Boredom

Last week, I watched a BBC miniseries of Emma—it's one that came out in 2009. Really enjoyed the whole thing, very well done. But as I watched it, I was struck (and this isn't a new thought, but it just occurred to me again) by how very boring the lives of most people in Jane Austen-esque books seem. So much talking and reading and gossiping and taking walks. And, "Let's plan a walking party and we'll pick strawberries!" And more talking and eating and playing the piano. It always seems like the people of the higher classes never did much of anything.

As I watched Emma, I realized that I haven't been truly bored in years. Years. Sure, there's downtime during the day, usually after the kids are in bed. I can read a bit or watch a taped show. And sometimes, I can even read a lot or watch an entire movie or maybe even take a nap on a Saturday afternoon. But I can't remember the last time I thought to myself, "Man, I am bored." And you know what? That's ok. As much as I wish for more relaxation in my life, I'm glad that I have things and people and activities to fill it.

Partners in crime

One of the most interesting (and also annoying and exasperating) things about having twins is how they follow each other into trouble. One twin decides to pull a book off the bookshelf. The other one follows suit and very quickly, there is a pile of books on the floor. One twin (the taller one) decides to open a closed door. Almost instantaneously, his sister is right behind him, ready to go into Mom's office and climb up onto her chair, bang on her keyboard, and probably write all over her desk with pens and pencils. My most recent least favorite occurrence of this was when they both got into my bathroom. I walked into the room to find that they had ripped into a box of *ahem* feminine hygiene products. Of course, as I walked in, they both dropped what they were doing and scattered. "Nope. Not doing anything wrong here, Mom!"

I didn't plan for this photo to look like they were in jail. I actually was just trying to get a photo of them together looking somewhat normal. Ha!

Will Ferrell

I'm a fan of Will Ferrell. Well, a sometimes fan, I would say. Elf—good. His political satire—no good. Some of his Saturday Night Live work—good. Bewitched—good. Sadly, most of his film work—no good. His appearance on the TV show Man vs. Wild—good. Stranger than Fiction—very good.

Whenever I mention that I love the movie Stranger than Fiction and people find out Will Ferrell is in it, they inevitably express their distaste for him. But really, it's not a "Will Ferrell movie." It's actually more of a drama than a comedy. It's unconventional, sweet, quirky, funny, and really well-written. I watched it last week and remembered again why I like it so much.

I highly recommend you give it a try.

Hypochondria

I really believe in the notion that children are blessed/cursed with similar traits as their parents so the parents can figure out a way to help them. I was a bit of a hypochondriac when I was a child. I've largely grown out of it, but now I get to relive all the fun with S. It has become so hard to know which of her ailments are real, which are imagined, which are pressing enough to do something about, and what any of it means anyway.

Sometimes S gets headaches. She also sometimes says her eyes hurt. So, after talking with my older and wiser sister, I figured out S probably needed glasses. I took her to the eye doctor over the weekend, thinking that finally we would get this child glasses and she would stop having headaches. Nope. Perfect vision in both eyes, both near and far. The doctor did every imaginable test and said she's just fine.

She's also started saying that her eyes itch. So, then I thought, maybe it's allergies, because sometimes that causes headaches, right? Although, her eyes never look red. And when I had allergies to pollen growing up, my eyes always looked red and swollen because they were so itchy.

I think the eye itching thing is real. The headaches definitely seem real. But then she made a speech like this one last night right before bed and I start to wonder how much of this I can actually fix...

S: Mom, my legs hurt. And my eye itches. And my arm feels funny. What's that blue thing on my arm??!

Me: It's a vein.

S: Oh! That's weird.

I'm really being punished for my childhood on this one.

Thanks for the memories

Last night, I walked through our old house for the last time. We closed on the sale a few days ago, and very soon, someone else will move in.

When we moved into the house, we were a family of four and H wasn't even a year old yet. When we left, we were a family of seven, with one-year old twins. How much changed in such a seemingly short amount of time! We're so thrilled with our new house, but I'm grateful that we were able to live in a great house, great neighborhood, and great ward for 5 1/2 years. Thanks for the memories...

Nice

It's nice that I finally figured out the reason my toddler son was refusing to eat all of his favorite foods—he wanted to eat like a grownup. Give that kid a bowl and a utensil and he's thrilled.

It's nice that I had a fairly decent four days alone with the children while my husband was away at a bike race. Usually, these weekends are somewhat hellish, but I actually kept my cool until around Saturday evening. I was pleased with myself.

It's nice that S learned a great lesson about honesty that she could share with us at FHE. Last week, she came home from school with her graded spelling test. Her grade was 19/20, but as I looked at the test, I realized S had actually misspelled two more words, making her score 17/20. We had a good talk about honesty—that even though it wasn't her fault that her teacher hadn't scored it correctly, the honest thing to do would be to go to her teacher on Monday with the test. She was nervous at first, but she did it. And her teacher was so impressed with her honesty that she let the grade stay at 19/20.

It's nice that we spent a relaxing Sunday evening with my family, my sister and her family, and my grandma. A small group, but really nice.

It's nice that after four days of back and forth, H's low-grade fever is finally gone. And he's finally back to himself.

It's nice that I will have an evening out tomorrow night with girls from college. Ahh, I'm looking forward to it.

Not all things in life can be nice, but these things are.

S on skis

Last Saturday was S's turn to go skiing with Dad. Both A and I were pretty nervous, since S (like her mother) is not generally very adventurous. I pictured a day of whining and moaning and possibly crying. Nothing could have been further from the truth. They both had a blast!

My husband put together a great little video of our girl's first day on the slopes. I highly recommend you head over to his blog to check it out.

http://epicriding.com/2010/03/first-turns-video.html.


Enjoy!

Grizzly husband

My husband has a beard. While this is not my favorite feature, I have come to recognize that he loves having it—and that's enough for me. (Plus, as I finally realized, it's his face. It's not like he tells me what kind of makeup to wear or how short or long my hair should be.)

My husband has discovered that when you have a beard—at least where we live—people feel that they simply must comment on it... whether it's a General Authority's wife telling him that she loved it, or our server last Friday at Chili's saying, "Hey, I get to serve the guy with the beard!" While my husband mostly laughs it off, he did wonder out loud why people seem to feel it necessary to make reference to his beard. I doubt that our server would have said, "Hey, I get to serve four fat people tonight!" Or, "Hey, look, it's a tall skinny guy with his much shorter wife!"

Luckily for my husband, most of the time people react very positively to the beard. I had several women in my old neighborhood tell me how much they loved it. Which only served to inflate his ego, but that's ok. :)

In case you were wondering, he picked this photo.