Gotta Stick to my Principles

There are just certain lines I will not cross, things in good conscience I can not participate in in this life. I simply can’t lest I become one of those women on Oprah—“I just lost who I was once I became a mom.” I have principles and I need to be able to look at my freckly-face each morning in the mirror.

Life lesson #1: It it makes the kids happy, but me miserable, ban it. That's the litmus test in my house for parental decisions—if it makes them happy and it makes me miserable, I know it's a bad idea. I don't take my kids to Chuckie Cheese. Chuckie Cheese sucks the life and money out of its patrons. I could lose myself—a dangerous thing. Life lesson #1 has caused me to also ban Caillou—that annoying Canadian cartoon, as well as me planning art projects for my kids.

Life lesson #2: Deprivation is good for children. When you give a child everything, you teach them to appreciate nothing. My kids own (from me at least) two pairs of shoes, they don’t get soda or other sugared drinks, I don’t buy them toys unless it’s their birthday or Christmas, they have to eat their vegetables to get dessert, and bedtime is always at 8pm—winter or summer. Their birthday parties are always at home and always include pin-the-tail on the whatever they can draw—Jedi, donkey, etc. I figure once they leave our house, life will only be uphill for them. They’ll never need medication because all they’ll need is a giant sugared soda at Chuckie Cheese.

Life lesson #3: If it’s too much work, it’s just a plain bad idea. This has caused me to give up scrapbooking at least 6 years ago—a decision I have never regretted since. Someday my kids will inherit CDs (or whatever the method of storage is then) chock full of their childhood pictures and videos. Basically, all crafts are bad. I guess the children crafts mentioned in #1 should fit here as well. Mopping and most other house work involving chemicals definitely fits here as well.

Life lesson #4: Life is easier when you are not sentimental. I don’t save hair from my kids’ first haircut because I’d have to remember where I put it for them in 25 years and I don’t save their teeth. Ilene lost a tooth the other day at my friend Allison’s house and Allison kindly wrapped the tooth and carefully sent it home. We quickly threw the tooth away and gave her a buck. What tooth fairy?

Life lesson #5: Guilt is for sissies. This life lesson may send me straight to hell, but at least I’ll go without emotional baggage. If I do something wrong and know it’s wrong, and want to stop doing it, I stop, repent if necessary, and move on. If I need to start doing something, but I’m too lazy to do what needs to be done, I always give myself an out. Life is just easier that way.

A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Crazy kids, urine everywhere, mopping up pee, sweeping up an entire box of Life cereal, breaking out in cold sores, digging cereal from between couch cushions, spent two hours on ebay trying to figure out why I couldn’t print a shipping label for two customers, only one customer. Stood in line at post office with three kids to mail aforementioned package. Sat at the Nissan dealership with three kids watching ESPN at an extremely high volume while oil was being changed and my kids stared the entire time at a 10-year with a rainbow mohawk. Went to Walmart and let the kids buy a donut for being good at auto place. Bought myself a donut too for being good. Ate the donut—disgusting donut. Applied Abreva to now two cold sores. Took Nathan to piano late because I was cleaning up more pee. Didn’t have time to change Hallie so grabbed a cardboard box and made her sit on it in her booster while we drove to piano lest I have to clean pee off of car uphostery. Forgot to pay the piano teacher. Forgot to make dinner. Called Paul and had him pick up a Costco pizza. Applied more Abreva to now 3 cold sores. Bathed Hallie. Off to presidency meeting. Forgot to make an agenda. Came home, applied more Abreva to now four cold sores, watched reruns of Frasier. Went to bed at 10:30 and slept like a log. End of story.

Getting Soft

I always tell others than I am a true California girl and simply am a Utah resident but lately I am feeling more like a Utahan. I was going to title this blog “Things I don’t see in Provo” but I think once you read on you’ll see that the chosen title is the correct one. I found myself surprised, aghast, and afraid on one too many occasions while in California last week visiting my family.

On simply the road trip there I found my knuckles getting white as I braved the 5:00pm traffic down the El Cajon pass and through the San Bernardino area. Cars were whizzing past me at 90 miles an hour while I was going a good 70 mph! I realized quickly that I shouldn’t be traveling in the fast land going at such a turtle’s pace but I could hardly merge over as the cars literally were whizzing past me. I arrived at my parents’ house all frazzled and tense. The very next day my sister Carolyn drove me into L.A. to go to the fashion district and to Chinatown. Now, I knew Carolyn had a lead foot, but I quickly realized she had become Mr. Toad—she had become the crazy drivers that were cutting me off the entire day previously. The girl can weave and merge and slam on her brakes like no one else. And she has a temper too which explains her little Tinkerbelle ‘wind chime’ that hangs from her rear view mirror that she slaps and screams out, like Frank Constanza, “Serenity now!” when things just aren’t going her way on the 10 freeway. Yea, you just keep saying that Carolyn, like a mantra. It’s bound to work. (I could write a whole blog on Carolyn’s driving. But I won’t. It’d sure be good though.) I'm guessing other L.A. commuters have their own version of Tinkerbelle that gets them through the commute.

Later on in the week we went shopping at the Victoria Gardens shopping center to visit the lovely Crate and Barrel. As we exited the shop I was gleeful at the prospect of using my new individual gratin dishes when I spotted a cross dresser. He passed me, I stopped, and then turned around because I couldn’t believe my eyes. A man in a dress, carrying a purse, wearing high heels with hairy legs? Was it wrong of me to turn around and stare? Truly I just kept wondering why not shave your legs if you’re going to go to all the trouble of getting a matching purse for your outfit! See, none of the other shoppers were surprised. What’s wrong with me? Later on that night Carolyn and I were heading to Claremont to have dinner at the Harvard Café when I saw a lady of the night in Pomona on Holt avenue. Now, no surprise there, but she wasn’t wearing any pants—just her skivvies. Aren’t they issued at least a tiny skirt?

And let’s not forget the cars that are dedicated to dead relatives. Those always make me do a double take. I just don’t see those kinds of things in Provo. Please re-read that last line with a high-pitched Barbie-like and naïve voice. Yea, now you get what I’m saying. I’m becoming soft. You see, the longer I live away from California, the softer I become. Yup, it’s killing me to admit it, but I am getting soft, and I’m not just talking about my thighs. Pass the fry sauce.

Bag it!

I've been on a bag making frenzy lately. You name it, tote bags, purses, messenger bags, etc. I decided that I am tired of sewing custom drapes and such for clients. These clients are stifling my creative ability! They pick out ugly fabric and then have me sew what they want for them. The nerve! That's great for the money and all (after all I did earn myself a new Yamaha piano during the winter) but I want to be a bit more creative. I need a hobby that can fuel my love of fabric. I've been playing around with the idea of making what I want and then selling it. I have the control of my timeline, the fabrics, my creative desires, etc.

