I was going to write "I'm back in the U.S.S.R", and then remembered that I've already titled a post that way before. D'oh!

Good news everyone, I've decided to get back to my blogging roots! I just spent a good chunk of time trying to redo the design of this sad little blog, which quickly reminded me of how frustrating, confusing, and ultimately futile it is to try to make a cute blog for free, which also reminded me that this is one of the reasons I stopped blogging. But you know what, I'm over it. I ain't trying to impress anybody. (Actually I am, I always am, cause I want people to like me always and I can't stand the thought of someone not liking me or thinking anything critical about me or my blog in the slightest). But also, I'm really trying to work on that insecurity, so the ugliness of my blog will be a good exercise in not caring. Typing this introductory paragraph, I was also reminded of how much blogging resembles social interactions, because I've been trying to make such a good first impression again and not say anything that sounds trite or boring, but really it's a losing battle, because how many millions of Mormon wives have at one time or another approached their neglected blogs all repentant like this, writing similar introductory paragraphs apologizing for not blogging in a while, lamenting over the state of disrepair into which their blog has fallen, resolving for all the world to see that they're going to be better about it from now on, etc. My point is, no one is original, and that's another thing I've been actively working on - embracing my lack of originality - so again I think this is a good exercise for that. Also, since I've always been and always will be terrible at keeping in regular contact with loved ones, I figured, hey - why not let's kick this old-school and rely on that old blog of yours to fill people in. It works particularly well because even when I do venture to make a phone call to you, you know you're only going to get the bare minimum from me. And so it is that blogging remains one of the introvert's best tools for interfacing with the world.

I just remembered another way in which blogging resembles social interactions: It's so awkward when you haven't seen each other in a while. So many stupid small talk niceties that must be performed before the substantive subjects can be broached. But like small talk, it's a necessary evil, so until we get back in our groove with deep discussions of the soul*, here are our family's updates:

JJ:

-is currently off at Annual Training, doing whatever it is they do at Annual Training (I promise I do make efforts to be a good wife and actually ask, but the answers don't usually do anything to improve my understanding).

-is keeping busy with work and its inherent weekly business trips, his new role as Commander of the 1-171 Medevac detachment, visits to and from various family members, and playtime with me. Learning to balance all these obligations has been a steep learning curve for him, but very good practice, I'm sure, for all the obligations in life still to come.

-recently finished and thoroughly enjoyed Winds of War and War & Remembrance - twin miniseries' from the 1980's following WWII and the years building up to it.

-scours Zillow and Trulia every chance he gets for that elusive dream home that we may or may not be looking to purchase in the next couple months here.

I:

-am enjoying my new part-time job as a receptionist for Robert Half. Working only four hours a day really is all it's cracked up to be, let me tell you.

-am trying, again, half-heartedly, to get back into running. Mostly so I don't die at the Spartan Super that we're competing in next month.

-have an endless pile of books on my bedside table and articles pulled up on my devices that I keep intending to read - but they usually lose to some form of entertainment or social networking. I'm a hapless victim of my generation, what can I say?

-tried and failed miserably to complete Whole30 last week. All I'll say is, a life without bread is no life at all.


 Meatball:

 -'s new favorite habit is to paw frantically at my bum when I'm standing around doing something and he's bored.

-is no longer a little puppy and looks more and more like a real pug every day, minus the obesity. He's still pretty lean compared to most full-grown pugs.

-loves to chew on hard plastic and is happily gnawing on an old clothes hanger as I write this.

-had so much fun in Boise last month with our nieces and nephews that we babysat for a week. I'm afraid he's quite bored now that it's just him and his sedentary parents again.

We:

-are looking forward to vacationing on the Oregon Coast next month with JJ's family. I'll be making a brief stop in Seattle to see bestie Steph, and Portland to see sister Christie and fam. Can't wait to visit my 'hood again!

-are probably moving soon, as mentioned earlier. The owner of our house is listing it this week, and we'll be getting 30 days notice once someone makes an offer, so we're using this opportunity to look for houses. Jj, wants to stay close, or even buy our current house that we're renting; I would like to move a little bit east if possible.

