I Can't Make This Stuff Up.

I will try to approach this subject with finesse and humor. In no way am I intending to offend anyone. (especially my proof reader)

Let's say I know of this couple. If you knew them, you would think that they were madly in love and you would be right. You would also be likely to think that they are living happily ever after. You would be mostly right.

So this couple has a few kids. They are in their late 30's. So the likelihood of what I am about to tell you goes up a bit. You see the man in this relationship has a job that he is not happy in. He has also decided that he is not sure about his chosen profession in general.

So the man and woman are in their kitchen one night after their children are in bed. The wife had removed some pork chops from the freezer the day before and put them in the refrigerator to defrost. Not thinking, the wife did not put a plate under the defrosting offender. There a was a fairly slimy mess that had to be dealt with. The husband is the one to discover this mess. Being that he is the sweetest man to walk the planet, he begins to clean it up with out complaint or ridicule of the wife who so thoughtlessly ruined a fair amount of fruit. Certainly the wife will not allow the husband to clean up her mess alone.

As she begins to help, she notices some clementines on the counter and asks if they were in the drawer that was contaminated. The man responds with, "yes." Any smart wife would have just tossed them.....but not this wife......she begins to check them. It seems that a few of them may have missed the mess since they were in the front of the drawer and on top of the bag. Contemplating that there may be a way to salvage a few of these clementines she asks her husband his opinion. He responds with a very non-committal answer. This is a sore spot with the wife. She tells him he is such an "engineer" that he will not give a definitive answer on such a simple question. To which he responds with something that had the terms, "variables and outliers" in it and something to do with he "gives enough information that someone ought to be able to come to the conclusion on their own." To which the woman responds with, "Can you just give me a definitive answer?" Now the husband is getting a bit irritated. So the wife tosses out the clementines. As the conversation continues, the husband tells the wife to go, he will finish the job. Clearly he is angry. He states somewhere in this discussion that he doesn't like it when he is called an engineer. This of course hits a funny bone with his wife since she has seen his business cards which clearly state he is a specific type of engineer. At first the wife is just snickering, but then, as the whole thing continues to play out in her head, the full-on "cackle," as the husband puts it, comes spilling out.

The wife goes upstairs and washes her face and puts on her PJ's. She can now hear that he has finished cleaning up the mess. The husband makes no attempt to come up to bed even though it is late. Slightly irritated the wife crawls into bed. A few hours later the "non-engineer" makes his way up to bed. The husband is typically the type to be very careful not to wake the sleeping, but not this night. So the wife is awakened. She lays there trying to go back to sleep. Sleep will not come. She finally decides it would be a good idea to climb into the guest bedroom bed and read the letters from when they were dating. The hope was to find reminders as to why she thought this relationship would be a good idea. Would you believe that the first TEN letters read infuriated her more. There was a lot of indefinite-ness in them, at which point, the husband walks into the guest bedroom. He reiterates what was discussed earlier. When he is finished, he asks what he should do now. She suggests he go back to bed and get some sleep. He goes back bed. The wife picks up the eleventh letter and is instantly reminded why she committed to this man. His words, "You are so beautiful. I see your face everywhere. It's in my mind. I look at your pictures as often as I can. None of them do you justice. You have so much grace and class it's unbelievable. I know to you this doesn't seem like anything, but if you knew how it makes me feel inside you'd see a whole side of you that you didn't know existed. I love you." So when the husband came back into the guest bedroom a few minutes later and requested that the wife come sleep next to him so he could sleep, she responded with, "In just a minute. I'll be right there." See, mostly happily ever after.

This should be the end of this post, but the stuff just kept coming. So few days later, the wife is sitting in bed checking e-mail and facebook before going to sleep. As she finishes up she looks over and realizes that the man she married is, and has been, working on something quite intently for a while and is showing no signs of letting up anytime soon. Curious, she asks what he is doing. He responds with all the football teams he has picked to win in college bowls have won. He continues to tell her he is making an algorithm to help him pick the rest of his teams. Remembering the conversation from a few nights before, the wife quietly chuckles to herself. She softly tells him he is making it really hard on her.

A few days after that, one of the couple's children has drawn a picture that so far had included three people. The daughter asks her mother if she knew who the people were. Before the mom could answer, the non-engineer in his mid-life crisis, answers and says, "Is this you and your sisters?" To which the daughter burst out in tears and wails, "I'm not half bald! That's you!"

