Lucky #7

I've been "tagged" which is sort of new to me in the blogosphere, but here we go!

Seven Things You Probably Didn't Know Before And Probably Will Wish You Didn't Know After You Know them:

1. When I was doing a History Fair project in junior high, we sent letters to a bunch of celebrities who had recorded political songs. Two responses: The first was an autographed John Denver photo which I now cherish, though I didn't know his music at the time. The second was a small postcard that said, "Call me" with a phone number scribbled. When we deciphered the signature, it was Pete Seeger!!! It was AWESOME talking to him on the phone and he told us awesome stories.

2. I'm totally a cat person. I love cats SO much and will always bend down to give your cat a snuggle if you own one. Josh is allergic, so I can't have my own, which breaks my heart.

3. When I was in college, I took a ballroom dance class and LOVED it. I've always dreamed of taking a class since then because there was nothing I loved more than that dancing. But it's just weirder when you're a "grown up." (I love watching "Dancing With The Stars"--Gooooo Helio!)

4. I've owned two miserably painful businesses. :-D Both were great learning experiences, although both ended with bad circumstances. The first was selling stickers and custom desktop publishing (I sold stickers at the MTC, BYU bookstore & Deseret Book). The second was a partnership to make movies for LDS kids. That one fell apart when I got pregnant with the twins and my partners decided to move to greener pastures. I'll always feel sad about that.

5. I lived in Baden, Austria for six months when I was seven years old. My dad was helping administer the Study Abroad program for BYU that semester. That was an amazing experience and I have always wanted to go back to visit the Rosarium, hike up to the castle, and smell the vendors outside the Vienna Opera.

6. The last two are two pieces of the same puzzle. I have increasingly had "anxiety" issues in the last few years. The first piece of this is that I totally freeze up in most social situations. I used to be the life of the party and social all the time. Now I nearly have an anxiety attack when I'm calling my best friends. I see all my neighbors doing stuff together all the time and I just sort of sit by and feel bad that I'm not joining in. Ouch.

7. The last thing is that I get extreme performance anxiety when I sing. The most embarrassing moment of my life was trying to sing for the relief society two Christmases ago when I was sick. I slaughtered the song, couldn't breathe right, and my voice was totally uncontrollable with those thick vocal chords. I wanted to absolutely melt into the floor and disappear. And then... for some strange reason... I volunteered to sing again the year after... and this year I'm singing another solo. Apparently I'm a slow learner. And I'm also scared spitless.

Sorry they're so long-winded. That is something you already knew about me--the longwindedness. Now I get to "tag" some people. I'd love to learn more about Craig & Jaclyn, Sandra, Mike (though I doubt he'd dare put something so fluffy on his uber-techno-geekiness blog), Lisa, and all of my Mommies friends. :-)

The world's biggest sigh of relief

I've been full of boring, self-indulgent blog posts lately so why break tradition now? I'll try to do something lighter in a few days, like the next piece of Anna & Alex. In the meantime:

It is with the happiest of hearts that I can say... We did it!!!!! Josh finished his last final exam for his last class for his Bachelor's degree on Wednesday. It's taken a long time--longer than Josh or I would like to admit--and it has been a painful road. Which makes us all the prouder that it is done.

If I'm not mistaken, Josh will be the first one in his immediate family line to finish a bachelor's degree. His parents both had some college training, but never made it this far. I'm sure they wish they could have, but life doesn't always make things easy. They set a great example for him, though, by always teaching him the value of education and the value of learning in any setting, be it in school or finding an educational TV show or just observing the world around us. Hats off to them, too, for this accomplishment of Josh's. I know they are immensely proud of him.

Josh has been doing double duty since we got married: working full-time (in Salt Lake) and going to school in the evenings. It has left him exactly zero personal time to discover hobbies, talents and little projects on the side. Our lawn has sometimes been unmowed for weeks, or unwatered if the sprinkler system was broken. (Despite his best efforts, he could never convince me that I wanted to become a handyman.) Our travel time, game time, date time, relaxation time and "sanity" time has been wrapped up in this common goal for years. I feel like the weight of the world was just lifted off my shoulders. We celebrated his final final by going to Boardgame Revolution and then staying up late with the 2007 Spiel des Jahres, Zooloretto.

