Why Does the Bird Sing?

LDS Scripture Rock review and video

2012-02-02T17:14:00.001-07:00

So, Sparrow was asked to share a scripture in Primary last week. He was assigned 2 Nephi 2:27, and the version they gave him was abridged, but I didn't see that until it was too late. For the record, if you teach him something (like a scripture, or a story) and try to abridge it later, there will be tantrums and tears and anger.

Earlier this year I bought a CD with 25 scriptures set to music called LDS Scripture Rock. It is intended for high school seminary students learning their scripture mastery. I bought the Book of Mormon version because I remember my seminary teacher back in 2003 playing the songs for us and I still remember those scriptures and the tunes!

So I was frustrated when the CD I bought was not the CD I remembered. I like the CD well enough but it is a little weird. The words are not always clear and easy to understand, which I find frustrating because I specifically bought this CD for Sparrow to listen to. And if he can't understand the words, what's the point? This is the debate that I go through in my head, because I was considering getting the Old and New Testament CDs, but I don't know if it's worth it.

For what it's worth, Sparrow does like the music and he did memorize the scripture in about a week. But 2 Nephi 2:27 is also one of the clearer sung songs on the CD, so who knows what results we'd have had with anything else. So I can kind of recommend this CD if you want a fun way to teach your kids scriptures. As long as you are listening too and correct and explain when they get the lyrics wrong, heh.

I'm sure this CD is probably helpful for all ages, but I do wish it didn't take itself quite so seriously. The singers all sing like...they're serious. The CD I remember had a sense of humor - they knew they were being a little cheesy but they didn't mind, and that made it fun. This one is just a little awkward because they're trying to be all American Idol-esque and it gets painful.

So I'll keep you posted if we decide to get the rest of the CDs. You can listen to samples at the website too. In the meantime, here is Sparrow reciting 2 Nephi 2:27, which is kind of a long scripture for a brand-new 4 year old to recite in front of a large room of children! (He didn't need an ounce of help either, wow!)

Four years

2012-01-29T16:08:00.001-07:00

My little Sparrow has made it another year. He is now four years old. FOUR! I can't believe we've lived for this long. Seriously. I knew nothing about babies and toddlers when he was born. I still don't. It's a miracle he's survived.

I'd say it's gone by in a flash, but it hasn't. People always say that the years pass by quickly but I still think that's a lie. Keeping your kid alive for four years is a long, slow process.

Sparrow was born 7 weeks early. We went to the hospital at 6 a.m. on January 27 because I had been having high blood pressure and suddenly came down with a killer migraine and a blind spot in my eye. The ER took my blood pressure and the alarms started going off. "DON'T PANIC," the nurse yelled, and ran out of the room. You should have seen Hawk's face. I laughed.

After an hour of waiting in Labor and Delivery, the doctor informed me I'd be having a baby. "Um, I'm not due till March 10," I said. "Surprise," she said.

I was in labor for 12 hours. No painkillers, because they wouldn't work with the 2 blood pressure medications I was on. I wasn't allowed to read, watch TV, or talk on the phone. Nothing that would "stimulate" me because I was so close to stroking out. At 10 p.m. I was wheeled into the operating room, where they tried for an hour to get a spinal block in place. I was so swollen they couldn't do it, so they finally just knocked me totally out.

Sparrow was born at 11:14 p.m. Later I found out that Gordon B. Hinckley, the president and prophet of our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, had passed away a few hours earlier. I think they passed each other :)

Sparrow was released from the NICU after 3 weeks. He's never been sick and he is ridiculously smart and has an insane memory. He was somewhat delayed as a baby, but he is almost caught up now (he still has trouble socially sometimes.)

He's grown from 4 lbs 3 oz to 41 lbs, from 17 inches to 41 inches. Four years! Here's to another 444 :) Love you Sparrow.

The day he came home from the NICU

"Pure" by Julianna Baggott review

2012-01-15T01:11:00.000-07:00

Pure by Julianna Baggott
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I suffered through every single word of this book. Normally I'd have put it down, I hated it so much. But I felt it was my duty to read this crap so YOU don't have to. I have tried to spare you the pain of this novel. Heed my warnings, reader. Stay away. Just. Stay. Away.

This is quite possibly the absolute worst book I have ever read. I've said that before, but I'm confident that this one takes the cake. Now when people ask what the worst book ever is, I have a confident quick answer for them. Instead of reading this, go watch Total Recall 2070. It's a lot shorter and a better movie than this book was - and that is saying something.

Here are some actual thoughts as I was reading this trash:

What the hell is this?! This book is terrible so far. I'm on page 200 and I am fighting to stay in the game. You know what this novel reminds me of? That horrible Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Total Recall 2070, where he goes to Mars and there are all these creepy mutants.

This book is trying WAY too hard to be dark, gritty and awesome all at the same time. So far all it's succeeding in doing is being dark, disgusting, and stupid. Also confusing - too many characters, too many different viewpoints being introduced at completely random times.

Oh, how CONVENIENT that Bradwell knows Japanese, and that "phoenix," of all words, is the "first word he ever looked up." Come on. Gag me. There were lots of moments of "convenience" throughout the entire novel.

Okay. Now back to regularly scheduled review. There is absolutely nothing redeeming in this stinking pile of sewage. I found several instances where Pressia magically become Lyda (as in, huge typos throughout the novel.) I hope they fix this before the book is published, but it won't really make a huge difference, because the characters all blend together - there is no way to distinguish them from any other character except for the mentions of their mutations. Which, by the way, let's talk about that for a minute.

Talk about how I was BEATEN OVER THE HEAD CONSTANTLY by the mutations, and this was melted, and this was fused to this, and she has no face it's just metal! And her hand! It's a mirror! And oh my gravy is that a baby in your chest?

Constant. That was possibly the most irritating thing about this book, besides the fact that the plot is stupid and the characters make no sense and it's all very contrived and heavy handed. Every new person, place, or thing they encountered had a huge description about the horror of it being fused to whatever.

The thing is, I like dystopian novels where I can actually see that thing happening. I love post-apocalyptic survival type books because I can PUT myself in those situations. In this situation? All I could think of was being fused to my laptop and having to read this horrible novel over and over again. That would be a fate worse than death and if I go to Hell, I realize now that this is probably required reading in Hell 101.

The whole scenes with the characters and the "Mothers" was disgusting and completely and totally unnecessary. And this is going to become a trilogy? Dear Lord, have our brains devolved so much in the last 10 years that we are willing to waste our time on this drivel?

I am so utterly astounded by the idiocy of this novel. I don't understand why it's so looked forward to, why it's even being published in the first place. I'd like to go on for 368 pages about how disgusting, idiotic, pointless and STUPID the whole thing is. What a waste of my life this was.

View all my reviews

Wordfull Wednesday

2012-01-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

Today's Wordfull Wednesday question is: Which fictional character do you identify most with?

And I wish to high heaven and back that I could say I was just like Tris from Veronica Roth's Divergent, or Alanna from Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet...or any one of Mercedes Lackey's hero/heroines...

But I can't. Because truthfully, the literary character I am most like is Melinda, from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.

I remember reading Speak in my sophomore year of high school. I was 14, at a brand new school in a brand new state and I was terrified. I woke up dreading every day, living through those painful 8 hours in near-silence, and going home and collapsing, exhausted from being scared all day.

Melinda suffers a traumatic life event and gradually stops talking. Although my "trauma" was nothing compared to what she went through, I felt the same way she did. She was quiet on the outside, full of sarcastic snark and wit on the inside. She had no friends, I had no friends. Her parents didn't really care, mine tried but didn't help much.

And the snark that goes on in Speak. Oh, the snark. It made me happy. I felt like I'd found a friend in Melinda.

It's been 11 years since I read Speak, and I still identify with her, even though I'm no longer a mouse in high school. I am much less angsty than I was as a teenager, thank goodness. And I am much snarkier than I was as a teenager, so consequently I am much more amusing. I hope.

I also hope that if this question is ever asked again, I can come up with a better answer. Sure, I'd take Tris and her quiet, unassuming confidence, (SERIOUSLY PEOPLE, READ DIVERGENT!) but I'd also settle for ...uh... someone else who is awesome and selfless and amazing but a little more grown up. Because it's starting to concern me that the only characters I could think of for this Wordfull Wednesday were all teenagers.(P.S. On a random note, my blog name, Kestrel, comes from William Nicholson's Wind on Fire trilogy, an excellent series for tweens. Kestrel is my hero. And if I had given birth to a girl, I would have named her Kestrel. Probably a good thing I didn't have a girl.)

Christmas Recap

2012-01-06T23:30:00.002-07:00

We did have a Christmas, and I should probably write about it before Valentine's Day gets here.

On Christmas Eve we visited my grandparents. Sparrow adores his great grandpa Dan.

After spending a little time with the grandparents, we went to a Christmas party with my other side of the family and ate the most incredible prime rib ever in the history of food. There was also shrimp. Oh, and games. And family. Have I mentioned the prime rib? I should have taken a picture of it.

Then after a lot of playing, Hawk, Sparrow and I came back to our townhouse. It was our first Christmas at home.

Sparrow asked Santa for a "Star Wars giant" this year. Good luck figuring out what that meant. After a month of questioning I still had no idea, so Santa settled for this Star Wars starfighter.

Best $10 I ever spent.

Aunt Owly sent Sparrow some Star Wars books, which he reads constantly.

Owly sent me a movie I looove (Rigoletto, a Feature Films for Families movie from the 90s) and this sign, which...

Wait a minute, OLDEST bestest friend? As in OLDEST?!!!! I will give her the benefit of the doubt, since she's four whole months older than me.

Bamboo was pretty excited about the frivolity on Christmas morning too.

Panda was just forlorn and confused - why would we open boxes instead of pet him? Sigh.

Wearing our Christmas socks (mine have already saved my toes from frostbite like 87,000 times already.)

We gave Sparrow a ukulele. He was over the moon with that and plays it every day. Of course, he plays it like a violin, since that's what he sees me practicing most often. I'll have to pull out my guitar one of these days.

(Not pictured: lots of other awesome things, including the indoor trampoline with netting my mom gave Sparrow. I'm not sure who loves it more, him or the cats. It's pretty hysterical to watch them on it. My mom also gave us a kitchen table which we desperately needed as every single dining chair we had was in pieces.)

Then we had an insane Christmas day that extended throughout the last week of December. Lots of insanity and family and activities and messy houses and stress. Sparrow is just barely starting to settle down from it all and I still feel like I need a nap. Sheesh.

Next post: 2011 recap and a 2012 goal. Maybe. If I feel like it.

England saved my life.

2012-01-05T12:17:00.001-07:00

Seven years ago today, I was on an airplane bound for London, England. Via Dallas. Never fly to London from Dallas - that is one miserable flight.

(And yet I am still so proud that I have managed to never use an airplane bathroom. I have a bladder of steel.)

Seven years ago. That's practically a lifetime. I was just barely 18 years old, a junior in college, and totally lost in life. I had no idea what I was doing, who I was, where I wanted to go or what I wanted to become. I had never lived away from home. I was struggling with severe depression and social anxiety and I was suicidal.

I promised myself that once I got back from England, I would be allowed to die. But I had to go to England first.

And thank God I did.

In England I discovered that life didn't have to be completely miserable. I could be whoever I wanted to be. I didn't have to be scared to get out of bed in the morning. There was so much to do and see and explore and eat and experience - every day was an adventure. I discovered that I didn't have to be defined by my family or by my mistakes. I discovered that I loved doing laundry. I discovered that I could survive on my own and that I could make friends - lifelong friends - and that I had stuff in common with other people and that people actually liked me and appreciated my sense of humor. I discovered that playing soccer in Hyde Park every Saturday was one of the highlights of my life (minus the time I kicked the ball straight into my professor's nethers. Awkward.)

I was still young and stupid. I had absolutely no money the entire time I was across the Pond - every week, my blessed grandmother would send me $20, which I would exchange for all of 10 quid (not very much, honestly.) I was able to get a babysitting gig for a young American family that lived next door which supplemented my income a little bit. Some weeks, instead of using the money the professors gave us to buy Oyster Cards (Tube passes), I saved it so I could buy souvenirs, supplies, or chocolate instead. There were days I stayed in the London Centre the entire day, reading and messing around on the Internet instead of going out and exploring.

There was a time when I almost got kicked out of the Centre, because I went on a tour of the vaults of Edinburgh on my own. At night. I was an IDIOT.

I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to be there, though. Truly, if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't be here today. I remember feeling so adamant that I absolutely had to go to that very program at that very time or my chance would be gone - and it's true, because as soon as I got home I met Hawk and we married and the rest, as they say, is history.

I fell in love with the United Kingdom in 2005. I have spent every moment since 2 May 2005 plotting ways to make it back to England. And someday, I will go back. It might not be tomorrow, but it will be before I'm 28. Because 10 years is much too long between visits to my homeland.

Sad story: my camera only lasted the first month of my time in England, so I have very few pictures of my time there. Even more reason to go back!

It's not Christmas I'm worried about

2011-12-20T22:36:00.001-07:00

Sparrow will be four years old next month. FOUR. Terrifying.

When he turns five, we are planning a family vacation to Disneyland. My parents have a timeshare they've reserved, my grandma will be coming along, and Sparrow should be just tall enough to go on all of the rides (or at least the majority.)

I went to Disneyland for the first time when I was a newly-minted four year old and I still remember it. Mostly I remember that Peter Pan promised to teach me how to fly. He did not.

Anyway, Sparrow is very excited about this upcoming adventure. He talks about it often - "when I turn five, I will go to Disneyland!" But I am worried that he will be sorely disappointed on his birthday this year, since I'm not sure how well he grasps the concept that he still has to wait a year to visit Disney.

So I am debating about whether or not to throw him a little birthday party. On the one hand, children frighten me and I am no good with stress. On the other hand, he would love to have a party with his friends.

The debate rages on. At least I know what I'm getting for his birthday this year!

There is money; spend it, spend it.

2011-12-16T00:50:00.003-07:00

I don't know about you, but one of my goals for 2012 is to save money. This year, Hawk and I eliminated a few of our debts, but I want to get rid of ALL of them. I also want to save money for a trip to Disneyland that we promised Sparrow for his 5th birthday.

So when I discovered the 2012 Family Guide to Groceries for Under $250 a Month, I almost had a heart attack. I am so on that bandwagon. I have a couple of good friends who are crazy couponers and I am going to beg to become their pupil so that I can be an awesome coupon ninja too.

What are your best methods for saving money while kicking debt in the pants?

Santa pictures by Fotofly

2011-12-08T00:10:00.001-07:00

There's a company in Utah (based in Draper) called Fotofly. In June I was desperate to get Sparrow's pictures done. For his first year of life I did pictures every 3 months, with mixed results. I hate paying per sheet, not being able to buy a CD with the images on them, and not being able to run my pictures off without a copyright release (which will run you up to $300 at some major photography chains.) After Sparrow turned 1, I started doing pictures every 6 months. Except last June I had totally spaced pictures at all, so they ended up being his 3 year old ones.

We went to Kiddie Kandids first and the pictures turned out all right, but not great. You couldn't see Sparrow's devilishly angelic personality shining through, and honestly, Major Chain Photographers can almost NEVER get good pictures of Sparrow because he does not smile on command, or respond with smiles to funny things. Or look at the camera.

Enter Fotofly. This tiny company takes incredible pictures. For $79, you get a CD with the photography release form so you can get your pictures developed anywhere. But, Fotofly only charges $4 a sheet. This is an insane deal, especially if you are doing group photos (no sitting fees or per-person add ons.) Plus the pictures they take are just phenomenal. These pictures I got of Sparrow are my favorite ever. I mean, LOOK at this:

I love that you can see his beautiful smile, beautiful eyes, and beautiful hair ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It's like a miracle.

We are going back to their studio as a family next month to get family portraits done - actually our appointment is on Sparrow's 4th birthday! I am so excited. Even though Hawk and I are not thin, dead sexy people, Fotofly has some sort of photographical magic that makes even us look great!

So anyway, Fotofly has started doing pictures this month with Santa. You can dress up as Santa and get your photo taken with your child (the photo doesn't show your face, so it looks like a Real Santa.) Visual aid:

If you're uncomfortable with dressing up, they also have the Real Santa sitting in the tent standing by for pictures. So last week Sparrow and I went and I dressed up, and then yesterday Hawk, Sparrow and I went back and did our Christmas photos with Real Santa. It was $20 and these pictures, I just love them.

Fotofly is an amazing company. The owner is a very sweet guy and everyone we have encountered does everything they can to make your experience a great one. I highly encourage you to check them out. Trust me, it's worth a longish trip. For the Fotofly experience, I would gladly drive an hour, hour and a half, easy. Absolutely worth every penny and every mile. Fotofly has earned our business for life!

Disclaimer: I was not paid or offered any compensation for writing this post. I just love Fotofly that much.

Five Year Anniversary

2011-12-06T13:11:00.001-07:00

My husband is awesome
My husband is good
He lets me buy clothes
And feeds me good food

He makes phone calls for me
He puts up with my quirks
He drives me to doctors
And never calls me a jerk

He lets me make off
With most of his cash
But he still doesn't say
I'm a pain in the ash

He takes care of Sparrow
He cleans the litter box
He does not get mad
When I forget to wash his socks

He is handsome and strong
Brave, wise and true
And he never threatens
To lock me up in the zoo

He gives the best kisses
The best loves, tickles and hugs
He does not mind
When I make him smash bugs

We've been wed for five years
Five years ago today
And still he is beside me
He has not gone away

He is a great father
He is a great dad
But he is the BEST husband
And for that I am glad

From the tip of my head
From down deep in my gut
Husband I'll love you
Always and forever - No matter what.

My first car accident - I did it wrong.

2011-12-02T02:03:00.001-07:00

Today I dropped Sparrow off at my mom's house and picked Hawk up from work. We were headed to Hawk's work holiday party in Salt Lake. As we drove on the freeway, traffic stalled out just ahead of us. Hawk stopped in time.

The car behind us did not.

The car behind them did not.

The first hit, obviously, was the hardest. Hawk and I both jolted forward and I thought for sure our airbags were going to deploy (they did not.) I heard the squeal of tires behind us and I knew - and then, SLAM. It really makes a noise just like that. I was looking right at Hawk when it happened and his head and neck snapped forward just as mine did. Our car inched slowly toward the car in front of us with each successive hit. Hawk slammed his foot down hard on the brake and I threw our car into "park," grabbing for the parking brake as well. As the second and third car jolts hit, our car got even closer to the one in front of us, but thank goodness, we did not connect.

We took just a moment to breathe and assess. Then I turned around to look at the car behind us.

It seemed there was a huge gap between the car that hit us and, well, us. Like several feet of gap, enough for another car to fit in there. Did the car right behind us hit and drive away? I think this is the most likely explanation, because no way did 3 cars hit us and we go that far forward. In fact, I distinctly remember grabbing the memo pad I keep in my glove box and turning around to get the first car's license plate number, because I was worried he might drive away. That's why I noticed the gap. Odd.

There is a brand new law in Utah that if you are in a fender bender on the freeway, you must get off at the next exit and wait for police help there. You cannot pull off to the shoulders any more. I told Hawk about this and he started off toward the next exit, but when I looked back after a moment, no one else from that lane was moving. So we pulled off onto the shoulder and waited, but by that point we had made it far enough that it was hard to see where we had been. It was also very dark at this point.

I got out of the car and checked the back. Miraculously, there was no visible damage. None. I couldn't believe it. There may be a few chips to the paint, and there may be damage that we can't see, but right now I would like to publicly thank Toyota for making their cars out of AWESOME and not using cheap-o plastic bumpers.

We waited on the shoulder for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do. We couldn't see anyone else pulling off. It looked like traffic was slowed at that area, but we couldn't really tell, and if it was, how were we supposed to get back there? Back up on the freeway? Get off the freeway and circle back around to it? I realize now that we should have just waited there instead of starting to exit, but the new law was fresh in my mind and I was scared.

And I really think that the car that hit us first had driven off immediately after the accident, when we were breathing and checking to make sure our lives were still intact.

And we didn't hit the car in front of us, and there was no damage to our car, so...

We drove off (and made it to the work party on time, no less. Though I had Hawk take me home halfway through.)

I am terrified that we did the wrong thing. I know we did the wrong thing, and now it cannot be fixed, and I am scared. I'm scared because my head, neck and back are killing me and Hawk's back is bothering him. I'm scared because Sparrow very easily could have been in that car with us, and who knows how this would have affected him. I'm scared because every time Hawk has a work party, I get injured (last year we went ice skating and I got a concussion.) I'm worried for the people behind us that were sandwiched in there. I'm worried because I really don't know exactly what happened, and I have been thinking weirdly all evening. I just don't even know what to do. Except I'm not going to write about it any more, because I'm shaking too hard to type now.

So that was my first car accident. And I did everything all wrong. And I blame the stupid new law because I was too scared and fixated on getting off the freeway to stop and figure out what to do.

Deseret News linked to me!

2011-11-29T12:39:00.001-07:00

I just about peed my pants the other day. I checked my blog stats just for fun. I usually get about 5 hits a day at max - but last week the traffic went up to 5,000 hits in a day.

"HOLY CRAP," I yelled. Hawk had a mild heart attack, as we had previously been sitting quietly on the couch doing our novel writing.

Where did all those hits come from? Well, Blogger has this fantastic thing that TELLS you. Shock! So I clicked on the little incoming link and BAM. A 3 year old recites Articles of Faith and Elder Christofferson visits Argentina.

Did you see that? My little Sparrow just shared a headline with Elder Christofferson (an Apostle/leader in the LDS Church.)

Holy cannoli.

I told my grandma, who is technologically challenged, that Sparrow was "famous on the Internet!" So now Sparrow is running around saying "I'm famous on the Internet!" And I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty cute. And cool.

So thanks, Emily Jensen, for writing about ~~Sparrow~~ Toby and making my week - heck, my whole month! Wow!

Thankful List

2011-11-24T23:20:00.001-07:00

25 Things I Am Thankful For:

Indoor plumbing.
This is the first Thanksgiving in 3 years I haven't been in pain - yay hysterectomy!
Hawk, who puts up with all my crap through thick and thin.
My wonderful grandma.
My practically perfect in every way mother.
That I have been able to get to know my dad's side of the family.
My brothers and sisters.
Pie.
My ability to read and write.
Medicine.
My best friends, Owly and Dove, who also put up with me through thick and thin.
My cats - if nothing else, they are good entertainment.
My Church family.
The gospel.
Music and a family who loves it.
Air conditioning and heat.
The Internet and all I learn from the people on it.
My memories of England.
Sparrow - although is a challenge, he is a wonderful little boy and a great example and motivator for me to do what is right.
Hawk's amazing job and all the opportunities that lie ahead of us because of it.
Health insurance.
My Savior.
That my family are all relatively healthy.
Indoor plumbing again. Seriously.
My home, my body, my life. And also, pie.

A Shark Story, by Sparrow

2011-11-22T22:36:00.001-07:00

Editors note: This child amuses me every day. "Sharks like chocolate chip and sprinkle cookies, and M&M cookies. They can eat pancakes all day. They are so so very tasty. Sharks taste some skunks. Sharks break your bed. And they break your sunglasses off. Sharks don't like sunglasses. Sharks don't like blankets and they don't want to sleep in the beds. They were touching the fireplace and they burned their tail! And they break the blinds and they push the other kids and they pushed you. Then the sharks ranned away! Wow! The sharks were pretend. They were pretend. Sharks like waterbottles. They drink it all day. They keep drinking it all gone and they ate it and then it went down to their tummy. They are so delicious. And they eat crackers. And they eat chips, and they eat spicy cheese. And good cheese, and potatoes, and broccoli trees. They ate it all up. And they were hunting for cheese sauce. They were cooking it. The little tiny wee sharks want to watch Phineas and Ferb. No, they don't like Phineas and Ferb. Maybe they can watch Balto, or Clifford. You're a nice mommy."

The Articles of Faith as told by a 3 year old.

2011-11-11T14:42:00.001-07:00

Sparrow has a ridiculous memory. We tell him a story once, and he knows it for life. He could walk to my grandma's house, which we visit about once a month because it's 75 miles away. In fact, the other day we were driving there and I took a different way than I usually use. He FREAKED out. "Mommy, TURN LEFT. YOU DID NOT TURN LEFT. MOMMY GO BACK AND TURN LEFT." Holy cow.

My point is, since he has such a great memory, why not have him learn things that are actually important and not just... well... lame? I'm all for fairy tales, but really, what life value does The Itsy Bitsy Spider or Little Miss Muffet have? None. (And before anyone freaks out, we do tell him Aesop's Fables as bedtime stories, since those actually have a point.)

So earlier this year, I started teaching Sparrow The Articles of Faith. These are 13 short, short tenets penned by Joseph Smith Jr. about what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes. To learn more about them, visit Mormon.org or this page has the actual Articles of Faith all listed out. It'll only take a second to read them.

Sparrow is so cute when he recites them that I decided to record him and put him on YouTube. He truly is already a little missionary, because he has taught and inspired me so much. I am so proud of him. We have Articles 1-6 and then 8 on YouTube and will upload the rest as soon as he learns them (I forgot to have him do #7 while we were recording, oops!) Number 4 is the longest, and I am really impressed that he has it down so well. If you only watch one, watch the sixth one. I just can't stand how cute it is.

This one is my favorite. He's just so stinkin' cute!

Quarter of a century

2011-11-06T23:26:00.001-07:00

Happy birthday to me! I am now 25. That seems very old.

There was cake. It was lemon flavored.

Birthday: Success! I think I'll do this birthday thing every year. Maybe not the aging part though.

National Novel Writing Month

2011-11-02T21:50:00.000-06:00

The time has come again. It is November, which means it is National Novel Writing Month.

I am indebted to the people at Chris Baty and The Office of Letters and Light for inventing this fantastic ... thing. And especially for sticking it in the month of November. Because the more focused I am on writing a novel, the less time I have to moan and groan about my upcoming birthday. Before I know it, November 6th has passed and I am a year older, but I am unable to whine about it because I'm in the throes of writer's block. Awesome.

I have only attempted NaNoWriMo three times. Once in 2004, when I kicked noveling BUTT; last year, when I killed myself to finish the stupid thing and I did, but I hate the story and I will never look at it again so long as I live, and this year. Thus far, this is shaping up to be a lot like last year. I'm already behind on my word count and it's only day two. And obviously I am looking for any distraction I can find to avoid staring at the crap on my word processor.

I like my story idea for this year. I just wish it was easy to barf out onto the page. Remind me to write someday about how fixing my mental illnesses killed my creativity. It's worth the sacrifice, but it still sucks.

November 6th. Quarter of a century. Gulp. Let's not think about it - back to noveling!

Autism or not-autism, that is the question.

2011-10-27T21:27:00.001-06:00

Today Hawk, Sparrow and I went to the Children's Center of Utah for the second time. We had an appointment earlier this month and went in for an hour, given some paperwork and told to come back today for a diagnosis.

Sparrow has always been a difficult child. Even in utero. As a baby, he was often very fussy. Swaddling him very tightly helped sometimes, but not every time. He was fascinated by ceiling fans - weirdly fascinated. He has always been a little behind developmentally, which I put down to his premature birth, but he's mostly caught up now. And yet, he still seems behind in many ways. Socially, especially. He does not pick up on social cues. He can't follow a conversation very well - he gives lots of non sequiturs and often just spits out scenes from movies (he memorizes things very quickly, but then never stops repeating it.) I couldn't ask him a question and get an answer until May of this year. He'd just repeat the question back to me. He's extremely sensitive to loud noises - vacuums, blenders, lawnmowers, public toilets... He has to line up his cars Just So and if you move one of them he gets upset. Interrupting his routine, or not doing something the way he expects it to be done, upsets him - sometimes to the point where he's inconsolable. He does funny movements with his hands and flaps his arms sometimes. He only makes eye contact about half the time.

So I wasn't surprised when the psychologist showed us that he met all the criteria for autism. I was surprised when she said he did not score for ADHD. She gave him a diagnosis of "pervasive developmental disorder," stating that she couldn't really diagnose him with autism because he's too young. Which I kind of think is total crap.

I know he has quirks. I agree that he's somewhere on the spectrum. But even if it is autism, it's pretty high functioning autism. And I know that they can diagnosis children with it, so why not give us a straight answer?

We weren't given much else to go on. The psychologist told us to try and enroll him in the preschool at the Children's Center, and gave us the number of an occupational therapist to help with his sensitivity to noises. That was about it. I find myself a little irritated - I would have liked more support, ideas, ways to not kill him, etc. And I honestly don't really trust this psychologist who has only met Sparrow twice, for a grand total of an hour and twenty minutes.

So we'll be getting a second opinion with my family doctor, who has seen Sparrow grow up and knows him pretty well. I have decided to quit our pediatrician because every time I call them I'm on hold for 15-20 minutes and can't get an appointment for 2-5 months from the date I call. That's ridiculous.

It's hard. I wish Sparrow was a normal child. Sometimes I don't know how I am possibly going to survive the next 15 minutes, let alone the next 15 years. I love him and he's adorable and brilliant, but he is a hard child to take care of. And sometimes he's a hard child to love. I don't know. I guess we'll just keep on keepin' on, for as long as we can.

Where's a good Doctor when you need one?

2011-10-25T03:00:00.001-06:00

Earlier I was driving around with Sparrow in the backseat. In his 3 years, 9 months and 27 days on this planet I have gotten pretty good at tuning him out. You know, when he's just yappin' to hear himself talk. He does that a lot. I'm starting to feel uncomfortably like someone could draw a comparison to this blog. Moving on.

This is an approximation of what most car trips look like.

And I thought to myself, "Self, remember that time in 8th grade when you totally stalked that cute kid? And how if you ever met him again you'd drop dead of embarrassment?" (True story: I was that scary nerdy stalker girl.) "And would it not be awesome if you could go back and change that whole era of your life? Or, instead of making hugely ginormous changes, just make little ones? Like, instead of getting cats, getting a plant instead? Because plants, you know, don't claw you or harass you in the middle of the night when they want fresh water and you have deigned to turn off their faucet in order to save on your water bill."

And then, because I am logical and I know these things, I decided that obviously, time machines are not going to work out. At least not before I turn 25 (a number that frightens me somewhat, and is looming. Looming, I tell you.) So then I decided that when I die, I'm going to ask very nicely if it would be okay if I could see what my life would have turned out like had I not made some dumb decisions. Let's pretend that maybe I didn't listen to the naysayers and I went to medical school - yeah, maybe I'd have failed or dropped out halfway through the first semester, but at least I'd have tried. At least I'd know, "yep, definitely DO NOT want to be a doctor. Maybe I'll try horticulture." Or let's pretend that I served a mission before I got married - where would I have gone? And how cool would I have been? Or, hey, what if I had practiced the piano when I was 8? Would I be a virtuoso by now instead of just barely squeaking through the hymnbook?

What would my life be like had I not wasted 6 years of my life obsessing over LOST? (Just kidding - I gave up obsessing after season 2.) Or what if I had discovered Star Wars earlier? (Small miracles - if that had happened, I'd be an Unspeakable Dork.) Or what if I ... ?

Moral of this story: I really, really, really, really want a time machine. TARDIS optional. Also, I need to quit wasting time on the Internet, especially the "creative" Internet. Because when I turn 50... if I turn 50...I don't want to add "what if I had turned off the computer/Netflix for a while and actually learned/did something?"

I wonder, if I turn 50, will I still be blogging at 3 in the morning? Or do you think I will be able to sleep by then? Maybe that's something I could add to my list of Things To Go Back And Change.

Edit:

I have just discovered a sort of time machine. It's called, The Internet. And Blogging. And basically I just re-discovered this video, which may have had me in hysterical laughter, and it is awesome. And the laughter may or may not be due to the fact that it's nearly 4 a.m. and I am still not asleep.

2 year old Sparrow with laryngitis recites "The Three Little Pigs."

A new family member

2011-10-20T22:04:00.002-06:00

Today we added a new member to our family.

Meet Winslow:

I'm pretty sure I'll be cursing his name in the weeks to come, but today we are on good terms. I met Winslow at Sears while my grandma was looking at recumbent bikes. Since Winslow was a floor model, he was on sale for $80. I also got the Sears Protection Plan for an additional $15, which means that Sears will fix anything that breaks in the next year and also send me some parts that were missing (like the back of the battery compartment, and the shoe strap things for the pedals) for free. I am pleased with this deal. It is my hope that Winslow will give me the kick in the pants I have been needing, especially since soon it will be easy to skip exercising outside with the snow.

I got a hair cut the other day. I was hoping that it would magically transform me into this:

but instead I look like this:

Which is okay I guess.

Here is Sparrow in his new bear jacket.

It snowed on the 6th, but has been very nice weather ever since then. Thank you, Mother Nature!

I took 2 of my brothers to Lagoon on Saturday. We had an absolute blast. It has been so fun to get to know them - only recently have we started getting close, because when we first met 5 years ago they lived 3 hours away, then I moved to Arkansas, and they moved to Idaho, and finally they moved to a city about 30 miles from my house. The one in the tan hat is the one who recently received his mission call to Perth, Australia. Also, all 3 of us are totally blind and have to wear glasses. And aren't these boys handsome? And they are the politest young men you have ever met, too. I am consistently impressed by how awesome, well rounded and brilliant they are. And also a little weirded out by their geniusness. But mostly impressed.

And that's all I got for today.

Family Shrubbery

2011-10-14T01:33:00.000-06:00

Oh wise people of the Internets, I come to you with a question.

Let's pretend that you are making a family tree. A very small family tree that only goes back 3 generations. Something like this:

Or exactly like that.

Now let's pretend that your biological father was not married to your mother, and you didn't meet the man until you were 19 years old. Your mom raised you alone until you were 4, and then she married your dad, who formally adopted you (and was sealed to you in the LDS temple.)

But in the last 5 years, you have grown closer to your biological father than you ever were to your adoptive father. And consider that your biological grandparents (who, again, you have only known for 5 years) have been more supportive and amazing and...grandparent-like than your adoptive grandparents, who basically shunned you because you were technically illegitimate and also not of their race and who knows whatever other reasons they had.

So. You only have space for one male parent. You love and respect both of them, but your relationship is somewhat strained with both of them. Which one do you put on your tree? Or do you give up on the tree idea and go ahead and design a family shrubbery to display? Because I'm starting to lean towards that.

In other news, my brother was just called to the Perth, Australia LDS mission. He reports to the Missionary Training Center on February 29, 2012. I am so proud of him, and incredibly excited for him!

We're alive

2011-10-07T21:10:00.000-06:00

Well, Sparrow's appointment was today. We are still without answers, and likely will be until our next appointment on the 27th. Overall, I was not impressed. We will give this place one more chance before I go all crazy frustrated Mommy on their butts.

I had my gallbladder removed on Monday. I was not expecting to wake up in that much pain. I woke up crying and feeling like I was going to vomit. The day was very stressful as I have a high pain medication tolerance, and so none of the drugs they gave me worked. I have been struggling with the pain over this week as well. But hopefully today was the turning point and I will feel better now. The hysterectomy was much easier than the gallbladder removal, but I am glad I got them both taken care of.

Meanwhile, here is what my tummy looks like. Pretty awesome, huh?

A plea for prayers

2011-09-28T10:40:00.003-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the Internets, I come to you today begging for your prayers, your good vibes, your karmatic waves, your universal happy thoughts of support.

Sparrow has been getting progressively worse in his behavior and nothing Hawk and I do is making even the slightest impression on this child. Were it not for the intervention of my local hospital yesterday, Hawk might have been the one posting this, only instead of a plea for prayers it would have been a plea for donations for my funeral.

