In which I say something really funny and get you to read this post

My husband told me to "say something funny and get you to read this post." I did. I'm so compliant.

SO!

My Man is doing his MBA and is currently preparing for his Marketing final. He is researching diapers. Yup. Diapers. And he needs experts!

(This is where you come in.)

So -

what brand do you buy? why?
what brand DON'T you buy? why?
where do you buy diapers?
do you care what they look like? (cartoon characters, denim look, etc.)
do you buy in bulk?

Please respond! And quickly! His final is this weekend. ;o)

My flock

 My Man grew up on a sheep farm in central Utah.

Did you know that?

Every time we go to my in-laws, I fall in love with him again. I like seeing him in his natural environment. He may act like a big-whig city guy in the business world, but he's quite comfortable moving sprinkler pipes and hauling hay in coveralls.

I want my kids to be comfortable, too. 

Pretty much every time we visit, I want to move there.

My Man doesn't understand why farm life seems so idyllic to me.

I know what it's like - the long hours, the pay, the every-single-day-no-benefits-no-vacation-up-to-your-knees-in-dung part.  I've even helped mark sheep. (Of course, I interpret "help" in the loosest manner possible ....)

I really don't know how to explain it. It's the back to basic-ness of it. The simplicity. The connectedness. The grass-roots-spirituality. The living by the sweat of your brow. A farm is the best way to learn about the world and compassion and responsibility and gratitude and work and life - and death. (My kids were appalled one night when they were told the "mutton" they ate for dinner used to live in the backyard.)

I know the chances of us packing up and shipping out to Sanpete are slim to nil. Still - I know that farm life made My Man the person he is.

And I want very much for my kids to follow in his footsteps.

Letters to My Man

Dear Hun,

My eyeballs feel like they have cotton in them, and I've erased and re-written this sentence way too many times cuz I keep misspelling the words. (Why does misspelling have so many letters? Thoroughly unfair. English is rigged.)

My head feels fuzzy.

My leg hurts.

My neck doesn't seem to be able to hold up my head.

I could cuddle down in this couch and not move til tomorrow.

Basically, I'm about ten degrees past exhausted.

But I somehow lose all sense of rationality and reason when I'm not with you, so I think I'll go eat some marshmallows and cruise yahoo news for a while before I go to bed. Once I get there, I'll read until the drool makes it too hard to turn the pages.

Also, you're right. Personal emails are way better than public ones. Go check your inbox. You're welcome.

I love you.

Me

Letters to My Man

Dear Hun,

So we made it. Two days in the car with four kids and I didn't even kill anyone. Our children were so good. There was a slight altercation about the sharing of paper yesterday, and the NBC did scream for nineteen minutes and I thought I was going to die, and then of course the last two hours I wish I had a roll of duct tape handy, but besides that they were angels.

My nails are chewed down to the nubs.

Also, the portable DVD players are apparently broken. Can I buy new ones this week?  Say yes. Thankyewverrymuch.

Yesterday we went to Sizzler. I feel like it's kind of white trash to like Sizzler, but I love it. The steak was delicious. Although next time I'm passing on the chocolate lava cake. I could totally tell it came from a box.

I met our new nephew today. He's so freakin' cute. Big cheeks. Dimples. Smells like sweet new milk. Can I be baby hungry if I already have a baby?

I have a zit coming up on my chin. It hurts.

So it's a whole different experience traveling with my mom and sister. It's not the same as having you. I realize now that we have living down to a science. We're partners. Companions. We know what we need and what our children need. We've practiced it and lived it and developed it together. To go through the routine with Grandma and Aunt instead of Husband is like trying to use someone else's right arm to get everything done.

I miss you.

I've decided you're right about the whole "getting me a cell phone" thing. Especially the part about me not losing it. It's highly inconvenient to not have one. I think I would have talked to you for at least four hours today if I could have.

Don't stay up too late. (Even though I am.) Eat healthy. (Even though I'm not.) Sleep in. (No high school carpool this week!)

I love you.

Me

P.S. So sorry, but I forgot to return the Diego video to the library. Do you mind doing that for me? Say yes and thankyewverrymuch.

