In my hilarity (induced by my sleep deprivation) yesterday I became a twitterer.

Follow me to see how funny I think I am.

Or don't.

more joy

On suffering

"To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the 'size' of human suffering is absolutely relative.

It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys."

Viktor E. Frankl in Man's Search For Meaning


Sometimes I think people (usually me) shouldn't whine about their problems so much because someone always has it so much worse. But last night Carter decided it was perfectly acceptable to wake me up every hour and a half.

Do people have it worse? Yes they do.
Would I choose this problem over about 17 billion other problems I could think of? Uh huh.
Am I still suffering? Yup.

And yet...when I look at this face?

No Soup for You

Do you read NieNie? I do on a fairly regular basis.

I thought today's post was particularly fun...

She canceled dinner.

That struck me as laugh out loud funny

They had marshmallows instead.
What a fun house.

And then there were none.

Yup. I got the flu too. So that's where I've been.

But on a much happier note, my new hard drive arrived last night so I can start posting pictures again. That is, if I can find my camera!

Turns out...

teething might not be SO bad.

Carter has the flu.

Teething....

makes everyone in the house feel like this.

FYI this picture is from 3 months ago. He's much fatter now!

daddy

Li hasn't been around Carter for 2 days since he's been sick.
I miss these moments.

Also, I just read this in the Book of Mormon...
...and our women did bear children in the wilderness.

Ew.

Where are we going?

While my super cool brothers are off being missionaries in Japan and Brasil I have their ipods.
This equals lots of fun new music for me.

Right now I can't get enough of this song.

Okay...so that link didn't go where I wanted it to
you have to click on "to watch videos, please click here"
and then select "At the Bottom of Everything" from the menu


So, that's a lot of work. But it's a yummy song so I think you'll like it.


P.S. the video is weirdish, so maybe just listen.

:(

Li's downstairs with a fever and a cough.

Bummer.

Thanks Columbus

#1 Angels Landing
#2 yummy dinner in Springdale
#3 Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in 3d at the IMAX

Yea for bank holidays!

En Espanol

There is this adorable woman in our ward who just turned 90. She has the most amazing giggle and is very hard of hearing. She is always making loud comments and asking the people next to her to clarify announcements.

A few months ago, during a discussion of talents and the gift of tongues, I heard her "whisper" to her neighbor that she has always wanted to learn spanish. I laughed so hard and couldn't wait to go tell Li.

Fast forward to today. She got up to bear her testimony and her first words were, "Es verdad." She proceeded to tell us that she is literally learning spanish.

Why?

So she can share her testimony with the spanish speakers that she meets.

Please tell me that I will be that rad when I am 90 years old.

Appetizer

We've had a lot of requests for pictures of the small child. Someday soon I will make enough space on my computer to upload some. Here is something to tide you over. This is from the 4th of July, right before he slept through all the fireworks.

Broken promises

I promised Carter I'd be a better mommy if he'd let me sleep for 20 more minutes.

He gave me an hour.

I think I lied.

Take a hike

I forget how much I love hiking until I go.

I LOVE it.

Carter and I are off to get our hike on,
call in the next hour if you want to come with.

P.S. I promise I am wearing a swimsuit and a tank top in this picture.

Another cool one from Craigslist

iPod (Cedar City)

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Date: 2009-09-14, 10:51AM MDT
Reply to: sale-9sq2u-1373902100@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

I have an iPod that was stolen last December from somewhere in Cedar City. I realize that it's been a while, but it's really eating me knowing what I did.

It's yours if you can tell me where it was stolen and from what. If it's yours, you'll know what I mean.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT KIND IF IPOD IT IS [SIZE, COLOUR, ENGRAVINGS, ETC] SO I KNOW IT'S REALLY YOURS.
If the right person doesn't respond, I'm giving it to charity.

I moved far out of the area, but I'll ship it back to you, all for free, including the case it was in.

I'm sorry.

My #

I have a new phone number as of next Friday. If you think you should have it and don't, let me know.

P.S. Don't be offended because no one has it yet.

Correction

I have TWO crushes.

Veggie Spaghetti

Yup. It's a spaghetti squash. Gold stars all around. A friend that my mom and I visit teach gave it to us and told us that it's stringy so you can eat it like noodles. I decided to give it a try. I went here and here and here for help.

The verdict? I thought it tasted okay, just healthy. Li said noodles are bland anyway so why not eat squash instead since it's good for you. And my mom said it was terrible. Try it out and let me know what YOU think.

Our friend also gave us some of these.



Remember my last post about these?

This time I decided to take an easy route and make bread. I tried this recipe. It tastes more like cake than bread and is thus UBERDELICIOUS!

Gold star...

...to anyone who can tell me what kind of squash this is.


And 10 points to all the marathon runners! When I woke up at 2:30 this morning to feed the baby I had flashbacks to that nervous/excited feeling. But at 9am I was very happy to be laying lazily in my bed. What an accomplishment! I'm proud of you!

And finally...thumbs up to all the conference watchers today. Aren't Saturday sessions the best?


I don't really know how to compare those units. ...
Check to see if there is a conversion chart in that notebook.
I really doubt it, Michael.
Please just check. ...

2 awesome things in 1 night

#1 I dusted off my yoga mat and went to a class for the first time in probably a year or so.

IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOD.

If you're in my town you should join me next week.

#2 I saw a commercial for $20 "cardi coats" at Old Navy. I stopped by to get one and they were also having a 50% off clearance sale. Let me clarify. That's 50% off the stuff that's already marked down. They were practically giving stuff away.

Very few things make me happier than a good deal.

Here are the goods.

I have a crush.

Li thinks it's creepy when I say that. But I can't help it. He's irresistible.

Serious inquiries only.

Ever heard of the best of craiglist? I hadn't until last night.

I'm very happy I stumbled across it.


best of craigslist > phoenix > Wanted: Taxidermist who watches a lot of Kung Fu Originally Posted: Tue, 26 May 17:37 MST

Wanted: Taxidermist who watches a lot of Kung Fu

---

Date: 2009-05-26, 5:37PM MST

I am looking to hire someone with the means to obtain and stuff animals in fashions I choose, which will be Kung Fu for now. When I was younger I convinced a friend of mines dad to create two squirrels Kung Fu fighting. I still think about it from time to time and have decided to get my own Kung Fu animals, I understand this is a bizarre request. Serious inquiries only, please E-Mail me the species of animals you commonly hunt or can obtain and your rate for taxidermy of each in various Kung Fu poses. Mounting preferred. Once again I feel I must state this is serious. If you can show any of your previous work it will probably give you an edge on the competition. Please respond via/e-mail. Thank you.

• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
• Compensation: There will be payment, decent pay. Depends on quality of work and product which will vary.

PostingID: 1190484174

Dear Carter and Li,
Thanks for hanging out together so I could go to the movies with the girls.
I hope you had fun.

Love,
Mommy/Jen

The long and short of it

If you just want the short story and the pictures here you go....

We had a fairly long labor, then 2-3 hours of pushing and topped it off with a c-section.
Recovery has been a blast.

Sorry to the rest of you mothers,
but there never was a cuter creature on the face of the planet!

His dad is an expert swaddler.

He IS rad like dad.
EVERYTHING about him is just like his dad.

His first trip in the stroller.
I don't think he was as excited as I was.

If you are interested in a few more details....
I came home from my appointment Wednesday night in tears. I had a pretty intense cervical exam that left me in a lot of pain, my doctor said he wanted to induce me the next day because he was going out of town, (which just scared the crap out of me) and he also told me that my pubic bone has a weird angle, so there was about a 10% chance I'd need a c-section. Yippee skippee.

I started having contractions around midnight that continued all through the day. They weren't close enough together or regular enough to go to the hospital. Just bad enough to be painful and obnoxious. I also had some back labor pains, which should have been my first clue that this whole thing was going to go badly. The hospital was supposed to call at any moment so I could go in to be induced. I was already dilated to 3cm and I figured the contractions had done some more work, so I was praying for the hospital to just call already so I could get my epidural and breeze through the rest of this delivery!

The blessed call came around 3:30 in the afternoon which was perfect because Li had just finished his training at work. I went in and they said I was at 5 cm. My doctor came in to break my water and apparently it had already broken, which means I could have and should have come in earlier. I got my epidural and found it rather hysterical. I could still feel stuff, just no pain. I had some pretty bad shakes, but thought that was a rather small price to pay.

I continued to dilate, not as quickly as I would have liked, (I was hoping he'd be born the 18th) but I didn't really care because I wasn't in pain. The baby's head was facing posterior so I had to lay with my leg on a table for a few hours to try and turn it. I think it was around midnight when the nurses said I could start pushing. Which we did for an hour or more. Again, I thought this was HYSTERICAL!! I couldn't feel anything, but here I am pushing my brains out and I can't tell if I'm doing any good, except that Li and my mom keep getting all excited that they can see his head. (It was hysterical except for the part where I threw up.)

At this point I'm thinking, "Yea I made it to 10cm and we are pushing...no c-section for me!" Then they determined that his head was still facing posterior. So we stop pushing and my leg goes back up on a table. Then on the other side. Then back to the first side. And so it goes for hours. My doctor also turned the epidural down so that maybe I could feel better where I was pushing. Around 5am my parents had gone home, Li was asleep, no one had checked me for awhile, nothing was on TV except infomercials and fake gospel, and I just laid there staring at monitors that weren't doing ANYTHING!! I was incredibly frustrated.

I finally got Li to wake up and shortly after that my doctor came in and suggested we start pushing again. I was really hoping that this could work and we could end this misery. But it was looking doubtful. We pushed for another hour or so and this time it wasn't so funny. The nurses were not nearly as fun as the night before and one kept shaking her head like, "This is never going to work." Which makes pushing a lot of fun. My doctor came back in and said it was up to me, but basically it wasn't going to happen and I needed to get a c-section. At which point I had been through so much I did NOT want to go through major abdominal surgery as well. So I asked to push for a little while longer. Am I stupid? The nurses left with the doctor (I think he basically told them to convince me to give it up) and returned for about 15 more minutes of pushing. Nothing. So I agreed to a c-section.

They got me all prepped and Li gave me a blessing. I threw up again on the way down the hall. I felt like I was on ER when they wheeled me into the operating room, all these people in scrubs and bright lights in my face. They hung a curtain, pumped some more drugs into me and cut me open. I heard a baby cry and they said they wanted to present my son to me....what I saw was a yucky mess of something that didn't really resemble a baby and if it did it belonged to a Samoan and not to me. I might have been more enthused about seeing him, except that at the very moment he came out I started having a really intense pain around my belly button. I asked if it was supposed to hurt but no one could hear me except Li. So here they are showing me my son and I'm thinking in my head, "I'm going to die right here on this operating table. I am actually going to die in childbirth." Finally someone heard me and they pumped me full of something that they said would make me sleepy. That was a ginormous understatement! I immediately felt my whole body go limp and I could not keep my eyes open. It was a little freaky; I couldn't really tell if I was falling asleep or passing out. Plus I was super dizzy. When they moved me from one bed to another I thought the room was rocking and I grabbed the doctor's arm to keep from falling off.

But some time later (NO idea how much later) the nurses and Li brought him into the recovery room so I could feed him. I was still shaky and afraid to hold him. But he was ADORABLE!!!

We spent the next few days in the hospital. It was pretty frustrating to have this precious little new baby and not really be able to do anything for him. But it was amazing to watch Li step up and take care of everything. He even got excited about poopy diapers! I'm so glad Carter was born on the weekend so that Li could stay with me in the hospital.

It's been great staying at my parent's house too. Recovery is happening MUCH slower than I would like and it is nice to have so many people always anxious for a turn to take care of him.

Okay, so that was a quite a lot of details. The important part is that he is here and we LOVE him!!!!!!!!