yesterday, while helping kaylee out of her car seat, i commented on how pretty her sparkly jeans were and asked if i could borrow them. "no!" she giggled. "why? am i too big for them?" i asked her. "too big, like santa!" she told me. hmmmm... time for another walk up the steepest hill i can find?

african violet 

got chocolate?

so, my mom is gone. she left on sunday morning, and i DIDN'T cry as i watched her walk into the airport, bound for the True North, Strong and Free. josh held my hand really tight, and i think that helped. it also helped that we stopped at home depot on the way home (rapidly becoming my favourite store) and i picked out a little african violet plant with dark purple flowers to put in the blue pot my mom bought for me. african violets remind me of my mom because a few years ago, she became an african violet addict. see, if you take a leaf off of the plant and put it in a bit of water, it will grow roots and you can plant that new leaf, which makes a whole new plant. she became obsessed with growing african violet plants and we had about a million all over our house. at one point in her serioius addiction stage, she even picked a leaf off of a plant in a restaurant just because she liked the color of the flower and wanted to grow one for herself. luckily, i convinced her that she was going mad and so eventually, her ferocious plant making slowed down a little, and now she probably only has about half a million african violets growing in her house. i, however, had none and kind of missed them, and so now i have one. but i kind of want two. so i'm thinking of cutting a leaf...

the ONLY nice thing that i can think of about my mom leaving is that when we got back home, we discoverd all kinds of nice things that she had left for us to find. back when we were first married and came home, she had hidden chocolate bars all over the house in places that we wouldn't look right away, like the medicine cabinet. oh my! just as i was writing that last sentence, i glanced over to where josh keeps his records and i discovered 2 christmas chocolate advent calendars!! (those things are really hard to find down here) i'll bet you we'll still be discovering little things like that for days. she brought us SO MANY crunchie chocolate bars (josh's favourite) and smarties (my favourite) both which you cannot buy in the usa. we also got gifts from my little sister who was in scotland and morocco over the holidays, so it felt kind of like christmas when she pulled out all of this stuff! my brother andy, and his wife cara sent us a home video of our niece, sarah. there's this one part where she's in a little jumpie kind of thing that bounces up and down and we could NOT stop laughing! she is so great. it's hard to believe that the next time i see her, she'll probably be walking already.

so i didn't cry at the airport, but i started to cry in church, of all places. luckily josh had his hankie handy. my friend leah (with-2-kids-and-a-dog) is out at disneyland with her daughter and mom and grandma, and its been POURING rain on them! she called me last night and told me that they had those garbage-bag ponchos on and umbrellas and had just paid their admission fee into disneyland, when it began to pour and people just started running out of the front gates! i don't think it was the happiest place on earth yesterday. they quickly decided to go shopping instead. so they're hoping to go to sea world on thursday, and i'll meet them there. hooray! i love having friends and family from my old corner of the world visit my new corner of the world.

i'm not working today, so now i'm off to do groceries and laundry and cleaning the house...you know, wifely stuff.

~heidi, Soon To Become 2nd Generation African Violet Addict

my dad's smarter than your dad

my dad is the kind of guy who knows a little bit about everything and a whole lot about some things (like how to build a telescope, for example.) being a loving daughter, it's not surprising that i've always thought of him as a sort of genius. yet even i was astounded at the brilliance his mind posesses when, 2 days ago, he predicted that it would be bright and sunshiny in ramona yesterday. i live here. he does not. ALL of the local papers were predicting solid rain, dashing our hopes of visiting the wild animal park. but my mom called him when she arrived (safe and sound, despite a small mishap involving temporarily losing her driver's license in the airport restroom) and he cheerfully told her that his astronomy website showed that wednesday would be a very nice day in southern california. we kind of said, "yeah, right" and planned on spending the day indoors. but what to our wondering eyes should appear early on wednesday morning? nothing but blue sky!

we had a wonderful, warm day at the wild animal park with both my moms, my sister in law, and her 2 kids. we went for a ride on the train around the park and got to see many cool animals, most of which kaylee described as, "so cute" (except for the fork-tongued lizard, which was "yucky"). i think i even got a bit of a tan! oops, sorry for bragging.

josh and i love having my mom as a third player in our daily ritual of dutch blitz...she actually blitzed us for the first time today!

tonight my mom and i are making a chinese dinner for josh's parents and gramps. tomorrow we're going to shop till we drop, and on saturday, the three of us will just hang out doing whatever. i will hate to see her go, but simply cannot think of that part yet. we have 2 more full days together and will enjoy every moment to the last drop.

must go start chopping celery.

