Pillow Talk

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“Honey, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes.”

“REALLY?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

He turns over. “Do we have to do this right now?”

“HONEY. I’m just saying - I really, REALLY love you. I really do.”

“You mean, as opposed to my fake love.”

“I know you love me, but I love you so much that sometimes I think my head might explode. I love you so much that if we weren’t already married I might stalk you. That’s the kind of love I’m talking about. Do you love me like that?”

(Long silence) “Hon, I’m really tired.”

“Clearly, our love is dead.”

“Go to sleep.”

“How can I sleep knowing you’re all cold and dead inside?”

“Try.”

“If I had a stroke, would you put me in a home?”

He fake snores.

I steal back some covers. “Fine. I'll leave you alone. But I can't believe you won’t even say those three little words before we go to sleep.”

“I ALREADY DID.”

“But you didn't really MEAN them."

“Here’s three words for you, and I really, really mean them: YOU’RE A DORK.”

“So romantic.”

“And yet, so true.”

I'm Still Alive...

Pin It I keep meaning to blog. Funny little things happen and I think about writing about them, but when I sit down to write, I just want to spill sadness all over my blog.

We're busy packing and organizing. I'm spending a lot of time doing what I've done ever since I was little to cope with stress (um, besides eating) - making list upon list upon list of things to do. I keep thinking that if I can get all of the things on the list done, everything will be o.k. The lists don't just contain the obvious things like turning utilities off and forwarding the mail, they contain things like "take pictures of the kids with their friends," "play outside as much as possible on Friday," and "make the last few days special" (something I'm just not sure how to do, in the middle of packing and organizing and cleaning).

Carter is extremely confused about the boxes and the whole concept of the move. I know he's going to be very upset once he realizes this is permanent. I packed a few of his teddy bears, ones that sit up on a high shelf in his room, and he became nearly hysterical, so I've decided to wait until the day before we move to pack up his things. The girls are apprehensive but also a little bit excited. We've promised to visit (a promise I'm taking extremely seriously) and I think that's helping them to feel better about the move.

I've been working very hard to keep a stiff upper lip, to look forward to the good stuff, to try to keep the kids excited and positive. I've tried to be glass half full about it. But last night after my husband and I crawled into bed after packing a few boxes, I just fell apart and cried and cried and cried.

I don't want to make them leave. The weather has been beautiful and they've been playing outside with their friends for hours and hours every afternoon and evening. My daughter and her friends made a "scrapbook" - really just a few blank pieces of paper stapled together. Inside they had written letters to each other about how much they love each other and swearing they will always be "best best best always friends." It breaks my heart a little more each time they get a little sad and write something new inside.

And my heart is selfishly breaking a little for myself as well. I love my friends here. The women I've met here are amazing. Smart, talented, accomplished, kind, friendly, compassionate. Women who are great examples. Women who have children who are great examples. I love this place. I love these people.

I know we'll be fine, once this last week is behind us and we are settled into the very nice new home we've leased, in a nice neighborhood around the corner from a park and a library and the school. When I see that the kids are settling in with friends and family I'll feel better, I know. My husband will start his dream job, and I'll be working entirely from home again - all good stuff. I'll get to be around family and old friends. We'll make new friends in our new neighborhood, and I'm sure in no time at all, we'll love it.

But right now, every night as I cross things off my list, my heart whispers over and over again, "I don't want to leave."

I don't want to leave.

My Husband is a Patient, Patient Man

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“Hon, I think I have narcolepsy.”

“You don’t have narcolepsy.”

“But it says right here on Wikipedia ---“

(muttering) “Oh freakin’ A. Here we go...”

“It says a person with narcolepsy is likely to become drowsy or to fall asleep, often at inappropriate times and places.“

“(silence due to excessive eye rolling)”

“Oh my gosh. That’s SO ME.”

“That’s so everybody. That’s called – being an adult with small children.”

“And it says daytime naps may occur without warning and may be physically irresistible... Holy crap. I TOTALLY HAVE NARCOLEPSY.”

“You don’t have narcolepsy.”

“But what do you call it when I fall asleep instantaneously after I lie down?”

“Really, really annoying.”

Chagrin

Pin It My husband and I have been talking about money a lot lately - what to pay, who to put off, whether or not power and water are really all that necessary - you know, all of the fun stuff you have to weigh when money gets really tight. It all got kind of overwhelming for a while and we forgot to watch what we were saying in front of the children.

The other night when we were driving home from the grocery store, Sarah asked if we could go to McDonalds. I said something dismissive about not having enough money. I meant that I didn’t have the cash on me, but didn’t think about how it would sound to her.

When we got home, Sarah came and sat down next to me. Her six year old eyes solemn, she said, “Here mom, now you don’t have to worry about money anymore,” and she handed me a plastic bag. Inside were crumpled dollar bills, the ten dollar bill she got from her grandparents for her birthday and assorted quarters and nickels and dimes and pennies.

I gave her a huge hug while I pulled myself together, and then we had a long, reassuring (I hope) talk. Afterward, I went into the hallway and smacked my head against the wall a few times, just to make sure the lesson was well and truly knocked into my head.

And it is. They teach me stuff every single day, ya know?

For Sale

Pin It We put our house back on the market. We figure we might as well give it one last ditch effort, now that it's spring and the Utah market is starting to actually do something.

Hey! Maybe one of you would like to buy it, do ya think? Yes? Yes?

No?

Oh. Well, I'll show it to you anyway, since any internet stalkers lurking out there won't be able to track us down anyway - what with the whole MOVING thing. (DANG it.)

It's a lovely 4700 square foot home on a quarter acre with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a lovely hickory and alder kitchen with a travertine backsplash, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances... (Don't I sound JUST like a real estate flyer? It would make sense, since I've been trying to sell this flippin' house for the last YEAR.) (Um, sorry, did that sound bitter? I didn't really mean it to sound bitter. I'm not bitter at all. No siree. Not me.) (Stop looking at me like that.)

The house comes with a really fun backyard with a playset and lots of built-in friends for your children. (See the last few posts if you have any questions about my feelings on that topic.)


The home has beautiful finish work and custom paint (paint the homeowner picked out herself, because she was under the impression she would be LIVING there for the rest of her life and - - - - OOPS, sorry, having a moment there).
So anyway... Nice room.

The family room adjoins the kitchen and has a lovely stacked stone fireplace and alder mantle. I love the fireplace SO MUCH. (ACK, excuse me while I choke on the bile in my throat. Ahem. Sorry, I'm better now.)


There's other cool stuff, like a big playroom with a built-in window seat and a spacious basement for all of your random stuff, but I'll spare you the pictures.

Sigh.

Honestly, it's just a house. A house is a house is a house. And as much as I don't really want to leave,

I'm praying REALLY HARD that it sells. Quickly. Super quickly. Miraculously quickly even. Like, before the bank comes calling. Selling it won't solve our problems, but it would be nice to not completely destroy the property values for the folks who are still gonna live here after we leave.

But if we DO have to give it to the bank instead of selling it, would I be completely out of line to dismantle the fireplace rock by rock and take it with me to Las Vegas, do ya think?

Yeah, I thought so.

Comment Requested

Pin It I want to make a comment box to hang around my neck and take to parties. And after I meet someone new, after we’ve talked and laughed and parted ways, I will request a comment.

If you think about it, a comment box would clear up so many things - Did they like me? Do they want to be friends? Did they think I was boring or dorky or dumb?

After they leave a comment for me, I could send one back to them, getting right to the point (not just dancing around it) - “Oh, me too,” “Yes, I’d love to be friends, I’m so glad you asked,” “I thought you were hilarious, it was so nice to meet you,” “What you said really touched me - I think you are wonderful.”

Then armed with the evidence of mutual good feelings, we'd skip the waiting period, move past the small talk and the pretend reason to call, and dive right into friendship.

I Call This Game Fun-In-A-Box

Pin It There are those days – days you play in the stream and build sandcastles and swing from trees – and then there are those other days. You know, those days where you sit in a box for three hours.

On Sunday morning my husband didn’t feel like going to church. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that I sort of impulsively sent the link to my blog to my friends in book club, (who are also in my church congregation) on the same day I posted about bankruptcy and foreclosure, and he is now convinced that everyone in the neighborhood KNOWS OUR SHAME). I didn’t feel like wrangling them by myself, so we had a lazy day at home.

