I've Learned...

Trillian and Thursday are getting along famously. Here are some things that we've learned about both our dogs over the past few days:

Thursday can climb over the baby gates we have set up in our doorways. She puts her front paws on top and uses her back paws to climp up the fencing part. Then it's up and over. I'll post a film this weekend.

Trillian likes bones now. Al bought a hickory bone for her probably over a month ago. She ignored it completely. Thursday went straight for it her first time in the house. Now they play keep away. One dog leaves it alone for a second, the other one picks it up. Trillian chews furiously on it while Thursday is distracted. It's like she wants to chew the whole thing up so there won't be any left for Thursday!

As it turns out, Trillian really is a relaxed dog. Once contrasted with Thursday's bouncy-trouncy antics, it's pretty obvious how mellow Trillian is.

Thursday has no fear. She'll jump off of anything, go anywhere, approach anyone.

Thursday is learning from Trillian. If she wants a treat, she sits down and puts her paw up. Trillian sits and puts a paw up, and if that doesn't work, she lays down. She pretty much just cycles through her tricks.

The cat's patience is extremely limited. Oh wait, we already knew that. However, I've never actually seen him spit before.

Meet Thursday!

Ok, so you know how I said we were thinking of getting another dog closer to the spring? Well, it is now closer to the spring than when I said that...

Meet Thursday! She's 9 weeks old and her mom is an Australian Shepherd, but we don't know what dad was. She's a cutie and I love that she has eyebrows just like Trillian's!

We named her after the main character in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. If you were wondering, Trillian is named after a girl in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Rand and Moiraine (the bearded dragons) are named after characters in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Series. Bear is named after our friend Val's dog's (Copper's) toys. It's a long story.

We picked her up at a Furburbia Pet Adoption Center in Park City. We brought her home and Trillian is in love. She tries to get Thursday to chase her, but it didn't work out so well for her at first. By last night, they were playing like old pros.

The cat, however, reacted something like this:

It doesn't help matters that Thursday is small enough to get into all of his hiding places.

Tag!

Jen tagged me, so here I go:
The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
1. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
2. At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

10 years ago:
January of 1998...I was 20. I must have been working at Brick Oven in Provo at the time, but that was probably close to the end of my time there. Basically, I hadn't figured anything out yet. I had school on hold and was pretty much just making money and deciding things.

5 things on my to-do list today:
Yeah, it's Saturday. I make an effort to not have a to-do list on Saturday. Any other day of the week I have a big one. So today I had to feed the lizards, let the dog out every now and then, check for my FedEx package by looking out the front door, watch tv online, and do crafty things. And laundry. I've been washing the dog's blankets.

5 Snacks I enjoy:
Chocolate, tea, edamame, popcorn, and chocolate.

What I would do if I were suddenly made a billionaire:
I'd probably keep working, but I'd see if Al would want to quit or go part time in order to go back to school. He'd probably say no. I'd take some more college classes and get more degrees. I'd travel a lot, especially to visit family members in other places. I'd make sure Al had his dream car(s) and invest plenty. I'd also want to donate to education issues. What can I say...I'm biased!

3 of my bad habits:
Starbucks at least once a week, amazon.com, and chocolate

5 places I have lived:
I can do better than that. San Jose and San Diego, California, Sierra Vista, Arizona, Charllottesville, Virginia, Berlin and Heidelberg, Germany, Norfolk, Virginia, Charllottesville again, San Antonio, Texas, and numerous homes and apartments between Provo and Brigham City, Utah.

5 jobs that I have had:
I'm currently a teacher in high school, but before that I was a server/bartender for Chili's in two locations and a host/hostcaptain/cashier/busser/server at Brick Oven in Provo.

5 Things people don't know about me:
Everyone doesn't know everything about me, but between everyone, everything is known. Therefore, I'll just have to go for lesser-known facts. Al and I are attempting to breed crickets. I've logged over 1,000 hours on various Final Fantasy video games, but Al's probably beating me. I once had a dream that Patrick Dempsey was a manager-in-training at my Chili's (this was before Grey's Anatomy) and I have a copy of his J.Crew catalog in a box somewhere. I'm addicted to ABC.com. Finally, I always have chapstick.

