Pun'kins

Last weekend we spent time with our cousins at the pumpkin patch.

Here are the girls with their little cousin Emma. Some lady stepped into the picture at the last moment and I got an unfortunate shot of her rear end. Oh well.

...and this ladies and gentlemen, is our little preemie nephew Zach at 5 1/2 months. He's a happy little breastfed baby, can ya tell!?

They Like Us! They Really, Really Like Us!

We finally found a house to rent. Hooray!

We can start moving in this coming Monday. Hooray!

We'll be living right across the street from our Bishop. Hooray!

I'll be close enough to walk to work. Hooray!

We can even walk to church, the historic downtown area and the community pool. Hooray!

Now I have to really get serious about moving and packing and cleaning and all that that entails. Boo. Ugh. and Boo!

I'm feeling very overwhelmed at the thought of it, but am so thankful that we finally found someone who would allow pets and rent to us. Yay. Boo. Yay.

Oh, the Politics (and I'm not talking about the election)

At my restaurant job, they decided to train me as a fill-in hostess. Saturday night was the first night that I was on my own.

Our restaurant is run a bit differently from others (from my understanding). Our waitresses don't have sections of tables that are theirs, rather the tables are assigned as customers are seated, and it's the hostess' job to make sure the tables and amount of customers are as evenly distributed as possible so that the waitresses make as close to the same amount of tips as possible.

This is where the politics enter. I've seen the waitresses throw fits because they didn't get what they perceived as an even amount of customers. The hostess training me told me that no other restaurant would put up with this, but at ours we do. Go figure.

At any rate, Saturday was thankfully slow for my maiden voyage hostessing. The tables and sitting times were working out perfectly. One waitress was going to get 3 more customers than the other, but that's as good as I could make it. I was feeling fairly confident (and competent, for that matter).

Well, when it came time to add up the tips, one of the waitresses got $114, the other about $65, for reasons that were out of my control. I could immediately smell trouble. My only hope was that the waitress with the big bucks would just keep it to herself.

Guess what? She didn't. Miss Got-Bucks comes up, picks up her tickets and declares, "Holy Cow! Oh wow! I had a better night than I thought! Woo look at this!" Then the other waitress, gets all sullen and starts going over her tickets with a fine tooth comb, and complaining, "Well, it didn't even pay me to show up tonight." (Although $65 is nothing to sneeze at in my opinion, considering that the hostess doesn't even GET any tips!)

I tried to explain that I did my best to keep it even, but it fell on deaf ears. I'm a terrible hostess because I didn't force the customers to tip her exactly the same as the other waitress. Grrrrrrr.

I'm sure that suggesting that they pool their tips and then divvy them up equally wouldn't go over too well. It would take all the competition out of it, and make the hostess' job way too easy and less stressful. Or maybe they could just be good sports, and not gloat, or fight over customers and tips. Yeah, that's not going to happen either. Oh well.

21 Years Ago Today...

My little boy was born. Of course he's not so little anymore, but he'll always be MY little boy.

Cam was a great little kid. Everyone made such a fuss about how difficult it was to raise a boy and how rambunctious and hard to control boys were. Well, that wasn't my experience at all. Cam was an extremely mellow child. When he was 2 my mom and I would take him and go antique shopping. We would kind of see the store owners cringe when they saw Cam come in with us, but he was always very content just looking at things. If something caught his eye he would be content just to look at it for the longest time and absorb every little detail of it.
I would often get comments from people who would be surprised at my son's mellow behavior. Of course I would chalk it up to my superior parenting skills, but I now realize that it was just his personality and had nothing to do with me at all (energetic child Sis came along and gave me that reality check!)

Cam always loved vehicles and trains of all kinds. He had to have a car in each hand when we left to go somewhere and he called them "go-go's". His dad taught him all about trains when he was very young and it wasn't unusual to go by the train yard and hear him in the back seat naming all the cars he saw, "hopper car, auto rack, tank car", etc. He also knew the difference between a diesel and steam locomotive.

Cam has an eye for details. When he was little he would draw vehicles and wouldn't be satisfied until he had drawn every reflector and lug nut on them. He is now majoring in computer animation in college and I think his eye for detail is now paying off for him. He's done some amazing projects and sculptures.

Cam is an excellent big brother. He's always set a good example for all his little sisters. I think honesty and patience are two of his strong suits.

Anyway, he's just an all around great kid (can I still call him a kid now that he's in his 20's?), and I'm an extremely lucky mom to have him for a son. Happy Birthday Cam!

A Trip to the City

Cam turns 21 on Wednesday, so we made a trip to San Francisco Sunday to spend the day with him.

We started out early---tried to leave by 8am, but at least the girls and I were loaded to go in the car at 8:20 (Sis and I even both showered and did full hair and make-up). And there we sat...because anytime Mike goes with us, we always end up waiting for him. I'm not sure what last minute things he always finds to do, but he's putting his manly gender to shame when he has 4 girls that are ready to go before he is!

It was a beautiful day in the bay area. Sunny and warm. And let me tell ya, we were ready for warm after we got snow (yes, snow!) on Friday (it didn't stick, but still!).

