New world, new love

I really like Paradise Lost (both the song by Symphony X and the book by Milton) but I confess that I can only take the book in small chunks. It is so dense, so full of allusions, so old, and so inconsistent in its sentence structures that my mind starts going numb, and I lose comprehension of what I'm reading.

But it's been calling to me lately, and this morning I read some of the argument between Adam and Eve about whether or not they should split up and go exploring. Adam totally digs Eve and doesn't want her to ditch him, plus he fears the Tempter may attack them separately where he would never dare do it while they are together and able to support one another. Eve says Adam should trust her and that they could never be happy living in fear. Untested faith and love could never be real. Eventually, she wins, Adam proves prophetic, and Eve proves to be wise as she brings about the felix culpa.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that I love Meridy, and I'm so glad to have her with me as we enter each new world life offers. Meridy has been looking good recently too. Is it normal for a woman to look better as she gets older? Every day my love for her is new, and better.

I am tired of love triangles in literature!!!!!!!

I haven't written for a month, and all I have to say is: "I'm tired of love triangles in literature!!!", Yes. That is all I have to say.

Almost.

I'm looking up new books to read (a thing I often waste time on) in YA fiction (because they are "safer" in general), and half of them include love triangles. Why?!?! Perhaps I'm too straightforward a person to handle many love triangles. I want a book where boy meets girl, boy and girl may have issues, but boy and girl are not so easily distracted away from each other by some ultra-good looking, shadowy person just-thrown-in-there-to-make-the-book-interesting-to-the-hormone-influenced-teenager. Do you know what makes me mad? Half the time they end up with ultra-good looking guy instead of stable-I-will-love-you-forever-guy. What are we trying to teach here? Maybe I'll go write my own book.....

On Catching up:

Catching up a blog is so daunting, but perhaps I will make an attempt soon. I could at least post some pictures.....

Good Luck Robbers

Do you ever watch those tv specials about robber bloopers? The kind where a robber is trying to rob a convenience store and it turns out that there is a police officer in uniform trying to buy milk behind him. The unknowing robber is immediately arrested, and thinking to himself, "Shoot! I should have robbed the 7/11 next door!!!!!" Okay, well I made that scenario up, but you get the idea. I think those shows are funny and/or intriguing.

Well good luck trying to rob our house robbers, because by the time you figure out how to get in, the prize that awaits you will not be worth the effort. Let me explain. (No wait, it is too long. Let me sum up.)

For those of you who I have neglected, we have been living in a new house since March. We've enjoyed our time here in the house. We love our new ward. (I still miss the Legacy ward very much and we did enjoy the Hurricane 3rd Ward, but it is wonderful to come to such a good ward here.) Our living room looks like this:
The picture immediately above this text, showcases the prize aforementioned that the robber would receive. It is the only thing of marketable value we own: a very nice tv and dvd player. Everything else you see in the picture is either not marketable for large sums of money, is not currently owned by us, or if it was owned by us is not easily portable. I suppose the robber could try to steal the lighting, however, I think it mostly fits into two of the categories listed above, so we will discount it. I leave it up to you to decide what categories it fits into. ;) So, a nice tv and dvd player, but is it worth jail time? I leave you to decide this as well.

This is why the robbers cannot get in:
The dead bolt of the front door is stuck in the locked position and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it unbolted. If you come over to my house you will be waiting at the front step for some time. I might actually be grateful to the savvy robber who could untangle my little problem. I would consider giving him my dvd player for a reward...maybe. However, if I am to believe in the documentaries of robbing bloopers, most robbers are not that quick on the draw, if you know what I mean. (Please know I mean no disrespect to robbers and others of that culture.)

Now, please don't leave a bunch of comments about how having a front door in that state of affairs might actually make it easier for a robber to enter my house. Please don't leave any comments about how robbers never enter through a front door and probably would enter through the back door. (Actually my back door deadbolt was really sticky this morning too. I was lucky to be able to turn that one.) And please no comments about robbers breaking my windows to enter the house.

Frankly, it ruins the story.

After the angel

It's another cool name for a song or a band, but I digress.

1 Nephi 3:31
Do we still have faith when the angel is gone? We should.

Privileges

Meridy despises basketball games on tv. Mention the Jazz game--her grey/green eyes will narrow, her regal brow will furrow, her beautiful lips will frown and her saucy shoulders will fall.

The problem has come to a festering boil with the onset of the playoffs. Fortunately, we have come up a workable solution.

Since we don't have cable, I get to visit my parents' house for the games. For the new routine, I take the kids with me and call Meridy at halftime. This gives her some alone time before she joins us. Unfortunately, she has begun to abuse her alone time privileges. She has been taking more time getting over after halftime. For the latest game, she conveniently left her phone downstairs and didn't come at all.

She must be desperate for some time away from those children. We'll see how this develops.

The Jackpot

I'm sensing that parts of my last post might have been a little too "extraordinary" for some of you. Not to worry this post is much less extraordinary at the sacrifice of being more boring. However, people are neither boring or extraordinary all the time, so I guess it's okay to keep posting no matter what the weather of life dictates. Wow, what a sentence that was. I leave it up to you to decide if it was profound or just "interesting"....

The point is: I hit the jackpot today. I found a box of old clothes LOVE. Happy Day!! And it was free.....if you don't count the original cost of the clothes. But the happiness was free. I found a few darling shirts that I forgot I even had. Do you know what this means? I have too many clothes. I love clothes. I've always loved clothes, but didn't have the ability to really explore it until college, and I think for the past few years I've been a little crazy. Good think I get a lot of my clothes at Ross and thrift stores...

Speaking of clothes....I've decided that women who have two 1-4 year old children should not have to wear dresses to church. You mothers know what I am talking about. Nearly every Sunday is a struggle to promote modesty when your two year old is pulling at your skirt. If you see me coming to your ward, watch out. If I thought I could get away with it, I would lobby for a change with a good case I think. However, I'm sure I'm missing a point somewhere. There. I'm glad I finally got that said.

Speaking of children at church......Do any of you other mothers feel like you just survived a battle of immense proportions after sacrament meeting? It takes me nearly half of Sunday school to recover. That William. He crawls all over me, messes with my skirt as discussed in the previous paragraph, chucks his cars half way down the aisle, and when he is finally holding somewhat still and resting on the ground, he is kicking the wall.

Extraordinary Measures

It being "earth week", I shall answer a question posted to our blog quite awhile ago: What can you honestly say you are doing to help the earth?" Or something to that effect. I have pondered on this. This is what I have come up with. I swear I am not making any of these up.

1. I helped plant a tree in my backyard.
2. We throw our fruit and veggie hides and carcasses as "compost" for our struggling "garden".
3. I put a stop to my husband and children "feeding" the pigeons sand. (I must admit I am guilty of thinking it funny to see all those cute pigeons come running for their "food." But I didn't let it last longer than five minutes....)
4. I use biodegradable tampons. All you who use plastic ones should think twice about what you are doing. All you men......get off easy.
5. I try to keep the lights off as much as possible because I am cheap, but I will count it in my list because it so conveniently fits in.
6. We keep our empty freezer unplugged, except on special occasions.
7. I buy almost all of our clothes second-hand. Not only am I recycling, I'm getting highly-fashionable, very-sturdy, name-brand clothing for much less!
9. I taught two nine year old boys about recycling. Actually I taught one boy, I don't think the other one was paying too much attention.

Well there you have it. It's insanely late, and I am going to bed.

The "Geezer" Advantage

Our ward's young men thought they would "own" the Elders' quorum in ultimate Frisbee. As an experienced participant in the ways of young guys vs. old guys match-ups, I had a pretty good idea how it would turn out. We destroyed them. So I'm wondering which variable most strongly accounts for the geezer advantage--matured bodies, experience, or fully functioning frontal lobes?

I read a description of the teenage problem recently that said teenagers have a hole in their heads. That is to say, their frontal lobes are immature. They have a harder time making sound decisions and maintaining focus. We definitely had the mental edge, and I'm not sure experience can account for all of that. They were unable to function as a team. They were scatterbrained, looking where they might throw the Frisbee before they had caught it. Now, old guys did that a couple times, but we seemed to learn from it. We also developed strategies, noted player tendencies, and exploited tactical advantages.

It also helped that we were taller and could knock them over to win position.

I like Frisbee, and Ultimate is fun. Does anyone have a league I can join? Oh yes, they have leagues and even a national governing body.

NATHAN PASSED THE UTAH BAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks be to God!

Catfishin' with Aunt Helga

My 10 year high school reunion is coming up this summer. I guess a lot has happened since then. But we won't get into that right now. Right now I'm kicking off a mini-series of anecdotes and trips down memory lane that should lead up to my reunion. If anyone reading the series has any related or competing recollections, I'd love to hear about them.

So, Monday night we were driving through Leeds by way of I-15, and I was reminded of our adventures with Catfish Charlie's. Ok, this story is actually post-high school. That's ok, I think of anything pre-mission (can somebody please set me straight on the proper use of hyphens?) as a high school memory. Back to the story. One day I was in Leeds, probably accompanying my family as they indulged their yard sale fetish, when I saw a small restaurant called "Catfish Charlie's." Slowly, a mania grew within me. I had to eat at Catfish Charlie's. I had never eaten catfish. I wanted to try it.

I summoned the posse (in this case that would be Seth Gubler, Alex Gubler, Kelcey Loveland, Danny Frost, Cole Blair, Dalyon Ruesch...am I missing anyone?) who collaborated with me on a racquetball/Catfish Charlie's outing. The racquetball was fun, and Catfish Charlie's was quite an experience. Once we got in there we couldn't speak normally. Some force settled upon us, forcing us to speak like hillbillies. Somewhere between the hush puppies and the Louisiana Sauce tales of an unforgettable character began flowing from the warped minds of Seth Gubler and Nathan Reeve. Her name was Aunt Helga, and she had...issues. The entire ride home and the subsequent weeks were filled with tales of the incredible Aunt Helga. We had to keep her in whenever the moon was out. The bears were scared of her. She went a courtin' from time to time--beaus beware.

I think we visited Catfish Charlie's once more before I left on my mission. They did have good catfish and hush puppies, though I got reports as time went on that the gang was getting disenchanted with the place.

Catfish Charlie's is long gone, but the memories live on.