MegandJon...and More!

I Sang for an Apostle of the Lord Today!

2011-12-18T18:48:00.002-07:00

My poor neglected blog. I decided a while ago that I would give it up. But today I had an amazing experience and I felt very strongly that I wanted to write it down and I wanted to share. So here I am, writing on my blog. This is lifted right out of my journal:

I Sang for an Apostle of the Lord Today!

A few hours ago I found myself sitting in a sacrament meeting held in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building with my cousin Mary. As the bishop stood up to welcome the congregation the side doors opened up and in slipped Elder M. Russell Ballard. I had been half hoping for and half dreading this for weeks. I knew the ward had two apostles in it, but I also knew that they traveled A LOT and were not often there. How wonderful to sing for an apostle! At the same time, I do not always perform well with increased nerves, and I also am famous, or infamous, for feeling the Spirit too strongly, getting overwhelmed and crying my way through songs. I dreaded either of these things happening and so felt that it would be a relief if the Apostles were NOT there. When those tall, tall doors opened, I started to pray--believe me!

I prayed from that moment all the way through the sacrament and as the choir sang and the speaker spoke. I did also try to pause and listen and enjoy the beautiful choir number and the amazing speaker but the back of mind was still praying! "Please help us not to mess up. Please help me not to be so nervouse that my voice is extra shaky. Please please help us to feel the Spirit and bring/add to the spirit of the meeting. Please please PLEASE don't let me feel the Spirit so strongly that I start to cry and am unable to sing." This was the loop that was on repeat in my head.

Can I take a minute to explain what singing means to me? All my life I have loved to sing. I sang an entire song, solo, in church when I was 5 years old. It was not part of the primary program, it was just the musical number in a regular sacrament meeting. I sang at my mother's wedding when I was 6, though I cried through the second half because I looked at my mother and saw that she was crying. Crying has always been a contagious thing in my family. I have always felt that Heavenly Father blessed me with this gift for my sake more than for anybody else, though singing is generally something you do for other people. When I was going through some very tough things as a child and teenager I often felt that the only thing keeping me from flying into a million jagged, depressed, pieces was my ability to sing and the pure joy it always brought me. When my testimony was weak it was strengthened by how I felt as I sang sacred music in church. When I am sad it always helps me to sing, sort of like whistling in the dark: it convinced me that there was nothing to be afraid of. The music and the sheer bliss of it can chase away overanxious thoughts, of which I have always had an abundant supply. So believe me when I say that I love singing more than almost anything in the world.

Years ago, though, in college, as I contemplated studying and working hard and taking up singing as a career choice I realized something. I wanted to sing for people and feel that joy often and live IN music, if possible, but I did not really want to sell it for money or acclaim, nor did I want to be out at nights all dressed up at concerts or jazz clubs or what have you. I wanted a homelife. I wanted to be home in the evening and go to bed embarrassingly early after a long day of tending little ones of my very own. As much as I loved singing jazz standards and arias I wanted to sing lullabies much, much more.

It all took years but I got my family. I have two little boys who I hope someday will realize just how much they were prayed for and longed for. I hope they know they were not the thing I had to do instead of possibly singing for the world. I hope they know I wanted to sing for them MORE than I wanted to sing for the world.

I sang for an apostle of the Lord today. My dear cousin and I did NOT make any silly mistakes. I felt the Spirit strongly but I did NOT cry. There was a moment there when I was doing my smiling-gently-at-the-congregation-while-singing-thing and I saw someone else crying and had a split-second panic attack and felt the tears coming on but I lifted up my eyes to the beautifully engraved ceiling and sang my heart out instead. For that moment it felt a bit like I was flying. There is no clapping during sacrament meetings but just as we finished our song I heard a voice behind me say quietly, but succinctly: "Beautiful." I thought it was the bishop but I found out later that it was Elder Ballard himself who said that. He was sitting on the stand too.

Mary and I sat down. My hands were shaking, as they always do after I'm finished singing. The rest of the meeting was absolutely beautiful, near professional quality. We were both surprised when we got there that we would be part of the ward's Christmas program. We thought we would just be a musical number during a regular meeting. The speaker was amazing as he narrated the story of our dear Savior's birth, mingling in thoughtful quotes and explanations with the oh so familiar and beloved tale written by Luke. Every song performed seemed to be one of my very favorite Christmas songs. Did they design this program just for me? A woman played Oh Holy Night on the violin and I think maybe she was a professional. I finally started crying during her performance because it was so very lovely and that song is the most meaningful Christmas song of all for me. I had a moment, during that song, where out of the blue came the feeling that if I had pursued music more I may have been able to participate in experiences like this more often, but it was not a regretful thought at all; instead it was one of deep gratitude. Just for today I had both: a beautiful family and a simple homelife and a wonderful musical experience like this. I felt filled with my Heavenly Father and my Savior's love, as though this were a gift just for me, a moment out of time, like they had planned all this so that I could have this experience in the midst of my days of potty-training accidents and kissing booboos and calming tantrums and singing lullabies. I could have the memory of that one beautiful hour and fifteen minutes to sustain me, that feeling of being loved, noticed, remembered by my Savior as my thank-you-for-now for choosing motherhood and homemaking.

I sang for an Apostle of the Lord today, and afterward he came up and shook our hands and spoke to us. We were told that the congregation was absolutely transfixed as was Elder Ballard, who we couldn't see because he was sitting behind us. The Spirit was so strong that I'm not even sure that it was me singing. I felt surrounded by the joy and love and goodwill of the Christmas season and of Christ himself and I hope I never forget it. It was just a little thing; singing in a sacrament meeting with my dear cousin who is moving across the country tomorrow. But the Spirit held us all in Love and placed a precious Christmas gift in my heart. Yet the gift was not that I sang for an Apostle of the Lord today, as wonderful as that was, but that I was reminded that I get to sing for my husband and my little boys every day and that every song I sing, and will ever sing, I sing for my Savior. I need no other gift this Christmas season.

Here is an audio recording of one of our rehearsals. It is not a recording of the sacrament meeting. We did better there!

Merry Christmas!!

P.S. The song we sang was called, "Christmas Alleluia" and is offered free on this website.

It is so beautiful. Its a great duet and is also written in SATB style for a choir!

Announcing Henry David!!!

2010-06-06T13:48:00.000-06:00

Tonight, at 7:30pm, my newest little boy will be four weeks old. And this is his first mention on the blog. I have good excuses as I always do, but for now, suffice it to say (or is it "sufficeth to say"? I've always wondered)....I had my baby!! and he's a cutie!! And I DID manage a VBAC without any drugs, in a birth center! But just by the skin of my teeth, ha ha, more details later. This post is for pictures and general rejoicing. I will quickly post more recent pictures in a new post, but let's pretend this post was done a month ago, when he was newly minted. These pictures are all from his first night on the "outside". Welcome, welcome little boy. And here's hoping you survive your older brother...

Because My Mommy Told Me To...

2010-04-16T09:30:00.000-06:00

and I'm a good daughter, sometimes. You'll remember (or not) that I was lamenting the limbo-like state in which I've been living in my last post. My marmee very wisely recommended that the only thing to do when one is stuck in limbo is to stop and smell the roses. I've been trying to follow her advice, and of course, cuz that's what we do on blogs, I thought I'd share!

Rose #1-- In a very fortunate twist of timing and fate, and probably also a tender mercy of the Lord, my brother, who had been looking for a cheap place to live up here nearer the city, decided to move into a room my aunt had just down the hall from our apartment. We cleared out a couple of shelves in our kitchen and now he uses our kitchen for eating (he has his own bathroom). I was excited to spend a little more time with him, but I really didn't foresee what a blessing this would be. He has been such a help and relief for me; playing with Boo, giving me little snatches of time to myself. The other fortunate accident is that he works nights, so he is here mostly in the morning, and while I try not to rely on him too much, about once or twice a week he will winkle Boo away to the park for a couple of hours or so and I will get a little more rest or maybe clean up a little. This has been particularly wonderful as I'm nearing the end of my pregnancy and am so very tired and not always able to do the very energetic things that Boo was used to having me do. Plus its just been fun having more time with my brother!

Rose #2-- We found a pretty groovy little car with 6 seats called a Mazda5, and we feel like we managed a pretty good deal on it too. Our car payment is even less than we thought it would be and so hopefully it won't be so stressful to go from our old situation of low rent and no car payments, to having to pay car payments, a mortgage, and utilities all at the same time. It will still be a bit of a shock, I'm sure, but hopefully not as much.

Rose #3--(ok this is getting cheesy now right?) Boo really is a little delight lately. He is so gung ho about words and talking, there isn't anything he won't try to say. He knows almost all of his shapes, colors, numbers (well 1-10) and is working on letters now. The latest crack up is that he has learned to say "pentagon", "octagon" and last night Jon taught him "semi-circle". that one really made me laugh. I would have said half-circle, but semi-circle is way funnier coming out of a baby's mouth. He's finally gotten a little more independent (thank goodness! timing couldn't be better on that one!) and just runs around tinkering with stuff and talking and singing to himself, labeling everything and telling it what color or shape it is, happy as a little clam. He also seems to be able to understand more, and so I can explain things to him and he will stop freaking out or whatever he was doing. Not all the time, but a lot more often. Thank goodness for small favors!

R4--The one on the way is in really good shape. He's in the right position, which is a relief and hopefully means it will go better than my last little posterior boy did. I've got a lovely, funny, laid back midwife who is a total sweetheart, and a birth center all lined up that I might want to move into, it's so cozy and comfy and beautiful with a ginormous padded bathtub. Yes, padded. I never seem to have any problems with blood pressure or sugar or protein or iron levels or anything else they test all the time, and my teeth didn't even freak out or my gums bleed like they did last time (i took the vitamin and nutrition thing into my own hands this time and it has made a HUGE difference from the pathetic prescription prenatals I took last time that I swear didn't do anything but make me constipated and nauseous.) I discovered prenatal chiropractic care at the very end of my pregnancy last time and have been using it this entire pregnancy and it also has made ALL the difference. Almost no pain whatsoever, especially compared with last time. Now if HF would just guide me to a way to sleep better and pee less (overshare? oops) than pregnancy would be a piece of cake, lol, if it can ever be that. Anyway, I'm very very grateful for how this one has gone so far and am crossing my fingers that everything will continue on the right track for these last few weeks.

R5--Can I take a minute to talk about my husband? He is such a huge help, and has basically taken over cooking in this last little while. And luckily, he actually can cook! I was talking to a friend who said when her husband "cooks" they get pizza. I was reminded again of how very lucky I am. He's sweet and gives me amazing massages and is so good with Walter. It is such a joy to watch my little boy (and future kiddos, I'm sure) enjoy having a good father. It really helps to heal the little permanent ache in my own heart when I think of my own father. The Savior helped me forgive my dad and move on, but my husband has helped me in ways I don't think I can ever truly explain to anyone who hasn't been in the same situation. Seeing my children with a devoted and loving dad every day for the rest of our lives (may they be long) will be a joy and a blessing that I cannot describe. I love him! And I love my Heavenly Father and Older Brother for helping me find him!

K-the cheese fest is over, thanks for putting up with it. I'm sure you understand the need to keep your spirits up when it's starting to feel like you will be pregnant for ever. Can I ask a favor? If you are a praying kind of person, will you pray that the baby comes at the best time? I don't do inductions or any of that, and he can be a little late if he needs to be, or early, haha, I wouldn't argue with that, but he can't come in between like May2-7 because there's yet another wedding I'd really like to go to. And have you noticed how I post once a month and then I post a novel? Sheesh, I've got to work on the short and sweet posts. Actually, that's probably all you'll get after the new baby comes!

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting....

2010-03-28T20:15:00.002-06:00

Next to the word "Limbo" in the dictionary would be a picture of yours truly; not DOING the Limbo, trying to get my big ol' belly under the stick, but just existing in a state of limbo. In grad school we would have pretentiously called it a Liminal Phase, but these days I don't use words like that so often. Every bit of my brain is wrapped up in waiting right now, and it makes it hard to think about anything else. What am I waiting for?

1. It's time for this family to get a bigger car. I've been squeezing my belly through a tiny space in a 2 door coupe to put my toddler in a car seat in the tiny back seat for long enough I suppose. Plus we cannot fit two car seats into the back row of our compact cars. So we are doing our research about cars and loans and I'm just waiting to see what kind of minivan we end up with. Fingers crossed it is smallish, as fuel efficient as possible, and a non-monstrosity that doesn't make me feel like I'm driving a boat. This could take a while to find....

