TGIF

School is getting really intense, so I love Fridays. I remember on the first day of class our teacher told us we have a test every Friday and asked us if anyone could guess why. I raised my hand and said,"So we'll show up?" She said, "YEP!" I had been to college. I know what Fridays mean.

This morning as Emeli and I were bumping into each other in the bathroom, Emeli said, "Mom, there is a party tonight with these nerds I was telling you about. You know the ones we always see in the library at school? Well, I hope you won't be as troublesome as Brooklyn's mom and ask me all these questions about it." I turned and just stared at her. My first reaction was WTF?! I said, "Sorry, but I DO have some questions...When is the party? Who is going to be there? When is it over? How are you getting there? How many girls and how many boys?" Emeli said there was probably going to be a carpool. I asked who was driving. She said she didn't know and that it would probably be someone after school who just picked them up. I said, very loudly, "Who in the hell is driving?!" She kind of stared at me blankly and then got really snitty. I told her I wanted all those answers texted to me by noon or she would not go. Sure enough by 10:30 am, I had all the answers...little pill. Here's my big question...Emeli says that they are nerds and assumes that nothing bad could happen. I informed her that 13 year old nerd boys have just as much of a sex drive as any other 13 year old boy. She gave me that eye roll she has perfected and kind of flounced out of the bathroom.

I went to school and told my mom friends. They all burst out laughing when I told them how Emeli told me she didn't want me to be troublesome like Brooklyn's mom. I laughingly told them I should have said, "Okay, I just have two questions...is there drinking or drugs? If so, go have fun. You only have one life. Go live it." We all laughed at the complete absurdity of anything like that happening. We also laughed at the idea that a mom wouldn't ask a ton of questions about a party. Wow.

Yesterday was a crappy day. I started it off on the right foot immediately by slicing my thumb wide open trying to cut a roll at breakfast. It bled all over the place. It wasn't bad enough for stitches, but it wouldn't stop bleeding. I got to school and showed my teacher. She whisked me into our lab and bandaged me up. Everyone in my group bombarded me with questions when I came back to my seat. We had gone into the lab so quickly, they thought I was in trouble or something. Then we had to spend the entire class working on homework because there were people still working on ECG's in the lab with our teacher. Psycho lady took that opportunity to loudly brag about how hot her husband was. One of the girls said, "[Psycho Lady], your little husband is so cute." Psycho Lady responded, "There is nothing little about my husband in EVERY sense of the word..." I sat at my table barely containing myself from yelling, "STFU! No one cares about the size of your husband's penis!" Instead I just put my headphones in and cranked up Mozart so I could study. Ew.

It has been cold as hell for the last three days. Yesterday Robby and I had to tidy up his storage place in Lehi. Lehi has winds that are even cold in the middle of August. Imagine the temperature being only 6 degrees with a windchill. Stupidly I wore leggings and my converse shoes. I literally froze. I was really crabby by the time we were done.

Today my friends, Christine and Angel brought me candy for my birthday. That was so sweet! Angel remembered that I love jelly bellies, so she brought me a bag of them. I am happily munching on them as I type this blog.

Tonight for dinner I made this curry that looked so yummy, but looks aren't everything. This curry was the spiciest curry I have ever eaten. At first bite, it tastes really good and then the kick hits. It's not a pleasant kick either. It is a solid kick that doesn't let up. It takes out your tongue, the inside of your mouth AND your lips. We were all reaching for milk. No one could finish it. It was killer!!! I'm sure that most Indians would be yelling for more, but we faint-hearted Americans and one African with a sensitive stomach, had to push our plates away. Robby turned to me and said, "Your rice looks dry. You should put more curry sauce on it and finish it up." BRAT!!!

I have discovered Tamora Pierce and wow! I am reading Alanna right now and loving it. I love how strong her girl character is. I'm going to try and read all the books in this series.

Freakin' Freezin'

Today it reached -6 degrees, but it felt like -15 degrees. Robby had to go to a breakfast for Blue Stakes (the guys you call when you are going to dig so you don't hit a power or gas line). They were having a seminar so he went to learn about it. The breakfast started at 7:30am and so does my school. He dropped me off at school half an hour early and went to the breakfast. It was SO cold today that I took a blanket to class. Our class gets pretty chilly on a good day, but I knew today would not be a good day. After class, Robby came into the school to get me. He was standing in the entry of the school waiting for me. I walked out of class and towards the stairs. I looked down and saw him. I'm such a sap, but my heart still beats faster when I see him. On the way home from school, he told all the grisly stories they told so everyone takes calling blue stakes seriously. He told me that 66 people died last year on job related injuries from buried cables and gas lines. Scary stuff.