-have had fun doing sessions at different temples around the valley - all we have left to check out is  Draper, and then we'll start exploring down south - especially the new, beautiful Payson Temple!


Ok, thanks for sticking with me, folks! I will say, I think blogging is very good for my little introvert soul. Like any contemplative type, reading is my inhale and writing is my exhale. When I don't write enough I tend to start composing blogs posts or journal entries in my head, and everything feels a little bit backed up until I release my thoughts on "paper". So even if it takes months for my three followers to notice that I've started blogging again, and even if they're turned off by my ugly blog design and never come back again for updates, this'll be good.



*TBD on that, actually. Reading over my last blog, I'm obviously extremely embarrassed by all the "weighty" topics I attempted to cover, so this blog may actually end up functioning as a more typical, superficial forum for loved ones to come see what we're up to. Haven't decided for sure yet, stay tuned.

Photo dump from the past seven months, in reverse-chronological order

 We went fishing at Payson Lake.

 

 All we caught was algae, before I irreversibly tangled the line by scrolling the handle thingy the wrong way. It was my first time.

 Boating at Salt Fork State Park in Ohio. Baby Annie is delectable, especially in her mandatory life jacket.

 My first baseball game! The Columbus Clippers were, uh, not having the best day, but we were. Cause Dime-a-Dog night. We brought J-Dawg sauce from home in 3-oz. travel bottles. Worth it.

 Our cute cabin at Salt Fork.

 Golfing at Salt Fork.

 So, you know, this represents our experience at the Flaming Lips concert. Except it actually doesn't at all, cause you can't smell this picture, and the copious amounts of pot that would come with it if you could. I actually called in sick the next morning cause of my lingering pot headache.

 I don't know why this pic is all stretched funny, but here's Jj having a euphoria attack while watching Neil Peart's 10 minute solo at the Rush concert.

 Flying lessons with nephew Will.

 Kjerst's birthday dinner at Benihana.

 The view from my trailer at work. I only used those honeybuckets once all summer.

 My cute little Paul got married.

 But first, I offered up my husband as stripper and built a giant cake for him to jump out of at the bachelorette party.

But back to the wedding.

 Steph and I took some liberties with the crystal shrimp rolls at Sushi Ya. No regrets.

 Ohio friends get-together back in May.

 Impromptu epic arm-wrestle tournament following our viewing of Over the Top.

 Little Wooden Boy is like family.

June 23rd

It’s been one year, fools.

One magical, sometimes struggled, mostly wonderful year that really does feel like much longer, possibly due to our four years of dating prior. Throughout this year, I’ve often reflected on the strangeness of how easily this lifestyle change came to me. I can’t speak for JJ, but for myself, in all frankness, the transition from singledom to marriage has been near seamless. Living with another person makes sense to me. Checking in regularly with the same person; working, playing and bickering with the same person; having that person ultimately be your everything - makes sense to me, on a visceral level. This perhaps explains the peculiar, barnacle-like friendship that Carol and I have always had. I pledged devotion to her at an early age, it seems, and never looked back.

I also think this accounts for a lot of  the melancholy of my previous adult life.  For a person who clearly lives to be bound with another, I find it little wonder that dating, with all its lightness and impermanency, did not agree with me. Perhaps all the angst and disquiet of that time was merely my inner self knowing that it was not good for Mish to be alone? Perhaps it’s more complicated than that. What I do know is that I feel more at home in this arrangement, more completely myself, than I ever have before. Though it may be new territory, yet it still feels familiar. At the risk of putting on airs, I think it’s a lot like how heaven will feel.

And then there is my cute husband, the object of all this discourse. With all his sweetness and goodness, my love for him frequently brings me to tears. All clichés aside, forever truly doesn’t seem long enough. I sometimes feel even a little anxiety about that. WHAT IF FOREVER ISN’T ENOUGH TIME??? Enough time for what, I don’t know. Love is weird like that.

Anniversaries pair nicely with gelato.

JJ's 30th Birthday and Mohawked Truck!

Last month, to celebrate JJ's considerable milestone of 30 years accident-free, we had ourselves a little surprise party! For those of you who aren't familiar with the show Breaking Bad, you might as well skip to the end cause this really won't make any sense.

 

 

 

In other happenings, last weekend we got to go with our friends Elric, Audge, Mark and Katrina to Monster Jam! All of our first times! So many rattails! Please to enjoy these videos from the evening.

All I care about is aqua

Since being married, there's this thing where I only want to decorate my life in aqua. Aqua and mint, to be exact. It's maybe gotten a little out of hand.

 

 (haha, out of hand!)

Contrary to the poor lighting in our apartment, those curtains are aqua. Maybe more of a light blue.

 Ditto shower curtain.

 At least those pillows used to be aqua, before I bleached them with my harsh chemical-ed face.

 Probably bought this face wash 60% cause I needed it, 40% cause it was aqua.

What the psycho? 10% cause we needed a stapler, 90% cause it was mint.

                                                  

                                        Not pictured: 2 mint shirts, 1 mint skirt, 1 bundle of aqua fabric to be made into a pillow sham very, very soon...

Life is grand!




P.S. I'm giving up pizza for Lent. Sounds like it should be easy, I know, but I'm actually quite nervous about my self-control on this one. Pizza accounts for probably 65% of my weekly calories. Happy Lent to you!

Ode to Winter Scorn

I know it must be getting old to hear all this whining coming from the Utah Valley region. I know those of you in other parts of the country have probably heard enough from your family, friends and FB about how mind-numbingly cold it is here, how freaking many feet of snow we've gotten, and how our freeway looks like that part of a disaster movie when everyone still thinks they have time to flee the flood/volcano/aliens/etc. (Spoiler: They don't! Shame on you for your escapist hubris, flood/volcano/aliens/etc. is going to make an example out of you and kill you before you even make it past your driveway!) I know you must be sick of this. We need to bundle up and buck up, cause this is Utah, dangit, and we have the best snow on earth! (not that I would know?)

So I'm going to keep it brief. It is mind-numbingly cold here. We have gotten freaking way too many feet of snow. The freeway is a mess. I'm tired of scraping ice chips off my windshield with a 3-in. dollar store scraper. My butt and my pride are still smarting from that untimely slip in front of two cars driving by.



In my darker moments, I have started referring to the snow, in my head, as "white poo".





That's how mad I am about this.






January please die.

P.S. JJ would like to add that the snow is too bright and hurts his eyes. I'm not sure I agree with this, but I'll do anything to crucify winter right now, so YEAH! What he said!

Riddle!

 What do you get when you take

 

 (beloved car friend) (means of transport for multiple Goodwins and Larsens since 2005) (Brendan)

and add standstill traffic on 9th East

 

 (it was right about here)

+

my obliviousness

+

one ill-timed glance at the air vent

(is this for display only or what?)

/

JJ's car-shopping expertise and some really good luck?

.

.

.

.

.

Ta-da!

Not to brag, but this thing is pimp. After the unfortunate incident on 9th that left Brendan's hood shaped like a tent and my heart shaped like a sadface, I didn't think we could ever be happy again. (That's actually false, but it seemed like the right thing to say there). 

Thankfully my husband loves targeted shopping. He lives for it. The research, the meticulous cross-comparisons, being wooed by popcorn-wielding salesmen, countering offers, threatening to walk away, reconciling, and, after all of it, determining for himself what he thinks is the very best deal. And believe it or not, this silver slice of chic was, indeed, the most reliable, in-best-condition car for our price range. 

So, we are mustang owners now. It makes us feel rich.

In other news, JJ has a job! He sells low refinance rates to veterans, and loves it. Not that my poverty-line income hasn't been helpful and all, but...we are grateful to have two incomes again. 

And finally, our Christmas tree.

Her name is Birdie, I just made that up, she is three feet tall, and we love her.