More Free Dinner

One of Andrew's teachers is the Dean over the Honor's program. Today was the Honor's Banquet and they were selling tickets for $15 each. Apparently college students can't afford that (ya think?) so Andrew's teacher bought about 100 of them and sold them to students for $4 each. That's a pretty good deal if you think about it.

So Andrew and I went to the Honor's Banquet today. As did half of Andrew's Italian class.

The dress was business casual, so we had to come home after school so that Andrew could change. I live my life in business casual, but Andrew is still in the jeans and t-shirt stage of his life.

He looks so good when he dresses up though! He wore his nice maroon shirt that I got him for Christmas and I picked out a yellow tie for him to wear.

Little did I know, Andrew and one of his little buddies from his mission had planned on wearing their matching maroon shirts. The last time I did anything like that was in, oh, let me check my calendar...oh, yeah...it was grade five! Eleven years ago.

So Andrew shows up wearing his maroon shirt and yellow tie and there's his mission buddy wearing a maroon shirt and a black tie. Apparently he had desperately hunted around for his yellow tie but couldn't find it.

He sure does keep my life interesting...

We went to a "break-out" session on financial planning. There's this cool course online to help you get your finances on track. We're definitely going to look into that more.

After that, we went through the Beholding Salvation exhibit at the MOA. We're definitely going to look into that more as well. There's only so much you can cover in half an hour.

And now we're home. I was hoping to take a picture of Andrew to prove to the world that a maroon shirt and a yellow tie really do look good together (he even did his hair!) but if any of you know Andrew at all you know that he's currently in shorts and a t-shirt...

Not that I can really talk. I came home and immediately put on my pyjamas.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Andrew and I saw an advertisement for a clover-shaped pizza at Papa Murphy's. After seeing their trick for shaping the dough for the heart-shaped pizzas, we just didn't think it was worth the money to pay for a pizza with half of it cut off.

So instead we made our own clover-shaped pizzas. Mine was barbecue chicken and Andrew's was meat-lovers: sausage and ham. I shaped the dough this time because Andrew ruined our Valentine's Day pizza last year and was a little apprehensive about making the clovers. The trick is to just roll out the dough and then cut it out instead of trying to shape the dough into the shape you want.

Here is Andrew decorating his pizza:


He chose to be unfestive this year and didn't wear any green (I definitely pinched him). So I chose a shirt to compliment his: it's yellow but it has green on it. I figured if I was wearing yellow and Andrew was wearing blue that would count as us both wearing green.


Our pizzas turned out beautifully. Andrew's is on the left, mine is on the right.


Andrew also had the brilliant idea of making a dessert pizza. While I made the dough, Andrew made an apple/walnut/cinnamon mixture to put on top. It turned out beautifully. It definitely tastes better than it looks. The topping ended up melting all over the pan and we had to scrape it off and put it back on...but it really does taste delicious.


To use up the rest of our dough we made a pot of gold. You can't really make a cut-out with left-over dough because then you would still have left-overs. The pineapple is the gold, and the cheese is supposed to be the pot.


So, in between homework, work, going for a walk and running into a kid from Andrew's mission, and having Sarah coming over to help us dance, that was our St. Patrick's Day. I wish every holiday tasted this good.

...with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers...

Perhaps "They're coming to take me away" isn't an entirely appropriate title for this post, but it does involve flowers and basket weavers, among other things.

My cousin, Eric, I assume, is taking flower arranging. Yesterday he surprised my mom by leaving a beautiful flower arrangement on her desk, just for her. She thought that perhaps he meant to leave it there for her to look at it all day and then take it away to give to some girl, but no, he really just meant it to be for her. It is quite beautiful.

She invited Andrew and I over to see it/have dinner. Andrew had a fun time playing with the settings on our camera. It's really quite fun to have a digital camera because then you can take virtually as many pictures you want of something without having to worry about wasting money on film or developing pictures.



