It's the most wonderful time of the year

It is my favorite time of year. Not because it is winter...blech. Not because it is Valentine's Day....sappy. Not because Spring is right around the corner....not soon enough. No, it is my favorite time of year because the library is having its Reader's Choice contest!!!! I know I am a dork, but I seriously get giddy with joy when I walk into the library and see that the new reader's choice books are out. I love reading, but I dont like taking a chance on reading a book I know nothing about which has not been recommended to me, which means that often I have no idea what to read and that makes me so sad. :( So this is the perfect solution....25 books that have been recommeded! (Even if the recommendation comes from some unnamed body of librarians or patrons, I am not picky.) :)

It has been my goal to try and read all 25 choices this year, and I have been making some pretty good progress (and ignoring my house and my family in the process.) This blog seemed like a good forum to tell you about a couple of the books that I have read and what I thought of them. And there will even be pictures!!!!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

This was a really good book. Written in the form of letters, epistolary is the technical term. So cute and also a little sad, but then happy!!

The Art of Racing in the Rain

I also liked this book. It is told from a dog's perspective, and very well written.

The Magicians and Mrs. Quent

It is like Pride and Prejudice squished together with a little Harry Potter...the best of both worlds. I liked it a lot.

So I have read several more, but these are my 3 favorite so far. I will keep you all updated as to my progress and my critiques. I am sure you will all be waiting with bated breath!

The month of 100%

This month my work is sponsoring a contest called "The Pedometer Challenge." Anyone who wanted to participate could sign up in teams of 5 to walk to San Diego in the next month. We were given a free pedometer, and the goal is to walk 9000 steps a day in order to make it, figuratively of course, to San Diego be the end of the month. Those participating are in the running for some cool prizes and of course the added benefit of a little weight loss.

So in the spirit of really doing this thing right, Rollin has agreed to be a motivator for me and get active himself. We are committing to walking on the treadmill every day for the next 30 days, 100% of the days. But why, we thought, stop at just that one commitment? Why not commit to giving 100% on all the things we should be doing better.

Therefore, in the interest of forcing us to follow through on our resolutions by making them public, I am announcing to all our bloggy friends out there that the month of February is officially 100% month in the Skinner home. We will be giving 100% to our walks, 100% to FHE, 100% to daily scripture study, 100% to eating better. And 100% to whatever else we can think of.

On a side note, if there is anyone out there who would like to come to my house and potty train my amazingly stubborn 3 year old, I would be willing to pay some good money! Apply in person.

Welcoming the era of Obama

"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America: They will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." President Barack Obama

What an inspiring speech. It brought tears to my eyes. I am looking forward with hope to the next 4 years. Congratulations, President Obama!

I know that over the months of being my devoted bloggy friends, most of you have come to expect perfection from me. And I certainly can't blame you, just like Mary Poppins, I like to consider myself practically perfect in every way.

So it is with sadness that I must at this time publish a retraction and a correction. It turns out I am not perfect and sometimes I do make mistakes. (Please don't anyone tell Rollin because with him I am staunchly maintaining that I am always right.)

I called D'vorac yesterday and called him Derrick and he took great pains to finally correct me. All this time I thought he was calling himself Derrick pronounced with an unusual accent on the ick. It turns out he was all this time saying Dev-reck. So now the v makes a little more sense and it ends up not being as strange as I heretofore imagined....but admittedly an unusual name.

Happy New Year to all.

We have had quite an eventful couple of weeks. And I have no photographic evidence to support this assertion. You will just have to believe the words and add picture in your head as I describe our adventures.


As many of you know, we recently got the news that we would need to move. The person who owns our house has stopped making her mortgage payments, and is about to be foreclosed upon. So we got the awesome news that we would need to spend some time right around Christmas making a move. Luckily, someone in our ward had a rental property available at the right time and for a great price. We moved most of our stuff in on the 22nd, and have spent the last couple of weeks running over to get another load of crap whenever we have a few minutes or the motivation. It is amazing to me how much crap we have accumulated over the 5 years we have been in the house. I have a gigantic pile of stuff for the DI and we had a good size load that went to the garbage as well.


Ok next on our adventure tour is Christmas. We had a couple days to get the tree set up after moving in, and a couple days to finish up our shopping. (Note: try to avoid the Build a bear workshop on the 23rd of December.) Christmas morning we woke to 6 inches of fresh fallen snow and no electricity, but the kids didnt mind opening their presents in the cold, semi-dark house. It was a nice lazy day of cooking and eating and playing with toys and sitting around....our 4 favorite things.


Two days after Christmas, Logan was baptized. I can hardly believe that she is so big. It was such a special day. There were about 8 kids being baptized that day and there were more people in the chapel than we usually have in Sacrament meeting. I took Logan to the wrong door to get into the font and Rollin had to redo the prayer a couple of times, so Logan has some memorable parental mess-ups with which to harrass us in the future. Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Cameron were able to come up and we went out to lunch afterwards, and it was all just a lovely day.


So that just about sums up our last couple of weeks. Pretty crazy, but not nearly as traumatic looking back on it as it seemed looking forward at it. That is not to say, however, that I would like to do it again any time soon.

Oh one more thing, no one got even close on the pronounce that name contest. He says it Derrick. Yeah I know, it doesnt make sense to me either.

Work Observations

I am on the phone at work pretty much all day. I call people who have applied to be truck drivers. Here are some things about calling on these applications that I have noticed over the last 6 months

1. I dont like calling people who have first names for their surname. Is this Mr. Frederick Michael, or Mr. Michael Frederick? I worry each time I call someone that I have the name backwards and they think I am an idiot.

2. People have some interesting names and interesting spelling. Take for example the following name: D'vorac. Now I would say that da vor zjack, like the composer of my favorite symphony. But who wants to take a stab at how it is really pronounced? Well I will let you all mull on that for a while and submit your guesses. And if anyone actually gets it right, I will give you a special surprise treat.

3. Before starting to work here, I had never spent much time talking to anyone from the South, but I talk to a lot of Southerners now days and there is one phrase that I hear at least 10 times a day that I had never heard before...."Have a blessed day." I love that. I do feel extra blessed after being told so many times each day.

Well, that is all for now. I know it wasnt especially funny or clever, but at least it was something to read.

A Bloggy Change

So, since starting my blog, I have always felt that I had to have something extra interesting and exciting going on in our lives in order to blog about it, and I needed to have accompanying pictures. Well, there is plenty exciting going on in our lives, but since I am at work for some of it, and my poor memory neglects to remember to bring my camera for the rest, I have not been a very consistent blogger.

Today I am instituting a change. I think I have some of the funniest, cleverest friends in the world, and I enjoy reading their blogs so much, even if they dont have pictures, or revolve around an event which is "mother of the year" quality. So, I am going to try to reciprocate by dusting off some of the old funny and clever that I know resides somewhere deep inside me, and blogging with more frequency. You might not always get a breathtaking photo, or interesting travelog, and to be quite honest, you might not even always get funny or clever, but at least the qauntity may increase. I thought I can just sit at my desk and jot down some random thoughts on truck drivers, or phone etiquette, or my coworkers, or whatever.

I thank you in advance for your well-wishes and support, and hope that you will be rewarded with some entertainment.

But not today....maybe I'll start tomorrow.