the perfect weekend (so far)

on behalf of the newest reader of my blog, who FINALLY got her internet set up (yay, leah!) i am making the font of this post a little larger for her strained eyes, which is very nice of me, as i could have just told her to quit whining and wear her glasses next time. but i love her, so i didn't do that. by the way, this is not my engaged friend named leah, this is my happily married with two kids friend named leah. having two very close friends named leah can be confusing to people, since they never know which one i'm talking about, but to me, their names sound completely different. probably because they are so extremely different from one another... except for the fact that they both make me laugh.

so, it's 8.15am and josh is downstairs watching some guy type of shooting movie, while i lean back in our newly aquired comfy office chair, with the sun streaming through the window, basking in the afterglow of a wonderful birthday. yes, i turned a whopping 25 years old yesterday. (i even checked my profile on my blog today to see if it changed to 25.) last year was the first birthday when i finally decided that i didn't want to get any older. 24 just sounds a lot worse than 23. and 25.... i shudder to think i've lived that long. i mean, i don't feel like i know enough to be 25 years old! but, as soon as i start to feel panicky, i just remember that josh is over 3 years older than me, and he ALWAYS will be, and that makes me feel a little bit better.

it was such a wonderful day, full of unexpected phone calls and emails and cards and gifts. even a couple of friends that didn't know it was my birthday just happened to write me letters that arrived yesterday! it was one of those days where you just feel overwhelmed by so many people loving you. it was positively perfect. josh invited the family over and bbq'd even though it was pouring rain, and we had strawberry shortcake for dessert with a tea-light stuck in it because he forgot to buy birthday candles, and i got to listen to my whole family back home sing happy birthday to me on the phone while everyone here sang it to me in person. (actually my family back home started singing when everyone here was already halfway through the song, so it was a little bit funny. but you all back home had some gorgeous harmony going--sure it was mostly due to cara!)

today i'm working at the library from 11-3 (trying not to think about it) and after that, josh and i are going down the hill with my birthday money and going shopping! we both have a serious addiction to plants, so our first stop is home depot's garden centre to satisfy our cravings. then we'll go to target and costco, and come back home and plant things. then we'll kick back and watch my newest audrey hepburn movie that josh gave me. ooh, and maybe go for a walk! yes, after this bit at the library is done, i think today looks to be a rather perfect day.

~heidi, Happily a Quarter of a Century Old

a wednesday kind of blog

as i am writing this, its 3:03 and in less than one hour, i have to go work at the library. i haven't had cause to dread work in a very long time, so this feeling is rather new to me. before moving here, i worked at the same job for 7 years, and i cannot remember a day that i dreaded going to work, except for maybe when i was 17 years old and had just started and was deathly afraid of the customers. i think that when i applied to work at the library, i was under the assumption that it would be just like my old job. you know, bookstore, library... same thing! i have found that i was horribly wrong. first of all, i keep making the mistake of calling the people that come up to the circulation desk to check out books, "customers". that is wrong. and a very bad thing, according to my boss lady. they are not "customers", they are "the public". right. then there's the rule that i'm not allowed to help people at all! i must stay behind the circulation desk and if "the public" wants to know where a certain book is, i'm not allowed to help them find it! i must either refer them to the librarian, or POINT them in the right direction. at the bookstore, pointing was a big no-no. working at the library is kind of like working at my old job with all of the fun things taken out of it, like helping people find books, and organizing the shelves, and WALKING AROUND, for goodness sake, and even talking in an audible voice! i was there last night for 2 hours and it felt like 10!

to make matters worse, i had sliced my thumb while cutting lettuce earlier that evening. i admit, i can be a bit of a baby, especially when it comes to things happening to my fingers...they are just SO sensitive! so i ran upstairs with blood dripping and showed it to josh, who very calmly wrapped it up in a band aid and continued on what he was doing. it did hinder my work at the library slightly, (isn't it funny how we never realize how much we use a certain finger until it is rendered useless?) but hindered my shuffling abilities even more. i have succeeded in getting josh addicted to the game "dutch blitz". (it's a vonderful goot game!) i think every single mennonite in canada is also addicted to this game, but don't tell josh that. he has been kicking my butt at it, but last night, bad thumb and all, i BEAT him!!! this thrills my heart because it's the first game that i've found that i might be better than him at. the thing that bugs me, though, is that we often say things like, "okay, whoever wins this game gets a 10 minute back massage". and everytime we say that, of course HE wins. but then, the times where i'm like, "no, lets not have a prize for the winner", of course, I win. what is up with that? oooh, maybe he lets me win? no, i cannot think of that, it's too awful a thought.

