Farewell...

President Gordon B. Hinckley

You will be missed!

You Can't Be Serious!

Just when you wonder if you've heard it all...

They're PAYING high school students to STUDY!!!

Enjoy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/ap_on_re_us/paid_to_study

I'm IT

I mean, I've been tagged. Again. Wendy, this one's for you.

10 years ago (Jan 1998):
I actually consulted my journal on this one, and to be honest--I'll be fine if my posterity NEVER reads it. I seemed so...silly then. Anyway, I was living in Salt Lake City, rooming with my brother, Ben, and working two jobs: Family Advocate for Head Start and in the evenings at a sheet music store. One nice thing about keeping journals is being able to read back and be so grateful for who you are NOW! (Or who you're NOT anymore, as the case may be.)

5 things on my to-do list today (or tomorrow):
1. Feed "Amelia", the pseudonym for our cute foster baby. She's 8 1/2 months old.
2. Play and read with Amelia
3. Play "Bouncing Balls" on Yahoo Games during Amelia's naptime. :) I've been needing to play games lately, so that's my fix when there's no one around to play with me!
4. Send Amelia to a visit with her mom
5. Go to mutual.

Snacks I enjoy:
1. Leftover garlic bread from dinner.
2. Popcorn--any kind.
3. Swedish Fish
4. Avocado in any form
5. Lemon Bars
6. Homemade caramel (let me know if you need the recipe. Its easy.)

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Move into a newer home--one with a Master Bath and with a more open floor plan
2. Make sure this home has land and maybe a few horses and a river nearby for Ray, the fishing fanatic
3. Go new places, starting with Ireland, Holland and Africa, and ending with somewhere south of the border
4. Fly family and friends in regularly to visit, since so few will pay to come to Idaho
5. Use my money/power to improve the foster care system

3 of my bad habits:
1. "Bouncing Balls" game, these past three days
2. Watching "24" if it ever comes back again
3. Neglecting to practice the piano and speak Spanish. Kind of makes learning those things a waste, don't you think?

5 places I have lived:
1. Morelia, Mexico (only for a month, but still)
2. New Zealand
3. Hollywood, CA
4. Beverly Hills 90210
5. Boise, ID

5 jobs I have had:

Where haven't I worked? Here are some of the more memorable...

1. Chinchilla caretaker for our neighbors who raised them when they travelled. Around age 11. They actually gave me one. It died after having a baby. Come to think of it, there were always a few "casualties" when the Roddes' would get back in town. They are delicate little rodents, but it may have also been the start of what could be called "poor pet caretaking". Not sure.
2. Activity Leader at Little Hills Picnic Ranch. Celia, remember when you worked there too? Wasn't it only for a few weeks?
3. Server at Pier 54 in Provo
4. Photo Developer at the BYU Bookstore.
5. Ice Cream Scooper at Leatherby's in Provo

5 things people don't know about me:
1. I once called a radio station to find out who sang this one song and the DJ said, "You're caller #10! Congratulations--you just won tickets to...(some concert)!" I said, "Oh. Well I just want to know who sings...(some song). I was on the air, live. I was also on a pay phone outside Longs Drugs store. I never picked up the concert tickets.

2. At age 16, I was in the Sun Valley Mall when a plane crashed into it on a foggy December 23rd night. Me, Celia or Kim??, Dane and Todd were there Christmas shopping. We were in the back of a record store when this kid came running back, trying to hide in the back storage room. He said he thought he heard a gun shot. I looked out towards the mall and saw a mass of people running towards the outside doors of the mall. It was a moment in my life that I think could be aptly described as "surreal". When we got to the front of the record store I looked down towards the center of the mall and could only see black smoke. We realized we had been where the plane crashed only five minutes earlier.

3. I was almost strangled to death in 1999. I worked at the SLC Youth Detention Center. I was taking a 12 year-old (yes, she was not even half my age) delinquent into the "strip search room". (Yea, I know what you're thinking: Yikes! Thankfully no cavity searches.) Before I knew it, she had her shoe lace around my neck and I couldn't breathe! I couldn't pull it off. As the door to the room had almost swung shut I got my toe in the door. When I finally somehow managed a blood-curdling scream (as described by my co-workers later) Kurt came hurtling in and tackled Angel (her actual name) to the ground. Turns out Angel had nothing against me personally--she was just trying to make her offense worse so she could go to the more severe, long-term youth detention center elsewhere where her girlfriend was likely going to be sent.

4. I love bread of all kinds. My favorite is Pugliese--an "artisan" bread. Its so chewy and crusty and holey. I could almost live off it.

5. If/when I find a song I like, I can listen to it over and over. Thankfully, I usually only do that when I'm by myself.

When I started this blog, it was mostly to show off cute foster babies. It was a bummer when I since learned that I can't post a picture of them at all. Takes all the fun out of it. Anyway, since I don't like publishing posts without a photo, here's one of my mom and dad. They're sporting the shirts I found for them last March in the Alamo Thrifty's. So funny!

Good Game

I do. Our family grew up playing games and I still love them. I remember as a youth asking my mom to play a game with me because none of my four siblings would, and she would agree as long as it was Scrabble. I would always sigh, wishing she would go for Monopoly or Life, but would then agree to Scrabble. I was so desperate for "the game." Now I am thankful to my mom's more narrow interest in the game arena, because playing Scrabble has helped me learn my words. Though these skills come in handy for really no other reason than to take people on in Scrabble, I'm learning words just the same.

We were always impressed when Wendy's friend, Robyn B., would come over and kill us all in Scrabble. They were REALLY good in that family.

Ray has been my latest victim. When I met him, I learned that his family was big into Scrabble. That's when I knew I was in--I would even play with them without Ray! They are all really good too. They play "open dictionary" style in order to learn words, which is nice, though it does make for a long game. Nonetheless, Ray and I have adopted the "open dictionary" style ourselves.

Ray is better at the game than I would like him to be, and beats me more than half the time. That's OK--it doesn't make me want to quit playing. I've found that staying home and caring for these foster babies has increased my interest for more mind-taxing activities in the evenings. Besides that, its cold and dark outside. Thankfully Ray has been willing to humor me.

Here is the start of our game board tonight. It made for a tougher game later on because we had nowhere to build on!


And later...note our "2-letter words" cheat sheet at the bottom of the photo.

The finished board. Ray won, of course.

Go to this link if you need word lists for your Scrabble playing. Lists like: words with J, X and Z, 3-letter words, words containing 66% or more vowels, Q words without U, etc. They're very helpful!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.bozon/scrabblelists.htm

Killing Elephant

November 2006: I found myself needing something small and helpless to care for. Enter Milo. She stood out among the other birds in the cage at the D&B, and I had to have her. I thought she was a male, but turns out I was wrong. Isn't she a beaut?

In the wild, parakeets flock together by the thousands, so Milo got lonely. She would just sit there on the perch all day long, barely moving. Even two parakeets together are lonely, but at least they're not completely alone. So in March I couldn't stand seeing such a lonely thing, so got her a she-friend, whose name is "Ele" (short for "Elephant", named by nephew Ethan.) Milo was beside herself with joy. Here they are together.

Last week I almost killed Ele. I thought I'd wait to write about it just in case she actually did die, but she's still alive.

Long story short: I clipped their wings (you have to do it every few months or so if you don't want them flying around the house). I thought while I had them there I would go ahead and clip their toenails. If they get too long they get their feet caught on things. Don't clip their toenails too short, or you might hit a vein and they will bleed. I hit Ele's vein but she only bled a little and it appeared to stop--so I didn't think much of it. Until I came home a few hours later and found bird blood all over the perches in their cage. Aaaaah!!!!

I ran and googled for help. They said use corn starch or flour. They also said that a bird can die after losing just a few drops of blood. Ele had lost much more than that. That's when I started to panic. She wouldn't stay still to let the cornstarch work--she just kept bleeding.

I took her to the vet (first time in my life--taking a pet there!) who said she wasn't sure, but it looked like not just her nail but part of her toe had been cut off too!!! Aaaaaah!!! That's right around when I started to cry. She had me come in the back while she worked on Ele, because "birds often die when they are in trauma like this, and I need you to be here to witness it. For vet liability issues." Aaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!! "I killed my parakeet."--that's all I could think, and the tears ran down. But I knew I had not clipped that much off--I'm very careful when doing that.

About 5 traumatic minutes later Tana, the vet, got the toe cleaned she said that actually it did look like just the nail had been cut after all. She applied "bloodstop" and the bleeding immediately stopped. She sent some bloodstop along with me and wished me luck. I'll admit I was grateful that she didn't charge me anything. The whole way home I wondered if Ele would die because of all she'd been through. So far so good. She's still chirping as annoyingly and loudly when "Amelia" is attempting to nap.

Here they are after a bird bath, looking like wet dogs!

McCall, Idaho

Have you heard of it? It is beautiful. McCall is located two hours north of Boise by Payette Lake. We try to get up there several times a year. Ray had some work he needed to do there so I tagged along with him and stayed two nights. We got to bring "Amelia" (the same foster baby we have had for 10 weeks) along with us and it was so fun! It snowed about 18-20" while we were there. Here are some pics from our hotel room.

Ray had to work early in the morning moving equipment in a bank so they could re-carpet, and then move it all back late that evening. So we had all day to find ways to spend the time. I iceskated at the rink overlooking the lake while Ray held Amelia. I didn't fall once, though I only made it around the rink about 8 times before my legs started to wobble from pure fatigue!! How sad that I am such a wimp. Notice the lake in the background.

All of our cutest pictures taken that day were of Amelia. I wish I could post them--she was so happy and smiling! Maybe someday...

For today, here she is pictured wearing her snowsuit by the lake and touching snow for the first time.

And here she is wearing her beret in the ice rink. She has some cute hats!

WinCo

You probably won't like the name (I didn't.) You probably won't like the looks (I didn't.) You proably won't like the loooong aisles (I didn't.) But once you shop there, you will like it. WinCo is one of the best parts about Idaho. Serious.Cheap prices, and bulk bins that never end, with even cheaper prices. WinCo's signature brand, "Flavorite", is decent as well. All in all, its the place to shop. They just opened a new location in our area, so everyone's especially excited.

Look: you can even buy your pet food in bulk! (OK--that grosses me out to have at the food store, but for some I'm sure its a convenience.)

I took a friend from Utah who was visiting to WinCo, and she couldn't get over how low the prices are. And while it may be a warehouse-type store, it doesn't have that warehouse feel that the one by Leatherby's did in Provo. BYU Grads: what was the name of that one grocery store? I forgot!

This is where I discovered my favorite Vinta Crackers--for the low low price of $1.98!
Long live WinCo!