the hunger games

this was a young adult book that doesn't seem like the type of book that i would usually read but i really liked it. it was suspenseful and one of those books that i can only read so often because it usually results in some form of neglect towards madeleine. it was an interesting premise though (i don't want to give away too much) and i am excited for the sequel to come out in september.

because i realize why you really come to the blog

it's been a little while...

i constantly find madeleine around the house, reading.





madeleine's hair was having a party but she wasn't very happy about me taking pictures of it.

coupons

63 cents for triscuits and wheat thins?
88 cents for v8 fusion juice?
free mayonaise and bbq sauce?

admission. i used to scoff at couponing a little bit. it wasn't worth my time or effort. i used to think that about a lot of things, in fact. but seriously, looking through the newspaper for coupons and then searching out the stores with corresponding sales and then going to five different stores for groceries? ridiculous.

but lately, i'm coming to realize that i've got more time and less money. so, i decided to give this coupon thing a try. eventually, i will probably try to get my budget down, but for now, i'm just trying to fit comfortably within the budget that i have and hopefully create some space for the things that randy and i like but don't get very often, like nice breads and cheeses.

fortunately, there are lots of blogs out there now that do the work for you. they tell you exactly what stores to use which coupons at and give lots of links to online printable coupons, etc. it's a little overwhelming at first, and i'm trying to be reasonable about the whole thing, but did i take a long time unloading the groceries today because i was telling randy about the deals i got on items as i took them out of the bags? yes. did he roll his eyes? probably. but not when i was looking.

the old man and the sea

i just finished "the old man and the sea," by hemingway. i like his writing a lot and thought this was a great short story. it only took me two days to get through. i was a little bothered by the edition that i read (not the one pictured), which gave away the whole story in the foreword. it kind of ruined the whole suspense aspect of the book.

forgetting the words

randy has a terrible time remembering words to songs, nursery rhymes, etc. so, the other day, when i overheard randy doing "this little piggy," with madeleine and this egalitarian version came out:

this little piggy went to market
this little piggy also got to go
this little piggy had roast beef
this little piggy had some too
and this little piggy went “wee, wee, wee,” all the way home

i just chalked it up to his inability to recall lyrics and some creativity.

but tonight, randy was reading "the wheels on the school bus to madeleine," with the words printed right on the page in front of him and the words coming out of his mouth were not those on the page. a couple of my favorites:

the librarian on the bus says too many syllables, too many syllables, too many syllables...

the coach on the bus say "you're a jock! you're a jock! you're a jock!" the coach on the bus says "who needs school?" all the way to school.

so apparently it's just creativity run amok.

note by note

randy and i watched this last night and loved it. it's a documentary about the making of a steinway piano. they followed one piano (a nine foot concert grand - L1037) from cutting down the wood in the forest to rolling it out onto the showroom floor.

it was fascinating to watch. i've already been heavily indoctrinated by randy that steinways are the best pianos out there, but we were both even more convinced of the fact after watching this documentary. almost the entire process is done with hand tools. the technicians that make each part have been trained extensively and each part is carefully inspected throughout the process. i loved all the shots of the factory. it feels like you've been transported back one hundred years, with hand tools like planes and chisels hanging all over the place.

i think that my favorite part about the whole movie was seeing the men and women who make steinways. i had imagined a bunch of musicians working at the steinway factory, but really, it is a bunch of burly craftsmen from the bronx and queens, most of who have been working there for years. they have a lot of immigrants with thick eastern bloc accents. one guy was hand planing part of the piano and said that he had brought the plane with him from (insert name of eastern bloc country that i can't remember here) in 1969. awesome. these guys were true artisans.

last night i dreamt about randy and i going to the steinway basement in new york and picking out a nine foot concert grand. some day.

you know you're serious about your child's music education when...

you change the words in a children's book to comply with correct principles of solfege.

background: to give madeleine a head start on her music education, we have been working on teaching her perfect pitch and solfege. yes, that's right, our children are going to be randy's musical experiments.

so... madeleine has a book called, "the wheels on the school bus," (more details on this book later...) and on one of the pages it says "the music teacher on the bus says ... do re mi, all the way to school." the other day, my sister beth was over and i was reading/singing the book to madeleine when i came to this part. as soon as i sang, "do re mi," beth commented that the solfege syllables didn't match up with the melody (okay, so i didn't notice myself... so i may be the weak part of madeleine's music education... so what?). we figured out the right syllables and i've been singing it like that to her instead.* yeah, i know, we're music nazis.

while we're talking about this book anyway, i will take the opportunity to comment on it. not only is it a little different from the song i grew up with (singing "all the way to school" instead of "all around the town" has taken some getting used to), this book has some crazy characters climbing on the bus. we've got the kids, teachers, librarian, coach, nurse, lunch ladies, music teacher, art teacher, custodian, and...

