Is It Naptime Yet

I guess I’m in a blogging mood, mostly because I only have a short amount of time with nothing to do and the things I need to do will take more time than 15 minutes.

Tonight I’m making fish for dinner. Wild Alaskan Salmon to be specific. We use Wild Alaskan Salmon because it’s better for the environment than Farmed Atlantic Salmon. It use to be very hard to find Wild Alaskan, but now it’s a little more available if you know where to look. We buy ours at Costco and it’s marinated and packaged in 6 oz steaks. Two steaks are perfect for our family. They use to only have non marinated in the Atlantic, but now Costco carries non marinated Wild Alaskan, but it’s around $2 more a pound and that makes a big difference when you’re already paying 5 something a pound.

We like it and it works for us.

We eat  fresh Salmon around twice a month and if we have more seafood it’s usually canned salmon or canned tuna, in salmon burgers or tuna casserole, and we have fish no more than once a week. I’m very conscious of mercury content and when nursing we ate it maybe once a month.

With the fish I’m making butternut squash. I love butternut squash. I bake it, instead of microwaving it, what I did growing up. Baked butternut squash is so much better than microwaved, even if it’s not the most flavorful squash, but if it is, it’s heavenly. Well, maybe heavenly is a bit of an overstatement, but a baked, flavorful butternut squash is delicious. I don’t like other squashes. They just don’t compare, so I never but acorn or spaghetti, I’ve yet to try banana squash. They just aren’t as good in my book, but I do make them when Jon buys them, I just don’t like it when he buys them.

Lastly were having sauteed summer squash and zucchini. I bought enough zucchini to saute with the summer squash and later this week I plan on making zucchini bread, I just need to finish the cherry chocolate bread that Sam brought me today. I love zucchini bread, it’s my favorite “bread” that’s really a cake in disguise.

I guess I just had a desire to blog about the one balanced meal I plan on making this week.

Well, I make more than one balanced meal a week, but this one is of my favorite foods.

There’s the timer. I believe the fish is finished.

A while back I was watching PBS while cutting out the fabric for the girl’s summer dresses. On was show about Harry Truman and I loved it. I found it so interesting and he’s become one of my favorite presidents since watching it, though I had liked him before.

One interesting fact is he was elected as FDR’s vice president and FDR died just a few months, into his fourth term. His doctors knew he was going to die, but for whatever reason they went ahead on  letting him be reelected for the fourth time.

It makes me think of our current republican candidate, John McCain. I know 70’s not that old, but I do worry about him dying, though it could happen to anyone at anytime, and I don’t like his vice president, not that I like the democratic vice president any more, but I don’t like Palin at all for a president.

Anyways, we watched the PBS special on Jimmy Carter the other night and now I want these DVDs on them. With homeschooling I think these biographies are so informative, not only on the person, but the world events that were taking place, since the person they’re about was a president and had to deal with these world events.

I’m just a big fan of these historical biographies and want all of them on the presidents, maybe even the one on Fidel Castro and Freud, and anyone else I think is interesting.

I’d put these on my wish list on amazon but amazon doesn’t sell them, so make a mental note honey, though you sent me the links, I want these DVD’s and I think they’re totally worth the slightly overpriced price since it’s PBS.

I have a guest post over at Mormon Mommy Wars today.

It’s not a topic I would normally post about, but it was on my mind after a mean comment.

I’d link directly to the post, but then they get a link to my blog in thier comments, so I’m just gonna link to the site and you’ll have to find the post.

Mormon Mommy Wars

Guest post: Baths and blogging meanies, October 8, 2008

I’ve officially gone over to the dark side, well it’s not really that dark, but I do feel bad since I’ve always used Bloglines.

I’ve converted to Google Reader.

I noticed that I had at least two blogs which were not being updated and thus I couldn’t make  witty comments on them. Not that I make witty comments regularly, they’re usually just silly comments.

So good-bye Bloglines. I wish you well for those that don’t have gmail and still use you. Hopefully you update their blogs better than you updated mine.

Just now I was watching a show on PBS about the Colorado River and the seven different states that use it’s water and how we’re having a drought and will eventually lose our natural water resources if we’re not careful.  I had no idea so many states took from the Colorado river. Arizona takes the largest amount and nearly the whole state uses water from the CR.

It almost makes me want to move to where we have more sustainable water resources, IE anywhere by the Southwest, but then Jon reminded me that where water is, so are natural disasters.

I might stay here a wee bit longer, especially since we won’t have money to move for a long time.

