The Fly

I hear blood curdling cries and think someone must be dying in the other room. I run in to find my boys hysterically crying. What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Is someone bleeding or has an eye been poked out and I just haven’t noticed it yet? Was some strange man climbing up our balcony and scared them? No, it was a fly. A small, harmless fly and my children are in hysterics. Wow.
“Kill that baby fly, mom! Kill it!” Collin, who is most upset, keeps screaming this.
I really do want to raise my little boys to be strong men, but this has been a major set back today, I mean a fly? Come on!

My Little Worrier

Driving in the car the other day, Talin from the back seat says, "Mom, I've been worrying a lot." My response, "Why are you worrying sweety?" Talin says, "I just worry about you mom, you seem to forget things a lot."
Thanks for the reminder.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Okay, my picture didn’t turn out how I wanted it to for self-portrait Tuesday. I think my big mistake was just not planning for it. It was totally improvised while I was going on a walk with my friend Betsy today. We found ourselves on top of a hill and I saw part of downtown in the skyline, really just the largest building was poking up through the background. But I thought it might be good enough for a backdrop and that it might represent downtown Des Moines a bit. So I asked Betsy to take the picture and hoped it turned out well enough because it was too sunny to see its results on my camera. Once I got home I took another look at it indoors, only to realize that I was covering up my one big building I was hoping to get in the shot, otherwise it’s just me standing on a hill. Oh well, she must not have understood the shot I was going for, so this is the result.

I really should have tried for something a lot more fun, like Des Moines has a beautiful capital building. It’s historic and fun to take tours through. Iowa is also known for being home to Madison County, and yes that is where The Bridges of Madison County was filmed with Meryl Streep. And it’s also the birth place of John Wayne, which I didn’t previously know until now. And I also just googled it and realized that it’s only a thirty-five minute drive from Des Moines. Which makes me realize that I’ll have to go visit sometime, because it looks beautiful, and they also have a covered bridge festival in October, I mean how fun does that sound? So here are my stolen pictures of our capital and Madison county, if I were any good at Photoshop I would have pasted my picture in there, but I’m not, so I guess you’ll have to use your imagination.

Corn Juice and The Future Doctor

Last night I found myself enjoying dinner while two very rambunctious little boys, surprisingly not mine, were fighting over who got to drink the corn juice. Oh my sickness!! Who fights over drinking corn juice? You know when you have corn from a can and all the juice gets poured into the pan to cook it? Well these little boys were fighting over who got to drink that left over juice. I’ve never witnessed something so gag worthy while eating dinner. Yuck. I guess you need some background. We were invited over to dinner by a man in our ward, he’s a single dad and has the two rowdiest boys in church, they are eight and eleven years old, the majority of the evening was watching them beat the crap out of each other and kick one another in the junk. It was definitely cringe worthy to witness. Overall the evening was nice, the man in our ward is one of the nicest guys ever, and I felt a little sorry for him though having to deal with such rowdiness. Very interesting evening to say the least.

On another note Tom and I have been playing a lot of doctor lately. Not the kind your thinking, trust me. He’s been practicing for his spals (not sure on the spelling), I think it stand for student, patient, something, lab, or something. I know that was pathetic! Anyway, he has to do all the pre diagnosis stuff on a patient, and it takes like a half hour to work through and take all the different pulses and eye tests and check the nose and the mouth and the ears and a ton of other things. So I’ve had the joy of being his patient to practice on. I’m not a very patient person, so it’s been a little agonizing for him, I have a hard time holding still and I don’t like people, even my husband, looking up my nose or in my mouth or in my ears, it creeps me out. I’m hoping he does a good job on his test today, he looked so cute all dressed up with his lab coat. How strange to think he’ll really be a doctor someday.

Daylight Savings

I do not approve of daylight savings. Why did I need to lose an hour of sleep last night? I'm tired and I don't approve.

