Here's another "random thoughts that pop into Johanna's head." This time it was while I was cleaning today.

I've been watching a lot of movies or shows based on life in either 19th century or early 20th century England (namely Pride and Prejudice and Downton Abbey). I've thought a lot about what it would be like to have servants around your house all the time. It would be weird.

And then today when I was cleaning, I thought about how I hate cleaning. I had seen a post on Facebook from a friend of mine that said, "Why is my house always dirty?! I'm constantly cleaning it?!" And then I got to thinking about how back in that time period, people with big houses had servants. The people that couldn't afford to have servants had small houses. I mean, like one or two rooms small. And here we are, middle-class Americans, with fairly big houses (compared to what those without servants had) without the income to have servants.

I mean, my house is no Pemberly (or Downton Abbey for that matter), but it's probably not much smaller than what the Bennetts lived in, and they had servants to cook and clean for them. They even helped them with their clothes and hair.

So all I'm saying is that it's no wonder we all feel so stressed out these days... we're doing the job of maintaining our homes when they used to have multiple servants doing it for them. I cook. I clean. I plan. I make sure the kids and I are dressed. I wash clothes.

If I had lived back then, I would either be really rich and have a servant do it for me, or really poor and not have a big enough house to worry about things like that (and probably poor hygiene and some incurable disease).

We as homeowners in Middle-Class America are doing what an entire staff on Downton Abbey does.

Booyah. We're awesome.

I was just thinking about this family that I knew back in B'ham when they still had the B'ham 3rd ward. I was reading the Book of Mormon, and one of the passages reminded me of the Mom. She was a single mom with 4 kids. The youngest little boy was named Evan, and he was in my nursery class. He was adorable. The mom was white, and her children were mixed. He was the cutest little boy. He had beautiful skin and curly hair. He loved me, too. He always called me Sister Johanna, and he would cry when he had to leave me.

He's why I came to love the name Evan, which became the name of my firstborn child.

I was thinking about this little boy, and I tried to remember his family's name, but I can't. He's probably a teenager now. Weird. That was almost 10 years ago. I'm getting old. I thought if I could remember their names, I might be able to find him on Facebook to see what he looks like. Not that he would remember me or anything. I wonder if they're still active in church... such a sweet family. They moved away. I don't even remember where to.

I know I have a picture of them somewhere, but I can't find it.

OH! I just found it!


I have no idea who the kid in the spiderman shirt is, but the little boy in the mom's arms is Evan. :)

Anyway, completely random, but it was on my mind. I wonder what happened to them... Do you have anybody like that from your past?

It's time for a random post! woohoo!

--I don't know why, but I've been avoiding all things journal lately. I haven't even written in my real journal lately. I think I'm just lazy.

--I started following this little girl I went to church with back in Alabama on Instagram, and I think it was a mistake. She keeps posting pictures of One Direction. I didn't care for boy bands when I was a teenager, and I sure as heck don't care about them now.

--My username on there is hanneyjo1, by the way, for all interested parties.

--I took Evan to get his last immunization before I could register for him in school today. I was also informed that he would need a TB test. Does that seem weird to anyone else? He had to have a TB test to start Kindergarten. He freaked out a lot. It definitely didn't help that the nurse told him, "It won't hurt much. It's just like an ant bite." Thanks, lady, for freaking him out even more.

--I registered Evan for Kindergarten today. I'm excited, but as I sat there thinking about him in school, I nearly teared up. HE'S STILL MY BABY BOY, DANG IT!

When did this...


Become this?


Look at that handsome boy...

--The kids have been extra funny lately. Evan has to be told constantly that he's not "the boss" b/c he likes to boss his little sister and any other person around. I've told him so many times now that he just knows when I give him the look, and says, "I know. I know... I'm not the boss..."

--That reminds me of another amusing anecdote... Lauren was playing outside in the back yard, and she came back inside to get something. Evan shut the door and refused to let her go back outside. When I asked why, he said, "I don't want her to get dirty!" Mr. Mom. It must be hard to be Evan and have to make sure that everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing. :)

--I'm trying to remember funny things Lauren says, but she doesn't say a whole lot of funny things. She just does funny things. OH! I made her sit at the table until she finished her dinner the other day (pancakes and sausage. why I should have to force a kid to eat pancakes and sausage is beyond me.), and she broke her sausage into little pieces and started to pretend they were cats and dogs. "I a tat. I a dog. Ooooh. Dat's so nice." She went on for a really long time with nothing but sausage to play with. She has a really good imagination. She'll sit on the toilet for a long time just singing and playing. If she doesn't have toys, she'll use her fingers or anything handy nearby.

