____ is my favorite color...

So apparently when you paint something red, you have to put down a tinted primer first.

Right now the kitchen is an exquisite shade of hot pink.

It's actually pretty cool-looking--sort of Art Deco. We're thinking about leaving it this way.

Home Improvement

The ugliness we saw when we moved in...(this picture doesn't show the full nastiness of the wallpaper, just the border. But believe me, it was bad. I ripped it down the very first night we were there).


The teardown underway

The point when we thought about replacing the drywall

The point where we knew we had to replace the drywall

This made doing dishes really fun

Voila! Almost done!

On Saturday, we had an eventful conversation. It went something like this:

Rachael: Do you think we could crack those ugly tiles with a hammer?
Neil: Want me to check?
Rachael: Sure, go ahead.
Neil: Cool!

An hour later, we had a good-sized hole in the wall and a project on our hands. We ended up not only cracking the ugly tiles, but ripping them out, along with the majority of the wall behind them, which necessitated new drywall. So we installed new drywall (which meant that we bought a jig saw and a power sander, much to Neil's glee), taped and mudded it, and then realized that we couldn't match the spray-on texture of the surrounding paint. So we mudded the entire wall. And sanded it down. And repeated the process several times.
Currently, the wall is awaiting its final coating with whatever shade of gypsyish red we choose. Hurrah for red!

Anyway, that's why I haven't posted in awhile. And since the do-it-yourself bug seems to have bitten Neil (repeatedly), we'll probably be pretty busy for a bit here!

Words, words, words

Since Abigail ran off with my dusting cloth and is busily spreading dust around the house, I have time for a quick post.

This morning Abigail ate a pancake and a fried egg (with liberal lashings of ketchup) for breakfast, so she was a happy syrupy ketchupy mess by the end. When Neil picked her up to wash her off in the sink, he threw her up in the air and yelled "You're filthy, little Bug! You're filthy!"

Abigail screeched with laughter, then yelled "I'b fildy! Fildy! I'b fildy!"

Spring!

Today after my doctor's appointment, I left the car at home and walked over to Andrea's to pick up Abigail. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the snow was melting...this is one of my favorite times of the year. I realize we still have quite some time before it's really spring, but it's so wonderful to see the sun again and have the weather warm enough to be able to walk comfortably outside. I always find that I'm in a better mood when I'm able to exercise outside--the combination of endorphins and sunlight really does something for me that running like a little hamster in the morning on my elliptical doesn't--so I am eagerly awaiting the advent of spring. I love being able to dig around outside, and I cannot wait to start planting things and reclaiming my frozen yard. I am still hoping that the flowerbeds hold surprises like crocus and tulips and snowdrops and daffodils--I didn't plant anything this fall because I didn't know what was there, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some of those happy little heralds of spring.

On a gleeful note, I took all my grading with me to my three hour doctor's appointment this morning (!!) and finished it all. Hurray!

Milestones

We had a rather unpleasant new experience today: Abigail slipped on the wet floor after her bath and sliced her foot open on the scale. Unfortunately, we didn't notice that she was bleeding for about ten minutes, since we thought that the tears were from the head bump, so we were cuddling her and working to get her to calm down. Neil took her over to the computer and they started playing a game (which stopped the tears), so it wasn't until I bent down to pick up what I thought was a red fluffy on the carpet that we realized her little foot was gushing blood.

She managed to slice open the entire side of her pinky, and it was one of those superficial cuts that really bleeds. We had a little trail of blood drops all across our bedroom, over Neil's robe, and a puddle on the seat. Fortunately for Abigail, I think it was a much more traumatic experience for Neil and I than it was for her. She was pretty calm, and both of us calmed down once we realized it was coming from her foot and not her head, but it was really emotionally hard for me to scrub the blood off my little baby!

Other than that, we had a really fun day. We stopped by the library for storytime after I taught today, and they were having a special "doggie day," complete with guest seeing-eye dogs and a retired racing grayhound. As you can imagine, Abigail was in heaven. She petted all the doggies (until she got knocked over by one very friendly puppy kiss) to her heart's content, loved all the stories (also about dogs), and had a blast making a little puppy mask (we'll post the pictures later).

We also had some gift books yesterday from Neil's coworker Phil and his mom, which Abigail was absolutely ecstatic to see. It was a really sweet gesture on Phil's part, especially since books are Abigail's very favorite thing in the world, so that totally made her day!

We spent the weekend up in Michigan and were able to see Elise in Miss Saigon and Rosalind in Once Upon a Mattress. I'm really glad that the shows overlapped and that we were able to see both--and that Dad volunteered to stay home with Abigail! We had a good time visiting with everyone, especially since Grandmother Jere was also visiting from Idaho.

