Wednesday, April 30, 2008

A conversational synopsis of midterm week

I wouldn't try to add to Lisa Hachee's post on the hellish nature of midterms; she did a beautiful job of encapsulating precisely why this week can wreak havoc on dental school families. But I thought I would just add a few of the comments that have been uttered in my house so that you can fully acquaint yourself with the tone which accompanies such said events:

Adam, playing with Eli's pretend phone: "Hello? hello, is this the Indians? Hi, are you coming to get Eli? Ok, great we will see you soon and give you a lump sum to take him away."

"Duane! Shut...........up!" Both of us have been found saying that.

And then my very favorite:

Adam: "Do you kind of understand why some animals eat their young?"
Me: "Yes."
Adam: Pause..."I mean, the mama is starving because she doesn't have time to hunt for food because she is taking care of her crying child all day long, she thinks she sucks at being a mom anyway and that the baby is unhappy. So it's just the natural, efficient outcome of a problem. Seriously."
Me: "Yes."

PS We don't hate Eli

Friday, April 25, 2008

Food storage, 6am, and my most humiliating moment since...

That was a really good idea on my part to postscript my future topics in my previous post. Now I am actually going to do it. At any given time, I have about ten different things fighting each other in my head to make it onto the web. Oh, the lost treasures of wit and wisdom that never are for lack of time and/or ambition...

Anyway, I figured I'd lump these critically important issues all together, not because they are in any fashion related, but mostly because I have two potential employers who may be perusing my blog, and a lengthy discourse should sufficiently serve to acquaint them with my writing style. However, for the faint of reading heart (Sorry, no pictures. I know-what kind of a post is this anyway?) I have conveniently divided each topic into clearly marked categories. So the most shallow of you can just skip right on down to my most embarrassing moment.


FOOD STORAGE
First up: Food storage. I was at the park with friends a couple days ago and they were asking me about the history behind food storage. Our, and others', loud children precluded my full response. Basically, the leaders of our church have counseled us for decades to have at least a three month supply of food and other essentials in case of emergency. In the last 5 or so years, it has become so clear to me how a calamity of ruinous consequences could make it necessary for us to have a supply of food and what not in the event that the stores were unwilling or unable to provide. So, since I have been living away from our families, I have really gotten into it and I love it. It helps me cook so much more efficiently. I love going to the grocery store and scoping out sales for food storage stuff. I love rotating through and restocking my cans, pasta, peanut butter, cereal and what not. I used to be so intimidated by the whole idea, but really all it is, is having more than you need of the stuff that you already use at any given time. Someday when I have more space and money I will get all hard core into it and store 50 lb drums of water, get a wheat grinder, and grow a big garden full of my own vegetables and herbs. So that's why I do it. 1-It's an exhortation. 2- I like it. 3-It's smart. And I heard Kathy Lee and Hoda talking about how it was a good idea on the Today show today, so it must be the right thing to do...great, now everyone is going to start stocking up and the global food shortage is going to be even more devastating.

6 AM EXERCISE
Secondly, I hate getting up at 6 am to exercise-no, I just hate the idea of it. Here are the reasons why I love it:
-My day rocks when I do. I was like Wonder Woman incarnate on Wednesday. I went to Spinning at 6 am. It kicked my butt. I came home, showered AND got ready...yeah, meaning I did my hair, AND put makeup on. I straightened the house, put E's sheets back on (no simple task, I assure you) cleaned the kitchen, went to the park, watered the plants, returned unused tiling tools, worked, blogged, made dinner, went to the dog park etc. etc. etc! And all while managing to keep tabs on all of my favorite cable news shows. I was amazing. Seriously.

I was going to list off all of the different reasons, but that's pretty much it. It makes my day go so phenomenally well. Did it again today, and look who is blogging once again! Basically, if I have a blog post, my day is going well because I made time to blog.

HUMILIATION AT ITS FINEST
And last but certainly not least, I think I might have had my most embarrassing moment yesterday since...well, I am never telling those other stories that involve peeing my pants, and trying on a swimsuit in WalMart, so DON'T ask...but suffice it to say, this was probably my third most embarrassing moment ever, as in, in my life. In this case, dear Lisa, it's funnier when it happens to me.

So I am casually strolling along with Duane around my condo complex yesterday. Adam was home, E was asleep, the dog needed to be walked. So walk we did. It was all going pleasantly until Duane decided to take a dump on one of my unknown neighbor's lawns. Great. I didn't have a bag or even a little Kleenex or anything to dispose of his waste-every dog owner recognizes this dilemma and might be able to predict what happens next; probably not though, because although it obviously involves poop, it is way more mortifying than you might imagine.

SO, luckily for me, I thought, the trash cans were lined up along the sidewalk for trash day. I looked in each one to try and find some morsel of paper with which to pick up my dog's discarded dung and move on with my walk and life. Found one. Unluckily, it was at the very bottom of the empty trash can. I am 5'2. So I reach, reach. Come on, reach just a little bit more...oh crap. The trash can begins to slip, and what? Yes, I pretty much fall in. I have the bruise on my leg to prove it; it freaking hurt. But it gets better. Our friends, Dane and Kelly, from dental school just moved into the complex (I wasn't sure exactly where until yesterday) and pulled up to the parking lot where I was gingerly pulling myself out of the trash can. They were on their scooter, staring at me blankly, while I desperately tried to explain that I was just rummaging through the trash to get a bag to pick up my stupid dog's crap. Oh, and they just so happened to be stopping to get their trash can...probably the one from which I had just exited. Anyway. They couldn't really hear me because they had their scooter helmets on (smart people, way to go) so that only added to the blank stare they were administering.

At length, I abandoned the bag, found another small piece of paper, picked up the poop and made Dane-the dental student, not to be confused with Duane, my dog- swear to never tell anyone about what he had witnessed. But, I wised up and decided I couldn't keep it to myself. So there you go world wide web. It was great.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Da da da dah

It's done. We finished...and by we, I mean mostly Adam. Once again, I drastically underestimated how long an "easy" home improvement project would take...and I really hate quotation marks, but I think that was an appropriate use-note the word (and I will spare you the marks this time) underestimated. Do it yourselfing gets old pretty quick people. But I love the end result.

Before:
These pictures do not do justice to the germ infestedness of our former formica
wonder...and I am NOT a germ freak.


During: Take note of the sleuthfully swiped dental mask


After:







Next up: remedying this unfortunate disaster of a garage door.

Folks, as a courtesy to the future owners of your home, please do not authorize your children or grandchildren who are artistically inclined...baffled pause...(again, quotes may have been appropriate, but I chose to withhold them) to post their work as a decorative maneuver in an all too conspicuous part of your current home. Someone else will inevitably own it and think it not so adorable as you do. Thank you.

PS Two more things that I want to post about later, and this preview will serve as a reminder so that I will actually do it: 1-why I heart/hate getting up at 6am to exercise and 2- why I do food storage and heart THAT too.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Are any of these cute enough to purchase?

They turned out surprisingly cute in spite of the lame photographer ...most of you know that E is a tough crowd; he doesn't even crack a smile unless you are really funny. This girl was way lame and she did nothing to make him laugh. There are more here if you want to see, but these are my favorite. Just click on the session 4/15....username: aaburr@gmail.com password: steamboat






Random troublemaking, some birthday stuff and how I am resigned to the outcome of this election

We did the cake thing several times and it was fun each time. These are some other pictures highlighting how mischievous my son is...thank you everyone for all of the nice gifts you gave him. He likes them...but as you can see, he might just rather play with gas meters, dirt and motorcycles. I try, really I do.



