The English Geek

a month of Winter

January 2013 in review:

• More than anything, this was a month of winter. Here in Utah we had record-breaking lows for 18 days, the worst smog inversion ever, and plenty of snow. The snow and even the cold temps were exactly right in my book. The smog, on the other hand, plays dirty tricks on me. I don't like it one bit.
• Also the month of dental work. Haley, Jake, and Nathan each had cavities (Jake's was his very first!). I went in for what I desperately hoped was only an old, cracked filling but was, in fact, a deeply cracked tooth. I didn't want a crown but I got one anyway. While they were in there already they fixed another cracked filling right next to the crown and then discovered that the tooth next to that one needed a filling. The plus side: all of my silver filings except one have been replaced with white ones. The down side: my lower left teeth still hurt. (Cue tooth dreams.)
• The Bigs all got straight As on their report cards. Go Bigs! (Cue a trip to Krispy Kreme.)
• Haley started working as an intern at a pharmacy. 180 hours later (sometime in March or April) she'll be able to take the pharmacy technician exam and then hopefully find a job. Also: she has a boyfriend. And for all the moms who have asked me in concerned voices if I am OK with that, let me just say: I am OK with that. I am actually thrilled with it. It is OK, in my mind, for teenagers to be in relationships.
• One morning, Jake ended up being late to school because we were fighting with the printer. (We desperately need a new laser printer, but I can't decide which one to get.) I ran the carpool in to the elementary school and then came back to pick him up—and I couldn't get my van up the driveway! It was a sheet of ice. So I left it on the street and went inside to put actual clothes on (one cannot check one's junior high student in at the office when one is still wearing pajamas and slippers, although one can drive the carpool in such attire!), giving Jake five gleeful moments of sliding down the driveway. He thought it was the best day ever!
• Nathan was totally excited for his Klondike. I don't get camping in the snow, but I will happily send him out! (Well, not really happily. I worry every second when either boy is gone to a scout campout as there are no women involved to keep things safe & practical.) Despite single digits, the anticipation was richly rewarded. He came home entirely wet!
• Kaleb hates coats more than anyone I've ever known. So our cold snap was tough for him. We had quite a few "I hate coats!" grumpy mornings.
• I read The Fault in Our Stars, When Katie Wakes, the Best American Poetry 2011, Charity Girls and some essays. I made progress on Kaleb and Jake's quilts; I made 12 layouts. I ran a dismal 24 miles and managed to make it to my sculpting class only twice. (On the other side of that equation, I think I drank about 5 gallons of hot chocolate.) I took almost no photos. I wrote the WRITE Saturday post for WCS and I'm thinking about doing a follow-up post  here about my scrapbooking process.

How was your January?

Looking Backward Before I Turn Around

Most of Monday we spent taking down the Christmas decorations. I don't love this part of the year, as it always makes me melancholy: I love my Christmas things, and I miss the cozy feeling they give my house, and putting them away means yet another Christmas has passed away. Maybe because really, 2012's December was just a good one, but my usual way of cheering myself up on de-Christmasing day didn't work. Usually, as I'm putting away ornaments and carefully bubble wrapping nativities and making sure I found every. last. holiday towel, I perk up a little bit by imagining what I might be like in 11 months from now, when I get the decorations out again. What will I accomplish over the year? How will I change?

But it didn't work this year. Instead, I felt like I'd already let my end-of-November-2013 self down. Like I'll get there and she'll say, as she's unwrapping nativities and getting ornaments out of boxes, here it is, another year almost over, and everything is the same. I didn't accomplish much. Which of course says quite a bit about  how I feel about my 2012 accomplishments...nothing extraordinary.

I'm still a little bit blue I think.

I was talking to Kendell about this later that night, and he said "but you accomplished a lot last year!" and I said "what?" and he said, "well, you fed and clothed and kept on track the kids" and I felt a little glimmer of lightness so I said "what else?" and he said "you ran a lot." And then I decided not to keep asking because what if he ran out of things to say?

So I decided to put it all in a blog post. Not in a braggy way, but just to remind myself that 2012 wasn't a total wash. A year in review of sorts, I suppose, to give me something to build on for January:

• washed approx. 260 loads of laundry
• cooked close to 300 dinners
• took 2 vacations wherein no one was lost, kidnapped, drowned, or injured
• 11 trips to the dentist (Jake's is today)
• approx. 5000 photographs
• got Haley signed up for college
• lived two months without eating sugar
• wore all black for an entire month
• discovered a new favorite restaurant
• helped Kendell, Haley, Jake, Nathan, and Kaleb with homework
• ran approx. 450 miles
• made 114 scrapbook layouts
• taught one Big Picture class
• wrote an eZine article for Ella
• wrote 3 book reviews for the Provo-Orem Word, two of which were nominated for reader's favorites
• worked approx. 1000 hours at the library
• went on 6 hikes
• read 20-ish books
• ran 2 half marathons, one 5k, and 1 Ragnar relay
• put in 40 volunteer hours at Kaleb & Nathan's school
• made 8 baby quilts as gifts
• wrote eleven Write Saturdays and hosted the blog on 2 different weeks for WCS

And even though there are many other goals I didn't accomplish ("publish something" being the biggest one), I suppose I need to get over my blueness and realize I did at least do something!

How as your 2012?

October 2012

October is my favorite month. (September runs a very close second.) I always try to savor every single beautiful, golden day. This year’s October was so very different, with Beth’s death. It tinged all the golden days with sadness. (It still doesn’t feel real, to be honest. I keep thinking of future events and how she’ll be included and then I remember all over again that she won’t be.) Kendell and I spent a lot of time cleaning out her home and getting it ready to sell. He took the responsibility of figuring out the probate, meeting with the lawyer, managing paperwork, and going to court.

It was a strange October.

But there were happier things, too. Such as:

• Haley practiced so much for her choir concert. (She is so in love with her choir!) She also asked a boy to the Sadie’s dance. He said yes!
• In his art class, Nathan’s teacher had the students draw the posters for the school play. His won the contest! He won two tickets to the play and took Kaleb with him. (He wasn’t happy about taking Kaleb, but all of his friends were either in the play or had already seen it, and I wasn’t home and Haley had class and neither Kendell nor Jake wanted to go so Kaleb it was!)
• Jake has been begging us to buy him a new bed for awhile. When he found out that he got to have Beth’s bed (she had just purchased it not three months ago) he was so excited! We decluttered and reorganized his bedroom and ordered him some new queen-sized sheets. Now I’m working on making him a new, queen-sized quilt.
• Kaleb got to inherit Jake’s bed. It’s fatter than his old bed (which had been the bed for the youngest kid since we bought it for Haley when she was little) and he loves it!
• I took the boys to Disneyland. This trip was planned six weeks ago, so I couldn’t really cancel it even though we were busy with Beth’s process. It’s interesting how the timing worked out, I changed my mind about 50 times over which week to go, but the one I ended up picking was perfect. (Except for I missed Haley’s choir concert.)
• Kendell and I hiked Timp together. We beat our previous best time to the top (I got there in 3:22 and he was 3:27, and our previous time was 3:35.) This sort of makes me happy and sort of bugs me, as I don’t really care how long it takes to get to the top! But it was a nice day to hike and I’m glad we were able to squeeze it in.
• Becky and I ran the Halloween Half marathon together.
• Kendell and I discovered a new restaurant to love, Thai Village in Provo. We’ve always loved curry...now it’s sort of developed into an obsession.
• I ran 38.5 miles. Between the funeral and the trip, it wasn’t a great running month for me!
• I made two layouts. As with running...not a lot of time for scrapping this month!
• I started eating sugar again. I’ve been baking up a storm...three batches of pumpkin-chocolate-chip cookies, a pumpkin cake, and some gingerbread cookies.
• For Halloween, Haley and Jake stayed home together to pass out candy. Kendell, Nathan, Kaleb, and I went to his sister Cindy’s house for dinner and trick-or-treating. It was a different Halloween experience than we’ve ever had before, but still lots of fun!

How was your October?

September 2012 in Review

September was supposed to be my Black Month. The month I only wore black clothes and I took a photo of myself every day to prove it. Yeah...it didn’t work out very well. I learned three things: 1. I really do have a lot of black clothes. 2. While I do have a ton of black clothes, and wearing them makes me happy, they are mostly things I wear to work. My favorite thing to wear when I’m having a day at home are my grey sweats and my Pepsi t-shirt; it’s all about being comfortable, not color, on hanging-at-home days. 3. I am not good at self portraits or at asking a kid to take my picture every day. All of which is to say: I want a new black sweater.

I posted a Facebook status one day in late August about a guy I saw at Costco wearing a shirt that said "If I stop running, how will I get home?" which I thought was awesome. A few weeks later my friend Chris stopped by bearing a gift:

(I went running it it the very next day. Nathan says I have Man Shoulders in this photo.)

Her husband is a sign maker but he also does shirts, so she had him make me this. HOW AWESOME IS THAT? Because A—I love it! And B—she is so thoughtful! And C—I got to see her for a little while. And D—the shirt itself is perfect (some running shirts fit weird, or they are too short in the torso, or they smell weird or rub in inconvenient places). And E—it is pink. Awwwww.

Kendell started his biology class. Much complaining ensued about the teacher, until he took the first test and realized it would all be OK. I confess that when he’s complaining about school I have a hard time being sympathetic because I loved going to school. If someone would just pay me to go to school, I would make it my career, earning PhD after PhD.  I know...I am a weirdo!

Haley was asked to Homecoming. With goldfish! (It was cute.) We went shopping that very same day and found a dress she loved that wasn’t super expensive. I had to add sleeves to it, but they turned out better than I could’ve hoped for. (I am not the world’s best seamstress.)

I didn't get any awesome & amazing photos of The Dress this time.

She’s also settling in to her Pharm Tech program, which she goes to after school. I was SO anxious about this because I didn’t want it to be too much, but it’s perfect. The teacher is helpful and not too demanding, and she found someone to carpool with.

Jake and Nathan looked forward all month to their scout camp out. They went last weekend to Mia Shalom, which is the camp where the young women go in the summer for girls camp. They went to do some winter maintence to prepare the camp for snow. Sleeping in cabins instead of tents was a big deal, but more than that they were excited for the dinner. One of their leaders brought up a turkey fryer, and then they were planning on frying up some delicious desserts, like fried twinkies. (Which sounds completely disgusting to me, but I guess it’s a teenage boy thing.) Jake was bummed because the turkey was fried in peanut oil so he couldn’t eat any (he’s allergic to peanuts) but the desserts were done in canola oil. He ate seven fried twinkies. That kid! I would share a photo of him but I have NONE this month. He hates having his picture taken. It’s big drama around here.

Nathan got a weird rash on his hand. I was certain he had either flesh-eating bacteria or a parasite—my kids are known for weird rashes but this was something I’d never seen before anywhere. Turns out he must’ve touched some poisonous plant on a hike, and then he had a dermal allergic reaction (I can’t remember the exact name of it). He had to take Prednizone for a week, which I wasn’t happy about, but he didn’t do too badly on it. (I took it when I was 14 or 15 for pleurisy and I swear to you: I bawled for two weeks straight. It was awful.) It didn't stop him from doing a lot of this:

Kaleb had a good, normal month. We went to his parent-teacher conference where I learned that he has a hard time staying quiet and being focused in reading. (I am so not surprised by this.) But everyone at school loves him and he is doing great in math. Plus his teacher told me that he likes to help the other kids with their work, so that is good. Mostly he played a lot with his friends. This photo captures what he loves most right now:

There are also Legos in, well, every room of my home

I made nine scrapbook layouts and sewed three baby blankets. However, I did not achieve my sewing goal, which was to finish Kaleb’s dinosaur quilt. I did get all of the 16-patch squares squared up though, which is a HUGE step. I hate squaring up. I had a new cut & color for my hair, but I don't love my cut and my color is starting to fade. In general, in fact, I hate my hair right now.

I read some books: Pure by Julianna Baggot, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, and The End of Everything by Megan Abbott. I also started The Dive from Clausen's Pier but I haven't finished it yet. I also went to a writer's conference at UVU, which shall merit its very own post.

Haley did a fund raiser at UVU for her choir tour. She and her friend Megan went to UVU and were servers at the scholarship ball.

Despite big plans, no real hikes were hiked this month. Sadness, as it has been one of the most beautiful Septembers I can remember.

I had a horrible cold that started on the day I ran the Mt. Nebo half marathon. It took two weeks to get over.

I ran 80.88 miles. It would’ve been more except I took off one week because of that cold.

To celebrate the autumn equinox, I ran Squaw Peak road and then I wore the new orange shirt I've been saving. (It was one of the first non-black shirts I wore in public!) Then I dribbled olive oil on it when we went to dinner that night. Sigh.

Tell me: did you read anything in September that you loved?

August in Review

Back when we were just a few days into the summer break, Haley was complaining about the heat, and I said (in my sagest, English-teacheriest voice), "ahhhh. But if summer comes, can fall be far behind?" and then she rolled her eyes and wondered if that was part of a poem.

It's hard having a geek for a mother.

But it's finally here, September. Fall. The leaves on our mountains are already bright red and I am yearning to go hiking in their color. But before I get too immersed in fall, one last look back at summer, through the lens of our August:

• At the beginning of August Kendell and I had a date night in Salt Lake. While we were waiting at our table at Red Lobster, I made him come outside with me and walk across the bridge that goes over the freeway. He doesn't love heights so he didn't love it. But I wanted to be able to look at the bridge, next time I drove under it, and think about us walking there, just the two of us, talking about nothing important.
• Then we went to visit my friend Chris. Totally impromptu hanging-out-for-a-few-minutes. I don't see her enough!
• I started working on my goal of not having sugar for two months. I had two little slip-ups but made it. One month to go!
• August was the month of shopping at Dillard's. There were three different extra-30%-off sales. We got almost all of the boys' back-to-school shopping done at these sales, and I might have bought a pair of shoes, and I even talked Kendell into buying some new shirts for himself.
• Nathan had his special night at Burgers Supreme. It didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped, given a BYU football game I forgot to plan around, but we still had fun.
• With three kids in junior high/high school, we spent more on school fees in August than we do on Christmas.
• All four kids started back to school: Haley, senior; Jake, freshman; Nathan, 7th grade, Kaleb, 2nd grade.
• Haley got asked to Homecoming. We found her dress, shoes, and earrings the very same day. (We rushed to the mall that Saturday because it was the last day of one of those Dillard's sales; we ended up finding her dress at JC Penney, but the shoes & the earrings were Dillard's clearance, woot woot!)
• I ran 70 miles.
• Jake worked every Saturday morning at his summer job. He helps one of my librarian friends with her yard. (I don't think I've said this but I LOVE that he has this! It is so good for him.)
• We played miniature golf twice. And I went laser-tagging for the first time. (It wasn't what I expected, although I didn't really know what to expect.)
• I ran into an old friend, Tracey, at Target. We talked for a half hour while Kaleb tried to decide which Imaginex toy he should get. Our daughters are only one day apart and they used to live right across the street. I miss them but it was good to see her again.
• On their way to Seven Peaks, the kids locked the keys in the car. Not the best afternoon.
• Kendell and I made two attempts to get to the saddle of Cascade Mountain. We made it the second time. More on that in a later blog post I hope!
• I made thirteen layouts.
• Jake, Nathan, and Kendell went to help my mom move some furniture on Saturday afternoon.
• My mother-in-law discovered she has breast cancer.
• Haley colored her hair brown.
• Jake discovered the joy of longboarding. (Can you guess what he wants for Christmas?)

