The 2016 GTA Year In Review

Last year it was brought to my attention that the “GTA” in my title made them think of “Grand Theft Auto.” That’s hilarious, so I’m not going to change it. Muahaha.

Anywho, here I am, late as usual, to bring my twelve fabulous readers the famous year in review post! And man, it has been a crazy-good year to review.

The Fam

This was a big year for us as a family. We bought our first house, accompanied Tom’s grandparents on an amazing, life-dream-fulfilling genealogical trip to Italy, road tripped to Corpus Christi and Big Bend National Park, and basically spent a lot of time figuring out how to be a family of three.

We also put up Christmas lights for the first time!

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There were definitely some hard times. We all barely survived the plague, and the other plague, and there was the time Dan got that rash and everyone was stressed and I stormed out of the house to go buy Cadbury Mini Eggs. But we made it through the hard times, and I can safely say 2016 had more good times than bad times for the fam.

The best news from this year, of course, is that we’re expecting a baby in July!

Yes, I actually got this fortune cookie right before we made the announcement.

We’re all very excited, although Dan doesn’t really know what’s going on yet. We’ve told him there’s a baby in Mom’s tummy, and sometimes he’ll say hi to the baby. But then he’ll point to his own tummy and say “baby,” so…we’re still working on it.

The Dan

This has been a big year for Dan. He learned to walk, talk, eat foods, and basically do all the amazing thing he does.

He also met Santa.

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He wasn’t thrilled.

Dan also started Nursery this year. He had a rough time at first, as most kids do, but now he loves it—especially when they bring out the bubble machine at the end!

img_20161113_111711547 — One time I went to Nursery with him, and he built a barricade of trucks around me so I wouldn’t leave.

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I covered most of what there is to know about Dan in my “18 Months of Dan” post, and he’s continued to develop along the same lines. He is much better at communicating now, and learns dozens of words every day. Right now we’re working on saying “please,” “thank you,” and “I love you.” He’s a real sweetheart!

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The Tom

This has been an awesome year for Tom. He put his Italian skills to good use, got promoted twice, experienced his first turnaround, and was accepted into his first-choice online MBA program. Wow!

img_20170111_182655763-1 — Tom continues to be an amazing dad.

Oh yeah—Tom was the scruffiest I’ve ever seen him on our camping trip in November.

The Me

I didn’t really know what to put in this section. It’s not like I didn’t do anything in 2016—it’s just that I don’t have really good physical evidence of my accomplishments. Unlike in 2015, I didn’t get much crafting done, largely because once we moved I couldn’t find my crafting supplies/equipment.

I did, however, learn to cook a bunch of cool stuff: Dancakes, beef with broccoli, japchae, singapore rice noodles, moqueca, pot roast (now I’m a real white housewife!!!), pho (new “Elissa Cooks Stuff” coming soon!), and many other delicious foodums.

(I thought I took more pictures of my creations, but apparently they were all snapchat videos…)

As far as writing goes, I wrote about 71,841 original-fiction words this year. That’s not a lot by most writers’ standards, but considering everything else that happened this year, I’m pretty happy about it. I did participate in NaNoWriMo and win, and I’m still working on that project right now. I’m hoping to do a more in-depth writing post in the near future, so if you have any questions about my writing stuff, leave a comment!

To be honest, 2016 was pretty hard for me. We had a lot of fun adventures, but not a lot of downtime. I spent most of the year exhausted, stressed, and/or sick. I expected the whole family would get sick more once Dan started nursery, but for whatever reason, most of the plagues originate with me. 2017 hasn’t been much better so far, which is part of the reason this post is so late.

I’m starting to realize that I’m a real wimp when it comes to traveling. My body just doesn’t handle it very well, and it can take over a week to physically recover from a short weekend trip. And every time something unpleasant happens while traveling (like, say, Dan and I getting stomach flu in San Antonio, or a night of travel insomnia turning an ordinary case of delayed-onset muscle soreness into an out of control, fever-ridden, excruciatingly-painful nightmare), it just makes staying home and reading books sound that much more appealing.

This year I’m hoping for more relaxing family time at home, more crafting, more writing, and more delicious foods. As far as new year’s resolutions go, these seem pretty attainable.

Looking Forward to 2017

There’s a lot to be excited about in 2017! Here are some of the things I’m looking forward to:

Dan’s 2nd birthday!
Dragonwatch in March!
Our 2nd baby in July!
Oathbringer in November!
More blogging!
The return of THESE GUYS!

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It’s going to be a great year!

Happy mid-January to all, and may all your times be good!

October 11, 2016December 23, 2020

18 Months of Dan!

Do you guys want to hear a funny story?

So I was going to post a cute thing about Dan when he turned one, but then we were packing and moving and traveling and I was lazy. By the time things settled down, he was, like, fifteen months old. And that’s not a cute milestone. I mean, with Dan every day is cute, but that’s beside the point.

Okay, that wasn’t funny at all.

Anyway, Dan is 18 months old as of Saturday, and we celebrated by weaning him off his pacifier and sending him off to nursery. Poor little guy. He handled both really well.

What I really wanted to say in this post (and this hasn’t changed from his birthday) is that Dan is absolutely amazing. He is so full of love for his family, his toys, his books, and so many other things. He’s learning and developing at an incredible rate, and we’re just so lucky we get to be part of it all.

