i received a magazine the other day, just in time for christmas shopping. i was looking at the toy kitchens. i always wanted a toy kitchen growing up, maybe i'm projecting that onto my kids. anyway, you know what i found? that every single one of the kitchens in this fancy shmancy kid catalogue were pink. PINK.

i don't know anyone in real life that has a pink kitchen.

you know where i am going with this, right? good, then i don't have to go there.
*walks away shaking my head in disgust*

i was making gravy for dinner yesterday, with a 2 year old screaming and balancing on my hip, i was wondering what the gourmet chefs would think. i mean, my gravy turned lumpy at the last minute. i'm sure it was the fault of the 2 year old and the lack of my constant attention to detail. my wisk was set down as i rescued him from a major melt down. in my mind, i compared gourmet cooking and cooking for kids like this: it is like practicing for a basket ball game, when you can make the shot 100% during the practice, but once you have the other team jumping up and down in front of you, or slapping you around, or being noisy, it makes it much harder. a gourmet cook, or one of the fancy cooks can make the best gravy. it's never lumpy. everything is delish. it's just like a practice. they have no interference, no fouls, and no distractions.

my food however, may never make it to that standard. most of the time, it's just awesome if it isn't burned. i usually forget what i was doing after i changed a diaper, got a band aid, fixed a bike tire, or helped with the math homework. the pressure of it all! of course you can say that my meals are peppered with love, and seasoned with service. i do it because i love my children and i enjoy cooking wonderful food for them. it would be nice to actually cook wonderful food for them. and then have them eat it. instead of throwing it back at me telling me it was "gross" because of the "green things". or wanting ketchup for "dip". or the days when they get up and make themselves their own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. those are the days that i wonder what i do it all for.

in reality, cooking for a family is like those hard win basket ball games. i'm just there to get the job done. i wish the ref would show up and call a few fouls. i'd love to be able to not trip on a toy dinosaur, or have a small person scream from the other room in pain because his brother punched him. my attention could be focused on the meal instead of the cramp in my arm from holding the fussy baby. i hope someday i'll have better success and every cake that comes out of the oven won't have a layer of carbon, or that i will someday leave behind lumpy gravy. but for now, i'm just showing up. game on.

my first and only.... a lame book review

i read this book.

i was excited about it, mostly because i love a good controversy. so bigd got the book from the library, and i decided to read it first, mostly because i wanted to read it first because i am mean like that. anyway...

there are two kinds of books out there. well, there are more than that, but there are two kinds of books that i like. the ones that are entertaining, and the ones that make you think. you get bonus points if you make both lists.

sadly this book made neither. it was much too boring to be interesting, and much to redundant and predictable to be entertaining.

so this robert langdon dude is back,and he does the exact same thing he does in the other two books he is in. he runs around with an attractive woman and finds clues to a mystery or puzzle, and eventually finds out that he already knows the answer. with a lot of plot twists. the only different thing about this book and the davinci code, was that THAT book made you want to google pictures and learn a little history while you were reading. angels and demons made you want to know who's the bad guy? in this book, there was a point that i thought the author was going to do something pretty intersting/brave, and unheard of, but then you find out it is just another "thing". that is all it was, a formulaic and pretty predictable book.

mostly it's about the masons and our founding fathers. as in our founding fathers were religious guys who were also masons. which if you know anything about history, it doesn't come as a big surprise. i was bored and i actually skipped pages. whole pages. i haven't done that since elementary school. we all know many of our founding fathers were masons. the only slightly interesting thing was he got sort of detailed about the rituals. which, by the way, weren't as shocking as i was expecting, considering the drama surrounding the book release. (there was some, right?)

one of the biggest reasons that i wanted to read the book was because i had heard that dan brown came to salt lake city and spoke with leaders from the lds church. who knows what was said, but i found it interesting that part of my religion could have made it out there. maybe it did make the first draft and then was cut. i didn't really see a place for it. i really didn't see a place for anything. maybe that is because i skipped too many pages.

in the end, if you love a good mystery....wait, um....if you love a predictable mystery ( i know this is an oxymoron), shaken up with a little bit of history, and some silly characters, give it a read. if you want to read a good book, i'd pass on this one.

running

it's about time.

it's about speed.

it's also about not getting hurt.

those heavenly and frustrating "rest" days.

but mostly, it's about doing the best you can for you. even if you don't go as fast as you used to. or you have a kid who screams and wants to "go home". it's about taking an hour for myself, even if i'm not by myself. even if i don't push myself, i am pushing myself to get out there. that is what it's about. being able to stop and watch the hawk eat a mouse, or see the fish in the pond, or watch the horses. seeing the occasional woolly bear cross the trail. it's about sweating and thinking. it's about planning the menu, or the grocery list, what to paint. or what to blog about. feeling good, even if i don't look that way. making up stories to tell to my kids. watching waterfalls. chasing ducks and cats. stopping at the castle, or the llamas, or feeding the baby goats. it's also about seeing the same people and saying hi. watching the same dogs chase my dog. running the same streets and watching people come and go. it connects me to where i am, and who i am, and what i want to be.

even if i never run as fast as i want to. or as far.

so it's september

i am sad that september is half over
because if i had my way
summer would last a lot longer
from march to november
with a christmas snow
and then an early spring
and maybe a month of fall
in reality
i love fall
because it cools off
it winds down
the days are shorter
the night lasts longer
like going back to bed
crawling under blankets
and snuggling down
the trees
the mountains
the harvest
if only fall lead to spring
and not to winter
because for me
winter is like dying