Like I said, I can't make this stuff up.

Unfulfilled Expectations

While attending the family ward for the area I lived in, I was invited by the bishop to attend the singles' ward. If you aren't LDS, wards are where areas are divided up into congregations. I really had no desire to attend but decided to give it a try. There was a chance I would meet some people I would like and maybe I would enjoy the change of scenery. So...I decided to go one Sunday.

Sacrament meeting was fine, though a little strange since there were no babies crying, no kids fighting over crayons in loud whispers, no mommies or daddies standing in the back rocking a child, or all the other things that were so comforting to me about a family ward. The family ward had all the right sounds as far as I was concerned.

I remember nothing of Sunday School that day, but in Relief Society (women's organization within the church), was a lesson I will never forget. The topic was on "Unfulfilled Expectations." Truth is, we all go through this in our lives. We all have times that we expect things will go one way and they go another. Learning to deal with these with faith and grace is something most of us desire. Did I mention I was 21? That is an important piece of information in this story. At this point in my life I had had my fair share of disappointment, not more than most, just the average amount. There was much for me take from this lesson until it turned into something else all together.

As there were many women in this Relief Society approaching 30, the lesson turned into "Why am I not married?" At 21, I knew why I wasn't married. It was because I didn't want to be yet. Besides that, I had to wait till I was 22 to meet Prince Charming. Though now, with maturity, I can clearly see why, within my religion's culture, that would put some into a certain amount of distress. At the time, I could not wait to get out of there. I had a whole life ahead of me filled with twists and turns and accomplishments and, yes, unfulfilled expectations. I had plenty of time to find the person I wanted to build my forever with.

Which brings me to this.......I will be 38 in January. I am OK with that. (Well mostly) Maybe I am having a mini mid-life crisis. The doctor whom I renamed suggested that I had 'til 40 to try and have biological children. After that, he said we are pretty much done. So now I am wondering, if I think I am happy just having the 4 beautiful, amazing, though somewhat feral children, or will I later find myself with unfulfilled expectations? If I have another one or two will it be more than I can handle? Is it worth all the heartache and the emotional roller coaster that is the treatment for infertility? Will I regret not trying everything under the sun to get pregnant? Will I be OK not knowing what might have been? I have children, so I fulfilled that expectation, but still, all the other questions I don't have answers for, threaten my peace of mind.

So my real problem is this: I am fence sitting. With things like this, taking no action and not making a choice almost always leads to Unfulfilled Expectations. You are left feeling like you had no control in the situation or you had control and forfeited said control. I want to make a choice, and know that I made the right one, so that I don't look back with regrets.

So, there you have it. My unwelcomed deep thoughts for the day. I was hoping for a light and funny post, but this is what came pouring out. Huh.......

I'm Still Here and Other Blah Blah......

I have had blog material flying at me. I have had things I have desperately needed, wanted to record so that I would have it to look back at and chuckle. Yet.....you have all heard nothing from me. Even if I don't get out here what I want to share, I will for go sleep to hear what you, my trusted bloggy friends have to say. So why the absence?

Here is my excuse:

To whom it may concern: Please excuse Karen for neglecting her blog and yours for the past couple of weeks. Her grandfather recently passed away and she has felt she needed to write a post about him and his life before she did any more blogging. This has turned out to be more difficult than she would have expected. She had no idea that she would miss him so much or have such difficulty expressing her thoughts and feelings and organizing the facts. Sincerely, Karen's Self-defense Department.

I have come to realize a few things about me. Anything I put in this blog is here because I don't want to forget. I also care that you read it or want to read it. I shouldn't care, but I think if it isn't something you want to read.....how will I ever be able to get my posterity to be interested in what my life was. These thoughts also bring me to want to make sure all my facts are straight. (Especially in regards to my grandpa.) I suppose I think of this blog as my journal and one day plan to publish it at Blurb or something like that so that one day my when I leave this earth, my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will know who I was. They will know what I cared about. They will know that my life was not perfect, but that in time most pain fades and love remains.

