Can I just say anxiety is annoying?

Yes, I'm being tacky and using an obviously not-free stock photo, watermark and all...but I like it, it looks like me.

I am sitting here, trying to understand a difficult scientific journal article so that I can review it for a class. (This is due Tuesday at noon.) I have been struggling to understand the durn thing for two hours. And it just wasn't working.

Finally I just told myself, ok, just start writing the stupid paper and maybe it will come together. For some seemingly-inane reason, I suddenly understand the paper. Which I'm glad about, but I'm annoyed at the two-plus hours I've wasted already...

Grrrr!!!

Therapy and medication are certainly helping me grow in leaps and bounds, but to quote Veruca Salt, "I want it NOW!"

Heavenly Father, please remind me why I'm not allowed to be perfect yet? What was it I was supposed to learn in this life???

Scriptures to mark in the Book of Mormon?

This week for FHE we are preparing Books of Mormon to give away to friends. We're going to write out testimonies on the inside cover but we're also going to be highlighting certain "introductory" scripture passages in the book itself.

Do you have any favorite ones you like to share with investigators? I'm obviously starting with Moroni 10:3-5 but I'd love to hear what ideas you have!

One more for Grandma B

Blowing Dandelions from Amanda on Vimeo.

Is this not one of the most darling little boys you've ever seen? He's right up there with Gehrig, Briggs, and Ty in my book. I'm so lucky to live by them! His mom tells me he still likes blowing dandelions.

It's always a party in Auntie's car!

This is a video of the kids singing "Sabi doo" in my car (which was parked at the time - just so you know.) Years ago Briggs named the Tarzan song, "Trashin' the Camp" by N'sync and Phil Collins "Sabi doo". It's now one of their favorite songs to listen to in my car, along with "Tarzan" (not from the movie), and "Whooooooooo".


Sabi doo from Amanda on Vimeo.

I feel bad for Briggs at the end when Ashylnn over-exuberantly shouts at him. Which is why I stopped the camera and dealt with that...

"Ta da!"

This clip of Briggs reminds me of Gob Bluth. "Ta da!"




If you couldn't see the penny, he dropped it down his back, through his shirt and into the fountain. He was pretty impressed with himself.

A reminder of our recent "mishap"

This one made me think of Ty.

Most of these are pretty funny. You should check out their site.

Nana's nose!

Oh my goodness! My mother just shared these photos with me and they're darling! Ty has Nana's nose, I think. And he's her "Pizza Pie" boy. So the connection within the photos is really special, to me at least.

Chef Ty

Isn't his little apron darling?

I've discovered that I really like baking with my nieces and nephews. Sadly, only two of them seem to enjoy it. Oddly enough, it's the youngest and oldest, Ty and Natalee.

At Christmas I made gingerbread cookies with Nat and her friend and it turned into an impromptu cooking lesson. They had a ball and I think they even learned my one major lesson: If you always clean up after yourself, Mom will let you cook. The girls seemed to grasp this concept well because they cleaned the entire kitchen (with direction from me) without complaint.

Ty is the other little baker in the family. He LOVES to help bake. His penchant for "cwacking" eggs was an early sign of his culinary bent, I guess. And then Kate would allow Ty to crack the eggs for whatever she was making, in a feeble attempt to mitigate errant egg-cracking.

Carefully pouring in the muffin mix

While the boys were at my house on Saturday night I decided to make some muffins with Ty. I let him pour in all the ingredients, crack the egg, stir it all together, and even fill the muffin cups. He did a great job! The batter mixes really easily, so he was able to fully mix it himself. Then he just put my silicone muffin cups on a cookie sheet and I let him fill them with a 1/4 cup measuring cup. With the extra coverage of the cookie sheet, he really couldn't make too much of a mess so I just let him have at it. He even enjoyed wearing the tiny, little apron I had for him! It was so cute!

The only thing he did not want to do was put them in the oven so I assured him I would do it. The boy has a healthy respect for the hot oven, thankfully.

After we let them cool, each of them had one. Briggs absent-mindedly took one and began eating, then suddenly exclaimed, "Wow, Ty! These are good! What are they?"

I got the recipe from Ejers, which she got from the mother of one of her sunbeams... But in honor of the fun we had Saturday night, I'm going to call them...

Ty’s muffins

Ingredients

Dry ingredients

8 cups flour

3 cups sugar

3 T baking powder

2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp nutmeg

Mix all dry ingredients and divide into 4 batches.

