This Is Me.

Am I the only one in the world that can't figure out the visual verifications on peoples blogs?


I type the crazy letters. I find out I messed up. I type the new letters, but the letters I type don't show up in the box where they should, they're tacked on to the comment I was typing! I try a few more times before they just throw me a bone and give the the handicapped code of three letters or so. It's embarrassing! I can see just fine, I just can't tell the difference between a squiggly j and an i. Is there no end to the pain?

Girls Camp- An Estrogen-Fueled Adventure

I teach the 12 and 13 year old girls at church every Sunday, and let me tell you, I ADORE the sweeties. They are my lovelies, my home girls, my chickitas. They're really great girls. They are also insane. Completely. Girls camp usually involves all the girls from 12-18, but this year, 6 very young teenagers were crammed together in the same teepee without the tempering influence of the older girls. The teepee was huge, so why was it crammed? Their attitudes. Oh, yeah.

Did you know that lack of sleep can turn usually sensible girls into screaming banshees? That it's possible to have 6 girls sobbing their hearts out, all at the same time, sure that they are the source of all trouble in the world? I learned many things week, let me tell you.

The first thing I learned, is that Sharing is Caring. I got to ride up to camp with one of my BFFs. As we were headed out the door, my husband kissed me soundly and quipped, "Sorry Noelle, none for you!" She chuckled tolerantly, but got the last laugh when she forgot her toothbrush and shared mine the whole time."I guess I ended up getting that kiss after all!"
Classic.

I learned that despite what you may think, I am no horse woman. When the wrangler asked if I was confident around horses I stood up straighter and said "Sure!" I'm used to making people obey me. It's actually what I do for a living. Do you know how long I would last if I couldn't maintain a little discipline? "Can you keep the horse from snacking?" I grinned smugly. I can defend a week's worth of lunch snacks from a ravenous horde, I think I can handle a horse. I kept it from snacking alright, but I couldn't keep the horse in front of us from kicking at us, or keep my horse from dancing all around in terror. And my bum, that's another story. It hurt to sit down for days! I was gratified this morning to see a bruise the size and shape of a quarter on my bum cheek. No, I'm not built for riding.

I learned that I like my peace and quiet. Boys are noisy, but if they went on a hike through a 2.5 mile train tunnel, they wouldn't sing at the top of their lungs the whole time. They would burp, make other rude sounds and hide and jump out at each other. They wouldn't sing. Give me burping farters any day of the week.

This Just In- Edward Dies, and Bella Gives Birth to Puppies!

That was my husband's theory anyway. I've just spent the last day and 1/2 reading the second and third book. Yeah, I read them both in that time. I've been real productive at home, let me tell ya. I gave my husband a theatrical Reader's Digest version of all three books, complete with eye rolling and arm gestures. He told me exactly how it would end. There'll be a big battle at the end (a good guess) and Edward will throw himself in front of Bella, and get torn into bits and burned. Jacob will rescue her and take her to a cave. Here my husband veres off into cartoon territory. (Avatar) It'll be a cave of love. She'll have been in the cave with Edward before, but they needed a flashlight. Anyway, she's in the cave with Jacob, and all of a sudden the cave starts glowing, because they have true love. (Picture this, he's saying all this in the craziest accents and gestures. I'm rolling on the bed laughing my head off.) Anyway, Jacob marries Bella, they live happily ever after, except she delivers a litter of puppies. The End. If only it would end this way.
Warning, offensive opinion ahead. If you don't want to be mad at me, stop reading here.




Really.





Ok, you asked for it.
I read most of the first book, and decided it's not for me. I really don't like the series. I don't like Bella. I want her to die, so she'll stop whining, crying and hyperventilating. I want Edward to die, so he'll stop being so impossibly and freakishly sparkly and beautiful. That makes me want to gag. I have a problem with the story on moral grounds: She's such a liar, and I don't approve of her living a double life, and having a teenage guy in her room every night tracing her lips, sniffing her neck and all that eternal foreplay they have going on. Don't get me wrong, I'm the farthest thing from a prude. I absolutely adore the fabulous intimacy between a husband and a wife. I'm a big fan. I think the book gives the impression that Bella and Edward are being 'good' because they haven't had sex. If your teenage daughter was living a lie, animally addicted to a boy from school, and sleeping in his arms every night, I doubt you'd praise her for her virtue. I have a problem with teenage girls reading this series and the way they are sighing and wishing they were Bella. What Bella does, what Bella wants, is not ok. Even if it's an exciting story. I do like Jacob though, that's why I've decided that he just needs to imprint on someone less of a hyperventilating, emotionally suffering, eternally horny, selfish liar. There you have it. Or even better, Hermione Granger meets Bella in a dark alley and sorts her out.
So why did I bother to read the last couple of books? I had all these people endlessly teasing me about my earlier disapproval. I had everyone and their (read: my) mother in law telling me I needed to take another look at them, give them another chance. And I was bored. So there you have it.

Beam Me Up!

I'm thinking about either barricading myself inside the TV room, stuffing myself with popcorn, and watching Pride and Prejudice all day, or running from my house screaming. I have too much to do, not enough sleep, too many kids to babysit, and a substance on the carpet downstairs that seems to be either dog poop or vomit. Shout out to the mothership: Earlgirl's ready, come take her away!

Manly Camping (warning- this post contains gross photos)

Now that all our imported teens have left the nest, it's time to start raising our own. That's right, my oldest son is now thirteen! To celebrate, he got a tent, a hatchet, and a bunch of other camping gear. And a camping trip with dad.
They took off to some beautiful but rugged land about an hour away known for it's massive waterfalls. And steep slidey trails, and cliffs, and rattlesnakes. They had a ball hiking, swimming and fishing. To get down to the bottom of the falls, they took a trail about 18 inches wide with loose rocks that tilted down off a cliff. See those little ledges? That's the trail. So yeah, they were on this trail with a cliff on one side, and certain death on the other. The memory of it still makes my husband shudder. As he tells me about it, I fluff up like an angry hen. "Do you remember how hard I worked to GET him here?! It's a good thing we PRAYED for your SAFETY while you were gone!!" Well, he's learned his lesson, I can be sure of that. When he got home, he had what looked like a scrape the size of a nickel on his shin. It was curiously black. And his leg itched. By the next day he was itching like mad and blisters were popping up and oozing all over. Yep, it was poison oak. He was a regular ooze factory. Then it got worse. He worked all week on these legs, then on Friday finally gave in and went to urgent care. He got a steroid shot in the rear, antibiotics and some more steroids. They'd never seen anything like his nasty, oozing festering legs. It was like Christmas in July, nurses were knocking on the door for a peek and asking if they could help wrap him up (it helps that he's cute). They kicked themselves for not taking pictures before they got him all bandaged up. He was that much of a curiosity there. He's very slowly recovering now. I think he's learned his lesson.

34 Years

That's right folks, thirtyfour years ago my completely unmedicated mom (she hates needles) pushed out her second daughter. This new baby entered life as a porky affair with coal-black hair parted neatly down the middle. She had a blue line on the bridge of her nose shaped exactly like the number four. (If you look closely enough to this day, you can still see it.) Her mom brought her to the home of her grandparents (the house next door to me now), where they were living while her newly-graduated father awaited orders for his first assignment in the Air Force.

This little fire cracker learned to talk in the deep south, and said goodbye and "Bah, bah!" Crayons were "crowns". She was home schooled for part of kindergarten because the schools there worked on a lottery system and it wasn't her (un)lucky day. She craved adult conversation and had her own visiting teaching route at the age of four. She would ring the door bell, enter, sit on the couch and ask, "So, how are you feeling? How are your children?".

She had an overwhelming thirst to learn. She used to sit in her little rocking chair poring over Mormon Doctrine willing the characters to make sense. She moved and moved until she was in North Dakota and lived a block from school. She was chronically late. She was also chronically in trouble. Her mom had to escort her home one day for bringing her hamster to school in her bag. She was a sassy little thing that thought she knew everything. Her father was called upon to sit with her in Sunday school more than once.

She grew and grew and by the seventh grade looked exactly as she does now. She was more boy crazy than should be allowed by law. She lived on an historic military base and was only kept from trouble by her excessively tender conscience. She lost her sister at the age of twelve and it changed her life. She moved again and learned a lot from loneliness. She settled in and learned that to make friends, you just need to look around you to see that people are as lonely as you are.

After graduating, she went off to school and had to find out who she really was, and what she was worth. She came home and fell in love with a handsome prince that convinced her she was worth even more than that. They got married and then she was pregnant for the rest of her natural life. This sent her so far 'round the twist that she's never came back and doesn't regret it for a second. She says it's way more fun 'round the twist. Those 34 years have had a lot of living, and that's definitely worth celebrating!

Gender Bending

I was putting on my makeup, and thought I'd scare up some fun. My 13 year-old was in the room, and I asked him if I could put some makeup on him. He didn't even dignify my request with a response. He just gave me 'the look'. The "there's no chance of that. Are you crazy, woman?" look. I called the middle boys in and asked them. "Sure!" they chirped, bouncing up and down.They enjoyed it a little too much.

When the younger one said "I wanna wear a bikini!" I decided it was time to put an end to all their fun.
I told them it was time to take it off, and they begged to be able to go prancing around the neighborhood first. We took some pictures and then we washed off what their oldest brother called the "desecration". They'll always have the memory though.