krebscout

these aren't the droids you're looking for, but I'll let you know if I see any more

2012-01-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

Just a list of things on my mind -

- I know it's repetitive, I'm sorry, but as a born-again health freak I've got food and exercise constantly on my mind, and I've got that proselytin' feeling. I just want you to know that thanks to my mother-in-law, I got my first pair of real running shoes today, and I'll be testing them out tomorrow. Couldn't be more thrilled. Also, Andy was getting sick of me wasting time wading through internet garbage trying to find gems of wisdom, so he got me a book. A book with actual science involved. It's this book, the Harvard Medical School's distillation of all the food and nutrition research that's fit to print. And I'm riveted. Sure it's kind of a dry read, but it makes everything else make so much sense. And it's kind of scaring me straight. The chapter on "Healthy Weight" is especially eye-opening, and a little harsh. I have a great desire to show this chapter to everybody I've ever met, but then I probably wouldn't have any more friends.

-I'm also reading a couple of other non-fiction books, including a Harlan Ellison book on the perils of television and a book about freedom from the pastor of a megachurch. I don't know that I've ever read a non-fiction book cover-to-cover for recreation before a few months ago. I'm kind of in the middle of my own personal mental-emotional-physical-social-spiritual renaissance. And it feels wonderful to grow.

-Andy took our family on a walking tour of downtown Los Angeles for the holiday yesterday. My sense of wonder for this city grows constantly. We saw things that I thought only happened in movies. The both quaint and grand "futuristic" Bradbury Building, for example, which really has been in several movies; Grand Central Market, described as "the palate of Los Angeles," a throbbing mini-city of darkness and lights and noises and smells and a hundred different languages hidden in plain sight; buildings so tall and thin and coppery that you look up and they make geometry out of the sky; "The World's Shortest Rail Line," only twenty-five cents a ride; the stark contrast of clean, modern architecture with elaborate fountains and sculpture and landscaping next to broken down, worn out people sleeping on the lawn.

- So, so many people I know, have lived with, live next to, or am otherwise friends with have lost babies in the past twelve months. And at least three of you read this blog sometimes. I am so sorry, friends; my heart aches for you and your husbands.

- In the ongoing overhaul of my eating habits, I'm finding that it's possible to actually feel really good after a meal. I know that sounds silly. But all of my life, I've ended most of my meals with a mix of guilt and the backward pleasure of feeling uncomfortably full. But after every meal I've had today, I felt refreshed, energized, clean, and happy. I kind of want to start a twitter feed of my every meal, because I'm both that excited about it and that self-absorbed.

-Podcasts are the best thing that ever happened to stay-at-home-and-in-need-of-intellectual-stimulation-moms. This American Life is, of course, always lovable. Big Illustration Party Time is the coursework I should have taken in college. Radiolab is pretty good, though I have problems with it. Planet Money is indispensable. Skepticality and Partially Examined Life are extremely challenging (not in terms of understandability - they actually both do a great job of breaking down hard concepts - but in terms of belief systems), and I'm grateful for that. My faith and testimony have gone through a lot of revision this past year and a half, and I think these are helping me shape my beliefs in a more intelligent, critical way.

-My life is so much brighter and sweeter when my little girl is back - with all her glorious personality and trouble and proto-sass. She was a sicky, sleepy slug for the better part of a week, and how I missed her. I think the night in the hospital helped us bond in a sleep-deprived, grumpy sort of way. Every time I look at her I'm struck with the sheer amount of adorableness in everything from her dainty mannerisms to the shape of her nostrils. Yes, I'm totally infatuated with my own child.

-Children, I should say. Elliot was sad to have missed a day of Joy School because of the sickness. He is really loving it, and all of the boys in his group are so sweet and fun. It's a little overwhelming to have so much preschool-testosterone in one room, but it's also a blast. I was helper mom today, and I helped many a young man go potty this morning.

-Pop Pilates. If you click that link, hit pause on the featured video as soon as you can. It's a bit much. But the workouts are fantastic. I haven't been getting sore from my regular exercise videos for a while, so I needed to step it up and I found these. They're intense. And free. And the host girl is just so perky. In an alternate life (a life where nurture and nature combined to make me inclined to exercise and love it from an earlier season), I would like to be a pilates instructor. You get paid to be strong and lean and help other people be the same, plus - endorphins up the wazoo.

-My sister gave us some home-made jam for Christmas, and it is delicious.

goals and health and life and stuff

2012-01-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

I just had a spider fall off my face, onto my shirt, and then go down my shirt. It was little.

So...I'm a fledgling health nut. I've been running four miles when possible (though I think I need to invest in real running shoes, not my $5 sneakers. My knees and ankles are starting to act up a little, but boy do I love not spending money on things). Or if I can't run that day, I'll do an exercise video - sometimes both. My body craves it. And food, as I elucidated in my last post, is doing great. Christmas was bad news in terms of healthy eating, but now that I'm home I'm back to eating...and thus feeling...quite well.

And consequently, I'm the fittest I've ever been in my life. I set two ambitious and lofty goals a few months ago (not really New Year's resolutions, just old fashioned goals): 1) get a six pack, and 2) fit into size six pants. I didn't really think either of those would happen (I've been around a size twelve my whole post-pubescent life, pregnancies excluded). And then I was shocked to see a very subtle but unmistakable 4-pack forming on my abs. And then I was shocked to go to Target and, just for a lark, try on some size six pants only to find that they fit. To be fair, I think they were a very generous size six, and all of my other pants that fit properly are size eight. And the scale in Seattle (where we spent a fantastic and loving Christmas holiday with Andy's family) said I was, at the lowest point, 136.3 lbs. I don't think I've weighed that little since I was 15 and still growing.

Now, I'm a far, far cry from being "skinny." Between all the jiggle I've still got and the alienishly wrinkly stomach skin (I was not one of the ladies blessed with stretchmark-resistant rubber for skin), I couldn't wear a bikini even if I was so inclined. And I still have a pretty high percentage of body fat, I think. BUT despite that, I am...really proud of my body. I just didn't think my pelvis bone could fit into size six pants. I didn't think I could ever be a runner or a healthy eater. But I'm doing all of those things! And I feel a healthy glow internally, and I feel attractive externally, and as a result, I write blog posts about health/fitness and bring it up in conversation way, way too much.

I'm not sure how far this will go - I have no intention of spending more than an hour a day exercising, I don't intend to ever spend the time or mental energy to count calories, I don't intend to spend money on a gym membership, and I still plan to enjoy a small amount of sugar in my life. But it's kind of exciting to think that I have gotten this far, and there's still so much more I could change that I haven't changed yet. For the first time I believe that my body...MY body...has the capacity to go all the way if I'm willing to take it there.

I have dabbled with the idea of training for a half marathon. I'm still a total novice, and I don't actually know what "training" entails. I could do a 5k, since that's less than four miles. But I'm afraid that once I do a serious run I'll see how slow and clumsy I am and lose my momentum.

Now for the stuff that's not about my bod:

- Corryn is THIS close to walking. She knows she can do it, she's just being coy with us.
- Elliot starts Joy School next week. I'm not sure how I feel about this.
- I have a few little jobs I'm working on now.
- Andy's PhD apps - all ten of them - were finished as of last Sunday, and he's already had a phone interview with one of the very best schools. We're still hoping to stay at UCLA, but I think there's a real possibility we may not stay in Los Angeles after all.
- I have awesome in-laws.

curse you, tiny foods!

2011-11-22T16:17:00.002-07:00

Well, I went off gluten for a little over a week. I felt great at first, then some of my symptoms came back a little bit (could be that I accidentally ate some hidden gluten, could be that something else also triggers my symptoms, could be that I'm not sensitive to gluten at all). Then I got back on gluten to see if I could contrast the two (there wasn't a big difference at first except for one thing that may or may not have been related, and perhaps there's some sort of dietary "momentum" from going off gluten for a while, or, again, perhaps it's not gluten at all) and then it seems to get incrementally worse... The point is, I'm not a doctor and I don't know what the heck I'm doing.

For those of you who may not know, gluten is a protein found only in wheat, barley, oats [contaminated oats, really, which are almost all oats], and a few other obscure grains. So I wasn't eating carb-free; I ate lots of fruit, quinoa, brown rice (white rice is no bueno), and the occasional potato or bit of corn. I also ate a lot more vegetables and a bit more protein (mostly in the form of beans and almonds and delicious Columbus-brand deli turkey from Costco). And I ate a lot less in general. And I really felt great - I felt a peace in my guts that I hadn't felt for some time. I lost weight in that week and got a lot of, "You're looking thin! You have a healthy glow!" kinds of comments. (Don't worry, I'm still about fifteen-twenty pounds overweight. Your lovably squishy krebscout is still here.) Now, was it gluten? I don't know. Turns out that when you cut out wheat products and eat little-to-no added sugars (another potential irritant for my particular problem), you cut out about 99% of the world's unhealthy foods. And maybe it's just that eating healthy feels good.

Conversely, eating two doughnuts at ten o'clock at night because you're helping your husband with his PhD applications and it's tedious, obnoxious work so you self-medicate with glazed-fried-deliciousness...maybe makes you feel terrible and have a terrible night's sleep.

When did I get so old?

So I've been trying to change my relationship with food. For a while, even before all of this gluten stuff. It's bugged me for some time that I always feel an urge to punctuate my family outings and date nights with some kind of treat. Let's go to the beach...AND THEN GET ICE CREAM. Let's have family home evening....AND THEN GET DOUGHNUTS. Let's have a holiday/birthday/celebration....AND STUFF OURSELVES SILLY. It's such a strong culture, and it's so personal. One of the gluten-free blogs I was researching addressed the question of why Celiacs often cheat on their gluten-free diets despite the fact that it could put them in the hospital...she said it's denial. Because we were raised for food (specifically gluten) to be part of our souls. We have memories of food smells that we associate with home and mom and childhood; most of our traditions are based around the cooking, eating, or giving of food; your soul sags just to think about how much your children would be "missing out" if they didn't get, say, ice cream cones after going to the dentist/doctor (this was our tradition) or didn't enjoy an enormous amount of Halloween candy. I read elsewhere that sugar is how we say "I love you" in this country. Grandmas bake cookies, moms wouldn't dare let a birthday go by without a cake, and sweethearts go to the soda shop to get malts.

I don't want food to have that much power over me or my children.

Not at the risk of the muted sort of existence I feel when I eat the processed, refined, sugary stuff that I usually eat. Growing up, I never believed that healthy food could make such a difference in my life, but boy do I have a testimony of it now. My life was brighter and fuller and more vivacious in that gluten-free week than it's been for a good long time. I'm often one to dismiss arguments like this with a shrug and a, "Whatever. Millions of people have eaten a lot of gluten and sugar every day for generations and they turned out fine, my kids will be like me, blah blah I'm not going to worry about it."

But I can't shrug it off anymore.

Food is pleasurable, and I have no problem with that. God probably made it that way for a reason. But I wish I could turn off the "eat food for pleasure" command in my brain and rewrite the code to say, "eat food for nourishment, then make it pleasurable."

But the truth is that I am a very sentimental, tradition-loving type. It breaks my heart to think of my children without the good memories and food associations that I have. But if I rewrote the code now, while they're so young...if I established a new tradition of treasuring moments and experiences over ice cream cones and Thanksgiving pies...wouldn't they have just as much of a glowing childhood experience as mine? It would just be different. And that's okay. I WANT it to be different. Sometimes...often...I think to myself, "Dang, I wish I could raise my kids in a culture vacuum." No gender issues, no social conventions, no self-consciousness, no keeping-up-with-the-Jones-manship, no political correctness, no sense of isolation and no desire to be different. Just us and truth and God and grass and stars and math.

Lately I've been feeling like Satan's most effective weapon has just been the sheer noise of it all.

Well, there's a little snippet of my journey toward being at peace with food. Fortunately, I have an extremely open-minded and supportive husband who, though he's not quite feeling the same itch to go extreme, is willing to have an open dialogue about the role of food in our traditions and eat healthier with me in general. Now to convince my two-year-old that lollipops aren't that awesome.

Los Angeles, I'm yours

2011-11-13T23:54:00.001-07:00

I'm really learning to love this city. Sure it's crazy expensive and the traffic is awful and parking is impossible and there's pollution and sometimes you see a car in the mall parking lot whose license plate reads "THE HOFF"...

But all in all, I love it here. And Andy does too, I think. The city isn't afraid to have character, and everybody here is interesting, and there are (often free) adventures just waiting to be had. And the weather, I actually really like the weather now. And most of all, it's been a growing place for me. I've changed a lot. I didn't think I would ever love LA, but then I also didn't think I would ever see a professional counselor, be able to drive by myself on a seven-lane freeway without sobbing, be a runner*, or eat a gluten-free diet**.

*I read the other day that walking burns more calories than jogging. I just don't see how that can be true. Are they measuring it by distance or by time? That could make a difference. Also, is there a difference between jogging and running? Anyway, I've been running (not very fast or gracefully, and usually with a double stroller) just over a mile for six mornings a week for the past month or so, and I can't believe how much I like it now. It doesn't feel awful anymore. Well, sometimes it does, but only in the first half mile-ish, then after a while I feel like I could go forever, and when I go home I feel taller. Physically taller, like I walk up to my front door and I'm like, "Oh hey doorknob, what are you doing all the way down there?" And then I have energy and a good mood for the rest of the day. Best free, natural, healthy prozac in the world.

**I will probably post someday about my adventures with my health and include many horrible and intimate details about my gastrointestinal system, but for now suffice it to say that I believe that I am mildly gluten-intolerant (not celiac), that I have been for some time but it was intensified (and thus I noticed it) after Corryn was born, and I've been eating gluten-free for the past four or five days and already I feel so much better. I've also been eating much less sugar. I think I'm mostly posting this here so I feel some sort of accountability...to my adoring public.

P.S. In a fit of antioxidantal spontaneity, we bought a flat of pomegranates at Costco. Turns out the seeds are kinda nasty when you put them in a blender (texture-wise, not flavor-wise), but eating them plain is good. The children LOVE them. So much so that Elliot stuck one up his left nostril tonight, and this made him very sad.

That's all I have to say.

squashing squashes

2011-10-25T15:02:00.001-06:00

So I guess we have a Halloween tradition now, since we've been doing it for the past three years. Each member of the family gets their own pumpkin and gets to paint it however they like. Also, as of this year, we have doughnuts and apple cider, too.

Oh hey, check out these scratches my brother gave me (accidentally).

Concentrating.

Concentrating on being enthusiastic.

Trying really hard to open paint.

Hm. What should I draw?

By my painted arm, I will avenge thee.

