Maybe this will just never change.

When the powers that be at Costco sent out their most recent batch of coupons, one of them was for converting VHS to DVD. I tore that one right out and stuck it in my wallet.

I had a few videos I'd been meaning to turn a la DVDs for a while, and every time I saw them on my closet shelf I'd feel a twinge of concern they'd get ruined before I had actually got moving on it. VHS are so comparatively fragile now, and I don't know where I'd get a VCR to show my progeny this historical footage. The most important one was of my Fall 2003 sky dive adventure. On a serious whim, some of my besties and I went sky diving in Ogden. The extra fee for this excursion's videotape was not kind to my coed budget, but easily justified because if I was going to do this, I wanted to be able to reflect on my bravery (recklessness) as often as I saw fit. I wanted to see what my own body plunging through 13,000 feet of cloudy sky looked like. And, now that I'm a mother I can see I'd go out of my mind if J ever did this to me, but I didn't tell my parents I was going to do it, and the plan was to "tell" them by showing them the video when I went home for Thanksgiving. They just about had a hernia. I haven't watched the video since 2004, I think, and was excited to both have it reliably preserved as well as watch it again.

So a few weeks ago I shimmied into Costco with a couple of home videos, and yesterday I picked up my precious DVDs.

This morning I watched the sky dive and my skin crawled, I rolled my eyes about 30 times, and I didn't finish the video. My hair was awful -- why didn't someone tell me?? I thought I was pretty stylish back then. I didn't hold still for a minute, I was just bouncing around like a little 21 year old bunny rabbit, and my voice sounds so high pitched. It was obnoxious to watch.

Maybe it is just always awful to see yourself on camera. Maybe I'm remembering that I was really an 18 year old until I was 25. *Side note: When I was 23 I almost moved to Palo Alto, which meant I would have met law-student Jeff 3 years earlier. I ended up going on my mission instead, but Jeff always teases me that if I'd listened to the REAL spiritual promptings I would have gone to Palo Alto. I really think that as much fun as Jeff and I would have had in the Bay Area together, I was so immature before my mission, he wouldn't have liked me AT ALL. :) End side note.*

Either way, it has reminded me anew that no matter how "ok" I think my hairdo is, I need to have a stylish professional caring for it, because I no longer trust my own opinion. Man, I really thought my hair was awesome in 2003.

And this is why I like to dress sort of preppy. It's just safer. It doesn't look as horrific 8 years later.

And when I'm on camera, I need to not sound so shrill.

And I'm never, ever showing that to my posterity. I really don't care if it gives me street cred, it would be a total free pass for our kids to go do something dangerous. Eek.

The End.

P.S. to the last post and Random Pictures

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

This Sunday was actually pretty busy. After church Jeff and I both had meetings, our Home Teachers came by, and then we high tailed it to Santa Monica for a crepe fest with the Kimballs and Reynolds.

Annie has been a close friend since college, I caught her bouquet in bridesmaid attire at her wedding, and as of a year ago her husband matriculated at UCLA as a medical student. So she's close by!

Sarah has been a sister of mine since the day she was born, I caught her bouquet in bridesmaid attire at her wedding, and as of about a month ago her husband has gotten his intern on at a law firm in LA. So she's close by!

We made an afternoon and night of it. Annie is a total cuisinier, so we were stuffed at the end of dinner and could not have prevented it. After that we went on a walk on the beach about 2 inches from their apartment and saw an old man proving with his whirligig hips that you're only as old as you feel. Then we went back for more chatting and grazing on Hershey's Treasures. Between the 6 of us there are some good stories to be told and some awesome reminiscing to dip into.

It was a good night.

And in proper poaching form, here are some pictures of the recent trip to Vegas:

J and Jude having a bond

I and Jude talkin shop

Eh, a little punchy

I call this one "Families are Forever".

This Weekend, etc.

Friday night: Fell asleep on the couch, Cafe Rio, fell asleep on the couch.

Saturday: Errands, errands, work for Jeffrey, laundry for me, Mom came over like a rock star and held down the fort while Jeff and I scarfed Indian food and watched Midnight in Paris.

Ok now this movie, I loved. It was just what I wanted it to be, minus Rachel McAdams' unfortunate lower abdomen placement of her belts (shame on you, costume director). Is Marion Cotilliard the most beautiful woman on the planet? Yes, she is. And is Owen Wilson a great Woody Allen that is not TOO Woody Allen? Yes, he is. I think that one might go in our DVD library when it comes out.

We have had some success in our garden this year with strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and we have eaten 1 artichoke. Actually, Jeff ate the artichoke. I am more an artichoke "dip" girl. When my mom was pregnant with Sarah she craved canteloupe and artichokes. I'd come home from Joy School and sit at the table with my cottage cheese while she dipped artichoke leaf after artichoke leaf in a gram of mayonnaise and down the gullet. I was mystified. I have never really cared for them. Anyway, we have another artichoke but Jeff wanted to let it flower to see how it would look. Voila:

Doesn't it look a little Invasion of the Body Snatchers?

And my fresh-from-the-bath-going-shirtless-in-his-jammy-bottoms-on-a-hot-summer's-ev'n baby J. I love him.

Vegas

Sarah, Cameron, Jude and I just returned from a quick trip to Vegas. After almost a decade of living in the suburban fringe of Sin City, Elizabeth and her family are moving to Utah. They'd always talked about it but I didn't think it would actually happen. Elizabeth was never much of a Vegas girl and whenever we'd drive to Utah growing up, she was the ONLY one in the family who was fervently opposed to taking a hotel-tour-breather as we passed through. Then she married Kris 2 months after 9/11 when the economy was tanked, and he was lucky to get a GREAT job right out of college in Vegas, and to Vegas they went. I figured in my infinite and delightsome wisdom that Elizabeth could perhaps glean some life lessons about not judging a city by its number of retail vendors with "Adult" in the name. (She is SO lucky to have me around.) If she hated Vegas at first she learned to love it, as most Vegans promised she would. How could she not? They have Sonic.

I loved to visit her there and have done it fairly often from the time I was 19. When I came home from my mission I lived there for about a year and loved that too! I didn't mind the heat (because I sprinted from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned office and reverse), there was great shopping, lots of good people, etc. etc. etc., and obviously my Elizabeth, to whom I've always been close, and her darling family.

I was a little shocked they didn't ask MY opinion in all this when they prayed about it, weighed all the factors, and decided to move (HELLO!), and if they had I probably would have told them to stay put. I just get very sentimental about PLACE and I have so many memories in their home, making cookies, dancing in the kitchen, driving down the streets of Vegas pretending we were still in high school while her kids sat in their car seats behind us, watching movies and painting our nails after the kids went to bed, getting way too deep into our Eatonisms and laughing nostril-flare style at the dumbest things.

Anyway, I really did know I'd also make sacrifices for the well-being of my family, and geez, Utah isn't that much farther than Vegas, and also has a Sonic. As it is, there isn't a lot of time before this move will go down, and they had about a bazillion toys and things to pack up. Sarah and I went up and Cam stopped in on his way home from BYU for the summer. Jude played with his cousins and was basically blown over by all the ACTION in a 6-person household, and we packed and packed. The first night we stayed up until 2 a.m. laughing hysterically at the nonsensical things we always do, something we slightly regretted the next day, but it was a great farewell to a house I've loved which will very soon be rented out to who knows who.

We will luckily still have cause to go visit Vegas because Erica and her fam are still there, and we love their methods and spunk. This is just my closure to a wonderful place, the plot of land and home where I loved to be, where I have endless memories of good, bad and whatever. Farewell [address that I can't write down here because then the creepers would stalk them for the next week], may the renters not drop sledge hammers on your tile floor.

Babies J and I watching Baby Einstein allowing us to pack the endless supply of toys. P.S. Jude did a great job in the car on the way home. Glory!

4 Months

Here's our little piece o' heaven. He really gets dreamier by the minute. If you want to be a Jude, you must grab everything and shove it into your mouth post-haste. You must squeal, giggle, coo, and rattle your voice around as often as you see fit. You must have a cowlick smack dab in the front and center of your hairline and another one in the back of your head. You must be kissed an average of seventeen thousand, two hundred and twenty three times a day by your mother alone. You must be tickled and squeezed by your dad ad nauseum et infinitum. Your salivary glands must work overtime, providing sufficient resources to soak through anything caught a moment under your chin. You must become giggly and silly when overtired. To be a Jude, I like to think, is a pretty good gig.

Really, I love being his mom.

Day 5: High Angle

Eh, I'm doing this at an unconventional pace.

"I've been thinking a lot of thoughts...."

See now, that is actually something that the Bachelorette who ended up with the guy named Roberto said with a heap of earnestness on one of the last episodes of that season. I happened to catch it while we had cable. Well my dear, I think we all think a lot of thoughts. Usually this is a good thing.

For the past few days I've been on a total shame spiral. All these misdeeds that must have caused my angel mother much consternation/aggravation/fury/anxiety/eye-rolling have been surfacing in my thoughts I've been thinking and I want to go back in time as an adult and give my smallish self a swat on the bum!

Like that time I got home from school in 2nd grade. My mom was in the white-don't-touch-anything living room, having a meeting with someone for church responsibilities. I was bored. And where was my after-school snack? I went up to the room I shared at the time with 1-year-old Cameron. He was riding the R.E.M. cycle of his afternoon nap. I saw a solution to my boredom -- perhaps if I woke up Cameron he would be happy to see me and do something cute. After the ungraceful extrication of my tank-like brother from his crib and slumber, he was a crank and my mom was -- shockingly -- mad at me for waking him up. I didn't see what the big deal was and remember thinking, "He was going to wake up eventually anyway." Bad, Merzy. Bad, bad Merzy. If I were my mom I would have withheld dessert for the next 3 years and made me clock 290 hours of backscratching. All I got was a scolding.

Or the time I spilled bronze puffy paint on the carpet by the TV cabinet as I painted it on my socks willy nilly, and then lied about it for hours. ???? and !!!!!!

I keep texting my mom apologies for these shameful memories, and she makes it worse by saying I was charming and lovable and she never could stay mad at me for long, because I was a good girl.

Let's grind some more horror into this mess, shall we?

She always wanted me to learn to sew. I did -- sort of, and on an as-needed basis. For random projects like a baby blanket for my Beehive advisor, or I'd help her hem a dress, etc. I never did it consistently enough for much to stick, and I really wasn't interested. She always told me I'd be glad to know. Ding ding ding. Once Jude started napping and sleeping 11 hours a night I allowed myself to consider exploring hobbies. Not holding a baby 19 hours a day frees you up quite a bit. I AM learning to sew, and she comes over to help me when she can spare the time, and some things I can sort of wing on my own. I am having fun experimenting, I just wish I knew more and were already better at it.

As it is, this is my concoction of the evening:

That's right, Jude, next time you spit up, you shall spit up on a burp cloth with an "H" sewn on it by your momma. Shoot!

My point is, I'm feeling really grateful for all my parents did for me. To mom and dad, sorry about putting a hole in the wall by flinging open the door to the downstairs bathroom after you told me not to.

Day 4: Something Green

Day 1: Self-Portrait

P.S. I'm doing the 30 Day Photography Challenge. It'll push me to snap shots of something besides my wee bairn.

Jude and I'd just woken up from our nap; my lazy eye is in full swing. It was my first time using the self-timer. It does make it a lot crisper!

While Standing in the Post Office line by a 5-ish-year-old and her Mom

Girl: Oh look! A baby!
Me: [Smile]
Mom: Haha, she's more baby hungry than I am.
Girl: Let me see him better!
Me: [I turn him toward her]
Girl: Can I hug him??
Me: Well, he's all strapped in this thing [the Bjorn] and sleeping, so....
Girl: Well that doesn't mean I can't hug him! [She hugs his legs. Mother leaves the line to buy stamps from a kiosk.]
Who does he look like??
Me: His Dad.
Girl: What does his Dad look like?
Me: Like him, but older.
Girl: What's the baby going to look like when he's grown up?
Me: I don't know, but probably his Dad.
Girl: What about when he's 10?
Me: Who knows? We'll just have to see.
Girl: 9?
Me: I don't know.
Girl: 8??
Me: No clue.
Girl: 7???
Me: Not sure.
Girl: 6???
Me: It's anybody's guess.
Girl: 5???
Me: Don't know yet.
Girl: 4??
Me: What do you think?
Girl: 3?????
Me: Who can tell????
Mom: Mia, what are you doing??
Girl: 2????
Me: Beats me!
Girl: 1???
Mom: Mia, come over here please.
Girl: [Spots my friend Lisa who's at the counter mailing a package and Lisa's baby in the stroller,] Look! Another baby!!!! [She runs over]..............................