One Feisty Blog

Quinn is One!

2010-05-05T09:45:00.002-06:00

My sweet little baby is one year old! They always say that time speeds by when your kids are little, but it was much more true with Quinn's first year than it was with Bennett's. It seems like it was only a few weeks ago that we brought him home from the hospital, and here we are at his birthday. We had his party last Saturday, and he had a great time--especially once he figured out what to do with the cake (which turned out to be grabbing fistfulls and shoving it in the general direction of his face, then diving face first into the plate when both hands were too messy to be useful).

Quinn's favorite toy is a stuffed penguin, and he was a penguin for Halloween, so we decided to have a penguin party. I made penguin cupcakes (you have to see the book, Hello, Cupcake! if you ever host parties) that turned out super-cute if I do say so myself. I have to credit the excellent instructions, not my own skill. I also made an igloo cake because the cupcakes were better to look at than to eat because the penguin was made from mini donuts and donut holes on top of a cupcake, and I couldn't find any good mini donuts anywhere. I'm sorry I don't have pictures to include...we don't have enough room on the computer to download any recent pics right now. I'll try to remember to add them when we get them downloaded.

Quinn is such a little character. He's a lady's man like Bennett was, but a little more subtle. He went for his 12 month checkup yesterday and he was really putting on a show for the women in the lobby, smiling and laughing and waving and trying to walk around to the back of their desk. Yes, he's walking now, but he doesn't like to try it unless you hold his hand. He'll take 6-7 steps while he's playing, but he's not convinced it's his most efficient mode of transportation yet.

He's not quite 20 pounds and 29.5 inches--MUCH smaller than Bennett was at this age, but still very healthy and on-target or advanced developmentally. He understands a lot of what we say, and he's learning new words all the time. He does this cute thing where he points to something and says in a questioning tone, "That?" or "What?" It's adorable. Yesterday, he was on the changing table and pointed to the wall and said "That wall." He's so smart--kids don't usually put two words together like that at such a young age.

I wish I could put a current picture of him up right now, he's so darn cute. He's got huge blue eyes and chubby cheeks and his first haircut makes him look so grown up. I know I'm a little bit biased, but I get a lot of confirmation of his adorableness from people in stores and restaurants, so I'm pretty sure he's empirically gorgeous.

Quinn is such an affectionate little guy. One of the first things he learned to do (after getting a modicum of control over his neck muscles) was give people kisses. He goes through stages where he's more generous or more stingy with them, but they are so sweet...if a little damp. He gives the sweetest hugs around the neck, too. He'll get excited and give a little squeal and throw his little arms around my neck and squeeze while grabbing my hair and it just steals my heart. He loves to sit on my lap and cuddle, but he's not a mommy-snob. He loves to snuggle with Daddy and Uncle Ty and Grammie and Granddaddy, too.

I've never seen a little baby who loves his daddy quite as much as Quinn does--when Steve comes home from work, Quinn lights up and gives an excited shriek. Then if Steve doesn't come straight to Quinn and pick him up, Quinn will cry like his little heart is broken. If I tell him "no" he usually thinks it's funny, but if Steve or Ty tell him "no," even gently and sweetly, he'll cry like you set his favorite toy on fire. Sometimes he even cries if he overhears one of them say the word no in a conversation with someone else. He's so sweet and tenderhearted.

Bennett and Quinn love each other so much. Quinn's first word was "brother." Well, it was "bwuh-vuh" but close enough. He can say "Bennett" now, too. Bennett got in trouble last night and had to spend some time in the crib upstairs, and Quinn kept looking at me with a quizzical expression and saying "Benna? Benna?" It was so cute. They like to play peek-a-boo with each other, and they both think it's hilarious when Bennett uses his toy giraffe's tail to tickle Quinn. They give each other hugs and kisses all the time, but Bennett usually holds on just a little too long because he loves his baby so much. Sometimes I hear Bennett explaining things to Quinn, or singing to him, or telling him a story. Quinn is so lucky to have such a sweet, loving big brother--I wish every baby could have a big brother like Bennett (yes, I know that's physically impossible, but it would make the world a better place).

I realize that this post probably isn't interesting to anyone except me and my kids' grandparents, but I couldn't let Quinn's birthday go by without singing his praises and bragging on how precious he is. We are so blessed to have such sweet, loving, smart, fun, cute, wonderful sons.

Who Needs Sleep?

2010-04-16T04:16:00.003-06:00

Insomnia stinks. It's 4:17 AM and I don't feel the slightest hint of sleepiness. I have kids who do me the favor of sleeping till after 9 AM most days, and my awesome brother takes care of them and lets me sleep in even later than that most days. But if I were to fall asleep right this second, I would have to sleep till 12:17 PM to get the 8 hours I desperately need to function properly--not that I ever actually get it. And there's something unseemly about sleeping past noon when you're not a teenager, a drunkard, or infected with mono. Not that I haven't done it. It's just not something I would do if I could help it.

Oh, who am I kidding? I would TOTALLY sleep past noon all the time if I could! But since I rarely get to sleep before 1:30 AM, it's not quite as scandalous as all that.

Why is it that it seems lazy and irresponsible to sleep past noon, even if you fell asleep at 5 in the morning? My mother-in-law seems to think I'm a good-for-nothing because I sleep later than she deems proper. She doesn't care that I actually sleep less than she does--I do my sleeping at different hours than she does, and that means I am ruining my life, her son's life, and her grandsons' lives. Evidently sleeping from 3 AM to 10 AM makes you a bad person and sleeping from 10 PM to 6 AM makes you a good person. (Okay, that's not fair for me to say. It's not my sleeping habits that make me a bad person and have me ruining everyone's life--it's everything else about me.) She seems to think that I chose to have insomnia and that if I really wanted to go to sleep before midnight, I could, even though I've never been able to manage that, even as a preschooler.

When your earliest memory is when you were barely two and you were lying in bed trying to fall asleep while your parents watched Johnny Carson, it doesn't give you a lot of hope for establishing an early bedtime.

I'm afraid this insomnia is hereditary. My dad was an insomniac most of his life, and it's only recently that he's developed the ability to fall asleep quickly--except now he wakes up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night all the time. Poor little Bennett didn't fall asleep till 1:15 this morning and it's not an unusual occurrence. He sometimes lays there and stares at the ceiling for an hour or more. I might get a little frustrated if I didn't know exactly how he feels. Speaking of the sweet little guy, he just came into our room and climbed into the empty spot that Steve just vacated--poor guy feels like it's sleeping in to get up at 4 AM for work because he used to have to get up at 3 AM. I should probably break Bennett of the habit of coming into our room to sleep in the middle of the night, but I have to admit that I love it when he climbs in and snuggles up with me. I know it won't be long till snuggling with Mommy will be considered cruel and unusual punishment, and not too much longer after that when I'm up late worrying about where he is and what he's up to. At least it won't be tough to stay up till his curfew--and not just because of the insomnia, mostly because his curfew will be 9 PM!

Any One Find the Title of the Previous Post Hilarious?

2010-04-16T02:52:00.002-06:00

You know, because it says the pictures are "new" and I posted them, oh, six months ago. I'm a bad, bad blogger.

It's not my fault, it's those darn (adorable, sweet, smart, funny, cuddly, busy, precious, practically perfect) kids. They have this nasty habit of demanding to be fed several times a day, not to mention the times they have the temerity to want my attention. Before they came along, I had tons of time at my mind-numbingly boring job to post several times a week. I even did weekly Top 8 lists which kept me very amused (not so much anyone else, but since a blog is basically a diary for those of us narcissistic enough to think other people want to read our pointless ramblings, I don't really care if they amused anyone but me). Now it's been so long that I wasn't sure if I should ever bother to post here again because it's so embarrassing to have such a huge gap between posts. But I have my own little red netbook thingy now (thanks to my awesome husband and brother--best Christmas EVER), so I have a little more freedom to blog and still be a decent mother. Till I got the netbook, I had to do all my computing upstairs, but the boys do all their playing downstairs, which we in the business call a dilemma.

"But Gina," you say, "Christmas was almost four months ago, and you're just now getting around to blogging again? What took you so long?"

An excellent question, Imaginary Blog Reader.

Mostly, it was because I was busy being a good mom, good wife, good daughter, good sister, good granddaughter, relatively decent friend, and terrible-horrible-awful-dispicable-reviled daughter-in-law. The usual. But a little of it was because we've had about 6 days since Christmas when everyone in the household was healthy at the same time. And the rest of it was the afore-mentioned hesitance to post when it had been so long since the last one. The bigger the gap, the greater my reluctance to post and draw attention to my laxity. Vicious circle blahblahblah fishcakes.

Anyway, tonight I have insomnia, so I decided to post something. But it's super boring and self-centered, so now I'm tempted to delete it without posting. But I suppose that would be dumb, so I'll just post it and then post something slightly more interesting right after this. Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

A Few New Pictures

2009-10-17T18:36:00.014-06:00

Steve, Bennett, and Quinn are downstairs playing with the electric train, so I thought I'd take a second and slap up a few pictures. I don't have time to put them in any particular order, so I'll just tell you that the ones where Quinn looks younger were taken when he was about 2 1/2 months old and the ones where he looks older were taken when he was about 5 months old Bennett's about 2 1/2, in case you can't keep up.

These brothers love each other.

Little Mister's new funny face. Bennett's in the background putting on his pj's.

Everything is hilarious.

Church was exhausting, and now you want a photo shoot?

Practicing a little air guitar. Is two months old too young to start rockin' the free world?

"Been a long time since I rock and rolled..."

Think I should try out for the touring company of Aladdin?

Thanks for the crazy hat, Auntie Shelly! My bro and I have made good use of it!

Go, Ducks!

Quinn is almost 5 1/2 months old now. He's so sweet and happy, and big and healthy, too. His favorite new thing is giving us baby kisses--he gets really indignant when he wants to kiss you and you don't bring him up to your cheek. He knows what the word "kiss" is and he'll give you one if you ask--it's so precious, and I'm sure I'm not biased at all. He and Bennett must give each other at least 100 kisses a day, which never stops being adorable. We're so blessed to have such sweet boys.

Bennett is such a sweet, smart kid. He sings all the time (and gets pretty darn close to the right lyrics and the right tune most of the time, too). He's learning lots of words in Spanish and he recognizes a good share of his letters and numbers--in fact he taught himself to write several letters last week before any of us realized he could do it. He's a funny, affectionate, helpful, all-around adorable kid. We're so proud of him--we just wish more of our friends and family could get to know him better.

We're planning to be in Portland for Christmas, which we know is a tough time to try to fit in any non-required visiting, but we hope we'll get to see at least a few friends while we're there. We can't wait!

Mamma and the Cute Boys on Tour

2009-07-27T19:52:00.009-06:00

My best friend from high school is getting married this coming weekend, so we're making a quick trip to Portland. Steve can only stay for the weekend, but the boys and I will be staying with my parents for at least a week (the first week of August). If you're going to be around and you wanna see some of this cuteness:

come find us! We'll be at my parents' house, and I'm guessing that if you know me well enough to want to see me, you know where mis padres live. If not, call me or take your chances with leaving a comment here to give me your number. I won't have much access to the internet, so if I don't get back to you, please don't take it personally (unless I just don't like you)!

He's Here! (edited in red because I forgot stuff)

2009-05-22T13:29:00.013-06:00

I'm sorry I kept you waiting so long for news...I was waiting till I had the pictures downloaded off the camera (we have a new thingy for pictures and I don't know how to use it, so I had to wait for help).

Without further delay, here's our newest family member:

Quinn Reuel Stevenson Kortan
Born May 5, 2009 at 8:03 p.m.
8 pounds 10 ounces, 20 inches

The meaning of Stevenson is pretty obvious. Quinn Reuel means "wise and strong friend of God." Reuel is an ancient Hebrew name that comes from the same word as Ruth, which is my mom's middle name. (It's also the name of at least one of the fathers of the Church of Christ, and my nerdiest friends will recognize it as one of the Rs in JRR Tolkien's name.)

I'm having trouble getting a space between the paragraphs and it's driving me nuts.

Here's how it went down for those of you who are interested in my agony: The doctor was busy with a procedure when we arrived at the hospital, so they didn't actually start the induction till we'd twiddled our thumbs for almost 2 1/2 hours. Then 4 hours later, we discovered the first round of medicine didn't do much, so we had to wait another 4 hours to find out the second dose didn't do much. We were pretty freakin' bored and irritated by the time anything started to happen (and the fact that I'd only gotten about 3 hours of sleep the night before didn't help). The doctor broke my water at about 5:40 (I was at 3 cm), and I got in the Jacuzzi tub a few minutes later--I was in hard labor by around 6 p.m. and at 7 cm before 7 p.m. when I got out of the tub. The doctor had gone home for dinner, but the nurses called him when they realized I'd gone from 7 cm to 8 cm in about 5 minutes. He told them to call when I got to 10, which wasn't much later. At that point I was pretty much incoherent with the pain and I informed them that I was pushing no matter what anyone thought about it. I only got a few seconds of rest between contractions, and I felt like I was giving birth to a speeding freight train (with sharpened wheels). I have no idea how long I pushed, but thank goodness it wasn't 2 1/2 hours like last time--it hurt so much worse this time that I would have passed out if it had lasted much longer. (The doctor lives 5 minutes away from the hospital, but he only got there in time for the last 3 or 4 pushes.) I was screaming my fool head off for the last hour or so of labor--probably did permanent damage to Steve's hearing. I'll never make fun of actresses for over-acting in labor scenes again--if I had been on a movie set, the director would have told me to take it down about 10 notches. The nurses are lucky I didn't rip their faces off for annoying me with all of their "breathe, breathe, don't let the pain take over" crap. If I hadn't been busy getting ripped in half by a freight train, I would have told them that since I'm capable of screaming the place down, I must be getting some air into my lungs. The end of the story makes it all worth it, though. We have a beautiful, robust, precious, sweet, healthy, perfect baby boy who we love. And I'm miraculously still able to walk.

Here he is in car seat ready to come home from the hospital

At home with Daddy and his adoring big brother

Big brother and baby brother in their matching pajammies with Grammie and Granddaddy

After his first bath

After church on Mother's Day with 4 generations (4 1/2 days old)

Feeling a little snuggly

His hair isn't nearly this red in person, but it might have a bit of red in it

Sweet little baby face

Quinn is a sweet, easy-going baby--only cries when he needs something and actually gets the concept of sleeping at (if not through the) night. He's snuggly and adorable and alert, and he's already trying to smile and hold his head up.

Bennett loves him so much! In fact, the only problem we're having with him is keeping him from smothering the baby with affection. All he wants to do is hold and kiss "baby bwrother." It's so sweet and we're so proud of him.

Quinn is begging for his lunch, so I have to go. Sorry for keeping you waiting so long!

This Is It!

2009-05-04T23:55:00.002-06:00

I'm going to the hospital at 7 a.m. to be induced. As long as things go well, it looks like our little guy's birthday will be Cinco de Mayo.

Feel free to guess birth time and birth weight...and feel free to pray that I can deliver him without having a C-section--he's likely to be quite a bit bigger than Bennett, whom I was barely able to deliver after pushing for 2 1/2 hours. I'd really like it if it wasn't quite so brutal this time.

Wish me luck!

It's About THAT Time

2009-04-22T11:39:00.002-06:00

Well, my due date is May 8th, but my doctor all but promised me he'd induce on the 4th or 5th if nothing has happened by then.

Anyone want to make a guess as to birth date and birth weight?

Anybody Still Reading This? PLUS: A Challenge To Display Your Creativity and Taste

2009-03-09T16:54:00.004-06:00

I know it's been a long time since I posted. I've been busy gestating a tiny human being--get off my case!

Lots has happened since my last post--Christmas was great, I spent all but a few days of January and February sick with various cruds, and Bennett turned two. He is such a big boy! We didn't get his 24 month appointment till about 5 weeks after his birthday, but when we actually saw the doctor, we discovered that our "little" man is 36 3/4" tall and 33 lbs. 6 oz. That puts him around the 90th percentile for both height and weight. I told you he was a big boy! He got lots of praise for his verbal and social development and his robustness in general. It's nice have a professional confirm what we knew already--we have a smart, sweet, healthy boy. And he has very good manners, too--just ask him, he'll tell you "I have nice manners." That kid cracks me up!

Bennett is looking forward to having a baby brother in a few weeks. He likes to pat my tummy and say "Hi, Baby Brother! I love you!" My due date is May 8th, but the doctor says there's not much chance I'll make it till then--the fact that I had pre-eclampsia with Bennett pretty much guarantees I'll have it this time, too. I hope I make it till May, though--I like emeralds better than diamonds! Heehee!

I still have a problem, though...we're having a hard time choosing a name! Please, dear and esteemed friends, gimme a little help. Forgive my cut-and-pasting from an earlier post, I'm far too lazy to retype this stuff...

The only problem with having another boy is that literally all of my favorite boy names have been used by friends of mine in the last 2-3 years. Seriously, who knew my friends had such good taste in boy names? I'm either going to have to bend my "k sound" rules or use a name one of my friends has already used (and risk losing one more friend from my already dwindling collection)...unless one of you geniuses is able to come up with a good one that meets my very exacting criteria:

1. Must have a postive meaning (and while things like "from the willow grove" and "running stream" might be quite lovely and lyrical, they don't count in my book)

2. Doesn't start with a K sound or with a B (not my style to use alliteration in names)

3. Doesn't end with a K sound (messes with the ears when said with our last name)

4. Not so popular that my kid will have to go by Tank K. throughout his school career (think lower than #50 on the Social Security baby name popularity lists for the last few years--but preferably not even common enough to appear on the list)

5. Not the name of one of my friends' children or one of my relatives (unless it's one of the few relatives who actually deserves to have my child as their namesake)

6. Has to be a real name spelled in a predictable fashion, not something made up--I am way past the age where making up a name for my baby is cute (FYI: in my opinion, that age is 18--and since I didn't even have my first kiss till I was 19, I missed that window of opportunity)

7. Not likely to be co-opted as a girls' name in the next few decades.

I realize that you kind of have to be psychic to work with 4, 5 and 7, but that's part of the fun. If you suggest a name that we actually use, you will receive a framed photo of the corresponding child along with a handwritten thank you note telling you how grateful he is to you for saving him from being named Hey You. Let the suggesting commence--and the first person to suggest Pilot Inspektor is going to get a mouth full of Chiclets. And by Chiclets I mean teeth.

And since I'm such a nice person, here are few names that I like but I can't use for reasons alluded to above:

Andrew/Drew
Blake
Cade
David
Dominic
Dylan
Eric
Ethan
Isaac
Jacob/Jake
Jack/Jackson
James
Joshua
Kael
Luke
Matthew
Nathaniel/Nate
Nicholas/Nick
Owen
Patrick
Riley
Sawyer
Spencer
Thomas
William
Zane

Seriously, I really need some help.

The Queen of Bad Timing

2008-12-08T18:27:00.003-07:00

Leave it to me to go for two months without posting, then post something that I sort of wish I'd never posted.

It's not the end of the world, and as far as I know, the baby is okay, which is the most important thing.

But on the moving back home front, we got some very disappointing news today. A letter arrived from Boeing telling Steve that they regretfully have to cancel their offer of employment because of recent economic setbacks. So we're still stuck in Idaho with no friends, no money, and a job at a lousy company where the work is so physically demanding that it is crippling Steve's hands. So that kinda stinks.

We're not giving up on getting back home someday, but that "someday" is pushed back into the fuzzy gray future once again.

It's Been a Long Time Coming

2008-12-07T23:56:00.003-07:00

And, no, the title isn't referring to the length of time since the last post. I know it's been a long time, but Blogger hates me and wants to make it impossible for me to sign on or comment, so I've been punishing it by not posting. I have been reading all of your posts, though--I haven't completely abandoned you.

Now, on to the meaning of the title. I have two pieces of news for you. I think both of them qualify as BIG. Yes, BIG in all caps. That BIG. I'm just having a tough time deciding which of them to tell you first. One is more life-changing news, but the other is maybe a little more surprising.

I know, I'll tell you in the order that we found out the news ourselves...

First, I'm going to have a baby! Yes, Bennett is going to be a big brother in late April or early May. He is already practicing to be the best big brother ever--he lets me know (in a very concerned tone) whenever he hears a baby crying (even if it's on TV). And he gives the baby (well, my belly) sweet little kisses all the time...well, okay, most of the time the kisses are zrbts (is that how you spell zirbert?), but it's still cute. I am mostly past the vomitting portion of the scheduled events, but smells (especially Bennett's diapers) can still send me running. I'm feeling pretty good overall, but I'm tired all the time--of course, I'm the mother of a VERY energetic toddler, obviously I'm tired all the time. We don't know for sure yet, but it's very likely that we're having a boy...I had an ultrasound at 12 weeks that indicated such, but that was about 6 weeks too early to tell for sure. (We have the more conculsive ultrasound scheduled for the 18th.) As the ultrasound tech said, "I'm pretty sure it's a boy, but don't decorate the nursery on that." The only problem with having another boy is that literally all of my favorite boy names have been used by friends of mine in the last 2 years or so. Seriously, who knew my friends had such good taste in boy names? I'm either going to have to bend my "k sound" rules or duplicate a name...unless one of you geniuses is able to come up with a good one that meets my very exacting criteria:

1. Must have a postive meaning (and while things like "from the willow grove" and "running stream" might be quite lovely and lyrical, they don't count in my book)
2. Doesn't start with a K sound (not my style to use alliteration in names)
3. Doesn't end with a K sound (messes with the ears when said with our last name)
4. Not so popular that my kid will have to go by Tank K. throughout his school career
5. Not the name of one of my friends' children or one of my relatives (unless it's one of the few relatives who actually deserves to have my child as their namesake)
6. Has to be a real name spelled in a predictable fashion, not something made up--I am way past the age where making up a name for my baby is cute (FYI: in my opinion, that age is 18--and since I didn't even have my first kiss till I was 19, I missed that window of opportunity)

I realize that you kind of have to be psychic to work with 4 and 5, but that's part of the fun. If you suggest a name that we actually use, you will receive a framed photo of the corresponding child along with a handwritten thank you note telling you how grateful they are to you for saving them from being named Hey You. Let the suggesting commence--and the first person to suggest Pilot Inspektor is going to get coal in their stocking.

Now, if you remember correctly, I mentioned that I had two pieces of BIG news. I realize that nothing trumps news of a new baby, but this should sweeten it a little for those of you who live in a certain locale and would like to have first hand evidence of said baby...

We're moving back to PORTLAND (or the surrounding metropolitan area). Steve has been offered a job as a QA inspector at Boeing!!! He got an email asking him to interview in late October, and since we were already planning to be in the area for a family vacation to the coast, he was able to interview in person on Halloween morning. He got the job offer about a week later, and since then we've been waiting for his background check to go through (it takes a while because they have to deal with the Air Force). Once he's cleared for employment, he'll get an Orientation Date. It's kind of good that it's taking a while because it means we don't have to jump through hoops to have the family together for Christmas.

At first, he's going to be staying with my parents, but as soon as we can find renters for our house in Boise, we'll be joining him in Portland. We've decided to rent for a while because we don't want to try to buy a house out there till we can sell the one here. Feel free to pray that we find really great renters FAST. And if you know of a good place to rent on the eastern side of the Willamette or even in Vancouver, please let me know.

One of the great things about getting the job with Boeing is that they are going to pay the relocation costs. I don't have to pack anything except the clothes and miscellaneous stuff that we'll need till our household goods arrive. Unfortunately, the pay isn't a whole heck of a lot better than what he's making now, and we'll probably have to pay a lot more for rent than we'll be getting from our house here, but I'm going to try not to complain about the money because at least we'll be HOME! YAY!!!! Steve's going to be working the 4pm to midnight shift, which isn't great for socializing on weeknights, but how much would we do that, anyway? And this schedule will be a lot better match for my own weird sleep habits--if only the new baby will cooperate and be a late sleeper like Bennett is! We're hoping that we can spend lots of time with our friends (if they still remember us) on the weekends. I've missed having friends!

Okay, there are my two pieces of big news. I'll check back in a month or two to see if anyone notices that I've posted something.

Are You Kidding Me With This???

2008-10-10T22:11:00.002-06:00

It SNOWED in Boise today. It's not even the end of October yet and it freakin' snowed! What the heck? It started snowing enormous, fluffy flakes around 5:00, and it didn't stop till 6:30. Our grass is still covered with it.

Global Warming has some explaining to do.

How I Spent My Birthday

2008-09-17T11:56:00.002-06:00

My 34th birthday was three weeks ago. I'm sure you're wondering about the exciting way I chose to spend my big day.

Well, before I tell you, I have to give you a teensy bit of background info...

When we were kids, my mom used to tell Ty that if he was naughty then she'd take him fabric shopping for punishment. She only had to make good on that threat once, then all it took was the word "fabric" to straighten the kid up.

So, for my birthday, I went fabric shopping with my parents. Well, technically it was more button and thread shopping, but you get the idea.

Most exciting birthday ever! (Except not.)

I'm still waiting for my birthday cake, too. Not that I'm bitter. (Actually, I am kinda bitter. Keeping my pastry confections away from me is guaranteed to make me bitter.)

No, This is NOT an Announcement or Anything...

2008-08-02T17:32:00.004-06:00

...but if I were to have twin girls, it would be really hard to resist naming them:

Claire Annette and Amanda Lynn.

I'll give you a minute...say them out loud if you need to.

Hee hee!

(No, I wouldn't really do that anymore than I would name a girl Jenna Talia. I just said it was tempting.)

Bennett's Story Corner

2008-06-24T23:40:00.004-06:00

This evening while I was making dinner, Steve brought a freshly de-grimed Bennett downstairs and put him in his play pen. Then he put the giant stuffed monkey and the large-ish teddy bear in a corner of the pen and told Bennett that they wanted him to read them a story.

So when Steve called me over, I found my adorable little boy sitting on the floor in front of the monkey and the bear with his book in his lap happily turning pages and reading his version of Ten Little Duckies to his fuzzy buddies. The basic premise of the story seemed to be "duck duck duck quack quack quack."

He must have been enjoying himself, because he kept it up for quite a while, and even went and got another book when he finished reading them the first one.

Of all the times for our camera's memory stick to be full!!! Sorry, no pictures or video, but trust me, it was stinkin' cute.

Just So I Don't Have More Than a Month Between Posts

2008-05-09T11:24:00.009-06:00

(I just edited this to add some pictures from Easter and now the spaces between the paragraphs are gone from the first 2/3 of the post and I can't get them to come back. Whatever. I guess you'll just have to deal with it.)I just realized that I haven't given an update on the house-selling, back-home-moving stituation. Well, that's because I wasn't very motivated to share my disappointment.

In early February, we discovered that our neighbors who have a house that is very similar to ours, at least size-wise and that is pretty much all that matters to the appraisers, had put their house on the market for $20,000 less than ours. And ours was priced to break even, so we had no wiggle room to drop our price and be competitive. How neighborly of them. Then, we discovered that the builder who built our house was building more just like it in a new subdivision less than a block away from our subdivision. And he's pricing them $40,000 less than our break-even price. Nice.

If you know much about mortgages and loans, you know that before a bank will give someone a loan to buy a house, they send an appraiser to go figure out if the house is worth the asking price.

They do this by driving by the house (they might go inside--which would help us--if it's a really expensive house, but normally they don't) and then looking up the records for other similar houses that have been sold recently in the same neighborhood/area. They compare the houses and the selling prices and determine your house's value from the comparisons. This means that if a house like yours in your neighborhood sells for a drastically lower price than you can afford to sell at, you are out of luck. You basically have to either drop your price to match the others (which, in our case, is impossible because we can't afford to sell at a loss) or take your house off the market and wait however many months or years it takes till the cheaply-sold houses are no longer in the "recently sold" category and till the houses that are the "most recently sold" are being sold for a price that you can afford to sell at.

Okay, you can wake up now, my explanation of appraisals/sale prices is over.

All of that means that we had to take our house off the market. We won't be able to sell till the housing market recovers enough that we can sell our house for at least what we owe, if not a little more to cover the closing costs and down-payment on a new house in the Portland area. Which means my best guesstimate is that we're probably going to be here a minimum of two more years, possibly more like five.

Blech.

In other news, after three months of being in "Still Under Consideration" limbo about the job that he interviewed for at Boeing, Steve finally got the news that he didn't get the position. He was disappointed, but after waiting for news for three months, it wasn't a shock. And honestly, because of the house situation, it's probably for the best. Getting the job would have meant that he would have had to go to Portland without us for however long it took for us to find someone to rent our house. (And renting is a bad option for us because we couldn't rent it for anywhere close to the amount of our mortgage payment and we'd be losing around $500-$700 a month if we rented.) So it's not an entirely bad thing that he didn't get it. However, the job he's doing now barely pays enough to cover our bills--even when he gets overtime, it doesn't leave much for diapers and groceries, let alone trips back home to visit friends and family. So that stinks. The fact that spending 8-10 hours, 5-6 days a week holding a heavy welding torch is giving him arthritis-like pain in his hands is also pretty stinky. Getting up at 3:30 a.m. Monday through Saturday: also stinky. (At least they're really impressed with him there--feel free to pray for a promotion!)

I've been trying to readjust my attitude and remind myself that this is pretty obviously happening for a reason, that God is telling us that we need to be in Boise right now. And with Steve's dad battling cancer, and our four remaining grandparents (who all live in this valley) all getting on in years and/or dealing with poor health, it's pretty obvious why it's good for us to be here. I know all of this logically, but it's not easy convincing my heart to be in it. I'm longing for home, and it's hard to accept that I'm just going to have to get used to it. Before, I always had Steve's impending retirement as the light at the end of the Exile in Idaho tunnel. Now that moving home has fallen into the nebulous "we hope it works out someday" category, I have some major attitude adjustment to attend to.

Frankly, it's no fun.

I wanted Bennett to grow up surrounded by my friends' children, and now we'll be lucky if they get to see each other more than once a year from now till they're in grade school. And I miss my friends. I just don't have any close, Christian friends out here. I have acquaintances whom I'm friendly with at church, but if those relationships were going to move into the real friend category, they would have by now. The only friend (my awesome former boss) I have who I can go to lunch or the movies with has a demanding job and three kids who keep her busy, so I don't see her much...

And sitting here whining pathetically about not having any friends takes me back to my pathetic loser days, so I'm going to shut up about it.

So there's my downer of an update post. Woo. hoo.

To end on a nicer note, I have a husband I love who loves me back, a son who is just too cute and silly and smart and fun for words, wonderful loving parents, a brother who is awesome on a historic, award-winning level, and a church family that is genuinely loving and supportive. Not to mention that I really like the house we're stuck in. Plus, my dear friend, Tom, very obligingly decided to get married June 1, thus giving us a legitimate reason to spend a good share of our tax rebate check on a (much too) quick trip back to Portland.

So I got that going for me. =)

Bennett's First Birthday Party

2008-04-10T00:38:00.003-06:00

This picture has nothing to do with Bennett's first birthday party. (It's a picture I took while we were on our way to his cousin Julie's third birthday party, actually.) It just makes me smile so I decided to post it first so I'll see it whenever I sign on to my blog.

Now, on to the birthday party pictures I should have posted 2 1/2 months ago...

You'll enjoy my blog more if you can completely abandon all expectations of timeliness.

Here we are celebrating Bennett's birthday at Cancun, our favorite Mexican restaurant in Boise. As you can tell, everyone thought the sombrero was a good idea except the birthday boy. I guess he realized it totally clashed with his shirt.

The next day, we had the family over for his party.

Here are part of the decorations for Bennett's "spider monkey" birthday. I don't know if I mentioned that we started calling him Spider Monkey when he was a few days old because he often slept on our chests in a spider monkey pose. But then Steve shortened it to Spider, which all the dudes think is hilarious and most the women think is a terrible nickname for a sweet little baby. Anyway, that's the reason I went with a spider monkey theme for my baby's first birthday. And since there aren't a lot of spider monkey decorations, I just got a bunch of spider stuff and a bunch of monkey stuff and called it good.

Here is the monkey birthday cake. My mom did most of the work and I took the credit, but only because she basically forced me to. (Ever notice how you can make a monkey cake into a teddy bear cake by moving the ears up an inch? Just squint a little, you'll see what I mean.) At the top of the picture you can see some inflatable spider legs and an inflatable monkey tail. Don't worry, they're attached to an inflatable spider and an inflatable monkey, respectively. It would have been pretty weird if I'd just used the legs and a tail as decorations.

Here is Bennett's very own monkey cake. (Yes, it's on a spider plate.) I was just going to slap some frosting on it and write "Happy Birthday Bennett" but Uncle Ty had other ideas. He turned the sucker into a cute little monkey face in, like, 5 minutes. He basically rocks.

Here are the spider cupcakes that I made to complete the spider monkey theme in pastry. I tried to be sure they weren't too scary because I didn't want our 3 year old niece and 2 year old nephew to cry when they saw them.

Here is our little family sporting our spider monkey party gear. If you look closely you'll notice my double chin...and also the fact that Bennett is wearing a shirt that says "Spider Monkey" and Steve and I are wearing shirts that says "Spider Monkeys are awesome!" We're basically awesome.

Here's Daddy helping Bennett open his Little People Airplane. He got way too many gifts exactly one month after he got way too many gifts at Christmas. But he's very democratic in his toy choices and he tries his best to give them all enough attention.

And here's the one you've been waiting for. A little boy completely stoned on his first taste of chocolate cake. He definitely has a sweet tooth or eight. He didn't make as much mess as I expected, but I expected utter carnage, so I'm kind of relieved he kept it to just really, really sticky.

Here he is modeling his hand-crafted post-cake birthday boy shirt made by my dear friend Lindsey's very talented sister. (You should totally check out her stuff and git ya some. A lot, even. It will make you cool.)

And here he is getting ready for bed the night after the party. He must have decided he needed a midnight snack, because he tried to devour the little pig from his new barn toy. Can't you just hear him saying, "Mmmmmmm, bacon!"? It wouldn't have been that funny if he'd just had it in his mouth for a second, but it must have been a full ten minutes of trying to eat the piggy. He's a little weirdo. So he fits right in around here.

Bennett's First Snow Day

2008-03-17T21:40:00.001-06:00

These pictures were taken sometime in mid-January, but that's as close as I can get to an exact date. We had so much snow in Idaho this winter that it would be easier to pinpoint a day when it didn't snow. (Bah! I hate snow!!!)

But Bennett thought it was pretty interesting. I'm not going to bother with captions on all of these pictures, I just thought you might like to see some cute pictures of a cute boy.

Bennett had fun in the snow, but we're all glad it's SPRING now!

It's Finally Christmas Time!

2008-03-11T23:26:00.000-06:00

Yes, my friends, I'm finally getting around to posting some Christmas photos. And only two and a half months after the fact, too. I'm sure you're impressed with my alacrity. (And with the fact that I just used "alacrity" in a sentence.)

We had a really great holiday with my parents and grandparents. As usual, everyone was too generous with the presents and very helpful making the Christmas feast. We had turkey and ham this year, since my Grammie loves ham but the rest of us love a good turkey dinner. I wish I had taken a picture of the table with all the food and my Christmas china and all the pretty yumminess. Guess I'll have to do that next year.

I wish I'd thought to turn the lights on before taking this picture, they were really pretty--all colorful and cheery, especially the old-school bubble lights. We also had a fake tree in the Man Room (which is painted red--the room, not the tree). That one had white lights and red and gold ornaments. Very pretty, but not as sentimental as this one.

My mom made this wreath a few years ago, and I thought I'd brag on her behalf. She's so talented and crafty. Too bad those genes didn't head my way!

Here's Bennett digging into his stocking with a little assist from his mommy. He had fun grabbing stuff out of it once he realized he could.

Here's a close up of his stocking. I did all of the embroidery myself--it took me almost 8 weeks, several hours a day. I'm really proud of how it turned out because I am NOT a crafty person and it was a lot of work. Please feel free to tell me how fabulous it is--I need the validation.

Here's Bennett all decked out in his Christmas finery. The shoes (miniature versions of Daddy's) didn't last long.

Here's Bennett playing with the toy piano Uncle Ty gave him. Uncle Ty didn't realize that the tradition of aunts and uncles giving noisy toys as gifts only works if said aunt or uncle gets to leave after the kid gets the toy. Living in the same house as the kid with the toy is sort of like shooting yourself in the foot. Or in this case, the ear.

By the way, is that not the cutest little baby hat you have ever seen? Both of my grandfathers wore that kind of hat, so I just had to get one for Bennett. I wish I had a better photo so you could see how adorable he looks in it.

Here he is opening his present from Great Grammie and Great Grandpa. As usual, he's more interested in the book than anything else. The kid is doomed to be a bookworm.

Here he's having a grand old time driving (crashing) the little Poohmobile he got from my parents. He still enjoys crashing it into everything, including the slower, dumber cat.

As the festivities wound down, Bennett and Daddy took a moment to admire the new ornaments. Bennett liked Daddy's red airplane the best because it wiggled everytime someone walked past the tree.

I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to posting this. A lot has been happening in the last few weeks and blogging hasn't been my top priority. I'll try to find some time soon to catch you all up on new developments and also to post pictures from Bennett's first birthday.

Bennett's Birthday

2008-01-25T01:51:00.000-07:00

My precious baby is turning ONE today.

I can hardly believe it's been a whole year!

It feels like just a blink ago that we brought him home from the hospital in his fuzzy red sleepers. Somehow in the time it took for me to blink, he turned into a walking, talking, singing, pointing, clapping, laughing, learning, kissing, hugging, eating, sleeping, discovering, loving little person.

I wish you guys could be around him and see how charming and energetic and affectionate he is. I know proud mommies always say stuff like this, but he really is the most amazing little monkey. Part of me wants to freeze him at this age and keep him just as he is, all cuddly and adorable and sweet. But the other part of me knows that there are so many precious things that he will learn and do and say in the coming months and years that it would be silly to want him to stop growing up.
God really knew what he was doing when he sent Bennett our way. He's a keeper, that one.

P.S.

2008-01-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

In addition to prayers for Steve's Boeing interview, we need a couple more.

Steve's dad just found out that he needs to have surgery for prostate cancer on Valentine's Day. And this morning I found out that Steve's grandmother (his dad's mother) passed away in her sleep last night. (Steve isn't home from work yet, I'll have to tell him when he gets home.)

So.

If you could add Steve's family, especially his father and grandfather, to your prayers, we would really appreciate it. It's been a rough 24 hours for the Kortans.

Cross Your Fingers and Say Your Prayers

2008-01-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

I had these good intentions of posting pictures of Bennett's first Christmas (many of them taken with our nifty new camera--thanks, Mom and Dad and Grammie and Grandpa!), but it's probaby a little late for that now. Actually, now that I think of it, I included Halloween pictures in my Dec. 19 post, so I guess I still have about a month to get around to posting the Christmas pictures. I'm hoping I'll be too busy to get around to it, though, and here's why:

Steve has a phone interview with Boeing (Troutdale) on Monday!

It's for a Quality Assurance Inspector position, and he's done every single thing listed in the job description, so there's no question that he's qualified. The thing that makes us nervous about his chances is Boeing's reputation for promoting from within (it's a great thing if you already work there, but not so great when you're trying to get hired). The last two places in Portland where he interviewed hired someone from within the company, so we're hoping that the third time will be the charm. This is pretty much his dream job, and it has the added bonus of getting us back home, so we would REALLY appreciate your prayers.

Of course, if he does get it, we're also going to need prayers for our house/logistical situation. The QA job is a good one, but it doesn't pay enough for us to pay both our mortgage and rent on a place in Portland, so we're going to have to come up with a solution to that little issue. We're talking about leasing our house here, but it would be much nicer to just sell it and be done with it.

So here I am again, asking all of my readers (all four of you) for prayers. We really, really want Steve to get this job! So if you'd put a bug in God's ear about your preferences on the subject, that would be great!

Thanks!

Well Jingle My Bells

2007-12-19T01:35:00.001-07:00

I just finished mailing all the stuff I needed to mail, including a whole passle of Christmas cards with this picture enclosed. Since I only seem to have mailing addresses for three of my blog friends and one of them happens to be a dog (for one brief, beautiful moment I had Rebecca Marie's, but I think Bennett must have eaten it), I thought I would share a few photos and pass along my warmest Christmasy-type wishes via the Interweb.

I think I'll be able to get all of my remaining gift wrapping done tomorrow, then I'll be free to bake all kinds of sugary deliciousness. YAY! It's the hap-happiest season of all (because of the fudge!) Now then, on to the cuteness...

First, there's Bennett waving to our Christmas tree because he thinks it's pretty.

Then, there's a bunch of other photos that I think are cute but I don't feel like captioning all of them...

P.S. I forgot to post Halloween pictures, so here are a few...

Bennett had fun on Halloween. He impressed everyone with his new walking skills, and he didn't seem to mind that I ate all of his candy.

Christmas Hecticity (I think I just coined a new word)

2007-12-06T23:24:00.000-07:00

Here's Bennett with Santa about a quarter of a second before he figured out that Mommy had put him on the knee of some weird dude in red pajamas with a freaky Brillo pad creature growing on his face. He had a spectacular (and, thankfully, out-of-character) meltdown right after the photographer snapped this.

I almost had a meltdown about two minutes later when I couldn't find my wallet when I went to pay for the photos (which are wicked expensive and a total rip-off). Thank goodness Santa's elf saw it peeking out from the folded back shade of the stroller, or this mommy would have given the Grinch a run for his money!

I know it's a little late to tell you this, but we had a very nice Thanksgiving with the Frosty parents and my mom's parents. All was familial love and delicious feasting until we realized after dessert that Bennett had a fever. Of course, it was even more fun at 1:30 am when Ty pounded on my door to tell me that Bennett was now burning up at almost 104 degrees! That wasn't fun for any of us, but Tylenol and a lukewarm sponge bath helped. (I also woke up his pediatrician who told me to give him Tylenol and Ibuprofen in what the ER doctors later told me was overdose level amounts. Anyone know a good pediatrician in Boise?) His doctor's office was closed (without notice) the day after Thanksgiving (because everyone knows that kids never get sick on or around Thanksgiving), so we had to take him to the ER when it was clear his fever wasn't going away. They checked him for ear and bladder infections and determined it was "just a virus."

Anyone else think the phrase "just a virus" is one of the most irritating phrases in the English language? Everyone in our household has had "just a virus" as some point in the last 2 weeks, and I can personally attest that there is no "just" about it. I think I should have the right to give a monster pinch and possibly a vicious noogie to the next medical professional who has the nerve to utter the phrase "just a virus" in my direction.

Bennett's feeling healthy now, but my sinuses are acting like I never had surgery to make them behave. I don't know what's worse, being a healthy mom taking care of a sick baby, or being a sickly mom taking care of a healthy (rambunctious) baby.

I got all of the non-tree decorating done last weekend, and I'm going to be putting up the trees (yes, we put up 2 full-sized trees, one real, one fake) this weekend. I also need to do my traditional bajillion Christmas cards, but first I have to download (or is it upload) all the pictures we've taken since this summer and choose one to include in all of the Christmas cards. I suppose I should also include a Christmas letter so people will have some kindling for their fireplaces. Uh, I mean, so people can hear all about how great Bennett is.

At least I've finished my Christmas shopping. Well, I have one gift left, but I have no idea what to get for a 16 year-old boy whose father has strict rules that change on a whim and who makes him use all his gift cards and cash to buy things like underwear and toothpaste instead of things a 16 year-old boy actually wants as gifts. Any ideas? (No, sadly, I can't get him a new father.)

And on that cheery note, Merry Christmas, y'all!

(Don't worry, I'm not as grumpy and bitter as most of that sounded. It's just my evil sinuses talking.)

Bennett the Uncooperative Baby

2007-11-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

Ever since Bennett was born, I've been saying that I hoped he'd be a late walker. I was hoping to avoid the heavy-duty babyproofing till we moved, and I was also hoping that he wouldn't be able to climb the Christmas tree.

No such luck.

The little punk decided he could walk almost a month ago...well before Halloween. So much for waiting till after Christmas. At about 8 1/2 months, he was able to take 8 to 10 steps without any help/support. He do at least 15 or 20 now, but walking is still just a fun game for him, not his primary mode of transportation.

Mom and Dad are visiting us at the moment. The last time they were here was early September. In the two months since they last saw Bennett, he's gotten two teeth, learned how to crawl, and started walking. He's been a busy little kid. We're really proud of our little man--mostly because he's so sweet and happy and healthy and easy-going...I could probably do without all this over-achieving in the walking department. (But he really is cute, waddling around like a drunken Sumo wrestler!)

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures for this post. I need to upload a bunch from our camera. I promise to share them once I get that done.

My Dad the Prankster, Part 6

2007-10-27T12:04:00.000-06:00

One Halloween, Dad left campus really early in the morning to go to work. But before he left, he put Jack O' Lanterns on three of the toilets in the Ladies' Room in the Ad Building.

He just happened to be coming back from work when he saw his girlfriend, Marcie, walk into the Ladies' Room. Obviously, he decided to loiter in the hall to see what happened. Thanks to the paper-thin walls, he could hear the stall door creak open. And Marcie's mortified, "Oh, EXCUSE ME!" immediately followed by the slamming of the stall door. Followed by another door-squeak...and hysterical laughter.

Opportunities?

2007-10-24T22:36:00.000-06:00

Steve got a call this evening from a headhunter/staffing agency type guy who was really impressed with his resume and wanted to talk to him about finding him a welding job in the Portland area. As he was finishing up the conversation, his call waiting beeped in with a call from a company in Newberg that is interested in interviewing him for a job welding big old thermal something or other units. I think it's called Harris Work or something like that. Anyone heard of it?

Isn't it weird when you go over a month and hear nothing from any of the places you've applied to, and then two opportunities practically trip all over each other to get to you?

We should find out tomorrow afternoon/evening when and if Steve will be going out to Newberg to interview. It sounds like the other guy doesn't necessarily have anything specific lined up but he'll be doing some checking with his clients/contacts. I'll do my best to keep you updated as we find out more.

Will you please pray that God will make the right direction obvious to us? And that if Steve gets hired somewhere in the Portland area, that a good solution to our house selling/double household having dilemma will present itself. We really need to sell our house...and while we have had a few calls in the last few weeks, the only person who's even come to see the place was a realtor whose clients evidently weren't interested enough to want a tour. It only takes one buyer if it's the right buyer--is one too much to ask?

Practically Perfect in Every Way

2007-10-07T23:01:00.000-06:00

I only got to watch the last half of the first episode, but I can confidently state that VH1 has achieved television perfection. If you are not watching America's Most Smartest Model, you are not living up to your potential as a human being.

Here are the top ten reasons that America's Most Smartest Model is the best show ever:

1.) Most of the male models are really, really ridiculously good looking. AND dumber than a bag of hammers. The perfect combination! (That was a joke, don't call me a man-hater.)

2.) Most of the female models are butterfaces. (That means that they might have nice, albeit too thin, model bodies, but their faces are "Ewwww!") It's kind of nice to watch a show about models and be able to think, "You know if I stopped watching all this TV and exercised a little, I could lose weight and be at least as attractive as some of these models."

3.) These women are supposedly runway models and half of them are about as graceful on the catwalk in their high heels as a hippopotamus would be...if it was pregnant and wearing high heels. Somebody is either going to break an ankle or fall off the runway--or both.

4.) One of the judges is Ben Stein! BEN STEIN! I want to marry him and have his super-smart, deadpan babies. (Don't tell Steve.)

5.) There is a lot of tension in the co-ed house. Judging from the season previews, there are a lot of arguments on the horizon. I don't know if you've noticed this, but watching stupid people engaged in a battle of wits is hilarious.

6.) At the end of the show, the models who aren't cutting it get sent packing. They aren't "voted off the island." They aren't "eliminated." They aren't "fired." They are "purged." (Models purge. Get it? Get it? Well, I bet they don't!)

7.) During one of tonight's competitions, one of the models was told she must name as many Things That Are Round as she could as she walked the runway. She proceeded to repeat "Balls, Cherries, Balloons, Tires" over and over as she clomped around the catwalk. AND SHE GOT TO STAY IN THE COMPETITION! Yes, there were at least two people who were worse than the "Balls, Cherries, Balloons, Tires" girl. Awesome.

8.) It's like a real life Zoolander, but without the tiresome brainwashing storyline to muck up the awesome-itude. (I bet none of these dufuses can go left.)

10.) It's a show about models that is guaranteed to improve your self-esteem.

If you noticed that my top ten list was missing a number, you are smarter than America's Most Smartest Model. Put together. (Yes, that was on purpose too.)

My Dad the Prankster, Part 5

2007-10-07T08:49:00.000-06:00

Growing up in San Diego in the 50s, Dad used to ride around in awesome classic cars with big ol' bench seats. Whenever three buddies would drive around together, they'd all just sit in the front seat since there was plenty of room and nobody wanted to be left out because he was sitting in the back.

Dad always tried to sit by the passenger window so he could duck down at traffic lights to make it look like his two buddies were cozily snuggled up together.

Hee!

They also liked to ask the dudes in the car next to them, "Wanna drag?" And when the dudes agreed, Dad would hang a rope out the window and laugh.

I'm pretty sure there was also something about nuns and Zorro, but I don't remember that one for sure.

He's lucky he never got beaten up.

Say a Little Prayer

2007-10-04T00:15:00.000-06:00

On Monday afternoon, a woman from Boise was struck by lightning when a storm passed over the city without warning.

Her name is Laura Eustermann and she is the beloved wife of one of my favorite former coworkers. From the first day I met John, he gave me the impression that Laura is the kindest, most energetic, thoughtful, talented, generous, loving, patient woman who ever walked the earth. They have four adorable kids (the two youngest, 3 and 5, were with her when she was struck).

She is currently in critical condition, in a coma and on life support. John is having a hard time handling all of this, and I hate to think of what their children are going through.

Please pray for Laura's recovery, and for comfort for the people who love her.

Thank you.

It's About Time...

2007-09-14T18:01:00.001-06:00

For new Bennett pictures!

With Granddaddy at the State Fair

I know Mommy won't REALLY sell me...

...but I bet she gets lotsa offers!

My shirts says "Book Monster" but I'm a Giggle Monster, too!

You know you wanna kiss me!

My Dad the Prankster, Part 4

2007-09-07T13:14:00.000-06:00

When Dad was going to Columbia Christian College, they didn't have men's dorms, per se. The guys all slept in what are now the classrooms in the second story of the Ad Building/Sanders Hall. (They had to shower in the gym locker rooms, it must have been a huge hassle.) There were 10-12 guys in each room, so there were plenty of opportunities for roommates to annoy each other.

One of their roommates kept later hours than the rest of them, I think he worked security, or maybe he was just a night owl. Anyway, he was in the habit of coming back to the room long after all the other guys were asleep and he thought nothing of flipping on the bright overhead lights and banging stuff around while he got ready for bed. Eventually, the guys decided they'd had enough.

They found the breaker for their room and flipped it when they went to bed. When "Alf" came back to the room that night, the guys all pretended to be asleep when they heard him trying in vain to turn on the lights. They all heard him drop his keys on his nightstand. And they all heard him scramble to catch himself when he tried to sit down on the bed that wasn't there. All he heard was a sudden burst of "snoring" that sounded suspiciously like muffled laughter.

A few hours later, he finally found his bed in the Ladies Room downstairs.

My Dad the Prankster, Part 3

2007-08-31T16:42:00.000-06:00

Things haven't really changed that much since Dad was in college. Packages from home were highly prized back in the day, especially when baked goods were involved. And people were rude mooches back then, too. Imagine that!

One day, my dad decided he had finally had enough of the jerks across the hall helping themselves to most of the cookies his mom sent him, and he decided to teach them a lesson...

A trip to the grocery store and an afternoon of cookie baking in the kitchen of some family friends yielded the perfect instructional materials: delicious Chocolate (Ex-Lax) Chip Cookies. All that was left to do was leave the "treats from home" on his desk and go about his day.

Let's just say the greedy mooches learned their lesson the hard way. Unfortunately, so did Dad's girlfriend's roommates. Oops!

Part 3.5

Speaking of the punks from across the hall...their wanderings later led them to the easily flustered Dorm Supervisor's room when he wasn't around. A couple of guys (Dad claims innocence on this one) they'd annoyed one too many times noticed their trespassing and once again, that conveniently-sized couch came in handy. They trapped the guys in his room and left them there. When the Dorm Supervisor came back to his room, he was bewildered and peeved to discover all of his bed linens tied together and draped out the second story window.

My Dad the Prankster, Part 2

2007-08-24T11:02:00.000-06:00

Judging by the underwhelming response to the first one, I have a feeling these "Prankster" posts aren't going to be very popular. But that's just tough. I've already typed a bunch of them and you're going to read them, you hear? You're going to read them AND you're going to like them. And you're going to comment and tell me you like them because I'm going to be sad if you ignore me. You don't want to make me sad, do you?

Okay, here's the next bit of monkey business Dad pulled in school...

One day, Dad and his buddies were loitering around their dorm when they noticed that the new couch in the alcove was precisely the same length as the distance between the Dorm Supervisor's room and the wall opposite it.

Obviously, a bunch of college guys couldn't let this discovery go to waste. Especially when the Dorm Supervisor was a generally nice, but easily flustered and remarkably uptight sort.

So somebody procured a big 'ol industrial vacuum cleaner--the kind that's loud enough to wake the dead. And somebody else figured out how to bypass the On/Off switch so you couldn't turn it off without unplugging it.

And then they waited.

At about 2 in the morning, somebody shoved the vacuum into the Dorm Supervisor's room, and a couple more of them wedged the couch between the door and the wall. Then they plugged the vacuum into the outlet down the hall and went to bed.

I'm hoping they moved the couch in time for him to get to the class he was teaching later that week.

My Dad the Prankster, Part 1

2007-08-17T10:10:00.000-06:00

Those of you who know my dad might think of him as rather serious and intimidating. I can see where you might get that impression, but you don't know the whole story.

Back in the day, when Dad was in college (in the early days of Columbia Christian College), he was a bit of a rascal. From the stories he tells, I'm under the impression that the reason his grades weren't particularly stellar was that he spent so much time pulling pranks on people that there was no time left to study. I'll try to make tales of his exploits a semi-regular feature, if only in the hope that stories of his mischief might inspire my readers to attempt to top his stunts. (As long as I'm not the target!)

This first one isn't so much a prank as a playful joke. But I find it hilarious, and I'm in charge here, so it counts.

One Friday afternoon, Dad and some of his friends were in the locker room making themselves presentable after basketball practice (or some other type of practice--Dad was quite the all-around athlete). There was a big banquet being held that night, so the conversation turned to who was escorting whom to the festivities. When they asked Dad, something out-of-character possessed him to cockily respond, "Well, nobody, but I could get a date if I wanted to." His friends naturally goaded him into trying to put his money where his mouth was.

So Dad finished combing his hair and went over to the girls dorm. He asked a girl who was passing through the lobby to go up and tell Marcie that he was waiting. (He happened to know that Marcie didn't have a date that night, and he had a cunning plan.) When Marcie came down, he said, "What? You're not ready yet?"

Marcie: "Ready for what?"

Dad: (acting all hurt) "Do you mean you FORGOT about going to the banquet with me tonight?"

Marcie: (shocked and confused) "Oh my goodness! I'm so, so sorry! I can't believe I forgot! I'll go get ready as quickly as I can!"

Dad: (evil grin)

As soon as Marcie was ready, they went to the banquet where Dad's friends saw him in attendance with the girl who would be the Homecoming Queen later that year. I'm sure they were all suitably impressed.

Of course, she gave him a bit of a beating when he dropped her off that night and he admitted that she hadn't actually forgotten anything. But she kept dating him for quite a while after that, so she must not have been too upset.

Hee! My dad rocks.

Reason #2

2007-08-14T00:26:00.000-06:00

In my fledgling series enumerating the many ways I make Cascade College proud that I am their Valedictorian of the Class of 1997, I present Reason #2...

It was TLC Sunday during my sophomore year at Cascade. Our choir was scheduled to perform at the singing portion of the day's events. Since we didn't have uniforms yet, I needed to wear a black and white outfit to services so I would be ready to perform if I didn't get a chance to go home that afternoon. Being Frosts, we were all running late that morning, but we were just about to walk out the door when I noticed how wrinkled my shirt was. Since the iron was still on from my mom's rush to get ready, I figured I had three choices: leave the house looking like a duffel bag, take off the shirt and flash my family while I ironed, or iron the shirt without removing it.

Guess which one I chose.

Yeah.

Now guess where the scar is.

What makes it even more awesome is that bandaging the burn took much longer than it would have taken for me to take off the shirt, put something else on, and iron it properly. What makes it super-awesome is that we had the starting time wrong and we ended up being half an hour early. What makes it super-duper-awesome is that I actually told people the truth when they asked me what happened to my arm.

Yep. I'm a genius.

Reason #1

2007-08-13T15:03:00.000-06:00

I have an idea for a new semi-regular post topic. Sort of like the old Top 8 lists, but this time I won't even attempt to post with any regularity.

I shall call it Reason #_____ Cascade College is Proud to Claim me as Their Valedictorian.

As you might guess, that's meant to be sarcastic.

I suppose I ought to post the first reason, so here we go. (If you've already heard this story, just pretend it's fresh and interesting.)

As you might know, I have a huge fear of public speaking. HUGE. Paralyzing, terrifying, rationality-eradicating. It is probably impossible to exaggerate the degree of my fear. This fact will be important later, so make a note.

During the last semester of my senior year, my English professor, who was also the Dean of Academics, congratulated me on my status as that year's Valedictorian. At first I was kind of flattered and proud, but then it hit me. I was going to have to give the Valedictory Address! I thought about running away to China and living as a monk, but I decided I couldn't live without cheese. (Plus, monks are usually male.) So I came up with a cunning plan.

I went to lovely Betty in the Registrar's office and asked her how bad my grades had to be that semester for me to still graduate, but not have to be the Valedictorian. After staring at me like my hair was on fire, she looked up a couple of files and told me it was mathematically impossible. I commenced freaking out. She somehow deciphered my crazed babbling and told me that if this whole thing was just about the Valedictory Address, I could simply ask someone else if they wanted to give the speech. I've never wanted to kiss a woman more than I did at that moment. I was pretty happy when my friend Anne agreed to give the speech, too. She did a great job, and I retained my health and my sanity (such as it was).

So, Reason #1 Cascade College is proud to have me as their Valedictorian: I tried to decimate my GPA in order to avoid becoming their Valedictorian.

You Know What Will Make Insomnia Worse?

2007-08-12T23:59:00.000-06:00

Well, for me, it's when I give up on trying to fall asleep and decide to check my email and see a headline on the Yahoo home page that reads "Three Dead in Missouri Church Shooting." And I think, "Yikes! That's terrible! But what are the chances that it happened in the tiny little town of Neosho where my good friends Kael and Tonna and their sweet little Zaine live?"

And then I click on the link and the first word I see is "Neosho."

And then my heart falls into the pit of my stomach and I don't want to read the article because I don't want to see names I recognize.

And then I feel guilty for being relieved that three people I don't know got killed in their church building during worship services.

That's just messed up.

Finally, My 100th Post

2007-08-11T22:03:00.000-06:00

It's my 100th post, and I feel like I should make it good. Memorable, inspiring, perhaps shocking. But then I feel like I'm putting too much pressure on myself, so I figure I'll just settle for getting some words on the page.

I had a Crohn's Disease flare-up last night. It was great! ¡ Ever had food poisoning? Yeah, it's like that. But worse. I never want to see food again...especially grapes. Yes, the innocent-looking green orbs left me writhing in abject misery for about 16 hours. You might not realize this, but it's really hard to nurse a baby when you're doubled over with stomach cramps. And Bennett didn't like it much when his dinner got cut short because Mommy had to yak. Yeah, I pretty much hate my digestive system right now. (And grapes. I really hate grapes.)

Okay, enough about my intestinal distress. I just needed a few more people to whine to.

It's been a big month for Bennett. His Grammie and Granddad were here for a couple of weeks, so he had lots of fun with them. He also got to charm the 70 or so people at his daddy's retirement ceremony--the captain had to hold him while I put a "US Air Force Retired" pin on Steve, and Bennett chose that moment to give the whole room the cheesiest grin ever grinned. He brought the house down. What a little character! He's been busy with other stuff, too. He started eating "solid" food a couple of weeks ago. He really digs the Beechnut butternut squash and sweet potatoes, but he's not so big on the Gerber brand of squash. (But we keep feeding him the squash because the faces he makes when he's eating it are hilarious.) He discovered the joys of splashing in the tub a few days ago, which means he had his first bath in the big boy tub tonight--it was a disaster scene in the kitchen after his last bath. He loved the big tub...but he kept trying to crawl (which he hasn't figured out yet) to get to the toys. Yeah, his attempts at crawling always end in a face-plant, which isn't good in a tub of water. Needless to say there was a lot of laughter and a lot of good saves.

He also got his pictures taken at the studio last week--there were only a couple of shots that weren't completely adorable. And since I'm an indecisive sucker (and I had a coupon), I bought a LOT of pictures. I wish I could post them here, but I think that would be copyright infringement. Speaking of which, I really need to download all the pics we have on our camera. I think the last photos I posted were from a good two months ago. He's grown a lot since then. He weighs almost 20 pounds now, and he's 26.5 inches tall. I think he's the healthiest, sweetest, cutest, smartest, strongest, best baby ever. But I might be a tiny bit biased.

An Update--PLUS--Top 8 Ways I'm a Big Ol' Weirdo

2007-07-24T10:41:00.000-06:00

I figured I'd better post something soon or I'd forget how. Don't get your hopes up, this is a random musings of a sleepy mind post, not a glorious return to scintilating content.

First, I should say that our trip to the 503 was great. It reaffirmed my determination to invest in air conditioning when we move back to the area, but otherwise, it was great. We got to see so many people! And Bennett pretty much charmed his way through half my address book. There are still a few people we weren't able to connect with, but that's just more motivation to move home soon.

Steve's last day with the Air Force is August 7, and things are swiftly hurtling towards the unknown. He's found a couple of job postings listed that seem very promising. One of them would be just perfect for him--it fits his talents and experience, but also has enough challenging aspects that he wouldn't get bored. Please pray that things will fall into place and that he'll end up in the work situation that will be best. Also, pray that we can sell our house--it's been on the market a month or more and we've only had two people look at it. We really need to sell it by mid fall or we're going to be in trouble.

Okay, now that the updates are out of the way, here are a few silly things that I do that will probably get me mocked, but I'll admit to them anyway...

1.) Our TVs have volume controls with numbers that indicate the sound level. I am incapable of leaving the volume level at an odd number (except one ending in 5--5s are different). That's right, even if 19 is the perfect volume, I'd rather leave it at 18 and strain to hear it or at 20 and strain to hear the other things going on in the house. I know it's weird. I literally cannot help it.

2.) Bennett gets his baths on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Nothing weird about that...until I admit that it's because those are the days mentioned in "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" by Crosby, Stills and Nash.

3.) Some people are Theme Eaters. They eat all of their potatoes, then all of their green beans, then all of their steak. I am the opposite. I eat a bite of steak, then take a drink, then eat a bite of potatoes, then take a drink, then eat a bite of steak (because I don't eat many vegetables...doctor's orders). My dad and Ty do the same thing. When we're at a restaurant where our server isn't on the ball about refilling our drinks, our food ends up getting cold while we wait for refills because we can't stand eating without something to drink. Yes, we're weird.

4.) I can still remember the birthdays of friends from grade school and boys I had crushes on for a few weeks in high school, and I still remember the addresses of pretty much every place I've lived since Kindergarten, phone numbers included. But I've been with Steve since February 2002 and I can't remember his work phone number to save my life. (I blame cell phones.)