As of late, I have become obsessed with retro and vintage inspired fabrics. As you can see by all these purses I've made this week, I'm not afraid of color. (By the way, I designed all these bags myself, drafting my own patterns.) I have browsed these fabrics online and the websites of the designers who have the glorious job of designing the fabrics. I envy women like Amy Butler, Heather Bailey, and Denyse Schmidt. Wow, now that would be my dream job--to design fabrics and patterns. These fabrics just scream to me, "Make me into something gorgeous!" What better than a purse or bag. Oh sure, I can make blouses, skirts, curtains, aprons, and pillows--but bag making is new to me. And if there is something I love, it's to learn something new, preferably with food or fabric. The latter seems to be the healthier choice given my love of butter and cream. So onward I press.

Hallie the Trash Talker

I have decided that Hallie came to our family to try my very soul. By nature I am a very impatient person and Hallie was sent here to remedy that fault. If she isn’t hiding in a closet eating her brother’s candy in the dark then she’s taking the scissors to a client’s 70-dollar-a-yard fabric. I have cried, I have prayed, and still she seems to get the better of me nearly every day. I have even resorted to buying a parenting book—How to Talk So Your Kids will Listen. I have always said, if you need a book to parent, you are in real trouble. Well, we are in trouble.

As of late, Hallie has become a trash talker. She could go on Jerry Springer. She spits at us, whips us with her beloved blanky, and kicks innocent children until they fall down. When she is mad at me, which is several times a day, she screams at me, “You’re not my mama anymore!” I have been ignoring this heckling because frankly, I don’t care. The words don’t hurt, but the yelling is what I simply can’t stand. So today I pulled the plug on Hallie. I said to her, “Fine, I am not your Mama anymore just like you want. Cool! I don’t have to make your lunch now.” (As I am saying this I am making Ilene’s lunch.) She started sobbing, “Please make me lunch. You are my mama!” I held out.

A while later, she fell and hurt herself and wanted some consolation and a kiss. “Go find your Mama Hallie, she’ll kiss it and make it better. After all, you told me I am not your Mama.” Then the real wailing and gnashing of teeth began. “I don’t want a new mama! I don’t want her kisses! Please be my mama. I won’t ever say those mean words ever again! Please!” Do I believe the promise? No. But she did need to eat, so I had a talk with her, kissed her boo-boo, and made her lunch. As she is inhaling her peanut butter and honey sandwich (after all, lunch was delayed at least 20 minutes) she continues to reassure me, "I'll never say that again." Let’s see how long that trash talk subsides because that stupid parenting book hasn’t arrived yet from amazon.com and I am out of ideas. Legal ones, anyway.

Weekend of Gluttony

I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting to hear about the Weekend of Cynthia part 2. If you’ll recall, last year the Weekend of Cynthia part 1 occurred in February. I had such a good time that I decided to do it all over again. (Minus me losing my lunch in a 4-star restaurant.) So last weekend I flew to Seattle to be with my dear friend Liz all over again. As I waited on the curb at baggage claim for Liz to arrive, who was late (some things never change), I decided to people watch. Lovers were reunited, a mother affectionately hugged her grown son who was wearing an army uniform, and anxious smokers were quickly looking for the area where smoking is designated. I contemplated my own reunion with Liz, whom I had just seen in Provo 3 weeks earlier. I wanted to give those around me a beautiful seen of friendship to behold. Instead, when Liz pulled up I gave her a good hug and then we sat in her beat-up van a minute longer trying to read the map to find the nearest Whole Foods grocery store.

Yup, that was our first stop—a grocery store. But not just any grocery store. I secretly hoped that Curtis Stone of Take Home Chef would find us drooling over the lemongrass and galangal and offer to go back to our place and cook us a gourmet meal. Have you noticed when you watch Take Home Chef (and I'm sure you do!) that he only approaches women whose backs face him? I guess it's that element of surprise. Alas, I am not 20 pounds underweight and I don't have a very L.A. career like yoga instructor or colon hydrotherapist so I knew my chances were close to nill I'd get picked anyway. I tried to keep my back towards the imaginary camera most of the time, just in case, to no avail. Curtis never showed, so we took matters into our own hands. I had to make two trips to the produce department just to look at the most beautiful vegetables I had ever seen. Liz and I settled on purchasing watercress and radicchio for a salad later that night.

I kept telling Liz that I could never be satisfied by Macey’s Grocery store in Provo again after that trip to Whole Foods. It was an international smorgasboard. We sampled everything we could get our lips on—kalamata olives, freshly-seared scallops, Brussels sprouts, mini fresh mozzarella balls, Israeli couscous, cranberry tuna salad and chicken korma. (Bombay House still makes the best chicken korma.) Yes, we were gluttons. It was almost embarrassing, but not enough to stop me. It was like being at Costco only instead of sampling Boca burgers (truly the only way you could get someone to eat those rubber hockey pucks) the samples were actually good.

We then went on to Pike Place market where we continued to eat things like Baklava and fresh donut holes. Liz of course had to buy a butter and ham sandwich at the French bakery. I think it’s hilarious—a sandwich made with a baguette smeared with just butter and layered with ham. It sounds so appetizing when Liz says it in French, but basically it’s a butter sandwich. That’s why Liz has never bought margarine—because the girl eats butter sandwiches. She should watch Paula’s Home Cooking……

The weekend continued and was a smashing success in terms of rejuvenating me—great restaurants, great sights, hikes in the rain, etc. It rained every day, all day, and that only added to the romance of it all. We ate at great restaurants like Primo Grill in Tacoma where I tasted the best polenta I’ve ever eaten. Try the recipe from their website—it’s addictive. I’ve made it twice since eating there. And I am so proud of my glass bowl purchased at the Childhood’s End Gallery in downtown Olympia where they feature handmade art glass from Glass Eye Studio. Liz explained to me that just as Utah is known for faux flower and twig wall hangings, Washington is known for blown glass. Was that a dig? Just remember Liz that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. After all, Provo doesn’t have a resident who roams the streets wrapped in Christmas lights while pulling a generator on wheels so that he can constantly be lit up like Olympia does. Nor do we have a parade called the Procession of the Species where people add wings to their bikes so as to imitate butterflies. Mmm-hmmm.

But all good things must come to an end, so I boarded my Southwest airlines flight Sunday morning carrying my treasures and said good-bye to The Emerald City. What a weekend.

