A Time To Live.

I have to add a congratulations to my beautiful friend Charity. (she will probbaly have some harsh words for me after putting this picture online--love ya!). She had a beautiful little baby girl the other day. Being in Seattle, I have not seen them yet, but Kendra took this picture and sent it to me. I think it is adorable! Congrats also to Sean--proud father. I can't wait to actually see her myself--in a month.

Here is a cloud picture I took while driving. Nice huh?

Edward--what's in a name?

I want to discuss the name Edward.
I just finished reading Jane Eyre. The hero and her love in that book was named Edward. He was, well...ugly. That didn't matter--but it was a point made often in the writing. In the Twilight series, Edward is a magnificently beautiful vampire. That wasn't the reason Bella loved him, it was just a point made often. In the Narnia series, one of the high kings is named Edward--and despite all his childish mistakes, he overcomes all those and is a strong individual. Sense and Sensibility...ok, you get the point.
Thus, I started thinking about the name and where I know it from. In history the name is attributed to royalty. This is due to King Edward the Confessor. People were impressed by his Christian humility that led to his name becoming a popular name for male children. Thus now, all of these characters in these books carry the name that means "rich or blessed guard." These strong male characters have become the fantasy love of many women since their publication in the 1800s. The name Edward was wildly popular until it's consistent down slide starting in the 1920s. Now the name is not very popular at all. Then again--there have not been any books with the Edward that have made an impact as these ones did--until now the Narnia Movies and the Twilight series. I wonder if this will change that fact. I have an uncle Edward (goes by Ed)--so I can claim it a family name--can you?

Death of a Duck

Today I cried.
Ok...not really. But I was devestated.

In my evolution class, my professor was convinced that we (humans as we now know them) did not just evolve--but that we killed off all the other hominids. She said it was just that we did not like the competition and wanted (natrually not consiously) to be the superior race. Thus we are the dominant creatures on the earth (Some may argue that insects rule--but really when you look at their life-span, they haven't a chance). For example--just look at the life expectacny of all the animals on earth! Aside from a very few exeptions, we have the longest. In fact, we have made it difficult for others to live by making them live in the "wild" that we have created--the human non-natrual world. This has made the lives of other living animals very difficult and confusing (Just so you don't worry about me becoming "green"--I am not saying we should burn the houses and let the trees grow over the freeway, I am merely observing and lamenting the life of a duck). This rant is becasue of the short time I observed a family of ducks today while driving my fast car on a wide freeway. I was going to Renton for an interview. I left early to avoid traffic and as such there were not many cars on the road at the time. I was on a long straight stretch of 5 lanes with a median and then 5 more lanes. There were trees on both sides of the freeway (not unusual in Washington) and it was a pleasent day. I saw a single-parent family of ducks with two ducklings frantically dodging cars trying to make it to the other side of the freeway (Whoever invented the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke is a sick and twisted person). I first saw them when they were almost across and my first thought was "I wonder how many ducklings there were starting at the other side of the road?" It made me sad. I found myself in those few seconds gripping the steeringwheel in anticipation to see if the little family would make it to safety. When they finally scampered across the last lane of traffic I let out my breath and let a huge grin spread across my face. Once again, nature had thwarted the dangerous "wild" of mankind. Not a second later however, the mom--still running (or waddling quickly) led her ducklings over a rain dranage grate. She made it safely to the otherside and turned around. To her suprise, the ducklings were nowhere to be seen. The had tried to follow her across the grate and had quickly slipped through the slats into the drain.
That is when I passed them on the road. My grin was immediatly replaced with a look of horror and my jaw had dropped. The motherly instincts in me were shocked and I was at a loss of feeling for the mother duck. I was devestated for her.
There was nothing I could do. That is why I decided to write about this little family that will forever be stuck in a rut.
It just makes me hope that I will never be careless enough to lead my poor future children over a drainage grate. And If I do--I hope it just spills outside on the otherside of the freeway. Everyone deserves a second chance.

There really are only two questions to ask with this experience.
Why did the duck cross the road?
Was it worth it?

Bubbles, Kids, and Mothers

Today I relearned why bubbles were created. Aside from being a natural occurrence, bubble liquid was created and stored in little bottles with bubble blowing sticks for one reason--little girls (ok...children in general, but girls in my case). Today Danette was reading to Katie and the children (or animals) in the book were playing with bubbles (or something--I was not really sitting on the magic rug making her read to me too, I was just sitting in the room working on my computer slyly eavesdropping to hear the exciting little story... I digress.) And Katie started saying buhbuh? buhbuh! buhbuh! (Bubble) and got really excited. She had seen bubbles in nursery a few weeks ago and did not really know what to do. She just stared at all the other kids while they ran around destroying (trying to catch) the bubbles. But she knew what they were now. Danette asked if she wanted to play with bubbles. That got her really excited, and she said buhbuh! over and over again with bright excited little eyes. Danette got a bottle down from the cupboard in the kitchen a blew them in the kitchen--right there not caring where they landed (true motherly love--blowing bubbles in her sparkly clean kitchen and letting them land on counter tops and beautiful wood floors) covering the surfaces with little soapy circles. She blew them up above Katie's head and Kati would squeal with delight and try to catch the bubbles. She would see one and follow it to the ground until it burst. What fun. She LOVED it.
Having lived at BYU in a singles ward for the past 4 years I have really missed little kids--sure there are enough to go around in Happy Valley, not in singles wards. You have to make a real effort if you want to be involved in kids lives there. It makes me miss Tori and Michael. Adorable little children that I never get over to see often enough.

