Predator in the Water

One of my daughters was playing basketball in a tourney in San Diego a few years ago.

 (so much for concealing her identity, right?  ...LOL)

After the games, they had some time to kill before they had to catch a flight home, so they decided to go to the beach and play in the ocean.

They noticed that there were some dolphins playing in the water near them.... 

How cool is THAT.. to be able to swim with the dolphins that are NOT in captivity...

(not to mention NOT having to give up the rights to your first born child to pay for the adventure!)

So they got caught up with watching these dolphins and then one of them noticed a plane flying overhead with a banner behind it that said, "PREDATOR IN WATER"

They kept swimming because that silly plane didn't know what it was talking about... after all, the girls were in the water and they were certain that they were swimming with harmless DOLPHINS!!!!

So they kept swimming!!!! 

This is the point in the story where a mother is REALLY glad that she didn't know about this until AFTER the adventure is over and her daughter is home safe, on dry land.

(at least as dry as the land gets in Washington..)

Then they finally looked around and noticed that ALL the other people had exited the water and were standing on the beach..

...the things that make you go..hmmmmmm!!!!

They finally decided that maybe that silly plane knew what it was talking about.

They never did see the "predator", but because they decided to head the warning coming from the plane, it turned out ok and no one actually had to encounter the "predator"

 and deal with those potential consequences.

As she was relaying this story to me, I couldn't help but think about how it relates to us. There are "predators" all around us blending in to seemingly harmless situations. We may not see the actual "predator", and we may think that what we are doing is "technically" safe, but we just don't know what consequences may happen if we don't head the warning of the "predator" lurking nearby.

If we are living righteously and following counsel of our church leaders, we have the opportunity to have our own personal warning system, that alerts us when there is a potential danger or "predator" that is lurking below the surface, just out of sight, waiting to do us harm.

Be safe my friends and for heaven's sake.... DON'T GO IN THE WATER!!!

The Mask

Some nights when I am having trouble sleeping, I lay there thinking of ways 

to manipulate or punk my kids. 

It's one of those inalienable rights as a parent to be able to tease & embarrass your offspring.

When they were little, I was a busy mom, so I would put the Oreo's in the microwave right as they were coming home from school... 

They would brag to their friends that "their mom makes HOMEMADE Oreo's!!

Hahaha... I was the mom who had it going on!

I also do things like trick them into eating oatmeal by adding it to foods like meatloaf and taco meat.

 It absorbs the excess grease from the hamburger, makes the hamburger go a little farther and 

they NEVER knew it was in there!!!

... until now, that is :)

We have this Halloween mask... it's like this old man with missing teeth and giant warts and long gray hair and beard. It's more like a cross between a zombie and a troll, actually.

Every once in a while, I run across it in a box and think it's time for it to make an appearance....

these are the things that I conspire with myself about in the wee hours of the night, when I can't sleep.

About a year ago, when I was packing up the house to move, I found it under my bed. 

(I like to keep it handy in case opportunity presents itself)

S was out in the pod and so I thought I would pay her a "visit".

I decided I would open the door and jump into the room all hunched over (with the mask on) and start walking around like Gollum and snorting.

I carefully open the door, jump in the room, like.... Ta-Da.....

and No S!!!!

Then I hear the shower shut off......hehehehe!

You know what's coming, don't you?

I stay hunched over as she walks out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel to protect herself 

(not even the trusty hairspray this time... see post about Stalker..hehehe)

She doesn't really notice me... until...

 I start snorting.....

SCREAMMMMMMMMM.....!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, I am rolling on the floor trying not to pee my pants....LOL!

Then.....

B is in the big house... supposedly packing.....

I decide to repeat the whole episode...

I jump into his room and start snorting.

He turns around, X-Box controller in his hand,

points the controller at me and starts pushing buttons on it..

like he's trying to neutralize the threat with the game controller.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

...again with the rolling on the floor trying to control bodily functions....

 I am going to either have to stop doing things that bring me to the edge of an accident or invest in a package of depends!
Lately, I have been thinking it would be fun to sew the bottom shut on E's new "honeymoon" clothes.....hehehe!

The Middle of the Cornfield

Some of my readers have asked me to post my thoughts that I shared at a meeting tonight for the women’s group at church… so if you are looking for a spiritual lift about sisterhood, read on….

Thoughts are taken from the following talks:

Belonging is our Sacred Birthright – Bonnie D Park

Rejoice in Every Good Thing – Chieko N Okazaki

Strength of Sisterhood – VT message Ensign July 1993

Our Diversity, Our Sisterhood – VT message Ensign Feb 1992

Please go to www.lds.org if you wish to look up these talks and messages and read them in their entirety.

From our beginning RS has a history of touching lives and mending spirits. When it was organized in March 1842, those 20 sisters were united in purpose and faith but their conditions in life were quite different.  Several were wives of church leaders and had young families, one was a new bride of a storekeeper who was not a member of the church. Others were unmarried, but each brought unique strengths to begin this charitable work.

As we look around this room… we see women of different ages, races and backgrounds, different educational, marital and professional statuses, women with children, grandchildren and no children and women who are healthy and those who are limited by illness. We need to rejoice in the diversity of OUR sisterhood. It is the diversity in our circumstances that gives us compassionate hearts and it is the diversity of our spiritual gifts that benefits the church.

As Paul taught, we are all part of the body of Christ;

1 Cor 12:20-21, 27

"But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. (27) Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular"

I have a picture of a body. This body represents the Victor Falls RS. I invite each of you to come up here sometime tonight and write your name and something that you have to offer our sisterhood. If you can’t think of anything, make something up…If there are sisters that are not here tonight, feel free to recognize a talent or quality they share as well… it could be giving hugs, or playing the piano or making yummy treats, or a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on….… EVERY ONE of us has something that we can offer to make us one body.

(The “body” will be passed around next time we meet on Sunday, in case you didn’t get the chance to leave your mark on what has affectionately become known as “Frank”…. ask Mandi about the name..hehehe)

“The spirit of unity motivates us to value our diversity as we blend our efforts. Each of us should prize each other gifts.  We need to discover the talents of others and we need to not only surround ourselves with similarities, but we need to celebrate and enjoy our differences as we bless each other’s lives. By immersing ourselves in each other’s differences we create unity in our diversity. We each need to assign ourselves as a “committee of one” to create the attitudes of inclusion, acceptance and unity wherever we find ourselves…. "

In these perilous times, I find comfort in the promise that “if we are prepared we shall not fear”. RS helps us to be prepared, not just temporally, but spiritually. But RS cannot help in our preparation without our participation.  There are sisters among us, probably even some here tonight, that feel they don’t fit in RS, or that they somehow don’t belong. Some may have feelings of being too old, or too young, too rich or too poor, too intelligent or too uneducated, but NONE of us is too different to belong. None of us are invisible. None of us can change nor take away the burdens of others, but we can include and belong to each other in love.

We can find a piece of Zion by becoming “of one heart and one mind.” For “if ye are not of one”, says the Lord, “ye are not mine”. President Hinkley has said that if we “will be united and speak with one voice, our strength will be incalculable.” As sisters in Zion, how do we become one? The same way we belong to a spouse or a family: we share who we are, our feelings, our thoughts, our hearts.

Sister Park tells of a mother who tenderly expressed to her daughter, who was just old enough to join RS, how her RS sisters had nurtured her from her early marriage: “They have brought meals and hugs in time of sorrow, laughter and support for celebration. They have taught me the gospel by visiting me and letting me visit them. They have allowed me to make mistakes on their time.” This mother then explained to her daughter how the daisies in their garden came from Carolyn, the lilies from Venice, the buttercups from Pauline. The daughter was amazed. Her mother replied, “These women are my sisters in every way, and I am grateful to bring you into their care.”

It’s the variety in a garden that contributes to its beauty – we need daisies and lilies and buttercups; we need gardeners who water, nurture and care.

Boyd K Packer said “too many sisters … think that RS is merely a class to attend… Sisters, “he counseled, “you must graduate from thinking that you only attend RS to feeling that you belong to it! Our sense of belonging begins on Sunday as we hear each other’s voices. No teacher should give her lesson to a group of silent sisters, because the lesson is OUR lesson. Belonging is being needed, loved, and missed when you’re away; belonging is needing, loving, and missing those when they are away. THAT is the difference in attending and belonging. RS is not just a Sunday class; it is a divine gift to us as women. RS needs YOU.” And you know what? We each need RS. When we don’t participate, we are depriving ourselves AND we are depriving the RS.

Hold hands with the person next to you, like this…

Your fingers represent your strengths and the space between your knuckles represents your weaknesses. When we take each other by the hand and work together, our strengths compensate for each other’s weaknesses.

Corn field…. Corn stalks on the edges are small and weak and often don’t produce any corn. The more you get to the center of the field, the taller and stronger and more fruitful the corn becomes.  Corn grows taller in the middle of the field and so it is with us spiritually. We will grow taller and be stronger and more capable of doing the Lord’s work if we are growing in the middle of the field. We need to look around us and figure out who is standing on the edge of our corn field and draw them in and help them to understand that they DO belong and that we NEED their diversity.

I have such a testimony of the importance of our sisterhood. I have, at times, been on the outside of the cornfield and I have also been on the inside of the cornfield and I can testify to you that it is so much better being on the inside. I have made the mistake of waiting to be invited in and that waiting only made me feel more left out. Just like the corn stalks, the sisters on the edges of our cornfield are hungry and thirsty for companionship and fellowship from the sisters that are in the middle of the cornfield. Don’t wait for an invitation…. Be bold and get yourself to the middle of the field, where you can fully partake of what our RS has to offer you and share your diversity with RS… 

Encounter with the Popo

A few years ago, we took our "city friends" on vaca with us to Bear Lake. 

(TBH, I think they only went because they didn't believe me that there was a place called Dingle,Idaho)

We wanted to give them the full experience of what it was like growing up in such a fun place, so...

We did Bear Lake (via Dingle, of course)

The Ream Mansion

Paris Springs

 Minnetonka Cave & Bloomington Lake (in the dark, which was a whole other story!)

Some of my funnest memories of growing up there were playing "night games" with the neighbor boys (there were LOTS of boys in our 'hood) !!

One night I told the kids (my 4 kids plus a cousin and our friends' 3 older kids) that they should go play "night games".... they thought I was crazy... NIGHT GAMES????

What the heck are "night games"???

I tried to tell them of some of the fun things the kids in the "hood" did back when and how much fun we had running wild in the hood under the cover of darkness.

After a little coaxing, they decided to go to the church across from my mom's house and play Sardines. It is kind of like hide and seek, but with teenagers, 

they are a little more creative about where they can hide!

It was about 10:30 pm and my friend and I decided to go over there and join them, but we didn't want them to know that we were joining in their fun... so we decided to be "stealth".

The church isn't exactly across the street, it is more like 2 houses down and THEN across the street.... and it has LOTS of parking lot lights!

So we put on dark clothing, and turned off the porch light, and tiptoe'd out the front door, around the back of the camper, and THROUGH the lilac bushes, behind the neighbor's son's big 4WD truck and then.... nothing..... not even the cover of darkness to hide us due to the lights around the church

.... so what's a girl to do?

Belly crawl!!!

We DASH across the street and belly crawl across the lawn of the church and into some bushes by the side of the building. Whew!!!!! We made it undetected.

We are sitting in the bushes, trying to catch our breath...

(when you play commando, it gets your adrenalin going and that makes your heart race and for a couple of "old ladies", that was a lot of excitement for one night!)

...we were laughing until we are ready to pee our pants, but trying to suppress the noise of our laughter, which only made us laugh harder.

(you know how things are funnier when you aren't supposed to laugh?)

Keep in mind we have no idea where any of these 8 kids are hiding...

As we are trying to compose ourselves, a white SUV pulls into the parking lot, so we hunker down to remain undetected, but still curious, we are watching through the bushes to see what happens.

All of a sudden two girls run across the parking lot and red and blue lights start flashing on top of the SUV..... BUSTED!!!

