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...

I've got your number.

I know it's early. I hope I didn't wake you. But I just got a phone call. At 4:14 am. This is never good. The library does not call at 4:14 am to tell you that the book you are waiting for is in. No, phone calls at 4:14 in the morning are always bad.

And knowing this, I still couldn't get myself to get out of bed and go downstairs to answer the phone. I stayed in bed for another half an hour going through all the possible scenarios:

• There has been a computer glitch and my girls have been evicted from their dorm rooms and they are sitting in the parking lot with all their belongings waiting. Homeless.

• The emergency brake on my car has disengaged and the car rolled down the hill and is now parked in someone's living room.

• My cat is on fire.

• Someone somewhere is dead. Or dying.

After a half an hour of imagining all the reasons for a phone call at 4:14 am, I finally decided that finding out who had called probably couldn't be worse than not knowing.

(This whole thing reminded me of that time when my husband was out of town and someone kept calling me and telling me they were locked in my basement and couldn't get out. It had me so freaked out I ended up calling my friend. She sent her husband and two sons to check out my basement. They had baseball bats.)

• Maybe someone was trapped in my friend's basement and she needed me to return the favor.

Anyway. I went downstairs and there it was. 4:14am. Missed call. From a number I don't know. Which leaves me in exactly the same situation I was before: There is still some unknown emergency out there.

(At least they didn't leave a message. Everyone knows that I don't know how to check the voice mail on my new phone.)

But I do have their number. And I'll think of a perfect time to call them back. Maybe 4:14 tomorrow morning.

Mutant Marshmallows.

I was at Walmart doing my weekly shopping when this woman stopped her cart next to mine. She held up a bag of marshmallows and waved them in front of my face. "Look at these marshmallows!" she yelled. "Just LOOK at them!"

I looked at her marshmallows.

"They are big," I observed. And they were. In fact they were much bigger than normal marshmallows.

"They are HUGE!" the lady continued, as she kept waving the bag in my face.

I agreed again and hurried on my way through the store. Walking down the aisles, I saw at least three displays of these gigantic marshmallows. They were everywhere. It made me wonder if Walmart had gone a little overboard and been a bit hasty with their inflated expectations for these marshmallows. But then again, the marshmallow lady did seem very enthusiastic about them.

And you know how it is at the grocery store---you always seem to pass the same people up and down every aisle. So everytime I saw her, she grabbed her bag of marshmallows and waved them at me. I tried to look happy to see her, but honestly, by the third aisle of ohhhing and ahhhing over marshmallows, it was getting more and more difficult to be excited. About the marshmallows. Even if they are really really big marshmallows.

I guess the lady also found a large Hershey's candy bar, which she showed me. She said she was planning on having her very own "campfire" smores extravaganza as soon as she got home. I told her that sounded yummy as I pushed my cart faster through the aisles, passing her by, hopefully for the last time.

Oh, I thought I'd warn you that in case you are interested in large marshmallows, you better hurry. They have them at Walmart, but they won't last long.

When I'm helping I'm happy.

I'm in the kitchen making dinner. My husband comes in and tells the kids that they should come and help.

"I'll watch," Anna offers.

"I'll clap," Nick replies.

"I'll be a street performer," my husband decides as he starts posing in various positions. "And you can pay to get your picture taken with me."

My son claps and jumps on his back. And together they all go to the back porch.

And I'm still in the kitchen, wondering what just happened.

Next time I get to be the street performer.

Too bad I didn't think of it first...

After getting home from a trip I always expect to find things out of place. But this time I was actually surprised. There was a brick. In the sink. And this brick was in a plastic bag.

I had to ask...

I guess Brian was ambitious enough while I was gone to soak some of Nick's laundry. He soaked Nick's "white" shirts for four days. Apparently he needed the brick to keep the shirts from floating to the top.

I rolled my eyes and put the brick back in the garage.

Then last week I needed to soak something to get out a stain. The shirt kept floating to the top of the bucket.

So I went to the garage and got the brick.

And it worked!

Ready for anything!

