Dandelion Clock

Ever wonder what these things are called? I'm sure that you are thinking, "Um, Meridy, those are dandelions..." Well of course you would be right, sort of.

Haven't you ever faced the dilema of searching for these things with your child. You say "Hey, [insert child's name], let's go find some dandelions!" And then [insert child's name] says, "Look mommy! I found a great big YELLOW one." And then you are like, "No, [insert child's name], not that kind. Yours is very beautiful, but I meant the kind that is white and poofy and when you blow on it, those little seed things fly in in the air."

See what I mean? I think they need their own proper name. I asked Nate what he thought they were called. He refered to them as "dandelions gone to seed". While is answer would be correct, I was looking for something shorter. Can you imagine saying, "Come on, [insert child's name], let's go find some dandelions that have gone to seed!" Doesn't quite cut it for me. I was reading Ellie a book last night that called them "fluffy dandilions". Which I thought was somewhat acceptable and descriptive, but not exactly what I was looking for. Finally, once again, I consulted the all knowing internet. On wikipedia it refers to them as "dandelion clocks", which of course we know must be true because it was seen on wikipedia. I must own I was a little bit disapointed, but hey, it's still better than "those poofy dandelions that you blow on and the seeds fly everywhere" name. So I thought I would make your lives easier and find that out for you all. Dandelion Clocks. I don't know, I still might go with "fluffy dandelions" myself. If anyone has a better name, you can let me know.

Oh and by the way, did you know that you can eat dandelions cooked or raw? Apparently, dandelion salad is acompanied by hard boiled eggs. The leaves are high in vitamins A and C, iron, and carry more calcium than spinach. Dandelion and Burdock is a soft drink that has experienced some populartity in the United Kingdom. Doesn't that just sound so yummy?? Thanks wikipedia for enlightening us!

Ellie, William, and a Stroller

Mad Table Tennis Skills

I had the chance to play some fun table tennis at the law school today. I was crazy-good on defense. They had a hard time getting anything by me. I was also able to slam the ball on them. It was a very good workout. People thought it was funny when I came to class all sweaty and exhausted from playing ping-pong. Most people seem to think ping-pong involves an activity level similar to miniature golf. The truth is that ping-pong is a very intense and sweaty game.

On a completely unrelated side note, I recorded a song for you blog-heads out there. I call it, Na-na-na-na-na-na NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH, na na na na NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH NAH YAH....or something like that.

William: A Man's Man

Isn't this a sweet picture?! William loves his daddy. Every time daddy comes home William insists on being held. If fact, if Will doesn't get held right away he starts trying to climb up daddy and makes very urgent sounding noises. Once when he was desperately hungry and still wanted daddy it was kind of funny. I was holding him and he reached out for daddy. I handed him over. He quickly realized that dad couldn't feed him and looked over at me like, "Hey why aren't you feeding me!?!?" Even hunger does not stop his need for daddy. We ended up passing him back and forth a couple of times.

William is going to be man's man. He loves to be held by other men because, I think, he already identifies with the male gender. He wants to emulate them at the young age of eight months. Maybe he is a little young to know, but I like to think of it that way. ;) He escaped from us on Sunday and crawled to our friends in the row in front of us. (He was very clever, he made it almost impossible for us to get him back.) While he loved being held by my friend Nicole, he wanted to go see her husband. He was very content for quite some time. He didn't even know him very well, he liked him because he was male (he's a great guy too though ;) He is always very interested in his grandpas and wants to know what they are doing. When "the kids" (the joy school kids) come to play he always wants to hang out with the boys.

"There is a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive...."--a tirade, sort of

Some of you know that our cell phone has been on the fritz lately. This is probably due to the fact that I have washed it three times by accident in the washing machine. I am really amazed at this phone's durability. I highly recommend it! But in a delayed reaction (I washed it last several months ago and it hasn't given me a problem) it has been acting up lately. Last night the phone displayed a curious message. "Car kit," it said. In an effort to figure out what this meant, I looked through all the menus on the phone. Nothing contained the words, "car" or "kit". I called my friend Sheri, there was no dial tone and yet it called her and neither of us could hear a thing. I finally dug up the owners manual which happened to be in my craft box. It had nothing to say on the subject, which I found quite irritating.

