Pop quiz; or, why I haven't posted for a while.

Time for a pop quiz!


Which of these situations contains actual irony?

1. Rain on your wedding day.

2. A traffic jam when you're already late.

3. You grow up in Utah and love it there. Love the dryness, love the seasons, even love the snow as long as you don't have to shovel it or drive in it too much. You marry a guy who grew up in Florida. He complains about the lack of humidity in Utah and any hint of a snowflake (what he terms "the enemy from above") causes him to frantically scour the Internet for job openings in Florida. This goes on for seven consecutive winters, you watching him search for jobs that are in close proximity to palm trees while you're curled up on the couch with a blanket, a good book and some hot chocolate as the snow falls gently outside. Every winter, you worry a little bit about what would happen if he actually found a good job in Florida, because, as previously stated, you love it in Utah. And then the eighth winter comes along and . . . it's like winter forgot to arrive. Christmas is brown and green and dry. You get a little bit of slushy flakes in January but no real snow until late February/early March. For the first time, your husband isn't constantly searching for jobs in Florida, because the snow isn't driving him to extremes. And then, out of the blue, a sister company for the company he works for says, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?"

4. You live in Utah where it usually snows all the time. You have a toddler who likes to play outside. You'd rather keep the toddler and the snow from having too much direct contact so you start shopping for snowpants (he's already got a coat and mittens and a hat in the shape of a penguin). You find the exact kind you want—cheap, durable, not pink or purple—and the store is ALWAYS out of his size. You wait and keep checking because it hasn't snowed much yet this winter so it's not urgent that you have these snowpants right now and by waiting you can avoid having to pay shipping by ordering through the store's website because paying for shipping just kind of seems immoral to you now that you've got Amazon prime (and why doesn't Amazon make it easier to find size 18m snowpants in non-girly styles, anyway?) but finally there's a forecast for a big storm and you really want your little guy to be able to build a snowman so you just bite the bullet and order the boots and the snowpants and pay the shipping and then they arrive and the snow sort of comes and you build a snowman with your waterproof toddler once. The snow all melts the next day and within a week and a half your husband calls you and says that a sister company for the company he works for has just told him out of the blue, "Hey, we have an opening for a job in Tampa. Do you want it?" It snows a couple more times in the next few weeks but the snowpants don't see any more use either because you're frantically packing for a cross-country move or your toddler is sick or both.

5. A sister company for the company your husband works for tells him out of the blue that they have an opening in Tampa and asks if he'd like the job. You say yes and start planning for a quick but organized cross-country move. Then your toddler gets a major ear infection, contracts the stomach flu, and gives that flu to you and your husband. Your family spends the better part of a week and a half recovering. Then your husband is flown out to work in Tampa early, leaving you alone with a toddler and a house to pack. Your babysitters get a nasty bout of illness. Your son gets RSV and ends up in the hospital overnight so they can observe his difficulty breathing. Husband comes home the night after toddler is discharged from hospital. All semblance of organization in packing and moving goes irrevocably down the drain; the only overarching theme of this cross-country move is "If it can go wrong, it will." We should just call it Murphy's Move to save time. The day you start packing the moving van, you get the worst cold of your life (because, let's face it, it's probably actually your son's RSV) complete with nasty cough (like unto one which hacks up a lung) which hangs on and hangs on and hasn't left yet.

6. You somehow manage to get to Tampa with your husband, your toddler, two cats, and the bare essentials which you took on the plane with you to tide you over until your furniture and other stuff arrives hopefully on Tuesday. Immediately your air mattress springs a leak.

7. You have a palm tree growing outside your bedroom window and a tiny lizard lives on your deck. Your toddler loves the new apartment and even though you have uprooted your entire life, have no idea where anything is in this town, have to learn an entirely new city, have no friends and are miles away from your family, your home and everything you've grown up with, you start thinking, hey, maybe living in Tampa is going to be fun after all.

8. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. (Note: you are not in any kind of silverware factory.)





Hint: By my count, only one of these is actually ironic. The others involve bad timing, bad luck, Murphy's law, odd coincidences, frustration, facepalms, and, thankfully, a bit of fortuitousness.

