Moms are Psychic

You know when you do something really stupid, and your mom can tell something's up even though you don't tell her? Well ...

This morning Evan was sucking on a metal tube of some sort. I told him he needed to get it out of his mouth and asked him what it was. He responded with his usual shoulder shrug and walked away.

A few minutes later he brought me the pump that we use for footballs, soccer balls, etc and said that he'd figured out where the metal thing came from. Someone had broken off the needle from the pump.

Being the engineer that I am I figured, "I can fix that!"

I looked around for somthing small to push the remaining piece out of the needle holder (how's that for a technical term?). I used a ball point pen, (which will now most likely never write again) but that didn't work so well. I continued to look through my stash of things on my desk and found my pink screwdriver with its multiple heads.

"Aha!" I thought and went to work. I couldn't get the holder to stay still when it was on my desktop, so for some insane reason I picked it up. I actually got the broken portion of the needle to move a bit, so I kept at it.

S L A M

I dropped the holder. As I bent to pick it up I realized that the freaking screwdriver was still attached to my thumb. Instant stomach queasiness and a few, choice, toenail-curling words later I pulled out the screwdriver and ran to my bathroom.

I put a few bandaids on the end of my thumb and called Jon. He told me that I should call a neighbor to have them look at it to see if I needed stitches.

Who's home... who's home... I kept thinking while applying additional bandages (It stopped bleeding through at 6). I finally called Michelle, but she was busy signing something for her son, Tyler, and Tyler was some sort of Nazi who wouldn't let me talk to her. I hung up, and instantly my phone rang.

Guess who... My mom!

I got to tell her how stupid I'd been and then I knew I was in for the "you should go to the doctor and get stitches and a tetanus shot" lecture. The next thing I thought was that I hadn't showered yet this morning and was still in my silly green striped PJs.

Anyway - I got to tell my mom that it really hurt. She was wonderful and just listened to me. I love that she called right when I needed her to. I know she called for another reason, but I can't think of it off the top of my head...

Thanks Mom! I love you.

Look Wut I Did!

I've been on quite the domesticity kick lately. I'm quite impressed with myself! Honestly - I decided to take President Uchtdorf's talk to heart and get happy. Here's a smackling of what I've been up to...

Apple Sauce
My next door neighbor - Debbie - and I put up ~80 pounds of apples this year! We got ~48 quarts. I kept ~3 doz small macs (because I'll repeatedly tell you that this is the BEST type for applesauce) so that I can make carmel apples in the next couple of weeks. ~~At this point of my tome, if you can't tell that I love tildas, then you are missing something~~ This involves homemade carmel - not the kind you peel off the wrapper and melt. It's been very hard carmel in the past, so I'm anxious to see if I can make it better this year.

This photo is of the 2nd batch. The pink variety was created using apples from the Payson, Utah area (which were picked up by my incredible mom). The tan bottle was created using the last of the macs that my amazing niece, Natasha, picked up for me in the Logan area. Amazing to see the color difference, huh? The pink tint is what prevents some of my other nieces (I won't mention Courtney by name ;) ) from tasting this scrumptious treat.


Scout Shadow Box

Carson recently finished up Cub Scouts, and I had been collecting his miscellaneous scout paraphanalia in ziploc bags around the house. He asked me if I was going to do anything with all of the stuff, and it seemed so wrong to just toss it out. My local Hobby Lobby was having a 50% off sale on frames, so I picked this up for a mere $6.50! I found the cubscout paper at Roberts, and I raced home to put it all together. I'm still missing his compass points, but I think I saw them in the laundry room this morning...

Halloween Costume I'm not going to post a photo of this yet, but it'll show up in a couple of weeks. One of my favorite things to do is shop, so when Halloween costume ideas come up, I'm all about getting out there. I don't want to give too much away right now, but I found a leather jacket for $6 at Savers for Evan, and I sewed a down~right~fabulous cape using no pattern and 12" wide strips of two different types of black fabric for Carson. Griff's costume only requires the addition of ears to a past costume. Thank goodness for that costume box in the basement! Get this - Griff isn't even being the same Star Wars character that Carson used the costume for in the first place. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!

Night Stand
Cory and Shannon gave me this night stand a few years ago. I've used the dickens out of it, but it was very unspectacular. Design Sponge has a weekly post of Before & After projects. I got to thinking about that little underappreciated night stand, and I was inspired!

Luckily you can't read the titles of the books in that little travel case. I don't think you need to know what type of smut may find it's way into my to-be-read pile. Actually ~ there isn't any smut there ~ just some of the futuristic sci-fi romance that I decided to try. It wasn't that great...

