Last night I was watching an episode of “Hoarders”. Ryan came in and said, “Don’t look around the room, then.” I looked around our bedroom, and it seriously wasn’t much better than what I was seeing on the tv. A pile of laundry on the chair, stacks of books on the nightstand, a stack of boxes of plumbing parts over in the corner. Oh, no! I’m a hoarder! Or at the very least, I’m not very good at organizing and staying organized. I guess I know what should be on the top of my to-do list today.
Month: March 2010 (Page 1 of 2)
There are about 12 large boys of the 15-16 year old variety in the house right now. They are discussing things like infinity to the infinity power, air soft gun wars, klingon, flashdrives, underground passageways, and zero to the zeroth power. One of them has even brought a sword. *What?* Who is this guy? I am SO not in my element. I have done my best to make them feel welcome. I have provided large amounts of pizza, sodas (although my friend Sam told me I should NEVER buy Diet Dr. Pepper again, as in his words, “It’s Nasty and tastes about like dirt”), m & m’s, and the ever important Sweedish Fish. My bowl of Sweedish fish actually disappeared in about 10 minutes, but I refilled it.
My other kids are upstairs watching the Princess and the frog on my bed. I’ll let them come down to eat pizza, if they want, but generally they are to stay out of the way.
For entertainment, I provided them with one of my all time favorite movies, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I’m pretty sure none of these guys has seen it, since we were watching and laughing at this movie BEFORE they were born. (“Why is the cork on the fork?” “My Grandmama taught me, ‘it is better to be truthful and good than to not”) If you haven’t seen it in a while, you should definitely watch it again. You’ll laugh, I promise.
Oh, wait! Do my eyes deceive me, or is there a GIRL here, as well. I’ll have to go and welcome her. Or maybe not. I wouldn’t want to scare her off.
Overall, I think it’s a pretty good turnout for his party. It is, after all, the YW general broadcast as well as PROM in these parts, although I doubt many of Cole’s sophomore friends would be going to that.
I’d better go and refill the pizza.
I was very excited to win tickets to see Legally Blonde the musical.
Since Ryan is out of town this week, I just planned on taking a friend. Surprisingly, it took a few phone calls and emails to find someone who was free on a Tuesday night and who wanted to go. So the plan was in place. But plans can change. Around noon, my friend called to say she was violently throwing up and couldn’t make it. Yuck! We don’t want to have anything to do with that, so I’m sure I can find someone else. I started calling. Now, please don’t get offended if you are reading this and say to yourself, “she didn’t call ME. I totally would have gone!” because I really didn’t have time to call EVERY single one of my friends and loved ones. I called a few people, waited for a reply, and none of them could go. So I figured I would just take my daughter and we would have a fun little girls’ night out.
And then I was hit with an extreme attack of dizziness. Seriously, I was so dizzy all of a sudden I had to go and lay down. And I didn’t care HOW great the show was or how much fun it would be, I just wanted to stay home and go to bed early. Man, I must be getting old. So, about 3:00 in the afternoon, I offered BOTH tickets up on facebook, and it didn’t take long to find a friend who lives pretty close who said she wanted the tickets. Oh, the relief. Her husband came by later to pick up the tickets and he sounded SO GRATEFUL to be able to go. And yes, by the time it was time to go, I felt much better. Allergies? Who knows.
I hope they had a fabulous time. I hope it was a wonderful show. I hope the free tickets were appreciated. Because for me, it just wasn’t in the stars to go.
Our house is no longer NEW. Appliances are starting to wear out and paint is chipped and scuffed. And we are starting to have our share of plumbing problems. Our toilets seem to be clogging every day, and try as I might to get them UN clogged, my poor husband often comes home with the lovely greeting of “the toilet’s clogged, and oh yes, how was your day?” We plunge and plunge, but sometimes those darn potties just do not cooperate. Such was the case recently. The kid’s bathroom, which does indeed get a lot of use, especially when we have guests (as it doubles as the “guest bath”. I know. We’re terrible hosts, yet people continue to come). But This weekend even Ryan with his magic plunger skills couldn’t get it unglogged. He even tried with some kind of toilet snake, but that didn’t work, either. It was Ununcloggable.
So, Monday morning I called a plumber. I tried to find a local plumber, but the one I found in American Fork didn’t have a current number, so I called one who I’ve heard advertised on the radio. The nice lady on the phone refused to give me any kind of a quote, because, as she said, “I have no idea what they will find when they get to your house.” But she assured me that someone would be there within the hour. I think that was around 9:00. I got a phone call at around 11 am, assuring me that the next available serviceman would be coming to my house, so it shouldn’t be long, now. At about 12:45, I called the nice lady back and asked that she didn’t send anyone out just then, since I had to go and pick up my kids from various schools, but I would be back at 2:00, and then she was welcome to send someone.
I got another call at 3:15, apologizing for the wait and assuring me that there would be someone there within the next 15 minutes. No problem, I thought, I didn’t have anything else to do today except wait for a plumber. Of COURSE I don’t mind. (Big Sigh).
3:45 and the truck pulled up. Hooray! Two guys came in and told me the price to insert the 25 foot snake thing into my toilet and unclog whatever was clogging it. I almost passed out. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? And if that doesn’t work and they have to take the toilet off and then reset it, it will be another $69. Not having plumbing experience myself, I signed the permission slip so that they could go to work on my toilet. From downstairs in the kitchen, I could hear some serious noise coming from the upstairs bathroom, and then I heard the sound of running water. They were done. Less than 10 minutes. BUT, I have a 30 day guarantee that this toilet will work.
I’m tempted to flush a hot wheels car and a bottle of lotion down that toilet just so they’ll have to come back and work on it again. I mean, for that price, I should have SOME kind of fun, right? I guess we’ll all just use that toilet and ONLY that toilet. Because if one of the other toilets clogs, there’s NO guarantee on them, and I can tell you right now I am NOT calling for a plumber again. I’ll just make the kids start going outside. “New policy, kids. Make sure you do ALL your pooping AT school! And on the weekend, let’s just try to hold it until church. If not, you can go outside. What are you whining about? It’s getting warmer every day. Oh, sure it’s warm enough–just go far away from the house, behind those trees.”
Where the heck have I been? You may be asking yourself. It’s not that I haven’t been home, or that I haven’t had anything to blog about, because both of those assumptions would be false. It’s just that we’ve had extra people here in the house, and it seemed that with the addition of those people, there were about 8 or 9 people who wanted to use this computer at any given time. And since I didn’t want to be sitting here staring at the computer screen trying to compose a coherent blog post, I just didn’t.
But we HAVE been busy. We’ve been going to basketball games.
Megan’s team did really well in the tournament, and after a heartbreaking CLOSE game, they lost by one point and ended up 3rd in their division.
Meeting up with friends.
I had dinner with some of my wonderful friends, and you can tell we were having some sort of amazing animated discussion there.
Then I met up with my roommates from my sophomore year.
It was so much fun to get together with these girls that I spent my life with 20 years ago. Here are 5 of the 6 of us that enjoyed that year together at Heritage Halls. You can see Jenny’s wrap up over HERE. While her camera took a better quality picture, my eyes were closed in her picture and open in mine. Go figure. It just happened that Jenny and Robin were both here in Utah for their Arizona spring breaks, so we just HAD to get together.
Robin and family were here for a week. They enjoyed (?) the snow, went skiing, and generally had a great time hanging out and playing with my kids. My kids, consequently, thought they were on vacation as well. I’ll just say that very little got done around here. But they had fun.
On Thursday, Robin mentioned that she didn’t have any curtains in her house, because she just didn’t know how to choose or make curtains. What?! No curtains?! That’s practically a SIN!!!! Well, curtains is one of the things that I actually CAN do, and I just couldn’t imagine not having curtains. So, off to the fabric store we went. We picked fabric that made them happy, and brought it all home to sew.
In two days, I made three sets of curtains. I think that’s got to be some kind of record. I’m happy with how they turned out, and I hope that they work out. Here’s Sarah, modeling her new curtains for her bedroom.
Then we worked on some curtains for Robin’s living room. I wish I had a better picture than this (the lighting is terrible, and since we’re just trying them out on my kitchen window, it looks pretty silly, but you’ll get the general idea). And it looks a little weird with my old kitchen curtains on the top and hers on the bottom, but just ignore all those discrepancies, if you will.
After I had the first one sewn and was starting the second one, I realized I probably had sewn the whole thing BACKWARD, but since on this upholstery type fabric, you can’t really tell which is the front or the back. I was prepared to redo that panel, but Robin said she really did like that side of the fabric better, so we just went with it.
I didn’t get a picture of Jacob’s curtains when they were finished, but here he is with the fabric before we sewed them. I think it’s a good color on him, don’t you?
Yes, sewing constantly for several hours is tiring and hurts my back, but it’s nice to have a sewing “assistant”. I would just tell Robin “cut this in four in strips, please” or “iron this”, and she would do it. It made the sewing go so much faster! I’m going to have to train my kids to do that next time I have a big sewing project.
Friday night was out last night on our “Spring Break Vay-Cay” so we had a “party” at home. There was food, lots of food, and movies, rock band, wii, murder in the dark, and lots of fun.
You don’t see me rocking out in these pictures, because I was the one behind the camera, but I did indeed play rock band, as well. The kids all stayed up WAY too late having fun with their friends from Arizona.
It was a fun filled week, and we’re so glad they came and stayed here. We all had a fun time, and we didn’t even have to go anywhere! And then when we go to Arizona in a few weeks for OUR spring break, we can stay at THEIR HOUSE and disrupt their lives with our fun and playing! (Evil laugh)
Didn’t win the car. Darn. I have to keep a positive attitude and know that if I keep trying, one of these times it will be my turn and I will win one. We had fun, though. My dear friend Robin is in town, and she came with me to the car winning thing, and they always let people put their names in to draw out for the extra keys, so she got a key, too. So, there we were, me, Robin and Ryan’s brother Kyle. We compared our keys, which looked exactly the same, and realized that it wasn’t really possible that any of us had the winning key. As they were going through the numbers, they weren’t even 10 people in and a girl won the car. Good for her. It would have been better for me, but I’ll try to keep the bitterness to myself.
***
Last night I went out with my greatest friends in the world. We laughed, we ate, we shared stories of ex-husbands, twins, jail, meth busts, birthday parties, and accidental shootings. Seriously. My life is blissfully boring in comparison. But OH, I love those ladies. They are the best, and I don’t know where I would be without their friendship and fun all these years.
***
This week, our fun friends from Arizona are here. They wanted a touch of winter for their spring break, and we are happy to have them. We’ll go and bother them there when it’s our spring break, so all’s fair. My kids are so thrilled to have them here. Mom eases up on the rules and the jobs and stuff, and they get to play and play all day. Yes, it will be hard on them when they have to go to SCHOOL on Monday and their friends do not, but oh, well. Today they’ve spent record time playing the x-box. It will be a fun week together, I’m sure.
***
This week I organized and pulled off a large scale cooking event. I and 10 other ladies got together with our chicken and a few other ingredients, and we each came away with 6 chicken dishes to freeze and use later. Since I’m in the RS presidency, I suggested the idea, and I therefore, was in charge of it. I divided up the ingredients, made assignments, bought a bunch of stuff, cooked a whole bunch of chicken, and organized the troops. It was honestly a WHOLE LOT OF WORK. But the ladies seemed to
a- have a good time
b-were happy to go home with so much food prepared
c-hopefully saved some money by buying in bulk.
Tonight for dinner I pulled out the chicken and broccoli, cooked up the noodles, heated the chicken and broccoli through, and there was dinner! I just had to have some fruit and veggies to go with it, and it fed 9 of us, with enough leftovers for one lunch. And it was easy and fast.
The event did not go without a few hiccups, of course. One of which was WHEN I LOST MY CHICKEN. Seriously! I had five cups of shredded chicken in a ziplock bag, as well as four grilled and sliced chicken breasts, and I COULD. NOT. FIND. IT. I kept wandering around the kitchen looking at everyone’s chicken, asking whose it was. I knew I had brought the chicken, I had showed it my friend. She had seen it and was my witness. So, I just made three of my chicken dishes without the chicken. Yes, I did. I knew it would show up SOMETIME. Preferably before the night was over. I was kind of stressed out at this point, hoping everything went well, and I’m sure my frazzledness didn’t help. We did run out of the manicotti stuffing, and our sauce for the artichoke chicken bake didn’t set up, but other that those things, I think it was a good event. I’ll have to ask people if they thought it was worth it, and maybe we’ll do it again for those people who weren’t able to come that night. I did have one friend tell me they want to do it again, and this time with hamburger recipes.
Maybe I can get her to organize it.
I am from:
smiles
last note of a song
fluff and feathers
curling up with a good book on the couch
fingerprints on the walls
hugs
testimony of truth
carpools and team moms
snow on the mountains
What caller am I?
trying not to be so frazzled, yet still frazzled
laughing
How about you?
**idea stolen from my friend Tess
A pirate walked into a bar and the bartender said, “Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. What happened? You look terrible.”
“What do you mean?” said the pirate, “I feel fine.”
“What about the wooden leg? You didn’t have that before.”
“Well, we were in a battle and I got hit with a cannon ball, but I’m fine now.”
“Well, ok, but what about that hook? “What happened to your hand?”
“We were in another battle. I boarded a ship and got into a sword fight. My hand was cut off. I got fitted with a hook. I’m fine, really.”
“What about that eye patch?”
“Oh, one day we were at sea and a flock of birds flew over. I looked up and one of them pooped in my eye.”
“You’re kidding,” said the bartender, “you couldn’t lose an eye just from some bird poop.”
“It was my first day with the hook.”
Say what you want to about Wal Mart, but you CAN NOT beat Wal Mart on clearance deals. The other day I walked into our small little Wal Mart, and there in the front of the store was a clearance rack of jackets. The sign says $1. Upon closer inspection, I see the Miley Cyrus bomber jackets are indeed marked down from $20 to $1. One dollar! I bought two for my girls.
Then, in the women’s clothing department, I found these leather jackets priced at $5.
You gotta know I picked one up for myself, right?
So, thank you Wal Mart, for keeping our family in jackets this spring. Because -brrrrr- it’s really cold out there today!
Because I can’t figure out how to make my own customizable blog header for wordpress, I don’t have a bunch of cute pictures of my family on my blog page like some of my friends do. And in looking through the old blog, I realized that I don’t post that many pictures of the family. Eek! Not that I want to overload you with pictures or anything, but I thought I would just throw up a few–just for good measure. Ok, that sounds bad. I’m not “throwing up” anything. I’m “posting” a few pictures.
Here’s some pictures from our last vacation, as that seems to be the only time we take any pictures of all seven of us together.
Notice how my teenage son is not really smiling, but just trying to have a pleasant look? That’s about his standard now. I don’t know if it’s just not cool to smile anymore, or if he doesn’t like having his picture taken.
Here’s Ryan with the kids. This was at the Venetian in Las Vegas, right before the camera died. Notice my cute Natalie who ended up carrying my purse for me? That’s how she chose to carry it, so who am I to complain?
Ryan and Paige outside the Belagio. We aren’t the spring chickens we once were, but thankfully we still love each other.
Here’s another picture from our SanDiego trip. You know, the kind where mom makes the kids like up against some boring backdrop and pretend that they are having fun?
So there you have it. Some pictures of the kids, the hubby, and even of me. Not that I’m trying to brag or anything–oh, who am I kidding? This is my blog, and I can brag if I want to–but I think they are pretty amazing.
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