This time of year most of us are thinking about our family. Some of us are pondering our great love for them or wondering how we managed such crazies in our family’s with the same DNA running through us; some are wondering what gifts to give or how much cash Mom will give us this year; and some of us may be questioning the legality of offering our kids to Santa in exchange for super cool electronics. That isn’t me of course, I’m just saying… This Spring I was forced (I mean I was able) to go to a convention down in Provo for the annual Utah PTA Board Training where I was showing my love for my kids in the form of volunteering on the PTA Board. While driving to the BYU campus I sat in construction and at traffic light after light and had nothing better to do but look at other people’s cars. Now I realize that many of these cars were also visitors to the area, but I noticed that many of the cars had the back window decorated with some type of vinyl family figures stickers. (See my example photo…this is NOT my car!) When these first started showing up a couple of years ago, I thought “Oh, how cute!” But after a little while, they started to get sillier and well, slightly ridiculous. Families wearing Mickey Mouse hats, families on motorcycles, family’s surfing, chubby families, stick figure families, families including pets, you name it, there is probably a decal with it. My personal favorite for hilarity is the skull and crossbones with the wives and daughters wearing a bow on their skull. Really folks, if you’re bad to the bone enough to pick the skull and crossbones are you really going to be silly enough to put a vinyl sticker in your window…and ones with a bow? How many Hell’s Angels motorcycles have you seen decorated this way? I mean, come on! As I was FINALLY driving home from Provo and continued to see these decals I thought of the PERFECT decal that made me giggle almost my entire way home. That may also have been the euphoria of finally having escaped Provo and all of the ultra-warm and fuzzy PTA Moms, but my idea was this: What if you had a window decal of one lady and she is surrounded by a bunch of cats! How funny is that! Anyone could have this one on their car, I’m pretty sure that there is no window decal law stating that there is truth in vinyling! So you never know, after Santa makes me a Christmas swap, maybe I’ll put this on my window… Our recent wind storms made me realize some very important facts: Kids occasionally playing with flashlights tend to either lose them or run out the batteries. And those shake up flashlights really aren’t that bright. Just because you have food storage, doesn’t mean that when you have a need, you really want to eat it. Taking a hot candle lit bath really isn’t relaxing when you know you have to dry yourself off in the 58 degree air. Air mattresses are great, unless they’re buried away in your shed behind all of your other camping supplies. Same goes for sleeping bags. The outside barbeque grill is a great place to cook dinner, unless you run out of propane and don’t have a spare tank. The sound of your children arguing is amplified in a house with no electricity to drown them out. A Christmas wish list for Santa really isn’t fun if it includes a wind up radio and a generator. And most importantly: Our fellow men really are amazing! I can’t believe all of the people that banned together to cut down trees, take loads to the dump, re-shingle houses, etc. etc. People that had never really met their neighbors before were working side by side for hours to get the work done. Our youth are the best! School was out for an extra day for wind damage clean up and twenty or so boys and girls in our neighborhood were working for hours together in cleanup efforts around the neighborhood helping people they’d never even met before. We are in safe hands guys, the future adults are awesome! Updates: I know you have been dying to know a few things. First of all, yes, I did actually write in my journal (see 10/17) for NaJoEntMo or National Journal Entry Writing Month. I wrote a whooping five pages one Sunday (by the deadline even). Okay, so maybe my hand writing is big, but that’s personal, so don’t be nosy! And how did my daylight savings resolutions go (see 11/6)? Well, they went as well as my usual New Year’s Resolutions go. We are still getting the kids up at 6 A.M. to read scriptures, but that is all. Not bad, 1 out of 4, right? Check out my review page for the winner of the free book contest. “…they shall reap the east wind, which bringeth immediate destruction.” Mosiah 7:31 The weather man had warned us that strong winds were coming our way. Batten down the hatches, they said. Boy, did we not realize that they meant hurricane force winds! Wednesday night the fun began! The neighboring town had 102 mph winds reported; ours were reported over 90 mph. By Thursday morning at 6 A.M. the power was