I am Prideful

*This post is long and I wonder if it shares too much with those in my ward that read this blog, but because this is my journal and it's a lesson I needed to re-learn, I am going to leave it.*

I realized it again last night. And I have the worst kind. This is why...

I got a call yesterday afternoon from someone in the ward asking if I could take a meal to a family where the mother just had surgery. Sure, no problem. I had never met these people and thought it'd be a good opportunity to do so. So I loaded up Grayson last night and we headed out through the snow to the address I was given. My heart sank when we drove into the circle of the overbuilt, brand-new homes in our ward boundaries, and I found myself getting quite annoyed that here I was - basically a single mother during this and last week while Josh worked from 7am-9pm every day (including Saturday and Sunday), taking quite a bit of time out of my VERY busy week trying to get all holiday-related things accomplished before we leave town Wednesday - taking dinner to a family that seemed to have so much more than we do. The husband opened the door to a room filled with beautiful furniture and a tv that nearly consumed the entire wall of their immaculate home, and I wanted to know why I, the woman whose family lives on as little as possible in order to save all extra money for the 'house fund', had prepared a dinner for these people that didn't seem to need it.

I was so frustrated I didn't bother to ask their names or engage their little boy in conversation. I just dropped the meal off and said I'd return later for the pan. Then I left. Even worse, I saw the mom come walking into the room through a window while I drove away and I recognized her. She's very stylish and always dressed to the nines, and has a son to match just a few months younger than Grayson. As I drove home I stewed about how she probably gets to take her baby to Relief Society every Sunday while I pass mine off to anyone available so I can go to Primary. I pulled into our still snow-covered driveway and sighed as I realized the husband had probably snow-blowed their driveway and walks while I was cooking for his family only to have to shovel my own drive when I got home or wait for Josh to do it later that night when he was finally done working.

I could see I was on a pretty bad downward spiral and it felt completely opposite to this, which is what I preferred, so I asked God to please help me feel the spirit of the Christmas season instead of all my bitterness. Because God is so nice to me even though I'm not always nice to His other children, He made me remember something I had heard once about pride looking up instead of down. A quick search led me right to the source:

"Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. (See 2 Ne. 9:42.) There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous."
President Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride,” Ensign, May 1989, 4

Jealousy a form of pride? Guilty as charged. I contemplated ways to eliminate (or at the very least, lessen) my jealousy, and in the end decided to make a list of 50 things I've been blessed with that I am grateful for, regardless if others have them or not.

It worked. In making that list I realized how much God does love me and my little family. Josh and I have wanted for nothing since we married, and we're able to save a substantial amount of money every month, putting us in a better financial position than many find themselves right now. Grayson has everything he needs, as do we. Our time to own a home will come soon enough, and in the meantime we've been very lucky with the homes we've rented and the areas in which we've lived. Josh's job is secure - a luxury in the present economic circumstances for many - and it allows me to stay home with our son. We've been able to put a lot of resources into preparing for our future needs because we've been so blessed with our present ones. Life is so much better when you forget to compare yourself to others. Hey, typing that line just made me think of a line in a poem I read long along and loved enough that I pasted a copy into my scriptures:

"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans."

-Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Good idea, Mr. Ehrmann. I'll keep that in mind.

Is it Christmas already?

Sure seems like it around here right now! For example, what happens when a good amount of snow finally falls?My husband gets all giddy about being able to use the snowblower he bought for 50 bucks off KSL in the middle of summer.And suddenly work seems like play for the neighborhood children:Josh and the snowblower in action!

Eat your hearts out, terrorists!

We finally hosted our ice cream party on August 23. I invited 109 families, recruited three additional 'scoopers', enlisted Maryann to take photographs, borrowed a sound system, a HUGE tent shade, and several deck chairs from neighbors, and purchased an additional 15 cartons of ice cream for a total of 35 (my visiting teacher brought 8 as well). We set up the huge canopy to keep us and the ice cream shaded and kept our extra Dreyer's on ice in some coolers. We set up a couple of shady spots in our backyard so parents could easily watch their kiddies play on our back neighbor's swing set during the party. We also set up a small table with water and a 'farmer's market' so neighbors could bring extra garden goodies to share with others.

What a hit! People in the neighborhood were still talking about the party for days afterward. I took all of the ice cream bars and the few extra cartons to deliver to neighbors that couldn't make it. All in all, it was a huge success. Some random pics of the event:

Grayson was such a champ during the party. He's a very social baby, and just loved being around all those people.

He even learned how to play the air guitar! Thanks Gabe!

Garden update

Josh and I are boring, and I just updated about Grayson yesterday, so all I really have left to blog about is the garden.

Let me just start off by saying that I never want to see another zucchini or crook-neck squash again in my life. I give about half away, I have 10 cups of shredded zucchini in the freezer, I've made two batches of chocolate zucchini bread and baked two batches of zucchini chocolate chip cookies. We eat at least one zuke and one squash every night with dinner, and even with all of that consumption, we have another 8 fruits in the fridge, and dozens more that will be ready for picking in the next day or two. I go out in the morning to pick what I can see and the very next day, zukes that were 2-3 inches long the morning before have suddenly grown to 10+ inches. It's absolutely maddening.

Anyway, we're done harvesting radishes, beets and lettuce and we've pulled those plants completely out. We get the occasional tomato, but most are still green. My red peppers aren't red yet, and I'm getting very impatient waiting for them to turn. In the meantime, we've grown some fabulous cucumbers, jalapeños, beans and carrots. I think the beans are on their way out, though, which is fine because I have a gallon size Ziploc of them in the freezer. Does anyone know how to freeze squash?

We have cantaloupe and watermelon that aren't ready yet, but they look so cute growing out there in our little corner. You see, our garden started out like this, but it quickly grew into this:
The cucumber, honeydew, and watermelon plants were vining out all over the place and we had to intervene. Josh had the brilliant idea to make a remesh arch across each box to let the vines grow up and over. Here's a pic of the cucumber arch when we first put it in July 29:Here's what it looks like now (can barely see it with the zukes growing so big and crazy in front):Anyway, since the plants are now growing along the arch, the fruits tend to hang down through the mesh squares. The little melons are so cute!
According to Mel, the vines will have a strong enough hold on the fruits to keep them attached until they're ripe, so we'll see.

And just for fun, here's a pic of this morning's loot:

The Garden

I think I've hinted in previous posts how much work our yard needed when we moved in. After all that blasted snow finally melted, Josh and I got to work on the rose bushes, the lawn, and the flower beds. It's been a nightmare trying to keep up on weed control (anyone else facing serious morning glory woes?) and lawn maintenance, but we sure try. We get behind when we go out of town, but we've obviously made some progress because neighbors frequently tell us how excited and grateful they are that we're doing something about the yards because the previous renters did not. If I had a dollar for every hour Josh has spent replacing broken sprinkler heads, adjusting the spray, and substituting nozzles for the greatest coverage, I'd have enough to buy all y'all a slurpee. If you throw in the time he's spent fixing the lawn mower, I'd have enough to buy him a new one.

Anyway, in between all of these projects, we had to hurry and put in our garden before it got too late in the year. We brought our planter box up from Vegas, but didn't know exactly where to put it. There was a weedy corner of the back yard with a couple of bushes in it that we thought would work, so Josh started pulling all the weeds to make it more attractive for our box to live. One of the bushes was a rose bush, and we discovered that it was actually dead and not just hibernating from the winter, so Josh had to pull it out. This is what we were left with:With the rose bush gone, there was too much room for our planter box, so Josh built him some friends to fill up the space:We wanted to make the area as pretty as possible for as little money as possible (remember how we're on a tight budget all the time so we can buy our own house to put our money into?) so I used all of our email addresses, our current address, our Vegas address, and my parents' address to print off some of these Lowe's coupons. Good thing I did, too. Even with these coupons, plus a $10 off $50 Lowe's purchase I found on the back of a magazine, we're almost $200 into our garden, but that includes the new boxes (plus two more small ones), all the filler (peat moss, vermiculite, and compost), the decorative rock and bark, and all the plants and seeds. Josh had to dig up underneath the bush to replace the sprinklers' water filter, so it's just messy dirt under there right now, and we're going to stain the outside of the boxes so they all match, but it will be finished (again) very soon. Josh has done such a good job. We couldn't be more pleased with our small bit of tranquility sitting outside!This is the view from the street. All that grass is ours, and it goes ALL the way around the house. It takes us at least 2-3 hours to mow and weed-eat it all. Josh is dying for a riding lawn mower, but that kind of purchase comes only after we're mowing our own grass!
So there you have it. We've already harvested tons of super-yummy radishes (I'll be planting those again later this month for a fall crop) and we took out our peas and broccoli. We didn't plant early enough and they never really produced. But everything else looks good to go! We have three tomato varieties, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, strawberries, red potatoes, honeydew melon, watermelon, beets, carrots, lettuce, bush beans, red peppers, and jalapeños. And everything is already looking so much more vibrant than they did last year!

I scream, you scream

My mom reminded me last night on the phone that I never updated my blog with the final word on this post. It's official...I won an ice cream party for my neighborhood on July 26! I finally got a thick envelope in the mail on June 24 with all the info. Dreyer's is going to send me everything I need to have an ice cream party for 100 people, including 12 cartons of ice cream. I was telling my visiting teachers all about it and mentioned how I'm going to buy extra ice cream and some waffle cones so I'll have enough for more than 100 people, only to discover that one of my visiting teachers' sons is something for the local Dreyer's distribution center in SLC and can get us a couple of extra cartons for free! It's going to be so great. I'm still going to get some ice cream cones (that will make the bowls and spoons go further) and extra napkins, but the cost will be minimal and well worth it. I think I'll just borrow some tables from the church, a couple of sun shades from the neighbors and have the party in our back yard. Plus our back yard neighbors have a swing set that everyone plays on, so that will be fun for all the kiddies.

However, I think I might wait to have the party until the second weekend in August since a lot of the people I've talked to will be out of town July 26. I forgot that July 24 is a state holiday when I picked my preferred weekends. Go figure. Dreyer's said I can delay my party, but I'll have to find a way to store the ice cream in the meantime. It'll all work out. My neighbors are definitely dreamy enough to hold off my Dreyer's Slow Churned Neighborhood Salute for a couple of weeks.

This is going to be so so awesome!

Wedding Bells, part 3

Nick and Natalie's marriage is the third one I've attended since starting this blog last year. Lucky for me, because I absolutely *love* weddings! Grayson got to make his first public appearance at Alina's wedding back in March, but this was his first temple wedding, and it was warm enough that we got to go outside to take some family pictures.

Waiting for the bride and groomReception photo - same day, different clothes

Nick and Natalie married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 17 and had one of the most beautiful outdoor receptions I've been to. Natalie nannies for a wonderful family that owns a stunning home way up behind the Capitol Building. You can catch a glimpse of their home's amazing view of the Salt Lake Valley in this cute picture of Josh and Grayson.

Father & Son

Springtime!

Oh my, I just love springtime! Josh said these last couple days of weather have made the move to Utah worth all that s-word ('snow' for you potty-mouths), but I'm going to need about 10-15 more degrees to be completely satisfied. But hey, I'll gladly take this semi-warmth in the meantime.

We're finally blessing Grayson this Sunday and have spent the last two Saturdays working on the yards to pretty them up before all of our family comes to visit. We just love how big the lawns are, but they sure needed a bit of work when we moved in. Josh took the time to put down winter fertilizer after we had it aerated last fall, and it really paid off. It's already nice and green! We haven't successfully killed off the few dandelions yet and we still need to treat it for spots of grubs and crabgrass, but it's definitely doable for an outside gathering this weekend.

