Have a Cow

One of the little phrases Joy brought to our marriage was "Have a cow!" She'd say it constantly!

But I ruined it. I joked that our baby's first words would be "ha'cow." She stopped right then. Pretty sad, especially since "ha'cow" was such a sweet sounding phrase.

Last Sunday Joy had a conversation with Hyrum. He was flipping out, in need of nap time. Joy said, "You are having a cow."

"I'm a cow," he proudly announced. "Baa! Baa!"

For the rest of the drive, he kept telling us he WAS a cow, and then bleated. We couldn't help him moo, even though we gave several examples and we know he is perfectly capable of mooing. He thought he was hilarious.

Looking in the Crystal Ball

There's a lot Joy and I still don't know about what is going to happen in the next few months, but for anyone interested, we do have some decisions made at least. So here's a rough timeline, if everything works out the way we think. It brings to mind the old line, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans." These should be worth a chuckle.

We hope to have heard back from any school still interested in me this week. Within the next couple weeks I will be flying out to visit Nigeria. We hope to have a final decision about where then or very shortly thereafter. So we'll stop being silent/coy/private in a few weeks.

Baby Lavinia arrives June 24 and we begin a frantic dash to get her passported and visad.

Early July we will move out of Ithaca and visit our families in California and Utah, blessing Lavinia in my parents' ward.

Late July or early August we leave for our grand, three year adventure.

I'm sorry we've been keeping rather quiet about things online. It's certainly not for lack of interest as we can find precious little else to talk about that is quite so engaging. Until a decision is made, though, we would rather not jinx anything. The places still on the table are each very interesting prospects that we are excited about and we'd love to tell you more ... soon. We just know we probably won't be in Ithaca for more than another 10 weeks.

So it's not a unicorn - a Joy post

I've always liked horses. From afar anyway. Used to draw them, like the unicorns. I thought it might be nice to ride a horse someday. Last year when I got some birthday money from Grammy, I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do more than get some horse riding lessons. That's the first time it ever happened. (Thank you, Grammy!) So I planned on it.

I didn't get around to it until July. I'm doing English style riding. It was kind of weird the first time, though I wasn't scared of the horse. Second time was okay - learning a little bit more. The third time I started feeling a little bit comfortable riding. That's good.

When I get there, I groom the horse: I brush its face and legs with the soft brush, and with the coarse brush I brush its mane and its back and its tummy and its tail; then I have to pick and brush its feet (this picture) - it only has shoes in the front, so I don't pick the feet that don't have shoes, but I brush all of them - you only pick around the shoe and not the inside of the foot (called the frog); and then I put on the saddle and my helmet; and then we put on its bridle - I put the bridle on on my own for the first time. And then I ride the horse. I lead it out, walking on its left side, holding the reins with my right hand because all their horses are trained as if people are right handed. And then I ride the horse. And I bring it back and groom the horse again, clean up after it if it poops (which she hasn't let me do yet: if he pees you have to bleach it and all this kind of stuff). And then I give him treats! While I'm grooming him the second time, sometimes he sniffs at me cause he expects to find a treat, but I don't give it to him until after I'm done grooming him.

The biggest problem I had last time I rode, my feet kept trying to go farther into the stirrups and you're supposed to keep the balls of your feet on the stirrups so your heels can sink down as far as possible - helps with balance.

I'm learning that you have to look where you want to go, not at the ground or at the horse - keeping my arms at an obtuse angle. And I'm kind of excited that next time I will get to ride a different horse - not the gentlest one.

After having horse riding lessons three times, I would counsel anyone who has horse riding lessons to not skip a week. It's been going well. It's interesting: it's not all dreamy and floaty like I thought it would be; it's some hard work. And that's the reason you shouldn't skip any lessons because every week you gain some more muscle. I could see progress between my second and third lessons because I hadn't skipped a week, and didn't between my first and second because I had to skip one. When I tried posting, I actually got my bum off the horse this time. It was amazing. This time I could almost do the half-seat ride while last time it was ridiculous.

It was funny - this list time when I was done riding the horse, I felt like I was trying to get my sea legs back. I didn't feel like the ground felt quite right, like there should have been a horse beneath me instead of the ground. Does that sound like a convert? I dunno. I'm probably not going to have any lessons beyond my fourth for a long time.

So it's nice to have a little dream come true. It's nice to have Derrill and Hyrum come and watch sometimes. And I don't know if I'll get back to it or not. Might be kinda nice to know a horse all of its life and then ride it, might be kinda cool, but ... I never know if I'm in for that kind of work. Maybe once I've had all my kids I'll know.

More Corning Glass Museum

A cube ... that looks like a hypercube ... made up of triangles.





Another 3D vase







There is only one other amazingly large glass boat like this in the world.

Birth of a Bag of Holding

Funky chandelier

meets

Formal chandeliers

Lighthouse









This is a musical instrument made of glass, played with wet fingers.






Trick cups - try to drink them in any conventional way and they will spill on you. Oh, those wacky Germans!

A scene from a
marble maze
in The Labyrinth.

The End of the World

I've been meaning to talk about this for a few weeks now: the chance that you or I could be killed this weekend on Channel 9. Okay, not really.

(You may want to stop the video at the end of the song - even the ads for College Humor's other fare can be quite inappropriate. Courtesy Today's Big Thing. Contains zombies.)

But when I watched this, it got me thinking about The End of the World As I Knew It. (Funny thing, that). I realized that the world as I knew it has ended quite frequently. The last time the world ended was in September. When the world ends, it's not just a change in lifestyle, but a near-permanent rearranging of everything. It affects who I think I am and how I relate to the world, not just narrow confines. Adam would call it a shattering as you try to rearrange the pieces and create a new person from the old.

Though that reconsitution is never easy, the end of the world can be a good thing! Hyrum's birth ended the world as I knew it. Joy's too. It's a more complex, physically and emotionally-draining world, but a world with much greater sweetness and delight in little things.

Most of the time, the world ends without warning. The world as I knew it ended 6 years ago next week when I met Joy. It ended again shortly after we were married as my dissertation was shot down and I began doubting myself from the center out. It ended with little warning in the rain on the streets of East Germany while I lay waiting for an ambulance. It ended the night my date reached up to try to kiss me and I discovered for the first time there was hope for even me. ... Other people seem to have a lot to do with the end of the world.

Sometimes, though, the world ends on schedule. It ended on graduating from BYU and to a lesser extent from high school, but oddly enough not when graduating from Cornell - what really changed? not much. I expected a lot more to happen concurrently that didn't. I had fair warning when my missionary world was going to end and Hyrum came right on schedule.

The world can also end so gradually, you don't notice. Per was going to end the world and invite me into several new ones, though I had no idea of that when I met him. The world slowly ended while I sat on the nursery room floor to play with and teach the 2 year olds in our church. Regular temple attendance and repentance have continually changed the world as I knew it - always for the better, seldom obviously at first. The world ended one day studying the scriptures as I decided whether to go in to economics or German, but I had no idea what I was doing to the thin-spread, multi-majored undergrad Derrill.

Will moving to the ward be the end of the world as I know it? It felt like it last night after my last branch presidency meeting. But probably not. Then again, my Dad's first comment just happened to be mine also when we learned about it: "Time to grow up." Maybe it will all just be part of the gradual end of the world as I move from student to (someday) teacher - a consummation devoutly to be wished?

Crying over spilled milk

When Joy was pumping milk for Hyrum, the process was long and took a lot out of her physically and emotionally. When even a drop of precious Mommymilk spilled, it was a traumatic experience. We learned a whole new side of the old saying "Don't cry over spilled milk."

I used to think it meant not crying over piddling things - what's a little milk? When milk is your child's lifeblood and comes at great cost to your beloved, milk is much more valuable. To a dairy farmer, milk might be your livelihood and the ability to feed your family and keep them warm. Milk is important!

But what is done is done. Crying won't change that fact. You just take your licks and move on.

We've had a lot of licks lately!

I was cleaning dishes 10ish days ago when a glass shattered into my pinky finger. I'm still getting all the infection out of it. It'll leave a scar.

I was putting in the rest of the storm windows Friday morning and put one on the other side of the baby gate. I stepped over the gate and put a 6 inch scrape in my leg on the storm window that bled much of the day. Though it's hurt for most of the last 3 days, at least I'm not limping.

Joy got a second degree burn on her elbow last night while making cookies for home and visiting teachees.

Joy has a cold sore.

We're all either getting rid of colds or trying to avoid them. This implies that I'm behind on my sleep and have been aching all over my body most of the last few days.

Hyrum has a terrible dieaper rash and doesn't want to sit anywhere. We think he's also getting ready for a growth spurt because he's been irritable as anything and not sleeping as well as usual (aka 8 hours isntead of 11).

