This is what I think.

I have one or two or three things to say.

First. Go Cougars! I'm proud of you for winning. You nearly gave me a heart attack, but you pulled it off. Way to be.

Second. Max Hall. Dude. I know you were upset. I believe your family was probably not treated well last year, and that's a shame. But that doesn't excuse your comments. The whole two wrongs don't make a right thing, you know? It doesn't matter if anyone else has made rude comments in the past, or what the fans are saying. You're the quarterback and you should be held to a higher standard. If you can't say anything nice, etc. I sincerely hope you apologize, or if you don't, that the BYU football program makes it clear they don't approve of your comments. Because I think you ruined a great night for a lot of BYU fans, and gave the Utes considerably less respect than they deserved. Bad form, sir.

Third. To everyone else. Yes, Hall was classless. But so is ridiculing all of BYU because of what he said. That's what you're complaining about, isn't it? So I think it would be the "classy" thing for both sides to suck it up, let ALL the rude comments from everyone be forgotten if not forgiven, and focus on our respective bowl games. Let's try to bring a little respect back to our rivalry.

Okay. Off my soap box now. I feel better. Hope you do too.

I give thanks that my husband is still alive.

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope everyone is looking forward to the turkey and pie. I know I am. Mostly the chocolate pie. No offense to those other, fruit pies, but chocolate pie is an integral part of my childhood. It's comfort food. It's just too bad you have to eat all the healthy stuff before you can get to the chocolate pie.

However, before we get to turkey and pie, I have to wait for Jessie to be done with his turkey bowl. I am, justifiably, a little bit paranoid about Jessie and football. The year before we got married, he played football with his ward, and it wasn't pretty. He tripped, hit his head on the frozen ground, and was unconscious for the next four hours. He woke up in the hospital, which we all know doesn't rank on America's Top 100 places to get Delicious Thanksgiving Meals. We weren't dating then, but after he told me the story later, I pretty much forbade him from ever playing football again. Unfortunately, he is stubborn. So he goes every week and plays anyway, and he won't even wear his bike helmet like I suggested. Husbands. So, provided he doesn't split his head open or twist his ankle or die of internal bleeding, it will be a good Thanksgiving. Be safe everyone, and eat lots of fruit pie. But not chocolate. Because I want to eat it all.

Tis the season...the monkey said so.

I almost made it. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to listen to Christmas music or decorate until after Thanksgiving. Otherwise I get sick of Christmas music by the actual day. Also, I feel kind of bad that Thanksgiving doesn't get to enjoy the limelight a little. So the only thing I've allowed myself to do is Christmas shopping, which I can pretend is run of the mill birthday shopping. And I pretend I don't see all the Christmas signs at the store.

But then, little things kept conspiring to force me into the spirit of the season. I got the urge to wrap a couple of the presents I bought. And you can't do that in birthday paper. And the radio stations are all playing Christmas music. After listening to straight country for the last two weeks, I started feeling tempted to cheat. The crushing blow, however, came this morning when I turned on some Curious George for Madeline. And it was an hour long, special Christmas episode. With singing and gift giving and tree shopping and cookie making. Stupid children's programming. Don't they know they should be putting on turkeys and stuffing and football? Now I feel the urge to make maple bells. And unpack our tree. And make snowflakes. I'm disgusted with myself. At least Thanksgiving is tomorrow. You can bet the day after that, we'll be listening to Christmas carols and breaking out the decorations. And it's all because of that dratted monkey.

Mom vs. Dad

Jessie and I celebrated our anniversary this weekend, which meant Madeline got to stay with Grandma. Sometimes I wish it was just a little traumatic for her to be away from me (for her, not me. It is traumatic for me.) But since Grandma has a dog, a piano, and Uncle Bryce, she was only to happy to leave. I did think that perhaps she would be excited to see me when we went to pick her up. It seemed that way. I got out of the car before Jessie, and Madeline watched from my mother's window. Her face lit up, and she was smiling and jumping up and down. I went up to the door, opened it up and reached for her...and she ran right past me. "Daddy! Daddy!" she said. Ten minutes later, I convinced her to give me a hug. But only because I let her go right back to Dad.

I got my revenge today, though. We were sitting at the computer looking at pictures, because Madeline is (quite rightly) obsessed with her own image. I would click to a new picture and exclaim, "There's Mommy!", "There's Grandpa!", and "Look, it's Madeline!". So Madeline joined in. "Madeline!" she'd say. "Mama!" (Grandma.). "There's Mommy!". Then we got to a picture of a sea lion at Sea World. Without missing a beat, Madeline exclaims, "It's Daddy!"

I think maybe I'll make Madeline cookies.

It doesn't change a thing, but even so, after twenty-five years, it's nice to know

It's that time of year again. No, not Thanksgiving. Not Christmas. Not False Confession Day. No, tomorrow marks three years that Jessie and I have put up with having someone steal the covers from you while you're sleeping. So once again, you have the privilege of listening to me highlight my husband's amazing super powers. Don't worry, mushiness is not my strong suit, this should be safe reading for small children and endangered species.

So, Jessita, thanks for three years of wedded bliss. I was a little worried you were only marrying me to get a free Mexican cruise, but then, I only married you for your rare book inheritance, so we're even. I thought maybe you'd jump ship about month seven to pursue your career writing love songs to Excel, but when you let me make up that Christmas budget and showed me how to use the sorting function, I knew we'd make it. Those days we were lost in the barbaric Antimony countryside were rough, when we thought we were going to die, but I'll always treasure the moment we looked into each other's eyes and promised that if only one of us made it out , they'd come back and put our car's punctured oil pan over the other's grave. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Here's to you, Mr. Warner. Thanks for making your fatherly example and genetic contribution to this adorable little dictator:

Thanks for not leaving me after you learned how much I suck at this:

Thanks for not making me get rid of my giant collection of these:


And thanks for showing up on time to get permanently stuck with me on this day (although I'm not grateful you tricked me into thinking you'd forgotten. Minus ten thousand anniversary brownie points for you!):

The last three years have been awesome.

Here's to the next ninety-seven.

And you'd better bring chocolate, my friend.

In which I ridicule popular media.

Today, I feel like ranting against popular culture. You have been warned.

Rant #1: Glee. I've tried to give it a chance, but I'm over it. I was actually excited after the pilot, but the show has since lost my support. Half the singers are too raspy and pop for me, the dancing is either beyond cheesy or sexually suggestive, and they all get these looks on their faces while they're singing that annoy me beyond belief. Looks that scream "I am trying to way cooler than I actually am, but even I would admit if pressed that this is all a bit ridiculous." And don't get me started on the plot. Like most night time soap operas, there is twenty times more drama than is feasibly realistic. And I'm pretty much opposed to the morals they're subtly and not so subtly pushing. They make us cheer for the other woman and hope she'll break up a marriage. The teenagers are all hormonal and way too quick to jump into bed with each other. And I'm not crazy about the way they're treating teenage pregnancy and gay relationships, although I know many people would disagree with me. (I won't go too much into either of those except to say that I think it's ridiculous that in television, when a straight person has a crush on a gay person, it's a comic device, and when a gay person has a crush on a straight person, they're a tragic figure. Yes, that's a huge generalization. But it feels like a double standard to me.) But enough moralizing. Because there is obviously plenty of trashiness on television besides Glee. I have to say, the ridiculousness of the music is my bigger grudge. Burn me at the stake.

Rant #2 : New Moon. I thought the books were okay. Mostly because the writing was very good, making it impossible to put down even if it annoyed you half out of your mind. And the first movie was considerably better than I feared, probably because I had heard horrible things about it and was expecting a really low budget film and horrible acting (think Annikan and Padme). But I just don't understand this craze to be first to see the movie. Or really, the obsession with the characters. I think Edward looks like a mannequin wearing way too much diamond makeup. And were he real, I wouldn't want to marry him. Not because of the blood sucking thing. We could work that out. More the moodiness. And the whole control freak thing. Nor is Jacob much better. Too needy and whiny. I'll probably see the movie. Eventually. After it's been in redbox for a month. I'll leave the overpriced late night movie tickets to the teenagers who know how to stay awake past ten.

The blog to explain all blogs.

