The Fate of Mankind

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would not take the garbage out!

She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,

Candy the yams and spice the hams,

And though her daddy would scream and shout,

She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings:

Coffee grounds, potato peelings,

Brown bananas, rotten peas,

Chunks of sour cottage cheese.

It filled the can, it covered the floor,

It cracked the window and blocked the door

With bacon rinds and chicken bones,

Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,

Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,

Pizza crusts and withered greens,

Soggy beans and tangerines,

Crusts of black burned buttered toast,

Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .

The garbage rolled on down the hall,

It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . .

Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,

Globs of gooey bubble gum,

Cellophane from green baloney,

Rubbery blubbery macaroni,

Peanut butter, caked and dry,

Curdled milk and crusts of pie,

Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,

Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

Cold french fried and rancid meat,

Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

At last the garbage reached so high

That it finally touched the sky.

And all the neighbors moved away,

And none of her friends would come to play.

And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,

"OK, I'll take the garbage out!"

But then, of course, it was too late. . .

The garbage reached across the state,

From New York to the Golden Gate.

And there, in the garbage she did hate,

Poor Sarah met an awful fate,

That I cannot now relate

Because the hour is much too late.

But children, remember Sarah Stout

And always take the garbage out!
Shel Silverstein, 1974

And so it begins...

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Goodbye hair. We've had some fun times, but it was time for you to go to a new wig in the sky.
These are self-portraits. Bad ones. You'll just have to imagine it in focus.

Competition

Dear Becca,

I see your canning statistics. Mine do not compare, although I think that next year we should have some sort of sport 'handicap'. A domestic B.A. competition should start on a level playing field. You have Janet, and from what I gather from my sources, may have also recruited a sister-in-law. You also have access to what appears to be the Dole Produce Plant. My peaches aren't even ripe yet!! Come on!
Nonetheless, I will forge ahead.

The morning harvest: 4 lbs. of tomatoes, a large zucchini, 2 cucumbers and an egg.

Jack hiding in the Scarlet Pole Beans. Next year I am going to build a permanent structure--this one was only 6 feet tall--way to short!

Black-eyed Susans. These are currently too tall for this location. I'll have to transplant them in the spring. My first batch of Bread and Butter Pickles. Pickles turned out to be easier than I thought they would be...I have since ripped out my cucumber plants because there were just too many to deal with, and besides, I made 15 pints of pickles. How many can we possibly eat?

Birthdays & 9th Anniversary

I celebrated my 30-something birthday on Monday. Jack gave me a turtle with a hard shell and rubber head and body. Lachlan gave me a white Mustang hot wheels. They picked their presents out on their own. As a measure of full disclosure, I knew in advance that I was getting a turtle from Jack because the kid can't keep a secret to save his life. He'll probably try to get a job with the CIA someday and they will find this blog entry and know that he's not the man for the job.

Jeff bought me a road bike this year. It was a grand affair--and honestly a big deal, because let's be honest they aren't inexpensive. Jeff always seems to find money to buy me gifts. I know that he gives up so much of the things that he wants to do or buy and there really aren't words for how selfless he truly is...

I have LOVED my bike. I am very slow and probably look physically incapacitated in some form to the people who watch me crawl along--BUT I don't even care--finally I have found a form of exercise that doesn't make my back and jaw hurt! It has been so much fun to go in the mornings and try to improve my technique and time. I have also found that I have to leave all of my pride at home--especially since I started to use clipless pedals.

Oh, clipless pedals. How. you. hurt. me. I've tipped over twice in my own driveway. I am trying not to develop 'hill anxiety'--as there is a very large hill in H-town and when I get to the base of it I start to sweat before I even get started. Why? Because if you get going up the hill and decide that you need a different gear too late or you are in a gear that is too easy to stand up or you panic, or, or, or...you will tip over.

I've walked up that hill twice, rather than attempt the tip over.

Sad. But I'm working through it.

This is my new bike. And my new hip bruise (courtesy of clipless pedals)

Also for my birthday/anniversary, I had to purchase a $700 custom-fit mouth apparatus/bite guard. Not just your ordinary mouth guard...this handy dandy tool doesn't allow any of your teeth to touch, it pushes your lower jaw forward and allows all of your jaw joints to heal. Slowly heal. I'll apologize now, for this disgusting picture and my super cracked lips--hello, can someone tell this woman to put on some freaking chapstick! Dr. W is a piece of work, and by that, I mean the guy is a real mother scratcher, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I think that I am going to get better, which is something that I couldn't have said a month ago. Other perks include, random uncontrollable drooling, wicked lisp and bad breath.

I just keep telling myself that at least my jaw isn't wired shut and I'm not eating through a straw. Over and over and over again.

Jeff and I have been married 9 years.
He puts up with a lot. He's the most patient person I have ever known in my life. He takes good care of our family. I love this guy.

All Creatures Great and Small

My office celebrated all of our summer birthdays (we're pretty much a staff of Leos, Virgos, and Scorpios--ego galore and devoid of sensitivity--ha.ha.ha.) by visiting Pastor Corinne's hummingbird project.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I wish that Jack and Lachlan were old enough to be there, but you have to be very still and quiet. Which we all know that they are not. And there are bees, wasps and yellow-jackets...sugar feeders.

The best moments are when you can feel the birds humming right next to your face. They actually hover in the air and look you straight in the face. Each bird is very distinct up close and it is easy to see that if they weren't moving so fast you could easily distinguish them from one another.

A red-letter day.

Rose, Deb & Alisha, the birds liked the shade and there were fewer wasps.

Hummer resting on Alisha's hand.