So if you made it through all that.....I am working on a post about my sweet grandpa that will make you smile. Until I get it finished, this is what I heard from the Wild Child and the 1st One today:

1st One: Mom, Wild Child has lotion all over her bed rails.
Me: (Raise eyebrow.)
Wild Child: Dad said I could. It's so that bad guy won't be able to steal me.
Me: (Shaking my head)
1st One: (Starts helping the Wild Child put more lotion on the side rails of the loft bed.)
Me: (Thinking, why didn't I think of that.)

No Loving Here

I can't remember if I have ever mentioned that as a family we struggle with traditions of our own. The Rocket Scientist had a very different version of the same holidays than I did growing up. Though, we don't argue about it, we haven't really set many traditions of our own.

One tradition we have managed to set is our Sunday night. We gather as a family and watch Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. Either the Rocket Scientist will make popcorn or I will make something else to snack on and we watch this show. I love this time. The kids will usually cuddle with us on the couch and we get to watch something of value. It is honestly about the only TV I get to see in a week.

Well Sunday night, the Wild Child announces in a very disgruntled voice, "I hate this show. It is just about loving and taking care of people and houses!" The RS and I did a double take and stifled our giggles. I think it actually comes down to she doesn't like to see me cry, but whatever. She got over it and was sitting next to me by the time they were taking down the old house.

After every episode, we talk about what we can do as a family to make this world a better place. The kids have some interesting ideas, but we will save that for another post.

Dreams of a Crazy Woman

Thank you friends for all the well wishes. The Rocket Scientist is back at work. The 1st One is back to school. The Wild Child has bronchitis, but is now on the mend and My Son and the Little Jamaican, it is believed by the doctor that, they have allergies. So things are looking up around here.

When the alarm went off this morning the first thought in my head was something left over from a dream. Not a pleasant dream, not really a nightmare either. It was just enough to make me question taking Benadryl before bed. The thoughts going through my head when I awoke were these: "It is so sad that Mick Romney is dead." I need to disclose that I know no one named Mick, not a Romney or other wise. So as I am trying to get conscious I realize this and wonder if something happened to Mitt Romney. Fortunately after scanning the news for 10 minutes, it would appear that the previous presidential hopeful is just fine.

There have been other times that in a dream my Rocket Scientist has done something unsavory and I have awakened very angry with him. Why is that? I know that it was just a dream, though, I am still furious with him. Poor guy, he has to pay for what my mind makes up at night.

Then there is the dream I had when we were still somewhat newly-weds. The Rocket Scientist's mom had passed away in November and his dad decided that a family ski vacation to Mammoth was in order. So in January, we joined his family on said ski trip. We all stayed in a condo in the area. The second level of this condo was a loft that was open to below. There were two queen size beds up there. So the RS and I took one bed and the RS's younger brother and the love of his life took the other. Below in the family room, my FIL slept on the couch and a couple of the RS's older brother's kids slept in sleeping bags on the floor. I am dreaming away one of those nights about having to make it to my best friend's wedding and that I can not get the Rocket Scientist off the mountain so that I can go get ready. I continue to plead my case. As the dream goes on, the RS is now driving me to the wedding and even though there is still time for me to shower, he is ignoring my requests. I become more persistent that I want to take a shower. I begin repeating over and over again, "I want to take a shower! I want to take a shower! I want to take a shower!" In my dream, I get louder and louder as it seems that my demands are falling on deaf ears. It wasn't long after that I was awakened to my husband trying to quiet my yells, my SIL snickering, and my BIL telling me to take a shower then. Fortunately, I woke no one below. To make this story complete, I need to say that, yes, I was mad at the RS all day long that day. Yes, I was allowed a shower, but I was already ticked, though not his fault.

My question to you now is, do others pay for what you dream about?

Not addicted!

My neighbor across the street, told me this tale of her 2 year old son. This son we will call Ryan to protect his innocence.

You see Ryan woke yesterday morning requesting chocolate with a certain amount of persistence. There was a bit of a tantrum involved. When it was explained that there was no chocolate around to be had, my two year old friend insisted there was some in his pocket. When this failed to produce the desired out come, he thought maybe there was some in someone else's pocket. (I want pockets like that. Chocolate in them whenever the whim hits.)

After some time, Ryan's dad was able to calm him down. His Dad had him seated to eat some cold cereal when one of his parents mentioned, "You have a problem buddy. You are addicted."

