Wednesday, April 26, 2006
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood
I just wanted to write a quick entry (because I'm in the middle of baking Grammie Fraser's famous Canadian Oatmeal Bread and Elena's Pumpkin Coconut Soup for dinner)...
I've been so blessed lately through this blog. First, my dad must have really felt my pain as he read about our dilapidated printers because he actually bought Marc and me a new laser printer! What a sweet dad I have. No more disastrous printer stories to look forward to.
And just after writing the entry about my birthday dilemma, Levi's wife Jessie wrote a comment, offering for Marc and me to stay with them in Sacramento for the Whole Earth Festival. The crazy thing is that we hardly even remember each other. I think we met 2 years ago when I camped out there with about 15 other crazy hippies from Prodigal Project. How random for her to read my blog, which she found through Rachel's blog, and then to offer their guest room to us. It's been a sweet reminder that the Lord really will provide for us according to our needs. Thanks for being so random and cool, Jessie!
Just to top it off, today is sunny and 74 degrees, with a forecast of sun, sun, and more sun, reaching up into the 80's! It's finally coming! Yea for summer (and homemade Oatmeal Bread)!
I've been so blessed lately through this blog. First, my dad must have really felt my pain as he read about our dilapidated printers because he actually bought Marc and me a new laser printer! What a sweet dad I have. No more disastrous printer stories to look forward to.
And just after writing the entry about my birthday dilemma, Levi's wife Jessie wrote a comment, offering for Marc and me to stay with them in Sacramento for the Whole Earth Festival. The crazy thing is that we hardly even remember each other. I think we met 2 years ago when I camped out there with about 15 other crazy hippies from Prodigal Project. How random for her to read my blog, which she found through Rachel's blog, and then to offer their guest room to us. It's been a sweet reminder that the Lord really will provide for us according to our needs. Thanks for being so random and cool, Jessie!
Just to top it off, today is sunny and 74 degrees, with a forecast of sun, sun, and more sun, reaching up into the 80's! It's finally coming! Yea for summer (and homemade Oatmeal Bread)!
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Sunday, April 23, 2006
May 12 dilemma...
First, I want to say that I married the most wonderful man on the planet. Today is our 6 month anniversary and he gave me just what I wanted: a rock. I've been saying for weeks now that if you get paper on your 1 year wedding anniversary then surely a rock would be appropriate for the half-way-point. And I'm not talking about a diamond, for all you girls who are hearing the song "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" in the back of your mind. I really and truly mean a simple rock. So this morning, while he patiently waits for me to primp for church (since it's warm enough to actually wear a cute outfit), Marc picks out a nice melon-sized rock and tells me that he's going to carve it for me. I can hear you all now, awww. I know, I picked a good one.
Now, the real reason I'm writing is because I need your help. I have a birthday dilemma. This year, my special day happens to fall on the weekend of the infamous Whole Earth Festival. Every year we attend this festival and enjoy gathering with numerous local hippies from Northern California. It's a great family atmosphere: lots of fun music, drumming, great food, and hands-on workshops to learn skills like belly-dancing, bio-diesel, and building with cobb. It's free, so it's one of the easiest festivals to attend. Not only do we enjoy all of the aforementioned activities at Whole Earth Festival, but festivals like this are some of the easiest ways to connect with the traveling kids that we reach out to. In reality, it isn't just a fun festival, it's an outreach opportunity.
When I've been to Whole Earth Festival in the past, we all took our tents and camped out in our friend Levi's backyard. It wasn't all that bad, seeing as how he had a pool, hot tub, and guest-house for families to stay in. We had a total blast, fire-dancing and juggling, swimming and barbequeing. But, sadly, Levi doesn't live there anymore so this year we are spreading out and finding places to stay at various friends' houses in Sacramento. I totally love our friends in Sac-town, but you'd have to see their itsy-bitsy houses to understand: they don't realistically have room for families. (They pretty much have one bedroom houses and their toddlers sleep in hallways or closets) You could put an inflatable mattress on their living room floor, but then their toddlers and babies are light sleepers so you have to be very quiet until they get up. Not to mention the fact that we have a couple of single people who are hopefully going to be able to stay with them.
