Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News

I don't think that doctors realize how we hang on every word they say. And tell other people about it. Words that seem like just casual chit chat to them are the things I replay in my mind over and over, wondering about the underlying meaning.


This first time I had a doctor say an odd thing to me was at a gyno exam shortly after I got married. Any conversation is a little weird when you're naked in a gown and legs in the stirrups. So there I was, and there he was, checking things out with the duckbill, assuring me that the discomfort would only last a minute more. Then he says:


"You have a beautiful cervix."


What do you say to that?


"Oh, sank you, Docktor" (Teri Garr says it, name the movie)


I think I just mumbled a quiet "thanks".


The cervix, in healthy form looks exactly like a pink glazed doughnut. For nearly 19 years, I've harbored a bit of pride over my beautiful cervix. I'm sure you are all envious. I just hope there won't be any of that unfortunate pride goeth before the fall business.

At the other end of physical beauty, however, are my feet. They are short and wide with rough heels, and the toes are, well, odd. They (the toes) are short and wrinkled on the top, and if you look at the bottom, you'll find that there is virtually no length to them. The round toe pad is sitting right next to the ball of my foot. The nails are tiny and curl upwards - nothing much to paint and make semi-pretty. And to make matters worse, the past few years I've needed cortisone shots between my toes to alleviate the pain from a swollen nerve. I wear orthotics. My cervix looks nice though.

So I go to a podiatrist (whom I love, because his shots make the pain go away, and he made me some orthotics that really do seem to be helping), and when he first laid eyes on my feet, he sucked in his breath with a grimace. He didn't even try to hide the look of dismay and horror on his face.


"Wow. Um...Where did you get...these...toes?"


Oh come on! In all his years of looking at feet, he's never seen anything worse than mine? They're not that bad. Or are they?




You can see the discoloration running down the center of my foot from the injections, and the middle toe that is leaning over to the left - he called that a deformity from the swollen nerve.


His words and his physical recoil haunt me.

Another time I was visiting a doctor to run a strep test. That's all - swab my throat, write the prescription and I'd be outta his hair. Instead, he says to me,

"Would you like to do anything about your weight at this time?"

Like all I had to do was ask. Jerk. Gimme my 'cillin.

And my last tale is from my mother. She was in the dentist's chair, getting her teeth cleaned, and the dentist kept (on purpose, I think) aiming the jet of water directly on a tooth. The stream of water then bounced off her tooth and sprayed across her face in a fine mist. He says,

"I love how the water looks, all beaded up on your face like that."

How creepy is that? Very.

Have you ever had a doctor or anyone in that type of position say something weird, inappropriate, or just plain "huh?".

Layin' Down the Rules

A day or so ago, I wrote a comment on my friend's blog about the rules that her family had when she was growing up regarding what was appropriate on Sundays. Got me thinkin'.

My parents had some basic rules about Sunday - no playing with friends, no TV until after 6pm, I don't know, nothing too strict, I guess. But I was always intrigued by this family's rule that the girls had to stay in dresses all day long on Sunday. There was to be no changing into comfy clothes. I'm the kind of girl who was taking off her L'eggs Sheer Energy Control Top Pantyhose in Tan or Opaque White (!!) by the time the family station wagon was rolling into the driveway after church. I could make a pair of those babies last for a year, all the runs stopped by generous dabs of clear nail polish - raise your hand if you did the same. Anyway, I enjoy comfortable lounge wear on a Sunday afternoon, so this "no pants" rule seemed to perplex me. I understand the whole being more inclined to keep the Sabbath Day holy if you are dressed in a Sabbath manner. But I know the girls in this family were reading all the V. C. Andrews books on Sunday afternoons and being in a dress didn't stop them. Hehehe, that's why I loved this family.

I could go visit them on Sundays - I guess they were allowed to have friends over - I don't recall if I had to wear a dress when I came over. I probably did, being the pleasing sort of child that I was. My friend also informed me that they weren't allowed to bother their parents on Sunday afternoons, when they'd go in their bedroom and shut the door. Now there's a rule! There are a million things in my life that I have no memory of, yet that tidbit has stayed with me - go figure.

