Men Are Just Happier

What do you expect from such simple creatures? Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant.

You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park. You can wear NO shirt to a water park. Car mechanics tell you the truth. The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay.

Wrinkles add character. Graying hair adds attraction. Wedding dress~$5000. Tux rental~$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.

New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.

You can 'do' your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes. No wonder men are happier.

My friend Amy, who is serving in Iraq sent this to me and it was so hilarious I just had to share it on my blog! Thanks Amy, for the good laugh!!

Procrastinating

Procrastinating

I have a gazillion things to get done today and I just can't seem to get my feet moving!

Maybe that's because my top priority is getting beneath this pile of papers on my desk?

My messy desk.

My messy filing cabinet.

Maybe it's also partly because my mouth is sore from the temporary crown I got put on yesterday? Maybe it's because I'm a little depressed about my kitchen cabinet delivery getting pushed to tomorrow? Maybe it's because if I get it all taken care of today there will be another pile tomorrow?


Maybe I should just get BUSY?

Time

Sometimes the biggest difficulty in blogging is the time to post.

We have been in the throes of more yardwork, what else? Laren finally got the seed in at 10:50pm Saturday night in our backyard - now I really hope the warm weather sticks around because I need that grass in so I don't have to put up with dirt and mud getting tracked in all fall and winter long!


Freshly planted grass. But it just looks like nice smooth dirt!!

I decided to stain our fence because the fence has been up for awhile now, each side has been up a different length of time based on when our neighbors decided to put their respective fence up.

The Cedarwood fence color.

The oldest section of fence has probably been up 3+ years now and that section and another were really starting to look old and I wanted to catch it before it turned "black" on me. It's hard to make a blackened, weathered fence look good.

So I got a Redwood Stain from Lowes to match the Redwood Semi-transparent stain that I did our wood swingset with. Well after painting just over half the fence, including part of the back and part of one of the sides and the front wing fences on either side I realize that the stain is not Redwood but something different, maybe Cedarwood. So I go back to Lowes and ask them to give me a 5 gallon bucket of stain for free and explain the whole situation to them. The clerk said she could not do that for us, so I promptly requested to speak to her boss. Her boss happened to be the Store manager and he was very helpful because he said, "Yes!" So we got the Redwood stain and came home and this time I solicited my oldest daughter's help.

Well, she was going to start staining on one side going OVER the Cedarwood color. And that she got about half way through before I noticed how dark (and ugly) it was turning out!


The "dark side" of the fence!

Meanwhile I'm halfway up the opposite side of the yard on that section of fence using the Redwood color.


The Redwood fence color.

In the meantime I realize that if we cover up the Cedarwood with the Redwood the entire fence will look awful. Furthermore, I decide I like the look of the Cedarwood better than the Redwood. I'm so indecisive sometimes!

In the process of staining the fence we managed to get the stain onto lots of things that shouldn't have it and I also got stung by a wasp. I think the last bee sting I had was back when I was in 6th grade or something like that.

So, long story short, we still have about 1/3 of the fence to stain and we already have 3 different colors if you count the Cedarwood, the Redwood and the combination of both of those. And I thought I would get to work and stain the rest of the fence today and it turns out it is rainy and cool. So much for that idea! I guess it gives me some time to think about what color to finish things up in?

Pumpkin Bars

Because Fall is almost here, officially, and because they are so yummy here is one of my favorite recipes:

Pumpkin Bars

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 beaten eggs
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup oil

Stir together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, soda, and salt. Combine eggs, pumpkin, sugar and oil; beat till combined. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture. Beat till well blended. Spread batter in an ungreased 15x10x1" baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Cool Frost with cream cheese frosting. Cut into bars.

Cream Cheese Frosting

3 oz. pkg cream cheese
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 tsp vanilla 2 cups powdered sugar

Beat together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla till light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar. Beat until smooth.

TAG

TAG

I got this from another blog and thought I'd give it a try.

1.) What I was doing ten years ago: I had an 18 month old daughter and was about 4.5 months pregnant with my second daughter. We lived in Tucson, AZ and we were fresh out of college (Laren had graduated from BYU the previous April and we moved to Arizona that May, Phoenix, and then to Tucson in June.) That was also where I had my first bout with kidney stones, camping at Mt. Lemmon.


2.) Five years ago: We had just moved to the greater Denver, CO area where Laren had taken a new job. By this time I had 4 kids, 2 girls (6 and 4), a boy (2) and a 3 month old baby girl.

