I’m still here (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: I don’t know how to blog anymore. I try every few days, and it doesn’t work!

Fact #2: This was Zoe’s great idea…

Her logic is, why put someone’s actual name on a bracelet when it might change?

Fact #3: Speaking of Zoe, she worked hard all morning on April Fools to prank the family. 

Fact #4: This wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be:

Fact #5:

Crock Pots.

And I love buying them from the thrift store. I will never turn away a good Crock Pot. 

Fact #6: Yesterday I took Daisy to the eye doctor, and there was a mini Jesus hidden in the room (it’s a TikTok trend).

Then today at the orthopedic specialists office, we found another Jesus.

I decided to leave Him a friend.

Fact #7: Why were we at the orthopedic specialists? Because Nicky injured his calf. We initially went to the ER, and then after a few days, it was starting to get more painful so we followed up with the specialist.

He will be in a boot for two weeks and has to miss the rest of tennis season.

He’s pretty devastated.

But I took him to Costco and bought him a cheesecake to help lift his spirits. 

Fact #8: We went and saw the Minecraft movie, and I realized Jack Black and I have the same hair.

Fact #9: Other devastating things… on Monday, Nicky was supposed to go skydiving. We had been at the skydiving place for about three hours. He was all harnessed up and set to take off in 20 minutes when they called the other plane down because of wind. We waited an hour and a half or so, and then they called it off entirely. It was so sad.

Fact #10: My kids are currently on spring break. Our big plans have mostly consisted of doctor appointments. 

Today is the Day (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: My kids (finally) go back to school today after the Longest Winter Break of All Time. We’ve taken on a whole new schedule and lifestyle in the time the kids have been out of school. I don’t remember how to do the routine. I don’t remember how to feed my family non-party food that I have to buy and prepare myself. I don’t remember what day it is. I don’t remember how to go to work during normal hours (I went in at 5:30 am during the break). 

Fact #2: Speaking of party food, even though the holidays have come and gone, we are still partying pretty hard over here. Our family has so many December and January birthdays that we can’t even think about rest until February. Over the weekend we had a combined birthday celebration for me (Jan 1), my brother-in-law (Jan 3), and my father-in law (Jan 4). The next day we had Nicky’s birthday party. His birthday was December 27, but we put off his birthday party for a bit because we were booked with Christmas events, other people’s birthdays, and a niece leaving on a mission. I wanted to do something at least a little bit special for his 18th so we had an open house and encouraged people to dress like Nicky. 

Sadly, I got very few pictures. 

Fact #3: On Saturday, during the hustle and bustle of getting ready for parties, someone drifted into my lane and sideswiped  my van. Everyone was fine. Her car was fine. My van’s damage was minimal and only cosmetic (fortunately), but it was a bit inconvenient. I’m not sure, but I think the girl might have initially tried to run. I chased her down, and she pulled over. 

The door is dented, but the scuffs all came out.

Fact #4: Puzzles we did over winter break:

Fact #5: I wish we’d had more time for puzzles and games. On Christmas Day I wanted to play Ark Nova so bad, but in the afternoon, Scotty got slammed with a head cold. He was pretty sick for about 4-5 days. Alas, there was never Ark Nova. 

Fact #6: We hoped to get Daisy’s learner’s permit over the break, and that never happened. After my car accident over the weekend, she’s taking a big step back in any desire to drive. But we did get Nicky’s dental and medical checkups done for his mission paperwork, so at least we have something checked off our to do list. 

Fact #7: I have been engaging in a wonderful journey of collecting all of my free birthday food and gifts. Stay tuned at the end of the month for a thorough rundown. In the meantime, here is a teaser:

Fact #8: 

Me: Go put the HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign out in the yard for the party.

My kids:

Fact #9: I have jury duty next week. This is the 8th time in my life I’ve been summoned for jury duty. Something is wrong with the system. Why is it that I can’t win BINGO to save my life, but I can get called up for jury duty the second I’m eligible?

Fact #10: I am solidly one of those people who get the bug right after Christmas to throw out everything we own and declutter the entire house. I have taken three car loads of stuff to the DI. It feels so refreshing! This is such a funny phenomenon, but I am definitely among the January purgers. My mentality right now is “if it makes me feel any amount of stress to own it, use it, or store it, I want it gone!” I’m doing this with “stuff” but also with food. I’ve gone through all of our food and thrown out everything that I feel stressed out about trying to use up. 

I love getting rid of stuff! Wish I could get rid of my jury summons… (I’m contemplating paying the $1,000 fine and taking the night in jail).

Clumsy Things

I just got jury summons. Y’all, I get jury summons every two years. Every single time my name goes back in the pool - you know that one that’s supposed to be “random” - I get summons. This is the 7th time I’ve had jury summons since becoming an adult. Convince me it’s not rigged. Go ahead. Try me. I feel like I’m being picked on, and I have my conspiracy theories, but I won’t explain them here because there are better things to discuss. 

My brain is fried right now, jury summons is the last thing I need. Between that and the McDonald’s drive thru line taking too long yesterday, methinks the straw hath broken the camel’s back.

Anyway, I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, and I admit, I took on too much, and it affected my ability to function. I tend to be clumsy by nature, but it gets really bad when I take on too much. Here are some incidents from the past few days…

Incident #1: 

I went to Sam’s Club and decided to get a drink while I was there. I filled my cup with Diet Dr. Pepper and then somehow ended up spilling it all over my cart. I had to gather napkins to wipe off my merchandise and the floor below my cart. Before I spilled, I grabbed a handful of straws to put in my glove box (the other day McDonald’s didn’t give me a straw, and I didn’t have an extra in my van). While I was pushing may cart out to my van, all of the straws fell through the cart and onto the ground. Then when I got to my van, the eggs had Dr. Pepper still dripping from the grooves of the carton and that got all over the passenger seat.

Incident #2:

I made pumpkin rolls to sell (this is my 4th year), and whenever I make pumpkin rolls, I get a little scatterbrained after the first batch. I make a 6x recipe each time, so as I mixed up my second batch, I couldn’t remember if I’d added the baking soda or not. Then as I tested a roll to see if it baked up properly (to determine if I’d added the soda), I realized I’d shorted the batter by 2 cups of sugar. Additionally, I accidentally added too much salt to one batch. 

While I was baking, I got powdered sugar on every surface of my kitchen. It was like a bomb went off. Do you know what happens to powdered sugar when you try to clean it up? It gets sticky! Even with hot, soapy water, it takes a few wipe downs to thoroughly clean up that amount of powdered sugar. It was just a big mess, but I was able to make and sell 29 pumpkin rolls (I sold out on Facebook in 15 minutes!)

Incident #3: 

After baking pumpkin rolls for two days straight, I was washing my baking pans and somehow dumped water from a pan onto my pill container (which was sitting next to the sink), and all of my pills got saturated. So in addition to being clumsy and scatterbrained all week, I’ve also been unmedicated. 

(But I’m fine and have now gotten all my refills).

Incident #4:

I missed my daughter’s dress rehearsal for dance (I had no idea it was dress rehearsal) and then took my other daughter to dance at the wrong time (they changed the class time and I had no idea). Both girls were absolutely traumatized by this.

Incident #5: 

While making pumpkin rolls, I bought a 10 lb bag of sugar and when I got home from the store, the bag had ripped open in the trunk (it rubbed against the hardware of my collapsible wagon) and spilled everywhere.

I haven’t cleaned that up yet. 

Incident #6: 

This is not a one-time occurrence, but over and over during the past week I have dropped my credit cards out of my wallet onto the ground as well as a handful of receipts from my purse. I also dropped my popcorn during one of The Music Man shows and dropped an egg on the counter while making breakfast the other day. 

Incident #7:

I made pumpkin chocolate chip bread on Sunday to give to the directors of The Music Man, and when I put the oil in the mixer (2 cups of it), I missed and poured it all over the counter.

Incident #8: 

While refilling my stapler the other day, I managed to do this:

Why did I stop and take a photo? 

I just had to because it was so unbelievable. I work with a staple gun at work and have never stapled myself. Then I change staples in a regular, old, household stapler and somehow embed a staple deep in my thumb. 

It didn’t hurt until I removed it.

Incident #9:

This one is TMI, so I’ll give you the short version. I flung my menstrual cup across my bathroom. How does that happen? I don’t even know. 

I think I need a long nap.

40x40: The Finale

In fall of 2022 I started working on a 40x40 project. I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do before I turn 40. In recent years, I’ve had about a 50% success rate in any goal setting I do. So I didn’t meet all 40 goals. Figures. But whatever.

I never listed my 40 goals here on the blog, but I referenced some now and then. Now I’ll let you see what all of my goals were. I was hoping I’d be a better person going into my forties. I’m pretty sure I’m not, but it was fun anyway. 

