Belly button lint is a real thing-

When we moved to Hayward, Charles and I realized we lived 10 feet from the "No Room for Racism" sign. Have you ever seen one of those signs? We have one. You know you want one. I didn't know they even had official signs like that in cities. Green- very official. 

I found these helpful hints for Chinese characters on the internet. They look helpful. I thought of my brother when I saw them, he's in Taiwan. I mean hello, I'm not learning Chinese, but he is. So  I didn't know if any of this would help you. I hope it does, especially if you're learning Chinese. I work better with pictures myself. 

This week has been semi-uneventful. We had cookie/icecream sandwiches for FHE after eating chipotle. We watched Fried Green Tomatoes- it was our 1 month anniversary. He brought me flowers. Man he's great. 

I have a blister on my thumb. I was carving our car for the Pinewood Derby Adult Edition. It's happening tonight. I was only carving one night and I got this grand blister. Bummer. Charles said next time I should put a bandaid on the soft spot before it became a blister. Good to know- for the next time I find myself carving stuff. Who knows when that'll be. 

Except I've heard I might be in charge of the scouts, in which case I might be using a knife sooner than expected. We shall see. Scouts, don your chain mail. You're going to need it. 

Monday is Labor Day. I will be doing less labor, more day. We're planning to get a fancy waffle maker Saturday at BBB. That means waffle Monday. Charles is pretty excited about it. Apparently waffles are one of the most exciting things in life. We will not be making fish waffles this time. Maybe once we've gotten a handle on the waffle process we'll walk to the outskirts of waffle making. Maybe.

I have been watching lots of Remington Steele this week. It's a detective show with Pierce Brosnan. He is young and super skinny, but still has the charm. The main woman character kind of drives me crazy though. Her name is Stephanie Zimbalist in real life. In that character, she just bugs me, I'm not sure why.

Something else that bugs me a little, I've been reading the Wheel of Time series. I've just finished the 8th book and the women in that series are seriously dumb. I get annoyed about 85% of the time with the women characters. So dumb, so dumb. 

Also, they don't have the rest of the series on cd. Hopefully I can get some time to finish the series or I'll be stopped at 9 of 14. That would be tragic. I have to finish it now, so I don't have to start at the beginning later. That would be the real tragedy. I'm past halfway.

Speaking of halfway, have you ever seen a commercial over and over again. It happens a lot when you watch shows online. Super annoying. I usually just mute them. I wonder if there were a commercial clever enough, they could get away with it. I don't know if any advertisers have quite reached that level of cleverosity yet. They're halfway there.

So that's the skinny on my week. I went to soccer this week and I went to frisbee Saturday, so hopefully I can get back on the exercise train. Toot toot! Love you! Mer

To the guy who Shmarles well-

You know who Shmarles well? Charles Ward. When he doesn't shave, he's very Shmarmy. It's nice. Like a pirate. Charles, you make a great pirate. 

Today, I've been married to a pirate for exactly a month. I didn't know a month could go so fast. There it went, and here I am. Still happy, still alive. Charles, as Jasmyn would say, you are ideal. 

This doesn't mean you win, ideal husband. It just means I have to step up my game a little bit. To my readers- he's super duper nice to me. He has great hygiene. He cooks. He cleans. He decorates. I know, how long can it possibly last? One month down. Then we might not have any more decorating. 

Don't tell anyone, but sometimes he cries. Honestly, I'm just grateful he was patient enough to let me snatch him up before he was on the market floor. I feel like I got him from the warehouse, before they even shipped him to a store. It's like I'm a perfect man snatcher. And he found me. Have you ever seen that movie? Where the toy found the kid? That's me. Thanks Charles.

Congratulations to us! Cherilee is still smoking hot! Speaking of smoking, 

there's a girl smoking on my bathroom schedule. Every time I go to the bathroom, she's smoking. First I thought she was always smoking. Then I realized, quite recently, that she is probably just on the same schedule as I am. So she probably thinks, "Wow, that girl goes to the bathroom a lot". Same as I think she smokes a lot. Imagine that. 

After three cookies-

Here I am, sitting with rocks in my socks at my desk. Well, I'm not wearing socks in actuality. You could assume the rocks are in my brain. Brain rocks usually pop up around 2-3 pm for me at work. That's about the time I should drink a 5 hr energy drink. I don't believe in them though, so maybe I should just sleep more.

I am eating a cookie- because it's cookie Friday. 

In other news, the new Batman is Ben Affleck. I don't know if that's a good idea, but there's already a huge petition against it. We'll see what happens. Honestly, it doesn't really matter, they'll change Batmans in 5 years anyway. Plus, I never liked Spiderman, so Batman shouldn't be a huge loss.

