After the Storm

As of Sunday, the McMurry family refugee camp has officially disbanded. I'm sure our guests have taken with them some delightfully nightmarish anecdotes about what it was like to spend a week in this loony bin. Fig, we hope such close-quarter exposure to the Riley did not swear you off of children forever.

Sam is now done with school for an entire month, and although we are thrilled to have him around, it would appear that an alien has taken over his body and sapped his ability to behave like a normal human being. On his first day home, he was bouncing off the walls like a hopped-up ping pong ball, looking for one project after another to keep him occupied and determined to "fix" our house. This "fixing" entailed dragging out all the piles of junk I had stuffed in conveniently out-of-sight nooks and crannies and leaving them there for me to come and re-organize and re-stash.

He also decided to run to the store and buy some incense to get rid of the "old-person" smell in our house. The incense did the job well enough, but it was only after everything was enveloped in a purple haze that I thought to read the packaging. "This product is known to cause cancer and certain birth and reproductive defects in the state of California," it read. Now that's some powerful incense!

Today's project was to clean up all the nasty limbs and sticks strewn all over the yard after the ice storm. Luckily, Riley is finally old enough for us to get some quality slave labor out of him.



If we would have been in my hometown, we would have just torched this entire stack of wood and had a grand old time in the process. Alas, city code here dictates such behavior is illegal. So, along with everyone else's, our pile of sticks will wait on our curb for the next few weeks until the city can finally spare the resources to come collect it.

When the Weather Outside is Frightful

Sorry for the delay in posting. Here in our town, Jack Frost has been playing some mean tricks on us over the past four days. A huge ice storm rolled into the city Sunday night...and again Monday night.....and then it rained all day Tuesday. And then it got really cold again. And then that rain became ice.
All the ice has knocked down trees and power lines all over. It looks like a war zone here, with trees flattened all over the roads and cars smashed in from all the falling trees. On the news this morning, they said that 1/3 of everyone in the state is without power right now, and about 1/2 of people in the metro area where we live don't have power right now either. It may be another week or more before they get things fully restored.
We've been really, really lucky. We only lost our power for about 12 hours, just long enough for me to realize that I depend on the internet and TV way, way, way too much. We have been blessed enough to be able to turn our house into a refugee camp for two friends and an aunt and a cousin and three canines. What with all the extra canine attention, Riley will never be satisfied with boring old me ever again. I realized though, that we need to focus on helping him learn to share a little more, because he was fighting over toys with the DOGS. And by fighting with, I mean mostly shooting them occasional dirty glances and scurrying away to hide his toys in odd places because he was worried the dogs were going to steal them.
Yesterday morning, I went to the store to buy milk and eggs and some fresh produce. This is what I came home with:

Things are so drastic that the Wal-Mart near our house has acutally closed its doors. And many of the other stores have had their power off for so long that they are just carting away all the milk, eggs, produce, and thawed meat and throwing it away. There have been long lines at the working gas stations and restaurants with power and a rash of buglaries in homes with dead alarm systems. Don't worry about us though--my cousin found a grocery store across town with milk and actual groceries of the uncanned variety, and our freezer is stocked full of meat. We are all safe and just as warm and well-fed as ever. Not everyone is quite as lucky as us though.

One good thing about this: A small portion of Sam's final exam was actually CANCELLED because his school is without power. All the lovely corpses in the refrigerated anatomy lab that students were going to use for their final are now, well, a little on the not-so-fresh side. Good news if you're a med school student, bad news if you donated your body to science.


This was the view outside our back window Monday morning.


Our poor tree.

Tree branch on our power line... Anyone out there smart enough to know if it will be safe for us to remove this ourselves? I never paid attention during those public service announcement, "never fly your kite near a power line" commercials.

Boo for CNN!

I don't know if any of you were able to catch the Mitt Romney speech today. Myself, I caught part of it on You Tube after the speech was over. Here are some of the highlights in my mind:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom...Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone."

"Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people."

"Religious liberty is fundamental to America's greatness."

Romney didn't focus at all on the doctrinal aspects of our Church in his speech. Rather, his entire purpose was to ensure people that religion would in no way impact the decisions he would make as president and that Church leaders wouldn't seek to exercise influence over him if he was elected.

