updating the outdated

My first blog post, some 2 1/2 years ago was "100 Things About Me". I didn't know at the time that topic is generally reserved for your 100th blog, but . . . whatever. Anyway, it dawned on me a few days ago that many of the original "100 Things" from April '07 are already woefully outdated. So, because you are fascinated with my life, or because you have an iPod and happen to be stuck somewhere with wi-fi access and nothing better to read, I have updated the outdated.

3. The numerous nicknames I have had for my kids over the years have morphed into just two: Daugher-Face and Kevie-Poo. In fact, at one of the FOG softball games this summer, Kevin's "groupies" were all cheering for him and they did: "Gimme a K, gimme an E, gimme a V, gimme an I, gimme an E, gimme a POO, whatd'ya got? KEVIE-POO!"

8. I am still not a collector of things, (the exception being the previously blogged-about collection of gross family treasures: baby teeth, gallstones in a little jar, titanium pins from a broken hip, and a shriveled umbilical cord with the shoestring still attached.) I'm seeking therapy.

17. I still love email and texting! (It's like getting letters in the mail, only without a 3 day delivery wait and a liberty bell stamp.) I have added to that a love of Facebook and all things blog-related. I hardly knew what a blog was 5 years ago, and now I have a running list of dozens I keep up with - some I enjoy, some are convicting, some are like bad car crashes - I don't necessarily want to look, but I just can't help myself.

18. I still HATE talking on the phone, but now I know why . . . A) people only call when they want something or when they want to talk ABOUT somebody else. Either option doesn't work for me. B) All the really horrible life-changing news in my life has come to me via the phone.

19. I am terrible about keeping up with old friends, though Facebook has brought many of them out of the woodwork and made my life infinitely richer . . . For example, I can know when a guy I sat 2 rows behind in my Senior English class some billion years ago, feels the need to mow his grass today. :o) Seriously though, I am adding "friends" on a regular basis, some close, some not, plus a very special one I haven't heard from in a lifetime (and which, between you and me, has me totally freaked out.)

20. In April '07, we were still Amish (no cable, internet, or cell phones). Now we have all three, making the original number 21 on the "100 things" list even easier.

25. Even more codependent on my reading glasses, which have gone from 1.25 to 1.75. At last count, there were 8 pairs floating around the house and the office.

26. I have a pretty new purple purse.

35. Still love road trips, still prefer to be in control, but I am completely relaxed when my newly-licensed son is at the wheel. He is a GREAT driver. Clearly he had a good instructor.

41. Well, #41 is probably the most significantly changed of the 100. Pasta has been demoted as my favorite food. If you don't know what replaced it, you haven't been reading my blog very long.

49. Every night, after Kevin went to bed, I would flip the light on in his room so the glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars would shine and then flip the light back off and say “PWETTY Stars”. Every night. It annoyed him. A lot. Which is, of course, why I did it. So one night, after he had spent the evening home alone and I was feeling that I had neglected him that day, I went to tell him goodnight, flipped on the light, and just as the words "PWETTY Stars" began to escape my mouth . . . NOTHING. No stars. Just darkness. He had utilized his precious few hours alone to "de-astronomize" his ceiling. Sad day. Sad night, rather.

54. My musical range has expanded considerably, thanks to my iPod-addict son and the minister-who-shall-remain-nameless in the office next door. They share their musical tastes with me, and I am happy to have my horizons broadened.

56. Coffee has been added to the list of things I love.

58. I have been blessed to be part of 3 more births since my blog was born, (Titus, Aurora, and Garrett the amazing enter-the-world-at-record-speed homebirth baby), with another doula "job" on the horizon.

68. I still always clean the kitchen before I go to bed, but I no longer start a load of laundry until morning thanks to a germophobic friend who pointed out that my clothes are sitting wet for 7 hours just waiting to sour.

79. The treadmill got demoted from my bedroom to Kacey's room, where it no longer gets used as a clothes rack, and where it no longer stares at me like the creepy Geico Cash, making me feel guilty for not using it.

91. Blogging replaced scrapbooking as my creative outlet. I no longer have the time to crop off the heads of people I don’t like.

100. My favorite scripture is still, and will likely always be, Philippians 2:3-15. I never get tired of reading it, and it serves as a much-needed reminder that it's all about Him and NOT about me.

41 at 2:31

At 2:31 yesterday morning, I was awakened by my son standing in my bedroom doorway.

He said, "Is it 41?"

"Is it what?" I asked sleepily.

"Is it 41!?" he repeated adamantly.

"HUH?" I questioned.

"41!!!" he insisted.

"Oh! Yes, honey, it is 41, now go back to bed."

"Okay."

From time to time my son sleepwalks.

Can be quite entertaining.

Holy Cow, Batman

The cow. Got out.

Just let me say: Green Acres is NOT the place to be. Farm living is NOT the life for me.

My husband, the cowboy was out of town. WAY out of town, buying a registered quarter horse, because, you know, we don't have one yet.

I was hosting something that has come to be known as "Friday Night High School Hangout", where a bunch of high school kids come over to my house on Friday Nights and, you know, hang out.

And since the cow (affectionately known as "Patty") is a relatively new phenomenon at the Reynolds' Ranch, the kiddos wanted to go out and see her. And, apparently, pet her.

The problem: She is a COW. She does not wish to be petted. She wants to be left alone. The kids approached her. She backed away. She ran in circles. She disengaged her hindquarters (which, in horsetraining, has something to do with submission. In marriage, however, it has an entirely different meaning, but we're not going there.)

Patty tried to dissuade them from petting her. She spoke to them in Bovinese: "Children, lovely children . . . I do not wish to be touched. I do not wish for you to come closer. I prefer that you do not force me to . . . "

Then she squealed some sad-sounding cow scream, bolted to the north, and jumped a 4-foot chainlink fence. Yes she did.

Kevin immediately ran into the house to inform me of the Cattle Coup, and we instantly did what city-people do in a farm emergency: we made phone calls. After many such calls to multiple sources all giving us the same lousy advice ("just go find her and herd her home"), we did the other thing city-people do in an emergency: drive. So I put on my 2" black wedge sandals and took the car up the road.

I found Patty a few tenths of a mile up in a neighbor's side yard. I parked the car, got out, and walked toward her. She stood there. I waved my arms (hoping to scare her back the direction of the house). She waved back. I stared at her. She stared at me.

We stood there
Just staring,
We stood there
We two.
And I said,
"How I wish
We had
Something to do."
And since Dr. Seuss rhymes seemed ineffective as a herding tool, I went back to the house to herd the high schoolers up to the cow. Kevin drove up in a second car.

At this point I was FINALLY able to reach the cowboy by phone. Though he was 320 miles away, I felt it imperative that he know what was going on.
"THE COW IS OUT!" I yelled.
"The power is out?" he queried.
"No . . . YOUR COW IS OUT!"
"The power is about to . . . what?" he asked, confused.
"YOUR STUPID STUPID COW HAS JUMPED THE FENCE AND RUN OFF!!!!" I declared in no uncertain terms.
"Then go find her and herd her back home," he responded calmly.

Ohhhhh . . . this ticked me off.

"Well, honey," he asked sweetly, "What do you want me to do?"

WHAT DO I WANT YOU TO DO? WELL, FIRST OF ALL, I WANT YOU TO PANIC WITH ME, DOGGONE IT, BECAUSE FREAKING OUT MAKES THINGS SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE. AND SECONDLY, I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME THE STINKIN' CODE TO THE COW SIGNAL YOU HIDE OUT THERE IN THE BARN SO THE LOCAL SUPERHERO, 'SADDLE BOY', WILL COME RESCUE ME! THAT'S WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO!!!

So, basically, I hung up on him, somewhat angry and incredibly frustrated that this Big Dumb Future Shish-ka-Bob was going to make a beeline for the interstate and cause a 7 car pileup resulting in death, dismemberment and a really big explosion, and I would be responsible.

I went back up the road to find Kevin driving around in somebody's backyard and bunch of kids running around and flailing their arms. Patty darted around them and got away again. We couldn't find her, and since it was nearing dark, it was becoming virtually impossible to locate a black cow in the country.

Thankfully, a couple of superhero cowboy trainees had been viewing our comedy routine, and came out to join in the chase about the time Patty reappeared on a side road. After several more minutes, and a 9-person team of rodeo clowns, we managed to herd her into somebody else's field, via somebody else's gate, where she joined a herd of somebody else's cattle.

So far our Friday Night High School Hangouts have consisted of: going to the movies; playing "Murder"; having finger-dart wars; nighttime Hide & Seek, and glow-in-the-dark ultimate Frisbee. This, however, was a whole new experience. I wondered, "What would they tell their parents?" Erin, one of our sophomore girls, answered that question for me: "This is the MOST FUN Friday Night Hangout . . . EVER!!!"

We spent the rest of the night relaxing with a low-key game: SPOONS.

I lost.

Q-tips and quiet, clones and comic relief

I never thought I would enjoy the boy as much as I enjoyed the girl. I am NOT one of those moms who plays favorites, who chooses to love one more than the other. And though sometimes you can hear me say, "Kevin is my favorite, but I love Kacey more," I could just as easily flip-flop that statement and never realize it.

I never wanted a boy. You've heard me say that before, but it's true. Having been the oldest of two girls, and then myself giving birth to a daughter, the idea of a boy was foreign. Especially the idea of raising a boy. So when my order for a second female offspring turned out to be on permanent backorder, I was a bit bummed. But you have also heard me say how God knew what I needed better than I did, and how much comic-relief and unconditional love the little man brought into my life.

Still . . . when my daughter-clone left for college, leaving boy junior behind, I couldn't imagine a relationship with him like the one she and I have. Which is good. Because if I had the expectation of shoe shopping, late-night girl talks, and sharing a love of all things sparkly, I would have been sorely disappointed. However, a love of great music, action movies, sushi rolls and a myriad of quirky little inside jokes keeps this mother/son duo pretty tight.

