Perspective

It never hurts to get a little perspective this time of year (especially for kids who grow up in the OC). Sierra's church teacher proposed that the girls go give a day of service for the holidays...and she asked if any moms wanted to join her. I figured it would be a fun day with the girls and a nice break from everything else. What an amazing afternoon we had.

She had arranged for us to go to Santa Ana and help out with a Christmas party for local, low income children, where Santa gives out presents to the kids.

We arrived before the event started and I was overwhelmed!! Presents were stacked everywhere! Kids were lined up around the block. Maunia turned to me and said "are ALL of these kids underprivileged...ALL of them?" When I told her yes, she said "that is soooo sad mom".

Presents, presents, everywhere :-) There were about 4-6 more stacks this big around the other side.

As we were approaching the place we noticed it smelled like fire. Turns out the community center where the event is held annually...and where all the donations had been stored had caught fire and burned...Tuesday! I was shocked and asked how in the world they managed to pull the event back together in 4 days. They said the outpouring of donations when people heard about the fire was incredible...it warms the heart :-)

This was one of about 4 piles of the burned stuff that was being cleared out. Home Depot has donated $10,000 to help rebuild the center.

They estimated they had about 1000 kids and people had been waiting in line since 6 am (the event started at 1).

Our job was to take a child by the hand, and stand in line (a very LONG line) with them to see Santa. Their parents were not allowed to go up there with them...yes there were some screaming children :-) The fun part was trying to make small talk for 20-30 minutes when the child didn't speak English and you didn't speak Spanish! I knew some key phrases but boy I wish I had stayed with that high school Spanish class. I will say though that if any of those kids had asked me where the bathroom was in Spanish, I would have been all over that...there's one phrase I remember.

My favorite little boy was one who didn't want to leave mom, but with the bribery of some Fritos and a few hugs, he snuggled into my shoulder and away we went. Sierra's was a little girl who told her how excited she was all through the whole line and then burst into tears and ran away when it was actually her turn to see Santa :-) Maunia loved the two girls she got who got "exactly what they wanted" from Santa. She had one 15 year old girl (she didn't hold her hand LOL). Maunia was so excited when they gave the girl a HUGE pack of makeup.


We would walk the kids up, get them 3 age appropriate gifts, a stuffed animal, a book, a jacket, a blanket and and a goodie bag of treats.
We estimated they had over 5000 gifts, food baskets, toiletries, shoes...it was a sight to see. The girls were really sad when our shift was over and we had to leave. They wanted to stay and see the reaction of more of the kids as they got to receive "Christmas".

When their leader asked in the car if the girls wanted to do it again next year it was a unanimous "YES!!"

I am grateful for what I have. I am grateful my girls have big hearts. I am grateful there are those willing to help the less fortunate. I am grateful for this time of year, and I am grateful that I have experiences every once in awhile that help me keep perspective :-)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. Sending you all our love

Make a Smilebox greeting

Exhaustion

I've had a few complaints (mostly from the older set with actual free time) that there has been no blog posting. Let me just say that it is not for lack of things to post about but because of lack of time because I'm doing so many postable things :-)

Actually, I had planned to post a few things at the end of last week but it was a rather harrowing week/weekend I must say.

Friday night our Cassidy passed away. She had been sick, but her actually dying was really quite sudden and unexpected. If any of you have had a pet pass away that your kids have had since they were 5, you know how awful that is. There were many tears at our house.

Follow that up with Cary's (my birth dad) memorial service on Sunday...just a few more tears.
Thrown in the mix of our weekend was our annual Christmas concert that the girls and I participate in.

I am exhausted to my very core...both mentally and physically. I haven't even had time to break down so I have that scheduled on the calendar for Wed. (yes Dawn, I know I told you Tues. but I realized I have an important meeting that day about our drama program so it will have to be postponed until Wed.) I've been being the strong mom, but I have the feeling that will crack at some point.

So yes, I have much to post but I need a moment to just decompress...and then hopefully blogging will resume.

Good advice

Maunia and I were walking down to the mail box the other day and noticed a "meat" truck next door...you know one of those door to door meat sales companies.

"mom" she says totally serious
"you should never trust a door to door meat salesman"

Ahhh...good advice to live by indeed :-)

Cary

One week ago today my birth father, Cary Snellings, passed away.