But I digress - this post is about family rules in general. Growing up, I remember two rules that my parents spent a lot of time defining. The first was about dating. We were allowed to start dating at 16, but only double dates. We could single date when we turned 18. No exceptions. I spent a major portion of my teen years fighting this rule. I mean really, the family that had to stay in dresses on Sunday was allowed to single date at 16! I complained long and loud (tears even) over this injustice, but my parent's never budged. Way to go, Mom and Dad. And as my teen years progressed, I realized that I'd been fighting over a non-issue: I was never even asked out on a date until after I had turned 18. So there.

Will I have this rule in my own family, for my boys and their future dating plans? Probably something very similar. I'm formulating a rule about taking Mom to at least one school dance, and not dating the same person two times in a row.

The other big rule that my family had was about television watching. Or rather, not watching. This was something we fought about constantly. This rule was not so hard and defined - I remember it changed a lot - different regulations that would limit the amount of time that I spent in front of the Boob Tube - that's what my Dad called it, and I would just DIE inside that my Dad said the word boob.

Sometimes the rule was about when I could watch - only after homework was done, or after 6pm on Sundays, only until noon on Saturday, etc. Other times, the rule was about how much. My Dad had a small workshop and he made a wooden box with a padlock on it. Inside the box was a timer, the kind you'd set to turn your lights on and off when you'd go on vacation. Every Sunday night, the family would go over the TVWeek that came in the paper and we each got to choose a show or two - sometimes limited to 1/2 hour a day, Monday - Friday and 2 hours on the weekends. My Dad would set the timer and then lock it up in the box. The TV would come on at it's appointed time and we'd be able to watch our allotted program. I called this entire setup "The Cruel Rule", hoping that my rhyming cleverness might make them rethink this madness. I was a television junkie, crying and ranting, waiting for my next fix. Taking any babysitting job I could get, just to be able to watch The Facts of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, Love Boat, Fantasy Island or Dallas. I couldn't date, I might as well be watching some TV, right?

I distinctly remember a time when my parents left for a few hours and I got a screwdriver and took the wooden box apart, punching buttons and spinning the dial, trying to get the TV to come on. This was long before cable and even if I did get it to work, I'm sure there wasn't much to watch, but I DID NOT CARE. Didn't care if I got caught, got grounded, I just had to get me some. Aaaah, sweet, sweet television.

The timer on the television didn't last very long (gee, I wonder why), but there was always a rule of some sort in place about television. Until I turned 16. I think my parents looked at me, chubby little television watcher that I was, knew I wouldn't get any dates, and they gave me a TV for my birthday. Black and white, 10 inch, with rabbit ear antennae that could barely pick up a station in my basement bedroom. But it was mine. No rules attached. A victory for television addicts everywhere.

So have these kinds of television rules surfaced in my own home? Not even. Other than content, which the boys (also known as the Profanity Police) monitor for themselves, they can watch when they want. And sometimes they do, but most of the time, they don't. Hehehe - they have computers now. I fantasize about a little wooden lock box sometimes.

So, rules. We all had 'em growing up. What were they about - chores, television, friends, dating? Did you fight them? Do you have the same rules for your kids? What will you change?

Eeeek!

When I was a teenager, I had a basement bedroom. It wasn't too bad, no ceiling, and I remember it had nice thick carpet - I had chosen a very light off-white that looked good for about 1 hour, until I spilled my Cover Girl Clean Makeup, True Ivory Foundation on it.

Because it was a basement bedroom, there were a lot of spiders. Really a lot. Some people can take a tissue and squish it, but not me. I was always afraid that I wouldn't squish fast enough and the thing would crawl out on my hand. So I chose a method of death for the spider that was long and ultimately inconvenient for me and anyone who happened to come into my room.

I started out placing the lid to my hot curlers over the spider. Remember hot curlers? I was a whiz at making big bouncy curls that lasted until I ran a vent brush through them. At least until I started getting perms. It was the 80's and believe me, I was rockin' the frizzy curls. Anyway, the hot curler lid made a pretty good little house for the spider - kept it away from me until it finally starved to death, usually a week long process. Then I started using plastic cups or glasses to trap the little buggers and soon my room became a minefield of overturned glasses. I had to walk around the things! Crazy, but there was no way I was going near that spider until it could be vacuumed up without me having to chase it.