I got Cam some luggage because he and his girlfriend Cassie are going to Disneyland on Thursday and he had nothing but a black plastic garbage bag to pack his belongings in, and that would be a nightmare to check in and out at the airport (ok, so he actually has a small duffel bag, but the garbage bag sounded more dramatic).

I hid little goodies in all the compartments of his luggage. Such college guy staples as mac and cheese, Cheezit, Skittles and the like.

We then headed for Golden Gate Park and walked around Stow Lake. It was really pretty. Fleet Week was going on at the wharf and we were treated to a show by the Blue Angels. Very cool...and loud.

Lots of photo ops and cute turtles and geese abound at Stow Lake.



Even after our very filling lunch at Chipotle (my first time there...honestly those burritos are the size of a small vehicle, but SO good!), everyone was pushing to have Cam's birthday pie. (He requested my famous puddin' pie-an Oreo cookie crust filled with chocolate and vanilla pudding- instead of cake.) We headed to the beach for pie eating. It was good, but windy!

Lots of playing in the waves ensued along with more photo ops.



We parted ways at around 6pm. We were actually on the freeway at 6:00--We made it across the Bay Bridge at 7:20pm. It took us that long to go maybe all of 5 miles. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I'll give the girls credit though, they never complained. Nat entertained herself by writing stories about potatoes and someone named Mr. B who had to go pee. Sis and Shel entertained themselves by taking (hundreds) of photos of themselves,



(yeah, there's lots more just like that, but you get the idea...) and Mike gave me a running commentary on all the interesting things found on the side of the road. He resisted getting out and picking up very handy items like bungee cords, gloves and towels. That showed real restraint. We even saw an old rat walking along the roadside. Fun times.

It was definitely hardest on me, the driver. I was beginning to get a little road rage.

I guess in addition to all the extra people in town for fleet week, there was also traffic from people attending the 49ers and Raiders' football games. So much for the less traffic on Sunday theory.

We were pooped when we got home, but it was a fun trip. We love spending time with Cam and Cass, and we had some serious family bonding time crammed into my car for hours on end (inching along...aaarggg!).

The Art of Photography, Dance, and Friendship

So as I said in my previous post, we had a real, honest-to-goodness photographer come out and take photos of us getting ready for our dance performance.

I was so impressed by the detail that her eye caught, versus what we normal humans see. She has a true talent.

I asked her if she wouldn't mind photographing me in my cabaret costume before I put on my more tribal style costume for the performance.

I love how she caught the movement.

This photographer has a special place in my heart, as she is my ex-sister-in-law. (Although I really hate putting "ex" in front of anyone's title). I prefer to call her my kids' aunt.

We haven't spoken for 13 or so years, I guess. We had just recently (over the past year) gotten back in touch by reading each other's blogs. I am thankful that we are now friends again. I am really flattered that she was interested enough in our troupe and in bellydance to come photograph us. Thanks, Karen!

Pictures from our Dance Performance

Our troupe danced at a local festival this weekend. Here are some photos. We also had a professional photographer come and take pictures of us getting ready and rehearsing. Can't wait to see those, but for now these will do:

Paid Exercise--Woo!

So at my print shop job, we have about a billion 2-color decals we're printing. (A billion was my rough estimate, but I was actually informed it's only 800, well 2-colors so that means 1600 impressions. Sure seems like a billion, give-or-take.)

These decals are 4'x6' sheets and we print them on our biggest press which we call "Bob" (for reasons unknown to me). My job the other day was to grab one end of the decal out of the press, while another "highly skilled production assistant" grabbed the other end. We then took the decal towards the back of the shop, around another press and placed it on the conveyor that takes it through the big UV heater-thingy that cures the ink. The other schmuck, I mean worker, then walked back to Bob, while I skirted around the big heater thingy and caught the decal on the way out, stacked it, and then made the rest of my circuit back to where I started.

47 steps total each time. We did it 367 times that day. That's over 17,000 steps. Whew! I kind of felt it too! It is said that we should each walk 10,000 steps a day, so I definitely achieved my quota that day!

The boss came out to check on our progress, and I told him I wanted to be paid by the mile instead of the hour that day. He said he couldn't do that, but he wouldn't charge me for the exercise class. Funny guy, that boss.

We did another 100 or so yesterday and finished all the blue ink (I know that doesn't add up to 800, but some other "highly skilled production assistants" had their turn on another day). So it looks like I'll still be getting plenty of exercise in the coming week. Woo-hoo!

Hair and Hairy Hamsters

I cut Nat and Shel's hair a couple nights ago. Just a trim on Shelby's, but took quite a bit off of Nat's. Now they look even more alike.


I was proud of Nat today. She has been working with her hamster every day and today it paid off. She was finally able to hold him.

We've had Otis for about 3 weeks and he's been a bit shy and has been a biter. I'll give Nat credit though, she's been able to coax him out into his ball, then transfer him into a little open fence type cage where she pets him. She has slowly worked with him, all on her own accord.

Way to go, Nat! Maybe she'll follow in Cesar Millan's footsteps and become the Hamster Whisperer!

A Letter To A Teen

Dear Teenager,

I am mean. I admit it. It's not fair. I don't know the whole story. There's a good explanation. And I know it's not what I think.