Here is how I did:

1. Read 365 books with Eva - Incomplete. Reading with Eva is miserable; I’m not gonna lie. 

2. Play 500 songs on the piano - Incomplete. I started off well and even felt myself improving, and then I just stopped one day and never touched the piano again.

3. No soda for one year - FAIL. I made it until June (as you read on, you’ll find that all my efforts unraveled in June. The end of June is when my summer depression took over, and I couldn’t keep up anymore).

4. Go back to the temple - Complete

5. Read Atomic Habits - Complete

6. Do 50 push-ups (in one session) - FAIL

7. Learn to play Terraforming Mars - FAIL, much to my husband’s dismay

8. Add ten healthy recipes to my recipe binder - Complete

9. Read one spiritual book per month - Close enough

10. Renew my Church magazines - Complete

11. Get family photos taken - Complete

12. Get Daisy and Zoe's eyes checked - Complete

13. Make deviled eggs - Complete

14. Make potato salad - Complete

15. Do a dairy fast to see if I’m lactose intolerant - Complete, and I’m not!!!

16. Have an annual physical - Complete

17. Pay off the truck - Complete. Then we bought a new van that’s 3x the payment amount. Ugh. 

18. Have five adventures - Incomplete. My intent was to do five things I normally wouldn’t do. I went sledding. That’s all.

19. Do a ten-day social media fast - Incomplete, but I had lots of three-day social media fasts. Turns out social media is pretty important in keeping up with my kids’ school and extracurriculars. 

20. Reestablish dish days for the kids - Complete

21. Size down - Incomplete

22. Only weigh myself at the doctor - Complete

23. Figure out digital photo storage - Incomplete

24. Learn Canva or similar program - Complete

25. Do a thorough house clean-out - Incomplete. I wrote out a plan and completed a few projects but didn’t get the entire house like I hoped. 

26. Get all accounts and subscriptions cleaned up - Incomplete

27. Find a healthy "reward" - Complete, but I haven’t stuck with it. My reward was to play Wingspan on the treadmill for my last 20 minutes at the gym.

28. Keep track of eating out - Incomplete. I kept up til June. Life unraveled in June. Summer kicked my butt.

—————

Now we move into the immeasurable goals - the ones I couldn’t really “check off” but hoped to accomplish somehow:

29.  Have more church music in the home - Successful. I have a Sunday playlist that I turn on… when I remember… and I have found a few songs that my kids respond well to, so I try to sneak them on from time to time. 

30. Keep up on hair health - Undetermined. I tried to keep my ends trimmed, but I did it myself. I feel like my hair has all broken off and gone away anyway.

31. Be nicer to people - Undetermined. It’s hard to know. 

32. Drink more water - Undetermined. I did really well until June, of course.

33. Prepare better for Christmas - Successful. I think I did okay at this. There are still some things I’d like to tweak in the coming years to do better.

34. Keep up on skin care - Unsuccessful. I’m touch and go with skincare. 

35. Dabble in writing a book - Unsuccessful. I thought maybe I could, at minimum, do some creative writing prompts for practice or write some character sketches. Nah. I didn’t even try. 

36. Do better at praying with the kids - Unsuccessful. In fact, I think I got worse.

37. Improve some strained relationships - Undetermined. There were some relationships I started trying to work at one point, and then I remembered why those particular relationships are strained to begin with, and I decided it’s best to just keep a distance for now. 

38. Do Sunday journaling - Unsuccessful. I did a bit but didn’t make a habit of it like I hoped.

39. Improve my fasting practices - Unsuccessful

40. Do better at Come Follow Me study - Undetermined. Again, I did well until June.

—————

As the New Year approaches, I’m programmed to make resolutions, but I’m forcing myself not to. My approach for 2024 is to not make resolutions and then count every accomplishment as extra credit. 

Ten Titles

Please forgive me while I post way too much about my 40x40 goals. As my 40th birthday approaches, I've been reviewing my goals and celebrating the ones I've accomplished and laughing about the ones that fell by the wayside. I used to have a 75% success rate with goal setting, but in the past few years, I've fallen to more of a 50% success rate. Better than nothing, right? But I feel like when I fail at a goal, I really fail at a goal. Which makes me wonder if I'm actually worse off from goal setting than if I just never tried.

Anyway, one of my goals was to read a religious or spiritual book every month (on average - if I read two in June and none in July, that's okay. I just wanted to finish twelve throughout the year). I didn't quite make it to twelve, but I did finish ten! (I have a couple more in process that I could possibly finish before the end of the year, and if I do, I'll add them to this post, but I'm giving myself a pass to read then at whatever pace I can rather than rush through them just to finish before my birthday). 

Here are the books I read (or listened to) with a little bit of commentary. 

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I started off by listening to this book, but then I decided I wanted a physical copy to mark, so I bought it and started over from the beginning. 

Last year my bishop asked me if I had any counsel for him on how he could help and support people with depression. I drew a blank because everyone's depression is so different. For me, there are times where I need to have responsibilities to pull me through. Sometimes when I'm experiencing depression, the best thing someone can do for me is to ask me to help with something - teach a lesson or make something. I need to feel needed. That was the case with assisting with the ward Christmas party last year. I needed to contribute, and that helped me out of a slump. Other times (and for many other people), being asked to take on a responsibility is completely overwhelming. Sometimes being relied upon is just what I need! Other times, the pressure of being "needed" is too much. There are so many variables that go into it. 

I had no answer for my bishop, so I asked him if I could take some time to think about it. I never got back to him. But when I read this book, I felt like there was so much in there that might be helpful to a bishop. 

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I had mixed feelings while reading this book. Some of it paralleled many things I have experienced myself, but there were parts of it that I didn't like, and I don't know why. Overall, I was grateful to have read it, and it gave me a lot to think about. 

It was also a little hard to read because I have a lot of friends and family who are experiencing "divine quietness" right now, and they are abandoning their relationship with God. I've been there myself (see this post - but also know that I've experienced it again and again since writing that post), and my heart aches for them.

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I enjoyed listening to this book, and I always get really excited when science and religion align. However, I'm not good at science, so there were parts where I checked out a bit because things got a little too "science-y." I have added this to my mental list of "research methods for Mormons" curriculum (which also included Seekers Wanted by Anthony Sweat and Real vs Rumor by Keith A. Erekson).

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This one is a compilation of teachings from Elder Holland from the New Testament. I listened to it (read by him) at the beginning of the year, and it was a good companion for Come Follow Me since we studied the New Testament this year. It felt a bit long, and it took me longer to get through than I wanted it to, but I got there eventually!

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This was a tough one because it's a memoir from the mother of one of the Sandy Hook victims. I really don't know what to say about it.

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I read this one right before General Conference, and it was great timing. I feel like it helped me prepare. 

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This was another book that fit really well with studying the New Testament this year. I listened to this book a few years ago, and this time I read a digital copy. I read it before we hit the parables in Come Follow Me, and I was ready for them!

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This may seem a strange option since it's not really a traditionally published book, but I read Teaching in the Savior's Way from cover to cover recently. Any time I am serving in a teaching position in the Church, I take that responsibility very seriously, and I strive to be the kind of teacher the Lord needs me to be, so I am always brushing up on my teaching skills and trying to improve. 

I also frequently review the learning model from BYU-I, and I still study Teaching No Greater Call.

Some of the goals I have when I teach are, first and foremost, to teach by the Spirit. But additionally, I like to bring variety, stimulate intellect, and help those in my audience to feel loved and capable. I have successes and failures, but those are some of my highest goals, so I try to always be improving. 

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This is another book that I read for the second time this year. To be honest, I don't remember it very well... even after reading it twice. But I do remember that I was struggling with something, and I felt like this book could help, and it did. 

So whatever it was... I guess it worked out. Thanks, Book. 

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Sometimes I listen to the podcast Sunday on Monday through Deseret Bookshelf. The author of this book is the host of the podcast, Tammy. The book looks at Proverbs 31 in depth and interprets some of the symbolism and translates some of the original Hebrew to better understand the scriptural passage. It reads very much in Tammy's voice.

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And thus you have my ten books from my "not quite accomplished" 40x40 goal. 

Ten Recipes That Made the Cut

One of my goals in my 40x40 quest this year was to find ten new healthy recipes to add to my recipe binder. This proved more difficult than I thought because A) pretty much, if it's healthy, and I like it, I already have a recipe for it, and B) there are a lot of not-great, healthy recipes out there. For every recipe I kept, there are probably 10 that I tried that didn't make the cut. I started to think I might not ever make it to ten, but here in the last moments of 2023, I have found them! 

Here they are:

1. Air Fryer Fish Tacos with Cilantro Lime Slaw - Scotty and I really like these (the kids don't), and I have started using the slaw recipe for other meals as well. It's good on hamburgers or pulled pork sandwiches, and I use it on Korean tacos, too. 

