a few brief facts about my vacation

before I collapse onto my borrowed air mattress for the night:

It is insanely hot and sticky in Nauvoo this time of year. I really thought people had exaggerated.

It is absolutely wonderful there though. Everyone is smiling, even the nutcases wearing 8 petticoats and long sleeves.

My parents adored the pageant, which made it all worth it.

Until last night when the muffler fell off the van.

And then some random shaking and rumbling side-lined us in Muscatine, Iowa for a few hours this afternoon.

After a $200 that didn’t solve that problem and it was too late in the day to find another repair shop, we prayed like mad and drove 38mph for 45 miles with the hazards on until we crawled into my sister-in-law’s driveway in Iowa City.

Where we are now. 180 miles from home. My parents, my aunt, my 2 kids and I.

I think this trip may be cursed. I mean, the day they flew in the city flooded and the airport shut down diverting them both to different airports, and now we can’t get home to get them on their flights. Perhaps Wisconsin has some kind of vendetta against my relatives.

Insert witty, ironic-y comment here. And maybe a prayer or two??

We made it to Nauvoo and got to see the pageant! The trip took slighlty longer than previous ones (2 hours) because I did steal the keys from dad. I can drive in a straight line, but I can’t follow a map. Whoops!

My view from the backseat. I’m on a road trip with my parents. The second we stop for gas, I’m taking the keys back from Dad. I’m pretty sure I can drive in a straight line. Holy upchuck, Batman!!

throwback thursday

Okay, this isn’t really a HUGE throwback since it was only 2 years ago, but it still makes me laugh when I think about it.  Also, you’ll note Husband is referred to as SexyHusband.  This was common practice until he decided to comment here and there on the blog giving opinions contrary to mine.  I know, right?!  But I think he may go back to SexyHusband if he agrees to write a post for this blog.  I know, knowing him it could be a verrrrry dangerous idea, but it might be funny.  Hear that, sweetie??  Anywho, back to June 8, 2008:

* * * * * *

Scene: a lazy Sunday afternoon at the WonderSexy house. I am lazing away in the living room, SexyHusband is in the bathroom with his laptop. Multitasking. WonderToddler must have roamed into his neck of the woods, because this IM pops up on my screen:

SH says: can you have WT bring me my power cord?

Seconds later, happy, bubbly WT comes bouncing into the room holding a maxi pad and gives it to me. I give her the cord and said “thanks… now, go give this to daddy!!” and she bounds off to the bathroom. Back to IMing..

I says: did you get it?

SH says: yup

SH says: she sat down with that pad and tried to put it in her crotch.

I don’t know what to be more amazed at… the fact that we’re slowly turning her into our personal sherpa, or that she’s seen me get out of the shower WAY too often.

3 year old Captain Obvious

Scene: our living room, winding down for the night.  America’s Got Talent is playing in the background.  The MC announces that Train will perform “Soul Sister” next, and since it makes WonderGirl dance like a madwoman, we let it play on.  Then, oh the humanity.  Where is Autotune when you need it???  WG doesn’t notice, and twirls away.

Me to Husband: I want to like this - but he’s so flat.

WG, indignant: He’s not flat!  He has BONES!!

GPOYW - My Mugshot If The Government Ever Discovers What Is In The Back Of My Fridge edition.

I’m cleaning and spazzing out because I’m having houseguests coming tomorrow - Pascal and my parents, among others.  I don’t think I’ve been this geeked about visitors EVER.  Possibly because we have some killer activities planned (fondue, roadtrip, waterpark, etc.), but also possibly because I am still riding the high of the 2 Dates In 1 Week last week.  I have a slight cold and am low on energy, but I’m still all goosebumpy in my tummy from being all snuggly with my honey (I’m not kidding.  Crazy endophins all up in here).  Oh 2 Dates In 1 Week, you can come visit any time.  And you too!

Have I mentioned my extreme distaste for Nickeback?  Maybe I should buy this shirt to help the masses remember.  I just keep on giving.

I know when I’ve had enough…waiter…bring more ice cream!

Such a Monday post….

(via ihatemyparents:filthyphil) 

I can’t make pancakes because I can’t flip them.  It’s a horrible disaster every time.  So I’m going to have to ask one of you to come over and make this for me.  Because we only live once.

