This blog has turned into a series of incoherent rambles

Ugg. Why is it painful trying to help Isabella convert pints to quarts and quarts to gallons and ounces to tons? It feels like your brain is trying to reach back through the recesses of time to that week in 3rd grade. After which you never bothered with it again (apparenty these days they are a bit more thorough.) Then your brain is being twisted in seven different directions.

Yesterday I watched the rest of the State of The Union Address. What struck me most about the whole thing was the bizarreness of watching congress stand up and applaud every three minutes. Then I noticed that there are far more women in congress who are democrats than republicans. I only noticed one female republican, not that there aren't more I suppose, that's just what I noticed. I also noticed that all those democrat women in congress like to dress like colorful polyester adorned peacocks. If I were in congress I'd definitely go for a more neutral looking dress suit or pant suit. Just sayin'.

All week I listened to classical music for my art class. A little Mozart. A little Verdi. A lot of Henry Purcell-from the Baroque period. My two favorite songs by Henry Purcell were "Scene of The Drunken Poet" from the semi opera The Fairy Queen and "Your Hay It Is Mow'd" from the semi opera King Arthur. They both had the added benefit of having cool titles too. Henry was my man to do a short paper on. Did you know school is a bit more complicated than it was back in the 1990s? When you submit your paper for your online class there is a thing that will check for you to see if you are a plagiarizer. It's so nice of them to warn you like that, huh?

So we took the kids to this family fun place for Noah's birthday a couple of weekends ago. We skated a bit and rode the crappy rides and watched the magician. The guy running the bumper car things- they were bumper cars with a big inner tube at the bottom- he starts the ride without checking to see if the riders had buckled themselves up. Noah hadn't and so after a second the guy stopped it and then kept restarting it because he was too impatient to wait for Noah. Seriously dude, your job consists of walking around and making sure a dozen people have their seatbelts on then pushing go and stop. It's not brain surgery! Then the kids rode this other ride that was kind of like a ferris wheel with things that spun in a circle. Brent rode it with Noah the first time then later Noah wanted to ride it alone so he could spin it whatever way he wanted. But they let some teenage boy sit with Noah and he kept spinning it as fast as he could. Noah was all smiles at first, then it was less and less until he did not look happy at all. The boy finally notice and slowed down. I think it may have occurred to him that he may have been in danger of having a seven year old barf all over him. Noah was ready to leave when that ride was over.

While we were there we were checking out the magician and he was doing some disappearing act with his assistant. After, Brent and I were commenting that we both liked that song that was blaring while the magician did his thing. I said it was Talking Heads or at least David Byrne. Brent disagreed. Because he's more of an expert on Talking Heads and David Byrne than I am. How do you explain that I knew David Byrne was from Baltimore and he didn't then? Huh? So when we got home I had to prove him wrong, but I couldn't! I could only remember three words of the song at that point so I google in the phrase "hold my hand" and "sounds like talking heads". The first thing that comes up is those exact words (of course) and a song by some band from the '90s called Rusted Root. So at least I was right that someone else out there thought the song sounded like Talking Heads. Google is awesome! Another example of that is Brent the other day saying to me, "Who's that actor? The one with the weird nose who tried to commit suicide?" Me, "I don't know." Brent,"Sure you do." So I google in "actor tried to commit suicide weird nose" and Owen Wilson comes right up. I'm going to find something really useful to google one of these days.

What's Up (with bonus bad British accent)

Just so you know for the future- January IS NOT the month you throw new things at me. Christmas is over, the cheeriness is gone and winter, along with a million inches of smoggy disgusting air, has settled in for a long nap. Along with my "seasonal affective disorder" it also brings on a hormonal meltdown for some strange reason. Probably caused by the pollution. Hmmph. This is the place? Maybe if you're able to spend a month every winter in Hawaii it is. I think Zoe feels it too (just came in here and let out a big whine and collapsed onto the floor). Luckily, two years ago I came down with a case of "election fever" which distracted me quite nicely. Hmm, wonder who's winning the election for Kennedy's seat....

....Okay, I'm back. Looks tight. Could be bad news. Can't say I'm all that into it anyway. But you know which way I'm leaning. Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah, I hate January. Or does it hate me? Maybe if I just say it and get it over with I can start thinking more positively about things. The Sunday before winter semester started (little over a week ago) I was totally blindsided by being asked to be first counselor in the primary at church (you know, for kids). Why is it so hard for me to spell the word counselor? (councilor? councelor?) And google doesn't help. It had me spelling it the British way: "I'm the new councilor in the primary. Well isn't that just brilliant! Pip, pip!" said with a bad British accent. So clearly the radar I'd been comfortably flying under for some time had been reset wrong. And this was all THE DAY BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS!!! So naturally I freaked out and dropped a class and called myself out on being a loser for doing so. The good news is I still have my online art class (humanities type class) and it's more confusing than I hoped it would be. So I'm trying to stay positive. *You're an adult Cindy. You can handle this.* Just not what I expected I guess.

