Eating is Annoying

This really is one of my great annoyances of life. It's so annoying to me to interrupt what I'm doing because I'm HUNGRY. And then to feel like a little scavenger going through my fridge and cupboards. The fact that eating is annoying to me is not helped by the fact that I greatly dislike preparing food. I dislike deciding what to eat for myself, planning meals for dinners, making sure that I stop doing whatever I'm doing in time to actually have dinner at a decent hour. And it is annoying that I'm supposed to eat three meals a day, and even more annoying being pregnant... that number goes up. It's not like I don't like food, I actually do. I like it when other people prepare it. completely. I love visiting others and never having to worry about deciding what to eat because they are such wonderful hosts and do all that for me. And it's somewhat humorous to me that whenever I visit other family members' homes, they always prepare delicious meals for us, but whenever we get visits to our house they either bring their own food and do their own cooking for us all in my kitchen, or they order out pizza and pop and breadsticks. I don't think I've ever cooked for visiting family members. And I have been served more times that I even care to count. Wow. I'm sure grateful for family who loves me in spite of my great inhospitableness. That they love me and still cook for me.

I am seriously going to have to get over this annoyance though, because life's going to be quite different having a little kid around the place. My husband, he can scavenge along with me, but baby? yikes. It is one of my greatest hopes that his greatest desire will be to be a chef, and that he'll start young. I'll gladly hand over that responsibility.

You're in Trouble... Time For Some Ice Cream

John came home from work the other day and shared something interesting with me. His boss, Randy, told him about his method of discipline with his kids. Randy has like 5 kids, I think, and he's disciplined them this way from the beginning. It was the way his dad disciplined him and all of his siblings as well. He told John, "It's the weirdest thing, but it really works!" What he does is give them a bowl of ice cream and sits down with them and talks with them while they eat it! For example, he caught his son playing Nintendo when he was supposed to be in bed and he called his name and said, come and get some ice cream. His son, knowing he'd been caught, says, "oookaaaay," in a melancholy tone. He still receives a punishment of not being able to play his Nintendo for the rest of the week. Or when his daughter wouldn't eat her dinner... time for some ice cream! "Oooookaaaay..." He made her eat three whole scoops while he talked with her and afterwards she went back to the table and finished off the rest of her plate. Randy said that he feels like because of the way his dad disciplined him, they have a really close relationship now. I can see how that would be... who wouldn't love someone who frequently offers ice cream!?

So at first when John shared this with me, I thought it was really twisted. My first thought was that making my kid eat ice cream when he's in trouble is only going to reinforce bad behavior! But after thinking about it for a while, I began to see another side of it. The idea is kind of growing on me. For one thing, I think there's always a tendency to justify ourselves a little, even when we know we did something wrong and to maybe be a little resentful if we are reprimanded for it harshly. But I think it would be rather difficult to feel resentment when being punished if I was being given ice cream instead of a screaming. Another thing, is it just offers a good opportunity to really sit down and have a loving talk with your child about what they did and why they chose to do so. The kid is always going to know that their parents love them.

So although it's the strangest punishment I've ever heard of, John and I are probably going to give it a try. It seems to really work for Randy, and it seems to have worked really well for his dad too. Who knows!

An Inconvenient Book

So I was first introduced to Glenn Beck at my grandma's house who just loves watching him. Even though we don't have tv at our house, I do catch him on CNN every now and then when I'm at family's and have enjoyed his show. So at the library a few weeks ago, I saw his book and checked it out. It has been a really enjoyable read. I'm just about finished with it. I wanted to share this little part from it that had me giggling for the rest of the night after I saw it. I read this about global warming:

"As soon as it's released, the main report from the UN IPCC is always immediately embraced by the mainstream media. But the UN released another report on climate change in November 2006 that barely received any coverage at all. It was the same organization talking about the same topic, but this report didn't fit neatly into the media's political agenda, so it was largely ignored.

The report stated that livestock and the industry revolving around it are responsible for 18 percent of all greenhouse gases when measured in CO2 equivalent. That's more than the entire worldwide transportation sector.

