Apr 30, 2009

The Land of Love

Well. I finally fell in love. That's right. It's happened. This old heart of mine finally gave up its hard-boiled ways and said "Shoot Howdy! I'm done in!" (Yeah, my heart talks like that. Sounds like an old prospector.)

Ok, don't let me mislead you. Of course I have fallen in love before. I fell in love with my husband, thus the marrying and whatnot, and I fell in love with my little boy as soon as I met him, but this is the first time I have fallen in love with a house.

Wait...ok, that is not true either. I fell in love with the one I live in, that is why we bought it. And now that I think about it, there were a couple I lost my heart over before this one ever came along. Oh fine! I am a fickle fanny who is prone to lose her heart to the first charming man or house or baby that comes along! or food. Mmmmmm. Yeah, there are a few desserts I have definitely fallen in love with.

But let's focus! I'm here because I fell in love with a house. Yesterday. By some chance, I stumbled across the house of my dreams. Well, actually, I don't really know what the house is like. I was so enamored with the land it sat on, I barely glanced at the house. From the minute we started down the driveway, I knew it was true love. It wouldn't have mattered what the house was like. It was raining and I was on a runners high and that land with the 'For Sale' sign on it danced in front of me while "Dream Weaver" played in the background. I was whipped. (Whooped? Walloped? What is that word?)


And I was all ready to start packing up my house right away so that we could sell it and move, so I called the Realtor as soon as I got home and the house is going for only $450,000.00! It was a steal at any price, but I am going to tell you something I've never told anyone before and confess that we can't afford that. That's like a $4000.00 a month house payment. I checked.

So now I've been moping and pining for a house that I love, and can't have. And fantasizing. Lots of fantasizing. I picture the trees all covered with snow in the winter, and the yard filled with family and friends in the summer, and me and my husband running down to the stream with our pants rolled up - actually I'm in a sundress in this one - to dangle our feet in it. (Richard is always up for dangling his feet in a stream. In only the most manly of ways, of course.) I tried to tell myself that I was being silly, but I have finally decided that it is OK for me to be in love with it.

It is kind of like a 12 year old girl who falls in love with her young, single, art teacher. He is so much more mature that any of the boys she is surrounded by. She knows he is the one and she wants to marry him. And when she declares her undying love, he tells her that she is very "sweet" but way, way, way, too young. Her heart is broken and she swears she will never love another.

I am that 12 year old girl. I know right now that I will never stop loving this house, and no other house will ever come along that I will love as much. But in truth, when I am older, and richer, and actually in the market for a half a million dollar home, I will find the house that is right for me. I may even wonder what I ever saw in this house in the first place.

At this point in my life this house and I just were not meant to be. 12 year old girls should not get married no matter how much in love they are. And I should not sell my soul just so I can afford this house. But I can hold it up as an ideal so that when the time comes, I will know what I want. And though it might be a little pathetic for me to drive by this house from time to time (just like that guy's house that I always used to drive by in highschool) I am dumb like that(and so are most 12 year olds), and it is ok.

Apr 21, 2009

A New Meaning to the Term "Pea-Shooter"

For a while now, Harrison has been very interested in sticking his fingers in his nose. I have come to accept this as part of childhood. However, lately he likes to stick OTHER things up his nose. Little pieces of bread, small chunks of crayon, or pieces off his sucker. After he stuck part of his sucker up his nose today I threw the rest of it away, to teach him it was wrong. He was REALLY mad about that.

Last night during dinner, at the in-laws house, he stuck a pea up his nose. While we were sitting at the dinner table. I always forget that I have to watch him every second; as soon as I turn away he tries to stick something up there. So there we are, at the table. Peas up the nose. Richard's sister ran off to get us some tweezers to fish it out, but Richard didn't want to wait, so he pinched off the other nostril and told him to blow.

That pea shot out of there like a cannon, and bounced around the table for a minute, landing squarely on my niece's plate. Ha ha. Just kidding, it rolled to a stop near the salt and pepper. That would have been hilarious. But it was still funny. I'm sure us laughing about it really does not help get the point across to him. Not that anything else I am doing gets the point across.

But at least he knows how to do the farmer blow now. It is pretty handy. So today during lunch when I realized he had stuck some ham off his sandwich up his left nostril (it being the nostril of choice) I just plugged the other side, told him to blow, and out the ham came. Etiquette crisis averted!

Apr 20, 2009

Ice Cream is Good For You

It was Saturday. And like all good American citizens, my husband and were sitting in front of our computers, enjoying nap time. (And by that I mean that Harrison was napping, not us. I do spend a lot of time in front of my computer, but I don't SLEEP in front of it. I'm not a crazy person.) And then we heard the soft tinkling of music, and it took us about 5 seconds to realize what it was. The Ice Cream Man!

Richard and I ran out on the porch but couldn't see him anywhere. From the sound of the music, we figured he had to be just around the west corner and getting closer, but it sure seemed to be taking him a long time. I started wondering if it was really a guy with an ice cream cart, or maybe just a little girl on a tricycle with a boom box taped to the back, blasting out "The Music Box Dancer" because it is her favorite song.

When I was a kid we lived at the end of a really, really long driveway, so that whenever we heard the Ice Cream man, he was always long gone by the time we got out to the street. It always made me so mad. And sad.

Richard said when they were kids, they lived for enough out in the middle of nowhere that the Ice Cream man hardly ever came by, and even if he did, and they all ran out and chased him down, they would just have to say "Hi! We don't have any money cuz we're kids. But it's good to see you again buddy!"

While we stood on the porch, waiting for him to come around the corner, I watched a group of boys carrying really long sticks come running down the street toward the sound of the ice cream truck. They got to the corner, and all shouted, "Where is he? Where is he?" and then turned around and ran back up the street the way they had come, brandishing their sticks and yelling "ICECREAM MAN!"

The music stopped, so I gave up and went inside, but soon it started up again and I had to go outside, just to see. (Just like when we were kids and we heard sirens. We always had to run to the door to see the ambulance or firetruck go by. The only thing that stops me from doing it now is the fact that I can't see the main street from my door; I'd have to run a block and a half out to Main Street, and I am just not that ambitious.) I ran back out to the porch and there came the ice cream truck, but from the opposite direction than I thought he was. That is the crazy thing about the ice cream truck. Their little speaker on the top of their van has the ability to project their music out into the farthest reaches of the neighborhood, so that it bounces around off of houses and trees and makes it impossible to tell where the sound is actually coming from. It's what we in the biz call "Magicical", or sometimes "Annoying".

Those boys showed up again a few minutes later. Looking a little defeated. Probably because they didn't have any money. The truck had to have passed right by them. They all stopped at the corner and started beating on a bush with their sticks. Can't say I blame them. Lucky for me I'm not a kid anymore, so I got to just walk back into the house and sit down with my gallon of Heavenly Hash.

That is all. That's all I got. The end.

Apr 18, 2009

Just Stuff

What is it that graffiti artists love about painting on train cars so much? Is it the fact that, though they might be trapped in a dead end town (here I am making a rather broad assumption of graffitiers) at least their art work gets to see the country?

And I assume that they kind of see themselves as rebels and riff raff, so why is it that they tag things in such cutesy bubble letters?

Apr 13, 2009

Note to Self: Don't Die

I learned a hard lesson today. But now I know:
Don't watch Bones while eating dinner. Especially hamburger.

Apr 10, 2009

I am Dork, and Sometimes I Cry for No Reason

Ok, don't make fun of me. If you read Cake Wrecks, you probably already watched this video, cuz that is what led me to it. This is from Britain's Got Talent, about a cellphone salesman who wants to make it big singing opera.





So, anyhoo, I watched it. And for reason's I'm not sure I can even identify, I started to cry. I was feeling like a giant weirdo with tears streaming down my face until I saw that I wasn't the only one. One of the judges and some audience members were crying too.

But I'm still not sure why. The song was beautiful, but it was either in Latin or Italian, so I don't know what he was actually saying. But the whole thing just felt like such a triumph of the human spirit. Or something. Like I said, I don't know why it got to me. Does you? Did anyone else get a little emotional, or is it just me?

Life Could Be A Dream

So I recently read on Abby's blog about a dream she just had. It made me laugh, so I wanted to share it with you. I sure hope she won't mind. I guess I should have asked permission first, but this is the internet! The Land of Flagrant Plagiarism! (Uh, Abby, if you do mind, feel free to throw rocks at my house or steal all my tulips or whatever.)

Two nights ago I had a dream where I was looking at the display buttons on my oven and noticed for the first time that one of them said "End Of The World" and another said "End Of The World LIVE!" So it turns out that once the end of the world came about, I could watch it happen, live even, on my oven display screen, which is approximately 1.5" across. I don't know about you, but when the world comes to an end the last place I want to be is staring at my stovetop. Because that probably means I'm cooking, which happens to be one of my least favorite necessary activities ever. But then, Heidi helpfully pointed out that I could instead watch the end of the world on the 5" screen on the side of my fridge (that magically appeared just then), which naturally would afford a much better view of the Four Horsemen. I agreed that that was a far better option. Of all of my appliances, the fridge is by far my favorite as it holds all of my precious, precious goodies. If I have to die during an apocalypse, I can think of no other overly large object I'd rather spend my last moments here on earth with. I love you, Sweet Refrigerator! I will send you a Hallmark card to make this clear.

Hehehe. That is just good stuff. Interestingly, (it IS interesting. That's why I used that word.) I read this post of hers right after I typed up one of my own about dreams. Coincidence? Well, yeah, probably.

I had a dream the other night that I was being chased by a dinosaur. Not just me, but a whole town full of people. We were in this huge 4 story school and everyone was running around and screaming (of course they would be). I decided it was safer to run off on my own than to stay with the howling, trampling crowd. I guess it's possible odds were in my favor if I were with 500 other people, but I thought maybe he wouldn't even find me if I was all alone. Though the Dinosaur did seem to be eating everything, school and all.

I ran off into some little used side wing of the school, down a hall, through a room, and into the closet in the back, where there was an unused deep freeze. I crouched behind it, and was debating whether I should get inside or not. Dino-safe, maybe, but I wasn't sure if I would be able to breath, or even open the door from the inside. These were the thoughts that vexed me as I woke up.

When I told Richard I dreamed a Dinosaur was chasing me, he said "Again?" I apparently dream that a lot. I wonder what the dinosaur represents that I feel like I have to run away from it all the time?


AND THEN, last night I dreamed that someone had a couple of babies for me. I was supposed to choose between them and take one home. Hooray! My excitement didn't last though, because the baby they were really hoping I would take was square. And not in the un-hip, stick-in-the-mud kind of way. In the geometrical way. And the other baby had a mustache.

And I was all distressed. I knew I should be happy to accept a baby, no matter what, but part of me just wasn't sure I wanted a weird cube shaped baby, or one with fully developed facial hair. So I spent the rest of the dream fretting about my inability to be grateful for any baby that came my way, or accept others as they are.

Apr 9, 2009

Harrison Stole My Chili Sauce

At least, I think he did. Alls I know is, yesterday it was sitting there on the shelf like a good little jar of chilli sauce, and now it is gone. With its little friend. Yes, both of my jars of sauce are gone. Not to beat a dead horse, but I can't find my chilli sauce! And I don't know how to spell Chilli! Is it one L or two! Or is it spelled like the country! AAAA! Yeah, clearly the whole thing is pretty upsetting.

And of course I have to blame my two year old. I mean, yes, he is incredibly cute, but he is also a thief and a hoarder. We have lost many things to him over the years. For a while there, I'm pretty sure most of the stuff he ran off with went in the trash and are gone forever: car keys, vital government documents, stuff like that. And the remote to our DVD player. It was the tiniest, most miniature remote in the universe and Harrison adored it, so when it vanished without a trace we figured it had gone in the rubbish with everything else. Do you know how useless DVD players are without remotes? And, of course, they stopped making that DVD player approximately 3 hours after we bought it, so we couldn't get a replacement remote anywhere.

A couple of months ago I was noticing an annoying vibration from the subwoofer. (I think it is a subwoofer. I don't really know/care.) So Richard assessed the situation by picking it up and shaking it. (Pretty brilliant, right? He is an engineer, afterall.) He realized that there was something inside, so he shined a flashlight in this mystifying hole in the side,


and lo! What should be in there rattling around but the dvd remote! (And a quarter and a couple of spoons.) We fished it out with some ticky tacky and a couple of pencils. And Richard laughed for about 10 minutes.

I wasn't laughing though. Cuz in this house we obey the laws of physics, one of which - the Law of Inverse Necessity - states that the more urgently you need an item, the less likely your chances are of finding it. And so it was with us. We found that remote less than a week after we dropped its DVD player off at the thrift store. Argh!!

Apr 6, 2009

Tiny Ties

Here is what I did during Conference. In addition to listening of course.
I was making a couple of ties for a friend who just had a baby, so I made a bunch more for Harrison, since he has grown out of all of his.

Yes, that is Captain James T. Kirk you see there. Harrison is a lucky, lucky kid!



Sigh. Tiny Ties are so cute!

Apr 1, 2009

Just Because it is My Day, Doesn't Make Me a Fool.

It is my birthday. I am 31 today. 31!! Does that mean I am middle aged? When do the middle ages actually begin? Does it depend on my life expectancy? I don't know what that is. Seems like most of my grandparents died around 80 or 90 (correct me if I'm wrong Mom. I really just took a guess there.), so maybe I will be middle aged when I hit 40 or so? Whatevs.

I decided, in honor of this occasion, that I would write another list.

10 Reasons it is Awesome to be 31. Of course they have to be different than the reasons it is awesome to be 30 (though those ones still hold true), but I have only been 31 for like 12 hours, so....... Hey! Wait! I'm not going to make excuses for my list! I don't have to!


1. 31 is the magically age wherein you are no longer required to make excuses.

2. An old lady drove past me today wearing one of those plastic bonnet things. No umbrella for her. She didn't need one. Saw that it was snowing out, so she just donned her attractive, moisture-proof hat, and her hairdo was safe. Plus, she looked like a million bucks!


Awesome. Now, I can't wear one of those yet. I know that. In the same way that it is no longer appropriate for me to wear Tinkerbell accessories in public, the time has not yet come for me to wear this pretty headdress. But I'm thinking when I hit 40 I will be able to wear one with pride. And each year brings me closer to that glorious day.

3. I no longer have to worry about getting Hit On by guys when I go out. Yesterday, this was a huge problem, but today that problem is gone. Turning 31 has coated me in a "film of oldness" that lets all those men on the prowl out there know that there is nothing here for them to see. Phew! (The plastic rain hat can have a pretty similar effect, so those of you who aren't yet 31 may want to keep that in mind for keeping the men away.)

4. The older you get, the more stuff you can get away with. I was at DI yesterday, and this old man and his wife walked by. As they walked on, the old man passed gas in the loudest and longest fashion I think I have ever heard. A severe case of "The Vapors". And he just kept on walking, like it was no big deal. Ah, how I envy that old man. Again, I don't think I am quite there yet at 31, but I'm closer, and I can get away with, say, curlers at the grocery store. That is if I ever used curlers. And speaking of breaking wind, here is a comic that made me laugh for a good 15 minutes.

5. When you get old enough, people no longer expect as much of you. The world understands that we tire quickly, so that what, last year, would have been considered a lame attempt at a list, is this year considered "Pretty good for someone her age." Score!

(Thanks for missing me Kristina. I didn't realize how long it had been.)