The new do

There is a cute little child hair cutting place in American Fork called Cookie Cutter. Morgan was in great need of a haircut, and since I have failed at my attempts as barber, we took him there. You walk in and it's this colorful child wonderland. There is a slide and play stuff for the kids waiting. But the coolest part is how you get to get your hair cut. There are lots of different "chairs" to choose from. Cars and motorcycles and airplanes. Morgan piloted while his hair was snipped.

Also cool, is each station has a t.v. There is a nice array of child movies to choose from and you watch and drive and hardly know you are getting a haircut. Morgan watched Blues Clues. Note the firetruck in the back. That is the shampooing station.
Afterward, they give you a balloon and a sucker. Ah yes, we think we will be returning for future adventures. Maybe next time Morgan can drive the go-cart while watching Finding Nemo.

I love his new haircut. It looks much better.

Shriek!

Well, the makeover contest is over. I didn't win, but I still won! Like, I probably only got 300 votes out of over 10,000 and while the second place person probably got around close to 2,000 votes, I still win everything that she does. And they are AWESOME prizes. Holy cow.

In TAMN's words, here is a list of what I and the other runners-up get:

Nummy nummy Cafe Rio, $30 GCs to Shade Clothing, the cutest hoodie ever, jewelry of their choice from The Pretty Kitty, darling earrings from reader Kayci, AND some babe-them-up pampering (thanx to Metropolitan Salon in Provo, Lunatic Fringe in Salt Lake, Jacque at Visage Skin & Beauty Bar in Pleasant Grove and Cultures Salon in Clearfield), AND they each get family photos (thanx to Alli Easley, Blue Lily, Jessie Alexis Photography and Gemstone Photography). And maybe more stuff too bc I haven't finished busting through all the emails yet! BAAAA!

So, yeah, pretty excited about that. Thanks again Stephanie, for nominating me!!

Addendum- It has been brought to my attention by my dear-sweet-husband that the wording preceding the list of prizes suggests that they will be divvied out to the finalists, not that all will get all. So, my prizes MAY include some of those things. And, yes, Stephanie, you can have the earrings if I win them, since I don't have pierced ears. :)

Rock and Roll

Morgan is my little rocker. He prefers to do the vocals, but is also content on the drums. Here comes a Rockband prodigy.

Feast of Olives

We love olives and we know the right way to eat them too. Cover every finger, then stuff them all in your mouth at the same time. Once you have at least five jammed in there you can start chewing. Repeat.

Excuses, excuses

May 7, 2002
I was writing about a time at The Cruise with Laurie. This particular time, while she was distracted by some guys on the sidewalk who were shouting at her, she ran into a Thunderbird who was stopped at a light. She claimed she didn't hear me screaming at her to stop, and even tried to give me some blame. A lot of people mulled around while we waited for the cops.

One of the standerby’s even asked Laurie for her phone number. She said, “No, I have a boyfriend. But Melanie doesn’t.” I said, “Well he doesn’t want mine.” Then Laurie threw in, “she can’t give out her phone number.” That was embarrassing. Duh! I could give it out if I wanted, but I don’t.
Not to mention, nobody had ever asked for it. :)

After getting the fender bender straightened out we were headed for the freeway to home. The police men who had dealt with the accident were right behind us and after awhile told Laurie to pull over again, via intercom. They informed her of a horrible exhaust problem. She made excuses.

Then he said, “oh, and another thing, your driving is terrible. She blamed that on the steering wheel. Then he asked her how the steering wheel had anything to do with running a red light. (Silly Laurie) She had another excuse for that. So the other officer spoke up and said, “Mam, it seems like you have an excuse for everything." Laurie said, “No I don’t." He went on “Yes you do, and your attitude is terrible." ….. ”We have given you tons of breaks, so I suggest you get your car out of here before we change our minds.” She said, “that’s where we’re going, she is already past curfew.” So we left.
It was times like these that I was embarrassed to be Laurie's passenger. I wanted the police men to know that I wasn't like her, and that I didn't agree with her, and I that I wouldn't be so disrespectful. But there is that guilt by association thing, which I was often very aware of.

I was terrified of Mom. I wasn’t home till almost midnight. I walked inside where Mom, Stephanie and Jeff were chatting. They wanted answers. I had to convince myself that lying wouldn’t be the right way out. I delayed it and tried to sneak to bed, but I eventually told them. I thought that I would be grounded for life for getting in an accident. That is how bizarre my mom is. Boy was I surprised when I didn’t get a tongue lashing or anything. I was especially surprised when mom didn’t tell me that I could never go anywhere again with Laurie. But everything worked out fine. No one was hurt in the accident or from Mom.
So I guess Mom wasn't that bizarre after all. :)

So sneaky

Yesterday Aaron and I were both upstairs and on separate computers. Morgan was downstairs watching a movie. Now, usually he won't watch one for very long if Mommy isn't down there with him. But he was doing really good. I attributed this to the fact that he was watching his favorite movie Cars, which he hadn't seen for awhile. I commented to Aaron, "Morgan is being really good!"
When the movie was over Morgan came upstairs and I put him down for a nap. Then I went down stairs. Then I realized that Morgan wasn't being the angel that I thought he was being.


P.S. It isn't too late to go vote for me here.

I'm a finalist!!

Gah! I'm so excited! My awesome sister nominated me to win a SWEET prize package from the blog seriouslysoblessed.com, a Mormon Mommy Blog spoof. Anyway, there were over 500 entries and I'm actually a finalist!! If I win I will get a big makeover: hair cut, colored and styled, makeup done professionally, a free photo shoot, some new clothes and a stay at a hotel. EEK! So, if you want to help a sister out, go to seriouslysoblessed.com and vote for me.
There are 5 other finalists and they probably all deserve it more than me, so if you can't vote for me in good concience, just don't tell me about it. :)
Thanks Stephanie!!!

Input please!!

Well, since I'm seriously serious about trying to get my book published I have researched different literary agents to send a query letter to. This has proven to be the most daunting task of the whole project. Write and 81,000 word story? No problem. Write a one page query letter to an agent or publisher? GASP! Panic attack.
I've read sample queries, I've read many tips of how to write one, the dos and the don'ts, but do I feel prepared? No I do not.
I've actually written a query, (basically a cover letter) and am going to post it here for your consideration. I risk embarrassing myself with the poorly structured/written proposal, but I do need input. So please, if you have the time, do read my letter and then let me know what I can do to make it worthy to send in to professionals. Be candid.

Melanie Nelson
2024 Belmont Drive
Saratoga Springs, UT 84045
(208)284-4818
yesmelanieis@gmail.com

January 20, 2009

Person
Company
Address
State

Dear

Karen Moss, is no longer able to classify herself as being “normal”. The story starts as Karen wakes up in a strange place with a strange man and wearing strange clothes. The image she sees in a mirror reflects an older version of herself. When she learns that she is no longer seventeen years old, but twenty-two, her family and husband (the strange man) determine that she has amnesia. It doesn’t take Karen long to realize that the truth is much more disconcerting; she shifts through time. While she was five years into her future, an older Karen had taken her place as a seventeen year old. While the shifts were never predictable, a frightening change occurs when they become new and unknown to even the older Karen. Not only is time behaving erratically, the lives of Karen’s future family are in mortal danger and only Karen can prevent a tragic outcome. Told from the viewpoint of our younger Karen – excepting journal entries and written messages from the future heroin – and replete with humor and real-to-life teenage attitudes, this 81,000+ word story will entertain teenagers and adults alike.

Because of the time-traveling aspect of this book, I would categorize it as a YA Science Fiction, though light on the science and heavy on the fiction.

I have been faithfully writing in my journal since I was seven years old and have excelled in my English and Literature college courses. Reading and writing have always been my passion and I spend as much time with both as I can. Since I am a stay at home mom, I am able to make plenty of time for these, my hobbies.

I am looking forward to the prospect of working with you in the future and have included an SASE for a prompt response. Thank-you for your time.

Sincerely,

Melanie Nelson

Where are you?

Morgan has discovered a new hiding place. So, yesterday when I said, "Nap time!" Morgan took off for the bathroom. Then he disappeared into the cupboards and giggled, occassionally chanting, "Where ahh yoooouuuu?"

An Interview With a Two Year Old

In my head

Yay for journals. Here we go.


April 2, 2002
I’m so filled with snot, it’s unbelievable.
Gross, I know, but it made me laugh.

Today on my way to piano lessons, we were stopped at a red light in the front of the line and a cute guy on his bike rode in front of us, as he went by, he smiled. Oh lovely! That made me happy.
Ah, but he smiled at me, which is the most important part.

May 4, 2002
I was writing about my Grandmothers funeral and the events surrounding it. We had a big family dinner the night before the funeral which included many of my dad's cousins and their kids. Kolleen is Dad's cousin, and the hostess of the dinner.
Kolleen has a really cute son my age named Cody. Too bad we are related-no, not that it matters.
Just to be clear, I was saying it didn't matter simply because I knew that even if he weren't my 2nd cousin once removed or whatever, I would still never have any sort of relationship with him.

May 5, 2002
Okay, so I have this rather amusing anecdote written in my journal about a time that my sister and I took a raft to Lake Lowell to row around in. I considered just posting the whole two-paged entry here, but went for this approach instead.
It was a windy day and even though we were advised not to go, we were stupid. Two weakling girls who are inexperienced at rowing in a big blow up raft are no match to the winds and the waves. Soon we were well off course from where we wanted to be and all our efforts to get back were futile. And then...

After awhile we spot this speed boat headed full speed, straight at us. It didn’t look as if they were going to stop. It almost appeared like they were on a murder mission. So we turned the boat and rowed hard trying to outrun the motor boat, (yeah right) but they turned the motor off and we could see that it was a police boat.
Then they questioned us, had us show them our life jackets and even offered to pull us back to the little inlet where we docked, which my sister politely refused. Doh!

Eventually we gave up and let the wind take us to the next inlet. Lake Lowell is surrounded by trees and plants that grow all around in the water, which would make it impossible to get a raft to shore at any ol' place. They have certain spots that have been cleared where you can take your boats. So we went to the next one, still barely making it in before the wind carried us away even further.
But it stank really bad and the water was black. Plus there was a killer fish out to get our souls. It kept flapping everywhere and went under the raft and flapped at our butts. It was probably trying to tip us over.
We got out eventually and realized that we weren't in one of the designated docking spots after all. We had no way to get to the road because there were not one, but TWO barbed wire fences between us and the road. We were in a restricted area. A national wild life refuge. And we still had to drag a very heavy 6-man raft way back to our car. Miserable.

I missed mutual because we took so long. Mom wasn’t happy. Mutual was thinning apricots at the church orchard. I wasn’t too sad.
Gah! Such a wicked soul, I was.

Rockband

We bought it last night. Yup. Kind of on a whim, really.
We went to Quizno's for date night. We had a pretty meager date-night budget but had a buy one get one free sandwich at Quizno's. Quizno's is very close to Best Buy. This is how I imagine Aaron's thoughts went from there. Best Buy. Best Buy has Rockband. I like Rockband. I want Rockband. I could use the extra money that I got from the freelance project I did to buy Rockband.

So he says to me, after we eat, "Now what do you want to do?"

Me- "Uh, go home I guess. What else would we do?"

Aaron- "We could go home, or we could go and buy Rockband."

We talked more about it, both pretending that we were considering the responsible thing to do, as we drove to Wal-Mart, where Rockband might be cheaper. Then we bought it. Rockband 2, actually.

Morgan was all sorts of excited when we were opening the box and taking everything out. So, now we're rock stars.

Top Ten

Aaron's family, I believe, has a new years tradition where they list and share the top ten most memorable things of the year. Good and bad. Just the ten that had the most impact, I do believe. I may be getting their tradition all wrong, but I am going to do it that way now. These will be in chronological order, not in order of importance.

