Hopping to the doctor's office

Dressed in her bunny "going to the doctor's outfit", we hopped on over to Dr. Fruin's office. [Thanks, Jill, for the recommendation. She is great.]

They seemed surprised that we needed an appointment days after being released, but that is what the NICU wanted. Weighed with her clothes on, she was 6-14, but I'm guessing that is a half pound too high.

Everything was great!

A little healthy competition...

We've been telling Eve she really needs to get home soon. Savannah has already placed dibs on the newer crib. She's worn some of the cutest outfits. She sucked on all of the nipples.

Eve has taken it to heart. She had had her feeding tube removed, and if all goes well, she will be home on Saturday.

Last night Eve had (supposedly) gained 3 ounces (from the loss of the previous day). It sounds like a scale problem to me. They have her at six pounds three ounces.

Hiccups at 3 a.m.

I think Grandmas and grandbabies are a perfect match. Grandmas don't sleep well and grandbabies get hiccups in the middle of the night. It's a perfect match.

Preschool at the hospital

Just when I thought Michelle should check out preschool at the hospital, Savannah is (cross your fingers) coming home! She weighs 6 pounds 3.5 ounces, but she still looks and acts so tiny. If she keeps eating, and passes her carseat test (to make sure she can tolerate it for the length of a ride home), she will come home tomorrow.

Michelle and Ben wish both of the girls were coming home, but I'm thinking it will be nice to get up to speed with one before we have two here.

Eve is also growing, but she has been slacking on her bottle feeding - so she may be a few more days. Both girls have been anemic, but Jill says that's just part of being preemie.

Steve and I were just getting ready to leave to visit the girls when Michelle called with the news, so I hurriedly packed my things and we took off. We saw the girls, and went to Trisha's for a gourmet dinner. Now, I'm just waiting around at their home for the big day to arrive.

Here she is on Tuesday in her coming home outfit.

No thinking allowed

The entrance to our parking lot is closed for a month due to the new Ag building construction. To get us to our parking lot, they have re-routed traffic in front of the student center (by the alumni house). They've doused the cement walkways with sand in an effort to protect them and slowed traffic to five miles per hour. The road is narrow and fences on each side (to keep out pedestrians) make traffic extremely tedious. It is quite the entrance. Just before you get to the parking lot is a stop sign at the entrance to the T. However, with the road closure, there is only a "road closed" sign to the left, so the stop sign is rendered useless. The fellow in front of me, seeing the fruitlessness of a stop sign, rolled through it. I was just thinking, "Yeah, it makes no sense to stop here anymore" but stopped anyway - when police lights started flashing. I absolutely could not believe it. They pulled the guy over for rolling through a stop sign that served no purpose. AND to think the police officer thought sitting across the parking lot was a good use of his time.

ARGG!!! No thinking allowed. A stop sign is a stop sign.

Be careful what you wish for

We bought our condo in 1998 when the lake was nearly at high water mark. I have never seen it that high since, that is until this year. While it still has a few feet to reach high water mark, there is absolutely no beach. There is no way to get out to a boat, unless you love tromping through marshy, buggy weeds for thirty yards followed by another thirty yards of rock bottomed, reed filled water.

It could be a rough year at Bear Lake. One of my favorite things to do is walk along the absolutely stupendous beach.

Not this year.

In the past we have wished for more water, but now I'm beginning to think we made a mistake. It reminds me of the stories of my youth where someone was granted three magic wishes and then squandered them away.

I thought I understood frugality...

I just finished a book called, Little Heathens, written by a woman very close to my parent's ages. The language was a bit crude in parts (and a few F words that you can easily avoid as they are well announced), but I found it to be a trip down the memory lane of my parents' early life: outhouses, no refrigeration, horses, chickens, milking cows, canning, and lots of Yankee ingenuity.

Here is a quote from the book:

“We were taught that if you bought something it should last forever—or as close to
forever as we could contrive. I think one of the cleverest tricks was how we extended the lives of socks. When the socks of the biggest child developed holes in the toes, Grandma, using her dressmaker’s shears, would cut off the end, sew it closed on the sewing machine, and pass the socks down to the child next in size. When the socks developed holes again, she would repeat this until the sock had been passed down to the child with the smallest foot. You think that was the end of those socks? “Not on your tintype!” as she would have put it. She cut the ribbed tops off of those socks and they did duty sewn into the ends of sleeves of fall and winter jackets and coats to keep out the bitter cold.