well, not much else is new except i had the lovliest conversation with my newly engaged friend, leah this morning who is moving to...get this...tuscany!! where her fiance lives!! (does fiance have 2 e's?) but not before she has the most fun sounding wedding this summer, which i will do my best to attend. (hooray!) she also started a blog, but is now having technical difficulties with it, since she forgot her password. once it's up and running, i'll have to ask computer geniuses cara and denise how to post links on my blog. oh, and one more thing... PLEASE COMMENT TO MR. STEW!!! i know there's more of you out there who read my blog and you have NO excuse not to comment. unless, of course you don't want to read what my husband has to say. but i think you do, so COMMENT! okay, enough begging. i need to get this dreaded job over with.

~heidi, Reigning Dutch Blitz Champion of the Stewart Household

~Kaylee 

a talkative ray of sunshine

it's monday morning and i'm not working (oh, big surprise). whenever i'm not working, i like to plan out my day in the morning. i think of things to do and, (i am so odd) i like to think of the time they take up as little cubes. i don't like to have large spaces in between my cubes. i like them all squished together quite snug, to ward off boredom. so that means i usually plan more things to do in a day than i can possibly get done. this morning i decided that i would do one of those things that i've been planning on doing for quite some time, but keep running out of cubes of time to do it. i decided that today, i would prune the rose bush. we have this huge rose bush in front of our house that pumps out gorgeous, red roses, nearly all year long! though i enjoy growing things, that doesn't mean i know what i am doing. so, in order to NOT turn our beautiful rose bush into a shrivelled mass of twigs, i went online and read up on pruning. my brain overflowing with information, i went downstairs to begin experimenting with my newfound, yet unused skill. upon looking out the front window, i could not believe my eyes. there was a man HACKING away at my rose bush! and another man was at the side of the house, doing the same thing to the 4 small ones there! i had just read all about cutting only 1/4 inch from the bud and cutting at a 45 degree angle, and these men, weren't even looking at what they were doing! chattering away in spanish to one another, they chopped and chopped until there was nothing left but...a shriveled mass of twigs. now, to be fair, the rose bushes do not belong to us. they came with the house, which belongs to our landlord. and these men are hired by our landlord to do landscaping at our house every monday morning. but i kind of wondered why they have never laid so much as a finger on any of the rose bushes until the very morning that i had decided to do the same thing, only much, much more carefully.

so now i have a few empty cubes of time, which means i get to blog! by the way, thanks to everyone who has commented so far, urging my husband to write something. keep those comments coming! i want to read him so many juicy comments that he'll have no choice but to write an extrememly juicy blog.

this past weekend was kind of crazy. josh and i decided to have our niece, kaylee over to spend the night. we absolutely adore kaylee. she is, honestly a little ray of sunshine. so we were expecting our weekend to be full of basking in the light of her sunshiney-adorableness. um, lets just say that after her parents picked her up yesterday, we both breathed a huge sigh of relief and promptly took a nap. she just NEVER stopped!

she just started this phase, like 2 days ago where she asks, "why?" to everything and wants to know what everything is and where it came from. "what's this?" she'd ask, pointing to my necklace. "a necklace," i'd tell her. "where did it come from?" "from canada." "oh....why?" "because that's where i bought it." "why?" "because it's pretty." and on and on it would go. josh finally figured out that when he answered her why? questions with, "because you're beautiful," that would shush her up. josh made his famous pepperoni pizza, which she took and delicately picked off every little piece of pepperoni because it was, in her words, "a little salty." then we watched mary poppins numerous times and attempted to wear her our by dancing our butts off to "step in time", which just made her even more hyper, and made us even more tired. then, of course, there was the bedtime crying session, which we diffused by letting her fall asleep in our bed with us, then putting her in her bed once she was asleep. i quickly found out that having a kid means that there is no more "me" time. i hardly had time to throw some clothes on for church in the morning in between feeding her breakfast, changing diapers and trying to keep her sunday clothes from getting dirty. though we both want kids in the future, i think that we'll just savour all the "me" and "us" time that we have until then.