2. House hunting, especially in this market, which is made up primarily of Short Sales right now, is a major waiting game. We have three different offers out on houses right now, 2 of which have us in first position. We just have to wait for that wonderful 3rd Party Approval, otherwise known as Behemoth Bank, which moves slower than molasses in January even though you'd think they would like to get some money out of a sinking ship and not end up with another foreclosure on their hands. Everybody send hurry up vibes to the banks!! Then we'll just see which one comes through first, really. I can't decide which one I'm rooting for, it changes on a daily basis. Plus maybe we will keep looking at other houses and then who knows how many offers we will end up putting down. So right now, I have this strange feeling like my brain really wants to make plans (nesting, anyone?) but I can't, because I don't know if we could be in a house in a month, or two, or four, and which house and where. Should I start nesting my little apartment ( I have been anyway, but I've reached a stage where I don't know WHAT to do now and I'm just sort of flummoxed by this waiting game. And lastly...

3. I've got a little over 5 weeks left until my due date, which of course doesn't mean much, except that I'm in the most uncomfortable stage of my pregnancy, the part where you kind of wish you could go into a coma for a month or you had a ginormous fast forward button on your life. Pregnancy is the ultimate waiting game, and the last month or so is the ultimate of the ultimate. So that's my life right now. It's amazing how preoccupied you can be with waiting, how much time you can spend thinking and wondering. I wish I could be better at putting it out of my mind and having a little faith. I'll keep working on that, and I'd welcome any suggestions!!!

The Morning Status Report.

2010-03-04T07:43:00.001-07:00

Every morning lately, when I go to retrieve The Kiddo from his bed, this is the greeting I get:

"Daddy? Work? Yamma? Work? Doel? Seeping? Kessy? Bye Bye?"

*a pause for translation* Boo is listing where everybody is when they are not here. Yamma is Gramma, and Doel is his Uncle Joel, who, even though I keep saying that he is actually at work, for some reason Boo has decided that he is always sleeping, because I said that ONCE, 3 weeks ago. Kessy is his Aunt Kelsey, and I guess he's not sure where she is, so she is just Bye Bye, or not here.

This is what I hear:

"What, you again? Just you? Just Mommy? No Daddy, no Grandma, or perhaps any awesome aunts or uncles? Anybody? Alright, I guess I'll hang out with this old Mommy again."

No, I don't feel too terribly sorry for myself; I know he is going through a phase where he is just figuring out how the world works and how people come and go in his home and his life and his day. I also know that someday he will realize how lucky he was to have me at home with him. But until then, I wouldn't mind too terribly if one of these mornings he said something like:

"Mommy! Here!!"

After nearly 2 years, I'm still new at this!!

2010-03-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago, I was trying to get out the door to get to the Children's Museum right when it opened. Walter had his coat and shoes on, which always makes him hang on the door and whine about "Ouside?" (outside) until we go, and I had a few more things to pack into the bag. So I was grateful when he found himself a little something to do, and to keep himself quiet. I checked on him and saw him bent over my purse and made some quick mental calculations as to how much damage he could possibly do with my purse. Deciding it wasn't much, I hustled back into the kitchen to get some snacks packed, etc. Life was good there for a minute, as packing snacks with a quiet, happy toddler is a lot faster than packing snacks with a toddler who is standing on your feet and shrieking about "ouside!" (which is the next step after hanging on the door). Then I heard from the living room, "Waltuh no! No!" causing me to chuckle to myself. It's just so funny when he does his impression of me. Then reality hit me, and I had a little heart stopping moment of fear. Walter says that when he has a) just heard me say that to him, often after pouring water out of the bathtub and onto the floor, and recently b) when he thinks he's done something that I WILL say that to, when I see it. Running into the living room, this is what I saw:

As you can see, he had already pulled quite a few things out of my bag, which would have been fairly easy to stuff back in. Apparently, my "quick mental calculations" forgot about the can of powdered milk I had already packed in my bag for his bottle later on.

I've been diagnosed with PILS

2010-01-25T17:08:00.000-07:00

also know as Pregnancy-Induced-Laziness Syndrome. It's here to stay for about...sigh...15+/- weeks. There's only one known cure: an extended stay in New Baby Land, where the one recuperating from PILS is basically out of contact with the world, blogging and real, and not to be held responsible for the crazy, sleep-deprived things that may come out of her mouth.

Symptoms of PILS may include: calling crackers and canned corn "lunch", referring to naps as "priority #1", forgetting that she even owns a camera-often for weeks at a time, switching to full time disposable diapers even though she once whole-heartedly loved cloth diapers, driving around for a while with an expired driver's license, sometimes resorting to formerly forsworn disposable cleaning wipes, eating frozen pizza a little more often, and not posting on her blog for far too long.

Sufferers might even forget to brag about the mind-blowing new tricks of their adorable genius-toddler even though he can now count from 1-4 and correctly read those numbers AND, randomly, the number 8. Also he can name 5 shapes and 4 colors, can string together 2-4 word sentences, and has been making some pretty funny/cute attempts at the alphabet song, and likes to pretend to read from really big grown-up books that have no pictures in them. Finally he may spend large quantities of time looking at photo albums over and over, intent on correctly labeling all the family members he can.

Some side effects of trips to NBL are: purchasing paper plates and plastic cutlery, even more of the aforementioned frozen pizza and/or takeout, frequent and shameless requests for fun babysitting and "play-dates" for older children, often complete ignorance of the continued existence of cell phones and internet, and a ginormous new batch of picture taking.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with me while I work on living with PILS and preparing for "recovery".

The Very Latest in Cuteness!

2009-12-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

Boo is up to some fun shenanigans lately, and I thought I'd share. In list format, of course!

1. He's not so obsessed with stairs anymore, though he does still enjoy them. Now he is obsessed with containers and lids and putting things in containers and putting containers inside other containers, etc. He does this on the living room floor, in the bath, on the kitchen counter right next to me when I'm working in the kitchen, everywhere, really. Because he's been doing this for quite some time, and seems to be mostly sick of all his toys (I haven't wanted to get anything new since Christmas was right around the corner!) at the moment, I've become VERY creative in collecting many many different containers for him, ie: an empty, washed deodorant stick and lid, empty water bottles and lids, empty baby food jars and lids, empty pill bottle and lid, tupperwares, pitchers, you get the idea. Consequently, when Boo has been playing, it looks a little bit like a pile of very clean trash.

2. Ever since he was a baby Jon and I would sing a little scale when we went up and down stairs with him. Something like "up, up, up, up" or "down, down,down". Not increasing or decreasing in volume, but going up and down the scale. Now he does that all the time, without help or prompting. It's pretty cute.

3. In other singing news, in addition to singing little ditties to himself, especially while sitting in the car seat, which are also hilariously punctuated with some new word or sound of his, something like "lalalala uhoh laleeloola uh oh" or "beboobeebot meow babababa meow", his latest super cute thing is thanks to his daddy. Jon would always pause whenever the moon was out and with his arm outstretched and pointing to the moon sing this little song to Boo, "Moon, OH moon, You shine in the night. Moon, OH moon, We see your great light". Now whenever Boo sees a moon, or a picture of a moon, or even when we just go out at night he says, "OH moo" in the same singing way Jon does. I love it.

4. After his bath, when he's naked or just in a diaper, he runs over to the full length mirror and cracks himself up by sucking his tummy way in and then puffing it way out and several other variations of this same game. He cracks me up too.

5. He still loves the bath and spends large quantities of time in there. Mostly he pours water from one container to another and puts lids on and takes them off (see #1). He does this all with intense focus and concentration, sometimes declaring, "IN!" and sometimes laughing quietly/maniacally to himself. A little naked, wet, mad scientist, basically.

6. It's funny how very mechanically aware this little boy is. Are all little boys like that? For months he's been doing a very good airplane noise the minute he hears/sees any hint of a plane. Often this is way before we've noticed anything, and he even knew right away when he was ON a plane, and he even has noticed the blinking, moving lights in the sky at night and figured out it was a plane before we told him. I always figured it must have been something his Grandpa Walt taught him, as he has been taking Boo on tours and explaining things since he was born. But I asked him and he said they only saw a plane once. It just amazes me! He's done the same thing recently with trains. He's never really seen real trains, but he has figured out their existence and the noise they make from one book I have that just shows a picture of a toy train, and now he notices them all the time and makes the noise too.

7. This probably could have been in the last one, but it was getting long :). Boo does really great impressions of all kinds of noises, many are of things that I would have described as sounding the same, but he knows the difference and his little copies are very different and I can usually tell right away exactly which machine he means. He does impressions of: the wheat grinder, my blow-dryer, the washing machine, the blender, the mixer, police sirens and ambulance sirens and fire truck sirens, the tea kettle, cars, airplanes, trains, a handful or more of animal noises, of course (his rooster crow is the cutest, in my humble opinion) and even does a pretty good impression of me! He has a pretty hilarious version of the way I sometimes shout out, "Jon!" you know, to get his attention. Walter's, "Don!" cracks people up all the time.

Anyhoo, that's the report on the little things that make up my day. Thanks for indulging a doting mommy!

More Buckets of Pictures, Part 3.

2009-11-09T07:53:00.003-07:00

What more could you want than to sit in your Aunt Kelsey's lap, hear a story, and eat an "appo"?

Helping out at Grandma and Grandpa's.

I don't normally get pictures of my child sleeping as it might break my cardinal rule of motherhood, "never, never, never disturb a sleeping baby," but as this was totally adorable, and as his head was completely swaddled, I risked using the flash.
This is probably the only family picture you are going to get. Think this will work for the Christmas cards?
This might be a possible future career for Boo. While at the state fair he wasn't impressed or excited by a lot (a few big animals of course, also piqued his interest) but he really came alive when he saw a bunch of his beloved appo's ready to be picked and played with. He's standing at my side looking at this picture saying "appo! appo!" right now. Too funny!

Buckets of Pictures, Part 2

2009-10-26T08:15:00.003-06:00

These all have a beachy theme so, they go together! Makes sense, right? I think these are all taken at the beach at Deception Pass in Washington State, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. Walter loved the beach!

Tidepools are the best bathtub, EVER.

This is what happened the first time mom tried to put sunscreen on Boo!

Dad had fun burying Boo in the sand...
and this is what Mom had to do to get all, or, well, most, of the sand out of his pants after Dad buried him!

Buckets of Pictures, Part 1.

2009-10-20T19:47:00.003-06:00

So my main issue with blogging is pictures. They are just such a pain to upload, and to get in order, etc. But I'm just going to work on uploading pictures for a while, and not worry about writing, so that grandparents and aunts and uncles will start speaking to me again, ha ha. There won't be lots of explanations and it's going to be several posts over the next few days (or weeks, who am I kidding?) but I WILL, as Google is my witness, post these pictures! Some are from all the fun we've been having in the last couple of months, and some are even some more pictures from our big vacation in May. Here goes:

fun at Pike Place Market!

You won't believe it, but Boo took some of his very first all-alone steps to some strange, but very nice vendor at Pike Place Market. I wish I had gotten it on video.

No trip to Washington is complete without a ferry ride!

Entertaining himself (with the contents of my purse) under the table at my friend's wedding reception. I just thought it was a cute pic!

Look at that, I did have time to do some captions! Ok, more picture posts coming soon....

For My Mother, On Her Birthday:

2009-08-22T20:41:00.003-06:00

Just a quick little post to let my Marmee know how much I love and appreciate her. I'm feeling a little sad right now, because the summer's over, and Mom will be going back to work in the school district. It's been so great spending so much time with her, I love to just spend the morning at her house hanging out with one of my very best friends. I know that Boo really loves going to Grandma's house and playing on the stairs (first and foremost! he loves those stairs!) and playing the piano and trying to get that one porcelain bowl that he can juuuuust reach on the shelf before anyone notices him and takes it away. But mostly he just loves his Grandma! So it'll be hard not to have as much time with her, but I'm oh so grateful for all those lovely, lazy, stolen summer days spent with my Mom. Happy Birthday Mom, and may you have all the happiness in this world and the next.

Good Reading...

2009-08-19T19:10:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd throw out some recommendations of good reading I've had lately in case there is anyone else out there who loves to read as much as I do! Also, because this post is chock full o' links, I figured I'd better finally figure out how to embed a link! Aren't you so proud? I'm getting so big!

