caviar aficionado (even though the thought of actually eating or being near fish eggs makes me gag just a little bit).

So, every once in a while I get on a gourmet kick and my darling husband and daughter just roll their eyes and secretly start stashing junk food in their underwear drawers. I don't know how a three year old can manage to find Twinkies to stash in her underwear drawer, but Mia is my daughter so I am not entirely surprised. A few nights ago I was determined to create Nectarine Salad with green tomato confiture and hazel nut sabayon. So I went to Albertsons and bought some nectarines and then I skipped the whole tomato idea because I remembered I hate tomatoes. I gathered the rest of the ingredients and rushed home in order to begin what was sure to be a life changing dish.

The French Laundry Cookbook wanted me to slice the nectarines into paper thin slices, but since I had to hurry and cut them up before Charlie got home and took the knives away from me in order to spare himself another emergency room bill, I just ended up cutting them in half. The recipe called for six nectarines but somehow one of them disappeared into Mia's mouth (ok, maybe I ate half of it, but she started it).

Then it was time to make a sabayon. What the heck is a sabayon, Amy? Well, if you were a gourmet chef like me you would know that it is a creamy sauce...kind of like melted ice cream. In fact, I used melted hazelnut chocolate ice cream, because hagen daaz was on sale and it had almost all the same ingredients on the label that were in the sabayon recipe, so there. It was totally justified. Also, I was suppose to make a sort of hazelnut meringue cookie, but it looked like a lot of fuss for just a couple of cookies so I used a couple of Mia's animal crackers.

I don't know how to post pictures on this blog yet (Russ's Amy needs to give me a lesson), so I can't convey the end result adequately. But it was good. It didn't look like the picture in the recipe book because I used only 15 percent of the ingredients it suggested, but it made me happy and Mia actually ate it. Charlie didn't because we ate it all before he came home, but he would have loved it too. I'll have to tell him about it sometime.

Mixing up some fun

I don’t know how many of you have heard the tale of the Great Mixer Heist of 2004 so here it goes:
Once upon a time my beautiful mother decided that she didn’t have enough room in her kitchen for her beautiful, gleaming, white Kitchen Aid stand mixer. So, because she loves me the most, she gave it to me. I used it daily and polished it with love every night until the day came that I had to pack up most of my belongings to put into storage so that we could move in order for Charlie to go back to school for his master’s degree. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of my beloved mixer disappearing into a box for over a year I allowed my little brother, Russell, to use it in his home until I could reclaim it in my own kitchen.
For those of you who don’t know Russ, let me explain. He is an ok guy, one of my favorite little brothers really. But he cannot seem to overcome the envy he has held for me every since the day he realized that our parents prefer me over him. Most of my other siblings have come to terms with this, but Russ still stays up seething with jealousy most nights. Apparently, one of these sleepless night he began forming a plan. In his twisted mind the mixer represented the love my parents lavished on me and he decided he needed to steal it. I can picture his eyes gleaming with determination and his dimples in the moonlight as his plan came together.
Suddenly, one day, he declared that the mixer was his. Mom gave it to him because she knew he would treasure it, and I was hallucinating if I said anything different. This was actually a good tactic because he knew that he couldn’t use logic, so accusations of insanity would have to do. He desperately clung to the mixer and shouted at everyone that it belonged to him. Most of us just smiled at him with understanding and patted him on the head, hoping that the crazy wasn’t contagious. A few sat in wonderment, trying to figure out what he was so upset about, it was just a stand mixer. This went on for months, until the day finally came for the mixer to return to it’s rightful home, my countertop.
I phoned up my sister in law, Amy (who is a wonderfully talented person who has the amazing ability to deal with Russ) and asked her if she would be able to bring my mixer with her the next time she came over to my house. She only paused for a few beats until she agreed with reluctance ( I knew she was attached to the mixer too, but only because it makes good mashed potatoes, not because of any mystical force it represented). I don’t know if she used force, or medication, but she managed to get Russ to bring it with them when they came for Thanksgiving dinner. He seemed a little bit more placid than normal so I’m pretty sure he was heavily tranquilized. He glared at me as he set it gingerly on the counter and gave it a last longing caress
Amy tells me they have bought a new mixer, but Russ can’t seem to bring himself to use it. I feel kind of bad for the poor kid, but not enough to give up my favorite appliance. I actually just got it repaired (Mia was helping me make cookies, enough said). I haven’t used it lately though and is starting to collect dust. Maybe I’ll let Wendy borrow it, so she can know what it is like to be the favorite child.

Let's get physical....

Every six months or so I am inspired to become the epitome of health. I go to the store and buy all the produce I can fit in my cart. I toss out any junk food that is laying around and I hit the treadmill like I’m running to a half price sale at Baker’s Bakery (yes mom, you taught me well). My new lease on life usually last for about four weeks, or until I get so many blisters from my ill fitting running shoes I have to stop with all the running and let myself heal so that I don’t have to have my feet amputated. Or, sometimes I am tempted away from the "all veggies all the time" diet by a vacation, or when Charlie brings home one of the 1 pound Symphony bars that his students are so fond of bribing him with (I don’t think he has ever actually had the chance to try any of them, they somehow disappear into my mouth the minute they come through the door...the whole thing, I don’t mess around).
However, my current healthy kick was inspired by fear. My neighbor, whom I secretly refer to as the "Relief Society Mafia Boss" but not to her face, because she could have me whacked, told me to start coming to her kick boxing class that she teaches at our ward building twice a week. I quickly went through every excuse I had in my arsenal: too far away (it’s about 50 feet to the edge of the parking lot from my front door), I need a babysitter (kids are welcome to play during the class), I have post traumatic stress disorder from my college kick boxing class and will start to have flashbacks of the middle aged, 300 pound woman who always stood in front of me and all of her glorious spandex and leg warmers (this one only got a mildly amused look). So I gave in. So I smiled and told R.S.M.B. that I would be delighted to come. I LOVE kick boxing.
I immediately went to the mall and bought new running shoes because I had a plan. I had 5 days before the class started, plenty of time to get into shape enough to make it through a measly hour and a half of kicking and punching at imaginary foes to the beat of eighties techno remixes. I got home and dusted off the treadmill hiding in the basement and began my new lifestyle (Oprah says that if you call it a lifestyle change instead of a diet and exercise plan it makes it easier to stick to...bite me Oprah.) I ran every day for five days before the class. I even ran for reals instead of walking most of every lap and only actually running four a minute or so like I do when I am not so serious about my target heart rate. I downloaded new upbeat songs on my IPod in order to motivate me to move faster (although I now realize that they are all angry songs, I don’t know if that says anything about me or the artists that write upbeat songs).
Here’s me running on the treadmill every morning:
ME: Mia, I am going to go downstairs for a little while to run. You watch Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch friends and I’ll be up when it is over.
MIA: I want a turn first!!! (We then go down stairs and I stand near by as Mia runs with all her might at 2 miles an hour for 5 minutes). Ok mom, your turn. Mia then stands near the treadmill in utter concentration, ready to pull out the red key that stops the machine should I suddenly have a heart attack while I do a warm up lap and watch the tiny lights that signal my progress around the track make the first curve.
MIA: Mom! I want a turn again.
ME: Not right now honey. Go upstairs and watch your show while I finish my turn and then I will come get you.
MIA: NO!!! you aren’t sharing!!! So I go ahead and let her have another few minutes at 1.3 miles an hour.
MIA: Ok mom, your turn.
I start again, just getting into the groove of Love me Dead by Ludo (awesome song if you are miserable, by the way) and I realize I don’t know where Mia is. I turn of the treadmill and wander around the corner to the storage area of the basement where I see her gleefully pulling out clumps of extra pink insulation and tossing them in the air while giggling with delight.
So, this is why exercising at home is not working out great. I think I need more chocolate in my house.

