things i learn from running

evidence that blood doesn't circulate as well in fat: after going for a run, my stomach and my butt are by far the coldest bawdy parts. not my fingers or my nose. in fact my stomach is red when i finish a run.
evidence that i have a fatty stomach and behind: they are the only parts of my bawdy that do not warm up on a run and become as cold as it is outside...actually maybe that means that those regions are cold-blooded...

laundry room part II

yesterday i told brent that i had to get the dryer accessible for dennis. so i come downstairs from doing michealah's hair and i hear all this crashing around in the laundry room and sure enough brent is in there "cleaning." now if you are a regular reader of my blog, you'll recollect that brent just moves stuff when he is cleaning--he actually doesn't put things away. this is why the laundry room is a problem at all--it is where brent moves things too. so yesterday he started moving things out in an angry martyr sort of way. he kept loudly complaining about what a mess it was in there. i finished my breakfast hurriedly and made him stop. i absolutely detest that kind of "help." it took me about 15 minutes to clear brent's mess. when he came back from the bathroom he asked me where i put everything. away brent, i put it away. later he asked dennis if the dryer was accessible enough and dennis told him that they already did our house from the outside vent. the stooopid person who wrote the note didn't know what she was talking about. then brent couldn't push the dryer back into place. it probably took about 20-30 minutes just for him to do that. at least i can walk into the dryer instead of climb and i can opent the door all the way.

aaaahhh! the laundry room!

alas! the weekend has flown by and i have not accomplished some things that must be accomplished. last week i had a note that said this left in my mailbox:
"as a regular maintenance procedure your dryer vents will be blown out on monday, december 5th, 2005 [the year is given just in case you think they are giving you a year's notice, which by the way wouldn't be such a bad idea] beginning at 9am and continuing throughout the day. please ensure the laundry area is clean and the vent is accessible." aaaaahhhhh!
first of all, if this is a regular maintenance procedure, why oh why have they never done it the whole 5 years that we've lived here? second of all, and most importantly, nothing is accessible in my laundry room. so you know, i have been sort of working on getting the area cleared out and saturday was supposed to be my big day to get it all accomplished. did NOT happen. i went on my run (first time since the snow--it was time to give up that excuse) got out of the shower and realized that the girls had to be at a party in 35 minutes and we didn't have a gift yet. the party was only an hour and a half so brent and i had a little minidate during that time. then we rushed back to pick up the girls and ended up staying all day. i mean ALL day. the girls were having a good time and playing so nicely and we just seemed to have a lot to visit and talk about. i guess we are a dangerous combination with the meades--we're all very talkative. we stayed til about 7:00. then we had to come home and feed the girls and get them in bed. and by that time it was too late to start something like cleaning out the laundry room. oh well. i guess it is guaranteed to get done tomorrow. hopefully dennis won't start at our end of the complex. i need karen. i miss karen.
i was quite irritable at church today. i guess it is the time for grumpies. i just can't seem to not be critical of certain people and their testimonies when i'm like this. for example: we had ample time for testimonies in relief society--20 minutes, in fact--and there were brief breaks when no one got up and then just when linda is about to stand up and end the meeting (because, HELLO, the time is up!) sis sheppard had to get up and give crying-while-pausing-in-the-midst-of-tears-to-smile testimony. so i was bugged. i didn't even hear much of what she said. and then sister salway's duck hair. why? why must she have a duck head? why do i care? i don't really, it just bugged me to see it today. then i came home and read the ensign. this is a sunday tradition to enduce a sunday nap. anyways, i read an article about christmas hurting and cried my eyes out. i have been feeling very thankful for the many way i am blessed in my life. i have really been enjoying spending one on one time with michealah and natalie. i feel this urgency to do as much as i can with natalie before i lose her over to the school system. i can't stand that it is less than a year away and i'm not ready for it. it just isn't fair. i got six more months with michealah than with natalie. try to have your babies born early in the year. that is my advice. you get to have them longer that way. sometimes i look at michealah and my heart aches at how much she has grown up already. i remember a girls weekend where she called sarah wara and bethany betatentententen and sarah held her and ran around with her while playing tag. that wasn't that long ago. anyways, before i get myself too worked up, i'm going to stop...it is afterall too late to be awake.

i went and saw the harry potter movie with brent tonight. it was a waste to go with brent--he doesn't like them, but he wanted to go for some reason, so we went. i thought they did a pretty good job on most of the things. i didn't like the way voldemort was portrayed--i didn't think he was commanding enough. lucius is scarier and more commanding then him i think. ah well. i enjoyed the humour. it was unexpected, but good. deborah brooks babysat for me. she is just so nice to me. i don't know what i've done to receive so much kindness from her, but she just keeps laying it on. today she drove out to deliver a gingerbread house kit that she bought for the girls. i was outside playing in the snow with natalie. first she made snow angels. the snow was so dense that she hardly even made a mark in the snow. then she wanted us to throw snowballs at each other. she kept asking me to make her big ones for her to throw at me, but she usually tried so hard she would crumble the ball before it left her hand. she kept saying to me as we were playing "see, isn't this fun?" then we made a snow man. he had prune eyes, a carrot nose and a raisin mouth. afterwards i saw her putting more snow on it and i asked her what she was doing. she said she wanted it to have what i have right here and pointed to her chest. so that was revealing. nat actually noticed that i have a padded chest. michealah made a little one right beside natalie's. they were right in front of our house with complete faces and hats, but that didn't seem to mean anything to some kids who smashed them both less than an hour after mic finished her's. how rude.

the case of the missing cds

a long long long time ago, we went to the temple and tannis babysat our kids with dough's kids. we let her use our van to get around in and brent was rightly concerned for the safety of our stuff in the van. so he "cleaned" it out. brent's favourite way of "cleaning" is to stick anything that is not in its place into the laundry room. this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. he puts more stuff in there then i can keep up with and consequently our laundry room is filled--almost to capacity. i can hardly get into the dryer and often when i do so i feel like swearing. i don't though and settle for calling brent a few names under my breath (or even a little louder if natalie isn't around). anyways, one of the things he took out of the van was our cd case that was full of our best cds. this was going overboard i felt because it was kept in a drawer under the front passenger seat. it was perfectly safe there. well after we got back we couldn't find it. i searched the laundry room and the outside storage (another of brent's favourite dumping grounds) it was nowhere to be found. i left it for awhile until i cleaned those places out. a year past and still...all our good cd cases remained empty. i cleaned the outside storage. no cds. (brent has already started to fill that space again) i started the mountainous task of cleaning out the laundry room several times. no sign of the discs. then a couple of weeks ago i was asked to sing something with my sisters at the ward christmas party. i thought it would be fun to do an arrangement similar to one that the rankin sisters did and i had their christmas cd. i got it out, opened it up and you guessed it: empty! arrgh! i once again cursed brent in my mind (he was there so i didn't want to be too vocal) and went back to the laundry room with new vigour. i searched every where i could think of: the shelves, the pile of stuff on the dryer, the pile of stuff on the cedar chest, the stuff wedged between the chest and the washing machine, and the floor. but no. frustrated and disgusted i left the room and sat down in front of the computer and tried to download it. i couldn't find anything. later that night i went back in and checked all those places again more thoroughly. i climbed up on to the washing machine and looked on the high up shelves. i looked behind the washer and dryer. it must not be here i thought. maybe brent put it in something that go thrown out--or it is one of the boxes of mission keepsakes or something. i was losing hope. in my prayers that night i asked for help in finding the discs. then yesterday morning brent said he thought he put in my hope chest, so i stopped my church preparations and ran down to check. no. he didn't. but then i started thinking maybe he put it in the cedar chest in the laundry room. so last night when we were done our visiting and all was quiet in the house i went into the laundry room with renewed determination. i took most of the stuff off the cedar chest and lifted the top. there was the sewing machine. i have used it since the cds went missing. i felt all around it. no luck. i emptied the craft box. i climbed up on the washing machine again. no cds. the growing doubt that those cds were in our house anywhere plagued me all the while. i left the laundry room and checked the coat closet ignoring the fact that it isn't full of stuff and i know exactly what is in there. maybe i saw it in there and didn't pay any attention to it because i was getting my toque or something, i thought. nope. it has to be here somewhere. (karen would have put an s on the end of somewhere. she also would have been using the word "buddy" in here too.) i decide to look under the cedar chest even though it was too narrow opening for the case to fit in. i found a few papers and a children's card game. i didn't like sticking my hand under there because i could see a spider web--what if i touched a big black spider? i put my head right down on the ground and shone the flashlight under...and then, i saw something! forgetting all about spiders, i stuck my hand right in and pulled out the cd case. it was full--every leaf had a cd. now watch the disc won't even be in here i thought to myself as i rapidly flipped through the case. i saw beloved cd after beloved and much missed cd. at the very back was the currently much sought after cd. i ran victoriously upstairs and woke up brent with the news. afterall why should he sleep? he was the one who lost it in the first place. now after listening to the disc i don't know if it will be much help.

