If I have learned nothing else in life, I have at least learned that we must never, ever forget how to laugh. No, this isn't exactly a new revelation, but it is something that must be learned. If you can laugh after a good dose of the worse things life has to offer then you can also be a survivor. It helps you stay strong and it helps you keep things in perspective. Sometimes, after a bad time in your life, it can be difficult to smile again much less laugh but time will help that problem. It may not seem like you will ever be able to curve your lips up again but you can and you will. My family loves to laugh and we do it a great deal. Listening to my boys laugh together is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. There are times when this sentimental mom has found tears in her eyes listening to them in another part of the house laughing and joking. Just the sheer joy of the moment is wonderful to behold and I wish I could bottle that up and dispense it. All I can do, though, is enjoy the moment and watch for the next chance to laugh. And maybe I can make you smile today, too.

Lunch With Mary

And Speaking of Chocolate Chickens....

Night Owls and Morning Larks

Decorating the Throne

Maybe he was on his way to the donut shop...

Morning Visitors

The Boys of Summer

Things I Never Thought Would Come Out of My Mouth

A Celebration of Womanhood

On the news last night one of the segments was about a couple who believe they see the face of the Virgin Mary in a place where a limb was sawed off a tree outside their window. They took a picture of it and the man was drawing the outline of what they saw. Ummm, yeah, right….

Where will this end? Trees and grilled cheese sandwiches and all sorts of things are popping up with people claiming they see Mary in them. I suppose, as long as they receive attention and money, it will continue.

A popular local radio show had a lighthearted discussion about why you would sell such a thing. Here the Virgin Mary chooses to appear to you and you SELL the object in question? They bring up a good point. What purpose would there be in such an appearance? Lourdes or Medjugorje I can buy but a grilled cheese sandwich? If it had been me I would have bitten her nose right off and never noticed a thing. There would have gone my five grand.

Wouldn’t a face on a wall or even etched into a window be more plausible? Something a bit more permanent makes more sense to me. Are we that desperate for a sign from above that we will grasp at these straws without question? Personally, if I were to put my face on anything, I would choose something like a blank canvas, a white porcelain plate or perhaps even a nice white mug. Something that is a bit more tasteful. (Excuse the pun.)

I have no doubt that, in the months ahead, now that the precedent has been set on eBay, we will be seeing Mary, Jesus or various presidents faces appear on such places as toilet paper, turkey and Swiss on whole wheat, used paper plates or a fake fingernail. As long as there is a market for such things and gullible fools willing to pay out good money for them, even as a novelty item, we continue to see them.

I think I will stick to more conventional images and leave the oddities to the rest of the world. However, should you happen to notice your lunch looks like more than just your lunch, give me a call.

I can sell it for you on eBay.

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What is it about the larks? Their air of superiority is enough to make me want to do some bashing! And that cheerfulness! It should be against the law.

I have the great misfortune to be in a "mixed marriage." He is a lark and I am an owl. For years we fought about this issue. He insisted it was something you could change if you consistently rose early each day. I was adamant that this is how I am biologically. After all these years I think he has finally conceded or at least given up. Perhaps it is seeing me get that burst of energy along about ten at night which starts me off cleaning. It is hard to argue with that when you see it all this time.

I do feel badly when I see some of my children who are also owls. I know how hard it is going to be for them in this very lark-oriented world. For most of their lives they will fight what seems natural to their bodies just to accomodate the daylight hours. Never am I more productive, happier or better rested than when I can just give in to my natural sleep cycle. This means I would probably go to sleep anywhere from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. and I always need nine hours of sleep. Too little and it is not enough so I am tired. Too much (and I freely admit I love to sleep so that is a distinct possibility) and I may get a headache. If I am forced to get up in the morning I am groggy and totally unenergetic for hours.

My cousin is a total lark. No doubts there! We went together to her home town for a visit a couple of years back and stayed in the most wonderful resort. We had a rustic cabin on a lake that was just lovely. The first night we were there I was all ready to sit up and gab and enjoy the night. Early on (at least to me!) she began yawning uncontrollably and finally said she was off to bed. I was wide awake but I had brought books and other things to do as always.

There was a little porch and the moonlight shown in so brightly that I had to go outside to see it. The moon was full, or almost so, and I decided to take a walk down to the lake. There was a long dock with a rustic wooden bench at the end and I couldn't resist just sitting there enjoying the quiet and beauty of the night. The water gently swished onto the shore, the moon was huge and glowing, there was the slightest cool breeze and the overall sense was one of peace. It seemed sad to be alone out there, though. I felt it was something too precious to keep to myself but the rest of the world around me slept.

