“If it’s the right chair, it doesn’t take too long to get comfortable in it.” – Robert De Niro

I love to watch movies.  I am not star-struck, I couldn’t care less what actors are doing in their personal lives.  I don’t care what their opinion is on anything, least of all politics.  It makes no difference to me what they stand for, whether they are good parents or bad, if they abuse drugs or alcohol, what products they endorse, or how they choose to live their lives.  I just love to watch movies.  I’m not sure where I got this adoration.  One of my earliest memories is going to a drive-in movie with my parents to see Disney’s Cinderella.  (It must have been a re-release in the early 1970’s because even my mother is not old enough for the original release date in 1950.)  Maybe that is where it began.  Growing up in a large family, meant there wasn’t money for a lot of extra things and going to the movies was an extra thing.  However, I remember going to the old theater on Main Street in American Fork, Utah when I would spend a week or two each summer visiting my extended family in Lehi.  I remember going there more than once, but I only remember one of the movies I saw there.  It was Mary Poppins.  (Again, not the original release.  1964 was also before my time.)  It was when I was between nine and eleven years old that watching movies at home became a reality with movie rentals of giant plastic-encased laser discs and players followed quickly by VHS tapes and VCR’s.  Then, we could bring the big screen to the little screen.  The technology quickly evolved and now we have home theater systems, enormous televisions, and digital movies we can carry in our pockets.  I still love watching movies so much that we have a weekly family movie night at our house.

As much as I adore being able to watch movies within my own home, I still love to go to the movies.  I am thrilled to sit in the auditorium and be drawn into the giant screen and the stories being played out there.  The Man of My Dreams says that movies are a lame date because we don’t get to talk.  I disagree.  I think movies are great dates because they give us something new to talk about.  We don’t go often because we are too busy, our schedules and show times don’t coordinate, or more often than not, nothing in theaters looks like it would be worth giving away two hours of my life to see.  I am extremely particular about what I will see in a theater.  I won’t spend money on trash or gore.  I don’t want to be scared – life can be frightening enough, I don’t need to spend money to feel frightened or be kept up at night.  I am not fond of intense action or suspense movies either, although, for the sake of My Warrior and The Man of My Dreams, I have been known to see an action movie now and then.  I want to see things that will leave me feeling good for several hours after I leave the theater. 

As finicky as I am about what I will see at the theater, I am frequently pickier about where I will go to a movie.  My anxiety has gotten to the point where I cannot enjoy a movie at a dollar theater any more.  (I was not disappointed when the last dollar theater near us closed.)  In my experience in dollar theaters, the aroma of years of spilled soda and popcorn coalescing on the floor is reminiscent of a diaper pail. The unclean appearance of everything from the seats to the floors renders visions of parasitic micro-organisms inhabiting every seat and leaves me unable to sit back and relax for fear of what may crawl into my hair.  In addition, I leave wondering if the glue-like biohazard my feet have been languishing in for the past two hours will eat through my shoes or the floorboards of my car first.  In essence, I cannot enjoy any movie at such theaters anymore.  I relish a cinematic experience in any clean, pleasantly-scented theater, but I am a huge fan of the Megaplex.   It is my theater of choice, and I have yet to go to a Megaplex theater that I didn’t like.

This weekend I had a movie-going experience that was so amazing that I may never be able to go to the movies any other way again.  The Man of My Dreams and I went to the Megaplex Luxury Theater in Holladay/Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake valley.  Every seat in this theater is a heated, leather, luxury, power recliner.  Two seats are together with the option to have arm rests in the middle or put them up and have more of a love seat.  They were super comfortable, clean, and spacious.  There was even enough room for my purse.  That’s a rare occurrence in the theater.  Each chair has its own little table that swings to be positioned over your lap or out of your way with a cupholder recessed in it.  The staff was friendly and treated us like royalty.  The menu for concessions was all the regular movie fare and included crepes and gelato.  Of course, all of this luxury comes at a price.  At least that’s the gist of what several reviewers said about this theater.  They are right.  Our tickets each cost two dollars and fifty cents more at this theater than at a regular Megaplex.  It was so worth the extra money.  I felt spoiled and pampered and I loved every second of it.  I hear they have showings at this same theater classified as “VIP Luxury” seating that include everything that the luxury seating does and have waiter services, so you don’t even have to go to the concession stand.  Hmmm, I may have to give this a try.

When I was growing up, one of my dad’s favorite music groups was The Statler Brothers.  We listened to them a lot, and I grew to love them.  They sang a song called “The Movies”.  A line in the chorus of that song says, “The movies are great medicine.  Thank you, Thomas Edison . . .”  I whole-heartedly concur.  Thank you, Mr. Edison.  You are one of my heroes.

“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” – Mahatma Gandhi

My brain heard “Spring Break” and left on vacation.  I wish they had called it what it really is: homeschool college week.  At least then I would have been able to convince my brain it needed to focus on school work and not run off to the land of wedding plans and cookie baking.  I had so much homework over spring break that the only difference between what I needed to get done this week and any other week of the semester was the commute.  If it is not going to be a break, let’s give it a different name.  Maybe we could call it Almost Spring Change of Venue Week or Study Hard without the Aid of Your Professors Week.  I really have loved being at home and alone this week.  I did not miss being with the crowds for even a second.  Okay, that is all the ranting I have time for because I still have homework to finish!

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” – Cesare Pavese

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost three years since I last posted.  So, this will be a quick bit of a catch-up post. 

My Warrior has grown so much.  He is eighteen and preparing to graduate from high school this summer.  His biggest, most recent adventure has been high school rodeo bull riding.  He loves it.  I’ll try to post a video, but I am not very successful at that usually.  Last fall, on the second to last rodeo of the season, his bull used him for a spring board and broke his collar bone.  His reward for that was surgery that included a titanium plate and six screws in his shoulder and no bull riding all winter.  He has just been released to ride again and can’t wait for rodeos to start up again at the end of this month.

My Swimmer is still out on her own, sort of.  She is currently living with her “real family” as she likes to call them.  She is more involved with us than she used to be and the animosity that used to prevail when she came around has dissipated, but she doesn’t want to come home because we still have rules that “take away her freedoms.”  You know, like we don’t allow drinking or drugs in our home and your boyfriend may not sleepover.  Yeah, I guess we are a little unreasonable.

My Princess went on another dancing tour to Europe last summer and loved it, but realized it is more costly than she can afford at this time in her life, so she has taken a break from it for this year.  Last summer she also ran in the Wasatch Back Ragnar.  She loved it so much that this year she is captaining a team.  Her biggest news is that she is getting married this summer to a wonderful man.  We are busy planning and preparing for that.

My Scholar is getting closer to finishing his undergraduate degree and working hard to prepare for the LSAT so he can get into law school.  He has won an internship for the summer and he and his wonderful bride will be moving their family to Boise for the summer.

My Scholar’s Smartest Decision completed her degree last spring and graduated.  She now uses her amazing skills to teach English to children in China.  I got to watch a little of what she does once, and I think she is amazing!   

Together they have blessed our family with a wonderful, remarkable, beautiful granddaughter.  Being a grandma is the best thing ever.  She is still very young, but we can tell already that she is brilliant and will do many great things.  She has already accomplished what I thought was impossible:  turning a frugal, sometimes cranky, strict dad into a cooing, smiling, whatever-you-want grandpa.  He is completely wrapped around her finger.

The Man of My Dreams is my most wonderful support.  He is strong and encouraging and the greatest blessing in my life.  He sports a beard these days which I love because it’s got a little more gray in it than the hair on his head and makes him look very distinguished and almost as old as I do.

As for me, I have begun a new adventure.  Last fall, I went back to college.  That semester, I took classes at the BYU Salt Lake Center, which I loved.  Beginning in January, I began classes at Utah State University, which I am sure I will come to love, also.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." -- Ferris Bueller

Wow!  Life has been a whirlwind at our house lately.  (And the house and yard look it.)  My Swimmer moved out on her own in July.  She will graduate from high school at the beginning of June.


My Princess left to serve an LDS mission in the Arizona Pheonix mission in September.  She has served in Surprise and Glendale and is currently serving in the Prescott area.  She says it is beautiful there and is absolutely loving it!  We got to Skype with her last night for Mother's Day!  She sounds like she is having the time of her life.  Man, I miss this girl!








My Scholar returned from an LDS mission in the California San Fernando mission in December. He went back to college at BYU a few weeks later and just finished his second semester there.  He just got married this past weekend to a wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, talented, and amazing woman.  I am ecstatic to have her join our family.  They will continue their education at BYU and live happily ever after, of course.




 My Little Warrior (who is fifteen and a half now and wants me to drop the "little" off his moniker) is nearly as tall as I am. He has grown quite good-looking and is generally surrounded by girls.  I'm not really all that fond of this new development.  He is still always up for an adventure and loves anything that looks remotely dangerous to his mother.  I've been unsuccessfully trying to add some short videos of a couple of his adventures here, but I give up for now.

We have recently added a twenty-month-old niece to our household.  She is full of energy and really keeps me running.  (I had forgotten how busy little children make you feel.)  I can't post any pictures of her as she is in foster care at this time and that is against the rules, but she is a little doll.  It's fun to watch her growing and discovering new things all the time.  We don't know how long she will be a part of our family, but we will just keep enjoying her giggles and smiles and enduring those nearly-two-year-old tantrums while we have her.

The Man of My Dreams was released from his calling as the bishop in our LDS ward a little over a year ago and is currently loving being the Scoutmaster of our Boy Scout Troop.  I crocheted these beards for them to wear at the Klondike Derby in January.

In the past 16 months we have had more than 12 death's in our family:  my father-in-law, both of my grandparents on my father's side, two nephews, an aunt, two uncles, a great aunt, and several other extended family members.  All of them are very missed and each one touched my life for good.

My Little Miss M has finished her nap, so my computer time is up.  Don't forget to stop and look around once in a while.

Here's another partial that I found.

“If you take a book with you on a journey, " Mo had said when he put the first one in her box, "an odd thing happens:  The book begins collecting your memories.  And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it.  It will all come into your mind with the very first words:  the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it . . . yes, books are like flypaper -- memories cling to the printed page better than anything else.”  (From Inkheart by Cornelia Funke) 

That is so true!   It doesn't matter where I am or who I am with, each time I reread or hear the stories of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I am transported to a giant boulder on the far end of Lake Cleveland in southern Idaho where I first became acquainted with them on a family camping trip.  I can still feel the smooth, coolness of that enormous gray rock against my back as I am carried away to the banks of the Mississippi.

"The difference in winning and losing is most often . . . not quitting." -- Walt Disney

I just got on here for the first time in forever and found this partially finished blog post.  It seems to really go with my life now, so I'm publishing it as is -- unfinished.  FYI, I did get the curtains and they are lovely.

Walt Disney said, "The difference in winning and losing is most often . . . not quitting."  Today I'm losing.  All I want to do today is sit.  I want to read.  I want to write.  I want to nap.  I want to play on my computer.  I do not want to work!!  But I am in the middle of  so  many projects that really need to be finished.  I want them to get done and I want to be the one who does them (so they are done the way I want them done), I just really don't want to finish them right now.  So instead I am going to write about them.

Project number one:  The living room.

Last fall I finally (after years of trying to decide) figured out what I wanted to do to redecorate our living room.  I slowly accumulated all the things I needed to be able to complete the project and finally at the end of November I was actually ready to start on it.  With the help of The Man of My Dreams, (he actually did most of the work.)  We repainted the living room.  We went from white walls and trim with one wall of dark paneling to a very light purple ceiling (it looks almost white in contrast with the walls) and deep earthy purple walls and creamy white trim and doors.  I love it!  Almost everyone who comes in loves it and asks, "How did you talk your husband into letting you paint the living room purple?"  He didn't tell me how nervous he was about the color, he just let me have my way.  (That is one of the reasons he is the man of my dreams.)  Even when he was painting it on, he was skeptical, but now he says he really likes it.  We also installed new curtain rods, but when we hung up the curtains I had bought, they did not look like the pretty pale ivory color they were in the store.  Next to the purple walls, they looked yellow.  Not a bright, sunny, cheerful yellow, but nasty, old people yellow like my grandmother's Tupperware.  So they went back to the store and I began my search for curtains.  We also installed a new pretty light fixture instead of that nasty lightless ceiling fan.  (I hate ceiling fans.  They are just dust collectors.  I'd rather be hot!)  Sounds like this project is pretty much done except for the curtains, right?  Well, sort of.  I still have not hung the pictures back on the wall.  I'm having a hard time deciding which pictures I want to put where.  I did finally hang one yesterday, but I'm not sure that I like it.  The problem is until I get the curtains -- curtains are so expensive, I want to be sure they are the right ones before I buy them -- it's hard to know how much wall the curtains will cover, so it's hard to know where to hang things near the windows

Goodbye Harold. Thanks for taking me along on your journey.

I just finished a book.  I'm so excited to have finished it!  I love that sense of accomplishment that comes with turning that final page and closing the cover.  Almost as quickly as that feeling of triumph came, I am overwhelmed by the melancholy of saying goodbye to the friends whose daily lives, in fact their very thoughts and feelings, I have been so involved in while reading their story.  Most of these people are not real.  I rarely read nonfiction -- although I have truly loved the biographies and autobiographies I have read.  They become so real to me as I read.  I can see them.  I can feel what they have felt.  I have been to so many wonderful places with them.  Sometimes they become so much a part of my life that I forget they do not exist outside of the pages.  I become so accustomed to them being part of my life that they never really leave me.  I often find myself wondering what they are doing now before I remember they were just characters in a novel.  I can't bring them back by rereading them, either, for when I do, it is just remembering something that I already went through with them.  I want to know what came next.  I want to know what Jem and Scout did when they grew up. (To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee) I want to know what happened with Judy and Master Jervie.  Did they have children?  Did they stay in love? (Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster)  I want to know what Jo's grandchildren thought of her stories.  (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott)  Even reading a sequel is not enough.  It still doesn't tell me what happened after that and I miss them.  It's like moving away and losing touch with an old friend.  And yet, the only thing left to do is pick up a new book and make a new friend.  So, goodbye Harold and Maureen (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce) and hello my next dear friends!

Calgon, take me away!

     Oh, please make it stop!  Please, make the voice go away!  No, I'm not talking about a voice in my head.  It's that one voice that is in every room I go into.  I swear it is following me.  Oh, wait!  It is following me.  I cannot even get away from it in the bathroom.  It stands right outside the door and continues with the mind-numbing chatter.  Okay, I probably shouldn't call My Swimmer "it", but my mind is going numb.  She has been babbling on for an hour and a half now.   I am not kidding!  All I have said is, "hmm", "oh", "uh-huh".  It doesn't matter if I leave the room she just keeps following me!  I'm not sure how she can just keep talking.  If it was anything worth listening to, I wouldn't mind so much.  I just can't handle the, "and then so-and-so said . . . and then I said . . . so then whatsherbucket said . . . and then we went to . . . and then we went to . . . and we saw whoosie-whatsit . . . and then . . ."  It's like reading the most poorly written book ever.  It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on without any punctuation!  Please, someone throw her a comma!!!!
     Oh, wow!  Bliss! My joy was full at that most beautiful of all beautiful poetry.  I am ecstatic over the one simple phrase, "Okay, I think I'm really going to bed now."  Just when I was on the verge of saying something besides "hmm," "oh," and "uh-huh"; something I would probably regret like "the S word",  Yes, I was actually on the verge of saying, "Shut up!"  But now, I don't have to say it.  What a tender mercy!  Silence you are my favorite companion!  Oh happy day!  I feel like breaking into the Hallelujah Chorus.  (Speaking of the Hallelujah Chorus, have you seen this?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCFCeJTEzNU&noredirect=1  I love this!  I had to go watch it again just now.
     I know that I should be grateful because when she's talking to me I know My Swimmer is not making major bad choices.  When she doesn't talk to me she's usually done something pretty bad and she's mad at me for it.  (It doesn't make sense to me either.)  Then the silence is not so golden.  So her talking to me is a really good thing, but for an hour and a half?  Seriously?  I guess I'll just look forward to the day when my partial hearing loss is no longer partial!  Dad, I envy your ability to turn off your hearing aid and shut out the noise!

The Blessing of a Homeless Man

Maybe it was because of the blue sky or maybe it was because I had just finished a strenuous workout in my water aerobics class or maybe it was just because I was feeling so blessed.  Whatever the reason when the homeless man said, "God bless you," to me I was brought to tears.  I'm not talking about a tear drop.  I mean it was to the point that I thought about pulling over to get myself under control so I could see to drive again.

I was driving to the office supply store in search of a very elusive desk top calendar (which they didn't have either.)  As I pulled off the freeway and came to the light at the underpass, there was a man standing there with a very faded sign.  I couldn't read it.  I was in the farthest away lane from him, several cars back.  I knew I had a dollar in the deep nether reaches of my purse.  My first thought was, "I'll never find the dollar by the time the light changes and he'll have to cross a couple of lanes of traffic to get it anyway."  Then King Benjamin's teaching flooded into my mind.  ". . . and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain . . ."  So I quickly started digging through my purse for that ragged old dollar I knew I had seen several days ago.  I found it and rolled down my window.  The man hurried over to the car and I gave it to him.  That was when he said, "God bless you."  My voice caught in my throat and I hoarsely whispered, "Thank you.  Good luck to you."  The light changed and I drove away amid a flood of tears.

I pulled into the parking lot of the office supply store, blew my nose and wiped my eyes and ran my errand.  Then I climbed back into the car and headed for the party store to buy rubber duckies and kazoos.  (Did you know that this month contains holidays celebrating both of those items?  So I picked some up to mail to My Scholar, whose name should probably be changed to My Missionary, and to My Princess, who now lives a whole hour away from me, and to help us celebrate the holidays.  P.S. National Rubber Ducky Day is January 13 and National Kazoo Day is January 28.)  As I was parking, I saw another homeless man standing on the curb near a parking lot exit (not the one I came in) holding a sign.  His back was to me so I couldn't see his sign either.  Once again my first thought wasn't exactly charitable.  I thought, "I already gave to a homeless person today.  When I leave the parking lot, I'll just go out the way I came in.  That way he will never have 'put his petition to' me and I won't have to feel bad about it."  I am so embarrassed that I even had those thoughts.  I can hardly believe I've decided to publicly share them.  I went into the store, forgot about the man, purchased my duckies and kazoos, and in the process discovered another dollar hidden away in my wallet -- why can't I ever find money when I am the one in need?  As I came out of the store I didn't even look in the homeless man's direction, but I couldn't help seeing him as I climbed into the car because the car was facing him.  (I was driving Bubba the Big Blue Bus today and nothing is tall enough to obstruct the view from the drivers seat except actual buses and semi trucks.)  I watched for a minute before starting the car.  He tried to get the attention of many a driver only to be ignored by everyone who passed.  I decided that I couldn't follow through with my plan.  I pulled the dollar out of my wallet grabbed an orange out of my shopping bags (I wish I had remembered the oranges with the first man.) and drove to the parking lot exit.  I rolled down my window and gave my offering and once again I heard the words, "God bless you."  All I could think as I drove away from him was, "He already has."  Then my mind was filled with the words of a familiar hymn.

. . . Because I have been sheltered, fed by thy good care,  I cannot see another's lack and I not share . . .

I was overwhelmed with a desire to gather up all the homeless people who I could fit into my big blue bus and take them home and feed them.  Anxiety and common sense took over at that point and I didn't follow through with the thought.  I wish we lived in a world where it would be completely safe for me to do just that.  Where I could take hungry, downtrodden people and make them a bowl of soup and warm them up on a cold, wintry day like today without worrying about my own safety or the safety of my home and family.

So here are the two things I took away from today's experience:

1. I have been so very blessed!  And
2. Buying rubber duckies will brighten any day.

 

[He] was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all

I can't believe it has been over a year since I last posted to my blog.  Time goes so fast and gets filled with so many things.  This morning I am feeling nostalgic for the slow days when My Scholar and My Princess were just little ones.

This morning I found out that Maurice Sendak died this morning.  He is the author and illustrator of one of my favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are.  I have this book almost always on display in my living room.  It is not a beautiful, hard-bound, collector's edition book.  In fact, I think we bought it at the D.I.  It is a paper bound copy discarded by a school.  It has always been my favorite book to read to my children.  They think I am crazy.  I am.  There is just something so true about it.  It has fit in all the times of my life.  I have been "Max".  I have been "his mother".  I have felt angry and wanted to run away to a place far from home.  And I have felt "lonely and wanted to be where someone loved [me] best of all".  I will have to read this book to my kids tonight!

Our family has been so busy over the last year that there is no way that I can put it all here in my blog, but here are some of the highlights:

Last fall we took a trip across the country with my parents.  On the way out, we visited Yellowstone, Little Bighorn Battlefield, Devil's Tower, Crazy Horse Memorial, Mount Rushmore, and Niagara Falls.  Our final, eastern destination was Palmyra, New York where we visited all the sites in that area related to LDS church history.  From Palmyra, we traveled to Kirtland, Ohio; Nauvoo, Illinois; Carthage, Illinois; Independence, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Chimney Rock, Nebraska, Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Independence Rock, Wyoming; and Martin's Cove, Wyoming.  It took us two full weeks and six thousand miles.  We had so much fun and built tons of memories.  It was the first big trip we had taken as a family since My Swimmer joined the family.  It was an adventure that we will never forget.

My Scholar has been accepted and received a scholarship to Brigham Young University.  He completed his Eagle Scout Project and was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout.  He will be graduating from high school in just a few weeks.  He qualified to complete at the State Cross Country Meet where he was presented an Academic All-State award.  He is currently trying to qualify to go to the State Track Meet.  He won a first place at the State FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) competition and will travel to Texas this summer to compete on the national level.  He will also go on his last choir tour with Cyprus' top choirs this summer.  Today he has an interview for an internship for the summer at the engineering firm where The Man of My Dreams works.

My Princess has nearly drowned herself in school work this year.  She has taken five classes at her online high school and supplemented them with five more classes at the local high school.  She has been swamped and promises me that she will take an easier load next year.  She has also run cross country, track, and continued clogging on two championship-level teams.  She is looking forward to summer and the chance to relax a little.  (Me, too!)  No summer job for this one.  She just wants some down-time.  Next year, she is planning to attend only Cyprus High School.

My Swimmer has also attended the online high school this year and can't wait until next year when she can go to "a real school", as she calls it.  She will be attending Cyprus next year, too.  She  found her niche in the water.  She is a good swimmer and an amazing water polo player.  She has played goalie for both the varsity girls' team and for the junior varsity co-ed team.  (I don't like co-ed water polo.  Those mostly naked boys get too close to my nearly naked daughter in the co-ed games.)  Her favorite position, she has discovered is "set".  You have to really fight for the ball in that position and she loves it!  She tried out for Cyprus' show choir for next year, but did not make it.  I am looking forward to Mr. Moore following through with his brag that he could teach anyone to sing.  I'm a little weary of the lament of the dying cat that she calls singing.  She is trying to find a job for the summer, too.

My Little Warrior will be leaving me next year for junior high school.  He has convinced us to let him go to school next year.  He will be attending Matheson Jr. High.  He is excited and nervous.  (Me, too!!!)  He has been working very hard at developing his scooter and skateboard talents.  He's really good at it.  I wish there was a way to get him to put that much determination into his academic success.  Maybe he will do better for teachers who aren't me.  He turned twelve this year and was very excited to join the young men's program in our ward.  I can't believe how grown up his has gotten.  He has already begun his summer job.  He mows the lawn for a neighbor for five dollars a week.  He did this last year, too, but this year he is bigger and taller and can do the whole thing on his own rather than having to have help from someone bigger.  He hasn't even complained about it since he realized how easy it is to push the mower when you are taller than it is.

Here are some pictures from the past year:

My Princess & My Warrior in front of (literally) General Custer's
grave.

/

Deviils Tower was AMAZING!!! It was beautiful, peaceful,
and magnificant!  I am going there again!!!

They've been hunted. (My Scholar & My Little Warrior)

My Little Warrior found frogs and toads at every stop we made.  This was a tender mercy from God for a little boy who he knew would be SO bored on this vacation without creepy-crawly diversions.



My Little Warrior, Grandpa, and The Man of My Dreams giving Bubba, the Big Blue Bus his 300 mile check up.

At Niagara Falls

You'd think she'd never seen a corn field before.  City kids!

Baby Pictures

I just wanted to post a few pictures of the chicks.  They are already growing so fast.  When we brought them home, of the four tiny ones, only the black one and started to get feathers.  Now all of them are getting feathers.  Wow!  Still no names for them.  I don't want to give them some kind of complex.  (I felt so bad calling Miss Biddy by her name when she turned out to be a rooster.  I hope we didn't create gender issues for that poor chicken.)  Absolutely no names for the chickens until we know if they are roosters or hens.  My hand is behind them in most of the pictures to keep them from jumping off the top of the brooder box.  The silly chickens are still learning with whom it is safe to be.

I think this one is the oldest of the bigger chicks.  It has the biggest comb and I noticed this morning that its waddles are starting to grow.

You can see the missing toe better in this picture.  My Little Warrior thinks that this one should be called "Toeless" no matter what its gender is.  I think not.

Look closely.  You can just barely see this chick's wing feathers.

Who'da thunk SPRING would be hiding in the bathroom?!

I love winter!  I love the snow and the cold.  In fact around mid-October I am so ready for the snow to come that I start to look forward to it.  (I'm also so ready to be done harvesting and canning that winter seems a welcome break.)  By the end of February, I can think of nothing but the coming of spring.  Spring breathes new life into my weary soul.  This has been a particularly bleak winter, so I started watching for signs of spring much earlier than I usually do.  It seems to be taking so much longer to get here this year.

There have been exciting little glimpses of spring throughout the month of March.  The garlic the Man of My Dreams and My Little Warrior planted for me last fall poked it's little green heads through the top of the mulch and the crocuses started to bloom.  The symptoms of spring have been around, but the actual event has seemed to elude me.  Last week as we packed up "Bubba" to head for St. George to a dance competition, huge snowflakes started to fall.  In November or December, snowflakes of this magnitude would have put me in a wonderful mood for the whole day.  On this cold morning at the end of March, the falling blanket of white, did nothing to improve the temperament of this already frustrated mother.  St. George was not warm and sunny, it was cold and rainy.  We returned to find winter trying to grab a final choking hold on our world.  However, when I went into the downstairs bathroom that night, I discovered the irrefutable sign that spring has arrived -- ANTS!  Never in my life have I been so happy to see ants crawling around in my house!  I almost cried.  If the ants are awake, it is spring.  Spring must have crept in and forgot to send winter on it's way, but it has definitely come.  So today, I thank Heavenly Father for ants in my bathroom.  (Of course, I swept them up and sent them outside, but they were there.)

Yesterday, as I was working with My Little Warrior and My Swimmer (A.K.A. My Silly Girl) on their school work and getting more and more discouraged by the second, I got a text from The Man of My Dreams.  It read, "If you are out & about, you should get chicks today." 

To this, I replied, "Why?" 

He said, "Idk.  I just had that thought go through my mind & it feels right." 

I said, "Ok.  I'm not out, but I can go get some if you want."

So I sent My Swimmer off to her water polo game and My Little Warrior and I jumped into Bubba and headed to IFA.  I was not ready for chicks yet.  I wanted to wait until they had lots of older chicks to choose from.  I did not want brand new chicks.  I didn't want to get chicks until late April or early May.  My Little Warrior, on the other hand, has been begging to get chicks since February 16.  That is the day that this year's first chicks arrived at IFA.  He was sooooooooo excited when I told him where we were going and for what purpose.  As we walked through the door of the store he said, "Do you want me to get someone to help us?"  I told him that I needed to decide what I wanted first.  So we looked at all of the older chicks.  They looked a little haggard -- probably just because their down was changing to feathers, but I wasn't very encouraged by the selection or their appearance.  I finally decided that we would get four of the older ones and four little ones.  I decided that we would get two white and two brown striped from the older chicks.  Yet somehow when the girl was getting the chicks out we ended up getting two white, one brown striped, and one black chick.  (My Little Warrior just couldn't let me pick them all.)  Of the brand new baby chicks, we got two Ameraucana (Easter egg layers), one White Leg Horn (I can't help picturing Foghorn Leghorn from Looney Tunes when I hear this breed's name), and one barred Plymouth Rock.  They are absolutely darling.  They are fun to watch, but I'm not feeling the excitement that I felt over last year's chicks.  My Little Warrior is terribly excited and loves them.  I have to keep telling him to stay out of the brooder box.  I know his intentions are good, but it is just too cold for the chicks to have the door to the brooder box opened unnecessarily.  (I had to sneak out there to get some pictures because I didn't want him to know I was opening it "unnecessarily", too.)

Here is our original flock:

Bertie & Alice

Alice (who likes the camera), Lucy, & Ethel

Beauty

Here are some pictures of our new little ones:

These are the brand new chicks -- left to right:  Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, White Leghorn (yellow), Ameraucana

These are the older ones.

This chick -- the one standing up tall -- was the one I wanted the most.   (I think it fits into our flock well.)  If you look right below the white chick's beak you'll see that the tall chick is missing half it's toe.  For some reason that made me love it.

The older black chicken that My Little Warrior chose.

The older chicks -- from above

This video is nothing exciting, but the sound of their peeping is too cute to miss.

 I have so many other things I want to blog about, but it will have to wait until I have time (maybe when I'm 60.) 

No, Virginia, there is not a Santa Claus, but may the Force be with you.

Wow!  Where do I start?  Life has been so crazy that I haven't had time to write anything for a long time.  I'll try not to get too wordy, but I'm not guaranteeing that.  Sorry, no pictures this time.

Jingle All The Way
When I was a kid Christmas was almost more excitement than I could bear.  I was a little booger about Christmas, too.  I hated waiting for Christmas to come to be able to know what all those presents accumulating under the tree were.  I remember the Christmas that I was 13(?) we were living in the underground house in Declo and we had gotten a big package of presents from Grandma and Grandpa Carter.  All the presents were wrapped when they came and Mom & Dad had put them under the tree.  I seemed to do a lot of babysitting for my parents that year because in my memory they were always gone.  I became expert that Christmas at opening the presents without making them look opened.  I didn't just open my own presents, either, I opened everyone's presents. I knew what all of those wrapped presents were way before Christmas.  Even knowing what all the presents were, I still couldn't get to sleep on Christmas Eve.  That was nuts!
Christmas started early at our house, too.  We were always up by 5:00.  Sometimes we had to wait for Dad to get done milking the cows or come home from working a graveyard shift.  When we had to do that, Mom always had us breaking up bread for stuffing.  (To this day, I always get a "Christmas morning" feeling when I break bread for stuffing, no matter what time of year it is.)  That's how she kept us from going out into the veritable wonderland that our living room had transformed into in the middle of the night.  I'm not sure how my Mom managed to not kill us on those Christmas mornings.  She couldn't have gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep after putting out our presents, but I don't remember her ever being angry at us on Christmas morning.  Sadly, I cannot boast of such a quality in myself.  Around here, it has traditionally not been the children who are excited for Christmas morning and waking me up for presents.  It has almost always been The Man of My Dreams.  Most years I wake up to, "Can we wake up the kids now?"  (My Little Warrior has beaten him at waking up the last couple of years, though.)  This year I thought maybe we'd get to sleep in a little since everyone at our house was finally certain about Santa's identity.  Was I ever wrong!!!  I think My Little Warrior started asking if he could wake people up at 3:00!  We made him wait until the much more decent hour of 5 or 5:30.  I don't remember.  It's all a blur.
Our biggest Christmas surprise this year came on Christmas Eve.  That evening, there was a knock on the door.  Assuming it was a neighbor dropping off some wonderful Christmas treat, My Little Warrior and My Silly Girl raced to the door to be the one who received and the one who handed out our little neighbor gift.  (This year we handed out "Cowboy Bubble Bath," which is actually a bag of dry beans with instructions to eat them two hours before bathing, to eat lots for better bubbles, and to bathe alone and away from open flame.  Our intention was to make deliveries, but we ended up only passing them out at the door to anyone who came by.)  I also went to the door.  Somehow, I managed to get there first and when I opened it, there was a man dressed in black with what I thought was a Storm Trooper helmet on his head.  (I have been informed that it was actually a Clone Trooper helmet.  Does it really matter?) On my porch next to him was a huge box.  He said, "Is this the Mudrow house?"  I said, "Yes."  My Little Warrior hadn't registered that something was not normal yet and handed the man our gift.  In return for our bag of beans which he dropped into a big black bag that he was carrying, he handed My Little Warrior an Ipod Touch, reached into his bag and handed him another Ipod Touch and another and another.  I just stood there completely dumbfounded (literally.)  He said they have names on them.  Then he handed in a Wii console, an extra controller, a Toy Story Wii game, and a huge package of batteries. As if that wasn't enough, he started pushing in the huge box, which finally registered in my brain as a very large TV.  The Man of My Dreams had joined us by this point and he had more presence of mind than I did.  He asked, "Who can we thank for this?"  To which the Whatever Trooper replied, "the Galactic Alliance.  Merry Christmas."  Then he walked away into the night.  (If we had been in possession of working brains, we would have watched where he went, but that was not the case that night.)  As I closed the door, My Little Warrior was losing his mind with excitement.  The Ipods all had one of my children's names etched onto the back of them.  I am still flabbergasted when I think about that night.  One part of me was astonished.  Why would someone do this for us?  Another part of me was frustrated.  Why would someone do this to us?  (I am anti-gaming system and now all that I had done for my family for Christmas paled in comparison.)  Another part of me was just completely baffled.  How could someone afford to do this for us?  I am completely embarrassed to admit that on that night and for probably a week or two after, no part of me was grateful.  Looking back now, I am.  It was very kind of someone to do that for our family.  My Little Warrior told me that night that he had been praying we would get a Wii for Christmas.  I am grateful that the Galactic Alliance was listening to the Spirit so that my son's prayer could be answered.  That particular tidbit of revelation would never have found it's way into my heart or mind.  So, Galactic Alliance, thank you wherever you are.

Five A Day
As days grew shorter and colder my chickens stopped laying.  Only Alice was still giving me an egg any more.  I figured it was just because it had been so dang cold.  The Man of My Dreams was concerned that the chickens were going to freeze to death.  He wanted to install a heater, but I assured him that the chicken coop was staying warm enough.  My Little Warrior was worried because all the chickens who had stopped laying were molting.  He didn't know what that was.  All he knew is that they had no feathers only the pointy quill things sticking out of their necks.  I kept telling him that they were fine, but he was clearly concerned.  It finally dawned on me that it wasn't the cold that was keeping the chickens from laying and causing them to molt, it was the length of their day.  Everything I had read when we first got the chickens said that they stop laying in the winter because they don't get enough light.  So, we decided to light the chicken coop.  The week after Christmas, we rigged up the heat lamp that we used when they were just chicks.  The first few nights, I'd go out and unplug the lamp.  Since then, we have just been leaving it on all the time.  (It looks like a party in the hen house all night long.)  All the chickens who had previously been laying slowly started laying again.  Lucy was still not laying -- she had never started.  ThenTwo Sundays ago, I got five eggs!  I was so excited!!!  Since then, I have gotten four or five eggs every day.  Who'da thunk that all those people who wrote those books knew what they were talking about.  I was fine just waiting until spring to get eggs, but for some people around here, it is all about the eggs.  If I lived in the chicken coop, I would be a basket case by now -- I cannot sleep with the light on -- but the chickens seem to be handling it well enough.  So if you can't sleep at night, there is always a party going on in my chicken coop.

Payback After All These Years
When I had My Princess almost 16 years ago, I had a C-section.  We had some really good friends, who came to visit me in the hospital and see our little Rarah, as her not-so-big, big brother called her.  It was during their visit that I discovered the absolute pain of laughing after your stomach has been cut open.  The Man of My Dreams found this to be VERY amusing, and did all he could to make me laugh.  I swore someday I would get him back.  (I have to admit, I found it fairly amusing, too.)  On Wednesday, I finally got my sweet revenge.  Tuesday, The Man of My Dreams had double hernia surgery.  (I'm not sure he wanted that to go public, so shh, don't tell anyone.)  On Wednesday, I went to the library and checked out some episodes of the Carol Burnett Show.  We watched them on Wednesday night.  Well, he watched them, and I watched him.  It was great!  "Oh! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh!  Ha-ha-ha!  Oh!"   Thank you, honey, I needed that.

My dear, Eleanor, you were obviously born into the wrong story.

Augh!!!  No more school work!  No more chores!  Everyone just leave me alone!  It's my birthday and I just don't care if My Little Warrior ever understands how to turn a plural noun back into a singular noun nor do I care what My Silly Girl keeps finding as she cleans off the shelves in the laundry room.  Holy crap!  Can they not see that I am trying to do something that I enjoy?!?!?!  Of course they can.  That is why they keep disturbing me.  If I were shoveling the driveway or cleaning the toilet I wouldn't see them for hours, but since I decided to catch up on my blog, they have to be right here tapping me every two seconds.  Why do they tap?  Do they think that I can't see them or hear them?  Do they have to tap on me?  After about the first tap it starts to hurt.  NEW RULE:  NO TAPPING!!!!!!!!

I have wanted to write here forever and just haven't been able to find the time lately.  You may want to give up now.  It's probably going to be long.

My Little Warrior got the haircut of his dreams this fall.  I finally decided that the people who would think badly of him because of it probably already do, so I quit fighting it and let him do what he wanted with it.  The Man of My Dreams and I had a long talk with him about it.  He understood that this would not be an appropriate hairstyle for someone who was representing the Savior as he passes the sacrament or collects fast offerings.  He said that is why he wants it now, because next year he'll turn 12 and he will have to have a "normal" haircut.  The original deal was that he would do it every day.  I've given up on that.  He can't wear his bike helmet with it done and he can't live without his bike.  (Also, he discovered that he can't do it himself, and I don't want to do it every day.)  When he doesn't do it up, I call him my little horse because he looks like he's got a mane.  I thought he'd be tired of it by now, but no.

We went to the Utah State Fair with our friends, the Case family, this fall.  We saw Elder L. Tom Perry in the home arts building.  That was pretty cool.

My Scholar qualified to run in the Utah State Cross Country meet this year.  He was SO excited.  (So was his mommy.)  In fact, it was his final push at the Regional Cross Country meet that qualified him and two of his teammates to go to State.

at the starting line

 There he is -- #197!

 Mandarin oranges after the race

We decided that we need a family room again.  We just don't have any space to move around.  The ideal solution would have been to move or add on, but we didn't do it that way, of course.  The boys moved into the bigger of the kids' rooms together and My Silly Girl moved into My Little Warrior's old room.  My Scholar's bedroom was made out of bookcases in what had been formerly (and is once again now) known as the family room.  These are pictures of the process of turning a pink, girl's room into a boy's room and the final results of turning a junk heap into a girl's room.

The Boys' Room

My Silly Girl's Room

My Little Warrior wanted to be a plain, old ghost with a sheet over his head.  I did a major happy dance at that idea!  The face and hair paint were our compromise.  He wanted to just have eye holes in the sheet and I am anti-mask.

Because we finished the bedrooms (on Halloween morning) our kids got to have their annual Halloween party in the house instead of in the freezing cold garage this year.

 My Scholar had elf ears, but by the time I got down there to take a picture, they were no longer on him.  (I'm sure glad I ran all over the valley and ended up going into that really creepy store to find them for him.)

 The infamous Skittles game!  If you like Skittles, you won't when this game is over.

My Scholar was in the high school musical this year.  They did Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  They did a fabulous job.  I loved it so much I saw it THREE times.  I cried each time he came out on stage for the first time.  I'm such a big baby.  (I cried at Toy Story 3, too.  I cry at cross country meets, parades - when the flag or my children pass me, dance recitals, choir performances, you name it.)

 He's one of the guards on the right of the pyramid.  The one whose arm is pointing up, away from the pyramid.

 Check out those abs!!!  (Isn't it amazing what a little bit of paint can do?)

My Little Warrior turned eleven last week. 

 The Cake

Pack meeting was the night after his birthday. He received his Arrow of Light at pack meeting. He also received the award for having earned ALL 20 Webelos Activity Badges. Then he crossed the bridge from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. That's my last Cub. Luckily, I still get to work in Cubs even without a son in the program!

 Bro. Miles -- one of the two greatest Webelos Den Leaders ever (Sis. Miles is the other one), The Man of My Dreams, My Little Warrior, and our Cubmaster.

 This mother's pin ribbon is getting so heavy!  Way to go boys!  Now, if I could just get one of those Eagle pins!

Our bridge is built out of Cub Scouts (usually).  The first section of the bridge is made of representatives of the Wolf Den.  The middle is made of representatives from the Bear Den.  The final section is made of representatives of the Webelos Den.  When you have pack meeting the night before Thanksgiving, you don't always get the all the Cubs there.   It worked out though, because Bro. Case was a former member of a Bear Den and Sis. Miles is a Webelos leader.

I have more I'd like to write, but it will have to wait because it is time for lunch and pretty soon the yelling I did at the beginning of this blog will wear off and they will be back tapping on me again.