An outing

Well, we did it. 

I had a little panic attack on the driveway (seriously, I came *this close* to throwing up) when I could not figure out how to reverse into our little turn-around area. I think I just need to park on the other side of the garage. Andrew thought it would be easier for me to back out from the far side of the garage, but I think it will actually be easier from the close side. But maybe not. 

Our driveway is so steep I felt like we were going to tip over, but naturally we didn't.

People have been driving up and down this horrendous driveway for decades and no one has tipped over yet. So I'm sure I won't be the first to do so. Hopefully.

All my little passengers cheered when we made it to the top. 

I'm so glad that I can show them that it's possible to do hard things that scare you almost to death. 

Next step was driving to the library. It's really a pretty straight shoot from our house. Rachel would like to try biking it one day (we'll see about that). 

The kids were excited to get to feed our books to Hiccups the Hippo.

Knorfing

Somehow at dinner today, Andrew ended up coining the word "knorfing."

We were having pizza and sweet Alexander was very insistent on having a spoon, a fork, and a knife to eat with (even though we'd already cut his pizza up for him). Spoo, for, nai, is what he calls those.

He was holding his fork and knife very maturely, doing his best to cut his pizza into small bites (but failing, of course, because he was using plastic children's cutlery from IKEA and those knives simply don't cut well, by design). Fork in his left hand, knife in his right.

I was cutting my pizza with the side of my fork (because my jaw is so misaligned that I can't physically bite anything unless I cut it into bite-sized pieces) and this bothered Alexander.

"Momma! Nai!" he said, offering me his knife. "Nai!"

"No, thanks," I said. "I'm good with just my fork. See how I can cut my pizza with my fork? That's talent, huh?"

"Yes. Mommy is knorfing her food with her..." Andrew started and then we all burst out laughing.*

"I'm knorfing my food?" I giggled. "What is that? Like I'm knifing it with a fork?"

That is exactly what he was meaning to say (except that he really meant to say "cutting," not knifing, because we typically cut food, not knife it).

So we had a very giggly suppertime, with liberal use of the word knorf.

And then I read this evening, in Gretchen McCulloch's book Because Internet, about "familects" (dialectal variants original to a family unit) and I started laughing again because...knorfing.

*This isn't quite how it came out, but I honestly can't remember quite when Andrew said it or how. Just that we all found his coinage hilarious.

The more you know...

I found a picture while we were packing of a rather triumphant freshman Andrew, standing on top of Y mountain, thigh-deep in snow and severely underdressed for the occasion. I'm sure if I had kept digging I would have found a picture of Beryl, who I believe undertook this ill-advised adventure with Andrew, but I didn't.

In part because I was busy, in part because I didn't want to spend the emotional energy looking for a picture of Beryl (though a picture of Beryl would complement this post quite nicely).

Beryl passed away in April after falling from Angel's Landing in Zion National Park, which was just so sad for us. But definitely more sad for Andrew, since, I mean, they were roommates. I was just the roommate's annoying girlfriend. But still, I was so sad because Beryl was so nice, so smart, and still so young with so much potential ahead of him.

When Andrew got home from his mission we went on a date and then he told me he was going to "date around" a bit, to test the water, see what was out there. And, like, fine. So, he went on a date with me and then he went on a date with Stormie (his other roommate's sister). This other roommate was so hoping that Andrew and his sister would click that he went ahead and set up another date for the two of them—a double date with him and his girlfriend! But after going out with Stormie once, Andrew had gone out with me again and said something to the effect of, "I'm finished dating around and just want to date you for a while."

And then his roommate dropped this bomb in his lap.

So Beryl—who was so painfully shy—was a good sport and stepped in at the last minute to be Stormie's date for the now-triple date. But then I think he ended up bowing out early and poor Stormie ended up being the fifth wheel on a very awkward double-and-a-half-date.

