Month: October 2008 (Page 2 of 3)

It’s that time of year again and I hate it. No, not the leaves changing or the nip in the air or the halloween preparations, those are all perfectly acceptable–fun, even. No, it’s not the candy buying and the football games and the marching band competitions that’s getting me down. No, it’s not the end of the soccer season, the parent-teacher conferences or the wearing of sweaters.

It’s the donning of the jeans. Yes, you heard me. Jeans.

All summer I’ve been free from the jeans. I’ve been wearing the capri pants, the light and airy pants, the summer skirts with sandals, and the occasional pair of shorts. I’ve kept up the polish on my toes and enjoyed the wearing of the summer clothing. Until this week.

This week we’ve hit freezing. This week we’ve picked all the tomatoes from the vines and brought them inside.

This week we’ve even had snow, which also meant we had to get out all the snow pants, coats and gloves, which will plague the household and be all over the house for the next 6 months.

And with the cold weather comes the wearing of the jeans. My husband doesn’t know what the big deal is. He wears jeans all summer, and why should one season make a difference? Just wear the ones you wore last spring. Oh, sure. That’s easy for you to say, you…..you….Man.

So I went in the closet to see which (if any) jeans still fit from last spring. I tired on my favorite, which now have a big hole in the knee. Hmmm. Ok for gardening, but not so great for PTA meetings. I pulled out jeans that are I don’t know how many years old, and why, oh why would I ever buy pants like this?! I picked up one pair of tapered leg jeans and wondered what had possessed me to wear them. No matter HOW comfortable they are, they are going into the discard pile. Stacie and Clinton would never forgive me! Not that I know Stacie and Clinton personally or anything, but just having watched the show a few times, I pretty much understand that unless you are a tiny little stick shaped figure (like my 12 year old daughter), you do NOT wear tapered jeans. Unless you want your butt and thighs to look EVEN HUGER THAN they are, that is. Out went the tapered jeans. I’ve got jeans that say “just my size”. Into the pile you go. Like I want a reminder that you are jeans for fat people.

More and more unsuitable jeans are going into the discard pile. These ones are way too short–did I grow taller, too? These ones came from a garage sale and I don’t think I tried them on when I bought them. Big mistake. Who knew I had so many BAD pairs of jeans. Do I have any acceptable pairs of jeans? And while I’m tossing things out, I find a few shirts that are throwbacks from the 80’s, and they definitely need to go. Go and have fun with your friends, the bad pants. I try on several jeans that fit in the spring, but they are just too tight now that it’s fall. Did I wear them this tight in the spring? I really am about the same weight (depending on the day, that is), so what is the deal. I put a pair on and wear them around for a while. After a couple of hours I’m feeling so restricted that I put on a pair of my comfy capri pants again. I guess I’ll just be cold, I think.

The next day I try again, and then I realize the problem here. The jeans need to be worn for a whole day to S-t-r-e-t-c-h them back out. That’s not really fair, now is it? What if I spill something on them on the second day? Then they’ll have to be washed again and we’ll have to go through the whole stretching procedure again. Ugh.

Eventually, I did find two or three pairs of pants that can actually be worn right now. I even pulled out a pair of wide leg trouser jeans (think bell bottom) that I had bought on a major clearance at Old Navy last spring and have never worn. I decided that they maybe looked good, put on some chunky heeled boots and went out to dinner with my friends. When I asked my dear husband what he thought of the jeans, he kind of made a face, so I stopped there. I would ask my friends. I knew they would give me an honest opinion if I asked them, and they all agreed that the jeans were good.

So, jeans. I guess we’d better get together again. We’ll have to say goodbye to the comfy capri pants and sandals (don’t even get me started about how my feet are not liking having to wear actual SHOES!), and don the jeans. Or maybe I’ll just skip to the old person phase and go directly to the velour sweat suits. Oooh, stretchy pants!

You want to know what stresses me out?

Trying to arrange all my errands and shopping and stuff into one trip to save money and gas. Really.

On preschool days, I have two hours and 10 minutes of no kid time from the time John starts preschool and the time that my Elementary age girls get home from school. On Mondays it’s even less, because of early out day. So today was basically my only day with any non kid time, so I had to scrunch all of my errands into one trip.