Finally we turned to the all powerful internet to see if it knew the meaning of the mysterious phrase, "car kit". We found some Verizon gurus on Yahoo Answers. Apparently it means that the phone has had some water damage (go figure) and that it thinks it is plugged into a car charger or "car kit". The all wise Verizon techies tell us that basically there is nothing you can do but buy a new phone. Right. Just what they want you to think. They convientiently fail to mention the "beat the tv until it works trick". I think Nate used this method last night to make it work again, which it did. I foolishly thought all was well. After I finished charging it, and unplugged it tonight the dreaded message, "car kit" had returned. "Bah!" I thought to myself. I decided to take the moderate approach of hitting it against the palm of my hand. No luck. I tried taking out the battery and putting it back in to no avail! I then resorted to throwing it against the ground, which I thought was a little drastic. No response. Finally, I did the unthinkable (I had nothing to loose), I chucked against the floor (don't worry it was carpeted) hard enough to force the battery out. Success! Persistence is the key my friends! It's the phone that keeps going, and going, and going. The phone of champions!

The moral is don't give up on your phone! If you keep loving it it will come back to you. (And don't wash it in a washing machine...ever...it is a dry clean only item) So feel free to call us on it! If we don't answer or you can't hear us speak, just know that we still love you and proceed to try to call us on our home phone.

I would like to take this opportunity to appologize to Cheryl. Sorry for not taking good care of the phone you gave us. :( I feel terrible. We'll use it as long as possible. I hereby vow NEVER to wash a cell phone in the washing machine again. We love you!

Meridy's Haircut

The other day I was bending too close to my gas burning stove top to smell what I was cooking (sometimes I have to smell it to see if it is going to taste good) and I singed the ends of my hair! At that point, I decided that it would be better to get my haircut in the near future rather than the summer. I got around to it today. Monica Murset cut my hair. She did such a good job! Everyone who is anyone has Monica cut their hair..... :)

Here are the results.

I've Been Tagged

To humor my good friend Sheri, I am filling this thingy out. Um...if you read this and want to be tagged consider yourself so and proceed to fill out this questionnaire on your blog. :) Offer valid at participating blogs only. Void where prohibited. (c) Copyright 2008. All rights reserved, except the right to eat sushi, gladly waived.

1) What I was doing 10 years ago: Ten years ago I was in 8th grade. Let's just say I prefer not to dwell on this time of my life. I clapped the day they tore the middle school down. I was driving with my mom to the store when I witnessed some of the destruction from the car. And I did literally clap and shout for joy. I remember thinking that some guy in another car looked at me funny. I think he disapproved of my delight, but really, it was a very smelly dangerous building.

2) 5 things on my To Do list today: Seeing as it is 8:20pm there is not much left to do so I will tell you what I did. I woke up, cleaned up, hosted play group, got my hair cut and permed, went to the park.

3)I enjoy: Being a wife and mommy. Reading. Scrapbooking. Sleeping in.

4) If I were suddenly made a billionaire: I would pay tithing, pay for Nate's school, buy another car, give some away, go on some clothes/home decor/scrapbook shoping sprees and stash the rest like miser.

(edit: Actually since writing the above I realized that when I have thought of this idea before (of suddenly being millionaire/billionaire) I decided that what I would do, also, is start some kind of business to help hire people who need jobs and need skills and pay them a salary. It would have to be a business that makes money to perpetuate the wealth. Having a lot of money to take this risk would help me feel secure in the venture and of course enable me to do it in the first place ;)

5) 5 jobs I have had: Resident babysitter for my parents. Student. Convergys--"And thank you for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at why don't you give me a paper-cut and pour lemon juice on it." Hurricane Electronics Lab-- as a winder and also a labeler. Mommy.

6) 5 things people don't know about me: 1. I squeeze the toothpaste from the middle 2. I didn't know how to whistle until high school. 3. I have this new fetish for eating pretzels and chocolate chips together 4. I still drink milk out of the carton (Sorry mom! I only did occasionally at home :). 5. I've washed my cell phone three times in my washing machine and it still works! 6. I use my waffle maker as a grilled ham and cheese sandwich machine.

Are Cupcakes Manfood?

We recently got a new Elders' Quorum presidency and new Elders' Quorum teachers. The new teacher was doing an extended introduction before he gave the lesson, and he made an interesting comment about cupcakes. He said that he heard the previous presidency had given us womanfood as a parting gift--cupcakes. This guy said he would bring manfood--big, thick cookies.
I don't normally think of cookies and cupcakes as being gender-specific, but I must admit that I was disappointed when the other guys gave us cupcakes. I much prefer cookies to cupcakes. Does that mean I'm manly? Obviously.

William's First Story

Okay, so this was not his first story ever, but it is the first story that I remember him listening to intently.