Mixed blessings

I'd been watching the upcoming new year and subsequent Primary changeover with some trepidation. We teach the 6- and 7-year olds, which in 2008 meant that we had three boys in our class. Even though we had some adventures with those three (one in particular, who is the bishop's son and at one point threatened to have us "fired") by the end of the year everything was going great. And every Sunday during the opening exercises and Sharing Time we would watch the class in front of us, the 5- and 6-year-olds, and I would try not to think about how we would be inheriting that class. It's not that the kids are really bad or anything (with one major exception), but the fact that there were ten of them was not comforting at all. That's a five-to-one ratio; I didn't like the odds.

So you can imagine my relief when the Primary president (who is laboring under the false impression that I'm pregnant--I'm not, folks, but it is kind of funny*) informed us that they would be splitting our new class into two smaller sections, probably in the interest of giving the teachers better odds. And I was even more excited when I found out that the above-mentioned major exception was not in our section.

But then came the bad news. This year there are enough incoming Sunbeams to fill up four, count 'em, FOUR classes. Which means that the Primary room is no longer big enough to hold the entire Primary. This means that for the rest of the year opening exercises are being held in the chapel, and Junior Primary moves to the Primary room when Senior Primary is dismissed into individual classes. Generally, the 6- and 7-year-olds are the oldest class in Junior Primary. But with the sudden influx of Sunbeams, the Primary room can't even hold all of Junior Primary. So our class got moved into Senior Primary. Which could be a good thing: one of the reasons we had problems with the bishop's son is that he thought he was too old to be in Junior Primary with the babies (the age difference between 3-year-old Sunbeams and 7-year-old bishops' sons is much vaster than it seems on paper), so moving the 7-year-olds up a notch would probably keep them from revolting too much. However, in Senior Primary they don't sing wiggle songs. This may be helpful for the dignity of 7-year-olds, but certain 20-somethings need to get up and move around from time to time. I don't know if I can sit still for such an extended period of time. It's going to be a long, long year.

Please join with me now, in remembrance of our dear, departed wiggle song time:

I'm all made of hinges 'cause everything bends...





*It's also not completely irrational, though. The policy in this ward seems to be that Primary is where they send the childless couples in order to convince them to have children. You'd think this wouldn't necessarily be the best policy, as after watching the now-more-than-70-Primary-age-children in operation would probably scare anyone out of having kids, but it actually does work. Because the only ways I've ever seen any couple released from teaching Primary was for them to either 1) move out of the ward or 2) have a baby. And after enough weeks of being confined with the 70+ small crazy kids, a lot of people seem willing to take whatever measures necessary to escape. We have currently been teaching Primary for about 17 months, so from a leadership perspective we're probably ready to jump ship as soon as possible.

New Year, New Haircut

So I got my hair cut yesterday and I'm going through the weird new haircut phase. I like the way it turned out (and my sister tells me it's super-cute, which is a relief because it's kind of different and new) but I'm having a hard time getting used to it not being there anymore, length-wise, and having a lot more of it fall into my face than usual. I keep doing the little head-shake thing to make it fall into place, and sometimes I forget that there's a new place it's supposed to be falling into than it used to do so I end up shaking my head over and over like I've got some sort of palsy. And I have no idea if I can actually keep it looking cute -- those of you who know me (and if you're actually reading this blog, chances are very good that you do) know that my hair and I have a standing feud and I tend to lose more skirmishes than I'd like. (Booo!) Plus the fact that you can never get it looking like the stylist did it. Oh well. Par for the course.

But in the meantime, it's way cute (palsy notwithstanding). Just ask Rachel.

(And Happy 2008, everybody!)

I'm an Aunt!

And my nephew is cuter than yours. That's all I have to say. :)

Congratulations, little sis and brother-in-law!



(This is the first nephew or neice for both Shallow Man and myself, so we're pretty excited, in case you couldn't tell.)

Offers and counteroffers

Let this be a lesson to you all:

If you're trying to sell your house to Shallow Man and me, don't get greedy. This will only force us to get firm with you.