(via barbiefaced)

Why Parents Hate Parenting — New York Magazine (via julianmoffatt)

Interesting article.  Some points resonate, some seem ridiculous.  I know I personally didn’t have children because I thought it would make me happy - this completely leaves out the spiritual aspect of parenting and of marriages, which honestly makes me understand why people without that might be less happy.  That spiritual aspect - the knowlegde of what the purpose of all this is - is what makes my marriage and my mothering happy.  So I’m not as “happy” as a single, free-wheelin’ 30-something who gets to focus on nothing but themself?  They can take it.  I know personally my happiness has never been greater since the day I married the Husband, and when both of my children were born (despite the difficulties I had to wade through), I can honestly say I am shocked at how much more happiness can fit into my body.

My happiness is not for just this moment, this weekend, or this year.  I’ve got my eye on a much bigger prize.

The part that I did find intriguing was this:

“Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.”

I often wish I had a time machine to go back and see what was so different about my ancestor’s families and mine.  Maybe they’d think I’m doing this all wrong? 

“…all parents spend more time today with their children than they did in 1975…”

I don’t know, with the invention of my washing machine, my dishwasher, my vacuum, my microwave, I feel like I should put all that extra time towards something important.  I owe it to the inventors, I think.  And I can’t think of anything more important than my family. 

I went on a motorcycle ride for about 2 hours yesterday.  With 2,000 bikers.

Let me answer a few questions:

Husband drove, I just held on for dear life.

Yes, I AM incredibly sore.

We drove a zig zag of back roads to a nearby town - GORGEOUS views of farms and the Wisconsin countryside.

No, I don’t think I’ll ever do it again.

Yes, I did stick out like a sore thumb.

No, it wasn’t pre-meditated.  Husband asked if I wanted to join him and the thought of ME going was so ridiculous that I momentarily lost all reason and agreed to go.

It was a charity ride for the MDA.

Yes, there were motorcycles as far as the eye could see! 

OH yes I was terrified the entire time.

Yes, they did. Not only were there crowds lining the route to watch the spectacle (a parade of chrome!) - there were even some Amish people sitting in their front yards to check it out.  I find that a little odd, but more on the Amish another time.

I did have a ball, actually.  I tried to ignore the terror in my brain and enjoy the moment.  It was nice to feel like the kind of wild person who would actually do something like that for just a few hours :)

2 days before, Husband had braved Twilight with me, which in its own way was a crazed thing to do where you have to suspend all rational thought and enjoy it for what it is.  And date nights aren’t that common, so it was refreshing.  But then another nutty date 2 days later was amazing.  I feel so refreshed and revitalized.  I have actual energy right now!  I VACCUMED yesterday.  I KNOW!!!  If I could get 2 dates every week, there’s no telling the amount of stuff I’d be able accomplish!

It was really, REALLY cool to just be US, the couple that fell in love, and not the zookeepers of our insane family for a little while.  I love, LOVE my life and my wee ones.  And I’m so glad I got reminded of how wonderful and fun forever will be with Husband at my side.

I am far too trusting of recipes from the interweb

which is one reason for my awful cooking. Did you know biscuits containing almost exclusively flour and shortening taste like flour and shortening? I didn’t until I made them this morning. Absolutely disgusting. You’d think that would have occurred to me, but it was on the interweb. The interweb is never wrong!!

Sitting in the park today after our wee picnic lunch, I couldn’t help but wonder if I deserve this.   The insanely adorable and precocious children, the loving husband (who went with me to see Twilight last night, and booed at the screen slightly less than when I dragged him to the last one), all this health, a lovely home and enough food to eat (even if it is barely edible, I AM the one cooking it after all) and more than one dear friend.

I’m not bragging, just making a mental note of how grateful I am.  I’m reminded far too often of how circumstances change in an instant.  So for today, I’m counting my blessings. 

librarianpirate: kratlee: thedailywhat: The Library Your Library Could Look Like of the Day: The Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University is no ordinary university library. For starters, it’s the kind of university library capable of producing a pitch-perfect parody of the Isaiah Mustafa Old Spice spots. [urlesque.] um, YES. Did you know that 8 out of 5 dentists say that studying in the library is 6 bajillion times better than studying in your shower?

[youtube=[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ArIj236UHs&hl=en_US&fs=1]]

throwback thursday

Today’s blip from my blogging past is one of those serious posts from March 30, 2003.  I was nearing the end of the first year of grad school and was dealing with the tendonitis.  It was a dark period - bad relationships, the inability to play my instrument, my fight with my weight - not a time I remember fondly.  I wasn’t alone though - my mom was there talking to me every day, crying along with me, and keeping me from giving up.  I feel inadequate when I look at my own mothering compared to her, but I’m thankful beyond words that I have her example to live up to.