We have an appointment on October 7th with a child-therapy group, and I know if we can just make it there it will be okay. We may have work ahead of us, we may have scariness ahead of us, but at least the uncertainty that plagues us daily will be gone. Every day we question ourselves - what are we doing wrong? What if there's nothing "wrong" with him and he's a normal child and we're just losers? What why what?

There's something quirky in my cute little son's head. I don't know what it is. I suspect many things - oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, a cozy Sparrow spot on the autism spectrum, even Asperger's. We need help. We need help with this horrible child who has been a challenge since he was conceived.

So pray that we all survive till October 7th because seriously, Hawk and I are at the end of our collective rope.

(P.S. Sparrow got kicked out of his preschool yesterday. So while that solves some of my parental guilt/dilemmas over him being in there, it also makes it ten times harder - "why is he doing this? what have I done wrong?" Boy, I sure can't wait till he's a teenager.)

Picture Essay

2011-09-15T09:28:00.000-06:00

This became

And this became

And then...

2008 - Four Generations

2009

2010

Ah, family. 2009

2010

Don't forget the fur babies.

2010 - Three Generations

And friends are the family you choose.

I love you, Mom.

My two favorite role models.

Here's to an eternity driving my family insane.

Celebrate Family!

2011-09-06T11:27:00.000-06:00

I gotta tell ya, I've been having a rough time lately. It seems like no matter what I do (or don't do), there's never enough time to spend with my family. Does that sound totally lame? I admit, it sounds weird to me. And a little off-character, since I think I've spent the last 3 years moping that I don't get enough time to myself. But a couple of weeks ago Hawk and I took Sparrow to Lagoon, a theme park here in Utah, and I had so much fun spending the day with them and playing... I've been trying to recreate that, with varying levels of success.

Are we not awesome? Say yes, them be real guns!

We're far from perfect. Sparrow has a goal to drive me as crazy as he possibly can, every single day. Hawk suffers from Selective Sight Syndrome, which has also spread to his ears. I actually am perfect, but I don't like to rub it in. I never yell, my house is spotless all the time, I cook 5-course gourmet dinners that are perfectly balanced and have no calories. I'm surprised Sparrow and Hawk can even handle how perfect I am.

Oh my boys. They put up with me so well.

Last year a couple of my favorite bloggers had a celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Proclamation to the World: The Family document. It was pretty much the most amazing thing to hit the blogosphere. This year, Jocelyn and Montserrat are upping the ante on their awesomeness and hosting another celebration on the family. It starts this Friday and we're gonna party like it's 1999. Oh yeah. There's gonna be blog hops, crafts, teaching ideas, prizes, snacks, and ceramic unicorns! Okay maybe not those last two.

Are you in? I am so in. Prepare yourself for lots of ooey gooey gross family love (no not that kind) comin' up, September 9th-23rd. Let's celebrate the awesomeness that is family.

For more information, check out this post at We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ, or this one at Chocolate on my Cranium.

Let us party on!

Picture party.

2011-09-02T21:51:00.006-06:00

The other day, I finished a project.

I made this shadowbox out of Sparrow's baby junk :) Sparrow was born 7 weeks early via emergency C-section and immediately delivered to an NICU in a different hospital. The two photographs are the only glimpse of my baby I had till he was 3 days old and I was released from my hospital. There is his teeny tiny hospital bracelet, along with the ID tag that was on his incubator at the NICU and a preemie diaper I saved to remember how small his little butt was. The heart is a Valentine that the NICU nurses made and taped to his incubator (Sparrow was released from the hospital 3 weeks after he was born and came home February 17, 2008.) The outfit is one I saw at Babies R' Us during my Christmas 2007 visit to my family but didn't buy because I was trying NOT to have a preemie. When Sparrow was born I called my grandma and begged her to find the outfit for me. It's hard to believe that when he came home from the hospital wearing the snuggly puppies, it was too big for him!

Here is Sparrow on his first day of preschool. I had more pictures but I forgot to edit out some hugely identifying info so you'll just have to wait in suspense.

And here's a frickin' huge spider that was on our porch a few days ago. Scared the crap out of me. Its web was a good 4 feet wide (not an exaggeration.) After psyching myself up for an hour I finally braved up enough, opened the sliding glass door, sprayed it with Raid and stomped the crap out of it as it twitched. I actually felt really bad that I killed it, but sorry little spider, you can't built a web using my son's wagon as a base.

Dear Mommy

2011-08-26T23:42:00.002-06:00

Mommy,

Won't you please update the blog?

Pretty, pretty please?

With sugar on top?

Love,

Sparrow

Conumdrums again.

2011-08-01T11:07:00.002-06:00

All our electronic items broke at the same time. I am displeased. I will be getting a new computer on Wednesday, but I'm not thrilled about shelling out the bucks for it.

My mom thinks Sparrow would be happiest in a preschool. I prayed about enrolling him this year, and got a pretty solid "not yet" answer. But as the time gets nearer for school to start, the less I feel good about that answer. He clearly needs something more than I can give him. And while I like having him home to fill his little mind with geekiness, I'm not exactly a good parent.

No it's okay, I've come to grips with that fact.

So the debate rages on. I have about a week to decide. Nobody ever warned me parenting would be hard in this way. (Guilt over getting rid of him for 5 hours a week. Come on brain, get over it.)

I'm An Addict Again!

2011-07-22T00:08:00.002-06:00

I've spent the last week feeling like I was dying - literally, dying. I'm having discontinuation syndrome from tapering off the Zoloft and starting Effexor. If you thought I was having a hard time in my last post, times those feelings by 3 and then you'll get a general idea of how bad the last week has been.

Today Hawk called my general practitioner's office to add his voice to the whole mess, and let her know how things looked from his point of view. Truly, there have been a few days where I probably should have gone to the emergency room for suicidal ideations, but I didn't because I was afraid that Sparrow would get taken away.

Today my GP prescribed 50 mg of Tramadol for at least 2 months. I don't know if this will be permanent, or if it will just be while my body is adjusting to the Effexor (I know it takes 4-6 weeks for SSRI's to kick in, so I was trying to be brave and suck it up, but oh it's been awful.)

Within a half hour of taking my first dose of Tramadol, I had the energy and motivation to clean. I cleaned my basement, I did the laundry, I organized my craft room, I wrote letters to people I owed letters to, guys - I FUNCTIONED. LIKE A PERSON. I feel a thousand million trillion times better.

I know Sparrow will be happy too - he has his mommy back! And I am so excited to DO things with him. I haven't felt this way in months. I haven't felt excited to play or do activities with him or take him anywhere - and now I am already making plans and feeling excited. I'm looking forward to going to church and playgroup and hanging out with friends this weekend. Hawk and I just talked for 45 minutes about improvements we want to make in our lives - a talk that yesterday I wouldn't have been able to have, because I wouldn't have had the energy, the emotional stability, or even the ability to think clearly enough to articulate my thoughts.

Tramadol is my miracle drug. I am so relieved. I have shed many a tear of gratefulness tonight. I don't care if I have to take this drug for the rest of my life - I'd rather be happy on drugs than being unable to feel or do anything.

Why I Wish I Was Still a Drug Addict.

2011-07-14T15:29:00.004-06:00

In August 2009 I had a tubal ligation after we found out that another pregnancy would kill me (literally.) About a month after that surgery, I found myself in constant pain. I was having constant, sharp, shooting cramps, like menstrual cramps, mostly on my left side but occasionally my right. My OBGYN had no real solution other than exercise (insert eye roll), shots in my stomach (insert squeal of terror) and a prescription painkiller. Ultram, or Tramadol.

Tramadol is more powerful than Ibuprofen, less powerful than Vicodin or other hydrocodone medications. It mimics an opiate, but it's not a true opiate. A few weeks after taking Tramadol daily, I found that my severe social anxiety was gone. I was able to function in normal society, I could go to church without panic attacks, and I could go to the grocery store without breaking down in hysteria on aisle 12.

My general practitioner, who is awesome, was pleased that we'd finally found something that worked with both my depression and anxiety. And thus I found myself with a prescription for Tramadol. I took 2 pills (about 100 mg) in the morning, and then the pain was gone and I was able to function. Well, in December of 2010, I started worrying that I was an addict. A counselor I was seeing was convinced that I was addicted and not happy about it. One day I came down with pneumonia and got a concussion, and since I was miserable anyway, quit the Tramadol cold turkey. It worked, until I mentioned a few weeks later to my GP that I was still having headaches and he told me to go the freak back on the Tramadol. Rats.

Basically, I arranged to have the hysterectomy for two reasons. First, so I wasn't in pain daily, and second, so I could go off the Tramadol forever. The last time I took Tramadol was the day before the surgery. I weaned off slowly.

The last two months have been horrible. I know I'm not detoxing, because the chemicals are out of my system. But I have proven to myself that I still have severe anxiety. I can barely leave my house. I can barely leave my couch. Every single day I wake up miserable and wanting to die. My very social son terrifies me - I stopped taking him to the park and playdates because I knew I would have to talk to people, and I can't. By the time my husband gets home from work, I am shot. It is absolutely miraculous that Sparrow has survived this time, and even more miraculous that I have survived.

Two weeks ago I decided that I really need help. If I have to be on Tramadol every day for in order to function and be a GOOD PERSON, then I will take it every day for the rest of my life. (This is where I don't believe I am addicted - I don't WANT to take this drug, but I will in order to be a good human being and a good parent.) I'm not going to kill my kid, but I hate that I have zero patience for him. I can't do anything but sit around my house and feel awful that I have nothing to offer him. I am not functioning.

One of the worst parts of this story is, my general practitioner has quit the medical business after a near-death experience. I am working with another doctor from his practice, but I doubt I will be prescribed Tramadol again.

So currently I am weaning off an SSRI (Zoloft, which I have been on for 2 years) in order to try Effexor, which binds to brain chemicals differently and may, hopefully, mimic the Tramadol.

Truly, I don't care. I don't care what medications I have to take. I realize that I will likely be on some sort of depression medication for the rest of my life and that doesn't bother me - it is a disease that I have been afflicted with since I was at least eight years old. My childhood and teenagehood were overall miserable because I never got the help I needed and I am determined that my 20s and 30s and on will be better.

I just wish I felt better. I wish I was a better parent without medication. I wish that I felt motivated to do anything other than sit on my couch. My house is a mess, my child is bored, my friends are neglected, I haven't been to church in over a month, all because I just. can't. do. it.

I miss being able to function.

Summer

2011-07-11T11:53:00.002-06:00

Summer is not my favorite time of year. In fact, I hate summer. I hate the heat. I hate the kids everywhere (I know, I know, I am bad.) I hate... mostly I hate the heat. When it's hot, I don't want to do anything. Including blog.

Hawk hooked up an antenna to our TV the other day. My family has been having heart attacks for the last few years over the fact that we don't have TV. We've had TV for 3 days and I am already thinking we should disconnect it. Too much crap over the weekend. And Sparrow is currently watching "Sesame Street" and it is seriously irritating. I don't want my kid acting like Elmo or singing these stupid songs - why would I have him watch this on a daily basis? Yuck.

Finally this horrible show is over. Now it is time for lunch. What will we eat? We are out of finger foods and snacks. I will have to make something. Crap.

Winner woot!

2011-07-06T14:34:00.002-06:00

The winner has been contacted. Pretty suite. Ha ha, I did it again.

If you're totally bummed that you didn't win, panic not. You can always purchase the software (I promise it's worth it.) Visit MyMemories.com and enter STMMMS15116 as a coupon code.

My Memories Suite Review and Giveaway!

2011-06-26T14:44:00.002-06:00

Last month I was contacted by MyMemories.com and asked to download their software and do a review and a giveaway.

I've used a LOT of different photobook creators, so I was eager for this opportunity because I consider myself pretty well versed in digital scrapbooking.

Let me tell you - My Memories Suite blew me away. It's not your typical digital scrapbook creator. Most photobook companies have a few backgrounds and templates for you to use, but not many, and very rarely do they have any fancy embellishments to "cute up" your page. My Memories Suite has everything. They have backgrounds, templates, embellishments from ribbons to brads and everything else, and just about anything else you can think of! You can even use the software to edit your photos. It's not quite as fancy as Photoshop, but it's pretty darn close, and at the teensiest fraction of the cost!

My Memories doesn't just offer digital scrapbooks - you can also create videos, cards, blog layouts... seriously, pretty much anything digitally-scrapbooky you can think of, you can make with this software. Pretty suite, huh? (Ha ha, see what I did there?)

I used to work for a major scrapbooking company and I always envied our customers and our artists for the beautiful scrapbook pages they created. Seriously, they were works of art. I tried my hand at paper scrapbooking but I am artistically challenged. I love that My Memories Suite has so many different options and doo-dads for you to play around with - it makes me feel like a scrapbook artist!

My favorite thing about My Memories Suite is that you can order your photobook straight from them! Upload your pictures, play around and create your pages, and then place your order. It's awesome.

There is a con to my review. I do think the software is a little complex and you really have to mess around with it for a while to get a feel for it. But the awesome thing is, on the My Memories website, there's a blog and a forum for you to visit in case you get totally confused. Someone is always there to help out, which is great.

You know, one thing I am really excited to use this scrapbooking software for is for my grandparents! I have one set of grandparents whose 50th anniversary is this week and I am hoping to get tons of pictures at the celebration, as well as pictures from throughout their lives, and make a book for them. I also want to write my grandma's life history and I think it would be neat to add pictures from throughout her life in the book.

I am proud to offer my first real live giveaway! One lucky contestant will receive their very own download of the My Memories Suite program! To enter, visit the MyMemories.com website and then tell me what your favorite digital scrapbooking kit is in the comments. I'm loving this one as it's just the right amount of boyish and cute for Sparrow.

You can earn extra entries by:

Blogging, tweeting, or Facebook-ing this giveaway.
Follow the MyMemories blog and/or Twitter, or Like them on Facebook.

Be sure to leave a comment for any extra entry options you do - if you blog or tweet about the giveaway, share your link/twitter name in the comments too!

This giveaway will close on Wednesday at 11 p.m. MDT. Good luck! Be sure to check back on Thursday, as I'll have the winner but also a special offer for everyone. Whee!

Yikes

2011-06-19T01:02:00.003-06:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I blogged. It kind of got to be one of those things where you remember you have to do something, then put it off for later, and then later comes, and you think "yikes, I really gotta take care of that!" and then like 12 years later you finally get around to it... sheesh!

In my defense, it's been a crazy and kind of rough month. Sparrow had a hard time readjusting to "real life" after living with Nana and his great-grandma for a week. I had a hard time learning how to parent again! We are just barely getting back into a real routine. For a while I was hanging in there by the skin of my teeth!

My recovery from the hysterectomy is going well. I took Sparrow to the zoo on June 6th and that was a very stupid idea. This kid kicked my incision while we were in line for the carousel (accident, but ah!!) and I had a hard time after that, but I can tentatively say that the pain I have been living with for the past 2 years is gone. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays gone! I still have a rough day every so often but for the most part, I am doing great. I can't wait till I get the all-clear from my doctor so that I can bike, swim, and lift things again!

Hawk's 3 year anniversary at his company was the first week of June. He was given a $300 gift card! It was very exciting. For Father's Day we used the gift card to buy a new TV. Our old one broke 3 days before my surgery and we have been using a borrowed 20 inch, very old yucky one. We bought an LCD TV and this is the first nice TV we have ever owned. We were very excited to play Super Mario Bros Wii today and actually SEE that Mario has hair! and you can hear the baseline to the theme music! And then we watched Tangled and it was beautiful. I'm glad we don't have channels because then the TV would be on all the time. I will have to be really strict about making sure Sparrow only watches one movie a day (or less!) (Apparently while he was at my mom's house he watched Kung Fu Panda 4-5 times a day. I almost died when I found out.)

I can't believe how big Sparrow is. He's less and less like a toddler every day. It's a little sad since I know he's our only and last. But I'm not going to lie - it's also pretty awesome. His potty training is complete (except not nighttime) and he's great! He's got a very cute sense of humor and he's so smart, it's scary. He's very affectionate and he loves us and of course we adore him. He also LOVES the cats. He spends lots of time outside on our porch with the kitties. Last night we had to pull some splinters from his foot and he was so brave! Poor kid. I can't believe he'll be 4 in just a few months. 4 year olds are like, real kids. Eek!!

So that's what we've been up to. Nothing too exciting. But stay tuned, because for my next post, I have an awesome giveaway planned. Prepare yourselves!! It's gonna be good.

Some pictures from the zoo:

(eee!! My favorite! Sparrow was not pleased that I spent about 10 minutes just standing there, staring at the wolves. It was so amazing, they were very active!)

Silly goobie. I love his hyper little guts.

A glimpse into my future

2011-05-25T21:49:00.002-06:00

This week Sparrow has been staying at his Nana's house in Provo.

The first day or so he was gone, it was eerily quiet in this house. Then I remembered that I used to live a very quiet life, and it wasn't so eerie any more.

Sparrow came to visit for a few hours on Sunday and it almost wiped me off the planet. Although I didn't pick him up and we did calm things (i.e. watched a movie), I was surprised at how exhausting that kid is. The hardest part was when I couldn't stay upright any longer and went upstairs to lie down. Hawk did a good job of keeping him entertained, but the whole time I was upstairs I was thinking of things we could do to entertain Sparrow or to occupy him or feed him or blah blah blah. My mommy brain would not shut down.

On Tuesday, I missed him. Yes, it took me 6 days to actually miss my child. The first two days I was on drugs, and the whole time I was in the ER I was just thinking "thank goodness Sparrow isn't here." Anyway, on Tuesday I ran some errands and missed having him to talk to and...well, talk to.

I'm not going to be homeschooling Sparrow. At least not if things work out with a certain private school near here. And well, he'll be going to a pre-school in 2012, just because he needs the interaction and the preparation for the big time. Academically, he's ready to be in pre-school now. I'm not ready for him to go yet, and emotionally/socially he isn't either, which is why he isn't enrolled this year.