Here’s what I did:
–stopped at a house in American Fork to pick up two white sheets from someone on freecycle (don’t laugh, it’s for ghosts, and after all, they were free!)
–stopped at the library to return about a million books
–went to DI to take 3 bags of clothes, a box of shoes, and a file cabinet. The back of my van was completely full of stuff for DI!
–stopped at another house in American Fork to pick up two problematic Roombas (don’t laugh, they might be able to be salvaged and used, and if anyone can fix them, Ryan can! And if he can’t, we might be able to use the battery for OUR Roomba. Again, let me remind you that they were FREE!)
–filled up the van at Costco
–Went to Walgreens to take advantage of this week’s sales and coupons.

So, before I left, I had to organize my coupons to take advantage of sales and add the coupons to that, thus saving more money, I had to mapquest both addresses in American Fork, find all the DI stuff, and find all the library books (well, all the ones that aren’t hidden somewhere in the kids’ rooms, that is). It’s exhausting!

But I did it, and made it back home BEFORE my girls came home. Ha!

So, my question for you is…
How do you manage your errands to save time/gas/money?
And What stresses you out?

Last night we were in charge of our extended family home evening. About once a month, Ryan’s whole family gets together for an FHE. It’s a fun time to get together, and we enjoy the tradition.

I decided to do a lesson on family history. I asked everyone beforehand to come prepared to share any memory or story. Ryan’s brother even brought his video camera to record this little bit of family history gem. We started out reading and discussing this article from the Friend magazine by James E. Faust. It was a nice introduction to “family history”. I then told everyone that family history is really just learning about our families, our ancestors, and ourselves. Then I asked them to share their memories with us.

Each person shared something from their youth, or even more recently. It was fun when they talked about things that they all remembered, and then others could add to the story. And it was captured on video for “future generations”.

Our family loves puzzles and games, so I created a crossword puzzle online using clues from the family. Things like…Ben is in this mission, Grandma plays this instrument, Rachel and Megan enjoy this sport, and things like that.

It was a fun time, and we learned about the family.

I went to a viewing for a dear lady last night. Marian was in my ward, the mother of one of my good friends growing up. Our families spent a lot of time together, and I wanted to pay my respects and give my love to her two kids Suzi and Steve. And even though it was a somber occasion, it was so nice to see so many old friends. I saw two of my other great friends from my ward, Carolyn and Joni, and had so much fun talking to them. They are so funny, even at a viewing. We had such a good time growing up together, and I have such fond memories of girls’ camps, youth conferences, YW activities and school functions. We spent a lot of time together in tents, and even though I remember the raining and raining that always seemed to occur at girls’ camp, I remember laughing and singing and hiking and having fun with those girls.

I also saw so many other people from my parent’s ward. As I would see people, at first I wouldn’t recognize them, but then my old brain started working, and faces and names would come back to me. Oh, look, there’s Karen–I remember volleyball, girl’s camp, and going to see Indiana Jones together. Oh, there’s Bonny, a neighbor from up the street. I think of her as a primary leader, and I ask her about her son Jeremy. Look, there’s Tee and Debbie–they still look the same. Oh, and Carolyn’s brother John, who I haven’t seen in at least 15 years. Of course my parents were there, along with so many other people who loved this woman and her family. My parents are still living in that neighborhood, so I often see the neighbors when I visit, but rarely do I see anyone who has since moved away from that area.

As I was leaving, I saw one of my Young Women leaders from 25 years ago. Tricia! Her name came back immediately. In talking to her, she said, “Your dad was the bishop when our son was born. And being with the Young Women helped me through that difficult time. I was so overwhelmed at having a child with Down’s, but you girls were so excited about the baby and learning all about him and his needs, it really helped me get excited about him. It was a blessing in my life.” I told her that I was now a leader in the Young Womens program, and how important it was to me to be a good leader in the lives of these girls, because I had such wonderful leaders when I was growing up, and they made a difference in my life.

As I drove home, I thought about how wonderful life is, and how blessed I am to have grown up in such a supportive environment. I am thankful for my friends of 30 years, who I went to dinner with on Saturday night. I have counted on their support and love and friendship through all these years, and I still love them and have such fun whenever we get together. I have a fantastic supportive husband who has patience with me and my many “extra curricular activities”, wonderful kids who keep me on my toes all day, and fabulous neighbors who support and help each other. Neighbors who I count as friends, and when in a bind I can call from a soccer game and ask if they could please take my son to the high school for band RIGHT NOW because he can’t find anyone to carpool with.