Well, since I don't know many people on Blogspot just yet, I guess I'll tag Jill and Ashley! Have a great time, guys!

Adventures in the Snow and Kitchen

For our final day off together, Al and I had more errands to run. It's still snowy here and my car (Mugsy) had its annual registration inspection. My tires barely passed, so we thought it would be a good idea to get new ones right away. It snowed pretty heavily all day, but we made it and now Mugsy has new shoes, too!

Then we shoveled snow for the second time that day. (I even helped this time!)

We went to Walmart and PetCo and Al got his hair cut (see the pictures below--doesn't he look great?) and then we set off on our culinary adventure. We both love Gnocchi, which are potato dumplings that are similar to pasta but softer. We've never made them ourselves before so we thought we'd give it a try. We had to peel and boil potatoes, rice them, make them into a dough with flour and egg, then roll, cut, and boil them. We made an alfredo sauce with cream, cream cheese, and romano cheese, and some italian spices. They turned out so yummy! It's a pretty simple, but time consuming and messy recipe. It definitely was an adventure!

Adventures at Grandma's

After our shoe-shopping funtime, Al and I went to his mom and stepdad's house to spend some time and watch some football. Trillian gets to go with us. Before, she'd chosen Gary as her favorite, in spite of his indifference towards her. This made little sense, because Connie spoils her rotten. I think Connie won yesterday.

Trillian got popcorn (a favorite):

and carrots (another favorite):

Very quickly, Trillian was following Connie around everywhere...especially when she went into the kitchen!

Aside from all of the attention, Trillian also loves playing with Connie's neighbors' Jack Russell Terriers, Tucker and Jaydee. This is what they did for about an hour and a half...it would have gone on longer if we hadn't brought her inside to get dried off.

The open gate in the fence that you see is between Connie's back yard and her neighbors' back yard. On the other side of her house that you can't see, another gate was open. We were unaware of this. Tell-tale tracks in the snow proved that the dogs had used that open gate and ran in the front yard, but they came right back into the backyard! What good little dogs!

Adventures in Footwear

Al and I had a fun day today, which for me means NEW SHOES! Al went with me to Famous Footwear. We had a pretty awesome 20% off coupon and most of their shoes were 20-50% off anyhow, so we found a few terrific deals. We'll cover Al first. He shops with an eye for hideousness and here is what he found:

The brown and white ones aren't so bad. But the orange and beige and black and cream ones are a mystery to me. I guess the shoemakers just knew that there are consumers like Al out there.

I entered the store intending to find some professional brown heeled shoes to wear with some long brown pants that I love. I found other shoes. I'm very good at finding extremely cute, but impractical shoes. The best part is that they're wingtips! I figure that's professional. And I can still wear them with the long brown pants.

But the most amazing thing happened at the clearance rack. You always have to check the clearance rack at Famous Footwear. Today it was a gold mine because I found these:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the real thing. Kangaroos with the zipper pocket in an adult size 9. I wore them proudly all day with my bright orange Gap hoodie.

And tomorrow I will blog about the rest of our first of two momentous days off together.

Miracles

Al has been on a string of closes this past week, which means we quite literally pass one another like strangers in the night. He comes home after I've gone to sleep. I get up and leave while he's still sleeping. He's gone to work before I get home. He had last Sunday and Monday off, but since then, the most we'd spoken to one another was when I'd say goodbye int he morning.

Valerie valiantly saved me by responding to my I'm Bored! text message last night. We met for a late dinner at TGIFridays after her shift at Chili's.

And the next miracle...Al is off tomorrow and Monday. I am off tomorrow and Monday. That NEVER happens!

We plan to watch Pirates of the Caribbean at some point. We never made it to the theater, so we bought the DVD right after it was released, but then there was never a time when we both had a spare 3 hours.

Big plans, I know. But it's gonna be great!

Hello Out There!

A few general announcements:

To Jer: Happy Birthday!

To Ashley and Jill: I'll be putting Christmas pictures in the mail tomorrow...or maybe Tuesday, depending on when the post office is open. I ran out of cds, then got lazy. I meant to have them out this week.

And Jill's blog reminded me of this picture, which I love:

Kenzie and I took dueling photos on Christmas Eve. I was just a bit quicker so I got this picture while Kenzie got a nice white screen courtesy of my flash.

She takes great pictures!

The New Obsession

We went to PetCo on Sunday to get Trillian a new collar. Al felt the 1-inch wide purple one was weenie and wanted to get her something a little tougher. It cost $20, but we found one we we were both happy with:

But we also ran into a man shopping with his full-grown black Great Dane. It was gorgeous and HUGE. Now I knew that Great Danes were huge, but that knowledge in my head and that knowledge standing next to me are two completely different things. This dog, on all four paws, was almost eye level to me. The top of his head was right about chin level. His shoulders were taller than my waist. I'm 5'7" and I could have used this dog as a small horse. Trillian, surprisingly, didn't back down. They made friends and she spent the rest of the shopping experience trying to play with the gigantic dog.

Al and I have been discussing adopting another dog and it's something we've come to an agreement on. There will be another canine member of our little family. If we had another dog and a pet door, I'd feel much better about leaving them for longer periods of time. But after PetCo, Al is looking at Great Dane Rescue organizations.

(Al is actually talking to his mom, here...I just thought it was a cute picture. Trillian is a total Daddy's Girl!)

I don't think I'm ready for a Great Dane...even if Al agreed to name it Hamlet (because Hamlet was Danish, and a prince...Great Dane...hahaha...Get it?). They come with all sorts of health issues and are known for short life spans. Plus, I think we'd have to replace an entire door with just a pet door.

So my declaration that we are not getting a Great Dane may be famous last words that last forever or famous last words that I'll be eating in a few months (new dog won't be joining our family until the Spring at the earliest.

But on the plus side, I think we've come to the agreement that a Great Dane is a fun idea, but impractical when bringing the idea to reality.

If You Ever Have a Bad Day...

Let little Molly cheer you up! This was taken on her four-month birthday. No matter how many times I watch it, I can't not smile!

I Think We're All Paranoid

Here's the cousins performing the "Family Theme Song!"

Trophy Night

Seven years ago yesterday, I was finishing up my first week of a new school semester. It was Friday. I was in class in Ogden while Josh was in surgery in Salt Lake City. We knew it was a risky surgery, but it was also necessary. I vividly remember the moment I knew that Josh wasn't going to survive.

This being the closest relation I have lost, I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I threw myself into school. Sure, it probably wasn't the healthiest thing to do; I know that we're supposed to talk these things out, but whenever I started talking about him, my friends would change the subject. They meant well. They thought it was painful for me, so they tried to move on to lighter subjects.

I had two classes that allowed me to write and write, and writing has always been the most therapeutic thing for me. I probably would have been a huge mess if it weren't for my Notebooks and Journals class with Dr. Schweibert and Biographical Writing with Dr. M. Cheney. I don't know why this piece stood out among the others, but it was a favorite among my classmates and I put more and more work into it. That year it even placed in the WSU writing contest in the nonfiction category. I dusted it off last year to share with my seniors when we were writing memoirs. I shared it with my sophomores and juniors this year during the same unit. Now I know I'm their teacher and they may have just been kissing up, but my students seemed to like it, too.

A lot of you have heard this before, but it's always nice to remember.

Trophy Night

My entire family surrounds the dinner table—spouses and children, any friends or significant others, maybe even grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Since three of my parents’ five kids have grown up and moved out, Sunday dinner has become an almost ritualistic tradition. The funny thing is, we were never invited. We just started showing up and it grew into a weekly reprieve of togetherness.

The leftovers are put away, the dishes are done, the table is scrubbed, and the floor is swept. Everyone gathers in the family room for a casual conversation to catch up on the last week’s events. Somewhere in the middle of this, a booming voice (with the help of the karaoke machine) projects from the living room, “It’s trophy time!”

When it’s trophy time, all other activity must cease. This is Josh’s time to be the master of ceremonies for the Jepperson Family Awards Show, more specifically titled, Joshua Jepperson Trophy Night. Our wide staircase faces into the open living room, and we all find a stair on which to sit and enjoy the enthusiastic antics of our favorite thirteen-year-old, who also happens to have Down Syndrome. With microphone in hand, Josh welcomes us and begins quickly by reciting the two rules governing Trophy Night, “One. Everyone gets a trophy. Two. Everyone, stay here until it’s over.”

The order is random, with Josh looking out into “the crowd” and calling us down one by one, and sometimes in pairs. It feels like a mini-version of “The Price is Right”.

“Pick me, Josh!”

“Hey! Buddy! Over here!”

“My turn, Joshie! I want one!”

Josh puts his index finger against his bottom lip, pauses, then nods his head to indicate he has made his decision.

“And the winner is...Jeffrey! Come on down!”

The family cheers. Mom whistles. Jeff rushes down the stairs, into the living room, and straight to Josh’s side and is met with a big hug. Josh holds up the invisible award and brandishes it above his head before presenting it, mime-like, to Jeff and gesturing for him to take the microphone and begin his acceptance speech.

“Wow,” says Jeff. “I’m so happy to have this award. Let’s see. I’d like to thank Josh. I want to thank Mom and D–...” Josh takes back the microphone and pushes Jeff off the “stage” in one dramatic movement.

“Wait!” Josh demands.

“What?” asks Jeff. But then he remembers. “Oh, yeah. Here you go.” Jeff holds out the make-believe trophy and Josh takes it back. After all, there is only the one make-believe trophy to go around.

When Jeff returns to “the pit” a few of us ask him about his experience.

“What was your award for?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Any ideas?”

“Hmmm. I think I heard something about dinner,” someone suggests.

Someone else agrees. “Yeah, I know I got the word ‘plate’ out of it.”

“I think you got a trophy because you ate all your dinner.”

“Or maybe because you did the dishes after dinner.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the family is shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”

“Ok,” says Josh. “Now, I will play a song.” The family cheers and Mom whistles.

The entertainment breaks constitute the best part of Joshua Jepperson Trophy Night, because the MC is also the sole performer. He accompanies himself, either on a small, broken ukulele or the piano in the living room. Sometimes, he’ll let two-year-old McKenzie play one instrument while he plays the other. Of course, if she isn’t doing a satisfactory job, he will put an abrupt end to the song and reestablish his solo career.

Josh always sings about the people in the audience. While my sister was dating her future husband Dave, he lived seventy miles away in Provo. He drove up to spend weekends at my family’s house, but during the week, they added up quite a few hours over the phone. So many hours that mom put a curfew on her phone time. In response, Ashley would sneak mom’s cell phone into her bedroom and talk until well past midnight. We all stayed clear of the house the day my mom opened her phone bill to find it was more than 1000 minutes over!

One of our favorite Josh-songs was about this clandestine night-calling relationship. He debuted it during one of his Trophy Night intermissions.

Ashley
and Dave
get married.
Babies
named Josh
like me.
Love you
Ashley
Dave.

Dave call.
Ashley
in trouble.
Up too late
on phone.
Hi Honey.
I love you.
Mom mad.
Go to bed!

Ashley
and Dave
get married.
Temple.
Babies.
Love
Ashley
Dave

Trophy night is Josh’s time to take over and be in charge. It is evident that he loves to perform, as he puts on quite a show. It is undoubtedly everyone’s favorite part of family gatherings.
“Hey Josh. Are we having Trophy Night tonight?”

A big smile illuminates his face. “You got it, dude.”

Now that Josh is no longer with us, we realize the reason for this popularity was Josh’s appreciation for everyone. No matter who you were, Josh thought you worthy of some award. Trophy night showed one of Josh’s best qualities, his unconditional love. Whenever we talk about him, we remember how much he liked people. And those same people he showed love to showed love right back.

Riding in the car, he’d see a tough guy on a Harley-Davidson. This man would be intimidating to most people, with his leather, tattoos, long hair, and bandana. But Josh didn’t see that. He saw a cool guy on a motorcycle. This was a “buddy”. The roughest looking men on the toughest looking bikes would break into silly grins at the sight of the little boy in rear window of the caravan, waving his arms above his head in a signal of approval and triumph.

