Where Oh Where?

So, my French language facility is slipping.  Oh, who am I kidding.  It has slipped.  This is shameful really.  I studied French for 8 years straight, from 7th grade all the way through high school and then for 2 years in college.  In fact, I came within just a couple of classes of minoring in French at the BY.  Due to circumstances...that were completely in my control, I decided to forgo the minor in order to finish school within 3 years.  I don't really know why I felt such a need to finish school at the time.  Well, except that I had a really good job waiting for me as soon as I graduated.  Well, what I thought was a really good job, anyway.  Turned out not to be such a great job, but it was a good experience.  Not that getting a French minor would have made any difference whatsoever in my career path.  It wouldn't have.  But, it would be cool to tell people that I have a minor in French.  Yeah, I'm a little proud....

So, having decided to enroll The Small One in a French immersion program at a nearby school, I decided to brush up on my own French skills.  The nice thing about a foreign language is that it has a tendency to stick in your brain, hanging about somewhere in the back until you put out the effort to drag it forward into the using part of your brain.  I have noticed this whenever I have the opportunity to read French, or speak it with someone. 

Happily, with my decision to brush up said skills, I was able to find an online French program to do a bit of study with.  It's the BBC language division on bbc.uk, if anyone is interested.  They have more than just French.  And they have more than one level, from beginner up.  I think it's pretty awesome.

Studying French, of course makes me think of going to Europe.  Which, as we all know, is something I REALLY want to do again.  I want to take The Small One and hie on over to the continent, drag her through cathedrals and museums.  Feed her lovely food.  Expose her to the joys of different cultures.  Well, not too different, as it is Europe.  But still.  You get my drift.  After wandering about the continent, I would, of course, head on over to Great Britain.  I cannot be in that region of the world and not do so, you know.

Ideally, I would have several months for this journey, and a great deal of money.  I would love to be able to go on a Transatlantic cruise to get there.  So much more charming than jetting over.  Not that I am opposed to flying.  I love to fly.  But, the thrill of it wanes after so many hours of being trapped in the middle of a long row and having to pee.  A nice cruise would be a deliciously romantic way to get there.  Easy, leisurely and chock full of good food and great views.  I could come ashore either in France or England, but I think I would choose France, because really, I want to end my tour with a longish stay in London, as I love that city.  Oh, how I love it.  But, I digress...

Where would you go if you could take an extended vacation somewhere?  What would you do?  Would you head for a relaxing beach?  Or museums?  Or somewhere with a completely foreign culture?  Money is no object, so where oh where would you go?

Hello!

Hello, friendly blog readers!  How is everyone this morning?  Excellent, I hope.
Today is General Conference, which, for those of you who do not know, is a bi-annual meeting of the leaders of the church to which I belong, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It is televised on a local channel for those of us lucky enough to live in Utah, ;).  For those not so lucky, it is also available on BYUTV on cable and satellite and online at www.lds.org.  It also comes out in print next month.

Conference is always a good time.  It's like going to church in your jammies, or whatever.  We lay about on the front room floor watching and, I admit, sometimes falling asleep.  It's those voices.  And that speech pattern.  Especially if you have grown up with it, it is just so soothing.  One minute you are listening to President Eyring wax eloquent and the next thing you know, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is singing the closing hymn.  Of course, I NEVER fall asleep during Conference.  Ever.  Cough, cough.

Anyway,  I look forward to it twice a year.  It is nice and relaxing, and it is an excellent reminder of what we need to be doing to live a happy and fulfilled life.  Look it up if you are interested.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

In other news, life has been crazy busy around here.  A couple of weeks ago, I hit a bead while sewing on a wedding gown and completely jacked up the tension on my sewing machine.  I took it to my brother to have him repair it for me, and canceled my appts for the rest of the week.

Well, I jacked it up so well, that he has had a really hard time fixing it.  So, I have been using my domestic sewing machine at work, which is slow.  Like, painfully slow.  It drives me bananas.  It is pretty speedy for a domestic machine, but it still goes about half as fast as my industrial.  Not only that, it is lacking a few of the amenities of said industrial, which add to the speed at which I can get a dress done. 

So, after taking a week "off" I had to play catchup.  Well, catching up with a slow machine is not super easy.  For the past two weeks I have had my regular appts, plus spreading out the appts that I had canceled.  This means that I have had to work 8-6 for several days, which sucks.  I know, boo-hoo and all that, but I am not used to it, and neither is The Small One.  She gets fractious when I am gone that much. 

Please.   The Blessed Child loves me.  Don't be jealous.