This week I got a glimpse of my future - in 2 short years, I will have time. There will be time to read, time to serve, time to work, time to become a culinary ninja, time to sleep, time to do my own dang thing. This thought fills me with glee and anticipation and hope.

At the same time, I'm a little concerned. Two years is not very long. I have my work cut out for me. There's lots I want to teach Sparrow before I feel comfortable sending him off to school. I better get crackin'.

He comes home tomorrow. While I have enjoyed the peace and quiet, I'm looking forward to having the little beastie home. Except I will miss the naps. Oh, the glorious naps. Those were nice.

Adventures in the ER

2011-05-21T15:14:00.003-06:00

On Thursday night I started having some shoulder and chest pain. I figured I'd just slept on it funny and it was a pulled muscle, you know, nothing serious. Well, yesterday it got progressively worse throughout the day, so at 7 pm Hawk and I went to the InstaCare. InstaCare gave me a cursory glance and said, "Go to the hospital." Ugh, really?

So we drove back to St. Mark's hospital, where I had the surgery on Wednesday. We were told to go to the ER, but were given a "transfer sheet" and hoped that we would get in quicker with that magic piece of paper. That was our first mistake - hope.

We arrived at St. Marks at 8:50. It was busy. The level of noise could be classified as a dull roar. I realized that this could take a long dang time, but I was prepared to wait. I had been told not to take any medicine or drink anything after leaving the InstaCare, so I was a little sore because my painkillers were wearing off, but nothing I couldn't handle.

At 11 p.m., I told the admitting nurse that we were leaving and to let me sign out. He said "but you're so close," and promised it would be less than an hour. So we stayed. I had a mild nervous breakdown. The pain in my shoulder/chest was getting worse and worse, and my incision sites were killing me. I was tired and just wanted to go home. Finally, at midnight, we were taken back to the ER and I got a bed. Really, I just wanted to lie down, so that was great. It took another half hour before a nurse or doctor came by, but when they did I got hooked up to the oxygen machine, had an EKG, had a blood draw and got an IV started. They gave me 4 mg of morphine, which is surprisingly not very helpful.

They were worried that I had a blood clot in my lungs, and the blood test was going to tell them if I had markers for that. They told us it would take about an hour, and that if it came back positive I would need a CT scan of my lungs.

Two hours later, we had seen neither hide nor hair of nurse, doctor, orderlies, or anyone else. Hawk hit the nurse call button twice asking for more painkillers for me, and also asking if helloooo, what's going on?

A lady walked in and said "we're going to get a CT scan." Oh, okay, so I guess this means my blood test came back positive. She wheeled me over to the imaging room and I went through that whole process. Because she had to push the iodine in so fast, I felt very sick and was very, very worried I was going to throw up. I gagged a few times but I was able to keep it down. On the way back to my ER room, we passed a room where the doctor was saying "time of death 2:02." Yikes.

About 3 a.m., the doctor came back in. She said that my scan came back negative for blood clots, but she was concerned because my white blood cell count was elevated and because my incision sites were still tender. Of course they are tender lady, I just had surgery two days ago! She wanted to do another CT scan of my pelvic area to see if they could find an infection. I had to drink a liter of "Crystal Lite" with contrast dye in it, and it was gross. I was finally able to get more morphine, since the old stuff had worn off and besides that, it didn't even touch the shoulder pain. Lying down was agony. Ugh.

At 5:30, the tech came back to take me in for another CT scan. This time she didn't have to push the iodine in so fast, so I didn't get sick. I did have to pee like crazy. Hawk pushed the call button for the nurse, we waited 30 minutes and then I sent him out to find someone to help unhook me so I could go to the bathroom. It was ridiculous.

Here's the thing - the ER was extremely busy. So busy that they did have to call in extra nurses and even, I suspect, some members of the disaster response team. But by 3 a.m., the ER was cleared out. There was no one in the waiting room and very few patients left. I don't know what the heck everyone was doing, but they did a great job of avoiding me. We'd push the call button, someone would say "can I help you?," we'd say "I need more painkillers/I really need to go potty/The oxygen tube is killing me" and they would say "I'll send your nurse" and the nurse would never come. Three times we called and waited for over an hour before anyone came to check on me. We went a good 3 hours without seeing a doctor, nurse, or anyone. At several points, alarms went off because my blood pressure cuff wasn't hooked up right and I ended up taking off the oxygen cannula because it was hurting my nose so bad. Nobody even stuck their head in to see what was beeping.

Around 6, a new doctor came in. "Well, we've just about done everything we could possibly do without admitting you! I'm surprised you're not glowing yet from all the radioactive iodine in your system. Don't get another CT scan for like 10 years, sheesh. We have no idea what's wrong with you. If you feel worse, come back. Follow up with your OBGYN on Monday. Sorry about all this. Go on home."

It took another hour before we left the hospital. Why? Because doctor did not communicate with nurse, nurse came in and gave me more morphine, then had to unhook me from everything, blah blah blah. He asked if I wanted to walk out or ride in the wheelchair. I opted to walk - who knows how long it would have taken to find a freaking wheelchair. We might still be there waiting now if I had asked for the wheelchair.

So the verdict: You just spent 10.5 hours in the emergency room! Sorry you're in pain. We have no idea why you're hurting. You probably won't die. If you do, come back to the ER and we might see you. Maybe. If we feel like it.

Hawk and I came home and collapsed. What a nightmare. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take my painkillers and slip into a blessed hazy fog of relaxation. Sheesh.

About 3:30 a.m.

Where's my wombat?

2011-05-20T00:56:00.002-06:00

I am home from the hospital. I am not going to lie, the hospital was very nice. I kind of liked being in that big bed that moves up and down and getting served delicious healthy meals and chatting amicably with nurses every few hours and being left to do my own thing - sleeping, watching TV, and sleeping. That's pretty much what I did. I drank a LOT, too, after my surgery.

I hate being thirsty. I am now catching up on not being allowed any fluids for 12 hours. I was very grateful for the catheter yesterday. Yeah, that's gross, but oh so true.

I am really doing pretty well. It was much less painful and scary than the tubal ligation I had in 2009. I had about 8 nurses tell me how great uterus-less-ness is and how I am never going to regret this etc etc. Apparently people who have hysterectomies feel very strongly that they are awesome. Thus far I am joining the camp, but that may be because I have access to fantastic drugs.

I will write some details later, but let me sign off saying that the cause of pain for the last 2 years was most likely some serious scar tissue (adhesions), which did make it a little difficult for them to operate so I have a few more incisions than normal. They removed the adhesions, the tubes, and the uterus, so I should be good to go now as long as more adhesions don't form. I am doing my best to be very, very, very careful this time to not go overboard. No more adhesions. They hurt.

Do not ignore my veins!

2011-05-16T19:59:00.003-06:00

We went to the hospital today to get the pre-op work done. My surgery is Wednesday.

The best part of a hospital visit though is the blood draw.

Someone who shall not be named passed on some very crappy veins. My veins are selfish. They do not want to share my blood with you. I would love to be a blood donor, but I have literally been banned from blood banks because of my awful veins. THANKS MOM.

One time, when I was pregnant, it took seven nurses to get my blood drawn. That was the best day ever.

Luckily I have a high pain tolerance. I also know that when you are going to get a needle stick, BE HYDRATED for the love of all that is holy. Only once have I attempted a blood draw while dehydrated. That was bad news. Also, if you have bad veins, warn the nurses. They appreciate it.

The worst thing about my veins is that they look beautiful. Yes I have had nurses tell me I have gorgeous veins (better compliment than "you have gorgeous ovaries." Yes I have heard that one too.) Until they try to stick me. Then the veins literally run away and hide. They flee. They collapse. They roll around. They practically stage a revolt and move to Bermuda. After a blood draw, I don't get told I have pretty veins anymore.

So the nurse today only had to stick me once, but it took her a good 90 seconds of wiggling the needle around, up, down, back, forth, sideways, etc, before the vein finally gave up some of my life juice. Honestly I thought they were going to have to amputate.

Now I get to wear some fancy hospital bracelets. This is the first time I have ever had to wear the hospital bracelets before actually going to the hospital for the procedure. Weird. But my nurse warned me - "do NOT take those bracelets off or they will have to re-draw your blood before the surgery, when you won't have had anything to drink for 8+ hours." Got it. I just feel weird walking around with these VERY OBVIOUS BRIGHT GREEN AND WHITE hospital bracelets on.

I plan on live-blogging the hysterectomy. And by live-blogging I mean blogging whenever I get around to being semi conscious and near a laptop.

Hallelujah!

2011-05-07T17:05:00.003-06:00

I have been praying my guts out to not kill my kid this week, and I think it worked. The Lord had mercy on me and upped my patience level and/or worked some magic in Sparrow's brain. No accidents yesterday or today - and today we ventured out into the great wide world for 2 hours. It's the first time Sparrow has left the house in a week. Somehow in the last week, spring has sprung and winter is gone!

Of course, I say that, and tomorrow it will snow.

A potty trained toddler is the best Mother's Day present I can think of. I am officially done with diapers for the rest of my entire life. And if I was sad about my upcoming hysterectomy, this week taught me that really having more kids would be a terrible idea. Besides the fact that I'd probably die, I also don't think I could handle 2 Sparrows running around. Yikes.

A few weeks ago, Sparrow and I drove to Brigham City Utah (about 1.5 hours north of our home) with my grandma. We wanted to see the new Brigham City temple being built. Sparrow was so excited, but when we got there he was really confused. "Where are the walls? Where is Moroni? (The gold angel statue on top of most temples) Where are the doors?" It was pretty neat to see the temple in progress, but I can't wait till it's completed so I can take Sparrow to see the inside. When a temple is built, generally the public is invited to tour it before it is dedicated. After a temple is dedicated, only worthy Latter Day Saints over age 12 are allowed inside, unless a family with small children is being sealed together for eternity. Hawk, Sparrow and I will hopefully be sealed this December.

I am really bad at explaining church things, so if you would like more information visit mormon.org as they have an excellent website with tons of answers to pretty much everything you could think to ask.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our excursions.

Sparrow and his great grandma in front of the tabernacle.

The temple-in-progress.

That light at the end of the tunnel is not a train, it's an atom bomb.

2011-05-04T23:03:00.002-06:00

Holy pants, people.

Pants. Ha, ha.

This week? This week is Eeek! Week. For the last month I have had this week blocked out in my little brain as The Week In Which My Son Will Learn To Use The Toilet So Help Me God. The last 2 weeks of April were insanely, crazy, inhumanly busy, so I was looking forward to having this time to stay at home and chillax a little.

Holy. Pants.

The first day was awful. I mean, Sparrow was pretty good about the whole thing, but watching his every move every second of the day was just exhausting. Then after his nap, he was angry and i was angry and there was anger. Tuesday morning, truly, if I had had the car or access to diapers i would have caved. Yeah, I would have. My son would still be wearing the stupid things.

We had some screaming and yelling fights, but after about 10 a.m. yesterday something clicked. Firstly, I was praying like crazy to not murder the kid. And I think he realized "hey, I can't get out of this one." The boy is stubborn, that's for sure. Yesterday I had him go naked for much of the day. At nap and night, he wears a Pull-Up. I think Pull-Ups are stupid and I hated hated hated caving and buying that package but it may have saved my family.

Truly.

Today, Sparrow had one accident. Allllll day he was perfect. I asked him about every 30 minutes if he needed to go, if he did, we'd go, he'd do his thing, we're done. After Hawk got home, I went to the library for some down time and suggested Sparrow and Hawk go play on our deck. They did, and I guess Sparrow got too wrapped up in playing because there was yuck. Oh well, can't win them all.

Tomorrow we will increase my asking to every 45 minutes and see what happens. I'm also going to try him in underpants the entire day. Except for the Pull-Ups. I'm starting to think they should market those things for Mommy's state of mind and child safety. Sheesh.

Back to the Future

2011-04-26T23:37:00.003-06:00

So today I had the opportunity to drive to Ogden (about an hour north of where I live) and attend the 50th anniversary of one of the elementary schools I went to. This particular school (MarLon Hills) was one I attended from 2nd-first half of 5th grade, which translates to the longest I spent at any one school. (All told, I went to 7 different schools, including a brand new one in a new state during my senior year. Awesome.)

This is my old middle school. It falled down. But not when I was going there, despite my best efforts.

It was pretty fun to see my old teachers. I saw all but one, and actually I'm a little nervous that she maybe passed away, because she was pretty old when I was in her class. It was really neat to take Sparrow and introduce him to some teachers who I loved and looked up to as a child. My mom taught kindergarten at this school and her room smelled exactly how I remember it. They had some yearbooks out and I showed Sparrow pictures of his Nana from 1992 and me as a second grader. The look on his face was something like this: "o_O"

Several people remarked on how much Sparrow looks like me. Well, he really doesn't. But if you haven't met my husband, then he does. Actually, Hawk and I could be siblings - which is really weird - so Sparrow is really a good blend of both of us. Except he has my eyes. And my musical inclination. And Hawk's weird toes.

And my genius.

And Hawk's weirdness.

(Take that.)

Look! More pictures!!

I am so glad Hawk grew into his ears.

So cute on the surface...so evil underneath.

Unfortunately, Sparrow inherited my evil streak.

I think I was about 6 here. I'd post a picture of Hawk at age 6 but I don't have one.

Oh and, Sparrow definitely inherited my love of Diet Coke. Too bad I haven't learned how to share yet.

I hope I hope I hope

2011-04-25T20:29:00.002-06:00

This week I am sending a manuscript to a few publishers in the hopes of getting it published. It's a small market I am writing for, but there's a real need for this book - at least from where I'm standing.

I'm being deliberately vague, but I'll add in details eventually. For now, sit in suspense and hope, pray, and send out good vibes to the universe that I can get this thing published!

Bummer

2011-04-22T12:04:00.003-06:00

Guess what - Ebates doesn't work if you forget to go through their website. Rats.

My friend Dove is here visiting from California and yesterday we drove to Park City, Utah with our wee ones. The reason for our journey? OUTLET STORES.

Despite Sparrow being a quintessential 3 year old (read: EVIL HORRIBLE NAUGHTY OH MY GOSH HE WAS A TURD), it was an awesome day. The weather was perfect, the prices were fabulous, and oh! The Gymboree outlet had my all-time favorite line of clothes in Sparrow's sizes.

I love these turtles for summer clothes. They are so cute.

Ideally I would be shopping at thrift stores or Walmart for Sparrow, since he's a kid and will outgrow stuff fast. But since he is my only child, I feel it's okay to go a little nutty every once in a while. And Gymboree clothes last forever and have good resell value. So we came away from the shops with Sparrow's summer clothes all set - he also got a pair of sandal-shoes and a new jacket (pictured above). It was a fun day. I'll have to stay away from Park City if I don't want Hawk to murder me, but I think a trip every six months or so will be fine. Right Hawk? Right???

In other news, I want to move to a small farm somewhere near Heber, Utah.

I want to own chickens, a horse or two, and some goats. But mostly just the horses. Oh, and a dog. Yes, definitely need a dog.

This is a breed of dog called a Tamaskan. I want one. It's the closest to a wolf-dog I will ever get.

Ebates

2011-04-19T17:31:00.002-06:00

If you shop online ever, you really should check out Ebates. Trust me.

The first time you make a purchase on Ebates, you'll receive $5 automatically, plus a percentage of cash back depending on the store you are shopping at. I just bought a set of sandals for Sparrow and me and a pair of winter shoes for next year at Famous Footwear and I made 9.0% cash back. In the last few weeks I have saved $8 shopping through Ebates. It's totally worth it.

All I do differently is instead of typing the store I want to shop at directly in my address bar, I go to Ebates first and search to see if they have the store I want. If they do, I click on it and they send me off to the site, ka-ching! If not, well, no harm done.

It's not really making me thousands of dollars, but it is kind of nice to be able to say "yes, while I spent X amount, Ebates credited me back this much." I highly recommend it. Here's the link again, just in case you missed it the first hundred times :)

Couponing win!

2011-04-18T23:23:00.002-06:00

I am new to this coupon clipping business. I have read some blogs, and used some little coupons here and there, but today was the first day I had a win. Last week Family Dollar sent out coupons - buy 2 Betty Crocker baking mixes and get 1 Betty Crocker Cake/Brownie mix for 1 cent.

So I took a deep breath and loaded Sparrow up, and off we drove to Walmart. We don't have a Family Dollar nearby that I know of. Walmart had Betty Crocker cake mixes for $2.50 all the way down to muffin mixes (just add water) for 88 cents. I picked up 2 of the muffin mixes and a box of $2.50 brownie mix, and got all 3 items for less than the regular price of the brownie mix.

I don't know why I felt so awesome about it, but I am thrilled! The Walmart checker was very, very nice and helpful about getting it rung up for me. I like having just-add-water mixes because if the world ever ends or something, they will be great in an emergency situation. The brownie mix I keep around in case I ever have a chocolate craving on a Sunday when I don't like to go to the store. Also, they are great for emergency situations too.

Did you know you can add a can of black beans to brownie mix and make a decent pan of brownies? yep, it's true. Someday I'll post about it. Someday when I feel like eating brownies (or as I call them, "beanies.") Yum.

Cat proof your deck for less than $20. Woot!

2011-04-16T15:07:00.002-06:00

We have two cats, Bamboo and Panda. Panda, unfortunately, is dumber than a stump. I would very much like to leave our glass door open so that Sparrow can go in and out onto the deck, and so the cats could go out there too, but every time I let Panda out on the deck he would jump off, land on his face, and cry at the basement door to be let in.

Yeah, he's a moron. Pretty, but stupid.

So here's what I did. I went to Lowe's and bought some plastic netting for $13. Then I bought zip ties for $1. Then I zip-tied the netting to my deck. That part was easy.

The problem was getting the netting hooked to the deck itself, so that the Stupid One couldn't climb underneath it and attempt to fly again.

One borrowed ladder, 3 near death experiences and 15 nails later, the cats were able to go out on the deck without supervision for the first time. Panda, as expected, poked at the netting and tried to get out, but he was thwarted. He glowered and yowled for a few minutes but finally decided to just chillax.

It was a good way to spend a Saturday.

I've caught a bug

2011-04-11T13:04:00.003-06:00

I think I've caught a bug. The quilting bug. It is a bad, dangerous bug to get under your skin. When I was working on this quilt, I told myself I would never, ever sew again. I was going to sell my sewing machine as soon as I was done with this project.

See, I've been carting this fabric around for 3 years now. I bought the fabric to make a baby sling for Sparrow when he was an infant. I've been working on the quilting process off and on for the last 2 years. The squares have been cut for ages, but only recently did I decide to actually start putting it together.

So thus you have my most recent finished product. It was a pain in the butt. I was not careful, precise, slow, or patient with it. Nope. But I don't care, I think it still turned out decent. And it's very comfortable and warm. Sparrow and the cats fight over who gets to cuddle with it.

This quilt is a twin size. I made it out of fabric from Hobby Lobby, 4 pairs of old jeans, and a full size cotton jersey knit sheet. I stuffed it with a duvet insert from IKEA. Ta da!

I think I will quilt again. But next time I will try to be more patient and careful. Patience is not my strong suit. Rats.

Clean enough to eat off of

2011-04-08T11:23:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I spent a good 3 hours scrubbing the holy-bananas out of my main level bathroom and our upstairs level.

Why do we have 4 bathrooms? We only use 3 on a regular basis and the 4th just sits in Sparrow's bathroom growing a moldy water ring (not sure how that happens but it's taken care of now, yessir.) ~~Bathrooms suck.~~ Uh, I take that back. It's snowing and I rather enjoy my indoor plumbing.

Anyway, our main level bathroom is quite tiny, but it packed a surprising dirt punch. Nevertheless, the toilet is gleaming, I scrubbed the walls and the baseboards and the floors and behind the toilet and the sink and blah blah. Upstairs I accomplished about the same thing, except that it doesn't look like I cleaned at all because the rooms are still a little messy and I didn't vacuum. But I did dust, scrub the doors and baseboards, windows, pictures, mirrors, etc etc. I am talking deep cleaning. It needed to be done really bad. Our bathroom had about an inch of yucky black dust behind the toilet. I do a double take when I walk in now because it's so clean.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I do clean. Regularly. Ish. I just kept putting off sweeping and mopping upstairs because I can never find the broom. But I do a general wipe-down/toilet scrub weekly. We do not live in filth. Mostly.

The weirdest places were dirty. Like the corners of the walls. I could not figure out why they were so dirty until I realized we have a feline who gets his lovin' from the walls and corners in general. At least, when he's not harassing us.

Anyway, it's all done now. Now I am moving on to the kitchen deep clean, and then down again to the basement deep clean. That's the one I am really dreading. Sigh.

I had to let Sparrow and Hawk know of my cleaning ninja-ness, and boy if they mess anything up, they are going to be sorry. I left these notes on the bathroom door at their respective eye levels. I hope they know I am deadly serious. Don't mess up my clean house, boys. You can be replaced you know.

I am very grateful we have such a beautiful home. It is very big and very spacious. Really, it's too big for us and I wouldn't mind moving to a slightly smaller home, but then I would have to move out of my fantastic ward and that would kill me. So we will stay here, probably until we can buy a house for real.

Wake me up when it's over

2011-04-07T00:46:00.001-06:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged. But I am tired. So I guess you have to wait just a little longer for an update. Try to tear yourself away from your computer screen.

In other news, goodnight.

Gardening Woes

2011-03-22T17:36:00.004-06:00

I would love to have a garden. Problem is, I have no space for one. At least, I don't think I do.

I live in a townhouse with a large backyard, but the yard is shared with the other 20 houses and their (many) dogs. It is mowed once a week by the HOA people, and that's why I don't think square foot gardening would work here. I think they would get mad at me for having containers out there. Theoretically, I could maybe do a container on my deck, but my deck isn't very big (6x6', maybe.) We live on the side of a mountain, and the sunlight can be tricky here too.

So here are my options. I could maybe do a container garden in this basin we have at the bottom of the yard. No one ever goes in there, it is full of weeds and dirt. The main concern I have about this is that occasionally, it does rain in Utah, and if it rains more than a day or two in a row then this area gets full of water. I joke that we have lake-front property sometimes, bahahaha. I crack myself up.

My other two options are to walk about a block away and go plant a sneaky garden over in an empty lot. See here:

Option 3 is to go behind our townhouses and plant a sneaky garden over here. See:

In any of these scenarios, I am going to have to do a garden cover with chicken wire or something, because no matter what, there will always be deer around here.

So what do you think? Is it possible for me to have a garden, or should I just give up until we move to a house with its own yard? I did post on a few national garden-sharing websites, so that might get me a gardening space, but... you never know. Thoughts? Ideas?

Exercise sucks

2011-03-19T01:58:00.002-06:00

Exercise is not the answer, people.

Exercising HURTS. It makes your body HURT. It makes it hard to move. Exercise kills - for days. It doesn't feel good while you're doing it, it doesn't feel good the next day. It might feel good for about 3.5 seconds after you're done though. Till the tiredness gets you.

Exercising BITES. Cookies are the answer. Definitely cookies. Cookies make everything better.

I am boycotting exercise. I'd hold up a protest sign, but my arms hurt too much. Stupid exercise.

Videos of the Nerdlic

2011-03-12T23:12:00.002-07:00

Sparrow's been outdoing himself on cuteness lately and I've caught it on tape. These are all pretty short videos, so enjoy.

Sparrow performed at a talent show last night. His talent was "undetermined," since i figured anything I would ask him to do would be met with a "no thank you!" until I landed on something he liked. Surprisingly he only refused to do one thing before launching into... well, this.

Here's the kiddo "reading" one of his favorite stories.

And here he is enjoying his first bowl of Jell-O. No, he did not eat that entire bowl. He had about 3 bites before deciding it was more fun to stick his face in the bowl. I can't say I blame him - the Jell-O was expired and not a great flavor to begin with, but he did like playing with it!

Goals

2011-03-11T11:41:00.002-07:00

Sometimes I have goals that I just don't know how to go about attaining. Does that ever happen to you?

For example, I'd like to sing in a small group, quartet-y, mini-choir type thing. But how do I do that? Googling "small singing groups in Utah" is a little odd.

I'd like to learn French, Italian and German, but who am I going to practice with? I am so averse to Skype-ing random people in other countries it's not even funny. It freaks me out. At least with Spanish I have friends and family I can talk with and they can mock me and it's okay.

I want to run a 5K but it's got to stop freaking snowing. I am not running in the ice. And I will probably need to get a stroller so I can run with Sparrow, because I know me - I will not wake up early to exercise (ew!) and after Hawk gets home from work, I want to spend time with him, not go out on my own. The solution here is to make Hawk train with me, but he refuses to run and also there's the snow issue still.

Hey here's a goal I can attain. I need to decide before March 21 if I should have major, minor, or no surgery. We've prayed hard in this house, and are still praying, and I am leaning towards major. But part of my heart still cries out against it. Rat crackers. Being an adult is hard.

Ooh! Another goal I have is to figure out how to use my new phone. It's way cool but the user manual was useless and I have yet to have a moment to just sit and poke my way around this new piece of technology.

And I have a goal to train Sparrow to be a gentleman before I die. So maybe I will never die. Sweet.

Wordful Wednesday: National Women's Month

2011-03-02T14:07:00.003-07:00

Chocolate on my Cranium gives out awesome topic assignments every week but this is the first chance I've had to actually complete one. The topic this week is awesome women in our past.

Well let me tell you. I don't know much about my ancestral-women, but I know that the last 3 generations have been full of awesomeness.

For example, my great-grandma was one fascinating lady. Her name was Violet, but everybody called her Bunny. When she was a little girl, around 8 years old, her family moved to Albion, Idaho, which has fluctuated between 8 and 60 people in population. That doesn't count the tumbleweed, just so you know. The family rode in a buggy and it took a looong time to get there. Bunny had just gotten a beautiful white Persian kitten, and snuggled it constantly. At some point during the journey, they stopped off at a farm. The residents looked kind of poor and the farm was pretty shabby. Bunny held her white kitten close. A little girl came up and started petting the kitten. "I have a kitten too!" she said. She ran off and came back a moment later with a "sore-eyed cat." Nobody is really sure what that means, only just that it was an ugly, ugly little kitten. Well, my great grandma asked the little girl to trade, and left the Persian kitten at the shabby little farm. She was one amazing woman. She passed away in 2001 and I still miss her sometimes. I'm just grateful that I had 14 years to get to know her.

My grandma is pretty much the coolest person I know. Her husband passed away in the 70s, leaving Grandma with two daughters, ages 6 and 8. Grandma went back to school and became a teacher so she could support her family. She eventually got her Master's Degree as well. She worked her butt off for 30 years and gave her girls all sorts of neat experiences that other women might have dismissed as unattainable. She helped my mom raise me and I used to go spend every Friday night at her house (mostly to give my parents a break from me!) After I had Sparrow, Grandma flew to Arkansas to take care of us for 8 weeks - she ordered me not to clean a thing and spent the entire time deep-cleaning, organizing and interior-decorating my house. She is amazing. I love her guts and she is an amazing role model for me. She was recently called as the Relief Society president in her ward and she truly gives her all in her calling and is trying so hard. I am so proud of her.

My mom is also one of these fantastic women. She had me at age 19 and was the only one in her "young single mother" support group to not adopt out her baby. We lived with my grandma and aunt until I was 2 or 3, while Mom finished getting her degree. Mom married in 1990 and had 2 more babies. She worked as a kindergarten teacher for 10 years before going back to school to get her Master's in ...something... and became a Guidance Counselor. So not only did she raise her family, make time for her husband, and hold a full time job, but she also went to school full time and was active in her church and community. She insisted that we have dinner together as a family every night and for the most part, we did. She put up with 3 moody teenagers (not all at once though) and guided me through getting my Associate's Degree while I was in high school. She recently graduated with her Doctorate degree in Administration after doing all the schoolwork in about half the time as it normally takes. She is now preparing to send my little brother on a 2 year LDS mission to Paraguay and has offered to take care of Sparrow while I am recovering from an upcoming surgery. She also opened a special school 5 years ago that is an "early college high school" and she often hangs out with senators, governors, legistlature type people, and goes to charter school conferences often, so she can make her school and her students' experiences better. Whew.

I have a lot to live up to in terms of awesomeness! I am so grateful for the amazing women in my family. I love them and learn from them constantly. I hope someday my granddaughters will be proud of me the way I am proud of my grandmothers and mom.

Self Injury Awareness Day

2011-03-01T14:09:00.002-07:00

March 1 is Self Injury Awareness Day. As many of you know, I used to cut myself in order to escape negative feelings and to punish myself for not being perfect. For the last year I have been going to counseling to try and uh, get over myself, to put it lightly, as for a while I traded one form of self injury (cutting) for another (disordered eating.)

Well I'm not cured. I've been working on quitting Self Injury for 5 years now, and I wish I could say that it's been 5 years since I last cut. The struggle will likely always be there, but now that I am older and wiser (?) I know that there are other ways to deal with my feelings. And I can honestly say that after not cutting for 4 years, going back to it that one time was pretty disappointing. Good.

Self Injury is a non-suicidal behavior. I think most people don't understand that. Cutting didn't mean I wanted to kill myself, it was just my way of coping with negative feelings and thoughts. The most I cut was in December of 2005, when I was struggling with being out on my own for the first time and feeling unwanted by my family. I didn't have close friends at that point, and I was pretty much alone. Gradually, as I made more friends and became more comfortable in my own skin, I was able to move away from self injury. But it's still a rocky road, even now. Those thoughts and feelings don't go away, but my ability to cope with them is changing.

Having support is key. Friends and family who care but don't judge or push you into healing - that's what helped me most.

A great website for help and information about self injury is here. I thought I knew everything about self injury but this website taught me some things. Check it out, in honor of Self Injury Awareness Day.

Official Notice

2011-02-28T23:00:00.002-07:00

Dear Weather:

In case you have not noticed, in about one hour it will be March. Therefore and thusly, get your wintery butt out of my state and start spreading the warm sunshiney love.

Thanks.

Comedy of Errors

2011-02-22T08:31:00.006-07:00

You know, when stuff gets really bad, and it all seems to happen at once.... it makes me giggle. Because what else can I do?

If one thing goes wrong, I rail and shake my fist and am mad. But if 3+ things happen, it's hilarious. And only if it happens to me, so nobody worry that I laugh at misfortune. It is... misfortunate.

Yesterday I had a doctor appointment with my OBGYN. If you'll remember, I had a tubal ligation in August 2009. Well, ever since then I have had cramps. Bad cramps, like, scoop your uterus out with a spoon because that would be preferable to the pain cramps. I take a prescription painkiller daily because of them, but I'd rather just be off the meds and off the cramping. I've been trying to get a doctor to listen to me for 2 years about this, and finally someone did. I did an ultrasound to rule out anything dangerous -

- and as an aside, according to the ultrasound technician I have "beautiful ovaries. Just gorgeous. Those ovaries are absolutely beautiful." That's a compliment I've never heard before, but I'll take what I can get.

Anyway, the ultrasound showed nothing, and the doctor was worried about that. She says the likely culprit of the pain is scar tissue, and my options are either do nothing, or have another surgery. I can either do another tubal-like surgery, where it's an outpatient thing, but then the scar tissue might grow back. Or I can do a hysterectomy. I'm leaning toward the latter, because bleeding monthly is really depressing when you can't have any more babies anyway.

So after that thrilling visit, I took Sparrow to the mall because my phone had been having issues during the weekend. Another aside. This phone is a model I had back in 2005. It is my favorite phone of all time, and I have owned about 7 models. I specifically went on eBay searching for this phone and found one in great condition and bought it, it has worked great since November.

So I take it to T-Mobile, and the guy says "it's probably the SIM card so let's switch you to a new one and you will be good." Hooray! So he switches my SIM card, gets my data erased on the old one... and... my phone won't open. It says it is locked and needs a code. To his credit, T-Mobile man tried everything to get it to open, including spending 30 minutes on the phone with Customer Care and Nokia. At this point, I had to leave, but T-Mobile man said he would keep working on it and I said I would be back in an hour.

I was very late for a party honoring Sparrow, with no way of calling my mom and letting her know what was going on. And I didn't know for sure where this party was being held. I wish I could have counted how many times I thought "I can call Mom/Hawk...oh wait, no phone."

I made it to the party, miraculously, and told everyone the sad story of my dead phone. They all thought it was amusing. Rude. My mom offered to watch Sparrow while I went back to the store, so I took her up on it.

T-Mobile man informed me that because my phone is so "old," it can't support new SIM cards. They don't make the old ones anymore. So now my beloved favorite phone of all time is dead beyond ...life. I could have cried. Currently I am not under contract with T-Mobile, and I didn't want to sign anything without Hawk, so T-Mobile man gave me an old store-owned flip phone to borrow for a week or so. I hate it.

I went to Verizon and waited an hour for them to tell me that it would cost $90 a month for their cheapest plan as opposed to T-Mobile's $50. I'm going with T-Mobile.

After the stressful day, I decided I had to go to Krispy Kreme. There's one in Provo where my mom lives, and that's where I was anyway, plus I had 3 coupons for free donuts. So I picked up Sparrow and we went to Krispy Kreme's and the hot light was on, meaning free donuts with every purchase! Hooray!

45 minutes later we finally made it out of Krispy Kreme. That was a nightmare, and I should have just left, but I was desperate for my sugar fix.

We got home around 8 p.m. Poor Hawk was at work till then too. Sparrow went to bed, I nibbled the donuts (which turned out to be YUCKY and STALE), threw them away, and went to console myself with Zuma Blitz on Facebook, only to discover--

my [computer] mouse is dead.

When it rains, it pours. And I laugh till I cry.

RIP Little Nokia Phone. You will be sorely missed.

This kid cracks me up. Also, so does this cat.

2011-02-16T15:49:00.004-07:00

Here is Bamboo's favorite cat trick. He usually only does it if I am snapping and moving my fingers (like I do in the video) but sometimes he'll decide he wants up and jump on me. I'm lucky if I can catch him on those surprise attacks...sometimes it ends painfully.

He just started singing this yesterday. It took me a minute to figure it out, but I got it. Oh The Lion King, staple of my youth, the torch has now been passed. Carry it well, young Sparrow.

Schedules and the lack thereof

2011-02-10T16:46:00.002-07:00

I have been trying to get on a decent schedule. Basically right now, Sparrow and I sit around the house all day and by the time Hawk gets home we are all at each others' throats. It does not go well. I would like to fix this.

Last week I started going to bed early (for me.) Like, at 11. Sometimes 10:30. I woke up for 4 days in a row at 7 a.m. It was fabulous. Sparrow was just waking up, but would mostly lie in bed not making any noise, so I could shower and do my morning scripture study and prayer. I prayed a lot to not kill Sparrow and to be able to make it through the day. It worked.

Then the weekend happened. I was STUPID and I stayed up til 4 a.m. on Friday night and till 2 a.m. on Saturday night. Now I am back to going to bed early (ish) - last night I didn't make it till midnight - but I can't for the life of me wake up. I am tired all the time. I wake up around 10 and I drag through the rest of the day, longing for sleep, until it gets to be about 9:45 and then ZING! I am so totally awake! I never have to go to bed! Sleep? Lame.

No. I do not want to be this way. My whole life I have been a night owl. I don't want to be. Sure, studies say that night owls are smarter and live longer, but the world is made for morning people. My kid is a morning person. I want to be able to get up at 6:30, shower, study my scriptures for a half hour, study something else important to me for a half hour, get ready for the day, etc. I want to have quiet time before Sparrow starts haranguing me. Here's hoping that if I am consistent about going to bed earlier, I will start to wake up earlier too. Please?