The artist evaluates her work.

As Elliot would say, "Look! We all fammly!"

The finished 'mpkins.

no but really, you gotta check these out

2011-10-09T16:12:00.000-06:00

When I say that Elliot's drawing skills are blossoming, I mean it. So, often, our drawings are collaborative; he will ask me to "Help a draw a robot!" and I will draw a rectangle for the head, then he will add facial features and body parts. So this is a drawing we did last week. I drew the two rectangles, he did the rest:

Below is one he drew the same day, but I didn't do any part of it. This was all him, and he told me it was a skeleton:

And this one must be from last night. He asked me to draw Darth Vader at Stake Conference last night, so I drew Darth's head (sans pupils). When Andy looked through Elliot's sketchbook this morning, he found this little gem:

the city's alive, and, surprise, so am I

2011-10-02T22:32:00.000-06:00

Elliot is done with naps. He still has quiet time in his room, but he hasn't napped for a while. Corryn has been sleeping more than usual, though - she was sick this week with a fever that went up to 102.8. She's still getting over it, but she's feeling better. She also has some huge molars coming in. I'm not used to having a grumpy Corryn, I'm not sure how to handle it. She started to make her first animal sounds today; a monkey. She cracks herself up with it.

As a result of their asynchronous sleep schedules, I've been spending more one-on-one time with Elliot this week. I'm not used to being able to concentrate on just one child. He's learning so many things. His drawing skills are growing by leaps and bounds (he adds long, spindly legs onto everything you draw now. A happy face? Legs. Pumpkin? Legs. He also drew C3P0 on his own initiative). His memory is sharp, and his imagination and story-telling skills are growing with it. He's a creative kid. And apparently he learned how to read "Elliot" and "Mommy" without help from me. Probably recognized them. He loves action figures (Batman, Iron Man, and "Transformeder" are his current favorites), drawing, robots, Legos, glowsticks in the shower, ranch dressing, smoothies, and singing all of his words.

I've become an exercise convert. That is not something I ever thought I would say. But for those times when I wake up feeling anxious and guilty for no reason, or for those times when an indeterminate sense of doom is shadowing my thoughts, I find that going for a run is just about the only thing that will clear my mind. I bring along music and turn it up real loud. Architecture in Helsinki, Flaming Lips, Of Montreal, Apples in Stereo. Apples in Stereo's Floating in Space...gotta be my favorite song at the moment. I just run and I listen and it gives me wings and it gives me endorphins and I glide home, radiating goodwill toward all the people in their cars.

My housekeeping skills are improving slowly. An ant problem and one cockroach are good motivators. Not that we were so gross beforehand that we attracted tons of pests (we actually only had one incident where we left a dirty plate on the table overnight and woke up to find the table crawling with ants; otherwise, they seem to leave our food alone. The ants come out of the shower fixtures and the vents in the walls. It's a huge problem in the whole complex. And the cockroach was just a random event in the plate cupboard. We got sprayed after that). We're just much better about cleaning now.

Last night we had a picnic on top of Los Angeles. There's one spot up off Mullholand Drive, in the mountains, where they built a missile station during the cold war. There's a three-sixty view of Los Angeles from up there, a cement platform over a hollow missile silo in which a flock of birds audibly play house. We watched the sunset, we put a quarter in the telescope and looked at the temple, we ate sandwiches. Elliot was so thrilled about it he just ran around in circles screaming.

Babies and two-year-olds are not self-conscious. Why does that change.

******

2011-09-14T22:04:00.001-06:00

I'm the mom of a one-year-old again.

Corryn got two parties. We just spent a soul-salving nine days in Colorado*, and while there we threw her a little party with my parents. We visited the Swetsville Zoo** and then went home to have ribs***, cake, and some presents. Corryn also had a party yesterday, on her birthday proper. She enjoyed friends and all the things one is allowed to have after their first birthday - some pizza, some milk, and some "Rinny Pie"****. She got more toys last night, and although she likes them a lot, her brother tends to hog them and not share. We also gave her a Spongebob blanket that reads, "Today is the best day ever!" because really, when you meet Corryn you realize that's how she feels all the time.

I have photographs of both events, but my iPhoto hasn't been working all day.

In other news, Elliot's getting much better at going potty. He tells me every time he needs to go now, but he whispers it very softly with a slight grin. Like he's telling me but he doesn't really want me to hear. Very few accidents lately. His drawing skills are improving, too.

In other other news, Wii Fit told me this morning that I've lost 12.1 pounds in the past 62 days. I'm trying to decide how much of that was hair weight. My hair wasn't that long before I chopped it, but it's dense as Hades.***** I don't feel like I've lost that much, my clothes still don't fit right, and I certainly don't feel as small as I was before I got pregnant with Corryn, which is what the chart tells me is so. I fell off the exercise wagon during the last two weeks of the illustration job (I had to choose between exercise or work on those days, and I had to get the work done) and also during our Colorado trip (I went running once, but the elevation change just about killed me). I got back on as soon as we got home though, and I really do love the feeling of sore muscles.

Also, Andy's real sick right now (he saw the doctor today. Doc says it's a viral ulcer in his throat). He fell asleep for the night at six thirty and he can hardly eat a thing. So, you know. Be extra nice to him. He's my favorite.

*Which was preceded by a life-saving month of having my sister-in-law live with us and help watch the kids so I could finish my illustration job, which I did, and Becky deserves a million Panera sandwiches for it. Also did I mention that we have an adorable new niece? Because we do.
**A childhood staple that is, sadly, about to get the axe. Elliot REALLY enjoyed it.
***The girl REALLY loves meat.
****A ridiculously sweet dessert I made up because the three disparate ingredients appealed to me at the time. So called after one of her nicknames, short for "Corryny-pie."
*****That's a phrase now.
******A Blog Post About Stuff

the strip

2011-09-01T00:20:00.001-06:00

From left to right: Engagement/wedding invitation pictures (not genuine photo booth pictures), October 2007. Next, Pacific Science Center, August 2009, family of three. Next, PSC again, family of three and a half, summer 2010. Next two - family of four, Santa Monica Pier, August 31, 2011. We change and grow and love.

Paintings and stuff

2011-08-23T00:18:00.000-06:00

I've started posting my religious paintings at forgloryandforbeauty.tumblr.com. Don't worry, it's not an attempt to start another blog. This one is just meant to be a static portfolio. Or something.

every little thing she does is magic

2011-08-18T23:40:00.000-06:00

Can I just tell you how in love I am with this little girl?

She's still the sweetest, chillest, best-behaved baby in town. She does tend to squeal like a bottle-rocket when she wants to communicate, but that's okay. She crawls like a pro now and she's got five teeth. She says hi, roars at you (when you roar at her. She thinks burps are roars and will respond accordingly), waves, claps, gives high-fives, pinches you for fun, and loves to eat lint. Every time I look at her I just melt with appreciation for the lovely little soul that she is. Seriously, there's something special about this little one. She just had her last monthbirthday, as she'll be a year old next month. Too fast, I tell you.

Elliot is growing older exponentially. He pooped in the potty for the first time tonight. There was much rejoicing: it's been quite the journey. Potty training actually may stick this time, though, as he's started telling us before he needs to go instead of wetting himself and then letting us know. But he did pee on me this morning while I was holding him in the middle of the store trying to soothe a Transformers-related melt-down. Thank goodness for Becky.

Being a mom is hard, and it can get tedious, and sometimes it makes you cry...but my house is full of love.

"drugs"

2011-08-14T16:17:00.000-06:00

So I bought a book called Get High Now - Without Drugs. I've taken an interest lately in the complicated relationship between mind and body, how my thoughts can make my body sick and tension in my body can make my mind sick and how taking care of either one helps the other. How exercising can make me happy, how my digestive issues have cleared up as my stress has eased. And this book looked like a fun way to explore that relationship a little (and in fact, on page 42, this book taught me there's a name for such studies: psychoneuroimmunology).

The book is not very scientific at all, though there's enough information and references to studies that you could do some more research if you liked. And of course there are some silly, cop-out tricks. But there's some good stuff, too. I haven't done a lot yet, but I'm liking the breathing exercises. I've tried a bite-size version of Sudarshan Kriya, an old breathing technique that's used in modern yoga and such. Andy and I did it together. Andy said it made him feel trembly, but I just felt really relaxed. Which is all I ever wanted out of this book.

We also spent a little time poking around gethightnow.com, the online appendage to the book. It has a few media files stored there. One that I found really fascinating was Holophonic sound. Now, this isn't really anything new, and it doesn't get you "high" in any way. It's just a more realistic, three-dimensional form of stereo recording. But boy is it an experience. You must wear headphones for the effect to take place, and closing your eyes helps. The little clip on gethighnow.com sent me into shivers, and I swear I could feel the dude breathing down my neck.

Andy then showed me this, a preview of "the world's first video game with no video." I dare you to put on your headphones, close your eyes, listen to that clip, and not cringe. Isn't it incredible? Immersive? We figured that somebody, somewhere, must have taken advantage of binaural recording to make some good radio drama or something. So we found Mind Theatre. I didn't listen to all of the little story there, but I listened enough to feel a freight train pass right behind me, to be surrounded by a thunderstorm...I felt transported in a way that visual media has never accomplished for me. The Wikipedia page on binaural recording has a lot of intriguing links to more resources at the bottom - I think I may try out a podcast.

Anyway, that's all I really wanted to say. There are people out there doing some fascinating things.

Not very pinteresting

2011-08-09T15:23:00.003-06:00

Joined Pinterest, and I like it a lot. It's perfect for those, like me, who tend to open tabs and leave them open for weeks on end, knowing that they'll disappear from your brain if you bookmark them. Which seems to be just about everybody. It's a very creative-brain-friendly place to catalogue images that give me illustration or painting ideas, children's books that I want to add to my collection, and so on.

I really do like it a lot. But I'm going to write a little post about things I see on Pinterest that I don't like (though none are exclusive to Pinterest, they are bountiful there), so feel free to skip this post:

- The word "tute." (Short for tutorial.)
- Chevron (known to the common man as "zig-zag"). I get that it's hot these days, but I just don't like it.
- The ubiquitous outfit collage on a white background (which will invariably include a tank-top, a cardigan, tight pants or skirt, a gigantic purse, sunglasses, boots, and a percussive piece of jewelry). Not sure why it bugs me. Maybe I'm jealous that I'm not good with clothes.
- Hybrid dessert recipes. "Oreo cupcakes! S'more pie! Brownie cookie-dough hot-chocolate samoa ice-cream cake! BRILLIANT WHY HAVE I NEVER THOUGHT OF THIS."
- Homages to Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom)
- Two people post the same inspirational quote and attribute it to two different celebrities
- Inspirational quotes to which people add the caption, "So true," even when it's something that can neither really be false or true, like "Don't put off saying 'I love you.'"
- Inspirational quotes that say something along the lines of "LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT NOW. BE THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE NOW," because these quotees clearly didn't read my last blog post.

Yeah that's all.

change, motivation, faith, feedback, and contrast

2011-07-20T16:40:00.000-06:00

I read an article (okay, part of an article) in Wired magazine about using feedback loops for motivation. They start with an illustrative story about a California town that had a speeding problem. So they installed those "YOUR SPEED" signs (the kind that reflects your speed back to you and blinks if you're speeding). And the problem pretty much stopped. Which is strange, because the signs weren't giving any new information (a driver can look at their speedometer to see how fast they're going), and they didn't have any "punitive follow-up" - nobody was going to punish you if you made it blink. It's just straight-up feedback. (The article doesn't address the idea of shame, or fear of the judgment of those around you who might also see your speed on the sign, which might be a problem.)

I've been chewing on this thought, and I realized that may be one reason why my postnatal weight loss efforts were so much more effective the first time than the second; the first time, I weighed myself on the Wii Fit every day, and it fed a nice graph of my daily progress back to me. So when I did poorly, I had something more than just my own mental nags to tell me so, and when I did well I had something concrete to feel good about. I could see patterns and change my behavior accordingly. This time around, though, I've been weighing myself sporadically. And I think that, until recently, it's taken a toll on my motivation. I'm actually doing really well on exercising right now - doing at least 40 minutes every day, often more, with a good balance of cardio and strength training. But now there's a whole mess of motivations involved, including vanity, mental health, and trying to exhaust myself enough every day to fight off the insomnia that's been plaguing me for the past ten months.

What I crave is contrast. If I'm a run-down old shack today, I want to be a dazzling mansion tomorrow. Or at least by the end of the weekend. Isn't that the charm of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition? Or any makeover show? Before and after pictures? The big change, the contrast: it's thrilling. It's motivating. If I knew I could become a super svelte athlete tomorrow by putting in one day's torturously hard work, I'd totally do it. Or an accomplished illustrator, a perfect mom, a whatever. Or a spiritual giant. If I could have one Alma the Younger moment, or Saul on the Road to Damascus...if I could have one life-changing, enlightening, soul-bending moment of contrast and clarity...

But, of course, life doesn't work like that for the ninety and nine percent of us.

But in a way, that's kind of what a feedback system is. It's showing you the little contrasts. If I can make that small change, I can make the next one. There are reality shows that play on this, too - The Biggest Loser. That show is based on slow progress, though there's a series of miniature "big reveals" throughout to give you your contrast fix.

This is exactly what we're taught about faith, isn't it? Everything comes line by line and precept by precept. I've found that it works in reverse, too - regression, like progress, happens slowly, so gradually you don't notice it. Remember Esiotrot? That Roald Dahl story where the protagonist replaces his neighbor's tortoise with a slightly bigger one once a week, so she doesn't even notice that the tortoise is "growing" until she weighs him months later? Anyway, while I believe that daily scripture study and prayer will help me to get the spirit I want, and I believe that daily exercise and moderate eating habits will help me to get the body I want, I sometimes have trouble with the faith that it takes to do these repetitive, lackluster tasks. Is that a way I can define those words? Sure.

One thing I love about the Church is that we sit down and talk about things. I realized I don't get as much of that now that I'm not in school any more. But I do go to three hours of church meetings every Sunday, plus calling meetings and daily personal study and daily family study and weekly Family Home Evening and monthly activities and sometimes more. And it's repetitive. But I think I'd be lost without it. My two-year-old learns on the fly that it's not okay to hit other people; he learns by my reaction and the sudden, harsh consequence of a time-out. Then the next week, he learns in FHE when we sit down and teach him, "It's not okay to hit people." And then I hear him reflecting back to me the things that we sat and talked about weeks ago, and I'm shocked.

I think what I'm trying to say is this: I wish it was more sparkly, but repetition and gradual change is growing on me.

