Random Observations

1) I recently had a birthday. I did not shout "hurray" but I did eat as much of a Costco All American Chocolate Cake as I could stomach. That is RICH cake (and I love rich stuff).

2) It's sad that there's a whole generation of people (younger than me) who don't quite get the significance of 80s musicians showing up in cameos on "Yo Gabba Gabba." Come ON. Biz Markie teaching kids to beatbox isn't awesome?

And the non-fans can get kind of snotty about it. I don't quite get it.

3) It's never good to try to jog wearing Birkenstocks and no bra. It just doesn't work. You heard it here - now you don't have to try it.

4) This is my new ringtone. I am satisfied.

5) Hummus is surprisingly good on whole wheat plain toast. Kind of like crackers.

6) I don't WANT to take my Christmas tree down. I will. But I hate doing it. We have a fake tree, I'm not sick of looking at it yet, and it's tedious, horrible, boring, stupid, barf-inspiring work.

7) You blog people are awesome. Smooches to you all.

TOOOOOOOOES

Tiny Toe Zombie hits the jackpot

Also: I still love technology. Always and forever.

I'm preparing a church lesson, and I don't like teaching "with paper", so I'm copying the lesson from the church website to my phone.

<3 Always and forever <3

With Pleasure

R: "Stink my foot again!"

"I enjoy it auditorially."

Thus quoth Bella, regarding Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy", which she recently bought from iTunes. Her mother's geekiness is rubbing off. Awww.

Enough motherly goopiness. Let's get down to business.

Ease Up There, Love Chop Award
I'm not one to blog much about weather, unless I'm out in it. With our car now dead (or at least looking that way), we've been hoofing it this week. The Old Lady Grocery Cart has been used twice now - once by Hubby, who reluctantly agreed that it was a good purchase and might be joined by another cart, since our family is full of locust-like children and we have such a hard time keeping groceries in the house. Not buying them, just keeping them around. "There's nothing to eat!"

But back to the weather. We've experienced quite the gamut since the stupid car was stupidly thrown into the stupid lane divider (by the stupid ice), ranging from "colder than a well-digger's butt in January" to sunny to windy to cloudy to sprinkly to "What new car? We need to buy kayaks!"

The end is in sight, as we will soon know if our stupid car is worth stupidly fixing - Hubby and I are guessing, and I admit, hoping that it probably isn't - and our mechanic, a family friend, has another car for us to look at and possibly buy. We will only have to walk to the store one or two more times.

So I'm asking the weather: Ease Up There, Love Chop. Please take pity on our footbound family. We really don't mind walking. We lack a sense of societal convention. We're armpit-hair-sprouting dirt-munching hippies and have chosen to see this situation as an adventure. But weather, can you just cooperate? Until we have our new car, or can buy a few more umbrellas?

In other news: Life rocks. We're healthy, we're happy, we're warm, we're full, we have toys to play with. The Year of Ease continues.

He can borrow my SLICKER

Wishing Hubby and Bella a safe trip to Sammamish and a great game... see you tonight!

Tonight's discussion: The Killers' lead singer vs Neon Trees' lead singer.

Throwback

Brennan is a senior in high school this year. We had some pictures taken at the mall, including a set of wallet-size photos, which he needed to give to the yearbook staff. "Give the rest of them to your friends," I suggested.

He sighed and smiled, and it hit me. Duhhhh.

"Mome..." he explained so patiently. "When we want pictures of each other, we just send them to each other's PHONES."

No paper photographs. The genealogist in me shudders.

Seriously, it's kind of sad - I still have pictures of friends from high school haunting a box in the garage. The only photographic evidence he will have will be on his phone - or on Facebook. So odd to me, to not have something tactile to keep forever, something on which they can write a message (write! Like, with a pen!) and sign their name to and be embarrassed by two years later. It's a good thing we still have yearbooks.

Warm Chocolate Chip Cookies ❤

...have us feeling cozy.

We enjoyed a lazy morning today. Ahhh.

The Weekend

This hike! I have to take it!

The car! I broke it! On the way to the indoor soccer place, early Saturday morning, the roads were ultraslick. We hit an ice patch and swerved, I overcorrected (actually, I just grabbed the steering wheel and futilely wiggled it in ANY direction while slamming on the brakes), and we hit a short lane divider with the wheel before stopping. Then we drove the dumb thing home and parked it FOREVER.