Mothers Day was a happy one for me. For a few weeks I had been thinking that this is the second in a row that I have not been with my mother for her special day--and that made me miss her and wish I could be there (I was in Jerusalem last year). I worried that I was not there to make it a great day for her--which was stupid because Kenny and Meggan were both there to do that. As well as Roger, who would not let something like that go unnoticed. I'm just the worrier in the family I guess (Clarification: I'm not really a worrier, but compared to the other people in my family...I'm practically all we got). After I called and talked to her--I realized something (that I already knew);My mom has a way of filling her life with things she wants to do and not making people plan to make her happy (that's not saying she does not let us do things for her though). She was watching some crazy scientific video with Kenny and making baby blankets with Meggan--just because she wanted to. Kenny and Meggan brought over chocolate cake and pizza the night before so she could have it for breakfast. I am not sure if it is her favorite, but it is tradition so I hope she likes it because she will get it now for mother's day and her birthday until the day one of us dies. At that point Roger was making dinner--some crazy chicken thing, I'm sure it was good, great, grand! They got to talk to Mckay (Elder Knowles) and said he is doing wonderful. I'm a little jealous I was not there to talk to him again--not like we would have chatted it up, but it would have been nice to hear his voice and thank him in person for the sunset picture he sent just to me. He's a good kid.
Mother's Day in Washington was--well rainy. (gasp) Shocker, I know. I got up and made muffins--which, aside from a little setback, were quite good. Then we went to church and tried to fit the little family on one of the side pews--no luck. Brandon had to sit in the row ahead of us. I think we could have fit--but not with Katie moving around, we would have had to play musical chairs with her. I was a considered old enough to receive the Mother's Day gift. It was a CD of hymns. They are pleasantly nice arrangements. We came home and took a nap (much needed) and went to the Smith's house for dinner. Going to their house for dinner is like going to a gourmet restaurant without having to dress-up. Both of them are amazing cooks. We had steak with some kind of sauce, potatoes, veggies in cheese sauce (one of my favorites) and salad (really, really good salad). I don't have time to give the descriptions justice--just know that it was bon apatite. I let their little girl do my hair--she wanted to brush it. That would have been disastrous--I tried to explain that to her (she has Barbie's hair--big, blond, and straight), that it would be a bad experience for the both of us. It turned out ok--she put in a few clips and then decided it was not worth the trouble and went with a simple ponytail. I did her hair instead. It went a little better.

Why I am Vain

So... here I am. I was threatened with my life that if I did not create a blog that I would die (or rather I would not have any friends). So in lieu of that scare--welcome me to Blogger. I don't really know what I am going to put on here...isn't it a little selfish that I have a page all to myself? I thought so too--but I love Jill too much to deny her the favor. Thus I am reveling in all the vanity and will probably post 50 pictures of just my face (love digital. Thanks Laura). JK. I wont do that unless I really go insane.
Currently I am sitting in my dad's kitchen listening to oldies looking at the rainclouds out the sliding glass door. Recently, I am enthralled with the clouds. I have always loved the sky, but being in Utah there are only two options--sunny or gray. But here (where I started my infatuation with the sky) there are so many variations--sunny, dark and cloudy, light and cloudy, misty, partly cloudy, etc. Partly cloudy at night is probably one of my favorites--it is so interesting. I love sunrises and sunsets as well. With clouds...wow. I have nothing more to say!
I love nighttime. I am not sure why--perhaps because of the heightened senses and excitement, or perhaps because it is when humans sleep and I feel like a rebel being awake and outside at that time. Whatever the reason--I live for the peace of the night. It is my time when nothing is scheduled and I get to be free. (Do I sound like a caged bird?--I do feel a little that way sometimes...).
I'm sharing a room with my little sister, Katie, who is almost 18 months old. That only lasted for a week. I am internally selfish and she liked to chuck her empty bottles across the room in the general direction of my sleeping body. One night I threw it back (softly) into her crib. Big mistake. Now it was a game. In the morning when she wakes up, if she thinks that I am asleep she will lie down again. If I move or make a sound she sits up and says "wasat" (what is that). No good--I can never fool her, then she will beg me to get her out of the crib and play with her. One morning I was sleeping facing her and I woke up and she was looking at me and saw my eyes open and that was it. The begging started that morning at 5am (4am my time). One morning I just rolled over and put a pillow on my head. She didn't like that. To make an unnecessarily long story shorter, neither of us were getting any sleep--so I packed my bags and moved downstairs to the couch. Both have us have been a little less grumpy since then. Eh...I don't hold it against her--what girl wants to share her room. Look at my track record! Kenny and I shared a room until I was in first grade--since then (with the exception of my first year at BYU--sorry Jami) I have had my own room and have been very happy with the results of selfish alone room-time. All's well that ends well. Sharing ended well.
Ill get to the research another time. I need to go to bed because I last night I read until 4:15am. It was great. The book The Host by Stephenie Meyer came out yesterday and I went to Walmart to buy it. Then I decided to not stop reading after my dance class. Thus it was a long wonderful night of reading. I don't like to stay up that late (er...early rather) very often...but the occasional night of reading, talking with dear friends, or being silly is--I have decided--is healthy. Makes you appreciate the long nights of sleep. Now, growing up there was a rule that my mom made--she had to make it because both Kenny and I would read late into the night. She said that we were aloud to read as long as we still got up in the morning, did the things we were supposed to do, and that we were absolutely not grumpy or short with anyone. I think that this was a smart way to make us happy people--because we were even nicer to people on these days in fear of breaking the rule. If she could get us to do this every night--we would never be aloud to be grumpy or angry. Man that woman is full of wisdom (I just figured this out...like 10 minutes ago). What a woman (more on that on Sunday--the official Mom Day).

Ok...time to go to bed/couch. Love you all and am actually glad I have a place to write my stream of consciousness (aside from my neglected journal).