Great Movies, or Proof that My Husband is My Soulmate

2011-06-30T22:36:00.001-06:00

Andy recently made me watch an old 1970s film called The Network. It's about a television network that never really existed, but could have. And it may well be the best movie I've ever seen.

It's missing all the elements that people normally say they like about a movie - it's not particularly cinematic or beautiful, you don't relate to...or even like...the characters at all, and it doesn't have a redemptive ending. But the writing! The acting! Incredible. Andy called it "a very realistic satire," and it is. It's a twisted story told so straight it could almost be documentary.

There are only a few movies I've ever had this strong a reaction to (the ones that come to mind are Dark Star, Harold and Maude, Waltz With Bashir, and, in its own way, A Town Called Panic), and the thing they all seem to have in common is that they all have the guts to go there. And then the smarts to pull it off.

But I'm not recommending this movie to you. For one thing, it's rated R (mostly for swearing). Plus it's just bizarre. Most of the movies I deeply love are even too weird for some of my weirder friends. I just want you to know that it moved me.

In any case, at the end of The Network, I picked my jaw up off the floor, looked at Andy, and said, "Why was this movie so good?" He smiled at me knowingly, and I knew I married the right person.

(If anyone is interested in seeing one of the more over-the-top, famous, and fabulous scenes from the movie, click here.)

ex-roomies

2011-06-16T22:28:00.000-06:00

It worked for a couple of nights, but now, after Elliot dumped the entire contents of the toy box (including a metal lunchbox-like object and a plastic music cube and several other hefty but nonlethal toys) one by one into the crib before five in the morning...Corryn has moved back into the pack-n-play in the bathroom for her own safety. Everyone was quite unhappy with the situation, but I think, in the end, Elliot was the worst off.

Corryn is trying hard to grow several teeth (though the one on the bottom is still the only one you can see when she smiles) and is enjoying some new foods. She's nine months old now. It was at this point last time that we got pregnant again, which is baffling now. She's not quite crawling (Elliot didn't either until ten months), but she does inchworm and breakdance and roll and thus moves effectively in every direction but forward. She surprised me this morning by repeatedly pointing to my nose when I asked her to, and then pointing at her own nose. She doesn't do it every time, but it's clear that she knows what it means. She's still the sweetest baby around, and when we treated ourselves to California Pizza Kitchen last night she captured the flirtations of every single neighboring diner after bestowing her charm and smiles on them.

Elliot was intrigued last week by the idea of Corryn getting in trouble, and tried to get her in trouble by intentionally putting his head within her reach and, when she grabbed for his hearing aids, looking at me expectantly saying, "Corryn no touch? Pinch?" He's currently in a "What's that!?!" phase, even for objects he's very familiar with. Every time we go outside or look at a book or watch a show, "What's that? What's that?" And the other night, I was putting together one of those all-in-one-bag salad kits. Elliot was sort of narrating what I was doing. I opened the packet of dressing (a strawberry vinaigrette) and poured it on, and he yells, "Aaaaaaaaaand medicine!" And he was right. Totally looked like Pepto.

As for the grown-up half of this family, we're trying to figure out what to do with our summer. We're at something of a crossroads where one road is money and another road is another way to get maybe more money and another road is school and another road is a mix of all the other roads. It doesn't really matter that much, because a few dollars more or less and we're still going to be just as broke in the end. I've actually been able to work at illustration for my full hours this week (thanks to Andy having a week off from school), and in many ways being a part-time laborer and a part-time mom is much, much easier than being a full-time mom. But I'm getting the feeling that that part of me is going to have to wait for another season in life. And I'm learning to be okay with that.

By the way - my husband is rockin grad school, and he's the best.

roomies

2011-06-13T08:42:00.000-06:00

Corryn and Elliot slept in the same room for the first time last night. Now I can hear Elliot babbling a bunch of nonsense and Corryn giggling at him, and then him laughing at her. It's a wonderful sound.

Potty like it's 1999

2011-05-26T23:38:00.002-06:00

He's only had one accident in the past two days. But don't think that means he's potty-trained: it just means he's really good at holding it in. He's been resisting going on the potty, and very rarely initiates it - we figure out he needs to go when he does a little knees-together dance or asks for his towel. He's very aware of the messes he makes, and he likes to carry a towel around his waist. To get it to work, he REALLY needs to go and we need to be VERY persuasive, especially with treats.

But he's so cute running around in his little Buzz Lightyear underwear.

(P.S. - Thanks for all the love.)

If life gives you lemons, make life take them back...demand to see life's manager.

2011-05-23T23:58:00.000-06:00

So I'm just going to be honest here. I've been dealing with some post-partum depression since Corryn was born, and I've been hiding it. Ashamed? Maybe, yeah, probably. But writing about it here doesn't mean I've had a breakthrough. Don't bring it up in conversation or anything, kay? I'm not ready for that.

Just wanted to get it out, work it out with some journaling (though this particular journal has a small audience, which is weird?), and I'm sorry I haven't been myself for some months. Who knows, maybe somebody from my distant past will stumble on my blog via links from friend's of friends blogs and find a little gem that can help them through their day. Happens to me more often than you'd think.

It's a really good thing that Corryn is an angel baby. But even when you have angel babies, and an angel husband, and everything in your life is going just like you planned...parenting is still a tough business.

Andy is amazing, I want you to know, and it's thanks to him that I've been seeing a counselor at LDS Family Services for a little while. Things are getting better overall, and my darkest days are popping up less frequently. Things that have made me happy:

- A fairly strict ten o'clock bedtime.
- Working in the morning and during naptime, but no longer at night after the kids go to bed. Using that time to do what I want to do, or just chill with Andy.
- Exercising several times a week.
- Eating tons of fresh fruits and vegetables. I eat 3-5 pounds of carrots in a week, and the other day I had a cantaloupe for lunch. A whole one.
- Eating less white rice and white flour. I don't know if they make me sad, but it turns out they make my digestive system sad.
- Acknowledging that I'm not a bad mom for being apart from my kids for more than an hour.
- Leaving the kids with Andy and having mini-adventures by myself. To the art supply store, or out to the park to draw people, or to buy myself a new shirt.
- Going on family dates at least once a week - hiking, museums, playgrounds, wedding receptions, doughnuts.
- Andy. He's my upper.

And last night, I painted for myself for the first time in a long time. No work ... of course, as it was Sunday ... just painting for the pleasure of it. It was so lovely. In the process I leafed through a few old sketchbooks, some notes that I kept tucked in the pages, an encouraging letter from my favorite high school teacher. I used to be hilarious. I used to make a lot of good stuff. There was some junk, too, and I've weeded out most of the junk over the progression of several years and houses and states. So it's pretty much just the good stuff left. I feel so lazy now, like I accomplish so little. Even though all the evidence points to the opposite, I suppose. I give full-time care to my two healthy, thriving children, and I have two side jobs. I've illustrated a full book plus some in the past few months, and I've painted approximately 150 paintings in the past year and a half. That's pretty good, right? Is it enough? That's rhetorical, by the way.

If we're not to run faster than we have strength, how do we know how far our strength will go without running to the point of collapse? How did frontier families, or pilgrims, or medieval peasants manage to have a swarm of kids, a working farm, and the hardest domestic lives possible? If they didn't have access to counselors and fresh cantaloupe and new clothes, why do I need those things to make me happy? Why can't I deal with the stress with as much grace as I imagine they did?

I actually asked my counselor something along these lines, and she said, "Their life expectancy was 34 years old."

I never thought I was a judgmental person. I never thought I was prone to envy, either. But now I think my strengths have turned to weaknesses when I wasn't paying attention. Apparently I judge myself very harshly, and my counselor asked if I judge others the same way. I said no, but...maybe I do? I think perhaps the things I'm most self-conscious about, the things I over-apologize for, are the very things over which I judge others. Because I'm expecting them to think the same way I do, and I'm anticipating that negative assessment. And in a strange way, I think judgement and envy are two faces of the same ugly dodecahedron. And ingratitude is another way to get there.

As negative as all that sounds, those realizations were actually a big step forward for me. To realize that maybe, sometimes, my thoughts can get a little ridiculous. And I just need to relax.

Remember when I used to think I was chill?

In other news, we've started to get serious about potty-training.

I cleaned up a lot of pee-pee today.

Candid yams

2011-05-23T22:29:00.000-06:00

Corryn met my dad for the first time a few weeks ago. My parents had a few hours of lay-over here on their way to Hawaii.

He seems to be the only person on the planet that she's afraid of.

Sometimes Elliot likes to blow-dry his already dry hair.

And then his hair looks extra cool.

We went hiking a few weekends ago, and we found this nice little clearing at the end of our trail.

I like my husband.

Those sticks are robots.

Obviously.

Just being gorgeous.

Just playing together.

Just using her tongue as a pacifier.

Beware of this and that

2011-05-09T16:00:00.000-06:00

My little boy is sleeping in a toddler bed now. At least at night - he's still in the crib for his nap. He wakes up much happier. We keep the gate up so he can't get out of his room, and it's a huge mess when we get him up in the mornings. Corryn is still sleeping in the kid's bathroom, and she's graduating to two naps a day. Now I really thought Elliot was about as sweet and chill as a baby could get, but Corryn's got him beat. She is just so darn pleasant. Elliot also got to try on his new Buzz Lightyear underwear this week (and he learned what it's like to wet himself), but we're still not pushing the potty training on him.

I turned 25 this weekend. It was a terrific birthday, full of pancakes, presents, pizza, brownies, friends, children, and a little bit of swimming. Then mother's day was the next day and I got about fifty pounds of chocolate. Got a coldsore from partying too hard.

Now that I'm old, here is my life advice to all the young people who I'm sure are reading my blog: Get over your shyness and your self-consciousness and go out and make all sorts of friends. I wish I had. Not that I didn't make some wonderful friends in college, but I missed a lot of opportunities because I was too afraid. And that was stupid.

I need carrots.

the colors are brighter on the originals

2011-05-08T23:21:00.001-06:00

Nothing ever changes, but everything changes

2011-05-05T14:22:00.001-06:00

You know how when you're listing things that gradate or conflict, the last one in the list reveals how you really feel about it? Like I could say, "This thing is beautiful, but expensive," or I could say, "This thing is expensive, but beautiful," and just from the way I've ordered the words you can tell if I'm going to buy it or not.

I never brag about my family...without my megaphone

2011-04-22T23:49:00.001-06:00

If for some reason you close your eyes for all the pictures in this post, open them for the last one.

Love the scrunchy face.

I really like this picture. It's like he's being abducted.

Isn't he handsome?

These really are my three favorite people.

Tickle attack.

To quote Elliot, "Yay Daddy! Yay Mommy! Yay Elliot! Yay peoples!"

Aw.

I'm gonna punch you in the glasses.

My baby got older this week.

It doesn't get cuter than this.

More little things

2011-04-12T12:01:00.000-06:00

- Elliot can read! Words he has successfully read more than once: zoo, no, the, bump, boom, and cat. It's still based more on recognition of combinations of letters than on phonics, I think, but it's a start.

- Corryn can sit up! She still needs a little bit of help so she doesn't topple over when she's tired, but she's a big girl now.

- Andy and I went to a salad buffet place at the end of last term and we saw a) a salad that was entirely mushrooms (that's not an exaggeration. It was a huge pile of mushrooms on a plate, and the guy shoveled 'em in) and b) a salad that was just iceberg lettuce swimming in an ocean of ranch. It belonged to a little girl.

- Andy's family treated the kids to their first trip to Disneyland. There was much grumpiness involved, but also lots of fun. Haunted mansion...the best.

- Andy got to use his Chinese skills with a new friend who just popped into church this week. It was a wonderful experience, and we hope to see him again.

- According to those little height predictor thingies that you can use when your kid is two years old, Elliot is going to be 6' 4" at age 18. That's my tall boy.

In which Elliot spills the beans

2011-03-14T01:06:00.000-06:00

A few quick things:

I'm trying to cut down on the internet in my life, and I had Andy install some parental controls on my main computer. I know the password, and I still have access to our laptop. So it works...mostly.

Elliot spilled a can of black beans all over himself a few days ago. Just the juice, really. The lid was partially opened, leaving a bit of the seal intact for ease of drainage. The can was left, undrained, on the countertop. Elliot reached up and pulled it sideways, spilling juice down his hair, down his face, down his back, and into his mouth. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, spread his arms out, and SCREAMED. Andy did some quick resuscitation on the hearing aids while I whisked the boy into the shower. It took him a while to calm down.

Elliot turned two yesterday, and Corryn turned six months today. We had a little party with some church friends and neighbors at the apartment playground. Pizza and tiny pies. Elliot made bank. And by bank I mean toy store.

Elliot has turned into quite the singer. He sings the alphabet, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam, the Star Wars theme, and "Imperial March" with surprising proficiency. He even has good pitch sometimes.

Corryn is slowly getting better at rolling (did I mention the doctor said she might be slow at it because she's so heavy? She's not even a super chubby baby, she's just big) and can sit up by herself for a bit.

I don't think I posted on here yet that I started the illustration job. And I'm loving it.

A Valentine Memory

2011-02-14T16:24:00.002-07:00

Circa 5th grade.

I have always liked to make cool things. Far-too-elaborate, take-way-too-much-time, made-of-the-junk-that-I-hoarded-in-my-room, awesome-just-for-the-sake-of-awesome things.

This Valentine's Day we were all supposed to make Valentine's boxes. You know, to receive and store the Valentines that our classmates were going to dole out. I decided to make a TV. I remember it clearly. It was a box, painted black. I cut out a hole for the screen and installed a backdrop. I made a little dude and a little lady out of cardboard and stuck them in there diorama-style. In my head, they were part of a soap opera. Because I thought that was funny.

On top of the TV, I made a set of wire rabbit ears sticking out of an aluminum-foil-covered half-dome of styrofoam (it helps when your father is a sculptor and has bits of wire and foam around the house). There was also a cardboard remote control glued on top, a crumpled up Kleenex (because whoever was watching the soap opera would be weepy, duh), and a styrofoam cup with a fake lipstick mark around the rim (because whoever gets weepy for soap operas would wear too much make-up. This was my line of thinking).

There was a small slit on top for inserting Valentines, and a door on the back for getting them out again. But my FAVORITE part was the plug. I hand-Sharpied a piece of white string for the cord, made a little black cardboard plug, and gave it two aluminum foil prongs. I was so proud of that. And the absurdity that the television was supposed to be on - even though it wasn't plugged in - did not escape my notice.

Brought my TV Valentine's box to school a few days before the holiday itself, as did the rest of the class. Caleb F. had made a boombox for his. And it was awesome.

I was jealous. But I had a plug, and his didn't.

Until the next day.