Then today at church, we returned to the spilled milk. I got out of the car and spilled a cup of milk on my suit and the car ... just like happened last week ... TWICE ... when getting out of the car and when Hy dumped a cup on me and my seat while perched on my shoulders. Another cup fell from the pew when Joy moved something else and it burst open, so I ran to bathroom to get paper to wipe it up during the sacrament itself. We no sooner got home, but the third sippee cup of milk we brought for Hyrum burst open and spilled over the floor and Joy.

Oh, and then I dropped my lunch - chicken parmesan - on the floor next to the gargbage can.

And no, it doesn't help that the pioneers had it worse. No use crying over any of it, though. Just keep moving. "Clean it up. See if you can do better next time" Joy adds sagely. "Laugh when you write it down on your blog." Now I'm off to cook our stir fry.... Pray for it. Gravity is ag'in us.

And it is ... GONE

"I never would have believed I could lose weight so fast!"

That testimonial from Joy reflects our delight with the South Beach Diet. Today, very officially, Joy is below the weight she was the first time she went in to her OBGYN pregnant. She is at her pre-pregnancy weight!

"I was starting to feel that I was never going to lose the weight, like it was a permanent part of who I am."

This is a thought I know all too well. My ambition in life was to hold the line and be happy remaining there. I was thrilled to finally get below 10 pounds for every year I was old because I got older (I've been tracking that more or less since I was 5 years and 50 pounds).

"Wow. That's crazy, Derrill. Glad we broke the cycle."

Since early June, Joy has lost almost 15 pounds. That was after a largely ineffectual and very painful first two weeks when her metabolism, taste buds, and carb cravings really did reset as the book claimed. "But it took almost two whole weeks to do it." She's been dropping about 2 pounds a week on average.

Since early May, Derrill has lost 25 pounds, after a gloriously successful first two weeks of 10 pounds. So I've also been dropping almost 2 pounds a week since the diet phase.

We've been asked a number of times if we're still "on a diet." We're on a lifestyle, yes. We can't eat everything we might like indiscriminately. We have a theory you don't either. "But we have taken a couple of days off the diet," which is even approved and encouraged to keep your sanity up. The guy just encouraged people to know what constitutes breaking and how to get back on your lifestyle.

"We've enjoyed finding desserts that work with the diet" - pound cake, cheesecake, sweetened riccotta cheese (which is the filling for cannolies), pudding, peanut M&Ms, Snickers. It's been easier to get our fruits and vegetables in every day and we're actually fairly glad to eat less meat than we were doing for our nutritionist the last two years.

The real change is carbs. We have a little whole wheat bread, pita pizza, or pasta each day and really enjoy it. "My OBGYN suggested I go down to 1 grain a day when I was pregnant with Hy and I thought he was insane. But because of his suggestion, I figured that this diet would be healthy even some day when I get pregnant again." We've discovered that we don't really need a bunch of grains to fill up, while before the mashed potatoes and rice were a large part of what made the meal feel filling. "We find ways to work in our favorite foods so that it can be a lifestyle. We found your taste buds really change when you go to only one grain a day. Our fruits taste sweeter, our breads taste sweeter, and Joy - have a cow - likes dark chocolate!"

While in DC, I went off the lifestyle for a couple days since it would have been very difficult to follow and enjoyed a small pizza as well as the sandwiches they were giving me. Then I got back on track, and I've lost what I gained as a result. "I think your family is going to notice a real difference when they get here in two weeks. 25 pounds."

"When we read people's success stories in the book, we were like, 'yeah, right, whatever. No craving for carbs??' But I had misunderstood the word 'craving.' It means painfully in need of, like being addicted." Joy and I had very different experiences in those first two weeks, which is why I didn't think it made much difference. I just wasn't as addicted, probably thanks to earlier summers with Mr. Atkins. "I still like my breads. I often still think of them first. But I don't feel like I'm going to die because I don't eat them for every meal. I feel I can eat as much of the good food I want - guilt free - and not have to go hungry, and the breads are just a nice addition."

There is a third phase to the diet where we get to add a bit more grain to something closer resembling normal, but we'll get there once we've reached our ideal weights.

So we are rapidly becoming South Beach converts. It's been kind of fun as we were doing it to discover who else in the branch is converted. Who would've imagined this was even possible?? "Now is the day of our weight loss. We shall rejoice and be glad therein."

(PS - Derrill would encourage all the silent ladies who read this blog for Hyrum to pretend this is a woman's blog and actually make comments congratulating Joy. I have this theory I get fewer comments than my fellow blogging spouses because I'm a guy.)