OK, not forever. That would be my wish but it's not happening.

On payday we'll have it fixed. It's a good thing we're close to everything. It's a good thing I planned for just such an occasion and bought that "old lady" grocery cart (much to Hubby's amusement - who's laughing now, Big Boy?). It's really crappy that this happened in winter. Duh, ice, can't you come in summer when it's warm?

This floorplan! Yes, I'm way dreaming with that one. Wouldn't it be fun, though?

The latest Facebook pet peeve!: Sending friend requests to high school classmates you barely remember, just so you can further your kid's career in rock music. "They're playing a gig here!" "Show up here on this day for a video shoot!"

I've already hidden the guy, but he's taken to sending private messages en masse, and invitations which require a response. Must you make me publicly reject your child? I barely know you.

And that was the weekend. How was yours?

Why I Am Going To H311

Reason 421.

Every afternoon, just as I am lovingly enfolding my two youngest (Carter, 9; Rosalind, 6) into my bounteous motherly arms, feeding them hand-squeezed hand-pasteurized milk from our cow and letting them feast on hot homemade cookies, congratulating them on triumphing against another day of school...

*DING DONG*

Here come the Wonder Twins.

The Wonder Twins are not actual twins, but brothers, one of whom is in Carter's class at school, but they are indeed wondrous -

Every day, they make their parents disappear.

They're basically nice kids (aside from the occasional begging - "Can I keep your Nerf gun?" - and menacing my other children - "If you don't do what Carter wants, I'll beat you up").

But they show up at 3:05 every afternoon, they play with Carter for awhile, and then I get tired of them or am ready to make dinner or take one of my children somewhere.

I excuse them to leave. "You are welcome to go home now, Wonder Twins."

"We can't," they say in precise, practiced, dead-eyed unison. "No one is home at our house."

I'm sorry, what?

"We can't go home. Our parents aren't home and the house is all locked up and we can't get inside."

I believed them the first time. The first time, they were lying. "Their father was home," their embarrassed mother griped to me on her way home from work. "They just wanted to stay and play with Carter."

Last night... they were not lying.

And you know how Wednesday night is. It's nutty. We have a Cub Scout and an 11-year-old Scout and two kids in Mutual. I'm in the Young Women program (necessitating my also being at Mutual) and my husband is the 11-year-old Scout leader.

So, at 5:00 yesterday evening, when the Wonder Twins were invited to vacate and they put forth their little "dilemma," I found myself walking the fine line between resentment for being considered the neighborhood drop-in day care (And why not? I have five children, I must LOVE yours), irritation at being inconvenienced, and murderous rage.

It is a very fine line.

"Get in the car, Wonder Twins," I nicely thundered at them. "We'll just see if no one is home at your house."
"But..."
"JUST GET IN THE CAR. Carter, you come with us."

And, true to their word (for once), no one was at home.

Now feeling extremely crappy for cranking at these children for a situation FAR beyond their control, I stopped my desperate doorbell-ringing and screen door-rattling, went back to the car, and drove them to another neighbor's house: the neighbor they apparently use as backup. "Our dad said we should go here if we can't stay at your house."

These two little boys exited my car and went to the neighbor's door. It was obvious they were not expected (and probably not very welcome, either).

I drove home, livid. Who makes their elementary school-age children live like this, wandering around trying to find a warm dry spot, like stray cats?

Their dad called me. "Wifey? My wife said you called."

Oh, so she's sick of my frantic phone calls and foists them on you now.

"So what's up?" he continued.

Well, Disappearing Dad, your days of abusing your neighbors' kindness and using our house as your own personal orphanage are hopefully numbered. Let's try this out.

"Your boys came over to play today and when it was time to go home, the house was locked and no one was home, so I took them to Trevor's house."

He said the first of several amazingly bad things:
1. "O-kay..." he spoke haltingly, as if my depositing his offspring at a house other than my own was really putting him out. "I - THINK - I - know where Trevor's house is."
You have to be kidding me. Your kids consider this one of their homes away from home, and you THINK you know which house it is?

2. "They TOLD me you said it was OK."
Hello? Remember last time? Your kids are liars... at least, that's what your wife told me. Now I'm starting to wonder.