He was diagnosed with cancer just a few months before I found him. I have talked about timing

before, I don't much believe in coincidence. He fought a hard (and stubborn...he was VERY stubborn...not at all like me haha) battle for 2 years.

I was fortunate to be able to fly to Texas the week before he passed away. I got to see him one last time and thank him once again for the life he gave me. I was so fortunate to grow up with the family I did. I also thanked him for Matt and Megan, my "little" brother and sister, I love them so much!

The girls were a little unhappy that I did not take them to TX, but if any of you have ever seen someone in the end stage of cancer...I did not think that was the final picture they needed to have of him. I would prefer they remember him how they saw him last year while fishing up in Bishop, CA.

The girls and I discussed his health for quite some time before he actually passed on. As most of you know we have deeply held beliefs about this life and the life that follows. The girls' prayers gradually changed from prayers of healing to prayers of peace and comfort. It is a great comfort to us to know we will see him again. He will be whole and healthy and we will have eternity to get to know him. While we will miss him now, we know it is not the end.

Sierra wrote a beautiful poem for him that brought tears to the eyes of all those that read it.

Although I've only met you twice
I knew right from the start
that though I barely knew you then,
you'd be forever in my heart

One day I got this news:
it was cancer my grandpa would have to fight.
I've known people who have had cancer before,
so when I heard you had it, it filled me with fright

When you got this evil sickness
I knew for awhile my family would be blue.
But I just wanted to take the time to tell you,
Grandpa, I love you.

Goodbye Cary, you are gone but not forgotten.

spam jello

I haven't been blogging because I made an unexpected trip to Texas. Here is something to tide you over.

I was looking for a recipe online and ran across this recipe. This is so wrong and gross in so many ways!!! Seriously??? spam, mayo., eggs, relish, Tabasco, sour cream, pickles, corn, jello and what the heck is the etc.??? If by some horrid chance this sounds appetizing to you, I've included the recipe for you,...don't invite me over if you make it ;-) I'm not good enough at acting to even PRETEND to like it so as not to hurt your feelings.

Spam Jello

1 large box lemon or lime Jello

1 large can Spam1

medium onion chopped

1/2 cup boiling water

1/2 cup ice cold water

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 bell pepper chopped

4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped

1/4 cup relish;

pickle,

corn, etc.

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

Tabasco to taste

Dissolve Jello in boiling water. Add cold water, mayonnaise and sour cream to Jello. Chop Spam; add to Jello with remaining ingredients. Chill until firm. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Our house

As I am walking through my house it cracks me up.

My entry way contains rubber balls for the men's dodge ball activity at church tomorrow night. (yes, they are old but do they ever realllly grow up? In their defense the women played kickball and it was a RIOT so I can see how it's appealing)

My hallway contains bags of material which ties in to the sewing machine, cutting mats and ironing board in my family room, being utilized for a blanket making charity. Also in that same room are Sierra's stacks of material to make blankets for "project Linus" (a charity)

The chair in the family room contains shirts and fabric markers to make shirts to "suck up to" (yes those were her exact words) Maunia's English teacher. The shirts will say something to the effect of "We love you Mrs. Cummings" I still don't entirely understand this project :-)

Draped across the banister is a beautiful dress, that was a steal, that I want to give to some little girl for Christmas...as my little girls are not so little any more.

My laundry room sink is full of doughnuts (so the dog can't find them and feast) for a church activity.

On the laundry room floor are canned goods for the school food drive.

The office contains the beginning stacks of Christmas gifts and the guts for the invitations to the women's Christmas social that I'm working on.

Also in the office are bells and music so I could help a friend make "bell charts" to use with the kids at her church for Christmas.

The garage contains soda cans that hope to become caroler ornaments for a hospice center charity.

Add to that the Christmas music strewn about so we can practice for our Christmas choir performance and you have lots of projects that make me very happy :-) Our house is for sure never dull, at times it may feel like the loony bin...but never dull!

Phones

Phones are a funny thing. They have become such an ingrained part of our lives. This was pointed out all too clearly when a very teary, slightly hysterical daughter climbed into my car after school a couple of weeks ago. Seems her phone turned on her...dang phone!! It had completely wigged out, lost all of her contacts (yes irretrievable in case you are wondering...don't think the Sprint guys and I didn't try) and would no longer connect to the network. She was pretty sure the world had come to an end...well for at least a few hours anyway :-)

Yes, Miss M's phone went to cell phone heaven yesterday (or hell I guess depending on how you feel about these little texting gadgets and your teen, and whether they are truly of the devil...the phones, not the teens).

"How can any of my friends contact me?" she wailed.
"We have this amazing thing called a phone at home" I told her.

She looked at me as if that was the lamest thing she had ever heard...as if her friends would really call her HOME phone... I'm pretty sure most of them don't even have the number. I didn't help matters much when I told her she would have to wait a few days to get a new one...the horror! I suppose this is actually a good thing though, it gives the teens a drama, which teens seem to love,

"oh my gosh you lost EVERYTHING and no one can text you????? How did this happen???" and takes the focus off of other life ending situations such as having something you thought was a secret revealed to everyone by the girl who "swears she can keep a secret, pleeeeaaasssee tell me" (ahhh so many life lessons to learn at the age of 13)

So I've been thinking about phones (haven't we already discussed in previous posts the very important topics I think about ...yes I think so).

They should invent a phone that's attached to the wall :-) Oh yeah we used to have those...back in the old days...you know when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we all walked 10 miles uphill both ways to school...oh wait that was my parents :-)

We did however used to have these lovely contraptions attached to the wall. I have 4 cordless phones and 1/2 the time I can't find ANY of them. Many of my friends have gone to only cellular to save money. If I can't keep track of 4 fairly large phones how in the world would I ever keep track of one tiny one...that's never charged...I don't see that in my future.

There were some advantages to having the phone attached to the wall. You always knew where the phone was!! My parents always knew where I was and could hear at least 1/2 of my conversation. You have to be part Sherlock Holmes nowadays to be a parent. It takes some serious sleuthing sometimes to keep up on what's going on. (or the ability to stay up LATE into the night as this seems to be when they want to talk)Maunia came to me last year completely frustrated. Thrusting the home phone (this was before her cell phone when she had no alternative but to use the home phone) at me she proclaimed

"the phone is broken"
"What's wrong with it?" I asked
"Well, just listen to it!"
I did listen and then started laughing. It was....dun, dun, dun...a BUSY signal!!! Yes, in these days of call waiting she had never heard such a sound.

Do you recognize this? (OK, let me have a moment of silence as I realize most of you reading this really have NOT ever seen one of these...yep, I'm letting my oldness sink in...deep breaths)

No, it is not some military device or a gadget to contact life in other worlds. This was one of the first cell phones...and I owned one. My mother bought it for me when we moved to DC as I think she was in fear for my life. This thing weighed a ton. I could just as easily knock a mugger out with it as call 911. I actually carried that thing in my bag every day...no wonder I was so much more buff back then. Let me tell you there was no sticking that baby in your pocket.

So, we've come a long way in the cellular area and perhaps taken a step back in the wall phone area. There's something to be said for being tied to the wall and not being able to multi-task with the phone clutched between your ear and shoulder. The days when you could just lay on the floor, unable to move and talk for hours...just ask my mom...and all the neighbors who had to come to our house and say "so and so just called our house because they couldn't get through to yours they want you to call them" ahhh, good times! Something to be said for being unreachable every now and then. Something to be said for having a whole conversation and giving a person your undivided attention. I guess I'm just an old fashioned gal :-)

Sierra's 12th

A slightly late update from Sept.

Sierra came to me and told me she wanted a glow in the dark party. This was a hard one to plan. There are only so many things 12 teenage girls can do in the dark. I was a little worried but I have to say it turned out great!! The girls had so much fun and it was so fun to watch them and all their goofiness.

Her invites. They had glow in the dark stars and writing.

The cake

I did discover that taking pictures of a glow in the dark party is rather difficult. All of the pictures basically look the same.
Each of the girls was given a pack of glow sticks as they came in and they got to use them to wear however they wished. (some were rather creative I must say)

Maunia and Marcea

Maunia and Marcea with the lights off

A group of glowing girls
We made several signs with glow in the dark paint and then had black lights

We decorated the windows with glow in the dark spray

Even the dog got in on the action. That is a glowing necklace around her neck.

Toasting the birthday girl (I had to talk Sierra into having the lights on so they could see what they were eating. She wanted to eat in the dark.)
We did a glow in the dark scavenger hunt. We hid various glowing objects and mini light brights that spelled out her name, age, a smiley face and a heart. They had to find all the light brights and figure out what they spelled
It was such a crack up to see all the girls dancing. All you can see are moving glow sticks.

The scavenger hunt. The dog was tired by this point in the night so she just laid down in the MIDDLE of the yard. I kept yelling "don't step on the orange circle, don't step on the orange circle" as they were running around looking for glowing objects.

The girls played murder in the dark and freeze dance. It was a great party!

Amazing Woman

I was thinking of creepy stories and C Jane had a blog about a mysterious tent that appeared in her back yard in the middle of the night, which reminded me of a family story of Treg's...don't worry it's not a ghost story.

Treg's Aunt Lavird was an incredible woman. You will never meet a more Christlike person than her. I had the privilege of meeting her only once or twice before she passed away. She was loved by all.

So, she lived all alone and never locked her doors. One night she gets up in the middle of the night and sees there are all these people sleeping in her family room. She has no idea who they are. Does she panic and call the police??

Nope, she said "well, I didn't know who they were but I figured they would be hungry when they got up so I started cooking."

She made them her famous sourdough pancakes (which I never got to try because Treg hates sourdough...sigh). Turns out it was one of Treg's cousins and a bunch of his friends.

How cool is she though?? No wonder everyone loved her so much.

**The above picture was taken by Treg's brother Dirk. I LOVE this photo. Doesn't it just show how much character was in this beautiful woman??

Daughters

So I called my mom a couple of days ago.

I apologized for ever being 13
For screaming and squealing all the time ( I don't really remember that part but she swears I did)
For being hormonal
and for liking boys

I heard her chuckle. Sometimes wishes do come true. All the times she sweetly said "I hope you have a daughter just like you when you grow up."...yep...it's like that.

Halloween Ghost Stories

Ghost stories fit right in with Halloween right? Well our family has their fair share of ghost stories.

GHOST STORY #1
It all started in our town house a few blocks down, the one we moved in to when we came to CA. Treg was working VERY long hours and I was often home along late into the night with the kids. On several occasions, around 11 pm, I thought I heard one of the kids crying and then a door slamming. I would go upstairs and both kids' doors were open and both kids were sound asleep. I shrugged it off as odd and joked about having a ghost but didn't think much else of it.
A few weeks later we had a baby sitter. She says to me "The weirdest thing happened. Around 11 o'clock, I thought I heard one of the kids crying and a door slamming but when I went up both of the kids were asleep." "Oh, that must have been our ghost", I said. I don't recall that babysitter every agreeing to baby sit for us again :-)

GHOST STORY #2
In that same house, my mom was watching my kids while Treg and I attended a wedding on the East Coast. We talked a few days into the weekend and apparently my mother had "fallen" down the stairs and broken her arm. She said it was so weird. She was standing at the top of the stairs, nowhere near the landing, and all of the sudden she was falling down the stairs like someone had pushed her...ooooo...creepy.

GHOST STORY #3
(This one if my favorites)
My father in law and Treg's step mom bought a very old house (we're talking like 100 yrs. old or better) and they have this funky closet in the master bedroom. The closet is kind of L shaped. The previous owners had put rods in the closet to hold the clothes that blocked off the back part of the L. (you would literally have to crawl under the clothes to get to it). My father in law had never been back in that part of the closet. His cell phone went missing one day. He called it and called it and after looking for it for the better part of a month he finally gave up and got another phone. Some months later for some reason he went back into the blocked off part of the closet and guess what he found...yep, his cell phone, and it was out of the case, he never took it out of the protective case and the case was nowhere to be found...spooky. The better one however is the day he and his wife were in their bathroom. There were no open window, no breeze, no air disturbance of any kind and all of the sudden the toilet paper roll just starts unrolling and continues until the roll is empty. I told him he should do some research on his home to find out who the previous owners were...turns out it was a mob family...I told him I didn't think I would dig up the cement on the back patio any time soon. Yep, the kids are really jazzed to sleep at grandpa's house.