3.) One year ago: We had our house for sale and were hoping so badly it would just SELL! We had our 5 kids then ages 10, 8, 6, 4, and 1. Laren was still working at the same job that hired him when we moved to Colorado.


4.) Yesterday: September 13, 2007: Actually I had a CrAZy day yesterday. My oldest daughter, Kayla (11), was hit by a car backing up in the parking lot at school going in. I was with the kids as it was "my day" to go in and help in their classes. It was very traumatic, but with a good outcome. We went into the nurses office at the school, the school filed a police report, I took her to the doctor she is fine but not without some bumps and bruise and such. We feel HUGELY blessed that is ALL that it was! Also, I was running my girls to piano lessons, Alyssa to Cheerleading practice and going to a baby shower and one of my sweet friends brought us dinner.


5.) 5 snacks I enjoy: Lowfat Kettle corn, the Weight Watchers Fudge Bars, grape tomatoes (they are my NEW favorite snack), grapes and nectarines.

6.) 5 Things I would do if I suddenly had $100 million: Pay off our house, Buy 2 new cars, save/invest a bundle, travel with the whole family, donate to charity of some sort.

7.) 5 locations I would like to run away to: Hawaii, Europe, South America - Argentina, where Laren served his mission, Hong Kong, The Bahamas.

8.) 5 bad habits I have: Chewing my nails, swallowing my gum, going to bed too late, spending too much time on the computer, yelling at my kids.

9.) 5 things I like doing: Being with my family, making cards, dates with Laren, computer, and shopping within certain parameters because too much shopping also gets old.

10.) 5 TV shows I like: Oprah, Today Show, that is all the TV I watch if that.

11.) 5 things I hate doing: Laundry, paying bills, cleaning bathrooms, picking up my kids' backpacks and shoes after school, vacuuming my car out.

12.) 5 Biggest joys of the moment: Kayla is okay, Today is calm, it's FRIDAY!, Alyssa's Cheerleading performance tonight, our kitchen cabinets have been ordered for 2 weeks now and will be in soon!

I'm tagging Jenny, Cristin, Krista, Kelly and Denise.

Good Mail

It's been SO long since I've posted or participated in Good Mail. But I did want to document these beautiful flowers that my friend Angela sent to me last week after my surgery.




Thank you, Angela! A week later and they STILL look beautiful!!! (They are not dying yet and that is AMAZING for cut flowers.)

4 Random Things

This is a picture of me in my jeans because this weather in Colorado has suddenly turned crisp! I had to break out my jeans for the first time since probably early May on Monday. I love Autumn, it is by far my favorite season but after last year's cold and snowy winter I can definitely wait on Autumn, a few more months of Summer would be nice, actually! Ready or not, Autumn here we come!

Since Autumn is on it's way, my kids finally coaxed me into getting out some of our Fall decorations too. And today after school the kids and I sat around the Living Room with a new Highlights Magazine I bought at Costco and started planning a Halloween Party for next month. Oh, what fun!

Random comment number 2: Yesterday Rilyn asked me as I was finishing up in the bathroom (the bathroom is never a private place to me, a Mom never gets any privacy) why I was using "that thing". I explained to her that "that thing" was actually a strainer to strain my urine (gross I know) to catch all the remnants of the kidney stones that they blasted last week so they can be sent into the lab and tested. And then she said, "Oh, so is it kind of like a game for you to try and catch them?" I had to keep from laughing as I told her, "Sort of." I find it amusing she thinks of catching kidney stones as a game!!!

#3

This is the greatest book that I just discovered!

It is called Scripture Stories and was published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1980. It was Laren's when we first got married and I don't know that I was ever "aware" of the book even though I've owned it for nearly 14 years (inherited with marriage) until now. I guess a double move does that to a person. It turned all of our stuff topsy turvy, some stuff we still can't find (like my flute) and then there are things like this that we find that I never knew we had.

Anyway, this is such a wonderful book!! It tells a short and scripturally correct version of the main stories in the Bible (Old and New Testament, and Book of Mormon). My kids and I have been sitting up in the "loft" outside of their bedrooms this week after PJ's are on and right after family scripture study and teeth brushing and we read one or two of these stories a night. They are even helping me because I have what I call Scripture Amnesia.

