Women at the Well

Saturday was the Women at the Well performance. Mom and Janelle came and watched it, while Marie, Rheanna, and Samuel stayed with Jeff and the kids. They got to go hang out at the library, but I can't help but think that Mom and Janelle got the better end of the deal!

Despite being fairly nervous and jittery before the performance, I think we did a really good job. There were so many women in the audience with wet eyes by the time we were done. I teared up during a few songs too, but was able to keep myself under control (as opposed to sometimes during rehearsals when I would actually start sobbing because of how touching the songs were). My song went really well, I didn't forget my lines and my voice didn't crack or anything.

After the performance we had a delicious lunch. They served this chicken salad with grapes, apples, and cashews that was just fabulous! And each table had a beautiful centerpiece. Everyone who participated in the performance got to take home one of the centerpieces, which I found just thrilling. I totally love this jug/vase!


Closeup of the spout:


The whole centerpiece. Since I took these pictures today, a couple of the flowers died already. The big orange one and the leaves are fake, though, so they'll last.


My Young Womens' leader from California, who recently moved up here and is coincidentally in my stake, came to the performance, and so got to enjoy a little unexpected reunion with Mom and Janelle. That was a lot of fun. We chatted a bit and enjoyed catching up together.

All in all, I'm glad that the show is over. My Saturdays are free, and now I don't have to worry or stress over it anymore. But I sure will miss it! I made some wonderful friends, and had a great time being a part of it.

Beloved Bishop

Bishop Cook stood today and announced that he was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Tears sprang to my mind, as my mind immediately flashed back to the face of another bishop - a warm and friendly face, with sparkling eyes and a smile that was a permanent fixture - Bishop Oliver's face. I see his face as it appeared on the front of his memorial service program.

Bishop Oliver was the bishop of our ward when I was in high school, back in California. A gentle and fun-loving, slightly older African American, Bishop Oliver was a favorite among the youth. He came to girls' camp one year. We all had a great time as we tried to teach him some of the games we had been playing, especially since he didn't really learn them quickly. He laughed as much as everyone else as he made mistake after mistake in "This is a What," and as he snapped his fingers and grooved along to the rhythm of nursery-rhyme rap game "Hump-de-Dump."

When I was in college I received a phone call from my mom that Bishop Oliver had died. Cancer. It was so hard for me to hear. He was so full of life, so giving and happy. How could he have died?

This is what I thought of as Bishop Cook stood at the pulpit today, announcing his condition to the suddenly quiet congregation. I sat quietly wiping my tears as he explained that he has prostate concer, and described the irony of a 62-year-old man who had only just discovered how to be happy being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.

Luckily (if anything regarding cancer can be called lucky), prostate cancer is one of the less serious types. Bishop Cook proclaimed to all that he does not expect to leave this life yet, not now that he has finally settled into this whole life-and-happiness thing. He will keep working, he will continue as our bishop, he will keep living his life. Even as he told us of his condition, hope and faith emanated from his face, from his whole being.

After he spoke, it was business as usual. The meeting went on, the bishop continued his duties. He made a request for me to set up some specific musical numbers for the coming months. He went to choir practice. He went on with his day.

But I think everyone who heard him speak today, though we may go about our lives as well, will be just a little different than we were before.

Mom's Coming!

I'm so excited! My mom and younger siblings are going to be visiting this weekend! Actually, for all I know they could already be at Aunt Karen's house right now, but they won't be coming over here until later this evening. Just in time, because I have dress rehearsal for W at the W so they can watch the kiddos while Jeff is at work! How bad am I - Oh, you're coming to visit? Great, you can watch my kids for me! :-)

Anyway, I'm so excited to see Mom and Janelle and Marie and Rheanna and Samuel! I've been working on cleaning up the apartment a bit - not too much because I don't want to go overboard and there's too much to do anyway. Just enough so that they don't have to see the pigsty that is our normal abode. You know, actually putting away the toys and books and clothes in the kids' room, wiping all the counters, vacuuming the carpets, that kind of thing.

Speaking of, Thomas just woke up from his nap so I can go ahead and vacuum. Oh the joy and the thrill of cleaning. Could you sense the slight sarcasm in that? I love the feeling of having a clean apartment (I organized the kids' room today and it looks so much nicer!) but I really dislike the process of getting there!

Just a couple more hours until they get here. Woopee!!!!!

More Sewing - Reconstructing a Shirt

Yesterday I checked out a book from the library, Reconstructing Clothes for Dummies. There are lots of fun patterns and projects. Not all of them are really my style, but I loved the tutorial for making a skirt out of an upside-down shirt. So I took an old, ill-fitting shirt of mine and turned it into a skirt!


It was a pretty easy project. Basically, you cut out the shoulders and turn the shirt upside down. Then you use a different shirt to make the wide waistband. If anyone is interested in a tutorial, let me know. I can make another one and actually take pictures of the before and the process, which I neglected to do this time.


I love all the little frills on the bottom!

Anyway, I'm excited to do more with my old clothes - things I've been hanging onto for years (some since high school!) but don't really wear anymore because they're out of style, and they don't fit anyway. I can give myself a whole new wardrobe without having to go out a buy a lot of clothes! Well, maybe not an entire wardrobe, but I will enjoy getting to add new pieces to my existing list of clothes that I'll actually wear. :-)

I Made a Mei Tai!

I've been getting really big into this whole babywearing thing. I love using my wrap, and both Zaylee and Thomas enjoy getting carried by it. And now today, I found a tutorial for making a simple and stylish mei tai (Asian baby carrier), and thought that I would give that one a try too!

I bought some cute home decor fabric (it has to be strong, sturdy fabric) from the clearance rack at Wal-Mart and made this super-cute mei tai this afternoon. It took a few hours, but it was so worth it! I love the bright colors - just enough to be cheery but not too bright and overstated. And I liked that the colors in the fabric changed from one to another. There are stripes of orange, red, and tan. The way the pattern laid out, I ended up with the main panel being both orange and red, and it makes a cool effect.

Since Thomas was still eating dinner when I was ready to model, Zaylee was happily willing to let me carry her instead.

One side is orange:


The other side is red:


And a slightly unflattering view from the back (oops, I should have made sure the straps were flat against my back, instead of folded up like that):


I feel very stylish with my new mei tai!

I used the tutorial found here. This is the Ball Baby Overall mei tai - it differs from other mei tais in that the straps are wider (and therefore more comfortable) and are the same color as the main panel. This mei tai was designed by Kimber Tower, who also sells her beautiful carriers at this website.

Singing in Church

As a way of advertising our upcoming performance of Women at the Well, several of the participants were asked to sing during either Sacrament Meeting or Relief Society for all the wards in the stake. I was asked to sing my song as a special musical number for our ward's Sacrament Meeting, and for the Relief Society of the ward that meets after us in our building.

I was pretty nervous - I've sung my song so many times I can't count them, but that was during practice in front of all the other participants, or at home in front of Jeff and the kids. Sunday was my first time actually performing the song for an audience (or congregation...) and therefore I was a mess of nerves! But if you go by the words of Jeff and everyone who came up to tell me I did a good job, and by the number of crying women in the congregation, I think I did a pretty good job! Jeff said he was amazed at how great my singing was, and that I could totally be on American Idol because I have such a good voice ... but I think he's a bit biased. ;-)

Anyway, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to perform my song, not once but twice, before the actual production. Now that I know I can do it even when I'm nervous, I'll be more confident on Saturday and less nervous (hopefully). I'm so excited about the performance on Saturday - but I'll miss practices and hanging out with all the wonderful women I've had the opportunity to meet and get to know. I'm always a little bit sad when a production is over - I've had a wonderful time and I'll definitely miss being a part of it.

New Sink and Thomas' Shirt

A couple cool things about today. We went to Wal-Mart to pick up diapers for Thomas, and when we got home there was a man under our sink.

A couple days ago I decided that I had finally had it with the faucet of our kitchen sink. It would spray water out of the top of the nozzle, all over the kitchen, if we turned it on too high. And I noticed that the stem itself, not just the nozzle, was leaking water. It made using the faucet really inconvenient and unpleasant. I had tried a couple times to tighten the nozzle, but it never did any good. And this last time it made it even worse. So I finally did what I should have done right away - I filed a maintenance request.

And today the maintenance man came and made it all better. He didn't just fix the old faucet...


He installed a beautiful shiny new faucet! This one doesn't leak anywhere at all, and it looks so much nicer than the old one, which was pretty much falling apart. I love our new faucet!

And that garlic in the background - we usually don't buy fresh garlic but it was super-duper on sale and we bought that whole packet of five heads of garlic for about 20 cents. I love being a bargain shopper!


The other cool thing about today was working on Thomas' new shirt. I bought a sheet at D.I. a while ago for the purpose of making a new Church shirt for Thomas. I got the pieces cut out and then they sat there for a while. Today I sewed it all together.


It's looking so cute, and Thomas is downright dapper in it, but I've hit a roadblock. I can't put in the buttons until I do the buttonholes, and I can't put in the buttonholes until I get a seam-ripper. We'll probably go shopping again tomorrow so I can go ahead and buy one, so I can do the buttonholes and buttons. I'm so excited for Thomas to be able to wear the entire outfit, this shirt and the coordinating pants.

I also did a bit of mending today. I bought a cute black skirt to wear for the Women at the Well performance (we're supposed to wear all black) but the hem was coming undone. I was excited to be able to fix the hem quickly and easily. And one of Jeff's pairs of pants had a hole in the pocket, which I was able to fix for him after I did my skirt. It's so nice to have a sewing machine and be able to do all these little sewing things! I'm so glad we decided to go ahead and buy one.

Wish I Weren't Sick...

Apparently my body doesn't like it when I stay up late snacking on sweets and junk food for three nights in a row. I woke up sick this morning, with a major stomach-ache and lots of time in the bathroom. I never even bothered to get out of my pajamas this morning, and I've spent the whole day lazing around on the couch or the computer (or the bathroom...) trying to rest and not feel so icky.

Lucky for me, today is the beginning of Jeff's off-week, so he's been home all day helping with the kids, and he'll be home for the next week. No more late night snack raids. We plan on going to bed at a decent time, and I am planning on not snacking on sweets after dinner. And then I'll just hope that I can be good and disciplined when Jeff goes back to work next week. Sigh, I knew all that snacking would catch up with me.

Now I just have to get rid of all those cookies I baked at 10:00 last night...

Time to Update I Guess

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. Let me see if I can actually remember stuff to write about this week...

The beginning of the week is a blur 'cause it was so long ago and nothing really interesting happened. We went shopping on Monday, which I only remember because we always do our shopping on Monday. Let's see, Tuesday I had practice for Women at the Well. We worked on individual songs first, then all got together and worked on the group songs. I'm working on memorizing. I've had my song memorized for quite a while, but now am trying to make sure that I can sing the other parts without music too. I also have a couple lines that I need to memorize. It would be a lot easier if I hadn't lost my script last week...

Anyway, I'm getting really excited about our performance. The show is on the 21st, and I'm super excited that my mom is coming down to visit with the kids for spring break, and they'll probably be here in time to watch the show. Hooray! I'm so excited for a visit from Mom and everybody (and it will be good motivation to get the apartment cleaned up - it's been getting messy again).

Nothing memorable on Wednesday (evidenced by the fact that though I'm wracking my brains I can't remember it at all) so I'll skip forward to Thursday. We usually have our monthly girls' night out on Thursdays so I drove down to Lehi on Thursday evening with a pan full of brownies, super excited to watch Vocal Point and hang out with the girls. Except that upon arriving I realized that the concert (and girls' night) was actually on Friday night. Oops. Angie took pity on me and invited me in for dinner, then we went to her Enrichment activity. The youth in her ward put on a show for us, with singing and dancing and acting. Lots of talent, and I was very impressed! After enrichment I came back home and planned to make the drive again the next night for the actual Night Out.

Except that, on Friday morning the car wouldn't start. Jeff took the train to work and I called a friend in the ward to help us jump the car. But it turned out to not be the battery - we couldn't figure out what was wrong. So no Girls' Night Out, no Vocal Point, and the car is now in the shop (after Jeff and Brother B. had an adventure getting it there - apparently it's harder to tow than one might think). The man at the shop thinks it's the fuel pump, which costs over $500 to fix. Yikes! And ironically, he can't get it to not start now, and he hasn't even fixed it yet. Plus there's a problem with one of the fans that will cost over $200 should we choose to get that fixed too. Man, I really dislike when cars stop working right - it costs so much to fix them!!

Saturday morning we ran through the Women at the Well show, with staging and everything. That was fun, it's reminding me a bit of when I would be in high school plays. Except everyone goofs off less because we're all adult women instead of goofy teenagers. But we still have a good time. It's so neat to see it all coming together, and I still cry a bit during some of the more touching songs. I cry a lot more easily since becoming a mother - we had the CD of all these songs when I was younger but I don't think they ever made me cry back then. I guess I just understand things more now, and I am reading more into them - glimpsing into the lives of these women who were touched and blessed by Jesus in their lives. This has been a really special experience for me, and I'm really glad that I had the courage to audition to take part in this performance.

Jeff is transitioning to working nights, and Saturday was his first day of working the evening-to-early-morning shift. So starting on Saturday I have been staying up way too late at night because Jeff isn't here to make me go to bed! Since he'll be working late every other week indefinitely, this is something I need to work on. Gotta learn to get myself to bed at a decent time no matter when Jeff gets home. Also, I need to learn to control my nighttime snack cravings. When I'm up late without Jeff, I get itching to eat chocolate and baked goods and ice cream and whatever I can get my hands on. Yeah, that's gotta stop... or the scale won't be looking too friendly soon. :-)

Today being shopping day but not having the car, I walked to Smith's to do some minimalist grocery shopping, being limited to purchasing only what I could carry back with me. We decided we could just get milk, eggs, cheese, and bananas, and just leave anything else for later. I brought my backpack for the milk, cheese, and fruit, and a canvas bag for the eggs. I was gleeful to learn that because I didn't use plastic bags, I got a five cent discount! Hmm, something to remember... I could sew up some grocery bags using scrap fabric and over the year we could probably save up several dollars! Whoopee! (heeheehee)

I just remembered something memorable about Wednesday! We went to have dinner with Jeff's sister Joy and her kids. We had taco salad, and it was really yummy. Joy had been going through their stuff and found lots of old books from back when she and Jeff and their brothers were young kids. She didn't want them anymore, so she gave them to us! It's fun to see so many books that Jeff used to read as a young boy - some of them are the same ones that I used to read too! And in one of them, he wrote his name in the front. It was way back when he first learned to write, because the J is backward and there are two Y's - JEFFREYY. It's really cute. The kids have been having a blast with their new books - mostly by spreading them out all over the living room. But we've been reading them too. Today I finally got them out of the living room and onto the bookshelf in the kids room. We'll see how long they keep them there nicely before they pull them all off and stack them in a pile in the middle of the room. I know my children, and I know how they operate. I just have to keep my eyes open if I want to avert the inevitable.

Okay, this post is way too long now, and there aren't even any pictures. I better end it now.

Stake Conference

I just remembered that I wanted to post about our Stake Conference this weekend. There's a few really awesome things about living in Salt Lake City. First, our Stake Center (where we had the Saturday evening session of conference) is only one block away from our apartment, and it looks like a castle.


Second is that we had the Sunday morning session of conference at the old Assembly Hall on Temple Square.


Gorgeous, isn't it? I managed to get some pictures of the inside before and after the conference. This is the organ (aaah, I love it!):


And here is a mural on the ceiling:


After conference we walked around the square for a while, and I took some pictures. Here's one of a statue of Joseph Smith.


Third cool thing is that you run into people that you never thought you'd run into. I was sitting with the kids on our pew, and I happened to glance over to another pew and see my Young Women leader from when I was in high school - in California! Never thought I'd see her here! Turns out she just moved up here, just like we did, and now we're in the same stake. What a fun coincidence. She's the one that gave me the recipe for the delicious shrimp appetizer that I make for Jeff and I every Valentine's Day.

I thought that now might be a pretty good time to announce that, even though I was miserable to be moving here to Salt Lake a few months ago, I recently discovered that I actually like it here! It has sort of snuck up on me, and then it just hit me that not only am I tolerating the area, but I actually really like it. I love the library, I love that we're within walking distance of D.I., Smith's, Big Lots, Walgreens, and our ward building and stake center. I love that we're so close to Temple Square that we can just take the Trax and it's free the whole way. I love that our Wal-Mart is so huge that I can find pretty much everything there - it even has a fabric section, which has been removed from most Wal-Marts. I love that I'm surrounded by beautiful buildings with history and architechtural interest. I don't even mind driving anymore. I don't go out of my way to find an excuse to drive, but I don't avoid it either. I've driven to American Fork twice, and I don't freak out on the huge freeways anymore.

However, I still don't like living in such a tiny apartment. That's something that I don't think will ever change! :-)

Stephanie Needs...

This was on Rachel's blog and Sarah's blog. Thought I'd join in! Google your name followed by the word needs. (ie...bob needs) and write the first 10 things that come up.

Stephanie needs...
1. some help. Look at those pants!
2. to be in a family where there are no other children or animals.
3. a behavior modification approach to deal with some residual effects and strong-willed ness.
4. is on Facebook.
5. to get a life!!!!
6. a family who can help her strive to participate in structured recreational and social activities.
7. a date for Valentine's Day!
8. help in locating a job in the kingston area to stop me from driving to work in belleville.
9. a sound proofed home to protect her.
10. a loving home.

There were some weird ones (apparently according to my number 4, there's actually someone named Stephanie Needs). I came across several other blogs and stuff that had this exact list thing, but I tried not to copy their lists (though I could have).