The big day arrived! We dropped off Sarah and Heather at BYU yesterday. I was so ready! I put all my money, ID, and credit cards and secured them safely into the pocket of my cute, black, BYU approved, knee-length shorts. I had my camera and we were all set!

We drove down to BYU and hurried to the ID center so the girls could get their BYU Id's. The room was full of fellow students all waiting for their id. "Huh," I remarked loudly. "It looks like no one else brought their mom!" Sarah moaned and elbowed me. Hard.

I knew we had an appointment at the bank next, so I reached my hand into my pocket to reassure myself that I had the money and my ID. And it was empty. I felt that rush of panic start as I frantically put my hand into all my other pockets just to check, but they were empty as well.

I clearly remembered putting everything I needed into my pocket. I know I had! I looked down in dismay at my black shorts feeling very betrayed.

Except I wasn't wearing black shorts.

Then I remembered. Right before we left I had changed into a pair of jean capris!

Off to the bank we went anyway. I informed the bank guy that not only did I not have the money to put into the accounts, I didn't have any id on me either.

So much for feeling like I was on the ball...But I did have a camera! That has to count for something, right?

Laundry time.

When we drove up to Massillon, Ohio to visit Nick we thought it would be fun to surprise him by washing his laundry while he was busy marching.

His laundry was very dirty. And by saying "very dirty" I am being kind. It was more of a "toxic-nasty-should be burned" kind of dirty.

Anyway, we put all his laundry in one of those super-duper-triple capacity sized washing machines, put it on the "For The Love Of All That Is Holy, Get This Laundry Clean!!!" setting. And watched it work it's magic.

We finished and put his laundry away nice and neatly into his duffel bag. And waited to see if he would notice.

That night my son came over and asked us what we had done to his clothes.

Hummm. "We washed it?" My daughter replied.

"Why?" I wanted to know.

"It's so clean!" he replied sounding surprised and amazed.

Well we had just washed it...I wonder how he does his laundry?

Maybe he just hasn't found the special setting yet.

Self-discovery.

We learn things about one's self when we are in adverse situations. This summer I spent 3 weeks "volunteering" on the Cadets food truck. We worked 15 hour days, slept on an RV with 8 other volunteers and worked hard all day in the sun.

Things I have discovered:

1. You can judge a shower by how it looks. I can forgive a lot about a shower if the floors are clean.

2. I require more than 3 hours a sleep at night. My brain just doesn't function properly and it takes me a long time to connect the dots when going on only a few hours of sleep.

For example: I put the other food truck crew members cell phone numbers into my cell phone using their first name and food. (Mainly because I don't know their last names and it gives me a quick reference to who they are.) So one day I got a call from Robin Hood. And I was like: "How did Robin Hood get my number? And why is he calling me?" It took me several minutes before it finally occurred to me that I had mistyped "Food" and put "Hood" and that it was Robin from the food truck calling. See? Not so quick...

3. I don't require a lot of time to get ready. I was amazed at how quickly I could take a freezing cold shower. And without access to a mirror, I can be dressed and back to the food truck in only minutes.

4. Please and thank you can go a long way. It was amazing how just a simple thank you from one of the kids made it all seem worth while. Some of the kids were so polite and gracious and thankful for the work we were doing for them.

5. Aprons are wonderful things. The first day I went through 3 changes of clothes. Then someone introduced me to the aprons and it was, well, amazing.

6. I do not like heat, hard physical labor, and functioning on little to no sleep.

I'm so thankful to know this about myself.

And after saying this, I can guarantee that I will be one of the first to volunteer to be back on the food truck next summer.

I guess I won't be getting that nomination for mother of the year...

Today as Anna and I were leaving the dentist's office, I realized I had received several texts. So as we made our way to the car, I quickly tried to reply to them. Since the dentist's office is on the top floor of a junior college, there was a group of college students hanging around outside.

I heard several of them talking as I walked by. "Oh my gosh. Did you just see that?" And, "Can you believe her mom just clobbered her in the face with the door like that?"

My first thought was, "poor kid, her mother should be paying more attention" and then I turned around.

And saw Anna. She was standing in the doorway with her arms loaded down with all of my stuff (Obviously I couldn't text with my hands full), her face smashed against the glass door.

I ran over and opened the door for her. As we walked by again, I heard someone say, "Poor kid."

Trying to redeem myself I paying extra close attention to make sure Anna was completely inside the car with the door shut and seat belt fastened before I drove away. Because that's what a good mother who is paying attention does.

Look! Our very own tomato!

We have a plethora of tomatoes growing on our back porch. Anna counted 17 green ones.


We also have strawberries which didn't do so well. I think we got 5 or 6 tiny little strawberries. And one raspberry plant that has yet to produce a single raspberry. I wonder if they aren't just snobby fruit that are offended by being planted in kitty litter containers...


For a while our neighbors thought that we were growing illegal substances on our back porch. But we set them straight.


So it appears that gardening isn't really our "thing." But we are trying really really hard. And we're going to eat our tomato and smile.

Charting new territory.

I've been wondering if there is a protocol. You know. For how long you are actually supposed to wait after your children leave for college, before you can take-over their bedrooms. And put your stuff in there.

My kids are telling me that I can't actually have their rooms until they leave.

In theory, I guess I have to agree with that. It does make sense.

Except if I wait until after they leave, who will be there to help me pack up their stuff and re-paint their bedrooms? Who I ask you?

So this was my general thinking back in May. Maybe a day or two before the girls officially graduated from high school. As I had them pack up their belongings. Into nice plastic bins. That are now stored neatly in a closet.

And Sarah really did do a great job painting the new recording studio.

P.S. Lest I seem too uncaring, please notice that I did leave a "guest" bedroom for the girls to use if they do decide to come and visit in the future.

And I sincerely hope that they will come visit.

Gone fishin.

The other day we took the kids to go trout fishing. They caught 12 fish in just a few minutes. It was amazing.

But the best part was they have this guy that cleans and fillets them for you. While you wait.

So there we were. Watching the guy fix up our fish. Happy and feeling relieved that he was doing it and not us.

One of the kids remarked that maybe having fish guts spattered on you just might be the worst thing ever.

"I bet there are worse things," my sister commented.

Yeah, I thought to myself---hemorrhoid's are way worse than that.

Seeing the look of surprise and horror on everyone's face I realized that I had just blurted this out. In front of everyone. "I mean, it's just what I've heard. It's not like I would know this from, um, personal experience or anything." I assured everyone.

I'm sure they believed me.

Sisters are a wonderful thing.

Me and my sisters are together for the next few days. I love my sisters. They are awesome and we seem to laugh a lot.

I don't know if other sisters do this, but we seem to spend a lot of time comparing body parts. Our children are completely grossed out. They are like---you guys are always saying something like---mine is bigger than yours, mine has more hair, mine turned black and fell off...

We totally didn't say that last one. Except maybe once.

All I can say is this. Wait until you are 40 and see what you and your sisters talk about.

And when we aren't comparing we are grooming each other. We decided to dye my sisters hair blonde. She is now a redhead. But it looks cute. It really does. And I'm not just saying that.

We are trying to convince another sister to let us do her hair tomorrow night. And we can't figure out why she won't let us. Of course we can always try when she is asleep...

It's amazing what you can find...

I have a filing cabinet upstairs in the nook. A few months ago I noticed that for some reason someone had moved my filing cabinet down to the cellar. Then last week the filing cabinet was back upstairs! This was very confusing.

This weekend we were dragging stuff from all over the house outside for our garage sale. It was then that I made my big discovery.

We have TWO filing cabinets. Huh. Go figure. How is it that I did not know this? The good part is that my husband hasn't been moving the filing cabinet up and down two flights of stairs in the middle of the night.

But the big question is: What in the world is in the second filing cabinet!

Unsettling Dreams. Again.

There I was. Wearing a Spiderman suit. At a wedding. Which apparently was my own wedding. And I was trying to marry my dad. Except everyone kept saying that I couldn't marry my dad because I was already married. (Which by the way no one even mentioned the fact that I couldn't marry my dad because he was, well, MY DAD!)

Anyway. I announced that because I was wearing the Spiderman costume, I could marry anyone I wanted. Which seemed to make everyone happy. Because everyone nodded their heads in agreement, and decided it was now okay for the wedding to take place.

So I married my dad. In a Spiderman suit.

When in Rome...

Do you remember that time when we were in Rome and driving to Pompei and I had to go to the bathroom? Really, really bad? And we'd been looking for gas station signs for miles and miles without any luck?

When all of a sudden we saw a guy pulled off to the side of the road peeing against the guard rail? And we were like, maybe we should pull over!

And there weren't any good bushes so I had to hide behind the guard rail while Julie held a blanket up around me. So no one could see me. Peeing.

While Diane took pictures, capturing the whole event forever on film?


Do you remember that? Yeah. Good times.

Aliens among us.

"Are you an alien?" my 5-year old nephew Ben asked me today.

"Nope," I replied.

"I think you're an alien," he insisted, his twin brother Tim shaking his head in agreement.

Trying to change the subject, I asked them if they knew who would be arriving soon.

"Who?" Ben and Tim asked eagerly.

"Diane is coming!" I told them.

"Is Diane your dad?" they wondered.

"No, she is my sister," I clarified.

"Are you sure she isn't your dad?" Tim wanted to know.

"Yep," I answered.

Tim and Ben turned to look at each other and Ben said, "I bet she's an alien too."

The Swiss Nursery ROCKS!

On Sunday I went with my sister to the nursery. I'm in the nursery at home, so I thought it would be a fun way to maybe get some new ideas.

To my surprise there were very few things the same about our two nurseries. Yes, we both have snack time. My sister baked bread (in an oven inside the nursery) and sliced up various fruits and veggies. Making the stale animal crackers we have, seem even more lame.

One more thing we have in common is play-doh. Well, I did try play-doh once. But one little boy kept eating it so I put it away and never tried it again. Here, they do play-doh every week and just let the kids eat it.

But that is where the similarities end.

Can I just say two words? Sand box. Yes, in Switzerland, they have a sand box in the nursery. How cool is that! My sister bought it and put it in there. If I were to bring a sand box into my nursery at home, I think they would completely freak out.

But the best part is the bikes. They have half a dozen bigwheels and baby strollers that the kids climb on and race down the halls when they take a "walk." I can just imagine how well this would go over in West Virginia.

I'm seriously thinking about trying out some of the great ideas I've seen here. Maybe a sandbox and a few bigwheels...Because, as my sister says, "The kids love it!" And that's all the reassurance I need.

And it may even ensure a speedy release from the nursery.

Feeling a bit jet-lagged, but loving every minute.

I think the second I landed in Switzerland, Julie's five-year-old boys started asking me questions. Wow, I've missed them.

"Are you my mom's brother?"

"Were you little the same time my mom was little?"

"Were you in my mom's tummy?"

I had thought we finally got it figured out when they declared: "Oh, so you are my mom's sister!"

But then I wasn't so sure...

"Are you a boy?" Tim wanted to know. "Because when you came to see us in England, you were a boy."

Julie left to pick up the older kids from school and Ben reached up to grab my hand. "So, I guess you're the boss now," he informed me.

I asked him who the boss usually was. "I'm the boss of me, Tim is the boss of Tim, and George is the boss of everyone," he answered.

And then the conversation changed. Which is one of the things I love most about these guys.

"Who made the world," Ben asked standing inches away from my face as I was trying to use the bathroom as discreetly as possible.

I told him that Heavenly Father made the world. "Did he die?" he wanted to know.

I reminded him about Easter and how Jesus was raised from the dead. "Oh yeah," Ben nodded his head, remembering. "That's when the Easter Bunny came to raise Jesus from the dead." Or something like that.

Time for a Scooby snack...

It's that crazy place between real and dreaming. That's where I was this morning. I'd woken up and driven the kids to school but had a terrible headache. Got home took something for the headache and checked my mail and facebook. My sister mentioned something about having tickets to see some kind of murder mystery dinner train. Wow! I've always wanted to go to one of those.

My head was throbbing so I decided to lie down for a while. And suddenly I was in the middle of a ghost hunt. Not quite the murder mystery I wanted, but I guess it was close enough. It was almost like a Scooby Doo episode...

And I was chasing down ghosts when all of a sudden the phone rang. In my dream it was someone trying to trick me---trying to convince me they were not really a ghost when I knew they were.

I woke up as I was hanging up the phone---the real phone. Desperately hoping that I hadn't just had the same conversation on my phone that I'd just had in my dream. I'd just yelled at the "pretend" person, telling them that they had to be a ghost because were too ugly to be real. "Of course, I'm real," the person on the phone had insisted. But I knew better and had hung up them.

So, maybe I'd just picked up the phone in my sleep and no one was ever really there. But just in case---and you called me this morning---I apologize. I'm sure you're quite lovely. Not ugly at all. And maybe next time, don't call so early.

It's possible.

Today as I sat in McDonalds drinking my 10th refill, waiting for it to be safe for me to go to my car, I had to wonder. Is it just me? Does everyone else have encounters with crazy people and find themselves in strange situations on an almost daily basis? Surely I'm not the only one. But then again, maybe I have my own magnet that attracts crazy.

So, I watched the lady check my car doors one final time before giving up and finally wandering off. She had been beside me in line and arguing with herself over who would get to sit in the front seat on the way home. Then she'd taken her drink and gone straight to my car and tried to get inside. There were cars parked on both sides of me, yet she had stood waiting beside the passenger door of MY car. I decided that waiting inside for her to leave was the best way to handle things. Even if it had taken an hour.

Anyway, I realized that things do seem to happen to me. For example, recently my husband and I were driving to pick up Anna from choir practice, and we noticed that one of our front headlights had just gone out. AutoZone was less than a mile away so my husband figured we could just stop by and pick up a new headlight on our way home. I was not so sure. But my husband convinced me that it would be fine. A few blocks away from the store we were pulled over by the police for having our headlight out.

We bought another headlight and I begged my husband to put it in right there in the parking lot. He needed tools we didn't have in the car, so he wanted to wait until we got home. "Besides," he assured me, "what are the odds that we'll get pulled over twice in one night for the same headlight."

He'd forgotten that I was with him. And yes, we did get pulled over on the way home.

And then yesterday. I noticed the shorts my daughter was wearing looked like they were ripped in the back. But I can never say the right thing the right way. "Anna do you have a hole in your butt?" I yelled out. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at me. See? Anyone else would have figured out a better way to phrase that or would have been more discreet.

So, I'm going to challenge myself to be more invisible. To try to make it through an entire week without making a scene or attracting the attention of crazy people. I think I can do it.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I was just trying to be nice.

Why else would I have 10 cases of Pepsi Max piled into my cart. Target is always out of Pepsi Max, so when I saw they had some in stock, I bought all they had. 9 cases fit into my cart perfectly, but I was able to balance the 10th box on top.

And it would have been fine...except I saw my neighbor and was waving hello to her. Instead of watching for potholes.

The case of pop flew off the top of my cart and instantly I knew that at least one can was leaking. And since I couldn't put a leaking box of pop into my car, I knew I'd have to remove the damaged can(s). I picked the box back up and put it into my cart where I could open the soggy end of the container. Before I was ready, all 12 cans came flying out of the box.

It was like mini explosions with pop squirting in every direction. The lady walking towards me ran for cover behind the trash can. If it wasn't such a surprise and pop wasn't spraying all over me, I would have stopped to watch. It truly was incredible.

I threw the damaged cans---that were still spraying out pop with amazing power---into the trash can. (Once again I needed to apologize to the lady who was then hiding behind the trash can.)

I had it almost under control and was ready to continue my trek across the parking lot when I overheard a women passing by inform her friend that maybe I should start drinking non-caffeinated pop. Before I could scream, "It was the POT HOLES!" once again my cart lurched into a hole and the few cans that hadn't been damaged went flying out of the open box...

This time I wasn't so apologetic to the women who ended up getting sprayed. It really was an accident.