********************************************

I’m struggling everyday to be myself. To eat. To breathe and remember who I am. It’s a weird time for me… I have no violin to play and I feel lost.

But it helps when you get daily e.mails from your mom… I want to share this because it is soooo uplifting. And it’s true for many of you out there whom are loved and working towards the same goals. Enjoy, and thanks Mama Bear. I love you.

Dear Reva,

Thought I’d reiterate what I spoke of this morning. You are a powerful, worthy, wise soul. Do you have faults, weaknesses, imperfections? Who doesn’t. They haven’t stopped you from anything yet, have they?!?!? You are a warrior. You come from a family of warrior-women. We are richly blessed because we could be trusted to carry out all that our Father in Heaven asked of us. There have been stumbles along the way, that is the nature of mortality. But when we were called, we choose to accept our calling in life with all its attending challenges. Does that make you or us flawed? War wounds, maybe, but flaws? Never. Life isn’t fair…….so what. Life is good. I experienced pain, my mother did even more, and you have as well. So? Did that ever stop any of us? Never. Life is a test and you have done remarkably well so far. You are not that same little girl in kindergarten who teared up when strange, new challenges were placed before you. All that you have experienced for good or ill just adds to your well of wisdom from which you will draw to help and inspire others. For some one who has an organic need for friends, you survived incredibly well with an introverted mother and periods of time when friendships were scarce and unreliable. You are beginning to come into your own and recognize your wise and wonderful self. Your testimony is ‘da bomb’! Your figure is scrumptious. Your eyes are forever gorgeous. Your laugh is genuine. Your thoughts are pure. Your consciences is clear and sharp. You never take the easy way out. You’re a spiritual heavy weight. You’re an experienced “mountain” climber. Never doubt yourself! Besides, you come from a great family who all love and adore you and have supported you all along the way. Some day you will discover the man who can match you on all these levels and more, and he will recognize your war wounds for what they are - badges of honor.

Your Father in Heaven loves you no matter what.

Your mother and father and brothers love you no matter what.

Your friends love you no matter what.

Don’t settle for anything less.

Don’t forget who you are.

Don’t doubt yourself.

Carpe diem, sweetie.

Love,

yo mama

The kind of video only a mother could love. It’s the Dude’s new-found walking abilities, taken with with my new phone. I still want to punch said phone in the face every day because it’s not an iPhone (curse you, AT&T! You can build a tower in my backyard, seriously!!), but this dissapated my venom just a tad. I can upload YouTube videos direct from my phone?? This is going to get verra interesting…

GPOYW - My Friends Give The Best Gifts Ever - edition.  Dear Lola was exiled in Wyoming for a bit and managed to find this awesome coin purse to send to me.  The best part is, it was between this and a pair of political underwear, but she settled on this because this was “… much easier to show off than commie panties.”  Honestly, we all know I’d have shown those off too :)  Love you Lola!!  Now update your blasted blog!

I never watch those talent competition shows, and I have never in my life voted on one. Until last nght. I kind of dig America’s Got Talent because it’s so diverse, I don’t get bored (fire eater, then a professional whistler, then stiltwalkers, etc.). And then this act appeared - Airpocalypse, and I grabbed my phone. If Nickelback can somehow gain fame and fortune in this crazy world, then I INSIST an air band become just as big to even things out. They have way more talent than Nickelback anyway.

[youtube=[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caE20rmOn2M&hl=en_US&fs=1]]

Spotlight On My Stalkers: Padme

I haven’t forgotten about stalking y’all!  This took a wee bit of a backseat while I was travelling but my brain is back in my head and I’m ready to roll.  Now, many of you may know that Padme here is one of the lucky members of the Reva’s Best Friends FOREVER club, but I’m not playing favorites by posting my besties first - I have to spotlight Padme NOW because time is of the essence here.  Padme’s dear, sweet husband is off Africa or Antarctica or something for the entire summer, so in what I can only assume is a fit of insanity and boredom, she has started regular blogging.  Like, posting more than once every 9 months.  So I HAVE to strike while the iron is hot, before she’s reunited with her beloved and discovers that living real life is more fulfilling than blogging to serve my voyeristic needs or some such nonsense.

