Halloween Shenanigans

So, on Thursday I found out why I have not felt 100% for the last three months. I thought I had allergies (which very well may have started the whole thing) that just wouldn't go away. I would feel OK for a week or two then I would be sick for three or four days. It was congestion like I have never felt before! A day or two in bed, lots of decongestant and a grumpy attitude followed by a week or two of feeling OK. I never had a fever and everyone else stayed healthy so I figured it wasn't anything serious. After a while I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired!!! Last week it got to the point where I wanted to take the drill to my head to release the pressure. I guess that's my breaking point because I finally called the doctor and made an appointment. The doctor told me that I have probably been harboring a sinus infection for the last few months. I had never had a sinus infection before so I didn't know that's what it felt like. I started antibiotics immediately! Now, four days later, I am finally feeling like my old self again. I just wish I could have been better for one of my favorite weeks of the year. I had a hard time getting into Halloween this year but did my best for the sake of the boys.

Here are a few things that happened this festive week...

The Saturday before, there was a Halloween Dance at the high school. Austin dressed up as Ang, the Avatar. He wanted me to shave his head. I convinced him that the bald cap would have to do. Kyle didn't plan ahead so he borrowed Austin's karate thing (I can't remember the name) and wore that. He would only wear it if I made him a black belt, so of course, I did.

Monday night we carved pumpkins for our Family Night. The boys are scooping our the pumpkin innards while I separate the goo from the seeds (My favorite part!) Later, I roasted them and ate them. Yummy!

While the boys carved, Jim read us the parable of the mustard seed. We talked about the different things the mustard seed has been compared to. Hopefully they understood.

This is Josh's pumpkin finished and lit. He was done first so his got the picture taken. Kyle never finished his!

On Tuesday, the boys went to their Combined YM/YW activity. About two hours before they informed me there was a cake decorating contest. That was the first day i started feeling really sick so we did something really easy. Six mini bunt cakes were put together to make three mini pumpkins. I made butter cream frosting and let them decorate them as Jack-o-Lanterns.

I started feeling better on Saturday so I needed to finish making treats to hand out to the little Trick-or-Treaters. I always make homemade suckers. It's pretty easy and, believe it or not, way cheaper than buying store bought candy. It just takes some planning.

Here I am pouring out some of the peach flavored suckers. I also make root beer flavored bats and black cats.

It was a fun week. I am glad to be feeling better. I wish I could have been feeling more festive but I think things went OK anyway. Now on to my second favorite holiday...Thanksgiving!

Halloween Candy

To make this holiday a tad bit less stressful I decided not to make suckers to hand out on Halloween. I was at the store on Saturday looking at the selection. I just couldn't bring myself to purchase already made candy! I have been making suckers for the last 3-4 Halloweens and love doing it. I am just going to have to be super organized this week and get it done. Pictures will be posted soon...

Concert Season

Last night Kyle had his first choir concert at the high school. Sadly, I was unable to attend, but Jim was there. Tonight was Josh's turn. He is in the junior high concert band and plays the clarinet. This time I am here while Jim takes care of business elsewhere.

We are so proud of our boys and how they are not afraid to share their talents with others
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

When Blog Posts are Few and Far Between

I have realized that when I have something interesting on my knitting needles I rarely have time for anything else. Well, I have been knitting a beautiful piece of lace that has been waiting to be knitted for quite sometime. I found the pattern this past spring. I bought the yarn for it in mid summer. I just started it a few weeks ago and I am done with the first part.

I am so excited for this particular project. I am what a famous knitter and blogger, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, calls a "process" knitter (as apposed to a "project" knitter; someone who loves the end result only). I just love the process. I love picking a pattern, finding the perfect yarn and watching the magic of what can happen with a bit of string and two little sticks. Usually when I am finished with the item I find someone that will appreciate the item and hand it over without a thought of the time (or, if you are Jim, the money) that has been put into making the item. I just love the process.