I read stuff from the scriptures and then I forget what I read. I don't do this with other books, so what is it about the scriptures? Anyway, the kids and I read this book and then take time to discuss the stories. When we talked about Cain and Abel they were very surprised to hear that despite Cain's wickedness that he became a vagabond and still roams the earth today. They thought anybody wicked should have been killed. I told them about possible Cain sitings in the recent few decades that I read about a few months ago and they were quite intrigued.



The pages have nice illustrations of each story and then as you can see the pages are not too wordy. Each story takes about 10 minutes to read and then we spend about 10 minutes discussing it afterward.


And finally...

Entryway cabinet.

We got this at Costco for $99.98, it was marked down from $400. Costco doesn't usually put things on sale, but this is a new Costco and they have a few pieces of furniture left that they are trying to get cleared out to make way for Christmas stuff. And I guess the price would have been the same to sell it to us for $99 or to sell it back to the manufacturer so they decided to just try selling it at a reduced price (75% off) of some of the items they only had 2 or 3 left of.

I have been wanting a nice entry way chest for awhile now. Of course we weren't looking for this when we saw it, but when we saw how nice it was we just couldn't pass it up for the price! Now I need a nice mirror to go above it!

Where I was

Where I was

Often times when I am gone and my kids are home with Laren and they did not see me leave when I come back home they ask me where I was. Sometimes it is a place that they wish they knew I was going so they could have come with me and sometimes they are just as happy they did not know because they had no interest.

One particular day I remember it was a Tuesday, middle of the week, nothing big was going on. Our oldest, Kayla, was in Kindergarten and we lived in Mesa, Arizona. I had plans on going to the cannery to get us some stuff for Drypack (oatmeal, rice, beans and powdered milk) because I was working on our Food Storage. I was so excited there was a crisp coolness in the air after Arizona's hot summer.

I basked in the relative coolness of the morning when I stepped out on my back porch. I also had plans to get icing buckets from a local bakery that would give them to me for free if only I washed them out myself. I was going to use the buckets for my granular sugar. And the one other errand for the day was to go to the Toyota Dealership and get the antennae fixed on my car that had gotten broken when I inadvertantly left it up when I went through the automatic car wash.

I was slightly annoyed when a phone call disturbed my early morning productive thinking about what order I would accomplish my tasks that day. It was my Sister on the other line, she was calling from Colorado to tell me that she had the Today Show on and some planes had just hit some buildings in New York City. I dismissed it as being some kind of freak and tragic accident and hung up the phone.

A few minutes later Laren was about to walk out the door to work and the phone rang again. It was Kallie again urging me to turn on the news and see what was going on. My optimistic self did not want to throw a wrench in my day but I obliged and turned the TV on. They were talking about planes, two of them, that hit the World Trade Center in New York and then one that hit the Pentagon in Washington DC, and one that we later learned crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

As I was taking all of this in and realizing that there was no way it all could have been coincidental I was saddened but determined. So I turned the TV off and walked my three children about 4 long blocks to the bus stop. Kayla would only be at school for 3 hours and then she would be home and it would be lunch and nap time.

I only had a predetermined amount of time to get stuff done. So after the bus came my younger two kids and I hurried home to take off on our errands. I remember being at the cannery and it was completely empty. There were workers but I was the only patron. Oh how that changed the following day and weeks after September 11, 2001. It was after that day that the cannery became so packed full of people trying to get their food storage in that you had to have an appointment something like 60 days in advance.

I remember going into the Toyota Dealership and everyone in the waiting room sat there with their eyes entranced by the TV. I got what I needed and ran the other small errands and headed home to greet the school bus. Thankfully I didn't have to actually can the stuff I bought at the Cannery, that would have been impossible with 2 toddlers. Our ward had a canner so I could just use that. And as luck would have it I was working with the Achievement Day Girls at Church and the activity on Thursday was going to be using the Drypack canner where each girl would then get to take home a can of oatmeal.

I will never forget watching the sky above for a week after that and seeing it void of airplanes that were typically a common site overhead. Anyway, so that is where I was on September 11, 2001. Where were you?

My heart goes out to all who lost friends, family or loved ones in this attack and for all of those who have family serving our Country because of the War on Terror.

I actually knew one person who was killed in the attack on the Pentagon. His name is Brady Howell. I worked with him at Arctic Circle in Rexburg, Idaho when I was attending Ricks College. Brady was just a Junior in High School at that time, I believe. He was only an acquaintance, but I do remember him being a hard worker and that he was one that would take his job seriously when some of the other guys were still horsing around in the kitchen.