5.) I graduated from high school as Salutatorian and college as Valedictorian. The head of the English department hired me to correct papers for him, and I was one class short of having an English degree. I used to work as a technical writer and editor. But there are tons of simple words, like niece, exist, or probably that I can't spell without really concentrating and double-checking a few times. I used to get teased because I was a walking Thesaurus, but I think I developed that skill because I couldn't spell the word that I wanted to use, so I needed to find a spellable substitute. Often, the substituted word is harder to spell than the original, but I have no problem with spelling most things--I just have a certain set of words that I have a mental block with and I simply cannot spell them.

6.) I alphabetize my CDs and DVDs. When they get out of order, I get really irritated. But I secretly enjoy having to reorganize them when Steve messes them up beyond all recognition.

7.) I can't sleep unless my head is pointing towards a wall or something nice and solid. I hated the old cabins at camp because half of them left me nowhere to put my head and it creeped me out.

8.) I have a nice, big pantry full of canned food and dry goods, and ever single label is facing forward. All the spices are stored on a two-tiered Lazy Susan in alphabetical order, savory spices on the top and sweet on the bottom. If I was a little meaner, I'd turn into the evil husband from Sleeping With the Enemy every time someone other than me puts away the groceries.

I'm sure there are other weird things I could confess to, but this should do for now. Let the mocking commence!

Homeward Bound

2007-06-13T01:35:00.000-06:00

I know it's been approximately forever since I've posted anything. And twice that long since I posted anything that wasn't pregnancy- or Bennett-related. Well, here's something non-baby, but it's not exactly a return to the scintilating, mentally stimulating posts of yore. (I like to pretend that I once posted scintilating, mentally stimulating things. Don't remind me that it was mostly Top 8 Lists of hippie bands and black and white movies.)

We're coming soon to a city near (some of) you! Not permanently (yet...cross your fingers and pray hard for Steve to find a job in the 503), but for the longest visit I've made since I began my exile to Idaho. I'm so excited that I can't sleep, which is why I'm posting at nearly 2 am. (Can't blame Bennett for this one, he's been asleep for hours, and I don't expect him to wake me up till after 10 tomorrow morning. Seriously, this kid is a champion sleeper. God bless him!)

We're going to be in town from this Friday (the 15th) till at least Sunday, July 9. We're having a retirement party for Dad on the 16th, and there's Father's Day to celebrate the next day, so our only scheduled socializing that weekend is a planned stop at the lovely and charming Lindsay Hoffman's Quit Your Library Job Party at Laurelhurst. Maybe we'll see some of you there? Our awesome friends, Rush and Alisha, will be with us June 19-22, so we're pretty much booked those days. And we'll be out at camp the last week of June, so if you wanna see us then, you'll have to come out to camp. Otherwise, we'll be around. The first week of July is earmarked for seeing our friends and showing off the adorable new addition to the family. Steve (aka Killer) is only going to be in town for one non-camp Sunday (July 1st, I'm guessing--no calendar nearby to check the exact date), and he's voted for worshipping at Renovatus that day. So hopefully we'll get to see a lot of you there--and I can prove to you doubters that my husband is not fictional.

We're hoping that Steve will have the opportunity to go to some interviews while we're in town. Please pray about that--mostly that good positions that he's qualified for will open up. If he gets a job in Portland, we get to move to Portland...see where I'm going with this? We also really, really need prayers for our house to sell. It's been on the market over a week and no one seems to have noticed. We're going to be lucky to break even as it is, and if it doesn't sell by August...well, we're basically screwed. I'm trying really hard to just relax and trust God to take care of it, but I can't help but worry some times. I would really appreciate it if you would lift up our future to God in prayer.

I'm reall looking forward to seeing you Portcouver types--if you want my number, leave your email address in the comments section. Tell me if you want me to delete the comment when I'm done with it, and I will get rid of it so it's not floating out there in the blogosphere in perpetuity.

My Baby Rocks

2007-05-08T18:55:00.000-06:00

Our awesome friend Rush sent us this truly awesome gift for Bennett:

Bennett likes it so much, he was inspired to play a little air guitar. Sounded like "Stairway" to me.

He's learning to pose with adoring fans, too.

Too bad he's growing so fast that it might not fit when Rush and Alisha come to visit us in Portland next month!

At Long Last...

2007-04-30T16:51:00.000-06:00

More pictures of Bennett

Here are a bunch of pictures that we took in March and April (everything but the last page is new). I'm in the process of posting more, but Bennett's hungry so I have to take a break.

Enjoy!

Crazy-Awesome!

2007-04-27T11:42:00.000-06:00

You know how I wrote a post yesterday all about how I had to come back to work for two weeks to get the most out of my retirement account? You know how I said it was really hard to be away from Bennett and I wished I didn't have to be in the office, but I was toughing it out?

Well, this morning my awesome boss (and friend) went to the partners in charge of our team and asked them for a favor. And they said yes.

What was the favor, you ask? She asked them if they would let me just not come in to work for the rest of the time I'm supposed to be here, but let everyone else (including HR) think that I'm here and working. That's right--starting after lunch today, I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom. I'd be thrilled about it even if I was getting the time off without pay. But for the next week, my paycheck and benefits and everything will still be coming to me. They're paying me to stay home and play with Bennett next week! I still can't even believe that this is for real! You know all those rotten things people say about lawyers? Well, they're mostly true. But I work with a few exceptions. Audra (she's a paralegal) didn't even tell me that she was going to ask them to do this for me, she just called me to her office this morning and told me that she had some news she thought I was going to like. She rocks more than any boss has ever rocked before. I can't even believe she managed to arrange this surprise! I never expected anything like this in a million years. She said that she saw me cuddling Bennett at lunchtime and saw how much I wanted to be with him and decided to see if the partners would go for it. She's a working mom (three kids) herself, so she knows how hard it is, and she didn't want me to sit in the office and suffer when I've already finished all the work that was waiting for me. She knows what it's like to wish she could be home with her munchkins, and she was happy to have the opportunity to give me back to Bennett a week early. She's the best!

I'm still kind of stunned. I'm having a hard time realizing that I'm done. I'm planning on coming downtown for lunch at least a few times next week, that way people will see me in the office and hopefully no one will wonder where I am. (It's important that the real arrangements don't become common knowledge, just in case HR has a hissy and decides to screw me out of my full vesting amount.) Audra's going to tell people that I'm working at home if anyone asks. Technically, that will be true, because I'll be doing laundry and tidying up the kitchen--that's work, right? I suppose I should also spend some of this "found" time writing thank you cards and downloading pictures!

I hope this isn't completely incoherrent--my brain is all a-jumble right now! I just wanted to share the news of this unexpected blessing with you guys. YAY!

Back at Work (Temporarily)

2007-04-26T09:46:00.000-06:00

I came back to work on Monday. I only have to be here for two weeks, but I hate to be away from Bennett even for such a short time. (I also hate having to get up early in the morning and put on makeup every day. But that's not my point.) Still, it was the responsible thing to do, and I'm glad I'll have the chance to wrap up a few things and train one of my coworkers to index documents. They aren't going to have time to get a replacement before I leave (they're just starting to interview), so training my coworker is just a stopgap. It may be a "blind leading the blind" situation for someone who's just been trained to try to train a new person, but it's better than having no one even try to train you--I should know, since I'm still waiting to be trained!

It was so tempting to just say screw it and not come back--if Bennett had been born a week late instead of a week early, I would have. But since he came early, my maternity leave ended two weeks before the third anniversary of my employment. In the world of vested-payout retirement accounts, that means that in order to get 60% of my employer's portion of my 401k account (instead of just 40%), I had to come back for a couple of weeks. I suppose it would be stupid to pass on the chance to get what amounts to 5 weeks worth of pay for 2 weeks of work. Also, coming back and giving 2 weeks notice means the difference between a "yes, she's eligible for rehire" and "no, she's not eligible for rehire" if anyone ever calls here for a reference. Not that I EVER want to rejoin the workforce if I can avoid it, but it's smart to refrain from unnecessary bridge burning.

Being back at work is weird. In some ways it feels like I was never gone, in other ways it feels like I'm starting from scratch. My brain is completely Swiss-cheesed. I can't remember where anything is stored on the network, and I can't remember the simplest processes.

My timing for coming back to the office was REALLY good, though. Yesterday was Administrative Professionals Day (also known as Secretaries Day). The firm hosted a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake feast in our honor, and also gave each of us a lovely, crisp $100 bill...and a water bottle! That definitely makes being at work a little easier!

Another thing that makes being back at work a little easier is the fact that Ty is the most awesome, thoughtful, dedicated, loving, helpful, patient brother and uncle in the world. He is taking such good care of Bennett while I'm working. Not only do I have no earthly reason to worry about my baby while I'm away from him, I also get to see him every day during my lunch break because Uncle Ty rocks. Being away from my munchkin for 3-4 hours at a time is a lot easier than being away from him for 8-9 hours at a time. Plus, the lunch visits give me a chance to show off my handsome boy to my coworkers, which every proud mama can understand and appreciate. (There's something nice about seeing other people fall in love with your baby.)

I realize that this is probably the lamest, most boring post I've ever blogged. No one here cares about my job. Heck, even I don't care about my job! I should probably just delete it. But I haven't blogged for over a month and a half, so I figured I better post something, even if it is likely to cause narcolepsy in my readership. I promise to try to get the pictures downloaded from our camera to our computer (and to my flickr account) soon. Maybe a bunch of adorable baby pictures will make up for this tedious chore of a post...

Bennett Pictures

2007-03-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to worry that Bennett will never figure out his name is Bennett. What with you guys calling him Tank, Steve calling him Munchkin, and everyone else calling him Cute...he's going to be so confused.

Here are some pictures of Bennett.

More will be added as I darn well feel like it.

Rebecca Marie RAWKS

2007-03-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad blogger. But who can blame me? I've got a sweet, cuddly, adorable little boy now. Besides, right now my world is all nursing and changing diapers and snuggling, all the time. Not particularly interesting topics to blog about. I'd much rather concentrate on Bennett than write a post about how sick I am of Anna Nicole Smith news.

Also, when I do get a few free moments, I really ought to be spending them doing laundry, ordering birth announcements, or writing thank you notes. Yeah, like that's going to happen!

Speaking of thank you notes, here is a public thank you note to Rebecca Marie:

Thank you for the beautiful blanket!

It is lovely and amazing! It's definitely one of the best gifts I've ever gotten, baby or otherwise. It's going in Bennett's keepsake box for sure. He looks so cute wrapped up in it! (Sorry it doesn't show up very well in the picture.) Everyone who sees it wishes they had a friend as talented and generous as you!

Why Don't We Get Dressed Up and Go To Church?

2007-02-09T20:40:00.000-07:00

(Karen, that post title is just for you...assuming you recall the way we messed with Jimmy Buffett's song on the parlor bulletin board.)

Sorry it's been so long since I've visited the blogmunity. It's just that cuddling with my warm, snuggly, adorable baby boy is a lot more alluring than fooling with a tiny, annoying laptop keyboard. I hope nothing big is going on with y'all...it's going to be a WHILE before I can catch up with your posts.

Anyway, I suppose I should get on with what everyone is waiting for: baby pictures!

Remember how I predicted that Bennett would be born on Super Bowl Sunday? Well, I was a little bit off. But we still had a big day that day. At 10 days old, Bennett made his first trip to church. All the ladies thought he was the cutest and the sweetest--he probably needs to get used to that!

Okay, now you can all tell me how gorgeous and smart and perfect he is! (We already think so, obviously.)

Talk to you later, it's time for a nap!

As Promised: Pregnant Gina Pictures

2007-02-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures taken two or three days before Bennett was born:

I probably shouldn't say this, since it might make other moms hate my guts...it's been two weeks since Bennett was born, and I'm already about 15 pounds lighter than I was before I got pregnant (20 pounds lighter than when I went into labor). And yes, I AM eating. Like a trucker, actually. I love my metabolism! If only it would stay this way for a while--I might get back into single-digit sizes. (Fat chance! Pun intended.)

Bennett Alexander Stevenson Kortan

2007-01-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Bennett Alexander Stevenson Kortan was born at 10:30 pm, Thursday, January 25th, 2007. Gina and baby appear to be healthy, and Gina pulled through . . . without any pain killer . . . for 9 hours. It looks like all they want to do is sleep, but she was feeling too energised when we left, so, we'll see.

Steve is sleeping now, but I suspect that grammie is too excited to sleep just yet.

Mom and Gina and I all send our love, and I'm trying to send emails with pics to dad, but my email won't accept such large packages, so I'll have to improvise.

T-Minus 3 Days and Counting

2007-01-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

After going to the doctor's office or hospital 4 times in the last 6 days, it has been determined that due to my mild case of pre-eclampsia and the evidently whopping size of TANK (rapidly approaching 9 pounds according to today's ultrasound--YIKES!), I'm going to have this kid no later than Thursday. It's kind of strange, since I still feel fine and I'm not even waddling around like I'm about to pop. You'd think I'd be sick of being pregnant by now, but during the times I'm not trying to haul myself off the super-cushy couch or out of bed, I generally forget that I'm roughly the size of an office building. I think most people who see me feel a lot sorrier for me than I feel for myself--that NEVER happens with me, I'm usually my own best sympathizer!

Anyway, if I don't go into labor before 7 am on Thurday, January 25, then they're going to induce me. I'm not thrilled, because when they induce with intravenous Pitocin you have to be hooked to monitors and IVs for the entire labor. I'm fidgety by nature, especially when I'm uncomfortable or in pain, so it's going to be frustrating and difficult for me to be stuck in a bed when I'd rather be squirrelling around finding a more comfortable position. (HA! As if there is a comfortable position!)

So here's the plan: everybody pray really hard that I go into labor on my own sometime today or tomorrow...Wednesday at the latest. I really, really, really want to avoid the whole IVs and constant monitoring thing! So please pray your hardest that TANK will have a mind of his own and thumb his nose at the scheduled induction.

P.S. I know I promised pregnant Gina pictures a long time ago. I took some at Thanksgiving that I've been meaning to post, but my IT guy has been out of town. I'll try to take some more tonight and get them posted before TANK arrives. It kind of depends on how busy I keep Uncle Ty with other chores...

I Really Didn't Want to Hear That!

2007-01-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

I found out at my doctor's appointment this morning that I have a couple of symptoms of pre-eclampsia. That means I get to spend all day tomorrow and a good share of Thursday doing tests and being monitored and fun stuff like that. I would really appreciate your prayers for peace/calm, patience, rational thinking, and faith. And, you know, for the symptoms to go away and never come back!

Since I'm so far along, TANK's development isn't a concern. He's ready to enter the world whenever the doctors and God decide he should. That makes it a lot easier for me to handle the whole thing, since there's every indication he should be a healthy little guy and I don't need to worry about him too much. But if I do have pre-eclampsia, chances are I'm looking at bedrest or induction (forcing labor to start before it would naturally, for those of you who have never been knocked up). Neither of those options are particularly appealing--bedrest sounds great (at first) to a lazy couch potato like me, but even I get restless after a while. And induction makes labor much more painful, longer, and more likely to need other interventions like epidurals and C-sections, both of which I'd REALLY like to avoid. I mean, I can be tough when the situation calls for it, but I don't want to have to be any tougher than is absolutely necessary! =P

Please pray for me and Steve and TANK and the rest of the family over the next few days...mostly that we won't worry too much, and that whatever happens, we all come out of this as healthy and unscathed as possible.

Thanks, Blog Friends! You rock!

Clearly, I'm a Bad Person

2007-01-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

I'd always thought I was a pretty nice ol' broad, until a few minutes ago...

I read this headline:

Yale A Capella Group Beaten Up While On Tour

My first reaction was not horror, disgust, shock, or even curiosity.

It was a "ha ha" that would have made Nelson Muntz proud.

I'm going to Hell, aren't I?

He Couldn't Help It, He Was Born That Way

2007-01-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

I had to giggle at this little tidbit (not the extortion thing, just one of the details):

A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempting to extort $1.5 million from TV titan Oprah Winfrey. A criminal complaint filed in Chicago, Illinois' District Court claims Atlanta, Georgia man Keifer Bonvillain, 36, targeted "a public figure and owner of a Chicago-based company". Local newspapers The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have named Winfrey as the victim in question. Bonvillain is accused of illegally recording conversations with a Winfrey employee he met at a party over two years ago.

Did you happen to catch the accused man's name? Keifer Bonvillain! Are you freakin' kidding me? He has the word "villain" in his name! His last name literally means "good villain." He was born to be Spiderman's arch nemesis.

Anyone who would trust a dude with the last name Bonvillain is asking for trouble, that's all I'm saying.

Shoes, Baby!

2007-01-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's probably no surprise to anyone reading this that I love me some shoes. I confess, I have about 50 pairs. (But in my defense, keep in mind: a) this collection represents about a decade's worth of shoe hoarding, b) about 1/3 of them are cheap flip-flops, and c) I always get my shoes for really amazing prices--so don't think I'm too spoiled or greedy or materialistic--I work with people who spend more on one pair than I spend on 20.)

This Christmas was a good year, shoe-wise. Mom got me 3 pairs of darling heels, the cutest of which would make Barbie jealous. Sadly, all three pairs are open-toed, so they'll have to wait a while to make their debuts.

For now, I'll have to make do with this little bit of awesomeness:

It actually gives me something to look forward to every morning at work.

This gives you an idea of what the pages look like:

It may be the best calendar ever compiled. It could keep me entertained for hours! Sadly, I'm not even exaggerating. It's only the forth day of the year, and I've already got two pairs of shoes that I'm madly in love with. And the nice part about them existing only in pictures (at least for me) is that I'll never get a blister or break a heel. It's a groovy kind of love.

Who DOES that???

2006-12-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with a couple of single girlfriends a while ago, and they both had several stories about people (mostly older relatives) asking them, "So, when are you finally going to get married?"

I can't decide if I'm shocked, amused, or infuriated. It's just baffling.

Seriously, who does that? What is wrong with these people? I'm willing to bet that these are the same people who will scold you for putting your elbows on the table or not sending a thank you card in a timely manner. They're all about the good manners, these types. But it's perfectly okay to ask a single woman over the age of 25 when she's going to finally snag herself a husband and stop languishing away as a spinster? UGH!

What kind of answer do they expect to get from that question? And what kind of answer do you give to that question?

I suppose you could slap your forehead and say, "I knew I forgot something! I'll go find myself a husband right after I pick up my groceries and drop off some clothes at the dry cleaners. Thanks for reminding me."

Or maybe, "Thank you for pouring salt and lemon juice on my open wound. My fiancee, the love of my life, was killed in a tragic knitting accident last week. Since I'll never find another man like Herman, I've decided to become a nun."

Then there's my old standby from my spinster days, "I'm not going to get married. My life's goal is to become the crazy old lady with thirty cats who lives at the end of the block and scares all the neighborhood kids."

I just don't understand why people think this question is anywhere in the neighborhood of appropriate. It's not even in the same universe as appropriate! I mean, why must people persist in assuming that it's impossible to be happy and fulfilled AND single? It's not. I've tried it. It was great! Being married is great, too--but I only think that because I have a good marriage, and I have that because I didn't settle. If I'd accepted the first proposal I received (or the second, or the third, or the forth...), I would have been miserable. Far more miserable than I would have been if I'd never met Steve and went the crazy cat lady route instead.

It's just insulting when people treat single people like they're "less than" because they aren't married. As if you can't be a whole person without a spouse! WhatEVER! Too often, I see the opposite--married people of both genders who have lost their sense of self because of an abusive, neglectful, or overpowering mate. They aren't happy, they aren't fulfilled. And I seriously doubt any of them think their marriage is the end all and be all of earthly existence. I wonder if the old biddies who nagged them to get married are proud of their achievements?

Maybe it comes down to this: It's no one's business but one's own. This goes for getting married, having a baby, having another baby (or having baby number 8, for that matter), getting a new job/car/hairdo, ordering a hamburger for breakfast, and even when you decide to take down your Christmas tree. I'm sure you can think of other topics that annoying people like to think are their business. Feel free to comment about them here or post a rant on your own blog. Maybe it will get just one person to think twice about asking rude questions that don't concern them.

I feel like starting a "Mind Your Own Business" public service ad campaign. Sort of like "The More You Know," but more helpful. And more hilarious.

The Postmaster General Loves Me

2006-12-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

I just got done with my Christmas cards. All 164 of them. Yes, that's right. I said 164. That's over $60 worth of postage. And I haven't even mailed my packages yet. I'm doing my part to keep the US Post Office up and running.

The sad part? That list is the pared-down version. I could have, perhaps should have, sent more. But I decided to cut out a few dozen recipients last year--mainly distant relatives and people I haven't heard from in a loooong time. (Actually, maybe that's the nice part...I'm really blessed to have at least 164 friends/families that I care about enough that I want to send them a Christmas card. And for at least a handful of them, the feeling is returned. It's enough to make a girl want to sing carols and set out cookies for Santa!)

The really sad part? I only had snail mail addresses for 4 of the people on my Blogroll. Which means that most of my loving blogmunity will not be receiving one of the 164 Christmas cards. I would have gladly toiled over a few more cards if I'd had a way to get them to you, my darlings. But since that was not to be, please accept this as a feeble replacement:

Merry Christmas, my lovely bloggers!

From now on, I hope you'll think of me every time you see a creepy elf, gnome, or pixie. But not when you see a troll. That would be insulting.

Prayers for a Precious Boy

2006-12-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

As I write this, my friends' son is in surgery. Cainan is only 2 1/2 years old, but sadly he is no stranger to hospitals and operations. Joe and Heather and little brother, Asher, would really appreciate it if you would pray for a successful surgery and a quick and easy recovery for Cainan. So would I. So thank you in advance. (And I'm sure no one would mind if Cainan got a permanent spot on your prayer list.)

P.S. You can learn more about this sweet boy and his loving family by clicking the last link under my Sites of Interest list.

Doppelgangers: Willey and Woolery

2006-12-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, a few of us engaged in a lively discussion regarding Jackson Montgomery, the character played by Walt Willey on All My Children.

A few days later, I was watching some dumb show, probably Entertainment Tonight, and there was the subject of our recent discussion: Jack/Walt! Except, the lablel under the man talking into the microphone clearly read "Chuck Woolery." I did a triple-take, then realized that the producer of the dumb show was probably right. Either that, or one guy with a lot of energy was fooling his adoring public by dealing with Erica Kane and facilitating Love Connections all at the same time.

(Sorry these aren't the best photos: the resemblance is clearer when they are in motion, and all the photos of Chuck that looked the most like Walt were thumbnail-sized.)

P.S. While looking for photos, I discovered a couple of semi-interesting tidbits about our doppelgangers. Walt and his wife run a bed and breakfast in the Southwest (Arizona, I think). And Chuck Woolery is evidently a Bass Master.

I Was Going to Blog...

2006-12-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

...But then TANK got the hiccups for the first (noticable) time, and I'm far too amused by the whole thing to actually sit here and think of something to write.

As for the hiccups thing, it's pretty hilarious. My tummy (up near my rib cage, near the center) seems to have it's own (slow) heartbeat because the hiccups are pretty rythymic. And they kind of tickle. But TANK doesn't seem to like them, so on top of having the sensation of a croaking bullfrog throat in my torso, he's also putting up an admirable fight. So it's all: thump-thump, pummel, thump-thump, punch, kick, thump-thump. And you can see a good share of the action if you watch my tummy. It's either adorable or freaky. (Freaky if you've see Alien.)

I kind of hope it keeps up for a while, because it's far more entertaining than work.

Speaking of entertainment, my parents enjoy telling me about the time that I got really bad hiccups in church a little while before I was born. Evidently, my antics were so hilarious that they had to leave the auditorium because Dad was in danger of disrupting the sermon with his uncontrollable laughing at Mom's jumping belly. See, I was a troublemaker even before I was born!

You Know How I Know I'm Old?: Top 8 Things That Prove Gina's a Fogey

2006-11-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was trying to quote a movie with my post's title, but I don't think it was an effective attempt. Oh well. It would be funny if you could hear it the way it sounds in my head.

I'm only 32 years old, but I'm pretty sure I'm 80 on the inside. There are many ways that I can tell that I'm getting old, so since confession is good for the soul, I thought I'd share a few...

1.) Just the other day, some cute little girls from the neighborhood were scooting down the sidewalk on their Razors, and instead of thinking, "Aw, how cute/fun/sweet!" I thought, "Darn kids! Get off my lawn!"

2.) The other day, I was inordinately thrilled over my purchase of a new pair of slippers. And they were this kind:Not this kind:

3.) I have had at least half a dozen conversations about 401k retirement investment accounts this week. And it's only Thursday morning. And I'm not an accountant.

4.) A few weeks ago, I was waiting for my niece in the Juniors section of JC Penney, and found myself gazing at a rack of skirts. They were plaid, and I love me some plaid. A few years ago, I would have tried one on. But instead of thinking, "Cute!" I heard my dad's voice saying, "Nice belt. Where's the rest of it?" And I agreed with the voice.

5.) The other day, a co-worker was describing his impromptu roadtrip from Boise to Seattle (which took less than 36 hours, round-trip, and did not include a good night's sleep). Instead of admiring his spontaneity, as I would have done when I was young and hip, I scoffed at him. I've taken to scoffing at spontaneity, people!

6.) Back in the day, my only criteria when it came to deciding what I wanted to eat was, "Will it taste yummy?" Now it's "Will it give me heartburn?" I take a minimum of 8 Rolaids a day. That's just sad.

7.) I've recently realized I make little grunting noises whenever I sit down on (or get up from) the couch. This pathetic display started long before I got all pregnant and cumbersome. The other day I found myself longing for a trip to the furniture store to buy couches that were less cushy and more exit-friendly. It's pitiful, really.

8.) A few weeks ago, The Rolling Stones came to town. Yes, that's right. They came to Boise, Idaho. THAT'S never happened before! Now, I lovelovelove most of The Stones' music, and a friend (whose opinion I hold in the utmost esteem, particularly with regard to music) had nothing but praise for their live show. But instead of getting out my wallet and taking advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity to see one of the last great rock bands LIVE and IN PERSON? I thought, "Eh, the concert is on a weeknight. And the traffic is going to be terrible. And I don't want to be there to witness Mick breaking a hip--at his age, he really should know better. I'd rather just stay home and watch House."

My 21 year-old self would be so disappointed in me.

Musings on Turkey Day

2006-11-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about Thanksgiving. Not just because my parents and grandparents will be joining us for the meal. Not just because I love me some turkey and mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, and my special Cherry Cranberry Sauce, and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. I do love all of those things, I won't pretend I don't (but not yams and not stuffing--those gross me out). But the part of Thanksgiving I'm currently most excited about (besides having time off work) is the probably the grocery shopping.

I spent a lovely hour on Sunday perfecting my Thanksgiving shopping list. (I love lists almost as much as I love grocery shopping for holiday meals. It's a sickness.) I even arranged my beautiful list in logical sections beginning with the part of the store where I start my shopping. But in the back of my mind I knew that I might not get to do the shopping this year because my back (sciatica) has been acting up anytime I stand up or walk for too long. And too long is evidently about 4 minutes. Being pregnant during the holiday season isn't the most fun I've ever had.

So I was sadly trying to resign myself to sending Ty to the grocery store alone...but then Ty and I came up with a wonderful idea that saved my shopping excursion! Ty is going to shop for the boring things like canned goods, and flour, and bags of potatoes. Then, after work, we're going back to the store where we will finish shopping for the more interesting things like the turkey, and Granny Smith apples for pies, and the perfect tiny dill pickles. And I won't have to be on my feet as long, so I might have a chance of coming out of my shopping trip unscathed.

Evidently, TANK loves pumpkin pie as much as his daddy does. Killer has been known to "snack" away an entire pumpkin pie in under two hours. He doesn't even bother with whipped cream...or even a fork. It just goes straight from the pie pan into his mouth. It's a little awe-inspiring, actually. Anyway, as I was saying...TANK seems to love pumpkin pie, too. My firm had a Thanksgiving lunch yesterday, at which I consumed a hearty slice of Ty's award-winning pumpkin pie, and TANK spent the afternoon doing the Happy Dance.

What worries me about TANK's Happy Dance, is that at one point, he was punching me to the beat of a John Cougar Mellencamp song! I'm afraid my baby might have inherited his daddy's taste in music! Now, Killer comes by it naturally, having graduated from high school in the 80s. But it's just not okay for TANK to choose Mellencamp of his own volition. Two things did comfort me through this horrible discovery: The Mellencamp song TANK was bopping along to was one that sounds like it could be a Springsteen song. I can get onboard with raising a Springsteen fan--that's much less embarrassing. I'm going to choose to believe that the sounds were muffled by all the amniotic fluid, and TANK just made a simple mistake and confused "It's a Lonely Old Night" for a Springsteen tune.

The other thing that gives me hope for TANK's future musical taste is that he got pretty wound up when The Beatles' "Come Together" came on. Any kid who grooves to The Beatles is a kid I'm proud to claim.

It looks like I'm going to need to spend some time making a list of good lullabyes to help insure that my boy goes down a Mommy-approved musical path. Later today, I'll try to post my Top 8 Lullabyes for the Advancement of TANK's Musical Taste. If I don't get around to it today, then I suppose I'll have a ready-made topic the next time I feel like posting a Top 8 list.

Happy Birthday (on Sunday), Dear Ty! Happy Birthday to you!

2006-11-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sure no one who knows Ty will think I'm exaggerating when I say that the world has been a better place because of his presence these last 30 years. He's just an all-around good guy, that brother of mine.

I could easily write a Top 800 list of why Ty is the best brother ever in the history of siblings. But I'll try to keep it to the traditional Top 8. Just know I'm leaving out at least 792 reasons.

1.) He is kind to animals, children, and old people. Even when they don't deserve it.

2.) He hates lying and is incapable of being untruthful. But he's kind when he tells you the truth.

3.) He's passionate about things that we really need people to be passionate about, like loving the Lord, learning new things, doing what's right, and having integrity. Oh, and dead languages and Sci-Fi nerdy stuff.

4.) He bakes blue-ribbon winning pumpkin pies. With REAL whipped cream.

5.) He is generous with his time, his talents, his wisdom, and his love. Which means he hasn't finished his thesis yet, but he sure has helped a lot of people.

6.) He hates onions even more than I do, and therefore never subjects me to the nasty things when he cooks dinner every night. Oh, and did I mention that he cooks a yummy dinner for Steve and me pretty much every night. (That's right, we have our own personal chef. And chauffeur, butler, carpenter, electrician, computer technician, housekeeper, errand boy, counselor, and tutor--to name a few. And he works for room and board. Don't you wish you were us?)

7.) He has an over-active sense of justice. If he was ever granted three wishes, I'm betting one of them would be to rid the world of bullies. That's an admirable goal, right there.

8.) All of those things (and the 792 I didn't mention), and the fact that he's still a kid at heart, mean he's going to be the best uncle a little guy ever had. TANK doesn't even know how lucky he is.

Have a happy birthday, Boy. And many more.

Overkill

2006-11-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

At the second of the two baby showers thrown for me and TANK last week, I got the most curious gift. Actually, the gift itself was pretty normal: a standard-issue rattle with little animals on the front. It was the packaging that caught my attention...

At the top of the back of the package, there was a paragraph that said something to the effect of:

Babies love rattles! Studies have shown that rattles are good for babies' hand-eye coordination. Rattles are important to a baby's development. Your baby will have hours of fun with this rattle!

Okay. Good to know. Maybe a little more enthusiasm than strictly necessary, but okay. There are a lot of baby products out there, so you can't blame this company for doing everything they can to generate interest in their otherwise unremarkable rattle.

Here's the thing that really got me: this enthusiastic little paragraph was deemed so vital that it was reprinted in FIVE MORE LANGUAGES! Yes, I had the pleasure of reading how entertaining and important this little rattle is in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. I didn't read the Dutch version because I don't read Dutch.

What really caught my eye was the fact that the washing instructions and any safety warnings were only printed in English. The only part they bothered to translate was the "rattles are great" portion of the text. It seems to me that if they're going to go to the effort to translate this information into a grand total of six (count them, SIX!) languages, the least they could do would be to include the pertinent stuff along with the "rah-rah-yay-rattles" stuff.

The whole translation effort just seems like overkill to me. Most expectant mothers, regardless of their native language, know the basics of rattles. If they're smart enough to figure out that they're pregnant, they're smart enough to figure out a rattle.

Happy Meow-lloween: Top 8 Hilarious and Adorable Cat Pictures to Illustrate my Week

2006-10-27T12:39:00.000-06:00

I haven't been sleeping well this week. Actually, that's an understatement. I can't seem to stay asleep between the hours of 4 am and 6:30 am, no matter how hard I try. I'm sure it's nature's way of preparing me for 2 am, 4 am, and 6 am feedings. But it still bites.

I decided to illustrate my week with cat pictures. Well, actually, I found a bunch of great pictures at www.cuteoverload.com and decided to use this as a flimsy excuse to post them.

1.) Trying to hide from the sad reality of Monday morning.

2.) How I felt while trying to get out of bed when the alarm went off.

3.) Seemed like a handy solution when I couldn't go back to sleep EVERY morning this week. (Not really--Guinness smells way too gross to ever consider drinking any, pregnant or not. But isn't the little drunkard adorable?)

4.) Are you trying to tell me I have four more days of this this week?

5.) I give up. I wanna go home!

6.) I've been trying to keep my head above water all week. (But I'm not nearly as cute doing it.)

7.) Looking forward to a nice long soak once we get to the coast.

8.) How I'd feel if someone told me I couldn't go on vacation this weekend.

Happy Meow-lloween, everyone!

Showered with Affection

2006-10-24T09:39:00.000-06:00

A friend I've known for almost 20 years called me last night to ask if some of the ladies from the church (Vancouver) I attended during my teen and young adult years could throw me a baby shower when we're in town next weekend.

Wow.

I haven't been a member at Vancouver since sometime in 2000 when I got a job in/moved to Beaverton and started attending Southwest. I haven't even seen the friend who's hosting the shower since my wedding four years ago. I can't begin to tell you how touched I am that they still consider me part of the family and love me enough to want to throw a party for me and our baby. Seriously, it's so touching. That kind of loyalty and unconditional love and kindness is the way our Christian family ought to be, but sadly, the last few years have shown me that it's so rare. I can't even tell you how encouraging it is--especially after four years of living in this friendless wasteland and the last few months of constant strife at church. Those are some good people right there. And they've proved to me once again where my home really is.

So anyway, my sweet friends are throwing me a baby shower on Sunday afternoon after TLC. I'm pretty sure the hostess (Christina Hill, PT and Karen Barnum's daughter) lives in Vancouver, and I think the party starts around 3 pm. And I know that any of you who would like/are able to come are SOOOOO welcome. So are the ladies at Renovatus who don't read this (like Brenda and Kay and Angela and whoever else cares), so please let them know if you think of it. You don't need to bring anything but yourselves--I've got lots of baby clothes, but far too few chances to hang out with my friends. If you want directions, you can leave your email or phone number in the comments section and I'll get them to you when I get them. Or you can just wait and catch up to me or my mom or Chris Fields or Rachel Holcombe at TLC.

If you can't make it to the party, I hope we at least get to hug each others' necks at the Convention Center on Sunday morning!

The Name Game

2006-10-18T10:32:00.000-06:00

Remember how I mentioned that (because of certain hyper-critical, passive-aggressive people in our lives) we aren't going to tell people our baby's name until the ink is dry on the birth certificate?

Remember how I remarked upon the sheer number of people who began asking what we were naming the baby as soon as we found out we're having a boy?

Remember how I said I was going to come up with some completely heinous (bogus) name to tell the nosy, pushy people who were just dying to know the name we've picked?

Presenting our bogus baby name:

Tiberius Aristotle Narcissus Kortan. (T.A.N.K. for short.)

I figure that after THAT, anything we actually do decide to put on the birth certificate will be a source of joyous relief.

Now...if I can just keep a straight face when I tell people.

(Feel free to offer other suggestions for heinous baby boy names--just avoid initial combinations that would be banned everywhere but HBO.)

Shudder: Top 8 Jobs I Hope My Son Shuns

2006-10-13T14:12:00.000-06:00

I'm not one of those people who has big plans for her kids' careers. Teacher, truck driver, pigeon trainer...no problem. I don't much care what this little guy decides to do when he grows up, as long as he's happy and fulfilled. Yep, I'll be proud of my boy no matter what he does, as long as he avoids these occupations:

1.) Mime

2.) Rapper

3.) Politician

4.) Pharmaceutical rep

5.) Paparazzi

6.) Cheerleader

7.) Pawn shop owner

8.) Michael Jackson impersonator

The same thing goes for any daughters we may have--espeically number 6. I just don't think I could hold my head high in public if my kid decided to become one of those. He might as well be a serial killer--the shame would be just as great.

To My Dear and Loving Husband

2006-10-12T10:20:00.000-06:00

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if ye can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay,

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let's so persevere

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

~Anne Bradstreet

I discovered this poem in high school. I thought it was especially touching that a woman from the mid-1600s felt such tender affection for her husband. In those days, marriages tended to be entered into out of social and financial necessity--love rarely came into it. Arranged marriages were far more common than love matches, and most unions tended to resemble business partnerships. How blessed the Bradstreets must have been to have enjoyed a love like that--especially in that era, when marriage was often a misery. I told myself the first time I read this poem that I would rather remain single all my life than enter into a marriage where I wouldn't feel about my husband the way Anne Bradsteet felt about hers.

Today is the forth anniversary of the day I married Steve. The longest I'd ever lasted in a relationship before meeting Steve was about 5 months, and the last month of that one should hardly count! I waited a long time before I found the man I wanted to spend my life with. Heck, that punk, Bill Shaffer, had been teasing me about being an old maid for at least 3 years before I got engaged! And I was okay with that. If there wasn't a man out there that was worth spending my life with, worthy of raising my children with, then I was content with being alone. Not thrilled, because I knew I wanted to have a husband and children to love, but I was content. I even bought a townhouse and settled down to enjoy my spinsterhood. And then Steve came along...

It's been a good four years--the best four years I've ever spent. I'm looking forward to AT LEAST 40 more (keep in mind, we're both already old coots). Sure , there have been a few not-so-good days...the day we assembled the entertainment center comes to mind. (Don't worry, the days when we're not moving or putting together furniture make up for it.) But four years down the road, his smile still lights me up, his hugs are still the best on the planet, and his trust and respect still belong to me. He still tells me he loves me every day, he's still proud to introduce me to his family and friends, he still calls me "Feisty" and "Royalness." He's still too darn cute. (But don't tell him I said that--he has a "Killer" rep to maintain.)

I love the way he curls up with me to watch a Ducks game and puts his hand on my tummy to say hello to the munchkin. I love that he takes his responsibilities so seriously. I love that he still thinks that the conversation he had with my dad (when he asked for my hand in marriage) was the best conversation of his life. I love it when he decides it's "Tinky Time" and coaxes the not-so-smart-but-oh-so-cute cat to snuggle up on his chest. I love that he looks forward to camp as much as I do. I love coming home from the store and discovering that he's vacuumed, or washed the dishes, or ironed all my wrinkly shirts. (Who wouldn't love that?!?) I love that he enjoys Black Adder as much as I do. I love that it doesn't take much to get him to sniff all the Yankee Candles at Cracker Barrel with me. I love how he gets so excited over silly things. I love that he takes frequent breaks from his video games to come give me a smooch and a cuddle. I love that he honestly desires and works to be the best man he can be. I love that we both still think that deciding to get married three weeks after we started dating was a REALLY good idea.

I just love him. And he loves me. It's nice.

Enough German to Get Into Trouble, Enough Spanish to Get Out of Trouble

2006-10-05T10:36:00.000-06:00

It was dinner time on a beautiful Monday night in mid-November. My friend, Shawn Michele, and I were sitting on a bench in the surprisingly quiet lower level of the train station in Lucerne, Switzerland. Some of you may have met Shawn Michele at my wedding or at OC, so you know that a) she's awesome and is/would be super-fun to travel with, and b) she has that gorgeous dark-eyed, dark-haired, golden-skinned coloring that often goes with the last name Sanchez. Well, Shawn Michele and I had just spent a delightful day exploring the lovely town nestled beside a picturesque lake in the heart of the Alps. More importantly, we'd just had the best showers anyone has ever paid $8 for, and we were happily eating the first honest-to-goodness chips and salsa we'd been able to get our hands on since leaving the states nearly three months earlier. Waiting for a train to Vienna had never been so pleasant.

So there we were, cramming our mouths full of chips and salsa at an alarming rate, when a shifty, greasy, seriously yucky guy began walking our way. He stopped beside our bench and asked "Sprechen Sie Deutsches oder English?" (Do you speak German or English?)

Now, the truth is, I could have answered yes to both. My German may have been the one-semester-in-class-and-three-months-as-a-tourist variety, but I could adequately shop and travel with my mad Deutsch skilz. But there's something you may not know about me: I have creative hearing. I often hear things that I know (logically) I could not have heard. Words sometimes jumble themselves up on the trip between my ears and my brain. Hilarity and humiliation often ensue.

Now, back to the train station: When the creepy guy asked me, "Sprechen Sie Deutsches oder English?" two things happened simultaneously: My creative hearing had caused me to hear "English" as "Yiddish." So my brain thought, "Why in the world would this creepy dude ask if I could speak Yiddish? Does ANYONE speak Yiddish anymore? Oh! Wait! He probably said English." At the same time, my brain thought, "I don't want to talk to this creepy dude, I've gotta think of something to make him go away."

So I looked up at the creepy dude with my big, innocent hazel eyes and asked him, "Hables espanol?" He just grunted and walked away. Which was a good thing, because if the creepy dude HAD spoken Spanish, I couldn't have kept him convinced I was a native speaker for more than thirty seconds or three phrases, whichever came first. And my lovely travel partner, despite her Spanish heritage, could barely say "Hola." Some help she was! Two seconds after the creepy dude wandered off, Shawn Michele collapsed in a spectacular giggle fit--she thought I was a hilarious genius for coming up with my little Spanish fake-out off the cuff like that. It's a good thing she didn't choke on her tortilla chips, because I may be good at faking out vagrants in Swiss train stations, but I don't know the Heimlech manouver.

Feeling Bookish

2006-09-29T15:17:00.000-06:00

This little meme just keeps on chugging. I'm definitely bringing up the rear of this little trend, but since when have I been cutting-edge? I've been tagged specifically by Jared and obliquely by several others, so I suppose I should get to it.

Since there are 8 questions, I think we can consider this my Top 8 list for the week.

