the (mis)adventures of jenna

you should get one of these

2011-01-05T23:52:00.001-06:00

you can get an ipad for free from this site
http://giveaway.ipadsupply.net/?5Xh=NpiHc I don't know how long
they're gonna give them away but I got mine. I was skeptical about
this whole idea of free stuff but this site is for real, you just have
to send them back a review and then you can keep it.

Sent from my iPad

I HAVE MOVED!

2008-04-28T12:35:00.007-05:00

Joey bought me www.jennawoestman.com, so that's where I am now! This blog is now defunct.

Please update your RSS feed (which, as you should know by now, stands for Really Super Sweet feed) to this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThemisadventuresOfJenna

My new blog isn't totally set up the way it will be eventually, but it's good enough for who it's for right now and it'll get better as I figure out how to do stuff. Mostly Joey has to do everything right now because I'm not real quick on the technological draw.

So...go to jennawoestman.com and all your wildest dreams will come true.

Sister = Jerk

2008-04-25T16:33:00.001-05:00

I just got off the phone with Sister.

"I learned something in my counseling class," she said smugly.

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes. I learned that you are not codependent on The Kid, because if that would me that he is dependent on you for survival and that's not true at all," she said.

"HEY!" I bellowed.

"You are counterdependant. That's the one that means that you require The Kid for your daily sustenance," I could tell she was pleased with herself.

"Whatever, The Kid needs me," I mumbled.

Then she had to go shopping with Grandma or something, so she hung up and went to hang out with everybody cool that's in Indiana...except for me and Joey. Oh, and Brother and Laura, they're not in Indiana neithers.

We Overslept.

2008-04-25T08:45:00.001-05:00

My poor husband. He's absolutely exhausted and there's nothing I can do about it! Last night he had signed us up to go to a philosophy lecture at DTS (he said "I want to share my educational experience with you!" so how could I resist?) and it we didn't leave the school until 7:50 p.m.; I had originally thought this thing would by over by 7. Clearly I had underestimated how many strange/annoying questions certain DTS students (my husband not included) could ask.

We got home and got ready to go for a walk with the dog, who was climbing the walls just like me, and just as we were walking out the door poor Joey said, "I am so tired. My eye has been twitching for four days. All I want to do is go on this walk, watch an episode of MacGyver, go to bed by 10:30 and then sleep in through spin class in the morning. Is that OK?"

Well, I did want to go to spin class, but not at the expense of Joey's sanity...because that would be ultimately more frustrating than missing spinning.

So we watched MacGyver, got ready for bed and read for "nine minutes, we can read for nine minutes because, you see, it's 10:21. I want to go to bed at 10:30 not 10:21." He wanted to make sure I was using a literal hermeneutic, I guess, and not interpreting him metaphorically.

At 10:30 we set our books down, synchronized our alarm clocks for 6:15 a.m. so Joey would have plenty of time to get to work since he was filming a class the next morning, switched them on and went to sleep. Just before drifting off, I prayed that Joey would be well-rested and that his eye would stop twitching.

We awoke this morning at 7:45.

Somehow both of our alarm clocks were set correctly, turned on, and had the time set correctly and neither alarm went off.

"HOLY COW," I gasped, shooting upright in bed and looking at the time. "JOEY, it's 7:45!!"

He sat up faster than I've ever seen him move and the two of us began rushing around like our tails were on fire. We left the house by 7:53, miraculously, with his lunch thrown together, my makeup bag, and hopefully everything else we needed for the day.

I slapped my makeup on the car (probably applied too much) as we drove, shoved Joey out of the car at DTS and zoomed over to work.

Somehow, I made it in the door at 8:15...half an hour flat after I woke up. (My hair looks seriously bad.) The good news is, though, that on the drive in Joey said "Hey, my eye's not twitching anymore!"

"Maybe God wanted to give you some extra sleep? Clearly we did everything right to avoid oversleeping and can't explain why our alarms didn't go off..." I pondered.

What a great way to start the weekend - getting 9 hours of sleep on Thursday night. Oy.

2008-04-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

Look - a picture of Joey and me!

2008-04-24T14:29:00.002-05:00

I was irrationally tired last night. It was the kind of tired where what I mean to say and what I actually say gets short circuited and winds up being either:
a.) confusing
b.) wicked strange

To only add fodder to my already delusional state, Joey and I were discussing the new Heaven and new Earth that we'd been talking about in Sunday School. Never discuss Eschatology when extremely tired. It's just not a good idea. Here's a snippet of our conversation last night, sometime after 10:30 p.m.

"I think what I want to do most of all is to go back to that Panda Breeding Center in China that we saw when we were there. I want to see the Pandas again and hold a baby one....it would be like the best day of my life," I sighed.

"Better than the day we got married?" Joey had me trapped.

"Oh. Um. Not quite that good," I hedged.

After a short pause, I thought of something that was potentially even better.

"So, when we are living in the new Earth do you think we'll have jobs? Like, can I be a caretaker of baby Pandas?" I asked Joey.

"Um, I don't know. Maybe...you'd probably like that a lot." Joey replied.

"I think that in the new Earth someday, we won't be worshiping God 24/7," I said, almost asleep at this point.

"Oh?" Joey asked. I had piqued his interest with this one.

"No...sometimes people have to be taking care of the Pandas..." I mumbled.

I didn't think anything of this remark, mostly because I was almost asleep, until I heard Joey muttering, "I need my own blog or something so I can post these kinds of things...but nobody would believe me anyway."

"What?" I woke up a little bit.

"Sometimes people have to be taking care of the Pandas?!" Joey asked, incredulously, "You are way tired, that's like the craziest thing I ever heard!"

He's right, you know.

Never mind that in the new Earth Pandas will very likely not be endangered anymore and therefore won't need to be taken care of by humans, but it's hard to explain that to an irrationally tired person who was just discussing Eschatology.

The First Annual Jenna Loves Joey Day

2008-04-23T12:20:00.001-05:00

For the record, I love Joey every day. But today...today is special for no other reason than that he wasn't (really) expecting anything today.

About a month ago, Laura said "I have this great idea for the boys!" She proceeded to describe her great idea - which was/is truly great - and that was to hang signs and posters all over DTS outside the boys' classrooms, by the mail box, outside the chapel, etc. A week ago we got together and made signs while Joey studied. He thought we were just hanging out but he was wrong.

We each made plenty of signs and then hid them all over Laura's house to dry, hoping that Danny - her husband - wouldn't find them. Laura snapped some pictures of our creativeness on my camera. I'd post the pictures, but I think Joey took the camera out of my purse because it's not in there. (At least I hope that's where it is.)

Laura had bought a ton of sidewalk chalk which we used to make the posters, and we thought it would be fun to chalk the sidewalks at DTS. But we thought we might need to ask/tell the DTS Police before we did it so that we wouldn't get shot or anything...those guys are totally armed. So on Monday morning, I put in a call to the DTS Police who sent me to Student Services who, several hours later, told me that no, chalking the sidewalks is not appropriate, nor is posting any signs for our husbands because it's too public. They didn't really want to start that and then wind up having to clean things up all the time, and I can see their position. DTS is, after all, a very serious institution of higher education. <sigh>

So...there we were. Kiboshed. And after almost a month of planning! The original plan was scrapped and Laura and I decided to do our own things for our respective husbands. Since I'd contacted Student Services and they knew who I was (and who my husband is!), it seemed like a pretty bad idea to go ahead and do it anyway, especially since that would more than likely shame Joey instead of encourage him...what with me knowing it wasn't allowed and all. Plus I didn't want him getting sat down in Dr. Garippa's office because his wife was out of line.

Plan B: chalk the sidewalks around our apartment complex (Joey was riding his bike to school today) and post the signs intended for his classrooms along his route. Leave several legal surprises for him at DTS.

left the house late last evening under the guise of taking Henry outside but I was really going to write little lovey-dovey chalk messages on the sidewalks. JOEY (the snitch!) came out to find me! I was real mad at him for ruining the surprise and sent him back in the house immediately. (He had also found the pictures on my camera earlier...)

I set my alarm 7 minutes early this morning and RAN to the Dumpster where I taped up a huge sign, and then ran out to Shady Brook where I stuck 3 signs in the grass at intervals down the road, one for each word of "I Love Joey". Then I ran back inside like nothing had happened and was relieved to find Joey still asleep.

At 6:45 I left the house in the car, sped to DTS where I put a bouquet of balloons outside his office door and did a couple of other non-public and OK by Student Services things that I'm not sure he's found yet, so I'm not going to tell you. Hopefully all his coworkers, at least, think he's the man and know that his wife loves him since the entire student body doesn't get to be in on the surprise. C'est la vie.

I figure I'll do something like this annually...but not on the same date. Gotta keep Joey on his toes and all.

Meet our friends!

2008-04-22T13:17:00.004-05:00

From left to right we have: Casey & Rachel (and Mikylah but she's not born yet), Me & Joey, Laura Wilkerson & Josh, Laura Stiller & Danny, Becca & Luke.

As far as doggies go, there's Merlin, Henry (who is not facing the camera) and Riley.

We met at White Rock for some Frisbee and hanging out on Sunday and, in the course of playing Frisbee, Laura W threw the Frisbee to Laura S and the wind caught it....it wound up BOINKing into a mid-life-crisis-type-guy's Corvette. He was standing right there, too, and he looked NONE TO HAPPY at poor Laura S when she went to retrieve the Frisbee from the ground. She apologized nicely, too, as all the rest of us ran away like five year olds.

Later, as we were getting ready to go to see the ducks, I said to Laura W, "Smile!" It was extremely convenient that she was standing right in front of the Corvette when I took her picture...
I'm probably going to get in trouble for this one.

Baby Pandas

2008-04-22T12:42:00.002-05:00

I found this wicked cute video of some rolly-polly pandas on NPR's website. I recommend watching it as soon as possible. I've watched it twice in the last half an hour...it seems to have some kind of addictive quality to it.

Joey's New Toy

2008-04-22T10:22:00.003-05:00

Joey has been saving his pennies from selling off the stockpile of paintball equipment. His goal was to purchase a paintball pistol with said money.

However.

Joel Wires got a new lens for his camera and Joey became monstrously jealous. He considered the stash of cash he had in his drawer and thought to himself If I didn't buy a paintball pistol, which I really won't use that much anyway, I have enough money to buy a lens like Joel's!

So that's why, as I was in the bathroom plucking my eyebrows, he leaned against the door and said, "I think I won't get that pistol after all. I think I'll buy a lens for my camera."

"OH?" I asked, secretly pleased that he wouldn't be buying that pistol after all...I don't like guns...

"Yeah, I think it will be more awesome. Plus I have enough money."

And with that, his mind was made up and he purchased his lens on Amazon.com the very next day.

It looks like this: And it's called this: Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens

Congratulations on your new toy, honey!

The Monday Night Randoms

2008-04-22T09:36:00.001-05:00

Monday, unfortunately, is ironing night. I hate ironing, it makes me want to poke my eye out. Joey knows this, too, because I always make sure he knows how much I hate it before I dive on it...some weeks I even ask him to set up the ironing board so that I'm roped into doing it. You know, once the ironing board is up you can't very well just take it down without ironing because that would be lame.

I decided Monday night would be ironing night a couple weeks ago. I wasn't doing it on Saturday, my previous ironing day, and that was causing major pile-up problems and Joey could find himself without his favorite shirt, which we cannot have.

So I ironed. I also called my Pops to tell him that it was 84 degrees in my house and I was going to die from heat exhaustion. (Never let it be said that I was not an overly dramatic person. I think, actually, that Sister may be worse. I'm not sure how this is possible since Mom is the least dramatic person I know, but it is.) In relating to Pops my activities of the day, something I did - or hadn't done - caught his horror and he said "OH! Jenna! Don't you know better?"

Of course I probably did at one point but, as Joey said, Pops may have tried to teach me something (like how to change the oil, for example) and I either forgot really fast or categorically refused to remember it. It's really not Pops' fault. Or Mom's, for that matter.

Anyway, after about 10 minutes Pops decided that he'd probably better talk to Joey in order to offer him some comic relief (from me, presumably) and the two of them discussed what's wrong with me for awhile (I'm getting sick of catered lunches at work and wish I could take my own - Pops feels no sorrow for me and neither does Joey) before moving on to more enlightening topics like Dad's cows and the condition of their grass.

After finishing the ironing and talking to Pops on the phone (he left to go check on the cows' grass with Mom, who is scared of cows) I moved on to editing Joey's paper for his New Testament Introduction class taught by Hoehner. It was one of those 10-pagers and he was arguing the authenticity of 2nd Peter and making a case for Petrine authorship vs. pseudepigraphal or pseudonymous authorship. It was actually quite interesting, but I used up almost an entire pen's worth of ink on the first three pages. Good thing I went to Bible college I guess.

So that was my Monday night.

My Brother Andrew: Smarter Than You

2008-04-21T09:56:00.003-05:00

I called my Pops last night to tell him that Charles Ryrie was at our church on Sunday. (It's not every day you have the guy who wrote [notes in] your Bible at your church neithers.) He was baptizing his grandson who apparently goes to our church.

Anyways, in the course of the conversation, turns out Pops was in Ames on Saturday watching my brother Andrew (he's like some kind of rocket scientist basically) and his senior engineering team fly their helicopter for their final project. His project is sponsored by some big aerospace firm, but Andrew says I can't tell you who they are because they wouldn't want to be associated with the likes of me. This helicopter, apparently, was made 10 years ago and never had a successful flight until my brother Andrew (ta da!) stepped on the scene.

Andrew and his team didn't think the helicopter would hover but, as you can see from this video that Pops took (you can hear him crowing with jubilation about 1:15 into it) the helicopter clearly hovers. Oh, that's my brother holding the chopper thingys.

So Dad said that every time the helicopter malfunctioned, Andrew was the go-to guy. He was like flying 500 mpg giving orders and throwing parts here and there...pretty amazing stuff. Pops even said that one time before the problem was diagnosed, some parts of it fell apart in Andrew's hands (imagine my Pops' dramatic retelling, complete with extreme intonations and gasps) but Andrew was able to fix them with the greatest ease, once they drove to Urbandale to pick up a part that was $1.50.

I'd totally have been there if I didn't live in the Texas. This is the time of year when it's lame to live 732 miles from home, particularly when it involves younger brothers being awesome. But this is why I have a blog so I can post this kind of stuff on it and pretend like I was there.

But to hear Pops tell it (which is almost as good as being there), Andrew basically saved the day, passed college and brokered world peace, all in one afternoon.

Good thing he's my brother. I'm wicked proud of him.

Two Years With Jesus

2008-04-18T10:36:00.002-05:00

Mom reminded me this morning that today marks two years since my Grandpa Richardson, her daddy, went to be with Jesus. That makes this is one of those happy/sad days that makes me want to remember him.

Grandpa was a extra-special kind of grandpa, the kind who was a whiz at rhymes and silly poems, liked grape juice with ice in the afternoons and watched Jeopardy every day. He also was a pastor for over 50 years and had shelves upon shelves of commentaries that were well-used and smelled like old books. I have some of those books on the shelves in my home, and I always remember him when I see them.

Since I miss my grandpa, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Grandpa memories with you.

When I was about five my dad took me on a special trip. We got to go along with Grandpa to a small church somewhere in the boonies of Iowa to pick up a player piano for Grandpa to refinish. It seemed like the longest car ride of my entire life, and when we finally got to the church to pick up the piano, it was in horrible condition. I worried that maybe my grandpa had met his match and wouldn't be able to fix this one. But sure enough, he did. It's in the family room at my parents house right now...and when all us kids go home we put rolls and sing "The Old Spinning Wheel" with gusto.

Grandpa used to amuse us kids after dinner with silly poems and stories. My sister's favorite is "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly" but my personal favorite is "You Must Pay The Rent". I think Aunt Ginny got Grandpa on video doing "You Must Pay The Rent" (napkin and all!) but I'm not sure about the fly one. In any case, nobody could tell goofy stories or make up silly poems like my grandpa!

Grandpa had the coolest hair. Sometimes, if we were very, very good, he'd let us comb it and put barrettes all over it. I can't believe he let us do that, but that just goes to show how very patient my grandpa was. I'm not sure that he let anyone photograph him like that, though. It was my favorite thing to do when I was a little girl. My cousins and I called it "Messing Grandpa Up," and that's exactly what he looked like when we were done with him.

When Grandpa and Grandma moved to Cedar Rapids, we used to see them once a week. We'd mow the lawn (Grandma would always come out to make sure we didn't miss any spots) and when we were done, grandma had glasses of ice-cold juice waiting for us. Grandpa liked grape juice and cranberry juice. If mom was late to pick us up, we'd sit there and watch Jeopardy with them (or Wheel of Fortune if it was getting really late) and Grandpa always knew the right answers.

Every year for our birthdays after they moved to Cedar Rapids, Grandpa and Grandma would either make us a special meal, or take us out for Taco Bell or something. I always thought it was cute that no matter where we went, Grandpa and Grandma always split a meal. Always.

I remember the very last sermon Grandpa preached - it was at Galilee Baptist Church. Can't remember how old I was, but I remember being there and wearing a skirt. Over the years different people have given me old tapes of Grandpa preaching and I love listening to them. One one tape he sings, too, (must have been special music that day maybe?) and I'm really glad somebody had the foresight to record it!

When I was in college on break, Grandpa and I were in the family room at my parents' house. I was studying and I think he was watching Jeopardy. Greek had been giving me a terrible time and I was so frustrated that I couldn't even remember some simple words. I was sitting there on the floor, tapping my pencil fiercely against my notebook when I suddenly burst out, "Grandpa! I am losing it, I can't remember the Greek word for 'church' right now!" Grandpa sat there quietly for a few moments and I thought he hadn't heard me. But out of the blue he said quietly, "It's εκκλησία." Of course it was.

As Grandpa started having more trouble with his Parkinson's, he didn't talk as much and he didn't joke as much...but we sure knew Grandpa loved us. Daddy would always ask Grandpa to pray when we saw them for dinner, and I always loved to hear my Grandpa pray. Somehow when he was talking to God, even as he became more of an observer rather than a participant, he blossomed. It was clear that Grandpa loved Jesus and somehow, talking to Him was the easiest thing he could do.

My very last memory of my Grandpa is on Easter Sunday, 2006. My whole family was there, the Johnsons, Aunt Mary and Gerry, Ginny and Jim...it was fun; more people than I had expected to come for Easter lunch! Grandpa was quiet that day, but when Daddy asked him to pray, he prayed so fervently and clearly that it brought tears to my eyes.

On that next Tuesday, Mom called to say that Grandpa had gone to be with Jesus.

My Grandpa's funeral was a celebration of a life spent serving Jesus. Someone sang "Finally Home" and it was a great reminder of where Grandpa is - with Jesus! There was a slideshow at the end of the service...someone had found one of those old tapes of Grandpa singing special music and had it playing behind pictures of Grandpa with his children and grandchildren. My favorite part was in the middle of the song on the tape when Grandpa forgot the words he was supposed to sing next. It was nice to have a giggle and remember what fun Grandpa was.

I definitely miss my sweet Grandpa, but I'm thankful that he's "Finally Home".

Golf.

2008-04-17T11:46:00.004-05:00

Joey and I pretty much think golf is poke-my-eye-out boring, but we are willing to make one exception. Every year we are given free tickets to the Byron Nelson, a PGA Tournament in Las Colinas, and we make a day of it.

Last year we followed Phil Mikkelsen around and watched him lob a golf ball all the way from the green over to a house where some people, who were quite intoxicated, were yelling "Philllllll, hey PHILLLLL, throw your golf ball over here!" I thought he was lucky he didn't break a window.

We tried to dress all nice and cute because, naturally, that's what one does when one goes to a PGA thing, right?

WRONG. Those golfer guys walk fast.

This year we are doing several things differently. We are wearing sunblock (we got a little pinkish last year), we are taking hats and sunglasses (it's easier to watch the ball if you're not squinting into the glaring sunlight), and we are wearing extremely comfortable shoes. We're bringing my camera. We're also checking tee-times before we get there so we'll know who we want to follow around.

Tiger, unfortunately, won't be there so we'll have to pick somebody else...hopefully we can recognize a name or two. But since we know nothing about golf, I wouldn't hold your breath.

The only thing that's a bummer is that I somehow got entered in a drawing and won VIP passes, but they can only be used on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. We definitely don't like golf enough to miss work just to do whatever people with VIP passes for a PGA thingy get to do.

Poor Joey, I told him I had won VIP passes for days we weren't available and he's said, "Woah, cool! What could we have done with them?"

Honestly, I didn't even look at the perks involved since I knew we wouldn't be able to use them. So I guess I'll never know how much ritz we could have had. It's probably better this way. We never win anything, and here I win something I didn't even know I had been entered for and we can't even use it. Isn't that just my luck.

I was just handed my free tickets (good for any day of the tournament, fortunately!) which is why I am posting about something that won't happen for a week. I'm done now.

Why Pandas Are The Best Animal Ever

2008-04-16T12:21:00.005-05:00

Check out these cute little babies bottle-feeding themselves at the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center, where I've actually been. (And paid $7 to hold a panda who didn't really like me much.)

I love panda.

2008-04-16T09:21:00.001-05:00

Last night Joey said to me, "I think it's your turn to pray tonight."

"OK," I said. I prayed about his upcoming papers, the end of the semester and several other things before I moved on to my sunburn.

"God...my sunburn hurts a lot and I'm getting really sick of it. Please heal it quickly. I really learned my lesson this time, I will never use expired sunblock again and I will always be more careful when going out in the sun because I hate being reddish-purple and hurting every time I move."

I stopped here and realized how whiny I was starting to sound. There are Christians who are being persecuted for their faith right now and you're whining to God about your measly sunburn, I chastised myself. I was starting to feel a little guilty for being so selfish.

"Thank you that I'm starting to feel a little better," I continued. "And thank you that it's not worse. I'm really looking forward to when you heal my skin enough that it starts to peel...although if it's really itchy you will probably hear from me again about this."

I finished my prayer up shortly and as soon as I was done Joey said, "You do realize that you just whined at God."

"I know..." I said, "But it's not like He wasn't aware that I was thinking whiny thoughts in my head. I was just being honest."

So I realized two very important things last night:

God actually does want to hear me when I'm whiny because He already knows my heart. (I often tell myself not to bug God with little things like sunburns, but I need to remember that He cares!)
I'm a wimp. I don't like my sunburn and I'm quick to tell God that and I'm not even suffering anything major like some Christians are. It reminds me to pray for them, actually, which is why I'm putting a posty-note on my monitor about that very thing right now.

Dear Friends of The Kid:

2008-04-16T08:21:00.003-05:00

It has come to my attention that you think that if I were to die by sting-ray barb and it were to get caught on film, I would most likely want have it shown on TV post mortem. First of all, I'm afraid of water and would probably never be caught dead swimming around anywhere in water deep enough for sting-rays. Second of all, I think it's weird that you're sitting around talking about death by sting-rays at lunch. But whatever, you're all in college and get away with stuff like that.

However.

If I were to die by panda attack (pandas are my favorite animal) and it happened to get caught on film, then The Kid could totally sell it to whatever media outlets he wants and make his millions. (No setting me up to die by panda attack now, The Kid. That's just plain mean. I haven't even made you an uncle yet, so no killing me off for awhile.)

May your next lunch conversation be more appetizing.

Sincerely,
Jenna

Adding Insult To Injury

2008-04-15T09:55:00.002-05:00

This morning, my hairdryer melted. Not at the end of my hair-drying ritual, but right at the beginning. So here I sit; red and crispy with half curly, half fluffed out hair. Joey said we'd stop by the store and buy a new hairdryer on the way home tonight.

POOR ME.

Additionally, after I went home early yesterday to slap on loads of aloe I checked my sunblock. Sure enough, the expiration date was 4/2008. So throw out all your old sunblock, everyone! I am never, ever getting burned like this again. Me and my sun hat (yes, I have a sun hat - don't make fun) are going to be pals this summer.

But here's some pictures of me with my sunburn on Sunday. Joey took them for your general amusement.

2008-04-14T09:42:00.001-05:00

When people gasp in shock and horror because of your sunburn as you approach, it's time to go home.

Kentucky Fried

2008-04-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, Laura and I went canoing. You'll hear more about that later, after I get the pictures from her. But first I absolutely most post about the sunburn because it hurts like a banshee.

So in April, what Iowan thinks about sunblock? Not really me. Plus it was a cool, breezy day and not what I'd construe as "DANGER!" weather. I brought along last year's sunblock, though, and Laura applied it liberally to her neck, which was already a little crispy from last weekend at her brother's baseball came.

Honestly, I didn't think I'd get a sunburn. It's only April, for crying out lout, it's still snowing back home! We hit the water at 11:00 and stopped for lunch about 12:30. At that point, I decided I should put some sunblock on, so I slathered myself up but good. Laura did the same.

We hit the water again at 1:30ish and canoed like madwomen until 3:00 when we reached the end of our 10 miles.

I realized at that point that I might be a little crispy. We loaded up and drove back to Dallas, which was about an hour and a half away. By the time we got home, I knew that I was a lot crispy. My poor husband had spent the entire time I was enjoying myself (and getting burned) in the library working on a paper, so as his reward he wanted to watch Star Wars Episode Three. I made it through half before I just couldn't stay awake anymore, so we went to bed.

I woke up at 2:30 feeling like every nerve in my body had been lit on fire. I also discovered that I had excessively swollen knees. (Swollen knees from a sunburn?!) I hobbled to the bathroom and applied another round of Aloe lotion, drank some water, and threw myself back into bed, moaning slightly loud because I wanted Joey to wake up and feel sorry for me. (I'm not kidding; I really did this. He didn't hear me at all, either.)

By the time the alarm went off at 8:00, not only were my knees swollen, by my calves and thighs as well.

"I...I think I'm going to die." I moaned. I hobbled over to the bathroom again to apply more aloe and drink more water.

"You seem like you're in distress," Joey said, with quite a bit of concern, "I'm going to call my mom for medical advice."

So he did. I was told to take 800 mg of ibuprofen at first, then 400 mg every 6 hours. Unfortunately, I misheard Joey's directions and thought I was supposed to take 600 mg every four hours. (Joey discovered my mistake at about 9:00, after I had OD'd myself several times. I blame it on the sunburn confusion in my brain.) I was also to put cool washcloths on my knees to attempt to reduce the swelling.

At about 11:00, I decided I needed to call Laura to make sure she was OK. She didn't answer, but about 45 minutes later I got a call back. It went something like this:

Laura: OH MY GOSH are you DYING?!
Me: Yes, are you too?
Laura: My knees...are your knees swollen?
Me: Yes they are; I can barely walk.

And so on and so forth. This was the part where I started to wonder if my sunblock had become inert over the winter because I know Laura put way more on than I did. And the parts of me where I applied sunblock are, oddly enough, the most burned and swollen parts of me.

"You are like Kentucky Fried Chicken, only you're Kentucky Fried Jenna," Joey said to me yesterday evening as I applied more aloe and moaned about my swollen legs.

I think he hit the nail on the head. Sorry Laura, we totally should have used your sunblock.

My Friday Craving

2008-04-11T08:51:00.002-05:00

I want one of these today.Joey bought me one once because every week at the market I'd look at them longingly. He'd read my mind and suggest that we buy one, but I'd turn him down because they're expensive. Finally, after months of suggesting it, he just put one in the cart when I wasn't looking.

Unfortunately, now I really, really like pomegranates. I mean, I liked them before, but now I love them. And I want to eat one today.

Mmmmm....they taste like summer.

The only bad part is you sort of look like a farmer when you are munching on the juice pods because they have seeds. So you'll munch, munch, munch and then have to spit them all out. Etc, etc, etc. I would be completely uncomfortable eating one of these little beauties in public. Joey thinks they're creepy, what with the seeds and all.

Sometimes I think he's creepy.

2008-04-09T16:21:00.001-05:00

It's Wednesday and on Wednesdays I get to drink a Pepsi; it's my rule.

So I just finished it - it was tasty, I love Pepsi - and the can is still sitting on my desk because I haven't taken it to the recycle bin yet. I did just happen to notice, though, that Pepsi contains "natural flavors".

Natural flavors? What in the world could possibly be natural about a can of Pepsi? The flavor has nothing natural about it at all, which is why I like it. (Don't be sad, Mom.) In fact, not an hour ago I was sitting here analyzing the delicious flavor of my Pepsi and trying to figure out why exactly I like it.

I couldn't figure it out.

Sister and I have discussed this at length and think the reason all us kids like Pepsi is because Pops brainwashed us as children. After working at the apartments or mowing lawns, he'd take us for Pepsi and, if we were very good indeed, buy us Snickers bars too. So I think somehow we have correlated "Pepsi" with "REWARD FOR BEING AWESOME" and I'm not sure that's always true.

So I blame my Pepsi affinity on Pops. I wonder if he knows it has "natural flavors" in it.

The Kid for President??

2008-04-09T11:13:00.001-05:00

Some of you Google Reader people may not realize this, but I have a poll going for who should be the next President. So far the top two people are John McCain (he has 10 votes) and Alex Laird who has 8 votes. Barack Obama has like 7 and Hillary Clinton, not surprisingly, has none. (This is what happens when a bunch of Republicans read your blog.)

It unnerves me that my squiggly little brother has more votes than Barack Obama. I mean, The Kid isn't nearly so charismatic as that guy...plus he's not Senator of anything. I also think he wears mismatched socks, which I'm sure Barack Obama would never do.

Well, too bad The Kid isn't 35 yet. I'm also not convinced he is a natural born citizen. (I realize he is a born citizen - Mom will testify to that - it's the natural part I'm a little hesitant about.) So clearly he cannot run for President yet, but I figure that in, like, 20 years he'll be the man for the job.

The Kid, drop out of college and start forming your campaign. I will be your manager.

Oh for those of you a little bushed about how you can vote for Alex Laird in my poll but I'm talking about some kid named The Kid...Alex Laird is The Kid.

The Olympics: My Sacred Cow

2008-04-09T09:17:00.001-05:00

I love the Olympics. Every two years I become a total junkie and watch sporting events that I neither understand much about or would normally watch all because I love the competitive nationalism that is the Olympics. I love it all from the parade of nations at the Opening Ceremonies to the final medal presentation at the very last event. We don't own a TV, but Joey always ensures that we have one we can borrow for two weeks during the Olympics because he knows just how upset I'll be if I miss a moment of the games.

So I didn't realize how emotionally attached I am to the Olympics until Monday morning. There I was, hamstering away on an elliptical machine at 6:15 a.m. at the gym and unabashedly watching CNN on the big plasma TV (I'm first and foremost a news junkie) when they cut into the broadcast with breaking news from Paris.

The Olympic torch relay, of course.

I was quite transfixed as I watched protesters try to jump on the poor torch bearer and attempt to throw water over the police and Chinese security brigade that was surrounding the torch-bearer. Indignant, I began to elliptical faster. I began to feel very, very sorry for the gold-medalist athletes who were being honored by their country to carry the Olympic torch but were getting rotten vegetables thrown at them, among other things.

I feel awful for the people in Tibet, really I do, and I would love to see them restored to autonomy. But the Olympics aren't something that, in my opinion, should be hijacked for political motivations. Diplomacy, people. Diplomacy. As I watched the rioting in Paris, the reporter said that the Olympic torch had been extinguished and they were completing the route by bus. It was then that I realized that I realized I had better think about something else or I would likely begin to cry.

Crying over Olympic torch relay protests? I'm afraid it's true. I may have moved beyond an Olympic junkie to an Olympic nerd. So I am sitting here at 9 a.m. CST kind of nervous for the torch relay in San Francisco. I hope no one gets hurt.

But can you even imagine how cool the opening ceremonies will be this year? China has some awesome cultural things (those stretchy dragons with four people hidden inside that do the funky up-and-down dancing; I totally love those) and I can't wait to see how they display their country's traditions.

OK, that's enough schmaltz for one day. You guys are going to all stop reading my blog if I'm not careful.

In Which Joey Gets Insulted By The Saleslady

2008-04-08T10:03:00.001-05:00

Last night Joey and I went to the mall to return something. I had planned to go by myself but he literally begged me to come along (does that sound like homework avoidance to anyone else?) and so off we went to NorthPark.

As we neared our destination, the Clinique counter, Joey said "Um...I'll sort of go stand over there" and veered sharply off to the right, somewhere over past the shoe department.

I completed my transaction in very little time at all and was rather surprised to find Joey standing right outside Clinique-land looking sheepish.

"Hey babe, ready to go to the Apple store?" I asked. He was, of course. That was his one request, that we visit the Apple store.

"So while you were taking back your thing, I went over to look at watches," he told me.

"Yeah?" I said, thinking that this story could be going someplace expensive.

"And the saleslady behind the counter came over to help me and asked me if I was 15!!"

"NO." I gasped.

"Yes, she did. Then I kind of tried to laugh it off for her so she wouldn't be so embarrassed, and mentioned that I was just waiting for my wife to finish something. She was all shocked that not only was I not 15, but I was married, too."

"Yeah, I bet..."

Poor, poor Joey. I mean, he was wearing a t-shirt, but I don't think that makes him look 15. I think he looks very mature and responsible, thank you very much.

Jamba Juice

2008-04-08T08:37:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Laura sent an email around informing everyone that today Jamba Juice is free from 6-10 a.m. Joey and I figured that we wouldn't be able to go since we had this ridiculous cardio class at the gym this morning from 6-7, then Joey had class at 7:45 and I had to be at work by 8.

To make a long and sort of boring story short, Joey and I both decided we could not miss out on the Jamba Juice opportunity. So we loaded up into our cars at 7:35 and drove over to the nearest shop. (Joey had decided to just show up late for class. Model student.)

There were no "FREE" signs outside the store, but the doors were open and there were 2 people in line.

"How do we know if it's free?" I whispered to Joey and Laura.

"There's a large banana outside," Laura whispered.

I looked at Laura, really not sure what she was talking about.

"Someone is wearing a banana suit," she said. "That probably means it's free."

She pointed outside and I saw that yes, there was someone dressed up in a banana costume waving at cars zipping past. Every time I see someone in a banana costume from now on I will assume that free and delicious things are close by.

We ordered our free drinks and as we waited for them, we noticed a stack of bread squares in little plastic containers. They seemed like samples.

"Are those free?" Laura asked me.

"Well....I'll take one and eat it. If I get in trouble, then it wasn't free. If I don't get in trouble, then it must have been free."

We determined this to be a good course of action and, based on the fact that we didn't get in trouble, the bread squares were free. It was cranberry-orange bread with sunflower seeds on top, so it had two major strikes against it in Joey's book. He did not sample/pilfer any of the bread.

Free Jamba Juice drinks in hand, the three of us walked proudly out to our vehicles. Joey took our car and went to class (very, very late indeed) and Laura and I headed down to work in her Jeep. On the elevator up from the parking garage, I somehow managed to suction the straw from my juice so tightly to my upper lip that I had a very difficult time getting it off. It still sort of hurts.

So far it has been a pretty good morning, and it's only 8:30! Good thing I get free Chic-Fil-A for lunch today too...Do you think they'll have Cheetos? That would totally make this day a trifecta.

Communion Wafers

2008-04-07T11:55:00.001-05:00

Faith Bible Church, where I grew up in Iowa, has the coolest communion wafers. They're thin and crispy and when they're broken into bits they resemble the 50 nifty United States. You can always find one of the states in your communion wafer at Faith Bible Church. I'm not even kidding.

For as far back as I can remember, the minute I got my Communion wafer I'd decide which state it looked like, and then I'd pray. Within a few years, I had all my sibs looking for states in their communion wafers. (My favorite ones so far have been Maryland, Kentucky and Mississippi.) Mom was always extremely chagrined to find her four naughty children flipping their wafers around and backwards trying to decide which state they got this time.

(If any of the pastors or former pastors are reading this, the jig is up. They'll be on to us next time.)

Many of you know that we've been church-hunting lately down here in Dallas. The good news is that we found one, Grace Bible Church. Yesterday was Communion Sunday. Most of the churches we've visited on Communion day have had those little Chiclet type squares for their Communion wafers, and I think those are lame. First of all, you have two options: Wyoming and Colorado, and second of all, they get stuck in your teeth. (But cool Communion wafers really aren't the point of Communion.)

So as they were passing the plate of crackers yesterday, I was pleased to note that they were matzos. Not quite as good as the onces FBC has, but they were a close second. What was even more exciting was that I instantly saw that I had gotten Minnesota.

"Look, it's Minnesota!" I whispered to Joey.

He flipped his around once or twice and then said, "Mine's Nevada. Wait,I think yours actually looks more like Michigan," he hissed, breaking off a tiny piece of his wafer and putting it on the very top of mine, forming the UP.

"You can't do that. You can't edit your wafer to make it be the state you want," I whispered back, making up rules on the fly.

Sometimes I am fairly certain that I'll be a real controversial pastor's wife.

Ya gotta be kidding me - restraining order?!

2008-04-07T10:51:00.001-05:00

To put this as tactfully as possible, we have this former neighbor (she got evicted for reasons which will become apparent) who had this little obsession problem with us, namely Joey and Henry. She pretty much just hates me now because back in September we asked her to leave us alone. She figures this was all my doing and still worships the ground Joey walks on. Henry too.

Anyway, she was evicted in December for harassing numerous other tenants and we were overjoyed. We thought she would finally leave us alone since she had disregarded all of our previous polite requests.

Well, friends, turns out she hasn't been.