To warn you, this is actually quite a boring video. I think it is cute, but I am his mother and am biased. This video is mostly put on here for grandmas (Hi mom! :) and grandpas and immediate family members who don't get to see Will very often. If you do not fall into that category you might find this video boring, but please feel free to watch it if you would like. And again, the video might make you sick. (I'm usually not this bad with a camera, I've just been having a hard time lately.) I was trying to creep up on Will so that I wouldn't distract him.

There is a part of the end where William makes his "happy noise". It is like a little shriek of joy. That is the highlight of this video, that and the fact that William has such a great daddy who reads to him.

William Laughs Some More

This is William laughing at one of those thingys that you throw and then it makes noise. Sorry, again, the camera work might just make you sick. Also, I have this weird habit of bitting my lower lip when I think my kids are being too cute. So that is why I look funny in this video.

Ellie and William Laugh

This is a video of Ellie making William laugh which she often does, it is so fun! I appologize that the cameraperson took such a wobbly video. :)

A Calculated Risk

So Nate, brave man that he is, had me cut his hair. I have cut only one other person's hair and that would be Ellie. She is three and doesn't know any better. But as you all know, Nathan has never been one to stress over his personal appearance. (Good thing for him that he is so handsome.) However, it is my theory that he had me cut his hair not because he is brave and not merely because he cares little about his appearance, it is because he is an economist. Thinking on the margin and all that. He merely took a calculated risk. He decided that his hair was getting long and annoying. Nathan would never, gasp, send money on something as trival as a hair cut. His mother, who lives out of town, couldn't cut his hair at the moment. What was he to do?? He did a little cost benefit anaylisis and decided that FREE is always better than NOT-FREE. All he had to do is run the little risk of looking like a geek.

I must say, however, that I did a pretty good job. There is only one place where the cut is noticeably uneven. Other than that, it looks pretty proffesional. That said, I don't think I really want any of you proffesionals out there looking too closely at his head....

Here are some before and after pictures.

before

after

William Brushes His Teeth

William loves to eat anything that we eat, so of course when we brush our teeth he naturally wants to have some too! In fact he gets quite distrought if you don't give him some. So we gave William two toothbrushes of his very own.

He especially loves to brush his teeth with Daddy.

A Visit to Meika's House and Other Stories

So Ellie went to joy school at her friend Meika's house. Meika just moved from an appartment to a much larger house and this was Ellie's first visit to see it. When I asked her if she liked Meika's big new house she said, "Yes! Meika's house grew up!" We have been talking about how Ellie used to be a baby like William and about how Will will one day grow up and be as big as Ellie. The Barney song, called Growing, has helped too. I just thought I would share that funny annecdote with you all.

So I made the mistake of buying a lot of blue eyeshadow. Let's just say it should be used sparingly. Ellie just started being interested in make-up. She wants to be like mommy. (isn't that cute ;) So when I brought home my blue eyeshadow, of course she wanted to try it out. This picture is the result. She has yet to learn that a little goes a long way :)

One more fun thing that Ellie likes to do is try on my shoes. I have a certain pair of high-heels that she really loves. When she puts them on she says, "Now I am a mommy too!" We love our Ellie!

Keepin' it random

I've got a few minutes before I have to leave for my night classes, so I thought I'd share what school is doing to my poor psyche. Last night, among other strange dreams, I dreamed one of the weirdest dreams of all time.
I dreamed that I chewed my Insurance Law final into a rough 3 dimentional rendition of a polar bear and turned it in in the frozen food section of a grocery store. Other kids weren't nearly as creative with their finals. They turned them in in normal frozen food bags.
I think I chewed the words to my essay answers into whatever it was my polar bear was made of.
Anyway, it was a weird dream.

Meridy's Tirade Corner: A Conspiracy Theory

It's that time again....time for a tirade!

So sometimes I think my kids conspire against me. Like the time I had to change yet another disgusting Ellie diaper (she won't potty train). At that exact moment, William decides that it would be really fun to start playing with the contents of it. In the meantime, I am wrestling with Ellie to keep her legs up so that I can clean her up. So, here I am wrestling with two children at once over a nasty diaper. Then suddenly I only have to wrestle Ellie because William has happily found some wetwipes to play with, by this I mean eat. I tactfully decide to keep this information from Ellie, but somehow from her vantage point she discovers the truth and proceeds to try to save William from himself as she often does when he is trying to eat things, such as crayons. She's suddenly yelling "No Wiwum!" and tyring to pull the wetwipes away from him. At this point I am thinking to myself, "What is wrong with him eating wetwipes?!? They're non toxic!" Then it was really difficult to keep Ellie's legs up while keeping the kids from fighting. So somehow I managed to pull the wetwipes out of Ellie's reach and into William's so that he could continue with his business. (However, after I changed Ellie's diaper I came to my senses and took the wetwipes away from William.) Do you see what I mean by conspiracy? They somehow communicate with each other to hit me with a timed double front attack! And when do they attack? When Nathan is unavailable to help. He is either ALMOST home from school, or has mountains of homework due the next day, or he is taking a much needed nap.

