Sigh . . . Yawn . . . Stretch . . .

Wow, this is a momentous occasion. I just finished teaching Relief Society today. An impromptu lesson at the last minute. And now . . . it is such a wonderful feeling, I'm NOT in crisis mode. I've been in crisis mode for so long I was beginning to think it was a permanent lifestyle.

You know what I mean I'm sure. Where you just go from one activity to the next because it's urgent. It's finally come to the TOP of the urgent list and the activity finally get's your complete attention. I have been constantly at the top of the urgent list for so long and now . . . well . . . I've finished my urgent list! I never thought it would happen. At least until tomorrow when I'm sure something will come up and I'll begin the 'urgent' list all over again. (Like the dog hair will be about knee high and I'll have to get out the vacuum - urgently :)


Speaking of tomorow, we take our youngest up to college, move her in, get her settled, take her out to dinner, help her unpack (let's see, can we linger any longer) and then leave to come back home to our "empty nest". I'm certain that I am not quite ready for this. Lunch anyone?

I've been coaching my newly married Karianne on the "how to's" of blog construction. You'll have to visit her and check out her efforts. I've convinced her that we must have this if she is going to live all the way across the country. So far good job honey - I LOVE it so far!

I love to frequent Dustin & Cami's blogs also. My super talented daughter-in-law truly needs a whole separate blog for all of her projects. She is such an inspiration to me. Someday, when I grow up I hope to develop just a smidgin of her talent.

Yep, I think blogs are for mom's, and webcams, and facebook and email and text messaging. Don't know how our mom's survived without 'em.

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All in a Days Work . . .

I've been slaving away in the kitchen all day making the most yummy homemade salsa. I generally would hesitate to say so, but honestly I think this salsa is just TO DIE for :)

If anyone is interested you an find the recipe here.

Also, I ran across this on a friends sight and chuckled all the way through it. Just had to copy it and share, it was too humerous not too. Can anyone besides me relate to this over and over again? So here goes . . .

I wish Google Maps had an, "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too
apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.

-How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from; this shouldn't be a problem....

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment in the day when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How do I respond to that?

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this, ever.

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Darn-it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Okay, hope I got you smiling:)

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Where to start . . .

Where do you start when you jump off the face of the earth for a month or more?

Or rather host a wedding, and then take off for almost a month on a houseboat at Lake Powell?

As well as travel to Ohio for a quick visit and an Ohio wedding reception.

We had such a great time with friends and family - just relaxing, enjoying each other company, playing games and hanging out in the water.

I love Lake Powell, it is one of the most beautiful places on earth - and I feel so lucky to have
it right close to where we live. Also we had an opportunity to spend time with Karianne
and Greg before they move back to Ohio to live!

I think relaxing on the houseboat was the perfect way to recover but now I do have piles of laundry in every corner of the house and a mountain of unpacking to do.

And just when did it get to be September already?

So, I was wondering where to start and ran across this on Joy's blog - it seemed the perfect thing . . .

The ABC's of Me

so here goes!

A- Age: 49 . . . and holding (and will be forever it think:)

B- Bed size: king size - have to have room for two large labs

C- Chore you hate: cleaning the shower stall

D- Dad's name: Fritz

E- Essential start of your day: hubbies hot chocolate before getting out of bed (yep, I'm spoiled)

F- Favorite color: black (honestly)

G- Gold or Silver: Gold

H- Height: 5' 6"

I- Instruments you play: Piano, and flute (at least once upon a time)

J- Job title: Mom and part time RN

K- Kids: 4

L- Living arrangements: with my increasingly diminishing family (Joy - it describes me perfectly also)

M- Mom's name: Gayle

N- Nicknames: ? (not one I can think of . . .)

O- Overnight stay in a hospital other than your birth: birth of 4 children and 1 night stay after abdominal surgery

P- Pet Peeve: Finding a sink full of dirty dishes with 5 ablebody dish dooers

Q- Quote from a movie: "Fellas, last year I made 3 million dollars, but your 50 thousand was the most fun. Are you ready? Then let's go get 'em"

R- Right or left handed: right

S- Siblings: 1 sister, 1 brother

T- Time you wake up: 6:30 am

U- Underwear: of course!

V- Vegetable you dislike: Hmm . . . I love veggies . . . collard greens? (at least they sound yucky!)

W- What you like to drink: Diet Coke

X-rays you've had: sprained ankle and lower back

Y- Yummy food you make: monster cookies

Z- Zoo favorites: lions, tigers and bears oh my!

I'd love to get to know each one of you better. Feel free to copy and paste into your blog. Then be sure to send me a link!

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If it Takes a Village . . .

If it takes a village to raise a child (and I certainly know that my little village has been influential in raising my children) then it certainly takes a village to pull off a wedding.

I couldn't be more grateful to my wonderful friends and family members who were so much help in making Karianne's beautiful wedding such a success. I love each one of them so much and couldn't begin to truly express my appreciation. There were so many . . . how could I even begin to count.

There were many miracles that occured along the way that I am so appreciate of my loving Heavenly Father who sent his little angels at just the right time to make this such a special time for our family.

Like the 'miracle of the quilt'. Once upon a time there was this mother of the bride who just 4 days before the wedding barely finished piecing 30 quilt blocks and had no hope of having the quilt completed before the wedding. One lovely friend appeared, took the blocks, arranged them, sewed them together, cut and added the borders, pieced and sewed the back together. Then a wonderful grandmother and aunt appeared, put the quilt on the frame and begin quilting the blocks. All the while the mother of the bride was completely occupied with greeting the family of the groom and making final wedding arrangements. The night before the wedding at 11:00 pm there was a little knock on the door and three more friends appeared with nothing better to do than come visit, laugh, tell stories and of course - quilt.

At 2:30 am, they finally left for home after completing all the quilting that needed to be done so the quilt could be loving displayed at the reception, a beautiful representation of all "the village" that know and love Karianne and support and bless our family.

This is just one story, there is also the miracle of the 300 party favors completed by Karianne's aunt and cousin, the miracle of the 300 napkins and utinsel preparation that appeared in a lovely basket put together by two of Karianne's other cousins, the miracle of the 45 pounds of cooked and shredded chicken for the chicken salad by an aunt and grandma, the forgotten walnuts that needed to be carmelized that were completed by the grooms wonderful mother, the miracle of the friends who hosted a beautiful luncheon in their cool and shady yard, the neighbors who contributed service and all their possessions to create such a beautiful day, the miracle of the blooming sunflowers, the gorgeous raspberries, the perfect weather, the much missed son and daughter in law arriving just when we really needed to see them, all the "rest of the village" who accomplished many miracles in my kitchen and enabled the reception to run so smoothly.





No . . . I never really can thank them enough . . .

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It's a Wedding . . .

Yes! We are alive and well here. Just wanted to leave a little teaser photo blog from our fabulous wedding. Then I'll be back to share all the details soon.

These photos were taken by my cute daughter-in-law who is such a fabulous photographer. You can see some of her other photos at Dustin & Cami.

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Ahhhh :) Thanks for noticing . . .

It felt so good today, there I was browsing my usual favorite spots in the few minutes I've had for the blogging world this week.

And ran across this simple notable mention at Modern Molly Mormon and it just warmed my heart. Somebody noticed . . .

This will probably be my last post until after the wedding on Saturday. I've just had to made a little pact with myself to stay away from the computer this week with sooooo many projects to complete. I get on to check email . . . . and well you know . . .

Just a few little glimpses of the wedding plans if anyone is interested.

We created a beautiful reception guest book online at Shutterfly.com. You can view it here.

Click here to view this photo book larger

The quilt is coming along nicely but sslllooowwwly as I'm still making up the 30 blocks that make the quilt. It looks pretty cute though I must say.

Thank you to my friends who are bringing their sewing machines over to help me. Thank you thank you soooo much! Now I just might be able to have it complete by this Saturday - the BIG day.

If there's anyone out there planning a wedding, I highly recommend these places:

We did a beautiful canvas bridal photo at artisticphotocanvas.com.

We ordered tulle, candles and ribbon from papermart.com.

And also more tulle and luminaries from efavormart.com.

The cake is from Cakes by Dawna and will be original and delicious.

Well . . . we're ever so excited. I'll see you all on the flip side. Can't wait for the updates about what's going on in YOUR life this week :)

p.s. - Oh! And I did find a pair of fantastic little shoes for the wedding . . .

What do you think?

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