THE FINAL GHOST STORY
In our current house there is an entry way that leads into a room with a pool table and there is a hallway that leads from the entry back into the kitchen/family room area. Again, Treg was working long hours (might I just point out I'm glad he doesn't work such long hours anymore) and I was often home alone. One night as I was sitting on the couch watching TV, I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye, down the hallway, someone run from the entry way to the pool table room. It was such a split second thing that I thought I was just imagining it. However, it happened every night for the next few weeks. I never said anything to anyone about it (I have sort of an aversion to being committed to an asylum).
So, the girls and I are eating dinner one night and all of the sudden Maunia says "mom, there's somebody in the house".
"WHAT?", I say rather alarmed.
"Yeah, they just ran from the hallway to the pool table". (OK, validation, yeah...maybe not crazy...well, it's still debatable I guess).
We mentioned it to Treg and he says "oh, yeah I've seen that".
A few months later Treg's nephews were living with us and we mentioned one night that we had a ghost "oh you mean the one that runs from the hallway to the pool table" his nephew says "I've seen that." (we had not told him WHERE the ghost was).
Several people in my house have heard the ghost. They all report the same thing that he says "I want my mommy", I've never personally heard him.
He seems to have gone dormant since the dog got bigger as we haven't seen him in quite some time.


So those are my ghost stories. Hope you enjoyed my Halloween haunting tales. Don't worry, it's still safe to come visit us. No one has been killed....yet.

Follow up to the dinner story

I guess I owe my dear hubby an apology. Apparently the whole dinner misunderstanding (click the link if you missed the original post about this) was a gender thing.

He did a little social experiment to see if this was the case. He told two women at work the story and they both knew exactly what I was asking. YES!! See, I was perfectly clear :-)

BUT WAIT

He had some friends over the other day and he told them the story (I was present for this experiment). He gets to the punch line "and I said I would be fine I would just have a snack or something" and they both just sat and looked at him like they were waiting for the rest of the story and didn't understand why this was amusing. I busted up laughing and said "you see I wanted him to MAKE the dinner."
"ohhhhh" they replied and then they started laughing.

So I guess it is a gender thing. All those men would have been running for the snacks in fear of perishing before I got home to make dinner and all the women would have had dinner ready and waiting. Too funny. It's no wonder they say we are from different planets sometimes.

Let's see...
I drew blood
I waited until the night before it was needed
We picked the most difficult fabric to work with
I was about ready to commit myself to an insane asylum
I'm sure it was all the machine's fault!!

Yep...it all adds up to the Halloween costume being done. I'm sure now you're going to expect some elaborate costume for all that blood sweat and tears...silly you...it's just a simple witch's dress...but she's a pretty dang cute witch (pictures will follow later)

The animal shelter

We headed down to the animal shelter so the girls could present the spoils of their hard work. We are standing at the counter and the girls that work there were not paying much attention to my girls. I finally said "These girls have something for you". The gal turns around and says really sweetly "oh, what do you have?" Sierra looks at her with her dead pan face and says "$500" the lady looked slightly shocked. From there it was thank yous and pictures and much gratitude. They were so appreciative that they let the girls pick which animals to give toys to and give them to them themselves.

The girls had collected blankets and newspapers

Sierra handing over the money

Giving a dog a chew toy

The little dog was lovin' that chew toy

Giving the cat a catnip mouse. It was too funny. The cat was so excited, he would flip the mouse up on his bed then pounce on it, then flip it in it's food dish and pounce on it, it finally flipped it so hard it flipped right out of the cage.

How cute is the little pony tail on this dog's head?

Another happy toy recipient

The girls were so happy when we left and I was happy we didn't come home with a dog. Again I say, good job girls!!

The Carnival

I never updated you all on the outcome of the girls' carnival. Let me clear the air about something though. People have praised me because of this carnival and what a great thing it was to teach my kids about charity. This was the girls' idea. They have HUGE hearts. They are such good girls and sometimes I am blessed to be able to help them :-)



We had gone to the animal shelter earlier in the year because the girls wanted to volunteer. The shelter told them they were too young. So, the girls got in their heads that they were going to raise $500 instead. I thought that was LOTS of money but they were determined.



They started by making small clay figures and selling them door to door and then saving their spare change. This brought them up with a little over $100. That's when they got the carnival idea. They decided on a Mon. that they wanted to have a carnival and the only day they could do it was the following Sat. so it was a little crazy but it turned out awesome.

The girls getting the carnival organized

They set up a great business model. They sold punch cards for a set amount of money and then each of the games cost a certain number of punches. The kids then earned tickets which they could trade in for prizes. To accumulate prizes they cleaned out their rooms and told all of their friends to donate small toys they didn't want so their overhead cost was very little.