Books:
These I'll be really brief about--
Skellig, by David Almond --lovely, lovely, tale. Youth fiction, not fantasy or sci-fi, but more like mythical, lyrical.
The Various, by Steve Augarde--great adventurous fairy tale set in the modern English countryside. It's the first of three, and the next one, Celandine, is also great. I've got the third one on hold at the library!
The Princess and the Hound, by Mette Ivie Harrison. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to reading some of her others. Also youth fiction and fantasy. What can I say? It's my favorite genre!
The Unhealthy Truth, by Robyn O'Brien--interesting journey of a normal, run of the mill mom, who's kids come down with crazy food allergies, and all the stuff she learns about the food industry and the FDA while trying to figure out how to help her kids. Great reading, even if you don't have a kid with food allergies! I read this one a little while ago, but I've been recommending it to everyone, and I don't want you to think I'm not well-rounded in my reading!

Article:
Here is a very interesting article I picked up on msn.com the other day about how, basically, we might be killing our kids with knowledge. I'm one of those mom's who definitely believes in children having a childhood for as long as they can with as much unstructured play as they can, and I was, and still am, pretty appalled that they invented all-day kindergarten! Anyway, I guess in some parts of the country preschool is not enough of a push to get kids reading, etc, super early, but now there is a big boom in extra, professional, TUTORING, for preschoolers. Anyway, read if your interested in studies about education and the different ways that children learn!

Blogs:
This is a link to my friend Rosalyn's blog. She's just talking about a tough day of parenting, and yet I found it really uplifting and sweet and funny. Maybe it just feels good to commiserate!

I'm on a blog list called Mormon Mommy Blogs and they have a home blog with guest writers who write about different things pertaining to mormonness and mommyness and bloggyness. I really enjoy reading these guest posts as they are usually VERY beautifully written, and they take me into another person's world and experience. This particular post had me in tears as it was so beautiful, about a young woman's struggle with infertility. Not very long of a read, check it out!

And this recommendation is for an entire blog, not just one particular post. I recently discovered it because it had the same title as one I had been considering starting myself, but I'm not bitter that she already thought of the title first, because this blog is GREAT, and a total treasure. It's called Old School, and the author mainly writes posts on how to do useful things like sew up a tear in your kids jeans, or can turkey, or (my favorite) how to cook with dried beans. But this is all incidental, as while she is imparting all this wisdom clearly and succinctly (we're mom's; we don't have a lot of time!) she is also pretty darn HILARIOUS. You've got to check it out, you won't be sorry! This link is specifically to the funny bean post (actually about making split pea soup) but you should look around the rest of her blog!

Anyway, Happy Reading!

Then something just went "Click!"

2009-08-15T19:01:00.004-06:00

Boo is signing! It is so exiting, I can't even describe to you how much fun it is to see him do his little signs and see his face light up (and mine too) when he sees that I understand. We've been watching the Baby Signing Time videos for months and I've just been patiently perservering, waiting for him to show some...sign, ha, that he was getting it. He's been saying a handful of words now for over a month, like hot, on, up and down, walk, and more recently something that sounds like I go or let's go, I can't quite tell. But no sign that all the signing I was doing and the videos he was watching were making any impact. Except once, about 2 weeks ago, he seemed to make the sign for hat, but as I didn't see it again, or anything else, I wasn't sure. Well on Thursday we were in the car and I turned around and saw him doing the sign for "more". I just about jumped out of my seat! And bam, just like that, it's like he got it, and there's no stopping him now! Boo, in just 2 days, has now effectively done the signs for "more", "water", "milk", "grandma", "all done", "book", "eat", "sleep", and just now, he did the sign for "bath"! It's so exciting, have I said that already? I'm so glad I did this, even though for a while there I really thought it wasn't going to work.

Speaking of baths, remember how he used to love baths? Then he just stopped, out of nowhere, for more than a month. He hated them! Baths became this thing we inflicted on him while he stood there screaming, tears and snot running down his face, as seldom as possible. And then, after playing outside with the water hose in grandma's backyard, "click!" went that little thing in his brain again, and ever since then I haven't been able to keep him out of the bath! I think he took 5 baths yesterday! I know, the granola in me is cringing at all the water usage, but can you blame me for letting him? It's just so great to be past that little phase, I'm willing to give him lots of baths! ( just so you know, I am trying to limit it a little more now, for instance, he's only had 2 baths today! lol).

And while we're talking about growing and developing news on the baby front, I should mention (as I know I haven't posted in quite some time, more on that later) that he's been walking now for more than a month, and has gotten really quite good at it, and speedy! That was another funny little click: it seemed that he knew how to walk for like 6 +weeks, we'd catch him at it all the time, but he prefered crawling. I think he thought he was faster at crawling so he wasn't going to bother with that walking stuff too much. But then click went that thing in his brain and he suddenly figured out that walking was much more preferable than crawling, and just like that he was a full time walker!

I'll try to work on pictures or video of some of these new tricks, and I promise to write a post really soon on why I've kind of sucked at blogging lately, and I'm going to post more! I promise! To try!

Vacation Part 1

2009-08-13T09:19:00.000-06:00

There are so many pictures, I'm not sure where to begin! I'm pretty sure it's going to take a few posts. It was such a fun, jampacked trip with lots of wonderful family and fun things done and beautiful places seen. I guess I'll start with the beginning of the trip, which was at my Grandpa's house, and included a quick jaunt over to the mainland, via the ferry, to see my friend Jessica get married. At Grandpa's house, Boo had lots of fun...

splashing in the birdbath...

taking a bath in Great-grandma's sink...

and oh, just endless hours of going up and down the stairs, up and down, up and down. At home or abroad, stair-climbing is this kid's favorite past time!

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jog

2009-06-03T16:58:00.002-06:00

So right now I SHOULD be writing all about our great vacation we just had, but all I can think is, "There's no place like home." I guess I'll write that post later, because the trip really was great, and of course we have a million cute pictures, but for now, here are some wonderful things about being home.

--I was really worrying about my garden, so it's great to see that it's doing well and growing big, and we even had lettuce for a salad our first night back!

--I can eat weird Megan food like salad for breakfast again.

--It's good to be reunited with the stroller, so I can take Boo for walks again.

--Two words. Cloth diapers. We did disposable the whole time on the trip and I really missed our diaper system at home. Holy cow you have to buy a lot of diapers when you only use disposables! I don't know how anybody affords it!

--Having Booboo to myself. Don't get me wrong, it was a great break having so many wonderful relatives to play with him all the time, and I'll probably wish someone would come play with him in a couple of days or so, but for now, I'm kind of relishing all our private time. I have such a wonderful little boy!!

--There's a lot of cleaning to do and unpacking and whatnot, but it's at lot less stressful when it's your own house and you know where stuff goes and you're not bothering anyone asking them all the time where stuff goes!

--Ok, two more words: comfort zone!

--I'm excited to start using my new cute diaper bag I found in Washington!

To My Darling Baby Boy, On His Birthday:

2009-05-06T09:04:00.007-06:00

One year ago today, (ok, yesterday, sheesh), I became a mother. You made me a mother by consenting to come into this life, into this home, and taking us from a couple to a family. As that is something your father and I wanted very much, and had been wishing for(individually) for at least a decade, we will always be especially grateful to you for that. I will always think of that on your birthday. Thank you for being our guinea pig; the one who teaches us how to be parents, how to cope with chaos, and how to live every day with a heart so full of love it almost hurts. You see, every time your life expands to include another person, be it friend, husband, or child, your heart expands too. What a gift from God that is, and what a gift from God you are. So, I guess, on your birthday, I also have to say thank you thank you thank you, to my wonderful, loving Heavenly Father. THANK YOU!!!

Ok, moving on to less sappy subjects...here are some things about you that I hope to always remember. A sort of verbal snapshot of my little boy at the age of 1 (don't worry, there are real snap shots below).

--You are mostly outgoing. You roam around church or family parties playing with people's shoes and pulling yourself up and patting their knees. You pull the pacifiers out of other babies mouths and investigate people's watches and jewelry and books all the while winning hearts by batting your big blue eyes and giving a wide toothy grin. Every so often you have a shy spell, which usually has more to do with how tired you are, and I suspect, is sometimes a flirtatious facade...

--You love to squeeze yourself through tiny spaces, mostly in between people's legs. If I am standing still, doing dishes or folding laundry, you will come and push your head into the back of my legs until I'm forced to spread my feet a little and you squeeze through and then you stand up in the tiny space between me and the cupboard below the sink, thereby forcing me to move back which is why my dishes are never done and my clean laundry is never folded. Sigh.

--Even though I keep hoping you will grow out of it, you still adore pulling books from shelves, and sitting and crawling on big uneven piles of books, and getting your hands on mommy's paperbacks so you can run your fingers along the edges and make the pages go fffffwwwwwwppppp.

--Often, when you are intently examining some thing (including my face) you will suddenly tilt your head to one side, not just a little, but till your head is practically parallel to your shoulder, to examine it some more from that angle. It just kills me!

--We have a game I like to refer to as "smooshface". Not as in smoosh your face with my hands; as in smoosh our two faces together in hilarious and slobbery ways.

--You love your dad. If I didn't have you to myself for 8 hours a day I might start to feel neglected! You especially love to go on tours with him. You've gotten to the point where you get a little mad if that's not the first thing he does when he comes home from work!!

--Those brightly colored toys with bells and whistles and cute animals and not-so-subtle educational stuff painted all over them designed to delight and entrance any baby are not really your thing. Oh sure, they might interest you for thirty seconds or so, but they are not nearly so wonderful as those little tins that hold lipbalm or handcream, or zipper pulls, or faucets, or light switches, or drawer handles, or mason jar lids. If it's metal or wood, you are FASCINATED.

--You do this funny thing when you will roll something, and then chase after it, but when you catch up to it you bat your hand at it so it rolls away again and you can chase after it again. The best things for this are little jars because they roll erratically. The awesome thing is you will do it with stuff that doesn't. roll. at. all. Like your toy phone. You'll just kind of bat at it until it flips over a few times and then follow after it and do it again. Then I hand you your little toy ball and you look at me like, "what's this for?" and abandon it to find something else completely unsuited for this game.

--You've finally figured out what the heck to do with stuffed animals: squeeeeeeze them, sink your teeth into them, and lay on top of them.

--Stairs are endless fun and wonderment. Someday I'm going to invent a little toy baby escalator and I will be rich!

This last weekend we went up to your Great-grandmother's and we celebrated your birthday. Here are some pics from that--you really enjoyed my homemade ginger bread!!

Here you are with daddy:

You're not so sure about that open flame...

You gingerly taste it...And voila!! the final shot: happy baby, no more gingerbread, and a demolished shirt!!

I love you little boy!! Here's hoping we have lots of lovely messy years together!

Why God Invented Soap and Water...

2009-04-01T09:13:00.003-06:00

So Booboo can help his mommy and daddy in the garden!

Two Years Ago Today*...

2009-03-29T12:17:00.007-06:00

My honey and I walked into the Jordan River Temple, nervous as can be. A little while later, after one of the most beautiful and moving experiences in my life, we walked out, newly married, with eternity ahead of us. Friends and family gathered that evening to celebrate and wish us well. So many people had helped so much to get us to that point. I remember standing in the midst of my reception, feeling so much love and joy, feeling so grateful for how incredibly blessed I was at that moment. We had a pretty small reception, and the room was stuffed to the gills with people, people who loved us and were so happy for us. People who had baked and organized and hung decorations, chopped vegetables and addressed invitations, performed beautiful music and traveled pretty far to get there. People who had come bearing gifts and advice and love and hope.

Today I have a happy home, and a wonderful husband and a darling baby boy. Life keeps moving and changing, but with Jon at my side and a lot of faith, I think I can handle it, and I look forward to what our little family will become.

*Ok, when I started writing this post it was "today" but now it should really say "Two Years Ago Yesterday", oh well. As we spent the day with a teething baby and his first fever (not his first teeth, but the first time getting a fever-he's doing a lot better today, so hopefully we can go out tonight as we had planned!) I know you'll understand the slight delay.

I'm always up for free books!

2009-03-16T14:30:00.002-06:00

The blogroll I'm on, Mormon Mommy Blogs, is having another giveaway, and this time it's for a free set of books! I'm always interested in new authors, and as I've been on a non-fiction kick for quite a while, I definitely feel lately like I need some fiction! So if you're Mormon and a Mommy, or not, or not, then go check it out! (See the link on the side of my page--->)

Breathing Through Our Mouths...

