Random Thoughts About the Zombie Apocalypse

I've been reading a series of zombie books this week, which of course kicks my overly active imagination into gear. As I was walking out my front door into the dark this morning, I had to do a quick scan - you know, just in case there were any zombies lurking.

The logical part of my brain reminded me that there is no zombie apocalypse. And the paranoid part of my brain pointed out that the first wave of victims never knows it's coming. The zombification has to reach critical mass before the news is widespread (by which time it's generally too late to stop the wave). If we were at ground zero for the infection, we wouldn't know it yet.

Which led me to wonder... Is it better to be taken out early or to be a survivor? If you're a survivor, you have the benefit of, you know, surviving. But you're living in fear. You're running from and fighting off zombies all the time. You're probably low on essentials like food, water, electricity, and Facebook access.

Whereas, being a zombie is probably fairly stress-free. Sure, there's that pesky craving for brains, but you no longer have to worry about paying the mortgage, holding down a job, cleaning the house. All those can go by the wayside, allowing you to focus on the search for more brains. I tend to think that if zombies think at all, it's just kind of a foggy awareness that they're hungry. But nothing else seems to bother them, even terrible wounds that previously would have incapacitated someone. See? Low stress.

Overall, I've got to think maybe you're better off to just go down in the first round of attacks. Now that I realize that, I guess I don't have to be nervous about zombies outside my door anymore. ;)

Tell Me a Story: Where I Grew Up

I grew up in Vernal, Utah. Also known as Dinosaurland. There is a big focus on dinosaurs in the area because we have the Dinosaur Quarry (officially Dinosaur National Monument, but we've always just referred to it as the Quarry) a short distance outside of town. It's a pretty famous fossil site - there are even pictures of the Quarry in the Smithsonion's dinosaur exhibit.

There is also a dinosaur museum in town. (Again, the official name is more impressive - Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum. They built a new, updated museum a few years ago. It's much nicer than the one I grew up visiting!) There are statues of dinosaurs around town, too. Mostly of Dina, the town mascot. But also one of a giant T-Rex in the middle of Main Street. The T-Rex dresses up for holidays... a bunny at Easter, a Santa hat and lights at Christmas, etc. I always find it pretty funny. :)

So with the dinosaur obsession in town, I grew up knowing a lot about dinosaurs. After all, we had two field trips each year all through my school years. One would be to the dinosaur museum in town, the other to the dinosaur quarry. Sheer repetition meant that I would absorb a lot of dinosaur knowledge. I actually didn't realize how much random dinosaur knowledge I had acquired until college, when one of my roommates took a paleontology class. She would bring her homework to me each night because I knew most of the answers already without having looked it up... I should have taken that class! I could have used an easy A. :)

For most of my growing-up years, we lived in a house right next door to my grandparents on their farm. That meant it was just a quick walk across the fields to visit Grandma and Grandpa any time you wanted. You could stay the night there pretty much any night of the week. You could run over there to hide out when you weren't getting along with your family. It was pretty great.

I also loved being able to go roam the fields with my siblings and cousins. We would trek up to the pond and fish for sunfish... so tiny and useless that you couldn't even cook them. Yet we kept bringing them home for dinner. We picked watercress from the creek and Grandma would make watercress sandwiches for lunch. We picked asparagus from the roadside to cook for dinner. We got corn straight from the huge cornfield.

There were chickens and pigs and cows, too. I wasn't a huge fan of any of them. The pigs were huge and dirty and mean. The cows mostly ignored us - they really just liked Grandpa. But I learned to milk a cow and strain and separate the milk. It wasn't until I went to school that I ever had pasterized milk - we had always just had fresh milk from the cows. The "school milk," as we called it, tasted so horrible to us that my mom had to send a note to school excusing us from drinking the nasty stuff. (Actually, I still hate the taste of milk now. I wonder if I would like the fresh, unpasteurized stuff if I tried it again? Maybe my dislike of milk is still from the days of "school milk.")

I could gather eggs and feed chickens. I wasn't a fan of that, either, since the hens would sometimes peck at you when you tried to gather the eggs or even put out food. But I still helped with those chores because it meant going out with my Grandpa who I adored (still do!).

We would swim in the canal and swing on the rope swing in the gully. We smashed down "rooms" in the hay field and played there for hours. (Until we got in trouble for mashing the hay.) We tried riding the horses (we weren't very good at it) and we fed the cows by hand. We had campouts in the fields or on the trampoline in the yard.

We had a lot of fun. It was a wonderful place to grow up.

Tell Me a Story

One of my favorite blogs (Rants from Mommyland) had a very interesting post this morning. It was all about whether you have shared your life stories with your children. Thinking about it, I have shared some things, but mostly we're so busy with the day-to-day stuff that I just haven't told them a lot of stories about our past. So I'm accepting the Rants from Mommyland challenge to tell my stories... by which I mean, I'm going to blog about them. :)

This really isn't a way to avoid actually talking to my kids. Rather, it's a way to make sure I remember to share these things! If I put it on the blog, then I have it written down... at the very least it becomes part of my personal history when I publish a copy of the blog as my journal each year. Plus Haley likes to read the blog. So when she reads these posts, it can serve as the conversation starter with the kids.

I guess I just assumed that I'd probably blogged about this stuff in the past, but looking through the list, I was surprised to realize there's a lot of past history stuff I've never blogged about. In fact, there's only one item I can cross off the list! For the sake of sharing with my kids, there's a lot to catch up on. Here's the list:

The 20 Questions on the Do You Know scale.1. Do you know how your parents met? (see August 11, 2011)
2. Do you know where your mother grew up?
3. Do you know where your father grew up?
4. Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?
5. Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
6. Do you know where your parents were married?
7. Do you know what went on when you were being born?
8. Do you know the source of your name?
9. Do you know some things about what happened when your brothers or sisters were being born?
10. Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
11. Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
12. Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
13. Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
14. Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
15. Do you know the national background of your family (such as English, German, Russian, etc)?
16. Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
17. Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?
18. Do you know the names of the schools that your mom went to?
19. Do you know the names of the schools that your dad went to?
20. Do you know about a relative whose face "froze" in a grumpy position because he or she did not smile enough?

Have you shared these stories with your kids?

Quick Funny from Primary

In Primary we have been practicing the song "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" and the Primary President asked the children  what they would do if the Savior was actually standing beside them; of course looking for answers like 'be really good' and 'do the things I should.'

Those were actually the kinds of answers she got (mostly) today... but it reminded me of a time several years ago when I was teaching the 5-year-olds. Someone asked the question: "What would you do if the Savior stood beside you?"

On of the girls in my class immediately replied: "I would say: Holy, crap! It's Jesus!"

Anniversary

We celebrated our 12th anniversary yesterday. I can honestly say I would gladly do it all again. I love being married to Aaron.

We didn't have much in the way of plans. We'd tossed around maybe ordering Chinese food or maybe taking the kids and going out to dinner. But when I picked up the kids they were ALL in a mood. Several meltdowns occurred before I could even get them into the house. I knew I didn't want to take that all out to try and enjoy a dinner.

At the very last minute (6:15, for a 7:00 start) I texted the lovely Sarah to see if there was any chance she could babysit at short notice on a school night. I'm grateful that both she and her mother agreed to it! Sarah and her brother Adam came over and suddenly the kids were different people! Happy, cheerful, fun to be with! Where were those kids 30 minutes ago?

Aaron and I drove around a bit deciding where to go and decided to try Pinocchio's Italian Restaurant downtown. It was pretty good... though we found it very odd when another couple came in near closing time when the restaurant had pretty much emptied out; and with almost every table in the restaurant to choose from, the hostess chose to seat them RIGHT next to us. The tables are not spaced far apart, either, so we felt like we were suddenly on a double-date with these strangers. :)

We had a nice dinner together. We didn't have to feed anyone else, or referee anyone's arguments, or clean up after the kids (though I'll confess that I had to clean up after myself several times because I kept dropping noodles, LOL; usually I can blame that kind of thing on the kids!). We joked that we should have gone to Subway for dinner, since that's where we ate on our wedding night. :) By the time the wedding and reception were over, we were starving and Subway was the only place still open! So we enjoyed a romantic wedding dinner of Subway sandwiches back in our room at the bed and breakfast.

We reminisced about previous anniversaries. For our first anniversary, we spent the weekend at a bed and breakfast in Manitou Springs. It was very romantic.

For our second anniversary we had similar plans, but a major blizzard struck and the whole city was snowed in for several days. We were disappointed to cancel our plans, but still enjoyed the time together away from work.

On our third anniversary, Haley was 3 months old. We wanted to do something special, but we had this tiny child to deal with. So we drove the 8 hours to Vernal to visit my parents for the weekend, solely so we could leave Haley with my mother overnight and we could spend the night at the bed and breakfast where we'd stayed on our wedding night. It was lovely, but in retrospect a little ridiculous to drive so far!

And then... we just kind of stopped doing anything much. Too difficult with kids! We've generally managed a dinner date (though I know we were snowed in at least a couple more times - March 19 is apparently prime time for a big snowstorm), but we leave it at that. That's ok. It's the day-to-day life that makes our marriage special, not just one day.

I enjoyed the surprise flowers that I found when I got home from work. I enjoyed the evening out with Aaron. I really enjoyed coming home to find the kids already asleep! And most of all, I've enjoyed being married for the last 12 years. Happy anniversary, sweetheart!

Quick Funny from Brekken

Brekken is standing on a tall stool and shouts: "I believe I can fly!" immediately before leaping from the stool.

He crashes to the ground and lies there for a moment, stunned.

Then he stands, brushes himself off, and tells me seriously: "Oops. I guess I was wrong."

Quick Funny from Preston

I was complaining about the weather... because I swear that the weatherman said that this week was supposed to be warm and clear!

Preston heard me and responded (impatiently):

"Mom, the weatherman doesn't control the weather! God chooses the weather and He doesn't have to tell the weatherman what He's going to do."