Balance

Life is all about balance, that is what I'm learning now. You can have too much or too little of everything. Take chocolate for example. All my life I have been a chocoholic, and I feel good about that. It means that I have at least some chocolate every day... otherwise I'm grumpy and grouchy. However it can be taken to the extreme. Like last night when I ate half a king-size Mr. Goodbar while watching "Chuck" on TV (Joe ate the other half at the same time). Because I wasn't paying that much attention to how much I ate, I obviously got carried away a little bit and had to pay for it during the night. First, Rachel got a big sugar high and was doing flips and dances until almost midnight which made sleeping difficult. Then, I woke up a couple hours later incredibly thirsty, and with all that sugar inside it was hard to get back to sleep. Then this morning I had my glucose test at the doctor. This is even more sugar (I think) than my half candy bar, and the cute parasite I call Rachel went totally nuts. The doctor could hardly get the heartbeat on the dopplar she was kicking so much. Between these two events, I need to refrain from the sugar/chocolate for a while (at least a few hours I guess) to get myself back into some kind of balance so Rachel doesn't kick her way out tonight!

Someone in our family who is literally working on balance right now is Karen. She is so cute and fun at this stage, but she is growing again and it's totally thrown off her balance. She has bruises all over her head from running into things. I think it's because a few days ago she wasn't tall enough to hit them with her head and her legs were shorter and so were her steps. As those cute chubby legs get longer and thinner it takes fewer steps to get to the same place, and she hasn't quite figured that out yet. As a note to illustrate how much she's grown recently... Her Halloween costume went all the way to the floor and she kept tripping on it while trunk-or-treating, but now there's a 1/4 to 1/2 inch gap between the costume and the floor!

Joe is working on balance in another way. As I mentioned in my last update, our ward got split just over a week ago. Almost all of the leadership was taken to the new ward and the bishopric has been spending hours in meetings and interviews trying to get everything put back together. As part of that, Joe now has another thing to balance besides just home and school/work. He got called to be the Young Men's President. If you're laughing in shock and/or disbelief right now I don't blame you. Neither of us saw this coming really... until we look back really hard and say 'oh, so that's why that happened'. So he's busier than ever and I'm going nuts trying to figure out if/when I'm ever going to see 'daddy' again! So much for the 'easier semester' we were expecting to start in January.

As a last note, kind of in conjunction with Joe's new calling we bought a minivan on Saturday. It's a 2001 Honda Odyssey, white with gray interior. It's definitely not the 'coolest' van out there but it's really nice that I won't have to drive Joe to school anymore! And it's so much easier to get Karen in and out. Hopefully it will be a good car for us and will last until it's paid off and we can afford to trade it for a nicer, newer 'cooler' van. For now it will work to haul young men on service projects and temple trips. I think that's about it for now; I'll try to post some pics later on this week, since I figured out how to get them on the computer now.

End of an Era

I think Joe and I really are cursed. Since we've been married (about 4 1/2 years) we've moved a total of about 7 times. That means 7 different neighborhoods and wards, and lots of time trying to make new friends and so on. Well, when we moved out to North Carolina we figured we'd be set; we were going to be in relatively the same place for at least 4 years, and the size of wards outside of Utah are such that we could even move a couple different times and still be in the same ward. Then, here we are, in the same apartment for nearly a year and a half, enjoying our callings and finally getting to know almost everyone in the ward, and they announced the week after stake conference that they are creating a new ward from ours and the others surrounding us... but mostly from ours. Just when we thought we were safe, everything gets shaken up. I guess it really is true that the only constant thing in life is change, but really....

Okay, before I go any farther I should probably talk about our Halloween, since I have so far failed to do so. Traditionally my family makes homemade chili and donuts for Halloween, but this year we had ward trunk or treat to go to that evening instead. Of course everyone was there because it was in the middle of the time between the announcement of the split and it actually happening. It was fun, except for the part where they have a 'dinner' that is supposed to be a fundraiser for the cub scouts: $1.50 for one hot dog and fries or $2.50 for two hot dogs and fries...oh goody!!! However it was great to see everyone 'one last time' (it's just kinda funny that we're all acting like we're never going to see each other ever again, even though we're all still in the same stake and we shop at the same stores and everything). Karen was dressed up really cute in the yellow dress and purple cape that I made her. We still aren't sure exactly what she 'was', since the whole 'princess' idea went out the window when Karen chose the bright yellow cotton fabric instead of the more silky pink or blue princess-like fabrics, but she was cute. Our old camera kinda died a week or two ago (that's why there haven't been many pics lately) but we took a couple pictures of her in costume right when I finished making it, so here they are.

Notice the extra blurriness and the more-grainy quality? It's our wonderful camera. In addition the flash no longer works (well, it works sometimes, but you can't really control when it will or won't go off), and if you take a picture next to the window, the window shows up bright purple. Exciting, huh? Anyway, we got a new camera on Saturday, which is nicer and way smaller than our old camera, but I haven't taken the time to figure out how to put the pictures on the computer yet-that's a job for this week sometime.

Anyway, back to the story. As mentioned by several other people with small kids, trick-or-treating at this age is really great. Everyone thinks the kid is so cute whether it's true or not, and I get to eat most of the candy. As for our chili and donut tradition, we did it on Friday night instead. We had a few friends over and watched Spiderman 3, which is kind of Halloween-ish. It was fun to have people over, and Karen was such a show off!

So, Sunday was the long-awaited day of 'the split' (you know, that might make a good mormon movie... sorry, back to the story). Since it involved 3 wards and not just one, we had all of regular church and then a half-hour break and then the 'split meeting' for another hour or so. It was a very long day and Karen was definitely not happy about being kept out so long. As for the outcome of the meeting... about half of the active members of the ward are now not in our ward. This includes our former bishop, RS pres, YW counselors, YM presidency (entirely) Primary presidency (except maybe one...) and the list continues. It's going to be really interesting next Sunday when the only leadership that will be in place is the bishopric (our new bishop was called last Sunday, but I don't know him much since he's on the High Council) and the Sunday School presidency (only one of the counselors has 'left' us). Joe has already been asked to fill in as the ward chorister on Sunday, and I'm going to start playing for the choir, at least for this month... If I swell up like a balloon at the end of this pregnancy like I did with Karen it won't be long before I am physically unable to play the piano!

Last note for this already too-long blog. I officially start my third trimester this week. It seems like February is never going to come, but with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all between now and then I'm sure it will go by really fast. And at least this year I have a license to eat whatever I want and gaining weight will happen whether I deprive myself or not... so why not have a good time! ;D That is assuming my glucose test next week goes well... otherwise the holidays will be just about unbearable. So listen to this, baby Rachel: be good to mommy and let her eat chocolate or else!!!