Happy Birthday to Me

I had a lovely birthday. In fact, as I blog this, I am eating some frozen yogurt brought to me by my wonderful and considerate husband from my favorite place, the Golden Spoon. Half pumpkin and half egg nog. Absolute perfection in only 144 calories and 3 points if you follow Weight Watchers.

I got some wonderful gifts. A beautiful necklace and matching bracelet from Clark and money from both my dad and my loving Grandma. Even Booker cashed in, with a Sacajawea dollar coin from his Great-Grandma Tueller. What a lucky boy!

I have two purposes for this post. First, I'm calling out my mother. She did not call me on my birthday and I am using this very public arena to air my grievances and self-pity. Mostly self pity, because I'm good at that. Even my dad called me from Amman, so there's absolutely no reason you can't call from Provo, Utah. An email would have worked too. A text message could have gotten the point across. I just wanted to know that she remembered me today. I may have turned 23, but when it comes to things like this, I may as well be 5 years old. My feelings are hurt. Humph.

Now that that's off my chest, I'll tell you about my favorite birthday present this year. Today, I got a card from my sister and in it was her 60 day chip. SHE GAVE IT TO ME!!! I can't believe it. Two months of sobriety from my sister is THE best gift I could ever receive. Seriously, how cool is that? Very cool. I love it. I absolutely love this little chip. I'm obsessed with it. Its perfect and everything it represents is perfect. I'm going to put it under my pillow at night and in my shoe during the day. Just kidding, but maybe not. I like it that much.

Anyways, I'm off to take a hot shower to wash away the Halloween grime and to watch some episodes of Undeclared to "wash" away the terrible abandonment I feel right now. I'm only half kidding- I am such a drama queen, I really am. I want to thank everyone who made my birthday so awesome and I guess that includes my mother since I love wallowing in self-pity so much. Thank you, thank you for a great 23rd birthday.

Tagged By Erin

5 THINGS

5 things I was doing 10 years ago: I was 13 and living in London
1- Growing boobs, as you can quite obviously tell from this photo. (I can still remember my grandmother's disapproving look when I showed up at my cousin Nadia's wedding in that dress.)
2- Taking the tube all the way from Hampstead to Kensington to spend the night every weekend at my best friend, Catharine Tack's house.
3- Taking the #13 or #82 double decker bus to school each day.
4- Swimming two hours everyday with the Camden Swiss Cottage Swim Club (CSCSC for short).
5- Avoiding hamburgers because of mad cow disease.

5 things on my "to-do" list tomorrow:
1- Write my brother David.
2- Take Booker to get fitted for special ear plugs at the Audiologist.
3- Get an emissions test for the car.
4- Go to the gym.
5- Laundry.

5 things I would do if I had a million dollars:
1- Pay off our student loans.
2- Buy Clark a Wii, a guitar amp and some golf lessons.
3- Buy a house/some land.
4- Start saving for an early retirement.
5- Start saving for a month long trip to Cairo to visit my family next year!

5 things I will never wear again:
1- PANTIES
2- Doc Martens and a mini skirt, together or separately. (What can I say? Middle school was hard on me)
3- Anything that will make my grandma give me a disapproving look.
4- A pair of heels
5- A bikini

Favorite toys:
1- Photoshop
2- Laptop
3- Digital camera
4- Fake glasses with nose/mustache from the $ store (heh heh)
5- Any toy that will keep Booker from mauling me every two seconds.

5 people I'm tagging:
The Burtons, the Singers, the Krumperkids, the Wernlis, Purple Petra and the Rabid Paladin (more than five... ohwell).

Elmo's Halloween World

I know its a bit early for pumpkins but I couldn't help myself. You see, our only neighbors (we live on the corner) have gone WILD with Halloween decorations and I was worried I might offend them by not putting up anything at all. Their yard and driveway look like one of those Halloween stores that spring up in parking lots for the month of October. My favorite decoration of theirs is a human arm that is hanging out of the bed of their pick-up truck. Its creepy.

Every time I pull into my driveway and pass their house, I feel like I need to join with them in their decorating madness so they don't think I'm a Halloween Grinch. So last night, I drew out Elmo (I know, its hard to tell) on a pumpkin and put him proudly out on our driveway. Its too soon to carve it up, but I wanted to post some evidence that it did in fact exist because I'm 90% sure that when its carved, it will no longer look anything like Elmo.

Its nothing compared to our neighbors, but at least now trick-or-treaters will know that they can stop by our house for candy. Maybe one day when we have more money and, even less likely, when I can convince Clark that Halloween decorations are fun, we'll be even more festive.

Stay tuned over the next few weeks for photos of Booker's Halloween costume. We won't tell you what it is, but Booker's cousin Will Emmett knows because it used to belong to him. I'll just say that Booker loves it so much that when he finds it in his drawer, he brings it to me and begs me to put it on. Its awesome!

Here's our neighbor's yard...

My Gospel ABC's

Ever since I entered Relief Society 5 years ago, I've held the slightly irrational belief that the measure of a "good" LDS woman is directly related to her scrapbooking abilities. Only those who attend weekly scrapbooking clubs, document their child's first poopy diaper in a cute little album and own tons of fancy paper, buttons, stickers, ribbons, stencils, cut-outs (the list goes on and on) will make it into the Celestial Kingdom. I always felt my creative skills would never measure up so I really never got into it, even though I secretly wished I would. I knew it was something I would thoroughly enjoy but didn't want to compete with the pros so I never tried. That is, until last weekend.

I always need a little project to keep me focused as I watch Conference. If I don't have something to do with my hands I always end up either falling asleep or cleaning the house with the TV turned up loud. So on Saturday night, while Clark was at the Priesthood session, I went out to Michael's to get the supplies I needed to make something. I ended up spending two hours walking up and down the same three aisles. I was completely overwhelmed with all the choices and I almost backed out, feeling like whatever I made would never be "cute" enough. I came home with a small 6x6 album, several sheets of paper, glue and some ABC stickers.

What resulted after several hours of cutting up Ensigns is... well, something I'm actually quite proud of- Booker's Gospel ABC's. Its not perfect- the lines aren't quite straight and I'm sure there a typo somewhere. But I don't care. I like it and I think Booker likes it too. Of course, he won't appreciate it for a few more years. But there are a couple of pages he really likes- D is for Daddy, with a picture of Clark. M is for Mommy- with one of me. F for Family and G for Grandparents are popular too. His favorite, however is Y is for YOU because I pasted a little mirror on it.

I liked my venture into the world of scrapbooking, but I think I'll stick to my digital stuff. I can always get my edges perfectly lined up and there's no pesky glue involved. And on top of it all, its MUCH much cheaper. In fact, I think I'll make a digital version in case I'm ever called to an Enrichment Committee or to simply give to Booker's cousins.

Anyways, here are a few of my favorite pages.

I'm SO Lame

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!