Goal Setting

Good grief, where does the time go? 2010 resolutions- 1. Try posting a blog update more often than every 2 months although since Tracy is the only one who reads it may be I should just call her on the phone and let her know what's new. 2. Spend more quality time with the kids. So what if they'd rather play their Nintendo game, force the issue and make them like it! 3. Figure out what to do with my life. Should I know what I want to be when I grow up yet? Is there a job out there that I can like what I do, work minimal hours and make maximum money? I need to find that job. 4. Clean house, after all Superbowl is coming up again and I need to get the dog hair out of the corners so people don't see how we really live. 5. Get some sleep. Maybe then I wouldn't be so ornery. No, then I'll just be well rested and grumpy. 6. Break all my resolutions and try again next year.

Chapter 17

The past is such a funny thing. When I think about mine, I wonder why I didn't apply myself in school, I wonder why I wasted so much time in front of the mirror and I wonder what I was thinking when I made some of those fabulous choices. I really don't give my younger persona much credit because let's face it, kids are just plain self absorbed and inexperienced.

The other day I was digging around for an old picture for a friend and I found something I wrote in 1988. I was surprised at how intuitive it was.

A person's chronological age is not nearly as important as how he sees himself. You can be full in years but young in spirit. How you see yourself is often related to what you do with yourself, and what you do with yourself is often related to how you feel. Although, age has it's compensations you can increase your quality of enjoyment for you are rich in experience. The most important thing is not just to add years to life, but to add life to your years.

Not quite sure what to think about my 17 year old self but maybe I need to take some of my own advice!

One Last Hurrah!

Dead Horse Point

Nothing stops a mother's heart like your children running along the edge of a 2000 foot cliff. It's amazing that none of us dropped dead right there on the spot. Here we are clinging to the girls in case a good strong wind comes along and blows us right off. Legend has it that cowboys corralled wild mustangs onto this butte and forgot about them. The state park sign that is posted at the view point tugs at your heart strings describing the poor horses looking on the Colorado River longing for thirst. While I feel that it was a terrible tragedy, I find it somewhat amusing that the writer would think that a horse could possibly see and know that there was a river just full of satisfying water a mere 2000 feet below. Well in any case we were careful to bring lots of drinking water for us while we hiked around the Gemini Bridges area, Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands. We had a great feasts of dutch oven cooking and Tracy made her first s'more. But you know that it has been a successful trip when you run out of beer and you get a camping ticket. I can't wait until next year!

Sobered Up!

Well I have finally sobered up since the last post. And what a long drunken stupor it was! Ok, actually it was just a summer full of fun and adventures. When it finally warmed up in June we took a trip to Topaz mountain with our good friends the Browings to collect crystals and try our hand at dutch oven cooking. It was a smashing success! We found tons of beautiful crystals and Apache Tears. We ate like kings and queens, princes and princesses! It's a good thing we followed all that eating up with a hike to the top of a mountain. In July, the kids took swim lessons and played in a junior golf tournament and won a trophy! Then the kids and I were invited to join my friend Beth and her kids to her home town of Spokane. Her parents were patient hosts with 5 kids tearing up the place and Beth was an awesome tour guide showing us all over the area including Coeur d'Alene Lake and Arbor Crest Winery. We finished off the trip by meeting Tom and Andy in Riggins, Idaho where Andy won $500 in prize money for dazzling the town with his country music. At the end of July the kids started back up in school again (darn this year round school schedule!). 4th grade for Tommie and 1st grade for Michael. August started off with my 20 year high school reunion. I wasn't going to go but Tom convinced me that it would be fun and...actually it was. Most people had gotten past the immaturity and generally wanted to know what you were up to. Then a few days later we had that country star (Andy) in our backyard to play for our friends and neighbors. The wind blew like crazy but that was all a plan to get the music to float up the canyon. I finished up August with a girls trip to Park City. We floated down the 45 degree Provo river which was pretty fun, except the part where Julie and I did a very graceful flip and we froze our butts off! Sharing a few bottles of wine and a soak in the crater at the Homestead and then later in the hotel hot tub warmed us up though. So you see I wasn't drunk all this time, well... maybe some of the time.

The Reason I Drink

Michael was picking up his cars off the family room table on Friday, cars that he had played with outside in the sand. As he picked the cars up they were leaving a pile of dirt behind. I told him he needed to clean that up. He said "you should clean it up, you're the maid". To which I promptly retaliated "I am not the maid!". And quite calmly he replied "well...you're like a maid". Anyone reading this now is cringing as they imagine the scene unfolding before them. And the possibilities were endless, stringing him up just by his toes, washing out his mouth with a whole bottle of Soft Soap, making him sleep with the chickens in the coop, forcing to him scrub the entire house with only a toothbrush and a lintroller...but I reminded myself, I asked for this...bundle of joy, and now I have it. So off to his room he went for an early night while I played games with Tommie.

Grand to be Great!

I'm about to become a Great Aunt. It's hard to imagine really, I feel... oh, I don't know about 25ish. And truth be told I don't really think I'm that great at anything. I'm a fairly decent wife, although I have my moments, I'm a good Mom but there again I have my melt downs. I know my way around the kitchen but I go through phases of really not wanting to cook at all. And I'd like to think I'm a respectable mortgage broker. But there it is, I get to be great at something, and not just once, oh no...3 times this year. Wow, I am so lucky! What will it be like, hopefully many years from now, when I get to be Grand?

The Sock Anomaly

Everyone knows the washer and dryer eat perfectly innocent, unsuspecting socks. White, black, pink, red, green ones, they have no preference. The anomaly occurs when I get fed up with the basket full of mismatched socks and decide that these poor lonely items are never going to find their mate again and toss them out. This is inevitably the time the washer and dryer then chose to give back to the community and return some of the mismatches. Is this part of some plot to make housework the first step to insanity? I think the washer and dryer is in cahoots with the dishwasher that leaves the film on all my glassware. It doesn't help that my daughter is going through a phase of wearing mismatched socks on purpose. Hey, this could work to my advantage I could just throw all the mismatched socks in her drawer and let her deal with it.