Birthday was fun, Utah rocked. I had my one-week-fill of winter and now I am happy to be back enjoying my unusually warm climate. It was a freaking hundred degrees here on Sunday. Wow, I am not ready for 5 months of that, so hopefully that was a freak accident. I went snowboarding with my brother Alex while in Utah and it was one of the greatest snow days of my life. Epic, it was. Truly magnificent. There was no one there; and even on the most dreadfully easy, green circle runs lay a thick layer of gorgeous, fresh, spring powder. It was amazing. It was nice to spend a whole day with my little protege bro. I saw all of my friends, hung out with the fam and relaxed as everyone else took over my role as parent. But we missed Adam and Duane and are very glad to be home.

So, I realized after doing a little recreational political debating while enjoying dinner with my friends what my new position on the election is: resignation. I know, I know that's terrible. But wanna know what? It's a democratic year. It just is. I believe that if Hillary continues to ride the attack train, she is going to sink herself and possibly even lose Pennsylvania. But even if she doesn't, she has already so poorly mismanaged her campaign that I do not see how it is possible America could elect her given her platform of managerial experience. Is she serious? She has people, including her platonic, political alliance (I mean beloved husband and eternal companion)dropping damning comments left and right; Bill is about the only one she has not fired yet. So either she hired the wrong people, which makes her a bad overseer, or she fired them prematurely which makes her a bad manager. I don't want her running this country for many reasons-mostly because I don't want her vengeful vendetta against good health care to put my husband out of a job, but also because I want someone who has a little bit of integrity, and doesn't want to pull the troops out of Iraq so that they can focus on fighting the "real war" (global warming...all right, so Obama might do that too.) Yeah, I still say I am moving to Singapore if Hillary Clinton wins.

So, since I am going to do everything in my power, which is, I admit, limited, to will her to lose the election and live a life of ignominious peril, that leaves one option if it is in fact a democratic year: Barack Hussein Obama. A forty six year old basketball playing, Hollywood pandering, Iraq abhorring, tax hiking, pro-choice, rock star that political ignorants just can't get enough of. Well, he is better than the Clintons I suppose. And I'm no fan of 9 billion year old McCain either, (who won't win against Obama anyway-which reminds me, I really hope McCain does not choose Romney as his running mate and tarnish his future chances) so that therefore leaves me in a state of Obama resignation. I won't vote for him. I will probably vote for me or something, but I am pretty resigned to the fact that he will be our next president. It's a great way to figure out what he's really like, for all of those who are nervous huh? Oh, don't worry. We'll know soon enough.

To sum up: 1-It's a democratic year because the Republicans have been labeled as big enough screwballs in the media, and Obama has been made a big enough star in the media. 2- Hillary can't win. She won't. She is not cool enough, pretty enough. honest enough or good enough at what she claims she is good at-experiencing? Yeah. Tell me about it. So Obama wins. Basically, he is just better looking than the other two. It could be worse. At least the young folk like him, and look how well we are all doing, huh?... Maybe I will move to Singapore under any circumstance. It's nice there, no litter.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Happy Birthday E



Hey little boy, happy birthday. You rock. You are worth it. I am not sad that you are a year old; on the contrary, I cannot wait for you to continue maturing into my best little buddy. With each new skill that you master, you become more and more my perfect little constant companion. I can't wait for you to walk and talk and phase more into hanging out with me, as opposed to hanging onto me. I love how many times a day I catch myself smiling at you wrestling with Duane, or laughing at your dad, or shoving a whole handful of who knows what into your mouth. It is such a wonderful feeling to actually catch yourself in a grin, to stop for a moment in reality and realize that you are smiling. I would be lying if I said that happened all the time..I refuse to be the obnoxious everything is rosy blogger type. But I would also be lying if I said that it didn't happen everyday. I love you, little boy and I enjoy being your mom. Your dad enjoys being your dad. Saying that with sincerity makes me smile again. Happy Birthday.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Week long birthday party

Someone please invite my husband over for dinner next week; we are off to St. George and Orem for conference and Eli's family/friend birthday party extravaganza, respectively. My sister sent me an invitation to my son's birthday party, in Utah, so I guess we better show up. So Adam will be flying solo for a few days. See some of you soon, and others of you not so soon.