At this point we're considering how best to show our utter contempt for their current counteroffer (when the appraisal came in lower than their initial ridiculous counteroffer, what a surprise!). We've been fairly patient and more than reasonable up to this point, especially in making our offers. We were hoping they'd decided to be adults about this but apparently that's not the case. *Sigh.*

We're considering asking that they include a pony and install a small -- but serviceable -- bowling alley in the crawl space prior to closing in our counter-counteroffer. Including, of course, a note in the addendum that we like a good joke as much as they do. This will be no less of a joke than their current offer to us and makes for a much better story later on all sides. Hopefully it would also get the message out to them that we only entertain serious and reasonable counteroffers, not insults.

Unfortunately, our innate sense of professionalism (don't laugh so hard; I don't want any of my maybe-six-or-seven readers to choke and die -- there are few enough of you as it is) will probably win out and we'll end up leaving the pony out. Which is just as well, since I don't know where we'd put it -- what with the babies on the way we're probably going to need all the room for other things anyway.

*Sigh* again. What I put up with to stop paying rent.

pant, pant, whimper

Oy. I would ask Erin's forgiveness for not posting anything sooner than this, but I'm too out of breath, stressed, and bald.

So, yeah, that house-buying thing. Lots of work. Not much fun.

Although hopefully it will start being fun on or around April 17th. Because hopefully it will all be over on or about that time.

(Yes, we're currently under contract for a cute little townhouse in Provo and it should close around the 17th, assuming that none of the million things that can go wrong between then and now do. Hence the stress.)

Of course, that means I'll have to move again, but I'm taking comfort in the fact that if this move happens, it will be the last move for about 3 years. And you have no idea how excited I am about that.

Or would be, if I had any energy left.

New Addiction

I'd been hearing a lot of people talking about Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, recently and I was intrigued -- you've got to be curious about a novel about vampires written by a BYU grad (and lest you chide me for potential spoilers, that's all spelled out on the back cover of the book). So I picked up a copy at the bookstore last week and started reading it, mostly in fits because I didn't have very many large chunks of spare time until Friday afternoon. At that point, I settled in and read almost straight through till the end.

I only stopped long enough to get up and order the sequel off Amazon when I realized there were only three chapters left of this absolutely wonderful book.

Then, when the sequel, New Moon, arrived on Tuesday afternoon (can I take a moment to say just how much I love Amazon Prime?) I jumped right back into the story. And remembered the real world when I finished the last page at 11:00 p.m., not having stopped to eat dinner or do laundry or really even say hi to my sweet and understanding husband when he got home about an hour into the book.

I then spent several hours on Wednesday and Thursday prowling around Stephenie Meyer's website and the Twilight Lexicon, and pondering the respective merits of Edward and Jacob, and I have now come to the conclusion that I'm addicted. I had suspected it before but my suspicions were confirmed when I realized that I'd been complaining to Shallow Man for the last ten minutes (who was listening very patiently, I might add) that I had to wait until FALL before the next book in the series came out, GOSH!, and how on earth was I supposed to wait that long to find out what happened???

I wasn't even this obsessed when Harry Potter 6 came out. Granted, yes, I did read that one straight through as well, but I haven't re-read it since and I don't spend hours thinking about the implications of being with someone who did magic (like I was trying to figure out how the whole eating dinner as a family thing would work out if Bella and Edward had a family -- because she'd start telling the kids to eat their veggies and they say "But Daddy doesn't have to eat them!" and then she'd have to explain that's because Daddy doesn't eat real food.... Yeah, I should probably stop now).

I'm making myself take a little break now while I finish re-reading Jane Eyre, but I'm not really fooling myself. Because I know as soon as I finish it, I'm just going to re-read Twilight.

My name is Elliespen, and I've been in love with Twilight for eleven days.

Changes, Jane Eyre and old grudges

I've decided I like the updated version of Blogger because it's easy enough (mostly) to navigate that even just-barely-techno-savvy-enough-to-turn-on-the-computer people like me can figure out how to make it look like more than just the barest of bare bones blogs that I had before. And apparently it inspires loads of alliteration. But at any rate I like the way my blog looks now. Hooray!