brent and i played a game tonight. we don't often play games just the two of us because it isn't so fun beating him for me. tonight we played solarquest, which is like monopoly except in the solar system. brent was rolling really well and collecting money on all sorts of spots. on the other hand i never landed on anything to collect money, but started to have to pay brent money. i kept buying property and so quite early in the game i was running out of money. i'm ashamed to say i wasn't a very good sport and kept complaining as brent bought up more and more property and collecting free money. brent asked me if i wanted to quit. no, but it's not very fun, i whined. soon i was out of money, much to brent's surprise. i don't know why he was surprised--i had yet to collect any money and was having to keep paying him money and was caught in orbiting jupiter where he owned 4 properties. so i threw my last little bit of money at him in very poor sportsmanship and told him the game was over because he had been soo greedy. he talked me into mortgaging some of my properties and told me which ones would be the most strategic to mortgage. having never played monopoly all the way through i didn't really know anything about the whole mortgaging thing. so i mortgaged a couple properties and got out of jupiter's orbit. i landed on earth and so got quite a cash in. brent who had been rolling way better than me, (and buying up all the property before i had a chance) was now in saturn's orbit. i had spent alot of time there and so owned all the property except one. suddenly the game was much more fun as i collected high rent and fuel money from brent. i couldn't help but laugh at him as i mercilessly gouged him as turn after turn he kept landing on the same spot and required refuelling and rent from me. he had to mortgage all his properties and very quickly, i won. who knew it could turn around so quickly?

friz

you know hagrid's beard? well that's what my hair looks like. i'm a walking bush with a couple ringlets at the front. i have no more product. and it is super foggy out. our house has been encased by a thick fog that hasn't lifted at all since saturday morning. i need sarah.

all is right again. brent is back. as corny as it sounds, it really is true. it just isn't the same without him here. he is the one person that really really really cares. now i know you guys care about me, but not the same way. you are busy with your own lives. i am brent's top priority. its a nice feeling. even though he has already gone to bed, it just isn't lonely anymore. i am glad he's back.

yesterday ... despite offers to "hang out" with bethany, i heard nary a word. this, however was not surprising and so i instigated a hanging out. i was in a toenail painting mood and beth felt like it was something that she could indulge in, so she came over. we went to mtm to rent a movie for the night. it took us an unbelievably long time to decide. we finally decided on breakfast at tiffany's (a movie that i'd never seen--at least not all the way through). than we had to wait while michealah, madelaine and natalie tried to agree on a movie. no progress was made until i decided to decide for them. then suddenly the movie michealah had picked was very appealing to madelaine. i had left a message on amy's cell, but in typical amy fashion, she had "other plans." (it took sarah and me some time to get amy used to the idea that every tuesday is sister movie night.) so the only way we could accommodate her was to let her invite adrian and sean. to amy's great joy, (sorry amy, but bethany did say you sounded very excited) we reluctantly agreed and poor sean and adrian had to come over to my house and watch breakfast at tiffany's. i think it must be only single guys who get themselves roped into watching chickflicks. bethany and i levied a charge: the boys must bring treats. well they came bearing many such treats. after the movie beth gave sean a massage and showed me how to give her one. but since the boys were there, i couldn't really give her one anyhow. amy was supposed to watch and learn too, but she was busy chatting on msn. see what i mean? sean was a little uncomfortable about taking his shirt off so amy reassured him by telling him that at school beth does butt massages as well. i was sean's seminary teacher--and adrian's for a little while. i'm sure that at the time they never thought they'd come hang out at my house and watch an old movie. i miss brent. i was a crabby mommy this morning. i took madelaine home after lunch because i was tired of the fighting and the fake laughing that they do when they are together. it was really getting on my nerves. while nat had her nap i read my scriptures and then read with michealah. it is amazing to me how that can restore me and make the grumpies go away. later i played dollhouse with the girls. i was the grandma. i made the grandma dance to nat's piano. nat made all the other people say the dancing was weird and not very pretty, so then i made the grandma be really mean to them. the grandma kept kicking the baby off the hope chest. nat kept trying to tell me that the grandma wasn't mean, but that just made me laugh and do it again. haha. i was so busy playing with the girls that i forgot all about the 20 pounds of potatoes that i was supposed to peel, cook, mash and deliver to the church by 5:30. i remembered at 5:05. i don't think i've ever peeled potatoes so fast. i felt really bad. i hate letting people down. i've had it happen enough to me in church responsibilites. so i got them there by 5:55. the girls are now bathed and in bed. i love it when they are fresh and clean and all ready for sunday on saturday night. we called brent. he has sore feet. nat kissed the phone. i have affectionate girls.

