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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.
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.

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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!

I love these guys.
I love these guys.

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!

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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!
Nothing more attractive than a babywearing man!

 

Writing

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

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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!

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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!

Livin' the dream!
Livin’ the dream!

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!

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Freezer Fudge: A Story of Betrayal

Sometimes I’m a terrible wife.

As some of you know, I occasionally like to dabble in making “healthy” versions of “food.” I love a good black bean burger, I’m still working on trying to perfect my spinach-based, “naturally-sweetened” chocolate “milk”shake, and you should really ask Tom about “death soup” sometime—it’s the one meal I’ve made that Tom has steadfastly refused to try (he also rejected the black bean burgers, but he took a bite first). As is probably becoming clear, Tom is understandably not enthusiastic about my efforts. Most of the time I try to “keep it real” and make meals that Tom is actually willing to eat.

But  a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this recipe for health-nut freezer fudge:

I’m a sucker for cookie dough anything, and I’ve been wanting to experiment with the food processor more often. Plus, the main ingredient is chickpeas, and I’m always a fan of chickpeas. As I Googled around, trying to figure out where one buys
“soft dates,” I concocted an evil plan to trick Tom into eating and falling in love with this fudge. It was going to be the gateway drug that led Tom into embracing my wacko cooking experiments.

When Tom came home from work the day I made the fudge, he asked me what I’d been up to. “Oh, you know, the usual,” I said. “Working, cleaning the things, making freezer fudge…” I mentioned the fudge casually, trying not to give away my master plan.

“Freezer fudge?!” he said, eyes lighting up as he swiveled around in his chair. “You’re so cool!”

Man, did I start to feel guilty. How could I take advantage of my innocent Tom’s trust like that? Seeing the pure joy in his face, I almost wished I had made him real fudge. But I tuned out my conscience, telling it that I was looking out for Tom’s cardiovascular health, and that he would thank me someday.

The fudge actually tasted pretty good when I tried it the next day, but it definitely wasn’t sweet enough for Tom’s taste—it probably needed more dates. Disappointed, I made peace with the possibility that freezer fudge would not be enough to revolutionize our kitchen activities.

Still, I was determined to get him to eat some of my creation. I waited until Tom was finishing off his after-dinner cookie before asking, “Ready to try some fudge?” I knew he would decline, as he had already eaten dessert, but I had to build his anticipation without seeming too eager and rousing his suspicion. Sure enough, Tom was clearly disappointed at having to put off his fudge experience. Again my conscience prickled, but it was too late to turn back—I was committed.

The next night, Tom excitedly pulled the fudge pan from the freezer. I faltered in my resolve, muttering that I didn’t think I had sweetened it enough. I hadn’t anticipated that his expectations would be this high, and I needed to lower them for my plan to work. Every single one of Tom’s female relatives, from his mom to his sisters to his grandmothers to his aunts, makes fantastic desserts, so Tom was very much accustomed to confectionary perfection. It became clear to me in that moment that I hadn’t thought this fudge thing through. My plan was doomed.

Tom, having sampled the failure fudge, thought for a moment. Then he said, “You know, I’m not a huge fan. But I really appreciate you doing this kind of thing for me.” He gave me a big hug. I felt like a criminal.

I managed to hold it together for a few hours, but eventually I cracked. The guilt was just too much. “Tom,” I said, “I can’t lie to you anymore. That fudge is made of chickpeas and dates.”

He made a big show of feeling betrayed. As I begged for forgiveness, I promised I would make him real fudge sometime. But then, Tom didn’t really have much of a foundation to stand on, considering how many of the cookies I’d recently made “for his home-teachees” he’d rapturously enjoyed.

“You think we can blend in some garlic and salvage the fudge as hummus?” Tom asked.

“I think the chocolate chips might make it a little weird.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Such a waste of ingredients that could have been good on their own!”

And that’s the story of how I deceived my husband and ended up with a sad pan of unwanted fudge in my freezer. I’d like to say I learned a valuable, life-changing lesson from this experience, but basically all I’ve got is that chickpeas are meant for hummus, not desserts. And maybe that I shouldn’t trick Tom. Sorry, Tom.

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An Introduction

“If you don’t have a blog, go home and start one tonight!”—A panelist at LTUE

(Sorry, ma’am, but I waited almost exactly a month).

After all these years, it’s finally happened. I started a blog. Here it is.

As an explanation, this blog is about good times. For me, good times include (but are not limited to) family, food, chemistry, books, and writing—especially writing. And now, a bit of an introduction:

My name is Elissa Cardon Nysetvold. I was born and raised in the sweet little town of Provo, Utah. Here I met and married Tom Nysetvold, the quintessential Good Guy. Here’s a picture of us:

Awww. Cute.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I first understood the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child, I thought it would be the perfect complement to a successful career as a high-power homemaker. I’ve written stories throughout my life, but for most of them, my only audience was my little sister (thanks, Rach!).

My original plan was to take a four-year break from writing to learn to be a chemist; during the first few years, I more or less abandoned any writerly aspirations. However, when Tom became aware of this, he applied the whip convinced me to “follow my dreams.”

So here I am, about to graduate from BYU and try to make that dream a reality. And because writers apparently need blogs, I’m hoping this will be a good way to con everyone I know into buying my books keep friends and family up to date on the good times to come.