It did seem like Nevada is one of the more active states when it comes to telling it’s residents to conserve more water.

Lilah is very aware of water conservation and she often will say, “Once the lake runs out we’ll all have to move since there will be no more water. ”

She’s right and I hope those of us who live in the Southwest are very aware of our water situation and those who live where it is plentiful appreciate it, because one day we might evacuate to where you are, though I hope the Colorado River never runs dry because of it’s impact on the environment, not only because of the impact on my home town.

I was going through our mail from the week and I looked at a credit card statement of a card we no longer use and it said we had like 17,000 points.  I asked Jon what the points were for and if we could redeem them. We ended up redeeming about $170 in gift cards to Target and a gas station.

Needless to say I’m glad I noticed the points.  We are needing to up our gas budget since I’m driving around town more for yoga and homeschooling events.  The Target card will go towards Christmas presents.

We’ve spent a lot this month, like a lot in extra expenses, so it’s always nice to find extra money.

I also stayed within the grocery budget this month. Third times a charm. To help me stay in budget I used around $20 in coupons, which helped me come under budget. I had my Smith’s rewards coupons, where you get 1 % back, and I went to Fresh and Easy, yes I found it, and used a $5 off coupon. As long as they keep sending those I’ll definitely shop there, plus they seem reasonably priced for many things.   Now we need to work on our miscellaneous spending, or budgeting so we don’t have lots of high expenses in one month, tuition and my glasses being the two largest costs this month. Yuck.

Being an adult is so expensive.

Jon and I were enjoying a nice quiet night at home. We had popped the Netflix movie in, Bridge to Terabithia, and we were watching the story unfold.

Then the phone rings.

It’s 9:54 pm.

Who’s calling us at 9:54? I wonder if it’s your parents?

It’s not a number I recognized and I fully expected to hear, “Sorry I have the wrong number.” after I picked up the phone.
Instead I heard “Hello, Sis. Blake this is Bro. Moe*. We have chapel cleaning duty tomorrow and I’m going through the names for it. Can you be there at 9?”

“Uh, I’m not able to make that.”

“You have something going on around  9 am tomorrow?”

“Yes, I do. I won’t be able to make it.”

“Alright I’ll put your name down for the next time.”

I wish I could convey my confusion and the exact conversation. I felt like I should know that I was assigned to clean the chapel, or even that I had volunteered, but I had no idea that it was our turn this month and no idea I was up to clean the chapel this Saturday.

In our old ward it went by auxiliaries and people volunteered. Of course it usually ended up being the presidency members from each auxiliary, and not many families or other members volunteered. They also liked to clean at ungodly hours of 7:30 am. 😉
But you knew ahead of time that you had volunteered to clean the chapel.

Now I have no qualms with being assigned to clean the chapel, in fact it might be a better way to get members to come and clean the chapel.  I  also find 9 am to be a much more agreeable time, especially if I wanted to bring my children to help. What I have qualms with is not knowing I’m assigned to clean the chapel until the night before, and especially not knowing until 9:54 pm the night before.

I felt like he was trying to sneak up on me. ‘You’re assigned and nobody has morning engagements on Saturdays, so you must be available and can’t say no.’

I do have a morning engagement, it’s at 10 o’clock, but I like to take my shower after I clean the chapel and I wouldn’t have time to do that before my blood donor appointment. I also want to save my energy and not exert myself right before I give blood because I already have a difficult time donating.  Now I could cancel, but I really don’t want to.  Especially when you call me at 9:54 the night before. It just brings out my annoyed side, not my give service side.

Would you be as annoyed by this too?

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of a brethren I haven’t met yet.

Monday was the first day of dance for the girls. When I was trying to get them going, because they were slow, hearing it was for dance perked them right up and they got ready quickly, at least for two easily distracted girls.

We got there and Eden immediately started acting shy. She was hiding behind me and not wanting to look Sam in the eye. I got her inside and we put her ballet slippers on and she was not wanting to be outgoing. She sat on her piece of blue tape and slumped her shoulders over and would not make eye contact with Sam. She basically stood or sat there the whole time.

At one point she did follow the leader. (I have a video of her participating.)

At another point she stood there while Sam held her arms and tried to dance with her.

It broke this mama’s heart to watch her daughter be so shy and non participative. I almost cried, but Eden wants to go back, so I guess it wasn’t all that bad for her.