mr. stew

my husband is an absolute gem. yesterday morning i woke up with a scratchy throat and a bit of a headache. you know how most guys, when they're sick, its the end of the world and we females attend to their every need, and then when we're sick, they try to help out, then lose interest after about an hour? well, up until now, josh has been just like most guys in that area. but yesterday, he called me before coming home from work and told me not to worry about dinner, and he refused tell me what he was planning. he came home with 2 hyacinth plants (my most favourite flower in the world, EVER!) and took me out to d'carlos for dinner, which is ramona's "fancy restaraunt." i hadn't been there yet, but it really was nice, and so unexpected. i love surprises like that.

now that you know that he is a great guy, i can tell you what he said last night about my blog. i was online reading some of the comments (which still make me feel warm inside, by the way) and i asked if he wanted to read my "girl in the middle" story, since he was there and all. i don't think he's ever read my blog before. cuz the first thing he told me when he sat down to read it was how CHEESY my profile is, all about how i like to read and take bubble baths and cuddle with my husband. and he said it all in a mocking voice, which made it sound really, really horridly awful. of course, i defended it and said, "well that's just who i am", but secretly, in the back of my mind, i began to wonder if it really was as cheesy as he made it sound. well, he read the story and ACTUALLY laughed a couple of times, which was quite nice of him. when he left, i quickly got back on and read my profile & was abhored to realize that it was, indeed extremely cheesy. i'm not allowed to be cheesy until i'm at least 46. so for now my profile has been deleted. i hope josh doesn't read this and find out that he won.

speaking of josh, i have received a request from a faithful reader of this blog, who will remain anonymous, due to her complete love for and biased opinion of my husband....okay, it was my MOTHER. anyhow, she requested that he write a little something on my blog. i told him i thought it would be nice, too. he just kind of grunted. so here's what i think. i think that he needs more encouragement from all of you. he really is a great and entertaining writer. i should know, since we spent over a year of our relationship communicating long distance. he used to write me the most amazing letters and poems...anyhow, if you are even remotely interested in hearing what he has to say, post your comments at the end of this blog and let him know. i will make a big deal of reading his fan mail to him, and THEN we'll see if all he does is grunt! oh, i also decided to post what i call his "GQ model pose" picture at the end of this blog, just in case you don't know him and really don't care whether he writes or not. come on, he is sucha hottie that you'd like to hear at least a couple words of his, right? i told him i wanted to post that picture, and he kind of blushed and put up some sort of protest. but it is MY blog, and i can post what i like.

okay, i'm off to scrub the bathtub so that i can take a bath in it. (anal habit of mine to clean it before every bath i take, but at least it gets cleaned quite often... are you sure you still think i'm nothing like monica, aimee?)

~heidi, completely cured of scratchy throat, due to lovely hyacinth scent

Stew 

the result of an empty inbox

why is it, that when i really make a good attempt at eating better and getting more exercise, i gain a few pounds and my pants go up one size?? WHY??!! i think its time to just give up and dig into the ice cream.

tonight we are having our first home group here for the 40 days of purpose that our church is doing. 4 people besides us will be here, and i only know one of them (2 of them are non-believers). i am excited, but also very nervous, which happens any time someone is coming over. my house looks just fine to me until i hear that we are expecting a visit from someone, and then it is transformed into a complete mess right in front of my eyes. so i go running around with the dustcloth in one hand and the vacuum in the other and get all sweaty trying to impress someone who won't even notice the state of the house anyway. sometimes i seriously fear that i am becoming monica gellar.

so i had been doing the above mentioned running around like a mad woman, (with the laundry basket in one hand and a trash bag in the other) when i passed by the computer and it beckoned me to it. (okay, okay, not audibly, but i could feel it in my heart, calling my name) i decided that checking my email and discovering oodles of them overflowing my inbox would be just the break i need. sadly, i didn't get one single email. and if anyone is feeling guilty about that, darla bodell, then well, YOU SHOULD! actually, darla, i didn't mean that. but if you do feel bad, that's okay, i don't mind. (don't you want to just hit me right now? but you CAN'T because i'm too FAR AWAY!!!)

