A Tuesday Post

I know that you are all wondering if Levi ever brought me back my metronome, and the answer is no, but (I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner.) I downloaded a metronome app. The app is working like a charm, and now I can play the sacrament hymns at the correct tempo. The correct tempo for some songs is slow and the correct tempo for some songs is fast. I try not to have organist's disease, either playing all songs much too slow, or the opposite, playing all songs much too fast. We have all seen these people and I don't want to join their club.

Anyway I also wanted to post about last Thursday. Last Thursday I had LASIK surgery done. (Funded in whole by my generous parents, Thanks mom and dad!).

I want to make an aside about how bad my vision was. When I went in for my pre-LASIK appointment, they tested my vision without glasses, and the tech asked me what letters I could see on the board. "I can't see any letters," I told her, she said "oh right". Then she put bigger letters on the board, and she said "K now what letters can you see?" I had to reiterate, "I cannot see any letters on the board. I can't even see a black spot on the board that could be a letter." So she stood on the opposite side of the room and waved her hands around and asked if I could tell that her hands were moving, which I could (kind of).

Basically LASIK was the weirdest thing I have ever done. I was super nervous about it, much more nervous then I was going to the hospital to have any of my three children. When we got there I watched them do some other people's eyes, which did not make me any less nervous. The procedure is as follows: 1) A laser cuts a flap on your eyeball 2) The doctor uses a dental hook and lifts up the flap on your eyeball 3) A second laser reshapes your eye with purple clicking lights 4) The doctor glues the flap back in place.

I am not sure why I was so nervous, but they gave me a valium to calm me down. But, of course, the valium didn't kick in until I was in the car on the way home. And then I felt like I was sitting in a cloud of sleepiness (that sounds dumb, but it is what I felt like). Remind me to never take valium again. So I went home and slept for 4 hours or so, and when I woke up, I could see!

The next day I could see even better, I went in for the post-op appointment and they told me I have 20/20 vision in my right eye and 20/25 in my left eye. I can't believe it, I still feel like I am blind and wearing contacts, but I'm not. It is just crazy!

Family History

I have been scanning Family History stuff into the computer for the past week or so. I came across this picture of my grandma Christiansen. So I took a picture of June to try and compare. My analysis concluded that they both are cute, they both look like babies, and June is chubbier. It was pretty scientific.

The Other World

We have a nether-dimension at our house, unfortunately the only person with access to this portal is Levi.

Once upon a time we bought Gem a mylar princess balloon. Then that afternoon it was gone, there really aren't to many places to hide an entire floating balloon. We scoured the house (mainly looking at the roof in each room, it was full of helium), it was gone, somehow it had escaped. But two days later, to our surprise, Levi was playing with it in the living room. The balloon was the lucky first item that Levi scooted through the inter-dimensional portal.

The second item was one of Levi's binkies (a sad side note, tonight is the last night with said binky). We searched every room of the house, to no avail. The funny thing is that there isn't anywhere to hide things in the house. Everything is pretty well organized especially everything within Levi's reach and down. So the binky too had disappeared, until two days later when Levi miraculously had it again. The only explanation is that Levi is visiting an alternate universe.

A couple weeks ago, Levi took his only good baby spoon to the portal. After that many days we figured he had thrown it away without our noticing. He is known to sometimes throw things away when he is done with them. So we had given up the spoon as lost forever and I had even put "new spoon" on the grocery list. Until yesterday, when he retrieved the spoon from where-ever and brought it to me in the kitchen. I think he is toying with me.

Unfortunately one item is still missing in Levi's inter-dimensional cubby. He carted off my metronome, leaving me with no way of knowing the correct tempo of the hymns. As with each of this previous items, I have searched every room in the house, and as I have stated before there really isn't anywhere to hide things. So I hope that this story will have a happy ending like the others before it, and sometime, when it catches his fancy, Levi will bring my metronome back.

Just Babies (or the story of my life)

I think my blog title would make a good song title. Since I don't write music I will have to wait for someone else to write it for me.

Pudding Face

Sometimes I am not very smart. Somehow I convinced myself that Levi wouldn't make a huge mess eating pudding. This part was cute when it was on his face, but five minutes later when his shirt was totally brown and the table and chair were totally covered it was not as cute anymore.

Something Different

My brother-in-law, Tucker, has said he is in a band. Some nights he claimed he went to "band practice", but he finally proved it to us. Tyler and I went and watched their band (The Avenues) play last Friday night.

This was a little bit of a weird thing for us. First off the show didn't even start until 8:30 which is when we start getting ready for bed, but I guess sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone, and I am glad that we did.

It was fun to go out and see some people play music that they thought of themselves and actually had some feeling to it. I also enjoyed the band that played before The Avenues, they called themselves Hobnob. They were younger but still pretty good, better than me anyways.

However I did learn that there are a couple things that I need to enjoy my music. I want completely undistorted music, I feel like distortion is used as a tool to mask how you measure up as a musician. If you can't hit all the notes turn up the distortion and nobody will be able to tell.

The second thing I realized is that if music has lyrics, I want to be able to hear them. I love instrumentals, but if a song has lyrics I feel like I am being cheated when I can't understand them. I realize that isn't always the musicians fault, it depends a lot on the equipment being used and the venue where they are playing.

Anyway the point is I wasn't completely converted to unproduced music, but I am glad I went and I am impressed with the drumming talent we now have in this family. I am thinking when Levi gets older he will have to take lessons. (Secretly it is because I would love to learn how to play, actually I want to learn how to play everything, if only I had unlimited time and money. I guess I will stick with my violin.)

Chocolates

I thought this day would never come, I ate the very last mint I made.

December 17th all the family came over and we made Christmas chocolates to give away to everyone we know. I spent the entire time dipping home made candy mints. Everyone else dipped all the other chocolates in the same amount of time and I spent the whole night dipping only one thing. But they were so delicious, and now the holidays have officially come to an end for they are actually all gone :(

Below is Kim happily making peppermint bark.

Can you believe that we made all of these chocolates and that they all got eaten?

A Brief but yet Random Recap of 2011

As a new year is upon us I have decided to postpone vacuuming the basement for about fifteen minutes and reflect upon this interesting time that is come.

I only read approximately 21 books this year which is less than one every two weeks. I'm a little disappointed with my numbers and this year I vow to do a little better, though it is a little difficult to have good reading time when everyone I know wants to play "Words with Friends" with me (but keep playing with me, I like to spell words). One book highlight from the year, both Tyler and I read A Tale of Two Cities this year and we both agree that if you haven't read that book you need to. You must press through the first half of that book to make it to the ending which is amazing.

On another book note, for this year Tyler and I are both going to finish the Book of Mormon by the end of August, in ample time for the Brigham City Temple open house. I am already behind, but have no fears I will finish in time.

So how did 2011 fare? Well Tyler and I keep track of three important things on three pieces of paper in our closet, and I will disclose them to you, so that I feel like that we have some kind of accountability.

Number one: We were 100% successful in going to the temple twenty times this year. But just barely, Tyler wanted to up our goal to 21 times this year but I think 20 is difficult enough.

Number two: Home Teaching and Visiting Teaching, I would say we were 75% successful, but since in previous years of my life I have been basically 0% successful, I am calling my 75% pretty darn good. My goal for this year is to keep the status quo, I know that is a lame goal but I have other things I need to do too.

Number three: Exercise. . . lets just say our exercise needs a little work. Our goal for this year is that Tyler will walk on his treadmill desk (We put that together with some Christmas bonus money) as much as possible, we are going to exercise together three times a week, I am going to try to run whenever Tyler is gone in the evenings, and Tyler is going to go on a no sweets or carbs diet on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are small steps, wish us luck.

Various other thoughts about the new year include but are not limited to
1)I think I am going to try to clean the bathroom floors at least once this year (probably today).
2)I am going to work on the violin.
3)We are going to increase our savings.
4)I am not going to slice my finger open again.

I enjoy the new year, I love tossing away the nasty-ness of the previous year and starting over.