... 10 things.

10 things I like about Sundays:

1. At least one day a week I get dressed, fix my hair, and put on makeup.
2. Spending time with other adults.
3. Singing hymns.
4. Rachael loves to go to nursery, and I love to send her.
5. Down time all afternoon on Sunday.
6. Watching a Disney movie with Rachael after naptime.
7. Talking to family on the phone.
8. Ryan usually fixes Sunday dinner. (Sets the table, too!)
9. Ryan sometimes does the dishes too.
10. Recharging my spiritual batteries for another week.

Ryan is in China this week... guess I'm going to have to deal with 8 & 9 myself today... cereal anyone?

... self-propulsion.

I can't remember the last time I mowed the lawn so many times in one summer. I have a callous on my right hand under my anniversary ring because I keep forgetting to take it off. But we have the best mower! It's self propelled and just turns to start (well, when the battery is charged) and I even know where the gas goes. The self-propelled engine is great... you don't mow the lawn so much as just point the mower in the right direction, and hang on downhill.

... Rachael's friends.

Sometimes Rachael needs a break from playing with Mommy, too...

Rachael's friend that now lives in the new branch. It's harder to get the two of them together than we thought. But they are still good friends!

Alex wants to be a Mommy when he grows up.

... a last minute babysitter.

I had a girl's night activity planned for a couple of weeks, but was worried I would not be able to get someone to babysit Rachael since it's a school night. At 4:15 one of my regular babysitters called and said she would be available! I was thrilled because I was starting to thing I would have to take Rach with me.

We went out to have dinner with Emily, who is getting ready to go back to BYU-I for her last semester. Much silliness ensued.


Jenny trying to drink the candle. She figured it out before she singed her nose.




Elizabeth talking about the Book of Mormon. Our waiter behind her (he was awesome!) totally ignoring her and serving beer. The nerve!




Cheesing it up with Emily.

...ballet class.

Ballet class has turned out so well for Rachael! We spent the last week looking for ballet clothes; it was a fun project. It took a lot longer than I thought it would because Rachael is so small, but we did find a store that sells dance clothes, and they had lots of toddler things. She spent all week practicing and getting excited for class. Another little girl joined the class today, too, so there are six altogether. The new girl is also 3 years old.

Learning to stand in one spot on the floor

Playing with the parachute.

... stopping to smell the flowers.

Rachael loves to see the flowers at the grocery store anytime we go shopping. She's always trying to convince me to buy some; usually she settles for just stopping to smell them. Today we walked by some roses that were marked down to $4 a dozen, and she had been a particularly well behaved girl this afternoon, so we popped for the flowers. She's just absolutely beside herself!

... and I don't live in Denver.

With the Democratic National Convention starting today, I'm glad I don't live in the metro Denver area this week! (I heard they are closing I-25 for some time on Thursday. What a mess that will be!)

Good luck to all my Colorado friends this week.

... girl time.

Ryan is off on another adventure in China. OK, so he will mostly be standing in factories, but it's all very exotic. The food is anyway.

We're grateful for email and phones and airplane tracking and Skype to check on him often.

Since I've blogged most of that before, today I am grateful for some mommy-Rachael time. After we dropped Ryan off at the airport, we went shopping at the mall and out to lunch. Tonight it's family night, so we will have popcorn and a movie, and maybe even paint our fingernails. (Binger-nails, as Rach would say.)

I've learned we need to do girl time early in the three week trip; after a few days we get a little tired of each other. But I'm grateful we get to spend some time together!

... they mostly stay outside.

It's spider season.

This is the time of year that the big spiders start spinning webs, mostly on the back of the house. This charming arachnid - who is larger that a quarter, you will just have to take my word - is spinning a web that covers nearly half the door on one of my french doors on the back of the house. I would like to photograph the web one day, but I'll have to figure out the best way to set up for that.

I'm not really afraid of spiders, but these big ones are pretty creepy. Most of them are not poisonous, but we do get brown recluse spiders and brown widow spiders. [Tangent here: I'm surprised at the number of people who say re-CLOOSE instead of RECK-loose for recluse.] I'm mostly OK with any of them as long as they stay outside!

... mom and dad.

Happy 35th wedding anniversary to my mom and dad! If they can survive each other for 35 years, then Ryan and I will probably make it.

