The Purpose of Valentine's Day

As far as I can tell from looking at Facebook, the purpose of Valentine's Day is to brag online about the cool things your husband/significant other did for you on the big day. Now, don't construe from this that I'm a hater. I know some people really dislike Valentine's Day, representing it as a contrived, artificial holiday to celebrate something as deep and undefinable as love, but I am not one of these people. I actually think Valentine's Day is a great excuse/reminder to do something nice for your significant other. In fact, this year it was an excuse for Austin to book us a trip to Maui for the weekend.

I basically spent the whole time in a swimsuit or a bathrobe: relaxing, swimming, snorkeling, whale and dolphin watching, beach-walking, and having nice dinners with my husband. (Yes, I even wore my swimsuit to one of those. For a pregnant, sunburned woman, less clothes = bliss.)

 

Happy Valentine's Day 2013!

 

One up, Facebook posters.

Walking Marshmallows

Something about little kids in snow gear is just so darn cute. Something about the ratio of width of snow gear to height of child plus hat with ears equals the golden mean of cuteness.

So stinkin' cute.

Okay, enough cuteness. Get to work.

Dad needs some help.

Sammy? Sammy?

Driving Mr. Daisy

Today I read this in the BYU student newspaper police beat:

Oct. 7 Officers responded to a possible fight at the ITB. A couple was arguing about who would drive the car home. The woman was upset because her husband wanted her to drive. No crime was committed.

I had to laugh. What sort of man argues with wife over who's going to drive home? What sort of man would willingly abdicate the seat of power that men throughout the ages have claimed as their macho right? What sort of man would commit this heinous crime against manliness? I will tell you what sort of man would do this: my husband.

This newspaper blurb reminded me about a short period of time after we got married. Although early in our relationship Austin always drove because, hey, it was his car, soon after we got married we went through this phase where he would want me to drive him around while he lounged about in the passenger seat. He didn't care what people might think about his masculinity; he figured that the joy of being chauffeured about was worth it. For a while it was like we were in an ongoing episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" with me featured as a lowly chauffeur who was constantly annoying her employee. Austin's lounginess was generally negated by the tensity brought on by watching my bad driving, so this idyllic period soon ended, I was fired, and I gratefully renewed my claim on the shotgun seat.

Last week Austin decided he would give his convenient chauffeur another chance. It didn't go too well. He's mellowed out with his passenger-seat driving tendencies, but I've grown more assertive in the seat of power, so the upshot of all this was that he ended up getting chauffeured to a pumpkin patch, which was not the ordered destination. I got my passenger seat back, (hurray!) but didn't foresee my quick demotion to pumpkin rearranger after the pumpkins started rolling around in the trunk. (darn.) However, I jumped out on the side of the road and bravely began hauling the dirt-encrusted pumpkins, thankful that Austin had picked the earthworms off before we put them in the car. I didn't even mind too much that my black shirt had now taken on a browner, dustier hue. At least I had my seat back.

You know, I think something about getting older makes you care less about appearances than you used to. Today I was out driving and saw an old guy shoot across the street right in front of me wearing roller skates and sporting ski poles. And just so he wouldn't be overlooked, he was also sporting a fluorescent yellow vest.

And speaking of overlooked, I just read an interesting article about some new technology that researchers are using to look through walls. Just thought I'd throw that in.

The Edge of the World

My blog is not really a travel blog or a mom blog or a cute blog. I'm not really sure what category my blogging falls under, actually. It's kind of a potluck blog. On the menu today: road trip!

Cici drives us to the edge of the world.

We look around...

We play in the dirt...

We look around some more...

And rest up on the way home...

So we can party!!!

The Joys of Planning Ahead

Well, I escaped the winter storms and am having a marvellous vacation with the family. (We'll pass over the little episode from this morning where I got locked in the playground with Sammy and Cici.)

When we went on family car trips when I was growing up, we would end up in some random town late at night, tired and grouchy from travelling, and we would stop at every hotel that looked promising so Dad could go in and ask how much it was. It always seemed to take fooooooreeeeeever. We kids of course, were rooting to stay in the most expensive hotel available, with its accompanying host of amenities, while my parents simply wanted to stay financially solvent with their 10 kids. We children would wait with bated breath to find out our fate for the night: Would we get one room or two? A pool, or no pool? A nice continental breakfast, or one with Tang and chocolate chip cookies from Albertsons? (And yes, I've stayed at places with those options.)

I know the Internet has probably (hopefully?) changed the way my parents find hotel rooms, but ever since I've been married, I've discovered the joys of planning ahead. I love that my husband makes plans and reservations and that we leave at a predetermined time and have a predetermined destination. Are we free-spirited travellers that embrace the road wherever it may take us? No. Do we embrace the place that we have told our GPS to take us, especially if it happens to be a fun resort hotel with 90 degree weather in October? Most definitely.

More Randomness, Please.

Birthday Fallout: So I went to the birthday party with Sammy. I think she had fun, which is the important thing, but now I am dealing with the fallout, which mostly involves policing a toy lightsaber and Austin wanting to join the foreign service so he can get a cool diplomatic passport. Say what?
 

GRE Joy:  I will neither go into that long story nor the story of why I just got done taking the GRE. If nothing else, it was a self-actualizing experience.  But I think I aced it. At least the verbal and writing sections. The math section bubble-marking went something like this:  A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D, etc. Good thing schools don't care about how good English grad students are at math. Anyway, if anyone wants tips for the writing section I came up with a pretty decent formula for success there. Also, I recommend having a Nana visit you and watch your kids so you can study.

Marshmallow Bed: Maybe due to the stress of test-taking, but our old bed was really bothering me. We bought a new bed that is super comfortable, but didn't realize how big it was going to look in our room. Not only is it a king, but it's like 4 feet high. I have to get a running start to get in bed at night.

Secret General Conference Fort: Where is the blanket from the bed, you might ask? Well it is being used for greater purposes. Many thanks to Kellie for the inspiration.

Super Cici: And somewhere in there, Cici has started walking! I know, this is a picture of her new hobby of playing in our shower, but much to my chagrin, I haven't actually got any photographic or video evidence of this new development.

That's all. Happy weekend!

In Other News...

I watched the news for the first time in a while last night. Now lest you get the impression that I have become some sort of hermit in my mountain aerie*, I do keep up with what's going on, but just by checking the online news every once in a while throughout the day. But yesterday my hubby flew into New Jersey, which has definitely been affected by Hurricane Irene, and after switching hotels because his was left without power, he was wowed by the footage of the damage on the nightly news and told me to watch.

I recorded three different news channels, but ended up watching Brian Williams, because he reminds me of my dad a little bit. He covered the hurricane damage at length and went on to talk about the Lockerbie bomber and what's going on in Tripoli. I was thinking that maybe I should start recording the news every night, because I was feeling smart and knowledgable, when he started covering the news that Beyonce was pregnant. !!! He seemed kind of embarassed that after all this important, world-changing news he had to cover the celebrity gossip as well, but played it off well by calling it a "life-affirming event amidst all the horrible things going on" or something to that effect.

I decided that maybe I wouldn't start recording the nightly news, because to tell the truth, the pregnancy of Beyonce probably will have the same effect on my life as the destruction of Tripoli, i.e. none. And you know what that means? That I care as much about pregnant Beyonce dancing around as tortured men in the hospital in Libya. And admitting that to myself made me feel lame, not smart and knowledgable.


*this word reminds me of the incident in church a couple Sundays ago when one of the Primary children's leaders was wandering around with her Aerie bag proudly displayed....don't judge, Noni, don't judge...
.

Curfew Will Not Ring Tonight!

I took a quiz once that was supposed to tell me whether I was a morning lark or a night owl. I really like taking quizzes, but the results were disappointing. Apparently I am part of a small category of people that are both. I really like staying up late at night. However, I'm really productive in the mornings. (Well, I used to be. My plans for getting up early and accomplishing things fizzle out when my children wake up earlier than 6.) So after the quiz I was no closer to understanding myself and how I work. Very disappointing.

Anyway, on Friday I stayed up late taking care of my children that just would not go to sleep, then I stayed up super late watching Hulu in the bathtub while eating chocolate. Can you tell my husband was gone? (Week 1 of a three week absence. Killer.) Not that I was missing him. In fact, I was pretty mad at him. He wouldn't return my calls and hadn't called me all day. While I was waiting by my phone and wrangling kids, Austin was probably out doing some wild partying with his fellow employees. (Or going out to get cupcakes with them like he did on Wednesday. These finance guys aren't exactly known for their wild partying.) In between my kid wrangling and chocolate eating, I decided that I didn't have to stand for this any more. I shot off an email to Austin about how it worries me when he doesn't call, it's not acceptable, and he should not even try to give me any excuses for his thoughtlessness.

Imagine my surprise when shortly after I went to bed at midnight, I heard a knock at the door. I jumped out of bed and was about to open the door when I thought I had better ask who it was. "Who is it?"

"Me," came a very tired voice. Yes, dear reader, it was my husband, who after hours of flying and one very delayed flight had shown up on our doorstep to surprise me. Note to self: The schedule of an owl and the brain of a lark is a dangerous combination. Perhaps I should have slept on that email.

Cops and Ant Exorcism

See this? This is my front door. Austin and I were out in our garage Saturday when our neighbor came over and told us that our front door had been open from Wednesday--Thursday. "Then I called the cops," she said, "Just to make sure no one had broken in or anything. The policeman went in and said no one was home, so he just closed the door." She sounded vaguely disappointed that our family hadn't been found lying murdered in a pool of blood. I explained to her that I had probably forgotten to lock it when we left and the wind must have blown it open.

Austin and I went inside, commenting to each other on how it was kind of freaky that our door was open that long, what a nice neighborhood we live in, etc. "Boy," I said. "I'm glad my house was clean!" Austin looked confused. "You know, for when the cops came over." Austin still looked confused. Perhaps he was wondering why I wasn't glad that our stuff hadn't been stolen or maybe just wondering if our house really had been clean because we had only been home for six hours and it was trashed.

In any case, when the cops come over to your house, you want it to be clean, and my house was clean, baby. It's kind of like if you break your leg and have to go to the hospital you want to have just showered and put clean underwear on. What are the odds? So I was pretty happy about that. I did wonder what the cops (one cop?) thought about the cinammon and corn starch sprinkled around my door and baseboards to repel invading ants. I've moved on to vacuuming them up now. I just felt kind of silly as I threw spices at the wall, like I should be chanting under my breath or yelling "Out, Damned Ants!" If I can vacuum them up faster than they can procreate I think we're good.

"Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle"

When I'm not busy reading thrilling news stories about Kate Middleton's face on a jellybean, I like to pick up a Georgette Heyer novel. She writes smart, clean romances a la Jane Austin, set in the Regency Period. Yesterday Austin sent Sammy to get him some reading material for the bathroom, and she came back with "Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle." He started to read it, because really he had no other choice, and ended up "caught in a book." This is a phrase I use to describe what happens when you start reading a book and can't stop. You neglect your duties and ignore your significant others and stay up way too late to finish it. Austin stayed up until 3:30 when he most likely remembered that our children wake up at 6 a.m. and he was scheduled to leave for St. George in four hours. Poor guy. I know he wanted to finish the book last night--he'll probably be trying to read and drive at the same time.

I usually find Georgette Heyer books at thrift stores since many are old and out of print, but recently Harlequin has picked them up and started republishing them. I am grateful more people are starting to appreciate them--but let's be honest, the name Harlequin does give them a lurid air. Librarians have started moving them from the fiction section to the romance section in the library, which is kind of an embarassing section to be getting books from. Also, Harlequin has best-selling authors write forewords for Heyer's books, which consist of a recap of the whole book. Way to ruin the story! Don't read the forewords if you find newer editions of her books.

"The Grand Sophy" is still my favorite of her novels, but "Sylvester" is quite the hilarious read as well. If you get tired of reading about famous people's faces being found in weird places, brave the romance section and take a chance on Georgette Heyer.

To Pee, or Not to Pee

Yesterday evening we went on a field trip to the library the next city over to pick up some travel books. All was going well until we got to the self check out machines, when I looked down and observed two small puddles forming around Sammy's shoes. I stood there in shock (My child? Have an accident? I didn't know such a thing could happen!) and Austin quickly commandeered the situation. "Quick, run to the bathroom!" I remember wondering why exactly we were supposed to do that, since Sammy had obviously just done her business on the library carpet, but in a crisis, you just follow the first voice of authority you hear. So we ran.

The bathroom was mercifully empty--but unfortunately environmentally friendly. No paper towels! Curse you, eco-friendly library! We walked out to find Austin gone, having checked out our books and fled to the safety of the car. His devious ploy to distance himself from us became suddenly clear. "Those puddles, Miss Librarian? No, I have no idea how they got there." I glanced at the puddles, then at the door. I could do the responsible, adult thing and tell the librarians that there were now two puddles of pee on their carpet, and could they please clean it up for me, since I didn't have any paper towels thanks to their accursedly liberal environmentally-conscious paper towel policy. Or we could run.

The wind felt good in our hair as we fled to freedom. "Faster, Sammy, faster!"