San Juan De Dios

I don't have a lot of time to write today, so I thought I'd just share one experience from the trip so far. One of the more unusual things I've done on this trip is go to San Juan de Dios in Guadalajara.
If you have never been to Mexico, it's going to be hard to visualize, but I'll try to describe it the best I can, because I couldn't take pictures for reasons that will be obvious as you read along.
In Mexico they have a place in almost every major city called the "Tianguis." The best approximation in the U.S. would be a swap meet or flea market, but those are much to clean and civilized and the merchandise too random to really translate.
The tianguis are arranged like flea markets- open air, usually, with individual booths, stalls, or tents where vendors display their merchandice on tables and racks. Some have cash registers, but not most. Usually money is exchanged via a cash box, shoe box, fanny pack, or some other mysterious source. The tianguis are kind of the Mexican equivalent of an American shopping mall as far as merchandise goes- they sell cosmetics, perfumes, clothing, electronics, shoes, cd's/dvd's/mp3's, etc. Most even have a food court. The merchandise is almost always pirated or otherwise infringing on copyright laws (such as rip-off perfumes sold in recycled bottles and Chinese-made immitation brand name clothing). The food is traditional Mexican fare, including fruit that you can pick and have chopped up for you on the spot, served with fresh lime juice, chile powder, and salt... or possibly Chongos Zamorranos, a caramel flavored milk based treat that has the consistency of squeaky cheese and comes served in a flan-like syrup... roasted chicken quarters or tortas... and so on.
Most tianguis are crowded, dirty, noisy, chaotic, and somewhat smelly (the toilets are usually located WAY too close for comfort to the actual shops and are never more than poorly maintained outhouses). They are also the only place most Mexicans can go to get really affordable American-style stuff, including latest releases for videos and music. Since piracey is legal in Mexico (yup, even cable tv is pirated off of American satellites... no big surprise there) it makes a lot more sense for Mexicans to buy their movies 10 for 150 pesos (that's like $12 American) than to go some place legit and buy one DVD for 275 pesos (like $25 American), especially if they are poor working class families like most of the country are. To buy a DVD released from the production company who made the film is really impossible here because even if you can afford to pay for them, they are impossible to find. Stores like Best Buy don't even exist here and WalMart is a joke. It's basically an overblown grocery store with a few shirts and shoes tacked on. So the only place to get stuff is really the tianguis, hence their popularity.
Well... back to my story. We were going to buy Andrei's Christmas gifts here, so we wouldn't have to cart so much stuff around to so many different places (see previous post). However, our usual tianguis (Tianguis El Sol) is only open Fridays and we were going to be in Manzanillo on Friday so we headed over to San Juan de Dios on the recommendation of Luis's cousin Rogelio who was the deputy Chief of Police over that area of town for like 8 years. However, he warned us that they are truly cesspools, more crowded, and WAY more dangerous than regular tianguis. The trade off is that the stuff is even cheaper there than most places.
So on the 25th we drove over there. That might sound odd, but in Mexico most Christmas celebrations occur on the 24th, last until like 4 in the morning, and the majority of Christmas day is spent sleeping off the insanity of the night before. Gifts are opened at midnight on the 25th, so the kids play while the parents are hung over. Merry Christmas, right? Since we didn't stay up that late, relatively speaking, and since we weren't tired or hung over (not drinking is always a good choice I believe), and since Santa only brought Andrei a couple of cars and a story book, we had nothing to do all day. We figured, why not go see if SJdD was open.
Wow.
The only way I can describe the place is Hell on Earth. Not because we were actually suffering but because it was the lowest I've ever seen humanity sink. I was instructed before I went to leave my purse, camera, and all jewelry in our room and to wear dark sunglasses the entire time I was there and avoid speaking so that people couldn't guess I was American, since that would make me a target for robberies and violent crime. Luis hid all of his identification, credit cards, American cash, and most of his Mexican cash in the owner's manual of the car we were driving so that if someone broke in while we were shopping they wouldn't grab it. Andrei was instructed to not say anything at all unless absolutely necessary.
When we got there we waited in line for 30 minutes to get into the parking lot. When we got out, we walked down a flight of slimy stairs into an open air plaza where there were horridly tacky touristy looking clothing and toys, and dirty beggars pleading for Pesos. It's like if pergatory had a gift shop that's what it would look like. We walked through the plaza and down some more stairs into a dark tunnel, and that's where things got really interesting.
It looked like an enclosed storage unit or military storage locker and smelled like exhaust fumes, urine, and vomit. Everything was painted a garish shade of red, covered by gum, old ads for bands and porn, graffitti, and general grime. We wandered around in some rat-like tunnels and finally emerged into what looked like a post-apocolyptic shopping mall. All the storage units we'd seen closed were opened here with tents set up and cardboard boxes layed over the tents, which looked strange looking down on the floors below because you could see uncovered sidewalks with people walking around and the tops of the tents, but no actual shop fronts. The tops of the tents were all covered with garbage and other undisclosed substances, hence the boxes to prevent it from seeping on to the shop owners and clientele below. Everything was terribly filthy and you had to gingerly pick your way between the garbage and fluids on the ground to navigate your way around the place.
There were so many people I can not even begin to estimate, and the temperature was a balmy 85 degrees. It was so noisy you had to shout to be heard and the only light that came in was a thin stream of dirty sunlight from a small opening on the top floor (I think there were 3 or 4 floors, but it was hard to tell) and the assorted flashing lights put up around the individual stalls . Everywhere people were trying to grab your attention, and sometimes literally your arm, to get you to stop and look at their wares. There were more beggars strewn around on the ground, sitting on cardboard hunks to keep from dirtying themselves on the ground below, and there were a few random assorted drunks reeling about. There was also a very strong aroma of marijuana in a few places.
We spent about 1 hour there, and it was intense. Imagine babies crying, people shouting, music blasting at Disco-Club volumes, and strobe lights flashing, mixed with the aroma of gas, smoke, exotic foods, pot, B.O., perfumes, incense, cheap plastic, and garbage... then you can begin to get an idea of what San Juan de Dios was like. We got a lot of cool stuff for cheap, but if we ever go back I'm not bringing Andrei. This is surprisingly not because of saftey reasons. If you've ever seen my husband you can guess why I wasn't ever truly scared for our safety. Rather, this is mostly due to the fact that Andrei was throwing one of his "I'm only going to speak English because I'm an American" fits and we missed out on a few things we really wanted to get because people doubled their prices as soon as they heard him blabbing on and on in English. In short, no one was robbed and no one was stabbed, and we got a bunch of MP3's (like 20) for $5. All in all I think it was a good day of shopping. Towards the middle I started to feel like I was going to either faint or vomit or both, so I had to sit down and drink some ice water to make it through. I spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever and nausea. I don't want to know why.
Anyway, Merry Christmas! Where were you on December 25th?

I'm Still Here!

Just in case you thought I forgot about you all, I'm still here. Actually, I should be specific. I'm still here in Mexico. We left on the 19th literally minutes after school got out, drove to El Paso, then to Chihuahua, then to Guadalajara, then to Colima, then to Manzanillo, then back to Guadalajara, then back to Chihuahua. Yes, I am carsick, dizzy, disoriented, and still a little bit sandy. More details to come. I'll be here until the 2nd or 3rd I think. I'm not sure. It's kind of hard to keep track of time when you have no phones, emails, or schedules. I seriously thought it was Saturday until about 10:48 this evening.
Hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
Love to all...