2009-03-13T09:46:00.003-06:00

This is just a quick post to explain why I've been so MIA lately: We're sick!!! Ok, just Booboo and me, so far Jon has managed to escape it. But it's really hanging on with me and Boo. Basically I've just been coping and then everytime he goes down for a nap so do I. I also didn't think that you guys would want to see a Wordless Wednesday of a pic of very red noses and a river of snot. Boo is holding up pretty well considering this is his first real sickness. But I'd like it to be over now! All I do is wipe noses all day, his and mine! And can someone explain to me why babies hate like poison to have their noses wiped (even though I've mostly been using nice soft burp cloths) only to immediately turn and wipe their noses on your shirt? What's the difference, really? Just a mystery of babyhood, I guess!

I Am a Child of God!

2009-03-04T10:51:00.002-07:00

Lately I feel like this inside:
I feel so very blessed, just wonderful, and loved, and lifted up by the Spirit, the last couple of weeks. I've had answers to prayers, small but miraculous changes in my own heart, opportunities to sing again, a chance to go to the temple last week, I've made some new friends, spring is right around the corner, I have a loving husband and a beautiful baby boy. My Heavenly Father loves me, and He loves you too. And I love you!

I'd better make sure you know where this beautiful picture is from: http://www.reflectionsmg.com/
Check it out if you haven't yet! Beautiful, beautiful pictures.

This Wednesday's Wordy, But it's Worth It!!

2009-02-25T21:02:00.003-07:00

I have a story! I live in an apartment that was created in the upstairs of this 100+ year old house. Because of this there are lots of strange quirks, the strangest being the bathroom. It is basically a converted closet in the kitchen/laundry room. It is tiny and is definitely my least favorite thing about an otherwise beautiful and interesting and pretty roomy apartment. But it does have one great perk: because it's tiny and basically in the kitchen, when I give Booboo a bath I can just leave the door open and get some work done in the kitchen without any fear of being a horrible mother and being dragged off by the CPS for leaving my child in a bath unattended!! He is always within my sight, indeed within 10 feet of me, so it works out great. Because we like to save water, and because he likes the secure feeling of being able to hold onto the sides, we still use a little baby bath that we put in the big grown up bath, which also helps when he decides to have a serious splashing party!! So I can make my lunch and sweep the floor all the while talking to him and smiling at him and listening to his happy little splashy/babbly noises. I can always see his head over the rim of the big bathtub because he's sitting up.

He doesn't usually stay happy in the tub for that long, though, he get's kind of bored and starts trying to climb out after 10-15 minutes usually. So I was really happy today when he seemed to be happy for a longer time and I could make a long, involved salad for my lunch. When I finished preparing it I decided he had been in there long enough and went to go get him out and I found this:

No water in the tub!!! I have no idea how long he had just been playing naked in an empty tub!! The little stinker discovered the plug (you can see it just barely)!! Oh man, I laughed for quite a while after that! I'm still laughing.

Oh well, I had planned to give him "air time" after the bath anyway because his awful diaper rash is back. And in the spirit of causing great future embarrassment and hopefully an "aw, mom!!" here's a picture of some more air time!!

How To Get a New* Wardrobe...For Free!

2009-02-24T18:32:00.004-07:00

1. Finally lose a little bit of the baby weight.
2. Have a really nice sis-in-law who is also losing weight and doing a better job than you give you some of her old clothes.
3. Clean out your closet!!!

A perfect storm of events has taken me from wearing the same pair of maternity jeans everyday to owning more pants than I can possibly wear (hmm...and no where to wear them!). I was just feeling like I was still huge so I wasn't paying any attention to what actual size I was anymore. I really didn't want to buy any new jeans in an in between size since I really wanted to just lose weight back down to my old jean size, and my maternity jeans, while hanging off me, had not actually fallen off yet, so I just kept wearing them and trying to not care what they looked like. When my sister-in-law offered me some of the clothes that didn't fit her anymore (thanks Jess!) I tried them on skeptically, because I did NOT think I was down to the size of the jeans yet. Low and behold, they fit! So I was very motivated to go through some of the clothes I put away into storage when I got too pregnant to torture myself into them anymore. Now I've got a nice expanded wardrobe! (and two practically new tubes of Burt'sBees Honey Lip Balm!!)

*To get this "new" wardrobe you must meet some of these preexisting conditions: you must have recently given birth, you must have a nice sister-in-law, you must be a cheapskate who doesn't really love to buy new clothes, you must refuse to weigh yourself or pay any attention to numbers like that, and you must have a messy closet and a baby who keeps you a little too preoccupied to care much about what you're wearing! Lastly, you must also have a rather broad definition of the word "new"!

giveaway!

2009-02-23T10:20:00.002-07:00

I'm this blog roll called Mormon Mommy Blogs and they have this fabulous giveaway going on right now. You get an extra entry if you post about it on your blog, and the stuff is pretty enough that I'm actually posting about it! So go over there and check it out, and if you post a comment, you can get entered into the giveaway also! http://mormonmommyblogs.blogspot.com/

Like Father, Like Son...

2009-02-18T07:53:00.002-07:00

I promise I closed the laptop and whisked him away right after I took the picture!

Booboo starts with B and that rhymes with T....

2009-02-11T07:14:00.003-07:00

which stands for TROUBLE!!!!!

Crawling has certainly made life more interesting around here. He keeps me on my toes!

Wordless Wednesday: Apparently Bees Are Funny.

2009-02-04T10:00:00.003-07:00

I've decided to start a new tradition here on MegandJon that I've seen done on other blogs. On Wednesdays I will do a mostly wordless post (there might need to be an explanation) that will basically be a picture or video. Probably these will consist mainly of pictures of this one really cute baby I know, but I might branch out and post a pretty picture or some cool video I found online or something. Today's post is a little wordy, a Wordy Wordless Wednesday, if you will, because I wanted to explain what I would be doing.

The inaugural post is a video of Booboo, of course! I was reading a little book to him with a bee, and when I made the Bzzzing noise, he laughed hysterically and wouldn't stop. So I had to take a video, and I wanted to post it even though it's rather shaky. You try making a bzzzz noise, filming, and laughing, all at the same time! Also, please excuse the mess...that's why we call him our little Havoc Wreaker!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

If my house smells like chemicals, it's not clean!

2009-01-28T20:07:00.005-07:00

I have a very sensitive nose. I've had this affliction my entire life. I especially can't stand the smell of commercial cleaners. Don't tell my mom, but even as a teen, when it was my turn to clean the bathroom I would 1) open all windows and doors and turn on the fan, 2) use a miniscule amount (or, ahem, none)of Scrubbing Bubbles and Comet and whatever, 3) run up my parent's water and heating bill by just scrubbing with masses of hot water. I swear my nose has gotten even worse with time and age (and peaking during my pregnancy when I could hardly go to church because some old lady sitting 3 pews away from me was wearing perfume). After nearly a decade of living as a single girl with beaucoup roomates and having to put up with their cleaning habits and products, the final straw was my last roomate. She didn't clean super often, but about once a week she would go through the kitchen and bathroom and lay down this inches thick (I exaggerate not) layer of Comet over all the surfaces therein. And then she'd let it sit for hours, sometimes even overnight. And I had the only migraines I've ever had in my life. It would be instantaneous. I'd walk in the door and be hit by that smell and boom! There was my headache. And all I could do was hide in my room and sit by my open window.

But I made a decision. I'd heard of people who could clean their whole house with lemon juice and love and crystals and chi, tee hee, and I resolved to become one of those people now that I would have charge of my own little nest. Then, as I often do, after having made this decision, I did tons of research on the matter so as to bolster my resolve, and have some good facts on hand in case anyone should tell me I was crazy. But I don't want to spend all kinds of time convincing in this post. I figure most of you probably have already heard some rumours on the wind about the asthma rate in children rapidly increasing and scientifically linked to chemicals and how the air inside your house is 50 times more toxic than the air outside, even if you live right next to the freeway and some drycleaners and an oil refinery and how many of these chemicals never leave our bodies, they just build up and up and up over our lives. I'm not going to go into all these things because I want to dedicate this post to just how easy, effective, and gosh-darn-cheap organic cleaning can be.

The secret is in the magic ingredients. There are three main ones, but the first and foremost and can't-live-without is vinegar. White distilled vinegar; you can use it for everything. The second and third are baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Before I move on to how I use them, I just want to take a moment to talk about the other supercool features of these three ingredients. They are useful for TONS of things. Over here in Mormonville we believe in food storage, which actually means more than food storage. It means everything-you-need-to-live storage. So as that is a big list I like to simplify and consolidate. So instead of having a year's worth of window cleaner and bathtub cleaner and drain de-clogger and disinfectant and floor cleaner and that stuff that covers up/get's rid of funky smells/causes infertility, I just have vinegar and baking soda and peroxide. And all three of those things have other useful purposes besides cleaning, like baking, and you could make salad dressing, and hydrogen peroxide has all kinds of medical usefulness. And if you're in a pinch (which is the point of food storage, right?) you could also brush your teeth and wash your hair with those ingredients. Crazy.

1) Take one empty squirt bottle.
2) Fill it halfway with vinegar.
3) Fill it the rest of the way with water.

This is all you need to clean your counters, your floor, and your mirrors/windows. For the first two I use rags/mops (no sponges! sponges are the devil!). For the last one I use some form of newspaper (usually the free ones I get in junkmail as we don't have a subscription). I also use it to do wipe downs of sinks and the toilet (that last one i use special designated rags for). But Megan, you say, doesn't vinegar offend your delicate little nose? Not really. Watered down by half like it is makes it a lot less stinky, and it dissipates lickety-split. And this stuff also works to deodorize everything. I spray it in my garbage and diaper pails after I've emptied them and I've even just sprayed it in the air if there's some kind of lingering funk from one of these two pails (and then I invite my mother-in-law over, who then breathes deeply and decides I'm not such a horrible housekeeper after all, just like the Febreze commercials).

4) Buy a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
5) Replace the little cap with a squirt bottle top you stole off another empty squirt bottle. Most of them fit.

This I use for extra germ killing power. The one-two punch of vinegar and then hydrogen peroxide leaves no germs, and then no residue. They both completely evaporate. And even if you managed to lick the counter before they evaporated, no harm done. Just to illustrate the super cool power of these two ingredients; industrial meat farms, some of the nastiest, dirtiest places on earth, use vinegar and HP (I'm sick of typing the whole thing out) to clean--and it works. Other cleaners (bleach, Lysol, etc.) leave chemicals behind. Some hints with HP: it's not aerosol like Lysol, but you can use it basically the same way. Things will be a little wetter, but just let it air dry, and then it's good to go! This is especially important if you sprayed it on your toilet seat! If you then sit on it before it's dry, it won't hurt you, but it will give you a strange, fizzing sensation (or so I've heard...I've of course never done that...ahem). Also, you do not need to use HP every single time you wipe your counter down. I tend to spray my counter down once every other day, but you could do it once a day if you are a little more nervous than me (I do clean with the vinegar solution several times a day). And once a week or so I'll go through the place and spray some major germ spots, like doorknobs, and the phones/remote controls (although I spray it on a cloth and wipe the phone instead of spraying directly).

6) Get a box of baking soda. Or if you want to be like me, buy huge bags of it at Costco.
7) Sprinkle it where you need it!

Baking soda I mainly use in the bathtub, and when I want to more thoroughly scrub down the bathroom and kitchen sinks. The trick here is to very thoroughly wet the entire surface down with the vinegar spray, and then sprinkle the baking soda pretty liberally over that. Then leave it alone for a few minutes. This part is important and makes all the difference. Go clean something else for a minute, or lick your counter again, ha ha, then come back and scrub the paste off. Cleaning this way is alot like cleaning with Comet, minus the migraines; you just sort of scrub the paste into the surface and then rinse it off. Beautiful and shiny! You could use a rag for this, but I prefer those plastic meshy scrub pads, which I then rinse off with pretty-darn hot water. The other cool thing I use baking soda for is the drains. Here's how you keep your drains fresh and clean. Once a month or so you throw a couple of handfuls of baking soda down the drain, then you pour straight vinegar on it (i'm not sure how much, maybe a 1/2 a cup? I just pour a little, watch it fizz, pour a little more, watch it fizz, a couple times) then you let it do it's thing for a few minutes, then poor boiling water down the drain. Voila!