Sort of random, but a good August nevertheless. How was yours?

July in Review

Yesterday when I was at work, a patron asked me what the date was. "July 31," I said, and then we both freaked out a little bit because seriously: how can July already be gone? It seems like it flew by. Here's how our July played out:

• For the 4th, I took the kids to my sister's house, where we swam and hung out with cousins. I even got in the pool, which I hardly ever do. (I can't really explain why I don't want to get in, usually; it has to do with the splashing and with how you never really dry out until you go home and change, but I think it bugs my sister, which of course makes me sad. Somehow I'm just the stick in the mud when it comes to swimming.)
  
• We had an almost-completely-normal regular ol' day to celebrate Pioneer Day (Utah's state celebration) on the 24th. I did buy some sparklers but we didn't light them until the next day. Lame.
• The kids found a snake in our yard. This happens at least once a summer. Kaleb and his friends played with it all day and then let it go in the field at the end of the street.
• I took the boys to Seven Peaks. (Usually Haley takes them.)
• Kendell and I hiked Squaw Peak.
  
• The kids saw some movies: Ice Age 4 (loved it!), Batman (Haley went to a midnight showing with some friends, Jake and Nathan saw it the next morning, and Kaleb is of course way too young), The Pirates! Band of Misfits and The Lorax (both at the dollar theater).
• The shooting at the movie theater in Colorado affected me harder than any public shooting ever has. Maybe because Haley was at a midnight showing and that made it feel so much more real? I sat in front of the TV and wept for that entire Saturday morning. There aren't any words.
• Haley went to a sort-of disappointing Girls Camp. It was disappointing because they couldn't go to the camp they usually go to because of the forest fires. It was her last year at camp and I so wanted her to finish with an experience she really loved. And she did love what she had, but not as much as if they could have gone to Camp Shalom. (Someone told me later that the camp wasn't ever really in danger; they didn't let them go not because of the fires but because of parents being afraid of the fires, which sort of really annoys me.)
• Nathan's camp was also postponed because of the fires so maybe that parenthetical aside is full of falsehood. Who knows? We're just glad he got to go.
• I read two books, Afterwards and The Snow Child. No! I also read Attachments and Rainwater. I also was completely enjoying Run and Eat until yesterday, when I accidentally returned it and it went to the next person on the hold list. My little paper markers of stuff I wanted to write down were even still in it. Sadness!
• Jake and I went on our special night to Chili's. He was in the mood for both mashed potatoes and french fries, so we got the 2-for-20 thing and had cheese fries as our appetizer and mashed potatoes as our side dishes. (His Special Night month is really June but I didn't quite make it so we went at the beginning of July instead.)
• Haley and I went to the Nordstrom sale and then to lunch together. We really wanted to go to the Spaghetti Factory but didn't realize it's not open for lunch. We went to Brick Oven instead.
• Nordstrom sale: totally disappointing. We went to the pre-sale and the girl who helped us was so unhelpful. Haley only found one thing that was in the pre-sale stuff. Everything else that she found was on the regular sales rack, only they had all been put there accidentally and weren't even on sale. Then, when we got out to the car I looked over the receipt and realized that the girl had charged us full price for that one Anniversary sale item so we had to go back in and get it fixed. That's not even mentioning the (small) family drama of my mom wanting to go with everyone and not being able to organize it and me feeling like it was being organized around everyone else but me (I know, I sound like a baby and I don't really mean to) which is fine but left me feeling thoroughly unimportant. Yeah. Not my favorite year for the Nordstrom sale.
• Work! I'm re-running my Write Now! class at Big Picture in November, so I had tons of work to get accomplished. Two weeks of July were spent on the remodel.
• I didn't run nearly as much as I wanted to. I'm discouraged about my shoes, which got a hole along the seam when I had only 57 miles on them, but the running store where I buy all of my running stuff wouldn't help me, and Asics wouldn't help me, so now, gah, I have brand-new shoes with a hole and I don't want to buy new ones because I don't know where to go now that I'm pissed off at Runner's Corner where I've probably purchased 15 pairs of running shoes over the years but who wouldn't help me and actually gave me the "you are a liar" look when I told them my story. Deep breath.
• Kendell and I went on a date to a restaurant in Salt Lake, The Blue Iguana.
• I got quite a bit of back-to-school shopping done between that (blasted) Nordy's sale and Dillard's extra-clearance sale last weekend.
• Jake and Nathan both left for scout camp on the last Monday of July.
• Kendell and I were up late watching the gymnastics team final (great job girls! You totally made me cry and then have gymnastics dreams all night) when the calendar flipped over to August.

