Happy Early Mother's Day To Me

In his excitement to show me what he made, Will gave me my Mother's Day gift a week early. It consists of a painting/drawing, and a card. The card has sentences that have been completed by Will about me. Here is how it reads:

My mom likes to (blank).
My mom is (blank) old.
My mom's favorite color is (blank).
My mom's favorite food is (blank).
My mom is good at (blank).
My mom likes it when I (blank).

That's how it read before Will filled it in. Here is what my card actually says:

My mom likes to watch TV.
My mom is a teenager old.
My mom's favorite color is yellow.
My mom's favorite food is spaghetti.
My mom is good at sewing.
My mom likes it when I go to town with her.

At first, I thought he was making me out to be a couch potato. Then, I read how old I was and had to laugh. I think he mixed up my favorite color with Bailey, and my favorite food with his. At least he got the sewing part right, but I took him to town today and I most certainly DID NOT like it!

Isn't motherhood grand?

Prince Charming, Here I Come!

When I was about 7, we moved a short distance to a different house. With the new house came a satellite dish, and my first introduction to something besides channels 2, 4, 6, and 12. It was one of those dishes that still lurk in some back yards, the ones that are the size of a UFO and physically turn when you change the channel. No Directv in those days! Nope, just good old transponders, like G8-24.
With this fantastic new dish came the CMT channel. Back then, CMT actually played nothing but music videos, and one of the hottest videos about that time was "The Race is On," by Sawyer Brown.
And that's how it happened: Love at First Sight! Me, my cousin, even our moms lusted after that dancing hunk with the voice that made us drool. (Mark Miller)
The only two concerts I've ever attended were Sawyer Brown concerts. At the first, my mom bought me their latest cassette and my cousin got the T-Shirt, and then we traded them back and forth every week. My bedroom's main feature for many years was a Sawyer Brown poster, (The Dirt Road). (My sister had a poster of Billy Ray Cyrus, but you didn't hear it from me!) And when Mark Miller started going bald, we didn't care. After all, my Dad's bald, and he's a great guy, right?
Over the years, I lost track of Sawyer Brown off and on, although every once in awhile I get the urge to listen to their music again. I have several albums of theirs on my Ipod, and their Christmas album played all last season at the quilt shop. And, if Mark Miller ever asks, then yes - Of course I'll marry him!
My husband bought the Sunday paper a couple weeks ago. Right there, hiding amongst the ads, was an announcement for a concert at the nearby casino. And guess who's the main act!

Oh! Be still my beating heart! Prince Charming, here I come!

OK, so maybe I'm a little older now. And there is that small matter of my husband and children. Oh Darn, I guess I'll have to settle for being one of those screaming, crying, fainting fans in the audience. Oh Well, I'll take what I can get! Don't be surprised if my mom and sister are right there with me!

And no, I'm not telling you where to get tickets. I'm not risking anyone getting ahead of me in line!

Where's a Flu Shot When You Need One?

It's that time of year again. I'm stuck in a time warp, still wishing we were boating on the weekend, when suddenly I'm stuck in bed with the stomach flu. Just when things were starting to settle down slightly, the shop is moved, the longarm is moved, quilt shows are over until next Spring, and suddenly I'm bed ridden.

I spent all of Sunday in bed, unless you count trips to the bathroom to, well......you know the rest. In the mean time, my kids took full advantage and terrorized the house all day. Where was Monte? Why, lying right next to me with the same problem, of course! Which could have been funny, except that it wasn't.

It was all we could do to crawl to the bedroom door every few hours and yell something like "Settle down!" "Go outside and play, NOW!" or "Who left the fridge open?!"

And that big, empty room that used to be filled with a mountain of quilt tops and a certain longarm machine? My kids have mistaken it for a wrestling/tag/basketball/dance arena.

The light bulbs in the dining room/deck/family room area aren't all mysteriously burnt out at once, either. The breaker's just tripped. "Not me" decided to investigate the former longarm power outlet in the floor with a screw driver.

Now, I'm stuck home today with "Not Me," who has the stomach flu. Just when I thought I might get to make sure my longarm still runs. But hey, who doesn't love scrubbing the carpet at 6am? By the way, race car beds are all kinds of fun, except when the driver doesn't make it all the way to the bathroom. Then they're just a great big germ factory that requires lots of disinfecting.

I think I'll find some time to make 5 appointments for flu shots - ASAP.

Road Trip!

Oh, I've been such a baaaaad blogger!!!! Missing 3 days in a row, what was I thinking? Well.....I was thinking ROAD TRIP! I was really thinking road trip all week last week, but I had to keep it top secret since the point of the road trip was to surprise my Sister and her husband by crashing my nephew's 1st birthday! Yes, it's true, not even 700 miles can keep us from coming over uninvited.

My girls love their Aunt Jami, and I couldn't keep it a secret from them. They were diligently making lists of what they were going to pack as early as Monday. So, come Thursday evening my family of 5, plus my parents and my brother, left Deary at 7:15pm and headed for Salt Lake City! I was super prepared. I'd been to Walmart that afternoon and picked up a double screen portable DVD player, plus 5 new movies, snacks, and MP3 batteries for Bailey. There was no way I was going to be stuck in a car for 11 hours with bored kids!

It actually took us 2 cars to get there, so we took radios to talk to each other. It was like a comical version of the Griswald Family Vacation with a little bit of Smokey and the Bandit thrown in. (Without the wood paneled station wagon and dead Grandma, of course) Although, there might have been a dead Grandma if that West Jordan Starbucks employee had brought his gun to work.....more about that later!

We drove all night, and after hitting morning rush hour traffic on the edges of Salt Lake, we finally arrived around 8:30am. Hopefully they were happy to see us, I guess if they move and forget to send us their forwarding address we'll know why! It was a short but fun trip. I even managed to lose a pound despite eating burgers, pizza, birthday cake, and an unGodly amount of Starbucks!

We drove home Sunday, it took all day and was much worse than the drive down. The kids were AWAKE this time, making it more difficult to keep them occupied. By the time we arrived home, Monte had informed me that he would not be returning unless it was by plane. I must say, I agree, although I think he was just chomping at the bit to get home in time to watch the season premiere of Ax Men.

So, back to the schedule here! I will be working on catching up today. Watch for more posts soon!

A Soundtrack to My Life

There are many songs that bring strong images and memories to mind as soon as I hear them. It may be the same for many of you. One example is the "American Housewife" song that reminds me of finding my ring in the toilet. Last week, I stumbled upon a television presentation of a Sawyer Brown concert. Anything be Sawyer Brown reminds me of my crazy grade school crush on Mark Miller, 2 concerts with my cousin Brandi, and watching "The Race is On" on CMT. Here are some others:

"Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake-when this song came out it was on the radio constantly. My kids love it. It reminds me of driving back to logging camp from Bowle's Cabin, deep in the North Idaho forest, after a day of swimming along the head waters of Dworshak Lake. There were kelly humps every 30-40 yards in the road, it was sunny and hot, and when this came on the radio, my kids were in the back seat singing at the top of their lungs. I eventually bought the CD, and Will still requests it at least once every car trip! Their singing and dancing is hilarious.

"Pump It!" by The Black Eyed Peas-this is another upbeat fun song that my kids go crazy for. We listened to it at least 100 times during the summer of 2005, and I'll never forget the time Kylee asked if I had the "Green String Beans" CD in the car.

"Achy Brakey Heart"-Another early CMT video that was on constantly. This reminds me of a large wall poster that made my sister's Christmas!

MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This"-4th Grade, and a very embarrassing pair of parachute pants. My girls have this song on their MP3's, they think it's funny.

"Yeah!" by Usher-quite possibly the first song Kylee ever sang. She was about 2, and barely talking, yet she could sing along with this song.

I'm sure there are more. The soundtrack for the Anderson Family 2007-2008 has to be Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, followed closely by Jesse McCartney. Who knows what new songs are in store for us! Think back, what are some of yours?