I filled up my van with gas yesterday at costco, and even there, where the gas is supposed to cost less than at the regular pumps, I paid $2.60 a gallon. What is going on here?! Why are we paying so much at the pump? EEK! Well, I figured that if I get 20 miles to the gallon (hopefully I get a few more on the freeway, but driving around town dropping off and picking up kids, 20 is probably all I get on average), then it costs me about 13 cents to drive a mile. So, my drive home from Costco cost me 78 cents. Cole asked me to pick him up from school, so as I’m driving, I’m figuring out in my head….it’s a mile and a half to school, times two, so that’s three miles, times that by 13 cents, and this drive is costing me 39 cents. And then there’s the drive to dance lessons–42 cents; and the drive to choir–another 42 cents. And don’t even get me started on how many times I drove up to Salt Lake last week–Arrg! I feel like a taxi driver and I should keep a little jar in the van and make the kids pay me per mile. Hey, that’s not a bad idea!
Category: Uncategorized (Page 70 of 118)
Last night as I was taking my son to scouts, I was singing along to Donny. Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes… and my son says to me, “You should go on American Idol, Mom.” I laughed. “No, I can’t do that,” I said.
“But you should, Mom. You’re a really good singer.” he said.
I won’t go into the thousands of reasons why I would not, could not try out for American Idol (which, no, I haven’t watched this week’s show yet), but I thought that was a very nice thing for my newly teenagerized son to say. He’s a sweetie. I must cherish these little moments for soon he will hate me.
Oh, and by the way, one of my favorite bloggers, Carmen, has started a new blog answering questions about how she lost 60 pounds in the last year. She calls it the Elff diet, which stands for “eat less food, fatty”, or the kinder, gentler version, “eat less fatty foods”. She is so funny, and has a realistic approach to weight loss. Go on over and check her out, and let her inspire you.
I would write about my fabulous and extremely busy weekend, if I weren’t in a sugar coma. And I think my house exploded. It’s covered with colored easter grass and candy wrappers. I’ll have to fill you in once I recover.
Today is my little sister, Amy’s birthday. So, go on over there and give her some birthday love in the comments section, why don’t you? It’s also her husband’s birthday. Isn’t that odd? Or cool? You would never forgot your spouse’s birthday if it were the same day as yours. I think they should do that with Mothers day and Father’s day too. Then the husband and kids would not forgot to do anything for their wives and mothers, maybe.
In other not very exciting news, Cole’s digital camera came, and he’s been taking some pictures. I think he needs to have a photography class, or a least a little lesson on what makes a good picture, holding the camera steady and NOT taking pictures of people in the car. But I’m sure he’ll get better as time goes on. You can see all of his pictures so far here.
I hope you are all enjoying the Easter festivities. Let’s go find some eggs!
I’m a little discombobulated this morning. I helped Megan with her homework for most of the morning. She wasn’t getting the whole Celcius/Farenheit thing, and had gotten most of the paper wrong on adding and subtracting minutes and hours. Since it was her birthday yesterday and I was gone, she didn’t get the homework done last night. By the time we were done, I looked up and realized it was time for the girls to leave, and 10 minutes from John’s preschool time. And I’m still in my pajamas. Oh well. I took John to preschool in my pajamas. With no bra, I might add. I had some lipgloss in the car, and wore my sunglasses, so I didn’t look TOO scary, and put on a jacket to mask my bralessness. Luckily, I only saw one other mom dropping off her daughter at preschool, and she understands. You know you sometimes see those girls who go to the grocery store in their pajamas and fuzzy slippers? I couldn’t be one of those people. Unless maybe I had a bra on and makeup and the pajamas were just like regular clothes. So, now the schedule of my day has been upset. Not like I had much of a schedule anyway, but now I’m here, in my pajamas, trying to figure out what to do next. I think I’ll fill up the easter eggs with candy.
Oh, on the radio is one of my least favorite songs…”Come on baby light my fire.” Sing it with me in your best “Doors” voices —You know that it would be untrue You know that I would be a liar …OK, that’s enough. Why is it in the bottom 5 of my favorite songs? Two words….Metal Shop. Yes, Tina and Michelle will share the memories with me. Imagine Dean T. and Gary whats-his-name and the other flunkies in that class with us. When they wanted a light for their little torch welders, they would sing that song. Oh, how clever. The horrible memories are flooding back. Why did we take metal shop? Because we were stupid, that’s why. And we thought it would be more fun that taking home-ec. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. I almost failed that class, friends. But that’s the kind of decisions you make when you are 13 and in the 8th grade. Oh, good, a new song. Let’s take a deep breath, let the memories just go. Girl. You really got me now, you’ve got me so I can’t sleep at night. Great. Now I think of Sanjiah and that weird hair. I think I’ll go and take a shower.
Today is Megan’s 11th birthday! Wow! Can you believe I have kids that old? Happy birthday to my wonderful girl. She’s always been blonde, and she’s always been cute. Here’s the proof.
 
She’s grown up into a beautiful girl, a great soccer player and our number one deviled egg maker.
But since she didn’t really let me know what she wanted for her birthday (besides the parakeets that she got a few weeks ago), I really don’t know what we are doing to celebrate. She requested a “Hamburger cake” , which I am going to go find at the grocery store, and spaghetti for dinner. So, not a huge celebration since it’s not a party year, but we’ll go out ofr dinner to celebrate in a few days. She’ll be getting some new slippers, clothes, and a movie. And tomorrow she’ll go out with her grandparents for dinner and shopping.
So, Megan, we Love you, and are so happy to have you in our family, and we all hope your birthday is Wonderful!
On my errand to Walgreens yesterday to pick up Diet Dr. Pepper at the great price of 5/$11 for my dear husband, I witnessed an “incident.” There was an older lady in front of me to check out, and she put her items up on the counter to pay for them. Not much, just 6 cans of vegetables and a couple of Easter candies. As the young checker was ringing them up, the lady said, “Now I have this coupon for the vegetables so they are 50 cents each.”
Poor unsuspecting Walgreens girl looked at the fine print in the coupon/ad, and said, “Oh, it says here that there’s a limit of 2 of each kind on these cans.”
“I know. But I don’t want the peas. I can’t eat peas,” said the older lady.
“Right. But you can only get TWO of each kind,” says the checker.
“Well, I can’t eat peas; they make me sick. Are you telling me I have to get peas in order to get the sale price?” says the older lady, starting to raise her voice. And may I just point out that 50 cents for a can of vegetables isn’t a screaming deal, folks? I stock up myself when they are 3 or 4 for a dollar.
“Ok, Ma’am,” says the poor girl, “you don’t have to get peas, but you can only get TWO of each of these at the sale price.”  She really was trying to get it through to her about that limit of 2.
“Well, I can’t EAT PEAS! I’m not going to buy peas! I’ve never had a problem with this before! I’m not going to get any of these if you can’t honor the sale price,” she huffed. She went on and on, probably saying the word “Peas” 4 or 5 more times, then said, “I’ll just pay for these things. We seem to be having a problem COMMUNICATING!” Then she paid for her candy items, and it looked like she was leaving. We were all a bit relieved until she turned and said in about the rudest voice I could imagine, “Can I have my AD back in case I want to get anything else?”
‘You mean the special ad that is there in the shopping cart or in the front of the store for anyone to pick up?’ I thought but didn’t say it, of course. After the rude lady (who I actually know from a former ward, but won’t go into further details about her identity) left, I turned to the frazzled girl and said, “Wow, that was awkward.” I told her that it wasn’t her fault and not to worry about it or let it ruin her day. She just about broke into tears and told me that that was her worst customer experience yet. I paid for my few things, using the coupons and NOT complaining about peas or any such thing, hoping that the poor salesgirl won’t be scarred for life.
I don’t have any fun April Fool’s Jokes to play this year. Sorry. With April 1st being on a Sunday and General Conference, it just kind of slipped my mind and we didn’t fool anyone. But you could try this new wireless system.
We had a wonderful weekend listening to conference. There were a lot of messages on forgiveness, repentance and being kind to one another. I’m not a big grudge holder, but I still have a few things I need to let go of. I especially liked Elder Holland’s talk on speaking kindly. That’s one I really need to work on. I’m thrilled about the Tabernacle Rededication and excited about the upcoming events to celebrate that event. This weekend is the Tabernacle Choir concert, and I will be involved in that a tiny bit, and the Bell Choir spring concert in the Tabernacle will be May 17 and 18th. If you are interested in tickets for that event, they go “on sale” Tuesday morning at 10:00.
On Saturday I got a little project done; one that had been hanging over my head for quite some time. I sewed a new cover for our little playground. I get to do this about every two years, since I’m just using regular fabric instead of cool specialized playground canopy fabrics. But then I can change the look every time I do it, too, and it doesn’t cost much to make one. Here’s Megan and Ryan putting it up.
So, here’s the finished project:
Another thing I finished and got up on the wall is a Family Home Evening chart. How many years have we been having FHE? About 13. Have I ever had a FHE thing? No. I guess I didn’t want one that didn’t have everyone on it, and the ones I saw only had 5 or maybe 6 spaces. Well, I finally found one that would work for me, ordered it, painted it, put the lettering on it, and got it done.
Everyone is excited about their assignments, and I think it will help us a lot to know who’s doing what. Then maybe it won’t all be Mom’s job. For John’s activity, we’re going to color eggs.
I didn’t make up this list, but maybe I should make one of the books I’ve read and care about.
Look at the list of books below:
*Bold the ones you’ve read
*Italicize the ones you want to read
*Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
*Cross out the ones you are so not interested in that you would never read.
If you are reading this: tag; you’re it!
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell (Ok, haven’t read the whole thing, but seen the movie multiple times)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) I started this one, but didn’t finish it
21. the hobbit
22. the catcher in the rye(J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. the red tent(Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) haven’t read it but seen the tv movie, does that count?
45. Bible – most, but not all
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Started this one, but didn’t get too far.
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) does the movie count?
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams) got about 1/4 of the way through this one.
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
Wow, according to this list, I’m not as well read as I would like to be. But it gives me ideas for the next time I am bookless.
One of my favorite bloggers, Carmen at Mom to the Screaming Masses told this sweet story on her blog today:
There were two boys who were the subject of an experiment. One was put into a room with every toy known to children. The other boy was put into a room full of horse manure. They were left alone for quite a while, and then the doctor conducting the experiment came to check on them. He found the boy who was in the room of toys, sitting on the side, looking dejected. When questioned, he said that the reason he was so upset was that there was no Nintendo DS in the room. That was his favorite toy. The doctor went to check on the second boy, and to his suprise, found him jumping around, dancing, singing, laughing and having a grand time. When questioned as to how he could possibly be so happy in a room filled with horse manure, he responded, “With this much horse manure, there MUST be a pony in here somewhere!”
That’s a nice way to look at things, isn’t it? Which reminds me of this . And while I was looking for that, I found this, which also made me laugh.
So, my message to you today is…have a wonderful day!
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