Things On My To Do List That I Probably Won't Do

1. Stop ruining my 11 year old's life.
2. Figure out why the one sport my husband watches on TV is the one loved by everyone else in the world except Americans. Does he hate America?
3. Do less.
4. Figure out a way to make it look like I do more.
5. Stop calling Scramble and Words with Friends a productive use of my time.
6. Grow a super awesome garden and learn how to can my plethora of produce.
7. Nag less. (I would need the cooperation of those I nag for this).
8. Sleep through a Monday. Any Monday. They all stink.
9. Follow through on my threat to go on a looong vacation the next time my kids fight.
10. Find that calendar of daily organizational chores I printed out in January.
11. Find time to find that list.
12. Care enough about having an organized junk drawer to find the time to find that list so I know what day I was supposed to do that job.
13. Stop making to do lists for other people.
14. Start making real to do lists for myself.
15. Do the things on my For Reals This Time To Do List.

And The Lucky Winner Is... (Not The Girls With The Hair)

Midnight marked the end of my Lucky Leprechaun Give Away. Which means I not only have a winner, but can also finally take down all my St. Patrick's Day decorations.

Which basically means throwing Girl 3's leprechaun in the outside trash so she doesn't find it. Again. (I tried Friday, but she saw it and said we still needed it since St. Patrick's Day wasn't actually until Saturday).

If you're dying to know which one was hers, I'll tell you. Drumroll please...

Picture number 3! Only two people didn't guess that one, which means they either didn't read my post carefully or they'd already been celebrating St. Patrick (and his supernatural ability to drive snakes out of a snake-free country) in the traditional Irish manner of getting drunk at a parade. 

So good job folks! And, thank you all for participating. I wish I could afford to purchase Melanie's book for each one of you, but alas, our leprechaun trap failed once again. Thus we remain pot-of-goldless and I can choose only one winner.

So let's give a big shout out to...

Anne Marie!!!!

Who, as luck would have it, is a homie of mine, having also been born and raised in fabulous Burley, Idaho.

I know, I know. Not fair, right? She wins a fabulous book AND has the distinction of being a native Burleyite (Burleyian?). If only all of us had that kind of good fortune, there'd be no more need for leprechauns or traps with which to catch those sneaky bastards (pardon my Irish).

If I lived closer to my sister (i.e. back in Burley), who was a high school friend of Anne Marie's,  I would round up embarrassing old pictures of our fair winner and post them. Although, I think big hair had gone out of style by the time she was in high school. So her old pics probably aren't nearly as embarrassing as mine. 

Oh, who am I kidding.

Big hair never goes out of style in Idaho/Utah!



Case in point, a few pics I found on the intrenet when I typed in Utah hair:

The There-Wasn't-Room-Under-My-Bed-So-I'm-Storing-My-72 Hour Emergency Kit-Under-My-Hair Look

The SpongeBarbie-SquareHead

The I-Carry-All-My-Pregnancy-Weight-In-My-Hair Look

Now, maybe you think I can't be trusted since 1) I don't live in Utah and 2) I didn't actually take these pics, so they could be decades old.

And you're right. I really can't be trusted (did you see how I snuck that curse word in when you weren't even expecting it?).

However, I spent a month last summer in Northern Utah and saw women sportin' these same hair-do's.

And I saw it again when I went back at Christmas.

And, I'm pretty sure I'll see it again the next time I'm there.

It's a thing. A Southern Idaho/Utah thing.

So keep it up girls! You're beautiful even with the giant heads!

And congratulations Anne Marie! I've got your personalized and signed copy of Twitterpated ready to stick in the mail!

This Is SOOOO Much Better Than A Leprechaun Trap

You know what's better than leprechaun traps?

Well, pretty much anything, but particularly books. Especially when they come with parties.

Like the one I had last weekend for my friend, LDS author Melanie Jacobson. That's right, I know her. Jealous? Well just wait until you see the pics from the book launch party I threw her:

Look at all these yummy eats!

Melanie's not actually a giant. I am just short. And she's wearing heels, so you know, no fair, right?
Also, I'm not pregnant, this is just a terrible picture of me. And maybe I ate too many of those yummy treats.

See all these cute birdie sugar cookies? I made them. Look at the next picture to see why.

See the birdies on the top right side of the book? That's right. I made them to match. I am totally pinning this.
 You know, for all those other people on Pinterest who may need ideas for throwing a book launch party for Melanie.