I hate spiders. Creepy, evil-looking, devil bugs.


I found this bad boy walkin' on my kitchen floor the other night.





I trapped him under a glass, old habits, you know. I was afraid to hit him with my flip flop - he was just too big. His body was maybe 1/3 of an inch thick and you can see how long he was. The bottom of the drinking glass is 2 1/4 inches!

I slid a piece of paper under the glass and turned it over so I could take a picture. I was all goosebumpy and almost in tears. Cameron, my prince, took it into the bathroom and dumped him into the toilet. Before we could even flush, he started to crawl up the side of the toilet. We all started screaming and jumping up and down. Cameron pushed the lever and he swirled away to his death.

I'm still jittery and itchy and I have to check to toilet before I sit down to make sure he hasn't crawled back up to seek revenge on me. I am freaked!

What is the worst thing you have found in your home, apartment, dorm or missionary dwelling? Make me feel better!

Free food

I enjoy Sam's Club. Years ago, I got a business membership to buy all the food for my daycare. It allowed me to go during early morning hours and buy milk and string cheese, vats of maple syrup and barrels of pancake mix. It's been three years since I've done daycare, but I still love buying in bulk and stocking up on all the necessities of life. Also the not-so-necessary, but very yummy little things that only Sam's seems to carry - at such a great price.

My boys wanted me to buy the Caterer's Secret Lemon and Strawberry Tarts. They tried some at a friend's house last night and LOVED them, so of course they talked me into getting them to take to my Mom's for dinner tomorrow evening. The only problem is now I would have to go to Sam's Club on a Saturday. Which I despise.

But since I'm a crowd-pleasin' Mama and the fact that I also find the tarts to be delightful, I set out towards Sam's around 1:30. It was a nightmare. I always vow to never again go there on a Friday or Saturday, but ugh, there I was.

I think Disneyland is less chaotic. There was a line of people just waiting to get a cart. Of course, this was when the buffet, I mean samples, were set out. Now I enjoy the occasional sample at Sam's, but we've always laughed at the families that pack up all the kids and Grandma, just to eat a meal that's portioned out in bite-sized servings. These people know how to work it. They stake themselves out by the produce, each person watching a different sample station. When the microwave dings or the skillet finishes browning the chicken cutlet, they motion for the other family members to line up. The little old lady cooking the food hasn't even cut it up yet, but there they are, bunched up and watching, wondering just how big their sample might be. When they get their super hot food, they go back to their lookout spot, and blow and blow, waiting for the next course, er, sample to be ready. Three hours later, they've had a grand meal.

I grabbed my tarts in the frozen foods and headed towards the front of the store to check out. I passed the seafood island where people were grabbing up shrimp morsels as fast as the butcher could put them in a tiny cup with a squirt of cocktail sauce. People smiling, thinking "Score! A shrimp!" I came to a silver cart that had a few boxes of lemony mini muffins stacked on it. It was pushed close to the end of the aisle, no sign telling of the muffin's goodness, no gloved and hair-netted woman slicing and serving. This was maybe for the late afternoon snack. The muffins were clearly not being served at this time.

A man walked over to the cart, lips still smacking over the shrimp, opened the top box, and distributed muffins to his family of four. I guess if it's on a cart with wheels, it's free for the taking.

I hate Sam's Club on a Saturday.

Where do you avoid going on Saturdays?

Gee, Mom, I wanna go to camp

Ahhh, back from girls camp. This was my fourth year going up, and I finally got it right. I couldn't go the first day - Cameron was at Scout Camp and I needed to be here when he got back. I had to come home a day early - we were leaving on a family vacation. No set up, no clean up...now we're talkin'. We had a wonderful camp director (more on her later) and the YW Presidency was able to spend most of the time there, so I didn't feel too guilty. I'm the Laurel Advisor, so frankly, I'm just glad they'll let me come and hang with them, eat the food and make up cheers.