So, in honor of his 18-month-ness, I thought I would share…

18 Fun Facts About Dan!

1. Dan loves books!

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As you may remember, Dan has always enjoyed reading. Now that he can understand some of what we’re reading him (and we’ve acquired some very nice lift-the-flap books), reading has become a really exciting experience. Dan will bring me book after book after book until I have tho get up and do something else. And then he’ll whine, because what could be more important than reading Where’s Spot? or Hoppity Frog for the 85th time?

I’m not complaining, though. In fact, I’m really proud that Dan loves books so much. That means we must be doing something right!

2. Dan LOVES wheels!

Big wheels, small wheels, plastic toy wheels, rubber tires…basically, if it rotates, Dan loves it. He will point out every wheel on every car in every book we read him. He’ll sit on our front porch and point to every car or truck or lawnmower on our street. He nearly destroyed his vocal cords a month ago when he learned to say “Vroom!” If we take Dan to a museum or the zoo, he’s much more interested in pushing his own stroller around (and running after other kids’ strollers) than in looking at the attractions. We actually took the wheels off our office chair, because leaving them on would be disastrous. Dan would be playing with them all the time and one of us would inevitably crush his fingers.

Tractorin it up with Aunt Natalie! — Tractorin’ it up with Aunt Natalie!

3. Dan LOVES buttons!

Similarly, Dan is fascinated by buttons.

This was the best experience of Dans life. — This was the best experience of Dan’s life.

4. Dan is weirdly into rap…?

Imagine you’re on a long car ride. Dan is crying in the back seat because he’s tired and needs a nap and wants to be out of the car. You want to put on some music to calm him down. You put on some relaxing classical music, like a nice Beethoven sonata. Dan ignores it completely. You turn on some Enya—everyone likes Enya, right? Not Dan. He screams so loud you can’t hear the music.

So what do you do?

Well, you use this nonsense:

He’ll calm down instantly, and be asleep within minutes. Just don’t turn it off, or he’ll start whimpering again.

We don’t know why he likes rap so much. Tom thinks it’s the steady beat. I really don’t know where I went wrong, because this is clearly evidence of severe parenting failure, but I’ll admit it was pretty funny watching him dance to the Kreb’s cycle rap the other day (warning: mild language):

Luckily, I’ve discovered that the Undertale soundtrack is just as effective at keeping Dan calm in the car, and I’m using it and Little Einsteins as gateway drugs into instrumental/jazz/classical music appreciation. It’s a work in progress, but we’re making some breakthroughs. And in case you’re wondering, this is his favorite Undertale song:

5. Dan is very helpful!

Dan loves to help me out around the house. Once after I changed his diaper, I saw him pick the wet diaper up and put it in the trash can, so that is now his official job. He’s good at it, too. Last week he went to throw the diaper away, realized the trash can didn’t have a liner, and went looking for a different trash can. Wow!

Dan is also good at helping me put clothes into laundry baskets and put toys and books away. He also likes to help me “load the dishwasher,” which really means playing with the brightly-colored knives—so he’s not actually allowed to do this. Yet.

Here are some pictures of Dan “helping.”

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Climbing into the laundry basket is helping, right?

6. Dan loves to go outside!

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In fact, “outside” is one of the handful of words he can say. Which brings us to number 6…

7. Dan can say words!

His vocabulary includes the words “outside,” “hi” (“Hieeeeeeeee!”), “dada,” “mama,” “shhhs” (shoes), “bah” (ball), “yeah,” “up,” “pat,” and “button.” He can also quack, moo, meow, and vroom with the best of them.

8. Dan is terrified of the garbage truck!

His room faces the street, and if we’re in there while the garbage truck is doing its thing, Dan will cling to me and stare at the window until it’s gone.

The only other thing that consistently freaks him out is when he’s holding my phone and it vibrates. He doesn’t get a lot of sympathy for this one, because he’s not supposed to touch my phone in the first place.

9. Dan is a major flirt!

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Yeah, Dan. Flirt with the little girl AND her mom. That’ll get you places…

img_20160711_155334197 — “Help me put this shoe on and my heart is yours, babe.”

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He likes girls.

10. Dan knows some of his body parts!

Dan can correctly identify his nose, ears, head, tummy, arm, hand, leg, knee, and feet!

11. Dan is my green smoothie buddy!

12. Dan has a mild egg allergy!

We’ve had to learn to make substitutions in recipes, but that just means that raw cookie dough is 100% safe for consumption at our house!

Dan chowin down on his egg-free birthday cake — Dan chowin’ down on his egg-free birthday cake

13. Dan loves carbs!

Specifically, he loves bread. If he sees bread on the counter or on someone’s plate, he’ll beg until he gets some. I don’t want him to be internally obese like the ducks down at BYU (or externally obese, for that matter), so Dancakes continue to be useful.

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14. Dan is a budding photographer!

Here are some pictures he took with my phone when I wasn’t looking (I spy a cute foot, a favorite book, moving boxes, and a tired mom):

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15. Dan’s three fictional characters from that one meme are…

Yikes, that picture quality is bad. If you’re wondering, that’s Twitchy from Hoodwinked, one of the minions (Bob?) from Despicable Me, and Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb.

16. Dan has an excellent sense of style!

We don’t call him “Dapper Dan” for nothing. Here are some of his fabulous outfits:

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17. Dan wants to be just like his dad!

