Prancercise!!

As you know, I am counting down to the Total Muu Muu Immersion when I am 60.  It will be all muu muus, all the time.

Except when I'm Prancercising!  I'll make room in my closet for white stretchy pants, ankle weights, a pink jacket with shoulder pads, and a statement necklace. 



Do you think I'll be able to wait till I'm 60 for either? Me neither.

1st Annual Archery Tournament

It was a typical Memorial Day in that I slept in and ate a lot of boysenberry ice cream.  I read In Flanders Fields and cried my eyes out the night before during the Memorial Day Concert (does anyone else watch this, the one on PBS?  And if so, why?  WHY?!! It's so horrible and awful and beautiful.) I hung out with the fam and lounged and enjoyed Leisure Reading Time. 

But it was atypical in that we had the 1st Annual Knecht Family Memorial Day Archery Tournament. And I won. If you ever need bales of hay shot at close range, I'm your gal.

A Perfect Day

Once, years ago, Amanda and I had a Perfect Day.  It involved many, many glorious things and each time we're together we try to recreate it.  I think we were pretty successful on Saturday.  There was:

1. Caramel syrup at the Avocado House with Katie, Laura, Baby Rebecca, and Baby Rebecca's cheeks

2. My mom's chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven

3. Bike rides on the beach

4. Sunshine

5. The purchasing of novelty glasses

6. A stroll on the pier

7. Shakes from Ruby's

8. Did I mention the sunshine?  And the waves?  And the beach?  Because they were all perfect.

9. Sweet Potato Stacks with Katie, Camille, Sara, Baby Truman, and Baby Truman's thighs at Honolulu Harry's

10.  A very surprise visit from Andrea.  She was in town for just that night and we arranged to surprise everyone.  Huge success!

11.  Staying up way past my bedtime to talk and laugh and cry and laugh and talk with some of the greatest women I know. Oh, how I love these girls.

It was a day full of joy.  Thanks for coming into town Amanda.  Come back soon and we'll try for another Perfect Day.

Year 1

Seminary ends tomorrow.  Can you believe it?  I can't.  It's gone by so fast.  Even the time after spring break, which everyone warned me would be long and arduous because of a big lack of holidays, has just flown by.

And I have to say my heart is breaking a little. 

Am I going to love sleeping in all the way to 7?  You bet.  Am I going to revel in not preparing a lesson every single night.  Absolutely. (Welcome back, Leisure Reading Time!!!!) Am I going to miss telling my kids, again, to put away their cell phones and stop talking, please, seriously, why are you still talking?  No.

But am I going to miss seeing their faces every morning?  Like crazy. Ugh, I can't even talk about it without welling up.  They're the best class.  So eager and bright and funny.  They make comments and participate and willingly go along with anything I suggest. And there have been more and more moments where I see them really get it, like I haven't been babbling in front of them for naught.  This has certainly been the most challenging thing I've ever done in church but it's also been the greatest. 

One song we sing kind of often is "Who's On the Lord's Side", because it's awesome and essentially a sea shanty.  And naturally I do a little sailor dance whenever we sing it.  I must.  After class today a bunch of kids stood around and said, "This is how we'll always remember you," and started doing the sailor dance.  And I thought, yes.  I already know their testimonies are solid, so if they leave with a love of God and few dance moves, then my job is done.

Jake Ryan Look Alike

There's a guy at my gym who looks like Jake Ryan.  Or Al, from the Al Movie (actually Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken but we only ever called it the Al Movie because that's the reason for watching.)

So because I love you and because I read an article today that said that PMS is all in our heads which made me want to do nothing but sit on my couch with a bowl of ice cream and watch 16 Candles, here you go:

A game for Geography Nerds

Have you discovered GeoGuessr? It's this game where you're shown a picture from Google Earth and you have to guess where it's at.  You can scan around and look for clues, like road signs in Russian or cars driving on the left side of the street, but sometimes it's just a mountain setting and you have to figure out if they're in Switzerland or Canada or New Zealand or Chile or wherever they have tall mountains with snow on them.  Some places are really easy, like the one with a sign that said, "23 miles to Erie, PA."  But others are super tough.  Like the one that had both pine trees and palm trees. And sometimes you're just lucky.  I saw a picture and guessed Sao Paulo, Brazil and it was.  I was within 5 miles of the spot.  It's incredibly fun.

I know you may be shocked to learn that I not only support but love something that is spelled incorrectly on purpose - I have a pretty firm rule on this - except that I'm kind of addicted.  So my standards have fallen a little.  And if you're going to ask which I love more, proper grammar or geography games, I'm going to choose geography almost every time.

Never read a boring book

Last week I picked the Art Society kids up from school and on the way to get some frozen yogurt* Jarron and I were discussing our favorite parts of Harry Potter when Kaiya asked, "Rachel, do books ever take you on a grand adventure?"

(It should be noted that Kaiya is an old soul.  She phrases things like this all the time.  She does not need lessons in the Ways of the 80 Year Old. I'll have her in brooches within a year.)

The answer of course is yes.  Hopefully every time.  This is why I read. If a book does not transport me then I'm not interested.  There is value in reading for knowledge but if it doesn't excited you then what's the point? Unless you're being graded on it you should never read a book that bores you. Even if you're hundreds of pages in already.  If you find yourself not caring then you should shut it and give it back to the library.  Let someone else discover how boring it is. But don't waste any more time with it when there are books like this to read.

This got me extremely excited for her.  For both of them really.  Because they like reading and they get that this is what is supposed to happen.  You're supposed to feel something different when you read. It's supposed to take you to a place you haven't been to before or back to a place that you love. You're supposed to read about people you would never get the chance to meet but would be friends with if you ever did. This is why we read.

What was the first book that made you realize that reading is awesome?  It was Anne of Green Gables for me. I had ever intention of nearly drowning in the Lake of Shining Waters and being rescued by Gilbert.

*Because there must be treats at Art Society.  Good treats.  I'm not talking about bags of jelly beans. We get fancy sodas for Trader Joes with exotic flavors like blood orange and pomegranate.  Because we're high class.

Why don't they just hand out deodorant too.

My birthday twin Sarah totally wins with the Worst Ward Mother's Day Present of All-Time!  Here's her comment.

We had a cheesecake/chatting party the entire 3rd hour delivered on trays by our bishopric in our Murrieta ward. It was the BEST! This year as we walked out of the chapel after Sac mtg we were handed a tin of ALTOIDS by a teenage boy. Seriously? breath mints? 

Look, I'm not saying that a ward has to do anything for the women on Mother's Day or that it has to be spectacular. It's kind of a nice but silly tradition that can sometimes take away from the spirit of the meeting.  But if they do, at the very least they should not give a gift that says, "Your breath stinks."

 

I knew I should have stayed on the couch

Guess what happened last week.  I hurt my foot...FROM JOGGING!  Is this some kind of joke?  I was on the treadmill, lumbering along, arms flailing, everything else bouncing, feeling fine.  And then I stepped off the treadmill and it felt like I'd stepped on a hot coal.  A really sharp hot coal.  And it only got worse once I was home.  And even worse when I took my shoe off.  I always knew running was for dopes. And now I've learned my lesson.  It's nothing but sitting on the couch and eating cheese for me.

Except that I've turned into one of those people who wants to work out.  (Okay, "wants" is relative.  Let's say I want to work out more than I want this big butt. But how did this happen?  I really like cheese and couches!)  My foot actually feels a lot better and I've gone back to the gym but I'm going to stay away from the treadmill for awhile.  And the elliptical kind of aggravates it after 30 minutes.  So I've had to resort to the stair climber.  And oh, how I hate the stair climber.  I want to die every time I'm on it.  You cannot imagine the sweat that that thing produces.  And the pain.  And the wheezing.  I'm like an 80 year old smoker on that thing. Also, I think it hates me because after 10 minutes of significant climbing and wheezing it says that I've only burned 36 calories. Dumb stair climber.

A Mother's Day Miracle

You will not believe what I did today.  It's the one thing that I dread someone doing to me and there I was doing it to someone else.  I sat down next to a friend and asked, "How are you?" and she started to cry.  And then I started to cry.  And then we had a nice cry together.  But it really started the waterworks for both of us. Although, to be honest, it had already been a bit of a weeper.  And not for any of the usual reasons that childless Mormon women cry at church on Mother's Day. There was just so much sweetness and love at church today. It's hard to keep it together when you're up against people being so wonderful.

On that note of Mother's Day at church:  we had a real breakthrough today.  You know how a lot of times they make the women stand up at the end of Sacrament meeting and pass out flowers to them?  And how it's always a little awkward?  And I'm not going to lie, sometimes even more awkward for those of us without kids?  I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, I really do.  And I'm grateful for any generous thought.  But it's just a little awkward sometimes.  So imagine how nice it was today to find out that there would be no standing and waiting for your flower but instead the men would be taking over the last hour so all the women could be together to eat cheese cake and laugh and cry and gab.  That is a happy Mother's Day indeed.