Anyway, we loved Beryl and his death kind of shook us up a bit. But, Andrew went to the funeral and made his peace with neglecting to get together with Beryl the past two years we were in Utah and...yeah. It is what it is.

Today my phone woke me up, buzzing on my nightstand. I was supposed to be enjoying a luxurious sleep-in after having somewhat of a nervous breakdown last night, and then being up with the baby a few times in the night. But it was 9:30 and "do not disturb" had turned off so my phone was buzzing like crazy on my night stand. I picked it up to see who was calling but no one was. It was just a series of rapid-fire texts.

The last one was from Josie: "Maybe it's cause I just woke up but I am already tearing up???"

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I wrote back: "Sorry?"

Feel the fear

Part of me thinks it would be silly to list out 100 things I'm afraid of (or that I worry about). But I read this article recently (or, you know, the abstract of it) that said that 91.4% of worries (for those suffering from General Anxiety Disorder) tend to not come true, the inverse of which means that 8.6% of worries do come true. So I quickly jotted down a list of fifty things (happily surprised that thinking of 100 things that were bothering me would be more time consuming than I had supposed) and upon reviewing the list I found that it's true that a lot more things on the list were hypothetical than were reality.

That said, at least 8.6% were present concerns. I guess the moral of the story is that we shouldn't invent things to be worried about. But isn't inventing things to worry about the entire premise of General Anxiety Disorder?

Not that I have GAD. I'm just saying—one wouldn't have GAD without having an imagination that churns out terrible ideas.

So, driving is one of my fears. I didn't get my license (officially) until I had three kids, so I was...however old I was...27? I was 27. And, um, I have yet to ever drive over 50 MPH, have never driven on the freeway, et cetera, and so forth. But baby steps, right? I'll just pick a place and drive there and that will be one place I can drive (which is better than no places). It might bring me a sense of accomplishment, but I don't think it will bring me happiness. I have no desire to be wielding 2 tonnes of machinery and would much prefer other modes of transportation (but I'm also afraid to ride a bike in the road, so...).

But, I...will do it. Because I know that exposure really is the best way to temper a phobia (thanks, Crystal, for encouraging me in that).

Like my Grandma was so fond of repeating: Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Culture shock

Today I feel transplanted. Like I'm hiding out—or trapped—in my own house. Like the city is a desert sprawling around me. Like there is no where for me to go if I were to venture out of the house. Or that if there were somewhere for me to go that I wouldn't be able to get there anyway.

Everything seems to be fifteen minutes away. The thought of driving that far makes my hands clammy, makes my stomach churn, makes my throat seize up and my mouth to salivate as if my body can't decide whether I'm going to cry or throw up. And, allow me to point out, it's midnight.

I'm not about to go anywhere.

I'm just thinking about maybe sometime driving somewhere—anywhere—at some future time.

The doctor. The orthodontist. The library. The church. The school. The park.

Tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

It doesn't matter where. It doesn't matter when. It doesn't even matter that it's entirely hypothetical.

Barf.

Probably I'm making things worse by not driving anywhere (I have driven once so far) but, you guys, the traffic here is terrifying. It never runs out.

The traffic doesn't run out and the city doesn't run out. Cars are constantly zipping along, confidently changing lanes, or merging into a never-ending stream of other cars, and I don't have that sort of bravery. And the city just keeps going. Sometimes I think for sure we've hit the outskirts of town. But I'm not sure there even are outskirts anymore. There's nothing but endless city.

Of course I know that's not true, but it currently feels rather stifling. Even though we had to interrupt our family night so we could run to the window to stare at the baby fawn who stumbled onto our driveway (it was so cute) which means we're clearly not stuck in some urban hellscape—we live in a beautiful place—it's stifling.

It's just culture shock (and it will get better, I'm sure).

Today's notes

We are not unpacking in one fell swoop, but we're ever so slowly settling in.

Today we tamed the yard a bit. And by we I mean Andrew.

He trimmed some overgrown hedges, mowed and edged the lawn, and who knows what else. We found that we actually have a decent-sized lawn in the front that's probably big enough to set up the badminton net (Rachel is dying to find out).

We also managed to clear out half of our garage, so now the van is parked inside! Not everything we brought into the house got put away, but it's in the house and we're finding places for things.

*****

Closets are weirding me out. I have a few hallway closets and I absolutely don't know what to do with them because I've never really had closets before. We had one in our first apartment, none in Egypt or Jordan, none when we lived with Andrew's parents in Orem, one in our Hummingbird Lane house (but the closet also housed the washer and dryer so it wasn't as if it was a very big closet), and one when we lived with Andrew's parents in Spanish Fork.

So I kind of keep forgetting that we can put things into closets. I keep thinking we need to assemble a shelf to put things on. We have two hallway closets upstairs and two hallway closets downstairs, which I'm sure I'll get used to (and which I'm sure will be filled up in no time).

*****

We are entering our last week of summer break, which I'm both looking forward to and not.

I don't feel like we really got to do anything...fun...this summer, which is disappointing. But we did move across the country, so that's got to count for something. We'll have to plan a beach trip sometime soon. 

I think it will be nice for the kids to start up at their new schools and meet some kids in the area. They're ready for some playmates who aren't each other for a change. 

Rachel and Miriam were invited to spend the afternoon with some girls in our ward and they had a ton of fun painting and going to a cool park and even to a British candy shop. 

We've all been at each other's throats so it was nice for them to get some fresh air and fresh company.

Swell Foop

I went to a Relief Society dessert night a couple of weeks ago—and it was great because the unintended theme (it was potluck, and, boy, did we get lucky?!) of the desserts was lemon and blueberry and it was divine. There was a sister there, who was telling about her baptism sixty years ago. Her family lived out in the country and didn't make it to the church building very often, so her mother had her wait until her little brother turned eight (and she, herself, was twelve) and had them baptized together in "one swell swoop!"

She said "swell swoop" a couple more times that evening and every time I did a mental jaw drop.

Swell swoop!

Why hadn't I ever thought of saying that? Do you say that?

A quick Google search reveals that it's...not really a thing. But how incredible that she says that.

The saying, of course, is "fell swoop," first appearing in MacBeth, where fell means fierce, sinister or deadly and swoop means "a single concentrated and quickly effective effort." But, honestly, people rarely use that aspect of fell these days. In fact, a friend of mine repeatedly used the adjective "fell" in a book he's getting published and his editor repeatedly removed it because "fell creature" is...a little...archaic. This friend put it back in, though, because he was going for an archaic feel.

Fell comes from the Latin root fello, meaning "villain," which is related to the word "felon" in English (from fel (or "poison" or "bitter" or, aptly, "one full of bitterness") in Latin).

It's understandable that this woman, who grew up in rural Georgia some 60 years ago, might have figured the saying was "swell swoop" since fell...fell...out of use quite some time ago (as in, like, Shakespeare may have used it knowing what it meant back in the 16th/17th century, but the average English speaker today, in the 21st century, probably wouldn't pick up on that meaning).

Real food

"What's your favourite tool from this box?" Benjamin said, plunking a play-dough food set in front of me.

"You know, buddy, I'm trying to eat my lunch right now. Everybody's trying to eat their lunch. And I don't really know. I'm not good with favourites..."

"You know what I hate about that picture?" Rachel asked. "The pretzel sandwich. I mean, I just don't think a pretzel could support everything they put inside. Maybe if they made a thinner sandwich or..."

"Pretzels are delicious!" I said. "That sandwich looks great...for a sandwich made of play-dough."

"Can we play with play-dough after lunch?" Miriam asked.

They ended up playing with Barbies instead. But for dinner I whipped up a batch of pretzel dough and we spent some time playing with real dough (instead of play-dough). We managed to shape some fairly decent-looking pretzels, except for those of us who found the dough a little too sticky to work with. Those people (Zoë) made pretzel bites.

