What's in your garden?

We only grow love in the Penrod garden. In fact, our heart is so big, it has stretch marks.This is the radish Jason picked from our garden on Sunday. Dead serious.

Welcoming A Visitor & Other News

Ever so secretively, a teeny tiny phlegm factory move into my lungs. They could've at least warned me they were coming, but no, that would've been asking too much. No headache, no aches or pains, no sinus problems, no coughing, no nothing. Just phlegm, wheezing and pain in my chest when I cough. I hate wheezing. Every five minutes I get all freaked out, stop what I'm doing and listen carefully to the noise that I hear. Is it outside? Is it someone trying to break in? Is Clara crying? Oh no, nevermind, that's just me wheezing. Awesome.


In all fairness, they did choose a good time to pay me a visit. Saturday was my last day at the company I've been working onsite. It would've been much harder to do that while my lungs are occupied and I make more noise than a one-man-band. Working from home is easier to manage while sick and Clara won't mind as much if I lay around all day.



In other, happier, news, I finally figured out how to style my new hair cut without it looking awful. Those first few days were rough figuring things out without a flat iron. But rest assure, everything worked out.

Here's a brief glimpse into that glorious moment:

Jason (calling out from the bedroom as he woke up to the camera beeping for the 57th time at six in the morning): What are you taking pictures of?


Me (in my mind): Not me. I swear, not me. In reality, I ignored him hoping he'd just go back to sleep and not remember. Instead, he got out of bed and caught me in the act.

Once upon a time...

A boy met a girl.
They got married.
Within five years lots happened.
They went to San Francisco.
They bought a new house.
One had a kidney stone.
Both started their own businesses.
They went to Mexico.
Both graduated from ASU.
They bought another house (as in vacation home... ha ha).
They had a baby.
One quit working full time.
One became an EIT.
They vacationed alone, and together, to Utah, California, Washington and Colorado.
All the while, they laughed and cried.
To be continued...
Happy 5 year anniversary to us.


Thanks to some special people, Jason and I we were able to have dinner with just the two of us at Texas Roadhouse. Thanks special people. :)

FOF - Tetris

During the insomnia phase of my pregnancy with Clara, I spent many hours in the middle of the night playing Tetris on my computer (it's programmed into an excel file). Now it's just something I like to do to relax. I've realized that Tetris isn't just entertaining, but wise as well.

Laugh all you want, but here are five life lessons learned from Tetris...

You have to be creative to make it work with what you get.

Sometimes we don't get what we think we need, but having an open mind allows us to use what we do get to our benefit.

The more prepared you are, the less a disaster will effect you and the easier it will be to recover. (My personal favorite)

Things can get nasty real fast.

It feels really good when all the puzzle pieces fall into place and a load goes away, even if it's only temporary.
In case you're wondering, that score is mine, it rocks and FOF = Five on Friday.

Our Week in Pictures

Tyler and Lisa's baby shower Tyler, Beka, Me, Trevor & Amy - Some of my favorite people from high school.

Clara fixing her "new" chair

I've been wanting a little table and chair for Clara, but decided to be responsible and pay the bills instead of get one. I came home from work last Friday and lo and behold, there's a table and two chairs sitting in my neighbor's yard with a FREE sign on it. It was like manna had just fallen from the sky. It needs some work, but it was free and it is made of sturdy materials so it has lots of potential. I have something fun in mind. Now to find the time, energy and tools I need.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (another freebie)

Clara's first Krispy Kreme and our dozen was free (how? we did this and it was totally worth it). It sure was great timing since I haven't purchased Krispy Kremes since they reopened and I've really been wanting some.

Scottsdale Train Park with Beka, Rachel and kids

Filling the CD player up with hair rubber bands.

Perfect... Really

My ritual of mentally preparing for work at night or during Clara's afternoon naps includes allowing myself a little time to read the blogs I subscribe to. I bribe myself. I have to, otherwise I wouldn't get anything done because I'm lazy like that. I have many, many other important things to blog about (I live a high profile, very important life, you know), but on one of the blogs I read, I saw this drawing from Misprinted Type and couldn't stop staring at it.I never even knew someone was on assignment to draw a picture portraying my life as of late. But apparently they were. And I love it. It's perfect.

Sometimes we feel like we're drowning and then instead of finding stable ground, it starts to rain. But through it all, we know everything will be just fine. Doesn't it make you want to shout for joy?

Short as mine...

It's been over three months since my last hair cut. Upon seeing the end product of the previous hair chopping, Jason's only comment was: Next time, tell her not to cut it as short as mine. Okay, can do. Clearly, Jason isn't fond of the new "Short Hair" chapter in my life. I like it, it's a fun change in my sometimes boring, unchanging life. But me being the obedient wife I am, I passed the message on to my lovely hair stylist last night and told her to do whatever made her happy with that restriction. So here we go, much shorter than last time but still not as short as Jason's. See, I grant him his wishes. I'm nice like that. I think his comment when I walked in the door last night was, Did you get it butched again? Obviously this means only one thing: He was very, very happy with my new haircut. Good thing we've been married almost five years so I can read him like a book. Otherwise I might have thought he was unhappy with the new look.

PS Every time I get my hair cut, the girl asks me if she can cut bangs. I'm not that exciting. Last night she didn't ask, but she cut the layer closest to my face awfully short. I'm pretty sure she's slowly but surely breaking me in...

PPS Hair doesn't look like this picture today. Maybe someday I'll learn how to use a flat iron so I can do a better job of styling my hair like it gets styled after it gets cut.

Churchy

Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I can be irresponsible and stay up all night with my computer doing things that waste time like blog, play Tetris, play Text Twist and sit for minutes trying to think of something I can google.

But for now, let's talk about Church today. It's a New Year. It feels good. Except for the fact that our Church time has been moved to 2:30pm. I've been dreading this since last year when it dawned on me that come 2009, we'd be the lucky Ward with the last meeting time. There were many reasons I didn't want this day to come: it's during nap time, we eat dinner at my mom's at 5 and couldn't get there until 6 (I know, Heaven forbid), the day seems much shorter since it's nearly bedtime when you get out and finally, who wants to get out of church when it's dark?

However, we put Clara down for an early nap. She didn't get a real nap on Sunday in 2008 unless we didn't go to our regularly scheduled time, so this was good. She behaved very well in Sacrament Meeting and then she was so excited to go to Nursery she tried to walk away without me. I do Singing Time in Nursery and after I did it with her class (we have two Nurseries), I told her I had to go do singing in the other class and she gave me a kiss and walked away to her chair. Six months she's been in Nursery and it's the first time she's seen me go without screaming. In fact, she didn't shed a single tear today. This is progress at it's finest. I was so proud. And not hating our new meeting time quite as much.

It almost seemed like Clara knew she was in a different room and knew that she is supposed to be a big girl now. She is in the "older" class now with the other kids that will be Sunbeams next year. Yup, in a year she'll be an itty bitty Sunbeam. She'll be three years and two weeks when she gets put into Primary. She's growing up, I'm getting old and the world is still spinning. Imagine that.

PS Since I don't have to work much the rest of the week either, I'll have more time for pointless blogs. You can hardly wait. I know it.

FOF - Random Happies

Five random things that make me happy (seriously):

Wearing all black.

Binder clips.

Sharpies.

Adding numbers.

Writing the number 9 (I told you it's gonna be a good year).

Can you tell someone worked four days this week and spent a bit too much time in an office? :)

Party Animal

I went to two parties in the last week. Woah! I know, I know, a little more excitement than I'm used to.

Party 1: Last weekend we had another get together with my high school friends. We just had a simple dinner at my house and then played Scattergories. I swear, the instructions could be a short book and certain people (ahem, Rob) would still try to convince everyone that their answers are right. Too bad everyone doesn't live in AZ anymore, but we're glad they come visit.

Tyler, Lisa, Amy, Heather, Rob, Adam, Beka, Danny, Yours Truly, Jason

Party 2: I've long been saying New Year's Eve is a pretty boring holiday if you don't drink. However, I still manage to get excited for it and stay up until Midnight year after year. While I still agree with my original statement, our celebration this year panned out to be a pretty great time. Amy and Steven hosted and Amy always makes lots and lots (and lots) of good food. Karen taught us a new game (Silly Hat) which was quite a bit of fun and then we played Loaded Questions. It definitely solicited much laughter, deep from our guts. To top it off, we didn't leave Amy's until almost 3am. What can I say, sometimes I live on the edge.

Steven, Amy, Anna, Jason, Danny (the glowing angel), Beka, Karen... Tyler and Lisa escaped unphotographed

Happy 2009 blogosphere. I am pretty sure this is going to be a good year. Hooray!