However, I was once a careless, irresponsible, immortal teenager. I did far worse things than you. I have regrets. I sometimes cringe when I look back on some of my choices. I often wonder how I didn't get hurt...or worse.

I am sincerely trying to do what's best to keep you safe and teach you responsibility. If that means that you don't speak to me for days, and that you resent me, and wish I'd fall off the face of the earth, I'm willing to pay the price, as difficult as that is.

I wish I could always let you do what ever you want and that your life was nothing but one fantastic adventure after another, but that won't teach you about the real world. The real world is harsh. Bosses are harsh, reality is harsh, paying your own bills and buying your own groceries is harsh.

Being entirely responsible for your own well being is tough, and that's when making a good decision vs a poor decision is crucial. You need to learn that now, and not when there's no one around to help you.

You'll look back someday and know how good you had it, back before you were officially a grown up. I know that you long for your freedom and you will have it before you know it. Just remember that I'm being mean for a reason, that I'm being unfair for a reason, and that it will all make sense to you someday.

Love, Mom

Sacrament Bread

Why is it that the bread passed during Sacrament at Church tastes so good? My girls often wonder this. Tearing up Wonder Bread into small pieces at home and eating them just isn't the same. It just tastes like bland old white bread (they know, they've tried).

Today during Sacrament, Natalie whispers to me, "Why does the bread always taste so good?" I told her that I think it's because of the blessing they give it.

She then says, "So we're eating the blessing?"

Hmmm...maybe we are.

Button, Button, Who's Got The Button? Me, Apparently.

Remember earlier in the week when I crowned myself the idiot du jour over screwing up the button job? Well, today I got the news that guess what? The customer ordered the wrong button to be printed, so I had to do them all over again! All 300 of them. Whoopee...

The button machine is not at all state of the art or automated in any way. Let's just say it's very labor intensive and to make one button you need to pull on the handle twice.

Yeah, me and the button making machine are intimate friends now. The upside is that the muscle in my right arm is getting bigger.

Just say NO to buttons people, some over-worked print shop employee will thank you.

Miss Moo Turns 9

My little girl celebrated her ninth birthday today. As is my tradition, I will dedicate a post to her.

One of her nicknames is Miss Moo. "Moo" was her nursing word, and it kind of just stuck. Poor kid.

This is the child I had for my sister (not on purpose, genetics are just a funny thing). Shelby is so like her aunt that sometimes it's a bit scary.

First the hair. They both have this deceptively thick, stick straight, dark blond hair (well, my sister's hair was dark blond as a child anyway--I haven't seen her natural color since she was in junior high school.)

Nat and Shel

Then they both have ice blue eyes. Shelby didn't get the dark blue eyes from her daddy's side of the family, she got my sister's eyes.

Aunt Tracy can be a bit of a neat freak, and more than once I've caught Shelby in her room organizing stuff, and once she came to me and said, "I'm bored, can I clean the bathroom mirrors?" (Yeah, like I had to think about that one!), but what kind of kid thinks it's fun to clean stuff?

Both Auntie and Shelby have incredibly poor eyesight and had to get glasses at an early age (although Shel will only wear them at school when she has to), and after Shelby almost flunked 3rd grade due to her poor math grades, my sister confessed that she just never really got math either and really struggled with it.

Besides being her auntie's mini-me, Shelby is a wonderful sister. She's a kind little girl that loves animals (just like aunt Tracy coincidentally). I think the most common adjective I've heard to describe her (especially from her teachers) is "sweet".

Shel can be a bit of a "blonde" at times, but she has no problem laughing at herself. She is tiny for her age, but dynamite comes in small packages, as they say.

She also would love to be a teenager NOW. She still likes to play little girl stuff, but if she had her way she would dress like a teen, have a cell phone, contact lenses and date boys.

Shelby is an absolute baby lover. She's very competent when it comes to holding, changing and cuddling little ones (Ha! Aunt Tracy, one thing that differs between you two!) Shelby was a little over 2 1/2 when Nat came along and I remember how she would go stick her pinky knuckle into Nat's mouth to soothe her when she fussed, and she could change Nat's diapers by herself by the time she was 3. (Hey, Nat was #4, so I was pretty lax by then and didn't mind dirty fingers in the baby's mouth, or a toddler changing the diaper. I knew she'd live through it.)

So yes, I'm blessed to be her mom, though I'm still convinced she's more genetically related to my sister. I'm excited to see her grow into a young woman and see where her life leads her.

Sale-ing Along

I've been trying to organize and do a yard sale all summer, and finally got it together this weekend. I'm no stranger to doing yard sales. It seems I've never had much money, so anytime I wanted to go on a trip, or one of the kid's birthdays was coming up, or if I just wanted some extra money for a splurge, I've had a yard sale.

I remember doing one to finance a trip to L.A. to attend a La Leche League Conference.  Cam was only 2 and I saved and scrimped and sold anything that wasn't nailed down so that we could ride Amtrak to Anaheim and attend the conference with my best friend and her little girl. We had a wonderful time. It was money well spent.

Now that we're contemplating moving, I am really in the clean out and get rid of mode. I had a lot of extraneous day care toys to unload, as well as kitchen stuff that's piled up. Mike even went through the garage and I was pretty proud that he was actually getting rid of stuff. I know it wasn't easy for him because he's such an "I might need this someday" person!

