Never keep a pet pig-

Pigs are smelly. I know from experience. I lived by for three or so months during my mission in Guatemala. We smelled it for a while and saw it for a while. Then one day it was gone. Eaten. I like bacon, I have no qualms. Plus, bacon doesn't smell like pig. It has a different pervasive smell.

Another tip, don't touch fire. I don't know why you would try, but stop it.

We're moving to San Luis Obispo Friday. It hits me every once in a while and I feel sad. I know change is good and we'll meet a bundle of wonderful friends there, but change is always sad for me.

Charles has been wonderful. He exudes excitement about our move and has boxed most of our possessions up. He then goes to welding class Tues-Thurs 3-8 pm. He's a champ. Although we've known about this move for months, it has all happened rather quickly.

Last weekend my sister Cookie and her husband Jim came out for a wedding. We had loads of fun with them. It was also nice for Charles to get quality time with some of my family he doesn't know very well.

Sickly sweet-

Pickles- I don't eat many of them, because of this subject.
Syrup- Poor Charles loves this sweet stuff and I just drizzle it on my wafs.
Mandarin Oranges- I talked about those in my talk at church. I once ate a can furtively in the bathroom. Nuf said.
Raisins- I can only eat those in bran flakes. Otherwise they sicken me. Bliah.

I started working at a place called SMSMasterminds yesterday. It was good. I have to go through "Boot camp". This includes 9 lessons filled with videos about how to sell, be a good merchant, etc. It's interesting and quite monotonous at the same time. Work is such a beautiful thing. It's nice to have a job and to be able to pay the rent.

Charles is a champ. He earned 9 points yesterday. I earned 8. We're earning cookies around our house these days. We figured it was a better way to dispense treats.

We have to get 4 points for a cookie, 6 points for 2 cookies, 8 points to give us a 2 point lead for the next day and earn us 2 cookies. 16 points is the big prize- whatever you want. You have to do productive things to earn points. You can do more time with each, but you only get a point for the first 1/2 hr. It promoted balance.

2 pt- working in our garden/compost stirring
1 pt- 1/2 hr scripture reading
3 pt- 1 hr scripture reading
1 pt- 1/2 hr exercise
3 pt- 1 hr exercise
1 pt- 1/2 hr recreational reading
1 pt- 1/2 hr artistic skill/talent enhancement
1 pt- 1/2 hr language study
2-3 pt- 1/2 hr companion language study (I get 3 pts b/c I hate it more)

You get a free cookie if you make your lunches a week in advance. And that's a wrap. Not a rap.

We are also trying to keep our new rules:
1. Say no to invites to places that cost money
2. Use canned food in planned food (we have lots, but we know fresh is healthier)

3. Plan dinners at FHE for the next week
4. Go through budget and other plans at FHE
5. Avoid processed food- we can process our own business
6. Follow the point system to earn daily treats
7. One great dessert a week- one batch of cookies, pie, cake, etc.
8. Be nice, eat rice- false rule, but we are eating burritos for dinner tonight if the avocados are ready. Woot!

We're hoping these rules will help us maintain a healthy lifestyle and our budget. We got a pay cut moving to SLO and we did just buy a new car- a 2015 Honda Fit. We decided for the cost of a used car with miles on it, we could get a new car, with no miles. Thanks Obama. I never actually thought I'd have a new car, but I do now. Another first.

We're also hoping to plan our lives a little better so we can have less hectic lives once school starts. Good habits and the like. Also, maybe we'll eat some different stuff. We currently eat the same stuff consistently, but if we wrote dinner plans on the calendar, we could diversify our intake.

He's eating my chocolate chip cookie as I type this

We, the Ward people, are once again in semi-distant San Luis Obispo. For our anniversary, I made a door hanging of my and Charles' names. Due to lack of space/wire/willpower, I just did the first parts of our first names. Would you believe it, our names cut and combined are Char-mer? You may now call us the charmers. We know you call us that in secret whispers at family and otherwise gatherings anyway. Also at magic the gathering. 

My finger stitch scar still hurts me sometimes. It's a pang of remembrance which helps me carefully dry our knives with dish clothes. Fortunately, Charles has realized it was an isolated incident, and has stopped taking cans and knives from me immediately. He still has the super glue hidden away though. I will find it.

Our house is pretty unpacked. We only have two more items to hang. One of which is a rather large painting we hope to hang over our bed on hooks that will keep it from crushing us in our sleep. One can dream. Pictured below with a shoe in front for size comparison.

We have a hole in our oven. It doesn't seem safe to me. We moved in our stuff and someone put a box on the back left burner of the stove. That's where the pipe is that goes directly from the oven to the outside air. It looks as though the oven was made like that. I didn't know about that anomaly when I turned on my oven and almost caught the box on the stove on fire. My landlady said all electric ovens are built that way. I say bull. I've never seen an open conduit like that straight from an oven. Ovens are supposed to hold heat in, not leak it from a huge pipe through the stove above.

We found out the cheap place to shop here- food 4 less. Way less. We're glad our new friend Liane told us about it. She lives in our complex and we met her and Miguel at the hot tub. Thank goodness for her. I bought a $12 watermelon at Ralph's the other time I shopped. Besides showing how dumb I am, it also ensured we will never shop there again. I will not tell you what Charles calls that store.

I've applied to a couple jobs per week, but am hoping to get into high gear now we have internet installed for the apt. We didn't have it the first two weeks and that made our phone data use spike, but we didn't have enough data to be incessantly productive as is the usual case with high internet use. Ha. Is joke.

Alright, we went to the San Francisco area last week so Charles could finish his 3 day a week welding class and we could attend the reception of our friends Terry and Jenniffer. We had loads of fun seeing everyone and eating everything in sight. 

After the reception Friday, we went to a park viewing of "Goonies" and then visited a candy store. You may, or may not know, I'm not the sharpest pen in the drawer. Thereby explaining why I ate the eight Bernie Botts jelly belly monsters still wreaking havoc inside me. Or so I have been telling people. 

If you ever get the chance to eat a grass bean, do it. If you get the chance to eat a rotten egg bean, run for your life. After eating the vomit, booger, lawn, centipede, and 2 other disgusting kinds, I assumed the rest would be a piece of cake. The 7th was a doozy and I threw up a little in my mouth. I then swallowed it down with some of my pride, ate the last bean, and chewed quickly so I could get my drink of water. Uh, I am dry heaving just thinking of the experience. 

The funniest part, I forgot to put my name on the wall or pick up my 20% off coupon from the cashier, so all I took from the experience was a newly reminted distaste for jelly beans and two small cups full of pleasant tasting beans, which I sampled and handed over to Charles- who loves munching them, especially during homework. 

Strangely enough I was still feeling gross Saturday morning. Bleh. I was smelling the nasty beans everywhere. I even watched "Inception" with a bucket next to me on the couch. I was poisoned by jelly bellies in my jelly belly, that is very toned and exquisitely chiseled. 

We celebrated our 1 year anniversity with (Charles made) waffles, Chipotle, the beach, and some hot tubbing. After which we waltzed in the pool. We also brought some contraband glass bottles onto the beach, but poured the apple fizzy into our chugged out water bottle so we could enjoy it without fear of beach security repercussions. We are pretty happy. The Charmers: we charm life and live charmed lives. We don't charm snakes, so don't ask to hire us out for that kind of stuff. 

Charles also turned 25! He's a big boy now. Sorry I was sick on your Birthday Charles face. That's 2 out of 2 years I've been sick on his birthday. What a record. We did go out with Don and America to see Guardians of the Galaxy Saturday and enjoyed it immensely. Then we ate some ice cream and America fed Charles. I felt bad that Charles didn't get a cake or anything specially made for him this year, but we ate out a couple times with friends and family that week and we had some wedding cake the day before, so I'm positive he'd already been caked up enough for his special day.

And that's a wrap. Not a rap. Love, Mer

P.S. Happy Birthday to Bonnie, Ivy, Jim, Tina, and Charles. I know, I'm the worst. Emily, good job on another great baby delivery. We're quite pleased with your new acquisition. And her name. 

Geocaching

For Family Home Evening this week, Charles and I had a double date with some single friends. We went geocaching. Neither of us had ever gone before, but our friends had.

We went into downtown Hayward and looked for three separate treasures. If you haven't had that experience yet, you should totally do it. The only other experience I have with treasure hunting was at Heather Beck's 10th? birthday party.  The treasure was a Mighty Mouse water coloring book I kept for years, but never colored in.

After refining our treasure hunting skills, we found all three treasures. I thought we'd have time for more, but it was dark by the time we found the last targeted item. Most of them were small mint boxes. We used the stickers I'd brought, but failed to incorporate the book and clothing I had brought to make someone's geocaching adventure cooler than any thrift store visit.

With the size of those treasures, I will now speculate about finding geocaches every place we go. One was atop a parking garage, one was underneath an electric box, and another inside a fence post. The world is my oyster.

Origins-

Do you ever wonder about the origins of a trend? I've wondered about many trends during my life, but today, the winds of understanding and syncopation blew all over me.

You've seen people with their leg pants up. Right leg only, left leg only. The baggier the pants, the cooler the ensemble. It's a thing. Cool people. Homies. Bikers. Homies. BIKERS!? Wait a second.

It happened this morning. I saw a biker with his pant leg rolled up and I realized where the gangsters got it. Maybe everyone else knew. I just made the connection. Congratulations me, my synapsis have caught up.

Anyway, I haven't spent much time thinking about it, so don't mock how long it took me to put that puzzle together. I've already taken a second to mock myself.

On the other hand, we're moving in three weeks. I'm trying to start now. You know how the saying goes, a box a day keeps the panic away.

I've also been watching American Ninja Warrior lately so I can be inspired to do anything. I think Charles could probably do it, but I don't think I have the mental focus it would take. Go Charles! Anyway, besides the half a million you get from finishing that course, I don't think all the work would be worth all the training and time. Most people make silly mistakes and get disqualified despite all their efforts.

Keep training hard!

Shape shifting-

Manual driven cars are the gift that keep on giving.

I went to the bank this morning. As I entered the establishment; line bustling, bankers humming, a bank representative yell-asked about a car. A moving car. A moving purple car, named the Professor, backing into the parking lot because he wanted to. It wouldn't have been a huge deal, except there were no people in the moving car. All the people were in line. 15 of them. Hello folks. BRB.

So I ran outside, re-parked my car, and put on the parking brake. As I went back inside, a teller told me she thought I'd forgotten to put on my parking brake. Thanks loads Sherlock. The mystery has been solved.

I had forgotten to apply the parking brake, it had rolled backwards, and everyone in the bank had seen the whole lovely kafofle. I have it on tape. In my mind. That's for you Christin. I've told lots of people that story and I still get a kick out of it.

Sometimes people mistake the purpose of certain spiritual meetings. Every first Sunday of the month, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the opportunity to bear testimony of the sacrifice and divinity of Jesus Christ. However, unfortunately, some people take that opportunity to present a list of hardships, ramble, or confess sins. This story is an example of the latter.

During one such meeting, a guy walked up at the podium, and said in contrition "I had an affair...with her." He then pointed to the organist. Needless to say, the organist was embarrassed, began shaking her head in denial, and started to cry. He paused for emphasis, then continued, "In. My. Mind."

Can you imagine the first thoughts of the woman's husband? Others in attendance of that meeting will now unwittingly associate that poor organist with the crazy guy that stated an imagining as a truth that one time and then retracted.

Confession of sins is a very private process. You should not feel the need to tell people what you have done wrong, but how your life can and does change through a desire to do and be better. Remember that when you're telling stories about yourself and others.

When I was about ten years old, we were chatting about hygiene as a family. I remember bragging about my own habits, and how I changed my underwear once a week. Even though I showered twice a week. I was so proud. Imagine my surprise when my Dad censured me and said I should change it EVERY DAY. Wait, wha? I thought I had great hygiene.

Imagine his surprise when I then told my Daddio about another sweet idea I'd been following through with: sleeping in my clothes. I did it so I could sleep longer. Hey, I have always needed my sleep.

You've seen me. I fall asleep everywhere. I fall asleep during every movie climax, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner, at the movies, at the dentist, and at bedtime. I think you know what I mean when I say bedtime. Every time I get into my bed, it's bedtime.

You're missing the Vagician-

I want you to watch this ad. Then I want you to call me. And we'll laugh and laugh and laugh. What a wonderful idea- a first moon party. I don't think you fully realize how excited I now am to have a daughter. I only have to wait another 13 years or so and I can totes do for her the best party ever. Woot.

After we have that good laugh, I want you to go to this site. As you consider actually buying such a book, I will also consider it. I love quotes by Jack Handey. He's a funny guy. I don't have any books by him. However, I do have a birthday coming up. In 6 months. So that's an idea for you.

Last week Charles and I watched Mary Poppins again. We had seen Saving Mr. Banks recently and wanted to see it again to notice things. I didn't really notice anything different, since I'd already seen it from a different perspective in my later years watching the movie.

I do love the scene where the guy has laughed himself onto the ceiling of his house. I don't know why it is so worrisome to everybody, since the only way to get him down is to depress the poor man. I think it would be better to keep him airily cheerful.

Ziggity jiggity. I'm working in Emeryville another month until we move down to San Luis Obispo. Our move-in date is July 18. So if you live here and want to do something before we leave for 3.5 hours south of San Fran, just call me. Charles and I have a pretty open calendar.

And if you have a hankering to help someone move, make it a double. July 18.