overheard

*This happened after my second prenatal appointment, around 9 weeks.
Amy: Wanna hear something funny? I've actually lost 2 pounds since the last time I went to the doctor.
Brian (really excited): Do you think our baby is made of helium??

*At my appointment in mid-September, I got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time (although I had already seen it on an ultrasound).
Amy: Brian, I got to hear the heartbeat today! It was really fast - the nurse said it was about 160.
Brian: That's how fast I beat...
Amy: Um, no way does your heart beat that fast, there would be something wrong.
Brian (starting to speak while Amy is finishing): ...poor, defenseless animals.
*As horrible as it is, I laughed for probably 5 minutes about that. There's a reason I married Brian. :)

Name the Casaday Baby

Hello all,
As you have likely heard, Amy is expecting our first child next March!

Take a chance to vote on the name of the new Casaday at this little survey I created. You can take the survey multiple times, as the questions are different each time.

editing headache

During the summer, I had 2 classes to finish up before graduation. One of them was a world history class that was only difficult because of my extreme lack of interest in the subject. Anyway, one of the assignments during the semester was to write a 3-4 page paper related to a memoir we read. After turning in our rough drafts, we had to read and review 2 of our peers' papers.

I know I'm not the best writer in the world (I'm the first to admit it!!). However, before I started at OSU, I was warned by several friends not to worry too much about it because no one at OSU can write. ;) Unfortunately, when I read the other students' papers, I found that I had to agree to an extent. (Don't worry, I know some people at OSU can write...) One of the papers was chock full of run-on sentences. I have reproduced the worst offenders below for your reading pleasure/pain/torment. (NOTE: I did not ask his permission and may have to take this down.)

"For example, after the Russians and Chinese had made their way back and winter was settling in quite hard, Kuramoto’s father was outside cutting a tree up for firewood to keep his family from freezing to death when two Chinese policemen came up and enlightened him to the fact that that tree and house and yard were not his, that they actually belonged to the Chinese government and would not be able to cut any more tree branches off the trees."

"True they were not thinking of imperialism as it is talked about today but because of the imperialistic way of life the citizens were pressured into thinking constantly about the effects of imperialism, such as segregation, oppression, rioting and later in life the mental aspects of being in the trenches of a collapsing imperialistic society."
 
After reading the first one, Brian recommended that I comment with "Holy run-on sentence, Batman!" for it in my peer review. Too bad I didn't have the guts.

Diary of a Rock

June 27th

Earlier today there was a windstorm. I was fine, but plenty of other smaller rocks got blown around. Hopefully we don’t have anything worse tomorrow.

June 28th

Not much happened today.

July 17th

I’m going to be better about writing. The past couple weeks have been pretty boring, and I haven’t had much to write about, but I’ll do better. It’s been pretty good weather lately.

August 3rd

Have my eyes on another rock a few yards away, but I don’t know if she even notices me. Maybe I’ll get the courage to do something… oh, who am I kidding! I’m just a rock.

August 6th

I AM SO FREAKED OUT RIGHT NOW!!! I’m surprised I’m even alive, and I don’t even know what’s going on! Earlier this morning I saw a meteor overhead, or at least I thought it was a meteor. It looked like it was breaking up, but then it started SLOWING DOWN! It was coming down overhead, when something crazy happened- it started shooting flames downward! Yeah. Shooting flames! It looked like it had four or five torches, blasting everything in its path. Oh and did I mention, it also had bright lights on it? It even blasted some fellow sand and rocks just a few yards away. Then suddenly, while hovering in the air (it stopped falling completely) it slowly lowered down a giant monster on a cable until it got to the ground. Afterwards, the meteor-thing flew away and I lost sight of it as it went behind the mountains.  It still had its torches annihilating everything as it went. But the monster is still here! It’s right in front of me. At first it didn’t appear to be alive, but after a couple of minutes, it started moving and making funny noises. It hasn’t actually moved from where it landed, but its head (I think) and arms have been moving around. I think it’s looking at me right now...

August 7th

I was hoping that yesterday was some sort of hallucination, but the monster is still here. While I’m not sure, I think it’s an alien from another planet. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It hasn’t moved much, but it also hasn’t done anything to make me any less anxious. It continues to look around making beeping and buzzing noises. It’s bigger than I originally thought, and its head can extend about ten feet above its body. I wish it would leave. It has a bunch of arms and legs, I can’t see them all. It certainly doesn’t look friendly.

August 8th

The alien hasn’t moved more than a couple inches. Maybe its legs are broken.

August 10th

Ya know, maybe I misjudged the alien. After all, it hasn’t done anything to me (yet). The initial terror of the last few days has subsided, but the alien still hasn’t made any effort at all to tell me why it’s even here.

