Florida Christmas

No, we did not spend Christmas in Florida, because that would be crazy. Crazy meaning that the number of people vacationing in Orlando would be four times as many as were there when we went. We had won 2 free nights in a hotel there and had to use them before Dec. 31, 2009, so it seemed logical, albeit out of character for our "off the beaten path" family to go to Disney World on the week before Christmas.

Now, having "done" Disney World, I have to admit that Orlando

is a great vacation spot. Pricey, though we got really lucky. We ended up getting free passes to Disney World through a friend of a friend (thank you Mr. Eric!). And then we did one of those deals where you agree to listen to a protracted sales pitch in exchange for a gift, and in our case the gift was heavily discounted tickets to both "Gatorland" and "Sea World".

Both of our girls loved the big tortoise at Gatorland -- we got to touch it and walk next to it, and Adara even got to feed it a carrot!

And at Sea World we sat center stage on the 2nd row. We got wet, but the tears only lasted a minute, and wet clothes were exchanged for dry ones pretty quickly. What a memorable experience, seeing those whales only 20 feet from us, and looking into their eyes! Adara went nuts when she saw the trainers swimming with the whales and performing their stunts reminiscent of water skiing. She was ready to jump in with them. (Keep in mind she doesn't swim, and freaks out if her head goes under water at the swimming pool.)

So now it's Christmas. I've been thinking that this is supposed to be a religious holiday, but the most we were able to get into that aspect of Christmas with our girls is that today is Jesus' birthday, and that Jesus was the gift that God gave to the world.

Besides singing Christmas carols and hymns, and watching the "Nativity" clip from the Church, the only thing we've done "in the spirit of Christ" is to take plates of cookies to our neighbors.

It was actually an accident that it turned into a spiritual experience. After we delivered the third plate, Adara didn't want to stop. She must have felt something that made her excited and feel like giving away her treasured treats instead of keeping them all for herself. I obviously couldn't recreate that feeling with the hymns and stories/videos about Christmas.

So here's my question: how do you get that feeling into your Christmas celebration on purpose? What do you do at Christmastime that makes you excited and filled with desire to share your treasured treats with strangers?

darndest things

Jon, speaking to Adara: "You see, Mama and I are one."

Adara: "I'm two."

And in a completely unrelated vein, here's a link to a song that Jon and I heard on the radio as we were driving across Tennessee when we were moving to North Carolina. I'd love to have it play automatically whenever someone accesses my blog, but I don't know how to do that.

To play a sample of the song, click on "play sample" at the following page:

http://www.pandora.com/music/song/dailey+vincent/poor+boy+workin+blues

New Jersey

We recently went with Jon on a business trip to New Jersey. We were near Menlo Park, the place where Thomas Edison set up one of his factories. Inside the Edison museum, we saw this really cool way to make a phonograph using normal materials from your home. I can't wait to put one together myself.

The tower was closed for renovation. The museum was free to visit, with a suggested donation of $2 per person.

On our way back home, we stopped in Philadelphia to visit some old friends.

They showed us around town: the Liberty Bell, the home where Thomas

Jefferson lived while he worked on the Declaration of Independence,

and the park by the Museum of Art, where we actually saw a man running up the stairs like Rocky. We loved the parts of the city we saw. It was beautiful. Thanks to the Tolleys for showing us a great time.

Learning by Example

Today before dinner, Adara was playing downstairs. I asked her to go upstairs and turn off the light in her bedroom. Without missing a beat, she turned to her Papa and said, "Papa, go turn off the light in the bedroom."

Guess what this blog is about

Yup, that's right everyone. Once again, small town law enforcement has saved the day! This time it was Jon that got pulled over while he was out jogging one afternoon. His offense? Running on the wrong side of the street. Don't get me wrong - I'm grateful for the police looking out for us. And I'm happy that my husband is now aware that running INTO oncoming traffic is the correct location for a pedestrian. But most especially, I'm grateful to be back home in good ol' North Carolina. (Look for updates on our recent trip to New Jersey. Coming soon!)

More on Law Enforcement

I think I may be on the verge of liking this place.

This story is a little out of sequence, chronologically. But I didn't think to blog about it until this morning.

We visited Salt Lake City for a few weeks about a month ago. But we forgot to tell our neighbor. We also forgot to cancel the daily newspaper delivery. The car, also, was left home. Can you tell where this is going?

When we came back from our vacation, there was a business card in the door. It was from an officer in the local Police Department. They apparently didn't enter the home, but, in my imagination, I can see the door to our home opening. An eerie silence seeps through the iron railing in the dining room. Behind the railing, on the couch, the family sits, cryogenically frozen, in what will prove to be a mixed-genre story: science fiction / fairy tale / Mormon folklore. (Think Dr. Who meets Sleeping Beauty, with the role of Prince Charming / The Doctor played by the Elder's Quorum president.) Who can rescue our family from their freakish sleep? Wouldn't you know it? Of all the luck, the family can only be awakened when the home teachers perform a charitable act of service for them. But it must be a true act of charity, and not just done out of a sense of guilt or a desire to post 100% on their monthly home teaching report.

Anyway, back to reality. So we have some conscientious neighbors who were concerned about an unusual situation. That's always a good thing. Who wouldn't want neighbors like that? Still . . . I can't help but think that, since we've moved, the Police have contacted me and my family more than . . . well, more than our home teachers have!

Fish Themes

Finally, some local excitement. (Oh, and if you've missed the most recent pictures: www.picasaweb.google.com/tempppo)

We, unfortunately, missed the Sardine festival last weekend. That would have been exciting. From what I understand, town residents get together on Friday evening to eat sardines and crackers. Then, if you can stomach it, there are Moonpies for dessert. I'm actually kinda sad that I missed it.

Now that the temperatures have cooled off and the mosquitoes have left us, we see children in the park almost every day. That could be exciting -- for Adara. I need to recover from my disillusionment before I can look at the parks with excitement again.

And Jon -- he went fishing this morning. Broke his fishing pole. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about whether that was exciting.

But today was truly exciting. Dinner. Dinner today was exciting.

Our dining choices in the vicinity, assuming that we will be eating dinner after 3:30 p.m. (because that's when most of the local shops close on Saturdays), are national chains, a smattering of local places in the neighboring town, and 2 restaurants in our own historic downtown. We've already been to the Mexican restaurant here -- excellent salsa and yummy food. But the cafe was never a real option. Until tonight.

Their special tonight was an all-you-can-eat fish fry. It could have been a disaster. Fried food at a local restaurant in a tiny, mostly-dead Southern town. Risky. I steeled my belly and determinedly made my way to a potentially wonderful culinary adventure, and an assuredly rememberable dining experience.

It was delicious. I could have eaten for hours. My 2-year-old liked it. She liked it so much she ate 4 pieces. My husband liked it. The wait staff was friendly but not overbearing. There were Halloween decorations to occupy our toddler's attention while we waited for the food. My joy at finding something that I truly liked, without having to invent it or make it in my own home, was unsurpassed in this season of my life.

Yes indeed. The small pleasures are truly the greatest ones.

Walking After Midnight

Life in our small southern town continues to be creatively interesting. Last night I went for a walk. It was late, the weather was beautiful, and I had some things on my mind. So my walk lasted a bit longer than it may have under different circumstances. I was almost back home when I saw a police vehicle behind me. The car slowed, pulled over, and still I kept walking until the officer asked to speak with me.

Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, I, a pedestrian, was being "pulled over" for taking a walk. God bless America! And God bless small towns where police officers have nothing better to do than investigate suspicious housewives taking a breather at 11:00 p.m. I'm not sure if I should feel safer with this knowledge? Or perhaps I can work up some conspiracy theory about small town law enforcement . . .

Curious

?

From 2009 Summer

This is a hydrant in a forest. Maybe the squirrels had it installed to counter the forestry department's new "controlled burn" practices.

I think I need to look harder for something real to blog about. If we don't start meeting people and doing things soon, I might be driven to actually decorate my blog.

Baby Videos

For those of you who like this sorta thing . . . (I have to admit, I did not used to like this sort of thing. But now that it's my kid . . .)

I guess we'll go in chronological order. This first video is actually mostly of Jon. It was July 4th and we were near the Cradle of Forestry in America, hiking in a place called The Pink Beds. Given the nature of our video, it's a rather serendipitous name.



Now for the cute stuff -- Naomi started cooing and laughing in the last few weeks. She shows a bit of personality in the first video. The second one is just plain cute.

Heaven

Our new home is so perfect that it is bizarrely un-perfect. What I mean is that it is perfect for us, so of course it has some . . . let's call them unique characteristics. Don't get me wrong. I really do love it. There were plenty of other choices -- but this one suited me and my family's current situation.



Notice the iron railing separating the dining room from the kitchen. And, oh yeah, the lovely shade of mustard brown for the carpet. (I don't think the camera does it justice. There's much more yellow in it than you can see here.)


The neighborhood is really great, too, but it's the same story as the house. It's kid-friendly, but I haven't actually seen a kid (besides mine) here. There are sidewalks and playgrounds. A walk around the neighborhood is beautiful, interesting, and relatively free of dangerous traffic. It's like the setting for a Ray Bradbury novel; there are swing sets and clubhouses, baby swings and water slides, but no actual children. Anywhere. Freaky.

For the moment, at least, I'm living under the impression that summer time is the quiet time for this place. Maybe the kids are all at summer camp. All of them -- in the whole city, at the same time. Or maybe they're hibernating indoors because of the heat, humidity, mosquitoes, severe thunderstorms, etc. (Writer, if you're looking for a quieter neighborhood, this is the right place.) And anyway, I know people are out walking, because there's litter on the side of the road. Of course that could come from people in cars, but I'm being optimistic.

Here are some pictures of the park that is nearest our home. Maybe, instead of thinking that there really aren't children here, perhaps we don't see other kids at the park because it's too close to the railroad. (See the wheels on the box cars in the background?) I guess it makes sense if the town is 90% retired -- they had the park built out of nostalgia, not because they expected any children to play in it. The other neighborhood kids must be playing somewhere else, farther away from the train tracks. I just wish they'd invite us to come along!


So, to summarize, I really think this is what heaven will be like for me. Beautiful. Lots of trees and green things. Peaceful, warm, seemingly inviting. But with an unexpected twist.

Bull-headed

This is Naomi. She was born May 6, 2009 - a Taurus. Strong neck and all. In this picture she's about 6 weeks old. Today we went to the pediatrician. She passed the physical tests for a 4 month old. What have I gotten myself into?

Just some cute pictures. I know some of you have been waiting for this. If you want more, just browse through our picasaweb album: www.picasaweb.google.com/tempppo/2009Naomi#

Waiting

Thanks to everyone for their sympathy on the last post -- which I now realize was almost 2 months ago! I wonder what happened to keep me from blogging?

Well, this post is just a warm-up. Our #2 child is expected on or around 8 May 2009. I'm driving myself crazy with waiting. So tonight I've decided just to get everything all ready, put it in the trunk of the car, and just go about my life as if the baby was going to stay there for another 9 months.

If I have some spare time in the near future, I'll take a picture of my beach-ball belly and post it.
Love to all.

Snow Lessons

So our pipes froze last night. I accidentally left the garage door open on the only night that it has really snowed at our house. I called around to see what I should do -- never had a house or been responsible for pipes before -- and decided that I'd try the only suggestion I got: pour anti-freeze down each drain and see what happens.

I don't know if that was really the best idea -- especially in hindsight, thinking that anti-freeze probably would be a bad thing to have mixing around with the city's water supply -- but after an hour or so, the water started running in the toilet I'd flushed earlier, so I was just happy. I'm not really sure whether my subsequent water use is what caused the pipe to burst, or if it was just a gremlin that was determined to cause problems and wasn't going to be outdone by a bottle of anti-freeze.

In any event, the pipe is fixed now. I'm hoping that, despite the relatively small nature of this particular life challenge, the ordeal was big enough to fill the quota of trials that each person is supposed to be allotted on a regular basis. I sometimes wonder why nothing really bad has happened to my family. Maybe really bad stuff just doesn't happen as often as I think it does, and it's just the cumulative effect of all the sorta bad little stuff that can make life a pain.

Sunday

"But then again, perhaps I have the strength after all."

I wasn't going to blog tonight. But my stomach changed my mind. Instead of sleeping and dreaming, I'm eating and blogging. Just as long as I'm ing-ing, I think that's the important thing. If you can't -ing anymore, that's when you know you're in trouble.

And speaking of ing-ing, I thought I should record, for posterity, today's events and the utter lack of stress that most of them caused. A sign of progress . . . or just numbness.

8:30 a.m. Ward council meeting. I gave the spiritual thought.
10:30 a.m. Fast and testimony meeting. Bore my testimony.
12:10 p.m. Conducted opening exercises in Relief Society.
12:20 p.m. Defended Church doctrine against the notions of a 17-year-old girl in the class.
12:22 p.m. Taught a lesson to the combined YW classes, including the 17-year-old girl who sulked for the duration of the lesson.
2:30 p.m. Planned a training meeting with the 2nd counselor in the YW presidency.
4:30 p.m. Typed and formatted an agenda for the training meeting.
9:00 p.m. Wrote dialogue for part of Starfire III.

Normally, I think the combination of all of these events on the same day would have caused a significant amount of stress, or at least fatigue. Most of them were things that I have either never done, or rarely done. And the rest (except the typing and writing) were things that I get nervous / stressed about no matter how many times I do them.

I don't really know why my stress level stayed so low today -- but it must be significant in some way. I'm sure if I look back on this in 10, 20, 30 years or so, I'll either realize the significance or the complete in-significance of it all.

And on that note -- goodnight all.

Psychedelic Blues

Today I heard a song written with the idea of what the jazz greats would have written if they had been alive in the '60's. The song was called "Psychedelic Blues". I'd love to post some music on the blog -- there is some great bluegrass I have in mind, but I don't know how to do it. Someone call me and tell me how to do it please!

And just for kicks, here are some pics:

In the drier with the cat, who was trying to hide from her.The scrubs, a Christmas present from Poppy and Nana, say, "Dr. Adara".




Adara's first bubble bath.


Her favorite toys, Oo-oo Ee-ee and Dinah the Tiger

Your time to go

You've probably heard some version of the joke about an anxious man on an airplane, afraid that he might die. His friend reassured him with the popular idea that, "if it's not your time to go, then you'll be okay." The anxious man replied, "Sure, but what if it's the pilot's time to go?"

Today's Sunday school lesson touched briefly on this idea. My brain started working overtime, but I didn't want to risk derailing the carefully-planned lesson, so I thought I'd send my question out into the ether.

The scripture reference is Doctrine and Covenants 42:48: "And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath ^afaith in me to be ^bhealed, and is not ^cappointed unto death, shall be ^dhealed."

Here's a scenario leading into my question. This story was related in the October 2008 General Conference - a young girl was hit by a bus. The wheels of the bus drove over her head, so she was in pretty bad shape. After a priesthood blessing and a significant amount of time in the hospital, she miraculously recovered and lived a long life. (I don't know if she still is living, but that's not the point).

My question is: what if no one had exercised faith for her to be healed? Would she have died anyway, even though she obviously was not "appointed unto death"?

A Tale of Two Babies

(Lest this tale overwhelms my infrequent readers, let me call your attention to the post just a few days earlier than this one. There are long-awaited pictures for all of you photo-junkies.)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of, it was the age of enlightenment, it was the age of bewilderment, it was an epoch of freedom, it was an epoch of captivity -- in short, the noisiest authorities of the land insisted on being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Today began a 3-week period of babysitting 8-month-old Carolyn while her regular babysitter, grandma, is on a long-awaited vacation to Hawaii. "This will be good practice," I thought, "for when the new baby finally arrives." Famous last words.

I thought it would be fun just to give an outline of how the day went:
7:15 Left Adara at home with Jon so I could pick up Carolyn.

7:35 Arrived back home and then turned around again to take Jon to work. Since Jon was sick yesterday, and all of us spent the day laying low, I didn't want him to ride his bike.

I didn't have all the ingredients for his lunch, so I thought I would stop by the grocery store and take his lunch to him right before my midwife appointment.

7:45 Smelled the necessity for returning home as quickly as possible in order to change Adara's poopy diaper.

8:00 Changed Adara's diaper while Carolyn cried herself into a fit on the floor. She calmed down, but not until we were almost done with the diaper change.