They delivered about 100 flyers door to door and spread the word.

Maunia at the punch card table. The kids also had a "guess how many pom poms in the jar" game where you could win those giant prizes in front for FREE!!

Trysten at the pick a duck game

Tessa at the candy crane game

Syd at the toss the penny in the rainbow pot game

Sierra with her home made vending machine...she was VERY proud of that machine

Ryan at the sucker tree

Lauren at the basket bean bag toss game

The kids having a good time

Haley at the fishing pond

Angela with her loot :-)

Sierra and Ashley at the ring the bottle and the vending machine

Marcea at the plinko board

The prize table
All the kids that helped did such an amazing job. It was blazing hot and they were troopers. The girls raised over $300 that day. They reached their $500 goal and had some extra to buy toys for the cats and dogs. I'm so proud of them. Good job girls.

The Lakers

Treg and I hold Lakers season tickets. We can't afford them so we sell most of them so we can afford to go to a few games each year. (If any of you are interested in buying tickets let me know, I'll make you a deal :-)

Anyhow, the first year we had them we were about 2 rows from the top of the Staples Center. I think I remember getting altitude sickness and vertigo as we kept climbing to our seats the first year...seriously, if there had not been a jumbo tron showing the game I don't think I would have even known there was a basketball game down on the floor.

See that tiny little pink arrow up there...yep that was where we were.

We have moved down a little more each year. The other little pink arrow were our seats last year.

This year by some weird twist of fate (It's a long story, you really don't want to have to read through the whole thing, really) we ended up with awesome seats 12 rows from the floor. It's a whole different game down there. All those times we yelled "why the heck didn't he make that shot???" we now understand why. They are right on top of each other ALL the time, the game is so physical, I'm amazed they ever make ANY shots.

View from the current seats. AWESOME!!

I like to watch basketball but I don't really get how you make it onto a basketball team I guess. Several times throughout the game (we were at a pre-season game) Treg would say "yeah, he's not gonna make the team". I was confused.

Treg: "he's not gonna make the team"
Me: "ummm, isn't he already on the team? Look he's wearing the jersey and on the floor playing and everything"
Treg: "no, this is pre-season, they can still get cut from the team"
Me: "wouldn't they have too few players then?"
Treg: "No, they have too many players, more than they're allowed to have so they have to cut some"
Me: "Oh, so it's like an overbooked flight. Do they first ask for volunteers to leave the team...you know offer them a free night in a hotel and some food vouchers if they'll step off the team?"

In the end we concluded that they probably have a white boy quota...you know they have to leave a certain number of white boys on the team so no one gets upset...although we didn't see any we thought should stay. I would have been going up to all the white boys saying "Thanks for coming out tonight, here's your food voucher, better luck next year".

Customer Service

People say customer service is dead. They say that companies are so rude now a days. I don't know why they would say that. Case in point. I ordered a book online a few weeks ago and kind of forgot about it. I got a request from Amazon the other day asking me to rate the company. I had totally forgotten about the order. (It was $.99 and not something I desperately needed, obviously). I didn't remember ever receiving the order so I emailed the company and told them I hadn't received the order, that $.99 was not that big of deal but that I just thought they should know I hadn't received it. Here was the nice email I received in reply. THIS ORDER WAS SENT BY EMAIL AS ALL EBOOKS FROM OUR STORE TO THE EMAIL ADDRESS GIVEN......PROOF BELOW !!!!! (then they included the original email they had sent) Now see how nice they were 1. They YELLED at me in all caps (maybe they just wanted to make sure I heard that they were right) 2. They pointed out that they had SENT IT TO THE ADDRESS GIVEN...so if I hadn't received it then who's fault was that huh missy??? 3. They had PROOF that they weren't wrong. 4. 5 exclamation points to prove their point Now wasn't that nice, friendly, customer service. Turns out I had gotten the original email (it was an ebook) but they sent it under a different name that I wouldn't have connected with the company I ordered from and the name could have easily appeared to be junk mail. Yeah, they give me warm fuzzies and make me want to rush right back and work with them again...NOT!

Communication

**I love my hubby very much. He is good at many things, cooking just doesn't make his list of things he cares enough to learn. Hopefully he found the following conversation as amusing as I did and if not...hopefully he's already at his golf tournament and won't read this post ;-)**

You know those times when your communication skills seem to be out of sync with your spouse's?? Well the last couple of days have been like that around here. I talk and for some reason Treg looks at me like I'm speaking some unknown language. I think I'm being perfectly clear but apparently not in his mind. The following conversation made me laugh.

The girls and I sing in a Christmas choir every year. This year the rehearsal time is from 5:30-6:45. The rehearsal building is a good 15 minutes away so that leaves us with a dinner dilemma. I was talking to Treg about this dilemma.

Me: "I don't know when we're going to do dinner on rehearsal nights. You want to do dinner at 4:30 or 7?"
Treg: "7:00"
Me: "Can you make it?" (now women you know exactly what I'm asking at this point right??? It's pretty clear?? I thought so)
Treg: "yeah, I'll be OK, I'll have a snack or something"

Huh?? I think I just stood and looked at him for a few seconds then started laughing. Obviously I wasn't asking if he was going to perish if he didn't eat by 7:00. I wanted him to MAKE the dinner.

My Jetsons kitchen, and Samantha Bewitched nose, despite seeeeverral requests by me, have not yet been delivered so it's fairly impossible for me to have dinner on the table as I walk in the door.

Me: "No, not can you personally "make it" until 7 without starving, can you actually MAKE THE DINNER?"
Treg: "WHAT??"

I'm seeing 2 1/2 months of Sunday night peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our future.

Maunia

So, we are watching the MTV awards the other night (well Treg was kind of watching them while he was working and the women folk of the house all just happened to filter in one by one and got sucked in by the music) You know, it's so much more enjoyable to listen to the music when you don't see the actual people singing...they are scary man!

Lady Ga Ga comes on (that woman is FREAKISHLY weird!!!)Next up came Beyonce (who looked like she wanted to kill someone and could crush you with the heel of her boot and well toned leg muscles at any given moment, plus her top half staying inside that outfit defied the laws of nature and gravity...I'm thinking there must be super glue involved)

Maunia totally dead pan says "well mom I guess they figured the outfits covered their butts so they were OK to wear in public" ha, ha, funny kid. (this is a follow up to this post if you don't understand why her comment was funny, we're also pretty sure Lady Ga GA WAS in her underwear)

Flu shots

There has been much debate going on as to whether to get flu shots or not? Do the benefits outweigh the risks. Is the flu really that bad?

I for one am hoping for the flu.

Immediate weight loss
Guilt free day to spend in bed
A free pass on cooking/laundry duty

Hmmm....I'm just sayin

Oh come on!!

My dog likes butter...and See's dark chocolates...but I'm pretty sure this post has to do with the butter.

Cassidy has been on a pretty good run with the stomach thing. No throwing up or other such doggy type accidents. (for those of you not familiar with my doggy woes, last Feb...the day after my birthday to be exact...the dog started having funky stomach issues)

Two days ago I ran to get the kids from school and while I was gone she, Cassidy, decided to eat two sticks of butter...yep two sticks....mmmm, yummy! No issues that day so I thought we were in the clear.

Yesterday I put her outside for about two hours while I ran errands and let her in when I got home. I'd been home about 10 minutes when I notice a pile of throw up...really??? Awww, come on...you couldn't throw up OUTSIDE the whole time I was gone??

Later in the day I hear "MOM, What is THAT?" That cannot possibly turn out well. In mom speak we hear "hey, there's something really gross no one else wants to touch so lucky you!"

I am wondering where in the contract of motherhood/wifehood that I somehow signed(without remembering signing it) it said "you will clean up all gross stuff no one else wants to touch"

My favorite line is
Me: "well clean it up"
Them: "ewww, it's gross (disgusting, insert whatever adjective you like), I don't want to touch it"

Oh by all means if YOU don't want to touch it then I would LOVE to touch it! Gross stuff is one of my favorite things :-) As a matter of fact I have a song about it...sung to the tune of My favorite things

Drooling
and shedding
Refusals to eat food

Paw prints
and fur balls
the size of small poodles

dog puke
and dog poop
all left there to clean
These are a few of my favorite things

Mud balls
and wet fur
when it rains in the Spring
These are a few of my faaaaavooooorite things

Yes indeed, the motherhood contract has somewhere written in invisible ink that we are responsible for all things gross that trigger an immediate gag reflex...isn't my contract up for renewal and renegotiation yet?

