Why I'm Busy

People wonder what you do all day as a mom. This is a big part of the answer.

Random Pictures -- November & December 2010

I guess I'm way behind in these, but here are some extra pictures:

Sara

Corin and Caelan

Caelan

Corin

Corin

Corin

Corin

Corin with a candy cane

Corin

Corin

Corin

Government Efficiency

You think you know how thick the bureaucracy is at a school or in government until you are actually part of it.

Glenn was doing an errand for Salt Lake County a little while ago, and an employee at this branch of government asked him if he was using the new courier system. Glenn said, "What system?"

It turns out the county had decided to switch over to a new courier (address) system that matches the state's. So each office now has a special code that has nothing to do with the actual large, labeled numbers on each office that they were using before. This is supposed to be more efficient or something. 

The thing is, they failed to inform all the county employees who work at the county building. This has to be about 90 of all county employees. So they all got an e-mail on the 9th that said, "All county offices will be using this system as of the 4th."

Stomach Flu

Our house enjoyed a visit from the stomach flu. It began with Jaelyn, who threw up all night on a Thursday. I was surprised she went to school Friday, but she came home early sick. She was okay Saturday but felt sick again Sunday.

Tuesday night Corin began throwing up. It was for a few hours, and he was otherwise okay. But he didn't really know how to throw up. So Glenn stayed home Wednesday to help take care of him, although he was moslty better.

Wednesday night, what I thought was indigestion at first became stomach flu. Stomach pains and nausea were intense and miserable. I had chills and probably a fever. I took a hot shower until the heat ran out; that helped calm the shakes while it lasted. Then I went to bed with a ton of blankets. Caelan threw up during the night with me.

I had severe back pain, so I didn’t notice the other body aches at first. I got out the heating pad and slept on my back until my stomach hurt too much. Then I rolled onto my side to give my stomach relief until my back hurt too much, and so on. Finally I managed to drink a little water, which was heavenly. Around 3 I had some 7Up and a cracker. 

Thursday I was mostly better except for having no energy. I was dizzy standing and even sitting, so I lay in bed all day. Glenn took the day off for that. Then early in the morning Friday, Glenn got it and had to stay home for himself. At least he had tons of sick hours.

Day of Service

It's been crazy busy lately. Busy in a boring way, really.

Saturday the 10th was a church wide “day of service.” Our stake did yard work (and similar projects) at various houses and parks within each ward. It was hard getting up by 8, but we got there at 8:20. We started with a house on our street, now vacant. The children all picked up boxes and bags of pine cones and raked pine needles. I worked on digging out weeds from the hard ground. Then Paul came through with a motorized tiller and ground through all that dirt in seconds that would have taken us hours by hand.

From there I went with the Primary kids to the church, where we used Clorox wipes on all the chairs and surfaces in the church. Deven vacuumed the chapel: “I’ve always wanted to vacuum a huge room!” Glenn vacuumed the hallways. We were done in no time with all the people there. By then it was only about 10:30. 

Next the kids played on the lawn next to the vacant house. Next to them on the south side is the bishop’s house. Glenn and others helped excavate dirt out of the bishop’s yard. I asked if we needed to tell the stake president that he was using the day of service to have the ward build him a pool. I don’t know where all that dirt came from. Then Glenn had them take it to our house and add it to our garden plots. That was done by about 11:30.

Deven worked at another house meanwhile, and then there was a stake barbecue at noon. It was very good.

Electronics Problems

For about the last nine months, all kinds of things have broken down in our house. Recently, the hand mixer I've had since college made a little pop and blew out some sparks. It continued to work but left scorch marks on the mixing bowl and now has exposed wires. To be safe, I bought a new one.

We got a little chopper for a wedding present that has worked great all this time. Then Corin started playing with it, and then the lid disappeared. It can't work without the lid. I think Corin threw it away or else hid it somewhere very, very sneaky.

Our biggest frustration has been with the DVD player. It's a DVD and VCR combination. The VCR gave out soon after getting it. It would play for a second and then stop. This summer, it started turning itself off, especially when it was warm. The VCR will try to rewind or something, and then it turns the entire device off. It's very annoying. This also affects the Wii, which is connected to the player.

We got a little DVD player for the family room downstairs from a pawn shop some time ago. It quit working because of child abuse. But Glenn discovered three DVDs jammed inside it, so it's fine now. The main problem with this one is that the remote doesn't work, and the only buttons on the player are Play, Stop, Power, and Eject. So if you need to fast-forward or select something on the menu, you're screwed. (I hate players that don't have all the functions on the machine!) We have two regular VCRs downstairs that sort of work, but not reliably.

So last week Glenn decided to switch the TVs in the bedroom and the family room. For them to fit, their respective TV stands had to be switched, too. The family room TV (a 32-incher someone gave us) had RCA jacks that the bedroom one (a 27-inch we bought as our first Christmas gift to ourselves) didn't. This meant it could play the Wii without going through a player first. Glenn also set up the little DVD player and left the annoying VCR/DVD combo player by itself.