3. "They're over at your house so much, I was wondering what's been going on over there!"
It's called "put on your shoes and walk over and meet your neighbors." We're indoctrinating them, to hate stupid parenting techniques. They just LOVE our Kool-Aid.

4. "The boys like coming to your house so much, I figure if they're there, they'll be gone for two or three hours, so I can go run errands."
So I do. I leave my third- and second-grade babies to the mercy of virtual strangers. I leave, and I don't tell the boys where I'm going or when I'll be back, I don't leave a door unlocked for them in case they come home, I don't give them a key and teach them how to use it. I DEFINITELY don't tell my boys' new unpaid babysitter where I'm going (let alone ASK her if it's all right with her), and I make sure I don't leave my cell phone number with her. That's none of her business.

I just leave, lock up the house like it's Fort Knox, point the boys in the neighbors' direction, and hope the neighbors pick up my "crappy father" slack.

In all seriousness... my husband and I are of differing opinions about this guy - I think he's just stupid and has entitlement issues. Hubby suspects drugs or another woman ("Why can't he run errands while they're at school?"). I told Hubby, when I went to the front door of their house, I half-expected to see Dad lying on the living room floor, half-dressed, in a pool of his own puke. How else to explain for this lack of parental feeling, if not something chemical-related?

I seriously considered calling Child Protective Services and reporting two abandoned children and a set of neglectful parents. They're probably onto me now, though.

And that's why I'm going to H311.

People Who Have It Easy... Or Do They?

So I was going to post all these videos of intros to superhero television shows - The Six Million Dollar Man, et al - but of course "embedding has been disabled." I HATE disabled embedding!!!

I did find this clip, though. This is a major Google moment for me, so I hope you appreciate the significance. I couldn't think of their names, I could only remember that it was a live action children's show on ABC from the 70s. I think that's what I Googled.



Please tell me I'm not the only one who remembers this show.

I was especially surprised to see that this is how Deirdre Hall got her start in TV.

Please tell me you know who Deirdre Hall is. Without Googling.

I think this is how midlife crises start... after a while, it becomes clear to you that no one knows who or what you're talking about anymore.

I can just imagine how my grandmother must feel.

The Struggle Is Real

All this time off from school and our regular activities is messing with my head. Today I turned on the news to see what day of the week it is.

OCD

Watching his first full episode of "Hoarders" has sent my husband into a frenzy. "What are these four batteries doing on the table??!?"

The Spirit of Christmas

"To speak truth, sir... you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection - one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure."
- Jane Eyre

Modern Marvels

I'm sitting in a booth eating baked potato soup at a Shari's in Portland.

And I'm blogging. It's so cool.

Family Portrait

I'm sorry to say that after we spent the time and money to go and have our portrait taken, this ended up being the best shot of the night.

And yet... not sorry.

The Bells

C and H enjoyed meeting the bell choir tonight. Sweet little faces!

The M Nativities

In December 2008, we visited our stake's annual Festival of Nativities.  While we were there, a picture was taken of my daughter Rosalind, dressed in a lamb costume and playing with a toy nativity set, by a Columbian newspaper photographer.  It was published in an article a few days later, along with Rosalind's name and our names.

Mr. Marvin M, an elderly gentleman we'd never met, read the article. He liked the idea and wanted to share his late wife's handmade nativity sets with our festival.   He got out his phone book and tried to call every person named in the article.  We were the only ones who happened to answer.

Mr. M introduced himself and explained his idea to me.  Impressed by his generosity, I wanted to make sure he understood.  "You know that this is just once a year, right?" I asked him.  "They don't go on permanent display anywhere - it's just this weekend.  And would you want them back afterward?"

"No, I want to donate them so they can be displayed at this festival," he said.  "And whoever will make sure they're displayed, can keep them."

Finally, in March 2009, we drove to his home in Battle Ground to pick them up.  I didn't expect much.  I figured we were helping a sweet generous old man who loved his wife and wanted someone to love her things after he was gone.  I had absolutely no idea what I was about to walk into - a professional ceramics studio.

Mr. M was very feeble, but kind and funny, and appreciated our coming to his studio. 

Then we saw the nativity sets.  I was immediately humbled.  They were incredible.

He wanted us to take as many sets as we could carry.  We ended up with three, including the award-winning pink one, still standing next to its prize - a statuette bearing the words "Best In Show, 1988". 

"Are you sure?" we asked him again and again.  He assured us he wanted us to take them.

We made sure to invite him to our next nativity festival, in December 2009. 

For the rest of the year I looked forward to December.  It was fun to think of seeing Mr. M again, to take him on a tour of the nativity festival.  I was sure he would love it, and I wanted him to see that we had kept our promise.

The Monday before the festival, I loaded the boxes in the car and drove them to the church.  Several members of my ward helped me unpack the pieces from the boxes.  It had been seven months since the first time I'd seen the sets - and then for only about ten minutes.  We were all amazed with the detailed work on each piece, and the obvious care and talent that had gone into making these sets.  It was exciting to have them there at the church, finally.

I tried to call Mr. M to remind him about the festival and invite him to come with us.  His phone was disconnected.

I called several people in that area of town with the same last name, asking about him.  They never called back.

Monday night, we drove back out to his house, which looked deserted.  We knocked several times, but everything was dark and it was apparent no one was there.  We left a flier on his door and hoped he'd get it, wherever he was.

Saturday morning, with two days left of the festival, we drove out to see if we could find someone at home... we did.  It wasn't good news.

Mr. M passed away on September 13, 2009, just months after we'd met him and he'd given us the Nativity sets.

I mentally kicked myself for not keeping in better touch with him - not that I could have done anything about his passing away, but at least I would have known before now.  I tried to console myself by thinking somewhere, maybe he and Nellie knew about our little festival, and maybe they could come see their nativities again together.

A week after the festival, a reporter from the Columbian called me.  They liked the story and wanted to feature it and the nativity sets in the paper.  A photographer came over and took wonderful pictures of the sets (hideous ones of me).

After the article appeared in the paper, the Ms' daughter Linda Jones called me and introduced herself. She had seen the article and wanted to come over and see the nativity sets and take pictures.  Having never met her, I wondered if there would be more to her agenda - her parents had made these nativities, after all.  "Whatever she wants, I'll just give her," I thought.

She didn't want to take any of them. "My dad gave them to you, and you should keep them," she said.  She just wanted to take pictures, and she wanted to come to the festival in 2010.  Linda had obviously inherited her father's generous spirit.

We kept in touch all year, and last night I was privileged to meet Linda, her husband Walt, and Mr. M's sweet friend Faith, and take them around the church building to see the Ms' work.

They were very kind and gracious, and fun to listen to, as they toured the main room.  Passing by certain nativities, they recognized and mentioned the names of the companies the ceramic molds had come from.  It was quite educational.  Overall they enjoyed the experience very much.  I was relieved that they were happy. 

They said they would tell their friends about it, and we made plans to meet again next year.  I hope it happens.

The end... maybe.  :)

I'm Blogging From My Car

I'm bugged that my phone ate my post.
Here are the key points:

*A guy in the car in front of me littered right before my very eyes!!! He threw a smoking cigarette butt out the window. EW

*I'm currently unenthralled by, and in fact, quite sick of, Facebook. Have you ever eaten so much of something you loved that you got sick of it and never wanted to touch it again and even now, years later, you still gag at the thought of it? That's how I'm starting to feel about Facebook (!!).

(It was melted cheese curds for me.)

*Geni.com, on the other hand, is currently floating my boat. It's like Facebook with genealogy. You can't really waste a lot of time there, either. I daresay - DARESAY - that Geni will be the methadone that relieves me of my Facebook habit.

*Brennan helped me "build" my first Sim yesterday, and I can't decide how to feel about the fact that it's pretty fun. I was hoping to get some feedback from you.

That's it for now. "Sorry I'm not better-looking."

I love you!

And I love this - rock musicians talking about their favorite rock music. Bono loves Bowie. I knew I liked him...

And I love my husband's kissing all my lipstick off before he left for work. Silly man, I try to be pretty for you - but why bother if you're just going to walk off to the bus stop wearing my "Drama Girl" on your mouth?

"Do nuns wear lipstick?" is my question (you would have to see my Facebook profile picture to understand). So far I'm still in the dark. Something tells me they don't, which is one of many reasons why I'm not a nun. I look like a white piece of paper without lipstick.

That is all :)

Thanksgiving 2010 Notes

Notes to myself for next year... feel free to mock