~heidi, Oriental Chef Extroardinaire (hopefully)

0 more sleeps

it's early in the morning (well, early for me, anyway) and i can't sleep any longer because i'm too excited that my mom is coming today!!! i spent most of the day yesterday cleaning the house even thought i know that my mom doesn't care if my house is clean or dirty. it was just a good excuse for me to stay busy :)

i stopped cleaning when josh got home & made him something new for dinner--chicken parmagiana (how the heck do you pronouce that?) which he loved, and then he kicked my butt in a game of dutch blitz (yes, i have been dethroned, many times over.) then we cuddled on the couch and watched a DVD. it was "stepford wives" and it was dumb, especially since after it was over, josh kept calling me "stepford". he loves to give me nicknames that i hate. "little crapper" is a favourite of his (don't ask.) that's all i'll tell you about our valentines day.

one thing that i'm slightly bummed about is the weather forecast for the 5 days my mom is here. it's supposed to be cloudy and occasionally rainy the WHOLE TIME. welcome to southern california, mom. it's just the same as bc, except for the palm trees and people who say jujubes funny. but a little rain won't dampen our spirits. we will have a GREAT time. oh, and by the way, i probably won't blog for the next 5 days or so. ciao.

~heidi, Excited Daughter

guilt induced blog

i have felt guilty for not blogging lately, so now i am ~ partly to ease my guilt, and partly because i am just plain bored. its guy's night out = girl's night alone part 2. i have finished my bubble bath and am eating a bowl of heavenly hash ice cream, which is simply divine. i have pondered the idea of going to bed, but am not even a little bit tired. so here i sit, at our newly re-decorated desk, in our newly aquired comfy chair, listening to the rain outside, which reminds me of home.

i recently got sick and tired of the piles of junk on our desk and spent an entire afternoon going through and sorting it, and trying to make our desk look nice by putting framed pictures and other interesting things on it. we have a very heavy glass paperweight of jesus' face. that's one of the most interesting things. we also have an odd sort of colorful, blown glass-vase-type-thingy that serves no real purpose except to look interesting and hippyish. my mom recently sent me a photo of me and my big brother when we were little. i love it so much that i framed it and put it on our desk. i am all pretty in a little red jumper and a matching barrette and andy fondly has his arm around me, while his other hand hovers dangerously near his crotch. we are posing in front of the fireplace of our old house, which had burgundy colored carpets (clashes a bit with my dress, actually, but i don't think i really cared at that age.) i like it because andy has a great big smile on his face, looking really proud and i look blissfully content. i wonder, when exactly do we lose the carefree feelings of childhood and allow ugly things like worry to enter our minds?

tomorrow is saturday and i am working at the library right in the middle of the day. one nice thing about being on call is that you can say no to working if you have reason to (i had no reason to say no except its SATURDAY, for crying out loud!) the bad thing about being on call is that you never know when they're going to strike. you could be happily planning your day's events, when suddenly the phone will ring, and just like that, you cannot do what you had planned. it sucks, really. but i can't complain because its WORK and that is GOOD, but....its SATURDAY!!

4 more sleeps till my mom is here!

~heidi, Wishing She Was 2 Again (but only kind of wishing)

my mom

believe it or not, josh wrote all of the last blog on his own, without me coaxing him to "say something nice so they'll all think you're nice." i won't comment on the embarassing flatulating incident--i may just save the entire topic of flatulance in marriage for another post. however, i WILL comment on the appropriate pronounciation of certain candies. i couldn't believe my ears when i first heard him say it, but all you canadians out there, this is TRUE!

so, we were talking on the phone one night, back when we were separated by oh-so-many-miles, pining and longing and speaking words of love to one another. in between a bit of longing and words of love, josh asked me what i was eating. i told him, "just some jujubes." he was like, "WHAT??!!" and so i repeated what i had just said, which sent him into gales of laughter. "don't you mean jujuBEES?" he asked, which made me go, "WHAT??!!" and sent me into gales of laughter. neither of us could believe the way the other pronounced it was the way it really was pronounced in their country. i asked him how they spell the word jujubes in the united states, and apparently it is spelled the same in both countries. so how can you get the sound jujuBEES out of the word jujubes? to make his point, after we were married, he walked up to a woman in a store, holding the candy and asked her what they were called. "jujuBEES?" she said, a little timidly. (josh's appearance can be slightly intimidating to some people) my friend darla helped me attempt to make my point by emphatically pointing out to josh how it is spelled and how it should be pronounced, etc. she even gave us a bag of jujubes as a wedding gift! the issue of the proper pronunciation of jujubes is one that has never been resolved, and i doubt it ever will be. i am right and he is wrong and that is that.

i have been commanded to "take it easy" today, with the threat of being beaten if i don't. yesterday i had a wonderful, gigantic burrito for lunch, which i promply threw up an hour later. yesterday being wednesday (the day of our home group), i had a very difficult (impossible) time resting. there was laundry to do, carpet to vaccuum, dinner to make, a bathroom to clean. my dear husband helped me out as much as he could, but i still felt wiped at the end of the day. so today is my supposed day of resting up, which is why i am happily blogging instead of cleaning out the fridge. oh, and NO, i am NOT pregnant, MOTHER.

my mother....:) she is coming to visit me in 12 days!! i honestly can hardly wait. i remember back home when i'd always be counting down the days until i could see josh again, and now i'm counting down the days until i can see my mom again! she is flying here and staying for a lovely 5 days, which i've already overbooked with things to do in my mind. i love my mom. she is the person that i miss the very most. we have always had a special bond, her and i. i think of us more as friends than just mother and daughter. we love to do the same kinds of things, like sit in a park or at the beach and read books, or watch people and try to guess what they're saying or thinking. we both understand the the MOST important part of a shopping trip is lunchtime. we both love to take walks in residential areas, looking at interesting houses, finding hills to climb. we never run out of things to talk about, whether it's over coffee or over the phone. i understand that what we have is rare, and i can't say why exactly our relationship turned out so well, except that i know that my mom has always been willing to meet me on my level. i can remember when i was caught smoking pot when i was 13 years old, and the principal of my school called my mom to tell her. instead of yelling and accusing and grounding me, she took me out for lunch and we sat there and talked. she asked me questions, trying to understand why i had done what i did. of course, i'm sure i was punished in some way, but i don't remember that part. i just remember knowing how much she loved me and wanted what was best for me. since then, i felt that i could tell her anything, and i did. i would come home in the evening, and she would be reading in bed, and i'd sit on the edge of the bed every single night and we would just talk and talk, about our days, about EVERYTHING! and now i'm getting a little misty eyed, thinking about her, so i need to stop now. i'll leave you with a picture of my proud mom on my wedding day~she is the sweetest, most beautiful person i know.

my dear mom 

The blog you've all been waiting for

So I've been propositioned to make a guest appearance on Heidi's blog, the proposition will not be discussed during the course of this entry as I know the tabloid esque ways of this journal.
I used to write a lot more (poetry mainly) and then I was married and I don't anymore. After much wondering if I just lost the ability or my lack of time alone, I realized that I wrote before mainly about my muse and the longing for her and all those additional feelings that are attatched to falling in love and planning ahead. But my muse is here by my side, every day, every time I wake up she is with me, so I can now look at her and realize that my longing has now been fulfilled with her presence. The truth of it (and Heidi strongly encouraged me to write truthfully as to not scare all of you) is that now I don't need to write as I am able to tell her all those things that form in my head.
So the next question is what topic do I try and entertain you with, so many options, yet a good number of you don't even know me or have only met me briefly. So if this is not appealing to you I wish I could be sorry.
First I must offer an appeal to those who think I stole your dear Heidi, all choices are made, with or without the sense of reason in place, but hers was a choice deliberately made for my sanity. All is well now.
One of the biggest things in moving to a foreign country, a new home, an additional family etc. Is adapting. Your dear Heidi struggled to find her "place" in sunny southern California away from the friends, her family and the dampness called Abbotsford. When a woman marries a man generally they take on the husbands last name, but it ends up being more than just a name, it incorporates many years of hard work that has established that name. It produces ways of life, traditions and the ability to pronounce words correctly or how certain candies are actually said (Darla). Heidi has to the best of her ability attempted to take this on. She has begun by pronouncing pasta correctly, become close with my family (so close she actually flatulated at the dinner table to great applause), and has learned to become a good cook (my mom is Martha Stewart). So, as I look over at her cuddled in bed with a magazine, I gaze as a blessed man, a man that can only be blessed by God with the good fortunes of calling Heidi my friend, my wife and someday the mother of our children. How else can you explain two people meeting from two different countries meeting on an island?
I hope to have met my blog quota for the day. Take it easy.

Josh--the unentertaining translator of today's prose

p.s. the title wasn't my idea