Miracles of Life and other random things

I have a work-out video made by some very earthy people. The beginning and end are filled with yoga-like breathing and talk about "fire" and "energy" and the like. I may make fun of it now and then, but I like the work-out all right. It's the video I do every Tues. and Thurs. At the end of it, I'm supposed to "cup your hands, six inches in front of your heart, and imagine all the miracles of Life flowing out of your cup." It's pretty corny dialogue, but what makes me laugh is how my girls like to come and pretend to eat my miracles of life. The first time I did it, L came over and pretended to pick something out of my cup and eat it. I laughed and asked if she was eating my miracles of life, which made S notice what was going on. Now I can't finish the video without having all my miracles of life eaten ... by my own two miracles of life!

S watched L get her hair put up the other day, and she was so upset she couldn't have a ponytail. It was so pathetic, I had to give it a try.



Okay, so they look somewhat silly, but they make her so happy to have ponytails just like L!



If I were an Indian, my name would be: She-who-throws-the-tupperware-into-the-cupboard-and-shuts-it-quickly-before-it-falls-back-out. It's a mouthful, but it's the truth. See, I let the girls play in my kitchen cabinets (at least the ones on the ground where they can reach them). If I want to make sure the girls play in them, I can organize them. Even if I do it while they're napping, they somehow sense the decrease in chaos, and they'll immediately play with them upon waking up. So, I don't bother anymore. My tupperware cabinet, my pots and pans, my baking supplies, they're all a mess. C was watching me clean out the dishwasher the other day and saw me toss the tupperware into the cabinet and slam the door closed, only to hear the resulting crash moments later. He laughed at me and asked, "Did you really just throw it in and shut the door really fast before it fell out?" "Yes, I did," I told him, and proceeded to do it again with my clean pots and pans. "And until my girls stop playing in my cabinets and I can organize them and have them stay that way, I will do it again and again ..."

The right to bear arms ...

For our Birthday/Christmas/Anniversary/Mother's Day/Father's Day presents this year, C and I got guns. We'd been talking about it for a while. Initially it was all C's thing, but as we went out shooting with my dad, I got more used to the idea, and now that I have my own gun (which I really like) I've actually really enjoied it.

B and M wanted to go shooting, so I got someone to watch the girls for us Wed. morning and we drove out into the desert to shoot at water bottles.



Here is M with my gun - an FN P9.



Here's C. He surprised us by rapid-firing the gun. He put eight rounds through it in about as many seconds. Well, now we know it'll do it without jamming.



B seemed to like it, too.



I'm even getting pretty good with C's rifle (it's a 30.06). That puff of vapor you see in the picture is what's left of the water bottle I hit.

Niagra Springs

You might find it interesting that, although we live in a desert, it seems like every time we go somewhere, it's to waterfalls. They are everywhere here. My hubby came home the other day telling me all about Niagra Springs. It's down in the Snake River Canyon, and the springs pour straight out of the canyon wall. So, when my brother-in-law and his wife came to visit, we took them out to see the springs.



C said people go swimming in the pools beneath the falls, and I laughed. I had this image of brown murky water, and I had absolutely no desire to bring our swimsuits. Wow, was I in for a surprise. I should have realized this water is about as pure as it comes, and the pools were crystal clear with a pebbly bed. If it hadn't been for the girls (who were already trying to fling themselves into the icy water) I would have rolled up my pants and waded in myself.



My sister-in-law, M, said the water was so blue it looked like someone had dropped food coloring in it. I was worried the pictures wouldn't capture it, but I think they almost look as good as they did in real life.



Dosn't that just make you want to jump in on a hot day? .... and it was hot!



Here we are at the bridge the creek runs under before reaching the pools. It was sunny, so we're all squinty, but it's about time I got a family picture of us on the blog.

Here you can see B and M looking at the falls, too.

We had a little picnic at the area beneath the falls (where people go swimming), then walked up to the observation place to get a closer look. We stopped on the way home at a pick-your-own orchard. We considered picking, but we were getting pretty close to S's nap time, so we just bought our cherries and peaches and headed back home. It's a great little spot. If anyone comes through this area, you should definitely take the time out to see it.

Writing ...

I wasn't going to bore you all with the details of my writing, but as some have asked, here's what's going on. I've had a plot line for a novel in my head for quite a while. (Now that I think about it, it goes way back to freshman year in college, when I had my major declared as English ...) Last summer I decided I was actually going to sit down and finish writing it. I had the first three chapters done already, and I figured it would take a long time, but I would work on it slowly and eventually get it done.

Unfortunately, when I re-read the chapters I had written, they were awful. Not to be discouraged, I started over from scratch. I worked on it at night after the girls were in bed and sometimes in the afternoon when they napped. It gave me something to do during the time we were out of work. I got quite a bit done - thirty-six pages single spaced, the first seven chapters.

Somehow working on my novel sparked a fire under the creative part of my brain, and I started getting idea after idea for more novels. I started writing them down, so I could come back to them someday.

Then, Nov.3, 2008, I was reading a magazine that had an add in it for NaNoWriMo. I was intrigued, so I checked it out. For anyone who hasn't checked the link, National Novel Writer's Month is a writing "contest". The point is to write a novel from beginning to end between 12:00am Nov. 1st and 11:59pm Nov. 31st. You can have notes and outlines done beforehand, but any and all writing of the actual novel must take place in the month of November. If you are able to write 50,000 words or more (by definition, up to 40,000 words is a novella) in the month, you win! And here's the question: What do you win? Aside from the witty quips you'll hear from other NaNo authors (you win a novel! You win the pride of having done what so many people say they're going to do, but never actually do!) you win absolutely nothing. But for me, I wanted to see if I could, so I gave it a try.

I had an idea for a "fluff" mormon romance novel. I knew I could write it with minimal research, which was important, considering it was already Nov. 4th, and I was four days behind. By Nov 30th, I had 55,324 words, and I was thrilled. I knew most of it was crap and I ended up cutting the first 37 pages down to 7 pages later, but it was still a rush to know I'd done it. I didn't write in Dec, so I could let it sit and come back to it with fresh eyes in January. When I got back to it, I took my time, rewriting, revising, and completely redoing the ending. I finished in April and sent it off to a few people to read over for me. I'm so glad I did. Every single comment I got back was useful, and I made a lot of changes from the comments I got. In the end, I reached a point where I was happy with the manuscript - all 283 pages (just under 90,000 words).

I think I mentioned that my printer was kaput a while back, so I submitted it to the only LDS publisher I've found that accepts emailed submissions. I realize I will probably be rejected quite a few times before I finally get it published, and now I have a new printer, so I can print out the manuscript and send it off to another publisher as soon as I hear from the first.

Meanwhile, I'm back to working on the original novel, the one I started a year ago. I'm also excited for NaNo this year, and I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm going to write.

If anyone wants to join me this Nov, you're more than welcome. It's really a lot of fun. There's even a forum for people with degrees in science who are writing for fun (geeks like me).

I hope that answers your questions, and I hope I haven't bored you too much. (My book is much better than my blog, I promise. :-)

The Fourth of July

Happy belated Fourth of July!
We had a wonderful day, thanks to the Buhl Sagebrush Days Celebration. Twin Falls doesn't have a parade, so we drove into Buhl Saturday morning. We weren't the only ones ... We got there a little late, but we still managed to snag a place on the parade route right in the middle of the road, by the grandstand.



As far as parades go, it was alright. There were only two floats, but there were plenty of horses, which was what the kids wanted to see anyway. The girls started out in the stroller, faced so they could both see, but that didn't last long. The first people throwing candy at us got the girls out of the stroller, and there was no going back. After the girls had each had two otter-pops a piece, we started calling, "No, we don't want any!" as they threw them in our direction. They ended up with three each, dribbling them down on my mom's legs as they ate them.



The Buhl public pool was free for the day, so we took the girls for a swim. They have a beautiful pool, clean and clear and heated! It was only in the upper 80s, but the water was almost as warm. We spent some time in the kiddie pool, but it was a lot colder, so we didn't last long there before getting into the bigger one. S is a little fish. When L was done and asking to get out, S cried and cried and even tried to get back in by herself.

My mom has pics of the pool, and she's promised to email them to me when she can, but they're in the middle of a move from Orem to SLC, so it may be a while. I'll post 'em when I get 'em.

Introduction ...

Welcome to my blog!

I really only have one reason for this - I'm starting to feel like a stalker. Over the past year or so I've picked up the addresses of various blogs of friends and family. I save them in my favorites bar and when I'm bored, I click through them to see what everyone is up to. It's a lot of fun, and I love all your blogs. There's only one problem. Now that I feel like I know what you all are up to, I don't bother emailing or calling, or anything. Some of you may even be under the impression that I've dropped off the face of this earth ... It's not true. I've read your last blog, I think your kids are adorable, and I sympathize with what happened to you last Thursday ...

(Ok, so that's not entirely true for all of you. I'm emailing the link to some of you because we really haven't been in contact for a long time, and we miss you. :-)

And yet, I feel like a stalker, since we never actually communicate. For a while there, I convinced myself that I would just make a point to email everyone whenever I read something interesting on their blog. Raise your hand if you've gotten an email from me lately ... Right. So that didn't work.

So here's my solution. I'll start a blog. I'll try to keep it up, and I'll try to keep it interesting. That way I won't feel quite so much like a stalker.

Love to you all!
Enjoy!