So, you add my busy work schedule to that of The Man of the House and, well, you get a bit of a mess.  He is working in the great big city to the north just now, so he has a much longer and unpleasant commute.  He gets home a bit later than usual, I get home a bit later than usual, The Small One is a bit more fractious than usual.  Well, you can see where this is going.  Disarray, lousy food and cranky people who just want to sleep.  The Man of the House wants to veg.  The Small One wants to play with TMOTH.  And me?  I just want to sit on my chaise and knit and read Facebook or Ravelry.  The Small One sees me enough on my days off and whatnot, that at the end of the day, it is her daddy she is interested in, far more than me.  Bless her heart.  So, sometimes, I do get to just sit on said chaise.  But, sometimes, I do have to rescue TMOTH from the rowdy clutches of his little princess.  Everyone needs a break, right?

Last night, TMOTH and Small One were in the front room, getting things ready for a camp-in.  Laying out sleeping mats and bags, etc.  While they were thus occupied, my mom came in, having been gone most of the afternoon and evening.  With her came my nephew, who is 7 years old and The Small One's best friend.  He walked into my room to tell me how he had gone to the Holi celebration down at the Krishna temple.  He hadn't gotten two words out of his mouth when from the front room came this shout

"OH MY GOSH!  YOU DIDN'T TELL ME YOU WERE COMING!!!!"  and a blonde blur rushed into my room and wrapped her arms around her cousin.  He hugged her back and she said "I haven't seen you forever!!! Come look at my paintings!  Come see what I have in my nursery!"  And she dragged him off to reacquaint him with her life.  Cutest damn thing I have ever seen.

Now, lest you think that it has been months or whatnot since she has seen this boy, let me undeceive you.  It has only been a couple of weeks.  But, as I said, he is her best friend, so she was extremely happy to see him.   Also, he is usually here every other weekend, so it was a bit of a trial for her to have him gone that long. 

He returned a bit later to finish telling me about the Color Festival.  With small girl in tow.
This morning?  Yeah, she won't leave him alone.  Bless his heart, he loves her too.

Funny...or not.

So, it is patently obvious, based on the comments (or noticeable lack thereof), that my dear readers prefer humour in this blog.  So, we shall see if I can give you some.
Probably not, though.  It is the political season, and I am afraid I am wildly political and violently opinionated.  Well, no, I am not afraid.   I AM very political and violently opinionated.  But, my opinions are well supported.  I do my research, I think about what I am saying.  This isn't to say that I can't be swayed; if I find your argument to be more persuasive and well-supported than my own, I might consider changing my opinion.  I am stubborn, but not entirely pig-headed. 
Most of the time.
Here's the thing.  My opinions are just that.  Opinions.  You don't have to agree with them.  You don't have to like them.  Heck, you don't even have to respect them.  But, then, I may be disinclined to discuss with you.
But, they are MY opinions.  They don't represent the opinions of the church to which I belong. (LDS), they don't represent the culture in which I currently reside (Mormon Utah Valley), they are mine.  Just mine.  I have considered them a great deal, and to me, they do coincide perfectly with my religious and moral beliefes.  For the record, I have these opinions and STILL manage to remain in good standing with my church.  Despite having been backhandedly accused otherwise.
So, there you have it.  Like it or not, that's who I am.
Maybe the humour will be back another day. ;)

Spring?

Oh, the barnyard is busy, in a regular tizzy
And the obvious reason is because of the season.
Ma Nature's lyrical,
With her yearly miracle.
Spring, Spring, Spring!

In case you aren't sure, this is from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which is a musical I both love and hate.
I hate it because it's so sexist.  I mean really?  The Rape of the Sabines and whatnot.  And a good bit of Stockholm Syndrome thrown in, to boot.
(I will probably get booted from my husband's family for saying that.  They love this show.)

However, I love it because it was the first show I ever worked on at Tuacahn.  It was the first time I met my husband, as well, although we didn't date or anything until, I think, a year or two later?  Not sure, really.  I love it because I made a lot of good friends that year.  I love it because it is associated with an awful lot of fun and good times.  Not to mention a WHOLE lot of very pretty boys with buff bods.  I ain't gonna lie, there was some serious eye candy that year.  That year also being the year we did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat meant that said eye candy went without shirts a lot, since they all needed to be tan.  No objections here.

BUT, that isn't really the point of this post, as much fun as it is.  No, the point is that I think spring has actually arrived here!  I mean, this is not to say that we won't get another dose of winter weather, we probably will.  We usually do.  And of course, that makes everyone cranky, but in the meantime...sunshine, warmth!  Green thing poking up out of the earth!  The Small One wanting to be outside everyday!

