Please pray for Caida!

If you have a spare moment, please pray for my niece Caida Lee Darland (the cutie in the middle). She's 4, and she's got epilepsy, and she's in the hospital because she was having grand mal seizures so often and so badly through the night that they had to put her on oxygen because she couldn't breathe on her own. She was blue and foaming at the mouth. The worst part is, she knows when they are coming on now and she gets so petrified that she SCREAMS before her eyes roll into the back of her head and the seizures come on. She's got an appointment with a neurologist in OCTOBER, but after last night the pediatrician on call at the emergency room is going to see what he can do to bump that up. (Finally, a doctor I don't have to hate!) Also, unlike all the doctors Dad & Carri took her to, this one's not just going to "up the medicine and see what happens" but is going to try something new. Finally! Paul's going to the temple today, thank heavens, so he's going to put her on the prayer roll. She's far away enough we can't go visit her, which is the hardest part of all for US, and I don't know if my sister knows any priesthood holders out in NC to even give her a blessing. Anywho, thanks for any thoughts and prayers you can spare. I'll keep you posted.

New Blog!

I started a separate blog for all the poetry and stories I will write, am writing, have written...as well as any other creative works I feel like sharing, whenever. It's an anything-goes-as-long-as-it's-mine kinda thing. Check it out if you so desire at:
http://worksofceleste.blogspot.com/
Of course, I will still be keeping THIS blog as a journal/virtual scrapbook for our family! I just wanted my creative works to have their own space...mostly because I discovered Blurb BookSmart (download for FREE here), and the idea of making quality books from my blogs totally appeals to me! It's more expensive than journaling, but cheaper than scrapbooking...and it's EASY. It's an automatic publish, even if I never make any money from it. :)

Okay, that's enough of the plug. :) Read my stuff! Or don't. I'll love you either way.

Fruit Stickers

My poetry class has inspired me lately, in spite of the things I say. I've been more into recording my frustrations and my elations in writing lately. I am also becoming more observant and enjoying words again. It's a blessed reunion.

My latest "project" is to create a poem about a person, made entirely of the sayings on fruit labels. So if any of you find any real gems out there in the world, let me know! It doesn't have to be all that funny, but you may be surprised at what you find when you start looking.

Wishes

I wish a lot of things. ONE of these wishes will come true tomorrow: I will be done with my poetry class. :) Hopefully, one of my wishes will come true today: I will be brave enough to read an original poem aloud for extra credit.

I wish either Paul or I (or ideally both) could find a job.

I wish some other things that I probably shouldn't put up on a public blog, because last time I did that I ended up making a ton of people mad at me. And some of it is just kinda personal.

What do YOU wish for today?

Speaking of food...

Today our new ward had its infrequent-but-wonderful-when-it-happens break-the-fast after church. I just have to say, I love Fast Sundays. I love to fast (shocking) because I know it helps. Our ward had a special fast for the unemployed in our ward and area, and really all that are having financial strain, and since we fall into that boat, we were extra grateful to fast today. I also love testimony meetings, even those with the big lulls, because I love to think about all the blessings I have because I was blessed enough to be born into the gospel.

But I also really, really love not having to cook much, especially on a Sunday. I think potluck dinners are just about inspired--can you imagine if we had them every day? You'd eat until you were stuffed, and hardly have to do a thing for it. Everyone wins. And it would probably be cheaper.

This brought my mind back to my days at BYU...in our apartment, the six of us used to eat together on Sundays, and once a month or so we'd invite other apartments in the ward over and we would all eat and chat and get to know one another. It was stressful sometimes, but it was fun, too. And since I'm not all that great at making new friends, it forced me to interact with people on a smaller and more intimate scale and helped a lot.

I think Paul & I are going to start up a little dinner group for the occasional Sundays...anyone else interested?

A yummy dinner

I was in charge of dinner last night (Paul & switch off right now), and I was stuck as to what I could make that wasn't pasta or stir fry (my usual fallbacks). (Paul's meals are always WAY better than mine, p.s...I married a man who can COOK! The pressure's on!)

