1 or 2? 2 or 3?

I just went to the eye dr. i always feel like they’re trying to trick me. you know when you sit in that chair and they flip those lenses in front of you and say, “1 or 2? 2 or 3?” and you have to guess because they all look the same? i kept picking 2 and apparently that was the wrong answer because my eye dr kept asking, “are you sure? it’s not 2?” so finally i said 2 and she said, “good. that means it’s perfect.” (oh, and she was most definitely talking about my vision. i kept getting these comments with eyebrows raised, “your prescription is really high!”)
my favorite part of going to the eye dr is getting new glasses. not because getting glasses is fun, but because it’s the only time in my life that i get to hear the funniest things come out of a man’s mouth. they say things about my face shape or my cheekbones or the color of my skin and it just sounds so funny! i wonder if they are just making it all up. for example, he put a pair of glasses on me and said, “these really set off your cheekbones.” and another time, “these go really well with your skin tone.”
and i have no idea what looks good on me. yesterday the guy put a pair on and as i opened my mouth to say ,”those are cute.” he whisked them off my face with a short laugh and a “no”. i could’ve been insulted but i was busy puzzling over how he could possibly tell. they looked like all the others. my saying they were cute was merely because i feel like i should say something. the word cute is positive and they seem to like that. if i don’t say anything they start to feel awkward.
anyway, i found the glasses (they were picked when the guy narrowed me down to four options. i chose them because they were the cheapest. he picked the color of the frames because they are “bold”). i’m eager to wear glasses more than contacts again. my current glasses are so bad i walk by people i know without recognizing them. it has led to several awkward instances.

ugly betty

i just watched episode 1 of season 2 from the show ugly betty. really, the second best show out there (aside from the office. this, of course, does not include arrested development which is retired because it was canceled).
ugly betty is about this “ugly” girl who is good and sweet and honest and kind and responsible. she goes to work for some fancy fashion magazine where no one eats and everyone is attractive and they all dislike her because she is “fat” (normal) and ugly. but she’s usually cheerful and always helpful and never mean and slowly, she wins everyone over (even though they won’t admit it because she is still ugly and they are still shallow).
i love it because she is a different girl. and my whole life i have felt like a different girl. i like being different most of the time, but every once in awhile i feel weary and grow sad. and that is why i love betty. because she knows who she is and loves herself even though she’s not model-skinny and she has braces and glasses. . .seriously, who doesn’t relate to betty? and who doesn’t want to be just like her?
i only wish i could give her a hug. . .

when to let sleeping husband’s lie

last night ryan fell asleep on the couch. quite suddenly, actually. he was awake, he was moving around, there was conversation and the next thing i knew, he was asleep. so i went over to him and gently told him to go get in bed. and he said he couldn’t because of the geography of our bedroom. i figured i’d leave him alone for a little longer, and when i went to bed, i tried again. And again, with the geography. Something about how the living room’s geography was better.

also, this morning he came in with my bag of dried fruit and said: “i have a comment about this dried fruit.”
“what is it?” i asked.
“it falls perfectly in to the gray area of like and don’t like.”
i know this is not actually a funny story. but i loved it. i love any story with ryan in it.

1

new feature to the blog!

i just got a new camera (something i’ve been hungering for since my lens snapped on my honeymoon) and in order to keep myself motivated and to help myself improve, i’m going to have a weekly picture. this is week one.

paper or plastic remorse

i am a recycler. i have an extra paper sack right by our regular trash and when something paper, plastic or glass is being thrown away, i careful rinse it out or break it down and put it in my recycling bag. this justifies me when i go to the grocery store and they offer to sell me their canvas totes. i have a good reason to get my groceries wrapped in paper or plastic. i need those bags. i need those bags to recycle.
so why do i always feel guilty while i watch the clerk’s pull out bags for me (and ask about my milk, “do you want these in a bag?” and then I answer “yes” and i feel even worse) to load my groceries up? i want to explain myself, i want to tell them that i use those bags, i recycle those bags. i am not part of the problem, i am a part of the solution.
isn’t it funny how sometimes the people you want to put your best face forward to are people you don’t even care about?

my motherhood journey

i just finished reading a post in another mom’s blog about how hard it is to be a mom. she has a very stubborn and sensitive child and i think it is harder for her to be a mom than it is for most people. and even though what ava and i went through as a brand new mother-daughter duo was a slice of cake compared to her, i remember it and it was hard. not drive-off-a-bridge kind of hard, but hard. i think i lived on the couch for the first month. and then, when i finally moved from couch to other parts of the house, it was still confined to the house (and by house i really mean really small 2-bedroom apartment).