So sometimes, I feel like I should blog more. And sometimes (like this week) I decide to take a famous "blogging break", only without the customary goodbye post to let you know I'm not blogging. That's for several reasons. The first is primarily laziness. If I have the time and motivation to write a blog post telling you I'm not going to blog for a while, I could just write a normal blog to amuse and show my blogging brilliance, which is far more fun. Also, I don't like committing to anything. If I should tell you it's a week long break and then come back two months later because I was having fun being a slacker, that would be dishonest. But if I told you it would be a month and then decided after three days that I have great and hilarious things you absolutely need to know, I'm just another Flaky Mormon Mommy Blogger (FMMB). I just can't take myself that seriously. So I live my life, blog when I feel like it, and write meaningless ramblings about the reasons and wheretofores on Monday nights when I'm bored. My life is awesome.

Some nursery wisdom

I'm deciding I love nursery. Kids are just way too much fun. My favorite part this week was during our lesson, when we were talking about being nice to our brothers and sisters. One little girl told us, in the most innocent voice you can imagine, "I try to be nice. But sometimes, I'm naughty." It was all I could do to smother my laughter. You and me both, kid. Maybe you can learn more in nursery than Sunday School.

Happy Holidays. We already have house guests.

So remember last year when I saw a mouse at our apartment? Yeah. I saw another one today. And now I'm afraid to walk around in my kitchen. To my credit, I did not wake my husband up to tell him about my trauma like I did last time. So instead of being grumpy, he thought the whole thing was pretty funny. I did NOT think the whole thing was funny. At all. I feel violated, and I can't get a pan out of the cupboard without cringing. I bang loudly when I go into the kitchen with a broom so the mouse will know I'm coming and hide. This is not for his safety, but rather for my sanity. We went out and bought mouse traps right away, naturally, but because Madeline is a lot more mobile and curious than she was last time mice ruined my life, I'm worried she's going to find one and get her hand whacked off. So basically, I'll be a basket case until we catch something. Those stupid mice should just live in their little field colonies and get eaten by owls. That's what I think.

So to distract myself from evil rodents, we officially started Christmas shopping today. Well, started again. Because I got on a Christmas gift kick about a month ago and bought some Christmas pajamas and a gift for Madeline, and then didn't do anything else for weeks. But today, I got presents for all of my brothers. Which, unfortunately, cannot be shared here due to the whole pesky public domain thing. But trust me, they're good presents. I decided I'd like to be done with my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. Ambitious, I know. And let's just pretend it will actually happen. Because then I will feel successful and accomplished. All I want for Christmas is a mouse free house. In case you were wondering.

Halloween, and the new addition to the family

Well, we survived Halloween and Daylight Savings this weekend. Why they insist on putting those two things so close together is a mystery to me. Let's wire kids with sweets and then change their sleeping schedule! Yay! But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Madeline didn't gorge on candy, although she certainly wanted to. She got the idea of trick or treating pretty early and was having an awesome time knocking on doors. She also would not let go of her bucket of candy, even though it got pretty heavy. You'd ask her if she wanted you to hold it, and she'd say uh huh in the affirmative, but good luck getting her hand off the handle. Death grip. She was a cute little ladybug, but you'll have to imagine just how cute, because Jessie has all of the pictures on his phone. We were the Flinstones, thanks to my sister, who is my official resident creative force. Madeline was originally going to go as Pebbles, but you try to make a Pebbles costume warm AND cute. (Okay, don't really try. I'm sure anyone but me could have done it.)

In other news, I'd figure I'd enlighten those of you who wanted to know the wherefores and hows behind our new gigantically oversized television. Jessie went to a lunch seminar for work that was hosted by a company in the telecom industry looking for resellers. Or something. I'm not exactly sure how this was relevant to his job, even though he keeps explaining it. But he went, and they had a raffle where they gave away a handful of ipods and one giant 52 inch television. To a room of about 40 people. So his odds were pretty good. I know he did it just to flout my authority. You see, he has a television fund where we put all of our loose change and bills. I told him he couldn't buy a new television until he had enough money. And I made a rule that nothing bigger than a five dollar bill could go in the fund, just so he didn't make a convenient withdrawl at the ATM to hurry things along. I told him it was good for his self-discipline and he'd really appreciate a nice flat screen when he bought it with his hard earned money. But I guess he couldn't be that patient, so he went out and won one. Men. Anyway, now we have a giant television, which will make us spend money buying a television stand and HD cable to fully take advantage of its capabilities. So you see, you don't want this to happen to you. So be vigilant. Save your money and don't let your husband go to seminars. This is my wise advice for the week.