Sweet Ryan's response, "I'M NOT ADDICTED!" and then followed by a whispered, "I'm not addicted."

Ryan, my little buddy, I'm not addicted either, but if you need a fix, I live across the street. I can hook you up.

Do You List This Skill on a Resume?

I was stumbling around blog land when I found this today:





I am just not sure what to say....... Well other than I just can not stop watching it. The first time I laughed. The second time I smiled. The third, I feel a little disturbed. Fourth, I wonder why I keep watching it. Fifth time I think I will put it on my blog so I can watch it and find it anytime I want. Someone, please, make me look away.

Keys, where art thou?

You ever have one of "those" days? Well I have had the scatter-brained-half-sister of "one of those days."


You see, a week ago yesterday my keys went missing. Of course, the Rocket Scientist has a back up pair, but that can be problematic too. For instance like today, when the weather is snowing in buckets and he car pooled out to his job in the middle of nowhere with the spare set. Yep, that is a problem. Since my kids go to a charter school, and I have so many, car pooling isn't an option. This means that all four Sea Monkeys are here all day long. I had the privilege of calling the school and explaining why my children wouldn't be there. I am certain this will win me the "Mother of the Year" award.



Now, in regards to these missing keys: My friend Wendy offered to send over a metal detector to see if we could locate this jangling icon of freedom. I have contemplated taking her up on it. We do have a place to hang our keys when you walk in. I almost always hang mine there. This is a great plan for putting things in the same place all the time. Well, that is until My Son and the Wild Child grew tall enough to reach the keys. I have found keys in all sorts of places. The bathroom drawer, in the ignition of my van (fortunately that was the house key), hiding in the living room under some pillows with half of my missing chewing gum, or the time I found them in someone's underwear drawer. This, by all means, is not an all inclusive list, just some of the most recent. Truth be told, it could be all me. I may have been so distracted with all that was going on that day, I may have misplaced them all by myself this time. Anyway, wish me luck.......I am going to need it today.



Ooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyssss, where are you? Still looking.

Honest Scrap

The Good Flea has sent me an award with some conditions so to say. So here is the award:

Now, if I want to keep this award I have give 10 honest "juicy" things about me. This should be interesting since "juicy" is almost foreign to me. OK, here we go....

1. As a toddler I had amazing little red rain boots. Loved to wear them and apparently I did not have adequate time to test them. My mom found me wearing them, wading in the toilet.

2. When I was a little girl, I noticed that Santa Claus seemed to forget to fill my parents stockings. Somewhere inside it made me feel really sad for my parents, so I started saving my trick-or-treat candy. I would sneak out of my bed in the middle of the night Christmas Eve to put my stale Halloween candy in their stockings.

3. My first kiss was in the 7th grade. His name was Kurtis and I thought I would never meet another boy as cute as him. Funny part is, I don't actually remember the kissing part. I think I may have blacked out with all that 7th grade excitement.

4. I rarely get to see TV, but the one show I love to watch every week is Extreme Makeover Home Edition

5. I was only ever stood up by one guy when I was dating. I was dumb enough to let him do it multiple times.

6. Many of you know that my grandma past away recently. (My Dad's Mom.) What you don't know is (my Mom's Mom) my other grandma passed away when I was eight. It was very traumatic to me. So much so, that in my over active little girl imagination, I thought my parents were storing my grandma's body in the top of the pantry. I know, I need therapy, but wait, the story gets better. So a week or so after my grandmothers funeral, my mom is cooking liver and onions. You know where this is going right? I still can't and won't try liver and onions, because as a demented little girl I thought my mom was trying to feed the family my grandmothers liver. (It didn't help that we had been learning about the Donner Party at school.)

7. OK, either I am getting tired, or I am running out of stuff to tell you. Oh, I know, I have never used the "F" bomb while conscious, but according to the Rocket Scientist, I once used it in my sleep to tell him to get his hands off of me. (It wasn't like that....I was having a nightmare in which he was torquing my shorts to the point I was hitting him in my dream. He tried to wake me and tell me I was having a nightmare.)

8. I love IKEA furniture in theory, not as fond of it in use. Still if your children are going to ruin your furniture anyway, I just don't see how you can go wrong here. Besides that, my favorite pots and pans are from here.