The fabric store is not my friend.

This morning I decided to finally go buy the fabric my sister had asked me to get for her. I've been putting it off because fabric stores are a bit intimidating to me. It turned out that my fears were justified as it ended up being a stressful experience for me.

My sister wanted some baby fabric she could use to make baby quilts. Any fabric at all, she assured me. As long as it was cute. I ran around looking at baby material for an hour trying to decide if it was cute enough or even cute at all. I mean what if I thought it was cute, but it really wasn't?

I gathered my "cute" fabric candidates and decided to canvass the store to see what other people thought. 8 out of the 10 people at the fabric store agreed that the material I had picked out was cute. One guy tried to talk me into choosing a nice cammo print instead. Another lady declined participating in my little survey. (Whatever that means.)

Now I'm home and I'm second guessing my choices. What if those people were just telling me what they thought I wanted to hear so I'd leave them alone? Maybe after I left they all started laughing at what ugly and inappropriate material they had talked me into buying.

Anyway, I don't visit my sister for another month so I still have time to re-think my fabric selections.

Got the time?

I lost my watch a while back. I kept thinking it would turn up eventually. But it hasn't. So, I went to the store today to buy a new one.

I showed it to Brian this evening. It's silver and kind of sparkly. He looked at it and asked why I had chosen it. (It looks nothing like my old watch.)

"It was the only watch in the whole store that had the correct time," I replied. It's the truth. And actually I'm quite grateful. It made chosing a new watch very easy.

Brian started laughing. But seriously, doesn't everyone choose their watch that way?

Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

It's snow day 3 this week. And it's still snowing. I'm not really complaining. I like snow well enough, and my kids don't usually bother me. It's just the little things that start to get to me.

Like exercising. There's nothing quite like trying to exercise with an audience. And not even a quiet, respectful audience, I might add. One would think they could keep their comments and questions to themselves...

"Mom, how come you aren't doing it like the lady on the video?" Gee, I wonder.

"Is that sweat on your pants? Gross!" Why, yes it is! Thanks for noticing.

"You're not very good at this." You think?

And my favorite: "I'm exhaused just watching you!" That would be from all your laughing and mocking.

Of course I don't even have to mention the giggles and muffled laughter behind me on the couch. I may be out of shape but my hearing is fine. So, although my self esteem may be suffering, I look forward to enjoying at least one of the perks of having my children home on a snow day---I'll let them clean the bathrooms and fold laundry. It's only fair. They've had their entertainment.

I'm just saying...

I'm a nag. I know, it's not like I'm bragging or anything. I'm just trying to face the facts. And if my husband says that saying something more than once is nagging, well that makes me a nag.

But is that really such a bad thing? Why does that always have to carry such a negative connotation? I like to remind people of things. It's what I'm good at.

For example: every day for the past 10 years I've told my kids to put their dishes in the dishwasher. And today as I was unloading the clean dishes from the dishwasher I found someone had added a dirty breakfast dish this morning. How can I be annoyed to find dirty dishes mixed in with the clean when my family is only doing what I have trained them to do? I can't, but it does show that nagging is effective. And it doesn't really matter that I couldn't find the dirty spoon so I went ahead and put all the silverware away anyway. If I couldn't tell it was dirty, chances are my children won't notice either.

Okay so back to nagging. I'm trying to be less of a nag. I will never be able to give up my nag status, but I'm trying to improve. However, I've found that telling someone to do something in a nice, round-about, "less nagging" way doesn't usually work.

For example: sometimes the drum set is left upstairs in the living room. Which I might add right now, is NOT where it belongs. So trying to do better I say, "Gee, I sure am getting tired of looking at the drum set in the living room." What I'm really saying is TAKE THAT DRUM SET DOWNSTAIRS NOW! But since I didn't actually say that, what happened? My son merely rearranged the drum set. Not exactly what I was going for.

So it all comes back to this. I'm a nag. It's what I'm good at. If you don't like it, too bad. Or just do it the first time I ask and we'll all be happy.

I've lost track of the time.

