Looking Good

Looking Good

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Summertime . . . and the Living Ain't Easy

Meanwhile, back at the ole Tyler Hacienda:

We are just kicking it back during the summer. Mark and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this next week, so we'll be taking a little trip together. I am really looking forward to it.

I just spent the last week at Camp Yearbook up at Snowbird Resort. Wow. It was fun and educational. I learned a lot about yearbook that I didn't know. My two students who came up with me and I are committed to making a better yearbook this year. Anyway, when I got back from yearbook camp, Mark and I spent some time reminiscing about our dating days. What memories!

Megan spent a week at EFY. She enjoyed it but claimed that her session had no cute boys. I know it's hard to believe, but she pretty much lives for eye candy -- she's so much like her mother. Now she is busy taking Driver's Ed. online.

Megan and Caleb attended our ward's youth conference at Goblin Valley. When Megan left, she was determined that she was going to have a terrible time. When she came back, we asked her how it was, and she said, "Awesome!! We nearly died!!" So, apparently the near-death experience caused by a flash flood while they were hiking in a slot canyon really made the whole trip for her. Caleb was a little less enthusiastic about dying, but he apparently had a good time. He also brought home half of Goblin Valley in his bag and shoes.

I am working on a project as usual. I just can't seem to leave well enough alone. I've also noticed that I'll do anything to get out of the house. Anyway, I am putting in pavers around my garden to keep the weeds down and just to make it look good. Here are some working shots:




It's actually much further along than this now, as I've worked on it quite a bit.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Jazz Hands and other Tyler Things

We've been watching a lot of Utah Jazz basketball, and Caleb always says "jazz hands, jazz hands" while we are watching and clapping, hence the title. We aren't usually that into Jazz basketball, but we tend to catch playoff fever when this time of year rolls around. We are spoiled by the Jazz, because they are almost always in the playoffs.

The weather here has been crazy, normal Utah weather. It is snowing today, and it will probably be 75 degrees later this week. I had to drive a group of my yearbook students up to Salt Lake City for a conference on Wednesday, and of course it was snowing and fogging like a blizzard going up around the point of the mountain. Sheesh. I hate driving in snow, especially in April.

We went to see the new movie, How to Train Your Dragon, for FHE. We all enjoyed it. We are also still watching Avatar, The Last Airbender with Mark. He's the only one who hasn't seen it, so we are forcing him to watch all three seasons. He acts like it's killing him, but I think he secretly likes it a little. We do have to lean over and punch him every once in a while to keep him awake.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A Tale of A Sunday Talk

On Saturday afternoon, April 17th, I noticed that there was a message on the phone from Thursday night for Caleb from Bishop Longhurst. I had Caleb call him back, and we found out that Caleb was supposed to give a talk in church . . . the next day. The subject was his choice of a favorite talk from the Priesthood session of General Conference. Saturday evening I decided that we needed to get to work on the talk. Mark had mentioned that Caleb had seemed to like the talk President Uchtdorf gave, so we printed that one out.

Now came the hard part. Have you ever tried to get Caleb to sit still and do something?? It is not an easy task. He likes to be up and moving. When you do get him to sit down, he immediately goes into "I'm too tired to work on anything right now" mode and threatens to fall asleep. He also didn't like any of my ideas of how to organize his talk, but he didn't have any ideas of his own. Let it suffice to say that we got nowhere with the talk preparation.

On Sunday morning I had to go to an early morning choir practice, so it fell to Mark to help Caleb with his talk. As I was leaving I  heard Mark giving Caleb suggestion after suggestion only to have Caleb veto every idea.

As I sat in the pews after choir, I had to wonder if Caleb was going to have a talk prepared or not. There was also some question about whether he would make it to church on time to give said talk, as he has struggled a bit in that area of late. Megan was there with me, and she assured me that Caleb and Mark were right behind her, but . . . church started and no Caleb.

As the opening hymn began, I was hoping it would be a long one to give Caleb time to get in. My worst fear was that he wouldn't get in before the Sacrament and he would be locked out and have to walk up to the podium as they were announcing him as the speaker. Still, that would be better than not having him show up at all.  Oh no - the opening hymn was short.

Just as we finished the last verse, Caleb came in looking like a deer in the headlights. He took his place on the stand, and Mark sat by us. I gave Mark a searching look, but he just shook his head. Oh my.

Caleb got up to give his talk - and he did a fantastic job. He had some notes, but he actually gave the impression that he had his talk somewhat memorized. Afterwards several people from the ward came up and congratulated him or passed on congratulations through me.

If they only knew . . .

Monday, April 12, 2010

Can we clone this girl???

I just want to brag a little on this girl, Megan Tyler. You see, Megan had to take the ACT test on Saturday, April 10th. Her sometimes lazy, sleep-deprived parents forgot all about it, but Megan herself remembered that she had to take it and got herself up and over there on time. Would this have happened with any other Tyler children? I think not, but I'd love to be happily surprised.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

First Time Yearbook Teacher Has Success!

As some of you may know, I took on my school's yearbook class this year in addition to teaching my other classes. It has been both a fun and frustrating experience. I know I've learned a lot--probably more than my students, actually!

Anyway, our yearbook is almost finished (we just have one more file that a senior editor needs to upload on Monday), and I am experiencing a great feeling of accomplishment and pride for my little staff. Our theme was Technically Speaking, and we really took that theme and ran with it. Here's our cover--it looks like a computer hybrid between a Mac and a PC:
The actual cover looks way cooler than this--this is just a small file drawing of it.

Our pages themselves look like internet sites, except for our first and last pages, which look like a computer desktop and the infamous "blue screen of death."  Here are some examples (if you click on them you can see a larger version, I think):


It's been a ton of fun making UCAS themed near copies of various websites. (I hope you recognize Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Youtube.)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Report on the March 25th Meeting of the Literary Ladies

This month we read Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. I have to admit that it was not my favorite book ever. The main character works as a governess. She is probably the most spineless female character I've read since Bella in Twilight. There is a love affair in the book, I guess. I really couldn't tell because there was no passion involved at all. And we all know that I either have to have passion or eye candy if I'm going to really enjoy something.

Even though the book wasn't all that great, the company, as usual, was highly entertaining. We have the best book group ever!!!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

An Ideal Gift for Mother's Day

I really think I need one of these babies. It would help a lot in keeping Mark from taking over every closet in the house. Anyone?

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Inheritance

Inheritance
by Denée Tyler

My mother passed on many traits to her children. Some of us have her jaw, strong and square; some of us have her skin, pale and freckled; and some of us have her hair, dark and curly. Other siblings have inherited her aversion to messiness and her anxiety about heights. I have had the misfortune of inheriting one of her less desirable attributes – her telephoning phobia. To speak plainly, making a simple phone call is more terrifying than donning a string bikini and swimming through a raging river filled with piranhas and crocodiles while being shot at with deadly blow darts. Phone neurosis continues to be a hardship throughout my adult life. I put off calling until the last possible moment, and sometimes I even resort to (Gasp!) little white lies to cover up my weakness.
I refer to a recent calling incident. My school has one of those really cool antique popcorn-popping machines. As teachers, we are allowed to use it for family and neighborhood functions IF WE ASK. A few months ago I made the monumental mistake of bringing the popcorn machine to a neighborhood movie night. Everyone was intrigued and envious: “Where did you get that?” “Do you think we could use it for our next (den meeting, family reunion, formal dinner party)?” Here is where I really messed up because, in the pressure of the moment, I said, “YES.” Now people occasionally call and say, “Do you think we could borrow the popcorn machine next week?”
The problem is that this necessitates a phone call to my school to ask if the popcorn machine is available. Notice that I say phone call. Email does not work for this particular task. So, I add the phone call to my list of things to do: sort my spices, dig up the backyard, translate the Iliad. These are all obviously top priorities and need to get done before the phone call. Day after day important things come up, and the phone call gets pushed to the bottom of the list. Suddenly it is the day of the event, and I realize I still haven’t called to ask about the popcorn popper. What am I going to tell the neighbors?
I resort to those aforementioned little white lies. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I’ve been down with hand, foot, and mouth disease and haven’t been able to talk for a week, so I couldn’t call and reserve it.” (Unfortunately, I can only use this excuse once, so I save it for a real emergency.) “I’ve been meaning to tell you that UDOT dug up the whole street outside my school; the phone lines have been down all week, and I couldn’t call and reserve it.” (This excuse is usually good at least once or twice a year.) Or, my personal favorite, “I called and left a message, but Mrs. Fitzgerald never got back to me.”
I really do feel guilty about shifting the blame for my personal inadequacies onto poor Mrs. Fitzgerald, but I don’t feel guilty enough to actually make the call.
They say that karma never fails to get you in the end, and that’s what’s happening to me now. My 23-year-old daughter Alison inherited my love of literature, my dislike of cats, and my phobias about telephoning. The other day she actually paid my teenage daughter Megan ten dollars to pretend she was Alison and call BYU to ask some questions about an upcoming senior seminar. If you ask me, I think Alison got off pretty cheap.
I wonder how much I would need to pay Megan to act as my personal secretary for the rest of my life . . .
The phobia is oh so real. The rest of the details may or may not be true – you decide.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Ides of March Update

This has been a month of opposites for the Tyler family. March has been both incredibly busy and incredibly boring. Mark and I write in our journals every Sunday. He and I both couldn't think of a thing to say last week. That doesn't mean that we haven't been incredibly busy, though. My yearbook kids have their big deadline on Monday, and I have been very busy making sure we get all the picture and pages done that we need.

Mark stayed home on Thursday to watch BYU play Florida.We were amazed and happy to see BYU win their first NCAA tournament game in 8 tries. It was a very tense game. I actually got a little sick from all the adrenaline. (Like my mom, I can actually feel adrenaline running through my body when I am nervous--let's just say it doesn't feel too great.)

Megan and Caleb participated in the State Math Contest over at UVU. Right now, Megan, Ben, and I are all out of school for spring break. We are definitely enjoying ourselves.

The weather has been typical Utah spring weather--vacillating from nice to awful every few hours. I am starting to get a little spring fever.