So the first part of the dilemma is that I don't foresee a very comfortable place for us to stay. And the second part is: I feel like a princess on my birthday and I want to be treated like one. I admit, this attitude makes me feel very selfish and I totally slip into comparison mode: Rachel celebrates her wedding anniversary at a festival every year and she doesn't complain a bit. Despite the fact that Rae and I always talk about how destructive it is to compare yourself to other people, I always fall into the trap! So the bottom line is: I am not very excited about spending my birthday on the road to Sacramento, celebrating with who-knows-what kind of dinner (with our friends or not?) and then sleeping on someone's couch, floor, or in a tent in their backyard.
Now, we could go to Steve and Louise's for my birthday (which is also Mother's Day weekend). That would be great. But then would we drive 3 hours the next day to Sacramento for the same sleeping dilemma? Or would we skip the whole festival? (I would feel extremely selfish) I think that I just want to go out to a nice romantic dinner with the love of my life (and have a comfortable, private bed to sleep in). Is that too much to ask? Probably not.
Do you know what I think the real dilemma is? Now that I'm married and pregnant, I am becoming more high-maintenance. I know I was usually the most high-maintenance girl on tour, because I was always the one to ask if we could spend a few extra minutes at the truck stop so I could take a shower every few days. But it's definitely gotten worse since that blessed day, October 23rd. I just don't seem to have the grace to sleep anywhere, go without showers for days on end, or have no privacy. And that bothers me, mostly because of the dumb comparison game again. It seems like most of the married people here don't need as much time, privacy, and amenities as I/we need. Anyway, I don't know what I'm asking for. Ultimately it is our decision as to how we will spend May 12, but maybe I just want a bit of advice, wisdom, or encouragement. Tell me if I'm being selfish or if I just know my needs and my boundaries. It's a tough call, but I'm open to your thoughts...
Now, the real reason I'm writing is because I need your help. I have a birthday dilemma. This year, my special day happens to fall on the weekend of the infamous Whole Earth Festival. Every year we attend this festival and enjoy gathering with numerous local hippies from Northern California. It's a great family atmosphere: lots of fun music, drumming, great food, and hands-on workshops to learn skills like belly-dancing, bio-diesel, and building with cobb. It's free, so it's one of the easiest festivals to attend. Not only do we enjoy all of the aforementioned activities at Whole Earth Festival, but festivals like this are some of the easiest ways to connect with the traveling kids that we reach out to. In reality, it isn't just a fun festival, it's an outreach opportunity.
When I've been to Whole Earth Festival in the past, we all took our tents and camped out in our friend Levi's backyard. It wasn't all that bad, seeing as how he had a pool, hot tub, and guest-house for families to stay in. We had a total blast, fire-dancing and juggling, swimming and barbequeing. But, sadly, Levi doesn't live there anymore so this year we are spreading out and finding places to stay at various friends' houses in Sacramento. I totally love our friends in Sac-town, but you'd have to see their itsy-bitsy houses to understand: they don't realistically have room for families. (They pretty much have one bedroom houses and their toddlers sleep in hallways or closets) You could put an inflatable mattress on their living room floor, but then their toddlers and babies are light sleepers so you have to be very quiet until they get up. Not to mention the fact that we have a couple of single people who are hopefully going to be able to stay with them.
So the first part of the dilemma is that I don't foresee a very comfortable place for us to stay. And the second part is: I feel like a princess on my birthday and I want to be treated like one. I admit, this attitude makes me feel very selfish and I totally slip into comparison mode: Rachel celebrates her wedding anniversary at a festival every year and she doesn't complain a bit. Despite the fact that Rae and I always talk about how destructive it is to compare yourself to other people, I always fall into the trap! So the bottom line is: I am not very excited about spending my birthday on the road to Sacramento, celebrating with who-knows-what kind of dinner (with our friends or not?) and then sleeping on someone's couch, floor, or in a tent in their backyard.