I haven't got it all figured out yet. I still buy toilet bowl cleaner and dishwashing liquid and dishwasher detergent, though I get the environmentally friendly version of all those (mostly Ecover and Method brands). Some day soon I'll figure out how to do those cheaper and easier (a little bird told me you can use vinegar in the toilet bowl too, but you have to do it more frequently) and then I'll let you know. You can find a lot of homemade cleaning recipes online, but they are more complicated then I can committ to. This system works for me, and it works well. Most of it I found in a really fabulous book called (are you ready for this title?) Organic Housekeeping: In Which the Non-toxic Avenger Shows You How to Improve Your Health and That of Your Family, While You Save Time, Money, and Perhaps Your Sanity, by Ellen Sandbeck. This is one of those non-fiction books that's a great, easy, interesting read; and she does all kinds research and very clearly presents the proof to you about the truth of all this germ-killing, anti-biotic, toxic chemical controversy, and much more.

So there it is! A pretty simple, cut-and-dried, cleaning method, written up in a really complicated, wordy post. Feel free to ask any questions! Or just roll your eyes at my kookiness!

Hubby Tag

2009-01-21T22:34:00.004-07:00

Where we met: In the side yard of the house in which we currently live, actually! It is my aunt's house and she introduced us. We gave her flowers when we got engaged. She is now currently our landlord!

How long we dated before we got hitched: 6 months.
How long have we been married: 2 years in March.
What's my favorite feature about him: His eyes, his height, his hair, his legs, his...ok, I'll stop.
What's my favorite quality about him: His intelligence and spirituality. The way he has wholeheartedly thrown himself into fatherhood and husbandhood. The way he totally supports my granolaness. The way he loves me!
What's his nickname for me: Lately he calls me Meganstar.

His favorite color: He likes navy blue and dark dark purple. I think. Guys don't often do fave colors, you know?
His favorite food: Cheese, much to my despair. And peanuts/peanut butter.
His favorite sport: Is hiking a sport?
Who said the L word first: Jon said, and I quote, "I think I'm beginning to love you." All I did was ask him if I should introduce him as my boyfriend at my work Christmas party.
First kiss when and where: In my living room about 2 months or so after we started dating.
Favorite couple thing to do: Going out to eat (Mazza's and Bombay House) and watching movies and none of your beeswax.
How many kids:1 little boy.
His hidden talent: cooking.
His age: 31, but not for too much longer.
His favorite music: classical.
What I admire most about him: His cheerful attitude and willingness to help. And his extensive scriptural knowledge, at least compared to me.
His favorite pastimes: hanging out with his family, playing on the computer, the aforementioned hiking.
Will he read this: If I tell him to!

I tag: Jess and Julie, and Emily and Rosalyn, and Jen and anyone else who wants to do a little reminiscing/bragging about their husband!

We Have Liftoff!!!

2009-01-19T15:35:00.003-07:00

For weeks now Booboo has been nearly crawling, and not just rocking on his hands and knees but even putting one knee forward and one hand forward. But then he'd always just lunge at whatever he was trying to get to and go down on his stomach again. If he wasn't able to reach his prize he'd get back up on his knees and do it again! I've just been waiting for his little light to click on and for him to string those individual little "steps" together before I officially called it crawling. Well today, ta da ta da!!! while at my mom's he finally figured it out! Now the full force of his exploratory energy will be felt and nothing will be safe. Lock up your valuables.

Enjoy!

Grab that Cash with Both Hands and Make a Stash!!!

2009-01-14T08:16:00.003-07:00

Money!! It's a crime!!

Ok, I'll stop quoting Pink Floyd now and get down to it. Money has been much on my mind lately and I have a tiny inkling that I might not be the only one feeling that way. Yet it seems hard to talk about it, like its a sensitive subject or something. Perhaps it has to do with our definitions of success: if I talk about worrying about money or pinching pennies then people will think we are not successful and feel sorry for us and in our society not successful with money=not successful as a human being. We at least feel that way a little bit, deep down, even though it's not true!! But in today's economic climate, you can make pretty good money and still feel the pinch!! We are not suffering for lack of money but I'm still suffering from a chronic disease known as Worrywartitis. Have you heard of it? Maybe you have a touch of it too? If you watch the news you are probably experiencing symptoms of worrywartitis. It's definitely contagious!!

We have been working really hard on storing up food and necessary items and I think we have done really well there. If you haven't worked on that I highly recommend it. It feels really good to look at a pile of food and know that you will be ok for awhile if something should happen! We are also trying to pay off our only debt, which is basically MY student loan. The thing that we really need to do for me to lessen my "symptoms" would be to build up more savings. We have a fairly good amount in our 401k, but that is pretty inaccessible (and quickly losing its value). What I'm really trying to work on is our basic savings account. To accomplish this, I need to get better at saving money. Makes sense, right?

Like you (probably), I have things I'm good at and things I'm not so good at. Not so good at: sometimes I just cannot HANDLE eating or preparing anything we have in the house so we go out to eat; I'm picky about the food we eat and sometimes buy the more expensive but healthier stuff; sometimes I buy clothes that I never end up wearing and I never take back. That's just a few of my downfalls but you get the idea! And yet I think I have some strengths in the budgeting area also. The other day I told my sister-in-law that I'm a bit of a cheapskate and she said she would never have guessed that about me! At first I thought she was being sarcastic! Then I realized she really just hasn't known me long enough. I've often joked that I was raised in the Great Depression. In truth I've just spent my life reading way too many books that take place during that time. And I really LOVE to find ways to save money. Frugality feels a little bit like creativity to me, does that make sense? I may not be making something, but I'm saving something and that is pretty close. This nutty frugality kick of mine is very closely related to my inner granola. If something saves me money and trees then I am on it!

So here is where I come out of the closet and confess some of the zany things I do to save money and the planet (I'm not saying which is more important although I'd like to also remind you that by "the planet" I also mean our children's health and cuddly animals, and drinkable water and yes, beautiful, gorgeous, good-smelling, spirit-lifting, wind-breaking, erosion-preventing, air-quality-improving, huggable trees). Feel free to scoff at my silliness and don't think too hard about the one or two things I left out because I'm a little too chicken to admit to them unless I know you are a card-carrying member of the Clandestine Hippie Club. So now in no particular order....

Crazy Little Things I Do That Probably Don't Save Much But Make Me Feel Better Anyway:

1. I wash and reuse sandwich baggies, plastic produce bags and sometimes even foil, and use plastic shopping bags for our trash bags.
2. I've never bought a paper towel in my life. Those commercials about how this or that brand of paper towel has a more "cloth-like feel" really crack me up. Guess what has a really "cloth-like feel"? Cloth!!!
3. We use cloth diapers. I know, crazy. But don't knock it till you've tried it! We love it and find it super duper easy. We do use a few disposables, to be honest, but I'd say it's only 10% of the time.
4. My entire skin care regime consists of one thing: coconut oil. That's it. Ok, if I'm feeling like I want to pamper myself I'll use a little honey. But that's pretty rare. It's great, it's cheap, the tub I bought nearly 2 years ago is only maybe half gone and coconut oil has a fantastically long shelf-life. It also works great in your hair and helps kill cold sores! It's pretty miracle stuff!
5. (I'm almost done!) We eat pretty basically. Almost no processed foods. We bake our own bread and sprout our own sprouts and have even started making our own breakfast granola. I hope that it makes up a little (budget-wise) for the fact that I'm not the best bargain-shopper and sometimes I splash out on organic and I don't cut any coupons. Last summer we grew our first garden, but because we had a newborn we mainly just grew buckets of tomatoes, which worked out perfectly because I eat tomatoes like they are going extinct. This year we really hope to grow more, but since neither one of us is what you'd call a natural green thumb, it will definitely be a learning process!
6. Last but not least, I wash pretty much my entire house with vinegar and baking soda and a little hydrogen peroxide.

I hope this doesn't sound like bragging. I'm actually really nervous to post this because I'd hate for anyone to think I'm extreme. This stuff is mostly just a balm for my worrywartitis flare-ups. It's kind of like when your whole house is a mess and you're all stressed out because you feel you can never get it Really Clean so you just do the dishes and scrub the sink and you feel SO much better to have that one shining little corner in the chaos. Do you have anything like that? That little thing that gives your spirit a lift when you've been down in the dumps or that little bit of service you perform when you've been thinking about yourself too much lately or something deep and intelligent you think about when you've been talking about the potty with your toddler for far too long?

Coming Soon: I'm going to post more about #6 on my list because my cousin requested it(sorry this is taking so long Adrienne!), because your house will be a cleaner place (meaning dirt, germs, AND toxins that hurt you and your kids), and because it really is super cheap and super easy. But not tonight because I need to go to bed!

Belated Christmas Pics!

2009-01-08T18:10:00.005-07:00

The Dreaded Christmas Cold has prevented me from posting this for a while. But I'm feeling better (slowly) so I thought I'd just throw some cute pics on here and call it a blog post. When I'm feeling better I'll write more! This was Booboo's first Christmas, so it was pretty easy to go low-key, but as you can see in these pics, he had a blast!

The wrapping paper is the most fun.

Man. He looks more and more like his dad everyday!

I got him a sippy cup as a toy/I hope to get him drinking out of it soon. See how he's holding it? Yeah, he's not any closer to drinking out of it now, 2 weeks later! At this rate, it could be months!

Mama and baby. 'Nuff said.

Jon was fooling around with one of those pics from the photo shoot a while ago. It's not perfect but it's pretty cute/funny!

I hope you all had great holidays!!

To TV or Not To TV.

2008-12-18T09:09:00.002-07:00

In my life I have really run the gamut of tv watching habits. In high school I watched General Hospital pretty religiously. In college I went for months without getting anywhere near one (including one three month period where we didn't even HAVE a tv). When I was in grad school and completely depressed because I hated it, I think I may have watched Law & Order 24 hours a day for about a week (and Law & Order, while being a very interesting and well done show is also totally depressing, so it wasn't the smartest thing to have watched!). Right now I have the Today Show on in the morning, whether I'm watching it or not, and then not much else after that. At night, depending on my exhaustion level, I might watch some shows,(as in i'm just too tired to do what I need to be doing and my brain is too tired even to read) but definitely not every day!

The funny thing is though, I spend most of my TV watching time (such as it is) totally annoyed and disgusted. I know!! Why am I still watching then? I'm asking myself the same thing! I guess it's just habit. And it's nice to have the background noise. As much as I love my Booboo, adult conversation is pretty scarce when you're home all day with a 7 month old! So listening to people talk kind of helps in some weird way...

But why am I so annoyed and disgusted? I could probably do an entire other post just about this subject, but I'll try to be brief here. Because it's so stupid!! The things they talk about, the way they smoosh everything into these ridiculously rushed 30 second segments (heaven forbid they talk about ANYTHING in depth). I'm mostly talking about the news and shows like the Today show here. And they are glorified commercials really. All they do is sell stuff. (and do stories on how to save money by spending it! Ha!) Reality shows are the devil (except for Jon & Kate +8, although I don't have cable, so I can't watch that on TV anyway!) it's all competition and glorifying cutthroat, backstabbing behavior. And the amount of sex on the rest is so depressing I can't even get into it. And don't get me started on commercials! (Jon will tell you that I get actually upset and angry at commercials all the time. I know, I'm such a dork!) How we are not all raging hypochondriacs from all the drug commercials I don't know.

Ok, don't worry, I'm cutting myself off from my little rant. So why am I talking about this? Well, a couple of months ago I read a great book called Funny in Farsi, and then an even greater book (pretty rare for a sequel) called Laughter Without an Accent. I would highly recommend these books to EVERYONE. I mean this is an unqualified recommend. Young, old, conservative, liberal, everybody! (Shout out to Jess for turning me on to these books!) The author is an Iranian American and the way she writes is just delightful, smart, uplifting, etc. I know, this seems unrelated, but I'm getting to the point. In the second book one of the little stories is how she decided that her family (she and her French husband and two children) should stop watching TV altogether and become a TV-free home. It's so well written: no preaching, no guilt-tripping, no judging, she just talks about how delightfully and unexpectedly wonderful life was without it and the one thing that was hard (folding laundry was so deadly boring without TV that she finally pulled out the radio and started listening to the news). I haven't been able to stop thinking about since.

I am grateful to TV for having pulled me through a tough nursing period with a newborn. And there are some good shows and it's especially fun to watch the little segments with craft ideas, recipes etc. But thanks to the modern miracle of high speed internet you can watch the little segments of shows like the Today show on the internet (and only the parts you want to see with one tiny little commercial which you can totally ignore), and I can get the news on the internet so I won't be totally cut off. And we will keep the TV set for watching movies, and you can get shows on DVD if you are willing to wait till the end of the season (no problem), and there are no commercials! Not that I will be doing that much, except of course for Jon&Kate +8!! It won't be easy at all. I'm going to have to develop a little more resourcefulness, and I'll probably have a cleaner house and get more sleep and knit more and listen to music more and maybe even start practicing my guitar again (i shouldn't get carried away. i'm not giving up Booboo along with the TV!)

I'm also not totally sure about this. For instance, there's a show on January 4th which is going to have all these amazing dance performances by world-class artists (the preview showed Riverdance and all kinds of cool stuff from all the world). I'm pretty jazzed to watch this as I LOVE stuff like this. I love to see stuff from all over the world, and dancing (no this does not include Dancing With the Stars). And I do love some of the stuff on PBS also, like Masterpiece theater, etc. So this will still be hard. But I think it will be good for me, and thanks to the conversion to digital TV, maybe it will be kind of easy. Because we don't have cable and we have a very nice analog TV and so if we don't buy the little conversion box I can keep my TV for movies and I won't have to exercise will power! It simply won't work after February somethingth! Awesome! That's still a couple of months away so until then I will try to wean myself off mornings without the Today Show keeping me company.

Epilogue:

There are a lot of people in the world who are smart enough to have already done this, or at least REALLY cut back on TV, in fact there are organizations and websites dedicated to this (there are organizations and websites for EVERYTHING, have you noticed?). I'm not even suggesting that you guys do this! A little bit of escape time and connection to the world is not a bad thing at all, especially for stay at home moms!! I guess I just wanted to share what I've been thinking about a lot lately, and wouldn't it be funny if a lot of people did this on the digital conversion day? Just stopped watching TV? Maybe I should start some kind of Internet Movement, like Buy Nothing Day (the day after Thanksgiving) or Plastic-Free Christmas or any of the other myriad Social Internet Mini-Revolution/Protest Thingies. I'd need a clever name and a logo that people can put on their blogs and websites. Hmm...that sounds like a lot of work! I would probably have to turn off the TV to do it! ;)

'Tis the Season.

2008-12-15T18:24:00.007-07:00

So Christmas is in 10 days. 10 days! And, like many of you I'm sure, it has really snuck up on me.
I've been having a hard time really getting into the spirit of things. The tree is mostly trimmed and we are working on our Christmas cards but there is still shopping to do and winter weather has finally hit us and it all makes me want to bunker down and stay inside and say "Bah Humbug". But I'm probably just in a mood tonight. Because I really do love Christmas. Booboo LOVES the tree lights and so do I, and I look forward to lots of great time with family. That's really the best part. And the snow is pretty, even though it's so darn cold.

Last week we had two very Christmassy experiences. Jon and I were able to go the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert. It was absolutely amazing. I wish I could describe how beautiful it was. I cried many times. It was also cool because there were these lovely dancers and I just loved their costumes. They made me wish that I was either 1) a little girl again so I could play dress up in swirly skirts, 2) that long swirly skirts were in style again, or 3) that I was one of those slightly eccentric women who just wear swirly skirts all the time anyway! The second Christmassy experience was trying to get my 7 month old to take nice pictures for the Christmas cards. My cousin Janae did a pretty amazing job with a little boy who was very unhappy, very unwilling to smile, and teething, to boot. All this resulted in a large amount of funny pictures, and, luckily, a few that are good enough to give away. But for the sake of humour, I thought I'd share some of the funnier ones here: note the excessive slobber, unamused expression, and funny faces he's pulling. All evidence of teething!

What? You've never heard of the Great Christmas Carrot? Ok, really we were just desperately trying to get him to smile... And now for some of the good ones:

For those of you who are cool enough to get the reference: doesn't he look like Toby from The Labyrinth in these? I didn't do that on purpose, I swear!

I've been trying desperately to come up with a caption for this last one...He's doing something very specific with his hands here, but I can't figure out what! If you have any ideas post them in a comment!

General Updates and Whatnots

2008-11-19T21:46:00.005-07:00

Once again, it's been awhile since you've heard from me! So, of course, there is a lot to catch you up on. Booboo is now 6 and a half months old. It's amazing how much he seems to grow and change every day. Jon keeps plugging along at work, and being a great dad and husband. Things are getting better for me as Walter gets a MITE better at sleeping and Jon does everything he can to get me as much sleep as possible. And it really helps. Somehow everything is just so much sunnier and easier when you're getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night! I've been having fun experimenting with new recipes and making them my own as I've never really liked following recipes anyway. I've also been taking a knitting class with my mom. We are settling into parenthood and grown-up-hood by getting to bed by 10pm most nights and getting the hang of bragging constantly about every little achievement of "our son" (holy cow!).

For instance: he's got two teeth now, and has been eating some solid food. He rolls all over the floor and gets himself into some sticky situations. It's so funny to see his face when he gets annoyed at the couch for getting in his way. Then he'll either continue to try rolling into the couch (in the hopes that it'll just go away??), or try to chew on it (that's also pretty darn funny) or finally figure out that he should roll the other way. Watching him beats watching tv anyday! He can also sit up better now and is a very talkative, babbly baby. Below are two video's; the first is some footage of our first attempt to feed him solid food. You'll hear on the video that I'm frustrated because he doesn't seem to be swallowing his food. Don't worry, we figured out later that he does much better with food that tastes good, like sweet potatoes and bananas. He definitely doesn't like rice cereal! The second video is one I just took today of him babbling along and sitting up (I apologize for how dark it is in the beginning). If you look closely you can catch a glimpse of his two teeth. He is quite often this loud, especially in church! We always apologize to people and say that he's loud sad and loud happy! Enjoy!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Fall

2008-10-30T18:25:00.003-06:00

I love Fall! The weather here has been just beautiful, even though I, of course, could use some more rain! Booboo and I have been spending a lot of time outdoors, trying to get as much vitamin D as possible before winter sets in, and just enjoying the glorious changing colors. Here are some pics of Walter frolicking (as much as a nearly 6 month old baby can!) in the autumn leaves. If you look closely, you may notice a newly acquired skill...(drumroll please)....sitting up! He hasn't totally mastered the skill; you have stay really close to prevent head-first wipeouts.

He's making this adorable face because he's watching the leaves fall from the trees!

Other things I adore about fall: sweaters, putting cute hats on Walter when we go for early morning walks, pumpkin, squash, soup, cinnamon, nutmeg, everything warm and comforting, apple cider, not having to shave my legs as often (i'm being honest!) and scarves. I've been trying to work on my cooking skills lately, especially trying to come up with healthy recipes that I can eat right now since I'm on restriction (I haven't had sugar, white flour, and dairy in over a month, among other things). I thought I'd share a really good recipe I tweaked/invented in honor of this post on Fall--Pumpkin Cookies! They are actually really healthy, so could even be called Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies. The truth is I started out trying to come up with a muffin recipe and then decided that they were the perfect texture for cookies instead. If you wanted to make them more dessert-ish you could throw in chocolate chips, and if you wanted to make them even MORE healthy (which I might attempt in the future) you could substitute apple sauce for some of the oil and honey and throw in even more goodies like cranberries and flax seed, etc. Here is my recipe (so far) for Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies (they are very moist and spicy and just sweet enough) and Happy Fall!!

Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup honey

1/8 cup molasses (I just eyeballed this, half of 1/4 cup)

2 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil (if you are anti-coconut oil you could use canola or somesuch)

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 cup pumkin puree

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup slivered almonds (or walnuts or whatever!)

18 minutes at 325 degrees. but keep your eye on it, cuz you might like them cooked to a different finish than I do!

Picture Tag

2008-10-23T15:45:00.005-06:00

My SIL Julie tagged me, and my friend Jen requested that I post MORE!!! so here I go...

(In my defense, I often think of posts but then decide that everyone will think it is dumb. Does anyone else feel that trepidation sometimes?)

THE RULES: You have to post the 4th picture in the 4th folder in your pictures folder. Then give a brief description before you tag a few others. So here it goes!

You KNOW I am being honest here as this is a terrible picture of me (Jon and I were just goofing off and I was not thinking I would share it with the public someday!!). We took this picture in the beginning of my pregnancy, I believe on the day we first told his family that we were expecting!(I look pretty happy though, don't I?) I decided to stick a pillow under my shirt to see what I would look like when I was more pregnant. Now I can only wish that I still fit into that shirt!!

Sigh.

Ok, I would like to tag Jen, Janae, Rosalyn, Emily, Ashley and Miss Kim. Ooh! and Adrienne and Heidi, if you guys are reading this, you're tagged too!

The Most Wonderful Weekend

2008-10-05T22:18:00.003-06:00

1. Beautiful gray, raining-all-day weather.
2. Finally getting to put cute chilly weather clothes on Booboo.
3. Making up a huge batch of this amazing stuff called Texas Caviar and eating it all weekend. Seriously, it's so good!!
4. Hanging out with mom-in-law and sisters-in-law while the men folk are away.
5. Watching a really fun movie called "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day".
6. Lounging around the house in comfy clothes all day Sunday. It's so wonderful to spend an entire lazy day at home now and then, isn't it?
7. General Conference. The most wonderful thing in my wonderful weekend.
8. Especially this great talk about living simply that was filled with Henry David Thoreau quotes and based on his time at Walden Pond. I love that book (I read it a couple of years ago for my Environmental Lit class) and I love the whole idea of Simple Living, and I just felt it was so relevant right now with such major looming economic crises. I'm inspired and determined to make better financial decisions and prepare for the future and pare down our life from the tedious, superficial, superflous, media-mandated desires of the world to the really important, joyful, spiritual, tangible, deeply meaningful desires of our hearts. (sorry, I'm rambling off-topic and should probably make this the subject of a future post instead!)
9. The best thing about any weekend: spending two whole days with my husband.

2 years ago today...

2008-09-29T21:28:00.002-06:00

Jon and I went on our first date 2 years ago today. 3 months later we were engaged and 3 months after that we were married. I would never have guessed that I would do it so fast, but when you know it's right, you can't wait for the rest of your life to begin!

And life DID begin!! 4 months after getting married we were pregnant, and 9 months after that we were parents. It's been wonderful, it's been hard, and I'm so so grateful.

To celebrate we basically just hung out with our slightly cranky, possibly teething, nearly 5 month old. Aaaahhhh, life is good!

Bye Bye Burrito Baby

2008-09-25T20:55:00.007-06:00

*Sniff* *Tear* my baby boy is growing up!

Ever since the hospital Walter has responded really well to swaddling. It always really calmed him down. We started out just doing it like the nurses showed us. But we learned, as he grew a little, that we needed to swaddle tighter to really keep him still, to make him feel cuddly safe, and to help him to sleep. We referred to this newer, tighter wrap as "the ruthless swaddle". Then later than that he started to wriggle free and wake himself up at night again, so we developed a newer technique that we called "the nuclear swaddle". I even developed a "summer swaddle" which just kept his arms tight because it was too hot to have the rest of him wrapped up. They always calmed him and helped to him to fall asleep and keep him asleep longer. We took our swaddle blankets with us everywhere. People at church became accustomed to seeing Jon perform the ruthless swaddle on the foyer couch during the meeting, and then pace around carrying Walter in his favorite position, the football hold. For a while there all our swaddle blankets were red, and we got all kinds of comments about how he looked like a little chili pepper (all he needs is a green hat!) and my chiropractor always called him Super Baby!!!

But when he started wriggling free of the nuclear swaddle and still staying asleep through all that we began to get the idea that he might not need the swaddle anymore. So I've been putting him down for naps without it, but we kept on doing it at night for the last couple of weeks. But last night he went to sleep without the nuclear swaddle and slept really well. So I think we may be the proud parents of a big baby boy who no longer needs to be swaddled!! Sad.

As a sort of tribute and good bye, here are the pictures we took of our swaddled little boy while he was growing. And I guess we'll put 7 or 8 square pieces of knit fabric in varying colors in a box for the next baby who likes to be swaddled!

