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.