Earthquake

There was an earthquake here last night. It was a 5.5. Big enough to be fun, but not scary. I slept right through it and so did Brent. I am so bummed out. When I was a kid in California, I LOVED earthquakes. I used to be really disappointed when I slept through them then too. Which prompts me to wonder, why do I care? Is it the thrill seeker in me that this bothers so much? On September 11th, I had been home from New York for a week and a half, but originally I was going to be in Manhattan with a flight scheduled for the 12th. I experienced the utmost disappointment when I realized that I would have been able to experience being there during it and in the aftermath of it all.

It's not like I want to put myself in harms way, but I think it's the experience of the human reaction and the range of emotions that can be experienced as a result of such events that fascinates me. I remember feeling surprise and excitement during the earthquakes I felt as a child but it was more than that even if I didn't realize it at the time. It was the experience of encountering something so much bigger than myself. In an earthquake I can actually feel the earth move like it has come to life, when I normally don't pay much attention to the ground I walk on. On September 11th they experienced an extreme example of the law of gravity and the effect of parochial fanaticism; as well as an intense array of emotions that accompanied those experiences. I wanted to experience it myself, but almost more so to just be up close and observe the effects on others.

Spring

Not much has been happening lately. We've had a spell of lovely weather. February is one of the months with the least amount of rain here. We just finished up two weeks of mostly sunshine and 45 to 55 degree weather. Flowers and trees are beginning to bloom. It was said that this winter was supposed to be a harsh one, but it was fortunately mild and is flowing nicely into spring. It's been hard the last two days however, because it has suddenly turned cloudy and cold again. But the flowers are still there and that makes me happy because I know spring is quickly approaching. I really look forward to seeing leaves on the trees again.

So if you haven't noticed, I've been messing around with my side bar adding fun little things I like to tell people about, but don't necessarily want to write a whole blog about.

Yeah, that's about it.

Catherine Cookson?

Has anyone heard of Catherine Cookson? I never had, but she is the favorite author of a friend of mine here and I have found her and her novels very interesting. She is the most widely read novelist in the UK. She started writing in her mid-forties and cranked out over 100 novels before she died at 92 in 1998. She writes chick drama and I am not always a fan of chick drama because it has a strong tendency to be stupid, vapid and shallow. But it was said she always resented the fact that her novels were labeled as "romance" because she considered all her novels historical, based on the fact that they were all written about people and conditions she knew growing up in the early 1900's.

Anyway, her stories are complex and intriguing and I have really enjoyed that she gives her novels that added historical base. It has given me insight into what things were like here in the early 1900's, which I had no idea how drastically different it was from the early 1900's in America.

So yes, I was just wondering if she was really only popular in the UK or if any of you have heard of her or read any of her books.

You Know You're Poor

You know you're poor when your laundry detergent looks like this


More so when it actually says this


"Cleans, no added promises!" I get such a kick out of this brand. Everything I buy in this brand has the same design and colors on the outside, and half of it says something refreshingly honest on the front of the label. It's actually kind of nice to not be affronted on every side by product marketing. Of course I'm sure there is still a marketing strategy in place, but instead of the same old strategy of trying to get me to think a product is better than it really is or better than all the rest, all they are trying to get across here is; "This product is cheap. It is the cheapest one you will ever find. If you want cheap, this is as cheap as it gets, so buy it!"

It's great too because, really, that's all I want. Honest and cheap.

Quirks

Tiecen tagged me for this blog.

So here we go, six unimportant things/habits/quirks about myself.

1.I have issues with throwing things away, but I despise having clutter, knick knacks or anything that's useless. This is a constant battle I fight with myself. The worst is when I am traveling. When I go into a souvenir shop I am tempted to buy everything in there despite the fact that it is all useless junk. I just have to remind myself of the predicament I would put myself in if I bought any of it; always wanting to throw it away but not being able to because it's a souvenir.

2.I love large groups of people or crowds. I don't know what it is, I thrive in places with lots of people. It's not even necessarily that I like interacting with them. I really just like being in a crowd. I think I like to "get lost in the crowd" I also really enjoy people watching in large crowds.

3.I have recently discovered that I prefer hang-drying to a tumble dryer for everything except towels. I will never use a dryer for all my clothes again.

4.I hate eating salad with a fork. I have to use chopsticks if I'm going to enjoy it. A friend once told me she thought salad was more satisfying with chopsticks. I thought she was crazy, until I realized she was right!

5.I LOVE the sound of seagulls. It's like every time I really hear them I am transported to the beach. I can then feel the sun on my back and I just relax all over.

6.I walk like a model and I'm really insecure about it. I know that's a weird and funny statement, but it's true, I've seen myself in reflections. My friends discovered and pointed it out to me when I was 15 years old and have lovingly teased me about it ever since. There are a couple of reasons that I'm insecure about it. One, when people notice it, I just get insecure because I know they are watching me. The other reason is because I know that people sometimes think I am doing it on purpose to draw attention to myself. One of many examples: I was walking into a gas station and some annoying woman at a stop light honked her horn and leaned out the window to yell "Shake it, don't break it honey!" I turned around to see who she was yelling at and she was nodding and pointing at me! I know she was just being stupid, but it's just weird to have someone notice something like that and think that I'm doing it on purpose when it is completely unconscious.


So there you have it. Now I am tagging Summer, Katie, Mish, Ree, Becky, and Jen.

Here are the rules:
* Link to the person that tagged you.
* Post the rules on your blog.
* Share 6 non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
* Tag 6 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
* Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Why can't I argue?

I think that most every argument that I have had with my husband since we have been married has pretty much been based on the fact that I don't like to debate and my husband loves it. My husband actually told me once that the only thing he would ever really change about me if he could would be that I would argue with him more. Seriously, how many husbands say something like that!

I think the problem arises in the fact that I love to discuss things and he loves to debate things. When a conversation of such a nature arises "debate" and "discuss" seem to be the same thing, so we get going on conversation without realizing that we are on different pages with different expectations of the conversation. In the end we realize just how different "debate" and "discuss" really are when we are both speechless from frustration. Ugh.

The stupidest thing about it is that whenever we get into a argument like this, it always seems like it is over the most ridiculous stuff. But in reality it is always the same old problem that we are just not argumentatively compatible. Lol, in fact, we are so argumentatively incompatible and communicate in such drastically different ways that there have been times where after experiencing complete frustration with each other, we realize that we were actually making the same point!

Funny Zoe

Zariah has started referring to herself as princess. This other day when Brent was leaving for school, I told her to say 'goodbye papa'. She did and then instructed Brent to say 'goodbye princess'. Brent laughed and followed her instuction.

Later that night at the dinner table she had a little conversation with herself that went like this:

"Would you like some bread princess?"
"Yes"
"Oh, okay"

Then she helped herself to a slice of bread.

In other funny news, we have run into a problem with the way that Zoe says 'peanuts'. It unfortunately sounds very much like a male body part. We discovered this a few weeks ago during our church sacrament meeting when she very loudly continued saying; "I want my peanuts. I want my peanuts. Mommy, I want my peanuts." At first I was shocked and couldn't figure out what she was saying, then after a moment I quickly realized and said loudly so the people sitting around us could hear my translation, "No Zoe, we don't have any peanuts today."

Then last week when I was sitting on the stand and Brent was down with Zoe, she started asking for a snack and I heard her loud and clear as if she were sitting next to me. I didn't realize her voice carried so well in this chapel. Great. Everyone in the entire congregation must have been able to hear her when she was referring to her peanuts.