Arachnophobia

I HATE spiders. Ever since I was a girl and a spider egg sack hatched in my open window, delivering hundreds of itty bitty spiders right above my poor little reading-in-bed-really-late-at-night face, I have hated them. (I sprayed an entire can of Raid in my room that night. I couldn't even go in there for days afterwards because it smelled so bad). And that movie--Arachnophobia, that came out when I was a kid--scariest movie ever. At least, that's how it seemed to my 10 year old self.

Anyways, back to the spider issue. I have found FOUR spiders in my bathroom in the last few days! A couple of days ago, I was about to step into the shower when a big ugly black spider jumped out at me from the drain. I made Kevin kill that one. Then, a few seconds later, I found ANOTHER spider on the shower curtain (I killed that one myself)! This one was light brown and smaller. Then, the next day there was a long spindly spider on the wall by the toilet (also killed by me). And today when I went to take my shower, there was another furry black spider in the tub! (Not quite as big this time though). What is going on? Did the Spider Association of America decide my privy would be the location for this year's annual convention? Now, I know spiders are helpful for killing bugs that get in the house, so I'm not on any crusade to go out and find them all, but they darn well better stay FAR away from me (and my bathroom) if they want to live another day.

the Easter Feast

Isn't it beautiful? Some of it didn't turn out quite as yummy as I'd imagined (I'm talking about YOU, baby artichokes! Waaaaay more trouble than they're worth), but some things turned out truly outstanding. Our favorite was probably the "Spring Salad with Grapes and Pistachio-Crusted Goat Cheese." Wow. So good. Overall it was a great feast! It's a good thing, because we didn't do any of the "traditional" Easter things like colored eggs or egg hunts (but those ARE deviled eggs on the table there--that totally counts I think. Although, my brother pointed out that it doesn't seem right really to have deviled eggs on Easter) or Easter baskets and such. But it was a lovely Easter nonetheless.

And of course we had a real spiritual feast from all the beautiful messages given at General Conference.

A word about the dress I'm wearing in these pics which I simply must point out--it's a new but old dress that I bought 5 1/2 years ago while I was visiting Kevin in Utah (this was after I graduated from BYU but before Kevin graduated, and we were doing the long distance relationship thing). I went to the BYU bookstore and found the dress on the clearance rack. I tried it on and it was just a little too tight. I decided to buy it since the price was really good, and it was one of those "Jody" dresses that everyone else but me seemed to have while I was at BYU. And because I thought soon I'd loose a little weight and be able to fit in it.................HA! As it turned out, I gained something like 30 or 40 pounds in my first year of grad school--far from losing a few! Anyways, it's been hanging in my closet these long years, and finally I can fit into it now! It is quite exciting. Easter was actually my second time wearing it, but it is still kind of an Easter dress feeling (my mom bought me Easter dresses well into my undergrad years, so it's quite the tradition for me).

Mollifying myself with some lists

Things I got done yesterday:

• Went to choir rehearsal for "Heritage Singers" (we have a way-talented guy in our ward who is getting a Ph.D. in choral conducting and who put together a sort-of-auditioned choir, many of whom are former members of BYU or BYU-I choirs. It's super awesome. He is going to conduct the MoTab someday, I bet. Actually, one of his arrangements is going to be sung in General Conference this time, I hear!)
• Made breakfast/lunch of scrambled eggs and toast
• Refilled handsoap container with "homemade" foaming soap (did you know you can just dilute bathwash or even regular liquid soap and put them in one of those foaming pump bottles and it works just as well as the twice-as-expensive-as-normal-soap stuff you usually have to buy for those?)
• Took a nap (should have exercised, but I was so tired!)
• Went grocery shopping
• Wrapped and mailed my sister's birthday present
• Cleaned out MOUNTAIN of water bottles and other trash that have been in a pile in the back of the Focus for months
• Took a shower (finally) and got dressed in a skirt
• Decorated for and prepared food for our Stake YW Mother/Daughter Dinner which we had yesterday in conjunction with the General YW broadcast
• Attended the aforementioned activity
• Cleaned up after the same
• Did 2 loads of laundry (still one down there waiting for tomorrow)
• Took out the trash and recycling
• Returned 6 library books
• Wrote my "weekly report" for my advisor
• Sorted through a week's worth of mail
• Tidied the living room and kitchen (mostly because my visiting teachers are coming Monday morning!)