Life is a blessing. I’m going to share with you this story from the lesson I taught in Young Women yesterday about how each of us can be a blessing in other people’s lives.

“There was a girl in one seminary class who seemed to be helpless and almost hopeless. I tried to encourage her and draw her out; I sensed that she wanted desperately to belong and to do something. But when she was asked to respond, give a prayer, or read a scripture, she would struggle for a while and then start to cry and return to her seat. There was some sympathy on the part of the class for her, but it is also true that there were some students who were often brutal in their comments.

“There are so many interesting details that could be related about the miracle. Our wallflower transformed herself, went to college, found good employment, married in the temple, and those who know her would never believe the ugly duckling of her youth” (Boyd K. Packer, Teach Ye Diligently [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], pp. 149–50).

While at Kohl’s this week, I was at the sock display and picked up a little rebate form. It said spend $60 on Gold toe socks and get a free $25 gas card. Or buy $35 worth of socks and get a $10 gas card. It didn’t take me long to get $60 in socks. I mean, there are 7 people in my family, and oddly enough, they all seem to need socks ALL the time. So, I picked up some socks (some of which were on sale, even) for my family. At the register, I had her ring up just the socks, so that I could be sure I had enough, but not too many socks. Plus, I wanted that receipt that I could send in and not have anything but socks on that one receipt. What do you know, I had too many. Take away that last package of socks, and my total for 7 packages of socks came to $60.75 before tax.

I know you might think that spending $60 on socks is strange, but now I’ve got “stocking stuffers” (Ha ha!, get it?) for my family for Christmas, and I’ll hopefully have a $25 gas card to also use for Christmas.

I don’t know if this rebate form will be found anywhere else, or if it’s just in Kohl’s, but it is good for purchases made until 10/21/08, and if you had a coupon or one of those other deals that Kohl’s is always doing, you can save even more!

Happy Birthday to my sweet hubby!

In rip roaring birthday fashion, we are celebrating up a storm around here. The kids made him breakfast in bed and even made him cards this morning. Jenna was meticulously drawing all 41 candles for the birthday card cake. John decided to give dad a car and a batman, even though 4 minutes earlier he was all set to give him two of his stuffed animals. Me? What did I give my loving husband of 16 years? Well, I approved the purchase of a VERY LARGE flat screen monitor. And we “gave it to him” on Sunday, when my parents were here celebrating Natalie and Ryan’s birthdays with us. It had been hiding away since it came a few days earlier. In anticipation of the grand new monitor, he’s been cleaning his office desk for the past few days, and I must say the HUGE thing looks quite nice in there. I think he can scoot his desk about a foot closer to the wall now.

I also bought him a pair of shoes that he said he needed. But when I brought them home I discovered he already HAD a pair of shoes in the closet that he wasn’t wearing, and threatened to return them. He likes the new shoes better. And I GUESS it’s ok if he has say, more than three pairs of shoes at a time. I mean, I only have a few more pairs than that, right? (Cough, cough)

I also presented him with a birthday pie. Pumpkin. But I forgot the whipped cream in a can. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll pick some up when I’m out today.

And to celebrate, he gets to take the kids out tonight. In between soccer and volleyball practice and a possible wedding reception. And I stay home. Because I’m hosting a little clothing party tonight, and need them out of the house. (Although I seriously don’t know if a single person is coming tonight, since I inadvertently scheduled this the same night as our ward’s quarterly enrichment night. I didn’t know! They don’t publicize these things months in advance or anything. I just hope I don’t clean my house for nothing, you know?) Isn’t that great for a birthday? Yep, we know how to celebrate them around here.

Happy Birthday, Ryan. You are a wonderful husband, a fabulous dad, a great neighbor, brilliant in every way, and I love you! Thank you for sharing your life with me.

Let me tell you a little bit about my garden. Our garden plot was overrun with weeds, and we had no tiller, so the poor garden sat sad and neglected for most of the summer. Still wanting to plant something, I looked for an alternative. In the spring I tend to have all kind of plans and dreams for my yard. I buy seeds, I buy plants, I weed, I dig, I mulch, and I am so excited when the tulips come up in the beginning of the spring. This is the time when I want to plant. So, when at Costco one day, I came across the tomato plants, I bought some. I bought four to be exact.

Those four tomato plants sat in my kitchen for a long time. It was too cold to plant any tender anuals for a long long time in the spring. It was petty much June before we could safely plant them outside. But where to plant? I decided to take over a failed flower bed, where I’ve been working on killing the wisteria that’s there for the past two years. I hacked down all the wisteria and killed all the morning glory and pretty much had an empty flower bed on the south side of my house. I moved my barrel of strawberries from their non productive spot in the shade, and planted the four sad lonely tomato plants, and two tiny little pumpkin plants that I transplanted from my parents’ garden.

My little “garden” grew all summer, but I had no tomatoes. What is up with that? And I only have one pumpkin! Granted, it’s a pretty big pumpkin, but one? Only one? Obviously, my gardening skills need some work. Maybe you’re supposed to do more than just plant and water the silly things.

So, here we are, the first week of October, and the warm summer days of 80 degree weather are sadly no more. And I have lots and lots of tomatoes out there on my plants (or should I say bushes?). Tons. But they are mostly all green. What am I going to do with all these green tomatoes? Ugh.

So, when my mother-in-law asked if I wanted some of their tomatoes, I said, “sure.” I could use a few that are ripe. Can’t everyone always use a few tomatoes? When they came to pick up Natalie to take her out for her birthday, they brought in the box of tomatoes. The BOX. I thought I was getting a few, and they brought a whole box. Hmm. Thanks. Now I have to do something with these little red beauties. I forgot to ask them to bring the juicer, so we could make tomato juice like we usually do, but really, I have about 16 quarts left from last year’s juicing extravaganza, so I guess I’m ok in that department.

I decided to be brave and bottle the tomatoes. I googled “how to bottle tomatoes” and got some instructions on how to blanch them and get the skins off and process them. But this little article said to process them in the pressure cooker. Really? Tomatoes? Don’t they just need to go in the steam canner? So, I got down the steam canner and looked up tomatoes and found out that yes, they are acidic enough that they can be done in the steam canner. I got started boiling and peeling and cutting my tomatoes, while washing the bottles in the dishwasher and boiling the lids. My kitchen was going to turn into a steam canner if I wasn’t careful.

I only had to call my mother-in-law for instructions ONCE, which I think is a pretty big deal. I mean, I’ve never even canned anything by myself! Oh, I take that back, I’ve made jam by myself, but really, Ryan or my mom have been around for every other canning endeavor.

When the kids came home, they were all “Whatcha doing, Mom?” but when they saw the tomato mess I was in the middle of, they stayed away. Except Megan, who wanted to help. She ended up being a great helper, putting the salt, sugar and lemon juice in each bottle, then helping me put the lids on. Then into the steam canner they went for 50 minutes, while I cut up and peeled and bottled the rest.

And here it is. The finished product. The 13 quarts and 3 pints of tomato-y goodness.

And you know what? It’s not worth it. Honestly. How much do tomatoes cost, like a dollar for a big can? It took me, like, four or five hours to do this. So, I saved myself, what 15 dollars? Remind me to just go get them from the store next time.

For more “Talk about Tuesday” check out the Lazy Organizer.

I have to tell you about a wonderful new game! I entered a contest on the Free Birthday Treats blog for a Kubit2me game. Well, I won the drawing, and was contacted by Mary Kay from KuBit2me for my address. I mentioned that it would be fun to play this game for my daughter’s birthday party on Friday. She said she didn’t know if it would arrive in time, but she FedExed it from Illinois. Imagine my delight on Friday when the FedEx man brought me a box. Oh, the timing!!

I opened it up and took out the game, which looked perfect for a 10 year old girl’s birthday party. It’s this fuzzy cube with pockets, and you pull out cards with a truth or dare question. I took out some of the questions about boys, but most of them were very tame, like:
“Do you think you look like someone famous? Who is it?
or “Out of everyone in the group you’re playing with, whose wardrobe would you want?”

The dares were fun, too:
“Pretend you’re a dog, and you have an itch behind your ear. Scratch it with your foot.”
“Pretend you are two. Give us your best spit bubble.”
or my favorite,
“Fill up a lightweight plastic cup with water. Pick up the cup with your teeth, tilt your head back and drink all of it.”

They get points for doing the dare or answering the truth, and they get to reach into the bottom of the block and pick out a bracelet for their point. The first person to get to 10 points wins. And there are bonus points, special gold bracelets worth 5 points. It was a fun fun game. And think of the options! You can even download your own cards with other questions for free from the website. Of course, there are other styles of cubes, too. There’s “Now you’re talking”, which is orange and blue and has different questions, and a Li’l Scholars cube. And there are bonus boxes with new cards. I think once you have the cube, you could buy different bonus boxes for all three games.