4 Months!

2008-09-10T09:48:00.006-06:00

My little boy just keeps growing! On friday he turned 4 months old, and he had his 4 month check up. He is now in the 94th percentile for height and the 76th for weight. He is 16 lbs, 5 ozs. He's basically as big as his cousin Brooklyn, who's almost a year old! Jon likes to say that he's half as big as me, since when I hold him he covers my whole torso. Ha ha!

Even more important than his 4 month check up on Friday, on Sunday we finally had him blessed at church. Jon did a great job and though apparently Walter cooed and gurgled through a lot of it, it wasn't picked up on the microphone, so the rest of the chapel didn't hear it! Although that probably would have been cute! Below are some pics of my Booboolala in his cute blessing outfit. Sunday went great, we had a lunch after and I got to see some beloved family, and some wonderful friends I hadn't seen since before my baby was born! Thanks to all!

Treehugger, Jr.

2008-08-16T19:48:00.004-06:00

Most Saturday mornings Jon lets me sleep in just about as long as I want while he takes care of Walter. This morning, when I finally came down I couldn't find them in the apartment so I looked outside, and this is what I saw:

Can you tell what that is? That's Jon laying on the grass with Walter on his tummy, both looking up into the tree. This is actually a pretty normal sight, because the surest fire way to get a frantic, stressed out, upset Booboolala to calm down is to take him outside and let him look at trees. Maybe this is pretty typical of babies, I don't know, but I do know that all kinds of people have noticed it and remarked on it as unusual, and these are people who have had lots of contact with lots of babies (my mom, Jon's parents, my Aunt, etc...). He really loves to look at trees, but the main effect is just being outside. I'm talking--just inside the door a screaming baby. Cross the threshold to the outside and the screaming just stops and Walter's looking around intently like he's trying so hard to take in EVERYTHING. It's really cute and amazing. I spend a lot of time on the front porch and pacing around the front lawn. I wonder how it will be in the winter...

So we took some pics of Boo in his happy place/natural habitat for all to enjoy. I guess it makes sense that the child of a woman who has loved and adored trees all her life and a man who is happiest on a mountainside would be like this!!!
Now for another funny little tidbit: Boo has been laughing for over a month now, but he'll only do little chuckle/giggles and I can usually only stumble on the way to make him giggle randomly, and it (whatever it is, blowing on his face, tickling under his chin, etc) will only work about twice, and then he gets bored of it. So no matter how hard I've tried, I've been unable to get it on video. Today when we were taking pictures of him in the tree we decided to take some video of him grinning and kicking his legs and then.....ta da!!! He started laughing and we got lots of it on video. It was pretty awesome. I'm going to post the 2nd video we took below because it's a little shorter, has some good chuckles, but I have to apologize for a bit of a fumble on my part in the very beginning. But if you are a diehard Booboo fan (grandparents, etc...) Here is the link to our Dropshots page where I've also posted a longer first video, with more laughing and pure Walter Watching Enjoyment! http://www.dropshots.com/popatr#date/2008-08-16/13:26:57

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

So Big!!!

2008-08-11T20:12:00.005-06:00

A week ago our little Booboo turned 3 months old! I can't decide if the time has gone by really fast or really slow. Kind of both, if you know what I mean. We spent the day at my mom's which was a present for me, really. She watched him while I took a nap and then a bath in her great big tub. It was great. Then later, just after he woke up from a nap, he was being all cute so mom took some pictures, and here they are! He's getting really really big and finally has some good chubbiness to him, although I'm not sure you can see it in these pictures. You'll just have to believe me!

p.s. sorry about all the red!

Any Other Bookworms Out There?

2008-08-05T21:34:00.005-06:00

So apparently the National Endowment for the Arts is all worried that most Americans have only read 6 of the books on this list. So people are posting it on their blogs and showing which books they have read. I, being a former English major, have read more than 6. I wanted to do this list mainly for myself, to see how many I have read, and for some great ideas of some books to read in the future! I stole this list from my friend Jen and I'd love to see which ones some of my other friends have read!!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THIS LIST:
* Look at the list and bold those you have read.
* Italicize those you intend to read, and/or books you've started but haven't finished
* Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma- Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (en francais)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

38!!!!! Sweet! Only a true bookworm would be proud of this! On the other hand, it's sad how many of the italicized items were books I started and never finished. Oh well!

A Highland Fling

2008-07-15T10:18:00.006-06:00

On Saturday Jon and I gathered up our courage and our baby to try and get out and have a little fun. We'd attempted it a couple of weeks ago at the Salt Lake City Art Festival, but that was close to home, and we only went for 2 hours. This time we decided to try something farther afield, and for a longer duration of time. I'm a big fan of my Celtic heritage, and so I love to go to Highland Games, otherwise known as Scottish Festivals. So we packed a lot of stuff, picked up Mom and Joel (two cripples, what were we thinking? What were they thinking?) and headed down to Payson for their Scottish Festival. We were there for several hours, and then we stayed even longer to help Joel out and so I could visit with a friend I hadn't seen in a very long (pre-baby) time. By the time we got home we had had quite the time with a tired Booboolala and my mom summed up the day very well: "It's been real, it's been fun, but I can't say it's been real fun!!!"

The first half was a breeze because Walter fell right to sleep in the sling. Here's a pic of His Cuteness!

And I had to get some pictures of his first diaper change in a woodland glen...

...surrounded by bagpipers!!

All in all, quite the day, and a very good thing for me to get out of the house!!

A Belated Tribute to a New Daddy.

2008-06-30T19:07:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know Father's Day was a while ago. But life in the newborn vortex is just as crazy as ever. Besides, I've included a cute cute video I just recorded on Saturday, so it all works out! Here is just a little proof that a great new daddy has been born!

Jon likes to take Walter out on walks in the baby sling. It's especially helpful when I need a break and some more sleep! Here is a great early picture of Walter in the sling, but he still carries him around that way even though he is now a hefty 12 pounds!

Here is a great, funny picture of a very happy baby on his daddy's belly! I love this one!

Jon has been really working hard to get our new little family's affairs in order and get us more prepared for possible hard times. Because of him, we have no more credit card debt and we own both our cars outright. We also now have more than a one year supply of food. All this in just one year of marriage! Let me tell you, it feels good to know we have it!

And as promised earlier in this post, here is a fun video that I took at the Salt Lake City Arts Festival on Saturday. Jon was performing a little maneuver on Walter that is called "the milkshake". It's just a really great way to get burps out. But we were at an outdoor concert and the milkshake became a sort of rock out/shimmy! So I got video; the beginning is mostly Walter, but there's a great bit with Jon also at the end of the video. Enjoy!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

This Needs to be Seen.

2008-06-10T21:54:00.002-06:00

So I'm posting it here. It brought tears to my eyes. I think it is one of the most important issues being mostly ignored today. It is slowly getting more press though, which is great. Anyway, here is a link to a video on CNN about autism and a recent march they had for the cause. Jenny McCartney is a celebrity with an autistic son, so that's why she and her husband are speaking in the video, in case you didn't know.

Watch Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy rally against vaccines:

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/showbiz/2008/06/04/bts.carrey.mccarthy.vaccines.cnn

Things I Have Learned in a Mere 3 Weeks.

2008-05-29T09:05:00.005-06:00

1. Posting blogs slips pretty far down your priority list when life gets this crazy. Sorry everyone!
2. A teeny, tiny, brand-new person can rack up a lot of nicknames in a very short time. Here are some: Fussy McFusserton, Piglet, Frogger, ET, Squirmy, Boo Boo La La, Bug, Roly-Poly, Potato Bug, Little Old Man, etc.
3. The first time you get 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep feels like Christmas morning. And pretty much every time you get that much sleep.
4. Watching newborn facial gymnastics is more entertaining than the American Idol finale (and a lot of other stuff, cuz that show was pretty boring. maybe I should say it's more entertaining than the last 10 minutes of the finale!).
5. You can literally spend ALL your time dealing with feeding and feeding related issues, especially when your baby is having trouble nursing, so you have to nurse, and supplement with bottles, and pump, and occasionally have a bite to eat yourself, and change diapers, and run to the bathroom--often while your baby is screaming at you--and guzzle some water, and what? your husband's home from work and you're still in your pajamas? Yep.
6. Feeding and burping a newborn can be a very traumatic and emotionally-exhausting process. I'm not exagerrating.
7. 10 minutes of adorable can totally make up for several hours of pain-in-the-backside (he's pretty cute in that mode too, though).
8. I love my husband and would be absolutely lost without him.
9. The love and support and unending service of family and friends (especially your mother!)and your husband and your Heavenly Father can help you live through and deal with some truly difficult experiences (like an emergency c-section after 17 hours of labor and 6 weeks of recovery).
10. Magic for newborns: the swaddle and the sling.
11. Magic for mamas: a hot shower and a nap.
12. I am truly blessed.
13. I have the cutest little boy. Here is photographic proof, provided by my talented cousin and her talented friend:

World, Walter. Walter, World.

2008-05-09T17:42:00.002-06:00

Introducing Walter Scott Richardson!! Born on Monday, May 5th, at 3:30 pm. 8 lbs, 6 ozs, 21 inches long. There's a lot more to the story, but I will tell that in another post. As for now, he is perfect, beautiful, sweet, mellow, and the nurses and doctors couldn't stop raving about how good-looking he is. I, myself, am pretty astounded by it also. He is definitely more than the sum of both his parents. Not that hubby isn't the handsomest man on earth, and I'm not too shabby either, but this little boy passes us both up by far!!

We named him Walter for Jon's dad, and Scott for my maiden name, which is now serving as my middle name. And yes, we knew about the author, and thought it was pretty clever of us to come up with that name. So we like to call him Sir Walter. We are also paying homage to a couple of other literary figures named Walter that are favorites of mine. So with a name like that and parents like us, the poor kid is pretty much destined to be another nerdy bookworm! Here are some pictures of our little man: enjoy!

Waiting. But Not in Vain. Hopefully.

2008-04-28T21:15:00.002-06:00

First of all, just to clarify, my little countdown ticker is a little off. I made it months ago, and either I was thinking positively, or I was just somehow off, but I'm not actually due until Friday. Silly me. But I'm not actually overdue yet, which is good.

Hmmm...I'm having trouble deciding how to actually start this next little section I want to talk about. Basically, I'm feeling the need to be pretty honest, and not all positive and putting up a (false) brave, strong front. So I apologize in advance if I make anyone feel uncomfortable or unduly sorry for me. For the most part I have been really positive, and happy, and not stressed, and not worried, this whole pregnancy. So it hasn't always been an act. I've had a lot of lovely spiritual experiences, and the hypnobirthing thing is very reassuring and calming, but this last little stretch of pregnancy is very very hard, and I find my faith wavering a bit, and I suddenly have to work superhard during my relaxation sessions to stay in relaxed mode, and I have to tell my shoulders and neck and jaw, quite constantly, to unclench. Blech.

Poor Jon came home to find his wife a sobbing mess on the couch today. I'm actually quite proud that I made it safely home, as I was crying the entire way, and it's no easy feat to cry and drive at the same time, especially when you wear glasses. Home from where? you ask, and why was I crying? Because I had an appointment with my midwife today, and I'm 39 and 1/2 weeks pregnant, and she did an internal exam, and my baby is still high and hasn't dropped into position, and my cervix (sorry if this is too much info) is all closed and high and thick and blah blah blah. So for someone who's due in 4 days, my body isn't acting like it's going to go into labor any time soon.

Now my logical mind was trying to prepare myself for this news, and I know that it doesn't really mean much as many women don't have any progress at all until they actually start actual labor. But the part about the baby not having dropped was pretty discouraging, and then my midwife had to talk about what will happen if I don't go into labor before I reach 41 weeks. All this stuff that I REALLY REALLY don't want to do, like being induced, and if that doesn't work, being c-sectioned. That stuff drives cold, sharp, nails of fear into my heart. So I was sobbing because I feel like I have this, to quote my friend Emily, ticking time bomb set for 2 weeks now, and if I can't dismantle it/go into labor on my own, it's going to go off in the form of a traumatic, medical birth ordeal, that I don't want. That's a lot of pressure for a girl to live under.

Of course hormones and fatigue are also not helping very much. And I try to remember that this is 60% mood swing and that tomorrow I will feel better and a little more rational and positive and proactive and all that jazz. And I'll try to remember that poor L'il Bit is feeling all my mood swings too and I only want him to feel happy welcoming love vibes, so that he'll want to come on out. But tonight I'll be praying my guts out, and I don't mind asking that if you believe in that sort of thing, that you will pray for me too. To naturally start labor before my "time" is up, and to not have the frightening kind of labor that requires pitocin and forceps and emergency surgery, etc, and to have an increase of faith, and to not be so pitifully anxious right now. I hope I'm not asking too much...