1.) A book that changed my life (besides The Bible): Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. This book was required reading for our Philosophy class during the semester I spent in Vienna. Perhaps it was especially powerful for me because I began to read it about a week after visiting the concentration camp in Dachau. It made me take a hard look at myself and consider the lengths I would be willing to go to and the risks I would be willing to take to help my fellow man. And whether I would put conditions on my generosity. I get choked up just thinking about it. (This book also qualifies as "a book that made me cry"--even though that question doesn't appear in this version of the meme.)

2.) A book I've read more than once: It's a tie between two series Dad read to us when we were kids. I read each book in both series at least seven times, with my favorites getting at least a dozen re-reads each.

These just transport me to another place. C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite writers (his Christian trifecta: Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, and The Screwtape Letters, nearly ended up being my answer for question one).

My favorite Narnia book is probably Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but I really love The Horse and His Boy and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I think The Magician's Nephew is my least favorite, or maybe The Silver Chair. But they're still good.

Man, I loved these books. When I was a kid, I appreciated them for the good stories. Now I realize that they're full of useful information (if one needs to, say, churn butter, build a log cabin, or rid one's body of leeches). Not only that, they're full of perilous situations that I didn't recognize as a child--it's amazing the family survived. Seriously, are you kidding me with that blizzard?

My favorite was These Happy Golden Years (because that's the one where Laura and Almonzo fell in love), but I also loved On the Banks of Plum Creek. I didn't love On the Shores of Sliver Lake. Too much trauma.

3.) A book I would take with me if I were stuck on a desert island: Since my desert island happens to have a Marriott with a 5 star restaurant, I can safely assume that The Gideons have provided a handy copy of The Bible, so I think I'd bring The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (an annotated version). I'm not trying to sound all scholarly, I just really enjoyed the Shakespeare that I HAVE read, and I've been meaning to get around to reading and understanding the rest. I figure the amount of free time I'd have on my nicely-equipped desert island would lend itself to catching up. Heck, I might even memorize 'em!

4.) A book that made me laugh: Well, lots of books make me laugh--sometimes unintentionally. But lately, these two have caused me to stay up way too late and wake Steve up with my guffaws.

I can't recommend Bill Bryson enough. I've never read a paragraph that I didn't enjoy. He's smart and witty and approachable. The first book of his that I read was The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way. Anyone who can win a fan with a book on the history of the English language is someone I want to meet. I want to be his best friend, but he probably swears and drinks too much for us to be truly close. He's the only living author I would ever write a fan letter to. And I'm not the fan letter type. I mean, I enjoy receiving them, but I never write them.

There was some confusion on the wording of this question, so I decided to answer both versions:

5a.) A book that I wish I had written: A super-popular European travel guide which would necessitate frequent return trips for updating purposes. But my book's title would be a little less porn-y.

I would be happy to let any reputable publishing house finance my European traveling habit. (I don't think it counts as a habit if you've only been twice, but I'd like to make it a habit. It's a goal I have.)

Until some publisher discovers my genius, I'm happy to supply travel advice free of charge to any of my beloved friends who are lucky enough to venture across the pond. If you will agree to take me with you. Although I'd hardly fit into a suitcase right now. Maybe a steamer trunk?

5b.) A book that I wish had been written: A sequel to Gone With the Wind that a) stayed true to the characters, b) had a plot that didn't seem like it was there solely to fulfill some publisher's page-count requirement, and c) wasn't utter nonsense from start to finish. (The long-awaited Scarlett was unmitigated tripe. Piffle, if you will. And the miniseries was worse. I had waited so long to find out what happened to Rhett and Scarlett, and I feel nothing but distain for the pitiful excuse of a sequel they decided to spit out while I was in high school.)

6.) A book that I wish had never been written: Not being a fan of censorship in general, I don't particularly like this question and considered skipping it, but I figured I'd use it to voice a pet peeve.

I don't necessarily wish The DaVinci Code had never been written, but I wish it hadn't gotten so popular. Not for any lofty scholarly or theological reason, not because I'm horrified by the controversial bits. No, it's just because every irritating twit on the planet seems incapable of shutting up about it. I have a low tolerance for such things. I'd rather listen to Ty talk about Coptic grammar.

Perhaps I should be more patient and inquisitive, but I have no desire to read or discuss this thing. I've already talked about it more than my conscience is comfortable with.

7.) A book I've been meaning to read: I bought Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII while Steve and I were enjoying a second honeymoon in England, courtesy of the United States Air Force. I find that era of history fascinating--even moreso since touring The Tower of London and Westminster Abbey.

I read the first few pages whilst in the Emergency Room suffering from an allergic reaction to penicillin. Maybe that put me off, maybe it's just the fact that the big ol' sucker weighs even more than my purse--and that's saying something.

It's an intimidating tome, I tell you.

8.) I'm currently reading: What a surprise, the list begins with something by Bill Bryson. I'm a Stranger Here Myself is a series of essays written after Bryson returned to America after over 20 years living in England. I believe they were originally published in an English newspaper, so they have an interesting slant to them. And as always with Bill Bryson, they're hilarious.

Also on the list: Surprise, surprise! Pregnancy books. They're kind of annoying with all the worst-case scenario stuff and strict diet instructions that totally don't apply to me (since I STILL haven't gained any weight). But I have managed to glean some helpful information from them. (The one on the right is the least-annoying of the two.)

I feel obligated to confess that I've also got some pathetic romance novel on my bedside table. I can't recall the title. It's probably something like The Feisty Virgin and The Ruthless Duke's Wedding Bargain. I should be ashamed of myself.

Update: Pink or Blue?

2006-09-22T12:37:00.000-06:00

The boy votes came in ahead by a 3-2 margin. So based on popular demand, we've decided to have a BOY.

Just to make you feel smart and successful, Lindsey, Ty, and Amanda. (Hee hee!)

Either gender would have been fine by us, so YAY!

(I think Steve is secretly pleased that he'll have a little guy to dress up in the munchkin-sized flight suit we found at the BX last year.)

The whole ultrasound went very well. The doctor says we both look healthy. The baby is still a fidgety little sucker (takes after me), and we got to watch him opening and closing his little mouth a whole bunch (obviously takes after me). The only thing that freaked me out is the fact that he's in the 83rd percentile, size-wise. Yikes! The doctor assured me that it has nothing to do with the size he'll be when he's born, but I'm still a little traumatized. I don't wanna deliver a gigantor baby!

I've noticed a strange phenomenon, though...All but one (Ty, if you must know) of the people that I've told about the little guy have asked the same question. Wanna see if you can guess what the super-popular question is?

Pink or Blue?

2006-09-21T12:22:00.000-06:00

We're going in for an ultrasound this afternoon, so here's your chance to predict whether we're having a boy or a girl.

Leave your guess in the comments, and we'll all be able to see who's a psychic and who should keep their day job. Voting ends 1 minute before I post the answer (probably tomorrow morning, maybe later). You've got a 50% chance of being right. And also a 50% of being wrong...

I Wish I Had Her Hair: Top 8 Enviable Tresses

2006-09-15T11:20:00.000-06:00

I'm having a bad hair day. And of course, today was the day I chose to go to the base to get my military ID renewed. And of course it took literally 10 times longer than it was supposed to. So my already unruly hair was staging an outright revolt by the time my photo was taken. And as a bonus, my bad hair day is now an official document.

It's days like this that I wish I could trade hair with one of these ladies:

1.) Catherine Zeta Jones

2.) Portia de Rossi

3.) Salma Hayek

4.) Brooke Shields

5.) Marcia Cross

6.) Kristin Davis

7.) Debra Messing

8.) Kristen Chenoweth

Are you seeing a theme here? It doesn't matter what color it is, I just like long, shiny, wavy/curly, girly-girl hair.

But today I'd settle for no split ends and a part that stays put.

Stupid Technology

2006-09-07T11:42:00.000-06:00

My work computer died.

It's not nearly as tragic as Rebecca Marie's computer meltdown, but it's still an enormous pain in the patoot. Especially since this is one of those rare times when I'm actually busy at work. I lost all of my pictures and several personal documents--some of them might be retrieveable, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I've already restored most of my Internet Favorites list (most important things first, you know), but I really miss the gorgeous pictures of Europe that I'd collected for my screen saver. I also miss all the settings that I'd perfected on my last computer. When I first signed on to the new PC, I got a message saying "Retrieving Your Settings." LIAR! Stupid thing didn't retrieve Jack--unless keeping English as the default language counts.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone, I guess.

I'll still try to post, but the next month or so is going to be super-busy at work, so my chances for reading and commenting on your lovely and entertaining blogs are going to be few and far between. Try your best to go on without me.

Magical Mystery Tour: Top 8 Alfred Hitchcock Films

2006-09-01T14:40:00.000-06:00

I watched a rerun of That 70s Show's Halloween episode the other day. They spoofed several Hitchcock films, including a couple of my favorites, so I decided to use that as the inspiration for this Friday's Top 8 List.

As you know, I was raised right, at least entertainment-wise. (Okay, in almost every way...including a strict "no onions allowed in the house" rule.) I remember several times in my early teens when we would rent a VCR (yes, we had to rent our VCRs back then) and a bunch of Hitchcock films and settle in for the night. Man, that weird old dude knew how to make a movie.

1.) Vertigo

2.) Rear Window

3.) To Catch a Thief

4.) North by Northwest

5.) Psycho

6.) Rebecca

7.) Dial M For Murder

8.) Marnie

If you haven't seen at least half of these movies, I can guarantee you that at least a dozen homages and parodies have gone right over your head. At least, if you watch the cartoons I do.

A Recycling Fairy Tale, or The Great Un-bra-ening of 2002

2006-08-28T15:10:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, a lovely, charming, intelligent woman had a dilemma. She had a multitude of a certain type of garment that she could no longer use, and she needed to find a suitable method to reuse or recycle these items. She had a healthy respect for fashionable clothing of all types, and could not bring herself to simply throw these beautiful garments in the garbage. She could not give them to Goodwill or The ARC, as she did her other cast-offs, because these garments were personal and not appropriate for charitable donation.

Whatever could the lovely, charming, intelligent woman do? She mulled, she brainstormed. She puzzled till her puzzler was sore. Then, she had an idea. A wonderful, awful, brilliant idea.

What better way to brighten the dreary life and even drearier abode of an often recalcitrant, slightly chauvinistic, sometimes downright bratty bachelor than to decorate his roofline with a stunning collection of unwanted brassieres? The lovely, charming, intelligent woman even went to the trouble of alternating between white and colorful bras to create an aesthetic effect that would be more pleasing to the eyes of the bachelor's curious, awe-struck neighbors.

The recipient pretended to be shocked and outraged to have his home decorated in cast-off undergarments, but all who knew him realized that his bluster was merely a way to hide his glee at having access to so many beautiful, lacy garments. Furthermore, he secretly knew that the efforts of the lovely, charming, intelligent woman only proved her friendly affection, high-regard, and abiding interest in keeping him in a state of squirming embarrassment. She took his blustering, sputtering outrage as proof of her success.

Of course, being the soul of modesty and discretion, the lovely, charming, intelligent woman disavowed any knowledge or involvement in this charitable project. Afterall, charity is not charity if one receives accolades for one's endeavors.

The lovely, charming, intelligent woman also required a modest silence from her accomplices. Sadly, one of said volunteers was a confidant of a woman (herself lovely, charming, and intelligent in her own right) who harbored a soon-to-be-revealed secret crush on the lucky bachelor. Thus, the secret was unceremoniously revealed. The bachelor was not as gracious as one might have hoped when the time came to thank the lovely, charming, intelligent woman for her creative and generous gift. He was especially indignant when he discovered that one particularly colorful, provocative bra had belonged not to the lovely, charming, intelligent woman, but to her lovely, charming, intelligent mother. He claimed to be scarred for life, but one must assume he eventually recovered.

Two years ago, the lovely, charming, intelligent woman and her lovely, charming, intelligent family attended the bachelor's wedding to the woman who revealed the identities of the individuals involved in the bachelor's urban renewal project. The bachelor and the stool pigeon are by all accounts enjoying a happy, healthy marriage.

Sadly, I must report that their marital abode is not decorated nearly as creatively as the bachelor's house was after the lovely, charming, intelligent woman got finished with it.

*Thanks to Lisa, whose recent post reminded me of another creative use for used bras.

Everyone Loves an Underdog: Top 8 Sports Movies (Double-Overtime Edition)

2006-08-25T12:43:00.000-06:00

It probably seems odd, considering how unathletic I am, but I love sports. I spent a lot of time at basketball, T-ball, soccer, volleyball, and football games in my youth--Dad coached most of those at one time or another, but I attended even when I didn't have to. I even shocked a lot of jocks with my sports knowledge (and got more extra credit than them in the sports section of our Current Events quizes), which never ceases to amuse me.

My responsibilities have multiplied and my free time has diminished, so my sports viewing has been whittled down to football these days--but I still have a soft spot for a comeback, for an underdog, for the thrill of the game. I'm a sucker for that miraculous last-minute goal, for the injured runner who summons up the courage to finish the race, for the scrawny kid who surprises everyone and wins the day. Which is why the people who make sports movies seem to have my number. Sure, they might be formulaic, but they get me every time. I'm hoping to spend part of my birthday weekend watching Invincible--and even if I wasn't dealing with all these pregnancy hormones, I'd know that I'd better bring some Kleenex. Of course, I'll probably be crying throughout Talledega Nights, too, but that'll be from laughing.

I had enough entries to fill three Top 8 lists, but I don't want to drag the topic out for 3 weeks, so I'll just include a couple of bonus lists.

First, my Top 8 Favorite Sports Movies:

1.) Field of Dreams

2.) Remember the Titans

3.) Miracle

4.) Seabiscuit

5.) Hoosiers

6.) Pride of the Yankees

7.) The Cutting Edge (for sentimental reasons)

8.) Knute Rockne All American (if only he'd played for a decent team)

Overtime: Top 8 Sports Movies that Would Probably Make it to my Favorites List if I'd Seen 'Em:

1.) Friday Night Lights

2.) The Natural

3.) A League of Their Own

4.) Glory Road

5.) Rudy (if I can ignore the Notre Dame part--I can't stand ND)

6.) Fever Pitch (the 1997 version with Colin Firth as a rabid soccer fan)

7.) The Rookie

8.) Brian's Song

(No, I still haven't seen any of the Rocky movies...and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't end up on any of my lists.)

Double Overtime: Top 8 Sports-Related Comedies

1.) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

2.) Happy Gilmore

3.) The Waterboy

4.) Caddyshack

5.) Nacho Libre

6.) Cool Runnings

7.) Over the Top (comedy unintentional, but still hilarious)

8.) The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh

P.S. I'm sure Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby will bump a bunch of movies down on this list as soon as I get a chance to see it.

Smells Like Teen Spirit

2006-08-18T11:23:00.000-06:00

Has anyone ever noticed how ridiculous perfume and cologne names are? Obsession? Really? This is supposed to be a positive thing? We're all longing for stalkers and want to lure them to us with department store perfume? Or Cool Water? Do we really need to spend $60 an ounce to smell like something we can get from the bathroom faucet for free? How about Lovely--Sarah Jessica Parker. Seriously? I can't stop the ironic giggling. They should have named it Bridle or Alfalfa or Seabiscuit.

I think my new job should be thinking up names for new perfumes and colognes. I can think of dozens off the top of my head, but I'll limit myself to a Top 8 of the selections starting with the letter F.

1.) Flange

2.) Flimsy

3.) Fugue

4.) Frilly

5.) Fromage (everything sounds better in French, even cheese)

6.) Façade

7.) Fiasco

8.) Flummox

Don't those sound lovely? I think they fit right in with the scents I see advertised in the glossy magazines. Once again, I wish I hadn't limited myself to a Top 8 list...there was no room for Fussbudget or Fetid.

Freakin' Awesome

2006-08-16T17:03:00.000-06:00

It's not something I talk about much, because the dream has died. But once upon a time, I had an imaginary rock band. I was the super-hot and talented lead singer. Various girls I knew and loved were the amazing drummer, guitar player, and bassist, respectively. I'm pretty sure our imaginary band was too cool for keyboards. We had the best wardrobe any band has ever had: we're talking stiletto boots, fringe, leopard print, and fishnets galore. We were HOTT. Everyone wanted us and we were bigger than The Beatles. And all of our imaginary groupies were cute and smart and funny.

My imaginary band was called The Brazen Hussies. It was ironic, see, because we were all the goody-two-shoes, earned-our-white-wedding-dress type girls. (See, the plan was to lure in an audience with the titillating band name...sort of like the band called Free Beer and Pizza.) I mostly started the imaginary band so I could call it by that freakin' awesome imaginary band name. When my freakin' awesome, hilarious friend, Joe, and I discovered our mutual obsession with Dave Barry's "Hey, that would be a great name for a band" running gag, our friendship was sealed. We've been naming imaginary bands ever since. I believe his imaginary band is called Screaming Weasels. That's pretty darn good, but I'm still partial to The Brazen Hussies. It's freakin' awesome.

What would your imaginary band be called? If you can't think of something off the top of your head, maybe this can help you.

Try Not to Cry

2006-08-10T12:42:00.000-06:00

I'm not posting my Top 8 list until Monday. I know it will be terribly painful and traumatic for you to wait so long, but I know you're strong bloggers and you will survive.

I'm leaving for the Portland area in a few minutes--Ty and I are driving out to attend Kelsey and Corey's wedding on Saturday. Mom and I are doing some of their flowers, so I won't have much time for socializing--but I do hope I get a chance to do some tax-free shopping (I think it's time for some maternity pants). It's going to be a whirlwind trip, but we hope we'll be able to see a few of you at the wedding or at Renovatus (if we can make it) on Sunday.

Please say some special travel-luck prayers for Jeb and Priscilla--they're flying to Ecuador today and the security for international flights is going to be a nightmare. Not to mention that the airlines won't be holding planes for delayed passengers even though security is slowing things down to a near standstill.

Man, I'm glad we decided to drive...

As Clear As Mud

2006-08-09T11:35:00.000-06:00

Generally, I'm not a fan of the forwards (usually jokes or "cute" animal pictures) my coworkers send out. They're usually just not worth the time it takes to read them, even if they're not the insipid genre promising good luck for continuing the chain or bad luck for breaking it. But I can't stop giggling over this list.

They're billed as actual analogies and metaphors found in high school students' essays and submitted by beleaguered English teachers. I find that hard to believe, since some of them are so bad that they're PERFECT. And others are so unintentionally funny that I suspect that they are actually intentionally funny. But whether they were penned by stupid students or brilliant humorists, they pretty much made my day. I want to write a story and find a way to include every last one of them. That would be perfection.

1.) Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2.) His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3.) He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4.) She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5.) She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6.) Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7.) He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8.) The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9.) The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10.) McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11.) From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12.) Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13.) The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14.) Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15.) They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16.) John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17.) He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18.) Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19.) Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20.) The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21.) The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22.) He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23.) The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24.) It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25.) He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Now, aren't those beautiful? Which is your favorite? Right now, I can't choose between #20 and #22, but in ten minutes, I'll probably vote differently.

If you want to be my best friend, use these gems for inspiration and write me a metaphor or analogy.

There's Nothing Like a Dame: Top 8 Old Hollywood Ladies

2006-08-04T14:12:00.000-06:00

After several weeks of drooling over handsome actors, I think it's only fair to give a little credit to the classic women of Old Hollywood. It's a rare woman today who can hold a candle to the elegance, beauty, and sophistication of these ladies in their prime. Each is stunning in her own right, and it was almost impossible to rank them, so I didn't try very hard--the order is basically random.

My favorites include...

1.) Elizabeth Taylor

2.) Ingrid Bergman

3.) Veronica Lake

4.) Sophia Loren

5.) Marilyn Monroe

6.) Audrey Hepburn

7.) Grace Kelly

8.) Vivien Leigh

I found it so difficult to limit myself to a Top 8 that I decided to include a bonus list this time.

Honorable Mention:

1.) Heddy Lamar

2.) Ava Gardner

3.) Rita Hayworth

4.) Cyd Charisse

5.) Bridgette Bardot

6.) Leslie Caron

7.) Katherine Hepburn

8.) Natalie Wood

Sorry the pictures are so small. Blogger was giving me fits and this is all I could manage.

Introducing the Littlest Kortan

2006-08-02T11:17:00.000-06:00

Yes, sir, that's my baby. (Well, "our" baby, but that's not how the song goes.) The munchkin is scheduled to make his or her big entrance on February 2, 2007. But since my Frost DNA is involved, chances are he/she won't be arriving on time.

To answer the most common questions:

1.) Yes, we'll be finding out the gender, assuming the baby cooperates. I can see the appeal of waiting and being surprised in the delivery room, but I'm not that patient. Besides, I'm a planner--and planning is much easier when you know what you're planning for. (Also, as my friend Rush says, "My life is enough of a joke as it is, I don't need to intentionally prank myself.") We don't care which gender we have first, but we really hope to have the opposite one the second time around.

2.) No, my morning sickness wasn't too bad at all. Got a little queasy when I let my stomach get too empty and felt more exhausted than usual, but I was pretty lucky overall. I hope that trend continues.

3.) Yes, we're excited. (Duh!) We've been waiting till Killer was close to retiring from the Air Force before we started our family. We wanted him to be able to be around for things like first smiles, first steps, and first words, not hearing about them in a weekly phone call from the Middle East. (We found out about the now-defunct transfer to Maryland 4 days after we found out I was pregnant. That was a fun way to spend my first trimester.¡)

4.) No, we won't be telling people the names we've picked out. We want it to be a surprise. Well, mostly, we want certain people (see last week's post), to keep their negative opinions to themselves. We think we've got a better chance of that happening if they don't hear the name till the ink is dry on the birth certificate and it's a done deal. Most rational people know that it's incredibly rude to insult the name new parents have given their baby (stupid celebrities excluded); but before it's born, everyone seems to think that they get a chance to try to change the parents' minds. For some reason, some people think they get a say in what we name the kid we're going to be raising. Hey, if they want to change all the diapers, clean up all the vomit, make all the trips to the ER, and pay for college, then maybe we'll let them have a vote. Otherwise, we'll promise not to name our baby Space Alien Kortan if they'll promise to keep it to themselves if they think the name we pick is too "weird." If they want to name something that badly, maybe they should get a kitten.

5.) Yes, we're sure it's not twins. As little brothers are contractually required to do, Ty was taunting me about it, so we asked the ultrasound technician to double-check. Not that twins wouldn't be twice as nice, but I'm pretty sure I'm too lazy to take care of twins. I like to sleep at least 5 minutes a night, it's a habit I just can't shake.

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To: Top 8 Old Hollywood Men

2006-07-28T11:41:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I love old movies. Well, I must confess...it's not just because of the wardrobes and the melodrama. It's also because of fine (and I do mean fine) actors like these.

Some might think that Jimmy Stewart is conspicuously missing from my list. Actually, I love Jimmy Stewart, and respect him as a person, too. But I don't find him attractive. Wonder why? Ever met my dad? Seen pictures of him from high school and college?

Yeah, that's why. When Killer gets in the mood to watch It's a Wonderful Life at Christmastime, he says, "Wanna watch your dad?" So many people have commented on their similarities (both in their looks and in their "vibe" or persona) that I just can't think of good ol' Jimmy that way. It's kinda squicky when other people do, too. So please don't drool over Jimmy Stewart in my presence, or I may be forced to say something sexy about your dad, just to get even. Nobody wants that. That's just not right.

Anyway, back to my favorite suave, sophisticated, charming, handsome men of yore...nobody these days could hold a candle to these eight in their prime:

1.) Cary Grant (No one compares; if you don't believe me, go rent any film he ever made.)

2.) Gene Kelly (The only man masculine enough to dance ballet and still look macho.)

3.) Paul Newman (Stayed in his prime for over 30 years, and responsible for raising over $200 million for charity to boot.)

4.) Gary Cooper (I once dated a boy whose dad's name was Gary Cooper. Sadly, no relation.)

5.) Gregory Peck (Plus, from all reports, he was as decent and honorable as the characters he played.)

6.) Clark Gable (A more charming rogue has never walked the earth.)

7.) Rock Hudson (Yeah, I know...but he's still handsome and charming, especially in his movies with Doris Day.)

8.) Marlon Brando (One of Hollywood's best object lessons: incomparable looks and talent in his prime, but he let himself go and ended up repulsive and craaaaaaazy.)

Brad Pitt, eat your heart out.

Kitten War

2006-07-26T13:44:00.000-06:00

I have one of those jobs where we'll be bombarded with work for a while, then we'll sit around twiddling our thumbs while we wait for people to finish what they have to do so that we can do what we have to do. Which means I have a lot of time to goof off on the Internet when I'm not in the middle of a project.

The other day, I spent at least an hour at http://www.kittenwar.com. It was shockingly addictive. The site puts two pictures of random felines (usually kittens, but sometimes cats) side by side, then asks you to click on the picture of the cutest kitty. As soon as you click, your vote is registered and you are shown the percentage of people who agreed with you on the relative cuteness of said kitty. AND (this is the kicker) a new pair of kitty pics appears, and the cycle continues. Since I love me some, fuzzy, cuddly, adorable baby animals, and I have a particular soft spot for kittens, this site may prove to be my favorite thing on the Internet.

But here's the thing: I already have two lovely kitties of my own. And much as I would love to add to my feline family, I know that now is not the right time for us to adopt a baby kitty. So I just admired the kitten pictures, cooed over their adorableness, and smiled because it's impossible not to smile when you see a picture of a cute little kitty.

That's how I feel about the handsome celebrity men in my Top 8 lists. I enjoy looking at their pictures, admiring how cute they are, and am generally glad that they exist. But I don't want one of them for my own, not even for a second. I'm happy with the handsome man I married, and the fact that I enjoy looking at their pictures has nothing more to do with the state of my morals or my faith or my marriage than enjoying my time at Kitten War has to do with how much I love and appreciate the two lovely kitties I already have.

I decided not to be offended by Ryan's "Pretending" post because I don't think he was intentionally judging me (or Arwen or Lisa) because I (we) have interests that he doesn't understand. But it got me thinking about certain things, and I've realized that it does bother me that certain people seem to be "concerned" over things that aren't a cause for concern. I get a lot of this from certain people in my life, and I've gotten tired of it.

But just in case you were wondering:

My blood pressure is perfect, as I've mentioned many times before, so I think I'll just continue using the same amount of salt I always have.
The fact that I don't enjoy gardening doesn't mean that I have an ugly yard or that I'm a neglectful wife, it just means I don't enjoy it.
My doctor told me to stop eating so many raw fruits and vegetables and my Crohn's Disease would stop flaring up--but thank you for telling me that I'm neglecting my health by following a medical specialist's advice.
Yes, I do wear a lot of red, but I'm pretty sure no one thinks I'm "easy" because of it.
Actually, spending time reading every day is not a waste of my time. I can keep my house tidy and my husband happy and still get through a few chapters without everything going to Texas in a handbasket.
Not ditching the friends I had long before I met Steve (even the male ones) does not jeopardize the health of my marriage or my committment to it. It just means that I value friendship and loyalty, and that I don't stop caring about someone because I have a "Mrs." in front of my name. Also, if I'd wanted to get romantically involved with any of said male friends, I could have pursued that long before I took my vows with my husband. It's insulting to me that you think I'm the kind of person who can't be trusted in the presence of men who aren't my husband, and I can't help but wonder if your suspicions say more about you than they do about me.

And, yes, over the last few years I have had well-meaning people voice concern over all of those topics, and many, many more.

If I was boozing, getting high, gambling the mortgage money, and cruising for dudes down at the pub, I should hope that people would care enough to say something. But misplaced concern feels pretty condescending and judgemental when you're on the receiving end, even if it's coming from a caring place. I've successfully completed almost 32 years on this planet. Through the grace of God and the guidance of my loving family, my youthful indescretions were few and minor--and I learned valuable lessons from the mistakes I made. I've got a happy marriage and family, a pretty darn good reputation, a good education, an even temper, many wonderful people who love me, an inquisitive mind, compassion for others, well-grounded faith, and a place in Heaven. Several people respect my judgement and opinions enough to come to me for advice on a regular basis. I'm not trying to sound proud or boastful, but I'm doing okay. I can honestly say that I like who I am. I don't have every single thing in my life perfectly "together", but I don't have any shameful secrets to hide, either. I choose to wear red (even strappy high heels! "gasp!"), avoid broccoli, read lots of books, and stay in contact with my old friends--even the guys. I often spend half an hour watching Entertainment Tonight and I enjoy snarking on celebrities. These things are part of who I am, and I shouldn't have to feel ashamed of it because other people disagree, or see no value in it, or choose to focus their attention elsewhere. I don't think other people are misguided because they like dogs better than cats or don't know that Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro broke up. We're all different. We all have different interests and abilities. And I, for one, am glad. Think how boring it would be if we all had identical interests. Especially if those shared interests were like Ty's! (Sorry, it's my duty as big sister to take advantage of opportunities like that.)

Not to be Anglo-Centric: Top 8 Hot Not-Quite English Gents

2006-07-21T11:02:00.000-06:00

This is just for Ryan, because I know how much he enjoys celebrity-centric posts.

A bit of a geography lesson before we begin: England is the country that occupies the majority of the island (know to most as Britain) that is also shared by Scotland and Wales. Together, along with Northern Ireland (and maybe some other small islands), these four countries make up the entity known as Great Britain. FYI: plain ol' Ireland does its own thing, but Northern Ireland is at least nominally under British control (it's a complicated Catholic vs. Protestant thing, with lots of tricky politics thrown in for good measure). Therefore, for example, people from Scotland can be called Scottish (which they perfer) or British (which they're not particularly fond of, considering their long and bitter history of conflict with England--think Braveheart). I don't think English people mind being called British, but if you know someone was born and raised in England, might as well be precise and call them English.

Australia and New Zealand were both British colonies once upon a time, but they are now autonomous like the U.S.A. and Canada. Australia does not govern New Zealand, nor vice versa.

Since most of the citizens of the above mentioned places speak English with lovely, if sometimes unintelligible accents, the uninitiated ear will sometimes assume that a Kiwi is from Ireland when he's really from New Zealand. Or some rube might call a Scottish man a leprechaun when they should be asking what he wears under his kilt. It doesn't help that many of these talented actors are adept at assuming other accents, so you never know if you're hearing their normal speaking voice when you watch them on the big screen. In fact, one of my favorites, Christian Bale, never used the same accent twice in any of the movies he made from 1986 till at least 2000. (Maybe that is still the case, but I don't know where to find more recent information.)

I know, I know, ENOUGH with the geography lesson! Time for pictures of charming, talented, gorgeous men! As promised, my favorite hot guys who aren't exactly English (but I'm willing to bet they're called English by dozens of random yokels every day):

1.) Eric Bana (Australia)

2.) Christian Bale (Wales)

3.) Gerard Butler (Scotland)

4.) Hugh Jackman (Australia)

5.) Ewan McGregor (Scotland)

6.) Liam Neeson (Northern Ireland)

7.) Pierce Brosnan (Ireland)

8.) Karl Urban (New Zealand)

Kind of makes me want to travel...

This One Time, in High School

2006-07-20T11:22:00.000-06:00

Another long story, but with funny bits that might make it worth the read...

I was a sophomore the first year I attended Columbia Christian High School. I already knew most of the kids in my class from youth group activities, family connections, camp, or through my best friend who'd attended Columbia since Kindergarten. I knew there weren't many dating prospects there--most of the boys were like annoying brothers or cousins, I'd known them so long. But that was okay--I was nursing two or three long-term crushes in other venues, so my plate was already full.

Then one day, about a month or two into the school year, a really cute new guy walked into Typing class. You might as well have thrown raw meat into a piranha pool. All the girls lost their blessed minds. This kind of marathon flirting and self-throwing you haven't seen since the king held auditions for a new wife in the book of Esther.

But the new guy, let's call him PSG for Preferred Stock Guy (because he looked remarkably like the model in the Preferred Stock ad campaign that was all the rage those days) seemed a little overwhelmed. He'd been living in Asia for a few years while his parents worked as missionaries, and he felt out of place and awkward while trying to get over his culture shock. He didn't respond to any of my classmates' advances, much to their chagrin.

Now, I thought PSG was cute, and I was nice to him, but I had bigger fish to fry. I had one cute guy in Canada writing letters to me every week, one of my classmate's hilarious buddies calling me every night, and a serious case of unrequited love for the previously-blogged about Dud. So it came as quite a surprise when PSG asked me to be his girlfriend one afternoon while I was watching the guys play basketball while I waited for my ride. I was flattered, I admit it. Several prettier, more popular girls had tried to snag him and failed. I hadn't even tried to reel him in, and here he had fallen in my lap. Nice ego boost, but that was about it.

So I stupidly agreed to "go out" with him.

Because being flattered to be asked is always a good reason to start a relationship.

Turns out that PSG doesn't have much of a personality--but he is super jealous and possessive, so he's got that going for him. Why a guy like that asked the most flirtatious girl in the class to be his girlfriend, I'll never know. I think he must have grossly misjudged my level of popularity and thought he could use me as a ticket to the in-crowd. Heh. Not so much.

After four days of being boyfriend and girlfriend, PSG thought it was a good idea to tell me that he was in love with me. After 4 days! Awkward! I think I said "thank you." What else was I supposed to do? Tell some guy I barely knew that he owned my whole heart? Fat chance! He was barely leasing my left pinky.

A few weeks later, he tells me that he's been working on a poem for me. He gives it to me in a note as I'm about to leave for a youth rally in Canada (yes, the cute pen pal was going to be there, along with his cute friends). I should have dumped PSG right then, because teen poetry is almost always grounds for dismissal. But this poem was pretty well-written and mature. I was surprised, actually. There were a couple of lines where the meter was off, but it was pretty good for a teenager. I held a "do I dump him?" forum with the girls on the way to Canada and they were all so impressed by his romantic, poetry-writing ways that they convinced me to keep him. (But you better believe I didn't mention PSG's existence to the cute Canadian boy.)

After I got back from Canada, PSG left for a Thanksgiving-related family vacation. I enjoyed my break from him, and didn't bother to call the day he was supposed to get home--I figured I'd see him at school the next day. He was so miffed that I returned his buddy's call re: a homework assignment but didn't call him (PSG) he threw a spectacular hissy in the lunch line. That was suave. I decided I didn't need that static from a guy I could barely stay awake around, so I broke up with him the next day.

I did my best to breakup with him nicely. I (lied) told him he was great, that I didn't deserve him, that he should be with a girl who could appreciate his finer qualities. His eyes welled up with tears and he told me that he would love me forever. (I found out later that the guys caught him crying in the locker room before basketball practice, and I felt kind of bad. I've never been proud of my Heartbreaker tendancies.) It seemed like a pretty strong reaction from a guy who'd held hands with me once and never even tried to kiss me. Let's just say that I got over it quickly and with limited damage to my psyche.

Okay. I told you all that to tell you this.

Fast forward: A couple of months after I broke his heart, PSG is dating one of my friends. The fact that she's a freshman cheerleader with a gigantic rack probably had nothing to do with his interest in her. We'll call her Giggles, because she had a very distinctive laugh. Well, Giggles and I were hanging out with my best friend and her sister after school one day. I was bored, so I started flipping through my English text book. I was browsing happily through the poetry unit when what to my wondering eyes did appear, but the poem PSG had "written" for me in November. Only in present tense instead of past (which accounts for the aforementioned meter problems). That's right, that chucklehead tried to pass off a poem from our English text book as one of his own. What a genius! (To his credit, I suspect he copied it from one of his mother's poetry books and didn't realize it was in our textbook.) Since PSG and Giggles were fighting that day, I figured it would be funny to show her the note (luckily still buried in the pocket of my backpack) and the poem from the book. The four of us girls laughed until we were afraid we'd rupture something. I don't know if Giggles ever told PSG that I'd discovered the source of his poetic inspiration, but that Spring, our English teacher assigned the poem on the page across from PSG's poem to be read and discussed in class. I wonder if PSG ever figured out why reading a poem about a rose gave my best friend and I "coughing fits" that made tears pour down our faces?

But wait, there's more! The next year, my best friend started dating a new guy. The new guy also became friends with PSG. (PSG was officially cool and part of the in-crowd by this time, and I was still happily middle-of-the-road.) One day, my best friend mentioned the reason that PSG had been giving me the silent treatment all year was that we went out once upon a time and it ended badly. So her boyfriend asked PSG what happened and he told his friend that HE had dumped me, and that I had been INCONSOLABLE and cried in front of everyone. Man, I wish I could have seen my friend's boyfriend's face when she told him what really happened (if he could understand her through the howls of laughter). All I know is, he thought it was pretty stinkin' hilarious when he told me about PSG's version the next day. Everytime PSG was a jerk to him after that (which was often), he would mention something about crying because some chick dumped him. I'll always think of him fondly for that.

You Know How I Invited You to Come Visit us in Maryland?

2006-07-17T17:18:00.000-06:00

Nevermind.

We won't be there.

That's right. After we spent five weeks in a tizzy--packing, stressing, cleaning, worrying, fixing, whining, planting, and spreading the news of our impending departure...it's off.

I guess the Air Force is short on funds, so they revoked the authorization for people of Steve's rank to hold that position. So there are 11 other families in the same situation we're in. Thank goodness we got the news two days (not two months) after we put the house on the market. I shudder to think what would have happened if we'd accepted an offer, THEN got this news.

Stupid Air Force.

It's weird. Most of me is relieved that everything is back to normal. (I never thought I'd be happy to be stuck in Idaho.) But I had been working really hard to have a good attitude, to be supportive, to look at the positive aspects of the move. I was actually looking forward to several things about living in that area. (Primarily being within visiting distance of the charming Conni, the phenomenal seafood, taking a break from work till at least after the holidays, and the proximity to enough nerdy museums and historical sites to make my heart go pitty-pat.)

It's strange to feel vaguely disappointed about missing out on something I didn't even want to do.

Anyway, if anyone's been dying to take a vacation in lovely Boise, Idaho, we'll be here another year or so...

It Must Be The Accent: Top 8 Hot English Gents

2006-07-14T12:01:00.000-06:00

With all this talk about Christian Bale (born in Wales, raised in England--so he's on another list) and Alan Rickman in the blogmunity this week, I thought it was time to post my list of yummy English actors. It's true, I'm a sucker for an accent. And they all seem so wittily intelligent and smoldering with all that repressed passion. Thankfully none of them seem to be plagued with those notorious English teeth.

Yes, I am a silly girl. But Killer doesn't need to worry...I'm just admiring them from a distance.

1.) Colin Firth

2.) Damian Lewis

3.) Clive Owen

4.) Sean Bean

5.) Ralph Fiennes

6.) Anthony Stewart Head

7.) Daniel Craig

8.) Alan Rickman (just for you, Arwen)

Extra points to the first person who notices the glaring omission from this English Heartthrobs list.

I'm Starting Suspect Something

2006-07-12T10:15:00.000-06:00

I've noticed a trend, and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to take it personally.

Every single time I leave a place (a town, a job, a college), they make a significant improvement that I'm not around to enjoy. Think I'm exaggerating? Consider this:

The year after I graduated from Columbia Christian High School, they got new lockers and new carpet. This was a big deal, since the old carpet and lockers dated back to the years when Dad taught there (i.e. the 1970s).
The year after I left York College, they built a new Student Center and a new Science Building (not that I would have ever voluntarily darkened the door of the Science Building).
The year after I graduated from Cascade College, they built a new dorm and expanded, remodeled and redecorated the Student Center. The SC went from "dive" to "actually worth entering" as soon as I was gone.
The year after I left my unbelievably crappy job at the mortgage company in Oklahoma City, they moved to a new building (closer to where I'd lived), AND got better benefits, more vacation time, and across the board raises.
Within a year (or so) after I left the Portland area, they built a Krispy Kreme a mile from my old condo, finished the MAX line from Gateway to the airport, and my old congregation built a new auditorium .
I just found out that a few months after I leave Boise, they're building a Cheesecake Factory by the mall, and an Old Spaghetti Factory one block from my office.

What the heck?!?!? Why do they gotta wait till I leave to do something nice? I think I'm going to take it as a personal affront. Wouldn't you?

Lullaby of Broadway:Top 8 Big Hollywood Musicals

2006-07-07T13:28:00.000-06:00

After a solid month of music-related Top 8 lists, I felt like I should wean you off the topic gently.

So here I confess my unconscious addiction to the Big Hollywood Musical. I know they're absurd. I know they're ridiculous. But the costumes! The cheese! The songs! The dancing! The Gene Kelly!

I didn't realize that I had a thing for musicals till one Friday night last winter when Steve was on the midnight shift and I was avoiding our empty house by hanging around TGI Friday's playing the Buzztime (NTN) Trivia games. The games are usually general knowledge, but a few times a month they have a specialized game on some random topic like Robert Redford, Famous Speeches, or Mountains. On this fateful night, the random topic was Musicals. I thought I'd do alright, since I watched a lot of musicals with Mom in my misspent youth, so I logged in. And then I proceeded to get every single question right and my score ended up in the top ten for the country (and Canada). It was shocking and a little embarrassing to realize that I had accidentally become an expert on musicals. It wasn't on purpose, I swear.

Anyway, here are my favorites. I suggest you familiarize yourself with them posthaste. I'll quiz you later.

1.) Fiddler on the Roof

2.) Singing in the Rain

3.) Thoroughly Modern Millie

4.) The Sound of Music

5.) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

6.) My Fair Lady

7.) Hello, Dolly!

8.) Brigadoon

That's some good stuff right there.

19 Things About My Trip to Oregon

2006-07-06T10:22:00.000-06:00

We got back from our Camp Yamhill and Vicinity World Tour a couple of days ago, and it took me all day (at work--yes, I'm a slacker) to catch up with everything that's been going on in our blogmunity. I noticed a couple "19 Things About Me" posts, so I thought I'd steal that, put a spin on it, and use it for my "What I Did This Summer" post.

1. We didn't get to leave Idaho on time because we had a dead battery. (The infamous Frost Car Karma strikes again.) But Triple A saved the day.

2. We got to eat at The Original Taco House not once but twice. YAY! We also tried to invite all our Renovatus friends to join us at Stark Street Pizza on Sunday night, but they had a better party to go to. We did get to hang with our totally awesome friend Tom, and later Matt and Steve from Underground Railroad of my Mind, though. So that was cool.

3. The burden on my heart got a little lighter when I discovered that Taco House can deliver their food to Maryland for just the cost of the food and the FedEx.

4. My parents' cat is hilariously well-endowed in the testicular region. Nothing makes Killer laugh harder than the sight of Sparky after a long absence. I know Bob Barker wants me to get him fixed, but it would be a crime to destroy a monument like that. I'm pretty sure he belongs in the Guiness Book of World Records.

