Star of the Week

Emmy has decided to be called Amelia this year at school. While it shouldn't be, it's been an interesting challenge for us to call her her given name. She now easily answers to either name, but I dont' know why I have such a hard time calling her Amelia.

A few weeks ago, she was her class' STAR OF THE WEEK. She completed an about-me poster. I thought I'd share my favorite of section of her poster.

Yes, this is an announcement.

The Return of Super Saturday

Only Mormons will truly understand this one...

I was recently put in charge of our monthly Relief Society Meetings. We all like to refer to it as the "calling formerly known as Prince" because the name for this meeting has changed about as many times as his has.

Anyway, I was sadly informed that we could no longer hold Super Saturdays (a day devoted to craft-making) - a beloved, yearly tradition among Relief Society members. This cancellation was because as a world-wide church, we were no longer able to hold meetings where money was requested for any sort of good or service.

I figured it was simply because women lacked cash. So I purchased a VISA card machine and began charging women for the crafts we were doing as they exited the building each Sunday. When the bishop pulled me aside to explain that debt and social pressures was what we were trying to avoid, I looked at him knowingly and said,

"Don't worry, Bish. You can use it for collecting tithing, too."

He didn't think that was very funny.

Oh, Mama!

I opened my garage the other morning and as I walked around the back of my car I saw something that made me scream out some obsenity like, "Jehosephat!"or maybe shorter, ...like with only 4 letters in it.

Geh.

Perfect pre-Halloween post.

Crazy Eyes

They say a person's eyes are a window to the soul.

I don't know who "they" are. But I do know that every picture I see of this woman gives me the creeps. I know Paula Deen (okay - not personally or anything), but I've watched her cooking show and I love that she uses real butter and takes spatula-size samples to tastse. But good grief, every picture I've seen of her lately makes me wonder: are those really tomatoes she's cutting?

 Have you ever been told to "smile with your eyes"? She's told, "show me anger and hatred with your eyes and only smile with your mouth."

I can hear the slashing noises from the movie Psycho.

This month she's on the cover of some magazine. 
I think they just keep getting worse. 

Sid the Science Kid

There's this cartoon on our local PBS. It's supposed to teach kids about science-y things. Let me just break down this cartoon for you:

Sid, the main character has 3 friends at a private/charter school where HE decides and tells the teacher what is going to be learned that day. Problem one.
His teacher, Suzie, has recently lost her job as a lounge singer and subjects her 4 students to her singing at least once a day.
Sid's mother drops him off and has symptoms of a UTI at this point everyday. You typically don't see her again the remainder of the episode. She apparently works 80 hour weeks to support her husband's plaid flannel and suspender needs.
His Grandmother, who is obviously special needs and legally blind (check out the glasses), drives him (who knows how she got a license) home everyday. Seems dangerous, right? It most likely is. What's dangerous is her psychotic laugh. I'm pretty sure she's possessed by hyenas.
His father and little brother are waiting for him at home and, as mentioned above, his dad hasn't discovered belts yet and is currently unemployed due to his alcoholism (you can see the visible symptoms such as the red nose and the yellowed skin from cirrhosis of the liver).

You may wonder why I'm giving this show a hard time. It's the only show my daughter refuses to sit through. Even she, a 3-year old, will watch it shaking her head with an eyebrow raised.

Oh, PBS.

Brace Yourself

If you needed a close-up of B's teeth. Here it is.

 Why is he so dang cute in braces? I find it rather unfair!

When I got braces, well, first of all, I was 18(!). So sad. 

I felt more like this:

First Day Photos

Because every mom subjects her child to the first-day-of-school picture.  I might as well share them.

 

Even if Olivia wasn't going to school that day, she still wanted to be involved. 

Always.

I'm not sure who began the whole foot-on-the-stone pose. 

It cracks me up.

Jalapenos Be GROWIN'!

Emmy, Eli and I planted jalapenos in June when we went to the Ranch. 

They're actually surviving!

Bug Bites

I have 18 mosquito bite on my right calf (that's what you get for watering your flowers at 9pm).

That doesn't count the 5 on my left leg and the three ant bites that are in an unmentionable place from sitting on a towel full of them while in my bathing suit.

I wonder if someone caught my reaction on tape. It would be pretty classic.

Left Out

I was at the pool the other day when a bunch of end-of-school-year parties were taking place. I overheard a mother tell all three of her children that they couldn't have one of the treats brought by another parent because they had peanut butter in them. One of her kid's had an allergy.

"You can't have any," she said to them. "John will feel left out if you all eat some since he can't."

I see her point of view....I guess.

Because of him, they all get to experience "character building" along with their brother. If he were a quadriplegic, would she make them all take elevators and not participate in sports?

Any takers on this topic?

Beloved Duties

My AC adaptor on my Mac fried a few days ago so I'm stuck blogging without pictures - not to mention I have to use this PC (my fingers get hives when I use it).

A week ago I realized I've been in my calling longer than anyone else in the ward (except the Bishop). It's been a little over 3 years. Don't get me wrong, I adore my job... it was just something I noticed.

I mentioned this to someone who has my same job in a different ward (congregation) and she chuckled. She told me she's been doing it for seven years.

What?!

Neighborhood Bully

I need some advice.

We have neighbors that have two cats. One stays inside their home (I've never actually seen it), and the other [collar-less one] stays out; stays out to pick up diseases that cause it to have bald spots, eat squirrel food left out by our elderly neighbors, jump into your car if the doors open, but most despicable: to poop in my yard.

I have even found it in my house.... walking out of my BEDROOM!

I hate this cat.

A lot.

Here is my problem: WHAT DO I DO ABOUT IT?

I've already asked someone at animal control. They've said they're low-staffed so they only come out on dangerous/serious animal cases. She told me I could catch it and bring it in myself, but I'd rather not touch the thing. I spent 3 hours cleaning my room after "the incident".  After all, I'm allergic.

Do I go over and explain that I think it's unfair that we all have to deal with getting ringworm (yes, some kid on the street got ringworm last year) from their cat because they don't keep it inside? That I'm growing weary of flinging cat poop over the fence at their house? This conversation would seem like the neighborly thing to do.

The problem with this scenario is that they both work and I'm afraid they aren't going to do anything about the cat then things will get really awkward because

I'm going to have to kill it, 
(because I will) 
and then they'll know who did it.

Block parties just won't be the same after that.

So I ask you: What would you do?

Now, what if I told you it ate one of my little birds?

Here's a question: Would it change your opinion if it were a dog?

Tweet

We've had some friends move in with us. They're loud and smelly.

See these vents?

The one on the left is for my dryer. The one on the right is the stove's vent. (Should I clarify that they're not in the same room?). They seem to both have a cover, but the one on the right seems propped open somehow.

LEFT VENT

RIGHT VENT

We could tell birds had moved in about two months ago. We thought we'd eventually get to it (secretly hoping they'd just move out), but then about three weeks ago we heard lots of little chirping.

Eggs had hatched.

Again we hoped that they'd just find a new home until Friday when the chirping got really, really loud. I felt like an aviary was in the middle of our house. A loud aviary with a hundred hungry chirping beaks.

To fully understand this, our microwave is above our stove so the duct work is in a cupboard above the microwave. I decided to be neighborly and bang on the metal duct work and yell something like, "keep it down in there!", but I saw this....

(Those are feathers!...IN MY CUPBOARD!!!)

When I stopped hyperventilating, I texted Steven these three seperate messages:

1) The birds are IN THE HOUSE! (I wanted it to relay the same feeling as "the call is coming from inside the house"...it didn't work.)

(No response from Steven -- I gave him a full 30 seconds to respond, too!)

2) What the H am I supposed to do?!

(Still no response. It had been at least 1 min 17 sec)

3) STOP LAUGHING!

('Cause I just knew....Jerk.)

He FINALLY called (2 minutes later!) and asked me if I knew what kind of bird it was? was it the mama or the babies? were they trying to get out? Since I had only seen a bit of feathers and hadn't dared open the cupboard entirely, I took my best guess and said I thought it might be an dark gray albatross (those exist right?) or a near relation of godzilla.

When he stopped laugh/crying he told me to just wait until he got home and he'd take care of it. Here's is the rest of the story in pictures.









Steven thought the birds might get out of the box (or worse, a cat might get in). He sort of looked at me expectantly and I said, "It's not like I have a birdhouse!"

He looked at me like I was insane and calmly said, "uh, you have 5 in the living room."

Oh ya.
This is a bad picture, but if you look close you can see Mama bird bringing her little ones food still.

Remember Harry and Moses?

Remember my adorable wreathe nest?

Remember Charlotte?

I'm sure there have been more, but this has been the smelliest, raucous bunch of wildlife we've ever been forced to adopt.

Really smelly.

North Carolina

Steven and I got away for our 10 year anniversary which doesn't actually happen until October (let's hope we can make it that long, right?).

Let me start by saying it had just snowed the previous week. Everything was still dead and gray from a long winter and all we could say was how beautiful North Carolina was. We could totally live there.

Well, not here of course. This is the Biltmore in Asheville. The largest private home in America. It was finished in 1905 by the Vanderbilt family. It's the same house in the movie Richie Rich. There are 4 acres of house there...they didn't even bother telling us the square footage.

The grounds were just as impressive with a farm, winery, and miles of hiking, rivers and ponds.

We made friends at the farm on located on the grounds.

We did a lot of hiking while we were in North Carolina.
This is one of the many trails we were on.

We were able to stay with Chris and Jenny J* (congrats on the new baby!). My one huge regret from the trip was not taking any pictures when we together!

Thanks to Mama and Papa Mick!
We couldn't have gone if it weren't for you.

Mother's Day Irony

Is it weird to anyone else that for Mother's Day we typically give our mother a break from that which we're supposedly celebrating.

Really we should be giving them extra children and dishes and laundry.

But since my family gets irony,
I slept in and had breakfast in bed.

Bradley's Bite

This is why we stick to pet fish....

Bradley was outside when our neighbor came over with his horsedog. I'm pretty sure that's a real breed. The dog got "excited" and likes to "play rough". Uh, good thing he had a shirt on when it happened.

Bradley's Baptism

I've had all these great blog ideas but lost my camera with all of my pictures still on it so I didn't have any good illustrations. You gotta have illustrations! I finally remembered I had placed it under the driver's seat in my car. Weird place, I know. It's because there's this rule that you can't bring a recording device into court and I had to leave it somewhere "not on my person".

That's a different blog entry.

Anyway, here are pics from Bradley's birthday/baptism celebrations.

Bradley and Steven before the baptism.

We have awesome friends and family!

Bradley growing impatient to blow out the candles.

Been Occupied.

We had a crazy couple of weeks there.

Bradley got baptized March 6th which meant both the 'rents were in town.
Steven and I left for NC for the heck of it.
Checked out the Houston Rodeo for Spring Break.
Had some medical issues.
Running a contest that seems to stress me out without making me lose weight.

I'll get to the fun entries soon. This contest HAS to end....sooner.

Oh the Weather...

I just spoke to a man who has lived here for 32 years. He's never seen this city like this. Snow just doesn't stick here. My kids had a ball. Miss Ariel took these pics of Liv making a snowman.

It took a lot of restraint not to go pull them out of school early!

What to Do?

I'm struggling with what to write. I just taught a class on Saturday about blogging for Pete's sake! You'd think I'd have more up my sleeve than contest updates and Charlie Brown quotes, but no.

I could write about what's going on in the news. But I'd have to say things like

Tiger's really not a tiger, he's a pig.
Middleclass-dom is suffering with little hope.
and

Driving a Toyota is frightening, but what can you do?

Any ideas out there?

I think I can hear crickets chirping...

Some Valentine's Advice

"The amount of money that you spend on a [Valentine] present should be in direct proportion of the amount of affection that you have for that person."

-Linus, from Charlie Brown.

Get This

I went to the gym today and instead of getting on the treadmill, like I always do, I decide to go to a class called Strike (basically it's kickboxing). All's going just fine until I see the camera guy.

Are you kidding me, people? At the gym?

Now I mean full-on camera guy. He was holding a big 'ol thing like the one above. SO WEIRD!

There's like 3 times in your life when cameras should not be allowed.

1. Birth. That's just gross.
2. After the birth. Still lookin' gross.

and 3. Any sort of aerobics class
where you have to be semi-coordinated,
without make-up or hair,
in your grubbies,
red-splotched and sweaty.

I'm sure there's more, but those are the times when I wouldn't want them there. Now I don't have any idea why he was there. I pray to the good Lord that I won't be in some crappy workout video someday. Maybe the instructor was making a resume booster?

Here's the really bad part, the camera guy looked as if he thought he should be holding paddles and rubbing them together so they'd be primed when one of us collapsed with a coronary.

The good part: my friend going out of her way to find me to let me know Emmy wasn't feeling well at school. I was only in class for like 20 minutes instead of 60. Phew. Thanks again, Stace!

Wanna Keep Up?

Instead of placing the contest in the side bar, I've started a new blog called:

Losing 10%

found here

This will allow you a better view of our intense competition. Remember there's still time to join. If everyone that told me they were interested actually pays by the deadline, the pot will be at a whopping $3100!

Right now it's at $2600 - still larger than we've ever had.

So call up your overweight, but much lazier friends and family (after all you don't want them to actually take your money, right?) and let them know they have until the beginning of February.

Let's say someone takes your kids.

In a good way. I mean, they take them off your (and your spouse's) hands for a few days so you can go relax together.

Where do you go?
What do you do?
What's your dream getaway?

Oh ya, you have 4 days 3 nights.

Happy FAT TUESDAY!

For those of you in the contest...

Happy FAT TUESDAY!

If you were all nearby, I'd throw a party for all of you! But since you're from all over the country, I'm wishing you the best on your last day of happy indulgence.

My 50th contestant emailed me this morning.
...$2500!

Holy GIANT POT, Batman!

No, not that pot!

You guys all rock! This is [still unofficially] the biggest pot we've ever had. If everyone that has contacted me is actually participating (because I still have yet to receive money from all of you), we stand at almost

$2200!

I was looking at some old statistics from contests past and I noticed that when couples participate they either both make their goal or neither meet the 10%.

Just sayin'.

If you have a spouse that you think could use it, it could be very beneficial to you both. Otherwise, go find yourself a good friend, that lives close by, that can be your support system. While it's fun to think you might be the only one who makes your goal, MY GOAL is to have everyone earn their money back.

Woo hoo!
Here's to losing some chunk.

Unoffical Count

Just to keep you updated... the count is unofficially at:

32 CONTESTANTS

= $1600.00

You want in?
It starts on Monday, Jan 11th.
I need the money before you weigh in.