this is our blog

this is what i look like now

2012-01-05T10:25:00.001-08:00

or did, yesterday, at 32 weeks and change.

i know, guys. i'm sexy. i know.

merry last week of december

2011-12-28T08:09:00.000-08:00

i know, we disappear from the internets when we're "in america." so it goes.

some info:

living with the parentals in arkansas, at this point probably until baby arrives, because moving again sounds super not fun right now. and we like it here. and we're still unemployed. cha-ching!

we're both freshly over what was the most violent flu of my entire life (granted, i haven't experienced too many flus, but holy cow)--christmas eve eve for nick, christmas for me. i lost 8 pounds in 6 hours (nick didn't think to monitor the slimming effects of his own detox). this would be more exciting if i weren't 7 months pregnant and already a bit more likely than most to plunge into preterm labor; those were some fun contractions, i tell you. but because somebody's watching out for us over and over and because nick is an angel sent straight from heaven, we're all good now, including #3, who remains a vivaciously-legged wee lad to prove it.

as of friday, we finally found an OB that we're kind of in love with, as of the first appointment, anyway. it's been messy since coming back, with OB #1 being less than caring and a stupid stint in the hospital, and i realized things just weren't going to work as they were. so i switched offices, and even though i feel super high-maintenance now for driving 30 minutes away, i'm also actually excited to give birth again. worth it.

and happy 3 years of marriage, nickypoo. i know most people wouldn't look at this one as our most banner year to date, but i still think we're neat. and i'm as pumped as ever for year four, because we're going to rock it. i stinkin' LOVE being married to you.

and voila! remember how we're gonna have a baby in 2 months? yep. that's pretty much all i care about anymore. each hour finds either one of us alternately terrified and ecstatic. this indicates sanity, right?

that and being totally qualified to parent a human bean. naturally. time for a snack?

I am grateful

2011-11-25T00:55:00.001-08:00

for the primary author of this blog. So grateful, in fact, I will proceed to brag about how awesome she is.

p.s. I'm a blog noob. I'm sure there is a sweeter way to make this list of pictures overlayed and clickable like a slideshow, but its 3am and i don't wanna research it. Please tell me how easy and cool the other way is if you know. Thanks.

sometimes, when you take the road less traveled by, you get eaten by a grizzly bear; and other things robert frost forgot to tell us

2011-11-17T18:53:00.001-08:00

sorry for the hibernation, y'all! we've been a bit preoccupied--nick with making all our food and getting laundry taken care of and taking trips to the expanses of northwestern thailand for his calling and finalizing moving details and trying to sell the car and going to physical therapy and packing up the house (again...) and researching how to support his burgeoning family once we're actually back in the states, homeless, jobless, and broke, and me with lying around like a slug growing a human. i tell ya, men have it SO easy...

but we have one more day, and then it's off to bangkok we fly. crazy talk.

as the title of this post might suggest, we've been doing some soul-searching lately, as one might hope we would in our situation. our plans for this year have essentially been thrust down the porcelain throne, and sometimes that can feel like that means that our plans for our life in general have also gone the way of the dinosaur. ah, it feels good to mix analogies sometimes.

but moving on: so we've been asking ourselves what on earth we've been doing for the last 2 years, not to mention what on earth we plan to do for the next 2 years. or months. many people could look at us right now and say we's dumbutts, and i'm sure in some sense that those people would be correct. we've made some poor choices. but i don't think it follows that all of this was in vain or in pursuit of a vain goal. in other words, i don't feel like we're failures just yet. these past 3 months in particular, while overwhelmingly covered in unanticipated suckage, have already taught us so much, about our character, our values, and our real desires. that doesn't mean we're not clueless yet, but it's been a pretty interesting little chapter so far. we're just gearing up for round 2 at the moment. being eaten by a grizzly turns out not to be so bad--unless, of course, we've only been slightly dismembered at this point, which is entirely plausible. but should we be devoured in full, at least we're doing it with flair, right?

anyway, all this babble is leading up to some more public humiliation, because all this ruminating on my part has led me to a remembrance of a "song" i wrote last year during the floods, the day after we bought my baby (the musical one shaped like a guitar in place of the human one i was pining for). it was a silly little 30-minutes-to-write song at the time, and it was meant to be so in the face of lots of things not working out, but the words are a little more ironically funny now. so i've thought on them. and guess what? i still feel like they're true. this artistic thailand experiment might have crashed and burned--but we can't be sure of that yet. and good things are still on the horizon, darnit. how could life be sad when nicholas morrill is your lover? that's what i'm saying, guys. that's exactly what i'm saying.

so, in the spirit of embarrassment that is sort of our lives right now, i'm lettin' you all take a look-see. it's chock full of mistakes, the sound is awful and sometimes you can't even hear the highly skilled guitar playing, and for some reason the visual is a second behind the audio, but that all seems fitting, no? it's awesome cuz i'm almost 6 months pregnant, and therefore, anything i do is awesome. isn't that how it works? enjoy my shame, and may you all have a stupendous day in the face of your own woodland-dwelling grizzlies.

our car died last night

2011-11-05T04:30:00.001-07:00

and in the middle of friday night traffic, too--
while it was full of our brand new buddies who just moved in, plus one newly purchased guinea pig for the 7-year-old passenger--
before we'd had a chance to get dinner--
right after taxi services stopped for the night.

luckily,

a driver on his way home took pity on the two pregnant women and picked us up--
we broke down on the corner of a night market, so dinner was scavenged in the meantime--
our passengers let us bunk in their spare twin and eat their food--
and when nick went to check on the car this afternoon at the curb where we left it, it magically started working again.

turns out a water leak is just about as big a deal as an oil leak. or something.

and i realize chiasmus isn't my forte, but it just ended up happening that way. also, i know it's not really chiasmus, but i wanted to use the word, so i did. i love being the boss.

and even though this story ended up not being a big deal, i'm proud to say that not for one teeny second did nick or i get upset about the ordeal. we just laughed, even if it was at times in a tired and contracting and sweaty and not-looking-forward-to-sleeping-in-these-clothes sort of way. cuz let's be honest--at this point, life is just downright humorous, no?

but i might not cheat on bed rest again until it's time to board that plane...

ps thanks for the comments and encouragement, y'all. we know it'll all work out, but it's nice to hear it repeated. over and over and over. so you's da beeest.

ah, eviction it is, then.

2011-11-02T22:35:00.001-07:00

once i'm done boo-hooing my heart out, i'll start focusing on things like eating cranberries at thanksgiving. and having a washing machine. and not having to deal with immigration anymore. all good things.

how crazy has this ride been?

in which i expostulate on the sweetness of life

2011-10-31T21:52:00.000-07:00

so it's no news that blogs get knocked all the time for the fairytale lives people broadcast to the internets. but guess what? that happens to be one of my favorite things about blogging and probably one of the main reasons i still do it. that and i like people to look at me and tell me i'm neat. but seriously, what is the point of blogging if you're not going to try to make people jealous of your life?

the reason i like this twisted aspect of the blogosphere is that sometimes i get a little crusty at the world; when this happens, i absolutely cannot write a post, because then it comes out really fake or really scary. so if i notice i've been silent for a while or posting a lot of garbage that is neither entertaining nor interesting in any way, it's a good indicator that i need to put on my big girl pants and perform a little attitude shift or summat. i learned a long time ago that your attitude really is a choice (thanks, mum); making that choice, however, has proven very difficult for me at various points in life, because it's not my natural tendency to choose satisfaction when i actually just want to melt into a couch and become one with the potato chip residue as i mope about the bleak outlook that is, obviously, my really hard life.

that's why they call me a human bean.

so i realized lately that i've been a little crusty at the world--nick cut his hand off (stories are better when you exaggerate) and i got put on bed rest, as you know; what you DON'T know is that if nick doesn't get a job offer liiiiiike today, we get kicked out of the country and have to go back to the states (or somewhere, preferably other than thai prison) in the next couple weeks. too bad about that whacking-off-of-the-hand business, huh; it kind of cut into the job hunting process. and too bad about that accidental extra 4 months in the states that deleted our previous non-immigrant visas and work permits, which would've made the need for said job hunting obsolete.

thanks a lot for getting married, tom and courtney. you pretty much ruined our lives.

okay, or maybe not. in fact, maybe our trip home, aside from being the best trip evah, was exactly what needed to happen for us in this moment of our mortality. and maybe we're being set up for the rest of it because of all this craziness. while i didn't feel this way even just a week ago, i feel it pretty strongly now. so, actually, thanks for getting married. it's made our year a lot more eventful than what we planned, which is probably why you went ahead with it in the first place, i know.

either way, instead of worrying about things i can't change and feeling sad for myself, it's now really easy to appreciate this beautiful little room where i get to spend all my time during this little minute of my life:

an excellent indicator of how asian a person is at the moment is how disgusted vs. delighted he or she is by the color scheme(s) depicted above. the curtains are a pale lime green and not gold, by the way. tonal fidelity is not this camera's forte. for the record, i am currently very asian. and, obviously, very righteous, as you can tell by the thickness of my scriptures that i was obviously just devouring with obvious vigor and vim before snapping this photo.

i love this room where i get to grow my karate kid baby. i love the curtains and the windows and the bed frame. i love the noisiness of the birds and the bees and the chickens and the cows and the hat ladies next door. and i love the finally-cooling-down breeze and crisp morning light and beautiful green coconut/banana/you-name-it trees outside my windows and kitchen. i love this place.

so many things about living here are hard--physically, emotionally, and legally. so many things are wonderful in the same categories. except maybe the "legally" one, because that doesn't make sense. if we are privileged to stay, i will rejoice. if we are privileged to be evicted, i will rejoice--because i'm finally learning that no experience is worthless, and no matter where we are or what we're asked to do or even to endure, we can rejoice.

so here's a toast to life being lovely, even when it sucks a little at first glance. it can always get worse, and it inevitably will sometimes, but it can always get better, too, starting with how we decide to react to it all. so may we rejoice, right?

*stay tuned for the big reveal on whether nick and elyssa fly to hong kong for new visas or to LAX for... something else! i know, the suspense is killing us all!*

happy halloween!

2011-10-31T03:30:00.000-07:00

it's been a relatively low-contraction day... so i got out of bed. *gasp!* and sat at the desk for an hour or two. and it was awesome.

so i've been trying to think of a halloween activity we can do even though i'm currently under confinement and thais don't celebrate halloween and we have no craft/treat supplies... something scary (cuz the fighting cats outside our bedroom window at 1am last night gave me only 5 nightmares, and that is not enough)...

and i've just hit upon it:

we shall clean the fridge! dundundun!

hope your halloween is as terrifying as ours will surely prove to be. may it be more festive and full of treats, though.

mmm, treats.

ope, and i forgot a piece of exciting news that, fortuitously, comes with halloween-appropriate photographic evidence. meet frankenthumb:

yes, the cast came off; thankfully, the thumb did not. so now nick can pursue his career as a hand model, after all. phew.

now excuse me while i go vomit.

yay!, in which i discuss my cervix*

2011-10-28T03:17:00.001-07:00

you were warned.

good news from the doctor: i'm not dilated! whoo! it's short, but not enough to cause a panic this week or anything. so my official bed rest is lifted--i'm just supposed to lie down whenever i get contractions. haha. that puts me at just every 10 minutes during the quiet parts of the day, so no biggie ; )

i couldn't have asked for a better appointment; my doctor was visibly concerned throughout, which, paradoxically, put me at much greater ease, seeing she was taking me seriously. she says that if i'm a good girl and restrict my activity appropriately--boo, as if i'm not lazy enough without medical sanction/mandate--and if my body continues to resist the advances of my too-eager uterus, it looks like i can make it to 34 weeks without issue, and we'll work from there.

so now i feel like a pathetic loser, but at least i know i'm most likely a pathetic loser who will make it full-term, and that's all i care about. it sounds like she's hopeful that i'll just feel like i'm in early labor for the next 4 months; and then i'll probably be in such good labor shape when the true stuff starts that it won't even hurt to push him out. i'm pretty sure that's what was said, guys...

thanks for the prayers. they were put to good use. and now i'mma get my lazy/excellent-mother self back to my throne of a bed that, as of this morning, is no longer on the floor; พ่อ made us a bed frame. apparently my lying on a pallet on the floor all day was unappealing to the general populace housed next door. they are sweets. so now i have a headboard sporting merry hummingbirds. be jealous.

adieu. and thank you!

*this will not become habit, never fear.

updates (or the lack thereof)

2011-10-23T22:45:00.001-07:00

thanks, guys. much appreciated. and maya, that site is fabulous. danke.

nothing to report over here except that everything's the same, which could be considered a good thing, i suppose.

nick takes very good care of us and i don't deserve him in any way, but we've already covered all that on here before.

just checking in and saying thanks. hopefully i have something swell--hmm, maybe that's a poor word choice in this situation--to post on here soon!

and apparently the comment button on here is broken? sorry. i don't know how to fix it, but maybe this one works. fire away and show how much you adore us by testing it out. i dare you.

a request, if you please

2011-10-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

am i the only one who thought, "we are siame-ese, if you don't please," after reading that title? really? c'mon, guys.

we're requesting your best vibes to the universe in the next couple of days. for those of you who are into that sort of thing, i am also accepting old-fashioned prayers (on our behalf, of course; please don't actually pray to us, as that would not be productive for anyone).

yesterday brought lots and lots of contractions--2-5 minutes apart for an hour or so. boo--that didn't go away with several hours of lying down and drinking water, so we headed to the hospital instead of to bed. there were no doctors at that hour, and the nurses didn't do any checks other than the heartbeat--which is still good and strong, thankfully--but told me to call if i had any problems. my 7 contractions during our 45-minute visit apparently didn't count. sigh.

so i'm on a trial bed rest until my next appointment on thursday, when i will plead for any kind of exam. i'm to drink lots of water and take some antibiotics for a week to see if an infection is the culprit behind these darlings. it's almost noon, and i've had only 5 or 6 contractions so far today, so here's hoping.

i know everything will be okay. i just don't know what okay is yet. so i'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers that my uterus will start to mind her manners and act like a lady around our little gentleman, because he's not sufficiently cooked just yet. another, you know, 18 weeks should do it. oy ve!

also... any ideas about what to do this week while i'm rehearsing for my debut role as broadway's first beached whale would be wildly received. i'm about 5 hours in and am already feeling nigh to bursting with feelings of ineptitude. you know you're pathetic when your gimp husband is making breakfast for you. what a sorry little circus act we are! at least there's still that to make me laugh, which i do every time nick appears with a frying pan teeming with oddly-shaped chopped foods tottering from his one good hand while the other waves a thumbs-up above his head at me. perfect boy.

but to close with better news: nick had a good interview yesterday. it doesn't mean he's getting a job, but it was a bright spot after several discouraging ones. and so we go on. i think this period in our lives might be the one our kids will enjoy mocking us for someday. that's what i'm telling myself, anyway.

smooches to you all, and blessings on your heads!

from nick:

2011-10-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

"do you know what i just thought in my brain?"

"no, nick, what did you think in your brain?"

"that i should take a QTIP and swab it through the PEANUT BUTTER and then i should LICK IT OFF...

i am seriously unwell."

everyone pray that we find jobs soon. jokes, that nick does, because who's going to hire me? let's be honest. but yes, we need some help. so everyone pray. do it. do it now.

cuz he just followed the above gem with this one:

"i just want to KISS the man who made it possible to drag-and-drop and still use hot corners at the same time!"

i don't know why he assumes it was a man (although, i know, it probably was) or why he wants to kiss him. i thought i was enough. someone save us from ourselves.

still kickin'

2011-10-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

hey y'all. pardon the gap. we've felt a bit hijacked over here lately...

nick is doing velly velly well, considering. he's a champ and never complains, although i'm pretty sure he still feels yuck sometimes. i don't suppose thumbs reattach themselves without protest. cast comes off and little metal wires out in less than 2 weeks, and then therapy begins. very exciting. hopefully he'll have a wicked scar, because he's threatening to cut off the other one more aggressively if he doesn't. i'm assuming it's a guy thing.

good thing we watched "soul surfer" a few days before we came here. it's been great inspiration for my little cripple, methinks. see?

i came out to the kitchen to see this the day after we got out of the hospital. he's a thweetheart. and whether he likes it or not, he thinks everything is AWESOME for at least 2 more weeks. that or he's hitchhike-ready at all times.

and here's the belly at a bit after 20 and 21 weeks, respectively.

yes, i'm suddenly huge. thank you. my belly is assaulted by strangers and friends alike on a daily basis, and i'm not talking the fun little tap-tap-rub you get in the states--that wouldn't have bothered me, because i am guilty of being a belly-grabber even when people aren't pregnant (nick says this is socially unacceptable and i need to stop, which i agree with, but it's kind of a tic with me that i'm working on). oh no, the thai version is an excessively awkward heavy-handed palming, followed by at least 30 seconds of vigorous circular rubbing and belly-cupping. sometimes i have to make an effort not to fall over. it is truly bizarre. it doesn't upset me; it's just a bit awkward when we run out of stranger small talk in the first 10 seconds after i convince them that i'm NOT having triplets, and i know we've still got at least 20 seconds of this rubbingness to go.

on a morning walk a few days ago, nick and i were stopped by a very drunk man who talked for at least 15 minutes as the sun got hotter and hotter, and finally, when he told me to lift up my shirt to show him my belly button, we were able to blame the baby for our need to carry on. but he was sorely disappointed not to see a white belly button, i assure you. as most people would be.

in other news, awesomely, this little man is giving me braxton hicks contractions several times a day now! yay! especially awesome is that some of them hurt! double yay! and since i've started having 5 an hour occasionally in the last 3 days, we went to the clinic, but my doctor's not there on tuesdays, and the other lady told me that it's normal, no worries. she knew i was fine because my fundal height was fine. right. i think she's on crack. i've also seen a nice increase in lower back pain and, errmmm, some pretty pelvic pressure, i suppose it's called. if any of y'alls have experience with this sort of thing, i would appreciate input. am i just being your typical paranoid first-timer (yes)? if it happens again tomorrow, we'll just head to the hospital to chat with my regular doctor, but i'd like to think it'll be okay; if we do go, i'd like to go with an idea of what to do. so comment away. sorry if this paragraph makes anyone feel tmi-ed out. i live in asia. i do what i must! [insert dramatic swoon]

and these are some kids from church that came to hang out today. they made us lunch because they're precious. and most of them practically guzzled that bottle of fish sauce. mmm.

nick doesn't usually look so homeless, i swear.

or maybe he does. hottest homeless guy evah. and i LOVES him.

the last post was a harbinger of death (well, almost)

2011-10-04T06:45:00.001-07:00

ever feel like your brain turns off? thats why there are 2 people flying the plane at all times--the probability is spectacularly slim that they will both spontaneously unplug the logic portions of their brains from the action portions just at a crucial moment. and it is in the realm of these limited probabilities that we feel safe.

unfortunately, that probability gains orders of magnitude when co-pilots are unavailable. last friday morning, i became that "annoying kid who got hurt playing dodgeball so now we can't play it anymore" and (get ready here comes the real moment of unplugged genius), holding a short piece of wood with my left hand while i held up the safety guard thus disabling its function on a chop saw (aka miter saw, pictured in previous post), pulled the roaring saw blade down towards the wood directly over my hand. can anyone guess what happened next?

i know that at any other moment in my life i would have happily bet 20 bucks what the outcome would be 99 out of 100 times. (by the way, if you are that guy who analyzes risk to determine insurance rates, this story is 100% fabricated for entertainment. for all friends, family, and random peeps, it's embarrassingly true)

yup, the wood was soon jerked forward against the blade and pulled towards the back hinge of the saw. lucky for me, all of the stars had aligned just right so that in my forethought (i know you're thinking, "what forethought?") i "knew" that i should grip the wood very firmly to ensure that the blade would not jerk it forward as it so commonly does... with my hand in tow, together we stopped the blade!.... with a slightly miss-cut piece of wood and a dangling thumb. at this point, descending from my momentarily enlightened state, i stood up and declared, "we are going to go to the doctor now." after observing a few quick squirts, i am proud to say that i did pay some attention in boy scouts and grabbed my wrist and held it high in triumph, minimizing blood loss quite well. several hours later, the first metacarpal bone in my left thumb was pinned back together with two wires, an extensor tendon reattached, skin sewn back together... amazingly, no nerves needed reattachment. so, if all goes well, i should be able to happily feel the pain associated with the months of physical therapy to come!

ok for real, i am really lucky. the wood helped me stop the blade and otherwise i probably would have had to show up at the ER with two thumbs on my right. also, the doctor seemed very pleased with the outcome of the surgery, and i am very grateful to have all nerves in place. in one month my cast will be off and physical therapy will begin. today, 4 days later, i am in almost no pain and have taken no pain medicine (which was only tylenol at that) for 2 days.

remember, kids--only you can prevent forest fires. ... it always seemed so simple.

here's a diagram:

and for those of you who are medically or morbidly inclined, here's a photo. it's not that bad, because the doctor had already cleaned it up and set it back into hand shape, but it's an idea.

the projects

2011-09-26T21:51:00.001-07:00

i forgot i said i'd put up pictures of what's been occupying nick lately (only fair after an entire post about food, i s'pose). so voila. welcome to the table and desk.

back story: before we left for the states, nick bought a bunch of steel to make a bed frame for us. then we ditched that idea and just kipped on the floor like normal people. then the steel sat in พ่อ's workshop and rusted for over 5 months. then, as evidenced, we came back. after a few days of watching us from afar as we ate our meals on the floor of our porchkitchen (again, like normal people), i guess พ่อ went a little crazy and decided to put that rusty steel to use.

and now we have a tiny table and a giant desk that nick got to paint blue like our windows. behold. but remember that the desk is not done, and we don't have it all together what with the many projects going on at the moment to beautify and convenientify our abode, so that's why it looks like we're living in squalor. nick wants to make sure everyone knows that. THE DESK IS NOT DONE. i figured you'd get that, seeing as there are no drawers in the drawer holes. but there we go.

speaking of windows, the bugs make us crazy now. didn't bother us for a year, and now neither of us can stand them for one more second. so we're putting in screens that will make our house a little darker and uglier and way more bug-free. correction: nick's putting in screens. after he makes them, which he's doing right this second.

and he can do that because he spent two days treating our frames and doors with bug death and teak oil. see how pretty?

bonus glimpse of the fridge, too. we's gots all kinds of excitement goin' on over here! he's my little worker bee, and i think i will keep him.

final project: project zerda. here he is at 18 weeks. i'll try to do these weekly for the parentals and my really cute grandpa who keeps emailing asking for them. mondays are my weekly birthdays, so i'll try to keep the pictures in that vicinity.

goals: do my hair, maybe stop wearing that skirt 3 times a week (debatable), and figure out how not to look like an idiot in these pictures. nick is fired--point at him??? i will figure this out. suggestions welcome.

food. and stuff. nope, just food.

2011-09-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

here's what's been occupying the other 10th of my brain pretty consistently: foodfoodfoodfood! this is exciting, because it's a first in the last 4 months. cheering and jubilation! except now i would give almost anything at almost any time for a giant slice of really rich, really moist multi-layered chocolate cake. we've already gone through 2 bags of dove dark and a half a bag of mediocre dark chocolate chips. this is very bad, but luckily, nick eats at least as much as i do. that boy has the sweet tooth of a woman, even when she's preggers, apparently.

but moving on! behold, the cuisine of the morrill fam as of late:

this was my first "northern" creation EVER. and, much to my surprise, it was AMAZING. fresh cumin root, lemon grass, garlic and lil red onions, superspicygrilled red peppers... delish bamboo and chicken with fresh mint and sticky rice? yes, please. i inhaled it.

this morning's breakfast. sorry, dad--but this is what real fried rice looks like. smirk. except i forgot to add the lime slices and crispy lil fried onions before snapping the picture. how i've missed those freshly smoked peppers and spanish peanuts.

a breakfast from mornings past; yes, that was all mine, and yes, i ate more than one pancake. i dare you to judge me. nick made goulash in our fancy-pants rice cooker with wheat berries and 8 thousand other grains and nuts and berries, and it was super delish hot with milk. not very thai. but delish. ditto for the wheat bran/chocolate chip pancakes with fresh mango on top. nick is, as always, the breakfast master.

and the pizza master. how many pictures of weird pizzas are on this blog? too many. especially because nick's always making that dismayed face at them. oh, well. and finally:

bring it, southeast asia. your inconveniently located and overpriced western ingredients are no match for my cravings.

not pictured: green curry. i've become a whiz, and you would pass out from its deliciousness if you could taste it. promise. also, naam phrik ong, this spicy tomato mushroom stuff you eat with sticky rice. yeah, baby. and all the other food we eat, for which i'm sure you're all grateful. but food is once again a central focus in my life, so i wanted to share my excitement.

the end.

y'all's gotta lotta baking to do...

2011-09-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

because we are, in fact, having a boy.

HOW ON EARTH DID EVERYONE KNOW THIS EXCEPT FOR ME??

no joke, i was pretty sure this little parasite was a girl from day 1, but i seemed to be the only one. well over 90% of all opinions were heavily leaning toward boychild, and no one in thailand has even entertained the notion of a girl except for lone suphakhit whom we love, who might be a little bit insane (remember the watch guy?).

am i emanating maleness unawares?

the only way for me to explain my shock adequately is by saying that in one of my many... interesting dreams that night (tangent: my first trimester dreams were stranger than any i've had by an order of 10, and for anyone who knows anything about my dreams, you know that's saying something. i considered checking myself in somewhere. they have calmed somewhat and are now usually near the realm of possibility, if sometimes disturbing and involving animation), the ultrasound lady went on from, "oooh, eeesabooy," to tell us he was also african american and emitting lasers from his rear end--this we could see on the screen as he bobbed around my uterus like a screensaver, trailing sparks--and neither of these revelations were more surprising to me than his reproductive appendage. apparently, sometimes things like that "just happen."

so there it is. zerda's a manchild, and nick is smug in his accurate guessing, not to mention relieved that he's free to remain ignorant of what he deems the profound mysteries of young females for at least another little while. i am now acclimated to his HEness and am rather enamored. forgive me in advance for allowing the little man to overwhelm my world completely. i will try to remain a normal human on occasion, that ye may not be drowned in fetal obsessions from here on out.

for example, next post will probably include pictures of the world's biggest desk that พ่อ made for us, in addition to our tiny dining table, among other exciting projects that have been occupying my studly husband this week. get excited.

our computer was in the hospital for a week

2011-09-20T00:39:00.000-07:00

which is why it looks like i lied, even though i didn't. better the computer than any humans, right? so thanks for the congratulatory notes; we are excited. very excited. and we'll be EVEN MORE excited when we have jobs again! hint: send all your asian connections our way, you know, if you want...

here's what y'all have missed lately:

nick's food poisoning that people mistook for dengue's cousin--hence the mask and government-sponsored pamphlet,

the purchase of a fridge (very exciting),
and of a shower water heater (way more exciting),
and of a car (not exciting because it means my motocye days are over but, according to the grandmas-to-be, necessary for fetal insulation and therefore perfectly acceptable),

(don't have a pic yet, so here are the guts, or most of them)
and then the days and days and days of fixing said car. yes, it is gold.

nick is hot. and i was way less prepared photographically for this post than i thought. try to imagine the glory of said fridge, water heater, and car, although i highly doubt you'll be able to get anywhere near the glory of that car. it's older than i am. and did i mention that it's gold?

but most excitingly, you missed my ultrasound and the unveiling of our spawn's genitals.

and because none of our parents are active on the internet lately despite our requests (ahem), they don't know yet, so neither can any of you. so let's take a poll, shall we? am i hauling about a girlchild or boychild? let's just keep the options down to those two, to simplify things and such.

winners get cookies, assuming you take care of the prize portion yourselves!

but check this out--thais love photobooths at the mall. they print out somewhere in the order of thousands of rolls of film every visit. apparently that tendency extends to ultrasound copies. do you SEE this?

notice how you can't see the end of the line. i felt like i was at a carnival. awesome.

and, finally, here's the more awkward of two attempts to photograph the Belly at 17 weeks and change:

"uh, hang on, i can't get it... hold up your arms!"
... what?

okay, and this one, just because zerda has one stinking cute profile, according to all biased sources:

awww.

no, for rilz, we're not!

2011-09-07T21:05:00.001-07:00

in fact, quite the opposite.

see?

promise i'm not as big as this picture, which happens to be the only belly shot i have, makes me look. i swear i'm pushing it out ; ) but i'm standing next to my 37-week-pregnant gorgeous bud morguini, and she is as tiny as she looks, if not more so. it's ridiculous.

this is where everyone wants to shout, "told you so," etc., which is fine with me. i'll go into more ponderous details in a later post, cuz this one is just to say that we really are alive and well. well, nick's not well. he's currently enjoying his first "welcome home" stomach bug, just 12 hours after our return to chiang mai. poor guy. he was so good all during our 50 hours of travel, letting me sleep pretty much the entire time all over him while his too-big-for-aircraft body suffered enormously and silently. i don't deserve this kid.

so yup, we're very recently back in thailand, gonna have a baby sometime end of february (unless it's contrary like i was and sticks around all the way into march...), we're back to our unemployed status, and sankamphaeng flooded again yesterday in honor of our homecoming ; )

but we're happy. it's good to be back. we miss our families mucho and are so grateful that, even though our prolonged visit home was unplanned and initially stressful, we were able to have this summer to be present for some pretty significant family events. we're reminded, once again, that things tend to work out the way they're supposed to. life is good. smooches to everybody.

the end. until tomorrow!

(see, i didn't abandon this thing; i just got tired of navigating my parents' caveman internet all summer. but we're all caught up to the 21st century over here in the rice fields, so expect my normal loquacious self to pop back with a vengeance!)

we're not dead!

2011-05-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

but we did miss our return flight because of aaaaawesome passport issues. so we're still in the states. aaand figuring that one out. but we figure all's good and sabai, because that's what our thai friends would tell us, and they're pretty much always right.

and for anyone who's wondering, you can read the entire hunger games trilogy in virtually one sitting (stopping for food once and a few hours of sleep after that), but it's not necessarily a good idea, especially when you already have a kind of addictive/obsessive personality and are afraid of the dark so you have to wake your poor husband up to go to the bathroom with you at 4am when you can't hold it any longer because katniss sings a stinking creepy song in the woods and you're sure your friends upstairs have turned into monsters who will kill you.*

and now i want to read them all again, even though the writing is sometimes painful. don't even care. totally addicted.

and, dear thai family and friends: we ARE coming back! we ARE! don't even think you can get rid of us merely with silly little passport officials. we miss you way too much for that.

*i think these things in the dark even when i'm not reading books about people killing each other. it's one of my many adorable little quirks.

for you, run

2011-03-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

here we are:

aren't we freshy? thank you, 15-hour train ride to bangkok!

that would be the ceiling of the hong kong airport. debate about venturing outside still in session.

peace and love to you all.

p.s. (from nick, but i would assume that would be obvious) isn't my hair sexy? all in favor of me not cutting it before tom's wedding say, "aye!"

p*rin calls it the candy house.

2011-03-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

i can't for the life of me think why, though.

come, come, now. let's be serious. what's the point of building your own house if you can't have candy-colored accoutrements?

just imagine how lovely they'll look with these beauties:

(referring to the curtains, not the young thai girls. they are beauties, though; they're just refusing to be photographed. we had a sleepover last week. in the house, what what?)

the fabric choice was definitely a "strawberry milkshake!"* decision, and now it's christmas every day at the morrill house. we'll all just deal, won't we?

ps, tomorrow's our last day in this land of small people until may 10. WHAT??

also, you might be interested to know that my writing was just interrupted by a little earthquake. i thought nick was shaking the bed, which we're both sitting on, and just as i was about to tell him to knock it off, already, he and พ่อ were hollering at everybody to get out of the house. and now i'm dizzy. phew.

*sorry, but i'm not at liberty to disclose the details of this particular reference. it's the only way to explain my purchase, so i apologize to the 99.5% of you who have no idea what i'm talking about. how obnoxious!

some pitchurs

2011-03-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

for some reason, the neighbor kids have finally, after 10 months, decided that they are sufficiently unafraid of the large white people (or the yippy foot-longs that share our dwelling) to venture into our abode. they've spent the majority of the past two or three days playing on our dirt pile and in our living room. they's pretty cute. and maybe they were never afraid of us; school did just let out, after all.

our well had some issues, so พ่อ decided it was time to dig a new one last week. it was an interesting process. and i liked this little scene that followed:

nick's (we've, i guess, but let's be honest here) been doing door stuff still. it's kinda tricky, at least in my opinion, but seeing as i placed the bathroom doorknob 5 mm farther to the right and 5 INCHES higher than i intended, maybe my estimations are less than accurate. enjoy takin' a wee in our place, ye midgets.

yeah, the little'uns confiscated the camera for a while. i have about 12 variations of this picture, for anyone who's interested.

beware of oil

2011-03-15T09:13:00.000-07:00

soooo, this past friday, we were preparing for our first-ever youth activity at church. we're trying to instigate the once-a-week short-and-sweet idea for activities, because the norm right now is to have a 10-hour marathon on a saturday every 6-8 weeks or so. they tend to be rather expensive and, well, horrifically long. so it's been a bit of a struggle to get the concept across to everyone, and the process leading up to this activity was also lengthy, but check it: we have separate and combined activities planned through june, people. and the kids decided to kick it off with a sort of iron chef competition, which we thought was a great idea.

the activity was to start at 5pm, so at 4, nick and i set off on my bike (nick's was still busted--still is, sort of, but พ่อ is more than fed up with the motorcycle guts in his workshop, so it's been hastily stitched up--but that's another story altogether, and i digress) to meet up with pukky and poppy, 15- and 12-year-old sisters in our branch who are stinking adorable and so amazingly solid, to go buy food and other prep materials. we met up and followed them to the giant food market on the edge of the city.

but! oh, snap! just as we passed the town in between ours and the city, i looked up to see the girls' bike just slam to the ground. my heart may have stopped, but i'm not really sure, because we immediately followed suit. and because i'm an awesome wife, i didn't even stop to notice whether nick was okay or not, because for the first time in my life (or third, or something), i'd gone completely momma bear in my head, and my girls were still lying in the middle of the road, obviously dead. [don't worry. not really. i'm just letting you be in my overreacting brain for a second.] i don't even remember getting up from under the motorcycle. it was weird. it's probably a good thing we fell, too, or i might have jumped off while we were moving without realizing it.

i ran over and got them on their feet and shooed them to the curb while i brought their bike. i don't know why, but in every accident i've seen, the person/people just lie there staring at oncoming traffic; it's terrifying, so the first priority was to get them to stop shaking in shock and get moving. nick had already moved our bike and was in the process of trying to cease quivering with rage at the MORON who had DONE THIS, etc. e tal, and i had no idea what he was referring to until i looked down at my clothes and beheld hexxus reincarnate, taking over my body.*

and then i got it! somebody had [just] taken a massive oil dump in the middle of one of the busiest roads around and left it there. nick immediately set to work blocking off the spill and trying to get it cleaned up--how convenient that we were right in front of a gas station, right? erm--and pukky called her dad (hey! he's the watch guy!), who arrived about 2.3 minutes later with fire in his eyes. but then he saw that his babies weren't dead and began directing traffic. we'd already witnessed 3 more accidents, and their victims joined us at the side of the road.

that's pretty much the end of the story. no serious damage was done--in fact, nick and i barely have any broken skin, although we did gain some gnarly bruises and some thoroughly destroyed clothing, despite an hour and a half of vigorous scrubbing and muttering, "die, hexxus, die!" nick said it was a wonder anyone else crashed after i mopped up the entire thing with my right pant leg alone, harhar--for which i am extremely grateful. the emergency rescue dudes showed up, but i'm not even going to go into our opinions there. just know that their parking placement resulted in yet another accident, but you can't blame them; it's not like this is their job or anything...

anyway, everyone got patched up, the road sort of got cleaned up, and we were on our way again. and even though we started almost an hour late (so much for leaving an hour early), we had a rockin' swell activity and ate some fantastic food. we have quite the little chefs in our branch. not to mention some of the toughest little chickies. pukky showed up at church all black and bleeding--she definitely won for most battered--and didn't even bat an eye. she just borrowed another girl's sweater so her dirty shirt wouldn't be visible, and that was the last anyone heard of it. nick can't believe that every single boy didn't ask for her hand in marriage on the spot.

i love our kids. they really are incredible. i'm so glad they were okay, and i'm so glad we have the opportunity to know them. and while i'm inexplicably stoked to be in the states in 13 DAYS, i'm going to miss these little people while we're gone. they are, without a doubt, the coolest thing about thailand. you should come meet them!

oh, and nick originally forbade me to blog about "the incident," for fear of giving parentals a heart attack, but with cool reasoning (okay, just pure obstinacy), i convinced him that full disclosure is always the best path. sometimes it's not, actually, but i don't know how to avoid full disclosure with pretty much anyone or anything, so there's no point in delaying the inevitable. so, parentals, i forbid you to have a heart attack. we're fine. and nick drives slower now, so this was actually a fortuitous occurrence; he understands now why thais drive like they're swimming in molasses. yay for safety!

oh, and here's what i looked like several hours after the fall, meaning i was as cleaned up as cleaned up can be:

have you ever seen a more terrifying head? i think not. it's the only photo we got, though. nick wasn't in the mood for theatrics, sadly. and a pity about that shirt, because it was my one remaining t-shirt with no holes or paint/cement/oil/work-in-general stains. and yes, i have spent the last 10 months mainly rotating 4 shirts and 2 skirts. i am not ashamed. just slightly perplexed about what to wear in the next week and a half if i ever have to look remotely presentable. i guess i should just be grateful i was wearing black pants, especially because i'm not kidding when i say the right pant leg was literally drenched in the guck. even after hosing and scrubbing myself off at church, i still had to sit on a pile of paper everywhere. guross.

*if you don't know who hexxus is, then you didn't have a childhood, at least not one in the early 90s, but you can go here (or here for more fun and games) and get a glimpse of what it might have been like if you had.

can ants jump?

