It'll Feel Better When it Quits Hurting

Hola Elder

2012-01-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

Hola Familia,

So I'm back in the mission, and things are going pretty well. They put
me into a trio. My companions are Elder George and Elder Teng. Elder
George is from Florida and has been out in the field for 6 or 7 months
I think. He's really good. Elder Teng (pronounced "Tang") is waiting
for his visa to go to Taiwan. He grew up in Washington, but he learned
how to speak Mandrian from his parents. He's also really cool. The
funny thing is that before transfers this last Tuesday the
companionship used to be a trio (the third elder got sent off to
Compton). It's kinda of funny that I arrive just in time to fill in
the vacancy. I kind of feel like a "third wheel" to this companionship
right now, but I'm getting used to things pretty quick and my
companions feel rather motivated to get me talking.

Our companionship covers two wards in the area: an English-speaking
family ward (Cypress 2nd) and the Singles Ward (covers the whole
stake). Compared to my last area, that's like a quarter of the elders
per ward. Between these two wards, we have way more than enough stuff
to do (or rather, nowhere near enough time to do the stuff we need
to). Also, going to 6+ hours of church meetings on Sunday feels very
bizarre, scheduling-wise.

I have my tennis shoes (thanks for asking), but I think I forgot my
coat. If you could check (I think it's still in the entryway) that
would be nice.

Speaking of coats, the weather here has been weird. Supposedly this is
supposed to be the rainy season, but since I've arrived the weather
has been sunny and in the 70s. It's the middle of January and it feels
warmer than when I left in mid-October (when I was in the
supposedly-hottest area of the mission). I mean, it feels just like
summer (except that summer here is warmer than summer back home, but
you get my point).

Sincerely,
Elder West

Adios...Again.

2012-01-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

We dropped Alex off at Sea-Tac this morning. Traffic was brutal, but we made it in plenty of time to get him checked in and to check his two suitcases (both weighed 47 pounds). Having him go was bittersweet. We're happy that he's healed up and returning to the mission field, but we will surely miss him - and his selfless service around the house.

Hey mister! Move your head!

Hey Alex! Look at the camera!

At least we got a smile.

Vaya con Dios, Elder West.

Alex Update

2012-01-25T04:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure whether it was harder to wait the first time Alex got his mission call, or this time.
Let's say this time.
Every step of the process this time seemed to take twice as long as ~~I wanted it to~~ it should have.
Well, the wait is over. I got a call last night around 5pm from our stake president. He asked me if I was sitting down (dead give-away). No surprise that he's going back to Long Beach - we were pretty sure that Alex would be. The surprise is when.
Tomorrow.
Yup. TOMORROW!!
Tomorrow morning.
That gives us one day to get him packed and say goodbye.
Can we do it?

You betcha.

Closet Clean-Up

2012-01-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

I drove down to IKEA on my own last Friday - specifically for this shoe cabinet.
I had a little trouble finding it - it was in the IKEA aisle equivelant of Platform 9&3/4.
We already had the mirror up (also purchased from IKEA).

I love how many shoes it tidies up out of sight. My pull-out holds 11 pairs of shoes!
Steve can only get about 6 of his larger shoes in his pull-out - but that's more than enough room for him.

So...my closet is clean and organized and my bedroom is done (except, perhaps for new bedding?). I need to sort out one or two things in the bathroom and then our 'master suite' will be done!

Snow Day III

2012-01-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

The branch is even more bent.

We have hairy icicles.

My plot to NOT pick all the apples has paid off...for the birds. Evidently they've been passing the word along that our yard has apples - there are between 2 and 10 in the tree at any given time.
Just doing my part.

Oh, and YES, it's still snowing.

Snow Day II

2012-01-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

notice how bent the branch is now...

Wet, wet, wet...

Snow Day

2012-01-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

Snow.

Wet snow.

Cream Cheese Danish

2012-01-15T09:42:00.000-08:00

Pinterest win!

I'd like to try some cold, but I'm not sure we'll have any left.

I am a bit addicted to Pinterest lately. Love. It. Anywho...while trolling the boards this week I came across a picture of diy cream cheese danish. It's dangerously easy to make. Dang. So far the voting has been unanimous - it's a winner. My only regret is that I forgot that I happen to have some raspberry filling down in my food storage. Oh well, next time.

I did make mine with the reduced fat cream cheese - so this is practically a diet food. I was not, however, willing to compromise standards and try the 'lite' crescent rolls. That just seems wrong.

Cream Cheese Danish

(slightly adapted from The Adventures of Kitchen Girl)

Ingredients:
2 cans ready to use refrigerated crescent rolls
1 8-ounce packages cream cheese (regular or low fat)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 egg (break one into a small bowl, stir with a fork to break it up, then eyeball the amount)
1 egg white

Glaze(I used some leftover vanilla frosting, but if you don’t have any of that):
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Method:
Preheat oven to 350* degrees and grease a 13X9-inch baking pan. Lay a pack of crescent rolls in the pan and pinch the openings together. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and egg together until smooth. Spread the mixture over the crescent rolls evenly and then lay the second pack of crescent rolls on top of the cheese mixture and brush with egg white. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top is golden brown. Top with glaze after cooling for 20 minutes.

Servings: Since there are currently four people residing in my house, I'd have to say: 4 servings. I was pleasantly surprised with how easily this sliced - even when warm - so you could cut the pieces as small as you'd like.

Challah Bread. By Danny.

2012-01-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how much better this bread looks
when I tell you that my 16 year old son made it.

The youth in our ward had an International Cook-off this week. Daniel wasn't very inclined to make anything - but he reckoned without me. I informed him that if he was going to sample other people's cooking, it was only fair that he take an entry. Since he's not really big into very many 'international' foods, I figured some type of bread would be a safe option. Besides, I had all the ingredients on hand. He made this almost entirely by himself - I did stand over him...and helped a bit with the braiding.

He came in third.

Challah in a Bread Machine

(recipe adapted from the Sunset Cook Book of Breads - which I've owned forever)

1 package active dry yeast

1 1/4 cup warm water

1 tsp. salt

1/4 cup each sugar and canola oil

2 eggs

2-3 drops yellow food coloring

5 (ish) cups of all-purpose flour

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 Tablespoon water

poppy seeds

Add water, yeast, salt, sugar, oil, eggs and finally flour to your bread machine. Set on 'dough' setting. Come back in 1 1/2 hours and dump it out on a floured counter. Pinch off about 3/4 cup of dough and set it aside.

Divide remaining dough into 4 equal parts; roll each between your hands to form a strand about 20 inches long. Place the four strips lengthwise on a greased baking sheet, pinch tops together, and braid as follows: pick up strand on right, bring it over next one, under the third, and over the fourth. Repeat, always starting with strand on the right, until braid is complete. Pinch ends together.

Divide reserved dough into 3 pieces. Roll each about 5-6 inches long. Make a small 3 strand braid and lay n top center of large braid. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour (until almost doubled).

Using a soft brush or your fingers, spread egg yolk mixture carefully and evenly over braids; sprinkle with poppy seeds. Bake at 350' for about 30-35 minutes.

I think Danny was a little shy on the flour, so his braids were pretty soft and hard to keep even - but considering this might have been his first loaf of bread, he did great.

Just Call Me Ol' Paint

2012-01-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

I painted my bedroom and bathroom last week.

I overheard Steve talking on the phone to someone: "...she paints our room every year..."

I have to rebut that statement (is rebut a word?). We've lived in this house for about 13.5 years. I've only painted our bedroom 5 times. Do the math. After doing some highly improbably sums on the back of a napkin, I've come to the conclusion that I've averaged one paint job for every 2.7 years. If you factor in the fact that this paint color is nearly the same as the second color I painted, you can clearly see that I average 3.425 years between paint jobs.

The end.

(go here to see more pictures)

A Very Harry Christmas

2011-12-20T16:58:00.000-08:00

From back left: Hermione, Ron, Harry.
From front left: Snape, Voldemort

Introducing Potter Puppet Pals ornaments. I like to think of them as ~~poorly crafted~~ charmingly naive. I spotted them on Pinterest a few weeks ago and knew that I had to figure out how to make them for Rebekah.

Mischief managed.

The Week in Review OR My Slip is Showing

2011-12-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

Since it's only a little over a week until Christmas, I can't really show pictures of everything I've done, but here is a bit of what's been going on at our house:

The youth activity this week was making 'gingerbread' houses (no actual gingerbread was harmed in the making....). Danny proved himself a genius and simply constructed a 'swimming pool' and then poured his entire bag of mini M&M's in it - thus bypassing the fiddly step of picking the good stuff off and eating it. We were able to go straight to the eating.

I was able to earn some big brownie/matrimonial points with Steve by making a thermal slip for his mother. It's just like a regular slip, but lined with fleece. I would have gotten it done sooner, but when I asked Steve to find out what type of slip (half or full), he came back with the wrong answer: three quarters. I then packaged said slip AND went to the post office today and queued up to send it off.

On Wednesday Alex finally got the wires removed from his mouth! That evening we canned 18 cans of stuff in #10 cans: Beanland soup mix, red lentils, sugar and powdered sugar. We had to get it done Wednesday night because I only had the can sealer checked out until Thursday noon. Yes, we had it a full week and yes, we waited until the last possible moment to use it. What's your point?

Keeping Busy

2011-12-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

I've been keeping fairly busy lately. Much of my time has been taken up with my regularly scheduled programming (family, seminary, sleep, house....) but I've been sneaking in some time to work on Christmas presents. Unfortunately, I can't really blog about what I've done because you never know who might peek.

Here's a little something I posted on Help Me Hanna:

I Wish...

2011-11-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

We throw coins in a fountain, we blow out candles, we close our eyes against a falling star... all for the chance at a single wish. But what would happen if a wish was forced on you?

Kira is one of the newest batch of Jinn sent to mend the paths of those humans who have lost their destinies. She has been assigned to discover Jack Morgan's one true wish by whatever means are necessary, with only three stipulations: 1) no one is to discover she is a Jinni, 2) she is never to lose control of her powers, and 3) she is never, ever to grow attached to her human.

The stubborn Wall of Jack, as Kira thinks of him, has worked hard to create a life that is normal in a home that was anything but. He wants nothing more than to follow his meticulously laid out plan for his future. So, when Kira arrives in his English class with a rush of wind and spark of energy that knocks him off balance, he never would have guessed that she was a Jinni sent for him.

Kira and Jack battle wills, battle their own failings, and battle the impossible feelings that are growing between them; until a battle of another kind pulls them eternally together.

Even with mystery, magic and a timeless romance, nothing could prepare the reader for the consequences of two little words... I wish.

What can I say?
Yay Tia! I'm so proud of her.
I Wish by Tia Harrington, available November 19, 2011 (download from Amazon Kindle store).

A Very Slurpy Thanksgiving.

2011-11-15T11:53:00.000-08:00

I just got a phone call from my husband. Alex just had his appointment with the oral surgeon. It looks like three more weeks of having his jaw wired shut.

Poor guy. He's lost about 10 pounds so far - 10 pounds that weren't extra. I'll have to step up the calorie count for him (I wish we could trade metabolism right now!). I had been hoping that the wires would be off in time for Thanksgiving - and that even if he couldn't chew much, he could at least eat soft food. Now I'll be making two dinners - regular and liquid.

I just need to borrow a stronger blender.

(un)Award Winning Photography

2011-11-01T04:40:00.000-07:00

We had a somewhat gorgeous Halloween yesterday. I'd like to submit a little proof that it isn't always raining here in Western Washington:

Snow on Mt. Pilchuck Through Power Lines.

Farewell October

Best in Show

2011-10-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

This was our year! Granted, the competition was pretty light, but I think our pumpkins were pretty dang awesome. I made the pattern myself - sort of. I screen captured the ones that I had pinned on Pinterest, then enlarged them a bit and printed them up, traced with a push pin - then I cut out Ferb, Steve did Phineas. I'm pretty sure we'll be impressing some trick or treaters with these babies on Monday.

Not only did we get 'certificates', we also got some booty.

Tall Oaks from Little Acorns Grow...

2011-10-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'm not expecting to grow any oaks with these, but I thought I'd share the treats I made for the seminary activity Deann and I are having tomorrow. I found the idea on Pinterest. These treats are just store-bought donut holes, one end dipped in slightly melted frosting, then in sprinkles, then about 2/3 of a pretzel stick is jammed in the top. Boo. Ya.

The Undiluted Truth...

2011-10-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

...about diluting.

We're still on a learning curve here at Casa de Oeste. Alex still can't handle any chunk-i-ness in his liquid meals - the bits and pieces get caught in the small spaces between his teeth and then nothing gets through. To combat that, we strain his food through a mesh strainer. We've found that if a food will get through the mesh, it will most likely go through a straw and NOT get stuck in his teeth. In order for things to make it through the strainer, they often need to be 'watered' down. Unless you're under the age of 6 months, you're going to find most watered down food bland and unappealing. What to do? Well, first of all, don't use water.

Here's a few of our favorite (so far) diluting agents:

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup (comes in a six pack from Costco) - this is great for anything tomato based.

Lipton's Onion Soup Mix - lots of flavor and (after straining out the onions) no added texture. I'm sure it has tons of salt too - but let's just keep in mind that this is a short term diet. Works well with bland stuff like mashed potatoes. I just had Alex make up another batch of it to keep on hand in the fridge.

Chicken Broth. I've got a carton of the stuff in the fridge - this works with lots of soup smoothies (*gag*, sorry) - without imparting too much of it's own flavor.

Typical dinner. Not very pretty - but both liquids were easily
sipped through a straw.

"Instant" hot cereals tend to have less texture than longer cooking kinds - but they still
tend to be a bit too thick to drink through a straw.

We've found that if you make sort of a well in a strainer, then pour a liquid over
the food (in this case cream of wheat and milk), the liquid serves to carry the food
through the mesh more easily. Milk, however, is awfully bland - we had to add some
brown sugar to this to make it reasonably palatable. While not a favorite, Alex didn't mind
it too much.

Will It Blend...the continuing saga.

2011-10-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

Just because you can blend something doesn't mean you should. Word.

We definitely had some hits and misses yesterday. First the hits:

Mashed Potato Soup. I made up a batch of Idahoan brand instant mashed potatoes (Loaded Baked flavor), then I put a couple of spoonfuls in my little sieve and poured some prepared Lipton Onion soup over it. Lather, rinse, repeat. Alex loves onions, so this was pretty much a hit.

Butterscotch Pudding. Who doesn't love butterscotch pudding? I added an extra cup of milk so that it would be runnier and flow through a straw easier.

Krogers Fortify Plus. Basically this is a store brand knock-off of Ensure. I'll be stocking up on these babies - lots of protein and vitamins, not to mention 350 calories each.

Ivar's Crab Bisque. I just strained this - Alex got most of the creamy broth and I had a small bowl of all the good stuff with just a little bit of broth. Win win. The only downside here is the cost. Each 24 ounce container is close to $6.

Costco Berry Smoothie. It was just a tad thick, but as it warmed up a little it got easier for him to drink. I think it took him 30 minutes to drink the whole thing.

And now for the misses:

Alex's favorite go-to meal is ramen noodles. You'd think they would be fine in a blender. You'd be wrong. I learned a bit about how starches start binding together in the blender. We'll give ramen another chance or two - but we'll wait a week or two and see if his suction improves.

Instant Oatmeal. I love oatmeal - but the starchiness of it just doesn't lend itself well to drinking through a straw without diluting it so much that it becomes oatmeal milk. Yuk. We tossed it.

Will It Blend?

2011-10-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Will it Blend?

I think Alex needs this t-shirt...

I plan on doing an ongoing series on what I've made for Alex to eat...er...drink while his jaw is wired shut. Not necessarily recipes, but at least a list of what works and what doesn't.

McDonald's vanilla shake - thumbs up.
Blended Zuppa Toscana - I had to strain it through a sieve. The end result tasted fine, but there was quite a bit of waste.
Canned Peaches smoothie - dump a can of peaches in the blender, then add a few scoop of vanilla ice cream. I found it too sweet, Daniel didn't like the temperature - he prefers ice cold smoothies. Alex slurped it down.
Yogurt. I bought a few of the "blended" variety from Fred Meyer. It packs 7 grams of protein in one serving. I plan to go to Costco today or tomorrow and buy some Chobani (Greek yogurt) - it has twice as much protein - but I'm a little concerned that I may need to thin it a little so that he can drink it - I'm also a little concerned about the fruit in it. Maybe I can make yogurt smoothies with it?
Ivar's Smoked Salmon Chowder - I dumped a couple of cups into the blender - then poured through a sieve. Not nearly as much waste as the Zuppa Toscana. Alex liked it. I'll check Costco and see if they still have it.

Elder Abuse

2011-10-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

One of the other missionaries gave Alex this pen...

He's not nearly as swollen as I thought he might be - he was
injured on the left side of his face.

I guess we won't have to worry about a Halloween costume - all he has to do is bare his teeth.

Hola Elder

2011-10-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

So, today is our p-day. It's kind of redundant to email you folks, since I'll be returning home tomorrow morning, but my companion wants to have some email time, so it's not like I have much to do right now.

I'm sure that all of you know why I need to return home (broken jaw) and why it happened and what I did at the hospital, so I'll spare you of all the gory details. It sufficeth me to say that the Presbyterian Intercommunal Hosiptal that I went to is probably one of the best things the Presbyterians have ever done.

I have to congratulate you, mom and dad, for taking this all so calmly and coolheadedly that the mission president and my companion have expressed surprise.

I have to congratulate President Bubert for being such a big support in more ways than I can express.

I also have to congratulate my companion for putting up with me, and having the patience to do basically all the medical paperwork yesterday. If you haven't heard yet, yesterday was an exercise in pure frustration. We had an appointment at 9 o'clock at this one place nearby, but it turned out that they didn't take our insurance, so we spent like two hours there trying to sort everything out, so they just referred us to another place for a 2 o'clock appointment.

That place was pretty good, but we had to redo all the paperwork and sort out a couple headaches and whatnot, so the actual surgery ending up starting around 5 o'clock IIRC. It only took about ~20 minutes, but
was rather excruciating since I was awake and only had local anesthetic. The procedure is pretty simple conceptually, just drill some screws into the patient's gums and wrap some wires around them, but even with the numbing it was still a very unpleasant sensation afterwards. The fact that it wasn't until like 8 o'clock that I got the (liquid) pain medication didn't exactly help either.

What did help though was (surprise) the mission president. When we arrived back at our apartment we found him waiting for us, and he had bought a lot of liquid food for me. Now we know that I won't need it
all, but yesterday we thought that due to my skull fracture I wouldn't be able to fly home for about a week. After talking with use for a bit, we went to the store and bought stuff for smoothies (awesome), and then spent the rest of the night talking.

Well, actually, I didn't talk that much, with my jaw being closed and all, but I was able to say some words clearly, and if needed I could just pull a Zacharias and write down what I needed to say.

Anyways, if any of you are wondering, yes I'm fine, and yes the pain medication is working.

Really the only three things I'm worrying about is how are [1] how am I not going to lose a massive amount of weight (considering that I've been the most voracious eater at dinner in a Spanish ward and have still failed to put on any weight) [2] how am I going to keep my teeth clean, and [3] how am I going to eat ramen without any real gaps in my teeth.

Hasta manana!
- Elder Oeste

Scatter-brained

2011-10-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

I'm learning that it's really tough to have a child in a hospital a thousand miles away. I'm having a little trouble concentrating on anything right now - except the fact that I wish I could be there, and that I wish I knew more about the condition Alex is in.

...about your son...

Yesterday, right after Danny and I got home from church, I got a call from Alex's mission president. Umm...for those of you who haven't had a child go on a mission, it's a little like having the school counselor call you from the high school...sure, it could be good news...but it seldom is. Sure enough, it wasn't good news. I felt bad for Alex's mission president - he'd never had to call a parent to tell them that their son was in the hospital with a fractured skull, jaw broken in two places and a possible ruptured eardrum. All of that sounds worse than it is...I hope. The fractured skull bit sort of threw me...but it's a hairline fracture (ha! hair...line...) and the doctors say it will heal up on its own without their help. The jaw fractures are a bit more serious - serious enough to need his jaw wired shut for the next few/several weeks. The good news...yes, there is some good news...is that Alex will get to come home for those weeks of recuperation - possibly Wednesday. In the meantime, I'll be getting a bedroom prepared for him, digging out his casual clothes and shopping for things he can drink through a straw.

Yes, this is where my imagination takes me.

Untidy little secrets...

2011-10-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Surely I'm not the only one who does this? I have between 20 - 30 recipes haphazardly taped up on the inside of my cupboard doors. I use some of them quite often - but I just noticed that there are several that have been up for years (yes, years) that I've never made. Will I ever? Hmm. At this point, probably not.

Cookie recipes, pasta, soups, and a very yummy looking
carrot cake recipe (that I've never made...)

My most frequently used bread recipes - right above my bread maker.
Oh yeah, also the recipe for pizza egg rolls.

Cheese puffs (savory cream puffs), crepes, pumpkin pancakes, beanland soup, cake mix cookies,
fresh blueberry cake, and a couple more unused recipes.

What I should do is take all these recipes down, type them up on the computer and then print them up - all nice and neat. That's what I should do...will I? Stay tuned.

Hola Elder

2011-10-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

I bet you folks are surprised that I'm emailing today, but I assure you that there's a good reason behind it. You see, in this mission, we have the opportunity to go to the temple once every two transfers, and to do this we wake up early on p-day and get a ride from a member. The only problem is that the temple is closed on Monday or something, so we have to change our p-day. We went to the Los Angeles temple this morning, though the southern half of the mission goes to the Newport Beach temple. The LA Temple is very awe-inspiring, though I'm always impressed at how the spirit is the same regardless of the exterior. Anyways, after our session our zone was able to meet in the chapel with the temple president, where he talked for a bit. It was interesting.

This past week a general authority, Elder Choi (pronounced "Che") of the Seventy, went on a tour of the mission. For us that entailed a half-mission conference, where he and his wife and the mission president all took turns speaking about stuff. The prevailing theme of Elder Choi's remarks was "get married right after your mission", which my companion found rather timely since he's going home in 3 weeks. I, on the other hand, have somewhere around 85 weeks before I need to worry about such things.

A couple times this past week we had the opportunity to take a young man who's preparing for his mission out with us. He went out with us on Thursday night and made some really good contributions to the lessons we had, and yesterday he helped us do some yardwork-service. He's working really hard preparing for his mission, and I have to say that it really showed. He'll be a pretty awesome elder.

On Wednesday as we were trying to find somebody we street contacted, we ran into this one lady who was taking groceries in. We offered some help, she accepted, and was interested enough to set up an appointment Friday evening, to which we ended up being 50 minutes late. I kind of feel guilty about that, but I feel pretty safe shifting the blame to the member we had with us. In any case, the lady was waiting for us, and our truancy didn't seem to faze her interest. Let's just hope we'll be able to go somewhere with her.

The next transfers will be November 1, for those who are curious, but I kind of doubt if I'll get transferred.

Hasta Luego,
- Elder Oeste

Hola Elder

2011-10-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

The Spanish word of the week is "surdo", which means "left-handed" ("southpaw"?).

Conference this weekend was really good, though I guess that goes without saying. It was kind of weird going to the stake center for the Saturday session and basically seeing nobody there, but I did appreciate the lack of distractions. I felt that I was able to get more out of it that way. I think my favorite two talks were Ted Callister's Book of Mormon talk and the talk by the Japanese guy that amounted to "Thank you, missionaries."

I'm not sure whether the Provo Tabranacle temple or the Congo temple announcement surprised me more. The first one was entirely out of the blue, whereas all the other elders in our apartment think that I misheard in the case of the latter (my notes don't lie).

Due to the distance between our proselyting area and the stake center, it was essentially infeasible to do much work between sessions, which was quite the bummer. During the Saturday afternoon break, we had the opportunity to eat at a member's house. It was nice since he was feeding all of the Spanish missionaries from our zone and the other zone, but it was not so nice since the other missionaries goaded me into eating a Chili de Arbol (bad idea).

I'd say my Spanish is doing pretty well, though I think I have some work to do with regards to comprehension. For instance, last night we were visiting a member and I had to sit on the sidelines because I could barely understand a word he said because he was talking so fast. Despite my best listening efforts, my brain was fried at the end of the visit. (Strangely, I understood practically everything my companion said.

On Thursday (jueves) we had the opportunity to provide service to one of the emeritus Bishops of the ward. We basically did a bunch of yardwork, which entailed using stuff like chainsaws and lawnmowers and such. I ended up with the rakes. In any case, I enjoyed the opportunity to sweat a lot (you see, with me being a car-elder this doesn't happen on a daily basis).

Just a note: The mission president actually allots us time each week to use mormon.org for some reason, so if you want me to see any of the profiles you make I can just look them up.

Hasta el Fuego,
- Elder Oeste

Hola Elder

2011-10-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

This past week was my first real experience with transfers. My companion and I weren't transferred, but I still found it rather interesting to see how much anticipation people had for their transfer calls on Saturday night. For our district, 3 out 6 elders ended up being transferred. That meant one of the areas got "whitewashed". The new elders are pretty good. One of them served in the Cambodian ward for the past year, but somehow he ended up in our district (curiously, the English district in our area also got a Cambodian elder). All I can say is that it's a really weird sounding language.

Last night my companion and I were talking to a few really drunk guys on their doorstep. My companion ended up talking to the only non-drunk one, and apparently they had a good discussion. I was left with the drunk guys, and I'm not exactly sure what happened. From what I got out of it, they have been reading the Book of Mormon and really like it, and then for the next ten minutes it felt like the conversation was going in circles. Whatever the case is, we somehow ended up setting up a lunch appointment with them for the Saturday (I have reasons to doubt that they'll remember, though).

-Elder West

Hola Elder

2011-09-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have been informed that in my e-mail last week I had a paragraph in my e-mail that consisted only of the sequence of letters "Speaking of w". I must inform you that the text was not missing, but rather was invisible. Any and all rumors along the lines of "The computer didn't send the email even though I clicked the send button a full minute before my time was up and so I had to use another Elder's time to fire off the latest (read: incomplete) draft which ldsmail had" are entirely false and should not be taken seriously.

For those without the ability to see invisible text, I will provide a summary of said inviso-text:

"Speaking of which, the members around here feed us really well. We're usually able to have a member feed us every night, which is pretty amazing when you consider that there are six of us ravenous beasts to feed. Really, the ward here is pretty good, though it's been a while since there's been a baptism here so the enthusiasm for the work could be higher, but I guess that it's just something we'll need to work at.

Also, I just feel like mentioning how weird the housing around here seems to me. I don't think I've seen more stucco, front-yard fences, and backhouses (with backhouses) in my life. I've started to get used to it, but it was all rather bizarre at first (Washington, this is not)."

Anyways, as far as this week is concerned, I'll just have to express my surprise at the fact that I'm basically done with my first transfer in the field. The saying "Time flies like an arrow" has never been more true than it is now (same with "Fruit flies like a banana.").

I've learned quite a lot in the past 6 weeks, and hope to be able to learn and do much more in the coming 6 weeks (FYI, the new training program lasts 12 weeks total).

Weirdest thing that happened this past week was having one of our lessons interrupted by the Los Angeles Police Department. I still have no idea what exactly prompted their visit (they said the mother of the house called them, but apparently she didn't), but they ended up waking up one of the other persons we were teaching from that home, which was good because that meant that we got to teach him too.

On Saturday morning as we were trying to contact one of our investigators (I'm not sure why we planned on stopped by so early), we ran across some person on the street who just wanted us to teach him. Apparently he was a member who had been inactive for quite a few years and has had some trouble in his life, and now he's come to the conclusion that he should come back to the church. I guess that's just an example of the Spirit guiding us to people we need to talk to.

So yeah, this was a pretty good week.
Cuidase!
- Elder Oeste

Hola Elder

2011-09-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

This past week has been rather interesting. We've had temperatures ranging from 100+ to the low 70s (muy frio). It just so happened that for the hottest day this week I was on exchanges and had to use a bike. I'm not sure if I drank four bottles or five bottles of water that day. (Mercifully, the mission president said that bike elders could have an extra hour of study time because it was so hot.) Regardless of the temperature, I actually enjoyed biking around. The main problem with it (besides being slower than driving a car) was waiting for the other elders to pick us up for dinner.

Speaking of w (he just breaks off here...)

On Saturday I learned that I have superhuman cockroach-ignoring abilities (and that my companion doesn't).

Los vemos,
Elder West

On the Road

2011-09-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Here's another little slice of our summer vacation:

There weren't a lot of lodging options in Grand Coulee, Washington - but I have to admit, I was digging the sign for our motel. The Trail West was nothing fancy - but adequate for a one nighter.

Salmon, Idaho had a few more options - we chose the Sacajawea Inn based on positive TripAdvisor reviews. It was awesome in a retro/theme room kind of way. As we pulled up in front of the office, I asked Steve if he wanted a slushy...there were 3 people sitting on chairs that reminded me of the characters in Baptists at our Barbecue. Loved. It.

Yes, I did say 'theme room'. We had the 'deer room'. Can you tell? Not only did we have a large mural, complete with deer, the lamp next to Danny had deer on it, there were 3 or 4 pictures on the wall with deer, AND the blankets under the bedspreads had deer on them.

The Sacajawea Inn was a very friendly place - the manager asked if we would be staying the next night (Saturday) - as they put on a free steak dinner every Saturday. Sadly we were not.

Twenty Six Bedroom...

2011-08-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

...bus!

Spotted this behemoth in the parking lot near Old Faithful.

Awesome doesn't even begin to describe it...but maybe claustrophobic comes close.

Beartooth Highway...or...Switchbacks (backwards) R Us

2011-08-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've decided not to even attempt to post pictures of our recent vacation to in any sort of chronological order...we covered about 3,900 miles. Yes people, that's 3,900 miles!! Much of those miles were on scenic routes and back roads. Some were on dirt roads... I'll just divide up the trip like a pie. Everybody likes pie...right?

Our travel along the Beartooth Highway will be featured as the first slice:

We started at the bottom of this valley - coming south out of Red Lodge, Montana.

We kept going up...and up...

...and up...

...until we were above, well, pretty much everything.

Marcy and I took about seventeen thousand pictures. Each.

The top was surprisingly flat-ish. Yes, we sang I'm On The Top of the World. Badly. Very badly. Fortunately Steve was able to supply some forgotten lyrics. Unfortunately Marcy and I sang them.

Even the road construction stop was breathtaking.
(This is not it...the stop looked at least this nice...if not better)

Hola Elder

2011-08-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

So, my first week on the mission field. It's been pretty "waitwhatexactlywasIexpecting", if that makes any sense.

The first day where we flew to Long Beach was pretty good. We woke up at like 3:50 (Utah time), got to the travel office at 5AM, and then my companion and I were randomly selected to help with the check-out process. The ride from the MTC to the airport was pretty pleasant (I think we spotted 5 temples).

Somehow I managed to win the lottery and score a first-class seat for the flight to Long Beach. The man sitting next to my assigned seat had his girlfriend on the flight, and she decided to sit next to him rather take her first-class seat. As a result of this, I ended up learning that the only particularly special thing about first class is the leg room.

I was really impressed with the weather in Long Beach once we got off the plane. It was in the mid-60s with a nice breeze, and most of the airport was outside to boot. According to the mission president the weather is practically the same every day. Cool, cloudy mornings followed by sunshine and a gradual increase in temperature (but it rarely rains and it's never too hot). He said the more north (away from the coast) you are the in the mission the hotter it gets in the day, but the northernmost area in the mission (Whittier) is only about
10 degrees warmer than the coast (hey guess where I got assigned).

Right after the airport the mission president took us to the top of Signal Hill, from which we could see the entire mission basically (smog permitting). It was quite the sight.

After that was lunch and orientation at the mission home, and then some vehicle safety stuff and interviews with the mission president at the mission office. Since there were 15 new missionaries in our group, that latter part took quite a while. By the time my interview took place we were already running half an hour late (I was second to last), so he only talked with my for about 2 minutes ("areyouworthyareyouhealthydoyoupromisetoreadthebookofmormonin90days" "yes" *hug* "gettowork").

My companion/trainer is named Elder Bradshaw. He has only 2 transfers left, so training me is going to be the last thing he does. If I could describe him in a sentence, I'd say "He's the opposite of Elder Lybbert." That is to say: he's from the US but lives in Canada now, and some other things. Anyways, we're serving in the Whittier area, which is the northernmost area of the zone. If it ever really gets that hot up here then I guess the reason would be that I'm not noticing is because we have a car, which I am the designated driver of not because of my driving skills, but because my companion says he has epilepsy. I'm pretty sure I've gotten ourselves almost-killed about 4 times per day so far with my level of driving competency.

The language is... coming slowly. If I listen really hard I can usually understand the gist of what people are saying, but there's still a lot I need to learn. Right now I'd guess I'm understanding 10% of what people are saying around here. Sacrament meeting was rather interesting, though. It was a testimony meeting for all the youth and youth leaders that went on some scout camp thing or something, and there was Spanglish all over the place. The other two hours of church were decidedly less linguistically adventurous, sadly.

The work itself has been different from what I expected (which is what I expected, now that I think about it). Between our hour of language study and our extra hour of companion study (part of the new training schedule) and lunch and dinner, I always feel rather surprised at how little time it seems we have.

I'd write more but I just realized that I have to write to my mission president during this time.

P.S. If you want to see the mission boundaries you can check out LDSmaps on LDS.org IIRC.

Happee Birthdae Rebekah!

2011-08-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

Pacific Science Center with the Munchkins

2011-08-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Watch out Kaith! Your evil genius is showing.

Sterling and Grandpa learned what happens when a plastic bottle full of liquid
nitrogen is sunk in the bottom of a barrel full of water.

Ride 'em caterpillar!

Trevor and Sterling are really into music.

No, there wasn't really a rope swing...but Miriam and Andrew were well able to improvise.

Hola Elder

2011-08-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

So, um, this is going to be my last week at the MTC. Feels pretty weird.

I got my travel plans on Thursday. I'll be leaving on Tuesday and I'll have to report to the travel office at 5AM (read: I'll probably have to wake up at 4AM). My flight at the SLC airport leaves at about 8:30 and arrives directly at the Long Beach airport 2 hours later at about 9:30. After that I have no idea what's going to happen, other than that supposedly everybody in our mission goes to the Newport Beach Temple every transfer. (Have you seen any pictures of it? It looks amazing.) Anyways, the point here is that apparently I can call you guys home at the SLC airport. I'm not entirely sure how payphones work nowadays, but don't be surprised if you get a call from me between 6 and 7 AM next Tuesday (your time). As to the question "what do you think you'll miss most about the MTC?" I have to respond with the answer "I don't have a clue." I might miss the food, but honestly I think it'll be for the best. To say the least, my bowels don't exactly agree with all the stuff they feed us here. I'm pretty sure I won't miss the computers here or anything like that, but I do kind of regret that I didn't figure out how to effectively use TALL until like a week or two ago (the listening activities they have are really great). If I do miss anything from here, it'll probably be either having gym five days a week or our teachers.

Granted, this is all conjecture. For all I know I'll end up being horribly wrong.

Our district (and most the other districts with 7 weeks of Spanish under their belts) were hosts for the new missionaries on Wednesday. I only ended up hosting one Elder, Elder Hanks, but it turned out that he's in our branch and that his bedroom is right next to ours. (He's going to New Jersey, if you're interested.) I also hosted three Sisters, but that mostly entailed carrying their luggage 50 feet to the Sisters' residence and then having the Sister hosts take over from there. In one case we ended up doing a bit more, because apparently the new Sister's room was in a different building from the rest and on the top floor (and the building didn't have an elevator). Me and another elder carried her luggage to the top floor. (Don't worry, only the top floor of said building was a Sister's residency. (Floors 2 and 3 are Elders' residences, and Floor 1 is like the barbershop and stuff (weird building)).)

Hasta martes,
Elder Oeste

My New Secret Identity

2011-07-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

Just call me "Dark Mode".

My 8 year-old grandson has a highly active imagination and loves inventing scenarios for play-acting. Lately it's been something to do with The Incredibles...only instead of being 'Dash'...he's 'Dark Dash'. I'm not sure who gets to play all the other characters, but he roped me into it and asked me who I was. Hmmm. I'm definitely too old to be 'Dark Violet' - and since I happened to be sewing when he asked me, I opted for Edna Mode. I was then informed that I could only use one name to go with 'Dark', so 'Dark Mode' was born.

Best Sister....Ever!

2011-07-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry Marcy, Sherri, Suzanne, Keira, Cindy, Lisa, Lynn, Paula, Sara, Angie, Becky, etc...Tia wins.

Way back, in like, February (possibly January...), I asked Tia if she would like to come to stake Girls Camp with me and help me cook. With absolutely no hesitation she signed on. Sweet! Then there was a bit of a glitch when I was told that she couldn't come because she isn't in our stake. I was sad ~~(and a wee bit grumpy),~~ but I insisted that I HAD to have an assistant. HAD. TO. There was no way I could manage all of the food/cooking for Girls Camp on my own.

A few weeks later I got a call...and we were back on (evidently there are not all that many people willing to volunteer to help out at Girls Camp...go figure).

Tang: Beverage of Astronauts!

Tia was the awesomest minion EVER in the history of minions...although in reality she isn't the least bit minion-like (she's more a see the hill, take the hill sort). We pretty much worked non-stop from around 5am to 8pm and then fell into our sleeping bags (before dark!). As far as we know, no one got sick OR went hungry on our watch...and we got a ton of compliments on our menu/cooking. Which is pretty funny because much of what we did involved complicated stuff like using can openers and tearing open plastic bags. We were even complimented on serving Fruit Loops for breakfast. Weird.

Speaking of weird...take a gander at the antiquated chest freezer from he**. Tia and I are pretty sure it served as a place to store bodies (possibly for the mob)...before being donated to a Ensign Ranch to atone for its past sins.

The Dead Man's Chest (Freezer).

Sweet Stuff

2011-07-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Please ignore the horrible condition of my deck - it's sadly in need of fresh stain & paint - which will have to wait until AFTER girls camp. Probably AFTER the grandkids are gone - I really need them to be able to use the deck while they're here. Speaking of grandkids (we were, weren't we?)...here's the crew:

Hola Elder

2011-07-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

I've ran into some more elders I recognize from home.

First: Elder Nino Pengeria (sp?) who I knew through the singles branch. He's going to Arcadia California, if I remember correctly.

Second: Elder Kunz, though I feel kind of guilty since I don't know anything about him other than the fact that I recognize his face. I don't even remember where he's going.

Third: A couple elders I've ran across claim to recognize me because they apparently lived in the same building as me at BYU this past winter. I feel a bit guilty that I don't remember anything about them.

On a similar note, one of my teachers, Hermana ("Sister" en español) Baum, says that she was companions with a certain Hermana Vaughan-Schultz during the last three months of her mission. Quite the small world we live in.

Six sentences in and I'm running out of ideas of things to write about. umm...

...the progressing investigators that our teachers were role playing dropped us (kinda). One of them turned out to be a drug dealer, so I guess it's not that much of a loss (maybe). Really though, I think it was an excuse for them to have us teach each other instead of them being bored to death by our lessons 10 times per week. Fortunately our lesson-giving skill have improved a bit, so by the time we enter the mission field we should at least be able to go for 30 minutes without our investigators keeling over to sleep.

umm... on Sunday we got to watch the evening fireside in the cafeteria, because the gym floor is being redone. Between that and the mission president seminar, that makes for like 18 out of our ~63 days
here when the gym was unusable. In other words, I've been playing a lot of soccer outside during gym time.

Hasta la pasta,
Elder West

Counter Gang

2011-07-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

This is what my counter tops are going to look like for the foreseeable future.

Crockpot Land.

Ward Potluck

2011-07-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

I have a philosophy about church potluck dinners.

It's this: Take at least twice as much food as you think your family will eat. If you can afford to, take even more. Profound, right?

Our ward has been having after church potlucks fairly regularly for the past several months. At least once every month or two. It's been a bit of a challenge for me to figure out what to take. It's not like we live close enough to run home and get the food - we live about 15 minutes from church (that's a 30 minute round trip). This month I decided to make mini cupcakes and pulled pork. They both worked out great and I think my new favorite dessert to take is going to be mini cupcakes. I only used one cake mix and two tubs of frosting (and a cup or two of lemon filling) - and I had 75 mini cupcakes. That's way more servings than one 9x13 pan of cake provides and not that much more work.

shopping list

2011-07-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

Girl's Camp is coming up just around the corner...I've got just over a week to buy and prep a ton of food. Okay, maybe not quite a ton, but I'm sure it'll feel like it by the time I'm done.

I spent about 5 hours today working on my shopping list...Deann came over for 2 whole hours and we knocked out the hard stuff - the basic list including how much of each item. Thank you Deann. Thank. You.

So far all I've got is 45 pounds of strawberries in my freezer. Anyone interested in going shopping?

One Step Closer to Girl's Camp

2011-07-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

45 minute drive to Mount Vernon.

30 minute video.

32 question test (which I aced).

$10.

I am now the proud owner of a Washington State Food Handler's Permit.

Jealous?

Hola from Elder West

2011-07-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

On the fourth of July we didn´t do anything special. However, on Saturday the second we did have a special fireside. We sang some patriotic songs such as Yankee Doodle, Yankee Doodle Dandy (whose lyrics are most certainly not appropriate for us missionaries), America the Beautiful, and so on. The speaker was somebody who has served as an advisor to three presidents or something and is also a branch president here at the MTC. Afterwards we got to watch a cool fireworks show put on by a nearby stadium (IIRC, the Lavell Edwards Stadium), and we also got some ice cream to go with it. A side effect of this is that everybody in the MTC ended up staying up well past 10:30, but whatever.
Also, for the fireside on Sunday a violinist by the name of Jenny Oaks Baker came by and preformed quite a few wonderful songs, interspersed with stories from her musical career as they relate to the gospel. Apparently she has recorded multiple albums of church or religious music, so when I get on the mission field and can actually listen to music, I wouldn't mind getting one of her CDs or something. Anyways, at the end she had her daughters (all under 10) preform I Am a Child of God. Absolutely adorable. Also, since I was ushering, the seats reserved for us happened to be right behind them. Afterwards somebody in my district managed to snag an autograph from one of them (lucky). (Also of note: the lady's husband served in the Japan Kobe Mission (ages before Andrew, though).)
Spanish is coming along. I can kinda hold a decent "get-to-know" you conversation in Spanish, but when it comes to teaching the lessons I tend to freeze up when not reading from a script. I think that might be something I need to work on. According to the timer I have three minutes left, but I don't know what to say so

Hasta la vista,
Elder West

Danny's Room

2011-07-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

Steve and I have spent the week working on Danny's room. For more pictures and story, see my post on Help Me Hanna.

Hola from Elder West

2011-06-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

The weather here has started to warm up. For the most part it was pretty mild for the first couple of weeks I was here (ignoring a couple days of rain), but since summer "officially" started (June 22nd or something) the weather has started being more like what I'd expect from summer here (read: hot). Still, I don't think it's been above 90 degrees yet, but I could be wrong. The worst part of the weather is when we have to wear our suit coats when going up to the temple. Speaking of the Provo Temple, I find it to be surprisingly similar to the Seattle temple in some ways, though I guess that's kind of a given since they're close to the same age.

Oh, and just so you know, I usually write my e-mails during laundry time, which starts at 10 o'clock for our district. However, that's entirely dependent on whether there's a computer available when I start my loads. I don't want to change loads mid e-mail, since that leaves the computer open and also because logging off takes 5 minutes off our 30 minute time limit (enforced by the web browser they use here). If I'm not able to e-mail during that time, I usually do it during the free time after lunch then.

The Spanish is going pretty well, though I think we could be doing better. Like, yesterday in class the teacher said that we (and they themselves) are not speaking Spanish as often as we should right now. Granted, the teachers say we've learned the grammar pretty fast, but we just need to speak the language more. I'll admit that I should have put in more effort than I should. I mean, finally bought supplies for flashcards, and right now I feel like I should have done it like 2 weeks ago. Regardless, I've found the language pretty easy to learn compared to Japanese, thanks to it being grammatically similar to English and having quite a lot of cognates. Granted, that kind of gets in the way when we run into false cognates. For instance, "embarasado" means "pregnant", whilst the word that actually means "embarrassed" is "avergonzado" or something like that. There are a couple people in the class that like to purpose make mistakes like this.

- Elder Alex West

Minus One

2011-06-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

Danny's room before - that's how I felt every time I went in.
(like Wesley - not Prince Humperdink)

It's amazing how soon I can break a habit of getting up super early. Just two weeks ago I was always getting up before 5am. This morning when my alarm went off around 5am I felt like it was 3am. My bed was comfy. I was tired. I didn't much feel like getting up.

It's amazing what you can make yourself do when you're properly motivated.

Steve and I drove Danny down to Sea-Tac and got him through security with just a few minutes to spare before boarding the plane to San Jose. He's now in sunny California for the ENTIRE week. Yay! I'm going to be spending the week refurbishing The Pit of Despair aka Danny's Room. Stay tuned for the play by play.

What are phones for anyway?

2011-06-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

Never blog in anger. That's our family motto. Never blog in anger - perhaps I should embroider it on a pillow?

Count to ten. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

(Wipes brow) Okay, I'm fine now.

Steve forgot to take his cell phone to work today, which meant that our mechanic couldn't get hold of him, which meant the van didn't get worked on today, which means that besides not having any wheels today, I won't have any tomorrow either.

Never blog in anger. Never blog in anger.

1, 2, 3, 4, .......

Hola from Elder West

2011-06-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

The laundry room here seems less crowded than last week, but I had a much harder time finding a place to sit down. Weird.

> 1. Have you been getting your dearelder.com letters??
Yes. :-)

> 2. Do you have everything that you need?
Yes.

> 3. How is the language coming along (and by language, I mean Spanish)?
Reasonably well. I'm finding verb conjugation to be the hardest part, with each tense having 6 forms (1st/2nd/3rd persons, singular/plural) and there being like 7 tenses or something. It seems like the biggest roadblock towards the road of speaking conversationally. That, and my vocabulary needs some work. I have a lot of church-related words memorized, but we haven't really done much work with normal everyday words like bed, blanket, spoon (cuchara), fork (tenedor), plate, pants, etc. I need to make some flash cards of these words for language study time.
Also, in addition to language study time, we have about an hour a day we spend on the computer using something called "TALL" (Technology Assisted Language Learning). Not to rag on the developers behind it or anything, but it is probably the most boring piece of software I've ever used.
I t ' s j u s t s o s l o o o o o o o o o o o w .

> 4. Have you seen anyone else that you know?
So far I don't think I've seen anybody I know beyond Ryan Coon and Elder "i'msuddenlyblankingonhisfirstname" Hartsock.

You also asked something about the MTC choir, so I might as well update you on that:

Last Sunday we practiced singing "Jesus Once of Humble Birth." Basically everybody in our district joined the choir to practice it, except for the companionship with the nephew of the person responsible for the arrangement we were singing. However, due to an incident with temple locker keys that I will not elaborate on, my companion and I ended up being too late to actually perform for the choir last Tuesday.

This Sunday we practiced "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." It seems a bit weird to say, but I really liked the choir director during the practice. He was humorous, and also provided some excellent commentary on the song itself (that is, I actually know what "Here I raise my Ebenezer" now means). I think we'll be performing the song at the devotional tonight (hopefully).

My time's up right now.

Hasta Luego,
Alexander West

A little of this, a little of that....

2011-06-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Father's Day treats...by Andrew.

I showed him a picture from Bakerella - and he made these all on his own.

Thoughts about my new sewing area...I've actually mended, yes mended two articles of regularly worn clothing this week...all due to having a dedicated and easily accessible sewing area. It's handy. Very handy.

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

"No need to search any further...you're the one!"

The glue's still wet on the card I whipped up this morning...I screen captured the Google search page...pasted it into Word and added 'World's greatest dad' (sooo original). I printed it up on card stock and added the phrase, 'No need to search any further...you're the one!' to the inside. It may not be profound...or witty...or pithy...or, well, fill in the blank, but it's sufficiently nerdy to bring a little smile to my particular nerd.

This is what I made for Steve...I blogged about it at Help Me Hanna.

Oh no, not again...

2011-06-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Lest I get in the bad habit of not posting anything except Alex Updates, here's a picture of my latest embroidery project. I haven't decided yet whether to just frame it in a hoop (doubtful) OR put it in a picture frame (more likely)...anywho, here it is.

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

-HGTTG

Hola from Elder West

2011-06-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Querido mi famila,
Half a week in and it already feels like I've been here forever...
I'm enjoying being here, in any case. My companion (campaňero) is Elder Lybbert (pronounced lib-ert, not libe-ert). He is from Lewiston, Idaho. He and I are getting along frighteningly well. I hope my future companions are as good as him. (Also Elder Sheanshang is in my district, but he's someone else's companion).
Our apartment is on the top floor of the Dan Jones Building. The stair climbing is a tad annoying, but honestly not much of an issue. The real problem is the terrible showers on our floor. We have a couple of burning/scalding death showers, a puny ice-cold sprinkler, and only a couple of showers that are actually usable.
Other than that MTC life has been fine, though I can see myself getting sick of the cafeteria food pretty soon.
The learning has gone pretty well so far. We already know how to pray and bear testimony in Spanish, and we're working on conjugating verbs. A couple elders in our class were talking about how much we know already. The we all had to give a 5 (read:20) minute lesson in Spanish to elders who've been here for weeks. Let's just say that we were all thoroughly...uhhh....humbled.
Somehow, against all odds, my companion convinced me to join the MTC choir. Good thing we didn't have to go through auditions...
Sincerely,
Alexander West
P.S. I leave the MTC August 9th...
P.P.S. There's a dead duck (un pato muerto) outside our classroom's window.

Hola Elder

2011-06-15T11:23:00.001-07:00

I've already sent some snail mail, so this letter wouldn't be that long.

Anyways, first things first: the scripture to to on my plaque.

