Prayers

Doug's dad is in the hospital after suffering heart attack. Stable but critical. We appreciate all prayers and good thoughts!

Time and Season

We've developed a timer strategy with Kate. When there's something she doesn't want to do, we give her a choice--do it now or set the timer. Then we let her pick how many minutes she wants on the timer. She settled on ten minutes as her standard answer. It works pretty well and she hardly ever complains once the timer goes off.

I mentioned to Doug the other day that we were lucky she hadn't been asking for more than ten minutes. Then when I told her it was time for a bath, she said, "No, I don't want to take a bath! Set the timer. One hundred minutes!" I said, "Uh... I don't think the timer goes that high." So she said, "Ten minutes!" And then I had to set the timer again to get her out of the tub. Isn't it funny how that works.

Painting continues, though not every day since I've been working on other things. Yesterday I was impressively productive and got several things done, and ran some errands with Kate, who was very good.

We had a lovely day yesterday, crisp and cool with patchy sun and clouds. Kate spent a couple of hours playing outside with the neighborhood kids after we got back from errand-running. It was nice after a few days of overcast and drizzle. I'm really okay with the overcast (and even the drizzle, depending on what I'm trying to do) but it's nice to break it up. I've always loved Fall, but the damp, soggy Fall just isn't quite the same. And I had some things that I needed to photograph out on the porch, so I'd been waiting for some good light.

As I watched the kids playing--Ryan trying to throw his floppy frisbee, Tram flashing her beautiful smile, Kate running around getting in everyone's way--I thought that this really is a nice place for us to be right now. I wish we had a little more room (a bit more organization would help a lot, I'm sure) but it's so nice to have this big grassy area and other kids to play with. Our porch is conveniently located off one end of the common area, so we often have kids congregating around. Even the older kids sometimes like to borrow our paintbrushes and a bowl of water and "paint the porch." It's been fun.

Digi House-Cleaning

This is not about using Photoshop to get rid of clutter in the background of your photos. Though that would be useful, too.

At NDISB we do these monthly collaborative mega kits, and then when the month is over we can package up our contributions and put them in the store separately. I had a ton of stuff sitting on my hard drive(s) waiting for me to do something with it. I've spent the past couple of days getting things sorted and packaged, and ended up with a few things to put in the store and a few things to give away here.





(That crumpled mat template is free, but I decided to make it a store freebie rather than a blog freebie.)

Update:  Since NDISB closed, the last two products are now on my new site.  The others are not currently available.

And here's everything else! I'm just posting it all here, and hope it might be useful to somebody. Click the file name to download and save it onto your hard drive. You'll have to unzip the files before you can use them.



KitschNKaboodleDoodles.zip (1 MB)

Four doodles--it was supposed to be a 50's style kind of thing.





ApresSki.zip (18.8 MB)

I like this set a lot but if I were going to do it now I'd go with something more realistic for the stitches and mittens. But it's cute.




PrimaveraDeFirenze.zip (8.85 MB)

The watercolor flower thing will only look good on a light background.




HeyNonny.zip (13.12 MB)

These are the papers I made for the Hey Nonny Nonny kit--I really like them, but I'm not sure how generally useful they are.





Celebrate.zip (1.2 MB)

Doodles from last year's New Year's kit.

Conference Weekend

Twice a year, on the first Saturday and Sunday of April and October, we get to watch the General Conference broadcasts from Salt Lake. I really enjoyed listening to the talks this time. There was a lot about faith, hope, and enduring hard times.

I try to have something planned to work on while listening (something non-commercial for Sunday). Usually I'll come up with some kind of crocheting project. This time I've been painting. (It's going pretty well, but I'm not going to post a picture yet because it's a surprise.) Doug pulled out some leather scraps and made a sheath for his leather shears, and then dyed it blue. This is what our kitchen table looked like today:



The two-hour sessions start at 10:00 and 2:00 Utah time, which puts them at 9:00 and 1:00 here. (I ended up showering between sessions both times. Lazy days.) When we were in Newfoundland the sessions were at 1:30 and 5:30, and we had to go to the church to watch them. The members from the Bay Roberts branch (which is an hour or more away, I think) would come to St. John's to watch the broadcast, so on Sunday we would all have a potluck meal between sessions. And then, after stuffing ourselves, go back into the darkened chapel to watch Conference... yeah, I'll admit I didn't always stay awake. It's so nice to be able to watch it online at home.