There are one or two drawbacks to The Small One wanting to be outside all day.  One, she doesn't really have anyone to play with all day, except me or her Grandma.  I don't like to be outside   all day.  I do have things to do.  The other?  She gets FILTHY.   Dirt?  Yes, please.   Rocks and gravel?  You betcha.  Twigs and branches?  She'll take them all.  And then, of course, she runs in and out of the house.  In the front door, out the back door, in the back door, out the kitchen door. 

It being early spring, the ground is still quite damp.  It being The Small One, she plays in the garden boxes or out in the chicken pen.  As I am sure you can imagine, the garden, the chicken pen and the ins and outs of The Small One mean dirt, mud, muck  In my house.  I have tried to convince her that wellies belong out of doors only, but, you know, she is 4.  She gets distracted.  Forgets to remove said wellies.  Yesterday, this resulted in a PATH of loamy spring soil from the back of the house to the front.  I gave up on trying to keep her from dragging in dirt and let it go, then swept it all up when it got dark and she had to come in.

Once she comes in for the evening, the hard part is convincing her that she really needs to take a shower before she takes her bath.  She doesn't seem to understand that wallowing about in her own watery filth is disgusting. UNCLEAN.  So, I make her take a shower, rinse all the gunk off, then she can have her hot bath.  (she's like me, she loves HOT baths).

She and I are very excited for the Spring.  Our starts are coming up nicely, well most of them, anyway.  I have been planning the new landscaping in the front yard, which will level our yard a bit more and give us a nice raised garden bed.  The blackberries are leafing out and looking as though they will be prolific again this year.  Here's hoping that the apricots go this year, since last year's  harvest was dismal.  Nobody had any excess apricots, so we (read TMOTH) didn't get to make jam and our supply is running low.  Actually, last year was kind of a bad year all around for fruit in these parts, so our supply of all things canned is a bit low.  We are going to be epic this year, I tell you what.  Canning our little hearts out, if the harvest permits.

Also, TMOTH and The Small One came home with two turkey chicks yesterday.  So cute.  Ready to fatten them up for Thanksgiving.  Hopefully, these two won't be as mean as last year's turkeys.  They were the very devil.

And now, since the sun has reached the spot where it shines through my window onto my chaise, I am going to go be a cat and lay on said chaise and bake my poor head for a bit.

Well, then.

I have lost my knitting mojo.  I know, travesty, right?  Well, it is.  Knitting is what keeps me sane.  It keeps my fidgety fingers from driving me batty.  It keeps my fidgety self from...well...fidgeting.  Now, normally, I am absolutely a process knitter, in that it is the KNITTING itself that I enjoy, far more than the finished object.  However, when I mess up even a simple sock 5 times in a row and have to frog it over and over until my yarn turns into a fuzzy mess, well that is annoying.  Especially if said yarn is kind of expensive and had been sent to me by one of my knitting friends. 
Sounds corny, right?  Sending people yarn?  I suppose it is, but if you were a knitter, you would understand.  There is something decidedly pleasant about receiving some unexpected yarn in the mail.  If you were a knitter, and someone sent you nice yarn, well, it says a number of things.  One, this person likes you and cares about you.  Two, this person put out effort for you, (s)he went through the stash or to the LYS (local yarn store) looking for something that they thought would please.  .  Three, this person understands.  (S)he understands why you knit, maybe.  Or that you like pretty things.  But mostly, (s)he understands that the experience of nice yarn, lovely fibres is a good one. And will bring a smile to your face.

I send people yarn, occasionally.  I have a pretty decent stash, I will be honest, but it doesn't stop me from wanting more.  Nope.  I am greedy like that.  I love yarn, I love fibre, I love fabric.  All of it.  I have doubts that I will ever knit everything in my stash, but that doesn't stop me from loving it.  I love to squoosh it, smell it, rub it against my face.  I am kind of a tactile person, can you tell?

I guess I could spend the time I normally spend knitting, fondling fibre instead, but that could get boring after a while.  I should spend the time I spend knitting doing something useful.  Like the laundry. But, I hate laundry.  Or sewing, but I broke my machine and it isn't back from the repair yet.

Also, I think I lost my sense of humour somewhere, which some of you may or may not have noticed.  My humour has not been in top form on this blog!  Sorry about that, it will return one of these days.  Probably with the sunshine and warmth.  After I have had a chance to bask in the warm sunlight, my shrivelled sense of humour will grow again.  I expect the absence of sun and whatnot has contributed both to my loss of knitting mojo and my loss of funny.  Stupid weather.