Guilty conscience...kind of

So that last post...Um..Thanks for all of you who posted a comment. Why didn't I just come out and say that I wanted more comments. Because I am passive aggressive like that. Just ask big D. I'm a master manipulator big time. I tricked him into marrying me didn't I? And we have not one, but 2 kids, and one on the way. Yup. I'm a master at getting my way.


So yeah, thanks. It made me feel good, and that is what blogging is all about...Right?

Hello? Internet are you there?

So many times during the day I get a blank screen. Mostly when I am trying to talk to MOF's about children issues, or other silly things like that. It gets really annoying, having to refresh all the time. Sometimes I even have to go as far as unplugging different things to get everything rebooted.

It really is an amazing thing, that I can sit here in my chair and talk to somebody on the other side of the world (if they aren't sleeping). I can do my bills, or check the daily newspaper, find out my family history, or I can even sell a bunch of junk. But my favorite thing is to come here, spill my guts about my boring and silly life, and have you read it.

I aspire to be witty, I long to make good sentences. I enjoy blogging. I really do. It gives me a moment to focus on what my feelings are for that day. Sometimes I come here and write out a big post, only to delete it later because I think I have left myself a little too open. I blog for me. I thought.

Recently it has come to my attention that I do not get comments. I have been going through some self consciousness because of this. Is it because I am not funny? Do I not write anything interesting? Too much stuff about my kids? I would visit other blogs (maybe yours) and notice that they had more than the obliging comment from their spouse. I started feeling like I did in high school. I was surely not the most popular girl. Everybody knew who I was, but I wasn't invited to the cool parties, I didn't date very much, and I never got nominated for homecoming queen. Sure, I was the smart, theatre dork, student government geek, who had the teachers all fooled, but for some reason, my peers couldn't really care less.

So this is what blogging has become to me. A popularity contest of sorts. To understand why my comment numbers are so much lower than the rest of my small community. And to try and boost them. I started writing more frequently, and trying to entertain you, the bored reader who just skips ahead to the next blog. It wasn't really working, and I was getting frustrated. Then today as I sat down at the computer, hoping to have had a comment on my last post, and feeling like the ugly duckling of my blog ring, I figured out what my problem was.

I have been trying to entertain you, when in reality, the most entertaining thing about a blog is when it is just being yourself. It isn't about that blank screen at the bottom of the post.

So here I am.

and I am hoping I can go back to the way it was. Back to telling you how life in my small part of the world is going. Feel free to leave a comment if you'd like, but it isn't required.

Proud Mommy Moments

Today is the 1st day of 1st grade. Harry is excited. He woke up early, got dressed without me nagging, and even ate a good breakfast. It seems unreal that he is already going to first grade. Wasn't he just learning how to sleep through the night? Didn't he just start Kindergarten?

Last year, he got thrown into Kindergarten. We had just moved into the year round school boundaries (actually, we were just planning on it, hadn't moved a single box yet), and realized that school had already started, and our little to-be-kindergartener, needed to be in school. So we went and talked to the school, and they arranged everything, and he started the next day. No preparation at all.

So this year, we got to talk it up, get to know who his teacher is, for 3 weeks. It really almost felt like a lifetime!

So we take him to school this morning, and he finds his class, finds his teacher, finds a chair and sits down. What next? He tells us that we can leave now. He's fine! He's got his lunch all packed up and he is ready to go. I'm a little concerned about lunch, and 3 recesses, and the leaving to come home part. But all in all, I think we are going to be fine. And even with all these hormones, I didn't even cry. Maybe I got a little teary last night, but this morning I was fine.

So my mom should be proud.

I jinxed myself..sort of

so we did have to take Harry to the dr. AGAIN. And do you know what it is. A parotid gland occlusion. and what do we do? We just let it work itself out.

So I have a first grader on Tuesday with a swollen right side of his face.

Fun times.

But you wanna know the absolute bestest thing that has happened in the last 9 years? It happened today. My wonderful loving sweetheard big d cleaned the nasty bathrooms... all three of them for me. I was feeling..uh...sick... like most days...and he took over house cleaning for the week. I helped do some stuff, but he took over the nastiest yuckiest (remember I've got little boys with little parts that squirt) place in the whole house.

Thanks big d. I don't think I could have handled that today without loosing my lunch. And I really just didn't want too. So big brownie points for him!

and just to prove that we were there....

The nauvoo temple


The toad we found at the "mouse" house
The Joseph and Hyrum Memorial


my boys in the leachy mississippi



This is my favorite picture of Chilly at the blacksmiths
So there ya go. Proof that we were there.

Is that my voice?

Have you ever heard a recording of your voice, and thought that it sounded silly, or weird? Every stinking time I hear my stupid laugh on camera I get so annoyed. I really sound like that? All the time? *sigh* I'd give anything to sound like that now.

yeah, I've lost it. My voice that is. Not only is this a bad thing because I can't talk on the phone, I also can't yell at my kids. Maybe not so much a bad thing. No really, I am trying to talk to chilly, and he just ignores me, as usual, but I figure he just can't hear me either. So I'm spending my day dancing here and there, trying to stop battles between the boys in nare but a whisper.
(Whispering is of course more damaging to the vocal chords, so not really, but the lowest register I've got equals about the decimal of a whisper. Does that make sense big d? I don't really know sound, I'm a performer not a backstage...Person.)

other than that, well, lets see, I was going to post my top ten reasons I had a sucky vacation. But in all honesty, it was nice. It was good to see nauvoo, what little we did see of it, and it was good to come home.

I'm not a road trip warrior anymore, in fact, I've been feeling very home bodied the last couple of months. So that is the hard part for me, spending 10 hours in a minivan. Only to get up and do it again.

Ah the mice. Yes, that was truly disgusting. We arrived at our "refuge" in a little town outside of nauvoo. 9 short miles outside. We walked in the door, and found scattered across the counter tops in the kitchen, mice traps. A whole lot of them. AND mouse poop, a whole bunch of it. The whole house was infested with mice. I have to say, I think there was close to 200 hundred of them, but I could be miscounting. Since I only actually saw 2. But where there is one, there is bound to be 100 right? So that was, er....Gross. Grosser than gross. So instead of saving money by making our own meals, we really felt it was okay to "eat out" I know that is what the mice were thinking. I just hope none of the buggers stowed away in our suitcases. I know the tick did, but I got rid of that one in Iowa.

And that takes me to the last point I'd like to touch on. Gas. Prices. Suck. I know you all know this, but the reality set in when I payed 3.15 for a gallon of gas. I had to fill the mini van with 20 gallons of gas. You do the math. Sucks.

Oh and the final last thing I'd like to complain about is road construction. My dad was on the Utah department of transportation payroll for 35 years. I know what road construction is. I understand it's place and the season of such is during the summer months. What I don't understand is why 1 city, which will heretofore be named "city of Satan", can close down a whole road that goes to the freeway. The whole road was closed. Okay, a section of the road. But a vital section that led to the desired destination called I-80 west. Yes my friends it took over an hour to find out way out of the City of Satan. And with tempers flaring, it was a long hour. The sad part, the reason we got lost, and the reason we couldn't find our way out, didn't even make a difference in the scheme of things.

and that is the final, final last thing. When you buy a DVD player for your kids, to watch movies on in the van, during very long car rides. And it is one of those portable ones that you can hook up to your car cigarette lighter, and you pay a little bit more than you did on your first car payment. You expect the thing to work. Well, when it doesn't, and the kids are upset because they can't watch Jurassic park for the 437th time, everyone in the van gets a little...Testy. So you drive around a medium size city in the middle of Nebraska, looking for a fuse, no bigger than the recently witnessed mouse poop, and in the process get yourself undeniable and confusably lost, we are encouraged to remember the reason we take vacations and it is to spend good quality time with family. Just not these particular family members. The good news is Target took back the faulty DVD player and gave us our money back. The bad news is, that we had to take it back to the one we got it from I.E. HOME TURF.

So that is it. My list of complaining will hopefully be over soon, as will our summer vacation as Harry starts school in a week! A first grader at last. I'm thinking it will be a good year if we can make it to the start of the school year without another trip to the Dr. And hopefully sometime between now and next week, I'll have a voice again.

Wish me luck!

Vacation or poking white hot coals into your eyes?

Which would you choose?

for me, generally I choose vacation. However, I will honestly have to think about where, how, and when, more in depth before I decide next time.

End report, I'm home. My kids made it safely, tick-less, and in relatively good shape. Oh wait, minus fevers, upset tummies, and a certain croupy cough that won't go away. Grandma seemed to pull through okay, even though we tried repeatedly to sleep past 5, and we dropped her off at home at 12:45 in the AM. Big D came through with flying colors, driving a good 1000 miles in one day. One hell of a long damn day. And me, well, I'm just happy to be home, have some normal sleep/food, and to be in my critter free house.

More on the trip later. Don't worry, I've got hours of good blogging including mice, ticks, fireflies, DVD players, fevers, swimming pools....

and I might throw in some pictures too.

it's good to be home.

not so smart mommy moment

So as you can tell from the previous post, I love the 4th of july. Strep or not. Well so we came home from my parents bbq, which got rained in, and decided that it would be okay to do some poppers and some sparklers. The ultimate little kid firework.

remembering that chilly is three, and doesn't listen all that well, you can imagine what I'm dealing with tonight. Yup a big ole nasty burn across his palm where he tried to hold his burned out sparkler.

on the good side, we still ate microwave smores and stayed up way past our bedtime. Of course that coudl be due to the fact that the neighbors sound like they are setting off bombs.

So again, Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July

It is one of my favorite holidays! No really, next to thanksgiving, the fourth of July is up there with memorial day and Halloween. I could list the holidays in order, but I'm afraid I'd offend a lot of well meaning mormons. Because I don't like Christmas. Well, that isn't true, I love Christmas, just not how most people celebrate it. I tend to be grintchy that time of year.

But honestly I have always love the 4th of July. I guess it come from being raised in a small town where there was a good ole' fashioned pancake breakfast cooked by my dad down at the local park. And a parade, carnival, and all sorts of other activities. Followed by a trip to the stadium to watch the firework show. Staying up late in the coolness of the summer night. Being eaten by mosquitos and eating salt water taffy.

It was only later, in high school, during my AP American History class, that I really fell in love with what our country means.

So I wont' go into that, mainly because it is late, and I don't intend this to be a long post. Let's just say, freedom is a pretty amazing thing.

So how will you be celebrating this year? Due to the fact that we are all recovering, see previous post, we won't be going to parades, swimming at any pools or doing anything patriotic. Maybe the flags will go up in the morning, and I'll light the sparklers that I bought the kids. That is it. Sad huh? I'd love to do the cookout thing, but I don't think it will happen. I'd love to go watch some fireworks, but that really ain't gonna happen.

So for the 2nd year in a row, the 4th is become a downer for me. Last year we were in Nauvoo, and it was fun and all, but not really. Nobody really noticed that I was craving a celebration. Or if they did, they were all too busy to do anything about it. And this year, well this year the nastiness of strep will keep us confined until that magical 24 hour mark, at which point we will probably already be in bed.

So if you can, do me a favor, will ya? Eat some salt water taffy, sing our beautiful national anthem, and blow up a small piece of our country for me.

3 of us

All three of us have strep throat. All three of us are on antibiotics. All three of us haven't slept normally for over a week. All three of us are tired, grumpy and being mean. All three of us need a break from each other.

Well meaning relatives are trying hard to help, but none of them want to be encountered by the nasty strep bug. Although wisdom suggests that either or both families were the bringers of such a bad bug.

Thankfully, I've listened to that mommy intuition that said, "white spots on a swollen throat equals strep" and got them into the Dr within hours. Also good mommy intuition told me that I don't feel so well, and got me into the Dr., after only and hour and a half in the waiting room. 4th time in 6 months. Serious talk about taking parts of me that were meant to be there out. Too bad I've got Truman cooking for another 6 months. Or too good. Either way, things are sticking put for the time being. Including all my kids. Don't be bringing your nasty strepy kids anywhere near my kids (another rant for another time). Or me for that matter. Okay, especially me. My kids seem to kick it fine, but I tend to duplicate the nastiness in my defective tonsils.

So that is the update on how my life has been. Incomplete, I might add, but you really don't want to know the rest.

To the person's in charge of spiderman merchandise

I will throw even more money at you if you can figure out a way to make a child friendly spiderman suit. One that doesn't get holes within the first day of wearing. One that the zipper works properly and is easy for a child who's age range it belongs. A suit that you can actually put in the washer for when the kid spills popsicles, or gets grass stains on it.

thanks
mom of a 6year old boy

as for the one we've got, I'm about ready to shove it down the toilet.

it does no good...

to wallow in self pity. Honestly. things always just get worse. That is the sucky part about pitying oneself, you can never save it until you are about to get better.

on a brighter side, Chilly does remarkably well on 4 hours of sleep. He also has a lot of energy at 3 in the morning when he's had nightmares. And Harry hasn't thrown up...yet. Insta care is always open on the weekends.

so I'm good.