We're a small ward, and I think we are unique in that everyone really, truly gets along. I've been to camps before where the leader would slip off into her tent and sob quietly, unable to take all the contention any longer. I always put on a happy face before coming out though. But these girls amaze me. They have so much concern for each other, and I don't think anyone had an unhappy time. We laughed and told stories and just enjoyed being together. The girl's didn't want to go off to do Stake activities or be anywhere else - they wanted to be with us. We also had some previous YW presidents come up to visit, and a couple parents came up for testimony night. How cool is that?

It was a stake camp and the theme was Women of Worth. Each ward was assigned a woman or group of women from the scriptures, and then we just built our camp around that. We were the ten virgins - which thrilled me to no end, trying to make a cheer out of the Madonna song. Each night, a leader would do a devotional about the theme and on the night that I was there, it was Camp Director Canela's turn. She talked about how her first reaction when hearing that the five prepared women weren't willing to share was always "Well, why not? Sistah, share your oil!". I've always kind of thought that too. But of course, the oil is really our own testimony, our own faith, our own good works, and drop by drop, we have to fill our own lamps. We can't lean on the testimony of others, etc. For the handout, she gave us these:

It's an honest to goodness clay oil lamp from the Holy Lands! Made from the clay where Jesus walked! Like the ones the Ten Virgins had. At least that's what it said on the website where she ordered it from. Each lamp was wrapped in an Arabic newspaper. I thought this was the coolest handout ever. Canela even had lamp oil and a wick to show how it could burn brightly when there was plenty of oil. Cool theme, cool handout, awesome camp director.

Another reason Canela was so cool, and this is my favorite story from camp: She performed surgery on a Beehive. Picture this: A Beehive is complaining about her toe hurting; she stubbed it on a mossy rock in the stream and now the pain is just unbearable. And a bunch of the green moss is wedged under her toenail. Uh huh. In reality, she had an ingrown toenail that was so infected and full of green pus, I can't believe she came to camp.

A lesser woman (me) would have sent that Beehive home on the next transport, but not Canela. She pulled out the first aid kit, asked around for some toenail clippers and set up her own M*A*S*H* Unit. She had clippers, scissors, tweezers, alcohol, gauze, cotton, band aids, and one crying Beehive. All the surgical instruments were laid out on top of an ash-covered Dutch Oven (even one more reason to love Canela - the woman can cook!). Canela was so calm - she kept telling the teary-eyed Beehive just what she was going to be doing and why it needed to be done, how badly it was going to hurt and for how long. She just kept rubbing the girl's foot and trying to calm her before she cut into her toe like the field surgeon that she was. Another leader held the poor girl's hand and rubbed her back, and the rest of us pretty much watched in horrified fascination.

Canela made her cut down into the nail and into the pocket of infection. The green goo shot out of her toe. Using the hand-holding assistant as her scrub nurse, Canela asked for "alcohol", "clippers", "cutters", and "cotton and more alcohol", ending the surgery with some pretty vigorous squeezing to get all the infection out. Can't you just hear the Beehive crying? Post-op included a good soaking in some cold water, Neosporin, and a very impressive bandage. Maybe some Tylenol.

Seriously, I would have sent her home. Canela, you rock!

Oh, and then my final camp story is the miracle of me even making it home. I was going to leave with one of the visiting Moms, my friend Cori, after testimony meeting. It was late and we were saying our goodbyes, when all of a sudden, a Beehive smacked Cori right in the eye with the glow stick that she was waving around like Harry Potter's wand. It's just what Beehives do. Cori's contact flew out and landed in the wilderness. Now she's unsteady - the mismatched vision thing not working so well. So we decide that I should drive, even though I'm terrified of driving at night on canyon roads. And I'm kind of night blind. And there was construction going on, so the lanes were all screwy. And I didn't have my glasses with me. It was late, our judgement had lapsed.

We made it though. Cori held her hand over her bad eye, occasionally telling me to get back in the right lane. Scary! It was the blind leading the blind.

Good to be home.

How about you? What's your favorite camp memory, recent or long ago, wretched or heartwarming? Do tell.

