Summer Fun

Our summer rocks! Just sayin'.

Mom decided to go to the drive-in for her birthday and see Karate Kid. (Way more awesome than the original, by the way.) The drive-in is one of my favorite places ever. It's just cool.




My mom's a pretty hot 52 year old, huh? And speaking of hot...






Payback. You know what they say.




This is after four sodas, popcorn, licorice, blow pops, skittles and strawberry shortcake. Sugar is bad. But it's fun!




We've spent many a day at Lagoon, too. Buying those season passes was a really, really good idea. Whenever we're bored we just load up the car, drive for five minutes, and ride roller coasters until we puke.

I love Andrew's face in this one.


I love the names of these rides. I wish that was my job - Amusement Park Ride Namer. I would rock it! However, someone is doing a fairly decent job. Above, we have The OdySea, then below are the Jumping Dragon, Turn of the Century, and Tidal Wave - my favorite from my childhood. Hope you and yours are making some awesome memories this summer, too!

The Homeschool Decision

Alright, folks, lets get down and dirty. I've decided to home school Cameron and Ethan next year.

There are two reasons I decided to do this, and neither of them include a desire to turn my kids into reclusive freaks who have no social skills and go on to spawn inbred children in their adult years.

The first reason is that Cameron has focus issues, not ADD or ADHD, mind you... He just likes to think about what he wants to think about - not what you tell him to think about.

For a variety of reasons, Cameron is lacking a lot of crucial building blocks in his education and consequently has a shaky academic foundation. And in a school system where we spend a maximum of about three days on any topic and then move on, ready or not, poor fundamentals are not going to fly.

The second reason for this decision is that Andrew works Tuesday through Saturday, and for three years now we have not had a proper family day. Sure, there's Sunday, but we go to church for three hours and then do not do other things because we do, believe it or not, attempt to keep the Sabbath holy. My kids need more time with their dad. (And that right there could spark an entire dissertation on how I think a lot of society's trouble today is based on lack of family time, poor priorities, and absent fathers. But I will refrain in attempt to keep on subject.) So there you have it.

Currently, the plan is to do this for one year only, but we won't know that for certain until we've tried it.

I know a lot of you have adverse opinions about home schooling, but I have to say that no system is perfect. If you've ever stepped foot in a public school, you know there are pros and cons, and I expect the same from home school. But home school allows me to put my children's needs first with the proper pros and cons - if that makes any sense.

I have to do what is right for my kids, and Cameron needs to catch up before he becomes a lost cause. He is so smart, and I know that with some one-on-one instruction he can really blossom. We're going to work on those fundamentals that he is lacking, organization, how to take tests, focus, listening skills, and maybe even have time to get a jump start on fifth grade if we make it through the fourth grade curriculum early. (Which is entirely plausible when you consider the amount of time he'll get individual instruction compared to what he would get in public school.)

I will be spending a good part of the summer mapping out where our journey will take us. I have no intention of making this a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of school. Utah law states that Cameron and Ethan must spend the same amount of time in school at home as they would in public school and that the same subjects must be covered. Utah also states that no one can ask for proof or records showing what we've done. I will be keeping records anyway, for my own use and to cover my butt. It will not be an easy road and there will likely be a lot of trial and error involved. I'm ready for it.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. Unless they are rude and then you can keep them to yourself and have a lovely day!

(Also, if you found any misspelled words here or poor grammar, etc., you go ahead and think that I have no place teaching my kids because I'll mess them up entirely. It'll make you feel better to just let yourself go there. Thanks!)

Like Mother, Like Son

Cameron just finished a four week course at school on how to make and keep friends.

Oh! You thought that was something that people just know how to do?

Well, only for the lucky.

During this course the counselor taught her pupils principles such as giving and receiving compliments, (don't we all struggle with that?), fairness, problem solving/conflict resolution and listening.

Those are fine and dandy.

I really wish she had covered topics such as how to approach a new person and engage them in conversation and how to include people who might not have someone to play with. That's what Cameron really needed.

Alas, the things he picked up certainly can't hurt.

When I was in second or third grade I attended a similar class. I was told it was a special club for an elite group of kids.

No one told me otherwise until about a year ago.

And all this time I thought I was special.

Turns out that being as shy as I was required intervention.

The kind involving a whale puppet and hot chocolate.

But I'm doing just fine now, so maybe Cameron is better off, too.

THESE ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES...

We've been enjoying the sunshine and approach of spring.  Don't you love sleeping with the window open?

And you know what sunshine means?  It means I get the Spring Cleaning Bug!  I started with the boy's rooms.  I needed to make room for their new desks that we bought them for homeschooling.  Oh yeah - did I mention we're homeschooling next year?  More on that later.

A steal at ten dollars each.  Now we just need textbooks, art supplies, science materials... And the boys' rooms were as far as I got on that spring cleaning, because after moving one queen sized bed, one toddler bed and two twin beds from one room to another, by myself, I was wiped out.  I think I'm still sweating from that day.

Ethan brought home these depictions of Lincoln and Washington a week or so ago, and let me tell you, I had a fright when I pulled them out of his backpack.  A little warning next time, Ethan!  But the more I studied them, the more they grew on me.  And now they are hanging in my bathroom.  Not really.  I put them in the garbage so they wouldn't attack us while we sleep.

After Cameron made his diorama, Drew begged me to let him paint, which I did, because I'm a cool mom like that.  I thought he knew that the paint was not for eating, but I was wrong.

And speaking of Cameron's diorama, here is the finished product.  Isn't it funny how you picture one thing in your head and your child can picture something completely different?  I always thought there might be more grass in the grasslands ecosystem...  But this diorama will be displayed in his room til the day he dies, he loves it so much.  

This is me on my pretty, new bike.  I wouldn't let Andrew buy me a mountain bike because he wasn't there during my childhood when I almost died forty-seven times on a regular bike on a regular, paved road.  He just doesn't understand.  So I went into the bike store and picked out this one, and the salesman practically gave it to me because I was so charming.  That and it's last year's model which they couldn't seem to get rid of.  It has a lovely bell.  And I can't decide if I want a basket on the front or on the back.  So if you have an opinion - let me know.  I love riding it.  Except for when this is attached to the back:

...and then I almost die.  Pulling three kids, (yes, three - they fit...sort of), behind me in that thing reminds me that all that walking I've been doing doesn't count as exercise at all because I've been doing it at a snail's pace while I wait for Drew to pick up every fallen leaf he sees.  I took the three little guys for a ride yesterday and about twenty minutes ago my legs started to feel normal again.  I'm going again today.  And the next day and the next.  And then one day, I magically won't feel like my thighs are on fire when I pump the fatties up the hill.