Lilah’s class was after Eden’s and I spent a lot of the time in the hall with Eden, Britta, and my friend Emilie, who’s has a daughter Eden’s age and one 6 months younger than Lilah.
Lilah asked for me to be in her class longer so next week another mom, also named Emilie, will be taking Britta to the park during the class so I can sit with Eden and we can watch Lilah more.

I know Lilah really enjoyed herself. I hope Eden enjoys herself more as time goes on.

(I was trying to let Sam be the teacher and let her deal with Eden’s shyness rather then being intrusive. I also want Eden to gain some independence, and since their were no tears and she wasn’t trying to come to me, I figured I’d let her shyness run the course. )

Also Lilah and I were in the hallway during Eden’s class, in reality a foyer outside the class, a work out room, and a door to the gymnasium. Lilah was having fun running circles, taking up maybe a third of the foyer and not making much noise, while Britta ate her snack and we waited for Eden’s class. A woman came out of the gym and gave Lilah a ‘you need to stop that’ condescending look and Lilah immediately stopped running and came to my side.

I knew she was an employee of the rec center because of her badge, and later I found out she’s one of the managers/ supervisors of the rec center. I was really annoyed and if I was a confrontational person would have said something. I was just annoyed that someone would be so stern when a child was just having harmless fun and wasn’t bothering anyone, with the parent right there. It is a recreation center after all. Jon says if it happens again I should calmly respond that I’m watching her and allowing her get her energy out, or something a lot less confrontational than what comes to my mind.

As I think about it I get a little more upset. If she had said thank you once Lilah stopped running I may have forgiven the look . I wish she had approached me and asked me to have my daughter stop running for safety issues, that I could handle.  But to give ‘the look’ and and not even make eye contact with the parent, that really bothers me. I’m the only person who can give my daughter ‘the look’ and maybe family, but I have got to know you if you’re gonna use the look to have my child stop doing something.

After watching Eden be so shy and then to have Lilah’s feelings hurt by a complete stranger I almost cried again. I also didn’t know how I should respond and it just shocked me a little. Maybe it was getting up at 5:30 am, but I was an emotional person during dance class.

On a positive note here are some pictures I snapped and a short video. I mostly took it since Jon’s at work during their classes but Eden’s also really enjoyed watching it. I’m hoping it helps her be a little more herself at the next class.

Shy Eden.

Following the leader.

Hands “glued” to her hips.

Sam’s a good teacher. (Lilah’s the second from the front.)

I guess I’ll need to take more pictures of Lilah next time.

Here’s the video.

I’m so happy with the photos we got this year. I wish we had maybe one more different pose of the girls together and one of Jon and I together, but we don’t change that much, I just think the photographer would have done a better job than our last couples photo from two years ago, and with the CD it would have been worth it, but we didn’t decide to buy the CD till after we had finished our session.
So here are the photos.

Eden’s pirate face, as we call it.  (01family)

(02family)

I don’t like this photo and will not be giving it to anyone who wants it. I do think Jon has a mischievous smile and I’m using it as an example of a bad angle if you have a small double chin like me.  (04family)

This is a better angle for us double chinners and I just love these two family pics.  (05family)

(06family)

Girls are so cute. (07girls)

(08girls)

Uh, we kinda like each other.  (09girls)

We really like each other. (10girls)

She told them to kiss and boy did they give each other a  big kiss. I’ve learned I’m not a fan of kissing pictures.

(11girls)

Cute Eden  (13eden)

(14eden)

(15eden)

Cute Lilah (16lilah)

(17lilah)

(18lilah)

(19lilah)

(20lilah)

Someday we might be able to afford a photographer that will frolic in the grass or mountains with us, but for now I’m very happy with our in studio pictures.

I’m thinking of doing the blog to book thing. It’s a little pricey but for a personalized book of things I’ve written I think it’s totally worth it and then I will have a hard copy of my blog. How cool would that be for posterity?!

I’ve got a lot of posts under my belt, 569 including this one.
I would probably do a book for each year I’ve blogged, of course I started on Sept 2, 2005 so I may combine that with the year of 2006.

My fist step is to go back and reread everything I’ve written. I use spell check, because I am a terrible speller, but I wish they had grammar check.

Sometimes after I’ve posted something and I see a very obvious mistake I think, “Ugh, why didn’t anyone tell me I was such a nerd and horrible writer.” Then there are times when I use the wrong than/then or there/their, like I probably just did.

So feel free to correct my grammar or if I’ve added an odd word. Hopefully I’ll only have to read up to the first half of 2008 for my grammar check, and awkward sentence structure check.