Me and mini-me

I hope Izzy grows up to be a lot like me.  We've got a pretty good start.  So far we both like water, being outside, mashed potatoes, the moving pictures, and singing and dancing.  And it seems we both love shoes and books (although I tend not to eat them).

On the other hand, I like to build towers and she likes to knock them down.  Those are complementary interests, at least.

Oh brother

The other day I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to get a drink of water and as I sleepily passed through the living room I was startled by a strange man hanging out in our bean bag chair.  I didn't scream, but apparently I jumped quite high.  It turns out it was my brother and not a Utah variant of the Boston strangler.  He had let himself in around 5 AM to sleep at our house.  To be fair, 17 hours earlier he had let me know that he was driving down from Washington and (probably) planned to stay with us for a few days, but he did NOT tell me when to expect him and I had obviously not expected it to be right then.

Sheesh, the ONE time we don't lock the door at night, some creeper gets in.

We love the outsideness

We went to a carillon concert on Thursday, and we have decided that pretty much it was the best kind of concert ever.  We were outside, listening to a BELL TOWER, for crying out loud.  Nobody cared if we were noisy, we could move around as much as we wanted, there was nothing to see (and therefore nothing to miss), AND we got to eat fried chicken.

Izzy was a huge fan.  (Of the chicken, at least; I don't know what she thought of the music.)

Good times were had by all and sundry.

(On a side note, we saw a play yesterday called "Bells are Ringing."  It was nothing like the carillon concert (inside, stationary, shush-y, no chicken), and had no bells whatsoever, but it was still a worthy, if vastly different source of entertainment.)

Snip snip snip.

I cut my hair today. With orange-handled scissors. In the bathroom. I think I took off five or six inches. Also, I added some few bangs.

Doing it myself was cheap as free! Although, I don't really know anything about cutting hair except that if you make a mistake you'd better hope you can fix it before you run out of hair. I can't really see what I did, but I think it looks okay. And if it doesn't, oh well. My head, my fault. I'll take and post a picture later.

UPDATE:

Um...hair!

Cake, cake, cay-ca-cay-cake, yeah

Just the other day I was telling Matt that we need to have more kids.  More kids means more birthdays which means more CAKE!
Whenever I go to any sort of social function I am irrationally disappointed if there is not cake.  Maybe this stems from my being a Thanksgiving baby and sometimes having had to settle for birthday pie.  And maybe I just really think that cake is delicious.  Specifically, Costco cake.  And those cakes are HUGE, so we'll just have to have like a hundred babies. 

When I think of cake, also, I think of this song.  I hope that now you will too!

One of life's little ironies, I suppose.

Friday morning I had one of the most delightful runs of my life.  It was satisfying and just at the edge of my comfort range, but I felt like I could have gone on forever.  I was running and smiling, for crying out loud.  NOBODY does that.

Since I was doing well and had met my race goal, I felt a reward was in order.  So, later on that day I went out shopping and got myself some genuine, certified, bona fide running clothes.  Woo!

Unfortunately, I do not know when I will get to use those new clothes because later that same day it became apparent that I had developed bursitis in my hip.  I am off the running until it goes away. :(  Also, since I'm not going very far and not going very hard, I must be doing something horrendous with my form to have sustained such an injury.  That's something I probably ought to correct, if I can just figure it out.

Here's to a fast recovery! ...I hope!

He listens and he loves me!

Matt and I were sharing some gummy, fruity candy last night.  I tried one of each flavor, and then announced that I only liked the orange ones.  Matt kept eating them, because to him candy is candy.

This morning, after Matt left for work, I found the almost empty candy package.  This was what was left:

Yup.  He left me the orange ones.

*heart*

I'd be more inspired, but it's hot outside.

I just finished a book called "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall and now I want to run 100 miles in the mountains, barefoot.  I might get the barefoot part down, perhaps even the mountains bit, but I'm not holding my breath about the 100 miles.  Someday, maybe 10 miles.  Someday....

Do YOU have one?

We had dinner guests on Saturday, and I had planned to make my mom's amazing short ribs.  They needed to cook for six to eight hours, so I was up in the morning getting everything ready.  I had defrosted the ribs in the refrigerator the day before, but they were wrapped in butcher paper, so I hadn't seen them yet.  I thought they would be all set for the next phase of cooking.

They totally weren't, guys!

The ribs were not very short at all!  Instead of the two-inch chunks the recipe called for, there were four long chunks of meat backed by four equally long sections of bone.  I didn't know what to do, so I called my mom.  She was like, "Hmm.... Well, do you have a bone saw?"

...

No I do not. 

However, Matt has a miter saw, and although it was a hard process, we managed to make the short ribs...shorter.

Seven hours later we ate them and they were delicious. 

And we will probably never own a bone saw.

Buzz buzz buzz

I've been rather busy with various projects, lately. 

I've got big plans for a quilt that may or may not ever come to fruition in my lifetime. 

But if it does it will be MARVELOUS!

I've written the words to a children's book, and now I'm working on the illustrations.  Unfortunately, I am strictly a stick-figure artist, so this is very difficult.

At least they aren't naked stick people...

And to top it all off, I've got a baby who pulls herself up on anything that holds still for more than two seconds.  (Me included.)

Ha ha, woo!  Life is good.