A little background, Padme and I met in college, my second senior year and her freshman year though she would have been a senior in high school that year if she hadn’t graduated a year early.  It was fate that made me lame enough to take 5 years in a 4 year program and make her smart enough hop up a grade - because we were soooo meant to meet.  Our first Sunday at church fall semester, I was lonely and in a funk and had prayed mightily that I could make a new, awesome friend.  I thought my luck was down that day and was going to leave - when this spunky lady grabbed my arm and demanded I be her daughter’s friend - the oh-so-tiny, docile Padme.  This is in the top 5 of greatest things that have happened to me.  We were thick as theives immediately.  I offered to pick her up from her dorm and come get some food at my place, and when I got there, my car died and we got to bond in the too-small cab of the tow truck.  And wasn’t the driver a Wiccan or something ridiculous??  We have had so many insane adventures in the last 9 years they are too numberous to mention - we were each other’s bridesmaids, shot guns at Uncle Jimbo’s trees together, and were the hottest violin-flute act ever at the nursing home next to my apartment.  Okay, this is getting too verbose.  Suffice to say, I adore her.  A few facts:

She’s within sneezing distance of getting her master’s in flute performance.

She dressed up in full Padme regalia for all 3 Star Wars premiers.

She also dressed as Miss Crabapple for the Simpsons movie.

She’s been married for a year and a half to Indiana Jones, the only guy I’ve ever met that can keep up with her, including the costumes.  I’ll forgive him for taking her off the dating market (her dating stories were the stuff soap operas are made of!) because he drove something like 20 hours just so we could hang out for a day! 

She spent all last summer studying in Paris, and her hubby is spending the entire summer in the Middle East.  He dreams of moving her there.  She dreams of changing his mind, but she’s up to it, regardless .

She is almost exacly half my size.

Our butts are the same shape.  At least they were before I started having kids. ;)

She carries a penny whistle around in her back pocket.

She LOVES Irish music.  She bleeds green.  She toots green tunes.

She makes the Greatest Green Chile Enchiladas EVER.  I’m not kidding.  I’m salivating right now.

She loves washing dishes.  I know.

I forced her to be in a steel pan band with me in college.  We were marginally passable - but we mastered the art of air drumming!

She has 2 sisters and I envy their hysterical, gorgeous little unit so much I want to pinch them all a little.

She is ALWAYS up for a photo shoot.

She likes dogs like I like Ikea.  Yeah, that much.

So, go stalk her at Easier Done Than Said - because it just might inspire her to keep up the blogging after she gets to be reunited with her hunk o’ husband in a few weeks!  Love you, Padme!!!

I have so many pictures of Padme, fabulous and hysterical, that deciding which to use was cramping my brain.  I ended up using this one - a grad student and she still goes to campus all gussied up for Halloween.  How awesome is that??  Her quote under this pic in her FB album is: “What can I say? I was living with a dalmatian and I had DI (thrift store) at my disposal.”

Best Buy steps up: “No matter where you bought it, we’ll recycle it.” 

Best Buy Wants to Collect 1 Billion Pounds of E-Waste Over the Next 5 Years

(via epakurar)

Isn’t that awesome??  I hate living in such a disposable world.  Everything is meant to be thrown away??  I have a feeling our ancestors would whack us on the head if they saw how much of what we produce goes straight into the trash.  I love the old pioneer-spirited adage: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without (it was quoted yesterday at church, so it’s fresh in my mind).  I get this sick feeling sometimes when I come home with bags of groceries, and think of how much of it is intended to be trash, all the packaging and filler and such.

Just thinking aloud here.  Woohoo, Best Buy!

i belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, seriously

So every so often, and I do mean often, people refer to me as “not your typical Mormon.”  In a nice way.  Now, I do so love to buck the crowd and be an individual, this is true.  But - let’s look at some stats, what we?

• Church-going (every week)


• Married in the temple


• Stay at home mom with 2 kids, and NO activities outside parenting and church


• No coffee, no smokin’, no alcohol, doing that whole Word of Wisdom thing


• Didn’t attend BYU, but went to LDS institute classes for 7 years straight


• Graduated high school seminary


• Teach the kiddos music at church every single week


• Working on all those 10 commandments, including no killing people (number 6!), no stealing (number 8!), no swearing (number 3!), and keeping the Sabbath day holy with no shopping, restaurants, getting gas on that day, etc. (number 4!)


