Snippets of life

So many blog-able things have happened lately, but getting on-line on our computer is a big pain! I mostly just read e-mail and other people's blogs.

Blog-able Story #1

On Monday morning the girls and I went to the library and had a hard time finding a parking spot. The place was packed! I pulled into a spot next to a VW with a woman in the passenger's seat. The spaces are narrow, and as I was getting the girls out of the car the VW woman got out, pushed her way past me and moved my door.

"I knew it! Your door dinged my door! I heard it from inside my car."

I felt terrible and apologized profusely. She was terse. I looked at the ding and rubbed away the dirt to find a tiny little spot, smaller than the size of this o. She told me it was very unfortunate. Again, I profusely apologized and tried to give her some money for a touch-up kit.

"Oh, that spot is too small to bother with a touch-up kit. It's just very unfortunate."

I promised to be much more cautious in the future. Just then, her two boys came out to their car, so I moved to the other side of mine so as not to be in the way. One of her boys was driving. As I looked down to buckle Ls into her stroller I heard, "SMACK CRUNCH!"

Her boy had just smashed into the car behind them, and the huge dent on their car was much worse than a ding in the paint. :-( Very unfortunate. I left before I could hear the aftermath.

Blog-able story #2

So about 3 months ago I started feeling very ill. I knew that I was pregnant, but this just seemed to be much worse than in the past. I just seemed to feel much more terrible than I had during the last 2 pregnancies. I figured I was just getting older and it would be harder to be pregnant now that I wasn't in my 20s anymore.

I lost my appetite, and one day during dinner I remarked to Mr. Amazing Husband, "It feels like there's a rock in my stomach." And then, the grand epiphany moment. Mr. AH said, "K, you say that every time your ulcers came back." Oh, duh to me. You'd think after all those ulcers I would recognize when they come back. I guess the pregnancy symptoms closely mock some of the ulcer ones. Thank heavens I just take some medication and three months later voila! I feel much better.

We've been able to see an ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. We are very, very excited and grateful. We were told we probably wouldn't be able to have any more children without expensive medical intervention. I'm glad Heavenly Father's plans were different.

Blog-able Story #3

This story also occurred on Monday. Mr. AH woke up early, he had started new classes and is gone almost the entire day. He couldn't find his keys and had looked everywhere. This was a problem, because there were keys to our apartment, his lab, and our car on them. I said a quick prayer asking where I should look. I got the impression to go out to our front door. I went out, opened the door, and there they were, sticking right in the handle.

We were very blessed and lucky for several reasons:
1. Those keys had been in the door since the previous day at 5:00.
2. We live on a busy, high pedestrian street where those keys would have been visible from the sidewalk.
3. There have been no less than 3 cars stolen from the 2 houses across the street from us.
4. Yikes! Strangers having the keys to our house? Yikes!

So thank Heavens for prayer. Yet another testament for its wonderfulness.

And to catch up, NiNa starts school in a few weeks. Sob. I'm really going to miss her while she's there. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up. She is so sweet and cute, and she says the darndest things. Her laugh is so fun.

Our lives suddenly got much busier, and much more hectic, when Ls figured out how to hop over the gate to the kitchen. I didn't really have to baby-proof that much for NiNa. She never got into things or made big messes. Ls likes to do things on her own, explore, dive right in and grab anything she can find. So I find myself ever more occupied with safety. Admittedly, it is cute to see a tiny, petite little two year old climbing up the side of the food storage shelf so she can "eat gum!" Still...

Also, it took me some months to realize that because Ls had learned to jump over the gate that we didn't need to keep it up anymore. Brilliant, I know.

"Who's the wiser? Who's to know?"

A few weeks ago I was reading the paper and noticed a fun sounding short essay contest:

"What I learned from my own Julia Child."

I have always loved Julia Child, and essay writing is fun, so I entered. The prize? 4 winners would be selected to go to the pre-screening of the movie "Julie & Julia" and their essays would be printed in the paper.

I was very surprised to get a call about a week ago telling me that I was a winner! Valerie Phillips herself gave me a ring. My essay was printed in today's Deseret News, and it's also on Valerie's blog, Flavors.

Here's my essay:
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Growing up, in our house Julia Child was always queen of the culinary world. On Saturday mornings, Mom would shush us kids so she could glean any bit of wisdom from the greatest cook of all. We liked watching her too because of her great accent. We loved imitating her.

Inspired, Mom would whip up her own versions of greatness. She is an experimental cook, and was always coming up with some new culinary treat and chasing us around the kitchen with it. Her exotic creations included such dishes as “asparagus smothered in imported gorgonzola cheese atop a lightly toasted 7 grain bread” or “chocolate chili mole ala poultry.” Us kids, being so uncultured and ignorant of anything to do with the gastronomic scene, were often told by Mom that our “tastes had not yet matured.”

“Mayan kings used to love this!” she would say. “It was a great delicacy that only the elite royal class used to enjoy! Have a bite.” One day we were aghast to find a tray of cream cheese filled dates topped carefully with almonds. When we turned up our noses at it, she quickly chided, “Jesus used to eat this! It was one of his favorite treats! I can’t believe you would reject something that Jesus himself used to feast on!”

Aside from instilling a wariness of unknown dishes in us kids, Mom taught us one of the grandest lessons of cooking: you don’t need a recipe to make dinner. And, if your kids won’t touch it, tell them it was Caesar’s favorite dish.
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I have not exagerated anything to the least degree about Mom's cooking in this essay. We laugh about it all now, but she really did, and probably still does, say those things. I took her with me to the pre-screening. We had a fabulous time, and there were parts that I laughed so hard I cried. I am not supposed to critique the movie at all until it comes out on the 7th, so I'll give my impressions then.