April 2012 in Review

(I'm not sure why I just stopped writing monthly review posts. I totally skipped December-March. Ah, well. Onward and upward.)

April 2012 highlights: "Easter" dinner at my mom's house was a week before Easter this year; we had Wasabi Ranch chicken wings for Easter dinner at our house; our water heater was on its last leg; I took all the kids to Jump On It (one of those filled-with-trampoline warehouse places) and bought a Pass of All Passes for each of them (for stuff to do this summer); my credit card number got stolen and used for online gambling in some foreign country so I had to get a new one. In more specific, person-centered news:

~My mother-in-law moved into a condo about a half-mile away from us. Kendell spent a lot of time helping her get settled in, doing stuff like installing blinds and replacing smoke alarms and rewiring electricity. It is much nicer having her so close because if she needs help she is two minutes away instead of thirty. Plus she totally lucked into a great spot, with all-new everything inside.

~In addition to helping his mom, Kendell finished two more college courses, tech management and geology. Two classes closer to his degree! He also suffered through a month of high pollen count.

~Haley went to San Diego for her choir tour. She went to prom on the day she turned 17. She did lots of homework, finished reading Old Man and the Sea and started reading Hamlet, and got great scores on tests and essays. The choir she is in at school, Con Brio, got all 1's at their choir festival, which means they get to go on to the State choir festival.

~Jake went to track nearly every single day after school. He had two track meets, neither of which I could go to which made me sad. (Trying to save up vacation hours for a fun summer trip = I have to miss some other things right now.) Despite the fact that his school doesn't have a high jump coach, he finally made it over 5'2"! He had state testing at school. Got sick with the stomach flu and then, a week later, a fevery cold. He got a new pair of Vans.

~Nathan also had state core testing. His sixth-grade class put on the play Annie and he was the stage manager. He went on a camp out at the Dugway geode beds. He spent tons of time helping out at his grandma's new place. Along with Jake and Kaleb, he went to Take Your Kid to Work Day at Novell with Kendell. And, after much agonizing, he decided that yes, he will sing in his school's talent show this month, so he started practicing his song.

~Kaleb's teacher came back to school after taking February and March off to spend time with her newly adopted baby; all discipline problems promptly ceased. He got the stomach flu (but no fevery cold!). He spent every single possible second he could playing outside, which is his favorite thing to do. He went to a birthday party for his cousin Jace and started learning multiplication in math. (It's strange...he's still struggling with addition and subtraction but multiplication is coming so easily for him.) He played soccer so much that he wore out his ball.

~I got my hair colored. I went to dinner with my friend Chris. I turned forty and had a surprise party (the only one I've ever had, tee hee). I felt sick for almost the entire month, but I think I've finally figured out why. I read the books Feed, Bud, Not Buddy; I tried but failed to finish The Marriage Plot and The Flame Alphabet. (loved the former but ran out of time and couldn't renew because of the hold list; renewed the latter 3 times but just ended up hating it.) I ran lots of hills, baked 4 cakes, made 5 scrapbook layouts, painted my toenails blue, and bought myself a white denim jacket.

2011: the {hair} year in review

I had big plans in 2011. I had dozens of blog posts—that never made it out of my brain.

I wanted to blog about my hair, for example. But, you know? Blogging about your hair generally should also involve a few photographs. And I’m way more about the words than the pictures when I’m blogging. I know. Blogs with lots of photos are way more appeal. I just hate the whole process. There. I said it. I’m proficient but only barely with Photoshop, and it always, always gives me a headache. And then once you’ve survived the Photoshopping, there’s the uploading and the tweaking and yeah:

I never wrote the blog about my hair.

So instead I’m using "hair" as my 2011 year-in-review theme. (Please. Forgive the fact that we are 1/4 the way through January. I’m slow. I had to open Photoshop.)

the Winter months

My hair in January was pretty blah:

(from Jake’s 13^th birthday party)

In January, Kendell went to Mexico for work. (This meant that, a few weeks ago in December, he couldn’t donate blood.) Nathan did his science fair project on bananas. And I wore a heart monitor.

You see, I’d been having chest pains. Random, unpredictable, but still fairly scary (especially since "open heart surgery," "heart murmur," and "bicuspid aortic valve" are fairly regular discussions at our house). I kept ignoring it, thinking it was, like, sympathetic heart pains. You know. Like a sympathetic pregnancy some husbands have. Anyway. I ignored it and ignored it and ignored it and then, at the end of December 2009, I went to a blood drive at our church. You have to know: donating blood doesn’t freak me out. Needles, while not my friends, don’t freak me out. I don’t get anxious or uptight about it. Generally I just sit in the blue sling chair and feel like donating blood is a fairly easy way to help out humanity. But that day? For some reason, I totally passed out. Just as the phlebotomist was sliding the needle out of my vein (meaning, none of my blood was wasted in the making of this story), I was out. I was in a dark, dark, black place for about four minutes.

And then I woke up wondering why in the hell I was asleep in the church gym.

