paperweight

i've loved this song for a long time & love schuyler fisk & joshua radin. fantastic that they're dating. seems like it's all right in the world when people write love songs that get stuck in your head all day like this one. the non-live version is even better on "the last kiss" soundtrack. or just get on her myspace page & listen.

i've been tagged

first official tagging, exciting stuff! here it goes.

four jobs:

-typed up patient's visits for an OBGYN from the time i was 14 until 18 off and on: let me tell you, hearing and then typing some of the most DISGUSTING things i have ever heard made me live in mortal fear of the gyno until my pre-marital visit. there are a few words from that experience, i will spare you what they are, that will forever be burned in my brain as the most vile words in the dictionary.

-arctic circle!!:
my parents said i had to have a job within 2 wks. or i wouldn't be allowed to drive. enter arctic circle. but i survived it for almost 8 months. needless to say the only thing i will eat from there is their shakes. i did have my first bi-racial relationship there, my first kiss from that guy (he was so great!) and got offered a dollar from a middle-aged man if i could prove that my eyelashes were real. arctic circle shaped me into the woman i am today. go lime ricky!!

-bagel jax:
this was in jackson hole, one of the 3 summers i worked up there. this was a really fun job where we could crank up music while we made bagel sandwiches. i met a fantastic girl named casey who is still one of my favorite people to this day. my brother tyler worked there too and that was so much fun. he was known for working the early (5 a.m.) shift and falling asleep on the bagel heater. everytime i listen to counting crows "august and everything after" one of the best CD's of all time, i think of bagel jax. great job!

-melaleuca:
i worked in human resources for this company and i loved all of the responsibility it provided for me. i was in charge of recruiting & hiring, leading training groups and helping with the major christmas parties, summer picnics & employee meetings. funniest story from there: i was interviewing a lady and asked her if she was looking for "fart-time or pull-time work." how do you recover after saying the word fart??
saddest story: my good friend lisette & closest co-worker was killed in a car accident. it was my first grown-up experience with death and i did not handle it well. i wouldn't have made it through if it weren't for ben & my good friend brittany. (love you brit!)

four places i've lived:
-utah (salt lake, murray, fruit heights, logan & spanish fork)
-idaho (boise & rexburg)
-wyoming (jackson hole)
-north carolina (durham)

four movies i love: why is this one so hard for me??
-stranger than fiction (this one made me think & appreciate life)
-pride & prejudice (old, new, borrowed or blue..i love it!)
-orange county-makes me laugh EVERY TIME
-the pursuit of happyness ($20 bucks to my name? try $8.47. beat that! no i loved this movie & especially that it was a true story)

four movies i would love to see:
-becoming jane
-the painted veil
-american beauty (edited, recommended by sister laur)
-donnie darko (edited, recommended by brother ty)

four favorite foods:
-breyer's double churned frozen yogurt caramel swirl
-lettuce wraps at p.f. chang's
-flauta bajio salad at bajio's
-pasta milano at the macaroni grill

four weird things about me:
-i stink at saying public prayers. i always bless food when we're not eating any and stammer & stutter like it's going out of style.
-i found out i have scoliosis AS the guy was putting the epideral in. nice timing, no?
-i was an accomplice in stealing a bag of elder bednar's trash bags out of his trash can. i was really an innocent bystander sitting in a car w/ a couple of crazies (you know who you are) but i did participate in going through it!
-i can memorize numbers like crazy. i remember our number in boise when i was 5, our murray house number, jackson hole numbers, idaho numbers, old friends from junior high, both mine & ben's credit card & drivers license, all of our ss #'s, and everyone who is plugged in our cell phone. comes in handy when you lose your phone. the weird part is, why did i fail math??

four favorite TV shows:
1) the office
2) the amazing race
3) 24-though sometimes it's a bit too gory for me but it is the single reason that i will never live in L.A. unless of course, jack bauer is real!
4) miss oprah

four places i'd rather be:
1) utah, visiting friends & family
2) disney world...we're planning a trip there this year! marie, get the guest beds ready :)
3) somewhere tropical
4) hmmmmm...anywhere that's NOT in a group home??

four people i'm tagging:
1) andrea
2) rachel (if you haven't had your baby yet)
3) lindsay
4) kristin

5 shows that make me want to hurt someone

these shows i REFUSE to let caleb watch because they are too disturbing and i don't want him to get a twisted view of reality...or end up suffering from post traumatic stress disorder because he gets flashbacks of them when he's 25.

