Smiling that frown away

In an effort to stay positive this week, I decided to list a few of my favorite current reasons to smile/laugh/be inspired. ( I realized I had to do more than just my 'positive thinking' from Sunday, because somehow I ended up with two sad, sick little boys all week - Clyde took one for the team and woke up Sunday morning with a pretty high fever to get himself out of the concerned looks his forehead would have received at church :) )

* The Biggest Loser. I feel a little like one admitting this, but I am seriously obsessed with this show. I've never watched a season of it before, but I stumbled upon the season premiere one bored evening, and I am hooked. I made Chuck watch it with me one night, but he couldn't take the crying - my crying. I tear up at least three times an episode, mostly when they all help each other. I stay up late on Tuesday nights to watch it after class, then I promptly get online and read all of the discussion boards, although to my credit I don't actually participate in them. Yet. Seriously, though, the contestants work so amazingly hard and I love it. My favorites are Tara, Filipe, Sione, and Mike. The promos for next week, where Mike makes some huge sacrifice for Aubrey? I rewound it and cried - hello, I don't even know what it is, but I cried!

This is the best picture I could find of my faves, just switch out Kristin and put in Sione :)

* Next, roses. Specifically orange-ish/yellow-ish roses. My sweet sister-in-law Melissa was briefly in town this week and she brought me a lovely bouquet - how did she know that I had just had to throw away my Valentine's Day flowers? Thanks doll!

* Ellen. About a month ago I recorded an episode of Ellen DeGeneres' talk show to watch a certain segment and I almost died laughing. She is SO hilarious; I've always known she was super funny but her show is great! Chuck set all of them to record for me, and it makes my day so much better. My favorite thing ever is an audience participation game called Blindfolded Musical Chairs. I can watch it over and over and laugh so hard I (almost) wet my pants. They've played the game four or five times in the last month, including once with the Jonas Brothers which was pretty funny. Here are two clips, the others are easy to find on youtube as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3bvJz7Nl-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIUSOTy_mK8&feature=related

They will change your life. Just tonight I was feeling sorry for myself since Chuck is at work, and I looked these up and laughed and laughed. The best part is when the people run into each other. SO FUNNY.

* No car payment: my car is paid off! Well, technically, my 'station wagon' is paid off: Heck yeah! I was raised in station wagons (actually, I was raised in a house, but we drove around in station wagons) so I love them. I am glad that mine now is a little more polished that the ones of old, although the fold up seats in the very back would come in handy.

* And my final reason to smile tonight is that Sam and Terri are coming tomorrow! They'll be here late and only until Sunday afternoon, but I'm very excited; we haven't seen them since November. It will be nice for my dad to have three of his kids at the funeral on Saturday (here's a link to my grandma's obituary: Lois Edith (Montgomery) Braden).
I love when Sam and Terri come for many reasons: I'm going to try to fit in a Costco run with Terri and her fabulous membership card and maybe Clyde will recruit one of them to dance with him during the opening song on Cars; I get winded easily.

Plus, my 'abstinence' assignment is over and they're bringing cookies!

Rockin' weekend, rocky week

We partied pretty hard last weekend, what with three holidays and all (isn't Friday the 13th a holiday?) and had all sorts of fun, which was good because this past week has been rough. We'll run down the fun stuff first . . . Technically this was the Monday before the holiday weekend. I had the night off from school, so we made Valentines for Family Home Evening. And here are the finished products, ready to mail to aunts/uncles/cousins and grandparents. Happy Valentine's Day to me! Chuck took pity on his poor, cookie-less wife and hooked me up with mini-cupcakes AND beautiful flowers. Here's my cute little Valentine #1 . . . (yeah, he's wearing a truck pajama shirt underneath, the kid needs a long-sleeved white shirt!) and my cute little Valentine #2! Their mommy loves them :). She also loves Target clearance (Clyde's t-shirt two summers ago) and Savers thrift store (Will's t-shirt in December). Matching t-shirts are adorable, but matching t-shirts for less than a dollar each are even more adorable! The boys giving last minute hugs before we left on a date that night. We hit up a wedding reception, saw a movie and ate at Olive Garden - we're not very original, and we're okay with that!

To wrap up the holiday weekend, Chuck's brother Lee and his seriously awesome wife Aleesha came and stayed with us Sunday night. And luckily they brought their darling seven-month-old daughter Bri with them, because otherwise we wouldn't have let them in. Sweet chubby-cheeked cousins - Will is just about four months older than Bri.