Yes, that jerk had gone home, made a plug just like mine, brought it to school, and taped it to his boombox.

This is just one of many stories in which my elementary school self is woefully wronged.

Histories

2011-02-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Forgive me while I go all Spirit-of-Elijah on you.

In my slow journey to complete my Young Women's Personal Progress (yeah, I never did it as a teenager. Restarted last year) I decided to take on a little family history project in which I would collect family stories from all of my children's living progenitors. I sent them all the same prompts and questions hoping to get to the good stuff, the funny stuff, the heart-warming tear-jerkers. The first to respond was actually my aunt (who, you may note, is not one of my children's progenitors); I wanted to include an entry for my paternal grandfather (the only one of my kids' great-grandparents who is not living), and I asked my aunts to help me fill in some of the information for him. Then my maternal grandmother responded, whose letters made me laugh harder than I expected. Then my maternal grandfather, who has been having some struggles with recurring cancer. Tonight, I phoned and interviewed Andy's great-grandmother, who is 102 years old. She is the lovely lady pictured above.

So I've got that going on.

I've also been keeping journals for my babies. I write in them every Sunday. I guess they're technically "baby books," though I don't personally consider them such. I do keep a few scraps in there (ultrasound pictures, photobooth strips, the picture Elliot drew for me the day Corryn was born), but mostly it's just me rambling about things they did that week that made me laugh and occasionally gushing about how beautiful and wonderful they are. I intend to keep writing in them until my kids move out of the house, then giving them the journals to keep. One of Andy's teachers did that, and I liked the idea.

Here's the entry for Elliot this week:

2-13-11

Just one more month until I have a two-year-old! You've been having lots of "terrible two" moments, but you're still generally very sweet. We had a couple of tough battles over sleep the past two weeks - there was a spray-bottle of water and some yelling involved (not my proudest moment as a parent). But things are getting much better, and you're even napping again.

Your current obsessions:
Robots. Still.
Buzz Lightyear
Batman
Spiderman
Your friend Mael
Choo-choo trains
Cookies
STAR WARS
You ask me to play "Star Wars Song! March!" all the time. So Imperial March is put on repeat on my computer. You've been playing with Daddy's old Star Wars toys (R2-D2..."Artoo!"...is your absolute favorite), and you call your lightsaber your "naughty."

When you ask for certain things, we have the understanding that I will do a google-image search of that thing for you. You like to look at the pictures. We commonly do this for:
All of your obsessions listed above
Happy faces/sad faces
Airplanes/helicopters
Car crashes
"Hot" (fire)
Darth Vader/Yoda
Milk
Water
We've been working on phonics a lot, too, and this morning you asked me what sound a seven makes.

So what I'm trying to say is that the sum of all of this, the whole Gestaltian mess of it, is filled with love. Me, you, our parents, their parents, our kids, and their kids. And loving is hard work.

Or sleep at night.

2011-02-08T05:04:00.001-07:00

What the heck.

It looks like Elliot doesn't want to take naps any more during the day...

2011-02-03T15:50:00.002-07:00

weeeee

A far-too-long post about my kids...with obligatory photos

2011-01-23T23:16:00.000-07:00

There are changes going on in this house.

First, Corryn is growing like a weed. She seemed to have outgrown all of her old clothes overnight. She also stopped sleeping like a star, presumably so that she could consume the calories needed to maintain her growthsplosion. The skinny little chicken legs of birth are no more - she now has big, chunky, chubby, baby thighs. She's much grabbier, too, especially with food. She's old enough to have solid food now, though I may hold off until she can sit up a little better. She will inherit Elliot's high chair.

And Elliot will move to the table. I thought about getting a booster seat, but he's tall and I'm cheap, and he eats his snacks at the table just fine. I picked up a few unbreakable plates for this purpose. I'm also going to try to get rid of his ratty old sippy cups and move him on to normal cups and a water bottle. We did buy a potty chair and stool. We're not pushing too hard for potty training, but we ask him multiple times a day if he'd like to use it and he's usually enthusiastic. Even initiated a potty trip himself few times, though nothing comes out when he does. It's probably because he gets a little toddler fruit snack for every successful trip.

I wanted to move Elliot out of the crib this week, but he also decided not to sleep through the night anymore. Probably teeth, maybe nightmares. This past week has been heck on our sleep. Anyway, I'm going to put the baby gate up between his room and the little hall where his closet, his bathroom, and the door are. I don't feel safe just yet without it, because he can open all the doors in the house, and ours are not the kind of doorknobs on which any kind of guard fits.

I want him to be fully transitioned to the toddler bed before Corryn moves into his room, which I'd like to happen in two months - Corryn will be six months old and Elliot will be two. I'm still toying with the idea of putting her in the bathroom, but I've been talking to other young parents about how they handled room-sharing (with children even closer in age than ours), and they said they wished they'd roomed theirs together sooner.

Elliot's going through his super-picky-won't-eat-anything-toddler stage. About all he asks for is cheese and those freeze-dried strawberries that come in Special K. And "milt." His speech is still soaring, and he's putting together little sentences that surprise me all the time. He's using plurals and past tense, even if they're wrong half the time: "Uh-oh, Elliot falled!" and "Two Batmans!" (though that one, arguably, may be correct).

And, biggest news of all...

I cut Elliot's hair.

Heartbreaking, I know. It's not perfect (I was working quickly), but he's still a dang handsome kid. It was just getting tangly-long, and he wasn't much for brushing.

So, I know you're all surprised by this, but it looks like kids grow up sometimes.

Thank you to all that has ever existed, and everything else I could never have listed...

2011-01-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

Thanks, friends, for helping me out with my new arty blog. There are people I didn't even know read my blog who signed up. So thanks.

The year went out with a cough. Lots of coughing, really. Both the kids got croup and went on one doctor and one emergency room visit each. I got sick, too, but it was just a mild lingering cold for me. Everyone is better now.

Andy bought me Kirby's Epic Yarn for our anniversary (he got me Mario Brothers Wii last year. We dig the side-scrolling two-player co-op games, looks like. It's good bonding time). We play a few levels after the kids go to bed, and we just beat it last night. We've also been playing Canasta together, which we fell in love with in Washington and then got our own set for Christmas. And then we've been watching a lot of Twilight Zone. Andy has to do a project on a pre-1990's American television series, and TZ is a top candidate. Which I heartily approve.

This is the first time in a long time that I don't have any Fine Doodles orders queued up, which is a relief, but I am talking to a new potential client about another wedding project. Those are fun. I also have an illustration project coming up, the preparations of which should be finalizing this week.

I'm also looking forward to some good family visits: my mother and all of my sisters (and hopefully some sisters-in-law can make it too) are coming to visit next month, and the month after that Andy's family is coming back for Spring Break. It's nice to have loving family who don't let us feel too cut off down here in our little Los Angeles world.

Also, Corryn has rolled completely over (once) and Elliot went to the dentist, and very haphazardly used the potty for the first time. Hated the dentist. Kept saying, "All done. All done," during the cleaning. I'm going to have to move Corryn out of our bedroom soon, as she's becoming a lighter sleeper and we wake her up too easily. To the bathroom it is.

Also, I love church.

twenty-oh-ten

2010-12-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

While I wait for my boys to call so I can go pick them up from the hospital (long story short: Elliot got croup, went to E.R., he needed to stay but Corryn needed to go), I'ma recap my year. Because 2010 was cray-zay.

January: Just found out we were pregnant with Corryn. Andy had just graduated and thus lost his student job. He started applying to grad schools. Fine Doodles had been in operation a few months, so I had a little business there. Elliot still had no teeth and wasn't crawling or walking. We decided to move to Washington with Andy's family to save up some money.

February: Packed up our little apartment and moved to Washington at the very start of the month. The bulk of our stuff (all the furniture, kitchen goods, and other long-term living items) went into storage at Andy's grandparents' house in Orem, as we didn't know whether we'd end up back in Utah or on the East Coast or the West Coast or what. The rest of our stuff came with us in a tiny trailer all the long drive to WA. I didn't help drive at all, as I was dizzy and sicky with first-trimester malaise. Andy finished applying to grad schools - 12 in all. Elliot got some teeth and learned to crawl.

March: Elliot turned one. We got pizza and went swimming, and his cake was shaped like his sock monkey. Andy turned 24. We went to the zoo and got dinner. I started my second trimester. Andy started to hear back from grad schools. Got accepted to nine, I think, three of which were NYU, USC, and UCLA - the top three film schools in the world. I quit writing for the Board around this time.

April: My tummy got bigger. Found out we were having a girl. Somewhere around here Andy left his job as a freelance tutor to work as a professional tutor for a company.

May: I turned 24: saw Iron Man II, got barbecue, had a crepe party. Michelle left on her mission. Becky graduated high school. Fine Doodles really picked up steam. Elliot started speech therapy around this time, I think.

June: Elliot learned to walk. Busiest month Fine Doodles has ever had, largely because of a wedding project. I was painting into the wee hours every night. Started third trimester.

July: Went to Colorado to visit my side of the family. Went to a bouncy playhouse and a spray park. Had a little business meeting with the art-business-pros in my family to get some good advice about Fine Doodles. Had a false alarm about pre-term labor. Somewhere in here we settled on UCLA, which led to the decision to have the baby in Washington. Raised Fine Doodles prices to bring demand down to a more manageable level.

August: Got an unexpected visit from high school friend Stelth, who happened to be in Washington on tour with his band. Had another labor false-alarm. A couple of pregnancy-related body problems started to get bad, to the point where I couldn't pick up Elliot. Elliot stopped speech therapy. Went to the zoo and several activities with high walking levels in efforts to get labor started. Tried to figure out how to get all of our stuff both from Utah and from Washington to California. Andy left his tutoring job to work on Fine Doodles full-time for a little while.

September: Becky left for college. Due the 4th, but didn't actually start labor until 2 a.m. on the 12th, then had Corryn at 8 p.m. on the 13th. This resulted in a lot of plan changes, as we were supposed to be moving to California about that time. Packed like crazy. Ended up that Andy drove our trailer down several days before the kids and I (with Kathleen's help) flew down. Tried to set up a new home with a toddler and an eight-day-old. We had the help of Kathleen for a week and my mom for the week after...thank goodness.

October: Still trying to figure out how to have two children. Managed to make a dinosaur costume for Elliot and a Batman costume for Corryn for Halloween. Had some tough days. Tried to make friends, have people over for dinner. Got called as Relief Society Secretary. Andy worked his butt off in school.

November: Caught up with life a little bit. Raised Fine Doodles prices again to keep Christmas from becoming too overwhelming. Blessedly, Corryn slept through night consistently (depending on your definition of sleeping through the night - she wakes me up once a night, but she sleeps for 6.5-7.5 hour stretches). Did some illustrations for my portfolio, which I submitted to a few key people, one of which snagged me a little gig that I'll be starting in January. Thrilled about it. Had Thanksgiving at the home of a family from Andy's mission, where Elliot spilled ink water all over the kitchen floor, tried to open the box of their dead pet's ashes, and mutually poked another kid in the face with a fork. They were nice people.

December: Andy finished his first term with a 4.0. I had several paintings to finish, but managed to make some good Christmas presents as well. We got to go to the temple for the first time since Corryn's birth. Andy's family came to visit for Christmas, we went to the art museum and to the temple visitor's center and to Hollywood, and they just left...this morning. Corryn got her baby blessing, and we celebrated our third anniversary.

I think I can honestly say this has been the most difficult year of my life. The end of this pregnancy didn't go so hot for me, and things didn't let up afterward. I had a bit of a rocky recovery, I think, and my hormones are just starting to get back to some sort of happy equilibrium. Plus, having two tiny kids in a brand new city with no money is just intense. We're going into debt for the first time in our lives. But despite the trials, we've obviously been blessed more than our fair share.

EDIT: The boys are safely back home, and Elliot, after staying up until 2 a.m., is feeling much better. He was very sweet and very brave. And also puked.

Thank you, Ohdeedoh!

2010-12-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Most of you have probably heard of Apartment Therapy; their kid-oriented cousin, Ohdeedoh, has now featured Fine Doodles twice (here and here).

High fives!

Darn those pesky nature problems

2010-12-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

PROBLEMS???? DON'T GIVE UP! GUARANTEED RESULTS IN 10 HOURS. SISTER HAYNES. This southern-born Spiritualist who brings to you the mysteries of the deep south. She seeks to help many thousands of people who have been crossed, have spells can't hold money [sic], want luck, want their loved ones back, want to stop nature problems or want to get rid of a strange sickness. If you are seeking a sure-fire woman to do for you the things that are needed or wish to gain financial aid or peace, love and prosperity in the home, you need to see this woman of GOD today! She tells you all before you utter a word. She can bring the spirit of release and control your every affair and dealing. Are you suffering from illness or disease that you cannot cure? There is a doctor of all doctors. This doctor is GOD. Thousands of people are amazed at the results gotten by HER. When your case seems hopeless, there is a remedy for you. Read James, Chapter 5, verses 13-16. Then come to see ME as many others do from far and near. You are bound to be satisfied! Satisfaction is doubly guaranteed. One visit is all you need. GUARANTEED RESULTS IN THREE DAYS. Two Free Questions by Phone. (Phone number) Los Angeles, CA.

Found under our windshield wiper blade after stopping into WalMart on Thursday. I am dazzled.

Try Googling "Modern art is like..." sometime. Funny stuff.

2010-12-14T16:14:00.002-07:00

This is the first week in a long time that Andy and I have had the chance to sit down and take a breath. Not that my feed-babies-watch-babies-paint-then-play-with-babies schedule has changed, but Andy has finished the term, so we can actually all spend time together and the stress has let up a bit for all of us.

This morning we all went to the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art...we go to a lot of art museums, because there are a lot around here, and they're usually free. And we like art.), where they had a really fantastic modern art exhibit. I was a giddy little girl as I got to see all the big names with my own eyeballs. Let's see if I can even remember some of the biggies: Albers, Nolde, Mondrian, Matisse, Kandinsky, Miro, Calder, Pollock, Klee, Grosz, Le Corbusier, Picasso, Braques, Magritte (surely he must have known that this - which we saw! - was to spawn a thousand parodies), Rothko, Man Ray (we saw Gift - one of the funniest art pieces of all time), Duchamp, Leger, Brancusi...yeah that's all I'm remembering at the moment.

I'm no expert - all of my knowledge of modern art draws from a shoddy memory of a single class taken sophomore year. But ignorant as I am, standing in front a massive, engulfing, pulsatingly red Rothko - I'm so glad I took that class. It opened my eyes, changed my taste, changed me.

In conclusion: I recommend art.

