Car Buying BedPost, aka I Should Have Stayed in Bed

There are many things in life that must be done that are not my favorite activities. Doing dishes might be at the top of the list. Struggling through pushups for my Army Physical Training Test, paying bills, typing up doctor notes, and switching the used-up roll of toilet paper for a new one round out my top five of Unfavorite Activities Done on a Regular Basis.

Last week, Mike and I had to do one of the things I despise most – buy a car. The last time I did this was in 2005 and I still haven't recovered from it. On the plus side, I now have Mike to run interference, which is nice. Also, the internet has made car buying so much easier than it used to be. Instead of going to lot after lot and driving car after car, we were able to do the bulk of our research online and narrow it down to the one car we wanted: the 2011 Honda CR-V. All we needed to do was test drive it...and that's where the pain, anguish, and agony came in. Because even though the internet has made car buying somewhat more palatable, it hasn't eliminated The Car Salesman; and until that happens the experience will always be torturous.

We essentially had our car picked out and we planned on paying for it in cash, so shouldn't that mean that we could get in and out somewhat quickly and (relatively) unscathed? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No.

I hate, hate, hate that we are expected to barter for the ultimate price of the vehicle. I never to go Best Buy and offer to give them $1000 for a $1200 TV. I never haggle over the cost of eggs and apples at the grocery store as I'm standing in the check out line. Why do we have to do this with cars? Why can't the price just be the price?

My other beef: Although the dealer may take off some of the price, then they add "drive out of the lot fees" and paperwork fees and "we loaded some extras that aren't included in the sticker price but now they're part of the car so you have to pay them" costs. And then they act oh-so-annoyed when you ask why there's that particular fee to pay and why it wasn't included in the first place. They don't add extra buttons and doo-hickeys that I have to pay for to the TV at Best Buy. My eggs don't have hidden "chicken/egg separation" fees and I don't have to pay extra on my apples to say that I have the right to take them out of the store.

In the end, we spent almost a whole day playing The Car Buying Game, which the buyer never wins. I felt like the dealer fed us more than a few lines, the finance guy was a total jerk, and as we neared our sixth hour there and I was tired and lightheaded and nauseated, I realized I would have paid them twice as much as the car was worth just so that someone could land on the Game Over space. Yes, The Car Salesman won; and, here's a hint, the dealers always win because they're not afraid to play dirty.

To end on a positive note, we got a car that we love. It's fun to drive, a smooth ride, has a great sound system, and (the part that sold me on the CR-V), the safety specs are excellent. This is our family car, the first car Mike and I bought together. We purchased it with our future kids in mind and we can't wait to fill it with little voices asking if we're there yet and informing us that their sibling is touching them.

Here are our Halloween pumpkins. Mike's is on the top, mine on the bottom.

As expected, our home was inundated with hoards of little trick or treaters. We had bought five bags of candy and thought we'd be fine, but ran out around 7:15. We started off letting kids pick out their own candy, but quickly shifted tactics when two girls who were old enough to know better picked a huge handful rather than just one. As our stockpile started dwindling, we entered panic mode and started rummaging through the house looking for forgotten candy. We found some Kit Kats and Nestle Crunch left over from Easter, a few bags of cookies in the pantry, some coconut M&Ms that we didn't get around to eating yet, and packages of gum. Hooray! Back in business! We just barely made it to the last trick or treater without running out.

Our candy predicament aside, we had a great evening. Our meal turned out well (to be blogged about later). We enjoyed our last night of "13 Nights of Halloween" watching "Nightmare Before Christmas." And we filed away several lessons learned:

1- Buy one more bag than you think you'll need.

2- Hand out treats to the kids rather than letting them pick. This lesson is based not only on the greedy girls but also on numerous indecisive five-year-olds.

3- Use apple cinnamon scented candles in your pumpkins and it makes the porch smell really nice.

4- Throw pumpkins away first thing the next morning, as pumpkin fuzziness, mushiness, and bug infestation are directly proportional to time elapsed since carving. Other option is to carve closer to Halloween.

5- Use gloves and/or a shovel to throw away pumpkins.