That passing-out thing freaked me out. So I finally went to the doctor, and he set me up with a cardiogram, an EKG, and a Holter monitor. The monitor is like a cell phone, only it’s also got four wires that connect to four leads that connect to specific parts of your torso. You wear it, and then every time you feel a pain or an irregularity in your heartbeat, you push a button. I wore this for two weeks—I was wearing it under my sweater in that photo, in fact.

I still have scars from the leads.

And the results? Nothing is wrong with me. My doctor thought that possibly the pains happened because my thyroid levels were wonky. A year later, I still have them. My theory is that they are little anxiety attacks, only delayed. I started getting obsessive about it for awhile, tracking the chest pains in relation to stressful events. I started seeing connections. Then I decided that since I can’t change the stressful events, and all the 21^st century’s advanced medical technology can’t see anything wrong with my heart, and because I ran a marathon and my heart never hurts when I run—I’m not going to worry about it.

I’m not sure what that has to do with hair, but it was a big thing in 2011 for me.

Throughout the winter, my hair grew. It grew and it grew and it grew. I went to Haley’s choir concert in February, where she sang show tunes and sounded amazing. Everyone got 4.0's and we went to Krispy Kreme to celebrate. Kaleb lost his first tooth, we got lots of snow. In March I started working on my mixed media quilt, which is still unfinished. My hair got longer and I started wearing it like this sometimes:

which I don’t like to do because I feel like a cocker spaniel.

the Spring months

April came, I turned 39 (to celebrate, I ate a breakfast sandwich from Gandolfo’s in the car by myself, and then I bought myself the sunglasses I'd been wanting for months), Haley turned 16 and went to prom. We celebrated Easter on Saturday at my sister’s house—in a snow/slush/rainstorm. My hair got to the length that Kendell likes but that starts making me insane:

(apparently I also ran out of make up?)

Spring arrived but the rain didn’t stop. The rain! It rained so much this spring that even *I*, Amy Sorensen, lover of rain and of all gloomy weather, wished for sunshine. We did get a lovely Mother’s Day Saturday:

and my hair was really, really starting to bug me. Why do I let it get long? It never looks good. It makes me crazy. My scalp itches. But I can put it in a ponytail at least! Anyway. I left it. I left it through June, when I braided it for Ragnar:

the Summer months

and into July, when Haley insisted on straightening it, just because it was so. long. I totally thought she took a picture of me with my straight hair but I guess not.

Anyway.

The sizzle of the straight iron was enough to finally convince me: get a freaking hair cut! Plus, I needed to record some videos that everyone who took my 2011 Write Now! class would see. I didn’t want to be all sloppy and unkempt. So, I cut it. And I did something I haven’t done in years. Decades, even: I went blonde.

Well, blonde-ish:

I went with the blonde because I knew my favorite hair colors—red and brown—would take a beating in the sun, as I was training for the marathon and outside a lot. At first, I loved it. Then I felt like I was pretending. I debuted my brand new blonde hair on our trip to the Tetons, which included Kendell’s dad’s funeral service. One of my sisters-in-law and one of my nieces does hair, and my other sisters-in-law always look gorgeous and perfectly-done, hair wise. (Make-up too, but this isn't a make-up story.) The hairdressers always make me uncomfortable about my hair, but no one seemed to notice it was any different. Even though I fit in more—everyone, save me, on the Sorensen side of the family is blonde—I felt a little bit off. Not quite right. I went ahead and blamed it on the blonde.

I loved the length, though. And the cut. The only thing that was hard? It was too short for a ponytail, so sometimes it bugged me while I was running. I finally bought myself some Bondi bands and have been in running-headband heaven ever since.

In August, I was starting to have dark roots already for Dad’s funeral

(With my friend Chris) but there was no way I was doing anything with my hair until after the marathon. So I just kept running. I ran a lot. Throughout summer and into

the Fall months,

when we spent a night in a hotel while our wood floor was refinished, purchased a new stove and fridge because our old ones were, well, old, and got everyone started back in school. Kendell and I started going on afternoon hikes together, in theory to get ready to hike Timp, even though we never did. Doesn't matter because I learned that adults-only hikes are a good way to reconnect with your husband. Kaleb had his annual heart check up and, despite my anxiety (and yes, a chest-pain flair-up on my part, two days after the appointment), passed without any complications. 

My blonde hair got rootier and rootier.

And, actually, it wasn’t until after Halloween and after Haley colored her hair red and I ran my marathon and a half marathon with Becky (that I still want to blog about) and I made one of my favoritest-ever baby quilts for friends at work and I taught my Textuality class and I hiked to the top of Y and I had my annual November cold that I finally got my hair done again:

I went back to dark and it makes me happy. Some of the blonde peeks through still, but not enough to bring back that not-quite-me feeling. Since then, Nathan turned 12, Jake turned 14, we had one of the most peacefully-perfect Thanksgivings we've ever had and a Christmas that was wonderful and amazing but also not-so-peaceful in some ways. I got the stomach flu. Nathan lost four teeth in two weeks (one of which he swallowed), I read four novels, one poetry book, and part of an essay collection, and I got a new cell phone.