alone again

brent is gone. i'm all alone. you'd think that i'd be use to this by now and afterall, it is just one weekend...but as you can clearly see, i'm not. i even got teary when we said goodbye. but when he is not here my motivation, my energy, my whole focus is gone. i stay up too late doing nothing and so then i'm short of patience with the girls. to top things off, i'm not only alone, i'm broke--so i can't even go do some shopping or anything. ahh well. i'm premenstrual and i'm sure that is why everything feels more dramatic or intense. i'll have time to spend with the girls and maybe i'll get one of my projects done.

my sabbath

i don't have a whole lot to say. i'm just addicted to kzion. i love love love the beautiful soothing music that it plays and so i just want a reason to sit here at the computer and listen. today was a good sunday. testimony meeting had a more than usual mishmash of testimonies and minitalks and even a couple sermons. one thing i definitely felt was that our ward really is starting to get excited and motivated to do missionary work. during sunday school i sat at the back and had a long nice visit with delanie. i'm sorry to say that i didn't get a single thing out of sunday school because i didn't listen at all. not one tiny little smidgeon. then relief society the lesson was on testimony. at first the ladies were kind of giddy and rowdy and i felt sorry for sister mclaren and soooooo glad that it wasn't my responsibility to try to spiritually uplift these sisters who seemed to openly have a bad attitude. jeesh young womens was bad enough. for example sister hunter loudly proclaimed that she was glad that she was not in town for the last enrichment night. that is just rude and shows a lack of appreciation for the efforts of the people that are putting it all together. although most people laughed, if i was in sister mclaren's position i would have felt quite sad from such a comment. anyhooo, the meeting turned around though when she talked about times that our testimonies have touched people around us without us even being aware at the time. that generated a lot of people sharing experiences and i once again felt the underlying excitement to share this message with the people around us. i had just such an exciting experience with erin sipple. she is joseph sipple's wife and they live here in nanaimo. we've been doing things together for awhile and every now and then she brings up religion. we were talking on friday and she was telling me how she misses belonging to a spiritual group that helps her to grow. it was as if she was asking me if she could take the discussions! so i asked her and she said she does want to take them. i just felt the spirit so strongly when i talk to her about it. it is exciting for me. i love this gospel and the way it has helped me and i love to share it's message, but as a stay at home mom i just don't have many opportunities because all my interactions are with members. that sounds like the way people talk on amazing race: "as christian models,..." "as world travelers..." etc. laura, lauralei doesn't even remember us. do you have those pictures we took at parkside? if you do email me one and i'll pass it on to them. well, pretty music or not, i better go to bed so that i'll be able to face the busy week ahead.
good night.

karen had her baby. he was born yesterday at 4:32 pm and weighed 10 pounds 13 ounces. steve said that he looked just like him. no name yet. congratulations to my friend!
last night was the harvest ball so i got all dressed up. i even wore the necklace natalie got me for my birthday. it is really too much for me--something i never would have picked but i was in the mood to go over the top. besides it kind of matched sarah's red shoes that i was going to wear. it was fun at the ball. we didn't sit with the clarke clique--maybe that is because we were there first and not exciting enough to sit with. i had invited some friends to come and so i spent most of the time with them. brent didn't dance with me even once, but i was asked by other people--kind of a different thing for me. i don't think anyone besides dad or brent has asked me to dance since my single days. the first guy was that older guy with the weird son who asked amy on a date last year. the one whose dad said to get one for him while he was at it. he got me when i was just going out, so i said no, but felt kind of guilty. the other one was a williams boy. the older socially inept one. apparently brent was jealous. on the way home he kept asking me if i was disappointed that we didn't dance. actually i wasn't. i know brent doesn't like dancing so i go with low expectations on the dancing front. its more about dressing up and socializing. amy came just after our friends left and she came and sat with us. she shared her chocolate with me. it makes me feel special that she will hang out with me at something like that--like we're friends and i'm not too old to be her friend. haha. silly, but true. i remember last year's harvest ball where lots of guys and old men were asking amy to dance. she wore bethany's prom dress and brad kept caressing the netting or frills or something on the bottom of it. haha-poor amy.

