Frenectomy

Yeah, I didn't know what this was either. But it turns out that my daughter (and several other people in my family) have a double hooky thing on the inside of their bottom lip. It turns out that this causes the gums to recede and needs to be corrected with surgery. So because it was Christmas break, Emily and I headed into the surgeon's office yesterday to get this thing taken care of (mostly because she wouldn't let me just do it with one my scrapbooking scissors). Well, it turns out that it was already starting to make the gums recede, so after she got some laughing gas they did both the gum graft and the frenectomy. Turns out I should have got the laughing gas for when I got the bill! Anyway, Emily is home now, soothing her very sore mouth with a lot of ice cream and pudding. They said it would take three to six weeks for all this to heal. What a way to spend Christmas break. She should start feeling better, just in time to get those braces put on....lucky girl!

Huh....do you think I could make these look like Gingerbread Men?

OK, so last night my children were decorating their Gingerbread houses like they do every year, and I remembered that I had some gingerbread mix in the cupboard from last year. So I mixed it up, and tried to make Gingerbread men. The recipe said what to do if the dough was to moist, but it didn't say what to do if it was to dry. So I couldn't really roll it out, because it was all crumbly. That's not to say it didn't taste good...trust me I checked that out. But when I couldn't roll them out, I tried just flattening some out, thinking that I could maybe whittle out some men after they baked. My husband was not supportive in this effort, by the way, he just wanted to eat gingerbread in any form. Well at least the gingerbread houses turned out....they came in a kit.

Christmas is almost here.....YES!!!!

I love Christmas, and it's almost here!!!! I am so excited, I love Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas morning, Christmas day..I am so ready! Well, I'm pretty ready, I have most of my presents bought (but most are still in the shopping bags, tucked in the corner of my closet, so I need to get those wrapped). I love holiday baking, (well, I have all the ingredients, they're sitting on my kitchen counter, I just need to actually make the cookies). I have finished up with Cub Scouts for 2008 (OK, I just need to get the re-charter finished, signed and turned in). But Church is all squared away, (as soon as I finish narrating the Christmas play on Saturday night, and get the new class bags for 2009 finished, they're sitting in my hallway). So because I have so much extra time I am helping my sister finish one of her projects, she is even more stressed than me!!



Oh, who am I kidding, I need at least another week!!! But Christmas is in 5 days. Do you hear that people???? 5 Days!!!! I have to go, I don't have time to blog.



Merry Christmas!!

Can We Say Multi-plug Outlet?

OK, I am not great at taking Christmas Lights pictures, but here is a picture of my house. The picture really doesn't do it justice, we have a big nativity on the left, four polar bears, a seal, four trees, two big candy canes, a cow, and presents on the right. A few years ago I did not even put out any lights, but the gauntlet was thrown down when my mother made a sarcastic comment about my decorations (or lack thereof) was reminiscent of a certain relative. That was it, I went to Michael's the next day and bought a bunch of lights.

Little did I know how much Scott was going to get into it. He has created a stable for our nativity, a star, organizes all the cords and manages to keep it all from blowing fuses. Some people worry about getting Thanksgiving off, but Scott worries about getting the day after off, because that is the earliest I will allow him to put up the lights. Although this year we were a little off, because the Scout's float (which took first place, thank you very much) borrowed some of our decorations. But we are all back on track now.

Unfortunately, we live a little of the beaten path, so not very many people come to see our lights. I do know, however, that my cousin's handicapped daughter, Holli, makes her parents drive by at least once a night. So if it keeps growing every year, we might get enough lights that you can see us from the highway, 2 miles away, if you build it, they will come!!

Learning to Say No...Thank You

I seem to be suffering from a bit of over-commitment lately. Between family, work, scouts, and church I haven't had a single day off (with the exception of Thanksgiving) for well over a month. So last night I was racing through Erik's spelling words when he asked if I had to go back into town that night. I told him "Yes, unless Emily has decided that she doesn't want to sing in the Christmas Choir." Emily was sitting at the other end of the table, looked up at me with a puzzled expression and said, "I don't want to sing, I thought we were doing this because you really wanted to." With that simple statement the light of epiphany dawned and we just stared at each other for several seconds, until we burst out laughing. Each of us has been enduring this choir because we thought it meant something to the other. So right there we decided to stay home, and decorate our tree as soon as Scott got home. It felt great to drop the weight of that burden and let it go, so I encourage everyone to learn, once in a while, to say, "no...I don't think I will be able to do that right now". It feels great!!

Scouting

For those who have known me any length of time, you probably know my former stance on the Boy Scouts of America. Growing up I felt that this misogynistic, elitist program was at the least outdated. After all I could do anything a scout could do, and I didn't earn a badge! I vowed that any boy of mine would be free from these uniform trappings and their secret language. But what could I do when last year my son brought home a flyer from the cub scout pack that meets at the school, looked at me with those golden-green eyes and said, "But, I really want to be a cub scout Mom." In retrospect, I should have bought him a pony!



Fast forward to this year, and I am now a Bear Den leader, and the committee chair for our pack. I have no idea how this happened! Now I have meetings constantly, I know about badges and rank requirements, I have popcorn stacked in every room of my home, I even know the secret language, such as "roundtable" and "district". And now my life has been consumed with this float. The Grand Junction Parade of Lights is this weekend, it is traditionally the coldest day of the year. We have been working on this float for days. As a result I don't have my house decorated for Christmas, I don't have my Christmas shopping done, I don't have my Dad's tree decorated, and I don't have a single present wrapped! But it will all be worth it after Sunday, because we are going to win the Parade of Lights this year. So wish us luck, and if you're in town
this weekend, go to the Parade of Lights and cheer for entry number 9!

Oh yeah, and I have revised my stance on Scouts.

Christmas Music

I love Christmas music, it is in my blood, from Grandma Whiting's famous Christmas Cantata's to hearing it coming from Ellen's room all year long. There is something about Christmas music that makes you happy. So I work in a fairly closed-in area with Brian (he's a fellow lab rat). We listen to my ipod, but he has some veto rights, for instance, I can't play the sound track from Mama Mia more than once a week, and Christmas music can only be played after Thanksgiving. That is certainly not to say that on any given Friday in July you could walk into my lab and hear Christmas music (Brian doesn't work on Friday's), or the occasional Christmas song "accidentally" gets put in the wrong play list. But the spirit must have been working this year, because he relented and we started listening to it yesterday.

I believe that I am the queen of Christmas music, I have over 340 Christmas songs on my ipod. All the way from Eartha Kit to Faith Hill. But let's face it, there are really only about 30 Christmas songs before you head into Thistle Hair the Christmas Bear territory. But I don't care how many times I hear Away in a Manger, it still makes me happy!

Sisters

Nancy, me, Ellen, and Laura

Laura, Ellen, Nancy, and Donna

Well, it is great to be home. Erik informed me that I was gone so long, he almost forgot what I looked like! Tonight I am heading to see Twilight with my Mom and two of my sisters. My sisters and I used to be able to spend a ton of time together, then they went and entered the world of professional women. As a result we have three very different schedules, so finding time to sit and visit, or better yet, shop for bargains at Target is next to impossible. Plus, my sister Laura lives over in Cedar City, and we only get to see her a couple times a year. So it is a rare treat to all go out to dinner, and then to a show. My sisters are really my best friends, next to my husband, so spending time with them is really treasured. In fact my mother is even willing to go see a vampire movie, just so she won't be left behind. Maybe because our time together has become so precious, I have learned to appreciate it more.

Be thankful for your water

OK, so the conference picked up today. I wanted to talk about how hard the people in my industry work to make sure that the water coming out of your faucet is the best it can be. Here is an example of a workshop I attended today, everyone has read the AP articles about pharmaceuticals in your water, how waste flushed through the water cycle end up in your water. Well the most authoritative person on the the subject gave a presentation today, he showed results from Lake Mead for the last 10 years, and yes they have found pharmaceuticals in the water. But, to put this in prospective, to get 200 mg of ibuprofen (like one motrin tablet) you would need to consume 7,000 glasses of water in a day! Isn't that amazing? People are worried about something that is measured in parts per trillion, and a whole industry is trying to eliminate something that most people don't think twice about popping into their mouth when they have a backache.

So since it is November, and a month for remembering to give thanks, I think people should give thanks for their water. At a presentation last night, a man showed water testing in Africa, where, if they are lucky, they only have a little bacteria in the water. So go to the tap and get a big glass of clean, chlorinated water!!!

OK, I guess it is time to give this blog thing a try. I have been lurking around reading a few others, and have decided to just go for it. I have no idea who, if anyone, will read this, but since I don't keep a journal maybe this will work a little.

So this week I am in Cincinnati at a water convention. It is a little intimidating, because most of the people attending are engineers. This is ironic since this convention is billed for technical people like me, looking for the newest analyzers and research. Today I attended a seminar that had a lot of people presenting who, obviously, english is a second language. So not only are thier statistics way over my head, half the time I don't even know what they are saying. I would feel really bad, except that at the end of the presentation they ask if there are any questions, and there aren't any. Not only that but everyone appears as confused as I am. No, I know I am not alone because I have a few comrades in arms that when truly pressed will admit to the same thing. So I will be here until Thursday morning, pick up some swag from the vendors, get a little from the presentations and head home for a lovely three day weekend! The best part is that Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy's are next door to my hotel!! Good thing Scott is getting a lot of overtime!