Take last night. Both kids decided that it was time for a bedtime snack. Nate was working on his dreaded LP paper. I decided to let Ellie eat her yogurt at the "little table" (aka the coffee table, if you ask Nate it is the hot chocolate table, but that is another story) against my better judgement. This was the Trix kind of yogurt, it is very BLUE. I then proceeded to feed William at the "big table" (aka the dining room table). While she was eating the yogurt, Ellie periodically wandered around the house with yorgurt stained hands. I kept asking her, "Are you done yet??" "No.", she would answer. Finally, when she was done, I went over to assess and clean the damage. She said something to the effect of, "Look at what I did!" She had made a beautiful painting of yogurt all over my table. She loves to paint. Fortunately, I caught it in time, so that admittedly, it wasn't too difficult to clean (and none of it was on the carpet, thank Heaven). I was glad that she didn't mind me cleaning it up because the ants that seem to infultrate our house somehow every Spring would have loved it! While I was cleaning up this mess, the kids had already planned a new one for me while my back was turned. William then decided to spill all the water from his water cup on to the floor. As I was cleaning this newly formed mess Ellie asked, "What's going on?"(she uses this phrase very OFTEN now). As if she didn't know! William looked at me with his little smile as if to say, "Aren't I cute and clever mommy!"

But the worst of it is how they conspire in their sleep! I put Ellie to bed rather easily. She is a good sleeper now adays (knock on wood), but I think I deserve it after what she put me through for the first year of her sleeping life. I have offered her the Taj Mahal on numerous occasions, for the mere request of her being reasonable and going to bed. Somehow, right under my nose, she has passed this non-sleeping torch to William. He used to be such a good baby. He would sleep quite well, until recently. I fed William again at around 10:45. He fell asleep. I tried to put him down several times and he would wake up, eat more, fall asleep, but then wake up when I would put him down. How does he know that he is in his bed?? It's like they have this little signal inside of them, that goes off in their sleep, "Mommy has the nerve to put you in your bed, WAKE UP!" Finally, I got him down at about 11:30, and I thought he was asleep for good. But no. He woke up. At this point (after being supremely frustrated with Nathan's work overload, and being very sleepy myself), I thought to myself, "I don't care if he gets a big fat F on his paper! Nate is taking this child and putting him to bed, NOW." Fortunately, I decided to take the more dignified approach of merely looking incredibly annoyed and playing with William until he decided to fall asleep. So yes, Will took a nap at 10:45-11:30pm. When William did finally decide to eat and go to sleep for good at 1am, I decided to let Nathan pick him up and put him in his bed. Unfortunately, Nate couldn't hear me call him, and there wasn't anything to throw at him except a toy spoon. Which missed and hit the wall. The funny thing was that Nate heard that and turned to the side, but didn't come to assist me. Thankfully, he heard my whistle afterward and came and put William to bed. And I got some much needed sleep.

Choice

Choice
1: worthy of being chosen 2: selected with care 3: of high quality
choice·ly adverb
choice·ness noun
synonyms choice, exquisite, elegant, rare, delicate mean having qualities that appeal to a cultivated taste. choice stresses preeminence in quality or kind (choice fabric). exquisite implies a perfection in workmanship or design that appeals only to very sensitive taste (an exquisite gold bracelet). elegant applies to what is rich and luxurious but restrained by good taste (a sumptuous but elegant dining room). rare suggests an uncommon excellence (rare beauty). delicate implies exquisiteness, subtlety, and fragility (delicate craftsmanship)

Also the choice I made when I decided I needed her in my life always.

That's Meridy to me.

Power Trips and Fresh Food

So I just found out that I am the all powerful creator of this blog!!! Mwa-Ha-Ha! I can edit Nate's posts but he can't edit mine!

Whewf! Better not let that get to my head!


On a different note, this is what we had for dinner last night...