2011-03-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

i was wondering this to myself yesterday, so i googled it, and this is what i came across via yahoo!answers:

"How high can ants jump? like real ants not antelopes.?

I live in a room two stories high in the south of hull. When i was outside i saw below my window was a big load of red ant things. Now I am loosing much sleep over the idea that they may jump through my window and take toilet on me, is this something that could potentially happen or am I thinking a little too much into it because my dog told me they were hungry and needed a place to sleep and take toilet. Can they jump over 15 ft above sea level? Please help I haven't slept in 4 weeks, three days and 29 hours."

...

(no, seriously)...

i am speechless. but apparently the weirdest thing, in nick's opinion, is that i wondered whether or not ants can jump and actually googled it. i don't see what's weird about that. and i'll have you know that some ants CAN jump--using their JAWS to propel them, and pretty dang high, too. they can use this spring-loaded jaw action to do what's known as a "bouncer" attack, too, where they bite as they fling themselves out of harm's way. cool, huh?

what's maybe even cooler and deeefinitely creepier? strains of a fungus that grow out of ants' brains, take over their minds (or at least bodies) and force them to migrate to a suitable climate (for the mind-controlling fungus, of course), and then kill the "zombie" ants and thrive on their carcasses.

what's weird about thinking that is fascinating, i ask you?

ch-ch-ch-changes

2011-03-09T23:18:00.000-08:00

i'ma blog your socks off, ever'body, after that two-week hiatus. whoo-ie! turns out it's my therapy...

so, some changes i've failed to mention:

nick quit his job! yay! he pointed out morosely that it's becoming a habit, but i think it's fabulous. i'm very proud of my boy for listening when the universe shouts. and he took a new job with an organization called BEAM, which is a rather young org that provides burmese migrant workers an education that fills in what we call the "post-10 gap." high schools in burma end after 10th grade, so it's impossible for any burmese kid to go to university anywhere else without something to take the place of those last two years expected by the rest of the world. as undocumented migrant workers in thailand, however, they're both too busy and too illegal to get that education here, perpetuating the problem.

enter BEAM, a legal and documented organization! this is a big deal, folks. they offer morning and night concentrated classes aiming to get students a GED after two years; there's also a vocational training school on the side. they can still work, and then, after they finish their coursework, they're supported in the college/scholarship application process. nick's teaching math and physics and helping figure out curriculum. cuz he's a geniusbrain. he's still finishing up the school year at wattano, though, so this poor boy has been so, so busy for the last several weeks. luckily, his motorcycle also blew up a week and a half ago (okay, maybe not entirely literally), so things have been smooth sailing for him... oh, and that house detail...

basically, he's been stretched to the max lately, but i'm proud of him. this new job was a scary switch for him, but it's going to be great experience, and he's definitely going to have more autonomy, free time, and sense of purpose. it goes without saying that he will miss his students at wattano, but i think they will miss him more. he's definitely breaking a few hearts, and the mountains of letters and photos and toblerone he's received can attest to it. one of my favorite nickqualities is that he does things well. he finds problems and fixes them, and he cares about people, so he helps them. so even though this job was mostly just a quick-we-need-visas job where it would've been perfectly acceptable for him to clock in and clock out without ever even opening a book (sadly, this is the world of backpacker-turned-english-teacher education), he made a difference. he did the same at BYU as a research assistant, and again at NASA, and he's doing the same already at BEAM. so even when he gets all worried about switching jobs and fields and not being qualified and being so old but not even having a career yet, i can't say i'm worried in the slightest. you rock, babay.

in other news, here's adrian. he got baptized on sunday. what are the chances that nick would be called to young men's the week before a 16-year-old american kid who doesn't speak thai contacted the missionaries?

about as high as the chances that the chiang mai branch would have white pants long enough for nick's legs. how i wish this picture included the feet.

and the sign. seriously, guys, who took this?

more changes coming soon, when i'm not bored of talking to myself. meaning, feel free to check back in an hour. but i must warn you: they don't involve me getting a job, because that is proving just about ludicrous. ayayay!

i just found this post

2011-03-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

from last year. enjoy.

...

guess what. it's my SPRING BREAK this week. YES. except it's snowed pretty much every day, meaning i spend almost all of every day holed up in our "recording studio" instead of getting some sun on this face, which it most dreadfully needs, as pointed out so delicately by several of my first-graders: "mrs. morrill! you got pimples all over your face!" "i got some cream for to make no more itches if you need it, cuz those look like they itch like crazy!" "i can't even look at your face anymore, cuz those red things scare me!"

etc. and no, i'm not exaggerating. love those devils.

BUT the week did start out admirably enough, with a KILLER ROCKIN' MUSE CONCERT. you are jealous, trust me. unless you're kate and brock, because they were also at the KILLER ROCKIN' MUSE CONCERT, and therefore may bask in our shared glory.

it was amazing. i've never witnessed anything quite like it. talk about an entrance! see these three skyscrapers with lit-up silhouettes of people walking up them? we were all bummed cuz the lights in the middle were broken, cuz how embarrassing is that?

but oh, wait...

the walls disappeared and, SURPRISE, there they were. and then the lasers started shooting around, and my brain exploded. literally. my ears were still pulsing two hours after the concert when we finally got home (who designs parking lots at concert venues? are they, too, the work of my first-graders? this i highly doubt, because a) they live in orem, b) underage labor laws?, and c) they would do a much better job). usually really loud concerts bug me, but this one was perfect. it made me miss my wee brother paulikins, because he was my MUSE buddy, and we'd roll the windows down in the car and blast, "I WANT YOU NOW, I WANT YOU NOOOOOOW... GIVE ME YOUR HEART AND YOUR SOOOOOOOOOUL!!" quite loudly throughout the town. sigh.

it was also a revealing night in my relationship with nick, because this was the first-ever legit concert we've been to together--crazy talk. and i discovered that nick is a sit-there-quietly-without-so-much-as-nodding-the-head type of concert-goer. at MUSE. i thought this impossible before, but the man is a complete stoic. i wish i'd gotten a picture of him sitting--SITTING--there, so peaceful and serene as the stadium was on the verge of collapse. i, on the other hand, felt like i was on crack and could NOT stop fidgeting: slapping my hands around, jiggling my legs, tossing my head... occasionally i just had to ignore the fact that i looked like a moron standing on my own, because i couldn't take it. you HAVE TO MOVE TO MUSE. period.

man, it was glorious. thanks for the 4-months-in-the-waiting anniversary present, love. you are a sweetums.

p.s. we leave this place in 18 days. holy. cow.

(thai elyssa speaking again: wasn't that fun when i used to be such a crackhead? and when i taught first graders how to read? awww. also, in a fun twist, we arrive back in the states in, you guessed it, 18 days. holy. cow.)

sneak peek

2011-03-07T19:20:00.001-08:00

i wish i could hear a few certain someones' reactions...

and now, allow me to reveal something that will probably shock and amaze: that was not my color choice. whatever the case may have been in the past, i think it's now safe to say that my boy is not afraid of color. he had to convince me--and by "convince," i mean that he had to buy the paint even as i was saying, "uhh, really, i don't know if i can do that..." and then it sat for two days, unopened, just because i couldn't believe he was serious.

and would you believe it? the stuff is growing on me. like a tumor, some might argue, but i gotta say that i'm starting to dig it. one point for nick.

an excerpt

2011-03-05T05:01:00.000-08:00

from class tonight. we teach a free english class to kids who want to go to byu hawaii on tuesday, thursday, saturday nights. can't remember if i've shared that before.

anyway, tonight we played that game where you sit in a circle and everyone says one sentence to continue an ever-evolving story. yes?

"yesterday, i went to the hospital."
"i saw the doctor, and he said i needed to exercise more."
"i said, 'no, i don't like the exercise."
"and he said, 'but you're so fat!'"
aside, from an out-of-turn-er: "no! i so slim!"
"and then he say i got the diarrhea."
in thai, from the general populace: "eh?"
"no! i got the diabetes! the diabetes!"

i like our kidlets.

and then we rolled on home to be greeted by พ่อ, lounging shirtless in his chaise, watching phil collins belting out, "take a look at me now!" in a concert of 80s pop stars (actually, i can't really distinguish any set genre) enjoying another 10 minutes of glory in front of a largely middle-aged female audience. it's a favorite lately in the puntee household. but how could the eagles and john denver--in one sitting!--disappoint?

it took only about 10 minutes for พ่อ to make another appearance in the kitchen while we ate dinner, but this time he struck a pose so we could admire his itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie flared shorts that were probably originally intended for a 14-year-old girl. he's a fan. but he forbade nick to wear them, ever. too dangerous.

we still like it here.

hey!

2011-02-20T23:04:00.001-08:00

my brother did ballet when he was a wee fella. actually, i think he was 10 or more. he quit eventually, but he wouldn't be embarrassed that i just posted that. cuz he's a real man. i miss him lots.

oh, and

BAM

BAM

BAM

what's that you say? why, yes! we did put shiny, faux-rock-patterned, purple-gray-brown tile in our kitchen. and that is a mustard stripe running around the edges. how could that possibly be a bad thing? just wait til you see how i deface the cabinets.

the toilet really flushes, even though it's apparently been housed in an "80s southwestern grandmother" set. placing unrelated donated tiles--thank you, handful of generous people with leftover tiles!--is tricksy for the colorblind (ah, i love being able to pull that one out when i need it). i may or may not have filmed the first swish, along with the first turning on of the kitchen faucet and shower thing. i'm telling you--nick is a total magician.

also, those gaping jaws of cement in the bathroom will soon be filled with obviously stunning mosaics by yours truly. nick decided that would be a good idea. we shall see.

one more evidence of his wizard powers:

doors, people! doors!

i am alone tonight

2011-02-17T07:34:00.000-08:00

and i HATE it. i even spent an hour driving listlessly around chiang mai's bar districts after class tonight, debating whether or not going to one by my lonesome would be on the bad choices list. don't worry, dad, i didn't. i got hungry. plus, i was in my black sweatshirt with my backpack, and all the sparkly stilettoed, um, greeters made me feel a little more than frumpy.

come back to me, baby!!

he's taking the young men from church (how stuffy that must sound to everyone outside of mormondom, as if we actually refer to every 12-year-old as a young man all the time...) on their first-ever campout in the mountains right next to our house. so close, so far. they left almost an hour late, which is hardly a surprise, but can you guess the reason?

they all needed to shower first.

i can assure you that in some ways, we will never be thai.

anyway, nicholas, if you have internet access over there in the lake, here's just telling you i love you and miss you and wish my phone weren't out of baht so i could text you sweet nothings back.

smooches.

ps--i promise nick and i communicate through non-internet methods on a daily basis, regardless of what it might look like lately.

grajeation

2011-02-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

first: tanks, guys. i'm very shy (read: vain. am i right?) with my music, so thank you for not scorning me. nick and i have some plans--gasp!--to develop the Music a little more seriously this year, and enthusiasm from the internet is good motivation not to do what i always do and ignore those plans for "just one more year..." but seriously, is my husband not the sweetest? he is.

second: run graduated from college last year, but in thailand, the ceremony often takes place six months to a year after the final test. why? because the princess gives out the diplomas. not at every single college, mind you... but almost. crazy talk.

so we had a big muu gatha--thai barbecue, baby--party last night in celebration of her diploma receival. i love muu gatha (gatha is definitely going to lead you astray in the pronunciation world, here, but i don't know how to write a glottal stop, and that's just the beginning of the problems), and i love seeing people get together here.

a four-year-old "cousin" dragged me around for much of the night, explaining the dogs' anatomy, showing me that porcelain figurines don't float (oops), begging for gum, and whispering english words like "cow" and "tree" in my ear. i wasn't complaining.

nick got home quite late, but he was enthusiastically received by the ring of drunken uncles crouching around the ceramic grill. his insistence that he call it a night after only 3 glasses of... orange fanta... were less enthusiastically received, but i doubt anyone lost sleep over the disappointment.

and all the awesome pictures from the night are on him's camera... which is currently in his luggage on a bus back to bangkok. we always say we'll get the pictures. every time. so sorry, guys. next time.

but guess what? i bet if you go here in about 18 hours, you'll still get to see quite a few. check out their SICK graduation robes. america needs a serious education on how to make robes.

those are my thoughts. has anyone been listening to this lately? ahhhhhhhhh.

sorry for the utter lack of a point today. but seriously, go to that link. bask.

lovelovelove

oh, look what day it is...

2011-02-13T17:04:00.000-08:00

because i love you enormously, sir nikolai, this is what i'm giving you for valentine's day:

1) a song (well, fragment. not quite finished) ... i know, surprise.
2) public humiliation

to everyone else: if you are wondering how posting this on the blog is a gift and not just some glorified look-at-me-look-at-me festival, i must confess that it's among the last things i would ever want to do. i've shared a song or two on maybe 5 occasions among friends and family (nick included), and even those made me nigh wet myself, so you can imagine what tremors and palpitations are going on right now. BUT. nick's been begging me to unbushel my candle or what have you for, well, years now, soooo...

happy valentine's day, lovey.

oh, a few more things: the subject matter is revealed quite quickly, so i'm not bursting any balloons here (that's not right, is it?), but i want to say that this post marks the end of my referencing the infertility monster. as our good friend seneca said, light sorrows speak volumes, while great ones are silent, or however he put it. doesn't matter--it's true. i wrote volumes, and now i'm done, as it really is a light sorrow that might not even be a sorrow at all. but it didn't feel that way when i wrote this, so there you have it.

i wrote this the day after i got so mad that one night about you not feeling my pain or some other such nonsense, and instead of getting mad back, you said the sweetest things i ever done heard, and all night, all i could think was, "by gosh, my husband is a poet!" unfortunately, it was prettier when you said it, but i tried. i'm sorry i didn't tune the guitar before recording this high-quality photo booth video. actually, listening to it is making me decide i can't post it, so i stopped. hopefully you are made of stronger stuff. it's cute because i love you, right?

also, posting this video makes me regret never following through on that haircut decision. and not brushing it. and failing to get ready for the day in general. and i would like to apologize to lauren christine fuller stewart in particular for my egregious center part, but i can promise i'm not wearing nude nylons under my basketball shorts in this video.

nicholas, i love you vury much. thank you for thinking my music is neat.

ps this is a piano song, but as you know, we don't have any of those in our room.

lovelovelove
e

i think i'm turning japanese

2011-02-11T02:02:00.000-08:00

or thai, but that's not how the song goes.

for your enjoyment, i present a few evidences that thailand is rubbing off on me more than i thought:

i saw some white people making out in a park and wondered, in all seriousness and with some alarm, where the police were.
in order to fight off some bad energy, i decided i needed to fireclean our room. i have never in my life cleaned out of a desire to restore balance to my brain. usually it's been only as a last-ditch effort to keep my mother, roommates, or husband from going crazy from the stress of living with me. but i felt the bad feng shui and reacted to it. ay.
my eyeliner looks like a cartoon character's today, and i didn't even notice until lunchtime.
the kicker: my mum sent me a lovely little book, the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society, which i devoured (thank you, mommy!). could not put it down. even so, the sassiness of the characters--which was, i'm pretty sure, intended to be their singly most endearing common trait--bugged the dickens out of me! all i could think was, "i certainly wish everyone would just calm themselves and be a little more polite to everyone else." and then i would think, "there is an alien in my brain."

also, you will be pleased to find out that i no longer salute security guards involuntarily. my wai instincts are finally fully calibrated, and the bowed-head-praying-hands gesture is the only one i parrot at the moment. security guards and husband alike are spared much embarrassment. i'm getting to be such a big girl!

a day in the life

2011-02-07T05:48:00.000-08:00

can't believe i've never yet included a certain aspect of life here, so here goes.

here is แม่.

here are the umbrella covers she sews for a family umbrella-making business. the town in between us and chiang mai is a bit of a center for thai umbrellas; there's even an umbrella village nearby. so they go through a lot of these. there are about a thousand or two more color/pattern choices, as well. run sells a few on etsy, if you've a hankerin'.

here is where i sit to sew up the inside edges. i want to call it suturing, but i'm pretty sure that's wrong, because that's what the dermatologist did to my back in high school to save me from cancer. i will not include a picture of that part.

แม่ tells me i'm a big help, but considering how many times she has to stop what she's doing to fix the machine i've busted yet again, i feel it's only fair to let her keep the entire 6 cents she gets for each cover. i'm very generous, i know. but with house and church and work stuff, i've been a major slacker lately. therefore, i hereby commit to repentance and will serve my time on the plastic stool this week, no worries.

ps--run comes home tomorrow from bangkok. haven't seen that kid in six months, and we are STOKED. กลับมาดีๆ รันนะ !

lemme tell you a story...

2011-02-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

in pictures!

and because you can't hear แม่'s panicky breathing and whimpering as nick "teetered" on the stairs, it's quite a peaceful little vignette, non? my hubban's a rescuer.

unfortunately, the dumb thing couldn't stay away from the light, so nick had to gently guide it elsewhere, and it decided to fly into the house at low altitude, proving to be too much temptation to bear for the three canines. แม่ rescued it again after it had been brought down, but i'm not sure how effective any rescue can be at that point. he was a pretty little thing, though. let's say he thrived and is now seeking out rainbows over the rice fields.

the end.

more lessons

2011-02-02T17:27:00.000-08:00

as of this week, i'm also teaching P-rin to play the guitar (you know, cuz i'm so awesome on the guitar, and stuff). she's a natural, my friends. three 15-minute lessons, and she's already playing "country road." พ่อ is thrilled. i love when he starts karaoke-ing when there's not music. not an infrequent occurrence, happily.

oh, and P means "big sister/brother." so that's what we call her. P-rin. and nick is P-nick among the youth at church, and i'm P-leesaa. there's a little thai trivia for you. stay tuned for "little brother/sister," next time.

also, i'm getting over my angst. phew. unfortunately, to fully recover, we might have to do something drastic. let that be some foreshadowing to y'all.

this is how i feel this morning:

2011-02-01T17:18:00.001-08:00

and then i realize that nobody's telling me to do anything, and that's my real beef with the world.

why can't someone come be the boss of me, already?

i'll be back when i'm done wallowing in my angst. shouldn't take too long.

(photo from the ever-interesting this guy.)

pieces of time

2011-01-31T22:35:00.000-08:00

i teach piano to a couple kids at church. lessons in thailand are priced in the exorbitant category, so unless you're a rockstar already, it's pretty impossible to afford them. luckily, the church has a piano. and i know how to play. so i teach. probably not very well.

but one of our favorite people here happens to be the father of one of my aspiring liszts, and he owns a watch repair shop. i think it's neat.

and the other day he gave me these:

fair trade! i feel so simultaneously lawyer and hipster. or something. fun time. er, pieces.

thoughts thoughts thoughts

2011-01-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

first off, is anyone else so SICK AND TIRED of this background??? but we don't have a scanner here, so i can't make a new one. because i don't know how to create with the intranet and the computer and other newfangled technology. so we will all just have to deal.

secondly, the cambodian acrobats did NOT disappoint. as our first date in six months, it would have been supreme no matter what, but it was definitely an intriguing and affecting and rather mind-blowing experience on its own. the highlight for me was when the girl playing the main character in the story, who had just been tortured by Death--and let me tell you, contortionists can pull of some impressive torture--she pulled herself into a pretzel and shot a bow and arrow with her feeeet over her heeeaaad and exploded this big heartballoon. it was intense. i would never in a million years have thought to combine circus tricks and the khmer rouge, but i thought it was very effective. unfortunately, we have no pictures to share. but it was incredible.

thirdly, and less excitingly, our meeting with the orphanage folks did not go so well, to put it mildly. actually, the meeting itself went swimmingly; we were thrice declared direct answers to prayers and given copious contacts in the orphanage and social work worlds.

but then. apparently someone informed the president of this network that we are mormon. and i received a little email cordially inviting us never to contact any of their directors or programs again. to be honest, i was a little relieved, because i had misunderstood the kind of work they were doing in the first place, and i'd felt uncomfortable signing up to support an effort i don't particularly like [i should just say it now: i don't think it's appropriate to separate a child from a family that loves him/her in the name of Opportunity. i would much rather support that family and keep it intact. kids who are not legitimate orphans without any family support should not be in institutions. research backs me up on this one. send me a holler if you'd like to learn more, eh?]. so now we don't have to go through that awkwardness.

i will be honest. i am hurt and initially a little hotheaded when christians tell me i don't believe in Jesus and that, in essence, i am a danger to children. it doesn't happen often, but it does happen. i only share this story for two reasons: 1) we had a request for a recap of our meeting in the comments on the last post, and 2) this new development does put a damper on our current ambitions, seeing as said network spreads throughout thailand. being unofficially blacklisted will be somewhat problematic, but it's not the end of the world.

i don't share this to bash on christians (here i'm referring to people who follow Christ and feel that we don't). in fact, i really admire their unabashed love for the gospel and willingness to share it; i sometimes wish i could be so bold. i really believe these people are goodhearted. it's not my nor their fault that they've been taught that we're deceived renegades. i'm just sad that this enmity continues to exist. and i'm sad that our beliefs are going to make it harder for us to find ways to be legitimately helpful to people in this country.

but we'll figure it out.

oh, in other news, i've forgotten to mention that we will be in the states from march 29 to may 5. this is exciting, no? probably more exciting for certain persons is our reason for the visit, and that is nick's older brother thomas's wedding to ms. courtney. they've been "together" longer than nick and i have, so we're pretty stoked to see these two take the plunge. finally.

but if you reside in california, texas, arkansas, or utah, we'd love to see your pretty faces while we're there!

now, if you don't mind, i'm off to paint. a picture. no walls today, for i am taking a mental health day and creating something with color. or maybe music. cuz i shore do need it.

incredibly, this post is also about the House.

2011-01-28T07:43:00.000-08:00

after a very early morning, a neverending day, and a latelate night, we have made some cool little jumps in our progress. the end is nigh--as we are sometimes reminded by the Jesus Bus's loudspeaker as it putt-putts through the neighborhood--but there is still a mountain of tile waiting to be laid. aoighajdfhd.

check out that ceiling. there are a few bugs in it. i was forced to sacrifice them to the roller god when they repeatedly refused to get out of my way (bit of a lose-lose situation for everybody, really), so it's definitely not perfect, but i was a little beyond fussing about that by dinnertime. but if you're scoffing my tape job, it's because i didn't do one. and it's plaster. so poo, poo.

also, the lights are neat, huh. especially because when we turned on the breaker and flipped the light switches... they turned on!!! now i know for certain that nick can do magic.

and here's our little patch of tile. only about 100 more square meters to go! trust me, i've been grateful for our future abode's modest square footage more than once so far.

and in case you've been getting all apoplectic in your anticipation to see our tile choices, allow me to release you from your pains. let's just say that we didn't buy the most expensive stuff in the stores. even though we really wanted to. instead, we got stuff that will work remarkably well as tile, which i'm pretty sure is its main job. points!

ope, and finally, a view from the top. courtesy of those magic lights i mentioned (but only three of them, because we haven't bought the rest of the light bulbs. details, details).

tired. goin' on two hot dates with nicholas tomorrow: breakfast with orphanage directors (or something, and no, it's not a real date, but we'll pretend) and in the evening, a cambodian circus troupe of some sort that will be performing the story of the khmer rouge with acrobatics. should be intriguing, no?

nick gets to stare into these beauties every day...

2011-01-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

but hopefully it's not as creepy as i now imagine it must be. don't expect these photos to garner any modeling jobs for me in the near future.

but how cool are my sparkle contacts?

which is why i didn't heed my own advice when painting again yesterday--also, the goggles made it impossible to see once they were also covered in paint. the bendy bamboo pole made for excessive sprayage.

but now it's DONE! pictorial evidence ensuing, once i get out of bed--a task that reeks of impossible according to my lower back and shoulder joints. but i shall be victorious!

probably.

holy toledo

2011-01-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

i just barely discovered the "stats" button on blogger, fellows. i have a feeling i am behind the times a wee bit. but how hilarious is this feature?

just so you know, the most common search keywords that bring unsuspecting friends to our blog are "crying face," "crying kid," and both of these in the plural, as well as a "sad crying face." hmmm. maybe i need to reevaluate our, ehh, direction, if we can be considered as having one. especially because someone also found us with "asian 4 you elyssa." i don't even want to know what my alter-ego is doing with my name on the internet right now.

also, to all you south koreans and russians who happen to be our largest audience outside the US, welcome. or should i say, "приветствовать" or, "환영하다" ?

yeah, probably not.

officially done wasting time for now. get ready for some sort-of-creepy-but-really-neat pictures that illustrate yet another reason why one should wear safety goggles when re-priming your ceiling because you used crap primer the first time because a really nice lady gave it to you for free and you didn't know it would start flaking almost immediately after it dried, making you want to curse a little because priming the ceiling is not as fun as a lot of other things but probably more fun that busting up the erroneous counter that's blocking the oven's home, which is what nick did while i primed.

[deep breath.]

i'd post them now, but nick accidentally stole the camera today. try to bear the sadness for a few more hours (see, i wouldn't have said that if i hadn't known that we have so many viewers on this hemisphere, seeing as the rest of you are going to bed. but from now on i'll try to be more mindful and considerate of our asian spammers).

lovelovelove,

mmm, pizza.

2011-01-23T21:57:00.000-08:00

just because i'm getting a little housed out, here's a glimpse into what is currently considered REALLY, REALLY EXCITING with us:

not gonna lie--that was good pizza... even though i accidentally bought cheese sauce instead of tomato sauce and mistook a weird kind of sour parsley for basil (i'm not dumb; the basil and weird parsley were in the same bag, and i didn't bother to check a second leaf before spreading it all over both pizzas. at least, i think that's what happened).

and now lunch break is over, so i must away to finish connecting the electricity to the house with พ่อ. i think it's safe to say that said activity was once on the list of things i never expected to be doing, ever.

hopefully i'll be seeing you all again soon...

แม่ couldn't stop laughing at me...

2011-01-20T04:46:00.000-08:00

but when you come in for lunch looking like this, how could it not be a swell day?

you get three guesses as to what i spent my day doing. i'll give you some hints: 1) my neck is really sore. 2) my arms are a little bit sore. 3) the removal of my left contact tonight caused me considerable grief. 4) a bamboo pole was not the ideal tool for this project, but it's what i used.

jokes; you only get one guess. and if you do not know, i shall think you a simpleton!*

finally, yes--i do realize that i look like a gremlin in these photos. don't even ask what i'm doing in the first one, because i don't know. it was an out-of-body experience. or something. but just to clear up any possible confusion, i don't really dig vampires, as my shirt advertises. i do, however, dig 60-cent t-shirts that actually sort of fit. nick was really opposed to me buying this article of clothing, simply because he thought someone somewhere might assume i like twilight. this is funny to me for many reasons, but i'll assume most of you can guess them.

*on a bit of a pride and prejudice kick lately (bbc 6-hr version all the way, y'all). i admit it. whether or not nick will do the same is yet to be discovered--sorry for outing you, lovey.

ceiling

2011-01-19T00:08:00.001-08:00

not 100% done, and not at all painted, but here it is! i'm mildly weirded out by how white it is above our heads. and it sounds like a house in there now, if that makes sense.

cool, huh.

aaand the winner is...

2011-01-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

dudes, sorry for the suspenseful tension.

the picture was, indeed, bacon (which is what i guessed when nick put me to the test, so i didn't think this was a very hard contest). seeing as we also had guesses for french toast, bananas, and pie crust, however, apparently there was some room for ambiguity.

the cause might be that it has been fried and then lightly battered and then deep-fried.

mmmm, bacon.

lauren, as you exhibited the most enthusiasm, i declare you the winner. you would probably enjoy eating it the most, as well. i will save it in our cabinet until you get here.

many thanks to all for your participation. although lauren won, you are all more than welcome to come visit. although you might be deprived of the bacon, i promise you at least one dish of mango and sticky rice. yes?

a reminder

2011-01-16T02:13:00.000-08:00

in case you forgot that we were building a house, like we did.

jokes. we didn't really forget... we've just been rather busy--plus, i didn't feel like learning how to do electricity because i don't want to be blamed if the house blows up when someone turns on the bathroom light, meaning nick had to do it all by his lonesome... meaning the house received a total attention span of about 30 minutes to an hour and a half every night. during these mini-sessions, the following had to happen:

isn't that last one so austere and wondrous? we're hoping to be featured in the next issue of dwell. obviously.

so all that wiring stuff took a long time, because it was difficult, both logistically and technically. kudos, manfriend. if you're wondering why thais like to do all their electricity after the walls are finished, you are in good company, i assure you.

anyway, we have a few more fun little updates:

and:

!!!!

is your heart not bursting? notice the TWO things that should be making your heart burst, figuratively: 1) those stinking gaawwwgeous windows, and 2) the finished electrical plates! nick was a dear for letting me do those, because he was right when he said it was like icing a cake; just add a few more cuts and callouses (from stripping the wires, etc.), but the thrill of finishing something was the same. and he deferred that happy pleasure to me. thweetheart.

we're so close!

and yet so far, dadadundadadun....

stay tuned for the final projects:

installing ceiling (although dwell would probably prefer we skip this step, and i'll admit i have my days, too)
staining windows and doors
digging 2 giant holes for the septic tank or something
installing toilet, sinks
laying tile (floor, wall, backsplash, counters... uugh)
painting
throwing the obligatory new-house party that involves way too much karaoke and what will be a very disappointing lack of alcohol

whoop whoop!

a contest

2011-01-16T02:09:00.000-08:00

pictured above is a household food item with which all of you are well acquainted. it has been revisited, thai style.

you have 24 hours to submit your guesses as to what this is. the winner gets to come eat it free of charge, once he or she purchases a plane ticket.

part two!

2011-01-05T22:49:00.000-08:00

first off, thanks for the internet love, everyone. i will admit that pushing the "publish" button left me feeling rather naked. not that that's not my favorite state of being, of course; it's just a little foreign in the textual sense. the validations are appreciated.

plus, writing the dang tome out to the end turned out to be exactly what i needed. i've been on this track for a little while now, but after i re-read what i'd written--i've always been told you're supposed to do that before declaring a written work the finished product, but i've yet to obey--i was able to look at the situation and say, "gee whiz, elyssa. this really is no big deal. now move along, would you!"

i never thought i'd be able to get here. i've always thought that missing out on the childbearing process would be the end of me. much to my delight, however, mine eyes have been opened: there are gajillions of kids who need mommies.

case in point:

at the market this morning, there were more minors begging than i've ever seen. i asked แม่ why they weren't in school (i'm not an idiot--i just wanted to see what she said), and she told me that there are bad men who take children and make begging gangs, not letting them do anything but be dirty and beg and become bad children, and then they round them all up at night. i asked why the government doesn't do anything to help them, and she laughed. "they're not thai. don't worry about it."

i
am
SO
angry.

i love thailand. i love thai people. i LOVE our family here and know that they are amazing souls. i try to refrain from criticizing things i disagree with, because i know it's usually just that i don't understand the full context. that said... i HATE the national attitude toward these people. i hate that migrants' children have no rights nor even the ability to tug at mothers' heartstrings here. i hate that any orphans or abandoned children are known as "crocodile kids," who are believed to be evil spirits who will kill you after you've raised them if you take them in. i hate that kids with disabilities of any kind are often thrown away, and the facilities that take them in are poorly researched and underfunded at best and shady and malicious at worst. i hate that thai adoption laws make taking in these children almost impossible.

there's a lot more that i hate, but that's a lot of hate for one moment, so i'm done for now--done ranting, at least. be warned, however, and welcome to my new crusade.

i meant it when i said i'm grateful that i haven't gotten pregnant yet, despite the fact that i hate it. something tells me i'm tapping into where i'm supposed to be going, and who could complain about that? nick seems to be getting ideas of his own, as well, and let me just say that juuuuust maybe... "it seems we were designed for each other!" name that one. you get the prize only if your disgusting hand wave is convincing enough, though.

but seriously. he is the best. whatever levels of awesome i attain in this life (and, between you and me, i plan on reaching some serious awesome), sir nicholas is to blame. cue narcissistic, youthful rose-colored drumroll, and i'll agree with you, but it had to be put out there.

to wrap up the soul-sharing, as it's getting kind of syrupy over here, i will say that i love *you guys,* assuming i actually know you. the support of family and friends has been enormous, and it has meant the world to us. you give us the courage to keep doing these crazy things, whatever they end up being. i must especially plug for missuses osborne and klaver, as they have clocked in well over a thousand hours each of listening to way more drivel than any human being should be subjected to for any reason. i (and assuredly my husband) thank you ladies publicly for my sanity.

with that, i close. i will definitely be posting more as i hopefully find a [legal] job in this arena of child-saving (good vibes sent this way appreciated), so the serious boring stuff has by no means come to an end, but i hereby promise that the next post will at least include pictures, and they may or may not depict the consumption of bugs.

smooches.

IF

2011-01-03T18:27:00.000-08:00

warning: this post is going to be way more reflective and revealing than anything i've ever coughed up on the internet. i'm going to trudge into the scary world of honesty and personal information, and i might not even hide under the cover of humor (might being the operative word, of course). it will probably also be rather, um, loooong. basically, i fully intend on weirding you out. for the sake of my feelings of author's integrity, however, it must be done.

here's your clue: "my heart is like a big tooth that has a cavity, and it can only be filled with CHILDREN!" name that movie, and i'll give you a cookie--when you come to visit us, naturally.

so let's just come out with it already: nick and i have been trying to grow a baby since november--november 2009, that is. i know a lot of our buds already know this, but for some, this might come as a bit of a shocker. and it should, because we've both always been advocates of young couples waiting several years before bringing forth spawn into the world, giving themselves time to enjoy and develop their relationship, get educated, and have awesome "life experiences" pre-parenthood. we'd fully planned on following that course when we got married. in fact, i think most people think that's what we've been doing, seeing as we, you know, moved to thailand. and what sane person makes plans to move to thailand (jobless, of course) a mere 3 months before the hypothetical arrival of a baby?? imagine explaining that plan to your parents for a moment. yours would probably react similarly to ours, by the way.

plans, however, never go as planned, at least in my experience. when i was 7, i was going to become a "girl who sells popcorn and hot dogs at the rodeo" and/or grocery store cashier. plans change. when we'd been married just 7 tiny months, i had an experience that i don't feel the need to share (yay for very thin boundaries) that let me know that our plan to wait 4 years needed to change.

WE FREAKED OUT.

we were not ready for a baby. i was in the middle of a hundred grad school applications, and nick was still two semesters away from his undergraduate degree. plus, c'mon, a baby would totally cramp our fabulous style! not to mention the fact that we are still babies, ourselves; nick still thinks it's funny to sit on whoopie cushions in public, for pete's sake! also... we had heard rumors that offspring are expensive and a total time-suck. and that you get fat and grouchy when you're pregnant. and that birthing a human is not as fun as creating one.

basically, ew. we'd always been super stoked about being parents, but we'd certainly planned on waiting for a reason. after a few months of soul-searching and a whole lot of praying--oh heavens, i'm even bringing religion in here; we're just going all kinds of crazy today!--we decided to listen to the big man upstairs, and i threw away my applications. i know many amazing women who have done grad school with young kids, but i finally admitted to myself that i am not that woman--or at least i wasn't, not then. i started exercising regularly for the first time since high school. i started taking prenatals. i learned about what actually goes on in my body every month (side note: ladies! do not be ignorant about your bodies! i am embarrassed about how little i actually knew and am shocked that most people are the same; if you don't even know what a luteal phase is, i beg you to wikipedia it! know your body! end of "gross" and overly emphatic side note). i researched my prenatal care options. i read waaaay too many pregnancy/newborn articles and books. nick almost cried when i showed him a picture of a placenta, and i thought he was going to have a heart attack when our neighbor went into labor in early november; he thought she was dying and did not look forward to seeing me at that stage. nevertheless, we kicked the birth control.

and i remained very, very unpregnant.

the first month was a bit of a relief, although a surprise, seeing as our parents were stinking jackrabbits. the second month left me bawling. i transition quickly in my desires, apparently. months 3-6 were a nightmare for poor nicholas; kind of a, "hey, elyssa... this is totally normal. and remember how we're still really freaked out about parenthood and will probably lose it when you do get pregnant? why must you freak out so violently?" period.

friends told me to enjoy it while it lasted or gave us helpful pointers, like, "just have a lot of sex!" as if we might not have thought of that one. our parents slowly stopped asking at the onset of every phone call, "so?? any news???" and started saying things like, "it'll happen! just stop thinking about it!" incidentally, this is difficult advice to follow for people who are really impatient and/or suddenly paranoid that their bodies are damaged goods.

you see, i have always known that my body is rather wacky. i've even been aware that my babymaking parts are not as cool as some other people's, seeing as they liked to cause all sorts of grief throughout high school (i told you i'd be revealing!). for some reason, it never even occurred to me that those problems might affect my ability to get pregnant. i can even remember many nights spent comforting my freshman roommate, telling her that her fears that she would never have children were entirely baseless (which they were. lau, why did we even think about that sort of thing when we were 18? i love you...) and that she would obviously have an entire circus of brats to do her bidding, and why would anyone even think otherwise? of course we can have children! it's what our bodies were designed to DO! it's their PURPOSE!

now, i'm not saying that i will never get pregnant. i'm definitely not saying "it's too late for me!" i'm 23, for crying out loud. there is every possibility that next month will bring a post entitled, "and it turns out it's not a parasite, after all!" but the fact remains that, according to the medical community's official labelling process, i am i.n.f.e.r.t.i.l.e. and no matter how old you are or what your plans are, it hurts to learn that your body might not be able to "fulfill its purpose." after a recent trip to a fertility doctor--definitely a post in itself, but an amusing one this time, so i'll wait--nick has been cleared of "blame." i have been given... a question mark. i have yet to complete the extensive blood work, but the doc wants to start me on one of the many pills designed to coax resisting wombs into bearing fruit, because, "well, it doesn't look like there's anything seriously wrong... but, you know... there's obviously something wrong with you." hehe. trust me, lady, there are few that would disagree with you.