SPOILER ALERT!

in the end you find out that the principal was on the bus the whole time! the last page says:

the driver on the bus says "everybody off! everybody off! everybody off!" the driver on the bus says "here we are! welcome to my school!"

and in the picture, he's switched his hat that says "driver," for one that says "principal."

tricky.

*beth - i told randy about it and how we sing it now and he decided that he wants to go with a moveable do, so we're actually singing sol mi do to her instead of do la fa.

my neighborhood

well, my neighbor has moved out, so i don't have neighbor stories to tell (although only slightly less colorful characters have moved in). fortunately, the neighborhood continues to provide fodder for story telling.

about ten minutes ago, madeleine was begging to go outside, so i put on her shoes and madeleine, rachel (who i was watching), and i went outside. just as i got out the door, i heard screaming (sadly, this happens about once a week in our neighborhood), so i ran out to the sidewalk to see if i could see anything. have to be a good witness if needed, you know (this is what a year in the court system will do to you). i didn't see anything though, so we went back to playing in the front yard.

about a minute later, i looked down the sidewalk and a man was walking toward us and all of a sudden two cop cars speed down the street and pull in right next to him (strategically, as they would no doubt have learned to do at p.o.s.t.), about forty feet away. at this point, my motherly protective instincts overrode my legal instincts to be a good witness and i hauled madeleine and rachel inside. madeleine seemed confused and was not very happy. afterall, we had just barely gone outside.

of course, i still watched the whole thing go down from my front window. after some questioning and waiting for some radio communication (which i couldn't hear, sadly), the subject was finally terry frisked (p.o.s.t./law terminology, it's cool) and taken into custody.

life returns to normal on 100 south in provo.

west with the night

one of randy's students gave us this book and i finally got around to reading it. i really enjoyed it. it is an autobiography about the first woman (or man) to do a solo flight across the atlantic from east to west. her writing was beautiful, poetic, and so descriptive that it made me feel like i had grown up in africa and been flying an airplane all my life. she led a remarkable life and relayed her life experiences in a great autobiography.

my two loves

shattered (casserole) dreams

ever wondered what two pyrex 9x13 pans look like when they've shattered into a million little pieces? wonder no more.

it happened while i was making zucchini bread, and madeleine was in the kitchen with me, helping. to keep her from walking all over the glass, i threw her in the highchair and gave her a spatula covered in batter.

she didn't seem to mind the distraction at all.

let's just say that the oven was thoroughly preheated by the time i got it cleaned up and finished with the zucchini bread.

fun with cousins

i love my nieces and nephews!

mother's day

happy mother's day! i had a wonderful day, thanks to randy. he let me sleep in until 9:00, which made the rest of the day so much better. he wrote me a beautiful letter that made my day even more than the extra sleep, and he generally pampered me throughout the day.

madeleine obviously doesn't really get the concept of mother's day yet, but you would think that she did with how well behaved she was throughout the whole day, including being exceptionally docile during church. i also indulged myself by having her serenade me this morning. i played some of the primary songs about mothers and she stood by the piano and sang along (no, it's not exactly the melody, but it is still adorable).

it's nothing i haven't already said on this blog before, but i love my mothers. i love jeanie because she treats me like her own daughter and loves me for who i am, but most of all because she raised randy to be an amazing man. i love my own mother for her selflessness, her humor, and how i feel when i'm with her. the longer that i am a mother, the more i appreciate her.

i love being a mother. can you tell that my world revolves around madeleine? who would have known that i could feel this much love? motherhood is an indescribable role and emotion. sobering at times, but oh so rewarding.

pioneer park

we have a park just a couple blocks away from us that madeleine and i go to almost every day.

lately madeleine has decided that she wants to push the stroller. she winds her drunken path for about a block before she gives up and i put her in the stroller.

she is finally getting the whole play structure concept and runs the same course over and over.

i usually get tired first and have to drag her home, but it's a great hour (at least) of play and exercise in the sunshine for both of us.

charade

randy and i watched "charade" this weekend. i thought that i hadn't seen it, but as the movie went on, certain scenes seemed vaguely familiar. fortunately, i didn't remember much and was able to enjoy the mystery and plot twists of the movie. fantastic movie. made me want to own audrey hepburn's wardrobe (all of her movies do, of course). highly recommend it.

all the world's a stage

technically, i am the ward music chorister. i functioned in this capacity for the first couple months that i was called, during the time when madeleine was still young enough to stay in her carseat while i conducted and randy played the organ. but, as madeleine got bigger, this no longer worked, and we've been having substitute choristers for over a year now.

today, i finally decided that i would try doing it myself again. latey, madeleine has been pretty good about sitting on the pew quietly during sacrament meeting, so i thought that she would be able to do so while i stood right next to her and led the music. little did i know...

you see, madeleine loves the attention that she gets at church. she is one of about ten children in the ward, and one of the only girls. she is also the most flirtacious of them all. so, i shouldn't have been surprised that madeleine would take the opportunity to flirt with the entire ward while sitting up on the stand.

she actually sat and quietly read her book during the opening hymn, but by the sacrament hymn, she had discovered her audience. as soon as i stood up and the song started, she stood up on the pew behind me and started singing and smiling in her coy, flirty, and hammish way. it was not the most reverent hymn that has ever been sung. half of the congregation was chuckling under their breath at madeleine's antics. at one point, i put the hymbook down and, while still trying to conduct, also tried to get her to sit down. ha! so, the rest of the time was just spent trying to keep her from falling off the pew. i was slightly mortified, but was trying to keep myself from bursting into laughter at the same time (i was at least able to see the humor in it). it was hard not to laugh when i was looking out at the congregation and seeing their reactions. the hymn finally ended and we took our seats down with the congregation.

we had a friend conduct the closing hymn while i remained seated in the congregation with madeleine.

tutus? you ask...

okay, so for anyone who knows me, it is no surprise that i am no princess. i hardly brushed my hair for my own wedding, for goodness sake. so no, i'm not really into frilly things.

but... i'm selling tutus. i know, it's antithetical to my nature and probably encouraging certain behaviors that i may be opposed to at times. am i a sellout? perhaps. nevertheless, i was trying to think of a way that i could make a little extra money to help with income and came across the idea of making tutus. they are really popular in utah right now and a safe craft for me to engage in. they are not an exact science and are supposed to look a little irregular around the bottom, so it works well for me.

i am selling them at the provo farmers market. i was going to try to start a website as well, but i think i'm putting that on hold and keeping it simple. the thing is, i thought that the farmers market didn't start until june, so i thought that i had plenty of time to make tutus and build up my supply. but on wednesday, i found out that they are doing a preseason farmers market in may this year and the first market was this saturday. thus, i have been up to my elbows in tullle and ribbon making tutus and trying to nurse my child back to health this week and haven't had time for much else.

to make matters worse, after all of my scrambling this week, i woke up on saturday morning to find that it was pouring rain. not only did this mean that pretty much nobody would be at the farmers market, but even if i wanted to go and try my luck, i didn't have a canopy to cover the tutus (or me!). so, feeling a little dejected, i headed over to pioneer park to pay my registration fee for the summer and at least get a spot reserved for the rest of the season. when i got there, i found out that they had a few extra canopies, so i took one and set up, despite my fears that no customers would show up.

admittedly, attendance was low, especially because they have never had a preason before, but the rain did let up for a while and there were a few brave souls out there. i ended up selling three tutus, which i was actually happy with for such a lousy day. my booth was next to the balloon lady, so we chatted a lot and i got a small feel for what the market will be like. hopefully this ends up being worth my time, but regardless, it's been an adventure so far.

and even though i'm not the tutu type, i have to admit that seeing a bunch of tutus hanging together with lots of different colors is pretty. as randy said, "well, you probably couldn't have picked a more visually appealing product to sell."

we'll see...

back to school

i've been a little slow to post on this because last week was a bit of madness with madeleine being sick and tutus (more to come on that...) consuming my time.

i am taking a class this term. yes, i realize that i have graduated (twice) and for most people, that would be enough, but for various (insurance) reasons, it makes sense for me to take a class this term. nothing big, just a one credit religion class.

i am an education junkie. i love school. when my professor emailed us last week with the reading assignment for the first day of class, i was giddy. i haven't taken a class in two years, and had forgotten the feeling of excitement that i get at the beginning of each semester.

on wednesday, i headed to campus and had a nervous adrenaline rush as i walked up the ramp on the south end of campus. i went into class and sat in the back and waited to see what the professor would be like. he was pretty laid back and i have to admit that this class is going to be a breeze compared to my law school experience. but, it will be fun, and i can already tell that i will learn new things, so i'm happy about that. plus, i don't need a difficult academic class on my plate as well right now. the class is supposed to be 2 hours every wednesday night, but he ended after an hour and fifteen minutes and said that that would be standard for the rest of the term.

should i admit that i was a little disappointed? nerd alert!