Clyde felt left out, so he jumped in too. :) It was a short visit, but Lee and Chuck managed to fit in some video game playing and Leesh and I sneaked out for some shopping - my beloved Savers had their Winter Clearance on President's Day - everything in the store was 50% off! I didn't find out about it until that afternoon, so we only had an hour, but I scored some pretty sweet stuff.

Then the week began. And it's been pretty lame. Clyde and Will seem to be going through some sort of injury-prone phase, between the two of them we've had blood on like six occasions. Clyde had a nasty spill when his footie-pajama clad feet lost traction while standing on a kitchen chair; the LARGE goose egg on his forehead shows exactly where it came into contact with the kitchen floor. I've kept him in the house since it happened, but there's no avoiding church tomorrow . . . should I dress him in green to coordinate with the bruise or pick a busy print shirt to distract people from it? Of course, it happened Wednesday night when I was just starting in on a paper due by midnight, and injured two-year-olds only want their mommies (which I do relish) so that delayed things a bit. The paper did get e-mailed by 2am with a paragraph explanation and my teacher didn't dock me at all, so that's good!

Early in the week I found out that my 79-year-old Grandma Braden had been hospitalized a few days prior and that it was very serious. She passed away Friday morning, February 20th. I will miss her a great deal, but my grief is more for my grandpa and my dad, as well as for my cousin Adam who, like Quinn, is serving as a missionary right now. He was very close to my grandparents and I'm sure it's difficult for him not to be here. We're all grateful for our testimonies in the gospel of Jesus Christ; that we know about eternal life. I let Quinn know what was going on when I e-mailed him last Monday, and I'd like to include part of his response (spelling errors fixed, he's a wretched typist!) here:

"Death is a part of life that we each will pass through, but He, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, conquered it. We will all live again, and that is the hope and faith that we carry . . . We have the absolute hope that we

will be raised from mortality to immorality, from corruption to incorruption. Along with that He conquered the spiritual death, or sin. He defeated

that and leads the way for us to do the same. Whatever

happens, the Lord is in charge. Our fear and sadness will be swallowed up in the hope of immortality and eternal life." Elder Quinn Braden

This is Quinn with Grandpa and Grandma last June, shortly before he left on his mission.

These pictures are from this past December when my dad and I took Clyde and Will over to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Of course we waited until the end of the visit when my children were getting fussy/uncooperative to take pictures!

So that was our week, and this weekend has been little improvement. Chuck woke up early this afternoon to stay with the boys while I went to a Relief Society activity, but then another injury occurred (Will pushed open a door with Clyde right on the other side, more blood) so I decided it wasn't meant to be, especially since I was only going to be able to be there for an hour before Chuck needed to leave for work anyways.

I'm convinced things will look up tomorrow, since it's Sunday (love church), Chuck's taking the night off (love Chuck), I made chocolate cupcakes tonight as another substitute for cookies (love chocolate, not entirely sure this is what my poor teacher had in mind, though), and it's the Academy Awards (love being shallow and looking at the dresses). Happy Sunday to you all as well!

Hello, my name is Jana

. . . and I am a cookie-holic. It has been two days since my last cookie.

One of the classes I'm taking online this semester is a Health Studies class called Drug Use and Abuse. I thought it sounded interesting and I had some elective lower division credits available, so I signed up. Obviously the class deals with addiction, so here is our current assignment:
"Behavior Change Assignment: Students are requested to identify an activity or substance that is used on a daily basis, preferably something that helps them cope with life. You will be asked to discontinue use and then refrain from this activity or substance for the two weeks of February 10 - February 23, 2009." (courtesy of my syllabus, which is courtesy of C. Glorfield) We're supposed to journal our experiences and write a five page paper about our adventure, due at the end of March.
As luck would have it, I don't rely on any terrible substances or activities to get me through the day (I figure it'd be an automatic 'A' if I could credit the assignment with helping me kick my coke habit, right?) so I consulted with Chuck about what I could give up for two weeks. He suggested facebook and/or blogs.
That obviously wasn't an option.

As the 'start date' grew closer, I started noticing how quickly we've been going through cookies around here lately, both store-bought and home-baked. Mostly consumed by me. I get so peckish in the evenings and a cookie always sounds good . . . but three or four (or five) cookies sounds better! And I'm usually up late doing homework after having dealt with two sweet and darling but needy children all evening by myself, and I assure myself that I deserve cookies as a reward. They've definitely been helping me 'cope with life'. This really hit home on Tuesday when Chuck was looking for the package of Oreos I had purchased on Monday. It was pretty embarrassing to admit to him (and now to all of you!) that I had eaten the entire package (save one that Clyde managed to get his grubby little hands on) in a 30-hour period.