Saw these pics on Facebook. Looks like Deane's kids got all rowdy with a 20 lb bag of flour. I'm sure that's something she wanted to do...clean up a bunch of flour on Friday night. She's having another baby. She told you right? In February. So she'll have one more mess maker around. 

I swept my living room floor yesterday. We don't have a vacuum yet and it was pretty dirty. Unacceptable. We also had tuna noodle casserole for din din, we're high flyers. The living space is plenty large enough for the both of us. Now all we need is a little decorating. We have lots of pictures and I'm planning to hang up all our wedding cards- they're so pretty and they need to be appreciated for a little while. You know how it is. 

Rumbles-

Sand. I like sand. It seems to me there are lots of uses for it. Sand can be, get this, melted to make glass. How cool is that? On our honeymoon, Charles and I made a candle holder and a glass bowl. I use the term, made, loosely, because we actually just blew into little straws and spun the long pole and turned it. 

Was I nervous to ruin the candle holder? Yes I was. Was I glad Charles helped them with the bowl? Yes I was. Did we park in the bus pull in spot both times we went to the place and not even realize it until a group of locals, smoking next to the car, pointed it out? Yes, we did. Oops poops. 

At least we didn't get a ticket. We probably

wouldn't have parked there, except another car was parked in the "spot" ahead of us when we got there, so we thought nothing of it. That's my excuse. Excuses are so bogus. Here is my excuse for not eating the following items.

Things that make my teeth hurt when I eat them: 

1. Ice

2. Apples

3. Jolly ranchers

4. Green mangos

5. Starburst (only when I eat lots)

I've been watching a lot of Hollywood Game Night, So you Think you can dance, and America's got Talent. They are terribly interesting to watch. Turns out it's exciting to watch people get eliminated from contests. It's terribly disappointing when they get cut despite their talent. 

Speaking of talent, Charles and I participated in the Tri-Valley singles ward talent show on Monday. We did an interpretive dance of our story, written by Heidi Doxey, called Chazpunzel. 

Charles wore a long hair wig on his chest and I used my So you think you can dance skills. Andy wore a drape. Matt read the story. Alex did the music. It was a combined effort for our end of an era finale and it worked supremely well. We left with a bang and some fireworks- like what Joshy tried to do after our CA reception even thought it didn't work out like he wanted it to. He'll have it figured out for Bon's reception. 

Our house is getting more and more organized. Thanks Charles. Our roles have been switched a bit this week. He's been doing all the house stuff and I've been working. One of these days we'll have it all organized and figured out. Today is Thursday. Sometime before Saturday we'll be figuring out what to get with all the love people sent us in the mail and in cards at the receptions. 

Saturday we do a house shopping spree and go to the temple. That means I probs won't be at frisbee, but there's a little time in the middle of the day to...do whatever I want. For example, finishing up thank you cards to our sweet friends and family.

I'm sure organizing items in my house will take up whatever other 30 minutes I can find Saturday that are not already being used. I don't actually have much planned, but Saturdays are always seemingly epic. 

Therefore, I wish to be like Saturday. Sometimes. 

Canela-

That's cinnamon in Spanish. I really like cinnamon.  I do not like fish bones. That would be a pain- pulling fish bones out of your meals. I like eating without hassle- that's why deboning rocks my world. In Guatemala they left the bones in everything too. So you'd be eating soup and have to fish out bones. It's so messy. I eat like a 2 yr old anyway, so eating things that have already had the messy parts of the process taken care of is ideal. 

I keep having people ask if it's weird sleeping in the same bed with someone else. I guess I'm a deep sleeper, so it doesn't affect me much. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night, but I haven't been startled by having a man in my bed. Yet.

We had our other reception Saturday night. Both were decorated well- Great job Deane! Thanks for buying flowers and ritzing it up Mom, Dad, & Pam. Both had cake, fruit, and lemon water. We bought too much cake for both.

We had lots of friends and family attend. The first in UT had more family, the second in CA had more friends. The second had more of a program- which went unexpectedly well. Charles, good job planning the CA reception. Deane, good job planning the UT reception.

Now we have some gifts and cards and fancy things to populate our apartment. We need  to move in and put things in their respective places. Our apartment currently looks to be the domicile of hoarders. 

Luckily I have Charles. He is awesome. He has been off work, so he moved everything into the house and set up the shelves. He's handy. He also washes the dishes and makes me sandwiches. I love him. Thanks for being great Charles! 

I need to go to the DMV, the bank, and some other places to finalize my new name stuff. My nails are ready to pop off, but not quite there. I will be clipping them soon. My hair keeps getting caught under them. I haven't been able to do my hair for a week. Bummer. They still look pretty good though. They are growing a little long for me too. 

The church is true.