8:10 Prepared oatmeal for Carolyn

8:15 While Carolyn cried again, put Adara in her booster seat with a bib on and gave her cottage cheese

8:20 Fed Carolyn

8:35 Made Carolyn and Adara comfortable, with plenty of toys, and started cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, which had resulted from everyone laying low yesterday and doing minimal work.

8:45 Rescued Carolyn from another crying fit. Hoped that changing her diaper would solve her problems, changed her position and her toys, then went back to cleaning.

9:00 Realized Carolyn was probably sleepy and put her down for a nap

9:05 Received a phone call from the substitute babysitter, who was planning to take Carolyn while I went to my midwife apponitment. Before we had confirmed any plans, she had to hang up the phone, saying she would call back.

9:10 Started microwaving a South Beach Diet frozen dinner for my breakfast, and sat down for a moment to rest.

9:11 Adara asked for some water. There was some on the table, so I had her climb up to get it so I could rest a little longer. While she was there, I noticed her bowl was about to fall off the table. I asked her to move it so it wouldn't fall. She picked it up -- and let it fall through her fingers to the floor, scattering the remains of her cottage cheese.

9:15 I got up off the couch and asked her to help me pick up the cottage cheese. She ended up cleaning two bits of it.

9:20 Stirred my microwave dinner and started cleaning again when I heard a sound of water running behind me. Adara was pouring water from the pitcher (that I had left on the table) onto the hardwood floor and rug. She helped clean up more of the mess this time.

As I finished cleaning the mess, I noticed her playing in the recycling bin, which I had just moved because it was in a pool of water. Not wanting soggy cardboard added to the mess, I moved the recycling bin into the garage.

9:30 Ate my microwave dinner - interrupting myself for a moment to push a chair in front of the gas fireplace to prevent Adara from playing with the rocks inside it.

9:40 Started to clean again, loading dishes into the dishwasher. I was thinking about how almost humorous the morning had been, when I noticed Adara was playing with a broken mug, which I had put in the dishwasher a few minutes earlier. (Side note: we are house-sitting right now, and the mug that was now lying broken on the floor belonged to the owner of the house, and not to us.)

9:41 After removing the mug, I decided to take the garbage outside to prevent Adara from getting into it and playing with the mug some more.

9:43 Started loading the dishwasher again while Adara looked for new trouble to get into. Before it developed into something serious, I asked her to help me with the dishes. She played with the scrub wand and a pot of water for a second, before she started pouring water from the pot onto the floor.

I'm going to skip now to the end of the story. Shortly after 10, the substitute babysitter called again. She was leaving her house to go to a meeting at 10, and wanted to arrange for how to pick up Carolyn at my midwife's office. By this point I didn't have any brain cells left to organize anything that complex, so I told her not to worry about it. Taking Carolyn and Adara both to the midwife's office would be less of a hassle.

Of course I still didn't have Jon's lunch ready, so I hurriedly chopped up some turkey, ham, tomato, cucumber, celery, and the small bit of lettuce that we had left, and threw it into a container. I decided there was no way that I was going to have time to go to the grocery store with two babies to buy lettuce -- it was 10:30 by this point and Carolyn was still napping. Jon was just going to have a nearly lettuce-free salad.

Thankfully, Carolyn was awake when I went to check on her, so I didn't have to worry about waking her up and having a cranky baby with me at the midwife's office. The rest of the morning was relatively uneventful.

Belated

These are the highlights from Christmas. Well, the highlights that we have pictures of. Somehow when something interesting happens is usually the time that we forget our camera. Which is most of the time.

The first is the long-awaited umbrella Christmas tree in all its splendor. Pretty much like you imagined it would be, isn't it?

Next up is the Jewish Cultural museum in Brooklyn. Adara and I were crawling through a loaf of bread. It wasn't called bread, though. It was special. And it has a special Hebrew name. But I'm sure it tastes a lot like bread.

The Christmas tree on Rockefeller Plaza. We did not actually get close enough to take a nice picture of it. My brother, Ed, took this one.


Ah, now the fun. I was taking cute pictures of Adara. We bought her new earrings and I wanted to document the cuteness of it. She had other plans.


Thankfully, cuteness did not forever escape this mama's camera.


Really good hair day, plus fun new earrings. Sometimes being a girl really pays off.

Move In

Successful move , just five days after our return from NY! I almost know where everything I need is. Happy New Year everybody!