Another New Look

And this time it isn't braided. She is not patient enough to sit and get her hair braided each night. She was using the curling iron for a while, but that too takes a lot of time. Then she decided to make it permanent. With a perm. She even offered to pay for half of it. Brandon took her to get it done on one of their dates, but they didn't have enough time to fit her in (it takes 3 hours!). I took her back the next day, after school. Now we know she can sit still for 3 hours, while someone else works on her hair :) Sophie wasn't quite so patient. She was a handful while we waited, but luckily Brandon met us there right after work and relieved me of duty. Now he can still count it as part of his date.

@#$%*#!!

A swear word is only a swear word if somebody decides it becomes one. Every "bad" word I know originally had a decent connotation, and then someone decided to add a nasty definition. Other than teaching my children the third commandment about using the Lord's name properly, I didn't feel the need to sit my kids down and hand them a list of words they can't say. They're not going to know a word is "bad" unless someone tells them it is. And someone did just that.

Chloe has a song she really likes (there's more to tell about it, but I'm not allowed to yet), "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. She was over at her friend's house and told her about this song she likes. Her friend told her that was a bad song because it has a bad word in it. So Chloe came home and told me about it. I shrugged it off, but then she brought it up again the next day. This time I told her I didn't know the song well enough to know if it had a bad word in it, let alone what it was. Then she asks, "Is it 'damn'"? I said, "I don't know if that's in the song, but that's not a nice word to say." So now I was in a position where I had to explain the whole "swear word" thing. I explained how there are some words that people use because they don't know how to express themselves any better. I gave an example of how I would express frustration, but told her others might just say "Oh, [insert grunt]." And just as I grunted Sophie yells, "Damn!"

That was the end of my lesson.

Dan Liljenquist Goes Green

After playing a very passive role in this past legislative session, yesterday I had the opportunity to go listen to our state senate leader, Dan Liljenquist, speak. I was a little concerned about going, because I know the group he was speaking to is what I consider very extreme, and I don't exactly align all my views with them. But the senator was much more realistic, and I think he did a great job in dispelling a lot of myths. The topic he was given was "Virtue in Politics." Seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it? It was neat to get an insiders perspective of some of the things that have been going on in a couple of our congressman's private lives. How come when we elect someone to represent us we expect perfection from them? Is that how we behave? I just kept thinking, "let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Yesterday's festivities also included celebrating St. Patrick's Day. This is not a holiday on my list of holidays required to celebrate. But the girls got excited. You know I always get discouraged with making special meals, because that usually involves tons of sugar and flour and things we just don't need. But then I got thinking of all the green foods I love: green smoothies, salads, celery, green peppers, zucchini, and I got a little excited. I finally found a way to celebrate in a healthy way! I didn't want to overdo it, because then I prepare way more food than we can possibly eat so we just had some spinach tortellini with a pesto dipping sauce, broccoli with a garlic butter, and some deviled eggs that I just pureed some spinach and added that to the yolk mixture to turn it green. I was not going to use food coloring! I think it turned out nice. Sophie devoured the broccoli. I think she had 3 servings, and I even got a compliment out of her. Chloe preferred the eggs, but don't tell her there was spinach in it! We gobbled it up so quickly I didn't even think of getting a picture, but you can imagine a plate full of green.

After dinner the girls got up and vounteered to do the dishes. Chloe washed and Sophie dried. They did it as a way to earn a game of kickball afterwards. The weather is turning nice, so it was fun to get outside and kick a ball around for a bit.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Last week my husband had way too much to do. First, his car was having a problem. He diagnosed it as the water pump and thought he could fix it himself. After spending a day and a half working on it (and cursing it a few times) he finally got it put back together enough that he could get it to the mechanic. He had to take a day off of work since he didn't have any transportation. The good news, the mechanic told him he had done it just right, but he said Brandon had made a small hole in some other pipe in doing so. So, he got the car back and made it to work the next day, but when I went out to the garage I noticed a pile of antifreeze where his car had been. I called him at work to let him know so he could watch for it and make sure he still had enough to get it home. He took it back to the mechanic (this time he worked from home so he didn't have to take another day off), and when he went to pick it up the mechanic told him it would be "two fifty eight." He was just supposed to put some stuff on to seal the water pump better so Brandon started asking a bunch of questions to figure out why it was so expensive, until the mechanic finally clarified it was "$2.58."



A couple days later I took my car in to get it aligned, and came out with a much bigger bill than I had expected, so we're all even now. I got stuck there for a couple hours. They offered to drive me home, but I had a good book with me ("Green For Life") and I was able to get it finished, so that was one good thing that came of it.

Meanwhile, Brandon had a security training he was supposed to be preparing. A guy he used to work with hired him to come train his company on security. Since attending Black Hat Brandon's become quite the guru. It was a two day training, plus all the preparation. Needless to say, he was pretty stressed for a few days, we didn't see him much, and he is never going to do that again.

In the middle of his training he had an interview for a new position at work. He's been wanting to change his job for awhile, and this opportunity just crept up. It's kind of a long story, but to keep it simple he's been told he's going to be offered the job on Monday. But that made someone mad who doesn't want to lose him, so they're trying to make him a different offer to keep him on their team. It's all a little confusing, but he's got some choices to make. And come Monday he will hopefully be in a position he's more excited about! He is a great person, and it's so nice to see it recognized by people fighting over him :)

I now have my husband back. We've had a quiet couple of days, and I really like it. I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying so.

While Brandon was preparing for his training I thought it would be best to get the girls out of the house for a day. The Cowboys were in town, playing the Utes, so I took the girls and made a day of it. I had called the box office to see if they had a section for away fans, and the guy told which one it was so I got tickets in that section. I think he lied to me. There were no Cowboy fans near us. We saw plenty of them around, and could hear them in the crowd, but the nearest ones were in the next section over. It was nice to not be the ONLY ones cheering for the away team. Sophie asked me what we need to do to be among the majority of the fans. I told her we need to move somewhere where her favorite team lives. I think she's still voting for Memphis, but Chloe would be happy in Laramie or Provo. By the way, our Cowboy's lost, but it was a pretty good game.

Sophie's smile also changed last week. Her first two teeth that came out were fairly small, but this one left a big 'ol gap in her mouth. It sure is cute on her, though. We all had to go visit the dentist the next day for a checkup. She didn't fair so well. She had a cavity filled last time that apparently was deeper than expected so they have to go back in and do a pulpotomy. Wish her luck on Monday.