Everyday Is Halloween

Sammy was a no-go on any and all costumes. Cute devil costume? Nope. Dinosaur costume was too big, but we barely got to find that out considering the hot flaming swords that were evidently in it, based on his reaction. So we settled on black and orange striped pants, an orange / ghost tee shirt and a pumpkin hat. Compromise!

My cute nephew and niece came over before school for pictures. Check out those costumes...my sister is a genius!


They happened to stand in front of my favorite halloween decorations:


And were opposite of my new favorite decoration picked up this year, the awesome pumpkin lantern:


Isaac, uh, got into the spirit of things with a new tie (that's as far as he takes it!):


We did some Main Street trick or treating with friends and then took the boy home. He kept going inbetween excitement to play with the other kids (who are all a year older) and mildly (very mildly) freaked out and wanting me to hold him (most often). But he did better than I thought he would have, so that's something! Next year. Next year will definitely be better. And I think I'm going to dress up. I'll just have to remind Ollie of our pact to go as "Utah moms". I wonder if I should start looking for my Gunnie Sax dress now...

Happy Halloween! - take one


Happy Halloween! - take two


Happy Halloween! - Finally! The real one or, take three

A Reel Life

I am pleased to say that I am a guest blogger today over at Light Refreshments (thanks, Diane, for the idea). Below is my guest post (posted here for posterity sake), but, please, go check it out over there! Happy Halloween, everyone!



When I was little, it wasn't so much about influence as entertainment. I watched Condorman and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes in the theater, but I certainly didn't come away with any lasting life changes from the viewings. Well, except a litany of family jokes, but that's not the point. Other movies may be in the recesses of my mind, but none particularly stick out. A lot of standard Disney fare for a child of the 70s and 80s, but nothing influential.

As I grew, I moved toward romantic media. I was a complete romantic at age 14. Since movies were a rare treat in my adolescence, I read everything I could get my hands on and had an overactive imagination. I wanted Sidney Carton to come and profess undying love to me. I watched romance unfold and somehow that made me feel better about being bookish and unpopular and helped fritter away the time until college.

Once I got to college I started taking movies more seriously. Dates, outings to get my mind off school as well as social commentary; movies started taking on more meaning for me. It still can’t watch Strictly Ballroom without thinking of my sophomore year. Or 8 Seconds without thinking of the boys I hung around. I remember watching The Three Musketeers with my roommates and friends one afternoon and feeling decadent that I was splurging on a dollar movie. I have only ever walked out on one movie in my life and that was at the same theater later that same year.

I'm not sure why, but certain movies speak to me and help me, as a writer, be creative in ways I couldn't get anywhere else. Sometimes a film sparks me to writing immediately. Other times it stays with me and the feelings I had while watching cause scenes from my stories to play out over months or years until I can commit it to paper in just the right way. I watch Possession and immediately feel the need to research more into the life of Henry VIII and work it into a modern short story. I watch Under the Tuscan Sun and the slow build of personal narratives haunt my brain for months. Sticky notes of ideas follow from watching Reality Bites, The Whole Wide World, The Philadelphia Story, The Truman Show and Sliding Doors.

However, in my life, movies aren’t always about the creative process. Sometimes memories will attach themselves to films, for better or worse.

Our first date (was it our first? I can't remember...) was amazing. He made me crepes and we watched The Odd Couple. We had a love of old movies and spent a good portion of the next three years held up somewhere watching old movies. Every weekend we would rent a stack, grab a container of Chips Ahoy and love the days spent without a care in the world. I fully developed my love of Myrna Loy and William Powell during those years. Since the divorce, however, I have a hard time watching the movies we both loved. A few have escaped and are still on neutral territory, but anytime I see a clip or sound bite from The Odd Couple, I can’t help but think of our first date, how he called me Felix from then on and how that night we were standing on the precipice of great happiness. Viewing certain films from that time in my life, now, brings great heartache. Not creativity.

Luckily, for every movie that attaches to a less than thrilling memory, I have spades more that are attached to good. Watching Gattaca with my now husband on our first date. Sitting in the theater for the third viewing of City of Angels and feeling great hope that I would find love again. Movies in the middle of the afternoon while we lived in Portland just because we could. Matinees with my girlfriends who are now far away. Horton Hears a Who; my son’s first movie in a theater.

Media is all around me and will always be a big part of my life. For some reason it binds with my memories and is how I categorize eras of my life. Good, bad, creative or not.

