Tales of a Shoebox Princess

But I'm not going to list them all here. Besides, really it's just a list of years; on the other hand, those years add up to Jim. And I'm kind of partial to Jim. Yes, folks, it's make-a-cake day! And also eat-a-cake day! I'm sure you all saw pics of his cake on fb or instagram (or both) already. But here it is again: Jim never did give me any input on how to decorate the cake, so I had to come up with it on my own. I picked what I hoped was a highlight of this past year (despite the red eyes--come to think of it, I should have put a pair of red eyes on the cake somewhere). He has also been complaining about the winter. Personally, I don't know what there is to complain about; it's Minnesota, winter is SUPPOSED to be cold and snowy. But whatev. He seems to like "warm weather" or whatever it's called. Last night we went out for dinner and then he suggested a stroll around Barnes and Noble. Jim grabbed the one book he wanted and I had to ...

Matt and Hayley weren't that much trouble though. Another missionary came home yesterday. When we had EJ's farewell open house, we combined with two other families who had missionaries leaving the week before EJ. Well, those two other boys are now home. From the mother's point of view, waiting for a missionary to come home is a lot like being pregnant, only when the child comes, 1) he'll be fully functional and will be able to communicate (although I expect some Spanglish), 2) I know the exact date and time of his arrival, and 3) I won't feel like I've been beat up afterwards. I drove Hayley and Matt to seminary this morning and when I got home, Jim had made breakfast. This was a first! I almost wondered if he had an ulterior motive. But no, he was just being nice. I think he's going to miss me a little (I have to go to the office today and I'll be there til Friday).

25 years of marriage! (and 11 days) If I had a time machine, I would go back to November 19, 1988 and attend a mid-morning session in the Oakland temple, just so I could whisper to the bride "It will be work, but it will be good work and fun work. And it will work." The bride would probably think, "Go away, strange fat person," but I would smile anyway and then come back home to today and eat a doughnut. 25 years! We've lasted longer than several dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, mattresses, TVs, and many many fashion trends. We've upgraded computers and software, but not our spouses. We have not, however, outlasted our children (which is good--I don't think I want to do that). I could make a list of all the things I love about Jim, but some things I can't put into words. And some things I wouldn't want to publicize. And still the list would be too long. And I don't like mushy sentimentality. Let it suffice to say that I w...

Jim's eyes are much better. Much much better. I can see the whites of his eyes now, and there is only a little faint pink tint to them. He's feeling much better too. He still gets tired at the end of the day, but hopefully with the Thanksgiving break he'll get some rest. I'm trying to be philosophical about having nearly 48 hours of precious vacation time lost to an illness, but part of me is whiny and wants to go back to make up for lost time. I don't blame Jim at all, mind you. I'm glad his episode was temporary and not, like, Ebola. Next time, though, we will not take a red-eye flight, because Jim literally wound up with red eyes. I'm very grateful that there was help when I needed it, from the EMTs, the hospital staff, and the branch president and his wife from church down in Marathon. I'm glad that Jim was not hurt by the fall (I have myself to thank for that--pat on my own back there for being 2 feet away at the precise moment of the first attack...

Beware, I'm going to blog about the cats. This is what happens when 60% of the children are gone and the other 40% are sullen teenagers. OK, Matt and Hayley aren't sullen. They are quiet though. And mostly gone. Hayley works 5 days a week, and Matt has learned to have most of his conversations inside his own head. So I'm left to hang around the cats. Like today. For the past few months, I have been feeding them what I call "Daily Tuna," which is about 1/3 of a can of tuna every day around noon. The cats have come to expect it, and will start getting antsy for Daily Tuna around 10 a.m. Every time I go into the kitchen, they follow me, stare at me, and meow at me. Today, however, Jim was in the kitchen and he asked if I had given the cats their Daily Tuna yet. I said no. So he got the container out of the fridge and put some tuna on a plate. Usually, when I even open the cupboard door to get a little plate, Magic and Servo are right there at my feet, meowin...

Tomorrow morning around 8 a.m. we take Paul to the airport. He has spent most of the day packing and sorting through things. We got the last few things on his list, one which was a certain kind of insect repellant that is available only at a few places. Last night we had a collective near-heart-attack moment when Paul couldn't find his passport. Katie had wanted to look at it before she left for the airport, but it wasn't in all the places we thought it could be. My stomach was churning as I helped Paul search. Jim said he hadn't even seen it since we got it in the mail with Paul's travel plans. But he thought he would check his truck anyway, even though he KNEW it wasn't going to be there. And yet it was, in a manila envelope under some other papers. It's a good thing Katie asked to see it, otherwise we all would have assumed it was where it needed to be, and then tomorrow morning would have been even more hectic, scary, and panicky, with possible tears. ...

I keep thinking that I'm going to update Paul's countdown daily, but it hasn't happened that way. There is too much to do. Like right now, I'm making icing. Just a sec while I pour in another cup of powdered sugar. K I'm back. This is batch one of the icing. I still need 2 more batches. And I need 2 or 3 more batches of ground beef cooked. Maybe another block of cheese grated. All this for Paul's farewell. You're coming, I hope? Anyway, since I don't blog like I used to, I'm going to offer up some pictures. Just a few. And I'll probably blog even less when Paul leaves, mostly because I'll be keeping up two missionary blogs for a while. Here Paul eats a Juicy Lucy. It was his request to eat a Juicy Lucy. He got to go to the 5-8 Club again today for lunch with Jim, Granddaddy, and Matt. This picture is not associated with Paul in any way. It's just a picture of Lemmy. It looks like the crockpot is on, but it wasn't plu...

When asked if they would like to dye eggs this year, the three remaining at-home children all expressed very little enthusiasm. But I bought egg dye anyway. Good thing I did because at 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, all three kids wanted to dye eggs. See, this just adds to the hoarder impulses I have. "You need to buy that just in case," my brain tells me, because heaven forbid we disappoint the 18-, 16- and 14 year olds by not having colorful hard boiled eggs on Easter Sunday. For $2, I couldn't argue very much, although I don't mind disappointing the teenagers once in a while. Dyeing eggs with teenagers means that we aren't making them look pretty with cute little Easter bunnies or chicks. Hayley's theme this year was Pokemon creatures and a TARDIS . Paul chose his two eggs to be checkerboard, one of which involved several steps including tape, and Matt just did random scribbles, one that was nearly completely black (colored by crayon) and a Pokeball.  Jim...

Jim had a birthday yesterday! Cake! Of course the ideas for cake decoration always come at the last minute so I don't have time to fully flesh out the idea and collect materials. But since cake is meant to be eaten, I don't mind so much that my ARTISTIC VISION is not fully realized. Plus, Jim doesn't care. When I asked him what kind of cake I should make him, his response was "whatever, just not strawberry flavored." And even then, he said, "I'd still eat it, though." Has there EVER been a guy easier to please than Jim? I think not. The idea came from his age. Yes, he's 51. And when I hear "51," first thing that springs to mind is Area 51, that secret military base that houses aliens. How to turn that into a cake? Pretend that Jim is an alien. I like the lettering style of the 51. It ain't perfect, but I like it. The HB, in case you can't figure it out, means Happy Birthday The cake plate is upside down and covered ...

This is a story from the wedding. It is 100% true. Most of you have probably heard the story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. Sunday morning of our Utah trip was spent slowly getting ready for church. Daylight Savings had kicked in so we were up early with plenty of time to spare before we had to head over to the Tanner Building on BYU campus for Paul's ordination in his priesthood class.  As we were getting ready, Jim grabbed the suit bag for the suit he brought, which he was going to wear both to church and to the wedding and reception. He bought the suit a few months before and had the pants tailored to fit. He unzipped the suitbag and eased the suit coat out. Then he reached in for the suit pants. But he couldn't find them.  "I think I left my pants in Minnesota," he said with a perplexed look on his face. He was so sure he had packed them.  No suit pants anywhere. All he could find were jeans. We still had an hour before we had to be at the church ...

I've spent most of the day by myself. Hayley ditched me for friends and shopping, and Jim and Matt went on a bike ride in Wisconsin. The trail was an old rail line that had been converted to a bike path. They went 22 miles on it from Elroy to Sparta. The weather was perfect for a long bike ride. The trees were decked out in their finest fall colors. They went through two tunnels, one a half mile, and the second was nearly a mile. Jim says you could see the dot of the light at the other end, but it was a LONG tunnel, you think you'd walked a long way, and then you'd look back and the entrance behind you was still closer than the one you were walking to. To make it even more challenging, it was dark. There were no lights in these tunnels and they had to walk the bikes the entire length. Jim brought a couple of headlamps along which was a good thing because some of the kids didn't bring flashlights. The other thing about the tunnels was that they were surprisingly cold a...

I was sitting here at the table at my laptop and I reached out to put my hand on the mouse. I moved it around, but the cursor didn't move. I was perplexed for a nanosecond, then I realized that A) the mouse didn't feel like a regular mouse, and B) I don't have a mouse for the laptop, and C) I had my hand on my cell phone. Aside from the fact that it proves I might have lost a couple of marbles, I had a good laugh. Jim was standing next to me and I told him what happened. He said, "That's next--an app that will turn a cell phone into a mouse." What a great idea! I wonder if anyone else has thought of it? It's too bad I'm not proficient at programming, otherwise, I'd be figuring out how to make the idea reality.

Cake. It was my week. I baked two cakes and many cupcakes. It ended up being about 1 1/2 cakes too many, but having leftover cake is certainly not a BAD thing. It's not like having leftover okra or leftover roadkill souffle. Anyway, yes, I like to make cakes and decorate them. It may even be a hobby. Or at least a time waster when I have more important things that I really should be doing but don't want to do. I don't decorate my house, but if there is a flour/egg/sugar baked good, you can be sure I'll be right there with my homemade buttercream frosting, Wilton decorating tips and pastry bags, and the appropriate colors of Wilton food coloring paste to fit the occasion, and I will decorate the heck out of that baked good. This was one of the results of my efforts this week: The cross country running cake Normally I hate the word "Congrats," but I had to use it because I started the word "Congratulations" too far to the right. So I had to b...