Inquiring Minds Want to Know

A slightly bizarre question I put before you today...

If you had a set of sheets that were on a bed,

when someone who was in that bed passed away

(not a gruesome death or anything)

would you reuse them or give them away?

Buckle up!

We are entering a new phase of life!!

Jona and I just got back from getting his Learners permit.

Hold me.

Happy Fall Equinox!!

A friend of mine made mention of the fact that on the equinox you can balance and egg on it's end.

Of course I then had to go directly to the fridge, take out and egg and proceed to give it a try. I tried two different eggs. The first one was really round and difficult to work with plus I was worried that people would think it looked too much like a ball in the picture. What few pictures I got of it because it wouldn't stay balanced.

So back to the fridge I went for one that was more oval, egg shaped if you will. And what do you know? That sucker balanced like on the third try and stayed up for a very long time so I could get it's best side.

Photographic evidence that it does work. The first egg is in three shots on the right you can see me trying to get my hand out of the shot in the first two. The big one is the second egg.

Now I expect you to go to your fridge and give this a try and let me know if it worked for you.

Go!

Shoo!

Who's Student of the Week for her class??

She is!

We got a post card in the mail yesterday informing us the Jillian has been

chosen as student of the week for her class.

This is what it said:

Dear Parents I am pleased to inform you that Jillian has been chosen as the student of the week. She has earned this honor by her academic achievement and outstanding behavior. She is a good listener and willing to help others. Thank you for sharing your daughter with me.

Miss C.

When I showed it to her and asked her about it she was very nonchalant

about it and said "Oh yeah. I am student of the week they gave it

to me at the assembly yesterday."

Love that kid.

What happens when appliances rebel

Tyran came home from a friends house the other day with peppers and tomatillos and took it into his head that he was going to make some green salsa.

So he put those veggies into a glass baking pan and proceeded to roast them in the oven.

The oven and the glass dish had different plans.

You see we don't get all fancy-schmancy up in this house when it comes to cooking. So I think it threw them both for a loop.

This is what happens when the oven decides to rebel against putting hot peppers and tomatillos into it's hot belly....

Thankfully no one was injured. Although some of the pieces of hot glass melted to my linoleum and left little brown spots. They are nice addition to the two lovely holes that are in the middle of the floor.

On the upside my oven is now clean and happy (with the exception of a blown out light bulb) inside and out....and under. And the fridge is also sitting on a lovely piece of clean linoleum as well.

Now that I think about it maybe the oven wasn't rebelling against the food so much as it might have been a cry for help. Maybe it was feeling neglected and in need of a good scrub down....

Nah. It had to be the new and alien foods that were being introduced to it.

Flying Blind

We had an experience last night that made me realize something. As a parent of teenagers I'm pretty much flying blind.

When my kids were in their younger years I didn't feel this way. I had taken classes in college to help me. I honestly wasn't worried when I had young children. I was an aunt to twenty three nieces and nephews and was very close to earning a degree in Family and Child development before I had my first child. I was pretty secure in my knowledge of children and what to expect and how to parent. And although I wasn't completely prepared for everything that has been thrown at me I was pretty secure in the knowledge that I did have to draw from.

Not so much anymore.

I was just getting into the classes about the teenage years when I got married and school ended. I'm thinking that I many need to find a way to go back to school and get some higher edu-ma-cation so I have some clue as to what I am doing with these kids who, I am assuming, have been abducted by aliens.

Looking online at the U of U's classes here are some that I would like to take.

Parent Child Relationship: Course description - This course offers an in-depth examination of parent-child relationships over the family life cycle. We will discuss how children’s needs change with development and how these changes introduce new challenges for parents at each step along the way. You will learn about how having children affects individuals and couples and about how different life circumstances influence parenting.

Strengthening Families - Although this one scares me a little bit because the professor teaching it was teaching there 20 years ago and he was tough then...I wonder what he's like now. I didn't post the Course description because it is very lengthy and drawn out, kind of like I remember his classes being.

Adolescent Development: Course description - The first part of this course will deal with topics that are important for understanding adolescent development (e.g., puberty, cognitive development,identity formation, moral development, etc.). These topics, and many others, will

often be discussed in relation to parenting and family life.

The second part of the course will place a strong emphasis on parent adolescent communication and adolescents’ quality of experience and engagement in school. How can parents and teenagers improve their relationships? Where do teenagers find high levels of interest and motivation? How can teachers and parents help set teenagers on a path of lifelong learning?

I wonder if I they would just let me sit in on the classes? Or maybe I should just look at the books that required for those courses and start reading and glean from that. I need to start somewhere because I really do not like the well of nothing that I was drawing from yesterday evening. It was unsettling and frankly, more than a little frightening.

Or maybe I should just consult the blogosphere. Any good advice, book suggestions or possibly the name of a great exorcist? Any help would be appreciated.

I dreamed a dream

I woke up this morning from a strange dream. I was a passenger in a car (which isn't the strange part) and as we were driving I thought that I saw a deer in a field but when we got closer it wasn't a deer it was a cougar feeding on something.

Of course I have to grab my camera to try and get a picture of this. As I'm taking the picture whoever is driving won't stop right next to the scene. They pull over to the side of the road a little ways away from the cougar, which was smart.

Then all of the sudden a cougar cub comes bounding towards our vehicle, jumps and lands with it's paws on my window. I frantically hit the up button for the window. Then we are at a house in a bedroom and the cougar cub follows us in and not long after that in comes the mother cougar...slowly we back out of the room and close the door and head to call animal control.

Why would I have this dream??

Could it be because of this.....

Me thinks the answer is yes.

It was a scene straight out of Amityville Horror

This morning I drove my husband up A.F. Canyon to drop him off for a three day "retreat" that he is going on. He's backpacking into the upper Silver Lake and spending a couple of nights there on his own. The kids and I will drive back up the canyon and pick him up on Saturday.

I hope he doesn't die. Honestly I'm happy for him to be able to do this. I know it's something he's wanted to do but hasn't...until now. I'm trying not to worry too much. I'm sure he'll be fine.

As long as he stays away from the restroom facilities there at Silver Lake.

When we pulled up to the small, gravel parking lot I was thinking that I should probably go and use the bathroom while Ty got his back pack on and everything situated. I walked over to the building, the first side I went to had a rock propping the door open. Not a good sign. I looked in the room and there were flies everywhere and I thought "Why are they leaving the door open? Idiots. I'll just go around to the other one."

I rounded the corner on the other side and to my relief the door was shut. My relief was short lived because when I opened the door to look in that room it was like a scene out of the movie Amityville Horror. If I thought that there were flies in the first this one was 100's of times worse. There were thousands of flies crawling all over the windows, buzzing through the air.

I decided to hold it.

And I believe that I will be sending out a letter to the Parks Service asking them to invest in some signs that ask patrons to please close the lids on the outhouse toilets. That should alleviate if not completely solve the whole Amityville effect.

Which I'm pretty sure isn't what they are going for.

Tron

So I'm wasn't a huge fan of the first one, okay it would be safe to say that I hated it.

But the sequel? Looks amazing!

Happy Birthday!!

Just want to wish my big sister Angie a very Happy Birthday!!

I'm actually bigger than her so I should say OLDER sister but then she'd probably slug me.

Love you Ang!

13

It's hard to believe but this little thing....

Has grown....

And she is now....

Isn't that Crazy???

Happy Birthday Mckenna!

You are now officially a teenager....

Be nice.