Things I didn't get done yesterday (but wanted to):

• Exercise
• Turning over soil and composting our garden plot
• TAXES (eeks!)
• working on my book chapter which is due on the 31st (eeks again!)
• sewed that button that fell off my dress last week
• Finish putting away the laundry
• Wash my winter coat (been meaning to do it all winter..now it's spring!)

*Sigh* Saturdays always go so by so fast. But I feel better now that I made these lists, because the first one is longer. :)

Goodbye, Half-Marathon.

There. I said it. I'm officially giving up on the idea of running the half marathon in Champaign in May. *Sigh* It's all because of my dumb knee. I trained all the way up to 8 or 9 miles (I forgot exactly) , which is actually really close to being done because most training programs only have you train up to 10 miles before you run the race. But then, my knee started hurting and it hasn't really gotten better. I mean, it got better in that it doesn't hurt unless I run. Then, it starts up again. It's so frustrating! I was really enjoying the running and I'm sure--cardiovascularly speaking--that I'm totally up to the distance. I kept harboring a secret hope that my knee would get better and I'd be able to catch up with my training and still run the race. I find myself looking at the joggers outside or in the gym on the track with longing. I just want to run! The stationary bike is so, well, not-that-fulfilling. At least it'll be spring soon and then I can ride outside. *Sigh*

Now that it's March, let's talk about Valentines!

So. For Valentine's Day this year, I wanted to get Kevin one of those "Edible Arrangements"--you know, the ones you see in airline magazines all the time (and like the one shown above)? It seemed like such a good idea, but then when I looked into the pricing online I was in for a shock. 60 bucks for a little bitty arrangement?? And that's NOT including the delivery price? Yeesh!

So I got the brilliant idea that I should make my own and save some cash. I *do* have experience with flower arranging, so it seemed like something I could do. I'm fairly proud of how it turned out, although I will say three things: #1. Just buying the fruit was actually a lot more expensive than I was thinking. I don't mind too much, though, because the price also included leftover fruit that we ate all week. #2. Cutting flower shapes out of pineapple is MUCH harder than you might think. Those Edible guys must have a cookie cutter type thing to do it with or something. #3 WHY is it so hard to find wooden skewers in stores? I looked at Walmart and Hobby Lobby and they had nothing of the sort. Naturally, the grocery store close to my house that I assumed would definitely NOT have something like that was the place where I finally found them.

(The roses in the pic below are what Kevin gave me, by the way.) I think next time I will just dip strawberries in chocolate and give them to Kevin, because that seemed to be the main part he cared about.

We had a nice Valentine's Day--Kevin took me out to a nice restaurant we'd never been to before on Saturday, and on Sunday we ate lots and lots of fruit. ;) Neither Kevin nor I have really been really really into Valentines much somehow--I think for my part, it's because I spent many years LOATHING "single awareness day" and just wanted it to go away. It's nice to actually have a sweetheart now but maybe I still remember the loathing somewhere in the back of my mind. I read in friends' blogs that they have always considered Valentine's a day of celebrating love and friendship in general. I don't know why I never thought of it like that....

How does your garden grow?

Another very out-dated post that I've been meaning to type up for ages...

One of the first things we did after moving to our new duplex back in April was to plant a garden in the back yard. I was so excited to try out gardening now that we live practically in the Garden of Eden in terms of getting things to grow. I remember my parents attempting to garden in NM and it just didn't work out--poor soil, no rain, hilly yard, and DRY air just don't add up to happy growing things. (And many of us in the Tonks family seem to have anti-Green Thumbs, which doesn't help either. Keeping houseplants alive does not come easily for many of us.)

So, the tales people told of just being able to stick seeds in the ground and watch them spring up and grow with virtually no effort required here in IL were intriguing. We had a ready-made garden plot from the last people who lived here before us, so we decided to move forward with full speed ahead and get some veggies a'growing.

We planted (almost) everything as seeds rather than buying seedlings. Then, just a day or so after we planted the seeds, we had TORRENTIAL rain which probably swept the seeds away in rivulets to new locations in the garden in some cases. So, when thing started popping up a few weeks later, they weren't in neat little rows for the most part and I often couldn't really tell what was weed and what was vegetable. We got a few HUGE sunflowers growing--those must have been from seeds leftover from last year, since our neighbor told us that the former residents had planted a bunch of sunflowers. One of them grew taller than the roof!