Eventually I, too, went to bed and was sleeping quite well until my dear cousin's voice began shrieking my name telling me to wake up! In between calling out my name she walked around the cabin sighing loudly, talking to herself and making all sorts of racket. Eventually I told her in no uncertain terms quite vividly what she could do with herself. Anatomically impossible but perhaps in my sleep-deprived state I thought the attempt might quiet her down.

She did get the message and we made a pact that I would not keep her awake if she would not wake me up! But the sad fact is that the majority of the world lives the way she does rather than the way I do and it is not easy.

I LOVE the stores that stay open 24 hours. If I don't need to get up early (anything before 9 a.m.) then I am always up for a trip to one of them. The larks think that is crazy but given my druthers I would do all my shopping starting at midnight.

Every now and then, though, I need to be up in the wee hours of the morning. I may need to drive a kid somewhere or perhaps we are starting a trip and want an early start or I have some other reason for being up to see the sun rise. Particularly when this happens in the summer I see the horizon begin to glow and watch as the sun slowly makes it way into the sky. All of a sudden the birds are chattering in a frenzy and the air is cool and fresh. When that happens I feel a bit cheated and bad about being born an owl. I would love to be able to rise each day with that wide-awake enjoyment and energy I see others have.

My consolation, though, is that someday, when my boys are grown and gone, I will be able to indulge myself. Hopefully the husband and I can manage a schedule we can work with so we don't pass each other on the way to and from bed! Sometimes I get this picture of my grandkids coming to visit and having this weird grandma who is cleaning her bathroom at ten at night and making cupcake at midnight. But I guess I never have been the most conventional person so why start now!

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I know this is a topic which is not exactly new but it IS one which has plagued wives, sisters and moms since the beginning of modern plumbing. Why can’t males pee IN the toilet and not ON the toilet? Is it really that hard to do?

Women manage to balance precariously above the germ-laden seat and not whiz all over it. Why can’t men, with the ability to aim well enough that they can write their names in the snow, manage to hit a large open area? It just baffles the female mind. Something to ponder as we use sprays, powders, foams and scrubs to remove the evidence of male usage.

After all, if they were watering a flower garden and the azaleas needed moisture but the geraniums didn’t would they just haphazardly spray the hose back and forth all over everything? I don’t THINK so. So why do they do this when urinating? It boggles the female mind.

I like the idea I read in one magazine that suggested a target be painted at the bottom of the toilet for them to aim at while peeing. It really isn’t my idea of a great decorator look, though. At least not unless I want to go with the theme of Bill’s work (he works at Target) and decorate the whole bathroom in red targets. No, think I will pass on that particular idea. If we had done the remodeling in the upstairs bathroom when we had all the boys home I would have seriously considered putting in a urinal next to the toilet. Aim for the “giant mint”, guys, please!

One of my sons (who shall remain nameless but he knows who he is!) had an accident at school when he was in first grade. He was sitting on the bleachers and fell backwards and banged his head cracking it open. Since head wounds bleed like a stuck pig he made quite a mess of the shirt he was wearing at the time. I took it home and put it in a bucket to soak in cold water. Our laundry room was just a closet so I was using the bathroom that wasn’t much larger than the “laundry room” so I set the bucket on the floor next to the toilet. Later that day my son, with an embarrassed look on his face, told me he had peed on his shirt. When I asked him how on earth he could have managed to do that he said, well, he was just doing this while using the toilet, and here he made a motion of turning from side to side. “Like this, Mom,” he said. Oh, well that explained a lot about the yellow dribbles I was continually cleaning off the side of the toilet.

The males in my family did seem to improve somewhat when I started having them clean the bathrooms but not completely. I guess the urge to swing back and forth just comes over them now and then and they can’t help but give in to it. It is definitely a Mars/Venus thing and acceptance is our only option.

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For many years I took great pride in the fact that I had not ever had a car accident. I got my license when I was seventeen and I reached my early 30's never having even had so much as a fender bender. At the time my first accident occured I was selling Avon locally and did a lot of driving around our community so it probably wasn't very surprising that it finally happened.

The roads were icy that day and stopping was a problem. Having been born and raised in International Falls, Minnesota I was well aware of what it takes to keep from sliding on through an attempt to stop. I was proceeding along on a main road and had to make a left turn into a neighborhood where I needed to deliver an order. I am a bit paranoid about people who hug my bumper so I glanced into the rearview mirror as I normally do checking to see if someone was behind me. As it turned out, there was a car back there but it was far enough back that I wasn't worried about it and also it was a cop car, so I figured that was safe enough.

