Miss Entrepreneur

Last week while visiting Kevin's sister's family, Anna offered me any one of 5 princess pictures she colored. I would have chosen Cinderella, my favorite, but that one was scribbled all over by Rachel (and she wasn't offering it). So I chose the second best:


Only after I had visions of this artistic beauty hanging on my fridge did Anna break the news:

"I will sell it to you."

"A minute ago it was free," I replied.

"But now I'm selling it."

"For how much?"

"A quarter."

Good thing some of my laundry money spilled in the backseat so I could pay Miss Anna for her art. And it made it to its home on my fridge just fine. I better ask her next time I see her what she did with that quarter. . .

the scam

When was the telephone invented? Over a hundred years ago.

When were answering machines invented? In the 1930s.

If phones and answering machines have been around for that long, why in the world do we suddenly need an automated lady's voice telling us "After you have recorded your message, hang up."

?!?!????

Seriously?

I am pretty sure we all know what to do and how to do it. Phone companies are just doing anything they can to make us use more minutes. I inadvertently discovered that if you press 1 on some machines, it will skip that part and just beep so you can leave a message. On my Qwest phone, I could turn her off, but I haven't figured out how to do that with my Verizon phone. Boo.

Spring is in the air!

seven point eight percent

My dad saved this newspaper clipping from March 10, 1984. I thought it was so interesting to see "Jobless rate dips to 7.8%." The unemployment rate right now is 8 percent--not so different from then. That's a long ways away from 25 percent, which was the rate during the Great Depression. Where will things be in twenty-five years, the year 2034? Yeesh, I could be a GRANDMA by then!

Happy Birthday Tess!

Let me just say that I am honored to be a guest blogger on Tess' birthday. I'm too chicken to start my own blog and I'm sure after reading this post you'll understand why. I just hope I don't mess it up too horribly.

Anyway, the time right now is 6:23 pm and at this same time 25 years ago Tess came into this world. I could hardly believe it when they announced, "It's a girl!" I thought I was destined to have all boys. Tess gave us a bit of a scare. She was a bit on the purple side and she didn't make that first cry like I thought she should. The Dr. and nurses quickly whisked her over to start working on her. I started to ask why she wasn't crying and then I heard a tiny squawk. I breathed a sigh of relief. Her first apgar was 0! Luckily that all quickly changed and we had a healthy baby. Due to some other complications I wasn't able to really check her out until the next morning. I was just fascinated with her red hair and her little red eyebrows. I wish I had a baby picture to add here, but our scanner has some issues.

Tess has been such a joy in my life. I'll spare you the details, but I think she turned out well in spite of all of my mistakes as her parent. I wrote the following poem for her birthday last year and added a bit today to account for the events of this past year. I love you my dear daughter. Happy, happy birthday!

My Day of Ultimate Joy

1984 was the year
And March 10, I did not fear
6:23 at night
Came a new and shining light
A little red headed girl
I could even see a curl
Her features so delicate and pure
Joy in her I would find for sure
Her infancy was a breeze
Give me more, just like her please
A toddler so playful and fun
Every day brought more sun
Her school years were out of sight
As she revealed she was very bright
A teenager who wanted to do it all
Would always pick herself up if she would fall
Off to college with eagerness and pleasure
Her mind to expand with so much treasure
Then came a mission call to a far away land
A desire to serve and be God's hand
In sharing the word of the Lord "it's TRUE"
And oh my goodness, Did I ever miss you!
In less than a year after her return
Another adventure in her heart did burn
Madagascar is the place she'd go
So many children could know
The joy of going to a school
That would now look and be oh, so cool
Then graduation from BYU
Now watch what she can do
With an English major and minor in edit
She can now write it correctly as you said it
Quickly engaged to the man of her dreams
Now her eyes dance and her smile beams
Soon they marry for eternity
Just how it was all meant to be
The challenges in life she continues to face
Head on with determination and grace
How blessed I am to be her mother,
For a daughter like her ... there is no other
Yes, March 10th 1984 in my memory
Will now and forever be
My day of ultimate joy.

Tess, I love you for eternity,
Mom

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Remember Animaniacs? They had a funny segment called "Good Idea, Bad Idea." So, for the past 6 months or so, I've done some really dumb things. But in order to not look like a complete loser on my own blog, I forced myself to think of some bright things I've done too. This is kind of random, but without further ado, here is my list of good and bad ideas. May you learn from my mistakes.

Good Idea: Getting free tickets to the BYU men's basketball game.

Bad Idea: Having the game be on the same night as Stake Conference.

Good Idea: Eating more fruit.

Bad Idea: Buying bananas that were completely green. I don't think they'll ever turn yellow!

Good Idea: Raiding my mom's closet over Christmas break and finding black shoes that she let me have! (Thanks mom! I wear them almost every day!)

Bad Idea: Forgetting your iPod at home on a 9-hour day.

Good Idea: Borrowing your husband's MP3 player on said 9-hour day.

Bad Idea: Waiting too long to figure out Google Reader.

Good Idea: Freshwater Cucumber Antibacterial Foaming Hand Soap from Bath and Body Works. Mmmm.

Good Idea: Budgeting our money with mint.com. It makes my life SO much easier and it is so easy to use. It's also free!

Bad Idea: Trying to pay the credit card bill AND a student loan payment with the wrong routing number. Very very bad.

Good Idea: Paying off the student loans! Yay!

Bad Idea: Submitting the wrong information for an application for insurance. It happened inadvertently, but it was still a very bad idea.

Good Idea: Going for a walk on Sunday morning with my husband.

Bad Idea: Not keeping my eyes open for a picture to capture the moment.

Some Weekend Fun

This problem comes right out of my linear algebra test review. I thought it was such a great problem I would share it with our reader(s?)

Let E be a basis for a finite dimensional vector space V and F a basis for another finite dimensional vector space W. Let A be the matrix representing a linear transformation L : V -> W relative to E and F. If G is another basis for V, and S is the transition matrix from G to E, and B is the matrix representing L relative to G and F, what is the relationship between A and B? If H is another basis for W, and T is the transition matrix from H to F, and C is the matrix representing L relative to G and H, what is the relationship between A and C?

Don't worry, I am just as confused as the next guy when I read it, but the TA did give me this hint: he said that the answer was somehow related to the number of beta phase carbon atoms in a square pico meter of a lime gummy bear.

life lately

My body is sore. Is it more of a mental thing, or does the fact that I turn 25 next week give me permission to feel aches in my body after playing basketball last night? I love basketball. I played for 2 years in high school but was never very good. I still loved it and, if I remember right, I got the "most spirited" award. Maybe I should've tried cheerleading instead? I digress.

I've been playing with some girls from church once a week. We never practice. We always lose . . . well, we did anyways until last night. And last night was when it really counted: we are now going to play in Regionals. It's bittersweet, to be honest. I'm glad we get to go, but is it so wrong of me to just want the season to be over? While I have improved a lot over the last month, I am far from my glory days in high school.

I don't own basketball shoes anymore. Nor do I have such great, layered hair. (I'm still trying to grow layers OUT.) Although, lucky me, my bangs still seem to always want to part down the middle. Oh well. That was TEN years ago, folks. How am I old enough to have a photo from TEN years ago that doesn't look like this:

Speaking of birthdays, I got a wonderful letter in the mail the other day that said something like this:

Dear Tess,

Happy Birthday! We're so happy that you're turning 25 because now we can raise your health insurance premium! Thanks for your business.

Much appreciation,

Your friends at Select Health

Jeepers, thanks! Did I mention some confetti spilled out of the envelope?