Family Photos

We had our family photos taken this last week or so by Sears thanks to my dad who bought all of his kids a full family photo session. The first one is going out in Christmas cards, but in case I don't have your address, here it is for your viewing pleasure. The rest are just on the photo CD we got. I really liked them and thought they turned out pretty good.

Thanks dad!

And so we say adieu.

I finally had a sit-down with my business partner and broke the news to her that we've gotta close. I left out the part about her incompetence causing us to lose business and just went with the old "we're in a recession" thing. She says she's going to start her own company with a friend from fashion school. I didn't feel like it would be appropriate to tell her that's going to fail, too, if she can't learn how to make a friggin' deadline.
She took the news pretty well and basically let it be known that she's just been hanging in there the last few weeks for my sake. I told her that was kind of her, but that I'm more than fine with closing things down. I didn't tell her I put in our 30 days notice with the rental company last week.
I've had some really great inspiration lately, though, to start an etsy store to sell my crafts. I'm going to have to think about what I want to make and start crafting, but it seems like a fun and rewarding outlet for my creative energy. I love etsy. If you don't know what it is, check it out.
Anyway, it's the right time, and I'm glad I'll be able to pick up Andrei after school now and care for him instead of keeping him in his pointless after school classes.
I guess that's that.

Come together, right now...

So Andrei is a weird kid. Have I ever mentioned that before? He didn't talk until he was three. Literally. It mostly just shouting, screaming, grunting, throwing, and hitting. He did, however, know all the lyrics to the Barney song before his second birthday. He also has been able to dance in rhythm since he was 8 or 9 months old. It's truly bizarre. To this day he has trouble with anything verbal or written. He is a slow reader at best and he has no interest whatsoever in becoming better. He is, however, obsessed with music. Still. He can sing in harmony, and he can hold a tune while others sing harmony to it.
While we were at my mom's house in Fresno over Thanksgiving, she gave him a quick piano lesson and he's totally internalized it. He's been bugging me about that darn piano for a couple of weeks now, so I dug my old keyboard out of the crawl space this weekend and bought a universal DC adapter so we could plug it in. He went nuts. He spent like an hour and a half just playing around with the different settings and I had to drag him to bed. He even got me to get out my violin so we could "jam." I haven't touched the thing for years now, since I basically gave up music when I got to college. I guess this is something he really wants to do, though so who knows. Maybe I'll get back in to it, thanks to him.
Kids are weird like that.

White Christmas?

It's foggy and stormy outside and I'm hoping that we'll get some snow. So far we've had a really dry winter. The first snow was in September, but it was just a flurry and didn't stick, and everything that's followed has been really random and kind of the same thing- melts the same day it falls.
I love the snow (just not being outside in it) because it makes things look so pretty. Our neighborhood looks just like a Normal Rockwell postcard in the winter.
So here's hoping for a white Christmas- or at least the week before. We'll actually be in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas and I'm assuming that it will be tropical and sunny, like always.

Aggression...

I've been feeling really angry about a lot of things lately, and I think that the bottled up tension is starting to manifest itself as unnecssary aggression.
Case in point... today when I came home I found a notice on my front door from animal control. Apparently my poodle got out (Again. Long story.) and a neighbor called animal control. Animal control saw her running under the fence and left me a cute little note saying I was being cited for my dog being off-leash in the neighborhood and oh, btw, could I please call them to arrange to have my citation signed. Grrr. I did call. I also said some unladylike things to the animal control lady.
Another example... I was walking in the hall on Friday when one of my most obnoxious students ran past me (he had shoved someone and was trying to run away before getting kicked). He ran into me without looking and nearly ripped off my pinky in the process. Let's just say I paid him back by fully ripping him a new one.
My sister Teriesa has offered to give me a free massage. I think it's about time to take her up on it because I'm starting to revert to Klein Camille. When I was living in Klein I had too much stress in my life which manifested itself as explosive aggression. I had kind of a reputation for being a colossal "B" in high school. I probably deserved it because I was one angry little chickadee back in the day. I am afraid that angry Camille is making a comeback and I don't want that because I worked REALLY hard to mellow out and stop verbally asaulting everyone who irritated me. I need to seriously chill before I say something I regret to someone who really doesn't deserve it.
Anyone got any ideas? What do you all do to relax when you're wound up? Maybe I should take up kickboxing. I've got some serious issues that could probably be worked out better on a punching bag since my method of self-medicating with chocolate hasn't worked out great so far.

Rock Lobster!

Ok. So the title of this post has nothing to do with anything. I just kind of like the B-52's sometimes. I don't think that's such a crime, unless I admit it in public.

So my friend Megan posted this picture on Facebook the other day and it really made me think back on the good ol' days.

I have been in Provo now for officially 9 years. That makes me feel really old and lame most of the time, but you know what? I'm glad about it. When I graduated from BYU the only thing I wanted to do was get married to my high-school boyfriend, but he wanted to do a mission and I wanted to support him in that. I waited for him for 3 years, and to help ease the waiting I came to BYU. I also came up here because it was halfway in between either parent. (Nice strategy, huh? I was out of both of their jurisdiction! Sorry mom, but it's true) It worked out for the best, though, and I've had some really good times here.

Now since both of my parents read this blog I'll spare them the details of my college years. But this picture kind of sums up the kind of stupid stuff we used to do.

On my 18th birthday we decided to celebrate in style. Since I wasn't interested in smoking, we figured we'd just commit a misdemeanor. There is a local gas station chain called the Maxi Mart. Classic. Now, knowing me you can probably guess where this is going.

I'm all for honesty in advertising so I thought we should Maxi the Maxi Mart- you know- to send a positive message about their corporate identy to the public. Mel's friend Alicia donated the Maxis and Mel, Alicia, and Megan helped me do the dirty work. Mel's roommate Jenny took the photos, and the rest is history.

Most of them fell off within a few weeks, but there was this big Always overnight that stuck to the sign for literally like 2 years. It was still there when Luis and I started going out, I totally promise. Gross! I guess no one wanted to get near it.

Aside from the horrible vandalism we are perpetuating on an honest business establishment my favorite part of this picture is how I look. This is living proof that I spent about 4 years literally not caring what I looked like and pushing the envelope as far as I could go without crossing the line between eccentric and full-on crazy. Note my excessively dark, short hair and overly colorful wardrobe. Classic!

Anyway, enjoy. This is seriously one of my favorite pictures ever. Thanks Megan for posting it!!!

Giving Thanks

So we left last Tuesday night to go to my mom's house for Thanksgiving. We got permission from Andrei's mom to take him, which I was somewhat aprehensive about, but my family really wanted to see him so we decided to go for it.

The trip there was pretty uneventful. We drove to L.V. and spent the night in a motel there. Around 7 the next morning we got up and started the long drive from L.V. to Fresno. Andrei behaved pretty well considering, but having a 6 year old in a car with no friends, movies, games, or activities and only a few toys. All I have to say is thank goodness for the McDonald's Play Place in Tehachapi California. We spent Wednesday night at my sister Tiffani's house, and Andrei had a great time getting to know his cousins.