I feel infinitely prouder of Josh's bachelor's than of my own. Helping him get his was infinitely harder than getting my own. Sitting back and "supporting" Josh, counting the thousands of hours he was away from the family, was much harder and much less rewarding than learning things myself! And when things got hard, there wasn't anything I could do to make things better. Just hope and pray that things would work out. I hate that helpless, "out of control" feeling when I have to just sit by and watch my own life unfold around me.

This all leads me to ask: would I do it all over again? That thought makes me sick to my stomach, so let's leave it unanswered. Suffice to say that we tried to do what was right for our family every step of the way, even when it was counterintuitive and more difficult than doing things the normal way. Having a beautiful home and steady income was NOT worth the pain and stress we've dealt with. But knowing that we've tried to follow inspiration to do things the right way for our particular family DID make it worth it. I pray that my children never have to get their college degrees the hard way. I'll do everything in my power to help them get through college as young as possible so they never understand the sacrifices that their Mom and Dad made for education.

Random Thoughts

My children have been awake for two hours and the sun still isn't up. It's almost dawn. It's going to be a long day defined by sleep deprivation.

~~~~~
I dreamt of board games. Zooloretto was awesome and I can't wait to play Time's Up, Smarty Party, Ingenious, The Great Dalmuti, Eurorails, or Blokus. Or Corsari. Or Cartagena. Yes, I spent half of my Christmas budget yesterday at a fabulous local game store that I am completely twitterpated with. Check it out! It's running with low overhead (hence low prices) out of a basement of an office in an obscure location in central Orem and it's called Board Game Revolution. You can buy online, too.


~~~~~
Late Thanksgiving Reverie: I ought to give a list of things I'm grateful for, but there is one item that's so big, it clouds everything else out of my brain: an ever-growing family! (No, I'm not pregnant.) My sister was married this month and I have been so, so, so, so, so pleased to welcome David into our family. He fits in perfectly and we all truly adore him.

One of the best things about David (other than working for my most favoritest online company, Google!) is that we get to know his amazing family. He has absolutely the craziest family tree you can imagine with step-siblings and half-siblings and adopted-siblings and people that are "family" even though there's no blood connection. They are the most welcoming bunch of people you can imagine and I love each one of them. I can't wait to show Ben a present we couldn't resist getting him for Christmas. It's perfect. (Oh no! I just lost the game... again! Arrgh!) (We painted the underside green.)

Images of Love

Some lucky woman has a great husband in the making. If he can just keep it up for the next 20 years, Joseph is already being trained to be a true romantic.

Exhibit A: Flowers

This may not look terribly romantic, but this little vase was often full of Joseph's floral offerings during the summer. His favorite were the dandelions, which I heartily encouraged him to remove from the lawn and bring to me.

Exhibit B: Poetry

Last week, Joseph asked, "Mom, how do you spell like?" Then a few moments later, "How do you spell roses?" then "How do you spell blue?" This was the result. Joseph proudly tells me it is his "first poem." I'm not sure if I've ever read a poem that I liked so much.

Exhibit C: Love Letters

Joseph mailed me this letter a few days ago. I was so happy to see it in the mail yesterday, open it up and treasure it in my mind.

If this isn't the beginning of something great, I don't know what more he could be doing. He's already great at giving compliments. At Grandma's house: "Wow, Tiffani! You could bee-you-tee-ful!" At home: "Mommy, you look so pretty today!" At church: "Mom, I really like Sierra's dress today." Then, following Mom's approval, "Sierra, that's a great dress today."

Of course, it's not always so nice. Like yesterday when I was going to show our basement apartment to some potential tenants, the following little conversation ensued:

Mom: "Joseph, stay upstairs."
Joseph: "I know, I know.."
Mom: "You're still following me.." An apologetic look to the tenants who are waiting for our domestic felicity to subside. "Stay here. Joseph. Stop. Now."
Joseph: "But Mooooooommm..."
Mom: "1... 2..."
Joseph: "But Moooommm...." (nearly crying now) "I wanna be a gentleeman! I wanna open the door for you!"

