Anticipation.

I know my Floridian-born-and-raised husband would certainly disagree with me on this, but there are few things that I love the way I love sitting in the house with all the blinds open and all the lights off in the late afternoon of a late November day waiting for it to start snowing outside. I can smell the snow; it's right around the corner and I'm so excited for it.

I won't love it so much when I have to shovel it or drive in it or watch said husband come home and start madly searching for jobs in Florida while he mumbles angrily under (or over, occasionally) his breath about "the enemy from above."

But waiting inside, curled up with a blanket/good book/cup of hot chocolate/two snuggly kittens/the cutest toddler ever?

That's my favorite kind of snow, and I'm kind of psyched for it.



Sorry, hon. If it helps, I promise not to sing any Dean Martin songs encouraging that particular form of precipitation. Or at least not while you're in the room. Or at least not too loudly.

Ho. Ly. Cow.

Well, the first day of the Bar is done. And for the first time since I started studying, I feel like there is actually a chance I could pass this thing.

I've been experiencing panic attacks about this off and on for the past few weeks. (Just ask Shallow Man. Poor guy. Seriously, Bar Study + Pregnancy Hormones + The Inability to Sleep for More than a Three Hour Stretch = Me + Crippling Panic Attacks = Not Fun for Anyone.) Including one last night, which was NOT helpful. So we sat down together and read some scriptures and I just said a prayer to the effect of, "I'm putting it all in Your hands now, God." And I stopped worrying.

And the miraculous occurred. I had something to write (maybe not something, you know, intelligent, but at least something) for every question. The big, hive-inducing, oh-please-oh-please-don't-ask-me-THAT subjects were not on the essay test, and I actually got almost all of my "dream topics." I couldn't have asked for a better distribution of subjects.

I never would have predicted that I'd come out of the essay day of the Bar feeling like anything other than crap. And feeling this good, well, that's just icing on the cake.

Now all I have to do is live through the multiple choice tomorrow and it will All. Be. Over.

I'm getting a grin just thinking about it.


Thanks to all of you who have offered prayers, well wishes and any other kind of support these past few weeks and the past few days especially. It's meant a lot to both Shallow Man and myself. We love you all!

In which the hubby gets a new nickname.

So we teach Primary, as I've mentioned before. In order to keep the kids in order we have them earn points for doing things like bringing their scriptures or wearing their CTR rings or not strangling each other during Sharing Time. (This latter activity actually loses them points. And brain cells, one would imagine.) When they collect 100 points they get to have a party of their choice. Tonight we had an ice cream party with ridiculous numbers of toppings and five different flavors of ice cream.

At one point Shallow Man was following the directions on the Chocolate Fudge Magic Shell bottle and Shaking Well Before Using. Of course, that was when he found out that he had neglected to completely screw the lid back on after removing the inner seal. Chocolate Fudge Magic Shell went all over the place, mostly on the face and shirt of one of our Primary kids.

PK was a good sport about it, though. He cleaned up as well as he could with water and a paper towel. I think a bowl full of an 85-15 mixture of Sprinkles and Ice Cream went a long way towards appeasing any upset feelings. Later on, when Shallow Man was apologizing to PK, PK not only informed us that his mother is "a forgiver" (which is good, because she's also a counselor in the Primary presidency), but also made this remark to Shallow Man:

PK (sporting an impish grin on his really-too-adorable-to-be-legal face): "Maybe we could change your name from Brother [Shallow Man] to Brother Clumsy."

I think we may be on to something here.

An orphan, but not often.

I am sitting at a desk in my sister's old room in my parents' house as I write this. I'm camping out here overnight even though my parents and sisters are out of town, since Shallow Man is flying back into town on an 11:35 p.m. flight and who wants to drive another hour to get home at that point in time?

Not me!

I've been an orphan for the last few days while Shallow Man was out of town, and feeling a bit neglected because my sister pointed out that none of my family loves me. Well, not in so many words. What she SAID was, "Did you know you're the only family member who's not going on vacation this weekend?"

Yeah, they've all abandoned me. Shallow Man was in DC for an interview (and coming back late tonight as aforementioned), the parents and my two younger sisters are at Mount Rushmore (hence the empty house), my brother and his wife and son went camping, and my other sister and her husband and son are visiting her in-laws.

And I'm here (i.e., not on vacation).

I ask you, where's the love?

Oh, well. At least I have the house to myself, and I only promised not to burn anything important...

I just have to brag for a minute.

How many people do you know who can not only fit an entire set of dishes for 12 plus a week's worth of clothing and toiletries and a bunch of touristy souvenirs into two small carry-on suitcases, one large-ish checked suitcase and a plastic bag full of a new down comforter, but also arrive at home across the country after three flights, two ridiculously long layovers, and an hour's drive home for a total of 13 hours traveling without breaking a single dish out of the 65-piece set?

Well, if you're reading this, you now know at least one.

Yeah, I'm* awesome.



*Okay, so technically it should say "we're" because Shallow Man was a part of the enterprise. But it's still my blog.

As another small side note, the plastic comforter bag even burst open at some point between the time it was checked and when it slid down the ramp at the baggage claim, and we still didn't lose any of the random miscellany we'd tucked in there with the comforter. Pretty awesome considering that our packing efforts were the floor show at Shallow Man's family's house the night before. They didn't think we'd even fit everything in, let alone make it home unscathed. Hence the gloating.

DUDE.

You MUST click here. Immediately. Because it will disappear on the 20th of July.

But it will be oh so worth your time.

Argh, or: L'il Orphan Ellie: the saga begins.

So Shallow Man is flying out tomorrow morning for Lima, where he'll be for the next two months. I get to go down on Aug. 8, but that's still six weeks that he'll be gone without me. Which is not really that big of a deal, I know, but when you take into account the fact that during the four years we've been married we've only spent one night apart, it seems like a long time. Grrr!

At least Lady Type and my Margot are going to come and stay with me for awhile during the summer, but I'm still going to miss my boy. *sniff*

Well, off to finish with packing, errands, etc. At least we found a theater with a midnight showing of Wall-E so we can see it together before he goes. :)

The Bachelor

(Hands off, girls, cuz he's already taken!)

Shallow Man is graduating with his Bachelor's degree this Friday and I am thrilled.

That is all.

:)

Happy, happy

Happy Birthday to the Shallow Man!

Love you, honey!

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.

Relative nerdiness

So apparently I'm even nerdier than my DH, which comes as a bit of a surprise since the questions on the nerd-o-meter definitely run more toward his line of nerdiness than to mine. I mostly just know a frightening amount of useless trivia and quote old movies a lot. And am just a nerd in general. Not really so much of a techno-nerd (as you can probably tell by looking at my unadorned blog here. He has to help me with anything much fancier than this).

Ah well. Just goes to show that you should always keep your portraits of random scientifical types straight. You never know when you might need 'em.