LBJ, NFP, TOB, LOL

this week is "national natural family planning awareness" week. when i saw that in the most recent issue of family foundations, the magazine of the couple to couple league, i filed it away in my brain, thinking, "hmmmm, that would be a good time to hash out some of my thoughts that have been floating around in my brain."

but when i try to sit down and write about nfp, i can't get past my amusement that, in my head, when i think of "n. f. p" i can't help but mentally sing the letters to the tune of "lbj" from the musical hair. then i get further distracted thinking i should make up my own nfp appropriate lyrics to go with the rest of the tune. the part that amuses me the most about this is that i've only seen hair (the movie) once and listened to the soundtrack a few times while my brother learned the lyrics to one of the songs for an audition back in high school. so tonight, i decided to youtube the song to hear what the rest of the lyrics were, because all i remembered was the "l.b.j" part. and this is what i found.



after listening to the song, i still couldn't really figure out what they were saying. (i can never understand the song parts of musicals-which is why i have a hard time following the plot and don't like musicals. i know, i'm weird.)all i could catch was lbj, lsd, cia, fbi, cackle, cackle, cackle. so i looked up the lyrics and they are:

LBJ took the IRT
Down to 4th Street USA
When he got there
What did he see?
The youth of America on LSD

LBJ IRT
USA LSD

LSD LBJ
FBI CIA

FBI CIA
LSD LBJ

no wonder it didn't make any sense. and then i thought, "well, those lyrics are pretty simple, i should be able to come up with something nfp appropriate to go along with that." but i got nothin'.

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on a somewhat related tangent, initial abbreviations really annoy me. i'm very literal, so when i read clever, instant message/texting abbreviations, my brain gets confused. like when someone comments on facebook "rofl" to something that amused them, my brain thinks, "why are they rofling?" (which is like ralphing. translated-they are vomiting.) i hate all the mothering related message board lingo-"cding and bfing sahm to 2 dds". WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!!! okay, i know what it means, but come on people-use words! (i know, i know, this coming from the girl that refuses to capitalize, but still.)

as i was reading family foundations the other day, embedded in an article, it had an info box entitled, "understanding TOB". i read that as, understanding tob, like a word that rhymes with job, like the guy in the bible. and i'm thinking, who is tob? is that short for toby? i don't remember there being a toby in this article. and then i realized they were talking about theology of the body. dangit people. words. words i tell you!

little black dress, when mentioned in magazine articles like, "every woman needs a LBD" makes me think "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender" (lgbt) or "latter-day saints" (lds) "why does every woman need a mormon lesbian?" it's so confusing to live in my head.

and finally, this rant wouldn't be complete without a discussion of the term "woot". a lot of people use it on facebook (yes i'm looking at a few of you) and it makes my brain glitch. at first, when i saw it, i just didn't get it. then, after seeing it enough in context, i figured it meant something like "hooray" or "good for you/me". but where did this come from? so i googled it and this is what i found on wikipedia. i still want to ask people, "why do you use that term?" i suppose i'll still be your friend if you do, but just know that your making my brain hiccup when you do.

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well, i think i've sullied the good name of natural family planning enough. i really thought i'd be able to pull out of my goofy mood, but the headache that i have makes brow furrowing deep thought hurt, so i just couldn't do it.

peace out. woot woot!

"i'm dyyyyyyying"

in case you haven't noticed, it's a tad on the warm side around here. yesterday i was really tired from a busy weekend and my tolerance for everything, but especially the heat, had reached an all time low.

as i stumbled around the kitchen trying to figure out what to feed the boys for dinner, i kept catching myself almost crying out, "i'm dyyyyyyyying!" the only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that my boys would then repeat it in moments of boredom or annoyance and i would have only myself to blame for the new addition to their whining repertoire.

searching the fridge, the only thing that sounded edible was iceberg lettuce. cool and crisp. "yes", i mentally declared, "i'm going on an iceberg lettuce hunger strike until this heat lets up!" figuring the boys might not be too wild about the idea, i think i finally made sandwiches for dinner.

when it's this hot, i have no motivation to cook. (not that i'm really super motivated when it's a more reasonable temp.) standing in front of a hot stove-nope. steamer or crockpot heating up the kitchen-no thank you. baking-out of the question!

i actually did all those things for a good part of the day on saturday and sunday morning to get ready for ben's birthday party on sunday, which i think brought on my "i'm dyyyyyying" episode yesterday.

while i find the weather and the parched landscape it's creating pretty dreadful, the colors in my kitchen these days, when i brave the heat and make it to the store, are quite beautiful.


to me, the color combinations in a peach (and the flavor) are proof of God's existence.


and of course you have to have watermelon in the sum, sum, summertime.


though i'm not a big sweet drinks type of person (unless it has alcohol in it), my guys sure enjoy "special drinks", so i made watermelon lemonade sweetened with stevia.


i think i enjoyed the color as much as the flavor.


since we can't live solely on pretty fruit, the grill comes in handy.


for me, the epitome of summer food is any combination of basil and tomatoes. with fresh mozzarella, on fresh bread with parmesan, cracked black pepper, and evoo, with pasta, i love it all.

my issue with summer food is that i have a hard time buying it at the store. my parents always had a big garden growing up, so summer food was food we grew. watermelons and cantaloupes came from a family friend up the road. cucumbers came from my uncle next door. tomatoes were so fresh i swore i could taste the sunshine in them.

but so far, my own attempts at gardening have proven pretty worthless. i work on saturday mornings, so the farmer's market is out of the question. i treasure produce that we're given by family, but this year it seems like everyones' gardens are suffering. to buy a melon or tomato that i know has been shipped across the country seems silly when i live in the agricultural heartland. but alas, i should just be thankful i'm able to buy food for my family. and continue to try to improve my garden soil. and maybe check out a few gardening books ; )

so what do you like to eat in the summertime?

little big chair.

when we were engaged tim's mom gave us a cool vintage chrome dinette table and a couple of unmatched chairs. i used it in the house i shared with a couple other girls and then after we got married and settled into our house, we fetched them.

one of the chairs had seen better days. it was fine comfort wise, but esthetically, it was gross. or more specifically, the seat was gross.


a couple of years ago, in a fit of random crafty energy, i took it apart, determined to recover it and make it presentable. when i was taking it apart, the bolts were really weird and i wasn't sure that i would ever be able to get them back together, so i abandoned the project. (i do things like this a lot.)so there it laid, disassembled, under my craft table for a couple years.

(i also wasn't very motivated to finish it because we didn't really need another chair. i don't like doing projects just for the sake of having a project, especially if it's going to cost me anything.)

in june i was cleaning out and decided that i needed to either finish the chair or just trash it.

spurred by my self imposed ultimatum, i went for it. i burrowed my dad's staple gun and went to town on the seat, using a thrifted sheet that hopefully had a busy enough print to hide wear on the fabric. fast and dirty is an appropriate description of my reupholstering style. seriously, looking at the underside of this chair makes me laugh.

i just went over the old fabric because i knew the stuffing of the chair would crumble if i took it off and i wasn't at all interested in having to buy new batting or stuffing.

once i finished the seat i decided to put the chair back together, that way, if the bolts wouldn't go in (the problem i suspected two years ago) and i had to pitch it, i wouldn't have wasted any more time on the backrest part of the chair. after trying to put the chair together for over 45 minutes, some swearing involved, i was about to throw it out the window. instead, i went to bed and asked tim to take a look at it on his next day off. he got it in less than 10 minutes. (score one in the "why i should keep him" category ; )

i hesitated on the backrest part of the chair for several weeks because i wasn't quite sure how to recover it. the way it had been done before looked a little more detailed (read: effort requiring). remember, i am a lazy, fast project crafter.

last sunday, i was in a cranky mood and i was tired of the unfinished chair sitting around so i went with the "i don't care how you turn out-i'm tired of looking at you" method.

i learned a pleasant thing about myself: i enjoy hand sewing. that's what i had been trying to avoid, but turns out, it's very peaceful and satisfying.


so i got the chair done. i feel like it turned out well, but honestly, just like i felt two years ago, i don't really need another chair. sure it's nice to have to pull up to the table if i need an extra chair, which i have already used it for, but i actually already have another extra chair stashed in a different corner. so right now it's the glorified basket holder for toys and other stuff that need to go upstairs but i'm too lazy to actually take upstairs.


the thing that i really do like about this chair is the funny little face that the back of it makes. i had planned to paint the screws white, but decided to keep it this way. it reminds me of the little brown guy in a game my brother plays, little big planet. apparently, his name is sackboy.





it's okay if you don't see the resemblance. i know it's there.

an ode to june

i'm not ready for july. i'm pretending that the awesome celebration we had monday was Family Fest 2011 and that we're still leasurely hanging out around mid-june.

i don't know why, but july makes me feel a little panic-y. maybe because as a student it meant summer was almost half over. then as a grown up, the first july of our marriage, we grieved the loss of our first little one. the next year, when i was pregnant with ben, july meant baby was coming soon and we were not at all ready. and then he came, not in the way we had planned, the first of many trials in those early months. and of course there's the crushing kansas heat that sucks the life out of you ten seconds after being outside.

but june, oh how i love june. this year i decided it is officially my favorite month, even though it was a questionable june this year.

if we're lucky it starts out coolish and sometimes even rainy. it's laid back and slow with little expectations or plans.


i love the first sounds and sights of summer that emerge in june. lightning bugs. berries. summer nights.

i fell for tim in the summer nights of june. i lived by myself for the only time in my life starting that same june.

i quit a job that i hated in june in a bit of a huff and it felt awesome.

tim and i seemed to finally hit our stride that first year of our marriage in june and then were filled with excitement when we found out we were going to become a family of three the same day my brother got married. we carried that fun little secret for a couple weeks and then got to know the joy of sharing that news with family.


when i was pregnant with max, ben and i had a really good june. we ate breakfast and lunch on the deck most days. we puttered around the house and the yard. ben was between really trying stages of development and was really fun to hang out with. we enjoyed my parents being closer after their may move.

the last two years i don't remember much of june, but i'm sure they were above average.

goodbye june. i wish you would have stayed longer. and been longer. i miss you already.