It is our third anniversary today. I won't go on and on about how wonderful it is to be married to Robby. Anyone who sees us can tell that we are happy. He makes me laugh like no one else can. He has a quick wit, which I LOVE! I will throw out a sarcastic comment and he always comes back with one in return that usually makes me shout with laughter. This morning as my alarm rang, he rolled over and said, "Happy anniversary, Sweetheart." He is very serious about remembering holidays and special days. He always makes sure he wishes me Merry Christmas, Happy Anniversary, Happy Birthday or whatever the occasion is first thing in the morning when he wakes up. It's sweet.

Tonight we decided to buy steaks for dinner rather than go out for dinner...just doing our part to save money :D. Emeli was ecstatic. She loves steak. She hovered over Robby the whole time he fried them up. We had Caesar salad (another Emeli fave) and peach pie from last night. All in all a wonderful dinner. For an anniversary gift, I bought Robby a huge bag of Jelly Bellies (his fave) and he bought me a beautiful rose bouquet (my fave). He also told me that he was going to get me something else, but it didn't work out like he wanted, so I will have to wait until Saturday when it will be ready. And then he smiled this wicked smile and said, "And that is ALL I'm saying..." He knows darn well I am going to burn with curiosity until Saturday! GRRR. I will probably harass him tonight when we are in bed with questions, which he will NOT answer! hahaha!!

Emeli is at Young Women's tonight doing a Trek practice. They are working these kids to get them in shape for the Trek this summer. Our soft teenagers do not work in the fields and push heavy equipment all day like the pioneers did, so they need to practice for Trek. The pioneers would probably laugh their heads off if they knew that.

Happy Monday!!

Usually Monday is not that great of a day, but when you get 95% on a math test from Hell, you feel pretty good. That's where I am at. I expected maybe an 81%, but 95?! I got my test and went back to my desk feeling pretty high. That means I don't have to take the make-up test and the math is all behind me.

Poor Emeli is just beginning the whole math thing. She had a math worksheet tonight that looked all sweetness and light because it was pink and said things like, "lace and ribbons" on it. Plus it had a cute little word puzzle on the bottom. But don't be fooled! It was a worksheet from hell and it had Emeli in hysterical tears. Between Robby and I we figured that pig out. However, some of the answers we came up with were not in the little boxes of possible answers at the bottom of the sheet. That was very frustrating and that is where Emeli lost her cool. We called Brett and asked him to help us figure out the one problem that stumped us and he came up with the answer right away. Sometimes I do not like Brett. Where did he get his math smarts?!!

I went visiting teaching today. I love my VT companion. She is 86 years old. She was an Idaho farm-wife and she is a pistol. I adore her. She suffered a stroke last year and it has not kept her down. She hand quilts! And she donates those quilts to DI's humanitarian department. She says just what she thinks, which is a trait I have always enjoyed in older people. She also laughs at my jokes, which I have always enjoyed in people as well :D. Whenever we plan on the times we will visit our ladies for the month, she says, "Well, I will see you on [whatever day] unless something happens to me. You know, at my age, something COULD happen..." On Sunday I told her that something could happen to ME, too. She laughed. Today I told her that going to school is probably going to save me from Alzheimer's and she laughed about that too. She told me that maybe she needs to read more books. I adore her!

Today our little ferret almost became dinner...grrr! I got Ollie all hyper when I got home from school. Getting Ollie all hyper is hilarious. He will run backwards, his back hunched up. Then he will slide under the couch and poke his head out to see if I'm still running after him. I got him all hyper and then I went visiting teaching. Robby was back in the bedroom working on his computer. I came home and Robby informed me that he put "the long one" (Robby's nickname for him thanks to D'Jayden) back in his cage because he was naughty. I looked over at our house tree and found cups and cups of dirt all over the carpet. Ferrets love to dig and that's what Ollie did when I left. Robby found him digging, sprayed him with the spray bottle and tossed him back in his cage. I vacuumed up the mess, cursing the little beast the whole time. But I also blamed myself for getting him all riled up and then leaving him.

Tomorrow we are giving each other ECG's and that means I have to wear a sports bra and have these little electrodes pushed under my bra right against my boobs. At least our teacher lets us wear a sports bra and not be topless completely. I'm glad for that because I go to school with all these little teenagers. I'm a little embarrassed for them to see my wrinkly tummy full of stretch marks.

whew!...it's Friday

I have had a test every day this week except Thursday. It has been crazy!

On Tuesday I had drama with Pyscho Lady. She thought she saw me talking about her to the girl next to me and saying that Psycho Lady was cheating. Psycho Lady approached me and accused me, I snarled back at her and she backed off. But she left a parting shot. "I STILL don't know why you don't talk to me anymore..." I wanted to yell, "Because of things like this!" but I refrained. Drama.

Thursday night I went to a Relief Society function where we talked about journaling and personal history. We got some really great ideas for making a personal history for our children. We got this great flier with questions about our lives to give us ideas on what to write about. As an activity, we had to draw the floor plan of a house from our childhood and then talk about it. As I was drawing, I remembered how we had a gardenia bush right by the front door. When it was blooming, it smelled so good. Whenever I smell gardenia, it always takes me back to that home with the gardenia bush. That is probably my favorite home. I was young, Dad was healthy and happy and times were good. We had a huge yard and I had the freedom to run all through the neighborhood because we lived in a cul-de-sac and knew all our neighbors. We had a vacant lot next door and my friends and I had fun adventures and make believe all through the trees, and all over the property. It was a large lot.

Today at the end of class, I was talking with some of the other kids in class. They are all Brett's age and they are hilarious because it's like talking to my own kids. One of the girls was talking about how hot Zach Ephron is. I told them he is probably the age of my sons and it would be sick and wrong for me to think he is hot. We looked up how old he is and one of the girls said, "He was born in 1987. How old is he?" Well, I knew that answer. Taylor was born in 1987, so Zach Ephron is 23 years old. Daniella, the air head of the class (who got almost 100% on the SAT!!) said, "YOU have a 23 year old?! Yeah, that would be GROSS if you thought he was hot." I had to laugh. These kids make me laugh.

Emeli and I went walking today before she went to Brooklyn's house. Emeli has decided (for the time being...it could change tomorrow) that she is going to stay with me during the school year and with her dad during the summers. I'm okay with that because Robby's job is very demanding during the summer. I can help him with his job and not worry that I'm neglecting Emeli. Not only that, but I will probably be doing my externship and not home a lot. Emeli told me she has 16 friends and that is WAY more friends than she had in Washington. In Washington, she had 0 friends. We talked about how much fun she would have on Trek. At first she was very hesitant about going, but as soon as I told her it was stake wide and that there would be lots of boys, she was more keen to go...hahaha!

I love having Emeli here. I love hanging out with her and joking with her. She is fun, compassionate, supportive and a great little friend. We get ready for school together in the mornings and get in each other's way in the hall bath putting on make-up. We share make-up. She uses most of mine. I am so grateful for the time I have with her.

yikes, to put it mildly

So today I took THE most hellacious math test I have ever taken. The only ones that have come close are the geometry tests I had in High School where I did not take the time to memorize the theorems. I would just leave the entire page blank--and surprisingly enough, I failed geometry. I also have had hellacious algebra tests at BYU to the point where I had to drop the class and opt to take it later and hope I got smarter in the meantime. Today's test was right up there with those. It was 200 problems of crazy fractions with answers like 3/200 or 14 14/45. huh?! Those are the kinds of answers that make you doubt whether you are answering correctly. Then we had to convert our stupid American way of measuring (gallons, quarts, pints, etc) to the metric system that the ENTIRE world uses, except us. As if that weren't enough, I also had to figure out what and how much medicine to give a patient and convert it from mg to mL. By the time I was done, my brain was FRIED!!! I told my friend, Angel, that I was going to go home and drink a long, tall Diet Coke and eat a candy bar. I deserved it. Instead I opted for a banana dipped in nutella and a long, tall Diet Coke. Just as good.

There is this psycho lady who is in my class. I won't tell you too much about her, but I will tell you that she is THE queen of inappropriate things to say. Example: we were given a flier on the different positions we have patients assume on the examining table depending on what the patient needs to have done. One of them has the patient leaning on his elbows, butt in the air. Psycho lady turns to me and in a stage whisper says, "That is MY favorite sex position." and laughs really loudly and then slaps me HARD on the back. TMI. Another time we were learning the muscles and there was a drawing of a body with just the muscles showing from behind. Of course, you could see the gluteus maximus. Psycho lady turns to me and says, "My husband's butt is just like that...high and tight." and again slaps me on the back and laughs super loud. Once again, TMI. I DO NOT want to know her favorite sex position. I DO NOT want to know what her husband's butt looks like. Last example: she told me one morning that when her husband dies, she has told him that she is going to bronze his "member" and hang it above her bed. WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THAT?!!!! So today for the math test Psycho lady brings a jar with lavender scent beads in it. It is so that she can sniff the lavender when she starts to panic during the test. All I can say is, "Wow!"

