Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Blogging is Good, MY MUSIC is Better, Best Picture

Well, you may have noticed I haven't been blogging much...

You know when you look at your schedule and your life and all you want to accomplish and be...
What can I cut out? It hasn't really been a conscious thought, but I haven't been blogging and I don't really have the urge at the moment.

I have been listening to a great radio station, 101.9 "The End", thanks to my friend, Sharon! I don't buy very much music anymore so this has been a true gem to find this station. X96 just isn't the same. SHARON, I OWE YOU! I can't believe how much I LOVE this music SO much better than anything else. I feel differently when I listen to it. GOOD different. I feel like I've found an old friend. I feel alive. Listening to this music back in the day was the reason I survived growing up in Salina, Utah. YES, it is TRUE! Mistie... you can attest to this!

It makes me SO happy: Oasis, The Cure, Bush, The Pixies, Death Cab for Cutie, Modern English, Beck, OMD, Camouflage, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Broken Bells, Yaz, ABC, They Might Be Giants, Toad the Wet Sprocket, 311, Foster the People, The Waterboys, Duran Duran, Midnight Oil, Modest Mouse, Men Without Hats, Dave Matthew's Band, Incubus, Jet, The Cranberries, Love and Rockets, The Verve, Blink-182, The Smithereens, Violent Femmes, The Fixx, David Bowie, Weezer, Cage the Elephant, Oingo Boingo, Crowded House, Talking Heads, Middle Class Rut, Cake, The Cult, Echo and the Bunnymen, Green Day, Keane, INXS, Fall Out Boy, Stone Temple Pilots, Eurythmics, U2, Evanescence. The Fray, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Xymox, Peter Gabriel, 30 Seconds to Mars, R.E.M., Big Audio Dynamite, AFI, The Killers, Muse, Radiohead, The Proclaimers, Anything Box, A-ha, B-52's, The Cult, Snow Patrol, Bare Naked Ladies, The Black Keys, Tears for Fears, Erasure, Jimmy Eat World, Neon Trees, Dashboard Confessional, Wall of Voodoo, Smashing Pumpkins, Collective Soul, Switchfoot, Jane's Addiction, Linkin Park, Incubus, Bronsky Beat, Jesus Jones, Mighty Lemon Drops, Information Society, The Smith's, Franz Ferdinand, King, Sould Asylum, Thompson Twins, Anything Box, Howard Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Underworld, Figures On a Beach, New Order, etc, etc, etc. :) I'm sure I've missed some...

We went to Colorado to visit Zeke's parents last week and it was a great trip. Really great. As usual, I was too busy doing stuff to take pictures, but here's one of a few and definitely my favorite:
Grandma and Beck
See you in awhile...... enjoy life, find the good in people, take time to relax, play and laugh with your kids, read a good book, hug your sweetie, pet your cat (if you don't have one, come pet mine, it makes me happy).

I love all of my family and I hope everyone is doing well and feeling good. I miss you ALL. Here's a great big cyber (((HUG))) from me! :)

Friday, October 14, 2011

Holy random list, Batgirl!

Hey all, how are you guys!? I'm still here. Just in the middle of a whirlwind called life. (...dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called LIFE...) I'm having trouble focusing on ANYTHING right now and I realized today it has been well over a week since I posted on my blog.

This is just a bit of what I've been up to:
  • Parent-teacher conferences... wowzers... good and bad and in-between, this parenting thing has me exhausted.
  • homework, homework, homework
  • driving/walking kids to and from school (I should copy and paste this one like 5 times, it feels like that's ALL I do lately)
  • menu-planning... bleh.
  • Christmas shopping... yes, I know, but if I start now...
  • re-painting my bedroom sort of a Dreamsicle color... it's warm and happy (the color, not the dreamsicle itself of course).
  • watched "The Office" for the first time this week (Yes, we're just a *bit* behind when it comes to TV). It's okay, I can't say I LOVE it... it's a bit weird even for me.
  • watched "Thor" for the first time as well -- I really liked it, even though I fell asleep through 3/4 of it the first time through. I'm pretty much a sucker for anything from Stan Lee. I grew up with two older brothers and my husband that LOVE comic books, well, MARVEL comics. I still have all of these men in my life and I really did kind of "grow up" with Zeke. We started dating when I was 14. Oh, how he loved X-men!
  • finalizing Halloween costumes: nothing, Luna, nothing, fairy (thanks, Sharon), Frankie, ghost (that's not supposed to make sense either)
  • reading some really good books for 5 minutes each night before I fall asleep and they land on my face -- I'll tell you more later
  • re-painted an old dresser and moved some furniture around (favorite hobby/freakish habit of mine)
  • on-going life-changing experience (um, yeah, that, it should probably be #1) I hope to share with you someday -- I wish I could just write whatever I wanted to on my blog/whenever I wanted to, but alas, even people like Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker have to keep a few things confidential. Yes, I feel like Superwoman, or maybe even Bat Girl (she's cooler). :)
  • "splurged" and bought 4 songs on iTunes: two from Depeche Mode :) one from Neon Trees and "one for Zoe" from Plain White T's
  • I love the smells of FALL. It is by far my most favorite season.
  • I love "Dump Cake": white cake mix, cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple, chopped nuts, 1/2 cup butter. Mix it up and bake it @350 degrees for one hour. So yummy and easy.
  • had the missionaries over for dinner last week -- they showed us a cool way to remember the 10 commandments -- remind me to show you
  • joined a second book club and agreed to meet at my house this month... WHAT?! Yeah, and we're reading "The Help" which was my other book club's pick in August. So I guess I'm good there.
  • had a fun game night with friends; have you ever met someone and wish you'd known them all your life? :) This year has been so GOOD to me.
  • played Dominoes/built a garage for the Hot Wheels cars with Beck
  • working on my pinwheel blocks for my quilt swap, really I am; Dedra and Kate, bear with me...
  • planning to go to Colorado and visit Zeke's family for the long weekend...
  • Oh, I guess I "splurged" again and bought a really cute pair of dirigible plum earrings from Etsy for my Luna Lovegood Halloween costume. Last year, I made some from real radishes and they were kinda heavy and really stinky, but I think they kept the Nargles away. Now to find a Ravenclaw tie...
  • If I was cool and ambitious, I would put up cute pictures and informative links to go along with my list, but not today!
This just really made me laugh today, thanks Lora!

Monday, October 3, 2011

A Cuckoo Clock and AC/DC in Sacrament Meeting: Tied for second!!

Okay, even though it happened over 20 years ago, I'm pretty sure this is the MOST embarrassing moment of my life so far. However, I have two more embarrassing moments that pretty much tie for second place. One of them happened this weekend...

Okay, so my parents have this really cool old cuckoo clock. If I was thinking about it, I would have taken a picture of it this weekend. My dad got it in Germany when he was serving in the military in 1957-ish? It's all hand-carved and hand-painted and it plays music and has little people? come out at various times and a bird of course. (Think of all the cute cuckoo clocks on Pinnochio.) Needless to say, I LOVE this clock! I have always loved it. My Dad originally gave it to his parents and after they died, he got it back and hung it on the dining room wall in my parent's house.
Here's a cuckoo clock I found on Wikipedia -- my parent's clock is similar, but has more colors painted on it and such.

So this is how it all went down:

Anyhoo, back in July when we were visiting, my Mom says, "Well, Lace, your Dad wants to give you that cuckoo clock! I just need to see if I can find the weights for it so it will work..."

Me: "OKAY!!!! Yeah, sure, you bet, I love it! THANK YOU!"
(I was just a *bit* excited)

The day goes on, and my Mom supposedly didn't find the weights, and we got busy with the kids (as usual), forgot about it and went home. I just thought I would get it next time. Well, next time was this weekend. I called my Mom on Thursday to tell her what time we were coming and also that I was bringing an old camera of mine that I had planned to give her.

She says, "Oh, Lacy, you don't need to give me that camera, I just feel guilty it's too much! You are just so good to me!" (FYI: My Mom and I are both serious guilt-mongers -- we just HAVE to have something to feel guilty about, we pretty much feel guilty about anyone doing anything for us, etc.)

I say, "Mom!! I'm not even using that camera, I want to give it to you!" Then, I thought of a silly way to make my Mom feel like we were trading something and an opportunity to bring up the cuckoo clock again, "Mom, here's the deal, you said Dad wants to give me the cuckoo clock -- let's just trade straight across -- the camera for the cuckoo clock and then you don't have to feel guilty."

On the the other end of the phone, my Mom says: NOTHING! (ABSOLUTE DEAD SILENCE) After a few awkward seconds, she clears her throat and says, "Uh, Lace, I'm really sorry, but your Dad and I were actually planning to let you have the clock AFTER WE DIE..."

Me: "OH......."
For one brief moment, my Mom and I actually didn't have anything to say to each other.

Um, yeah, okay, sure, uh, crap... somehow I missed that part. OH MAN!! I felt SO dumb!! And just for the record, it's REALLY weird when my parents start saying things like that. It's happening more and more and I just keep saying, "MOTHER!! Don't say stuff like that!" Well, this time, I was like, "uhhhhhh, oh my gosh, MOM!! I feel so stupid! I thought you meant right now..." (Beck yells in the background: "Mom, don't say STUPID!")

Yeah, my Mom is truly one of my very best friends, so that helped a *little*, but then she says, "Well, let me go talk to your Dad..." NO, Mom, I can wait, really, I hope it's at least another 25 years before I get that dang clock!! Well, I guess I'll have a good story with it someday when Zoe and Kaia want it. The end.

Now, here's my other second most embarrassing moment:

I think it was a few years ago. For some reason I was at my parent's house with the kids and Zeke was home. I think it was when my Mom had her hip replaced? Anyway, it was Sunday, and the kids and I went to sacrament meeting at my parent's ward. I was running late (of course) and when you come in late to a Mormon church (maybe it's true of all churches) the only place left to sit is RIGHT IN FRONT! This was embarrassing enough for me.

So I brought my "church bag" with me and it usually has all sorts of items to help me survive sacrament meeting: baby wipes, coloring books, candy, etc. This time it was also full of other things I brought for the trip: extra clothes for Beck, toiletries, DVD's, and Zeke's cell phone. (I was planning to empty some of this stuff out, but again, I was late!)

Zeke had wanted me to take his cell phone if there was an emergency while I was driving with the kids and he knows me so well, he KNEW I had it in my church bag that morning. Well, not only did I forget the cell phone was in my church bag, but I didn't even think about turning the ringer off... (and of course Zeke knew that I would do that too!)

Now, picture Zeke 4 hours north of me sitting in sacrament all alone, missing his cute wife and kids and wondering how he can tease me from so far away (Zeke LIVES to tease me, by the way)... he checks the clock and thinks, "Hmm, Lacy and the kids are sitting in sacrament right about now, the sacrament has been passed, and I bet the first speaker has just gotten up to give their talk..."

Back in my parent's ward, I am wrestling Beck and Kaia on my lap and trying to keep Gabe and Zoe from fighting. Oh, and I need to mention that my parent's ward doesn't have very many young families in it, so it is already more than DEATHLY QUIET. Suddenly I hear this! It was LOUD and went on for at least 20 seconds. I'm sitting there thinking, "Sheesh! Somebody should really turn off their cell phone... DUH!!!" and then, immediately I realize, "OH MY HECK!!!! IT'S ME AND THAT'S MY PHONE!!!!!"

By now, more time has passed and I practically throw Beck off my lap and frantically rummage through the bag to find that phone and shut it off! My face is red, my fingers are sweating, EVERYONE is staring at us, and the speaker stops talking and is actually WAITING for me! (Oh, even just a little lightning bolt striking me dead right now would be just fine!)

It was just horrible. I don't think I got the phone turned off until the first verse was over. "NINE LIVES!! CAT'S EYES!!" Not that "Back in Black" from AC/DC is a "bad" song, really. I love that song! But of all places and of all people; this was my home ward. The ward I really NEVER went to growing up.

When my Mom made me go, I was the wild, rough-looking teenager just waiting to leave. I remember sitting in sacrament with my friend, Kami, when I was about 14 or so, and the opening hymn was "Rock of Ages". We were laughing and making fun of it the whole time. HA!! We thought, "They named a hymn after the Def Leppard song!" We were trying to sing the Def Leppard lyrics with the hymn. HA!!! Oh, we thought we were so funny.

So anyway, to add insult to injury, here I am 20 years later, trying to appear like a normal-"grown-up"-reverent-church going-Mommy(whatever that is) and my cell phone starts blasting AC/DC!! There are probably over 20 widows in my Mom's ward and at least a dozen couples over the age of 75. Oh man, I got some looks!

And then to top it off, as soon as I got out of sacrament, I planned to call Zeke and say, "Oh, honey, guess what happened! You called me right when I was in sacrament and I couldn't find my phone to turn it off!" But as soon as he answered the phone, all I could hear was him laughing hysterically and finally saying, "I got you, didn't I?!" And then I knew, this was NO accident!

Writing this down, the cell phone in sacrament was WAY more embarrassing than the cuckoo clock...

But now I think it's all pretty funny.
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