you know, when you become a mom, that’s what you are. there’s no building up to the moment. for example, when i met ryan, he was just a guy and i was just a girl. and then he was a cute guy and i was a pretty girl. then we held hands. then we kissed. then we were engaged. then we were married. do you see? there was a climb, there was a journey together and at the end, we were standing on top of a mountain and understanding our roles and relationships toward one another. with ava, there was a tremendous moment where somewhere people in the same room with me were saying, “make softer and lower noises when you push” and suddenly i was holding something that was making little mewing sounds and was purplish-pink and had her tiny fists held up to the sides of her face. and even if we had climbed to the top of the mountain together, i wasn’t about to get some deep moment where we stared in to each other’s eyes and understood what our relationship was. she was too busy trying to get a good breath in. and i, well, i was trying to figure out if i’d had a boy or a girl.

i remember after they’d bathed ava and put her in the oxygen tank for awhile, ryan came in and fell asleep on a cot they dragged in for him. they brought ava to me and i sort of explored her. she was cleaner, she had a pink bow. she was wrapped in a blanket. i unwrapped her and re-wrapped her and rolled her sleeves up so i could see her long, skinny fingers. i poked her bow and smoothed her cheeks. i spoke to her. at one point, she started to wake and i watched as her little peaceful face crumpled in to a potential scream. i felt a wave of panic. what did she want? some random child was in my arms, her mother nowhere to be seen and she was about to cry and i had no idea what to do. i desperately gathered her in my arms and began to rock her and make soothing noises. it worked. her little face cleared and she settled back down, a fist once again, pressed to her cheek. this could have been a triumphant moment when i thought, i am a mother. i soothed my child. i don’t think i thought that at all. i think i thought, just be okay until your mother gets here.

i’m proud to say that i can easily move from couch to the rest of the apartment and even beyond, without any help. and when ava cries i can usually guess what she needs. i even identify myself as her mother. i think we started our journey off on the top of the mountain, instead of the bottom. and i think we worked our way to the bottom. it was harder, i think, than the steady climb upwards. sometimes i tripped and sometimes ava tripped and we’d stumble down for a little ways before regaining our footing. but that’s okay. you just get back up and pull the leaves from your hair. sometimes ava even helps. and now, we’re nearing the bottom and i am really identifying myself as the mother and maybe sometime soon we’ll share that special look full of understanding.

drugs please!

overheard in urgent care:

woman: i’m here for a drug test. i’m psychotic.

lovely.

ava picture

hail the conquering hero

this morning ryan, ava and i awoke early to book it to the airport to welcome home ryan’s brother michael. michael had been in rosario, argentina serving a mormon mission and now, after two long years, was coming home. it was so good to see him! of course we were late and of course, michael’s plane landed twenty minutes early. my sister-in-law shannon said they found him wandering the airport, not sure of where to go next. in the last few months, we’ve been talking about michael a lot. there has been a lot of speculation on how he’ll be different, what he’ll be like, how he’ll look. . .and you know what? he’s exactly. . .michael!

this is michael meeting ava for the first time

when boys are 19 they usually serve missions for two years at a time. they can go almost anywhere in the world (places like china and north korea are without missionaries for obvious reasons) and are allowed only to write letters (or emails) and phone calls to their families on mother’s day and christmas. besides the letters we sent, ryan and i only talked to michael three different times while he was gone.

the mission has become a very important part of a young man’s life in the church. it is a boy going off and working hard for something else (God, essentially) and coming back a man. michael came home a man today and we are so very proud of him.

ps and ryan’s sister, shannon is in town with her own camera and i think we should go off on photography adventures! it’s good to have family.

I’m all tagged up

I was tagged by tiffany. this version of the game is list 7 habits/quirks and then tag 7 people.

1. i have a very small attention span when it comes to clothes. it’s not that i don’t care, it’s that i can’t keep up the caring. it just sort of fizzles out. so i’m interested while i pick out my shirt and then my jeans and then, i’m done. all i want is my flip flops and a hair tie. i don’t want to think about jewelry or shoes or purses. and, due to my small attention span, i own about 7 or 8 black shirts so that i don’t have to try too hard to make everything match.

2. i love healthy food and cooking healthy and reading about healthy food. i love organic food and tofu and soy and fresh fruits and vegetables.

3. i hate anything patriotic. i love my country, but i hate it when people are “proud to be american” because i think that they tend to not see how bad things are. not that they aren’t bad anywhere else. not that anyone else is doing better. they’re not. i think america is as good as it gets and it’s still pretty corrupt. i hate politics and government in general so when it comes to waving a flag in the air and watching fireworks, i probably won’t go.

4. i eat my foods in a certain order. it’s just the way it is. salad is usually last.

5. i only use one kind of pen to write. the uni-ball vision (fine point). i don’t like anything else.

6. i love to throw things away. oftentimes i regret throwing all of those things away because i do want to use them later, but i love not owning a lot and i love the clean feeling of throwing bags and bags of stuff away. what stressed me out about moving out to california the most was not being able to throw all of ava’s baby stuff away because hopefully, there will be other babies in the future who are going to need a cradle or a exersaucer.

7. i make lists for everything. i love lists. i love crossing things off lists. it is the motivation that keeps me going. i am a total list and schedule person.

tagged:
1. katie
2. anita
3. sarah
4. carol
5. mario
6. hernan
7. amber