Today has been an interesting day so far. I didn't get as much rest this weekend as I typically do, so it's kind of hard for me to function today, and I had a visiting teaching appointment at 9 (for which we had to leave at 8:30) and another at 3, so it's basically bracketing Abigail's morning wake-up time and afternoon nap, so that's been pretty unpleasant--and we also need to do things like wash laundry and buy groceries, so it was a pretty rough morning. So Abigail was cranky and decided to take out her anger during lunch via the method of throwing her sippy cup (brimful with milk) hard enough so that it exploded and sent milk flying all over the kitchen and living room (after a morning of cleaning and laundry). Argh. It was not a pleasant lunchtime for either of us, and it's turning into one of those days where I would really just like to spend some time cuddling her to relieve hurt feelings on both sides, rather than waking her up from an abbrieviated nap and dumping her into the car. Sigh...

Valentine's Day

Well, this will definitely go down as the best Valentine's Day on record! I woke up and found Neil outside shoveling the driveway. He'd been at it for an hour and was almost done chopping his way through drifts that hit three or four feet in some places--a pretty good workout! The university had canceled classes from noon on Tuesday through noon on Wednesday, so he had a little extra time to shovel before he left for school.

We had breakfast, then I went outside and shoveled while Neil finished up the dishes and got Abigail ready. Then he brought Abigail outside and left for school while I kept shoveling our eighteen million hundred miles of sidewalk (the curse of the corner lot!) Two hours later, I finished the sidewalks and Neil came home again--all his classes and labs had been canceled AGAIN, and there was a snow emergency that meant it was illegal to be on the roads, so he decided to come home and spend the day with us. (Fortunately our Jeep could handle the snow, because let me tell you, we spent half the day watching people get stuck in the three feet of snow that had drifted into the road!)

It ended up being a really great day, since we had Neil around for the whole thing. We had temple interviews in the evening, then we went to the grocery store on the way home and got some goodies for our V-day evening and just had some good quality family time together.

I'll have to post our awesome new snow pictures later--my favorite is the one of the snow packed against our door. Cool stuff.

blizzard

So...guess what? It's snowing. We have some knife-edged drifts surrounding our whole house (the one outside the kitchen glassed doors is about four feet tall. Neil and Abigail scooped snow out of it for snow cones today, which Abigail thought was about the coolest thing she'd ever seen, at least until we made cupcakes later on ("pup-cook!") The university actually canceled classes from 12 o'clock on (so I got to go teach this morning at 7:30 and Neil went back for his class, but oh well!) It should be an exciting few days here as we watch the six (!) snow plows owned by the town try to clear all this away.

The bright spot in the past few days is that I was finally able to do our taxes today (delayed because we were waiting on some 1099s to be released, which we finally got today). So I am grateful that those are done, except for the fact that we still have to physically mail the return since we were only part-year residents. Odd.

Yesterday after we gave Abigail her bath, I had wrapped her up in her towel and then helped her to sit on the edge of the sink while I rubbed lotion all over her. Lately she's been making animal noises and then telling me what that animal is, so when I heard a "sssss" sound I thought it was normal and expected her to say "snake!" Fortunately, Neil looked over and said "Um...honey? Did you know she turned the water on?"

It's good to have an Abigail around to keep us laughing.

Ward Valentine's Activity

Last night we went to the Valentine's Day thing for adults in our ward--it was really fun! They had a version of the "Newlywed Game" which we played as couples, and then there was time to dance or socialize or whatever for a few hours, plus lots of yummy refreshments. And the best part--the youth babysat all the kids, so we had a nice little two-hour segment without worrying about trying to keep Abigail happy or feed her or something like that. One of the things we have really enjoyed about this ward is that the activities committee is very diligent in planning and pulling off good activities.

Unfortunately, the downside was that Abigail ended up going to bed two hours after her normal bedtime, so we had a pretty rocky night last night--she woke up about every twenty minutes until about two. It was not very fun, especially for Neil, since I was so horrendously tired that I would only half wake up when she started crying, then bury my head under pillows and go back to sleep. Poor guy! She had a pretty rough morning today too--I went to a baby shower and Neil was pretty relieved when I got home, so we weren't too surprised when she slept for 3.5 hours this afternoon!

Three cheers for Neil!

Neil finished his last area exam today--yay!!!! As you can probably imagine, we are all really, really, really glad to be done with these (especially Neil, who is looking forward to finally being able to have guiltless free time). So now we just wait until we get the results back in a month or two...

To celebrate, we had a fun dinner--Abigail and I made twice-baked potatoes this morning (after Neil took the time to peel the potatoes before he left for work, which was really sweet of him, because he knows it's right up there on my Hated Kitchen Tasks list). We don't have twice-baked potatoes too much, since they're basically an ooey-gooey calorie mess, but boy, they're sure good. Then Abigail and I made creme brulee, and the three of us stopped off at the grocery store on our way home and picked up some grapes and steak, so we had a really fun and yummy dinner (of course, we also added Abigail's favorite vegetable--peas!). The nicest thing about dinner was the fact that we actually had time to enjoy it--I think the three of us sat there for an hour just enjoying the company and chatting. And Abigail had three helpings of potatoes, so it kept her busy for the whole time, which was great.

Anyway, I need to go dry the pots and pans for Neil and put Abigail back on her play-doh table, but yay!!! the exams are DONE!!! we have a complete family again!!!

abigail pix

Guess what, Mom! I knitted that hat on my Nifty Knitter thing! Thank you (and Neil knitted another hat and I'm almost done with a scarf).

Jell-O beast...

Snow day--but for real!

This morning when I left class, I was surprised to see what Jen used to call "snowing potatoes," i.e. enormous huge snowflakes from a sky that had been crystal-clear a few hours ago. It continued to snow most of the day, and we ended up with about 5 inches by 4 o'clock, at which point it finally stopped. It was pretty exciting to see our first "real snow" of the year, especially since Neil and I had recently made the executive decision to nix buying a snow shovel after the pathetic one inch that we got in January. So, as you can see, our snow-clearing (including the seemingly endless sidewalk that surrounds our corner lot!) was quite the adventurous undertaking, since we tackled it with the emergency mini-shovel Dad gave us for the car, and the push broom from the garage. It was a good workout!

We had a couple "events" today--Neil took another area exam (heat transfer this time) and felt really confident about it, so hopefully the results from that will be great news! Then I ventured out in the crazy weather and scary roads to visit an office downtown which runs a program from low-income families that gave us credit on our gas bill and electric bill. It was an interesting experience. It was definitely good for my pride. That's one thing that I am grateful for about being students--it's really helping me to be more humble in a lot of ways. It's a little disquieting and uncomfortable to qualify for all sorts of aid programs like this, and it's a good lesson to me in appreciating all different types of people and their unique situations in life. It will also help us to be really grateful for the opportunities to pay taxes as we graduate and start actually earning something, since we've been blessed by the programs funded by those taxes.

So that's how I'm trying to look at it all, but I really am grateful for all of the different things that we are learning at this point in our lives. We're reaping a lot of blessings in a lot of ways that I never expected, and in things that I never thought I would consider as blessings, so I am grateful for the opportunity to grow in that way.

gratitude journal time!

Right now I am very grateful for good friends. I feel like I've been going crazy lately with so many things to do and more things to schedule in, so I am incredibly grateful for friends who are willing to do things like watch Abigail while I run off on a long tedious errand somewhere else, or on days like tomorrow where I teach during Neil's exam.

I am also grateful for friends who let me know about useful things like filing property tax exemptions to keep my taxes down, free heating bill credits, sales on much-needed kid clothes, and generally anything and everything that makes my life easier. It's nice to feel connected!

Food, glorious food!

This morning we had a different meeting schedule because of stake priesthood meeting, so Neil went off to the priesthood meeting at 9, and I--glorious day--stayed in bed for an hour reading with a bowl of Life cereal. Lap of luxury. Abigail was content to stay in her crib, or she was still waking up, or something, but regardless, she was perfectly happy there with her dollies until I finally went to get her at 10 (and I always try to get her to rest more on Sundays since her nap is delayed two hours!)

Then while she ate a late breakfast, I started cooking. I love cooking for Neil on Fast Sunday--it's my excuse to come up with treats! So I made whole-wheat bread, and then I looked around the kitchen to see what needed to be used up, and I made an apple, pear, and blueberry pie. Then I made Jell-O for Abigail. After we came home from church we put a roast in the oven with plenty of onions, carrots, and baby red potatoes. Yummy! We are looking forward to dinner.

oh yeah!

and i almost forgot to post my exciting news--i found out yesterday that my thesis introduction is getting published in an anthology of critical essays called "New Directions in Adaptation Studies." i am pretty excited.

as a sidenote, what i love most about English lit academia is the way in which all good essay titles have a colon, so i have another chance to immortalize a twenty word title in print.

but that news also spurred my worries that i should be doing something with my education...like going back to school. or publishing more. or studying for the GRE in lit. or basically doing something other than teaching a couple classes and whining when i have to grade because i'd rather be reading harry potter or the cat in the hat, which is abigail's current favorite of the week ("Mommy book cat hat!")

currently, i have evaluated my priorities and will be retiring to my bed with hot chocolate and a veritable pile o' satisfyingly nonacademic novels.

Musings

Andrea tagged me with a "five things you may not know about me" thing, and since I've had a lot of time lately to sit around and think (ok, mostly i've been taking really long showers to escape and then i think in the shower) I thought this would be a good time to get out some of those musings.

