Thursday, June 28, 2007

I don't hate very many people, but...



But these are two people that I just really can't stand. More Ann Coulter than Hannity, but I don't particularly care for him either so this picture is just awful to me because they are together. And I realized something more important as I was formulating thoughts on why I don't like them: they are right about a lot of things but it is the way they speak to people with such contempt, arrogance and complete disdain that just infuriates me. So there is a life lesson. Ann Coulter appeared on the Chris Matthews show the other day and was as derogatory as ever; but that's not what bothered me. Elisabeth Edwards called into the show to ask her to politely stop harrassing her husband with her vile remarks, (which was a grave mistake on her part to attempt to humble Ann Coulter) to which she was just inhumanly obnoxious in response. Both of these people are master manipulators of argument and media, they know it, and they make money off of it... I wish I could do that-without being hated by millions of course. They are impeccable at picking out the egregious flaws of other people while completely ignoring their own. And they sell books and make tons of money because people like me talk and blog about it.

Anyway, in other news, it is so freaking hot in my cave of an apartment. My pitiful little dog doesn't even want to come inside; and any of you that know him know darn well how he hates to be left out of the people party. He thinks he is human and always wants to be where the humans are. SO, I should be relieved that we are moving in like two weeks. Yes, two weeks. We just found out that we have to close on our condo in CA before July 7 in order to lock in our kick butt interest rate. But I'm not ready to do this yet. I am excited to go. Really excited to go. But when I get things in my head the way I think they are going to be, I have a hard time accepting evidence to the contrary. So I have thought for a long time that we would move the end of August. But we aren't.




So, if we are going to sweat in our fiery inferno cave of a hole home, I would rather just sweat outside. So that is what I have done. We have been to the pool several times, which is fun in its own right for the people watching. I took E and hiked to Timp cave on Monday with Cam and Coop and Heather and Shea. That was way cool except for the moron tour guide. Don't even get me started. Let's just say that we spent a half an hour more in the cave than was necessary because of all of her "um" "ok" and awkard pausing. The cave is sweet though and Cam and Coop were such troopers. I have also been biking more. I went up to the base of Rock Canyon yesterday; I used to run from the base of the temple to the gate at the entrance to the canyone three times in a row when we were training for the Catalina marathon. Well, its still hard. I used to think biking was for people who are too wussy to run. I barely made it up that hill once on my bike. It was intense. And then my darling friend Brittany and I went on a ride up South Fork on a trail that I thought was hard-ON A MOTORCYCLE! She kicked my butt. My poor little Costco bike wasn't ready for that. And frankly, I'm not in much better shape. We have also gone on a couple of picnics and wandered over to the Claytons to let Duane play in the backyard. Anything to get out of my awful hot house. I have to go. My baby is crying. He got shots, how sad.
But its apparently not nearly as bad as when I put him in his car seat... I picked him up and got him to sleep, sort of. This is so frustrating. Its so hot in my house and all I want to do is finish this post-it has been a work in progress all day long and its really starting to annoy me. I keep getting up to calm or feed Eli and all I want to do is finish and have him be asleep so that I can go to Costco and get boxes to start packing without having him scream bloody murder the whole time. Ok, I htink I am done, but I am sure there was something on my mind that I forgot because of all of the interruptions. Oh well, its hot in here. I am leaving. I think I'll go get another awesome pomegranate berry crystal lights slurpee at 7 eleven. They are great.

PS IF any of you are considering finishing your basement and renting it out, please don't scrimp on the air conditioning. I personally testify that basements get incredibly hot in the summer. And if you think I whine a lot, you must not know my husband or his temperature issues very well.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Monday, June 18, 2007

First smiles caught on camera



So, Eli has...shall we say, struggled, when it comes to the smiling department. But here is proof that its possible...at least when he is sitting happily on his changing table staring at the gold leafed and very bright picture of Jesus on the wall. No joke. I'm going to bear my testimony about it. Or we'll make a lot of money on the EFY style song Adam has made up about it. Seriously. But I believe the direct quote from my mom when she saw these pictures was, "Oh good! You're not so stupid!"

Blessing Day









We blessed Eli yesterday. Thank you to everyone who came and participated. It was so nice to see so many friends and family that we do not get to see often enough. It was really nice to have Adam give our son such a beautiful head start in life on the day set aside to recognize fathers.

Happy Father's Day!




Did you see that? I just did my first slide show, as shown below. I am quite proud and my husband should be too. Just kidding, its really not that hard but I am functionally handicapped where the computer is concerned. Happy Father's Day to my amazing father and father-in-law, my great brothers-in-law, uncles, friends, and mostly my most wonderful husband who has outdone even himself with his fathering skills. I should have known what a wonderful and attentive father Adam would be; there is nothing he is not exceptionally good at. There is nothing that he does partway. But I never could have guessed that my favorite part of being a mother would be to watch my husband be a dad. I love you Adam and watching you attend to Eli and taking such a profound interest in caring for him has made me feel so lucky to share this responsibility with you!

Pool Parties and such

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Play, Politics & Pool Parties

Wow. Leaving a baby is like going on vacation except you only get ready for the vacation, but you don't go. Adam and I went with my family to see Les Miserables last night in Salt Lake. It was excellent. But I spent the entire day getting Eli and his stuff ready to go hang out with Grandpa Burr for the night. Fortunately, he didn't misbehave too badly so he might be welcome there again....Sweet. Except it was kind of hard to be away from him for that long. Good thing my handy dandy breast pump looks like a nice, giant purse, but too bad for that old, senile lady who walked in on me in the bathroom while I was using it. Oops. Her bad. I told you it was a hassle to leave a two month old. Wayne and Nana Janet were gracious enough to take all of us to dinner and to the play. I found out at dinner that my whole family thinks I am ridiculously liberal. Apparently my random question on my profile has caused quite the stir among the members of my overtly conservative family. I told them I may be slightly more liberal than Michael, but let's be honest-who isn't? Anyway, they all think I am a democrat because I think Joe Biden is funny and I don't hate Harry Reid. But we had a great time talking, eating, and seeing one of the best attempts to help man reconcile God's ability to be both completely just and entirely merciful at once.

Speaking of liberal people, I was watching the Chris Matthews show on MSNBC the other day, grateful for someone to take a break from discussing Paris freaking Hilton and all of her medical issues that bailed her out of jail for a minute to talk about real news; and he had Ben Afflek on the show. I am not a super fan of his mostly mediocre movies, but wow that guy knew his politics. He was well spoken and modest, almost unconvincingly modest (I told you he wasn't a very good actor), and very insightful about the sentiments American people and movie stars feel in evaluating the presidential candidates. He is obviously a Barack Obama supporter, but he seemed to be fairly objective in his assessment of the campaign. I suppose I will just make myself out even more to look like a democrat by saying this, but I thought that if everyone in Hollywood was as informed as he is and still wanted to vote for Barack Obama (not Hillary though, I can't get around that one) then I suppose that is ok. The more I watch though, the more I am so impressed with Mitt Romney. Not only is he good looking and smooth talking, he is principled enough to stick to his guns and values yet moderate enough to be electable by the general population. The country needs someone who has had experience unifying a fractured state; Mitt Romney has served as a conservative leader in a liberal state and I think that is invaluable experience to bring to the presidency. There is my plug for Mitt. And honestly, it has nothing to do with him being LDS.