Now, we could go to Steve and Louise's for my birthday (which is also Mother's Day weekend). That would be great. But then would we drive 3 hours the next day to Sacramento for the same sleeping dilemma? Or would we skip the whole festival? (I would feel extremely selfish) I think that I just want to go out to a nice romantic dinner with the love of my life (and have a comfortable, private bed to sleep in). Is that too much to ask? Probably not.
Do you know what I think the real dilemma is? Now that I'm married and pregnant, I am becoming more high-maintenance. I know I was usually the most high-maintenance girl on tour, because I was always the one to ask if we could spend a few extra minutes at the truck stop so I could take a shower every few days. But it's definitely gotten worse since that blessed day, October 23rd. I just don't seem to have the grace to sleep anywhere, go without showers for days on end, or have no privacy. And that bothers me, mostly because of the dumb comparison game again. It seems like most of the married people here don't need as much time, privacy, and amenities as I/we need. Anyway, I don't know what I'm asking for. Ultimately it is our decision as to how we will spend May 12, but maybe I just want a bit of advice, wisdom, or encouragement. Tell me if I'm being selfish or if I just know my needs and my boundaries. It's a tough call, but I'm open to your thoughts...
Saturday, April 22, 2006
our munchie, the soccer player
Well, our Easter weekend was wonderful. Marc and I drove up to Reno to visit the Hall side of the family and celebrate our nephew, Jackson's, baptism. We stayed in a great hotel, ate lots of yummy food, made lots of family memories (not to mention LOTS of potholders thanks to Auntie Rosalie). But one of my most memorable moments happened Sunday afternoon.
We had all just finished a delicious Sunday brunch and Tim and Katie's house and were all lounging around in the living room on big cushy couches. I happened to be sitting across the room from everyone, watching all the action, when suddenly I felt it: thump...thump. Could this be it? I thought it was supposed to feel like gas or fluttering or a bug crawling on your stomach. But seriously, was it supposed to be this defined? An actual thump? I sat there for a second with a silly grin on my face until Jack Reding, Katie's dad, walked over to me. I should have told Marc first, but I couldn't help it, my awe overwhelmed me and I just had to tell the first person I could: I just felt my baby kick for the first time! (Well, the first time I can say with confidence that it is the baby and not just gas) Lucky for me, he knew Marc's place was next to me with his hand on my belly and he called him over.
You're probably thinking to yourself, "Obviously, Megan, you're only 17 1/2 weeks pregnant; you won't feel the baby kicking from the outside of your belly for weeks still." Not so, my friend. Our munchie is a soccer player. Tuesday I sat eating a slice of pizza and actually felt the baby kicking from the outside of my belly. I did run across the food court of the mall just to see if he could feel it, but unfortunately Marc never happens to be in close enough proximity when munchie is practicing his left kick. Oh well, someday.
This morning I began to wonder if munchie has decided to be an acrobat instead, because I think he did a full flip in there. It was very strange. Whatever munchie wants to be is just fine with me...I know he'll be a superstar.
We had all just finished a delicious Sunday brunch and Tim and Katie's house and were all lounging around in the living room on big cushy couches. I happened to be sitting across the room from everyone, watching all the action, when suddenly I felt it: thump...thump. Could this be it? I thought it was supposed to feel like gas or fluttering or a bug crawling on your stomach. But seriously, was it supposed to be this defined? An actual thump? I sat there for a second with a silly grin on my face until Jack Reding, Katie's dad, walked over to me. I should have told Marc first, but I couldn't help it, my awe overwhelmed me and I just had to tell the first person I could: I just felt my baby kick for the first time! (Well, the first time I can say with confidence that it is the baby and not just gas) Lucky for me, he knew Marc's place was next to me with his hand on my belly and he called him over.
You're probably thinking to yourself, "Obviously, Megan, you're only 17 1/2 weeks pregnant; you won't feel the baby kicking from the outside of your belly for weeks still." Not so, my friend. Our munchie is a soccer player. Tuesday I sat eating a slice of pizza and actually felt the baby kicking from the outside of my belly. I did run across the food court of the mall just to see if he could feel it, but unfortunately Marc never happens to be in close enough proximity when munchie is practicing his left kick. Oh well, someday.
This morning I began to wonder if munchie has decided to be an acrobat instead, because I think he did a full flip in there. It was very strange. Whatever munchie wants to be is just fine with me...I know he'll be a superstar.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
I love newsletters!
Well, despite the fact that I blog about once a month now, Marc and I are doing pretty well at keeping up our quarterly newsletter. He wrote a beautiful letter last week, pouring over it for hours, sometimes editing for days. Thank you, Marc (It's not that I don't enjoy sharing my news with people, but I often find myself with writer's block when it comes time to write the newsletter).
So hubby writes the letter, I email it to my dad, who has this great computer program that formats newsletters. He works on it for a few days, sends me a few copies, which i edit and return a few times (I guess Marc and I are both rigorous editors), and it's finally ready to go. Thank goodness! Composing and editing are done! Time to move on to printing, note-writing, stamping, addressing, and stuffing. Yee haw.
I'm the kind of person who likes to finish projects like this as quickly as possible. I want to print out my happy letters, all 160 of them, and get on with it. But I also want them to look nice. Picture quality is especially important. So when I began printing them out on our stone-age printer with the broken feed tray that is propped up on an ink stamp, I judged the print quality unfit for our letters. ...Let me just try to print them out on our nice new HP Officejet 7310. I bet they'll come out beautifully. And they did. The only problem is, Rachel said not to print them on the nice new HP. Hmmm.
No problem, I'll print out a master copy and send it to town with Marc, who's doing a trash run for the Land. There's a print shop there that will surely be able to handle this menial task. My only concern at that point was that Marc would do the trash run first and then forget to wash his hands before transfering dump-ick to the master copies (am I psycho-perfectionist-lady or what?!) Sadly, Marc called me from town and said they had terrible print quality there and that our stone-age printer did a nicer job. So, back to the drawing boards.
After lunch, I mosey on back into the office to begin printing from stone-age. The first side printed fine, but when I tried to print the second side of each page, the paper would get crumpled up and jam the printer. Or it would fold down one corner of the page and smudge the ink a bit. Hmm. Psycho-perfectionist-lady started to loosen up a bit. (Please forgive me if you received a smudged or slightly wrinkled newsletter) Later in the afternoon, Marc brought in a nice man from LA and introduced him to me. Great timing..."Hi, nice to meet you. THIS PRINTER IS FROM THE PIT OF HELL!!!! Oh, excuse me, I'm just trying to..."
Oh, I forgot to mention, the stone-age printer not only crinkles paper and smudges ink, but the only way to print on the second side is to hand feed the paper, one by one. This means sitting at the computer and commanding it to print every single time. And you know what? I timed it: stone-age printer takes exactly 60 seconds to process the print command. It doesn't even start to print until a full minute has passed. Did I mention that I was beside myself with frustration?
At dinner, I told Rachel my sob story and she agreed that the HP 7310 printed a nicer looking letter, say nothing of the hassles with stone-age, and that if I'm willing to pay for the extra ink, I should use the nice new HP7310. She did warn me that the 'nice new HP7310' has a dark side and that she's experienced more problems mass printing with it, but, wanting only the best, opted for this route.
I had some success with it, until I noticed that if I commanded it to copy more than one at a time, it would pick up 3 or more pages and print segments on each one. Hmmm. Not a problem, I'll just print one at a time. And this I did, until, it started printing out with thick white lines running horizontally across our happy faces. No problem, I bet the ink cartridge just ran out. I change the cartridge (as Rachel warned me it would probably take more than one cartridge for 160 pages), but alas, the lines are still there. Back to stone-age.
At least I only had the second side of about 20 copies left to print, so the process of hand-feeding and printing one at a time (at 60 seconds a pop) wasn't as torturesome anymore. In fact, it gave me the opportunity to catch up on Elena and Rachel's blogs. And it inspired me to write one of my own. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that we ran out of paper, so I had to go to town today to pick up a pack and finish the job. But you know, these are the kinds of things that make our lives interesting. I don't know what I would blog about if everything went smoothly in life.