But, I’m not loving it right now. It’s in that dull-hair-color phase, but I don’t know exactly what I want to do with it. Perhaps continue praying for the magic hair fairy to pay me a visit and bestow some heavy, healthy hair upon me? Or maybe I will get brave and do something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: cut it short. Because, looking at my mom and at her cousin Pat this summer at my dad’s funeral, I realized something: I don’t have a great hair heritage to fall back upon. Women of my mother’s line tend to get thinner and thinner hair as we age. Pat (who Becky and I call Fake Aunt Pat because we always thought she was our aunt until we found out no: she’s our mother’s cousin which makes her...vaguely related to us) has taken care of this by practically buzzing her head. And, you know, it suits her.

Maybe 2012 will be the year I follow suit? Probably not. Instead I’m going to try to be grateful for the hair that I do have. It could be worse, right? At least it’s not completely grey...yet:

(at my mom's house on Christmas day)

(After writing this, I'm certain it was ill-advised.It feels a little too self-centered and look-at-me, look-at-me. I should have just written a 2011 {books} year in review instead. So don't think this will stay up too long. On the other hand, I'm still going to post it. Because I totally photoshopped all those photos and the headache has to be worth something.)

November Summary

I cannot let one more day pass without writing my November in Review post. It would just be lame to have it any later, considering it’s December 11. It's lame I'm only getting around to writing it now! So, without further ado:

Kaleb: Probably this experience will happen quite often in Kaleb's life: A Friday night, and Kendell and I thought it would be good to go somewhere nice-ish to eat for dinner. I'd worked all day, he'd been hanging Christmas lights, we both wanted something relaxing. Since Nathan and Jake were at their camp out and Haley was at her friend Nikki's, our little buddy came along on our date with us. We went to the Spaghetti Factory, which he first protested about, but once he tasted the macaroni and cheese he'd ordered? He was in heaven. There was a man walking around the restaurant making balloon animals, so we got him to make Kaleb a monkey. We talked together, laughed, ate, and of course colored the menu. As my Bigs get older I think Kaleb will have more and more nights like this, when he's just hanging out with his parents. Until, of course, he is old enough to do things with his friends, and then I will get all weepy and lonesome and sad.

Nathan: Nathan turned twelve this month. Twelve is sort of a big deal in the LDS church, as it is the age boys are given the priesthood and can start passing the sacrament. It also means he doesn't have to go to Primary anymore (the children's organization) and gets to go on many more scouting camp outs. He went on one on the weekend of his birthday, which means he actually turned twelve while romping around the Sand Dunes. It snowed during the night of their camp out and I became Anxious Amy, imagining every single possible snow-related disaster, but apparently they'd packed enough warm clothes and managed to stay dry enough, because everyone made it out alive and unscathed.

Jake also had a memorable experience this month: he shaved for the first time. I considered taking some photos of it but I didn't want to embarrass him. It's not likely that he'll need to shave again any time soon, but still: how strange and surreal is it to watch my little Jakey turn into this new Jake, with his deep voice and peach-fuzzy lip and ceaselessly growing body? On one hand, I sometimes desperately miss Little Jakey. On the other, he is pretty helpful! He spent quite a bit of time in November either raking, or supervising the raking of, nearly all the leaves from our trees. He helped Kendell clean out the rain gutters. He survived his two weeks of being on kitchen. He put up our outdoor Christmas lights and detailed the toy room for me before I got the Christmas tree out. Plus he managed his first month of wearing elastic bands for his braces. In fact, his orthodontics gave us a sweet morning, after he'd had an appointment. The time we were finishing up and the time that second period started were just the right amount of distance for him to not bother with the rest of first period. Instead we went to McDonald's for a sausage and cheese biscuit.

Haley’s November can best be summed up by photos:

There's the before shot:

And the after shot:

She’s been wanting to change her hair color for awhile, but I finally got my brain (and my wallet) wrapped around the idea. I think she looks gorgeous as a redhead. And she loves it, which matters even more!

Kendell did what he does nearly every November: hung Christmas lights. This always makes me a titch nervous—and that scaling of steeply-pitched roofs!—but the only accident happened to one of his customers, and elderly woman. She was walking down the steps to show Kendell where her lights were stored, missed a step, and fell. She got a concussion and she broke her hip. Kendell is a little bit haunted by the sound her head made, hitting the concrete; we’re both just glad it wasn’t any worse.

My thing this month was my scrap blast, which I’ll blog more about later. I ran a couple of times and started going to a new sculpting class at the gym, but then I caught a cold and spent the entire last week of November coughing. I even called in sick, something I hardly ever do. It’s only been three or four days since I’ve finally felt nearly better—except for the cough which will likely linger until spring. I read the book Just My Type and started The Tiger’s Wife, but liked it so much I decided I need my own copy. And I started working on Christmas.

There! Check November 2011 off my to-write list!

