PB Wolf

So, we have a cat. Well, we have a couple, but one in particular, PB Wolf, is quite a hoot. Before you ask, yes PB does stand for peanut butter. Don't ask how he got that name. It was Jungle boy who named him.

This is PB Wolf:

He is actually quite sweet, though he doesn't look it in this pic. He is also very smart, sometimes too smart. He has figured out how to open drawers in the plastic container with drawers we keep in our bathroom. It is the home of all my makeup and makeup brushes. PB Wolf has decided that there is quite possibly nothing better than makeup brushes. He loves to carry them around in his mouth and feel the beautiful bristles of the brush against his teeth. At first I thought I could keep them safe by keeping them in the drawers, not leaving them out on the counter as I have a tendency to do. Then one day I saw PB Wolf very deliberately open a drawer, pick out a brush, and try to sneak off with his treasure. Now I try to just keep PB Wolf out of the bathroom all together. The other day though, Christmas Eve actually, I was getting ready in the bathroom, with the door open. In slinks PB Wolf. He casually jumps up on the plastic drawer container which sits on the floor, puts his little paws up on the counter, grabs his favorite brush, which looks like this:

crushcosmetics.com.au

and then books it out the door. I dash out after him, drop my curling iron on the bed (quite possibly not my smartest move ever) and manage to just barely grab him by the tail. He drops the brush and I think I will be able to grab the brush before he can get back to it if I let him go. So, I stupidly let him go and grab for the brush. No dice. He is much faster than me. He grabs the brush and takes off again, out through the living room, through the kitchen, down the hallway and in to the corner of the room which is half cat room, half man cave and is an obstacle course just to get from one side of the room to the other. I finally manage to catch up to him, he is crouched under a chair. I snatch my brush away and though outwardly acting annoyed, inside give a little chuckle at the antics of the cat called PB Wolf.

Winter

A strange thing has happened to me this year. Its odd, because I've only lived in cold places. I've lived in Utah and in the even colder Alberta, Canada. However, I hate cold. I hate snow. I hate skiing and snowboarding and ice skating and all things winter.

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 Until........the other day I was walking to pick up one of my daycare kids from school and I realized that the chilly air was.....invigorating? What is this, I asked myself. I am opposed to cold. But it seems that after almost 27 years I finally have become accustomed to the cold and dare I say, embraced it? And then, yesterday it snowed.

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I have been dreading snow because I take kids to and from school. Kids that are not my own children. Kids that I would be horrified if anything at all bad happened to them. I feel I am a good driver, but driving while it snows can be dangerous, especially since there are crazy drivers out there! I managed to get all the kids to school safely and then I was driving back and watching the snow fall and it hit me. Snow is beautiful. So it made me think, life is like winter. There are always going to be good and bad. You choose what you see. I used to look at snow and think only of the negatives. Cold, scary roads, etc... However, I now look at it and enjoy the beauty of it. I'm going to do my best to start doing that with my life, too. There is beauty all over and it is up to us to find it in our own lives. There may be clouds and rain and thunderstorms, but if you look closely, somewhere there is a silver lining or a rainbow. Something good can be found in every day.

digital-photography-school.com

Christmas

In sad news, its December 14 and I still don't have a tree up. Jungle boy and I may not even put a tree up this year. For whatever reason, we are not feeling especially Christmasy this year. Actually, that's a lie. I am feeling the spirit of wanting to give to others, especially those in need. But not so much feeling like decorating a tree and putting up cute decorations (mostly because I know they would be trashed by the dogs/cats that live in my house!). However, at work when we sing Christmas songs, it puts me in such a happy mood, especially today. Two of my kids at work have developed, well its hard to know what to call this exactly. When my youngest brother was around 3 he developed what we called his "demon" voice. Its hard to explain, but thats what my two kids at work are doing, only when its being done while singing Christmas songs, its HILARIOUS!!! It goes something like this:

*Teachers sing the words in red and kids sing the words in green*

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

And a Happy New Year!!

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Now imagine Happy New Year being said in a strange, demonic voice coming from a sweet blue-eyed, blond haired little girl. Ah, it was one of the more funny things I've seen (and heard) in quite some time. 

Speaking of giving (as I did way at the beginning of this post) I shall share a story of Christmas past. Growing up my family would always try to do something for others at Christmas. Often this meant providing Christmas for a family in need. One year we provided Christmas for a single mother and her young children. Even though  there had been many other years of serving like this at Christmas, it was my first year of actually going with my mom to drop off the gifts. I can still remember walking in to this little apartment and seeing this tiny Christmas tree on their small kitchen table. The mom couldn't speak English very well, but she was so gracious and sweet and just kept saying "Thank you, thank you" over and over. It made me feel so happy that we could help someone. Last year, Jungle boy and I were lucky enough to be the ones helped by a family in our ward who anonymously gave us a card with a generous cash donation in it. We were so appreciative and it meant so much to us.  That's what Christmas is all about, being giving and also being grateful for the things you receive. It's a time where we can focus on serving others and strive to be even more like the Savior. I hope that this year I can honor that and focus on the real meaning of Christmas. So to all of you, I challenge you to do one (at least one) act of service to help you feel the true spirit of Christmas!

acelebrationofwomen.org

Ambition

***FYI:Words appearing in blue are Jungle boys added comments***

Remember when you were little and you had to list what you wanted to be when you grew up? And the boys all said things like cops or firefighters?

 And the girls said things like a teacher or ballerina?

I said a mom. That has been my ambition since I was a wee little girl of only 3 (ask my mom, I speak only the truth!) Here is a picture of me practicing being a mom:

Precious right?? Turns out its not as easy for me to become a mom as I thought it would be. We all have plans of how life is gonna turn out. Mine went something like this: Get married young. Check! Be a mom by age 24.... By age 27 (the age I will be in approximately a month) have at least 2 kids.
I currently have ZERO kids. And I know that God has a plan, that everything will happen in His time and everything, but sometimes it hurts to not be able to hold my own baby. It's good I work at a daycare and can cuddle and nurture kids, but sometimes I just want to nurture MY child. I want to be a mom, and actually be THE mom, not just accidentally be called mom by kids at work (which oddly enough happens on a quite regular basis!)
It also sucks sometimes to get on Facebook (which is sometimes the bane of my existence!) and see that 20 people are currently pregnant (not even an exaggeration). And I am happy for those people, of course, but sometimes a girl just wants to know, when is it going to be MY turn?
But alas, sometimes life gives us lemons and we can either be depressed by the lemons or we can see the good in the lemons.

 After all, lemons are my favorite color (mine too) and you can also make a delicious drink with them (lemonada! I'll explain at a later time what that is, it's a "Brasilian Thing").
Thus, here is a list of top 5 reasons its good to be a young, childless couple, in no particular order:
*When you want to go on a date you go, no babysitter necessary!
*Your house is not cluttered with baby toys!
*You learn how to be a couple, which is something entirely different than being parents, I imagine at least, since I've never been a parent!
*When you are sick, you can take a day off. Moms don't get sick days, this I've learned by example!
*You save money! Babies are expensive, or so I've heard!

However, I would trade all of those "perks" of being childless in a heartbeat to be able to hold my own baby. And I like to think that someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will hold my baby in my arms. And I like to think he (for I've already decided my first baby will be a boy, and we know how well my life turns out like I plan) will look something like this:

Only much smaller and more infant like! Cause after all, Jungle boy is pretty cute, thats why I married him. Just kidding. I married for love. And for the fact that he is Brazilian (wink, wink!). And here is the honest truth: When I was 20 I told my mom "Mom, I will marry someone from South America. Just wait." And I did. So sometimes my plans for my life really do come true. Thank goodness!

Won't you be my neighbor?

So, today I was thinking about cardigans.

This is almost just like my favorite cardigan that I have, except mine is navy blue. Love the buttons on the side of the sleeve!!

I thought about how much I love them. I love that you can wear jeans, basic t-shirt, basic shoes and then throw on a cardigan and some accessories (thanks Lorraine for reminding me of this) and look good. So I was pondering about my love affair with cardigans. I know I had a couple when I was younger. But for whatever reason, I stopped wearing them. And then I got married. One day we were looking at clothes (Jungle boy and I) and I said I wanted to buy a cardigan. Jungle boy (who has very good taste in clothes) said, "No, those are for grandmas." So, dutiful wife that I am, I sadly resigned myself to the fact that I could never again wear cardigans. Until one magical day when I was looking through my closet and came across this in Jungle boys section:

WHAT???? Jungle boy has cardigans? Ok, Mr. Rogers..... If you can have cardigans and look like an old man who likes to play with puppets (jk, loved Mr. Rogers!) then I can certainly have cardigans and look like a little old lady. So, my cardigan collection is slowly growing again, thanks to several hidden cardigans in the back of Jungle boys closet.

Random Facts

Here are 10 random (and some boring!) facts about yours truly, farm princess.

#1: In my memory, I've never been stung by a bee. When I was a wee little child I went to this baby sitters house. I am not quite sure of her name. She was determined to make me love outdoors. She likened being stung by a bee unto a small pinch with fingernails. Harmless. But as a child, I was terrified of bees. Thus, hating the outdoors. I since have obviously overcome this irrational fear of bees, because really what 26 year old woman is scared of bees? Honestly?? Now, I say in my memory, because my mums thinks I have been. And you know what? She very well could be right because I have very bad/selective memory.

#2: In all honesty, bees do still kind of scare me. A sting from a bee probably doesn't hurt as bad as it does in my mind, but still. When I see a bee, I run the other way. Literally. I tell the kids I am in charge of, "Sorry guys. When it comes to bees you are on your own." Just kidding. I don't. But I do think it. One little boy several daycares ago promised to protect me from bees and took it upon himself to shoo away any bee that came near me. True story.

This, however, is an excellent book, even if it is about bees!

#3: This may be a boring one, but........I HATE shimmery blushes. With a passion! Unfortunately, I feel like they are ALL shimmery lately. I do not want my cheeks to look like Edward Cullen! Once upon a time, I found a beautiful blush. My exact shade of pink that I had been searching for my whole life. MY WHOLE LIFE!!! I was so happy. I put it on and it was stunning. My cheeks were positively perfect. Indoors, that is. Step outside and BAM!! Shimmer city. Why oh why???? And how did I not notice this inside my house? Or when I bought it? Because they are sneaky with this stupid shimmery blush. Lets disguise it as non shimmery blush and then it takes on a life of its own when it gets out in to the real world (aka outdoors)! Now, this is not to say I hate shimmery blushes on other people. I don't. But on me? No thank you!

It doesn't look shimmery right? But this is indeed the very blush I am talking about and it IS shimmery. Sadly.

#4: My husband is my best friend. Not to get mushy, but he is. And I am grateful for that. Its good that even when we disagree on things, ultimately he has my back. He's a good one, that Jungle boy. We are just like Todd and Copper. Minus the ending where they realize they can't be friends. We are the Todd and Copper at the beginning.

#5: My mumsy is my other best friend. Also grateful for that. She is the one person who I can say, in all my 26 years has always been there for me. Always had my best interest at heart. Loved me even when I didn't listen to her and caused her grief and stress and worry. Love you mums!!

I would insert a picture of my mom here, but then she would kill me and I wouldn't be around to write this fantastic blog, so hopefully this will keep me alive and safe! Wink, wink!

#6: Someday I want to have a very large family. Right now I am hovering right around......ZERO!!! So I am off to a bit of a slow start, but I have faith! People always tell me, start with one and see how that one goes before saying you want lots. I know several people who said they wanted lots of kids, had one and then said I'm DONE!!! I, however, will not be that person. I have already decided it. I want to have a little baseball team of mini jungle boys and farm princesses. And my life will be organized chaos! I will love all those ragamuffins with all the love in me and every single one of them will have a Z somewhere in their first name. And just for fun I will share with you my top boy and top girl name. Ezekiel and Lillianza (Lily-awn-zah).

#7: I once ate octopus. And Haggis. And chicken hearts (not that weird I know, but still. Have you tried it?). And also cow tongue.
Octopus....no good. Haggis........surprisingly good. Chicken hearts......usually good. Cow tongue....weirdly have no memory of how it tasted. However, I did not try them all at the same time (but that would have made for a really interesting meal)!

#8: I work at a daycare. Which is obviously not a random fact, but here are some random things that let you know for sure, you work at a daycare.
You text your co workers this: "Guess who pooped in the potty today?" And they are not grossed out by that message!
When above child poops in the potty, you say WOOHOO!!! And praise her ridiculously! High fives galore!
You clean up spilled milk at least twenty times a day. But you do not shed one, single tear. Not one!
You buy Dora dvds and then watch the same several episodes over and over cause, hey lets face it. Kids love Dora.
You get to eat things like wiener boats and hot dogs in tortillas and french toast with captain crunch somehow mixed into the bread.
But the best part of working at a daycare? Getting kisses and hugs and little hands all over your face all day long (with a whole lot of hard stuff mixed in there too!).

#9: I love animals. I grew up with animals. I've never lived anywhere that I didn't have at least a dog or a cat, usually both. Now I have a couple of each. When I was 3 I was playing in my little playhouse my dad made for me. I slammed a book. In ran one of our cats at the time, Sassy. She attacked me. My parents ran in and saved me. I had to get stitches below my eye and a butterfly bandage above my eye. I came home that night (after spending HOURS at the doctor. Jk, I am sure it wasn't that long) to a sweet little cat sitting on my porch that did not belong to us. I looked up at my mums and in my sweetest little 3 year old voice I asked her, "Mumsy, can I keep her?" That right there, my friends, is precious.

Me and my "other" cat. As in, the one who didn't send me to the doctor.

#10: I am afraid of the dark.....I'll admit it. I hate the dark. When it gets dark outside I turn on all the lights in my house and close all the blinds and curtains. I hate being able to see outside. I think it is because once as a young child, I started a ghost club with all the cool kids in second grade. It was very high class, this ghost club. One day, my friend Alison (names have been changed to protect this persons identity) told of a spine tingling tale involving her friend, her friend looking out a basement window, her friend seeing a scary face in window, friend being scared and lastly, me being scared for the rest of my life that I too, will look out a window one day at night, and see a face peeking at me. Whether a nice face or not, faces+windows+dark=SCARINESS!!!

And that, foks, is what I like to call Random Facts about farm princess. You're welcome.

A tribute to Tia

So I was reading something earlier, about a girl who had two dogs. And then she came upon a tough decision. To keep or not to keep? Her dogs, that is. Then I pondered about my two dogs. Could I ever choose to give them up to a better life (as the girl ultimately ended up doing)? And how can you ever be certain that a different life is the better life?  Now, life with dogs is not always easy. Sometimes they drive me crazy.  And apparently sometimes I drive them crazy. Like when I don't feed them early enough and this is what happens:

Mind you, I DO feed my dogs. Just apparently sometimes they like to eat a little earlier, so they help themselves.

Now, sometimes I like to call them Good dog, Bad dog. The dog pictured above is (surprisingly....NOT!) Bad dog. He likes to bark, he likes to bother the cats, he likes to partake of his drug of choice (cat food) whenever he catches me unaware of his whereabouts (which sadly is more often than I like to admit)! He once ate a whole box (minus one or two) of chocolate covered orange sticks. He puked and puked and Jungle boy lovingly gave him a bath and was ever so sweet with him. This may have possibly created a monster. Now he likes to get in to trouble. When he is being his naughtiest, I like to call him Marley Miller. Miller is his middle name I have decided. Ya know, like your mom calls you FIRST NAME MIDDLE NAME when you are in big trouble too.

And then there is Good dog. This is what she looks like:

Ok, ok. That is not what she looks like anymore. This is what she looks like now:

Still cute right?? She has manners. She doesn't bark, unless there is good reason to. She is friendly. When she was a puppy she was like the bee's knees. People were always stopping us when we were walking her, wanting to pet her. She would ever so slowly go over to them, crawl in their laps, lick their faces. And they would fall in love.

Now, do I have a favorite? Try as I may not to, yes I do have a favorite. I try to treat my dogs equal though. Ya know, love them equally. Yell at them equally. All that good stuff. But, if it was a life and death situation and the only way I could save someone was to tell them my favorite dog? Well....... it would be this one:

The Bad dog. Doing what he loves most, fetching and swimming!

But shhhh....don't tell the Good dog.

Now, back to my original question. Could I give them up? The answer right now would be no. Definitely not. Could never fathom doing that. However, life changes. Hopefully someday I will be a mother and that changes priorities. I like to think though, that these two will always be my furbabies. That I will always be their...caretaker? Human mommy?

And to end this random post about my random dogs, I would like to tell you about this dog:

This was Tia. When she was a wee puppy we found her at a pet store. My dad likes to say we almost ended up with two of her because she had a sibling at the pet store and my dad went there after us, looked at puppies and almost brought the other Tia home (ah the days before cell phones and Facebook and Twitter when you didn't have up-to-the-minute updates on everyone). But alas, he didn't. So we ended up with one. She was the very best of the Good dogs. I am glad that she got to spend almost 16 years with us. Even when she was old and frail, she would go outside and if there was snow on the ground (which sadly happens a good amount of time in Canada) she would run and frolick and roll in the snow, just like she was a little puppy again. So, here's to you, Tia. May you frolick in the warm snow of Heaven forever (because snow in Heaven is of course warm)!!!

Kids say the greatest things!

I work at a daycare. It is a very awesome job. Hard yes, but also very funny. Kids say cute things. Sometimes I even remember them enough to write them down or attach them to a special place in my brain where they stay there long enough to tell someone and share the funny things "my" kids say. Like the time one of the two year olds in my class said he ate tatoe bugs (potato bugs for those of you who are not fluent in two year old!) and I asked him how they tasted and he said "Yum, spicy!"
Yesterday I picked up three kids from elementary school. We shall call them Ike, Iz and Lan. Iz and Ike are siblings. Iz found me first. We were standing there chatting when I noticed Ike walking towards us........then walking right past us. "Ike!" I called. Nothing...... Feeling a bit foolish (was that even Ike?) I turn to Iz. "That is Ike right?" I ask, making sure I am not crazy. "Yeah. IKE!" she yells. He finally realizes it is us and saunters over. "Oh sorry," he says. He turns to me. "I thought you were one of the older students." Ah, now some people might be offended by this statement. But me? I embraced it. I high fived Ike for likening me unto a sixth grader. And then he said his mom has a friend who is Bite size. What? Iz then explained there is bite size, fun size, regular size and king size people. They determined I fit in to the bite size category. I was ok with this decision. Call me bite size anytime you want.

Now, to determine what size Jungle boy is. Fun size or regular size??? I would say based on size, he would be regular size. However, based on personality? Fun size. He is definitely more fun than regular personality wise! Like today when he spoke to me in a Russian/African hybrid accent. What does that sound like exactly you ask? Well, I guess you had to be there to know, because it's not something easily explainable. But take my word for it, it was definitely funny.

Oh dear....

Due to a series of unfortunate events, we (Jungle boy and farm princess) have been without our own kitchen for close to two years. Well, this is not entirely true. We've had our own kitchen for the last six months, but today was the first day in those six months that I was brave enough to try my hand at baking. Now, baking is something I used to love. Brownies, cookies, bread. Loved it. But go without doing something for two years and its a bit....daunting to jump back in to. Jungle boy and I went to Wal-mart (oh beautiful Wal-mart) on my lunch break today and got necessary items to bake. Flour, sugar, baking soda and so on. All that good stuff. We even bought some new..... cookware? Cookie sheets, cake pans, those kind of things. So, after getting off work today (early even!) I decided I owed it to Jungle boy to cook him some delicious brownies (not THOSE kind of delicious brownies!)  Since we bought new Hershey chocolate powder I decided to throw out our old one (since who knows how old it really was!) and THIS is what happened!!!

That's right! Someone (ok, it was probably me, I'll admit it!) didn't put the lid on the old Hershey's container and it spilled EVERYWHERE!! It took me forever to clean up that mess. But I got it cleaned up.  Then I went back to mixing my brownies (all right, really I started mixing the brownies!) Then I remembered I had no electric mixer. Great, now its pioneer style mixing brownies. Now these brownies are THICK!!! So, after dropping the bowl of melted butter in to the bigger bowl and spilling sugar all over the counter, I finally got in to the rhythm of baking, then I looked down at my shirt and realized it was COVERED in Hershey powder. "Wait," I said to myself. "I believe I have an apron my dear mom made me!" This is what it looks like:

So, I finally have my apron on, and all the ingredients in the brownies and I'm mixing and mixing and mixing (who knew baking was such a work out?)! So I decide the brownies are mixed good enough, because no one really cares if all the flour is properly mixed in right? At least I am hoping Jungle boy won't and since he will be the only one besides me eating these, its fine...... So I start putting the brownies in to the cake pan and then I realize that I missed just one small ingredient

Now, I apologize for the blurriness in the picture, but that's as good as I could get, folks! So I ponder this question: Do these brownies really need vanilla? And because the brownie mix is already mostly in the pan I decide no. These brownies do not actually really need vanilla. So, now the question is how do they taste with out vanilla? I will let you know, but in the mean time, here is the state of my kitchen post brownie disaster!

And post clean up with the brownies

The verdict is, for those who like less sweet more like dark chocolate brownies, leave the vanilla out. They are still edible, good even!!



And yes I do lick the mixing utensils! What about you? Yay or Nay?