Sunday, September 30, 2007

My better half


Wow, I got tagged again, this time by Melanie. Thanks, Mel!



What is his name? David Shane. He goes by his middle name, and had to pass that little tradition on to Thomas.

How long have you been together? Together 10 years, married 8.5.

How long did you date? Hmm, this is kind of weird. We worked together for about a year & a half, and we flirted like crazy. Then I moved away to school in VA and we wrote and flirted even more. Our first date was in December of 1995, but then we had some technical difficulties when I went back to school, and we didn’t talk for over a year. We finally got together for real in July 1997 and dated until we got married in 1999.

How old is he? 35.

Who eats more? Toss up. Probably me at dinner time, but he is definitely the bigger snacker.

Who said I love you first? I did.

Who is taller? He is.

Who sings better? I am a complete loss at singing, so it wouldn’t take much for him to be better.

Who is smarter? Depends on the topic. Harry Potter? Me. Football and car parts? Him.

Whose temper is worse? Depends on the issue!

Who does the laundry? It is split down the middle, with me during the week & him on Sundays. He does the ironing, bless him!

Who does the dishes? Both; we fight over doing dishes if you don’t do the dishes you have to make the next day’s lunch.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Shane.

Who pays the bills? I do.

Who mows the lawn? Shane.

Who cooks dinner? Mostly me, but he cooks on the nights I run and on Friday night when we make pizza.

Who drives when you are together? Shane.

Who is more stubborn? I think he is. But he would say me.

Who is the first to admit when they're wrong? Depends.

Whose parents do you see the most? It’s about even, maybe his a little more.

Who kissed whom first? He kissed me.

Who asked whom out? I did.

Who proposed? Shane.

Who is more sensitive? I am.

Who has more friends? About the same.

Who has more siblings? I do.

Who wears the pants in the family? Both of us. But Shane likes to tell the boys “Momma is the boss!” I wish that was true!


Who I will tag for this? Amy and Kayci.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Tagged!

Wow, I feel so official in the blogging world. My niece Kayci tagged me with this fun meme. It is my first time being tagged; how exciting! Here we go:

Four jobs I've Had
1. Mom
2. Telephone solicitor
3. Copy Goddess (it's how I met my husband; I made the copies, he delivered them!)
4. "Financial Services Representative"

Four Movies I could Watch Over and Over
1. When Harry met Sally
2. While you were Sleeping
3. French Kiss (see the Meg Ryan theme?)
4. Pride and Prejudice

Four Places I've Lived
1. Springville UT
2. Salt Lake City UT
3. Blacksburg VA (go Hokies!)
4. West Jordan UT

Four favorite TV/reality shows
1. Grey's Anatomy
2. The Office
3. Lost
4. Friends

Four of my favorite places I've been
1. Washington DC
2. New York
3. Anapolis MD
4. Sarasota FL

Four of my favorite foods
1. Pasta
2. Bajio/Cafe Rio
3. PF Chang's (or its knock-off Pei Wei)
4. Anything not cooked by me

Four websites I check daily
1. E mail
2. Blogger/Typepad
3. Salt Lake county library (I really am a geek!)
4. The leaky cauldron

Four hobbies I enjoy
1. running
2. Reading
3. Sewing
4. Sleeping (is that a hobby?)

Four people I'll tag
1. Melanie
2. Stephanie
3. You
4. ?

Monday, September 17, 2007

Who knew we still liked each other?


So, after Thomas' soccer game on Saturday, Shane’s mom Vonnay took our kids for the afternoon. With the children gone, Shane and I kind of wandered around the house for a few hours; I dyed my hair, Shane watched tv shows that I don’t let him watch when the kids are around. Then we thought we would run some errands. After wandering aimlessly around Lowe’s, Kohl’s, and Best Buy we discovered that we now SUCK at entertaining ourselves, and so we decided there was nothing more to do then go and get the boys. They weren’t any happier to see us than I had expected, but they grudgingly agreed to come home with us. The freshly purchased McDonald’s Happy Meals may have helped sway their decision in our favor.

A mere 1.5 hours later, Vonnay called us back and wanted to have our kids over again for a few hours. I can’t believe I almost didn’t let them go, but Shane saw reason and sent them on their way. It’s kind of sad to say that this was only the second time in six years that we have been at home alone together in the evening. The last time, Thomas wasn’t even a year old, and we kind of fudged that one by pretending to go and eat but really we just dropped him off at Grandma’s and then went home.

I have to say that the evening far outstripped the afternoon. We went to Walmart and bought some ice cream, and instead of chasing two-year olds down random aisles or telling the 6-year old that he can’t have the green apple spray candy, we held hands and flirted with each other in the check-out line. We went home and watched a movie, not worrying how loud the volume was or whether a child would wake up and interrupt us. I kept saying, “This is so nice!” and I think that Shane heartily agreed.

Before our movie ended, we heard little voices calling “We’re home!” Later, as I tucked them in, Thomas put his arms tightly around my neck and said how much he missed me, and I told him I’d missed him as well. And yet, I was so grateful for that little break. We aren’t really ever without our kids. Thomas has spent the night away from us twice: once when we ran our marathon in 2004, and once this past summer when he slept at a friend’s house (and even then, it was only across the street!). I’ve never had my mom or Shane’s mom keep them for the weekend, or even overnight. All of our dates (with the exception of the time we pretended!) are the go-out-to-eat-and-pick-up-the-kids-two-hours-later variety. Just sitting at home without any little ones has never really happened to us. I love them very much, but for those few hours, I felt like the person I was before I had kids and just had a husband to hang out with. It made me really happy that Shane and I can still have fun together, and like each other’s company. It also makes me want to have more nights like this, when we can know our children are happy and safe and being taken care of by someone else while we get a little “recharging” time.

So here’s to ice cream and movies and Walmart and flirting in the checkout line!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Book Review: Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking, by Aoibheann Sweeney

I read about Among Other Things, I’ve Taken Up Smoking on the “Discover Great New Writers” page at Barnes & Noble. The premise of the book is this: Miranda lives on a small island off the coast of Maine with her father. Her mother died when she was young, and her father spends most of his time translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A family friend named Mr. Blackwell helps to take care of her, doing most of the cleaning and cooking around the house. He teaches Miranda how to drive a boat so that she can attend school. When Mr. Blackwell and Miranda’s father have a falling out, she becomes more isolated. She takes over the household duties, and her father starts to spend more of his time drinking than he does translating.

When Miranda graduates from high school, her father arranges for her to move to Manhattan to work for a foundation that he helped to find when he was younger. Miranda moves there and makes two friends, one male and one female. She starts to discover that just because her father never noticed her much, that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world won’t. She has a relationship with both the female and the male friend, with the ultimate “winner” being the female. I was surprised when the book took that turn.

The big thing that I didn’t like was that Miranda just allowed life to happen to her. Early in the book, she has an encounter with a sailor who takes her back to his ship where they have sex. It was uncomfortable to read because the entire episode doesn’t seem to have any effect on Miranda. It may just as well have been that she went back to the ship and flossed each other’s teeth, rather than a random sexual encounter with a complete stranger. This sort of floating through life pattern follows her through the book. She lets her Dad pack her off to New York to live with, again, perfect strangers that really don’t want her there in the first place. She allows her boyfriend to take her to a family wedding where she feels completely out of place, and her girlfriend to buy her a dress for said wedding. From a reader’s point of view, you never really knew what to expect from Miranda other than she would do what everyone else wanted her to. It got a little old, and so by the time she finally makes a real decision (she skips out on the wedding, leaving only a note on the boyfriend’s bed, and returns to the girlfriend), the book was nearly over.