It was delicious! Don't you wish you could have some?? This is a plate of pork fajita with onions, bellpeppers, yellow squash, cheese, fresh avacodo, fresh tomato, fresh lime, fresh cilantro, and a fresh attitude.

Are you kidding me?

So this bench memo is due tomorrow (Sunday) at 11:00 p.m. I'm not going to be able to finish it today (Saturday)--not even close. This thing is a BEAST. I'll be lucky if I can get out a quick and dirty version of it, let alone anything polished. I'm just glad this is my last legal writing class. I am not fond of all these projects and deadlines. The average law student is task oriented. I am not the average law student. This is absolutely not cool.

You know what is cool though, is that I can play the first few lines of In the Hall of the Mountain King on my guitar. I stumbled across it while I was practicing minor scales. I'm finally getting around to learning scales. I like music and music theory. I could do that kind of homework for fun...if I had that kind of homework. I guess it will just have to be a passtime. Speaking of music, Joe Satriani is coming out with a new album in April. That should be fun.

Furthermore, we watched Meet the Robinsons the day before yesterday. It was pretty funny. I liked how the Bowlerhat guy kept thwarting his hat's plans. He was a fun villain.

And thus, I close this blog post.

William gives and takes

Ellie likes to play dress-up

Picture of William in Star Pajamas

My review of Animal Farm as seen on goodreads

Now, before I share my review, I need to warn everyone (hopefully someone will read this blog! ;) that I go off on tirades. Poor Nathan has to deal with them on almost a daily basis. I don't tirade against Nathan, I just tirade about things to Nathan. These tirades are a way for my to express my feelings and deal with frustration. Many of these (not all ;) become unjust, unfair, and should NEVER be repeated. However, I also used to go off on tirades on weekday mornings with my sister while getting ready for school. These were meant to be humorous. It made both of us feel better about the common stresses of life at the time through laughter. (I miss those mornings Mandy!) I will share these kinds of tirades. Just know that while they express my feelings, they are not meant to be taken totally seriously. I am not trying to offend anyone, I am trying to take you on this humorous ride with me for a minute. I will try to warn you when this is about to happen so that you can skip or continue reading as you wish. Let me also state at this point that I think the author of this book, George Orwell, was a great man as far as I know. I am glad he wrote this book and made the points that he did. I just didn't enjoy reading it. So finally to get to the point, here is my review,

"What suprises me most, in glancing at the other reviews, is that the people who didn't like the book, didn't like it because it was boring. I didn't like it because it was creepy! Animals taking over like that is frightening to me. Perhaps it is because I have seen the creepy cartoon. (My husband actually bought the cartoon to watch it more than once. Maybe I will go into the movie cabinet now and throw it away! ;)

But seriously. I think everyone should read in once, understand the symbolism, learn from it, and apprieciate the good things about America. Just know you may not enjoy it. After that the lesson should be remembered, but the creepy story forgotten. What bugs me most about the story is Boxer. I mean he is a great guy (I mean horse). He is a hard worker, gentle, giving, and valuable to society because he is capable of doing great things. And what does he get for it?? Those of you who have read the story know. How agrivating is that?!?!? I have a hard time respecting him. He was duped! Year after year he gives service to these evil leaders and gets nothing for it. Not that we should all be selfish, but we need to look for good leadership. Boxer supports these bad leaders! He thinks they're wonderful until they betray him. Use your head. I find it extreemly agrivating that all of his talents are wasted on undeserving leaders who don't care about him at all. He counted on the government to take care of him and they didn't care about him at all.

Now, I hope that every one knows, that even though America is not perfect and has flawed leadership sometimes, that I love America. It has the most potiential to do good when compared to other forms of government, all things considered. But I would hope that I would not be duped by politicians promising me the moon, and then taking my hard work and money and using it selfishly for themselves. And I would hope that I would not continue voting for people like that year after year after year. Do not be duped America! Use your heads. If they are not promoting and DOING good things, don't vote for them. I think that is the most important lesson this book taught me. And it also taught me not to depend on government to take care of my problems. The animals depend on their government for everything, therefore the government as all the power, and then the power is abused. Take charge of your own life! Help should be provided by government if truely needed as a TEMPORARY safety net. However, there is no way that a government can provide everything for everyone without being socialistic and having too much power and then taking away everyone's freedom of choice."

My first post on our very own blog!!

Um don't know what to say yet. My posts will be somewhat random. We still are liking where we live, which is good because we will be here for awhile! Nate is adding on more school to get his MBA as well. We love our friends here! But we miss the countryside of our small town roots, and our friends and family back home.