So today I just came home, ate the nutella and the DC and made a cute little recipe card thingee. Tonight I will study for the quiz we have tomorrow on terminology. But today I gave my brain a break.

Emeli called me up from her friend, Brooklyn's, and told me she has an assignment due in Health tomorrow. She has known about this assignment for at least a week. She is supposed to decorate a shoe box that explains her personality.
Emeli: Mom, since you have all that cute scrapbook paper, can you cover my box for me while I'm gone?
Me: no, but I can show you how to do it.
Emeli: well, I won't have time when I come back from Brooklyn's.
Me: I will not do your homework.
Emeli: we are going to be going exercising when I get home and then I won't have time to do my box.
Me: you will. I will not do your box for you.

Emeli cracks me up because she thinks I am a novice parent with my finger up my nose, fumbling my way through parenthood. She has no idea that I have been completely broken in by her three older brothers (especially Freddy!!). I think she thinks that if she tries to come in through the back door and ask things, I won't figure it out. What she doesn't realize is that I tried the same things on MY parents, Taylor, Freddy AND Brett tried before her, so now I am a veteran and I am wizened. She is always shocked when I figure it out.

Today I got home from school and Robby had little Oliver out. Oliver thinks our room is paradise. He loves to go under our bed and explore through all the things under there. He loves to crawl through all of Robby's paperwork. I have a drawer that slides out from under the bed that I store my pajamas in. We didn't hear him for a while or see him, so we thought he probably fell asleep somewhere. Sure enough, he had climbed into my pajama drawer and was all curled up in my pajamas. It was very cute, but I did not want to have the smell of ferret all over my pajamas that I would smell all night as I slept. I picked him up very gently, while he breathed loudly in his sleep (cute!!!) and put him back in his cage. He is hilarious.

Louie

My little Louie who began as Lulu, but then we found out that she is a he, so I changed his name. He acts just like you would expect a Louie to act. He is THE most stubborn, strong-willed little bird, but it's hilarious. In six months, he has managed to snag a huge place in my heart.

We keep his cage door open all the time because our house is safe enough for him to just wander where he wants. He doesn't leave the front room, anyway. Sometimes I will walk in the door from school, and he will be walking across the front room floor. It's hilarious to see him walk across the floor because he's so little and he's so cocky when he does it. He acts like he owns the place. Occasionally, we will have younger guests and so we close his cage door. He DOES NOT like that. He will flap all around his cage, hurl himself against the cage door and squawk loudly.

I had him for about two weeks when Emeli and Brett came for their summer visit. Soon after that, Taylor, Emma and Freddy came too. Emeli and Emma hand-trained Louie. I had tried and tried, but they accomplished what I was struggling to do.

His wings have grown back now, so he feels that he is an eagle and he will take these little solo flights and circle the front room, dining area and kitchen and crash land on his cage. We have a tree that I added a perch to and we hang millet seed from it.

When I leave for school in the mornings, it's still dark, so I don't take the cover off his cage. That's not a problem for him. He will climb out of the cage, through the fabric cover and fly to his "treat tree". I come home from school and he is usually sitting in the tree babbling. Sometimes if I don't say, "Hi" to him when I first walk in, he will squawk a short little screech to let me know he is in the tree and I need to notice him.

Tonight I noticed that he had a little owie above his beak. It looks like he might have crash landed and bonked his beak. I found a dish towel and came up to him in his tree. He could sense what I was about to do because he saw the towel. He flew all over the place and finally landed in an open dish. I tossed the towel over the opening. He was squawking loudly at me. I wrapped the towel around him, found his little face through the towel and applied neosporin. He screeched and squirmed the entire time. After I was done, he flew straight for his tree. I went to say sorry to him. He was glaring at me, breathing loudly because the neosporin was covering one of his little nose holes. I will probably have to go through the whole ordeal tomorrow, too. Poor little guy.

Saturday is a special day...

So I have been super busy today. I got so much done. Here's my list:
homework
painted toenails (badly in need of repair!)
gave myself a pedicure AND shaved my legs
re-dyed my hair
waxed my eyebrows and mustache
put music on my ipod
vacuumed
cleaned the ferret cage
cleaned the master bath
laundry all done!!
made cookies
made chicken pot pie for dinner!!
The reason I got so much done is because Robby was out driving around and working and Emeli has been hanging with a friend all day, so I have been all by myself and getting crap done. What a wonderful day!!!