Games we play

Okay, one more quick story and then I am off to Girl's Camp until Thursday night, and then we leave early Friday morning (yeah, right) for Bear Lake. Won't be back til next Thursday!

When my kids were little and maybe even a tiny bit now, I would let them win when we played games. Or pretend that they threw the ball so well, there was no way outta shape Mommy could have caught it. They were better at it than I was, that's for sure. I pretended not to know the answers to the same jokes I told in elementary school. And they were thrilled. They were outsmarting Mom, better at any games, an endless winning streak. Good times were had by all.

I'm currently on a beginning women's tennis league and we have this great coach named Ed. He loves tennis and loves to teach it, and wants our little group of women to excel and become champions in the Fall tournament. His number one rule is Believe In Yourself.

Last week he was hitting the ball back and forth with me and after a few times I suddenly hit the ball over towards him and HE MISSED! Yes!!!! I totally scored the point off of him. I'm not surprised, really. He's an older man and it was only a matter of time before I started wiping up the court with him. I did a little happy dance, but not for too long - I didn't want him to feel badly about his loss. He shook his head in disgust at his own failing abilities, but he's a good sport so he was willing to try again.

Round two, and I got the point again. There's no stopping me now - Ed's just going to have to move me up to the intermediate team. It has to be embarrassing for him to keep missing these shots - who knew I was such a prodigy? Now I'm pulling back my clenched fists and hissing "yes" , asking the other players if they saw me get a point off Ed. Oh, it's hard to be humble when you're this good.


Ed was still up for more punishment, so we started our rally again. Thwack, thwack thwack, thwack, and he misses again! I am so much better than he is! I am thrilled and having such a good time!


Oh. Thanks, Ed.

Just call me Monk

Over the years I've developed a wee bit of OCD. Nothing too unmanageable, mainly just a numbers thing. I like nice, even numbers, or anything in a multiple of five. It started at the gas station, and I'm guessing that this is a common one with a lot of people - it might not even qualify as an obsession thing, but you'll see how it all ties together, and you'll agree that I have a problem.

When I'm gassing up the car, the dollar amount has to be an even dollar amount. Just has to be. If I over-shoot and the total is 30.01, I feel uneasy to the point that I will pump more gas until the number "feels" right. $31 won't do - it's an odd number. I can live with $32 or $34, but wouldn't it be better to hit $35 - it's not even, but oh, it's such a nice multiple of five. It gets worse.

At the gym on my cardio machines, there are all kinds of numbers to watch. And believe me, I do. My favorite machine is the elliptical which shows me the resistance level and the incline level. They have to match. I can't have the incline on a 4 and the resistance on a 6. That's messed up. And you know I'll never do anything on an odd numbered level. This is pretty easy to manage - set it once and I'm good to go.

Another number that I watch and manage is the ending calorie count. I was doin' the elliptical with a friend one time and she noticed that I had suddenly sped up and was striding like crazy.

"What are you doing?"

"Um...my time is almost up and I need to get this number to end in a multiple of 100."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, see I'm really close and it doesn't feel right to stop at anything other than ...there, see...it says 300." I stop pedaling. "I can stop now"

Silence. And I realize that she doesn't do this. We laugh about it and this was when I realized that my little quirk might just have a name in the mental health chapters of a medical book.

The final number that I watch is the Total Strides. I watch this one to pass the time because it keeps my brain so busy. The number is changing rapidly, and what I am watching for, in particular, is symmetry within the number. A number like 1212, 3553 or 4444 pleases me. I can honestly feel a tiny surge of adreneline pop in my brain when I see numbers like that. I don't start watching the number until it hits at least 1000 - a three digit number gives me no pleasure. But after 1000, the fun really starts. There's 1001, 1010, 1111, 1122, 1133 - it's endless. What nice, little symmetrical numbers. Occasionally, if I have time, I can reach the best number ever - 5555. Isn't it lovely?

Last story - I took that Body & Soul class at the Lifetime Fitness Center with a friend. She had on a fancy wrist monitor to measure heart rate and calories burned. They were her calories burned, but since I was with her, the numbers called to me as well. The class was so fun and at the end, she showed me her monitor: 596 calories. That just wasn't gonna fly, and she was kind enough to walk around the empty room with me until I saw a nice little 600 in all its digital glory.

So there is - all my numerical freakiness. And right now, the gas pump and the gym are the only places that it gets to me. At least that I've noticed.

So come clean - what are your quirks or obsessions? Do you hide them or just put it all out there?

Tales from the gym

Last week I was doing the elliptical at the gym and watching people. I don't watch the televisions very much - my eyes are too bad and the stations aren't the greatest, but I do like to watch people. Troy asks me if I look at all the hot, young bods on the men there, and I assure him that this is not that kind of gym.


I look at the Skinny Skinnies and wonder why they spend time here; the man with the oxygen tank and I'm awed at his courage and strength - he's doing all he can to live; the mom coming in with her underage son who is a little chubby, helping him begin a battle that he'll probably fight his whole life; the buff guys (there are a few) who are there every single time I go in, no matter the time, and I wonder if they work or are they trying to escape something by being at the gym all day. I see the teenage girls coming in to run on a treadmill and I imagine that they are training for a school sport - otherwise they would surely be sleeping in; I see people like me, not young and not old, trying to be healthy/lose weight/raise the HDL/lower the BP, working hard, sweating; the groups of women who come in together and walk slowly on the treadmills, all in a line, and talk and talk and talk. They are the only ones that talk - everyone else has an ipod or a book.

People rarely make eye contact and if you do have to say something to someone, you have to touch them on the arm to get their attention - everyone moving to their own song, lost in their own thoughts. They press pause on the ipod and take out an earbud, almost surprised that another person was even in the room, let alone that they had something to say. We follow the rules, wait our turns, and always wipe off our machines. For the most part, people try to be private in a very public situation.

But I've digressed. My story is: Our cardio room is set up with the bikes and recumbent bikes in a line in front. A dozen treadmills are in row two and the 10 ellipticals are in the third row. There are a bunch of weight machines that I never use facing the mirrored wall behind all of these cardio machines. I am keenly aware of the fact that anyone on the weight machines can see me movin' and groovin' on my elliptical, just by looking in the mirror.

The place isn't crowded, maybe 3 or 4 of us on the ellipticals and two people using the treadmills. One woman is on treadmill #2 and the other is clear down on treadmill #12. All the treadmills in between stand silent, still, the walking platforms raised maybe 8 inches off the floor. The woman on #12 stopped her machine and started to head toward the beginning of the row - she had to get to the paper towels so she could wipe down her machine. Only she didn't get off her machine and onto the actual floor. She started hopping down the row of treadmills, stepping lightly on each one as if she were crossing a stream and these were convenient little stepping stones. Can you see where this is going?

Yup, she's headed right down the row, and we (the elliptical striders)can see that she's not even noticing that treadmill #2 is MOVING. Treadmill-hopping woman is still lost in her music and the whole thing was happening so fast, the striders couldn't do anything but watch in horror as she skipped down the row. I think all of our heads just moved slowly from left to right, knowing that she was going to hit that moving platform and shoot back into the ellipticals. Did we cry out? Try to stop her? Nope, we just watched.

Her foot hit the platform and her arms shot wildly out from her body, trying to catch her balance. I don't know if she made a sound or not, my ipod blasting in my ear, but her mouth was open and she had a look of terror on her face. The treadmill threw her sideways and she landed ON HER FEET! Her arms were waving and clawing at the air. She kind of bent at the waist and stumbled forward, but she remained, for the most part, upright. It. Was. Awesome.

She stood up straight, looked back at the row of treadmills and smoothed her hair back from her face, and continued walking until she was out the door. The other striders and I looked at each other, mouths open. One woman clutched her chest. And we kept on doing our cardio. We still didn't speak. I wonder what we would have done if she had crashed horribly, and I'm glad we didn't have to find out.

The woman didn't come back in to wipe her machine off.

