Things to smile about

Hi, folks.

I can’t seem to wake up lately. I feel like I’m in a fog. Maybe someone is drugging my water. I should probably stick to the safer stuff. Like Diet Coke.

Maybe I am in the “is summer still going??” phase. I remember summer being the best time of carefree, lack of rules months but being on the parent side these days, it’s become very exhausting and I still have one more month of it.

Oh boy.

We’ve been having a blast but it’s wiping me out and I need my own summer vacation!

Anyway, I thought I would join in with Emmy and do “10 Things to Smile About”. So, in no particular order, here’s what I have to smile about from the past couple months:

1. My local library! I’ve said it a million times-I would die without this place. And Goodreads.

2. Playing with Goblins.

3. Pure unadulterated family fun!

 

4. A burger worth the drive.

5. RUNNING AGAIN!!! (Let it be noted that running is a relative term)

6. Tank races!! A Thomas family tradition on the 4th of July.

    

7. Surviving the train trip from Hell.

8.  The Closer

9. Fireworks (Baby ‘plugging’ her ears while watching legal explosives)

10. A stiff drink.

What do you have to smile about?

Late Night Confessions

I’m making it just under the wire! Phew!

• I drove all the way to Ogden (45 minutes away) just to get a burger and onion rings.
• Okay, so there was a museum involved, too, but it was all for the burger.
• Ooohhh the burger…
• I mostly leave the house so I don’t have to think about cleaning my house.
• And for the food.
• That’s pretty much my motivation for everything.
• We jammed to the Mamma Mia soundtrack on our day trip.
• I secretly think Pierce Brosnan is a good singer.
• Except for the vein bulging, that’s off putting.
• I thought about deactivating my Facebook account about 23.7 times this week.
• I thought maybe if I dejunked my friends list it would help.
• I only deleted 3.
• Why did I bother???
• I don’t know.
• I haven’t even seen Eclipse yet.
• Every time I try to go to a late night showing the store is all out of body glitter and fangs.
• Can’t a girl catch a break??
• The other night I couldn’t sleep and in my frustration got on my treadmill at 2AM.
• I was so tired yesterday I didn’t know how I would make it through the day.
• But somehow I went swimming, went out for Thai food and hit book club.
• When my speech started slurring at book club, I knew it was time to go home.
• I got home at 10.
• It just felt dirty and wrong, coming home so early.
• My husband was shocked and kept looking to the East when I walked through the front door.
• All over the valley they have billboards that just say “COLONOSCOPY”
• Every time I drive by one, I feel the sudden urge to have a colonoscopy.
• Or have a good poop.
• My mom’s cure for everything thing is a good poop.
• Sinus infection?
• “Have you had a good poop?”
• Ingrown toenail?
• “Do you need to go poo-poo?
• Dandruff?
• “Are you ‘regular’, honey?”
• How is she always right??
• Have I gone to far?
• Probably.
• Unfortunately, there is no cure for that.
• Not even a good poop.

Good night and big balls!

My super glamorous life

I don’t know if there is anyone who has it as good as me!

I’ve been so busy, I’ve hardly been able to sit down for a minute! In fact, I think this calls for a list of a few of the awesome things I’ve been up to! To actually tell you ALL I get to do everyday would make you die with pure envy!

• Putting my giant foot in my mouth with the male side of a marriage only to find out the marriage no longer exists.
• Later, putting my other giant foot in my mouth with the female side of same finished marriage.
• Hours spent worrying about my stupidity and why I even go out in public or speak. EVER. (If you didn’t know already, I am the Queen of Foot in Mouth.)
• Reffing the many many fights between my children over the stupid computer.
• Hours spent resisting the urge to throw the dam computer out the window and laughing in my kids’ faces like the nut case that I am.
• Driving all over the place trying to keep everyone entertained and not fighting.
• Taking a a day to clean up Baby’s room, take down her crib and put a Big Girl bed up. In the process I accidently (I swear!) hit her head with one of the pieces of the crib. The rest of the day, anytime I was around she said, “Don’t hit me, mom, kay? Don’t hurt me, kay”
• Hours spent wishing I was on a quiet beach. Alone. With a Diet Coke. And fish tacos. Alone.
• I went for a much needed run, which I haven’t done a whole lot of since all the back problems. I was smart enough to go just after dinner, when it was still in the 90’s. Luckily I brought water and filled it 2 more times! By the time I got about a 1/2 a mile from my house, I just didn’t think I could do that one last hill so I took a short cut. That failed. I had to walk up the train tracks. A run that should have taken me 40 minutes took me a freaking hour. I spent the rest of the night and into the morning with a splitting headache and trying not to vomit.
• Hours spent missing the days when exercise was enjoyable.
• I found out I am teaching a family history class at church starting next week. To a group of people who know more about it than me. That’ll be fun.

Totally glamorous, right? Everyone wants to be me, I know.

Confessions-Worst Date(s) EVER Edition

I feel like a deer in headlights right now because tonight I am speaking at a youth conference! I’ve never done anything like this before and I am very nervous and I keep staring at the wall not knowing what to do. So I thought I needed a distraction and what better than confessions with Glamazon!

She has a new theme this week-“The Worst Date Ever” and while I think her date was very creepy, I think  I have her beat. Not only is it one date with a strange dude, it was several. 2 or 3 months worth.

There was a guy in my single’s ward back in the olden days. he was learning about the church and getting ready to be baptized. I met him at a party and we hit off. He eventually got baptized and came to our ward (church meeting) regularly.

This ward was so big that we had several dances and parties with major themes. We had a sort of ladies’ choice dance and since I was on the planning committee, I figured I should probably find a date and go. I thought of this new guy, ‘Joe’, and thought flirting equals fellowshipping  and asked him to be my date.

HIs excitement in me asking him should have clued me in.

Anyway, we had a great time, danced a lot, and went our separate ways.

He asked me out soon after and I was a little nervous because I really wasn’t all that into him but I said yes because, who knows, it could be fun.

All I remember from that date was that he was very talkative, which is great, but I started realizing he was a little more ‘simple minded’ than I could handle. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed myself so the fact I found him a little too unsmart is saying a lot. He also made more than 1 reference to ‘our children’. That’s when he lost me.

We didn’t go out again but we were friendly and then I went off to serve a mission for my church and didn’t think twice about him.

So I return home and visit my old singles ward and guess who is still there? That’s right, ‘Joe’. Again, his excitement in seeing me is slightly disturbing and when I found out my friend gave him my number, I freaked!

He wanted to come to my homecoming (which is a talk a returning missionary gives in their ward sort of reporting about the mission and what not). The best part? He chatted with my uncle the plumber(the uncle had a shirt on with his company printed on the side pocket) thinking he was my dad (whom he did meet before) for about 30 minutes which went a little like this:

Joe: “Bro. Thomas, I didn’t know you were a plumber! How long have you been doing that?”

Uncle(not knowing who the H this was): “Uuuumm yeah,,,,yes, I am. 25 years or so…”

Joe: “Wow! What union are you in blahblahblahblah”

Uncle: “……………I gotta find my wife……”

He was a little confused when I told him later that my dad was a teacher and he was the guy 6 inches taller than my uncle standing by my mom.

I thought I wasn’t giving him much of a chance so when he asked me out again I thought I’d give it a go, against my better judgment.

We actually dated for a few months, mostly because he was someone to make out hang out with. He often tried to get out of paying for things which left me, the unemployed, paying for stuff. He was an aspiring electrician so he talked about unions and the trade almost constantly….which explains all the making out. He also had a weird obsession with my belly button. He kept sticking his finger in my belly button which he was lucky he didn’t get punched in the face because I don’t like my stomach being touched at all let alone poked!

You’d think by this point I would have ran but it was a weird time for me and he just kept me busy while I tried to figure out the mess my life was in at the moment. It wasn’t until 3 separate instances that I finally knew to pull the plug on this doomed courtship.

1- We went to see “Prince of Egypt”, the one about Moses and freeing the slaves, you know, FROM THE BIBLE. Just as it was beginning he leaned over to me and said, “Is this a true story?” Wow.

2- He joined us for Thanksgiving dinner and we hung out there all day. There was the usual leftovers of food and pans that hadn’t been clean. He got up to get something to eat and instead of pulling out the turkey and mashed potatoes from the fridge, he went to the turkey pan that still had cold turkey drippings in it. I’m talking fatty skin and grease congealed into the most disgusting Jello mold known to man. He says to my mom, “Can I just have some of that?” She just stares at him. “You want the turkey drippings?” “Yeah, I’ll just have a bowl of that and a roll, is that okay?” My mom gets a bowl and scoops some in, trying to control her gag reflex. “Can I have a little more?” My mom puts in another scoop and asks, “Do you want it warmed up?” “No”, he says, “This is good.” He grabs a couple rolls and sits down with his disgusting feast (wait….maybe this is where that dream stems from….) with all of us staring at him horrified.

He licked that bowl clean.

3-I have a crazy aunt who has very bad taste in men (the most recent is a man she ‘met’ on the internet who is married and a possible pedophile) and after she met Joe she expressed to my mom her concern that I was seeing him and thought he was a little too weird. If my crazy aunt was concerned, I should have ran long ago!

3 days later I ended it.

I tried to do it like an adult by calling him up and saying we needed to get together and talk about something. He demanded I tell him over the phone and when I told him I didn’t see it going anywhere and we should just end it, he wanted to know exactly why. He wanted my list of why we wouldn’t work and what I didn’t like about him. I awkwardly gave him a list and said the dumbest line known to relationships-“Can we still be friends?” (No, you never ever can still be friends, in case you were wondering)

About a week later, he called wanting to invite me to a party he was going to. It was with no one I knew, and there was a weird gruffness to his voice which left me feeling very uncomfortable about the offer. I told him I would see if I could make it but something told me not to. Something just seemed very off about it so I never went and never saw him again.

Phew.

I’m so glad I’m married….and my husband doesn’t have a thing for turkey drippings….or belly buttons…

Dream a little dream

Ever had a dream that leaves you thinking, “what the what??”

I’ve had many.

I won’t go into all of them but I do have a reoccurring theme in many of my dreams which I find hilarious. I apparently have this subconscious need to be desirable to all men. Anyone who knows the hubs and I know there is no reason for me to not feel desired. While I am paying attention to every flaw I see about me, he’s seeing the most beautiful woman in the world and you can tell by how he looks at me, even after 10 years and 3 babies. Just the other day, he had to sit up on the stand (behind the pulpit in the chapel) at church to take care of some churchy business during our worship services and every time I looked at him he was staring at me with stars in eyes. Seriously, no man should be looking at a woman at church like that, wife or not.

The dude is whooped.

And I’m still trying to figure out how I got so lucky.

Anyway, I digress.

So, I apparently wanna to be hawt and have all men pining over me, according to these dreams I keep having. The only problem is I can’t seem to have any fun in these dreams because my repulsiveness follows me into dream land! I can’t figure out why I can’t just be the polar opposite of what I am in real life. It’s just rude.

For example:

Dream #1- I meet up with a long lost friend I once worked with years ago and had a big time crush on. We end up at his house and I have a feeling things are going to get a little more personal, but apparently ElRey is okay with that so it’s all good. I guess I had the genius idea to bring my kids along (they are so omnipresent they even follow me in my dreams aaahhhh!!!). Well, of course this guy just cannot control himself anymore and attacks me, ripping open my button up shirt only to discover my ratty old granny type undies (come on, psyche, you couldn’t at least give my dream self some nice lingerie??)  all while my middle child is jumping on the couch next to us until she pees all over the couch! That’s when I wake up. (Actually just before I wake up I get the chance to hear his roommate ask him ‘if he really wants to get involved with that?’ as I am shamefully scrubbing pee out of his couch in the next room.)

Dream #2- I’m friends with an entire pro basketball team and we’ve gotten together to hang out and play ball at the gym in the church cuz where else would a pro basketball team play? One of my buddies and I are taking a turn out of the game sitting on the stairs of the stage on the side of the court (our church gyms are VERY versatile!) We are watching the game when the guy I am sitting with puts his arm over my shoulder in a friendly half embrace and while he’s cozying up, I’m trying to hide the fact that I am chewing on a grizzly piece of meat, trying to get the good stuff off and then attempting to wipe the grease off my fingers and face. End dream.

Dream #3- I’m at the gym and I need to get to the locker room but you have to go past the swimming pool to get to it. Just as I get to the door of the ladies locker room one of the cute guys from high school notices me and comes to say hi. As we’re talking/flirting, he playfully throws me in the pool we’re standing next to and jumps in after me. As I come back up to the surface I realize I have a booger hanging out of my nose! I have just enough time to be mortified and then wake up.

What I’d like to know is why a girl can’t have a little fun in her dreams?? Why do I have to be the same awkward Queen of Dorks in dreamland? Why aren’t there any unicorns involved? And the biggest question, why can’t I dream up some nice lingerie??

Please tell me you have much more satisfying dreams than me!

How to effectively traumatize your children using the city transit system

We have a list of fun things to do this summer. One of the things we had on there was to go to Temple Square and the Church Museum downtown. I was hoping to also hit The Lion House Pantry which is a cafeteria style restaurant in what was once Brigham Young’s home.

My friend and I went back and forth all morning about whether today was the day to go. When that was finally decided, we then went back and forth on should we take the train or drive.

One day, I might actually have decisive friends but then I probably wouldn’t like them because I’d probably think they were just bossy.

Even though we would be coming back in rush hour traffic a big concert going on down our way that would up the crowd of the train, we went with the train thinking it would add to the adventure.

Boy howdy, did it ever!

Step 1-decide to take the train into the city. Check.

One thing I noticed with my bus riding days of college, the crowd tends to be a bit more colorful group, to put it mildly. I think the transit system is a fantastic way to get around town but on occasion some people that get on make me hold what’s precious just a little closer. I had hoped that since it was the train, and it was the middle of the day it wouldn’t be much of a problem. While it was a little more crowded than I expected, and there was a fair share of interesting people, things seemed to be going just fine.

When the group of Hispanic teens got on, I really didn’t think much of it. It was the group that got on at the next stop that raised a flag. When I first saw Alpha Male climb aboard, I immediately stereotyped. He was kind of a big Hispanic dude, wearing a plain white T-shirt, baggy pants, a smug scowl and a closely buzzed haircut. His sunglasses were backwards on his neck where he was sporting a tattoo of a word or name in cursive. My first thought was: gangster. I felt so guilty for assuming the worst, I brushed the thought from my mind just 1.8 seconds before he started yelling and cursing at the other group that came aboard on the stop before. The yelling got louder, with more cursing as they all got involved. We were kind of scattered because of the semi-packed train and I started wondering how and when could I get to my kids who were all closer to the fight that was brewing. My oldest told me later that Alpha Male actually slapped one of the girls across the face! As this is going on, Alpha Male and his entourage are holding the train door open so the train cannot move, shirts are being grabbed, f-words are flying and the girl that got hit spit at him. As soon as the Alpha Male is gone, this lady and I started yelling, “hey there’s kids here! Either take it off the train or shut up!” (I wasn’t gonna say anything when “I’m Gonna Prove I Have a Tiny Big Weiner By Slapping A Girl” was around!!) The kids he was attacking were even saying, “I’m not getting off when he’s there!” The door closed and we moved on with both of us  thinking “What the hell did we almost get into?!”

Step 2-Almost witness a possible gang fight. Check.

We finally made it downtown without further incident, we had a great time seeing the beauty of the gardens around the temple and other areas of that peaceful city block. We went and played in the children’s exhibit at the Church Museum and rode the escalators. We then made our way to Brigham’s home for a great meal (some of the best mac n’ cheese I ever ate off my kids’ plates and the rolls…oh the rolls…). It strengthened my testimony knowing they served Diet Coke in Brigham’s home!

It was time to take the train back home. We figured it’ll get crowded with the concert but we’d be fine. We got to the platform just as the train was coming, the kids ran up to the door while the 2 mom’s with strollers followed close behind. The kids ran up the stairs onto the train and just as we were moving to get on, the doors closed.

The doors of the train holding our children closed!!!

We started pounding on the door, pushing any button we could find and nothing was opening those damn doors! The train lurched as though it was starting to go and then stopped. The doors swung open and there at the top of the stairs were our children looking scared and some crying. A man on the train notice our distress and pushed the emergency button which stopped the conductor from taking off and he opened the door. Him and 2 other men came and helped us get on the train with our heavy laden strollers and panic attacks.

Step 3- Make sure your kids get on the train and have the doors close before you can get on. Check.

Two stops later we realized we got on the wrong train, heading to the university instead of the south valley, had to get off the train after the effort of everyone getting us on the train, only to back track to the station we just left to catch the Sandy train. At this point, my 6 year old is bawling, thinking we are never going to get home to Daddy. This is also when Amy and I realize that had the train left without us on it, we would have been looking for our children along the south route when really they would have been going in almost the opposite direction and what on earth would we have done!?

Step 4- Get on the motherfreakingpieceofcrap wrong train!!! Check.

We finally get going in the right direction on a train that is already crowded that is only get even more crowded with eager concert goers. We sat as close to doors as we possibly could. Each stop more and more middle aged groupies got on that damn train. You could not move and I am not kidding. As we got closer to home I was wondering how on earth we were going to get off that train with a good dozen people smashed between us (and our 2 strollers) and the doors. Our stop was the one just before everyone else’s. My kids started realizing this, getting more and more scared we wouldn’t get off or only half of us would end up getting off. If we just went to the next stop with everyone else to come back on the other train to get back to our stop, we’d be fighting a very large crowd. We had to find a way off at our stop.

The lovely people around us started noticing our stress and crying children. I kept telling my crying 8 year old the Paul McCartney groupies were some of the nicest groupies on the planet and they would help us off. The crowd agreed. They asked when we needed to get off and they would do everything to help us off. Our stop came and they parted like Moses just commanded them, helped us down with our strollers and cheered for us when we got off!

Step 5-get wedged in to the far corner so it’s almost impossible to get off when it’s time. Check.

As my kids were sobbing with fear and their new found relief, I went to ponder land. There are people out there that will prove to you the world is full of jerks. People who make a stay at home mom taking her brood out on adventure feel guilty for actually coming out in public when she has no business being out among the civilized, which we ran into a couple of those (minus the gangster-he makes anyone just want to stay home where it’s safest). There are also people out there that prove that this world is full of goodness. The sweet missionaries at Temple Square, or the kind ladies at the Museum, the people working at the restaurant,  and the men who went above and beyond to save us from a tragedy that may keep me awake tonight, or the groupies heading for a concert. Not one of them looked at us with “what are they doing here??” eyes. Not one of them made us feel like we were less because we dared to come out in public.

Those are the people that make the world go round and prove it’s full of goodness.

That being said, how am I going to afford all of my children’s much needed therapy?!

Confession Time.

I haven’t been here for a bit and just gotta. Totally Jonesin’ for some Glamazon confessing!

• It’s been so long since I’ve blogged I keep wondering if I should even bother.
• What could be more perfect than to come back confessin?
• You guys (all 3 of you, hi mom!) that read this will probably think, yeah, why did she bother?
• I’ve suddenly stopped chewing my nails.
• Now I feel like I have claws.
• I think it’s the medication I’m taking.
• Apparently I was more anxious than I thought.
• I just thought I I needed to chew on something for fun.
• Go figure.
• I’m outside with the kids and I brought a cold, icy Diet Coke out for me to enjoy and I think I had 3 sips.
• My children drank the rest.
• Don’t they know that stuff’s bad for ya??
• I’m thirsty.
• I threw out my back yesterday.
• I wish I could say it was because I was doing 150 lb squats at the gym or from a serious game of football but, alas, it wasn’t that.
• No, I bent down to pick up an empty bag.
• I bent over.
• That is all.
• And now I can hardly move.
• What am I, 90???
• I watched So You Think I Can Dance last night while laying flat on the couch unable to move just to pour some salt in the wound.
• Seriously pathetic.
• That’ll show me to pick stuff up.
• At the moment I am wondering how I am going to get out of this chair..
• Help, I’ve sat down and I can’t get up….
• I do not know how to capitalize while texting.
• i’m the ee cummings of texting.
• I seriously try but it usually ends up looking like this: ‘et’s meet at ?att and –atty’s for dinner. [hen we can go to /iel’s.
• Plus, it takes me 3 times as long to even attempt it.
• And that’s with a keyboard.
• I gave up long ago.
• capitalization is so overrated.
• Sometimes I talk to my husband in texting language. Just to irritate him.
• Hubs: “Honey, where’s the clippers? Me: “idk, dh. btw, your bil called. lol, he’s so funny. lmao omgosh (cuz, you know, I’m Mormon and don’t say omg. I do say WTF, tho, you know, what the face).
• Sometimes I wish ‘just’ was spelled ‘jsut’ and ‘know’ was ‘knwo’. Cuz that’s how I seem to want to type them.
• I’m concerned for Jon Cusack.
• I mean he’s in classics like “Say Anything”, “Better off Dead”, “Gross Point Blank”, and “High Fidelity” and he thought “Hot Tub Time Machine” was a good idea???
• I think it’s time you start taking some advice from your much wiser sister, buddy.
• Well, better go call the fire department and see if they can get me out of this chair.
• OMGosh.
• TTFN.