"That Was Unexpected": News in Music I Like

2010-12-02T23:15:00.000-07:00

Who has two thumbs, a surprisingly long philtrum, and a new gig as bassist for Nick Thorburn's latest musical adventure?

THIS GUY. Weird.

Heroes, happiness, and holidays

2010-11-24T17:58:00.001-07:00

Lately I've come to really appreciate a group of people who may best be categorized as Well Intentioned Strangers Who Talk Too Much.

Example 1: The woman who found me nursing Elliot on a couch in the As-Is section of IKEA when I was stranded there one night. She sat and talked to me for a long time, telling me her (unsolicited) life story and how her son, who also had some kind of disability (maybe autism?), was an actor. He was on a stretcher during a scene in E.R. She sprinkled the conversation with, "Your son is so special," and similar statements.

Example 2: The woman who found me nursing Corryn at the DMV the day we moved here (what is it with nursing that attracts these people?). She asked about the baby, and when she found out that Corryn was just 8 days old and that we had flown in to California just that morning, she told me in a deep, reassuring voice, "Don't worry. You're safe here."

Example 3: My cashier at Albertson's two weeks ago, who dispensed his life's wisdom in practiced one-liners, sang me a song about Boston, and joked around with a jocular bounce. He nicknamed me "Mom" on account of the baby food I was buying.

On one hand, these people make me blush. They're not fitting into my concept of social acceptability. On the other hand, I kind of want to be one of them.

Take example 3. He had once held aspirations of being an opera singer (something about following in his father's footsteps, I think?), and here he was, middle-aged and waning, a late-night Albertson's cashier. But as he told the man in line in front of me, "You gotta laugh about life, or else you cry."

They make me so happy. I'd been in a dark mood when I went to Albertson's that night, but I couldn't stop smiling when I left. I'm sure they have their unpleasant moments, but thank heavens for these people, spreading the love.

On a somewhat related note, Andy sent me a photograph on his mission that he said reminded him of me, and I was entirely flattered. It was one of those Relief-Society-esque wooden signs - the kind with "Happy *Specific Holiday*" in a cutesy typeface on the top and a few wooden icons of the holiday dangling down on curly wire. Totally tacky, and not my preferred kind of tacky, but this one was special. You've probably seen them before, but this was the first one I'd seen: this one said "Happy Everything," and had an icon for every major holiday hanging down.

I love this sign not for what it looks like, but for what it represents - its congenial laziness. I love that it says in one concise, Mary-and-Martha, White-vs.-Colored-Christmas-Tree type vignette, "I'm not going to bother keeping up with well-designed, seasonal decor, or arbitrary holiday timing, but I have a genuine sentiment of warmth and happiness for you, and spending time with you is higher on my priority list than making my house magazine-perfect before you visit. This is not a battle I pick."

And "Happy Everything," just says it all. Why should just one day a month deserve well-wishes? Why not all days? The holiday icons don't mean that it's specific only to holidays; they're just a way of symbolizing happiness spread over time.

Anyway, the Happy Everything sign and the kind strangers are the same kind of thing to me, both shameless and beautiful.

I'm the king of this town, and my cake gets extra frosting.

2010-11-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

My artistic confidence is on a pendulum. Can I really make money this way? There are so many extremely talented people out there. A lot of people more talented than me are struggling. What's the difference between me and them? Why should I succeed?

Maybe I should start wearing fake eyelashes and batting them at everyone, or keep a stash of candy in my purse and give pieces to people in power. Pretty sure those are the keys to success.

Forsooth, let us go forth and check it out, with haste

2010-11-22T00:34:00.000-07:00

Andy and I got our first date since Corryn was born!

We went to the Hammer museum, and the next night we took the kids to the Getty museum. ALL FREE. ALL AWESOME.

Also I'm going to die of stress one of these days.

Big-n-healthy

2010-11-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

Corryn just had her two-month appointment. She's in the 90th percentile for height and weight, 95th for head size, and 100th for all-around pleasantness.

I can't quite put my finger on why...

2010-11-12T15:23:00.002-07:00

... but this may be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Time for another installment of: PROOF WE LIVE IN A SCI-FI NOVEL

2010-11-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

Not only does NASA have secret plans to send men permanently into space to colonize another planet, but CNN is 100% sure they won't be alone out there.

That's right, people. There are aliens.

He'll be here all week, folks

2010-11-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

Elliot and I were eating some black beans and rice for lunch, and he picked up a bean, put it in his mouth, and said, "Mmmmm, oval!"

What are you talking about, Willis?

2010-11-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

What have I signed up for? I've got my fingers in three money-making pies right now (one is Fine Doodles, one is being an evaluator for Covenant Communications, and one is illustration, which isn't actually making money right now, but it will some day. So much money). And, oh yeah, I'm also a full-time mother. What? Is my apartment clean and orderly? Cleaner and more orderly than my past apartments have ever been, sure, but that's not saying much. Andy and I never get to see each other except during...Sacrament meeting. That's not quite true. We try to go on family dates every weekend. This week we went to a puppet show and pizza party hosted in our complex (Elliot loves pizza. He sings about it. And he loved the puppets. So much so that rather than sit and watch them, he goes up to the stage and tries to touch them). Last week was Halloween, plus we all accompanied Andy to Hollywood. He needed to go to a library there for a project, and we thought we'd swing by the touristy spots while we were there. It mostly consisted of people trying to sell us celebrity tours and caricatures. And the week before that, we went to the temple, followed by a trip to a diner for a giant brownie with ice cream to share. The LA Temple just built a new visitors' center, and Elliot was ecstatic about the Jesus statue there. He wanted to give it hugs, and refused to leave the room.

And on top of this...Christmas. What? Not only do I have to worry about presents for my kin (which I was hoping to hand-make, so as not to spend any money), but the Fine Doodles rush has just started to rear its blessed, ugly head.

In the words of Guybrush Threepwood, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

(p.s. miss you Andy!)

Halloweenie

2010-11-02T23:52:00.001-06:00

We painted pumpkins. Elliot's was Abstract Expressionist, as is his tradition. Mine had a robot and Andy's was a belly. This is because robots and bellies are two of Elliot's favorite things for us to draw for him. And, yes, robots with bellies.

Corryn painted one, too, but it took both of us to help her out, so we don't have pictures of the process.

Here is Corryn's pumpkin. It has a pink handprint. She is Batgirl.

She didn't really care though. Her outfit is one of Elliot's small onesies and her cape is a bib.

Love those eyebrows.

Clearly the hat didn't fit very well. It was one of Andy's old socks with bat ears and a pink bow attached. My goal was to spend no money on costumes this year, okay?

Elliot trying to show off his pumpkin.

He was very proud of it, and liked to call it a ball and throw it. My little pumpkin-smasher.

That face is exertion. He's trying to lift something up the stairs. Sweet lens flare.

That face is cute.

He's a dinosaur, in case you couldn't tell. I made the costume all in about one evening, and for some reason I put the tail way, way off center.

Trunk-or-treating. Or, if you're Elliot, it's just plain, "Tweat?"

Corryn is in this picture, I swear. She's sleeping in the wrap that I'm wearing. In case you can't tell - and most people couldn't - Andy is this guy and I'm this guy. I did end up spending a few dollars to get my face paint, but that's it. Pretty good for somebody with a long history of elaborate, time-consuming, uncomfortable, and totally awesome Halloween costumes.

I love this holiday.

Beauty shots

2010-11-02T23:32:00.000-06:00

You can't tell me this girl isn't going to be a babe when she grows up. And yes, she does always look slightly worried. And yes, she has been sleeping 6.5 - 8 hours a night. Thanks for asking.

Louder is the same as better

2010-10-24T23:57:00.000-06:00

Bragging time:

Most places will tell you that kids Elliot's age will have a vocabulary of 10-50 words. I've been writing down all of Elliot's words that I consider to be truly in his vocabulary, as in he understands their meaning and actively, spontaneously uses the words to communicate with no prompting on our part. So this excludes all of the words he imitates or uses with prompting (like "Love you," which he only says when we say "I love you") and all of the words he understands when we say them but does not say himself, which are plentiful. So far I've counted 123. I know there are 4 or 5 more I thought of today that I haven't put on the list yet, and I'm sure I'm missing more. This is also excluding all of his sound effects (which are pretty numerous, but I've listed about 25 so far) and letters (he knows all 26 quite solidly now, and really they should count as vocabulary, since it's basically shape recognition) and numbers (he knows 1-9 perfectly, but he still calls zero, "o"). All together, I'm guessing he has about a 200 word vocabulary. Does he pronounce them all perfectly? Not at all - he still needs a lot of work on that, though he's really understandable for such a little guy. He's using several different 2-3 word combinations now, though he sometimes gets them mixed up ("help please" has become the abbreviated "heppy," and "up please down," because he still gets up and down mixed up. My favorites are "baby toot"[cute] and "mo' bobots [robots] peeze?").

Some of the more unusual and endearing words in his repertoire:

- hearing aid (right now he calls all ears hearing aids, although he knows the word "ear")
- squeegee
- cantaloupe (which he pronounces "pope-pope")
- Spiderman and Batman
- temple, Jesus, church, and amen
- carrot (he always adds an extra syllable or two ["cadadadat"], which seems counterintuitive)
- puzzle (you just have to hear the way he says it. Adorable)
- sloth and otter (these are from a book he has)

He also writes! Or at least today he drew a straight line with a crayon, pointed at it excitedly, and said, "I!" That one was accidental, but he's been doing it on purpose since then.

He also helps us sing the alphabet. When we sing a phrase we leave off the last letter and he fills it in (as in we sing, "T, U..." and he says, "V!").

In other child news, my gorgeous little girl giggled this week. I didn't get to hear it, but Andy was tickling her feet on his beard, and apparently she giggled. Gets 'em every time.

My kids are my favorite.

Chum is fum

2010-10-19T12:59:00.002-06:00

You know your 19-month-old is not only good with language but also one cool dude when he runs up to you with his fist out and asks, "More pound it?"

There is beauty all around

2010-10-17T10:49:00.000-06:00

My baby girl is smiling at me these days. She has two smiles - the mouth-agape, "Hey, you're tickling me" smile and the sweet little "Hi, mom!" smile.

And my little boy is into robots and drawing and collaborative drawings of robots these days. And eating apples.

I have such a good-looking family.

I am thankful for

2010-10-14T16:25:00.000-06:00

music
comfortable clothes
shower spray
baby cuddles
paint
the feeling of freshly-brushed teeth
my husband's voice
kindness

Cultural differences?

2010-10-08T14:38:00.000-06:00

Our ward (which has so far proven to be sincerely rad) kindly provided us with meals for about our first week and a half here. The interesting thing is that in those meals, we received at least four whole or half rotisserie chickens. And the chicken isn't necessarily the entree. One night we got a taco salad, burritos (enough for two per person)...and half a chicken. We got another set of build-your-own tacos that came with half a chicken, and another chicken came with build-you-own pitas. It looks like maybe you get a chicken and then shred it up to put in your other food? Or you have chicken plus another entree? I don't quite understand; I've never encountered such rotisserie prolifery in Utah or Colorado. Or Georgia or Washington. Any insights?

In other news, Elliot is supposed to be napping right now, but he's totally not. Wonder what he's giggling at.

If you were this cute, you, too, would raise the roof

2010-10-05T23:31:00.001-06:00

Oh Harold, that's wonderful. Now go and love some more.

2010-10-05T13:01:00.000-06:00

Elliot knows every single letter. He doesn't say "H" or "W" very well, but he knows the sounds they make, so he calls them "hhhhuh" and "bwuh" ("wuh"). And he knows a lot of lower-case letters as well as all the capitals. He's pretty darn good with numbers, too, and he can do a little bit of counting (he knows 1-5 pretty well, and he knows that nine follows eight follows seven). Yesterday he was trying to count without help and said, "Two, three, o, s!" He tries to sing the alphabet along with us, but mostly he just interjects random letters.

Corryn is three weeks old now. The past two weeks have been a blur of moving and unpacking and middle-of-the-night feedings and moms and moms-in-law and very nice dinners from the ward. Yesterday was my first day by myself with both kids, though Andy was around in the morning. I'm still not physically or mentally at the top of my game, but I'm seeing that this is doable. It is possible to have an eighteen month old, a three week old, and fun all at the same time.

Time to go shower while I have the chance.

In so many ways

2010-10-04T13:26:00.001-06:00

My family is awesome.

Jump on the big wagon 'cause I'm SoCal. I'm big in every way. I'm running as fast as I can.

2010-09-25T23:29:00.000-06:00

Everyone is very skinny here, and they wear tight pants. Not a lot of folks in our complex speak English as a first language. Lots of cute kids around, and Elliot digs living right next to a little playground. We went for a brief swim last night as it was getting dark. You need a card key to get in, there are palm trees all around, and the sky is a smooth blue gradient broken only by the flash and rumble of ascending airplanes. It feels a bit like I'm a foreigner living in a hotel. My RS president is an unmarried, childless, freelance precision-trained stunt driver. For commercials 'n stuff. Tonight I accidentally locked Andy, Elliot, and myself out of our apartment with Corryn still inside. She was asleep the whole time, and it didn't take long for the management to send somebody over, but talk about a terrible mother moment.

Thus the adventure begins?

Babiesville, yo

2010-09-19T00:08:00.000-06:00

Guess I spoke too soon, as I technically started labor about three hours after my last post. And now look: I've got a baby!

She's very healthy and very sweet and has the most lovable, expressive little round face. Lots of dark hair, too. She's tall and thin, like her brother, but more so. Her bum, legs, and feet are alienishly skinny. Big hands with long, thin fingers. Big happy eyes.

Blessedly, gratefully, painfully, the VBAC worked. This baby came out the good old-fashioned way. We went in for a regular appointment at 8 on Monday morning, they said I was pretty well on my way to giving birth, and so we stayed; she came out at 8 that night. I did opt for the epidural, and thank goodness I did, as the subsequent hours were about the only sleep I'd had after two solid nights of contractions. There was lots of embarrassment to be had - or there would be, if my pride wasn't trumped by my pain - between the vomiting and the accidental push of the "Absolute Emergency" button, which resulted in about fifty people rushing into my delivery room at once. It wasn't a flawless performance on my part, either - I had moments where I wasn't sure I could do it, and the baby's heart rate dropped to an almost alarming low at multiple points, but in the end everything was just fine.

I'll have you know that Andy was a star. He knew just the right things to do and say to calm me, comfort me, and make me laugh. He was strong, positive, and optimistic, which is just what I needed. He's also the only reason I ate any food last week, and he can cheer up Corryn faster than anything else. He's gone right now, which is sad, but I'll see him again on Tuesday, which is good.

Elliot was in the care of his doting grandmother while we were in the hospital, and I think that helped him deal with our absence - he got to stay in a place he knows with people he loves. He is by turns excited about the baby and dreadfully clingy to me. Mostly excited.

Now we go through the fun, tedious, amazing, frightening, indescribable experience of raising this little girl, day by day and night by night. Mostly by night, it seems.

In conclusion: epidurals are the stuff angels are made of.

What the heck, womb...

2010-09-11T22:56:00.000-06:00

This stubborn little lady is seven days late and hasn't shown any signs of coming soon. It's a mind game to have a big countdown and then...nothing and then...still nothing. My expectations have been thwarted and sometimes it feels like I'm not even waiting for a baby at all, just going through my day in great discomfort for no reason.

And that's not to mention the insanity that is trying to coordinate a move, childbirth, the start of school, and California residency all within days of each other. We've had about 50 plan B's - at varying degrees of stressfulness and implausibility - that we've thought up and discarded as the days tick away. Right now it's looking most likely that Andy is going to go to California without me and I'm going to stick around here with the kids for a little while...and we're not even sure this baby is going to come before he needs to leave. But he'll wait until the absolute last minute to leave, if he has to.

In sum: I'm great at making babies, but awful at having them. Cross your fingers for us.

The darnedest thing...

2010-09-06T00:54:00.000-06:00

Like most little guys, Elliot says his prayers by repeating the last word of whatever we tell him to say. You may also remember that he makes a smacking/chewing sound for the sound of a turtle. This was how our prayer went last night:

Me: "We're thankful..."
E: "mmmmful!"
Me: "our family..."
E: "fammy!"
Me: "is eternal..."
E: smacksmacksmack

It was not a very reverent prayer after that.

P.S. My sincere thanks go to those who voted in the essay contest. You guys are nice.

I love due dates. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

2010-09-04T10:08:00.000-06:00

So I'm due today, but this baby is comin' on her own time.

This week we found out more about the origins of Elliot's hearing loss. It's genetic, it's fairly common, it tends to produce milder hearnig loss, it probably won't get worse with time, and it's not linked to any other scary health concerns the way some forms of hearing loss are. So pretty good news all around. All of our other children will have a 1 in 4 chance of having the same thing, and we're okay with that.

So uh, cross your fingers for me. I'm ready to have this baby out.

Shameless plug

2010-08-27T22:16:00.002-06:00

If you go here you'll find links to three essays written to the theme "Lesson Learned." One of them is mine. If you happen to have the time and inclination, please read those essays and vote for your favorite (in the poll to the right on that blog). Hopefully, your favorite will be mine (but if not, no biggie - be honest). If I win, I get this, which was designed by her, who some of you happen to know and who is also the niece of him.

In the words of this lady, "I want that."

The evolution of personal nerdiness as reflected over time and email addresses

2010-08-24T23:50:00.000-06:00

Here follows a chronological list of all of my primary email addresses (so I'm not including addresses created for the Board or pranks or miscellaneous pursuits for which I never followed through) from my first to the present:

geckoforest@hotmail.com - Created around 6th grade, give or take a year.
flyingpig7@hotmail.com - Created in 7th or 8th grade once I realized how nerdy it was to use an email address based on a fantasy story I planned to write.
hostileleprechaun@hotmail.com - Created in 8th grade. This served me through high school, and I still sometimes get missives there from actual people. This is the address I had when I met and wooed Andy.
fatuglyperson@gmail.com - Created between high school graduation and the start of college. I still think it's hilarious. Also, note the advancement to gmail.
(a combination of my legal names and initials)@gmail.com - Created when we got engaged because Andy hated fatuglyperson so much. And it just came time for me to get something more professional and boring. Currently my primary address.
(my first name)@finedoodles.com - I hide the name for the sake of spambots, not because I think I have a shred of anonymity. This was created for business though it forwards to my personal address.

Andy wouldn't stop making fun of geckoforest. But just so you don't think I'm the only nerd in the family, his past email addresses include animorphfan@something.com and kylekatarn1@something.com. Kyle Katarn is the main character of the computer game, Star Wars: Dark Forces. Way worse, am I right?

Fear and Hoping in Los Angeles

2010-08-18T22:10:00.000-06:00

It struck me the other day that I have a fantastically supportive husband.

I already knew this, but right now it's really shining through. He's taken Fine Doodles as his full-time job until school starts, and he isn't even really getting paid. Yet. It's probably the biggest financial risk we've ever taken. If the upcoming changes for FD don't pay off, we'll have wasted a month of full-time earning potential. I don't know that we'll be rich off of Fine Doodles any time soon, but the hope is that we'll be able to pay for rent every month from the income. I think this is reasonable, as we actually (if you don't count shipping and supply costs) earned that much already during our most successful month. However, it was an insane month, I was crazy stressed, and there's no way I can handle that many orders consistently with two kids. Thus we raised prices. Thus we slowed business down. Thus we're spending more time on marketing and finding other, creative ways of making the business profitable. Hopefully, someday, we'll find a nice balance of supply and demand.

On top of this, Andy is encouraging me in my illustration pursuits. Coaching me and carving out time for me to work on it. Time that I could be spending doing something less risky and almost certainly profitable, like painting portraits of people's dogs. But he knows that illustration is what I really want to do. He's putting all of his eggs in my basket. He believes in me and my talent, and he's doing everything he can to help me succeed.

What a great husband, am I right?

This is a terrifying realization, of course. It could take years to see whether these things fly or flop, and by then we'd be up to our ears in student debts and wasted time. I guess that in some ways, I'm doing the same for Andy: I'm doing what I can to support him through school all in the hopes that, years down the road, all this time and money we've invested in him will yield a viable career. And he is a great teacher, he will be a great professor, and I believe in him.

Also, we happen to be in a perfect spot in life to take a few risks right now. Because we pretty much have nothing to lose.

So. Time to muster up some faith and some hard work.

In other news, it's no secret that being 8.5 months pregnant kind of stinks sometimes. Being 8.5 months pregnant and sick with a husband who is also sick and a toddler who is also sick with the same cold AND an ear infection AND has fifty molars coming through...has its moments. Yet Elliot's a surprisingly cheerful and sweet little boy through most of it. But I'm hopeless without at least a good two-hour nap.

Some pictures and some words

2010-08-16T00:31:00.000-06:00

These might even be chronological:

Elliot at a splash park in Colorado, which we visited in July. He <3 water.

The arm sticking out of the helmet really makes this picture.

Elliot <3 airplanes. So we visited the Boeing Museum of Flight.

Sometimes my baby is an old man.

"Show me your teeth!"

Just look at that flawless little face. And crooked teeth.

Dental hygiene: it's genetic.

I am the beach ball.

I like the composition of this picture.

And this one is just sweet.

Now it's time for my well-thought-out and college-educated plan!

2010-08-05T23:52:00.000-06:00

My baby can read! Or at least he can point out with astonishing accuracy the letters "o," "s," and sometimes "x" and "z" in a block of text. It works both by saying "Where is the 'o'?" and "What is this letter?" (pointing at the "o," and he will tell you what it is). I note with interest that all of those letters and only those letters look the same both uppercase and lowercase AND upside-down. Babycenter.com will tell you that kids don't even recognize text as distinct from pictures until they're two years old. Lies. Elliot likes to point to letters one by one and pretend to tell you what they are (in monosyllabic gibberish), or he'll point at them and ask, "'S'at?" ("What's that?")

But he also thinks that elephants, Elliots, and medicine all make an elephant sound (a squeal accompanied by a raised arm for a trunk).

I'm just shy of 36 weeks pregnant. 37 weeks is considered full-term. 40 weeks is the official average length of a pregnancy. I take back what I said about this pregnancy being easier than the last. It probably would be if it wasn't for my inability to sleep at night and the unrelenting physical demands of a very busy toddler. The tiredness of it all effects my mood and my ability to handle stress...the hormones probably help, too. Thank goodness I have a very understanding husband and supportive in-laws around to help out. Parenthood is totally not for the faint-hearted, and that's coming from someone with just one sweet, happy 17-month-old.

Thanks to our meddling, Fine Doodles has slowed down quite a lot. It's a good thing right now. The business is about to undergo some more changes, too. Over the next few weeks, Andy is going to be spending much more time and energy on marketing and getting the business to the next level - to debut after little girl is born and we're settled in California. I'm also taking some baby steps in the illustration direction, which is thrilling, but it's not going to amount to more than baby steps for a while. Pray for us, because I'm going to try to bring home pretty much all the bacon for the next several years. We're depending on our business endeavors to work out so that I can maintain my luxurious stay-at-home lifestyle. It is a pretty great luxury, actually. And hard work.

In other news, there are a lot of gnats in our room. A LOT. We keep the windows open almost all the time because it gets hot up here. I also work next to the window, and my lamp attracts a lot of bugs. The little guys can squeeze through the mesh screen. We set up one of those bright-lamp-over-a-bowl-of-soapy-water bug traps last night, and now we have a bowl full of soapy, dead gnat water in our room.

I love my little family.

A catalogue of Elliot's sound effects

2010-07-24T12:40:00.002-06:00

If you say, "Elliot, what does a _____ say?", this is how he will respond:

monkey: "ah ah!"
lion/tiger/dinosaur: these all get the same whispered, gravelly "roar"
bear: "grrrr"
bubble: "pop!" or "bop!" or "op!"
bird: this is usually an inconsistet, high-pitched noise, though he uses "caw caw" pretty often
duck: "cak cak"
turtle: a chewing/smacking motion
airplane/car/anything that might have an engine: these all get the same "vvvmmmmm" type sound

He's also been asking about letters lately. Sure he's only 16 months old, but what the heck, we bought him some alphabet flashcards anyway, and he seems excited about them. Except "w." Too many syllables. He's also recognizing a few shapes lately, namely star, moon, and sometimes circle.

Yeah my baby's awesome.

Edit: He also knows what a cow says, and he thinks an octopus also says, "roar!"

We are cute

2010-07-14T23:21:00.001-06:00

Very cute.

(This is from a few Fridays ago. I think this is becoming a tradition. I'd like to mat them all side-by-side in chronological order, eventually)

I was going to title this post "Cuteness Overload," but I think "Cuteness Overlord" is more fitting

2010-06-26T13:39:00.001-06:00

Eating a strawberry like an apple.

Loves the slide.

Not so sure about the swing.

Also not sure about walking in these clunky shoes. He gets used to them fast, though.

Spiderbaby ready for action.

Me and my sassy self, seven months in. When I'm obviously pregnant, I'm wearing a t-shirt from a rock concert, and I'm holding my baby with hearing aids, I secretly fear that people will judge me.

"Buh!" (Bird)

"Ahbuh!" (Airplane)

"Hshmmmm" (Airplane sound effect)

What scientists are calling, "Really freakin' cute."

Yay for getting diapers changed in the park!

Time is marching on, and time is still marching on

2010-06-22T16:22:00.000-06:00

I was trudging through some old blog posts looking for something, and boy how things have changed. All I write about these days are babies and business. Because that's my life these days. Some thoughts I wanted to get down:

- The most memorable Fine Doodles order to date: the drawing of a three-year-old boy who passed away a week ago last Saturday. It was rushed to arrive as a gift to the parents (the aunt of the boy is the one who did the ordering) at the funeral. It's a picture of him riding a tractor at his grandpa's farm.

- Andy and I got a cheap one-night vacation by the coast last week. It was spontaneous, and it was the first night that Elliot spent without either one of us nearby, and we won't get another chance any time soon. It was so lovely. Things weren't any less stressful when we got home, but it was nice while it lasted.

- We raised our prices for Fine Doodles. I just couldn't keep up with the orders coming in at that rate, and we had to slow it down somehow. We may need to actually spend some money on advertising now, though.

- Elliot gets a CT scan on Thursday to investigate more about his hearing loss, and to find out if it's the type that could get much worse with a hard knock to the head. I'm not excited about this.

- Elliot has learned to raise his right hand in sacrament meeting. Problem is that he waits until everybody else is done sustaining to do it, and I think he opposed every single calling this last Sunday.

- I'm about seven months along now, and I can't wait to hold this wiggly little girl in my arms instead of my belly.

You weren't there that day for the naming of things...

2010-05-31T22:29:00.000-06:00

Elliot's first three names that he's learned (names, not titles, like Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa, all of which he says...more or less) are, in order:

Jesus
Lisa (his aunt)
Batman

Oldie but goodie

2010-05-31T15:33:00.000-06:00

Elliot's going on 15 months pretty soon, and I swear that sometimes he gets older overnight. Suddenly he's a different, more capable kid. He usually takes just one nap a day - two if his schedule goes wonky. He's walking all over the place now (about 80% of the time - he stills crawls when he's not sure of his footing, or if he's tired) and his vocabulary has exploded in the past week, picking up a couple of new words every day. He says about two dozen things with decent consistency and varying levels of clarity. His most common word right now is "bup" (his version of "up", and it also doubles as "down" for the moment), which he says when he's ready to get out of his high chair and/or be picked up. He also babbles in longer, more complicated sentences these days, talking on the phone and trying to contribute to dinner conversation. He's making all the sounds that his hearing loss is supposed to give him trouble with (f, s, t, p, th, sh), and sometimes when he's playing with sounds he'll swear. Repeatedly.

As for Little Girl, I'm in the third trimester now. My body is gradually getting less and less comfortable in almost all positions. She wiggles all the time. Here's to hoping I don't have to get another c-section. My next midwife appointment is tomorrow, and they make me feel much more confident about my VBAC plans.

Lastly, my Elliot shows empathy, and he tries to comfort me when he can tell I'm having a hard time. I have such a special little boy.

A quick succession of busy nothings

2010-05-25T22:02:00.001-06:00

Between an ever-increasingly mobile one-year-old and a booming little business, I barely have time to breathe these days. I've just got to learn to paint faster, I guess. Because I don't think I can parent any faster, and I don't want to.

If only I could go back to my summers as a teenager, harvest all that wasted time, and bring it back to the present. There's just not enough time for all the things that I need and want to do.

I want to be a mom and a wife. Got that one down.

I want to be a painter and help to support my family financially. Check.

I want to go to church every week, read my scriptures and pray every day, go to the temple every month, and perform my calling. Check, check, check, and check (as far as I have a calling, which at this point is solely as a visiting teacher).

I want to cook healthy and delicious meals for my family. Eh, check sometimes.

I want to do my exercise video 4-5 days a week. This one is more for after pregnancy, though I've been doing it lately.

I want to first learn to be a clean and organized person, then maintain a clean and organized home. Not even close.

I want to get my illustration portfolio going, and have a good one up on an attractive website in about ten months or so. I do a little work on it every once in a while, but every spare second and creative thought is being funneled into Fine Doodles right now.

I want to write, and do that weekly short story blog. But this comes lower on the priority list than the illustration portfolio.

I want to actually use the sewing machine I got for my birthday to make a scripture case that finally fits all the things I need to bring to church, make nice things for my next home, make interesting toys for Elliot, etc. But this, too, is lower on the priority list than things that might actually make money for my family.

I want to read books again, make movies with Andy, write songs with Andy, learn HTML and CSS, play autoharp, play ukulele, play guitar, learn how to use my camera well, do claymation again, jump into some humanitarian work, and maybe take a class or two at a community college. Right now, the closest thing I have to expanding my mind is listening to sci-fi and science podcasts while I paint...which I actually really love. (Have you ever heard of spaghettification? It's when your body comes so close to a black hole feet-first that the gravity affecting your feet is much stronger than the gravity affecting your head, so your body stretches out like a noodle. It's a real thing, people.)

And on top of all this, I'm going to have a newborn in just over three months.

I think all I can do right now is parent, paint, and church, and do them with all my might. Unless somebody has a time-machine, a time-turner, or a few hundred thousand dollars they want to give me for keeps.

I've got a bad feeling about this

2010-05-22T03:00:00.000-06:00

R2-D2 steals Elliot's bottle. Becky looks on.

Silly R2.

Andy's had this thing for years, but we just recently unpacked it from storage. It responds to voice commands and dances around while beep-booping the Cantina song. Elliot goes nuts for it.

My boys are off camping at a fathers-and-sons thing. I haven't slept without Elliot in the room next to me since he was born. It definitely feels a little empty without them.

At least I have a little girl to kick me every so often.

Another good day

2010-05-13T21:11:00.000-06:00

Since the last post, the birthday presents have just kept rollin' in. Andy got to feel little girl move for the first time. I got Fantastic Mr. Fox on blu-ray, because my mom is extra nice. I got a huge box of colorful, re-stringable, hand-made alphabet pennants from which to construct my own banners, and also in the same box I got a "Ministry of Silly Walks" onesie for little girl, who will, clearly, be the next Minister of Silly Walks.

Speaking of silly walks...

Elliot walked completely unassisted EIGHT FEET today. Without even being tricked into it.

I've been waiting for this for six months - he's long had the balance and the leg strength. Just lacked the motivation and the confidence.

We also went on a long walk, after which I felt the urge to exercise, so I did. I feel good. I was over 200 lbs. at the end of my last pregnancy, which is pretty ridiculous for a girl pushing 5'6". I'd like to do things a little differently this time.

One last birthday present...

2010-05-08T09:41:00.000-06:00

I forgot to mention one last bit of good news from the past few days: we found out we got the housing we wanted. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms (one shall be my painting studio), dishwasher and internet and all that good stuff, cheaper than the other places (though still more than twice as much as we were paying in Provo) as well as some utilities paid, right next to a chapel, right next to a bus stop for Andy to ride to campus, a community of other people with kids, a kid's pool, an adult pool, a playground, outdoor space to run around in...

Sounds pretty great, right? We're going to be there a while, so we really wanted Elliot and little girl to have the chance to run around and make friends.

The downsides: Price. Space (we'll have even less space than we had before, but with the addition of one more person and all of her requisite baby things. Clearly I cannot be as much of a packrat as I always have been). And a monthly ROA fee of $5. Darn it all.

Oh, and maximum occupancy for the place is 4. So if we have another baby before Andy gets his PhD (and with a 5-7 year wait until that happens, it's a big possibility), we'll have to move again.

We even think it's on the first floor. With two little people, that'll be nice.

We lucked out.

Yes we're going to a party party

2010-05-08T00:30:00.000-06:00

I've had some great birthdays in my life. My 18th - the day my brother got home from his mission, I won $100 in prize money and two trophies in a local film competition, and I treated a huge group of friends to ice cream. My 21st - Andy was about to come home from his mission and an even huger group of friends gathered at Kiwanis Park for my food-fight. And now, my 24th. It ranks up there, too.

All the things I got/did over the past two days:

-Several nice cards, phone calls, and emails.
-A sewing machine! I'm really, really excited about this. If I had a nickel for every time I've thought, "Man, I wish I had a sewing machine, so I could do x project..." then I could have afforded to buy a sewing machine.
-A big pretty book about the moon landing! Andy and I have been on a big moon kick lately, and he's feeding my itch to go to space.
-Money to buy a temple dress! I've been aching for one for a while. I'll have to wait until I'm shaped normally again before I buy it, but I'm thrilled about this.
-A crepe party! And Subway and pizza and french toast and lemon squares and a chocolate bar. Deliciousness.
-Elliot-sitting so I could nap and go on an adventure with Andy.
-An adventure with Andy - we watched Iron Man II (good stuff), went to a tasty barbecue place, and bought some great things at a half-price bookstore.

It's been awesome.

Warning: This post acknowledges the reality of middle-aged adults getting frisky

2010-05-03T22:24:00.000-06:00

So really, this is a continuation of the money/Christmas tree post. Because there's so much more to the story, so much more that the Christmas trees represent to me: lovely long hair that takes a long time to preen vs. short, spunky, low-maintenance hair that my husband loves; stressful-yet-elaborate holidays vs. relaxed-yet-simpler holidays; driving a nice shiny Suburban vs. cruising in a minivan; elegance vs. spontaneity; raising two well-dressed and well-lessoned children vs. begetting a swarm of kids in hand-me-downs, and so on.

Two more concrete illustrations of the concept:

I invited a friend to a swimming/waterski party at a lake. She wanted to go, and she did, but she didn't do anything. Because she didn't want to get "lake hair."

I once saw most of American Beauty on tv while getting ready for cleaning checks. I did not love the movie, but one part struck me as perfectly realistic while also a perfect symbol. So the couple - Kevin Spacey and his wife - have been having troubles. Though outwardly successful, the warmth and affection in their marriage has been replaced with distaste and detachment. One afternoon, after Kevin Spacey does something that is probably naughty (I don't remember what it was), he feels refreshed and liberated. His wife comes home. They pour glasses of wine for some reason...maybe to celebrate a real estate deal she closed?...and start to laugh and act playful. They end up on the couch, smooching and sloshing their wine as they go. It's implied that this is the first time in a long time they've initiated any sort of intimacy, and it clearly could be a marriage-saving move. Then the wife gets stiff - she says she just had the couches steam-cleaned or something, and she doesn't want to mess them up.

I desperately don't want to be that woman.

I think I've decided to go color Christmas tree whole-hog. Because really, how could I not?

But that being said...

I do firmly believe that you should create a home you love, that a good space can do wonders for your mood and your creativity and your social interactions...and that requires a certain level of non-trashiness. Tidiness could help me out a lot right there, and it's a big weakness of mine. I once read about the "broken-window effect," so named after a study that was done on crime-rates in certain neighborhoods. Crime-rates were higher in places that had visible signs of crime - things like graffiti and broken windows - than in places that were well-kept. The article I read said that this could also apply to homes, and that we should get rid of the "broken windows" in our homes that lend themselves to more slovenly habits. I'm not saying that if I had nice things I would magically become a more organized person, but I do think that loving my space would be a good motivation to maintain it.

So I'm not going to nitpick over a budget. I'm going to shop as cheaply as I can - starting at the thrift stores/craigslist - then, if we don't find anything we love, we'll go to the next cheapest option (IKEA, maybe Target or Walmart), and so on, until we find stuff we love. All while realizing that we may need to compromise for a while, as it takes time for a good space to evolve.

Really what I want is a bit of the Glass/Tenenbaum families (lose the mental disorders and suicidal tendencies) mixed with Danny the Champion of the World's dad, with a bit of the Weasleys thrown in and some Dan in Real Life/that Canadian family in Away We Go thrown on top. All thrown together in the combined houses of Phoebe in Wonderland, Synecdoche New York, and my old singles' branch president. His house has a stoplight, a giant buddha, and a drinking fountain.

How does that sound, Andy? Can we always have adventures with a family we love in a place that we love?

Attn: Arty Friends - Anyone want to trade?

2010-04-30T16:21:00.002-06:00

It's recently come to my attention that it can be tacky to decorate one's home with one's own artwork. Am I going to do it anyway? Totally. Mostly because I'm cheap, and I know exactly what I want. However, I'd also like something fresh, something not done in my style.

Do any of you with a penchant for creativity want to trade? Even if you don't think you're artistic, you really probably are. And I adore the look of an untrained hand. I'm looking for paintings/multimedia, large-scale (20 x 30 or larger, probably), and quirky. Like Michael Sowa or Brian Kershisnik quirky. Amazing artists, yes, but with distinctive and often funny style. Or a bull. I would love a portrait of a bull. I want my walls to make me smile.

(If you don't think the paintings in the above links are funny/awesome/skillful, then don't worry about it. This post is not for you.)

This wouldn't have to be soon - maybe over the course of the summer we could work on them...and of course, in exchange, I'd make something for you. Not really sure what my style is right now - Fine Doodles has pretty much overrun my creative mind. But I guess I never was sure what my style was, thus I left the BFA in the first place. Anyway. You could make requests.

Anyone interested?

Sucks to be you!

2010-04-26T00:31:00.000-06:00

Andy just informed me that the original tapes of the moon-landing have been missing for some time. All that is now available is the lower-quality broadcast version. Presumably, someone recorded over them.

Can you imagine how the poor goon must have felt when he realized that he erased the most direct record of one of mankind's greatest achievements? Makes me feel much better about my own slip-up of recording LOST over Tamsen and Maranda's elementary school singing program sophomore year.

Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind

2010-04-22T18:20:00.001-06:00

Growing up, we switched off every year between a white Christmas tree and a color Christmas tree (the tree was the same plastic tree every year; it's the decorations that changed). The color tree was decorated with colored lights, a fabric chain that I think my mother had made long before I was born, and all the collected ornaments of our family life - gifts from others, gifts to each other, ornaments we'd made as family projects, ornaments we'd made in school with our names and "Class 2B" scrawled on the back. All at varying degrees of craftsmanship and aesthetic value. The white tree was the pretty one. White lights, fluffy snowy garland, and white, silver, and clear glass ornaments. It always looked more impressive, more regal, more expensive. That's the one that I wanted up for our wedding (which was the day after Christmas).

Being the overly-sensitive and guilt-ridden child that I was, I always felt bad that I liked the white tree better. I knew it was shallower in the sense that it didn't have all of the memories, the fun, and the love put into it as the color tree. But it was just prettier. So I liked it better.

For years the color tree/white tree conflict has been a symbol for me, a metaphor for two different (and, in my mind, mutually exclusive) ways of living and looking at the world. I'm a sucker for good design (graphic, interior, whatever). But I also feel that there's a coldness to a lot of it, a lack of love and family-friendliness. A misalignment of priorities. So, on one hand (and assuming I'm ever organized enough to keep a nice home), I can see myself making a home for my family that is the white Christmas tree: pretty, with nice things that we have to be careful with, something photogenic, and something I can show off to guests. On the other hand, I can see myself making a home that is less put-together, less attractive over all, but also more conducive to having pillow fights and hanging aluminum-foil stars from the ceiling: the color Christmas tree.

In my heart of hearts, I'm a color tree person. One big reason? I'm not clean and organized, and my surroundings tend to lapse into a default state of creative chaos. Also, I put fun and family-goofiness on a pretty high pedestal. Another good reason? Money.

As we contemplate the move to California, of course I'm concerned with our new home there. If we get into the one we want, it's a nicer (if smaller) apartment than any that we've lived in so far. Our last place had its perks, but its inherent grunginess and insect-friendliness were not among them. This new place is not a mansion, but it's clean and open. Exciting.

So I start to think about a budget. Due to either selling some bulky furniture or returning borrowed items, we now have no sofa, no dresser (for us. The dresser we did keep is too small for our clothes, so it will be the children's), no coffee table, and no TV-stand. I look at IKEA and start to get caught up in fantasies of corner sectionals and chaise lounges. I justify my fantasies thinking that, since we'll likely be living in this Cali apartment for at least five years, we should get some stuff we really like. How much is a good budget? $300? $500? $1000?

The old me would have balked to think of spending $1000 on furniture. Now that we have a little money (what an illusion, as we're about to have a new baby AND move to California AND start grad school), it doesn't seem so bad. But really...is it? I feel like I have no grasp of monetary value. Sometimes I feel like we have a really good attitude about money (no debt - yet, credit-cards as debit-cards, decent savings, good jobs, thrifty habits) and sometimes I feel like we're wild spenders (going out to eat a little too often, buying more electronics and a fancier entertainment system than most everyone our age). I can live on used furniture, that's fine. I still have a pretty luxurious life despite that. Then there's the whole concept of having a nice home, which is important, too. Remember that Ensign article, Our Refined Heavenly Home? To be fair, the article encourages tidiness and good care more than nice things, but there's a point where those overlap. Our last couch, for example, came from D.I., and it had a few holes and several stains on it. I have yet to find a used couch in tidy and well-cared-for condition that doesn't cost just much as a lower-end new couch.

That's just justification, though. Of course I can make it work with what I've got. So how much is too much to spend on a couch? Is it worth the savings to spend $70 on a used couch with stains and holes, when you could spend $300 on a new couch you like more and will keep longer? Say you give up birthday and Christmas presents in order to put more money toward nicer things...is that okay, or is that just highlighting the frivolity of birthday and Christmas presents and showing you that you could get by without them and pay off your student loans faster?

This may not seem connected to the white tree/color tree conflict to you, but it is to me. Is there a balance? I'm sure there is, but I don't see it. Is it worth compromising if you spent more money but you still don't love what you bought? I want to find the balance. I like it when fun and thriftiness combine with high design. That's why I was so thrilled to see plastic dinosaur toys (something that looked so tacky, yet awesome, in my yellowish 70's bathroom in Provo) used in one of those interior design magazines...what's it called? It got shut down last year. I had a subscription to it. Talk about spending too much money on design. I wanted to write them a letter once telling them how outraged I was that they were praising a $40 set of wood pencils...just because they were pretty.

News

2010-04-19T19:21:00.000-06:00

The school: UCLA.

The baby: a girl.

September will be a busy month for us. Wooo!

A good day

2010-04-17T10:32:00.000-06:00

Andy doesn't work on Fridays (but he does on Saturdays), so Friday is our day to play. Yesterday, we went on a long walk and took Elliot to see some horses face-to-face. Then I painted while Elliot napped. After he woke up, we went to the aquarium. Elliot got extremely excited about the fish, more so than he did about the animals at the zoo - probably because they moved more and were closer to him. He said, "Hi," and waved to everything. We watched a very active octopus doing her creepy thing for a while, and some otters and jellyfish and puffins and sharks and sting-rays...and Elliot touched a starfish. Many times. "Gently."

We had counted on Elliot taking his second nap in the car on the way there or back, but he never did. We went home when he started to get unbearably grumpy. He perked up when we got home and ended up staying up until his usual bedtime. We ordered Thai food and dragged a few small mattresses down stairs to the living room, so we could cuddle and watch a movie there.

...it was a great day.

Overfloweth

2010-04-12T22:04:00.000-06:00

Can I just say that it's an absolute pleasure to be a mother? Particularly the mother of this sweet, intelligent, funny, enthusiastic, friendly, good-natured, handsome, and all-around pleasant little boy?

And can I say that I'm proud of my dear husband who, after a whole lot of hard work, has his pick of the world's top three graduate schools for his program? And just this morning got offered a rather large sum of money to go to the one we were leaning toward anyway? We'll still have to go into debt...but nicer debt.

And my business is blossoming...so much so that I have a hard time handling the demand sometimes...and my husband has a pretty darn good temporary job right now...and so between that and the support of our kind family and generous community, we're earning and saving quite a good amount of money.

And on top of all this, we're being blessed with another child.

Somebody must love us a lot.

Oh no we've got cobwebs in our souls

2010-04-05T22:22:00.000-06:00

Can I really just...choose my life? Choose what I do for fun, what I do for a job, how to love my husband, how to love my children, how to love my church, where to live (within certain bounds), what to buy, what to wear, what to eat, what to read and watch...and how to feel about it all? Is that really true? And if it is, then how could I ever think that bad days are not my fault?

I had such a good burrito today.

Wally/George

2010-04-02T16:03:00.000-06:00

I've always thought of these as roughly the same person.

Creepy Food Names: A List

2010-03-31T11:26:00.000-06:00

Blood Orange
Cruller
Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese Baby Loaf

Please - contribute.

Braggin'

2010-03-30T17:35:00.000-06:00

A few months ago I got contacted by Working Mother magazine. They wanted a high-res image from Fine Doodles. I gave it to them, and haven't heard anything about it since.

A lot of nice people have posted about Fine Doodles on their blogs, including some giveaways.

Two people have contacted me about wanting to work for Fine Doodles.

An anti-human-trafficking group asked us to donate a Fine Doodle for their charity auction, and we agreed.

And yesterday morning we got a phone call from a women's television show on the Lifetime Channel. They want to do a show on encouraging kids' creativity. I have a phone conference scheduled for next week with the producer. Who knows how likely it is that I'll actually be mentioned on TV, but it's a possibility.

Am I rich yet? No. But this is exciting!

Also - we tricked Elliot into taking his first three steps last Thursday, then three more on Friday. No more since then, but it's coming.

Nothing of consequence...

2010-03-28T00:35:00.000-06:00

Just thinking about food. Pregnancy does that.

I've always been a moderately picky eater, but I've always wanted to be a brave eater. I've taught myself to like tomatoes in most contexts, yogurt, banana chips, and apples. I do not love but will tolerate ham, oranges, and mushrooms or cottage cheese in things. I have no interest in learning to like mayonnaise, cottage cheese, pineapple-on-pizza (I love pineapple otherwise), bananas (good flavor. Abominable texture), sushi, rare meat or meat on the bone. I would be interested in learning to like mushrooms, and maybe even fish, but Andy forbids me to, because then he knows I'd cook with them. I may decide to learn to like omelets next...good omelets. Then maybe avocados, sour cream, or nuts.

I've realized that pickiness is often in the eye of the beholder. I love onions, pickles, mustard, and olives - some commonly-disliked foods that are well-loved at my parents' house. But at this house, I seem pickier than I see myself because I dislike some of the things they commonly eat - like avocados and sour cream. Does that make sense? It's not a big deal, just something I've observed.

/foodthoughts

Two unrelated items

2010-03-24T12:48:00.001-06:00

I don't often post about music, but sometimes I fall so completely in love with an album upon first listen that I have to shout it from the rooftops. Miles Kurosky, frontman of the late and great Beulah, released his first solo album, The Desert of Shallow Effects, and I can't get it out of my head. You can watch the video to one of my favorite songs from the CD here.

Also, one of my high school friend's little brothers killed himself early last year. I hadn't seen him for at least five years, so though he was an older teenager at the end of his life, I remember him as a goofy, chubby, confident kid with a big blond afro. This last Friday, we were driving back from the swimming pool and passed a bridge. Sitting on the rail and facing away from us was a chubby kid with a blond afro. It looked so much like Jake. There was a bicycle laying in a ditch beside the rail, so Andy turned the car around to go see if maybe the kid had been in a bike crash. I rolled down my window and asked him if he needed any help. I got a good look at his face, and he wasn't Jake anymore. He said he was fine - it looked like there was maybe somebody else with him, climbing around under the bridge. We turned around again and drove back home, and he gave us a little wave as we passed.

When I saw this high school friend over Christmas vacation, I gave her a copy of some home-movies we'd made at her house, including footage of Jake as that confident kid.

I'm not quite sure how to end this post.

Elliot's Birthday: A Retrospective

2010-03-16T15:16:00.000-06:00

The first thing we did on Elliot's birthday was take him to the doctor for his 12 month check-up and to give him some shots. The second thing we did was take him to Kid's Quest Children's Museum. He loves him some water exhibits.

Andy and Elliot at the Children's Museum. They had instruments to play and water toys and a puppet show and physics displays and a GIANT light-bright!

We had to go swimming later than originally planned, but Elliot was so happy to get in the pool he started giggling when he saw it. The boy is a fish.

Because we went swimming late, he was asleep for the night by the time we got home. So cake and presents waited until the next day. This is the messy, messy cake I made for him, since he loves his sock monkey so much. President Cheeks is his name.

The gruesome fate of a monkey cake.

Trying to blow out a candle together. We took off Elliot's clothes and hearing aids, for obvious reasons.

A little timid at first.

Opening up to the idea.

Baby's first five-o'clock shadow.

Andy calls this Elliot's "Black Panther Picture."

Spewin' cake. Not really - it's more on its way in than out.

Contemplating the Happy Birthday balloon. Amid chocolate squalor.

After a bath and opening presents. In new robot jammies and playing with some new toys.

Wrapping up the night with a little Rock Band.

Dear Bob Shea,

2010-03-08T12:01:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I mentioned the book Dinosaur vs. Bedtime in a post. The author, Bob Shea, must have a Google alert set up for the title or something, because he made a comment on that post. His own blog (which he runs with Lane Smith. Lane Smith!) doesn't allow comments, so this is my way of writing back.

Hey Bob! My one-year-old giggles every time he sees the cover of your book, he likes it so much.

If you have any tips on how to break in to the illustrating world that you'd like to share with a girl who's wanted to do this all her life, please let me know. I'd do a heck of a job.

Thanks,
Summer
summer@finedoodles.com

(P.S. You've never published anything on a little website called McSweeney's, have you? Something about unicorns?)

A lot of pictures of a lot of Elliot

2010-03-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

We went to an indoor water park about a month ago.

Elliot loves water; he has since he first went swimming at three months old.

He had the time of his life.

Elliot also took up drawing about a week ago. A few of the heavier, steadier scribbles are from our demonstrations of how the markers work, then he got the concept immediately and took off.

I like this picture a lot.

Taken today.

He likes to play with grass. He also likes to play with hair dryers on the cool setting.

Check out those teeth.

What a great smile. What a great kid.

So say we all

2010-03-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

We had our first ultrasound yesterday. Our first two, actually, for one reason or another. Anyway, we were pretty darn close with our predicted due date, but there was some discrepancy because the baby is pretty big for its age. So the baby will come "sometime between August 31st and September 4th," according to one doctor. They recorded the ultrasound on DVD for us to take home, and Andy wanted to put it exclusively on his blog. Here it is, set to one of my favorite songs. You can see him or her wiggling like crazy, hiccuping, and punching himself in the eye. It makes me feel all something inside. A very good something.

There was talk of my plan for VBAC, and my current OBGYN office doesn't perform them by policy. I didn't let them know that I'm not going to be in Washington when the baby comes. But even so, the doctor informed me that my body may just not be a good candidate, so I will likely have cesareans for the rest of our children. Which may limit the number of children we can have. This is sitting a little heavy. I've got big plans for a loud happy house with children stuffed into every corner. But who knows? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and I'll love the babies I've got in the meantime.

Andy has heard back from seven out of twelve schools, and been accepted to five. Looks like the top choices right now are USC, UCLA (both in California, both top-notch film schools, and both morbidly expensive), and U of U (pretty good school, fantastic fellowship offer).

Elliot's birthday is on Friday, and between two generous sets of grandparents he's getting lavished with presents. He's so big and strong and old. His vocabulary of sounds is ever-expanding (he's been making "shhh" noises lately), and he laughs spontaneously. And loudly. We brush his teeth (four now) every night, which he thinks is lots of fun. He climbs up the stairs by himself. When he wakes up from his naps he sits up in his crib and dangles his legs off the side while he waits for me to get him. He has possibly said, "hello" and "mommy," but I'm not sure. He smiles at every possible chance.

I love my family.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da...

2010-02-27T15:20:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm in the second trimester, we're publicly announcing that we're pregnant again. Not that we were very good at keeping it secret. Anyway, I'm due September 3rd. Yes, that is very, very close - Elliot and #2 will be 18 months apart. It'll be hard for a while, sure, but we can handle it. We like babies in this family.

And not that my last pregnancy was all that strenuous, but I think this one has been easier overall. I have my good days and my bad days, and Andy says I'm more tired. Maybe it just seems like it's going faster, and that makes it easier.

We were at a crazy emotional point in our lives at this time last year. We had started to hear back from grad schools. Elliot was born in the middle of March. Then at the end of March, we found out within a matter of days that we didn't get into our last-hope grad school and that Elliot had hearing loss. That was a hard week. The end of February is also the anniversary of my cousin Preston's death. I can't take credit for being close to him - I hadn't seen him for maybe ten years - but I went and stayed with his family in Tennessee for a little while, and it changed my life. This is where Elliot's middle name comes from.

Well this year, Andy applied to 12 schools. He's been accepted to two so far - one in Canada and one in Utah. I'm so thrilled for him, and for our family, and for whatever comes next.

Crazy adventures all the time.

M'birthday

2010-02-23T23:51:00.000-07:00

My birthday is not until May. And this is the first time I've ever publicly posted a wish list. Not because I think you will buy me these things - I just want to show you some cool stuff, and I also happen to want them. So why not want them for my birthday?:

This Woolly Willy plate. Hot dang.

These girly flip-flops from Target's latest line. I love me some flip-flops.

This The Little Prince dust jacket and bookmark set. Too bad I don't think they're for sale.

That's all for now.

Apology accepted

2010-02-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

It makes me feel so much better to imagine that this recent Post Secret was written to us.

Fine Doodles in unexpected places

2010-02-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

I finally found a popular blogger willing to host a Fine Doodles giveaway. Look! There's my ad, right there on the left! The giveaway will be later this month, once I get her sample painting to her.

Also, here? I don't think she's copying me - she probably just had the same idea and looked it up to see if it had been done, maybe? As best we can figure, the Chinese reads something like this: "These drawings/paintings can actually make money! Fees may refer to above website. To place an order make a comment."

Business is still doing pretty well - we just shipped an order to someone who found out about us thanks to the cards I left at Elliot's pediatrician's office. Word is slowly spreading.

Three cheers for making money with paint!

Happy G-hog day

2010-02-02T13:21:00.001-07:00

Since we've arrived, Elliot has popped out three teeth (all three are top incisors) and (finally!) learned to crawl. And gained an obsession with Goldfish crackers.

He'll be turning one year old next month. We're thinking of taking him to the zoo and making him a sock monkey cake (kinda like this one but cooler). Any one have any other good ideas for first birthdays?

How time can move both fast and slow...

2010-01-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

We've been in Washington for a week. It feels nice to live in a real house again, and Andy's family has been so generous to us. Not to mention the outpouring of love and help we received as we were getting ready to leave. Man you people are nice.

These are the obligatory pictures we took all packed up in the car before our three-day road trip.

We were towing a trailer. With our tiny car.

I love my husband. He drove pretty much the whole time.

Elliot has two teeth now! His two front teeth, in fact. I have yet to catch them on camera, but there's a huge gap between them, it's adorable. He'll grow out of it as his other teeth come in. He looks so much older with teeth.

Andy got three well-paying tutoring gigs, and he just got contacted by the Apple Retail store about a job there. He's applied/will apply to a few other places, but things are looking up, money-wise.

I have such handsome men in my life.

Daddy teaches baby to play Rock Band.

Baby rocks at Rock Band, and totally knows what a drumstick is for.

Told you guys he was going to be the drummer in our family rock band.

An update on our lives. Mostly Elliot.

2010-01-07T22:10:00.001-07:00

Elliot played in the snow for the first time.

He loved it.

Mostly.

The grocery-bag boots were the best part. Derelict is in these days.

He also played baby Jesus in the family nativity. He's totally dressed for the part (10 o'clock, sitting in a lap, if you don't see him).

Opening some of his fabulous Christmas toys, including a set of wooden blocks that I've been dying for him to get. So I can play with them.

This is him trying to get water out of a glass.

He knows he can reach down into his canister of snacks and get some out.

So why not water, right?

Darn slippery water.

He had a fun vacation.

He learned to wave sometimes (and I think he tries to say "Hi," but it comes out as more of a "Hhhhaaaaa!" with a general arm movement), and he can actually make some sound when he claps now. He dances when you put music on. He added the "p" sound to his repertoire, so he now says "pabapaba" instead of just plain "babababa." I'm pretty sure he roars back at you when you read him Dinosaur vs. Bedtime, too.

He's so close to being able to walk. He's walking with one-handed assistance. He's still not crawling in the traditional sense; I don't think he ever will. He's mobile in his own wiggly way, though - he knows how to get to what he wants. He's also apparently graduated to only one nap a day, which seems early, but at least it's a nice long nap. For health reasons, we're starting the weaning process. That's been interesting, as he loathes formula. He only loathes one other food, and that is chicken-flavored baby food, which he barfed EVERYWHERE over vacation.

We are officially moving. We had several people over to look at our apartment this morning, and two of them submitted rental applications. We'll be gone sometime in the second half of this month. So if you've borrowed any movies or books or anything from us, we'll be sending the collection agency out. Or, you know, we'll just hope that you'll return it, because we don't remember.