Blinders Still On? a.k.a. "Dropping Prices, I Can't Hear You (Yet)!"

It's good to be green:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071119/lam053.html?.v=101

Reality Check

I have to admit I'm a hopeless daydreamer.

When I was attending a Catholic grade school in Baden, Austria I passed my days away in day dreams. I didn't learn a blessed thing other than how to cross myself, which my mother still likes to chuckle about. But the daydreaming was forgivable then, since I didn't speak much German and my teacher didn't speak much English.

The habit has continued with me my whole life. If I had all the time in the world to write, I would have endless stories to put on paper because my imagation is always running wild.

To wit:

A few minutes ago I was getting some water from the fridge. As the water was slowly filling my cup, I started looking at the random papers stuck on the fridge. One envelope caught my eye. It was the envelope from my sister's wedding invitation and I had to pull it out to admire it again. Yes, I usually toss envelopes into recycling, but this one is special. Okay, maybe I'm a geek but I think it's special anyway. It is hand-lettered with beautiful calligraphy, done by the same woman who does calligraphy for the Emmys or Grammys or Darwin Awards or something. I mean, it's gooood stuff. Gorgeous.

In a moment, I was transported Walter Mitty-style to the Academy Awards. I was wearing an amazing jewel-studded gown and somebody was looking down at a paper with that same calligraphy on it, calling my name. I stood, tears in my eyes, choked with shock. "Me?" I mouthed silently as the crowd cheered in admiration.

Then the water cup started to overflow and I was transported back to my very dirty kitchen, wearing dirty jeans and my favorite black t-shirt. Back to reality.

Wedding Adventures :: The Creativity Factory

As much as I hate travelogue-style blog entries, I'm making an exception. My sincerest apologies in advance.

Last weekend, I traveled to Oakland, California for my sister's wedding. The whole experience was filled with fabulousness, from the most comfortable mattress I've ever slept on to the fact that I could stay in bed after I woke up without children crying for attention in the room next door. However, most people aren't interested in soft mattresses and how long I lounged in bed (the answer is from 4:30 a.m. when I woke up until about 6:30 when I finally gave up on sleeping any longer).

Most people want the hard-hitting news: "How awesome was Pixar?!?!?"

The answer is, of course, pretty dang awesome. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. As part of the wedding festivities, the whole wedding party was invited for a behind-the-scenes peek at the place where Pixar's magic happens. If this seems like an unusual part of a wedding, I should explain that my new brother-in-law has very close ties to the company.

From the top: We were picked up from the hotel in a tour van, which took us directly to Pixar HQ. Our first site of the huge PIXAR sign over the security gate was accompanied by our driver swearing as he hit the sidewalk and couldn't straighten out the van. I could tell this was going to be a fun evening.

When we first stepped into the building, we were flooded with stimulating imagery and sounds. To our left was a giant Sully and Mike (Monsters, Inc.) greeting us. Photo Op #1. Directly ahead of us was a robot (from their feature coming out next year, Wall-E). To our right was a gift shop which I was thrilled to see since my kids had been bugging me for days about bringing them a present from Pixar. My first order of business was, therefore, taking care of my #1 responsibility: keeping the kids happy.

Gift bag in hand, I was free to explore around a bit more. The entrance to Pixar opens into a huge two-story atrium with staircases on both sides leading to the second story. Beyond the staircases is a restaurant on one side, which was tastefully appointed for the dinner we were going to have after the tour. On the right side was Geek Heaven: a ping-pong table, pool table, air hockey table, numerous couches, a huge mural highlighting one of their movies and a plethora of empty liquor bottles. Employees were at ease in this lounge, winding down after work.