--My brother says that she reminds him of me when I was little... I used to play with our family's toothbrushes, pretend they were people, and make them, ahem, kiss. :)

--Today at the health dept during our looong wait to get Evan's TB test, he had a few toys, and after playing with them for awhile, he noticed the other kids didn't have toys. He started passing out toys and eventually ended up with none and told me that he liked to share his toys with his friends. It warmed my heart. Love that kid.

--I posted this on Facebook, but in case you missed it. Evan was asking about nice words and bad words. He asked if there were more nice words than bad words, and I said yes. He then reasoned that if there were more nice words that we should say only the nice ones, and I said, yeah, but some people like to say bad words. And then he said, "That's because they don't know that Jesus is the Son of God." I was shocked. Did that just come out of my 5 year old's mouth? I thought about it for the rest of the day.

--I'm on the last level of Super Paper Mario for the Wii. I play it for the kids. :)

--I just beat the Temple of Time on Zelda: Twilight Princess. I also play it for the kids. :)

--I'm serious. They ask me to play.

--I think I saw a UFO the other day. I don't know if it was actually an alien aircraft, but I really have no explanation for what I saw. It was during the meteor shower a few weeks ago. I think I need to report it to Fox Mulder ASAP.

--Who names their kid Fox?

--Tomorrow night is supposed to be a SuperMoon night, so be sure to check it out!

--Well, I just spent the last forever looking up dumb videos of Fox Mulder on YouTube, so I think I'm going to stop and end this here entry. Good night, all!

Andrew and I have been in the market for a new table for quite some time. The one we had was a good table. It was given to us by some friends of ours in Baton Rouge shortly after we were married. It has been with us through 4 different locations, and I really did love it.

We've made some happy memories at this table.

Look how little Evan was. And look how gross our wall was! Toddlers are nasty.

But our family has gotten bigger, and we plan on making it even bigger, so we decided it was time for a larger table.

We shopped around at furniture stores, but there was nothing that I absolutely loved, and tables are freakin' expensive! Also, apparently, furniture stores think that families should only have small tables. Not many places sold tables for more than 4 people.

Then, one glorious day, we found a little place called El Rincon Rustico. We were on our way to Jamboozie in downtown Laredo when we saw it for the first time. I suggested we go back to look later, and I'm so glad we did.

This place handmakes ALL of their furniture. And it's gorgeous. Everything I saw was amazing. We looked around for a bit, and then some of the guys there showed us around. We asked how much it would cost for us to get a table with 8 chairs. We expected to be told a gazillion dollars because, again, this was all hand-crafted furniture. We got a custom-made table and 8 chairs for less than $1000.

I don't know if you've priced tables lately, but that is cheeeeeaaaaap!

Not only was it exactly how we wanted it, they delivered it to our house and set it up for us.

El Rincon Rustico is freakin' awesome.

So... wanna see?

Of course, you do.


Look at that beauty! I've never been so in love with a piece of furniture in my life. As soon as I saw them pull up to my house with it in the back of the truck, I was in awe. It's gorgeous.

Let's look at some more pictures, okay?


One really neat thing about this table is that the tabletop is set on top of a frame. We can just pull the tabletop off. It's pretty nifty.


What's cool about these chairs is that we told them, "We like this back, but we want this bottom." And they did exactly what we wanted.


I really like this metal band. I think it looks awesome.


The finish is gorgeous. I love the wood grain. And it's so smooth. I lay my head on it and caress it from time to time.


This picture is me setting up the camera during dinner and saying, "ACT NATURAL." I guess this is as natural as we get.

So, yeah, I kinda love my new table. I highly recommend El Rincon Rustico for ALL! They're awesome!

And in case you couldn't tell from this post, our table is...

Johanna Approved!

My brother has recently found out that he has Polycystic Kidney Disease. In case you didn't know, that's the same disease my mom had, and my sister has it, too. My mother's father had it and died because of it. My uncle Sammy also has it. It's a stupid disease, and I hate it. So much.

My brother has been finding ways to deal with this news, and he has written some really great and beautiful songs. I may have teared up listening to them. Have a listen.

"The Day I'm Gonna Die" - Joshua Pettus


"Do You Love Me?" - Joshua Pettus


Those are good, right? He was able to take a trial and turn it into something deep and beautiful.

I like the idea of taking a hardship and turning into something deep and beautiful, and boy, have I had some hardships to work with.

For example, a few months ago, something terrible happened in my household...

All of our remote controls went missing.

It was tragic. I had to get up to change the channel or adjust the volume. I couldn't use certain features on our blu-ray player because I didn't have the right buttons. How can I watch a blu-ray if I can't get past the first screen?!? It was pretty terrible.

So I took that awful circumstance and poured my heart out into this poem.

Where do remotes go when they vanish without a trace?
They're gathering and plotting against the human race.
While in our grasp, they must do as we say,
But together they triumph in their hideaway.
For now the humans must rise from their couches--
Legs moving and shoulders in slouches.
Before the humans had all the power.
Now the remotes laugh, then glower
But the joke is on the remotes, you see,
For I am the one with the batteries.

Deep, huh? Did you feel my pain? Did you cry a little? I know I did. But I was able to see through the trial and realize that I could triumph over the remote controls because I have the batteries. I won't let them bring me down! We can rise above the lost remote controls!

Yeah, I'm deep.

Evan's been making me play Super Paper Mario lately. Not that I'm complaining... it's a good excuse for me to play video games AND spend time with my kids b/c they really like to watch me play. Evan asks me questions about it all the time, and he talks about it all the time. His new favorite character is Mr. L, who is an evil Luigi. He thought that guy was pretty cool. So cool, in fact, that he drew a picture of him.

Here's what Mr. L looks like:

AKA: The Green Thunder

Here's Evan's picture of Mr. L and Mario:


Isn't that adorable? He even made his arms go up like Mr. L's do. I thought he did a pretty good job paying attention to detail. That kid loves to draw. He's always drawing something. He asked me how to spell all those words, so he could write them down.

I was kinda proud of him. :)

I'm pretty excited. I finally, after 27 years of life, was able to paint my bedroom. I've never done it before. At my Dad's house, every wall was white. There was never even an option to paint my room. And, now, as an adult, my bedroom is the last thing on my list of things to make pretty in the house b/c I'm the only one who ever sees it. Well, Andrew and the kids, too, of course.

So, I'm just gonna cut the chatty stuff, and get to the pictures b/c that's all anybody really looks at on blogs, anyway, right?

Before:


After:


The paint mysteriously made my room cleaner, too.... weeeird...

Before:

Why, yes, that IS a pillow in the window. We are the epitome of class.

After:

The sun is really bright and makes for stupid pictures.

Before:


After:

The top of that dresser has not seen the light of day in a looong time. I won't even talk about the dust that was on everything. Also, those flowers are the same flowers that I'm holding in those wedding pictures. :)

And one last bed picture...


I'm sooo happy with the way it turned out. I love it so much better. I think it makes the room so much more cozy, and it really accentuates the awesome window that we have.

I don't really know what to put on the walls, so I'm open to ideas. Seriously. Give me ideas.

Oh, and BONUS, I've kept my room clean since I painted it. What up!

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Sorry, Andrew, that my dead body won't bring in more money.

Have you ever had a moment where Pinterest actually failed you?

I did. It was shocking. I was in need of a fruit dip. And I didn't have time to go grocery shopping. I wanted to find a recipe using what I had in my kitchen, but, alas.... Pinterest failed. Apparently, I'm supposed to keep Marshmallow Creme handy. Oh, well.

So I decided to make something up. I figured if it tasted horrible enough, I just wouldn't bring it, and no one would ever know...

But if it was AWESOME, I would post it on here and receive praise from the entire world (ie: the five people who read this blog.) (ie: the 0 people who will actually try this recipe)!!

Guess what... it turned out AWESOME! Woot!


Orange Cream Fruit Dip



8 oz cream cheese
8 oz cool whip
powdered sugar
zest of 1 orange
juice from 1 orange

Mix first 3 ingredients together until smooth. Zest orange over the bowl and squeeze that orange like you mean it. Serve with fruit. Duh.

I liked just licking it from the bowl, too.

Note: Sorry for the lack of powdered sugar amount... I just dumped some in there until I thought it tasted good. Also, if you don't have a zester (which I don't), a cheese grater with tiny holes works. Pushing the orange down onto the counter while you roll it around before you cut it loosens up the juices.

I took this to a baby shower, and I got asked a few times how I made it. I was excited because I MADE IT UP! I'm easily excited. Obviously.

So, in the words of Yo Gabba Gabba, "Try it! You'll like it!"

I feel like Easter is the forgotten holiday. There's a whole season for Christmas. The world starts celebrating in November (or even October if you're my sister-in-law Becky haha). Easter only gets recognition on one weekend. Yes, they sell stuff in the store a few weeks before, but it's nothing like Christmas.

The things is... Easter is such an IMPORTANT holiday. Because the whole reason Christ was born was so that he could die and rise again. Easter is the celebration of his whole mission for us. It's the reason we are able to live again eventually. It's the reason that I can tell my children that yes, they will meet my mom (or as Evan says, "my special mom, Vicki") one day. Because he was willing to die, he was able to be resurrected to save us all.

It's pretty amazing.

I also love it because I think of how hard it must've been for him to suffer, and how hard it must've been for Heavenly Father to watch his son suffer, but they were able to do it because they knew something better was coming. Easter is a reminder to me that no matter how hard things are, better things are on their way, and if I just endure, I'll eventually get there. I'll eventually get to that that better place.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter and that amid all the egg hunts and candy eating and easter bunnying that you found a moment to reflect on the amazing event that we're celebrating--that he LIVES!



Happy Easter!