The shrubbery and flower beds still need a bit of work, though. The owner planted several varieties of rose bushes around the house, but they hadn't been pruned the last couple of years and were becoming an eyesore. So Josh got some pruning shears from his parents' house and I started cutting away on Saturday. Our neighbors, Bill and Kit, came over to inspect my work and Bill asked if he could try it. Although we disagreed on how short to trim the bushes (the owner told me to trim the bushes down to about 3 feet, but Bill was dead-set on 13 inches), I gave him the pruning shears anyway. Over the next hour-and-a-half, Bill nearly obliterated four rose bushes in the front yard, all the while assuring me they weren't too short. I gave up protesting after the first bush, and Kit and I pulled weeds instead. While the rose bushes look much better now (you can see the front of the house!), I'm a little worried we won't get any actual flowers this summer.

Before Bill

After Bill

There were an awful lot of really long, thorny rose branches to dispose of afterward, so Josh had to cut them all up to fit in the trash can. What you see in this picture are the cuttings from only one rose bush!I don't think either of us realized how much we missed yard work until we came back to one after having a small patch of grass in Las Vegas. We even fight over who gets to mow the lawns (although Josh usually wins because my time's better spent in the laundry room). Oh, I can't wait to plant my garden this year!

Tax Day sucks

And I'll tell you why.

Yesterday, April 14, was like magic. I went to lunch with Lacie and we sat outside for a couple of hours, basking in the sunshine and 80-degree weather. The sun even turned my skin pink from too much exposure (just my hands/wrists, because I wore long sleeves and jeans, and had sunblock on my face), but don't worry, Grayson was in the shade the whole time.

Sun line in the closet

Contrast that with today, April 15. The temperature dropped more than 45 degrees and a bunch of white junk kept falling out of the sky onto the yards and streets outside.

It shouldn't be snowing in April, should it?

Finally, toss in the fact that we now pay state income tax, and I officially deem Tax Day one of the worst days ever. At least of 2008.

Normal(?) again

Thanks for letting me feel sorry for myself and vent a little in the last two posts. Thankfully, my spirits are way up since last time. Little did I know that while I was in the office typing off my pregnancy frustrations Sunday night, my sweet husband was in the kitchen preparing me a delicious dinner of pasta and sauce with steamed chicken and peppers. So yummy! He even did the dishes afterward, and rubbed my back when we went to bed. Such a good man I have.

Here's proof that I really *have* gotten huge in the last couple of weeks. It's not a great photo, but sometimes you just have to take pics with what's available.

Only two weeks to go!!

And even though it sounds like it, it hasn't been all bad. I drove up to Bountiful last Wednesday to meet up with my good friend, Juli, for lunch. I haven't seen her since she came down to Vegas to try out for Nashville Star in 2006. She made the first call-back on that audition, but didn't make it to the TV show. It's really too bad because she has such a beautiful voice. Anyway, here we are at her office:Then on Saturday night, Josh and I went out with my dear friend, Amanda, and her husband Tony. We did an early session at the temple (figured we'd better get one more in before the kid comes) and went to dinner afterward. It was so nice to catch up with them, and we had a fantastic evening. I didn't think to take my camera along for a photo op, so we'll have to go out with them again soon.

Finally, Lacie came over yesterday to help me recover the cushions on a glider a nice woman gave me for the nursery. I was supposed to go up to her house, but with all the snow that fell for about seven hours yesterday, there was no way my car was going to get out of the driveway. So she drove her sweet self all the way down here and spent a couple of hours keeping me sane while I was trapped inside the house. Lacie is such a good friend. I don't know what I'd do without her. The new cushion covers look sooo good! I wish I had thought to take a 'before' picture as proof, but I promise that this looks much MUCH better than the old blue material with pink specks in the pattern.
One day when it warms up, Josh is going to sand the glider down and stain it to match the dresser. Our baby's room is going to look so classy!

And I need to get the pictures from my awesome neighbors who were kind and generous enough to throw me a baby shower Saturday afternoon, even though we're so new in the area. Two women came that I hadn't even met yet! I can't believe the amount of genuine love and support that Josh and I have felt since moving back to Utah. We both just feel so blessed to have made the decision to come back, and it's nice to get that confirmation that we made a good choice.