We then split into several small groups for tour time. The first place our guide took us was to the one place I was most anxious to see: the signature wall. This is a bright red wall that "voice talent" signs each time it comes to record a show. Names that grace this wall include Larry the Cable Guy (Mater) (which reminds me: the name "Mater" was inspired by another wall signer, "the real Mater" who was apparently a mayor of some town--get it? Mayor? Mater?), Brad Bird & several other Birds (one of which, at least, is Brad's son), Owen Wilson (Lightning McQueen), Bonnie Hunt (Sally from CARS, Flint from Monsters, Inc. and Rosie from A Bug's Life), and of course John Ratzenberger (Mustafa from Ratatouille, Mack from CARS, Underminer from the Incredibles, Fish School from Finding Nemo, the Abominable Snowman from Monsters, Inc., Hamm from Toy Story & Toy Story 2 and P.T. Flea from A Bug's Life.)

We then got to walk through the production area on the main floor where so much magic happens. The place was absolutely bursting with creativity. You could feel it in the air and it wasn't hard to spot all around. We saw, among numerous other things, two-story cubicles, tastefully appointed indoor tuff sheds, walls of quirky drawings, all the moving, singing characters from an old Chuck-E-Cheese, and the original D from the sign over the entrance to Disneyland (in pieces leaning against a cubicle.)


As we walked past an in-office bar where people were kicking back drinking and still at work, our guide told us two interesting things: (1) he had counted seven bars within the walls of Pixar and (2) we better drink up the scenes we saw projected onto the screen because we wouldn't likely see them again until the finished project was released in 2009.

After drinking up the atmosphere of colors, sounds, images and ideas that floated so freely on floor one, we headed upstairs to walk the corridors where a lot of the original artwork for Ratatouille hung. It was fascinating. So many different mediums were used by hand to create the mood, ambiance and universe that was later created digitally. A fascinating process. Later on, after the fabulous eats, we got to enjoy the game room where my husband took a beating at the Foosball table and I jealousy wished the Ping Pong table would open up. We all went home with a book titled, "PIXAR at the Museum of Modern Art." I'm sure I could look at that book for hours.

Many thanks to those who made us so welcome at Pixar and showed us such amazing hospitality.

Google Reader + Blogger = 20% Heaven

If you scroll down on my blog, you'll notice a new feature on the right. It's called a "Blogroll" and is a new widget available to users of Blogger and Google Reader. It essentially lists all the blogs I subscribe to (that I have made publicly available). This is awesome because it updates automatically and I don't have to take time to manually enter new blogs into a list of links.

This new feature is available due to Google's 20% policy, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time on personal projects. Thanks to Steve Lacey for creating such a useful widget for bloggers like myself.

There is Beauty All Around

I have a confession to make.

I love beauty. The sparkle of morning dew on the blush of rose petals. The carefully crafted color palette of an impressionist painting. The perfect lines achieved by professional dancers. The simple smiles of small children. These things are all beautiful and I stare unabashedly.

Here's where it gets tricky. There are some people who really are just more beautiful than others. I appreciate them like I appreciate beautiful paintings. I try not to stare because my social tact, as wanting as it is, remembers that one tidbit from my youth: "Don't stare at people!"

Unfortunately, sometimes I slip up.

Today, I was at the grocery store and suddenly a face intrigued me. A man was walking past me and my brain instantly noted the softness of his blue eyes, the pleasant proportions of his features, and the warmth of the smile that lit up his whole face. He wasn't smiling at me. He was smiling at the world as he walked through the store. I love it when people choose to be happy with no obvious reason. I think it was that happy smile that made me look again.

We had briefly exchanged glances with my first look, then he had looked away. When he looked back he saw me looking at him again. It was just a half-instant of me enjoying the beauties of the morning--forgetting that this one was living, breathing and capable of knowing when he was being admired. And he knew. I could see it in the infinitesimal sparkle that jumped into his eyes. Sometimes you just know that somebody else knows exactly what you're thinking. In that instant, I was completely transparent and wished I could disappear altogether.

I kept walking, mortified. Not that I was harboring any illicit emotions that I should feel guilty about--just that I felt caught out in my youthful diversions. I tried, as I always do, to laugh about it. As I finished my shopping, I started mentally composing this blog entry, which is usually fairly therapeutic. This time, unfortunately, those thoughts worsened the situation when I realized I'd just stepped into the checkout line directly behind this same man.

In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson, "D'oh!!"

I looked to the left. I looked to the right. No other open checkstands. So I stared at the floor. Then I felt his smile on me. He was enjoying this. Apparently I was still transparent. After about 30 seconds of eternity, it was his turn to pay and leave and I was left to my normal level of social awkwardness.

Good times, good times.

Now, if you're a young newlywed aghast at the idea that a married woman could actually NOTICE another man for three seconds in the grocery store, my apologies. I would just as easily have noticed a beautiful woman, or a beautiful child, or a beautifully crafted advertisement, or a milky-white daisy that had dropped from a display.

I wish it had been a symmetrically pleasing daisy I had noticed, with the cheerful sunburst in the middle staring back at me. That would have been far less embarrassing.

Apologies

Apologies are hard. Especially when they're more necessary for your own healing than somebody else's. You know what I mean? You do something and then you think, "That was stupid. Why did I do that?" Chances are that nine out of ten times the other person just assumed you're a social moron but wasn't actually offended. Times like that are easy for them to brush off, but you're left stressing and anxious about what you did.

I have times like that ALL the time. To the good ladies in my book club, my apologies for bringing up academics and intelligence too much when we were discussing "Freakonomics." Y'all had a good laugh at my social ineptitude--and frankly, so did I!--but I left worrying if I sounded all highfalutin' when I talked about how important education is to my family. Sheesh I still feel embarrassed. See how smart I am? I'm not smart enough to keep my big mouth closed when it needs to be. My social IQ is sometimes zero. Or is it possible for my social IQ to be a negative number? 'Nuff said.

So I had a small apology I wanted to make today, but I thought logically to myself: "Juliana, let sleeping dogs lie. Sheesh, too many cliches running around my head. Can't you think of something better than 'sleeping dogs lie'? Back to the point: forget about it--they'll forget about it--all will be well. Time can heal all wounds. Dang cliches!" So what did I do? Naturally I apologized anyway. This was tricky and it left me close to tears because of that dang negative number social IQ.

The trick is that an apology should not be an invitation for consolation. The point of apologizing SHOULD NOT BE begging for comfort! Naturally when you're apologizing for something, you're making yourself somewhat vulnerable. Weak. At the mercy of somebody else's ... well, uh, mercy I guess. The trick is to not dwell on your own patheticness--no matter how infinite said patheticness is--or else the apology is just a twisted, manipulative way to get somebody that YOU HAVE WRONGED to give you sympathy. That's so wrong but so easy to inadvertently do.

I've been the recipient of this tactic many times, and it annoys the bejeebers out of me. I want to say, "This is not about you. It's about me. Focus! I deserve the pity here--not you!" Of course, that isn't charitable. It's not even nice. It's selfish. But apologies-that-aren't-apologies annoy me. I get a bit testy when it comes to emotionally manipulative annoyances.

I was talking about this with a friend of mine today. She had called me on Saturday to apologize for some things that were on her mind--I never would have known I had been wronged if she hadn't admitted it to me. Naturally I wanted to assure her that no offense was taken and that I adored her for valuing my friendship enough to make things right. This would have been easy to do because she wasn't begging for the validation I wanted to give her. She was sincerely apologizing. However, as I started getting myself all revved up for the "I'm okay. You're okay. We're okay!" speech, the phone connection died. We couldn't make contact again until today, but man. That was funny. Kind of like some emotional director yelling, "Cut! That's a wrap, folks. We'll pick it up again on Monday!"

It's a Bird, It's a Plane...

Thomas, aka Alphaboy or ABC Man, loves his alphabet. Passionately. He can already read several words, including his name, EXIT, TOP and a couple others. It's pretty dang cute. Even cuter is his attempt to master writing the alphabet. Did I mention he's only two?

Look at that lowercase i. And V. And m. Those are awesome. Check these out:

That's a pretty dang good A and B for his age. If only he wasn't drawing them on the sink: