Christmas, already?

Well, it is here. This was the first time i noticed Becca's post that said she hopes to get done with the rental asap..and i'm sad to disappoint everyone in saying that it did NOT get done, and Becca didn't go to all the holiday parties, and do all the fancy cooking she'd been dreaming of. As a matter of fact, i was a scrooge and said we shouldn't have a christmas tree this year.

It's not that i don't like them, we just haven't had time for it, nor anyplace to put it. I like to blame the piano in the living room, but becca likes to blame my tv in the other corner. While i wouldn't admit it to her, the tv is certainly the easier of the two to move.

Unfortunately we were so busy that the tree never materialized, and i feel really guilty about that. However...i went shopping for christmas presents, and hopefully that will help negate some of the disapointment this season that has been a result of our working. Sorry everyone, Jewelry is not involved....

Merry Christmas everyone!

Still a bit stiff...

Tell me, would you do this? Have you done this?

I woke up at 5:00 this morning. Once I realized that it was waaaaaaay too early to get up, for me, at least, I tried to go back to sleep. Brent was still asleep and I knew that he sometimes has a hard time sleeping past 5:00. He is also a very light sleeper so I was trying very hard not to jostle or roll or even move. I just lay there as still as possible, trying to go back to sleep.

The next thing I knew, it was 6:20 and Brent was up and in the shower. My arms felt like heavy weights on top of my chest. My neck was stiff from non-use. Everything hurt! And I could tell the reason why everything hurt was because I didn't move a muscle during my last hour of sleep. So I didn't get up right away. I rolled around and stretched and took up the whole bed to soothe my aches and stiffness.

The funny thing was, when I told Brent the story, he laughed and said that he had woken up a little bit after 5:00. All my effort was in vain!

All I want for Christmas is...

All I want for Christmas today is to be able to finish the remodeling work we are doing on the rental before the Christmas season passes me by. You see, I really LOVE this time of year, as most people do. I want to enjoy holiday things, like parties and concerts and baking and decorating. I want to enjoy shopping--not that I usually have a problem with that.

I have to admit, for the first time EVER, I was a little bit panicked when I drove into work and saw that today was the first of December. I panicked because I thought, "I don't have enough TIME to do everything I need to do!" And then I panicked because I had such a thought. Such is life.

But we'll start the holiday season off with a bang. Tonight we are going to work on the rental, and we'll be painting. Painting is a great thing to do because it makes everything so much nicer instantly. You can be thinking things are drab and then you put on a coat of paint and everything seems better.

Tomorrow we will have a holiday party with the West Valley Symphony. Gotta love the parties.

And there's more fun to come this week...

Updates on Life

Well, dear friends, it has been far too long. My excuse is that one of my favorite bloggers decided to take a hiatus and so I, being the great sympathizer that I am, did an unconscious hiatus. I just didn't feel the desire to post things.

In the meantime, Brent and I have been doing quite a bit. We went up to Bear Lake over Conference weekend with my parents. It was a very laid-back weekend--we cooked and ate and played games--and watched Conference, of course. We did very little else and it was a fun and relaxing weekend. I enjoyed listening to Conference and made my own little goals to try and improve myself. Of course, three weeks later, I've slipped back a bit. But hopefully I can get back to where I want to be, soon.

We've been slowly working on finishing our remodeling. Now that we're down to the little finishing projects, things tend to drag on. Brent has been working hard on getting things fixed, while I've mostly been cleaning/organizing. For those of you who didn't know, we got an extra kitchen cupboard when we were remodeling (the company sent us the wrong size and had to send the correct one later. We just kept the odd size) and one of the big decisions was what to do with the thing. I really wanted it in the bathroom for extra storage space, but it just wouldn't work. Brent really wanted it in the kitchen, but we agreed that it just wouldn't look right if it infringed upon the eating space. He then suggested putting it on various walls but I thought it would look weird and incongruous. We finally agreed to put it in the spare bedroom closet. I know it's weird, but we do have food storage, which we were putting in the spare bedroom closet ANYWAY. I thought that at least this way we can be organized. And we are. We filled up the cupboard with tuna fish, peanut butter, corn, green beans, mandarin oranges and breakfast cereal--though the later is depleting quickly. I think I need to go shopping tonight. :)

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of our time is real estate. We have been looking at rental units and made an offer on a four-plex in Layton, which we are reasonable confident will go through. I think we will hear back by Friday night, so we will keep you posted. The place in question is a little older, but structurally sound. We feel that it needs some cosmetic attention (one unit needs a lot more than some of the others), but that our experience in remodeling should help that go smoothly. I've told Brent that I would like to be done with our condo before we start working on rental units and I think that's given him a spurt of energy in the last week or two. He also wants to be done, I think.

Pirate Bridal Shower

Here are some pictures from Anna Lee's pirate bridal party.
Beware of pirates!

Organ Pirate.

The Black Pearl.

Pirate crew.

Sailor crew.

All hands on deck!

Camping in Boulder Mountain

You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff we brought...

Me upside-down!

Hiking

Waterfall

Here are some of the pics from our camping trip. If you're on Facebook, I've got a bunch there, too.

September

I love this time of year. It's very funny--Brent gets all depressed this time of year because the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting longer. I am happy that the nights are getting longer--that means I can throw dinner parties again! During the summer there is just way too much light. I want spooky, Halloween-type dripping candles at my dinner parties!

Because I was so excited for September to start, I put this new blog template up. Yay for autumn!

Condo Remodel Update

Well, we haven't written much in August and it was looking like the entire month would pass without a blog posting! The reason for me has been a slight case of ennui--I was just so tired and run-down by the remodeling business that I just didn't want to post anything. But recently, things have started coming together for the condo and I am getting excited about it again.

We now have new cabinets in. We still need to put together a couple of drawers, but we have a jig for the handles now, which was the cause for the delay before.

We have new granite countertops in the bathroom AND the kitchen (Brent spoils me!) and new sinks and faucets! I have to tell you, getting all your water out of the bathtub is no fun at all. We switched to paper plates (shhh! don't tell Rachael!) for a while to ease the dish problem, but you still had to DRINK the water out of the tub--not that fun.

We have a new beautiful travertine floor. It's a warm medium/light brown, with flecks of brown onyx in it. It is truly stunning--really makes the kitchen and bathroom very warm and inviting. We still have to seal the floor and will probably do that tonight.

We also got a new microwave that really classes up the place. It's pretty Star Trek-ish, too, which makes me happy. There are all sorts of buttons and gadgets and the interior is HUGE!

We also got the washer and dryer stacked in the closet. It just BARELY fits. We had measured it out before and had about an inch and a half to spare, so we thought we were good. That was before we put in the stone floor, however, and there is about a half inch of cement and a half inch of stone that boosted the height. Thus, we scraped up the top of the dryer and the drop ceiling, trying to fit it in. Fortunately, we were able to make a couple of adjustments, but the washer and dryer fit like a glove in the closet. There is no room for anything else--not even a door, at this point. :) I'll keep you posted on that.

But we are getting closer!

Musings on Intelligence Quotients

I have always understood that IQ tests were designed to test your intelligence level by comparing your knowledge and reasoning skills against other test-takers who were your same age. Thus, you could be a genius at age 4, but if you learned nothing else, you would gradually come to be on the same level as everyone else, eventually.

I was thinking about intelligence quotients because I was trying to decide how much I have really been learning, recently. There are things that I do that are good for me, and there are areas where I feel like I am a complete slacker. Some areas I work on some of the time, and conveniently forget at other times. These don't all relate to knowledge per se, but they happen to be in areas that I think are important. How do I treat people? Am I better at seeing their point of view than I was a year ago? Do I give more service? Am I actively learning, or am I just coasting along now that school is over? My worry was, even though I might have been smart enough to graduate from college, am I doing anything about that now? Am I interested in academics, or do I just dabble? This also applies to my physical health--am I helping myself along?

I was looking on the internet and I stumbled across this article: http://wilderdom.com/intelligence/WhyIntelligentPeopleFail.html. The title is "Why Intelligent People Fail." The reasons listed are as follows:

• lack of motivation
• lack of impulse control
• lack of perseverance
• fear of failure
• procrastination
• inability to delay gratification
• too little/too much self-confidence

I thought that was very interesting. I happen to know several people who I think might fall into this category. I believe these people to be very intelligent, and yet I think they are falling prey to one or more of the above traps. I think that if I'm honest with myself, some of these could apply to me--I might be a bit more bit lazy about my education now than I was before. So I write my musings to remind myself what it is that I want to accomplish. I don't want to quit, or to coast. I want to continue learning and growing in all aspects of my life!

Having said that, I still will pat myself on the back for accomplishing a major life goal this year--playing a concerto with a symphony was always something that I have dreamed of doing. I was grateful to have the opportunity to do that this June.

Book List

I stole this from my friend Ruth (congratulations on the new baby!), who stole it from a friend, who stole it from a friend, etc. Since I also enjoy reading, I’m playing…

“The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Instructions: Copy and paste, then put an ‘x’ after those you have read. Tally your total at the bottom.”

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (x)

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee(x)

6 The Bible (x)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x)

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x)

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman () (Haven't even heard of it...)

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x)

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare ()

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (x)

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x)

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ()

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot ()

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x)

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x)

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (x)

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (x)

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (x)

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ()

27 Crime and Punishment- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x)

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ()

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ()

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (x)

34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x)

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ()

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (x)

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (x)

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan ()

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (x)

52 Dune - Frank Herbert (attempted)

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ()

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon ()

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (x)

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (x)

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (attempted)

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnet (x)

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()

75 Ulysses - James Joyce (attempted)

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath ()

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()

78 Germinal - Emile Zola ()

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (attempted)

80 Possession - AS Byatt ()

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x)

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker ()

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (x)

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x)

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (x)

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams ()

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ()

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (x)

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (x)

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (x)

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x)

I’ve read 50 of the 100. I probably should have read more, given my English major status, but I haven't. I'd love to know how many YOU have read. :)

Our first fight as newlyweds

Well, it was bound to happen, and it happened with a vengeance with us. We were at Disney world in May, and we had a pretty serious altercation, I was just hoping it didn't draw too much attention to ourselves.

It started innocently enough, and pretty soon became a game of who could make the other look more ridiculous. I'm sure nobody else is this childish....but we fell victim to pride, and couldn't let it go.

Andre and the Harem

Becca and I were given the opportunity to go to the Angus Blackheart concert last night at Usana. Well, actually it was Andre Rieu however frankely I had forgotten his name and had to go to the Usana web page to find it.

Anyway, we went with Doug and Anna who were gracious enough to invite us. Our outing included a meal as well as box seats. Box seats are a loose term, not quite like the Jazz games, but we did have our own little area with PADDED seats.

The concert was a lot of fun, not quite like the symphonies Becca usually hauls me to. Andre was a bit goofy, and so was his orchestra. Becca and I noticed that it was about 93 7/13ths percent women..mostly blond and attractive. While we concede that since they are from Holland (or somewhere like that) it likely had an outcome as to why they were all blond, however....I had other theories.

What are they? Well, to put it bluntly I thought of this traveling symphony as his personal Harem. Weather true or not is not really the point of the blog, however it is kinda a fun side-note and really the only thing that makes this post read-worthy. A conductor and his personal harem traveling the world in one giant party.

Don't get me wrong, the show was a lot of fun, and they did quite well. There was lights, a movie projector, everything you'd expect to see in Vegas, or Branson Missouri. Andre for his part loved to be the star of the show. He was the lead violinist, and the conductor. The funny thing is, the camera was on him 94% of the evening...maybe even more. When someone in the orchestra had a solo, the camera (the large screen behind them would show the pictures) would give the soloist 2 seconds....seriously, TWO seconds of screen shot time, and the camera would go back to Andre. It really made me laugh. Any time the camera would move from our host, i would whisper to Becca "ME!!", and the camera would go back to our beloved conductor again. Yes, he loved being in the lime-light, but I guess most people in traveling show-buisness do, so there is nothing wrong there. It was mostly just funny. I laughed about it most of the night.

They had some tenors who were quite good. This symphony did many things so it was more interesting than many others where you get just one single type of music. They did a variety, and did some singing and dancing. Andre loved to dance and bob his head around with the music. It was entertaining to watch.

Enough with Andre...here is the only picture i got of the night, and it was with my cell phone. Speaking of which, Andre had someone take his picture last night with a poloroid camera. Andre would pull the photo out of the camera and fling it out into the audience. It was hilarious. He did this about 10 times (probably until the film ran out), striking various poses of elegance and magnificence. Ah, Andre....why didn't i get a picture?

Ray of Sunshine Glinting off the Pipe in our Living Room

Well, I feel like I've accomplished a great feat in life, and I didn't do anything. It was all Brent. :) You see, I've lived with a dryer in my kitchen for the past 5 years. It's always been a source of inconvenience for me, to say the least. In fact, I'll admit that I was ashamed of it for the first year or two. The dryer sticks out too far and you bang into it as you pass by. People walk into my kitchen for the first time and ask, "Is that a dryer?" I have precious little countertop space (thanks to our love of kitchen gadgets, mostly), so I have occasionally tried preparing food on top of the dryer! Right now it's home for a toaster oven and a toaster, but that soon will change. You see...

We have finally taken the plunge and decided to move the dryer into the laundry "closet, " which is also located in the kitchen, but at least I'll be able to close the door on it. In order to do that, we need to buy a stackable washer and dryer (anyone?) and we also needed to move the heat exhaust over to the closet, to make sure everything is to code. Brent worked and worked on it, and he was able to make a hole in the kitchen wall and push the heat exhaust up through the wall. At the top he broke through and the pipe runs along the ceiling to the closet. The ultimate plan is to enclose the pipe and hope it looks like a doorway. Regardless, it's going to be MUCH better than a dryer in the kitchen!

The good news continues... Because we are moving the dryer into the laundry closet, we added a base cabinet to our order of new kitchen cabinets, and we will also have another 2 feet of countertop space. Bliss!!!

And this is part two of the Rhapsody. I-uh-broke it into two pieces in an attempt to turn ON my anti-shake on my camera. This plan failed, and i hurried and started the movie again. These were taken on a digital camera, not a movie camera, so the sound isn't the best, but i think you will get the idea...it was a lot of fun. Thanks for watching!

Well, I thought I would post on our current dealings. We are getting ready to redo our entire kitchen and bathroom. While this may seem like a challenge, let me assure you, it will be! We are getting new kitchen cupboards, and redesigning it to make more room. I have ordered some cabinets in a "rustic oak" style, and they should be here in a little over a week, which means we'll have lots of work ahead of us. I planned on removing the "Soffit" which is that part that makes the cabinets not go all the way to the ceiling. We figured that we could gain 15% more space in the kitchen if we did this. After some investigative work (see holes in the soffit), we determined that it is possible, and likely very worth-while as anyone knows who's spent some time in the condo knows, space is at a premimum there, so every bit helps. So, if you don't hear from us for a while, know that it is becuase we are neck deep in remodeling. But on the bright side, next time you visit, you won't recognize the place.

The Rhapsody

Well the day finely came when Becca go to put her best foot forward and play for the Symphony front and center- The Rhapsody in Blue By Gershwin. Becca did a fantastic job, and we are all very proud of her. Her entire family came, as did mine. The auditorium was full, and everyone was very impressed. It is a fairly difficult and fast piece that has some parts played by the orchestra as well. She had been practicing for some time, and I was confident that she was prepared, which it turns out I was right, which is not an uncommon thing for me.

It is nice to have it over-with for a while. There is a lot of pressure when you are the star of the show, and it will be great to have some time to do other things.

Good Job Becca! :)

Day at Epcot

We had such a fun time at Epcot! I really did enjoy going around to all the different "countries." It's especially fun that Disney tries to employ people from the country they represent (Norwegians for Norway, etc.). That way if people have questions about the country, they can ask the experts. I also had fun at the imagination / future part of Epcot.

We occasionally took off our hats and glasses, but most of the time it was too sunny and hot. :)

Did you know there is an aquarium in Epcot? So many cool things!

Brent is pretending to swim in the ocean!

My "Finding Nemo" impression. Pretty good, eh?

Brent and Jeff at Mission:Space, which was really a lot of fun. Okay, it made me sick to my stomach--the g-forces were that intense. But that's the kind of fun you remember!

This troll was just so deliciously hideous. :)

Ah, married life. It's good to "discuss" issues, isn't it?

China!! Yippee! We really had a fun time there.

You can barely see it, but the Epcot ball is just over my head. We're at the far end of the park. See how much we had to walk?

Gumby at Epcot!

Space Shuttle Launch!

Seeing a live space shuttle launch has always been one of Brent's dreams and on May 11, 2009, we got to achieve it! The crazy thing was, the space shuttle launched on the day it was scheduled at the time it was scheduled. I have never heard of such a crazy thing. :)

That day in Florida was pretty much the only day it didn't rain, and we had a great time exploring the Kennedy Space Center. Great memories!

We wanted to know how photogenic we would be in space, next to the space shuttle.

Those rockets were COOL!

Brent inside the Command Module. He looks like a true astronaut, doesn't he? :)

Brent driving the LEM, and I think he's having fun. :)

Me driving the LEM. Notice the graceful way I drive around on the moon.

Brent by the shuttle. Well, not "the" shuttle.

The people at the Kennedy Space Center were so pleased to see us that they let us inside their shuttle. Amazing!

Brent and I have decided to change careers.

Must end with a picture of Gumby. He looks particularly good in this one, don't you think?

Leu Gardens in Orlando, May 10, 2009

Flower Clock.

Flowers found in the Butterfly Garden, and one of my favorite places in the Leu Gardens.

Brent by a beautiful Southern Live Oak with Spanish moss.

It's not that we're comparing me to a flower, or anything like that. My face is the perspective for how big this flower is. Wowzers!

Me by the arty "Bride and Groom."

Brent suggested the pose for this picture. I kid you not.

No set of pictures is complete without Gumby in at least one, so here he is as Tarzan.

I'll try and submit more pictures tomorrow...