So I told Brent I can go about my new responsibilities in one of two ways: I can get one of my many planners out and get nice and organized. Or I can go about it like a bull in a china shop . Can I just apologize to my fellow ward members in advance?

bad, bad, bad, good

I went to the doctor's yesterday. I've had this pain in my hand since late November. It only bothers me when I write. After a while it looks like I'm trying to enter a penmanship contest with Noah and Noah is winning. I had hoped that the month off of school would cure the pain but I'm noticing it's still there. So I went to the doctor, even though I doubted he'd be able to do anything to help me. I was right. He told me to take lots of tylenol and ibuprofin and get some fat pencils. Maybe that would help. My MIL, Cathy, helped me out when she came over last night by giving me a couple of "My First Tyconderogas" which are about twice as wide as normal pencils. Perfectly suited to four year olds just learning to write and thirty-eight year olds with crippling hand disfigurements. Now to find a pencil sharpener big enough for them. I can picture myself  using them in math class while wearing a green visor with LAGOON written across it, like the one I had in fourth grade. Thanks, Cathy!

Then I asked him if my foot (which was afflicted with plantar fasciitis last spring) will ever return to completely normal. I started running this week again so I thought I'd get his take on it all. You know, since I was there and I wanted to get my copays worth and all. His answer was, probably not (although it has improved considerably). He recommended I give up my hopes of running again and stick with biking, swimming and ellipticals. Yay. I should just skip all of that and start saving up for my Segway. Not sure I'm going to follow the running advice. Maybe if I stretch the feet a lot. I don't know. It's not like I'm 85 years old and I should just roll over and give up.

So I come home, kind of bummed. I get the mail. What do I see? I've been called to jury duty. AGAIN. Okay, it's only the third time (all since Brent and I got married 14 1/2 years ago), and I've never actually been selected to a jury. (How often have you been called to jury duty?) But not really the best timing. I was quite steamed at first, but I've come to terms. Moved on. It shouldn't interfere with things too much if I do get selected. I'm taking two classes this semester. One is at night, the other is online and flexible. Of course I do still have these things called KIDS that I am supposed to be there for when I'm not doing the school thing. Hmm.

Today I go on the internet and read a group blog I like to frequent, FMH. Over there is a post about Michael Pollen. I really like his books and his ideas on food and the American diet. The cool thing is that out there on the internet you can find people, even in the Mormon community, who have interests in subjects no one you know is interested in. And that is a GOOD THING. Yay.

Last Thoughts?

First of all let me say, I would rather have plywood coated with polyurethane in my kitchen than carpet. Or whatever that sub floor stuff is called. That has nothing to do with anything but I was reading a blog where the person was talking about vacuuming her kitchen carpet, which she hated of course and that was my thought.

Last night was New Years Eve and we had fun. Played Pictionary Jr. and the Wii and ate snacks. Too many snacks. The brownies were a cakelike abomination and if Betty Crocker ever does that to me again they will have to kiss my business goodbye.

In the car last night I ran into the top 101 songs of the decade on the radio. Let's just say it was a very bad decade for mainstream alternative music (can those words even be used together?) Maybe my impatience for commercials wasn't the deciding factor for me turning off the radio about four years ago and scarcely turning back on. But I did turn it on and even though almost every song of the remaining thirty-six songs had me saying, Really? This is one of the top 101 songs of the ENTIRE DECADE?! I couldn't turn it off and insisted on listening to the rest. Much to Brent's dismay. Except when we went over to feed the neighbors cat, of course. It's really making it hard to argue that the '00s produced better music than the '90s. That decade is now over and it seemed that no one ever came to a consensus on what to call it. Maybe the whole thing was doomed from the get-go. No really, we were quite blessed during the last decade. I can't complain too much. I shouldn't anyway. The world at large and America though, it was kind of a suckfest overall. If it all means that the last days are here and the second coming is on it's way, I'm more inclined to believe it's being brought on by neglect, cluelessness and stupidity than pure evil.

What can be said about the last decade or the last year? Well, I probably don't have many deep thoughts on the whole thing at this point. Let's see, I know what my least favorite overused phrase of the last year has been. Tender Mercies. Yes, your life may be full of whatever you consider Tender Mercies to be but it's just an expression that I don't care for. That and Moisture. Nope, no deep thoughts here right now. Seriously? Can you think of anything more vile than carpet on the floor in your kitchen?