Stake conference isn't supposed to be this hard

Today at church -- a special two-hour meeting -- Laura refused to sit in her own chair, so she was on my lap most of the time. (Adding to the pain, we were in the cultural hall in the hard metal chairs.) She kept asking whether she could get up and go get water, whining she was hungry, kicking me and the people sitting around us, etc. I've had more pleasant stake conferences, that's for sure.
She must have been paying some attention, though. Tonight she was asking questions about the hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives. "Is that a Christmas song?" she asked. No, I said. "But it sounds like a Christmas song!" she said.

Especially for Mugglemom

I immediately thought of her when I came across this in a Linens 'n' Things flier last night.

Suddenly it all makes sense

A few weeks ago, I went to Michael's to look for something. (What, exactly, I don't remember.) I noticed they were clearing out a lot of the scrapbook department.
Then, in Sunday's sales papers, I noticed they've got a lot of discontinued scrapbook supplies on clearance. (I haven't been to see whether there's anything good.)
So, I was just going through the huge pile of newspapers's that's accumulated in our house over the past week or so. And on the cover of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there's a story about her highness Martha Stewart launching a scrapbooking line -- to be offered exclusively at Michael's. (Part of the agreement called for Michael's to declutter its shelves.)
Suddenly it all makes sense.
Yep, that journalism degree really comes in handy sometimes.

Woe is me

Kevin just left to make the long drive to Washington. I knew it was going to be sad, and I wasn't disappointed. Now I'm worried that he's forgotten something vital. But he has his passport, which he needs to start work, and I guess anything else he forgot can be replaced pretty easily.

Next time in Paris, I'm there!

The New York Times had a great piece this weekend on affordable hotels in Paris. The Hotel Lindbergh is my top choice of the bunch for now. It might get a little confusing since they have a Yorkshire terrier named Zoe, but I assume they pronounce it the wrong way, so everything's good.

The queen goes green

I can't say I generally care what Queen Elizabeth does, environmental or otherwise, but I thought this was interesting.

Woo hoo! My laptop works!

I'm finally home from Miami, my laptop came back this week and actually works, ACES turned out great, and I've finally gotten around to posting a photo of the manatee I saw Thursday.

No tan, but I did see a shark

It's a hammerhead, and obviously it had seen better days. Deirdre and I saw it from upstairs in the hotel, and we hurried down to the marina for photos.
We also saw a manatee, which I'll post a photo of later.

Double blogging

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for the American Copy Editors Society conference in Miami. It'll be warm, it likely will be my last ACES conference (a result of the Foreign Service plan), and I'll be contributing to another blog: http://acesmiami.blogspot.com/. Feel free to check it out.

Yes, I'm related to this person

I was cleaning out my e-mail today and came across this photo of Daniel that Heather sent out a few months ago. It actually reminds me of a somewhat funny story.
When I was in elementary school, a family named the Brocks moved in down the road from us. (We were the only two families on that road, in fact.) Their daughter was in middle school and the parents had to leave early in the morning, so they arranged with my parents for Bessie to hang out at our house until the school bus came.
I guess she had never seen my dad before, because the first morning she was there, he walked into the living/dining room, where she was sitting, and she said, "Wow! I just thought, 'Here comes Grizzly Adams!'"
Did Grizzly Adams ever pose with animal skulls? Daniel should be asking himself that. And then he should shave if he hasn't already.

Eight years already?

Yesterday was our anniversary. I thought about finding one of our actual wedding photos to scan and post, but that would have involved work. Doing a Google image search for Mesa Temple was so much easier.
I don't miss Arizona very often, perhaps because we never plan to move back there. But this photo does make me miss it a little. We took the photos for our wedding announcements on the temple grounds, and then there was the actual wedding.
And we do have awesome real photos, thanks to Paul Gero, whom I worked with at the Arizona Republic. He does a lot of weddings now. There are all kinds of cool photos in his portfolio at http://www.paulfgero.com/.



We also went on our honeymoon to Sedona, which is great, too.

Blog of the day

This one's about the London Underground. Scrolling down to the March 27 entry about Sardine Man is worth your time.

Historical fiction 'r' us

Today's book recommendation is An Accidental American, which doesn't actually come out until next week, I think. I got an advanced reading copy at work and finished it in about three days.
The book mostly takes place in Lisbon and probably would have been easier to follow if I'd ever been there (although there are maps). But there also are scenes in France, Lebanon and Jordan.
It encompasses a variety of subjects: document forgery, including passports; terrorism, including Hezbollah; and the semimodern history of Beirut, particularly the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy.
Although I remember the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks a few months later, I don't remember the embassy bombing. This book was an interesting accompaniment to that. Although the characters are ficticious, a lot of the historical elements are real.

Laura's new favorite book

Yesterday we read our first Junie B. Jones book, Junie B. Jones is (Almost) a Flower Girl. Even I thought it was funny, but Laura was particularly entertained by JBJ's words for the traditional wedding song, which go something like:
Here comes the bride
All dressed and wide
Her name is Clyde
And she reads TV Guide.
Laura still was singing it today.

I've become my mother

Growing up, our friends the Robinsons had two sons, Trevor and Kirk, whom my mom never could tell apart. (They had younger sons, too, but she always got those right.) I never thought Trevor and Kirk looked that much alike, but they were a lot closer to my age, obviously, and maybe that had something to do with me not having the same problem.
So today my across-the-street neighbor asked if I could come over and let her know how her house smelled. (It sounds strange, I know, but she'd had a problem with her self-cleaning oven, and she was trying to get rid of the smoke smell because their house is for sale and she was afraid a potential buyer would drop by.)
So her younger son, who's 5, walked in, and I said, "Hi, Kieran." But no, he's Aidan. Which I knew. And they look nothing alike. Different colors of hair, one wears glasses, etc.
So thanks a lot, Mom.

I won't be ordering these photos

Laura apparently took the photographer's instruction to smile a little too literally during a recent photo session at school. She's very sensitive about it, but I had to take a photo of the photo for posterity. But $12 a sheet for a photo that never should have been taken is more than I'm willing to spend.

Laura's Easter fashion show

Yesterday, Laura finally was excited to get to wear her Easter outfit, which I'd bought on eBay a few weeks ago. It was a suit -- although she wouldn't wear the double-breasted jacket and opted for the vest instead -- with matching tights and purse.
She considers herself to be a great singer, and I think I could hear her during most of the Primary's rendition of Did Jesus Really Live Again?
A couple of years ago, after a Primary musical number in our old ward in Denver, she came back to sit down with me and said, "I'm a great singer!"
Yesterday, we had several conversations throughout the day about how Easter really is about Jesus and not bunnies. I think she's gotten the point, but she definitely wouldn't be willing to give up the chocolate.

My cutest nephew born in early 2007

An e-mail from Aunt Mary on Saturday reminded me that I haven't posted any photos of Bryant. So here's an early one, although he's a little bigger (and a little less pink) now.
I assume Laurie's baby also will be cute, and since she's supposed to be having a boy, I guess I'll have to keep their cuteness divided into six-month increments.

Reality hits

Yesterday, I called the State Department transporation office to arrange to have all of our worldly possessions moved. The plan is for the packers/movers to come May 30. So, it looks like this whole moving thing really is happening. Not that I didn't think it would, but perhaps I was slightly in denial -- or at least delayal -- before.

Finally, a real photo

As much as I adored the picture Laura had drawn of me that served as my profile photo, I decided to make a shift to realism. This isn't a great photo -- in fact, I had to crop out not only Laura but Mickey Mouse -- but it'll do for now.

Speaking of technology ...

Remember the Falkland Islands war? I don't remember much about it, which I attribute to the fact I was a fairly young child at the time. But the 25th anniversary has led the Guardian to produce a great multimedia presentation on it here.

The laptop saga continues

My laptop came back to me today via FedEx. Despite H-P tech support's insistence they could find nothing wrong, it still doesn't work. At all. I'm beyond irked, and not just because I'm in the middle of preparing a PowerPoint presentation for the ACES conference.
How did we ever survive without computers? I've driven cars that cost less than the inoperable laptop.

Good name for a rock band

Our deputy business editor just returned from a two-week trip to the big island of Hawaii to visit his in-laws. He told us a very involved story about the feral hogs that are wreaking havoc upon the ecosystem there. He even sent us a photo off the Internet showing one of the hogs in question. (They're nothing like the cute pink ones on Charlotte's Web, in case you're wondering.)
The rest of us have decided that the Pheral Hogs would be a good name for a rock band.

Looking back at general conference

In an attempt to hold Laura's attention during general conference over the weekend, we made this wheel out of the Friend magazine. The kids are supposed to figure out which general authority is speaking and then see whether they can remember his name and title.
We enjoyed the story during the Sunday morning session about President Boyd K. Packer (visible through the little window in the arrow) having a difficult time getting through the Isaiah chapters of the Book of Mormon as a young man.
"I've read the Isaiah chapters!" Laura declared. That's not true, although she does read very well.
She also keeps asking whether all the general authorities are bald. She's too young to remember seeing Elder David Bednar in person during stake conference in Kingwood a few years ago. He's not bald, and I assume that's his real hair.

I hope we didn't pay extra for this

Kevin's graduation announcements arrived last week, and interestingly enough, they come with folding instructions. It's almost like they're saying, "We know you'll soon be a lawyer, but hey, we know some things, too."
I find this particularly funny because eight years ago, there was an unfortunate improper-folding incident with some of our wedding announcements. (A few of them ended up with the type on the inside, instead of on the front, and I wouldn't have known about it except that one got addressed wrong and came back to me in the mail.)

Stuffed animals reproduce

Today our neighbors had a Build-A-Bear Workshop birthday party for their daughter, Madelyn, who's turning 6, and son, Hunter, who's 2. All the kids got to pick out an animal and, depending on the price of the one they'd chosen, clothes and accessories to go with it. The party coordinators were very good, and the whole thing was fun, but it's not something I could deal with well every day.
Laura ended up with a puppy she named Brownie. I assumed Brownie was male, but I was informed that I was wrong. And that Brownie would be wearing a Hello Kitty T-shirt.

A decent diversion

I'm usually not a fan of so-called chick lit, but recently I read Shopaholic & Baby and thought it was pretty good. I doubt I'll read any of the earlier books in the series, but if you're looking for a funny, somewhat funny and even clean read, this one's worth the time.