My first reaction was to support the brutal murder of all cows. 'Attention, Hollywood vegans: you're either with us or you're with the bovines.' But I quickly reminded myself about the law of supply and demand: The more juicy porterhouse you eat, the more cows they'll bring into this world to kill our lovely planet.

Livestock is responsible for 65 percent of a less publicized greenhouse gas - nitrous oxide - that warms the planet 296 times more than CO2. In addition, livestock's 'natural emissions' produce methane, which warms the planet 23 times as much as CO2 (and is infinitely more fragrant). Since meat consumption is due to double by 2050, it's only going to get worse.

In addition, because methane cycles out of the atmosphere in less than one-twelfth of the time that CO2 does, avoiding meat is a far quicker and more effective way of cutting greenhouse gases. I know that Al Gore is forced to travel around the globe in private jets to give his fancy slide shows, but he doesn't have to eat meat. Neither do global warming campaigners Bill Clinton, Arnold Scwarzenegger, or John McCain; but they all do it anyway. At least we finally have one piece of science that is settled: Any global warming activist who isn't a vegan is a hypocrite."

And the next page had this picture on it, which is what I couldn't stop laughing about every time I thought of it:

Anyway... I'd say his book is a pretty good read if you ever get the chance to pick it up. Or watch his show.

Happy Happy Anniversary!

August 20th was our 4 year anniversary. To celebrate we stayed at the Majestic View Lodge up in Springdale, Utah by Zion National Park. It was a lovely little getaway. Of course the views up at Zion National Park aren't new to us but they are always enjoyable.

We didn't do any hiking though. I was having a hard enough time with the stairs! We went to the Zion IMAX theater and watched Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs, which was fascinating. Then we went for a little walk and stopped by a market to buy a few snacks to bring back to our room. We then went for a little drive to the Springdale market and bought a cup of raspberry gelato to share. It was yummy, but definitely not as tasty as my cousin's.

After that, we visited the little wildlife museum at the lodge and then went back to our room and played Phase 10 while watching the Olympics.

We had dinner at the lodge's restaurant. I had pineapple chicken and John tried buffalo for the first time on a burger. The food was really good. It was a sweet day and as always, the best part was just being with my husband. We loved the handcrafted log furniture in our room and the gorgeous view off of our balcony.

We'd definitely stay there again in the future. What a happy 4 years it has been!

Back Online!

I'm so excited! We finally got the internet hooked back up at our house! So, that means I'll be updating my blog much more regularly now. I know, that's the happiest news you've heard all day. I can just hear your ecstatic shouts of joy from here.

Here's My Belly

it's just gonna get bigger!

Happy Birthday John!

Well, we recently celebrated John's 27th birthday on the 26th of July. He wanted to go camping up at Pine Valley, but we were not able to find an open spot. So we scouted out Baker Dam reservoir and found a beautiful site to camp at. There was a little bit of a stagnant water stink that bothered some people, but I thought it was just a fantastically lovely little place to stay. There was even a tire swing! Here's some pictures of what our site looked like:

All who came camping with us were John's parents and 5 of his sisters and their respective families. Our nieces and nephews loved exploring, climbing rocks and trees and crossing the river. We had tin foil dinners, played on the tire swing and played horseshoes. We weren't able to build fires due to a restriction with an expensive fine attached, so we cooked all our meals over a little camping grill that Doug & Diane brought. We fell asleep in our tent being able to look up at the stars through the top and they were beautiful. Of course, though, since we didn't put the top over our tent, we were woken up by a little rain in the middle of the night. We were also woken up a few other times by a raccoon scavenging through our food, a stinky skunk that John was sure had sprayed our tent, and the fact that our air mattress had a slow leak in it and we had to pump it up a few times. But in spite of all the events throughout the night, John and I slept pretty well. It was a really enjoyable camping excursion.

****I want to upload a slideshow of pictures from our trip... so if you want to see them, check back a little later****

We headed up to Enterprise on Saturday. John opened his gifts and we sang happy birthday and had white cake with cream cheese frosting and coconut on top. He got some movies, clothes, games, tools and another watch. (he lost the one I gave him for his birthday a few years ago and has been really missing it, so I got him another one.)

I think the world of my husband and am so grateful for him in my life and for the love we share. He is such a wonderful guy and I love him tons!