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Flat Stanley

/ Jo Bird / 2 Comments
It’s hard to write a post that follows a post that has great personal meaning.
So I picked something completely silly.

My cousin in Utah has a little boy in second grade who recently read the book Flat Stanley. His class at school is learning about mail and also about states and maps. Gabe needed to send Stanley to another state and we were the honored hosts.

Stanley arrived in the mail and spent a few days with us. Even Eli got attached, refferring to him as “my Stanley”. In fact, poor Stanley was torn across his middle during a Stanley tug-o-war. It must be awful to be two-dimensional.
The assignment was to return Stanley with some pictures of his vacation, a state postcard, and a treat unique to our state. The postcard was especially difficult to find, in fact I didn’t find one anywhere. Fortune is on Stanley’s side though because I happen to collect postcards (or at least I did when I was a kid) and I found a very dated Idaho postcard. I chose as the unique Idaho treat, the Idaho Spud Bar.
A personal favorite of mine which I salivated over, but careful not to tempt myself I bought only the exact number requested.
I had to laugh at the pictures because Cameron is wearing his boots.
That ought to validate the stereotype that Idaho is full of rednecks and cowboys.

Oh well, it’s only Utah we’re dealing with here.

In all seriousness

/ Jo Bird / 7 Comments
No one wanted to be my penpal. (Although I may revisit that idea.)
Luckily for me the great cure to self-pity is selfless immersion in service and a great opportunity has come my way. And yours!

I mentioned my upcoming trip to Peru in March. The group I am traveling with usually packs their suitcases full of medical supplies, but since the surgical team has made other arrangements our second suitcases are available for use.

Our group leader who has been before has seen a need for children’s shoes, warm clothing and blankets. Apparently Peru isn’t all hot and sunny, some mountain villages get fairly cold. These pictures (used with permission from Ascend) were from a previous expedition to Peru and you can see that they like hats, sweaters and are in need of shoes.

If you want to donate please contact me through the email address on my blog. If you live in the Treasure Valley I will be happy to come by and pick up.

If not, and you still want to donate I will email my address to you.

I won’t get on my hands and knees to beg for a penpal. But I will get on my hands and knees to beg for your help, if I have to. My promise to you is that I will make my best effort to personally photograph the recipients of your donations and either send them to you or post them here.

To check legitimacy of my cause go here.

reinventing the letter

/ Jo Bird / 5 Comments
ooh, messy house

Cameron got mail today. My cousin in Utah has a first grader who needed to send Flat Stanley to another state. (More on Flat Stanley later.) So he sent Flat Stanley and a book about F.S. to us. I’ll save our adventures with our house guest for another post. But Cameron opening his mail with such anticipation got me thinking…

I want to reinvent the letter. I discussed in another post my year in Virginia and how much I treasured the letters I received whilst I was away. That must be obvious since I still have them. I also still have the letters I received from my east coast friends subsequent to my return to Idaho. Oh mail. I loved getting the mail.

These days I have a terrible habit of neglecting the mail altogether. Richard gives me a hard time about this.

“Important things come in the mail, Jo.”

Like what? Credit card offers as numerous as the sands of the sea? And by the way, how did I get subscribed to Field & Stream?

Occasionally I will get something worth the cold winter walk to the end of the driveway. But for the most part I avoid such walks, letting the mail pile up in the mailbox until Richard’s return on Friday nights. Visualize this ritual;

We pull up from the airport. I unload the boys, Richard makes that walk down the driveway. Dramatic eye roll in my direction as he carries an armload of ads and bills that should probably just be dropped in the recycle bin on his way into the house. (At least campaign season is over, talk about a waste of trees.)

So I am going to reinvent the letter. Starting here. I want a reason to go to the mailbox each day. I want to experience the excitement of waiting for correspondence written on actual paper. I am looking for a penpal. For me, or for Cameron. Preferrably someone more than 1,000 miles away who we don’t actually know. I know you are out there.

Your mailbox will thank you.

Oh, and my husband will thank you too.

Lent

/ Jo Bird / 11 Comments
Painting by Carl Spitzweg, taken from Wikimedia Commons

Although I am LDS and my religion does not practice Lent the way other western Christian religions do, I believe in the principles it teaches. According to Wikipedia “The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer… through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial… for the annual commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. ”

Before reading that, all I knew was that Lent involved the sacrifice of a personal vice. A Catholic friend of mine gives up coffee for 40 days, a true sacrifice for her. Two or three years ago I gave up chocolate for Lent. This year I decided to do it again, but I wanted to learn more about it.

In addition to my belief that practicing self-denial strengthens character I know that avoiding my chocolate habit will have positive health benefits and will reassure me that I am not addicted or dependent on it.

The 40 day journey is made tolerable in that Sundays are Feast days so the abstinence can be broken. (The 40 days from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday before Easter exclude all Sundays.)

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. I encourage anyone who wants to sacrifice in preparation for Easter celebrations to join me by eliminating your own vice. If not, while some Christians focus on sacrifice during Lent, many others focus on service or finding ways to come closer to Christ.

Hosanna, Hosanna.

Follow-up

/ Jo Bird / 2 Comments

** First of all, Venice and Vienna are practically the same city, right? (Okay, wrong, but there isn’t an Austrian restaurant in Boise that I am aware of.)

**Second- those heels either gave me tendonitis or exacerbated tendonitis I already had, resulting in my inability to train for a certain goal I have. Anyway, the heels have been banished, probably until next Christmas.

a Night in Vienna

/ Jo Bird / 7 Comments
My generous older brother Bryan and his wife Brit combined Christmas and birthday gifts for Richard and I this year in order to really spoil us with a night on the town. A Night in Vienna, actually. Well, not the REAL Vienna. They gave us a gift certificate to an Italian restaurant in downtown Boise, Gino’s, and tickets to the Boise Philharmonic’s performance of “A Night in Vienna”. The performance was three Viennese inspired compositions by Mozart, Schubert and Shoenberg.

what odd faces we are making…

Our experiences in the Morrison Center have lead us to believe that “anything goes” when it comes to the dress code. But we decided to dress up and doing so made the evening feel important and romantic. And it was nice to get further use out of my black party dress and those incredible heels.

It was really a wonderful evening. The food was delicioso and the violin soloist was enchanting. It is nice to appreciate the arts occasionally and feel like there is more to me than worn out tennis shoes and jeans stained by grubby toddler hands.

Although, at about 10:00 I was dying for those tennis shoes…

roos

/ Jo Bird / 3 Comments
This post is a little on the lame side. But it was joy in a little thing, a pair of little shoes to be exact.

When I was a kid I was dying for a certain pair of shoes. They were KangaRoos. These shoes had a special feature, they had a small pocket (or pouch if you will) on the side. Now, as an adult, I am not so sure what was so exciting about that little pocket but I was dying for those shoes. When it came to be end of summer, school shopping time my dear mother let me get these shoes. I put various small things in that little pouch like a penny and my CTR ring. I loved those shoes.

The other day I was doing a little shopping on oldnavy.com and there was a special going on. Any purchase from Piperlime got you free shipping on your items from old navy. Shipping is $7 so I figured it was equivalent to a $7 off coupon at Piperlime. When I saw these shoes, and they were on sale, I was sold.

Eli is so lucky. In fact, I am surprised at his level of appreciation considering he isn’t even two years old. He loves them. Come on by and he’ll show them to you with pride. Truly my son.

When the man is away…

/ Jo Bird / 9 Comments

…the woman learns how to do “man” things. I hope no one is offended by my labeling some tasks as MAN tasks. But I guess my point is that these tasks can be accomplished by both genders.

Our computer had reached a level of slowness so painful I had to intervene. I am not a computer person, and while Richard isn’t really either he is still more knowledgeable about these things than I. But I did my research (thank you all-knowing internet and Crucial.com) and ordered some RAM for our computer. When it arrived I couldn’t resist trying to install it myself. I was too impatient.
Not all stories that start this way end as well as this one did. But, I installed it successfully. I tackled the motherboard and I won. It feels awesome.
In addition to this major task I also added wiper fluid to the minivan and cleaned out the garage. (Much less impressive, I know.)
We skipped naps yesterday to try to load up on our Vitamin D. It was a beautiful day, what I call a February teaser. Sadly though, the Vitamin D didn’t stop tonsilitis from attacking and so today we are watching movies and napping.
Lucky for me I conquered the world yesterday.

call me stubborn if you like

/ Jo Bird / 10 Comments

I have considered the poor response to my interview post and come up with two conclusions.

Either

1. All the readers of this blog are humble and don’t consider themselves worthy of an “interview”.

Or

2. The readers of this blog have no confidence in my interviewing skills.

For the sake of my self-esteem I will you give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is the former. But, I refuse to post again until I have three more subjects willing to be questioned.

Trust me, you are interesting people.

Did I mention today is my birthday?

Interview Me

/ Jo Bird / 3 Comments

My friend Krista was “interviewed” on her blog, and I enjoyed reading it because the questions were not a standard tag, but unique to her. She offered to interview me so here it goes:

1. I know you are a jogger. I am curious to know how long you’ve been doing it and can you honestly say you enjoy it?

I’ve been jogging off and on for a few years, but the last few months I’ve really committed myself to it. Do I really enjoy it? That’s complicated.

Jogging is tough and sometimes I dread it. There are times when it is miserable; it hurts, it is exhausting, my muscles get sore.

But then there are moments I love it. I love jogging outside when the sun is shining. Because jogging is hard it makes it all the more satisfying. Maybe it is the endorphins or maybe it is the sense of accomplishment or maybe the health benefits. But put all those things together and I can definitely say I enjoy it.

2. We all know how crafty you are! What inspires you?

Other people inspire me. In fact, I’m honored that people think I am crafty. Mostly I am just a copy-cat. I’ve yet to come up with a project that isn’t a version of someone else’s invention.

3. What are you looking forward to most on your trip to Peru?

I’m a consumer. I value material posessions. But I don’t want to be this way, and I am hoping that my visit to Peru will give me the opportunity to observe the ways people find happiness unrelated to money and objects. I am also hopeful that my service there will bless or enrich the lives of the people I meet in some way.

4. I remember from your list of 101 Things about you that you love board games. What is your favorite?

That is a tough one. I go through phases where I have favorites. Growing up my family played the game Acquire and I always looked forward to that. I like games with strategy and lately I’ve been into the game Ticket to Ride. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game I didn’t like.

5. Would you say there are any perks to having a husband who travels?

Yes. Richard’s company is good to the employees, so when I have the chance to go with him we are able to stay in nice places and eat at nice places. He also accumulates frequent flyer miles and hotel points… which I look forward to cashing in. The sort of lame perks, but perks nonetheless are that I don’t have to cook as much, I get all the hot water, the whole bed to myself and he can watch football while I watch old movies and foreign films. __________________________________________________

If you are interested in having me give you a few interview questions for you to answer on your blog, be one of the first five people to follow these instructions and I’ll be in touch.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Leave me a comment in this post saying, “Interview me” (please include your email address as well).

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions of my choosing.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include these instructions and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions each.