i don't want to give the impression that i am cavalier about this. i have spent many hours screaming into pillows. i have had total breakdowns in baby aisles, which, by the way, is completely unacceptable in thailand--negative emotions do. not. get a stage in public; uncontrollable weeping has, therefore, caused me some embarrassment once or twice. in june, following a rather dramatic disappointment, i locked myself in my room for 24 hours and refused to eat--also, shockingly, not acceptable. i have hurled nasty words at my sweet husband, whom i deemed "not upset enough" by, if nothing else, my pain. i have yelled at God for asking me to throw away my chance at higher education in order to flounder around in rural southeast asia, where i seem to be unable to find a real way to contribute to the professional path i so passionately want to pursue while i get depressed about not getting something i didn't even want in the first place. in short, i have illustrated what it means to lack faith. i have been a total wiener.

here is the truth: not getting pregnant after 12 months of legitimate trying does land you in the technically infertile camp, and we're at 14. there is a high probability that i will never get pregnant, although there is still a good chance that i will, and i don't discount it at all. the fact of the matter is that either way, this is not the end of the world. there are far worse things, and after a year of needing to be hit on the head with a frying pan, i am able to say with all honesty that i am grateful for this experience. it has taught me what i really value. it has taught me not to judge anyone for their choices. it has taught me patience.

it has cemented my convictions that there is nothing on this earth more important than strong families. this yearning i feel to be a mother has made me look at other mothers and their children--women who are strong in the face of enormous challenges, and women who are taught to believe that they cannot support their babies in the midst of angry, unfeeling poverty and abuse. there are too, too many children without mothers who end up in the worst of situations. the family is falling apart all over the world, and there are things i am, perhaps uniquely, equipped and eager to do to fight that decay, and many of those things are so much easier while i still have no one to care for but myself (and nikolai, of course, but he's usually able to feed and clothe himself all right). recent months have shown me that those promptings i felt a year and a half ago were not a mistake; perhaps ironically, we would not be here if we hadn't planned on being parents to a 4-month-old right now. and i know without a doubt that we are supposed to be here, and i could not be more happy that we are. the path we wanted--NEEDED, if we were to have worth in this world--to pursue a year and a half ago seems so empty compared with where we're heading. there are great happenings on the horizon, and i no longer feel apprehensive about our future in any way.

i know we are being led. i also know that we will be parents, at some point. maybe our kids won't look like us, and maybe they won't come to us as babies. unfortunately, it turns out that adoption is not as painless nor as easy as despicable me makes it look--whoops, there goes the cookie prize--but whatever is supposed to happen most definitely will, and we will be parents. i know this. and when it happens, regardless of how, we will appreciate that blessing infinitely more than we would have when i demanded it be handed over. we will be much better parents than we would have been, because we are so much stronger in our marriage for this experience. we are so much stronger in our trust in God and in our commitments to keep asking and doing.

so, while i'm still going to feel that ache, i'm finally in a place, emotionally, where i can turn it into a positive influence when i'm deciding what to do with myself. stay tuned for the revelation of that upcoming project, dundunDUN! it's exciting finally to be able to say that we're straight-up stoked about whatever it is that's heading our way, with no qualifiers attached. we are excited. we can do this.

and oh, by the way... so can you. because who's NOT going through something that makes them want to scream into pillows occasionally? but in the end, it is going to be all right. if people in far more dire situations than i will ever be in can say it, then i most certainly can, as well. everything is going to be all right, in the end.

and because this novel needs an ending,
here it is.

(to whomever you are: thanks for reading. for some reason, this has been begging to climb into the internet for weeks. now just prepare yourself for a slew of soapboxes on poorly researched and executed orphanage projects, foster care, birthmother rights, and family support organizations... and, of course, human trafficking. stout hearts unite!)

nick's brain

2011-01-03T16:51:00.000-08:00

i was testing out some of those google interview questions on nick the other day during a long drive, and i was reminded yet again that he is a TOTAL WEIRDY. his brain is simply not normal.

e: "why are manhole covers round?" [snigger, snigger... who doesn't know this one??]
n: well, duh. a circle is the smallest shape that covers the largest area. you want those holes as big as possible without taking up a ton of space, right?
e: ... ...uh, what? have you seriously never heard this question? no! it's so the cover can never fall in the hole. obviously.
n: dude, have you never heard of a square?
e: nick. think of a square. tilt it. what happens?
n: [thinking] oh my gosh--you weren't putting a hinge on the square! i can't even conceive of someone being stupid enough to put a square lid on something without a hinge! no. they're circle so the tunnel is conveniently shaped and as large as possible.
e: [...?]

e: okay, next question... "how much should you charge to wash every window in chicago?"
n: [immediately] domestic AND commercial?
e: uh, yes. every window. what is wrong with you?
n: there's a HUGE difference! that really changes things! commercial windows are WAY easier and less time-consuming!
e: mm. well, yes. every window in chicago, what do you charge?
n: do i have to do it by myself, all in one day?! [geniune worry here; brain has forgotten that we're in the realm of the hypothetical] because i'd have to charge, like... a penny each for the job i'd be able to do if that were the case!
e: what? no! just... c'mon, what would you charge?
n: what a stupid question! i'd charge each person the highest rate they'd pay, duh! i don't know the market in chicago, but if it were in dallas, probably 6 bucks per window, for a residence, and that's for inside and out. so probably more in chicago. and, wait--am i also washing the window sills?

in case you're interested, the "correct" answer is a simple "10 bucks per window," so, in the end, he followed the train of thought they're supposedly looking for; he just took a weird route. then again, most people interviewing with google have probably never actually worked as window washers before.

i have something to say.

2011-01-02T18:36:00.001-08:00

i know, shocking. well, let's get to it, then:

1) i think my generation has effectively demolished the concept of valuing one's reputation, and i find this very disappointing. the way the world sees elyssa morrill should matter to me, and i should make sure i don't give the world a reason to think that i'm "a scrub," at least in the sense of whether or not i have integrity. we should make something of ourselves, darnit.

2) a pair of slightly oversized pearls--not necessarily genuine; let's be real here, cuz this is still me talking--instantly transform any face into that of a lady, which is why i am now searching for a pair that will not eviscerate my suddenly-as-of-a-few-months-ago very sensitive ears.*

now, feel free to pick your jaw up off the floor while you enjoy these pictures from our belated new year's celebration--and yes, we were all asleep by 10pm on the 31st, because that day was too long. behold:

nick loves jackfruit. liiike, loves.

cute, huh. marshmallows made their second appearance and were equally successful. hoo-rah!

*i know my ears don't have bowels, but eviscerate was the only word i could think of here. suggestions, anyone?

fare thee well, 2010

2010-12-31T22:14:00.000-08:00

okay, so it's already 1:15pm on january 1st, but there are still some folks in our native land living in the past, so this is for you:

2010 was neat. here's how we said goodbye to it:

nothin' like roadside grilled corn to take the edge off a day that starts at 3am with a 4-hour drive through the freezing mountains with the windows down, especially when you get to sit in the backseat by your lonesome to really get the full effect of the refreshing breeze. happy birthday to me! 24 hours later, i can easily say that there are worse things that could happen, but nick will gladly affirm that such was not the case yesterday morning. oh, well. better attitudes to be striven for this year, i suppose.

i could write a really saccharine post that would make everybody sniffle with tenderness--promise--but i'll save that for later, because we've already had two posts in a row that were much lighter on idiocy than normal, and i don't want to unsettle anyone.

instead, i'll just say happy new year! cuz that's easier,
and then i'll go finish wiring the house with this sexy man:

after a lifetime in texas, he can finally say he's a real cowboy. thanks, พ่อ.

a thought for my young ladies

2010-12-28T23:39:00.000-08:00

"For you, my dear friends, the sky is the limit. You can be excellent in every way. You can be first class. There is no need for you to be a scrub. Respect yourself. Do not feel sorry for yourself. Do not dwell on unkind things others may say about you. Particularly, pay no attention to what some boy might say to demean you. He is no better than you. In fact, he has already belittled himself by his actions. Polish and refine whatever talents the Lord has given you. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, but with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life and look for its opportunities, and forever and always be loyal to the Church.

Never forget that you came to earth as a child of the divine Father, with something of divinity in your very makeup. The Lord did not send you here to fail. He did not give you life to waste it. He bestowed upon you the gift of mortality that you might gain experience—positive, wonderful, purposeful experience—that will lead to life eternal. He has given you this glorious Church, His Church, to guide you and direct you, to give you opportunity for growth and experience, to teach you and lead you and encourage you, to bless you with eternal marriage, to seal upon you a covenant between you and Him that will make of you His chosen daughter, one upon whom He may look with love and with a desire to help. May God bless you richly and abundantly, my dear young friends, His wonderful daughters.

Of course there will be some problems along the way. There will be difficulties to overcome. But they will not last forever. He will not forsake you."

from gordy b. in a lovely address to young women all over the world in 2001, which you can find here.

happy wednesday, everyone.

two years today

2010-12-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

with this beautiful man.

and i don't even care that we both forgotaboutit until we got back from our early-morning--although i still maintain that when it is dark, it is nighttime--RUN. because neither of us puts much stock in dates and numbers--wait, scratch the numbers part; you love those--and it looks like we've done all right so far. and i just wanted to tell the internet nice'n'loud.

[prepare yourselves, ye olde internet stalkers. that, or stop reading.]

so, dearest nicholas,

thank you. i always knew being married would be awesome, because my parents showed me that it was. but even with all the unrealistic expectations we all have going into this little thing called love, you have surpassed what i'd hoped for. จิงๆ เลย!

ready for the short list?

you make me a better person because you really think i'm a lot more awesome than i am, so you encourage and compliment the dickens out of me. and then, like magic, i start to believe you, and then i start to act like i really am that awesome. sometimes. sometimes i forget and keep being the not-awesome version of myself, but when that happens, you just head on back to the encouraging and complimenting stage. you're superman! just keep this up, and i'm sure we'll have taken over--i mean saved--the world by the time we're 30.

you are patient like no one i've ever met. this is good, because we all know i'm the opposite.

you are good. i love you because you notice people and let them know it. you care about hurt feelings and have the moral courage to help somebody even when it's not cool. or even convenient. what?? and the best part is that you don't even realize that what you do is rare, because in your brain, it's what anyone would do. which brings me to:

you are so. stinking. humble. yes, my ex-NASA man with a giant brain who now drives a 20-yr-old yamaha bike to work at a middle school with intolerable students, you are a humility beast (uh).

you are fun. and you are funny, even surprisingly so. that was the one thing that stuck out to me when we were dating, even though you were a physics major (and math minor! for gross!) who spoke no foreign languages and called me "dude" and had never eaten indian food or read a book for pleasure and who possessed almost zero sociopolitical savvy or command of the english language and cared more about snowboarding than about homework and spent all your time in high school off-roading and longboarding and blowing stuff up, meaning you were obviously basically just a MORON with whom i would never actually establish a serious relationship... even though you were CLEARLY a fling, you were so much fun to be around! and then i realized that maybe my vision of the ideal manboy was totally boring and, well, more just a male version of myself than anything. for horror. phew. good thing you were so irresistable, huh.

and, in the end, shame on me! cuz you're a flaming genius with an uber-deep soul and this totally out-of-left-field (and no, i don't understand this phrase) killer artistic talent that makes me swoon. bonus.

speaking of all the above, you are you, no matter what anybody thinks about it. this is so priceless. even when i'm the one judging you, you don't back down on what your logical brain is telling you is a stupid social fad instead of an eternal truth. you also never pretend to know more than you do... even when i mock you mercilessly for not knowing who sarah palin or beyonce (or katie couric or ralph nader or ban ki-moon or tina fey or...) is. honestly, how do i even still find it funny?

did i mention that you took the biggest leap of faith ever and quit your stable, brag-worthy job to move to the jungle with your insane wife to rescue orphans (or, you know, something)? you, my friend, are an adventurous and trusting spirit. thank you for having the courage to listen to those little promptings. our life is so sweet because you do.

you are a hard, hard worker. for those times when you beat yourself up for being a lazy sackaflour, just reference the HOUSE out back you're building while working full-time in a foreign country while learning a totally whack language in a culture we don't understand, and then i'll listen to you barraging yourself with insults. actually, i won't. because you are too incredible, and i won't have it.

and you are a stud who makes mean man bread that i can't wait to start enjoying again once you have finished calibrating the oven with your genius-brain. i ask you: does it get any better?

in short, my lover, you are the inspiration!

and i could smooch that face forever and ever. oh, wait. snap!

in other news, mum: that granola is amazing. we are both in heaven over here. you are also the inspiration!

and i promise that joke will make sense to someone other than nick and me someday.

merry christmas, etc.

2010-12-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

dudes, thanks for getting excited about our oven and our run. we feel warm and glowy inside.

these past few days, we have remembered that it's the christmas season, a fact we'd managed to pretty much forget because, other than the christmas devotional a few weeks ago, we haven't really seen a lick of evidence that we should be celebrating anything. buddhist nations just aren't really into the idea, for some reason.

but now we renember! firstly because we've received a few amazing christmas cards and a package from mumsy... you people are amazing! and also because we had an enormous and rather hysterical party at church on tuesday night. aren't our primary kids cuteums??

and i spent today introducing my students--for our last lesson ever! sad!--to no-bake cookies, popcorn, and the christmas carol, courtesy of jim carrey. luckily, this was all to their delight and not just to my entertainment. i love asians so dang much, especially when they're trying new things.

when was the last time you whipped up a batch of these in a wok, may i ask?

and in the event that waxed paper is in short supply at your abode, banana leaves work great. tuck that one away for later.

speaking of asians trying new things... as i'm writing this, nick is sitting at the table playing monopoly with 2 young gentlemen who were recently baptized and one who's hoping to do the same soon. they actually seem to be enjoying themselves, which i previously thought impossible when enduring said game, but there is a lot of laughing going on. we've got a little plastic tree on the table, we had a festive holiday dinner of, well, burritos, and more no-bake cookies are waiting to be consumed for dessert. i wish i'd captured ot's face when he tried the refried beans. i really thought he was going to throw up.

ot illustrating his worst nightmare.

it's pretty unanimous: thai people think mexican food is disgusting. notice the computer just rarin' to go... the christmas story was reenacted by little kiwi kids just moments later...

even after i dumped a load of chilli pepper into the beans, their faces still looked like this:

i love, love, love พ่อ (paw--thanks for reminding me, tia! er, i mean lauren! haha, i be a dumby) so very much.

and now that we're approaching midnight, i'm starting to think it's about time santa headed over to our place. i'm pooped. luckily, the karaoke gang at the "new house" party at our neighbors' is getting into the JUST REALLY, REALLY PLASTERED phase, meaning we've just made it through the I'VE BEEN QUITE DRUNK FOR 3 HOURS NOW, SO EVERYBODY SING THIS BALLAD WITH ME, BUT ONLY IF YOU'RE EVEN MORE OFF-KEY THAN I AM phase and hopefully have only 4 or 5 more hours of SERIOUSLY, GUYS, WHEN DID I TURN INTO A DONKEY? to go. i know it sounds like i'm complaining, but really, i kind of think it's awesome that there are no rules against making such heinous animal noises at such amplified volumes in the middle of the night. we really do love this place.

and on that note, merry christmas, y'all. may we all find a way to take a moment from the karaoke (or whatever your particular distraction might be) to remember that life is amazing and precious and that God loves us so stinking much, so maybe we should do the same. not much more needs to be said, i s'pose. blessings on your heads!

big news! big news!

2010-12-19T18:05:00.000-08:00

but first, just to clear up a few things... after some inquiries about the last post that, i must admit, were not entirely ludicrous, i would just like to clarify that the only thing i was announcing was that we have been major tubalards lately. if i ever have more exciting tidings, i promise to make them at least a little less subtle than an offhand reference to unfavorable alterations in my appearance. aight?

but that brings us to the first order of business on the "big news! big news!" list, which you are not to mock, because these items do indeed bring a rush of adrenaline to this little homestead:

1) nick and i went running on saturday! yay! seriously, this is the first time we have legitimately exercised in probably 7 1/2 months. ouch. and then we successfully resisted the siren sounds of hershey's two days in a row.

2) due to พ่อ's random turning into a second-hand shop on our way to buy more wood, nick and i now very unexpectedly own an oven. for those of you who are currently nonplussed, lemme tell ya, this really is a big deal. remember that ovens are practically nonexistent in all of asia, and we were quite resigned to our fate of never eating real bread again. lies. nick was already making plans to build a brick oven in the front yard, which would've been cool, but i'm not sad that we found this ancient-but-never-used beauty for the price of a two-burner stove. notice that this sucka has three. score, nick, score. i'll admit i didn't think he had the bargaining gene until saturday. even พ่อ did a little jig of amazement when he heard what nick got it for.

now to learn how to adjust recipes for the environment... that and/or buy some baking powder:

ugh. but we still ate it and actually managed to enjoy it. and yes, the oven is currently housed in our bedroom. and yes, i did throw the eggshells out the window. i promise it's not weird.

3) much to our surprise and delight, we have discovered that you can make poprice. nick's favorite thing to do--and this has been ever since our sojourn in costa rica, when we spent like zero monies on food and thus discovered this new boon--is to pour popcorn kernels into a pan and fry himself up some quick'n'delicious "nutrition." after finding kernels last week, we've seen a lot of popcorn. พ่อ decided he didn't want to be outdone and, after nick's latest batch last night, he ran out to the storehouse and grabbed a handful of rice that still had its shell. popped it in the pan, and out came baby popcorn! and it tastes kind of like smacks. mm.

try it, dudes. it's amazing.

4) most importantly, i have decided the time has come: i simply demand that i get a haircut every 8 months when it's this short. i realize some might consider me high-maintenance, but i'm sorry; i have my standards.

anyway, here's blurry nighttime nick workin' on the electricity:

he's cute, huh. tchau, folks. time to go set up our thai bank account, at long, long last!

help

2010-12-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

i've noticed a steady increase in both my stomach size and in the amount of painful-looking spots on my face that are really concerning people lately. i have a sneaking suspicion i know the culprit behind these undesirable changes.

nick and i have been falling asleep pretty much every night for the last two weeks watching 20-30 minutes of สิ่งเล็กเล็ก, our new favorite made-for-teenage-girls thai movie that literally makes me weep every time, and polishing off a bar of hershey's chocolate... yes, i mean one night = one bar. every night.

not to mention the almost-as-frequent consumption of creamos (knockoff oreos), rotis (fried butter pastries drenched in sweetened condensed milk and sugar), and sugus (chewy fruit candies that are 5 baht per package and, therefore, a constant companion in the morrill home).

someone save me from myself.

immigration: including irony and indian food

2010-12-14T19:22:00.001-08:00

i forgot to detail the immigration saga we got to experience a week and a half ago, mostly because i was so frustrated and tired and all-around insane after spending too many consecutive days sitting in the immigration office, trying to apply for our one-year visa extensions before they expired (in the end, a goof on the part of the lady who processed our forms got us cleared with hours to spare, so we're good...) to even consider revisiting the experience for the benefit and collective humor of our internet audience. man, i do like me some run-ons now and again.

plus, i couldn't really handle the embarrassment of whining about how hard thais make it for altruistic english-speakers to get legal jobs providing a much-desired service in their country when a) we don't actually fit into that category, b) neither do most people here; usually they're more on the creepy hooker-hungry side of the spectrum, and c) i had finished reading this book THE DAY BEFORE our little saga took off.

seriously, elyssa? are you really going to swear at the meanie bureaucrat who's talking to you like he would to a first grader? seriously? sometimes i embarrass myself. why couldn't i just be grateful that he wasn't wielding a machete over my head?

big thanks to morguini for the much-needed perspective (and the mail! you win!). not that i should need it, seeing as over half of my current students are immigrants dealing with very similar issues as those of enrique and his family. immigration policies are something i have huge beefs with that i will not go into in this post, seeing as my usual goal is to tell some story that results in everyone tilting their heads and saying, "aw, aren't the morrills dumb. but i'm pretty jealous of their sweet lives!" (yeah, that's right), and i'd rather not turn this into a serious, political, informative, focused, or in any way useful blog, thank you very much. at least not today.

which is why i will end this very random rant with the bullet-point summary of what i'd like everyone to take away today:

immigration week was a nightmare
but it wasn't as bad as it would've been if we weren't white and had been trying to get papers anywhere in the west
and we ended up getting those fancy stickers that make us sort of legal (cough)
so we celebrated by splurging on the indian restaurant that we've been eyeing for months and were comforted by the standard components of indian restaurants all over the world: garlic naan, paneer, bold paint color choices, and the nice man who stood over our table almost the whole time telling us of his "many heartbreaks and many joys." look for the book i plan to write about him next year.
that is all. bless you for your fortitude on this one.

youth conference...

2010-12-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

that's where we've been lately. for those who don't speak mormon, youth conference is something that happens each year, when all the 12-18-yr-olds in the region get together for activities and meetings meant to up their faith. i suppose the title is somewhat self-explanatory. anyway, nick and i were the lucky ones who got to plan a very large portion of this year's 3-day conference, most of it on about a day's notice. luckily, we speak really awesome thai, have lots of connections, and aren't busy or anything with building a house, so it was no big deal.

all right, so i jest. we were pretty worried that the entire weekend would be a total bust, but somehow everything came together quite well, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it.

among the highlights were riding water buffaloes, hiking a mountain (a first for most of them, made all the more exciting by an epidemic of the runs about 15 minutes into the woods... the troopers didn't complain once), and swimming (also a first for some, and you better believe we all wore t-shirts and shorts over our suits... thais are soooo modest).

these two pictures crack me up. above, witness the excitement of sassy ms. red shirt when we were still on pavement and not really going up yet. this was also pre-trots. little did she know that thailand doesn't believe in switchbacks; we literally just walked up the mountain. below, witness the shift in emotions towards the end...

but no matter, because we all made it in the end. ah, success! even despite the eeyore bag...

they also drew flags depicting aspects of the theme (joshua 1:9... be strong and of a good courage, etc.) in the stories of alma the younger and the sons of mosiah... my absolute favorite depicted the lamanites as japanese samurais and samoan punk rockers. oh, and a tall skinny kid with glasses and a book. again, for those who don't speak mormon, lamanites were a group of people in the americas, BC, who are traditionally depicted in mormon illustrations as 1850-era native americans for whatever reason. i suppose japanese samurais are just about as accurate.

on saturday night, nick and i introduced these kidlets to something we figured no "campout" (we stayed in pretty chic bungalows with a/c) would be complete without. despite our bonfire being in the center of a cement driveway, i think they got the concept well enough. s'mores were met with mixed reviews, but marshmallows never really disappoint.

all in all, a lovely weekend. if you think your youth are cooler or cuter than ours, i'm sorry, but you're just mistaken.

injured, injured bad

2010-12-07T01:20:00.001-08:00

guess what?? i sustained my first real injury of the house construction saga!!

it's actually not that cool. i will, however, in the tradition of thai men who are slightly inebriated, show you a picture of it.

last night, พ่อ did that thing he does sometimes where it's getting to be kind of late, and he tells me and nick to get in the truck. and then we go do something that doesn't make much sense. last night, we went to visit his friend who recently had surgery to remove rocks and cement from his insides (apparently, he lived in saudi arabia for four years and drank some dirty heifer water or something; again, intoxication?), and first thing, he lifted up his shirt, peeled away his bandages, and proudly displayed his really gnarly stitches. then he tucked them away and waddled off, only to repeat the whole process whenever somebody new ambled in. when we finally decided to go home, we didn't actually go home, but instead stopped at a roadside eating place (wait. restaurant?) and ate pink chicken's eggs that had been boiled until they turned into brown jello with black yolks, garnished with ginger slices and roasted peanuts. mm. the dish's name is "really ugly. should not eat," and i might agree.

oh, but i digress. here's the photo of what i did when shoveling cement into my bucket to FINALLY finish that stage of The House (that blasted bathroom counter has been taunting me for 2 weeks now), but instead of stabbing the pile, i stabbed my foot, because i am smart.

mmm.

and that's cement, not flesh-eating fungus. enjoy.

i will write a real post tonight, for rilz

2010-12-07T01:13:00.000-08:00

googling "how to make cheese" for tonight's, uh, family night (or, nick's just been kind of rabid lately about not having bread and cheese, so i feel it's best for all our safety to just figure out how to change that, sooner than later), and i found a simple enough recipe. unfortunately, it contains A WARNING:

"The boiling of the milk will cause it to become dangerously hot. This phase should be supervised by (a) competent person(s) to ensure no one gets scalded or burned."

which totally disqualifies both of us. seriously, แม่ and พ่อ just sit and watch us try to eat sometimes. she's finally figured out that her life will be a lot easier if she just places a rag in between us at the onset of every meal.

*when i typed in "how to make," i was greeted by recent searches, and i was reminded that i am weird. and that nick is SO stinking paranoid about parasites ("how to make aloe vera juice," anyone?).

loi krathong, at long last

2010-11-27T05:47:00.000-08:00

thailand enjoys its festivals, and i am glad. this one was, for the most part, on saturday and sunday. that doesn't mean that people haven't been shooting fireworks at each other for the past week and a half, though.

if you want to picture loi krathong, think of halloween, the 4th of july, christmas, and harry potter, and you're almost there. here are a few pictures from saturday night in breathtaking ISO 1600 quality.

this is the night when people send up the lanterns, if you haven't caught on. this is a special tradition for chiang mai only. as you send off a lantern, you are sending ill fortune and negativity away from your family. don't worry, collective family; you can thank us later.

unless, of course, we jinxed everybody when our jimmy-rigged fireworks caught fire early, meaning we released one of our lanterns early, meaning it limped lamely over to our neighbor's house right before the firework fell off and set their roof on fire. jus fo a minit.

homemade fireworks go well with lanterns whose fuel is actually a sliced toilet paper roll dipped in oil. trust us; we're professionals.

sunday night, people "loi krathong," or send floating, er, floats of flowers, incense, and candles down the ping river downtown. this part is so cool; according to the sign nick's students made, this ritual is to thank the water goddess for the plentiful, life-sustaining water and to "ask forgiveness for the ensuing pollution." love it.

plus, there are are still hundreds of floating lanterns flying all over the place, not to mention the gajillion fireworks people are shooting at each other across the river and everywhere else. seriously, i had several people set off a firework right in front of me as i was driving home saturday night from our marathon yw activity. on purpose! yay for safety.

there's also a giant parade. (yawn). however, most parades in the states don't include giant dancing llama suits...

...and men in black cloth diapers dancing with swords, so that was neat. most parades in the states also lack wave after wave of women who look like they're in severe pain sitting on electronic lotus leaves in tight, shiny dresses. most parades in the states don't go over 3 hours--if they did, i would leave, which is what we did when แม่ finally turned to us in the midst of the sweaty throng and said, "sooo... are you tired? or hot? or hungry?" basically, "I AM SO DONE WITH THIS." no complaints here. we'd loi-ed our krathongs, and that's what we'd come for. props to แม่ for venturing into chiang mai at night with us. i think it's happened... well, never. the next day was the highway-motorcycle-riding day, by the way. something's goin' on with that woman.

this was the eight hundredth attempt to get a good picture. notice แม่'s enthusiasm at this point. the things they put up with...

english class

2010-11-27T05:41:00.000-08:00

just got back from class. i was showing them pictures and having them describe the people's physical traits and future plans.

for this picture,

this is what they came up with:

"These are my friends. She is tall and he is short. He is a gentleman. She is beautiful. He is handsome. They are hugging. She has long blond hair. He has short black hair. She is very skinny. He is happy but she is not happy. They are going to watch a movie. After the movie, they are going to go to a party. They are not going to go to a hotel."

however, according to one student, "No, they are going to go to a hotel for a very short time. He is going to give her money."

oh, my.

pictures of my face

2010-11-23T16:59:00.000-08:00

i wanted to post lotsa fabulous pitchurs from loi krathong on here, but nick has inexplicably stolen the camera two days in a row now, so that will have to wait. naughty boy.

[in case you were wondering, yes, i do have an irish accent stuck in my head this morning]

instead, i will put up this cute picture of แม่'s FIRST TIME EVER riding a motorcycle on the highway. she was so brave! well, that and i went like 30 mph the whole way to keep the death grip from tearing my flesh. but we went and looked at about a thousand and a half tiles yesterday; let me just say that i wish everything in the world were free. just a little bit.

ope, but it looks like those pictures are also unavailable. GAH! fine. here. i'll tell you a secret, instead! excitement!

i miss this:

unfortunately, nick misses this:

probably sad that i had to go all the way back to mozambique to find a picture, and this one was taken by a 4-yr-old, no less. but i promised him long hair one more time, so i gotsta wait. it's hard not looking like a boy sometimes, though.

oh, man. just got africa cravings. hm.

oh, good idea...

2010-11-18T03:06:00.001-08:00

googling lesson ideas for a christmas lesson, cuz my students are curious about the holiday.

here's one:

IT’S MINE: Either write the names of some popular presents on the board (iPod, Burberry scarf, latest video game…) or bring in some pictures of the latest offerings from magazines. Students have to convince one another why they should get the particular present. Attach the pictures around the classroom so students can walk around.

yeah, for sure. i know they're all just dying for a burberry scarf. that or the next six months' rent. tough choice!

why, yes!

2010-11-18T02:34:00.000-08:00

my pride to labor ratio IS about twice that of a normal person's!

but seriously, guys. seriously.

obviously, the pillars are not done. tomorrow.

not to brag or anything...

2010-11-17T21:27:00.000-08:00

but i so just did this, and it's only lunchtime:

i'm sorry, but that is just beautiful.

(okay, so maybe พ่อ helped. also, the bottom strip and right-hand section are still un-polished. wait 20 minutes.)

this week has been interesting; i have my morning classes off, but nick has to go to school, so it's just me and พ่อ chappin' (a thainglish word for you, meaning "slapping cement all over a flat vertical surface") away at the walls each day. actually, he had one of his buddies come over yesterday and today to do all the corners in the kitchen, cuz those are hard and take forever. no objections here. anyway, working with พ่อ is fun. he's not a talker, but we do listen to thai radio nonstop, and that's always a party. sometimes it's those morning talk shows that make me want to gag in any language, but other times it's an overly sensitive ballad sung by a weeping thai man. we also have an oldies channel (that inexplicably started playing an amy winehouse song yesterday. what?), a whiner channel, and a thai uhhhh rap channel. but we usually stick to the sentimental man-yodeling, and sometimes, emotion just completely takes over พ่อ, and he can't help but burst out in song right alongside the radio. i love it.

and here's the bathroom thus far:

nick helped on this one late into the night on monday, lovingly (erm) scraping cement from the blocks in order to make the sorta bevelled edge. พ่อ and แม่ think he's on something half the time when he mentions ideas for the house, but i do like those edges. nice one, lovey.

as a side note--or just a complete subject-change, i suppose--lunch:

bamboo stuffed with pork. i didn't decide to take a photo until after i'd destroyed the cute little bundles they were initially. luckily, though, they sat in the cupboard for 12 hours before i got to eat them. if this weren't the norm, i'd be worried. nick still hasn't gotten over แม่'s total refusal to store meat in the fridge, but, as he has said pretty much every time i tease him about it, "well, you don't see ME getting diarrhea every other day, now, do you?"

touchée, monsieur. touchée.

sometimes i miss utah

2010-11-15T18:03:00.001-08:00

Police Beat: Oct. 18-22

Tue, 10/26/2010 - 19:11

Suspicious Activity

Oct. 20 Three males were seen entering the Wilkinson Center. One of them went and suspiciously changed his pants. When officers arrived, they searched the area that the student changed in and found nothing.

random

2010-11-14T05:49:00.000-08:00

made some "spaghetti sauce" and put it over thai noodles. ate it all with chopsticks.

nick whistled miley cyrus's "party in the USA" while we spread cement on the bathroom wall yesterday, despite my repeated efforts to get him to desist. turns out he's rather flambunctious, himself. and he will probably delete this bit when he reads it.

went into the mountains this afternoon to scout out possible sites for youth conference next month. the mountains here are gooooorgeous.

we're planning the christmas program for the branch this year. um. as far as i could understand, we will also be playing mary and joseph in the nativity AND having the nativity be a musical. obviously, that is not the part we planned. i'm hoping i misunderstood.

i have participated in the construction of our house. proof:

don't i look intense. it's serious business, people.

i forgot to mention that we rode up into the mountains in the back of president kent's truck with instructions to "duuleh," or "look after," his 5-yr-old son... luckily, he sat in this exact position for the entire hourish journey up.

seriously. we could hardly even get him to give us one-word answers to questions. the kid's a stoic. and james bond.

the end.

Hello, is this Mr. Morrill?

2010-11-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, why? Because you won a micwowave! (Yeah, sure I did) -What do you mean? Because of the promotion, Mr. Morrill, at Home Sukkopan you get a micwowave.... Needless to say it was for real! And I got to step up to a whole new level of Thainess in order to bring it home.

Well, the weekly house update is long overdue. The roof is officially 95% done, we even have trim now. We just need to add some siding material under the overhang. The lame part about it is that the frequency of rain has decreased exponentially with respect to the percent completion of our roof. I thought I would share a sight I thought was never to come:

The rain has completely quit. พ่อ's farm is already low on water. Apparently, the reason our house flooded before was because when the reservoir was full, they opened the flood gates. I guess there isn't enough funding to mechanize this action and they had to open the gate until it was empty. So... even though we have had the most rain in 10 years, the farmers in this valley are still struggling to save their crop from lack of water. Also, it hasn't rained once since the roof was finished. I was so excited to finally get it done so we could work while it was raining... The good news is that our house has begun its makeover.

I also did some work on the bathroom water. I'm sure you're dying to know that in thailand step 3 never requires any pre-work during step 2. You just finish step 2 and then undo what you need to make step 3 work... even if it requires cutting into your structural supports.....? (It sure takes the planning out of the fun!) Don't worry mom, it won't fall down, we've used a lot of cement.

Anyway, to extend this post beyond another string of pictures about the house, I figure I'll tell you about my day. It was sports day, commonly known as "saports day" (Thai people can't pronounce two consonants in a row to save their lives, it's so cute). This means we went to a huge stadium outside of Chiang Mai and the whole school was split into different colors (5 colors I believe) They were grouped according to color as if they were to cheer for their color in each competition. At this point you are thinking, "yeah, it's just like field day." Oh... so different. The whole day, there were cheer leading routines, dances, and strange mixtures of the two in the middle of the field with abnoxious collages of hideous music. During all of this cheerleading, in the small strips of grass between the outer edge of the track and the stands, there were random sports like the long and high jumps, and shot put. the best part is that shot put was so far away that you couldn't even see who the people were OR that they were throwing anything. It was the most backwards an event could be from the typical worshiping of sports and allowance of cheerleading we see in America... Also, I have discovered that the concept of homosexuality in Thailand is not weird. Soooo the cheerleading events had some really flambunctious boys. yes i just made that word up because no other exists in my limited resource base to describe it. and on that note, sweet dreams!

A Full Life

2010-11-11T05:14:00.000-08:00

It's an enigmatic phrase that we all manage to interpret in our own way, the pursuit of which leads us to curious, exhilarating, boring, and risky endeavors. Its overwhelming to consider the magnitude of this journey, and how little we know about anyone else's but our own.

I still don't know many details, I only just found out, but Grandpa went in about a pain in his abdomen. Two operations and less than a week later he passed away at 3:30 am in Utah on the 8th of November.

There is a lot about my Grandpa Max's life that I don't know, about his childhood, what he thought about school, his experience in the service, and on and on. However, I believe he filled his life with what mattered--things of eternal value and his passions.

Since I can't attend the funeral, I want to share some of my memories about who Grandpa Max is to me:

Grandpa must have taken me to see every Home Alone movie across the times we visited Ogden. He loved to take us out to have fun: to the ice rink, to putt-putt, to the fish farm, and skiing! The last of which became a passion of my own, depleting all of my funds freshman year... something Grandpa wouldn't have approved of... Grandpa was patient with me as I learned to ski, I remember getting pretty frustrated over it. But, he didn't pamper me. When it came to pouting, he'd tell me to toughen up and leave me whimpering on the hill. I'm sure I gave him the grumpy eye then, but I appreciate it now.

Grandpa loved to call me funny names: nickerbocker, nikolai, the nickster, nikkerbopper, nickelodean, ..... and then he would thump my noggin when I got out of line.

Grandpa loved sports. I think he probably shed tears the day I quit basketball. I remember one day he took me to the church around the corner from the house in Ogden and had me do basketball drills. He told me if I really wanted to be good, I needed to do those drills everyday. He also pushed me in baseball. When it came to golf, however, I think he knew it was hopeless and just chuckled at my blaster swing and many lost balls.

I have to mention my dad. Because we lived in Texas, I feel like a lot of my exposure to Grandpa was secondhand through my dad. As I got older, I realized how much they were alike. Now I realize that I know a lot more about my Grandpa than I thought I ever could've. Some of the characteristics that jump into my mind are fun loving, hard working, men of integrity, quiet but funny, and happy. It's also kind of funny how much they both like cars. Every time we went to visit Ogden, I was excited to see Grandpa's new Cadillac. When he switched over to the Lexus, I think the price of Cadillac's shares probably dropped. My dad has a similar fever for new cars ;)

Grandpa also heavily supported Tic-Tacs, Altoids, Certs, and the ice cream shops in Outer Banks, NC.

Grandpa Max was nothing short of a great man. I will miss him for the time being, while praying for Grandma as she makes this difficult transition. I am lucky to be born with such great heritage. I only hope I can live up to his legacy. Although taken by surprise by this rapid turn of events, I know it won't be long before we are all reunited. I love you, Grandpa Max.

oh my goodness!

2010-11-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

i just realized that i forgot to share one of the minute details of our lives with the internet! i must remedy the situation at once!

after weeks of 90-degree weather during what was supposedly the transition from the rainy season to the "cold" season, we had finally decided that everyone was fibbing to us, and that it never gets below 85 degrees in this country. then, all of a sudden, we woke up on halloween morning to 60-degree chilliness. nick said he felt like he was camping, due to the mosquito net, the lack of sheets, and the brisk breeze. add to that ensemble the fact that, at any given moment, someone is burning a giant pile of tree branches and weeds, and voila! we might as well have been in zions.

PLUS i came downstairs this morning to be greeted by these:

and the sunlight coming through the window was cold-looking, as evidenced in this view of the backyard and laundry, featuring my socks on the table, which i removed in order to do said laundry--NOT fun when it's not 90 degrees outside! oh my!

the only thing i was bummed about when moving to thailand, weather-wise, was the loss of fall. i praised the lack of winter to the skies, but fall was a bit of a bummer to lose. turns out there was no need. fall has, uhhh, fallen in chiang mai, and it's lovely.

time to buy another sweatshirt so that the specimen i jacked from cousin jordy can take a break. four days in a row is starting to sick out แม่, i suspect.

oh, and happy voting, everyone.

let's play a game! + some thai dhamma

2010-10-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

first off, happy halloween, everyone. we celebrated it by getting a flat tire on the way to church and enjoying the motorcycle repair shop where we paid a dollar to fix it, and by eventually going to church, which went 45 minutes longer than it was supposed to. four hours in the same seat is a long time. but we got to clap and eat chocolate bars during the last 15 minutes, so... it was pretty much nothing like anything i've experienced in provo, and that's always nice. and then a very nice guy nick's age was baptized. also neat. also, we had 18 investigators yesterday. is it just me, or is that insane? after eating lots of food and chatting with some visitors for an inordinate amount of time (i was really excited to be able to talk a lot. it's been an oddly silent 6 months for me), we went to phi doi's house for more amazing food. yummmmm. to finish the day, we watched the nightmare before christmas on the computer for an hour before we couldn't take it anymore. i just felt obligated, as nick didn't even know what that movie was, because he is an alien. so there. happy halloween.

i also have a really cute picture of some of my students with halloween drawings, but guess whose internet is deciding my edited image--blurry faces fix the problem of not asking permission to post said faces on the internet, right?--is "corrupt?"

moving on. พ่อ's been on this kick for the past 5 or so weeks called the "dhamma music kick." at anywhere from 5:30-7am, this starts playing from the computer at full volume and continues for about an hour. i would be lying if i said i didn't enjoy it. there's also a song that involves lots of tibetan men chanting that i quite enjoy, but i have yet to find it. ps i found this song using my first thai language google search. not even gonna pretend i'm not super proud, even though พ่อ told me what to search.

finally, here's the game: 1) look at this picture we took right after getting out of bed this morning.

2) notice the indentation on the pillow that marks where my head was.
3) remember that nick doesn't sleep with a pillow lately in a weird attempt to correct his posture.
4) guess where nick was when we woke up. also, guess where nick is every morning.

he thinks this is hilarious.

*dirty joke reluctantly removed in order to showcase the staggering height of my maturity*

first rock climbing stint

2010-10-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

er, sort of.

this is the DIY solution พ่อ came up with when presented with the problem of placing the edge tiles on the roof today:

yes, you're seeing that correctly. nick is belaying พ่อ down our roof. finally, our gear has been put to good use. more mountainous methods coming soon, to be sure. he called it a "safety belt" and, after the first foray, in which พ่อ just threw on the harness and started climbing up the roof (without a harnessed nick on the other side), he watched nick tie a figure-eight knot just once before figuring it out on his own. totally ready for a cliff. anyway, close-up:

you're seeing the brown side, by the way. it's my favorite. luckily, it's almost entirely obstructed by big trees and is facing the backyard/outhouse/storage shed/leftover tile pile.

here's nick being a mountain man:

and here's nick being a mountain man as seen from inside our bedroom, where it is all of a sudden quite shady, minus the peephole. weirdness.

this roof is getting an inordinate amount of attention. ready to move on to bigger and better things, like cementing the walls. these will be bigger figuratively, as pretty much nothing in the wholintire world is bigger than our roof. it's stinkin' eating our house.

lies

2010-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

no photos today, either. i'm such a fibber.

but i nearly head-butted an elephant at the market today. who'da thunk an elephant could blend in with the scenery of a crowded, narrow market street? but they do, every time.

lessons elyssa should be learning but isn't yet

2010-10-27T06:09:00.001-07:00

guess what, friends? i'm a wee bit colorblind. this is probably not shocking news to anyone who witnessed my high school wardrobe, but i didn't even know until freshman year of college; thanks a lot, bio 101, for destroying my confidence AND my credibility in any and all color decisions with the man friend ["oh, really, elyssa? you think that doesn't look nice? well, how about we go with the opinions of the non-visually impaired this time, okay?" for the record, this is coming from someone who doesn't mind wearing his navy shirt with his navy jeans, cuz he's a popsicle. i rest my case].

when discussing what color our roof would be, i finally threw my hands up and said i didn't care, just as long as it wasn't red or orange.

now, i know i'm somewhat compromised in the visual spectrum arena, but something is fishy here... let the record state that pizza hut did not fund any portion of the construction of this edifice, hard as that may be to believe.

the original plan was to paint all the tiles--we bought handfuls of used tiles from every neighbor and relative in sankamphaeng because used are 1/6 the price of new--a lovely shade of plum. after some quick internet research, however, we were able to convince พ่อ that painting roof tiles is way pricier, time-consuminger, and ineffectiver than we had all assumed. that left us with a hodgepodge of black, brown, gray, purple, red, orange, green, and white tiles to turn into something less than offensive. the result? two sides of red and orange, one side of brown and purple, and one side of black and red. luckily, the sith lord side is facing the neighbors--our roof is a little taller than theirs, so they won't be visually assaulted each morning. we're not that rude.

at first, i was beyond devastated. i mean, what other reaction is there to such a travesty? and then i remembered, again, that we are going to have a house. gee whiz, it's taking me forever to let that sink in and to be grateful for it instead of fretting incessantly over how beautiful the roof [insert: tiles, walls, light fixtures, window frames, etc.] is.

i just need to stinkin' keep remembering saturday morning. it was pretty, huh?

sabai, sabai, folks.

ps i'll post pictures of what the roof really looks like tomorrow. forgot to point'n'shoot today.

notes for teacher nick

2010-10-26T06:18:00.001-07:00

yesterday was the beginning of 2nd term, so nick had to go back to school : (

because he quickly deemed teaching mostly futile due to the students' even-rambunctiouser-than-normal behavior, he took a moment to ask everyone to write him anonymously, telling him what they think of him as a teacher and what they think he should do to improve.

here are a few of my favorite responses:

I think your teaching is very good . I understand w'a what is your teaching. sometime I don't understand becaues it dof difficult for me T^T

"BUT"

Your teach is very good , funny and happy for me ! [insert hilarious drawing of square-faced emoticons; also, this last part is all inside a rectangle that becomes a sign on a post with a lumpy thumbs-up "like" button]

* Your teaches is very very good ! ^_^
: But I can't understand what you speak (sometimes)

Dear: Teacher Nick

Hello! teacher, ? , How are you this holiday ? I'm fine but I was boring at home . Play game, Watch anime, swimming .Iike is at home cycle [cycle is in a box, followed by the recycling symbol] . I have nothing to tell you [In my mind. I thing you are the good teacher and teach very easy] .

I think maybe you shouldn't give homework to children everyday maybe twice a week because in m.1 - m.2 our math teacher didn't give homework too much [ahh, now we understand why no one understands any past concepts!] and sometime we want you to go slowly in some project like Projectile or Parabolas . Some question that you ask for homework maybe too hard for us. if we don't understand so we can't do our homework.

but you better than anyone else
: ) [lumpy thumbs-up "like" button, then 7 tally marks]

and, my very favorite postscript, following a gem of a letter that's just too long:

and you should have hair set i think last term Your hair very good : - )

well, then.

“contemplate the extent and stability of the heavens, and then at last cease to admire worthless things.”

2010-10-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

from boethius. whoever that is.

we went to INDEX LIVING MALL last night. it's basically the ikea of thailand, except prices match ikea prices in US dollars, meaning it's pricey to the max by thai (and especially sankamphaeng) standards. plus, it's more crowded, because it's asian.

i had a weird experience there. for the first time in my life, i thought this thought:

"gee whiz, we're poor!"

and i got weirdly yearny for the fashionable-looking crap all over that will indubitably fall apart within the next 3 years. the feeling didn't leave me the entire time we were in that wretched place, even as nick mocked everything and kept talking about how stupid we are as humans to desire things that are unnecessary, expensive, and inconvenient when their cheap, not-as-attractive, high-utility cousins are equally available. what a man.

then, this morning, we made the 5:30 trip to the temple for offerings and prayers and monk blessings and whatnot. as a tangent, there's an "ancestor house" next to my work where they burn incense, and the other night, nick stopped to sniff and said, "never thought i'd say this, but when i smell incense, i get that home feeling, you know?" too true.

anyway. as we participated in the various rituals, most notably the water-pouring repentance and the incense-burning praying, i felt so good. i remembered that we're building a stinking house for peanuts--ok, not peanuts, but for about the amount of our SMART grants; hoorah for supposedly useless majors, y'all--in a gorgeous country where we have good jobs that will give us great experiences, both professional and personal. we have families and friends that are some of the best folks in the world, even after accounting for our natural biases. i've been blessed to see more of the world than many others have, and i know that what we've got going for us right now adds up to a whole darn lot.

not to mention that we have tons of food and sufficient clothing and access to medical care. nor the fact that we're in our early 20s and are expected to be "poor" right now, even though, in reality, we're not, not even a little bit.

basically, i've been humbled. seeing all those tiny old ladies in their white dresses kneeling for an hour on concrete in order to show gratitude should definitely have been enough for anybody. and there comes a point when it just becomes ridiculous to feel anything but gratitude to a Heavenly Father who has been so mind-bogglingly generous to two of his clueless kidlets.

and in that vein, i'm off to the branch's service project. well-timed. i think we're planting trees? we'll see. for now, all i know is i love this place. and i love my nick. life is so, so good--somehow, even without a plasterboard kitchen table with stripes.

evening thought

2010-10-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

water buffalo was safely tethered this morning. yay!

heading out for the night class in 20 minutes, and i'm so stoked for this:

photo taken from the motocye (nick driving, me photoing, no worries), and it doesn't even come close to capturing it, of course. nothing beats sunset over the rice paddies. nothing, you hear?

well. maybe sunrise, but i have yet to witness that; perhaps tomorrow when we head to the temple at 5 AM for the celebratory ceremony marking the end of the 3-month buddhist lent...

morning thought

2010-10-21T18:59:00.001-07:00

hope i don't almost hit that water buffalo again on the way to work today. someone tell the cows and other large mammals to stay in the rice paddies instead of on the road.

that's all!

cravings

2010-10-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

if anybody's got a hankering for some cow placenta soup, we've totally got a bowl of it waiting for you in the fridge. mmmboy!

obligatory house update

2010-10-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

while our roof is proving to follow in our footsteps, taking a bit longer than expected to grow up,

our bathroom and kitchen are performing beautifully. behold.

okay, i realize i should stop with the "behold" business, but i can't get it out of my head. mum: was it heidi or jonah that went through that phase?

the bathroom now has a real floor instead of very small rocks.

and we have countertops! stinking massive countertops! don't even try to pretend like you're not seething with jello-green envy over this kitchen, because we all know that's a big fat falsehood. it's held together with sticks! actually, those are just the molds for the cement slabs we poured today.

notice the fireworks of awesomeness exploding from these counters (possibly the result of the arc welder being employed directly above). i'm so in love with them, in case you haven't caught on yet. at least once a day i just stand there and stare at them. see photo, but know that i'm not just watching meh (henceforth known as แม่) and paw ken work; we were discussing tile options. the only real reason for putting this photo up here, though, is that it makes me look skinnier than i am. at least i'm honest. and i really do stare at the counters a lot.

also, the kitchen is on the front porch. apparently this is just as weird in thailand as it would be in the states, but we definitely didn't come up with the idea. พ่อ said we should put it there, and we agreed--by the way, the part about it being outside is not weird; just the frontness of it is--but now whenever someone comes over and asks, "what the --- is that? what are you doing?" พ่อ laughs and says something about those silly white people and their preferences. it's entertaining. and i don't even care if it's weird, because it's going to be amazing. and in case we run out of money, we can put up a sign that says, "american food for sale," and run a patio restaurant like half our neighbors. what's not to like?

tired. just got back from FHE with several people from church--sister doi made us an incredible amount of spaghetti, garlic bread, yellow curry with uhmazing vinegar/cucumber relish, and peach cobbler with coconut ice cream. i almost died. and now we're tired and full and going to SLEEP RIGHT NOW.

loves.

ps the font fixer is currently on crack. sorry if you feel like i'm shouting at you.

scrapbook of a roof

2010-10-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

nick is appalled that the latest picture of the house showcases the roof still in its infancy.

therefore, behold:

toddler roof

skipping pre-pubescent roof, because, like its future inhabitants, our roof went through a camera-shy phase at this age. or i just didn't take any good pictures... unlike the rest of these, obviously.

roof just emerging from the crisis of raging puberty

blooming adolescent roof,
featuring nearly-headless nick and ballerina พ่อ

really bad photo of the 2nd really scary bug nick found (captured moments ago by yours truly as he flopped and scuttled away, impervious to the tile shard nick was using to try to kill him)

whoops, that one isn't part of this series!

stay tuned for college grad roof, due monday. we should move on to contributing adult roof by the middle of the week, but people have said the same about nick and me, and we have yet to watch that happen, so who knows.

until next time. cheerio, dahlings!
ps, despite what blogger thinks, it's saturday. you people are living in the past. come join us in the future--i'll make you thai pancakes!

a few reminders from today

2010-10-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

that we live in southeast asia:

breakfast: sticky rice, freshly toasted peanuts, and two little bananas from the yard. ope, and then some deep-fried spring rolls and eggplant. the deep-fried habit needs to stop. but it is just ohsogood.

it was down to 85 degrees when i left for work, and i thought that merited the black jeans. yeah, you read that right. the black jeans.

before i put on the black jeans, i did the makeup: a swipe over each eyebrow with the eyebrow pencil from my little sister and a nice thick application of eyeliner, swooping out and up at the end. the end. i adopted the new eyeliner technique and gave up mascara months ago in order to, you know, blend in more with the natives.

asian makeup and black jeans applied, i coiled my now-long-enough-to-coil hair into the tightest-against-my-head bun i could manage and clipped it there. somehow this bald look has made its way up to the top of the "hairstyles i like" list.

then i drove a motocye to work.

work gets no description, but it deserves one.

on the way home, i was held up for a bit behind a guy driving his motocye down the center of the lane on the highway at 45 stinking km/h with his legs splayed apart while he hand-picked hairs from his chin. this reminded me of the guy i saw a little while ago pulling onto the freeway with an ancient withered man in the metal cart welded to the side of his motocye. it didn't even occur to me to take a second look.

when i got home, nick was whacking open yellow coconuts with a machete, and he gave me one, and we drank the juice and ate the flesh with handy little metal spoons that come free with every flavor packet at 7-11 as we crouched on the cement slabs of the back porch, previously photographed two posts ago.

also, nick tells me he found the scariest bug he's ever seen in his life amongst the roof tiles. apparently it was orange and red and centipede-like, but i still think i won with the bug that looked like a dinosaur last week.

there's the short list. hope you enjoyed it, ye olde internet fog.

thoughts on consistency

2010-10-14T00:15:00.000-07:00

aside from my husband and warm weather, there are very few things i can abide for more than a year. this is probably a weakness, but there you have it. i thrive on change, even though i usually curse the change in the first few weeks. luckily, nick is on board with this attitude, as evidenced by his last-minute switch of majors and additional (totally unrelated) minor, his letter of resignation to NASA, and his decision to become a middle school math teacher in a foreign culture, instead--all of this was his choice, by the way. i know there are still legions of folks who think i forced this change on nick, but he IS a big boy, and, surprisingly, i actually don't wear the pants in this marriage... usually.

anyway, the moral of this mental evacuation is... i forgot, actually. darnit. and it was going to be so funny, too. agghhh!

but that does remind me of something. i want to start posting regularly. not obsessively, hopefully, but regularly. i remembered that i started this blog as a record of our lives, and if that's the case, i've been doing a very inconsistent--and, therefore, not very useful--job.. so get excited (as you obviously are after reading this gem; who could possibly stand to wait for more?), and remember:

oh my gosh, i just forgot. i have hemo brain today, i think.

but in other news, we're reading harry potter in thai. it is painful for us and highly entertaining--sadistically speaking--for those around us. check in next year when we finish number one.

that's all. less disappointing posts forthcoming.

airing dirty laundry in the proverbial front yard

2010-10-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

just kidding! it's in the backyard!

i just wanted to know if anyone has ever seen a dirtier dress shirt collar than this one:

i'm going to bet not, because your husband probably doesn't drive a motorcycle to church. suckahs.

your laundry room is probably not on the cement blocks that constitute your back porch, either.

BUT you probably DO find these in your husband's shirt pockets EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. am i right? am i right? the dirty sneak.

just remember, everyone, when he gets diabetes, it will not be my fault. i have physically restrained him from the ice cream shop down the street far more than once.

oh, and for kicks and giggles:

it's a baby roof! held together by nick's arc welding. everyone pray together now.

just kidding. nicholas bess, i love you more than i love ข้าวซอย. like, a lot more. and i love your dirty shirts, too. thanks for working so hard on our little house! and for not getting mad that i made that wall in the bathroom really crooked, saying that it will add character and act as evidence that we really did build it. you are cute.

as promised:

2010-10-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

the pictures.

floor process:

aren't they beasts? too bad they had to do that like 45 times. those planks were heavy, i promise.

which is why nick was ecstatic to discover that our yard is teeming with coconut trees (i don't know how he never noticed this before; i've even made fresh coconut milk for dinner before--a blog post in and of itself, fo sho--but i suppose that is beside the point), and has subsequently done a lot of machete-wielding during breaks.

more dragging of the planks into their respective "rooms."

finished product, with the added bonus of a photo of พ่อ's friends, who apparently are master builders, taking a snack break to admire their efforts.

the wire-tying (yeah, it wasn't actually finished. i fibbed).

here's the actual finished product. i don't know how we managed to fail to get a single photo of the cement mixing, pouring, and smoothing process, but apparently we did, or there are too many other photos on this card hiding them. either way, my assistance went into the patio/kitchen floor (that part at the bottom that, at the time of this photo, was not done). i am pleased with my cement mixing and transporting skills, yes. thank you for asking.

plus, a look at the bricklaying that happened for the past few days:

yes, he did actually lay bricks. i just made him stop the madness for a second to look cute for the mommies back home.

PLUS, sneak peek at what's happening RIGHT NOW... while i prepare mentally for the afternoon of roof tile scrubbing that awaits. i'm so excited. oh, right, picture:

boom, baby. those is our windows. plus one sexy bricklayer--aside from the guy on the left, of course. paw pen is cool and all, but i think i still prefer nick, mostly due to his hot bod and flannel.

the wise man and his foundation

2010-09-30T04:11:00.000-07:00

[*whoops, this post is almost a week old. enjoy anyway!]

might not be me! or so i was a wee-bit worried. the next phase of the house was to put long slats of cement in that bridge the mysterious hollow foundation shown in the previous post. These slats are 35cm wide and 2-4 m long. พ่อ has been incredible about finding ways to reduce the price at every phase through some new method. We went to the factory where these are made and bought a bunch of the recalled ones that have slight bows or cracks.

At first I was worried because our house growing up had a cracked foundation (or I guess has... they don't usually heal so well), and every season, the swelling ground creates fun for my dad to reapply mud above a major supporting beam that cracks away from the ceiling. I asked พ่อ about this and he shrugged and said, "no problem." Because of the remaining language barrier, I always have to be patient and see what he really has planned later. Turns out the plan was to cut off the pieces into 3m sections when the cracks were within 1/4th and some pieces were just chipped at the ends so we cut them into 2 pieces to use where we needed 2m pieces.

Then, here's the real kicker, tomorrow we are laying a wired grid down on top of all of these beasts and putting a 3.5 cm thick layer of cement on top of it. Needless to say, cracks or no cracks, the end result is going to be solid! its pretty crazy to be walking on the floor after having been confined to the same muddy terrain for 2 months. Were moving upwards. Let the floods come! We've got sand, cement, rock, and steel for our foundation. Oh, and i almost forgot, i had พ่อ put in two steel hooks into the pillars on the porch for prime time hammocking.

Thats right, we're gonna have two sleepable couches in the front room, and a hammock that can manage 2 peoples in front and plenty more floor space. And, if need be, a ginormous house next door with the two friendliest people ever, our Thai parents! I really outdid myself this time. Hope the pictures make up for my rambling.

editor elyssa's note: i tried to make the above more readable, but i don't know how successful i was. nick's legibility is minimal when he's excited about a project. my apologies. at least he's really cute.

[*i can't find the camera to upload the pictures, so those will be in the next post, which will also feature our newly finished FLOOR ; ) until then, here's a picture from our honeymoon almost 2 years ago. just because.]

and yes, that is a nativity. it's hard to be reverent sometimes.

snail's pace?

2010-09-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

we've finally beat the floods. Paw (which will from from here on be known as พ่อ so you can say you know how to read some thai) has set a new precedent for building the house. For the last two days, and for another ten day period to come, we will be working as a crew of 6. We have ordered main components such as doors and windows, roof tiles (all second hand, which has been a really cool experience, and is exciting for elyssa because she gets to wash and paint all 1200 of them), bricks and more. But i'm going to quit talking because i know all you really want is pictures.

I thought I'd first begin with this motivational image. I imagine some caption at the bottom saying something like, "Reach for the sky, even if you don't have arms." This guy was crawling along up the wood forms for the pillars. I had never really looked at how snails move before. They glide at a perfectly consistent pace. Turns out the bottoms side of their bellies are concave; the middle part that is slightly removed from the surface does a wave more intense than any belly dance I've ever seen attempted. I guess it is the waves from the middle part that are actually the part touching the ground and provide a "moving" surface to propel the snail along. Pretty graceful for his outside appearance if you ask me.

Well just as with the pillars, the concrete under all of the walls is reinforced with steel. Because these are interlaced with the steel for the pillars, we did not bother to bring the welder over and do these in situ; we wire tied all of the joints instead. You can see up close right here:

after all of these are done we put wood forms up around the steel on top of the cemented blocks.

then we carried all of the cement over in buckets... fun!

I really included this picture just so you could see some important things: 1A, my posture, 2B, my shoes (this is a shout out to Wynn who insisted I inherit his Chacos before we left. I haven't been able to find anywhere to get boots or shoes my size, so I have done all of my work in these. I have a great z shaped tan now on my foot. Thanks Wynn!), and 3C, my rear ;)

Paw Pen is the mastermind behind the forms and smoothing the cement in them. He is one happy man, and loves to repeat Thai phrases we learn on the job until we learn a new one. One thing is for sure, repetition makes things stick. He and พ่อ have been friends since they were kids.

After all of that cement was done, we disassembled the forms to make new ones for the pillars. All of this was set up yesterday morning, more stabilizers went up after this picture and the pillars were leveled with a long bamboo pole with a weight hanging from the end. It was fun to watch. This day is when พ่อ recruited 3 more friends to get his going. It was fun, tossing the cement up to a guy hanging out on the scaffolds to dump cement into a 3m deep pillar. All twelve pillars are finishing drying right now! We will have a floor layer put in this week.

พ่อ and Paw Pen finishing up the pillar forms.

next week we'll have a bunch of bricks that look like walls hopefully. This project has been a blast, I recommend it to anyone!

turch callings!

2010-09-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

elyssa: sunday school teacher (erm, in english... for the filipino and american members, all three of them. plus the more or less steady flow of tourists. it will be interesting.)

nick: young men's presidency, 1st counselor (that one caused a stir in sacrament; nick is more than excited, and the new president is an 18-yr-old convert, and there's no 2nd counselor, so he will definitely be able to find things to do!)

we are stoked. and currently more motivated to get our thai in gear. having a ready-made community at church has been a lifesaver. the people in our little branch take care of us and scold us when we forget to use deferential thai with older people. they are some of the kindest and funniest people ever, even despite the language barrier. so guess what? this is where i say i love my church.

the end.

bored

2010-09-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

you know that with a title like that, this is going to be good.

feeling a bit under the weather today, so i've been doing pretty much nothing. i've done laundry and read a quarter of the count of monte cristo. the end. what a lump.

in order to remind myself that i'm still awesome--i'd hate for my ego to shrink to the size of a healthy person's--i guess i'll enumerate some of our recent "tiny triumphs." i'll even include some photos. restrain your enthusiasm, if at all possible.

1) i gave my talk on sunday in thai. bam. it was under 10 minutes and quite bad, but it achieved what i'd hoped: everyone spoke nothin' but thai to nick and me for the rest of the day, which was definitely a first. awesome possum.

2) paw decided that, floods or no, our house will not wait another day, and there's actually been some substantial progress this week due to a handy submergeable pump that is constantly in use. it's now conceivable that this dirtpile will one day mature into a dwelling, and there aren't even any holes anymore. see?

nick's upset that this is the one day he didn't wear his farmer outfit. he usually looks just like these two buddies, just twice as pale. oh, yeah, and he makes them look like midgets. but that's still true in this photo.

3) we've both managed to avoid collisions on our motos thus far. hopefully we can keep it up for the next few years. mostly i just wanted somewhere to stick this photo, at the behest of the masses:

what a cute little praying mantis. it even starts 9 out of 10 times, and it dies only at the first street corner of the day. no complaints here; at least it's consistent!

4) nick managed to build a model catapult for his 8th graders in one evening out of string and chopsticks. notice how his rippling muscles are able to tame the thrashing beast. apparently, the students will be building a life-size version in order to illustrate that math can be relevant and cool. because catapults are relevant to the life of the modern urban teenager, no matter what you might think. and they are cool. but no one's disputing that point.

5) i finally discovered what MSG looks like in its virginal state. yes, friends, a nice plump bag of MSG is a staple in any self-respecting thai woman's kitchen, and ours is no exception. long live chemically-enhanced nourishment.

allow me to draw your attention to the yellow speck at top right. behold the carcass referenced in the previous post; i'd saved it for nick, but the wind blew it to the floor, where it was probably eaten by one of the dogs, whose penchant for devouring insects is unmatched.

6) read alma 32 in thai. and it only took me, oh, 5 hours... maybe not that long, but it was pretty ridiculous. still, i did it, and i'm proud. i think we might actually get the hang of this language someday!

7) i remembered [that's where the pride comes in] that i said i'd post pictures of the laotian sandwiches that elicited such delight. this one is from breakfast. i can tell because it comes directly in front of the lunch picture. that's pretty much the only indicator, though.

oh, and lindsay, may you enjoy looking at this photo. i dedicate my outfit to you.

i'm afraid i'll just descend into pure sarcasm if i continue, so allow these to suffice. we're thrilled with how things are going and with this incredible place, even though we miss all you beautiful people who may or may not be reading our [okay, my] ramblings. health and blessings to ever'body. l'chaim!

follow-up

2010-09-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

turns out chiangmai's version of the ic isn't quite the same; the room seats only 30ish people, as it's a classroom, and the movies aren't edited. heavens! we had no idea what would be playing, and we were accidentally 5 minutes late, cuz nick got LOST. and because i had to visit the powder room beforehand. shocker. and in those 5 minutes, they actually started the movie! so we had to scamper across the screen to the desks on the far side, and i was muito shamefaced. no guessing who the neophytes are tonight...

the movie was DREAM, a film by ki-duk kim (apparently it's korean, but they definitely speak japanese, at least sometimes, so i'm confused). let's talk about creepy. actually, let's not. nick walked out of it asking who on earth enjoys movies like that, in easy earshot of all the white-haired professors and vegan-tinted women who were raving about the poetry of the ending. and that's why i love that boy.

but the point of this all is that butterflies are a very central motif throughout, and when we got home, there was a butterfly in our room that was more or less identical to that in the movie. and it wouldn't go away. it was a lovely little yellow thing, and when i woke up in the morning, i was greeted by its delicate frame resting directly above my head on the mosquito net, dead.

how's that for poetry?

ps, if you're into character dramas and venturing into the abstract, and you don't mind some very unapproved-by-byu sexy business--which you SHOULD, of course; i'm just sayin'--i wouldn't say you shouldn't see the movie, even tho nick would. it was very asian and melancholy and sometimes just odd, but if you're looking for an experience, go for it.

i will promise you there are no alien babies that come bursting forth from pregnant women's wombs, and that's a promise i cannot make concerning any thai movie. these guys have sheer horror pretty much mastered. says the girl who watched the mothman prophecies through a blanket. but still.

question:

2010-09-11T04:19:00.000-07:00

have you ever had the pleasure of peeling your skin out of your razor? because i have, and let me assure you, it isn't as fun as it sounds.

that's why i vow never to buy a dollar pack of razors from a minimart in laos ever, ever again. a pity, really, because the dollar pack i bought in jordan lasted me almost a year... those were quality.

now that you all know way too much about my shaving habits, or lack thereof, i'm off on a hot date with the husband. he discovered something pretty much exactly like byu's international cinema right here in chiangmai! what a sweetums and genius--i now have exactly zero reasons to miss provo outside of the wonderful friends and memories we have there. cha-ching.

fib. there are lots of good things about provo. but zero sounds better than "some." just clarifying. now we're off!

upon closer inspection...

2010-09-08T03:18:00.000-07:00

last night's intruder was not, in fact, a toad. 'twas a tree frog, which makes more sense.

also, this morning, my toothbrush was not to be found in its normal home on our dresser--yes, our dresser. don't judge me; i don't have a house. anyway, after a few minutes of searching, i found it. in the basket of dirty laundry.

also, nick is the sweetest and most wonderful husband in the world. be jealous.

look at this precious little farmer boy. the crazy look is intentional; i was trying to take a picture to show him how hot he is, so he decided to ruin every photo i attempted. loser. but he's removing rusty nails from old planks of wood right now. something for the house, your guess is as good as mine... awwww.

i'm going to try to stop using so many smiley faces and exclamation points in the future

2010-09-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

but it's going to be a difficult addiction to overcome. please be patient.

welcome to what will be a very random and hopefully not but probably somewhat snarky post. we salute you and invite you to make yourselves comfortable. notice the optimistic plural pronoun. i wouldn't have to worry about that if i were writing in thai, but, seeing as my thai spelling--and, oh wait, vocabulary--doth suck, i'm stuck with "yourselves."

[interruption: i was just startled by a large toad that collided with my mosquito net. inside my bedroom. last night, our room was home to a 4-inch grasshopper. it has also been known to temporarily house curious birds and astronomically proportioned spiders. still no scorpions, however. yeah, baby.]

first order of business: we are now, officially, "non-immigrants" in thailand, with shiny visa stickers and everything. "non-immigrant" in thailand is code for "immigrant," which sort of makes sense, except for the fact that it doesn't make sense at all. be that as it may, we can now work, legally. nick is choosing to follow that course, while i will probably stick with my shady criminal volunteer aka no-pay pastime (the spelling of this word has always put me in mind of a french meat dish or dessert).

second order of business: we have [finally] purchased my moto. there is a proliferation of adorable motos in northern thailand, my two favorite being this:

and this:

don't even tell me you don't covet the honda. it's totally a sexer, even though i still can't figure out what a sexer is, despite nick's repeated efforts to point out all sexers on the road. somehow i think he would label my application of the term here incorrect, but i don't care.

my new-to-me "honda dream exces" doesn't look at all like either of these fine examples, and it is older than my youngest brother, who is 10, but younger than my youngest sister, who is 15. whoa, weird. heidi's 15? anyway, it is old and black and praying-mantis-shaped and muddy. but none of that matters, because it represents FREEDOM for me, and that FREEDOM is delicious.

plus, the mud isn't its fault. it's just the result of the morning following my purchase, when i went to the farm to look for paw so he could adjust the idle, and i very slowly drove over a ginormous patch of mud that i thought had dried to a brutal crust. it was only half-dry, meaning it wrested control of the front tire from me, and at 5k/h, that means you tip over. like a cow. then, if you're me, you hastily right your now sputtering steed, look about frantically to make sure the farm and surrounding dirt roads really are devoid of nosy neighbors who call your host parents to tattle on you for driving like a maniac (nick's story, not mine--thus far), throw off your shirt to wring out the mud and wipe off your arm, replace your garment with nervous alacrity that results in your using the neck hole as an arm hole by accident, then mount the now silent moto and realize with shock and horror that your knee is BLEEDING. wow, that was one exlamation mark that wanted to happen. then you realize your arm and leg are also leaking some of the offensive evidence, AND you have a burn on your other leg from the exhaust pipe. then you feel like a freaking moron and wonder how you could've possibly scraped yourself up so impressively on very squishy, soft mud. THEN you sneak home and wash yourself a little more thoroughly at the outdoor pump and successfully conceal your really idiotic cow-tipping incident from your already hyper-freaking-out-about-you-driving host parents (i think). gee whiz. oh, and run, shhh. let's keep this our secret, eh?

i debated about revealing my idiocy to the internet world, and, consequently, my parents, but i decided it's okay. because i'm not as bad a driver as this makes me sound; stiff mud is just impossible to drive in and will consequently not become a habit. also, i didn't brace my fall with my left foot, because the mud to my left was most definitely not dry, as it was swimming in green slime, so i would've just slipped and then added a painful splits-induced injury to my tally. in order to quell the nervousness this incident incurred, however, i forced myself to drive to the city today to have lunch with my lover, swap books from the drunk irishman who takes my money so i can enjoy the written word, and buy a better helmet. it's lilac with white stripes. i am so trendy. nick got sick of waiting for me to pick a blanging hat after a while, but i explained that, with such a drab vehicle, i'm entitled--yup, entitled, cuz i'm an uhmerikuhn--to one aesthetic concession. that's exactly what i said, and i was pleased that i used two 3-syllable words in a row. my vocabulary has, admittedly, been a little peaked lately.

equally as thrilling as my newfound independence was the french sandwich stand we found in vientiane (capital of laos, haunt of the visa-runner) last week; not only were these sandwiches unearthily delectible, but they were also half the price of all other foodstuffs in the city. we ate them for breakfast and, at my insistence, again at lunch. this amused the cute lady who sold them, especially after i begged nick to take identical pictures of me eating within 4 hours of each other. and now i won't even post them here as i'd planned, because i don't want to get out from under the mosquito net to fetch the camera card. maybe next time.

speaking of laos, it's fabulous. call me a commie, but aside from the astoundingly high prices--by thai standards, of course--and the, well, lack of anything really to DO, vientiane was the shiz. we rented the tiny moto of the owner of our guest house and cruised about the sleepy little city, except cruise implies that we didn't almost fly off the two-small-for-two-white-people seat 100 times because of truly colossal potholes riddling the way. and it was fun! oops. oh, well, i like that one. so there. ! plus, the national museum was faaascinating. if you are in vientiane, make sure you go. but if you're american, be prepared to feel like a major, erm, prick. totally worth the buck fifty, though, even just to see the ancient history section--they used to bury their dead standing up in giant pots in the middle of a valley! and all these megalithic urns are still there, speckling the fields like alien droppings. go, laos. you were cool.

hey, guess what? i'm actually done talking about myself for tonight. it's 11:30, and i still have to plan my lesson for tomorrow, and my sweet husband is sprawled out on the bed in his clothes, snoring. trying to wake him up for his necessary nighttime shower is as painful as he insists it is to wake me up... at any time... for any reason. what can i say? i like my sleep. which is why i now, finally, bid you all adieu.

Guess what

2010-08-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

i graduated

we picked an awesome year to move here

2010-08-23T05:10:00.001-07:00

soo, remember that talk i was writing? definitely didn't happen, because when nick and i woke up on sunday, we looked like this:

actually, we took this today, and we feel a ton better than we did yesterday. the entire day consisted of a lot of moaning (seriously, a lot of moaning; i've never seen anything so pathetic) and other delectibles involved in sickness. that's right: we are enjoying southeast asia's #1 disease, the beloved dengue fever. after the flooding especially, there is an enormous epidemic in our town going around lately.

we were afraid to tell our parents, seeing as my dad in particular is a bit of a worrywart (but ya knows i love yas, pop), but his response made me think he's not quite as concerned as i expected, which nick thought was awesome:

Well troopers, everything I've learned about dengue tells me I'm glad I don't have it and that you'll both probably live.
Although the next several days look like no fun at all.
Take good care of each other.
Our thoughts and prayers are right there with you.
Missing you.
Dad

haha, so tender. 36 hours, many meds, and a priesthood blessing each later, however, it looks like we're not going to start hemorrhaging or going into shock, and we're feeling a lot better, meaning we no longer want to die ; )

now, why has no one come to visit us again? haha.

vignette

2010-08-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

i'm supposed to be writing my first-ever church talk in thai. i might die. literally.

so, seeing as it's still completely unwritten, we have to make ANOTHER "quick" trip to burma tomorrow for visas, and i'm starting to have a minor panic attack, i decided to ignore the problem and write a tardy blog post. fun, huh?

so here's what's been going on lately:

first threesome on a moto; have yet to experience 4 or 5 folks, but it's something i covet.

nick got a rain getup for his commute, which 3/4 of the time involves torrential weeping from the heavens.

and a farmer outfit. that he really wears.

oh, yeah, and the Flood. these are neighborhood boys coming to assault "teacher mana" and beg him to join them as they swim down the river that was once our street. as per usual, check run out for full details. this was a week ago; sadly, our "house" is still full of water. sigh. but everyone else thinks it's hysterical that there are fish in our house (literally), so we decided there's nothing to do but laugh along. and smack the newly spawned mosquitoes. incessantly. sabai, sabai, folks.

and, finally--dundunDUN!--the newest member of the morrill family. it's a "storm: design by japan," so you know it's good. always classy, we are.

time for a motocye ride. remember to send good vibes to this really white american who can't speak thai. talk + directing choir practice means i can't handle it. good thing everyone loves everybody here, and i won't be kicked out of the country for butchering their language in public.

lovelovelove!