On Saturday I went to a bridal shower and took the car. We only have one car, so if the casual observer (or middle-aged stalker lady) were to glance at the parking lot, they might think "Oh, the Woestmans aren't home". This is exactly what former neighbor thought when she drove into our parking lot. This analysis complete, she parked her car in the corner of the lot by our windows, rolled down hers and began yelling, "Henry, Henry, oh how are you?" up into our open windows.

But Joey was sitting at his desk, just out of sight, and as soon as he heard her he swooped down and grabbed Henry away from the window. We already sort of assumed she was doing this, but now that we have caught her in the act, we decided to report it to our leasing office and the security firm for our housing complex.

The business manager at our leasing office was shocked, horrified, and suggested that we go to our nearest Police precinct and make an incident report in order to begin the processes for a restraining order.

A what?!

"She's really disturbed," our business manager told me, "And I recommend calling the police immediately the next time you see her. Before something worse happens."

Ominous.

I really think the police have better things to do than follow around a woman in her early 50s who has obsession issues.

So I made a report with our security firm and they felt dreadfully sorry for me. They said they'd step up patrols and hopefully catch her in the act since everyone is so familiar with her and what her car looks like.

Another day, another drama. (We just can't seem to keep it normal, can we?) I'll definitely let you know if she gets caught and hauled off by the police for trespassing.

Henry Cuts His Own Fingernail

2008-04-04T10:06:00.001-05:00

Last night when I came home from the baby shower I was attending, Joey and I sat in the office and talked for awhile. Henry played happily on the floor like usual. Joey glanced down to look at him and said, "Woah, what is that? Is that blood on the carpet?"

Gross. We examined the three spots and determined that yes, it was blood on our carpet. Joey rushed to the bathroom to get the Sol-U-Mel (our version of carpet cleaner - it's all-natural, non toxic and creepy chemical free and yet it still works!) and a scrubber. He sprayed down the spots throughly and began to scrub. The bloody spot turned into a huge bloody smear, grossing us both out.

"Ew...I guess I should have blotted it first..." he said, then started pressed a paper towel heavily to it.

Joey is very noble to clean up most of the disgusting things in our house. I'm quite happy to take care of dirt and food spills, but I just can't handle dog puke much, and probably not puppy blood. (Although I don't know about that one because it's only happened once and Joey cleaned it up.)

"Where do you think it came from," he asked, glancing around.

"Maybe his rawhide? He was chewing one when I left, sometimes he cuts his gums when he chews too hard," I suggested. Henry truly isn't very bright...I'd stop chewing on something if it was making me bleed.

"No...the rawhide looks fine, it must be something else." Joey noticed, examining the nasty puppy rawhide before setting it aside to get back to the spots, which were by now invisible.

"Look at his front paws, does one look bloody to you?" I asked.

Joey looked and saw what I was pointing out. He agreed that it looked bloody, so I picked up Henry and tried to move his paw in such a way that I would be able to ascertain just where this blood was coming from. He jerked his paw away and curled it up close to his furry little chest and strained to get away from me.

"He's hurt!" I wailed. I hate it when my puppy is hurt, I always cuddle him very closely and tell him he'll be just fine while I scratch him in all his favorite places. (This is the part where Mom and Laura, neither of which care much for dogs and Henry in particular, roll their eyes and say "It's a dog!" But I choose to ignore them sometimes.)

I managed to pry Henry's little paw away from his body long enough to see that he had somehow ripped his dew claw in half. (I didn't take any pictures.)

"Oh, poor buddy! Joey, come see? He ripped off his claw!"

Joey came to examine Henry's paw, but by that point Henry had had enough of me touching it and looking at it, he pulled his paw back to his chest and soundly refused to give it back to me.

"We'll have to take him to PetSmart tomorrow to get the rest of his nails trimmed," I said. "Maybe they can put something on this so it doesn't get infected." I had considered putting alcohol or peroxide on it, but I wasn't sure if that was wise and we don't have The Internets at home, so I had no way of looking it up online.

And so that was the excitement at the Woestman household last night. Our dog chewed his own claw off and bled on our carpet. (Well at least we figure he chewed it off...how else would it tear off like that?)

The Time The Guys Next Door Had Plywood Covering Their Door

2008-04-03T16:06:00.004-05:00

On Saturday afternoon while Joey and Cuz were playing Rubik's cube in the study, I snuggled up in the chair with a book and read. After awhile I started noticing some hammering coming from outside, but I didn't really think much of it.

Joey came over about 10 minutes later.

"Are you pounding something?" He asked.

"Yes," I said, and pretended to pound the book against my knee.

He rolled his eyes at me and stepped out on the balcony to track down the hammering sound.

"Oh. My. Gosh. You have to come out here and look at this." Joey stage-whispered and waved feverishly to indicate that I must come now.

"What?" I asked, once out on the balcony. I didn't see anything unusual.

"Look over there, at the door just across the way." He pointed diagonally through the branches of the nice oak tree that shades our balcony in the summer but is currently leafless.

"Holy cows!" I crowed. "What is going on!"

The apartment door across the way had an enormous piece of plywood being nailed to it by two twenty-something guys wearing jeans and t-shirts.

"Do you think they got evicted? Is it a crime scene?" I asked, jumping up and down slightly. I have such an imagination.

"They probably didn't get evicted because those guys aren't wearing the uniform of the maintenance guys on the property. And it's not likely that it's a crime scene. I mean, they boarded the place up; they wouldn't do that if it was a crime scene." Joey is always more rational than I.

Cuz heard the commotion and he came over shortly. He too expressed interest in the goings-on across the way.

"I say one of you two go figure out what's going on," I demanded.

They both looked at me as though I had gone insane. They were clearly not going to go ask a couple of guys their own age what they were doing. I could see this meant I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.

"Well, if you won't then I will. I'm curious. I am going to go find out." I said. I picked up Henry and flounced out of the apartment and down the stairs.

Henry performed beautifully. I set him down in the grass, presumably to do his business, but he was more interested in what was going on across the way. He ran over and trotted right up the stairs where the guys were working at hammering in the last few nails on their massive plywood sheet.

"What, did your door break?" I asked, scooping up Henry and "chastising" him for interfering with strangers.

"Um....no..." they hedged. I could tell this was going to be good.

"This is our old roommates apartment," one guy offered. "And we're just playing a joke on him."

"Yeah," the other one jumped in, "He's at a bachelor party tonight and when he gets home in the morning he will be so hung over...it'll be hilarious."

Wow. Classy.

"Would you take a picture of us?" The first one asked, digging in his pocket for a camera.

You have got to be kidding me, I thought. But I gamely agreed to take several pictures. Unfortunately it was with their camera so I have none of them to post on my blog...but I took some of my own after they left, don't you worry.

They thanked me, packed up their stuff, slapped up a couple strips of "Caution" tape, and left.

I walked back in my own apartment very smugly and filled the boys in. We, of course, rushed out immediately to survey their handiwork. They were pretty good with a hammer, there were quite a lot of nails.The next afternoon we came upon two haggard looking guys prying off the plywood. They looked madder 'n a wet hen.

"Hey...you got it off!" Joey called to them, cheerfully.

"Some joke," the one mumbled.

We just laughed at them when we got inside. There are nail holes completely covering the space around their door. They are not getting their security deposit back; no way, no how.

Henry On The Fritz

2008-04-03T15:36:00.003-05:00

Most evenings, Henry stares up at us from his doggy bed on the floor looking like this: Then, suddenly and without warning, he starts fritzing out. I cannot explain it. Watch the video and you will gain a clearer picture of the mental issues our dog has. But we still love him.

Time Flies...

2008-04-02T14:26:00.002-05:00

Last evening after dinner, Joey and I went on a walk with Henry, who was bouncing off the walls and needed to blow off some steam. (But then, when is he not?) It was a beautiful evening...blue sky, green grass, new leaves on the trees, cool breeze - the whole kit 'n caboodle.

I was mentioning to Joey that yesterday was April 1 - the first day of the second quarter (if you are someone whose job revolves around quarters like mine does) and I was absolutely shocked that time had flown by so quickly.

"I have closed out five quarters now. Five," I said. "A year and a half ago I couldn't have even told you when the quarters were, much less know what closing one out entailed."

"It is pretty amazing," Joey said. "You know, though, by the end of this quarter we will be halfway through our three years in Dallas."

"WHAT?!" I wailed. "Are you kidding me?! Already?"

I really like Dallas. I love our friends. I think I'll really like the new church we are going to (but we're barely involved at all yet, so it's still all awkward and stuff). I like NorthPark. I like going on walks wearing short sleeves and flip-flops when there's still 6 inches of snow and ice on the ground in Iowa.

"I know...it's gone so fast..." and then Joey launched into a discussion of how best to pay for the semesters and summer sessions we have coming up in order to get done as quick as possible.

"You know, I'm kind of getting sad we're almost halfway done," Joey said.

"Me too," I replied.

Moving to Dallas is the best thing we've ever done. Back when we lived in Iowa and Joey was going to seminary up there, an older woman whose husband was a graduate told me that the years of their marriage on which they looked back with the fondest memories were those they spent in seminary. I thought she was crazy; I hated being a seminary wife up there....it made me want to poke my eye out repeatedly.

But really I think I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. We're still in Dallas for twoish more years (thank God!), and I fully intend to squeeze every single minute of enjoyment out of them.

2008-04-01T12:36:00.001-05:00

OK, friends, I tried again. This time I submitted an article to Boundless, a Focus on the Family webzine for teenagers and college students.

Seeing as they probably get a bajillion submissions every week, I intend to forget that I have even sent one in so that if they ever get back to me I will be pleasantly surprised.

Bran Muffins

2008-04-01T09:02:00.002-05:00

Last night I got some potentially sad news. I decided that I really had two options:
1.) Be sad. Be very, very sad even though the extent of the sad news is not yet known.
2.) Wait until we figure out how sad (or not sad) the news winds up being so that, when the time is right, I can be appropriately sad.

After some deliberation, I chose Option 2. It made more sense to me to do more praying about the sad news than sit on the couch glumly when I wasn't even really sure how sad to be. And since Lairds (and I am genetically a Laird) tend to be Worst Case Scenario type people I knew I had better move on to other things or I would blow everything out of proportion and reduce myself to drivel. So I baked bran muffins. With raisins.

I was quite pleased with the recipe since it required bran, applesauce, and very little butter. I put in whole wheat flour instead of white. I soaked the raisins in water so they were nice and juicy. (Joey's now gagging as he reads this.) I generously scooped the batter into the well-greased muffin tin and soon they were baking in the oven.

The kitchen was, of course, a giant mess. But that's the point of baking bran muffins when one is saddish about something that hasn't happened yet - it requires one to do something productive instead of blithering around and making oneself sick with worrying about tomorrow. (For tomorrow will worry about itself...Matt 6:24)

So I cleaned it up and enjoyed the cinnamon-molassesy smell of my delicate bran muffins baking in the oven. I pulled them out just a minute before they were "done" so the insides were still moist and deliciously crumby. Because I planned to take these with me tomorrow morning, I sliced one open so I could taste test.

"Those," called Joey from the study, "Smells awesome."

"Thanks! Want one?" I asked.

"Um...I better not. I'd hate to spit out a raisin and offend you."

And so I enjoyed my bran muffin all by myself and ceased my "worrying about tomorrow". Joey and I prayed about it together instead.

So, really, three good things happened last night.
1.) Joey and I went on a walk
2.) I made bran muffins, which are delish
3.) I stopped worrying

Why April Will Stink

2008-03-31T12:02:00.000-05:00

Just a glimpse into part of the weekend at the Woestman house. Joey was working on a gargantuan paper and I was bored. He was in the study and I was in the living room. Pretty much the entire conversation took place on opposite sides of the house with the two of us hollering back and forth because I had a case of The Boreds so bad that I was incapable of moving from my chair. (And if Gail Showman heard me say that she'd tell me to go sweep the floor, so it's a good thing she doesn't read this blog.)

Me: Are you done yet?
Joey: No. I have...8 more points left.
Me: trying to read a book but putting it down How long will 8 points take?
Joey: Probably two hours.
Me: Two hours?! Gosh...that paper is wicked long. I'm bored.

And, once the floor sweeping word (that would be "bored" for those of you who didn't grow up sweeping Gail's floor just about every Saturday) was uttered, I knew I had to do something. So I tried to fold the towels. It took about three times longer than normal because I kept getting distracted by things. Then I started another load of laundry and considered folding the sheets I had taken out of the dryer. That was clearly too much effort, so I left them on the floor (I KNOW!!) and went back to my chair to holler back and forth across the house with Joey.

Me: Did you write some more?
Joey: Yes.
Me: Will you be done soon?
Joey: Still about two hours.

Henry came over and tried to get me to play with him. But I was too bored to exert the effort required to throw his chocolate covered strawberry toy across the house, so he finally just lay down at my feet. I decided to order a pizza for dinner because it would require me to go get it. So I did. Henry and I left the house at 6:15 and didn't return until 7:15 because I got lost on the way to the pizza place and then found it, only to discover that I had ordered from a totally different location altogether. Not to be deterred, I had them make me another pizza and I stayed there to wait for it.

After the pizza was consumed and the kitchen was cleaned up, I went into the office.

Me: So...what about those Half Price Books coupons?
Joey: I'm almost done. Want me to go with? Or maybe you could walk over now and then when you get back I'll be finished.
Me: Good idea.

So I walked to Half Price books, bought two books which would have each been $13 dollars brand new for a total of $5.50, once the coupons were factored in, and came home.

Joey: I finished my paper!
Me: HOORAY! Now I want you to sit on the couch and read a book for fun for awhile. I will bake you cookies.
Joey: OK!

And so he did, and I did.

I'm going to have to come up with something to do the next couple weekends besides hang out with my superfun husband because I think I'm probably a distracting annoyance. Bring on the first week in May!

Henry's New Trick

2008-03-31T06:36:00.001-05:00

Earth Hour part 2

2008-03-30T08:31:00.004-05:00

It's one of those lovely spring mornings where the ground is wet, the air is tepid and the birds are jawing back and forth like the Jets and the Sharks. I'm sitting outside the Clubhouse freeloading off the Internets so I can run my Googlebox. I wanted to post some pictures of our successful Earth Hour last night! Let me tell you, it's hard to make lasagne in the dark, especially when using spelt noodles for the first time...those things do not act normally.

Joey whipped out his camera and took several pictures of Cuz trying to read the Bourne Identiy in the dark. Poor Cuz.

Woah, I'm outta battery. Gotta go back home now!

Earth Hour!

2008-03-29T19:44:00.003-05:00

I checked my email today and had a jolly email from Laura asking me if I'd seen that Google was black today and if Joey and I were participating in Earth Hour. Seeing that Earth Hour is an environment cause, I was immediately on board and clicked my way over to the page to read about it.

People participating in Earth Hour turn the lights off in their homes from 8pm to 9pm in their respective time zones on March 29 to raise awareness about our massive global energy usage.

That is why, after I'm done posting this post, I am going to go home and make lasagne in the dark. I'm serious. I hope it turns out and I don't burn anything.

Good thing Laura emailed me about it.

Whistle While You Work

2008-03-28T09:40:00.003-05:00

OK, so I can't whistle, it's true. (Joey has tried to teach me, but to no avail.) But the concept is still there.

I hate to iron. I hate it even worse than vacuuming and, as all my siblings know from growing up, I will do almost anything to avoid vacuuming. Conveniently Brother actually liked to vacuum, but I always made sure to beat everyone else to the chore chart on Saturdays so I could pick dusting and cleaning the bathrooms and not get stuck running the vacuum. But this has nothing to do with ironing.

On Tuesday night I walked into the closet after work and was almost knocked over by the pile of ironing that I had been "saving for a rainy day". I'd like to think that someday when I don't have a full time, semi-stressful job I will wear a linen apron and high heels around my house and joyfully iron every shirt as soon as it comes out of the dryer, all while making applesauce and strawberry jam. Unfortunately this is not my reality, though, so I pile the ironing and usually do it once a week. (I think it had been two or three weeks worth, though, because the ironing was starting to weigh down the ironing board.)

"I have to do ironing tonight," I said glumly to Joey. "I hate ironing. It's hot and boring."

"You'll probably be OK," he reassured me.

"Can you set up the ironing board for me? If it's already set up then I'll feel like a loaf if I sit here and look at it knowing that I still have to do ironing this evening."

Joey happily agreed to set up the ironing board (probably because 2 of his pairs of khakis are in that ironing pile) and we moved it out into the large empty space in between the living room and Joey's study. He flopped himself on the futon and started to read this 5 lb. textbook while I filled the water in the iron and made sure it was plugged in.

I could no longer stall. I had to bite the bullet.

"I'm going to put my iPod on while I do this, OK?" I always check first if I wear my iPod in the house.

"Sure," he said.

"That means that I might sing. Loudly. It will keep me from wanting to poke my eye out."

"No problem," he replied.

So I cranked up my iPod and started singing along, rather softly at first. It never takes long, though, before I start to wonder if the neighbors can hear me. But this time I didn't care because I was ironing. Ew. After awhile, though, the song that Sister and I sang at Christmas came up and I forgot that Joey was studying. I forgot that I was ironing. I was pretending that I was back home in Faith Bible Church singin' with Sister and Mom on the piano. Because of my little daydream, I had momentarily forgotten that I was doing ironing and I was probably singing so loud that I was blowing off the rafters. (But then I quickly stopped doing that because I was getting homesick and one should try to avoid homesickness while doing ones least favorite chore.)

Joey got up and went over to the iPod bowl (yes, we have a bowl of iPods) and got out his Shuffle.

"What, is it that bad?" I teased him.

"I can't concentrate," he replied. I guess I don't really blame him. I mean, I was harmonizing with Chris Rice and that's got to sound extremely silly to someone on the other side of the headphones.

And, shortly, after singing my way through the ironing...I was done. Forty minutes after I started. Gosh I hate ironing.

2008-03-28T08:54:00.001-05:00

Joey was almost asleep last night when I asked, "If I wanted to walk to Iowa, how long would it take? Gas prices are wicked high."

He didn't say anything for awhile, I thought he was asleep. Then, "Three months."

"Oh, that's a long time. What if...hypothetically speaking...I wanted to saddle up Henry and ride him to Iowa so I wouldn't have to walk. How long would that take?"

This was a very hypothetical situation since:
a.) Henry is a dog
b.) He only weighs 14 pounds and that's a lot, lot less than me
c.) Henry walks really slow

"I think....6 months."

"Oh," I said, "So I guess I'll never do that then."

"No..." he said, driftily.

A few minutes later I said, "I can't sleep. I'm not tired at all."

Joey recommended that I go out in the living room and read a book. (I think maybe he wanted me to leave him alone and not ask him any more hypothetical situation type questions.)

2008-03-27T13:15:00.003-05:00

Since posting the previous, Joey found the pictures for me and we discovered that the waterproof case for the camera actually costs more than the camera itself. (I figure we might as well forgo that purchase.)

But here are the pictures. It pretty much looks like a camera.

(That spidery looking thing is called a Gorillapod and you can wind it around tree branches and stuff if you need to take self portraits or group pictures and you're in the wild with no one nearby to hold the camera.)

My New Camera

2008-03-27T12:17:00.002-05:00

I'm in big trouble. Two days ago Joey sent me pictures of my cute new camera so I could post them on my blog, but I lost them somewhere on my computer. I have no idea where they got saved when I pulled them out of Mail Big File. And, thus, I have none to show you.

But I finally got my new little point and shoot. It's a teensy little Canon PowerShot, 7.1 megapixels and is about the size of a pack of Trident sticks. It takes wicked awesome pictures that are sure to make my Pops jealous (a major selling point when selecting aforementioned camera) and he has instructed me to "bring it on Boundary Waters".

Joey is now looking into a getting its waterproof case because, knowing us, if we take it up there we'll manage to drop it in the lake.

Because my camera is so tiny I can carry it with me wherever I go now (it's here with me as I speak), which makes me a lot cooler than I ever was before because I can now post all sorts of pictures of the trouble we find ourselves in.

And if I hadn't lost the files I could post some pictures of my camera right now. Joey even had some of it all hooked up on its Gorillapod tripod thingy, but...I can't.

180˚

2008-03-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

Two nights ago Joey said, "I have this song I want to play for you. It's by Linkin Park; the Kid sent it to me."

"Linkin Park?" I asked, surprised. Two years ago he'd have never mentioned such a thing.

"Yeah, we analyzed the music video at work. It's really well done artistically, plus the song is cool."

And so Joey cranked up the speakers and "What I've Done" pulsed through our apartment.

"Oh, I know this song," I said a few bars in.

"You do?" Joey asked.

"Yep...I used to love Linkin Park," I replied.

"I did not know that about you," he told me. And turned up the music a little bit more and sang along. Only the song was so loud I could barely hear him.

"Do you think Downstairs Neighbor will get upset?" I asked loudly.

But he didn't hear me. He just kept singing along, so I went to start a load of laundry, smiling at this example of just one major changes our lives have gone through in the last couple years.

Linkin Park cranked to 11? No problem at all. I could really get used to this whole freedom in Christ thing.

2008-03-25T14:24:00.003-05:00

While I was at the gym trying to stay balanced on a half-moon shaped ball and trying not to fall off, Joey was at home getting ready to ride his bike in to work. He came back in the bedroom to make the bed after he finished getting ready and found this...

The Easter Dress

2008-03-25T14:14:00.003-05:00

Every year of my entire life I have gotten an Easter dress. Joey has continued the tradition since we've been married and, last week, he said "We need to go shopping for your Easter dress. I have it all picked out, we just need to go buy it."

"OK..." I said, really quite surprised. I figured that I wouldn't get an Easter dress this year, what with living in Dallas and all, but obviously I was wrong. "Are you sure?"

"I like buying you dresses," Joey told me. "Plus I set aside money for it."

Joey took me to the mall and deposited me in front of a short blue dress with a matching jacket.

"The jacket costs more than the dress by, like $20, so we won't get that part until it goes on clearance. But I want you to get this dress right here, go try it on."

I looked at the dress. It was shorter than I normally wore by, like....inches. "It looks short," I said.

"Not too short," he told me, and shooed me off to the fitting room.

I came out of the fitting room and Joey said, "I like it. We're buying it."

And that was that.

George vs. Henry

2008-03-25T14:05:00.004-05:00

On Friday morning, we got up at 8:00 and rushed around the house finishing up the cleaning. Henry wandered around aimlessly, as usual, and fell asleep again here and there before we decided we probably should take the kid outside.

Joey drew the short straw, so he called Henry over to the door and opened it up. Henry stopped dead in his his tracks. Outside the door sat George, the cat monstrosity.

"Jenna, George is outside," he called to me.

I completely freaked out, as usual, and ran haphazardly to get the camera. I handed it carefully to Joey and said, "Take tons of pictures."

He took four. (Only four!) Then he called Henry back to the door and tried to get him to go outside. Henry would have none of it. Joey carried him outside and set him down at the top of the stairs. Henry just sat there looking at George and refusing to move. Joey finally had to pick him up, carry him downstairs to do his thing, then carry him back upstairs.

"Wimp," Joey muttered to Henry. He set him down at the top of the stairs again and, just as he did so, George whipped out his paw and popped Henry in the cheek with his claws. Henry yelped and ran inside.
George: 1
Henry: 0

A rare picture of a photographer in the wild

2008-03-25T13:51:00.004-05:00

This past weekend we had an SF retreat in Scroggins, TX (couldn't resist) and more pictures will be coming later. (Probably later in the week, actually.)

But when Joey and I were looking through the few pictures we took, we came across the one I'm about to show you.

"Woah!" he said, "A picture of Laura! Without a camera!"

"That is indeed rare," I concurred.

I think it's a cute picture. And since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I'm posting it.

Poor Henry

2008-03-24T15:34:00.001-05:00

Yesterday afternoon Joey and Henry were playing Henry's favorite game: rough house. "Rough House" generally involves Henry, his gargantuan CareBear (the one from the Dumpster), and either Joey or I. Henry was in rare form because we had company, so he was in high spirits and bouncing around like a rabbit - it was pretty cute. Joey and Henry growling at each other and swiping at each other's paws in a way that would scare my mom for fear of "What if Henry bites him?"

Poor Mom.

Anyways, there they were on the floor, Henry with his front two paws on Joey's knee bouncing and swatting as though his little, furry, freshly-bathed life depended on it. But suddenly, he let out the most torturous puppy scream I've ever heard and jumped back, limping with his back right leg.

"HENRY!!" I screamed, "What did you do to him?" I asked Joey.

"I have no idea what happened...I wasn't even touching his back legs," Joey said, going over to our poor puppy and scooping him up gently. Henry had large eyes - larger than usual - and was very quiet and still.

"We killed him!" I wailed, trying to decide what one does it one's dog-child has a medical emergency on a weekend. (They don't treat dogs at the local hospital last I checked.)

The guests and Joey hovered around poor Henry and examined his back right leg. The muscles were tense and shaking. I felt decidedly sick. I will be a basket case when this is my own child! I thought. (But I am not pregnant.)

"Poor Buddy!" I said loudly. Joey put down the fluffy puppy and he limped over to the chair and lay down in front of it. I couldn't bear to have my puppy being in pain, so I went over and picked him up and massaged his right leg. I could feel what seemed to be an icky muscle cramp so I kept rubbing. After a few moments, his leg stopped twitching and I set him down on the ground. He walked over to Joey without so much as a hitch in his gitalong and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Wow...what happened?" I asked.

"I have absolutely no idea. Maybe he twisted wrong on his leg while he was bouncing around?" Joey suggested. "Could have been a cramp, too."

In any case, Henry is fine now. We took him on a nice walk last evening and he pranced along like the trooper he always is. (He even got his freshly washed paws into something nice and black so they are now a very dark shade of gray.)

We may be, just maybe, too attached to our puppy.

Bob The Bum

2008-03-19T15:21:00.002-05:00

The Kid recently said to me, "Lady, read this. I wrote it when I was small."

And so I did.

He was a real strange kid, as you're about to find out. One should mention that, when The Kid wrote the story you're about to read he was unaware of what "snogging" is and didn't realize that "Lea" is actually a woman's name.

Bob The Bum

by Alex Laird

Bob was a very lazy gourd. Ever since Bob was born, 82 years ago at 1212 Gourds Road, Gourdyville Minnesota, he's been sitting around watching sports and TV shows, not paying any attention to the people around him. Bob's parents Amy and Lea Snogging, tried to stop him from watching all those soap operas, comedies and sports games. All the soap operas were bad, some of the comedies were fine, like "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," or "Life with Lou," but some weren't.

Bob would run the remote with his long red tail, and hold his coke with one of his blue hands. In the other hand he would hold a gooey chewy chocolate bar. Bob would listen with his two big white ears, and watch with his 4 regular eyes. He would eat and drink from his two tube eyes, which also served as telescopes. On the top of Bob's head he had red hair. Bob always wore a hat.

Now Bob is old, serious, and grumpy.

Bob's parents died 12 years ago and he was sad, but relieved that he could now watch all the comedies, soap operas, and sports games that he wanted to.

In Bob's spare time, he would call Best Buy and tell them that he was coming in to work. Bob's would eat Pizzas and Tacos every day.

If you can't beat 'em...

2008-03-19T11:35:00.002-05:00

Our cozy little apartment has a stackable washer and dryer tucked away in a closet. (The closet has French doors and two weeks ago I walked past and was horrified to notice that the slats were covered in lint and dust. I dropped everything and cleaned them, much to the chagrin of my husband who said, "I bet nobody even noticed that before. I never did and I live here.")

But last Wednesday, the spin cycle on our washer gave up the ghost.

"Joey, something's wrong with this washer. The towels are dripping wet." He came over to analyze and, after a short time, it was decided that our washer was busted and there was nothing left to do but call Maintenance.

The next day when we came home there was a note on our table telling us that our washer and dryer unit was to be replaced.

"I'm so excited!" I squealed. "Maybe the new one will be more energy efficient! And quieter!"

Joey was kind of ambivalent about the whole affair, mostly because the discovery of a new washer-dryer unit came around dinner time and he was hungry.

Later in the evening, though, when I was pulling out whatever had been in the dryer, I thought of something. I glanced down in the space between the washer and the wall and I gasped.

Now, for those of you who may be deceived and think I'm really...neurotic about keeping my house clean, this'll bring you a good dose of reality. (Mom, don't read this next part. You will lose all confidence in my housekeeping abilities.) For the last year, instead of throwing the lint from my dryer away, I have been stuffing it in the space between the washer and the wall. I began doing this after we moved in and I noticed that someone before us had done the same. It was disgusting, true, but all the lint was already down there and lint is disgusting anyway...so I figured I'd just join in.

But, friends, after a year of lint removal...the lint is now entirely fills the empty space between the washer and the wall (it's a good 2 1/2 inches) and is halfway up the washer.

"JOEY! What do we do? The repairmen are going to get avalanched by lint when they come to change out our washer and...nobody was ever supposed to know that I do this!"

He glanced down at The Lint Problem. "Ooh. Yeah, that's bad. Maybe the vacuum? We could suck it out with one of the attachments?"

"That might work," I said. And then we forgot about it.

Until today. I called the office to find out when they were replacing my unit and was told by a cheerful lady, "Oh, today probably."

The lint!! I thought. I am so in for it when I get home....it will be all over my carpet...and my secret will be totally out. The repairman is going to think I'm the biggest, scurviest housekeeper he's ever encountered and he'll tell all his repairman friends about the lint cache he found in our apartment.

This is what I get for just assuming that stuffing lint down a crack would make it go away.

But you wanna know something really bad? I used to throw the lint behind the dryer when I was a kid. Even though I knew I wasn't supposed to. (I really hope Mom stopped reading way up there or she'll probably make a huge lint mess in my house when they come down in May to pay me back for my childhood disobedience.)

It Came Back To Bite Me

2008-03-18T12:14:00.002-05:00

Three years ago I had a dreadfully embarrassing thing happen to me. You know, like the kind that women submit to those ladies magazines? Well, three years ago I worked for a Chiropractor in Iowa and, on one slow afternoon when no one was coming in, we found ourselves flipping through one of those aforementioned ladies magazines that was floating around in the lobby. We were bored.

I had recently shared my embarrassing moment with my coworkers and suddenly one suggested "Jenna! You have to submit it to this magazine, I'm really sure they'd put it in."

"I don't know..." I hedged.

"Do it," they said. I wrote down the email address for submissions and slipped it in my purse.

And so, the next time I was at Kirkendall Public Library I found myself typing an email to a certain magazine's submissions department.

After several weeks of not receiving a response, I got distracted by my upcoming wedding and forgot all about the whole thing.

Imagine my surprise, then, when last month I received an email from the magazine. I almost deleted it without reading it first, but on a whim I opened it up. Was I ever surprised when I read:

"Thank you for submitting your embarrassing moment. We are going to publish it in our April issue. What is the city and state where you live?"

I emailed back with my city and state before thinking about what I had just done.

Oh. My. Gosh. What if people read the magazine and recognize me? I can't even remember what exactly I wrote!! So I freaked myself out but good and started checking the magazine racks at the grocery store with a paranoid frequency.

And then. Yesterday. I received an email from someone I barely know asking me "was that you in the April issue of such-and-such magazine?"

Yes, yes it was me.

I was feeling more embarrassed about submitting The Story than I was about The Story itself. Ugh. At this point, my panic to find a copy of the April issue of such-and-such magazine increased about...tenfold. I had checked both Targets just the day before and had been unsuccessful in finding April, so I figured I had several more days to psych myself up for the impending "was that you?" that I was sure to receive. Come on, how many Jenna Woestmans from Dallas could there possibly be?

That's what I thought too.

Last night we were out on the town with some friends from Iowa who have been down sleeping on our air mattress and getting jumped on by Henry the Evil Fiend, and we passed a Borders.

"Can I stop in there on the way back? I...I need to check something," I asked. Everyone was nice and acquiesced. An hour and a half later, I found myself walking out of the Borders with The April Issue in my hand. It was duly passed around and read by all. (That's what I get, huh?)

And, so, I am finally published. In a ladies magazine which, unless you are a girl and ask extremely nicely, will henceforth remain unnamed.

"You can put this in your portfolio, hon! You got published!" Joey teased me.

Now there's an idea.

Hmmm....

2008-03-17T16:37:00.001-05:00

So I was looking at my SiteMeter and noticed that some poor soul in Austria Googled "How to inform someone if mother-in-law died" and they got to MY blog. I have no idea why The Google thought my blog had any information about how to break the news of a mother-in-law's passing. I feel kind of bad now.

MY mother-in-law is quite alive and well, last I checked. (Although I might need to call her to ensure that my information is still accurate.) And as I clearly have no experience in this area, I can offer no advice on how to inform anyone their mother-in-law has passed on.

I'm quite glad mine's still here.

The Bike Ride

2008-03-17T12:05:00.001-05:00

"Let's take our bikes to White Rock and ride around the lake trails after I finish changing the oil," Joey suggested.

It was a beautiful afternoon yesterday. The kind where the sun is shining warmly, there's a breeze bringing just enough cool air off the lake to be comfortable, and the Robins are out digging for worms. I had to agree that it was his best idea all day, so we finished up our chores (it was Spring Cleaning weekend...) and in less than an hour had Thunder and Joey's bike strapped to the back of the car.

"Ohh, it's so warm!" I exclaimed, and rolled down my window. Joey rolled it back up shortly and turned on the A/C. "Aww, nuts," I muttered under my breath. He didn't hear me.

It turned out that just about every single person in Dallas also thought that biking at White Rock was an exceptional idea. We had a terrible time finding a parking spot but, after several minutes of looking, we prevailed. Joey unhooked the bikes and got everything set up. (He's the man at stuff like that, so I let him.)

"Which way should we go?" He asked me.

"North!" I pointed.

Joey hopped on his bike and lead the way. He was going much, much faster than me. After about half a mile, he noticed I was lagging behind (I like to look at the scenery!) so he stopped and waited for me. "I think I'll let you go first," he told me, "That way I don't go off and leave you."

"Well...." I said, "I guess that's fine....But you'll have to keep up!"

And I shot off on Thunder as fast as my little legs would pedal me. It took him a second, but he finally realized he was going to actually have to pedal fairly hard to keep up with me. He had lost a lot of ground (because, let's face it, I'm usually not competitive with him...he's way more awesome than me.) It was to his advantage that I had to stop at Northwest Highway so as to cross safely and not get smote by cars whizzing by.

"How...how fast were you going?" He asked me. "That was crazy."

"Oh...20 miles an hour," I said, looking down at my bike computer. Then, "Woah! That's the fastest I've ever gone, and I wasn't even going downhill! I'm awesome!" I crowed. (Spin class must really be working.)

"Yeah, I was really pushing hard to keep up with you," Joey said.

I wish I could tell you all that I maintained my awesome speed racer skills the entirety of the 8 mile ride...but I pretty much died at about 6 miles (the wind was at our faces the entire way back and somewhere between when we left our house and started riding bikes it got wicked strong) and Joey had to coax me into the parking lot with chants of "you can do it!" and "one more sprint!" and "you were so awesome earlier!"

Clearly I made it, but I'm way proud of myself for trouncing Joey, even if it is just that one time. (I so rarely kick his bum that I have to celebrate it when I actually succeed.) He's much more awesome than me in everything except...nuts, I can't think of anything.

3.1408

2008-03-14T14:03:00.001-05:00

Today is National Pi Day. It is also Einstein's birthday. And National Towel Day.

"National Towel Day?!" You ask, "What....what is that?"

Ahh, gentle reader, if you were but more familiar with the works of Douglas Adams (The guy who wrote Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and other sundry works) you too might know what National Towel Day is. Joey always quotes, "The galaxy is a dangerous place. If you want to survive, you've GOT to know where your towel is" when referring to National Towel Day.

All that being said, today is Joey's favorite day of, like, the entire calendar year. He has this quirky thing with Pi, in high school he memorized the first hundred or so digits of Pi and has been known to recite them at random and ad nauseum. So on National Pi Day Joey is always inspired to mathematical greatness. He is proudly wearing his Pi shirt that bears the symbol of Pi which is made up of hundreds and hundreds of tiny white digits of Pi.

It is truly a shirt for nerds.

Additionally, Joey likes Einstein because he likes math. He also thinks it's cool that Einstein was born on National Pi Day. And that it is also National Towel Day.

Could there be a more perfect trifecta? I ask you.

And so this morning Joey dressed himself in his Pi T-shirt and slung a brown towel over his left shoulder. "It has to be worn this way," he told me, "It's the proper way." He also wore pants.

Unfortunately, it turns out that today is not National Towel Day. He is two months too early - it's is on May 25. I'm not sure how or why he thought everything was on the same day, but poor, poor Joey. His towel is now draped over the back of his desk chair and he is not wearing it again until May 25.

(He told me I could blog about this only if I blogged the entire story, which I believe I have done. So I'm not getting in trouble for any of this, just FYI.)

So it's just National Pi Day and Einstein's birthday after all. Alas, it's no longer the perfect date on the calendar.

Everybody get your towels ready for May 25, though, and be sure you wear them the correct way.

Cheetos

2008-03-14T12:18:00.002-05:00

Joey had his nerd meeting last night. I wanted to go along particularly bad because there were Cheetos. Lots of them. A whole big dispenser of Cheetos and you could have as many as you wanted.

I really like Cheetos.

They are my favorite chips, but I never buy them because know that if I did buy them, I'd eat them. And then I'd have to buy new jeans.

So last night from about 6:00 to 6:30, our conversations sounded like this.

"Can I go to your Nerd meeting tonight? I want Cheetos."

"No, you can't. You have to meet the girls."