I took E to the pool today and we are going again tomorrow with Olivia and Heather. I am so pleased to hear that Audrey is infatuated with Eli...we went over to play games and get in the hot tub on Saturday night and Audrey was so cute with Eli. She even let him borrow, er steal, one of her diapers since I am a moron and forgot to restock the diaper bag. It didn't fit very well, but Adam is a master jimmy rigger of all things and he cut it down to size. Literally. But Olivia said that she is now pointing at his picture and saying "Baby!" How fun. Audrey and Lucy are at such a fun age and while I am sad at how exponentially fast my baby is growing out of his clothes, it is fun to have a glimpse of all the fun things to come in those two little girls. Anyway, that should be fun to go to the pool, but I can't wait until Eli is old enough to actually play at the pool. Well, maybe I can, because that means that he will be playing in the water and I have to be a good parent and chase him around. After we go to the pool, we are going to go have a barbecue for Grandpa Burr's big birthdday-HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN! I can't believe it is already the middle of June. I keep telling people that we are going to move in the middle of July, as if it is like really far away. Oh, I am dreading that whole process. But I am excited to go.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

My new favorite hobby


Chelsea took this picture on her phone, so its not super high quality, but I sat and watched him fall asleep at the pool for a good thirty minutes--we needed something to show for that. I think my favorite part of being Eli's mom is watching him fall asleep. Its so funny. He fights it so hard and will do anything to stay awake. I always think that the process itself is cute, but then when I see him asleep like this, my heart just melts.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

To work or not to work?


Wow. Look at those rapidly expanding cheeks. This was the day of our first outing to the pool and a great excuse to dress him up in too big swim shorts and this darling little safari hat (thanks again Susan.)

Adam and I went to meet with a financial aid advisor when we were in California last week. I guess I just assumed that we would calculate all of our expenses, work out a budget and then tell the university, or whoever it is that is going to lend us a bunch of money for the next four years (or more), how much we need and they would just give it to us! Well, those of you who know me may recognize in this presumption my tendency to often oversimplify. Its more like they tell us how much money we can have; and if we have a child and I want to stay home and raise him, then we may just have to become incredibly independently wealthy in the next eight weeks...anyway, needless to say, it is a little bit more complicated than I want it to be, and therefore makes feeling like I can stay at home with Eli not completely comfortable.
I have never closed the door on going back to work- and I think I would actually enjoy working part time. But two months has now gone by and I still feel like we are just getting to know each other and we aren't quite ready to have other things to attend to besides each other yet. I have read for months about moms who battle this ever present internal conflict about whether to work or not; I hate it when working moms pretend to have it all completely together and perfect. I finally heard one working mom on the Today show this morning say, "I am not going to pretend that it works all the time, or that things are the way they should be or that we are balanced." I used to be one of those people who thought that it was possible. I really thought that I could go to law school, have a successful career and be a perfect, attentive mother too. I am glad that I had enough sense to put that dream on hold early on, but its still hard to feel like its ok to borrow money from the government while I stay at home -even though I know it will be. And let's face it-I refuse to put my child in daycare.
So that's why I was so excited when we started talking to a contact in California that I had worked with before. His name is Karim and I really enjoyed working with him through Pinnacle. He is setting up a brand new ADT dealership in Riverside and is interested in having me work from home...so far. I think I would really like that. Obviously, I can't make enough money alleviate the massive school debt issue, but it will be nice to maybe have a bit of a financial cushion. So I think I really hope this works out. I think....its still hard to think about a good chunk of my day being spent doing something else besides Eli stuff, especially since I'm pretty sure his "mother" Chelsea will not be coming to California. But I feel really good about this prospective job and the promises it holds, so hopefully we can iron out the details and make it work.

Clothes and no clothes issues



How sad. I packed up the first batch of Eli's too little clothes. Thanks Mel and Heather for the adorable little premie jammies, but unfortunately, I can't squeeze him into them anymore. I will have to get them back to you soon. Adam seems to think that Eli is cold blooded like he is-meaning that any amount of clothes on your back is too much and it makes you sweat in uncomfortable and unmentionable places, so Eli needs to have naked time each day; Adam has made it his job to shower him each day and keep him in a diaper until it is absolutely necessary for him to wear clothes.