Life on the Frozen Tundra

It has been cold here in Provo, Utah lately. Really cold. I don't ever remember it getting this cold. I hate the cold because not only do I have to bundle up when I leave the house but I have to bundle up three children when they leave the house. I am constantly nagging them to find their mittens, their hat, and their "puffy" coat. Puffy, of course means thick and warm around my house. (This picture was taken 12-17-06 but it could just as well be today. It hasn't changed.)

It has been so cold that our pipes freeze if we don't leave them dripping at night.

It has been so cold that the dead-end street I live on has been packed with hard snow since mid December because there simply isn't enough traffic from hot cars to melt the street.

It has been so cold that yesterday I had to pull over while driving because the ice under my wheels had built up to be at least 4-5 inches thick and while turning the wheels I would hear a grinding noise of ice against tires. So I pulled over on 620 N. and with my flimsy mittened hands scooped snow and ice out from each of the four wheels. The girls thought this was great. "Can I get out and help, too?" My answer: "No, we'll all die of the cold if you get out here."

It has been so cold that I wear a turtleneck everyday. Even to bed. Ok, not to bed, but I should.

It has been so cold that I almost paid $300 for an airline ticket to go to California this weekend with my sister. I wanted to go just so that I could get warm for two days. Is that too much to ask? Now I have to hate my sister Patty because she gets to thaw out for a few days while I sit here on the frozen tundra. And because tonight (1/26/07) she is going to the Keane concert in Los Angeles with my other sister Carolyn. Now I have to hate them both. Wah.

It has been so cold that my yearly longing to put a "For Sale" sign in my yard and move to a double-wide trailer in Santa Barbara has been moved up from March all the way till January. Yup, usually by March I am so sick of winter that I google things on the internet like, 'real estate in Santa Barbara' and then check out the prices. This depresses me even more because I realize we can only afford a double-wide. And that's if Paul's income doubled. Sigh.

It has been so cold that I don't use my refrigerator anymore. I lazily unload the groceries in the garage and they sit there next to the paints and lawnmower until we need another gallon of milk or orange juice. Only the milk has been freezing. If I put the groceries close enough to the freezer then the heat emitted from the freezer keeps the groceries thawed. Ironic. The freezer warms up my garage. Humph.

It has been so cold that my fingers are now icey cold while typing this and I have to stop.

The Parade of Homes

(I made the 14' drapes in this music room)

Does anybody out there like the Parade of Homes anymore? Once upon a time many years ago when Paul and I first went they were normal sized houses with normal décor. In the last few years they have gone over the top. All homes must be at least 5,000 square feet, feature some kind of architectural detail reminiscent of a log cabin, and be dripping in velvet and puffy furniture. Oh, and if one room in the house has some homage to Tuscany then that is a bonus too.

So we stopped going. The main reason I would go to the Parade of homes was to get ideas on decorating, not on homebuilding. And since the trend in Utah has gone towards puffy, velvety furniture I haven’t gone in a couple of years. I hate velvet, faux finishes, and theme rooms. What is wrong with contemporary or modern furnishings? Does anyone in this state know the word ‘minimalist’ when it comes to decorating? Apparently not—judging by thesize of the modern (yea right) furniture room at RC Willey. It’s about a tenth of the size of the rest of the puffy furniture section in that store.

Well my friends, I am now dancing with the devil. I was hired by a designer two months ago to do all the sewing for one of the Parade of Homes. Because I am naïve I thought, oh sure, I can do this! A little sewing here, a little sewing there. Obviously I had forgotten that a home featured in the Parade of Homes home is huge and every project would be over the top. Judging by my paychecks I put in about 90 hours of sewing. That’s a lot of sewing when I have three kids to take care of, am trying to buy a new home, and simultaneously trying to sell my home. The month of April and half of May is a blur. So if you are out and about, check it out and think of my sore hands and all the Costco frozen meals I ate while sewing the many velvet drapes hanging throughout this giant house.

Food Talk

Could I possibly talk about food more than I already do in this blog? Oh yes, and now there is a blog just for that very subject. It's a place to talk about recipes and good food in general.

UPDATE: Sadly, the food blog I started died an ignominious death so I have removed the link.

Weekend of Cynthia

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George proclaimed the upcoming summer to be the summer of George? In other words, he was going to live it up that summer. He was free from his engagement with Susan, due to her poisoned death while licking their wedding invites. I love that episode. Of course, nothing ever goes George’s way. He slips on some party invites and winds up in the hospital. As the nurses wheel George away he cries out, “But this was supposed to be the summer of George!”

Last weekend I was supposed to have my own Summer of George. Only I appropriately called it the Weekend of Cynthia. I bought myself a plane ticket for my birthday to go see my friend Liz in Olympia, Washington. I was going all alone—away from my demanding children and away from the dishes, laundry, etc. The weekend did turn out to be perfect—once I got there. I did have my doubts though in the Salt Lake Airport.

For those of you who don’t know—I don’t fly well. I get queasy and lightheaded. My motion sickness seems to be getting worse as I get older. I get queasy getting on the onramp of the freeway if it’s a cloverleaf. And I don’t ride Star Tours anymore at Disneyland. I know better. But I digress. I am sure that the persons sitting next to me on airplanes get nervous when I fish out the air sickness bag from the jumbled mess of magazines in the seat pocket. I’ve never had to use one yet, but just in case, it’s nice to have quick access to it.

As the plane takes off I try not to focus on my queasiness but rather on my freedom. Three days sans children. I look over at the lady next to me with her two squirmy children and in the words of Mr. T. I think, “I pity da foo.” (I also remember that Mr. T. didn’t fly well so Face always had to drug him. I’ll remember that for next time.) I turned up my iPod just a little bit louder to drown out her children. Just as I get used to my new found freedom of an entire 30 minutes the captain tells us over the loudspeaker that the plane is broken and we’ll be returning to Salt Lake. Nobody seems to be alarmed, but I am! I am feeling like George Costanza. Nothing is meant to go my way. I won’t be flying to Seattle after all. Oh the inhumanity of it all! “This was to be the weekend of Cynthia!”, I scream in my head. Once we return to Salt Lake we are told to get off of the plane and they’ll let us know soon how the problem is to be solved. They give us vouchers for free food at one of the airport restaurants. Now, in my head I’m thinking airport food is never good. But worse than that—free airport food must be worse. But I do like to medicate with food so I depressingly eat the hoagie sandwich. That sandwich will come back to haunt me. I just know it.

Finally we are routed onto a new plane. After three more delays of broken computers and who knows what else we finally take off for Seattle. I arrive in Seattle three hours late but with spirits high because the Weekend of Cynthia is back on track. I don’t think blogging about digestion is in good taste, but this time I going to make an exception. That sandwich made by Russian immigrants almost ruined the Weekend of Cynthia. I was in denial. I thought my stomach pains could be attributed to the fact that I had a total of 4 take offs and landings the previous night. Twice as many as I was mentally prepared for. For those of you who don’t know, another one of my talents is that I have an iron stomach. What goes down never comes up—ever. After eating a lovely lunch of halibut and crab while overlooking the Puget Sound, though, that rule of mine came to an end. I had such a good streak of stomach health. Now I have to start all over and build up to the next twenty years of my moratorium on vomiting. Once that moment passed my good health returned and I enjoyed the rest of my Weekend of Cynthia. Ah, now my canteen has been refilled and I can go on! Which is a good thing because as I type this I am looking out my window at the snow falling on my brown and ugly treeless lawn. Winter is a devil, but somehow it doesn’t seem so bad now.

California Dreamin'

We just returned from a trip to southern California to visit my parents and other family members. We had a great time. Of course we did all the usual stuff like picking our lemon tree bare and also stealing grapefruits, tangerines, and oranges from my brother's tree. Getting there, however, proved to be a challenge. In my 13 years of trekking the I-15 between Provo and the Southland I have never encountered the traffic I did while on this trip. Oh sure, anytime one travels between these two destinations one must think about the Las Vegas traffic. What? You don’t know about the Lost Wages traffic? I thought I did—until this last week. Apparently living in Southern California isn’t enough of a gamble—one must travel to and from Vegas each weekend to pay their stupid tax. And sometimes it really does feel as if every Californian is on the two-lane I-15 traveling to and from Vegas.

We were making great time on this trip on December 26th, reaching Vegas in only 5 hours or so. I quickly called my mom and told her where we were. I said that we had reached a bit of traffic but that would clear up as soon as we passed the Vegas strip and to expect us in about 3 ½ hours. Wrong! From Vegas to Baker (a.k.a the Arm Pit of America) took us 4 hours! I could write an entire blog about the Black Hole called Baker, starting with that ridiculous giant thermometer, but I won’t. It got to the point where we were completely stopped on the freeway. People were getting out of the cars and walking around! My own kids hopped out of their seatbelts and reveled in their rebelliousness of being in a car unbuckled. Oooohh, we’re living dangerously now!

Of course it wasn’t long before Mother Nature was calling and I knew this couldn’t be good. The bankrupt state of California has only 2 rest stops along the I-15. And usually one is closed—no doubt due to budget constraints. How much does toilet paper cost? We get ours at Costco and it ain’t so much. For the decency of humanity why doesn’t California have more rest stops? Hmmm….one rest stop for the 10,000 people on the road in the middle of the desert. Does this sound like a good idea to you? At the rest stop we encountered lines that make Disneyland look good. More on Disneyland in the next paragraph. I counted 67 women in line for the restroom. Exaggeration would make this story a good one, but alas, I am not exaggerating. I had a revelation while standing in that line. No, the revelation wasn’t that women really do have the short end of the stick when it comes to public restrooms. The revelation came when I realized I was the only person in this line speaking English. Everyone in this line was Asian. Now, having grown up in California I can usually figure out what language is being spoken. I can pick out Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc. But I couldn’t figure out half of these languages. Where were these people originally from? You got me! Here's the revelation. Up until that point I naively thought that only white trash gambled in Vegas. Wrong! The wonderful immigrants who make this country rich with culture and commerce have fallen prey to the lure of Vegas. They too travel to the City of Sin to pay their stupid tax. I was so disappointed. After 20 minutes or so my children were done using the restroom with their dad in the considerably shorter men’s line so I abandoned my line and left. I guess you could say I was gambling myself. No explanation necessary, right? To make a long story short I’ll pass over the rest of my trip leaving out the other fun stories about my quest for a public restroom.

Two days later we found ourselves in long lines again—this time at Disneyland. Now, I didn’t want to go in the first place. By then the 10,000 people had returned from Vegas and went straight to Disneyland. In the end I decided to go because we got the tickets for free. Any Southern Californian with brains and a few contacts can always get free tickets to Disneyland. That person was my sister who got them from her co-workers partner. So my family of 12 fell into the touristy trap and went to Disneyland. I’ll give you three examples that illustrate just how crowded it was. First—the sign in the parking structure said, “Disneyland is very crowded today. Plan accordingly.” What the heck is that supposed to mean? If there was fine print on that sign it would’ve read “Disneyland is very crowded today. Don’t waste your money here—go to Medieval Times today.”

Second example—at lunch time we headed to the Bayou Restaurant where we asked how long the wait would be for a table. The waiter said he could get us in for dinner Saturday night. It was Wednesday. Why don’t they just put up a sign saying “Restaurant Full” instead of making you wait in line to ask? Do they like rubbing it in to the masses of hungry people that there is no room in the inn?

Third example: We tried to get a Fast Pass at 10am to ride the completely redone Space Mountain roller coaster. The Fast Pass return time was 9pm. Who is going to wait 11 hours to ride a roller coaster? What-ever! All in all, we rode maybe 5 rides that day. Thank goodness for free tickets. My sister returned a few days later (to use the remainder of her free tickets) with my kids so that they could catch what they missed. This time the sign at Disneyland read, "Disneyland is now full." But they already had their tickets, so Disneyland let them in anyway. But I didn’t go. No way. I had waited in enough lines on this vacation to last me until my next trip to the Southland.

Moms Don't Get Sick Days

A few weeks ago I went out to lunch with my sisters. Both my sisters work full-time and they were discussing their company’s sick leave policy. One of them said her sick days accumulated year after year. One of them said, I think, that her sick days were a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing. Not wanting to be left out of the conversation I quickly explained that I didn’t get any sick days ever. They both thought that was kind of funny, but I didn’t. Mom’s don’t get sick days and that is truly a crime. Because nobody needs sick days more than a mother.

In case you can’t tell by my congested tone of voice, I am sick. I have been sick for almost two weeks now. The house is disgusting, the kids are hooked on Nick Jr. TV, and we seem to eat a lot of pancakes and eggs for dinner lately. Why? Because I am just not getting better. I am what I like to call, functional sick. I am not feverish with delirium anymore but I simply feel like a big piece of garbage. I am functional, yet still sick. I feel like a walking zombie.

So today I am breaking down and going to see my doctor. I have no idea why. He’ll simply say something like: “Be patient. This is a terrible bug that’s going around.” In reality I’d like him to say this: “Here is a prescription for valium. Take it whenever your kids are going bonkers. Oh, and I insist you take at least a week vacation in Mazatlan where you will do nothing but lie on the beach all day long and sip fruity drinks. I forbid you to change any diapers or do any laundry. That is the real reason you are still sick. You must be allergic to laundry.” I’ll explain to him that I don’t have any sick days saved up and he’ll say that it’s a shame. Mazatlan really would cure me. I’m sure of it.

Bonding through Blogging

Bonding through Blogging

I complain too much in my blogs. I know I can be critical when I blog because the other day my friend Jenn gave me an invitation to a bath and body party she was hosting and the first thing she said when she handed the invite to me was: “Please don’t blog about me but I’m inviting you to this party.” I feel terrible that she would think I would blog negatively about her. I need to work on that reputation I’ve created.

Some of (what I thought) were some of my best blogs, Food Snob, elicited hardly any feedback, while some that I thought were not so great, Razor Blades and Cyanide, elicited the most responses. So apparently I have no idea what inquiring minds want to know. Too bad. I keep blogging anyway.

I started blogging because Allison did. And in turn my husband, sister, and my dad started blogging because of me. I’m such a leader. So here’s to another six months of blogging about nothing and having a good time while doing it. Here are some of my favorite blogs I’ve read over the last six months—in no particular order. If you haven’t checked them out, you should.

1. I learned that my very quiet husband has a lot on his mind when given the right forum to express himself. From taxes, his childhood paper routes, and his days of evil music, they all make me laugh. He is quiet—not shy—I always tell people. Paul is so quiet that I often can tell when he is about to speak because he clears his throat. Yes, he actually speaks so infrequently that he has to clear his throat in order to speak. Blogging has been his voice I think.


2. I have confirmed the fact that my sister Carolyn really is a great writer. She, like my Dad, is good with words and reading her blogs truly brings a smile to my face. She doesn’t feel 600 miles away. Isn’t that a song? Her blogs are also very informative. I had no idea people across this country were dedicating their cars in loving memory of the dead. Oh, what’s next?


3. I’m enjoying my Dad’s blogs about his days during the Vietnam War. His ordering of hot dogs in Japan had me in stitches!


4. I enjoyed Carlie’s expose on hair salons. With blogs like that the world can change. Boy did she hit the nail on this head! Nobody likes the painful small talk or being forced to look at themselves in a giant mirror for over an hour.


5. I love to read Kacy’s blogs about anything from the past. Her Adam Ant blog left me wiping tears. And does she really believe that Bono is LDS? Curious. I’d love to hear more on that kind of crazy talk. Good laughs, good laughs.

Things in Life I Find Confusing

There are a number of things in life that are a mystery to me. My top eight ( I couldn’t think of 2 more things to complain about and round this to a top ten—hard to believe) are listed here. In order of perplexment, here they are:

8. Wallpaper borders—A room gets painted but alas, it doesn’t look finished. Oh wait, add a 6 inch wide piece of wallpaper around the top of the room (or worse yet, around the middle of the room to form a faux chair rail) and voile it’s done and looks like a professional tackled the job! Please forgive me if you have a wallpaper border in your house. I’m sure yours is the exception and is beautiful.

7. People who don’t like vegetables—I know plenty of people who do not like any vegetables. I could understand not liking certain vegetables—but all vegetables? I can never seem to give these people the benefit of the doubt and assume they have tried every single vegetable from rutabagas to leeks. I always assume they are closed minded and never grew out of their childish ways of hating vegetables.

6. Wicker furniture indoors—This is technically my sister Carolyn’s pet peeve, but I am stealing it. Once I heard her explain all about how outdoor furniture shouldn’t be indoor furniture I was all on board. Oh yea.

5. Psychological Pricing—Okay this is the marketing term used for pricing things at 99 cents or $11,999. The psychology behind this is pretty obvious. Wow, this taco is less than a dollar! You get what I’m saying. But who is fooled by this? Once, in the Gap, or some trendy store like that, the following conversation took place:

Clerk: Welcome to the Gap. We’re having a special today. Buy two paisr of jeans for only $59.99.

Me: Does the $60 sale include the corduroys too?

Clerk: The sale is $59.99. Not $60.

Me: Okee-dokee. (As I roll my eyes.)

Oh how I wish I were making this up!

4. Carpet in bathrooms—Wet carpet, now sticky from all the hair spray, covered in hair. What about this makes sense? It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.

3. Fake hugs and kisses—This is a growing trend in the good ol’ US of A. People have started hugging upon the very first meeting. You know it’s fake because they do the pat-pat thing on the back of the person they are hugging. Nothing says “I am uncomfortable now” more than the pat-pat on the back. I see this especially on TV. It drives me crazy when I am watching design shows. The extremely satisfied homeowner hugs and double kisses the designer who was just paid $20,000 to re-do their master bathroom. Hello lady?! This designer didn’t do you any favors out of the goodness of his heart! He re-decorated your bathroom because of the inordinate amount of money you paid him! This isn’t philanthropy. Don’t hug people in professional situations unless you truly have feelings of love for them. And don’t get me started on the double kiss thing. People like to pretend they are French, I guess. I know in Mexico they do this too because I have relatives who double-kiss. I think it’s completely appropriate as a cultural custom. But I doubt anyone double kisses because they want to be a Mexican. No, that is not a slam on Mexicans. It’s a slam on people who wish to be Euro trash. So stop the kissing and fake hugs and stick to good old handshakes. Pretty please.

2. People who make you take your shoes off in their house—When you are a guest in somebody’s house their job is to make you feel comfortable and welcome. Nothing makes me less comfortable upon entering someone’s house than being told to partially disrobe. If you are worried about dirty carpet then get your carpet cleaned or buy dark brown carpet next time. What’s worse is these people also have a sign on their door that says, “Thank you for removing your shoes.” My feet are always cold so I prefer to keep my shoes on. So I act like I didn’t see the sign just to stay warm. I’m not trying to be defiant—just warm. Does this bother anyone else?

And the number one thing that I just don’t understand in life…….

1. Cheesecake—I love how people think that Cheesecake is very special and therefore served only at special occasions. Cheesecake is dense, heavy, and usual not good eats. But for some reason it is served as dessert at “fancy” church dinners, “fancy’ work Christmas parties, etc. You want fancy? Serve me a slice of Scarlet Empress—a jam-filled Biscuit Roulade formed in a dome to encase vanilla Bavarian cream served with a tart raspberry sauce. Now that’s special! But I doubt you’ll be seeing any Scarlet Empress cakes at the ward Christmas party. Let’s be realistic. We serve cheesecake because it is cheaply bought at Costco. Let’s acknowledge the real reasons for our love affair with cheesecake and quit pretending it’s fancy. Can we all agree on this one? The only good cheesecake I’ve had was eaten at Carmine’s in NYC and that’s because it was made out of mascarpone cheese. Now that was heaven.

So what confuses you in life?

Unorthodox Restaurant Review

I’d like to think that here in Small-Town, USA we have a Zagat’s Rating guide just for Provo that rates all the fabulous restaurants. Alas, if you do a search for “Provo” only two restaurants come up. Pathetic. So I’d like you to humor me and consider this blog entry my very own restaurant review. It may be a bit unorthodox, but here goes.

Chinatown Restaurant
300 S. 700 E.
Provo, UT 84604
377-6699

We discovered this restaurant about a year and half ago. We had been in mourning for some time for the closing of our other beloved Mandarin restaurant—Taiwan Café—but felt it was time to move on and find a new love. Red Lantern in Orem made me puke—literally. And Panda Express is for people who also love McDonalds and TGI Fridays. Chinatown Restaurant is a pretty dang good substitute for Taiwan Cafe. Aside from the delicious food served there are many things about this quirky establishment that humor me each time I go.

Décor: All four walls of this dining establishment are paneled with very rustic splintery, knotty paneling. It seriously looks like they have a termite problem. I don’t know about you but the first thing I think about when I think of Chinese food is really bad wood paneled walls. I asked the owner once about the walls. She mentioned that the building used to be a steak house. 20 years ago. “Oh, that explains it”, is all I could say. But that doesn’t explain it. They’ve had 20 years to update the walls. Do you see what I mean by quirky? That must be how prices are kept low.

Music: Each time we go to Chinatown Restaurant we eagerly await to hear what goofball music they are playing this time. The first time we went it was something akin to the William Tell Overture. It wasn’t that, but close. It was really fast classical music that is played during movies when someone has just fallen off of a cliff. Simply not good for digestion. And it was loud. I thought maybe we were on Candid Camera or something because it was simply that humorous. I can’t believe I didn’t complain to them about the music. Tonight when we went it was really bad instrumental themes of really bad movies—Evita, Titanic, Pocahontas, etc. Paul and I would try to guess each song. The only theme we could come up with was that all of these movies sucked.

No Crowds: Tonight we were the only ones eating there. Granted, it was 5:05pm, but still. This made for a pleasant dinner because the service was faster than usual and because we could listen in on the Chinese conversation of the owners’ family at a nearby table. There were 4 of them and it seemed like very interesting conversation. Of course I had no idea what they were saying but it must have been about politics or maybe family gossip. It sounded like one of the two. Each word was enunciated and they made no effort to keep their voices down even though there were customers (just us) eating at the time. I like that. I like that we carry no airs about us so that others feel free being themselves in our presence. Or maybe it was the fact that Hallie wouldn’t stay in her high chair and was screaming and they really wanted us to leave. Nah.

Booths: If you do go, make sure you sit in the booths by the window. Those booths offer an extra bonus. When huge semi-trucks are at the stop light on 7th East your table vibrates as do your innards. Kind of fun in a weird sort of way.

Food suggestions: Wor Wonton soup and Hot and Sour soup. You’ll also love the Orange Beef (filled with lots of strings of orange zest), Pork Fried Rice, Moo Goo Gai Pan, and Chicken with Snow Peas.

Please patronize this restaurant. I don’t see why anyone would go to P.F. Changs, which is over-priced and over-Americanized, when they could have way better food cheaper and the privilege of eating in a log-cabin type building where weirdo music is played and you can actually hear Chinese being spoken. Love it.

Razor Blades and Cyanide

In my neighborhood there is something going on that I find scary and perplexing—anonymous treat giving. Last night we were “ding-dong-ditched”. When Paul opened the door there lay a plate of pumpkin bar treats along with a poem about Tom the Turkey and a big picture of a turkey. The poem explained that we were to make three copies of the poem and turkey picture and then “ding-dong-ditch” three other helpless and unsuspecting families with a plate of “goodies” in hopes that this treat giving will grow exponentially until the whole dang world has been given a plate of inedible garbage! Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? Oh, and we had to post the picture of the turkey in our window so that other neighbors will know we have been “hit” and somebody else will enjoy the privilege of homemade treats. Unfortunately, the plate of treats had a note that said to refrigerate them. I didn’t see the note until this morning. So I’m guessing it isn’t safe to eat this treat because it lay at room temperature all night long on our entryway table. Bye-bye pumpkin treats that could make us sick!

Two weeks ago we were “Booed”. Yup, you guessed it. We were given a plate of hard hockey-puck chocolate cookies with a poem about a ghost and a picture of a ghost. Same instructions as the Tom the Turkey. You get the picture.

Many things disturb me about this anonymous treat giving.

• How do I know these treats were not placed on my porch by some criminal mind that baked the treats with razor blades and cyanide?


• If I am going to give a treat to someone, they are going to know about it. They are going to know that Cynthia is a dang good baker and a giving person. No anonymity for me.


• If you are going to give someone a treat can you really insist that they give someone else a treat also? I didn’t sign any contract when those pumpkin bars where left on my porch; therefore, I am not obligated to obey the attached note and give three other neighbors a plate of treats.


• The treats are always gross. One bite and straight to the garbage they go.


• I don’t like posting the ghost or turkey picture in my window. I think it’s silly. If that many people love me then who am I to deny my adoring fans the privilege of gift giving?

A few years ago when this silly tradition started in my neighborhood I refused to put the silly ghost, turkey, or Santa picture in my window. I would not conform. Well, night after night the treats kept coming. After at least a week of being “ding-dong-ditched” with plate after plate of yucky treats I conformed and put the picture in my window. This insanity must stop!

So to all you anonymous treat givers out there—please know that I love homemade butter pound cakes.

P.S. If you gave me the pumpking treats or chocolate cookies, I lied. They were delicious.

My Life's Embarrassing Moments...So far

My previous blog entitled, “Embarrasing Grocery Store Moments” didn’t even scratch the surface, so here are more:

Childhood:
Being 10 and saying to your parents, in front of the Morans, in hopes of convincing them to let you stay the night at your friend Olga Moran’s house, “It will be one less mouth to feed.” They said no, right there on the spot.

The Teen Years:
Being 15 and getting up to play the piano at a ward fireside only to hear my sister Carolyn shout out, “Look at my sister’s butt.” Apparently my double ruffled oh-so-stylish flowered skirt’s hem was tucked into my pantyhouse. Yup, all the boys and girls saw my Hanes. Don’t deny you said that Carolyn. It is burned into my brain. Forever.

Being 14 and in Junior High and laughing so hard at lunch time I pee my pants BAD.

Being too embarrassed after previous experience to go to the office and call my mom so I stank like pee the rest of the day. I tied a sweatshirt around my waist to visibly hide the accident. Hello Cynthia?! People can smell!

Wearing a swim suit in co-ed sophomore swim class and having everyone tell me I looked like a boy. (With hair down to my waist I can only assume they were referring to my stick-like shapeless body frame.)

Being 16 and at your friend Stew’s house (who is also the Bishop’s son) and flushing their toilet and having it overflow out of the bathroom and onto their carpet. Having to go tell his parents was like telling them, “Um I use too much toilet paper. Sorry about the carpet.”

Walking around Newport Beach after junior prom with my date and dying of humiliation, while thinking, “Is he pausing the walk because he wants to kiss me?” “Should I stop talking so he can kiss me?” “Do I even want to kiss him? He has braces!” No first kiss then, nor for many years.

Only going on one date (see above) during my entire high school years.

Being 14 and having my dad take me to the cardiologist. I was in the exam room forever half-naked having an Echocardiogram done. A nurse comes in and asks if I want my dad to come in to keep me company. “No! Please, don’t bring him in!”

My college years:
Being 18 and walking to BYU in the snow for the very first time in my life. I remember thinking, this is snow? It’s all brown, muddy and can only be described as Coca-Cola Slurpee. Just then I fall in the muddy snowy gutter wearing my brand new white coat at the Hart's Gas Station on Canyon Drive. Even more embarrassing was the cute guy who reached down to help this accident-prone freshman.

Being 20 and going to the traffic office at BYU to fight a truly unfair parking ticket. While standing in line a lady comes in after me and walks right up to the ticket counter. As if I wasn’t in line. Well!
Me, in a huffy: “Um excuse me, I was hear first. The line starts behind me.”
Her: “Um, excuse me I WAS in line, they sent me outside to get my registration.”
Me; “Oh, sorry.”
I hate eating crow!

Being 20 with my friend Winnie at the Brick Oven and having her confess to me that she told my most embarrassing life secret to her brother (whom I was dating) that I had never kissed ANYONE. Paul married me anyway.

Being a senior at BYU and having the professor call on me during a case study of Wild Turkey (or something like that) alcohol. He asked me something about their product’s target market. I get all flustered and start flipping through the case study to find my notes. In the meantime, he says, “Forget it! You don’t know. Someone else?”

Having the same professor call me up at home that night and apologize. “That’s okay”, I say. No it is not okay! Oh to be shamed in public!

Now:

A few months ago I was stopped at the train tracks on 820 North. It was a false alarm. There was no train coming. I was the 8th car in line. There were at least 10 more cars behind me. I can’t take this anymore! Can’t they see that there is no train? Why won’t they just drive around? I put my car in park, hop out of the car, and run down to the train tracks, looking both ways to make sure my suspicion is right that there is no train coming, and then motion to the first car to go around the gate because again, THERE IS NO TRAIN. Just as I am motioning to the stupid driver the gates go up and everyone starts driving through. Except for me. Because I am down by the tracks, and my car is 8 cars back blocking the other 10 cars behind me from going through. Gosh, I am an idiot.

Alias Fans: What's going on?

Anyone out there still watching Alias? And if so, will you admit it? I am not a fan of how the season is going. But like a car accident, I just can’t look away.

Killing and Cloning: Why did they kill off Vaughn/Andre Michoux? Okay, we know he is NOT dead. They brought back Irina because Jack really only killed her “clone”. I know she wasn’t really a clone, but something like that. I read someone elses blog where they called these doubles “clones” and they got ripped to shreds by all the Alias wanna-be scientists (and I’m suspecting Star Trek fans) out there in internet land who then proceeded to correct this imbecile. So for lack of science expertise, I am calling Irina’s double a clone. Don’t forget they had a clone-like double of Ethan Hawke and of Francie in seasons past so you know in actuality either Vaughn had on a bullet proof vest and he is in hiding because he doesn’t want the really bad wicked new SD-6 dudes to kill him, Sydney, and their unborn baby. Or his clone-like double was killed. Did anyone follow that? And don’t forget that Sloan was put to death by lethal injection and then Jack brought him back with anti-venom. Or something like that. So that’s like four people that have been doubled and or re-incarnated on the show. The writers are simply stretching out the plot to last until their contract with ABC is up—in 2008 I believe.

New characters: I am not loving the addition of new characters. I don't even know their names nor care to. They should have just kept the old and saved me the trouble of having to bond with the new characters. And because this is Alias you never really do know if the new people are good or evil. Never.

And speaking of things I don't like, why are they writing in Jennifer Garners pregnancy on the show? We all know it’s Ben Affleck’s baby and not Vaughn’s. I keep looking at Sydney while I watch the show and I can’t get it out of my brain: “Why is Jennifer Garner with Ben Affleck?” How are the writers of Alias going to deal with Sydney as a Mom? Will the baby be with Sydney in a backpack while she scales the skyscrapers? Will the baby travel with her to Budapest, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong and be in a perpetual state of jet lag? Will the bad guys threaten to pull out the baby’s teeth if Sydney doesn’t cooperate? Or will the show go down hill once they have a baby—just like Mad About You. You know what I mean—all of sudden Jack’s fatherly instincts will kick in for Sydney and his grandbaby and he will be all mushy and lovely-dovey. If they make him cry the first time he sees his grandbaby I’ll stop watching the show. I will. I’m not bluffing. Okay, I’m bluffing.

Lastly, I predict that during sweeps week Vaughn will be brought back, Nadia will emerge from her coma (although my sister Carolyn contests that this show doesn't have room for two beautiful women so they'll have to kill off Nadia), Weiss will return, and Sydney will give birth. All in that order. (Okay, maybe Weiss is really gone, but you know the others are not.) Mark my words.

Working in a Coal Mine, part 2

Once my days of working in berry factories and bi-lingual business plazas ended I was ready to move on to the era of college jobs at BYU. For three years I worked at the Cannon Center Cafeteria on campus. I started as a cashier and I quickly became the envy of the other college kids because I did not have to start at the bottom of the employee food chain—the dish room.

I was hired as the oh-so-glamorous cashier. I’d like to think I started at the top of the Cannon Center Cafeteria employee food chain because of my poise and good looks but who knows the real reason. Nonetheless, I was a bit hated for working at the same wage as the kids in the dishroom or the salad prep folks yet I never had to get my hands dirty. However, I did have to get dirty in other ways. I had to enforce the dress standards of the BYU Honor Code. Basically I was the gate keeper of modesty before any student could enter and partake of the delicious smorgasbord. This is where I learned to be tactful and yet tell other students to get lost: “Sorry, your skirt is too short. Beat it.” Oh the power! I also was in charge of stopping the smuggling of food outside of the cafeteria. Students loved to load up their backpacks with bags of chips, fruit, and other contraband food items as they left. I pretty much turned a blind eye to the shrinkage of food. Being a meany about the dress code was enough venom spilling forth from my mouth for one day, don’t you think?

Now the really interesting part of cashiering was seeing how many local Provo families came to eat in the cafeteria on Sunday. Let’s analyze this: it is clearly breaking the Sabbath to go to eat at the Golden Corral (although that should be illegal on a whole other scale—see Food Snob blog) but for some reason it’s okay to pay to go out to eat if it was at the BYU Cannon Center. Does anyone else have an issue with this? Usually it was the folks in administration and their families that came. I understand that students need to eat on Sunday as well but do others living in homes with kitchens need to patronize the cafeteria on Sunday? Also, for employees, you could get a free meal on Sunday if you worked at least six hours. Any other day of the week, you had to work 8 hours to get a free meal. Come on! Cheapskates….

After a year of cashiering I moved higher up the employee food chain and worked as a secretary in the cafeteria office. This felt like working in a fishbowl as the office was all windows and situated in the center of the cafeteria work zone. From here you could watch the giant vats of ranch dressing being mixed like potions in a cauldron with huge wooden spoons. There is something eerie about a recipe that calls for 3 gallons of mayonnaise that makes your tummy sick—and that’s coming from someone whose favorite condiment is mayonnaise. Anyway. My favorite part about being a secretary was changing the names on the student files once the female workers got married. And if you know anything about being LDS you know that for the most part we get married young during the college years so updating the names on the student files alone took hours each week. My favorite file was of a girl names Dana Swain. I thought that was such a cool name—nice, short, easy to spell. Then she married a co-worker with the surname of Wolfersberger. Yea, you read that right. It took me weeks to change the file tab on her manila envelope to Dana Wolfersberger. I just couldn't do it. I secretly wanted to tell her that she should claim to be a feminist and keep her once respectable last name and refuse her husbands name. But alas my job description did not entail counseling. So I painfully changed her name on her file. Changing my name on my own employee file was a lateral move if you ask me. I went from Harrington to Winward during my junior year. It’s a toss up which name I like better. Then again, the bonus to becoming a Winward was that professors stopped asking me if I was related to the then-famous Polynesian Harrington brothers who played BYU football. Or something like that. "Do I look Polynesian to you", I wanted to ask? I hardly look Mexican in the summertime and with a surname like Harrington no one ever asked if I was Hispanic. Sheesh I am getting off subject.

During my senior year I entered the real workforce and got a job at Mountainlands Community Health Center on Freedom Blvd. Once again, my inability to speak Spanish didn’t help but that was a fun job. Once I graduated I needed something full-time so I got another job, in addition to the health center, at a security company doing the Accounts Payable. This job was worse than the berry factory in Boring, Oregon. My boss loved all that Steven Covey garbage but implemented none of it into our office. One time I got the credit card bill and on it was a $3,000 charge to an animal hospital in Texas. I approached the owner about this charge and he informed me that his gross and disgusting dog that he brought to work everyday and shed fur all over me needed an emergency hysterectomy while he was doing a job in Texas. “Um, okay, so how do you want me to code that?” His reply: “Just put it under miscellaneous expense.” For more outrage about this very subject look at Paul’s blog called “Paying your Fair Share.” I should’ve quit that job on day one but Paul was in graduate school and we needed the moo-lah. So I suffered at the security company for 9 long months. In the end, I quit to get a full time job at Wasatch Mental Health. Chances are, if you are still reading this blog you are crazy. And if you are crazy, then chances are I have seen your name on intake forms while working there. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.

Scraped Noses & Broken Irons

After my Mother of the Year blog I made a rule never to have an entire blog about my kids again. It is incriminating and frankly, nobody cares about my parenting. But I am breaking my rule today and am going to blog about my youngest—Hallie.

There are a number of things about this picture that are disturbing, least of which is Hallie’s scraped up nose. Nevertheless, Hallie’s nose is the subject at hand.

Two days ago I strapped Hallie into the stroller to go on an errand walk. You know, walk around the neighborhood and return things to others I have borrowed or to retrieve children playing at neighbor’s houses. I crossed the street with Hallie and left her in the stroller on the curb (bad mom) while I quickly rang Nedra’s doorbell to return her iron. I had to borrow her iron because I was making a board-mounted valance for Nathan’s room (good mom) and my iron broke in the middle of the project again for the 3rd time in three years. Ten seconds later Hallie is face down in the gutter, still strapped in her stroller. I tried really hard not to swear (because I was in front of Nedra) as I ran super duper fast to help Hallie. She scraped up, or rather the concrete scraped up, her nose, left arm and right thumb.

Now for the secondary issues—why does Hallie’s hair look so bad and why is she wearing boys pajamas? Her hair looks so bad because she won’t leave in her Ouchless rubberbands. Apparently they are not ouchless to Hallie. She thrashes around and foams at the mouth while grabbing the Ouchless rubberbands out of her hair, all the while screaming, “Owwww-eeee”. Owww-eee is also the sound she makes for a cat. That’s kind of cute—kind of a backwards Meee-oww. So maybe she is really meow-ing as she grabs at her scalp. Hmmmmm. Secondly, I make Hallie wear her brother’s old jammies because I like to foster a spirit of deprivation among my children. I learned this from Liz Nelson who loves to tell her kids no. It builds character. Someday Hallie will look back and see this photo of her scraped up nose, nasty pompadore, and boy pajamas and there will be no doubt in her mind that she was a deprived child.

P.S. This time I replaced my Black and Decker iron with a Sunbeam iron. The B&D iron broke a year ago and was still under warranty. So as directed by the gods at B&D, I cut off the cord, mailed it in, and was rewarded with a new iron in 6 weeks to replace the piece-of-junk first B&D iron. My second B&D iron broke the other day, as already mentioned. I am not cutting off the cord and mailing it in again because I can not go 6 weeks without an iron. I assume they have you do that to cut down on all the scam artists out there fleecing B&D with claims of bad irons. Instead, I bought a Sunbeam iron in hopes that this one is a well made product. I’ll let you know in a year……