Cheeks

Ok seriously, LOOK at these cheeks.  They surrender willingly to gravity.  Excuse me, I must go nibble.

About Time

I have so many things to be grateful for. SO MANY THINGS.

+ the gospel and its infinite blessings, protection, and perfection + sweet, supportive husband + dear, large, funny family + charming friends + a home + jobs + beautiful weather + a healthy baby coming closer and closer to its moment of exit + the support and social network that is a fringe benefit of the LDS church + the internet to keep updated on the lives of those I love + good books that inspire me and make me insanely jealous + health + modern medicine that will (hopefully) prevent me feeling a ton of the pain I'd otherwise feel when squeeeeeezing out a baby + health insurance + music that tugs at my heart strings and/or makes me want to shake my money maker +

And that's just a start. Thanks for the indulgence.

I do exclaim!

I've come around to the idea of decorative pillows on my bed! Large and hearty, not small neener pillows that serve 0 purpose!

Tomorrow my mom and I are going to finish selecting the linens she'll stitch together for our bedding!

My mom is and was a dish!

I got a promotion!

When I'm old and sound like Joan Rivers and have spent all our pennies on plastics, this is what I'll look like when I smile!

My sister-in-law Michelle is coming in 2 weeks to visit!

We will be in our new house by then!

People keep asking what it looks like!

Jeff doodled this while we watched old episodes of The OC (or was it Felicity?!) a couple weeks ago!

Yes, Jeff does watch DVDs of The OC and Felicity with me!

"Splat!" That's what my cover-less phone did on tile floor last week! Screen shards on the floor! I felt an unwillingness to pay for a new version of something I had owned moments before! Jeff found a guy to replace my screen and his battery for about 1/5 of the Apple cost! Call me if you find yourself in a similar predicament! Now I have a case of rubber so thick I feel sure I could send it flying off the side of the Chrysler Building and it'd still receive a text! Lesson learned!

Goodnight!

Things to Blog:

1. Exciting: We are in escrow (or es-ca-row to Gilmore Girls watchers)! We bought a house in Ladera Ranch and closing ceremonies are currently set to take place May 21. It doesn't feel quite real, but we are stoked over the concept and keep telling ourselves that we actually did pull the trigger! We lookedandlookedandlookedandlookedandlookedandlookedandlooked so it's also strange that we won't have to spend any more saturdays or frantically rushed lunch breaks looking at properties. Pictures forthcoming.

2. Last Saturday we went to Lake Elsinore with some friends and straight from there to a clerkship reunion for Jeffie in Pasadena so those whole things I was thinking about buying edible things with which to replenish our cupboards sort of escaped my mind along with my free time. So we ate Ebelskivers because I had a bought a mix for Easter but never made them due to the overwhelming volume of candies and sweeties floating around that day. They were pretty fantastic. Since I'm my mother's daughter, I sink into a deep well of self-loathing and anxiety if I don't eat and feed green vegetables every day of the calendar year, but Sunday, we lived dangerously.

3. Sunday night we also watched a movie. 12 Angry Men. This was a movie Jeff had picked. Often Jeff picks French films. I have a funky relationship with French films. And by funky I mean not great. I've actually seen quite a few foreign films in my day and they're all you know, different, but French films are just...more different. And then within their little pool they're almost all the same. It's like they get the same actors and they put together 2 hours of footage of "Here are some people and some things happen to them and they're mostly emotionally destructive things and very awkward things and then Le Fin!" The only French movie that made me cry tears of joy (that I can remember right this minute) is Le Chorist. Ah, Pepino! Back on point: sometimes Jeff's movie choices are not my favorites, but I watch them with him because I'm always hoping I will love them, plus is marriage not a give and take?

I loved 12 Angry Men. I loved it. I have been thinking about it so much I have a hankering to watch it again. If you have not seen it (I hear there's another version? We watched the original with Henry Fonda), do not delay. Watch it, and watch it good.

4. I'm grateful. Life is good.

Spring's Bounty

A few things:

Yesterday morning I awoke to 2 bits of news that put me into a swirl. (!)

1) Cameron my brother was doing his weekly emailing and I hadn't written him!

2) My mother had left a voicemail saying there was a neighborhood garage sale, it was a GOOD one, and it was already 2 hours underway!

We readied ourselves with relative haste and made it down to Irvine in time to snag this beauty:

Over 150 years old, purchased in rural New York about 10 years ago. And I carted it away in my little tin can car for $25!

And this was an even better bargain! I shall stain it directly. It was a gift from some members of our ward who were cleaning out their garage. They even delivered it for us. We gave a Celtic Gaelic cheer, post-battle enthusiasm levels matched entirely.

I texted pictures of these 2 pieces to my sisters and parents and my dad texted back, "Wow, you are your mother's daughter."

We ventured forth on a walk this afternoon, and the rest of Orange County was having a party. The 4 common themes: tattoos, ciggies, bikini tops and denim bikini bottoms. The other common themes which were almost as hard core were salty breezes, warming UVs, and street musicians. We are happy to be by the water. And all the tattoo parlors.

My bangs are officially longer than they've been in many, many years. I guess the only thing that I can attribute to this stretch of permitted growth is I've been so insanely busy during the awkward phases of bangsville that there hasn't been time to cut them off again in a moment of weak frustration. I still haven't decided my next move with my hair, but since I never make it to the saloon anyway, it'll probably continue growing long in its dark brown way.

Gotta go pop some ibuprofen. House is devoid of Diet Coke.

And Baby Makes 3!

"Oh Lizzy! It is SUCH a pleazah to run my own home!"

Guess whose house is the last one on the block to be decorated.

mine.

I WILL, however, in the spirit of Christmas, gluttonous light, holly ho ho, shed some wisdom: If you're feelin hungry and cheap/poor, hop over to a take-out spot right before they close. Friday night and tonight we were able to score some extras and freebies by popping into Pat and Oscars and then Baja Fresh -- willy nilly. I would like to think my winning smile and magnetic personality earned me those things but I'm more convinced in its being the product of "Oh, uh, we're closing up and giving them this will save me an extra trip to the dumpsters in the chilled back parking lot."

The only downside: the freebie breadshticks at Pat and Oscars actually turn your innards into solids. The damage has been known to be instantaneous.

I am doing a late Thanksgiving Tangent now. Here goes....

I'm thankful for (in no particular order):

- Diet Coke (see that's why I had to put "in no particular order" so you guys will never know if I'm more grateful for this than all other things in my life.)
- Christmas and all it entails, and that I know it's all so very real
- A Mother and a Mother-in-Law-to-Be who are so efficient and clever they dare to throw together a wedding in exactly 2 months
- www.jcrew.com -- it is nice to just look sometimes.
- the fact that Cameron comes home in less than 6 months
- Razors
- My dear, silly, plucky family
- Pals and comrades that make me chuckle
- the universe isn't asking me to personally deal with Levi Johnston
- Sugar Free hot chocolate provided at my office
- the nice man who put on my spare tire when a nail shoved into my tire totally ruined its wheeling potential
- An eternal boo that charms me to death on a daily basis
- and a partriage in a pear treeeeeeee

Yesterday I

- worked
- went to lunch with Jeff's charming aunt, uncle, and cousins at the Pei Wei with the tres impressive soda machine that offers seemingly endless soda and juice options. It's like a liquid dispensing smart phone.
- hauled the spectacularly arranged bridal bouquets and boutteniers to the Newport temple to be pinned and handed to these stunners as they greeted their first bit of fresh air as an eternally linked pair









Then I worked a bit more, sprinted to the grocery store, then Jeffrey and I sprinted to the lovely wedding reception.

Gold dipped fringe benefit of a wedding: seeing friends you might not see otherwise. This reunion with dancing fiends Brad and Lacey Arave led to an after party at the Nicklecade. So what if the words "Meredith Eaton" and "nickel nickel" have never been uttered within an hour of each other! It was really fun! K fine I'll prove it.









Jeff is a pro skater in attorney clothing.

To rap it all up with awesomeness: slept in till 11 am. I am ready to start the week anew.

-- Post From My iPhone

Lists

I am a list maker. A maker of lists.

This habit really kicked into high gear on my mission. I would fill up the margins of my planners with endless tabulations of things I wanted to work on that week, my budget, groceries to buy on our day off, things to remember to appreciate when I returned home, quirky anecdotes of the week, etc. This was a time when my lists were most important because for a myriad of reasons, I was more likely to forget any and all of these things if they were not thought of AND subsequently recorded. These lists were borderline journal entries, which makes it very unfortunate that about half of my mission planners are wavy, blurred, rain-soaked pages, as nothing, and I do mean nothing finds sure protection from a Costa Rican deluge. I keep them, though, when I have the emotional intrepidity I'll take a peek at them again to remember the times, remember the days.

Ho hum.

I still do make lists for self-analysis purposes in quiet moments caught, I make grocery lists on my phone while at red lights, and in 3 months of working at my current job I've already cooked through 2 note pads with daily To-Do this and thats.

Today feels like a day for a Spankf -- oh, I mean Thankful List.

1. These Hooligans

2. This Place

3. Not I or anyone I know and love has hair like this (although I currently take ISSUE with the state of my locks!):

4. Soon this shall be erected at a local outdoor mall:

5.

wee-kend

* surprise, surprise. good conference.

* surprise, surprise. ate enough to last me into 2010.

* surprise, surprise. early onset sunday night blues.

I just love Conference Weekend, don't you?

*** I haven't gone to spookism. Just a preview of Santa Barbara Labor Day Pictures that I finally got around to uploading. ***

Bits

Would you believe me if I told you I made an entire meal and didn't want to fling myself from the Brooklyn Bridge at any point whatsoever?  

What what, y'all, I did!  

I'll go a step further.  I cooked a PORK LOIN WITH SAGE AND APPLES.  In a crock pot.  I suppose I always thought crock pots were cool, but now I'm a little bit in love with them.  It is just the baby step I was needing.  The unsightly guilt bricks of "As far as I can see I'll be cooking Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Chocolate Chip Cookies until I'm 90" have started to disintegrate.  

After some ginger brocc at Pei Wei on Friday we got back in time to catch 90% of The Beach on tv.  Remember that one?  Leo Dio when he still resembled Peter Pan?  This particular film was a little too much of a marijuana-infused Lord of the Flies for a minute, there, and the White Witch really needs to stretch herself and get out of the villainous "creepy steel eye looks" roles, but the best was the internet cafe al fin.  Our baked hero is back in civilization and sits down in front of a 50 lb., turquoise bubble-behind Mac Monitor, and then he logs into his EXCITE account, and THEN he downloads a picture from an email that takes 5 minutes to chonk out!  I thought it was funny and was partly and irrationally offended, since the movie was released around the time I was ordering my high school cap and gown and Elizabeth was returning home from London with the Felicity haircut.  It wasn't that long ago, was it?  

Just lie to me.

Is it Monday again?

It is.

Penultimate

Floating to Ellis Island, March 1999

My mom and I have our share of differences.  Por ejemplo: My mom could eat brussel sprouts morning, noon, and night, and the very smell of them makes me want to dry heave.  I fidget almost constantly and clomp around from place to place.  She sits in statue mode and when it's necessary to move she sort of glides.  I worry about certain things I can't control, and worry so much I work myself into a dither.  I don't think she's done things like that since the 80s.  

We do have some similarities, though.  We have the same hands, the same initials, the same hair color, and lift our pinkies off glasses that carry cold liquid.  "Pinkies aren't big enough to hold up against such a temperature," said she.  My boyfriend in high school pointed out to me once that I'd picked up the habit.  We're most happy with a movie at home on Saturday night, laugh at our own jokes, get punchy when it's past bedtime, do funny voices when it's just us girls, and exhibit particularly uptight behavior when threatened or made vulnerable in any way. 

One thing, one very cool thing we have in common, is our love of Penultimate Moments.  OOoooh they are thrilling and sweet.  When she was an English major in college she was given the assignment of reciting one of Shakespeare's sonnets.  She chose his 73rd.  When I had the same assignment in the same major about a quarter of a century later, I unwittingly chose the same sonnet, and for the same reasons she'd had!  Which means when she's dead and gone I'll have to keep this sonnet 30 miles away from me at all times, lest the sentimental value and situation in life cause me to cry myself into oblivion.

Read it:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Devoid of Labor, Overflowing with Lovely

Just a quick Santa Barbara FYI: I'm still accumulating pictures, so this isn't the last of me nudging my Labor Day jaunt out into the internet.

OooooOOOOOoohh I sit here, for some reason getting my second wind, thinking as I did at the close of So Brave, Young, and Handsome, "Why did it have to end??" We maximized our time with activities*, ate like 16 year old boys, chortled heartily at our own and each others' jokes, and still somehow found time to watch the BYU/OU game and get know some R&R.

* Activities out of the routine in our 2 day stay: Solvang time, Hiking, SB State Street Shopping
Activities quite routine to us but fun nonetheless in new surroundings: Chlorinated and Salty breeds of water

Hike-tacular

I think this is when we were sharing listening to Africa on Jeff's ear buds.  "There's nothin that a hundred men or more could ever dooooo...." (are those even the words?  Hold me close I'm Tony Danza?) 

A BBQ place.  It was scrubby but good.  I got steamed veggies and onion rings.

My 2nd wind has been short lived and I'm out of pictures to blog......zzzzzzzzzzzz

Perhaps the Best One.

Maybe I'm the only one who has feelings so potently positive about this particular episode, but I really love the Gilmore Girls Season III episode with the 24 hour Dance-a-Thon. I believe they in the studio named it, They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They? I love it.

Do you ever think that there's a Stars Hollow as well as a Hogwarts?

Back in the Saddle Again

I got a text message from my Elizabeth on Saturday night selling me on running a half marathon with her. I thought, "Maybe...if I have time to train...." and then the next morning I had an email waiting for me with the details. It's in May 2010.  So that means I have time to think about it, think about it some more, and then work up to it in a semi-frenzied state, but it will be worth it because I'm 99% sure that Sarah will run it too.  Fer CUTE!  3 Eatons wielding their limbs.  Together.  Pronounce that last word however you you wish to make it resonate with the most resonance. 

I suppose that means that at some point in the next 9 months I will start running plural miles.

*********************************

I picked up a book last week all about the wonderful department of Cookie.  Martha Stewart's very own cookie world is now my oyster.

I tried to make 2 of my new cookies last Sunday.  Jeff helped and is quite the knowledgeable kitchener.  One, I am most sorry to say, was a flop.  Sometimes I like to decide what really is a necessary ingredient and what isn't.  Sometimes it asks for 3 ounces of almond paste and I can't find it at the grocery store anywhere so I say, "Whatever, forget it."  Sometimes I don't have a Cuisin-Art so "finely ground" almonds and pecans become "chopped as small as I can chop them."  And sometimes the German Christmas cookies fondly known as "Lebkuchen" turn out to be, as Jeff Brown called them, "Almond Crepes."  Sometimes I have conversations that end with me saying defensively, "I can cook anything!  Just...when I follow the directions!"

The Surprise Cookies, I'm proud to say, were every bit as artery cloggingly delicious as I'd hoped.  

****************************

My bangs are back.  I missed them so!  But unless you've seen my bad se'f since Friday, you wouldn't be privy to this fact.  Because I have become a lazy git who cares not for taking photographs.  Maybe it's an August thing.  I'll get back on the wagon.  Anyway, it was just as it always is: totally a dream to get an hour to chat with Madam Natalie Dulaney, champion of the heads of hair, and totally awesome to be spiffed.  

****************************

I think the I am Legend zombies are far enough away from my mind now to allow sleep to come to me before 1am.  But you know, Will Smith is an idiot; he did not have to be a martyr.  He could have chucked the grenade at the zombies and then fit in the vault with the vaccine or antidote or whatever you'd wish to call it.  

it's time for an update because i have time.

- i am still grateful for my job every day.

- i moved to california 1 year ago yesterday. can't believe it.

- my sister sent me this picture and i was thrilled to realize that i had finally found my cheek flub soul sister (niece). look at those suckers! gravity's got loads to work with there!

- i'm going to see fiddler on the roof tomorrow at the orange county performing arts center. i haven't been there in years! i think if more people would just watch more musicals evil doing would largely dissipate. no one can find it in their heart to go participate in a drive-by-shooting after they've see lovebirds in a surry with fringe on top.

my dad is going straight to heaven for giving us these tickets to see tevia shimmy across the stage melodizing his unattained wealth.

- i had a dream about depositions and melodramatic plaintiffs the other night. vivid dreams are back.

- yesterday during the hour in between work and school i zipped over to the book store to pick me up lief enger's first book, peace like a river. the employee who directed me aright told me that all purchases accompanied a free book which could be selected from a shelf by the cash register. it took me about a zillionth of a second to NOT be excited anymore because the books must be pretty creepy if they are giving them away. i was right. slim pickins. but i did find one that would do; it makes a great coffee table addition. pages and pages of tinsel town residents posing or posing candidly for the camera and sometimes giving advice.