Also, Sparrow and I are joining a gym next week. I am excited, but nervous. I don't really want to spend the money, but I think we need to for a number of reasons. Ready?

I will get exercise in at least 3 times a week (theoretically)
The gym has childcare, meaning I can have up to 2.5 hours to myself 6 days a week
The gym offers martial arts classes, something I have always been interested in
The gym also offers water aerobics, which I want to try (and water yoga, and water running, and all sorts of water sports)
AND this gym offers swimming lessons and Mommy and Me water fitness classes. So Sparrow can take classes with me!

And this gym is closer to our house, it will get us out of the house without going somewhere lame like the mall, Sparrow will get to interact with other kids on a daily basis instead of sporadically, we will get to see how he interacts with other people in authority positions... because Sparrow has been super, super defiant lately. Like, I am going to mail you to Bali and I hope I don't see you again till you are nice defiant. It's been bad. Hawk and I are both a little concerned, so we figured we'd start out with this gym daycare and see how he does. Truly I think Sparrow just knows how to tick us off, and he'll do well with other adults in charge, but I'm not sure. So we'll see how this works out.

After I get my mornings going, I will work on a daily routine. Routines are awesome. I want one. I have a lot of stuff to do and no time to do it. Wait, no, I have lots of time, I'm just not motivated enough. dang it.

30 Days of Truth: Day 29 and 30

2011-02-08T12:33:00.003-07:00

Finally I will be done with this horrible thing. I should have chosen a better time to do it - I have lots of blog-catching up to do.

Day 29 is pick something you want to change about yourself. We'll forgo the obvious "I want to change my weight" and say, I want to change my allergies. I am sick of being allergic to healthy things. I bought 36 lbs of apples at our co-op the other day and turns out my allergies caught up to me and I am now allergic to this type of apple. It is a bummer. I am still eating them, it's just uncomfortable to do so. When my throat starts closing up I'll stop.

Day 30 is write a letter to yourself about things you love about yourself.

Dear Self,

I like that you are finally figuring out that if you go to bed earlier, you get to wake up earlier. Way to go! I like that you have a unique sense of humor that makes people giggle. Making people laugh is the bomb dot com. I like that you can make a joke out of everything - even when you are mad or upset or depressed, you can make it a joke and it gets better a little. I like that you are intelligent and that you can read crazy fast. I love that you used to write amazing things and I wish you would start doing that again. I love that you are relatively adaptable. I love your kid and how cute he is. I love that you are determined to change certain aspects of yourself. I love your evil laugh. I love your eyeballs. I love your cute thumbs. I love that you're not afraid to rock a crazy short hair cut. I love that you have dreams and goals and are actively going about achieving them. I love that you feel inspired so often. I love that you are finally done with this 30 Days of Truth!

30 Days of Truth: Day 27 and 28

2011-02-05T11:21:00.002-07:00

The best thing I have going for me right now. What does this even mean? This question puzzles me. I have my little family, but they're not "going for me." Am I being too literal? Hmm. I think the best thing I have going for me is my determination. I may not always have the follow-through (ie I am lazy) but I am determined to ... do stuff. I'm determined to improve as a parent. I'm determined to get on a normal sleep schedule. I'm determined to go back to school and get my degree. I'm determined to go back to Europe someday. I'm determined to get us out of debt. I'm determined not to kill my child and to raise him to be a productive human being who does not torment his mother at every turn SPARROW ARE YOU LISTENING?! I'M DETERMINED TO NOT KILL YOU STOP DRIVING ME CRAZY.

Day 28. If I got pregnant right now I would pee my pants. Probably literally as I really had a problem with that the first time around. I threw up a lot and when you're pregnant you have no bladder control so you can imagine the mess that was. I would also probably throw up. Then I would squee, rejoice, say happy thank you prayers, get really excited, cry (happiness and fear both), get monitored very carefully by the doctor, cry a lot more, buy tons and tons and tons of baby things and drive Hawk crazy with how much money I spend, spend all my time thinking about baby names, and if I was pregnant with a girl... oh. I would likely bankrupt us. Have I mentioned Gymboree's newborn giraffe line? (Seriously, go look at those clothes.) I would have killed for that when Sparrow was a newborn. I still might have to buy the hooded jacket, just to save for when Sparrow has kids. If I'm still around then. Since he drives me so crazy and all.

If I got someone else pregnant, that would be awesome. I hope it would be Hawk. Then he could SUFFER like I did for 7 months. Love you Hawk. Thanks for taking such good care of me. But I'd rather you deal with being pregnant and I'll take care of the baby. Sounds good.

30 Days of Truth: Day 26

2011-02-02T11:21:00.003-07:00

Have I ever felt like giving up on life?

Oh lady, so many times. It's kind of a miracle I'm still here, if I really sit down and think about how many times I've felt like giving up. I think the worst time in my life was the summer of 2005. I was 18 and had just gotten home after being in London for 6 months. My family hated my presence and wanted me out of the house and told me so often. I was just reading my journal about this time in my life the other day and let me tell you, it still hurts.

I also had a hard time in the summer of 2006. Summers are not my time sheesh. Hawk was being a jackass and I was having a hard time with him, and I wasn't sure if I was going to continue in the LDS faith, and I felt like everyone disapproved of me...

The most recent near-miss moment was in May of last year. I'll just say that I'm glad I asked Hawk if he had a life insurance policy on me, because he said that he didn't, and I was like "oh, well then forget that idea."

I'll tell you this though - if I am doing what I am supposed to be doing - if I am reading my scriptures, and praying, and really trying to live the gospel, my outlook on life is so much better. I am clinically depressed and will likely be on medication for a long time, if not the rest of my life. If I'm not going to church or working on my spirituality, my depression is so much worse. The only way I can even keep my head above water is by following my faith. If I'm "being good," I sometimes still have fleeting thoughts, but they are just that - fleeting. If I'm not being good, I find it much much harder to have a healthy mentality. I've always thought that was interesting. It's one reason I believe in the LDS Church so strongly - I have tried other religions, other faiths, and I struggled immensely until I went back to Mormonism.

Believe what you want, but my faith has saved my life.

30 Days of Truth: Day 25

2011-02-01T21:51:00.002-07:00

A reason I am still alive.

Um, because I have something big that only I can do that God wants me to do. Really that's the only way I can explain it. I should so not be here. I was born dead (I got better! How many people can say they've died before?), it was 6 weeks before I made it out of the hospital and my lungs have been junk ever since. Had I been born in any other century I would have been screwed both at birth and now - I am legally blind without my glasses. Yikes. Oh and then I was in the hospital every year until I was 12 for being accident and illness prone - I got strep throat 4 times a year till I was 6 and got my tonsils out. I lived on antibiotics as a kid but I am allergic to penicillin and two other very important antibiotics, so it was always a scramble trying to get me treated.

And then of course the whole pregnancy saga, and my heart failure and liver failure and generalized body failure (I was just remembering this morning that I had to be intubated when I was in the hospital with Toby. I had forgotten that little gem.) And how I am always sick and have gotten pneumonia/lung infections 4 times in the last year. And allergies - I'm allergic to most raw fruits and veggies in addition to 37 types of trees/grasses/stuff and animals.

So yeah. The only reason I am still here is because I haven't finished what God needs me to get taken care of down here. As soon as I finish that up I figure I will drop dead. It'll be a long time overdue but I'm not complaining. Every minute I spend on this earth is one more minute I get to eat chocolate. Yum.

30 Days of Truth: Day 23

2011-01-30T22:06:00.003-07:00

Yeah I know I already did day 23. I want to do it again. I'm skipping day 24.

What I REALLY wish I had done - I wish I had gone on an LDS mission. I would have left when I turned 21 in 2007, and been gone for 18 months.

It is one of my most biggest regrets ever. I so, so should have waited to get married. I will be able to go on a mission when Hawk and I are old and retired, but it's not the same. I will always wonder what my life would be like had I gone on a mission instead of gotten married. Last week I actually had a dream that I got my mission call and I was going to the Ukraine. Sweet.

It's been said that the greatest mission is motherhood, yada yada, but dude. So wish I had gone on a real mission when I had the chance. Even though it would have killed me to be without Internet for 18 months, even though I would have died not being able to talk to Owly on the computer every day - I still should have gone. Oh well.

My little brother is preparing to go on his mission sometime after May. I am excited to see where he will end up going.

So there you go.

30 Days of Truth: Day 23

2011-01-30T17:06:00.002-07:00

Something I wish I'd done in my life.

Did I mention I wish I'd graduated? Ha ha. Okay how about this -

In 2005 I went to London on study abroad. One week, we went to Edinburgh, Scotland. We were told not to go out alone, but other than that we didn't have direct supervision considering it was me and a bunch of 20 somethings (I was 18 at the time.) For some reason, I got a hotel room to myself while everyone else had to share. All I wanted to do in Edinburgh was go on a ghost tour of the Edinburgh vaults. That was the only thing I *had* to do. Nobody wanted to go with me, so I said to heck with it and i went out on my own at night. I think it was St. Patrick's Day but I can't remember for certain.

It was scary, but awesome. I was nervous walking back to my hotel alone, but really, everything went fine and nobody even knew. Or so I thought.

The next day, we left Edinburgh and stopped somewhere for a bathroom break along the way. As everyone was boarding the bus (they call it a coach over there), my professor pulled me to the side and proceeded to chew me out in front of every single person there - how she was thisclose to sending me home, and how blah blah I actually don't remember anything she said because I was busy standing there trying to look at stoic as possible.

I don't regret what I did.

But I do regret what happened the next month. We went to Paris for 4 days. On day 3, my mini-group was getting ready to go to the Eiffel Tower. I felt so sick I didn't know if I could go. So I asked my group to take me back to the hotel. And there I stayed for the next 5 hours. Because I had been yelled at the prior month, I was too chicken to leave the room. If I had been braver (or really, realized that my professors wouldn't have sent me home with less than a month left on the program) I would have left when I started feeling better and gone to the Eiffel Tower by myself. At the very least I should have opened my hotel room door, so if I saw anyone else from the group I could have left with them. But oh well, hindsight being what it is... yeah.

So I wish I had gone up the Eiffel Tower when I had the chance. I know I will some day - but I'm bummed I didn't do it when I was in Paris the first time.

I also wish I'd worked harder. At everything.

And now if I don't go take a nap I'm going to wish that I had.

30 Days of Truth: Day 22

2011-01-28T14:52:00.003-07:00

Something I wish I hadn't done.

I wish I hadn't gotten my tubes tied in August 2009. At the time, I was told if I got pregnant again I would almost certainly die. My first pregnancy ended badly with me very near having a stroke, liver and heart failure, blah blah. We found out in January of 2009 that because my blood pressure was so high during the pregnancy it tore a hole in my heart. I'm on blood pressure medication for the rest of my life because of that.

So I jumped to get my tubes tied so I didn't have to worry about getting pregnant again. Except I wish I hadn't. Even at the risk of my own health, I wish I could have another baby. I want Sparrow to have a sibling and I want another baby to snuggle. Also, ever since my operation I've had severe cramping. Every single day. I never cramped before the surgery. I'm on prescription pain killers every day because the cramping is so bad. My doctor won't do anything about it and the two other doctor's I've seen, one wouldn't do anything and the other said we could try an endometrial ablation but it might not work. If I can't have any more babies, I really don't think I should have to cramp every day. Or go through a period once a month. It's stupid.

I also wish I hadn't been such a moron financially. I had no idea how to handle money when I was younger - in fact I am still figuring it out but at least I have a decent idea now. I spent 6 years screwing around, racking up debt and killing my credit. Oops. I wish I had gotten out of debt before I got married instead of gifting my new husband with $20,000 of money owed. Now we owe more than that because of young-and-dumb mistakes, but we're trying to get it paid down. Ugh.

I really really wish I hadn't dropped out of college, but I already wrote about that.

30 Days of Truth: Catchup

2011-01-27T14:16:00.002-07:00

Day 18: What do you think of gay marriage? - I think marriage is ordained of God and should be between a man and a woman. Sorry. Well, I'm not really sorry. I have more I could say but it's very personal and I'm not into blogging it, so if you really want to know then email me and I'll tell you.

Day 19: What do you think of religion or politics? - I wish politics were less... boring. I mean, in all honesty I could make more of an effort to follow politics, but it seems so futile. Both sides of the political coin are crooked and two-faced, and following all the lies drives me crazy. Oh and it pisses (sorry I hate that word but it applies) me off when candidates start smear campaigns on each other. Oh how it makes me mad.

Day 20: Views on drugs and alcohol - Just say no. I was tempted to do hard drugs as a teenager, but wouldn't have known where to get any. I remember doing a search on eBay once. That didn't work. Alcohol is gross. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever tried in my entire life besides coffee. I didn't have enough to get drunk because I couldn't stand the nastiness of the stuff - it tastes like death! Why do you drink something that tastes like POISON!?

Day 21: I just got in a fight with my best friend and an hour later she's in a car accident. What do I do? - I go grovel at her bruised and scraped feet, that's what. I bring her boatloads of chocolate and sushi and remind myself to never take my friends for granted again. I would beat myself up for the whole experience too. As a child I would sit in terror every time my grandma left our house because I just knew she was going to get in a car accident and die on the way to her house. I always made sure that the last words I said to her were "I love you." Yes, I was a morbid child. I still am.

Yay I am caught up. Did I mention I am bored of this project? Oh well. I think I'll survive for 8 more days. Maybe. If not you'll feel bad that you ever made me do it. Kind like that whole day 21 scenario. Oh snap. I can't wait to get chocolate from you.

30 Days of Truth: Day 17

2011-01-24T22:05:00.002-07:00

A book I've read that changed my views on something.

I don't really have a book, per se. Well, I do, but the only reason I know of the book is because of a blog that I started reading. The Lazy Organizer. Oh man, Lara cracks me up. She is so funny. I think we could be friends in real life. Her kids are beautiful and awesome and you know why they are awesome? Well for lots of reasons, but also because of the changes Lara has made in her/their life.

I've been reading her blog for about a year, going back through most of the archives and I just caught up to the present two days ago. Lara homeschools her kids, but a while ago she discovered Charlotte Mason and her educational method and posted about how awesome it was and how everything was changing for the better. Well, I was intrigued.

I never considered homeschooling Sparrow. The most I've thought about it is planning on sending him to private or a charter school, knowing that since he's our only, we can afford it. But after reading more about Charlotte Mason, reading her books, reading blogs from moms who use her methods, reading about classical education/Thomas Jefferson education, holy crap guys. This is the real deal. This is what school SHOULD be. This is the education I SHOULD have gotten.

So I have been reading Charlotte Mason's works and also "Thomas Jefferson Education" and "A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion." I love it. I love what I am learning about these educational models. I am so excited for Sparrow to someday be in Scholar phase, or having him work with a mentor.

Don't get me wrong, I will likely still send him to regular school. At least for a little while - I want him to have that experience, and I also think it will be good for him to learn to relate and be involved with kids his own age. But I plan on sending him to a school that uses either CM or TJED methods. I've found a couple in my area and I am planning on touring them soon. Even if I can't send him to one of these schools, I plan on implementing lots of this stuff in our every day after school life.

Seriously, I owe Lara a lot. I would have never heard about this stuff if not for her and I am so grateful. I haven't felt so excited about learning - about education - in a long time. I'm not just excited for Sparrow, I'm excited for me! All this stuff I am learning is teaching me that I can learn EVEN MORE and you know what? I guess I thought my learning days were over since I'm out of school, but now I know better. I can give myself the education I should have gotten. Boo. Yah.

I will be attending the TJED Conference in March and I can hardly wait! If you are going to be there, let me know, I would love love love to meet you!

Here are some of the blogs I have been reading/subscribed to because of their TJED/Charlotte Mason/homeschooling awesomeness. Some of them might not be strictly about the educational styles but I have stuck them all in my RSS reader under "TJED & Such"

For more information about Charlotte Mason, visit: Simply Charlotte Mason

For more information about Thomas Jefferson Education visit: the official website

Being a Mother Who Knows
Chocolate on my Cranium
Gentle Art of Chaos
Mrs. Smith
The Cottage at Pollywog Pond
The Tale of Our Quest
TJ Ed Mom for Liberty

30 Days of Truth: Day 16

2011-01-22T17:07:00.003-07:00

Something I could live without.

Our TV. The more we use it, the more I hate it.

Relations necessary to make a baby possible. TMI? Sorry. But seriously - I can't have any more kids, so why does Hawk still want to get busy? No reason, pal! Pfft!!

Sparrow's tantrums. I could seriously live without another one of those ever again and I'd be fine.

I could live without Wendy's. Before they introduced their "new" fries, I couldn't have said that. But their fries are now gross, so Wendy's, sorry but you're on my black list. Also I could live without Burger King. Remember how I got a rock in my veggie burger last year? 6 months later, Hawk got food poisoning from them and we haven't been back. Yeah yeah, we shouldn't eat fast food, it's a work in progress.

I could live without Zuma Blitz sucking me in on Facebook. Stupid addictive games.

Diapers. Soon, my precious, soon.

I could live without never going to Africa. Everywhere else, I want to visit. But I just have no desire to visit Africa as a whole. Bummer. Wait, maybe Egypt. Maybe.

I could really live without talking on phones. I HATE telephones. I HATE talking on them. I LOVE texting. But seriously, phones are my nemesis. I despise them. I avoid talking on the phone whenever possible. The only exception to this rule is when I call my grandma. I tried to get over my hatred of phones for about a year and then I realized that I was never going to get over it and I would be a phone-hater till I died. Sorry. I'm open for emails and texts but phones are the devil. This includes Skype. Dang it. My life would be a lot easier if I liked phones but I JUST DON'T.

Crap, I hear one of those Sparrow tantrums starting.

30 Days of Truth: Day 15

2011-01-21T16:59:00.001-07:00

Something I couldn't live without.

Would it be dumb to say water?

