A Second Taste

So, Monday August 2nd was Mormon Night at Turner Field. (That is where the Braves play btw). When Chance was growing up there was a Mormon baseball player named Dale Murphy. Since I never followed baseball until Chance and I got married I had never heard of him but apparently he’s pretty famous, especially among the LDS youth of the time.

So Dale Murphy was there signing autographs and throwing out the first pitch. We were so excited to go. We invited our friends, Chad and Michelle, to join us. We drove down on Saturday. Arrived just in time to stop in at a wedding reception and hug the bride before they left. Sunday we totally chilled. I took like an hour nap in the hammock in the yard. I kept expecting for Chad to get a picture of a Hammock in a hammock but it was too hot and no one wanted to join me outside. Monday was the big day so I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Then we drove back on Tuesday. It was a short trip but a sweet one.

Monday:

1. We went to the World of Coke

2. We visited the Georgia Aquarium. My favorite part of the aquarium was touching the Cow Nosed Rays. I try to do it every time but I always chicken out. This time Michelle wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’m so glad. It was weird and cool!

Here’s me being timid while Michelle is ready to wrestle a shark.

I did it!! You can see my goofy grin in the top left corner of the picture. The rays really seem to like being pet. They will swim right up to you and stick their noses out of the water.

Then, the coolest room in the aquarium is a tunnel. Nothing in the picture is photoshopped!

3. We went to Mormon Night at Turner Field!

Chance and I next to Dale Murphy’s retired #3 outside the ball park.

There was a parade of LDS people to start the game and we got to be in it! We walked on the field. It was so awesome!!

Here we are on the big screen. If you click on the picture you can see Chance taking the picture. Chad and Michelle are waving and I’m too short to be seen!

Chance and I on the field. I really wanted to, literally, steal third. In the end I felt that would reflect poorly on the church so I thought better of it.

Chad and Michelle on the field

Chad catching  a ball that would have been a Home Run! Thanks to his quick moves the Braves won!! (Okay so there’s no ball…use your imagination people!)

As we were walking on the field Tim Hudson (aka Huddy) and Eddie Perez were within arms reach. I was too chicken to talk to them!

4. We ate at the Varsity

5. We watched Shark Week

See Chad and Michelle’s blog for their pics and videos. It is a very well written post. I think you’ll enjoy it.

I’m still kind of in that zone where if I don’t have pictures right away I don’t blog about things. So here’s what I did in July.

1. Our friends, Megan and Cony, were moving from Georgia to Connecticut for grad school. It’s about a 12 hour drive from Atlanta to D.C. (when you’re not in a U-Haul and towing a car); it’s roughly 7 hours from here to UConn. So we were a happy little half way point for our friends. Unfortunately they moved during the first week of July so D.C. was a mad house. It’s already crazy touristy in the summer but during the week of the 4th of July it’s just chaos. They were troopers though and we managed to get in some great sight-seeing. I don’t know why we don’t have any pictures with them but here is a picture Chance took while we were out showing them the monuments.

2. The day after Megan and Cony left our friend Erin flew up. It’s a good thing we finally bought a futon! Erin spent a couple days being touristy with us (well, mostly me since Chance worked).

Erin was here for the 4th and I must say the fireworks were AMAZING! On the 3rd we got to go to the dress rehearsal of the PBS 4th of July Special. A lot of the performers didn’t bother to show up but the host, Jimmy Smitts, was really funny about it. David Archuletta was there and, my favorite, REBA! I love her.  :) Then on the 4th a bunch of us set up camp to get a great spot for the fireworks. It was insanely hot but totally worth it! (Before you ask, the answer is yes. Chance DID take that picture!)

3. Chance worked crazy hours for two straight weeks. There were days he left the house at 7 and didn’t get home until 10. He was just going non-stop until August recess. Unfortunately this will probably happen again next year. Let’s not forget that our anniversary is the last week of July. So anniversary #7 was a pretty big dud.

4. Our 7th Anniversary! Chance sent me flowers. They were awesome. Rather than my typical wedding picture, here is a picture from a college dance when Chance and I were engaged.