Height Issues

I was blessed with height. I'm 5'8", therefore I always vowed to marry a man who was six feet or over. It didn't happen. But I loved the boy so much that I married him anyway, even though he fell two inches short of my criteria. 5'10" isn't so bad, I mean I can wear flats and appear shorter and when I do wear heels it won't be that big of a difference, right? Right. But I love big four inch heels. I can't help it, despite the height difference, I will wear the heels. Recently I found out that my husband's height was a sham. He hasn't been 5'10" afterall, he's 5'9 1/2". He found out and didn't tell me. I've forgiven him his half an inch, but my goodness, old age shrinkage is just not an option, and he must keep up supreme posture at all times! Am I being shallow? Maybe, but look at these lovely shoes being modeled by my children. I love them, and I'm an amazon next to my husband when I do wear them, but I really love them.

It's Coming!

Here is a picture outside my back porch. It's a gloomy day today, but I have nothing to complain about because the high is going to be a fabulous 48 degrees. Yeah! And tomorrow we are suppose to get into the 50's and the beginning of next week we should be in the 60's! Holy crap it's like summer! I'm so excited to have it start warming up. I even hear birds outside today, Birds singing! It's coming, beautiful, wonderful, glorious spring, is coming!
"If there comes a little thaw, Still the air is chill and raw, Here and there a patch of snow, Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood; Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing, "This is Spring." ~ Christopher Pearce Cranch

The Doughnut

I’ve been struggling with my weakness lately. And I didn’t realize it was a weakness until lately! Vanilla frosted doughnuts. Yum!! When I was little I was often Cyndee’s grocery shopping companion, and a stop by the bakery was inevitable for a doughnut each time. I loved it, and it’s a fond memory. Now I find myself alone quite frequently with Collin, and it has slowly become a habit to stop by the bakery to pick out a doughnut for him. Bad idea. I don’t remember my Cyndee ever buying herself a doughnut, so why should I, now in the mother role, feel I need one while buying my baby one? And how unhealthy are doughnuts? I’ve been trying to eat better, but the doughnuts have totally thrown me for a loop. I need to stop. And to top it off today, I bought an extra doughnut for Talin, who is at preschool. Do you think the doughnut has lasted even fifteen minutes in my presence? Um no. Sorry Talin, mom ate your doughnut. Not that he ever has to know that he had a doughnut, but for sure Collin won’t let me get away with this.

A Birthday and A Portrait

First of all it's my Grandma Jones' birthday and I wanted to wish her a fabulous b-day.
She's 82 today, and I have so many fond memories of her while growing up. I often was allowed to stay up at our cabin with her and she always took care of me, if you ever needed anything, Grandma would search the cabin to find it, whether it was coloring books, crafts or rice crispy treats. She was the best! I love you Grandma! Happy Birthday, wish I could be there to celebrate!



Now on another note, I took the portrait challenge that so many bloggers have been doing. I haven't done it previously because I haven't felt fully apart of the blogging circle that participates, but Amy informed me that I should. So here it is, my self-portrait and the challenge given for it:

"take a picture of yourself in the mirror. any mirror will do. now, take a really good look at yourself. try to see your image as others around you see it. bring to mind something kind or unusual that a friend has noticed about you recently. can you see what they see? will you tell us about it??"
When I look at this picture I try to push away all the negative thoughts, like I just woke up thirty minutes ago, didn't want to get out of bed, spent the majority of the night listening to Collin cough, and dread the oncoming day where I'll be taking care of a sickie. But let me push those thoughts aside. Looking at this I know that people have been seeing me differently lately, or maybe just seeing me for the first time. I have been changing my spirit in a sense and striving for perfection through Christ. I think others have started to notice, my exterior has started to thaw with my interior. I've always come across as stuck up or snobby, when I've really just been insecure. Now I want others to see right into me and I want to shake off the shield I've been wearing my whole life. I want to be an open book in a sense and not turn away friendships and outreaching hands the way I have in the past, in fact I now want to be that outreaching hand to others and to invite them to look inside themselves and see what needs to change for true happiness to come about. This picture might not show it, but the one thing that has been kindly said about me lately is my appearance of happiness. I've been smiling more than I ever have. Thomas said to me the other day that he loves to come home to see me because of the smile I'm wearing all the time. That was the sweetest thing I've been told in a long time, and it made me realize that I don't want to waste another day not being happy.

Talin has wanted to learn how to read. In fact he’s been asking me to teach him for the past month or so, I just have been overwhelmed with how to go about it. So last weekend we bought Bob Books. They are books that come in sets and each set has 12 books in them. They start you out slowly, learning four to two letters at a time, sounding out the letters to make words. Talin has been so excited and very enthusiastic. We’ve been through the first two books and he can read them through, sounding out the letters and all. He is so proud, and so am I. I’ve never known of a child that is so dedicated and can sit and concentrate so long on something like reading. He begs me several times to sit down and teach him how to read throughout the day, and I’m flat out exhausted. I love to sit with him, but I can only do this so many times a day, and his little mind is like a sponge. It amazes me. I need to learn patience, as well as letting things go to take the time with him. But I’m happy that he already has such a passion and a love for learning. His teachers praise him and I can see why, he’s such a smart little boy. I just had to take a minute and brag about my baby, or I should say my big boy as he prefers to be called.
And my lovely Collin is as crazy as ever. Helping out at Talin’s school today during lunch, Collin managed to get himself into quite a bit of trouble. Making faces at the other children, being an absolute comedian, and managing to rile up fifteen four year-olds. I don’t think I’ll be asked to help out again. I’m raising a scholar and a clown, how can two boys be brothers and yet be so different? I love it though, our family has the boy who puts us in our place in all things, and the boy that puts on a show so we’re always entertained. Good times at the Chambers.

(And yes, that is a snake Collin is holding. It's our pet snake, Bongo.)

Oh and a note about yesterday. I managed to stay happy throughout my terrible day, but I never found my keys or my food card as of yet. And to top off the day the missionaries were an hour late for dinner. We had cold steaks, cold potatoes, cold rolls, and a very angry Thomas. For anyone who knows Tom, that's a hard thing to achieve, but he was in a rare mood of anger. So I had to step up the charm to cover for his foul mood. It was quite amusing, he's usually much more the cordial host than me. It made me laugh. For some reason his bad moods amuse me, probably because they are so rare.

Stars are stacked against Me!

The stars are stacked against me today, maybe I should just crawl back into bed. First of all we are feeding the missionaries tonight; they’ve been in a threesome for awhile, so I have three to feed. Tom is ward mission leader assistant, so he sees the missionaries all the time, and for the past month they have been begging him to have them over for steak. Well, I’m a nice girl, so I had Tom invite them for some steak. So I have my morning planned out and ready to go out the door, but wait, where are my keys?? Can’t find them anywhere, so Tom has to run home to give me the spare. Thank you Tom. Next I look in my wallet for my food card, not there. Hmmm….must be somewhere. No, it’s not anywhere!!! I have steaks to buy, dessert ingredients, salad stuff, and no food card! Ahhh!!! Okay, I’ve calmed myself and decided to do without the food card for the day and put it on the Visa. Problem solved. New problem arises of course. Collin decides to have a day from hell. Huge fit at the gym this morning, monstrous fit at the grocery store, screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs, people were staring, and even bigger fit at Talin’s school as I picked him up. I had to carry him to the car wiggling and kicking and screaming. It was terrible, but I’m proud to say I kept my cool. I think I was calmer about the incident than the poor witnesses to it were. Once home I felt okay and ready to be happy, except for one incident. Collin was whining about something, and I turned to him and said in a terrifying voice, “Don’t talk to Satan today!”, he said I scared him, so I’ve given up the satan voice. I’m ready to be nice, marinate my meat, make my bread, bake my dessert, today is what I make it. And it’s nothing a little Janis Joplin can’t get me through.

My Jumbled Thoughts

I have a lot of random thoughts to write down today, so here they go.
1. First of all, I’m sad to say that my oldest baby, Talin, is growing up. He lost two lower teeth last night. We found ourselves at the laundry mat because the laundry machines in our apartment complex had flooded. So we packed up the clothes, the kids and went to the laundry mat. While the clothes were drying we went next door to a Chinese buffet for dinner and that’s where Talin lost his first tooth. Not sure where it went though, maybe he swallowed it? I think we decided that he probably swallowed it. Folding the laundry after dinner in the laundry mat, he managed to wiggle out the second one himself. He was very proud. He keeps asking me if he’ll -be a grown-up when he gets his big teeth in, and is very disappointed when my response is not just yet. And of course the tooth fairy came last night and left him a dollar. By the way, anyone know what the going rate is on your first tooth?
2. I’ve been concerned lately that I’m a bit white trash. This concern became much bigger last night after the laundry mat. We were hauling our baskets full of clean clothes up two flights of stairs, we live on the third floor, and Tom tells me not to breathe deeply. What is that smell??? Yes, someone was smoking a little maryjane last night, and it permeated the stairwell. How was I not to breathe too deeply while I carried a basketful of clothes up two flights of stairs??? Needless to say I was a bit lightheaded the rest of the evening. And for the first time in forever, the boys went to bed immediately after being tucked in, could I possibly attribute that to them inhaling too deeply in the stairwell? Who knows, but it felt very white trashy.
3. I heard something quite terrifying from a friend recently. We went out with two other couples Friday night for dinner at Fudruckers. Well, while we were there they asked if we had heard what’s been going on in Chicago lately. No, what?? Well, I guess they have had terrible weather as well and a lot of ice storms. Now that things are starting to melt they have chunks of ice falling off of the skyscrapers and killing people that are walking on the sidewalk. Can you believe that?? I’ve never heard anything like it. I guess everyone has suggested that the cars park on the sidewalk and the people walk in the street. Not sure if it’s been implemented, but the whole thing rings like some kind of a movie plot. How odd.
4. Lastly I find myself becoming one of those obnoxious, regular testimony bearers that you can expect to hear from every month. Well, I hope I’m not too obnoxious, but I can’t sit down when there is this burning prompting that tells me I should be up there. Never given into it before, but now I feel as though it would be very ungrateful of me if I didn’t stand up and publicly thank the Lord, especially after all he’s done for me as of late. And I’m wondering if I’ve found all of those regular testimony bearing people to be obnoxious because I was guilty of not bearing mine, or what. Who knows, all I know is that it felt good, and I didn’t shake nearly as much this time.
Well I hope everyone has a lovely Sabbath. I want to share a scripture that is important to me. I was reminded of this when I was going through some old letters and ran across one from Tyler that he sent me while in the MTC. He told me that his favorite scripture was Ether 12:27, well it’s mine too. I won’t write it out, grab your Book of Mormon and look it up yourself!

Our Blizzard

I've been a bit disappointed by our expected blizzard that has been in the forecast this week. It was suppose to start yesterday at 9 am. Grocery stores were packed to stock up on basic goods, generators purchased by some and Tom's university even shut down campus at 1:30 that afternoon. Yet nothing seemed to really happen. Tom and I finally got restless and went to Target at 4:00, just to wander and of course end up with several useless purchases. When we went out to the car at 5:00 the wind had definitely picked up and snow was falling, but it wasn't the worst conditions I've ever been in, and I didn't feel that it warranted a blizzard warning and radio interruptions on what to do if you're stuck in it. Hmmm....I'm starting to think that Iowans are a bunch of wimps when it comes to weather. 50 MPH winds have been expected, but I don't think they're coming. I'm still waiting for something big, the warning doesn't end until 6 this evening. Maybe I'll be satisfied that it's a true blizzard if I lose power and can't leave my home for days. Tom did have school this morning though, which made me sad because I was so expecting to have him around, I had visions of breakfast and bacon being cooked when he got up. No, he just showered and went to school. And I made him drive the suburban, because you never know, a 50 MPH gust of wind might come along and blow his little transam right off the road. So now I'm carless as well as blizzardless. Oh well, I guess I'll continue to pray for Spring to come soon!

Talin

Well Talin, I really don't think that's what those are typically used for....

Happy B-Day Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Grandpa Jones!

My grandfather turned 92 years old, and yet somehow manages to stay young. I like to brag about him still playing golf every week with his brothers, and I heard from Amy's post that he made a hole in one last month. Go Grandpa!!
I have many fond memories of Grandpa Jones from my childhood. He lovingly referred to me as "Maggie", and I was one of the few granddaughters that took a keen interest in the boy things, that made me his favorite girl granddaughter, or so I like to think. I'm sure I'll have some disputes over that. But one of my favorite memories of Grandpa Jones is him teaching me how to fly fish when I was eight years old. He must have been a very patient man to teach an eight year old how to fish, let alone fly fish! Thanks for the cherished memories, and hope you had a fabulous birthday Grandpa!