Wherever he went, people loved Josh. Just being around him made anyone feel loved and special. As his family, we realized quickly how lucky we were to have him in our home. He taught us that love truly does beget love, and that if we would but reach out, we could have all the friends we wanted. He proved to us that we can’t afford to hold back praise and gratitude, or expressions of love and friendship. And he wrapped it all up into a little ritual we called Trophy Night.

The lesson: Everyone gets a trophy

45-Pound 5-Month Old vs. 8-Pound Ornery Old Man

Draw your own conclusions...but be sure to look at their snuggly picture over to the right hand side of this blog. Bear has his moments of mean-old-man, but he has his angelic ones, too.

Snow...It's a Love/Hate Thing

It's been very snow here in Utah. Very snowy. Very, very, very snowy. On Wednesday, we really should have had a snow day. It took me one hour to get to work (the drive usually takes 20 minutes). The parking lot was not plowed, but they did plow during school hours which resulted in huge piles of snow on either side of every car in the lot. There was a whole troop of students with shovels helping to dig and push stranded cars out of the parking lot. By pure providence, I was in Al's VehiCross with 4-Wheel Drive, so I was able to charge my way right out of there. I did manage to lose my phone somewhere in a snow drift. I thought it was in my purse, but I must have missed my purse and dropped it in my lap instead...then I got out of my car.

Trillian, however, can't get enough of the snow. She loves to play in it, eat it, roll around in it, etc.She's definitely a character. I went out with her today and threw snowballs for her. We had good times.

The Joyous Sound of Children Singing

I bring you, by popular demand (two people asked for it), JINGLE BELLS by the Six Lights!

And 2008 Begins!

So everyone else is on Blogspot. I guess I'll keep one here, too...

Christmas was fun, but way too short. Our school district kind of played a dirty trick with our scheduling this year. In exchange for the longer summer break, we got a 10 day Winter Break and a 3-day weekend for Spring Break. Yahoo. Thank goodness we got those extra summer days.

It was awesome to get to go to my mom's house early on Christmas morning and see the neices and nephews run upstairs to see what Santa brought them. Al wasn't terribly excited to get up at 5:30am, but he loves me and knew it was important. I think he actually enjoyed himself a little!

Christmas Break was dampened by the sad news that one of my students had died. She was heavily medicated for bipolar disorder and very thin. Those two things combined to cause her to pass away in her sleep on December 22. I didn't find out until December 29, after the funeral. I didn't know exactly what happened until I returned to school. The logical conclusion was that she had killed herself, but that didn't make sense. She was such a great student who tried so hard, and she was just a genuinely nice person--one of the nicest, most compassionate, and most giving people you will ever meet. I was very relieved to find out that her death was not a suicide. That knowledge helped me to find some closure, but I still miss her a lot. She used to come into my room and talk about the Wheel of Time series with me. I've now lost two students in two years, and it really sucks.

But back to happier things. The break was great! I got to spend a lot of time with my neices and nephews...and their parents, too. I think I saw more of my brother-in-law, Dave, than I have since he and my sister got married. Al was excited to be able to get to know him a bit better. We ate, played video games, visited, ate some more...it was good times. I also managed to find a free morning to unpack and rearrange my living room/library. Two days later, my dad delivered my boxes of stuff from his basement. I'm still unpacking.

Al got me one of the best Christmas gifts ever. I'm a huge fan of the author Jasper Fforde. Al got me a UK edition of The Eyre Affair, the first book in the Thursday Next series. It was autographed and personalized to me. I was holding it and thinking, "Jasper Fforde held this book! Jasper touched this!" Yes, I'm a big nerd. Total surprise, huh? Another fabulous gift was the leg lamp nightlight, courtesy of my dad. I was also super-stoked to receive a Sims2 figure from Dave! I received so many thoughtful and cool gifts this Christmas, that I can't even begin to list them here. Thanks, everybody!

I love the holidays, but I guess it's back to the real world...jobs and students and stuff. But just for the sake of nostalgia, I offer Jer's dulcet tones as a parting gift: