Bracket Schmacket

It all started when we picked our alma mater to win in the first round. Somehow it felt disloyal not to (ahem JANEAL :)). We're true blue, through and through and thought our Cougars, who turned out the likes of Danny Ainge, would win at least ONE game.

As I researched the teams to complete my bracket I tried to use my "third eye" to find my champions. When I heard Syracuse beat UConn in a six overtime game I thought I'd found it. A team with hunger. A team that could take down the giant. My underdog that would surely win it all (this is America after all) and secure my bracket.

So BYU fell almost before they started. One of my coworkers even stopped by my desk to convey his condolences. As you can see Liesel was pretty torn up about it as well. Then Arizona won (WHAT?!?!?). Then it was just a blood bath with Memphis, Duke, Wake Forest and Pitt losing. My brackets are obliterated. There's almost no point in watching anymore. What really kills me is seeing Brent like this. Basketball is his thing, and it's like the game just spit in his face. It's so sad... so very sad.

The Ties That Bind

Brent woke up a bit late for his temple shift this morning. He rushed about getting showered, putting in his contacts and frantically throwing on his Sunday clothes. In general I love watching him tie his tie but this morning even more so. He quickly ran through the dozen or so things on his mind with me while he quickly and precisely tied his tie. In the few years we've been together I think I've bought him a dozen ties. Initially it was because all his ties were totally wrong for him. Olive green, grey and burgundy just don't fit an upbeat, happy, blue-eyed, blond. Eventually I bought them because I came to love watching him handle something I'd given him with such mastery. The end of the tie flies in various directions before he gives it two firm tugs and slides it up, perfectly knotted, to his crisp, white collar. Oh my, it really is impressive.

There are a couple of other random things I adore about him. Anytime he holds Liesel I'm struck by how tiny she looks and how natural he looks. Brent was truly meant to be a father and even more so, a father of a little girl. When she's tired and she puts her little strawberry blonde head on his chest while she rubs her eyes I just want to cry it's so cute. Even at almost a year old, Brent can still carry Liesel in one hand. Perhaps it's the two ear infections I've had lately, but I tend to teeter when I pick her up. Brent has a way of doing it so smoothly and easily. It gets me every time.

Almost everyday Brent impresses me with some random fact. Did you know Amber Alert was named after a girl called Amber? Or that the Rooney family who owns the Pittsburgh Steelers initially purchased them for just thousands of dollars? Or Liam Neeson's wife who is the sister of Joely Richardson and daughter of Vanessa Redgrave recently died? Casual conversations are never boring with Brent and when he really impresses me with some tidbit of information he gets a sparkle in his eyes (no kidding, they really sparkle!) and the slightest smile. It's so adorably humble and I love it when he does that. Seriously, it just kills me.

Liken These Things Unto Yourselves

I cleverly brought along my In Style magazine to read while I waited in the dr's office. This month's Man of Style is Matthew McConaughey and he mentioned that his son, Levi was born at 6:22 which happens to be his favorite passage in the Bible's book of Matthew. It reads, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

I thought that was really sweet! It got me to thinking, so we decided to look up Liesel's birthday in the Doctrine and Covenants. Consequently, there are no scriptural books named Brent, Danika or Liesel. Her birth time of 5:31 wasn't very interesting so we tried her birth date of April 2nd. D&C 4:2 reads:

"Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day."


Given our love of missionary work, Brent and I thought this was very cool. Next we looked up Brent's birthday which would be 7:5 for July 5th:
"I say unto thee, Peter, this was a good desire; but my beloved has desired that he might do more, or a greater work yet among men than what he has before done."


Again, very cool! So okay, lets check on mine which would be 10:27 for October 27th:
"And thus he goeth up and down, to and fro in the earth, seeking to destroy the souls of men"


Ok , so I have many ex-boyfriends who might agree with that, but anyway. Talk about being born under a bad sign! What's yours?

Misery

Folks, I have been sick for three weeks now. By "sick" I mean really sick. Like some-strain-of-the-Black-Plague-sick. It started with a sore throat and rapidly deteriorated into a hacking cough, congestion, stomach aches, cold sore and ear infections. Yes, that's a plural. I'm 32 and have had an ear infection in both ears within the last month. The first week was tiring; I haven't been this sick in a long time. The second week was annoying and the third week was depressing. I don't want to be sick anymore!!!

The low point was definitely Thursday when I went to get a filling taken care of. In general, a trip to the dentist is no field of daisies but to have shots of nova cain and multiple instruments in my mouth with someone drilling away while I was under the weather was akin to torture. Between the ear infection and the drilling it sounded like a motorcycle was driving right through my brain. My wonderful new dentist has a bit of an accent which complicated things because I could only hear him out of one ear. In the end I just tried doing everything: closing my mouth, opening my mouth, turning to the side, gritting my teeth, etc until I heard him say, "Thasssss eeeeet." Afterwards, my jaw was sore and when I drank water it spilled out the side of my mouth because I couldn't feel half my cheek and lips. I looked like I'd had a stroke.

Since I was fresh out of antibiotics and had the worst night of sleep since just after Liesel was born, I went to Harvard Vanguard's urgent care yesterday. The doctor told me it appears my body is fighting it so he didn't want to give me anything but recommended yawning and hot showers. Oh, and I should try not eating dairy for the next few days (see previous post on Girl Scout Cookie ice cream). I left the urgent care an hour and a half later not feeling any better and with a parking ticket on my car. Last night was a similarly rough night and I desperately want to not be sick anymore.

Brent, of course, has been an absolute gem by taking over the general household duties while I try and rest. The odd part? Liesel is more clingy than ever. I'm trying to avoid being too close to her because the last thing we need is a sick baby but she's constantly reaching out for me. Brent thinks she's trying to comfort me. Please, someone, put me out of my misery!!!

I Know God Loves Me

On sale, $3 off at Shaws, waiting just for me. Well, actually hidden behind some crappy light ice cream as if one of the stockers stashed it so they could hoard it once the store closed. So basically waiting just for me.

Compromise

Imagine my horror the day I found a huge pile of rotting t-shirts in the back of Brent's closet. Not hip, vintage, concert-type t-shirts, but discolored, high school, concert choir-type t-shirts. Any sane person (or third world country for that matter) would have thrown them out long ago. I tidily folded them and when Brent came home from work I encouraged him to think about throwing them out. He would never wear them again, we couldn't give them away or we'd have to pay for the accompanying tetanus shot, and they were just taking up space.

However, as I made my plea I could see the look on his face... THAT look. The sweet, sentimental look that quickly told me this pile of garbage meant something to him. His blue eyes cast about as if his dog just died and his lips turned down oh so slightly. Really, it was completely pathetic. So I thought about it and thought about it. Finally I came up with a compromise: I could make a t-shirt quilt that would memorialize these memories for him.

I hate t-shirt quilts. I think I've only seen one that I actually liked. Most of them look like a bunch of sweat-stained t-shirts sewn together which is about as artistic as a chia pet. As I got into it, I found that I actually like hacking into the old shirts. A trip to the fabric store to choose a border proved men really don't care about that kind of stuff, even if it's FOR them. Brent pretty much walked up to the first fabric he saw and told me it was what he wanted. He didn't even look around! He didn't even pet the bolt of fabric! It completely threw me off and I've never been in and out of Fabric Corner so quickly. I entrusted my favorite quilter to make the whole thing look better than I ever could while giving it a masculine tone. With a snow day today, I decided to put on the binding, snip the threads on the back and finish the sucker.

All in all I'm happy with it, Brent's closet is a bit cleaner but even better, he's relieved it's been spared from the garbage. The things we do for the ones we love!

Cha-Ching: NYC Edition

This weekend Brent and I went down to NJ to visit my parents who are serving their mission in Morristown. Typically we'd do this over a three day weekend but they're being released later this month and it was our last chance. To sweeten the pot, my parents offered to watch Liesel on Saturday so we could go into NYC and have a date together. I would never turn down an offer to go to NYC. Ever! Well we're on a budget so we spent our day doing the following:

Parked in Seacacus, NJ for all of $.25 an hour. Because we went later in the day we only had to pay $2 total since the meter only counted until 6 PM. Then we took the bus in to the city. Actually we took the wrong "bus" and ended up on a shuttle which in the end made us grateful we both speak Spanish. The nice bus would have cost us $5.10 and the shuttle was only $5 so technically we saved $.10 and got to listen to Shakira on the way to Manhattan... another bonus! We also made sure to bring along our Metro card because we were using the subway rather than taxis. We were happy to find the card hadn't expired and had $2.05 still on it.

Savings: approximately $25

Eating in NYC can chew a hole in your wallet pretty fast if you don't know where to go. Normally we would have gone to one of our favorite sushi restaurants near Times Square called Haru but we were doing things cheap. I've been wanting to try out a Gray's Papaya hot dog ever since I've heard it mentioned on movies and tv shows like Fools Rush In and Sex and the City. Brent got the Recession Special for $4.45 and I requested two chili dogs (like the ones shown on Fools Rush In) and found out they don't HAVE chili dogs. They came to $3. We got to stand at a thin metal counter while we ate and immediately agreed we'd have to go somewhere for dessert and perhaps fries. They were good hot dogs, but we were starving and it didn't quite do it for us. Still, if we'd never gone I would have always wondered and now I know what Gray's Papaya is all about.

Savings: approximately $40

Brent and I have seen most of the major Manhattan must-sees like the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Ground Zero, Museum of Fine Arts, Central Park (including Strawberry Fields and the Zoo), etc. What I haven't seen with Brent I've seen with my sisters or on business trips so we were starting to scrape bottom for something we could do that was new and essentially free. We settled on the Museum of Natural History which ended up being so much fun! Whenever you enter a museum in NYC and the price says, "Suggested Donation" that means it's technically free. Well the suggested donation was $15 and it was closing in 2 hours. I felt no shame when I told the cashier we'd be paying $4 for the both of us. Of course we weren't able to see the entire museum but we hit the Hayden Planetarium which was amazing, the African animals (Brent would like to have an antelope for a pet), the Minerals wing and animals from Mexico and Central America. It was indoors (read WARM) and knowing we couldn't catch everything meant we didn't feel rushed to get through it all.

Savings: $26

Our one splurge was to finish the day having dessert at The Stardust Diner. We were still hungry from the Gray's Papaya letdown and we've always enjoyed ourselves at this place. All the waiters are aspiring Broadway actors so they sing. The food is good to if you're looking for All-American fare. Some things have changed and we found they sang songs one after another whereas before they'd give you a break. It was incredibly loud... so loud in fact that I couldn't even hear Brent when he told the waiter what he wanted to order. The waiters no longer brought the food or cleaned up the plates. We still had a good time (and some much needed calories), but I plan to write a letter to the owner to let him know about my disappointment in our recent dining experience. Writing a letter is something I do on occasion and I've NEVER not received something for it. Companies spend millions of dollars trying to get consumer feedback so when someone of their own volition puts a stamp on it and sends it to your doorstep they tend to oblige. I'm confident we'll get some sort of voucher or coupon or gift card.

Savings: stay tuned...

Total Savings: $91+