4187

Today was a long day, in a very good way. First things first, we went to SLC in sleet/ice/snow/rain/wind to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert featuring Natalie Cole and David McCullough as narrator. But first, we saw Music and The Spoken Word. It was their 4187th broadcast. Wow. First time for me though!

The music, the singers, the dancers, the bells (oh how I loved the bells!), the organ (I loved the organ even more than the bells), the mood.

Finally, finally I can say I felt the Spirit of Christmas. Thanks W&A for the invite and the terrific company in the most dreadful weather ever! So glad you have 4-wheel drive.

We went to the last hour of church and I was so tired I was dozing during the lesson about the martyrom of Joseph Smith. Too bad, because I love the subject of Joseph Smith.

Today, as we waited for the activities at the conference center to start suddenly everyone rose and was on their feet and the crowd went completely silent as our prophet Thomas S. Monsen entered to take his seat. Such reverence and love. I felt the spirit and thought, one day I will meet the Savior and I cannot even imagine the love and reverence I will feel for him. But today I got a small taste of it and I liked it. I will also feel a similar feeling on the day that I meet Joseph Smith.

Then we had made dinner for a local family and they had to cancel at the last minute so we invited my parents and sister's family to dinner. I was so happy they came!

As we finished up dinner prep I put on the DVD Joy to the World. As the MoTab sang there were images of baby Jesus and Mary.

Then I thought, I cannot believe the Savior of the world came to the earth as a small, beautiful, perfect infant who had to have his every need filled by his mother....just like every other baby that comes to this earth.

Jesus Christ is my Savior. And, I am grateful that the Spirit of His birth finally got to my core today.

Then we got to meet with our bishop, the annual trek to settle up and declare ourselves. Again, a peaceful, grateful spirit entered my heart.

I am blessed, truly, truly blessed.

Extinction

Our microwave died this week. It was a dinosaur that my parents bought for us the first week of our marriage. It was huge and took up tons of counter space. It was brown and black. I think it was one of the first models to have a button for popcorn popping.

When it died I didn't even cry. I didn't mourn its loss. I just figured, hey, we'll live without it. It's gone to a better place, microwave heaven.

Then one night my eldest said {very loudly}, "I can't believe we don't have a microwave, this is so stupid!"

I only needed it once, last Sunday, for softening butter that had come directly from the freezer. But, I figured out how to live my butter-softening life without it. I used time. That's right, I was patient.

So the big beast was taken away. H. told me he was going to put it directly into our garbage can. I thought for sure the microwave would be stashed into some dusty corner of the garage until a trip to the dump arouse. But, no.

So this morning I get a call. "I forgot to take out the garbage."

"The one with the BIG FAT MICROWAVE in it?"

"Yep, that's the one."

Me, in my best Napolean Dynamite voice, "hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, can you bring me some chapstick?"

"Just ask the nurse, she's got like five sticks in her drawer."

"Sick!"

So I got up from my chair, wearing PJs and slippers and threw on a big yellow and green jacket we inherited from a friend years ago, thinking this would be enough to keep me warm in subzero temps (close enough).

I used the shovel to remove the snow from our driveway to the garbage. Then I saw what I knew was going to happen one week ago but decided to promptly forget and deny, that our garbage was spilling out of the can for our neighbors to see. Then I used the shovel to remove the snow from the top of the garbage can. Then I started trying to move that dang thing. Then my hands were frozen from gripping the handle with snow on it. Then there was snow in my slippers. Then I reached inside the jacket and used the endy bits to cover my hands and tried again.

Then I finally got the can up onto the top of the driveway. Then I fixed the can so that I could basically steer it from the front as I let gravity bring the can down our half icy driveway. (The top half is snow/ice free, but the bottom half is a mess.)

Then I prayed I wouldn't fall and break anything because that would really Scrooge me out and I've been feeling pretty scroogey already.

Then I got down to the end of the drive and parked the can directly behind my car so when I pull out I need to remember NOT to hit the can.

Then I trudged inside, muttering under my breath, "You're welcome!"

Then I remembered all the bajillion times my dear husband does these things and I never have to think about it. And then I thought,

"Thanks honey, you're the best!"

The Birfday Post

It's time for my birfday post. To honor our 40th birthday, H. and I went to Henderson, NV to celebrate. We stayed at the Green Valley Ranch Resort. Oh how I wish I had hundreds of dollars to spend here. They had a terrific spa that smelled Dee-vine. (We had to walk through the spa to get to the work out room, yes we worked out [once] while we were there.) They also had a hair salon. Mani, pedi, massage....maybe for my 50th?


This is the view from our window. Sorry about the blur, I blame our camera. The lights at the top left are Vegas in the distance. The pool had a sand bottom and the blue beds are exactly that....beds! You can totally lounge at the pool! Nice!


Another view out our window.

Bathroom shot. The glass shower door swung both ways, in the most innocent sense.

Sweet King Bed.

Me, weeping at the computer the morning of check out. Ok, really it's me checking the weather before we left.