October 2011 in Review

I had lots and lots of big plans for the month of October. I was going to make a new Halloween quilt. (Check! I accomplished this!) I was going to run my marathon (did it!) I was going to continue running a lot (not really...but sort of. Between my October 8 marathon and my October 29th half marathon, I ran four times. One of those was 12 miles, but still.) I was going to do a big cluster of scrapbook pages to get all the photos from Halloween over the past five-ish years matched up with their stories. (That quilt took me way longer than I expected, so I only got as far as processing and printing the pictures. Oh, and buying a few Halloween-ish supplies. I'm starting my scrapbook cluster today instead.) (If you want to see the layouts I did make this month, you can check them out here. The one about my Dr. Martens is one of my newest most-favorite-ever layouts.) I was going to polish and submit one essay. (Barely got started with the rough draft.) I was going to spend more time with my kids (I sort-of accomplished this. We missed the pumpkin patch, but we did decorate sugar cookies together, do a photo shoot, and carve pumpkins. And I also made sure I got one-on-one time with everyone.)

What I certainly, 100% accomplished is the fact that we ate macaroni and cheese. Several times. And not even the good homemade kind, but Kraft. This was never a goal of mine, but Target was selling Halloween macaroni and cheese—the noodles were shaped like witches, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns—and I could not resist buying it. Several times. I don’t feel entirely good about feeding my kids the day-glo orange "food" but every once in a while has to be OK, right? And, a perk of having boys: we went through the ten (OK, 15) boxes I purchased very quickly. That happens when Jake and Nathan can each polish off a box all on their own.

One of my favorite days in October was the one before my marathon. We got our kids situated with various responsible adults in charge and then Kendell and I left. Overnight. We didn’t really do anything exciting—there wasn’t even a movie we wanted to see. We did go to the Home Show, which is a convention with, obviously, home-related stuff in it. As all of our home-remodeling energy is gone (as well as our home-remodeling savings!), this wasn’t thrilling, but it was still fun if that makes sense. (Thanks for the tickets Steve!) We went out to dinner, then drove to Layton. Checked out the race finish line, wandered around Walmart, and then went back to our hotel. It was just really, really nice to be away as just a couple, even without doing anything exciting.

Kendell was busy with Brainshare this month, which is the conference his employer Novell does every year. He had to do a presentation this year, which he wasn't happy about, but I am certain he did a great job! The kids look forward to Brainshare every year because of the spiffs, but this year? Totally disappointing. I think he might have brought home some pens and a handful of hard candy. (Nothing like the year when one booth had balls shaped like brains. Those were awesome!)

One of my favorite days this month was with Nathan. He and I went outside one warm afternoon to work in the flowerbeds. Our goal was to get all the nearly-dead leaves trimmed out of my patch of hostas. As we worked together, we talked about all sorts of things. Nothing earth-shattering, but it was a sweet, good moment I imagine will work as a touchstone in the future.

October brought the end of the first term for Haley and Jake. It was interesting to watch as Jake made sure he got straight As—talking to teachers, doing a bit of extra credit, retaking a test or two. I am grateful he’s making the effort to keep his grades up without me having to spearhead the entire endeavor.

Jake also remembered that he loves going to the skating rink. As he is in 8^th grade this seems entirely appropriate to me! He went several times with groups of friends. Two of his new friends are girls, and while he keeps reassuring me that he doesn’t like them "that way," I still wish I could don an invisibility cloak to keep track of these interactions. Jake is teaching me (has always taught me this, really, as the oldest boy in my family) just how differently things work with sons. I worry about different things with him than I did when Haley was the same age. Part of this is, surely, his personality. But it’s also boys. I hope (and pray! Often!) that I am steering him the right way.

Haley was also swamped with end-of-term schoolwork. She read 1984 in two days and brought up all her grades. She ended up with two A-s and the rest As. She’s taking hard classes so that is incredible! The best thing was her physics class, which has been really hard for her, but she managed to pull out an A. Again...this has been interesting. This year is the first year she’s really been pushed by her classes and had to struggle a little bit. I think it’s been good for her to see what she is capable of but also to realize that it isn’t always easy.

She and I also went to a program that the three high schools here put together every year for juniors. We learned about different scholarship options and then talked to some of the local colleges. I’m so happy she is ambitious and wants to continue with her education!

Kaleb’s focus all month has been drawing and writing. He’s still in the cute-spelling phase which I love! He likes to sit down and make books; he draws the pictures and then spells out the words as best as he can. These are always done in secret, with much "Mom! Don’t look!"ing, and then he gives me the book with much fanfare. I love, love reading these and seeing him progress. How can drawings like this one:

 (made just last night while procrastinating getting to bed) not make any mom happy? That is him and me outside picking flowers while it was still warm. He folded it up like a card (only backward, so it opens left to right instead of right to left); on the front is a robot and on the back is a "triangle pattern" and the words "t end." I finally broke down and got over thinking how cute that spelling of "the end" is and taught him the correct way. When he understood, he laughed and said "I always thought that word was T."

This specific October—2011—is one I have thought about for a long, long time. I hate it when people are vague and mysterious on their blogs (I like specific and detailed), but allow me to be vague and mysterious for a few sentences. The 29^th marked an anniversary of sorts, a momentous one, of an experience I had two decades and a bit ago. I don’t know if this will influence my future. I am terrified that it will and terrified that it won’t. I am not who I thought I would be when I imagined myself, 21 years ago, on this October 29^th, and the disparity between what I imagined and what I really am is what terrifies me. This topic will continue to be in my thoughts.

Make sure you write down some of your own October 2011 details!