9. I don't like frosting. Of course, unless, it is coconut pecan frosting. That is an entirely different story. That frosting on top of an oatmeal cake is my favorite. YUMMM!

10. I cry every time I walk through the front gates of Disneyland. I don't really know why, I just start feeling all emotional and can't help myself.

Now I get to pick the next victims to spill the "juicy" details of their life. Let me think....Allrighty then, Krista you have spilled enough in the past year, you have already earned this award. Really, go read her blog, you will know what I mean. She puts it all out there. So........ Jen who is Buried With Children, my sister who has a White Knuckle Grip, Carrie who likes her Life in the Slow Lane, Tori at The McKee's, Nicole who's children believe in Naptime Optional, and Stacy at Me and the Boys.

Can hardly wait to read what you all have to spill. Thanks for tagging me Flea.

Fickle is, as fickle does.

I did warn you that I am very fickle, right? Well, the Sunset last night was amazing!!! It really showed off all the fall colors on the mountains. I really do love Fall's warm faded colors. One of these days..........I am going to have to invest in a "real" camera. :)

I love you, man.........

Did you ever notice how almost everything I post is about my kids, my husband or something, just plain other than me directly? People rarely believe that I am painfully shy, but truth be told, I am.

There is a point here. I promise. I have been the recipient of many blog awards in the past few months. You are all way too kind to me. Of course this is conundrum for me since I am fairly shy, but I do love the attention. So, I have not done anything with them yet. I know that is bad.......that is why you don't see them on my blog yet. It's the whole drawing attention to myself, thing that is oh-so uncomfortable for me. So, I procrastinate. I'm still wondering why anybody would torture themselves reading my misspelled, missing words and terrible punctuation, but trust me when I say, "I am so glad you do."

Now there are many, many blogs I look forward to passing these awards on to. So I say, time to square my shoulders, plaster a smile on my face, so you don't see how nervous I feel and pretend that you are all reading something about my kids.

My first blog award came from: A Thorn Among Roses. This woman is amazing. She has a house full of beautiful girls and she always is up beat. She gave me this award:

I love this award, since it is my first. If you have not stopped by her blog, you are really missing out. She is funny, sweet and genuine. She is an amazing mom and someone I want to be more like.

I know that I am supposed to pass this award on, but my conscience is eating me alive, like a mosquito at dusk. Here lies my dilemma.......it's that one little word. You know ASK........ My kids sometimes read this, my mom reads this when coerced, my aunt and uncle, you get the point right. Please still be my friends if I just committed a major blogging faux pas.

This of course makes me think of this:




Which then of course, makes me think of this.

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Ok moving on.......

This award came from Flea at Flea's World. There are many things to be said about Flea. Oh, she's funny and entertaining alright. though truth be told, the thing I love the most about her, is the way she writes, makes you feel like you have been friends forever. Flea......if you are reading this......thanks for the award, but most of all thanks for making feel like a friend.

So here is where I get to pass this one on:


Nicole over at Naptime Optional. She has a funny take on children and parenting that I really enjoy. She's married to my brother so of course, I think her kids are darling. She is the reason I started blogging. She talked about it enough that I had to see what it was about. She also has another blog called The Nicole Show. Also as entertaining. Trust me.......go see for yourself.


Jen is Buried With Children. That is quite literal. She blogs about her adventure raising her darling triplets and too smart & too cute Hayden. You get a few stories about her Jeff in there too. He seems to be superman. She is the reason if I wake up in the middle of the night, I have to turn my computer on to see if she has posted something new. Really if you haven't been over there, you ought to. It's always an adventure.


Dawn over at Dawn's Place is upbeat, even when a hurricane is headed her way. She has great stories of family, friends and neighbors. She is my newest bloggy buddy and I'm glad we found each other.


Shades of Blonde is Krista, my BFF. She did not make the list here because she is my BFF, that is just a matter of fact. She made the list, because she is witty, funny and a total nut. Really, really, really........if you don't stop by her blog every once in a while, you might be missing the funniest thing you could read all month. Some of her funniest are Under the Influence of Pain Killers and I Said Quack!

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Then there is this award from my SIL, Nicole. You know the one mentioned above? Is she just too good to me or what?
Laundry and Children provokes me to think while she is entertaining me. I like that. Really go check her out if you have not. She is doing a month of "Nothing" right now that elevates her to superhero status, in my book.