Lazy Sundays are nice and relaxing, except when they are long and unending and boring because you are trapped in the house with three restless children and a husband who keeps understandably shooting you dirty looks and rolling his eyes and sighing audibly. I did not feel like entertaining the children, other than pulling out the playdough and occasional tickling, and they were as stir crazy and irritable as I was. We would normally go for a walk or something but we didn’t, because it was cold and snowy – “Too wet to go out, And too cold to play ball. So we sat in the house. We did nothing at all.”

The children eventually decided that if there was NOTHING ELSE TO DO, (groan, sigh, whine) then they might as well use their imaginations, so they descended upon the boxes, which they used to make a secret hideout and then torture the dog. They put him inside, closed the lid, and pushed it around the room for a while, occasionally turning it on its side. The dog would run out confused, like, “HEY, who put me in that box? Abby, did you know someone put me in a box? Huh? Huh? Didya? Didya? Here, let me lick your face for a minute.” And then she’d pick him up and put him right back in again, giggling madly. (You know, my hatred for the dog is well established, but really, I’ll give him this – he puts up with a lot of crap.)

After a bit they hit upon the idea of getting inside themselves, armed with markers. They sat in those boxes for a good three hours, coloring the insides, savoring having permission to actually USE MARKERS without any consequences or time out. Possibly they were a little bit high on marker fumes, but it was a risk I was willing to take, in exchange for the quiet. (Hey, I checked their pupils! They looked fine!)

My three year old wanted me to close the lid, and so I did. His sisters wanted me to close THEIR boxes. And so I did. They sat in those closed boxes for a while. It was great – very quiet and conducive to large amounts of parental internet surfing. I highly recommend packing your children.

This morning, again, they are in their boxes, coloring and behaving rather like civilized schoolchildren in some alternate box oriented universe, so I’m rethinking this whole – we need a three bedroom house thing. Right now I’m leaning toward one bedroom and three very large boxes.

What I Will Miss

Pin It In the winter, on sunny days, mothers look out the window with determination, and say, "Yes, definitely, go outside," and after a solid half an hour of prep time, finding snowboots and putting on mittens and zipping up jackets, their children head out to play. They build igloos and snow forts and run to the park to sled down the high slope by the baseball diamond. They make snowmen and snow angels until they are too cold to bear it any longer and then they rush into the house with red fingers and noses, to sit by the fire until they are cozy.


In the early spring, they come out, dressed in layers and mittens and gradually casting off clothing throughout the day as they slosh through the waterlogged grass. They dig in the muddy sandbox and poke through the melting piles of slush, discovering toys long hidden under the snow, mixing up magic potions of leaves and early flower buds, and hours later, coming inside with sunburned cheeks, sad because it's starting to snow.

A month later, the flowers start to appear, tulips and crocus and daffodils, and they can’t resist picking them, the first flowers they’ve seen in the yard in months, picking them and bringing them to their mothers. “For you, mom,” they say benevolently, and they wait for a hug and a kiss from a mother who is delighted by the gift (despite her chagrin over the rapidly dwindling supply of unpicked flowers). They play all day long on Saturday, packs of children, pretending to be the Boxcar children or magical fairies, or pirates ("Mom, tell her I don't have to walk the plank!"). They help in the yard, where we plant lavender and penstemon and daisies, and they look at me skeptically as we plant vegetables, not quite sure if they should believe me when I tell them this little pebble of a seed will one day be a cornstalk.

On Saturday, there is soccer, every field and park in town full to the brim with children and their families, children who aren't quite sure if they are running toward the right goal, who lose concentration when they get the ball as they glance up to make sure their parents are watching. On Sunday after church, families are out together, on walks and bike rides around the neighborhood, parents stopping every few feet to talk to people they’ve barely seen all winter as the children urge them forward ("Come ON Dad").

In summer, mothers send their children into the backyard ("Go on, go out and play") and the kids find each other, congregating and planning the morning's mischief as mothers sneak off to check their email, to make a phone call, to read a newspaper, to do the dishes. They play all morning, running through sprinklers and wading pools, discovering neighborhood pets, building dams in the stream at the park, fading over to the shade of porch swings by noon, and disappearing into the house during the hottest part of the day.


They creep back out again in the late afternoon, riding bikes and scooters and trying out skates, knocking on doors to remind their friends that it's time to come outside again. They find a zucchini in the garden and then an onion or maybe a green bean, and vegetables have never been so exciting before. In the evening it’s beautiful out, and we turn on the flood lights, not yet ready for the kids to come in, not quite ready to go in ourselves. The adults congregate in little clumps, talking and gossiping and laughing while the kids race around, squeezing in a few more minutes, a few more minutes ("Hurry before we have to go inside"). I look around at my friends, at my family and stand there thinking, I will always remember this.

In late autumn we pick pumpkins and put the garden to bed and get things ready for winter. We savor the last few warm days before winter comes and spend more time than usual outside, soaking it up, letting them play, letting them enjoy each other’s company. Little arrangements appear on front porches, hay bales and pumpkins and autumn flowers and baskets of apples. We visit pumpkin patches and go on hay rides and run through corn mazes. We plan costumes and on Halloween night, we go around the block and down the street, collecting candy at every door, (except the scary ones with haunted houses, because my kids aren’t quite that brave, at least not quite yet). We hand out eight bags of candy and have to shut off the lights at eight-thirty, because my husband is NOT going back to the store.

The first snow falls, and we are happy, because we made it to November with no snow, and maybe it will be a mild winter, after all (high hopes, quickly dashed). Cabin fever has not yet struck, so we enjoy looking out the window at the huge snowflakes as they come falling softly down, and we drink hot chocolate and put on Christmas music, even though it’s really far too early. We drag out snow boots and mittens and snow pants and a few minutes later, the thin layer of snow in the yard has been obliterated by overly enthusiastic children, who are ready, once again, to make snow angels.

And in Las Vegas, there won't be this, not all of this, but there will be shorts in February and swimming in October and eggs to fry on a piece of tinfoil on the sidewalk in August and it will be different, but it will still be fine - it will be just fine (at least this is what I remind myself when I'm feeling maudlin). Because as it turns out, forts work just as well when you make them with cardboard boxes, popsicles taste even better when it's 114 out, and you can still make perfectly good snow angels in a sandbox.

Life will still be sweet, because there is always sweetness to be found when you look for it, but I will always remember this part of our lives, when we lived for a time in a Norman Rockwell painting.

In Which We Discuss Things That REALLY SUCK because that other stuff? NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

Pin It (Alternate Title: Tell Me To Look On The Bright Side And I Will Hunt You Down and Kill You, So Help Me...)

Um... Hello! Greetings! Contrary to popular belief, I have not actually succumbed to the runs. I'm alive, but have been resisting the urge to post any of my drafts, which have very melodramatic and self pitying titles, such as:

• WOE IS ME


• A DETAILED LITANY OF EXACTLY HOW MUCH OUR LIFE SUCKS RIGHT NOW


• SERIOUSLY, WOE IS ME


• HEY, MAN UPSTAIRS - ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS?


• WHAT A WORLD, WHAT A WORLD (I'M MELTING, I'M MELTING)

I thought I would spare you until I was able to get some perspective.
What's that? You want to know what's been going on with us? It's so nice that you asked, because I'm feeling in the mood for a rather large vent. (WARNING: EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF PERSONAL INFORMATION AHEAD, AVERT EYES IF SQUEAMISH.)

If you've been reading for a while, you might know that we had a business. A business we were pretty sure was going to do well. Oh. Hold on. Excuse me for a moment.

(bitter laughter) ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (/bitter laughter)

Sorry, where was I? Oh - right, the business. It didn't work out (UNDERSTATEMENT) and we've been scrambling a bit (MASSIVE UNDERSTATEMENT) to get things back on track, with very little success (SPECTACULAR UNDERSTATEMENT) in spite of our best efforts.

The weekend before last, we went to Las Vegas to look for a house to rent. We're moving back there - leaving the little town we love and going back to the horrifying hell hole (UNDERSTATEMENT) we grew up in. My husband has a good job waiting for him there, I can keep my job and work from home in Vegas, and it just made sense in a whole bunch of very boring ways. We made the decision together and agree it's the best thing to do, but it still feels like a failure - leaving a place we love, a neighborhood we love, and returning to a place we both despise. Ugh.

Anyway, we spent the weekend looking at rental houses and eventually found one that did not make us want to impale ourselves on sharp sticks. The kids all got sick, making the trip home very suspenseful and interesting: Who would barf next? Would they barf into a bag, or share with their siblings? And how many times do you think you can you barf in a car before EVERYBODY gets sick? (Answer: Approximately four) Those were super fun car games. The trip home just flew by.

But the best part of the whole trip? Happened right after we got home.

