Hometown Occurrences

You'd think that getting out of Dodge would inspire some new picture-taking ideas in me, but as I look at the photos on my camera from last week it's all the same: Bird. Bird in beanie. Bird with cousin. Bird with Grandma. Bird with Adam. Plus a couple shots of my brother and my dad laid up with knee problems; Dad just got a knee replacement and Mark just had knee surgery #7. So just imagine all of that. And when I find my camera cord maybe I'll upload them for your viewing pleasure.

In the meantime, here are some noteworthy items of happenstance in a town where nothing happens.

*The Bird's sleep was something phenomenal in Roosevelt. So phenomenal it straight up scared me. I believe it is an indication that her true home is in the country.

*Adam and I had a date night out to the movies. We tried to see New Moon (shut up) but it was sold out. We went across the street to see 2012 (slim pickin's - we're just grateful to have two choices) but before doing so, we had to get cash. It was 7:25 p.m. and the movie was to start in five minutes. No biggie. We went back to the car, drove back to the house, got my debit card (Adam's is defunct for some reason), drove back to the theater right into the same parking spot we'd had before, went to the bank (which is conveniently located across the street), walked to the theater and all with plenty of time to spare. If that isn't a pro to living in a small town, I don't know what is.

*I shaved The Bird's head. I just couldn't take the patchiness anymore. It was okay back in Utah when it was cold enough to put a hat on her head everyday, but now I'm kind of regretting it.

*My dad runs the town morgue (actually it's a mortuary but who knows the diff?) and often enlists our help when we are home. This time it was a huge funeral with lots of flowers that needed transporting. I was notified by Mom that I was to get my fannie over to the morgue ASAP to load flowers in the van and take them to the place where they were having the luncheon. Good thing I had just put on pink lipstick that was supposed to be red and had tidied up my hair into pigtails earlier that morning! No need to feel silly, though. The dress code ended up being cowboy boots and large, ratted hair, so I felt kind of like I fit right in ... in a backward sort of way.

*There are always choice occurrences in Roosevelt 5th ward, and yesterday did not disappoint. In Sunday school, we were discussing the whole armor of God in Doctrine & Covenants 27: 15-18 and the teacher drew a stick figure complete with "truth" written across the "loins." Everybody loves a good loincloth of truth. In fact, I think I'll go put mine on right now. A lady also commented that the danger to having an open mind is that it just gets filled right up with trash. I thought, "Yeaaaaah. Wait. What?" I guess being close minded is the only way to know what's right ... right? And in an unofficial poll conducted by me at our family dinner table, I found that 3 out of 5 adults admitted to spacing out when people started talking about their ancestors. We agreed that stories about our own ancestors are interesting, but sacrament meeting talks lasting 30 minutes based on random stories about other people's ancestors was just too much to ingest.

*Adam wanted to go "see some sights" on a drive around town, and I didn't know how to break the news gently as in, "Honey, there are no 'sights.'" Luckily, Mom came along and knew just the spots to take him to. We drove around Bottle Hollow and talked about the Ute Indian reservation on which we reside. We drove around the golf course because that's where all the pretty houses are. Then finished the trip with a jaunt out to Hancock Cove to spot my Uncle Gib's house and see what kinds of animals he was harboring (just cows this time). The whole time I had a tightening in my chest and was finding it hard to breathe. I realized it's because I start panicking when I look around and all I see is nothing. The nothingness collapses in on me, and I feel like I'll do anything to get to a shopping mall. Now I finally get why people were shocked when all they could say about Roosevelt was, "You guys have to drive 3 hours to get to a mall????????" Yep. I get it.

*I cleaned my brother's tub this morning, and I consider it one of the more magnificent accomplishments of my life.

*I ate four slices of pie at Thanksgiving, preceded by one the night prior: apple, pumpkin, razzleberry, sour cream apple and double cream blueberry. When I finished the day with a cup of hot chocolate, I was in full-on regret mode.

*Adam and I were going over some things of import on our drive last night to SLC while The Bird was testing her lungs and suddenly, out of nowhere, a deer met up with the driver's side rear view mirror, taking the thing clean off. We are still shocked and glad that nothing worse happened, especially because Sienna would have been so flipping more mad than she already was.

*I wore my mom's Snuggie a few times. It really is the best invention of 2009.

Thanksgiving Girl

We are in my hometown in Utah enjoying some serious gobble, gobble.

I just wanted to say thanks for this little munchkin.

Can any part of my life be bad when I have this little gummy smile greeting me everyday?

The answer is no.

Balloon Crew

We did something unprecedented last Saturday: we got out of the house. This time of year the sun just depresses me, so I tend to want to stay inside and pretend the weather outside is frightful. But Adam had the great idea to go do something we've been meaning to do for as long as we've lived here: take a ride in the city's big balloon.

What. Your city doesn't have a giant orange balloon just floating in the sky at any and all times of the year? You should feel cheated. (Actually I think it's kind of an eyesore, but fun nonetheless.)

Big Orange Balloon Factoids:

It's filled with helium, not hot air.

It's tethered to the ground with a single cable.

It takes guests 400 feet above the ground.

If the single cable breaks, it can float away as high as 8,500 feet into the air.

You have to sign a waiver to go up.

It's totally safe for kids of all ages.
Do you see a problem here?

Cue: Mama anxiety.

I had just planned on taking turns going up and keeping Sienna safely planted on the ground. But Adam felt totally fine about taking her up. Other kids were going up, other infants were going up, everyone said it was safe. So, I lost. And we took her up.

Funny thing happened, though. Adam and I switched places once the balloon was floating up, up and away and while I thoroughly enjoyed the free flying with Sienna strapped to my chest, he ended up gripping the sides, nearing a panic attack.

He did manage to take some cool pictures, though, like these:

Cursed be the blue skies around here. But aren't they just kind of pretty?

Some Thoughts About Stuff

*I want to be Gwyneth Paltrow. Always have. A couple Saturdays ago I watched the first disc in the Spain ... On the Road Again series after learning about it from my sister, Heather, who watched all of them before she visited Spain last summer. I watched it for no other reason than to see Gwyneth just being herself. She was all chill and wearing her simple, stylish clothes and having long, unkempt hair and just chowing down on everything. The entire show revolves around them eating, so it's hard to watch without visiting the fridge yourself multiple times. I watched it around 10 a.m. and wolfed down beef and potatoes and some cheese and chocolate bars to try and match their much more exquisite fare of lobster and oysters. It didn't satisfy, so that's the end of that series in my house. But watching Gwyneth always makes me feel like I look like her. After putting the show on pause and visiting the fridge yet again, I made a short stop in the bathroom to part my hair down the middle (nobody does the butt part as exquisitely as Gwyneth) to see if I, indeed, was able to mirror her look. Alas. I looked long-faced and drab. Maybe that's why she's a movie star and I'm not. She just glows. And that style! The effortless style. Any camera angle suits her perfectly. Anyway, big, big fan of Gwyneth. I also have finally mastered the spelling of her name. Makes me proud.

*After attending a funeral last week of a neighbor, I had an epiphany. We need to live closer to family. I've never wanted to live close to family mostly because the places I've wanted to live don't happen to be by family. Maybe it's weird to want to choose a place over people, but I've always just wanted to pick a spot on a map and live there, regardless of who else was going to be there. Well, no more of that nilly willy living. The Bird needs to know from whence she came; she needs to know her cousins and her aunts and uncles and grandparents and great grandparents. But it's not only for her sake. It's for my sake. I don't want to just know my family and in-laws through Facebook and blogging and emailing and phone calls and telepathy. I want them to come to my funeral and be able to say, "We knew her. We knew the good, the bad and the ugly." Maybe that's an announcement. Family! I'm coming home! (In about 5 years.) (And not to Roosevelt. Sorry. You already knew that though.)

*I constantly have this inner dialogue going on in my head about this whole "equality" movement. Is this really the direction we should be moving? Equal everything for men and women? And what do you think of the idea of home, family, work responsibilities split right down the middle, 50/50? I saw a story about a couple trying to do just that. It seemed so much more complicated. I don't know, maybe I just like things simple and don't mind my lot of the labor in family life. Anyway, I'm not really going anywhere with this except to this quote I saw that still sends chills down my spine when I think of it (especially the last part starting with, "In my time as ...") (from this op-ed in the NY Times written by the former editor (a woman) of Portfolio magazine in response to the Shriver Report):

This isn’t simply a woman’s issue; it affects us all. It isn’t about blaming men, or about embracing feminism, which remains a toxic term for some women. Instead, it is up to all of us to help change the conversation.