I guess that no matter how, this boy will be born within about 2 and 1/2 weeks, and won't just be squatting uncomfortably on my bladder for forever. That is something to be grateful for. I guess. Thanks for putting up with my pity party, and I'll try to write something all upbeat tomorrow or the next day about spring, and gardening, and how sitting on my front porch is like sitting in a tree, and my new fun calling at church, and washing darling little sleep gowns with yellow ducks on them, etc. All the many, many, many good things in my life.

It's Just Like Christmas!!

2008-04-10T08:09:00.002-06:00

Jon and I just made our first ever Ebay purchase, and I'll be honest, it was mostly Jon. I watched and was totally confused and not very helpful. So that was my contribution!! But we've been dreaming of getting a bread mixer for months now, and researching them and trying to decide if we wanted to spend $350+ for a really good one that would last longer than us, or a more modest amount on a smaller, less higher rated model/brand? In the end we compromised and got the super mixer, a little bit used, for almost $200 less--or basically the price of the other, smaller mixers we were looking at. Pretty cool!

We got it yesterday night, and while we haven't actually made bread, we did put it together and turn it on, and it seems to work! So we are very excited to make bread and rolls, and never buy storebought junk again. (ok, maybe sometimes we'll buy bread still!!!)

But as great as this is, it is not what has me in an ecstatic 6-year-old-with-a-brand-new-bike-on-Christmas-morning state.

Every single piece of that bread mixer came wrapped in TONS of bubble wrap!!!

Very, very, happy Megan.

little updates and some appalling pictures.

2008-04-01T18:31:00.004-06:00

Well, I thought I'd do a little update and post some pictures of very preggers me, as it has been requested by a few people. Believe me, if it were up to me I would do this pregnancy all 19th century style and enter into my "confinement" until I emerge triumphantly with a one month old baby!! But, alas, Heavenly Father saw fit to send me to this century instead, tee hee, so I will post these pictures even though I am astonished, when I see them, to see that I can still remain upright. Pregnancy is an amazing condition in deed. This first picture is from about a month ago, and the bottom two are from this last Sunday.

As for the updates... the horrible cough is actually getting incrementally better and I'm able to sleep a little better. In fact, I'm sometimes amazed at how quickly and thoroughly I can zonk out! But I think my body must be trying to catch up a bit, in addition to the whole pregnancy fatigue thing. Poor Jon caught the disease but he seems to be handling it better than I did. He can still mostly sleep! Here's hoping he will be all the way better by the time Roo makes his appearance. I need Jon at the top of his game in the hospital!

The little boy who has given me this strange new silhouette continues to grow and amaze me. I thought I could feel every movement before!! Ha! His little stretches and adjustments are my constant companions now and it is quite the surreal experience. Yet at the same time it's a sort of cozy experience. We are just practicing for lots of future cuddles so that's ok.

And remember the to-do-list of several posts ago? Well I just revisited it, and I'm quite proud to say that we have checked off many things on it, including: packing my hospital bag, Jon painted the bathroom and stairs, I've shopped lots without feeling too much like I was going to "drop" with the help of the internet, with Mom and Jon's help we've moved in the rest of the way, I've had two lovely showers, the nursery nook is basically ready and decorated (i'll post pics soon) and I've even managed to do SOME cleaning. Not too shabby.

So this little boy can come whenever he is ready!

Can I Cough My Way to Preterm Labor?

2008-03-24T20:35:00.002-06:00

Seriously. I know it's been a while since the last post, but it's been a crazy while. I've been sick for over a week. A horrible mystery cough. I don't really feel sick in any other way, except I'm more sleep deprived than normal from coughing all night and now i've got crazy rib pain, also from coughing so much. I did eventually go to the doctor who said he couldn't do much for me (that's what they always say, which is why it takes me forever to go). But Jon felt better knowing it wasn't in my lungs, and he gave me a prescription for cough syrup that isn't "for sure" safe for pregnancy. Well I tried it last night and it did jack squat for me. Didn't even make me drowsy, and I swear it made me cough MORE. So, not going to take that again. Luckily it was only $5, so not too big a waste of money. Sigh. But I tell you what! It's super fun to have a coughing fit that's stressing out my ribs and my ab muscles, while at the same time having a rock-hard Braxton-Hicks contraction, and a L'il Bit with hiccups. I'm pretty sure I'll be the only woman in history to give her baby Shaken Baby Syndrome before he's born.

Ok, I'll stop complaining. I guess I'm pretty lucky to be able to take it so easy right now, no one relying on me. I can just recoup. And I'm also lucky because the baby is doing great, and I'm having no major probs in my pregnancy. And I'm on this very exciting 9 month ride where every day I walk around feeling like a little miracle. Carrying a little miracle. And in another week or so, if I do cough myself into labor, it won't be preterm anymore. That's pretty amazing.

That's the update.

Rib Kicks and Hiccups and Somersaults, Oh My!!

2008-02-26T16:45:00.005-07:00

Jon's family really loves to listen to Bill Cosby and they've got all these hard to find audio recordings of his stand-up routines on their computer. Well one of them has this really funny bit about babies in utero and how hard it must be for them. They're in this tiny room and it's really really humid, and then he says (and this is funnier the way he says it, with sound effects and whatnot), "the last 2 weeks or so they just start to go crazy in there man, punchin' and punchin' and writing their name on the walls..."

I know what Bill's talking about. And I have 2 months left, not 2 weeks! This baby boy of mine has been a very active baby for the last several months but for the most part the action was gentle, and amusing. Except when he'd make a direct hit to a few spots on my lower anatomy that would usually make my eyes roll back in my head--but that was pretty rare. Then he went really quiet for 2 days and I started to get worried, but he moved a little still, so I decided that things had gotten a little too crowded in there for his usual aerobic workout and this was going to be the way it was for the rest of my pregnancy.

Ha! Not exactly! My new theory is that he had a major growth spurt for 2 days that required some serious sleeping because my active little boy is back with a vengeance, and the strength of his movements have multiplied threefold. I no longer have to tell Jon what hijinks the baby is up to; he can see them. I've now had my first rib kick and a few breathless moments that were possibly resulting from lung kicks. I can feel him actually turn, which is really strange, especially this one day where I swear he was laying sideways for a couple of hours. Whenever I've laid on my side in bed he's always had a fun time kicking at the bed. Well those were the good ol' days because now I'm pretty sure he turns sideways and is jumping on the bed. And about once a day he gets a good case of the hiccups. For the most part it's a bit like having Jerry Lewis or some other physical comedian in my stomach. He keeps me company and he makes me giggle and he has impeccable comedic timing.

In other news, it has been brought to my attention that my referring to my little miracle as "the kid" really irks some of my loved ones, so I will try not to do that anymore and instead use the the universally acclaimed "li'l bit". My other nickname for him is "Roo" as in Kanga & Roo from Winnie the Pooh. I think it's pretty appropriate! Except I guess that makes me Kanga...

So that's the news! I'm off to start dinner and pretend like Roo isn't trying to dig some kind of escape route right now! I'll keep you posted!

What's In a Name?

2008-02-17T17:27:00.002-07:00

A lot, apparently, because I feel just frozen with indecision practically. I do trust that it will be a little easier when I finally meet my baby boy (I hope, I hope!), but at the moment, my list of names is at a whopping 10! And I think it will be easier if I could get it whittled down to 3 or 4 before I get to the hospital and have to make a final decision! So here's my list of 10, feel free to tell me your favorite 1, or 3. Input is always welcome!*

(these are not in any particular order)

1. Luke
2. Dane
3. Seth
4. Elijah
5. Charles
6. William/Liam
7. Connor
8. Jack
9. Cole
10. Benjamin

* We reserve the right to change our minds completely and pick something not on this list!

Sweet Things

2008-02-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

*Warning! Megan's blog will sometime's include posts about topics she cares about!! Some slight soapboxiness may occur!!*

1. I recently read an article about how honey is a really good natural antibiotic and works well smeared on wounds. Of course the FDA is regulating it and there will soon be an actual product on the market, not unlike Neosporin, except with honey in it! Kinda cool, I think, and I bet that actual honey will do in a pinch!

2. Today I read this cool article about how honey has now been medically proven to soothe coughs better than cough medicine! It's an old folk remedy, and now science backs it up! And it's very timely because now you can't give little kids cold medicine. Definitely DO NOT give it to babies under 1 year of age (that infant botulism risk is still very real) but after that, a spoonful of honey doesn't just make the medicine go down, it IS the medicine. I've always had a testimony of honey as a healer for sore throats (when I have a sore throat I live on hot water, lemon, and honey. It feels so good.) but I've never tried it specifically for coughs. I'm excited to try it! Not that I'm excited to be sick again, tee hee. Here's the link for the article if you'd like to read it yourself: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cold-and-flu/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100182476

3. This is a weird one. I apologize in advance. But I am not a product princess, and I love to find alternative ways to be pretty and clean, and most of all (I hate winter) moisturized! So I also recently learned that you can WASH your FACE with honey and I had to try it. It's antimicrobial and antibiotic so it actually cleans your face, gently, and is very moisturizing. I love it. But, um, make very sure that your hair is completely secured away from your face!! And use it very sparingly. Too much is, well, too much!

4. Last one: I also just read an article about recent research on artificial sweeteners. It's not majorly conclusive evidence as it's only been conducted on rats so far, but definitely interesting and worth a read, especially if you are like me and you try your hardest to eschew "fake" sugar. Which is quite the task, let me tell you. I basically can't buy normal yogurt anymore, what a trial. Anyway, the rats given yogurt with fake sugar ate lots more than the ones who just had normal sugar! I guess it just confused the rat's body and slowed down their metabolisms. Here's that link, if you want more than my measly synopsis: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/diabetes/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100192569&GT1=10908

p.s. has anybody heard anything more about the big mysterious decline in honeybees? i've been wondering. i guess i should just google it! what did we do before google?

I'm using you.

2008-02-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what's on my mind: I just quit my little part-time job for various reasons, one of which is that I have so much to do before Bitner Jonathan Richardson arrives (no? but we could call him 'Lil Bit for short! still no? tee hee) that I was just not getting done while I was working. But, the thing is, it's called a "To Do" list, and not a "To Think About Doing Someday" list. So I thought that if I published the highlights of the "To Do" list, I could use good old public humiliation as extra incentive to get this all done. Plus writing it down makes it more real, etc. etc. So yes, I'm using you all as my personal accountability, because I think maybe I was born without any of that, anyway. Or at least I have a deficiency...

To Do Before the Baby Gets Here:

1. Finish moving in to our apartment we moved into last September!
2. Clean everything in sight. A couple of times.
3. Shop till I drop. Basically.
4. Paint bathroom and stairway.
5. Start some kind of baby book so I have a safe place for all my ultrasound pics, etc.
6. Stretch and exercise frequently.
7. Practice my hypnobirthing stuff. Every day.
8. Help my mom plan a rockin' baby shower.
9. Thank HF for my mom. Daily!
10. Decide on a baby name. Or at least whittle the list down to 3 or 4 before I head into the hospital.
11. Make a million more lists with titles like, "Things to Learn How to Do" and "Stuff I Need to Start Gardening" and "Books to Read" and "Stuff to Put in my Hospital Bag" .
12. Do some token decorating of what I like to call "The Nursery Nook" since the kid's not going to get his own room for a while.
13. Not to overshare, but--Get as much husband and wife special time as possible before baby makes 3.
14. Related to 13--Come up with some wonderful plans for our upcoming first anniversary!!
15. Look into digital video cameras so we can be those annoying parents that video tape their first child's entire life and then forget we own it when kid #2 comes along. Just kiddng.
16. Get off this blog and start doing some of the stuff on the list before it get's even longer and sends me back to bed in desperation.

Thanks for your help!

oh my goodness! my very own blog!

2008-02-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

Leaping lizards!

I was going to wait until after the kid arrived to start this up, but I decided I'd better at least get it set up now, and I guess there are some things to post before he comes along, although I think the blog will get more *exciting* when it's full of cute cute baby pics. And there are still 2 and a half months until that time, give or take a week or two. So be patient until then!

Oh, and, as lovely as this green blog template is, bear with me whilst I tinker around with the look of my blog, with the help of the husband.