“Of course, there were times when the socks developed holes in the heels. This repair called for painstaking darning, always done by females and nearly always done during their so called leisure time. But there was a limit to how often socks could be darned, and when they had been “all darned out” we were resourceful to the end. We cut them into small squares and tossed them into the shoe-shine box to be used for buffing cloths. Or we cut them lengthwise into two-inch widths and clamped them into the reusable mop handle designed for this purpose.

*****

She talks about using her finger to remove all the residual egg white from an egg. I have seen some frugal behavior in my time, but I've never seen anyone do that. I've been wanting to try it to see if it would even yield much, but I can't ever remember to try it.

After breakfast, my Grandmother Hurst used to dump all of the half finished glasses of orange juice back into the pitcher saying "These have hardly been touched." My Dad was frugal (saving every screw, remnant of wood, and piece of rope that crossed his path), but we weren't so frugal we recycled orange juice.

They rarely got store-bought food, but when they did, they even enjoyed the packaging. They wrapped their sandwiches for school lunch in wax paper they took from the inner sack of a cereal box. Each day they would fold it up for reuse the next day.

In the book, she talks about treating a cut by wrapping it with a spiderweb, using ear wax to sooth a bee sting, using a drying egg white to extract a sliver. She gives lots of recipes too. I found myself remembering so many things I have been told about life in the 1930's and things I saw at the old homestead.

Is this monopoly money?

The last time I was to the dermatologist for wart removal, I asked about a few small milia that I typically dig out. They were (of course) appalled that I would dig them and and suggested I should have microderm abrasion. Well, its been six months, and the milia are back. I called to see if there was something I could do to remove the milia that would not be considered strictly cosmetic (and immune to health insurance coverage). They said, "No", but that I should come in for a free cosmetic analysis.

While the tech said my skin was good, if I wanted to get the most bang for my buck, she would suggest:

1. Botox, around my eyes and eyebrow $150-$400, lasts up to six months
2. Filler, around my nasolabial folds (between nose and corners of mouth), $550, lasts up to 12 months
3. Chemical Peels, package of 6 treatments, for $750. Expect a few days of "down time"
4. HydraFacial - package of 6 treatments for $600

She also recommended some good serums to rebuild skin
a. Kinerase Advanced Repair Serum .5 fluid oz - $132
b. Skinmedica, TNS Essential Serum, 1 oz - $250
c. TNS Illuminating Eye Cream (to thicken skin under eyes), .5 oz $80

She also recommended some sunscreen that is a tinted powder, so it can go over your makeup. .21 oz, $50

I did find the serums and sunscreen online at somewhat cheaper.

So is this monopoly money? Do people really pay that much to hide a wrinkle or two? A permanent solution or one paid for by my insurance may get a second glance, but this is major money for something I doubt anyone but me would notice.

There was a residual effect, however. I decided I could afford some high end over the counter moisturizer with 30 SPF.

Vanity at 94

Steve's sisters indicated they were having such stress trying to carry on a phone conversation with his Mom, that they asked us to see what helps were available.

After numerous emails and phone calls, I found a state funded center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Taylorsville. They consented to come and bring various assistive technology. After we got the visit arranged, I started asking Alda why she didn't use her hearing aids. I really hadn't realized how little she uses her hearing aids. It appears it is less than ten times a year. I asked her why she didn't wear them. She said they really didn't help much, and she didn't like the feeling of something stuffed in her ears. She said, "At church, I still can't hear the speakers." I reminded her that she wasn't going to church these days, so how something worked at church wasn't a huge issue.

I asked her why she didn't use the T.V. ears she had been given for her birthday. She said they really helped, but then she couldn't hear the telephone ring as well. I reminded her that she had flashers on the telephone. Of course, since she naps a lot during the day, she won't see the flashing with her eyes closed. I also doubt she hears the telephone very well with the volume on the TV turned up to jet engine level.

Then, I started to worry that I was having a woman travel from Taylorsville to give us suggestions when Alda wasn't even wearing hearing aids.

We contacted USU and made an appointment to have her hearing aids checked. The intern said that hearing aids have changed so much in ten years that it was like comparing a Model T to a Jaguar. Alda had significant wax blockage (which they removed) and significant hearing loss, but they were quite sure hearing aids would make a huge difference. The question is, "Would she wear them?" They said she could try the $3000 hearing aids for a month, and would only pay for the $200 fitting charges if she decided to return them.

I tried to get her to commit to wearing them. She said things like, "I do pretty well without anything." ARGG!! Anyway, after three hours of testing and talking, we ordered them. They should be in sometime this week.

We went ahead with the appointment with the assistive technology person. We ordered a "free" phone that was adjustable to 50 decibels. In addition, the woman had something called a pocket talker or a mino personal amplifier that we could try for a month or two before buying one. I was amazed at how well Alda could hear with it.

During the two hour appointment, we said such things as, "Which would you rather have, the amplifier or the volume on the TV turned up loud?" and got definitive answers such as "I don't know". We tried to show her that she could both hear the phone and the doorbell better with the amplifier. The woman explained that hearing is NOT going to be like it was at twenty; you have to expect differences. I explained that turning the volume way up wasn't an option if she had other people around and that you couldn't turn the volume up on dinner conversation. The woman explained that its "Use it or Lose it! Communication occurs in the brain. When we lose our ability to hear, the ear stops sending needed information to the brain, effecting the ability to understand what is being said." We gave it our best sales pitch, but by Friday she had given up on the personal amplifier saying, "It messes up my hair" or "I don't like the cord that connects the headphones to the amplifier."

Other than her weekly dinner with Norm/Deb and a trip to our house for Sunday dinner, she rarely leaves the house - yet having her hair unsullied is paramount.

I guess we'll hope the hearing aids turns out better.

Ragnar - I don't get it

The kids ran Ragnar this weekend. I seriously don't get it. The website says, "Think of it as a 188-mile party with 12 best friends. Teams of 12 will rock out to live bands, enjoy the wacky participant costumes, and make life-long friends with teammates and competitors."

They pay $90 each for the privilege of running through the night - three legs each, sleeping on gymnasium floors (for at least 60 minutes), eating in the minivan crammed with five other runners. They left at 4:30 on Friday morning and returned almost forty hours later.

Yet they all said they'd do it again. I can't even imagine it being fun.

The Queen is Angry at You

While Greg, Kram, Brandon, and Trisha ran in Ragnar, Steve, Lori and I took care of the four kids. Here is a conversation I overheard between the boys.

Drew: Let’s play kingdom. [They begin to drag out all the blankets and afghans that they can find. They particularly love the green and white afghans as they serve so many purposes. The white one is Drew’s favorite, but Zach prefers the green one.]

Zach: The green ones are better.

Drew: The white one is magical.

Zach: The green one is magical-er. It can make you disappear.

Drew: The white one can make you melt into the ground!

Zach: The green ones make you totally disappear. The white ones don’t. People still know you are in there.

Drew: Look at me. [Covered with the white one.]

Zach: I still know you’re under there. With the green ones, you disappear. With the white ones, you don’t.

Drew: I’ve melted into the ground.

Zach: No, no, no, no. I’m trying to tell you something. The green one is magical-est. Want to see me disappear? [He puts the green afghan over himself.]

Drew: We need to get the rocking chair. I need to sit.

Drew: [After placing the child’s rocking chair in the TV room and arranging the white afghan over him] SILENCE!!! You have to bow to me.

Zach: Get down. It’s going to be done in five minutes.

Drew: Pretend someone took the baby. [Sitting in the chair.] I’m covered in my long dress [the afghan]. Can you grab a pillow for me?

Zach: [singing] It is going to be hot tomorrow.

Zach: Hey, Let’s go see if Brooke is awake. [They are covered in blankets, walking around like creatures from the black lagoon, peeking through the weave of the afghan.]

Drew: SILENCE

Zach: All right. SILENCE to you.

Drew: No, I say silence.

Zach: I say silence.

Drew: Okay. We both say silence. To other people. The Queen is angry at you.

Gross Food

Brooke has been so interested in the twins. She sent them pictures to color while they were in the hospital, as that is how she spent her time when visiting Drew in the hospital. She has wanted to see them, but since kids aren't allowed in the ICU, they haven't made the trip. She has been concerned that they are not eating well enough to come home. Today she had a suggestion. Brooke said, "The reason the girls won't eat is because the food looks gross. Michelle needs to give them something that looks better." I thought it was adorable.

One more time

After dinner, we took the grandkids for ice cream and to see grandma great. At the dugway, Lori saw an accident so she and the kids stayed behind to testify to what they had seen. Thus, Zach, Halle, Steve and I had lots of time at Aggie Ice Cream waiting for them to come. Halle's only requirement for ice cream was that it be yellow. While lemon was the yellowest, we opted for vanilla to be safe. She was more interested in playing outside on the cement wall along the stairway than she was on eating ice cream. She would walk down the stairs, get a lift from Grandma to the top of the cement wall, and then walk up holding onto the railing with both hands. At the top, she would hold onto Grandpa and jump down. Each time she would hold her pointer finger up to her face and say, "One more time". Other kids were attempting the same thing and would say, "Mom, watch me". Halle would mimic, "Mom, watch me!" - even though her mother was still running Ragnar.

As we visited Grandma Great, Halle was everywhere - discovering things I never knew were there - the pastry brushes hanging inside the cupboard, the dish towels drying on the racks in the closet, the package of Chex Mix stowed in a lower cupboard. She would pull something out of the bag, name it, and then run to ask Grandma Great if she could eat it. Pretty cute!

Man is that he MIGHT have joy

I have a friend who is a pathological pessimist. You have heard the saying, “The optimist sees the glass as half full. The pessimist sees the glass as half full.” She takes it to a whole new level. She sees the missing tablespoon from the glass. If the glass is clear full, she complains that it will become empty ,or someone wanted it to be empty, or she doesn’t like the glass itself.

I have been pondering how to help her. She is difficult to be around, but she is making herself sick.

I have tried patiently listening. I have tried agreeing with her complaints, but pointing out the positive. I have tried disagreeing. Nothing seems to work. She seems hardwired to find the negative in every situation.


I pulled these gems from Susanne Gaddis, So how can one curb a pessimistic attitude? Again, the first step is to recognize that you that you have one. The next step is to train your brain to accept a more positive outlook. This is achieved by taking inventory of your internal dialogue or self-talk. Begin to notice the 1000 to 3000 words per minute you speak to yourself. When your thoughts are not of use or of benefit to you, tell yourself, “CANCEL.” When you start this process you may need to say “Cancel,” a lot. Because your brain will continue to dialogue with itself, the next step is to substitute positive, affirming messages. In time, by stopping negative self-talk and by substituting with positive thoughts, you can develop a better outlook, leading to better relationships which will yield you a better life.



How do you help someone to see the positive? John Maxwell said, ‘Life is ten percent of what happens to me and ninety percent of how I react to it” Similarly, someone said, “Ninety percent of me is good and ten percent of me is bad. If you choose to focus on the 90%, we will be happy. If you choose to focus on the ten percent, you will be miserable.”


Joseph Smith, “Man is that he might have joy.” MIGHT. It is a choice.

You know you're an engineer if...

You know you're an engineer if... the provost and both deans say you are switching colleges.

We fought being merged with Electrical and Computer Engineering and they have allowed us to stay as a separate department, if we make the follow concessions:

1. Our department head go on sabbatical for a year starting July 1.
2. We do a national search for a new department head.
3. We move to the college of engineering
4. We give up a faculty position (for someone that had already decided to leave the university).

Lots of changes.

I can taste the love

Working in Relief Society, I see a lot of service being given one to another. One thing I've noticed is that some people are a lot easier to do things for than others. When service is spontaneous, rather than assigned, I see some people getting all kinds of things done for them and others the bare minimum - even though the needs of the two families are similar. I think it has to do with feeling their gratitude. While I do believe that most people don't serve to be recognized or to get thanks, when there is no thanks and no appreciation, the joy of service seems to be seriously squashed. We take in a lot of meals, but I don't believe the meals are about taking care of one's physical needs. Most people in our neighborhood can afford to pick up Papa Murphys or Rumbis. Taking in food is about showing love - pure and simple.

Merlene Ivie has got to be one of the neatest people to serve. She and Boyd have had a ton of health problems this past year or two. EVERYBODY wants to do things for them because they are so wonderful to give thanks. The last time I took bread over to them, Merlene called immediately and said, "We sure appreciate the bread Steve brought over. The thing that is so special about your bread is the love you put in it." I laughed and told her that she was a special woman who could taste the love. I think that is the secret - being able to recognize the love. What you're given may not be exactly what you wanted, may be too much for your needs, may not be your favorite recipe, and may be a duplicate of what someone else brought - but if you can recognize the love, you are truly grateful.