I forgot to take before photos, but you can see that the after is pretty dang adorable. I took a pillow sham from my new bed ensemble (which sprung my next project ~ pillows and window treatments from coordinating fabric ~ also found at Hobby Lobby) to Home Depot and had them match the paint color to one of the stripes. I also picked out a lovely, simple drawer pull. It took me a full evening to sand the thing down (I was also able to keep Griffin busy that morning by handing him a sanding sponge and telling him to have at it while I did a conference call for work ~ FABULOUS!).

I rolled the entire thing ~ this went against the advice of my professional painting hubby, but I can't paint with a brush for anything. A 4" roller worked just fine, thanks... OK - so I thought I'd done an all right job on the dental trim, but this photo reveals otherwise. Looks like I'm off to find a small paintbrush and do some touchups.

ANYWAY - I'm so in love with this little piece that I picked up an end table at DI for $10 and have started sanding it down. The problem with this one? The drawer pull is a 2-1/2" center instead of the standard 3". Not an easy fix. I'm wondering what two knobs would look like... Never fear, I will find a solution ~ assuming I keep up the energy for more projects.

Are Moths Poisonous?

Evan and I just had the following conversation. My SIL's sister, Julia, was talking about the difference in male and female thinking last night. This is a perfect example!


Evan: Hey, Mom? Are moths poisonous?

Me: I don't think so.

Evan: Even if you put them in your mouth?

Me: silence - huh - I'm really stumped. Why would you want to do that?

Evan: shoulder shrug as he walked away smiling

Part 2:

Immediately after I posted our conversation, I wondered if moths really were poisonous. I called Evan back into the computer room and we looked it up online. We found out that there is a member of the Tiger moth family that is in fact poisonous because of the plants it eats while in larva form. Who knew?

Evan then told me that he was wondering if they were poisonous because of the powder that's on their wings. Again he sparked my curious side, and we looked that up, too. Turns out that the powder is actually scales that in a male contain scent to attract females. These scales help moths (and butterflies for that matter) escape things such as spider webs.

Evan's reply to this?

COOL! So if Frodo had been covered by those scales, he would have been able to escape the spider web!

I love how the male mind works.

Lobster

A couple of weeks ago Jon's friend, David Tipton, was working on the east coast and was nice enough to bring us home some lobster!

There were 6 of the things in the cooler. The boys thought it was so cool to watch them lethargically move around.

I had no idea how to cook these nasty looking beasts or how to crack them open once they were cooked. Apparently the Hills have had lobsters shipped in from the East Coast before (one particular batch was drowned in the bath tub before they could be eaten), so we headed over to the "Hill"ton for a Saturday afternoon meal.

Evan asked me if we could keep one and return it to the ocean. Like there's one of those somewhere nearby! Then proceeded to ask us how you cook them. I was S-T-U-P-I-D and made a wise crack about hearing them scream when they're dropped in the pot. Why do I do these things?! This REALLY got Evan thinking. Out of all of us, Evan's the most enthusiastic seafood lover, but he's also the most sensitive. He had tears rolling down his face while he thought of Snappy's demise.

BEFORE









AFTER







Thankfully there were no screams (from Snappy or from Evan), and everyone enjoyed a wonderful meal.

So Griff Goes...

I am daily amazed at the way Griffin's mind works. These are a few of the things that have occupied his thoughts just this week.

Today he woke up wanting to clean his room. He demanded that he get to use the vacuum. Who am I to stop that? Now he's in there using the hose attachment to pick up the clothes on the floor so that he DOESN'T HAVE TO BEND OVER.

Early this week Griff kept saying that he really wanted a spiky apple. I had no idea what he was talking about, and he was so frustrated with me. Yesterday I went shopping and picked up some fruit to take to Scone Sunday at G&G Hill's. I was putting it in the garage fridge when I got home, and he was helping. He grabbed one bag, dropped it on the ground and ran up to me. I got the tightest squeeze and the most amazing lip kiss ever. "Oh, Mom, you listened!" he said. I was still in the dark at this point so he picked up what he'd dropped and held it up like a prize trophy. Guess what it was... A pineapple.

While I was working yesterday afternoon Griff came in and said, "I think I need to get married very quickly." I raised my eyebrows and asked him why. He stage whispered, "Because there is a baby in my tummy - I can feel it moving." Then he proceeded to jump on the futon and produced a humongous belch. "See, you can even hear it talking!"

Last night Jon was laying on the couch watching the end of the U game, and Griffin decided to snuggle up and join him. Griff rolled over and said, "Dad - your arm pits smell so good. Just like eggs!"

Finally - I'll leave you with the picture Griff drew of me on Tuesday. It's nice to know that even at 4 he's already picked up on one particular portion of the female anatomy (not!). If you know how to interpret 4-yr-old then you can see that he even labeled this beauty just in case we didn't know who he'd drawn.

Missed It by || That Much

My Grandma Egan's birthday was September 14. I've been waiting for the day to get here because I wanted to write some things about this woman. For some reason I had it stuck in my head that her birthday was at the end of the month. Darn.

Grandma would have been 82. Lois Robinson Egan passed away on February 4, 1997.

The last time I saw her was the weekend before she passed away. She'd had some kind of surgery at the Utah Valley Regional Med Center, and Jon and I had driven down to Provo to see her. I was 3 months pregnant with Carson. I don't think my stomach was that big, but as soon as I walked in the door she told me that I needed to sit down. I got to sit on her bed and rub her feet while we talked.

Grandma was a very stubborn woman who absolutely refused to go through dialysis. Grandpa had taken her to Pocatello to have her first treatment. They had her all hooked up, and she asked him to go get her a magazine across the hall. He came back, and she was gone. I suppose that even in the end Grandma got her way.

There are a lot of things that I miss about Grandma.

• I miss the expression on her face when it was obvious that she disagreed with whatever you said. For some reason I remember this happening as I was heading out the back door, and she was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. She looked at me with that look, looked down at her hands, and then looked out the window while she shook her head.
• I miss watching her in her garden wearing her black rubber boots, holding up the bottom of her pocketed apron to create a place to hold veggies or raspberries or birds eggs.
• I miss feeding lambs and chicks with her on cold spring mornings.
• I miss watching her dry out the shower because I didn't do a good enough job. I'm kind of sad that this is one of the reasons that Jon and I stopped staying at her house when we'd go to Idaho.
• I miss watching her carry the wicker laundry basket outside to hang the clothes on the clothes line. Cory and I liked to run in and out of the sheets, and boy could she holler when she found us.
• I miss the way she'd rapidly tap her tongue on the roof of her mouth when she was tasting things off the wooden spoon and the way she'd open up her mouth and quickly stick her tongue out if it wasn't quite right.
• I miss her heart-stopping sneezes.
• I miss the way she'd scream, "HUH?" at the top of her lungs and not do anything to try to hear you better.
• I miss the smell of her Aquanet hair spray that she'd put on before she got ready to go to town. These trips usually involved going to Ropers, Gillettes, Burgers Etc, Kimberly Nursery, Golden Goose, or Twin. I loved that she knew everyone and that she actually smiled and laughed when we'd go see the butcher at Gillette's in Declo.
• I miss how she'd try to get everyone loaded in the van to make the drive to Goshen when we'd go wash my dad's headstone. The last time this happened was shortly after Cory & Shannon got married. She was saying that my cousin, Spencer, wanted to go. There already weren't enough seats in the van to comfortably fit us all (van held 7-8, and there were 7 adults). Spencer and Mandy would have had to sit in the back with the cleaning stuff and the flowers. I'm sure I was exhibiting my own stubbornness, but I made Jon get out of the van and drive our own vehicle. The thing that really ticked me off later was that Spencer asked me who Don Lundberg was. Perfect demonstration that Spence could have cared less if he got to go or not. I was right, but what does that matter now?

I wouldn't say that she was a warm, fuzzy, hugging kind of grandma, but I know she did love me. When I found out my Grandma Lundberg died during my sophomore year of college, Grandma Egan was the first person I called. She just sat on the other end of the phone and let me cry. After a while she told me a few things that she loved about me and said that Grandma Lundberg probably loved the same things. Almost made up for her missing my high school graduation because she'd just got a new batch of chicks.

I wish my boys could have known her. I think they would have learned a lot from the woman.

She would have taught them to use wax paper squares to make the big slide even more slippery. She would have taught them to appreciate back rubs with pencils and foot rubs with green Vaseline lotion. She would have taught them that the world stopped for The Young and the Restless at 10:00. She would have taken them to visit scary old ladies like her friends Wanda, Kay, and Anna (OK - Anna wasn't so scary, but wow Wanda and Kay made me nervous). She would have taught them to love crushed ice (this was chewed open-mouthed so that you could hear the crunching while watching Y&R) and Pepsi. She would have let them play dress up with their aunt's clothing even though their aunt specifically said they could not be in her bedroom. She would have scared the living tar out of them by clacking her dentures together and then denied that it ever happened.

Grandma hated having her picture taken. Even in the photos from my wedding she's not smiling. This one was taken at the airport when Cory was leaving on his mission.

I miss you Grandma.