dollar store return

I bought 22 plastic table cloths at the Dollar Tree last month for our ward's Pioneer Day celebration.  Turns out, it was way to windy to put them on so we just scratched it, and I didn't submit a reimbursement request for them.  I went today to return them and it turns out that at Dollar Tree, you can't return things straight up.  Neither can you return things for a gift card or any sort of money to spend at a later date.  You have to make a complete exchange for new items right then.  So . . I grabbed a shopping cart and off I went!  Eager to get on with my day and needing to pick out 22 items at the Dollar Tree.  What did I come away with?  Well let me tell you!

3 new loufas

2 bottles of shampoo/conditioner for Ben

2 bottles of body wash for Ben

3 manicure kits (why? I dunno)

2 bottles of nail polish remover

1 set of 10 medium sized binder clips

1 pair of yellow gloves for cleaning

1 set of 10 latex gloves (You never know when you might need to be sanitary)

1 box of toothpicks

1 set of 2 tupperware bowls

1 package of 48 plastic spoons

3 cooling racks for my freshly baked cookies

And then, when I went to pay make my exchange, I was one item short and they were going to have to owe me a dollar (Heaven forbid!), so I also grabbed 1 bottle of Palmolive dish soap.

Are you joking me?  What I should have gotten was a storage bin for all of this crap!

the anti-climactic 24

Soo . . if you know me even just a little bit, you know that my birthday is my favorite day of the year!  All July-long at work, when I would call BINGO numbers, I would say "I-24 . . I am going to be 24 in such-and-such days.  I-24 . . I am going to be 24!"  It's a good thing those folks have dementia or else they'd be sick of me.  I really do love my birthday.  It's the gosh darn best day all year.

So . . it kind of stunk this year when I was sick!  I think I had a virus of some sort because of how my blood work panned out, and I'm feeling much better now, but on my actual birthday - boo!  So we just tried to make the best out of it!

I went to the doctor (that was funny when they confirmed my birth date at check-in) and got my blood drawn first in the day - that was not so fun!  But then, Ben and I enjoyed a delightful, yet easy on my stomach, lunch downtown at Tender Greens.  I also treated myself to a mani/pedi and watched a couple episodes of my current favorite show, Prison Break.  Have you watched it?  Watch it.  And then, after making dinner myself, we devoured a delicious cake from The Olde San Francisco Creamery!

I was sad that I didn't get to get the flowers delivered to me at work from Ben and that we didn't get to go bowling as we had planned, but I got to spend the day with my best friend, who worked from home for the day!  And really, what is better than that?  Aww.  Anywho, thanks for reading my journal-y blog post.  And happy 24th to me!

Sprint Triathlon & Pioneer Day

Saturday was a busy day - holy cow!  It started at 4:45 AM when Ben and I woke up to go to his first Sprint Triathlon.  He did fantastic!  I was so sad I couldn't stay to watch because I had to be at work on time, but it was fun to get up with him and be there before the race.  He is such a stud.

All these guys are in our ward.

Then, I drove back to Walnut Creek and was at work by 9:00, and then, it was time for our ward's Pioneer Day Celebration.  About a month ago Ben and I were called to be in charge of Pioneer Day and our committee was to be all the young couples with no kids in our ward.  Let me tell you, I learned a lot . . about how my ideas don't have to be the best . . about how to be humble . . about how to work with a committee . . about how to plan a party for 200 people!  It turned out great and we got a lot of good feedback.  Happy to have to over with, though!  Now it's just smooth sailing and my birthday next week.  :)

three year anniversary

We *splurged* for our three year anniversary yesterday and went out to dinner at Massimo Ristorante where we had the family dinner the night before our wedding!  Who knew at the time that we'd end up living in Walnut Creek.

We had a delightful four course (so fancy!) meal.  Massimo's Caeser salad to begin - you might remember that from our wedding dinner!  Then Cannolini - a housemade pasta stuffed with veal, chicken, spinach, ricotta, marinara, and alfredo - YUM!  Next a tasty filet mignon with scalloped potatoes.  And to finish . . to finish, we had the most heavenly dessert - a milk chocolate creme brulee with caramelized bananas on top.  Seriously.  So.  Good.  I could eat that for the rest of my life.  

I love Ben so much and am looking forward to a fabulous forth year of marriage!  :)

washington

I love family vacation!  Who doesn't, right?  My parents took us to Washington last week.  They spent a few days in Seattle before Ben & I got there, and then Ben & I had one day in Seattle.

Dad went to the University of Washington for dental school so we used to live in Seattle when I was a wee one.  On our day in Seattle we went to church at our old ward building and then walked around the University of Washington campus . . which was incredibly gorgeous.  Maybe Ben & I should go back to school and go there . . 

We also visited our old apartment.  In my memory, there was a park right by the apartment with this awesome maze I used to run around and ride my tricycle in.  Well, the park was there all right, but the maze was a little less than awesome.  Funny memories.

Then we went to the Chihuly Glass & Gardens museum in downtown Seattle.  That was amazing.

On Monday we took the ferry from Anacortes to San Juan Island where we spent the week.

One day we did a three-hour kayak tour.  Two hours is about my max, but it was fun.

With just a little bit left, Emily fell fast asleep.  She is so funny and so cute.

This is my new favorite family picture.

British Camp.

Vacation is great for napping.

We rented a home for the week and this was our backyard.  Spectacular!

Friday Harbor.

Cattle Point Beach.

We had a lovely week with lovely people!

laughter as spiritual medicine

Our Relief Society is having a neat activity this evening.  It's entitled "Laughter as Spiritual Medicine" and it is a dinner combined with another ward, and while we eat, we get to enjoy listening to a couple of speakers about finding joy in the gospel.  There will be two "spiritual" speakers and two "funny" speakers.  Being in the Relief Society presidency, I have the inside information that multiple names were tossed around and people asked to be our "funny" speaker . . unfortunately no one said yes.  So with less than a week left, they turned to me.  How is this for a tall order:  "Please speak to us for about five minutes about how you find joy in the gospel and bring the Spirit into you life.  We would like you to be entertaining and humorous."  Sheesh!  Both of those things - I am not!  Here are *roughly* my thoughts for this evening.

Laughter as Spiritual Medicine

There are a couple of thoughts I want share with you tonight.  One is "If you can laugh at it, you can live with it" and another is "Laughter dispels anger, frustration, embarrassment, etc. which drive the Spirit of the Lord away from us."  I'm going to share a couple of anecdotes from my young married life where my husband, Ben, and I learned to "laugh things off."  A short description of Ben is he is tall, he is charming, and he is wonderful . . wonderful because he loves me in spite of all that "me" entails, as you will learn right now . . 

So, anecdote number 1.

Ben and I got married several Junes ago and then went on a week-long honeymoon.  Then we came back to my parent's home to stay for a couple of days before we moved for Ben's summer internship.  I insisted that we stay in my bedroom because it has its own bathroom and I didn't want to share a bathroom with my brothers after we'd only been married one week.  That just seemed awkward.  So while my bedroom has its own bathroom, it gets really hot in the summer and it has only a twin size bed, and as I mentioned before, Ben is tall.  We were cramped.  We slept really close together.  And, we were very newly married.  I woke up in the middle of the night and Ben had turned away from me and was giving me what we call "the butt."   I didn't like this, and in my half-asleep state, I decided that the best way to get him to pay attention to me was to elbow him in the back.  Hard.  Poor Ben, he is just trying to sleep peacefully in the cramped, stifling room, and his new bride sticks her elbow in his spine!  Ben says "WHAT IS THE DEAL?!" and I just put my head in my hands, start crying, and say "You weren't paying attention to me . . "  Long story short, we went back to sleep and when we woke up in the morning, I was mortified but Ben just started laughing and teased me about it all day long.

Anecdote number 2.

Ben and I spent another summer doing an internship and when we moved back to school in Provo, we got to move in to the exact same apartment we had left.  It was so easy and great because we knew where everything was supposed to go and the day was going really smoothly.  Because we were moving things in and walking back and forth from the car, the door was open and a bee flew in.  Terrified of anything with six or eight legs as I am, I screamed and said "A BEEE!!"  Ben said to kill it.  "With what?!"  I said.  And he said to grab the broom he was just brought in . . meaning, obviously, to sweep the bee out the door.  But instead, I grabbed the handle, aimed for the bee, and swung it like a baseball bat.  First, I just heard a loud bang, then I moved the broom and saw that I'd missed the bee by about 2 inches, and then, the window slowly shattered.  It was a huge window, by the way.  Luckily at this point we had learned a little bit about laughing things off, and the first thing I did was slap my hand to my forehead and say "I am such an idiot!"  Then, I brought Ben into the room and we just about died laughing.

Anecdote number 3.

A couple of months ago, Ben and I planned to go to the temple and we had a gift certificate for a nearby restaurant so we were going to go there first.  I picked Ben up from BART, and the first thing he said was "Did you bring my white shirt and tie for me to change in to?"  I said "no."  I'd forgotten it!  Then he said, "Okay, well let's go eat anyways . . I can just zip up my jacket and it looks like my dress shirt is white.  You did bring the gift certificate, right?"  I gasped and said "No!"  I'd forgotten that too.  We decided that we'd go eat anyways before we went to the temple.  When we finally got to the temple, I realized that I'd forgotten my temple bag as well!  I felt like such an idiot and after forgetting all three of those things I just felt stupid and it started to spiral down and down and down.  But, Ben didn't let that happen.  He helped me let it go and he helped us both just laugh it off.

So, in all three of these little stories it would have been so, so easy for Ben to become frustrated and angry, and it was really easy for me to feel embarrassed.  Instead, we, and mostly Ben, used LAUGHTER to lighten the situation.  We just laughed off potentially negative situations.

Elder Robert D. Hales said "The key to strengthening our families is having the Spirit of the Lord come into our homes."  When we have contention or anger or arguing, the Spirit leaves us.  In 3 Nephi 11:29, we read "He that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another."

One really great and easy way to help us feel happier and to keep the Spirit with us is to turn to laughter rather than anger or frustration.  It is so important to just "laugh it off" and to not forget that "if you can laugh at it, you can live with it."