Bedtime with Mom AHHH!

Translation:

I have a story to tell you.
My kids will not go to bed.
They are screaming and fighting.
Bickering and complaining.
They do not want to go to bed.
It makes them feel sick.
Me as a mom,
I have a throbbing headache,
POUNDING AND POUNDING
It hurts.
What to do?
Hmm....
Maybe I can hide in the dark in the bathroom,
and just sit on the seat of the toilet waiting.
Hmm..what to do?
(little boy enters the room)
See what I mean?
(son bothering me)
See? Look over there! Can you hear them fighting?
Complaining and bickering?
Hmmm..
Maybe I can kiss them goodnight
And send them to bed.
Will that work?
Will they want a kiss goodnight?
Come on, give me a kiss.
(kissy kissy kissy)
I love you.
Hmm...
I am tired.
I have sagging tired eyes.
Oy...Sigh.
Woe is me.

Is This A Mormon Thing?

Earlier tonight a few of my high school sons friends were over for a couple hours, jumping on the trampoline, hot tubbing, and generally hanging out.

I made fry bread for my kids for dinner because my cupboards were empty and I needed to go grocery shopping. Flour was pretty much the only thing I had on hand with some condiments.

My son's friends were soon poking in my kitchen asking for some fry bread...

"Hey Mrs. Powell, what is this? This is good."

"Oh, you like it? Here...(handing over a 4 by 6 blue index card) you can write the recipe down."

So I got 14 year old boys writing down the recipe from my Pioneer Woman recipe book.

And later I hear that the kids were asking my son:

"Is this a Mormon thing?"

My son starts laughing so hard, and his friends then started laughing.

"Yeah, Mormon women give out and exchange recipes all the time!"

Heather: How To Survive Baking Day

First of all: hopefully you have shopped by last night at least. If you are shopping today for Thanksgiving, I will take a moment of silence for you...

Step One: You are gonna have to borrow my book:

Thanksgiving and Pie Baking for DUMMIES!

Step Two: Put on some music:

Play Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" because many a kitchen day for Thanksgiving baking has had many women in melting puddles of tears.

We can do this! We shall survive!!

Crank up the music and sing in such a terrible voice with your wooden spoon. Light a candle to set an aromatherapy mood:

Step Three: Throw out your stuff on the counter. You WILL make a mess. And get over the fact that your bedhead curls are sticking straight up and you are still in your jammies with no bra. And yes, someone WILL come over to talk to you when you look like Godzilla with bad hair. Get over it.

Done! Not so bad. Nothing fancy. No stupid crimping and and idiot stuff like "details" or "swirls" or "sugar sprinkles":

Step Four: Only make ONE, 1, uno homemade pie. No need to make 20 different pies with 20 different fruits and creams complete with lattice strips. Make homemade banana bread instead, that's why it's called quick bread:

Keep an eye on your pie and stop stressing. Open the oven door and step into a break dance routine on your flour and cinnamon covered floor because you made homemade pie and it turned out fine:

Step Five: Make a couple of turnovers with leftover pie dough and fruit for a friend or two. Good way to sneak in a treat for the next VT visit:

Step Six: Throw away your turkey baster, Reynold plastic bag for turkeys, and your foil thingie to cook the turkey in.

Step Seven: Like I said before, hopefully you did your shopping last night. Tomorrow's Thanksgiving Menu is going to be (DRUMROLL):

A Hamburger Bar! Complete with fixings. Throw all the toppings on the counter and grill the meat and you are DONE before the "Eye of the Tiger" song is over. Throw in some tortilla chips, salsa, Oreos. Cover the couches upstairs with sheets and you will have a very happy family with food and football!

And that is how you survive Thanksgiving Baking Day!

On a side note, host a Pie Night at your house. I am anticipating at least 20 different homemade pies at my house tomorrow night and 35 people showing up. See? That's why you only need to make ONE pie!!


And now I have some time for sewing!

(music continued....)

Face to face, out in the kitchen heat 
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry 
They stack the odds 'til we take to the kitchen 
For we bake with the skill to survive 


Risin' up, straight to the top 
Have the guts, got the glory 
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop 
Just a woman and her will to survive 

Project Halloween Too Late

HI gals!

Recently I posted a closeup of a project idea asking you what it is.

It was something I just put together using leftover paint chips in shades of orange and black and a flat canvas board from Big Lots.

I painted it with leftover cream acrylic paint and attached the paint chips, uncaring if it messed up the paint. Of course it all part of trying to shabby it up without trying too hard. I used a little bit of brown paint here and there and dry rubbed it in with my bare hand. I sanded the paint chips and left the bits of them on the cream paint and it added to the overall grunge look I was going for.

Cost of project: $1.00 for the canvas board, and everything else is what I had at home.

Here is the picture in it entirety:

And of course I have forgotten to take pictures on what I did with it. I used it as a backdrop with some pumpkins and candlesticks with mini pumpkins in front of it. And sometimes I used it as a centerpiece "tray" and put a large basket of mini pumpkins on it. Turned out really cute.