out. When we woke up cold and in the dark, we had no clue that part of the reason was that thousands of trees across the south end of our county had blown down some toppling power lines. A house a block up from us had a tree hit the transformer, then land on their house instantly engulfing the whole thing. Throughout the day more and more trees blew down, some on houses, cars, fences. Almost everyone lost something whether it was shingles, garbage cans, swamp coolers, welcome mats, Christmas decorations (for once my procrastination paid off!) I personally lost my sanity! I realized how clueless my children were about their daily lives. Every time someone opened their mouth to ask for something such as the TV, music, a movie, computer games, Netflix, popcorn, etc., I would say “No power!” I plugged in a wall phone that I had keep just for these type of emergencies and my children were shocked! “What is that?” I demonstrated its use by calling to see if anyone else had heard if school was out or not. Bubba wanted to try it and after dialing the number he asked if he pressed ‘Flash’ or something to make the call go through…”No…the phone just dials.” Amazing! Even with the propane tent space heater the house was a chilly 58 degrees at bedtime. We pulled out two of the kid’s mattresses, lots of blankets, and pillows. The two oldest kids slept on the couches, Ethan and LouLou slept on the mattresses and me…I slept in the middle of the two mattresses. Ah, delightful night sleep! I was awakened at 1:30 A.M. to the overhead lights turning back on and the furnace re-starting! Yeah! Last night we were able to all go our separate directions…ah, bliss! After spending Thursday, Friday and Saturday cleaning up our house and helping our neighbors and friends,the National Weather Service has announced that today (Sunday) another windstorm with snow this time is headed our way tonight. Our church has been cancelled, the dump re-opened and all able bodied people are asked to clear away all the debris that had been piled on the side of the streets so that it won't become flying projectiles. Gotta run, wish us luck... Black Friday shopping when I’d been married mere months in an attempt to make a Christmas wreath and other holiday decorations was a nightmare. The wreath is displayed yearly on my door as a trophy of the horrors that we went through. Ethan was beaten by little old ladies and swore to never attempt such idiocy again. But me, I’m a glutton for punishment. I’ve always enjoyed looking at the Black Friday ads to see what great deals I’m missing. This year, I saw that Kohl’s had their $50 Memory Foam Gel Cluster pillows for a mere $17.99. Ethan had been coveting one of these for a while now until he found out the price. I decided that I was going to go, not at midnight because I wasn’t crazy, but at 6 A.M. when the madness had died down. Both dogs woke up and needed to go out at 1 A.M. Hmm, was it a sign that I should go early? Were the pillows all going to be sold out? I jumped out of bed hopped in the car and made the journey. I probably should have turned around when I saw the parking lot full of cars flowing out to adjacent parking lots of stores that weren’t actually open. But if I did, I wouldn’t have come up with such great money making ideas. Keep reading! I managed to grab one of the remaining shopping bags when I first walked in. I noticed a huge line all the way from the jewelry counter extending back beyond the home linen way into the men’s department and then back up front. What silly door buster item were they all waiting for? Not me, I’m no sucker! I Found my two pillows, a couple of furry blankies, and saw a kind looking lady I could question. “Do you know what the line is for?” I innocently ask her. She laughed and said “Oh, that’s the checkout line.” The what!?! I was flabbergasted, grabbed my items and a couple more on the way, and walked all the way back to the jewelry counter to stand in line. The lady that happened to get behind me was driving one of those Cadillac shopping carts that fit two kids and had a basket and she had loaded it all full of goods. Unfortunately she couldn’t see to the end of the cart and kept slamming into me. Poor, poor calves. Out of curiosity I asked her the time. Two A. M. I was able to schmooze with the ladies in front of me and behind me so that they allowed me to run and get a few things I wanted. Once the adrenaline started to wear off and I was getting tired and grumpy, I started to think of great ways an entrepreneurial person that didn’t mind missing some sleep could make money off all us fools in the lines. Here goes: Walk along the line with a t-shirt (you have to be able to hide it quickly from the store employees or they will get tempted to steal your idea the following year) that says: 1. 