I’ve lost 25 pounds, two dress sizes, and depending on the brand one and a half to two pants sizes. Let’s not kid ourselves people. I look good. The graduation pictures are the most recent ones I have but I’ll be posting more, believe me.

**Fair warning, this post is sad** So while we were in Georgia for the graduation we finally got to go see Elijah’s marker. Our goal was to be down in Georgia for the anniversary of his death and to be there when they placed it. But with all the travel that we did to be at special family events, it just wasn’t possible.

In the beginning it seems like people were really understanding and kind of expected me to cry. Somehow that kept me strong. The thought that even if everyone in the room saw me break down, they would understand. It kept me from crying. I didn’t want pity or anything. Of course, everyone kept telling me how strong I was. Chance was the only person who really knew better. Now that it’s a year later people don’t expect the tears anymore. I’m supposed to be over it. It’s not kosher for me to get emotional when someone else announces their pregnancy (or whatever, insert baby related event here). So in an effort to keep up this appearance of being strong I have kind of been doing this Scarlett O’Hara thing where I keep deciding to cry about Elijah tomorrow. All through February and March I kept telling myself that I could cry about it in April. All through April I said, “Just stick it out until the 27th and then you can cry all you want.” Then when we found out that we wouldn’t be able to go down to Georgia for the anniversary I convinced myself to hold on for a little longer.

So Memorial Day weekend. It’s actually appropriate because that’s the anniversary of his funeral/burial. We went out after church and we took a couple of flowers from Roger’s beautiful garden to lay out there. My parents sent us this rose bush while I was still in the hospital. We love it because it is still alive. We call them our Elijah Roses. They are on Roger and Sallie’s front porch. Since we still don’t have any outside land to call our own, they will probably stay there for a while. Besides, Roger has not just a green thumb but pretty much green hands. There is no one I would rather have caring for our Elijah Roses. (FYI, this is making me emotional and this is why I have procrastinated posting for a whole month. Ugh. Whew. Okay)

So we get there and there is dirt on both Elijah’s and Ken’s stones (Elijah is buried on top of his great-grandfather Kenneth Hammock). Plus the grass is just pathetic. Chance and I are novice at visiting cemeteries so we came empty handed. But I had tissues and antibacterial wipes in my purse so I use the tissues to protect my hands while I pull weeds. After that I used the tissues to help clean off the dirt. I finish by wiping them both down with antibacterial wipes. I laid one rose on Elijah’s stone and the rest of the flowers I put on Ken’s because he has a vase. Then I got out of the way for Chance to take pictures.

Then a breeze blows more dust on Elijah’s marker and I let that bother the crap out of me until it was clean again. My hands were Oompa Loompa orange by this time. So now that every little possible thing has kept my hands and mind busy I reach a point where there is nothing left to distract me. Try as I might to keep it together I finally just sat down by my son’s headstone and cried until I had nothing left. Still I felt like I should cry some more but I just wasn’t hydrated enough to create any more tears.

Chance and I continued sitting there for a while chitchatting about the cemetery when we saw a couple in the next section over. They brought folding chairs, a knee pad, lots of flowers, gardening gloves, a spray bottle. It was astounding. For a minute I allowed that to make me feel guilty for coming to my son’s grave so unprepared. Then I realized, they must have lost their loved one a while ago. They really know what they’re doing, which in itself is kind of sad.

Anyway, I told you all this because I want to be honest. Also, I don’t keep a journal so this is for me as much as it is for my readers. You might be tempted to tell me that no matter how long it’s been, it’s okay to cry. I shouldn’t let people make me feel like it’s not. But, any comments like that will probably just make me feel like I’m being chastised. I appreciate the thought though. In the end we all have to learn that  sometimes you need to suck it up. It’s selfish to detract from someone else’s happiness because you are in pain.

This post makes it sound like I am still in the depths of despair. Really, I’m okay. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I suffer mild PTSD. I’ll never be the person I was before. I have faith in a loving Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The sacrifice Jesus made in Gethsemane helps me know that someone knows my pain. The sacrifice He made on the cross and by being resurrected gives me comfort that I will see my Elijah again. Together my Savior and I are working everyday to heal me.

