BABY MANIA!

Is it just my perception or is everybody in the world having a baby soon? Let's see how many pregnancies I know about... 2 at church, 3 old friends, and 2 in Utah. No wait... make it 4 old friends. And that's not even counting the people I know who plan to get pregnant soon (about 3 or 4). Is this normal? I guess I have crossed into that stage of life where I am surrounded by people having babies. It wouldn 't be such a big deal if it didn't make me pine over having one of my own.
I see a baby and feel convinced that it is the thing I want the most right now. Then I push the thought aside and say it's not time yet. I'm not all emotional about it, but I feel a twinge of jealousy each time I hear about another lady who's expecting. My mom says it's the nesting instinct. That kind of makes it sound cooler than being "baby hungry." But that's what I am--I have a place in me that is filled when I give. Helping in the Nursery at church, sometimes a kid will just want someone to hold them. That's my favorite part. I feel so needed. So I will let the nursery children be my surrogate children until it's really my time to be a mother.

AGAIN... really?

I'm shocked. The snowy and icy weather continued all week, so church was cancelled again. Something about it being dangerous to drive in 6 inches of snow topped off with an inch of frozen rain. Perhaps it really is an Arctic Blast. It has been strange being stuck at home most of the week. Friday I was pretty desperate to get out of the house and get some exercise, so I went for a walk and returned two and a half miles later really cold and wet. It felt good though. Then last night Eric and I played in the snow. First we made snow angels, then we took turns riding down our street in a garbage bag. If you have never tried it before, they make great sleds--inexpensive and really easy to carry back to the top of the hill! (But be sure to get the heavy duty kind.) ;) While sledding, we had some neighbors come by on skis. Later on the news we saw other people skiing down Madison Street in Oregon City. Now how often can a person do that!? Pretty cool.

The BEST Part of Oregon in the Winter

...is that it snows a couple inches and it's a HUGE deal. Of course the snow didn't stop there; it has snowed all day and put a thick blanket over everything in site. The funniest part is that things are shut down because of the snow. Granted, this "storm" is a little more snow than the occasional Christmas dusting, but it probably doesn't deserve the title the news reporters give it ("Arctic Blast"). Church services were cancelled this morning and I know for a fact the local library is closed... which is a really big deal for the city of West Linn because the people here put millions into their library and keeping it open. So with things cancelled and closed for the day, we've had a family-oriented day--even more than any other Sunday. We visited Eric's parents and went with them to the tree farm to get a Christmas tree. Everything just seems more magical and memorable in the snow. This is already a Christmas to remember.

Sugar Cookies

Yesterday I made whole wheat bread and it did not turn out so great. Luckily, I also made some sugar cookie dough last night and got to cut it into shapes and bake them today with my mom. They turned out perfect! (Well, compared to the bread they did.) I did some with mini cookie cutters and the rest were normal size. Then we made chocolate frosting, red peppermint frosting, green frosting, and yellow coconut frosting. It reminded me of good childhood memories. The sprinkles were the best part. Hooray for Christmas! Who's up for some caroling?

Let Christmas BEGIN!

I baked a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving, we shopped the Black Friday sales, and I've canned marionberry jelly to give as gifts to family. I'm all set! Choir rehearsals have begun, the mall is crazy busy, and the bakery starts making their holiday stollen bread this week (so delicious because it is topped with butter rum sauce and coarse sugar). WOOHOO! I couldn't ask for more, right? And on top of that, we get to visit Utah really quickly this coming weekend. :D

Belated Photos

I know, I know... who cares about Halloween now; it's all about CHRISTMAS!!! Oh yeah, right after Thanksgiving. Is it me or do lots of people skip Thanksgiving? Anyway... I just thought I would share some photos of our Jack-o-lanterns from this year. We've got a Marilyn Monroe witch, Harry Potter (circa second year at Hogwarts), and Skelvis.

Oh.. and while I'm at it, here are some pics of our annual October camping at Manzanita. Can you believe Eric had never been to the Tillamook Cheese Factory before?! Also, one of those pictures is of the food that was ransacked by some rascal raccoons in the middle of the night.