1. Layoff- Late in February Aaron was unexpectedly laid off. As you can imagine, that was a trial which changed much in our lives, but not necessarily for the worse.

2. The Move - April 4th we left our home in Idaho for one we would make in Saratoga Springs Utah. Obviously this has had a big impact on our lives. We like it here, and our ward and the people. My only complaint is the distance from family.

3. Getting pregnant - Shortly after we moved we learned the glorious news that I was pregnant, after several months of trying. Oh the joy and excitement.

4. Miscarriage - On Father's Day, when I was 12-13 weeks pregnant, the evidences of a miscarriage were first manifested. Two days after that marked the worst day of the year, perhaps my life, and is a memory that I'm happy to leave in 2008. May this year have better news.

5. Camping - But life goes on. In early July we went on an awesome camping trip with my whole family. It involved four wheeling, sight seeing, chatting around the camp fire, giant moths, and dirt, dirt, DIRT!

6. Reunion - In August we went to a Turley family reunion. This is my mom's side of the family. There were over 100 people there, yet it was only my grandparents and their posterity. No great-aunts, or distant cousins. This was all just close family. And it was awesome.

7. Missouri trip - Not only did we attend the reunion while on our vacation, we also did some sight seeing and camping. We went to Nauvoo and Carthage jail, and even hit an amusement park on our way home. All this with my brothers family. All seven seats in our Durango were taken. There was no spare room anywhere.
I decided to have these two things separated, rather than together, because they are separated in my mind.

8. Morgan's birthday - Morgan turned two. My little baby became a full-fledged toddler. No longer a baby, but a little boy. *SIGH*

9. Glimpse - Ah, my book. I put a lot of time and effort into this project and it was a great day when I finished writing it. Obviously I still have lots of work to do on the road to publication, as is my goal, but getting the story down was a big step.

10. Holidays - Oh golly, what holly jolly time they were. I shall keep them together as I am only allowed a top ten, not top eleven. So, Thanksgiving, here at our house with Aaron's family, and Christmas up in Nampa with both families. Good times. Good times.

So there was my year. The great, the good, the bad and the really bad.

We're not in Western Idaho anymore...

Happy Morgan. He doesn't care that he's freezing, (the weather was actually quite pleasant) or that he has snot running down his face, he's just happy to be outside.

Climbing the snow like a mountain. And really, it was.

Lost a mitten.

Here I am, trying to illustrate how deep it was. This was just what was in our front yard naturally. We didn't pile any snow from the driveway right here. So, that's my knee that it's up to and I didn't reach the ground.

Morgan kept taking off his right mitten. Then, because he realized the snow was cold, he would use it as shield between his hand and the snow he was touching. So why not just leave it on??Our lovely icicle.

This is what our driveway looks like right after it's been shoveled. Seriously. I had just shoveled off all the fresh, loose snow. What remains is a few inches of packed snow and ice. That will probably be there until the summer.

The snow is higher than Morgan.

I put Morgan on top of the snow mountain a few times and he thought he was on a slide.

Fun at the lake

I got the pictures from my dad, the ones that I was looking forward to seeing, as stated in a previous post. So, here are the photos my dad took of us while at the frozen lake.

Okay, so here were are, fairly far out on the lake, we just gathered for the photo. But if you'll notice we are all looking worriedly at our feet. This is to check for the large crack in the ice that must surely be visible after the huge noise it made and the vibration we felt. So, that is our first reaction.Here is our second reaction.

And third

But, alas, no harm done. Well, not by the lake itself. There was plenty of harm done by my brothers.

More Morgan

Here we have several pictures that Grandpa Martin took while we were in Nampa.

Morgan is playing with a truck that his cousin Mattie just got for Christmas. That toy was popular among the wee ones. And annoying. It played Cotton Eye Joe loudly with a simple push of the button. He looks like he just got away with something.

Caught in a sneeze. You can see slobber escaping his mouth. Eww.

Morgan and Emmy play well together, though it definitely looks like Emmy is gearing up to slap my boy across the face here. Who knows what was really happening.

Here they are making a mess of index cards. I don't know where I was during all of this, but I had no clue about their mischief until I saw these pictures.

Seven shmeven

I have been tagged by Shelly. I will now write seven random things about myself.

1. I used to collect porcelain dolls. They currently reside in a box in the basement, which pleases my husband, but just you wait until I get one of those glass cabinets. Oh, just you wait.

2. I still daydream on a regular basis. I find that doing jigsaw puzzles is a great time to daydream. But, with daydreams come book ideas for my future career.

3. I've come to suspect that my two year old doesn't actually take a nap when I put him in his crib, but plays for an hour or two alone. I continue to put him in his crib for naptime though.

4. I tried to read the Iliad and the Odyssey, mostly so I could say I read them, but only got one chapter in to the Iliad, a few more on the Odyssey. The latter isn't too bad, but since they were over due at the library they had to be returned. I will not renew them.

5. I watched Sleeping Beauty for the first time on Friday.

6. I've recently had dreams about adopting a baby from someone we know or just met. Anyone having an unwanted child??

7. I have 60 first cousins on one side of my family.

I tag Candice and Jana and Treasa.

Blogging anniversary

I missed it. I meant to do a special, "Yay for me, blogging a year now!" post, but I missed the date. December 19th was my one year mark. So, here is my 219th post a little bit after a year of blogging.

Journal Entries.

I was at Wal-Mart with Laurie after mutual and...
Feb. 27, 2002
We were walking toward the check out stand and two guys in suits walked out of one of the isles right in front of us. Guess who they were? Missionaries! Guess which ones. Elder Sondrup! Wow, talk about cute! I don’t know who his companion was. Elder Sondrup has been in Nampa forever!
And he's STILL making my journal entries. Eh, meaning, he was still. He isn't anymore, like, currently...

I hope I marry someone cute. I’m dumb, I always find myself worrying about marrying someone that I don’t like. But duh, I wouldn’t marry anyone that I didn’t love. I always think, “Wouldn’t it be terrible if I married so and so?” That’s dumb though. Even if I don’t like a person now, doesn’t mean I won’t ever change my mind about them later on. I can’t be forced to marry someone. This is America. Thank goodness. I just have to worry about someone wanting to marry me.

March, 17, 2002
Here I went on a little road trip to Ephraim Utah (Snow College area) with my sister and her boyfriend Jeff. While Stephanie was visiting some friends...
Jeff and I faced two college guys in a game of basketball, (one was really cute.) and we actually won. Very lucky.

The next day (Sunday) we went to Tooele and to the singles ward sacrament mtg. There weren’t many cute guys.
You can tell what's on my mind! Boys, boys boys. Well, cute boys, cute boys, cute boys.

Cars, cars, and more cars

Morgan has a lot of cars, and he loves them all. Like I said in my last post, he enjoys playing with them on the piano.
Did you know that lining things up as a young child is a sign of intelligence? Well, that must mean that Morgan is very intelligent. He lines his cars up vertically, horizontally and sometimes even diagonally.

Here he is moving the cars from one end of the piano to the other. Aww, so cute.


Morgan has a lot of cars, and he loves them all. Like I said in my last post, he enjoys playing with them on the piano.
Did you know that lining things up as a young child is a sign of intelligence? Well, that must mean that Morgan is very intelligent. He lines his cars up vertically, horizontally and sometimes even diagonally.

Sunglasses

Morgan likes to play with his toy cars on and near the piano. Because of this I thought that maybe he had lost one or two behind it. So I reached behind the piano and came up with not cars, but a pair of yellow sunglasses. Then I proceeded to take a gazillion pictures of Morgan styling them. And I don't regret it.

You gotta love his cheese.

What, huh? Don't mess with me.

Charming.

This kid has confidence.

Aaaaaaannnd, of course we have to have our Mommy/Morgan shot. Didn't know I was zoomed in....Morgan is super cute anyway.