Here is our little man’s marker. I spent an entire day in photoshop creating “Stamps” our of the images of Elijah’s footprints. So those are the real deal. They’re cleaned up and blown up a little to take up the right amount of visual space but they are his feet.

So you all know that May was a complete whirlwind for Chance and I. The whole Hammock clan really. But I thought I’d share a few pictures and such from the last weekend in May.

We drove down to Georgia after Chance got off work on Friday. The weather through NC was terrible and since it was Memorial Day weekend, traffic was also horrible. We made it to Salisbury, NC when we decided to stop for the night. Apparently, there was a big race (of the NASCARish variety) that weekend so the hotel wouldn’t give us a discount. Not eve or AAA discount. Ugh. Anyway, we got up and left around 9. We made it to Woodstock just in time for me to head straight up stairs and get dressed. Then as soon as I was done, we headed over to graduation.

The Cherokee High School class of 2010 was my first graduating class. These kids were my little Sophomores my first year teaching. I sat with the teachers and got to catch up with them. I also got to shock a bunch of my students by saying hi as they descended the stage. The number of double-takes I received was hilarious.

Here I am with some of my kiddos.

I had pictures taken with a couple more students but I forgot that I had my camera with me. So I have to wait for them to post the pictures. One student did put her’s up right away.

Hm, seems like the picture quality is okay. Awesome.

Anyway, I’m not going to post their names here, for their protection. Even though, for some of them, having their name on my blog is the least of the things they should be worrying about on the internet.

Even though it was stressful and frustrating most days, I loved being a teacher. I really miss it.

So, after six seasons on the air the TV show LOST ended on Sunday. This post is going to focus on that so if you don’t watch the show, you might not get some of my references. If you follow my Facebook you probably know that I have really hated this last season. So for me this party was to celebrate not having to endure it every week. I wanted to do something fun but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Here’s what I came up with.

1. In Season 1 there is a Polar Bear on the island. So I bought Klondike Bars. Two six packs cost me $5 at Wal-Mart. Sadly, I forgot about them and no one at the party had any.

2. All the food they find on the island (besides fresh obviously) is from the Dharma Initiative. So I spent some time in the Business Center of our apartment complex and printed labels for all our soda and party food. This cost me time and a few sheets of paper. But otherwise it was free.

3. While printing the labels I saw customizable Oceanic Flight 815 Boarding passes. I printed one for every person that I knew was coming. I found the Oceanic logo and printed it on an envelope.  I used the Oceanic logo again and printed an itinerary. I stuffed the envelope with the itinerary and boarding passes and put them on our friends doors or in their mail boxes. Again, it took time but it was free.

4. I printed a Dharma station logo for each of the doored rooms in our apt. The bathroom was the Hydra Station, the bedroom was The Flame, and the spare room was The Arrow. FREE.

5. I bought two rolls of crepe paper in green to create a fun pass through from the living room to the other rooms. The crepe paper was .79 per roll.

6. Last but not least, I bought a piece of black poster board and printed the word LOST in the right font in white. I cut it out and pasted it and the poster board. This was the sign for our door. I paid .59 for the board.

Total cost: $7.17 On Decor related items. If you don’t count the klondike bars I only spent $2 on decorations. Mind you, I spent about 3 hours doing research, printing, and delivering envelopes. But that is a luxury I have since I am at home.

I also bought chips, dip, and some 2L of soda. I estimate I spent roughly $15 on food. So not much more than $20 to throw a party that was a hit.

Here is the evidence!

Jaron is a very gifted LEGO artist and he created a scene of Locke at the Hatch to add to our decor. Might I add that this was also time consuming but free. He already owned all the LEGOs that he used.

Here’s another angle that shows the whole scene.

May has been a month of travel for the Hammock family.

May 1- Chance and I visited Charlottesville, VA home of Thomas Jefferson. We drove up Friday night and shared a hotel with our friends the Wallaces. Saturday the Jansons and the Schwabs joined us for a fun and educational tour of Monticello, Jefferson’s home.

*Fun side note: Chance set the picture up and then asked a random passer-by to take our picture. He is normally quite selective. He’ll scope out the scene until he sees a person carrying a nice Nikon like his. This time, since there was such a big group of people we didn’t have time to be picky. The guy took our picture once, I wasn’t even fully standing since Chance and I ran over after setting up the shot. So we asked him to take another and he was all put off. Like, “Oh no. I have to push the button AGAIN?” The icing on the cake is that the dude was so incompetent that he cut off part of the house and included a TON of grass in our picture. Chance was so frustrated!

Chance and I with the President. Good times.

May 8- My in-laws, Roger and Sallie, were sealed in the Columbia, South Carolina LDS Temple. So we drove down Friday and drove back Saturday. The shortest trip ever.

May 15- My sister-in-law, Chelsea, got married in Dallas, Texas. We flew in on Thursday and home Sunday.

May 22- Thank goodness we stayed at home. I did however have a crazy Sunday. I spoke in church, hosted a dinner group and then hosted a LOST party. Stay tuned for pictures of the awesome decor.

May 29- We will be going to Georgia for the CHS graduation of the class of 2010. The kids who were in my sophomore English class during my first year teaching are graduating. They are my first official graduating class. (On a bizarre side note: I student taught at Madison High in Rexburg in the Spring semester of 2006. The kids who were seniors in my French class that semester could/should be graduating COLLEGE this month. I feel so old.)

So I have at least three friends who make rag quilts. Claire, Erin, and Chrissa. Over the course of the last couple of years these ladies have inspired me to try my hand at it.

First, Claire convinced me that they are a good thing to sew because they don’t have to be perfect. That tempted me because I have been working on a regular quilt for Chance for years and it’s imperfections are driving me mad.

Second, Erin showed on her blog how to do it step-by-step. She even included pictures and advice on how much fabric to buy.

So I went for it! Here is a picture of my first ever rag quilt. A baby quilt for our friends Jozef, Hollie and baby Sadie.

I didn’t quite set out with the perfect plan. I cut the pieces and then started arranging them. I did Pink, Stripe, Blue, Stripe and that is how this pattern was born. When I had it laid out I loved it. I didn’t think about the fact that I was using twice as many striped pieces. So when I got to the back I had to develop a new plan.

I still love it. It looks very beachy to me. Because of all the sewing you lose a lot of the size. This blanket is the perfect size for a car seat blanket. While she’s still little it will be great for throwing on the floor to set her down but it isn’t nearly as big as I expected.

Also, I put batting in between the layers. A lot of my friends don’t. But I live in Northern Virginia and I wanted this blanket to keep baby warm. If you don’t use batting the blanket has a flimsier look and feel which is great for warmer climates or summer babies. Because I used batting this project took on a new level of difficulty.

I had the front, back, and batting section of each square. Then I sewed an X across each one. Then I sewed the squares together to form rows. Then the rows together. It took forever! I got so discouraged. I was sure I wouldn’t finish before the baby came. If it hadn’t been for my church sewing group I may never have finished.

Now we come to motivator #3. Chrissa. She showed me how to make rag quilts without doing tons and tons of squares!

STRIPES!! Brilliant!

Here’s a close up so you can appreciate the cuteness of the fabric.

This one is for Danny and Emily. They decided not to find out the gender of their baby but she loves monkeys. If you look closely the yellow of the bananas is much more bold than the pastel yellow I chose. If I went with the bright yellow it looked kind of like an ode to the potty.

Anyway, the stripes were a lot less cutting and a lot less sewing. I actually feel like you also get to appreciate the pattern of the fabric a little more too.  In case you’re wondering. It takes a yard of each fabric. The stripes are 3″, 5″, and 7″ wide. Unlike my first quilt it is the same front and back. I had about 6″ of yellow left over and I also had some brown left. So really you need 1 yard of pattern, 3/4 yard of secondary color, and 1/2 yard of the third. I would still buy extra if it is your first time (or second or third, hehehe) just so you have wiggle room to mess up. Plus I bought the fabric on sale and got the yellow and brown at 50% off or $2.49 a yard. So even though I bought a full yard of each it was only $5 total. I buy the crib sized cotton batting and I open it all the way. So one package of batting lasts me 2+ quilts. I either buy that with my 40% coupon or wait until batting is on sale. I don’t pay full price unless I am desperate to finish on a deadline and I didn’t plan ahead.

I have two more that I am working on right now. One is for my BFF, Lindsey. She actually just had her baby, Elliot, on Mother’s Day. So I’m a little behind but the blanket rocks. She lives in Montana so her blanket also contains batting. The last blanket on the agenda is for a baby girl and it will be my first with no batting! I hope to have pictures by this time next week.

I started worrying about the security of my personal information on Facebook and here is something I learned.

In the Top Right Corner click on:
Application Settings
Then in the drop down box in upper right select :Show Authorized
You now see a list of all the applications that have access to your personal information. If you have ever taken a stupid quiz about which Hogwarts House you should be in or played a game with a friend, there is an app with your info.
So the next step is to delete anything you aren’t using.

When you delete it has a pop-up box that says “If you remove [Application Name], it will no longer have access to your data and be removed from your profile, bookmarks, and Applications Page.”
I went in and there were 76 applications with access to my data. I now have 13 and 7 of those are not optional. I kept only the things that I really like and regularly use like Family Link and Scrabble.

CAUTION: This is a long post. For that I apologize in advance. I beg your indulgence as I get somethings off my chest. Hopefully my frustrations will be amusing enough to hold your attention.

What in the heck has happened to the concept of customer service? Honestly!?

1. Best Buy- News flash. Extended periods of silence can get uncomfortable! Don’t just take my debit card and then not talk to me for 5 minutes. OH! AND the customer at the counter is more important than the customer on the phone. I don’t mind if you have to answer the phone once and transfer to appliances or something but leaving me on no less than five occasions is outlandish. You only got away with it because I am a nice person.

2. Target- So I accidentally bought women’s flip-flops when I meant to get men’s. I walk up to the “Customer Service” desk and explain my silly mistake. The woman, no lie, just stared at me. I was like, crap, there should be a sign or something if she is deaf. So then I said, “Should I just run back and grab the right ones and then come back up to you?” And she eloquently replied, “MMMMM hm.” She didn’t even have to move any facial muscles for this earth-shattering response.

Let me ride this tangent for a moment. How is it that we have developed ways of teaching infants to verbalize their thoughts; toddlers are reminded to “use their words,” AND YET it is somehow socially acceptable for grown adults to simply grunt!?

What is the matter with this world?!

I figured out why blogs are so popular. Because if you can write, at all, you must be interesting.  I have read plenty of blogs; not all bloggers write WELL! Just ask the Capital Letter, he’ll regale you with tales of his glory days! But if you dare to ask him of his present adventures you’ll see him wallow in self-pity as he admits that he is grossly underused today. Not to mention his sweet wife Punctuation! Ah, I remember when he used to follow her around like a love-sick puppy dog. Today they sit, hand-in-hand on the sidelines of the ever deteriorating English language.

Then these people, who can’t even write, get their own shows and quit their jobs! They make tons of money by being mediocre!! AUGH!

Okay, whew. Sorry about that. Back to my initial complaint. Customer service!

3. Target Revisited. Now I am at the check out. Last time I used coupons at Target the girl piled them all together and probably only actually scanned 3 of 6. It annoyed me a ton. So this time I placed all the items with coupons on the belt and placed each item on top of it’s coupon. With a smile I asked the cashier how her day was going. She mumbled, “Good you?” just loud enough to be heard. I brightly said, “Great. Thank you for asking.” I explained the coupons. She glared at me and then gathered up all the coupons and put them in a pile by her register. I said nothing. After she scanned those few items I asked her politely to scan the coupons before proceeding to make sure all the coupons would work. She found this quite annoying but complied. Next I bought a small 6 pack of plastic bowls. The blue ones that I wanted had no UPC but they were the last ones of that color so I brought an extra set of another color so as not to hold up the line. When I explained this she said, “Well do you plan on returning these?” Okay, first off, why would I buy something if I simply intend to return it? Especially $1.99 set of stupid bowls? Secondly, how about a thank you?  The only redeeming quality this woman possessed was the ability to speak words. At least she never grunted at me.