I decide I better come out of hiding and investigate to see what our kids have done now...LOL!

The "moms" walk out of the bushes, across the parking lot and approach the SUV, only to find my daughter and her cousin standing off to the side of the SUV. The cop (we'll call him Joe Friday), is trying to get them to come over to the passenger window to talk to him and they are standing, frozen...

 like deer in the headlights...literally!

We get there just as he is coaxing their names out of them.... when he hears the names Gunn and Peterson... he is smirking and nodding his head, like 

"I should have known"....hahaha...

 apparently my brothers and my husband have a reputation with this particular Popo!

I approach the SUV....and say hi to him. He laughs when he sees me because I haven't "lived" there since high school. I explain what the kids are doing and he proceeds to tell me the neighbors called the Popo when they saw a bunch of teenagers running around in the dark, because apparently the church had been vandalized the weekend prior.

He decides to release the delinquents into the custody of their mom/aunt and he leaves.

Only AFTER he is long gone do the rest of the kids come out of hiding....cowards....hahaha!

Well, actually, since some of then were laying on the roof of the church at the time of the incident, it's probably best they remained in hiding...lol... 

The next morning, as I am walking into the church, Joe Friday is walking out of the church... he grins and nods and then chuckles as he walks by. Gotta love living in a small town!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

When my kids were little.... very little....like back when dirt-was-young  little and I only had one child in school, he rode the bus to school.

My other child at the time, who shall remain nameless...hehehe..... liked to pretend that she was old enough to go to school. During the day, when big brother was at school, she would play "school" and she had imaginary teachers and imaginary friends and rode an imaginary bus.

One day, my nephew was babysitting them for me, while I was doing whatever I was doing...

TBH, it very well could have just been a sanity break disguised as something worthy of leaving my children in the care of a teenage boy....

He liked to play "boy" things with the kids and do things like wrestle. Sometimes when boys are "wrestling", they accidentally touch each other in inappropriate places. Not on purpose and certainly not with any vulgar intent...it just happens.

I got home and took my nephew home and dropped him off and on the way back to our house, older brother decides to enlighten me about what they did while I was gone...

uh, huh....ok.... ya....that's sounds like fun..... I was only half listening......until......

He tells me that while they were wrestling, my nephew "grabbed his balls...."

I explained that I was sure he did not do it on purpose and that I didn't think that it was anything bad that he needed to really worry too much about.

Then it happened!!!

Remember the imaginary school bus?

Keep in mind, I am operating a motor vehicle while this convo is taking place......

My nameless child with the vivid imagination, informs me that "yesterday, on the school bus...."

(this would be the imaginary one)

"...someone tried to grab HER balls too."

I said, "(insert her name), you don't have any".

Her response...without missing a beat....

"I KNOW... HE TOOK THEM"

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

In case you are wondering, I was able to safely navigate the vehicle to the side of the road long enough for me to finish laughing and dry the tears that were rolling down my cheeks.

After that, no more imaginary school. We have tried to only have real friends from that point on... 

that is..until Facebook was invented.... now we are back to having imaginary friends again :)

Sexually Harassed by a Bird

For those of you who don't know, I work in a pool & spa retail store. I see almost as much jaw dropping stuff as you would see if you were people watching at Walmart. Much of it I can't begin to describe, you will just have to trust me on this.... and not all of it comes from customers.

I actually have a co-worker that was so distraught one day that he asked to take the rest of the day off because his dog was playing with his pet chicken and accidentally broke the chicken's leg. He said he needed to take the rest of the day off to take the chicken to the vet to have it's leg cast....

 No joke! It really happened... 

 While he didn't get out of working, he did indeed take his chicken to the vet and had it's leg cast! I would have just had it for dinner..... but then, I am not a big fans of birds...because they poop!

To explain my lack of compassion towards birds, I have to go back to middle school. One day I was (cough, cough) too "sick" to go to school, so I convinced my mom to let me stay home. About lunch time I got hungry and thought I was feeling "well" enough to walk the 3 blocks to the local fast food joint (back then it was Lloyd's drive-in). On the way home, I was walking under some trees and a bird crapped on my head as I walked under the branch... only I didn't realize it until my mom got home and wanted to know where the bird crap in my hair came from....

BUSTED!!!

Anyway, back to work.... 

Last summer, late in the day, a customer comes in and has a parakeet or some pet bird on her shoulder. She gets her bottle of chlorine and sets it on the counter for me to ring up. I am looking at this bird, that is not tethered to her in anyway and thinking if the bird craps on me....

 I'm SOOOO out of there for the day!

Then the bird walks down her arm, across the front counter, steps on my hand and walks up my arm and sits on my shoulder..... If you have never had a bird walk on you before, it's a creepy feeling the way they grab your skin and hang on!!! So now I am sure that this bird is going to crap down my back or something and I am being really careful to not do anything to "startle the crap" out of this bird.

Then the bird starts rubbing the back of it's head against my cheek.... 

Apparently that is a sign of affection.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

I hurry and ring her up and she tells the bird to come with her, it's time to go.... and the bird hides it's head behind my shoulder like she can't see it because it can't see her.... what is this??? A disobedient toddler or something?

She finally coaxes the frisky bird off my shoulder and back onto hers and leaves.....

I called my boss to tell him I needed to file a sexual harassment complaint.....He asked what happened and I told him I was molested by a customer's bird!!!!

Never a dull moment where I work!

Stalker

One day about a year ago, I was in Walmart and I kept noticing a particular guy that was “shopping” in the same aisle as me… only he wasn’t ever really shopping. He would pick stuff up and look at it and then when I bump into him (not literally of course) in the next aisle, he never has the stuff that he was pretending to look at in the previous aisle. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to this, excect he was kind of creepy and it seriously kind of freaked me out… so now my freaked out mind is a little more paranoid than usual and I am convinced after seeing the same guy in two different aisles of the grocery store, that I am being stalked. ( I think I watch too much Law & Order)… So I abandon the rest of my list and head for the checkout line, all the while trying to be stealth…  I forgot to wear my “People of Walmart” disguise that day, so I was having trouble  blending in….

I get checked out and literally run (pushing a cart in the pouring rain) to my car, throw the groceries in the trunk, not even trying to save the eggs. At the time I was driving an Impalla SS, black with black limo tint windows… good for not being able to see what you are backing into,  but not so good at being a low profile type car that could easily get lost in traffic.

I am now thinking that maybe I should have “stalked” my stalker to know what kind of car he was driving. To be honest, someone could be stalking me every day and I would never know because I just don’t pay that much attention to what the car behind me looks like or how long it has been following me… but my radar was on high alert this time….  

As I am heading home, I think, I don’t want him to know where I live, (after all, I HAVE watched Criminal Minds) so I pull onto the island before MY island thinking I am going to fool him…. not really even knowing if said HIM is actually even following ME! I pull to a spot where I can see the main road and watch… again I have NO idea what I am actually watching for… but it made me feel terribly stealth. I notice a big white truck pull off to the side of the road just before the entrance to this island.

At this point… I panic…. No shame in that right? I remember that my neighbor is a cop and the whole ‘hood has the sheriff on speed dial because my neighbor’s neighbor is a drug dealer. So I drive to my island and pull over just past the entrance…. I am going to catch the bugger following me….

When a large white truck, similar to the one that stopped alongside the road by the previous island drives by, I swear I must have wet my pants… or maybe it was just the seat heaters kicking in!

 (Keep in mind, most of the residents of my island are contractors, so there are MANY large white trucks that have perfectly good reasons for being on my island.)

I drive home and without even unloading the groceries I pound on the neighbor’s door and tell him that if I end up missing, they should look for the guy in the big white truck… feeling safe and satisfied now that I had ratted him out to authorities, I head home to inform my family that life as they knew it was changed.

If you haven’t read my previous posts, then you need to know that my teenage girls slept in the guest apartment in the back yard… not attached to the big house… which is actually a small house and that’s why we didn’t have room for them in the big house! Got it? Good. I go out to the Pod (that’s what the girls nicknamed their living quarters) to  inform them  that they  need to keep ALL the doors locked, that dad & I are going to Bellevue for “dinner and a movie”  so we will be unavailable by phone and to NOT answer the door or even peek around the corner in the direction of the door if someone knocks. Anyone who has any business coming over, should have a key…

And we leave…. Caring of us right? Freak them out and leave….hahaha….

Here’s what happened while we were gone:

The girls are thoroughly freaked out by now. They are watching TV in the pod and they hear a crash against their door (one of older daughter’s friends brought her an anonymous gift and threw it at the door and left… but they don’t know this yet ) The girls are dancing around their room screaming as only freaked out teenage girls can scream… They finally calm down and decide they want to make a run for the big house. Armed with hairspray, they open the door and peek out. Not seeing anything they make a break for it. (meanwhile Braden is in the big house, oblivious to ANYTHING that is going on and the back door has been unlocked the whole time… Nice and safe, huh?) Safe in the big house, they are standing on the couch, peeking out the sliding door to see if anyone is walking around out there. Satisfied that no one is there, they grab some snacks (remember I mentioned this is the main reason they would come in the big house…) and RUN back out to the pod. They had a motion security light on the outside of their house… this is important in what happened next…

Attached to the pod, was a large garage/shop that had a lot of our stuff in storage inside. The girls hear a noise in the garage and then their motion light goes on.  Again with the screaming…..hahaha…..

They are peeking through the window to see if anyone is walking around and they are conspiring about crawling out the back window and running across the yard and jumping the fence into the cop’s backyard, but at the last minute decided to abort that mission since they were afraid that Tucker (the cops bull mastiff) would eat them.  Not knowing what else to do, they called big brother to let him know they were trapped in the pod,  by mom’s stalker, who  tried to break into the pod and is trying to steal our stuff from the shop. They are unarmed (except for their hairspray) and need him to come over and save them!

Big brother…… running off the road because he is laughing, informs them that it was HIM who was getting something out of the garage… he tripped the motion light…hahaha!

 When they finally ventured out the next day in the daylight, they saw a bottle of Gatorade with a note from a secret admirer…hahaha… it was just purely coincidence and a lot of vivid imaginations that made for one wild night!

We never spoke of the stalker again….until now :)

Bad Boys... Bad Boys

In the 'hood that we used to live in, our next door neighbor was a cop. HIS other next door neighbor was a drug dealer/auto thief that was squatting in a house that didn't belong to him but was in probate so he couldn't be evicted. Across the street from the cop was a self appointed neighborhood watch man that was quite small and tried to make up for his lack of stature with self importance... you know the type!

The drug dealer was also part of an auto theft ring and they weren't subtle about any of their activity, even living next door to a cop. They did have a system of doing things that kept them from getting arrested by the sheriff, even though most of the neighbors had the sheriff on speed dial! 

Needless to say, the cop was a little paranoid that the drug dealer neighbor would try to tamper with his cars or something stupid as an act of revenge for always ratting them out to the sheriff.

Before I proceed, you should know that this property had a small house with a "guest apartment" in the back yard. My girls lived in the apartment, which was basically a very large room with a bathroom. So occasionally they needed to come in the "big house"...usually when they were hungry...hahaha! The big house only had sliding doors on the back side of the house, one in the family room and one in the master bedroom (which was on the corner of the house, next to the cops house... you will understand the importance of this in a minute) We locked those doors at night.. you know, with a drug dealer in the hood and all.... So they only way for them to gain entry into the big house was through the FRONT door, to which they had a key.

One night, one daughter had a "friend" over and they were sitting in the backyard "talking" until about 11 pm. She then decided to walk him to his car that was parked out front. When they got to the front of the house, they noticed a man standing in the driveway belonging to the cop, kind of crunched down, like he was spying on something or someone. They panicked and ran into our back yard. The dilemma..... Wayne and I are in bed asleep and the only way they can get in the house to tell us about the stalker in the cops driveway would be through the FRONT door. But that would tip the stalker off that someone was there. So they come to the back door of our bedroom and start quietly tapping on the glass.... now I take medication for a medical condition to help me sleep.... LOTS of medication. So I am like an inebriated alien mom if I get woke up after the meds have taken affect. But I hear something at the door, sit straight up in bed smack my arm over the top of Wayne's body and whisper... loudly.... "DID YOU HEAR THAT".....which then starts a chain reaction of Wayne sitting up in bed and looking at me like I am medicated or something.....which of course I am.....LOL! Then she taps again on the door. Her commotion in the back yard simultaneously causes the cops dog (a bull mastiff) to get up and walk over to investigate the noise, which then trips the security light on the cops house. He sees the light go on and comes to the window that is nearest the back corner of the house and looks out and sees the kids standing at our back door and asks them what is going on. At the same time Wayne opens our door to find out the same thing. My daughter and her "friend" explain to him that there is a man just standing in his driveway. She no sooner get those words out and the cop yells "OH HECK NO!!!!" (only that's NOT what he REALLY said) and he runs towards his front door...grabbing his side arm (that's a gun if you don't know) on his way out the front door in his flannel pj's and no shirt. Are you getting this image, because it's about to get more colorful! Not to be outdone, Wayne grabs his gun (that's his sidearm, not his muscle...hahaha) and heads for our front door.... in his whitey tidy top and his silk pj's. Did I mention that Wayne wears a gold chain around his neck and he sleeps with it on, for just such an occasion.... if he gets the opportunity to run out of the house in the middle of the night in his silk pjs and white shirt, he wants to have bling bouncing around his neck as if he's in an episode of cops.... (insert music... bad boys, bad boys...watcha gonna do when they come for you... bad boys, bad boys)

The cop and my bad boy husband both come flying out their front doors at the same time with their guns drawn, descending on......... are you ready for this??????? The self appointed neighborhood watch man from across the street, who was hiding in the cops driveway, spying on the drug dealers.....HAHAHAHAHA! About 5 minutes later, Momma Gunn stumbles out the front door, medicated, with serious bed head to see if I needed to call the sheriff, only to find a neighborhood watch meeting... at 11:30 in the evening!!!

The German Bible

A few months ago, I was talking to a friend of mine in the hallway at church and she mentioned to me that she found a family Bible with lots of names and dates written in it, but that it was in German. She said she was looking for someone to translate it. (Let me back up and just tell you that I LOVE anything to do with genealogy and family history.... it was a crazy obsession of mine several years ago when my kids were babies.... I had to have an intervention... and  then my kids got big, so I am sort of over it now, but like anyone who struggles with an addiction, I have to be careful or I will very easily get sucked back in and my life will become out of balance....not that that's a bad thing, mind you) When she said that to me, something happened to me and it was like I had this out of body experience. My mouth was telling her, "I took German in high school, I'll take a crack at it".... OH MY GRAVY!!!!! At the same time those words are coming out of MY mouth the rest of my body is standing there as if I were two people, looking at myself, thinking what the heck are you talking about. It has been over 25 years since I have read or spoken anything in German, except to sing the alphabet song once in a while, just to annoy my kids....hahaha! Not sure how to get out of it now that my other self just volunteered "us" to do this, I thought... I will just look at it and then simply tell her it's WAY out of my league, but that I know someone who actually DOES know German, so as a back up, I would offer to put her in touch with this other friend.... HA!... problem solved.

She brings me photo copies of the hand written entries and I am looking at this and thinking to myself.... "Self, you are so full of crap to think you are smart enough to be doing this!" When I got home, out of curiosity, I decided to take a closer look and I was making absolutely no sense of it. I set it aside and kind of forgot about it for a few days..... Every day, those pages sat on my desk, mocking me, whenever I tried to get on facebook. I felt so guilty, I got them out again and decided I was really going to try to see if I could figure this out. I felt so guilty, in fact, that I even prayed about it!!!

The only thing I knew about these people was one of the surnames. So I started there. I thought once I figured out how they formed the letters in that name, then I could use those letters as a key to try to figure out other words. (The German language has letters that are not part of our alphabet and their cursive letters that ARE part of our alphabet are formed differently that we form cursive letters) So I printed a guide off the internet of the handwritten German alphabet and it all started coming back to me. I became obsessed (see, I wasn't careful and got sucked in!) I started to look at certain names and by instinct a thought would pop into my head about what that name was... then I would look at it and think there is NO WAY that can be THAT name. So I would go letter by letter and slap the dog and spit in the fire, if it didn't turn out to be the name that I was impressed that it should be.... EVERY TIME!!!!!  then I started on the locations... The dates were easier because I remembered memorizing the months in high school. By some small miracle (or maybe it was a BIG one for these people), I was able to figure it out.... all of it.

It was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced! Feeling inspired that something that I didn't understand or recognize could just come to my mind as clear as the words you are reading right now.

I don't  profess to be someone who is in the league of people who translate hieroglyphics or ancient scripture or anything like that, but in some small way (miniscule, actually) I was a tool for inspiration to help the information on these people be known to a family member who desperately needed to know about her ancestors. I am humbled to have had the privilege of being a very small part of that important project. I believe that these people live even after death and that they really wanted my friend to know about them so she could take care of some important unfinished business on their behalf.

Guess what????

She has another one!!!

The Hooker Shoes

As I have mentioned my daughter is getting married in March. When she first mentioned the "M" word, she was actually living in another state, so I was getting ideas for the wedding without her living here. It's important for you to know this so you will understand why I had to do what I did.

One of her colors is "Duke Blue" as she calls it. Actually it's royal blue.... I was in the store one day for a completely other purpose.... I should have stuck to my original purpose and not been so easily distracted... Anyway, I found these royal blue suede "hooker shoes" and thought they would be the perfect color for my daughter's wedding.... plus there's the whole... "something blue" thing to worry about, so I thought these shoes would kill two birds with one stone.... (and potentially the mother of the bride!)

I take a picture with my phone and email it to my daughter.... I know... it's impressive that I would actually know how to do that, right? She responds back YES!!! She HAS to have those shoes to wear on her wedding day. No mom wants to disappoint her daughter, the bride, right? Knowing that the wedding was months away and she would not be home for several months to try on the shoes for size, I thought I should take one for the team... and try them on myself, since our feet are about the same size.

Remember in the last post when I said I had a hard time with gravity even with my feet planted firmly on solid ground? Ya... about that! I have grandkids for crying out loud... I have no business putting my foot into 6 inch high, blue suede hooker shoes.... for ANY reason!

I successfully get a foot into one of the shoes. Don't be too impressed, the other foot was still on solid ground and I wasn't actually STANDING in the shoes yet. One foot should have been adequate for determining size, but I decided it would be fun to feel like Cinderella and try them BOTH on....

I should have sat on the cute little stool they provide for just such purpose, but I was feeling confident, so I stepped up and tried to support my weight with the foot that was already inserted into the hooker shoe. I did ok, until I tried to put my other foot into the shoe number two and when I wiggled my ankle to make my foot fit into the shoe, I lost my balance and had to abort mission... I  lifted my bare foot up to counter balance and grabbed the shoe display rack to catch my balance (I did NOT want another incident like what happened in my closet).  Just then the clerk walked down the aisle to check and see if I needed assistance. There I am, a forty something year old woman with one hooker shoe on and the other leg lifted in a karate kid like pose hanging onto the shoe rack for dear life... I looked at her and said, "they're NOT for me".... she giggled and walked away. 

I determined that the one foot sizing test was sufficient, grabbed the shoes, quickly made the purchase and have not set foot in that store since.

The first time my daughter tried these on and attempted to walk in them, she fell on her face... I feel a little redeemed by that image...hahaha!

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Getting ready for an upcoming wedding, I am trying to do as much as possible ahead of time so I am not stressed out when we get close to the big day....hahahahaha... I know right?

We are going to have a house full of peeps (well.. actually only 4, but it will be crazy so it will FEEL like a house full). Anyway, I decided since I had an extra day off this week and it is raining so I can't do yard work (I think I subconsciously procrastinated it yesterday, KNOWING it was supposed to rain today), I decided to clean a few things that I don't normally clean, like the light fixtures. This way, I don't have to do it in a few weeks and I don't have to worry about my mother seeing an inch of dust bunnies on them (we won't even talk about what is under the couch... I almost lost an arm to them last night!!!) 

Since I am vertically challenged, I needed to stand on a stool to reach the fixture that is hanging in the dining room/library. I have a not-so-trusty stool that I frequently use to reach things in the tops of the kitchen cupboards. This stool has let me down before and today I was reminded of the time when I vowed that this stool and I were done... FOREVER....

Almost a year ago we moved into the house we are now calling home. You know how it is when you are moving into a new home... you are tired and cranky and you just want to get things put away so you sometimes do things that you know in your mind you shouldn't do....

I had some sleeping bags and pillows that I was trying to convince that the top shelf of my closet was going to be their new place of residence... they were being uncooperative as I tried to just toss them up on the shelf... so I thought to myself, "I'll show you"... ok, maybe I said that out loud... 

I grabbed my not-so-trusty stool just to give me a little elevation and hopefully a little leverage to FORCE the bags up on to the tippy top shelf in the closet. I got the sleeping bags up there ok and thought there was just enough daylight above them to force the pillow on top of the bags so that I could free up the shelf space for something else that I would probably never use, but wasn't quite ready to part with....

This stool is simply a board with two legs, one on each side, so it is good for elevation, but as I found out, not so good for leverage... I was on my tip toes trying to be tall enough to force the pillow into a tiny space on TOP of the bags. As I leaned back slightly to get a swing as it, the stool rolled forward, readjusting my center of gravity. (I have enough problems with gravity when my feet are firmly planted on  solid ground) I fell backwards, landing IN the shoe rack that I had just unloaded my high heels onto, banging my head on the wall, which then propelled me forward into the clothing hanging on the hangers. I reached up to catch myself, only to get my hands tangled in clothing and hangers and drag them all down with me. 

I am now laying on the floor of the closet with all the shoes, parts of the show rack, clothes, hangers and to add insult to injury, the dang pillow... sitting there on top of me, mocking me! 

My 14 year old son heard the racket and comes running into my bedroom, takes one look at me and yells... "Dad.... Mom down" and walks back into his bedroom. I'm pretty sure he left me laying there, alone in my shame, so he could go into his room and laugh his butt off in private instead of further bruising my ego by doing it in front of me...... he's such a good boy  :)

Nothing like this happened today with my not-so-trusty stool, but I did have a near miss, which reminded me of why I should just get rid of it before we have another "Mom Down" incident and something fatal happens!

My Invisible Illness

So.... 

I don't know when I started beginning my sentences with the word "so". It is actually kind of annoying to even myself, so I presume it is annoying to you as well... it's kind of like the word "like"... you remember back in the 80's, the movie Valley Girls? I think this must have been Nicholas Cage's first movie....hahaha... anyway, they used the word like, like every other word... so annoying. I really must try to stop starting my sentences with the word "so"! So anyway, what the heck was I going to write about....LOL!

Oh Yes... now I remember...

I want to talk about invisible diseases. The ones where the person suffering from them are in pain and have to deal with it day after day, when those around them can't see any symptoms, and therefore they have a hard time wrapping their head around what is really going on. There are many of these diseases that are a mystery to people unless you suffer from them and then they are very real... Lupus, Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Depression, Anxiety, just to name a few. I suffer from symptoms of fibromyalgia. Fibro is still somewhat of a mystery because the medical community doesn't know a lot about it, what causes it, or how to cure it. All they can do is treat the symptoms. I first went to the Dr when I noticed that I had a lot of pain all the time. I was cranky because i just felt achy like I had the flu all the time. I just wanted to lay around and sleep. It got worse and I couldn't keep weight on.  I really thought I had arthritis...

So, the Dr (there I go again...hahaha) determined I had no antibodies indicating arthritis and that I must be depressed and put me on anti-depressants. It didn't make the pain go away and then I started having heart palpitations from the meds. Back to the Dr I went and this time he listened to me and did every test imaginable. Through a process of elimination when all the tests came back negative, he determined that I must have a condition called fibromyalgia. What the heck? I had heard of people talking about this and to be honest, I had been one of those people that thought they just used it as an excuse when they wanted to get out of doing something.

 I couldn't have been more wrong. 

So (hahaha... I can't help myself) what exactly is fibromyalgia?

Here are the gory deets from my particular symptoms...

The definition actually changes every few years as more becomes known. It is currently thought to be caused by overactive nerves. A person feels pain in multiple quadrants of the body. Most people have certain trigger points where the pain starts and then it just spreads throughout the body from that point. There is a vicious cycle you go through... you don't sleep because you have so much pain in your body... then you wake up in more pain because you didn't get the really restful sleep when your body regenerates itself.... then you can't sleep because of the pain. Muscles get really tight and it almost feels like arthritis. Another thing about fibro patients is that they all experience the disease in different ways and we all react to the treatment in different ways. I have tried almost every pain medication on the market. Some have worked and some have had side effects that are worse than just dealing with the symptoms.  I have tried exercise and the strain on the muscles causes a very negative reaction that causes what we call a "flare up", which is when the symptoms are a little more extreme than what we normally experience. A flare up feels much like having the flu. You feel weak and achy and sometimes even a bit fevered. My legs feel like they are on fire and it hurts my skin to have even soft loose clothing rubbing on them. I get muscle spasms in my back that are so strong, they sometimes pull my rib heads out of place. The bones in my back are frequently out of alignment and going to the chiropractor is futile because by the time I get back home, they are back out of place. The pain in my back will cause a migraine and then bad things happen. I morph into some kind of monster mommy. The best thing I can do is put myself into time out...haha.... actually it's not funny. It so the opposite of funny, that the only sane thing to do is laugh about it.

What do you do for the symptoms?

Like I said earlier, every person reacts differently to their unique set of symptoms. I take medication now to try to break the cycle of not sleeping. By getting restful sleep, it makes a huge difference in how I feel the next day. For me now, sleep comes at a price. I have about 30 minutes after I take them before I must be horizontal or I will be stumbling around like a drunk, bumping into walls and drooling on myself... glamorous image, isn't it...LOL

The other thing that I have found that is very helpful is to stretch out the muscles... gently! If I can keep things loose, then it seems to help with some of the pain. Massage helps with that as well. I don't like to pay for massage, because there are things that our family needs more and using the money for myself seems selfish, so it just stresses me out, so I don't do it often. What I try to do instead is get my family members to help me with this. When the muscle spasms in my back get really bad, I have Wayne or one of the kids use their elbow to grind out the knot in my back. ( Ewww... I know!) This is really painful, but it's kind of a hurts-so-good kind of thing. While the things I am doing to manage the pain, don't take away the pain, it does make it manageable enough that I no longer take prescription pain medication. I can usually manage with OTC meds (very, very large doses of OTC....hahaha).

I have now come to terms with the fact that this will never go away, the only thing I can do is learn to live with the symptoms and try to not let it win.If you know someone who suffers from an invisible illness, there is not much you can do for them except stand by and watch them suffer.... Compassion IS one thing you can offer them.... and maybe some chocolate.....lol! If someone you love is suffering in silence, please be compassionate and understanding with them. It makes all the difference in the world!

Why I Don't Wear Pantyhose

This is an older post from my facebook last fall that I have recycled... lest I forget! This morning I am getting ready for church and it’s kind of drizzly outside and I remember that when I was in the church building yesterday, I was kind of cold all day. I normally wear a longer skirt and no pantyhose, but I was sort of traumatized by a crazy dream last night ( a completely different funny story…lol) so I grabbed the first skirt and quickly got out of the closet. It happened to be a knee length skirt and I did not want to spend an hour standing in the closet trying to decide what to wear, so I just decided I would wear pantyhose today to keep my legs a little warmer. Since my body is getting older and my muscles are tight from a medical condition, I sometimes have trouble reaching my feet in a coordinated way. I decided to play it safe and sit on the edge of the bathtub to squeeze into the “uncomfortable situation” I was about to create for myself. I roll the hose down to the toe, like you are supposed to do (as opposed to just trying to jump in with both feet) and lift my foot to stick my toes into the hose. One down, one to go. So now one foot is trapped and I try to lift the other one but the pantyhose by now are quite compacted so that I can actually reach the end of the other foot without bending over and getting close to the foot that is already trapped. (Admit it, you totally know the predicament I am now in!) As I bend over away from the edge of the tub, my center of gravity shifts and I start to lean too far forward so I put my foot down to catch my balance, only it lands on the rug (which does NOT have a rubberized backing on it). My foot hitting the rug hard causes a shift in the rug… backwards… which then propels my body even more forward than it already was before I put my foot down to catch my balance. I fall to a heap on the bathroom floor with my feet hobbled together by the waistband of the pantyhose around my ankles and my thumbs still stuck inside. As I am lying there trying to determine if I have permanently damaged anything but my ego, I remember that THIS is why I don’t wear pantyhose!

The Storm

A few weeks ago, we had the most incredible storm that I have ever experienced. Considering I grew up in Bear Lake, that says a LOT about this storm. One thing you need to know for those who do not live in this area.... we have a LOT of trees and we get a LOT of wind, so it is not uncommon for the power to out out on occasion.... With that said, this storm, was very much predicted and as predicted, on Tuesday night, January 17th, 2012, it started snowing. When we woke up, it was so beautiful. Everything was covered with a blanket of snow and it was so peaceful... kind of like Narnia when they first stepped out of the wardrobe.

There are a lot of hilly roads here so when the snow comes, it's not just a snow day for the kids, but also for a lot of businesses, mine included. So we decided to take advantage of the day off and we made a sledding hill from the front door, down the pathway of the front yard and out to the road. We had a great time ...play in the snow, come in and get warm, drink hot chocolate, then go back out and play in the snow. We had some friends, come over to do some "night sledding" since the pathway in the front yard, has light posts all the way down... 

Then the freezing rain came and the sledding trail, soon became a luge track... good times! We could start to see the ice forming on the branches of the trees and we could see some of the trees start leaning and as the tree leaned, you could hear the cracking of the ice on the branches.... kind of a cool experience... I had NO idea what other kinds of "coolness" we were in store for. During the night, on Wednesday the power went out.... and we woke up to everything frozen in time covered in ice!

It's hard to capture the awesomeness of it all in just a few pictures. It is truly something you have to experience for yourself!

This was the road leading into our subdivision. The trees were so heavy with ice that they were bent over and blocking the road so one couldn't drive down the road without having the frozen branches "tinkle" as the car passed under them. The best way to describe is was to imagine walking through a doorway with strings of beads hanging in it. The tinkling sound the beads make as you walk through is much like what it was like to drive down this road.

Many of the branches were bent over so far that the top of the tree was actually frozen to the ground! Over the next couple of days, many of the branches snapped from the weight of the ice and snow.

We lost several branches and trees at our house... so sad because we had AWESOME landscaping at our house.

It was kind of eerie to stand outside and hear the trees groan then crack, then hear the whoosh of snow and ice and branches falling. We were entertained for hours in our cold dark house just watching the branches in our yard fall. They continued to fall all day Thursday and Thursday night. Laying in bed listening to the evergreen branches crack and then slide down the side of the house was like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard. As I laid there listening, I was peaceful knowing... it's not my house.... HA!.. one of the benefits of being a renter!  Thankfully, on Thursday, Emma's future in-laws took pity on us and invited us over to their home out in Enumclaw (they have a generator to run pretty much the whole house) to sit by their warm cozy fire, eat yummy homemade chicken noodle soup (did I mention it was warm) and hang with them for a while.

When we got home, the power was still out, so we decided to fire up the generator.... couldn't find a gas can that wasn't full of ice, since the lids got knocked off and the rain filled them up... then the generator somehow had ice in the engine and was frozen... Note to self:  From now on, keep the gas in the garage and fire up the generator in September to make sure it works!

Friday morning, still no power and most of Bonney Lake is still black as well. One gas station in town had a generator so it could pump gas, so we got a 1 gallon can... pathetic, I know, and went and got a gallon of gas while Wayne put a propane heater next to the generator to thaw the engine. We got it running...hurrah! Nana had an ortho appointment that had already been rescheduled twice so we decided to venture down to Sumner which is only a few miles down the hill... It took us almost 45 minutes to get there because of all the traffic trying to get out of town... Note to self: In case of emergency evacuation, take the back roads! When we got home, still no power, so we got the baseball bats and started beating the ice off trees. 

It was very therapeutic to swing the bat as hard as you can over and over at the trees to try to free them from their  frozen prison. It was amazing to see the branches spring to life as the burden of the ice was lifted. They seemed so happy ... almost like they were being reborn. I imagine maybe that is what our soul feels like when we repent of sin and that burden is then lifted and we can spring back up and stand tall instead of being weighed down with guilt to the point we actually snap!

Wayne also discovered on Friday that our gas water heater has a battery back up so  we may not have lights, but we have all the hot water we need to take a long. candle lit bubble bath... nothing like a bubble bath and clean shaven legs to make a girl feel better about the power being out!

Saturday morning... still no power... UGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! We spent the day with the chainsaw clearing the debris that was dangling from the trees (with the help of a couple of friends that were actually young enough to climb the tree with the chainsaw) and checking on friends to see if they needed any help. It was awesome to me to see the network of people from church that was going around checking on each other and just being of service wherever they could. Not only was the power out, but most land lines were not working and the cell towers had spotty at best coverage. We could send out a text from Nana's phone, if she was sitting in one special spot on her bed... that was it!

Saturday evening the power came back on.... YAY for the workers at PSE who worked round the clock in some harsh and dangerous conditions to restore everything we have come to depend on... at least those things that require power, like the computer, the cell phones, the satellite and facebook!

Looking back, it was a great experience to go through to see how prepared we are both physically and emotionally for an emergency situation... Note to self: Having banana bread in the freezer was a good thing to have on hand... it helped with the emotional stress of the situation!

It was a great time to spend together as a family and with friends playing games, working in the yard cleaning up the damage, and going out together to serve others. Pretty sure I would have gotten all that in the first day or two, but I am grateful for the whole experience!

The beginning of our life in Washington

Where to start, where to start? I think I will start when our families new adventure began in Washington. In January 2009, Wayne's job (I will refer to it as the Evil Empire... you will understand why later) gave us the option of moving to Washington or being unemployed. Given the declining economy in Boise (thank's to the Gadianton Robbers currently running the country into the ground) we decided on the choice to remain employed. So we packed up our lives and the 3 younger kids and moved to Washington. D was attending Boise State, so he stayed behind to finish the semester at school. We had no contacts in Washington, had never even visited the area. How does one go about deciding the right place to relocate your family when you know nothing about where you are going except where your job will be located... we didn't know about commuting, schools, church, etc.... So we just decided to leave it up to Heavenly Father and let him guide us where he wanted us to be. From the beginning, the very first person we met suggested we look at Bonney Lake. We looked at the area and loved it. We were somewhat turned around and disoriented (hard to believe, I know, given the fact there there is not a straight road in the state!) because when we flew up here to find a place to rent, there was massive flooding going on and so many roads were closed and we had to take lots of detours. So we weren't really sure where places actually were, in relation to other places... if that makes sense....

We let E  pick the school, since she would be going into her senior year of high school and she researched online and picked Auburn Riverside so that she could play basketball for what she felt like was the best opportunity for her to win a state championship... all be danged, if they didn't do just THAT!!! After taking a small detour living on Lake Tapps, so E could play at ARHS, we finally found a great home in Bonney Lake where we feel that we were meant to be all along... remember when I said that the first person we met here suggested we look at BL? Well, funny story.... we live just down the road from her now and B  is really good friends with her son. Funny how things "work out" when you turn your life over to God and just let him "Lead me, Guide me, Walk beside me, help me find the way"