Hot Air Balloons and Michael Vic

I was listening to the radio while in the car today. There was a story about a 6 year old boy that took the family's homemade hot air balloon and sailed off into the sky. Needless to say people were a bit concerned about this. The balloon came slowly and safely to the ground a couple of hours later but there was no boy in it. Very odd story, but actually this post is about me trying to find out the latest on the missing boy. So, I come home and while I'm working on the computer I decide to look up the latest on the story. What better way to do that than through Twitter right? I have never looked at Twitter before...now I know why...it makes my head hurt. It's like standing in a room with 1,000 people all talking to you at once. The conversation makes no sense because everyone is putting their two cents worth in at the same time so it makes for a very disjointed conversation. I'm thinking I'm not a fan of Twitter. Any of you fans of Twitter?

Another news story I heard made me laugh. Do you remember when NFL player Michael Vic was convicted for dog fighting? Well apparently he came back to play a game in the city where his dogs were adopted out after the dog fighting was discovered. So here is what struck me as funny about this story.

The news reporter says "Michael Vic was invited to visit his dogs while he was in town but he has declined". Then they had some guy on who said "The least he could do is come and visit the dogs and say 'I'm sorry for what I did to you and your litter mates' ". (he was totally serious and emotional I might add)

Really????

I'm all for no animal cruelty and loving your pets and all but do you really think these dogs are just sitting there waiting for his apology? Do they need more doggy therapy because he didn't want to come visit them while he was in town and apologize and give them closure? I envision the dogs nodding their heads while Vic is apologizing, saying (through a doggy interpreter of course) "you know man, I'm not gonna lie to you, it's been rough. We've just been sitting here wondering when you were going to be man enough to own up to your mistakes", then giving him a paw to let him know they forgive him and everyone can move on with their lives.

School House Rocks

School House Rock...ROCKS!!

Maunia struggles with Social Studies (yes, sadly she is MY child, sorry for those genes babe!) Anyway, they are studying a book called "We the People" right now in school. They have a test coming up tomorrow and I was asking her if she was ready for it. She told me that she pretty much already knew most of the stuff. "Mom, I used to watch school house rock for hours and hours" she said. "Every time the teacher starts talking a song from that pops into my head and I already hear the dates and events."

Sierra came in and asked what we were talking about and we told her School House Rock. This led my girls to sing a montage of School House Rock songs. Conjunction, junction, Shot heard round the world, no more kings. It was pretty funny.

Now I know you all started singing Conjunction, junction when I mentioned it...admit it. If not that then perhaps it was I'm just a Bill, but you started singing SOME School House Rock song.

We have the box set if you need to come and be nostalgic. Bless the brain child behind School House Rock and their ability to make my child's studying easier.

Maunia wisdom

Apparently you all were not impressed with my fabulous wisdom following Benjamin Button. So I have decided to share some of my children's wisdom with you and maybe you will be more impressed :-)

Maunia and I were discussing the clothing (or lack thereof) that several girls her age wear. She was telling me about a conversation she had with one friend about the length of her shorts. Maunia was telling this friend that she should wear shorts that were longer and covered a little more.

Her friend's response, "As long as they cover my butt they're long enough".

Maunia says to me "Mom, her underwear covers her butt, why doesn't she just wear that out in public?"

I thought that was a brilliant response.

So parents feel free to use that. You know our parents (well at least MY mother) used to say "if all of your friends jumped off a cliff would you do it?" you can now say "well, if all of your friends wore their underwear out in public because it covered their butt would you?"

Do your kids need some good reasoning for math? Have them try this one out.

Maunia came home with her math test and we were going over the questions she had missed. One of the questions was something like "Jill hikes for 3.5 hours, and she hikes an average of 2.75 miles per hour. How far did Jill hike?"

Maunia came up with something like 93 miles. She had put her decimal in the wrong place by accident.

"Honey, you need to think about your answers, that's not even logical" I said "No one can hike 93 miles in 3 hours."

"Well, if you ran you could"

"Uhhhhh, no you couldn't"

"Well if you were Edward you could"

Hmmm, she had me there. (for those of you not familiar with the Edward reference you obviously do not dwell in the teen world of Twilight) Edward moves faster than the speed of light and could indeed easily cover 93 miles in under 3 hours. I'm pretty sure the teacher will happily accept that answer. So have your children use fictional characters to justify math answers, it's even better than the dog ate my homework.