We pulled into our driveway. My husband parked the car in the garage and went out front. I started helping the children out.

He came back and looked at me grimly. "The car's gone."

I looked at him blankly. "Gone? Somebody stole it?"

He gave me a wry smile. "No."

I didn't understand. "Then where is it?"

"I'm guessing probably at a repo yard somewhere."

They repossessed it.

On Sunday.

Which also happened to be my birthday.

BEST.

BIRTHDAY.

EVER.

So, uh, we've been adjusting to life with one car while we negotiate with the bank to get it back. (Magic 8 Ball Says: Outlook Hazy, Ask Again Later)

We filled out some credit counseling stuff the other day in preparation for (HOLD ON, IT GETS BETTER....... WAIT FOR IT...........) our bankruptcy, and part of it involved entering your debts and expenses and income into an online calculator. After you enter all of the information, a little automated person tells you how much money you have left over after paying your bills each month.

My husband and I sat there and cracked up for, oh, gosh, probably an hour, making the little robot voice repeat over and over again, "MRS. SMITH, AFTER PAYING YOUR BILLS YOU WILL HAVE NEGATIVE $9,050.00 THIS MONTH." He was just so chipper and happy to let us know about our negative cash flow. There was nothing to do but sit on the floor and laugh.

We're doing pretty well, in spite of it all. Husband and I are in this together, deeply, and we've managed to (mostly) avoid sniping at each other and fighting. And we have our sense of humor. And we have our kids. And nobody has cancer. Yet. (PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THAT AS AN INVITATION, LORD.) Things will be better in a few months when we're back on our feet.

The hardest part of all of this is dealing with the blow to my pride. I'm not worried about what my family thinks. I barely know most of my extended family (with a few notable bloggy exceptions) and don't really care about their opinions of me. And in my immediate family - well, bankruptcy and foreclosure - pretty small flashes in the pan quite frankly. To get a bad rep in my family you practically have to rob a bank or marry a cousin or something. Anything else is just another day at the office.

It's letting other people know that makes my stomach churn a little. Neighbors and friends. I'm going to be incredibly embarrassed about the Bank Owned sign swinging in front of our house after we leave. I don't want them thinking we're those people - people who I (JUDGMENTAL) picture relaxing on the couch and eating twinkies while watching the home shopping network and buying Marie Osmond dolls at 2:00 in the morning, until they max out their credit cards and declare their third bankruptcy.

We aren't people who get cars repossessed, or behind on their mortgage or late on their bills. We're resourceful and hard working and smart. We're responsible. We're successfullish. We're from hard working pioneer stock, gosh dang it.

But I guess most people who go through this kind of stuff aren't those people either. They're just - human. And so are we. Human and having a very crappy time of it. (This has been another episode of Very Obvious Life Lessons brought to you by Sue Smith, thank you so much for joining us.)

We'll be okay. We really will be fine, so don't feel sorry for us.

(Unless your particular form of feeling sorry for me involves bringing me baked goods or sending me chocolate. Or money. Yes, feel quite free to send me lots and lots and lots of money.)

(I'll just wait over here by the mailbox.)

I know it will all be o.k. I just never wanted to be a flippin' cautionary tale.
Losing our house to foreclosure, saving our house from foreclosure

Things That Suck, Part II

Pin It Having the runs.

Having the runs at work.

Having the runs on the way to work.

Having the runs on the way to work and having to stop at three gas stations before you get to work.

Having the runs on the way to work and having to stop at three gas stations before you get to work, and then not being able to find another bathroom when you really, really need one.

Having the runs on the way to work and and having to stop at three gas stations before you get to work, and then not being able to find another bathroom when you really, really need one, and then finding one, and almost but not quite making it to the bathroom.

You know how I said yesterday sucked?

I was wrong. As it turns out, any day that you do not lightly poop yourself on the way to work? Really not that bad of a day.

This is gonna be a long morning, I'm thinking.

Things That Suck

Pin It Having a co-worker who feels the need to one-up. About EVERYTHING. (You had 16 inches of snow yesterday? She had 16 and a half. You once had a kidney stone? She had twelve.)

Sitting in a cubicle. Seriously. Kill me. KILL ME. Give me a window or kill me.

Listening to people you barely know talk at length about intestinal blockage.

Waiting in line to use a microwave.

Sitting through what was supposed to be a two hour meeting (the whole reason you came into the office in the first place) as it is continually sidetracked, sidetracked, sidetracked.

Trying not to roll your eyes when people stir up drama over totally inconsequential things. I don't care who got a new chair. My chair is fine. Your chair is fine. SHUT UP so that we can end this freaking meeting.

Trying not to scream as the planning meeting degenerates into a fairly intense discussion about strategies for developing good support teams in order to improve your World of Warcraft score.

Having a 20 minute drive take 45 minutes because you apparently are passing through four separate weather zones on the way home - foggy, sunny, blizzarding, sunny.

Back at home, walking in and finding out your little son is not feeling well, and is sleeping on the couch and warm to the touch.

Having your daughter cry because she missed you. Having that same daughter make a card for her little brother because he isn't feeling well. When he finally wakes up from his nap, he tells her he doesn't want it (because he's irritable and sick). Her feelings are hurt and she cries big heartbroken tears.

Letting your other daughter go out to play in the snow in the backyard, hearing screaming a few minutes later, finding that her boot is stuck in a deep drift. She has been crying for five minutes, and you didn't hear her because you were trying to wake up your son. She's sobbing and hysterical and asking why you didn't come to help her sooner.

Some days, all you can do is hold them, while you all sit and cry together.

Here's hoping tomorrow sucks just a little less.

Quirky? Who, Me?

Pin It Veronica has tagged me for Six Quirky Things About Myself.  Veronica's husband actually came up with the list of things that were quirky about her, which sounded like a terrific idea. Not only would I get a blog post out of it - I wouldn't even have to WRITE the thing. So I asked my husband what was quirky about me.

"I don't know," he said.

"You can't think of anything odd about me?" I asked him incredulously. "Seriously? You don't think I'm a little weird?"

"Oh, no, you're plenty weird," he said. "I just can't think of anything specific."

Oh.

Ok then. I'm so glad we cleared that up.

ANYWAY. Here is my list of six quirky things, NO THANKS TO MY HUSBAND:

1. I am quite sure I'm going to die before I'm 60, probably of cancer, or in an incredibly tragic traffic accident or a horrifying plane crash or something. Everytime I fly, I am sure it's going down. I start obsessing over it several days in advance, and by the time I board the plane I've usually convinced myself that my fears are actually the Holy Spirit warning me that the plane is going to go down with me in it, so I write a letter to my kids before I get on the plane and leave it somewhere easy to find, because I want them to have something to remember me by. The plane is always perfectly safe, and even though my husband teases me and says dramatically, "You're ALIVE, you're ALIVE," I know, deep inside, that it was a close call, and that NEXT time, it's for sure going to crash. Probably. (Did you know I was in a plane that was struck by lightning once? We landed safely, but it FREAKED. ME. OUT.)

2. I think that if I don't die in an incredibly scary, dramatic fashion, I am probably going to die in a very embarrassing, mortifying way - like having a stroke when I'm naked in the tub. Or even worse, maybe I'll have a stroke when I'm pooping or something, and then they'll come in to find me dead but naked, and they'll have to try to move me off the toilet, and it will be gross, and my husband's last memory of me will be all - nasty.

3. I drive like a grandma. I'm the one in the right hand lane on the freeway going 59. I am no longer fazed by people who flip me off. I used to be a bad-ass in the car, and then we moved to a little town where the speed limit on every road is 25 and I rarely went more than 5 miles from home. Traveling on an actual freeway, in actual big girl traffic, is insanely terrifying. The cars are all going so fast, and all that's keeping us from slamming into each other is the tiny little white dotted lines, which, strangely, don't really make me feel all that safe. And of course, I usually don't think to write my children a goodbye letter before I get on the freeway, so I have to drive extra slowly so that I don't die on this particular trip, because if I do they will NEVER KNOW their mother loved them. Tragical.

4. If I lie down, I am asleep within seconds, literally. It drives my husband nuts. It doesn't matter if I'm tired or not, if you put me in a horizontal position I'm out of it within seconds. (Er, except when we're being romantic. Mostly.) I'll be in the middle of a conversation with my husband and a minute later I'm snoring. He always knows when I'm falling asleep because I do that little jumpy thing. (Do you know what I mean? You know how babies startle and jump when they are falling asleep? I still do that.)

