I've Been Tagged

And I've never been tagged before either. Yes, Tami, I read your blog; in fact I check for something new every day. Keeps me from having to do the dishes. :-)

1. Did you date anyone from your high school? Yes; I married someone from highschool.

2. What kind of car did you drive? My mom's Subaru wagon

3. Were you a party animal? No.

4. Were you considered a flirt? Nope.

5. Were you in band, orchestra or choir? Orchestra, my senior year.

6. Were you a nerd? Well, I don't think so.

7. Were you on any varsity teams? No.

8. Did you ever get suspended or expelled? No.

9. Can you still sing the fight song? Yes, but I won't.

10. Who were your favorite teachers? Mrs. Mansfield, Wally, Mr. Denison. and all my Seminary teachers. Tommy Teacher was nice too.

11. Where did you sit for lunch? Who sat for lunch?

12. What was your school's full name? Kearns High School

13. What was your mascot? Cougars.

14. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Probably not.

15. What do you remember most about graduation? The dress I made, and playing Pomp and Circumstance with the orchestra.

16. Where did you go on Senior Skip Day? Who had a "Senior Skip Day?"

17. Were you in any clubs? Does Orchestra count?

18. Have you gained weight since then? Yes. :-(

19. Who was your prom date? Bruce; but for Junior Prom, not Senior Ball.

20. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Missed that one; went to 20 (can you believe that?!) and wished I hadn't..

21. Did you take any school trips? One; to St. George with the band. I was faking an instrument so that our band would look bigger. The uniforms were terrible--relics of the 70's, maybe even the 60's; you know, double-knit, with the tall, furry hats..

22. What are your best memories from high school? Orchestra, AP Music, and getting to know Bruce.

tag, Becky.

I'm Still Here

Well, here I still sit at 160; no loss, no gain. This is pretty good, considering the chicken quesadilla last Wednesday, the Cub Scout Cake Auction on Thursday, the roast beef on Friday, the making of four birthday cakes on Saturday, and the surprise birthday/dinner party—complete with lasagna, garlic toast and five kinds of cake (among them were lemon cheesecake, chocolate truffle cake, and a buttercream icing that could give a pig heart failure). At least I am holding my own.

The trouble is that 1. I really like food; I like to try new foods, I like my old comfort foods and I like to cook; and 2. I really don't like dieting. I know how to diet—heck! I've spent most of my life dieting and learning about health and nutrition and losing weight. I've tried lots of different things. And I've found that I just don't want to skip certain foods or count every calorie or add up points for everything I eat for the rest of my entire life. I happen to think that I'm here to be happy and have some fun, and not one of those things sounds like fun to me!

I actually do have a healthy diet—I like lots of veggies and fruit, I prefer whole-grain foods (wheat bread, brown rice, etc.), I don't usually eat a lot of sugar, I don't usually eat a lot of meat. But I am prone to overeating. I heard somewhere that when your body has had all it needs then your food doesn't taste good to you any more. I really don't believe that. So instead of dieting by deprivation, I just want to work on eating a little less of it all.

And then there's exercising. I am loving that! My body was made to move and I love to do it. I think that will be the biggest key in getting where I want to go.

So I'm still working at it. I'll keep you posted (I'm sure you're thrilled about this). Check out my new progress chart at the bottom of the page. :-)

Happy Birthday to Bruce!

My sweetheart is 40 years old today! Bruce is my very, very best friend and I am so happy that I get to share his life. So, in honor of his 40th birthday, here are 40 things (not in any particular order) that I love about Bruce:





40. Bruce is really good-looking.
39. Bruce would massage my shoulders all night if I wanted him to.
38. Bruce loves people; he takes real interest in them, he is friendly and people like him. Everywhere we go, someone says, "Hi Bruce!"
37. Bruce works hard to provide for his family. Even when things look hard, he keeps working at it.
36. Bruce is a great dad. He loves to do things with and for his kids and they love him.
35. Bruce plays duets on the piano with me.
34. Bruce plays other kinds of duets with me too. ;-)

33. Bruce takes out the trash and waters the lawn.
32. When Bruce holds me tight I feel little and safe in his arms.
31. Bruce is faithful in our religion.
30. Bruce is healthy and strong; he almost never gets sick.
29. Bruce has a fun sense of humor.
28. Bruce speaks my language; we understand each other.
27. Bruce has a big, booming voice that I can hear all over the neighborhood.
26. Bruce was my highschool sweetheart; and I think I loved him even before that.
25. Bruce knows how to make me—and/or the kids—smile even when we try really hard not to.
24. Bruce loves music; and good music too! Our taste is the same.
23. Bruce tells everyone he meets how great I am, until I am almost a celebrity.
22. Bruce has to wear his shoes; if he's out of bed, his shoes are on his feet. I'm a barefoot girl, but I find this endearing about him.
21. Bruce cleans up after the kids when they get sick; he never expects me to do that. (I find that endearing, too!)
20. Bruce was with me each and every time I gave birth to one of our babies.
19. Bruce was with me each and every time I conceived one of our babies. ;-)
18. Bruce likes to talk with me about our past history; fun, sometimes exciting, always happy reminiscences.
17. Bruce has a great laugh that makes me smile when I hear it.
16. Bruce is nice to me and patient with me even when I'm tired and cranky.
15. Bruce loves my cooking.
14. My children love Bruce; they love to play with him, wrestle with him and spend time with him.
13. Bruce is tall and strong and has sexy, broad shoulders. And did I say he's handsome?

12. Bruce always reads my blog. And he leaves comments, too.

11. Bruce tells us all, regularly, how much he loves us.
10. Bruce loves to sing. He loves to sing with me. And he has a nice singing voice. And he says I have a nice voice too.
9. Bruce is a great kisser.

8. Bruce likes to look nice; he takes good care of himself.
7. Bruce likes to play games with his family.
6. Bruce is enthusiastic about all the projects he undertakes.
5. Bruce doesn't make demands of me, but he has high expectations of me.
4. Bruce loves my family—and I love his family too.
3. Bruce exercises with me; walking, dancing . . .
2. Bruce has integrity. When he feels something is right and important, he doesn't let others talk him out of it or discourage him.
1. Bruce loves me!

I am so happy to have this wonderful man and get to share his life. My life is joyful because he is in it. I love you with all of my heart, Bruce. Happy Birthday!

About Books . . .

I've decided that reading is a very bad thing. Yes, yes, I know that all educators and just about the rest of the entire world would disagree with that statement, but there it is. I suppose I could modify it a little and say that reading new books is a very bad thing for me.

In the first place, when I have a new book I pretty much ignore everything else until I've read the whole thing. Well, I do take care of the bare minimums: feeding the kids, using the bathroom. But everything else suffers; it seems I am really into escapism these days. That doesn't actually bother me as much as it probably should—which kind of bothers me.

No, the real problem is that even though I enjoy reading the books—even Twilight—they just leave me feeling dissatisfied. This is true even of the fun books that I understand, and in which I don't find problems with the characters or plot. Things just work out so perfectly, and it's all happily ever after, and it's so neat and tidy. And then I put the book down and look around at the mess I've been ignoring, and consider real life—and it's just not like that at all! So I find that even the books I like kind of annoy me (which makes me wonder if I should tame my scathing book reviews a little).

On the other hand, I do like "happily ever after." So maybe I just can't be pleased.

Maybe it's just that fiction is bad. Maybe I should only read non-fiction, but I don't know if my simple mind could take that. Blech!

I think I'll just stick with "reading is bad." Of course, I won't stop reading new books. We all have our vices. ;-)

You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

One day when I was a senior in highschool, during my AP Music class, I got a call from the office. There was an emergency and my sister needed me to call her.

This was the problem: Melanie worked for LeAnn at the dance studio teaching the littlest kids, and she had to choreograph a dance for one of her classes (about 8 years old). The song LeAnn wanted her to use was You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile; they'd even picked out the costumes they wanted to use. The emergency? LeAnn wanted Melanie to show her the choreography by that evening; Melanie had gotten a lot of the dance but was stuck in a few parts, so she wanted my help. I didn't have any trouble getting checked out of school, so Melanie picked me up and we worked it out.

The way these little-kid song and dance routines work is usually like this: There's some music that's sung, so you try to do actions that match the words but still look like dancing. Then there's a middle, instrumental section that, in this case, would be tap-dancing; and then there's an end bit where the song is sung again. So we came up with a really cute routine for the singing parts; the tapping stuff would be easy to fill in later.

That night, after the regular classes were done, Melanie and I did our dance for LeAnn. She loved it. "This is too cute for little kids to wreck it!" LeAnn said. She wanted to do it herself, with Melanie and me. She chose a different song and choreographed a dance for Melanie's class herself, so that we could do Never Fully Dressed.

Since Melanie and I were both at the studio every night, we would just stay after classes for about half an hour and work on our dance with LeAnn. Together we choreographed the non-singing part, and figured out how to take our bows at the end. It was fun—and it was way cute! (Actually, I wish I had a video of it to post for you.) Anyway, it was a BIG secret; nobody else in the studio knew we were doing it. Even at the dress rehearsal we waited until everyone else had gone home before we practiced it on the stage. LeAnn went so far as to make up silly names for us to put on the programs: Tillie Thun daThize, Tara Ra-Boom-Deay, and Boris L. TaDeth; that way no one would know ahead of time who was doing this dance. (Although I suspect that when we actually performed it people figured out who we were. LeAnn would have been an obvious guess, Melanie was eight months pregnant, and I was very well-known at the studio too.)

I cannot possibly describe in words the amazing feeling of being on the stage, and the feeling of everyone loving you in that moment; it is like magic! The moment we entered the stage we were a big success; people were laughing, and the applause at the end was terrific. Magic! That was the most fun dance I've ever done!

LeAnn, Melanie and Me

I love this picture; it always makes me smile—so I guess I am always fully dressed when I look at it. ;-)