• Read my handy dandy scriptures daily

If that isn’t your run-o’-the-mill Mormon stereotype, I don’t know what is.  We’re all just trying our darndest to follow the commandments and endure to the end and all that.  So I don’t get offended, but I do get confused.  What kind of Mormon do people think I am??  And what kind of Mormon do they think everyone else is??

sidenote - in college, a born-again Baptist wanted to date me because I seemed like such a wild child and he wanted to save me.  After he got to know me, he realized I was a gazzillion times more straight-laced than he was.  I never understood WHY he thought I was such a wild child - I never went out drinking like him or smoked anything like him, and I dressed, although colorfully, modestly.  He said it was something about how loud I was.  Volume???

Happy Monday!!

Chapstick. Napoleon and Kip. Woohoo for the weekend! I have a hot date. My lips are gonna hurt real bad.

Chapstick.  Napoleon and Kip.

Woohoo for the weekend!  I have a hot date.  My lips are gonna hurt real bad.

How to Get Comments (via ooliquidnightoo)

throwback thursday

Whoops, being all kinds of out of town made me all kinds of discombobulated.  I forgot Throwback Thursday yesterday, a thousand apologies. Lyndel. ;)  Here’s a tidbit from April 14, 2003 when I was knee deep in grad school in AZ.

Quick funny -

My classical theory teacher is this barrel-looking middle aged lady who looks like she could be the meanest lady on earth, so the fact that she has the funniest dry humor is so surprising it’s hillarious.

This weekend she had to go down to our rival, U of Arizona for a conference. So she and the other ASU faculty decided to be devilish and changed all the default home pages on the UA school of music computers to ASU and Kansas - the school that knocked UA out of the final four.

She knew it was juvinile, but sheez - a professor to do that?  She was so proud of herself and their hijinx.

I nearly peed myself I laughed so hard.

DUDE.  That’s when I graduated high school.  Holy.  Snap.

GPOYW - We went to the circus again (duh) and Husband got to play with his sister’s cool DSLR ”Action” mode, now I desperately need one - edition.  You should probably click to somewhere else on the intraweb pretty fast, this is totally creeping me out too.

ATTACK!!!!

THE STORY:

Last Saturday morning as Husband’s sister was in town and the house was overrun with screaming children, we kindly decided tot ake the kids out to the zoo/park for the morning so the menfolk could watch Germany destroy Argentina in the World Cup.

Best women ever, right?

Since it was warm-ish that day, I threw on my favorite cooling outfit, this fab dress my own mom used to wear before I was a twinkle in her eye.  Only the coolest vintage ever, right?  But as I was leaving the house with the kids, Husband gave me the - “You’re not wearing that, are you?” line.

Say what??

“It’s not very flattering.”

To which I responded, “Who on earth am I trying to flatter at the park??”

I didn’t get good answer from him on that one.  But I was miffed.  He doesn’t like it because it was my mom’s, I’ll bet.  Grrrrr.  What’s so unflattering about this???

I know for a fact he owned a mumu at some point.

So after we came home and were preparing to leave for the church 4th activities, I asked him to tell me what to wear, since what I was wearing was soooo unflattering.  He had no input, so I threw this shirt on:

Heh.  He looked at me in disbelief and asked me if I was going to wear that - heck yes, I said.  What could be more patriotic??  I was going to do it too.  I was shuffling around the house gathering my things when he suddenly went into the fridge and pulled out the MUSTARD BOTTLE.  No, he’d never do that, you say.  He’s a grown man.  But I knew better, and I started running!! I tried to hide behind his sister, our kids, but in the end, he MUSTARD GASSED ME!!  Okay, just mustard-ed my shirt (AND the carpet, I might add), but that’s not the point.  He actually did that!!!  Assault with a deadly condiment!!!  I ended up having to change, but I bleached the shirt out.  I’m wearing it to church next week, I swear. 

Oh, you better believe we put the fun in dysfunctional.

The selection of fireworks were … poor this year.  In my entire 30 years, I’ve never seen sparklers that were just fire.  Scared the bejeebies out of WonderGirl.

We had some family come visit the day after we got back from Oregon and just left today - which was awesome, but now I have so many pictures I should stick up on the family blog (wedding, the Farm, the 4th) that I feel like I shouldn’t post here until I get all that done.  Dagnabit, I have a good story too.  Husband chasing me around the house with a weapon.  Seriously.  Stay tuned, rockstars.

i am not making this chat up.

5 hours in the air on 2 flights with a 3 year old (who was an angel) and 10 month old (who was a DEMON) and leaving my wonderous mama and family back on the western side of the country yesterday was entirely worth it.  Because he was on the other side.