unique gift ideas

While sick, in my free moments (when I'm not blowing my nose or chasing children), I've been surfing e-bay for the perfect Christmas gifts!
HA!
At least at the mall I can peruse aisles of potential givables quickly. (I know peruse is used in reference to reading, so I suppose I perused e-bay, but it sounded good for the mall, too.)
I thought maybe I'd get Matt a nice triangle! You know, the kind you take out on the back porch and gong away on to call the children in from the hills for dinner.
Only, we don't have a back porch. Or any hills.

So I thought maybe I'd get him a remote control racing boat! I found a great one called "The Whale" that even comes with an extra motor! (Alarming?)
Only, we don't have a pond, and it said it was "fast!," so it probably wouldn't work for the tub. I don't think the ducks at the park would appreciate it, either.

So I thought maybe I could get him something from the electronic section! Guys love electronics. Only, I wasn't sure what he'd want, and the cheaper stuff is all outdated, anyway. So I ended up looking at Hawaiian sheet music instead!

Oh well. Maybe we can form a ukulele band!

Any unique gift ideas? Or memorable gifts from Christmases past? Post them on the comments!

"Malum consilium quod mutari non potest" -Publilius Syrus ("It's an ill plan that cannot be changed")

So, Matt and I have been sick for over a week now.

I've noticed that Matt sings a lot more when he becomes ill. He develops this nice baritone, and shows it off by singing low low songs.

"Ol' man river, Dat ol' man river He mus' know sumpin'... "

Okay, so I haven't actually heard him singing that one, but if he knew it he would.

My voice doesn't accomodate melodious accompaniments when I catch a cold. I sound more like a cackly witch:

"Come here, my pretty! And your little dog, too! Hehh hehh hehh hehh hehh!"

Matt lulls the kids to bed with his handsome under-the-weather voice. Children run when I'm sick.

Let's not make this a tradition

A turkey at Zion's National Park, March 2005.

It's the day after Thanksgiving.

We all sat around the house in our pajamas, because for the second year in a row we were sick for Thanksgiving.

Last year we had planned, along with my mother and siblings, to bring the meal up to Gram's house. I came down with something nasty and we ended up watching The Brady Bunch. (My family took pity on us and brought by some dinner.)

This year, Matt came down with something a day before Thanksgiving. We, again, had been planning on making dinner and bringing it up to Gram's.

Alas, it was not to be. I called up Uncle Grant and he graciously invited Gram to his place.

Let's not make this a tradition.

On the bright side, a list of gratitude. I am grateful for:

My father in Heaven, Jesus and my family! (So not cliche, they'll always be at the top of my list)

The gospel

Good health

Baby smiles and little laughs

Toothpaste and floss

Central heat (try living in Honshu, Japan. They have these little portable gas heaters, but you have to open a door for ventilation so you don't asphixiate. I love Japan, but not necessarily that part)

Good food

Sweaters in winter

Fall leaves

Those little seals on baby jars that 'pop!' when you open them

Carbon monoxide detectors (don't ask. Scary story. Did you know that to be effective they have to be low to or on the ground? Carbon Monoxide sinks.)

Mailmen

Good humor

Doctors

The way cinamon smells

The way cinamon tastes. Mmm!

Clean water

Small town anyone can join choirs! Hallelujah!

Life

Anyone may leave comments, (because I finally figured out how to format that!)

I blame the hospital gown

I had a doctor's appointment the other day. I had to strip down from the waist up and put on a lovely hospital gown. (They never come in my size).
While I sat trying to keep my shoulders just so (just so my beautiful gown wouldn't slip off) the doctor looked over the tests I had gotten and explained what they meant. It is impossible to pay full attention to anything, let alone medical stuff, when you're wearing the equivalent of your bed sheets tossed over your shoulders.
After the doctor was finished, he told me the nurse would be in in a moment with some informational sheets. A moment? What's a moment in medical jargon, anyway? Are we talking layman's terms or 'the doctor will see you in a moment' terms? Since I was in a medical office, I decided it must be the latter.
He was clearly finished with me, and he didn't mention to change back, but I figured it was implied. Besides, I'd look silly sitting around in my billowing flaps of gown, swinging my legs over the examination table. The nurse would come in and ask in a surprised tone, "Why, hasn't the doctor seen you yet??"
I'd have plenty of time to change, read the cookbook I'd brought, and plan out the entire menu for Thanksgiving dinner before she made it back.

I had worn 2 shirts and a sweatshirt. I hurriedly got into my undergarments, and thought I'd just slip the shirt/sweater ensamble on all in one big swoosh.
Success!
So I thought!
I looked down to find that one of the shirts I tried to pull on had entirely escaped the dressing process. It drooped sloppily spilling out from my collar. I grabbed it quickly and threw it onto the exam table.
It looked messy. I couldn't leave it there. Now the nurse would wonder why I was leaving clothes lying all around and feel sorry for my husband because of his sloppy wife.
"I have time," I thought. "Just another quick swoosh and I'll be ready to go!"
Just to be safe, I decided to put the shirt on while still wearing my regular clothes. I wouldn't want to be caught half dressed, after all.
I put the shirt over my head. "And now, I'll just tuck it into my sweatshirt, take out my arms, put them into the shirt sleeves, weave my arms back into the other shirt and sweatshirt, and voila!"
My shirt was instantly twisted into a knotted trap. My arm was stuck at an 80 degree angle and tap, tap, tap came the nurse!
I yanked as hard as I could and jerked my arm back into my sleave just as she was walking in. The fugitive shirt flipped up in my face and hung limply around my neck. Her smile quickly faded and she swiftly looked down at her paperwork, her face not quite as red as mine. "Is everything okay?" she asked. Heh, heh.
I did the only thing a rational person in this situation could do. I walked over, acting as if it were perfectly normal to have my shirt sagging out of my sweatshirt collar. She half smiled and brough over the paperwork for me to see. I couldn't see it, the shirt was flopped right in my way. I flipped it casually over my shoulders and thanked her for the informational paperwork.

A picture is worth a thousand words- revisited

So, I accidentally deleted a post. Oops. I'm new to this whole blogging thing. So, here they are again, plus a few new ones:

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are."
~Anais Nin, (1903-1977), French-American novelist and diarist

Halloween!

We love Halloween. Every year we carve pumpkins, and Matt's work has a $75 grand prize contest. So, with this incentive, we came up with "Jack the Juggler!" and the PAGA (pumpkins agains gourd abuse) pumpkins. And... we won! Yay. One of our hobbies pays off.

Matt was a devilled egg. Ha ha.

FISH FOOD! The date on here is obviously wrong. Isn't she a cute dragon?

Our sweet little bumble bee.

Aww.

Ill fated new hobby

Driving out to the desert to search for rocks to bring home and crowd up the basement never sounded very alluring to me. That was before cousin Emily told us about Topaz.
"They're everywhere, and when the sun hits them just right, they sparkle and shine all over the place!"
Gathering semi-precious gems suddenly sounded like fun.
So, the whole family, including Mom and my step dad Steve, cousins Em and Mark, Matt's sister Becca, Amelia, Matt, Ellie and I head out to the West Desert! YAY!
IT WAS SO FUN. We cooked on an open fire with minimally scorched food, camped out under the stars, (okay, Ellie and I were in the car, but hey- she was only 4 1/2 months old at the time) and gathered precious gems the next morning! It was so much fun!
We were hooked. Our family headed out again a few weeks later, and this time we were invited to a leased out mine to collect! Ooh it was fun. We actually got some very good (for amatures) specimens this time.
So then we decide to go to the Dugway Geode Beds.
...
We invited some of our best friends, Jessica and Ron, to come. We invited Mom and the gang, and she and Tim's cronies decided to meet us there.
It didn't look very far on the map, and we had a later start than anticipated, but by lunch time we were in the budding metropolis of Vernon, Utah. (Population 700. I asked.) From there we took the Pony Express and were soon slowed down by a cattle drive. Cowboys and girls were moving their herd right down the road. "Hey, this is exciting," I thought, "real cowboys!"
The Pony Express is much longer than I expected getting to the Geode Beds. 50 miles of bumpy dirt road. Really bumpy.
"We'll be nice and relaxed by the time we get there," says Matt, "from this nice massage."
Then, about 15 miles in, Matt sees strange black rocks flying up in the air.
"STOP KATHRYN, THE TIRE'S FLAT!" yells Ron.
Our tire slumped sadly. Shredded. Completely.
The English instructions for how to get the spare out were ruined. Luckily, Ron speaks French.
Every time a car full of hunters sped by, the girls all jumped back into the car to avoid the dust. I look around, trying to see if Mom is in the distance. Nope.

Ron 'cursed' the tire in French.

Eventually we were back on the road, thanks to our heroic men. Not without trepidation, however.
I notice someone else's shredded tire thrown out to the side of the road.
Heh, heh.
Hmm, there's another one.
No one around but us. And this crummy road!
I slow down to about 15 miles an hour.
There's another shredded tire.
"People have died out here," I begin to think. "I wonder how."
I start making mental note of where the shredded tires are, just in case we lose another one and I have to improvise with blown tires.
Did I mention we're 50 miles from nowhere in the middle of Skull Valley?
Where's mom in case we need rescuing?!
3 hours later at about 5:00 we finally make it to the turn off for the Beds. It's only 2 miles now. I glance in the rear view mirror, and there's MOM! YAY! She can rescue us when our next tire pops.
We pulled onto the road leading to our hidden treasure.
It took some guess work, but we pulled right up to where the big dig sites are.
There's an entire boy scout tent city up and running.
I jump out of the car, and at my feet are hundreds of smashed geodes! I start scooping up some of the cool ones.
We grab our tools and run to the tailing pile. Tim and the boys are digging around, Mom is laughing and picking up tossed out geodes, and Amelia is squeeling with delight. I have Ellie in the snugli.
Matt and Ron dig and pick and labor while Jessica and I pick around at the ground.
In the end, I found about 20 geodes just by walking around. Matt dug to no avail. None. Galant man.
Pretty soon I can actually see us coming back out to the desert to collect hidden treasures.
Until, that is, we try and get home on that crummy road.