1) I think I'm realizing that a) I don't particularly want to pursue a Ph.D. right now and b) this is primarily because I am starting to hoard my free time. Abigail gives me two hours of freedom during the day (naptime) and three at night between her bedtime and mine, and those five hours are very, very, very precious. So precious that I've been in a particularly bad mood lately because those hours have gone to grading, rather than lying on my bed reading. Which is my self-indulgence activity of choice. So while I had limitless time pre-Abigail to cram in all kinds of schoolwork and still have lots of "me" time, I just don't think I'm willing to make the sacrifice at this point in my life, since apparently I cannot function without some quiet time to recharge and do whatever I want to do. And frankly, I tried two days of grading while Abigail was awake, and it was absolute misery for both of us. Not because she was cranky about it (she was pretty good, considering), but I really hated putting her off to stare at frustrating papers. Wow. That was a long one. Anyway, it brings me to my next point...

2)...which if you know me well, probably isn't that novel (heh heh--get it?) But I love reading to the point where it's really more vice than virtue. I especially love books that make me hungry or long for travel or to go do something like rip up my entire lawn and plant it with wildflowers. Those books are the ones that really pull me in and make me want to do whatever it is that the characters are doing. I think that's why I enjoy indulging in Rosamunde Pilcher novels--I always put the book down feeling that all I really need out of life is a sunny kitchen full of flowers and the smell of bread baking, with a door opening out onto a flagged terrace surrounded by my well-kept vegetable garden. Lots of sun. And flowers.

3) My fondest childhood memories all center around my sister Mary Beth (sorry to the rest of you, but you just weren't old enough). We were completely inseperable and I thought she was the coolest playmate ever (probably because she was willing to play the Seven Dwarves, Prince Charming, the evil witch, and the horse while I took on Snow White) and one of my most vivid memories is coming home from school, throwing my backpack down on the lawn, and racing off to play with her in our woods house. Good times.

4) I really wanted to be an architect for about...five or six years, maybe? My dad completely indulged me and always brought me issues of Architectural Digest and drawing paper, and I would spend hours in my room hunched over my desk drawing out my latest dream home. I would even draw out blueprints for whatever Lego house my sisters and I were planning to build the next day.

5) There are a some things I am really grateful for from my childhood: no TV, classical music, daily scripture study/family prayer, weekly family home evening and the fact that I never knew what a Twinkie was until I was nine. An odd hodgepodge, I know, but I can attribute basically everything about my growth into an adult to those five things.

and now i tag mary beth, jen, and mom.

Exciting dates around here!

So last night we had an interesting date. We went to the copy center on campus to get some more copies of heat transfer tests for Neil to study over the weekend. Then we went home and Neil started doing homework...and I fell asleep. I woke up an hour later with forty minutes left to go in our date. :-( And spent those forty minutes grading!

I will be so, so, so incredibly glad when the area exams are over and life gets back to "normal" again. We're just praying that he does well on them so we don't have to go through this again in the fall!

We did do one cool thing yesterday to sort of celebrate the weekend arrival, since we knew we were going to have a "study date" in the evening--Neil met us in the library after storytime and came home with us, so on the way home we stopped at the grocery store and took advantage of the Super Bowl sales to buy some of the really junky food that we both enjoy but never buy...ginger ale, BBQ chops, and some really awesome BBQ pulled pork (50% off for Super Bowl weekend! yay!) So we had a fun picnic lunch as a family when we got back home, and laughed to see Abigail drink a little ginger ale. It reminded me of the time that we were having crepes and Elise took the sippy cup full of lemon juice off the table (which we were using the drizzle small amounts of lemon onto the crepes) and Dad just laughed and said "Let's watch her drink it!"

Huh

Note to potential Abigail feeders--her face is allergic to Thousand Island salad dressing.

That's really weird.

First haircut

Lots of pictures for all of you who only check this for pictures (Elise!). I finally put new batteries back in the camera.

Anyway, as you can see, we celebrated the demise of the Mullet of Glory over the weekend. It's now been replaced by a more-or-less neat little bob that makes her look rather frighteningly less babyish and much more like a little kid, or at least a baby whose parents have noticed that she had weird hair and finally finally did something about it.

On the "growing up suddenly" front, Abigail walked into the dining room yesterday where I was grading papers, and sweetly offered her face up for a kiss, indicated that I was to put her back-pack on her back, then told me "Bye bye, Mommy. Go car pack pack school. Bye!"

She's also growing increasingly attached to "baby doh," which Rosalind gave her for Christmas. Baby doh spends her days being force-fed bottles, driving recklessly through the house smashing into walls, and goes down for a nap with a blanket over her face every fifteen minutes or so. I'm not sure what this says about Abigail's feelings towards my parenting style.