"But...I want Cheetos."

"Seriously, you can't come. You have to meet the girls."

"Oh. What about next month?"

"Um, let's see. Next month the Nerd meeting falls on the same day as your accountability meeting with the girls. But maybe in May."

"But...I can skip once, right? I could have Cheetos."

"You're the one telling Laura you're not there because you'd rather be eating Cheetos and making yourself sick than sharing your heart with them."

"OK, can do."

"I'll bring you back a baggie of Cheetos tonight, how is that?"

"I am so excited. Can you come home early so I can eat them?"

You know, it sounds really bad when I type it all out like that. But enough of all this. Joey went to his meeting and I met the girls for accountability. When I came home, I got everything all ready for going to work out at our 5:45 a.m. spin class we do on Fridays. I packed bags, made lunches, put water bottles in the freezer to cool and tidied up the kitchen.

Then I got in bed to read. Joey normally gets home about 11 or 11:30 because the Nerd meeting is up in Addison and they all go to dinner afterwards.

And so I read and read. I considered falling asleep but the thought of Cheetos was keeping me awake. My book was good too. At 11:00 I heard a key in the door and Joey come inside.

"Can I have the Cheetos?" I yelled from the bedroom. (The door was closed.)

"Hi to you too."

"Can I have them?"

"I left them in the car. I was going to give them to you in the morning..."

"Oh. Well, I stayed up so I could eat some...can you go get them please?"

(I'm not usually this bratty, people, At least I don't think so anyway.)

Shortly, Joey walked in with a baggie full of Cheetos.

"Thanks! My hero!" I crowed as I began munching on the Cheetos while still laying in bed.

"You're going to have to brush your teeth again," Joey informed me.

"I know." I said.

Henry sniffed around and found a stray Cheeto. He took it down to the end of the bed to munch it and, after eating half of the baggie's worth of Cheetos, I put mine down too. I brushed my teeth and then tried to fall asleep.

But the anticipation of the Cheetos combined with the strange chemicals in them made me wide awake. I lay there staring at the ceiling wishing I could fall asleep. Sometime after 12:00, I finally got my wish.

When the alarm went off at 5, I could not wake up. We shut off the alarms and managed to oversleep and not get up until 7:10 (we're supposed to leave at 7:30), so we had to get ready in record time. I was glad I had laid out everything the night before.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, I walked in the study to take Henry outside.

"Oh...no..." I said, looking at the floor. "Remember that Cheeto Henry got ahold of last night? He obviously threw it up sometime between last night and this morning. From the looks of this mess, it was more like last night."

"Gross." Joey said, coming to inspect.

"I'll clean it up, will you take him outside?" So I scrubbed frantically at the very large spot of goo on my carpet (serves me right) and, within 5 minutes, it looked good as new. (Thankfully. Otherwise our friends would never come over again.)

And so we left at 7:35 and walked to the car. Joey wearing carrying his backpack and me munching on the last of my Cheetos.

"I really like Cheetos," I told Joey. "Thanks for bringing them for me."

"That's not a very nutritious breakfast," he returned.

But it sure was delish. And that's why I never buy them. Can you imagine what my life would be like?

Look, Ma, New Eyes!

2008-03-13T08:07:00.006-05:00

What y'all have been waiting for. (I'm sure...) It's the long-anticipated pictures of Joey and I in our new glasses! Except you'll have to wait on the sunglasses...they're still being made. They take like two weeks.

It was windy. And I was feeling shifty.

I told you it was windy.

Joey is worried you won't like his new glasses. But I like them; I think they are...Geek Chic.

He's tough and mean.

But this is how he looks most of the time

The sun was bright

Henry looks like a sassy snob, I think

And he just looks traumatized in this one, it's probably my favorite. Majorly windblown cheek.

Why Daylight Saving Time Freaks Me Out About Motherhood

2008-03-11T08:45:00.001-05:00

I am not pregnant. But being a woman (wait, do I count as a woman?) in her mid-twenties with a husband in the middle of seminary and no children yet, sometimes impending motherhood gets on the brain and then posts like these occur.

When it comes to Daylight Saving Time, I like to be Very Prepared. I plan ahead and change all the clocks as soon as we're done with dinner the night before so that Joey and I can go to bed on the new time. It really feels much more restful to change the clocks in the early evening instead of just changing the alarms right before falling asleep. But I digress.

I get a little bit too into changing the time and, just to be sure that my clocks didn't eek forward a minute or two over the last 6 months and to double check that I changed them correctly, I like to take my cell phone around and sync all my clocks to that, but 5 minutes fast. (Because it's horrible to be late!)

This time, though, I forgot the whole cell phone bit. I changed all the clocks on Saturday evening and woke up before my alarm on Sunday morning. I set about to baking 3 loaves of pumpkin bread and putting a roast in the crock pot while Joey lolled around in bed mostly sleeping but occasionally making little exclamations about how much he hated Daylight Saving Time and couldn't he please go back to sleep?

I sent Henry in to lick him awake.

Just as we were getting ready to leave for church and I was finishing applying my eyeliner, I remembered something. "JOEY! Can you go around with your cell phone and make sure all the clocks are set to exactly 5 minutes fast?"

"Um, sure," Joey said gamely and went to do exactly that. "Everything is 5 minutes fast," he reported. He's a very good sport for my neurotic Daylight Saving Time issues. Actually he's a good sport for all of my issues.

But this makes me worried.

If I'm so freaked out about my clocks being synced to the cell phone (which gets its time pulled down from a satellite) and then being precisely 5 minutes fast...am I going to be one of those horrible moms that everyone gossips about who is like "Wash your hands before you even look at my child" or "Is that gift made from organic cotton? If it's not organic cotton you're going to have to take it back because I don't want any toxic chemicals on my child" or "Please remove your shoes when you enter my house and don't speak. Instead of talking, we will converse by writing on this paper with these soft, soundless markers; The Child is sleeping and I'd simply hate to wake her up."

Heaven preserve us all if I turn into that kind of mother. (But I count on Laura to soundly kick me if anything like that begins to happen.)

The Jenna Wears Prada

2008-03-10T18:56:00.008-05:00

"Our insurance covers a ton of money for glasses," I told Joey.

"Awesome. Schedule some appointments, I want to get prescription sunglasses."

And so I did. Today at 3:30 we found ourselves at the eye doctor getting retinal scans and reading from a chart of fuzzy letters. Then we were released into the eyeglasses room to select the perfect frames.

Hmm...if I have X amount of dollars and it's use it or lose it...I'm getting ridiculously expensive frames. I thought as I surveyed the selection in front of me. I stood in front of the Versace frames trying to decide if I liked any of them.

I didn't.

So I moved to the Coach section. (This seemed like a great solution to me because then they'd match my handbag.) I found a pair I liked and stuck it in my "save for later" pile and worked my way over to Burberry.

After exhausting the selection of the aforementioned plus Vera Wang, Candies and BCBG, I found myself drawn to Prada.

The Devil wears Prada... I thought, but decided I was willing to overlook that. (Don't be sad, Mom.) I picked out four pairs of flashy glasses and added them to my pile. My favorite pair was studded on the sides with black Swarovski crystals. And it cost half a Grand; I am not even kidding you.

"You'll be about...$120 over your limit once you add frames and the office visit," the Optician told me.

"Nuts." I sighed.

He gave me a figure I could work with and, bearing that in mind, I began winnowing out the $500 pairs of frames. It was a difficult process, but I was equal to the task. My final two were down to a pair of Coach frames and a pair of tortoise colored Prada frames.

Joey and I went back and forth for awhile, but finally settled on the Pradas. They look like this.
I'm not sure if I'm embarrassed or not about the fact that they say PRADA right on the side or not. I haven't decided yet. In any case, I spent all of my allowance for frames and lenses and had $50 left. Don't you think that was economical on my part?

My favorite Joey got a great pair of lightweight gunmetal-colored frames - not plastic this time! - and a very schnazzy pair of prescription Oakleys for running around outdoors, riding his bike and the like.

They'll be in on Wednesday. We'll take pictures with our new eyes when we get 'em.

Update on the keyboard situation

2008-03-10T12:35:00.001-05:00

The squeaky keyboard was just replaced. I feel so much more sane and stealthy now...NO ONE CAN HEAR MY TYPING!

When I was upstairs ten minutes ago I ran into the guy who is supposed to change out my keyboard. "WHERE is it? I can't handle it anymore?" I begged.

"Oh, it'll be another 2-3 days," he replied. He had ordered me a fancy ergonomic one.

"I can't...I can't wait that long. Just give me something now." (Looking back on it, that sounds like something a drug addict might say...)

"Well in that case I'll just give you something from the storage room. I'll bring it down after you leave later."

Really, that was all I wanted in the first place.

"THANK you," I said with an exceptional amount of relief.

My desperation must have come across more strongly than I intended, because not a moment after I came back downstairs there he came with a new keyboard.

"This will tide you over until your new one comes in later in the week," he said with a pacifying smile.

"I don't even care if the ergonomic one never makes it in," I said with a sigh of relief as I sat down and began to type soundlessly.

Monday has just been saved!

The Squeaky Keyboard Gets Replaced

2008-03-10T12:09:00.001-05:00

Somehow I wound up with a keyboard that squeaks when I type. Not nice little newborn kitten type squeaks, but fingernails on the chalkboard type squeaks. And just the ASDF side. The JKL: side is just fine.

After two weeks of enduring the grating squeakishness of my keyboard, I couldn't take it anymore. "Can anyone else but me hear that?!" I wailed one afternoon. To my surprise (and affirmation that I was not going crazy) two people said yes, they could and it was driving them nuts.

I immediately requested a new keyboard. "I don't even care what kind it is," I said, "Just get me a new keyboard before I go stark raving mad!" I really wanted one of those fancy ergonomic ones but decided, "If it takes extra time to get one of those in, skip it. I just want one that's non-squeaky."

"We'll get you on on Monday or Tuesday," was my reply.

And so here it is. Monday at 12:00 and I'm waiting for my keyboard replacement. I'm starting to lose my patience, too, because it is BEYOND IRRITATING. This Monday really doesn't have much to recommend itself. I mean, check out its laundry list of things that stink about it:

It's Daylight (Loser) Saving Time which means that I was unable to go to sleep at a rational hour last night because I wasn't tired, but was forced by my alarm clock to wake up at what was not two days ago 4:00 a.m! And we didn't even wind up staying up, we went back to sleep.
It's cloudy and dark and so I'm wondering where all the extra light I'm got up early for is hiding
I feel guilty for skipping the gym this morning and am trying to resist the urge to drink a caffeinated soda
My keyboard is still squeaking

I think I'm mentally fragile today. But I will likely recover as soon as I see my new keyboard...

2008-03-10T08:03:00.001-05:00

"You know," said Joey last night while we watched MacGyver, "I think it's likely that you were adopted."

"What?" I said.

"Well, you are certainly a lot weirder than your siblings, and plus your name starts with 'J' and all of theirs start with 'A'."

"Oh," I replied, slightly wilty. "But I look like my mom."

"That's true," Joey said.

I will probably always be getting harassed about the fact that I am the only 'J' in a family of 'A's. 'Tis a rough life I lead.

Fire in the hole!

2008-03-06T10:15:00.003-06:00

"I think I'll make mac & cheese with hot dogs in it for dinner tonight," Joey volunteered sweetly on the way home.

"Oh. That's very nice of you. But....the hot dogs give me a stomach ache, can we think of something else tonight?" We buy organic mac & cheese, but once you add the hot dogs...ugh. I can usually only handle Joey's special creation once a month, and then it pretty much has to be on the weekend.

"How about grilling out instead?" He suggested.

"That's a winner!" I said, and as soon as we got home I set out the hamburger patties I'd frozen last month. It was a beautiful evening, so we walked around the block with Henry before coming home and starting the coals.

While Joey fiddled with our Smokey Joe that we keep on the balcony, I cut up and steamed veggies to marinate and then grill. (We're really getting into grilled veggies and definitely plan to make them when my parents come down to visit in May.) I decided to experiment with a potato this time, so as I was scrubbing and slicing it I called "How's it coming out there?"

The delicious smell of Joey's charcoal was starting to waft into the kitchen. With the veggies on the stove, I set about toasting the buns (which were really freezer burned, but I have discovered that toasting them masks that)

"It's not going well. The charcoal got wet in the rain we had a couple days ago and it's not starting well."

Coulda fooled me, it smelled really good!

Joey walked through the house and came back with a paper REI bag which he began putting the inert coals in, then he re-stacked the charcoal chimney with dryer coals from the sack. Not taking any chances, he squired the evil lighter fluid (that stuff's toxic, you know!) onto the coals and they lit right up.

But then something red and glowing caught my eye. Something that was not on the grill or in the chimney.

"JOEY!" I shrieked, "The REI sack is on fire!"

He lifted his foot to stomp it out but, just then, something in the sack really caught fire and the flames began leaping up over the edge of the sack.

"We're going to burn down the apartment!" I wailed, and ran into the kitchen to fill up something with water to douse the potential blaze. When I returned to the balcony, the entire paper sack was consumed with fire and, somehow, Joey was holding it by its handles over the grill and away from his body. He set the sack on the grill and - POOF! - the flames shot up over the balcony walls and gray smoke billowed from the grill.

"We are so evicted..." I whimpered.

"Naah, we're fine." Joey insisted as the flames slowly began to die down. (When I say "die down" I mostly mean that they were no longer licking the balcony walls and shooting 3 feet in the air.)

Then I went back into the kitchen and discovered that I had, once again, forgotten to put water in the bottom of my pot for steaming vegetables and I'd very nearly created a fire of my own. I quickly added some water and the veggies began steaming like I had originally thought that they were.

Out on the balcony, Joey quickly got the coals going just right and, before I knew it, he had grilled the burgers, bacon and veggies and we were sitting down to eat.

Suffice it to say our house smells like smoke. Badly. So we left the windows cracked open to try to air it out, and now we're having sleet and freezing rain today, maybe even snow. Poor Henry is going to be a frozen pupsicle when we finally get home to warm things up!

Dinner, however, was delicious.

Poor Dad

2008-03-04T13:22:00.000-06:00

This morning I had a revelation.

"Joey, maybe we should vote for Hillary Clinton tonight. You know, just to mix it up a bit. Keep the Democratic race viable for a little bit longer and all."

"Yeah, maybe..." he was brushing his teeth.

We already know who we're going to vote for and, just in case you're wondering, it's NOT Hillary Clinton. (shivers...) But it might be kind of fun to vote for someone who creeps us out once in awhile. I mean, it's not the general election or anything.

PLUS I know it would really cheese off my Pops. (I'm kind of curious to know if I'd be permanently out of the will or just mostly out of the will for something like that.) As the family Problem Child I sometimes feel it is my duty to come up with bad stuff to do.

We've got a couple hours yet until we have to decide, but it's kind of tempting...

Snow In March

2008-03-04T11:56:00.000-06:00

It snowed last night. After a weekend of 75 degree weather, it snowed on Monday night; our first snow of the entire winter season!

On our way home from our respective offices, I informed Joey that I would be putting on sweats, socks, and several shirts of varying thicknesses when we got home, regardless of the fact that Joey had invited his friend/coworker/boss over for dinner and to study. I immediately headed to put on my warm comfies as soon as we got home. Just as I finished straightening the color on my bright green "Keepin' It Rural" t-shirt (which was over my pink long-sleeved shirt and gray sweats) he came in looking for me. As soon as he saw me, he started laughing.

"That," I said, "Is not a nice thing to do."

"I totally did not expect you to be wearing that," he said sensitively.

"Well, I am." I said, and flounced into the closet where I put on my pink shearling slippers. "I'm extremely warm."

Joey was still snickering as I left the room and went to start making dinner in the kitchen. Soon he came to his senses, turned up the heat and started a beautiful fire in the fireplace.

After baking some delicious cookies and watching an episode of MacGyver, we went to stand by the sliding glass door and look outside.

"Do you think that's snow?" I asked.

"Yes, it's snow."

"No, I don't think it is." I replied.

"It's snow. Can't you see it falling slowly?"

"No, there's no way that's snow....I think maybe it's sleet" (Do you ever just feel like you have to disagree with everything someone else says? It felt like one of those.)

We stood at the window staring out for some moments before Joey announced that we were going to put on our Columbia jackets (for the first time this year) and go outside for a walk. He would brook no objections. And so that is why at 9:45 p.m. yesterday Joey, Henry and I went for a walk.

"WOW!" I shrieked as soon as I opened the door, "It's snowing!"

I thought I heard an "I told you so" from behind me, but I know my husband loves me and would never say such a thing.

The snow was drifting down in delicate, white flakes and melting the moment it touched the ground.

"I can't believe it's snowing!" I shrieked again, putting my face up to the sky and letting the snow land on it and melt.

"You're acting like you've never seen snow before!" Joey teased me.

"I haven't seen any here this year," I explained. (The stuff in Iowa doesn't count since we don't get to live there anymore and it snows all the time in the winter.)

Henry was decidedly unimpressed by the snow and the wet ground it created. (But then he's spoiled and he smells like socks, so we don't really give his opinions much weight.) We walked halfway around the parking lot before Joey decided it was OK to turn around. The fire wasn't completely out in our fireplace, after all.

"I'm sure we'll have a snow day tomorrow," announced Joey as we climbed the stairs and shook the snow off our coats.

"Don't hold your breath, honey, it's not even sticking except to the rooftops."

"No, it will be super snowy and icy," he insisted. "We'll be housebound and get to sleep in and loaf around all day."

Well, it was 35 when we woke up with nary a snowflake left on the ground, and is currently 48.6 out there...so now snow day for us. But a very fun treat for the first week in March!

The Texas Primary - my public service announcement

2008-03-03T12:21:00.000-06:00

Being politically minded and all, after months and months of waffling back and forth between candidates and parties I have finally made up my mind for whom I will vote tomorrow in the Texas primary. Joey and I discussed it this morning and, conveniently, we have picked the same person. (I wasn't quite sure what to do if we'd wound up with two different parties, but fortunately I don't have to worry about that now.)

And so, being a native Iowan, tomorrow I will cast my very first primary vote ever. But for those of you Texans who are registered to vote and don't know where to go to do so, or who to vote for, check out the Secretary of State's page. It has polling locations, a summary of what's on each party's ballot and a link to the Texas Democrats and Texas Republicans pages.

I like voting.

Laura's White Couch and the Chocolate Egg In My Pocket

2008-03-03T12:04:00.001-06:00

On Saturday Laura had a Gilmore Girls Season 7 marathon. I am not particularly familiar with all things Gilmore since I haven't really watched it much, but I was all by myself since Joey had his paintball game and so I decided that I would become a Gilmore Girls fan. And so, beginning about 10:00 a.m., we watched and watched and watched TV.

Danny made some delicious pancakes with chocolate chips in them, Miriam made a fantastic fruit salad, and on the table there were millions of snacks. By late afternoon everyone had stomach aches.

Laura made a yummy pizza for dinner around 7:00 and we munched as we watched our ninth straight hour of TV. My eyes were getting dry and bloodshot and I was beginning to lose my cognitive reasoning ability. And so that is why, as I stood up to get a napkin off the table, I grabbed 2 Dove Dark Chocolate eggs from the bowl on the table. One in my mouth for now and one in my pocket for later. My stomach hurt too badly to eat both.

So I settled in on couch, face down, and continued staring at the TV. At 7:30 I remembered the egg in my pocket but thought I was still feeling to sick to eat it. And then, not surprisingly, I forgot about it.

Three hours later at about 10:00 I got up to stretch my legs and use the bathroom. I washed my hands and returned to the couch, flopping back down on my stomach. I stretched my arms out in front of me and --

"OH MY GOSH!" My index finger on my right hand was brown.

I looked around furtively to see if anyone had noticed. I was super, super tired and couldn't imagine how in the world my entire finger had turned brown, but I wasn't liking my options. I had washed my hands, right? Suddenly I couldn't remember.

Cautiously, I sniffed my finger.

Chocolate. My finger was somehow covered in melted chocolate. I sprang up from Laura's lovely white couch and noticed that there was a large brown spot where I had formerly been lounging.

"What..." I said, staring at my finger and the brown spot. Where was this coming from?

"Oh my gosh!" Laura said as she noticed what I was looking at.

Then I remembed the chocolate egg I had put in my pocket and forgotten about. I plied my right pocket open and, sure enough, it was full of oozy, melty dark chocolate.

"You have got to be kidding me..." I mumbled, surveying the damage. The egg had melted so long ago that it had soaked through the front of my jeans and on to Laura's lovely white couch, not to mention gotten all over my index finger and, somehow, in my hair.

I went to the bathroom and tried to dig as much chocolate out of my pocket as possible but, kids, I'll have you know that getting melted chocolate out of a deep pocket in a snuggish pair of jeans is not a walk in the park. Plus I didn't want to waste an entire roll of Laura's toilet paper. So I gave up after three rounds of trying to sop up what I could.

Then I returned to the couch to survey the damage. I was so tired and so traumatized about the chocolate in my pocket that was now on Laura's couch that I stood there trembling. Finally forcing myself to at least make it look like I had it all pulled together, I asked Laura for a damp cloth and some soap so I could try to rectify the situation.

Several minutes of circular scrubbing later, there was only a faintish brown spot left on the cushion. My pocket and my hair were another story, so I lay on my back for the next two hours smelling chocolate (and getting a headache from it) and tried desperately to keep my chocolaty pocket off the couch. I succeeded, fortunately.

I forgot to try my Tide stick, though, and upon further reflection (and the fact that I am now awake) I am regretting that I did not use my Tide stick to finish off the job. I bet I could get the rest of the brown out. And I still haven't checked my jeans; I am unsure how the pocket came out of the laundry. But I definitely sprayed it down good with stain remover. Fingers are crossed.

Word to the wise: Never put chocolate eggs in your pocket to save for later.

Leap Day

2008-02-29T12:01:00.001-06:00

Yeah, so it's Leap Day. I didn't realize this until about 9:00 this a.m. when someone wished me a happy Leap Day and I couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

I feel rather out of my normal groove today (I very nearly perished in spin class this morning...), and I think it's because my body thinks it's March but it's really February. Still. And we didn't even get the day off, which is completely lame.

So I asked Joey what we would do to celebrate Leap Day since it's so rare. His response? Leap around.

I think that is lame; it's something I would come up with, not him! He's the go-to guy for cooler ideas than mine, in general, because his brain is slightly more advanced than mine, I figure.

So my current ideas are:

Sprinkles cupcakes (I'm always looking for an excuse...)
Go to bed early since I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow to take Joey to DTS so he can meet his dudes who are going to have a paint ball WW2 reenactment all weekend somewhere over by Haltom City (I'm staying home fortunately)
Make brownies, put candles in the tops of them and sing "Happy Leap Day". Then consume the brownies.
Leap around

It seems to me like Joey and I will be doing some leaping around after work. Now I have to get on Wikipedia to see if I can figure out what the proper form is for leaping. Is it much different from jumping?

Happy Leap Day, everyone. Go take a leap or two.

The Romantic Walk

2008-02-28T07:52:00.003-06:00

Joey and I decided to go on a walk last evening since it was so nice. We packed up the laptop so I could post pictures of George and headed off to the club to get our free internets. After quickly doing so, we started to walk across the athletic fields toward the trail. It wasn't well lit, but we had Henry for protection.

"OH!" I said, as we walked along, I forgot to call Laura! Hmm, it's getting late, I should call her before one of them falls asleep." (It was 7:15, but we're all getting old.)

So, romantic walk notwithstanding, I rang up Laura. Just as she answered the phone and I said, "Hi, how are you?" I felt the ground give out underneath me.

I yelled, "NOOOO!!! Aw NUTS, NUTS, NUTS!" into the phone and poor Laura's ear.

"What happened?!" Joey asked.

"I...I just stepped in this huge sinkhole of mud..." I could feel it oozing around in my Crocs and most of the way way up my right calf. I pulled myself out and kept walking.

I apologized to Laura for yelling in her ear (I think; If I forgot then I'm sorry) and finished up the phone call. Joey and I attempted to finish our romantic walk. However, the mud that I had stepped in was really cold, not to mention that the mud on my feet was making them even colder. We walked about five minutes before I confessed that I could go no further and we had better turn around home.

My feet were numb by the time we got home.

I took off my Crocs and was quite amazed by the amount of mud on my feet. "Cool, can you take a picture?!" I asked Joey. He, as always, acquiesced. And so that is why you, my blog-reading friend, now have to see pictures of my muddy feet.

George The Cat (with pictures and everything)

2008-02-27T13:40:00.003-06:00

Lately I have taken to asking Joey if he'd get me a cat. (Particularly a fluffy gray cat with white paws.) He continues to say no for such logical reasons as:

We might move someday and it's not logical to get a cat yet
I don't really like cats unless they're fluffy and pristine
If on the odd chance I were to become with child, we'd have to get rid of the cat

He's right, of course. But this doesn't really stop me from asking. And so that is why, last Sunday on the way home from church, I said, "When are you going to get me a kitty?"

"Not until all children we are planning to have are had." Came the standard answer.

As we walked up the steps to our apartment, though...

"JOEY!!!" I hissed, pointing frantically at the steps, "There is a cat! Running up towards our apartment!"

The cat was huge, blackish/brown, and ridiculously sleek. (All traits that are highly prized among cats if you are a Laird.) The cat sat down in front of our door and looked plaintively at us.

"It is a sign from God," I crowed. "Can I keep him?"

"No, you cannot keep him. God doesn't give things to you that already belong to others. Get out your phone, we're going to call his owners. Oh, look his name is George."

"Boo," I whined. "George is such a cool name."

The first number on the tag did not answer. "Maybe we can keep him?" I asked, hopefully.

Joey called the second number and George's owner answered. She was a kind, British sounding woman who lived in the apartment in the same position as ours in the next group of apartments down the row. She said she'd come right over to pick up George.

When she arrived she told us that George commonly mistakes our apartment for his and that since he's really overweight they've been trying to let him out now and then so he can get some exercise. (I don't think it's working if he's just coming over and sitting in front of our apartment, but whatever.)

She picked George up and took him home and I was sorely displeased to see them go.

Last night as I was doing laundry Joey said, "Do you hear that cat?"

I stopped the washer and ran over to the door. "No, I don't..."

Maybe George is back! I thought. I opened the door just a bit to peek outside and, sure enough, there was George trying to force his way in to our apartment.

"YES! It's George!" I hissed. I picked up Henry and dumped him in the bathroom and shut the door. He did not appreciate this and began scratching at the door and barking. Then I ran back to the front door and told Joey to grab the camera so I could get some pictures of George.

I opened the door just far enough to try to sneak out to pet George when, just like that, he streaked into our apartment and started running around looking for who knows what.

"Oh great," Joey muttered.

"Cool!" I squealed, and started chasing George around the living room. I'd nearly catch him but, sleek as he was, he'd slip right out of my hands. (It reminded me of that time I let a chipmunk loose in the red room in the green house. Remember that, Mom? Hehehe...) Joey was able to snap a picture once when George was sitting still. You can't quite tell how huge he is, but just know that he's gargantuan.

He got another one when I managed to flip him over to try to get a good look at how large the cat's girth was.
George didn't want to be photographed or flipped over on his back, so all we got was him wriggling away as Joey took the picture. (You can see my hands trying to hold him in place.)

"Take more!" I begged, but Joey insisted we try to get George out of our house before we traumatized him. I was disappointed, but I scooted George toward the door and, when Joey opened it, he ran right out. Then we opened the bathroom door and let Henry out. He ran around the house like a mad dog trying to find the cat, but he was unsuccessful. (George is about twice the size of Henry, and I'm not even kidding. He probably weighs 20 pounds and Henry's about 12.)

And later, when Henry and I went to go get gas in the car, we found George sitting under our car looking sleek and pristine. "I think he likes us," I whispered to Henry before chasing George off so I wouldn't run him over.

I'll post the pictures of George tomorrow because I know you're all dying to see him.

Henry is the cutest

2008-02-27T12:58:00.001-06:00

For those of you in any sort of doubt as to whether or not Henry was/is the cutest dog alive, please doubt no more. Observe these ridiculously cute pictures that prove I am right.

Joey's Words of Wisdom

2008-02-26T08:06:00.000-06:00

According to ancient Laird tradition, when it is your birthday you are required, following the consumption of cake and opening of presents, to impart some Words of Wisdom upon those who may be around the table celebrating with you. This ancient tradition goes back at least 17 years or so and was probably originated by one Douglas D. Laird.

With that background and knowing that Joey is not a biological but a naturalized Laird (wait, is it possible for Lairds to be any sort of natural?!) I should tell you that three times this weekend I told him to prepare his Words of Wisdom before I actually got anything out of him. I think he thought he was exempt since Pops isn't around to give him a suspicious look and say "up against the wall!" or some such phrase.

So on our Birthday walk last night (it was 85 yesterday, kids) I said, "OK, what are your Words of Wisdom? I gotta know."

He replied, "I've been thinking about this all day because I wanted to come up with something good."

"I'm ready," I told him.

"Well, I have learned over this past year that every single person I have judged has turned out, in one way or another, to have stronger character than I. So my Words of Wisdom for this year are don't judge others!"

"Wow, honey, that's some good Wisdom." I said, squeezing his hand. Usually Words of Wisdom wind up being something like "Don't let Jenna sneak Mexicali Cheese into the Boundary Waters again" or "Keep track of your shoes at all times".

So there you have it, Pops, Joey's Words of Wisdom posted online for you and all the other people who may or may not read this post. We figured you might want to know, though. :) And it's good Wisdom this year, too. I think he's getting (gasp!) mature or something.

2008-02-25T19:03:00.002-06:00

Joey and I are in the Apple store window shopping because he likes it and it's his birthday and he gets to do whatever he wants on his birthday. I'm playing with a MacBook Air while he uses fancy programs I don't understand on some high dollar compys. He just leaned over and said to me, "Too bad you don't generate any revenue blogging, or I'd totally buy you one of those MacBook Airs."

People. Start paying me to read my blog so I can get one of these sweet machines!!

The Birthday Boy

2008-02-25T13:19:00.004-06:00

Happy Birthday, Joey!!!

Joey is my favorite person in the entire world, so I always like to make a big deal about his birthday. this year, however, is even cooler than all his previous birthdays combined because he turned 25 on the 25th. All month long we have been celebrating. I was giving him 25 somethings every day of the month, some of my personal favorites have been:

25 dimes for buying treats
25 minute long backrub
25 chances to say no to a Sprinkles cupcake
25 pieces of Henry's food (Joey did not like this one)
25 birthday messages from friends and family back home
25 Mountain Dews
25 miles on our bikes (but we have only gone 13 as yet)

And so on and so forth. It has been a fun month!

For Joey's actual birthday, we went on a hike (on unpaved trails!) in the afternoon, and grilled out with a very delicious meal of steak and grilled veggies. I baked Joey a little bitty cake (and the frosting turned out miserably, but enough of all that) and stuffed 25 candles on the top so I could sing him Happy Birthday. All by myself.

The frosting was so hard that I had to press it on with my fingers...what a disappointment!

Here's my favorite Birthday Boy and his candles!

And he huffed and he puffed....

And then we ate the cake.

Joey's gift from me is a weekend paintball scenario game on Saturday/Sunday of next week where they'll reenact battles from WW2 and get welted up from being shot with paintballs. Sounds like a barrel of fun, huh? Anyway, he was excited and that's all that matters.

Tonight we're going to Wild About Harry's to have brisket hot dogs (manly food!) and probably go look around at the Apple Store. He gets away with so much on his birthday...I even watched a Harry Potter movie with him!

Anyways, happy birthday Joey!!!

Awkward Moment

2008-02-22T16:15:00.001-06:00

Had an awkward moment today, and this one wasn't even my fault! I found it really funny, actually. (Which is better than taking it completely personally and getting my feelings hurt, right?) Hopefully you'll agree because, unfortunately, you will be without the benefit of a lot of back story as the aforementioned awkward moment occurred during The Day. And, as we all know, Jenna does not talk about what she does during The Day for very specific reasons which Gramps is sure to remind me of often.

Suffice it to say, it has been a rather long year adjusting to The Day and its, um, challenges. The first 6 months of our time in Dallas I was dreadfully lonely during The Day because no one really talked to me and I was basically ignored. But all that's mostly better now, so you can stop feeling sorry for me and I will move on past my sob story.

So. There I was eating lunch in a large room with several of those I spend The Day with. This was an unusual occurrence for 2 reasons:
1. Eating lunch together is weird because it barely ever happens
2. When it actually does happen, they don't usually invite me

Anyway, I was trying to participate in the conversation and slowly it rolled around to the upcoming Oscars.

"Do you remember that great Oscar party you had last year?" Someone said.

"OH, yeah, that was fantastic," Someone else replied.

Oscar party? I thought. This will be interesting as soon as they all realize they're talking about something I was clearly the only one not invited to.

They carried on discussing the Oscar dinner party for a few minutes until someone, trying to cover for them all, said "How long have you been here, Jenna?"

"Since January," I replied kind of smugly.

Dead silence. (The Oscars are at the end of February for those of you like Mom who don't know that.)

"Well we didn't really know you very well back then..." They all started talking at once, each trying to come up with a very valid reason as to why they had left me out.

"Plus you're from Iowa," one said, trying to crack a joke, "You never know with those Iowa people."

"It's true," I said, growing kind of uncomfortable with all the attention by this point, "It's hard to tell with us Iowans."

You know, I don't know if I even would have gone if they'd invited me. In any case, it was kind of fun to watch them all squirm...serves them right a little bit. Ahh, but vengeance really isn't mine now, is it? Plus it's totally not worth it. But if they ever do invite me to something I will bake the most delicious, tasty treat I can think of to bring so they decide they always need to invite me in the future.

2008-02-20T08:15:00.001-06:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!!!

Gramps,

Happy birthday. Eat a piece of cake with lots of frosting for me and enjoy the Arizona sunshine. Do not go shopping because you don't like it and birthdays should be filled only with things you like.

Love,
Jenna-Pooh
(No one else can call me that.)

Pesto.

2008-02-20T08:12:00.001-06:00

Last night Joey had to write a paper for his Greek class so I did my best to keep myself busy and out of the way, thereby minimizing distractions so he could finish as soon as possible. Henry and I went for a short walk (but it was dark and I got scared because these two guys with seriously bushy beards rode by me on their bikes and said things like "did you get it" and "almost there" - but they were harmless) and then I decided to go Somewhere to purchase Something for Joey's upcoming birthday. (It's Monday and he'll be 25, in case you didn't remember.)

I got home about 8:15 and, fortunately, I'd remembered to bring along a paper sack in which to stuff the purchases I had just made to keep Joey's prying eyes away from them. He's exceptionally good at figuring out his presents because he's a sneak, so I have to take precautionary measures. Anyway, he still wasn't done with his paper.

Lame, I thought, and stapled shut the paper sack containing his presents and stuffed it in a closet where he is likely to find it but will hopefully behave and not peek.

This left me with two hours to fill.

I wandered into the kitchen to see if I could do any prep work for dinner on Wednesday. I'm making calzones and this particular recipe calls for pesto. I have never made pesto but I do enjoy the odd Pesto Crusted Halibut or Chicken dish when the caterers bring it in to work. And so, like any adventurous cook, I decided I'd go ahead and leave the Pesto in the calzones and cross my fingers that Joey thought it was delish (since he's been begging me to make calzones for...almost three years.) And Pesto, it turns out, can be made ahead.

The ingredient list was kind of daunting. Sometimes it's better to not know what is in something, and I think Pesto (at least regular old Pesto) might have been that way for me. But I sucked it up and began toasting my almonds until they emitted a nice, soft, nutty smell. Then I chopped them up fine in my coffee bean grinder and set them aside.

Next I toasted garlic - no problem there. I like toasted garlic.

Then parmesan, olive oil and - lastly - 1 cup of fresh basil leaves, packed. I dumped them all into my blender and pushed the button. Everything sort of oozed together into this green, pasty compound that smelled like freshly cut grass.

I felt sick.

Do not make any comments or Joey will never eat the calzones, I told myself firmly.

I took the lid off my blender again to smell the pesto and hopefully catch some of the garlic and change my mind about its awesomeness. Again - it smelled like chlorophyll and turned my stomach. I quickly dumped it into a container and set it in the fridge. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

"What's that?" Joey asked, wandering over to the kitchen. "Smells good."

"It's Pesto," I told him. "It's going in the calzones for tomorrow."

"CALZONES?!" Joey gasped.

"Yes, I'm trying a new recipe." I added, hesitantly, "They probably won't be like your mom's..."

I hope this Pesto turns out to taste good or I will ruin his worldview.

In Which I Give Myself More Power Than I Am Due

2008-02-19T16:33:00.001-06:00

Because the Stock Market was closed yesterday I had the day off. So I baked a carrot cake and took it to the boys at Joey's office. It was my best carrot cake to date - perfectly moist and squidgy with oodles of cream cheese frosting. We cut the cake into, like, 16 pieces and there are none left anymore which saddens me, because I want to eat some more of it. Delish.

Anyway, we all sat the big messy table in the disorganized part of Joey's office (well, wait, the whole thing is disorganized...I'd stress out so bad if I worked there) where they eat their lunch and watch Nacho Libre in their spare time. I glanced at my watch. 1:30.

"What time are you getting off?" I asked Joey.

"Oh, I don't know. Later," he replied.

Everyone seemed to be on a sugar-buzz letdown. The ten of us were just sitting around staring at nothing and occasionally conversing about NPR or how I now had a sugar stomachache from eating so much of the frosting I made before actually frosting the cake.