Thursday we all woke up pretty early and spent most of the day getting things ready for the big show at my brother Kris's house. Kris has a new house, a new family, and a pretty awesome new life. His first biological child was born this October and we're all so excited to welcome little True into our family, and are so grateful for Jo-Ann and all that she's done for Kris the past year. They are a really great couple and an adorable family, and I really enjoyed getting to know them. Their house is pretty big and really nice, so it was the perfect locale for Thanksgiving Dinner. Andrei had a great time playing with Jo-Ann's girls Katrina, Mia, and Cienna.

On Friday we woke up WAY too early to do some Black Friday shopping. We got a whole bunch of stuff we weren't planning on purchasing because it was so cheap, so Christmas is basically done for this year. Our favorite purchases are Guitar Hero World Tour and my new camera. I've been wanting a nice camera for a long time now, and I got a Nikon Coolpix P80, which I love. It came with a bag, a battery, a charger, a memory card, and a coupon for 50 free prints from Costco. Yay! I also got to help Emily shop for a new London wardrobe, which was ridiculously fun. I love her. Friday night we played Risk with Emily, Brent, Malachi, Tiffani, and Richard. Luis and I won, although we had to be pretty sneaky to beat Richard. He's really good at the game and our mission was to wipe his armies out.

On Saturday we did a session at the Fresno Temple. It was the 5 year anniversary to the day of Emily receiving her endowments at the temple so we thought we'd commemorate it by reliving the experience. It was cool. We haven't been to the temple for a long time (that's what happens when you work nights and Saturdays), and the Fresno Temple is a pretty cool one. It's really tiny and you get a lot of personal attention. Afterward we went back to Tiff and Richard's house to make gingerbread houses. Emily slaved all day Friday making them, and they turned out AWESOME, despite a frosting malfunction which was later corrected. Saturday evening we went out to Sweet Tomato for dinner with Emily and Brent and then went back to my mom's house to play cameras. Emily got a new SRI by Nikon (I think it was the D60?) and I'm excited because now she can take all sorts of amazing pictures in London. I'm so jealous!

We left early on Sunday morning, making sure to stop one last time at Donut Queen, home of the world's single greatest doughnuts. I love them too. We're glad to be home, but will miss family. I know this because Andrei mentioned about a million times on the drive home that he misses his cousins and especially his Grandma. Apparently he things Grammy is the greatest person ever. He was very specific about this.

I took a lot of pictures on the trip home, mostly to amuse myself on the long drive. Above are some of my favorites, as well as a few fun shots from the night before.

Oh, say can you see?

So Luis was on the phone for like 20 minutes last night blathering on and on in Spanish. Usually when he does that I just ignore him because it's usually some customer from the Bank wanting to know if he can reverse a fee, or a family member asking for money. I understand Spanish when I'm concentrating, but subliminal Spanish still escapes me. However it turns out this was a pretty important conversation.
When he got off the phone he told me he'd been talking with Emanuel (the guy that got us in to this whole thing- he introduced us and arranged our first blind date) and Emanuel was apparently going over with him the process of him becoming a citizen. Yup. You heard that right. My hubby wants to be a citizen. Weird.
Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day that would happen because if he has to renounce Mexican citizenship to do it (not sure if he does or not) his family will just DIE. Even if he doesn't, it's still the ultimate sell-out for Mexicans to become American; as if filling out mountains pointless paperwork while jumping through countless immigration hoops year after year is some sort of badge of patriotism, and the desire to avoid it is tantamount to being a traitor.
Anyway, he apparently has to pay a $500 fee, take a test, and swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. That sounds a little too easy for me. After the sheer insanity of applying for his residency, I guess it seems kind of anti-climatic. Two of his buddies did it this year, though. I guess that makes it o.k. now.
I'm not sure if I like it, however. It means, for one thing, he can actually vote. Call me old-fashioned, but I kind of enjoyed the one vote per household situation, especially in this last election. It made my vote feel more important, and I liked being able to threaten him with voting independent. That really bothered him for some reason.
I also don't like that he'll seem less foreign- he'll just be another American with an accent. How exciting is that?
I will like not having to answer questions to immigration officials about our sleeping arrangements, however, and will enjoy not having to worry about paperwork when we cross the border, or the endless questions of what nationality will our children be.
I will not like the inevitable slurs made against me by his parents for being the reason for his deflection from his motherland- as if I've brainwashed him into wanting to be something they don't want to believe he already was long before I met him- an expat.
So all in all, I have mixed feelings. But I guess he's made up his mind. He claims he doesn't want to have to apply for a Visa to travel to Europe this summer, or whatever. So I guess it all boils down to convenience. 7 years of arguing back and forth about how to define our relationship and it comes down to this. Being a Mexican citizen is apparently not convenient enough for him, and he is quite efficient, after all.

Huh.

So this week has been really quiet. REALLY quiet. We had our last scout meeting (hooray!) seeing as they finally released us from the calling after asking 4 or 5 times. I had my last BEEDE class until January (that's the class I have to take to get my ESL teaching endorsement). I also had the last real instructional time with my classes until after Thanksgiving. I feel like things are winding down now, and the manic pace I've been functioning at will start to tone down to a more normal level of insanity now. Thank heavens. I was seriously starting to lose it.
Anyway, Andrei is with his mom this weekend seeing as we'll have him for most of next week, and he's doing a lot better in his after school program, according to his after school teacher. He got suspended last week and had to stay with me from 3-6 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Apparently there was an incident with him poking some kid with a pencil. It wasn't a big deal to us, but I guess his school takes poking very seriously, so we tried to be supportive.
Anyway, things are starting to feel a lot better.
Nothing really new or exciting happened this week, so I don't have much more to add, except that I got to watch a movie on tv this morning before coming to work at the store, because I didn't have to take care of anyone, or share the remote. That was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Alone Again, Naturally.

So my house is quiet. This may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but to me it is. You see, on January 10th of this year, my MIL came for a visit. While she was staying with us, Andrei moved in temporarily (like 4.5 months) while his mom was shooting that reality TV show in P.R. While he was living with us, Ana moved in.
Andrei went back to "living" with his mom in August, Mamá went back to Mexico in October. Ana left for Mexico on Saturday. Yesterday night was the first night alone Luis and I have had (excluding Tuesday "date nights") in 11 months. When I get home the house is dark, and still, the t.v. is off, there is nothing bubbling on my stove, there's no crying baby- just the dogs and me. It's the first time I haven't had a long-term house guest this year... I spent most of 2008 living with others.
How bittersweet it is to have peace and quiet, but to lose such large pieces of my life. I know that it sounds weird, but I liked having Ana stay with us. I mean, how many women out there would voluntarily allow their Sisters-In-Law to live with them for extended periods of time? Crazy sounding, I know.
It was nice, though. It felt like I was back in college with a roommate who could cook truly awesome food and who liked all the same T.V. shows as me. We used to stay up late watching "Sex in the City" and we always watched "Martha Stewart Living" when I got home from work. We would give each other wardrobe advice and she helped out with the chores. She's also pretty wicked at "Guitar Hero."
I really, really miss her, as do the dogs, and Andrei, and Luis. Although I don't miss hearing the crying, the lack of it kind of makes me realize how truly lonely my life is here in Provo. So if you're looking to relocate for 4-7 months, feel free to ring me up. We've got a killer guest suite complete with a private entrance and bath. I have a vacancy.

My Six Quirks

Hey. So I got tagged by Shasta. I'll go ahead and fill this out, even though I'm pretty sure that I have a lot more than just six quirks.

1. I don't mix my foods. I can't even let the different foods on my plate touch each other (with a few rare exceptions like turkey and mashed potatoes). I didn't even eat different foods at the same time for a long time. I only ate one food at a time in a specific order to ensure that I neither started nor ended my meal with vegetables until I was married. Somehow marriage has loosened me up a little. When I was a kid, my little sister Lisa used to pile all of her meat, potatoes, and veggies into one big heap and then pour gravy over it all at Sunday dinner and it would make me nauseous, but I've had this bizarre compulsion since I was like 2.

2. I eat cereal for breakfast every morning. Most adults I know skip breakfast, but it's the only meal of the day I can't skip. I have frosted mini wheats with soy milk probably like 340 days a year. Weird, huh? The only exceptions are when I'm on vacation, when I forget to go shopping and run out of soy milk or mini wheats, or when I eat late at night and wake up with a high blood sugar stomach ache. I've heard stories that my great grandfather Partridge used to eat cracked wheat cereal with honey for breakfast every morning and attributed his long life (97 years) to the fact that he ate his daily dose of fiber. Kind of makes you think, huh?

3. I can't sleep at night unless it's totally absolutely quiet and dark. This is getting a little bit better as I get older, but it's still pretty bad. When I was in college I averaged like 4 hours of sleep a night because by the time I got to bed, someone else was getting up. Nowdays, Luis snores... badly, so that means most nights I sleep with a pillow over my head. I also have to turn my alarm clock face down because it's too bright for me to sleep. Hence, I am always the last one to go to sleep at night, and the first one up in the morning because the sun wakes me. I am usually awake by 7 or 8 on weekends, even when I don't have Andrei or an alarm clock to wake me.

4. I make up silly songs about pretty much everything. It's kind of ridiculous but I sing to my dogs, to Andrei, to Luis, with the radio, in the shower, to the dishes... pretty much everywhere. It's something I've done my entire life. Sometimes they have a tune or rhyme. Sometimes it's just string of consciousness singing. When I'm not singing, I have to be listening to music, unless I'm at work or watching t.v. When I'm in the store I always listen to the background music and will often randomly recite the lyrics of the songs that are playing to people, catching them off-guard because who in their right mind pays attention to background music?

5. I only own shirts in the following colors: rose Pink, turquoise, green, brown and red. All of my other tops are neutrals. I just realized this the other day looking in my closet. I only own 1 orange shirt (because it says Wong's Chinese Palace- hello! I look hideous in it, but who cares!?), 1 yellow shirt, and 1 purple shirt (That has a picture of an awesome Tiger on it) outside that color spectrum, and I rarely wear them.I don't wear stripes and rarely wear patterns. My closet kind of looks like one big monochromatic neutral blob. The one major exception is my Chicago Bears Jersey which I still wear even though it's like 20 years old. It has holes in the sleeves from when i was in college and tried to dry it in the microwave for a date I was going on one night. Yes. That's right. I microwaved a shirt to dry it. I bet you wish you'd thought of that first!

6. I'm afraid to talk on the telephone. I screen all my calls for this purpose, so if you call me and I don't answer, it's my irrational phobia at work. I really only have like 3 people that I can talk to without major anxiety: My mom, Emily, and Luis. I call those 3 regularly. I can't even call and order a pizza, though, without rehearsing it. I couldn't call the movie theatre to check show times without having a panic attack until I was like 17 years old. Often I write down what I'm going to say on the phone because I get too stressed out. It's really annoying, but it's been like this since I was a kid. My parents were always concerned because I was the only one of their teenagers who didn't run up the phone bill. I couldn't function as an adult without texting.

Ok. Now I tag Emily, Sara, and Melissa.

I don't care about labels... unless they're mine!

Introducing the Casablanca White Label. I shouldn't feel as good as this as I do... yet it happens. I also like how I saved $600 by making all the labels myself. I rock. I know. You can just admit it now.
There's also a few snapshots of the latest and greatest to roll off the assembly line. I love this job so much.

What's a girl to do?

I have a friend named Bibi who is famous for prefacing all of her comments with a story. She claims it's because she's Latina and therefore is a divergent (as opposed to linear) thinker. I always tell her, though, that us Americanas can be just as divergent and it's not cultural, it's just bad writing. I am the case in point. Today, I'm prefacing my preface.
My whole life I've had really vibrant, vivid dreams. I actually dated a boy in high school that I dreamed about regularly. The bizarre thing is that LITERALLY every dream I ever had about him came true, including the really bad highlight job he gave himself before Senior Prom and the re-occuring dream I had that he would call me 3 days after he got released from his mission. I dreamed about my husband and the circumstances in which I would meet him about 2 weeks before it happened. I also dreamed I would teach at Dixon Middle School.
I also have a lot of dreams that are totally nonsensical- my all time favorite being the dream I had Freshman year of BYU where Pope JPII came to give a devotional on campus and I ended up joining him on a cross-country rally on his tour bus that was painted to look like a pineapple. He let me try on his entire collection of hats including his pope hat, a Medieval jester hat, and a giant cat in the hat hat. I have traveled the entire world (and several other ones) in dream form, and have held hundreds of different professions including Lion tamer, Pool Hustler, Burlesque Dancer, and President of the United States. I am also often a chain smoker in my dreams. The creepy thing is that I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, but I can plainly taste the smoke and I get a nicotine rush when I'm smoking in my dreams. What does that mean?
Also, one time I dreamed I got to talk with some dead relatives who explained to me the circumstances of their death, which I'll NEVER forget.
That leads me to a repeated dream I keep having- pregnancy. Now most of my life I've dreamt of having children. I have given birth to a couple dozen mystery children- usually horribly deformed or otherwise impaired. I've given birth to full grown adults, and to babies who can talk. But I've never been able to imagine myself pregnant until this summer when I had a dream that was so vivid I actually thought it was real. I was walking in my back yard in late July looking at a red rose bush that was blooming, and I just knew I was pregnant. I took a test and it was positive. I experienced the whole pregnancy up until the time I went in to labor, then I woke up.
I've had other versions of this dream a few times, but the most realistic was the one I had two nights ago, that I can't get out of my head. I was in a cabin somewhere. I'm not sure where. Maybe it wasn't a cabin, but there was wood paneling on the walls. Anyway, I remember feeling sick, and thinking I should test- which is nothing new because with PCOS I have had many, many false alarms. In fact I once experience 4 weeks of morning sickness only to find out I had a burst cyst and the $50 I'd spent on pregnancy tests was just money down the tube, and I'm sure I've had at least 1 early term miscariage.
Anyway back to my dream. I took the POAS test and the results were uncertain, so I went to a doctor who confirmed I was pregnant. It was so real that I can actually remember smelling the doctor's office. I went back to whatever building I was in that had the wood paneling and told Luis, because I was actually already like 4 1/2 months along. I remember reaching down and I could feel my belly starting to get a little bit hard. I could actually feel the baby start to move inside of me. I was so excited and so scared.
It was so hard to wake up from it, because it's something I've wanted for so long- most of the time secretly because in order to cope with this stupid disease I have I usually wear my brave face and not tell people I still cry whenever I hear baby announcements.
But it got me thinking. I really don't think I'll ever have children. I never really thought I would be able to since I figured out around age 12 that there was something wrong with me. And I've never been able to actually imagine myself pregnant or with a child, so what's with the dreams? Back to what I was saying earlier, I have always had some weird stuff going on in my head so I started doing dream analysis in college to try and make sense of it all, but I've never come across this before. Well, I looked up pregnancy dreams recently and here's what I got:
"As possible as a pregnancy prophecy may be, usually the meaning of these dreams is not found in a literal event. This should not however, lessen the impact or meaning of the dream as pregnancy dreams are extremely potent. They are telling us that something important is coming; something life-altering is forming in our being. When we think of pregnancy in symbolic terms the dream is much easier to decipher."
Pretty cryptic, huh?
I wonder what's trapped in my subconcious literally waiting to be let free? If any of you have any experience with dream interpretation, please clue me in on this, because it's really weirding me out.
Thanks!

Where are all the Grownups?

One of my favorite political satires ever is a bit SNL did for the 2000 election about then Governor G.W. Bush and his opponent Al Gore. Now I voted for Bush, so please don't take this as criticism of him or anything, I just thought the satire was HILARIOUS!!! The closing line is the title of my post, and it's kind of how I've been feeling lately with Hector leaving for Mexico and Emily announcing that she's leaving for England, and with Ana moving out. Sometimes I just want to run into a corner and hide, too. I'm really glad for everyone, but I think I just resent being trapped in a place that I never wanted to be in the first place. So without further ado, here's "Palm Beach."


Announcer: When life is uncertain, and results are unclear.. then you must be in Palm Beach..

[ cue title graphic, dissolve to George W, Al, Katherine Harris, Jeb, and Florida Supreme Court, dissolve back to title graphic over image of George W. laughing behind Al's back ]

[ open on Katherine Harris fixing herself a drink ]

Katherine Harris: Well, Jeb, with the Supreme Court's ruling to stop the recount, Al Gore is finally finished. It's everything I've worked for.

Jeb Bush: And what about us, Katherine?

Katherine Harris: Us? [ laughs ] You silly boy! There never was any "us". What happened in the skybox at the Dolphins game was.. just a fling. I'm gonna be an ambassador! Do you think I'd jeopardize my career for some beurocrat named "Jeb"? Ha!

Jeb Bush: It meant more to us than that. [ kisses Katherine ]

Katherine Harris: Stop, you'll ruin my makeup.

Jeb Bush: Damn you, Katherine! Why.. I have half a mind to give your job back to Nikki Cox.

Katherine Harris: So go ahead. [ pause ] I didn't think so. Always the conservative, aren't you, Jeb?

George W. Bush: [ stumbles into the room ] Hey, hey, it's me, hey.. Uh, Jeb.. the computer's doing that thing again. Can you fix it for me, so I can finish my game of Tetris?

Jeb Bush: Of course, Georgie. [ to Katherine ] Even presidents need their computers. [ exits room ]

George W. Bush: Hey, Katherine. I've been thinking about my cabinet. Who do you think would make a better Secretary of the Interior - Nolan Ryan or The Rock?

Katherine Harris: [ sits him down on the couch ] You're thinking too hard, George. [ massages his shoulders ] You look.. tense.

George W. Bush: Heck, I just can't wait 'til all this President junk is over next week.. so I can go back to hunting and executing.

Katherine Harris: Next week? You know you have to President for four years.

George W. Bush: [ angry ] What?! [ stands ] That blows! I'm gonna kill Dick Cheney! He told me it was like winning a fishing contest - you win a trophy, you take your picture, and you're done!

Katherine Harris: Don't worry - it'll go by fast, with me by yuor side.

Katherine Harris' Thoughts: You've got him right where you want him, Katherine. [ laughs ]

George W. Bush's Thoughts: The Rock is stronger. But Nolan Ryan's wise. Presidenting is hard!

[ Katherine and George W. lean in for a kiss, but are interrupted by the arrival of Al Gore ]

Al Gore: Hello, George W.! Hello, Katherine!

Katherine Harris: Al! I thought you were dead.

Al Gore: I'm Al Gore. I just appear to be that way.

George W. Bush: [ angry ] Hey, Al! I saw you on TV today! You interrupted the "Rugrats"!

Al Gore: That's right, George W. I was accusing you of circumventing the Democratic process in the name of personal ambition.

George W. Bush: [ laughs ] You said "circumventing"!

Al Gore: [ pours himself a drink ] Ms. Harris, isn't it inappropriate for you to be here?

Katherine Harris: Guess what, Al? I'm always gonna be here. Everywhere you turn, this face will be staring at you! [ smiles wickedly ] I'm gonna crush you!

Al Gore: Damn you, Woman! Not in front of the boy!

George W. Bush: [ sobbing ] Why are you yelling?! Be friends!

Katherine Harris: Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm meeting Justice Scalia for cocktails at the Viscayne Club. [ exits ]

Al Gore: [ sighs, and walks towards George W. ] She's a real piece of work.

George W. Bush: Yeah. She's a "circumvent"! [ laughs ] Right?

Jeb Bush: [ re-enters ] Hey, guys. Dick Cheney just had another heart attack..

George W. Bush: [ panics ] No-o-o! He promised he wouldn't! First, Poppy with the hip replacement, now this! Where are all the grown-ups? [ runs into the corner and cries ]

Movin' on up!

So this blog is about work promotions.

Luis's cousin Hector is a call center manager for Tahitian Noni International here in Provo, and he's really in to it. He's so gung ho about multi-level that the recently offered him a job as the national director of Mexico, a position that is located out of Mexico City and pays the equivalent of a huge raise in salary a year plus a juicy benefits package. Here's the rub, though. They have to live in D.F. and Hector is going to be traveling like 300 days a year. He's going to take it, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I think that the $17000 a year raise is pretty awesome, but at the same time, he'll have to be living in the busiest, dirtiest, most crime-ridden city in the world. Literally. Plus his wife and baby will be stuck in a big, scary city all the time without him, and their families have both recently all moved to the U.S. I hope that they let Melissa travel with Hector and that they allow both of them to visit the U.S. often. He's going down there next week to check it out and see if he's interested. I guess he'll know better what he's going to do then.

I'm also worried for them because they recently purchased a home in our neighborhood. They have been there a little over a year now, and in that time the housing market has tanked. If they were to sell now, it would be at a loss. If they were to rent, it would be at a loss, as well, because it's only a 3 bed 2 bath house, and their mortgage far exceeds the current market rate for that size house. Plus there's not too many families around here anyway looking to rent a 3 bed 2 bath house.

So in all I'm jealous that Melissa will get to stop working and can stay home with Diego, and I'm jealous that they get to move to Mexico, but I'm really not jealous of where they'll be living or the fact that they'll be missing out on everything that goes on in the family for the next several years. Plus working for a multi-level I would always be worried about job security. Those companies have a shelf life (aka Melaluca, Amway, and Tahitian Noni has been around for a while now. Honestly, if it were us, I don't know what I would choose. I think his train of thought is that if he accepts the position and it sucks he can always have "national director" on his resume. Again, not so sure how I feel about that.

Speaking of moving up, Luis was recently recruited by UCCU to start their new Latino banking program. They hand selected him to manage their first ever Spanish Language branch. They asked him to please apply and could he send his resume their way. He did. We'll see if they really want him, and if so, for how much. He's basically decided that he won't switch unless they offer him a 15% raise or more. That would be nice. Cross your fingers for us.

The Weather

Lately the weather here has been creepy. It started Halloween morning when I woke up to find the scariest looking sky of my entire life. As I left for work at sunrise (yes, I have to leave for work at sunrise, and see it most days of the year), the sky was an eerie shade of violet with orange streaks. Everything was flooded with a grayish, glowing light. I kind of felt scared.

It was cloudy and cold most of Halloween day, and there was a pretty strong wind that blew most of the leaves off of the trees and making everything look bare and boney.

Then it snowed.

It didn't snow much, and it didn't stick, but we had scattered flurries throughout the weekend. Election day was gray with a steady drizzle. I left my classroom at 1:00 p.m. and it looked as if it were dusk, it was so dark. I wondered if it was something portentious, like that scene in Julius Cesar the night before the assissins enact their diabolical plot, when fire rains down from the sky.

Then Last night it snowed enough to actually stick and I woke up to a world covered by the most beautiful white blanket. Everything looked so clean and bright.

We have a saying here in Utah that if you don't like the weather, wait. It'll change in a few minutes. It's kind of true. We have the most extreme weather of anywhere I've ever been. I've seen it go from temperatures in the high 90's to snowing in a 24 hour period, and I'm kind of anxious about this winter. Last winter was the gentlest I've seen, and the snowiest. It was textbook- started snowing the first of September and stopped first of March. Usually winter is not so kind here, and I've seen it snow in June, followed by weeks of flooding and tornados.

However, aside from the schizophrenic climate, I still maintain that Utah has the most beautiful skies I've ever seen. Especially out here by the lake where we can still occasionally see the stars and where the air is always clean and clear. I've been taking a lot of pictures lately trying to document that, and they don't really do the sky justice, but here are some of my favorites.

Don't you wish you lived in Utah, too? Ha!

Potpourri

I am a huge fan of Jeopardy. I used to watch it religiously when I was younger and my lifetime earnings if I was an actual contestant in the show would be pretty impressive. One of my favorite categories is Potpourri because the contestants never know what's going to pop up and are always hesitant to select that category. Today's blog entry is kind of a potpourri of my life, so buckle your seatbelts and get ready for some random musings.
Item 1: Andrei
He is growing so fast I can't believe it. The weird thing is, though, that the older he gets the more I realize just how young he is. It kind of makes me wish I was a little easier on him when he was really small, but looking back I can't really find more than one or two occasions I really regret disciplining him. I always figured that even if he didn't like me I at least wanted him to respect me. I can't stand those women who let their step-children walk all over them, and I hate feeling like a doormat especially if the one doing the walking is just a kid, so come hell or high water I've always stuck to my guns with the kid.
The funny thing is that now that he is old enough to tell the difference he prefers spending time at our house over his mom's, despite the fact we give him rules and make him clean up after himself and eat his vegetables. This weekend has been especially great and he has repeatedly thanked me for taking care of him. It's so weird because most parents don't get that kind of appreciation out of their kids until much later in life, if ever, so I consider myself pretty blessed as far as that goes. I never expected that he'd understand something as complex as love and discipline, especially at such a young age.
The other weird thing that I never really expected to happen when he was younger is how close we've become. Especially since January when Jerly left for P.R. he and I have really started developing a parent/child relationship aside from our previous care-giver/child relationship. I really find myself much more emotionally connected to him now, which makes me realize that families are not just the people we're blood related to. He asked me something this weekend that really broke my heart- he wanted to know what "mal criado" and "estupido" mean. When I asked him why, he said it's because his mom always calls him that. That kind of made me want to call her and use some colorful language with her. I didn't. It wouldn't help. I wonder sometimes about the injustice of this world- that a woman like Jerly can treat my husband and my boy so poorly and I'm helpless to do anything about it. I really hope that whole thing about eternal rewards is true.
Item 2: Halloween
We had a lot of fun. Luis took Andrei and a group of his cousins out trick-or-treating while I stayed home and manned the door while cooking sugar cookies for the kids when they came back (an old Black-Lanning family tradition). Our decorations were a hit and the kids loved the boiling cauldron of candy that we had (I stuck a small dutch full of candy oven inside my large stock pot, and stuck dry ice and water in the stock pot so there was steam and bubbling noises coming out of the candy dish). My favorite part was how excited the kids all got decorating their sugar cookies. It was so sweet and innocent, and it makes me sad for all those kids out there that don't get to do stuff like that with their parents. I hope that when they're grown they look back on that as fondly as I do.
Another thing I loved about this halloween was the pumpkins. I got this idea off of the Martha Stewart show. Usually I hate carving pumpkins because it's just so gosh darn time consuming and because I'm afraid of knives (if you want to know the stories behind that, ask Emily- she tells them better than I do). So Martha showed a giant jack-o-lantern snake comprised of literally like 2 dozen smaller pumpkins strewn together with christmas lights. I didn't go that far, but I stole her idea of carving polk-a-dot pumpkins using an electric drill. It was marvelous. I carved like 6 pumpkins in 20 minutes, and all grouped together, the effect was quite charming.
Item 3: I am too busy
This is an ongoing theme on my blog, I know, so I won't beat a dead horse. I just want to mention that this week I had scouts, a school play, a college class, and a work party that I had to throw at night. Why do we overschedule ourselves? Whatever happened to just hanging out at home at night?
Item 4: My health
I am sick all the time. It sucks. I have a lot of other health problems, too, aside from a propensity for coming down with the flu. Most of my health problems are caused by PCOS, which is a truly horrible disease that not many people (including most of the ones who have it) know about. If you don't know what it is, you should read about it. I kind of feel like one of my missions in life is to increase awareness about the condition because it's one of the most misdiagnosed illnesses out there, and it's a growing epidemic in the western world.
The root of my disease is diet, which is stupid and sucks because in order to successfully manage my PCOS I'd have to eat like 1200 calories a day of pure vegetables and lean protein, which you all know how much love. Cough. Cough. I spend most of my time ignoring my disease, feeling a righteous sense of victimization regarding it, or rebelling against it, and I'm sad to admit that I have kind of let it define me. I need to get better about it and realize that I am not everyone else and I can not eat delicious foods and still be healthy. If I want to live a long and full life I have to. Which leads me to feeling angry, and thus the cycle continues.
But I have been trying to make a major lifestyle change which leads me to
Item 5: Beets
This summer in an effort to drop about 20 pounds (which I did, but gained back 5, sniff sniff) I grew a veggie garden. It was a thing of pride and beauty to me, especially my twin tomato plants which I have mentioned before on several occasions. I also GREATLY enjoyed having onions whenever I needed them. The corn, watermelon, cucumbers, and eggplants were kind of a bust, but we gloried and reveled in an overabundance of tomatos all summer long. We didn't even feel the pinch when all the tomatos were called off of the shelves and prices tripled all over the country b/c of the e-colli epidemic; I had but to walk out my kitchen door and down the steps into my patio to grab literally dozens of tomatos a week, vine ripe, organic, and disease free. We had so many we were giving them away. Even with the dogs digging in the vine and eating a couple of tomatoes a day there were plenty. There was a killing frost early this October, and we lost the plants. I'm still greiving for them. It is, however, time to harvest the beets.
On a whim I planted a packet of beet seeds in March, thinking that the seedlings would most likely die. I don't really care for beets because they're such an odd vegetable, but I was trying to add nutritionally dense foods to my diet and I figured what the hey. I assumed I'd get a few scragly plants that would be beaten by the heat, or by insects, or by my dogs. I didn't. I got about 50 healthy and vibrant little plants. I spaced them out thinking that would surely kill at least half of them off. It didn't. Now it's November and I still have literally dozens of HUGE (as in grapefruit sized!) beets growing outside. The frost didn't kill the greens, and despite my best efforts at neglect they've been thriving all summer. I figure now is time to reap the harvest of my poor planning and laziness and eat some beets.
Last week we had roast beets. They were like runny mashed potatos, and tasted like tangy cooked carrots. Not bad. Today I cooked a bunch of orange-glazed beets. They were a hit, especially with Ana. Next week I think I'll make Harvard Beets.
If you have any beets suggestions, by all means let me know. I've still got about 20 plants outside, and I'm hell bent on using them all. After all, I grew them, and that's something I don't take lightly.
The good news is that the beets are greatly improving my general health. I guess the whole idea of you-are-what-you-eat is true, even if we are sick of eating foods tinged in red. My skin has cleared up, I recovered rapidly from my last bout of the flu once the beets were incorporated into the diet, and I have more energy. I know that beets are one of the best natural sources of iron. I wonder what else is in them?
So here's to silly little kids and spooky carved pumpkins and beets in all their stinky red glory. All good things which are excellent for the body or the spirit.

Halloween!

I love Halloween! I haven't really had a chance to celebrate it properly for a long time because first I was in college, then I was living in apartments, and once we finally got a house it seemed kind of sad since our neighborhood was all college students and none of them did anything for it, but this year... This year I'm back in my groove.


I wonder I love Halloween because despite the fact my family is several generations removed from the old country, we're still ethnically Celtic for the most part (with some Saxon and some Breton thrown in there for spice) and it's really a Celtic holiday. I've been pondering a lot lately on the connection between generations, and I think it's a lot stronger than anyone suspects. But regardless, we always went all out for the holiday in my family growing up and most of my favorite holiday memories center around All Hallow's Eve.


So in honor of my roots, my family traditions, and my deep and abiding love for free candy I've created a haunted graveyard in my front yard. I'm still going to work on it a little tomorrow so I won't post pictures until it's done, but so far it features 5 eerily floating ghosts, two grave stones, a zombie's hand reaching up from it's grave, and lots of cobwebs. I still think it needs some random debris scattered about, more cobwebs, some mood lighting, and some fog. I'll probably put a container of dry ice out at the last minute to give it a devilish mist. I'd also like to have some music, but I think it's kind of late in the game to do that so I might have to put that on the short list for next year.


Anyway, to get you all in the mood for one of my most favoritest holidays, here's a picture taken of Andrei today before his Halloween play at school.

Holy Graham Crackers, Robin!

Foods I LOVE!

I've been in a pretty negative mood lately, so I've been trying to think positive. The happiest thoughts I had today were while I was sharing recipes with my SIL. Ana's been living with us for a while so when we were talking about recipes today I decided after knowing her for almost 7 years and after her cooking in my kitchen for 7 months I could finally trust her enough to share some of my most treasured recipes. She is, after all, a foodie herself so I'm pretty confident that the recipes will be in good hands.
I love to cook. I remember vividly the first time I was given a recipe and told to follow it (I was 8 and sitting in my soon to be step-mom's kitchen with Jason and we made gumdrop cookies). Cooking was always a happy place for me to go because I never got in trouble for doing it, and I'd like to think that over the past almost 20 years I've gotten pretty good at it. In college I made it my business to bug my roommates for their best and brightest recipes as well so I would estimate that the gastronomical value of my recipe file is pretty priceless since some of those recipes I will never be able to track down again. Highlights include the single greatest recipes for both pumpkin and pecan pie ever to grace this earth, a recipe for funeral potatoes that are delicious enough to soothe even the grief stricken, and a recipe for Butterhorn rolls which mean more to me than any roll should seeing as they play a very prominent role in all of my happiest childhood moments.
So in that vein, I'd like to share with you a few of my faves over the next few weeks. I'd like to invite you all to share your favorite recipes, too! I'll start with this one, a Klein Ward staple for the 10 years I lived there, and the cause of much of my childhood obesity. ;)
TEXAS CHOCOLATE SHEET CAKE
Ingredients: 1/2 c. butter
4 tbsp. cocoa
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. water
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 c. buttermilk
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
DIRECTIONS
bring butter, cocoa, and water to a boil. Combine flour, sugar eggs, milk, soda, baking powder, and vanilla. Add together and blend well. Add buttermilk, cinnamon, soda, butter and flour.
Grease a 9x13 pan, pour, and bake for 25 minutes.
FROSTING
1/2 c. butter
4 tbsp. cocoa
6 tbsp. milk
"dash" of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. box powdered sugar
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)
1 c. coconut (optional).
DIRECTIONS
melt butter. add coca, milk, salt, and vanilla. Blend well and pour over powdered sugar. Mix until smooth. Add optional ingredients if desired. Spread icing on cake while still hot. Let cool. Eat.

Paying Taxes

One of the weirdest things about owning your own business is being responsible for paying your business taxes. I actually have a license to charge people sales tax, AND I don't have to pay sales tax on stuff if I don't want to. That's pretty weird, huh?
Taxes for 3rd quarter are due today so I had to pay both federal and state sales tax for my company, which is pretty fun even though it's a pain in the butt. It makes me feel really important logging onto a federal database and paying taxes. Woot woot!
I kind of messed up on my state taxes, though, because I forgot to include my tax exempt payments, so I had to log on twice. No biggie.
I kind of feel like paying taxes for my company is like a temple recommend interview for my business. It forces me to look over my income and expenses for the quarter and really closely evaluate my company's financial situation. It was really good for me to do that, because I've been stressing about that a lot lately. I'm not great at balancing accounts, despite my step-mother's religious attempts to educate me in balancing my checkbook as a teenager. So it was nice to find out today that I actually have about $1000 dollars more than I thought and that I actually owe about $2000 less than I thought. Heck yes! Go dress store! Go!
Also it kind of gave me the justification that I need to start seriously looking for a bigger store front. I found a nice place up the street from where we're at. It's a funny floor plan, though, so I am not sure if it will work for us. I'm going to devote a large portion of the afternoon today to trying to map out a layout that will work for us in that floorplan. The space is renting for $800/month for about 900 sq. feet, which is well under market value. It is upstairs, but they'll give us about 10 feet of signage up front and a private entrance. It has a bathroom with a large tub that we can use for tea-dying as well as a kitchenette area which I'm not sure what we'd use it for, but might be kind of nice to have. It's very open and light and has the possibility to expand. It comes with free internet and electricity, but not gas, and has a private thermostat.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, and it's certainly not as nice as the place we found over Einstein's on Center Street, but it's literally half the price.
So today's post doesn't really have a moral. It's just a quick peek at what I do for a living. I draw pretty dresses and play around with a lot of numbers. Wow. Isn't owning a dress store exciting?
P.S. we cleaned up at the bridal fair last week. I'm going to spend the next hour contacting the 35 gals who left us their contact info. Sweet, huh? The Little Miss Utah Pageant also wants us to make them about 50 dresses. That should be a nice contract to have, if we can do it well.

Nada...

Pues cuando estabamos visitando a mi hermanita en L.A. ella me enseno' el blog de su amiga y me dio' el idea escribir en Espanol a veces. No tengo mucho decir hoy excepto que hoy conoci' a un muchacho de las Islas Canarias. Estamos buscando para una ubicacion nueva para nuestra tienda y encontre' un espacio en University Ave en el segundo piso de una tienda de trajes. El hombre rentandolo es Judio y se nacio' y se crecio' en Las Islas Canarias. Su Papa' hace los trajes y el es de Israel y de Morrocco. Los dos hablan Espanol y les soprendieron que yo tambien lo hablo. Platicamos un ratito en Spanglish y me ofrecieron un buen "deal." Dicen que si quiero rentar el espacio me van a areglar a mis gustos con una entrada privada etc. para $600 al mes incluyendo electricidad y internet. Que bueno, no!
Todavia estoy aprendiendo ma's de Espanol cada dia con mi trabajo, y estoy muy agradecida que tengo la suerte entender y hablar con todos la gente hispanohablante que viven en mi comunidad. Hace mas que 12 anos que estoy trabajando aprender la idioma y creo que ya la tengo, mas o menos. Se' que falta muchas detalles de la gramatica y la escritura, pero hacer negocios en Espanol es un paso muy grande en el viaje, no?
Pues eso es todo para hoy. No mas que estoy feliz que puedo hablar y escribir en esta lenguage tan bonita, y por medio de Espanol puedo conocer a tantas personas tan interesantes como Emanuel (el muchacho de la tienda) y su Papa'!

Lo más reciente

Here's the latest and greatest to come off the assembly line in my shop. I'm especially fond of this one because I designed it myself. It's lace over satin with a satin belt. It's a size too big for the mannequin so it looks a little baggy here, but you get the main idea.

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged!!

Here are the rules: You answer the questions below and at the end of the post you tag 4 people. Then go to their blog and comment to them that they have been tagged. My sister Emily tagged me on her blog so here we go...

What is your husband's name? Luis Ernesto Farias Cano
How long have you been married? Five years this August, but we started dating almost 7 years ago.
How long did you date? that question is subject to interpretation. We dated 8 months, broke up 6, and then got BACK together and immediately engaged because we realized that we can't live without each other. He actually had a girlfriend after we broke up, but had told his mother that if I ever called him again he'd propose on the spot. Sadly for her, he was a man of his word. We were engaged for 4 months. So if you count the "break" we dated for about 18 months.
How old is he? he turned 31 last month.
Who eats sweets? We both self medicate with desserts. I'm the more compulsive eater, though.
Who said "I Love You" first? I did, but just kind of jokingly. He picked me up and told me he thought I only weighed like 140 pounds (which I did NOT... I have'nt been that small since I was 10). I don't really remember when we started saying it for reals or who said it first. We really didn't think our relationship would be more than a casual fling based on anything more than physical attraction, and we both planned on breaking it off after a few dates. I'm not really good at sticking to a plan, though. :)
Who is taller? He's a foot taller than me. I LOVE being married to a really REALLY big guy for many reasons, the least of which is that I can always wear literally whatever shoes I feel like. His height is also great for reaching things on the top shelf, and finding him rapidly in a crowd.
Who can sing best? We sing equally well, but different styles. I'm more into choral stuff and he's a superior pop/ballad singer. One of my single favorite things about him is that he is always singing when he is happy. It always makes my day to hear him bust out a tune or two because he sings so well.
Who is smarter? We're pretty equally matched on this one. I'm more apt at the artsy-fartsy interpretive stuff and he's a more linear thinker. I did better in school, but that's because I have a pathological need to be the best at everything, and Luis always just did as much as he had to in order to get by because he's more relaxed with life. He's better with money and can calculate interest rates and payments and tips in his head. I can tell you what virtually any word means.
Who does the laundry? Both of us. We split all our chores in half. I wash, he puts away. Same with dishes, etc.
Who pays the bills? Mostly him. I hate money. It's too much math for me.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me.
Who mows the lawn? He mows the grass, I handle the flower beds and vegetable garden.
Who cooks dinner? We both do. I do more often, but Luis makes a crazy mean jumbalaya.
Who drives? Luis. Always. I HATE driving.
Who is the first to admit they are wrong? Me. Luis is kind of macho like that.
Who kissed who first? Luis SO started that. It was our first real date (we'd been out once before for ice cream, but I had to go to work so it was only like an hour). I was kind of a slut back in the day, though, so I didn't stop him.
Who asked who out first? He also started that. He asked my pal Emanuel to set him up after he we met randomly. Apparently he thought I was irresistable and had to have my number. He says it was one of the only times he was ever nervous to ask a girl out, because he was kind of a womanizer and was used to getting dates with whoever he felt like dating, but thought I would actually shoot him down. I almost did reject the offer, because I was kind of waiting to see what was going to happen with a missionary, but he offered ice cream and I took the bait. Within two weeks I was officially no longer waiting for anyone.
Who wears the pants? I'm really bossy, but if we ever butt heads Luis wins because he's just so darn charming. I swear he's getting by in life on a combination of charisma, wit, and sheer physical presence.

Who's funnier? Depends- I'm more sarcastic and witty- Luis is really good at doing physical humor and impressions.

What was your first big fight? We've only ever had two real fights in our marriage. One lasted about 2 years on and off over where we got to spend holidays. The other lasted about a year on and off (concurrent with the Christmas fight- it was a rough year for me) and was about X-Box night. We have disagreements, but we don't ever fight about them. Rock paper scissors has saved us on many occasions. However, when a topic comes up that we really won't budge on, it takes a while to put it to rest.

What makes your hubby cranky? Being told what to do. Jerlieny. Not eating when he's hungry. Me being cranky first.

How did you meet? See above. I was pretty cute back in the day and Luis has a thing for blondes. He was selling tacos and I was hungry. We got into a conversation while he was preparing my order and it turned out we had a mutual friend. One thing led to another, and a few weeks later we were inseperable. Lucky for him I'm in to the whole tall dark and handsome thing, and I'm a sucker for all things foreign. I think we were both just looking for a fling, but surprise of all surprises... we were totally made for each other. Alas, my casual relationship turned into something real and now we're stuck with each other. ;) Sigh.

Ok. Now I tag my cousin Heather, and my friends Natalie, Alisha, and Amber.