Practically Perfect.

I was at the store trying to find my shopping list. I reached my hand into my coat pocket and I found a spoon.

As I wandered the aisles I wondered if my spoon would possibly come in handy. What if someone at Walmart had a spoon emergency and I could whip out my spoon and come to the rescue? It could happen.

My spoon was dirty. Upon further consideration I realized this was okay. I didn't want to show off too much. I mean all my fellow shoppers would be amazed at how prepared I was during the spoon emergency. I didn't want to rub into their faces the fact that I had a spoon to offer and they didn't. This way when I waved my spoon in the air and it was covered with lint and bits of pocket gunk that had stuck to the parts of the spoon I hadn't licked completely clean, they could relax. They could applaud my gesture. A dirty spoon is much more likeable than a clean spoon.

I'm home now. Unfortunately no spoons were needed during my errands. I have to wonder whether it is time to relinquish my spoon to the dishwasher. Or perhaps after lunch I could stick a dirty fork in the other pocket...

I really was going to send you a Christmas card. But I didn't. You see I realized that after Sarah and Heather left for BYU I wouldn't have the chance to get a current family picture. And as far as I'm concerned Christmas cards are all about the pictures.

So, there you have it. No Christmas card. I really do feel bad about that.

Instead I hope you'll accept my sincerest apologies. And while you're at it, enjoy the Christmas song Nick wrote for our family to play together. Merry Christmas!

It's the best time of the year.

I like Christmas. I really do. It's fun to decorate the tree and go shopping. I have nothing against Christmas.

It's just that when it's over with...well it leaves me feeling uneasy and unsettled. It feels so chaotic with wrapping paper everywhere, and piles of gifts stacked on the couch.

Last year I cleaned everything up...Immediately after we unwrapped presents. By noon I had the trash out, the ornaments neatly put away and the tree down.

Then I was able to lounge around all afternoon and enjoy Christmas. Without all the stress of the holiday mess.

Apparently I ruined Christmas. Apparently I sucked the joy and happiness from Christmas.

So this year I'm not cleaning up or putting anything away. I'm going to smile as the Christmas spirit spills over onto the floor, puddles under the couch and runs down the hall. Merry Christmas to you all.

I hope some things will never change.

"You are back!" Ben exclaims when I pick him up from kindergarten class today.

"Yes, you were here before," Tim adds as I give him a big hug. How I've missed these boys.

"What's your name?" Ben asks.

"Mindy," I tell him.

Tim looks around and asks, "Where's that other one?"

I know exactly who he is talking about, but it is too fun to listen to them figure it out.

"Yah," Ben chimes in. "Where is your dad?"

"My dad is in America," I inform them.

"Oh. Then where is, um, the other one?"

"Nick?" I offer.

"Yes! Where is Nick?"

I tell them that Nick is at their house waiting to see them.

"Is he your grandma?" Ben wonders.

"No. He is my son." I love this.

"Is he my grandma?" Ben continues.

I explain they are cousins and then we go home, eat lunch, and then I take a nap. I get up and go in to the living room.

"Hey!" Tim yells coming over to me. "You have been here before!"

"What's your name?" Ben asks as I give him a big hug.

Persona non grata.

This morning I tried to log in to my facebook account. Only to discover that my account has been closed. From what I can figure out, it's because I am using a fake identity.

I must ask you: If I'm not me, then who exactly do they think I am?

Anyway, my facebook account is gone. Poof. It's like I never even existed.

So I will take some time to ponder my situation. And maybe after I get back from visiting my sister I will be ready to create a new, more improved version of myself.

Because in two weeks, who knows who I'll feel like being...

We were in the car after leaving the doctor's office and my husband turned to me at a stop sign. "Don't even think about writing a blog about this."

"Why would I do that?" I asked him. In fact, the thought hadn't even occurred to me yet.

"I know you want to," he baited. "I can just hear you writing it in your head."

Anyway.

My husband has had a pain in his side for 10 days now. I've tried to get him to go to the doctor for the past week. I figured that finding out what the real problem is just had to be better than what we have been coming up with searching the Internet with his symptoms. So far we had it narrowed down to mono, kidney stones, or a ruptured spleen.

Finally I talked him into going to the doctor. They came and poked and prodded. They took a lot of blood work. Which all came out fine. They did an ultrasound of his spleen. Which was normal. They came and poked and prodded some more. They took an x-ray.

Apparently he has gastritis. He has...um, "blockage" clear up under his ribs. They gave him some medicine and told us we would need to get in touch with a specialist for further treatment.

So we are walking out of doctor's office and I know you know what I told him.

"I've been right all along," I had to tell him.

"What's that?" he wondered.

"That you are full of crap."

But he was right too. I guess this was something I would blog about.

Organized chaos and prayer.

We used to have a system. It was difficult to remember, in fact, only my husband and maybe one of the kids, knew what it was. Nevertheless, it was a good system. But that was back when we had six people living at home....

The old system went something like this: everyone had a day of the week in which they were assigned to say the dinner prayer. Then, on the seventh day, my husband calculated the trajectory of the moon and how it related to Earth's orbit---and that was who prayed. Or something like that.

Anyway. Now that there are only four of us, it would really be more convenient if there were eight days in the week. Then we could each pray 2x a week. It's just mathematically unfortunate that it can't work out that way. And for this reason, we couldn't figure out a new system.

So I had an idea. My husband rolls his eyes at this, but it is brilliant in its simplicity. And it works!!!

The new system: On even days the girls pray. On odd days the boys pray.

Don't worry, there's more. To decide who prays the girls (or boys) do rock-paper-scissors. The winner chooses whether to pray for dinner or that night before bed. See? It's easy.

And the best part is that Anna always does rock. So I can usually beat her...