Sugar sacrifice

So my husband was picking which of the wonderful Christmas cookies he wanted to eat.  Having decided to upon a ginger cookie that had been dipped in Chocolate.  I reminded him he should save the best ones for the boys and sacrifice for his children.  He said, "I am, that's too much sugar for a child.  I'll sacrifice myself on the sugar altar."  As if that weren't funny he acted out what it may have been like to be asked to sacrifice self.  And like a Kindergartner his hasty reply came, "Ooo ooo ooo me, pick ME!"

Noisy toys

Do you ever have those days where everything goes wrong?  You seem to disappoint all whose opinion of you matters.  Well I was having one of those yesterday.  From forgetting what day it was and that the alarm was meant for me.  To translating from Spanish to English for someone that had these abnormally long sentences.  To putting the brisket in the crock pot, but never turning it on. 

All that came to an abrupt end when my husband, Andy, decided he would help tidy the Living Room just after the children had retired to bed... an hour late.  It began with the Motorcycle and the near Metallic music it plays prior to squealing as if peeling out from the starting line.  I surprised myself by laughing instead of chalking it up as one more thing to spoil the day.  As if that weren't enough, he continued his unintentional antics with every toy he picked up, the steering wheel, the telephone, the alphabet book.  Besides realizing we have far too many noisy toys (a curse we acquired beacuse my husband used to love buying noisy toys for his nieces and nephews.)  I also recalled that one of the reasons I love my husband, isn't because he's smooth, graceful, or coordinated.  Instead it's because he's awkward, clumsy, and immediately puts things back into perspective by making me laugh.

A penny earned

Today I'm grateful for after Thanksgiving sales.  It's a mad house; I've only been once several years ago.  BUT, since my washer went out a few days ago, I'm delighted to wait starting just after the kids are in bed tonight on the concrete stoop right outside the local appliance store.  Who knew that this would be a joy to me!  A penny saved is a penny earned.  So why not wait in a line that puts Wal-Mart to shame.  Many thanks to Jay and Mel for the perspective by Straight no chaser Christmas Can-Can.  And just a little side note Andy offered to wait, but the decided he couldn't wait that long to use the restroom.  Perhaps that's why all the shoppers are so crazy!

Bad news or good news

I never know what to think when someone gives me the choice of bad news or good news first... so I tortured my husband, Andy, and let him mull over which he would rather to start. 
A:  Bad first
Me:  Scotty has informed me that he would like to be called Scott. 
Then I gave him the good news... friends of ours are sick.  (How is that good news???)  He didn't have to worry about nursery on Relief Society night at the church.  I know a bit twisted in my mind I know.  The boy is growing up that IS good news and friends sick is bad news.

How do you deal with the flying years?  And how do you cope with bad news?  Well for me, getting the two mixed up today helped me put things back in perspective.

Thank you.

It never expresses the depth of feeling.  But without these little words that are so simple sorrow, contempt, and apathy would take its place.  How profound have been the moments for a little act or effort one can notice our attempt to serve and love.

We need each other.  We depend on God for support, we admire soldier, we are nourished by our parents.  Often the word left unsaid has greater hold on our regret.  Yet, feeling it is so insufficient, we leave it unsaid.  Have you ever been insulted when someone expressed their thanks?  So why do we feel guilt or shame at the simplicity of those two words?

Reach deep, remember often, express gratitude to all for everything.  Don't let another good deed go left unacknowledged.  And may we be patient, for all is seen that we do, even when someone else has done as we, and left a good word unsaid.  All over the World

Carrying a heavy burden

I find it hilarious how groceries can lead to such drama.  It's not enough that children pull everything off the shelf, try to color on the credit card scanner, or scream bloody murder when you put them back in their car seats (Which has the added benefit of piercing eye from all who can't wait to call CPS).  Then there's the self inflicted torture of being certain that it's better to carry EVERYTHING that barely fit in the basket on two arms that are trying to multitask trying to corral the children into the house, while, I might add, they stand in front of you while you try to reach around them, without bashing them in the head, to unlock the door, then immediately the park their cabooses just beyond the threshold begging to be released from their perceived straitjackets and you attempt to not knock them over during your rapid flight to the kitchen table.  There's even a dedicated Facebook page.  I-will-carry-20-grocery-bags-so-I-dont-have-to-make-a-second-trip

Who the heck ever thought plastic bags were a good idea.  Better yet, why don't I follow my husband's council to make trips?  Well once their in the house and I leave without the toddler, the screaming commences and if I leave repeatedly to avoid the problems of attempting to be a superhero grocery bag carrier, then I need to watch for the hug that will be thrust upon me and the repeated outbreaks upon my immediate departure.

So, as usual, with children there are no solutions, but it doesn't keep it from being a laugh a minute as I put my own mortality and imperfection back into proper perspective.  I'm certain the dramatic trip to the grocery will continue to be necessary, and I'm sure that by the time he graduates high school he'll actually be helping rather than 'helping'. 

But since we all aspire to superhero status, I'll put the question to you.  What's your record and how many can you carry?

Peanuts

My childhood often comes to mind when I laugh.  My mother had an extensive collection of paper back comics with Charles Schultz's works.  My brother, Tom, was the most avid reader of these books.  No one in the world laughs like Tom.  I think he giggles from his toes and chuckles with ever ounce of his being.  You would think he hadn't read it before.  But after the umpteenth time through he laughed like the first.  So which Peanut character is most like you?  I've finally come to the realization that I'm Lucy, for good or bad.

After watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with my kids again last night I was reminded of the joys of my youth.  Mom made all our costumes; some quite elaborate. I'm much more grateful of her talent this year as our costumes aren't quite up to snuff.  Long after Halloween was over we'd up and raid the attic rack for another adventure in dress up for no particular reason.  Much to my delight, my boys find great fun in doing the same.  So as enjoyable as it is to receive the chocolate milk duds, twizzlers, and nerds, all the more I relish in the coming generation finding pure and innocent joy in the humor, adventures, and imagination of youth. 

Repeal the 1952 law NOW!

 A law was written onto the books as of 1952, but has not, until recently been of great effect to me.  I have come to find out this law crosses all political affiliations.  It is undeniably the fodder and the demise of our country.  Though, I've yet to leave the boundaries of my beloved nation, I believe the law that was written into existence has now been the cause of much international problem.  I plead with you friends and all who read this to do all you can to ensure that you use all within your power to have it repealed.

Please review the following link and comment so we can begin to pursue a more effective course of action.law

Love in Laughter

Who knew something so painful, violent, and uncontrollable could be so desirable.  It's contagious and insatiable.   We seek it out every chance we get and the moment the tears have ended, and pain subsided we look for another way to satisfy our desire.  We tickle, jest, tease, use our whit, our wiles, our pranks and our immaturity just to initiate a laugh.



You slay me, crack me up, kill me...

 I died laughing, fell on the floor, LOL...

She split her side, snorted, burst a vein in her forehead...


He shot the milk out of his nose, screamed like a girl, laughed his rear off..

Love in Laughter

I giggle, I wiggle, I jiggle a little.

But before I know it I wheeze, I fizzle, and I cry (like a whistle)

I flop, I ker-plop, and then my pants pop

I can't stop, I'm in pain,  and then Yell, "Daddy, DO IT AGAIN!"-- Me.

Piggies

From Andy's time in Kindergarten, to makin' bacon in Pass the Pigs aka Pig Mania (Thanks Mike for introducing me to one of the world's greatest games.) to my eldest son, Scotty, to my youngest nearly two year old.  Piggies seem to be central to our humor.  


Andy was taking an oral test in Kindergarten and failed.  Perhaps not funny to the then Kindergartner, but the fact that the teacher flunked him on account of calling his toes piggies, don't these Elementary Education teachers need to have taken Nursery Rhymes 101?

 

Jim sat at dinner the other night hugging his piggies.  He regularly holds them up so we can play piggies.  To Boot he's got the snort in the bag!  And watching Word World, Jim was cracking up at non

 

In our currently tight budget I served french toast, "Mom, can we have the red skinny stuff for breakfast with Pancakes tomorrow?"  Well we couldn't afford it, but thanks to birthday money from Mom McLatchy we enjoyed a feast of Bacon & Pancakes, BLTs and Chef salad with you got it, a bit of pig.  It's a good thing I don't believe in eating the Kosher meal plan!

A bit of Pig  Meal-ia

The best was a few months ago when Scotty invented his first joke.  Pigs on ATVs.  "There were three piggies.  One came to the guy who sells ATVs and said, 'I want a small ATV.'  The next little pig says, 'I want a middle-sized ATV.'  And the next pig says, 'I want a BIG ATV.'  The ATV guy says, 'Why do you need a BIG ATV.'  And the little pig says, 'Someone has to say weeeee, weeee, WEEEEEE all the way home.'"

Failing or Flying?

Life is a balancing act, plain and simple.  The older I am the more I have experienced its certainty.  We often feel out of kilter, on the brink of disaster and then most decidedly something will come along to shove you right over the edge.  Any extreme is destructive, and yet we watch and cheer on those who have become obsessed with whatever talent or undertaking.  We compare ourselves to these geniuses, silently praising and dreaming for our own unrealized successes and yet knowing that we would have to give up all that we had for that one wish.  We carry it around, hoping to use it one day, but realizing that our time has been spent, we would've had to have devoted ourselves to that cause at the beginning of our lives.  So we pack it away with the rest of the monkeys on our back, and keeping hoping in vain to see such a dream come to fruition.

On to our daily tasks, which alone are quite the burden to bear, we tend to the tedious, the unrewarding daily grind.  Will today be the day I am acknowledged for my martyrdom?  Will today be the day I am rewarded?  We haven't time for such thoughts, we put it aside for a more urgent need like no toilet paper in the bathroom.  We laugh, we endure, we are faithful to the people we love and choices made.  But in this balancing act, where do I find myself?  Has that season passed, never to return?

I spoke at length with a mission companion about these types of passions, she already had her Masters at 24.  The question was presented, "Would you rather be good at one thing, or mediocre at many?"  I found myself quickly responding affirmative to the latter.  We would have to neglect much in order to be good at one thing.  So here I am, brown eyes, brown hair, average fluffy figure with no education, little talent, and no determination to pursue any dreams for fear of neglecting my prior responsibilities.  Is it fear of failure or priority that leads me to my choice.  Am I using my children as a crutch, or am I being the kind of person God would have me be, selfless and serving?  But then again he said to love my neighbor as myself, does that mean I've been short changing myself or is it all just a matter of timing and all possibilities will return once my greater objective has been served?  Am I to keep all the balls in the air, or abandon the burden of one dream for that of a better?

I think we'd like it to be OK to be extreme, good delineated from the bad, certain that we are on the right side.  But have you ever considered the right side is smack down the middle.  Not compromising value, but finding the EXACT compromise.  And yet most assuredly, as distinct is each individual and each family it depends on the situation.  For example.  When someone asks, "Do I look fat?"  it must be a balance between not encouraging the non-flattering jeans and loving and protecting the feelings of another.

I know this isn't my rather light humor.  But it's a subject that I keep returning to.  Mostly, I think we need to balance them, not all at the same time, but through the length of our lives, not missing the moment for the past or future... What has your experience taught you, and where do you find yourself on the scale?

Gender Specific Communication

Here's my rather abstract understanding of men and women...

Men think vertically...
One
Thing
At
A
Time

Please.

And if you've got a picture, all the better

Women think horizontally...
Allatonce,itallintermingles,andweunderstandeachother.  Lets get a move on I've got other things to do.

My children, both male.  Are cursed with the prior condition, but spend the majority of their time with a mother, thus the latter disorder.  No communication is better, although a room of men are so thick (my favorite British slang) that they think they're being subtle by asking their brother in front of the girlfriend ideas on how to propose.  Women on the other hand, never finish a thought... we do the you get the idea 1/2 way through the sentence and call it...  Interrupting my own thoughts is a frequent occurrence.

My husband bears the brunt of my calling it good, however.  He has become a human tape recorder so that when I lose my train of thought he can play it back and get me back on track.  However, I too, deal with the sum total of his redundancy in order that he may fully be understood and express himself...saying the same thing over in different words just to say what he already... you get the idea.

So to Elizabeth and Emily, I thank you for your thoughts, you inspiration and getting me back blogging.

Technology

So Downie has hit the nail on the head again, and lest I were to take over her blog with a mere comment I'm writing part 2 on mine.   Don't misunderstand me, I'm grateful for the ideas and how it takes less space to store it.  It's just that I haven't joined this century.  I can't afford it.  But then again, I can't afford not to.  We have an extensive collection, but the new format is always more expensive, the converters, the speed at which it becomes obsolete...

Nearly a year ago I purchased a digital record converter.  SO EXCITED!  Now, not so much.  After installing the software and getting all set up I've found not too terribly outdated computer didn't have an internal speaker... doesn't that come standard, no.  I don't know where to begin looking for one, and don't want to buy one just to find out there's something else I'd need to get it going.  GOOD GRIEF!


And I'm so totally in concurrence about the life expectancy of CDs and DVDs.  How many have been pitched because the kids still live here.  Does anyone out there have blueray?  Do they really NOT get destroyed?  I know they play DVDs but CDs too?

So here I live in my techno-blur of Records (yes 33 1/3, 45...) VHS tapes, 35 mm film camera, slides...  I have a desktop computer... Can you say 8-Track tape (no, I don't have any of those)?  Talk about something that never wears out.  Heck, last I knew my mother still has her old reel-to-reel.

I hate change I can't keep up.  But, I suppose this isn't the only thing in life in which I'm outdated.  (I'm sure I've all too clearly given away my age.)  Besides, if these companies really want it to not be pirated why not get credit for old devises and recordings. Please, tell me I'm not the only one that has herself strung out over the decades.

An island trip

About a year ago my, then, 5 year old was invited to see the inside of the plane a friend of ours flies.  My son, Scotty, asked if he could fly to an island.  The pilot, thinking theoretically, replied yes.  So my son was ready to go.  Disappointed he resigned himself to a mainland visit of a non-moving plane.

We've made many attempts to help meets this innocent dream.  After asking a few weeks later when he would be going I decided to be a good mother and make cardboard boxes into planes for he and his friends, run down the sidewalk and take flight into our imagination.  A great deal of fun and effort later, it was insufficient to quench his desire.  After a year he's decided that he'll go on his church mission to Japan (since that's where Daddy went and it's an island.)

But he's still making alternate plans as this isn't a given and he'll be assigned the destination for his mission.  He's taken a fondness to dinosaurs and is determined to be a paleontologist.  He told Daddy the other day, "When I grow up to be a paleontologist I'll tell all the other paleontologists that we should go to Dinosaur land to find bones, it will probably be on an island so we'll have Pilot Jimmy take us."  (His brother now 21 months has taken a fondness to aircraft of any sort and are called 'flys'.)

I love the dreams of a child.  There are no limits or lack of confidence, no dream too and is taking measures to find happiness in every hope.  Let your dreams soar little one.

Kid's theories

I love the things kids come up with. 

 Some of my faves are my husband's theories on death when he was a child.

1. There were only 2 ways you could die, as he was often warned of the first, getting hit by a car or, as in the old movies, getting shot.  As a result, and grandpa was old, he went around telling his friends his grandpa was shot.
2. Then he started learning about heaven.  How do you get there...?  A GIANT Ferris wheel, that's it!
3. But wait, if you get on while you're alive you have to die when you arrive at the top... a giant shoots you at the top, of course.  (Apparently he forgot getting run over.)

What are your favorite kid theories?

You might be in Texas...

On a recent trip from the Ft. Worth area... and realized... only in Texas!  I recalled the culture shock I went through in moving here.  So here are a few of my own hill folk jokes...

1. If you are certain the locals are speaking English, but you can't understand them...
2. If a house is trimmed in burnt orange...
3. If you watch more High School than Professional football...
4. If the homecoming corsage weighs more than your date...
5. If you the tumbleweed is larger than your SUV...
6. If your belt buckle weighs more than your shoes...
7. If you can drive all day without leaving the state...
8. If you see more Rebel than US  flags..
9. If your jeans are so heavily starched that they hold you up...
10. If your limo has long horns on the grill...
11.  If buying a family-friendly vehicle consists of buying a king-cab rather than a standard cab pick-up...
12. And lastly the one that brought it all to mind...If you can pick up a snack for yourself and alfalfa for your livestock at the corner service station...you might be in Texas.

What are some of the things you enjoy most about the Six Flagged State?

Man-sized job

As you well know I grew up with brothers.   I think very well of men and have no desire to demean them, but I do not understand them even after being surrounded by them my entire life.  At times they are hard workers anxious to please and make themselves useful, and at other times I feel like I have to nag to get them to do it, we women get tired of waiting around and do it ourselves.  And at other times we just want to test our talents and try our hand at something different than the norm of running a load or fixing a meal no one will enjoy.

Can I be self sufficient without offending my husband's or any other man's, for that matter, sense of masculinity?  And does that somehow make me less feminine to be more adept at 'manly things'?  It certainly doesn't make a man feminine to change a diaper, it just makes them less inept. 

I'm well acquainted with hard work and am quite capable of doing it by myself.  I make my own honey-do list and sometimes I start them and other times I actually complete them. I admit, I jump in a bit foolheartedly a bit oblivious as to what this actually entails and my adventures spring a leak as it were, sitting half-baked for a good spin around the calendar.  I like the idea of being a self-sufficient Texan woman with no need of the husband that's out on the range.  I fancy myself much more capable than I am, landing me in a fix and throwing a tantrum about the nail that refuses to find wood behind the molding.  But is it good or bad?

My son, now nearly two, came out of the shoot with a character so fierce and firm as to label him determined.  I wish for nothing more than that my children's dreams come true.  I am certain that they will, nothing will stand in his way.  I hope that my characteristic will be a positive, but will I always fall short of my personal expectations?  Can you be both patient and determined, feminine and proficient?

Phone Funny

Pranks... they're the epitome of boy humor!  But that what I grew up on.  At times I often laugh too readily at the antics of my boys (even the grown one.)  And at times I put on my girl cap and have a serious lack of fun running through my veins.  You never know which one you're going to get.  That having been said, I wonder if the woman in the punch line lacked imagination, humor and all the joy that in inherent in the make-up of a boy, or was she just having a, 'I'm trying to be a responsible mommy' moment.

So after a lengthy bike with my brothers (an adventure, to which I would have never entered, had I known how long a 10 minute ride in a vehicle really was) we caught up with a few of my brothers' friends.  We didn't have a plan for what were going to do, but somehow my brother noticed the the hook for the receiver stuck (we didn't PUT the gum there, I promise.)  But we weren't the kinda folk to let an opportunity pass us by.  Now Jay, being the eldest and wisest, knew the magic of the phone-line test.  (Which still eludes me to this day.)  You dial a certain number and the phone number of the phone.  Obviously there's no one on the other end of the line, but the phone rings... duh, duh, duh.  The thus, it began.  Let's make it ring, and when someone walks by and picks it up, it'll still ring...  Let's make it ring, and leave it hanging and watch peoples' reactions.  After about 1/2 an hour of having fun at other peoples' expense, a young rather cranky woman decided to be the responsible individual who would rescue innocent bystanders from the prank.  And in all her desire to sound intelligent and capable her best statement was, "They just put it that way."

Was she being a spoiled-sport of an active citizen?  Who cares, but thankfully our fun ended soon enough that we were able to get home the same day our bums the worse for the ware, and a little lighter for having stored a memory that would last a lifetime.
They put it that way.

Old Folks

Any of you, who have ever had the privilege of having extended family live with you, should appreciate the complexities and humor that naturally develops as a direct result of their presence in an already over-crowded home.  I never thought of our family being one of these until I brought up the Fastnot family (name has been changed to protect identity, kinda.)  They had one grandpa and one adopted grandpa living with them.  They were so gracious an loving I told my mother we should be like them, not realizing that we had done just that for most of my life!  My paternal grandfather (Dad's dad), and my maternal grandmother (mom's mom).

Grandpa was the first.  With an almost bald head, which had upon it a rather odd absence of skin.  I was convinced, probably due to an older brother, that he had a metal plate in his head from the war.  He was never in the war, but it was my story and I was sticking to it.  Grandpa was a smoker; had been since he was 11.  On the national, 'get your act together and tell someone to get off their duff and stop smoking' day, I thought of him.  However, I never had the courage to say anything.  He was the man I'd been taught to respect even though he took too long in the restroom, smelled funny, and wouldn't share the only color TV in the house.  He was a gracious man who took his smoking outdoors... in the walker... down the stoop... over the grass (next to the pile of burnt rolls).  I never asked him.  Why didn't I?  After a series of heart attacks and gangrene he passed away.  But in doing so, he never left me.  We inherited the color TV, the lift chair... and the memories of a soul that touched me so deeply as to leave a place in my heart for the kiss I couldn't give upon returning from the second grade.

Grandma was next a few years later.  She came for a visit, and never left.  During my most impressionable years of middle and high school.  The crazy woman who was afraid of anything that flew, that might drink the mouth wash, whose opinion made no sense but was not worth fighting filled the bed in which grandpa used to sleep.  She had a job, was it really wise?  She drove, even more questionable.  She was the one who taught patience in drove.  She was the one who rinsed her dentures in her milk at the dinner table.  The grandparent whose politics and logic left the mind reeling as to its relevance and truth.  She drove friends home, warning us of the frigid temperature, and how the heat didn't work, so we might want to roll down the windows.  This is the woman, who made shirts into head tubins and bras on the outside of her wardrobe.  The woman who went for a walk and returned with a police escort from the far reaches of the county.  This is the crackpot who tried to scale the grandma play pen, and relieved herself in the trashcan.  A woman who tested my own mother's sanity to such an extreme as to leave us wondering who the men in white jackets would be taking away.  A woman whose memory of yesteryear rivaled that of a sage and whose recollection of the days' events were reminiscent of her days of being a babe in arms.  And to such a woman as this, I offer all the love of my heart.  For in the days when she had long since lost her voice, and mother was not able to tend to her needs, her response to a gentle word brought an innocence and purity, a wisdom and goodness that I have not seen since.  She had returned as a child to a moment of bright eyes and gratitude, and I saw her as does God.

So to everyone who suffers with extended family's near and constant presence, who bears the burden of un-rearing a parent and accepts and loves them and teaches that love to the following generation, I tip my hat, I offer my gratitude, for such love can be the key to binding the generations for eternity.

Professional Mother

What do you do well?  What defines you?  What are your talents or skills?  With what characteristics God has blessed you?

When I try to answer this I always seem to fall short, to compare my weaknesses to others' strengths and come up lacking.  It is usual an attempt to lift my spirits and find my worth and ends in a bash session.  So I asked my objective, honest 6 year old what I do well.  I take pictures.  That's it.  But later he commented as I cut his french toast in nice little squares, "You're a professional."  It still cracks me up.  Children see the best in us and see no talent greater than another.  Whether I was an executive of a major corporation or just good at taking out the trash I have value and make a valid contribution to society.

Having recently examined myself as a mother and wife, I again found myself lacking until coming upon the word belong.  They need me, I am wanted.  They suit me and I them.  I am an intricate part of, an imperfect individual in, a well-loved member of my family, my church, my community, my group of friends, and in the eyes of God.  I have risen to the much coveted status of PROFESSIONAL.  It may be my job, but more importantly it's who I am and where I belong.

Heebie-jeebies

Each of us has something that freaks us out... spiders, caterpillars, snakes, lizards, bugs...



I've seen my fair share of pestilence.  Lice in Kindergarten.  Cockroaches that can live under a Houston phone book for 3 days (mental note, step and twist.)  Box elder bugs (aka Love bugs) in the back yard so many you could hear them.  Raining lady bugs when the window was opened.  Flying mutated crickets landing on my face in the middle of the night. (Most of these were in Stephenville, TX, maybe that's part of why I was so glad to leave that barren wilderness, but I miss my in-laws.)  Locusts, grasshoppers, fireants, you name it.  Nothing, though, prepared me for the first over-reaction of my own child.  I couldn't get over my 20 mo old boy being upset by a fake lizard.  He walks around it.  Backs up when we bring it to him... he had me in stitches.

Then Elizabeth Downie posted Selma flipping out about a snake.  It's funny because this post has been in the works for 2 weeks.  Great minds think alike! Selma and the snake

Collage

What makes me...ME?

The power of a name, an interest, a place, a perspective...?  What is the community that formed you or are you the one that formed your community? As for me, I'm the result.


What make me tick?  Art deco, nature, food, color, theory, humor, religion, my personal history.  I think this is more a collage of what I'd like to be.  But aren't we really our potential?

Burnt Offerings

So today I wielded my mad cooking skills (ha!) in front of a couple of 8 year olds... the result burnt cookies.  It's pathetic.  We're supposed to be teaching them, but I think it in the sense of what not to do.  But if the example isn't right can they really be learning anything...?

Places I miss

Do you have a place you go to relax, to process, to escape?  Can you get to it readily or only in your mind?  Well y'all, I live in Texas now, and t'ain't no place to go that's perrty.  So here are a list of places I send myself mentally.  Perhaps I'll even insert a collection of links just to wet your whistle.

DIE-et

So here I am patting myself on my back for having made a FEW good choices in the last few days... Baked chips, ONE Chocolate, Subway, Salad w/ no dressing and my dear friend, who shall remain nameless has the gall to post a pic on FB of her newly baked cheesecake.

Joke of the Year

After 2 older brothers, way too much Cosby, 1 1/2 years on a mission, 10 years of marriage, nearly 2 Masters later (neither of them mine), and 2 miraculous children I learned one thing. It's simply this, humor saves lives.

My brothers teased me endlessly about my joke of the year. From then on the battle of the funniest sibling ensued. Being the youngest it fell to me as such, "She who laughs last laughs loudest." I'm sure they still suffer from memories like teaching me Karate (1st you must learn how to fall) as Dad walked around the corner. To being best friends with X-girlfriends. But it was their fault they began the process of learning the importance of laughter.

A friend kept my veins from collapsing, my mother-in-law helped me deal with having family within a 2 minute drive. An incomparable mission companion and two more boys of my own all added to the tutelage.

I have an insatiable desire to be funny. Recently told me was this valuable well tested philosophy, "We don't laugh because we're happy. We're happy because we laugh." Whether I am funny or not is left to you, but humor eases and lightens the journey and is the destination...