I just finished reading The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde, which I very much enjoyed. I mean, how can you not like a book where the main character and narrator is named Thursday Next? Who is a literary detective, no less? Basically, an evil, evil man manages to get inside the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and kidnaps Jane. Thursday and Rochester have to work to make sure that nothing in the original narrative is changed. Even though I got extremely confused by the alternate version of history that is revealed bit by bit (in case you couldn't tell, it's in an alternate but similar reality where time travel is common, for one thing, and they keep mentioning little bits and pieces of what is history for them but it's not the same as ours. For instance, the fact that Wales is a separate republic and the border between Wales and England has been sealed off... stuff like that), I loved all the literary references, especially the continued debate about the true authorship of the works of William Shakespeare.

It reminded me, though, of the first time I read Jane Eyre, which was in 9th grade. I was reading it on my own, but at the same time it was an option on the book list for my English class and some of the people in class had read it for their quarterly project. This meant that one day I found myself in class listening to a girl named Rachael giving a book report on Jane Eyre while I still wasn't very far in.

Now, giving book reports should be like giving a movie review. Or the blurb on the back of the book jacket. Give just enough plot information to interest people and talk about a few relative points -- see the previous description of The Eyre Affair. You know the basic idea but not enough to ruin any enjoyment for you. Never, never, never give away plot spoilers. Ever. If you have a captive audience this is even more of a cardinal sin than usual. At least if it's a written review they can stop reading.

So it should be understandable that I still hold a grudge against Rachael (whom I have not seen in years and probably only remember her name because of this experience) for ruining Jane Eyre for me. I had no idea what the plot was when I started the book. So when I had to sit there and listen to her enumerate every single twist and turn, right up until the end, when I had only BARELY reached Blanche Ingram, well... words really don't express it.

In fact, it still makes me angry just thinking about it.

Must go gnash teeth....

And Rachael, if I see you, watch out!

Appomattox and Shoes

Side note before beginning the real story here: I asked my husband how to spell "Appomattox" to make sure I had gotten it right and his response was "I have no idea." This wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that he is from the South and makes a big point of being a "suth'n boy." He dreams about fried okra, has nightmares about chitlins, and gets passionate and excited and all patriotic-like when the subject of Robert E. Lee comes up. He doesn't get teary-eyed over old Bobby, although I think this is due more to the fact that I have only known him to cry a total of three or four times since I've known him than to any lack of respect. The movie line he laughs hardest at is from "One, Two, Three" (taking place in divided Berlin; great comic movie with James Cagney) when Mac gets mad at Scarlett (a suth'n girl) for blowing up balloons that say "Yankee Go Home":

Mac: You were making anti-American propaganda?!
Scarlett: It's not anti-American, it's anti-Yankee. And where I come from, everybody's against the Yankees.

So with all that Southernness going on, you'd think he'd know Appomattox. Was he faking his suth'n-ness all along? Or is this one of those "The South Will Rise Again" denial-type issues? I'll have to look into it. In the meantime, on with the show.


Today, in a dramatic ceremony (at which no photographers were present, thank goodness), The Cold surrendered its family heirloom sword to me. Actually, it had been hiding behind some rocks, trying to evade the deluge of orange juice, and came out waving a white tissue on its swordpoint. I have won! Of course there are a few straggling regiments that I have to go take care of who haven't realized that they've lost yet, but my trusty Kleenex box can more than handle them. It'll all be over in a day or so.

I was so excited about this that I went out and bought some new shoes. Actually, I'd been needing to buy shoes for a while but hadn't been able to because of said cold, but still. I love shoes. Especially black shoes. A girl cannot have too many pairs of black shoes. My college roommate Margo (one of the world's most amazing people ever) can attest to this. She was always impressed at my collection of black shoes and my ability to walk into a shoe store at random, usually on a trip to help her find shoes, and come out with something adorable for myself, while she had been unable to find anything she liked. I think at the high-water mark I had nineteen pairs of black shoes, not counting a few other pairs of non-blacks. Since I've been married, though, my shoe collection has dwindled severely and I generally only get new shoes when there is a special occassion or when old ones wear out.

Today was triple-point shoe day. Two of my favorite pairs (one of them being my tri-continent shoes) had worn out and there is also a special occassion coming up, as my brother is getting married on Thursday. So I got a nice pair of black work shoes, some cute flats and some uber-fun, very high-heeled Mary Jane types. Life is good.

Jumpin' on the bandwagon...

So I decided that I'm tired of not having the latest "it" (although I have been told that I can find it on eBay).

In Paris, everyone has a small yappy-sized dog, usually of the variety which consists solely of eyes, hair, and an extraordinarily high-pitched voice box. You see these dogs everywhere - walking down the streets with their owners, looking très chic with their little jackets and coordinating collars and leashes; frequenting the finest pâtisseries and marchés, waiting patiently on the sidewalk for their owners to bring them their preferred treats, probably something involving quiche; or, most commonly, riding on the metro in their handy-dandy carrying cases (which also match the collar and leash. But then everything in Paris matches everything else: it's all black). The carrying case is usually just a large purse with the dog tucked inside, peeking out demurely between the shoulder straps. I always wondered how you train your dog well enough to not have to worry about your other personal effects coming out unscathed.

I did not have a small yappy dog. Or a large black purse in which to carry it. Or even a matching black collar and leash (although that would have been really odd without the dog to go with it). I felt decidedly unstylish, unchic, and left out. The fact that I was an American wearing jeans, sneakers, and a comfy shirt which had turned a blueish-gray shade in the weird Parisian washing machines didn't help much in the land of tailored black slacks and pointy-toed high heels, but I still blame it mostly on my lack of popular accessory. The only thing that made me feel better was the fact that my husband did not have a small yappy dog either. (Nor, I am relieved to say, did he have a large black purse in which to carry it.)

When we returned to the States and moved into our BYU student ward, I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn't have to worry about my paucity of canine companionship. On our first Sunday in the ward, I settled as comfortably as possible back into the bench and looked around me in satisfaction at being at home and chic again. As I looked, though, my comfort and confidence dwindled as I realized that I still wasn't up to date: Everyone else either had or very soon would have a trendy new baby to play with and show off to the other couples. Hip mothers compared how much their children had grown and the cool tricks they were capable of. This made for interesting Relief Society conversation:

Sister #1: Little Ben started eating solid foods this week. He just loves his mashed carrots. He practically inhales them!
Other sisters: Oh, how exciting!
Sister #2: Little Jessica's been sleeping through the night since she was two weeks old.
Other sisters: Amazing! What's your secret?
Sister #3: (to me) Are you new in the ward?
Me: Yes, this is our first Sunday.
Sister #4: Really? It's little Cameron's first time at church, too.
Other sisters: Oh, how darling! He has his father's eyes and your hair color!
(All gather around to coo over the newest club member.)
Me: Yeah, we just got back from Paris....
Sister #5: Wow. How awesome would that be? I would love to go to Paris someday. But it won't be happening anytime soon -- not with little Anna on the way!
Other sisters: Oooooh!!! Congratulations!!! (The conversation immediately turns to a thorough discussion of due date, how they all felt at that point in their pregnancy, how much her life will change with her new little one, etc.)
Me: (All sense of chicness vanishing quicker than Little Ben's carrots) So... how 'bout those pastries, eh?

When we arrived in Chile, I gave up all hope of chicness with the fact that I couldn't speak a lick of Spanish, although I did learn enough to know that the same scene was being replayed quite often.

Now that I'm back in the States again, all of a sudden I notice that everyone has one of these cool blog things. In my naïveté, I used to believe that only cool people like Gryffinkat had blogs. (Kat, you are still the coolest person I know. I think that's why everyone has blogs now, in an attempt to emulate you.) Then I found, serendipitous-like, Daring Young Mom and a whole slew of other awesome blogs. I began to feel twinges of the familiar accessory-envy. I needed this new "it." This itch became unbearable when even my wonderful husband, who had been my staunch supporter in my lack of chicness until this point, sold out and got his own. What was a girl to do?

And so I present to you my very own blog. Yippee! I can feel the chicness once again flowing through my veins. Take that, snooty French poodle people! I don't even need to worry about housebreaking... er, pursebreaking. Or whatever.