P.S. Love

Best Saturday night ever

Dancing in the kitchen
while
Doing the dishes
then
Running to the grocery store for milk
at 10:00 at night
and
Doing a good deed for a friend walking home in the rain

I love my husband
and

I love that my mom is home to stay with sleeping kids

Surviving Summer - Week 3

This week was
Father's Week

Because one day simply isn't enough to celebrate My Man.

Seriously.

We made "Come Home Dad" blocks for his desk at work. Work is thoroughly overrated, is it not? I would totally be a hermit if it meant My Man could just be with us all the time. Who needs electricity and clothes and food and? ....

I wanted to decorate the blocks with pictures of the kids and stickers and little sayings, but I was told that would look "weird." Okay then.

We also visited My Man at work. Where they ate popcorn and candy and stared at the fish and played with the toys.

Work is AWESOME.

(And Little Prince is in the I-hate-having-my-picture-taken-stage.)

Racing back to the car is FUN.

Dad won.

Speaking of cars, we washed his. Anything involving nakedness is approved by the That Girl Boys.

For Father's Day lunch we had BBQ pork pizzas. Pulled pork. Barbecue sauce. Cheese. Cilantro. Delish.

Dinner was summer stuff - burgers, ribs, corn on the cob, chips, watermelon, pop.

That-Girl's-Last-Name Dessert for afters. Cuz nobody knows the original name.

It is pure fluffy sweetness. REALLY sweetness.

Recipe:

The top and bottom "crusts" are just chocolate cookie crumbs. There's a certain kind of cookie that is preferred, but I can only find them in Utah. In Arizona, I use Oreos.

Tough luck.

For the filling, bring 2 cups of milk to a boil, and stir in one bag of marshmallows. Take off the heat, cover, and cool for a few hours, stirring occasionally. (You want all the marshmallows to melt - no lumps!)

Once thoroughly melted and cool, whip up a pint of cream with a 1/4 cup of sugar, and mix it in the marshmallow/milk stuff. Pour it in between the cookie crumb layers, and refrigerate overnight.

Fluffy. Sweet. My Man laps this stuff up.

So this year I did a "Five Love Languages" theme for Father's Day.

Service - washed the car and did the dinner dishes as often as he would let me
Words of Affirmation - love letters and "I Love Daddy" books from the kids
Presents - the blocks and General Conference on CD
Touch - a book to teach me how to massage (he might have to read it, too...)
Quality Time - we're going jet-skiing this week!

Yeah. I love My Man.

More than any language known or un.

Ten cups

On My Man's side of the bathroom sink.

Dude.

On sparkly butts and flowers

Arizona totally has a THANG goin' on. Everyone I see is:

A) blonde
2) skinny
and
T) wearing rhinestone jeans and flowered headbands.













I noticed this trend the very first week we moved here. I turned to My Man with wide eyes and whispered, "everyone's butts are sparkling. Don't look." I haven't worn rhinestones since ... okay, I've never worn rhinestones. And I vowed then and there to never do so. Not to mention the fact that I think I would just feel silly with an overlarge flower in my hair. I'm still getting used to wearing earrings. Plus then I would feel like I have to DO something to my hair besides my usual blow-dried straight, ponytailed, or barrette-ed dos.

Somehow I got this vindictive pleasure in being uncool. Because if you CHOOSE to not follow a trend, you're setting a trend of your very own. You are announcing to the world that you are actually cooler than the cool people, because, in fact, you do not care. It's like the anti-Twilight-clubbers who've never read the book. Or people who don't wear makeup. Or watch TV. Or eat healthy. I sense a sort of righteous pride in them for not stooping to something like mass public appeal.

So the other day I found solace with another non-reflective backside. I met a friend at the park and we conformed over our non-conformity. We postulated about whether the rhinestones wear down car seats, or give an extra boost to the laundry machine. We laughed about bees hovering over headbands or getting makeup on a petal.

We were mean.

I got home and shared the source of our giggles with My Man, expecting laughter as well. And I got

"I always thought those headbands were pretty."

I am now searching Etsy. I'm thinking this one?

In which I am overwhelmingly happy

My Man and I have now been married eight years.

(Dang.)

If you don't know already, I'm the biggest romantic sap of all time. But not on the blog. Somehow our relationship seems too ... sacred to share here.

Let's just say that he's the very best part of me. I marvel.

My marvelous sister-in-law stayed with the kids (six in total - under six) while we partied in Tempe. We began the night vowing to not follow our diet. We kept our vow.

And then I died when I ate this:

P.F. Chang's Mahi-Mahi with lemongrass sauce and cilantro rice. Ohmyheavens my tastebuds did the polka all night. (I don't know why it was the polka. I have no control over those darn tastebuds.)

This was in my fortune cookie - which one of you is inviting me to dinner?


After dinner we walked around Tempe Town lake and attempted to rent paddleboats before we admitted to ourselves that we had no idea where you rent paddleboats. We settled for hiking the "A" mountain. I might have huffed just a little.

We promised ourselves we WOULD NOT LEAVE til we took a picture we both liked.

We broke our promise.

Sigh. Another 24 pounds to go.


I wore my new necklace, and once again pondered why I never wear necklaces. This needs to change. My sister-in-law says that I'm an "Air." I'm not sure what it means, but I hope it involves pretty jewelery.

Then we sat up on the mountain, discussing our hopes and dreams and planning our lives together.


Life tastes good. Polka-ing tastebuds are only the beginning.

No husbands were harmed in the making of this post

Don't you think it would be incredibly convenient if our spouses read our minds? It would save so much trouble and pretense.

Wife: "Hi, hun, how was your day?" I had an awful one, and I'm dying to vent to you.
Husband: "Just great." Can you wait five minutes? I gotta pee.
Wife: "Good to hear." Be fast. Then offer to make dinner, please, or I will die.

Of course, sheer honesty would eliminate the need for this, but then there's the whole issue of 'A Gift I Ask For is No Gift at All.'

Sometimes I don't want to ASK My Man to do the dishes. I want him to just KNOW.

If he does it without my actually asking him, he's doing it because he wants to - not because I asked him. And that creates all kinds of warm, lovey-dovey feelings. But if I have to verbalize my indubitable desires, it creates all kinds of feelings of guilt and bad-wife-ship and nag-meister-ness and general laziness. It's like Tuesday night.

That Girl: "Hun, how much homework do you have?"
My Man: "Not too bad. Why?"
TG: I could really - REALLY - go for some Coldstone right now. Pretty please? (internally feeling soooo bad for asking him....)
MM: No problem, love of my life. Let me just finish this real quick.
(We end up talking for an hour and suddenly it's a quarter to ten and Coldstone is about to close.)
MM: Shoot! I better get going.
TG: Oh, no, hun, it's so late and I'm a bad person from keeping you from your homework this long. Please, please, please still get it. I want it. Bad. Please.
MM: Don't be silly. What kind do you want.
TG: I'm not telling. Don't go. It's too late. Do your homework. I'm serious. I changed my mind anyway. Don't go. Of course I still want it. Please go. Cheesecake with raspberries and brownies.
MM: *kiss* I'll be back.

Lucky for me when it comes to Coldstone runs, he's very good at reading my mind.

But this is not always so. I wonder if many marital problems are due to the simple fact that we are not psychic.

Think about it. Any romantic novel I have ever read (which, I grant you, isn't that many) includes a couple that love each other so much and know each other so well that there is really no point in conversing at all. The heroine saw that look in his eye and KNEW. The hero glanced at the way she held her shoulders and he KNEW.

Bull.

I once tested My Poor Man. It was a good two years ago. We were cleaning up dinner, and he used a rag to wipe up some spilled somethingorother. Then he chucked it toward the kitchen island, missed, and it ended up on the floor. I teased him about getting it later, and he responded in kind.

The rag stayed there for three weeks.

I swept around it in the ensuing days. I seethed every time I looked at it. Merely walking into the kitchen mad me madder than Mr. Squishy getting his diaper changed.

Shouldn't My Man just KNOW that HE was supposed to pick it up?!

After three weeks, I came to the realization that he was indeed NOT trying to drive me crazy. Quite honestly, he had completely forgotten about it. And he really didn't know that he was utterly failing in a job description he did not apply for.

I threw the rag away. And then laughed myself silly.

Whenever we test our companions, we only set them up for failure, and ourselves for anger. Every time.

(...Have you ever done it?)

The temperature today started with a "5"

And ended with a 9. Here in the Valley of the Sun, we call that cold.

I like cold.

I unearthed my brown pea coat that sat woefully at the bottom of the Winter Box. (And happy is what I was when I could button it.)

I did not forget my hat. Because My Man really likes it when I wear hats. And I really like it when he likes it when I wear hats.

Then I went out to buy more milk chocolate chips. When I got back, I pranced around the kitchen and made Grandma Day fudge. Because one can only read DeNae's Ode to Fudge month so much without spontaneous fudge-making. I'm only human.

I was trying to get My Man to regret the fact that he had to read 300 pages on "Deferring Loss or Gain upon Incorporation." That means taxes and stuff.

I think I succeeded. He regrets it. Especially when I licked the spoon suggestively.

I'm a toiling wife.

Extreme dating

So My Man asked me out. To a churrascaria. In Brazil.

I said yes.

See you next week!

Moving mountains

This weekend was stake conference. Thousands of Latter-day Saints congregated in three different buildings to hear our local leaders - some via some pretty sweet WebCam technology. (Or something.)

Friday was the adult session. Baby-sitters were scarce (and we were lazy.) My Man won the toss-up and off he went, prepared to take scrupulous notes.

One of the stories he brought home touched me deeply.

The speaker: Mervyn B. Arnold of the Seventy. The time: his "younger years." The place: Mt. Timpanogos.

He and his wife had decided to hike this 11000 foot monstrosity.

They began.

As they huffed and puffed up the mountain, it got colder. They saw couples ahead of them turn around. "We'll come back when it's warmer," they said.

In many places, it was muddy and hard to find footing. More couples turned around. "We'll come back when the ground is more firm," they said.

The ascent became steeper. The climb harder. They stopped to rest, observing still more hikers on the trail headed home. "We'll come back when we're in better shape," they said.

Towards the top - so close, so agonizingly close - there was snow. In many places the freezing cold fluff was halfway up their shins, oozing down their boots to ice their tired feet. More people stopped. "We'll come back when there isn't any snow," they said.

The Arnolds were now alone. They looked at each other. They were tired. They were cold. But they had made a promise that they would climb to the top of Mt. Timp. Together. And they were going to keep their promise.

When they reached the summit - embracing and alone - they marveled at the view that God's hand alone could paint. They wept. And they vowed to each other, once more, that they would never stop climbing.

Each of us begins marriage with a promise. A promise to love each other forever. But too many fall back when it gets hard. When jobs are lost. When beauty fades. When character traits annoy or honeymoon passion is lost. When others look more interesting or disagreements become too often. "It got too hard," they say. "I only agreed to the easy stuff."

I am so, so glad for a hiking companion who sticks by my side. Through mud and steep inclines, through snow and rough terrain.

We made a promise.

And we're sticking to it.

images here and here

I eat green olives by the jarful

I sweat enough for four teenage boys.

I have really ugly feet.

I catch cold when anyone in the vicinity thinks about sniffing.

I don't like whipped cream.

I'm directionally impaired - I've gotten lost in my hometown, where I spent two-thirds of my life.

I hate laundry.

Sometimes, when I don't have a tissue handy, I wipe my nose WITH MY HAND.

Sometimes, I judge.

When I have a new book, I tend to ignore everything and everyone in the vicinity.

I'm bad at making grocery lists.

I have to shave my toes.

I get cranky when I'm hungry.

I usually don't do anything special for holidays.

I don't do windows.

I never know what I'm making for dinner til about 5:15.

I hate talking on the phone, and avoid calling people at all costs. Even for pizza.

Sometimes I still bite my nails.

I'm responsible for at least a tenth of the road to hell with my good intentions.

I have really bad morning breath.

... And he loves me anyway.