6- Don't store refrigerated roll dough in the pantry.

Halloween BedPost

I love Halloween. Love, love, love Halloween. Mom always made October SUCH a fun holiday month and there was nobody better than Dad to liven up trick-or-treating. (Sing it with me now: "When you're all alone in the country, and the night is dark as pitch..." My Stacey siblings are finishing the song in their heads right now.)

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do as much this Halloween because of decreased energy and increased feeling gross. Mike went out and picked out our pumpkins and cleaned them both out...alone. He decorated the front of our house...alone. He's gotten everything ready for trick-or-treaters, which is no small task, since the number of children in DuPont is roughly equal to that of the rest of Washington state put together. And he did it all...alone. I feel bad watching him because I've been so boring lately.

One tradition that we started last year that I've been able to participate fully in is our "13 Nights of Halloween," where we watch a Halloween-ish themed movie every night for the 13 nights prior to and including Halloween. We have a whole list of movies and obviously we can't get to all of them every year, so we rotate. Some of the movies on our list are "Phantom of the Opera," "The Mummy," "Scared Shrekless," "Monsters, Inc.," "Rear Window," "Blackbeard's Ghost," "The Private Eyes," "Arsenic and Old Lace," "Scooby Doo," "Harry Potter," "Ghostbusters," and "Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." I love that there's at least ONE thing I can do to celebrate the holiday with him.

Another tradition is to make a fun meal on Halloween night. Last year we had a feast, but I didn't know if I'd be able to do something this year. I'm kind of a Halloween food snob when it comes to creativity. I DON'T find it creative to put "Spooky" or "Ghoulish" on the front of a normal recipe and call it Halloween food. I think that's a creative cop-out. And I don't want my food (no matter how good it tastes) to look like gross things such as vomit or cat food. So with those stipulations, I had to find something that both Mike and I like (difficult since there are about 10 foods right now that don't make me nauseated) AND is easy to make.

I think I found some fun things... Tune in to tomorrow's entry to see how our Halloween feast turns out.

BedPost #1

So, there's been a temporary change in the title of our blog. Here's why, along with the reason I've kind of been off the grid for the last few weeks with our share of ups and downs.

The day after Mike's birthday, we found out that we're pregnant again. Yay!

But then the week after that I started bleeding...like what happened in the last pregnancy. Boo.

I rested that weekend then went to the OB, who said everything looked OK. Yay!

But then one weekend later, I bled so much that I was certain I had miscarried again. Boo.

I had an emotionally rough weekend then went to be checked out by the OB so that I could confirm the loss...and the doctor picked up a tiny little heartbeat. I was so totally beyond shocked that I couldn't even say "yay." They also found a rather large blood clot right by the baby that bleeds off and on and puts me at a 33% chance of miscarriage. Uh, so that's a "boo."

They put me on progesterone and bed rest for a week. I'm now on semi bedrest with light duty and maximum 4 hours of work a day until I'm at least 18 weeks along. It's been tough. No lifting more than 5 pounds. Avoid stairs. Minimal exercise. And the progesterone makes me extremely nauseated and light-headed, so I spend most of my time sitting or lying down whether I'm at work or at home.

On the plus side, things are looking good. Baby's growing, progesterone levels are increasing. I get to spend a lot more time with Mike. I get to study scriptures and work on crafts and catch up on sleep. Not a bad pitcher of lemonade to make from all those lemons!

You know what they say about the best-laid plans..

I've been spending 3 days a week doing a rotation in Seattle. Because traffic is so bad, I spend a total of 4 hours in the car. I leave around 6 AM and get back between 6 and 7 PM. Last Wednesday, Mike celebrated his 30th birthday. (That's the way he puts it. It's not the first time he's celebrated his 30th birthday, and it probably won't be the last.) I really wanted to make his day special because I've been gone so much.

I asked him what cake he wanted (lemon cheesecake), and bought all the ingredients in advance so that I could make them the night before his birthday. I had all his presents (that I had been ordering/buying for weeks) hidden in my car with tape and scissors so that I could stop at the store on the way to work, get some wrapping paper, and come home and celebrate.

Tuesday night, I started the cheesecake. I made the crust first, then realized after it had baked 15 minutes that I had set the oven too high. I got it out before it was blackened, but that was one crispy crust.

Then I started on the filling. I was blending lemon peel and sugar together when I noticed it looked like a larger amount than usual. I measured it out and it came to 1 2/3 cup. It should have been 1 1/4 cup. Not sure where that extra 5/12 of a cup came from. I dumped the extra sugar out, but that also meant I dumped out the lemon peel, so it definitely wasn't going to taste as lemony as it could.

I finished the filling, poured it on the crust, and stuck it in the oven, then realized a minute later that I hadn't added the heavy cream. Mike took it out, I stirred in the cream as best I could, then put it back in the oven...at the wrong temperature. Again!! Of course, I only figured that out when I came downstairs to get it and the consistency was all eggy rather than creamy.

The next day, I left for work at 5:40 AM so that I could have time to stop at the store and get Mike a cake that didn't have the consistency of a bouncy ball. I called Mike from the store to tell him I was getting another cake because the other one was more like a thick lemon-flavored omelet. He volunteered to try it, just to make sure it was bad. He said he liked it, but I wasn't convinced he wasn't just being nice. I grabbed three mango key lime personal-sized cakes and went to pick out wrapping paper. The store had two options: pink princess sparkley wrapping paper and "You're having a baby!" wrapping paper. Urgh. They also had white butcher paper, so guess what I ended up getting.

I left work an hour and a half early with my butcher paper and little cakes so I could avoid rush hour. It was a very warm day and I came back to a hot, hot car. And then I got stuck in traffic. There were 6 accidents on the way home, and I was on the road over two hours. By the time I arrived in DuPont, the back-up cakes I had purchased were more like soup. I walked inside, looked at Mike, and instead of greeting him with a kiss, burst into tears. Mike told me that I was not allowed to cry on his birthday, but it was too late. I felt like, despite my best efforts, I'd ruined the day. Bless his heart, Mike's always such a good sport and said he was happy just to have me there, but, seriously, look at the pictures.

See? Not pretty. It looks like a jar of strawberry jam sneezed on a giant egg yolk. And this last one of Mike. His lips may be smiling, but I swear my poor husband's eyes are silently screaming.

So we ended up with the original rubbery cheesecake, part of which Mike had already eaten because he thought it wasn't going to be his birthday cake, and butcher paper-wrapped presents. I guess we can call it a Pac Man-themed party, but it wasn't exactly a high point in my career as a wife.

Last Friday was Mike's and my day for the family fast. Maybe because I was thinking of Megan’s leaving the MTC soon for “The Mission Field,” but an experience I had early in my mission kept playing itself over and over in my head. Before I left for Brazil, a former sister missionary who had gone to a foreign country told me to prepare, because on my 2nd or 3rd day in the mission field, I'd have an emotional breakdown.

Understatement.

There I was: a brand new greenie missionary in Brazil. I'd lived on my own and been outside the country several times, so I didn't think I'd have any sort of "culture shock" or "homesickness." Everything completely caught me off guard. There were orphans living on the street and dogs with leprosy running around wild. My companion had only been out four or five months and barely spoke the language more than I. As I went to bed the first night, my companion oh-by-the-way’d me with the news that the previous occupant of the bed had a scourging case of head lice.

Fast forward to day number three on the mission...cue the breakdown. I remember walking down a street in Esteio, Rio Grande du Sul, Brazil. My companion was about 5 steps ahead of me. As I started crossing the street, I looked at my feet, which had a combined total of 28 blisters, and all of a sudden my eyes filled with tears. As I looked at my feet through my tears, I kid you not, they appeared to be the size of footballs, or maybe small torpedos. And then the weeping started and I couldn't stop. My poor companion had to half-walk, half-carry me back to what passed as our "house" but was really less livable than a van down by the river.

I could not stop crying. I cried for what I left behind. I cried because I was in pain. I cried because I felt overwhelmed with the task ahead of me. I cried because I couldn't understand anything anyone said to me. I cried because I didn't feel clean and knew I wouldn't get the dirt and grime off me until I went back to America. Most of all, I cried because I had never felt so alone in my entire life.

I can see in retrospect that all my tears were for myself. As President Hinckley counseled in a talk about his missionary experience, “Forget yourself and go to work.” I had to learn to do that with a fairly steep learning curve, given my environment. Those may have been the first mission tears I shed, but they certainly weren’t the last. As I grew as a missionary, my tears were less for myself and more for those around me. Or I cried because I felt so inadequate for the task set before me.

The story of the widow’s mite in Mark 12 has become particularly poignant to me as I look back on those days that were so difficult but filled with so much growth. The widow gave to the treasury two mites, which the scriptures say is worth a farthing. A farthing is 1/4th of a cent. It was so small, it was often overlooked and lost. The rich and the powerful never even used them because, in their eyes, it was so tiny and insignificant, both in terms of the amount it was worth and in its physical size. And yet, it was the widow’s mite that caught the Savior’s eye because of sacrifice it represented.

Oftentimes, I felt (and still feel) that the service I offer is inconsequential. I feel like my meager offering is filled with imperfection and inadequacies. It’s “just bearing my testimony” or “just smiling at someone in the street” or “just fasting for my family.” And yet, if it’s done with love in my heart, it’s in those moments that that I feel that my offering, however small and imperfect it may be, is still worth something to the Lord.

The day of my meltdown in Esteio is vividly imprinted on my mind. If I could go back to Brazil today, I could find the precise street where I stood and wept. I’m still working on the lessons from the mission: to learn how to love others, how to forget myself and serve, how to feel and recognize the Spirit. Those “widow’s mite” qualities may not be what the world values and talks about, but they will be recognized by the Savior. I was so blessed to be able to fast for my family and remember important lessons that still have an impact on me today.

Mike and I went to a church BBQ/potluck last night. Neither of us are hamburger/hotdog fans, so we were really relying on the side dishes to get us through the meal. I have to say, we were a little disappointed by the selection. (I should admit that I'm as guilty as everyone there, because Mike and I forgot about it until the last minute and only had a package of Oreos to take.)

No one passed around a sign up sheet beforehand and now I have a testimony as to their importance, because there were over 15 different variations on the theme of Potato Salad. Aside from some desserts, a tray of picked-over vegetables, and a lonely bowl of lettuce salad, that was it. I could hardly believe that this was the fare at a Mormon church potluck!!!

I drove home thinking about church potlucks back home and how sadly lacking this one was by comparison. I know I grew up complaining because they always served the same foods no matter the occasion, time of year, or what ward you went to. I realize now that without those foods, it just didn't seem right.

--Where was the frog eye salad? Can it truly be a Mormon potluck without frog eye salad?
--What about sloppy joes? Even if the main dish is provided, someone always brings sloppy joe meat. I don't even like sloppy joes, but I missed them.
--No one brought Jello?!? Are you for-realing me?? I know we joke about the green Jello salad, but be honest...if there's no Jello salad there, don't you feel just a little bit cheated?
--There was not one casserole there. I was beyond shocked! I figured at least one pan of funeral potatoes would be found, but no. Apparently, all the potatoes in the ward were used to make salads.
--Ahhhhh, crockpot spaghetti, you good Mormon standby, you. At worst, you're bland and sticky, but if your maker is generous with the sauce and even melts in some mozzarella, you are potluck goodness.
--Speaking of pasta, did no one bring a pasta salad? I can't believe it! I can almost taste it now...tricolored corkscrew pasta, oil, vinegar, green peppers, olives, and onions. Yeah, it's dull and unimaginative, but it's Potluck Pasta Salad!

It's true that there are generally few surprises when it comes to the typical ward potluck, but that's what makes it so wonderful and comfortable. Among the predictability of the food is the fellowship of the people who bring it. For example, you always knew that Sis. Hortin would bring her homemade rolls. Mom would take one of her varieties of pasta salad. The Claytons always took an amazing dessert. You looked forward to the dishes and the people you associated with them.

So now you can number me among the Potluck Believers. Pass around the sign up sheet and grab me a casserole dish! It's time for the funeral potatoes!