midnight adventure

last night kyle picked brent up at 10:30 and they went to pipers pub. they did this at the request of dad. they went in and ordered 7up and just sat there watching the pay phone. they didn't talk and the bartender noticed them and asked if they were ok. the cell phones don't have coverage there so i was not able to get a hold of them. neither was dad. at 11:15 a short woman came in with her teenage son. they went straight to the phone the son looked very nervous and stared right at brent and kyle. brent and kyle went to wait outside in case the woman left quickly. the boy followed them out and so they drove a little ways down the road. finally i was able to get brent and he when he realized his phone worked he called dad. dad was on his way there. he talked to the woman and then she started to walk home. dad waited a while and then he and the boys followed her in their vehicles. the woman pointed out an rv and then went inside. dad pounded on the rv door. there was no answer. he pounded again and then just opened the door. there was a kid (20yrs) sleeping inside. dad spoke to him for a few minutes and the kid denied everything. finally he got up put on some socks and shoes and came outside. dad ordered him into the truck and told brent to call 754-2345. as brent started to do so the woman hissed to him from her door that there is no cell coverage there and that she didn't have a phone. so they started following dad down the road towards rutherford mall. as soon as he could, brent called that number and asked for a police escort. they told him to wait and not go any further before the police got there. so they pulled into the mall parking lot and waited. brent had to go stand outside the passenger door to make sure the kid didn't try to bolt. the kid was shaking and really nervous. dad told the kid he didn't care if the kid went to jail and gave him a choice: jail or 15 minutes alone in a room with dad. the kid chose jail. finally 3 cop cars showed up. they knew the kid. there was a warrant out for his arrest. he told the police where to go. there was another guy that was implicated that the police have wanted something on for some time. so they went to his house which was nearby. dad wanted to go but the police said for him to wait. the other guy wasn't at the house, but his grandma was and she opened the garage door for them and inside was a freshly painted blue, battered harley--dad's bike.

halloween

warning: the following account is probably of no interest to you. skimming or skipping it altogether is recommended.
halloween at last is over. it has been a hectic weekend. it all began on saturday when i chose to forgo my long leisurely run for a little more time to sleep. so instead i got up at 8 and got the girls ready and went to the church where they had their presentation practice. i had to be there to find out information from debra brooks who was in charge of the halloween party but couldn't be there and asked me to take her place. otherwise this would have been a perfect time for my run. as it was debra wasn't ready because some idiotic boys (not mentioning any names) just had to play basketball that morning and so they took down all the decorations and didn't put them back properly. that attitude that they must have their sports at all costs with little or no thought for anyone else reeelly bugs. then it was freezing in there while i was helping reset up. i had on brent's winter coat and it was actually warmer outside. they had turned on the air conditioning. in october. jeeesh. how about opening a door? or at least turning it off when you're done. i went straight from that to shopping with amy. it was a rushed trip with a grumpy bethany who didn't believe that we should look at anything other than boots. makes one wonder how she ended up getting a shirt...i realized the time and that i had to get home immediately to get the girls ready for the halloween party. i was supposed to be there early, but there was no way that was going to happen. when i got home the girls were waiting excitedly in their new costumes that had just arrived on the bus that morning. they were very cute, but way too big and i had little time and only a few pins to fix them. nat's dress was at least 6 inches too long. it probably would have fit michealah. so i did a rush job on their hair--it included curling mic's hair, which i now thoroughly know is a lost cause: it will not hold a curl--and off we rushed. after the party i had enough time to get home, have dinner, freshen the girls faces and hair and take them another halloween party at the meades. i did not want to go. i just wanted to stay home and relax. but no. how could i not go? the meade's house was all spooky and scary outside. when we left there, michealah asked me if the meades had a lot of money because they had so many halloween things. i told her they did. then she told madelaine. we got home from the party at 9. too late for the saturday night ritual of baths and hair washing, which was incidently quite needed especially as the next day was the primary presentation. i always feel rushed sunday mornings and totally unprepared for the sabbath if i haven't done their hair the night before. my salvation here was that we got an extra hour and the girls woke up early and so i did it in the morning. the presentation went pretty good and nat actually said her lines although there was a dangerous moment when matthew walburger pulled her hair. she just gave him a dirty look and took her hymn book away from him. matthew provided plenty of entertainment by singing very loudly even though he really didnn't know very many of the words. in relief society we had a lesson on visiting teaching= felt the guilt. the guilt changed to more of feeling a little sheepish when i had my v.t.ing interview and found out that most of the people i thought i visit taught were actually now being visited by linda buchanan (the person who was interviewing me) later that night she called me and told me that it has been changed for about 6 months and that amy isn't my companion anymore-michelle meade is and i'm back to visiting the older women in the ward. amy did you know this? michelle didn't. so i don't know what happened there. i called michelle that evening and this led to a very long chat. it has been awhile since we've chatted and usually paul doesn't let it go on so long, but by the time we hung up, both our husbands were in bed. sunday was restful enough except that we had alkah over for dinner and then brent felt obligated to feed doug when he came to pick up madelaine. this basically means way more dishes because brent uses them with no regard to the dishwashing aspect. i am much more stingy. then because i stayed up so late talking to michelle, i didn't get michealah's stuff ready for halloween. we were going to put her hair in the hot benders the night before and make a crown that looked more like glinda's crown. i also stayed up waaay too late to get up in time for my morning run. so the morning was a rush of getting michealah ready for halloween at school. she was supposed to take cookies and so brent went off to the store at 8 to get them. i walked mic to school and took nat on my run from there. i took some slow leisurely moments after my run to read the blogs and then got in the shower. nat came in too. we sang loudly. the kind where you are really using your diaphram and projecting. we sang give said the little stream and popcorn popping. when i opened the bathroom door i heard brent yelling "let's go! i've been calling you for 10 minutes!" as brent wasn't even home when i got in the shower this was a bit of a surprise to me. and thinking i should be ready to go when i just got of the shower and had not heard him seemed a little unreasonable. so i rushed and got nat out and dressed. brent was busy talking on the phone and no help at all. in fact, we were ready before him. i had to drive him to mom and dad's to get the truck. i took nat's dress to see if i could fix it while i was there. the truck had a bulge in the tire that looked like a big black balloon so brent couldn't do anything and made me wait there. i fixed nat's dress while mom took her out for lunch. i thought i would finish way before they were done but i was fixing the last part when they got back. i was finally ready to go but brent wanted me to wait around. i did for a few minutes until i realized with a start that it was almost time to pick mic up. so i dashed off to get her ballet stuff and pick her up. while i picked her up, brent called to say to get to mom and dad's right away because he was feeling frustrated with dad and work and when dad got there they would be talking. so after dropping mic and madelaine off at ballet, i hurried over to mom and dad's. they had just decided to go somewhere and brent wanted me to wait there. at this time i was feeling flustered and stressed because it was almost time to take the kids out for halloween and i just wasn't ready! i had not planned on spending my day at mom's! so i left brent to find his own way home. on my way home i picked up pizza. mic got home shortly after and wanted her hair recurled. aaarrrgg! if i never see a hot bender again, i will not mind. the girls looked very cute all bundled up in their costumes. mic had a headful of bouncy ringlets that looked like they actually might stay in this time. unfortunately it started to rain just after we started and her curls lasted maybe 2 doors and then the rain stopped. there was a little boy that got into sinc with mic and nat and he was quite cute. he kept saying "c'mon girls" " this way girls" i guess his parents didn't like it because after awhile they had him skip a couple houses and get ahead of us. some of the sewing i had done on nat's dress came undone. that was annoying. especially brent said things like "didn't you knot it?" so i had to pin up more and more pieces as the night went on. michealah proudly told the people at one house that her daddy had installed their granite and that she had been inside their house before. they graciously told her that he had done a good job. the girls got quite a haul just from our neighbourhood. now it is finally done and there is a HUGE bag of candy sitting behind me and i'm wondering why i did it. why why why did we get so much candy? and now i ask myself why did i write such a long boring account of my helter skelter time?

the opera

the other night i watched madam butterfly on tv. there wasn't anything else on and brent was out (he would have never sanctioned such a viewing) at first i thought it would be weird and cheesy watching an opera on tv. and at first it was. it is weird to watch something in a japanese setting when they are singing in italian and the lead character's (who is japanese) name is butterfly. and then there was also the fact that even though they were wearing kimonos and asian, they were obviously not japanese and that was a tad bit irritating to me. brent came home in the middle of it and i was way too into it to let him change the channel. the end was so tragic and unfair yet somehow typical of the way things really could have been at that time. it was so powerful and i truly felt the grief of madam butterfly that her actions seemed to be the only path. even brent was drawn in.

family time

natalie missed michealah today so i played dollhouse with her. it was funny and interesting to see the way she plays and imitates real life and mix it with the movies. the mom and dad are brent and katie. the children are violet, dash, jack jack, natalie and ella. and then there is an uncle jaeden. i don't know where that one came from. i made natalie fight with her older sister the way that she does in real life. she didn't like that and said she wasn't going to play anymore. hahaha. it was fun. brent finished work early and met us at the ballet school. i didn't tell the girls he would be there and they didn't notice him sitting outside waiting for us at first and then they both noticed him at the same time and exclaimed "DADDY!" in the same excited voice. i love how excited they are to see him. when michealah got home from ballet brent took her and nat to go and choose a pumpkin. i stayed home making dinner. we had kare rice (japanese currey) with spinach in it. it was good if i do say so myself. natalie even liked it. and that is saying something because most dinners she declares that she doesn't like it even when i know she does. we had a candle light dinner. we do this a lot when it is darker. the girls always ask and we usually comply. we "carved" the pumpkin for family home evening. (i cannot abbreviate that one because that is the way brent says it. he doesn't say family home evening or fhe, he says f-hee.) carved is in quotations because we kind of copped out. brent bought these pegs that you put into the pumpkin like a lite brite. it was nice and easy and the girls got to participate alot more. i love the smell of pumpkin. it smells so autumny and festive. when the pumpkin was finished michealah wanted to take pictures with her and natalie's head on each side because that is what we did last year. and so another family tradition is born. we had kookies for dessert which nat handed out to each of us. it was nice to be together as a family.

actually, i was getting ahead of myself. the extra hour is next saturday.

i'm sitting here eating blueberry pancakes. Brent made them for me. i just finished my saturday run. it felt good. now i am slowing losing my body heat and going from really hot to shivering cold. brent made the pancakes while i was on my run. they are the stick to your sides kind of pancakes. in the kitchen sits a slab of vanilla oreo fudge (from rocky mountain) that brent picked up for me at the ferry terminal. He likes to take care of me. it was a nice day for a run. clear with the sun poking through, but not too hot. when i run in the mornings my head is full of all the possibilities ahead of me for the day. i think of all the things i want to get done and feel full of energy. somehow that all gets lost as the day progresses. brent has different ideas, or i feel too tired, or something else comes up, or most often: there were just too many things i thought i could do and by the time i finish doing the regular things, there is hardly any time left. Today, however, i can still feel the possibilities. Time to prepare my garden for winter. time to do something fun as a family and time to clean the banister! Today, it might really happen. Afterall, we do get an extra hour...

harry potter

i just finished reading harry potter and i'm very sad. what a stoopid thing to have happen and sarah (not that you'll ever read my blog) should stop reading now because i'm going to get a little more specific. how could the most powerful wizard of all die like that? and he was weakened for nothing. he didn't even accomplish his purpose! and for the book to just end like that is very annoying and disappointing to me. i think i actually grieved! i felt sad for the rest of the day and didn't want to think about the story. i'm tired of everything being ambiguous and not specific. i want the mystery of everything solved now. oh well. at least now i can pay more attention to my kids.

floundering

i woke up at 6am today. i set my alarm the night before, knowing i did not want to get up then. i lay there listening to the drip drip drip of the drain outside thinking and having an inward battle. the drain is dripping, is it raining? i don't want to get up. if i get up, what will i do? how far should i run? why should i run? i don't want to run in the dark. i don't want to run at the gym on the treadmill. i don't want to run in the middle of the day. i tried to go back to sleep. i didn't try too long because i knew it was fruitless. so i got up begrudgingly and got changed into my running stuff. now the big question was how far should i run? and do i want to mix up where i run so that i'm a little safer running in the dark. even as i walked out the door, i hadn't made up my mind. so i decided to do a short a fast 3 miler. and i ruled out the speedwork. i decided to just run all out. and so i did. it felt good to breathe in deep gasps of air. it felt good to stretch my stiff muscles. it turns out i didn't have to get up that early because brent didn't for work until after 8:30.

customary beth'nee experimenting post

customary post. yay katie's joining the ranks!


(need to see how much space I can allot for this box)



bum-ditty bum-ditty!



-bethabooger