2. Cilantro Lime Grilled Chicken with Avocado Salsa - everyone in the family likes this chicken, but I'm the only one that likes the avocado salsa.

3 - 5. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Blender Muffins - I make these all the time. I also make the Double Chocolate Banana and the Banana Chocolate Chip sometimes (using honey instead of sugar), but we all like the pumpkin the best.

6. Instant Pot Creamy Tomato Basil Soup - I have a winter's worth of this soup in my freezer. 

7. Garlic Butter Turkey Meatballs with Zucchini Noodles - I have haven't actually tried this with zoodles, but the meatballs are good and probably the most flavorful meatballs I've ever had. I had a small zucchini when I made this (not enough to make zoodles with), so I used spaghetti noodles and threw in some sauteed zucchini.

8. Anti-Inflammatory Chicken Soup - this one surprised me. I really wasn't expecting it to be good. I'm the only one who has eaten it, so I can't speak for my family, but I want them to try it sometime to see what they think.

9. Baked Drumsticks - I'm trying to be more open to dark meat because drumsticks and thighs are so cheap.

10. Grinder Salad - I don't make this exactly how the recipe states. I just use what I have (so I don't use all the meats listed, and I might not have olives or tomatoes). This is another recipe I wasn't sure I would like, but I was surprised. I occasionally make a variation of this salad for lunch (and I sneak in pieces of bread because I'm a rebel).

The only one I have a photo of

(I love how it looks like the salad is sitting directly on the counter)

(Lists of links to recipes bug me, so I'm sorry that's what I'm throwing out there today). 

Now that I've checked this goal my list, I'll continue my quest to find healthy recipes to add to my recipe binder... but without the added pressure of my 40th birthday. 

A Little Halloween-y

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #18:

Deal

Have I ever mentioned that I love thrift store shopping? Specifically at Deseret Industries, the thrift store ran by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? 

Well, it’s true. I love me a good DI find.

Ever since I made my haunted houses a few weeks ago, I’ve been on a bit of a Halloween decor kick. Actually, come to think of it, it started last year when I found Ludwig. It’s so exciting to find things at the DI to get creative with. After I made the haunted houses, I started thinking it would be fun to make some decorations for my living room wall. I had a vision of replacing my kids’ photos with some scarier portraits. 

I found a few skeletons and skulls at Dollar Tree, and then I bought a few cans of spray paint, and some… well… I don’t know what you would call them… “frames & such?”… from the DI.

Frames & such

I spray painted the frames & such black and then wiped them down with some gray acrylic paint mixed with water (to give them a more dusty/matte look). I also spray painted all the skeletons white (they were originally more tan in color) and then wiped them down with a mix of black paint and water to distress them and accentuate the details. 

I never really know what I’m doing. I just make it up as I go. 

I took knives and scissors to the skeletons and skulls to cut them up how I wanted. It was all sorts of morbid, sawing faces off, hacking up limbs… but in the end, here’s what I had: 

Here’s what the wall looked like before:

I’ll probably fiddle with the arrangement over time just to see how it looks in a few different ways (it’s what I do), but I think it’s a pretty great Halloween set-up for this year. Here are the before and after photos of the frames & such:

Scotty had a good laugh about this one

This one is my favorite because the skeleton looks like he’s smiling, and it reminds me of the standard school photo

While I was looking through frames & such at the DI, I came across a bunch of rose covered frames that I loved, so I bought one of them. I thought it would make such a nice frame for a skeleton portrait, so I came up with this:

For now it’s on the bookshelf:

I had to chop off the skeletons’ feet and one of the arms. Then I bent the arm so it could go around the shoulder of the other skeleton, and I pieced it back together and glued it. 

I had a whole lot of fun making these! 

While I was at it, I also revamped a wreath I found at DI last year: 

Before

After

I spent nearly 4x more money on the ribbon than the wreath (wreath was $2, ribbon was $6.99). Luckily, a $9 wreath is still a deal! 

Normally I wait until October 1st to decorate for Halloween, but since I’m making decorations, I’m just putting them out as I go because I don’t want to put them away just to get them back out again in two weeks. I’ll be sick of them by Halloween, for sure! Six weeks is too long for any holiday. 

One problem with decorating my home is that I don’t have a lot of surface area, so I don’t have many places to put knick-knacks. With my thrift shopping adventures of late, I’ve ended up with too many Halloween decorations and nowhere to put them, so I’m trying to figure out where I can display Ludwig this year as well as my new friend: 

The Demon Mermaid

Then

Now

I’ll keep you posted…