Early Morning Prayers

So I'm up bright and early this morning - about 6 - I needed to get Cam ready for his Scout Day Camp and also be at the church at 7 to see the young women off to Girl's Camp. And of course, do the dishes and move the laundry from the floor in my room to the top of my bed. I did fold the towel layer in the pile before I headed to the kitchen to make Cam's lunch and clean up. Told you I can be a ball of energy first thing in the morning. It can be annoying.

I'm doing the dishes and I heard kind of a whimper behind me. It's Aaron, standing there, his lip quivering and I can tell he trying not to cry.

"Oh, hey baby. It's so early, you don't have to get up yet...what's wrong?"

"Mom, I just had a really, really bad dream. Will you come pray with me?"

Now Aaron is my 8 year old, my sweet son that we worry about, with his anger and defiance, the one we walk on eggshells around, trying to keep his moods on an even keel. We love him and we worry about him and we love him some more. And here he is, asking me to pray with him. Oh, my heart hurts with love for him.

I gather him in my arms and we go in the front room and kneel down together. I offer a quick prayer, asking for help and comfort, and then after, tell Aaron I'm proud of him for having faith and knowing that he can always ask Heavenly Father for help. He wants to go back to sleep now, all bad thoughts gone, and snuggles down in my bed. My son has a testimony.

It's a good morning.

Okay, I'll do one already

So here goes. My blog has officially started. And the crowd cheers. Or not. Basically, I've been toying with the idea of a blog for several months, spending way too much time browsing other blogs, when, as my title suggests, I could certainly be catching up on my dishes and laundry. So with a lot of encouragement from Troy and a few other friends and family (especially my blogging-savvy sister, Rachel), I'm gonna give it a try.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by the basic decisions of starting this - deciding on a name, template, whether or not to use my children's names. Others have come up with such witty or meaningful names, and honestly, I would have done this weeks ago, but I've been trying to come up with a decent name. And tonight it hit me when I ran up from the basement to change some laundry over to the dryer and had to decide whether I should start another load of laundry or do the dishes. I can't run them both at the same time - one of them would surely run out of hot water. Dishes or laundry...dishes or laundry...and there it was - the title of my blog. So instead of doing either, I plopped right down in front of my computer and now here I am.

So Dishes and Laundry it is - two aspects of my life that always seem out of control. I think I'm caught up, but one snack later or Troy coming home from a trip with a bag full of laundry, and there it is all over again. And my family isn't even very big! I should probably make it more of a priority, but there are so many other pressing things going on. (Use of the word "pressing" not to be construed as an ironing/laundry pun. I don't iron. Toss it in the dryer with a wet towel is what I've always done and I'm raising my boys that way.) We also seem to have a lot of clothes, at least the boys do, so I allow myself to fall behind and they still have clean clothes. I always have good intentions - I unload the dryer and put the clean clothes on my bed to fold and put away. This is where it all goes awry. Too many nights I stumble to my room, going to bed later than I should, only to discover that I never got the folding done. So I gather the clothes and put them in a pile on the floor. Next morning, they go back on the bed, and I'm sure to get to it, right? Nope, I'll confess that I have moved the same load from the bed to the floor, to the floor to the bed, and back to the floor, and then back to the bed before I get around to folding and putting away. And you know that I'm washing and drying and adding to the pile, so it just grows and grows. My mother would be so proud.

I do need order in the kitchen, before I can start my day, so polishing up in there is usually the first order of business. Unfortunately, I can end my day just fine without the kitchen being clean. I start winding down about 5pm - not much housework will get done after that, but I'm a ball of energy most mornings. That's just me. And that's how two basic household tasks can get the better of me, yet still end up as the title characters in my blog.

I wondered as well, if I would have enough things to write about. But I've found that since I knew I'd eventually start a blog, I've been piecing together paragraphs in my mind, stories and observations that I know you've all been waiting to hear. A lot of my mental composing happens in the shower - don't know why, it just does. I also practice giving my Young Women's lessons and have practice conversations with people while in the shower. The people aren't there, I just compose my words for the talking that we will be doing later in the day. So now you know - if I start up a conversation with you, chances are, I've already been practicing my side.

So I have a few things to write about, and I know that more will come along. As for the dishes and laundry? Tomorrow morning's looking pretty good.