because of my lack of emails, i am writing this boring blog, which is so dull, that now i'm wondering if i should even post it. so i'll try to think of something to make it a little more interesting...hmmm...this morning, while hanging out with my 2 year old niece kaylee, (who is just beginning to put words into sentences) i found her with her finger so far up her nose that her middle knuckle was out of sight. i asked her what she was finding in there, so she pulled out her finger, showed me her booger and said, "eat it." i told her i was full.

our bed is unmade and i can see it from here and it's driving me crazy. the chances of someone coming upstairs tonight and seeing our unmade bed are not high, but you never know. it could happen. i must go attend to it immediately.

~heidi, Frazzled Cleaning Lady

the tale of the girl in the middle

i simply cannot get over the weather here. my brain and calendar on the wall both seem to agree that it's january. but not like any january i've ever seen! my phone call with leah last night was interrupted by what was probably an ice-and-snow-encrusted tree branch falling on the telephone wires somewhere in mission, bc. that's the january that i know. down here, it's freakish. now that the weather has gotten all of the rain it can muster out of it's system, it has decided that winter should be over, and spring should get a head start. on my vigorous, guilt induced walk the other day, i was shocked to see blossoms on the fruit trees. flowers are sprouting up everywhere, and it is actually warm out there. on saturday, girls clad in bikini tops were on the street, holding up signs for a carwash. i am still such a foreigner.

josh and i went to a wedding over the weekend, with friends of ours, mike and sara. the wedding took place 2 hours east of here, kind of in the middle of the desert. i now feel slightly sorry for posting a previous blog on how small of a town ramona is. ramona IS NOT a small town! holtville is. so we're pretty much driving through the desert, with nothing to see but the occasional tumbleweed for miles. finally, in the distance, we spot clumps of palm trees amidst houses. it looked rather like what you would picture in your head when you hear the words, desert oasis. we had booked a room for the night at the barbara worth resort, which was smack dab in the middle of the oasis. although, on closer inspection, we found that there wasn't much that was oasis-like about this so-called resort.

once we had checked in and got the key to our room, the 4 of us lugged all of our bags to it, entered, and just stood there and laughed. in the center of our tiny room stood one, solitary king sized bed. apparently, they had run out of rooms with 2 queens. there were suspicious looking holes in the wall, and when the lamp on the desk was moved so we could see the tv better, we discovered that it had been placed there to hide a hole in the desk! the wedding was quite beautiful. sara and i both wore our little black dresses and sipped pina coladas while listening to the cheesiest dj music possible. it was such a relief to finally sit back and watch everyone else scramble to catch the bouquet. before going back to our room, i managed to drag josh onto the dance floor and slowly sway with him to the music, for the first time since our wedding (he absolutely detests dancing, so this was huge!)

the outdoor jacuzzi remained the temperature of a cold bath for the entire 20 minutes that we could handle sitting in it, so, after hot showers, we got all cozy in the bed. mike graciously offered to sleep on a cot, which made me the lucky girl in the middle of the bed. i've never been too claustaphobic, but after a sleepless night sandwiched between sara's butt against my thigh and josh's elbow poking my ribs, i seriously felt the urge to thrash about and yell, "STOP TOUCHING ME!" instead, i marveled at how quickly mike breathes when he is asleep, and kept trying to tug the blankets away from sara who was stealing them from my husband.

all in all, it was a fun weekend, but josh and i agreed last night, as we pulled large amounts of blanket up to our chins, that 2 people in a california king sized bed, is definitely the way to go.

