Cranberry Juice

Friday night Josh and I traded in our date night for a total recall of our apartment...AKA we deep-cleaned the whole place. We did an enormous amount of laundry, I taught Josh how to clean the bathroom properly, I made the tile floors shine, and we generally organized and picked up our entire apartment. It was exhausting but so satisfying to wake up Saturday morning in freshly laundered sheets in a sunny room that was finally devoid of excess papers and clothes.

Did I mention that I swept and mopped all the tile? I even moved all the furniture out of the kitchen so I could get at every nook (but not the crannies--I leave those alone). So imagine my distress when Saturday afternoon I pulled out a brand new bottle of icky cranberry juice to drink (my doctor says it's good for you) and shook it--right out of my hands. It slipped out and smashed full-force all over my newly cleaned floor. Plus it was a seven-dollar bottle of gross juice, so that really bothered me. It was only later as I bemoaned the sticky, stained, glass-strewn tile that I realized a stupid chunk of glass had smacked my knuckle so hard that it caused an immediate bruise. Then later, as I mopped up the sticky mess and picked up the giant pieces of glass, I found the streak of juice on my ankle and toe wasn't juice--that stupid bottle had cut me twice. I hate getting cut.

Later, as I looked at the floor and cupboards to make sure I hadn't missed any juice, I realized that my first mopping wasn't good enough. Although it took out the red stain, it left a sticky residue that Josh didn't notice in his sock-covered feet (Quit walking around in socks, Josh!) but that I couldn't ignore. I had to mop it all over again. Saturday was not a fun day for me.

Hoarders

Rachel's facebook status today mentioned the television show Hoarders, which I had never heard of, so Josh and I watched the first episode. My thoughts on the show:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I never, ever, EVER want to be like those people! One woman on the show had rotting food for years just all over her house. This other woman had laundry carpeting her stairs all the way down to the basement.

I'm a little bit of a clutter-freak anyway, so this show really struck a nerve. I don't need my living space to be spotless--continuously disinfected, swept, mopped, and dusted--per se, but I DO need it to be open and uncluttered. Everything needs to have a place and if it doesn't have a place, it needs to be thrown away. If I can't wear the clothes or shoes, they're given to DI. If I can't fit the clothes or shoes into the closet, I give more clothes to DI. I don't like books just sitting on the table or papers cluttering up the counter--they need to be put away or thrown away so I can have that open, uncluttered apartment. It's especially important to me to have "unclutteredness" (or as I like to call it: "Utter Bliss") because our apartment is already so small. It's easy to let things pile up and around us when there's very little room to fit it all, but we don't let it because it's evil and wants to destroy all happiness. Also, clutter likes to eat small children. And it invites Dementors into your home.

After the show ended, Josh was so spooked that he said he wanted to get rid of some of his old t-shirts. Works for me--we're cleaning out our closet today to make a DI run. Also, we took a tentative and very apprehensive peek into our fridge--very sparse and clean. No rotting vegetables from 4-24 months ago. *whew*

Seriously, I don't think we're at risk for the kinds of hoarding behavior shown in that awful episode from hell, but even so, we're gonna get rid of a few things. No sense wasting the lesson and that feeling of rising panic and utter terror.

Othelleos

I cannot play the game Othello without craving Oreos. It has become a legitimate issue in my life. I seriously love the game, but something about those black and white discs makes me crave Oreos in the worst way. It's gotten to the point where I had to tell Josh that I wouldn't play the game anymore unless we had Oreos to eat while I play. He didn't fight that stipulation one bit. He's such a support to me.

A Day in the Life of New Student Support

I sit next door to my friend Janelle. Today a lady called Janelle and asked for help completing her taxes. We are not the IRS, we are the financial aid department. So Janelle explains, “I’m sorry, but we’re not authorized to tell you what to put on your taxes.”

The lady rebuts, “I just want to know what to put to make sure I get my financial aid.”

Right. We’re all certain you do want that, but it is illegal for us to force-feed you information to put on your taxes. It’s illegal for ANYONE to give you that information. Do your own taxes, lady—you’re a grown woman!

Janelle doesn’t say any of these things. She simply repeats, “We’re not authorized to tell you what to put on your taxes.”

The lady insists that someone is. “Well maybe YOU aren’t. Put me through to someone who can help me.”

Janelle remains calm. “Who would you like to speak with?

“A supervisor. Get me to your supervisor.”

So Janelle politely transfers the student to our team lead, Jennifer. Jennifer sits on the other side of my cubicle’s wall, so I can’t see her, but I can hear her.

“Financial aid, this is Jennifer…I’m sorry, you want what? No, that’s against federal regulation. You’ll have to see a tax professional to get that kind of help…”

Then the student hung up. Good riddance to people who don’t listen!

Hip Hip Hooray!

Growing up at our house, food was your own responsibility for the most part. My mom provided regular dinners and otherwise the cupboards had ample supplies for you to get your own breakfast and make your own school lunch. (I liked the independence, but I grew sorely tired of PB&Js after first grade, lemme tell you.) Anyhoo, the point is that whatever food was available in the fridge and cupboards was up for grabs. Except for the unspoken rule: nobody touched the baby’s food. It didn’t matter who the baby was—there was always one or two lying around. And since the rest of us could eat anything in the cupboard, but babies can only eat specially-made colored goop in jars and those Arrowroot cookies , the food purchased especially for the baby was sacred.

Oh sure, every now and then one of us would sneak a jar of baby food (I LOVED the banana stuff, and some of the other weirdos in my family liked that apple flavor. Nobody touched the carrots) but for the most part, the baby food was left for the baby. Except, on very special nights when my mom was just too tired to feed us anything else, we got to eat…baby cereal!

I honestly have no idea what it’s really called. No wait, I just looked it up. They call it Rice Cereal. How very generic of them. Officially, it’s called “Gerber Rice Cereal for Baby”, otherwise known as baby cereal. And man, is that stuff magical.

We ate it with sugar and milk like any other boring, bland cereal and the texture was just too fun for words. It’s mushy and mixy and just fun to play with. I loved it then and still love it now. Whenever I’m sick or snackish or have a stomach-eating bacteria that curbs my appetite and makes me nauseous, I can count on baby cereal to be there for me. Loving me. Filling me up with bland mush that sits satisfactorily on my stomach without making me want to throw up. Three cheers for baby cereal!

Genie-ology

So my latest BYU Independent Study class is a historical research class, otherwise known as genealogy. I have to pick two southern states and conduct some research using the principles and techniques I find in my coursework to discover new things about my ancestors. Well up until I yesterday, I didn't know I had any family who lived in the south. My great-grandmother was born in Alabama and two of my great-great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy. I can't wait to find out if they fought against my mom's Irish ancestors during the Civil War. How cool would that be? That'd make my parents Romeo and Juliet except not dead.

Aside from the parts relative to my own personal history, I'm not finding much enjoyment with this class. It teaches nothing of genies and I don't know how to use the resources they describe in the reference section. Time to consult the only person who knows as much about genealogy as God does...to be continued.