5. I got to see Tabitha and Rebecca Marie twice. Suck on it, Sucka!

6. I got to meet Rebecca Marie's Mister. He's very cute. Pretty eyes. Nice, too. I won't say more because I don't want Rebecca Marie to feel like she needs to protect her territory. I'm very happy with Killer Kortan, thanks.

7. Rebecca Marie can't understand how Ty has dodged the marriage bullet so long. She thinks he's cute and has a certain "sumpin sumpin." She said that Ty is lucky that she's already married or he'd "be in trouble." That made me laugh. And also gave me a little hope that maybe some other (single) girl in the world will think the same thing and I might have blood-related nieces and nephews some sweet day.

8. It was wicked, heinous hot the first two days of camp. Like, around 105 degrees with no air conditioner for miles. I do not function well above 75 degrees. It was a problem.

9. Lara is my hero for bringing squirt bottles to fill with water. Spritzing ourselves and everyone around us kept us from completely losing what was left of our sanity.

10. At the camper registration table, I was introduced to a camper whose mother had been in my cabin the first time I ever counseled at Camp Yamhill. That's right, I'm on my second generation of campers. If I once mothered his mother, that means I am officially a granny. But it made the kid feel special that he had a connection with me, and he enjoyed reminding me that he made me feel old at every opportunity. (Nick Rucker quickly stopped him from saying that he made me look old, with a well-timed "Look, Kid, there's one thing you never say to a woman. And that's it.")

11. There is a sign near the metal bridge at camp that says "Pearl Lane." It is a memorial for one of the camp's benefactors. One day I was leading the kids to class and the cutest little cutie, Samuel, (with the giant brown eyes and irresistible dimples and cheeks for days) said, after seeing the Pearl Lane sign, " Hummmm, this area always has resembled a pearl, in my view." It was officially the cutest thing EVER.

12. I may have to be hypnotized to rid myself of this overwhelming urge to pinch kids' cute, chubby cheeks. I controlled myself and didn't do any actual pinching, but it was a near thing.

13. I promised Ty that we would partake of many, many Burgerville Fresh Strawberry Shakes during our sojourn. It turns out that I am a filthy liar. We could have stopped and gotten some in The Dalles on our way to Portland, but I wanted to get there quickly so we could eat at Taco House AND make it to the Columbia/Cascade 50th Anniversary Campus Collage. But on Tuesday, I went into town to buy Cool Whip and stopped at Burgerville. I bought 3 shakes (for me, Killer, and Ty). I put the boys' shakes in front of the air conditioning vents and drove fast all the way to camp (nothing new there). Back at camp, I hustled around looking for the guys, with the shakes quickly turning to more milk than shake. I eventually found the hubby, but the brother had absconded to the Flying M for some more-edible grub, so I gave his quickly-melting shake to Bonnie. Little did I know that by the time we got back to civilization on Saturday, all the strawberries in the Northwest would have mysteriously disappeared and we'd be smack at the beginning of raspberry season. I am a bad sister, and not to be trusted with matters of milkshakes. He might forgive me someday. But I wouldn't blame him if he didn't.

14. At the aforementioned Campus Collage, I got to see the parents of my childhood best friend, and Tabitha (who sang a lovely version of "Down to the River" or whatever that song is called), the newly repatriated Jared and Jenny Ranum, and the Illustrious Matt (of CCHS, Cascade, and Renovatus fame) and his lovely mother. I also saw Tabs' best girl J's dad, whom I've know since I was an embryo. And Jason Hill, but only from a distance. I also saw a whole bunch of people none of you bloggers have any reason to have heard of. I saw most of them, and others, again the next night at the banquet, but they were dressed fancier. Kaydub and Marm were at the banquet, and even though the visit was brief, it was great to see them. They rock. Officially.

15. During a family dinner, I realized that growing up with my aunts has been like growing up with two mother-in-laws. They always have something snide to say (usually about your weight, but sometimes about your job or your skin or your education or your outfit--or all of the above in rapid succession); they seem to think they are experts on every medical condition; everything silver cloud has a gray lining; nothing you do or say will ever be good enough; and they are convinced that they know how to run your life better than you do even though you are happy and successful and they are miserable. Thank goodness my actual mother-in-law has better manners than my aunts.

16. Playmobile toys are still just as much the bomb now as they were when I was a kid. I need to start a day care just so I'll have an excuse to buy the French maison and the Pirate Ship. I wish I knew how to link, because these things would blow your mind.

17. Because something was evidently in the water last summer and practically everyone I've ever met had babies this spring, I got to cuddle 4 babies in 24 hours last weekend. =) I can't even decide which one was the cutest because Calvin, Kaylia, Jacob, and Lilyanah are officially the four cutest babies ever. (Until I meet the next crop, I suppose. As they say, "every baby is the sweetest and the best.")

18. I was having trouble sleeping one night at camp and happened to look out the window beside my bunk. I had a moment with the stars and after musing on the wonder of it all, I had a little pity party while I worried that living in Maryland is going to keep us from making it to camp for a while. It better not! I've counseled at 3rd & 4th 20 times in a row, and I don't want some little thing like an entire continent to get in the way of my record.

19. My cat evidently has a nervous stomach and abandonment issues. Every time we leave for more than a couple of days, he ends up having, um, severe digestive issues. He's white and long-haired...you do the math. Poor Pookie. And poor Ty for being stuck with bath duty.

Whew! That was long. But that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point.

Brave New World: Top 8 (More) Modern Artists

2006-06-22T14:02:00.000-06:00

I've decided it is time for me to prove that my musical tastes do indeed reach beyond the 1970s. Some of the selections on this list may not seem so "modern" or "current" to some of you whippersnappers, but try to remember that I'm an old lady, so my perspective on such things is a little different. You can argue with me once you cross the threshhold to thirty. (If I haven't completely lost my hearing by then.)

Feel free to try to convert me to your newfangled tunes. I'll probably just mock your choices--but that's fun, too.

And now, without further ado, my much anticipated and alluded to Top 8 (More) Modern Artists list:

1.) Great Big Sea

2.) Sarah McLachlan

3.) Nirvana

4.) U2

5.) R.E.M.

6.) Elvis Costello

7.) Eve 6

8.) Cake

P.S.

2006-06-22T08:22:00.000-06:00

Ty broke his vow of blog silence to write a little something, so be sure to check out what he has to say (even though he's totally blaming me for our inability to come to Renovatus) and see if you can find a way to respond to his pleas.

You Better Kiss Me, Cause You're Gonna Miss Me

2006-06-21T16:00:00.000-06:00

We (Ty, Steve, and I) are leaving the Blogisphere and heading out of town. We'll be in Portland late on Friday night, then were heading out to Camp Yamhill Saturday the 24th through Friday the 30th. (We're going to head back in to town for the Columbia/Cascade Anniversary Banquet on Saturday night, so if you're there, too, maybe we'll get to visit.) We'll be back in Portland for the 1st and 2nd, and maybe part of the 3rd. I'm pretty sure we'll be headed back to Purgatory no later than early on the 4th, but it might be sooner.

We'll be doing our best to visit family and friends--lonely aunts and friends with brand new babies are getting first priority this trip, but I'd love to visit with my bloggy friends, too. If we have any unscheduled time after making good on our visiting promises, you Portcouver folks will be the first to know. (We won't have a chance to come to Renovatus this time around because I've promised a lady with a baby that we'll meet up at Southwest.) If you feel motivated to call and say hello while we're out there, my parents are listed in the phone book.

This week's Top 8 list will be making an early appearance on Thursday afternoon, and you're just going to have to endure the pain of no Top 8 next week. You will survive. Be not downhearted, for perseverance brings strength of character.

Try to behave yourselves like good boys and girls while we're gone.

Broken Hearts and Blind Dates to the Prom

2006-06-19T17:17:00.000-06:00

Forgive me for omitting names--it's not that I'm protecting the innocent so much as their families and myself. Too many of you are likely to have known these people or their families, and I don't really need to reignite gossip from 15 years ago.

This is going to be a long story. If you can't hack it, that's okay. It's mostly for Rebecca Marie, because she unwittingly played a supporting role in my teenage drama.

When I was a freshman in high school, I developed a wicked crush on my friend's older brother. We'll call him The Dud. I didn't know The Dud except in passing until the weekend when we were 2 of only 6 people who went to a far-away youth rally, when for some reason I decided he was the cat's pajamas. In reality, he was a quiet, moody, not particularly bright guy who cared more about basketball than he cared about everything else in the world put together. The Dud didn't have much of a personality, but that didn't dissuade me! He was a blank slate on which I could create the perfect man. I decided he was cute (he was average at best); I decided he was smart (being smart-mouthed does not always equal smart); I decided he was funny (being able to quote funny parts of movies does not mean someone is funny, it means someone can memorize funny things other people say); I decided he was charming (I obviously needed to watch a few more Cary Grant movies). To be fair, he wasn't a total troglodyte. He just wasn't the paragon of manhood I'd created in my overactive 15 year-old imagination. Even my sweet, supportive, sickeningly optimistic best friend couldn't figure out what I saw in him. But I was nothing if not persistent.

I pretty much threw myself at The Dud at least three times a week for two years straight. Subtle was not in my vocabulary. I even went out with one of the hottest guys at school that fall, but I always had my crush on The Dud to fall back on. I had always been the flirtatious type, but I was ridiculous with him. I might as well have batted my eyelashes, dropped a scented hankie, and swooned at his feet. Seriously. There was no possible way he didn't know I liked him. When The Dud transferred to my school when I was a sophomore and he was a senior, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. I got to smile at him in the hallways and stare at him during Chapel. When he joined the choir second semester, I was totally psyched. When he called me a few weeks before Spring Break/choir tour and told me that one of the junior girls (who was also in our youth group--and cuter and more popular than me) was in love with him and chasing him and driving him crazy, and he asked me if I'd pretend we were an item so she'd leave him alone? Well, the Heavens opened, the angels started singing, and I started looking for the perfect china pattern. We hung out after school in the gym, we goofed around in choir, we spent a lot of time together on choir tour--he even got a little grabby while pretending to nap on the tour bus (such a gentleman). I was just sure that it was only a matter of time before I was his official girlfriend and the envy of all the girls in my class. (Yeah, I wouldn't have been anyone's envy with that dope.) I even picked a pattern and bought the fabric so my mom could sew me a formal for the Junior/Senior Banquet (our school's version of the Prom--we didn't have dances, because evidently dancing is a big fat mortal sin). All of his flirting had me absolutely convinced that he was going to ask me to the formal.

Then one morning I walked into the office and saw his name on the Junior/Senior sign-up list. Next to his date's name: Becky Holden! (That's Rebecca Marie to you.) WHAT!?!?! Where did that come from? I didn't even know they knew each other very well. What the heck?! He was supposed to ask me! I was devastated. What did she have that I didn't have?!?! But it got worse. Later (don't remember if it was that day or a few days later) he sent the junior girl that he'd been trying to get rid of to tell me that he only liked me as a friend! Could there possibly have been a worse person to send? At first, my instinct was to blame the girls, but I soon realized that he was the jerk part of the equation. I got MAD. And then I got over it. I had this delicious epiphany where I realized that I had basically created a great guy in my head when he was really just kind of average in reality. And I decided I was done wasting my time on that putz. It was a shockingly fast recovery from a two year crush--too bad all heartbreaks don't heal so quickly and thoroughly!

But getting over it quickly wasn't the best part.

The night I got the "just friends" message, I went home and fumed. I was so over him, but I was still peeved that I'd been led on and that he'd been so jerky about the whole thing. Then Mom got a phone call from one of her coworkers. Kathy's son, Matt, needed a date to his Prom and he'd procrastinated big time. He went to a small school and didn't really want to ask any of the girls there because he didn't want "romantic entanglements." So he was to the point where he needed to find a blind date or he couldn't go--and he really wanted to go. It just so happened that his mom knew I had a dress (from a previous formal--which I attended with the youngest Bonner brother of Rebecca Marie's blog fame, but he was my bestest buddy, not a crush) and I was free the night of the Prom, seeing as how Rebecca Marie stole my man and all. (Hee! Thanks again for the favor, Becky.) Mom assured me that Matt was nice and very cute, if a little shy. So I blithely agreed to be my mom's coworker's son's blind date to his Prom! Who does that? I probably would have been too chicken if I hadn't been so infuriated by the shabby treatment I'd endured earlier that day. It was the adrenaline, I tell you!

Anyway, I wasn't even nervous because if it was horrible, who had to know? I figured I could survive anything for one night, and no one at my school needed to find out unless I wanted them to. Turns out I wanted them to. (Insert giant grinning face here.) Before he arrived to pick me up, Mom and I worked out a signal so I could let her know if I thought he was cute before we left. He was so cute, I forgot to give her the signal because I was too busy staring and drooling. Seriously, SO cute. All athletic and adorable with dimples and blue eyes and everything a teenage girl could want. It's not fair to meet a guy that cute for the first time when he's wearing a tux--it's just knee-weakeningly unfair. What's a girl to do?

We had such a fun time at the Prom. Matt was all sweet and shy, but with a funny, dry sense of humor. And since it was a small school and I was "fresh meat," I got a lot of compliments and attention from his friends too, which I've gotta say didn't hurt my self-esteem. We had fun, my hair behaved the whole night (for the first and last time ever), the pictures turned out super-cute, I was in top witty form, and a good time was had by all. When Matt got to school on Monday, his friends all pounced on him and started bugging him to ask his mom to set THEM up on blind dates. (I'm pretty sure that's a compliment.) Matt and I got along so well that he (the guy who wanted a blind date so he could avoid romantic entanglements) asked me out several more times over the summer--we were never officially in a relationship, and eventually his shyness and the 45 minute drive led the whole thing to sputter out, but I had a new crush by then and it was no big deal. I suspect I was some sort of dating practice course for him because the next year he was quite the ladies man at his school--his mom blames me for losing custody of her car because I gave him the confidence to ask a whole slew of girls out. And he and his friends made me feel like a genuine, certified babe instead of a pathetic reject. Matt and I remained genuinely friendly whenever our paths crossed. I went to the State Track Meet where he set a school record, and I think we even attended each others' graduations. I even made all the corsages and boutonieres for his sister's wedding a few years ago. It was probably the best blind date to a prom ever, and it happened at the perfect time. I wonder if he knows he did me a favor by letting me do him a favor?

But the best part of the story? Was the look on The Dud's face when he happened to walk by my friends and I in the hall while they were looking at my Prom pictures and freaking out over how gorgeous my prom date was. Yeah. He was, shall we say, crestfallen. Poor Dud! It was awesome.

Those Oldies But Goodies Remind Me of You: Top 8 REALLY Old School Artists

2006-06-16T10:50:00.000-06:00

I've made an executive decision. The month of June is hereby officially deemed Music-Related Top 8 List Month here at One Feisty Blog.

I know I made tantalizing references to creating a Top 8 List of the more modern music that I enjoy, but I've decided to save that for last. I've decided to go back before I go forward.

This list takes me back to the days when we were kids, sitting in the back seat of the trusty old Dodge Dart with the brown vinyl bench seats, held captive by my fuddy-duddy Dad's music selections. We thought we were being deprived because Dad wouldn't let us listen to KISS--we didn't realize then that our horizons were being broadened. We didn't realize that listening to the The Platters or The Inkspots instead of Guns n' Roses or Whitney Houston would give us something to talk about with a generation we'd have nothing in common with otherwise. We didn't realize that listening to Hank Williams and Benny Goodman would help us understand part of our history. It might not have made me cool to listen to the Beach Boys and The Righteous Brothers in High School, but I'm glad I chose them over The New Kids on the Block.

I know most of you may not have heard of some of these artists, but trust me when I tell you that they're worth checking out. You may not enjoy every single artist on the list, but if you fall in love with just one song that speaks to you and becomes part of the soundtrack of your life, it's worth it. Broadening your horizons is a Good Thing, especially where music is concerned.

1.) Nat "King" Cole

2.) Glenn Miller

3.) Buddy Holly

4.) The Everly Brothers

5.) Patsy Cline

6.) Roy Orbison

7.) The Mills Brothers

8.) Etta James

Give a Little, Help a Lot

2006-06-15T10:21:00.000-06:00

There was a time in my life, mercifully brief in the scheme of things, when I felt like I had only two friends in the world: my cat and my books. It seemed like the only place I could get any peace at school was in the Library with its uncomfortable chairs, new blue carpet, and shelves full of undiscovered treasures. Marge, the cranky librarian left me alone because my dad taught at the same school and she knew if she picked on me, he'd hear about it. I was left in peace to read dozens of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books, and a long forgotten favorite called, I think, The House of Thirty Cats. The mean girls didn't pick on me in the Library, I forgot about my bad skin and my mysterious boy-repellant force field. Life was good in the Library.

Every kid, every person, should have a sanctuary where they can escape the pangs of everyday life and find a little peace, a little adventure, a little magic. This is true for everyone, but especially true for people who are having a particularly tough time dealing with what life throws their way.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed many things, many lives, more than we can comprehend. Some kind Internet folks of my acquaintance are attempting to help several Gulf Coast libraries that were affected by the hurricane last summer. They are spearheading a donation drive to replenish the libraries in Harrison County, Mississippi. Since kid-level and flood-level tend to share the same space, several of these libraries lost their entire Children's Literature sections. That's just not right!

Please visit http://deweydonationsystem.org/ and read the discriptions of the libraries and their needs. If one inspires you, please take a look at their wish list and send a book their way. I know I don't have many readers, and that most of my readers don't have many dollars to spare. But if you have ever found solace in books, maybe you can forgo the popcorn and soda next time you go to the move theater and donate a book or two instead. If you spend more than $25 on books, shipping is free. Even if you can't afford to donate, please tell a friend (preferably a rich friend) and spread the word about this book drive. You'll never know how many lives will be touched, or how many dreams will be inspired, by just one book.

And remember, donating books is good Karma!

Big News, Mixed Feelings

2006-06-13T12:32:00.000-06:00

A few days ago Ty announced that something big had come up and he needed to take a break from blogging so he could concentrate on his thesis for a while. He said I'd explain, so I guess that means I should probably stop babbling about music from the 1970s and clarify things.

To those of you who probably should have learned this from a personal phone call or email, I apologize. I'm still pretty overwhelmed about all of this, and I can't bring myself to do the repetitive retelling that would be required if I couldn't use this method of mass-announcement. (It's kind of like breaking a leg or wrecking your car or falling off a cliff. Even if it's an interesting story, it gets a little traumatic to have to tell it a jillion times.)

Steve is being transferred. We thought he'd be retiring (and we'd be moving to the Portland/Vancouver area) in 11 1/2 months. Instead, we're going to be spending four years in Aberdeen, Maryland. Steve has been selected for a non-volunteer assignment as the supervisor of the "Schoolhouse." He'll be like the principle of the tech school where the aircraft maintainers learn all kinds of fancy new ways to keep jets from falling out of the sky.

The good news is:

It's a safe, secure assignment--no deploying overseas, no long assignments in other states.
Steve will have an excellent opportunity to finish his Bachelor's degree on the Air Force's dime and maybe even (some of it) on the Air Force's time.
Having that degree should enable Steve to get a better civilian job than he could without it.
When he retires in October of 2010 (yikes), our monthly retirement check will be more substantial. Extra-substantial if he gets an additional promotion before he gets out, which has now become possible.
We might get to visit a few friends on our road trip to the East Coast. Oh, and this way the Air Force pays for the move out there AND for the move back west when he retires.
Living in Maryland will make it easier and cheaper for us to travel along the eastern seaboard and explore the only section of our country that I haven't visited.

The bad news is:

We just bought our big, beautiful house last fall. Selling it this summer means we're going to lose money on it. I've played absentee landlord before, and the thought of doing so again gives me hives, so renting it out is not an option.
The cost of living on the East Coast is much higher than we're used to, and due to certain circumstances, I probably won't be looking for a job right away. We're going to be broke out there. We may not even have the cash to do the exploring that makes the move palatable, nor the frequent "back home" visiting that would keep me sane.
I'm not very good at being a military wife--I have common sense and a mind of my own. Steve likes me that way, but Uncle Sam doesn't. Living 60 miles from base as we do now has kept this factor from mattering much. We're going to be much closer and more involved out there, so I'm either going to have to learn how to shut up and color, or I'm going to need to go on a Fake Nice pill. Actually getting on board the stupidity train is not an option.
The thought of driving across the country with two miserable cats is my very own personal horror film come to life.
I'm homesick. Have been since I left the Portland/Vancouver area in the fall of 2002. Now it's going to be four years, not one, till I get to move back. I'm afraid the friendships I've had to put on hold and the friendships I've been hanging on to by a thread are going to disintegrate if I'm gone another four years. I know I'm capable of making new friends, but I like the old ones!
We're planning to start a family in the not-too-distant future. It breaks my heart to think of raising my babies a continent away from their grandparents. Even if it is temporary, it still stinks.

Ty is working on his thesis so he'll be freed up to a) help get ready to sell the house and move, and b) be able to look for a job so he can help mitigate the financial hardships living in a more expensive area is going to create. He is a very good brother, and I think if I had to do this without him I'd be in full meltdown mode for the next four years.

When I posted a while back about being swamped and distracted and unable to participate in the blogmunity as much as I'd like, I didn't even know about this Maryland business yet. You can probably guess that my posting (and more importantly, my ability to read and comment on other blogs) is going to be pretty sporadic for a while. Just know that this hurts me more than it hurts you.