Reasons to visit Spanish Fork

I wrote this a while ago when I was really bored, and I fell that it deserves an encor presentation:

Reason’s to visit Amy in Spanish Fork:

1. Despite the name, the town has no Latino leanings. This brings a copious amount of puns to the local culture. Delight in heading to the local movie theater, Spanish 8, and asking the clerk "wouldn’t Spanish 8 just be Ocho??"
2. The Icelandic Memorial. I know that you have asked yourself from time to time "where can I go to pay proper respects to whatever Icelandic veterans have fallen in defense of Utah and the American way of life/" Well here is your answer. The beautiful Icelandic Memorial is a small grove in the middle of suburban Spanish Fork, fully equipped with a light house and stone benches scattered artfully so you can ponder the great works of the many famous Icelandic freedom fighters the way you have always dreamed of.
3. Johnny’s Thirst Aid Station. I know that the name alone is enough to bring a clever smile to your lips. Ha! THIRST aid! That’s rich...but it brings up even more topics of conversation when you realize that they do cater to all your hydration needs without ever leaving the comfort of your vehicle. This does seem like a revolutionary idea, one that could change the world until you ask yourself "Is a drive through that serves beer a good idea?" We may never know the answer to this, but discussing it can while away the hours as you enjoy your frosty beverage.
4. The Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple. Man, I am tired of hearing about all the self righteous Haria Krishna’s in Utah County. I wish that the world knew us as more than just a state founded by the disciples of Lord Shiva. But, one look at this beautiful Indian inspired architecture that blends seamlessly into the landscape of the Mountain West, with llamas peacefully grazing in the forefront and you will know, this is the place indeed. With walking tours and a gift shop you may be ready bow down to the mighty bovine as well.
5. Makin Babies Doll Shop. You all have been to your local Build-A-Bear and asked yourself the same question, "Hey, this is great, but I wish they would let me craft a doll that resembled a real baby in every way...maybe I could even give it life like hair and a voice that said ‘mama’ whenever I came into the room. Then no one would stare as I carried around my baby in its ratty blanket and cooed to it while roaming the streets with my shopping cart and my tin foil helmet." Look no further! At Makin Babies you can craft your own life like child that looks, weighs, sounds, and smells just like a real infant. If the doll comes alive and slaughters you in your sleep there is a money back guarantee and everything. Probably.
6. Amy is bored. Come on, come play with me. I live in Spanish Fork. Help.

My new apron

Being a somewhat incompetent homemaker in beautiful Happy Valley is a little bit intimidating for me. I try to can my own tomatoes (except that I can't seem to grow any and I don't really know how to can), and my food storage consists of a case of macaroni and cheese and some ramen noodle soup, and I have never ever gone visiting teaching with a hand crafted refridgerator magnet with some sort of inspirational thought to share. So, on the whole, i would rate myself as a 4 out of 10 on the scale of Mormon Housewife successfulness.

Last week this all changed. I bought an apron. You didn't see that coming did you. It is stunning and just so wrong it is brilliant. I saw it on a kiosk in the middle of University Mall while I was wandering aimlessly waiting for Charlie do be done at the dentist. In it I feel like a derranged housewife from the early sixties and I am compelled to wear kitten heals and flounce about a bit with a feather duster. My life has been changed, I am now on par with Donna Reed and June Cleaver. They would recognize me as one of their own. My house is still a mess and smells vaguely of old fishsticks, but none of this matters when I wear my Apron (yes, it deserves a capital A).

Because of my new lease on life I am committed to learn how to sew, and maybe make a jello salad that contains all the basic food groups. Folding laundry is now a joy. I swish around the living room as I vacuum. I hear strains of my own sitcom theme song as I hand my darling husband his well packed lunch and wave goodbye to him from the front door.

I can't find my camerat at this moment so I will direct you to the website that sells these magical aprons.
http://flirtyaprons.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=11

I hope you all find the joy and harmony with this as I have. I am always happy to share.

Introduction blog

Alright, I am caving. I have kind of a prejudice against blogs. It seems a lot like a digital scrap book, not that there is anything wrong with that, but it makes me want to scratch out my own eyes. But then I had a startling "A HA! Moment" (that is Oprah’s shtick, and it also makes me want to scratch out my own eyes, but then I could still hear her say it constantly and then what will I do, scratch my ears? That doesn’t sound remotely threatening). By not creating my own precious blog, my friends, nay, the world is being deprived of enjoying my thought process. This is a tragedy that I cannot allow to happen. How will my second cousin be able to continue with her day if she doesn’t know my favorite ice cream, or the fact that I work out to classic rock because techno gives me migraines?
Once this horrifying picture formed in my mind I became obsessed. My views on life, and more importantly, food, must be presented for public consumption. Who knows, I may end world hunger.
So, without further ado...DUN DUN DA DA!! Amy’s Blog.