It's been a busy day and I've been trying to run around to get everything done before the kids arrive home from school. I look at the clock and figure that my youngest should be home any minute. I check out the window to see if I can see my neighbors van yet. I take the kids to school in the morning and my neighbor picks them up from the bus stop after school. It's a nice arrangement.

Ten minutes later I start to get worried. Not panicked. Just concerned. So I go over everything in my mind once more: I distinctly remember my daughter telling me that quiz bowl practice for today after school was cancelled. So she should be taking the bus home. Hmmm. So where is she?

Now I'm worried that my neighbor doesn't expect my daughter to be at the bus and maybe she made other arrangements for her kids to get home. And therefore my child is stranded without a ride home.

It's sleeting outside and I can just picture my daughter trying to walk up the steep hill to our house. I grab my purse and keys not bothering with a coat or even my shoes. I can't believe I let my child walk home in this weather!

I drive around for 10 minutes and my daughter is no where to be found. I've driven every possible route home and I'm to the panic point. My child is gone!

I drive like a maniac to the school figuring if I get pulled over I can just let the police take over. I pull up in front of the school and leave my car running as I race inside.

"My daughter didn't get off the bus!" I shriek. There is a part of me that whispers I may be over reacting just a tad, but I don't listen as I rush to the counter.

"Well that might be due to the fact that school doesn't get out for another hour," the lady informs me.

I look at the clock. I mean I really look at the clock. Oh. I'm mortified as I slink back to my car. And hope that no one notices that I'm not wearing any shoes.

Stealth and yoga.

At Walmart today there was a little boy wandering around. I was just about to ask him if he was lost when a man walked over to him first. "Are you lost?" he asked the little boy. "My mom is here but now I can't find her," the little boy replied, his lip trembling. The man asked if he could help him find his mom, took his hand and off they went.

Huh? Had I just witnessed a child being abducted? What if he walked right out of the store with the little boy? And I didn't even have a very good description of him! So that was when I started following them. Very covertly. He was wearing a black jacket, black t-shirt, blue jeans and a black overcoat. It was the coat that first made me suspicious. Creepy guys wear trench coats, right?

They wandered around the produce area and I was getting worried. Why didn't he just take the boy up to the front counter to have his parents paged. I mean, that's what someone who wasn't planning on abducting a child would do.

I needed to get a little closer. His eyes were brown, he had long brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail. I just couldn't gauge his height!

We had veered back around towards the front registers just as I got next to him to determine how tall he was. Taller than me. I'm not really very good at this.

As he approached a cashier to tell her about the child, I sighed with relief. The pressure was off, I no longer had to figure out his shoe size. I turned around and to my surprise and horror, bumped right into the creepy dude.

"Sorry," I apologized. "Are you following me?" he asked.

"Well that depends," I stammered. "If you were going to kidnap that boy, then yes, I was following you." Awkward pause, so I continued. "But since obviously you aren't, then no, I'm not following you."

He shook his head. "The boy was lost, I was only trying to help him find his mother. He said they were looking at apples and then she was gone."

Oh, right. That would explain the tour of the produce section. I gave a sheepish grin, apologized again and started to walk away.

"So what would you have done if I was trying to kidnap him," the man challenged.

"I know yoga," I tried. He laughed. "No really," I warned him as I went into the warrior pose. Which I guess isn't as intimidating as I thought. He laughed harder and reached into his pocket.

No way. I just knew he had a gun. I couldn't believe that this was how my life was going to end. I was going to get shot. At Walmart. I stood there frozen. Just like in my dreams I couldn't scream or run away. I was paralyzed.

"It's okay," he replied pulling his ID out of his jacket pocket. He was a Walmart employee. "You can stop cringing," he told me, "and thanks for the laugh." He walked away, still laughing and shaking his head.

So even though I need to learn some new moves and I'm not as stealthy as I thought I was, I guess it turned out to be an okay day.

The boy found his mother. And I didn't die in Walmart. Yes, overall it was a pretty good day.

Official Invitation.

Go west on route 50, take the first exit after you pass the Red Caboose Bar. Continue through the light past the Tattoo Parlor and follow the road around as the road curves past the High Life Lounge. Turn right at the Discount Liquor Store. The church is located at the third right after the Harley Davidson Shop.

If you reach the Butts & Ashes Tobacco Stand, you have gone too far. Church starts at 10am---hope to see you there!

We have a plan.

Heather is looking into different programs for college. She's gone from math to physics to---you get the idea. Most recently she has settled on a MD/PHD program (being a research physician). I think she is more captivated at the idea of being a Dr. Dr., then anything else.

Anyway, a while back we were looking through the BYU directory and discovered that there is already a McKibben enrolled at BYU. Since it isn't a common name we were surprised. And then we came up with a plan...

So, Heather could marry this Jared McKibben. She wouldn't have to learn how to spell another last name. Or they could always hyphenate their names and she would be Heather McKibben-McKibben.

Actually she would be Dr. Dr. McKibben McKibben or Dr. McKibben squared...

Of course she will have to meet this guy and see what he thinks about the whole idea. But I think it definitely has potential.

Wanted: Creepy Stalker

We've had a little fun at our house this past week learning about Internet safety. We just found out that apparently one of my daughters has a stalker. So we've been going through and making sure our information is not accessible anymore to just anyone.

My daughter sat down the other night and lamented, "Gee, I thought having a stalker would be more exciting... " Yes, I'm sorry no one was looking through her bedroom window with a telescope, sending pictures of her in the mail, or making phone calls in the middle of the night with lots of heavy breathing. It's a shame really.

"Don't worry," we reassured her. "Next time maybe you'll get a better stalker."

Where are we again?

I have smart kids. But there is something about geography...

Earlier this week my daughter came home from school and couldn't wait to tell me how awful her day was. Her teacher was making her memorize all the state capitols, and she wasn't very happy about it. "Do you even know what they all are?" she demanded. Sure, I mean at least I used to...

Not believing that I did, she decided to test me. "Provo," she announced. Seeing my blank look she continued. "Provo is the capitol of Idaho." Um, no. First of all, Provo isn't even a city in Idaho---it's in Utah---and Salt Lake City is the capitol of Utah. I guess my reasons weren't very convincing and my daughter went to look it up. "See," she called to me, "right here---the capitol of Idaho is...oh. I guess the capitol is Boise." I gave her a smug look, but didn't go as far as to say I told you so. "Close enough," she exclaimed grabbing her book.

Last night at dinner my husband was talking about Denver. "Delaware!" my daughter randomly yelled out. Delaware? Seeing everyone's confused expression she proudly explained. "Denver is the capitol of Delaware!"

"No, it's Denver, Colorado and it's Dover, Delaware," everyone clarified. "Same thing," she muttered, "they both start with D."

So did I mention my kids are geographically challenged? I actually find it very amusing. It means that they really don't know everything.

French cuisine.

Nick had an assignment to prepare a French dish and bring it to school today. He was gone all weekend so finally last night at 9pm Heather and I decided we should get started on it. My son had picked out the recipe and so we separated eggs, whipped, beat, and folded. Okay, we improvised.

Nick got home after we'd put it into the oven and asked, "so tell me again how we made these?" While going through our step by step process, the buzzer rang and the French Cheese Puffs were finished. Grabbing a cheese puff and giving it a taste, my son decided they were not very good. "Nothing personal," he added...

So it's 10pm and he's flipping through the cook book trying to find a different recipe. "Just tell everyone that they are supposed to taste bad, that the French LIKE their cheese puffs runny and smelling slightly of rubber," we begged. But he settled on a French cake recipe.

It looked easy enough. I finally sent him to bed at midnight and was up until 3am. The first cake never did cook all the way and there was the slight problem of having chunks of egg from where it didn't get mixed well enough. I think the second one won't kill anyone. But then again, I didn't have the nerve to exactly taste it.

I just want to say that I'm so grateful for the opportunity "we've" had to take this little adventure into French cuisine. It's made all the difference in my life. And the next time we get the chance, I'm going straight to the store to the nearest loaf of French bread.