1) the doodlebops
2) the wiggles
3) yo gabba gabba
4) teletubbies
5) boo baa (i don't even know what the official title is of this but that's the noise that the crazy things make)

refreshed

so i got my hair done today...nothing big but some highlights. it's just so amazing that getting my hair done or finishing a good book can brighten my day so much. i walked around the fantastic mall by our house for a while. i got a new pair of jeans, gap long & lean (jury's still out on whether it holds true to its name...i have not yet been told that i look either 'long' nor 'lean. i guess those would be titled "miracle jeans." i did however go down a size, hurray!) grabbed some chick-fil-a for ben and i and headed home. now if only the "home" wasn't a group home full of crazy bios, it would have been a nearly perfect day.

here's some pictures of caleb & my new hair.

"I'm Bio"

so one of the clients was going for some shock value tonight and announced at the dinner table, "i'm a bio."
i ask, "what's a bio?" (afraid for the answer)
"it means i'm not sure if i like boys or girls. or maybe i like both. anyway, i'm bio."
i had the hardest time keeping a straight face. so i got up from the table and acted like i was going to the fridge, looked at the other staff member who was there at the time when no one was looking and mouthed "OH MY GOSH!!!" she mouthed back, "I KNOW" and i lost it. too disturbing and too funny. i recovered and said, "well whether you're gay, straight or bio, we just want you to be a good person. that's what matters."

i took some pictures today and will try to post them later. this straighto is signing off to get some office work done.

the crepes of wrath

ben came up with the title for this blog and i thought it was hilarious. i will make this short because i am tired and want to stop writing such long blogs. but this morning's episode involved carrot top, ernest, and 4 fantastic leftover crepes that ben made last night. let's just say that a bottle of syrup was held hostage and a fist fight was on the verge of erupting. in the end, no one was able to enjoy the crepes because the plate was tipped over on to the floor on purpose and they had to be thrown away. the boys were in fine form today and i'm just sad i missed the whole thing because i was snuggled up under my covers sleeping in.

ryan shupe visits our ward!!

so i don't know if all of you are familiar with the group ryan shupe and the rubberband, but ben and i really really like them. he's toured for a long time with peter brienholdt (another goodie among the mormon crowds...and non-mormon, why not?).

so i was wandering around church for like 10 minutes looking for my sweet and handsome husband while carting around a HEAVY (what in the heck did we put in there? a fax machine?) church bag and no-nap caleb who was refusing to walk and being followed by two teenagers who did not come from my womb. i felt that was important to point out for some reason. anyway i finally see ben in a cluster of men talking to a nice-looking bald man (because troy loves it when people say that) and i give ben the "i mean business" look, which consists of eyebrows raised and me mouthing the words "LET'S GO." ben swears he also saw lasers shooting out of my eyeballs and burning into his retina but he has no witnesses to attest to it, and no noticeable scars.

so ben introduces me to ryan shupe, of ryan shupe and the rubberband, minus the rubber band. and i say to him, "hey! we have your cd playing in our car right now! well, not right now because it's sunday but yesterday and tomorrow." WHAT??? anyway, ryan gives me the "that's really great", as he is turning quickly to leave. he has one hand raised in the air in a half-wave, half-defensive stance (i'm sure of it) in case i ask him to sign my stomach or church dress or something. and he's out the door. breezed out as quickly as he breezed in.

