My blog

Danger is in the Eye of the Beholder When I was in junior high, our city would have a "Route 66" celebration every year. There was a parade and a little fair, and sometimes there were carnival rides. I always wanted to go on the rides and my mom always said: "No way." Of course I thought this was the grossest injustice. My mom was such a Nervous Nelly! The rides looked perfectly safe, and I was sure plenty of people rode on them and were fine. Plus they were assembled by trained experts who were at least 17 or 18 years old! That guy is probably like 35 or something! But how times change. Now when I look at those "trained expert adults" all I see are a bunch of pimply ne'er do wells. And the sparkly fun-filled rides are now rusty death-traps, missing at least 13 screws, manned by the aforementioned scalawags who are more interested in snogging each other's zits than following safety precautions. (P.s. Ferris-wheels, even in good working condition, a...

Secret Recipe Ice cream sundaes are great but there is a problem. This is the proportions of the sundae: These are the proportions that you really want though: But you can't have that much chocolately goodness without looking like a greedy glutton. Never fear though, Bryce's mom discovered the solution to the problem. You see: If you swap hot fudge with chocolate pudding suddenly it is socially acceptable to have the correct ratio of warm chocolate and chilly cream. I know, she's a genius. Internet, you're welcome.

We Are The Same I was talking to my sister, Sara, yesterday about how much we love our husbands. Everything is better when Bryce is with me, and when Bryan is with Sara. We were talking about how there are a lot of little things that we never would have considered to be important to a marriage that add up to a big difference. Like enjoying the same kind of entertainment. We never have to argue about watching sports because we like to watch the same ones. I wouldn't have thought that would be so nice, but it really is. Liking the same foods has also been something I never would have thought was important, but it really makes things nice. Think how I would suffer if Handsome Bryce's favorite food was meatloaf??? There is one problem though. We also dislike the same things. Like the red Starbursts. Bleh. They are so nasty. We both try to avoid them, but we have to have a rule that if you pull a red one out of the bag you must eat it instead of throwing it back. Otherwise there is...

Under Cover Nursing is a bit tricky. At church there is a "mother's lounge" where you can take your baby to feed him in privacy, along with all the other mothers privately feeding their babies. All the moms have different nursing covers and they sit modestly feeding their babies. McBaby is a great nurser, but he has a pet peeve. He hates having something on him when he is trying to eat. At first he would suffer it for a little while, but now he cannot get over it. He really really hates it. I know, you are tempted to comment about this fabulous cover that you heard is great, but save your keystrokes. McBaby has tried them and hates them all. So I just nurse him National Geographic style. I'm not actually embarrassed by this, but sometimes I wonder if the other moms are scandalized. It can't be helped though, he thrashes around so much under the cover that everyone would get a free show anyway. So if it bothers you, I apologize. Take it up with the baby.

Ugly Words There are some words that are just ugly. Some linguists will tell you that words become ugly because of bad associations. This is probably the case with "lard." Probably most of you associate "lard" with something like "lard-butt" or "Tina, you fat-lard!" So when we hear the word "lard" we think of unpleasant things, so we think the word is unpleasant. (This is how linguists explain things like the many different names used to refer to black people because underlying racism caused names to become "bad words" because of bad associations in racist minds.) There is another reason that words are ugly though. It is called the letter G. Now, understand, there are plenty of words that sound just fine and have G's in them, but there are other times when G gets involved and just makes everything sound ugly. For example: Gulp. What a hideous word. The queen of England cannot gulp. Gulp can only refer to an exaggerated ug...

In Jimmer's Clothing Today's regularly scheduled post about ugly words has been pushed to next week, in order to make room for my rant about BYU basketball. It is titled: If you are a fan of college sports you probably remember last year's Jimmermania. Jimmer was a special player and pretty much the greatest offensive threat on the BYU basketball team. He won a huge pile of awards for his performance, and then he went to the NBA and joined the Sacramento Kings, leaving the Jimmer obsessed fans at BYU behind. Now friends, I understand how you feel. The departure of Jimmer left us all yearning. When the last five minutes of the second half roll around and we are down by ten, I too feel the pangs of sadness. I too whisper, "If only Jimmer were here." But that doesn't mean I am going to jump on-board with the first pasty white guy with short brown hair. Let's get one thing straight. I am not saying Matt Carlino is the Antijimmer. I am saying Carlino is an unpr...