I Love You, So What

I sometimes listen to guys at church, or casually, talk about their wives. They have glowing reviews - she's such an awesome mom, she's superwoman, she can do anything (so giving, charitable, never a harsh word etc) - and I wonder what Isaac would say about me? Would he tell them how frustrated he gets having to talk me down from my latest medical malady, however much it's in my head? Would he tell them how he's the kinder, more gentle one of us? Would he tell them how I'm lazy and too hard on myself and have more issues than he can remember? Probably not. My husband is much too kind.

My friend Summer and I have had a couple of conversations about how when people vent about their kids, no one questions their love of their kids, but acknowledges the bad day. Not so about our spouses. If we vent about our spouses, others start to wonder if we love them at all. If we are seconds from leaving and calling it quits. I wonder why the difference?

Isaac and I don't really fight. We have a sort of groove down now, and we rarely fight. Annoy each other? Oh, absolutely. Probably me annoying him a little more often, but yeah. We did, however, fight a lot the first couple of years we were married. I think second marriages can do that. You are so used to how things were that you forget this is all new to the other person. Add a splash of "oh, yeah, this one could bolt, too" and you have a recipe for a less than happy transition phase. Luckily, we seemed to have worked that part out and have settled into real life.

I wish I could tell everyone getting married how hard it is. That there will be days you want to leave screaming. That sometimes you wonder what on earth you did to your life by getting married. That you actually have to talk about needs and wants and communicate feelings because if you don't, you'll just be miserable. But if you are lucky, all of the work and and little bit of the divine will line up and you'll have more good days than bad. More days where you don't really think about your marriage than bad. Even though there are days I wish I didn't have to worry about money and could just jet off on a fabulous trip, what I really wish is I could do that with Isaac. So I guess I'm currently lucky. Here's hoping it stays.

I Voted!

Yesterday, Isaac and I early voted. Sammy loved the touch screen and has been wearing his I Voted sticker since yesterday. I would encourage anyone who's state has early voting to take advantage of it. Miss the lines and chaos of Election Day and go now.

I love the movie Iron Jawed Angels. Love it. It does my feminist heart good. I think it should be mandatory viewing for every woman (and man, frankly!) before election day. It's so important to remember that less than 100 years ago, the women who came before us fought - body and soul - for our right to vote. They gave everything they had; time, money, patience, freedom, their very lives to this cause. I hate to think that there is any woman in the U.S. right now taking that for granted. They believed in an equal voice and that as women, we have every right to have a say in how things are run in our country as anyone else does. They believed that as women, united, we can change the world. I take this sacred right very seriously and wish I could implore every woman to feel the same. Now, more than ever, we need to let people know what's important to us. Let people know our stand. Let people see that we still believe we have an equal voice in this great country of ours. T minus six days. Let's get out there and VOTE!

Shocking, I Know

So I'm pretty sure I electrocuted my arm last night. I'm certain I'm moments from death, my insides slowly frying as we speak. Sammy hugged me a little too long and extra last night which had me in tears since, to a hypochondriac, that meant he knew something was about to happen and it was his last hug to his mom...(let's not discuss how he climbed in bed on my side last night twice and kept me from sleeping so all tender moments were replaced by scowling by me this morning!).

I was walking through the store last night waiting for Isaac to finish up with work and I was pushing a cart down the aisle and got a shock on the lower palm of my hand. It was a bad shock. It really hurt. I kept shocking Sammy, so my best guess is that there was a lot of static electricity going on in the store. However, this was the worst one I've ever had. And now, where I got the shock, hurts. My entire arm is sore and feels like someone played jump rope with my nerves. Not fun. Isaac is trying to convince me that I didn't somehow get the one electrical cart in all the world, but I'm not buying it...what else could it be, really?

Lots of Sammy

I bought Sammy new jammies the other day. Simply because they were too cute to pass up. I mean, he certainly didn't NEED any more jammies, but c'mon! Oh, yeah. And he was mad that morning... He agreed to open his eyes, but he still wasn't happy about the picture thing... Ok, fine. Smiling isn't that bad! We had a VERY lounge-y day at home a couple of weeks ago. Even though, I'm still not sure how we came up with this: Although, baby legs are awesome. Just saying...

Yesterday we went to the corn maze with my sister and her family. It was a whole lot of dead corn. Sammy's favorite spot, with Uncle Jacob: And a very colorful family that didn't take what they were wearing into consideration pre-photo: And video of Sammy singing and talking: