Husband Tag

I've seen this on a few people's blogs, and thanks to Christy for tagging me. Maybe someday I'll get sick of these, but for now they're nice writing prompts. :)
What is his name? Kevin Fisher
How long have you been married? 2 1/2 years, and we still like each other!
How long did you date? total of 11 monts, including 3 months of engagement
How old is he? like 26
Who eats more? he does. But if I tried, I'm sure I could give him a run for his money
Who said "I love you" first? me :)
Who is taller? He is. By almost an inch
Who sings better? He has a better voice, but I have better pitch. He sings more, though
Who is smarter? Tie. We both think we're really smart
Whose temper is worse? Mine. And I don't really have one. It's just that Kevin has less than zero temper.
Who does the laundry? Whoever runs out of clothes first. Today's winner is.... Kevin!
Who does the dishes? Kevin has two dish nights, Thursday and Saturday. If I feel they need to be done otherwise, I do them. It's Tuesday, and they're starting to really pile up.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Is it the right side as I'm looking at it, or as I'm sleeping in it? If the first, then Kevin.
Who pays the bills? I do
Who mows the lawn? We both do. But Kevin gets it out of the basement. And he usually finishes up for me.
Who cooks dinner? I usually do, but Kevin has a few things he likes to make
Who drives when you are together? me. This is because I'm apparently really picky about my safety. When Kevin drives, I shut my eyes.
Who is more stubborn? This is a tie. We both generally get along, but when we don't, we don't. And no nagging, harassing, or name-calling is going to change either of our opinions, so we don't push it.
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? We are never wrong, either of us.
Whose parents do you see the most? It's about even. Both parents have their only grandkids living here in Provo, so they come out here often. Not to see us, but we do visit with them as they're holding the grandkids.
Who proposed? Kevin. It almost killed me to wait 7 months for him to finally do it, but he did.
Who has more friends? I do. Kevin has a total of ONE friend he keeps in touch with from high school. (He also has one friend from college he keeps up with, and ironically, this is the ONE person in all of BYU whom I cannot stand. If I knew Kevin was friends with him, I might not have married him) ;)
Who has more siblings? me. Kevin has 2 brothers, and I have a whole slough of kin
Who wears the pants in the family? we both wear pants. If the question was "who wears a skirt once in a while," that would be me. Kevin is no sissy boy.

Ok, I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you see this and feel like blabbing about your hubby, feel free. ;)

24-hour Fiction Contest

A few months ago, I registered for a writing contest called the 24-hour Fiction Contest. The concept is that on a given day in the future, they will send you an email with the writing prompt, and you have 24 hours to write something and submit it. It sounded really fun, so I paid the $5 and waited.
That was back in November or so.
Then yesterday I got a bunch of junk mail, some offering to enlarge body parts that I don't have, so I just deleted all of them without reading them. Then today I got an email saying, "Time is up! You can't submit your 24-hour fiction anymore. Thanks anyway."
Drat! Darn it! Poooo! I recognized the sender's name as one of the senders of a piece of yesterday's junk mail. I hadn't understood the title of the email to be about my writing contest, so I deleted it! So disappointing!
I might be doing another writing contest. It's a contest my dad wrote to me about, where you write some comical essay in the style of Erma Bombeck. My dad said I write better than last year's winner, so I'd better enter. Now I just have to think of some humorous story to tell....

Pictures AND a thousand words

This post will show why I don't usually post pictures on my blog. We have a terrible little camera that drains batteries and is just kind of annoying to use. Hence, I don't take many pictures. And I'm not that great at taking them. I hate getting in people's faces and saying, "Wait, hold on just a second. Smile! I'm going to take your picture." And then with our camera, you have to wait forever until the flash charges and you can actually take a picture.
Someday we'll get a new camera.
Until then, the photos will be scarce. But here are a few:
This is Ryan's surprise party. Cherisse came over a few hours early, and we cooked up a feast. Mostly Chinese food. Here is the ice cream cake we made (and then stuck Oreos all over the outside). It turned out pretty well, only it was a little bit melty on the plate. So we had to hurry and have Ryan blow out the candles before it melted and slid off the plate. :)
This next picture is TERRIBLE (even if you ignore the fact that 3/4 of the picture is gym floor). But it is a picture of a few of my students performing a Bolivian folk dance at the 4H Club performance. I teach in an ESL classroom, so all my students are recent immigrants. They don't usually get involved in school activities, so they don't really like school and don't do very well (to make a long story short). But I was SO happy to see them involved in this dance club. And when they performed it for the whole school, all the students loved it. These kids don't always get much respect from their peers, so it was nice to see that for a change.
Anyway... look at these headdresses!! Huge golden goddess crowns with peacock plumes framing them! Talk about spectacular.

And then the last picture is Kevin outside talking to our neighbor, Jack Pate. When it snows, he often comes over on his ATV and plows our road and extensive driveway. On Monday, when this picture was taken, he actually came over twice, since it was snowing all day. He's very kind, and it's an awesome service that he gives us. Plus, I think he just likes driving his ATV in the snow!

Crazy Eights

This is from my friend, Beth's, blog. This is the first time I've ever been tagged by name, and I am soo happy! It's like my existence has been verified in this blogging world! :) Thanks, Beth.

8 things I’m passionate about:
I'm taking this to mean "things I won't stop talking about once I get started" And just because I'm passionate about them doesn't mean I love them (see #4). But I have a lot to say on the subject.

1. Chinese
2. China
3. Chinese history
4. Communism
5. Bilingual education
6. Immigration
7. Kevin
8. Literature

8 things I want to do before I die:
This one's hard. I'm doing most of what I want to do!
1. Visit India
2. Get rich and sponsor doctors and dentists to visit poor areas
3. Sponsor doctors and dentists to visit Kevin
4. Have awesome kids
5. Go on a mission with Kevin
6. Go on a cruise
7. Learn Spanish
8. Learn Uyghur

8 things I say often:
1. Cha bu duo
2. I love you
3. Kevin!
4. Hi, Toby!
5. Mrow!
6. Hello?
7. No weirdness!
8. I KNOW!!!

8 books I’ve recently read:
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Harry Potter 1-4
3. Harry Potter 7 (which SHOULD have come out on 7-7-07, but that's just me!)
4. The Princess Diaries
5. The Fellowship of the Ring (and you thought the MOVIE was long and/or slow!)
6. Bridget Jones' Diary
7. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
8. The Book of Mormon

8 songs I could listen to over and over:
1. Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto, movement 2
2. "Li Kai" (album) by Sun Yan Zi
3. "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt
4. "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"
5. Pirates of the Carribbean soundtrack
6. "Danny's Song" by Kenny Loggins (Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you honey...)
7. "You say hello" by the Beatles
8. "Leader of the band" by Dan Fogleberg

8 things that attract me to my best friends:
1. They are kind to me
2. We share similar experiences
3. We have similar goals
4. We share values
5. Proximity
6. They listen while I talk
7. I like to listen to them talk
8. They are hot (well, Kevin)

8 things I’ve learned this past year:
1. I want to be a mom
2. I want to be a teacher if I can't do #1
3. Exercise doesn't happen if I'm not in an exercise class
4. I don't do houseplants
5. Spending 6 weeks on the opposite side of the world as Kevin was NOT a good idea
6. Hormone imbalance is the cause of most of the world's problems
7. How to can apricots
8. How to improvise endings on the piano

8 people I think should do Crazy 8’s:
1 Ashley
2 Sarah
3 Mommy
4 Jill
5 D'Nell
6 Clare
7 Julia
8 Kevin

I started watching The Office. I borrowed the 1st season from my friend, Neil, and that lasted, oh, about 2 days. There were only 6 episodes!
When we borrowed season 2, he gave us season 3 also, and I'm SOOOOO glad he did. Kevin and I watched the last episode of season 2 today, where Jim tells Pam he's in love with her, and then she rejects him-- twice. Jim cried... and I cried too! And then after he kissed her, I just wanted to go sob my eyes out. I don't know what I would have done if I had to wait all the way to the next season to watch the next episode. We just popped in the next DVD and kept watching.
I tried not to let Kevin know I was crying, and I don't know why I'm so embarassed about it. It's not like he'd laugh at me.... although it was just a TV show, and he wasn't crying, so maybe he WOULD laugh at me, and then I'd be crying not only because of the TV show, but also because my husband was laughing at me. No, I don't think he'd do that, but WHAT IF?!
So anyway... I have to get back to editing Kevin's paper and then doing my homework, so I can watch another episode of The Office before my writing club tonight.

So what constitutes a Snow Day anyway?

I have absolutely no food in my house. I think there are 2 eggs, a little bit of milk, and several boxes of macaroni and cheese. Like I was saying, no food in the house. I got home super late last night and didn't have time for grocery shopping, so I woke up early and planned to do it this morning before school.
HA HA!
I woke up this morning finding 4 inches of snow on the ground and clouds still throwing it down. So instead of grocery shopping, I got to dig out my car and shovel a path through the driveway. Then the fun really began. My 20-minute commute took me 45 minutes, and not one snowplow did I see the entire time. It was just me and all the other 8:00 commuters swishing and sliding our ways down the road.
And once I got to school (only 5 minutes late, which is amazing considering...), there were more like 6 inches on the ground, and a bunch of the busses were late.
So why was this not a snow day? Why was there no 1-hour delay? What are these crazy Utah superintendents all about?

Man of my dreams

Sometimes Kevin is irksome. And since I am never irksome, this is quite shocking to me. Just now I asked him to throw me a blanket, so he picked one up and hurled it at my head. ;)
But this was right as he was leaving to go to the church, which is the real reason I am writing about him.
I think Kevin is just super! During church this morning (yay!), it started snowing during the last class, and there are already a couple inches on the ground already. There's another congregation that meets at 1:00, so Kevin headed back to church to shovel the sidewalks there.
Now, this is sort of Kevin's responsibility. As Elder's Quorum president, he's in charge of organizing the snow-shoveling effort. But this time, since he didn't want to call everyone who just got home from church and likely has family plans for the afternoon, he just headed over to the church to shovel it himself.
That's one of the many reasons I love Kevin. :)

Home Sweet Home

This morning I made French toast for breakfast. Kevin had just taken a bite of the first batch when he wrinkled his nose, looked up at me and said, "Do you think this has a funny flavor?"
Turns out the milk was sour AND the syrup bottle smelled like mold.
I love coming home from vacation!
We did have a few pleasant surprises: our plants didn't die, and the mailbox wasn't bursting like I'd expected it to be. In fact, there were only 3 pieces of mail in there! The pipes didn't freeze. No one broke in and stole anything. There were deer tracks all over our yard.
Unpleasant surprises: the refrigerator smelled like a post-vacation fridge. Our home still looked like we'd evacuated during a tornado. The stupid milk we bought at Walmart last night was sour (no, I don't use multi-week-old milk in French toast).
But it's nice to be home.
Our cat's happy to be home. We took him with us to New Mexico, where my 2-year-old neice terrorized him. Once she left, he started venturing out of the bedroom, but I can tell he's happy to be home. This morning after my shower, I walked back into our room, and Toby was hiding behind the blankets and jumped out to surprise me.
It's nice to be back.