A Profound True Quote That I Thoroughly Believe

The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side... The grass is greenest where it is watered.

-Robert Fulghum

A Fun Story. You'll Really Enjoy It.

This is Maddie's 1997 Nissan, Simba.

It was Og Belnap's car, then Spencer's car, and now Maddie's. When Spencer went on his mission, we contemplated the fate of Simba. At the time, there were 3 or 4 evidences of car-to-car or car-to-cement contact. Do we pay to fix it up? We can't sell it like this with dings and dents all over the place. Should Maddie get a nicer car to drive? After all, she IS a girl and girls should get nicer cars than boys.

After much thought, we decided to put some cash into it and fix it up so it is a-drivable and b-not super embarrassing. It needs to be a bit junky, but not overly so. It's a fine line with my car philosophy.

** I think new cars are a waste of my money. I have never bought new. I also like not having car payments. If I am driving an old suburban, let's say, maybe a white one just for discussion's sake, and I have no car payments on it and it is working fine, there is no way I am going to give that up. I don't want a newer car and a car payment. It's my little gift to myself. Now when that car starts costing a lot of money or begins to be embarrassing, I know it's time to upgrade to a newer used car-hopefully paid for with cash saved up.

**I also think teens should drive old cars. It has been my experience now with two driving teenagers that they WILL get in accidents. At least Blake teenagers will. Spencer had maybe 4 fender benders (mostly involving fences) and Maddie, my sweet responsible Maddie, has already had 3. Count them. 3! Teens don't deserve nice cars. They just don't yet. They haven't done anything to earn a nice car in my opinion. Let them drive a designated car that is good enough for milk and egg errands for mom.

Part of the reason for my philosophy is that I didn't grow up driving nice cars. I remember almost every car we owned being a volkswagen and at some point during its life, smelling very strongly of gas. That was always fun to show up places smelling like gas. But my point is, it builds character.

I am now past the driving a junky teenage car phase. I am 41 and I have 5 children. I don't want to drive Simba. Ever.

A few weekends ago, Brett was out of town. That means his car..gone at the airport. Maddie was in charge of an activity at school and needed to haul our lovesac as well as speakers there. So..suburban at the high school. It was time for Sydney to go to a birthday party. No problem. I will just take Simba this one time.

LET THE STORY BEGIN----

"Oh shoot!" I think as I back out of the driveway. You see, Simba at this time has a huge brake problem. You can hear Simba coming down the road a mile away in a circular-wheel-rotating kind of squeak, not just a when-you-brake kind of squeak. I have been meaning to get it to the shop but it's 20 mins. away and Brett was gone and company was here and Maddie was busy and yada yada yada. So when I start driving down my street, I verify to myself, "OK. This MUST be fixed!"

This particular house is clear up the mountain. I am driving up twists and turns, hugging a drop off, etc. "Wow, this house is waaay up here.....Oh here is the street!" Then Sydney quietly says from the back seat, "Mom, can you maybe drop me off a little bit away from the house?" OH MY. Do I ever remember feeling that way when my mom dropped me off in the green machine, our trusty forest green volkswagen hatchback. Always just wanted to walk and stretch my muscles a block or so before any 8th grade activity. My mom usually said "nope" and pulled right on up to the front door. Because I remember this so vividly, I laughed and say, "Sure Sydney. Let me just turn this final corner."

Voila. There is the house on the right. The last. house. on. a. steep. downward. hill. Did I mention that Simba is a stick shift? With a loose clutch? Now I am facing down and I can see the house. I can also see every girl at the party and their moms congregated out front looking up at what is making that loud screeching sound...aka...us. I'm sure they are wondering why I am parking a full house away, but I just smile, grab Syd's hand, walk the distance and introduce myself to the group. Very nice women. I give Syd a hug and turn to go. Now at this time, I re-realize that Simba is facing down and I will have to drive past all of them anyway in order to turn around. I live in a very nice town. I'm pretty sure that all of these women's cars were mercedes. That's just another little funny bit. ha ha all mercedes. Oh my so funny.  So here we go. Squeak squeak squeak past all of them slowly maneuvering around the mercedes (how do I make that plural?) and into the driveway directly across the street. Everyone is watching me now and the conversation has stopped.

This driveway I happen to pull into is a virtual nose dive of a driveway. Are you kidding me?! I thought. I slam on the brakes, because I know that one more inch and my car (Excuse me. Maddie's car!) will never make it back out. So here I am, facing sharply downward, in a stick, with a loose clutch, needing to back up. I put on the parking brake and have to rev it loudly before attempting to reverse. Yep. It jerks and dies. Second time, I have to rev it even louder and explode backwards, then slam to a halt so as not to hit a mercedes.

By this time, every single person is completely silent and looking at me with deep concern. Everyone, that is, except Sydney. I think she is really busy studying signs of lawn dehydration or wondering if the thriving potted flowers are in acidic or normal soil.  She might have been looking up at the moon and wondering if there really are signs of ancient water deposits thus pointing to other life in the universe.

I know that to roll down the window and say, "Oh hi, excuse me, but this is my daughter's 1997 car. I of course have muuuch nicer cars at home. You can get back to your conversation. Thank you. Nice to meet you all," would just make it worse, so I just smile a big ol' smile and wave goodbye as I squeeeeaaak loudly back up the hill.

Finally, I'll leave you with what the side of her car looks like (after accident no. 3). This was, of course, the side facing all of the mothers and their precious mercedes. (no offense Becky, I still love you, even though you have one too.)

I don't make this up people!

Life Is Long And So Short

Annual Girls' Trip 2011: Park City Edition

~Friendship is a single soul living in two bodies.

~A good friend knows all your best stories.

A best friend has lived them all with you.

~Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.

A really really great photo of really incredible women

and my husband, my best friend of all, was home taking care of sick girls, doing laundry, cleaning the garage, and going on walks with this little one.

--All we have in life, really, are people and moments.  The portrait captures both simultaneously, and tells a story about the characters in our lives.  It shows a person in a place and a time in which they will never be again; it stops the clock and says, "Look at this person; she matters.  This moment matters."  And whether that portrait is serious or the brief result of a cheesecake grin, we're a little closer to seeing the soul.--

It's a great beginning to a new week. Although Mondays mean a very messy weekend recoup day for me, I love the promise of a new week. I love getting the kids out the door and then just looking at my little Kate and deciding what to do.

A lot of people have Prius's here. Disneyland on Wednesday. Halloween at Disneyland is fun. Just ask Kate. Yikes. She's an addict now. I'm going to get a corn dog first thing by Tomorrowland. Going to slap a little paint on my walls today in prep for Utah's UEA visitors this week. Heard from my boy this morning. I am loving Spotify. I just made a playlist of tons of kid songs for Kate for FREE. And I don't have to buy them. I can listen to them until I'm sick of them, then get new ones. I like free.

Have to hire a tutor for a child this week. Tutors equal survival and sanity. Had a GREAT scripture class this week on the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. Yes they are a study of the wars of those people, but they are also a type and symbolic of Christ leading us. I love love love that scripture class. I think about it all week long.

I'm grateful to be right here right where I am. Enjoying my senior girl Miss Maddie. I can't believe it's her senior year. I can't believe she'll also be gone to BYU next year. 2 kids out the door!! Super big hole when Miss Maddie goes that's for sure.

Recent conversation between Ali and Kate when Ali was trying to get Kate to bed. These are daily conversations that keep us all laughing...

Kate: Ali, heres the deal. I'm really scared and I need you to hold me
Ali: ok kate lay down
Kate: Ali, Pirates are so nice. I  promise they are NOT scary. and i need to go to disneyland RIGHT NOW to see the pirates.
Ali: ok kate now go to bed right now
Kate: OKAYY....mr. bossy.
Ali: I am NOT a mr. bossy.
Kate: ok. but you're a witch
Ali: what? no i'm a princess
Kate: no i'm a princess. I'm cinderella.
Ali: are you going to be cinderella for Halloween?
Kate: no i'm going to be a pirate. but halloween has SO many spiders. but they're really nice.

Interesting Week:

On Thursday, I went to my local YMCA to exercise. I took Ali. We decided to try the "Cardio Funky Dance" class at 7 p.m. This lady below was my teacher.

You can't see this through the computer, but I am heartily laughing right now. So yeah. This was the lead SOLID GOLD DANCER. If you were born before 1974 ish and you are female, and especially if you were a Farley Sister, you will remember this show. Note to mom: Why did you let us watch this? Every picture I google of Solid Gold Dancers remind me that they were very very scantily dressed and I can only imagine what kind of moves they did after my cardio funky dance class. Mom, don't feel guilty. You did the best you could. You were probably in your white uniform helping deliver babies and caring for post partum mommies while your little ones were watching these lovely ladies perform.

Side Note: I was the oldest girl. That meant, when these guys came on, I got to pick which one I was first. Every time. Misty, being the cheery sweetheart that she was would always say ok and then pick hers.. Kelly, probably still with her thumb in her mouth, would waddle over to the TV and point to hers. Or maybe we told her which one she was. Same went for the Pointer Sisters.

Back to the class. Ali and I see this woman, this teacher, who is now about 60 I would think. That beautiful long hair is still beautiful and long only now it's WHITE and in corn rows down the back. She's also in yoga pants and a one shouldered T shirt falling over a purple bra. But wow wow wow did she give us a "cardio funky dance" class! Wohoo!  Her hips were moving everywhere! She expected us to be as good as she was! She kept yelling, Pow Pow Pow Pow! and then she'd shimmy her shoulders to the driving Latin/funk beat. I kept looking at Ali and laughing. Ali and Maddie are now my Misty and Kelly if you will. I love having children who are now old enough to experience things with.

I will say that for the first 30 minutes I thought, "Hey...my hips are NOT moving! What happened to me? And why does she look a million times better than any of us and she's in her 60s? How can I get some of what she's got?" By 1/2 hour into it, my body loosened up a bit and started remembering how to move. "Oh yeah" it said. "I kind of remember how to do this. My hips started goin with the beat." Now the only way this was possible was that there were no men anywhere present so I felt safe. Also, every other person in the "cardio funky dance" class were tiny Asian women who decided to wear flamenco-type skirts. They were very very into it. Like weirdly eating up everything she did.  Their little hips were not moving one bit. So I felt like a perfect medium of the skinny flamenco-skirted Asian women and busty-groovin 60 corn-rowed teacher.

Ali did great. She's a dancer after all. However, and I was very pleased abou this.. Ali needed some help on the hip action. A little bit stiff on the rotating pelvis. Thank heavens. VERY VERY INTERESTING CLASS INDEED. I will leave you with this last disturbing image...

THIS is why I like watching Sesame Street with Kate. :)