I always find it funny that the things I expect people to go crazy over generally don't sell and the things I think no one could possibly want go first. It's just weird.

I once had a bunch of stuff donated to me for a yard sale and there was some ugly (to me) pottery pieces among the stuff. I marked it 50 cents each, and the day of the sale I had a couple ladies almost killing each other over it. Turns out it was very collectible McCoy pottery. One man's trash is another's treasure indeed!

This time I had a bunch of holiday decorations to sell that used to be my mom's. She would decorate her house for each holiday with adorable items. I wish I had the motivation to do that, but I don't, so I decided to sell it.

My favorite customers of the day were a young pregnant woman, her little 3ish year-old son, and her mother. They touched me because seventeen or so years ago it could've been me and my mom and my little Cam. The grandma bought one of my son's old toys for her grandson, and was thrilled to buy my mom's Thanksgiving turkey creamer and sugar bowl as well as a Thanksgiving table cloth and hot pads. It just really brought back fond memories of how my mom enjoyed buying stuff for me and the kids and how much fun we used to have on our outings together.

I also had another young woman with a toddler buy a couple of mom's Halloween decorations. She was very nice, and I found out that she's a blogger! So now I have a new blogging friend that I've actually met in the flesh. Fun!

It was a lot of work, but we had a successful sale. It's gratifying to me to see someone excited to take something home and it makes me feel good to know it's going to get used and appreciated rather than sit in a box for years on end. And the money is nice too!

Idiot Du Jour

Well, all that bragging about being productive at work kind of backfired on me today. I'm no stranger to the printing business, and I know that mistakes ALWAYS happen, no matter how long you've been in the business, it's just unavoidable. Envelopes get printed upside down, things get cut wrong, a typo gets through unnoticed... and I've already had a couple minor screw ups in my two weeks at my new job.

Today I was the idiot of the day though. I got a cursory lesson in how to make buttons and was turned loose to do 300 buttons that need to ship out tomorrow. I got into a rhythm and was cooking right along when one of the other employees came by and picked up a button and looked at it. "I guess this one goes in the trash", he said. I wasn't quite sure what he meant, as it looked ok to me. Then he clarified by pointing out that the pin back was on crooked. Uh oh... well, no one told me to check that the pin back was in the right spot... oops!

I broke the news to the boss, that I had screwed up nearly half the order, and he took it in stride thankfully, and the two other employees sympathized with me, and admitted that a lot of times one is only given half the instructions and pretty much left on their own to figure out the rest, but I've been in the printing business long enough to know that you always check the first one and make sure it's perfect. Paying attention to detail is crucial, and I didn't and could have kicked myself.

I told the other two guys that I should make a button that says, "Idiot of the Day" and wear it today, and then whoever screws up can wear it each day. They laughed and said that we'd definitely need more than one button! Yeah, some days are like that. Sigh...

All Work And No Play

Well, since the correctional officer job has been put on "budgetary hold" by our county, and my snack bar job at the lodge ended after Labor Day, I went job hunting and found a job at a print shop I used to work at some 9 years ago (before I got pregnant and focused on raising my second batch of babies).

My former employers were thrilled to have me back and gave me the hours I wanted, working 8-2 while the girls are in school. I'm still also working at the lodge waitressing/bussing/hostessing on Friday and Saturday nights, plus 2 Wednesday nights a month. Then I teach Sunday school at church, teach a belly dance class on Thursday nights, have belly dance rehearsals on Monday nights and I decided I just wasn't quite busy enough, so I'm cleaning out the garage and organizing a yard sale for this weekend. I'm must be out of my mind.

I'm liking my job. I'm very productive. I mean, there's actually a product at the end of my day (well several really). It's very rewarding to look at a pile of signs, or business cards or a banner and say, "I did that, Ta-dah!" (I usually leave the Ta-dah! out though).

It got me thinking, and I began comparing and contrasting my printing job with how I've spent the last three years doing daycare. It's very fulfilling to me to raise my own kids, but at the end of a day of daycare I certainly never felt like, "Look what I did. Ta-dah!" I just felt drained and overwhelmed.

There is certainly not any job more important than caring for children, but you just don't have anything to show for your toils at the end of the day (well for me I had a house that was trashed, but other than that...). No one looks and says, "Wow, that kid is wonderfully well fed, and emotionally satisfied." But they do notice if the child has fallen and gotten a scrape or is in a foul mood.

I'm sure other people feel quite fulfilled caring for other people's children. I just didn't. It wasn't my passion and I think towards the end I was getting kind of depressed being cooped up all day refereeing quarrels, nagging about homework and cleaning up spills. I hope that doesn't make me a horrible person, I just don't think caring for others' children is my life's calling.

At any rate, because of my very hectic schedule, my blogging has kind of been put on the back burner. Even getting 2 brains cells together to produce a coherent post is a challenge. Hence this rambling and rather inarticulate offering. Oh, well, I'll try to do better next time.

House Hunting

We've been looking for a place to rent and have looked at a lot of houses recently. It amazes me how even $100 more in rent can make a huge difference in the quality of house. We've seriously seen some real dives, and then for $125 more, seen a really nice house.

Our stumbling block at this point is finding a place that will take pets, dogs in particular, so the search continues...

Today on a local website I came across this dandy of an ad for a house to rent and it made me chuckle. It sounds more like a desperate plea for permanent tenants:

"Private, clean house on 3/4 acre. Big deck with trees all around. This would be a great place for a couple with one or two children or just the two of you who would love this place and live here for a long time and make it your home."

I guess listing the important details like how many bedrooms and bathrooms didn't occur to them!

Sour Face

I bought Shelby some Altoids sour candies the other day, and on our drive home she says, "My mouth can already taste these and I haven't opened them yet!"

Isn't it funny how just thinking about sour can get our mouth all watery? I like how she put it though.

I Just Want to Eat You Up!

Why is it when something is just adorable we want to eat it up? That's so weird, isn't it? Babies toes do it to me. I seriously want to eat them up. Others want to eat the whole baby, not me, just the toes please.

It's not that you really want to eat eat them. It's that you somehow want to absorb or envelope the cuteness and keep that squooshy feeling forever. Well, that's my theory anyway.

In the car yesterday Mike and Nat were looking at all the photos that the girls have taken on my cell phone. Ninety percent of the photos were of our dog Suey.

When asked by Daddy why there were so many pictures of the dog, Nat replied, "She's just SO CUTE! I want to take her picture, then print it out and eat it!"

That made me chuckle. I'm glad she draws the line at eating a dog, but she wouldn't mind consuming a photo!

My Dad Played Six Man Football

My dad was on the very first football team at his high school. My aunt has been sending me photos that have been posted on a reunion site. It's been really cool to see my dad in his younger days and I have gotten a kick out of reading the captions.

Their high school played six man football, and on further research this is what I found out about it from Wikipedia (if you're at all interested):

Six-man football was developed in 1934 by Chester Nebraska High School coach Stephen Epler as an alternative means for small high schools to field a football team during the Great Depression. (My dad played in the late 40's early 50's. He graduated in 1951).

Six-man is a fast-moving game played on an 80-yard long by 40-yard wide field (instead of the normal 100-yd by 160-ft field used in 11-man football. Furthermore, the game specifies a 15 yard distance from the line of scrimmage for a first down, instead of the normal 10 yards.

And apparently some smaller schools and private schools still play 6 Man.

At any rate, here are some of the photos, with the captions from one of the former players and a friend of my dad:

(My dad is the one you can barely see who's head is just about ready to hit the ground). "If you are wondering about a lineman going down field, in 6 man anybody could go out for a pass. Just one of the different rules. Photographer was George Hatch. He worked on the ice deck and then opened a studio in the [town's] Theater for a while."

"Our field, slight lack of grass. Dick T. carrying the ball (Coach gave him hell, cause he didn't have the end covered), and Chuck (my dad) about to Kill somebody. He weighed all of 135 pounds and was the hardest hitter on the team. Don't remember if we couldn't afford long socks or didn't like them."

This may be my favorite photo of the bunch. My dad is second from left, and is charging in mid-air. From what I've heard about him in his younger days, he was quite a scrapper.

John S. has just handed the ball off to Chuck (dad)... Coach got after me for not doing more of a fake, got after Chuck for the way he's carrying the ball and Don R. for staying on the ground. He didn't miss much.

On the left Jim B., John S., Chuck (dad #71) leading the way. You like facial expressions check these out. [Opposing team] had grass, but I don't think they watered much.

Tech Support Killed My Phone's Battery

Mike has his own computer. A laptop. Mind you he is a complete computer illiterate, but he likes to go online and check his email and download music and such. Of course I always have to go help him every time because he forgets how to do everything between sessions, but nonetheless he has his own computer.

When he got his computer we purchased a wireless router and I was pretty proud of myself for installing it and setting up a network. However, the rotten little router has been temperamental and inexplicably will lose the connection. I generally unplug it, let it sit a while, plug it all back in and we're good to go again. Not so this last time. I tried everything and we even called in our tech-savvy nephew to look at it, but it just wouldn't work.

Mike has been all worked up because he hasn't been able to use his laptop, so today he proposes that we go buy a new router. I am not willing to give up until I've tried everything, so I go online for troubleshooting, and the install guide, and the upgrade, etc. No luck. I finally decide to call tech support.

I end up talking to a nice East Indian fellow, and we go through a lot of unplugging and ip configs, and resetting with no luck. I am on the phone an hour by now, and he decides he needs to send me to a level 2 tech. The level 2 tech comes on with an even heavier accent, and away we go again...unplug, replug, ip config, ping something or other, connection status blah blah blah, and by the third time we do this I tell him, "Ok I'm done, I'm going to trash this piece of flip [router] and go get a new one. Seriously, I've had it." He convinces me to hang in there through one more attempt and to restart my computer and Viola! finally it works!

He explains to me that the computer wasn't communicating with the router even though the router was communicating with the computer. So the computer was sulking because it didn't like the router for some reason and it was saying "Lalalalalala, I'm not listening." or some such as I understand it, and somehow this dude in India was able to persuade it, or slap it upside the head via the phone line and get it to cooperate with the router again. It only took 113 minutes on the phone. By the end of the call my ear hurt, I was starving for lunch, and the phone battery was dying.

But it was successful and Mike can get online again now. It wasn't even 5 minutes before he was asking me for help, just like old times!

I made myself a tuna sandwich then went to my favorite Cake Wrecks blog and found these two entries: Fireman cake, and Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys. Honest to Pete, I laughed so hard I was snorting and had tears running down my face. I don't know if it was because I was so rummy from my marathon tech support session or if these entries are actually that funny.

Sometimes They Get It!

Husband tells me tonight that he was talking to the nice young couple down the street from us and found out they're looking for a home to buy. He told them we were probably going to do a short sale with ours and they were pretty excited about it.

And guess what? He told them that they could look at the house...

...as soon as he got clearance from me that it was ok to have people come look at the house.

Yes, he finally gets that I don't like nice people traipsing through my house without proper warning. And that it makes a much better impression on people when the house is in a semi-respectable state of cleanliness. Hallelujah!

So as soon as I get a day off, I'll get a shovel or a backhoe or stick of dynamite or something and clean the place up and maybe we can get it sold.

And They're Off!

To School!

Shelby is in 4th grade, Nat is in 1st. Now that Nat's out of kindergarten, she'll be going full days to school. It's going to be weird--for me that is. All my babies are officially in school full days. The end of an era of sorts.

Sis is a senior. She's not dressed up, because she's in Link Crew (hence the t-shirt), which is the group of kids that does the new student orientation (yesterday) and helps students find their classes and such today. She was very excited about going back to school because she's so social and involved with everything.

Sis had someone side-swipe her yesterday. She was heading back home from her orthodontic appointment and was in a left turn lane. Someone behind her got impatient and went around, and dragged their car mirror all the way down the side of her dad's truck. They never stopped or anything. She was pretty upset and called me, and I told her she needed to call the police and file a report. There's a nasty scrape on the passenger's side now, and she feels really bad. It wasn't her fault though. Unfortunately they weren't able to track down the other car.

At any rate, the house is too quiet, and I can't wait to go pick up the girls and see how they liked their first day. I'm happy about the teachers they were assigned to and am anticipating a good year for all of them!

3 Girls + School Shopping = Happy x Tired

School starts on Wednesday, so yesterday was school shopping day!

First stop TJ Maxx--lots of bargains there!

The dollar store makes big hats and ties. I don't know why.

Matching outfits that mom picked out.

Sis was tired and found lots of tops she liked but struck out with pants.

All three were riding in the cart at the end! People were looking at me a bit funny with my cartload of girls! Have you ever tried to steer one of these monster carts through Walmart? I swear, it would be easier to drive a Suburban through the store. At one point I found an empty aisle and started running as fast as I could (not that fast considering my size vs the weight of the cart, but still) and had all three of the girls screaming. Yeah, we're a fun bunch in Walmart!

Sis still needs pants, and Moo still needs a pair of shoes (everywhere we went there was nothing in her size) but for the most part we're ready for the big day tomorrow!

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Tomorrow I get a day off! Woo hoo! Actually I'll be off until Friday. I just finished doing two days of double shifts: snack bar from 10:30am-4:30pm, then waitressing from 4:45-10ish on Friday and Saturday then did another day at the snack bar today.

I feel like I've been living at work, but the snack bar won't be open during the week anymore (we'll just be doing Friday, Saturdays and Sundays and will be closed for the season after labor day), so I need to get as many hours in as possible while I can.

It wasn't actually too bad. The two jobs are different enough that it didn't feel monotonous. Waitressing is getting easier and I'm still getting good tips. I may end up double shifting again this weekend as one of the waitresses had a death in the family. I think as long as there's an end in sight it's ok, but I couldn't do this on a regular basis. Whew!

And yes, I'm sitting with my feet up!

This Is From My County's Local Website:

Traffic Advisory...Buffalo on Right Hand Side of Road
08/13/2008 09:06 AM ...Even by [our] County's wonderfully rural nature this is something that doesn't show up often. We are used to seeing Cows, Deer, Horses and other animals show up in reports but this morning a Buffalo was reported wondering on the Right Hand Side of the road in the Ridge Road area. We also heard rumors of a large group of Conestoga Wagons making their way...Just kidding about the wagons...The Buffalo part is legit so please use caution in the area.

Mormon Swear Words

So what are your favorite "clean" swear words? Or, do you not swear at all, clean or otherwise? Or maybe you curse like a belligerent truck driver? Where do you fall along the cursing spectrum?

As for me, I am a fluent (and frequent) clean-curser. Very rarely does an occasion arise when I feel compelled to use an authentic curse word. I don't ever think, "Oh I'll use this curse word for this occasion", they just seem to spill out randomly, but I definitely control it to a certain extent.

My own personal favorite and a Lesley original is "Oh, farts and darts!". I don't use it often, but it's great for releasing frustration, and it usually makes me and whomever is with me laugh afterwards.

I use the old stand-by's quite often: "ding-dang it", and the ever-popular "gosh" "darn" and "heck". However, I prefer "flip" and all it's variations (flipper, flippin' flip-head, what the flip, etc) to "fudge" "freak" or "fishsticks".

My mom would often use, "For Cripe's Sake" and "Criminy", and she was fairly liberal with the "D" word. Usually she would check herself halfway through and say "Dammy Sammy!" instead, a phrase I too find quite satisfying when things are going haywire.

Once in a while she would use a real swear word, usually the one referring to excrement, and when we heard it we knew she was genuinely P-O'd, but usually when she said it, it meant that something had gone terribly wrong in the kitchen. One time in particular I heard her use it, and found that she had splashed boiling hot water on her hand while making Jell-O. You can imagine how badly that hurt and I personally think it called for a string of curse words, but she obviously held back.

My dad uses the Lord's name in vain quite often, along with nearly all the old standards, but he feels that a man should never use the F-word in front of a woman. It really offends him if it happens even though he may use this word himself when he's around his guy friends.

I guess my most questionable phrases may be "Holy crap", "Holy flip", and "God Bless America". I'm also known for telling the kids that they are in "deep dog doo".

How do you feel about swearing? Is using "Flip", "Cripes" or "Dang" just as bad as what it is replacing? Inquiring minds want to know. Leave me a comment about your clean swear words, or lack there of.

A Good Night

I may be the only 44 year old who has never waitressed or made a pot of coffee. Well, all that has changed now, people! I have been initiated into the wonderful world of food service!

Tonight was my second night training as a waitress at my place of employment. I've worked the snack bar most of the summer, and spent 3 nights busing tables a few weeks ago as part of the learning process towards waitressing.

The powers that be at work want to train me to do everything, so that I can be the go-to gal wherever they happen to need someone. I told them I need as many hours as possible (since the snack bar will close after Labor Day) and this is apparently my ticket in doing so.

Last night was my first night waitressing so I shadowed the head waitress, and towards the end of the night they gave me 2 tables of my own--both "two-tops" in dining lingo, meaning two people were seated.

Tonight I did more shadowing and learned more about the prep process. They entrusted me with 4 two-tops tonight.

Ok, so this maybe the phrase that comes back to haunt me, but the bussers at our lodge work a lot harder than the waitresses. Waitressing is a lot about paying attention to the details, and timing things and staying organized, but busing is a lot of hard work, and a lot more clean up and a lot more just physically tiring. I'm not saying this is the case everywhere, but where I work it is; they give the bussers a lot of responsibilities.

At any rate, I had a pretty terrific night tonight. From the sales on my tickets I should've gotten $28 in tips, but at the end of the night, the hostess handed me $45. All of my tables left me a $10 tip and one left me $15. But the best part was that one customer wrote "We love Lesley!" on their receipt. That made my whole night! I think that I'm getting a lot of "it's only her 2nd night, encouragement tips" but heck, I'll take it! I wonder just how long I can milk the "I'm new" angle though?

Belly Dance and Mormonism

A couple years ago, I had a discussion with my mentor and belly dance teacher Shara, about how weird I felt as LDS and a belly dancer, and that I felt like I had to keep those two aspects of my life separate from each other, that if people from my church found out I was a belly dancer I would be ostracized and conversely, if the group of women I danced with found out I was LDS, they might think differently of me (especially since Wicca is fairly prevalent in the belly dance community).

It was about this time that PBS aired the documentary called "The Mormons". Shara watched it and came across this little tidbit about dance and Mormonism:

There is, in the Mormon faith, a kind of celebration of the physical which I think is a little bit outside the Christian mainstream. When the Saints moved west to Utah, one observer in the 1850s noted that they had schools in most every block but that every night, the schools were converted into dancing schools. And he observed with some displeasure that Mormons taught their children that they should go to school but they must go to dancing school.
And I think that there's a connection between the place of dancing in Mormon history and the concept of an embodied God. Because we believe that God the Father, as well as Jesus Christ, are physical, embodied beings, that elevates the body to a heavenly status. And I think there's a kind of exuberance and celebration that is, in many ways, a result of that same collapse of sacred distance that was so central to Joseph Smith's thinking.
Instead of denigrating the things of the body in order to elevate the things of the spirit, Joseph always argued that it was the successful incorporation of both that culminated in a fullness of joy. And so dancing, I think, is in many ways, just an emblem or a symbol of a kind of righteous reveling in the physical tabernacle that we believe is a stage on our way to godliness itself.

Belly dance has had in the past, a reputation as a "dance of seduction" and the old stereotype of the sultan with his scantily clad harem dancers is still what a lot of people conjure up when they hear "belly dance".

Our church in particular is very conservative, especially when it comes to dressing modestly, but is a belly dancer's costume any more scandalous than a ballet dancer or ballroom dancer? For the most part, we belly dancers are revealing a lot less, but because of the bad rap our dance has gotten, people often assume we're doing something shameful.

Shara would always tell me, "Dance is an expression of your soul". That has helped me feel good about blending these two aspects of my life, and being proud of both of them.

Notes on the Bellydance Festival

Notes from the festival:

Belly dance is really becoming more of a dance for women-by women than the nightclub cabaret dance it used to be. It has truly evolved into many different forms. I like that it is a dance that any and all women can feel comfortable engaging in. With that said:

Some women really embrace their size and show it off. My hat is off to them. It can be a little shocking at first to see a very large woman dancing and showing her bare mid-drift, but then when you see them dance with confidence and skill it changes your whole perspective. And it also helps me be kinder to myself. If a 200+ woman can be confident and happy in her skin, then I shouldn't be picking my minor flaws apart and feeling bad about myself.

I should've used self-tanner, but if I take the above paragraph to heart, I can embrace my blindingly white skin that is devoid of any pigment whatsoever and show it off and be proud of it. (But next time I'm using self-tanner.)

As a former cosmetologist (I wish I would've kept my license current, dumb, dumb, but I digress...) it bothered me that so many people put so much effort into their make-up and costumes but didn't do anything with their hair. There seems to be a stereotype that belly dancers have to have long flowing hair, and I saw a majority of women with the long flowing hair who put it in braids, then brushed it out right before performing so that they had long flowing frizz. I think just simply leaving it straight (or straightening it) or putting some big loose curls in it would've been much more flattering and up to date. There were a couple women who had naturally tight ringlet type hair and this is the exception. Their hair was beautiful left in it's natural kinda frizzy state.

On the other hand, the true tribal girls had hair that was more like a work of art than a hair-do.


Costuming is an art in and of itself. One tribal group came out and I swear they were wearing their entire costume closets all at once. They had harem pants under several skirts, several belts and sashes layered over that, then coin belts, several tops with a fancy costume bra on top, layers of necklaces, earrings, then whatever was left over they used to wrap in and around their hair. I can't even imagine what all that weighs, let alone how long it takes to assemble! Truly remarkable. (The photo below shows a typical troupe's costuming, not necessarily the one I'm referring to).

I'm really getting to know a lot of women in the greater belly dance community, from vendors to dancers to teachers. It's really neat.

The festival was just a wonderful mixture of sights and sounds and people and I'm still digesting and absorbing it all. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Too Much Fun!

We had a total blast at the belly dance festival this weekend.

What a mix of amateurs, professionals, young, old, fat, slim, tall, short, black, white and everything in between! One troupe in particular was the most diverse group of women ever put together on one stage. It was really fantastic.

I traveled with one of my troupe mates and we shared a motel room on Saturday night. A few days before leaving she confessed to me that she was bi-polar, but not to worry, she was on medication. I knew she seemed highly emotional at times, so this explained why. It did make me a bit nervous to be committing myself to a 2 1/2 hour drive each way, 2 full days of festival watching, and a night in a motel together, but other than a brief meltdown before our performance, she was fine and we had a good time together.

At one point I was shopping and trying on different items and getting her opinion, and when I was going to put something back because it wasn't quite within my budget, she threw down a $20 and said, "Here, get it! This is the upside of bi-polar, you may as well take advantage of it!" I had to laugh. It was very sweet of her though.

Our troupe is really a mix of women in itself. Two are school teachers, the other a medical transcriptionist, the teachers are both 50, the other, 55. They tease me about being "the baby" of the group.

Of course we have our bi-polar one, and then another that I describe as "spit on a skillet" because she's everywhere at once and always working on getting us into the next festival, always wanting to work on something new, always full of energy, and often indecisive. She along with the bi-polar one are known for pre-performance panicking.

Then there's the other teacher and I who are pretty much cut from the same cloth. We're quiet and reserved, mellow and even-tempered. I think the four of us are a pretty good mix actually. We kind of even each other out.

I like this group of women even though I've been dancing with a different group for the last 5 years. My other group is not motivated to travel to festivals, or work on new choreographies, or even take the occasional workshop or class. I feel they are in a bit of a rut. My new group and my old group get together on our weekly dance night, so maybe we can start motivating them to start branching out instead of rehashing all our old stand-bys. We'll see.

I no longer get super nervous before a performance. I just try to keep it all in perspective and enjoy myself. Of course taking off my glasses so that I can't actually see the audience also helps! About a third of the way through the choreography that we had worked so very hard on during the last month, it hit me--here we were actually performing our dance, and we had reached our goal! That was a really cool feeling!

At any rate, I had a wonderful time, acquired a couple more costume pieces and some new music, and came back inspired and with renewed excitement to dance.

Goin' Tribal

Tomorrow I'm heading out to the bay area to a belly dance festival. I have gone to this festival 3 years in a row now, but this year I get to perform! The gals I danced with at Rakkasah got a dance spot at this festival for us.

All of 5 weeks ago we chose some music, divided it into 3 sections, each took a part and choreographed it then brought it all together in our twice weekly rehearsals. We had one more gal join us, and we are all really happy about our choreography and how it all worked out.

We are dancing to Theivery Corporation's Illumination, and then will have 2 duets to fill our 15 minute time slot.

This festival generally lands near my birthday, so it's becoming my traditional annual weekend get-away. I'm so excited.

Our costuming for Rakkasah was more of a gypsy inspired theme,

this performance is more Tribal. My costume is: red harem pants, black skirt, tribal tassel belt, silver coin belt (I'm bringing two because I can't decide which one), coin bra, black stretch velvet top, silver necklace, bindis, and a gold chiffon veil for the duet I'm doing.

I've got my false eyelashes and bold make-up packed already.

This is basically a bunch of old ladies (at 44 I'm the youngest in our group) playing dress-up, but don't tell anyone! We are having waaayyy too much fun!