When we went over to my parent's house for David's birthday we also took some pictures of my dad's baskets. While Eric is busy learning how to arrange flowers, my dad is, seriously, taking a basket weaving class at BYU. Instead of calling it "Basket Weaving 101," they chose to call it, "Problems in Art 495R" or something like that. I suppose it is so students would take the class a little more seriously.

Dad is currently working on his last basket, so once he's finished, we plan on taking a few more pictures to share with you. I believe the one stained darker is called a "cat's head" basket. Yuck. He also made a melon basket, and one other, and now he's working on an egg basket. I never knew there were so many kinds of baskets.

And while we're into art, I have a few more pictures of projects that family members are quite pleased with.

This is Josie's piece of artwork that she made with clay. It is really very, very tiny, so I'm impressed that she got that much detail into her work. She shaped every pea individually, made little tines on her forks, and the cork comes off the bottle. Amazing, no? There's even a napkin ring.

Last, I have a picture that Andrew took while we were playing triominos. He really likes how he even captured the reflection of the triominoes on the table...


I am just surrounded by talented folks! What can I say?

Dwight?

We were heading to the grocery store yesterday: Macey's. We have this strange loyalty to Macey's, even though to get to Macey's we technically pass Albertson's, Smith's, and depending on the way we drive, Harmon's. I suppose it has to do with the fact that both sets of parents typically shop at Macey's. We're familiar with their layout. They have better prices than Albertson's or Smith's or Harmon's.

Do all grocery stores in Utah belong to someone? We also have Allen's and Sam's Club. I can't think of one that doesn't have an apostrophe in it. In Alberta we had IGA (which is now called something else, I don't remember what), The Great Canadian Superstore, Sav-on Foods, and a few others that really didn't belong to anyone. I suppose that's what you get for living in a socialist country. Just kidding.

Anyway, we were heading to Macey's and we were stopped at a red light. I looked out the window and happened to see Dwight, from the Office. Andrew saw him, too. He was ever so carefully spray painted onto a utility box with, get this, a stencil.

This made me have flash backs to Europe where a whole lot of graffiti is done with stencils. They don't do this free-hand stuff. They stencil their gang names, they stencil Disney characters, they stencil...just graffiti. But only in the really uptight countries.

I first noticed this phenomenon when I went on a trip to the Baltics from Russia. Russia was rather dirty. They had street sweepers to clean up trash but no one really cared about keeping the streets clean so there was always plenty of trash abounding (not that Americans should talk. Look at the grossness in the above picture). We stepped out of the train in Latvia. Wow. To us it looked spotless. Well cared for. Pristine. Then we got to Sweden. Now that was a clean, well-organized country.

But we did notice, in both of these places...stenciled graffiti. Now, that's got to make you feel tough, doesn't it?

Gang member #1: What did you do last night?
Gang member #2: I did some wicked graffiti.
GM #1: Oh, let's see!
Both gang members walk to where the heinous crime has taken place. On an otherwise spotless brick wall is a newly stenciled mickey mouse done in bright yellow, with the gang name stenciled beneath it.
GM#1: Oh, isn't that just precious. Nice work. I really like the detail on the ears.
Both gang members emit some evil laughter, but then they hear the sirens...
GM#2: Let's beat it!

Oh, yeah. That's the epitome of rebellion.

I wonder if the person who spray painted Dwight on the utility box got the same kick out of it!

Female?

I just put on my innocent wouldn't-you-just-do-anything-for-me voice and asked Andrew to get the mail.

I looked at him, batted my eyes, and said, "Mail?"

He looked at me and said, "Female."

I said, "I don't know. Fii mail?"

We had a good laugh about that. Fii in Arabic means yest in Russian or che in Italian. In English, we really just don't have a good word for that. We do have a few phrases, though. Some that come to mind are, "Is there any _____?" or "Does _____ exist?" Needless to say, it is so much cooler to say "Fii mail?" or "Che mail?" than "Does the mail exist?" or "Is there any mail."

I asked Andrew how you say mail in Arabic (all in Arabic, by the way). The word is "burrita" kind of like a female version of burrito. I thought that was pretty funny.

In case you were wondering the outcome of our mail situation, maa fii. No mail is existing.

To make myself feel better about this I checked my email. No emails were addressed to me, but I did have 10 pieces of junk mail which I deleted without looking at. Had we had any snail mail, that's probably what we would have done with the majority of it, too. I suppose it is better that we had no mail...at least we didn't have to throw anything away.

Twinkle Toes

Andrew and I have been, as our dear coach Alison said last night, "found out." Once you're found out, there's no going back. Our secret has been publicized. It's not really our fault, see. We are home teachers to a woman on the activities committee. We're newly weds. Naturally, she asked how we met. Naturally, we told the truth.

We met in a ballroom class in high school. We danced on the team. We were competition partners. Andrew dropped me in front of the entire high school doing a really simple lift. The next day he took me to the Homecoming dance and for the "day date" we went hiking. I could hardly move my leg because my knee was an awful color of black and swollen up the wazoo. It was love at first sight, really...


And so, at church a few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Maria when who should run up to talk to us but home-teaching-lady. She handed us a schedule. We were told to bring our husbands and that the first practice would be February 15th. We were now dancers for our Stake "Can Mormons Dance?" Activity.

Contrary to what Andrew thinks, I didn't "volunteer." I was accosted. I just happened to be happier about it than he was.

So, we went. We signed up for foxtrot because no one really had signed up for that dance...no one signed up for polka either, but really...who wants to polka around the dance floor while six months pregnant? Fox trot is one thing. Cha cha is another. But when you move into swing or polka...there's just no way I'm going to bounce around that much.

Andrew was pretty embarrassed the first practice because we hadn't really danced in a while and he felt a little rusty. However, the dances started coming back quicker than he thought and he's quite confident teaching the men the dance moves. (Our teacher doesn't have a partner and it's a little difficult to teach both genders in such a short amount of time).

After coming home from practice, Andrew said to me, "I forgot how much fun this is!" I agreed with him that it was fun, but inside I was rejoicing because I have been trying to get him to take me dancing for a long time. We hadn't been since last Valentine's day!

So, here's a sneak preview of the dance we'll be doing. You might be able to notice my expanding stomach at this point. A few people have noticed...not that many though. Please be aware that we still are rather rusty and really, I am 5 1/2 months pregnant so my balance simply isn't what it used to be.



We'll be sure to film the real performance for you. It will be cooler because it will involve more than just us dancing around the room. We will be in cool costumes. And there will be music instead of us shouting out the names of the steps (which is why I'm not turning my head in the first go of the routine--I'm reading a piece of paper...)

Green Thumb

I have the daffodil bulbs that I got last year for Easter. They've been in my fridge for a while looking less-than-pretty. Don't even try to make me feel better. They're completely dead (well, hibernating, or whatever it is plants do) and look brown and gross. They've been that way since last April.


A while back I repotted them, watered them, and put them in my fridge to "show 'em winter" just like Sister Banta said I should. I watered them quasi-religiously (okay, I usually forgot to). Nothing was happening, except that I was developing a case of mold, and it was taking up room in our fridge, so about a week ago I decided to take them out and "show 'em spring."

I told Andrew once that people in our family are good at killing plants. It's strange. My Grandma and Grandpa C. could make anything grow. My grandma had plants all over her house, her flower gardens were beautiful and her vegetable gardens were lush. She had enough strawberries and raspberries to freeze them and keep her grandchildren happy all year long with a nice bowl of vanilla ice cream topped with fruit. It was the best in the summers when we would go and visit and she would have us help her pick berries. I didn't really like weeding that much but picking berries sure was fun.

And then their trees. They are nothing like the trees we have in my backyard (read: parent's back yard). We have water scouts going up all over the place and the trees are reaching way higher than they should be. We do have fruitful years but that's sheer nature. It's no skill on our part.

My grandpa had apple trees. He would prune them and care for them and even mix and match to create new varieties of apples. And he was a farmer, of course, so he made his whole living by making plants grow.

