20 February 2010

time since...21 months

Darren's Hobble Creek Restoration: new life

I measure time by the day it happened. I say to myself, she has three months left. Did I smile with her that time? Did she run her fingers through my hair? Did she look at my children with that awe that was hers alone? Was I angry that day? I get stuck. I wrap my heart gently in brightly colored cloth. Protection. A happy outside image. Some days I let the rawness peak out from that gentle cover. Emotion. I feel you. It is tender. I ponder what the dialogue is for dad. Wrap it up tight. How could it possibly happen? Accident. It is a slicing word. Go back. How are you physically present one moment and then gone? Where did you go? I still hear your voice. You are so close. Stay. While I figure it out one more time, and then another, and yet another.

10 February 2010

everyday blah blah blog

My friend's beautiful daughter is theirs!!! She always has been, but the adoption is signed sealed and official. It has been nearly four years of agonizing court cases and character assassinations and... ahhh forget it. It's OVER. What an emotional few hours in the court room. The right thing finally happened. We all had faith that it would, however wavering at times.
I love you guys!


See this movie {above} if you have young adult men in your house and you can never agree on a movie to watch together. Doesn't sound like it would be interesting but it is very clever and it keeps their attention: a sort of afterlife tale much like the one below but DO NOT see this movie.
It is actually the closest I have come to vomiting during a movie. I have read Alice Sebold's Lucky and related to her story, but this movie version of her words was tiresome and sickening. It really made me hate her for writing it. Strong words, but it provoked strong emotions.

Yes, the Saints won the Super Bowl! Oh YES THEY DID! I love New Orleans... Bourbon Street and all. {Jazz at Maison Bourbon is the best} To quote my favorite New Orleans native, Harry Connick Jr. "It will be the best thing she ever saw, take her to the Mardi Gras."

...but did anyone else notice a repulsive theme to several of the Super Bowl commercials... such as whiny weak men in their underwear. Who wears underwear like that? I actually was missing the male chauvenist stereotype stereotypically objectifying women. Can you believe I just said that. The scene captured at the end with Drew Brees and his tiny son made up for it. That was a real man, father, son moment.

Land posted this on his facebook and it makes me laugh.

I miss when they {Land, Colton, Logan at 12} would sing the Andy Milonakis theme song at skate comps. Yeah, I'm shallow most of the time, but deep when I need to be.

And of course I must put the clip of the "winning team, losing team" chant at the Aggie game last Saturday when they played Nevada. Season tickets this year are the best deal in town. It's awesome at the Spectrum!



And another thing, it's almost Valentine's so I must post Bill the super Aggie fan posing as cupid, causing missed foul shots. I tell you - the student's at USU are brutal. It is a trip.



And have a good one!

05 February 2010

super size

This guy had a birthday and I tried the freezer paper stencils to create him a personalized shirt. That is Darth Vader in the star. It's so obvious.

03 February 2010

well read wed.

Sometime last spring I noticed a book tagging around with Land. At school, at night, in the car. It was Everything is Illuminated. I liked the title. I liked the bright colored cover. I did not think I would want to read it. I assumed it was in the same genre as Hairstyles of the Damned and the Electric Koolaid Acid Test [other books that have kept Land company - and don't get me wrong I like a good Tom Wolfe novel, just not that one]. We were at parent-teacher conference soon after and Land's English teacher asked if he was reading Everything is Illuminated. I so proudly piped in, "Yes." Well the reply amounted to: WRONG answer: he's supposed to be reading, Lord of the Flies after just finishing Go Ask Alice. I was instantly deflated, and understood why depression lurks among sophomores. How can you survive a Cache Valley 'worst air in the nation' inversion when you're immersed in Lord of the Flies? Seriously, I still get sick to my stomach remembering the storyline. So now my interest in what Land was distracting himself with piqued. I noticed the movie version on the discount table and picked it up. We watched it together. Unbeleivably good. So I read the book. And then I picked up the author's [Jonathan Safran Foer] next book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Couldn't put it down. Close to finishing I was catching extra air in my breaths. Adreneline rush and anxiety about this inventive story coming to an end. So as the New Year began and I was putting together a resolution list I noticed that Mr. Foer had yet another book out, Eating Animals. Actually, I had picked it up long before, but had given it to my dad to read when he left his book on an airport shuttle. Like father, like daughter - I just left my latest book on the airplane coming home from Cayman.

Back to the book. Taken from the inside cover, "Eating Animals explores the many stories we use to justify our eating habits." Having a few food allergies [ie: dairy] I know I feel better when I eliminate animal products from my diet. But, oh have you ever tried to give up cheese, or bacon, or a really good steak. I kept hearing Antonio asking the vegetarians in Mexico while eating to die for carne asada, "Why do you deny yourselves the great pleasures in life?" To quote the text quoting Mark Twain, "quitting smoking is among the easiest things one can do; he did it all the time." That is how I have been in the past with a no-meat diet...'conscientious inconsistency.' Then I got further into the book. I was exposed to factory farming and slaughter house procedures: unimaginable. Land's host mom called me to ask about his diet and they said they did not eat pork because they felt pigs were intelligent creatures and they did not agree with how they are treated. I felt a bit ok that I knew a bit about what she was speaking of. I still struggled with the knowledge I had gained and if I was going to act on it. I underlined this sentence, "Whether we change our lives or do nothing, we have responded. To do nothing is to do something." And so I set a one month resolution, "Don't eat animals." And as of today I accomplished it. And I feel spectacular. I have cooked some good food that even the boys have loved... like mouth-watering, roll your eyes in the back of your head vegetarian faire. My skin is better. Weight is coming off. I think I'll renew this goal for month two of the year. Now this was my choice. I was influenced by a powerful storyteller who said, "...I'm not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what's right. I'm trying to convince them to live by their own."

Read Well:

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Eating Animals

all by Jonathan Safran Foer

I'll have to post some recipes. One other resolution I accomplished was to take my own bags to the grocery store. Easy. Plus Smith's Marketplace pays you 5 cents per personal bring-your-own bag.