So with a heavy heart I decided to give up cookies for two weeks. You'll notice that I'm not committed enough to give up sweets or junk food in general, especially around Valentine's Day. Since our house was at that point cookie-free, Chuck insisted that I buy more so that there would be an actual temptation, so our pantry now contains some deliciously soft sugar cookies courtesy of the fine bakers at Wal-mart. I think I can do it, though - two days down, only twelve to go!

(There was the potential for a slip-up yesterday afternoon when I was trying to finish preparing for a presentation, Chuck had gone to work early for a meeting, Clyde was grumpy and Will was crying, but luckily I hadn't purchased any cookies yet, so I had to settle for a handful of chocolate chips to help me cope - near miss, eh? )

A bit o' validation

Sometime last semester I got an official e-mail from Boise State inviting me, as a 'minority student', to a special luncheon where topics relevant to minority students would be discussed. Three hours later, I received an official e-mail from Boise State uninviting me. There had apparently been a clerical error and that message was sent to all BSU students instead of just those, you know, in the minority. So a couple weeks ago when I received an official e-mail from Boise State congratulating me for my academic achievement for the fall semester and announcing that I would be on the Dean's List for the College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs, I was excited but cautious. I told Chuck, but generally kept it close to the vest until further documentation arrived . . .

"What? What is this special certificate that came in the mail today? And how cute do I look in leggings? (please ignore my slightly off-kilter skirt)"
"Oh, it's my special certificate because I'm on the DEAN'S LIST! Because of my kickin' 3.6 GPA for Fall Semester 2008! And I'm standing next to Chuck's diploma because my special certificate is going up on the wall next to it!"

As you may recall, I took five classes during the fall semester - one intro level Criminal Justice class online and four upper division Communication classes in person. I got straight A's in my Comm classes, and a totally acceptable C in my online class (here's the thing: it was a one hundred level class, so pretty basic right? Wrong, we had three 3-5 page papers and five exams in that class! And the C was a 77%, so a high C. And the average grade in the class was a C. And I got that without buying the textbook. So I'm totally okay with it.)

I know that a lot of people get on the Dean's List, and I also know that both USA Today and a girl I went to BYU with categorize the Communication major as a 'joke of a degree' but I DON'T CARE. This means a lot to me. I'm actually pretty extremely smart (humble too) but in junior high and high school I always fell into the 'underachieving gifted' category. I skipped class . . . a lot . . . and didn't do my homework. Or some of my classwork. I managed to maintain a 'B' average but it was my rockin' test scores that did all the work, especially in wrangling me that fabulous half-tuition scholarship to BYU (What's that? You want to hear my test scores? Oh, you don't actually care and you think I'm pretty full of myself? Whatev, I got a 1400 on the SAT's and a 31 on the ACT. And I'm well aware that billions of people have gotten higher scores than that on them, and that's okay - they should brag on their blogs too!) 

Anyways, then I went to college. In my two semesters at BYU and my first four semesters at BSU I continued to be a wretched student. I skipped classes, didn't do my homework or some of my classwork, and managed to get two F's, two D's, and a couple C's. Oops, turns out college is a little trickier to 'wing' than high school was. The semester that I was pregnant with Clyde I stepped it up quite a bit - partially because I took two classes with Chuck and he kept me accountable :). But it wasn't until after Clyde was born that I realized how completely IDIOTIC I was for goofing off so much. And when Will was born, it just drove the point home even harder. If I had focused more and taken more than, you know, twelve credits a semester I would be done by now! I could have saved some money, and more importantly, I wouldn't be having to leave my sweet boys at home so often to go to school. I know I don't have to finish my degree right now but it's really important to me to graduate, even with the sacrifices it requires . . . which is why the Dean's List feels so great! If I'm making this choice to give up my evenings with my family, at least I'm serious about it, and it shows. I worked really hard last semester; I definitely earned those A's (do you remember those youtube videos?) And now I'm officially a college senior and I plan to graduate this December, stick the diploma on the wall and never think about it again.

Thank you, thank you.
P.S. Of course I'm planning a repeat this semester and then a three-peat next semester, but life happens, so no pressure.