Teh Interwebz

Hi, my name is Tara and I am an internetaholic.

It is true. I am addicted. I would suffer terrible pangs of withdrawal if someone took my internet away. Goodness knows, I would get more done without it. Oh, that is a lie. I wouldn't. Before I became addicted to the internet, I could easily while away an entire day reading a good book. Now I while away entire nights reading said books, because during the day I am on the web.

I have one major addiction (and a number of smaller ones). The Big One? Ravelry.com. A website for knitting/crocheting/spinning freaks. Of which I am one. I knit, I crochet and I spin. And I am kind of a freak. See how that all fits together so nicely? It is like Ravelry was made for me! I know, I know, it doesn't sound that interesting. It probably isn't, unless you are a freak of the aforementioned variety. However, it isn't just about the arts that celebrate fibery goodness, it is an online community. Fibre is simply the tie that binds, as it were. I belong to, oh, I don't know, like a kajillion groups on Ravelry, but only two in which I am an active participant. One is a purely social group, and the other is a religious discussion group. Now, I find the second one purely fascinating because I am one of only two Mormons on said group, and let's be honest, our theology is rather different from the rest of Christendom. I begin to understand why a lot of the rest of Christendom do not consider us (Mormons) to be Christian. I think they are wrong, but I understand the thought process.

It is utterly fascinating to listen in, if you will, on a conversation between members of several different denominations and religions and see where they are similar to my own and where they are different. And, I gotta say, the more I learn about other religions, the more I am convinced I chose the correct one. The LDS version of the Gospel makes so much more sense to me than any other version I have encountered. No doubt there are many who would disagree with me, and indeed there are many who do, but I feel fine about that. I still know I picked the right one! Would you like to know more about it? My religion, I mean? Go here, mormon.org. It's pretty awesome.

Whaaaa?????

January 20 what? Seriously, I am like the world's worst blogger EVAR!
Are you wondering if we had Christmas? We did. It was lovely. I will post some pics.
Are you wondering if we are still around? We are. But, honestly, I think we are maybe just too boring for blogging? But then, I have to think, who do I blog for? Do I blog for myself or do I blog for my readers. Since I only have, like, 2 readers, I will have to conclude that I blog for myself. Not to denigrate my 2 readers, as I love them, but you know...
More people should read my blog, in my humble opinion, because, let's face it, I am pretty darn funny sometimes. Okay, maybe more snarky than funny, but still.
Here are some funny stories, no thanks to me, but more to my very amusing daughter.

There we were, standing in the bathroom, getting ready for the day. Likely it was Sunday, since I am very lazy and don't often actually do my hair or makeup (or that of The Small One) during the week. I was happily combing my hair or doing my makeup or possibly putting piggies into The Small Ones hair when she cranes her skinny little neck over the edge of my tub to give it a critical look. She gazes upon the white porcelain, then looks up at me. "Mamma, your tubby is a zaster." Uh, what? "Your tubby is a zaster! You need a clean it." I glance over at the tub. Not that dirty. Besides, as I told her, SHE was the last person in it, maybe she needs to clean it! She disagreed and gave me stinkeye. Hmmm.

Okay, that was just one story. I have been uber lame lately, and have not written down the amusing things The Small One says.

Oh, but wait. Just now, as I was writing this, the naken bummed child came in and sat upon my head and thereupon informed me that my head stinks. I asked why and she said because her naken bum was on it. Nice. For the record, I do not teach her these things. I suspect The Man of the House, but this cannot currently be proven.

Do you like to cook? I like to cook, and The Man of the House (generally) likes to eat that which I cook. However, I hate to clean. Hate. Like with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns hate. So, The Man of the House does the cleanup. Most of the time. Occasionally, I take pity and try to clean up myself, but let's be honest, that does not happen very often.
Don't misunderstand me, this is not to say that I leave a ginormous mess for him to clean up, I mean, I do put (some) things away as I go.
I have discovered, though, that what I consider easy, other people do not. I like to cook from scratch, and am kind of opposed to pre packaged food. I do use it, when necessary, but I don't like how it tastes.
I make up recipes all the time, but then I forget what I made, so, although I could have a nice repertoire of recipes, I don't. Kind of lame, don't you think? I would consider starting a food blog, but I can't even post on this one more than once a month, so a food blog seems rather like an impossibility, no?