Wow, they sure have changed a lot in 35 years...

... jokes.

Rachael is just starting to understand a sense of humor. 3 year olds are very literal; she doesn't understand why adults can be talking and then just burst out laughing. So we have been working on the idea of jokes, that jokes are funny. Particularly knock-knock jokes. She doesn't quite get it yet; here's my favorite.

Rachael: Knock knock.
Mommy: Who's there?
Rachael: Salad.
Mommy: Salad who?
Rachael: Salad bee-nana I'm drowning.

Then she laughs hysterically! It's so completely wrong that it's funny, so we do it all over again. I'll be a little sad when she finally works out knock knock jokes.

... a new filter.

Today I came home from the grocery store to find the kitchen floor half covered in water. After turning off the water and examining the fridge, we decided it was probably the water filter. (It is suppose to be replaced every 6 months. This one is going on 35 months now, I guess it's time for a new one). The good news is that it was indeed the filter, but the bad news is the filter is $35.

More good news, though: no serious damage from the water, even though it also leaked through the floor and down to the basement. There are some cardboard boxes that will never be the same but I think we will survive.

... and a night to myself.

Ryan is pretty good at letting me have a night 'off' once in awhile, and especially before he goes to China. Usually I go shopping, but tonight I went to the bookstore and bought a couple of books, then went to the cafe and got a slice of cake and read for awhile. Blissful!

Thanks sweetheart!

... a happy accident.

Yesterday I registered for an account at Bluegrass Dance Center, the local dance place. I thought I had mistakenly already registered for a class, but after some back and forth email, it turns out I really had not. After all my confusion I did eventually sign up Rachael for a kids ballet class for ages 3-4 every Wednesday, so today was our first class. [Does this mean I'm thankful I'm an idiot sometimes? Or that their website is clunky and difficult? Whatever!] She was so excited she could hardly stand it!

Ready for class. Since we just decided to do this yesterday, we don't have any dance clothes yet.

Learning to plie. They learned first position and second position as well. (The pictures are really grainy because I took them without the flash through a one-way mirror.)

Learning to jump on one foot. (Rachael still can't do it. Probably won't be able to for some time; but she's little so it's OK).

Listening to the instructor.

Rachael has never been to a structured class before (except nursery) so it was a challenge to sit still or stand in one place. (She took lots of mad dashes around the room). She's also the smallest (no surprise there) and probably the youngest. I've never taken a dance class either, so it was a learning experience for all of us!

... low humidity.

The first three weeks of August this year have been unseasonably cool and it has been absolutely wonderful! I'm not the only one to notice... the weatherman here says it is possibly record-breaking low humidity for August, meaning the weather has been cool and comfortable instead of hot and muggy. Too bad every year can't be like this!

... the flyswatter.

How else would I smush the half dozen or so houseflies that seem to get into the house every day? And I'm thankful for Windex to clean them off.

Postcript...
Rachael calls it the fly smasher. The other day one of her friends was over and she said, "Be careful, my mom is smashing flies." That made me laugh out loud!

... choir practice.

I am really enjoying singing with the choir again, probably because I don't have to be the director. Our new director is really a musically talented guy - it's like getting a voice lesson every week. Especially when I'm the only soprano at practice!

It's costing me my lovely Sunday dinners though... so we will see how long it lasts.

... daddy daughter time.

I love that Ryan shares his passion for fishing with Rachael. He has more patience with her when they are fishing than anything else, I think. She totally soaked his pants by splashing in the water - he didn't even complain, just zipped off the legs when he got home. And they caught three fish on the pontoon!

... we've seen the moonbow.

A moonbow is a rainbow created at night by the light of a full moon and a clear sky. Cumberland Falls is one of only a few places in the world where a moonbow can be seen regularly. Last night was a perfect night: nearly a full moon, mostly clear skies, mild temperatures. And Rachael had a nap during the day.

So we impulsively loaded up the car and drove down to Cumberland Falls, about an hour and a half from here. We got some really neat pictures of the falls at night, but the exposures were unreal. In three hours Ryan and I each only took 12 pictures. Shutter speeds varied from 5 minutes to 12 minutes. Yes, minutes!