Twilight

Saw it.... and still not sure what to say.

GUESS who got passes to the Twilight screener for the 18th?! That's right.... I DID!!! Traci and I are going to wait in line for a few hours... probably between 3 and 4, just to make sure we get in (no seats guaranteed). It's going to be a sweet adventure! And way better than waiting for the midnight showing!!! Plus it's free!! Who can argue with that? Although I will definitely be willing to pay to see it again if it lives up to my expectations.

Hillockburn Rd.

Today I went on my first chantarelle hunt (those are mushrooms, and yes, they grow in the wild here in Oregon). It was great fun. After a 40 minute drive out to some foothill of Mt Hood that caught fire decades ago, we reached the end of Hillockburn Road and began our hunt (obviously it is a strenuous process, but at least we don't have to chase the mushrooms once we've spotted them and we don't need to be quiet in order to sneak up on them). Plus, mushroom hunting seems a little more humane and absolutely more granola than certain other hunting. I found my first chantarelle just 10 feet into the woods hidden under a small log. Little did I know it would be a lucky omen for the rest of the hunt. After only 30 minutes of hunting we found the magic spot where there were chantarelles as far as the eye could see... well... at least we kept seeing more after each cluster we sacked away. So after a few miles of hiking and searching, we left Hillockburn Road with about 20 pounds of fresh chantarelle mushrooms. Doesn't that just make you want to sing?!

Jack

Last night while waiting to fall asleep I had an urge to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas and I was trying to remember if it's meant to be a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie. I just remember them singing "This is Halloween, this is Halloween" and that makes me lean toward the former. Maybe I'll check the movie out at the library and watch it with Traci on Friday along with our plans to watch Hocus Pocus--which I must admit is the coolest Halloween movie of all time. Or at least all my friends and I loved it back when it came out when we were in second grade or whatever. Yes, we used to pretend we were witches and had magical powers to open difficult tuperware at lunch.

So, it's the 27th already and I have not carved my pumpkin into a Jack O' Lantern. Maybe that spurred my thinking of the main character in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Good ol' Jack. Oh. That reminds me. I found a great pumpkin a couple weeks ago that has a sweet lightning shaped scar in exactly the right place... he will soon be Harry Potter. :) Hooray for Halloween!

Who are you?

Sometimes my voice irritates me. I'm not talking about the words I say, but more the words I think and write. It's strange to me how much I think and then filter out before I actually write something. Then after all that consideration, I'm frustrated with what has come out and I wonder if I should have just kept it all as thoughts. Obviously I'm referring to my latest post, but I'm also thinking in general about the things I choose to say and write. I like to think that I choose my words wisely and think consciously about what I am going to say before I say it, yet sometimes the garble that eventually comes out doesn't fit together nearly as well as all the thoughts I had. Other times I frantically record my thoughts and the voice that turns up is one that seems more like me, yet artificial in some respects. I find little cliches and ways of speaking that I don't really think in my head. I guess I just picked them up from actually conversing with people. So I have this strange limbo between my real voice that is a lot more like my thoughts and annoys me, and I have this social voice that fits in and sometimes feels more natural but is mostly unnatural. Now I wonder which voice I'm using right now. Hm.

Buse Street

We are happily moved into our new place--the duplex on Buse. The housing drama is over and our cozy little home is wonderful. What else can I say? I'm pleased as a peach. :)

I wonder what this apartment will mean to me in the future when I look back on it. I think of the last place where we were so happy to be back in Oregon that we accepted living in a perpetual wetness. The place before that was back in Utah and we always felt like we were on vacation because for those 3 short months of summer we swam in the pool and relaxed in the hot tub almost every night. Then before that was our first place. Our first home together. We became our own family there, unified but not isolated. I felt like part of a new world of families and adults with future careers, children, goals, and dreams. What a beginning! And the beginning continues. I wonder when things stop feeling like a starting point, a new place from which to plunge forward into a bright future.

In any case, each place has revealed a part of my character and identity. Discovering that connection and making memories in this new home will give me great satisfaction. And I begin again.