There was also a row of what turned out to be tree seedlings, plus a bunch of plain old weeds. I let them grow because I thought they might be something I planted--they sprung up so tall that I thought for sure they weren't weeds (most of our weeds are low and sprawly it seemed like). In the end I pulled them out, but not before they dumped a bunch of weed seeds everywhere--I guess next year's weeding will be intense.

Anyways, it turns out that most of the stuff did grow pretty well, without *too* much work. I rarely had to water--in fact, we had a very cool, wetter than normal summer, so most of the time there was too MUCH water around. I DID have to weed a fair amount, however. And it turns out that harvesting the vegetables is a lot of work in and of itself.

It was a great feeling, the first time I brought in my bounty straight from the backyard. I even took a picture of my firstfruits--er, firstveggies? of my garden efforts. (I rarely get out the camera, so obviously this was a big deal.)

We had beans coming out of our ears for a while, and PLENTY of zucchini (including one monstrous one that was hiding for a long time before I finally picked it so I let it get too big). We had some lettuce, some bell peppers, and (later in the season--they took FOREVER to ripen because it wasn't as hot as usual), oodles of tomatoes. Rounding things out were a few eggplants, some summer squash, and various herbs.

Since I am working with the Young Women's organization at church, I am trying to complete the Personal Progress Program that the teenage girls I work with are doing-- I decided to make my garden one of my Value Projects (the one for "Faith"). The instructions for the project said to think of faith like a seed as I plant, care for, and harvest a garden. So here are some of my thoughts on what I learned about faith by planting and growing seeds:

• Early torrential downpours can be dangerous for the newly planted seed. Of course the seed needs water, but too much all at once is overwhelming. ("line upon line")
• Sometimes you have to wait and let things grow before you can tell if they are "good" seeds or bad seeds (like the wheat and the tares). But as soon as you recognize something as a weed, you need to pull it out fast.
• You may have a "legacy" from your forebears--things you have been taught as a child, etc. In some cases this is great--fun sunflowers springing up unbidden. But in some cases they will turn out to be weeds (wicked traditions of the fathers...) and will need to be removed and replaced with truths.
• It can seem to take forever before the first plants produce their yields, but eventually you'll have more zucchini than you know what to do with. (my cup runneth over!)
• Weeds are much easier to pull out when they are small. (Repent early!)
• Weeds are easier to pull in moist ground-- we have to nourish our faith carefully, and then it is easier to root out sin and deception.
• It is easier to grow things in good soil (a good background, family, etc.) but even poor soils can be improved with work and compost.
• It takes work to harvest it too (a lot, actually)! The fruits of our faith may be waiting right there for us to pluck, but we DO have to actually pluck them.
• If you let the veggies sit on the plant in the garden without using them, they rot. (Faith cannot be stagnant--it needs to be used!)

The Turkey and the Trotting

Let's not beat around the bush. I ran an 8k on Thanksgiving! I am immensely proud of myself--it was my first real race, and I finished with what was (for me) a very good time. 49:39 to be specific--just barely under 10 minutes per mile for about 5 miles. There were something like 3,000 people running that day, so it was quite the rush to be there in the thick of things. And, it helped me to eat lots of pie with abandon later in the day.

Above is me after the race, still with my awesome "bib" on. If you reeeeally want to see a picture of me crossing the finishline, I will direct you to this page. But be warned that it is not exactly a flattering angle, and this on top of the inherent un-glamor of a very sweaty and tired me.

The race was the Raleigh Turkey Trot. Kevin and I went to Raleigh, NC to visit my little brother for Thanksgiving (and met my parents there too, who had also come for a visit.) He's been living there for 2 years, but we'd never been out to see him and his little house. I have a cousin living in Raleigh also, so we got to visit with her too.

We had a fantastic time. He gave us rides in his Porsche (yes, PORSCHE) and I helped him do some interior decorating (his house is OBVIOUSLY inhabited by a bachelor--virtually nothing on the walls, etc.). AND, we got my Dad to play Rock Band with us, which it turns out he really liked. (For anyone who knows my dad, this will be a humorous revelation.)

And of course, the feast itself was splendid--thanks to Mom! *Sigh* It is so good to have Moms around for holidays! But not just for the baking--it was good to visit with her and with everyone, especially because I won't get to see any of them at Christmastime this year.