Jana's brain ticker

If my awesome thoughts were funneled into some sort of CNN ticker, this is what it would look like right about now:

* In the last four days, I may have become addicted to Dove Promises with caramel. And to the enabling messages found on the inside of the wrappers; my favorite so far is "You're allowed to do nothing." Granted, that sentiment is probably intended for a Type A personality who has legitimately earned a break but I will gladly apply it into my own life, where I frequently do nothing. Now I have permission! (P.S. Thanks for the chocolates, Tasha - one of my favorite visiting teaching messages ever!!)

* We went to Utah a week ago to meet up with Chuck's whole family for a family reunion/belated birthday celebration/outing to the circus/baby blessing. It was a super fun time but as usual I took a ridiculous amount of [awesome] pictures and thinking about sorting through the couple hundred pictures makes me want to hide out with a Dove chocolate and 'allow' myself to do nothing . . . but I have every intention of getting the trip good and blogged soon, I promise!

* We did not go to Utah this past weekend ("someone" had to "work" and "someone else" has "resolved" never to "travel" "alone" with the "little boys" because they're "crazy"), making it the first General Conference weekend we've missed hanging out with Smiths since April 2009. We also missed Chuck's cousin Jesse's wedding on Saturday, which bums me out because all sorts of awesome faraway cousins were there AND they had s'mores. Sigh.

* I am just over 26 weeks pregnant, which means I'm two thirds of the way through. Unfortunately, this means I still have one third, aka three months, to go and I am already SO uncomfortable at times. This baby appears to be already in competition with his brothers for 'most rambunctious, energetic son'. I want to be clear that I'm not asking for sympathy; I would actually like to request that everyone feel sorry for Chuck as he has to endure all of my melodramatic whining (for three more months!!).

* I think I've underestimated the importance of conditioner to my hair. I may have gone without it for a week because I was too lazy/forgetful to trudge out to the garage and grab a new bottle. Then one day I remembered and my hair now seems so luxuriously soft and nice-looking.

* Clyde's going in for an outpatient procedure at the hospital tomorrow. In the interest of him being able to look people in the eye when he's older, I'm opting not to disclose the exact nature of the procedure, but it relates to his Hirschsprung's disease and we have high, high hopes for its effectiveness. I'm slightly apprehensive about the general anesthesia (Clyde's last experience with it was his surgery as an infant) and how he'll feel afterwards. Luckily, our family has never really needed an excuse to veg out with ice cream and movies all day.

* I think I may have some inaccurate notions about food. Scratch that, I know I have some inaccurate notions about food. Some where along the way, I've created a food math/justification system in my head. For instance, water cancels out junk food. Like, it's okay to eat lots and lots of M&M's in one sitting if you wash it down with like twenty ounces of water. Because water cleanses and purifies and . . . you know, cancels out the M&M's. Also, eating a healthy food item creates a deficit in one's body that can then be filled with a not-as-healthy item; this is obviously pretty similar to the previous notion. Basically, if I eat two plums and a few sticks of celery, I'm totally home free on my afternoon bowl of ice cream. Basically it's a wonder I'm not four hundred pounds.

* I should clarify that my children have (mostly) much healthier approaches to food. A lot of this comes because I eat the ice cream when they're in quiet time so I don't have to share ...

* The new television season has started! I really don't watch that many shows, but the shows I do watch, I watch very passionately. (Don't spend too much time on that sentence; it may not make that much sense and I'm too lazy to reconstruct it). Right now my favorites are Dancing with the Stars (love Rob, Chynna, and J.R.), Castle (on tonight, yay!), Modern Family, and Parks and Recreation.

* Will is doing wonderfully, although his new favorite phrases are "No way!!" and "My [phone/computer mouse/book/insert any object that someone else has possession of here]!!" I'm choosing to optimistically believe that he's just getting the defiance and possessiveness out of his system before the baby comes and it will be smooooth sailing when the wee babe actually makes his debut. That could happen, right?

* Chuck and Will each have their own, slightly off, version of the 'Clean Up' song and I can't decide which is more endearing: Chuck's "Clean up, clean up, everybody likes to clean up, clean up, everybody likes to clean up . . . " or Will's "Cleam up, cleam up, everybody where, cleam up, cleam up . . . " Sadly I haven't been able to stealthily record Chuck's version, but here's Will's:



* I think that's all I got for now. . . kudos if you made it all the way through this long, rambling post - I figure in the very least I'm still addressing Chuck, my mom, my mother-in-law, and Courtney :). Happy Monday evening!