. . . foiled again . . .

. . . not exactly who i was hoping for . . .

. . . 2012 seems really far away . . .
. . . hang in there, mitt . . .

. . . cars . . .

. . . if tate is at our house . . .

. . . i guarantee you will find

one of two dvds playing . . .

. . . and he will be glued to

"buzz&woody"

or

"mcqueen" . . .

. . . usually "mcqueen",

which some people call "cars" . . .

. . . and speaking of cars,

about two years ago,

amanda&brent

returned from jordan . . .

. . . they moved in with us,

and they brought

a car with them . . .

. . . we already had

my car and

bill's car

in the garage . . .

. . . amelia's car and

drew's truck

in the driveway . . .

. . . so, they had to

park their car

on the street

. . . shortly thereafter,

brent bought a car . . .

. . . bringing the

total of cars/people

living here to six . . .

. . . then amelia got married and

we were down to five cars . . .

. . . amanda&brent bought a condo

and moved - three cars . . .

. . . drew left on a mission - two cars . . .

. . . and today the lease expired

on bill's pride and joy { :( } . . .

. . . so we are officially

down to one

{paid for} car { :) } at our house . . .

{helpful tip: run - don't walk

to the superstition springs lexus dealership

and snatch up this little beauty

it's four years old and has only 16,098 miles on it}

. . . which reminds me of the ferrari

in ferris bueller's day off . . .

. . . "he never drives it,
he just rubs it with a diaper" . . .

. . . "inspiration" . . .

. . . occasionally i am

{wrongfully}

accused of being creative . . .

. . . when, in reality,

i'm just occasionally lucky

in finding/borrowing/out&out stealing

other people's ideas . . .

. . . rarely do i copy them exactly . . .

. . . really they just provide inspiration . . .

{is inspiration a nice word for plagiarism?}

. . . anyway, as i was

preparing to teach

a young women lesson

on service,

i came across this little ditty . . .

. . . which reminded me of

this recently-viewed blog post . . .. . . which lead to this "tweak" . . .. . . which ended up like this . . .
. . . p.s. if you buy costco roses

in arizona

on a saturday afternoon

in august

and they are tight buds

but they look like this

↑

by sunday morning,

they are NOT going to last long . . .

. . . to my cute laurel girls ~

sorry for the half-dead flowers . . .

. . . zippers i've known . . .

. . . you won't catch me

on this ride at the state fair . . .

. . . ever . . . . . . one of these days

i need to learn to

"install" an invisible zipper . . .

. . . as for right now,

these are the

zippers i've been

worrying about . . .

{terrible photography}

. . . but, things are starting to look up . . .

. . . so now i believe i'll just . . .

. . . zip it . . .

. . . multi-tasking . . .

. . . from the looks of my posts . . .

. . . you might think that

vicarious back surgery

& burp cloths are my life . . .

. . . you might be partly right . . .

. . . especially lately . . . . . . the thing is . . .

. . . sewing, for me, is therapy . . .

. . . it is a stress reliever . . .

. . . & it has less calories

than potato chips . . .

. . . besides . . .

. . . say, for instance,

network coverage of the

olympics that night consists of

the women's marathon . . .. . . the . . .
. . . entire . . .
. . . race . . .

{when really, all i care about are the highlights

- you know -

one runner elbowing/shoving another to get to the water station,

a runner nearly tripping on someone's discarded water bottle,

muscle cramps, stuff like that}

. . . it's good to have a little project

to keep you busy . . .

- you know -

. . . multitasking . . .

. . . just wondering if anyone noticed

the giant step i took

out of my comfort zone? . . .

. . . orange? . . .

. . . are you kidding me? . . .

. . . seriously, though,

there is more to my life

than my husband's back problems

& sewing silly burp cloths . . .

. . . i'm also really good at

waiting for my missionary son's emails

every monday . . .

. . . i'm deep . . .

. . . tmi . . .

. . . warning: you may wish to

avert children's eyes . . .

. . . my poor husband is

{to say the least} hurting . . .

. . . imagine my surprise, then,

when i heard him say today . . .

"you should take a picture of this

& put it on your internet"

{i'm pretty sure he meant blog, but,

pain medication, blah, blah, blah . . .}

. . . that suggestion

& the fact that he's already shown it

to several friends in person {right, girls?} . . .

. . . led to this photo shoot . . .

. . . let me explain what it all means . . .

. . . the lower right owie

{the really yucky one}

is the site from which

the original battery was removed . . .

. . . on the left

{x marks the spot}

is where the new battery

was implanted . . .

. . . the smaller bandage is

where they made an incision

to anchor the newly implanted leads . . .

. . . & that, my friends, is the

END

of this spinal cord stimulator 101 lesson . . .

. . . honestly, you know you see

at least this much

every time michael phelps swims . . .

. . . one•o•one . . .

. . . it's sort of trendy to acknowledge

certain milestones on your blog . . .

. . . like when you reach

one hundred posts or something . . .

. . . yeah . . .

. . . totally missed that one . . .

. . . so in honor of post number

one hundred one . . .

. . . we're taking the one•o•one today . . .

. . . it's another surgery day . . .

. . . we've got our fingers crossed . . .

. . . competitive spirit . . .

. . . i don't have a lot of it . . .

. . . but i do LOVE to watch the olympics . . .

. . . as evidenced by the dark circles

under my eyes . . .

. . . or is it that blasted blepharitis? . . . . . . however . . .

{and i'm not sure who is to blame for this}

. . . why, oh, WHY must

the summer olympics

AND the presidential elections

be held in the same year? . . .

. . . because i'm a little tired of

seeing this face ↓ . . .

. . . and i'm downright nauseated
at the sight of this one ↓
during commercial breaks . . .
. . . now, i know it's inevitable
that these two will
continue to go at it . . .
. . . but, please,
just for a couple of weeks,
could this ↓ be
the only competition we see? . . .
. . . thank heaven for my dvr . . .
. . . and exciting 4x100m freestyle relays . . .

. . . popping up . . .

. . . like mushrooms . . .

. . . honestly ~ overnight

this little forest appeared . . . . . . spurred on, no doubt,

by crazy monsoon rainstorms . . .

. . . they are quite magical . . .

. . . halleigh is convinced

these are, in fact,

inhabited by gnomes and fairies . . .

. . . project of the day . . .

. . . a few little "back to school" treats . . . . . . for some super cute girls . . .