We don't have those late-night "talks", you know, because of the whole XY chromosome thing, but he does share with me, in detail, the latest goofy thing one of his friends did, or every single play of the last football game, or each hi-def detail of whatever video game happens to be the flavor of the month. Sometimes I even find out the big stuff that goes on in his brain, though it usually takes him about a month to get around to the really important topics. But he is sweet, he does little things to brighten my days, and he works hard to never hurt my sometimes way-too-fragile feelings. (Although there was THAT incident at McAlister's . . . but that's another blog altogether.) All in all, he seems to tolerate my existence in his life and on his facebook with minimal disdain, and what more could a mom ask for, really?

So, the other day I was working at my desk and glancing at him from time to time as he sat four feet away at his laptop, doing school. (Why is it homeschoolers always say, "doing school?" Anyway. . . ) After a few minutes, he loaded his 67-pound AP Biology book onto the furniture dolly and headed down the hall to an empty classroom. He has done this for about 3 years now, this going down the hall thing, whenever he has needed room to "spread out and study".

But that was before . . . I remodeled my office. That was before . . . when he had virtually no desk space of his own. That was before . . . he had an entire table to himself. Now I had to wonder . . . why is he still "speading out" on the table in the empty classroom down the hall? There is absolutely nothing in that room but a table and a dozen chairs. It is hotter in the summer and colder in the winter. It has those evil retina-destroying fluorescent lights. Plus, it's quiet. Too quiet.

So I asked him why. "Why?" I asked him.

He shrugged it off as just a preference, merely a change of pace, "think of it as changing classes, if you will," he implied.

This answer did not satisfy me. Not with a perfectly good table sitting empty before me, just screaming for something to be dissected or depolarized or dehydrated on it. So I kept asking, why? Every day he would drag those enormous textbooks down the hall. Every day he risked herniating something, and every day I would ask again, "Why?"

Finally, one day, the truth came out. The truth he feared would hurt his mother's feelings.

Why?

Seems that mommy talks to herself. A lot. Seems that every time she talks to herself, or hums a little song, or argues with her hard drive, he thinks she is talking to him. Seems that sometimes she even answers herself, and it is just more than this man-child can handle while trying to concentrate on peroxisomes and eukaryotic cells.

Therein lies the difference between sons and daughters. The girl could have worked there just fine. She could have hummed along with me, played "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", and still memorized the periodic table of elements (though why anyone needs to know there are seven stable isotopes of mercury, is beyond me). But not so the boy. He has been quietly leaving the room for 3 years just to avoid hurting my feelings and telling me that when I talk to myself it drives him crazy enough to want to "sneak into my room at night and stick Q-tips up my nose."

If that's not the basis for a great mother-son relationship, I don't know what is.

lifestyles of the (not yet) rich and famous

If I ever become famous, or infamous, and Trivial Pursuit once again becomes all the rage, you will need to know the following:

Whenever I enter a place that gives you the choice of going to either the right or the left - places like museums, or concert halls, or shopping malls (hey, that rhymes!), I will always go to the left. Always.

Speaking of left, I have real issues with distinguishing left from right. It's not like I don't KNOW the difference, I just almost ALWAYS manage to call out the wrong word while pointing the right direction (or the left direction, whichever is appropriate!) Drives the men in my life batty, 'cause, for some reason, this is the one time they actually do what I say, despite my flailing arms wildly indicating the opposite direction.

I have a frighteningly accurate internal clock. I almost always know what time it is to within a couple of minutes. I also have a self-alarm clock that wakes me just a couple of minutes before my phone alarm beeps, which would be understandable if I got up at the same time every day, but I don't. Go figure.

I order chewing gum and hairspray online. Why? Because apparently I have weird taste and nobody seems to carry the ones I like in their stores, that's why. Do you know anybody else who orders Dentyne Ice Chocoblast or White Rain Pearberry hairspray by the carton? Yeah, me neither.

I read magazines and catalogs back to front. Don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with always going to the left, or not being able to distinguish left from right. Clearly, one of my many genius flaws.

green is the new dead

When I annoy or embarrass my kids (which, I assure you, only happens on the 5th Tuesday of each month), they have always enjoyed verbally fantasizing about the evil things they will do to me later in life. They taunt, "Just wait until you're old and I'm the one pushing your wheelchair!" or "Be nice to me! One of these days I'll be picking out your nursing home!"

I have to admit, I raised these kids, I know what they are capable of, and I'm more than a little scared.

So, since I'm concerned about the quality of my future in the hands of my loved ones, I decided to do some serious research. I did some web searching, worked up a good family medical history, then turned to the most accurate source I could find:

Facebook.

I took the tried and true quiz, "When Will You Die?" and answered some very technical health questions like:
"What is your favorite color?" (GREEN)
"What is your shoe size?" (7 1/2 - 8)
"On a sinking ship, who would you rescue first?" (Leonardo, because I always thought it was tacky that Rose let him freeze to death in the cold water rather than sharing her plank.)
and
"What Jonas Brothers song makes you cry?" ("I Gotta Find You". Duh.)

The result was not at all surprising.
Apparently, according to this AMA-authorized quiz, I am already dead, so I guess that spares me from the kids' revenge.

On the other hand . . . isn't the best revenge to live well? And live LONG? So, I'm pretty sure (despite my pasty reflection in the mirror this morning) that "I'm not dead yet!", so I retook the test and decided it was time to choose a new favorite color. Now that I'm "turquoise" instead of "green" I get to live until 2061, giving the kiddos plenty of time to enjoy their mother's twilight years. Whew, that's a relief!

The Facebook quiz was so accurate, and so well-done, I decided to take a few more. You'll be fascinated to know that:

My Ghetto, Redneck, Mafia and Hippie Nicknames are:
Pookie
Rhonda Sue
Twinkle Toes
and
Birkenstock Blue Sky

My Super Power is Shape-Shifting (which is really just a nice way of saying I can't make up my mind), my aura is yellow, and apparently, according to the "What Are You Worth?" quiz, I am valued at a grand total of $6.21. Some days that feels about right.

Then I took the "What color are you?" quiz. Turns out I'm "green" after all, taking me back to the "When Will You Die?" quiz.

So, if I am, in fact, already dead, will somebody notify my family and let them know I will not be cleaning house this week?

dangling teeth and pecan tortes

SMILE . . . apparently today is National Tooth Fairy Day.

And, you know, since I AM the tooth fairy in my household, I get the day off, right? Hmmm . . . prolly not.

With regards to losing teeth, Kacey always kept me, er, the tooth fairy, on her toes. As soon as there was a hint of a wiggle in her mouth, she would twist and pull and twist and pull and twist and pull until that puppy popped out and blood gushed. She NEVER had a loose tooth more than a few hours before she struck gold.

Kevin, on the other hand, kept the tooth fairy waiting. And waiting. And waiting. There would be the slight wiggle. There would be the protecting of the baby tooth, by chewing on the opposite side. There would be the gentle rinsing instead of brushing after meals. There would be playing with the loose tooth using the tongue to flick it forward, then pull it back. Kevin could entertain himself for days, and sufficiently gross me out, with this process. Finally, sometimes after WEEKS of dangling by a thread, the tooth came out so clean and effortlessly that he sometimes didn't even realize it was missing.

The kids' baby teeth were always placed inside an envelope, and gently slid under their pillows, sometimes with cute little kindergarten handwriting that read, "This is My First Tooth". (This "sucking up" to the dental fairy would almost always guarantee bigger monetary returns on the enveloped contents.)

Granted, being the Tooth Fairy was never really a tough job. It ranked on the household job-o-meter somewhere between emptying the dryer lint filter and dusting the hot water heater. Like I said, not difficult . . . but easy to forget.

Because sometimes the tooth fairy would be SO BUSY watching late night reruns of Seinfeld that she would forget to make the coin/tooth switch on the first night following the tooth's removal. Mommy would have to explain to the disappointed little snaggle-toothed child, that SURELY the toothfairy (or Shirley the Toothfairy) would be in the neighborhood tonight while they were sleeping. And she almost always was. I mean, one time it took her about 3 days to make the rounds to retrieve one of Kevin's molars, but come on, by then he was nearly 11 and I'm pretty sure on that particular occasion the tooth fairy was completely out of cash and just didn't feel like making a trip to the bank.

It's not like this ever really disappointed my kids, since I'm not the kind of mom prone to lying. They knew I was Santa Claus, they knew I was the Easter Bunny, and they knew I was the Tooth Fairy. (How else do you think I explained the tiara I wore on Saturdays?)

Apparently it's also National Pecan Torte Day as well. Celebrate as you wish.

shaken, but not stirred

My lovely daughter, Kacey texted the other day to say she needed to know the last generation’s equivalents for Brittney Spears and the Jonas Brothers. I asked for a bit of clarification on what she meant by “last generation”, then suggested perhaps Madonna and New Kids on the Block.

Deciding she needed some examples that were a “little older”, she asked who I mighted have “swooned over” in my day, adding, “Robert Redford? Burt Reynolds? Sean Connery?”

Excuse Me? Let me turn on my hearing aid, daughter. Not sure I heard you, what with all the shuffle-board noises going on.

Apparently my daughter thinks I have a thing for old men, considering the aforementioned were all born in the 1930’s. Either that, or she thinks I was on the same yearbook staff as the Golden Girls. Neither option is very flattering.

I responded with “Ewww” or something equally loquacious and suggested perhaps Matthew Broderick or Tom Cruise (both of whom are still older than her dear old mom . . . )

She quickly changed the subject and we discussed the next potential opportunity to spend some quality time together in the same time zone, because CLEARLY we have some “pop culture” issues to discuss . . . of course, this is assuming the nursing home will give me a weekend pass.

I suggest the weekend of the 14th, which she thinks might work:
1) Unless she and Nathan decide to go to Florida
2) Unless she gets tickets to the Kelly Clarkson concert
3) Unless the Aztecs were right, but had their numbers mixed up, and the world ends next week instead of 2012 . . . OR
4) Unless there is a “Family Guy” marathon on TBS
“But,” she says, “if we can ward off all those things, I think we’ll be good.”

I responded, “You forgot about the possibility, according to Dateline NBC, of gas reaching $20 a gallon. Or, of course, alieos invading.” (I meant “aliens”, but I was multi-tasking and didn’t catch the typo.)

She asked, “Are “alieos” the off-brand version of Swiss Cake Rolls? Or are they alphabetized Cheerios?”

“No,” I replied, “Alieos are invaders from Italy. Alphabetized Cheerios would be ‘abieos’.”

At that, she remarked that if gas went to $20 a gallon, I could just buy them plane tickets.

In case anybody wonders, Kevin is my favorite child. At least this week.

(Photo fun by www.yearbookyourself.com)

quiet time

I was one of “those” moms. You know - the one who took her children everywhere - to the grocery, to the movies, to parties. A stay-at-home mom. A 24/7 mom. A family-bed mom.

It goes without saying then, that I cherished my “quiet time” . . . you know: nap time; or Saturday mornings after they slept over at Nana’s house; or when I would lock them out of our one and only bathroom after giving them fair warning that if they “needed to go” they’d better do it now, ‘cause doggone it, mommy needed a hot bath and a half hour to regain her sanity, and if you come “knocking on this bathroom door I will hang you upside down in the shower by your pinky toes and turn on the cold water!”

Uh . . . what was I saying? Oh yeah, Quiet Time.

Loved it. Time to read. Time to reorganize a closet. Time to go for a drive without the radio on. Time to have an adult conversation. (Which really just meant talking to another adult ABOUT the kids, but still . . .) Minutes free from, ‘Mommy. Um, Mommy. Hey, Mommy. Look at this, Mommy. Read this, Mommy. I gotta go potty, Mommy. Mommy, I’n done, come an’ wipe me. Mommy. Mommy. Mommy!”

A mere twenty minutes into any given Quiet Time, guilt set in and I began to miss my kids so much I couldn’t wait to get back to mothering. Reading, snuggling, back-scratching, giggling. Dressing Barbies and building Legos.

Now that my youngest baby is 198 months old, and not in need of too much “mommy time” (though I still drag him with me everywhere and still get a lot of “Mommy . . . scratch my back”), my life has flip-flopped. I can go for a drive any time I want without the music on . . . but I never do. I can watch a movie uninterrupted . . . but heckling is no fun without a Siskel to my Ebert. I have the bathroom pretty much to myself . . . but it’s lonely, just me and the loofah. And, for the first time since before the Berlin Wall came down, I can have Quiet Time . . . but, ironically, I no longer want it.

(After I blogged this today, I saw this clip from "Family Guy", possibly the funniest show you should never watch. However, this clip was too perfect.)

my boy

In the middle of a really lousy week and an ongoing argument with God that I fear is not to be soon resolved, I was blessed to spend a couple of hours with my Sara, who is one of the most talented women I have ever known. I am so blessed by her . . . and here are just a few of the reasons why:


Thank you, my sweet friend for such perfect images of my boy!
For the rest of you, check out her website: www.darlingbydesignphotography.com

the boneheadedest thing or why blogging has made me a better person or why I got the cops called to mike & sara's house

You know that moment? That single, solitary second when you realize you have just done something irreversibly stupid?

Yeah, me too.

It started like this:

I pulled the "man-truck" into Mike and Sara's garage. (I borrowed it while they were both out of town last week and my car was in the shop.) ((Yes, I had permission.)) I was careful to pull it way over the right so there would be plenty of room for Sara to park when she came home on Sunday. I was careful to pull it far enough forward to adequately close the garage door without slamming it on the tailgate. And I was careful to get my house keys out of my purse so I could go THROUGH the house instead of having to run out of the garage wearing wedges and carrying several bags.

I was wildly successful at all these endeavors. I exited the man-truck, meticulously parked in exactly the right spot, with all my bags, and my keys in hand. I even remembered that Mike's truck does not have electric locks, so, being the ever-conscientious one,I was mindful to flip the lock when I got out of the truck. With my keys in hand. MY keys in hand. The ones out of my purse. That's when I uttered the following words to myself:

"Oh, CRAP, NO! NO! NO! Please, please, please. Oh man, oh man, oh man . . . I DIDN'T REALLY just do THAT, DID I?!?!?"

Yes, yes I did.

Mike's keys were still in the ignition.

And the man-truck was still running.

Yes, yes it was.

The worst part of this story is that I was not alone. Christina had followed me over to give me a ride back to get my car. Now it is not bad enough that I have done something ridiculously stupid . . . I have done something ridiculously stupid in front of a witness. So as she pulled into the driveway I told her what I had done, then I went into the house to ransack it for spare keys. Bound to be some. Kitchen drawer? Nope. Foyer table? Nope. Bedside table? Nope. Office Desk? Nope. Cubbyhole shelves in the hallway? Nope. Weird little place in the bathroom where they keep the lawnmower key? (I don't ask, I just happen to know.) But nope.

This is where I decided blogging has made me a better person, because instead of getting mad or frustrated or grumpy, I just rolled my eyes and thought how this is going to make a great blog story.

Now I debated the unthinkable. Do I call Sara and ask where spare keys might be? That means I have to confess to my boneheadedness. I don't want to. I REALLY don't want to. But the truck is burning gas and church is starting in 15 minutes and I am teaching a class. Well, I am SUPPOSED to be teaching a class. So I call her. Sara answered with a semi-panicky sound to her voice because I NEVER call. Ever. Oh sure, I may text her 38 times an hour, but I don't call. So, in a way, that was good, because she expected something was really wrong, and was relieved and even laughed when I told her what I had done. Then she laughed more when she informed me that the only spare key was currently with her in Florida.

Now what? Call a locksmith, I suppose. But first I called my husband 1) because he is a former police officer and will know which locksmith to recommend and 2) because he is used to my scatterbrained blunders and might even feel sorry for me. He does, and he called upon his buddies at the Sheriff's Dept. to help me out.

Then he told me he suspected I may have done this on purpose so I would have a great blog story.

Grrrrrr.

About 45 minutes later Officer Bob showed up (I'm sure that wasn't really his name, but all generic characters in my stories get the name Bob, especially when I am too preoccupied with my own predicament to pay attention) and tried to "jimmy" open the door. Oooooooh. Maybe I should have named him Officer Jimmy instead. Though we ARE in Kentucky . . . so maybe I should just use both names. Doesn't matter, 'cause despite his kindness, diligence and professionalism, at this point he was unsuccessful at rescuing me.

Next, Officer Jimmy Bob got out a bloodpressure cuff, wedged it in the door and pumped it up to open the door ever-so-slightly. Then he slid in what I refer to as "a flamingo wire" (it was like an extra-long pink coat-hanger with a handle) and proceeded to try to flip the lock open. Christina stood on the opposite side of the truck to shine a flashlight in so he could see what he was doing. I had the difficult job of self-appointed "Lock Coach'. "Come on. You can do it. There you go. Almost got it. OOOOHHH, SO CLOSE!" I'm sure I was quite helpful and not at all annoying. After a good 15 minutes and some nasty paint scratches to the white paint, Officer Jimmy Bob was finally successful at opening the man-truck. Then I wondered, "How much do you tip a deputy who bails you out of a sticky situation?"

Now that this whole ordeal was drawing to close I became aware of the gathering crowd in the neighborhood, you know, because aside from Paris Hilton's "My BFF" on MTV, there's just not a lot of excitement around here. Oh, they all tried to be nonchalant about it, standing in their own driveways pretending to walk dogs and water plants and get mail . . . but I could see the quizzical looks on their faces. They were watching as Officer Jimmy Bob arrived, and they were watching as Officer Jimmy Bob left, and they were wondering, "WHAT IN THE WORLD kind of illegal stuff is goin' on over there at the minister's house?!?!"

I thought about drawing a white chalk outline of a dog on the driveway, but decided against it. Mostly because I didn't have any chalk. Guess those nosy neighbors will just have to read my blog to find out.

oh say, can you see?

For those of you who have known me for, say, longer than 20 minutes, I apologize in advance that you have surely already heard this story. However, this being July 4th, it only seems appropriate that this story should go down in blog history.

It was the summer I was barely pregnant with Kevin. Kacey was a very precocious, nearly 6-year-old. I can still envision her marching down the hall of our Jackson, Tennessee apartment, donning her blue daisy outfit, hands on her hips as she announces, "Okay mommy, I've been thinking about this. If I'm gonna be a big sister, there's some things I need to know. I know it takes a mommy and I know it takes a daddy, but what I don't get is how they get together!"

WHAT??? She's not even 6! I thought I had like 7 or 15 years before I had to explain this to her! However, I have always been a firm believer that if they are old enough to ask the question, they are old enough to deserve an honest answer. But how? How do I explain this simply enough for her to understand without freaking her out?

Lennart Nilsson's book, "A Child is Born". Perfect. It even has tasteful photographs.

So I pull it out of the closet from amid all my hippie birthing books and soft-porn breastfeeding manuals, and proceed to show her the male and female anatomy diagrams. After that, we move on to the images of the female egg and male sperm. We talk about how the mommy just has one egg, but the daddy has millions and millions of tiny sperm and they swim around really fast.

I'm pretty sure there were swirling hand gestures involved.

After that we move on to the ultrasound images of the baby growing, ending in a very tasteful labor and delivery photo layout. She seemed satisfied with the explanation, and I breathed a sigh of relief that "the talk" was successfully accomplished.

Fast forward two weeks. It is the weekend of July 4th, and we go to visit the grandparents. As part of the holiday weekend festivities, we go to the lake, along with 10,000 other people, to view the Fireworks Extravaganza. So, we're sitting there on the bank of the lake amid the throng of spectators, when one particularly interesting firework explodes. First it bursts white, then there are tiny little swirly sub-bursts which follow. It is gorgeous. The crowd "ooohhhs" and "aaaahhhs", then my petite, but very loud little daughter screams . . .


"Look, Mommy - SPERM!!!"

A hush falls. I think my dad swallowed his tongue. My mother gasps and looks at me as though to say, "WHAT SMUT HAVE YOU BEEN CORRUPTING MY GRANDDAUGHTER"S MIND WITH?"

I, well, I am mortified.

After that we have "talk number 2" about how some things are not appropriate conversation.


Happy Independence Day.

paint and parade

The last few days I've been doing a makeover on Kacey's room. There is still detail work to be done, like touch-up paint around the ceiling and floor, a bit more "staging", plus I'm not satisfied with the dust ruffle. It's too . . . cotton? Too . . . white? Anyway, I think I'm going to opt for a solid black one. So, here's the almost-finished room redo! I LOVE the color!


And yesterday's "Let's Face It' post was proof, not that I have too much time on my hands, but that I have a project to be done that I am procrastinating! But the goofy pictures came out of a little photo edit I did last week after getting some pictures of the guys playing basketball. This picture of "the twins" made me giggle:

But this little photo edit I did with the "twins" picture makes me just plain laugh out loud. I call it "The Mike & Kevin Parade" and I have set it as my desktop background:

let's face it

Let's face it. Goofy things happen when you have too much time on your hands and access to photoshop . . .

PHASE ONE: Birth to Old Age

1) An ultrasound image of my face (note the resemblance to E.T. with hair), and 2) how I might look with braces


1) How I see myself in the mirror, you know, without my glasses, and 2) what happens - I mean, WILL happen, one day in the far-away future when my membership to the Loreal Hair Club runs out

PHASE TWO: Almost famous

1) My audition photo for "The Blair Witch Project", which I didn't get, because I was clearly too happy and not overdramatically faking fear, and 2) My audition as a news anchor in "Independence Day" when the alien spacecrafts disrupt satellite transmission, a part which I also did not get because, again, I am WAY too happy for a hostile alien invasion.


1) "Persistence of Stephanie" by Salvador Dali, and 2) a photocopy of my face, because, well, no other body parts should EVER be photocopied. EVER. By anybody.

PHASE THREE: How you see me
1) I might look something like this if you got really tired of getting emails from me and decided to Saran Wrap my face and tell me to breathe deeply, and 2) how I look through the shower door . . . the cheesy grin is because you are naked, of course, since you would be the one in the shower, as I have on my suede jacket and there is NO WAY I am getting that baby wet.


1) How spiders, ticks, and ants see me as I am flushing them, and finally, 2) how I might look in your nightmare if you dreamed that Jay Leno and Chewbacca had a daughter. This is assuming Chewbacca is a girl. Which, I'm pretty certain, he is not. Hard to tell under all that hair.

Somebody help me. I think I've been breathing too many paint fumes . . .

double click

I love my computer, but it drives me crazy. It's a good computer, and fairly new, but . . .

1) Sometimes when I command a certain function, it overrides what I ask and does some random project I have no interest in, and . . .

2) It takes too long to process information. For example, when I am downloading photographs or making a video, it takes SEVERAL minutes to complete these projects, which leads to the fact that . . .

3) It won't let me start another project to work on while it is finishing the first project which causes me to want to double-click and triple-click in an effort to speed it up, which means. . .

4) It gets overloaded with the stress to handle multiple projects, so its solution is to lock up and shut down. Also . . .

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold everything.

I love it, but it drives me crazy.
It ignores what I want and does its own thing.
It takes too long to process information.
It can't multi-task.
It shuts down when it can't deal with the stress.


My computer is a man.

It all makes so much sense now.

june 23

Today marks the day my sister died. I don't really feel the need to blog about it, so we'll just leave it at that.

speaking of pee . . .

Today, the cowboy met our son's alterego.

See, this morning my husband had to go pick up a piece of farm equipment. (I would tell you what it was, but I don't know, so you can just assume it has something to do with hay or manure or tractors or something equally fascinating.) But for whatever reason, he needed to pick this thing up at 7:30 this morning. Now, since he was just coming off a 12-hour midnight shift, he decided to take Kevin with him for company . . . you know, to help him stay awake while he was driving.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

So he woke Kevin, who rousted himself enthusiastically out of bed, said "GOOD MORNING DAD, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU THIS FINE DAY?", jumped into the nearest phone booth, and became (da da da da!): NARCOLEPSY BOY!

Apparently, Kevin managed to stay awake for about 15 minutes before he crashed and slept through the stop to get gas, the trip to the parts store, and the drive out to the trailer sales place.

Once they got home, however, Kevin did manage to wake up long enough to walk from the truck back into the house, hug me "goodnight" and go back to bed for a couple of hours.

I, on the other hand, had a VERY productive morning. Between 8:30 and noon I got on facebook, hung up the mountain of clothes that had mysteriously collected at the end of my bed, read 7 chapters in 3 different books (you know, because I'm a woman and I can do that), and then, being so exhausted from all the page-turning, went back to bed for a "power nap". I didn't get my power nap, however, because as soon as I got into bed I realized I needed to pee. My brain and my bladder began to converse.
BRAIN: "Just hold it and let me rest!"
BLADDER: "I can't. I'm full."
BRAIN: "But this is a "one facility" household and the potty is like 38 feet away. Deal with it."
BLADDER: "I can't. I'm full."

I didn't say it was an interesting conversation.

Anyway, continuing to think that somehow this urge would magically disappear, I just stayed in bed growing more and more uncomfortable. Besides, with the exception of my bladder, the rest of me was quite cozy. Why should one tiny little body part get to overrule what the rest of me wants to do? After 45 minutes of ridiculous procrastination, the brain caved and the bladder won out.

I can't wait to see what fascinating events occur in the second half of this day.

sunrise, sunset

Children grow up. It happens so gradually that, as a parent, you sometimes don't even realize it until one day they are married and living in Indiana and you can't get the words to "Sunrise, Sunset" out of your head.

Other times they seem to grow up right in front of your eyes. That's what happened this past week with Kevin. Yes, his bass voice has been deepening for some time, and he surpassed me in height about a year ago, but I'm talking about the stuff that is more than physical. I'm talking about the stuff you hope and pray for. The stuff like: Taking middle-schoolers under his wing to make sure they feel accepted in our youth group (especially the 6th grade boys). Taking steps to go above and beyond to be helpful, at home and elsewhere (like last Friday when I came home from work to find the yard mowed, the kitchen cleaned, floors swept, laundry and dishes done, and the entire house vacuumed & dusted). Taking steps, with a friend, to start his own business (he and Deecke are detailing cars). Taking a little more care to say say nice things and not ALWAYS go for the cheap joke. Taking a leadership role among his peers (like initiating the Cabin 1 devo at camp this week with a prayer, song & opening question). Taking note of little acts of kindness and following through (like clearing away other people's trays after dinner this past week, and being more concerned with the little kids on his team getting a chance to participate more than being concerned about winning). Taking a big brother role with a 7-year-old who thinks he is something special (Micah - Kevin carried him on his shoulders for 2 days and cried for a half hour when he left). Taking on the responsibility of helping out with the tech stuff during the camp talent show (even though he really wanted to be sitting with his friends). Taking time to thank those who are making a difference in his life. Taking his faith to a deeper level.

At least 7 staff members made a point to brag on him to me this week, and even though he was only the "Camper of the Week" runner up, in my book he wins, hands down.

Thank you, God, for allowing me to watch my boy, my son, my baby, my Kevie-poo become a man right in front of my eyes. I could not ask for a greater blessing.

friday five

5 things I do when I can't sleep:
pray
blog
dream about the "what ifs"
listen to music
get on the computer

5 things that scare me:
losing my sight
heights (occasionally)
down escalators
losing relationships
not ever becoming who I was meant to be

5 things I don't like to spend money on:
haircuts
anything medical
cars
shoes
jewelry

5 things I would like to do more:
play games
be outside
cook
read
spend time with the people I love

5 things that annoy me:
rude drivers
invasive children
people who don't do what they say they are going to do
my own forgetfulness
selfishness

5 things I can't do that I wish I could:
bob my head (to the side)
whistle
speak a foreign language
tan
sing soprano

5 songs I ALWAYS crank up when I hear them:
Flood, Jars of Clay
Me and Julio, Simon and Garfunkel
The Remedy, Jason Mraz
Shackles, Mary Mary
Entertaining Angels, Newsboys

Home from camp tomorrow! Have a GREAT weekend!

love language . . . ???

I really think my love language is "Physical Touch". I am definitely a touchy, feely, huggy kinda gal. My daughter, however, has taken great issue with this ever since I posted a Facebook quiz that she basically failed. :o)

So, in fairness to her, I found 3 or 4 "love language" quizzes and took them. Turns out, she may be right. I discovered that my love language is somewhat different, depending on the person expressing themselves to me. Overall, my scores showed "Words of Affirmation" (42%) ranking slightly higher than "Physical Touch" (37%). Not surprisingly, "Quality Time", "Acts of Service", and "Receiving Gifts" all stayed in the 7% range.

So maybe, in some ways, Kacey knows me better than I know myself.

What this really means is, when you hug me, just go ahead and tell me I'm wonderful.

It's a win-win.