Happy Birthday James!

James' Birthday

Today is my dear husband's 38th birthday. When we were making plans to get married, I didn't want to get married the day before his birthday. I like celebrating each and every holiday, birthday, and anniversary by itself and not mix them. I was afraid his birthday would be outshined and I never liked it when my birthday fell on mother's day. But he said the sweetest thing to me when we were planning the wedding..."I can't think of a better present for my birthday than having you as my wife." I don't think there is anything he could ever say to me that would be sweeter than that. Well I was going to make him a cheesecake for his birthday, but he's still in bed, sick. (insert sad face here) Plus I have three more papers to write, two tests to take, and a music lesson to prepare for an elementary class and submit. I think we'll have to add James' birthday to the list of things we need to celebrate during the Christmas break! I'm hoping no children will be born to us in the winter months, too many events and illnesses! I fully believe in family planning!

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Our 1st year anniversary at the beach

Our 2nd Anniversary

Yesterday was our 2nd wedding anniversary. I wanted to write a blog about it since it's a very important day. Sadly enough, we were in bed SICK all day today. Then I had to drag myself out of bed later to go do an interview with one of my friends that worked with me at Spa Sasse' for my class in minorities so I could then come home and write a 6 page paper about her. James and I wanted to spend the day at the beach, we will have to celebrate our anniversary during my Christmas break instead. For our honeymoon we went to the beach and it was warm and beautiful. It was beautiful last year too. Today? Rainy and nasty all day long, it's a miracle it was so nice on the beach for us on our honeymoon. I thought I'd blog about our special day.

James and I were married November 18, 2005 in the Portland Temple. We were living a block away from each other in downtown Portland and I picked him up from his apartment. We picked up the flowers we ordered from a little florist shop and went to get my dress from the bridal shop. I should have went the day before because we were late getting started. We then went to the Olive garden where we had our bridal lunch with the family, pretty much everyone else had already eaten by the time we got there, but it turned out OK. Everyone had a good time. My mom and dad were there, Gary, and Tyler. Aunt Ruth came and Uncle Wayne and Aunt Dorothy. My friend Jen came, which was sweet of her. I told her she could be my sister for the day. James' mom and dad, all his brothers and sister (Bob, Darin and his kids, and Melissa) came also. When we got to the temple, oops I forgot to pick up the marriage license.. so James had to drive back to my apartment to get it. (good thing we only lived 10 minutes away) I went to the bridal room to get ready. My mom, James' mom, Jen and Melissa came in with me to dress, I was glad I got to take my time while James was running around, double parking and getting a ticket!!! Then I met him and we walked into the sealing room. Our bishop had just gotten home from an out of town trip and come straight to the wedding. We were pleased he was there. While we were walking into the room, the temple worker that I had met when I was sitting in the temple deciding to go on a mission and later when she was at Craig and Heather's wedding met me at the door. I couldn't believe my own sweet angel temple worker was there on my wedding day! Afterwards we took pictures. At one point I was trying to get James to laugh and look more relaxed in the photos and I grabbed his butt, thinking nobody saw me. Well, Aunt Ruth was standing right in back of me!!!!!!! HOW EMBARRASSING! My little Aunt who is my grandmother's sister... I think I turned all shades of RED!!! But I laugh now at it, it is pretty funny. Then we took off to the beach, me still in my wedding dress and James in his nice suit. We went to eat at Dory's Cove and when we walked in, we got a standing ovation. That was fun. Then we went to our lovely wedding retreat on the beach. I made sure we got a jacuzzi in the bedroom. We spent 4 awesome, splendid days together and when we got back we had to move into a new house and the craziness began. I want to pretend it's our honeymoon again and run off to the beach...

messy houses

James and I are sick, sick, sick! I think we both have the flu. We're trying our best to care for one another, but mostly we've been laying in bed, he's been watching tv and sleeping and I've been reading my assignments for school and sleeping. That reminds me what a dear friend said to me last month. I was sick and had stayed home from church. She was worried and stopped by to see me afterwards. I was really embarrassed because my house was a mess and I was in my pajamas with really messy hair. (and we know my hair can get messy with all this curl, a total rat's nest!) She hugged me and said not to worry, that most people live in messes most of the time and only clean up when people come to visit. I am this dear sister's visiting teacher and when I go over we have to move things off the couch to sit down. Yet, this sister has taught me that a cluttered house is hardly worth getting your panties in a bunch over. This sister is the most Christlike person I've ever met. She's taught me that kindness and love towards one another is what it's all about, not pretending to be perfect and having a perfect household. That is simply not reality and pretending to be perfect does nothing but cause others to be hard on themselves for not being perfect. I think this is why so many mormon women are on antidepressants, because they feel they have to be perfect. I know when my own mother was young and had 4 children, we were living in a small house. There was no room for our toys and my aunt stopped by for a visit. The house was cluttered and she told my grandma that my mother wasn't perfect because she couldn't keep a clean house. Of course that got back to my mother and she felt judged and less than a good housekeeper and mormon wife. So she's stressed her whole life about keeping a clean house. Why are many mormon women so critical of each other? I'm thankful for a dear friend who has helped me understand the true meaning of friendship and Christlike love.

Endings

I'm rarely satisfied when I read the endings to books. I'm not sure why endings usually let me down. I guess I should quit reading after the climax of the book. I read something in my short story class that I whole heartedly agree with and described why I'm left disappointed with the end. It is by Margaret Atwood. I think most people will agree with her. This is basically her conclusion of her short story, but the whole thing is worth reading.

"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

Now try How and Why."

Don't you agree with her? I do!

Book Review

I just finished reading Villette by Charlotte Bronte. I own all the Bronte sister's books and have read this book over and over. The first time I read it was in high school. My teacher was surprised I picked it to read for one of our book reviews because she said it was a book she read in college. I don't know why I'm so fascinated with this book, but I think it is better than Jane Eyre, (which I read in junior high) yet I love that book also. I guess because I love romance books and these ones are just my speed. Romantic and clean and I adore the classics. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Veterans Day short video

Veterans Day

Sunday is Veterans Day and most schools and businesses observe veterans day on Monday. This picture is of George Mencl, my grandfather. He was a World War II Vet. He served in the South Pacific. My grandfather came home hard of hearing due to the bombs that were dropped on an airport that he was stationed at. As he got older, his hearing became worse and worse until in his final years, he could practically hear nothing. My grandfather was a very good man, he loved my grandmother very much and she was always by his side. At grandpa's funeral, they played taps and told the parents to tell their children about the heroic men who served in WWII. My grandpa became much more tender and sweet to his grandchildren as he got older. I loved playing board games with him and he taught me peanuckle.

A good read

James recently finished this book. His synopsis of it to me was explaining the ways our government is corrupt and how they scapegoated Argentbright security, despite them doing absolutely nothing wrong, in an effort to cover up their own incompetence and ignorance of all the warnings they were given before 9/11. He said, "Security at airports is nothing more than useless, expensive window dressing wasting billions aimed at placating the masses. While there is virtually ZERO security for all of the caterers, janitors, and maintenance personnel. Any one of them has nearly unlimited access to aircraft and could put anything they wanted on them. That is in fact how guns got on the planes on 9/11. Our government is giving the people a false sense of security. Our government has lied to everyone, and most especially its own people. After reading this book it eliminated any musings as to why so many people throughout the world hate us." Sad!

Thanksgiving

Traditions

I always loved family traditions. I love that I can make my own family traditions now that I have my own little family. Holidays give families the ability to create fun and happy memories and traditions that you and everyone in the family can look forward to. I look forward to the ward Halloween party, carving pumpkins in cool or scary faces, and going to the corn maze on Halloween night and getting hopelessly lost and muddy while holding James' hand. We've been going to the corn mazes on Halloween for the last 3 years. There are several corn mazes to go to on Sauvie Island, even a haunted maze on the other side of the Island, but I'm not into the scary part of Halloween and I hate haunted houses. I like dressing up and looking pretty, hayrides, harvest time, getting organic food from the farms, lighted pumpkins winking in the dark, cute costumes of sweet little children, pumpkin patches, the pumpkin catapult smashing pumpkins onto the target, the smell of pumpkin pie and apple dumplings baking, luscious pears, the colors of summer changing into the brilliant colors of fall, and most definately CORN MAZES!!

Corn Maze