We knew that Brady could reign in those other guys and get them on task so we could get an order out quick. As it so happens, though I did not know my husband at the time, it was Brady's Dad who was serving as Laren's Stake President in Sugar City where Laren spent most of his childhood years. My heart goes out to Brady's wife Liz and the entire Howell family.

What I've been busy with

Enrichment Super Saturday Projects



We actually are calling it "Hearth and Home" but I figured most of you would not know what that meant so, I didn't entitle it that. This all takes so much planning and a lot of communicating. I am actually not teaching a class but "overseeing" 4 of them.



Laren was at Home Depot in a town an hour away after a late business trip Friday night to buy Glass Block because most Home Depot's and Lowe's around here don't stock it, it is a Special Order item. After he got home we were drilling holes in them and it took about 30 min. for each hole (and a special drill bit) and we got these glass blocks delivered to the Gal who is teaching the class at 11pm Friday night.



Unfortunately we did not realize until more than half way through the week that you could not just walk into any Home Improvement store and buy those darned blocks. When I was first made aware of the problem I was in middle of my recovery from surgery and couldn't do anything about it. But as soon as I could, I did.



I think they actually turned out very nice and so far we have more people interested in those than any other project. Thank goodness I talked them out of cancelling the class!



Anyway, so here are the pictures of some of the stuff:

>">


>">" Holiday Plates made by Modge Podging Tissue Paper or Fabric to the bottom of a clear glass Platter.>">

Sunday Bags, that were purchased at a craft store and embellished with paint and ribbon.>">"
Temple Pictures and "BE Tile".

Sorry my camera had a smudge on the lens when I took these pics and I didn't realize it until I went to share them. These pictures are just some nice ones of the Denver Temple that I had a Photographer friend take. We are just offering these at the cost of what they were to have enlarged and printed so that those who would like, can have a nice picture of the Temple in their homes. They will mat and frame them theirselves.

Parade of Homes

Parade of Homes

For our date night Friday night we went to the Parade of Homes. This was only our second time of ever going to one of these but we have found it to be an interesting and enjoyable experience. I, of course, like to get decorating ideas and Laren likes to get landscaping ideas. We figured the timing was perfect since we are presently designing our backyard landscaping.

You would not believe all the features that they put into these homes.

Something that every single home had was a Home Theatre Room in the basement.

A wine storage room in the basement is a common feature to these upscale homes. The woodwork in this one sure was intricate.

Of course there is special emphasis put on the Master Suite, the Master Bath and the Kitchen.

A Shower off one of the Master Bedrooms. That is a waterfall between a double paned glass, it gives it a nice serene feeling.
I always like to see what they do in other rooms too, like the Home Office and the secondary bedrooms since they are more like what you would find in the "normal" house anyway.

A secondary bedroom.

I found some cute curtain designs that I may try my hand at imitating. See below.


One thing I really love is that the flat screen TV's they had in these homes could have a regular digital type picture on the screen when the TV is not being used, rather than just having a big black blank rectangle. I've always been anxious to have the TV be "prettier" than it is. Of course it doesn't help that the TV's in our home are the old ones with the huge backs (no flat screens) and our biggest is only a 27". But we are not big TV watchers though. I just like my space to look good!

Another thing I would love is a home exercise room. That would be nice!
A room like this would be super great! I love how they covered an entire wall with mirror, it makes the room seem bigger than it is.

One of the homes was called the "Boat House" and everything about it had a nautical theme to it, even the underlying architecture in the bar in the basement was shaped like a boat. The backyard had an awesome swimming pool and up above it by way of a spiral staircase was a hot tub that is also accessed from the master suite.

A view of the pool and hottub at the Boat House.

One of the many balconies.

The homes really play up the outdoor space with outdoor kitchens, and sitting areas.

I would love to do a little "hidout" for my kids underneath our basement stairs.

It is amazing all the many different things one could have as part of their house, if one had the money for it!!!!

Recovery

Recovery Mode

I am home and in recovery mode, but kind of doped up on pain meds. I will be around soon. We were able to get 2 of my 3 stones blasted we think. We will not know for sure until I meet with my Urologist in a couple of weeks. The kidney was too swollen after the Lithotripsy to get detail shots at this point to know for sure.

IN the meantime my good husband is taking care of the things around here and a friend brought us dinner tonight. I am very grateful.