I wanted meat, not in something but on its own. And then I remembered that we had pineapple. Problem solved! I made teriyaki chicken & pineapple kabobs--they grill on our indoor grill in 4 minutes! But that wasn't the most yummy part (it was good, but you gotta try this:)

We have a few mango leftover from the huge bagfull my mother-in-law gave us last week (thanks, Paulette!), and I knew it had to be eaten soon. So I cut one up into cubes and put in some coconut and a few chopped up strawberries. It was SO DELICIOUS! We ended up mixing that with the rice more than the kabobs, and let me tell you, mango and coconut and rice are meant for each other! It was sooooo good. We ended up with very few leftovers.

The best part is, we fed ourselves fat and happy and altogether it took one chicken breast, half a can of chunk pineapple, a mango, a couple of strawberries, some rice, and a handful of shredded coconut...all of which we almost always have around the house. And we cooked, ate, and cleaned it all up in an hour. That's MY kind of meal! :)

I wish I had a picture to share with you. This is closest thing I could find, although it's missing the strawberries and kabobs...but you get the picture:

I love happy accidents!

Sometimes you just gotta laugh!

A few days ago, we found a beautiful black piano on Ebay that was located in what we thought was Frankfort, Indiana (a hop, skip, and a jump from here). It wasn't selling for much, but there were several days left and Paul & I knew that the action really happens in the last 12 hours of the bid, anyway. So we figured out how much money we could spare (a measley $30) and bid on it, thinking there was no way in Haides we'd possibly win. And so, of course, we won. We have a Wurlitzer black piano waiting for us in Frankfort, ILLINOIS (about 2 hours' drive from here), that we got for $25. The only obstacle: we have no truck. :)

It'll be okay. We're hoping to enlist a friend or two, take 'em out for fast food and pay for gas in exchange for manpower and the use of their truck. But we're enjoying the fact that we won what we thought we wouldn't and it's where we thought it wasn't and now we are stuck figuring it all out. :) Sometimes, friends, you just gotta laugh!

But it's going to look great in our living room!

Intro to Poetry

Of all the paintings I've seen of poets, I appreciate (if not understand) Chagall's "The Poet" best: I'm taking an intro to poetry class this summer, and I thought I should finally get around to sharing some of my own thoughts and things I have learned this summer.

(1) A lot of poetry, especially the contemporary stuff, I either do not get or do not like, and no 200-level course is really going to change that. And that's okay. I'm at peace with my being at odds with it.
(2) I still love words.
(3) My professor, an old and large lady who grew up in Oklahoma and swears like a sailor, who taught third grade and was a lawyer by trade, thinks I "would be a good English major, if (I) didn't want a job."
(4) There is still a huge part of me that wishes I had time and talent enough to write. Not only do I love a good story, and not only do I love the penumbra of bits of language, but it's a cathartic process for me, and I need to start doing it again--even if it means writing bad poetry in the corners of my room and never letting another soul see it.
(5) You really read different things into poetry and have different opinions about it depending on your own life experience and the mood you're in while you're reading it. For example, I'm in a bad mood today. And going to class was the two longest hours of my life. And I didn't say a word. And the poets sucked. And they were too transparent. And their subject matter hit too close to home or was too far off base for me to enjoy the experience. But other days are not like that at all.
(6) I had no idea what "Ars Poetica" really meant until I had to compare four poets, and now I don't know where I stand on the issue myself.
(7) I will never give participation points in my class. It's lame.

Some pics of our apartment

We finished setting it all up a few weeks ago, but I just got around to taking pictures for another project I'm working on. Just thought I'd show off all our hard work.

our bathroom colors--green, gold, and brown
we've got a French thing going on, hence the French Family Proclamation on the back of the toilet. :)
Thanks to Johanne for making it all possible! (She gave us pretty much everything we needed.)

Our favorite room in the house--the study!

more of it...

our dining room (the chest on the right has all of our board games in it)

a close-up of the dining room table

our red-and-white (and black) kitchen

our living room, my second favorite room in the house!

the bedroom (kinda sparse, but we're still working on the decoration)

That's it! Bienvenue chez nous...come any time! :)

While we're on the topic of flowers...

If you need a little inspiration of things to do with flowers (especially the real, dried ones)...
http://www.make-stuff.com/gardening/dried_flowers.html

AND...

I'm not sure what to name my someday-business. Should I stick with something clear and traditional, like "Flowers by Celeste," or go cutesie and call it "Celeste's Best Buds"...or, as my husband jokingly offered last night, go the funny route and stick with "Bud-Wiser"? :D Any suggestions using my first or last name and something related to flowers I'd be happy to hear!