awkward

So, if you know me well, you know two things about me.

1) I can be a little obsessive. When I get something "in my head," as Ryan calls it, watch out.

2) I am sometimes a tad bit socially awkward. Most of the time I can hold my own, but there are those instances where I revert to a gawky 12 year-old.

Both of these endearing traits came together last Thursday.

I made lemon cookies to take to the families Ryan home teaches, and I decided that they would look oh-so-cute if they were on these plates

from IKEA. Yes, it's a little silly to drive 40 minutes just to get two plates....but it was in my head. So you can imagine my disappointment when I got there and realized I had left my wallet at home. {ella thought it was funny, though. "Mom no have money!"}

Not easily deterred, I went inside and asked if they would accept my credit card number without the actual card. Nope.

I asked if I could apply for an Ikea credit card. Nope. You need your DL number.

So, I just wandered the store, hoping to see someone I knew. Right as I was leaving, a family came up to me and said, "You look like a Pediatrician!" I didn't recognize them, but they told me that I had seen their son in the hospital and they brought their children to our office. We made a little small talk, and then I said, "Would you.....oh, never mind." Stopped myself just in time. More small talk, and I couldn't help it.

"This is the weirdest thing I've ever done, but I forgot my wallet and was wondering if I could borrow $3?"

"Um, sure."

So I go to get the plates and realize that they are $3 each, and I need two. Duh.

"Actually, it would be $6, is that okay?"

So we had to wind all the way through IKEA making more small talk. I should say that the family was very very nice (the wife said things like, "This happens to me all the time"), but it was a little weird. I mean, who asks a nearly perfect stranger for money at Ikea. I probably should have held my tongue. I did send them the money right away...hopefully I didn't scare them from our office.

The cookies, however, looked perfect.

yo yo

Last week Kimmy & I went to a Girls' Night Out sponsored by my church. They were making fabric flowers, and it seemed like it would be fun. It was crazy! There were more people than supplies, so Kim and I bagged it and had a "Sisters' Night In." We made fabric yo-yos. They were as easy as pie, and turned out darling--better than my lame photo skills can show.

You can find the tutorial on how to make them here {a fun blog to check out, too}


A quick pic of Ella. We've been working on not walking in the street, not walking "in the black" without holding Mom's hand. She knows to stay on "the white." So whenever she walks in the gutter and I chastise her she says, "White! White!"

Organic

I've been sitting on the fence on the whole organic movement for a while now. I have nothing against those who go totally organic, but here's what's been holding me back:

• It's expensive. You can buy 4 lbs of beautiful, huge, sweet strawberries at Costco right now for $5. Four pounds of the pesticide free costs $15.96.
• It's not as abundant. The selection is small.
• It often doesn't taste as good. When Costco switched to organic frozen corn our entire family lamented it for a year, because it simply was not as good.
• I worry about the bacteria that slip through the organic cracks. The e. coli outbreak a few years ago (in which 3 people died and 31 developed kidney failure) was traced to organic spinach.
• I am a prospective, double-blind, randomized controlled trial kind of girl. Give me some data. I don't want anecdotes, I don't want someones crazy blog or quack book. I want data telling me that going organic is worth the above mentioned hassle. And until recently, data has been seriously lacking.

Which brings me to my change of heart. This week a study was published in Pediatrics (the gold standard for pediatric literature) showing an association between the level of organophosphates in children's urine and the risk of ADHD. It wasn't a perfect study, and did not show causation (it wasn't prospective) but I think it is valid and makes some good points. (You can read more about it here or on my work blog).

Obviously, more research needs to be done, but my guess is that it is going to tell us that pesticides aren't good for us. So...I am begrudgingly becoming a Whole Foods kind of girl.

Thoughts?

one of my faves

“There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young who hold hands and smooch in the drive-ins that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and [beautiful] wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear the divorce courts are jammed....

Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he has been robbed.

[The fact is] most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise.…

Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.


The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride”

-Jenkins Lloyd Jones

Deseret News, 12 June 1973