Yay.

Yay!

Look what I just found.

What a nice surprise.

I should open my eyes a little wider.

I might see fun things like this a little more often.

To see where it came from click on this link.

If you don't want to click over, here is the text from "The One-Minute Writer."

One-Minute Writing of the Week: the mrs.

I choose one of the daily winning response from each week and feature it as the One-Minute Writing of the Week. This is for the week of 11/14-11/20.

One-Minute Writing of the Week:
Writer: the mrs. (Sunday's winner)

Prompt: Books. How do you treat the books that you read?

If the book I am reading is delicious, I eat it. Quickly. Late into the night, I'll be exhausted the next day, read until my eyes won't stay open anymore gulps.

If I start in and don't like it. I read a few bites and then it sits like leftovers on my dresser gathering dust.

Congratulations, the mrs.! You're welcome to put a One-Minute Writing of the Week Winner button on your blog. Click here if you'd like to snag it.

Posted by C. Beth at 6:39 PM Labels: One-Minute Writing of the Week, the mrs.

Book Report

This came in the mail after I'd finished my summer reading.

It didn't help my state of mind.

It didn't help because all this summer/early fall, I was reading young adult dystopian or apocolyptic novels.

And they made me nervous.

It all started with

and then of course, I had to read

and then I needed to know how it ended. So I read

(Images from here.)

And, just to let you know, when I read, I tend to really empathize with the characters.

I kept asking myself, "what would I do? what would I do?"

And I didn't know the answer to that question.

I was bothered at how close to our society some things in this made up world came.

I do know a very young lady who totally could be the main character.

She rocks.

I'm totally counting on her if times like these ever come around.

Then, because I hadn't stressed myself out enough in the genre (because for me, I lump the two genres together), I read two more books.

Photo from the author's blog.

The first two shown.

I am too freaked out to read the last one.

All I have to say is we all need to get prepared.

We need to have a plan for food, shelter, warmth & safety.

And this is why I freaked out & gave my friend a lecture when I saw they took their wood stove out.

They now have a new one.

I am glad.

I will never look at the moon again without thinking "what if?"

I do not know when I will read the last book.

Probably after I bolster our food storage and have a plan to heat this house without using our modern ammenities.

(We will never own another house without a wood burning fireplace, my mr. Agreed?

If you don't agree- I'm making you read these books.)

And now you understand why the flyer we got in the mail got to me.

Needless to say, I was thankful for the invitation, but I did not attend those services that were advertized.

Here's what I washed my brain out with.

It is one of  my go tos after I've read something I want out of my head.

You can find it here.

I save it for when I really need it.

Because if the end of the world comes, it will be good to be studied in compassion.

________________________________________________________________________________

So I've read a lot of other books since I last posted about books.

These are just a few.

_________________________________________________________________________________

I do have to apologize, because once I said, "let's do a book club." And I didn't follow through.

So, as I will probably never do that post on a discussion on "The Help,"

I will ask the question here.

If you read it, how'd it make you feel?

Have you had Help?

After reading it, did your feelings about having Help change?

Very Important Hygene Lesson Having to do with a Razor

This is not the razor I use. But this is the website the picture came from.

This weekend, I learned that razor blades placed facing the correct way on the razor handle will do a wonderful job.

That was a good lesson to learn after a very hairy & confusing month.

May your blades always face the right way.

And may we (and when I say we, I mean me) please stop knocking mine off the rack in the shower.

The Buzz

Are you aware of the buzz about LDS (Mormon) women who blog and the people who read them?
Apparently there is a buzz.

And now there is a call for people who are not LDS, who obsessively read these blogs to tell a reporter from the Wall Street Journal why.

Oh, what a buzz.

I realize I am not a typical mormon mommy blogger- crafting gives me the willies and none of you are obsessively reading here, but if you'd like to check out the call, here it is on Mormon Mommy Blogs.

And here's a link to the article that started it all "Why I can't stop reading Mormon housewife blogs."
It's from salon.com.

Sunday School - Do you know who you are?

For the text of the entire address go here: "The Reflection in the Water."

Emoticons don't translate well

I learned that if you type a less than sign and a 3 on facebook, it will turn into a heart.
On blogger comment, it won't.
Now we know.

Very Unexpected

I have a friend, who has a blog, who knows how to connect with other people in this cyperworld we're in right now. And because she is saving my hide this weekend by doing a huge job that I was supposed to do only I couldn't do myself &I'd tapped out most all of my other folks I could delegate to - I will not hide my head under a blanket because what she did slipped me back into my weirdo neurosis of 'oh my heck people really read this thing/I can write, I really do want people to read this thing - argghh what a conundrum.' I will graciously say, thank you. And follow the directions.

She sent me this! OOOLALA.

I think she really likes me because I baked her bread one time

or maybe because she loves the dog more than I do.

It can't be because I'm stylish.

But, I am grateful

Because of her some of you came to visit

and I like it when you visit

(as long as I'm not in my head under the blanket neurotic place.)

Thank you Crazy Writer Girl.

So, here are the directions that come along with the award:

List 7 things most people don't know about me & Pass this onto 15 more blogs-letting them know I've passed it on to them.

Here goes:

List

1. I don't ususally do chain letters or pass things along.

(But I will make an exception this time-because of the giver-to the best of my ability.)

2. I am so busy lately, I hardly have time to sit down to pay our bills and check my email, let alone get on here and blog.

3. I have blogs and a 'community' I like to visit, but, just like in #2--my time has been taken up elsewhere & I miss visiting them.

4. Making banana bread actually scared me today. It's been so long since I baked anything besides my wheat bread - my stomach did nervous flips as I was getting all the ingredients out and mixed it up. (So weird because I used to make the best banana bread ever. Today's turned out ok.)

5. I use a sonicare to brush my teeth and I like love it.

6. My closet is a mess.

7. This week two people I know surprised me by telling me they've been here and read. (Ok, that might have been part of the swirling neurosis, I don't know. I just hope that I am good enough and don't make people regret the time they've spent here.)

Passing it along:

Ok, my list is going to be short. I am sorry. I'm not good at things like this. I wish I could nominate all that are on my list, because they're awesome, but I'm going to limit it to the blogs I was able to visit today--the not super, super famous blogs--just the ones that I went to in the very limited time I had (they should be super, super famous-they are super).

--my mr's sister's blog, which I am not going to link to, unless she tells me it's ok
(I'm having a hard time with this because a lot of the one's that I might list are family one's and I don't know if they'd really appreciate my sharing their personal stuff.)

--this next one because she's awesome and has great information & is super inspiring

 

--This one because when I was trying to decide what to call my blog and my children were complaining about something, it's a name I looked into. I am very glad it was taken:

(ok, I tried to follow the rules and contact her to tell her about this, but my internet security won't let me get to the page her email address is on and I tried to grab her button, but my computer is being slow and I am tired, so here's the link)

The Meanest Mom

And, honestly, there are a few other awesome smaller blogs that I love, but I can't list them all. I am sorry.

I will try to make time to make a list and post it sometime.

Thank you Crazy friend!

Unexpected

I love it when I think I am doing one thing and something altogether different is the end result.

Except when I'm making dinner.

(I love this picture. I would please like to go back.)

Sunday School - Prayer

For over a year now, every time he prays, little mr j has been saying, "please bless the people in Haiti."
I've wondered if I should tell him to not always say the same thing in his prayer.
And then I think about those poor people and all they need.
And what a gift his little prayer might be for those on that devastated island.
And I don't say anything.

Do you pray?

In the young women class I attended today, the lesson was on "Living the Gospel Daily."
One of the tenets was that praying daily helps us live the Gospel daily.

And I thought about how I was taught to pray as a little girl and the blessings I've seen in my life because of prayer. And I thought about little mr j's words that he says in his prays. I thought about how he is learning to say his "thankful fors" and how he has been very concerned about grandma's back and his friend Jack's dad's back as well. I thought about the time in high school when I was at a gym in a school in another town and my friend was holding the ring my grandpa gave me and lost it under the bleachers and I was devastated. I prayed and gave the janitor my address. I couple of days later a tiny package and a note arrived in the mailbox. "I can not believe I found your little ring in all the mess I swept up. Here you are." I thought about a dear sweet 11 year old boy in our congregation battling a horrible illness. And his mother. And his brothers and sisters. I thought of my mr's cousin, a young mother waiting to take her precious little baby into the hospital for an operation to help his heart on Tuesday. And her brother and his wife and toddler, who were expecting to bring another precious little child into this world very soon, only to learn that that child's heart has problems too and they might be too huge to fix. And their mother (my mr's aunt). How she must feel.

I thought about my "thankful fors" and how I have so many.
And how I am thankful for that.

And how I am thankful to know how to pray.
And I thought, "what if I didn't know how to pray?"
And then I decided to write this post.

An hour later, I attended a council meeting for the young leaders in our ward (congregation).
And guess what our Bishop counseled those young leaders on.
Prayer.
And what a blessing it is that in their young lives, they know how to pray.
And how so many people out in the world don't have that gift and would like.

And then, in an email exchange with a friend of another faith, she was telling me of her Sunday.
And how tonight,  "we kicked off a small group home study here in the neighborhood on prayer."

Truly, prayer is in the air.
So, this is how I pray:

1. I address my father in Heaven, "Dear Heavenly Father."
2. I acknowledge Him and thank Him for what He's blessed me with. The "thankful fors."
3. I ask Him for needs-for me, family friends, strangers. The "please blesses."
4. I close in Christ's name. I always pray in Christ's name. "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Sometimes, when it's urgent, I don't always say my "thankful fors."
Sometimes, I don't always say my "please blesses."
And sometimes, I just think to whom I am speaking or thinking to and pray.
And sometimes the only word I say is "help."
And I know it will come.
Somehow, somewhere, someday.
He will answer.
______________________________________________________________________________

For a precious little song that I learned as a child, that teaches the steps in a prayer, click on the link below:
I Pray in Faith

Practical Joke (One of the stories from a week ago Monday)

When I was at the DMV with miss s for the second time (the other story from a week ago Monday), I got a very upset phone call from her sister, who was on her lunch break at school.


She told me that some of her 'friends' had put an ad on craigslist, using her telephone number, for a free house and when she turned on her phone at break, her battery was dying, voice messages were full and had a ton of texts.


And she was very upset. She asked me to please get on the computer and try to take it off or flag it or something. But I couldn't, because I was dealing with something else and didn't have the technology available to deal with it-but I promised to deal with it as soon as I got home.


When I finally got home, I couldn't find the ad. It must have been taken off. Thankfully.
But that wasn't stopping the calls and the texts.


miss h shared them with me when she got home from school. Here's a sampling (some are texts, so they're typed like a text):

A free house? Sounds too good to be true.

I just called about your house. I left a message but the hospital I’m in does not have a good signal and no one can get through.

By any chance do u still have the house I am in bad need of it.

Hi I am inquiring about your ad on Craigslist your voicemail is full but I have three kids and a mom and we could really use a fresh start please call me back at

My name is ______ I’m in a bad situ with my 3 kids and need to move asap I’m a nursing student and your place would be an amazing new start 4 us somewhere my kids can call home and no one could kick us out we have been there a lot the last few years going from house to house and school to school my kids deserve better and my mom’s husband has tried to force his self on me so we need out I fear for my daughter she’s almost 16 I can and will take very good care of your home and it would be a blessin I will meet you anytime you can thnkx _____
My num is
I have called ur num n it don’t ring

Please help us I will meet you any day anytime
Thnkx


I would love to have a house been moving here and there


very interested 3 boys in dire need

Think this is a joke if not call

miss h was totally bawling as we listened and read these.

And I am glad. She has a heart.

Clearly, her 'friends' did not think about the consequences of their so called joke.

What got to us the most, was the thought of the false hope that this thing created for those poor people.

What a shameful thing to do.

And then we started thinking about what these kids really did.

(Violating miss h's privacy)

And that was spooky.

miss h decided on a course of action to deal with the situation (since it happened during school hours and we subsequently learned was done on a school computer). I am proud of her for how she handled herself and thankful for how the school administration helped her handle it.

I am thankful that, as a mom, I've said over and over, "actions have consequences."

Because they do.
Oh, baby, they do.

Another visit from Ryan

Who remembered me from his last visit.
Which is chronicled here, back in the blog's baby days.

And this time it only cost $55, because it wasn't an emergency or in odd hours.

Do you ever have household issues that just keep coming back to haunt you?
My garage door (and it's opener) has issues.
It's not like it doesn't get enough attention.
It's well used, like many, many, many times a day.
Sheesh.
It's not even very old.
I guess sometimes the things that need you the most cause the most problems.

For over a week, our garage door opener has been very choosey about who it would open for.
It opened many more times for my mr than for me. I don't think it likes me. I bet it thinks I use it too much.
Once, when I thought I wasn't going to work & I was going back inside to get the stool, so I could reach the lever to deal with it, so I could get me and mr j out of the garage, it decided to spook me and open a few seconds after what we've gotten used to as normal.

When Ryan got here, it worked perfectly.
(Darn passive aggressive door opener)
But I told him about the problem anyway.

So, he tried to open the plastic cover on the opener (because that's where the problem lies this time).
And I said, "It's going to be something simple, isn't it?"
And he said, "Yes. I'll show you."
And then he fought with the cover for a few minutes.
When he got the cover off, he showed me two tiny dials that weren't supposed to be turned to almost all the way high.
He turned them the rest of the way to high.
And then he explained to me, "When these get installed, they're supposed to be turned down to low at first, then when you need more power (like in the winter cold), you turn them up to the lowest high you can to get the power you need. These can't get turned up any higher. You can call me in a couple of days or a week or a month when you decide to install a new opener."
(Ok, it sounds kind of salesmanish the way I wrote it, but he was sincere & not trying overly hard to sell us on a new opener.)

1. Did you know garage door openers had power dial?
2. Did you know they should be adjusted according to the season?
3. Did you know that there's a motor inside there? (ok, really, I knew that, but I've taken that motor for granted-I've appreciated it, but still taken it for granted)

So I gave Ryan a check and waved goodbye as the garage door closed automatically.

Then a few hours later,
guess what?




I'll be calling Ryan in the morning.
I am thankful he said he would discount us the service call this next time.
And I am thankful I'm not calling him about the door jumping off the tracks.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Yes, I am still avoiding the Monday before last's two stories.

Maimed

 Picture from here.

(This is not my honey bear. My honey bear has a yellow flat top and is not all fancy pointed head flashy like the one pictured above.)

I am here to confess that today I maimed the honey bear.

It now sits leaning forward a bit.

Kind of like my mom, after she hurt her back and had surgery in 2010.

You can't see the injury, it's just changed how my honey bear holds itself

(I don't know if it's a he honey bear or she honey bear. Not sure how to figure that one out.)

It's better than what I did to the last honey bear.

The bear that made me swear that I would never have another honey bear

because of the hurt I inflicted.

It went in the microwave.

It shouldn't have.

And it was maimed beyond standing

and had to go meet the great honey bear in the sky, or the landfill, or the recycling plant.

(I don't remember where we lived at that time- I just remember the poor crippled honey bear.)

It was a very sad day.

Until I got this new honey bear

And I did swear to care for this bear.

So, when I told myself to

"remember, that bear is in there"

as I set it in a pot of water on the stove,

to melt the honey crystals that had formed,

I was not worried about the consequences.

But I should have been.

Because, a little while later

little mr j said, "um, mom, did you know there's fire under that pan?"

I remembered that there was a bear in there.

And then he gave me lecture on how we need to pay attention

to the pan on the stove because the water could burn out

and then the honey bear would burn up

and then there would be a fire

and that would be very bad.

(Oh, he has been taught so well.)

(And don't be worried about the fire under the pan-we have gas.)

(And we've had a lot of it lately. Beware if you come to our house!)

I turned down the flame.

And checked the progress.

There was still a clump of crystal honey waiting to get warm enough to melt.

Honey bear looked fine, so I put it back in

and paid attention this time.

It wasn't until I dried it off and set it on the counter

and noticed it leaned

forward

a little

bit.

But it looked fine and didn't tip over.

I told it I was sorry and filled it the rest of the way up

and now it sits, waiting to be used

in the bread and peanut butter drawer.

( I know it's weird that we have a bread and peanut butter drawer, but we eat so much of the stuff-I wanted it to be handy-like right there in the kitchen where we are standing handy.)

And now, when I make lunches

(because peanut butter and honey are the lunch of choice around here),

I will have a fond reminder of my mom

and how sweet she is

even if she leans a little bit forward

these days.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Can you believe you just spent the last few minutes reading about a silly little honey bear?

Can you believe I just spent the last too many minutes writing about a silly little honey bear?

Oh brother.

I want you to know that this was written in an attempt to avoid writing about two stupid things that happened with my two teenage daughters a week ago Monday.

I want to write about those things, but I am afraid I will be too negative.

I don't want to be negative.

I just want to document in words what happened.

So now I am committed to you.

I will write about the two stupid things that happened.

A week ago Monday

and I won't be negative.

By the way,

our garage door opener has decided that it will open

only on certain days and times

and

I broke two fingernails today.

ouch.

Sunday School

Picture from here.

Tonight I got to attend a meeting where a gentleman talked to some teenagers about spiritual safety.
A story was told and I am going to try to retell it. My retelling probably won't be perfect, but I think you will get the meaning.

In the 1800s there were some people who needed to take a wagon over a treacherous road. It was so treacherous, in fact, that they decided to hire a professional driver to complete the task.  Over the mountains, this road had a spot where there was a curve with the mountain on one side and a steep drop off on the other.

There were 3 applicants for the position. There was one interview question.

"How close can you drive to the edge of the road without loosing our load?"

The first interviewee answered, "Going full speed, I can get it right on the edge and take that corner no problem."

The second interviewee answered, "I can drive that wagon at full speed, around that curve, with one wheel hanging over the edge and not lose the load."

The third interviewee answered, "I will drive that wagon close to the inside, mountain edge, as far from the drop off as possible. And I will not lose the load."

Who do you think got the job?

What would you have answered?

When it comes to the important stuff, the life choices that will lead us in very important and different directions, should we be safe or should we take chances?

I know my answer. I would have hugged that mountain. I am not a risk taker. Especially when it comes to my spiritual safety. Now, when it comes less important things like making dinner-I'm living on that edge. Once a week, I try to try something new on my people. That really shakes things up around here.

But really, is dinner that important? No. We'll all be fine if it's a loser and a never-have-again.

I'm thankful I've not fallen off a cliff.
I hope to never fall off a cliff-especially in a wagon.

And I hope that you won't too. 

Midnight Identiy Crisis

So it's late Saturday night. There are a lot of other things I should be doing rather than being on the internet.
And I am so sorry I got on.

Because-- In my exploring visiting BlogFrog, I found another lady named the mrs!
Only she spells it differently with a capital M and a punctuation mark.
So, of course I had to stalk check her out.
And I was relieved.
'the Mrs.' has only been around as that name for awhile (November 2010)
and it seems quite different than our little space.
While me, the mrs has been around as this name since August of 2009.
But this the mrs isn't much into public relations like the other the Mrs.
And this the mrs doesn't know whether she wants to use a punctuation mark after her name.

But I do wonder, because I used to visit BlogFrog and comment a lot.
And the name I use is the mrs.
And I saw the Mrs.'s alter ego (the PR company) there quite a bit,
although I remember no interaction.

I know there are a lot of other mrs's in this world.
It's still just feels a little odd to not be the only mrs.
Odd.

But wait-there's more:
So then (I don't know what I did on BlogFrog tonight-maybe it's mad at me for being away for so long),
I saw,
my real life first name.
Spelled correctly.
(Which is a little unusual for those of you that don't know the mrs' real world first name and spelling.)
As the name of somebody else's blog.
And with pictures of somebody's else's life.

Beware:
the mrs is contagious.

Finally, an expert I am

When I get rich, I'm going to buy this picture from here.

I was in the produce section looking for a very small onion and next to me, I noticed quite a commotion near the potatoes.

Being the nosey nell that I am, I listened in.

One produce guy was yelling over to another produce guy, "Hey, this lady (not me) wants to know what the difference is between a russett potato and an Idaho potato."

Little did they know that in the past five minutes I had walked by the produce big empty bag and box pile that they so kindly leave out in the way and jumped for joy when I saw Idaho on the label. More precisely, Blackfoot, Idaho.

And so, I butted in. Because, finally, something I know. I know, I know, I know.

"Excuse me. I know about this. I grew up in Idaho (mostly Southern, where the potatoes grow-a few years more in Northern where the lentils are, I like them as well but don't know quite as much about 'em). I am an Idaho girl. I know potatoes. (If you checked my DNA, it's probably half potato, I've eaten so many.) An Idaho potato is a russett potato. They are the same thing. Russetts are the main potatoes grown in Idaho. You can get them from other states, but that's no good. You want Idaho russetts if you can get them. Idaho. Buy the ones from Idaho. They are the best."

And then basking in the joy that for once, I knew what I was talking about and had complete confidence (or Idaho pride) and reveling in that Idaho pride, I missed seeing which bag she chose. But, I'm pretty sure she chose the one from Idaho.

At least that's the one I will believe she chose.
Because - who doesn't listen to the experts?

PS- How about this fun tidbit - Two years ago, my sister sent a 50 lb gunny sack of real Idaho potatoes (straight from the farm) to Oklahoma to us for Christmas. Oh, Happy Day! We were in potato heaven.

PPS- Does anyone know is Denise Austin is from Idaho? Because it's my humble opinion that she's a little weird (sorry) in her potato commercials. If the Idaho Potato Commission is going to have someone promoting grown in Idaho, don't you think they should have someone who really has been grown in Idaho?  Like me. Because, you know, I am an expert.

"I'm just sayin' ;)."

Picture from here.

Here's an awesome link to the 'Official Home of the Idaho Potato'.

And now I know what's for dinner tomorrow.

Yay.

Happy New Year! (Better a few days late than never, right?)

There was a lot of commotion in our house New Year's Eve.

It was great.

And loud.

I'm a big fan of quiet,

but I know our season of loud is short,

So I deal with it.

And I've even started to enjoy it a bit.

I just plug my ears and watch.

(Because it's so loud, I can still hear through my plugged ears-so I don't miss anything.)

So as I was taking pictures,

(with unplugged ears, by the way--brave me)

I stopped to really look at them.

The kids were all moving so fast.

So many of them (pictures not kids) were blurry.

And I saw these pictures.

The red party blower

(the kind that rolls out when it's blown

and rolls back up when there is no air being forced through it)

-that came in our

"Happy Party Time"

box from the store-

brought so much joy to little mr j.

The pictures.

The pictures to me show what

my life feels like right now.

These kids bring me so much joy.

Sometimes their 'noise' is overwhelming,

but

their young lives are moving so quickly

It hard to capture

the moments.

So I choose to hang on

and

catch the moments that I can

and savor them.

Because someday

my house

will be quiet.

And I will miss the noise.



And this is when little mr j 'hit the wall.'

Literally.

(Actually, it was quite funny to watch him hit his tired wall. He's never stayed up that late before - on purpose- and it was so funny to watch him doing everything he could to stay awake with the big kids.)