Life of a tenant

As the year has gone by, our landlady upstairs has gotten progressively louder. It got to the point that we were looking for a new place at the beginning of September--although we certainly had other reasons for wanting to move (a change, move up to ground level, finding something we just like more). So we found a great duplex around the corner and were approved. We told the management company that we would be able to move in October 1st, but we couldn't tell if they thought that was too late or not. Still, we gave our 30-days notice to our landlady and were prepared to pay our deposit for the new place. Somehow, we have been unable to reach the management company to actually give them the deposit and when I walked over there today the FOR RENT sign was gone. Plus our landlady seems all too happy to get rid of us, asking us to move out sooner with no return of any of our rent (which we were unwilling to do, so that is why we are staying the rest of the month here). Strange. She's already listed the place on Craigslist for a hundred dollars cheaper than we currently pay. Very strange. Oh, and did I mention that we suspect she showed the apartment while we were out of town without telling us? So now I'm worried that the duplex is taken already and we've offended our landlady to the point that it would be even worse to stay here on top of the fact that we don't want to be here any more.

Now that all sounds like a headache, but it's probably just my mind getting away from me. Too much free time today? Perhaps. Eric is calling the management company right now and he's pretty confident that they took the sign down because we will be moving into it in 2 weeks. I hope that's the case. Somehow things always work out for us, though, so I'm not sure why I even let myself get so carried away. It could just be that I'm really excited for this duplex. Not only is it in our ward boundaries (even in the same neighborhood within walking distance of the library) and at ground level, but we will have hardly any neighbor noise because the two units are separated by the garages and laundry rooms (our own laundry being another bonus), it has a bathtub that I have been missing in this apartment for the past year, and it has a huge deck in the back! I really want it. Could you tell? AND with any luck we'll be buying a house the next time we move. Then it will be a happy parting from the life of tenancy.

A busy mind?

It should probably be a requirement that I catch up on my journaling before I play around on my blog, but I haven't gotten to that and I'm already on the computer.

This past week has been a whirlwind and I'm relieved for the slow pace that I'm expecting for tomorrow--just a couple of errands and a lot of free time. (I ought to go running, too.)

Just some ideas. Too many left unwritten. Maybe I'll journal and blog tomorrow. We shall wait and see.

Confession

I have totally fallen prey to the Twilight books. I borrowed Twilight from a friend on Monday, exchanged it for New Moon yesterday, and now I am almost crazy enough to exchange New Moon for Eclipse this very minute. I feel like that would be crossing the line of our friendship, though. I mean, sheesh. Who knew I would immediately become obsessed? I certainly avoided it as long as I could. I didn't want to be another one of those silly girls swooning over Edward and here I am loving every second of his relationship with Bella. Wow. I could almost gag myself I sound so goofy. Whatever. It's too much fun to deny it. :)

Bye-bye Gender

Wow. How ironic is it that I crashed my car on my way home from the office right after I posted that? Crazy. I rear-ended a van. My air bags deployed and everything. As my first official accident, I think I pulled it off quite well. The car is probably totalled, I walked away with just a few bruises and a broken necklace, and I happened to just get full coverage on the car at the beginning of the month. I'm one lucky duck! I certainly didn't feel that way when I was stopped in the middle of the bridge between Gladstone and Oregon City waiting for the police to come, but I know it will all work out. The lady in front of me was pretty nice, so that helped too. Oh, and in case you are confused... my car is named Gender-Confused or Gender for short. He's a boy because the gas tank is on the right side, but he looks like a girl because he has sweet pink and purple embellishments on him. So he's a little confused, but I have loved him regardless.

Beginning

Here I am. I just turned the big 2-2 and I'm pretty much as happy as could be. I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and it gave me a lot of perspective. I am so blessed. I live in a free country, I love my husband, he loves me and respects me, my family is loving and supportive of each other, and I have the gospel of Jesus Christ. Things don't get much better. Although they can certainly get more interesting, I have no reason to hurry through life. I've been enjoying reading books recently and having time to go running twice a week. I am loving volleyball once a week with family and friends. I'm just plain happy.