home

I am home! My heart is full from my experiences and I look forward using my blog as a medium for processing everything from the past ten days. Going to Peru was a wonderful experience, but what has most affected me was spending ten days with 14 really great people. I look forward to writing about both.

a temporary absence

Although my departure isn't for another five days I can already feel the stress of the coming week setting in. It is knocking at the door the same way a sore throat indicates a cold is coming on. So although I might rather blog than tackle some of the tasks that await me; it is best that I focus my energies on making sure my home and children will survive 10 days without me. (Of course they will, but if I admit that what will happen to my self-worth?)

Thank you everyone for your contributions. I am excited but also a little anxious about my upcoming adventure. I can only imagine the blog posts that will be born of this experience and I am determined NOT to come home and post a thousand pictures that will not do justice to my thoughts. But post I will, because I have been advised that sharing my ponderings is an important part of this expedition.

Cheerio!

coins have been counted

Due to poor timing on my part Richard had to take my dear pickle jar to the credit union without me. I missed that exciting moment. But upon hearing the total my sadness was quickly dispelled. It should be more than enough to cover the Peruvian handbag.

$102.81 - Take that Bryan, guesser of $23.07!
(I thought about taking a picture of the receipt for proof but it was full of account information that I'm not about to post online.)

So if my calculations are correct that makes Angela (Michaelangelo) first place with her guess of $125.97.

And Liberty in second place with her guess of $77.77.

Thanks everyone for playing, I really enjoyed this. I'll be in touch with the winners.

the time has come

When I first started blogging there were two blog-isms that I vowed I would never use. They were blog ads and blog giveaways. And while I will always be ad-free, I am selling out to the give-away frenzy.

Richard will tell you that once I get an idea I am most disappointed if it is not executed. This idea was just too fun to resist.

The day I decided I was going on a humanitarian trip to Peru was nearly four years ago. After telling Richard about my intentions I went to the kitchen and cleaned out a giant pickle jar that I had bought when I was pregnant with Cameron. (Sure loved pickles!)

This jar has served as a constant reminder and motivator to me and although Richard insisted we save up the money in other ways (good idea Richard) I have put all my change in it ever since.

So here is the giveaway part.

It's a guessing game.

How much money is in the jar? (Note: I have no idea, the jar has not been opened or counted since it's original taping.)

First prize: (Is not the money in the jar, sorry.) An authentic Peruvian handbag. Men- do not be deterred, it would make a great gift.

Second prize: A dozen homemade cards, a potpourri of birthday, thank you, wedding and baby.

Okay folks- hit me with your best shot. I'll be taking the coinage to the credit union on Saturday. (Prizes will be delivered or mailed, all participants are welcome. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited.)

10 minutes that meant so much

If you could compare motherhood to formal education, you might say that about eight months ago I joined some extra-curricular activities.


I committed myself to these activities with the hopes that I would impress people, or gain their respect. A great part of my insecurities stem from my perception of other's opinion of me.


A marvelous thing has occurred over the course of my extracurricular journey. I found a new self-confidence arising, which was exactly what I had hoped for. But a couple weeks ago I realized something very critical. I realized that my self-assurance didn't come from the respect and admiration I had been seeking. To be honest I have no idea if my peers view me any differently knowing the new ways I spend my time.


My confidence came from knowing that I was capable of hard things. It came from knowing that I had set goals and accomplished them. And the beauty of it was that I didn't have to consciously tell myself those things, I just knew them, and it changed the way I felt about myself in wonderful way.


I'm still a long way from not needing outside approval. But progress...


Yesterday I ran my second 10k. I cut ten minutes from my original time and I was on top of the world. I am not a psychologist. But I believe that you can read book after book about self-respect but nothing will really change inside you the way that going out and doing something hard, and then doing it again will change you.


So whether it is putting together a delicious meal, taking a yoga class or volunteering somewhere the sacrifice it takes to get you there will be worth the emotional reward. In the words of Dr. Laura:


"Get off your butt and go sign up for kick boxing."

the 5 year appliance breakdown

It seems that we are reaching a milestone in our marriage. It isn't the "Seven-Year Itch" (not quite there yet) or a major anniversary (not there yet either). It is what I have creatively named "THE 5 YEAR APPLIANCE BREAKDOWN".

When we got married we outfitted our house through one of two sources. The first was the generosity of our friends (and mostly our parents' friends) who bought us the obligatory appliance. (Some were good quality, some were not.)

The second source was hand-me downs. It seems that we have reached a milestone where our poor quality gifted blender and especially our garage sale vacuum are going the way of the ... landfill?

I'm not sure where we got this iron, I think it was Richard's from his bachelor days. But you can see the brown spots? That is from when he (somewhat recently but too long ago for me to admit we haven't been ironing) dropped it on the floor and the carpet fibers melted to it. I made the mistake of trying to use this and stained Cameron's white church shirt with brown spots. Dang it.
In addition to the smoking blender, the vacuum that doesn't suck, and the melted-carpet iron our dvd player recently died forcing us to READ for entertainment. And while we can continue to have poorly vacuumed floors and wrinkly clothing, we can not survive without a dvd player.

Yes, I am shamelessy admitting that the dvd player was the last of our electronics to sub-perform and the first to be replaced.

crayola disaster, Take II

Last night Eli was caught red-handed coloring our new floors with black crayon. He was punished, lectured, etc. I was telling my friend who was here to witness the incident that Cameron "never did stuff like that".
It was forgotton for the evening and this morning Cameron made a confession. "I colored on the floor." I was a little surprised, because as I mentioned Cameron has never been the destructive child. But not surprised at all because if in fact Cameron was coloring on the floor first, of course Eli would take over the task when abandoned by Cameron - because Eli copies his every move. And Eli has no inhibitions with regard to vandalism.

So I put both of them to work scrubbing the floors with washcloths. Which of course accomplished nothing, but maybe helped to teach a lesson. I didn't want to give them the Magic Eraser because I had received one of those emails about the horrors of burns on children from the Magic Eraser.

You know, the kind of email that makes you want to not even OWN them. But I do own them, because I owe the survival of my children to them for making these episodes relatively painless and forgivable and making me a much less angry mother.

Flat Stanley

It's hard to write a post that follows a post that has great personal meaning.

So I picked something completely silly.

My cousin in Utah has a little boy in second grade who recently read the book Flat Stanley. His class at school is learning about mail and also about states and maps. Gabe needed to send Stanley to another state and we were the honored hosts.

Stanley arrived in the mail and spent a few days with us. Even Eli got attached, refferring to him as "my Stanley". In fact, poor Stanley was torn across his middle during a Stanley tug-o-war. It must be awful to be two-dimensional.

The assignment was to return Stanley with some pictures of his vacation, a state postcard, and a treat unique to our state. The postcard was especially difficult to find, in fact I didn't find one anywhere. Fortune is on Stanley's side though because I happen to collect postcards (or at least I did when I was a kid) and I found a very dated Idaho postcard. I chose as the unique Idaho treat, the Idaho Spud Bar.

A personal favorite of mine which I salivated over, but careful not to tempt myself I bought only the exact number requested.

I had to laugh at the pictures because Cameron is wearing his boots.

That ought to validate the stereotype that Idaho is full of rednecks and cowboys.

Oh well, it's only Utah we're dealing with here.