See all those books? You couldn't by the end of the night.
:

I'm in pretty tight with the author, so I've already read Twitterpated and, just like her other books, it did not disappoint. If you want to get a little taste of it, you can go here. My favorite part though, next to the whole career-minded-girl-too-busy-for-a-social-life-falls-in-love plot line, is the acknowledgments page. Because I'm in there. Even though I didn't even know her when she wrote this book, so she couldn't have known I'd be throwing her a party. She's just nice like that.

Since I couldn't invite all of you to the party, I'm giving you a chance to win one of Melanie's books as part of this blog hop thing-a-ma-jigger I'm doing.

This thing: (and if you go here you'll find lots of other blogs giving away lots of other fun prizes!)

The rules for entry are pretty simple. The first one is to leave a comment for one chance to win.

The second is a little trickier (but, really, not much). Since this is a leprechaun giveaway (though you don't actually get a leprechaun) I'm throwing in a little leprechaun challenge.

Remember the leprechaun trap my Girl 3 had to build? Well, after a frantic text to my friend Carrie asking her if she had any fake gold (because I knew she would. If only she had answered my text sooner) and then a last minute trip to Target--which has an astonishing lack of St. Patrick's Day celebratory crap--and then to Party City, we were able to round up some supplies for the trap.

That's after I had to dig through old scrap booking supplies to find green paper and then brave the smells and killer dust bunnies under Girl 1's bed to retrieve a shoe box which I must have been inspired by St. Patrick himself to find. Girl 3 didn't have to do too much searching to find green paint to use for covering the  box. Although the garage floor ended up a lot greener than the box did.

She came up with the idea of a trap door that the leprechaun would fall through as he ran for the pile of "gold" (Rolos and those candy coins) at one end of the box. An idea-- Girl 1 was kind enough to point out-- that "totally copied" the one she did in first grade. She also helped by using the words "copy cat" and "little brat."

Dad implemented Girl 3's idea by cutting a whole in the top of the box. Which made it less of a secret "trap door" and more of a very noticeable hole. But he also covered the box in the green paper I really didn't want to cut out and glue, so I'm not complaining. I did do all the glue gunning of the candy to the top of the box however.

Then Girl 3 decorated the box with pictures she drew of leprechauns and their houses. And also sugarplum fairies. There's really only so much you can do with leprechauns before you've got to throw in some other holiday figures.

Girl 1's helpfulness continued the next morning when she drew fangs on the fairy and the leprechauns and then decided to eat some of the "gold." Which meant some frantic last minute re-glue gunning for me and then some more gluing for the teacher when Girl 3 didn't even make it out of the car before all the candy came off.

Anywho, all that is just a long way for me to tell you how you can be entered five, yes FIVE, times into the contest.

Along with your comment, leave your guess as to which of these leprechaun traps is Girl 3's

#1

# 2

# 3

# 4

So you got that?
1) Leave a comment for one entry
2) Guess which box is Girl 3's for four more entries (I'll give you another hint: it's not going on Pinterest).

BUT! That's not all folks!

If you become a follower of my blog today I'll enter your name one more time!
That's a grand total of six entries for the low low price of guessing, typing, and clicking!

The contest runs from March 17 - 22, so don't wait. You don't want to miss this opportunity to win a fantastic book AND to read more exciting blog posts about other "fun" holiday homework assignments!

Enter Now!

My Beef (Not Corned) With St. Patrick

You know why I don't like St. Patrick's Day?

It's not because I'm neither Irish or Catholic -- though I think that's reason enough not to celebrate it. Along with the fact that corned beef and cabbage sounds pretty disgusting. And what kind of holiday doesn't have good food? Not one worth celebrating, I'll tell you that much.*

But I could look past all of those things and still at least break out something green to wear** if it weren't for the stupid leprechauns and the traps to catch them that my kids teachers think it would be fun for us to build.

They're not. Just like it wasn't fun to build those stupid farms when my oldest girls went through kindergarten. The ones with the instructions that said "no plastic animals" and "must be done by the child."

Yeah, right. You know how many parents followed those instructions?

Two. My husband and me. And we thought we were cheating when we let Girl 1 help Girl 2 when it was her turn. Until we got to the open house and saw all the freshly painted wood farms with the cute plastic animals. Girl 2's sad half painted milk carton and little horses hand shaped from clay with only her sister's help, looked even sadder next to the farms of kids whose parents care.

Especially since most of her horses' legs had broken upon transport from home to school. We had to tell people Girl 2 had actually made a glue farm and her broken-legged horses were laying on their sides waiting to be put down. And wasn't that clever of her to think of that?

Not our proudest moment as parents.

So you can imagine our excitement when, due to budget cuts, Girl 3 didn't have to make a farm last year when she was in kindergarten. And I guess we got a little too comfortable and assumed there would be no first grade leprechaun trap.

Wrong.

The paper came home last week. And I read it and groaned. Which sounded a lot like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, except I yelled "Leperchaaaaaaaaauns!!" instead of "Stellllll-A!"

And then I "forgot" about it.

Luckily Girl 3 remembered.   Which means she and Daddy will get some project time together tomorrow. After I remind him that I built the last one that required either a lever or a pulley. Both of which he insisted he not only didn't know how to construct, but also wasn't entirely sure what they were. So probably a good thing he went into law and not construction.

But this time he doesn't have an excuse. The assignment is only to build a trap. And since he's the one who ruined any chance of cheating by throwing away Girl 2's trap with all my fancy pulleys AND levers (because I'm an overachiever), he's the one who gets to build our last leprechaun trap ever.
And this one better work because if Girl 3 doesn't bring home some leprechauns, I may have to do like those one guys did to Christmas (according to Glen Beck) and declare war on St. Patrick's Day.

Until then, Happy Leprechaun Trapping to me and a wish to all of you that you never have to do the same.



* Except this year I am celebrating it by doing a blog hop and giving away this book:



So come back Friday for a chance to win in my Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop!


** To be honest, I spend a lot of  time in my green Monterrey Bay sweatshirt, so it shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice to wear it on Saturday. Again. With my sweat pants.

A Meme About Me.

So you've seen these meme things, right? Like this one:

I don't know where they came from or why they're here or what meme even means, but I'm about to make one of my own. Except it won't look like a meme. Because I really don't know how to work that kind of magic.

The thing that inspired me to make my own is the fact that no fewer than five people have asked me to take them shopping over the past few months. I even got to do a second round of What Not to Wear on my friend Sheridan, though I did not push the bra issue this time. We just found stuff that worked without one. That's how good I am.

So I got to thinking, what am I doing herding cats? Clearly my real talent lies in shopping. Particularly when I can spend other people's money. So why not make that my career?

Then my eleven year old asked if she and her friend could do a make-over on me. Because, in her words  "they could make me look cute." And when I told her people were always asking me to do make-overs on them because they already think I dress cute, she laughed. For a really impolite amount of time. And this is the girl who-- up until six months ago when I hid them--will pair anything with black soccer shorts. Sparkly red top? You bet. Blue polo shirt? Of course. Floral patterned blouse? Why not.

This same girl who, on more than one occassion--namely, mornings-- has shouted at me, "Why do you care so much about things matching!" when I've gently suggested that perhaps a satiny magenta top is not the best choice when wearing yellow sweat pants. The same girl who can barely handle trying on one thing in a store before she's begging to go home.

And yet, she thinks I can't dress myself. Hmm. I guess it's all about perspective.

So, without further ado, here is my sad attempt at a meme...

I AM ME

What My Friends Think I Wear



What My 11 Year Old Thinks I Wear

What My Husband Wishes I Would Wear
(nothing, get it?)

What I Wish I Could Wear


 



What I Think I Wear

What I Actually Wore Four Out of Seven Days Last Week.
When I Wasn't Wearing My Yoga Pants.
And Sometimes I Switched Sweatshirts.
And No I Don't Do Laundry Every Day.
More Like Once A Week.
But There Was Less Of It This Week.
But These Sweatpants Were Pretty Dirty By Then.
They're Clean Now Though.
And Back On.







I'm An Ambassador To What?

Ninety-seven years ago today this lady was born:

Gorgeous, huh? That's my grandma in 1935 when she was twenty years old, living with her parents in Idaho in the middle of the Great Depression.

In 1937 she married this guy:

Who she described like this, "He had a Hitler mustache and wore shiny boots and riding britches. And when he would drive up in the big Chrysler Coupe, I thought he was really something."
"He had the biggest ego I had ever known anyone to have, and his mustache always smelled a little bad when I kissed him, but I decided I would marry him."

Clearly she was madly in love with him. But maybe not so much his mustache. Kinda reminds me of how I felt about my husband's sideburns before we got married. (You can take a gander at them here).

Today I took this picture of two of their seven kids with their spouses and some of their kids and grand kids:

Twenty-one of my grandma's eighty-six descendants are pictured here (my three aren't because there was just no reason to add three more kids to this mix at Disneyland. Talk about herding cats). And that number doesn't include all the in-laws -- most of whom have stuck around. Each one of us who had the privilege of knowing Grandma thinks she loved him or her best of all. It's what she told each of us. It's what her parents told each of their twelve children.

I got to thinking a lot about my grandma this week when I signed up to be a blog ambassador for the 1940 US Census. Why would I do that, you ask? Because one, I like history--especially the family kind. And two, sometimes I'm a little impulsive and sign up for things before I know what in the heck I'm doing. And three, I can tell people I'm an ambassador now. Which makes me sound important.

A census is pretty cool because it can tell you a lot about someone if you look at the right things. For example the 1940 US Census could tell you my grandparents lived in Helena, Montana where Grandpa was doing construction and mining for gold. It could tell you Grandpa was thirty-eight at the time, while Grandma was only twenty-five. It would also tell you they didn't have any kids.

What it wouldn't tell you is that they were living in a little trailer house, which wasn't very nice, but a vast improvement over the box tent they'd been living in on the Snake River while my grandpa built a dam. It also wouldn't tell you that my grandma wasn't one of those cookie making grandmas. She grew up so poor that her mom never had anything besides milk and flour to cook with, so my grandma never learned. Although she did become a pretty proficient shopper once she did have some money. I guess shopping held more interest for her than cooking.

The Census also won't tell you that Grandma was kind and generous. She worried a lot about appearances, but she never valued things over people. In fact, she saw the worth of everyone she met, whether that person recognized her own value or not. My grandma taught me how to shop, but she also taught me what charity really is.

A census can tell you about a person, but it can't tell you who a person is.

So why does it matter?

Because it can lead you to people who can tell you who a person is. Or was. People like my grandma's brother Dick who published a book all about my grandma's family that includes memories from my grandma herself. Memories she told me, but that I don't have written down anywhere. Memories she can't tell me anymore.

Grandma has been gone for six years now. Ten really, if you count the dementia years. But I still think about her all the time. I had forgotten, though, that today was her birthday until I started thinking about what I was going to say about her when I wrote this post. But now I know.

Happy Birthday Grandma! I love you best of all!

A Conversation-less Tuesday

No Tuesday breakfast for me friends. Instead I had a morning of being a responsible parent after deciding not to send Girl 3 to school with a cough. And a fever. Because you know if it had only been a cough there's no way I would have missed breakfast. But I made the sacrifice this morning.

Which really wasn't so terrible. Girl 3 was pretty cheerful for being sick and I got some things done. Still, I was looking forward to hearing about Andi's trip to Hawaii. I need someone to live vicariously through at the moment so as not to be tempted into watching The Kardashians again.

Sadly, no breakfast for me means no fascinating and/or hilarious insights to share with you. So, instead, I'll give you a little update on Candy and how she's adjusting to American life.

Turns out, quite well. She's decided to embrace that most homegrown of American religions: Mormonism. Of course those of us in the breakfast group, who happen to also be practitioners of that same religion, were relieved to hear she had studied the missionary materials in Mandarin. So at least she's got some inkling of what she's gotten herself into.

The thing not included in her materials though was what kind of underwear to wear on her baptism day. And no I don't mean the "magic" kind you've maybe heard about. I mean the basic white kind.

Because, you see, we baptize by immersion. This represents, not only a washing away of our sins, but also a rebirth. And we wear white when we are baptized to represent purity. But mostly, If you're wearing something white that's going to get wet, you need to have something white on underneath it. Because a hot pink bra? It's gonna show.

Not that Candy's bra was hot pink, but it wasn't white. And luckily Paula's mom figured this out before the baptism and gave Paula the assignment of finding Candy some white underwear. Which Candy didn't totally understand because she showed Paula the white bra she did have. With the green flowers on it. And she said, "This okay. This cute." and Paula didn't disagree, but still went to Walgreens in hopes of finding plain white underwear. Which isn't too hard when it come to panties. But bras are a different story. Especially when you only have an hour.

But she did it. She found some white granny panties and an ugly bra just in the nick of time. Paula presented them to Candy, apologizing that they weren't very cute* and Candy,who still seemed a little confused, graciously accepted and wore them. Thus an awkward after-baptism moment was successfully averted.

There is some concern, however, that Candy will be presenting future baptismal candidates with gifts of underwear. And while Paula successfully fulfilled her assignment, her mom didn't fare as well. She had the job of keeping Paula's twelve year old daughter away from any make-up other than mascara and clear lip gloss. So imagine Paula's surprise when they were all ready to walk out the door to the baptism and she happened to glance at her daughter. Who was wearing bright red lip gloss. And blue eye shadow. A lot of it.

Which begs the question, can't a mom catch a break?

No, no she can't.

But at least she didn't have to be embarrassed for her sister-in-law that day.

* Wait'll she gets a load of the "magic" kind some day (which, by the way, aren't magic at all. But it would be cool if they were. Maybe something like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak).