They Say It's Your Birthday

Warning: there is birthday stuff in this post, including videos about opening gifts, which are probably really boring. However, no pictures were taken on my birthday, and I looked darn cute, so I'm putting up the video of me opening gifts so you can all see how adorable I was at the beginning of the month.

Glen and I were born only one day apart . . . sort of. He came along four years later, but since our birthdays are so close, he will never have a good reason to forget my birthday. Mwuhahahahaha! It's probably weird to post about our birthdays nearly a month after the fact, but oh well.

Here's Glen's:

What a nice wife he has to make him such a pretty cake.

I have a feeling we're going camping this summer. (yay!!!)

And mine:

The addition of Sgt. Schulz was particularly fun.

Glen was attempting to "hide" the dresser he got for me while I was off playing with Mama and Kelly in GJ the week before. But I'm afraid subtlety wasn't the dresser's strong suit.

I like my earrings, that is certain.

So here's to being a year older . . . and wiser, too?

-Me 

"There is nothing better than birthday cake. It's like a slice of concentrated love with buttercream frosting." -Takayuki Ikkaku

I Was Born Under a Wand'ring Star

I don't know how many colds I've gotten in the last year or so, but I'd say it's excessive. I blame it on the fact that I work at home and never see people, so on the occasions we go to hang out with other people (usually when it includes children), my immune system is not tip-top. Although Glen thinks I should blame communism. Also a viable option.

What's lucky is that rarely have I gotten Glen sick. Except this time. My "cold" really hasn't been too terrible, but Glen came down with one about two days after my throat started feeling prickly, and last night, he could hardly breathe because he was so stuffed up. Poor fella. And this is what he sounded like this morning.

Nice, huh? And this is the guy who sings tenor in songs like this.

And I thought getting a cold made me sound like a man.

-Me

"Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think -- in a deeper voice." -Bill Cosby

Pump It

No longer being single, I don't hear as often about the creative and fun dates my friends go on. But when I was hearing about such things, a popular date activity was racquetball. I never did it myself, but in retrospect, it's probably better for me that I didn't. The sight of my face alone, not counting my ultra-competitive nature, would probably have been enough to send my date running in the opposite direction . . . or at least, make them not-at-all eager for a successive date. This spectrum should give you a good idea of what color my face is when I exercise.

Exercising on dates really would never have worked for me when I was single.

Fortunately, now that I've landed my man and he's stuck with me, I can exercise on dates all I want to and he just has to deal with how I look. Bahahahaha!!!! Which means I've pseudo-taken up racquetball. We've only gone twice in the last couple of weeks, and I'm just awful. But as we keep going and I (possibly) get better, perhaps the predominant expression on my face while I play will change from this . . .

. . . to this.

Minus the fur, of course.

-Me

"I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises." -Buzz Aldrin

Let the Memory Live Again

Picture this:

It's early 1996, you're 11 years old, and all you want to do after you come home from your ballet lesson is play solitaire on your family computer. (why? because computer solitaire is the coolest.) It's you and your 14-year-old brother at home, and he won't get off the computer. What do you do to make him move? Or rather, what does he coerce you into doing so that he will move? Observe.

I must have really liked solitaire.

-Me

p.s. Tom was nice enough to not post this video without my permission, and when he told me he had avoided the temptation, I responded that he should load the video so that my husband could at least see it. And then I figured, I get a laugh out of this, and I may as well let others do the same. (you don't see me posting the video link directly on facebook, though. i only post here because not many people read my blog.)

Who am I?

If anybody else read this post title and immediately started singing Les Mis, you're not alone. ("two-four-six-oh-OOOOOOOOONE!") And even if you were the only reader who initially thought of that, you're probably not the only one thinking of it now. (ah, the power of suggestion.)

But in all seriousness, this is a question that is constantly popping up in my head (and the song subsequently gets stuck in there, too). How many of us really go through life without contemplating who we are and who we want to be? That's not me at all. And then there are the questions that accompany this reflection: Am I bridging the gap between who I am now and who I want to be at the right pace? Am I moving in the right direction? What lack I yet? How much change can I really take before I become someone unrecognizable? How much do I want to change? What do I want to keep?

Lots of questions. But that's all right.

Without these questions, I would never evaluate myself and my life. I would never question why I am the way I am. I would never get to know myself. I would never seek for answers. I would never look for ways to improve myself. I would never identify my weaknesses. I would never identify my strengths. I would be simply content to lie back and be dormant. Apathetic. Stiff. Stale. BORING!

No, thanks. I know myself well enough to know that's not what I want to be. That's not me.

So back to the original question: Who am I?


I'm Megan. I'm Glen's wife. I'm Don and Kathy's daughter. I'm Kelly, Craig, and Tom's sister. I'm Mildred, Reed, Sam, and Joyce's granddaughter. I'm Nicole, Jake, Andrew, Jack, Ali, Lucy, and Graham's aunt (i think that's the order they came in, at least). You may say I'm defining myself by others, but I don't see it that way. These people are so important in my life that I couldn't define myself without them. They are part of what makes up who I am.

I'm Danish. I'm Manx. I'm . . . okay, I'm a Scandinavian mutt. I'm an editor. I'm a teacher. I'm a committee member. I'm a secretary. I'm a neat freak. I am compulsively early to everything. I live by lists. I'm a pianist. I'm a singer. I'm an accompanist. I'm a last-minute substitute organist. There are a myriad of other things that help me identify myself. No, none of them are very glamorous, but they're important to me. That's the key.

And that's not even all. I'm also a daughter of God. I've been taught this and believed it for as long as I can remember. I know so many other things about myself because of this simple truth. Because I know who I am, because I know I am loved by a Heavenly Father, I can become so much more than I am right this moment. There are still questions and I still need to evaluate who I am and which direction I'm going to take in my life, but I know I can go and do, grow and improve because of Him. His love and plan makes it possible for me to find the answers to the questions I mentioned above. How amazing.

No, I'll never be rich and famous. My life is quiet and probably will continue that way. But in the end, I do know who I am. I know who has helped shape my life. I know I can become who I really want to be. And no matter how many or few people I touch in this life, who I am is someone valuable.

So are you.

-Me

Out on the Weekend

Last week Glen and I realized something . . . there was a three-day weekend coming up in which neither of us had "responsibilities" to keep us at home. (yes, yes, tom, i know you had a one-day weekend. my apologies.) Since it's extremely rare that this kind of thing happens, I immediately decided we needed to make the most of it. Translation? Road trip to Moab!

It is slightly sad that winter in Utah this year has been relatively snow-free. I'm not suffering by it, because we all know I highly dislike driving in snow (although now that i work at home, what difference does it really make?). However, if weather here had been a little more "normal", we wouldn't have made the drive and wouldn't have had the chance to explore and enjoy the beautiful and simply amazing creations there are in this "little" corner of the world. So, thanks, Utah, for not snowing as much.

Trip Highlights:

- Free-entrance days at national parks and gift cards, which helped keep the trip on the cheap.

- Glen calling Balanced Rock "Gearshift Rock" . . . I didn't have the heart to correct him, but the signs on the road did.

- The hike to Delicate Arch . . . next-to-no-shade, which was good for us brave souls going there in January. And the view there. Made the whole thing worth it. (fortunately, the rest of the weekend wasn't a bust, either.)

- Being in Moab in the off-season; kind of weird, and plenty of stores/restaurants were closed until February or March, but it was nice not feeling like you were stepping on other people.

- Pasta Jay's . . . excellent garlic bread.

- Stopping to skip rocks and Glen lamenting that he didn't collect rocks from the Oregon coast when we were there on our honeymoon. Not many great specimens to choose from along the Colorado River.

- Fisher Towers -- the view was fantastic, and being there later in the afternoon cast a great light on the rocks.

- Laughing at our wind-blown hair on Monday when the temperature took a dip and we still ventured outside.

- The Green River Overlook in Canyonlands. Sooooo amazing.

-Glen being a goof in both the Arches and Canyonlands visitor's centers -- admiring the animal puppets and trying on skulls as hats.

- The great big enormous bird that was hanging out with our car at Grand View Point and Glen deciding to chase after it.

- Having a husband to drive through Price and Spanish Fork canyons in snowy conditions. I could have done it just fine (and it really wasn't that bad, anyway), but I'm glad I didn't have to.

- Coming home, unpacking, and savoring a weekend well-spent.

-Me

"No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one." -Edward Hubbard

I'm Walking on Sunshine

Hello, everybodee! Some day I'm going to remember that I used to be good at regularly posting on this blog. And then I got married. Go figure.

But just to update, Christmas was great. We made our way to Missouri with Bethany (glen's sis), whereupon we were greeted by weather that very much reminded me of Oregon. Joan kept apologizing that it was raining and gray, but I felt that Missouri was just trying to help me make the transition. That's the kind of winter weather I know!

Glen's family LOVES to play games, and I ... well, I like games, but not to the extent they do. Drew roped several others into a Risk Penathlon (or Olympics, complete with opening/closing ceremonies and flags for the individual "countries" such as Cletus-and-Jethro-stan), during which time I caught up on a lot of reading. Not that I needed to catch up. So while they played, Joan and I would read in the living room. Solidarity, sister! I did play some games with the family, though, and that was pretty fun. We also spent time watching Christmas movies and singing carols around the piano together. Good time all around, despite the fact that everybody at one point got sick. My turn came the day or so before we departed for Utah, and I spent our flights desperately trying to stave off my runny nose. It was a late night getting into Salt Lake (thank you again, floyd, for picking us up . . . you are a saint), and Glen will tell you I was ready to be home.

New Year's was pretty mellow, just the two of us, but after a week with eleven people in one house and then getting a whopping cold, it was just what I wanted. We crawled into bed at about 11:55, so we were still awake enough to not appreciate the fireworks that several of our neighbors lit off.

So now we're back to the same ol', and Glen's got a new slew of classes to keep him busy, and I think he's enjoying himself. And naturally I have made some resolutions, thanks to a new year, to improve myself. I got a bit lazy toward the end of the year with my physical/emotional/spiritual, etc., habits, and I want to get back in the swing of things. Here's to keeping my goals!

-Me

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." -Jack London