My Feet

While waiting my turn in the temple Wednesday night I noticed that my feet are not symmetrical.
I may have mentioned previously that my feet are not the same size which makes shoe shopping an adventure. (Where can one buy a pair of shoes where the right foot is a half size larger than the left? That's what I thought.)
Now it looks as though my feet may have come from two different places altogether.
Let's just start at the beginning.
The big toes; the right one is bigger and more bent than the left. The left has a larger callus - from all those years spent running barefoot before we freaked out over broken glass and nails on the sidewalk - and a weirder toenail.
The second toes; the right one is longer than the big toe on the same foot but is very straight. The left one is not longer than the big toe on that foot but it is twisted so the nails can touch each other.
The middle toes; are pretty normal though the left one is shorter and thinner than it's equal on the right foot.
The fourth toes; are both curved but the left is curved A LOT, such that the nail is almost behind the middle toe. And on both feet the fourth toes are A LOT shorter than the middle ones. Like they were leftovers from a smaller model.
Last but not least, the baby toes; the right one is bigger but the left one can stretch a lot farther away from it's neighbor than the right one.
I had a long time to examine my feet.

This is me, and it's weird the things one notices.

Asking For A Ticket

Saw a teenager driving a beat up old car today.
Seat laid back nearly horizontal.
And his left foot was out the window.
OUT the WINDOW!
He could barely reach the steering wheel let alone control the vehicle.

This is me and that is how traffic on the freeway ends up a mess.

Easter 2011

So yesterday a friend from church came over to help Tarzan change out our water heater - which was leaking and apparently 1/256th away from flooding the entire shed and backyard - and I wanted to do something nice for him. Today being Easter I thought I'd make some cupcakes and decorate them all cute.
It was doomed from the start; I was out of oil. Being the kitchen diva I am, I used melted butter.
ATL thought white cake was too boring so she encouraged me to add sprinkles to the batter. The colors ran and bled all together.
Then when they were finally baked I dared to test one. Tarzan thought it tasted excellent but the bottom ripped off with the paper.
I finished the process, dyed the icing and all that so they looked pretty:But the insides were all green-y grey and they ripped when taking the paper off, so I couldn't in good conscience give them to anyone. So we kept them.
Tarzan was okay with it.

This is me and I'll just have to think of something else.

Friday Night

While at the social function of the week - a fundraiser for the young women at church - Tarzan managed, with a single sentence, to make all six missionaries in the room blush beet red simultaneously.
Even the African-American one.

This is me, amused and mortified all at once.
(Read the comments if you want the whole story.)

Scheduling

You know you're busy when you have to put 'Take Shower' on your to-do list to make sure you get one that day.

This is me and it's par for the course right now.

Ode For A Busy Man's Birthday

Dear Tarzan,
This year I'm very glad I do these 'odes' which some think are silly - maybe they are - because you are so stressed and preoccupied right now you haven't got the time to spend but one day you can come back and reread my birthday wishes for you.
I wish you a job that you love, with none of the bureaucratic silliness that gets in the way of doing a good job.
I wish you time. TIme to spend on all the things you want to learn and share and find and be.
I wish you the desire to grow and progress but contentment with our place right now.
I wish you joy in the work that is life, happiness in the journey and laughter together.



This is me and Happy Birthday honey!

So Sue Me

I know, it's been a long time. No excuses. Just more of the same, I am not dead and don't want to bore you with repetition. Aren't I the nice one?

This is me with nothing.

Merryweather

Flora, Fauna...and Merryweather.
I don't have anything to say about the weather - other than it's raining AGAIN - but when I hear one, I can't NOT think of all three:
Plus, Merryweather is the more practical of the group and they never listen to her. We have a connection.


This is me and Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney movie.

Fauna

**Disclaimer - unlike the flower pictures which were all taken by me, with my own camera, most of these animals were not. The animals are less stationary than the flowers and I don't have the skillz.**
The first dozen times visiting my parents it seemed a barren, boring place. Dry, sandy, brown, hot and that's it. But as we learned in the last post it's all about looking around - that and a lot of rain - and noticing what is there even if it's not so visable.
This is the animal life - that we've actually seen - from The Desert.
We see this Egret (Ardea Alba) twice a year. He stops by on his migration we think. This picture was one of ours:We aren't sure what the Coyote (Canis Latrans) was eating in the back yard but he was not to be moved from it so we snapped a couple of good shots:These Desert Quail (Callipepla Gambelii) are everywhere. Small and quick but majorly indecisive. Will they cross the road or not? Or stop in the middle of the lane, look at the car and imagine themselves invisible: There have been several Black-Tailed Jackrabbits (Lepus Californicus) hopping through the yard this spring:There are actual Roadrunners (Geococcyx californianus) which are much smaller than the cartoons would have you think but just as fast. I don't see the Coyote, wily or not, catching one of these things: The Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus tereticaudus) are TINY and can be mistaken for leaves or dirt blowing across the road very easily:Technically this is not an animal - the Desert Spider Beetle (Cysteodemus armatus):But we've seen an increased number of the blister beetle family and figure it can only be the rain.

This is me and this concludes our nature lecture. You all get an A.

Flora

The rain and flowers mentioned a post or so ago got me to thinking and during a lull in the activities yesterday, my mom, my sister and I got out the wildflower books and started identifying some of the indigenous species from the back yard. It was quite exciting to open the book and actually find the plant we were looking for. The first one - the one that started the whole exercise - is this Arizona Lupine (Lupinus Arizonicus):It intrigued me because the horses wouldn't eat it - they eat EVERYthing else, including my mother's avocado tree that she started from a seed - and I hadn't seen this flower before this year. Now there are entire swaths of it along the road:After finding and identifying the purple one we got a little carried away with all the flowers in the backyard.

The Fremont Pincushion (Chaenactis Fremontii) grows in large clumps. It's reminiscent of a lawn in parts:This is the Brown-Eyed Primrose (Cammisonia Claviformis) and can be yellow or white, though we seem to only grow the white ones:In fact, most of the flowers that we get are of the yellow or white variety. Other than the aforementioned Lupine - which is brand new to us this year - this Sand Verbena (Abronia Villosa) is the only purple flower we see:We aren't exactly sure what genus and species of the Boraginaceae family this plant belongs to but it is one of the cutest little plants: Our greatest crop is the Desert Dandelion (Malcothrix Glabrata) but we think there are some Desert Marigold (Baileya Multiradiata) mixed in with them:There is a lot of this African Mustard (Malcomia Africana) around:A LOT of it. When the pod dries up and the seeds fall out they look like this:They're pretty small and an interesting color. We aren't sure if we want to spend the effort to create homemade african mustard this year or not.

This is me knowing something cool.

Via Email

This explanation of America's Economic Problem is from one of the many, many, MANY emails I get every day from my adorable mother-in-law. It's not really political. Not really news. But absolutely hilarious:

"This financial crisis is forcing state and local agencies to make some tough decisions. If things continue for much longer, there's a real risk that we may have to lay off Jose."

This is me laughing out loud. For real.

Well Paved

I was so excited to come home today and post the pictures of the blossoms on our berry vine in the back yard. We think it's a blackberry vine - we got it from Tarzan's grandfather's house, two years ago, when we were staying with him - we think so because it spent the first year growing and this year blossoming. We were really hoping for some fruit. All signs pointed to yes, especially when I thought I saw some white where the leaves and stem meet. I was all set to take my pictures, the weather was great today, good light and I was ready.

This is what I saw when I pulled into the back yard:

Guess where the blackberries are:

Oh yes, but not just buried under that, no.

No, uprooted and then tossed in with the rest of the debris from the yard.

Our neighbor, who has only the best of intentions, cleared out all the weeds and plants from our back yard. As he has done many times in the last eight years. We give him our recycling and he cleans the yard. It has been a nice arrangement.

And I suppose it is a little bit my fault for not putting up a fence, a sign, cleaning my own dang weeds.

He cut down my blackberry vines.

The rain this spring had provided a great beginning. It's sad for me that this is as far as it will go:

Here are the blossoms I was so happy to see:

Unless there's a miracle and next year we get some growth from the roots that might or might not still be in the ground and the year after THAT we might see some blossoms again, we'll never know if these really were blackberries or not.

We're going to try and sprout these twigs but I don't know how far it will get. Do vines sprout like other clippings? Does this count as a clipping?

This is me and I'm so let down.

Sunset

All the rain this spring - though annoying while driving my new car - has created some gorgeous vistas out here in The Desert. The hills are green, rather than brown, and the flowers are abundant. Yesterday was particularly lovely as it was still raining in some areas and there were streams of light coming through clouds and all that picturesque stuff. This was the sunset from the back door last night:

This is me and it's not half bad.

Dressing

You know it's time to cut the toenails when you're putting on your jeans and catch one - a toenail - on the pant leg and rip it in half.

This is me and my feet.