Nancy's Thoughts are not to be missed. She is cute. (Inside and out.) Her quickly growing family is in the middle of a move. The post on her dream house I felt all the way to my toes.

Life in the Slow Lane is Carrie. She has an amazing ability to capture Kansas in her words and pictures. (and yes I mean the state.) Her life with her hubby TNT are always fun to read.

Stacy at Me and the Boys is a long time friend of the Rocket Scientist and now mine, too. In fact I think she was the RS's first real kiss. This has nothing to do with her blog, just stuff I have rolling around in my head. Anyway, I love to hear about her life and the things she is doing and learning about. I have learned a lot of stuff reading her blog. Stuff I needed to know. Like this and this.

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Honestly you all, I'm going to get a big head and that's a problem.........trust me on this one.

Dawn over at Dawn of My Day aka: Dawn's Place gave me this award:

This one came with instructions. So here it goes:

Here are the rules...
Mention the blog that gave it to you and comment on their blog to let them know you've posted your award. Publish these rules. Share 6 values that are important to you and 6 things you do not support:

6 things I value:

1. My knowledge of a Heavenly Father

2. My children.......I know what it looks like to not have them. It's not happy.

3. My friends.........These are the people that keep me sane

4. My Freedom and opportunity to live in such and amazing country

5. My health.......so I can continue to enjoy all of my blessings to the fullest

6. The Rocket Scientist..........the man is one of a kind. I could be really sappy here and nauseate you all, but I will spare you. I just need to say that I hit the jackpot when it comes to spouses. I could have not done better for me.

6 things I do not support:

1. Complaining without being willing or wanting to fix it.

2. Non-thinkers.........oh you know the type..........their opionion is whatever somebody else told them it should be.

3. Bratz Dolls................................My girls want to dress like them........'nough said. I have a story about this for another time.

4. Apathy..........come on now........you know the type.........sometimes it gets so bad that they don't realize their apathy has cost them many opportunities.

5. Spouses who are there only for better, but when worse comes along they bail. (Honestly, I have a friend that when diagnosed with a very scary cancer, the spouse basically left this friend to die.)

6. Doctor's who think they have all the answers and sentence you to die

6 people I'd like to pass this award to:

1. Flea at Flea's World. Refer to above as to why you should drop over and say hello to her.

2. Thorn Amoung Roses Same here......refer to above about why you are missing out if you don't drop in and check her out.

3. Jen at The Cotton Wife. If you want to see some beautiful photos you really should stop in here.

4. Rhea at The Texas Word Tangle. Her posts are like a box of chocolates. You never know if you are going to get funny, thought provoking, crazy, sweet or informational. Sometimes you get them all.

5. Linda at The 7MSN Ranch. The photography and narration is one of a kind. Beautiful, funny, entertaining to name a few. Mostly what I like about this blog, is Linda is brave. She gave up the life she knew for the life she wanted. She lives her dream. Until recently, I really didn't understand what kind of courage that takes. Today's post had a very large 8-legged thing that makes my skin crawl. If you pop over and you really should, you will see and read some things about some four legged characters you will quickly grow to love.

6. Karen at The Rocking Pony. Reading her blog feels like reading a novel I can't put down. I can hardly wait to see how things are going to turn out. I have to keep reminding myself that she can only write about it as is happens. She makes me laugh and cry, cheer and prepare for battle and whole bunch of other emotions I don't have names for right now.

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Thanks for reading my blog and leaving comments. You all really do make my day when you leave a comment.

I would say you all have a lot of reading to do!! Why are you still here? Go follow those links..... Really............ Now.........................Nothing more to read here..................................... You are as bad as my kids.....................................go................

Just an exaggeration....

If you ask my son to smile, this is what you are going to get. Just so you know.

Nope, he's not in pain. It always cracks me up that he thinks this is what a smile looks like. I keep thinking why does he think that his eyes need to be squinted almost closed? Then I caught my reflection when someone had made me smile and realized that my eyes get really small and squinty when I smile sometimes. I have always argued that children are an exaggeration of their parents. I believe this is case in point.

See the Little Jamaican? I think that may not even be an exaggerated version of one of my expressions. That is my, "Why would you possibly think it is ok to be mixing my flour and sugar back in forth in the canisters?" look.

