Wonder No More!

Let me put your minds at ease. I know that many of you have been wondering what it looks like underneath the dash of a '98 Jetta. Well wonder no more! I finally got my hands on a new dashboard for my Jetta. The previous owner of my car cut out a support brace to put a 7 inch screen where the heat and a/c controls are supposed to be. He messed up a lot of other trim pieces that I've slowly been able to replace over the past two years due to dedicated visits to pick'n'pull. My car is finally whole!
The dash swap came at a price of many hours of pulling on unknown wires to find cable ties, two really scratched up hands, and a nuisance warning from our local HOA authority! That's right, you apparently can't have any outdoor hobbies where we live. Here is what they gave me to prove it. In case you're incompetent like I apparently am, it was highlighted for increased readability and annoyance!


I've been able to shrug off the warning due to support from the other 99.9% of our housing community. Anyway here is the new dash in all it's glory. Brianne likes it, but still isn't satisfied with the comfort of my car.

Wee Bit of Celebration

Last night was our quiet birthday celebration for Rich! We are kind of boring, so we didn't do anything more than have dinner by candlelight and dessert. Though I guess American Idol was wedged in there, so that was exciting (not really).

Rich asked that I make this chicken cordon bleu sauce that goes over noodles. What an easy request! I just put it in the Crock Pot the night before and it was ready to go before I left for work in the morning. We of course had our veggies to make us strong and healthy! And, as was documented before, Rich requested a specific cake, which my neighbor calls Striped Delight in place of other names that she's too sweet to say. And let me tell you, it was NOT better than sex. In fact, it tasted like bananas. Weird. But Rich loved it and will probably end up eating the rest of the cake by himself. For the record, this isn't the cake that I normally call better than sex cake. This recipe was just a graham cracker crust with cream cheese, whipped cream, and chocolate pudding. But Rich was the birthday boy and got to pick whatever he wanted!

Anyway, moving on from that topic . . . let's discuss presents! Rich didn't get to open anything on his actual birthday, which was sad, but it's only because he'd already bought his present and installed it in his car so it would be ready for his big day. He really wanted this bluetooth adapter that goes through his (fancy) car stereo. He's got it all installed and is happily using it! So yay for him! There's a story to go along with that, but I think he's planning another forary into the blogging world to tell you all about it, so I'll leave that to him. He did get to open some other presents from my family when we had a get together last Sunday to celebrate all of the family birthdays from January, February, and March (we've been busy the past few months), so don't feel too bad for him! Plus, he'll get some more presents when we get together with his fam in a few weeks.

Happy birthday Sweetie!!

The Day of Rich!

Behold! The greatness of Rich! He is 24!!
Aw, he's so cute and becoming such a big kid.

He's sick on his bday though, which is sad. But! I am making him the dinner he requested! So this will cure him.

I will report on the day's celebrations tomorrow. But I wanted to ensure that one and all knew that it was Rich's big day so you could shower him with texts, emails, gifts, comments, etc! But not cakes. Because I already made him one, and according to my neighbor, it's better than something, but she didn't tell me what specifically because she was too embarrassed.

Srsly Cool

My husband's mouth looks like a whale's.

We played a fun game last night where Rich shines a flashlight in my mouth to see if I have strep. Because, you know, I'M 5 YEARS OLD AGAIN. Srsly, I get strep all the time. And I was unconvinced at Rich's diagnosis. Mainly because I sort of wanted strep so I didn't have to go to work today. So then I decided I needed to see his throat to compare. MONSTRO!! I was a little scared. Also, Rich had his tonsils out, so really, the comparing was futile.

WHO WANTS TO HANG OUT WITH US NOW!? SUPER COOL.

That is all.

Becoming Spring

This afternoon's lunch was grand. I walked around in the sun! And the WIND! But it was great. I felt a weight lift off my heart. I was happy. I walked around eating a graham cracker with one hand and holding down my skirt with the other (because I'm nothing if not ladylike, which is more than can be said for a fellow skirt-wearer, who apparently was unperturbed that her lady bits were making an appearance).

The small tips of the tulips were pushing up through the ground, and the irises already were proudly showing their faces. I wandered randomly around Temple Square and the Church plaza, feeling great and not caring one bit that my hair would whip me in the eye sometimes. After this wonderfully cathartic moment, I found a semi-sheltered bench and settled into my book.

I'm reading Sarum by Edward Rutherford. It's fantastic. I just love history, and learning about how Britain came to be is really interesting. Obviously some of the information is creatively made up, but the main tenets of the historical facts override this information, as Rutherford uses historical and archeological evidence to make sure his descriptions are as close to fact as possible. I'm also fascinated by the way Rutherford has described his characters. He's linked them throughout time and focuses on a few family groups, making them recognizable by the traits that continue on through the generations. For example, Rutherford talks about the creation of Stonehenge around 2000 BC and describes the mason (who obviously is Rutherford's own creation) as having a "large head with a bulbous nose" and "short, stubby thumbs." Later on, around the year 800 AD the mason's ancestors are still in the area and all have those same features, including a great ability for working with their hands as masons or as other special laborers. While I don't know much about genetics and am not sure if these traits actually would continue on down through the ages, it's interesting to think about.

And in the bright day of spring yesterday, I began to wonder which of my traits came from my distant relatives. I can certainly say that I know my nose and hands come from my father, but did he get those traits come from our French heritage? Maybe not. My smile comes from my mom, but did she get her smile from her Danish or English ancestors? I know none of this. I think perhaps this is a sign that I need step it up and do some family history work! All of this just got me thinking about whether I have any traits of my Danish ancestor who crossed the ocean and then proudly entertained Ephraim, Utah, by standing on his head during parades; or do I have some similarity to the man who followed Brigham Young from Canada to Kirtland to help build the temple because, he, himself, was a skilled mason? I obviously have really cool ancestors, so I should learn more about them! (This post is probably not very interesting to people who aren't related to me.)

I guess spring just really got into me yesterday. It's been coming on. I've actually been very productive lately. And I'm excited for more to come. I'm also really excited to finish my book.

This rambling has been good for me.