Addiction

I'm addicted to caffeine.
Well, Pepsi. Not in all it's varieties, however. I am a tradtionalist. Regular, fully loaded with sugar is the thing for me.
You'd think I'd know better.
My children did an experiment at school. They soaked an hard boiled egg, with the shell on, in a cup of Pepsi overnight. In the morning, it was all brown and gross looking.
Apparantly, this is what happens to your teeth over time if you drink too much soda-pop. Nice. This doesn't motivate me at all. I just like Pepsi too much to care about my teeth. Or my bones. Apparantly caffeine drains calcium out of your bones.
I guess I don't care enough about my bones to stop.
I've tried to quit. I've been successful, for up to 1 year at a time. However, I always return to my guilty pleasure. I don't share with anyone! It's mine. I go to great lengths to keep it hidden. It is a treasure beyond compare for me!
As I sat sipping a tall cold glass with crushed ice, watching the history channel with my husband, I was fascinated with the stories of lost Spanish gold. One of the greatest treasures of the world is yet to be found, or so they say. That night as we were going to bed, my husband peeked under the bed. (I freeze. It's my stash)

What is this? He asks me.
I smile and simply say "Spanish gold."

I'm a Hairy Red-headed Suburbanite

I'm not bold and wild, I'm more simple and traditional country style, with my own wierd twist every now and again.
It's kinda like being a redhead. You go along living life as normal and predictable, and then WHAM in anger you lash out and show many colors! That's kind of how my house looks, too. It's calm and peaceful, but scattered throughout are funky little items that claim, I'm not the same as everyone else, really I'm not!
I mean seriously. Just because I'm a mom of 3, drive a mini-van, live in a suburb, shop at Wal-mart even though I prefer Target, and my ultimate dream vacation is to take my kids to Disneyworld in Florida, does not make me predictable. Or does it?
I'm just normal and average. Sometimes I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm like everyone else. I have a lot of friends, I make friends easily, most people like me (or pretend to anyway), I can easily find what I'm looking for, don't stand out in a crowd. To me that's good. I also don't know what my "legacy" will be, feel a bit like cattle at times, feel controlled by society and it's mores, and I don't stand out in a crowd. Except for the red hair. These are bad things to me.
I want to be unique, and have people think I'm really cool for wearing birkenstocks, not shaving my legs, and living close to nature. Or not enjoying going to the movies, but prefering to rock in a chair in my backyard. Or for chatting way too much (that's my absolute favorite thing to do in the whole world. chatchatchatchat) I want to be ME and not feel the pressure to be the same as everyone else.
But I find such comfort in familiarity. I find I truly like to blend and be one with my community. I want to be accepted, appreciated, and well-known. I want to know the latest news and dress like it's at least the year 2000. This is important to me as well.
So, I'll still shop at Wal-Mart because I can't afford Target, drive my minivan, and plan a vacation to Disneyworld for someday but I'll be bringing my birkenstocks and hairy legs along the way..............

Games Anyone?

I have a little known secret that I don't share with just anybody. I like to play games!
Settlers of Cataan
Monopoly
Jewel Quest
Scene It!
Othello
Sequence
Tetris
Diamond Drop

Oh, the list goes on and on.
The sad part is that I don't get to play them very often.

HEAT HEAT HOT!

Today it is so very hot!
My favorite ways to stay cool in the heat:

1. Eating a Big Stick popsicle. mmmm mmmm good
2. Putting my feet in a bucket of cold water. How refreshing. As the feet go, so goes the rest of the body.
3. Sitting in the shade watching a baseball game, and drinking a cold refreshing beverage. Most likely Pepsi or water.
4. Going to Raging Waters, because the water is always so cold, it hurts! (At least the one in Utah!)
5. Shopping inside an air-conditioned store. Or mall. Not those crazy outdoor malls they've got going in everywhere! Crazy! Hot in the summer, freezing in the winter, sounds like year round misery to me.
6. Going to the movie theater. You'll want to bring a sweater, because it's fabulously cold.
7. Driving in my car with the air-conditioner full blast and some good old John Denver on the radio, or CD, or MP3 player.
8. Sticky, drippy snow-cones at the temporary snow-cone shack, at sunset.
9. Driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon, high in altitude, where the air is cool and sweet.
10. In my home, in my pajamas, air-conditioning on, tall glass of cold water with CRUSHED ice, watching old movies. My favorite is "Rebecca", an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Exhaustion sets in......

Exhaustion. Long week. It's Thursday. One more day until the weekend. Will I make it?
I want to play hookey tomorrow sooooo bad!!
There I sit, in an air-conditioned office, with a beautiful view of the Salt Lake Valley, and wish that I could air-condition the ENTIRE outdoors. Or at least the little bubble around me!! Then I could be outside all the time! You know if my employer would supply me with a laptop computer and a cell phone (yeah, I've got my own)I could sit outside and do the work. Perhaps I would get too distracted. That wouldn't be good. Actually, I know I'd be distracted. I'd be watching all the little squirrels run around.
Hmmm. Maybe I could set up a squirrel feeder outside my office window, and watch them fight and chase each other. That'd probably distract me too. I mean, do you want to look at the computer screen, or little brown fuzzies?
That reminds me of when we were living in a teeny little apartment in Indiana. My husband, my 3 kids, me, 1 dog, and 1 cat. The squirrels were EVERYWHERE! They were constantly outside our front door. The kids laughed at one and named him "Stubby the Guinea Pig" because the poor little critter had lost his tail. And he was fat. And our cat liked to chase him. The cat, her name was Mrs. Nesbitt, killed some of Stubby's friends.
These poor little creatures are not blessed with large brains, and it always ends in their demise.
It was summer, a cool summer night. As we sat outside on our porch, and chatted with the neighbors, we heard a huge explosion! It was like KABLAAM!! NUCULOID WAR! So all of us went tearing into the backyard, and there was a squirrel on the ground. Stiff as a board. We looked up and saw he ate through some electrical wire. That's when we realized our power was out.
Do you know what summer in Indiana is like? Heat. Humidity. Corn Beetles. No power means no air conditioning. Once again this has me wishing for the ability to air-condition the whole outdoors, or at least the bubble around ME!!

Somedays I just HATE!

Okay, so I have a tiny little storage closet for an office, with stuff stored everywhere so I can hardly move around. My co-worker however has an office about 3 times larger, and tons of work space etc. So, occassionally I have to do some work in her office because it's bigger.

So, last Friday, I left out ONE piece of paper on her desk and I didn't put the chair back so that it was completely under the table, it was out about an inch. (Okay, it was FRIDAY, I totally wanted to get outta there, for hell's sake!)

So, anyway, she sends me this email that says she tries to keep her office clean and tidy, completely inferring that my office is a mess. (well, duh! it's a storage closet with a desk. It's always a mess because no one ever puts things back where they belong in my office, but I digress)She also said that when I leave things all over (remember one piece of paper!) it is very frustrating, and she's tired of cleaning up after me, and that in the future I should clean up after myself, because she had to throw away ONE PIECE OF PAPER, and push a chair in one inch.



Some people are soooooo picky. I think she has OCD. Who else is so obsessive except for Monk????????

I just want to sneak over to the office tonight and set out a pencil on her desk. I left before her, and she won't know who did it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (that's my evil laugh)

My home

I've moved around a lot.

California.

Indiana.

Utah.

Well, maybe not so many places, but all kinds of different spaces!

And I've brought my kids along with me.

You know what I learned???

Home is what you make it, it's people you love, and stuff you love, and that's all you need.

It doesn't matter if you're in a huge house on five acres, or a tiny apartment you can hardly breathe in, or sharing space with your mother, or your best friend.

I know what home is when I'm there.

It's not a place, it's a feeling, a memory of good times and good people.



It's where you are most comfortable. Sometimes, it's only in your mind (of course then you never have to leave home!)



Home is but a beautiful memory.