Thanksgiving

Nathan and Neita graciously allowed me to join their family for Thanksgiving in Nampa Idaho. Emily and Alec decided to go as well (Just want to point out that I had decided to go before Emily made any final decisions.. regardless of what Emily says).

It was so nice to be with family and stay inside where it was warm and comfortable. My blood has thinned somewhat being in Vegas.

The Thanksgiving meal was wonderful and we toasted the good food (Annaliese was a little worried when Emily put bottles of sparkling Apple Cider into our cart that morning at Albertsons). I wanted to experience Black Friday with Neita cuz I had heard amazing stories about her skills and prowess. This was the first year in Nampa that Walmart opened at 12am so, seeing's how we had plans to stay up 'till midnight every other night, we figured that was the time to go.

Unfortunately all of Nampa had the same thought. I have never been in a store so packed and consequently all the sale items were gone. We heard later that most people had arrived at 11pm. I went to get in line because I thought I might get up to the front by the time Neita found everything she needed. She and Emily traipsed up and down the aisles looking in other peoples stashes trying to find what she needed. Neita is amazing. She found all but 1 movie. By this time, I realized I was in the WRONG line. Emily and Neita found a much shorter line and then we went home. The funny thing is, Neita went back Friday morning to find that Walmart had restocked. She got everything else without any crowds.

Moral of the story: The only reason to go early is if you need electronics. The rest of the time, sleep in 'till 9am.

Bailey, Wyatt, Annaliese, Alec, and I saw the new Harry Potter movie Sat because nobody else wanted to go with us.

Nathan took us out to shoot pheasants. Did you know Nathan can bark?

The rest of the weekend we watched more football than I have in the last 3 years put together (with much wailing and gnashing of teeth over that Boise game).

And I must say, football is much cooler in high def projected on a wall served with lots of popcorn.

Especially with popcorn. I like popcorn.

As for more photo documentation of the weekend, my phone has a camera. Annaliese thought that was kinda awesome.

Hold onto your horses ladies and gents, I now present to you a Helm Thanksgiving in this single media presentation! These pictures are from the first day because I am very good at getting my young relations in trouble, ie losing camera privileges.

No pictures of me, but I'm not complaining :-) (I had taken a few more pictures with my camera but they are too dark to post here)

And we will end on this video of Annaliese giving herself a headache.

I miss my family.

Sunday Evening

Wondering why I haven't posted is a while? I've been ill.

And we all know what that means.

U've heard of mean drunks? I'm a mean ill. Especially when it's all my unhygienic coworker's fault.

See.. mean.

I've been sitting here every evening. Sometimes here (the new bed my parents brought me... which is their old bed. A full! Can you believe my parents slept on a full for so many years?)
Or once even the back bedroom when it was cooler in there
But mostly here
because of the closeness to the computer. Listening to the Harry Potter books, playing spider solitaire or minesweeper on the computer, or crocheting. I should have been crocheting the whole time seeing all how behind I am in all my blue making but I don't make very good decisions when I'm ill.

For example, I wanted chicken soup so I went to the store and bought a small chicken.

Hello! Ever heard of CANNED soup? Oh no. In my not feeling well state I thought I could roast it, boil the bones and make soup. Which I did over the course of 3 days.

The third day I made chicken soup using broth I had in the freezer from previous bones boiling sessions. Yup.

Today I kinda returned to the life of the living. I made cookies. I'm ready to head out to Boise for Thanksgiving. Ya for the holidays!

BTW I was going to post on the 6th month anniversary of my surgery (the 14th) but I've decided not to go through that. It was 2 traumatic an experience to post details any earlier and now that I can look back without an unreasonable emotional response it doesn't matter. It doesn't bother me much except for the nerves trying to fix themselves. I'm getting used to it.

Once an Engineer

Today I was told that the Ragnar (a 24 hour relay race) was 100 miles.

I reached for my calculator to see if that's really true (it can't be... that means the participants are averaging 4.17 mph, ie a 14.4 minute mile. Even I can do better than that).

Today I was told that the new hybrids get 600 miles to a tank of gas.

I reached for my calculator (assuming a 12 gallon tank, thats 50 miles per gallon).

Today I was asked how old I was.

I reached for my calculator.

I am an engineer.

Something Purple

Nice purple blouse.. right? Useful for many occasions.

But if it happens to match a certain scar, there's really no need to mention it, whether at work or at church... or at the store.

Just FYI.

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween. Its a chance to use my crafting/sewing tendencies to something that is actually somewhat productive.

Somewhat.

So here is my trunk-or-treat production for the year 2010.

Meet... Harimad-sol!Harimad sol... you know, Blue Sword? Robin McKinley? sigh.. doesn't anybody read anymore?
Yes, it was awesome. Random people kept coming by and taking pictures. So finally I texted my wonderful VT to come take pictures with MY camera. She send over another friend from the ward since she was busy handing out candy.

Then I took a couple pictures of key elements of my set up for future edification.

Thank you Mother and Father for bringing me a new bed last week... complete with new decorative pillows. In the book, the tent was white and filled with colorful rugs, cushions, and decorative boxes. Those "rugs" were $2 place mats at Walmart... and of course one of the 2 horse blankets Neita asked me to buy 14 years ago that I never delivered.
Um... Ahem.
Moving on.
I only had that one decorative box (my sewing/ribbon box) so I made a construction paper top on a wicker basket. One of the little witches asked me if it was real.

Real what?

I used my bike drop cloth for the tent. Easy to rip a door and holes for the tie backs... and made it look like the tent had been run over. Unfortunately I forgot to put a blue jewel on my sword.Of course, this was just a practice sword so it wouldn't have had a jewel.
A wooden practice Medieval broadsword.
45" long.
"No, I don't participate in the yearly Renaissance fairs here in Vegas. Why do you ask? Oh, I asked my father to make a wooden sword for my costume. He ordered this on Amazon."
He was so excited when it came. Remember the "death to the dressform" picture from the last post?
The sword now hangs proudly over my mantle where Alec kindly put up pushpins to hold it.
I do have a corset. Mm... No.
I also tried to do this year completely real fire free. IE, battery powered candles stuck to the window,A flickering LED light by my side, and a glowing campfire.
I had high hopes of a fan blowing tissue paper shaped flames but the little fan I bought at Radio Shack wasn't powerful enough running on 2 AA batteries.
Christmas lights under red tissue paper (what did we do before the internet?) with those LED flickering lights made it glow but unfortunately I set up right across from the parking lot floodlight.
This is a picture without the flash. Washed the whole thing out. It ended up that all you could see under the "logs" (dried sunflower stalks) was the flickering lights. It still looked cool with kids skipping out of the way when I said "watch out for the fire!".
A couple princesses and witches asked if it was real. When I asked "What do you think?" I got a long look, then a small, slow shake of the head. One tiny black cat said "yes!" and immediately reached out to check. Mother yelled,"Don't touch! It's hot!"
Bethanie, here's my flag. Gotta be authentic.
In the end, I was left with 2 questions:
1. How will I ever top this next year?
2. Why, in my circle, are there no social situations when a turban is acceptable headgear?

Pumpkinman 2010

This is going to be a documentary of pictures. Why? Because I didn't get pictures off my parents until Friday (Emily took a few with my camera but it got full and I forgot to tell them they could erase the pictures from Christmas), I'm a lazy bum, I've already talked the race over with the parents, Emily, Alec (cuz they were all here to watch) and Melissa, and I really just want to blog about Halloween.

Ready to go... into the wild blue yonder. (that's Mom's texting face)
The racers. My cap is orange cuz I was originally competing under the "fat ladies under 39" category but changed it at packet pick up so I could start in the same wave as Melissa.

The first time we ever started together! (She always did the Olympic distance)
They announced the water temperature as 66 degrees but once we got in I think it was more like the 76 they had posted at the entrance.
My wonderful cheering section ('cept Emily is taking the picture). Dad thought all the body marking strange and apparently told Melissa marking your transition area with chalk was strange. It was a new experience for him!

Emily took a video of me coming out... I wasn't going to post it cuz it looks like I'm pushing people out of the way but I'm not really. We'll see if blogspot will actually upload it.

The goals of this race were 1. to really push it in the swim since that's what I actually enjoy (hence the running out of the swim) and 2. to run the whole 5k. Notice the trail of water to my spot.
Go Melissa!
Mm.. we can tell which one is a real biker.
I did beat Melissa on the swim but she passed me right when we got on our bikes. So my next goal will have to be to push it on the bike.

Note to self, don't put your T2 stuff in a drawstring bag inside another drawstring bag. It takes a while to fish it out.

Man, I was feeling it. I tried to lengthen my stride on the run.
I was actually pretty proud of myself when I saw my average was almost a 10 minute mile.

Especially after seeing Melissa on her way back when I was only a few minutes into my run. Talk about discouraging. Although, the expression she was directing to her brother who was running alongside telling her to push it... priceless.
Alec considerately ate the free dinner they provided for the athletes cuz I didn't feel like it.
I took 20 minutes off my time from 2 years ago, which means if I had stayed in the "fat ladies under 39" category I would have placed 2nd. I think I'm going to stay fat.

Previously my time goals have always been overly achievable so this year I tried to be more reasonable. Unfortunately I swung the other way.. by a lot. I'm not going to tell you by how much because there will be much snickering. The problem with doing races again and again is that now I feel pressure to do better. The first time I had no clue and didn't know how to push, so the second time is easy to improve upon... now I need to decide what I'm going to continue with.

That was a bit more commentary than I had planned. Strange that I had lots to say.

Now some random pictures (cuz I didn't take my camera out again until Sunday).

I took a picture of our Sunday dinner cuz I was pretty proud of it. French dip sandwiches. (my FAVORITE), jello, a beautiful honeydew from Emily's garden, and a random assortment of drink choices. Food=love Then Emily and Alec packed up

And they drove away.
Dad killed my dressform with the sword he had bought me on Amazon,and they drove away the next morning. Then I missed my guests and needed to find another purpose in life. Enter.. Halloween.