BYU Perks

My dad is a Vice President at BYU ("a" meaning one of many) and let me tell you, there are some serious perks. Not only does he automatically get season tickets to every single sport (yay BYU football!!), but the entire family also bowls for FREE. Yeah, his job pretty much rocks. So for my sister Lissa's birthday we all went bowling. I got 83 on my game (a personal best). All three of my kids beat me on theirs. They surely didn't get my bowling genes!

After bowling we had a picnic lunch.

Free bowling. Seriously. Can life get better than this? I submit that it cannot!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Don't ask me how I got there, but MormonTimes is having this thing called a Blogging Brawl, right? So I think "Hmmm ... could be interesting" and I click on a link. Well, it turns out that all the bloggers are single 20-somethings. And all they blog about is dating. I know, I know, when you are a single 20-something, dating is pretty much all you think about. But honestly? Is there not anything else interesting happening in your life? I read my single 20-somethings cousins' blogs and they actually do cool things like go to the Holi festival at the Krishna Temple and rappel off apartment complexes.

But I digress. The truth is, if I had blogged back in the day, I surely would have written about my own dating fiascoes. Or at least I would have wanted to. Actually, I probably wouldn't have for fear that somehow the guy would find my blog and read about himself and feel hurt. I know this because I've been out of the dating scene for six years and I'm STILL scared to write about dating JUST IN CASE Joe-schmoe reads this. Because obviously a married mother of three who puts on a pound a month, loathes makeup in all forms, and only ever wears her hair in ponies is SUPER ATTRACTIVE and Joe-schmoe continues to follow my life. My logic is so sound. [Did you sense the sarcasm?]

February 2002 - at BYU

I digress again. This whole thing just made me think about breaking up. Prior to my mission, breaking up was a win-or-lose game. If I do the breaking up, I win. If someone breaks up with me, I lose. Hence our conversations often went like this ...

Random Guy: I think we should break up.
Janae: I've been thinking the same thing! I think we should just be friends.
Random Guy: [in relief] Me too!

BIG FAT LIAR. I thought no such thing. I just wanted to save face. Then there was that one time a guy gave me the ever-so-common "we need to talk," and I thought he was going to break up with me, so I jumped the gun and broke up with him first. Turns out he wanted to talk about something else. Oops.

But then I served a mission. Heaven knows that when you get rejected two dozen times a day, you really start appreciating people who are straightforward. I decided to follow this same philosophy in dating.

So, Joe-schmoe, I just want to apologize for telling you straight-up at the end of our first (and only) date that I had zero interest in having any relationship, beyond cordiality, with you. I probably could have been at least a little more subtle. Really, I'm sorry.

I'm not alone

This afternoon I picked up the paper (Deseret News) and read something absolutely fascinating:

When I open my mouth, I'm never sure what's going to come out. Apparently, my mouth runs independently of my other motor functions. The entire time I'm talking, alarms are going off in my brain, not unlike those you hear in those submarine movies.

It is unfortunate that there is no editing and deleting of the spoken word. When I talk, I am an interested bystander wondering what this idiot is going to say.

Oh, no, words are coming out!

When I am standing outside myself watching me talk, my brain sends warning signals to my mouth that usually arrive way too late: ABORT! ABORT!

(Doug Robinson, Me on TV: It's a frightful combo)

It's so nice to know that I'm not alone in the world. Seriously. The alarms, the out-of-body listening, I know exactly what he's talking about.

Musings on the Messes of Motherhood

I've finally come to a conclusion about the housekeeper/mother dichotomy:

If my kids are creative, my house is cluttered.
If my house is clean, my kids are tv zombies.

Laziness tells me that it would be easiest to either let them watch tv all day long so that I don't have to clean up after them, or to let them make the messes but not clean up and ignore the disaster zone that I live in. But blast it all, I want creative children AND a clean house! Why is it so exhausting to have both??!

I've come up with a solution to this problem. You want to know what it is? The great outdoors. If they play outside, my house stays clean, and they can still be creative. Perfect! There is just one problem. Kids just don't love being outside like they used to (read: how they did on Little House on the Prairie and Leave it to Beaver). At least mine don't. You watch these shows and the kids are so innovative. They come up with all these fun things to do and games to play, with nothing at all. My kids, on the other hand, require no end of bikes, trikes, balls, bubbles, and chalk to be moderately happy for ten minutes. Then they come to the door and beg to come inside. "No!" I tell them. "Not until Sesame Street is on!" (Aren't I awesome?)

For a long time I've wondered what was wrong with this picture, but I think I pinpointed it today. See, I was reading about the new movie Babies and how one of the little ones in Africa put dirt in her mouth. And suddenly it hit me.

I only let my kids play outside where there is immaculate grass from fence to fence. Because, of course, I don't want them to get dirty. Why? Well, I don't want to have to clean them up, change their outfits, and do an extra load of laundry. No wonder my kids don't like being outside! Grass is so boring all by its lonesome! Where are the bugs? the rocks? the leaves? the dirt? the sticks? the mud? Oh. Well, they are in corner the kids aren't allowed to play in. Because, duh, the kids would get dirty.

Right after I had this epiphany, I sent the kids outside. "You will have fun, dang it!" So Elijah goes out and is immediately enchanted. He's found an ant colony. And what is my first reaction?

"Hey! Where is that ant killer stuff!?"

MTC Anniversary

Eight years ago today I entered the Missionary Training Center. In celebration, my MTC comps and I went out to lunch. Then we went on a little jaunt to the MTC to reminisce about old times. Like how the MTC presidency had to make several announcements about not blasting EFY music outside (oops). Or how we got in trouble for sunbathing (in jogging apparel) during exercise time. We joined the choir just so we could get good seats for the devotionals. We met Lavell Edwards and Janice Kapp Perry. Sister Livingstone's mom brought us Jamba Juices during her volunteer shift. Sister Truesdell slapped an Elder for making a dumb remark. My two comps clandestinely passed out nearly 100 invitations and threw me a surprise birthday party. Sister Truesdell's journal entry from the first day said, "Today was my first day at the MT ..." because I turned out the light at 10 pm. We helped organize an underground 'dress like elders' day and put signs in all the women's bathrooms so all the sisters wore black skirts and white, collared shirts. And of course, how all our teachers thought our district had emotional problems and were constantly trying to have 'therapy' sessions with us.

So we were a bit unorthodox. But boy did we spice up the MTC! Those were the days. :)

My Mission in Numbers

2 mission calls*
6 MTC teachers
2 presidents
5 areas
6 baptisms
11 companions
19 months

*I was called to Portugal Lisbon North, but it was dissolved to create the Capo Verde Mission while I was in the MTC, so our whole district had our calls changed to Portugal Porto.

Now that's romantic

One of my pet peeves about romance movies is that they never show it how it really is. They stop right at the giddy, titillating part and never get to the part where love turns comfortable. Okay, so it might be anti-climactic to have the movie end when things are boring. But as a nod to true love, I want to share this parody of the song Love Story by Taylor Swift (if you want, click here and watch the first 25 seconds of the original music video ... it will help you appreciate the song below).

Ain't that the truth!?

Well, my Romeo did something super romantic this week. He took two days off to tend the kids so I could skip off to Women's Conference with my mom.

We met my dad and sister (both of whom work for BYU) for lunch both days, and even ran into my Aunt Carol.

Interesting how one of the most romantic things my husband can do doesn't actually involve us being together.