Blonde Joke

My brother Mike works two jobs - one where he earns a paycheck, and the other is a part-time gig where I swear he does nothing but forward me funny emails. Here's one I'll share:

A blonde calls her boyfriend and says, 'Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get started.' Her boyfriend asks, 'What is it supposed to be when it's finished?' The blonde says, 'According to the picture on the box, it's a rooster.' Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says: 'First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a rooster.' He takes her hand and says, 'Second, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then ...' he said with a deep sigh, 'Let's put all the Corn Flakes back in the box.'

Worst Daughter Ever Award goes to...

Moi. It's not that I forgot her birthday, it's just that I didn't happen to remember it on the actual day. The woman who said, "Honey, it's OK. Drop the Geography class" when I called her from my college dorm room, stressed with too many credits, did not receive a call from me on May 15th to wish her a happy birthday. This is the same woman who was never late picking me up from school, who put presents in my lunch on Valentine's Day, who sent me sappy cards in college with her handwritten message that scathed, "Who in their right mind would ever send a card like this ON PURPOSE??" and then sent me flowers after a bad day. This is a woman who deserved to be remembered on the day she was born from one that she gave birth to, but I forgot. Not even 24 hours later forgot, SEVEN DAYS LATER forgot!! Mom, I would like to say I'm sorry by telling the internet how cool you are. I love you! Happy Birthday.

Up & Running

We still have some tweeking to do on our new blog, but for the most part we are up and running! Here's where you can find me and some other really great women. This is going to be fun!

Dude, I'm stoked

Have you noticed that "Dude" has made a comeback? Good news for me, since I never really moved on from it. Although I'm pretty sure "stoked" is still mostly reserved for stoners.

But Dude! The reason I am stoked (stoner or not, it's effective) is because we bought a house today! We tried to put a contract on it Saturday but ran into a few problems, namely that somebody else beat us to it. We are lucky, and he backed out. It is going to be awesome.

Right?

Friend or foe? You decide.

You know how in elementary school it was the kid who gave you the most grief that supposedly liked you the most? Is that also true for adults?

Friday night our church had a fundraising activity to help the youth earn money for their summer camps. We paid to get in, paid to play games and do activities, and then auctioned off all the donated desserts that people brought. A dozen cinnamon rolls went for $120. I watched a guy pay $110 to buy back the cake that his WIFE brought! Crazy.

Then in the corner of the room were three jars with three different names on it. I was one of them. Throughout the night people could put money in the jars, and the one with the most money in the end would get a pie in the face. (You see where this is going?) Our friend Erik was also one of the three contenders, and every time someone put a dollar in his jar, he put a dollar in mine. The Bishop saw my jar and shoved a $20 in it. When they tallied the end results and ruled me as the "winner", they added, "Let's just say it wasn't close." THEN they auctioned off the opportunity to be the one to throw the pie in my face, and raised another chunk of cash.

I can't decide whether this scenario represents a congregation of Kristy haters who have been dying for a chance like this, or if it's more like that 2nd grade mentality where the one getting picked on might actually be liked by the class. Either way, I got a pie in the face and I think the people enjoyed it. And if that doesn't pay for Samantha's summer camp, I quit.

The Scoop

Several months ago I was approached about doing a group blog with a few other writers. For money. It has taken a while for the idea to get off the ground, but Monday I flew out to Salt Lake City to meet with the other writers and fine tune our plans. Having been mostly a stay-at-home mom for the last twelve years I have to admit that flying out for a "business meeting" wearing clothes that in no way resembled my pajamas while hooking up my laptop to the airport WiFi made me feel cooler than it should have. I haven't worn heels for that long since, like, Adam.

Anyway, we have been test driving the other website for a couple of weeks and are hoping to go live on Monday if all the graphic design for the site is ready to go. When that happens, I'll let you know the address and how you can find me over there if you're interested. I suspect that my posting here may become a little irregular since I'd like to do all I can to make the other site a success, but I hope you'll hang with me!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day highlight: Cory made me crepes for breakfast.
Lowlight: Drew was given a handout at church to fill in about his mom. For example:
If I could give my mother anything, I'd give her a ________________.
I love my mother because ____________________.
It was a lengthy handout, so most of Drew's spaces were left blank. However, he managed to fill in the following:
The first thing my mother does when she wakes up is...SHE SLEEPS IN.
He knows me so well.

Under Contract

Apparently it's supposed to be really hard to sell a house in this market, yet somehow, in less than a week we have found a buyer for our home. We have been negotiating for a couple of days, and today we are officially under contract. I think I'm supposed to be excited, but instead I'm feeling really close to streaking through my neighborhood to relieve stress. Plus, that would help my neighbors cope with my leaving. Trust me, they are all broken up about it.

The annoying thing about selling our home, however, is this nagging feeling that perhaps I should hurry and find another one. From what I hear this isn't supposed to be very hard. I can even look at homes from home! I can conduct searches by simply typing in square footage or a neighborhood or even a zip code and find hundreds of homes for sale. I can go to zillow.com and see aerial views, select the panoramic photographs and take a virtual tour, and check the family watch dog site to make sure there are no registered sex offenders on my block. Incredible friends to the realtors, these websites.

Still, I would find it helpful if they would add options to conduct a search on neighbors who will let you borrow eggs, addresses for people who make bread for a living and constantly bring you leftovers, and links to housing developments where Brad Pitt look-alikes roam the streets with their lawnmower, in search of opportunities to mow people's lawns for free. With their shirts off. House hunting should be awesome.

"You haven't posted for four days and THIS is the best you can do?"

When someone uses the term, "all the nooks and crannies", what the heck is a cranny?

For Sale

A few years ago my friend Ganelle and I were engaged in a healthy prank war. I guess you could say it was always ongoing, but it escalated one day when I was at her house and she needed to run a quick errand while her baby slept, so I offered to babysit for a few minutes. When she left, my eyes searched the room for the remote control but got distracted by the bookcase where she housed all of her scrapbooks from years past. A brilliant idea overcame me, and I quickly began flipping through the pages of a book until I found a picture taken during one of her first years as a high school teacher. She wore an embroidered sweater vest and sported a haircut more appropriate to ten years previous. It was perfect. I yanked it out and stuffed it in my purse.

I brought it home, made a color copy, wrote a cheesy update on her life (something about putting off teaching for a while so she could accept a promotion as CEO of T&T Inc.; the initials of her two young boys) and mailed it to her college alumni magazine. She was featured in the next issue.

A few months later our family went to Mexico for a family reunion. Ganelle was aware of this, and planned her retaliation in advance. At her first opportunity before we left on vacation, she stole my house key, made a copy, and returned it to its rightful spot before I noticed. She was busy in our absence. When we came home we found that every picture on the walls in our house had been replaced with a picture of HER, in various sizes. She had made 140 copies – if they weren’t in a frame, they had been hidden in other parts of the house. I was finding them for months. Also, she put our house up for sale. She borrowed a “For Sale By Owner” sign from a realtor friend and stuck it in our yard with her phone number on it. She got two calls and a visit from our neighbor who lamented as Ganelle pounded the sign into our grass, “Awww, all the good ones are leaving!”

But back then it was a joke. Today it is for real. The “For Sale” sign went up in our yard this afternoon, making it official. Despite the fact that we are making this decision voluntarily, and we’re probably not going more than 15 minutes away, it’s really hard to see it there. It’s just so…non conducive to denial. A bit of a problem when denial serves as one’s “happy place”. Still, I am focusing on the positive, not the least of which is my realtor who struck a deal with my kids the night we signed the papers saying he would give them each ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on the day of our closing if I could vouch that they had worked really hard to keep the house clean. Brilliant, my realtor. It’s already working. The kids had the day off from school today and Drew asked me early on, “So, what are we doing today?” I thought he was referring to a fun outing, and I assured him he would be playing with friends in the afternoon. “No,” he said. “I mean what do I need to do to help clean today?” He scrubbed the bathroom and did other jobs for over an hour this morning. If you ever move to Denver and need a realtor, I will hook you up! In the meantime, I think I'll sit and enjoy the cleanliness that is not likely to last until morning.