August 12th

Perhaps this alien race has come in peace. I think the alien has just been observing the surroundings. After all, if I were to visit another planet, I wouldn’t know the first thing about communicating with the natives. I’d probably do the same thing as this alien, just cautiously observe and explore the surroundings.

August 16th

I wonder what kind of things we will learn from this alien species! Certainly we could trade technologies, histories, and help to solve each other’s problems. Thinking about it, this is actually a very amazing thing to experience.

August 19th

This might be my last entry. I was wrong. The aliens are definitely not peaceful. The alien is armed, and today, without provocation, shot me with a freakin’ laser! I’m still alive, but I’m not sure for how long. If anybody is reading this, please spread the word. I can only assume that this alien is here to learn about our strengths and defenses, probably preparing for an invasion!

overheard

Brian (trying to give Amy a pep talk): You can do anything you want to.

Amy: But I don't want to get up!

Yeah, it was a struggle to get out of bed this morning. Methinks we need to go to bed earlier.

******

Brian (complimenting Amy): You're cuter than a baby skunk.
In his defense, we saw a baby skunk a few weeks ago, and it was pretty cute.

 (Stolen from http://www.flickr.com/photos/floridapfe/4041568530/)

overheard

I've been helping in Sunbeams (the 3-year-old class at church) for a few weeks here and there. This interaction made me giggle.

*at the end of class, the kids were coloring and eating small snacks*
P (3-year-old): I need 4 more animal crackers.
E (substitute teacher and mother of one of the children): Everyone can have 2 more or none at all.
P: I think I'll have none.
*E hands more animal crackers to some of the other kids*
P: I decided I need 3 more. No, 4.
*E hands her 2 more animal crackers*
P: Is this 4?
E: Yes.

I'm sure P could have figured out that it wasn't 4 if she had thought about it (she obviously knows numbers). But she seemed content with E's answer and happily ate the extra animal crackers. I cracked up in the corner. :)

garden version 2.012

Warning: Lots of pictures of green things to follow.

We planted our garden a bit late(r) this year. I don't know exactly when it was, but maybe May or June instead of on our anniversary, like last year. Although our plot is small, we decided we wanted to expand. So naturally, we asked our neighbor if we could use his plot too. ;) He wasn't planning on using it, and was more than willing to oblige. We did told him that he can have some of the produce if he ever wants it.

 This was all picked in one day. Two decent cucumbers, with more still on the vines; delicious cherry tomatoes (I often eat them right off the plant, without even washing them); cayenne peppers, not quite ripe but still with plenty of kick; sage (bottom right); lemon basil (right). We used a lot of this for dinner that night.

When we planted, we still had the onions and garlic from last year (that didn't turn out so well...), as well as the ice plant, Rose of Sharon, and honeysuckle. There were also some grapes and blueberries we planted last year as an experiment, and they haven't died yet (the grapes are currently flourishing, although the blueberries seem to be trying to die). We had to pull out all the overgrown weeds and ended up getting rid of the garlic and onions too. This year, we planted:

• one strawberry plant
• one cilantro plant
• one lemon basil plant (inspired by someone in our ward - it's wonderful!)
• one sage plant
• one catawba plant (some sort of flowering shrub, I think)

 

Our side of the garden.

 

 Sage (left) and lemon basil (right). Top left is the catawba Brian planted.

 

  You may not be able to pick these out as well, I wish there was a better way to describe it. Bottom left is cilantro. Top left is the catawba. Top middle is the honeysuckle from last year. Bottom middle is our happy little ice plant. Right is the Rose of Sharon. It's hard to see, but between the honeysuckle and the Rose of Sharon is our sad little strawberry plant. It hasn't died, but it hasn't grown much either (certainly no fruit).

Rose of Sharon. This picture is mostly to make Brian's family jealous, since we bought it as a one gallon plant in April 2011. :) It has grown much better (and bigger) than it would have in the same amount of time in UT. I guess this also gives a fairly good view of the honeysuckle.

Blossoms - we didn't want double blossoms, and the tag said they weren't, but when it grew, that's what bloomed. I guess it's still pretty, and believe me, this bush/tree is Brian's pride and joy. ;)

The other side of the garden:

• three cherry tomato plants
• three long red cayenne pepper plants
• three green/red bell pepper plants
• three cucumber plants
• a packet of flower seeds (don't remember what kind, they haven't grown)

  Our neighbor's side of the garden, which he so graciously let us use. The tomatoes (along the fence) have somewhat taken over, which I guess we should have expected. Some of that along the fence is also honeysuckle creeping over from the other side.

 Can you see the little bell pepper hiding?

 Long red cayenne peppers - not terribly long or red.

 I can't figure out why Blogger insists on rotating this picture, so I'll just have to leave it and be frustrated. This is our lovely cucumber patch.