Westley's a Jerk

Hee hee, I wanted to share this comic from xkcd.com but it was a little dirty, so I edited it for a more family-friendly version. If you want to see the original, just visit the web site.

Too Legit?

Apparently MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice are performing in concert just around the corner at the UVU events center - this weekend! How wiggidy whack is it that we didn't know about this in time to plan our perfect 90s extravaganza complete with parachute pants? If only it had been in March, you know I would have been there, doing the running man like we did on the stage in the cafeteria on rainy days back in elementary school. Singing Oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh Oh-oh-oh until Hammer told me to Stop - Hammertime. Fumbling through the lyrics to "Ice Ice Baby" that I never quite learned, but loving it all the same. You know I would have been there with my sparkly pants, pregnant belly and all - but this weekend is just too soon. No time to save for the, admittedly low (considering what it might have cost to see them in their heyday) but still too high, entrance fee of 32.50 plus fees. Apparently, I am just not too legit to quit. It's not Hammertime for me, and that makes me a little sad. My remedy? Download the six MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice songs that I know (yes, that includes the Ninja Rap) and have my own pretend concert here in the living room. Anyone up for an "I wish we could have gone to the Hammer concert, but since we can't we'll hang out in the West's living room" party?

Anyone?

It's Coming!

The couch is coming tomorrow! James and our awesome neighbor Duane are moving the old (ugly) couches (that nobody wants - any takers?) out tonight and then tomorrow there will be glorious new comfortable furniture in our home. Anyone wanna come visit?

Update: Someone took the couch! We left it on the curb last night with hopes none-too-high. But this morning, sometime while James was at his dentist appointment, it disappeared. Poor James. He wasn't quite ready to say goodbye. I'm sure the new couches, which should be here any minute will cheer him up.

Our Weekend

This weekend we had the very enjoyable experience of babysitting for a full 24 hour period, from Friday evening to Saturday evening, for James's cousins. Their kids, Jonas and Max, are so much fun, so we were really looking forward to the weekend. We exchanged our babysitting services for Max's old crib, so we are really feeling like we got the better end of the stick here, but sh, don't tell Emily.

We had a real blast with the kids, but unfortunately I forgot my camera, so we have no pictures of all the things we did, but here's a quick rundown of the highlights of the weekend:

Friday night - we had pizza for dinner (yum) and just played with the kids til bedtime. Max wanted to play with puzzles (probably cuz we did that last time we babysat) but I couldn't find them so I promised him we'd find them the next day. Kids went to bed without a fuss, whew!

Saturday morning - 7:15, James comes in with the boys and Max jumps on the bed, saying "Charity! Can we play puzzles?" He hadn't forgotten. He's good at remembering, that kid. We settled on playing puzzles after breakfast.

Breakfast - since the kids had gone to bed so well the night before, we had promised them a fancy breakfast. We made eggs and bacon and some orange juice. James did the bacon, I did the eggs - it was fun to cook together.

Puzzles - I texted Emily and found out the location of the puzzles, and Max was ecstatic. He was doing little hop skips and rubbing his hands together. If you have never seen an excited 2 year old, you have not lived.

Playing outside - we spent a good chunk of the late morning/early afternoon playing with the boys and their cousins/neighbors outside. James watched the kids for a bit so I could shower and clean up a little, but Max soon came and demanded that I come play with him, so... no makeup that day :P

After the cousins had to go, the boys came inside and we made cookies together. That was the most adorable thing I have seen in a long time. They wanted to help with everything and they were so good at sharing and giving each other turns stirring and mixing in the ingredients. The best part was when I let them crack the eggs (I'll admit, I really just wanted to see what would happen). The eggs sort of exploded in their little hands and we had to pull out the shells, but it was just so fun. Don't worry, they washed their hands afterward. Jonas then had fun sculpting cookies into all sorts of weird shapes, only to watch them melt down into pretty normal looking chocolate chip cookies as they baked in the oven. Science!

While the cookies baked, we made sandwiches and Jonas had the brilliant idea to take them to the park for a picnic. So we packed up everything for the lunches, got in the car and went off to find Discovery Park. I thought James knew where it was and he thought I knew where it was and it turned out neither of us knew anything, so we just drove around Pleasant Grove for about half an hour before finally calling a friend (thank you Jordan!) and having him look up directions for us. We found the park, had a lovely picnic (I swear it was like 60 degrees outside on Saturday, beautiful!) and then played on all the fun equipment. Max did not want to get out of the swing, I actually took a few pictures of that on my cell phone cuz he was so adorable. I'll try to figure out how to upload them later. Then we went for a walk around the park and watched the snow melt, which I must say is much more exciting than it sounds.

After the park, we came home, popped popcorn and watched a movie, finishing just before Ryan and Emily got back. All in all a pretty successful day. Jonas at one point said, "This day could not get any funner." That's what I like to hear ;)

I'm in Love

Have you ever been in love, but you couldn't be with the object of your affection? And every day feels like a week because you are counting down the minutes until you are once again reunited? Well, that's how I feel. About our new couch.

James and I went shopping last night "just to look" at new couches for our living room. I guess I've been "nesting" or whatever--I've been feeling like we need some nicer things in our home (you know, some things that didn't come from a garage sale for five dollars and have gross yellowed cushioning popping out all over the place, yes couches I'm talking about you). So we went to R.C. Willey with the intent of picking out some plush leather couches that would be classy and comfortable. Comfortable over classy, but class was still a goal. But then we saw this sectional, and sitting on it was like all your dreams coming true at the same time. So soft. So big. So dreamy. Here, I'll show you what I mean:


See? See what I mean? Who wouldn't love that? And no, it's not leather . . . but sometimes love doesn't come in the form you're looking for. But when it comes, it's infinitely better. It's microfiber, so it will clean almost as well as leather, and it will be nicer for guests to sleep on I think.

So, now you know the love story, but it's not quite completed yet. We have to wait a few more weeks for our tax rebate to come in so we can go in and pay the rest of the price and take our beautiful couch home. Until then, I will dream . . . and cross days off the calendar.

Five Minutes? For Real?

Here's a really cool video that shows you how to do a few different hairstyles in five minutes. Can't wait to try them.

New Addiction

So, I haven't attempted the Wii Fit again recently, but I have found other uses for the Wii that are almost equally satisfying. Well, just one use. Playing Super Mario 3.
Seriously, I do not think a better game has been invented (though my husband would disagree with me and probably provide a very philosophical discussion about the merits of various video games). I have been working my way through the levels over the past two days (with James's help from time to time, though I'm getting to the point where I can beat almost everything on my own), and it has a very addictive quality to it. I think what it is mostly is that as a kid I was never able to get past the second world... you know, the one with all the sand and the evil fire snakes that will not die--or move in a predictable pattern. Now I'm in the sixth world and it's very satisfying. Forget the fact that there is no real-life applicable skill involved and no actual reward. It's just fun.

Revisions Needed

Apparently the way I was doing things was better, at least in some ways. Jumping out of bed and exercising like I did on my mission is apparently not going to work for me while I'm pregnant. I tried it this morning (yay! I actually did it!), but way too early into the first yoga exercise I got terribly dizzy and by the second one I had to step off the balance board and head to the bathroom (with my trainer's obnoxious taunt of "Hey those muscles aren't going to tone themselves you know!" following behind me). While crouched over the toilet, I recalled how I've read a few times that morning sickness is best handled by eating something as soon as you get up and then resting twenty or thirty minutes before getting out of bed. I've never felt sick in the morning before - and there's why. James brings me food and I sit up in bed for at least half an hour before moving to the office. There I was doing everything right and thinking I was doing everything wrong. I'm going to have to come up with a new plan for exercise, because I don't think what I did this morning was beneficial to anyone. Ouch.

Change is Hard

After a long day of doing pretty much nothing yesterday, I found myself lying in bed thinking how much I miss my days as a missionary. It was kind of a random thought. I mean, I've been home for over two years now and I'm quite settled into life, but there are just some aspects of life as a missionary that I started to really miss. So I started making a list in my head, trying to pinpoint what I missed that I could probably still have, even as a non-missionary. The list ended up being:

1. Getting up in the morning, praying, and getting right to exercising.
2. Having an hour after that to eat, get dressed, and get mentally prepared for the day.
3. Set time to study the scriptures and the feelings that come with that - invigoration, enlightenment, excitement, and the sort of indefinable feeling that my testimony was constantly growing.
4. A sense of purpose to my day.
5. Sharing the gospel. (You knew that had to come in there somewhere)

Then I started formulating a plan of how I could do those things.

A. I could get up about an hour earlier in the mornings and instead of having James bring me my laptop so I can start working in bed, I could get up, pray, and go turn on the wii fit. Exercise, check.
B. Even though I loved having that hour as a missionary, maybe I could cut it down to half an hour (that way I can still start work around the same time) - I can eat, shower, and get ready rather than having James bring me breakfast in bed and hanging out in my pajamas all day.
C. Put off starting work another 1/2 hour (I'm on flex time and I work from home, so this is all feasible) so I can study my scriptures. It's not the two hours of a missionary life, but it's something and I think it would bring a lot of those same feelings.
D. My fourth item on the list is a little bit more difficult to pinpoint, but I just think if I did more with my day than complete my work and then flail around on the internet trying to find something interesting to read or look at for hours on end I would feel more like I had a purpose and I would definitely feel more of a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. There are so many things I want to do - sew, write, clean, get organized. If I just chose one of these things to do a day I think I would feel better about myself and my life. But I very often use the excuse of how sick I feel to just not do anything but sit on the couch and quietly lament the queasy state of my stomach and watch reruns of Friends. Anyway... moving on to the last one.
E. Our ward has invited us to participate in the set a date program. There, right there is one way I can get back into the gospel sharing mode.

So, Ha! I hatched this brilliant plan for how I was going to improve my self and my day. I had a plan. I set my alarm clock for 7:30 (not the hour I was planning, but you got to ease into these things sometimes) and snuggled happily into my covers. It was 11pm - I was going to get plenty of sleep and have plenty of energy the next morning to fulfill all my plans. Then it was 11:30. Then 12. 12:30. Ugh, I was still not asleep. I got up and wrote an article for an online magazine (we'll see if it gets published), went back to bed. 1:30. The last time I looked at the clock it was 2:00. I turned the alarm off. Ugh.

And so my day today started pretty much like every other, except that I slept in until 9 rather than 8. James brought me my Ovaltine (are you getting the impression from this post that I have the best husband in the world? because I do.) and here I am still in my pajamas, with my laptop, in my bed.

Basically, change is hard. But I'm not giving up. I'll try for the getting up early tomorrow, but even today - as soon as I finish this post, I'm going to go, get dressed, and try to salvage what I can of my plan. Because if I learned anything on my mission it's that even though change is hard, people do it. They really do it. And I can too.