Clarification:

It is not really laundry, itself, that I have a problem doing. It is UNNECESSARY laundry.

There is a difference.

(A big difference. Will someone please teach this to my kids?)

Favorite Photo Friday!

Here's a photo that I keep by my computer desk. It's from when the girls were around 4 and 7 years old. I think we ALL look a lot younger.

One thing that I remember about this photo is that I HATED the haircut that I had at the time. You can't really see it here but the funny thing is that it's similar to the one I have now.

Ah, life seemed so much more simple then, but really it wasn't. I'm glad we're at the place we are now.

It is fun to look back once in a while, though.

What Did The Mayans Know Then That We Don't Know Now?

Ok, so the other day we were kidding around about the Mayan calendar and how it ends in 2012. We said we should have a big party to celebrate when the world might have ended, but didn't. Unless you live under a rock, you've heard it all before too.

What I hadn't heard, because I don't really pay attention to that sort of stuff, is the exact day the world will supposedly end, December 21st.

December 21st? What? Why hadn't anyone informed me of this before?

Why is this significant? Because it's THE DAY BEFORE my 45th birthday. Why didn't this ring a bell for anyone in my immediate family? They all seemed to know what day it was. Didn't they think I might want to know ahead of time if I will have yet another unhappy birthday?

Well, I am here to tell you all right now that I am going to throw myself a major birthday party on that day. (No, not THAT day - on my birthday, the day AFTER that day.) Right now, you're all invited to a birthday open house in my honor. (I did mention that I've only had one actual birthday party in my life, right? I told my family they need to do something big. Let's hope they follow through so I don't have to make my own birthday cake that year.)

If you come we can crank up the tunes and have a dance in our basement (my personal favorite leisure time activity). We can also play pool or charades or pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey or any other party games we feel like playing. We may even go nuts and have a pinata.

In other words, if you come, we can all party like it's 1999. (Or any other time when we all thought the world was going to end and it really didn't.)

We Can Now Add "Car Thief" to My Rap Sheet

Today was kind of a crazy day. I'll spare you all the minor details, but at one point, Morgan and I were in my bedroom and we heard a loud crash. I went outside and also looked in the garage, but couldn't see anything amiss so I didn't worry about it again after that.

Anyway, a few hours later, after Hal had already gone to take the girls to their first basketball game tonight and Austin and I were hurrying to get to my last Activity Day activity (a mother-daughter tea party), I tried to open the garage door. It went up a little and back down, up and down, up and down, up and down, like it was possessed. I stopped it and it went back down. I tried again, up and down, up and down, up and down. I tried to open it manually, but I can't do it myself, which I usually can. I tried to call Hal, but his phone was dead (I found out later).

So, I did the only thing left for me to do at that point. I "borrowed" the truck that was sitting in our driveway. I'm not sure whose it was, I just know that it was not ours. But, the key was in it, and Hal always loans his truck out to his friends so the fact that it was there meant that someone else probably had one of our vehicles. (And I'm glad this truck was not ours. It stunk. It reminded me of lots of vehicles my family had while I was growing up. Not only did it smell, the seats were a mess, it was full of junk and it was very loud.) I had a hard time figuring out why the clutch wouldn't work, but once I got it going I hurried out of my driveway, swinging wide, just in time to narrowly miss the police car that happened to be driving by at the time (our neighbor's son-in-law). Rats. I forgot my purse, but didn't have time to go back and get it. I was just glad I remembered to grab my glasses. This would not be a convenient time to run over something.

I hustled to the church just in time to explain that I was late because I had to steal a car to get there. (I told the leaders, not the girls. I don't think it's a very good example to steal a car to get to a church activity. Maybe this is why they released me last week.) I gave the girls my lovely little speech on etiquette and then proceeded to break every rule of etiquette while I scarfed down lots of little tea sandwiches because I had missed dinner tonight, taking care of other things that needed to be done.

Hal came and found me and he was not happy at all that I had taken the truck. He thought someone had stolen it for real. He traded me vehicles, which I was very grateful for because I never could figure out how to turn the lights on in the truck. When I made it home later, he had already traded back with whoever the truck belonged to so our truck was in the driveway. I was quite happy to see it.

So anyway, back to the tea party, after I had eaten and stayed a polite enough amount of time, I let the other leaders take over while I ran to take the girls to their 2nd basketball game of the night. I had missed the first one earlier. They were playing to see who would get to go to regions. As I sat there, my head started to pound. It wasn't a particularly thrilling game because neither of my girls got to play but their team will be going on, which means they need to play on Saturday, which I'm not entirely thrilled about. Oh well, it will all be over soon enough.

So, we just got home in time to get Ally ready for her 7th grade ski day and just realized that the waterproof gloves she needs are neatly packed away at the other house, which I can't get to because the present owner is already in bed. We'll just have to send her with the three non-waterproof pairs we have here and hope for the best. She will try snowboarding for the first time. Today she bought enough candy to feed a small third-world country for a week, so she might not feel so great when she gets home, no matter how well she does. I worry about that girl. She is mad at me because I wouldn't let her buy a Rock Star caffeine drink. It was kind of nice to have to ask someone else to pick her up tomorrow because I need to stay here to wait for the garage door opener guy to come fix our broken spring and I still can't get out of my garage. Maybe I should wait a couple weeks before fixing it so I can stay home. Doesn't that sound nice? It does to me.

Well, it's time for me to eat something healthy and get to bed. Tomorrow is another day. A clean slate. I like the sound of that.

And, if I stay home all day, I just may not commit any more felonies. (Or is stealing a car a misdemeanor? Let's hope I never have to find out.)

Thanks for Nothing

So, as previously mentioned (a lot), I have been working very hard to get this place ready to put on the market. I have already shown it once to the brother-in-law of one of my neighbors who literally showed up at my doorstep as I was walking in the door from church on Sunday. That is another whole story in itself. (He needed to see it right then, as they were leaving to go back to American Fork and had just been waiting around for me to get home so he could see it. Thankfully, I had cleaned up most everything on Saturday and made Ally clean up the kids' bathroom right before we left for church, which I have never done before. The kids had also all cleaned their rooms on Saturday. Whew! It was nice to get that first showing over with because he was really nice and complimentary and didn't look at anything too closely.)

So, anyway, I have really been working hard to get rid of all the piles of clutter that have had no place to go since I lost my storage room when Austin was born. I've been able to move all the extra stuff into the storage room of our new house, which has been nice. I love living like this. I never, ever want to live with clutter again.

Apparently not everyone has appreciated my efforts.

Since Austin has been camped out in our bedroom for the last few years, (one of the big reasons for our move, hopefully he'll sleep in his own bed once he has his bedroom right next to ours) he has had a lot of stuff floating around our room, toys, clothes, blankets, etc. We've also had lots of piles of books and magazines, as Hal and I are both avid readers, though our time is pretty limited these days. So, all the things we are hoping to read get tossed on nightstands, on the floor by the bed, on the table by the couch, you get the idea.

So, my point is, I've slowly gotten rid of each and every pile. Our house is now 99 percent staged, with just a couple of piles left in the kitchen and two boxes left under the pool table that need to be taken care of. It looks much, much (much) better.

Austin walked into my bedroom today and looked around and said, "Boy, it looks kind of bare in here now that you've gotten rid of all the extra stuff. The only pile I see in here is that stuff on the top of dad's dresser. It doesn't look cozy like it used to."

Gee, Austin, you're welcome.

Me? Funny? I Just Report the Facts

Someone mentioned to me that my blog hasn't been as funny lately and requested a funny post. (You know who you are.)

Are you kidding me?

Don't you know nothing kills the ability to be funny quicker than someone requesting for you to be funny. Right now. (And, haven't you heard? I've had a few things on my mind lately. Actually, now that I think about it, I've rarely left the house in the last two weeks, thus cutting the possibility of getting into my usual sticky situations WAY down. Remember Ikea?)

Someone please teach me how to link to an older post and I'll try to find you a good one. (If I recall correctly, I think last May was a particularly brutal month.) I'm still a little link impaired, I don't know why I've never figured it out.

Actually, now that I think about it, Ms. "Please try to be funny again", why don't YOU send ME a link to a funny post?

My Favorite Healthy Snack

I always wonder what other people eat, don't you? (My husband doesn't. He hardly even cares what HE eats. One more example of how we are opposites in almost every way imaginable.)


You know how there are the "live to eat" people and the "eat to live" people? I'm definitely a "live to eat" type. Luckily, I've been blessed with a pretty good metabolism so far. I guess it makes up for the lack of good luck in other areas, like skin, hair, personality, etc.



Ok, so on to the food. This is a snack that I eat literally every day. Sometimes it counts for lunch if I don't have anything else good that is easy to fix that day. I just eat more of it.

First of all, take a nice juicy apple and cut it up. I like to use Fuji or Gala because they're still a little sweet, but not too sweet, like Red Delicious, and they don't get mealy.

Next, take a box of these babies. I just LOVE these crackers. If you haven't tried them, you're missing out. Unless of course, you don't like the taste of rosemary. The people in my house either love or hate these crackers, so if you buy them and don't like them someone else hopefully will. One warning, do NOT under any circumstances buy the store brand of these. It is not anywhere near as good as the real deal.

And finally, cheese. I just discovered this cheese last month and we've gone through about 5 of these boxes already. It is really mild and creamy. Morgan and I agree that we feel "rich" when we eat this cheese. Before I started eating this, I would just slice up Mozzarella to use for my snack. (I wonder if rich people feel "poor" when they eat Mozzarella that they've sliced up for themselves.) Just so you know, because I was curious, this cheese has less fat than Mozzarella, but Mozzarella has more protein, so whatever you have is great. They both taste good.

So, there you have it, my favorite healthy snack. (My favorite un-healthy snack is brownies, which probably explains my bad skin.)

What's your favorite healthy snack? In case I decide to branch out some day.


It could happen.

Our New Floor Plan

Here it is! The main floor plan of our new house. I copied and enlarged it from the home show book. Unfortunately, it's looking a little bit crookedy, sorry about that!

The room that says dining room is actually soundproofed and used as a music room. We are thinking of building bookshelves and making it a library because we have LOTS of books (and a library) here.

Anyway, this gives you a general idea of the layout. All the bedrooms are in one spot so hopefully (fingers crossed) Austin will sleep in his own bed once we move.

(My OCD self doesn't like seeing it so crookedy, but I won't take the time to fix it today. I just thought you might want to see it sooner, rather than later. )

If anyone is local, I'd love to give you a little tour after May 5 so I can bounce some of my great (and maybe not-so-great) ideas off of your heads.

I've already been talked into keeping both the bright emerald green Corian kitchen countertops with the white racing stripe (at least for a few months so I can live with the kitchen and see if there is anything else I'll want to change) AND, believe it or not, I'm also keeping the Pepto Bismol pink countertop in the laundry room. I do have other plans for that room though. Great plans. (That may or may not involve more bead board. - Is that one word or two?)

That's it for now. I'll post photos of the inside of this house in May.

De-personalizing

Today I spent quite a bit of time taking down most of the big photos from our "gallery wall" in the basement. It was rather depressing. It was especially depressing when I realized that I really do need to paint the (relatively) big family room down there. Not my idea of fun.

I know people looking at houses don't want to see other peoples' family photos all over the place, but it sure looks stark seeing the bare minimum that is left.

Maybe I'm just sad because I never got the wall quite right, to my satisfaction. I never did take a photo of what I had up because it was always a work in progress. It was never "finished". I was always waiting for that semi-perfect (I don't like the word perfect - in my life there is no such thing) family portrait where everyone looks pretty good. We usually had at least one person with a scowl on their face or their eyes half shut. (I always looked somewhat presentable, because I'm no dummy. I put forth all the effort to make all the appointments and get everyone to the studio on time and in somewhat coordinating outfits. I had to listen to everyone grousing because they are being inconvenienced by yet another family photo. I also spend the time agonizing over the proofs to pick out the least bad photos. I also pay for the finished products (in more ways than one), so you can bet I'm not going to pick one where I look too bad - no matter how good everyone else looks.) You would think these guys would catch on that if they would just cooperate and all look relatively happy in the same shot, we wouldn't have to try as often to get a "good" family portrait. Some people never learn, do they?

Anyway, I need to just focus on what's ahead and remember it will all be worth it in the end.

If not, please shoot me.

Thank you.

Question of the Day:

Today is one of those days when I ask myself, "Would I like to have kids or a clean house?".


Kids?


Clean house?


Kids?


Clean house?

Today is also one of those days that I refuse to answer, on the grounds it might incriminate me.