And finally, we picked up Andrew's bug yesterday to the tune of more money than I want to mention.  It still makes me want to vomit.  So on the way home from the mechanic the left turn signal quit working because Andrew went over a bump, and also, the fuel line was leaking.  So this is the t-shirt that Andrew used to catch the drip of gasoline that we spent $3.05 a gallon on.  He fixed both issues; the first by going over another bump to jostle the electric lines back in place and the second by replacing the fuel line, or a part of it, anyway.  In spite of all these issues, Andrew still has a ginormous smile on his face.  I'd have a smile on my face, too, if we could have bought the $200 worth of parts ourselves and if Andrew had done the labor.  Lots and lots of hours of labor.  They really add up.  Thank goodness for tax returns.

Now I'm going to go do the breakfast dishes.  By hand.  Because more than two weeks later, my dishwasher is still not working.  But before I go, here's proof that Trent still exists, even after all those sleepless WEEKS when he got used to being held all night after being sick and decided not to sleep at all - ever.  FOR TWO WEEKS.

Have a lovely day, everyone!

HOLD ON TO YOUR SHORTS, CAUSE I'M ABOUT TO SHOCK YOU

My optometrist told me that the surface of my eyes are flatter than most people's. Yeah, I think he might be lying, too.

Say Aaahhh!

The last time I went to the dentist was when I had my wisdom teeth extracted in 2005. Yikes, I know. So it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I went to have a cleaning and exam this morning.

Usually I enjoy going to the dentist. Obviously not as much as shopping for a new pen or going for a chocolate-dipped chocolate cone at Dairy Queen, but it's always been sort of relaxing for me to sit in a chair while other people work on my mouth and I drift in and out of coherency. (That's without nitrous oxide.)

Side note: When I needed to have my wisdom teeth pulled, I went to see the dentist who's kids I used to babysit. (If any of you live close enough to visit him in Gresham, OR, it would be worth giving him your business. He's an excellent doctor with great prices, and he ain't bad to look at while you're staring straight up with your mouth pried open and drool sliding out anyway...) I knew I would be getting my first dose of "laughing gas" on that visit, but had no idea how that might make me react. I'm sure it was similar to most other's experiences. They hooked me up with the mask blowing the gas into my nose, and then left me there to inhale to my heart's desire. About three minutes later I was in a hysterical panic because I couldn't stop giggling, and I knew that Dr. Westover would be coming back any minute to yank my teeth from my skull. I had to think about something terrible.

The cost of tooth extraction.

Family reunions.

Nope, I tried to hold it in, but more giggling erupted from me.

Dead puppies.

Bill collectors.

Tried to hold in the laughing, which resulted in snorts.

Then I thought about Dr. Westover and his assistant possibly standing behind me and watching me convulse with snickers.

That embarrassed me enough to sit up straight and try to hold still. I pulled the mask away from my face, feeling relaxed enough that Dr. Westover could have come at me with a steak knife and a pair of pliers, and I would have been more than happy to "open wide".

And then I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window, sitting so rigidly and trying to keep my mouth shut, and lost it all over again.

When the doc finally came back, I was exhausted from laughing at my hysterical self and tried hard to remember not to say anything at all, or I might just divulge my darkest secrets. When my teeth were removed, I yelled, a little too loudly, "You're AMAZING!" And then I tried to figure out how long I might have been laying there because my head felt like a balloon floating a few feet above my body, weightless, and somehow filled with lead at the same time. I was struggling to keep it upright.

That one experience helped me understand the appeal of illegal drugs.

Ok, where was I? Ah, yes. Today's visit. Today I was suffering from a bout of anxiety over how much money I would have to fork out to pay for not having had my teeth checked for so long. The really stupid thing is that I've had insurance for almost four years that covers cleanings 100%. I was certain that I would be told that I had set a new world record for most amount of cavities in one mouth, and my only comfort came from the fact that I had no pain anywhere.

That was not the case two months ago. Two months ago, I had terribly sore gums in just one spot between my two back molars on the top right. They were sensitive to the touch, and bothered me when I chewed on that side. My hypochondria kicked in just a bit and I became certain that I had gum disease and all my teeth were going to fall out. I looked it all up on the internet, inspected the color of my gums in the bathroom mirror, and became a very paranoid religious flosser. I flossed every day for six weeks, and my gums were still bothering me in that one spot.

That pain is what finally convinced me to schedule a check-up. The day after I made the appointment I was walking through Wal-Mart and my gums began to bleed in that upper right side. I was a bit freaked out as the taste of blood coated my tongue. I didn't want to reach into my mouth to see if I could feel some kind of nubbin' or abscess that might be causing the bleed because I had been pushing a Wal-Mart cart, and who knows what kind of plague-ish germs are on those things? So I felt around with my tongue, and what do you know? A tiny piece of a popcorn kernel slid out of that space between my teeth where my gums were irritated. I hadn't had popcorn in about six weeks - like since my gums became sore. How disgusting is that?

Boy, was I was mad! All that daily flossing, and the kernel had just been shoved further and further up until it had set up camp where I could no longer get to it. What a sham! I know I was flossing the right way - I had watched videos of what to do and what not to do on the internet! So I quit flossing after that. I felt like I'd been tricked!

I had three cavities filled today, and was told to start flossing again, or I would have three more to deal with in no time. It's a conspiracy.

Like Christmas, except in January and just for me.

I have no shame. We've all seen it before, and the following will be another example.

I wish to tell you of my three purchases tonight. They are three things that I have been waiting to buy for longer than any normal person would wait.

A bra.

A baby gate.

A vacuum.

I think they all warrant their own story.

Once upon a time, like back in 2000, I had a respectable amount of breast tissue. Nothing to brag about, but enough that no one questioned my gender. Then I had Cameron and lost a little. Then I had Ethan and lost a little more. Then I had Drew and lost the little bit that I had left. Then I had Trent and became concave.

Padded bras have been my curse for going on nine years now, and not just a little padding. There's enough there to unroll and sleep on when I go camping. And under wire is an absolute must - without it, there's no point.

And speaking of no point, I decided several weeks ago that there was no reason for me to strap on an ill-fitting, sweat producing padded bra, when I could just go without. My chest looks like that of a pre-pubescent girl, so why bother?

I know that a lot of you are thinking at this point that I just need to go get a professional bra fitting. You're wrong. I measured myself, and the measurement of my bust at the fullest point is actually only a little less than an inch bigger than my measurement just below the bust. I am officially a double A. 34AA. (I apologize to all the men who are reading this and cringing at my "overshare".) But I just don't care anymore. There are worse things than being flat-chested.

So I've known for a while now that I really need to find myself a training bra. (You know - for the cold days.) Because no one actually makes AA bras.

Tonight I was at Target, crossing from one end of the store to the other, and I happened to wind my way through the little girl's department. I walked straight into the bra section, saw a ridiculously multi-colored thing that looked like it belonged on a Miley Cyrus fan, and what do you know - it was on clearance for a buck seventy-five. I grabbed the thing and headed for the front of the store with my head held high. It is a lucky girl who gets to buy her non-padded, (finally!), under wire bra for less than two dollars. Take that you voluptuous vixens!

Cameron and Ethan happened to be with me, and were not quite as thrilled as I was. They asked me who it was for, as though they knew that such a silly thing could not be for a grown woman, and I told them it was for them. They both flushed red and sweat bullets all the way to the car.

So there you have it, I am a nearly thirty-year-old woman in a training bra. At least I won't have to worry about being saggy.


So, the baby gate. I have safety locks on all of my cabinet doors, except for two. Those are the two that Drew broke about a year ago when he learned that if he just yanked hard enough over and over, the lock would eventually snap and the cabinet door would open. He got away with that twice, and then he got what was coming to him and never did it again.

Enter Trent and Bryan.

Trent and Bryan have two things, and only two things, that they like to do during the day. The first is to follow me around and cry/whine/unfold the clothes I just folded. The second is to empty all the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. There are child-proof latches on them, again, except for the two that Drew got to, but their arms are just flexible enough to reach into the little space provided before the lock kicks in, and pull out anything that their chubby hands can grab at that weird angle. I have spent a lot of time re-washing measuring cups and bottle nipples and cooking utensils that were clean before they were sucked on by drooling toddlers. And then there is the cereal cabinet. Lots and lots of cereal scattered on the floor. And finally, today, the container of cookies dumped and tediously sampled, one by one.

I'd had my fill after the loss of all those chocolate chip cookies. So tonight, I bought a baby gate and giggled and grinned while I installed it. Then Andrew and I took turns impersonating the reactions we are expecting from Drew, Trent, and Bryan in the morning when they find that they can no longer watch me splutter and turn purple in the face after they finish dismantling the order of the kitchen. I can't wait. I'm going to stand in the kitchen, stick out my tongue and give them the world's most grown-up "nee-ner, nee-ner, neeeee-ner!"

Lastly, this might shock you all, but our vacuum broke over three months ago, and I just replaced it tonight. When it broke, I thought, ah, well....I'll get a new one next time we have an extra fifty bucks. And in the mean time, we can play Redneck and use the shop-vac.

So I've been crawling around on my hands and knees for three months now, vacuuming the rug in the living room with the stupid little hose of the shop-vac, and completely ignoring the bedrooms because the three-pronged plug of the shop-vac didn't fit in the two-pronged outlet of the bedrooms. Sure, we have an extension cord, but that seemed like too much work to then have to crawl around with the hose and pretend that I was making a difference in the cleanliness of the carpet.

In case anyone didn't know, a vacuum hose does not do much for carpet. You really need that spinning brush to lift the fibers and comb out all the junk that 5 kids and one husband can make. (I counted Drew twice, because he's just that messy.) Also, our shop-vac is rather noisy. The first time I plugged it in to give the living room a crawl-over, all the residents of the cemetery down the street came knocking at my door to ask what the horrible noise was.

Every time an extra fifty dollars became available, (which I think happened just twice in those three months), it sounded like a lot more fun to go out to dinner or to a movie instead of buying a vacuum. So once we ate at Wingers - no regrets - and the other time... I don't remember what we did. But it was surely more exciting than a vacuum. This is called being poor and making choices.

Tonight, I buckled down and spent the stupid fifty dollars for a vacuum that will get the job done. My carpet is no longer matted, but back to being slightly shag-ish and soft. It was like all the strands stood up and said, "Well, hello again! It's nice to see you! Won't you please walk on us?" And I can't see anymore flecks of crushed Goldfish crackers scattered about the floor.

So excited was I by the clean living room floor, that at 11 PM I took the vacuum back to my bedroom, where two nights ago Drew ate microwave popcorn. The remnants of that popcorn are actually what put me over the edge and made me go get the vacuum. So I started vacuuming away, humming a happy tune, ducking under Andrew's video game controller cord as I tried not to get in the way of his game, and ran over the vacuum's cord. The stinking overzealous vacuum sucked up it's own cord and the motor instantly smelled like the aftermath of an atom bomb.

I have never, in all my years of vacuuming, seen a machine suck up it's own cord. All my previous models have been smart enough to know to stick to food particles and hair, and to leave the cord alone, should I happen to run over it.

Enough of the plastic coating was chewed off the cord that I now have to patch my new toy with electrical tape.

Or, I could use the cord to zap the first kid who decides to climb over the baby gate.

Christmas!

This is Drew singing karaoke on Christmas Eve. I'm still kicking myself for holding my camera vertically because you can't rotate video, so sorry. But if you listen closely, you can even catch a "Batman smells" in there. Another priceless parenting moment!




The day after Christmas is always a bit of a downer. Feels like all the magic has gone from the days and, having eaten one too many truffles, you can't fit into your pants anymore. We did have a lovely Christmas. The best part was having the entire family together for the first time in a lot of years. The company was good, (with the exception of me, because I was overly tired yesterday and became a bit grouchy in the afternoon), the food was good, and nobody gave anyone a Chia Pet.

Cameron can't decide if his favorite gift was the air hockey table or the tub of Legos.




Ethan's favorite is definitely the Star Wars ship.


Drew loves everything, but has spent the most time with his Buzz Lightyear and his Mr. Potato Head. We have noses and arms and lips scattered all over the house.


Trent loves his ball the best. We just can't get him to slow down enough to get a picture of him with it.

Andrew got an electric razor and felt sad that he didn't get a toy.

I got a new purse because last summer I put a half-eaten Laffy Taffy in my old one and it melted to the bottom.

My mother makes the best cheesecake in the world, and if there's any left when we get there tonight, I'm going to have another piece. Even if it means I can't fit into anything but sweatpants for the next month.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

Pride Goeth Before The Fall...(or before the punch in the face, in my case.)

This is long, and it might be one of those stories that makes sense to the teller, but is jibberish to everyone else. Also, makes me seem narcissistic. Don't feel obligated to read it.


When I was 18 and just shy of my high school graduation, I was in a La Center High School production of Tony and Tina's Wedding. It was very close to the most fun thing I have ever done.

We spent weeks in class practicing our Brooklyn accents, building up our improv skills, and studying character bios, because Tony and Tina's Wedding, in case you are not aware, is an interactive play. The audience participates as the wedding guests, and we, as the cast, were the wedding party and family of the bride and groom.

I was awarded the part of Connie Mocogni, the pregnant matron of honor. She was just edgy enough to cause some scandal. I gelled my hair into a faux-hawk before it was the trendy thing to do, I made myself up with heavy eyeliner and black lipstick, and even sported a nose ring. From the neck up, I looked like the kind of girl you wouldn't want to bring home to mother. Underneath my bridesmaid dress, I wore a foam pregnant stomach. It made me sweat a lot.

In the non-high school version of the play Connie is the pregnant, unwed maid of honor, but because Mr. McCullough had to be careful to avoid any perceived indecency that might upset parents or the school board, my stage husband, "Barry", and I were instructed to wear a ring on our left hands and refer to each other as husband and wife. Mr. McCullough also had to remind us before every performance not to drink the sparkling cider directly from the bottle, thus making us look like a bunch of drunks. But we never listened. Poor man probably stressed a few years off of his life from all the unsavory things that we pretended to be involved in - and he only knew the half of it. That's what happens when you give creative freedom to a bunch of invincible, arrogant teenagers.

My role in the play was to be the edgy and socially inappropriate best friend of the bride, "Tina", and through the course of the night I was to become more and more hostile in my relationship with "Tina" before making up with her just before the end of the play - like all self-respecting, overly-emotional Italians do. "Tina" was played by a friend of mine from church, and I mean we were friends at church and friendly at school, but didn't hang in the same crowds outside of church. Her name was Rachel.

The cast rehearsed for this play for several weeks, had a dress rehearsal, and found ourselves ready for opening night. The place was booked for all four performances, and the ability to slip into a different persona for an evening gave me a kind of reckless abandon that robbed me of my better judgment. As in, perhaps I took things too far.

At one point in the play, I got to give a toast to honor the newlyweds. At this point though, I was to act mildly intoxicated, and considering that I've never actually been drunk in real life, I have no clue whether my performance was believable.

I stood in the middle of the room with a microphone and began my toast innocently enough, but slowly slipped into a fit of inebriated insults which I hurled at "Tina" relentlessly. I told her she looked like a cow in her wedding dress and asked her why she was wearing white, anyway? Keeping in mind that I was supposed to say these kinds of things, "Tina" was then meant to leave her spot on the raised bridal party table and come at me to start a cat fight. Two guys in the wedding party were then to break us up just before she got close enough to actually engage me in a Bridezilla-type brawl. Then the guys were to cart us off to different parts of the room to "cool off". The whole scene went like clockwork. It was unbelievable fun to behave in such a way in so public a setting. It wasn't in my nature at all to be that way, so this interaction was a great chance to feel so brash and daring.

The day after opening night, I was swarmed with people telling me that I had given an amazing performance, that I had "stolen the show", and everyone was so impressed! Even Mr. McCullough praised me for my quick wit and comical additions to what we had planned in rehearsal. When I stopped at my usual coffee kiosk in Battle Ground to pick up my daily hot chocolate, the proprietor exclaimed, "I saw you in the play last night! You were great!..." And her compliments, as well as others, went on until my head and ego were inflated to unhealthy proportions. That night, I stepped things up a little further, threw in a bit more attitude, and went for the kill. We were all a hit for the second time, and the high I experienced must have been better than something drug induced. But I wouldn't know for sure.

On the third night of our play, I detected a little bit of jealousy coming from Rachel as she did a fantastic job of playing the lead in the play. When "Tina", the other bridesmaids and I did our lip-sync number to "Like a Virgin", I failed to take the hint and did not back off in the least, but kept right on stealing Rachel's thunder and pointing at her butt before making gestures indicating that it was huge. I feel a bit bad about it now, but would not change anything, because, like I said - most fun thing I've ever done.

On the closing night of our play, I found myself in that same spot on the middle of the floor, toasting and then insulting "Tina" until she had had enough and came for me. As she strode across the floor with daggers in her eyes, I saw something flash behind her acting face that told me I might have sounded a little too sincere when I threw in that last comment about her dress size or her purity - whatever it might have been. It was like one of those bad dreams where you know something terrible is about to happen, but any attempt to thwart the impending horror leaves you paralyzed and vulnerable.

Before anyone could surmise what Rachel was about to do, she sped up her stride and punched me right in the mouth. And then, because we were still performing, (or so I would like to believe), she knocked me down and straddled me so that she could finish the job. I was in such a daze that I wasn't even fighting back. I just lay there, bleeding from the lip and wondering what was going on? Someone pulled her off of me, and another someone lifted me off the ground. I noticed that tears were leaking from my eyes and smearing all that eyeliner down my cheeks, and that infuriated me more than the punch, because no way would "Connie" cry. At the time, I couldn't help but think that the entire escapade had been premeditated as revenge for three nights worth of getting to play the villain, and perhaps playing my part too well. I think it safe to say that Rachel stole her show back from me that night, and put me in my place for sure.

There was no apology from Rachel for ducking the well-planned and practiced stage moves that would have kept her from reaching me before the wedding bouncers did, but nor was there an apology from me for basking in the limelight while she settled for runner-up. I'd like to say that I became a better person after the cheap shot, but in truthfulness, when, six months and a year later, people were still stopping me from time to time to tell me how well I had done in that play, I couldn't help but lick the inside of my lower lip, taste the memory of blood, and think, "Take that, Rachel!"

But now, in case Rachel should ever happen upon this story, (although I hope she doesn't because it still sounds horribly arrogant), I would like to say to her that I am sorry for stealing the spotlight. The play was titled, after all, "Tony and Tina's Wedding", not "Connie, the Brazen Matron of Honor". And I am also sorry for any hurt feelings that might have come from my portrayal of Connie. None of my remarks came from me, they were acting, and I did not then, nor do I now, believe any of them to be true. And the last time I saw you, Rachel, you looked super hot. I also need to compliment you on your fighting skills, because there was a lump inside my lip where you hit me for two solid years. And every time I felt it, I thought, "Dang...she's good."

Not the first time I've put a picture of my butt on the internet

I made a Christmas list for Andrew this year so that he would have no excuse for getting me a stinky gift, or worse even, no gift at all. The list included several items of varying expense, nothing extravagant. Where I listed an item of clothing, I included sizes and locations where he could find the items on sale, AND told him which colors do not flatter me. Where I listed body sprays and lotions, I told him which fragrances I did not like, so that he couldn't go wrong. There were about 12 items on the list so that he would have sufficient to choose from. He became a little overwhelmed at the list and didn't know where to start. So I crossed off all but three or four things. And then he went out shopping.

He came home very pleased with himself, having gone $125 over our $75 limit for each other, and carrying just one bag from one store which contained one gift wrapped box. I was a bit shocked seeing as Andrew hates to shop and even more than that, hates to spend money. Especially when that money was intended to go towards his mountain bike.

Slight tangent: Andrew is the world's biggest tight-wad, which comes in handy considering our tiny budget. On his days off, his favorite things to do are go fishing, which costs next to nothing, and sleep, because when you're asleep you can't spend money.