There were a few passages from the book that I really enjoyed. One of them is this, a conversation Miranda has at the end of the book with her girlfriend Ana:
“I told her how my father used to read to me; I told her how for a while I had lived in a world in which trees spoke and gods flew, and how I thought that if I waited long enough things would get marvelous like they did in the stories Ovid told, and become something else.

“But the thing is they’re not really happy stories,” I said. “I mean when I think of them now I realize they’re really about people who can’t change, like my father,
because they are too overwhelmed by the way they feel, and that’s why all
the magic happens, because they can’t change and something just explodes.”

“But then aren’t they happier?”

“I used to think so, but now I think maybe they stay the same. Or anyway, Ovid’s
stories aren’t really about what it’s like to be changed. They’re about how hard it is before you change, when everything feels like it’s going to explode, or it has exploded, and you can’t put together any of the pieces.”

“But isn’t that like being in love?” Ana said.

“I looked over at her, startled, and she smiled at me, like she was watching me learn.”


I probably won’t read this one again, but I could appreciate this book for the style of writing. I could have lived without the gay aspect, but it added a kind of symmetry to the book because you discover in the end that Miranda's father himself had been gay before getting together with her mother. I was also reminded a little of Ahab’s Wife a little, a book that I love, and so that made me like it more than I think I would have otherwise.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Woman to Woman: Gratitude


Two great bloggers, Lei and Morning Glory, do a great forum called Woman to Woman. This week’s topic was Gratitude, since today is September 11th. I wonder if we will ever really heal from that terrible day. In an effort to share what is in my heart today, I have come up with 11 things that I am grateful for. They are:

  1. I am grateful that each new day, I get to try again. Like most women, I have my bad days when I fail at keeping my temper, when I snap at my kids or husband, when I am selfish. I am grateful that each day gives me a chance to be better than the day before.
  2. I am grateful for friends and confidants. There are three incredible women in my life who I can tell almost anything to (and I probably do!) One is a sister, one is a neighbor, the other is a friend. With them, I can address the real issues in my life, and I don’t have to worry about them judging me. I can only hope that I have been as good to them as they have been to me.
  3. I am grateful for my husband Shane. He loves me for being who I am. He is my best friend. Shane and I have a lot of differences, one big one being religion, since I am LDS and he isn’t. But he supports me in attending church and fulfilling callings, and even helps me get Thomas and Ben ready to go each Sunday. I am grateful that he loves me despite our differences. It hasn’t always been easy, but we do it together, and that makes all the difference in the world.
  4. I am grateful for naps. They don’t happen very often in my world these days, but I think that there is nothing so luxurious in the world as sneaking off to bed for an hour or two in the day, when everything is quiet.
  5. I am grateful for my kids. I often wonder how I got to be so lucky as to deserve two such sweet little boys. I try each day to do everything I can to deserve the love that they give me.
  6. I am grateful for prayer. Whenever I need Him, my Heavenly Father is there to listen to me and comfort me. I know He knows me, and I am coming to know Him better and trust Him more fully as I encounter new challenges in my life.
  7. I am grateful for books and reading. I love reading books, talking about books, writing about books, buying books, checking out books… I could go on and on for a long time with this one, but I’ll restrain myself.
  8. I am grateful for running. I haven’t always liked to run. When I was young, I hated it, but now it is my one true escape. Shane and I both run, so we have designated days of the week when it is our turn to run. We guard our days fiercely; there is no going back if you miss a day, for the other will show no mercy by giving up their day. Running is as good for my mind as it is for my body; I can think about issues in my life and see them a little differently while I’m on a run. Also, Shane makes dinner on the nights when it is my turn to run! It doesn’t matter what he fixes, at least I didn’t have to make it. Double bonus!
  9. I am grateful to be older. It seems like as you get older, it’s easier to be yourself and stand up for yourself. I am much more likely to say what I am thinking now that I am in my thirties than I was in my teens or twenties. I wish sometimes I could go back and be in certain situations and know what I know now and say what I really wanted to say. I feel like this helps me to be more true to myself, and it just feels so good!
  10. I am grateful for my family. I have three sisters who I love, and they have given me the greatest bunch of nieces and nephews. I am grateful for my parents as well. It feels so great when we are all together, fixing food and chatting and watching the kids play.
  11. I am grateful to have “enough.” We aren’t the richest people in the world. I don’t have the biggest house or live on the most elegant street. But I have a nice home, and cars that I can trust will start in the morning. I can usually buy the things my kids need, and give them a few extra’s that they want, like trips to McDonalds or the Dinosaur Museum. There are so many in this world who go without, and I feel blessed that we have everything we need and a few of the things we want.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Sunny Sunday Afternoon


A few years ago, Shane and I trained for a marathon. We spent many Saturday mornings running on the Jordan River Parkway. It is such a pretty place to run, with paved trails that wind along the Jordan River. One section became our particular favorite, and since it has finally cooled off enough to venture outside again, we decided to take the kids for a family outing there yesterday after church. We like this section so much because it has a pond where ducks are always lounging in the sun, and if you walk on the trail for about 1/3 of a mile, you come to a pretty wooden bridge that spans the river.

We had originally planned to feed the ducks, but when we got there, there were signs everywhere saying DO NOT FEED THE DUCKS. Being the law-abiding citizens that we are, we decided to keep our bread to ourselves, and so we decided to just walk the short walk to the bridge. The boys (all three of them, mind you!) stopped to throw rocks and sticks into the river along the way. People would pass us on their bikes and scooters, waving happily to us as they enjoyed the sunny afternoon. Ben loved being able to run without anyone chasing after him, and Thomas loved looking at all the birds and bugs. We reached the bridge and I snapped a couple of photo (because no family outing is complete without pictures, right?) Then they entertained themselves by thundering back and forth across the bridge. Shane showed them how to throw a stick into the oncoming current, and then running to the other side of the bridge to watch it float out from below them.

We had such a nice afternoon on the Parkway. Being there made us want to drop the kids off at Grandma’s some Saturday in the near future and run there together for old time’s sake. I doubt it will happen, but it is fun to think about.

Two of my boys!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

So, I’m feeling the blogging blues (not sure if they really exist, but I’ll call them that.) I don’t have anything earth-shattering to say today, but all day I’ve wanted to update my blog with SOMETHING. So I guess we’ll just see what comes out…

September is a strange month to me. I still feel like I should be going back to school, so I get a little restless this time of year. It must be something ingrained in us from all those years of starting a new life in the early autumn: new teachers, new classes, new friends, new clothes. It took me a few years to recognize that I get this way, so I just need to wait and it will pass.

One year I took this restlessness to the extreme and decided that I should be a nurse, and I signed myself up for a CNA course. Big mistake. It was a two-week course, and I was doing great up until the 4th day, when the teacher started going over how to change the nursing home patient’s colostomy bags. It FREAKED me out; I had had no idea going into the course that the resident’s poop would be in anything besides a toilet or a diaper. I quickly decided that my nice, safe desk job would do me fine, and I didn’t go back for the last of class or attempt the “clinical” week. So much for Nurse Becky.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t like to go back to school one day. I would LOVE to get a masters degree so that I could be a librarian or an English teacher (sorry, Amy, I always was a copycat!) Then I could go back to school each year with my kids and maybe I would lose the restlessness. Of course it might be that it is just something that comes with the change in the air.

I never used to like fall when I was younger. Now I like the repetitiveness of knowing what my trees will look like in a few weeks; of anticipating that Shane will cut back my dogwood tree too much, just like he does every year. I look forward to Conference Weekend, when my sisters and our families gather at my mom and dad’s house to visit and have one last outdoor get-together. It will be fun to see Thomas playing soccer again, each week’s game being a little colder, the wind a bit sharper than the previous.

Like it or not, fall is coming. Bring on the change!


This is a picture of one of our trees. I love how the leaves look in the fall!