Hobble, Hobble

On Wednesday my poor little Kristin fell down some steps at school. She called me on her way home to say she was really embarrassed, had gravel in her hand, and that her foot hurt a little. By the time she got home her foot was hurting more than a little. I told her we should go to the ER but she refused. After a little while she decided that maybe, possibly, perhaps we could go to Urgent Care.


The result? A fractured bone. They fit her with a boot cast and told her to go see an orthopedist. After which she turned down any kind of pain pills (crazy girl).

Since then we have gone through a lot of ice and a lot of ibuprofen. There are also pillows strewn about the house so that no matter where she lays down she has something to prop it up on. She can't drive, but thanks to the help of friends she's getting around just fine.

She is able to walk a bit on the boot cast, but her gait has taken on a sort of cute hobble. Today we're braving the Mall of Misery (America), and I'll get the chance to test out my wheelchair driving skills :)

So Similar...

The baby on the top is Corban, born yesterday. The baby on the bottom is his big brother, Jordan, born 2 years ago. They look like twins - and the hospital still uses the same blankets :)

Welcome to the World, Corban!

This morning Kristin and I got a new nephew! Corban came into the world around 8 a.m. weighing in at 9.04 pounds. Congrats to my brother and sister-in-law and other nephew, Jordan!

Anna and Taryn

Some of you may remember that Anna was our officiant at our wedding (she did a fabulous job, by the way). She recently had a baby girl, Taryn, and we finally made it out visit!

Dinner

We had a couple of friends over for dinner. It was somewhat last-minute. We were already making mac and cheese. Jehn said she wanted to join us. Michele called and said she was bored and that she would come too. She also suggested we add a bucket of KFC to the dinner table. And I guess while she was at KFC she decided we also needed coleslaw. Kristin, meanwhile, decided she had a hankering for egg rolls. And so we had a very eclectic dinner with two fabulous friends :) Can't go wrong with good food and good company.

Easter

We went to South Dakota for Easter and had a great time! It's always fun to visit. Since pictures supposedly say a thousand words, prepare for a really, really long post. Here goes:

Kristin and her mom

Lacey




Jake




Gabs and Noah



Roger and Helen




Helen and Lon



Ang and Kristin



Kristin and Grandpa




Roger and Corky
(An awesome friend at Grandpa's nursing home)




Me with Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny

Sugar Snap Peas

We had friends over for dinner last week and I stopped at the store on my way home to pick up a few last minute things. I was surprised to see they had sugar snap peas on sale. Usually they have the snow peas but not the sugar snap. I picked up a couple of bags. When I got home I washed some for the salad and couldn’t resist trying a few.

Immediately I was taken back 20 years to my grandparents’ garden. Their garden was actually an acre located across town from where they lived. When we’d go to grandma and grandpa’s in the summer and early fall (which was at least a couple of times a year), we’d all pile into the station wagon and grandpa’s truck and drive across town. When I was little I remember thinking we were really going out into the country – in the middle of nowhere – to work in the garden. In reality, the field was within the city limits.

I remember all of us tumbling out of the car or truck and going over to the fence that surrounded the garden. Grandpa would open it up for us, and in we would go. We lived out in the middle of nowhere – amongst the dirt and bugs – but grandpa and grandma’s garden was different. The dirt smelled fresh. And even if I often complained about working in the sun (and did I complain!), I always loved going to the garden.

I don’t remember all of the things they grew in their garden, but I know there was a plentiful assortment - corn, green beans, strawberries, raspberries, and my favorite, sugar snap peas. Grandpa would have the little containers ready for us – small green pint-sized plastic containers for the raspberries and strawberries and plastic sacks for the beans or peas.

And so we would start. Usually a kid on each side of what seemed like a really, really long (endless, really) row. We would pick, we would laugh, we would fight, and we would eat. Keep one, eat one, keep one, eat one. That was our mantra until grandma would notice and tell us to stop eating all of them. So we would keep 5 or 10 and eat one until we forgot or the temptation became too great and we would go back to keep one, eat one, keep one, eat one.

While I was a big fan of the raspberries and strawberries, my favorite thing to eat was the peas. I loved opening up the bright waxy pods and finding the small green pearls inside. I remember always looking for the really fat pods – the ones with the plump peas that seem ready to burst through the pod at any moment – I loved the feel of the pods and the taste of the peas.

