No Fiction, Just Tomes

There's a woman I know who is moving to E\ngland for a year.  She is pretty much the nicest person in the world and so it comes as no surprise that everyone is very sad to see her go, and they organized a big farewell dinner in her honor.  I couldn't go because I had to work, but I'm sure a lot of people went because everyone loves this lady. 

Note: this is not a post to whine about how I have no friends... it's funny at the end.

Tyler and I got to go on a date last night.  We went to a fancy hipster restaurant for fancy ice cream and then went to see The Hunger Games.  (Side note: When am I going to stop being surprised that people bring their 5-to-6-year old kids to violent movies at NINE FIFTY PM?)  I brought up the fact that if we moved away, the list would be pretty short of people who would come to our going away party.  Which is fine, I think having that many friends takes a lot of time and energy, two things that are currently in short supply at our house, and I really like the friends we have.  We talked about what it would be like to be popular and puzzled about what popular people do with their friends.  (I really have no idea, what do you do with the kids?)

As we were driving from the ice cream place to the movie theaters, we passed an antique shop called "Ye Old Toms."  Tyler started laughing and said that he read "Ye Old Tomes"... like books.  We joked about what a bookshop that only sold tomes would look like and the poor hapless customer who wanders in looking for a novel.  "Sorry, no fiction buddy, only volumes."  We laughed and giggled for a good 5 minutes about that one.

Then we laughed some more about how nerdy we were and how this is probably the exact reason why we never were and never will be popular. 

Picture, not pitcher

I'm writing my Personal and Professional Philosophy, which goes under the heading of "Assignments That I Think Are Useless." Maybe they are useful for people who aren't Mormon or religious at all. But, I've been thinking about my Personal and Professional Philosophy in one form or another my entire life. Which makes this thing pretty easy to knock out... except when I outsmart myself.

Here's one of the prompts: "I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not congruent) because..."

Did you mentally translate that 'not' to 'as opposed to' and then spend 2 minutes trying to figure out the difference between 'congruent' and 'congruent'? After concluding that they were spelled the same, did you spend a few seconds trying to think of homonyms for congruent? Did you look it up in the dictionary to see if there were words around it that were spelled almost the same but with wildly different meanings to make sure that you wrote about the congruence the professor was looking for? Like maybe, she misspelled the homonym and accidentally just wrote the same word twice. Then, did you read the sentence 4 or 5 more times before you figured out that you needed to put the emphasis on the 'not' instead of the 'congruent' for it to make sense?

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not CONGRUENT)...

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (NOT congruent)...

No? You got it the first time? Yeah. Me too.

Rooourul

My nephew Jack riding in Challis, ID

Tyler and I have disagreed for a long time on how to pronounce the word rural. This question came to a head just now when I read a post from my sister about visiting her in-laws in Idaho. Challis, Idaho- a rural town.

I wish I could record us saying it so you could get a good picture of what exactly is going on, but I'll do my best to replicate it.

Tyler says either "roo-rul" or "rur-al," depending on how he's feeling at the time. (Another word pronunciation he changes depending on the context- route). As for me, I can't quite figure out what's going on in my mouth. Something like "ruh-(r)ul."

I looked it up in the dictionary, and they said that it should be "roouh-ruhl." I can't even make my mouth say that. I wish I was a better writer so that I could explain the look on Tyler's face as he watched me attempt to say it properly. Go ahead. Try it. You'll see what I mean.

How do you say it? Bridget, I'm looking in your direction.

Best Homemaker in the World?

This week, my Current Issues in Mormonism class and my Home/Community-Based Nursing class have combined in a bizarre way. For my Mormon class, I wrote a short essay on President Beck's Mothers Who Know and why I thought it was so controversial. Here's what I thought, the 30-second version: President Beck lays out a formula that is very black and white: (M=V)=(C=R) where M equals mothers, V equals virtue (as defined by President Beck as leadership, teaching, homemaking (which specifically includes housekeeping), etc.), C equals children, and R equals righteous. Thus, Women who are Virtuous will have Children who are Righteous. Because President Beck made no qualifying statements, women felt that it was implied that the reverse is also true: that if your children are not righteous, you were not a virtuous woman, which is false. Also, women hate the conflation of housework and righteousness, or the implication that if you are a poor housekeeper, you don't love your kids, or something.

But, what if that is sort of true? For my Home/Community-Based Nursing class, we have been studying about environmental health, and I learned that I should be vacuuming and dusting once a week. Once a week? Every week? When I read that, I couldn't remember the last time I had vacuumed. Pickles.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that regular vacuuming, along with other interventions like non-permeable covers for mattresses SIGNIFICANTLY reduced asthma and allergy problems.

Both the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America both recommend dusting and vacuuming once OR TWICE a week if you have allergy or asthma sufferers in your house. Which I do.

So I am making this a school project. For the love of your lungs, vacuum and dust once a week!

And, because this is academic, it has to be measurable. Please take a minute to take my survey so I can show that I really changed your perceptions about vacuuming. Or I didn't.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Healthy Competition

So, I don't know if it's good for our marriage or not, but Tyler and I love a good competition. Not competitions of skill or strength, because we all know I am a sore loser, but competitions at appointments. Previous places we have competed include the blood bank (until Tyler vowed he'd never go again, and before they sent me a letter asking me never to come back. Ever.), and the dentist. At the blood bank, they record your start and finish time, and we'd try to see who could fill their bag faster. Healthy? Probably not.

At the dentist, it's always a good time to see who has cavities or gets yelled at by the dentist for not flossing.

This week, we entered a new event: dermatology. Tyler has gone to the dermatologist a number of times to get various things looked at and/or removed, but I never felt the need to get my many freckles/moles looked at because they were all brown and boring and round.

I have one mole that's um, in a sort of sensitive area; an area that I couldn't see when I was pregnant. I've had it since I was very little, and in my memory it was brown. Now that I'm not pregnant, I can see that it has turned purple. Bizarre, right? So I made appointments for us to go to the dermatologist.

I totally feel like I won because she looked me up and down, said we'll "watch" the mole, pronounced the odd brown spots that showed up during my various pregnancies to be barnacles (which "normally show up in middle age" (lame)) and sent me on my way. Tyler had one mole removed and a number of warts burned off both his knees. I totally feel like I won.

Because, it's better when you win it.

Two malapropisms for you:

malapropism: an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

one

On Saturday, I went to a baptism. For those not familiar with Mormon baptisms (or Mormon meetings in general) we love programs, the physical piece of xeroxed paper. For most every meeting, there are programs printed up, even if they just say who is saying the opening and closing prayers. At the baptism (where I had my program in hand), we sang the opening song, someone offered an opening prayer, and then the man conducting got up an announced, "We have an altercation on our program..."

That would have been awesome.

two

For school, I have to participate in an online discussion board every week with a certain number of required posts. These posts have to be "substantive" in nature, which means, pretty much, we're all just trying to sound smart to make them longer. Earlier this week, I made the point that it is appalling to me that the medicaid system doesn't have a program in place to track expenses or recognize fraud. Ashton (gender unknown) replied, "Amanda, I must conquer; Medicaid is inefficient."

Again, I want to be there when that goes down.

Gaps in my education

I was thinking about a class I took in nursing school; I think it was called something like Prioritization and Decision Making. Although it sounds boring and irrelevant (at least it did to me when I registered for it) (I mean, I know how to prioritize, right?) it was actually really helpful. The academic part was kind of boring. We studied Maslow's Hierarchy (pictured above), and really, once you read it through, what else is there to talk about?

The helpful part was mostly the professor's little tips she gave us on how to manage our time, the main one being "Fast First." She would list out all these nursing tasks that had to be done NOW and you had to figure out the order in which you were going to do them. Like: you have a new admit who need their paperwork done, a patient with pain 7/10 who's requesting meds, the doctor needs you to assist in putting in a central line, and another patient who needs help getting to the bathroom. Assuming you had only a CNA to help you out, you would tell the CNA to get the guy to the bathroom on your way to get pain meds, help with the central line, and then do the admit paperwork.

At work in the hospital, I started applying Fast First, and I saw that I was actually able to get more done. I thought, "This is the kind of stuff I need to know!"

I was thinking about all this because I was thinking they need to teach a class like this for motherhood. I learned how to change diapers, how to sew, how to cook, how to clean a bathroom, how to play Chutes and Ladders but, I came at the tail end of my siblings, so I never really saw my mom raise young kids and thus I never learned those "other" skills that you need to be a mother of preschoolers. How to make it all work.

I'm not explaining this very well. Um, I asked around when I had Nora for advice on how to raise two kids and people would say things like, "you need to be really patient." True, but not helpful. The best advice I got was when my sister said, "when you're getting into the car, put the baby in her car seat first, and then do Lillian. Then, when you're getting out, get Lillian out first, and then the baby second." That is the kind of stuff I needed to know!

When I was chatting with my mom about my sick kids, she mentioned that she used to have a book called The Art of Homemaking, or someone she knew had it, and it offered helpful tips on how to keep your house clean while caring for sick kids (it is besides the point that she did not find these tips helpful). That is the kind of stuff I need to know! Who knew that such a book existed? I don't know why I didn't guess; there are books on everything else.

So, I requested a book called Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House from the library (because they don't carry The Art of Homemaking) and I'll let you know how it goes.

Tuesday Reminiscences: In which Tyler explores what we all know

My friend Emily came over and asked me how to use iMovie. By way of demonstration, I poked around on the computer and found two raw clips and made this little movie.

It's not that great, and I'll understand if you never read this blog again because the movie was so lame, but it has one part that I think is really funny.

We took this trip in March of 2008. We went to DC for a week and then drove up to Boston for a week. During these weeks we saw a lot of historical sites. I planned most of the trip, so I knew all about the historical significance of our stops.

After visiting a few sites, we settled into a regular routine: we would arrive and look around for 5 or 10 minutes, then Tyler would say something like, "so, what was the Boston Tea Party?" Or whatever it was. Let's just say history is not his strong suit.

We decided to visit Concord the last day of our trip. It was ridiculously cold; it was the same 32˚ that it was in Boston proper, but for whatever trick of humidity it felt at least 10 degrees colder. We stopped at the tourism office to get a map and the old ladies told Tyler that he just had to stop at the Old North Bridge. As we were driving there, Tyler asked why we would want to see a bridge and I told him it's because that's where The Shot Heard 'Round The World happened. Blank stare. Then he said what had become sort of a catch phrase for him on that trip, "Just pretend I don't know anything about history, or the Revolutionary War."

I explained it all to him in the car, which is why he makes the "everybody knows that" comment. I had explained a lot of things on this trip, but I think him not knowing what the Shot Heard 'Round The World was shocked me a little bit.

And for the record, Tyler is very smart when it comes to math, science, engineering, problem solving, and finding his way around unfamiliar places. If I'd gone to Boston by myself, I'd probably still be lost to this day.

Tuesday Reminiscences: In which I remember a science project

The other day, I sent Tyler to take care of the spider webs on the patio because we were having preschool at our house the next day. He yelled that I should come check out this spider. We couldn't see the underside, and the backside gave no hints. I was curious as to what kind, so I captured it in a jelly jar, and put in some Kleenexes soaked in fingernail polish remover to kill it.

While it was dying, I searched the internet to find out what kind it was. On it's back were some red dots arranged longitudinally, and I couldn't find a picture of one like that.

Finally, it died, and fell over. Then I saw this:


and I knew exactly what it was.

You may be wondering about my spider-capturing-and-killing skills. When I was a freshman in high school, I took Honors Biology, in which we had to assemble a bug collection with 50 different kind of bugs from some number of different orders, and we had to identify them down to the genus. I think it was to teach us about binomial nomenclature, or something, but I could have learned that from a book. What it did do was make me feel like there were bugs crawling on me at all times. I had nightmares that every bug I killed had mutated and come back to life and came after me, wielding the little black pin that I had stabbed it with to mount it to my posterboard. I would lay in bed and slap my legs because I was sure there were millipedes crawling on them.

For that project, I spent untold hours chasing moths, butterflies, and bees at my younger brother's baseball games, digging in the dirt in my backyard, and hoping I didn't catch malaria as I sat around a pond in Carbon Canyon hoping to catch a dragonfly.

And, I'll just say that this project would have been So Much Easier had we lived in Arizona. Black widow spider? Check. A bazillion crickets? Check. Very large beetle that seems like it belongs in Ancient Egypt and not by my front door? Check.

Peeing in the shower...?

I'm fully on the side of this is just fine. Urine is sterile (which is something I tell myself every time I get peed on), it kills the bacteria in the bottom of the shower, and I'm bizarrely obsessed with saving water. I don't specifically hold it so I can pee in the shower, but if I'm in there and I have to go...

Tyler is extremely against this on the grounds that it is gross.

Where do you stand?

Backyard Landscaping

Our backyard right now is just dirt. Boring. Of course, we've been planning to landscape it, but it was sort of far down on the priorities list. #1 was a car for Tyler. #2 was blinds. #3 was couches for the front room. #4 was a piano for me. #5 (now #1, I guess) is landscaping the backyard.

We knew we wanted some bricks and some grass... but now that it's next on our to do, I can't decide how I want it. So I thought I'd leave it to the internet. Now, I know you're not surprised that Tyler built a scale model in SolidWorks of our backyard, because you shouldn't be. (Even the BBQ and patio set are to scale.)


These first two shots are of option one- Extending our current small patio.


Pro: it would be a larger flat area. You could just walk right out of the house to put stuff on the table for dinner and not have to walk around the BBQ.

Con: the table would mess up the line of sight to the lake if we wanted to have a porch swing and swing on it at night, or whatever.

And, option #2:

Pro: clear shot right out of the house to whatever swing set or climbing apparatus we want to put out there. Also, clean line of sight from future porch swing.


Con: left turn out of the house, seems to eat up more grass area.

I think we've mostly decided to get fake grass. Tyler was very anti fake grass until he accepted the fact that to have a lush, green Northern-California-type lawn, you'll lose your shirt to the water company. And, the Arizona grass that goes brown dormant in the summer is unacceptable, apparently.

I also want him to put a planter out there, but we've talked about that before. I'm still not sure that I'll grow actual food in it... maybe just some nice flowers.

Pedicure Woes

It was my birthday last Wednesday, and Tyler got me something he often gets me: a gift certificate to get a pedicure. It's ok that he gets me the same thing every year, because I ask for the same thing every year, because pedicures have become so ridiculously expensive that I can only justify it if it's for a special occasion.

And, every year, I'm starting to feel more and more like an old person when I open it up. I usually say something like, "Twenty-seven dollars?! Time was you could get a manicure and a pedicure for that kind of money."

It's not many things I can say "time was..." about being that I'm not that old. So, here's a short list of things I remember about The Good Old Days and/or things that have shocked me recently about the youngsters these days.

1. I remember walking to Thrifty's and getting an ice cream for 39¢.
2. I heard on Grammar Girl that you are now supposed to only put one space after a period when typing a paragraph. This pains me a little bit, like the grammarians are stealing my childhood, and it is completely impossible to train my fingers to do. I actually heard of this a while back, but it was from an uppity 19-year-old girl in nursing school who's grammar foundation, in my opinion, was shaky at best so I did not believe her one bit.
3. I remember when the first person I knew got internet service. It was called Prodigy and compared to today's internet, it was very limited. I remember thinking, 'this is a good idea, but what use is it?'
4. I had a pager in Jr. High because only business men and drug dealers had cell phones.
5. My friend John was the first person I knew to get an mp3 player, when we were in high school. It held 13 songs.
6. I woman in our ward gave a talk today. I consider this lady somewhat of a peer, although I know she's younger than me. She was about to read a quote from President Benson, and she said something like, "this is from a while ago... let's see... 1986, so I wasn't even born yet..." I couldn't hear what she said next because I was too busy trying to mentally digest that people who were born in 1987 are adults.

My pedicure looks lovely, if you were interested. The nice Vietnamese woman chided me good naturedly as she set about the work of scraping off my prodigious callouses on my heels with the tool she had to retrieve from the back. Us Calder women can grow callouses with the best of them and no amount of pumice stoning or PedEgging at home will keep them at bay.* This is why, once a year, I can justify the expense of the pedicure. And, I like it when they massage my legs.

*Once, a Russian beautitican told my sister to put "the Crisco" on her feet and then tie them up in baggies before she goes to bed and that would cure her callouses. This seems, to me, on par with illegal information gathering techniques and completely freaks me out and makes my skin crawl just to think about. So, whenever I complain about my callouses and how there's nothing I can do to stop them, Tyler always offers to get the Crisco and I just count down the months until my birthday.

You've been Pittsnogled

I love March Madness. In fact, the most stressed out I've ever been in my whole life has to do with Kevin Pittsnogle, pictured above. It was 2006, we were up visiting Tyler's parents, West Virginia was playing Texas, and we were so glued to the TV, we couldn't leave to go get the pizza that was waiting for us at Round Table. I even remember that we got a Guinevere's with pepperoni. Wikipedia describes the moment thus:

[Pittsnogle's] collegiate career came to an end following a 74-71 loss to in the Sweet 16 of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. Pittsnogle, having just returned from a bloody nose, tied the game with 5 seconds remaining with his fifth three-pointer, but Texas guard Kenton Paulino hit a three-pointer at the buzzer for the win.

Tied the game with 5 seconds left, then a three-pointer from the other team at the buzzer. I can't even describe the stress level.

Tyler and I are going to name our first dog Pittsnogle. No joke.

But, that isn't what this post is about. A few years ago, my friend Brian pointed out something that bothers me every time I hear it. Here's the scenario: there's 5 seconds left on the shot clock and 7 seconds left on the game clock. The announcers will often say that there is a 2-second differential between the shot clock and the game clock. In the words of Brian, "One number minus another number is a difference." I've tried looking up these words in the dictionary and can't quite pin down whether or not the announcers are committing a grammar crime or not. I'm pretty sure they are... but I still don't know. I emailed Grammar Girl about it, so maybe she'll give the answer on a podcast. But in the meantime, does anyone know? Bridget, I'm looking in your direction.

Here are the definitions, so you can judge for yourself:

dif⋅fer⋅ence

–noun

1.	the state or relation of being different; dissimilarity: There is a great difference between the two.

dif⋅fer⋅en⋅tial

–noun

6.	a difference or the amount of difference, as in rate, cost, quantity, degree, or quality, between things that are comparable.

The rise and fall of the Piper Cub

Some time ago, my brother-in-law gave Tyler an RC airplane. Well, most of an RC plane. It was missing servos, wheels, and a wing. The combination of a lack of a proper hobby shop here in San Luis and Tyler's busy schedule have kept him from making the plane air-worthy until now.

The wing was one he designed and made for one of his classes. As I understand it, it was meant to go on some sort of glider, but Tyler was more than 50% sure it would work for his plane.

There is an RC airfield owned by Cal Poly that is right near our house. I think it's humerous that we have an RC airfield and yet no store within 20 miles that sells parts for RC airplanes.

There were some technical difficulties involving the elevator, the fixing of which, at least this is what Tyler guesses, drained the battery to a degree that was incompatable with take off.