"I figure I'm giving you the afternoon off," I announced.

Joey glanced around. His bosses were sitting right there and none of them seemed to be paying any sort of attention to him, so he said, "OK, sure. We'll leave at 2:00."

Still no word from the bosses.

I wandered around campus and visited some of my friends who work in other departments before going back down to fetch Joey at 2:15. He had all his bags packed and he was ready to go. No one really commented as we left, either. (I think they were all still in sugar-land.)

It was a gorgeous afternoon. So we got home, grabbed 2 blankets, some books and Henry's stake and chain and headed out to the fields where we lay in the sun and read. Joey fell asleep after about 2 pages of reading, which was boring, and Henry konked out immediately with his white fluffy fur blowing in the breeze.

The idyllic scene abruptly came to an end when a large, black dog came walking by with his people and Henry took off running after it wanting to befriend him. Poor, poor Henry, though, didn't realize he was still on a lead and he got severely clotheslined when he reached the end of his rope. (Good thing we had him on his harness!) He was kind of demoralized after that, poor thing.

After an hour of sunning ourselves, Joey and I went home and made pancakes, watched a movie and went for a walk in the dark.

"I'm very glad you gave me the afternoon off," Joey said.

I was too. Because it was the perfect afternoon.

Currency Exchange

2008-02-15T14:22:00.003-06:00

A month after Joey and I got married, we hoofed it off to China to teach English for a month. It was a great month filled with getting minorly lost, eating some unusual food, Joey getting exceptionally sick, making great friends with our students (and the most physical game of Monopoly I can recall ever playing), and spending oodles of Chinese Yuan since the exchange rate was so bad. (We got like 8 Yuan per dollar, so we had bills coming out our ears.)

That being said, I'm very familiar with a 100 Yuan bill. It looks like this.Considering that picture has "copyright" watermarked all over it I'll probably get taken out by the Chinese government now. But I am unafraid. Anyway, it's clearly a Chinese bill as you can tell from both the characters, the pinyin and the big picture of Mao.

Quite to my advantage, I studied Mandarin Chinese for nearly two semesters when I went to Iowa State. I say nearly two semesters because I dropped it halfway through the 2nd semester because I was one of two people who wasn't natively Asian and had a rudimentary grasp of the language already. (What this means to me today is that I can recognize very basic Chinese characters but really nothing else.)

All this to say that I know what Chinese money looks like. And, with my very rudimentary grasp of Mandarin Chinese, I can even read that it says "Chinese Yuan" on the currency. Not what I'd figure to be handy life skills, but today they came in handy.

I had to go to the bank to exchange some foreign currency today. I glanced at it and saw that it was, in fact, Chinese Yuan. I stood in line with the teller and waited for 10 minutes as a very expressive short man (he was shorter than me, so that is very short) while he asked the teller what she did for Valentines Day and scoffed that she hadn't chosen a more expensive restaurant for dinner.

When it was finally my turn I slid the envelope with the foreign currency across the cool marble counter. The teller opened the envelope, turned the money around and flicked it a few times. I thought she was checking for authenticity but after a few moments of this she asked, "What country is this?"

"It's Chinese Yuan," I told her. I handed her the receipt that had the currency code on it.

"No, it's not. It doesn't look right." She went to go get her book of foreign currencies and I began to second guess my Chinese-reading abilities and recollection of what Chinese currency looked like.

After 10 minutes of watching her page through the currency book and ask questions like "What other countries might this be from" I leaned over the counter and took back one of the bills. There, written right on it in both pin-yin (anglicized Chinese) and Chinese characters it very clearly said "Chinese Yuan". I had not been wrong.

"This says 'Chinese Yuan' right on it, see?" I pointed to the writing and the teller looked at me with an annoyed expression on her face. I was getting tired of standing there waiting for her to recognize the picture in the 150 page currency guide. "Can you please just look at the page with the Chinese currency?"

She hadn't done that yet.

Reluctantly she flipped back to the Chinese section of the book and - shocker! - there was the picture she had been searching for. She huffed and closed the book quickly so as to ensure I hadn't spotted the picture. But I had.

Shortly the transaction was complete and she handed me my money and refused to look me in the eye. "I think it was Chinese Yuan," she mumbled.

It was.

Sometimes it feels good to be vindicated because most of the other times in my life I'm wrong.

2008-02-14T11:55:00.001-06:00

Congratulations goes to my dear friend Jamie Saylor for being the 13,000 visitor to the blog. You don't win any awards, sorry.

But this should make The Kid happy. He's been on my case since 12,000 with "Lady, you really need to post who puts you at the thousand marks from now on" and suchlike.

Joey's Nasty Desk

2008-02-14T11:21:00.001-06:00

This is not my story but it is so good that I have to post it. It's Joey's story. And, while I wasn't there, I got a pretty good re-telling of it in the car on the way home and I'm infinitely gifted at using my writer's license to fill in any minor gaps, so you should get a fairly accurate picture of what went down.

Joey was sitting in his Greek (NT 104 for those of you who really are interested) class and was particularly pleased with himself for finishing his 3 page single-spaced word study that he really hadn't wanted to do in the first place. The entire word study was made more complicated by the fact that he'd forgotten to photocopy some of the really important keys from the beginning of the lexicon he was using in the library (because we don't have money to buy every single Greek book out there...Joey is very good about utilizing the library), so he had to finish it over lunch at school instead of at home the night before.

So there he sat in the back row with Eric. They are a bad sort of pair, they make little comments about this and that while the professor is explaining things and, on the not uncommon occasion that one of them has a linguistic breakthrough, they whisper heatedly about the difference in their phrase diagrams, and do you think this word could actually be a subjunctive aorist? If so, what ramifications does that have for....

They are truly Greek nerds.

Anyway, for once Joey was sitting quietly in one of those collegiate-style desks, his right arm resting on the table part when suddenly he felt the table give way beneath his elbow. Because everything happened so fast, he began to fall forward - right into the wide part of his desk table that was rising quickly.

SMACK!

Joey got hit in the face with one of the desks in his Greek classroom at DTS that, quite frankly, Chuck Swindoll might have once sat in.

His lip began to bleed. He sat there, shook his head, and tried to figure out what happened. He saw his desk lying on the floor, three sheared-off screws scattered around beside it. Still unsure of what had happened, he noticed the bleeding lip and otherwise sore face. He tried discreetly to stem the tide without actually having to get up and go to the bathroom to deal with it.

"You OK, Joey?" Asked Greek Prof.

"Um....yes. I think."

Then poor Joey leaned his head back against what he thought was the wall but shortly discovered that it was not, in fact, the wall, it was a door. One of his classmates came in and rammed the back of his head with the door causing the pain in Joey's head to now be equally disbursed.

He proudly displayed his cut lip to me when we got in the car to go home.

"It hurts," he admitted. "But I took that desk top with me. It is mine after all I went through, and it's in my office downstairs."

I told him he can mount it on the wall in his youth pastor office someday and it'll make the kids think he's extra cool.

Does this remind anyone else of college like it does me?

2008-02-12T16:02:00.001-06:00

I had flashbacks for two reasons:
1. It's uncomfortably true of my alma mater's take on the whole experience, except that they didn't get the part where rebellion decreases with decreased supervision.
2. It's on a 3x5 card. Horrors.
3. BTW, this comes from Indexed.

2008-02-12T11:44:00.003-06:00

This is a picture of my lovely Valentines Day flowers (which look a little wilty because I forgot to water them, but have done so since this picture was taken) and fantastic Le Creuset pitcher.

Joey likes this one better because it's more interesting.

Valentines Day

2008-02-11T12:32:00.001-06:00

We decided to go ahead and do it early this year since Valentines Day falls on a Thursday and seriously, what Seminary student can just take off for an evening of exceptional romance in the middle of the week?

Anyway.

On Sunday immediately after church as I made dinner, Joey excused himself to "go run an errand". I happily made my delicious Beef Tortilla Casserole experiment (it turned out great!) and listened to NPR while Joey was gone. He returned shortly with his hand behind his back.

"Close your eyes," He instructed me. And then, "OK, now you can open them." I did as I was told.

"REALLY!?!?" I shrieked, as I looked at his outstretched hand.

I got flowers for Valentines Day. (My first ever.) And they were in the cobalt blue Le Creuset pitcher I'd been eying for weeks!

"It was cheaper to buy the daisies and put them in the pitcher than it was to get an arrangement," Joey told me, putting to rest my fears of overspending.

He then presented me with a piece of chocolate from one of the sample stations at Central Market, which I ate, and then a smallish bar of delicious fudge that he admitted he had bought on impulse.

So now I can't say I've never gotten flowers and/or chocolates on Valentines Day before, because now I have.

"There's one more thing..." Joey said, dragging it out.

"WHAT?" I said, aghast and seeing dollar signs in front of my eyes.

"Yes, it involves horses."

The dollar signs multiplied.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes. You and I have two tickets for the 6:00 show of the World Famous Lippizanner Stallion show."

I screamed.

I will not try to replicate my scream here for the sake of your poor eyes, because I'm sure it hurt Joey's ears. I have been wanting to see the Lippizanners since I was....oh, probably 10. I used to check out books from the library on them and I had a make believe stable full of them that, since it was make believe, I was awesome at riding.

Unfortunately we forgot our camera or we might have some pictures to post here of our amazing experiences at the horse show. I'm pretty sure it was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I even cried for about the first 10 minutes of the show but managed to pull it together shortly thereafter. (It's very hard to notice the fine movements a dressage horse is doing when ones eyes are misty with tears.)

I think my favorite parts were when the horses did the jump-kick war moves and stood on their hind legs and shook their forelegs to ward off potential attackers. Joey liked those too.

I said, "Those horses are ripped" more than once. I think I traumatized Joey the first time I said it, too.

After the Lippizanner show we headed to...Burger King! (So romantic, I know.) We realized that we had run out of money in our date category because the cost of a hamburger was much, much higher than we'd been expecting from our Studio Movie Grill experience (complete with That Woman) on Friday. Anyway, we scaled back from La Duni to Burger King and we'll hit La Duni for our anniversary or something.

Burger King was as delicious as Burger King can be at 8:15 on a Sunday night. We even splurged on a piece of pie. All in all, though, I'd say this was a very successful Valentines Day. What's even better is that after my flowers die, I'll still have my blue Le Creuset pitcher to remember Joey's surprising gift.

I have the best husband ever. And I'd still have the best husband even if he just gave me a sweet card, although he did that too.

That Woman

2008-02-11T10:08:00.000-06:00

On Friday night we caught a movie with Austin and Audra at the new Studio Movie Grill that was giving out free tickets to DTS students. It's one of those places where you order a burger or something to eat while you watch a movie in these sort of leather office chairs and eat on little tables. Quite fun. (They did not, however, mention that the cost of the food once inside was rather exorbitant for what it was.)

Anyway, we got there ridiculously early. (I have never in my life been to a movie an hour before it starts, but there's a first time for everything.) Joey was in rare form, so there was plenty to laugh about/at and we had a nice time waiting first to get in line to be seated, then standing in line to be seated, then sitting in our kooshy leather chairs eating burgers before the movie started.

We sat smack dab in the middle of the sixth row and happily adjusted our bouncing leather seats. Audra and I are both short (although I think she's maybe an inch shorter?) so the adjustability factor of the seats was nice.

"If no one sits in front of us this will be perfect!" I chirped to Joey as I tried to get my seat to lean back. I was unsuccessful.

For fifteen minutes, no one was entering the theatre. It looked like we might have the place to ourselves - which was fine with us - and have a perfect shot of the screen. A family of three came in and wandered down our row, first picking seats directly in front of us (and I growled and protested fiercely under my breath) then reconsidered and went to our left to pick from some of the six empty tables available.

The wife was a blonde, black cashmere dress coat-wearing, perfectly made-up, woman whose mannerisms screamed "I live in Highland Park and I'm super rich; don't mess with me". She looked at me and my Little Miss Trouble t-shirt and tennis shoes condescendingly before she placed her hand on the table directly next to me (which had our menus on it and my coat and handbag sitting in the chair), arched her precisely plucked eyebrow and asked with a Dixie-belle accent, "Are you using this table?"

Quite obviously my menus were on it but I said, "No" and moved them off. She smiled ingratiatingly and sat down at the table beyond the one she'd just made me move my menus off, but not before glancing back my way once more.

"Joey!" I hissed, "That Woman just made me move my menus because she could!" I shot several glowering looks her way before returning to my hamburger.

Shortly, That Woman glanced quickly back over at me and began scooting the extra table closer to me, ramming the chair with my handbag and coat into me repeatedly. She did not apologize.

"Joey!!" I protested. "That Woman just slammed the table into the chair which slammed into me!"

"Do I need to separate you two?" Joey asked. I think he found the entire situation amusing.

"No..." I mumbled.

"What is going on over there?" Audra asked, leaning over their table our direction. And so I told her how annoying That Woman was going to be during the movie, and how I wished she'd go away.

Then I noticed a lot of movement coming from my left side, and I looked over to see That Woman moving out of her chair into the extra chair that was quite obviously holding my bright green coat and camel colored handbag and sitting on them.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME," I said, not quite loudly enough for That Woman to hear, but just loud enough for me to feel slightly better. But this time I was really starting to get mad - I mean, who sits on someone else's coat and handbag for absolutely no reason?

"Excuse me," I said with an irritated twinge to my voice, grabbed my things and ripped them out from under That Woman.

"Oh...I'm so sorry." said That Woman. "I didn't see your things."

I wanted to reply, "But surely you must have felt them on your behind as you sat on them." However, I held my tongue.

Dear readers, before you think I'm some kind of easily irritated jerkface, I must remind you that there were three empty tables on the other side of them, and no one was in the row in front of us. It's not like the theatre was even close to packed.

"JOEY!!!" I was getting really mad now, "That Woman just sat on my stuff to get me to move it. And now...oh my goodness, look, she has moved the chair and angled it towards her and she's now using it as a place where she's storing her stuff." The cashmere coat was draped elegantly across the arm.

Joey and Austin, who were sitting in the middle of the four of us, exchanged glances and switched places with Audra and I, putting us in the middle and separating me from That Woman, who I surely would have given the What's Up if she'd pulled one more fast one on me.

"What just happened?" Audra asked, and I filled her in.

The, fortunately, the movie started and I was able to forget about That Woman. And, because they left before us, I was spared from having to make the right decision not to shoot her dirty looks as we walked out of the theatre at the same time.

Bike Shorts

2008-02-08T08:58:00.001-06:00

I know, I know, the title's enough to scare anybody off. But keep reading, I promise that I'm not posting any pictures of myself actually wearing bike shorts.

On Wednesday Joey said, "Performance Bike is having a sale on their bike shorts."

"REALLY?" I piped up. The Spin Class had really been, um, getting to me and it was hard to sit. Joey had tried to convey to me earlier the necessity of bike shorts (did you know they have padding on the bum? I sure didn't) but I just thought he was stringin' me along to try to get me to spend unnecessary money.

I know there's muchas Bible verses about wives submitting to your husbands and all, so I will admit to everyone that I did not submit in this instance - I wouldn't let Joey buy bike shorts. I told him, actually to "toughen up." Plus I didn't believe that they were necessary because bike seats were kooshy and comfy, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that only Thunder has a kooshy and comfy bike seat. Bike seats for normal people and in spin classes are hard like cinder blocks and they cause painful---well, you really don't care about all that. So enough talk of bums.

We bought some bike shorts after I admitted to Joey that, "Yes, you were right and I was a gomer. Please forgive and it's unlikely that I will ever doubt your wisdom again."

We got the fancy kind with the gel padding and took them home to test them out on our bikes. We, like the losers we are, rode around the parking lot to test them out. "Mine feel comfy and great!" I crowed.

"I don't like mine," Joey harrumphed. But he seems to have gotten over it because he kept them and took the tags off, so they are clearly not going back to the store.

This morning me, my bike shorts and my hot husband Joey went to spin class. I wore a very, very baggy t-shirt with my disturbingly tight (and at the same time padded, it's a strange look really) shorts and Joey wore baggy shorts over top of his.

Guys, I'm telling you. It was a whole new world. I spun and spun with the best of them with nary a thought to any pain in the posterior, and I'm attributing it all to the purchase of my new kooshy-bum bike shorts. (It's also possible that I felt so great because I wimped out and barely had any resistance on my bike, but I don't like to think about that as an option.)

So...buy bike shorts and your lives will change for the better.

Tomorrow we're cycling to DTS for a seminar in the morning since it's only 5 1/2 miles. I just hope it's warm enough!

2008-02-07T14:46:00.000-06:00

For those of you unsure what the nasty Swedish Fish are or look like, here is a picture. Ew.I think the red one looks a little bit like Henry.

I knew it would happen

2008-02-06T10:12:00.001-06:00

What with this getting up early to go work out and all I knew that one morning I would forget a Very Important Component of my work wardrobe. This morning was one such morning.

Fortunately, no, it wasn't my right shoe or dress pants, it was the links for the French cuffs on my dress shirt. I know exactly where they are, too, they're in the rice bowl on my dresser next to the Burt's Bees (Greg and Kelly, ya'll got me hooked on that stuff years ago, your legacy lives on!) that I also forgot to pack.

So what's a girl to do, anyway? I stood there in the dressing room at Baylor kind of unsure what my next step should be, the sleeves of my shirt hanging down far past my fingertips. Fortunately, Laura took action. "Do you have an earring? Hmm, no that won't hold it. Wait, what about this" -- she began rolling up my sleeves -- "here, that sort of works. No, roll them up one more."

I'd have probably thought of that eventually, but not before wilting and sitting down on the bench to ponder my next move...and pondered for a very long time. My innovative skills are pretty weak at 7:15 a.m.

Anyway, here I sit with rolled up sleeves, which means I'll have to iron the shirt all over again just to get the wrinkles out in order to wear it properly with the cuff links next time. I really hate to iron.

2008-02-05T19:40:00.001-06:00

Right now I'm sitting in Dallas streaming Moody Bible Institute's radio station and listening to my sister in Chicago sing with Moody's Chorale at Founder's week. I love technology. The chorale sounds great, too! (WAY better than any other chorale I've ever heard Sister - ya'll kick bum!) The more I listen the more impressed I am, actually. I just wish Joey was here so he could hear her too.

Technology is great, but sometimes it just maketh me more homesick.

Anyway, Sister, nice pipes. I'm impressed by all the acapella stuff ya'll did, no wonder you were freaking out!!! Do you guys have a CD? :)

Early Morning at the Woestman's

2008-02-05T11:56:00.001-06:00

Joey's birthday is the 25th of February and he's turning 25 this year. It's his golden birthday, so I wanted to do it up special! Each day since February 1, I have been giving him 25 of something (and most of them are free, if not very nearly free - yeah cheap DTS wife!) and this morning was the morning I sort of dreaded.

The Swedish Fish morning.

I hate Swedish Fish. Joey loves them. The thing is, though, that since Joey and I agree on just about everything, I have decided to vehemently despise Swedish Fish (even though they aren't quite as disgusting as I make them out to be) simply because he likes them. And I think he likes them mostly because I don't, come to think of it. Anyway, sometimes we do weird stuff like that.

So I gave him the Swedish Fish and he was a very, very happy man.

"That's disgusting," I told him. He sort of hugged the bag of Swedish Fish and then set it down on the bed and went to go shave or something.

While he was gone I dumped his Swedish Fish out on the bed so I could count them and make sure that there really were 25. To my surprise, there were actually 27, so I ate one and then decided I'd use the second extra one to get him all upset.

I went into the bathroom to finish getting ready and found Joey doing the same. I looked him straight in the eye and took a huge bite out of the extra Swedish Fish I had saved. "HEY!!!" Joey yelled, "That is MY Swedish Fish, give it back!"

I chewed and swallowed.

"That's....that's so mean!" Joey protested.

I ate the rest of the Swedish Fish.

"Ugh, that was gross," I said to egg him on.

Joey was looking very dejected by this time, so I patted him on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, honey, you still have 25. That was an extra one."

"Really?" He perked right up and ran out of the bathroom to go check on his Swedish Fish.

And that's a fairly typical morning at the Woestman house. If it's not one thing it's another, but usually I wind up attempting to trounce Joey, and believing that I have...for about five minutes, until he proves that he knows some random fact that I've never heard of and then I lose.

I always lose, even when I think I win.

On Hold

2008-02-04T14:18:00.001-06:00

I have been on hold for very nearly a half hour. Being on hold makes me go crazy, and I'm beginning to feel like if I hear "Your call IS important to us. Please continue to hold for the next available representative" one more time, I will throw myself out the window.

To make matters worse, I drank a ton of water about 45 minutes ago. This means that, by this time, I'm really ready to take a break, if you catch my drift, but I CAN'T because if I give up now then my last half an hour of wasted time will be in vain.

And it gets even worse still. I have been saving my Snickers bar all day; I had planned to eat it at 2:00. It's now 2:15, so it doesn't take much to figure out what time I got on the phone initially...but for the last 15 minutes I have been getting irritated that I am missing out on my Snickers consumption, have to go to the bathroom, and am still on hold.

So my plan currently is to wait until 2:30. If I am still on hold at 2:30 I'm going to hang up and eat my candy. Then I'll feel better enough to call back and be on hold for another 45 minutes....right?

That instructor woman is insane

2008-02-01T14:31:00.001-06:00

Laura is currently my fitness inspiration because she gets up voluntarily to go to Tom Landry at 5:30 a.m. for a spin class. I really only go because she's there, otherwise there is no chance I'd drag my sorry self out of bed that early to torture myself.

This morning I was not late.

So we went into the cycling room...nicely lit with about 25 cycles positioned around the room. Laura adjusted the saddle on hers, hopped on and began pedaling.

But the instructor isn't even here yet! I whined to myself, then adjusted my saddle and did exactly what she was doing. (Being the fitness inspiration and all.) The bike still felt too big, but I couldn't figure out what else to adjust. (Turns out you can actually move the seat forward as well as up and down. Next time...) Well, the instructor didn't show up for about five or ten minutes and by the time she did I was already tired.

This isn't a good sign, I thought.

When I ride Thunder, I usually just dilly dally around and average about 10 miles an hour. (If I go much faster I miss the opportunity to notice small, cute animals or furry caterpillars along the way. I'm probably really annoying to go on a bike ride with, come to think of it.) The spinning instructor had lots of energy. I could tell she was going to make me go faster than 10 miles an hour.

During the warm-up phase I noticed that everyone in the class except me was wearing shorts, and most of the shorts were bike shorts. One guy was even wearing a cycling team uniform and a stupid little skintight hat with a little bill on it. Why he felt the need to wear his cap indoors, I don't know. He probably wanted the instructor to think he was the man or something, but I just thought he was lame. Probably other people did too.

Anyway, the class was an hour long. After 20 minutes I was considering bailing and running for the showers, but for some reason I stayed on the cycle. Probably peer pressure. About the time I decided to not leave, the psychotic cycle instructor said "stand up!" and proceeded to make us stand up and cycle for about 25 minutes.

It was then that I decided that the woman was insane.

She finally let us sit back down on the saddle, blessed angel, and told us to ride it out for a little while. I got bored of that pretty quickly, so I decided to close my eyes and visualize the route from my parents' house to church, which is a 2 mile ride. As I mentally went house by house I realized that I knew 75% of the families between our house and church, most of the houses I could tell you by name who lived there. Suddenly I decided to become all homesick and I began to cry. IN THE CYCLE CLASS.

Just then the instructor yelled "stand up!" and, fortunately, that was the end of that.

I am now unsure if I will be able to walk tomorrow. However, in the best interest of my own personal fitness I will go again. And, after I'm in super awesome shape, I won't even think that woman is insane any longer. I might even think she's kind of a wimp...but that's unlikely.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

2008-02-01T08:16:00.001-06:00

Last night at DTS we got to sneak preview the director's cut of the Ben Stein documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

WOW.

I'm not usually one for documentaries (except for ones on animals, the environment or in my younger and less pacifistic days, ones on World War 2...I can't really watch them anymore without feeling severely anguished) but this was entirely well done, provocative (not that kind of provocative), and funny! Well, then, Ben Stein is the main character.

Unfortunately because of legal and non-disclosure stuff (the film's not due to be released until April, I think) I can't really say a whole lot about the film's awesomeness. The main theme is the issue of academic freedom, particularly on the issue of teaching Intelligent Design in higher (and lower) education. Actually not even teaching - merely mentioning! Several scholars, some tenured!, who were interviewed for the film were fired for referencing the possibility of Intelligent Design, not necessarily teaching it as fact. And so on.

Joey and I, as we left DTS to head home, could not stop talking about how well done the film was! We want you ALL to see it! If it comes to a theatre in your are please, please go see it on opening weekend! If Ben Stein and his dudes can cause a big enough stir in Hollywood with this, scientific type people who blackball anyone who sounds even slightly positive toward Intelligent Design just have to listen. Eventually.

There's quite a bit of Richard Dawkins in this film, probably more than the Intelligent Design scholars interviewed combined. Unfortunately I can't even tell you what he says, but you want to hear his comments regarding the potential of an Intelligent Designer in the last 10 minutes of the film. Absolutely shocking. And he's caught on film saying it, too.

Please go support this fantastic film about academic freedom, especially on the issue of Intelligent Design. You won't regret it, and I'll be super proud of you. So will Joey.

And...if you're wondering where you can find some information about Intelligent Design? Grab your Bible (or if you don't have one, your nearest library does). Flip it open to Genesis 1 and start reading. That Designer is as Intelligent as you can get -- and that's no fairy tale story, it's TRUE.

I'm so thankful I didn't evolve from primordial slime. Talk about a depressing outlook on life.

The Government Is Lame

2008-01-31T15:09:00.001-06:00

We ran out of 1099 envelopes so I was instructed to go find some. They are due today and, in order to be appropriately postmarked, I had to have them in the postbox by 2:30. No problem. I had three hours, it was only 12:30. So I grabbed my keys, forgot my coat, and hit the road, Jack.

My first stop was Office Max. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, so I found an employee to help me (who wound up trying to hit on me) but all he could really tell me was that they were sold out. So I went to Best Buy (I know, I know, but I was told they would have some), another Office Max and an Office Depot.

Everyone was sold out of 1099 envelopes. Everyone. There were dozens and dozens of packages of W2 envelopes, though, and they looked disturbingly similar.

But, I reasoned with myself, why would they have a different bar code and item number if they were the same thing? Why would the government streamline if they could make things more complicated?

I decided to risk it. I bought the W2 envelopes.

What do you know - the W2 envelopes are just a tiny bit different than the 1099 envelopes, the windows are slightly further apart. So all that...and I still had to sort of jerry-rig some envelopes in order to get them to the post by 2:30.

I was five minutes late, too...but I think everything will turn out OK in the end.

Joey, Joey, Joey

2008-01-30T13:34:00.001-06:00

This morning I got up earlier than I have gotten up in recent years (5:15 a.m.) so that I could go to Baylor and work out with Laura. Every single red light in the city of Dallas seems to have it out for me. I was late.

After my workout (from which I am extremely sore because I'm further out of shape than I remembered being) it was quite a bit earlier than I expected, just after 7:00, and I began feeling sorry for Joey who had planned to ride his bike in to work. It was only 35 degrees outside after all.

"Do you want me to come get you?" I asked Joey as I drove down Washington on my way to pick him up.

"YES!" He said, "It's so cold out there! I wasn't sure how I was going to make it to school."

So I zipped up the road, not hitting any red lights - funny how that works, and called Joey to ask, "Can you grab me an Izze when you come out?" He said sure, no problem, and he'd be out in a few minutes. When Joey got to the car and we zipped off down the street to school...

"Where's my Izze?" I asked, looking in the backseat by Joey's backpack.

He wilted. "It's in the fridge!"

I wilted.

"You can have a Sprite with lime instead!" He suggested, trying to spin the situation.

"I'll try...maybe...." I pouted, secretly intending to do just that.

Poor Joey. But at least my Izze will be cold when I go home tonight! Yummy. And I'll need something yummy, too, because I'm making the sickest thing for dinner tonight: Pineapple Chicken Bake. Grody. But when I read the recipe title to Joey hoping for a "Sick, who invented that recipe" comment I got a "WOW, that sounds awesome, when are you making it!"

So I'm making it tonight. Hopefully Joey likes it and it reheats well, because I can pretty much guarantee you that I won't be eating much of it at all. Fruit and meat do not go together. Ever.

Joey's "Green" Bike

2008-01-29T11:56:00.001-06:00

Due to our new and improved Green lifestyle, we sold the Honda several months ago and bought a bike rack. With said bike rack we hauled Thunder - my bike, of course - back down from Iowa. (He got very dirty on the 937 mile ride behind our car back to Texas, but I still love him.)

Anyway, Joey got some bucks around Christmas with which to purchase himself a commuter bike so he could ride the 5 miles from our house to DTS. He was exceptionally pleased with himself and spent quite a long time at Performance Bike trying to pick the very best one.

His final choice was green and I think it's a Schwinn, but I'm really not sure. All I knew when he showed it to me at the bike store was that HIS bike came with a bike bell. Mine did not have one of those and I was jealous because what do boys need bells for anyway?. So of course, we bought me a bike bell.

In order to store our bikes we had to buy a bike rack, which really wasn't as cost-prohibitive as I originally thought it would be, nor as ugly. Our bikes now sit proudly by the window in our study and Henry isn't too keen on them taking up the place where his kennel used to sit.

On Sunday afternoon we picked out a perfect route for Joey to ride to school in the morning. Not only is it just a touch over 5 miles, but it's SAFE! I was a little concerned he'd have to ride his bike down the sketch part of Live Oak, but we discovered that Swiss Avenue is much safer and really not out of the way at all.

This is probably really, really boring.

All this to say, Joey rode his bike to school for the first time today. He got there all wet from the mist, out of breath from the headwind, and probably real smelly too. I can see that the Target list for next week will include things like "extra deodorant to keep at school" and "spare t-shirts for my desk drawer" and such things.

But it's pretty awesome that we're have more bikes than cars in our household. :)

Red Sour Patch Kids

2008-01-28T15:40:00.000-06:00

I have a very cool Sister.

"You have something coming in the mail," she told me last week. I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the mail every day, and it finally came on Saturday.

"You got something from Sister," Joey announced as he came in the door holding the long awaited mail.

"YAY!" I said, pouncing on it.

I opened up the little brown pouch and, to my sheer astonishment, inside was a small baggie filled with red Sour Patch Kids. I very nearly cried, and I barely ever cry.

"Sister...Sister picked out all the red ones," I said, squishing the bag of the beautiful candy. (The red Sour Patch kids are my favorite.) "The red ones are the best...she probably didn't even get to eat any!"I was trying, and barely succeeding, not to cry.

"You better eat one," Joey advised.

And so I did.

In fact, I ate the entire baggie while Joey and his friends watched The Bourne Identity and cleaned their paintball guns.

"Can I have a red candy?" Joey asked when his friends left.

"Um...I ate them all." I said.

"WHAT?! I never even got one!"

"Sorry, Sister sent them for ME," I replied selfishly.

And they were delish.

The Gross Dinner

2008-01-28T15:33:00.001-06:00

I really like to bake and cook. If I had a hobby, it would probably be that. I got the Rachael Ray cookbook for Christmas, so Joey and I have been experimenting with new recipes lately. I tried one just the other day that, had I been of a rational state of mind when planning my menu, I probably would have stayed away from. It was called...

Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Mint Sauce

Just the name is gross. I mean, Joey and I like lamb...but...

I thawed my lamb the night before and, when I began making dinner for the evening the recipe name turned my stomach just a bit. But I pressed on thinking that it truly couldn't be as bad as all that.

As I mixed the slimy meatballs the smell began to overpower me. It smelled...really bad.

"Smells great, Love!" I heard Joey holler positively from the study. I decided not to ruin my chances and tell him how disgusting I thought dinner was going to be. After all, maybe it would improve once it cooked?

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow and just tell you that it went downhill very fast from that point.

The end result wound up looking like murdered lamb (with all the tomatoes globbed in the saround the meatballs) and smelled somewhere between dirty socks and old garbage. It tasted worse. Joey tried to put on a happy face but, after two bites he put his fork down slowly and said, "I'm sorry Jenna...but this is really gross."

I let out a huge sigh of relief. "I KNOW! It smelled horrible when I was making it and it's nauseating me just to look at it!"

"I'm so sorry!" Joey bemoaned, "I know you worked for a really long time on this!"

"I don't even care, just as long as we don't have to finish eating it," I said, carrying my plate over to the sink.

"Take a picture so the blog people can see how gross this is," I said. Joey got his camera and happily obliged. Unfortunately you can't smell it when it's a picture, only see it. But try to imagine dirty socks and old garbage when you look at this mess and you'll be right about there.Tomatoes, mint and lamb are a VERY BAD COMBINATION. Don't let anyone fool you.

Friends, Free Tickets & Heights

2008-01-28T11:12:00.001-06:00

n

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, huh? :)

Laura managed to snag about 10 free tickets to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since she works for a Non-Profit organization and she was nice enough to invite a bunch of us to go along, my grandparents included.

So Joey and I dressed up as fancy as possible, just for fun, and we headed down to the Meyerson to pretend that we were classy on the cheap. (Which I think we mostly pulled off.) It was a Bernstein celebration so all the pieces played were by Bernstein...VERY nice. Of course they saved West Side Story for the very end.

The Meyerson is a really beautiful symphony hall. The wood is gorgeous, the seating is well spaced, the pipe organ is amazing, and the people who attend are (us notwithstanding) rather well-heeled Dallasites who like to go to see and be seen. We're kind of a waste of eyes in that respect, because even if we did see some rich person who wanted to be seen at the symphony we wouldn't have a clue who it was. It's kind of fun to pretend now and then, though.

At intermission Danny and Joey decided that it was imperative for them to go to the top seating tier "to see how high it was". So Laura and I tagged along primarily to keep them in line and secondarily to see how high it truly was up there.

We were the only people in the elevator on the way up. The elevator operator looked at us kind of funny when the boys responded, "We want the top floor" to her question of "Where to?"

The elevator operator deposited us at the top floor and shook her head at us as we exited, the boys buzzing excitedly with questions like "right or left?" and "do you think it'll be really high?" and "I wonder how much seats cost up here."

I'm afraid of heights. Almost paralyzingly so, it's really irritating. So I try to force myself to do scary things regularly, otherwise I'd be one of those loser scardy-cats who does nothing but stay home where it's "safe" and we all know those kinds of people are boring and lame. Far be it from me to be intentionally boring OR lame. (Although I'm sure both happen quite regularly.)

As soon as we entered the highest seating tier, I got overwhelmingly dizzy. "Um....I'm done," I said and started to turn around. Joey grabbed me from behind, stood me up straight and propelled me forward. "You can do it," he said.

We reached the middle and I sat down immediately.

Fortunately Laura brought her point and shoot so we were able to capture the amazing height of the top seating tier in pixels FOREVER.

Joey climbed behind the rows of red-velvet seats and snapped this very nice picture of Danny and Laura, who I'm just about sure you've never seen a single picture of before. Hehehe. In any case, they're quite photogenic.

Then Laura swapped places with Joey and took one of us. Please ote the slightly terrified look on my face. I tried to smile but it was hard since getting the picture taken required standing up out of the chair I had been sitting in lest I somehow lose my balance and fall to my death 6 stories below me. (Unlikely, yes.)

We stood up there and tried to act all suave and sophisticated. Joey identified a soprano sax practicing and several other instruments before someone looked at the time and noticed that we ought to rejoin our party.

Danny and Joey immediately found some stairs and slid down the velvet-lined railings. Laura and I pretended we did not know them.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow

2008-01-24T12:13:00.001-06:00

I made it through the horrible dentist's appointment alive. Barely.

See, the Novocaine didn't deaden all my nerves. They even gave me an extra shot after I told them I could still feel my lip. Granted, things were definitely deadened, but I could pretty much feel them drilling the whole time, which meant I lay there in the dentist's chair shaking like a little leaf in a stiff Fall breeze. Four cavities is a lot to have done at once even when the Novocaine does work its magic.

So with four dentists' tools, two hands and one jaw-propper in my mouth I tried not to move and stared into the glaringly bright dentist's lamp trying to think about nice things like lambs and puppies. The hygienist would pat my arm and say, "We're almost done...no, wait, I'm sorry, there's still one more" and comforting things like that.

An hour later, it was over.

The unfortunate part was that the dentist had been yanking on my cheek so hard to try to get to the cavity on my lower gums that my mouth refused to open more than about a centimeter. So I headed straight to the chiropractor to see if he could adjust my jaw.

"WOW," he said, when he felt the muscle knot in my cheek. "This is really bad."

So he whipped out a little plastic thingy which he put on his index finger and said, "I'm going to have to try to massage the cheek muscle from the inside of your mouth. Do you think you can handle that?"

Did I have much choice?

I gingerly opened my poor mouth as far as I could and tried not to bite my chiropractor as he attempted to get my locked up cheek muscle to release. It hurt like crazy. Three attempts later, I could open my mouth about an inch, which is enough to do just about anything, really. (Except, I'm finding, eat my lunch. Food keeps falling out my mouth and onto my desk, which is embarrassing.)

Oh, did I mention I stopped by my dermatologist to give them some of my blood, too? This morning has been a real pain. All told, I just want to go back to bed.

My face is still numb...why couldn't my NERVES have been numb?!

Dentist Schmentist

2008-01-23T16:21:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 I am going to go get 4 cavities drilled and 1 sealant repaired. If I do not come out alive, you'll all know why. I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow. At all.