Oh To Be A Redhead

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everybody!
It's so cliche to say this kind of snuck up on me, but it did.
I have no defense except the same as everyone else - being busy - so I refer you to one of the greatest videos EVER, posted by none other than one of the greatest sister-in-laws EVER.
It made me laugh so hard I cried.
Beaker - there are no words.
Silly though it be, I am happy to dress up for the holiday - no green beer for me thank you - especially now that I have appropriate colors to wear. My wardrobe has come a long way from the first Saint Patrick's Day at my second job where I got pinched a few times by wise guys who weren't willing to accept (admittedly dark) olive as a shade of green. It was the only thing in my closet that even resembled green.
Weird, I know.
No stripes, no buttons, nothing was green. Happily I have remedied that fact in the years since.
In the end, today I will have worn three different green outfits - not because I couldn't decide but because I had a couple of places to be and the dress was different each time.
I wore jeans and a green striped T-shirt back from my parents' house.
A really green sweater with my black skirt to the appointment with the missionaries.
And Tarzan's favorite green striped nightgown will be what I wear to bed.
No one can say I don't make the effort.

This is me with no pictures, because I never think of it until it is too late. Maybe next year.

Scrubbing Out My Brain

Things you don't ever want to hear a doctor say:
"You have the [insert anatomically correct part here] of a 15-year-old."
Followed by:
"No [insert marital relations here] for another two weeks at least."
No, not to me...TO MY MOTHER!
MY. MOTHER.
And I'm sitting right there in the same room.

This is me and I should have opted to stay in the waiting area.

Modesty

Is it all people or just the people I know who are modest about their talents?
No, more than modest. Modest is when you smile and thank the person for the compliment and move on.
This goes way beyond that.
Tarzan played the organ for Stake Conference yesterday and I was so proud. I'm always proud when he plays for something. I hang out near him every Sunday when he's doing prelude just so I can say, "I'm with him."
But to talk to Tarzan, it wasn't anything at all and he's rather I didn't mention it or even look at him while he's playing.
"It got done and I didn't mess up," is usually the best I can get.
Is that usual from people with musical talent? (Or any talent.) Is there such a performance anxiety about playing live music that it outweighs the star power of everyone envying you?
I have had a lot of people tell me they like Tarzan's playing, or how our home must be filled with music because he's so talented and how lucky I am to have him.
It's true - I am lucky to have him - but the house is not filled with music from his hands because he claims to not like the piano and only plays at church when it's necessary.
Is there a syndrome that describes individuals who don't think what they do is awesome...or is my husband just weird?


This is me and I want to be with the band.

Torn

There's a song from an old movie where Jimmy Durante sings
"Did you ever have a feeling that you wanted to go and still have the feeling that you wanted to stay...?"
That is the story of my life right now.
Friday mornings I wake up, knowing I'm going home, and I'm so happy and excited.
At the same time there's a knot in the pit of my stomach, worried and anxious about leaving my parents and the business behind. There is so much work to do with this delivery business thing and my mom is not quite 100% recovered from surgery. We're waiting on the part for the forklift still and since I made all the arrangements I kind of want to be there when it runs again. Plus there's getting LBO to school and I missed him taking the SAT because I was at home.
But I get to go home to Tarzan, sleep in my own bed with my own pillows, do my dishes with a dishwasher - I hate washing dishes by hand - see my kittens, hang with ATL, read my books, keep my clothes in my drawers and closet. Have a choice of shoes.
The reverse happens Sunday night when I have to pack and drive out to my parents' house again. Excited to be coming back to the business, be there as events unfold, instead of hearing about it over the phone where I can't help and be part of the solution. I want to see my siblings, help the family, play with the horses - who recognize me now - and see about making some money.
But there's that nauseous feeling when I leave my house, my husband, my kittens.
When I'm in each place, I am there, fully and doing what needs to be done, it's just the transitions that cause me stress.
On the up side, I might be losing weight because eating when I feel like this makes me sick.

This is me, wishing I could clone myself.

It Must Be Spring

If it's 34 degrees one day - frost on the car window included, no charge - and 88 degrees the next.

This is me and it makes for some tough wardrobe choices.

This Isn't Even A Hurricane Place

How is one supposed to keep a locked, metal, anchored, tied, jury-rigged, weighted carport down in 80MPH winds? (No worries, it wasn't sheltering my new car.)
Because our method just ended with all the joints being ripped and torn off and the long metal pieces flying through the air.
We are lucky no one got beheaded.

This is me and suggestions are welcome.