And who can blame him? He’s got an awesome dad!

18. Dan’s kidneys are doing great!

I posted about Dan’s hydronephrosis after he was born, and I’m happy to report that his kidneys are doing just fine. The swelling on both sides has slowly but surely improved, and both kidneys are functioning properly. Woohoo!

…

We sure love this Dan, and are so grateful to have him in our family. Thanks for being our little guy, Dapper Dan!

August 2, 2016December 23, 2020

Book Review: The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting, by Paul Raeburn and Kevin Zollman

Heya, reader peeps! I’m happy to report that the Nysetvold family is, in fact, alive! We may all have nearly succumbed to the plague, but things are looking up (knock on wood).

Before the great plague outbreak of 2016, Dan and I were traveling for almost a month straight. Many fun times were had, but man—I am absolutely exhausted. So instead of working on the high-effort blog posts I had planned, I’m just going to tell you about this fabulous book I read.

The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting is basically exactly what it sounds like—it takes game theory principles and applies it to the different challenges of child-rearing. I was disappointed to learn that its focus isn’t on manipulating the little devils into doing what you want 100% of the time, but on training them to possibly grow up to be decent people. As stated in the introduction:

You might think that kids who don’t care at all about the good fortunes of their family—because they are “rotten”—would not make much of a contribution to their parents and siblings. But if the parents show that they care about the welfare of their rotten kid—despite his behavior—he will soon learn that it serves his selfish interest to treat his parents better—because they will then treat him better. According to the theorem, even rotten kids, in the right circumstances, might be maneuvered into becoming little angels. Or if not angels, then at least less rotten.

I mean, I guess that’s a worthy goal, but…meh.

Anyway, the book was interesting. None of the ideas were revolutionary—the first two chapters teach how to use “I cut, you pick,” and auctions to settle disputes, respectively—but I picked up some handy tips, like using a Borda count to choose among three options (when deciding on which movie to watch or where to go for dinner) as long as none of the kids are clever enough to use strategic voting. I also liked that there was just enough child psychology to determine which strategies will work on kids of various ages, and not enough to make this into yet another hippie parenting book.

Reading this book is an amusing experience. You can definitely tell this book was written by two nerdy (Kevin more so than Paul) dads with a sense of humor. In the aforementioned discussion on the Borda count and strategic voting, a hypothetical scenario is presented in which one of the kids suggests that among other possible after-dinner activities, the family could visit creepy Uncle Larry. She then lists creepy Uncle Larry as her second-choice activity, skewing the count in her favor. It’s a funny story, and it illustrates the point perfectly. The only question is why the parents in this scenario would accept creepy Uncle Larry as a serious option.

That’s the only real problem I had with this book: in many of the examples, the parents appear to have relinquished their authority in the name of “fairness.” If Mom and Dad don’t like eating at McDonald’s every night, maybe they shouldn’t put dinner up for a vote every night. If they don’t want to spend a bunch of money taking the kids to Six Flags, maybe that shouldn’t be an option. But I realize that it’s hard to come up with examples for these types of problems, and that this book shouldn’t be taken as a step-by-step guide on how to raise the chill’uns. It just made me raise my eyebrows a little bit.

Basically, The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting was an interesting read. I’d give it four stars.

March 31, 2016December 23, 2020

It’s Camp NaNoWriMo Time! (And a (Late) Easter Greeting)

That’s right, I’m doing this crazy thing again!

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Camp NaNoWriMo happens in April and July. It’s basically like the main November event, but with less rigid rules. You can write nonfiction, you can edit existing novels—you can even set your own word count goal. Because April is going to be an exciting month for our family (Dan’s birthday(!!!), moving(!!!), work training/flea market extravaganza in San Antonio(!!!)), I’m going to set myself a nice, cushy goal of 25,000 words.

It probably looks like I only write during NaNoWriMo events, but that’s purely accidental. The original start date for this novel was January 1, but in November Dan got a UTI, Tom left town for a few days, and Tom and I both got some nasty throat infection. Prewriting got totally derailed as I was dealing with more important things, so I pushed the start date back to March. Thanks to Plague Kid, February was less productive than expected, so I gave myself an extra month and figured I might as well participate in Camp with my writing group.

What am I writing, you ask? I’m terrible at answering that question, especially at this point. Everyone is looking for a different type of answer. The simplest answer is that it’s a YA fantasy loosely based on the fairy tale “Brother and Sister.” I’ve been joking that it’s a story about knitting and thermodynamics, but it’s probably got more knitting and less thermodynamics than anyone really wants. That’s all the description you get because I don’t want to jinx it, but that’s better than my usual answer of, “Um, stuff.”

Anyway, wish me luck, and I’ll try to keep you updated throughout the month.

***

In other news, I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter!

I’ve been unnaturally exhausted lately, so I dropped the ball on our Easter celebration this year. Dan didn’t get an Easter basket or hunt for eggs. Dinner was leftover enchiladas, and there wasn’t a single Cadbury Mini Egg in the house all weekend. Dan broke out in hives as soon as we got to church and had to be taken home, and I definitely didn’t buy him a cute Easter outfit.

Everyone's posting pictures of their children in adorable Easter outfits, and I'm over here like... — The “do-rag” is to keep him from scratching his head.

Of course, none of that is the point of Easter. None of these frivolous traditions (or lack thereof) can add to (or detract from) Jesus Christ’s atonement for the sins of mankind, or His miraculous resurrection. His “great atoning sacrifice” has blessed my life and my family more than I can comprehend.

I’ll leave you with the words of modern-day apostles of the Lord:

We bear testimony, as His duly ordained Apostles—that Jesus is the Living Christ, the immortal Son of God. He is the great King immanuel, who stands today on the right hand of His Father. He is the light, the life, and the hope of the world. His way is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. God be thanked for the matchless gift of His divine Son.

March 18, 2016December 23, 2020

Fat Dan Reads a Book

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There you have it!

Wasn’t that a great experience?

Just kidding.

After getting fewer views on my last post than pretty much any other, I grumpily joked to Tom that if I’d titled it “Fat Dan Reads a Book,” it would have been super popular. I almost reposted it the next day with the joke title, just to see what would happen, but decided that wasn’t the best idea.

“Fat Dan Reads a Book” is just too good of a title to waste, however, which brings us to today’s post.

He loves the shiny cover on *The Alloy of Law*.

Dan actually likes books a lot. I try to read to him at least a couple times a day, and he sees Tom and me reading all the time, so he seems to have figured out that books are cool. Every day he pulls all the books he can reach off the bookshelf and examines them one by one, flipping pages and talking to himself like he’s reading. When he can get a-hold of one of our books, he’ll try to carry or drag it out of my line of sight, then play with it silently until I take it away (he usually can’t resist crinkling pages after a few minutes).

Dan definitely has strong opinions about his books, and on Tom’s and my end, some are just more enjoyable than others. Today we’re going to talk about our favorite Dan books!

Most of these are board books, because they’re indestructible and about right for Dan’s attention span, but a few have paper pages. Tom usually reads those to Dan because his arms are longer and can keep them out of Dan’s sticky, destructive hands more easily.

1. Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry

This is a fun little book about a friendly blue truck who makes friends with all the animals and helps a grumpy, self-important truck out of a tight spot. It’s one of Dan’s absolute favorites. The illustrations are pretty and detailed, and he loves the colors. He also loves hearing me make animal noises, which are color-coded for reader convenience.

Little Blue Truck isn’t laugh-out-loud funny, but there are enough amusing details to keep the parents entertained.

All in all, it’s just a nice story that teaches kids that being friendly gets you farther than being a jerk to everybody. What’s not to love?

2. Bugs Galore by Peter Stein and Bob Staake

I picked this book up at 2nd and Charles, and I’m glad I did. It’s chock full of good times. Dan generally can’t sit still long enough for me to read it straight through, but that’s partly because he’ll keep going back to previous pages to stare at all the bugs. You can’t really blame him—there’s a lot going on in this book! It helps that there’s not really a plot, so you can just open up any random page and have a good time.

You have to admire the fun details in this book, even if they’re not very entomologically correct. I mean, the “fruit bug” is a pineapple with wings. That’s pretty great.

I just hope Dan doesn’t ever decide real bugs are this much fun and bring them inside to show me. Ew.

3. Pretty much everything by Sandra Boynton

I’d never heard of Sandra Boynton before I was pregnant with Dan, but once we received Happy Hippo, Angry Duck at the baby shower, there was no going back. I love these books even more than Dan does, and I grab them at 2nd and Charles (or Amazon) whenever I can. They’re so quirky and random, and I love the illustrations.

The first time I read this page, I lost it. Tom was looking at me like I was crazy.

If I can be as cool as Sandra Boynton when I grow up, my life will have been a success.

4. All the Dr. Seuss Classics!

Plus…Sam and the Firefly? Where did that come from?

Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss? Tom is usually the one who reads these to Dan because of the aforementioned arm-length issue, but they’re always a good time. We received a bunch of them from Tom’s grandparents, and we’re so grateful!

Foo-Foo the Snoo. I always wondered what that guy’s deal was.

5. Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever

The title doesn’t lie—this was one of my favorite books as a child, and I made sure we had a copy once Dan was born. To this day, my family still talks about Couscous, Schtoompah, and I Am a Bunny.

Im pretty sure I learned everything I know about colors from Richard Scarry. And maybe some of my chemistry classes. But mostly Richard Scarry. — I’m pretty sure I learned everything I know about colors from Richard Scarry. And maybe some of my chemistry classes. But mostly Richard Scarry.

And what Richard Scarry-loving child doesn’t want to visit a castle in Denmark?

This book is full of short, colorful stories that are perfect for an easily-distracted Dan, and he’ll appreciate the experience more and more as he gets older.

6. Parables/Stories Jesus Told by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen

This book gave me my first exposure to the parables, and it’s absolutely fantastic. The authors turned the parables into cute, funny stories that are easy for little kids to remember. I’d highly recommend it.

7. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

This one’s a classic, and the different sized pages and caterpillar holes keep Dan engaged while we’re reading.

Plus, Dan gets to learn about healthy eating!

See, Tom? Green smoothies are good for you!

8. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault, and Lois Ehlert

This one found its way onto one of our wish lists at some point. I’d completely forgotten about it, but once I started reading, I remembered disliking it as a child. We kept reading it in school, and even then I knew that books read in school weren’t as cool as books read with my parents at home. “a” was a smug little jerk. I was suspicious of anthropomorphized letters, and I couldn’t figure out why they kept saying “chicka chicka boom boom.” And then there was this scene, which disturbed Little Elissa greatly:

The book clearly states that these letters were comforted by “Mamas and papas and uncles and aunts.” But there’s only one capital letter for each lowercase letter (a fact confirmed by the inside back cover), so do all of these baby letters come from single-parent families? What about those that only had an uncle or aunt? Were they orphaned? Why aren’t we talking about the sad story of these letters coming from broken homes? How does gender work with anthropomorphized letters, anyway? None of this made any sense to me, and it made me distrust the book even more.

In hindsight, I was probably overthinking things a little.

I’ve had to take another look at this book, because Dan really likes it. The bright, bold colors catch his attention, and he loves pointing at the sun, moon, and coconuts. Maybe the book isn’t so bad.

Let’s just hope Dan doesn’t ask me where baby letters come from.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Which books remind you of your childhood? What do your kids love to read?

February 29, 2016December 23, 2020

Book Review: Werewolf Cop by Andrew Klavan

Guys, I read the craziest book over the past couple weeks, and I just had to tell you about it.

It’s Werewolf Cop, by Andrew Klavan, and if the title alone doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what to tell you.

From Amazon’s description:

Zach Adams is one of the best detectives in the country. Nicknamed Cowboy, he’s a soft-spoken homicide detective known for his integrity and courage under fire. He serves on a federal task force that has a single mission: to hunt down Dominic Abend, a European gangster who has taken over the American underworld.

In a centuries-old forest under a full moon, a beast assaults Zach, cursing him forever. In the aftermath, he is transformed into something horrible—something deadly.

Now, the good cop has innocent blood on his hands. He has killed—and will kill again—in the form of a beast who can’t be controlled or stopped. Before he can free himself, he’s going to have to solve the greatest mystery of all: How can you defeat evil when the evil is inside you?

This isn’t the type of book I typically read. Crime novels aren’t really my thing, and I generally steer clear of anything horror-related. But Andrew Klavan is one of my favorite podcasters, and I’m generally interested in what he has to say. Plus, like I said, the title intrigued me, so I decided to give it a shot.

And I’m glad I did. I was deeply impressed by this book. Klavan is a fantastic writer. There is a good balance of action and introspection, and the prose is smooth and intelligent without ever becoming pretentious. Heck, I even learned some cool words while reading this book, which is always fun. The characters are compelling, especially the Houston-born, cowboy-type protagonist, Zach Adams. Setting-wise, this book is spot on—a werewolf attack in the middle of the Black Forest in Germany? Awesome!

I wouldn’t have predicted this, but Werewolf Cop was actually an uplifting read. I guess amid the werewolf and shoot-’em-up mayhem I wasn’t expecting so much discussion of good and evil and down-home-old-timey-American values. Zach confronts evil in many different forms—his own sins, the werewolf curse, and Dominic Abend—and in each case it would be so easy for him to take the easy way out, let the “natural man” (or wolf) take over, and blame the universe for the hand he’s been dealt. But in each case he manages—barely—to do what’s right.

Here are some quotes I thought were really interesting:

“Peace would be wonderful, the most wonderful thing,” she said, “if only there were no God. Then there would be no good or evil, nothing to fight over. But there is, you see. There is good and there is evil. And if you will not fight for the good, if you will not suffer for the good, if you will not accept pain even unto the pain of your own damnation for the good, then there is only evil.”

“You know the word liebestod? […] Love-death, it means. A song or story about lovers who must together die. Romeo and Juliet—these you know, yes? But Americans do not tell such stories. Each one is everything to himself there, so I think. And always they believe they will make for themselves the happy ending. They do not know about liebestod.” […]
“And yet it has been like that for me and my country. […] Liebestod. I have sacrificed even my immortal soul to defend her—to defend her from evil and from death—to chase them through the centures of unbelief, alone in my understanding of them. Umsonst. For nothing. I have failed and she is gone. My country…my continent…my culture….”

“It’s just…Well, there comes a time in a person’s life when doing wrong just makes perfect sense to him. And if he hasn’t got…well, something in him—” He knew she was going to say The Word but had amended it to suit his more broad-minded view. “If he hasn’t got something in him that makes him say ‘Well, I don’t care what sense it makes, I’m not doing wrong anyhow,’ then that’s when the Enemy can make his move on him.”

I’d hesitate before reading this book again. There’s some foul language, which isn’t my cup of tea. Predictably, there are some graphic descriptions of people getting mauled by werewolves and chopped up by German gangsters. Also, Zach has an affair (before the story begins) and agonizes over it in way more detail than I’m comfortable with.

(I was also creeped out a few times because in my head the bad guy sounded like the German perinatologist who delivered Dan, and another major character sounded like the chain smoking German lady who runs the local schnitzel establishment, but that’s a personal problem.)

That said, Werewolf Cop is a fantastic book, and I’m glad I read it. I’ll probably give it a solid 4 stars on Goodreads and call it a day.

I’ll leave you with Wagner’s Liebestod, from the opera Tristan und Isolde. It’s appropriate, and worth eight minutes of your time.

February 19, 2016December 23, 2020

How I (Almost) Met Shannon Hale

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Hello, friends! I hope you had a good Valentine’s weekend.

We just got back from a lovely trip to Utah, where my family lives. As you can imagine, the Dan was thoroughly spoiled by his aunt and grandparents.

This little boy loves his grandpa! — This little boy adores his grandpa!

He also learned how to eat Cheerios, and now he won’t stop shoveling them into his mouth. I’m not complaining, though, because they made our 2.5-hour flight home a breeze.

In addition to fun family times, I was also in Provo for Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE), an academic symposium on science fiction and fantasy. If you’re into writing in those genres and have the resources to get to Provo in February, I highly recommend it. This was my second year attending, and I learned so much about writing and publishing.

I forgot to take pictures, but here are some notes I took. Also, if my name tag looks like its been chewed by a teething baby...it has. — I forgot to take pictures, but here are some notes. Also, if my name tag looks like its been chewed by a teething baby…it has.

I could tell you guys all about the magnificent learning experiences I had at LTUE, but we all know that’s not why you read my blog. Instead I’m going to tell you about my painfully awkward experience with Shannon Hale. This type of thing is why I love writing so much—when I’m busy writing, I don’t have to interact with people.

***

On Saturday, I thought it might be fun to take a break from furious note-taking by sitting in on a live recording session of my second favorite podcast, Writing Excuses (again, if you write genre fiction, you really need to be listening to this. I’m just plugging all kinds of things today). It was interesting, but I soon found myself zoning out and scribbling in my notebook. As I was doodling, a woman asked if the empty seat next to me was taken.

I thought for a moment, and then remembered the chair’s previous occupant muttering about having to leave early, so I told the woman to go ahead and take it. Then I turned back to my notebook.

During a break, people kept coming up to chat with my neighbor, asking her if she was going to be at Comic Con and if they could take selfies with her. I realized she must be a panelist, but I couldn’t remember having seen her before. I peeked at her name tag—and sure enough, I was sitting next to Shannon Hale.

Shannon Hale is ~~kind of~~ a big deal. She was actually one of the Guests of Honor. I’m not a passionate fan of her books (and in fact, I skipped her keynote address to run back to my parents’ house and feed the Dan), but they’re enjoyable, and similar to the kinds of books I’d like to write someday (light, YA fairy-tale-type stories). I probably should have recognized her, but in my defense, her hair was lighter and shorter than it was in her picture in the program:

Shannon Hale

Suddenly I felt very awkward. Shannon Hale was sitting next to me, and I had all but snubbed her. Now that I knew who she was, I couldn’t just ignore her and doodle. Here’s a bit of my thought process.

“Maybe I should say something to her.”

“Why on earth would I do that? I don’t talk to people!”

“I’m at a con. People come to cons to talk to people.”

“This isn’t that type of con. I didn’t come here to kiss up to famous people.”

“I came here to network. This is kind of like networking.”

“But not really.”

“Come on, this is a neat opportunity.”

“What do I say? ‘I’ve only read two of your books and they were a’ight, and I’ve just ignored you for the past twenty minutes because I ditched your keynote and didn’t know who you were. But you seem pretty cool, so let’s take a selfie’?”

“For the love of all that is Mike, do not say that to Shannon Hale. And who says ‘a’ight’ anymore?”

As I dithered, Tom pointed out that a panel I’d been interested in was about to start. I took my opportunity to escape.

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, let’s go! Now!”

Tom seemed a little surprised at my urgency, but he rolled with it. We packed up our stuff, squeezed past Shannon Hale, and booked it out of there.

***

And that’s the story of how I ~~almost met~~ ran away from Shannon Hale at a writing conference. Ms. Hale, if by some bizarre chance you happen to read this, I’m sorry. From one Jane Austen fan to another, “Tallyho!”

January 11, 2016December 23, 2020

Guest Post: Tom’s Twilight “Fan” Fiction!

To make a long story short, Elissa told me (Tom) she would post a story of hers on the blog if I gave her some adequate incentive. I’ve supported her making more of her writing more available for a long time, so this was a big deal, but my first thoughts—nice dinner date or the like—weren’t cutting it. The offer of a 1000-word Twilight fanfiction piece, though, was instantly accepted. So here it is. Sorry, world.

Breakfast Dan is not impressed with the source material.

A Twilight Deleted (?) Scene

(Not clear from which book.)

Bella sat staring at the wall of her bedroom, waiting for Edward to arrive. After four whole hours without his cool touch on her skin, without his beautiful marble figure, without his deific perfection, without his adorable crooked smile…well, it had been agony, but soon Charlie would go to bed and that brief terrible period between the end of school and seeing Edward again would end.

“Maybe it would help if I did anything except basic domestic tasks, school, and reading barely enough classic romance for Mrs. Meyer to be able to allude to it,” thought Bella.

Suddenly, she heard a click outside her window. “Edward! Edward! Edward! Edward! But Jacob, but never mind, so Edward! Edward, Edward!? Edward!” she thought.

He crept into her room as majestically as a lion from the royal zoo.

“Hi,” he said with a crooked smile on his stony, adorable features. His color-changing eyes, which somehow no one else notices despite the undeniable fact that his golden eyes were oh-so-much too delicious to be human, stared at her.

“Hi,” she said back.

“I almost thought I heard your thoughts for once as I was walking up,” said Edward. “Something about needing hobbies, goals, or aspirations?”

“Durrrrrr,” murmured Bella, enraptured.

