Yup, Another Video

Aly's first choir concert of this school year. She is in the front row, third from the end on the left.



I recorded two of her songs and if you're interested you can see the second one here.

(Sorry the quality isn't great. I used my digital point and shoot camera to record this because I've been having problems with my digital video camera. This is the best I could get.)

A Moment to Reflect

I found this on Annie's blog. I don't know how many of my readers check out her blog (although I know a few do), so I thought I'd post it here. I think the message is important and it is powerful. We have less than a week left until Nov. 4. I'm not telling you who to vote for and I'm not saying who I'm voting for. That's personal. What's important is that I/you/we vote our conscience.

Witchie Poo

Calvin and I don't have a "song" like most couples. We have a "movie." (That's a long story that I won't delve into tonight.) Our movie is Princess Bride and we've seen it so many times that we can quote a lot of it. One of my favorite-est lines in the movie (and any other movie) is when the

witch, Valerie, is chasing Miracle Max around their cabin AND yelling at him.

In many conversations with Calvin, I have said this to him (always jokingly of course):

"Hey Calvin! I'm not a witch!! I'M YOUR WIFE!!"

(To hear Valerie say it click here and fast forward to 3:09 on the clock. You'll love it!)

In the spirit of Calvin (Miracle Max) feeling better and to celebrate witches and Halloween I give you these funnies:

Random Pictures

This is my "I'm-riding-for-14-hours-straight-in-a-car-and-I-need-something-to-do" project.

A grandma of a girl that is in Adam's dance class taught me this pattern and I did almost the whole blanket on the drive to and from California this month. I had intended to make it into a lap-size blanket for Aly for Christmas, but I ran out of the pink and couldn't buy any more, so I finished off the edges and sent it (today) to an orphanage in Ecuador. I'm hoping a sweet little baby will enjoy the softness and warmth and will gain some comfort from it.

Last week Adam and I thought we'd make some Carmel Apples. He thought it would be fun to help make the carmel. I let him stir until the mixture came to boiling temperatures and then I took over (for obvious reasons.) Pay no attention to the mess in the laundry room. (Thorkgal, can you see your witches hat back there? Hint hint!!)

This is how the apples looked. We rolled them in mini M-n-M's and chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Wow! They look tasy, don't they?

Nope! They were hard as rocks, probably harder. I think my candy thermometer was a little off. I've never had carmel turn out like that before. We had to throw the whole batch away. I'm trying to find time to make more... (But I still haven't made Halloween sugar cookies and we still haven't bought pumpkins, let alone carved them!! AUGH!! Can someone throw two extra days into this week?)

This weekend I had some help cutting Calvin's hair. Thank heavens Calvin has a hair-do that's hard to mess up.

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UPDATE: Calvin is feeling slightly better today. No barfing, so Adam's signs must have worked. We can't get into the Ear Nose Throat doctor until Monday, so we went to an internal medicine doctor. He's a great guy, we love him, but he wasn't much help. He said Calvin doesn't have an inner ear infection. He gave Calvin some print-outs of exercises to do that should help bring his equalibrium back into wack. So far there hasn't been any big "WOW" moment that says he's getting better. It will have to come in small steps I think. However, taking massive amounts of time off when you're self-employed isn't easy. It's driving him crazy that he can't sit up and work for longer than 5 or 10 minutes at a time.

4:4:4

I found this meme on April's blog and thought I'd play along.


The rules are:


1. Go to your pictures.
2. Upload 4th picture from 4th folder.
3. Post.
4. Tag 4 friends.


For me (and probably most of you as well) this folder is quite old. I got my first digital camera for Christmas 2004, which is about the time this picture was taken. (Jan 1, 2005) Adam was two years old.



I can tag four of my friends, but I'd rather just say,

TAG, YOU'RE IT!!
(If you've read it, you're tagged!)

Greetings

Hi Devani!!
Thanks for coming and leaving me a comment. I LOVE THAT!!!

It was fun getting reaquainted with you the other night. You should come join our combined choir and we can see each other every week!! (Or are you already in choir? There are a ton of people there and I don't know most that are in your ward.)

Let me know when you start your own blog.

Mish Mash & Hodge Podge

So lots of little things happening right now. There's really nothing that can be its own blog posting, but there are enough smaller things that if compiled together can make one random messy post.

Probably the most important in our life today is the fact that Calvin is having some serious, and I mean SERIOUS inner ear issues (say that 5 times fast...)
inner ear issues
inner ear issues
inner ear issues
(heck! try typing it 5 times fast...)

He woke me up early this morning (5:45) vomiting. That, in and of itself is amazing. We've been married for pert near 21 years and I think that he has only vomited maybe 3 times out of sickness that entire time. He emptied his stomach every 15 minutes until about 7:30. It turns out that, for him, the room was spinning. He was motion sick and nauseous from that. Yes, it sounds like vertigo, doesn't it?

Vertigo Overview
Vertigo is the feeling that you or your environment is moving when no movement occurs. Imprecisely called dizziness, the term vertigo is the specific term used to describe an illusion of movement. Unlike nonspecific lightheadedness or dizziness, vertigo has relatively few causes.

Poor Calvin, can't move without throwing up. Seriously. Something as simple as rolling over makes him nauseous and he throws up. Our neighbor suffered with this same condition a couple months ago,(and continues to get episodes) so we called to get advice. He offered to come over and show us the funky treatment that cured him. It was a real chore to get Calvin downstairs from our bedroom to the living room. He was completely off balance by the time he got to the bottom of the stairs and I had to grab him and keep him from falling over. By the time he sat down on the couch, I had to have a bag ready because he had gotten so sick from the movement that he began vomiting again.

Ron was very helpful and it was nice for Calvin to have someone that has suffered in the same way to talk to. I have sympathy for him, but Ron understands how terrible this condition is. It was also very nice that Ron's son is a fairly new elder and together they gave Calvin a healing blessing.

We got Calvin upstairs, Ron brought over some anti-nausea and motion sickness medicine and I think Calvin is ready for the night. Tomorrow we'll take him to the Ear, Nose, Throat doc and get the official diagnosis.

Pray for him, will ya?

Funny thing: Adam is tired of the vomit drama. I always shoo Adam away when Calvin begins to throw up and I think Adam is beginning to feel disgruntled about it. He made a sign while Ron & Jill were over and it made us all laugh. (I took a picture of it, but you can't read it.) It says,
"Stop Borrfeeng."
(He's 6. He spell phonetically.)
The sign is hanging up in our bedroom.

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Life hasn't been all dry heaves and belching. Saturday was WONDERFUL!!! Calvin and I left the children at home and we drove 30 minutes to the shopping mecca of our area and started Christmas shopping! Yippee!! I am so thrilled to have a large chunk of Christmas bought, paid for and, yes, I will admit it...

WRAPPED!!!

But the best part was that it was just the two of us. My love language is "Quality Time" and Calvin knows this. He's always so good to put aside the papers he's grading (he's a faculty member at University of Phoenix online) and spend time with me. We had a blast.

***********************************

I got to teach the Young Women lesson on Sunday. We're on lesson #40 which is titled, "Loving Ourselves and Others." I was excited to make a handout with this poem on it:

You
Today you are you, that is truer than true.
There is one one alive that is youer than you.
Shout aloud,
I am what I am!
Thank goodness I am not a clam or a ham
Or a dusty ole' jar of gooseberry jam.
I am what I am,
What a great thing to be.
If I say so myself,
Happy everyday to me.
--Dr. Seuss

Don't you think everyone should have this poem memorized?

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A funny/embarrassing thing happened to me Friday night. It was the Halloween Carnival at Adam's school. I signed up to sell the tickets for the activities. While I was sitting there, a guy walked up to me and started talking to me like I knew him.

I didn't.

I mentioned that fact, "Dude, I don't know you!"

And he said, "Oh yes you do. We are intimately acquainted.... "

(a slight pause as I looked at him, my face red, my eyes wide....)

"Well, you're intimately acquainted with my teeth anyway," he continued.

I just laughed then. He thought I was the hygienist that worked in his dentist's office. He laughed too when I told him that he had me confused with someone else.

I was glad Calvin wasn't there, though. That could have been awkward.