~heidi, snug as a bug

dewey decimals & famous people

well, i survived my first day working at the ramona public library yesterday. to tell you the truth, i did more than survive it; i actually enjoyed it! i am the kind of person that worries a lot. okay, i worry way too much. it took me months after our 2nd wedding to finally stop having nightmares that i was getting married AGAIN, and had forgotten to send out the invitations. (for those of you who don't know, josh and i had two weddings. kind of a long story, won't get into it here) i also get nervous in new situations, though i think that it's normal for most people to get nervous on their first day at a new job. well, the entire day yesterday, i kept expecting my stomach to start getting butterflies at any moment. it never did. not even so much as a twinge of nervousness entered my stomach, or my mind, or any other area of myself that could be affected by nervousness. even as i was walking up to the library doors, ready to go in, no butterflies! i nearly began to get worried about why i wasn't getting nervous, of all things, thinking that something was wrong with me. instead, i just enjoyed my new found calm, quite proud of myself, really, though still a little suspicious of it.

i remained calm the entire time! even through pressing the wrong button on the computer, causing it to make a horrible high pitched noise and through accidentally disconnecting myself from the branch supervisor on the phone several times. i made it through day one, and now am just awaiting a call for when they need me next. hurrah! it was kind of odd to come home and have josh waiting there for me, for once. odd, but lovely. he hugged me and asked me to tell him all about my first day, so i did (probably getting into more detail than he was wanting to hear) and at the end of it all, i told him how weird it was that i was so calm all day, never getting nervous. he smiled and his eyes lit up and he told me, "that's because all day i was praying for you, that you wouldn't feel a bit nervous!" (after he said that, i gave him a big, fat kiss) so, mystery solved! i am so grateful to God for providing me with His perfect peace, as well as with such a wonderful husband, who knows exactly where my weaknesses are, and what he can do to help them.

here's something interesting. josh and i don't have tv. i mean, we have a television to watch movies on, but we don't have cable or anything. well, over christmas, we housesat for a couple that does have tv. we have gone for so long without it, that we'd just sit in front of it, like zombies, unable to turn it off, even if there was absolutely nothing on! anyhow, while in one of our zombie-like states, for a brief moment, i saw a girl on tv who i just knew that i knew. i told josh that i knew her, but i often think that movie stars resemble people that i know, so i don't think he believed me. i brought it up in one of my conversations with my best friend, darla, pleading with her to agree with me, but she told me i must be wrong. so i decided to do a bit of investigating on my own. well, na-na-na-nana! turns out i was right! the girl's name is evangeline lily and she is on some tv show called "lost". her real name is nicole lily and she and her family used to go to central heights church, back in the early 90's. i'm positive it's her because i got my mom to look up her family in the old church directory, and it turns out that her grandma's name was evangeline. ta da! i kind of wish i had told more people and they hadn't believed me so i could say, "so there!" (sometimes i'm not a nice person)

now its time for me to go for a very vigorous walk because (i am embarassed to admit this, so soon after new year's) i ate a cinnamon bun and pringles chips for lunch and now i feel absolutely disgusting. it is warm and sunny outside and i can see nothing but blue sky from here. perfect

~heidi, un-frumpy library girl

my man and me 

my town

it's been a few days since i've written anything on here, mostly because i have spent a large amount of the last few days attempting to get a picture of blue sky onto my profile. it hasn't worked. however, i did manage to get a picture of blue sky onto my blog, thanks to my sister in law, cara, who i now view as a genius. even though it's not where i want it to be, i think it's pretty, so it can stay. i also wanted to say thanks to all of you who have let me know that you're enjoying my blog. it makes me feel warm inside...and a little nervous, because now i realize that people are actually reading my ramblings (yikes!) but as long as my ramblings are entertaining you, i will continue to ramble. because i like to.

today is the first day of my new job as a library substitute. i am still working as a loan processor, but work is slow right now (more like non-existent), and so i am very grateful for the opportunity to work at the library once in awhile. it's funny, i'm not at all nervous. probably because i'm just so desperate to get out of the house and help contribute to the financial situation of our little family. (can family refer to just 2 people? because it sounds kind of funny) in celebration of my new job, tomorrow evening, josh and i get to go to costco and buy things like peanut butter and contact solution! (hooray!) okay, it's not really in celebration, we actually need to go, but lately i've been thrilled by simple things.

i used to think of abbotsford as a small town. to all of you who still think so, NO, IT IS NOT!! ramona is. ramona is the name of the town that is now my home. when josh first told me that he lived in a town called ramona, i said, "cool, like ramona quimby?" he just looked at me funny. ramona quimby was the name of a girl in books that i loved to read as a kid. even though i've lived here for awhile, every time i hear the name ramona, i always mentally add quimby after it. it irritates me, but my brain cannot seem to help it.

ramona sits on top of a hill in san diego county. therefore, any time we need to go anywhere, be it san diego, escondido, or even mexico, we say that we are "going down the hill." unless, of course, we are needing to go "up the hill" to julian, where you can find delicious apple pies and, occasionally, snow. there are 2 roads that go down the hill. one leads to a town called poway which has a costco, a movie theatre and a wal mart. the other road leads to escondido, which boasts a target, and even a mall. going down the hill for most ramonians seems to be a necessary, frequent occurrence. i used to think so too, but with gas prices as high as they are, we try to limit our trips as much as possible. i have found that ramona, though small, really has pretty much everything anyone could need. let's see, we have a kmart, 2 grocery stores, a library and post office, denny's, blockbuster, salvation army thrift store, about a dozen antique shops, a pot belly stove shop (i scratched my head over that one, too), mcdonalds, a miniature christian bookstore, and about a million hole-in-the-wall mexican food restaurants. and if you can't find what you're looking for at any of those places, there's always cheap cheap cheap--our very cluttered, but very inexpensive dollar store.

ramona is, overall, a nice town to live in (once you get over the side roads that are unpaved and the thick layers of dust that build up in your house all summer). i was just emailing cara earlier and i told her that one of my goals is to begin to think of ramona as my home. i am sometimes surprised at how hard the transition has been, moving from a town where i spent my entire life, to a place completely different. josh has been an amazing help in this area. he has been extremely patient and understanding with my sometimes irrational outbursts of homesickness. i don't think that my goal will be too hard to accomplish because josh lives in ramona. and wherever josh is, that is where my home is.

Capernwray Hall ~Carnforth, England 

they say posta, i say pasta

it's a rainy monday evening. we have just finished dinner and now josh is taking a bath and i am blogging. really, i don't think i'm supposed to tell anyone that josh takes baths...according to him, it's only when he's feeling sick or tired. i won't comment on that.

lately i've been trying to broaden my rather small range of culinary skills by finding new recipes on the internet and also having them sent to me in the mail. i became a wife with next to no cooking experience (besides foods 11 with mrs. dyck) and really didn't know where to start. i had a tiny collection of recipes painstakenly copied from my mom's recipe cards, a few cookbooks and that's it. oh my, the things i went through. the tears i cried. the horrid things i made him eat. i felt that every meal was a test of my capability as a wife. i would watch josh take the first bite and then scrutinize his face for any sign of whether he was liking it or hating it. there weren't too many hates, though plenty of dislikes.

since then, i've learned from my mistakes, and am doing better. and yet i simply cannot give up wanting to be a better cook. and the most frustrating thing? well, josh's favourite meals are not the ones that i slave over, making every little bit from scratch, letting them simmer or steam, adding a dash of this or that. oh no, his very favourite meals end up being the ones that i cheat on! the ones that come out of a box! campbell's dinner bakes--just add the chicken and you have a complete meal! he raved about that one for days. or the frozen pizzas that you just pop in the oven. even the hamburger helper scored big points. the other day, i bought a packet of pasta seasoning to add to penne and chicken. he loved it (of course). today i made a pasta sauce from scratch--lemon zest and everything! all i'll say is that we'll have plenty of leftovers for days to come.

~WHY?~

~heidi, Desperate to be a Good Housewife

Guys' Night Out = Girl's Night Alone

tonight josh is out with his friends, watching the charger's game and playing poker. that means that i get to have an evening alone. since we've only been married for 7 months and are still each other's favourite person to hang out with, evenings alone are rare and i quite enjoy them when they come around. my schedule of events tonight include the following necessary ingredients: lovely bath with bubbles, bath pillow, candles and norah jones, dvd of the type that josh would be less than thrilled to watch (romantic comedy, to be precise), and leftover christmas chocolates--the ones that the ants didn't get to.

as much as i think evenings alone are great--and somewhat necessary, i also sometimes kind of wish that once in awhile i could go on a girls' night out, like i used to. since being married i have had 2 girls' nights so far. the first doesn't really count, as it turned out to be quite horrid and awful. i was invited by a girl i kind of knew, to go to her place for a party where a bunch of women get together and eat food and chat and someone sells things. i went, meaning to be social and meet people, and ended up trying my best not to look too pathetic as i was the only person who knew no one, and also the only person who had forgotten to bring any money to purchase the stuff that they were selling. i was ignored by everyone except for a very sweet and talkative girl named kristi, who ended up inviting me to my second girls' night out. this time it was dinner and a movie with kristi and her two friends. i had a wonderful time, but apparently, they did not, since that was back in september and i haven't been invited to do anything with them since.

for awhile after that night i pondered the unspoken rules of friendship. when becoming friends with someone, is it proper etiquette for me to call a few days later and say how much i enjoyed myself and invite her to do something else? or should i wait longer? to be honest, i felt a little like i was dating all over again. which was not how i wanted to feel, nor how i wanted to go about making friends. since then, kristi and i chat now and again after church and have decided to start a church library together. starting a church library with someone is nothing like being invited on a girls' night out, but for now it will have to do. i just miss my friends back home and the easy, natural way i could be myself with them and call them up without wondering if they liked me back. with friends, i value quality rather than quantity, and i have recently come to the conclusion that quality friendships take time. so i will wait. and while waiting, cherish my long distance friendships all the more.

~heidi (about to lose her cares in billows of scented bubbles)

the ants go marching ten by ten

i was on the phone this morning, (with my dear friend leah, who is coming to san diego next month for a visit) when i heard a word i won't repeat resounding from the depths of the pantry. on moving closer to investigate, i found my husband madly pulling food items off the shelves while batting at them as if they were being disciplined. a long, dark stream of ants crept from shelf to shelf, stopping to sample bits of unprotected food here and there. josh had to leave for work, so he apologetically left me to take care of what looked like a million creepy crawly things eating my food. i'm the kind of girl who gets itchy just looking at bugs. actually touching them causes me to do the whole-body-shudder every once in awhile and run around the room shaking out my hair in case they decide to build a nest in it.

this is probably the fourth ant problem we've had since moving into our place, and there are two very important lessons i have learned. 1. windex kills ants. i actually find it kind of fun to watch them sort of melt after they've been hit. (i'm really not a bad person) 2. NEVER ever put out a glass full of honey overnight, thinking that the ants will fall in and drown. some fall in, but most drink up and then go tell all of their friends, "hey, you gotta try this place." next thing you know, you'll wake up in the morning and find your coutertops completely black with swarming ants. yes, it actually happened to us and no, i won't tell you who's idea it was.

so, the job is complete, the ants are gone...for now. so is my entire box of mini charleston chews as well as poor mrs. butterworth (the cap on top of her head was completely infested and ants were dropping from it to take a swim in the syrup). the most unfortunate part of this whole thing is that it took me so long to get rid of the ants...i don't have time to clean the bathrooms as i had planned. oh darn. ;)


~heidi, Queen of Pest Control

i can smell the snow from down here

when i first moved, i thought that southern california was the perfect match for me. i am always cold. san diego is always warm...right? wrong. for the past couple of months, my initial infatuation with the weather has been shattered. it is downright cold. my husband, josh doesn't think its a big deal. he says, "think of it this way: we have the best of everything. we're 45 minutes away from snow, (in a little mountain town called julian, where he is working today) 45 minutes away from the beach, 45 minutes away from mexico, and...well, an hour and 45 minutes away from disneyland!" i agree that it sounds great when you put it that way, but when you're living in a little condo with a heater that simply won't turn on, it doesn't feel so grand. my hot water bottle has become my new best friend. (and there just seems something ridiculous about scraping frost off of my windshield when there's a giant palm tree just across the street from me.)

back home, i didn't mind the cold so much, probably because of the wonderful anticipation of snow that came with it. in fact, i hear that its snowing there right at this very moment! i admit, i am a bit pathetic--i have my home page set to tell me the weather in abbotsford. and i would be lying if i said i didn't feel a twinge of jealousy when i saw that. but then, of course, my jealousy was replaced with happiness for all of you who get to watch it pile up and pray for a snow day. to those of you who are like myself and have never really gotten over the childish delight of seeing white flakes fall from heaven, making everything look so clean and dreamy, please make a snow angel, just for me

~heidi