Jordanism

Yesterday Jordan asked me if Youdo dolls are real. Youdo? What is a youdo doll? You know if you have one of those dolls it will make you do whatever the person does to the doll.



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Amazed - I accept all visitors!!

Friends

When I was in highschool my best friends name was Stefani. Stef was a year younger than me and actually one of those girls I couldn't stand when I first met her. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, just perfect. We were great friends in highschool. We had all sorts of great adventures together. We went to Mexico in matching shirts we had made - perhaps the only time that I have been called Mrs. Pork and laughed about it. We puffy painted shirts - there were three of us. Lori had cows on hers, Stef had bears and I had pigs. Okay, we were dorks but that's neither here nor there. As we were walking through the market someone was trying to make a deal with us - I'm sure some item we thought we had to have. He called to each of us - come back Mrs. Cow, Mrs. Bear - MRS. PORK! My Senior year we went to San Francisco togther. Our highschool basketball team made state and we convinced our parents to let us go. The best part was we had a place to stay - Stef had an uncle who lived in Oakland and he would let us stay with him. Her Uncle is a priest so we stayed in the rectory. All the other priests must have had plans that weekend because we had the whole house to ourselves. When I went to college Stef drove with me in my little red datsun pick up. We sang Billy Joel and James Taylor at the top of our lungs driving on the freeway. When I got married Stef was my bridesmaid. When she got married, the 2nd time, I was one of her bridesmaids. When she had her first child, a little girl, I was having my 3rd, also a girl. We have always kept in touch. That is until now. I should clarify that I have kept in touch - she is not. I know that she has gotten divorced recently but that is all I know. I had another friend email her and she did write back to him - but still no response to me. We weren't daily friends, we rarely talked on the phone, but we kept in touch. I only have a few friends that I have had forever that I keep in touch with and I figured she would be one that would be there forever. Now I have to figure out why she isn't returning my emails. Do I send an email asking what is going on? Do I just ignore that she doesn't respond and continue sending updated on what's going on with us and asking what's new with her? Do I put the memories in a box with other friends who have come and gone?

I Am Alive!

I am here. I know I abandoned you for a month but I am here. After being in the states for 3 weeks it has practically taken me that long to get back in to the swing of things here.

Well, we did buy a house, sort of. Everytime I would talk to Jordan on the phone during our househunt she would ask if we bought a house. We would talk about the fact that one house didn't have a bedroom for her - would she mind sleeping in the garage? She wasn't excited about that. Then I called and told her we bought dirt. Her response? WE CAN NOT LIVE IN DIRT! I really need to read the Little House on the Prarie books to her - then she'll see that you actually CAN - but we didn't buy a dugout on the banks of Plum Creek. I explained to her we bought some dirt and they are going to build on it and what the house was going to look like - a single story home - I then KNEW it was time to move back to the states. Her response then was "oh you bought a bungalow!!!"

I can tell you that I don't want to buy another house for a long time. I am way too picky. One house we walked in to still had the original flooring, wallpaper, kitchens and bathrooms from when it was built in 1962. We passed. We also passed on every single house that had a west facing backyard. I want a usable backyard and having the sun beating down directly in your backyard in 110 heat isn't the way to go. We also crossed off several based on school district. After looking at a good 30 houses we stopped by a building site - just because we were driving by. We looked at the model homes, we drove around the neighborhood, we looked again. This was it! Talk about the total package, single story, big lot (we could have gone bigger but 1/4 is plenty for our needs), good schools, decent commute. Of coure once we returned to the UK we had a woman at church critisize our choice. She has 4 children and they have lived in a 2 up and 2 down since they got married. That means there are 2 rooms downstairs - a kitchen and living room and then 2 bedrooms upstairs. She thinks if they could do that for 20 years with 4 children that it is ridiculous that anyone would need 3000 sq feet of house. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there that wouldn't want to spend their life sleeping on a fold out sofa in the living room - but maybe not. I mean I know I COULD survive in a 2up 2down - but if I don't have to then I'm not going to!

Here is a picture of our floor plan. And a promise I will do better at the blogging!