Stuff that just didn't cut it.....

I was on Naval Gazing the other day and she decided to "out" some of her half-written blogs that were sitting in the "draft" folder. I have a few of those too, so I thought I would do a little blog-cleaning. Here's some of the stuff that was in there and why they haven't been posted (mostly because I'm a dork):

Um, This Says A Lot About Me
Anaya and I have run so many errands lately, and now every time we get in the car Anaya asks if we are going to Mickle Donalds, Article Circle, or Kirby's today. *Sigh* It seems with all the shopping like a crazy person, we may have eaten out a little too much... and quite possibly I speak with a lisp... I'm not really sure where she gets her pronunciations of those fast food places... (By the way, Kirby's is Arby's.)

This was during December when I was Christmas shopping. I just couldn't seem to fit this post anywhere... and it kind of made me look like I ate out a lot...


What?! Where did THAT come from!
So here are a couple things about me: I have a high pain tolerance. I delivered all of my babies naturally, except for McKay, because I wanted to try an epidural, wasn't a fan, and went back to all natural for Anaya. I also bruise REALLY easily. Which usually means that I have massive purple and green bruises, that look like they should have hurt, and that I should have some recollection of getting them...but don't. Like this bruise that I woke up with on my thigh:

[Insert picture of my thigh with a big bruise on it, only somehow I managed to hit the "pasty white, spider-vein magnifier" setting on my camera, and no one wants to see that... trust me... The picture has been deleted from my camera, the computer, and the recycle bin, and you would have to have FBI technical skills to retrieve it]

Enough said on why that post didn't make it.

I Love My Job!
I clean an office building 3 times a week with my mom. I love this job... except for the cleaning part.... The 15 minute commute, the funny things that happen when we're cleaning and the good conversation is the best though. It takes us anywhere from an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes depending on how messy they were, how many dumb things we do, and how much time we spend laughing about the dumb thing we did.

I was wanting to share some of the funny things that happen while we are cleaning... like how my mom had a whole soap opera going on in her head between all the people in the office, and the story line was based off of what was in their garbage cans, and who was gone at the same time as someone else... or how I trip over the floor ALL the time... I don't know if I just don't pick up my feet or what... but I seem especially prone to tripping while walking in front of my mom, or how she's out to get me with the extension cord from the vacuum (I got her back by accidentally hitting her with the mop once), or how it doesn't seem to matter how many times we've done this, we (meaning my mom) can still miss a room (the lunchroom) every now and again..... but I'm not pointing fingers... or how the office has developed a personality and we (mostly me, I think) talk to it... or some of the nicknames we have made up for different people and their offices... But as soon as I started typing some of it, I decided you probably needed to be there....

What the Blond Hair!
I got a hair cut today. I got there, told her that I needed everything trimmed, and that the top seemed too heavy, so I needed it texturized. She asked me what side I parted my hair on, and I promptly told her THE WRONG SIDE, and didn't realize it until she was part way through my hair cut, and then I was too embarrassed to tell her that I'm a dork... so she just cut and texturized my hair on the wrong side... and now it looks like this every time I do my hair:


I have been trying to do my hair on the other side, but I can't work the blow dryer and brush on that side of my head.

Right when I was going to post this I read this on one of my favorite blogs... and she was WAY funnier than me.... so this post just sits there in drafts.

Ew! Don't Eat That!
At my house no one is an especially picky eater. Some don't eat as much as others, but everyone is pretty willing to try just about anything. They get this from Rik.... not me. I'm not a picky eater, but I'm also not an adventurous eater. Rik on the other hand, eats some of the most bizarre things (and by bizarre I mean, I don't eat them....) Every morning he has his oatmeal and a glass of blueberry/pomegranate juice with his freshly ground flax seed in it (he has a coffee grinder at home and at work to grind it up.) He takes his protein powder with him to work, to drink sometime during the day along with his favorite supplements (fish oil is among them). He loves anything pickled (asparagus and okra are his favorites). Later on in the afternoon he drinks a glass of V8 Spicy with pimento stuffed olives in it (he says he actually CRAVES this and can hardly wait to drink it.) He snacks on wasabi peanuts and grapefruit covered in salt. I could probably write a whole paragraph on the cheeses he likes, and the time he made blue cheese and salmon sandwiches in the microwave (oh man, it smelled so bad.... I can't even....)

And that's as far as I got, cause all of a sudden my stomach wasn't feeling that great.... and I didn't want to spend anymore time on his weird food habits. To his credit though, I don't know if it is his food or what, but he is never sick. He has never taken a sick day from work since we got married, and that says a lot right there. But he is no longer allowed to make melted stinky cheese fish sandwiches in the microwave.

And so there you have it.... I've cleaned out all the garbage that was in my "drafts" folder. I'm curious though, does anyone else have half-written stuff that is not worthy to be posted?

My Blog Book Review

So my blog book did end up coming today and I love it! I got mine from SharedBook.com. I honestly didn't even try any other places.... which is weird, I usually shop around, but I was on a friends blog and read their experience with Shared Book, so I just went with same place. Besides the actual book, Shared Book also had another cool thing you could do, and it was cheap. You could put your blog address in, and it made it into an e-book. It was under $3 to have them do that. That's where it looks like a book on your computer, you can zoom in and flip through the pages. He's a weird thing though, the e-book and the printed book had to be done in different transactions. I couldn't add both to my cart at the same time. When you put your blog address in, it puts together the e-book and you can preview it page by page, and that is the same way your printed book will be laid out. I didn't actually preview too many of the pages. I got to chose the front cover picture, and when it came the very first picture on my blog was the picture on the back of the book (which, incidentally is a picture of Anaya, so she thinks she owns the thing.....) You have the option of choosing a hard back book, or a paperback book. There was about a $10 difference, and I went for the hard back book. It reminds me of my high school year books as far as the size and feel of the book. I'm not too impressed with the binding though, and already it looks like it's not going to last very long..... I might end up spiral binding it.


I have the same layout for each of my blog entries: pictures centered above the text. I like the way this looks, but the format in the book is pictures on the left and text on the right, so my picture captions are all off. Makes more sense to do it that way though... less wasted space on the pages. So I might play around with my blog format this year and see how it looks next year.


All the blog comments are in the back of the book. So the last 38 pages of my blog book are comments. I started my blog the middle of February last year, and I ended up with 140 pages in all in my book, and including shipping paid a little more than $50. Cheap compared to scrapbooking, and a lot more content (just not as creative and cutesy.) The pictures were great quality and the text it easy to read.


The book has been a huge hit, and I have loved flipping through it remembering the last year. There are tons of pictures, which I like, because I take lots of pictures, but I'm not very good at getting them printed, and the blog book kind of takes care of that for me, and has them all together and dated. I really love it and wish I could go back and get the first 15 years of my marriage all printed and together like this (so don't be surprised if I do some reminiscing this year on my blog!) My pictures really don't do it justice, everything looks much better in person.

Anaya and the DoDo song

Anaya learned to play this song on the piano (read this to find out why Anaya calls it the "DoDo song) and plays it every time she walks past the piano. She usually ends up singing the rest of the song (the words are "Do dodo dodo do dodo dodo do dodo dodo do do dodo") after she plays the beginning part. I thought maybe I should start her on some beginning piano lessons, because she seems to have good finger coordination and I thought she would really like them, but here's an example of how our first lesson went:

Me: Lets start right here in your book.
Anaya: No I don't want to, it doesn't have any butterflies on it.
Me: It doesn't matter if there are butterflies on it, just look right here and....
Anaya: I'm not playing unless there are butterflies.
Me: Maybe we can get some butterfly stickers to put on the page... sheesh, or I could draw one on there....(and then think about what I just said)... but you CAN NOT color on my piano books.
Anaya: Get some stickers then.
Me: Why don't you put your fingers right here on the black keys and I'll teach you "Mary Had A Little Lamb."
Anaya: Oh, I love that song!! (Proceeds to sing whole song.....twice)
Me: Just put your hands right here.
Anaya: No, I don't want to put them right there... how about right here? (Put hands in totally wrong place)
Me: Anaya, you have to put your hands where the book tells you. Do you see the pictures on top of the page, it tells you where you need to put your hands to play the song right.
Anaya: Those are stupid pictures.
Me: Anaya how many times have I told you we don't say "stupid."
Anaya: Where are the butterfly stickers?
Me: I have to get them at the store.
Anaya: That's stupid!
Me: WE DO NOT SAY STUPID!
Anaya: Fine, I don't want to play the piano (and then proceeds to play the "Carol Bell" song 500 times starting on the wrong note.... just to make obnoxious noise.) Do I get a piano treat now?

And so we are going to wait a little while, like maybe 5 years, before we find some poor teacher to teach Anaya piano (and yes, we will find someone else to teach her and it will totally be worth every penny.)

The "Finlayson Family Blog" book was supposed to get here by January 23rd, and didn't get here yet, but hopefully today. Maybe all the snow held it up a little bit. Lots and lots of new snow, which I think is stupid great for the farmers, and for Kayden and Malia who went snowboarding Friday night and Kayden who went all day Saturday too. Kayden is stiff as a "board" from all that snowboarding though. Ha ha! What a good pun.... as in, stiff as a SNOW-BOARD.... Fine, I'll just get off the computer and go fold some laundry (*shakes head and mumbles "no sense of humor."*)

Oh ya, I remember... I have a blog!

I really have no excuses.... I haven't been any more busy than usual, and haven't taken on any big projects..... At any rate, today I'm going to do the "Readers Digest" version of my blog and say I'm all caught up.

Rik had a birthday. His favorite gift...... a jar of pickled okra. Ya, I said "blech" even typing it.

McKay is pretty serious about his Star Wars Jedi training, practicing several hours a night with his light saber and in his bath robe, which you can't call a robe because he thinks only girls wear robes.... but "bath cloak" is just fine. I can tell he's pretty serious about this because he tried to use the force to get the hymn book in sacrament meeting on Sunday. He and his best friend Tate practice all their best moves so they can be Jedi's together someday. Tate comes over in a Storm Trooper outfit just about every time. McKay really wants one too. I really don't get all this. I don't think Anaya gets it (she keeps asking if she can be O-B-Do-B-Do or maybe the fairy, which makes McKay crazy.... and makes him tell the whole story of Star Wars from the prequels to the end.....) I think he would be more upset to know that Star Wars isn't real than Santa.

I read an AWESOME book. I finished "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins last week. Kayden is half way through it, and says the same thing....soooo goooood (He doesn't use as many ooo's though.) Just a side note: It wasn't as barbaric/Mad Max/science fiction as I thought it was going to be.

I totally bombed on these Christmas gifts. I didn't mention them in my last post about the stellar job I did buying Christmas this year, because I thought maybe they would get play time when the kids went back to school.... but they still haven't been touched!




Poor dolly even looks sad just sitting there (which is where she has been since Christmas Day.) Here's what has been a HUGE hit though and gets played every day:


Rik got Malia, Taisha, McKay and Anaya Sansa MP3 players, little external speakers and the docking stations. Then he Rock Boxed the Sansas (which he has explained numerous times to me.... and all I got is now it handles more memory and can do all sorts of cool things), so they can play games and watch videos (McKay's is packed full of Star Wars clips....Anaya's is High School Musical and her favorite radio tunes.) The older kids like them, and I get that, but McKay and Anaya are 5 and 4 years old, and it seems kind of weird that I might not have to buy any more babies. (The Barbie's haven't been played with either, and this is the longest ANY Barbie in my house has had clothes on!)

McKay is reading like a pro. Especially books that are called "Rob on a dog, on a hog, on a log, in a bog." Which he has to read to me three times.

I found Taisha a "real" piano teacher..... apparently I wasn't good enough. *sniff*

We've ("we" meaning everyone else, not me, 'cause I don't like snow) had two snow boarding trips (and the snow is terrible this year... kind of like snow boarding on concrete... don't fall down or it will bruise! Way too warm and no new snow in over two weeks!)

Alrighty then..... I'm right in the middle of the 8th Ranger Apprentice book, which I had to order from Australia again (they only have the first 4 or 5 books here in the States). Good series of books! I'm waiting to get "The Finlayson Blog" book, which should be here this week I think. I'll let you know how it looks (that's about as close as I get to scrap booking.)

Alright, now I'm ready for the week to begin...

I think I needed one more week of Christmas break, but with the kids in school.... does that make sense? This week Rik has been in New Mexico for work. I'm glad he doesn't have to travel a lot, and you know me, always thinking positive..... with Rik gone this week, cooking dinner has been minimal (or non-existent). We had sandwiches, mac and cheese, frozen chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, and chili cheater burritos. (I wouldn't want to eat like that all the time, but every now and again, the break from cooking is just what I need!) Oh, and we had Florence chocolates, but they were the nut ones, so the good for you kind. And I have decided that doing laundry for 6 people is totally manageable. You wouldn't think one more person would make a huge difference, but I was on top of my laundry every day with Rik gone, and that's not the case when the whole family is here. Also, Kayden was thrilled to have a hot shower EVERY DAY this week! But probably the best part about this week, has been my back, which has been miraculously cured! I have really had a hard time sleeping for the last 6 months or more (my back aches so much by about 4 in the morning I can hardly sleep!), and I just figured maybe it was all the work on the basement, or maybe I needed a new mattress, or maybe some chiropractic work done, or worse yet, maybe I needed to start some exercise/Pilate's/yoga routine ugh ..... But I have felt great all week, and have slept like a rock! Now, I'm not saying that Rik is causing my bad sleep (yes I am), but wow! I feel like a whole new person! So here is my solution:


Queen over Queen bunk beds. I'm not so fond of the huge knotty logs.... I'm, more an Ikea-type of a girl, like I wish they made this in a queen-size:


How cool is that! Couch by day, transforms to bunk beds by night! But it seems there's not a huge variety of queen-sized bunk beds for me to pick from, which is too bad. I think Rik would have liked sleeping on the top too. Nothing says exciting like sleeping 1/2 an inch under the ceiling fan!

Rik should be home about 1:00 this afternoon, and he is taking the 3 older kids snowboarding at about 4:00. Hopefully there is some good snow in the mountains. It's kind of melted off here, and last night we were supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow, and this is what we woke up to:


I'm not complaining though. Rik had to get up at 3:30 this morning to get to the airport on time, so I'm just hoping he stays awake and alert so nothing like this happens.