December 2008 has been great, sad to see it end

Normally, I am not a sad person at the end of things. My attitude has always been, "To everything there is a season" and every season must end, but I must say, this has been a great December. For some reason, my pictures posted backwards, so walk backwards with me through memory lane in December.

The annual "sockies" with Dentist husband's family. "Sockies" is basically a white elephant like game but we use food and practical items like window washer fluid, tape, etc to trade. This year, we contributed many large bottles of Listerine and it became the item people traded a lot. Poor Dentist husband's sister and her husband ended up with three large bottles. They won't need any for MANY years to come.

Fondue on Christmas eve. This year, we used nonalcoholic beer as our liquid and it was REALLY good.

Toothsome #3 was a soldier in his pre-school's Christmas program.


My cute nephew has his wisdom teeth removed by dentist husband and stayed at our house for a few days. My kids worship him and he was a delight to have around.

My birthday. It was a great one with the snow, good friends and fun kids and handsome husband.

Many other great things happened too without picture documentation. So, I am sad to say goodbye to December 2008. Hopefully, 2009 will be a good year despite the socialist president we just elected. Please bless leaders like Jason Chafettz will keep things under control and the fairness doctrine doesn't pass. Happy New Year!

Straight No Chaser's Christmas Album

Last year, I was sent a link to this groups, "The 12 Days of Christmas". I can't find the original one that was sent to me but here is a current link.

Almost overnight, they became a Youtube sensation. I purchased their Christmas album and it has become my most favorite of the season. It really is a delight to listen to. I read somewhere they will be on The Today show tomorrow morning. If you care to know more about their history, you can go to this link as well. Merry Christmas!

Oh and on a non-Christmas note, this is BEAUTIFUL!

Not much going on but I still feel overwhelmingly busy

My life has been busy, my house is a mess but nothing has struck me to write about. So, here are some of the highlights of the past few days:

--I have been taking care of my 18 year old nephew after dentist husband removed his wisdom teeth. Great boy and my kids worship him. He is now on the road to Idaho. FYI: My black bean soup was a hit with him.

--Kids are out of school.

--My birthday was super wonderful. Thanks to all of you well wishers as well as my local friends who joined me at Noodle and Company for the lunch celebration. Thanks Lisa for organizing it this year. (On a side note, I ate out all three meals, McDonalds in the AM, Noodle and Company in the noon hour and Barbacoa for dinner. Yes, I need to lose about 7 pounds now.)

--Book club was super nice this month. Catherine's house had such a great feel to it--nice and cozy.

--My four year old (toothsome #3) had a pre-school program and had a solo as well as a speaking part. I knew about the speaking part but NOT the solo. Who knew he had it in him?

--I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting Christmas cards.

--While it has taken me awhile to get into it, all and all I really liked Glen Beck's "The Christmas Sweater."

--I am still wasting a ton of time on Facebook.

--And last but not least, I spent three days with a magic eraser getting all of the pen marks off my walls done by toothsomes 3 and 4. What in the world? Have these children never heard of paper?

Merry Christmas!

Snow on My Birthday

Today is my birthday. And, today, we woke up to a snow storm--a glorious white snow storm.

I often get asked, "Is having a December birthday awful?" And, my answer is very loud, "No!".

At least for me, a December birthday has always been magical. It must be my Swedish heritage because I love cold, snowy days. It is like I am reborn when the snow starts. I feel like all of my Swedish DNA cries out, "Finally, this is what we were born for."

December birthdays are usually jammed between many family events which means I have always been able to celebrate my birthday surrounded by groups of people that I love. My older brother and sisters would be home from BYU or I would be at BYU surrounded by wonderful roommates. My birthday always fell during finals week and we always would stop and celebrate it because we needed the break from it all.

And, because of the craziness of the season, I am wished Happy Birthday all month long. My freshman year, we celebrated all of the December birthdays during reading days, then I flew home to another birthday celebration and later, I got together with my high school friends and we had another party. A December birthday always feels just a little bit more exciting and special because of the season.

So, today, having awakened to a glorious snow storm is the perfect way to start my 36th year. Later, I am getting together with friends and then at night, we are headed out again to celebrate with dentist husband and kids. I can just feel this is going to be a magical year. (But truth be told, the other 35 have been wonderful too.) And, in not forgetting some other wonderful December birthdays, Happy Birthday Lisa, Cassy, Lyssa and Noelle.

I might have just made things worse. . .

My son just came home with his Christmas list that he had compiled at school. Number one on his list was "an eco-friendly solar powered remote controlled car." Without thinking, I about bit his head off, saying, "Global warming is still an untested theory. Many people are jumping on this bandwagon because it is a popular thing among famous people and people who want to make an name for themselves. Don't go asking for a toy that you don't understand the junk science behind it."

He looked at me with these huge confused eyes and said, "Oh. I'm sorry we just talk about saving the environment at school and so I thought I should ask for something good like that." So, then I had to calm down, remember he is only nine and explain that it is good to protect and preserve the things in our sphere of influence including the planet. I also said, "I keep our house clean to maintain it at the best possible level so it will last a long time, we eat healthy to make our bodies work well, so they will last a long time too. So it is good to take care of the planet to make it last a long time too. And what you asked for is a good thing but Mom is sad that some people teach things as FACT when really right now, no one knows for sure if we can influence the earth's climate change that much."

He seemed more confused than ever. Can't we leave eco-friendly and green beliefs out of schools? It is like a religion for many people and currently, they aren't even allowed to say the name God in the classroom but they can cram Eco-friendly, junk science down their throats.

Maybe I am or maybe I'm not a good skin cancer patient

Three and 1/2 years ago, I had a mole removed that came back as melanoma. It wasn't a shock to me because it had all the tell tale signs of the ABCD chart but it was still a scary time until we knew that it was caught in its earliest stages.


Anyway, I loved the standard follow up visits every 6 months for the first two years because I knew I was being looked at by professionals and I didn't need to obsess about it myself. I was even sent up to the Huntsman Cancer Institute for a melanoma research study and had two separate melanoma specialist check me out.

Well, now, we are on the "just come in every year rotation" and I have gone a little neuritic. I have to do it all on my own for a WHOLE YEAR. No specialist reassuring me that I am not going to die of scary skin cancer.

The other day, after stressing about another mole I had convinced myself was cancer, I finally called my skin cancer doctor and asked if I could come in RIGHT now. I repeated several times, "You have to have a cancellation right?" If you are at all familiar with going to a dermatologist, they are always busy and booked out months ahead. Well, I must have sounded convincing because they got me in right away. After sitting in the waiting room, convincing myself it was bad news and I would be sent in for all kinds of horrible testing, the doctor looked at, gave it some benign name and only because I insisted, did he freeze it off. (He refused to biopsy it because he knew it a BK something or other.)

So, I suppose for a dermatologist I help him pay his mortgage because I show up regularly convinced I have something bad and it needs to be removed but maybe he thinks I little bit neurotic. You think?

Random Sunday Thoughts

Ok, you might all hate me but I am done handing out neighbor gifts. Yes, you heard right, I am. For the last several years, my husband's office manager and I work together to come up with a neighbor/other dentists and associates Christmas gift. This year, she found an amazing local gourmet donut shop that was willing to give us a price break because we ordered so many. It is called Beyondglaze and holy cow, they are some of the greatest donuts on the planet. They make all of these exotic flavors, like Key Lime, Peach Cobbler, etc. So, I can cross that off my list.

My daughter finished dancing The Nutcracker this weekend. It is one of my favorite holiday things to do with her and we had a WONDERFUL time again this year. She was beautiful on stage and I am so impressed with how far she has become.

After a month of agony and worry, my son had his first ski lesson at the school sponsored Ski School. He was up several times the night before anxious about it and it was a HUGE deal to finally get him in his snow gear and on the ski bus. When he came home, all he would tell me was, "Thanks for buying me the t-shirt that goes with ski school." After much prodding, I learned that he really liked it and is excited to go back. (So, all of the drama beforehand was unnecessary. Aghhh.)

My Christmas cards are mostly out. Still waiting for some addresses. I have read about 5 Christmas romance novels. You can read my reviews on my goodreads page. ---> I realize Christmas romance novels are not really review worthy but some are definately better than others.

Christmas fun has indeed begun around here. I suppose I should be like most mothers and make some yummy food. I wish cooking was something I liked doing. I really hate it. I could honestly eat at Cafe Rio daily and be happy. (They just put one in down the street from us, so that is highly possible and is hugely tempting to do.)

Well, I need to make kids put their laundry away. Happy Christmas!

I have recurrent kitchen sink problems

Many of you will remember this post. It is still a discussed topic in our house and my kids tease me when I use our disposal, asking if there are any pinto beans going down. I learned my pinto bean lesson but obviously not my small screw down the kitchen sink lesson. Let me explain:

In October, Dentist husband combined his two practices. In the process, a lot of miscellaneous things have been brought to our house that were not needed at either office. I won't go into all of the crap (Did I just write that?) I mean items (crap--opps, I did it again) that have ended up in our house with exception of a bag of small screws that ended up in the hands of my four year old boy.

In the morning, he put them in a drinking glass and told me that he was putting them in water to soak. I didn't care. Whatever.

Well, around mid day, I was cleaning up the kitchen and dumped the glass with the small screws into my disposal side of my sink. Silly me. I didn't immediately reach down and get all of those tiny screws out of my disposal. Instead, I finished wiping off counters, sweeping my floor, etc. Then, I made the mistake of turning on the disposal. The noise alone was shocking but the tell tale sign of the disposal jamming and throwing the breaker of the disposal made me realize this was no ordinary problem.

Long story short, after spending over an hour trying to fix the problem myself, pulling many tiny (smaller than the end of a pencil eraser) screws out of the sink drain, I was left with one tiny screw that I could feel jammed between the disposal wall. I gave in and called a plumber. So, $85 later, I have a working disposal again and I have learned another item that shouldn't go down it. (Oh I never even brought dentist husband in for a consult on this one, so don't rat me out anyone.)

Movie recommendation

My husband and I rented this, this weekend and holy crap, I am still thinking about how scary this film is. No, not in the Halloween scary but in the "does a nation that believes in free speech really allow things like this to happen" scary. It proves that in the university type setting, where they claim they are the bastion of free thought, it is just the opposite.

This is a must watch. I've included the the Amazon write up below but it doesn't really give the movie justice.

"Big science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom ... What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel! That rebel, Ben Stein (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth … that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired – for the crime of merely believing that there might be evidence of design in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance. To which Ben Says: Enough! And then gets busy. NOBODY messes with Ben."