Back to Blogging - or trying

I actually read some blogs today. The strange thing is that I read blogs of people I actually know. If you look at my list of favorite blogs I don't actually know any of those people. I have read and followed and even retold stories of blogs I have read but I didn't know anyone that actually blogged. And I wasn't sure I wanted anyone I know reading what I blog. Like a secret journal that can be read by people you don't know. It seems safe. Now I'm thinking that I might want to branch out. That I might want to read those other blogs - that I might want to be part of that group. Then I wonder - what if those girls don't want me reading their blogs. Is there a rule about reading the blogs of people you actually know? I got the one blog address from facebook and it snowballed from there. Do I casually comment on something that is written that I relate to? I'm on totally different ground. I'll let you know how it all works out.

You Can't Pick Your Family...

Actually you can pick your family when it comes to the inlaws but it doesn't really work very well. When I met my husband and consequently his family I thought they were all sane. I remember sitting in the living room while we all enjoyed a Buster Bar from Dairy Queen...good times. I also remember the day I got married when my mother in law said, "Well, now it's a done deal we can all quit pretending we're people that we aren't." At the time I thought it was a joke. 16 1/2 years later it is certainly no joke. I have a brother in law and his family and then a sister in law and her family that are all normal. And then there are the mother/father in law and the oldest brother and his family. Sometimes you have to really wonder how people end up like they do when they come from the same parents.

You may wonder what spurred this blog. My oldest son is 12 and in our church this is a pretty big age so the events that occur has brought in quite a few family members. I'm pretty sure that when they are all on "my turf" their quirkiness shows 10fold. Fortunately for me part of their craziness also includes them driving many miles to be here only to turn around as quickly as they can to head back.

My Lack of Blogging

Why is there no blog here? Where have I been? I've been lazy, I've also been busy, and I've been on Facebook. Horrible addiction.

Life is good. I'm enjoying having the kids home for the summer. We've had adventures to California to visit Grandma and Grandpa and coming up we have another adventure to Utah. My niece leaves on her mission for the church on July 2nd. She's going to London England (London South) and I just know she is going to love it! I have known her since she was 3 years old and now she's a beautiful young woman getting ready to go on a mission. She will experience so many new things, including her very first airplane ride. I'm going to need a lot of stamps and stationary too so my kids can write her all kinds of letters.

So, I will try to do better. I will try to think of fun little stories to get this blog going again. I will...right after I get back home.

Senior Pranks

This morning I got the kids ready for school and Jackson headed out the door. He is the only one that rides the bus. The other two could but we enjoy the extra 20 minutes we get to sleep in and watch Sponge Bob in the morning so I drive them. I left the house and noticed Jackson still standing there with all the kids. Not unheard of as there are sometimes issues with a later driver or traffic incident. The elementary school kids were still at the bus stop too - that is a little bit more eyebrow raising. I head to the school and there are no busses at all at the school. Before you ask if there was actually school this morning, there was, that's why all the kids were waiting for the bus. I head back home and there is my son still at the bus stop. I make him get in the car and we head off to his school. It seems that the senior prank this year was to let the air out of the tires of 76 school busses. They also painted Class of 2009 on the busses, in washable paint. It seems like a harmless prank, nobody was hurt, a few kids got to be late for school - all fun right? Of course they weren't thinking about the man power that would need to be called in to get the busses operational. The checks on the vehicles to make sure they were safe to drive. It seems that harmless prank is costing around $10,000. not so harmless is it? Maybe I'm just old and ornery? I don't know.

I did not participate in a senior prank when I was in highschool. In fact I can't recall one happening my senior year - but I could be wrong. When my brother was a senior a group of his friends did pull a prank on their English teacher. At the time Trinity Broadcasting Network was a pretty small operation located not far from our house. The group of boys went over in the middle of the night and loaded up pieces of the lifesize nativity and transported them to the front lawn of their teacher's house. In the morning he woke up to his children excitedly talking about the camels, sheep and cows in the front yard. Monday morning the teacher told each class that whoever was responsible needed to remove the animals and take them back where they came from. So, in the middle of the night they went back and got the animals to return them to Trinity. As they were unloading the van the police cars pulled up and the boys got a bit worried. My mom received a phone call at 4 am that she needed to pick up her son. The broadcasting network didn't press charges but all of the boys were handcuffed to the stop sign next to the van. The best part of the story is that a month later the mom whose van they used was loading some stuff into the van and went to move all the blankets that were in the corner only to find that there was still a sheep in there. She had to drive back and return the long lost sheep to it's flock.

Death by Car

Many many years ago my brother came to visit me while I was in college. He had been there for a few days when we were all in the car and he had a confession to make. He explained to us that he had done something really bad and that he didn't know if he could even talk about it. How intriguing is that? WHAT could he have done? So he proceeded to tell us that on his drive from Spokane to Rexburg he had hit something? What had he hit that would have been so horrible? I had to ask if he had hit a PERSON, which of course he had not. My next question was if he had hit a horse? He then asked what kind of idiot hits a horse - well I have a roommate who actually hit TWO horses head on. She was driving to seminary (religion class before school) one early morning and only had one working headlight. She drove with her high beams on until a car came towards her and she turned down to 1 headlight. When she flipped her brights back on it was too late - two horses were RUNNING right towards her. She was lucky to have walked away uninjured - the horses were not so lucky. Back to my brother's story - once he stopped being completely shocked at the horse story - we continued guessing what he could have hit. A dog? A porcupine? A cat? Ahhhhh yes a cat. He hit a cat and for 3 days could only think about some little girl getting up in the morning and going outside to look for her cat and finding the aftermath. For three days he couldn't even TALK about that he had hit a cat.

I have been fortunate in the fact that I have never hit a cat, dog, horse or porcupine (I had a roommate who hit a porcupine too if you're wondering why I brought this up two times.) I have, however, been at fault for the death of several birds. I'm always amazed when the birds make it without being hit by the car but even MORE amazed when they don't fly fast enough. I hit a bird today that didn't fly HIGH enough. I've gotten over it though...I didn't even have to wait 3 days to blog about it.

Birthdays

I had a birthday 2 days ago. Not a monumental one, nothing even to blog about really. However, that in itself has led me to the blog. I can remember some birthdays I have had in vivid detail. I know that when I turned 5 I had a birthday with all the party games: Pin the tail on the donkey, drop the clothes pin in the mason jar, musical chairs, all the fun you can have in ones backyard. When I was 10 I had a combined sleep over birthday party with my neighbor. It was at her house and it was a disaster. I went home at 3am but my mom didn't hear me knocking on the door so I had to go back. When I was 16 I didn't have a fantastic party or anything but the boy I liked came and picked me up and we had lunch - our first "real" date that was interrupted by a phone call that I got my first real job and they wanted me to come in that day. When I turned 18 I spent the day horseback riding with my on again off again boyfriend - we were currently off. And then the guy I had been dating a bit took me out but suddenly remembered he needed to get his car back home for his sister so we needed to swing by my house and get my car. Voila a surprise party was waiting. Many more birthdays passed that I can't recall but when I was 30 Stew was out of town and I had lunch with my neighbors and we had cake and then dinner at another friends with more cake. When Stew returned home after his business trip we went to Vegas. Six birthdays have come and gone since then. Not sure in 30 more years I'll remember any of them but I suppose I should be happy I keep having them.

I'm A Lazy Blogger - here's a meme!

1) What is your salad dressing of choice? Ranch - the occasional bleu cheese.

2) What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Anyone without my kids? Haha just kidding - claim jumper. Can't wait for The cheesecake factory to make its appearance here.

3) What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of it? Peanut butter - as I probably eat it everyday anyways - pb crackers/pb toast. It's the breakfast of champions.

4) What are your pizza toppings of choice? pepperoni and pineapple


5) What would you like to put on your calendar today? 2004 and I would go back and make that phone call I never made.


6) How many televisions are in your house? Three - one in the family room, one in the kids hallway with the play station and then one that isn't even plugged in in our bedroom.

7) What color cell phone do you have? Black - but I really miss my pink one.


8) Are you right-handed or left-handed? right


9) Have you ever had anything removed from your body? No - unless you count the pieces of road that were stuck in my chin when I crashed on my bike once.


10) What is the last heavy item you lifted? I would guess boxes as I'm still not completely unpacked but I move boxes from place to place as needed.

11) Have you ever been knocked unconscious? Nope.

12) If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Absolutely not.


13) If you could change your name, what would you change it to? I would change my last name. LOL JUST KIDDING! I don't know - I've had this one for long enough I've sort of gotten used to it.


14) Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? I might entertain the idea but I doubt I could.


15) How many pairs of flip flops do you own? None - I really don't find them comfortable.


16) What’s your goal for the year? get all those boxes unpacked and my office organized. Organize the garage too.


17) Last person you talked to? My neighbor


18) Last person you hugged? My daughter.


19) Favorite Season? Spring


20) Favorite Holiday? Christmas


21) Favorite day of the week? Friday or Saturday


22) Favorite Month? March


23) First place you went this morning? The bowling alley - I had to prebowl since I'll be travelling to Utah on Wednesday.


24) What's the last movie you saw? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - the night before it was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the theater it was Bedtime Stories.


25) Do you smile often? I think so.


26) Do you always answer your phone? I have caller ID - if it is a telemarketer I do not.


27) It's four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it? A wrong number because the guy who had this phone number before me didn't tell his friends he changed it. It's usually related to something I do NOT want to know about.

28) If you could change your eye color what would it be? Maybe green? I like my blue eyes though.


29) What flavor drink do you get at Sonic? Orange Creme Slushie.


30) Have you ever had a pet fish? Yes - many. In college we had 4 - John, Paul, George and Ringo - you'll never guess which one died first.


31) Favorite Christmas song? I don't know that I have a favorite - I love them all.


32) What's on your wish list for your birthday? I better get thinking about this one since I only have a few weeks. Lyposuction and a tummy tuck maybe? hahaha


33) Can you do push ups? Yes, as I demonstrated to my Webelos the other day - those 10 year old boys could NOT do them.


34) Can you do a chin up? That would be a no.


35) Does the future make you more nervous or excited? A bit of both.


36) Do you have any saved texts? I have a ton on my phone but not saved for any particular reason except I just haven't deleted them.


37) Ever been in a car wreck? Nothing where anyone has been injured.


38) Do you have an accent? No.


39) What is the last song to make you cry? I Can Only Imagine - but sung by Wynonna because that's who sang it when I heard it the first time.

40) Plans tonight? Taking the girl to Gymnastics - that's it.


41) Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? No, I don't think so.


42) Name 3 things you bought yesterday. Nothing, it was Sunday.


44) Current hate right now? I don't know that I hate anything. I dislike when people do NOT use their turn signals.

45) Met someone who changed your life? Yes - I think most people influence your life one way or the other - it's all part of life.


46) How did you bring in the New Year? At my mom's neighbors eating jambalaya mmmmmmmm.


47) What song represents you? I have no idea - I guess I don't have an anthem.


48) What were you doing at 12 AM last night? I was sleeping.


49) What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Wondering if the kids were up yet and if they took the dog out.