Wet ingredients for 1 batch (12-15 muffins)

1 cup milk

1 egg

2 ¾ cup muffin mix

½ cup oil (can substitute applesauce)

Bake at 400˚F for 13-16 minutes.

Variations

Add crushed almonds or mini chocolate chips for variety.

What are your upth and downth?

Kate and Brian used to go around the dinner table each night and have everyone say what their ups and downs were that day. I really thought it was a great way for everyone to have their voice heard at the dinner table and so that everyone could hear what was really important to each other.

For example, my down for today was realizing I'm not really understanding one of my classes. My up for the day was Family Home Evening.

Briggs would sometimes come up to me and ask me, "Auntie, what were your upth and downth today?" I knew from this that he really wanted to tell me about something bad that happened to him that day. And I thought it was a great family dinner tradition that offered him a voice and a way to talk about things. (One time he said, "My down was that [Bobby] bit Harry. My up was that he didn't bite me.")

Tonight for FHE I did this for the activity. We went around in the circle and everyone got to say their up and down for the day. (I offered people the opportunity to skip if they didn't feel comfortable, but they all chose to take part.) Everyone had their turn and then after we went to leave, one person said to the room at large, "I really like that ups and downs! That's really cool! I've never heard anything like that before."

I probably won't do this activity again because I don't want them to feel like I'm trying to run a therapy session and there are so many other fun activities to do. But it was a great way to get to know everyone else and what was important to them or what was pressing on their minds.

I think in blogs!

Totally stole this one from Ejers' blog

Does anyone else do this? When I start thinking about something, instead of just thinking about it to myself, I start forming sentences the way you would write them.

This often happens at night when I'm trying to go to sleep, or during the day when I'm trying to avoid something. But always, I'm composing blog posts in my head! I usually have several a day but rarely do they make it from my grey matter to the computer. Consider yourself lucky!

Blessing of Conference

Life is extremely stressful right now. So I spent the evening over at Kate's tonight, just to feel their comfort and support. Ty and I read a book together. Ashlynn cross-stitched while I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerers' Stone to her. It was very nice and relaxing.

But when I came home all my anxieties came back to me. (Thankfully my house is nice and clean and organized, a rarity!) I am having a very hard time getting to sleep so I put on my favorite music for just such occasions: Mark Geslison's "Be Still My Soul"*. Then I decided I needed to read a Conference talk to calm down and forget about life's little problems.

As I was reading the titles of each of the talks, I suddenly felt very full. I was still stressed, but here I had a dozen talks by wonderful people that were direct answers to my needs and prayers. How blessed I am to be born in a time where I can access Conference transcripts a week after the live version.



* "Be Still My Soul" is a compilation of "Traditional Acoustic Melodies" according to the album cover. Really it's several hymns played in a traditional manner on instruments such as banjo, guitar, mandolin, violin, tin whistle, etc. It is extremely calming and also carries the message of the hymns. I love it for both calming down and when I need to focus on the spirit.

Remember my kitty typing tutor?

Andre by Verusca

Remember my post about Vincent liking to sit on my wrists while I work on the computer? Here's a photo my good friend took that describes the situation perfectly.

And this is me on the good ol' Comodore 64 that I learned to type on before I could spell. Man I miss that machine.

The Three Year Old Polemicist

If Ty has any sores in his mouth, after tonight they'll probably heal pretty fast.



But back to the purpose of this post. I have learned two things from toddlers:

1. You should never, EVER leave them unattended, even for two seconds.
2. You will probably forget this rule too many times to count during your child-care career.

As a corollary to #1, I have learned that no amount of soap and water will wash out Desitin or Neosporin antibiotic ointment.

A fellow KinderCare teacher learned this one when one of her two year olds got into the diaper cabinet and squeezed half a cup of Desitin onto his head. His grandmother washed his hair with harsh dish soap for two weeks before his hair stopped standing up in a mohawk of its own accord.

And tonight Ty taught me about Neosporin. After using the potty at my house, he came around the corner saying something that I didn't catch at first. He had a funny look on his face and was trying to repeatedly spit something foul tasting out of his mouth. I then realized he had informed me, "Dis isn't toofpaste." In horror, I realized he had one of my toothbrushes in his hand with clear ointment perfectly smeared on the head of it and all over his lips. Apparently he had noticed my generic tube of antibiotic ointment (which admittedly looks like a tube of toddler toothpaste) and decided on an impromptu dental cleaning.



The horror was from the fact that he had put the ointment in his mouth, not the fact that he used one of my toothbrushes. He happened to chose the one I don't like...which is good because soap and water was not going to clean it.

On the way home, Ty asked Briggs something and Briggs responded with, "Because." Ty asked, "But whyyyyyy???" to which Briggs repeated, "Because!" This exchanged was repeated several times until they both started to giggled. Ty asked, "Why do you keep saying dat?!" and Briggs, barely able to contain his laughter, said, "Because that's what you always say to everything! 'Because!'" They broke into serious laughter at this point which continued for several minutes. It was really actually sweet and funny and no one lost their temper (a rare feat for these two...)

And if you're wondering what a Polemicist is, here's the definition: An aggressive controversialist, or someone who uses polemics.

Polemics:
1 a: an aggressive attack on or refutation of the opinions or principles of another b: the art or practice of disputation or controversy
2 : Tennyson

This afternoon on a walk he wanted me to carry him. I told him I couldn't. He said, "Yes you can. I'm little."

And is a three year old who routinely answers the question, "How old are you?" with "I'm six and a half!" still considered a toddler?

Even celebrity kids throw tantrums!

I like Heidi Klum, the very little I've seen of her. I think her foreign personality is refreshing because it's so not American. (She's from Germany).

So when I saw this photo and snippet, it just cracked me up and begged to be shared. From MSN's "Week in Pictures"...


"Heidi Klum takes her adorable kids out to lunch even though they're in their 'Let's throw tantrums in front of the camera' phase. Must be a fun game for her." (MSN's quote, not mine...)

Probably as fun as taking family photos with an obstinate 3 year old...

(Alrighty, Papa, let's see you Photoshop a happier head on THIS grandchild...)

That's just gross!

I have a thing for bathrooms, apparently. To steal a term from Lisa H., I have a "hamster bladder" and need commodes often throughout the day. I was looking at a slide show and explanation of toilet facilities around the world and learned about a Beijing toilet that's almost as funny as a previous experience of mine.

Apparently some of their modernized (for the Olympics, naturally) bathroom facilities even offer refreshments!

That's just gross. I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes to germs. How can you be around kids on not? (Unlike Sheldon, however, I do not use a kitchen measuring cup for urinalysis...) But food and bathrooms should never go together.

I don't even like bringing bagged food (like a brown bag lunch) into a restroom, even if it will never be opened in the bathroom. Now, this may arise from the fact that my Californian high school's bathrooms usually lacked: door locks, sometimes stall doors, and always toilet paper. So there was no end of speculation of whatever else was being grown as an impromptu experiment on those floors, seats, and walls.

(This looks a bit cleaner than my high school bathrooms did...)

(How 'bout the time I sneezed in class and was in need of an emergency tissue because the teacher had used up her yearly allotment of one box...I walked to SIX different girls bathrooms, with my hand covering my nose in embarrassment, and couldn't find a single scrap of bathroom tissue at all. I finally got desperate and went into the discipline office and they grudgingly gave me one tissue with which I was expected to mop up my entire nose mess. A coalition of mothers, spearheaded by my own neat mother, offered to regularly clean and stock the bathrooms out of their own pockets and were denied for security reasons...The End can't come soon enough...ok, now to confuse you, the end of this side bar, too...)



So next time you're in Beijing, avoid the vending machine potties...

I've been spoiled by opposable thumbs!

I occasionally get patches of eczema on my hands and toes. It can be mildly painful when it's on my fingers and I have to do a lot of heavy lifting (like moving, etc).

But a couple months ago I developed a tiny patch on the tip of my right thumb. By the end of last week it was all over my thumb which wasn't that bad, just weird that I couldn't feel with the tip of my thumb.

At the beginning of this week i developed a big blister that turned into a sore right at the corner of my thumb nail. I now cannot use my thumb! Any pressure I put on my thumb in any position causes a startlingly sharp pain. And it will not heal! I've even cut away my thumbnail to relieve as much pressure on the spot as possible and it's only mildly helped.

I am amazed at how many things I can't do now that I can't use that thumb.

• For the ladies, try zipping up your fly...you can't do it! (I seem to remember men's flies are lefthanded...odd)
• Try catching a falling three-year old with one hand. You can do it (because who thinks of their own pain when a toddler is falling from higher than their own height) but then you're in tears afterwards. (Ashlynn was a little started when I admitted this last night...I don't think she thinks I'm capable of crying...she's only partially correct on that one.
• Try opening a zip-lock bag, or any sealed bag that requires a two-handed pincher grip.
• Try flossing your teeth.
• Try setting your alarm clock...with all the buttons on the right side of the machine (much to my eternal consternation, eczema or no eczema...)

There are so many other things that I take for granted that I can't do this week. I finally did a bit more cutting back of the nail (it was too painful to get in there before) and it appears to be scabbing over, which is better than before. It still hurts as badly, but it looks like it's progressing in a positive way.

It's funny that I have a very obvious disability - anosmia - lack of smell, one of the five basic human senses. And I'm totally fine with that. I was born that way, and I don't know any other way to get along, so I'm fine. But temporarily losing the use of my thumb is a travesty. It's really frustrating.

And it's brought into focus for me how strong people must be who have disabilities. I imagine the ones who have been born that way are fairly similar to me in that it's all they've known so they don't really have any loss that they remember in order to mourn. Obviously, there are those people who have much worse disabilities than smelling, or seeing, or hearing, but I'm just talking about the one sense disability. We take it in stride.

But those people that lose one of their senses or lose the use of such an important body part as the thumb, or a leg. Holy cow! Those people are the strong ones.

But I just had a Sheldon-esque thought. Maybe I'm not disabled, maybe I'm more evolved than others. Because if you think about it, smell doesn't do too much (at least from the biased opinion of an anosmic...). So we're evolving away from the need of it.

Nah...it's just late-night so tired-my-eyes-are-drooping talking... Hmmm, we went from thumb, to disabilities with the senses, to TV, to science and evolution. Actually, I don't think that's late-night so tired-my-eyes-are-drooping talking. I think that's Dang! That ambien I took 20 minutes ago is already kicking in!

I own Mendocino!!!

Clarification: This is all just a pretend blog-giveaway...no monetary goods have been exchanged! But lots of love has!!!

My sister just gave me my absolute FAVORITE place on earth, Mendocino. More specifically my favorite house and experience in Mendocino. Go check it out here. I truly couldn't ask for anything else in life. And she's right. Ask me any question about my preferences and my answer usually has something to do with Mendocino.

Thoughts about spirituality

I think it's interesting how I can blog on a public blog about some of my spiritual thoughts. But on the other hand, I am fiercely private about the rest of my spirituality.

I HATE email forwards/text messages that say, "If you really support Christ you'll forward this on!" I mean, REALLY hate. It seems to go against every grain I have. Don't tell me how to show that I am a disciple of Christ. That's between me and the Lord and no one else.

When I eventually go through the temple, I will probably just go with my friend as my helper and that's it. It's between me and Lord, not anyone else, so why do they need to be there?

I also am careful about the times that I talk about my testimony. Even with friends and fellow members of my faith that I have shared really important things, I don't always feel it's the right moment to share the things I'm feeling right then.

Maybe I'm just like Ty. It takes him a while to be ready for new things. So for me, it takes me a while to process my spiritual feelings before I can begin to share them with anyone else. I vocally take part in church lessons all the time, but it's usually stuff that I've already allowed to settle in my soul and I'm now ready to share them. But I figure at least the Lord and I communicate on an hourly and daily basis. So my reticence to share with other people isn't really all that important at this stage in my life.

Just thoughts...

I think I know what the mother ofa teenager feels like!

I am sitting on my couch, with the door open, waiting for my cat to come home. I know exactly where he is - the thicket of shrubs two doors down...so only about 25 yards away and totally protected from the street. He's been sitting in there, staring at me for the past 30 minutes and probably laughing at my attempts to lure and/or scare him out. All I have to show for it is scratches all over my face, neck and hands.

This complex is full of cats, so I'm just sitting here waiting for him to decide to come home from carousing and hoping that he makes good choices and doesn't get into any trouble in the meantime.


Vincent is just sitting on the porch, also waiting for him. That's what I'm hoping will finally lure him home. He doesn't like to be separated from his big brother for too long.

So, it's sitting here for however long it takes, just working on the computer. I'm not about to shut the door and I'm not about to leave the couch. I want to see him when he comes home.

Darn cat.

Oh, yeah, and I'm listening to Colm Wilkinson sing "Bring Him Home" from Les Mis...oh the irony that that's my favorite song...

Update: He's home now...little stinker...it took my neighbor coming home to scare him out of the "forest".

"I don't sink dere's a baffroom" x 14

This afternoon, I took Ty with me on an errand to the bookstore. He's usually very good in the bookstore, so he hasn't lost this privilege...yet.

While we were driving there, he said he had to go potty. I thanked him for telling me and said we were almost to the bookstore and could go there. He said, "I don't sink dere's a baffroom in the bookstore..." I said, "Yep, there is. We're almost there."

He said, "No, I don't sink dere's a baffroom in the bookstore..."

I decided to try something different. Instead of arguing with him, I just ignored him. So he repeated, "I don't sink dere's a baffroom in the bookstore..."

I stayed silent.

"I don't sink dere's a baffroom in the bookstore..."



And he repeated this 14 times (I counted...) with about 10 seconds in between repetition. He never yelled or used an inappropriate tone, so I just kept ignoring him.

After rep #14 he paused for about 20 seconds then sheepishly chuckled and said with a smile, "Oh, I sink dere's a baffroom at the bookstore. Yeah, dere's a baffroom dere."

I said, "Yep. And we're almost there!" and continued a positive conversation with him.

Man this kid is insistent, however I did learn something from it - and hopefully he did, too. But you know the next time I try to employ this, it won't work.

The ubiquitous hammer paradox

(The title is in homage to the show "The Big Bang Theory"...you should watch it...)

Yesterday Briggs and I had a date at Cal Poly and he suddenly said, "Wow, the students are ubiquitous here. Do you know what ubiquitous means, Auntie?"

"Yes. Do you know what it means, Briggs?"

"Yes. [Teacher] told us yesterday it means something is everywhere."

And he was right, the students on a campus are kind of ubiquitous.

And on to the next subject...because I'm all about the non sequiturs...


Tonight I helped Brian in their garden and borrowed his hammer to pound in some garden stakes. At the end of the evening, I got in my car to drive home and suddenly remembered, "I left the hammer out!" My heart started pounding, I left the keys in the ignition, exploded out of my car, and sprinted into the garage just as Brian was shutting it for the night. "I left a hammer out! I'm sorry! So sorry!" (If I read his face correctly, I believe he was quite bewildered at my apparent anxiety...)

Now, for me, leaving a hammer out comes with a stiff 10-year period of penance. As a kid, I had a perpetually-under-renovations "fort" in our side yard. I was allowed to borrow Dad's not-as-nice tools as long as I replaced them. Being the oblivious adolescent that I was, I often forgot to replace tools. But I did know that I was weak in this department, so I always made sure to only use my tools, or Dad's worst ones that he wouldn't mind if they got ruined.

One day my Dad confronted me, frustrated, "Amanda! I can't find my nice hammer. You left it out again!" I assured him I did NOT use his nice hammer because I made a point never to use it for fear of this very conversation. He didn't press the issue, but went away grumbling, clearly not believing me. I did have a track record for losing tools, so he wasn't off base in his assumption, but this time I remembered the thoughts going through my head during my tool selection process and I KNEW I hadn't used his hammer. (Besides, I didn't need to borrow his at this point in my construction management career. I had a mighty nice tool kit of my own he'd put together for me comprising of tools he had picked up on the side of the freeway...an odd but fruitful past time of his.)

This ribbing for losing his favorite hammer continued almost as long as the Knight family conundrum of "Who keeps eating the bottom off all the chocolates and replacing them?!" (Just to set the record straight, my 63 year uncle finally came clean last Thanksgiving...) I always stuck to my story of staying away from his nice tools and he always just shook his head.

Let's fast-forward about 10 years. I am studying quietly in my dorm room, 18 years old, and haven't touched a hammer in a few years. Out of the blue, I get a call from my dad. He said, "Hey, Mae...remember that hammer we thought you lost?" I started to splutter, "I never lost it because I never borrowed it!"

Dad started chuckling and sheepishly said, "I know. I just found it on the roof." To be clear, I HAVE NEVER BEEN ON THE ROOF OF OUR HOUSE. And Dad knew this. He had been making repairs all those years ago and didn't find it until they went to replace the roof several years later.

So I finally felt absolved of my tool-negligence. But I guess after tonight's display of paranoia, I'm still not completely over it.