Toy food

Today I reassembled the play kitchen and Alexander has been in little boy heaven. He insisted on bringing a toy pot—with a lid—to the table for lunch and communicated—loud and clear—that his lunch was to go inside. He took the lid off for every bite he took and replaced it while he chewed and was obviously very proud of his lunchtime routine.

He was less happy when I told him we needed to put his pot into the dishwasher (since it was covered in cucumber slime, peanut butter, and strawberry jam).

"No, Momma!" he protested, clutching the pot to his chest. "Toy! TOY!"

In the end I convinced him to allow me to pry it from his fingers and I lugged him upstairs for nap time.

"No, Momma! Play! Toy! Food! Play! Toy! Food!" he cried.

In the end I managed to get him down for a nap.

He beat me upstairs when we came home from back-to-school shopping (after two years of not having to buy any supplies for our children, we suffered a bit of some sticker shock buying supplies for three children, but it was a decent trade-off for the emotional high of buying new school supplies (is there any better feeling?)) so by the time I made it up there he was already involved in cooking up some delicious pretend thing in his room.

One of his favourite things is putting these plastic ice cream cones on the stove burners because the stove burners light up when you turn them on, which illuminates the ice cream cones, and he seems to think that's pretty neat. He also made himself a little sandwich—with a hamburger bun, a hamburger, a plate, a slice of cheese, and a chip (in that order)—which he pretended to eat with much gusto.

Anyway, you can imagine how he responded when I told him it was time to get ready for bed, but after a whole lot of screaming about needing to play with his toy food, I managed to calm him down and get him into bed.

Hopefully tomorrow he'll want to play with his toy kitchen again! It's been rather nice to have him play on his own a little bit!

The Laundry Room

Our washing machine weighs 200 (and one!) pounds and this evening Andrew, Rachel, and I managed to lift it up and set it on its pedestal. This was no easy feat, but now our washer and dryer finally match, and our appliance saga should be over (because in addition to delivering our appliances and not installing them, and then having to hire a plumber to get our kitchen up to code so a new dishwasher could be installed, one of our pedestals arrived with a cracked clamp so we had to mail it back and instead of sending us a replacement they issued a refund and we had to reorder and...it's been an ordeal).

Hopefully with the washing machine up a little higher I'll be able to see whether or not there's already a load inside!

I'm not sure I wrote about this on the blog (though I know I wrote about it on Facebook).

Keeping up with the laundry (and regular life, in general) has been difficult on top of trying to unpack and organize our home and set up our life here. One day I carefully sorted out a load of whites and threw it into the washing machine, which I assumed was vacant. When our washing machine sang its cheery tune ("Die Forelle" by Schubert) I opened the door, reached in and grabbed a handful of soggy...darks?!


Had I washed a load of darks instead of the whites I so distinctly remembered doing? Had someone else switched the whites to the dryer and started another load? Had I put the whites in the dryer?

I opened the dryer and found it was empty so I flung my handful of clothes inside and reached in for another handful. More darks? I squatted down and started pulling more and more darks out: a pair of jeans, some red pyjama bottoms, a multitude of socks. Basically things that I would never dream of throwing in with a load of whites, which I was sure is what I had prepared to wash!

And then I spotted it—a flash of white!

I pulled out Andrew's Sunday shirt (and more and more whites).

Sure enough, this poor washing machine was very full because I had not noticed that it was already occupied when I went to start my load. Andrew had started a load of darks the previous day and had forgotten to finish it, so I washed a load of whites with the load of darks that he'd started.

You know what they say: too many launderers spoils the laundry!

Fortunately, nothing terrible seems to have happened to those intermingling clothes, so perhaps my non-sorting friends have a point: sorting laundry is simply a time-wasting ploy.

But I'm probably going to keep doing it...