5. If my husband looks at me a certain way, with a certain loving look in his eye, I cannot sustain eye contact and I usually giggle, and then he laughs at me. We've been married for 12 years, I should be over it by now, shouldn't I?

6. When I'm at home by myself, I like to tell myself stories I've made up and will actually sort of act them out. I'll walk around the house talking to myself dramatically as I'm cleaning, playing the different parts. I'll get so wrapped up in what I'm telling myself that I'll be disappointed when people come home because they are interrupting my story. I do the same thing in the car by myself. It's endlessly entertaining. Sometimes I drive around the block an extra time, so that I can finish the "chapter." Sometimes I make myself cry. Sometimes I'll get mad at my husband in my imaginary story, and it will carry over into real life. I can't help being irritated with him, and he'll say, "What?!" and I just say nothing, because I can't very well tell him the truth. He'd think I was crazy or something.

I'm tagging Karen, Heidi, Blackbird, Amy, and Hollywood. Unless they don't want to be tagged. Then I take it back. (How embarrassing.)

It's Official...

Pin It

...I'm losing it. Either it's a sign of the impending apocolypse or the women at work are REALLY rubbing off on me, because - LOOK! A movie about my dog.

Maybe I'm still delirious from my close call (hardy har har), but I think I feel something ALMOST, SORT OF, NOT QUITE BUT ALMOST like affection for the horrible animal today. I'm gonna go lie down until it passes.

They Are So Going To Take Away My Chick Card

Pin It So... Shoes. I’m afraid I don’t understand the whole shoe thing. I know that a lot of women love shoes, buy lots of them, covet more of them, and - I really don’t get it. They’re JUST SHOES. They cover your feet. You step on them. They protect your feet from snow and dog poop and dirt and pokey things. I’ve tried really hard to understand (and yet I still really don’t understand) what makes one pair of shoes cute and another ugly.

I don't get purses either, for that matter. My family had a white elephant gift exchange on Christmas Eve. You could contribute a joke item or a nice item, as long as it was under the price limit. The item I opened was a purse. I opened it and stared at it, because I had no idea if it was supposed to be a cute purse or a joke purse. I didn’t know how to react. Should I laugh? Should I be happy? So I looked around at the other girls in the circle who all made encouraging faces at me and said, “Oh – SO CUTE!” and then I pretended like I understood and enthusiastically said, “Yes, very cute, very cute.” I traded it a minute later for two photo albums and an iTunes gift certificate.

But I need new shoes. I really do. The dog chewed up my one pair of appropriate for winter church shoes and next week it's either fuzzy slippers or tennis shoes if I don't do something soon. Specifically, I would like boots. Looking around at church on Sunday I realized that 95% of the women in the room were wearing boots. And I thought - this is like a post-Christmas miracle, a sign from God that, yes indeed, boots were the way to go. He hath allowed mine eyes to temporarily discern shoe related fashion trends, and I have no choice but to take heed.

I don’t have any boots, unless you count short boots you wear under jeans, and my friend Liza recently told me that not only shouldn’t I count them, but really, I should burn them and never buy another pair ever, ever, ever again. And I’m thinking, "O.k., if ankle boots are ugly, why do they sell them?" Is there a crafty shoe designer out there saying, “Ha ha ha ha ha, I know these are butt ugly, but some loser will see them and buy them, and then everyone else will point and laugh. That’ll be awesome.” Why are they trying to trick me into looking dumb?

And I don’t even know, maybe Liza is wrong and they really ARE cute. I mean, who decides what makes it cute? Four teenagers named Chelsea at Hot Topic who quickly spread the word amongst their fashionista friends? And what if they're just messing with us? How can we know for sure that the shoes are cute and we haven't just all been suckered? HOW CAN WE KNOW? For example, look at these Balenciaga DESIGNER shoes! JUST LOOK AT THEM! What in the -


I would buy my shoes at Nordstroms, where the clerks tend to help you out and let you know what looks nice and what looks stupid, but I’m way too intimidated by the shoe department there. Back when we had actual money (oh, money, how I miss you) I would buy clothes there but could never bring myself to buy shoes. The shoe people frightened me. I was too scared to do much more than very quickly walk by the displays, sometimes twice but at full speed, not making eye contact with anyone. "Who, me, buy shoes? Oh, no, I'm much too busy walking around here, no, don't look at me, don't look at me, DON'T LOOK AT ME - Ayeeeee!!!" So I won't be shopping there. Plus I'm broke. DANG it.

That brings me to my other criteria… I need them to be, and this is key, cheap. I’m thinking I would gladly pay approximately two dollars.

No, I’m kidding. I would gladly pay three dollars.

O.k., FINE. I’ll pay more than that. But, when I’m talking about cheap, I just want you to understand the level of cheapness I’m talking about. Cheap. Cheap but cute. And quite obviously, I will need help figuring out what is cute, and what is not cute, and what is crossing the line into tacky, and what will make me look like I just came from a rodeo.

So – help me?

Please?

P.S. I have ginormous calves. GINORMOUS.

P.P.S. (You guys, thank you so much for all of the nice comments on the last post. They really made my day. I was waiting for everyone to call me nuts, and instead you are all just - awesome and real. And I would answer back to every comment saying, thank you, thank you, but that would get really boring for you to read. But thank you. I really do read and LOVE every comment to pieces. Ahem.)

The Life Cycle of a Blog

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• Get a blog – lie and say you are just doing it to keep in touch with people
• Write a few self conscious posts. Get no comments.
• Post all the time! Sometimes multiple times per day! You have so much to say! All the time! Wheeee!
• Comment other places. Get a few comments back.
• Become addicted to comments.
• Compulsively check comments. When comments are low, let it affect your mood that day.
• Install site analytics/tracking.
• Wonder why Blogger Y is looking at your blog for 12 hours straight. Figure out Blogger Y probably clicked on your blog and then went to sleep.
• Wonder why a certain IP address is looking at your blog 20 times a day. Get freaked out. Realize it's you.*
• Check out other blogs. Wonder why they have awards and you don’t.
• What’s a meme?
• Watch traffic go up. Pretend you don’t care.
• Watch traffic go down. Pout.
• Get awards. Give away awards. Get more awards. Give away awards. Start to be very, very afraid of awards. Write post mocking awards. Never get another award. Sulk.
• Give your blog a makeover (Obviously, I skipped this step ;>)
• Put up ads.
• Have a couple of well received posts. Become self conscious about posting afterwards because you cannot measure up to yourself.
• Guest post places. Suck at it because when you guest post you are supposed to have an actual point and you, my dear, do not have one.
• Get writer’s block. You have nothing to say. Nothing at all. You SUCK.
• Decide to stop worrying about what people think and just - write stuff
• Watch traffic go down, down, down. Wheeeeee!
• Realize you will never be Dooce and become o.k. with that.
• Discover that even when people don't comment, life still has meaning.
• Stop being a total blogging freak and get a little perspective for Christmas
• Stop checking site analytics because you've realized it makes you crazy(er.)
• Achieve blog zen - blog because you want to, not because you have to

Don't pretend you don't do some of this stuff. Maybe not all of it, but some of it? Right?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Just me then?

Okie-dokie.

P.S. *Nicki, you know I'm lookin' at YOU. Hee. That still cracks me up.

Love of My Life

Pin It A few weeks before Christmas break, it was my daughter's turn to have her Student Spotlight. We showed the kids in her class the pictures on the poster we'd made, and read her favorite book, and then it was time for the children to ask her questions.

A little boy raised his hand and my daughter called on him.

He smiled up at her. "Who is your favorite boyfriend at this school?"

"Dillon," the teacher said in a warning tone. "You can't ask that kind of question."

He glared at her. "Fine."

He looked at Sarah again. "Who is your favorite boyfriend in this CLASS?"

She responded, "I can't have a boyfriend until I'm 16."

Score one for brainwashing.

Since then I've heard all about which boys want her to come play with them, which boys want her to be their girlfriend, which boys protect her from the other boys that want to kiss her. She is in FIRST GRADE. This cannot be normal. Is it?

Last night, in spite of the excessive amount of romance that seems to be percolating in her brain, we took them to see Enchanted. I don't know what was better - the movie, or watching my daughters watch the movie. They were enthralled. Sarah was so overcome by the romance of it all that she kept kicking her feet and squealing and covering her face. Like her mother.

Tonight after we downloaded some of the soundtrack songs and danced around the living room, she told me that Ian, a boy in her class, is the "love of her life." And then she sang along to True Love's Kiss, giggling.

Help.

P.S. I'm guest posting over at Segullah today, if you'd like to read about my first kiss.

The Christmas Letter

Pin It (I posted this and then somehow, de-posted it when I went to edit it. Sorry for the confusion. I'm a moron.)

I never got around to sending out Christmas cards this year, but I did write a letter. I dobt I will actually mail it, but I figure I'll post it in all it's cliched glory...

Dear Random Family Member and/or Friend Who Happens To Get This Card (Because We Love You And Stuff But Are Too Lazy To Individually Address This Many Letters),

It’s the post holiday wrap-up here at Chez Smith. I'm hoping to get this in the mail prior to Christmas, and if so, Merry Christmas! If not, Happy New Year. But if things go as rather I expect they will - Happy Valentines Day!

What have the children been up to? I’m so glad you asked. Sarah was recently accepted into MENSA and danced Clara in the Nutcracker. The reviews were amazing, and she has been invited to dance with Ballet West on a continuing basis. Our little Abby keeps busy winning championship snowboarding competitions for her age bracket and is involved in a variety of humanitarian service projects, including helping to fetch and carry bricks and mortar for Habitat for Humanity. Sweet little Carter was picked to be the youngest Oliver in the history of the two hundred year old Alpine Playhouse, and we are so proud of his tremendous musical talent. We've been taking phone calls from agents who would like to represent him.

No, I’m totally lying. I just figured stretching the truth is what people typically do in Christmas letters, might as well make them really GOOD lies, right?

But they ARE great kids. Sarah is six and in the first grade and is our tender hearted little girl, a tremendous reader, and the kindest soul you'll ever meet. Abby is five, and is social and imaginative and fun, and also a little bossy. (I have no idea where she gets the bossy from. Probably her dad.) Carter is three, and is not afraid to bat his long eyelashes to get what he wants. He's very loving and affectionate (thank goodness for his mom, who is a little sad that he’s the last baby we can have). Not that I’m allowed to call him a baby. Because as he reminds me daily, he is NOT a baby, he’s a BIG kid. HUGE. All in all, we think they’re pretty awesome. Smarter than the average bear, cute enough to get away with a lot of stuff, and good enough not to try it all that often.

Not having our stuff together, that was sort of our family theme this year. Our business crashed and burned and we have been circling the wreckage for a while now, but are trying to shake it off. Husband will (if things go well) be starting with the Sheriff’s Department in February, and is currently working as a Foster Care Case Manager. He started running a while back and says he loves it. I am somewhat skeptical. How could anyone love to RUN? Running is good for escaping wild animals and catching naked toddlers, but for fun? Doubtful. It is strange to have him back at work after working with him from home for so long. I really miss having him around.

I’m working for a high-tech company in SLC as a technical writer, mostly from home. I also have a variety of freelance clients who use me for everything from developing weekly eZines and writing web content, to preparing technical bid responses for the government. I started a blog a few months ago, and it's been a really fun way to express myself and meet a lot of other amazing women who like to write. I recently put ads up on it and I’m hoping that eventually, I’ll have enough ad revenue to buy a Slurpee. One can dream.

We hope you had a great Christmas. Ours will be small, but wonderful, because we get to spend it with friends and family. And ya know - the toys will probably be broken in three weeks, but the memories, they’ll last forever. Sniff.

With love...

How You Know You Have a Little Problem Called PMS

Pin It (Warning, squeamish men might want to leave the room, because at some point I'm gonna say the word PERIOD. Oops, see, I just did it.)

Christmas Eve:
4:00: At brother and sister-in-law's house, go back and forth between laughing and being incredibly negative, at rapid speed. It's good to keep people off guard.

6:15: Relentlessly correct everything your husband says. When he privately expresses irritation, get all teary eyed, because how could he be so MEAN? Demand that he forgive you, or Christmas is RUINED.

8:00: Realize you brought a dumb white elephant gift. Burst into tears and leave the room. When people ask why you are crying, tell them you don't know, that you just feel pathetic.

8:15: Realize you only brought a couples gift and not separate white elephant gifts for you and your husband. Burst into tears. Again.

9:30: Someone says something nice. Start crying because people are JUST SO NICE.

10:35: Sister does something amazingly nice for you. Sob.

And again.

And again.

Christmas Morning and Afternoon:
Apparently, you are given a respite for Christmas morning that allows you to behave in a fairly normal way. Hallelujah, it's a Christmas miracle. Ponder previous day's teariness, wonder why you were falling apart... You are not usually such a huge cry-baby. What is WRONG with you? Ponder, ponder, ponder - see chips and dip, lose train of thought.

Christmas Night:
7:00: Fly home because you have to be at work in the morning, and husband and kids don't need to be back till Friday. Say goodbye to husband and kids. Cry.

10:00: Land. Find car in long-term parking, covered in ice and snow. You forgot to put windshield ice scraper in the car. In between using an old gardening glove to try to get the ice off the windshield, cry and shake fist at the sky.

11:00: Realize on the way home that the gas light is on and you are below empty. Realize you have entered some type of twilight zone land with no convenience stores anywhere near the highway. Panic. Weep. Locate 7-11. Calm down again. Put gas in car.

11:15: Get on freeway. Try to relax. Take wrong turn, end up in West Valley. Get back on freeway. Swear a lot. Call husband. Ask him to help. Get upset when he reminds you he is 400 miles away. Fail to make the connection. What does that have to do with anything? Why can't he do something to help? WHY? WHY?!!!

11:30: Get off the freeway and onto icy surface streets. Slide around a lot in little car while screaming and cursing. Drive approximately 15 mph toward a stop sign, start skidding anyway. Narrowly avoid accident.

11:40: Very slowly, very cautiously drive into neighborhood. Very slowly start to turn into snowy driveway. Before your front tires even get over the curb, get stuck. Try to go backward. Nope. try to go forward. Nope. Call husband. Tell him you love him, you worship him, and that you will never be separated from him again, ever, ever, EVER. Because you need his snow moving capacity.

11:45: Change into snow boots and parka. Shovel snow. Shovel some more. Shovel again. Try to drive car. Still stuck. Try to push car. Still stuck. Cry. Bang head against car. Fall down in snow. Cry some more, and for added drama, pound the snow with your fist. Curse the heavens.

12:05: Decide to just leave the car there in the street and deal with it in the morning before work. Car is sticking out into the street and will probably get hit, but you do not care. If the car gets hit it was obviously the will of God. Go into the house and change.

12:10: Phone rings. It is your neighbors, your lovely, lovely neighbors, who have noticed that your car is stuck in the road. They are coming to help dig you out. Meet them outside. Shower gratitude on them. In three minutes, the car is in the garage. Weep. Hug them. Weep some more. (Seriously though, how AWESOME are my neighbors? Love them. FLOVE them. SO MUCH FLOVE.)

Morning of the 26th:
8:05: Open the garage to shovel driveway before you go to work. Notice neighbors kids have shoveled driveway and sidewalk. Cry.

Hear Carrie Underwood song. Cry all the way to work.

At work: Get period. Realize the period may be related to weepiness. Cry, because for several years, when you were having kids and nursing, the period was a non-entity - no crazy hormones, no intense pain, nada. Realize that, apparently, both the whacked out PMS hormones (and you thought you just had gotten emotionally MATURE - ha!) and the intense, fever inducing pain are back. Cry.

So... yeah.

I think I may be dehydrated. Excuse me. (Sniffle.)

Deep Thoughts

Pin It So, uh, I now work in the IT department of a mid-sizish company. We have our own little wing. The dress code is very, very casual. Today I was wearing a white t-shirt with a red sweater, nice dark blue jeans and boots and I felt so freaking overdressed it is not even funny. The guy in the cubicle across the way was wearing jeans that were missing the middle part. I could see all of both of his knees. And not in the fashion statementy way. Just in the - I've had these jeans for a really long time and now they are falling apart and soon I will be nude kind of way. The boss laughed at him, but didn't ask him to change or anything, just sort of shook his head in that, "Oh, you're such a character," type of way.

Anyway. I'm feeling very fashionable. (My friends and family just keeled over laughing, I'm sure.) This is quite good for my ego. It's almost as good as going to the fair. I always feel so slim and classy at the fair, don't you?

Workin' for the MAN

Pin It So... I just started a new technical writing job. A JOB. That's right, after years of working for myself, I've been forced to pack it in and join all of the other miserable drudges on the roadways. (The freeway is seriously FREAKING ME OUT. I used to be a maniac on the road, but for the last three years I've mostly just driven on tiny little 25 mph backroads and now, I swear, my life is flashing before my eyes everytime I drive into the office. Serious anxiety. I'm thinking I need to design a jet pack, Gilligan style. It would probably be safer than Utah freeways.)

From what I understand, the first week or so, I will have to actually get dressed and come in to an actual office, with other worker type people. After that, I've been told I can work from home and work the hours I want, and all of that good stuff. So it will hopefully be a lot like working for myself, but with benefits, and retirement type stuff and a guaranteed paycheck. (That last part is actually sort of important, as it turns out.) It's a great opportunity and I'm excited about it, but nervous.

I spent most of the day sitting around and smiling nervously when people talked to me because hoooooo boy, I'm so not used to having people around when I'm working. And people were talking ALL DAY LONG. It is FREAKY. I usually have to get in my mental writing zone and instead of having relative quiet, all around me I'm hearing, "Man, this server is SOOWEEEEEEET!!" and "I am NOT going up in the ceiling to pull cable," and "No, House is not grumpy, he's manic." It'll take some getting used to.

And guess what?! Did you know, apparently, in an office, they frown on the whole - blogging thing? (Who knew?) I will have to readjust my blogging schedule. I can't stay up all night long either because - I have to get up and get dressed in the morning now. It's all very bizarre. But nice. Nice and bizarre. Bizarre and nice. Cross your fingers for me.

The Birthday Party: A Parable

Pin It 1 And on the 17th day of the twelfth month it came to pass that the daughter of the Queen turned five years old.

2 And behold, it was decreed that a festival should be held and that children should come to pay homage to the young princess.

3 And when the Queen beheld the large number of children in the land, and heard their cries, and saw their eagerness to attend the festival, she knew that she could not invite one save she invite all.

4 And behold, the Queen prophesied that a great number of children would be out of town, and so it came to pass that the Queen did invite a large number of children,yay, even five and twenty children, to the royal festival.

5 And lo, the royal treasury was bare, and so the Queen did visit the market of one hundred cents and did purchase all manner of goods for the royal festival, and behold, when she laid them before the King, he declared that they were good.

6 And behold, the Queen had prophesied incorrectly, and on the day of the royal festival a great number of children appeared, yay, even all children appeared, save only one, and they arrived bearing gifts and tidings of great joy.

7 And there was much decorating of baked goods, and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the Queen had only one can of purple sprinkles, and there was no yellow frosting, and behold, this did make the children with baked cookies in star shapes exceedingly angry, and the Queen was afraid, for the noise which the children maketh, it did cause her to tremble and quake.

8 And behold their wrath was mighty and the Queen bowed down before them and did work to entice them, yay even to distract them with games and dance and merry making.

9 And behold, the royal dog was freakingeth out, and the Queen did place him in the royal garage, so that he might not pee himself, for so great was his anxiety because of the children.

10 And after much merry making, behold, the Queen looked at her devils food cake, and looked at the King, and cried, woe unto me, for this cake shall not feed such a great number, and thou must travel to the market, and purchase more cake to feed these children who have come to pay homage.

11 But lo, the King said, Nay, oh ye of little faith, fear not, for this cake shall be enough.

12 And the woman despaired, but she began to cut the cake.

13 And lo, there was much rejoicing in the land, for as it turnethed out, there was enough cake, and there were even some children in the land who did not like cake, but who desired only ice cream, and so the cake was enough to feed many children, even five and twenty children, and the news of this great miracle spread throughout the land.

14 And the King said, Woman, I have been called out of town, and must go. Peace be unto you.

15 And the woman wept because there were a large number of children still present, yay, even five and twenty children and the woman cried, oh, surely I am a cursed woman among all women.

16 And behold, the children brought many gifts, and they brought them forward, in a great swarming mass of gift giving, even an obscene amount of gift giving, and behold, the children would not sit down and give heed to the princess, for they were making merry.

17 And behold great was the wrath of the princess when the children would not give her heed.

18 And the princess did endeavor to make the children listen to her, else she would scream and cry out to the people to leave the land.

19 But behold the Queen did show them mercy, and did exile the Princess to her room, until she could get a grip.

20 And behold, after five minutes, the Princess did return, and she did make amends to her people, and brought them good tidings of great joy.

21 And she did bestow upon them gift bags of assorted colors, and the children screamed with joy.

22 For the candy, it was good.

23 And soon, the mothers of the children did return to the land, and they did say unto the Queen, Behold, you are indeed a mighty and brave Queen, for when we droppethed them off, never had we beheld so many children at festival, and our fear was great, and much did we doubt thee.

24 But you are indeed a true and wise Queen and we shall not doubt thee again

25 And the children left, yay, even all five and twenty children, and the young princess and her cohorts were banished to their rooms, but with many amusements, and the Queen did fall onto the couch and did slumber for half an hour, until she was woken by the Princess, who did come bearing thanks and praise, for she hath enjoyed the royal festival exceedingly

26 And behold, how great was her joy.

27 And behold the Queen was joyful also, for she did love the young Princess exceedingly.

28 And behold, the royal festival was ended, at least for the space of a year.

29 And lo, I say unto you, if ye shall learn a lesson from reading this tale, then take heed, and do not invite a large number of children to the winter festival; yay, only invite a small number of children, lest ye suffer the consequences, even like unto the Queen.

30 And if ye have read all of this, yay, even to the end, now tell me, what think ye of my tale? Thinketh ye that I hath too much time on my hands?

31 Yay, verily verily, it may be so, for behold, the Royal King, he is gone, even again, and I am lonely, and so I say unto you, that she who leaveth a comment, shall be greatly blessed in the eyes of the Queen.

P.S. Lest ye doubt this tale, I hath provided this moving picture, that ye may see and believe upon my words.

(had to remove the video - it kept making my posts republish in the feeds :>)

Great Moments in Customer Service

Pin It At a store today - a store I will call, oh, I don't know, Toys R Us - I had one of those moments that makes me weep for the future of America.

I know there must be no fresher hell than working retail at Christmas time in a toy store, so I am normally very sympathetic, very patient. I bring my IPOD with me so that I can just sort of bop around the store getting my stuff, zone out while I wait in line, and not let all the bustle get to me. I say please and thank you to the clerks, have my money ready and generally try not to make life any harder for them than it already is, if at all possible.

Now, you gotta understand, when I go Christmas shopping, I take cash, not credit cards, because if I take credit cards, I am much more lax about how much I can spend. "Oh, it's just $10 more than I thought, no problem." And by the time I've left I've spent $200 more than I planned. So - no credit cards for me.

Anyway, I get up to the check-out lane and realize that I'm going to be over the amount I have, so when I get up to the check-out, I hand the clerk three rolls of crepe paper and tell her, "I'm sorry, I can't buy these."

She glares at me. "You can't buy these?"

I blink. "No."

She sighs heavily. "Let me get this straight. Are you or are you not going to buy these?"

I frown. "I'm not going to buy them."

"So you are not buying these."

Is she messing with me? "Correct."

She is sneering. Clearly, she hates her job and more specifically, hates ME, with the white hot power of a thousand suns. "And yet you brought them up here, to the check-out."

I stare back at her. "Yeah. It was a mistake."

"A mistake," she repeats slowly, with scorn.

"Yes."

"Maybe you should be more careful next time," she said.

"And maybe I should beat you senseless with this Tinker Toy tube," I said.

OK, I didn't say that. But I wanted to.

In reality I just - clenched my teeth and asked her. "Are you going to ring that up now or what?"
And she sneered and did just that.

Now, doesn't that just warm your heart?

Happy freaking holidays you bitter, cynical little twerp.

Next year, I'm shopping online.

Lights, Camera, Traxtion

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I know all you Utah or former Utah people were praying, just PRAYING that some blogger would go to Temple Square at Christmas time and document the trip for you. Because THAT Christmas post has never ever been done before. Right? (Don't answer that.) Well, I'm here for you. This is your lucky day folks, your lucky day...

Last night we ventured out. We drove to Sandy, hopped on the Trax train and hopped off downtown. We wandered around for a bit, the kids staring in awe at the tall buildings. They’d never been downtown before, and were almost frightened. I think we might be raising a bunch of little hicks.

We had dinner at a little diner, where the kids took off their coats, scarves, mittens and hats and went to the bathroom approximately four hundred and fifteen times before dinner was over.

We made our way over to Temple Square, the kids ooohing and aaaahing over the horse drawn carriages and snowflake lights on the buildings. One thing I love about having cute little kids all dressed up in their winter duds and walking hand in hand down the sidewalk? Everyone smiles at you. Everyone is kind. Even on the train, at rush hour, when people were tired and on their way home from work, people smiled at us, and when my daughter started singing Christmas carols they were all sweet to her.

My son didn’t quite understand the whole concept of Temple Square – “When we at Temple Square mom?” “We’re here. It’s here.” “Where?” “Here – these lights and buildings.” “Over there?”

We stopped for hot cocoa at the Hotel Utah. Abby drank too much too fast and got sick. We sat in the bathroom for a bit while she contemplated barfing, but eventually she felt better and we headed for home. At the train stop we met a friendly drunk who insisted on singing jingle bells to our children complete with some very odd hand gestures and jumping around. My kids had no idea he was drunk as a skunk, they just thought he was a very funny Christmas caroler, and this morning they were saying, “Remember that man who sang to us? He was SO nice!”

We got onto the train and started the ride home. The kids were tired, but they held it together. But then a train up ahead on the tracks broke down, so we had to get off the train, and onto a bus.

And then back onto another train.

By this time, the kids were exhausted. “We don’t want anymore trains, Mom, just take us home.”

And so we did.

The end.

P.S. Today I start my Christmas shopping. Pray for me.

No, We're Not Afraid of Heights, Why Do You Ask?

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You have no idea how much mocking it took just to get DH to put the lights on that first peak. I mocked him until he offered to let me climb the ladder so that I could climb onto the roof and do it myself, and when I got to the top of the ladder I suddenly realized there had been some kind of geological event and the roof had shifted and was no longer a gentle slope but a perilous and frightening hill of steepness and fear.

And so we called it a day. Last year the lights only went across the front porch, and the year before that we had no lights at all, so this is actually progress. Maybe next year we'll get crazy and put lights on the shrubs.

It was my blog buddy Nicki who inspired me to share this pic. She and her friend Emily went up on the roof with ropes and stuff. I'm thinking they're a little bit nuts. They did it themselves, no husbands involved. (Hear them roar.)

But I'm wondering if this is a Christmas task that stays pretty strictly divided along gender lines even in 2007... Is it mostly the guys that end up with this particular Christmas hazard, or are women venturing out on the rooftops as well? What's the deal at YOUR house? I'm curious...

Hey - This is a Really Funny Post!

Pin It No, I’m lying. This isn’t a funny post.

Apologies in advance to people that come here for a laugh – and I know there are two or three, because I see my name on their blogrolls with the words "Navel Gazing - for a chuckle" or something like that next to it, (eeeek the PRESSURE) and now they're gonna have to update their links to "Navel Gazing - Daily Dose of Depression" or "Navel Gazing - making you want to stab yourself in the eye with a fork since 2007." Sorry about that.

Man, I miss my DH. I've discovered something. All this time, I thought I just grew out of being depressed, magically, when I got married. The truth is, my DH is my anti-depressant. I haven't been depressed in eleven years. Now that he is gone what feels like all the time, I feel myself falling into the blue. His support, his strength, his love, his understanding - they've literally kept me sane for 11 years. Well. Sane - ish. It's a big job. (I miss you hon. Come back soon. Preferably early.)

I know I must be sort of depressed because I've lost my will to email people. SERIOUSLY. That's big. Usually (and my family will attest to this) the second I get an email I respond. My awesome sister-in-law will sit down and write these great, newsy emails to me and I will receive them and immediately write back. I know she probably winces when she gets an email back five minutes later because the ball's back in her court again ALREADY, bwa-ha-ha... But now I have email that's like, DAYS old. That's serious. I haven't started the Christmas letter, and haven't filled out Abby's birthday party invitations. I need to snap out of this.

Dude. I just pounded back, like, five Wild Cherry capri suns in a row and I think I might be a little drunk. I'd better go sleep it off.

Point, Set, Match

Pin It DH and I got into the mother of all arguments last night. We don’t fight a lot, but we are both incredibly stressed out right now, and so we put our minds to it and eventually we found something to fight about. I think it started because I wanted him to go shovel the snow when he was in the middle of doing something, and we both had just enough right and just enough wrong in our respective positions that it turned out to be really easy to dig in our heels and completely freak out. It was one of those fights where the phrases “Are you KIDDING me?” and “You’re ridiculous” were thrown around over and over again, by a different person each time.

I already know we shouldn’t fight in front of the kids, but I live here on Planet Earth, where sometimes, crap happens. They were in bed, but kept sneaking out to egg us on. They meant to make us stop, but it had the exact opposite effect because each time they would say something? Like when Abby told us we were being naughty and shouldn’t fight? We would then feel even stupider and angrier and more childish, and would fight SOME MORE because last night we were twelve. Carter came out and yelled at me, “You go sit in your room Mama, you go sit in dere WIGHT NOW!”

I will confess that at one point I was so enraged I threw three large chocolate chip cookies and an ice cube at my husband’s head. (But not in front of the children, I do have SOME self control.) I decided I would show HIM, and took off in the truck, skidding down our icy street, thinking I would do something dramatic, like stay out all night so he would be frantic with worry, thinking I’d slidden to an icy death. Then I realized I had no gas. And had forgotten my purse. And had exactly 27 cents in change in the car. This put a significant crimp in my plans.

I sat in the Home Depot parking lot, my breath making frosty circles in the air because I was afraid that if I ran the heater I would run out of gas, and thought, wow, I’m really showing HIM. HE’LL SURE BE SORRY.

Then I realized he was probably back home, sitting in front of the fire, feet up, flipping channels on the remote, and eating all of my cookies.

So after freezing my butt off for an hour I drove home in defeat and slunk back into the house.

He gave me the look, the one husbands give you when they are sorry and want the fight to be over, and he said, “I’m sorry honey,” and came over to give me a hug, but I was not yet done teaching him a lesson and so instead of giving him a hug I ducked under his arm, stomped upstairs to my office and made sure he knew by the way I was slamming things around that I was still VERY VERY ANGRY.

I heard him popping popcorn and putting on a movie I wanted to watch, and it was cold up there, but I was MAKING A POINT, dang it, and so I sat there in my coat at my desk and worked on stuff. Making a point is really boring sometimes.

Anyway, eventually we both apologized and everything was good and right again in the kingdom.

Today he is down in Las Vegas again for work, and I am here with the kids, by myself, for the whole week, and they are REALLY grumpy right now, boy howdy, so, even though the fight is ancient history, and water under the bridge and was ridiculous even when it was going on? I just want you to know, honey...

I was totally right.

Peace Be With You

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A little over thirteen years ago, my paternal grandfather died. When we got back from that funeral, we got the news that my maternal grandfather had just died.

I couldn’t get more time off, so I was at work as my family packed up the car to head back up to Utah for the funeral. In the late afternoon as we were all getting itchy to leave for the weekend, I got a phone call. It was my brother Mark.

“Sue, Dad had a stroke.”

“What?” My heart stopped for a second.

“Dad - he had a stroke, the ambulance is here…”

He’d been packing up the car, angry about something and slamming suitcases around, when he collapsed in his room. Nobody was there when it happened, but when they went in to get something from his room, he was lying there silent and still. At the hospital, we learned he’d had a massive stroke in his brain stem and there was no way he would ever recover.

My dad was not an easy man to love. He was angry and bitter, occasionally violent and often emotionally abusive.

When we were very young, he was different. He was happier and although his temper could be unpredictable, it always blew over. He was a man of extremes - great happiness, great affection, great anger, great silliness.

My younger brothers and sisters don’t remember the kind of dad he used to be, when we were little. He would take us on bike rides, take us camping, take us riding in the desert on the back of his motorcycle, take us hiking in the desert… He took us to judo and drove us to our championships, taught us to play racquetball and let us climb on the roof.

He loved us, his big pack of children. He went through a very serious bout with cancer when we were young. My grandfather’s biography talks about how at night my dad would stand outside of our rooms watching us sleeping - weeping and wondering if he would have the chance to see us grow into adulthood.

But as time went on, he changed. He became increasingly angry and unpredictable. His mother had a chemical imbalance, and I think he did too, but he didn’t believe in “that kind of stuff,” and wouldn’t do anything about it. Even without that problem, he was gradually hardening. He had a hard time forgiving people, and the bitterness was poisoning him. His behavior grew increasingly erratic and violent. He would get irrationally angry. He was rarely physically abusive, but he would scream and yell and break things and we were all a little afraid of him.

I know my dad didn’t feel loved. I know he didn’t feel understood or appreciated. But it was all there, waiting for him, this huge family of kids who were hungry for a father, if he would’ve been capable of just calming down, of finding some kind of peace so we could feel something other than fear and resentment in his presence.

At the hospital when he had his big stroke, we found out he’d had a series of smaller undiagnosed strokes, and they probably had contributed to his escalating behavior. The doctors told us he would probably die within a few days - that it was a matter of waiting.

I remember every day, waiting to hear. It was so strange. We were sad, but along with the sadness there was relief. We’d lived under his reign of terror, more or less, for a long time, and the removal of that presence from the house felt like a blessing.

The night before he died we went to the hospital, all nine children and my mom, and we sat in his room singing Christmas carols. It was our way of saying goodbye to him. I remember that the nursing staff was in tears, listening to us sing for him long past visiting hours were supposed to be over. My dad loved music - loved to sing and to hear us sing. I like to think that if he could hear it at all, he loved our last concert for him.

He died thirteen years ago today. When he died I grieved for him, for my dad, the one I remembered from my childhood, who gave us piggy-back rides, and sang us Kenny Rogers and Beach Boys and ABBA and danced us around the living room, who helped us build a playhouse and let us keep the puppies after they were born.

And I cried because I didn't know how to deal with his death. I wasn’t sure what would happen to him. According to everything I’d ever been taught, he was probably in big trouble with the Man Upstairs. Because he hadn’t had a chance to repent of anything, to make amends, to make changes. He just died, before he could make anything right, before he could have a come-to-Jesus moment. He just died.

As much as I’d been afraid of him some of the time, and been angry with him a LOT of the time, and been damaged by him emotionally in many ways, I still loved him. It hurt me to think that he might be eternally angry and hurting and sad. And sometimes I still weep for him - for his lost chance to make things right, for his wasted chance to love and be loved. All of his chances, spent.

I used to have dreams where my dad would show up in the hallway, a ghost who didn't know he was one, ranting about how I wasn't supposed to park the car in the street, only in the driveway how could you be so irresponsible and I would wake up in a cold sweat, almost relieved when I would remember all over again that he was dead.

Whenever I think about hanging on to an old hurt, hanging on to bitterness, hanging on to anger, I think of my dad. I think of what it cost him to hold onto his anger, of what he exchanged in order to have the privilege of holding those injustices close to his heart. And I let it go. It's easy to let things go, when you really know what it costs.

Most people, if they’re religious, when someone passes on, they like to think of their relatives as looking down on them from heaven. I’m not sure if that is something I can believe about my dad.

I just hope that wherever he is, that he’s finally found peace. If God is merciful at all, he is at peace.

I wish you peace, Dad. I love you.

Yikes

Pin It I was using the power sander yesterday, trying to get all of the old finish off of an old dining room table, when I caught sight of my feet, which have not had a proper pedicure in months. I have callous issues. They are not pretty.

Inspired by an old tip from FMHLisa, I looked at the sander, and then at my feet. And gave it a whirl. I sort of expected that when I was finished, my feet would be baby soft and smooth. And what do you know?

It totally didn’t work.

It’ll sand all of the finish off a ten year old pine table, but it won’t even put a dent in the callouses on my heels. Egads.

Hey, Even Mama Bears Have Feelings

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This afternoon I realized we were out of milk. We’re all sick and DH is out of town, but the world would spin off its axis if this household were ever without milk (no fruity pebbles! no hot cocoa! the horror!), so I had no choice but to de-pajama everyone and run to the store.

Fever apparently has a calming effect because they were angels at the store, listening (miracle) and just sort of meekly following me around as I grabbed the essentials - you know, milk and shampoo and chocolate.

We stopped in the Christmas aisle where I let them hang out for a while, pushing every button on every dancing, singing, bum shaking Christmas “decoration” they could find. (Who actually buys those things? I can't believe the market for those monstrosities is so vast, and yet they appear to be a huge profit center, since every grocery store and corner market on earth carries them.) I idly watched as some teenage girls, young and dumb and having a blast, pushed each other around in carts, squealing and laughing.

The blond girl pushing the cart popped a wheelie while the brunette girl inside the cart shrieked in protest. I kept thinking that if the cart tipped over, that girl was going to crack her head open and whatever brains were actually in there would leak out all over the floor. Clean up in aisle seven, stat.

When my head was ready to explode we got our caravan moving again, with Carter inside the cart and the girls holding onto either side as they walked. We steered toward a check-out lane and WHAM. The teenage girls came out of nowhere, ramming their cart smack into Abby at full speed, knocking her flat and pushing Sarah over for good measure.

I immediately went into full mama bear mode and yelled at the twits as I picked up my sobbing little girls. “What are you DOING?! This isn’t a playground, GROW UP!”

Abby had a nice purple lattice mark engraved on her face (that deepened over the course of the afternoon into a rich, rough bruise) and a pinched finger, but Sarah seemed none the worse for wear, just a little shocked and upset.

“Is there something I can do? Are they alright? I’m so sorry,” the blond babbled on and on and ON. I shot her a dirty look thinking, NO, you idiot, there’s nothing you can do. You’ve done enough.

After a minute or two of hugs, Sarah and Abby calmed down, and tears wiped away, we stood up. Somewhat impressively, the teenagers were still standing there, waiting to take their medicine.

I cocked my head to the side and put a hand on my hip, ready to let loose a few choice, cutting words of reprimand – my unfortunate specialty. I narrowed in on the cart driver.

She had tears in her eyes. I softened a little. She clearly felt awful about what had been, after all, an accident.

“Can I do something?” she asked plaintively. “What can I do? I’m so sorry.” She crouched down next to Abby and said, “I’m so sorry.”

As I tried to figure out what the right thing to say would be, something that would satisfy my maternal anger without completely crossing the line, Abby took over. She apparently had things SHE wanted to say and she drew herself up to her full four year old height.

Tears dripped out of her big green eyes as she looked at the girl accusingly. “You made me fall down,” she said shakily, holding my hand.

The injustice of the accident was too much for her to take and she started to cry again, her words punctuated with little sobs.

“Now--” (sob) “I’m - I’m all hurt—“ (sob) “THAT. WASN’T. NICE—“ (sob) “You shouldn’t hit—“ (sob) “people with a cart!”

She tucked her head against my coat and cried in earnest.

The teenager burst into tears. For a minute I thought she might dissolve into a sad little puddle right there in front of me.

Abby looked at the girl somberly for a minute. She nodded, then looked up at me and whispered, “Mom, she’s sorry now. You should give her a love.” She pushed me forward a little.

And that’s how I ended up hugging a random teenager at Smiths today.

Random, Random, Random

Pin It Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away Dragonfly tagged me for Seven Random things. At least I think it was Dragonfly. I just went to her blog and couldn't find where she did the meme, but I'm sure it was her. Or else it was someone else. But I think it was her. Possibly. I don't know. I'm confused now.

But I figure seven random things would be easy because if I am nothing else, I am random.

1. I love saying "That's so random," even though I know that really bugs people. It's just - so true. I get on kicks where I'll say it all the time, and then it won't pop into my head for months.

2. Numbers have personality traits in my head. For example, Seven, Nine, Eight, and Three are mean, angry numbers. Four is a nice number, and so is Two. Five and Zero can be angry or nice, depending upon what other numbers are around. Six is a nice number, but sometimes it is mischevious. And so on. (I blame Sesame Street for this.) Same thing with some colors - orangey red in particular is an angry, angry color.

3. My mom used to call me the absent minded professor and it's completely apt. Once I learn how to do something technical, I can remember it forever, but I can't remember where I put things. I can never find my car keys, or my purse, or my shoes, or my coat. I used to call my husband at work to ask him where my shoes were. And that thing where you're looking for your keys, looking, looking, looking, looking, and then you discover you are holding them in your other hand? I do that all the time.

4. I love it when my husband gets a zit on his back and lets me pop it. See, half of the people who read that just got reeeeeeally grossed out, but the other half of you are like - oh, YEAH baby. You're either a zit popper or you're not. I never had bad acne, luckily. If I had, my face would have been completely and totally scarred, because I would not have been able to stop popping my own zits.

5. I hosted Book Club on Wednesday night. It was, as always, really fun. I love the women in our book club. They're all so smart and down to earth. The only reason I'm telling you about this is to prove to people that I do actually, from time to time, interact with real live humans. I know after the last post, some of you were wondering.

6. As a kid, the theme from the Electric Company made me want to kill people. Really. I'd hear "HEEEEEY YOOOOOOOU GUYS" and I would be looking for knives. It just made me irrationally angry. I can't imagine if someone stuck me in an orangey-red room with the number nine written on my hand and the theme from Electric Company playing. I'd probably turn into a serial killer or something.

7. I hate my dog. Someday I will explain why. It's not that complicated though. It has a lot to do with poo. Anything that eats its own poo is quite frankly, not something I wish to be intimately acquainted with.