I began slowing well before the turn and pumped my brakes a bit to come to a stop as a car was coming towards me in the other lane. I needed to wait long enough that it became necessary for me to bring the car to a compete stop. I did so without incident, and was waiting for the other car to pass so I could make my left turn when suddenly, without warning, my car was hit from behind. I jolted forward a bit but it really hadn't been a big bump so I was fine. All I could think of, though, was WHO was behind me.

"Nooooo," I said to myself and, suppressing a smile, looked again into the rearview mirror. Sure enough, there was the young police officer looking totally mortified. He sat there a minute and then got out of the car and came quickly up to my door asking me if I was okay. By that time the humor of the situation had taken over and I was laughing my fool head off. The poor guy must have thought it was an hysterical reaction or something because he looked a bit alarmed. He mumbled something about radioing for help and scurried back to his car.

Now, having another local cop come and take a report would be a conflict of interest so it was necessary to have the sheriff's department come to take care of this situation. In the meantime, the poor flustered policeman and I had moved our cars over to the side and he had flipped on his lights. Soon the deputy arrived and he parked behind the police car with HIS lights going, too. So there I sat, still giggling, alongside the road with both the police and the sheriff's department cars looking all official and ominous. I did hope no one I knew would come along because I figured they would probably think I had been smuggling something particularly good and highly illegal in those little Avon lipstick samples.

The deputy would have fit in well as one of these good ole boy type southern law enforcement types. He had a big gut and an attitude to match. He was all business as he pointed out that my car wasn't really damaged much so perhaps it would be possible to just have the city pay for the repairs. By then I had managed to squelch my mirth to the point that I could at least answer in a reasonably normal tone of voice and I agreed to discuss it with my husband. We exchanged pertinent information, the young officer once again apologized profusely, I once more went off into gales of laughter and we went on our merry separate ways.

When I got home I had a lot of fun with it running into the room where Bill was and telling him I had had an accident with the car. Then I said, "Yeah, I was rear-ended by a cop." I KNOW he did not believe me at first. Actually, few people do. They think I am beginning to relate a humorous fictional anecdote when I tell them that my first accident occured when I was rearended by a police officer. I finally convinced Bill by showing him the info I had received from the deputy.

The damage was all of $65 and the city paid for it with a check. The car was as good as new and I had a great story to tell. I kinda doubt the cop got as much enjoyment from the whole incident as I did, though.

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People who knock on my door in the morning hours are a great source of consternation for me. We have already established that I am not a great fan of the a.m. hours, however, I have established a routine that helps me wake up enough to make some sense of the day. Unless I need to go somewhere I don’t bother getting dressed right away. My eyes simply aren’t open far enough to figure out what socks to wear so I stay in my jammies, slippers and robe.

Naturally the first thing I do is plop down in my favorite chair and open up the lid of my laptop. I check my auctions on eBay and then my email, visit sites I own or belong to and read the message boards, check the current news and weather and, when needed, visit the library, pharmacy and bank websites.

Eventually I am awake enough to get dressed, eat something and start on the chores of the day. This is a method which works fine for me unless I hear the ding dong of the doorbell. At that point I get up from my chair and cautiously draw aside the drapes to peer through to the front door. Identification of the uninvited visitor decides the course of my actions from that point. Should it be someone I know such as a friend or family member I will attempt to smooth down my fly-away hair and answer the door with as much dignity as I can muster. They all know my idiosyncrasies by now and the sight of me appearing in my furry robe should not be terribly surprising.

Should, however, the person at the door turn out to be someone who is a stranger I check out his or her vehicle. Meter readers, Jehovah Witnesses, sales people and anyone else in that group will be quietly ignored until they go away! If the TV or radio is on I surreptitiously turn the sound down and wait out the unwelcome intruder. Eventually they give up despite the vehicle in the driveway and dogs barking.

Unfortunately there occasionally are times when I really do need to answer the door despite my nighttime attire. Deliveries often need a signature and those guys are persistent! When I see who is at the door I sneak down the stairs to the entry and peek at the front door. It is an inconvenient fact that you need to walk past the front door from that staircase in order to get to our bedroom. And it is also an inconvenient fact that our front door not only has a window in it but also a window next to it. This means, of course, that I would have to walk past the door to get to my room and so I need to outwait the usually persistent delivery person. It is amazing what they can find to do out there. They gaze around the yard, check out the horses, attempt to pet the cats and throw the ball for the dog. Do these people have nothing better to do? Finally they figure it out and walk away at which point I dash across the entry and into my room. Frantically I look around for clothing to throw on, hopefully the right way with no tags hanging out. Grabbing a comb I made a vain attempt to make my hair look somewhat normal (this usually fails spectacularly) and then run to the door hoping I was fast enough.

Pulling it open I casually holler at the retreating figure with a wave and “yoo hoo!” Hoping everything is in place and they can’t see my puffing out of breath I earnestly explain that I was doing laundry (on the phone, in the back yard, upstairs – pick your excuse) and apologize. We conduct our business, I take receipt of the package and they go on their merry way.

Now I am out of breath, my heart has had a good aerobic workout and I am dressed. Ah, what the heck – I may as well start cleaning

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Things I Never Thought Would Come Out of My Mouth

First of all, the entire parenting experience has not even come CLOSE to my expectations. Where are these perfect children I was supposed to have? In all seriousness, however, my kids are absolutely great. Not only do I think so but so does the world at large. We get so many comments and compliments on our boys. They are terrific, special people and I am so proud they are mine.

That being said, however, we have had our “moments.” This area is reserved for things I have found myself saying to, and about, the boys over the years. I will add to it as I remember them. Since remembering these incidents can cause extreme distress I can only do a little at a time! But, kids will be kids, right? Ummm sure…. How come I never did anything like this, then? Oh, yeah… I was one of those perfect children! ;-D

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A Celebration of Womanhood

I don’t get the shoe thing. I wear my athletic shoes almost exclusively. As a matter of fact, I hate buying shoes and spending money on something I rarely wear when it comes to dress shoes. However, looking down at my feet right now I have to admit a certain sense of satisfaction when I see over the gold band and rhinestone buckles on my new sandals. I guess sometimes I am a girly girl!

I needed these sandals with a very hard sole. It took me a long time to find what I needed and there were certainly plain ones I could have purchased. But…. Something about these got my attention and, when I got them, I had to smile at how cute and fun they are!

I scream at huge bugs and do NOT bring a rodent, dead or alive, anywhere within fifty feet of me! Recently I walked into our bathroom to find a giant and I mean humungous beetle in there. I shrieked for my husband to come and “save” me. He stayed in bed and said, “What do you want me to do?” “Come and GET it,” I squealed. “And HURRY! It’s going behind the cabinet!!!!!” He sighed but he did come and rescue me.

If I find a dead rodent I have to go get one of the males around here. If they aren’t available I put a box over the thing. I can’t bear to take care of it whereas they put on a glove and pick it up. Even thinking about that makes my stomach churn. EWWWWW! Sometimes it is very good to be female!

When there is something I would rather not do I can always fall back on my femininity. Oh, lil ole me simply cannot handle that big bad job! But really, I am very strong and there is little I can’t handle on my own. When I am here by myself and I need something moved I generally just do it. I admit it: I use my sex when I don’t want to do something.

Sometimes I prefer to do things normally thought of as guy jobs. For instance, I would rather be out cutting wood with my chainsaw in preparation for winter than to be cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry. It’s fun to use a chainsaw and I am good at it. I like the physical part of it and I like knowing I am doing a job that is so vital to our lives. On the other hand, making a big dinner for my family gives me an equal sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I like knowing what I am doing has purpose and meaning. I like knowing it helps keep the people in my life fed or warm.

I like going into stores such as Ulta and looking at all the makeup, perfume, hair and nail products. If I had it to waste, I could spend so much money on that stuff even if I didn’t need it. Playing with it is fun. When I was a teen I used to experiment for hours trying on different shades of eye shadow or blush or lipstick. I read the magazines and would find out all the latest information about how to apply makeup and how to style my long hair.

Clothes are not anything I really spend a lot of time buying but keep me away from jewelry! Yes, I am a total jewelry whore! I could fill an entire room with rings, necklaces, earrings, bracelets. Gold, silver and shiny stones – I love it! One of my fondest memories is of the times my mother would let me go through her jewelry box. Carefully I would take out each piece putting sets of earrings together, separating it all by type and gazing on it in awe thinking of the day when I would be grown up and could have my own big box of shiny trinkets.

I have to say I am very good at not spending a great deal. Having a lot of children makes you watch your expenses in a miserly fashion but I can find clearances!!! I will come home triumphantly bearing a beautiful new pair of pierced earrings that were, perhaps, $25 and only have paid $2 for them. Since getting another hole pierced in each ear I have twice the fun, too! So much so that I have contemplated getting one more piercing in my ear.

Yes, there are definite advantages in being female and overall I like my gender. Sometimes it gets a bit old having to worry about shaved legs and wearing pantyhose is a bitch but the fun parts outweigh the bad ones. Guys, I can live without being able to write my name in the snow. I would far rather be able to sit back and enjoy being female.

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