Ping Pong

We have a ping pong table in our basement! Jeff’s parents gave it to us for Christmas. I noticed a smokin’ sale on Death Thursday (aka Thanksgiving evening) and gave Leslie a not-so-anonymous tip about it. Even though it’s not exactly what you’d call professional-quality, it’s blue and it has a line down the middle and a net across it, and now we can “ping it up” any time we want.

We have this giant empty room in our basement. It’s the play room, and now the grown-ups have a toy in there too. Yay! Actually the room feels rather small once we unfold the ping pong table. At least we don’ t have to go far to find lost balls.

On New Year’s Eve, we had 3 people over and the 5 of us played around the world ping pong. That’s my favorite way to play—running wildly around the table trying to whack a tiny flying ball in the right direction is great.

The two halves are a little on the uneven side…

…ok, make that a lot uneven. But when we clamp the net on, it helps pull the two levels closer to the same plane. Well, you can only expect so much from Walmart after all.

A lot of the time we’re laughing too hard to hit the ball straight, not that that’s much of a change from when we aren’t laughing (at least for me). Jeff is WAY better than me at ping pong. In the Student Union back at SVU, my thing was foosball, and Jeff’s thing was ping pong. We took turns playing each other in each game, thereby keeping the wins and losses relatively equal. If we ever find an affordable foosball table, that balance will once again be restored. But for now we crack up over our cracked ping pong table.

Now that’s what I call intensity.

To take these pictures, I set my camera on the window sill and put it on the handy “wink” setting. It waits till you wink at it and then takes a series of 3 pictures.

We spend a lot of time chasing stray balls, but we’re getting a little bit better at ping ponging…sort of.

We’ve been playing ping pong most nights after the kids are in bed: games to 11 points, best of 3 games. Due to our prodigious lack of skill, these games go pretty quick. It’s nice to have a sillier, less-mentally-taxing, more action-packed game than Scrabble, even if I am often a tad reluctant to go dashing around after flying ping pong balls after a long day of dashing around after children. When we’re done, we just fold ‘n roll so Jay and Rose can use the playroom again.

Paint and PVC

One of the things I wanted to get done over Christmas break was paint our family room and hang curtains. I don’t love doing home décor myself but I do want it to be as low-cost as possible, so that means DIY or die.

First, I tested out 3 colors of blue paint. Sniff, I miss our Christmas decorations.

This was my first-ever painting project. Jeff and Jasen did the kitchen back in the summer of my sickness. This time, Jeff did the roller and I did the edges (we painted after Jay and Rose’s bedtime, of course). I totally stressed Jeff out by gasping and squealing every 2 or 3 minutes when the paint dripped or my edger slipped. It was SO hard and I did not enjoy one second of the ordeal. Plus, we were both pretty lightheaded from the fumes by the end. But we made it out with only one blue spot lingering on the carpet. WHEW.

BLUE! I have ordered a few pictures to hang up there with the lovely temple, but they are taking forever to get here.

The curtains were an annoying ordeal. We got them from Ikea when we were in Seattle in December. We also got a rod there. Well, the rod ended up being about 4 inches too short. Arg. SO, a phone call and a Pinterest search later I got two 10 foot PVC pipes, two wooden craft balls, and a can of spray paint. Then I got to work. [Oh and yes we do need to touch up that paint up top]

I sawed the PVC pipes into four 55-inch pieces (I only used 3 of them), sanded them lightly, spray painted them and the balls black, and "ghetto-ly hot glued the wood craft balls to the ends. When we hung the curtains, we artfully hid the PVC connecters under the fabric. Hey, it beats spending a couple hundred dollars on a 165 inch curtain rod! This version, however ramshackle, totaled $7—the same amount we wasted on the too-short Ikea rod. The hooks to hang it cost $8. Hmmm, I think this project saved at least $200, even if you add in the too-short rod. Win!

Now, for some low-quality pictures. It’s so hard to take a picture of WINDOWS. So the blue paint does not look the same in the pictures as it does in real life.

We only got 4 panels to hang over 3 windows, and I think it looks a little sparse. We may decide to get 2 more if it still bugs me in a few weeks. We’ll see. The curtains were $20 for a 2-pack at Ikea, so this whole “window treatment” cost $55. Weehaw! I will say I’m not 100% sure I like the cream chairs against the white curtains. I think one of them (either the chairs or the curtains) should have some sort of pattern or color on it. Maybe some day I’ll cover those white chairs or something.

Here’s the only before picture I could find—from back in October

annnnd after.

I love my sun-and-sky colors, but whew. I’m SO glad that’s over.

A useful deadline

It’s a new year, and I have a nice set of ambitions all stacked up and organized for the next 12 months. After writing the same lengthy list of goals every January for a few years, I have altered my resolutioning technique. Now I keep that same list of things I want to be doing daily stored away as a reminder (read scriptures, pray, journal, exercise, clean, cook new food, read new books, etc. etc. ETC.). Those are my how-I-want-to-always-live/long term lifetime goals. These days, in order to avoid getting bogged down in goal-setting, I simply choose 4 or 5 things that I want to accomplish in the new year. I find that those things actually get done when I limit myself to a few.

Last year my friend posted an interesting video. Here’s the gist of it:  when we tell other people about their goals, we are less likely to achieve those goals. When we tell people our goals, their comments [like, “good for you!”] give us a feeling  similar to the release/satisfaction we get when we accomplish our goals. So we feel less motivated to work on achieving our goals because we’ve already experienced the catharsis without the work.

I like keeping my personal goals tucked away in my mind so I can track my own progress all on my own, with no external stress or invasions. 3 of my 5 goals for this year are that kind of secret goal. I’ll share the other 2 though, because I finished one already!

Goal A: Make photo books of the past 6 years. I used to make scrapbooks by hand. It was a fun, crafty release for me. Well, small children have dampened that ambition, so we only have digital versions of our pictures. In the name of family history, I resolved to slap some photos into books and print them. Well, I noticed that Shutterfly.com was having a 50% off photo books sale through January 9th. Their books are some of the best quality, so I decided to GO for it. And today I finished a lovely 77 page book that includes pictures from the first 3 years of the White Things. They had this sweet thing that lets you embed the book on a blog, so here it is if you’re interested.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books offer a variety of layouts and cover options to choose from.

Technically I still have 3 more years to put into photo books, but time and cost are causing me to wait till another sale. But the deadline of this sale was the perfect inspiration for me to get ON it and GO! Yay for meeting a goal 1 week into the new year!

 

Goal B: Play my violin 4 days each week. I love playing my violin, but boy am I rusty. I’ve played since I was 11, but there have been LONG breaks in there due to time, priorities, and privacy. Now that we’re finally NOT sharing walls with people, I can play to my heart’s content without any nagging worries that people can HEAR me. I’m an absurd type of musician: I prefer to play in private. I don’t mind if Jay and Rose listen. I’m getting better about playing when Jeff is in the house, but he sure can’t be in the same room!

There was one barrier to this goal and I fixed it in such a sneaky way. The rubber on my shoulder rest was worn through and the metal underneath was threatening to scratch my shiny violin.

I wasn’t in the mood to buy a whole new shoulder rest just for the rubber, sooo I remembered from waaaay back in my youth orchestra days when my stand partner said she fixed her shoulder rest with rubber tubing from the hardware store. So I got some from Lowes, and sha-pow, $1 later I was back in business.

As good as new!

Whew! I’m feeling wordy. Hurrah for lists! and for goals! and lists of goals! And private squeaking…I mean fiddling!

A Post for Jan

Here you go, ole buddy ole pal! On Thursday, we drove to Bellevue (3 hours) and met our long-lost friends Jan and Jordan Bennett for lunch. They live in Missouri but they were visiting family out here for the holidays so we snapped up the chance to catch up. We ate at Dixie’s BBQ, the most unlikely of restaurants to find in fancy Bellevue. The ribs were nearly Southern in quality, and we ate in a grungy ole garage. It was great! We stayed for 2 1/2 hours talking.

Here we are. Jan and Jordan just had their first baby, a little CUTE-cheeked, fuzz-topped girl named Parker Jene. I got to HOLD her. Um, I just noticed that there’s a urinal in the background. Excuse Dixie and her barbecue garage.

A one-photo-post will never do. Since we only took one picture while we were together, I MUST unearth some pictures from the archives of our friendship with these guys. Prepare yourself, I just took a few pictures of my old scrapbook.

First, Jan. Jan and I met at a BYU cross country camp in the summer of 2003. I’d like to think my photography skills have improved since then. Oh, disposable cameras how little I miss you.

We were only 14 and 15! When we parted ways after that one week camp, we never expected to see each other again. I went home to Tennessee, and Jan went home to Oregon.

Laurs, Jeannie, me, and Jan

I went to SVU in 2004, and Jan showed up in the spring of 2005 to tour the campus. Our coach invited her to track practice, and I spent the first 5 minutes or so of practice wracking my brains to remember why she looked so familiar. Then we started talking, and we were so surprised to meet again! She started at SVU in the fall of 2006. I’m very glad neither of us ended up going to BYU.

Jordan, Jeff, and Casey

So Jan came to SVU the same semester that Jordan returned from his mission (I think that’s how it happened). We all ran cross country—that’s a LOT of quality time! No wonder we’re such buddies.

I love this picture. Jan looks so uninterested! Ha, as if.

Good times.

Thanksgiving 2008: me, Jeff’s cousin CJ, Jeff’s brother Sam, Jan, and Jordan. At least Sam was ready for this picture.

Jan and Jordan transferred to Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO starting in fall of 2007 (our coach got a job there). In the summer of 2008, Jeff and I got jobs at Lindenwood’s Boone Campus in Defiance, MO (40 minutes from St. Charles). Our good ole coach, Coach Wright, used his charm and Lindenwood influence to help us find those jobs. Once again, we were near to our pals. We even had them over for Thanksgiving that year.

So there you have it. I think my college friends will always be my best friends. Jeff and I decided that that’s because when we were all single and all on the same cross country team, we spent ALL of our free time together: we were a family. That increases the friendship bond exponentially faster than people we befriend now, because now we see our friends for a mere few minutes at church and if we’re lucky, an hour or two during the week. So it takes longer to build up friendships these days than it used to. Now our first priority is our own family (as it should be) instead of goofing off after (ahem, during) practice. Now it will take YEARS to build friendships as deep as our college ones simply because of TIME. Did that make sense? I don’t mean that I have no hope of any friends in my adult life (because I love my friends here too); I was just commenting on how different friendship is now. I’m thankful for ALL of the stages of life and for ALL the friends that I make in each one.

A White New Year

Happy 2013! Did I mention that it snowed while we were away for Christmas? It snowed a whole heap. We’ve noticed some genius snowmen around town: one with a push-broom brush moustache, one with a basketball for a head, a family of 6 tall snowmen in one yard, a snow-Santa hitched up to a snow-Rudolph, and my favorite, a giant snow teddy bear. Citizens of Grandview, I salute you. I was sad that we missed the Christmas Snow when it was fresh and fluffy. Thankfully, however, the snow was still lingering a week later, and we finally went out to play in it this morning as our first WHOLESOME RECREATIONAL FAMILY ACTIVITY of 2013.

I slipped my camera into my coat pocket and brought it along for the fun. It took us a solid half hour to get all four of us bundled sufficiently. I love kids in snowsuits. The sweetest marshmallows you ever squeezed.

We trudged across the front yard, through the gate, across the back yard, through another gate, under the net, and finally arrived at our destination: the high school’s wide, unspoiled, snowy soccer field.

Jeff went straight to work gathering snow to help Jay make a snow fort.

While we were waiting for Jeff, I made a snow-couch. Jay and Rose each held a chunk of ice like touchscreens while they sat on the snow-couch.

Then we made a little snowman, or a Shoh-shty (Frosty) as Rose calls them. Rose kept poking him with her stick and knocking him over, so it took a while. The snow was slightly crunchy from 4 or 5 sunny afternoons and evening freezes, so it was kind of uncooperative for building.

Meanwhile, the snow-fort progressed…

It turned into a snow tunnel.

Rose went through the tunnel first and panicked half way through. Jeff had to pull her the rest of the way out. Jay wriggled his way through once too. He said “I slithered like a snake!”

Rose’s wimpy mittens were freezing and soaked, and her poor fingers were bright red and icy-cold. I gave her my big warm gloves, and we headed inside.

Pobrecita! We all had hot chocolate and New Year’s cracker dips for lunch. Mmm: Warm Bacon-Mushroom dip, Hot Toasted Almond Swiss dip, Artichoke dip, annnnd of course, Killer Dip. I threw in some carrots and PB celery to balance the nutrition out a smidgen. Oh, and there was also my yearly indulgence of Chex Muddy Buddies mix. Rose is SO my daughter—we both adore Muddy Buddies! There’s speckled white sugary evidence all over our clothes and kitchen.

We built our little snowman far out in center field so we would be able to see him from our windows. This is a full-zoom camera shot from our kitchen window. He’s so cheerful-looking. I like having him there.

Happy New Year!