15 minute line holder --$20 (So that they could continue to shop Or in my case, I would’ve run over to McDonald’s for a Coke…sooo tired) 2. Run to McDonald’s for a fresh beverage -- $10 (That one came from #1, but it’s still a good one!) 3. Personal Valet --$25 (You’d be the one to the push the boxes, bags and purses forward each time there was 5 inches of movement. Oh, you’d also have to pick up all the items that keep spilling out of said bags and shoving it all back in.) 4. Carrier --$50 (Be willing to carry all of the stuff out to their cars because no carts are available and really, how can you carry 5 HUGE bags all the way to booney land without breaking a bag or yourself. And by this point, they’d pay!) When I finally hobbled out to my car at 3:16 A.M. with the original 2 boxed pillows, 3 regular pillows, a griddle, 2 rolls of wrapping paper, and 3 blankets I wondered if it was all worth it. Ethan says “yes” as he had the best night sleep with his new pillow, but for me, I personally couldn’t sleep with mine and resorted to using the old one. So as of today…nope, not worth it! Hey, Check out my Reviews Section (see the different tabs up top!) I'm giving a way a FREE book this month! Deadline will be December 1st! Send me your comments here to enter For those of you who are doing the NaJoEntMo (National Journal Entry Month--see Oct 17th entry) then we only have 3 more days to complete this! No pressure, but get a move on it! My father lived in New Zealand for a couple of years and before coming home promised a woman that he would name his first daughter “ocean” or “of the ocean” but in the Maori language it is Moana. I’m not sure why my mother agreed to this, but she did. So my oldest sister’s name is pronounced Mow On A…like mow on a hill. All was fine with this exotic name until 1969 when a movie came out called ‘Johnny Lingo’. In our church they showed this movie on film to the children annually. This is a great story about self-worth showing a very wealthy Polynesian man named Johnny Lingo. Men paid their soon to be in-laws a dowry for their wife in, well, cows. People thought that Johnny would only have to pay ONE cow to get the shy and homely girl he wanted to marry named Mahana. Other village women bragged that their husband’s had paid 4 or 5 cows for them. When negotiations were made, Johnny said he would pay an unheard amount of EIGHT COWS for his wife. People thought Johnny had to be making fun of this girl and her father. When the time came for Johnny to come with the cows, her father yells up to her, “Mahana you ugly...come down... from that tree!” When Johnny and his now drop dead gorgeous wife come home from their long honeymoon he explains that he always thought she was beautiful, but in paying eight cows for her, she also finally believed she was beautiful. Her father yells that he thinks Johnny cheated him because she is worth ten cows! Why in the world would I remember this story so well? Well, growing up, my brother Jeff would love to yell at Moana, “Mahana you ugly, come down from that tree!” We watched the remake of ‘Johnny Lingo’ when my son was about 6 years old and of course, being the good little sister that I am, I dared Bubba to go up to her and say, “Mahana you ugly, come down from that tree.” He giggled and said he would do it, until spoil sport Uncle Jeff showed him the scars of claw marks up and down his arms from where Moana showed him just what she thought of his continued taunting. I believe she has FINALLY embraced all of the jokes as I have recently seen her wear a “Ten Cow Wife” t-shirt. Being younger than Moana I got to learn a lot of important things either by her wise counsel or by flat out eavesdropping on her conversations with friends/boyfriends. For example, NEVER bite your fingernails or snakes will grow out of the top, per a friend’s experience, never buy a solitaire wedding ring because the diamond will fall out in the wash, if really tight levis won’t zip up then lay down and try, date as many guys as humanly possible (but never let your little sister alone with them or she’ll tell you what you really think of them), it is possible to drive a bright purple Ford Pinto around town and still keep your dignity, and the number of flaws your diamond has is how many flaws your marriage has. Somehow during my teen years (not sure if this was again thanks to her influence), I had decided that the size of your ring determines what type of “cow wife” you’d be. I was going to get the biggest, bestest ring EVER because of course I am a ten cow girl. That was until sixteen years ago when Ethan told me that he wanted to pay cash for my ring and if he didn’t have enough money, then we’d have to wait until he did to get married. Wait, what? These things require money? I’m sure my smile froze on my lips, but I WAS getting married! He told me his price range and I looked around at settings, and finally decided on the dreaded solitaire BUT I got to pick out my diamond. Oh, it was SO pretty with