Borders: for people without real jobs

I went to Borders to hang out and draw the other day because when I'm at my apartment all day long I just want to fall asleep or write blogs. There were a few other freelancers there and I realized that it is a great place to work. And some random old guy came in and just sat in a chair for awhile too. I don't think he was a freelancer, but I don't think he has a real job either. So anyone out there without a real job, you should really join in.

Turnip Day

Tonight we're eating a tax deduction. I bought a turnip because I need to paint The Giant Turnip. It's great how you can buy anything and paint a picture of it so it's a tax right off. I should paint my dinner everyday.
I used to love eating turnip in Canada. I read on a random site though, that what people eat in Canada and call turnip we call rutabaga in the states. And the turnip I ate in Canada wasn't purple like that stuff I just bought at the store. So maybe I don't actually like turnip... I'm a little nervous. And I don't think Brandon is very excited about it because when I told him we were eating a tax deduction for dinner and he figured out it was turnip and not steak he said, "ew, gross."

My husband, the artist

Who knew that Brandon could paint? Last night I pulled out an old sketch from "The Monkey Story" that was printed on watercolor paper, gave him a couple of pointers, then let him go for it. Look at the natural talent. He's better at watercolors than I was when I first got into them as a 3rd year art student. Although, I did have to help him out when he wanted to give the kid red hair and used all red paint. I had to inform him that red hair is actually orange. So he fixed it up and it looks great.

Question:

I think one of the funniest questions I have ever been asked was when this self publisher asked if I knew anyone with a private jet going to China that could bring her books back for her so she doesn't have to wait on the slow normal shipping. And she was serious. I had to tell her no, no I don't know anyone with a private jet. sorry. Maybe I should have told her that sometimes my friends buy airplane tickets to fly places, sometimes even to China. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it's the closest thing I could think of to owning a private jet.

sports apologies

I think I apologize too much when I play sports. I make a lot of mistakes. I'm not too bad at defense and being aggressive in general, but I have no aim for shooting in basketball or passing or kicking goals in soccer. So then I have to apologize to my team for missing. Even when I do things right, like setting a good screen in basketball, I feel bad when the opponent runs into me. Or when they set a screen on me and I run into them, I apologize again. It's just an instant reaction I have for colliding with people. Do I sound pathetic?

congratulations to me

Today I have made some big accomplishments. First of all, this is my 101st blog. Congratulations to me, thank you. And.... I did my taxes! What a relief. I love BYU's free help. Thank you to Nate for being my free accountant. We do have to pay a little, but I'm just relieved because I knew it had the potential to be a lot worse. And I have to congratulate myself for being incredibly honest by claiming a lot of freelance money that no one even knows about.

Funny funny childhood

I think everyone has funny memories from when they were kids and they thought their family was normal until they got older and looked back. (my sister recently wrote a blog about our funny rules of remind me of all this) So to anyone who reads my blogs, let's hear a few of your own:

rules: TV dollars, we had only so many TV dollars per week and we had to pay a dollar for every show we watched.
I think my bed time was 7:30 until I was 10.
We had to stay in our church clothes all day on Sunday to try and keep us from being rowdy.
We had to check out exactly 10 books at the library so we would know if we were missing one when we returned them. (I still use this technique)

family foods: we ate (and still eat) delicious open face sandwiches that are made of a layer of ham, then slices bananas, and cheese, then cooked in the oven. REALLY good. But not normal according to everyone I have ever lived with since I moved away from home.
Also: I thought waffles and pancakes were a dinner food until I was in high school or something because we always had those for dinner, never for breakfast- that would have been weird.

fhe: there apparently was a shopping cart problem in our area, the carts were all over the city, so we spent a monday evening loading shopping carts into our suburban and returning them to the correct stores.

things I wore: Punky Brewster bold red, green and blue tennis shoes, maroon corduroys, and a pink blouse with frills all up and down the front and on the sleeves. And what Brandon refers to as our matching "valentine" outfits that we always wore, as seen in a picture of me on Santa's lap in that outfit.

favorite activities: sitting in buckets full of water in the summertime. making mazes out of moving boxes. Throwing Heather in the shower with her clothes on. Running around our kitchen in Spokane that had 2 doorways, one person would start at each door and we ran in circles until one person caught the other. Dressing up our little brothers like girls. Pico-Fumi.

What a blessing: the hair straightener

Wow. Scary, I know. frizzy, wavy, huge. This was the best of the non-straightened hair pictures. Brandon said I looked like I was on drugs or something. I responded, good thing for hair straighteners or you wouldn't have married me. He assured me that he still would have married me but he would have wondered how I got a job at the MTC.

And so, I just want to say how thankful I am that we have straighteners, because 99% of the time I am really glad that I don't look like I am on drugs.

Tip of the day: Don't rub sandpaper on your face

Sometimes boys don't shave and then their faces get scruffy. When I try to get Brandon to shave I tell him, in the nicest way I can, that his face feels like sandpaper. I tried to demonstrate how rough it is yesterday by pulling out some sandpaper and rubbing it on both of our faces and told him the sandpaper was even softer than his scruff. But a few minutes later we realized it really wasn't that soft and we both had sandpaper burns on our faces.