Eating at home is good for a number of reasons. It keeps our spending down, it allows me to control what goes into it, and, sigh, it enables me to keep my calories down. Do you know how hard it is, though, to try and keep my calories down, whilst living in a house with two people whose calorie counts need to be high? Aargh! It is dreadful.
The Man of the House works so hard that he has a hard time keeping weight on, and if you have read my blog at all, you know that The Small One has eating issues, so high calories for them, low calories for me. That means healthy-ish meals and they get dessert.
I started exercising about 2.5 weeks ago. I am not an exerciser by nature. I don't like to sweat. Yeah, yeah, I could go swimming, but there isn't a pool at our Rec center and I don't have a gym membership, or the time to change into a bathing suit, go over to a pool, shower, swim, shower, dry hair, change, drive back home. And what to do with The Small One while I am gone?
I have a treadmill, which I have been using. I have been exercising about 1 hour every day, burning a good number of calories according to Sparkpeople. I have been watching my calorie intake and guess what? NOT A POUND HAVE I LOST. How lame is that? Seriously lame, that is how. I am not happy about it.
Yesterday, I treadmilled for over an hour and then forgot to stretch afterward, boy am I paying for that! The back of my knee is NOT thrilled with me.
I shall persevere, however. I suppose, even if I don't get thinner, at least I will get more fit, right? I will confess, though, that my motivation wasn't to get more fit, it is purely vanity. I want to be skinny again. The getting fit is just a bonus. Probably, I should be thinking the other way round. Oh well.

And Now, For Your Viewing Enjoyment....

Here are a few videos of The Small One.
Of course, these were taken in September. So, it was a little while ago. Oops.

BUSY!

Hello all.
Once again, I have let a rather largish amount of time go by since last blogging. It isn't that I haven't anything to say, it is simply that I haven't the time to say. It has been a busy bit of time these past couple of months.
Why, you ask?
Well, I have had the good fortune to team up with a lovely lady in Park City who sells floor sample wedding gowns. She sells these at a serious discount out of her house, so there is no alterationist on the premises. I met her randomly through a friend and she promptly asked if I would be interested in doing alterations for her customers. I said yes, although I don't really like doing alterations. I figured it would be good money. And it is. Much better than I ever made at the Bridal Shop at which I was employed. So, you see, the increased compensation more than makes up for the fact that I don't enjoy alterations. Also, most of these dresses are not LDS Temple worthy, and the majority of my clients are LDS. So, that means much more extensive alts on a lot of them, which means much more excited brides who see their dress transformed.
Some weeks are very busy, and it is easy to see which those are. My house turns into a disaster, because I don't have time to clean. We eat out a lot because I don't have time to cook. And The Small One? Poor baby, she suffers. She doesn't like it when my attention is focused elsewhere. If I go into my studio and she has had enough of it, she runs ahead of me and blocks the sewing machine and tells me "No more sewing! You cannot sit here! You are all done!" At that point, I usually concede that I have perhaps worked a little too much and play with The Small One instead. Then I work during her nap.

Sabbath

Church today was...inspiring. Sometimes when I go, I think the lessons are nice, but not particularly attention grabbing. Today was attention grabbing. Maybe I was in the right frame of mind, maybe it was something I particularly needed to hear, I don't know.
The lesson in the first meeting (Relief Society for my Mormon readers) was on remembering Christ, how knowing Christ can change your outlook. The teacher quoted my favorite prophet, President Hinckley, a lot during the lesson. The primary thing I took from it, and one of the big reasons he is my fave prophet is because of his constant reminder to us to not despair. Things might be hard, the world might be ugly, war does exist, BUT...things that are hard can teach us. The world IS beautiful and we can work toward peace. And above all, and this is my most favorite scripture-BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Regardless of the ugly and the evil, the Lord is still in charge. Despite the sorrow that can come from the blessing of agency by making wrong choices or by those who choose evil, good WILL prevail.

Then, in our main meeting, one of the members of our congregation spoke about example and the love of God. She was talking about her son and the joy he gave her and how sometimes that joy is intensified by the knowledge that he is hers. And the realization that that feeling of love and joy is just a tiny part of how the Lord must feel about us.

We also had an amazing musical number with 6 women and 5 men in our ward. I can't describe it, but it made me very happy to be a Mormon.

Happy Christmas Season everyone!

The Fabulous Life of...

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a girl. This girl got a bee in her bonnet about blogging and thought, what a great idea! A lovely way to preserve her memories of family, life and her growing daughter!

As you can see, that tale is not ending happily. I am terrible at keeping up with this, and terrible at remembering all of the hysterical things my daughter does. And, believe you me, she is hysterical. The amount of funny in the things she says just does not come through with the written word. You have to see her facial expressions and body language as well.

For instance, the other day, she was eating her dinner. Oh, correction, I was FEEDING her dinner, because the child does not eat of her own volition. Anyhoo, whilst eating, she informs me that she needs her drink. I hand her her milk. She vetoes and reaches for my drink (raspberry slush in seltzer). I say, that is my drink. She looks at me, cocks her head sideways and says, "Acksally, I think it's kinda MY drink", then picks it up and has at it. Yep. I laughed.

I looked up the development tracker yesterday to see where she falls on the scale. It was a bit alarming. The child is 2 1/2. Her physical development(gross and fine motor skills) falls squarely into the 3 year old category. Her cognitive development (language and emotional skills, logic, etc.) falls squarely into the...4 year old category. I am not kidding. I was not expecting that. I joke all the time about how it annoys me when she acts like a two year old, but the fact of the matter is, most of the time she doesn't! She acts much older, and consequently, I expect more of her.

At church a couple of weeks ago, a lady came up and started baby talking to The Small One. Now, The Small One is familiar with this lady, so it wasn't like STRANGER DANGER! or anything. The lady says something like-Oh you such a coot widdow girl! Did ur mommy make oo dat pitty dress?-and The Small One just stares. The lady carries on for a minute, with The Small One just giving her stinkeye, then, she reaches out to pet The Small One, who says calmly and clearly, "Don't touch me." At which the lady looks taken aback and we skedaddle off to nursery.
Later, The Man of the House informs me that said lady mentioned to him how clearly and precisely The Small One talks and she wasn't expecting that.

Now, let me say, we do not talk to her like she is a baby. I baby her sometimes and all that, but in general, we talk to her like she is a person. If she asks me a question, I answer. I explain to her what I am doing, if she wants to know. I explain how things work, if that is her query. Consequently, she has a GIANT vocabulary, for a two year old, and her enunciation is very good.

Twice now, I have had people in church disapprovingly ask me why I talk to her the way I do. My answer, although I don't say it out loud, is that she is a child, not an idiot. Mostly, I just smile and tell them she responds to it well.

Here are a few more fabulous tidbits from The Fabulous Life of The Small One.

Overheard one warm day in October (I was in the back room, The Man of the House and The Small One were out back.)
-Hey, Hey, HEY! What are you doing? PUT YOUR PANTS BACK ON!!!!!!
Anyone who knows my child, knows she loves to be naked.

One morning she perusing the interior of the fridge and saw a bowl of cut mango and asked if it was cheese. I said, no, and she said, "Oh! It is canlaloupe! I love canlaloupe!" She took a piece from the bowl and placed it in her mouth, chewed once and promptly spit it back out. She looks at me and says,"This is not canlaloupe" (I cannot even begin to tell you how hard it was to hold back the laughter at the surprised disgust in her face) I told her no, it was not cantaloupe, it was mango. She pondered the fruit in her hand, looked at me and announced, "I do not love it."

A few weeks ago, we took a drive up the canyon to enjoy the beautiful fall leaves. We stopped at Cascade Springs to walk around (The Man of the House had never been there! Boggle.) We walked about with the dogs (which The Small One mostly rode, pretty funny) and enjoyed the scenery. As we headed down one path, The Man of the House and the dogs got ahead of me and The Small One and veered off the path into the marsh. The Small One ran off the path through the weeds to catch them, not realizing that is was a marsh. Run, run, run, suddenly-SPLASH! right into a pool of water screened by weeds and whatnot. She stood up, completely confused. It looked like solid ground to her. I laughed and laughed. The Man of the House maintained taht she knew what she was doing, as she had been trying to get into the water the entire time we were there, but I don't think she could fake surprise that well.
On our way back up the last stretch to the carpark, I was walking well ahead of The Small One and her daddy (I had the dogs at that point and they were more or less dragging me up the path). I hauled the dogs to a stop, because I saw the cutest little fuzzy caterpillar. He was one of those black and bright yellow striped ones, but he only had 4 stripe segments, so he was short and fat and very cute.
I called to The Small One to come up and see and up she runs, takes one look at it, shouts, "A BUG!" and stomps it flat. Nice one, Godzilla. Several people were standing around looking at the fat, little guy, and up comes my wee delicate little girl and squishes the bug. At least it made everybody laugh.

The Small One was playing with her Madame Alexander doll (who is called Girl, you know, to differentiate her from the baby dolls) and came up to me and said "I need hersherder." Uh, what? "I need hersherder!" Honey, I haven't the foggiest what you are saying. "Come here!" I follow her into the hallway, to the door of the kitchen, where she props Girl up against the jamb and demands a pencil. OH! You need to MEASURE her! "Yes, hersherder!" You see, I measure The Small One, periodically, against the door jamb between the kitchen and hall and mark her height and the date, she figured Girl needed it as well.

I recently finished a bear rug a couple of weeks ago. Yes, a real bear. I occasionally do work for a couple of taxidermists. The Small One decided she needed to help me cut the felt for the dust ruffle, which I do with this old school, hand cranked scallop cutter. I cut the felt into strips and then run them throught the scallop cutter and it does the obvious, cuts scallops on one side. It has a small rotating die that squeezes the felt between it and a metal plate, and it is a bit sharp. Whenever I use it around The Small One, I make sure no little fingers get in the way, as it could do some damage.
So, back to the story, she decided to help me, so I let her crank the handle. This, itself, was funny to see, because it takes some effort to crank and she is little. So, she has both hands going, getting her whole body into it and I am feeding the strips and keeping them straight. As I get to the end of a strip, I hold it and let my fingers slide up on the platform near the cutting die. The Small One stops, cranking, grabs my hand and says earnestly, "Watch your feeners! Be berry careful! This danjrous, don't get your feeners squitched!" At least she learns, right?

Well, that is all for this post. I hope you have enjoyed your peek into The Fabulous Life of the Small One!

Short but Amusing

I refer to both this blog post and The Small One. Both are short, both are amusing. At least in my estimation. Your estimation may vary.

This morning, upon waking, I realized that the headache I had gone to bed with was just about to turn into a migraine. Not good. Migraines are evil. I hate them with the fiery burning of a thousand suns. But, that is not the point of this blog post. The point is, whilst lying in bed bemoaning my fate (silently, as I did not want to wake The Small One, she awoke anyway.) Due to a serious need for sleep, The Man of the House opted to sleep in the nursery while Small and I slept in our bed. I don't blame him, my nasty cough keeps everyone awake.

Anyway, The Small One woke up and laid there for a moment, sideways with her head on my midsection, as per usual. Then she sat up and solemnly declared that she was "soggy boggo" and promptly began to remove her clothing. She is not one to wait around, she makes a decision and gets down to business. After divesting her thin frame of its clothing (and hurling the offending garments into the corner), she sat on the bed for a second. "I feezing" she tells me. I groaned. My head hurt. I lifted the covers and motioned for her to climb under the covers with me, but she demurred. She looked over at her crib, next to the bed, saw the blankets therein and made a decision. Crawling over to the crib, she grabbed her pillow and fluffed it, just as The Man of the House does, pulled and straightened the covers, one of which is the electric blanket she stole from her dear daddy, scooted up to the top of the bed and shinnied down into the pleasant warmth with an audible sigh of pleasure.

I looked at her and laughed. She is her daddy's daughter. Warm and cozy, buried under a pile of blankets, is the way to be. Although, she particularly likes to be buried in warmth whilst naken.

I asked her if she was comfortable. "I comfable," she replied, "my own daddy turn my blankly on for me." Then she demanded a bottle. It had to be warm as well. Fortunately, her daddy had provided one before he left for work. All I had to do was hand it to her.

Pleasantly, she remained like this for nigh unto an hour. Long enough for my meds to kick in and allow me to feel like facing the day. Bless the child.