No but seriously, I am a fish. I drink at least 125 oz. a day, often way more than that. I have a favorite water bottle that I carry with me pretty much everywhere. If I go longer than a half hour without a drink, I get sad. I'm not pre-diabetic or anything, I just love love love the taste of water. This has exceptions:

If I'm not in Utah, water is gross. Unless it's in one of those fancy Brita filters. But I hate those because they take a long time. For the record, my fridge has a fancy water-spitter-outter. And I adore it.

If I drink too much water on an empty stomach, I throw up.

Sometimes I just want something bubbly. Like a delicious caffeine free Diet Coke (which was the runner up for this topic, cuz baby, I've tried living without the brown stuff and I just can't do it. Yet. Someday, I'm quitting. But not today.)

My love for water is not only for the drinking kind. I also love to swim. Get me in a pool and I may never leave. I got in trouble on two separate camping trips because I didn't want to get out of the lake in which I was floating. Showers? Fabulous. I shower every single day without fail, and I'd shower twice a day if I could do it without my skin shriveling up and falling off. I try not to take very long showers but I'm definitely capable.

Hawk and I have stayed at the Anniversary Inn three times and every time I have checked the bathtub in advance to make sure it is going to accommodate my serious love of baths. Actually, the first time we stayed there I picked the room based on the bathtub alone. That was awesome - I took in a bath bomb and a bubble bar from LUSH and seriously, the bubbles got up to 5 feet high. I thought I was going to drown in awesomeness. I took so many hot baths that the hotel ran out of hot water. Not even kidding (although I wish I was, because it sucked to shower the next morning in ice cold water on December 24th.)

Anyway, water. Writing this post is making my thirsty and my trusty Nathan stainless steel waterbottle with a flip straw is empty. Gasp! Hooray for water!

Runner ups for this post include: my cats, books/reading, England, and sleep. Since the topic was someTHING I can't live without, I decided not to include people. Except the cats, because they are half thing and half people.

30 Days of Truth: Day 14

2011-01-20T16:50:00.002-07:00

Dear Betty White,

I used to be your biggest fan. I adore "The Golden Girls" and found your character refreshingly hilarious. I think you are a great actress.

But recently I read about you posing for a skanky calendar. And then I heard about you getting drunk on TV for your 80th birthday. And really, I'm just bummed. I think you have a lot of people who look up to you and who think you are great - and I don't feel like you're setting the greatest example for them.

I get that you aren't your character, Rose, but maybe you should be. I'm sad that my love for The Golden Girls is now tainted by your antics - which, let's face it, are just stupid for a lady of your age.

Sorry.

30 Days of Truth: Day 13

2011-01-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Liam Neeson,

You are my hero. I was first introduced to you when I was 12 and stuck in Richfield, Utah while my sister was in a beauty pageant. Since there was nothing else to do (literally) my dad took my brother and me to see Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I didn't like Star Wars and thought it would be stupid.

Mr. Neeson, your character, Qui-Gon Jinn, singlehandedly converted me to Star Wars love. I saw TPM 5 times in theaters and prayed each time that somehow, Qui-Gon would survive.

I used to pretend that you were my dad. Even after I was older and separated Qui-Gon and Liam Neeson, I still pretended it. In fact, Mr. Neeson, if you wanted to adopt me, I might just die of happiness. I promise you don't have to do anything other than sign those adoption papers - I'll live my own separate life and never bother you. Unless you want me to. I'll clean your house! I'll bake you cookies!

I think you are a fantastic actor and an amazing person. When I saw The Chronicles of Narnia in December I almost died from the overload of awesomeness. Mr. Neeson, thanks for being so cool. And thanks for playing Qui-Gon. I can't wait to watch the Clone Wars episode coming up with your character. Squee!

30 Days of Truth: Day 12

2011-01-18T15:31:00.003-07:00

Something I never get complimented on.

My parenting skills. Because they suck.

For 3 years we've been trying to get Sparrow to stop screaming. He screams this high-pitched, glass shattering shriek when he's upset or sad or ANGRY. Which is usually at least 3 times a day. Sometimes he does it when he's happy but not as often, but for three years we've tried EVERYTHING to get him to STOP SCREAMING. Seriously, name a discipline method and we've tried it unsuccessfully.

On Sunday I told him that if he didn't stop screaming, a bear would come eat him.

I may be a horrible parent, but he hasn't screamed since.

30 Days of Truth: Day 10 and 11

2011-01-17T14:03:00.003-07:00

Day 10 was supposed to be someone I have in my life that I don't like. Alas, I can't think of anyone. I'm pretty good at avoiding or telling off people who I don't get along with.

Day 11: Something people compliment me on is my kid. Sparrow gets compliments all the time, whether it's on his beautiful curly hair, his gorgeous big eyes and looong eyelashes, how well he sings the Hallelujah Chorus (which he does, constantly), or his cute (and slightly evil) personality.

Did I ever tell you about the time he sang the Hallelujah Chorus on an airplane? We were the first to board the flight, and as everyone else was boarding he started serenading the people. I saw lots of smiles and got a few chuckles. Thankfully once the flight took off he fell asleep. I don't think people would have liked us very much had he sang from Dallas to North Carolina. Yikes.

30 Days of Truth: Day 9

2011-01-15T10:42:00.003-07:00

Are you getting bored of these yet? I am. Just a little.

Someone I didn't want to let go, but just drifted away from. <--bad sentence structure.

I had a great group of friends in 2005-2006. Dove and I lived in a little apartment we dubbed the Krayola Box (Krayola is a mix of our first names.) We were involved in BYU's science fiction/fantasy club, Quark. Yes, we are geeks.

Anyway, through that club, we made a tight circle of friends. Brad, Miriam, Matt, Sarah, Pratt, Hawk, Dove and me. We always had plans, we were always doing SOMETHING crazy. It was a blast. The best part was when Hawk and I started dating. Hawk and Pratt were roommates, and Pratt started dating Dove, so we were roommates dating roommates. We had so much fun that year. I was never bored, there was always someone to hang out with or someone to talk to.

In June of 2006 it started going south. Pratt went home for the summer and he and Dove broke up. Sarah left permanently and as hard as I try, I can't find her. Brad and Hawk had some mini-fights. Dove and I had several fights. We left the Krayola Box in August of 2006 and I moved into a house with a couple of strangers. In December, Hawk and I were married. We had the group (or what remained of it) over a few times, but it was always complicated because Dove and Pratt weren't on speaking terms so if we invited one we couldn't invite the other. Hawk and I moved to Pleasant Grove, which is about a half hour away from Provo and all our friends.

I miss that group. 2005-June 2006 was the best time of my life. I have never felt so comfortable in my own skin and so loved. Now I have some fabulous friends, and Dove and I are besties again, but oh it was so amazing back then. And living with Dove was fantastic. You really don't know what you have till it's gone.

Pratt and I are still friends, but we're very distanced from each other. It's hard to hang out, too, when you're married. I took Pratt to lunch about a week after I married Hawk, and an accordion player came over and wanted to play something romantic for us. It was really awkward. Ever since then I've made a rule to never hang out alone with a member of the opposite sex.

I do love Pratt. I think of him as my big brother. He was there for me when I had no one else. He's an amazing guy and his wife is very lucky to have him. I miss him though.

Today we're going to Provo to take Brad to dinner for his birthday. Most of the original group is gone - Dove moved to California, Matt and Miriam moved to Montana, Sarah went to Virginia. Brad and Pratt are the only ones left in Utah. We'll go and it will be a fun dinner and I'm looking forward to hanging out with Brad, but a little part of me will always ache for the years where we were really close.

30 Days of Truth: Day 8

2011-01-14T20:07:00.002-07:00

Someone who has made my life hell, or treated me like poo. Hmm.

It's been a long time since I've had people like that in my life. Generally I find it easier to cut them out than let them in, you know?

In junior high I had a friend who I adored. I felt like we could be sisters, we were so close. For some reason she decided to cut me out and did not do it gracefully. I remember being utterly baffled at her actions because I hadn't done anything wrong - she didn't even give me a good reason, just said she didn't want to be friends anymore, and went around glaring at me. I had to switch lockers and was very lonely for the last 3 months of school, since she was my only real friend. I remember sobbing hysterically a lot that week. I had some great teachers that were really helpful and let me cry in their rooms during their planning period. They were sweet.

The worst thing was when I called her to find out if we could be friends again, and she said yes, and I was ecstatic. The next day I went to school and she said she changed her mind. Ouch.

I avoided this girl for most of my 8th grade year, not wanting to get in a fight or anything. In 9th grade we had an English class together and she came and sat down next to me. I was tentative about it, but we slowly became friends again and when I moved out of state at the end of the year we were both really bummed about losing each other. I ran into her again in 10th grade when I came back to visit, but she was rushing to class so I didn't get to talk to her.

So anyway, she treated me like crap but it all worked out in the end. And ironically, she's the one friend I haven't been able to track down and I've been searching hard for her. So Jamie L. Dreyer, if you're reading this, contact me! I miss you, girlfriend!

30 Days of Truth: Day 7

2011-01-13T21:56:00.002-07:00

Someone who has made my life worth living for.

Lots of people. I can think of several who I can say, in all seriousness, saved my life. Hawk, Sparrow, Owly, Dove... at various points, the only thing that stood between me and suicide are certain people in my life who love and support me.

But I'm going to depart from what I'd guess would be the normal answer for this question, and say that someone who has made my life worth living for is my biological dad.

When I was growing up and didn't know him, I always looked forward to someday meeting him and seeing who he was and hearing all about him. In 5th grade I wrote a whole journal full of letters to him about my life (sadly I lost it), sometimes the letters were happy and filled with happy stories about my life, and sometimes I was angry and I let him have it! As a teenager when I was facing down inner demons, sometimes the only thing that kept me from doing something drastic was knowing that I hadn't met him yet. Also I hadn't tried haggis yet. But now I've tried haggis so let's just move on shall we?

I was finally able to meet him in the summer of 2006. He and his wife flew me to North Carolina and I stayed at their home and got to know them and my two younger sisters (I also now have another brother.) I was terrified but I'm glad I went and I had lots of fun getting to know my roots, as it were. But things were still kind of awkward between him and me. I'm not sure why, but I think I felt intimidated? I'm not sure how to describe it.

But last year my dad visited for a weekend; he flew out to attend my younger brother's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. I freely admit I may have dad-hogged for much of the time he was visiting - but I can't say I regret it. I finally was able to open up and tell him my feelings - how sad I was as a kid, how angry I was that I didn't have him in my life, how hard it's been... you know, general angsty Kestrel type stuff. And he listened. And when he came out to visit for Thanksgiving, he made time to take me to breakfast on our first father daughter date.

Every time he visits, I get to know him a little better. And every time, I am impressed with how awesome he is and honored that he takes the time to get to know me too. It really bites that he and his family live so far away, but it's probably for the best because I'd be harassing them all the time (especially my 6 year old sister, she is such a sweetie.) But anyway, that's my story. My dad is one of the people that makes my life worth living for - for the excitement and coolness and weirdness and awesomeness of getting to know him and realizing how scary crazy alike we are. I'm glad I have my whole family in my life now.

Hey, I was on some serious drugs during this post so if it doesn't make sense.. sorry about that. Mmm, narcotic cough medicine, delicious.

30 Days of Truth: Day 6

2011-01-12T17:28:00.002-07:00

Something I hope I never have to do.

This might be a selfish thing, but I was thinking about it yesterday and more than anything else, this is what I never, ever want to do.

I don't want to outlive some people.

Hawk, my grandma, my mom, Sparrow, my friends Dove and Owly... I don't want to outlive any of them.

See, each of them means so very, very much to me, that I just don't think I would be able to handle it if one of them died. My grandma is in her 60s and she tells me a lot that I'll be in my 50s at least before she plans on dying. I don't care how old I get, I'll never be able to make it without my grandma. I talk with her at least twice a week, often more than that. I can't imagine not having her there - it is a real struggle to make it when she goes on vacations and I can't talk to her for a week, so there's no way I'm going to let her die. Probably if my grandma tries to leave without me, my heart will spontaneously stop at the same time. We're kindred spirits, and there's no way I'm getting stuck on this earth without her.

Hawk already promised he's going to outlive me so I don't worry about that too much. Dove and Owly are a bit older than me (like by 6 months but still, older), but they're also healthier than me. If I didn't have them around to harass I'd go crazy. My mom is never going to die because she's waaaaay too busy and it's just not in her schedule. Sparrow's gonna be lucky if he lives to see 3...but he will, and he's apparently indestructible so I think we're good on that front.

So there you go. Maybe it's selfish, like I said, but one of these core people in my life dying before I do, that's the scariest thing I can imagine, and I don't ever want to live without them.

30 Days of Truth: Day 5

2011-01-11T12:56:00.002-07:00

Something I hope to do in my life.

I hope to survive my toddler.

Oh what DON'T I hope to do in my life? There are so many things. I want to live in Guatemala for 3 months or more, I want to live in England for at least a year. I want to get my degree. I want to publish a novel. I want to speak fluent Spanish, German and French with a smattering of Greek maybe. I want to run an entire 5K (setting my sights low here people.) I hope to keep my house clean longer than 3 hours. I hope to visit my ancestral home of Sweden.

How about something I hope to do in the next year?

I hope to lose 50 lbs, read 50 books, and save $1000 while still paying down debt. And I hope to potty train Sparrow. That part I hope happens before the end of the month. If I can get my butt in gear and start working on it with him, argh.

30 Days of Truth: Day 4

2011-01-10T23:22:00.003-07:00

Something I have to forgive someone else for.

Hawk, for giving me this horrible cold which turned into another freaking lung infection. Hawk, I will never forget this.

I need to forgive Dove's husband, Dodo, for cruelly ripping her away and taking her to California, and I need to forgive Dove for liking California so much (though I always knew she would, darn it.)

I have been working on forgiving my parents. I think, to some extent, we all have to forgive our parents for not being what we wanted or needed at some point in our life. Yes? No? It's just a theory. I know Sparrow's going to need to forgive me, hopefully only for little things though...

You should never tell a person that they aren't smart enough to do something. Say your teenager wants to be a doctor. You don't tell them that they should go into nursing or be a lawyer because there's too much math involved in getting a medical degree. You say, "that's awesome, how can I help you achieve your goal?" Or, "good for you." Or just be quiet. If the teenager really can't handle that much math, she'll find out when she starts her pre-reqs for medical school and the decision will be her own and then she won't feel like you're telling her she's dumb every time she mentions her dream of doctorhood. Just sayin'.

Also, let's say your kid has been away for 6 months, somewhere like England or something. You shouldn't tell her the week after she gets home that she needs to move out as soon as possible because she's making her younger sister miserable.

Also, at some point every kid is going to feel like you have a favorite child and it's not them, but you can at least try to keep it from being blatantly obvious.

I get that I was a horrible kid, but sheesh. I do love my parents, and I have a great relationship with my mom now that I'm growed-up and have a horrible child of my own, but it was hard when I was a teenager. My parents are not perfect, (neither am I, not by a long shot) and that's what I am working on forgiving.

30 Days of Truth: Day 3

2011-01-09T21:54:00.002-07:00

Ah, something I have to forgive myself for.

I blame myself for a lot of things, even stuff I know REALLY isn't my fault. It's like a reflex with me. I blame myself for my mental issues, for my weird pregnancy that left me unable to have more kids, for my crappy relationships with my siblings, for our debt, for sooo much.

But the biggest thing that I need to forgive myself for is for leaving school. I graduated high school with my Associate's Degree, when I was 17. I earned that degree in a year, and at the completion I realized that now I had to decide what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was 17. I had NO idea. And I freaked the heck out. I was also struggling with severe depression and social anxiety - I was terrified to actually go to class. And because I couldn't admit to myself or anyone else that I was scared, I didn't officially drop my classes. And so, I lost the scholarship that left my college paying me $150 a semester. I took out a loan the next semester so I could attend study abroad in London, and that was the last time I was in school.

2005.

I regret every day of my life that I didn't finish college, that I didn't get my degree in SOMETHING. I could have been a college graduate before I turned 19, but I screwed up. And here I am, 24, with nothing.

And that's what I need to forgive myself for. The most. And I'll let you know if I ever really do.

30 Days of Truth: Day 2

2011-01-08T13:42:00.002-07:00

Something I love about myself:

I love my eyeballs. No really, my eyes are pretty and I am so glad that Sparrow inherited them!

I love my sense of humor. I can turn anything into a joke. I love that I can make people laugh. My favorite is making my mom laugh.

I love that I have goals and desires and that I truly want to achieve them and have plans for doing so (laziness aside of course). I like making lists and breaking my goals down into teeny tiny steps, and I think it makes my goals more achievable.

I love that I am a reading NINJA. I've read 6 books since Wednesday, most of them at 300 pages (except one.) I have plans to read another 2 books today. I love to read and I love the feeling of devouring well written words.

I love my freckles. And my eyelashes. And my eyebrows. And my hands. And my awesomeness. There, that about sums it up.

30 Days of Truth

2011-01-07T15:11:00.003-07:00

Day 1: Something you dislike about yourself.
Day 2: Something you love about yourself.
Day 3: Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 4: Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 5: Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 6: Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 7: Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 8: Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like {poo}.
Day 9: Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10: Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11: Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12: Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13: A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough days. (write a letter.)
Day 14: A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15: Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16: Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17: A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18: Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19: What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20: Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21: (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22: Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23: Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24: Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25: The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26: Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27: What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28: What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29: Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30: A letter to yourself: tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself.

Laura is making me do this. Actually she's not making me but it sounds better to say that than "I'm bored and my blog is boring so this is what I'm going to do to make it better."

So, day 1.

I dislike.... that I have NO immune system! I get sick constantly. I was a preemie and have always had crappy lungs because of it, and I always have lung infections or allergies or strep throat or other fantastic illnesses.

I dislike that I am lazy. I might be the laziest person in the world. I want to change, but I'm too lazy.

Everything else that I dislike can mostly be attributed to my laziness, so we'll stop there. Because it's a long long list, and I'm too lazy to write it all out.

If you want to follow along with 30 Days of Truth let me know so I can blog-stalk you! (You know, if I don't already!)

This might just be my favorite thing ever.

2011-01-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

What a week.

2011-01-02T18:28:00.003-07:00

How was your Christmas? Did you eat lots of delicious snacks? Did you party hardy? Did you enjoy yourself?

We had a good time. Nana gave Sparrow a Radio Flyer tricycle for Christmas and he loved it. He also loved the wooden stacking train Santa brought him. We sent an email out in November with "toy guidelines," which was awkward but I'm glad I did it. Basically we just asked our relations that if they were planning on buying Sparrow a toy (no pressure to do so at all) to please avoid toys requiring batteries and Disney/cartoon characters. Our family was very good to accommodate us (although Hawk's brother got Sparrow a huge dragon from "How To Train Your Dragon" but that's okay because we love that movie, and Sparrow loves the dragon and I may or may not secretly play with it after he goes to bed.)

Hawk's family gave us an amazing present and flew us to North Carolina for 4 days. We were able to go to Hawk's brothers wedding and spend time with the family. It was very cold, but we had a good time and enjoyed exploring where Hawk grew up (a town of 400 people near Eastern Carolina University.) We ate delicious eastern North Carolinian barbecue and fries from Bojangles (YUM!) and Hawk let me buy a shirt from Cato, a clothing store I love that has high quality clothes for cheap and of course they don't have a location in Utah.

Sparrow was an angel on the airplane which shocked all of us. He even regaled the boarding passengers with the Hallelujah Chorus which is his favorite song right now. We're starting to get sick of it.

We got home on New Year's Eve and are all tired and readjusting to normal life. I'm just proud of myself for actually cooking dinner tonight instead of making the boys fend for themselves or ordering pizza. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.

Find it, Mommy!

2010-12-26T17:56:00.002-07:00

Today we were driving around. Sparrow was in the backseat wearing his coat. Hawk and I were sitting quietly when suddenly we heard "where's my hand?"

We looked at each other, not sure what Sparrow had really said.

"Where's my hand?!"

I turned around. Sparrow was peering intently down the sleeve of his coat, where his hand had gotten stuck.

"Where's my hand?! Where is it, Mommy? Mommy, can you find it? WHERE'S MY HAND?! WHERE'S MY HAND?!?! I lost it! I LOST MY HAND."

Maybe you had to be there, but Hawk and I almost died, we were laughing so hard.

I'm related to the Real Santa Claus.

2010-12-24T07:02:00.003-07:00

Bamboo and Panda wish you a merry Catmas. They would like to inform you that each home should have a tree inside for the feline's ultimate enjoyment, and ideally it would have several ornaments for knocking down and trailing around the house. Hawk and I would like to inform you that we are thrilled that the tree and the ornaments are going away on Sunday.

Hawk and Sparrow both have "baby's first Christmas" ornaments. My mom neglected me. Or mine is hanging on her tree, one of those.

This nativity is placed far away from angry toddler hands. Don't worry, Sparrow has his own to play with. Which has lead to me saying, many times, "Don't throw the baby Jesus! Don't eat the baby Jesus!" etc.

My grandma made me this ABC's of Christmas book using Christmas cards back in 1998. She collected tons of Christmas cards and made a book for each of her seven grandchildren.

My grandma is fantastic.

And now I have a Christmas surprise for you.

Look who I caught on camera!

My grandpa? Santa Claus?! It's too good to be true! (No, Sparrow had no idea this was his great-grandpa. We told him Papa was taking a nap.)

Happy Christmas.

I need a little Christmas, right this very minute.

2010-12-14T23:40:00.004-07:00

So, Mrs. Smith brought up an excellent point in her post the other day, about the Christmas spirit. You know, that "Christmas feeling" when it just feels... magical. And it made me think about my own feelings around this time of year.

This year, I haven't felt that magic yet. And thinking back, I haven't felt Christmas magic before the 24th for at least 3 years in a row.

You know what happened 3 years ago?

We got rid of TV. We still have a TV, but only for movies/Wii. As such, I no longer get to watch all the Christmas movies/specials/episodes and COMMERCIALS.

Can it really be that all my Christmas magic feelings were because of the TV? Was it all based off the commercialism surrounding the holidays? Crap!!

I had great plans this year of doing activities, crafts, snow-filled days and hot-chocolatey nights with Sparrow. We were going to talk about Christmas stuff and read Christmas books and yay Christmas and decorate and do everything this year. But then I got hit on the head, and then I got pneumonia, and I am just now coming off of the "always feeling wiped out" part of it. And now Sparrow has a cold too. We haven't had a lot of money this year so I haven't been able to go do as many activities as I'd like, or go shopping as much as I would like (and oh would I ever like!) So what I am saying is, I am having a minor existential crisis because I feel like a Scrooge and I'm worried that it's because Christmas always meant getting stuff and I REALLY need to get my priorities straightened!

And I'm trying to figure out how I feel about Santa - good, bad, or ugly? I'm falling somewhere in the middle of the spectrum here. Sparrow gets a chocolate from his advent calendar every day ("Christmas candy!") and he talks about Santa and can recognize pictures of him, but he doesn't get the whole "Santa will bring you a present if you're good." And I'm not sure I want to do that anyway. Argh. Parenting is confusing.

On the plus side, Sparrow and I have read a few Christmas stories. He has been learning Christmas songs (favorites being "The Little Drummer Boy" and the Hallelujah chorus, and also "Rudolph the Hot Sauce Reindeer," which makes me giggle every time.) He LOVES the Christmas tree being up, and even though our darn cats keep trying to scale the thing/bring us ornaments off it, I do have to admit I like having it up too. It's pretty.

Oh, and I'm a little upset because since I've been sick I haven't been able to sing in a couple of Christmas choirs I was looking forward to, and I was going to sing a duet with my mom at her church a few weeks ago but couldn't do it. Christmas music is something I look forward to starting in September, but I make myself wait till after Thanksgiving to sing/play/listen, so I'm bummed I haven't sung as much as I'd like. And my voice is only just starting to come back, darnit.

I don't know. I just feel like, Christmas is in 10 days, and I want this to be a special time for my family, but I don't know what to do to make it special and I don't want to spend millions of dollars but I do but I can't and I really hope it snows soon because right now it looks like February and that's just depressing.

And let me just be honest - part of me is just so done with 2010. Not a bad year all things considered, but I am really excited for 2011.

Sparrow and a snowstorm

2010-12-08T21:03:00.003-07:00

I'm feeling mostly better but I still have a nasty cough, frequent headaches and I get wiped out ridiculously easy. Still, thank goodness I got sick/concussed at the beginning of the month instead of over Christmas! (knock on wood.)

Look at these eyelashes and tell me they aren't ridiculous. What, I ask you, does a two year old boy need with eyelashes this long? It is obscene.

Here he is with our intrepid cat. Yes, both of our felines like to play in the bath. They also beg for us to turn the faucet on so they can have running water to drink.

Here is Sparrow, hiding in the car under his very favorite blanket. This blanket was placed on his incubator when he was in the NICU and we got to bring it home with us. Thank you, Project Linus! As a side note, if you ever find fleece fabric with this pattern, buy it and I'll pay you for it.

The rest of the pictures are blurry, but that's because I was taking them while hanging out of a window on the freeway. We were only going 30 mph, because it was so slick and scary. It snowed for about 18 hours straight and we had 2.5 feet of snow when it finally stopped. These were all taken on November 28th.

Later, we heard that there were over 300 accidents that night. We were lucky not to be among them. If it hadn't been our last chance to see my dad and his family for a long time, we wouldn't have ventured out of our house!

This is the road leading up to our house. I was worried we weren't going to make it, but our relatively new tires did a good job.

Four Years

2010-12-06T16:24:00.002-07:00

Four years ago, almost to the minute, I became a Mrs.

Oh marriage. It hasn't been easy, and it hasn't always been fun, but I'm always glad to have Hawk by my side. He takes such great care of me and Sparrow.

I'll love you dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet
The the river jumps over the mountain,
and the salmon sing in the street.

I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung out to dry... --W.H. Auden

When it rains it pours!

2010-12-03T15:53:00.001-07:00

And now I have pneumonia.

It makes me laugh, but when I laugh, I cough, and when I cough it makes my head hurt. Dang it.

Not off to a good December

2010-12-01T19:20:00.003-07:00

On Monday, I shoveled a ton of snow off our driveway. We have a 2 car driveway and got 2 feet of snow, so you do the math. I was proud of myself for getting a work out in. It only took an hour.

Yesterday my lungs hurt, but I figured they were just sore from the cold air. I've been really tired but I thought it was because we were so busy last week.

last night was Hawk's holiday work party. They had it at this place that you can rent out, and it has different rooms of varying sizes. On the 3rd floor is an ice rink. Just for the novelty of it, we decided to try skating. I was doing really well, recalling my ice skating class in college. I did some sweet moves and even went backwards. The third time I went backwards...

SPLAT.

I landed on my head, elbow, butt. In that order. I lay there on the ice for a moment, and then two guys came and helped me up. I couldn't help it - I cried. Somebody from the other room came in and asked if I was okay - "I heard your head hit the ice from the other room." Everybody saw and heard me fall. My head didn't bleed, but it HURT and I saw spots and was dizzy.

I didn't sleep well last night. This morning I woke up with no voice, a sore throat and a nasty cough. Hawk came home at noon and my head was hurting so bad and I was feeling nauseous, so we went to the doctor, who told us to go to the ER. I spent 3 hours in the ER, mostly resting in a darkened quiet room (Hawk and Sparrow stayed in the waiting room, so I had naptime!) They did a CT scan of my brain, but there's no bleeding or anything so they sent me home with a diagnosis of a grade II concussion and a prescription for a painkiller.

I'm tired and I don't feel good. Pout.

And at the 2011 holiday party everyone is going to remember me as the girl who wiped out on the ice. Whine!

Free $25!

2010-11-29T22:39:00.003-07:00

Hey, want a free $25 gift card to Amazon.com?

Go here and sign up. It takes less than 20 seconds. And $25 free bucks? So worth it.

Woot.

2010-11-28T03:00:00.002-07:00

nano_10_winner_240x120-7
Originally uploaded by furious.intensity

I have written a "novel." I fought for every single word ten times over. It was a battle every single step of the way. I am not kidding, I thought I was going to die rather than finish this sucker. But I have 50,096 words, and I am done baby. I hate my novel and it's crap, but it's done.

I'm going to go sleep for 6 months and then start the editing process.

Booyah.

Not relaxing!

2010-11-24T12:51:00.002-07:00

I thought Thanksgiving was supposed to be kind of calm and easy. No running around like a headless chicken. Ha ha, silly me.

Firstly, I have to deep clean my entire house. Like, by the end of the day. I also have to sell several pieces of furniture that are cluttering up my life. Before the end of the day.

I am leaving in a few minutes to go pick up my grandma from Ogden and take her to my mom's house. That will take a big chunk of time out of the day, but it's worth it because I love my grandma.

I also want to go see my paternal side of the family; they are staying in Ogden but I don't think I will get to see them until tomorrow.

I have to write 5000 words to get caught up on NaNoWriMo. I also need to figure out how to unlock my iPhone and get it done or else list it on eBay. I need to lose approximately 5000 lbs before tomorrow as well.

I need to read 18 library books and return them.

Mostly I just need to get the house clean, but my motivation is ... nonexistent. Hence, I blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Letter to Natural Health Magazine

2010-11-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Natural Health Magazine,

I would love to renew my subscription to your magazine. I enjoy reading your articles and find the information you present relevant to my daily life and informative as well as engaging.

However, for the last few issues there has been a full-page advertisement in your magazine that is pornographic and inappropriate.

At first, I thought it was a one-time thing, and that surely you wouldn't reprint that ad or any like it again. I was highly disappointed to find that I was wrong.

Natural Health is a magazine I used to keep on my coffee table to flip through. I can no longer do that for fear my young son will try to look at the pictures and come across this disgusting page.

I used to pass my copy of the magazine along to several friends and relative, including my own grandmother. After the inclusion of this lewd advertisement, I have felt unable to do so. And while I had considered buying magazine subscriptions for several friends as Christmas gifts, the continued presence of pornography in your magazine has turned me OFF.

If in the future you decide to keep your advertisements G or even PG rated, then I would be happy to re-subscribe to Natural Health. Until then, it is with regret and a little anger that I will not be renewing my subscription.

Jerkfaces.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows review

2010-11-18T23:47:00.002-07:00

(Part 1 obviously)

So, Hawk's work sent us to see Harry Potter tonight. I haven't even been out of the theater for half an hour yet, that's how much I love you Internet peeps and how much I wish to tell you of this movie.

First off, I was highly concerned after hearing rumors of a nude scene. These rumors scared me but as it turns out, it wasn't too bad. No full-on nudity is present, however! There are 2 parts where we see naked-but-for-underpants Harry, including a scene where Harry is wearing a bra (not kidding.) There is also a scene with Harry and Hermione getting "passionate" and neither of them are clothed. That part was totally unnecessary and made me irritated, but it lasts for about 15 seconds.

Now that that's over with. Let me just say one thing:

THIS IS NOT A HAPPY MOVIE.

This is a VERY depressing film. The book is too, but at least at the end of the book there's closure and everyone goes on their merry way. Here it's, "see you 6 months kids!" By the way, this is not a movie I would take a child to. Maybe if your child has read the books and is a mature 10 year old. Maybe. But there's the aforementioned passionate scene, and there's also very scary and intense images throughout the film. Hawk is terrified of snakes and had a very hard time handling the numerous snake-jumping-out-at-you scenes. There was also a scene with spiders. Ew.

I was impressed with all of the actors and I think everyone did an amazing job. I do wish I had read the book before going to see the film, as I haven't read it since the night it came out and did a skim job then. I will be reading it before part two is released for certain.

I don't remember the Snatchers from the book at all, and I really hated the scenes with them. It's like they tried to make the main Snatcher a Captain Jack Sparrow rip-off, and it was lame. I rolled my eyes many, many times. Oh well.

It's hard to say if I liked it or not. I think it was well done (though seriously, I could have done without seeing Daniel Radcliffe's "harry" chest ha ha I made a funny), and I'm not sorry I saw it. It was just really... dark. I would go see it again, certainly, but I would wait until the hype dies down because yikes the theater was scary packed tonight.

David Yates is by far my favorite Potter director. Three cheers for him. I am looking forward to Part II in July!

Disclaimer: I was not paid to write this review, I did it out of the goodness of my heart. I'm also not awesome at writing reviews so take this with a grain of salt. I mostly just wanted to clear up the nude scene confusion. I haven't read the book in depth so I'm not qualified to say how well it matches up with that. And while I enjoy the other characters, the main trio is what I am most interested in, so the fact that everyone else gets very little screen time didn't matter much to me.

2010-11-14T15:14:00.003-07:00

I wish I had something intelligent today, but alas, I don't. I'm channeling all creative forces into my NaNoWriMo novel, where I am 5,000 words behind schedule. Bah!

Without further ado, the grand prize winner of The Price of Freedom CD is Lara! Good thing you visited my blog, Lara :) Email me your info and I'll send you your bounty. (booty? bounty? treasure stuff.)

Sometime in the next week or so I'm doing another giveaway with more prizes, so keep checking in!

The Price of Freedom + giveaway!

2010-11-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to go see a stage musical called "The Price of Freedom" with my grandpa and grandma. It was amazing. It wasn't a musical like you'd normally think of one, but there was an orchestra on the stage, and then 7 singers that portrayed real life people from World War II. There was a newlywed wife and her husband who fought in Germany, and while he was gone the wife gave birth to his son. There was a mom and her two soldier sons, and then a soldier who asked his girlfriend to wait for him. They sang parts and read excerpts from real letters. There was also two movie-like screens where images from the war and pictures of soldiers were displayed in tandem with the music. Believe me when I say, it was incredible.

But the best part, for me, was the time I was able to spend with my grandpa. He served in the Air Force and flew helicopters to rescue stranded soldiers. I haven't known him for very long, just four years (I'm adopted), so when he tells me stories about his past I hang on every word. During the intermission, he told me that he related very well to the soldier whose son was born while he was at war. Grandpa was flying a helicopter in Vietnam when someone got on the radio-thing and told him that he had a brand new baby daughter and Mommy and daughter were healthy and fine. He said it got hard to fly, because he was crying so much.

Yeah, my favorite part of the night was definitely when the veterans in the audience were asked to stand - once at the beginning, just so everyone could see how many were in the audience, and then at the end, when a special song was played just for them. My grandpa stood tall and proud. I admire him greatly and I am so glad that I have the chance to get to know him. I know Sparrow loves his Papa Dan and will someday love to sit at grandpa's knee and hear his stories.

In honor of my grandpa and Veteran's Day, I am giving away one CD of "The Price of Freedom." This has all the orchestra music and singing, but not the speaking parts. It's still amazing though, and I have to skip two of the songs if I am in the car because they make me cry. So in order to win this giveway, just leave a comment. I'm not doing extra entries because A) I'm lazy and B) they bug me. But you can spread the word if you want. I'll pick a winner on Saturday at 8:00 pm Mountain time.

I hope to instill in my son a sense of gratitude and admiration for those who have served our country. I am grateful for our soldiers who put their lives on the line to keep us free and safe. God bless America!

Birthday wishes!

2010-11-10T12:54:00.002-07:00

Happy birthday to my littlest brother J who turned 4 on Monday. I can't believe he is getting so old! That makes ME old! J, I hope you are working hard at driving your daddy crazy. But be nice to your mom!

And happy birthday to my littlest sister E who will turn 6 tomorrow. Holy cannoli! E, you are so smart! You are a fantastic little girl and I am so happy you are my sister.

Sparrow, Hawk and I are all very excited to see you soon!

For the rest of you who aren't cool enough to have birthdays this month (we Scorpios can kick your pants!), check back here tomorrow for a special Veteran's Day giveaway!