The only exceptions to Andrew's hatred of spending money are his hobbies. He is a fishing snob, biking snob, paintball snob and basketball shoe snob. He has to have G-Loomis fishing rods, will cast on nothing else, only buys the sixty dollar boxes of paint balls, needs a new pair of whatever the latest Jordan's are to wear on the court, and tortures me with catalogs full of mountain bikes that cost 2K on the low end. So now you can understand how his spending his bike money on Christmas gifts is a huge deal.

I couldn't imagine how $200 worth of clothing from The Buckle could fit into one box. And not until I was balancing the checkbook and sneaked a peek at the receipt did I understand. Andrew bought me a $78 pair of jeans, a $78 top and a $35 belt. Apparently that's the normal cost of clothing from The Buckle, but I don't often venture into that store, so I had no idea.

I am not the kind of woman who wears $78 jeans. I realize that to some people, that amount might constitute a cheap addition to their wardrobe, but I just don't see the point. I can make $78 stretch further than a pair of spandex shorts on Rosie O'Donnell's backside, so to spend such a huge amount on one pair of pants seemed insane, and I was instantly sick to my stomach.

When Andrew got home, he asked me, again, if I wanted to open my present. His excitement over his excellent shopping skills was oozing out of his sparkling eyes and stretching his mouth into a crazy grin, as it had been for nearly a week while he pestered me to open the box wrapped in pretty silver, red and green paper. Now that I knew what it contained, I no longer wanted to wait until Christmas morning for the surprise. I wanted to get it over with in hopes that I could somehow tell him that there was no way I was keeping any of it without squashing his elation at finally achieving the rank of Thoughtful Holiday Shopper.

So he went back into the bedroom and tore the paper off of the pretty box and brought me the pair of outrageously expensive jeans.

Dang, they were cute. I wanted those jeans, in spite of the price, and the battle that raged in my mind between sensibility and lust for sexy pants went on for several minutes. Eventually, I agreed to try them on...just to see if they would fit.

Wouldn't you know - perfect fit. I didn't have to suck anything in, and I could bend my knees when I walked. I looked at my butt in the bathroom mirror, and while I thought that perhaps things were a little pokey or bulgy in certain areas, the cute little studs and rhinestones on the back pockets took attention away from potential flaws, and I thought I looked pretty good. Andrew's eyes popping out of his head when he saw them on me said that he agreed, and then I was left with the aggravating dilemma of keeping the jeans or taking them back and getting 4 things instead.

Tonight, I wore the jeans to the Norman Family Christmas Party. Oh, yeah.

The Shirt and the belt though, are going back. The shirt was so, so cute, but not $78 dollars-make-me-choke-on-the-receipt cute. Andrew shopped like a pro for me this Christmas. He picked things that fit me, things that I thought were beyond awesome. Unfortunately, he also shopped like a man who can tip his waiter with a hundred dollar bill and think nothing of it.

The best part of his purchases was that he told me I deserved it. So maybe if the shirt hadn't been one degree away from completely see-through, I would have agreed to keep it. Cause it was exactly what I told him I wanted last month. (But the one I showed him only cost $32, and I still couldn't swallow that price tag.)

I've never...

ridden in a taxi

been outside the country

learned to swim

eaten lamb, duck or mahi mahi

driven a golf cart

seen the Atlantic Ocean

skied

made a lasagna from scratch

tasted coffee or alcohol or smoked a cigarette

flossed every night for more than three weeks straight

bought a dog

read the entire Old Testament

sewn an article of clothing

bottled my own fruit

ridden a horse

seen a movie at midnight

looked through a telescope

BUT, I have...

laughed until I peed on someone else's pillow

cried during a TV commercial

been to a psychiatrist

danced on a canvas under the moon with my husband, feet covered in paint

stayed up all night long

gambled

seen Mount Rushmore

lip-synced (is that a word?) on stage in a female barber-shop choir while wearing a sequenced vest and purple pants

watched a sunset on the beach

cut my own hair

been to Alcatraz

caught a fish

run in a race

stopped to smell the roses

memorized one of Shakespeare's sonnets

cooked a turkey

been in plays

tasted shark

decided that there is lots more to do.

I'm Pathetic

Andrew is going to be very sweet this year and buy me a Christmas present. And he's going to buy it before five o'clock on Christmas Eve. AND he's going to wrap it.

So all he needs are some ideas of what to get me.

I have none.

I cannot think of a single thing that I want. Well, not in that particular price range anyway. While I would love a Dodge Viper or my own movie theater or a trip to Italy... That's not exactly what Andrew has in mind.

So help me out, internet people. What do I want for Christmas?

In serious hopes that today was the beginning of the end.

I may not be good at many things, but I have been doing a fantastic job of teaching my kids to sweat the small stuff. If there were an Olympic event in flipping out, I would have a case in my living room full of gold medals. I am just that good.

This morning, I lost it big time, but I think I learned a lesson from it all.

Cameron and Drew were in the living room being rowdy, as usual, while Andrew finished getting ready for work so that he could take the older boys to school. I came into the room to make sure they had shoes and backpacks on, and found Cameron and Drew atop the mountainous pile of laundry on the loveseat, looking through the clothes for something.

"What are you doing up there??" I exclaimed.

"We're looking for my glasses," came Cameron's reply. "Drew tore them off my face and threw them."

"What is the matter with you!?" was the opening sentence of my hour long rant.

It seems that they were horsing around, Drew went for Cameron's weak spot, the glasses, and chucked them as hard as he could. Ethan informed me that they must have landed somewhere soft, because no one heard them hit anything. Thus the search through the pile of clothes waiting to be folded.

We looked through the entire laundry pile three times, checked under couches, in the fireplace, I checked the window blinds, thinking that they may have gotten hung up there. We checked behind couch cushions, in the armchair, under the armchair...everywhere. I could not think of another place to look, soft or otherwise. I had already yelled at Drew and sent him to his room. I yelled at Cameron for letting Drew do such a thing. I yelled at Cameron again for being so dense as to not have a clue where the glasses landed, and I yelled at myself for not having folded those clothes on the couch days ago. There they were, mocking me and my lack of appropriate time management. We tried to coax out of Drew a clue as to where he might have chucked the specs, but he looked at us like we were crazy and he wasn't giving up anything.

So after the most frustrating forty-five minutes of my life, with no satisfaction, Cameron and Ethan were late for school, Drew had been sent to his room for his own safety, and I had yelled and cursed and cried until I didn't know what to do anymore. I finally told Cameron to keep looking until he found his stupid glasses, and I sat on the couch to try and regain control of my rage and breathing.

Cameron wandered around the living room for about five more minutes and then looks at me with a confused and yet thoughtful expression and says, "Maybe I didn't have my glasses on yet."

I then became aware that a possible side effect of anger is the body's spontaneous attempt to violently expel all internal organs via an explosion somewhere behind the sternum. I think I had to swallow my heart and lungs to get them to go back where they came from.

I took a very, very deep and deliberate breath and walked as calmly as I could into the bathroom, opened a drawer, retrieved Cameron's glasses from their case and walked back to the living room. I closed my eyes and held the glasses out for Cameron, waited until I was sure he was out of my reach and then opened my eyes, thinking that if I couldn't reach him, I wouldn't kill him and would be able to control my irrational temper. I was wrong.

I yelled a lot. I am not in any way proud of it, nor do I think it did any good, but I had completely lost it. Honestly, how does a kid remain convinced for over an hour that his little brother has snatched his glasses and thrown them across the room, when he never had them on his face in the first place?

So in the process of venting all of my frustrations over the matter, I squashed every ounce of self esteem and respect that Cameron might have possessed. And if ever there was a kid who did not need his mother to tear him down several notches, it was Cameron.

When I had finally calmed down and was drained of tears over the ridiculous incident, I didn't want to send my kids to school. I knew that my over-reaction would cause both Cameron and Ethan to have a terrible day and I didn't want to send them into the world while I was still unable to apologize. But I did it anyway because I knew it would be hours before I was calm enough to say the right things to patch where I had wounded.

My day remained a disaster until the boys returned from school and I could apologize for so explosively losing my temper.

I learned two things today. The first thing I learned was that I am a bigger idiot than I accused Cameron of being, (yes, I did, and I can only hope that time will erase that from his memory). Not only because I didn't put two and two together, (Drew claimed he didn't know where the glasses were, no one saw where they went or heard them hit anything, Cameron is a notorious scatterbrain...Hello?? I should have known that the glasses were never part of the equation), but mainly because I belittled my child repeatedly as my frustration and irritation grew, because I couldn't get my emotions under control. Cameron and I will probably both be tormented by the way I treated him for a long time, and I did it over a $40 pair of glasses that I knew full well when we got them would only survive this house for a few months at best.

I also learned that my temper may have seemed like a small pest a few weeks ago when I would occasionally lose my mind over a wrestling match gone too far or a box of cereal scattered all over the floor, but I've been feeding that pest more often than I should have lately, and it has grown into a beast of gargantuan proportions. I am going to have to work so hard to shrink it back to it's rightful size. It won't be easy, but it is long overdue.

So for as long as it takes, I'll be tackling this problem with all kinds of deep breathing exercises, counting to ten or ten million, humming of churchy songs, and trying to find the bright spot in my woes, even if I have to make one up. Wish me luck, cause I'm gonna need it.

Making a case for the end of physical education in schools.

I can't do it. I've put too much pressure on myself for my 200th post. I thought about writing about the epiphany I had when I burned the mac and cheese today, but it wasn't all that profound. I thought about writing about last night when I accidentally used the "bad soap" on one of my body parts, and while I tried to un-do the damage by immediately following it with the "good soap", I am now suffering the consequences of not paying attention when I shower. But that's just too much personal information. I thought about writing about all the things that no one tells you when you become a mother - like how hard it is to breast feed when you actually have no breasts; but as I wrote that one in my head, it sounded like I was ungrateful to be a mother, and I don't feel that way at all. At least not most days. I'll save that one for later.

It's a serious case of writer's block.

So, I'm going to write about my fourth grade teacher, and we'll see where it goes. I can't say that it won't be a ten on that lame scale that I mentioned previously, but here we go anyway.

At ten years old, I was living in Layton, Utah. We moved a lot as kids, so we went to more schools than I can remember... nine or ten, maybe. I spent fourth grade at Sarah Jane Adams Elementary with the world's oldest teacher. From my youthful perspective, she was on the verge of death and I couldn't understand why she was still working and not drooling in a nursing home somewhere. Her name was Mrs. Anderson. She wore a muu muu every day, she had short, gray, curly hair, and a raspy voice. And though she looked the part of a grandmother, I don't recall ever seeing a cookie in our classroom.

Utah education was different back then. When we moved from Utah to another state, we were always a tad below their grade level, but when we returned to Utah, we were way beyond what the other kids our age were doing. Make of that what you will, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that there were budget issues. Is that a decent excuse? Anyway, at Sarah Jane Adams Elementary, there were no music or physical education teachers, so those subjects were left to be taught by our regular teachers. Mrs. Anderson would pass out the recorders once a week and we would all practice playing Pop Goes The Weasel into the mouthpiece of an instrument that had been used by a different kid the week before. It wasn't my favorite subject.

Worse than music class was P.E. You might think that a nearly-dead fourth grade teacher wearing a muu muu would glaze over the teaching of sports and health, but you'd be wrong. Every day that there was no snow on the ground, Mrs. Anderson would don her whistle on a rope, grab a playground ball and herd her class out to the baseball field where we played kickball, like it or not. Always kickball.

I have never been the athletic type. I don't know the rules of most sports, and I don't want to. P.E. class was the bane of my existence from third grade until I could finally opt for other courses my junior year in high school. The best I could do was to try to avoid participation and therein not cause injury to myself or others. I used every excuse in the book to get out of class, including menstruation, my bunions, and a wart on my big toe that had recently suffered freezing via liquid nitrogen or some other painful chemical. On the days that I could not avoid "dressing down" and playing their ridiculous games, I inevitably made a fool of myself by attempting to keep my gangley limbs from spazzing out and killing anyone.

Back to Mrs. Anderson's fourth grade kickball sessions. So every day we'd line up and be counted off into teams. One, two, one, two, one, two... We had all figured out that we needed to stand one person away from our friends in order to be on the same team. (Utah education couldn't have been that bad if we were smart enough to figure out those important things.)

Once we got separated, Mrs. Anderson would blow her whistle and yell, "Play ball!" with the energetic voice of a woman a third her age. And play ball we did. When my team was in the outfield, I knew well enough to get out of the way when the ball was headed for me and let the boys catch it and throw it to whatever base they felt was best. And when my team was doing the kicking, I knew to quickly get to the end of the line as soon as I had flung my leg out and missed the ball entirely, so as to not waste valuable playing time, or prolong my own embarrassment. Whenever someone did kick the ball into play, Mrs. Anderson would croak out, "Run like mad!!! RUN LIKE MAD!!!" It was a little bit scary, to be honest. She was an entirely different woman when ruling the kickball field. She moved more sharply, growled a bit more and surely would have bitten anyone who interrupted the game to ask her how long until the bell rang, or why she never brought cookies to class. "Run like MAD!" I was confused as to what she meant by that. Run like you're angry? Run like a crazy person escaping from the loony bin? Run really fast? I was glad I never had to worry about how to run like mad properly, because my foot never made contact with the ball.

There was one afternoon in spring, when we had again spent part of our afternoon on the baseball field with our classroom kickball. My friends and I were headed back to the school building with our classmates, and we were celebrating our victory as members of the winning team. Yes, we had contributed by successfully staying out of the way. My friend, Ashley, tossed her arms out to the side, yelled, "We won!", and spun in a circle. One of her outstretched arms hit me across the face, and thanks to the dry Utah climate, my nose sprayed blood so far that the bricks on one whole side of the school had to be pressure washed. I lost so much blood that I was sure I was going to die, or at least get to go home early. I clamped my nose shut as best I could and hurried back into the classroom with crazy Mrs. Anderson. She instantly became more maternal when we were indoors. She helped me to clean up my hands, face, arms and legs, all of which were streaked with my life's essence. My new, neon birthday dress was a total loss though. One less piece of neon to brighten the world.

Apparently there was cause for concern beyond my ruined birthday dress, because my mother was called, and when she arrived, Mrs. Anderson took me out into the hallway where she and my mother studied my nose for what felt like hours. They were trying to determine whether the bump in the bridge of my nose had always been there, or if Ashley had broken my nose with her arm swinging and caused this bump.

Wouldn't you think that my mother would quickly be able to tell Mrs. Anderson which was the case? I stood there, feeling unloved and unnoticed because there was so much discussion and debate involved in trying to decide if my nose was hideous due to genetics or physical assault. "I think it's always been like that," were my mothers kind words.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that I believe the opposite. I believe that my nose was not disfigured prior to the kickball celebration incident. I will stand by that unless someone can prove to me that I'm wrong. I blame kickball for the below picture.

The bump. Go ahead and click on this picture to see a close up of my greasy pores. Unless you're eating, and then I wouldn't recommend it.

Pre-kickball photo, with cute, straight nose.

Glasses worn during fourth grade, which sit right at the spot where I now display my bump. I suppose the glasses could be as much to blame as kickball. By the way, you can't tell me that those aren't some stylin' frames.

Why wait?

I see no point in waiting for the new year to set goals for myself when there are so many huge things that I need to change and so many things I want to do. So I'm going to start setting goals now. The first one is going to be an easy and enjoyable one. I'm going to read 60 books by the end of next year. That's approximately a book a week. Feeding my mind has been pretty low on the totem pole for a while now and it's time to correct that. I'm going to try things from a variety of genres so that I end up a well rounded kind of person. And to keep track of what I've read, I'm going to add a list of the books I have completed to my sidebar. I've gotten this week's book done thanks to Fight The Mush!, so today I am going to dive into Love Is Eternal a novel about Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln by Irving Stone. Should be interesting.

I may go back and read books that I haven't read for years, I might read short or long books, I might read books that I have to quit halfway through, but I'm only counting the ones that I finish! So here goes!

Naked People Falling On Me

I never would have remembered these suppressed memories had my Aunt not dredged them up by mentioning volunteering in her last blog post. (Give her some ideas people, before she turns into the lady on the news who is the owner of 112 cats that she brought home with her from the animal shelter and quickly became overwhelmed and is found by animal control living in poop and kitty litter 6 inches deep and carting around a bird on her shoulder.)

So after thinking about the only time that I have formally volunteered, ( I spend time in my kids' classrooms at school and do church stuff, but no longer anything with a name tag), I remembered how much I dreaded putting on that red and white striped apron and going to the hospital. I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me start from the beginning.

I was fourteen, and I have no clue who's idea it was for my sister, Natalie, and I to become Candy Stripers at the local hospital. It must have been Southwest Washington Medical Center, but I'm not entirely sure, having worked so hard to forget the entire experience. At any rate, some well-intentioned person signed Natalie and I up for orientation, where we spent an entire day being instructed on the rules and regulations of volunteering in a hospital and also being shown the correct way to make a bed using "hospital corners". Valuable piece of information there, people. So following all of the regulation mumbo-jumbo, we were given a tour of the hospital and shown all the areas where we might be assigned to volunteer. Of course, everyone's favorite was the pediatric wing where you could play with the cute little sick kids in rooms surrounded with rainbow paintings and tiny-sized armchairs. And nothing remotely disturbing or grotesque could ever happen in a pediatric ward, right? (Wrong.) So when it came time to fill out our preferences of where we'd like to work, all 50 of us surely put down the same departments: Pediatric, gift shop, (with it's cheery sounding cash register), and lobby, where we could smile and direct people to their loved ones' rooms without having to actually come in contact with the unfortunate sick and dismembered. (Feel free to call me 'insensitive' in any forthcoming hate mail.)

So a week later, all of us Candy Stripers anxiously arrived at the hospital to learn our fates. Apparently, all of the happy places were assigned to the blond haired, blue eyed beauties, for I was assigned to the surgery wing.

Did you get that? Surgery wing. Not a happy place at all.

We broke into groups and were escorted to our designated areas. I said good-bye to Natalie, and if you'd like to know where she went, you'll have to ask her because it's one of those details too painful to dredge up, but let's remember that she has blonde hair and blue eyes, was approached by "model scouts" more times than I can remember, and was given a job at Musicland before she'd even finished asking for an application by the man who later became her lucky husband. The elevator doors opened up on the surgical floor and all of my awkward adolescent comrades and I emerged into the very hallways of Hell where, I kid you not, you could hear people moaning in every other room and one woman was actually screaming and everyone was ignoring her.

Every Thursday I went to that wing and did my best to disappear into the background as nurses bustled to and fro, taking calls and answering pages. I know they weren't doing anything to help their patients, because if they had been, then the moaning surely would have stopped. Some days I avoided having to go into anyone's room and got away with delivering samples to the lab or picking up more kidney shaped vomit catchers from the supply warden.

Some days I was not so lucky.

One day I was given the assignment of making sure that all the patients had adequately stocked bedside drawers. I was checking for bedpans, the stinking vomit catchers, little plastic cups and tissue boxes, among other things. Once in a while I had to converse with women who were still coming off the morphine high and smile and talk nicely while I backed out of the room with promises to send a nurse. And then I came upon the room. The room that was blessedly void of any living soul. I checked the drawer, found it satisfactory and headed back out. But as I passed the bathroom, a large, lumbering person stumbled toward me, and with a little groan, fell completely naked into my arms. Too shocked to know what else to do, I tried my best to keep the slippery person from falling all the way to the floor. My arms were underneath their arms, but I was unsure of whether I was dealing with a man or a woman, so I couldn't make myself use my hands to grab them around the middle for fear of latching on to two naked breasts. And why was this person wet?? Please let them have just taken a shower, please don't let this slippery being be covered in sweat! Just as my knees were about to buckle, a nurse came into the room and helped me drag the person upright. Then I bolted. I didn't even stay to help the nurse get the patient to his or her bed. I needed to wash both my arms from the shoulders down, pronto.

And that is the last memory I have of volunteering in a hospital. It is not, however, the last memory I have of someone naked falling on me.

The next story is not so awful. It takes place in a daycare. I must have figured out how to do my hair and make-up in a way that would validate me to be in the presence of darling children. Or maybe the staff was desperate. However it happened, at 18 I found myself the sole caretaker for more than the legal number of pre-schoolers for several hours a day. Once the school-age children were off to their classrooms I had some help, but until then, I spent the morning hours on my own. Thankfully, we only took kids who were potty trained. That does not mean that they were all capable of the entire spectrum of toilet duties on their own, however.

One day, little Dylan yelled from the bathroom, the door to which he had left open, "Teacher Beth, can you come wipe me?" He was an intoxicating and adorable 3 year old, and of course I could wipe him. I went into the bathroom and Dylan promptly bent over and rested the top of his head on the floor so that I had an unencumbered view of his wiping needs. I gathered the toilet paper and went to work. And then he lost his balance and his tiny butt landed on my arm, one cheek on either side of my radius bone. Laughing hysterically, he regained his upright position and said through his giggles, "Sorry, Teacher Beth", and then went on with his chuckling. I was desperately trying to control my urge to lunge my forearm into boiling water, because I had a skid mark where there never ought to be a skid mark. I toughed it out and finished wiping his behind before I scoured my arm under the sink with our month's supply of liquid soap.

Moral of the story, you never know when a naked person might fall on you, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. That's about it.

Me.

I will peel the skin off of apples for my kids, but I will not cut the crust off their bread.

I think that just because it's true love does not mean it's easy.

Standard bathtubs should be bigger.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are much better when made with that fake, waxy cheese than with real cheese, unless you're also putting sauteed onions and tomato on it.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot spell 'restaurant' correctly without spell check.

I am neither Democrat nor Republican.

I wish I could go back to high school and actually pay attention this time.

I love libraries.

Even in the dead of summer when it's 100 degrees outside, I can't sleep without at least a sheet on me.

I consider buying 2 weeks worth of groceries for a family of six for under $200 a talent.

If I could do one thing to make the world a better place, I would make people pay money to watch television. Commercials would be history and everyone would spend less time watching.

I don't have any friends that I see at least once a year who are not family. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I've never had a root canal.

I cannot cut a straight line. This is evident in my previous scrapbook attempts and in my sister's memory of the time I tried to cut her hair.

Everyone says that it's better to give than to receive. I'm going to have to be honest and say that they are about equal in my book.

I hate sports.

Peaches are the best fruit in the world, but only if it's ripe and juicy.

I think that all of my siblings have chosen spouses (and potential spouses?) that fit in with our family quite nicely. I like them all.

I don't understand people who care about the lives of celebrities. Not to say that I don't laugh at them when they treat us to a sorry display of humanity's most idiotic specimens.

Did you know that Wheel of Fortune is still on the air?

I swear too much. A lot too much.

My mailman is a jerk.

I can't stand to have my window blinds closed. It's depressing. Unless it's dark outside, and then they must be closed because we don't like to be peeped at. There are three daytime instances when the blinds must be closed though: When the house is imitating a hurricane casualty, when I have a migraine, or when we're watching a movie in the afternoon and the sun is glaring on the TV screen. All other times, blinds open. So if you come to my house in the daylight and the blinds are closed, you may as well just go away because I'm either watching a movie and don't want to be interrupted, battling a headache and don't want to be bothered, or the house is in such a mess that I won't let you in anyway.

I made a delicious apple pie on Friday. Also, caramel corn. That was good, too.

Sometimes, when someone is talking to me, my mind wanders and fixates on one of their facial features or body parts, and then I snap out of it and have to hope they didn't notice my freakish staring.

I own ten pairs of shoes, none of which are actually suitable for church because I hate dressing up and therefore spend no money on such things. I regularly wear two of those pairs, and never undo the shoelaces. No one in my family owns a pair of crocs.

I have not dressed up for Halloween since I was in my teens. I am thinking about it this year though. We'll see.

I did not weed my yard adequately this summer. I would have, if I'd been able to complete it uninterrupted.

The last book I read was My Sister's Keeper. Next on the list - whatever I find at the library today.

I have almost nothing hanging on my walls because I have not yet found anything that fits me and also costs less than Andrew's monthly salary.

I almost never shower before 1 PM. If I did, I'd have to shower twice. After the walk, you know.

My favorite color is orange.

Given the choice, I would rather be deaf than blind. And I would read people's lips and be greatly amused.

On my way to a mid-life crisis.

I keep waiting for maturity to hit, and I fear I may be waiting in vain. My mind still feels like it's eighteen years old, while my body approaches thirty with a back-burner type of panic that flairs up every time I sit with my legs underneath me and then stand up and have to hobble for the first few steps while the bones in my feet realign themselves to their proper position. Maybe it's not age - I could be gaining weight. At any rate, I was standing in the shower the other day, (because who doesn't do their deepest thinking while standing in the steam letting their eyes go out of focus?), and I began to think about the phrase, "You're only as old as you feel". This is where my 18 year old brain comes into play and I begin to have a two part dialogue with myself:

"Does feeling mentally immature count as young, or are we talking about physical feeling?"

"I don't know. Maybe we mesh the two?"

"Yeah, maybe. So let's see; If we feel 18 mentally and 50 physically, (of course, we can only imagine what a 50 year old body feels like, but it seems a good guess), then do we average out to 34?"

"I think so! We've been robbed of 5 years!"

"Hmm. Isn't a woman's mid-thirties supposed to be her sexual prime?"

"I think you're right. That might not be so bad. Let's google that later."

"Okay. I'll try to remember. With age comes forgetfulness, you know."

"Good point. You know what else? If we're aging that quickly, then we really ought to quit wasting time shaving our legs."

So here I am, trying to accept the fact that while I thought that I had another 6 months of being in my twenties, I'm actually already in my thirties and didn't know it. Thinking back through my youthful years, I conclude that I've spent too much time worrying about things that are small, too much time sitting on my butt doing nothing, and not nearly enough time living.

I can regain my twenties before they are gone by waking up every morning as though I had a choice, (and that it was to get out of bed), and by letting my kids take me back to the important things.

I took my three oldest kids to pick out pumpkins tonight, and they agreed that today was the "best day ever". Just because of carving pumpkins. I wanted to let their enthusiasm seep into me, and I have to say that I loved squishing my fingers through the mushy, orange pulp, and chanting that "Ethan is a sissy!" with Cameron when Ethan refused to touch the guts of his gourd with his bare hands. Sometimes I am amazed at how simple life is when I let the kids take the lead. All the bad "what-if's" are replaced with simple curiosity. Every bothersome chore becomes unimportant. Excitement is tacked on to both ends of everything. While we stood at the window and watched the candles in the jack-o-lanterns flicker in the night's breeze, I decided that I don't care how old I am in real life or in a hypothetical equation - I just always want to feel young enough to think that carving pumpkins could make for the best day of my life.