Three-year-old humor

Kate has been reciting "Hey-Diddle-Diddle," and when she gets to the end, instead of "the dish ran away with the spoon," she says, "and the man ran away with the fork." and then laughs hysterically. Every time. (Sometimes, to really shake things up, she says, "The horse jumped over the sun.") It is fun to see her coming up with her own substitutions.

She's also decided that the "Suffering till Suffrage" song on Schoolhouse Rock is hilarious. The other day she wanted to watch it over and over and just kept laughing at it. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be humorous.

I mentioned that Kate has been developing more narrative structure in her play--she's also started adding dialog tags. Like, "'I'm hungry!' said the rubber dragon, 'I need some dragon treats!'" Last night when Doug was getting her to bed she was in full story mode with her animal toys and just chattering away. When I took her sippy cup to her, she said, "'Oh, thank you!' said Kate, as she put down her sippy cup and began to drink." She's definitely synthesizing a lot from the stories we read together. (Sometimes she says, "said me," or "said him," which we think is very cute.)

Sculpeygator

Doug made this for Kate. Isn't it cute?

Soup of the Evening

Friday night we had a ward activity (at church) with a soup dinner. Lots of different kinds of yummy soups. (I had two helpings of Sarah's borscht. I don't think I've ever had borscht before.) One person there had brought a muffin tin to eat out of, and put a different scoop into each space. I thought that was a clever idea and definitely easier than trying to juggle multiple bowls at the serving table. I'll have to remember that next time.

Our contribution was black bean chicken chili. Here's the recipe!



Black bean chicken chili

1 can (12 oz) black beans
1 can fire roasted tomatoes
1–2 chicken breasts (depending on size)
1 cup frozen corn (we use Trader Joe's fire roasted corn)
3(ish) cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin seeds (or to taste)
1 tsp coriander (ditto)
1/8 tsp cayenne
lemon pepper
salt
2 Tb olive oil

Cut chicken into bite size pieces (dice). Grate garlic.
Heat oil in soup/sauce pan on medium heat. Add dry spices (not salt or pepper), stir fry for 10 seconds or so, until they brown. Add garlic, stir fry for 30 seconds or so until it starts to brown.
Add chicken; cook until chicken is opaque.
Add beans, tomatoes, corn. Add about 2 cups of water (add more water if needed until desired consistency is reached). Stir, cook until water is reduced a little, spices are mixed, and chicken and corn are done.
Add salt and lemon pepper to taste.

The fire-roasted tomatoes and corn really add a lot of flavor. The tomatoes we use are from Hunt's. This time Doug used dried beans and cooked them in the crock pot with some mojito marinade. We usually just use canned beans with nothing added.

We like to stretch our soup with basmati rice. Yum!

It dawned on me that of the five recipes that I have posted thus far, three of them are soup. Yep, we like soup.

Sneak Peek

What I'm currently working on:

Husband Tag

I've seen this husband tag meme going around recently. I've been tagged by Bronwyn, so here goes!

What is his name? Douglas Martinous Jole. Martinous is a family name.
How long have you been married? Just over twelve years. (How time flies!)
How long did you date? Let's see... started dating right before Christmas, engaged in April, married in September.
How old is he? He's 43. Six years older than me.
Who eats more sweets? Ha. That would be him, since I can't eat sugar. If the question was just "Who eats more" that would probably be me. Even when I'm not pregnant.
Who said I love you first? He did.
Who is taller? We're very close to the same height. I think I'm actually a teeny bit taller, if we're both in bare feet.
Who can sing better? We both enjoy singing (I sing alto, he sings tenor, unless he's got a cold) but he's definitely better at sight reading than I am. And he has this knack for instantly grasping the structure of a song and will often make up his own voice accompaniment for a song he's never heard before.
Who does the laundry? Me, almost always.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do. Though when we were in Korea I slept on the left side. I think it was just the setup of the room.
Who mows the lawn? We don't have a lawn, but I imagine he would probably do it.
Who cooks dinner? Depending on his schedule, Doug does sometimes do a lot of the cooking. I tend to make the same things all the time, and he gets more creative.
Who pays the bills? I do.
Who drives? Any time we're going somewhere all together, he always drives. If we're on a long trip we'll take turns, but he still ends up driving the most.
Who is more stubborn? I don't know if I could really describe either of us as stubborn. We're both pretty laid back.
Who kissed who first? He started it. ;)
Who asked who out first? We had some friends in common at BYU, then ended up in the same ward and then got called to team-teach Gospel Doctrine together. He asked me out first (I think the first time he made me dinner, and then after that we went to a concert at the University of Utah that his band's vocalist was performing in).
Who proposed? He did. And then after we got the ring he proposed to me in Welsh. (I think he just wanted to hear what it would sound like.)
Who has more siblings? There are six kids in Doug's family and five in mine.
Who wears the pants? Again, we're both pretty laid back. Doug generally defers to me in matters of scheduling and food.

