Phone Wars: Part 2

The Sons-in-Law get in on the action, adding a further dimension to the Phone Wars: Daniel leaving a message on Mom's cell phone: "Hey, Mom! It's Daniel, your favorite Son-in-Law. I just called to tell you that I love you more than Houston does. Alright? Bye!"

Houston leaving a message on Mom's cell phone: "Hey, Future-Mom-in-Law! This is Houston. Just calling to say that I love you more than Daniel does, because I'm special ... and so are you... Well, see ya!"

Phone Wars

Because of General Conference Weekend, Diane and Houston (sister and future-brother-in-law) drove down from BYU-I to hang out with us. We had a great weekend (minus the fact that I had/still have a nasty cold)! Just after the end of the last session of conference, Diane and I both noticed that we had a missed call and a message from our mother. She just called to see how our weekend was. Well, Diane thought it would be smart to call mom on her cell phone first, just to prove that she loves mom the best. Totally cheap! was what I thought. And the Phone Wars begin!! Let me introduce the two sides of this war:

1st, the EVIL sister!! (I wish, only for the sake of the story, that she was a step-sister, so that I could say the evil step-sister ... or maybe my twin: the evil-twin sister!) ... DIANE

2nd, the GOOD, more loving sister ... LESLIE

(awful picture, I know...but give me a break! I'm sick!)

3rd, some third party observer/distractor of the mother (he made a few phone calls himself, detailing in messages his love for mother, and taking away from our time to leave mesages), ... BRIAN

1. The Battle of "Home Phone vs. Cell Phone":

My mother is not always good with her cell phone. She often forgets to check her messages. So, when the enemy decided to call her cell phone, I took the advantage of home phone! I called the home phone thinking someone may actually answer. Unfortunately for me, no one answered. But Diane was angry that I'd thought of this strategy first, and decided to try that tactic once I was finished. Unfortunately for her, it was busy when she attempted.

2. The Battle of "Leaving Billions of Messages":

While Diane was occupied with calling home phone and getting a busy signal, I called the home phone again ... this time leaving a message for mom, declaring my obviously greater love for her. In retaliation, Diane called the house phone again, and, again, it was busy, giving me the time to advance (call again, and leave another endearing message for mom).

3. The Battle where Diane appears to have the Advantage:

As you may imagine, Diane is becoming more and more furious with the situation, and she makes a different play: she calls the home phone, and actually talks to mom!!! I was incredibly frustrated that Mom would answer when Diane calls, when I called at least 2 times before that! (They tell me my facial expression was hilarious!) But Diane was deceitful: she also got the answering machine and was acting as though Mom had actually answered.

4. The Battle where Leslie takes over Diane's Advantage:

Well, I took that phone away from her and heard that it was only the answering machine ... Mom wasn't actually talking to Diane. I waited a short while, and then I left ANOTHER message for mom, further detailing my love for her. Haha! I said to myself. I've taken from my opponent the chance to fight back!

5. The Battle of Facebook

Diane posted her love all over facebook. A cheap shot, you may say to yourself. But, if you couldn't tell, this post itself is part of the war!!

6. The Battle of the Blog

Dearest Mommy (and may all of the world witness my profound words),

I love you dearly! Even though Diane did technically call you back first, I was the one who left you all those tender messages. I love you EVEN MORE! And I'll be the first to prove it when we arrive in Medford! I'll help you clean out the garage and plan Diane's wedding and anything else you need me to do.

Your Loving Daughter,

Leslie

...Did I leave any important events out, Diane?

All Dogs Go To Heaven?

This last week, I had a 3-day job as a receptionist at a local apartment complex. I've been doing lots of temporary jobs lately, and mainly what it comes down to is this: I have very few tasks to do at most of these jobs, and am left with hours upon hours of sitting there waiting for something to happen. So, early on in my temporary jobs job, I learned to find ways to occupy myself while working. Mostly, I read. Last week, I got much reading done!

On my third day there, however, I decided to do a little research. I've wanted a dog for the past few months, and so I thought, since I didn't have much else to do, I would get on the internet and do my research. I looked up pictures and temperaments, dogs good with children, dogs that don't shed, etc., etc., etc.

When I was in High School, I thought it would be so cool to have one of these:

This is a Great Dane. They're huge, which makes me wanting one slightly ironic. Pretty cool, though, don't you think?

Well, I've grown up since High School (at least I'd like to think so...), and I now have different taste. I looked up some lap dogs. They fit me more, right? Since they're tiny?

My parents have had these two dogs:

A Toy Poodle (it wasn't pink, though ... unfortunately. I think it adds something, don't you?), and,

... a Shi Tzuh (a cute little guy, but very annoying... and smelly).

Now, since Daniel's mission, he's thought that these dogs are pretty cool:

The Rottweiler.

They always freaked me out. I'm not sure I could go with one of these. I guess we'll see.

These are some of the dogs I've looked into. I think they're adorable. What do you think? Which one would you choose?

Pug & Maltese

New Guinea Singing Dog & Vizsla

An Irritating Infestation

Meet Bob:

Bob is a Fungus Gnat. A few weeks ago, Daniel and I became well acquainted with Bob and many, many of his relatives. Let me tell you about Bob's own. Fungus Gnats are little flies that live and reproduce in the soil. They're very small, so we originally thought that they were fruit flies. They look much like them.

Daniel and I have a small indoor tree, and within the last few months, we repotted our plant into some nice soil in a real ceramic pot. I think our tree was very happy to be in a new niche. But we soon found that the amount of "fruit flies" in our house had increased, rather quickly.

So, we created traps like this one:

It has orange juice concentrate (to seduce the little buggers) and vinegar (to kill the little buggers). But, the traps were not disposing of as many as we would like. Then Daniel began noticing that a lot of the flies congregated around our little tree. And the more he watched them, the more he saw that they were crawling around in the dirt. And there were LOTS of them!

After some more research, he learned the truth about these little pests. In an effort to rid our home (and plant) of them forever, Daniel removed our plant from it's pot and the "soiled" dirt, put all of the dirt in some cake pans and jelly-roll pans, placed these in the oven, and baked the dirt. Yes, he put dirt in the oven and baked it. The idea was to cook all of the larvae and the flies out of the dirt, so that we don't have anymore.

The funny thing was that I was making a curry, peanut stew at the time that Daniel was taking care of all this. As I'm making the food, I keep smelling the pot, and I notice it smells increasingly like dirt. I kept asking myself, "Man, did I just not wash the vegetables well enough? What did I accidentally toss into the pot? This smells like dirt!" It took me several minutes to realize that the dirt in the oven was causing the smell!
The venture was successful so far. We don't have flies buzzing around our faces or food anymore, which is a delight. We've put our tree in our spare bedroom (with the door closed, of course) and covered the pot with foil, so as to prevent flies reproducing once again in our plant.

What a funny adventure that was!!

Look At That Kisser!

As a belated gift for Valentine's Day, my mom (when she came to Utah for a weekend) brought us some little candy suckers with big red lips on the ends. They were quite delectable! And they were so funny, we had to take pictures!

Woo! Look at those full lips! So sexy!

One Big, Fat, Valentine's Kiss!!

A Colorful Family Night

Daniel and I are pretty serious about our Family Home Evenings. All talk, no play. We always have very serious gospel discussions that last for 2 hours on Monday evenings, and we rarely have treats or activities to go along with it. I mean, that's just the sort of couple we are. No laughing or fun in this house!

Well, no that's not true. Often, it's a short spiritual thought and a grand ole' activity. This particular night, however, I really wanted to color. I had recently bought some crayons (recently because I realized that we didn't have any, and, honestly, what household doesn't have crayons?), and I was so excited about all of the colors. So, for our activity, we found coloring pages on the internet, printed them off, and colored. It was delightful!

It just happened to be the 2nd anniversary of the night we got engaged, February 7th. Daniel colored me this adorable and fuzzy-looking teddy bear for that special occasion.

And as for myself, I just love Hercules!