Zippers-

I don't have any significant zippers in my life. Mostly they're just ties. And that's fine by me.

Tonight, tonight, there's ice cream on tonight. If you want to come, please do: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; 651 E Foothill Blvd, San Luis Obispo, California 93405.

And why does ice cream have to be two words? I mean, come on, it's two different things when seen apart, so why must it have that space in the middle? It makes the word couple so cold. Ah HA! I've hit on it. You're welcome.

My weekly review- I know what you're thinking, "She doesn't have a weekly review". Well, perhaps I should. And here it is:

Type: Movie
Title: Fuel (2008)

Synopsis: Director Josh Tickell takes us along for his 11-year journey around the world to find solutions to America's addiction to oil. A shrinking economy, a failing auto industry, rampant unemployment, an out-of-control national debt, and an insatiable demand for energy weigh heavily on all of us. Fuel shows us the way out of the mess we're in by explaining how to replace every drop of oil we now use, while creating green jobs and keeping our money here at home. The film never dwells on the negative, but instead shows us the easy solutions already within our reach. Source

My Takeaway: As the above synopsis says, the film goes through our dependence on oil and then shows us the solutions that we can actually do. It did not leave me feeling helpless or frustrated, but hopeful, with some ideas about how to change my habits to move the solutions forward.
Recommended: YES- watch it. I did and I don't like documentaries. It was interesting and gives real life examples of how we can and should change. Then it explains what we can do to make a difference. Very nice. Now I just need a diesel car.

Why: The Winter reading program. Remember how last week Charles made a joke about our library having a winter reading program? Well, you weren't there, but he did and they really do have one. Until April 15. Very nice.

How: Just reading books. About the environment. Go to the library and check some out!

And now, it's Friday, so I'm going to go home, make peanut butter drizzle for the ice cream social and maybe some homemade caramels. Then I'm going to grab the lemon curd and cherry topping and head down to the church. Come along folks. Come along.

Happy BarfDay!

I wasn't sick on my birthday. Actually, it was wonderful. I did however miss out on the flu night put on by the other ward's relief society. I had the cramps. You're welcome.

That wasn't my actual birthday though, that was the day after. My actual special day included a visit from a friend- who brought me flowers, a cd, a birthday muffin, and a "Calories don't count today" Birthday permission. Thanks for being great Emma! Even if you had a horrible tooth ache, you still made the effort to make me feel special. You are great.

My birthday Eve, another friend invited me and Charles to FHE night. We ate dessert and played games! Hooray! Thanks for not having your baby on the game Breanna! Also, sorry you didn't have her on my birthday. Enid's a good middle name. Am I right? Kings to you Grandma!

For my birthday breakfast, my special love made me a cyclops plate. You need to have one of those if you haven't. They are all the rage, are terribly expensive, and super hard to do. Alright, get out your pen and paper, and try to remember this.

1. Fry an egg
2. Fetch a banana
3. Place the banana underneath the egg on a plate.
4. Try to make it look like a cyclops.
5. Magic just happened.

Alright, then I had my lovely lunch. Pause, someone invited me to lunch but I didn't want to miss Emma, so I took a birthday lunch rain check. Liz left a note and snacks by our back door, which has also become our front door, since we use it way more than the front door- laziness.

I also re-remembered all the wonderful people in my life. I love you. I miss you! You are so special to me. I'm serious. You know who you are. You have babies. You are single. You live in Germany, AK, UT, WA, ID, MO, AZ, WA, OR, VA, CA, TX, Chile. You are beautiful. And so handsome. I'm pretty lucky. Just saying. No, but seriously, I love you people. All of you.

When I got home from work, Charles pretended to have woken up and dropped the ball. Then he made me get the mail. He's so tricky about the mailbox. He always does fancy things through the mailbox. It's a secure place, outside the home, and an unexpected spot to put treasures. Like a chipotle salad for example. We don't have Cafe Rio here, so we make do. It was delicious.

For scouts that night, we had cake. One of the boys had a rash- thankfully it was unrelated. Glad I didn't send anyone into anaphylaxis with my sponge cake. Woot! Birthdays! I also got a letter on the day from my brother in Chile- now that's planning ahead! I have flowers at home and work, and I had a post birthday lunch outing with Michelle and Seth.

Thankfully he didn't fall out of the car- we have fast leg reflexes, and we both had stellar sandwiches. Seth ate dirt. You're a champ Seth. My mom sent me my own baby for my birthday. And a lemon juicer. Thanks Mom and Dad! Love you all! All of you! Love, Merilee

PS. A Christmas Tail.

Putty Mouth McGee-

Seriously, does that ever happen to you?

I feel like if I ever have the attention of a person I don't know well, or someone I deem to be more important than myself, I get tongue tied. My words float in my mind swamp and won't be fished. I cannot get out a clear sentence and it's totes embarrassing.

I think perhaps it's the stress of saying something clever to someone you think will otherwise make fun of you. Or other times just being star struck.

Boo. I can see it happen as I struggle for a clear sentence of participles dangling behind my teeth. Yet I cannot recall a one and the others creep back into my recesses of thought and lie dormant at least until I no longer have witnesses to prove my witticisms to.

Perhaps that is why I'm so lucky to have Charles. He knows my mechanics and loves my crazy. I don't know why, because sometimes I drive my own self crazy, but he insists he does. When we haven't talked in a while, he'll lead me over to the couch for a quiet heart to heart. I'm just super lucky to have such a nice guy make me dinner and endure absurd movies by my side. Woot.

Toot toot toot-

You're probably wondering what I've been doing instead of blogging these last few weeks. Well, let me see.

1. Movies- Oodles and oodles of movies
2. Not Reading- Weird, since I need to finish book 9 of the Wheel of Time before next Thurs. I guess I could renew it. Nah. I can do it!
3. Making Food- Boston Creme Pie, Cream Puffs, Bread, and Chicken Broccoli were made with love
4. Eating Food- Charles was a champ and made loads of food for our lovely break. Thanks Champ.
5. Finding Money- That's a family tradition. We go in age order to the living room and gather as much change from the floor as we can. No scouting quarters before the money run. No cheating. The best part of this practice is stacking and counting your loot after the gathering.
6. Hearst Castle- An extravagant castle built by William Randolph Hearst located relatively near our apartment. I took notes.
7. Griffith's Observatory- A lovely adventure in stargazing. We saw some great videos and also went through some excellent displays.
8. Pacific Aquarium- My favorite animals were the sea horses, sea dragons, and sea lions. Super fancy. You know I like fancy. Sadly, we missed the penguins- we didn't realize that until we were shopping for pants later that day. Lame.
9. Talking- I love seeing my family and friends from out of town. Although we didn't get to see all the people we know and love over the holiday weeks, we were able to spend a significant amount of this break reading considerate cards and newsletters, skyping, and talking face to face with some of our treasured framily.
10. Laundry- We completed 9 loads of laundry, I don't mind laundry. Now all the clothes in the world have been washed.
11. Beach- We only went to the beach twice, but we also saw the Butterfly Garden and saw sea lions up close and personal. Then we went hot tubbing- woot! Well, we have one at our apartment, but you can't just go hot tubbing all the time.
12. Sleeping- We may or may not have slept in every day of our break. Nice, but now we're back to 8 am classes and work. Go us.

Turns out I love: sea lions, legos- because they are miniatures and I love tiny representations of life-sized things, babies, good stories and the beach.

After I told her she was so big, my niece Noelle said "I'm not big, I'm tiny." She is tiny, and so cute.

The Good: We saw the Paul Wards, the Schulls, the Peterson singles, the Brett Cherry family, the Mike Mouritsen family, the Don Francis family, and some others via skype. We made a new friend- Liz. I planted a million lemon seeds into a tiny yogurt container yesterday. We shall see if they grow. I just want to keep the bugs and the cats away from them to one day have a lemon tree. We shall see lemon tree. Adrienne had her baby- Congratulations Adrienne! We got some sweet stuff for Christmas! Thanks everyone for our sweet haul. You should be receiving your Thank You Notes in the mail soon.

The Bad: Charles still has some double vision and dizziness after being diagnosed with Bell's Palsy. Gradually he's getting better, but I drove to and from Irvine. Hopefully he'll be good as new soon. Soccer was a little more challenging with two balls coming at him when we played with our family singles. I missed seeing Kimberly again by about 5 hours. Dang it. Kimberly, I saw you in my dream last night. I haven't eaten enough bananas lately and have a Potassium deficiency. My eye's been twitching like mad for 2 weeks. Get this girl a banana. No seriously, it's twitching right now.

The Ugly: That caterpillar never changed into anything, it just came out of its shell and is eating everything in our garden again. Ugly mystery caterpillar.

Christian- I think we still have your suitcase handle over here. And we also have someone's battery/charger for their camera.