March Madness

It's been a rough week.

A black eye and a fractured arm.

In separate incidents.

Go Cougs!

And Wildcats and Tigers. And Bulldogs and Hoyas. And Spiders.

S filled out a bracket this year. He choose based on mascot. Turns out he prefers fierce sounding animals, and spiders. Maybe that was due to the NOVA he'd just watched about venomous animals? Long segment on spiders.

K: Fighting Illini or Running Rebels?
S: Fighting Illini, those other guys sound like they're running away.

S: Terriers? Ha!

K: I'm not sure what a buckeye is...
S: It's the eye of a buck.
(Apparently quite cool)

The Craziest Thing

Quite possibly the craziest thing I've ever done? 12 hour drive to my parents,and back
Minivan's occupants? Myself, my three kids, my cousin, my cousin's two kids, my aunt
(or as my uncle said, "a driver and two prison guards")

I haven't spent much time (okay any) with my aunt and cousin in years. We were traveling with 5 children, 4 carseats, and a maintenance required light that insisted we were reckless. In the end, no damage done, except for what results from watching Chip and Dale cartoons over and over and over again. More than no damage done, it was FUN. And hanging out in the sun on the new deck with my parents was just what we all needed.

First Grade Fundraiser

S brought home his Jump Rope for Heart form recently, all pumped about the rewards you can get for fundraising. You know, you remember, the awesome "speed" jump rope, the super cool tee shirt, the...

Does anyone else see these and think, exploitation? I mean how hard is it to get a bunch of kindhearted first graders all excited about "saving lives"? And who's going to turn their earnest little souls down when they come knocking on your door? I did a quick search on where the money raised from jump rope for heart goes. $0.64/dollar to research, $0.32/dollar on fundraising...

Or am I just a scrooge? Or is grinch the more appropriate term?

At least there is some good in the physical activity encouragement. Though in asking S, he wasn't all that clear on where the jumping rope came into it. I remember in Jr. High, the magazine sale fundraiser with all these little fuzzy... were they called weeples? as rewards. 12 year old girls are suckers for little fuzzy things. Not much good in that one.

So, I'm faced with a decision: Try to talk him down, convince him that the jump rope isn't that cool and I don't hate people with heart problems, or go the "I don't know what happened to that sign-up sheet..." route. Or I guess I could just let him go for it? Nah, not this year. Maybe next year.

January. Blah.

I find January a depressing month. Cold and dark outside. Here all the snow has melted, leaving only brown mud behind. Nothing to look forward to except new episodes of Biggest Loser. Significantly less busy than I've been the last few months, feeling unproductive and unmotivated. Plenty of time to blog, but nothing worth sharing.

I've noticed that my view is a good attitude barometer.

At times the view out my back window is pretty dramatic, and on days when I'm feeling optimistic, I look outside and see the mountains and the way the light comes through the clouds. On days when I'm feeling rather more January, I look out and I see the neighbors fence and the expanse of brown between here and the mountains.

Ridiculously Idyllic

We cut our own tree this year. It was nothing like Christmas Vacation. It was one of those ridiculously idyllic days that happen only very occasionally; and which trick you into starting some sort of tradition because you hope it'll always be like that.

Ford should put us in a commercial, that kind of idyllic. Well, except for how N looks like he's about to crawl under the truck.

And yes, we lasted two months as homeowners in Utah before we bought a truck

The Barter Bar

So, in my rural Utah location there is a call in classifieds radio show. So every morning on one of the local radio stations you can call in and let all the faithful listeners know that you're selling your old tires, or goats, or spinning wheel. Perfect for getting rid of my moving boxes I thought. But here's the thing, it's really hard to get through. People are just burning up the line trying to get the word out on their junk. So, I had to resort to email, which they read on air. Then my line was burning up with people who wanted to come and get my free boxes.
The lucky recipient? My garbage man. Yup. He said, "Oh, I know where you're at I pick up your garbage on Thursday mornings." When he came we had a nice conversation about trash, you know, how my neighbors forget to put out their garbage, or the lady who lived her before me didn't produce much. Turns out that's what living in a small town's like.