"...come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, yea, the word which healeth the wounded soul." - Jacob 2:8

Learning Spanish has been pretty fun so far. Pronouncing words is a lot like Japanese, so I'm finding that to be rather easy, although I know it will be a while before I start pronouncing the letters correctly (especially the rolled Rs). Verb conjugation looks like it's going to be a real pain, though I suppose the same could be said of all languages. So far we've learned how to introduce ourselves (as missionaries), pray, and bear testimony in Spanish. And of course we're learning how to give the lessons, though for the full lessons we'll be starting out in English. We actually gave a short lesson in Spanish on Saturday to some missionaries who've been here a few weeks longer. The main thing we all learned from that experience is that we all have quite a long way to go.

I didn't really talk about my district much in my handwritten letter, so I might as well talk about them here:

My companion's name is Elder Lybbert, and he's from Lewiston, Idaho (somewhere by Moscow, he says). He's also going to Long Beach. In fact, out of the 12 of us in this district, 8 of us are going to Long Beach. The other 4 will be going to Spain and be leaving for the MTC there in about 3 weeks (except for the one having some hang-ups with his visa).

I've ran across a couple people I know here. I've bumped into Ryan Coon at lunch a few times and also a few other places, though I haven't spent much time talking to him and haven't really tried finding him. I've also ran into Elder Hartsock (knew him from seminary). He's been here a couple weeks and I think he's going to a stateside mission, so I'm lucky I ran across him. Granted, he claims to live on the same floor and same building as me, but I have yet to run across him there.

There's supposedly some virus (the Novo virus or something) going around here in the MTC (or at least nearby), so we've been advised to not shake hands. Fist-bumping seems to be the most common replacement, though I'm partial to a nice, Japanese-style bow (as suggested during last night's devotional). Also, I really need to wash my hands after using this keyboard.

Adios,
Elder West

Adios Amigo

2011-06-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

No, Elder West! Not THAT door!

Hey there, elder.

Choice for a final meal? Comalitos...a Mexican food joint on University Avenue.

Elder West, just a few minutes before dropping him off.

This is the new drop off ceremony at the MTC...heavy on the drop-off and light on the ceremony.
Quick and relatively pain-free.

Rebekah's Challenge

2011-06-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be out of town for most of the week. So I thought I'd post something I made last week that fits right in with Rebekah's challenge. It's a do it yourself food/weight journal. Print up whatever suits your fancy, fold it in half, cut a piece of heavier paper out for a cover and sew the whole kit and caboodle together. I like to finish off the outside with a little masking tape.

Easy peasy.

Seminary Party Favors

2011-06-05T21:26:00.000-07:00

Since I'm heading down to Salt Lake City tomorrow afternoon, I'm having my end of year seminary party tomorrow. I'm proud of myself for how little I spent...nothing cost more than $1 - and much was free.

The 'Keep Calm' bookmarks were made only with materials at hand. The Finnish CTR (only it's 'VO' in Finnish) was a buck. I have to say, I'm loving my laminater.

'Fights Evil Around The World'!!! How could I pass up toy soldiers at a dollar a bag?

Beehive cookies.

Hola from Elder West

2011-06-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

I got my first email from Elder Alex...even though he hasn't even entered the MTC yet.

...Also, this'll be my MTC mailing address:

Elder Alexander Scott West
MTC Mailbox # 307
CA-LB 0809
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

I'm not sure the "0809" means whether I'll be leaving the MTC August 9th or September 8th (probably the latter).

I'll have to report into the MTC at 1:30 PM. I'd be able to enter earlier if my last name started with an earlier letter ('E' as in 'East', perhaps?).

Upcycled Sewing Portfolio

2011-06-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is a functional pocket.

The exterior is made from leftover scraps of the brown corduroy Dockers that I cut up to make a messenger bag. The zipper is from Grandma Hanna's stash. The interior is scrap from lining a tote bag last year.

I'm not going to give any instructions...but I will say that the finished dimensions are about 5 1/2 by 9 inches and I used a 20 (ish) inch long zipper. I plan on taking this little baby with me on the plane Monday.

I went to the TSA website and it says that while I can't carry on a meat cleaver or an ice axe, I can carry on "scissors-metal with pointed tips and blades shorter than four inches." I think I'll print that up to show the screeners if they get snippy with me. I'll just fold it up and slip it behind the scissors in the handy-dandy pocket.

Thrifty Me.

2011-06-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

I really can't justify buying a new bag to take with me to SLC next week. I have a few that would work. My problem with them is like that of Goldilocks - this one is too big, that one is too small...I wanted one that was just right. But I didn't want to go to the store. Or spend any money on it. I achieved my goal as far as frugality goes...the jury's still out on whether this bag is 'just right'.

All the hardware used in the making of this bag was re-purposed from elsewhere.
All the fabric was also either re-purposed or scraps from other projects. The discerning eye
might notice the same fabric recently used in my master bathroom. The dark brown corduroy
is from an old pair of Steve's pants. The little embroidered bit is from an old, stained, doily.

This is the back - notice the colorful strip of fabric that I inserted so as to come out even.
It's almost like I meant to do that.

Ta-da! Here's the front. Like I said, I'm still not sure whether it's
just right, but I'm leaving myself open to the possibility. I did manage to make it
just the right size to hold a three ring binder...if I was inclined to want to put one in it.

Curbside Adoption

2011-06-02T11:41:00.000-07:00

As I was getting ready to take Danny to school this morning, I noticed that our neighbors had a few large plastic items sitting on their driveway. These things have been mouldering under their deck for at least 5 years. At least. They were disgustingly filthy - but I saw hidden treasure. Why? Come next month I'll have all four of my grandkids here. I thought to myself, "Self, when you get back you ought to knock on their door and offer them a fiver to take that grubby picnic table off of their hands."

Fast forward an hour and a half...as I was pulling back into my driveway, I noticed all the grubby plastic play equipment had been pressure washed and was sitting at the curb with a FREE sign attached.

Booyah. Fact.

Almost (but not quite) free room makeover.

2011-05-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Just three days ago this room was a pit of despair. I didn't think to take
a before picture, just imagine a catch-all, a junk room, a downstairs
attic. The best that could be said for it was that we were able to put
a lot of stuff in it - but really, it was:
The Island of Misfit Home Furnishings.

Keira and I spent all of Saturday afternoon de-crapifying it and then,
using things that were already on hand, putting together a new craft
and sewing space. And an exercise space. And storage. And a spare
room. Who knew all those purposes could co-exist so peacefully?

We even hung Art. I am especially fond of a self-portrait that I picked up at
Goodwill. I'm calling her 'Penelope' (with a nose like that, I sort of have to).

Could it have been better? Sure. I didn't bother to fill any leftover nail holes...or paint the walls...or paint the cubes (which are pretty beat up)...but I'm okay with it. It's fine, just fine.

Total cost? Four new plastic bins (the ones with paints and stamps) $16 and one closet rod with hanging hardware $8. If I added correctly, that makes just $24.
Having a multi-functional room instead of a junk room? Priceless.

The Empire Strikes Bath...Reveal!

2011-05-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

First of all, there was no way I was ever going to get good pictures of this bathroom makeover - lack of window = no natural light. So just deal with it.

Walls were painted Martha Stewart Living Nimbus Cloud - color matched to Behr Premium Plus paint - flat finish. It's basically a light gray. The vanity was then painted Antique Tin (again, in a Behr Premium Plus) in a satin finish.

How much concentrated Star Wars can you handle? We managed to
fit in the Death Star, Rebel Scum AND R2D2 over the toilet...

...Obi Wan is flossing his teeth next to the sink...

...Yoda and Frozen Han are hanging out just above our very
awesome and functional Boba Fett laundry bag...

Too much concentrated Star Wars awesomeness? I think not.

I've pretty much covered all my projects in earlier posts (which I have linked to)...except maybe the metal pegboard, but it's exactly the same pegboard I used in my office makeover here and here (purchased through Amazon). The silver shelf/basket thingies and the round magnet tins (minus the cool pictures) were purchased from IKEA, the black vinyl-coated wire baskets and assorted pegs were purchased from Home Depot (as was the plastic backed drop cloth used to make the laundry hamper and the round mirrors).

Dirty Laundry...

2011-05-28T22:14:00.000-07:00

I'll wager that our household is the only one in this galaxy

(or any other) with a Boba Fett laundry bag. Word.

It's times like this that I'm truly grateful to have the knowledge
and supplies to make my own iron on transfers.

The Empire Strikes Bath is pretty much done now, but I haven't had time to take the pictures...having too much fun (and by that I mean working our tails off) with Keira. I'll try and post pictures tomorrow.

The Empire Strikes Bath...(and I Crack Myself Up).

2011-05-26T15:19:00.000-07:00

I stole these magnetic spice containers from the metal pegboard in my office...they held paperclips, rubber bands and binder clips. I'm going to have to replace them ($5 for the lot of them - from IKEA), but in the meantime, I've been giggling ~~uncontrollably~~ just a little too much.

How's it Hangin'?

2011-05-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

I put up the embroidery art that I've been working on...mostly to get it off of my desk. I'm not done with the wall yet - I'm waiting for some new inspiration. Anyone?

The Empire Strikes Bath...Death Star

2011-05-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

That's no moon, it's a space station!

The Death Star plans are not in the main computer, they're right here on yours!

For a better tutorial than mine, see this one. I didn't follow her directions exactly - but
that gal has better pictures and explanations than I do.

1. Find picture you like...put it in Microsoft Word...stop muttering about
how much you ~~hate loathe~~ despise the program, and add numbers.

2. Support your local Walmart - $3.97 + tax will buy you this little beauty.

3. Take off the back by unscrewing the seven tiny little screws.
Immediately lose one screw.

4. Tape off the hands...then paint around the inside edges and the center.

5. After the paint is dry, slather on some fake Mod Podge (slightly diluted Elmer's glue), then
carefully slide the paper clock face over the hands. Add more faux Podge to the top and
push out any bubbles (or in my case, leave it alone for an hour or so while you run to Home
Depot and the library and then have to put up with the resulting dried bubbles). Let dry.

6. Reassemble clock.

Now all I need are the right droids.

It must be Monday...Three Tales.

2011-05-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

I got up a little extra early this morning (4:25 am) so that I could spend a bit more time on my seminary lesson. I had some things that I had printed up that needed cutting out, and I wanted to make up some scripture mastery stuff on the computer (the final verse of the final scripture!!!). I got everything done, drove to seminary and just as I was parking I realized that I had left all that hard work...at home. Aargh.

After I got home from seminary, Steve called me...he had forgotten to take the lunch that Andrew had prepared for him.

Steve told me that he had a little extra time because his boss had to go home - he had forgotten his laptop.

What's up with today???

All Things Slothful

2011-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

Danny has a big research paper due in Biology on Monday. Which means that both of us get to become well acquainted with his chosen subject matter.

His chosen subject matter? The three-toed sloth.

Would you like to know a few of the fascinating facts that I learned today?

sloths are the slowest moving mammal.
sloths body temperatures can fluctuate as much as 10 degrees in a day. I seldom do that.
a full grown sloth weighs about 8 or 9 pounds.
during the dry season a sloth can hold 'it' for two weeks, and then make a 2 pound dump! Yikes!
sloths take care of all of their other business while hanging in a tree. All of it.

Thankfully, he was able to finish up his rough draft before dinner...another 30-60 minutes and he should be done (and by he, I mean we).

Did you want to know more? Yeah, me neither.

5 x 5, Day 5. Part II

2011-05-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

The brown containers used to be green.
And now they're not.

I'm loving the giant brown hook and eyes.

5 x 5, Day 5

2011-05-20T09:58:00.000-07:00

This isn't a true 'before' picture - It was the 'I wonder what I can do with
all my unattractive ~~crap~~ stuff that is on full display in my bathroom that doesn't
have a lick of storage' stage.

Time for a little tension.
Rod gazed at the beautiful stranger. He could see her
true potential.

I don't think I'm completely done - but it's done enough for now.
I think I will add some rings to the back so that I can adjust the
length ala Roman blinds.

Ruffle-y goodness.

5 x 5, Day 4

2011-05-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

When I started this challenge, I didn't have a plan of exactly what projects I would do. I knew I was going to finish the R2D2 picture and I was pretty sure that I would do more embroidery, but I DIDN'T know I would end up cleaning closets. I have to say, I'm pretty happy to have clean closets. Not quite as happy as I am with my R2D2 picture, but it's close. Close-ish. In the general vicinity.

lower shelf: cleaning supplies...in a none to tidy arrangement.
top shelf: first aid stuff. We'd better hope to heaven that we don't need it...

...oh wait, we did.

Question: how many containers of rubbing acohol does one family need? On the other hand, now that I have it all sorted (and thrown away FIVE bandaid boxes), I know that I'll be needing more tape...for that little accident that Danny had.

Another free makeover.

While I was at it, I decided to declutter the lower shelves too (sorry, no before picture - but
they really weren't messy, just overly full).

5 x 5, Day 3

2011-05-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

I actually did The Raven last week (thanks to Suzanne for the idea) - but since it didn't quite earn it's own post, I decided to wait until today to post a picture of it. I was able to get a decent amount of embroidery done yesterday on the other piece while sitting in the walk-in clinic waiting for Daniel to be treated for a broken finger.

For those of you not familiar with the phrase,"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal" here's a clip from the series Firefly.

5 x 5, Day 2

2011-05-17T09:21:00.000-07:00

I was talking to Suzanne on the phone yesterday, when she decided to clean out Emma's closet. It occurred to me that I too have at least one closet that was well past its sell-by date. As you can see, it housed our terribly outdated VHS collection (it wrapped around the back of the closet too...and often spilled onto the floor...possibly knocked down by generation upon generation of monster dust bunnies). The wire shelf was totally inadequate for holding my vast collection of tablecloths, a few odd diapers and our punch bowl.

Before: The Land That Time Forgot.

Wherein I discover a new found love of wire shelving.

Step 1: Empty the closet. I had Alex bring me up two empty boxes which I filled with video tapes and excess tablecloths.
Step 2: Have Alex install a double hook that he recently took off the wall in his room.
Step 3: Have Andrew install a shelf support in rear of closet.
Step 4: Find the hacksaw. (Yes, this deserves it's own step)
Step 5: Taking turns with Alex, cut shelf to correct length. (The shelf was originally in my office area).
Step 6: Install front shelf supports, then plop the shelf in place!
Step 7: Carefully edit what goes back in. Andrew considers my old vacuum an eyesore and would much rather see a shiny new one (without all of the frayed sections of cord), but since Andrew isn't buying me a new one, we're stuck with the one I have.

Strains from the Hallelujah Chorus are running through my head.

Cost: $0.00. Yes, the best thing about this closet make-over is that I didn't even need to go to the store. Not once. Frankly, I find that priceless.

5 x 5, Day 1

2011-05-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

I actually started this on Saturday - and spent much of the day on it.

I was surprised at how long it took...

But, good golly Miss Molly!

I. LOVE. IT
(It seems a bit of a waste to put it in the hall bathroom...)

The Weekend in Review

2011-05-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

We'll have to trade in the mini-van soon.

Saturday: It was sunny enough, in the morning, to get a wee bit of gardening done...and then the rains descended...again. I spent much of the day helping Danny with his history class and painting. Painting what? You'll see (maybe today).
Sunday: Alex gave his first 'farewell' talk in church. Next week he'll be giving another one (in the singles branch). He still doesn't know what the topic is supposed to be on, but hopes to be able to re-use some of yesterday's talk - after all, the audience will be completely different.

Doctor Who Junkies, represent!

2011-05-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

In my continuing series of embroidery efforts, I now offer...

My favorite design...so far.

5 X 5 Challenge Plus, My New Best Friends.

2011-05-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

Stuff I've made in the last week (that didn't earn their own post)
embroidered "W", embroidery needle pincushion, and a scale model of a
handcart (from a kit).
New Best Friends? My Dollar Tree reading glasses and my needle threader.

Lately I've been celebrating the completion of TUJD (The Uncrushable Jersey Dress). Reading and reviewing one book a week for sixteen months was satisfying in one way - Keira and I did exactly what we set out to do in our 'mission statement' - which did give me a sense of accomplishment - but there were unfortunate side effects, most notably, the lack of time/energy for more creative pursuits.

I've been making up for lost time (creatively speaking), and really enjoying myself. So here's the challenge. Next week, Monday-Friday I plan on making OR organizing at least one thing each day and blogging about it. I've roped in a few of you - the only real rule is that I want to see a picture (before and after if you can, but at least after).

Who's in? Leave a comment on this blog, so we'll know which blogs to watch next week.

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away...

2011-05-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

While browsing around the interwebs this week I came across a painting tutorial on Lil Blue Boo (she does a great job at explaining the process). I thought to myself, 'Self, you could do this technique.' And so I did. I'm trying to gather up all the stuff I need to tart up my upstairs hall bath (the only room in my house that hasn't been painted at least once!). Anywho, I have a totally awesome theme (does it help if I mention that it's my 16 year old son's bathroom?)...

Let's get started on the painting!

1. I thinned down some Elmer's glue with water, and basically decoupaged torn telephone book pages onto a 12x12 canvas frame ($5.00). I'll never be able to call anyone whose last name starts with an 'l', but that's a small price to pay.

2. I covered the entire canvas and wrapped the paper around the edges. You might notice the canning jar rings...I didn't want to glue the frame to the counter, so that's what I use to give a little height to my project.

3. I painted the entire canvas True Blue.

4. I printed up my phrase on the computer (using a free downloaded font - from www.fontspace.com/category/Star+Wars), then cut the letters out and traced them with a pencil.

5. Two coats of white paint, then I dry brushed some Leaf Green paint on the bottom and part of the top.

6. Allow paint to dry, then take some sandpaper to it to give it a distressed appearance.

7. I mixed some Bittersweet Chocolate(paint-not the stuff you eat) with water and then started the business of making the picture look even older. After applying the antique wash, I periodically wiped it down slightly with a damp papertowel (thus, the streaky effect).

8. Do I stop now? I think I will...

I think my end product has a sort of Dagobah vibe.
Total cost? Maybe $6.00.

Did I forget to mention the theme for the bathroom? Wait for it...wait. for. it....

The Empire Strikes Bath. (With special thanks for the idea from a blog of the same name.)

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Organized.

2011-05-10T15:25:00.000-07:00

First of all, I know I don't have the smallest master bathroom in the world. Second of all, I'm grateful that I don't have to share my bathroom with anyone except my husband. Now that I've got that out of the way...I really do have storage issues therein.

Or at least, I thought I did.

before

I don't have any drawers in my vanity, except for the wire pull-out drawer that Steve installed a couple of years ago. As you can see by the 'before' picture, it wasn't really doing a very good job.

during

So, I pulled everything out and started over. I picked up some containers at the Dollar Tree...and then proceeded to purge and sort. Or maybe it was sort and purge? Whatev - I managed to trim down most of the excess (except for the dozen-ish containers of dental floss...does it ever really go bad?), and organize what was left into the totes I bought. Hoo. Rah.

after

I didn't really plan on organizing under my bathroom sink today - it's just that I had some time to spare while waiting for some glue to dry. You heard me.

Needed: One Doohickey.

2011-05-07T08:29:00.000-07:00

Now that Keira and I are pretty much done with our blog (The Uncrushable Jersey Dress), I have a little more time on my hands. I haven't really done anything particularly 'crafty' in a while (I'm not counting the awesome airplane I made...I owe that all to Keira), anywho, I've decided to do a few little embroidery projects.

I saw this cute little airplane on google images and thought, hey! I can do that!

And here it is. I love how quick it was - and the fact that I could do it while sort of watching tv. I did find one thing to be much more difficult than I thought it would be.

Threading the needle was such a pain! I am so going to have to go out and buy one of those needle threader doohickeys. Before I do that, I'm going to try and figure out how to tidy it up so that I can hang it on the wall.

needle threader doohickey

How the Other Half lives.

2011-05-05T08:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's an enormous desk, but it's got lots of storage to go with
its massiveness.

If you pasted this picture with the one above, you'd have a panoramic
view of Steve's side of our office. If you were absolutely compulsive
about such things, you could also paste the picture I previously posted
of my desk and pretty much have a view of the whole shebang.

Now that I have the office done, it's time to go unearth my bedroom...which has become more than a little overrun with office detritus.

Let There be Light!

2011-05-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

I put in the lights this afternoon, and I must say, I love them. They each cost $10 at IKEA. The only tool I needed was Steve's power drill (to drill 4 pilot holes in the ceiling).

I kept waffling about what to put up on the walls - I finally brought out the picture (bottom left) with the 4 trees - I had originally planned to use it as my 'inspiration' piece...then I forgot about it as we changed from green office walls to yellow...but it all came full circle...back to green, and voila! I knew what direction I wanted to go. I had another tree picture (upper right) that I had painted along with the inspiration piece, so I filched it from the laundry room wall (trust me, no one will miss it), and I framed the pic in the upper left (which I also painted). Stephanie painted the pic of the Seattle temple, and I drew/wrote the family tree picture). My new cork board was free - I had a 12 inch square of cork that I cut down to fit a frame I already had.

Family names...in no particular order. Special thanks to Suzanne for the idea.

This quote from Serenity has become my decorating motto.

My Father-in-Law...in a box.

2011-05-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Now that I have a picture of it, I can definitely see a little puffiness from
un-taut fabric. I wonder if I should try to spray glue the fabric?

This is my first attempt at putting together a shadow box. I'm pleased with the composition - all the elements in it belonged to my late father-in-law. I love the picture I found of him working on an automotive assembly line (I had no idea he had done that for a little while). My only complaint is that I didn't get the backing stretched tight enough. Aargh.

I am hoping to hang this today...we'll see if I get to it.

A Shared Office, Part 3

2011-04-28T07:58:00.000-07:00

Curtains.
Yes, oh yes, curtains.

The drawers are fabulous...the white wall?
Not so much. Ditto bulletin board.

The paint color was custom color-matched from
the curtains. Yes, it's pea greenish.

Next project? Something to replace the tired bulletin board.

A Shared Office. Part 2

2011-04-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

I love my new metal pegboard. It's some kind of wonderful.

Steve and I worked together like a well-oiled machine.

It took us 1 hour 7 minutes to complete ALEX.

This is just in the nature of a sneak peek. We won't be done until next weekend.

A Shared Office. Part 1

2011-04-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

Before-ish

When Alex left home in January to go to college, Danny felt lonesome downstairs all by himself. I grudgingly offered him my office upstairs. I could have just taken over his room downstairs...and moved all my ~~crap~~ stuff, lock stock and barrel. I just knew that I wouldn't want my computer/seminary ~~junk~~ stuff that far away - so I moved in with Steve (Danny and Alex had previously shared space with him).

Needless to say, the overall decor was lacking...along with adequate lighting. I could make a list of all the faults - but since there would be about fifty bajillion things on it, let's just say it was...er...less than ideal.

Now that it has new paint, new carpeting, new light fixture and new blinds, I sort of don't want to put anything back in it. I have warned Steve that he doesn't get to bring back any ~~crap~~ non-essential items, such as his old college textbooks.

Practically every surface has a fresh coat of paint,
except the top of the top shelf - after all, I can't see it.

Wall paint: Behr Premium Plus Ultra - Chai Latte
Ceiling/Shelf paint: Behr Premium Plus Ultra - Cotton Whisper
Ceiling fixture: Hampton Bay (Alabaster glass,semi-flush, nutmeg finish - from Home Depot)
Blinds: I'm too lazy to go downstairs and find the box - they were from Home Depot.
Carpet: Design Savvy - Aura (Carpet Liquidators).

Two more things I love...

2011-04-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

...and one thing I'm not too fond of.

1.Tia gave me this great pull-down map over a year ago. I love it, but I was having a tough time figuring out where to hang it. As you can see, it's pretty large. I moved the antique secretary out of my hall earlier this week, and voila! The perfect spot opened up.

2. As Keira and Tia can attest, I am the queen of scope creep...Not content with having Steve hang my fabulous map, I decided that the area below it looked a little bare. Since Nathan and Andrew are both at home this week (Spring Break), I had some handy helpers - so I designed this sweet little shelf, bought the lumber and had the boys help (by help, I mean do) the construction. The next day I purchased some paint and today Andrew hung it for me. For anyone who's interested, the shelf unit is about 52 inches long, 23 inches tall and 4 1/2 inches deep. We added a trim board to each shelf that was taller than the shelf to act as a lip to keep the books from sliding off.

3. And now for the one thing in this picture I don't love...the lack of baseboard. I stuck a piece underneath so as to make sure I was hanging this where I wanted it...but it's not there yet. If you hold your finger over the part of the picture that is missing the baseboard and squint, you can just about tell how great it will all look when it's finished.

Two things I love...around my home.

2011-04-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty caught up with blogging this past year and a half. Not on this blog...on my other blog (the one I do with Keira). Sadly, this blog has been languishing on the sidelines, gasping for breath. In just over 2 weeks, Keira and I will be done with our blog project (whew!). It's been a monumental time and creativity sucker for me - but now that I'm down to three reviews, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Time for some artificial respiration.

I ran across a blog post here that made me pull my head up out of the sand and take a closer look at my home. Is my home as good as it can be? No. N. O. Nope. So here's my plan. I'm going to focus on finding the things that I love about my house, and purging the stuff I don't love. As a plan it might be lacking a little, but it does have the recommendation of being free. Heck, my visiting teacher suggested that I tote my used books down to Half-Price Books and see how much they'll give me.

Globes. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen.
This is my oldest - I love that it's a little slice of history.
Can you say 'Belgium Congo'?

Built-in bookcases. You can just see a corner of my
discard pile teetering on top.

I started off with some purging this morning. I went through my entire set of built-in bookcases, plus the shelves in my grandmother's secretary, plus 1/2 of one bookcase in the office. If I had to guess, I'd say I have two or three orange boxes worth of discards. It's a start.

Thank you, Keira.

2011-04-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

When Keira posted a picture of this month's art project, I knew I wanted it. Nay, had to have it. It was something along the lines of a moral imperative. With a husband whose business is airplanes, I knew he would love it too.

I owe many thanks to Keira for helping me in a major way. At every step I was sure I had ruined it. Sure. I. Had. Ruined. It. I might have quit if it hadn't been for her encouragement
It'll be fine, I promise, it'll be fine (repeated about a million times).

The original instructions from The Cre8tive Outlet were somewhat helpful - but I think it was even more helpful that Keira had actually made one already and I was able to profit from her mistakes.

Eight feet of awesomeness.

Michelangelo in Training?

2011-03-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

3rd grade effort. Has a bit of a post-modern
gritty feel to it.

I'm pretty sure that art is Danny's favorite class. For some kids, it would be because it's an easy A - scribble a few pictures, squish a little clay...it's all subjective anyway. Who's to say what's good art or bad? In spite of that, Danny spends hours and hours on his art projects. Very un -Danny of him.

Sure, he's no Michelangelo yet, but I'm pretty impressed with how far he's come.

More of a neo-classical vibe?

Our Man in....

2011-02-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

We've been checking our mail a little more diligently lately...waiting for a large white envelope with a Salt Lake City return address. It came today. Drumroll please....

Alex got his mission call! He's to report to the MTC in Provo on June 8th...then onward to the California Long Beach Mission. Evidently he'll be learning Spanish (after three years of Japanese). Here's a useful phrase to get him started:

Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas

I'll Show You Mine....

2011-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

Summer 1995
Nathan broke his arm first...then his foot. Did that stop
me from sending him to day camp? I think not!

Frankly, I don't think the cast and boot slowed him down at all.

So....why am I sharing pictures of Nathan from sixteen years ago? Kaith called me up this morning with the sad news that along with his broken wrist (from one week ago) he now has broken a bone in his foot. He sounded pretty sad and pathetic, but I think it cheered him up some to know that his Uncle Nathan did almost exactly the same thing when he was only a year or two older than Kaith is now.

Dear Kaith,
Get well soon, and try not to break anything else.
Love,
Grandma
p.s. make sure your mom or dad take a picture of you!

A little help here?

2011-01-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

New Year's at our house is often accompanied by the pitter patter of moving furniture. This year was no different. I was able to coerce Andrew and Nathan into doing the bulk of the heavy lifting (thank you, boys!). That's fine and all, but I'm left with all the little stuff - and there's a lot of little stuff. A lot.

We are moving Danny upstairs to what was my office - it's smaller than his old room, but closer to actual living, breathing human beings. Right about now I'm second guessing my decision to relocate all of my office, craft and sewing *ahem* junk. I'd like to be done - not have the Herculean task of sorting through

To quote Douglas Adams, "Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river.

I could really use a small river to help clear out the last of the *ahem* junk from my ex-office. Anyone?

It's that special time of the year...maybe.

2010-12-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

So. Steve is in Japan for the week. The good news is that his cell phone works there - so it doesn't cost anything for me to call him. The bad news? Umm...figuring out when to call him. Japan is one day ahead, but seven hours earlier. Let's do the math. Right now, plus twenty four minus seven (10:20pm[here] + 24) -7 = 3:20pm tomorrow afternoon[there].

My problem? I was always better at addition than I was at subtraction...and frankly story problems just aren't my favorite thing. Which is why I called Steve this morning at 8am. (8am[here] + 24) - 7 = 1am tomorrow morning[there]. Sorry hon.

Happy Eyes

2010-12-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

First of all, it's really hard to take of picture of your own eyes. Second of all...I think I'm going to like our new eye doctor. While examining my optic nerve, he told me that 'things look fine...you've got happy eyes."

Yup. I like him.

Pinecones, three ways.

2010-12-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

Sherri called me up this morning and said, "I got the eggs!" It was a bit of a non sequitur (the only eggs on my mind are the two dozen eggs I need to get for Daniel's campout tomorrow)...but we straightened it out. She got the styrofoam eggs for making the pine cone ornaments.

So...for the last time, here are some more pictures of the pine cones I made - this time showing the tops. Every one I made is a little different, but most share elements. For instance, I bought one package of assorted sizes of jingle bells - and used whatever size or amount I felt like. I purchased one or two fake ferns fronds that were covered in gold glitter and cut them apart and hot glued various sized pieces on, ditto artificial pine branches...for the 'hangers' I used ribbon, rick rack and jute string and attached them with a combination of straight pins and hot glue.

Pinecones...take two.

2010-11-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Now I want to make one with plaid paper. How cute would that be? I'm nearly out of pins so I can't make another one until I go to the store...aargh.