It has been different with the latest project. I decided I wanted to learn how to knit lace. I found what I thought would be something that wouldn't be too hard. I bought the pattern and the yarn and then thought about it for a while. I knitted easy things like hats, scarves and socks. Even a baby sweater or two. I just couldn't start because I knew this project would be different. Well, it is! Once I started I couldn't stop and I couldn't bring myself to pick up any other knitting. (When I knit something easy I get bored so I usually have two or three things going at once) I have been working on it any time I have what I think is a spare minute. And the more I work on it the more I fall in love with it. I knew from the beginning that this would be something I was knitting for me. Something I would be keeping and using myself. And now that I am almost half way done I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. That light is shining on a beautiful piece of lace that I will be able to wrap around my shoulders. It will not only keep me warm(ish) but I will be able to look at it and marvel at the magic of what can be made with a long piece of "string" and two little "sticks". I imagine it will be something cared for lovingly by me and possibly by my children's children. I have hope that it will inspire others to start knitting. I would love to teach this magic to others.

We are children of a Heavenly Father who has given us this remarkable opportunity called life. We are here to learn, grow and create. For those of you who don't think you have any creativity at all, I say you do! (And so does Dieter F. Uchtdorf, an Apostle of Jesus Christ) We have divine qualities that come directly from He who created us all, our Heavenly Father. Because we are His children we have within us a part of Him. Sharing our talents and creativity with others is something we must do. That's why I knit hats, scarves, socks and even baby sweaters. But just as a reminder to myself that I can create beautiful things, I will keep this piece of lace all to myself. And every time I look at it I will thank my Heavenly Father for the talent I know I have only because I am his daughter.

This is picture of what I am working on. It was taken a while ago. Right now this piece is about 18 inches long. I have started on another piece that will look just like this one.

Raising the White Flag of Surrender

Dear Weeds,

You win. I give up! It is a good thing that fall is fast approaching because I just can't keep up with you anymore. My three weed pulling helpers are back in school and now it's me against all of you. Fall baseball is in full swing so I have no Saturday time to battle back.

So, go ahead and drop your little seeds. I will be ready for your little ones next spring. Maybe I will even invest in some good chemicals to help me with the battle.

Your Forever Foe,

Aimee

P.S. Let your friend Snow I will be sending a similar letter sometime in mid-March.

My Love/Hate Relationship with the NFL

I never knew what a sports fan was until I met Jim. My dad and brothers like sports and watch them. They even pay their hard earned money to go to games sometimes. They call or text me when the Jazz play the Lakers or when BYU is playing. They enjoy sports. Jim is a sports fan. He can watch the same highlights over and over even if he has just watched that particular game. He has been known to watch the same Sports Center two and three times in a row. He will watch old games that are being rebroadcast. He will sometimes even watch things on ESPN like bowling and pool just because they are people with incredible talent competing against each other.

I knew this before I married him. I've tried to understand it, I've tried to love it, I've tried to hate it, now I have just come to terms with it. It is part of the reason I have learned to cross stitch/quilt/crochet/knit. They are things I can do while also being in the same room with my husband during football or basketball season. And through the years I have learned a thing or two about football/basketball/baseball. I actually know a lot more than most other wives and Jim seems to find this sexy (even when I am in sweats and a hat and have no makeup on).

It has gotten so crazy that I am actually part of his Fantasy Football League this year. They needed another "guy" to make it an even number. So I picked my team according to things like who I think is a nice guy, who has a cool name and who doesn't play for the Seattle Seahawks. I have learned a little about some of these guys over the years. As most of our friends and family know I have worked with the NFL for the last five January's. I get a little bit of an insight on what these guys are like when there is no camera and how they treat people that work behind the scenes. (This is the reason I will never pick anyone from the Seahawks.) I probably won't win one week in Fantasy Football. I don't really care. I have often referred to the NFL as the "great and abominable church" referred to in the scriptures. When are their games? All day Sunday and Monday night. Those are times I would rather my husband not be distracted by sports but I give in for 16 weeks in the fall and early winter. It gives me something to talk to Jim about which he will actually respond to.

The other Love/Hate thing I have with the NFL was referred to earlier. I have left my family for the last five years to work with the NFL. I am usually gone between 25 and 30 days. It is a long time to be away from my family. I have blogged about it before. But it has been a great opportunity also. It has allowed me to be able to have the freedom of staying home the other 48-49 weeks out of the year. It has been a blessing both physically and financially. Being home with my three teenage boys is something I feel is very important. There has also been a spiritual aspect to it. Every year I go I gain a stronger understating of what this life is REALLY about. Most people in this world would think that getting your team to the Super Bowl is one of the greatest accomplishments in life and working behind the scenes to help make that final game happen is just one small step behind that. Sure, there is that "cool" aspect to it but every year everything gets bigger and bigger. More money is spent. More stress is added. The pursuit for perfection is constantly lurking somewhere in the pit of my stomach for three weeks. But every year, especially since my sister passed away, the difference between the path toward that pursuit for perfection that the world looks for and the path that my Heavenly Father wants me to be on gets more clear to me. It makes it harder every year to leave my family. My sister left her family unexpecdedly but I know my sister left for something much better than what we have in this life. I choose to leave and making that choice takes a lot of discussion and thought.

So, now that the first games have been played and all the hype has started, I am happy and worried. Happy that fall is well on its way. Happy that we will have many weekends with friends and family at our home watching "the game". Happy that I will be able to contribute financially to our family. Happy to see some of my dearest friends that I only get to see for that time in January. They are my family while I am away from my men here. But I worry that my guys don't eat enough vegetables while I am gone. I worry that they aren't getting to bed on time or doing all their homework. I worry my friends here are doing too much to make up for my absence. I worry that after all my hard work something will go terribly worng with my buses (which means it wasn't totally perfect) and I will be burned at the stake, sent home, or worse, those guys in the NFL will finally remember my name and not in a good way.

I Prefer "Fall Cleaning"

The kiddos went back to school two weeks ago (as you can see on every blog in the world and their first day of school pictures!). It was also a pretty busy time for me. I happen to be the Home, Family and Personal Enrichment Leader in our ward and our quarterly activity was last week which consisted of several "Provident Living Mini-Classes". We learned how to can fruits and vegetables, grind wheat and make it into bread, organize our food storage, and several other handy things. It was quite a thing to get organized. That happened to come just after we went to the cabin for the weekend along with two other families and after back to school night and after shopping for school supplies and after Fall Baseball started and after working a few concerts at USANA Amphitheatre. . . you get the point. I've had a busy couple of weeks.

But when I looked at my calendar this week, there were actually some holes! I was pretty excited because the storage room desperately needed to be cleaned out to make way for a new freezer. That was the latter part of Monday. I have had 20 pounds of tomatoes sitting on my counter waiting to be turned into ketchup. That took all day Tuesday but they aren't on my counter anymore. Yesterday I took apart the family room, cleaned everything and then put it back together. It doesn't look too much different but I slept better knowing there wasn't any dust under the DVD player.

Today I am going to tackle my bedroom. The sheets are already in the wash and I just ran downstairs to get the vacuum (via the computer ;)). I am going to clean out drawers, the closet and the bathroom. I have a stash of knitting things by bed that used to be organized but somehow started to grow and creep in several directions. That needs to be taken care of. I am going to do my best with Jim's side of the room. I am going to try to get a handle on the dust situation. I really like the windows open at night and in the morning so that is never under control. And I think I will try a new fragrance in the Scentsy that's in my room.

I like this type of deep cleaning in the Fall. I have been doing it since Josh started first grade. It usually takes me a week or two after school starts to get into a routine but by then I am caught up enough to tackle two or three rooms a week. I like turning on some music and just getting into it. On those days I usually don't shower or go anywhere until just before the kids get home from school. I apologize in advance if you are unlucky enough to come to my door on one of those days! I am usually finished with the "Fall Cleaning" just in time to get out my Fall decorations and enjoy my favorite time of year.

So enough typing. I am wasting good cleaning time!