I'll tag Julie K and Mimi.

Basement by Sharpie

I thought this was amazingly cool: Man decorates basement with $10 worth of Sharpie. I especially like the wall clock, and the dimensional pieces like the bench and fireplace.

(The site has been up and down--hopefully you can get the link to work!)

Picture Taking 101: watch the background

Bronwyn called a couple of days ago and asked if I could come and give the Young Women some photo-taking tips for their Tuesday night activity. General point-and-shoot tips, like move in closer, get down on your subject's level, use available light as much as possible, and that old chestnut, "Watch the background!" Here's a scanned photo that I dug up for the occasion:



I was the one who took the photo, and did not notice that bush at all. Doug thought it was hilarious.

For a certain value of normal

Doug started teaching again yesterday. Yay! The fair job is over (that was an interesting experience all around) so we'll be getting back on something like a normal schedule. Though "normal" for us changes every three months.

Yesterday we were going to go out to lunch and go to the park--got all set and in the car, and then Doug noticed that the battery light was on. After testing the battery he figured it was probably the alternator, so we went to a local place and got that tested--yep, bad alternator--got a new one, went home to install it (and I started making lunch, after explaining to Kate that we would have to go to the park later). Then in a sudden quirk of fate, Doug's wrench extensions fell off his wrench (as he was trying to make the job easier by removing an engine hoist bracket) and down under the air intakes (which form an arch over the cylinder head). I tried extracting them with some wooden chopsticks, but couldn't get any kind of grip. We called Scott and Tom and they came over with a magnetic grabber-thing. Wrench extensions extracted, repairs continued for a couple of hours.

We ended up going out to dinner, and, since it was too dark to go to the park, took Kate to a bookstore for a while. We'll probably do the park today.

Doug says he wants one of those magnetic grabber-things for Christmas.

Lo, I am publishéd.

I have a layout (the Korean food one from this post) in the Oct/Nov 2008 issue of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine. I didn't realize it was out until Heather T. mentioned it, and then my complimentary copy came in the mail a few days later.

I had quite a few (paper) layouts published, way back when (some are posted here), and was even a winner in Creating Keepsakes' Hall of Fame contest in 2002. (This was before they changed the rules. I don't know if I would even enter these days. Talk about complicated.) But it's been a few years since I've submitted anything. This is my first digital layout, and also the first layout with Kate in it that I've had published, so that's kind of fun.



I got the whole page to myself! They spelled my name wrong once and right once. Heh.

What all the best-dressed cameras are wearing

I won a drawing on Cotton Candy by Natalie, and got this cool camera strap. I picked this one for the fun color. (I'd just better not wear it with any brightly patterned shirts, huh?) I got it put on my camera today. I think it'll be comfortable for wearing around the zoo or wherever.

Kate has been very interested in cameras lately. She likes playing with the one on Doug's PDA, and today I let her take some pictures with mine. It's a little tricky because I can't really let her hold it by herself, but I can hang onto the strap from above.

Here's what Kate thought was picture-worthy today:



neighbor's truck



dirt



grass



tree



neighbor's flowers

She was very pleased with her pictures. I guess we'll have to get Kate her own camera soon.

Four sheets to the wind

It seems like every week I get a couple of hits from ask.com, from people searching "How many sheets of paper can I send with one stamp?" But instead of taking them to the relevant post, it just links to the main page of my blog, which is no help, and then I feel bad for mentioning it. I believe the answer is four. You can send four sheets of paper on one stamp. I hope that helps!

Speaking of which, sitemeter, which I'd been using for a good long time, just changed their platform so now you can't see referring URLs on the free account, to see where people are coming from. So I've switched to statcounter. So far I think I like it. (Except that sometimes I'd rather not know where people are coming from, but oh well.) Edit: Apparently sitemeter got a bunch of complaints and switched back!

I figured out what was wrong with our CD burner (nothing, as it turned out) so I'm back to archiving. I am soooo behind.

"Would you like fries with that?"

Kate has learned the word "rampage." It's so funny to hear her talking about her rampaging dinosaurs. And today when she was trying to push a toy shopping cart into the living room, she wailed, "I can't do it! There's too many obstacles!"

Doug's been working out at the fair for a week now, with one more to go. We've been used to him being around a lot (especially this summer) so it's been a big adjustment to have him gone so much. He'll be teaching four classes this quarter, which is a pretty big load, but even then he probably won't be gone this much. It's tough when Kate wants to play tag or something equally strenuous and I'm feeling particularly pregnant and tired. She did get me running around outside for a while today (and said, "You're running, Mama! You're running!" in a tone of great astonishment).

Doug is working at a place called Butch's, which specializes in something called the "World Famous" Cascade Burger. Who decided it was world famous, I don't know. I'd never heard of it before. They had him doing just French fries for the first two days, and then they put him on the grill as well. Scott was out there yesterday and I asked him if he could get a picture for me. (I wanted one of him actually working, but I neglected to specify.)

The fair ends on the 21st and classes start on the 22nd. Good timing.

12 years

Yesterday was our twelfth anniversary. Doug was gone all day (twelve hours--keeping with the theme, I guess) and Kate and I stayed home and got on each other's nerves. We grabbed a neighbor to take pictures for us today, before church (stake conference).



My sunburn has toned down a bit. I'm still kind of blotchy.



Smoochies!

Barb and Kyle called and sang "Happy Anniversary to you" (cute). Doug's mom sent us this lovely card. She always makes cards for birthdays and holidays.



Here's to many more years!

Fair Fun

Yesterday we went to the Puyallup fair with Scott. Doug is actually working at the fair this year. We weren't sure what his schedule was going to be, but it turned out he didn't have to start till 4:00 yesterday, so we all went together in the morning, and then came home without Doug. (Admission is free if you get in before noon on the first day--yay!)

We took the bus to avoid parking hassles. The bus was so full that we had to stand (all the way to Puyallup. I was having Korea flashbacks) but there was a nice lady who let Kate sit on her lap.

We took a quick spin through the art hall (paintings and drawings and stuff) first, before Kate got too impatient. There's some amazing stuff there. I keep meaning to enter something--maybe one of these years I'll get myself in gear and actually do it.



Kate remembered the "big swing" from last year and was very excited about doing that again. Last year we went on it with her, but this time they weren't allowing adults, so she rode with another little girl.



Kate enjoys a hot dog. (Fair food!)



Doug and Kate went on this little tiger roller coaster (twice). Kate loved it. When they got off she said, "That was fun! It was so bumpy!"



(Here Doug's holding his hand against the side of the car to keep Kate from bonking her head.)



Baby piggies! Awwwww!



Here's a Guernsey cow for my dad. (He grew up on a Guernsey farm in Illinois.) Mooooo!



That morning at the bus stop, Kate was pretending to be a frog, so Scott bought her this toy frog. (Her lips are slightly blue from a slushie. Kate's, I mean, not the frog's.)



Eye rub! Big day. Kate did a lot of walking. I had to stand again on the bus on the way home, but Scott got a seat (we figured he might qualify as elderly or handicapped, or possibly both) so he held Kate on his lap. She conked out on his shoulder and slept all the way home.

Doug's working again today. They've got him cooking French fries. Kate keeps asking where he is.

I got sunburned. Ow.

Foam Critters

The jointed paper animals have evolved into jointed foam animals. It was completely Doug's fault--he's the one who came home from Artco with a bunch of foam sheets.



Kate loves animal toys but she particularly likes the kind that she can manipulate and move around in some way. She'll get an idea for something she wants and then talk one of us into making it for her. We're on our second box of brads now.





After watching Flushed Away we had an invasion of slugs. There are three or four more of these around here somewhere.

Farewell, movie trailer voiceover guy.

Here's a neat video about Don LaFontaine, who passed away on Monday. We will miss his voice.