Two birds and a wasp. There was another wasp sitting in my hand. I was breathing deep.

Waiting patiently.

Happiness.

I'm Hungry!

You've all seen it. The SNL skit with David Spade and the late Chris Farley, they're dressed up like 'Gap' girls, noshing on a bit of lunch and sharing some gossip. Spade tries to take one of Farley's fries and he snaps in a wicked voice, "Lay off Me! I'm STARVING!"

Why is it even funny? I'll tell you why, it's because dieters everywhere are crammed into their Spanks and summer skirts and we are trying to act all happy about waiting for our lunch to be served and frankly, we are so damn hungry that we can't even see straight. Inevitably, it will be our skinniest friend who will have the will power not to order such a figure-destroying lunch, and yet will have the audacity to attempt a side-seat takeover.

It's funny because it's true. It's how we really feel.

I want you to know that I too, for years have exercised and tried eat right, but at the end of the day, I'M STILL STARVING!! It makes me crazy. Am I the only that feels so hungry that I could chew my own arm off if it were dipped in Almond Butter (see, I've even given up REAL peanut butter). If I had a nickel for every time I've thought to myself, "but if I exercise I will just be even more hungry than I am now!"

AND THEN I READ THIS:

Holy Hell o' Mighty! Mr. John Cloud where have you been for the last 10 years! Cloud's article made the front page of Time Magazine this month with the outlandish claim, Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin, I must admit that at first I huffed at the notion (Time's articles have been pushing it for me lately). But I have to say that this article answered some of the questions I have had for sooo long. Turns out, I might not be as crazy, or weak, or just destined for a life of elastic waistbands after all.....turns out that I REALLY AM JUST HUNGRY!

Here are some highlights: (but do yourself a favor and read the whole article HERE)

In 2007 the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that "to lose weight ... 60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary." That's 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week, a level that not only is unrealistic for those of us trying to keep or find a job but also could easily produce, on the basis of Church's data, ravenous compensatory eating.

...a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.

Many people assume that weight is mostly a matter of willpower — that we can learn both to exercise and to avoid muffins and Gatorade. A few of us can, but evolution did not build us to do this for very long. In 2000 the journal Psychological Bulletin published a paper by psychologists Mark Muraven and Roy Baumeister in which they observed that self-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it. If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you'll be more likely to opt for pizza.

So to my crazy, get-in-shape, super-fat buster workouts, I bid you good day.

I'm going to get back to walking my kids around the block, mowing the lawn, and bringing the laundry up from the basement.

P.S. I won't miss you at all. Didn't ever like you to begin with...

Girl's Reunion

I had good friends in high school. It's pretty hard to walk through that fire completely unscathed, but I think, for the most part we were there for each other. And that made it tolerable.

Nearly two decades will change a person, but some things remain the same. Enough for me to miss you.
Don't adjust the contrast on your screen. Those are SJT's support hose underneath her shorts and Dansko sandals. She's not even using them for 'support'--she just uses them to get a little color on her legs. Remember how I said that some thing's never change...oh, SJT you are an independent woman. Emphasis on the 'woman' part.

Former BYU-Coeds reunited. For the record, Teresa can still do most of her drill team moves. SJT still can't do a toe touch. Zero flexibility, then again, maybe it's the underwear tan?

Group photo. All of these children are Michele and Jared's. Many of them aren't pictured here--some are already in college. Amy's kids are over on the trampoline. They didn't want to get off. They hadn't ever jumped on a tramp before (safety hazzard and all of that).

Dedicated with loving regard to Laurie and Todd.

Purification

In this part of the world it's known as Girl's Camp.

It's a girl's youth/church camp.

I went. For one night.
Actually, I didn't even stay overnight. I just went to eat dinner and be entertained by the youth leaders. Oh, how I love these women.

Please meet my dear friends, Dia and Rhea.
Rhea, I was going to Facebook this, but I figured that this had a lesser audience. Just trying to spare your feelings lover.

Feline 911

Hate to add on a spoiler to the last post, but I wanted to specifically mention this mishap for Amy, Andrea and Emily Bateman. Lately they have posted some excellent self videos--self depricating as they are, truly fine craftmanship. Ladies, I applaude you ability to make me laugh so hard that my face hurts.

Lest you think that we can actually go on vacation without some atrocity occuring...
well in fact, we cannot.

Before we left I tried to bring both cats into the house, but I could only find Bruce. So I filled the food bowl and the water dish and called the neighbor lady to ask her if she could set some food out on the porch and try to lure Ernst back in later in the day...no problem.

Two days later I get a phone call. No cat. Food untouched.
Jeff says, "Good riddance."
We think that the cat has probably fallen on some unfortunate circumstance (like our dear Fritz, RIP.) Honestly, I'm a little worried, but about 300 miles away--what are you going to do?

Four days later, we arrive home. Cat still gone. Food untouched.
We begin to unpack...can you sense the doom?
I hear Jeff say, "Oh, no. Oh, no!"

Ernst comes walking down the hall. He is disoriented. His eyes are all glazed over.
He has been in my BEDROOM CLOSET for FOUR DAYS.
Think about the situation. Seriously.
My closet smelled like being downwind from E.A. Miller's Meat Packing Plant.

Fur everywhere.
Everything even touching the floor had to be washed. Carpets cleaned.
Welcome home, family.

On a lighter note, Ernst was ruined. Lachlan's exact words. He wandered from room to room crying and trying to tell us all about his horrific experience. Jeff and I (heartless crabs that we are) laughed for days about how he couldn't even be alone in a room. I guess that even cats will get needy if you lock them in a dark, hot closet without food or water for four days.

And now, for your viewing pleasure...