- hmmmm not much else to say...... i wake up, i go to work, i eat food, i hang out with jeff, and go home, read some of the good word, and try and get at least 7.5 hours of sleep so i'm not a total grouch the next day. when i don't get that much sleep i try and think of my friend's husband who's in his surgical residency or my friends with babies who don't sleep through the night for some perspective. ah, but then i still just snap at whomever is testing my patience anyway. bahahahaah. not really, i'm not confrontational enough to be snarky at people unless they've penetrated my inner sanctum.

babble blogging has ensued.

goodnight my funky freshes.

don't get too excited -- i am half asleep.

remember those days when i'd blog allllllll the time?

things i've been thinking about lately:

- whether or not i should cut blunt bangs again (mine are getting to a funky length)

- why my left ankle hurts -- it has suffered no injury that i can recall

- why i am so tired lately?  i am unabashedly brain dead after work, especially on wednesdays when i have class, which makes for some interesting conversations with jeffrey.

- i had been having very freakishly vivid dreams -- i would have blogged them but they were all sorts of crazy, i haven't had time, and really, what would be the point anyway?  they have died down now and i sort of prefer it that way.  i am usually frustrated in these dreams.  

- what happened to BB Mac?  margaret, i bet you know.

- back to the dreams -- i am not actually frustrated with my life, which is why the frustrated tone of my dreams perturbed me.  2009 has seen loads of things falling into place.  my life's not perfect but i never wanted it to be.  i just want it to be cozy.  it feels cozy right now.  so what's with all the stifled angst in my visions?  what happened to those dreams i used to have about dinner dates with the likes of ryan gosling?

- i think about the things i want to make when i have a weekend that's not overrun by all sorts of this and that.  i want to make something to hang from the hook right above my bed (shauna gave me an idear), i want to cook something from the new vegetarian cook book elizabeth gave me for my birfday, and it should be divinity puffed up.

- you might want to slaughter me for saying this but i can't WAIT for labor day.  that means it's kosher to wear tights again.  i love black tights -- they make everything so easy.  i hate my bare legs because of my sovereign lack of coordination and the insanely visible scars on my gams.  i just like tights, ok?  i was bummed about summer hunkering down for a nap until i realized that's coming.  it's terrific.

i am so going to the land of complete sleep now.

It comes....

I'm tired. I'm more tired thinking about the next few days. It's going to be charming, it's going to be busy, it's going to be a once-an-Eaton-decade sort of thing. I'm going to be repeating to myself over and over again that I'm not losing a sister but gaining a BIL, I'm going to be wearing heels for many hours on end, squeezing a few babies, chortling with many relatives and amigos, wearing my smile muscles to death, and then just as quickly as the whipping wedding winds churned themselves up, the air will be still, nary a breeze, the impish, loving couple will be gone to some unknown honeymonic destination, and I will go back to work on Monday. Life will resume.

Until the next Friday when I fly out at the crack for Annie's wedding in Utah....

And the Friday after that when I go to Vegas for Sarison's Open House............

My sister Sarah and I used to have some strange mocking attraction to that country tune, Just Another Day in Paradise.  If you know it, admit it.  The lyrics are horribly cheesy and filled to the top with TMI.  When I worked at the bank, my Manager would often utter under his breath that same thing when someone had just thrown a fit at him because THEY went on a shopping spree at the Chanel boutique when their pocketbooks only would have allowed Old Navy.  Anyway, I want to indulgently say that I feel to sing that song with verses a la Merzy. 

I never really wanted life to be perfect, and it's certainly not now.  I feel I am too old to be making some of the scatter-brained mistakes that I still find myself making, and I get frustrated.  I suppose if you'd asked me as an 18 year old ninny what my life would be like when I celebrated my 27th birthday I would have described a different picture, filled with some things I do still want and assume I'll have some other day, but I am unable to verbalize just how thrilled I am that things ARE what they ARE right now.  As imperfect as it is now and ever will be, I am enjoying immensely my ride in my hay wagon.  Sometimes, enough things fall into place all at once that you don't care much about the things that haven't, and it is enough to get you to hug a tree or spare the life of a pesky fly.  

Barfy?  Indeed.  Temporary?  Probably.  True?  Indubitably.  Sometimes life is just paradisaical, and I hereby say I'm grateful.