LA Times Cartoon

Maybe a little out of date but it made me laugh.

I do like Ron Paul.

Expeditiously vs. Exhibitiously

I was helping with the younger children at a rehearsal for a dance recital coming up and one of the teachers came into the waiting area and announced "If you're in the next number get into the studio expeditiously!"  I was thinking to myself, 'great use of a big word' when one of the teens standing next to me asked her friend, "What does 'exhibitiously' mean?"
Mwahaha! (but I only laughed way down deep inside)
I turned to the two confused teens to explain 'expeditiously' means to hurry and go into the room quickly.  'Exhibitiously' is an entirely different matter.  It's not exactly a word but if it is taken in the context of doing things as an exhibitionist would then you would go into the room nude or flash the people in the room.  The two girls seemed satisfied with this answer.  I thought about it a bit more and decided 'exhibitiously' could also possibly be understood as to make an exhibit of yourself as you enter the room which would be easy for the teens as they're all about attention most of the time anyway.
Yeah, so they hurried into the room.

Mothers Day

My mother sent me this one.

I have to agree with it.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer - loved it!

This one is going to go on my top picks or must reads or whatever that list in my head is where I keep the books I really liked.
The Foundling is a great adventure story with a little bit of romance and a cast of very entertaining characters:

The Duke, he's super rich and a nice guy but he's short and he was sickly as a child so everyone bullies him and he runs away from home for a few days on his own just to see if he's really a man or only a Duke.

Tom, the crazy kid who gets into trouble constantly but isn't such a bad guy.

Belinda, the ultimate dumb blonde who will do anything for a purple dress or a ride in a fancy carriage.

Harriet, (I like Harriet) who seems to be turning out very well despite external forces.

Gideon, the soldier that could kill someone with his bare hands but mostly just laughs off the insanity around him.

Liversedge, the bad guy, he'd hate to kill anyone but maybe for the right price he could overcome his sensitivity to violence and in the mean time he likes to manage the kitchen with his excellent skills.

      There's a few more besides these but you'll have to read it to meet them all.  The story is great, lots of twists and turns and plenty of comedy and drama to make it seem very true-to-life.  I laughed right out loud a couple of times.  I'm going to have to read this one again and find a website where they tell you what some of those old expressions mean.  For example, I know "pockets to let" means out of money but there were a bunch of other ones I had to guess at the meanings from the context, especially when the bad guys are all plotting together.

The Reluctant Widow

 Yesterday I finished reading The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer  , it was entertaining, adventure/mystery/romance with some twists and turns and nothing disgusting.  The Reluctant Widow is the story of a gentlewoman who has been forced to either live with her relatives as a dependant, or go to work as a governess.  She is on her way to begin work when a case of mistaken identity lands her in the middle of a inheritance dispute where a woman is needed to marry a man who is close to death so that his property will pass to her rather than a cousin.  The man dies the same day as the wedding and then important documents turn up missing and there's a lot of drama surrounding the funeral and the missing papers.  Everything works out in the end.  I found the story both implausible and predictable but still good enough to keep me reading.

paper cuts

Writing letters I won’t send
If I sent them the end of things would leave a bitter taste on my tongue and force me to curl up and be gone from this place
or it wouldn’t
But the end of things is invisible and always in question because of the means
If I write a letter it becomes set down on paper
Why is it paper cuts?
All I want to say is how much I miss a moment I never had but in my mind
If it’s on paper then it’s a bare shadow of the leaping grasping thing in my head
Shall I tie it to the page and force it to form to the surface in neat and tiny print?
it’s too heavy for paper
it’s too formless to fit within the strokes and bends of my written mind
On paper I can force it to burn and dance outside the confines of my own head
Inside my head it forces me on goading me with guilt or inspiring me with innocence
I never know which until it’s pressed into the page and my perspective can see it from somewhere other than the inside where I can only catch glimpses of it out of the corner of my mind’s eye.

Some Trials Seem So Heavy

I sat here thinking about what I wanted to say in this post and I started to type something about how a friend's baby with life-threatening birth defects makes my trials look small.  That's not exactly right.  My trials still seem large and take up so much space in my head and my life that I don't see around them sometimes.  It's different than that.  Thinking about my friend gets me past myself for a little while and gives me a clear opportunity to think of someone else and to pray for them and to love them a little bit more than I usually would.  See, Jamie Hoerler was a sweet girl I knew when I was a teenager in California.  She's younger than I am by about 5 years so she probably wouldn't have been on my radar very much if it hadn't been for her brother.  Jamie is married now and lives on the East Coast.  She just had a baby, Paul.  You can read more about Paul's challenges here - http://kjcarpenter.blogspot.com/  .  I've been fasting and praying for them.  I don't know what will happen with Paul, his condition is so serious that it's medically unlikely that he'll survive.  I can't even imagine what that's like for Jamie and her husband.  I know that they will have Paul as their son forever whether they have the opportunity to raise him in this life or will have to wait for when they are reunited in heaven.  God doesn't always give us what we want but he always gives us what we need.  It's hard to see God's perspective from where we are in life.  Trials break us down while at the same time giving us tremendous opportunity for growth.  I will keep praying for their miracle and I will keep asking God to give them comfort and peace, whatever he has in store for them.

Who knew findagrave would be this exciting?

I keep finding amazing information on http://www.findagrave.com/.  It's a site where people share cemetery information to help in family history research.  Just this weekend I found this amazing headstone with all these different names from Jared's family history carved into the base.  The person who took the pictures and posted the information has shared over 50,000 (!! wow !!) of these records.  It makes me wish I could do something in return.  The cemeteries in my area seem to be pretty well covered and I posted that I was willing to take pictures and search in them if anyone wants me too.  There are requests for information from cemeteries all over the world and if photography and helping people with family history appeal to you then consider joining this free site and possibly adding to the wealth of information available.

Euonymus

Mom calls these her "You-don't-want-a-mess" bushes.

Yesterday was the annual trimming.

I was SOOOOO happy Lynn didn't leave me to do it alone.



Lynn vs. Bush



These bushes are kind of massive and if we don't trim them back they tend to crawl up into the eaves of the house.

I had to do before and after shots this year.



I want to mention that I did the bottoms of the bushes before thinking to take the before shot so maybe next year I'll remember to get a before the before shot.

BEFORE



AFTER



There's also a kind-of-in-the-middle shot that I stopped to take when I got to the point where I had trimmed most of a what a six foot tall gal on a six foot tall ladder could reach.  It's also the point at which I went for a drink of water and considered asking for a raise.  It's the best point to ask for a raise because they can see I do good work and they don't want to risk offending me and having me leave it like that, right?  No dice on the raise btw, lucky for them I'll work for practically nothing, or even downright nothing, or no pay whatsoever...

Anyway, here's that picture -




We also planted onions and potatoes.

These are the onions.  The potatoes get buried so there's nothing to look at there.  There's also a rogue carrot in this row because the kids found one that was sprouting and we just had to put it in.

Then we sent in the irrigation team.

The irrigation team is a highly skilled, extremely motivated, and fiercely dedicated group.
They got into their work immediately.

 

My arms hurt too much to type yesterday.  Today was much better.  I have no idea what the caloric burn on trimming those bushes is but I know it was high, VERY high.  Lynn and I had a pretty good time and our version of Katy Perry's In Another Life is something to hear.  We also did a little Phantom and Lynn did songs from Chess, which she hopes makes a come back, but I'm not familiar enough with that one to have an opinion.

Crazy Female Driver

Jessica started yelling and I went to check on her.  She had obviously put the car in reverse and backed off of the pavement and into an area where traction was a problem.  Then she must have high centered and gotten stuck so she called for roadside assistance.

Roadside assistance moved quickly to get a camera.

Jessica was not happy with the poor customer service offered by roadside assistance and was quick to let them know.  However, she was too stuck to offer anything but verbal resistance to the actions taken.

I got her off the rocks, she got out, slammed the car door, and stomped away.

Synonym

Turns Out Mary's Last Name Was Drowne

      There has been a mystery woman in the form of "Mary S." at the top of Jared's family tree for a while now.  She was one of those brick walls you find when doing family history because sometimes you don't have access to the right records and sometimes there just aren't any records.  Well, yesterday I was looking for information on the Bortells line and I found a birth record in Massachusetts indexed by the family search indexing program recently.  Grace Bortells was the daughter of George Bortells and Mary DROWN!!  Yay!!  a maiden name for Mary S.!!
      So I went looking for the Drown family and found Mary's parents, Reuben and Martha and lots of information on the Drown/Drowne line.  Even Revolutionary War soldiers with nice little files of information online.  Then I got kind of into it and stayed up until midnight tracing the lines...  Well, enough about my addiction.
      I had a feeling Grandma June would be a great guardian angel for the genealogy of her family.
      Well, I can hear the little ones waking up so Reuben Olmstead Drowne and his wife Martha Peabody Buckley and their kids Mary Sophronia Drowne, Mary Sophronia Drowne (the first one died as a baby), and Charles Nye Drowne will have to wait at least a little while longer until I can get back to them.  Hungry babies with dirty diapers have to trump the dead.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

This video of the Muppets doing Danny Boy made me laugh.

http://youtu.be/riXcinqDeCI

      The day was a little rough.  Not so much luck.  My iron was too low to donate blood this morning.  Only mildly frustrating for me, I can try again in a few days.  More frustrating was Jared found out that since he had a 20 min. layover in a banned country he can't donate blood for a full year.
      While driving the kids around to do some errands this morning we were in an accident in the parking lot at Costco.  A man making a turn swung too wide and hit the side of my van.  We were both going slow but it still popped the side door in and messed up the paint job on most of the side of my van.  No one was hurt.  We both have good insurance.  I have an appointment Wednesday to get an estimate on the repair of the damage.  Jared says since it's the side door and the back panel dented in then it will be more than a quick fix and I'll have to get a rental car.  Last time we had to get a rental car they didn't have a van, this time I have too many kids to get in anything smaller than a van.  ugh.
      This is the first car accident I've been in where I was one of the drivers.  Also, all my kids in the car.  By the time I got home I just wanted to sit down and cry but I don't let myself do that in front of my kids.
      Jared had to work all day so I still had to deal with all the kids and everything even though I was pretty much frazzled by lunch time.
      Jared promised the kids a while back that we would all go out for sushi tonight.  We went to the sushi place just north/east of the 500 E American Fork exit.  They have good sushi, much better than the place on State Street near the bowling alley here in Orem or the place by Golden Corral (also here in Orem).  I don't like taking all the kids out to eat anywhere because the little ones just can't sit still that long and for some reason I always end up taking everyone to the bathroom at least once and usually twice while my food sits and gets cold.  Tonight, for some strange reason, Jessica freaked out about sitting in the high chair so I also ended up with her on my lap for the whole meal.  It's just not worth the aggravation for me.  Even if the food is really good I don't get to enjoy it.  I think it would be a good place to go with a group of grown-ups.
      It's ten o'clock and I'm exhausted every which way.

Mildred June [Bortells] Grover's funeral

      We flew to Greenville last Wednesday for the funeral on Thursday.  It was a very nice service.  June was laid to rest in the Greenville Memorial Gardens.

There was an open house at Michael and Natalie's home after the funeral and we were able to visit with friends and family there.

Jessica's First Haircut

BEFORE

AFTER

       The hair on the top of her head refuses to grow. The mullet was getting pretty intense.  She also has a "stork bite" birthmark on the back of her head/neck so shaving the whole thing wasn't something I wanted to consider.  She now has a short bob with no bangs (until she grows some) and it looks very cute.  Kinda boy-ish, but cute.  She's almost 19 months old and this is the first time we have cut her hair.  Fingers crossed it will grow eventually.

Unusual (but not that cruel) Punishment

     They told me their rooms were clean and their chores were done and then they went to play with their friends.  Upon opening bedroom doors I found this...

Kylie's "clean" room

Krista's "clean" room

     So I went all crazy on them.

OH THE HORROR!!

      This is a little trick I learned from my mother.  Those suitcase locks fit through the hole in a plug.  This is a TV plug.  I locked the TVs and game systems all up and password protected the computers.  Their rooms have been cleaner and I think they learned a lesson in honesty.  If not, I've still got those locks.

The Financial Situation In Iceland

While the United States is a lot larger than Iceland and I don't think we need to rewrite our Constitution (just apply it for a change) the idea of the kind of financial collapse and recovery Iceland is going through is important for us to look at.

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2011/08/25/why-iceland-shold-be-in-the-news-but-is-not/

Ron Paul speech in Virginia Feb 2012

Ron Paul Full Speech Springfield, VA Rally 2/28/12  http://youtu.be/gp4fy9txa0A

30 minutes long.  Ron Paul's platform.  If you want information on him, here it is straight from the source.

Maybe I need a blog category for political stuff...
     If you ask me how I define myself I don't think political stuff would come up anywhere near the top of the list.  I've been involved in school government and voted in almost every election from local to presidential since I was old enough to do so.  I have voted Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, and Republican at different times over the years and all it proved to me was that the party divisions don't make sense; my basic beliefs didn't change, the platforms of the candidates shifted.  I did serve in my local precinct as a Secretary/Treasurer but the job didn't seem to actually have any responsibilities.  The President was very hands-on and just did everything.  I guess I didn't mind very much but I didn't feel like that was the way it was intended to work either.
     I wasn't very interested in politics before Ron Paul in 2008.  I still don't think of myself as politically active.  Maybe my definition is off?  I just see something horribly wrong with the way our country is headed and I want it to change.  We've got most of the world ticked off at us and we just keep insisting we're better than everyone else as we set a terrible example of going to war and racking up debt.  We're the bully with the maxed out credit cards drunk on our own power.  It's just common sense... no one wants to be told what to do by someone they can't respect.  I'd like to see us be completely respectable again.

Even Obama supports Ron Paul

(he just doesn't know it yet)
lol

John Stossel's - Illegal Everything

Here is a link to The 42 minute video on YouTube .
Stossel made so many good points in this video.  I watched it early this morning and then went to feed my kids breakfast afterwards.  I was thinking about the movie so I let my kids demonstrate some of the ideas for me by giving them some freedom in their breakfast choices.  They all chose a small handful of chocolate chips but they also wanted a banana, a glass of milk, and either oatmeal or toast.  No one went for the fruit loops, the lemonade, the Ritz crackers, the eggs, the cheese, or the spinach.  So maybe I didn't prove anything but it was interesting to me to see the choices they made.
More Americans really need to understand the main point of choice and accountability.  If all your choices are taken away you are basically responsible for nothing in your life.  You can't be held accountable and you don't have to make the mental effort of deciding anything.  I see so many people being herded along in life and they don't even know it.  Human being are meant to be challenged by choices and problems.  Our brains are too complicated and our spirits too strong to want to just submit to what's "safe" and "easy" for us.  I appreciate a good warning as much as the next guy but I don't want to be unable to try something where I feel the risk is acceptable.
I'm a reasonable person (as far as I can tell) and most of the time I try to make reasonable decisions.  While I have been to Nevada I have never gambled.  I am old enough to drink but I choose not to.  I have never wanted to smoke and have turned down offers of various 'smokables' over the years.  The only drugs I have ever taken were prescription and I took fewer than suggested (I don't even take the full dose of Tylenol).  I have tried rock climbing and bungee jumping and I loved both but now that I have kids I don't do either of them.  I don't want the government saving me from myself by legislation.  Rules are necessary for society but when even the enforcers can't figure out the rules there is something horribly wrong with they system.  There aren't enough police in the world to keep us all from eating donuts and bacon for breakfast, unless we let them.