They were just good at it. My family though, kills plants. We forget to water or over water or place them in a draft or... I could go on, but I don't think I need to. In short, we get plants and they die.

Andrew and I went to the store and I was looking at plants. He said that he'd get me one and I could take care of it and if it survived for a month, then we could get a baby. I told him that that wouldn't work because a) we're already getting a baby and b) the plant would die. Plus, I'm not seven anymore. He should probably try that on our children though--not for a baby, and certainly not for a puppy, but perhaps for a cat. Instead of keeping a plant alive though it could be like this: Keep your room clean and do the dishes everyday for a month and we can get a cat.

Maybe longer than a month.

I'm not sure that keeping a plant alive is really the best gauge for whether or not I'll make a good mother anyway. I mean, it's rather easy to forget to feed a plant, but babies are a little better at letting you know that they want to be fed.

Today as I was getting breakfast, I looked at my plant. The soil was completely dry. I realized that I had probably neglected my plant for the better part of the week. I felt bad so I got it some water. As I was pouring the water on my plant, I noticed this:


That, my fine friends, is a little baby daffodil poking its head up out of the ground. It's not even a centimeter high and I don't even want to guess on the diameter, but it's just pushing up through the old foliage and if all goes well we should have a baby daffodil in a little while. That is, if I can remember to water it.

The Paper Route

I had a paper route once, before I started seminary. Who wants to deliver an early morning paper before early morning seminary? Not me. When I started seminary I passed the route to my friend's younger siblings. Interestingly enough, I inherited the route from my friend, Lexa, when she started seminary who in turn got the route from my brother, David, when he started seminary. So, we all had the route for about a year.

Not that it isn't impossible to do a paper route before seminary: our seminary teacher and her children did a huge route every morning. My family substituted for them sometimes when they were out of town. It wasn't a lot of fun having to get up that early.

Especially in Canada in the winter when it's negative whatever and icy and dark.

Nope, no fun at all.

Rolling papers and getting your hands all black, and, if it was wet outside, bagging the papers. Ugh. Biking around the neighbourhood greeting all my paper route friends: Luke and the Rowbottom children.

Really, as far as jobs go, it simply isn't very glamorous. And although it pays, it doesn't pay well.

Today we had, for the second time, a kid come try to sell us papers. The deal is that we get it for "free" Monday through Thursday and then have to pay for the weekends. The kids aren't very clear on how the pricing works.

The kid today--who, thankfully, looked like a Jr. High student instead of a college-bound kid like last time--said this:

"It's only like a dollar and two cents or something, so it works out to be three dollars or something. And if you get the whole deal then I get twenty dollars a week or month or something to go to my education. If you get the half deal then I only get like ten dollars or something."

I was utterly confused. He used way too many numbers and not enough context for my poor little brain to grasp. Besides, we don't want the newspaper anyway because, let's face it, by the time you read it in the paper it's old news. We have this thing called the internet and the news is broadcast live time. They write articles as things happen and you can read it all. For free.

"That wastes your energy bill," The kid argued.

"Ahh," I said, "But your way wastes trees."

Oddly enough, I don't think anyone had used that line on him before. He kind of cocked his head to the side and, looking a little confused, said, "Oh...well...have a good day."

Poor kid. I hate selling things. I don't have the skills. The only reason I had a paper route is because I didn't have to establish it myself. Had I been required to go out and convince people to buy the paper, my route would have been very short. So short, in fact, that I probably wouldn't have had to get up at all.

Coincidence? I think not!

Two rather interesting things happened this week, which may have been coincidence, but I think might be a little bit more.

The first was that we found out that the Office is on hiatus for the next little while, which is great because we really like the Office but it has recently become really hard to catch because we have dance practice on Thursdays during the Office. The week the next show comes out (they've been playing reruns) just happens to be the very week after our performance. Now, that might just be a coincidence, but it is kind of really cool.

The second is that on Sunday I was still kind of worried about my baby. Not that I'm done being worried. I don't think I ever will be. My mom still worries about us. Her mom worried about her until the day she died. So, I'm pretty much just going to worry the rest of my life away. I'll be sure to enjoy it, too, but I will certainly worry about things. Anyway, my sister, Abra, told me that if I wanted to talk I could phone her. She has a lot of experience with grieving over babies (even though I really have no reason to grieve, I certainly was gravely concerned). I thought about phoning her, but I didn't.

On Friday night shortly before 10 o'clock my sister called me.

"Hey, Nanny!" she greeted me. After exchanging the regular niceties we both waited for the other to start the conversation. Since she was the one initiating the phone call, I was thinking it would be pragmatically correct for her to also initiate the conversation. She had other ideas. After sitting in silence for a few moments she finally broke the ice,

"So, you called..." she said.

"No," I corrected her, "You called."

"Nan," she said, "You called me first. My phone has your number in my display saying that you called at 9 PM so I hit the button to dial your number and got you, so obviously..."

"Okay, that's really weird because I didn't call."

After covering some more grim topics, we had a great conversation about swimming and lifeguarding. Abra read me these lists (the swimming one is almost the exact one, although I think she edited the content for me) of how to know if you are a swimmer/lifeguard. I simply can't find the lifeguarding one, but they are both so funny because they are so true. Really, the worst is when you sweat chlorine...

I was reading the list to Andrew and he didn't get it until I got to the one about your wardrobe being "held together by knots or torn and see through." He got that one, alright. He made me throw away 7 bathing suits after we got married. What a waste! If only you could have seen them though...they worked if I wore 2-4 at any given time.

Anyway, Abbi helped me relax and think about something other than my baby, which was a really nice change.

So, although the TV show thing might be a mere coincidence, I don't think my sister's phone call was. That was more of a blessing.

Symposium Humanitatum 2007

One of Andrew's teachers nominated him to speak at this year's "Symposium Humanitatum." It's really quite a small event but a fairly high honor to speak at. His paper was titled, "Inferno XXVIII: Orientalism and Oedipus Meet Dante and Mohammed," and as Karen said, it is not the easiest paper to digest. However, because I spent all semester talking with Andrew about Dante, especially the Inferno and the influence of Islam in it...and because I edited his paper a million times last semester, I understood more than most there.

I also spent all this week helping Andrew shrink down his paper.

He had to turn in his paper for a peer review back in January and he didn't hear back and didn't hear back and didn't hear back. He had decided that he probably just didn't get selected. Then they started advertising for it about two weeks ago. He came home all bummed out one day because he really had wanted to do it...but apparently they hadn't chosen him.

Then last Saturday evening Andrew got an email asking him to be ready for the next Saturday. He had to cut his paper down to 7 pages from 11, and get all prepared to give his speech. He was pretty stoked, but also had a ton of things due last week so that meant that I played editor and cut his paper down to size.

Yesterday he presented his paper. He really wanted me to film it but he didn't want me to bring the camera and tripod and make a big deal out of it, so instead he phoned his mom and asked her to bring their tiny digital camera...she did a wonderful job filming and posted his presentation on her blog (which I then stole and put it on our blog):

Courtesy of The Real Heiss blog

I don't blame you if you don't want to listen to it all. It really is rather intense: a comparative literature paper in three languages? No thanks. You should watch the first few seconds though because he flashes his "nervous" smile at his family right before he starts speaking. He did a good job though. I don't think he said, "Ummm..." and he made an effort to look up, even though he was nervous--not that he really had need to since the audience was comprised of his parents, my mom, Josie, me, the family of another speaker, a few random people (like 2), and the assistant dean of the college. That is all.

After he was done, we (Andrew and I) were invited to a catered lunch at the Museum of Art Cafe. Andrew opted out instead, to go to J Dawgs, a little hot dog stand just south of campus, with his parents. J Dawgs has become a favorite of Andrew's dad. They sell really big hot dogs with a "secret sauce" and a bunch of other toppings. It was really pretty good, as far as hot dogs go!