Now on to Halloween! We spent Friday night at my parents house. We had a family dinner. Carrie and her family as well as Brittany W. came to town and we had a fun dinner. The funniest thing that happened was that I had requested that my mother make a white cake with holes poked into it and jello poured in it. Then you put whip cream on top (or Cool whip, whatever). Anyway, it came time for the cake and out comes an 8 inch round chocolate cake with a pumpkin drawn on top. Hmm....ok...not what I asked for, but I assumed they were just bringing out this little guy for candle blowing purposes. After I blew out the big 4 and the big 0 my SIL Britty asks if this was the cake I had been telling her about. I said, no. My sis Carrie explains that there was a problem with my requested cake and that this little chocolate guy was "it." I was like, What? Then I said, and I quote, "This is the worst birthday ever!" Everyone laughed and left to go cut the stupid little cake. I almost started to cry, for real. I had been looking forward to my yummy lemon cake for a while. Then all of a sudden the REAL cake comes out and my family starts laughing. They thought it would be funny to play a trick on the 40-year-old. NOT FUNNY PEOPLE! My dad thought I was 100% ridiculous for having declared this the worst birthday ever over a CAKE! But, my dad doesn't worship food the way the rest of our family does. I think everyone else completely understood.


My kids and my sister's children as well. So great to hang with the sistas on my bday.

S. the ninja. Yes, she hand made the stars attached to her ninja belt.

My cowboy.

Thanks to our old bishop for BEING a real cowboy and having the goods for our son to use for dress up!

My BIL Justin, he dresses up every year. I respect any adult who does this and Justin rocks!


I stole this one from Britty's blog but for some reason I don't have any pics of Britty on my camera. Britty shared our birthday weekend with us and it was sweet! Thanks for coming B.

Me and the sistas under the big witch hat. (Holy cow, I was looking at this post and realized that we all 3 look a TON alike.....crazy. Maybe triplets? Ok, my little sisters won't appreciate that comment, seeing that they are YEARS younger than I.....but I don't care....I think we look strikingly similar here.)

The birfday girl. I had a terrific week with my man and a terrific weekend with tons of family and a lot of candy! :) And yes, 40 does look this good!!!

They Say It's Your Birthday Dear Lima

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to H. Yes, 40 does sound weird.

But, we have a LOT of fun, exciting things to look forward to in the years to come and I'm glad we'll be doing it together!

I love you.

My Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day

I hope that before the world ends and computers everywhere crash I will one day print off all my entries and therefore have a sweet, sweet journal for posterity. And, since this is MY journal, my latest entry involves my daughter.


Last night we saw said daughter in a concert choir performance. This year she is in the Chamber Choir, choir level III, the only choir in the junior high for which participants had to try out. She sings soprano.


We watched choir I as they sang and then choir II. Then in her beautiful, black, floor length gown here comes choir III and my gorgeous daughter.


They sang The Voice, Feed the Birds, and Concertschtick. The Voice and Concertschtick were my favorites.


As a mother, I was in fine form last night. I couldn't help it, as I watch my daughter (she is beautiful by the way, but not just face-pretty, she glows!) sing her heart out and do something she loves to do......my heart grew three sizes. There aren't that many times in my life I can actually feel my heart (there is the occasional chest twinge that makes me think of what my dad said long ago about how every time he feels a chest pain he thinks to himself "this is it, this is the pain that's gonna take me down."), but last night I felt my heart grow. And I bawled. Wow, I love my daughter.


For more information on the Joy of Motherhood, read here.

I'm Not a Witch, I'm Your Wife!

Yes, Halloween approacheth. I'm dressing up this year. Believe it or not. I may be only sporting a witches hat, but I might have more to my costume. You'll have to trick-or-treat in our zip code to find out (or I might post pictures, ok, who am I fooling, of course I'll post pictures). But, if you DO come here, I'll make sure I give you some of my chocolate. We bought two 150 piece ALL CHOCOLATE bags of candy at Costco. I'm tired of skimping every year. Buying a few bags of yummy and throwing in dollar store candy to make our stash look bigger. Then I spend all night trying to figure out if I know the cute trick-or-treaters, because if I KNOW them, I give them chocolate. If I don't know them, they get dollar store pixie stix. But hey, maybe those little unknown treaters like pixie stix....what kid doesn't? So, maybe I should just get all kinds of candy and let the kids choose. Wait, I can't do that either because if I put the bowl (I typed bowel there first, medical transcriptionist fingers sometimes go to autopilot) out at the kids, they inevitably grab a whole chubby fistful of goodies, and at that point they don't CARE if it's chocolate or what!

I'm still a tad worried that 300 pieces isn't enough. I just cannot stand the thought of running out. There are those of you out there who buy just enough and then basically say, first come-first serve! and then let the drifters come upon your darkened house and be ever-so-disappointed.

Not me, Halloween is all about one big, fat party....full of candy ALL NIGHT LONG at EVERY SINGLE HOUSE! I refuse to party poop on the best day of the year!

***It should also be noted, I have NOT opened either bag of candy. Only 11 days to go...

Harold's Opinion on my Poll

I agree that we should NOT post the pictures. No one wants to see them. If you want people to visit your blog, posting the pictures would be a massive deterrent. No one would ever visit again. It wouldn't ruin your marriage or cause any strife. It would ruin your friendships and would cause unhappy feelings.

That's my opinion.

H.

OK PEOPLE, do you agree??