now some of you know me as somewhat of a celebrity buff. let's just say that i was watching "who wants to be a millionaire" celebrity version and i got all the way up to $25,000 before i had to even use a LIFELINE!!!! when we visited our friend amanda in LA, i was just a bit obsessed with seeing an A-list celebrity. no B-listers thank you very much. so maybe ryan shupe in the normal world would probably be considered a B or C-lister but STILL!! in the utah community, he's definitely an A-lister. he does have music videos that play on CMT and on the west coast, their song "dream big" was #1 on the billboards. so there you have it, we have spoken with a star who attended our ward in chapel hill. next week, brangelina, i know it. i will be watching paxamillion, zebbecariah and purple lawn mower snake (or whatever their names are) in nursery and we will be swapping recipes.

ben's two cents (a rare moment, this won't happen every blog so enjoy):
while i would never want to minimize the importance of meeting a celebrity at church, because all of you know my two favorite things include going to church and hob-nobbing with the stars, i would like to tell you of a greater opportunity this job has lent me today. today i was able to have the conversation with two teenage boys of why you're not supposed to scratch yourself in public. i was able to explore such topics as:

-boxers vs. briefs
-the support that a brief and/or boxer-brief may lend to a lad who just needs that extra pick-me-up
-where is an appropriate place to go when you need to "adjust yourself"
-last but not least, we got to explore the topic of how one acquires "jock itch" and the treatments of such an ailment

now i know after reading this, many of you will be banging down our doors for this job. but just to make it perfectly clear, it's taken so back off. you will have to go to your humdrum 9-5 jobs in the which you don't get to explore such deep and fulfilling topics as i do. sorry everyone. i hope you'll be able to get over the disappointment and that you'll still consider us friends. maybe the luckiest friends you'll ever have, but friends all the same. and that is my two cents. this is ben strader, signing off.

scary thing...

so since caleb's seizure in january we have had minimal problems with his health (knock on wood). there have been the occasional breath-holding spells where everyone in the room goes silent until he FINALLY takes a breath but over all, he has been fairly healthy. he throws tantrums like the best of them and we have walked a fine line between giving in because we're afraid he will flip out and then go into a seizure. but for the past few months we have stopped giving in and he has done really well.

today caleb was well past his nap time and he is not a kid that can go without one and just be a bit cranky. he FALLS APART. so he had thrown several high profile tantrums and i took him upstairs to put him to bed. while we were up there he went into one of the rooms and found this huge piece of wood that is supposed to be used on one of our pieces of furniture that hasn't found its home yet. i told him no, that he needed to put it down. well he lost it completely and i had to take it away from him. he followed me into the room after screaming once and hadn't taken a breath yet. this is not unusual for him but i swear my heart stops beating each time he does this. well i waited and waited and turned around to pick him up so that i could blow in his mouth. when i reached down his mouth was completely blue and his eyes were rolling up in his head. he started to fall over and i picked him up in my arms and screamed a blood-curdling scream to ben (who was outside mowing the lawn so he couldn't hear me). i blew in his mouth, he didn't breathe and i screamed again and started running down the stairs with him in my arms. by this time he was limp and all i could see were the whites of his eyes.

FINALLY he took a breath!!!!!!! i sat down on the stairs and just started bawling along with him, shaking. once he was breathing he was completely coherent and was more bothered that his mom was crying because that doesn't happen often. so he put his hands on both of my cheeks and said, "okay mama? you okay? you sad? you be happy now?" i walked outside and told ben to come in & explained what happened.

honestly this stuff scares the HECK out of me!! i do not stay calm. that is ben's job. but i was soooooo grateful that he did not have a seizure and that he seems fine. needless to say, he went to bed and i knelt down and said a prayer that he is okay for another day. for some reason caleb has health problems. nothing that can be diagnosed, just a whole lot of random things that mixed together causes a bit of a more high maintenance child. but heavenly father has blessed us with this little guy who brings us so much joy that ben and i can barely stand it sometimes. we just love to be around him, even when he is having a hard time. caleb has the best sense of humor that he got from his dad and some underdeveloped height, that he got from his mom. :) he's an adorable little guy and i am more grateful than i can describe in words that he has come down on earth to spend some time with ben and i.

