Growing Pains

I was just updating Mason's blog, and posting pictures of him on Halloween. I just keep looking at the pictures and I can't believe how quickly he changes. This time last year he couldn't even stand up. Everyone told me how fast he'd grow, but I'm really noticing it. "Exner" is a word my friend uses to describe that "excited/nervous" feeling. I am excited for all the new things he can do. I love witnessing his growth and learning. I'm nervous that I'm not doing a good enough job.

I also get nervous when we are apart. Before the summer I could leave him with family members and it wasn't a big deal. During the summer it was just us. My friend Kyndall watched him for an hour once so I could go to a lecture, and Sarah came over one night when he was asleep so we could go downstairs to a restaurant. That is the total amount of "babysitting" experience.

Today my brother Nate had Mason for THREE whole hours. I tried to enjoy the break and get errands done, but I couldn't relax. I felt like puking most of the time. I KNOW it is good for Mason, I KNOW it is good for me, but I still feel anxious. In two Sundays Mason will be old enough to stay in nursery by himself during our church meetings. I've gone with him to nursery a few times because he screams when we sit down for Sunday School. I KNOW he'll do fine. It's me I'm worried about.

I didn't think I'd be like this.

Why he can never retire

This is my husband Jason. Building a shed in our backyard. In three days, from the ground up. In the snow. With his bare hands. Pretty much.

Once upon a time the Starr family was moving, yet again. We had three days until we needed to be on the road. "You know, we need a shed", was how it started. A call to cousin Clint and another call to a cement company and then we were in the backyard with shovels (I brought mine along for looks). Three insanely long and cold days later and WE....HAVE...SHELTER!!!!

Next story. Jason kills himself all summer working himself ragged. Summer ends and fun starts. After a few weeks Jason says he doesn't feel productive. He goes and works at the ice plant for a few days until he's earned enough extra cash to buy a nice chainsaw. Did you know that owning a chainsaw makes you a manly man? That's what I heard. Anyway, Jason goes all lumber-jacky on me and spends long days on the mountain and late nights in the back yard getting firewood. I thought he was *maybe* going a little overboard until suddenly it snowed and it's FREEZING. Lucky me, I have a ton of wood and a charming cozy fireplace.

Although we are uber conservative with our money and can usually make our summer money last all year, with a mortgage it was going to be too tight. The bachelors degree turned out not to be such a good investment with the pitiful job market. Bummer. Hopefully that will change, but until then I am blown away by Jason's work ethic. He stayed busy working odd jobs, until another opportunity opened up. Now he leaves early in the morning and works pretty late some days. I know he doesn't love the job, but he loves to work.

The other day he didn't get home until 9pm. 13 hour day. He grabbed some dinner and then dashed to church ball. He had the next day off so I figured he'd take it easy. By ten the next morning I heard his famous line, "I don't feel productive" and he was off! Fixing bathtubs, working on cars, and doing whatever it is guys do in the yard.

So this is why he can never retire. As much as he likes fishing I just don't think he could relax long enough. After a few days of that and I think we would hear, yet again, "I don't feel productive".

Small Town Saturday

This is why I love living in Cedar. Jason left early in the morning to go up to Crystal Springs to get a load (or two!) of firewood with Bo. Mason and I left the house early and went to a few yard sales. I'm especially excited to have found a sturdy little table and part of Mason's Christmas. I regret not buying the paintball gun (sorry boys). On our way home, Andy texted to see if we were going to the parade. What parade? It doesn't matter, Cedar has parades for any random reason. I didn't plan on going but I realized I was on the "wrong" side of Main Street and it would be easier to go than to try to find a way home. We met up with Andy, Emily, Nate and kids, D'Var and Bethany, Long lost Lehn, and other friends. We saw Carolyn and Collin for the first time in almost a year. We may have been the only ones NOT in Wranglers, as it was the Cedar Livestock Festival after all. The parade was full of all things cowboy. Mason almost ran into the hundreds of sheep that come last, but was saved by the fast reflexes of cousin Casey. Everyone went to the rodeo grounds, but we headed home to put Mason down for a nap. After the nap we went to a grocery store, DI, and then bought a chicken chile tamale off the street. I've been craving another one ever since. I love being able to go to fun events, get from one end of town to another in 10 minutes max, and live near the mountain and my family.

I'd really enjoy traveling through time to tell 17 year old Ashley that she'll wind up moving back and loving Cedar. She'd probably not believe me.

HUGE SAVINGS!

Silly Wal-Mart

Starr Reunion

I used Mason's blog to post most of the family reunion stuff, but here are a few more pictures of my beloved Cedar Mountain.

And here's one from the family pictures. I haven't seen the final results from the actual photographer, but by the end my attitude was, "well, at least we tried". Mason had a rough time. Here's a candid shot Janell snapped for us. You know how I always talk about adopting, well that sort of explains the extra kid. I do not have the words to try to explain J's "dragon attack".
Last one. Those of you that have ever played the "hey, can you do this?" game with Jason might understand what he's doing on the WRONG side of the barred off cave. Poor Mason. It freaked him out and he continuously barked "DAAAA"! like a car alarm until Jason climbed back through. Speaking of car alarms, remember that once when Joe locked his keys in his car at Mammoth Caves?

Dear Dave, Made salsa...

Dear Dave,

Made salsa, generally following your recipe. You said yours was like fresh pico from heaven. Mine is like vegetable vomit with an after taste of battery acid.

Sadly, I have no self control. Though my lips are throbbing, I can't stop eating it because I can faintly detect my favorite flavors of lime and tomatillos. Also developing severe stomach pain.

Please advise.

-Little sis

encouraging words

Ry and I

I'll draw you and you draw me.


Ryan and Aunt Ashley

It worked!

Yesterday, I was waxing the floor early in the morning. I know you don't believe that I wax the floor (what decade is this anyway?) or get up early in the morning, but you'll just have to trust me. I opened the back door and suddenly an ear piercing siren fills the house. Mason's eyes grew big and he froze, breakfast hanging in his mouth. After a few very long seconds I realized that I tripped our security system. I ran to the panel punched at the buttons until I managed to enter the code. Jason's yelling from the bedroom "Ash! Are you ok?"

Seconds later his cell phone rings (we don't have a home phone or else they would have talked to us through the panel). "Mr. Starr, this is APX Alarm, can I have your password?" Then they asked if everything was okay. He told them we were fine and the drama was over.

Here's the funny thing. I didn't really think the alarm worked. Not that I thought it was broken, but I didn't realize how fast it goes off and how quickly they respond. Jason's dealt with a couple false alarms in the past, but I'd never witnessed it for myself.

And the kicker- This is what my husband does for a living. He installed our alarm system in our house as soon as we moved in. We go around the country installing for thousands of other people. Well, now I understand it, am thankful for it, and will rest easier knowing ours "works".

my nephews kicked my trash

I've always had a desire to hike Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. I've also always had a pretty acute fear of heights. Gravity does not just pull me down, it pulls me out over the edge of things. Just seeing people close to edges gets me in a frenzy. For that reason I never thought I would actually hike up a mountain where the path is so thin chains have been installed to assist you. My brother Nate organized a trip to go and I agreed to join him. My coping mechanism was to avoid thinking about the situation. Even once on the trail, as people described the perilous path ahead, I just tuned them out. We started very very early in the morning. It was so cold I was shaking, and trust me, shaking does not help settle an already anxious stomach. After quite a journey up very steep switchbacks I saw a summit ahead and thought to myself, "Wow, I made it. That really wasn't too bad. People really exaggerate this hike". As we walked what I thought to be the final steps, a rock tower jutted into view. We had to go down into a saddle and then up, up, up. My feelings at that moment are captured in a picture above (top right picture). I told myself not to think about it and just move. I'll admit I did not take many opportunities to enjoy the stunning view. At one point Jason says, "I'm going to try to not use my hands the entire time". I'd been scrambling on my hands and knees for over 5 minutes when he said that. My darling little nephews were egging me on, showing how brave they were, and acting silly to try and distract me from my vertigo. You know, there are times in life where you can either laugh or cry. I am proud to say I laughed my way to the top. After a few minutes at the top I laughed my way down. The view from Angel's Landing is amazing, but I prefer the view from bottom. It felt good to look back and celebrate that I had accomplished what I never thought I'd have the guts to do.

I'm glad we went. I'm glad we started early and were done before it got too hot. I'm glad everyone made it safely up and down. I'm glad Casey stopped to pee no less that 8 times. I'm glad that when I asked Clain what the hardest part was for him he responded "waking up early".

And that is why...

I went for my first big coupon shopping trip since being out of state for the summer. And although I promised myself I wouldn't clutter this site with "brag photos" every time I go shopping, this one was too good not to post. It's not my usual "look what I got all for four bucks" picture. I spent a lot more (about $30) but still stayed under budget. The highlights of this trip include: 2 boxes free Life cereal. Pop Secret popcorn for $0.20 a box. 15 boxes of Healthy Harvest wheat blend pasta for about $4.00. My favorite dish soap, Palmolive Pure + Clear for a buck each. Boxes of Quaker granola bars for $0.50 a box. Total savings: about $130!


And THAT is why I coupon shop at Albertsons.

B is for...

Baskets. Bountiful Baskets that is. We enjoyed a wonderful meal last night. BBQ ribs, sweet potatoes, artichokes, fruit salad (apples, cantaloupe, grapes, pears) and amazing 9 grain bread. We didn't pay full price for any of it. The ribs were on sale, the BBQ sauce was free from coupon shopping, and the produce was part of our co-op basket. We got TONS of produce for $16.50. Last week was the first time this service was offered in my area. It was fun, it was exciting, and the joy of the healthy eating doesn't stop. I got a call from the state volunteer coordinator with the good news that they will now be offering an Organic Basket as well for the state. Saving money, being healthy. It's about as good as it gets!















The first pic is the basket from when I went up north to train. The basket was cute but couldn't contain all that I was given. The second picture is my dad, loading up his basket from the local site.

PS I was very excited to get artichokes. Sadly, Jason didn't care much for them. I sort of figured he might not, so darn, I had to finish them off myself.

That is NOT OKAY

I looked at my blog yesterday and saw that it was infested. MY BLOG. My personal space. MY WORDS were covered in slimy green and double underlined. This is called "In Text Advertising". This is NOT OKAY. I do NOT want ads in MY BLOG. I went through all my settings, and even changed some of my words to see if that helped. I am now using Firefox exclusively and it seems to have helped. I am still disgusted.

Be careful what you ask for

One day we were sitting around, a little bit bored.

I want to remodel the downstairs bathroom, says I. The shower leaks and we should have a tub down there to bathe our 12 children we will someday have.

Okay, says Jason. I will help, says Robert.

Two minutes later: (listen carefully and you can hear Jason say "should we turn the water off?" to which Robert replies "no" with a laugh.)

A day and a half later the demolition was complete. The wall and shower are completely gone. Two and a half weeks later and...um...well, the demolition is complete! I got bored of that project and started painting the downstairs family room. It's not done either. I got bored again.

Fish Lake at LAST!

Jason works hard during the summer. Very hard. And his work is very stressful. He doesn't have much time to do anything else and we miss out on the normal summer activities of camping, hiking, fishing, and fun having. In June we started making plans for September so we'd have something to look forward to. My friend gave us some buddy passes before I left SkyWest so we could go anywhere. Canada? Costa Rica? Jason voted for Fish Lake (where the only flying involved is fly fishing). We rented a little cabin and Janett's friend hooked us up with a boat. Most of the Starrs were able to come up for part of the time, which was wonderful to spend time with them and have Mason get reacquainted with the extended family. Most of all it was so nice to be up in the mountains and enjoying nature.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Jessica who got engaged while up there. We are excited for ya!