I remember shelling peas at grandma’s house in the kitchen or on the porch. It was boring work, but the prize at the end of grandma’s famously creamy peas and potato soup was worth the work of shelling peas. I also remember watching grandma snap the ends off of green beans. I’m sure others helped, but it’s her hands that I remember grabbing bean after bean and swiftly breaking each end off.

I don’t think about the garden much anymore. When I go home I am often lucky enough to have corn from their garden or be gifted with a pint of homemade jam (which I was raised on – it wasn’t until I was 12 or 13 that I discovered you could actually BUY jam in a store). But it was those peas in a supermarket in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that took me back to the days of grandpa and grandma’s garden in Pocatello, Idaho.

And the Ass is...

So I had one of those “omg that was the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me” moments yesterday. I’m still completely embarrassed when I think about it, so I’m not going to post the whole story for the world to read here. Let’s just say it involved some feminine hygiene products and me twirling around in my chair acting like an…well…you get the idea.

Tales From the Spanish Classroom

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, have never read this blog before, or don’t ever talk to me you probably know that I’m taking Spanish. For the past 15 years I have avoided foreign languages like the plague. It wasn’t a requirement in high school, and once I got to college I put it off. Then I stopped going to college. Then I started. I put it off. Then I stopped going to college. Then I started. I put it off.

Anyway, so I decided this time, since I plan on actually graduating from St. Kate’s and not just using it as a little diversion from real life as I have done with previous schools, I would get the foreign language out of the way right away. I have actually started Spanish a couple of times. Both times I dropped it after the first class. There’s just something about someone standing in front of the room on the first day of class and talking in nonstop español that annoys the crap out of me.

I know they say that totally immersing yourself in a language helps you learn it faster – and maybe that’s true for the vast majority of people. But not for me. I find that it just stresses me out and makes my mind start spinning, and eventually I start hyperventilating and feeling nauseous. It’s not a pretty sight. I knew I was going to have to push past that at St. Kate’s and survive the first class in good enough shape to show up for the second.

So it’s the first day. I go into the classroom. Classmates are all just sitting there. Teacher walks in. She seems nice enough…and then she starts talking. Good Lord. Here we go again.

“Hola.”

Room is spinning.

“Soy Profesora Smithberg. Bienvenida al comienzo español”

Holy crap…I wonder where the nearest bathroom is…

“Otras palabras que no recuerdo porque estaba hablando en español.”

Can I make it to the bathroom before my morning bowl of Life spews all over the girl in front of me?...

Just then a woman walks in, stops after a few feet, turns and starts to walk out. The teacher stops her, and the woman explains that she was supposed to be in Spanish I…beginning Spanish…obviously she has somehow warped to another time and found herself in some sort of advanced Spanish class. The entire class erupts into laughter, and I realize I’m not the only one who was thinking that maybe a college education wasn’t all that important anyway if it meant enduring two trimesters of this.

Because I’m in weekend college each class is 3 ½ hours long. Just to let you know, 3 ½ hours is a LOOONG time to spend sitting in a classroom getting conjugation and sentence structure shoved down your throat no matter what language you’re learning it in. While most weekend classes are held every other weekend, language classes are every weekend. It’s quite an annoyance, and I’m finding that Spanish is taking over my life. In the car, on the train, in my sleep, in meetings, in the store…random words or verb charts will cross my mind. Half the time I don’t know what the word I’m thinking about means. I just know that at some point over the last 10 weeks I crammed it into some empty corner in my head and for some reason it has decided to take a stroll around my brain for hours at a time. You know how annoying it is when you get a song in your head and can’t get it out? Try getting a word or verb conjugation chart stuck. Not fun.

In my endeavor to better understand this loco language I’ve enlisted the help of Luis. He’s from Mexico, immigrated here several years ago, and now tutors in the evenings. He’s fabulous. Honestly. Twenty dollars an hour to get a huge shot of confidence? Totally worth it. I meet with him once a week, and right now we’re working on my speaking skills which definitely need all the help they can get.

I’ve done well in the class so far (currently getting an “A”), the teacher is great (and no, she doesn’t just speak in Spanish the whole time), and I have gained a deeper appreciation for those crazy people out there who learn two or three or more languages.

So now I just have to finish. There are 26 classes total (13 per semester) and I’m done with ten… if I can just get through the last 16 without puking all over the girl in front of me I’ll consider the experience a success!

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