So there ya go, I made at least one Halloween craft thing. Unfortunately I finished it like a couple days before Halloween so I didn't get to enjoy the display for very long.

However I am very excited for Christmas decorations. I already started Christmas decorating a bit in my kitchen.

Be back soon with another Christmas project. I have two ideas! One involves something that involves the word "flat" (no, not another canvas board project). Check back soon in the first week in Dec.

Project: Can you Guess What this is?

Overhead Annoucements

Overhead announcements just don't work for me. I never remember that they are even there spitting out useless tirades or useful information.

I learned the hard way about overhead announcements quite a few years ago when my oldest son was a toddler, and I was pregnant with my second child.

Back in 1998 I was on vacation in Utah on a well deserved 2 week visit to see lots of family members. I went by airflight. The visit started out with a fun high and ended on a emotional note with the death with a family member and a funeral. Even though I wasn't particulary close to the family member, my pregnant emotions was just easily overwrought from the whole day.

The air flight home with a tired toddler and being "emotionally overwrought" pregnant was very trying. I was trying my best to cope with the annoyed looks from the other people and the attendants. They weren't annoyed with my toddler though. It was with me, with the communication difficulties I was having.

When I arrived home in Phoenix, my SIL was supposed to be there to meet me in the terminal and drive me home to Tucson. She wasn't there. I waited a whole hour. I had no money and my kid and I were starving. No one seemed inclined to help a tired pregnant mom and her tired toddler. It had been a long day from leaving to the airport at 11 am and arriving in Phoenix by 6 pm. There was not one kind face I could find for help. Back then of course there was no texting phones so I had no way to contact my husband and ask what to do.

So finally I just got my credit card that I didn't really want to use and arranged for a shuttle ride home. During that timeframe my SIL wasn't the most dependable or trustworthy person so I felt that she just forgot to come to Phoenix.  Meanwhile my SIL was looking with the police for about 3 hours all over the entire Phoenix airport while I was taking my shuttle ride home. I was declared missing and my husband was at work frantic, my MIL and FIL were frantic, and my SIL was frantic.

I arrived to the shuttle dropoff and asked someone in the office to call my husband. Oh, how I hated having to always depend on strangers to contact my own husband. My husband picks me up and he is worried and upset, and relates the whole story to me on how my toddler and I were "missing."

He finally asks why I didn't go to customer service and use the overhead announcement to inform my SIL where I was and find out if my SIL was even there if she showed up too meet me at a certain location.

?

what is an overhead announcement?

?

There are many things I could be using or doing to make my life less complicated but I just don't know about them. If it depends on my hearing to know that they exist, it is not going to happen for me. When I DO find out about it, it is always through some horribly embarassing and difficult moment for me.

My SIL declared she was going to kill me when she found out I was finally at home, and thankfully that hasn't happened. She had 3 hours to cool off during a long drive home alone. (In my defense she shouldn't have been super late either, and my other defense is that my pregnant brain just shut down)

So fast forward to several years later to last night of November 11, 2010.

I was shopping late at Walgreens to get a couple of vaporizers and was just looking over things from aisle to aisle.

After a while an bossy and upset old lady comes to me and says, "we are closing now!" Her hands were on her hips and she was all snippy and snarky. "We made several annoucements on the overhead!"

?

(oh yeah, remembering the overhead thing)

"Oh I am sorry. I am deaf. You were announcing that you were closing this whole time?"

 I had a snarky retort of my own:

When someone doesn't repond after a 2nd and 3rd time, don't ya think you should go check the situation out in person?

But I only said it in my head. One other thing I did learn the hard way years ago is that you don't piss off a mad old lady.

Ah well. I don't mind educating the public and helping them learn that not everyone is the same and their bodies don't function the same way, no matter what the outward appearances appear to be.

I am sure that old lady learned the old way and will not be using an overhead announcement on a single patron in a closing store over, and over, and over, and over, and over.....

This time she is the embarassed one. Not me.

But I have to wonder: how many times over my life have people tried to "overhead announce" something to me while I am shopping?

Probably a 1000 times.

And I guarantee it will happen again, a 1000 more times.

Oh man! I just remembered just now! One time I was a young student at BYU in 1992 studying in the study lounge and I fell asleep on one of the long cushion benches. I was woken up by a concerned janitor and was asked to leave the building, which was COMPLETELY empty of all people. There was a fire alarm going off and all the students were outside. I was SO embarassed that all these young students were just passing me by, probably snickering at me" while I was "sleeping through" the fire alarms and possible overhead announcements to exit the building.

I better stop writing this post now, before anything else embarassing comes to mind..

Mummy's Apothecary

Hi gals-

Some of you have seen how I have done Santa's Apothecary last year. Throughout the year I changed things in the jars of the old soda crate to each month's theme. I used items around the house. Most were easily from my scrapbook and craft stash from my office.

For Halloween I just put in some paper bag colored crinkles from the Dollar Tree, and the rattan balls from the Dollar tree, which I plan to move around into different projects. Plus I used a bag of candy corn from the Dollar Tree.

I shopped my house for Halloween decors and changed things around to make it fun. With more and more money being put into my kids extracurricular activities (football, wrestling, dance, piano, gymnastics, baseball) I am having to find ways to be thrifty with the crafts and decorating. I actually enjoy the challenge, and I love scouring thrift markets to find new trash to treasures for decorating, clothing my kids, and stuff like that.

Here are my ideas for this years Halloween:

Mummy's Apothecary:

Stuffing bits and pieces of things I had into containers:

I put the rattan balls into an antique muffin tin I got out from my kitchen decorations and filled old jam jars with beans and such:

I took my collection of metal gumball machines and interspersed it with the pumpkins we picked from the patch to be carved for later:

I save my candle jars for whatever project may come up. This time I put in paper bag crinkles in the old candle jars. I printed out old apothecary labels and tea dyed them. Then I mod podged it to the jars and lined them up on my shelf:

And check this out! This is my splurge for my latest gumball machine craze that I got a few months ago. It sat empty for awhile and then I filled it with candy corn. It is not to be used to "buy" and eat. I will save the candy corn for next year. For Dec I will fill the container with small ornaments:

So that's basically it for Halloween decor with the exception of my front entrance where I put more stuff and effort into it.

The cost of everything for Halloween for the month of October was just the pumpkins, my son's Clark Kent glasses, and my daughter's tutu costume. About 30 dollars total. Not too bad.

Halloween Critter

Look what Matthew found crawling under the bleachers recently:

I used my camera flash to figure out what Matthew was pointing to, but it was too dark to really see anything until I looked at the preview screen on my camera after I took the picture.

It was longer than Matthew's hand, and when it stretched to crawl, it spread out to five inches. But I had nothing for size comparison to truly show on the picture on how big that monster was. Matthew was convinced that it was a snake. I think it is a tomatoe hornworm, but I am not sure what it is doing in the concrete jungle at the school football fields, and it is cold at night.

After I viewed the picture on my computer, that is when I noticed a large ant next to it too. Maybe the hornworm was after the ants.

Hungry for a Halloween meal?

Look under the bleachers! There are giant bugs available for your potions and brews!

Sweet Cucumbers?

Recently I went to Apple Annie's with my family.

We picked pumpkins and all the stuff needed to make our annual homemade sala, made by my oldest son.

Along the way to walking back to the produce barn, we saw a lone watermelon growing out in the watermelon patch after all the others have already been picked. We decided to take that little baby home with us.

Tonight I cut open my watermelon expecting juicy red sweetness. Instead I got white watermelon?

Turns out that the watermelon wasn't done growing.

Hehe!

It tasted like sweet cucumbers though. We enjoyed them with our dinner with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Also tonight the aforementioned salsa is down to one last remaining cup. My daughter said that she wanted a bit of salsa and said "I just want the potatoes part, not all the green stuff in it."

When did tomatoes become potatoes and watermelon became cucumbers?

LOL!!

Just be Secretly Super!

Son: I want to be an Avatar for Halloween.

Me: Avatar? Is that stuff even out?

(checking Amazon..)

Avatar ears: 8 bucks


Avatar costume: 34 bucks


Avatar teeth: 8 bucks

Umm...you can just forget it.

Me: That is way too much money. Raid the costume bin.

I am not one of those moms that squeal when the costumes come out on August 31st and start planning the Halloween matching outfits for all my kiddies. I avoid all issues with costumes when I can.

However I don't mind being creative and whipping something quick and simple, and it still turns out just fabulous. Sometimes it just requires some quick and witty remarks to sway a child to another opinion in your favor.

Me: Hey! Why not a quarterback? You have the ENTIRE football Dallas cowboy equipment from your shoulder pads to your cleats.

Son: No. I want to be a SUPERHERO. A Suuuppperrr-heerrrroo. (as if I am not understanding the very direct super importance of being a superhero)

Me: hmmm, you have a Ironman, Batman, and Superman stuff in your bin.

Son: Booorrrringg! I want a NEW superhero.

Me: Hey! Why not Clark Kent?

Son: Uhh??

Me: You know, from Smallville. (we have been watching season 9 on DVD the last couple of days)

Me: You can be a SUPER SECRET Superhero! In disguise! Be Clark Kent! You know, with the superman shirt under your church shirt! (speaking persuasively)

Son: Okay!!!!!

Me: (thinking: whew! crisis adverted! I just saved myself 40 bucks on a costume!)

Me: Let me check Amazon. There! Three bucks for Clark Kent glasses and free shipping!

Son: (beaming and beaming)

Aren't I just the coolest mom??

By the way: Smallville rules and Clark Kent is the best!!!

I wood lik to met wyth yoo?

My hubs has such a wierd sense of humor sometimes, it makes me laugh so hard!

A child of mine is struggling in an English class, when typically straight A's are earned every semester and every year ever since kindergarten.

You know how sometimes we get a teacher that is hard to please, no matter what??

My hubs recently sent a purposely misspelled and misgrammatized email to this teacher:

Deer Ms. xxxxxxx- 

I wood like to make a apointment for parant teacher conferance next Thursday. Please have me a time to met with you. I is avaleable all day Thursday. I look foreward to met with xxxx english teacher. 

xxxx's DAD, 

xxxx xxxxxx

I heard about this when I saw my child and hubs laughing so hard in the evening a couple days ago, guffawing enough until the walls were rattling. When I went to see what the commotion was all about, I looked at the sent email from my email database. Haha! You gotta give them points for this!!!

Shortly after, the teacher emailed back. Very simple and to the point. No misspellings or grammatical errors. Not even ONE punctuation mistake. And NO mention of the obvious "poorly written" email on my hub's end. Hope that teacher has a sense of humor!

(Note: all the xx's are for privacy concerns)

Hav nyce day, and dont' fourget to laff and laff yor head of onece in a whyle!

Got #65

Today I recieved a text from my EHS high school son.

It said "Got #65."

I didn't answer it for awhile.

Then I went into town with my husband to get football stuff for my high school son.

Then I got the text again.

"Got #65."

I showed it to my husband: "What is this supposed to mean?"

He thought to himself, then smiled, and said that my son got the same number football jersey that he had while playing football in high school.

Sah-weet!!

Another Year Older?

A certain day is coming soon. It is a day in which I wish my body will age in reverse.

For like the next 6 years, and then stay there.

And for the "celebration" today for this coming certain day in which another dreaded number creeps up, I decided to spend it with my husband. Today is his day off from work, and all my kids are in school.

I just got paid from my job. I put a huge chunk of it into a vacation savings account. Cha-ching for the bank.

eep.

And yesterday my printer died.

eep.

When do I get to spend anything on myself? Especially on my "celebration" with another dreaded number?

So today my dear hubs and I went to Best Buy. I found a printer I wanted for 30 dollars less than I originally thought it would cost. Cha-ching? (that doesn't really count as something for myself) Nope.

Then I happened to meander over to the photo area. I think my hubs knew that my cha-ching was about to disappear. So after the Best Buy took apart the entire display area so I could play with check out the new lens on a camera similar to mine, I ended up with a decision to finally buy my 55-250 Canon lens for my camera. It only took me a year to finally buy it. Cha-ching? Yep! I finally got what I wanted!

Then my hubs took me to Chipotle across the street for lunch. I will forever say it wrong: Chip-po-tay. Good food. Too crowded and noisy for a good visit with my hubs though. Cha-ching? Nope.

Then we headed nearby to the mall. Cha-ching for hubs? I finally got to use my Bath and Body Works gift card a dear friend gave to me. Cha-ching for me!

Then I decided I MIGHT want to check out the Sears clearance rack. Then I saw Payless Shoe Store and ran as fast as I could meandered over because I have been looking for ballet shoes my daughter needed to replace the ones blistering her feet. Size one ballet shoes always seem to be out. And today the PSS at the mall of all places! finally had them. Cha-ching for me! (and my dear daughter!)

Afterwards I come out of PSS and my hubs is missing! I think he might have suffered from mall shock. I texted him like 6 times:

Hey, I am done. 


Where are you? 


Where r u at? 


I am done, I don't want to go to Sears. 


I am done with Payless.

I am waiting and waiting. Like 18 WHOLE minutes!! I am tired. The mall is hot and humid in the hallways.

Cha-ching?

Texting again:

Hello?


Where is the car parked at?


Como estas? Do I need to call a cab to get home?

Then dear hubs finally shows up, looking a little too relaxed.

He didn't die from mall shock!

"Soo...where were you at?"

"At Oriental Chi"

"Chi?"

"Getting a chair massage."

"Really? Where?"

(walked over to Oriental Chi)

"I want a massage too!"

Cha-ching!

"By the way hon, ignore the last text."

Thanks for a great day hubs.

By the way, I will be forever 30!

Well, am I?

I assure you that I in fact, am deaf.


I decided to do a little education and FYI post.


Some of you are too shy or afraid to ask me.


Some of you had no idea.


First of all: I was born deaf. At least I think I was.  I still remember being three and getting my hearing aids for the first time, and the ride home in my Dad's noisy light blue VW Bug scared the cripes out of me.


I didn't have any communication and language in place for a long time. I do remember that somehow I was able to read a persons lips when I was about 4 years old. But it wasn't perfect. It needed time. It took 13 years until I was able to read a person's lips well enough that they didn't know I was deaf. I learned to speak. That was tricky too. I spoke with an obvious deaf accent and wierd tones for years. Took me awhile to hone the speaking skills.


Lip reading is a tricky thing though. Just because I can read your lips when you are standing 12 inches or so away from you doesn't mean I can read your lips in a group full of people. Lip reading in a group of people is like paying attention to the game of hiding a penny under a cup and watching a bunch of cups swish around, then find the penny again. By then, I have completely lost track of what the conversation is all about.


Lip reading: I can't do that with everyone. If you have an accent and move your mouth different because you are from another country, forget it. Have a bushy mustache, ah man, I would hope and pray that my male teachers in school and college didn't have a mustache. If you are missing teeth, or have misshapen teeth, it gets hard too. The more I lipread a person, the easier it gets. That's why I like to keep the same people around me in my environment, such as the same VT person.


At church or some other classroom setting. You know those Charlie Brown cartoons, where the teacher is talking, and all you hear is a mwah mwah mwah? That is what it is like for me in a classoom or group setting. Unless I have an interpreter, its hard for me to follow. It's nice when someone gives me notes, but its not the same when I can't follow the feedback that others are giving around the classroom, or that I can't cry and laugh with the rest of them. I pretty much just put on a pleasant smile and wait for class to be over. I don't really get too much out of a classroom setting without an interpreter.


How much can I hear?


Well that's a long story. My mom said I seemed to hear more when I was real little. First of all, I HAVE to wear a hearing aid to hear any sounds at all. I can hear talking voices. I can hear music. I can hear the airplanes overhead. I SOMETIMES can hear the sirens, but only if I am outside the car if I am driving, or the windows are down. Now fast forward to 2007 when I got a digital hearing aid. Oh boy, that was great. I could hear my kids talking in the next room. I could hear the doorbell. I could finally hear my husbands cellphone ringtone. But it is still a matter of distance. I certainly do not hear a cellphone in the next room or a large room. BUT I do NOT get the words people were saying in the next room. I still need to lipread. Let me CLARIFY that all I am hearing are tones. My hearing aid does not make me a hearing person. You sound robot-like and tinny when I hear you talking. Hearing aids are not like glasses. I can't put them on, and be all like, ta-da, 100 percent hearing again like everyone else.


In a large hall full of talking people, I can hear all the noises at once. But I can't differentiate it. I still use my eyes to separate the noise. If you walk right up and start talking to me behind my back, you are in fact just part of one large noise to me. You still have to get my attention by tapping me on the shoulder.


Is louder noise for me better??


Hmm, that is a big fat no. This is why the COMTEK thingie I would wear on my ears, and this other thingie would hang on my neck that I would wear in the 6th grade was completely useless. It made the teacher's voice louder, but I didn't lipread or understand any better. Speaking louder in my ears: useless. Back off unless you want me to slug you. I would turn up the radio a little bit more, and the TV a little bit more, but not too much.


Why don't speech sounds I hear become intelligible?


Answer: I have nerve deafness. The sound we hear travels along our ears through cilia, tiny hairs inside our ears. Cilia is on the nerves. The nerves travel the sound to the brain, and the brain computes the sounds into speech forms that people can hear and comprehend. The sounds I hear reach my cilia in my ears, and pretty much stop there. So therefore I use my eyes to fill in the rest of the gaps, until it reaches my brain, then I comprehend. (lip reading, ASL, interpreting, subtitles, captions etc)


There are tons of different deafness types.


Every deaf person has their own unique experience on learning to survive in a hearing world. There is no one else like me. I don't belong to any "classified/labeled" group. There is an entire novel on this.


What was it like growing up deaf?


It was tough. I hated school and socializing alot. I did not like leaving my house into the real world.  I learned alot about the real and savage world at a young age. I'm not going to lie, I did suffer some pretty bad abuses in every way imaginable most days. That's all I have to say about that.


How to Get my Attention: 

1. Tap my elbow or shoulder. 
2. Slow down. Enunciate. 
3. Don't overly enunciate to me so slowly like I am some retard. 
4. Don't be nervous. It's difficult to "read nervous talk." I promise I will not bite.
5. Speak directly to me
6. It's okay to write something on a piece of paper. 
7. Text me. Even if it is right in front of me because I am not getting a word or two that is important to the whole conversation.

No-no's on talking to me:

1. Don't start talking to my husband in my behalf, especially when I am standing right there! (can you tell your wife.....)
2. Don't assume I understood the first time. It's okay to say, "you got all that?"
3. Don't assume that when I am standing in a group, talking and laughing, that I GOT everything in the conversation.

Attitude, willpower, determination and survivor.


It's everything to why I can do the things I can do:


People told me I will not read. I taught myself to read at 5.


People told me I will suffer and do poorly in school, and never graduated. Granted I DID get Cs and Ds in elementary, but then I graduated with As and Bs in high school, without the priviledge of ASL and interpreters.


People told me I would never go to college.  I went to four years at college. Two at BYU, and two at UVSC. Most of the grades were pretty good. The only bad grades were because I hated the class and skipped it, like Philosophy. I always got As in my English classes. Yep, I can read, and write, and comprehend what I am reading.


People told me I would never be married and be a mom. I've been happily married for 15 years with 4 kids.


People worried that when I had my babies, it was like "oh, those poor poor babies!" Believe me, I woke up every hour checking on my babies all the time at night because I knew I wouldn't hear them cry. I had to triple my mom dedication. I would feel their chests to make sure they were breathing. And my babies learned fast. For example, they learned to bang the crib against the wall when they were ready to get out instead of screaming their lungs out. (I can feel vibrations, and I am more sensitive to it)


People told me I would have a sad and boring life. Hmm, well. I read, paint, sew, photography, do crafts and scrapbooking, teach classes at church, have friends and a social life, and get involved in my community and church. I'm a happily busy mom, wife, friend, and sister.


You tell me I can't do something: Just wait and I will learn to do it better than most.


Not only I am Mrs. Can,  I am also Mrs. Will.


All right now. Any questions?


The only stupid question is the one you didn't ask.

Potatoes aren't Fruit!!

Last night my son pointed a certain vegetable was that was sitting interspersed with the other fruit on a plate that my children grab freely from for snacking. He asked me what it was.

I told him, "those are gold Yukon potatoes." I didn't think to ask him why he asked me that question. It certainly looked like other kinds of potatoes, except it wasn't the typical brown color.

This morning while getting stuff ready for school, I saw my son take something odd from his lunchbox when he cleared out yesterday's old lunch stuff and threw it away.

I looked in the trash can there was a raw Yukon gold potatoe, with a large bite taken out of it.

Please join me in a lovely symphony of gut busting laughter!!

(I am still giggling a half hour later)

(

P is for Pearl

Today my son found a wood lid stuck behind the dresser.

It has fancy scrolled letter P on it.

I was missing that lid for a really long time. I really wanted that lid back!

This old varnished cracked lid with a "P" on it is my jewelry box lid. I am guessing that my jewelry box is about 30 years old.

My mother gave me this wood jewelry box to me when I was 12 years old. It used to be her Aunt Pearl's. I didn't really know Aunt Pearl. She was my great Grandpa Busby's companion. I remember the cool 70's beads in their kitchen. That's all I remember about Pearl and Grandpa Busby.

But getting that jewelry box was the coolest thing ever. I used to share a small bedroom with 4 other kids. A brother in the crib. A sister in a mattress pulled out from under the crib. A sister on the bottom bunk. And me on the top bunk with my "secret stuff" stashed under the mattress. Lots and lots of "babyish" stuff and Barbies in my room, ugh!

I didn't have any the latest teen stuff at the time. Just a few Kirk Cameron posters on the wall, and my very non-babyish jewelry box with the letter P on my dresser.

Yep, I was real proud of my jewelry box with a letter P. I polished it once a month with my Mom's lemon polish.

I smacked my siblings hands if they dared touched my jewelry box.

A year later I was looking at the letter P thinking that it was too bad that it was not a letter M.

A year later I was really wishing I had a reason to have a letter P! No cool nicknames for me that started with a letter P. And "pumpkin" from my Dad as a little girl does not count.

A year after that I thought to myself, "I really really want my last name to start with a letter P."

A year after that I thought to myself, "I am pretty sure that I will have the last name with a letter P"

A year after that, I went to Lake Powell for the first time. And I LOVED it. I loved that name of the lake so much. Lake Powell sounds so cool. It IS so cool and beautiful.

Almost 3 years later I was standing by a large bonfire introducing myself in sign language as a one of the counselors at a summer camp for deaf kids. "Hello, my name H-E-A-T-H-E-R M-C-N-E-I-L"

Soon afterwards there was a hand towards my right shoulder. I could only see the hand. I thought it was a very nice looking hand. And I saw the name being spelled "R-Y-A-N P-O-W-E-L-L"

Well two weeks later, and the rest is history.

Now I have a good reason to have an old varnished cracked wood lid with a fancy scrolled letter P on it.

And I am still proud of it.

I smack my kids hands if they dare to touch it.

And to this day I still introduce myself as "My name is Heather Powell, Powell as in Lake Powell"

(otherwise they write my last name down as Powers)

PS My husband is quite possibly related to John Powell, founder of Lake Powell.

Thanks son for finding my  jewelry box lid!

And P is now for Powell. (Sorry Aunt Pearl!)

I Smell Like a Man

Yes, you read that right!

I smell like a man, and I love it!

Now I do not mean sweaty, sticky, icky and stinky man... (gaggagagagag)

I am talking about this:

Oh yeah baby!

For the past 18 months I have been gradually using my husbands stuff from the bathroom while ignoring my bottles and vials of stuff from Bath and Body works.

I discovered that I love Old Spice!

My favorite one right now is Swagger. isn't that such a fun and cool name? But I got a problem. The entire family loves it too! I caught my daughter using Swagger deodorant and my teen sons are requesting their own Swagger products so that we don't have to share.

So currently I have two Swagger body washes in each bathroom. My kids are sharing Swagger body spray and deodorant, and they all insist on having their own stash of Swagger products in their room.

My husband has been an Old Spice fan since boyhood and still uses Pure Sport or Fresh.

Pretty soon the entire house will be filled with OS Swagger products.

Now if they will make Swagger body lotion, I will be a happy woman!

If you are ever at loss on what to get me or any of my family members for our birthdays, we will be very happy to get this:

Have a nice Old Spice kind of day!

What is your favorite Old Spice smell? (on yourself or on your man)

The Candle Sniffers

I have a little pet peeve about something that EVERY cashier has done to me since I starting purchasing supplies at the store for the last 14 years.

1. I get an candle (and a bunch of other stuff)

2. I wait in line FOREVAH

3. I bite my tongue when cashier is SO slow

4. Cashier rings up my candle from my stash of other stuff, opens the lid and takes a sniff.

5. And I snarkily say "yeah, that smells good, don't it?" (thinking: make me wait a little longer, will ya?)

The first year during shopping for my family was fun.

The second year was okay.

The third year was boring.

The fourth year and continuing: STOP WASTING MY TIME!

If the cashier starts sniffing my gum and treats, I am seriously going to lose it.

(BTW: no male cashiers ever do this)

Maybe I should learn and make sure I get in line with the MALE cashiers. But they move so much
slower!!


Next time I am bring my friend Flower with me when I go shopping. I guarantee that the cashier will speed things up and stopping perusing over the items I decided to buy:

Summer Plans So Far

This is what I have been doing thus so far with my summer vacation with the kids:

This is what I wish my dogs could do this summer, I swear it seems to be more work:

I have also been doing lots of fun sewing projects. I do have four polka dot fabric stashes:

I have also been hosting a summer camp. The first week was Outerspace and Alien Day followed by Pirate Day. Next week is Hawaii/Beach Day. Then Diary/Car Wash/Farm Day. The third week will be Magic and Talent Show/Circus then followed later by Camp/Patriotic Day.

My kids have so much fun having their friends over for summer camp every year.

So that's my summer so far in a nutshell?

What have you been doing this summer? (and don't make me jealous and say that you are in Hawaii, or San Diego, or anywhere where the climate is cooler to the point of being able to walk outside without passing out by the time you reach your mailbox)

"I already told you!"

You would think that I would have learned by now...

Today while paying for a purchase at Ace, I scanned my card and said, "Debit please."

Then I saw that the info on the screen 'thingie' where you make your payments with a card said "credit."

Then I said, "I wanted debit please."

The young female cashier gets exasperated with me and said, "I just already explained and told you that the credit will run like a debit, (talking to me like I was some sort of toddler.....yadayayaydayaydya-I stopped listening at this point, I have heard this conversation before)

*whatever*

So I said, "Oh, so while I was fiddling with my wallet and this machine, you were talking to me the whole time? Sorry. I am deaf. I didn't hear anything you said."

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. You would think I have learned how to sidestep this problem next time.

Next time I go shopping, I think I will tape a big note on my forehead just before I get to the cashier:

"I AM DEAF. Please don't speak unless spoken to and I am looking at you."

This is what I am making next

GO see Brassy Apple Lady at

http://www.brassyapple.blogspot.com/

(photo above is from the Brassy Apple Lady)

I am totally going to copy her idea to make a chandelier for my daughter's room for about 18 dollars using stuff from the dollar store!

It's simply three wire hanging baskets for plants spray spainted and a bit of wire to hold stuff together. Then whatever bling you want.

See her blog for a great pic by pic tutorial!

Speech Therapy

Hi all-

You might have heard before that I have been using Leadsinger 2000 as a form of voice and speech therapy for me.

Last night I was singing the most classic song that every child in America and probably the world knows: The Alphabet Song.

I was scoring about 38 to 40 points out of 100. Most disappointing.

So I stood up straight, took some deep breaths, and tried to push out air from my belly and lungs while singing and opened my mouth bigger.

Then I watched the screen in disbelief: 59, 63, 84, 89, 90.

I scored 93 points. Unbelievable! Felt really good, could actually hear that the song was sung in a pretty decent tone.

Justice Inspired Clothing

Do you know all about Justice?

Not the one about freedom for all mankind and that kind of stuff.

The Justice. The one with the cute swirly heart logo:

Yeah, that's the one I am talking about: the one in the mall that gives you "40 percent off" coupons in the mail all the time.

But their prices are still ridiculous! $16.45 for a tutu skort on sale? $16.45 for a tee shirt on sale big enough to fit my little shiz tzu poo?

Now here is the catch. My little girl loves Justice. No, she {a big fat heart with rainbows and sparkles} Justice.

The latest craze right now is hot pink and zebra prints here and there in the Justice clothing.

So I decided to make my little girl her own Justice clothes with a touch of Mom's love:

Easy Peasy. Go to Michael's and get the pre-made stretchy white top. (I use the 50 percent coupons all the time. I signed up for the catalog that comes in the mail with coupons) Get a few cool fabrics by the yard. I have zebra print, Pink with white polka dots, and Black with white polka dots.

Get what you need for the white smocking by yardage by measuring around your little girls body first. Then sew the smocking together in a straight line so it is like a tube.

Make a skirt, and do a little gathering. Pin on the skirt to the stretchy white thing called smocking and sew. You can even attach an old skirt too! Upcycle your old teeshirts and clothes into something new!

Ta-ta. Done! Maybe make a fabric flower with matching leftover fabric to clip to the hair or the outfit on the belted waist or on top of the outfit. The belt came from my old shirt and matched perfectly!

So, what project that you have done that you can share with me?

Local Oil Spill Warning!!

LOCAL OIL SPILL happened today at 8 am in my entire local neighborhood.

It's oozing smelly, sticky and slimey oil.

Basically there is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits sometimes termed asphaltum.

How can total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) affect my health? (That will be the black sludge on my street)

Some of the TPH compounds can affect your central nervous system. One compound can cause headaches and dizziness at high levels in the air. Another compound can cause a nerve disorder called "peripheral neuropathy," consisting of numbness in the feet and legs. Other TPH compounds can cause effects on the blood, immune system, lungs, skin, and eyes. How about this for a night time horror story, only it's true: Petroleum based chemicals are being found to cause significant attritional effects to the nervous system and immune system after prolonged exposure. Illnesses identified in the medical research include adult and child cancers, numerous neurological disorders, immune system weakening, autoimmune disorders, asthma, allergies, infertility, miscarriage, and child behavior disorders including learning disabilities, mental retardation, hyperactivity and ADD (attention deficit disorders). Petroleum based chemicals are believed to cause these problems by a variety of routes including - impairing proper DNA (Gene) expression, weakening DNA Repair, accelerating gene loss, degeneration of the body's detoxification defenses (liver and kidneys) as well as gradual weakening of the brain's primary defense - (the Blood Brain Barrier). Identifying a specific chemical as the "original cause" of these health disorders is difficult and often overlooked as it typically requires years of exposure for the body's inherent defenses to weaken sufficiently to result in observable health problems. Also, many petroleum chemicals appear work in tandem to combine their harmful effects making specific identification even more difficult. However, once a chemically induced illness presents itself, a decline in health status appears to continue rapidly as long as exposure continues. Of significant concern, while petroleum based chemicals are required by the U.S. Government (EPA) to be tested for a variety of health effects, they are currently not required to be tested for causing subtle neurological damage (memory, personality, behavior etc), effects upon the developing brain during pregnancy, immune system effects, autoimmunity and effects upon the brain's primary defense - the blood brain barrier.

It's true.

I looked outside this morning and saw it.

WTH??!!

wth?

what the heck?

actually I meant the other word...no, not really, just wanted to make dramatic impact on the severity on the local environmental poisoning.

The entire neighborhood is saddened to know that our children will be trudging through the oil after school and bring poison into their homes.

On a side note the the state government has been abusing and misspending the financial budget.

Then the state threatened us with a using a Prop 100 saying that our schools will fail. (false threat!) How about getting rid of petty cash, expensive lunches and useless state congress cushy jobs. All the state government officials want to do is to close some of the local city pools so they could swim in millions of dollars seeing how the Prop 100 just passed.

Then they have enough money to willingly pour black poison on my street??? No one asked my permission if it was okay to put that sludge practically at my front door.

Seriously, there are no cracks or potholes in my neighborhood. WTH? Whatever are they re-sludging the streets for?

And here is the horror of it all: today was only day 1. There will be 6 more days of black poison on the streets.

There are oil tire tracks everywhere on our driveway. Pretty soon the sludge will cover the entire walking surface of our homes.

Goodbye bike rides and dog walks. Thank you very very very very much for pouring black crude petroleum poison oil on my street just when summer is starting to be 100 degrees soon for several weeks. I can't wait for the monsoons to wash it away.

Depressing to think that I will be spending my summer break mopping floors, steam cleaning the carpets, and shouting at the visitors to take their shoes off at the front door.

Oh yeah, the pic below? This is just from walking around my driveway and sidewalk AFTER I washed the bottom of my shoes off. This is just the residual sludge slowly creeping up all over the place from the streets:

I am thinking of a neighborhood intervention. Everyone: get a huge bottle of Dawn. Pour it on your "section" of the street. And at the same time everyone hoses off for 15 minutes straight. Then we might have a chance.

Yeah, and let's poison our landscape with the runoff. See? Evil just begats more evil. No one wins.