Background: let me tell you what a fantastic week we had last week. It was our second week of spring break. Wednesday the lovely Angelovics came and visited and stayed with us overnight. Lillian Angelovic was my MTC companion and we went to the same mission. Love her. And now my kids love her kids! Yay. Then we went straight to Joan's on Thursday and were there until Sunday. We visited the X96 studios (more to come on that, hopefully, but I don't want to tip my hand), ate many yummy foods, played wii, and the highlight was the family book club gathering of sisters and nieces. We discussed Jane Eyre amongst myriad other things, and then afterward went out to dinner @ Chipotle (holla, Mitt Romney at the next table!), walked over to a bakery to buy yummy cookies, and then to Nordstrom Rack for some girly shop time.
Here's where the angst came in. That shopping was three days too early to do me any good at all. Rewind! Give me shopping night again!
Why?
(1) Have I mentioned that? Yes, ladies and gents, we're only FIVE DAYS AWAY. I am seriously so excited I keep getting butterflies, and maybe faintly nauseated. I can seriously not wait.
(2) Yesterday I had a "What Not To Wear" fest, watching every clip of Clinton and Stacy online.
1 + 2 inevitably equals
(3) I must have new clothes for the concert. Stacy and Clinton have convinced me I'm a mess, and nothing I currently own will do.
Oh my sisters, oh my nieces, I call do-overs. Won't you please help me find something for the concert? I have five days. SIGH.
Also, a postscript: I have decided (in vain!) that the LDS church simply must start making temple garments that are body shapers. I've thought about this for years. It has to happen. Must. Because in a normal world, I don't think garments and body shapers are symbiotic. Wearing one excludes wearing the other. DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE!
31 March 2010
29 March 2010
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution—entire episodes on ABC.com
Just watched the only two episodes of this so far. So, so worth watching. I'm spared the terrible guilt I'd be feeling if I fed my children much in the way of processed food; but even though I cook meals from whole ingredients I still got so many great ideas. Knives, forks, and spoons for everyone at the dinner table tonight! It is simultaneously the most horrific and most heart-warming thing I've ever seen. Jamie Oliver, I'm your new biggest fan. I wish you all the luck in the world, and success everyone can see on your huge undertaking. God bless.
Just watched the only two episodes of this so far. So, so worth watching. I'm spared the terrible guilt I'd be feeling if I fed my children much in the way of processed food; but even though I cook meals from whole ingredients I still got so many great ideas. Knives, forks, and spoons for everyone at the dinner table tonight! It is simultaneously the most horrific and most heart-warming thing I've ever seen. Jamie Oliver, I'm your new biggest fan. I wish you all the luck in the world, and success everyone can see on your huge undertaking. God bless.
17 March 2010
Because whining about it will fix it.
So the young men and young women at church are doing an international dinner tonight. Christian was in charge of calling all the people at church who have lived (or served missions) abroad and asking them to contribute some food or other.
When he asked me, I turned him down. Playfully.
He reminded me this morning. Argh, it wasn't even on my radar; when I jokingly said no, I guess I mentally erased it. So last night I made for dinner the thing I need to make for this international dinner. Tonight I get to re-make it, and make our family dinner which is something completely different. If only I'd remembered, and switched the two nights, I could have made a double batch of tonight's dinner and sent half to the church. I wouldn't have to spend the next three hours cooking two dinners.
I'm so totally frustrated. I hate cooking dinner as it is. I'm not in the mood to do it twice, and to re-cook what we had last night. I want to scream.
So of course, I'm sitting in here typing away instead of chopping onions. Makes perfect sense, right?
EDIT: Darned if, despite my whining, the spanish rice didn't turn out perfectly! Yum.
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Now playing: Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger
When he asked me, I turned him down. Playfully.
He reminded me this morning. Argh, it wasn't even on my radar; when I jokingly said no, I guess I mentally erased it. So last night I made for dinner the thing I need to make for this international dinner. Tonight I get to re-make it, and make our family dinner which is something completely different. If only I'd remembered, and switched the two nights, I could have made a double batch of tonight's dinner and sent half to the church. I wouldn't have to spend the next three hours cooking two dinners.
I'm so totally frustrated. I hate cooking dinner as it is. I'm not in the mood to do it twice, and to re-cook what we had last night. I want to scream.
So of course, I'm sitting in here typing away instead of chopping onions. Makes perfect sense, right?
EDIT: Darned if, despite my whining, the spanish rice didn't turn out perfectly! Yum.
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Now playing: Oasis - Don't Look Back in Anger
13 March 2010
Who has two thumbs and a clean room? Me!
So every week on Saturday the kids must get their bedrooms totally clean. (We've been letting Emma slide on this because her grades are fantastic, but actually I'm cracking down this week. Clean your room, eldest!) The rooms have to be spic and span, vacuumed, dusted, tidied, miscellaneous out from under beds, by Saturday bedtime. But:
So who gets best this week? That's right, me. I used to wonder, back when I was a kid living in my parents' home, how it was that my elder, married siblings made their kids clean their rooms, but the parents' rooms weren't as tidy. Usually my mom and dad's bedroom was very clean, dusted, etc, though inside the closet there lived a horrific untidy clutter of doom. Why didn't parents have to do the same things kids did?
Then I grew up, and I realized that during the morning when I give my kids time to clean their rooms, I'm making breakfast and tidying the kitchen. When I give them time to put their laundry away, I'm putting in the next load and folding the towels and my laundry just is heaped on the foot of the bed. When I have a box of something I don't know what to do with, it's easier to hide it at the foot of my bed and have a tidy living room than to leave it out until I puzzle where it should go. And kids will fill up my room (and particularly the top of my dresser) with everything that they don't know how to put away.
So the current cleanliness has been the work of many weeks, beginning with husband's layoff and the fact that we had to shift things around to make a working space for him here. I cleaned out [my used-to-be sewing room that was a dump for everything and sometimes we couldn't even walk in it because there were too-small clothes and shoes up to knee level, which former sewing room was being transitioned into a dedicated mud room where we'd keep coats, snow clothes, boots, and the like] to carve out a tiny place for a desk for him. In the process of dramatically changing the purpose of that space, I had to
For weeks I've been chipping away at it. And as of today, every box is emptied, every thing put where it should be, closet very tidy and organized. (That was a big deal, we repurposed shelves torn out of the school room supplies closet into a shoes thing for Blaine, and then the entire closet needed to be shifted and reorganized.) I even cleaned off my dresser top. It may, possibly, have never been clean since we moved here.
Icing on the cake, I purchased a new cute lamp for my dresser, and a cute frame for the print of her artwork that a good friend sent me at Christmas. I have yet to tackle the actual decorating of that room, but until I paint and get new bedding this will do nicely.
Ahhhhh. Such a relief. And I have so much space at the foot of my bed to walk around!
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Now playing: Silversun Pickups - Panic Switch
- If they're done by lunchtime, they get a fun-size candy bar.
- If they're done first, or if their room is cleaned best, they get a full-size candy bar.
So who gets best this week? That's right, me. I used to wonder, back when I was a kid living in my parents' home, how it was that my elder, married siblings made their kids clean their rooms, but the parents' rooms weren't as tidy. Usually my mom and dad's bedroom was very clean, dusted, etc, though inside the closet there lived a horrific untidy clutter of doom. Why didn't parents have to do the same things kids did?
Then I grew up, and I realized that during the morning when I give my kids time to clean their rooms, I'm making breakfast and tidying the kitchen. When I give them time to put their laundry away, I'm putting in the next load and folding the towels and my laundry just is heaped on the foot of the bed. When I have a box of something I don't know what to do with, it's easier to hide it at the foot of my bed and have a tidy living room than to leave it out until I puzzle where it should go. And kids will fill up my room (and particularly the top of my dresser) with everything that they don't know how to put away.
So the current cleanliness has been the work of many weeks, beginning with husband's layoff and the fact that we had to shift things around to make a working space for him here. I cleaned out [my used-to-be sewing room that was a dump for everything and sometimes we couldn't even walk in it because there were too-small clothes and shoes up to knee level, which former sewing room was being transitioned into a dedicated mud room where we'd keep coats, snow clothes, boots, and the like] to carve out a tiny place for a desk for him. In the process of dramatically changing the purpose of that space, I had to
- sort out years of kids' clothing, keeping just a few and donating most, so I only have a few boxes of things for the youngest four to grow into;
- toss bags and boxes and all kinds of things;
- rearrange my school room, to make the paper/crafts/supplies closet into a coat/snowclothes/boots closet;
- move a bookcase from my bedroom (where I didn't want it anyway) into the schoolroom for paper/crafts/supplies;
- move a filing cabinet from the school room to the living room;
- move everything else that I had no idea about to the foot of my bed.
For weeks I've been chipping away at it. And as of today, every box is emptied, every thing put where it should be, closet very tidy and organized. (That was a big deal, we repurposed shelves torn out of the school room supplies closet into a shoes thing for Blaine, and then the entire closet needed to be shifted and reorganized.) I even cleaned off my dresser top. It may, possibly, have never been clean since we moved here.
Icing on the cake, I purchased a new cute lamp for my dresser, and a cute frame for the print of her artwork that a good friend sent me at Christmas. I have yet to tackle the actual decorating of that room, but until I paint and get new bedding this will do nicely.
Ahhhhh. Such a relief. And I have so much space at the foot of my bed to walk around!
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Now playing: Silversun Pickups - Panic Switch
03 February 2010
So let's skip right to the positive stuff.
Briefly: Blaine got laid off from his job last Friday at end of day. No warning, no severance pay, no two-week notice.
So we had an interesting weekend, with emotions pretty much all over the map. That's to be expected, right? But here's how the landscape looks now, five days later.
For the last few months while B worked at the printing company, they had one client in particular, a Mexican restaurant chain plus corporation, who was sort of courting him to work full time for them. He already designs all their promotional materials, menus, etc. He never got an actual offer, but there was a lot of talk.
Now negotiations are less tentative. They can't offer the wage he was making, which—though a decent wage—was just barely adequate for our needs (family of nine and all that). And they don't really have enough graphics requirements for a full 8 hour-per-day job, but they'll find other things for him to do besides graphics to fill the workday hours.
But there's this other old client who also loves his guts, and who wants him to work for her, pretty much full time, freelance at home.
And another client of printing company's who considers B an essential part of his company.
So anyway, it looks like, after six years of blissfully regular paychecks, we may be plunging into freelance work again. He has three bread-and-butter clients to get started, all of whom have accepted his hourly rate and who have long-term, recurring projects for him. They love him. If these potentials become certain, they "job security" would be good: all three companies are growing, with increasing earnings and success, despite the recession.
So our prospects are good. I'll keep you updated. Here's to making our next house payment!
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Now playing: Radiohead - There, There
So we had an interesting weekend, with emotions pretty much all over the map. That's to be expected, right? But here's how the landscape looks now, five days later.
For the last few months while B worked at the printing company, they had one client in particular, a Mexican restaurant chain plus corporation, who was sort of courting him to work full time for them. He already designs all their promotional materials, menus, etc. He never got an actual offer, but there was a lot of talk.
Now negotiations are less tentative. They can't offer the wage he was making, which—though a decent wage—was just barely adequate for our needs (family of nine and all that). And they don't really have enough graphics requirements for a full 8 hour-per-day job, but they'll find other things for him to do besides graphics to fill the workday hours.
But there's this other old client who also loves his guts, and who wants him to work for her, pretty much full time, freelance at home.
And another client of printing company's who considers B an essential part of his company.
So anyway, it looks like, after six years of blissfully regular paychecks, we may be plunging into freelance work again. He has three bread-and-butter clients to get started, all of whom have accepted his hourly rate and who have long-term, recurring projects for him. They love him. If these potentials become certain, they "job security" would be good: all three companies are growing, with increasing earnings and success, despite the recession.
So our prospects are good. I'll keep you updated. Here's to making our next house payment!
----------------
Now playing: Radiohead - There, There
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