Of course, I’m thinking that I wish I had had this when I was working in primary, but I’m sure I can come up with some options for young women, too. Because it was a really fun game. So, thanks again to Mary Kay at Kubit2Me. I hope this game is a big hit, because I know it was tons of fun with my family, and we’ll use it again and again. And thanks for saving my birthday party!

Today is my daughter Natalie’s 10th birthday. Tonight is her birthday party. I’m totally unprepared. She wanted an ice cream social, so I’ve got ice cream, and I’m going to get toppings today. Instead of a big cake, I thought it would be great to bake up these cupcake cones. Well, the recipe says to fill 1/2 to 3/4 full. I would suggest 1/2. about 13 minutes into baking, I smell the awful burning smell, and rush to the oven. The batter is oozing over the sides of the cupcakes and spilling onto the bottom of the oven. Ugh! I try to carefully take the muffin tin out of the oven, and while doing so, all the cupcakes tipped over and spilled on each other, the pan, the bottom of the oven, the floor… you get the picture. In a panic, I freaked out.

Ryan was home at the time, and thankfully he came to my rescue and helped clean up the ooze.

After the freaking, we got the batter cleaned up and mananged to set them all back up and put the cookie sheet underneath them and bake them for a few more minutes. But they were pretty much a disaster. The kids didn’t mind, and gobbled them all up when I presented my failed attempt at birthday party fare to them. They still tasted good.

Well, I’ve given up. I’m not going to do the cupcake things, I’m just going to buy a plain old one layer cake from the grocery store and call it good.

Now I’ve got to get my house cleaned up and plan some games.

Tonight when we do the party is also a football game, where my son “gets to” march. But he’s mad that I won’t come and pick him up when he’s done so that he can be to the party, too. I’m only one person, kids. I can either throw a party or pick you up from the high school. Maybe your dad can drive you—-oh, that’s right, Dad’s in New Jersey today and will be no help at all. It seems to me he was out of town for the last birthday party I threw. Do I see a theme, here?

Whatever. Maybe I can give him my phone and he can call me when the band’s done, and then I can leave the party for a few minutes and pick him up. Maybe.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get a personalized cross word puzzle made, get the stuff ready for some games, make the favors, wrap the presents, make meatloaf for her birthday dinner, take John to preschool, call the band office about the tour payment, and …Oh yeah. clean the house.

Today I went to go and pick up the last of the Happenings Books that Cole’s been selling for his marching band trip. I had called the lady and gotten her address, and went out to find it.
“10684. There it is.” I pulled up to the house, but didn’t see any books left on the porch. She had told me she wouldn’t be there, but would leave them on the porch.

Well, there was a note on the door, so I went up to see what it said. Hmmm. The note wasn’t to me, but it said to ‘leave the papers inside’. Or something like that. What to do, what to do? I rang the doorbell, just to see if maybe SOMEONE was home. I waited for a minute, and there was no answer. Hmmm, I thought, if there’s a note on the door, maybe the door’s open. Maybe the books are just inside the door. I turned the knob, opened the door a little bit, and saw no books. Maybe I’ll leave a note or something to say that I was here. I’ll just peek around the door a tiny bit. No books. This looks kind of like a grandma house. Not what I’d expect to see from what I knew about this lady. What I did see, however, were some family pictures on the wall, and not one of them looked like the family I knew.

I quickly shut the door and realized that I might just not be at the right house.

Panicked, I hurry back to the car. It’s not really breaking and entering because I didn’t break in. The door was unlocked. And I didn’t really enter, either. I just looked in. So, it would be more like opening and peeking. I don’t think that’s really against the law, is it? Get me out of here.

Back in the car, I looked at my notes. More carefully this time. Oh. It’s 10648, not 10684. This is the problem you get when your house numbers are 5 or 6 digits long. It’s just too hard to keep track of all those numbers. I drove south and there, about 3 houses away, was the house I was looking for. 10648. And what do you know? Out on the porch was a bag full of Happenings Books just for me. I hopped out of the car, grabbed the books and fled the scene. I’m glad that
a-nobody was home at the first house
b-I didn’t leave a note
c-nobody saw me. At least I HOPE nobody saw me.