music lovers

so ben and i totally love all different kinds of music. this is one that lately we have been listening to a lot. caleb can watch it for hours and has now started singing it to us! he tries to go up high with his voice which could already be mistaken for a little lady's if i do say so myself.
(side note: i still say it's not too late to teach caleb to speak with a british accent to seal the deal for him. with his slight frame and lovely eyes, he can squeak out, "mummy, i'd like some tea and crumpets please. my knickers are in a wad." and things such as that. after that he will watch all volumes of anne of green gables. make ol' papa bear proud.)

anyway the first time i heard this i got the chills. i think it's about spending the holidays with family. ok actually that was ben's thought and after reading the lyrics i think that for once in our marriage he might be right. oh i don't give him enough credit...it's probably like the 6th time.

thanks for the tip on the poison ivy, manda! we'll give that a try. i tried to convince ben tonight that i saw a poison line going to his heart just to scare him but apparently he already knows that poison ivy doesn't work like that. i've got to get creative i guess, this boy's hard to fool.

enjoy!

Imogen Heap - Just For Now (live at Studio 11 103.1FM)

day at wrightsville beach

here are some pictures from the beginning of august when we were able to go to the beach for a day. ben and the kids got free surfing lessons from a pro surfer! he & his wife and daughter have been surfing for years and gave the kids free lessons. caleb and i enjoyed the weather and beautiful ocean. here's some pictures of caleb practicing surfing with his dad. not the best picture of me but i think someday when i'm old and gray and i look worse i'll look back and say, "i guess it wasn't so bad."

the characters in our blog

so we may be botards when it comes to blogging but just give us a while and we will master the skill! this is our first posting and ben is talking in my ear as i'm typing (he does this to drive me crazy & try to distract me from whatever the task is i'm doing at the moment...i love this fella!). ben has come down with some random type of poison ivy that is continuing to spread everyday. so he has been lubing himself up with calamine lotion and has been taking 1 benadryl to try to keep the itching down. this husband of mine has been taking BATHS in oatmeal because apparently it's supposed to help dry up the poison. however we don't have oatmeal oats on hand so he has been using our instant oatmeal packets and comes out of the bathroom smelling like his flavor for the day...apples & cinnamon, cinnamon and spice or maple brown sugar. back off ladies, he's all mine. so there's this lovely-smelling pink creature laying next to me in our bed rattling off all of the ernest p. worrell (ernest goes to camp character) movies that he has seen in his lifetime. i continue to be amazed by this pink itchy man who after almost 5 years of marriage, i realize i can learn something new about every day.

which brings me to the title of our blog for the first entry...since we are the managers of a group home for troubled teens, we have signed a contract of confidentiality so their names need to be anonymous. so here are the characters in our story.

we begin with ernest p. worrell ("hey vern!") who we will just lovingly call ernest. this kid is 15 and is the true and living ernest if there ever was one. here is an example of something he said to ben today...(imagine a slow southern drawl, similar to forrest gump's)

ernest: "ben, you know that place with the airplanes? kidney stones? "
ben: "ernest, what in the heck are you talking about?"
ernest: "ben, you know, that place where the first airplane took off? it's called kidney stones?"
ben: "you mean, kitty hawk, north carolina? where the wright bros. flew their first plane?"
ernest: "no, i'm pretty sure it's called kidney stones. well anyway, i went there once."

this is just one small example of what he says to us on a daily basis. one day i came downstairs and looked at our grocery list and saw scrawled on the list, "mental spatula." ernest was standing there while i read it.

me: "mental spatula? who wrote that?"
ernest: "i did. ben needs it."
me: "ben needs a MENTAL spatula?"
ernest: "yup, he was makin us eggs and said, "boy, i could really use a mental spatula instead of this plastic one to flip yer eggs." so i wrote it on the list for him."
me: "ok well you're going to need to come with me because i'm not sure where i'll find a mental spatula in walmart. maybe by the helmet section."

(side note: i will save the "gay-walking" episode for another blog but i assure you , you won't want to miss it)

next character:
we will call him carrot top although he looks absolutely nothing like that strange guy who walks around claiming to be a comedian. picture...hmmm....a taller male version of the bumblebee girl in the blind melon video "no rain." taller and with a crazier look in his eyes that that bumblebee ever had. carrot top is 16 and is our off the wall kid who has a great sense of humor and also has an affinity for putting holes in the walls with whatever his weapon of choice is at the moment. bamboo stick, a broom he's just broken in two, or just his freckled fist balled up in a fit of not-so-funny moments. tonight he told us at dinner that he wished caleb were his son. we're not quite sure how the logistics of that would work out but when caleb sang "i'm so glad when daddy comes home" tonight, i think i detected a bit of a tear in the corner of carrot top's eye. carrot top is our loose cannon so we do our best to use what we call the 'distraction technique' which goes a little something like this...

carrot top: "i'm so mad! i hate everybody here! (freckled fists balling up at this point, you can almost hear the walls say, here we go again)
ben: "holy cow, carrot top! have your walls always been this color??!?"
carrot top: "what?" (quickly looks around his room staring at all of the walls, fists unclenched)
ben: "weren't your walls a light green yesterday?"
carrot top: "no, you're crazy. they've always been blue." (eyes continuing to dart around, still unsure)
ben: "oh, okay. well come and eat some dinner."
carrot top: "okay."

phew! sometimes we are not that lucky. such was the night two weeks ago when ben got to follow carrot top around for about 1 hr. while he took his weapon of choice, a crutch, and scratched up the company van and beat a bush up outside to the point that it now looks like a patch of misguided weeds. ben actually had to restrain him, our first time so far, for almost 20 mins. until the cops showed up and he eventually went to jail for threatening to kill everyone. carrot top is not a slight fellow and i was so proud of ben for being able to handle it. i must say there was a point where i had to help out for a second, pinning down carrot top's legs when his kicking got a little out of control. he came back the next day and acted like nothing had happened. that's the crazy thing about the job, we do our best to have them come back and finish the program with us. to see things through with them and not give up even when that is the very thing we sometimes want to do.

final character:
homeboy. i won't write much about him for now because he ran away 2 wks. ago and hasn't come back. but this is the little white boy that thinks he's black. he dresses like it, talks like it and i think somewhere in his mind, actually believes it. he is a really cute kid and the ladies know it. he's only 14 but also acts like he's 25. he has lived a tough life and has enough street smarts to make 50 cent look like he grew up with paris hilton. which is why he ran away. he has done several illegal things since he has been here and has violated his probation. the time for reckoning was approaching and he knew it so he took off. where oh where has our homeboy gone?

well it's late and this will probably be the longest blog in the history of blogs but the next ones will be shorter, i swear it. we really do enjoy our life here although there have been tough moments, tough days and even tough weeks. but we have a really good support system here, our co-workers, our bosses & the other couples who have been through what we are going through....some of them have the craziest stories.

caleb is doing well, he loves the guys and they love him (maybe a little too much, papa carrot top?). he is growing up and is sooooo much fun! he talks so well and memorizes books and songs after only hearing them a couple of times. he has memorized some church hymns, some of them with all 3 verses! he turned 2 in may and started walking the day after his birthday. he loves to be outside, wrestle, sing, play with cars and trucks and loves curious george. i'll try to post some recent pictures of our beach trip ASAP. unfortunately there won't be any of the other kids so your imagination will just have to do.

we miss everybody! write us when you get a chance.