One more thing, Blue Star is coming to install our On Demand water heater next wednesday. Happy, happy day! Three cheers for hot, running water! ...Not having things for 2 months makes you really appreciate them.
So hubby writes the letter, I email it to my dad, who has this great computer program that formats newsletters. He works on it for a few days, sends me a few copies, which i edit and return a few times (I guess Marc and I are both rigorous editors), and it's finally ready to go. Thank goodness! Composing and editing are done! Time to move on to printing, note-writing, stamping, addressing, and stuffing. Yee haw.
I'm the kind of person who likes to finish projects like this as quickly as possible. I want to print out my happy letters, all 160 of them, and get on with it. But I also want them to look nice. Picture quality is especially important. So when I began printing them out on our stone-age printer with the broken feed tray that is propped up on an ink stamp, I judged the print quality unfit for our letters. ...Let me just try to print them out on our nice new HP Officejet 7310. I bet they'll come out beautifully. And they did. The only problem is, Rachel said not to print them on the nice new HP. Hmmm.
No problem, I'll print out a master copy and send it to town with Marc, who's doing a trash run for the Land. There's a print shop there that will surely be able to handle this menial task. My only concern at that point was that Marc would do the trash run first and then forget to wash his hands before transfering dump-ick to the master copies (am I psycho-perfectionist-lady or what?!) Sadly, Marc called me from town and said they had terrible print quality there and that our stone-age printer did a nicer job. So, back to the drawing boards.
After lunch, I mosey on back into the office to begin printing from stone-age. The first side printed fine, but when I tried to print the second side of each page, the paper would get crumpled up and jam the printer. Or it would fold down one corner of the page and smudge the ink a bit. Hmm. Psycho-perfectionist-lady started to loosen up a bit. (Please forgive me if you received a smudged or slightly wrinkled newsletter) Later in the afternoon, Marc brought in a nice man from LA and introduced him to me. Great timing..."Hi, nice to meet you. THIS PRINTER IS FROM THE PIT OF HELL!!!! Oh, excuse me, I'm just trying to..."
Oh, I forgot to mention, the stone-age printer not only crinkles paper and smudges ink, but the only way to print on the second side is to hand feed the paper, one by one. This means sitting at the computer and commanding it to print every single time. And you know what? I timed it: stone-age printer takes exactly 60 seconds to process the print command. It doesn't even start to print until a full minute has passed. Did I mention that I was beside myself with frustration?
At dinner, I told Rachel my sob story and she agreed that the HP 7310 printed a nicer looking letter, say nothing of the hassles with stone-age, and that if I'm willing to pay for the extra ink, I should use the nice new HP7310. She did warn me that the 'nice new HP7310' has a dark side and that she's experienced more problems mass printing with it, but, wanting only the best, opted for this route.
I had some success with it, until I noticed that if I commanded it to copy more than one at a time, it would pick up 3 or more pages and print segments on each one. Hmmm. Not a problem, I'll just print one at a time. And this I did, until, it started printing out with thick white lines running horizontally across our happy faces. No problem, I bet the ink cartridge just ran out. I change the cartridge (as Rachel warned me it would probably take more than one cartridge for 160 pages), but alas, the lines are still there. Back to stone-age.
At least I only had the second side of about 20 copies left to print, so the process of hand-feeding and printing one at a time (at 60 seconds a pop) wasn't as torturesome anymore. In fact, it gave me the opportunity to catch up on Elena and Rachel's blogs. And it inspired me to write one of my own. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that we ran out of paper, so I had to go to town today to pick up a pack and finish the job. But you know, these are the kinds of things that make our lives interesting. I don't know what I would blog about if everything went smoothly in life.
One more thing, Blue Star is coming to install our On Demand water heater next wednesday. Happy, happy day! Three cheers for hot, running water! ...Not having things for 2 months makes you really appreciate them.
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