After this all got set up, Glenn realized that the 32-inch TV, now in our bedroom, has a screen flaw. At times, a big black box likes to show up and block out most of the screen. I had never seen this happen before, but Glenn said he'd seen it before and had forgotten about it.

Is all this frustration understandable? Do you see why I would like a nice, new VCR/DVD combo player that has all the buttons on it, so if you lose the remote you aren't totally out of luck?

Our Lives -- August 2011

August means I've survived the heat of summer. Still, I don't think we ever broke 100 degrees this summer. It still got plenty warm, and we ran the swamp cooler regularly. This season the low settings didn't work, only high. And every few days the swamp cooler would freeze up, so Glenn had to hike onto the roof to get it going again. Several times he had to go up at night during a rain storm.

August 3 I was at Hillside Elementary all afternoon. I brought Corin and left Caelan with Deven at home. I met the girls after school, and we stayed there until the open house started at 4:30. I spent time in each girl’s class, learning about homework and rules and stuff like that. Corin was a little tornado. At Sara’s class, he found the stash of PE balls and threw them into the hallway and chased after them. We got back home at 6:30 and had dinner. I had gotten it started beforehand, and Glenn finished preparing dinner while I was gone. It also meant that the girls were up late doing homework. It takes Jaelyn a couple hours every day to do her homework.

The minivan had a slow coolant leak. We'd put some in and then the car would try to overheat a week later. So we finally took it in and had the radiator replaced for $1200. This was the end of our tax return fund.

Jaelyn turned 9. She went to school and had cake and presents after dinner. She had a party with friends that Saturday.

I watched some twin sisters one afternoon. They are exactly a year younger than Corin. He seemed so big next to them. He was so excited by them that he ran and gave one sister a hug and kiss. Deven "walked" one baby all around, who really enjoys her mobility. I mostly held the other, who was not in a very happy mood.

I took Deven to Hunter Jr. High for his registration. I actually missed registration day, which is apparently different than registering for classes. I gave them his immunization record, and he got his class schedule and locker assignment. (It’s in a pretty good location). I had filled out a fee waiver application, which they approved right there. Otherwise the fees were $85! Each class has fees associated with it. I showed Deven how to open his locker, and then we walked around to find out where the classes were. Meanwhile Caelan and Corin ran around the halls.

Deven started school on Friday the 19th with a seventh grade orientation. Then seventh, eighth, and ninth grades all started the following Monday. (Freshmen aren't in high school around here.) 

August 31, for play group, a mom arranged a tour at the Mrs. Fields cookie factory. I didn’t even know it was around here; it's not far at all. I brought Caelan and Corin. There were a lot of little kids there, but they all did great. Corin fought the hair net, but I managed to keep it on him inside the factory baking area. The smell inside the baking room was wonderful. Of course, you get nasal fatigue soon, but I’d love to smell it all day. It was pretty neat to see everything. At the end we got cookie samples, which were just divine.

Cat Spotlight: Kryten

Kryten is a litter mate to Albus. Out of the entire litter, I thought Kryten was the least interesting and therefore the most likely to stay with us. Albus and Kryten were the only two we managed to keep Frankenstein from chasing away. We loved the other kittens, too. The names Frankenstein and Kryten are from "Red Dwarf."

Kryten is our indoor cat. This is partly because he is shunned by the other cats. Hathor and Holly particularly detest him. Albus and Kryten like to wrestle together and chase each other through the house. 

Kryten is a big scavenger and the ultimate mooch. He has no shame in this. He loves milk and purrs just thinking about it. I know most cats are lactose-intolerant, but I don't think Kryten is. He also enjoys cheese and bread and crackers.

Kryten is the softest cat I've seen. He is so smooth, it almost feels like touching air. His fur is very long and black and white (no stripes). His black fur is glossy.

Every morning, Kryten jumps over the fence to greet me when I return from taking the girls to school. He comes inside and meows for milk. Then he finds a place to sleep all day, as evidenced in the pictures. The front window sill is his favorite spot, but since Corin became mobile, he often sleeps in the garden window in the kitchen. In the evening he will go out to eat and then come back inside to sleep again.

He's the kind of cat who likes to be near you, but too close to you. He will sit outside our bedroom door at night while we watch TV. In the evening, if I'm on the computer, he will hop up onto my desk and hold keyboard keys down. I once had to reinstall my keyboard driver because of him. He also sits at my feet while I play the piano until Corin comes to grab him.

He does not mind Corin too much as long as Corin doesn't get too physical. But at the sight of any stranger, he will run and hide for hours. He is not a brave cat, and he has no shame about this.

kitchen window

He's awake!

under the table, where he goes to cool off

living room window

sleeping IN the plants

"guarding" our bedroom

see his cat goatee