only two itsy, bitsy flaws! (Somehow I think that diamond flaw vs. marriage flaw comment was just a joke between her and another sister…hmmm.) A couple of weeks ago I looked at my ring in church and whispered to Ethan “I need to get these prongs checked on.” Neither one of us thought anything about it again until, later that week. I went to go to my kid’s school to volunteer and while putting my hand in my jacket pocket my ring got caught. I looked down and my just two itsy, bitsy flaws diamond was gone! I looked everywhere, called Ethan to come home and help me continue to look, and later told the kids I’d pay them if they miraculously found it. After Ethan had taken apart the dryer and spent hours looking, he reminded me about our insurance and told me and the kids, “Blah, blah, YOU matter, not the diamond, blah, blah, eternity, blah, blah.” Okay, so he really was super sweet, but looking at MY diamond reminds me of those two dirt poor kids so much in love but so dang naïve. It wasn’t just “bling” on my finger anymore! I was still super bummed, so he googled ways to find a lost diamond and then spent hours that night outside with a super LED flashlight, came inside with the flashlight and FOUND IT! I know…how cool is he! It was at the bottom of our stairs where I had been sorting laundry. Prayers were answered and big kisses given! So on this Thanksgiving holiday, let me share some life lessons learned: Moana, you can go climb a tree and stay in it because you are NOT ugly and we have matured enough not to tease you about it (well, most of the time anyway), solitaire diamonds DO get lost while doing laundry, and most importantly, just because you don’t have a ten cow ring, doesn’t mean that your husband won’t treat you like a ten cow wife! Hey, Check out my Reviews Section (see the different tabs up top!) I'm giving a way a FREE book this month! Deadline will be December 1st! Send me your comments here to enter. My mother broke up with her fiancé John when she was 19 years old. The reason (and I quote) was “because he wore Levis and drove a motorcycle.” So at the age of 26 (I believe a historical fiction novel would have called her ‘on the shelf’) she married my confirmed bachelor Father who was in his mid 30’s, bald, wore a one piece polyester pant suit and was a very intelligent but poor Jr. High Science teacher. It makes me wonder if she had been wishing for Levis again? My father had already received a Master’s Degree and been teaching for several years in Wyoming and had come back to Utah to teach. My parents quickly had 6 children in 11 years. Watching from my own experiences I don’t believe my Dad liked kids enough to have 6 of them OR to teach them all day long. For those of you who know who Bill Nye, The Science Guy is (are we all singing his theme song together now?) who makes learning science fun for kids, let me just say that is NOT my Dad. When I would ask my Dad for help with science he would pull out a book and tell me to read a certain section. I attended a different Jr. High and when I was apparently “bugging” him too much for help with my homework, so he just ordered the teacher’s version of my book, handed it to me and told me to keep it and from now own find the answer. My Jr. High and his Jr. High were combined in high school. Oh, if only we had cell phones with cameras back in my day to snap photos of classmates when they said “You’re Mr. Isaac’s daughter?!” I would just say “yes” and somehow I’d manage to make instant enemies. Who knew it could be so easy! People that excelled in science actually liked my Dad and said what a great teacher he was. Everyone else…well, we all needed one teacher who managed to ruin a perfectly good GPA, right? I was told that one of his former students complained about a bad smell of one of the chemicals he was using for an experiment. ‘You think that’s bad.’ He brought out every disgusting chemical you could think of for people to sniff and groan about. Some forty or so years later, a neighbor who also had my Dad told me that he was in a class where my Dad told a boy that he had to be adopted because the genetics of his parent’s eye colors and his weren’t possible. The kid argued with my Dad, went home, and….oh, by the way, he was adopted! I could go on and on, but my point is, what my Dad’s poor students never got to see was that apparently my Dad at one point in his life had a hidden Bad to the Bone side (which I would remind myself of regularly when I had to go place with him in his jumpsuit and pocket protector!) My Dad joined the Marines at the end of World War II. He was in Basic Training when the war ended, but still got the WWII Medal. He shaved his head (the hair on top never grew back) and became…wait for it…a sharp shooting …COOK! My sister Angela and I would DREAD when he was home with us during the long summer months, because, well, honestly we didn’t think he knew our names (that goes back to the not really liking kids part) and the fact that he made really BAD food. During his stint from going from Private to Corporal he may not have learned to really cook, but he did get a really cool Marine Bull Dog tattoo on his upper arm. I always loved, and still love, seeing his tattoo and pictures of him in his dress uniform! I am apparently a sucker for a uniform. I remember asking my Dad once why he got a tattoo, and he said, “Because I wanted it.” Hmmm, I’m wondering if he hid the tattoo from my Mom until after they were married because if she couldn’t tolerate Levis then a tattoo would have thrown her into a swoon! I would like to thank him and all of the other “Veterans” out there who have and are fighting for our freedoms, so that other young kids can continue tattooing all over themselves because they ‘want it’ . Thanks Dad! Apparently, sometimes our body is a billboard not a temple. Hey, Check out my Reviews Section (see the different tabs up top!) I'm giving a way a FREE book this month! Deadline will be December 1st! Send me your comments here to enter. First off, my brother Jeffy told me that I left you all hanging when I didn’t put in a picture of Ethan’s newest Halloween costume. So even though the picture has nothing to do with my topic, please enjoy it just the same! It may sound strange, but I like to make Resolutions after we get a “Fall Back” extra hour after day light savings time change. I love looking at the clock and say “it says 10:00 but it is really should be 11:00.” I feel like I get extra time EVERYDAY, not just that initial extra one hour. Of course at some point the novelty wears off and I start staying up too late reading, or watching TV, or, well, you know any excuse to stay up late works for me! Then the next morning, getting up early gets harder and I push off the alarm (called Ethan) to later and later. So let me share with you my Day Light Savings Resolutions: 1. Get up every day at 6:00 A.M. I remember the days when I had to BE at work at 6 A.M. but now that my “job” starts and ends at home, it’s easy to stay in bed longer than I should. But hey now that the time is really 7:00 A.M., it shouldn’t be hard, right? 2. I will get my kids up at 6:30 A.M. every morning to read scriptures together as a family. Me and my girls are night owls; Ethan and my son are morning birds…typically this early morning scripture reading turns into a battle. The boys are too happy, we’re too sleepy and there is no happy middle. But hey, it’s really 7:30, right? 3. Make my kids a “hot” breakfast AT LEAST 2 times a week. Originally I planned 4 times a week, but let’s be a realist! I use to make my kids eggs, pancakes, waffles, bacon, hot oatmeal, etc. every day. But, well…see #1. There is also the fact that cold cereal became SO CHEAP if you watch for sales and use coupons. But my kids complain about having to eat cereal. Ethan and I have given the lecture more times than I can count about how when we were their age we would have killed to be able to eat cereal 5 or 6 times a week. (Yes, yes, I’m sure we mentioned that we ate gruel as we walked barefoot uphill in the snow to school!) 4. Do ONE load of laundry DAILY and put it away the SAME DAY. Currently I do most of my laundry on Mondays and then leave the clean laundry in the baskets in my front room to be put away, oh, Wednesday or Thursday. This one may be the hardest one of all for me… Okay, so I’ll keep you up to date with how long these last. If it’s anything like my New Year’s Resolutions then they’ll be broken within 24 hours, but I’m trying to be positive! Have we all done our NaJoEntMo Journal Entry yet this month? Yeah, me either! Let’s get to it! (What is this? See October 17th blog) Next week I’m going to try something wild and crazy! I will update my reviews page BUT this month, I’ll be having a drawing to give away a brand new copy of the book I’m reviewing. (Oh, by the way Ethan, I’m buying a book to give away! Love ya!) Halloween is a big deal at my house. Not for me, not for my kids, but for my husband. Before we met he created a mummy costume with strips of cloth dyed with tea. It required hours of careful wrapping around his super tall and skinny body along with applying extra pieces here and there to “accent”. His costume was amazing and he won 2 round trip plane tickets. Then I entered the picture…on one of our first few dates he had me meet him at a mall where he was standing in front of a salon waving at people. He claims he was getting paid by the store, but now that I know him I wonder if he was just doing this for the fun of it! I didn’t realize that after we were married I would be the one spending hours wrapping to his satisfaction. Even after JellyBean came along and I wanted to take her out trick-or-treating, this was still our Halloween evening ritual. “Ethan, Halloween is for kids!” And his response was and still is, “But I am one of the kids.” When age and weight made his mummy costume not as realistic (mummies don’t have love handles) I thought we had finally moved on. Oh how naïve I was! He designed a new costume with the use of a borrowed Jedi robe and a pair of homemade wooden stilts. He became…an 8 foot tall grim reaper! He scared children so bad that groups of children would literally cross the street before our house and then walk back over after our house. Last year at the end of the evening I found a stuffed Winnie the Pooh toy in our driveway, I told Ethan that he finally scared “The Pooh” out of someone! Again, “Isn’t Halloween for the kids?” “I am one of the kids” is still his response. He would make the post office proud: rain, sleet, snow or even lack of kids won’t bring him in early! I shouldn’t complain too much because that costume won us a year’s worth of Chick-fil-A meals from a radio station and at a different time, 2 round trip airfare tickets to Cancun from his work. The trouble now is that he has to come up with something better each year for his work’s costume contests. Don’t worry, he is always the grim reaper at night, but during the day he has been a 4 foot tall Jawa from Star Wars (he walked around on his knees with tiling knee pads); last year (okay, I must admit, this one was MY idea) he was a TSA Body Scanned Image (he works for a national airline company so his co-workers did find this funny.) This year he is still using stilts and becoming…wait for it….an 8 foot tall clown. He has just re-broken his little piggy toe by running into…get this…his stilts, but that hasn’t stopped him! This week already he has made several children cry at costume parties we have attended. Ethan, isn’t Halloween for the children? Maybe as a costume choice for next year you should at least listen to your child’s suggestion: LouLou says that next year you need to dress up as an 8 foot tall fairy…yep, with the amount of leg and chest hair you have I think that definitely fits in the category of scary! Hey, Remember...those that are with me for NaJoEntMo...only one more day away until we begin our challenge of: One Journal Entry to be written in the month of November!
I’ll be the first to tell you that my children are the smartest kids around. My dogs however…not so much. When we are roasting marshmallows in our outdoor fire pit, our boxer, Chelsey, will jump up and eat any descending ash. Last time she burned most of her whiskers to stubs. Fine, we giggled, she looked ridiculous, we moved on. The same cannot be said of the most recent dumb behavior of our Great Dane/Rhodesian Ridgdeback puppy, Lizzy. We have had to build a temporary fence around my garden to prevent the dogs from running through, pooping on, or eating of our plethora of vegetables. Who knew dogs liked cucumbers and tomatoes, right? This year due to my great gardening abilities (okay, so maybe I planted and then ignored) my herbs had grown out of control and had been oozing out of the fence. They had grown large enough to be covered in flowers…and bees! Wonderful, bees equate to pollination! Not to Lizzy; bees equate to a snack. The first time she decided to eat a bee she must have snorted it or it’s stinger up her nose as she keep sneezing and by morning her nose had grown three times as large as normal. The second time swelling occurred the family was reading scriptures together. We all giggled as we noticed her right jowl had grown huge and we made lots of “big dumb puppy” comments. The third time, I was home alone and noticed her face starting to swell. I started to giggle at her, until I noticed how the swelling wasn’t stopping. Her face became so large that her eyes were swollen shut, her ears had swollen, she had hives all over her body, she didn’t look at all like the same dog. I became nervous about her breathing as she started hiding (which is always a bad sign in dogs.) After I frantically called Ethan to come home, we called an emergency vet, because like children, animals only need help after hours or on weekends. Based on her weight, we had to give her three Benadryl’s ever four hours. Thanks to the medicine and cold compresses, the swelling in her face had gone down enough in a couple of hours that she could finally open her eyes again. Ah, but the most “bee”rilliant part of my doggy story…the next day while she was still puffed up to an abnormal size she went out and started biting at the bees again! Ahh, I guess we are still secure from dog world domination… |
AuthorIam HILARIOUS...or so I tell my children regularly! I am a horrible cleaning lady, an okay social organizer for all of my 'peeps' activities, but I make AMAZING cookies! I love my family...especially when they all leave to school or work and I'm alone with 2 dogs, 2 box turtles and my own imagination! Archives
December 2015
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