As long as I am on this topic, once I told my sister this theory and she didn't speak to me for months. Her son was going through a particularly difficult to parent time. I was half serious, half crackin' a joke at the time. I wonder if she agrees with now.?

I could have lost a grown man......

Yep, that was my backyard until today. Honestly some of those weeds were over 8 feet. I'm surprised some feral animal wasn't living out there. You know, we have had some Big Foot sighting in this area. We found that out on Google Earth. ???

Anyway, they came in today and cleaned out all of those weeds and brought a truck full of very large rocks. That has a story and a picture of it's own that I will post later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Can I just say, that I am so excited at the thought of a landscaped backyard. So much less dust coming into my house! YAAAHHHH HOOOOOO!

Can you hear the crickets chirping?

I have been so disconnected lately and crazy busy. By the time of day I have time to even turn on my computer, I'm toast. I know that I have tons and tons of blogging material, but instead of it flooding to memory with all the details of my over stuffed life, I hear crickets chirping. Can you hear them now?

Tomorrow will be better I promise!

Some of what I love about blogging...

I was raised to not interrupt people. This has served me well most of my life. There is the occasional time it is absolutely necessary to interrupt in a heated debate. Rarely do I do it. I have many people in my life that were raised with a different set of values on this topic. There are people I love dearly that are either too distracted by things they have to take care of or those that are just distracted by the thoughts in their head that seem to not notice when I'm talking. They just start talking like they didn't know there were words coming out of my mouth. I use to be really offended or hurt by this. Not anymore, I realize it is just their set of values and I am OK with them they way they are. Besides all of that, I may be one of those people and not realize it.

However, there are those times that I really just want to tell a story or have an opinion heard on something. These are the times that this situation is the most difficult for me. I will be mid-thought in a conversation I am having with someone, when they will start talking while I'm talking. This tends to frustrate me.

Blogging has become the place I can finish some of those thoughts. The best part about it......If you are tired of hearing me ramble.......You can navigate your browser to somebody else and I get to finish my thought. See, it's win/win for everybody.

This Bud's for you

I have a terrible habit of not getting through all my e-mail. If I notice that it is a personal message, I read it right away. If it's not a personal message? Well, I'm still going to read it. I just may have not read it yet. (Sheepish smile) So the point of this is; I have an aunt, who I adore, that sends me lots of really cool e-mail. I rarely have time to get through all of it. The times that I do get to read everything she sends is problematic for me. Once I have read it, I feel the need to store it, since I am usually wanting to not forget what it is that she sent me. (Does this make me an e-mail pack rat?)

Well today, I was going through some of those e-mail and this is what I found.

So the rumor goes: Budweiser only aired this commercial only once so as to not benefit financially from such a sad day in our nations history. Just the same though, they wanted to show their respect. Somebody please tell me why beer companies make the best commercials?

I remember September 11, 2001 so well. I sat in the middle of my bed with a new born in each arm, watching news coverage over and over till I could tell you what the anchor person would say before they new what they would say. I cried a lot in fear of what my sweet, new, little babies would have to face in the future. I remember being so proud to be an American when I watched how one of our nations biggest tragedies brought out the best in her people. People truly caring about each other, being united in getting through this tough spot in history.

All right here is the big part of this confession. My aunt sent this to me on September 11, 2007. Are you reading this Aunt Jean? I promise to be better about reading your e-mail before it is almost a year old.

Back to reality....

I have not posted anything in a couple of days, because I have been a little preoccupied. Now that I finished it, maybe I can return to reality. At the moment, reality seems a little over rated. I have dishes to do, laundry that is overflowing the laundry room and some serious cleaning. Did I mention I need to do some weeding? I honestly have weeds in my back yard that I could lose a grown man in.

So if you all don't hear from me for more than few days, please send out a search and rescue team to my back yard or my laundry room.

Confessions

So at what age are you too old to "doodle?" You know little hearts all over the piece of paper sitting next to the phone or the front of the phone book.? I still doodle all over everything like a teenage girl. Hearts, stars, "I love the Rocket Scientist." Some how I still get a thrill out of writing, "Karen loves the Rocket Scientist" all over everything. It is true. I adore the man as much and more as the day I married him. Still I wonder, will it be socially acceptable to write these things in the steam on the shower door when I'm eighty?