I was surprised at how well you could see everything at night , especially after my eyes adjusted to the dark. Of course with a 10 minute exposure time, the picture looks much lighter than it really was.
Rachael was a real trooper! We played with our other cameras while the DLSRs were working. We chased each other around. We had M&M's. At about 10 pm she curled up in her stroller under a blanket and went to sleep. Blissful!
This is what the moonbow looks like after a five minute exposure (F 8.0 ISO 400). But of course, this is not how it looks to the naked eye. At night the moonbow appears as a white arch of light, and the entire scene looks rather black-and-white because it is night and everything is lit by the full moon. I used Photoshop on a similar picture to try and approximate what we actually saw with our eyes.
All in all it was a fun adventure!

... work work work.

Today I ran the dishwasher (twice), a load of laundry, cleaned out the refrigerator, cleaned the kitchen, went for a walk, and canned peaches, cherries, and tomatoes. Whew!

Nothing like a hard day's work to end the day feeling right. Or just tired.

... and a compliment.

Out of nowhere today Rachael said, "Mommy, you're gorgeous."

I have no idea where she learned that one but it was very much appreciated!

... Oxi Clean.

Yesterday Rachael and I made chocolate cookies. I let her lick the beater afterward, but I forgot to either put an apron on or at least take her shirt off. Of course, after two minutes the entire front of her shirt was covered in chocolate. (At least she's thorough!)

I sprayed the whole thing with OxiClean and washed it, and it's like the chocolate was never there. Amazing! It's such great stuff - it works on anything food, grass, dirt, or other organic stains. I realize I sound like a commercial here but I really like it!

... our little shutterbug.

Tonight we went to Lake Reba again. Rachael did some fishing, but then she decided it would be fun to take some pictures with my camera. There are lots of pictures of the grass, the water, the grass again, various angles of Mom, the lens cap, the clouds, and so on.
But there were a few good ones (click to enlarge any picture):Our picnic dinner (the blue blanket)

Say cheese Mom

Rachael's toes

Mom's toes

My personal favorite: an abstract shot of the lake and trees. The line running through the picture is my fly line. I have no idea what she was trying to capture, but it's kind of a neat picture.

... 100 books.

I found this on another blog and thought it was interesting. I'm not really sure who put the list together (the complete works of Shakespeare is #14, but then Hamlet is #98, so who knows. And what's up with the Bible at #6?) It's a fairly decent list of books, though. Here's how this goes:

The National Endowment for the arts estimates that the average adult has read only 6 of the top 100 books.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. (I had to make them purple, too, because the bold didn't show very well).

2) Italicize those you intend to read. (I did the ones I intend to read in the near future.)

3) [Bracket] those you have viewed as a movie or on TV

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (my favorite Austen)
[2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien]
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (how is it I've never read this?)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (quite a bit, but who has read all of Shakespeare?)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (great mystery)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (but I don't get why people like it)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (I don't recommend it though)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
[29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll]
[30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame]
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
[34 Emma - Jane Austen]
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (just started this one!)
[38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres]
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
[40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne]
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
[42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown] (OK this is good, but not really a top 100 book)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins (another great mystery)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (loved loved loved)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
[49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding]
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
[52 Dune - Frank Herbert]
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (funny!)
[54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen]
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens]
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (probably will not read this)
[61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck]
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (this is good but really intense)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
[68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding]
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
[73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett] (a personal favorite)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
[79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray]
80 Possession - AS Byatt
[81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens]
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
[83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker] (good, but again intense)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
[88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom]
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
[94 Watership Down - Richard Adams]
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
[97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas]
[98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare]
[99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl]
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've read 43 of 100... not too shabby.

... cutie Kaelyn.

Today is Kaelyn Scout's first birthday. Happy Birthday cutie!

... and she's listening.

To preface this, Rachael calls hot chocolate a "piece a cocoa." It was one of those Rachaelisms that got started sometime last year and it's kind of cute so it manages to hang on. (Like "bingers" for fingers and "ham scream" for ice cream.) Also, we drink cocoa instead of having tea at our tea parties.

This morning I was getting Rachael dressed for church, and we chose a purple jumper with a white shirt to wear. Of course the white shirt goes on first, so as I was slipping it over her head, Rachael said, "What's this?"

I said, "It's your T-shirt."

She promptly replied, "We don't drink tea, mommy. This is my piece-a-cocoa shirt."

Smart girl!

... 10 things.

10 things I like about the Summer 2008 Olympics:

1. Rachael thinks she is a gymnast.
2. Rachael thinks she is a diver.
3. Rachael thinks she is a swimmer. (Which is pretty funny on the carpet.)
4. Rachael thinks she is a synchronized diver. (Surprisingly easy when the other half of your pair is imaginary.)
5. Rachael learned to do a somersault.
6. All of the above are really funny to watch!
7. Interesting new facilities that the Chinese built for the games - like the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube.
8. Seeing the worst air pollution I have ever seen - but not having to breathe it.
9. Opening ceremonies. How about that Olympic flame?!
10. Learning more about China, where Ryan will have traveled to 5 times by the time the year is over.

... and a bridal shower.

I hosted a bridal shower for Caitlin today. It was so fun to have her family and friends over! We played Tissue Paper Bride - Caitlin looks fabulous in her 80's style tissue dress. She's such a cute girl and so photogenic.

Having a party at my house was a great excuse to paint the walls and fix the furniture, too.

... the walls are finished!

Hooray! The painting is done. And I mean DONE - I have now painted every room in this house, plus all the trim, and all the doors. Even most of the closets. Whew!

The stripes turned out really great. It's a really subtle effect, though, so it doesn't photograph especially well. I'm really pleased with the results.

Rachael being a great helper. Well, she had a lot of fun anyway!

Miles of tape

Here's the end result. It's two sheens (eggshell and semi-gloss) of the same color, Light Raffia.

... Kira.

My niece Kira turns 8 today - on 8/8/08.

Happy Birthday Kira!

... girls' night.

My friend Nikki is moving to Utah soon, so we all went out last night and had one last girls night with her before she leaves. Nikki is so much fun to be around and she is almost always in a good mood. We're going to miss her so much!

(from left, back row: Virginia, Louan, me, Janis, Cathy, Lynn, Nikki, Jenny, Deb.
front row: Bobbie, Tamera, Ashly, Emily, Crystal and Eliza, Cari with Brooklyn, Tammy)

Nikki is in the back row, third from the right. Although we don't look that much alike, people confuse me for her rather frequently. I'll miss being able to laugh with her about that.

... my electrician.

Ryan replaced the last two outlets in the living room for me today, and the light switch in the dining room. This means almost every outlet and switch has been replaced in the entire house! He has also replaced almost all the light fixtures (including one ceiling fan twice); the only one left is the chandelier in the dining room. On top of that, he has replaced all the doorknobs and done several plumbing "adjustments," not to mention the new sink and disposal he installed last year.

It is so fantastic to be married to my own handyman!

... a painting project.

I'm finally getting around to painting the living room. It's the last room left in the house to paint! I am doing wide stripes (10 inches) in the same color but one in eggshell and one in semi-gloss. It's a very subtle effect and I'm really excited to try it.

It's been awhile since I worked on a painting project... I forgot how much fun it is!

... a double.

For anyone that doesn't know fishing lingo, a double is when two of you are fishing and you both catch a fish at the same time. I'd like to say the larger one is mine, but alas, that big large mouth bass is Ryan's. The cute little crappie is mine.
Maybe in a few years we'll catch a triple!

... my mother-in-law.

I have to admit, I really lucked out in the mother-in-law department. She and I get along really well! When I listen to other friends and some of the problems they have with their husband's mothers, I just can't relate.

Rachael is their only granddaughter (but they have 6 grandsons!). When they found out Rachael was a girl - about three months before she was born - Merrilee brought me the biggest gift bag I have ever seen, brimming with all things pink. It was so wonderful!

Happy Birthday Merrilee!

... canning.

We canned some beans from our garden a couple of weeks ago. Then I got some blackberries to make jam, and then I decided I may as well do some peaches, too. (Georgia peaches at the grocery store for 88 cents a pound - can't beat that!) I'm sure I will be grateful for all of this in about six months when we are eating garden beans and Georgia peaches!

... crocs.

I practically spend the summer in my Crocs flip flops. They are so comfortable to wear, and they have great instep support. I even wear them around the house because I have found that wearing shoes all day helps with my plantar fasciitis.