“Oh well,” said Edward. “Didn’t really think so. Guess your gift of non-discernible thought is still active. Have I mentioned lately how much I want to kill you and suck out every last drop of your blood? It’s so appetizing, like a brownie muffin entirely permeated with the hardest crack cocaine. Did you know that some vampires prefer to kill alcoholic drug addicts for the extra buzz?”

“If I was a vampire, I would just eat endangered species with you and love you forever and ever,” said Bella. “Don’t you want to bite me so we can be together forever?”

“Bella, how many times have we had this conversation?” asked Edward, as he kissed her all up and down her jaw with his perfectly perfect lips. She felt a rush of teenage hormones accompanied by an ineffable feeling that he was The One, although man, those werewolf biceps though…

“Not for a few pages days,” said Bella. “I don’t care about my soul—I’m not using it! Especially here in Forks. Bite me.”

“No,” said Edward. “I’m still thinking I might rather watch you die slowly of old age and then commit suicide in some place that will look really cool when they make a movie out of it…think Italy or somewhere.”

“But then we would only get to experience high school once! I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than sit in classes with you on endless loop, with perfect recall of having done it all before, especially given that as members of your family we will have effectively unlimited funds to do anything else we want. Your family’s life just seems so awesome, you know?” said Bella. “Although I would also like to do some motorcycle cliff-jumping with creepy men outside of bars, just on the side.”

“Bella, don’t do anything dangerous. As you know I control your life, except for I claim to let you do anything you want, but still try to manipulate the heck out of you because this is a textbook abusive relationship, and I couldn’t stand it.” He slowly stroked her left earlobe with his cool finger while she stared at his beautiful marble figure, crooked smile, and Greek god-like features. “Something something I would commit suicide.”

“Durrr,” Bella murmured again. “You’re so old-fashioned,” she said, and ridiculously attractive she mentally added.

“Oh, by the way, some vampire or other is probably going to try to kill you soon,” said Edward. “It’s a tried and true plot device, all part of my conspiracy to make you fall in love with me while popping lots of heads off.”

“Isn’t that a pretty good reason to make me a vampire, Romeo Edward?” said Bella.

“But it would be so hard on your relationship with Charlie. A few more months of non-monster-hood will definitely make it much better when you then ultimately become a supernatural freak and disappear from his life,” said Edward. He kissed her, with all the fiery passion of a thousand dying suns, sending tingles down her spine, but also like a perfect gentleman and with admirable restraint.

She kissed back urgently, trying to seduce him, but Edward pulled away. “Can’t have this until you put a ring on it, my dearest darling Danish,” he said.

“But I just want you to love me forever, and I have hippy-dippy Millennial ideas about how marriage screws up relationships,” she said, admiring his body straight from a Michelangelo sculpture.

“But since I’m almost a hundred years older than you, which isn’t creepy at all, and have fallen inextricably in love you with you primarily because of how good your blood smells, it all makes sense,” said Edward in his silky-smooth voice that was like the sound of baby angels frolicking on a sunny hillside. Bella thought of how sparkly his rock-hard chest was in the sunlight. Sparkle sparkle sparkle mmmmmmm. It was a mystery to her how she enjoyed cuddling a cold, hard object so frequently compared to a stone, but she sure did.

“Durrrr,” she said. “I guess I’m still a bit worried about those vampires coming to kill me, mostly because I can’t stand the thought of them possibly hurting you, but I guess at least I will be the center of attention.” Maybe me and you and Jacob can even be thrown into some really tense relationship situations, she thought.

“Well, how about you go to sleep while I hold you, because that’s not creepy at all, and we can definitely do it consistently for a year in a two-bedroom house without your father ever noticing,” said Edward. He took her hand and the last car in her toy-sized train of thought slowly rolled off the track.

“Durrr,” Bella murmured as she drifted off to sleep, dreaming of creepy foreshadowing.

***

Note from Elissa:
Isn’t this fantastic? Tom is the greatest.
Tune in next week as I fulfill my end of the deal.

January 4, 2016December 23, 2020

The (Slightly Late) GTA Year In Review

Hi, friends! It’s been awhile. I hope you had a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

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Most of these “year in review” posts came out days ago, but I’ve been busy partying with the Tom and Dapper Dan. Even so, I want to talk about all the crazy things that have happened this year.

The Dan

The most important event of 2015 in our family was, of course, Daniel’s birth!

Dan started off his life as a skinny, sleepy little bundle of cuteness. Now, at almost 9 months old, he’s a fat, happy, hyper little bundle of cuteness.

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Dan sleeps well, crawls like a champ, stands with help, and has been spotted walking with a shopping cart. He makes just about every consonant sound, gives slobbery kisses, and is momentarily deterred by the word “no.” He loves fruit, books, peekaboo, being tossed in the air by Dad, and trying to get to the toilet whenever someone leaves the bathroom door open. 020

Daniel’s kidneys are slowly-but-surely improving: by September, we found out the kidney swelling had decreased by half. He did have a UTI a few months ago, which could indicate an unresolved issue, so we’re monitoring him carefully. It’s very important that he doesn’t get any more infections, and we’re taking all the precautions we can. Still, if anyone has any extra prayers, we’d appreciate them.

Overall, Daniel is a happy, healthy little boy who brings so much joy to our family. We’re so happy to be his parents!

CAM00289 — Just look at that happy little dude. We must be doing something right!

The Tom

In the Tom’s own words:

I had a good year, for lots of reasons but especially because Dan was born and has done so well since. Our time together as a family was awesome, especially our trips to Glacier National Park and New Orleans. My work at Valero was interesting, educational, and generally went well, especially [proprietary information removed] and despite [proprietary information removed]. Off the clock, I read something like 15 or 20,000 pages, including Churchill’s four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Lord of the Rings (in Italian), and lots of other fun stuff. I produced a bunch of free e-books for the Mormon Texts Project and survived running the MTP internship program for another summer, too.

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Nothing more attractive than a babywearing man!

Writing

Hey, do you guys want to see my NaNoWriMo progress chart?

NaNo15

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Hahaha. Haha. The best part is that I wasn’t even participating properly—I was transcribing my handwritten novel from last year. November was absolutely insane (I’ll tell you about it sometime), and I just couldn’t handle NaNo in any form.

Honestly, this has been a pretty sorry year for writing generally. Apparently I only wrote five blog posts (although they were totally awesome!), and aside from a few short stories, I haven’t really written any fiction. I’m not going to beat myself up over this; after all, I made an awesome Dan, and somehow managed to keep him alive for almost 9 months. And I’ve got big plans for next year, which I’ll be sharing as they materialize. One of my goals this year is to blog more frequently, so you’ll be hearing from me more often!

Crafting

This may have been a bad year for writing, but it’s been an excellent year for crafts! Thanks to my parents, I’ve recently acquired a sewing machine, which has opened up a whole new world of crafting. Here’s the list of projects I completed in 2015.

First of all, I finally finished Dan’s crochet ~~baby~~ blanket!

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It turned out much larger than I expected. This is good, because it ended up being his Christmas present. It’s big enough that Dan can pretty much use it for the rest of his life.

Next, you may remember Dan’s Halloween costume:

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The hat, cloak, and brooch were all homemade. I’m still tickled by how well this turned out.

I also made some baby blankets for various purposes:

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Last, but not least, I made myself this nursing cover by Pretty Prudent:

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Dan refuses to nurse under a blanket, and I can’t say I blame him—it’s got to be pretty hot under there! This allows him to breathe and look at me while he’s eating. It also keeps it dark enough for him to fall asleep during church (assuming this doesn’t happen: “OOOOOPS! I DIDN’T KNOW ANYONE WAS IN HERE! DO YOU WANT THE LIGHT OFF AGAIN?!”)

Conclusion

There’s a lot more I could write here, but I know how long it takes to scroll through all these baby pictures. Overall, 2015 was a pretty good year. It was definitely the hardest year I’ve ever had, but also the most rewarding. Tom, Dan and I are really hitting our stride as a family. It’s looking like 2016 will be even better, and I can’t wait to see what it brings.

I’ve got exciting posts lined up for the next two weeks, so check back soon! And tell me how your year went in the comments!

October 11, 2014December 23, 2020

Exciting Announcement!

Every spring, the BYU chemistry department has this big banquet where they hand out awards and celebrate people doing cool stuff. They also spotlight the graduating seniors in the program, and ask each senior to submit a short statement of what they’re planning to do after graduation. For some reason, I took it into my head that it would be absolutely hilarious to take this opportunity to troll the chem department. My paragraph included a sentence to this effect: “Elissa will be working as a technical editor, writing fantasy novels, and synthesizing new human beings while her husband prevents a nearby oil refinery from blowing up.”

…yeah. Unsurprisingly, everything I submitted ended up heavily edited:

“Elissa Nysetvold is a BS Chemistry major from Provo, UT. After graduation, she will be moving to Beaumont, Texas. There she will be working as a technical editor and her husband will work at a nearby oil refinery.”

I realize that my comments weren’t consistent with the “dignity of the occasion” and whatnot, but I wish they would have, you know, informed me before I saw the program. I would happily have revised, and done so in a much more grammatically-elegant way than this. I mean, come on, guys—after all those persnickety red marks on my Chem 391 papers, I expected better than this! And besides: gestation is organic synthesis in action!

But, I digress. I didn’t bring up this story to harp on the chem department’s poor grammar skills. I brought it up to announce that everything I said I’d be doing after graduation is now officially happening!

Yes, friends, Tom and I are expecting our first baby! The due date is April 12, and we are so excited.

We aren’t going to pick out names or anything until we know the baby’s gender, so for now we’re just calling it New Friend. This is because just before Tom and I moved to Texas, there was a bit of sadness over the fact that I was moving away from Utah permanently. I kept reassuring my mom and sister by saying that before too long, we would come back to visit and bring a new friend with us (meaning our offspring), and that all would be right with the world. After I’d said this a few times, they finally asked what the heck I was talking about, I explained, and there was much rejoicing. “New Friend” just stuck. (Glen, you’ll be happy to know I’ve brutally squashed several efforts to call New Friend “Baby Thor.” Long story.)

Everything is going extremely smoothly so far. Other than some fatigue and nausea, I feel great, and as I’m starting my second trimester even those discomforts are letting up. I’m really blessed to have a work situation that allows me to take it easy when I need to, and of course Tom has been absolutely awesome. It hasn’t always been a party, and I’ll talk about my biggest challenge in my next post, but I was made for this—literally, my body was designed for this amazing creative process. And that’s incredibly comforting and empowering.

I promise not to let this blog turn into a pregnancy/baby blog, but of course I’m going to give occasional updates on New Friend’s progress. Good times ahoy!