To the top

Most days I lag pretty far behind Derrick while we're biking in. Much of that is a function of his better endurance and strength, since he's been biking a lot more than me. Today, though, I mostly kept up. Admittedly, that's probably mostly because he was tired because he stayed up pretty late last night and because he was carrying my computer today for me. He said he was a full gear lower most of the way to school. Still, that probably means I'm probably only a gear and a half below him most days, which also means catching up with him is really a possibility.

Update:
On the way home Derrick reasserted his speed dominance. There's one truly killer hill probably a mile or less from our house. Once we got to the top of that hill (which we both walked up--it's that steep) I didn't see him again until we got to Sylvia's daycare and he carried her out to me. I still have a long way to go.

Sour cream

Sylvia loves sour cream. When we have any sort of Mexican food, she insists on at least one big dollop of the stuff on her plate, most of which she eats in long, full, fingerfuls. She's not such a fan of yogurt or milk, but sour cream she loves. In fact, she loves it so much, she's started calling ice cream "sour cream." And she can't be convinced to call it anything else. Tonight she had dulce de leche (caramel) "sour cream" and the insisted on eating as much of my chocolate sour cream and pistachio sour cream (from spumoni ice cream) as I'd let her have!

Every other weekend since Sylvia started daycare, she's had a cold or some other illness. This weekend was no exception, so we stayed home from church. I'm beginning to be afraid this ward is going to think I'm inactive with as many weeks as I miss. I also hope the patterns shifts a bit, since in two weeks I'm supposed to give a talk. Derrick's even agreed to come so somebody will be there to watch Sylvia while I'm speaking. It'd be a shame to miss out on having my husband with me at church for once.

I've also been working on new diaper inserts for Sylvia. Her daycare has been good about doing cloth diapers with her, but I haven't been so good about picking them up at the end of the day. I didn't think that would be a problem since they're in their own, closed bucket that's kept outside, but apparently the janitors were throwing out the cloth diapers every night that I didn't take them home. So, now I'm making new diaper inserts from t-shirt rags, terry cloth, and flannel. I'm a little annoyed, and the extra task right now is certainly not convenient, but at least the diapers aren't too difficult to make. They're pretty much just fabric layered and stitched together, and then covered with terry cloth and flannel. And they seem to work pretty well. Maybe for the next kid I'll just make more of my own inserts and not worry about buying the more expensive "real" ones.

Sylvia sands

Derrick always asks me to sand for him because it's one of his least favorite parts of woodworking. Looks like he may have a new helper:


Get used to it, kid!

I think she likes them

Today during the testimony portion of fast and testimony meeting Sylvia knocked over a container filled with the raisins I brought for her to snack on. I could hear a collective sigh from the people around me as the raisins radiated out around me. I got down and started to pick them up and a couple of young boys, probably 10 years old, came up and helped me pick up the raisins. Sylvia stood there, staring at the boys the whole time, and when they left, she kept looking back toward their seats a few rows behind us.

Sylvia was still hungry so I pulled out the other snacks I'd brought: rainbow goldfish. All of about ten seconds after I pulled those out she'd upended them and was looking back at the boys in the back row expectantly.

I think she likes them.

The politics of Mormonism

So, Mormons tend to be very conservative. In fact, the more active a Mormon is, the more likely he or she is to be conservative and republican, at least here in the US. You'd think that would earn us some props from religious conservatives, but no, apparently we still worship a different Jesus:

Mormonism and Mammonism are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They offer another Lord Jesus than the One offered in the Scriptures and Christian tradition, and another way to approach him. An embrace of these tragic new vehicles for the old Gnostic heresy is unloving to our Mormon friends and secularist neighbors, and to the rest of the watching world.

Wow! First, I didn't realize Mormonism, with its emphasis on charity giving and tithes, was the equivalent of Mammonism. Second, I didn't realize I'm actually a Gnostic. But apparently because we believe the pre-mortal Christ carried out the action of creation, rather than the Father, we're Gnostics. Of course, the reasonings behind Christ creating the world in Mormonism and in Gnosticism are completely different (since we don't really talk about why--I've always assumed it was just a delegation of authority to teach or lessen the burden--Gnosticism holds God couldn't create the Earth because matter is inherently evil and God can't handle anything evil, thus he created an "emanation" capable of handling evil matter). No, it doesn't matter that the underlying philosophy is completely different, it's the ill-informed, outward image that's important here. So until we start worshiping the true Jesus, we will never truly be worthy of leading the republican party.

Picture catch up

A day at the beach








Friends at the Zoo



Mailing Sylvia to Grandma



The kitchen floor: a great spot for a nap

The F word, WOW

Well, we still need feminism. Not that life is great for men around the world, but especially if life sucks for men, life really sucks for women. I know, some of those examples are overwrought and manipulative, but still, some of them are really striking. More than half a million women die in labor every year? That's incredible in a day when the birth process for American women is so medicalized almost a third of all births are by c-section.

If that article depresses you, cheer up--drinking, even in excess leads to longer life. Unless, of course, you follow the word of wisdom. Then you can just be sad. Like me.

;)