How do we get to there from here?

First, we can begin by telling girls to have confidence in themselves, to not always feel the need to be the passive “good girl.” In my time as an editor, many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion?

I’ll tell you. Exactly ... zero.

That last line! OOooohh! If you could have looked through my window the moment I read that line, you'd have seen my mouth forming a large O. Is the reason women are not paid equally (which I'm all for) because we are afraid to ask for it? I'm proud to say I have asked for a raise before, and gotten it, (when a promotion accidentally fell to me) thank you very much. In fact, I'd like to ask for a raise now. Sienna? I want equal naps as well as time to eat lunch without so much as a grunt from you, young lady. I mean, Boss.

*Fried onions! Our neighbors! That's all they cook, I swear! We wake up and: FRIED ONIONS. We go to bed and: FRIED ONIONS. I can't sleep when there are funky food smells in my bedroom and I am certain their kitchen is directly below it. Oh, the insanity.

*Adam and I get into this recurring conversation about the perfect amount of time one should spend at their home teaching and visiting teaching appointments. He's all lickety split, in and out style. I say that I try to be more on that side of the aisle, but with women, it just ends up being longer because we can just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. And throw a couple kids in the mix and it's just a meeting of mayhem. Fun mayhem, but the mayhem definitely adds, oh, about 20 minutes. What do you think? And what was your longest or shortest appointment ever? I, personally, don't think it's about the time, but what goes on and what needs to go on. I think the most important thing that both parties can get from HT and VT is to know that there is trust, enough that the one being visited can honestly feel comfortable calling and asking for help when he or she needs it.

Family Christmas Card Outtakes

We're sending out Christmas cards this year and you know I'm all about photo shoots, so I gathered up the family, dressed them in red, black and white and we ventured to the park to see if we could come up with something decent. I still have no idea what I'm doing with my camera, but it's always fun to experiment.

Here are the ones you won't find on the card.

By the way, if you read this blog, I want to send you a card, so email me your address at martha dot h dot ware at gmail dot com. Seriously. Do it! Don't be shy! You know you need something to spruce up your fridge. Email me.

The Bird is 6 Months Old

And I can't believe we're still calling her The Bird! :) (Adam, maybe in the comments section you can leave the story of why you started calling her this in the first place. I need a refresher.)

Sienna turns six months old today! We had a grand photo shoot this afternoon to mark the occasion.

The Groovy Twosome.

It started inside but was not going well.

"If I know The Bird like I think I do," I thought, "she'll be much happier if we do this outside." Meh. Not so much.

An aerial view of the infant-pattern baldness going on.

Conversing with her kind (the other birds). Truly, this is her in squawking mode. It is something not to be missed.

Anytime I can catch a view of her profile, I wish I had a camera. What is it about profiles? Love them.

You might be thinking, "What in the sam hill is she doing outside in a onesie this time of year?!" Southern California NEVER. CHANGES. SEASONS. It makes me mad. But not on days when I'd like to venture out for an impromptu photo shoot.

Dirt on the foot.

"Mom. I'm over the bows."

Mid-rollover.

Lately she loves pulling back the blanket to discover what's underneath. That's usually about the time I find her regurgitated milk on the carpet. However, outside, it's grass! What a discovery. I love watching her little fingers grasp and ungrasp, grasp and ungrasp.

Double fistin' on the grass.

Winding down.

"Mom. Winding down here. You want me to lose it? I will."

Mmm, Bird. You are a delicious little snuggle bug. Your dad and I STILL can't believe such a beautiful little person came from us.

Here's to six more months of squeezing and squawking!

Halloween Polaroids

We spent Halloween at a murder mystery party. This is becoming a tradition, as it was our third year in a row doing this. Our friends Christian and Ari always do a bang up job with the food and decor, setting the stage for a really fun party. The theme this year was 1920s Chicago Speakeasy. I was reporter and Adam was a golfer/nightclub owner. My costume struggled and was very last minute. That's just how it is with me and Halloween. Never sure what to do because I refuse to buy anything. That's why you won't see The Bird in this post. I'm just too practical to get an outfit just for a photo op. I know. Boring!

Anyway, enjoy the fun pics!