I thought CNN's choice of the split screen in the video I posted was appalling. Boo for you, CNN! Were you even listening to the message? At the very moment that Romney was trying to separate his personal faith from his presidential candidacy, CNN insisted on printing a list for all the world to see about specific tenets of our Church and how some of those beliefs differ from other Christian religions.

It's a sad commentary of the way that most people view our Church that the whole religion thing is even an issue for Romney. And I'm not saying that I'm voting for him, just because he's LDS. All I'm saying is that it does make me mad that so many people won't even consider him because of religion.

Get your Christmas Spirit Back

On the first day of Christmas, our foster kitty left for me, a big fat dead mouse and a smelly puddle of pee.

On the second day of Christmas, our foster kitty left for me, another ugly dead mouse and an even smellier puddle of pee.

Apparently, our neighbor's cat has been peering through windows, watching re-runs of "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" and as a result has come down with a major case of the Christmas Spirits.

She has been peeing on everything in sight in the general vicinity of our house. The peeing comes after her decision to adopt us as her new owners, I think because she realizes how awesome I am. Or maybe it's because my new porch chairs are so comfy. Or maybe because our neighbors appear to have disappeared off the face of the earth and the cat looked so skinny and hungry that I just could. not. resist putting some food out for her last week. Yeah, that's probably the one.

Anyway, as part of her efforts to win us, her new owners, over, the cat has successfully killed mice three days in a row and left them lying right on our sidewalk, stretched out like prize-winning hunting trophies.

I decided to take a picture for all of you to see, just because I'm nice like that. And, because I figured if I had to look at the corpses of dead mice, so should you. So don't say I never gave you anything.


Lost your appetite a little bit there, didn't you?

Anyway, as the universe would have it, all three corpses appeared while I was home alone. So I did what any ultra-modern, enabled woman would do. I waited for my husband to come home and take care of the whole mess.

But not before I hid in my living room, peered through a slit in my curtains, and watched the mailman nearly step on the corpses two days in a row and shoot disgusted glances in my general direction.

And not before I looked around to make sure the neighbors weren't watching, then snuck outside and actually resorted to taking a picture of a dead mouse. I blame it all on blogging.

Taking one for the memory team

Yesterday I took Riley to have his portraits made. It was another textbook example of a portrait session, Riley and Lacey style.

First of all, we arrived ten minutes late but somehow still had to wait fifteen minutes while the photographer was "getting the room ready for us." Um... guys, just a word of advice. We're all on to you. We know that it doesn't really take fifteen minutes to pull down that white canvas shade.

Then, we walk into the room and Riley looks like he wants to pee his pants for the next ten minutes. Finally, he decides that it's not such a bad thing that two people are making complete idiots of themselves trying to get him to smile.

That's when the Riley show begins. After all, he has a captive audience now. His somersault form has never been so crisp. His smile has never been so goofy. In the end, the photographer gets some pretty good shots.

But now mommy's on the spot. The photographer sits down with me at the computer and I actually have to pick what I want to buy. The photographer puts on a painstakingly patient expression as I mutter, over and over again, "No, wait let's see that one in the sepia. Hmm, let's try it in retro. Wait a minute, what does retro mean again? Oh man, this is so hard. I just can't decide."

In the end, I ALWAYS make the mistake of asking the photographer this question: Which one do you think I should buy?

Then the sales pitch begins, and I always, always, always spend too much money and join some sort of club that is guaranteed to save me big bucks in the long run.

This time around, this is what I ended up with:



I love it. I don't love how much it cost me, or the fact that it takes up half of our wall, but I love it.

After seeing how much money I was willing to shell out, the photographer must have decided I was a sucker, because she seriously tried to sell me this shot:



"It's so cute," she said. "It really captures his little personality. And they're only $18 a sheet."

"I don't know," I answered dubiously. "You can't even see his face."

And the sad thing is, there were a few seconds where I caught myself thinking, "Wait a minute, maybe I do need some more pictures of Riley turning somersaults. Plus, it shows off his cute little bum."

This is what I try to keep telling my husband. He should never, ever let me go to the portrait studio alone.

Free as a Bird

Should I be at all concerned that my little boy's favorite pastime is perching himself on the edge of our highest kitchen chair,.....


launching himself into the air.....
And laughing with reckless abandon just before he smashes into the hardwood floor?

Good thing he's so darn cute, because he gives me approximately one million heart attacks every day.

Thankfulness 101

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours was filled with good food and good company, as all Thanksgivings should be.
All this Thanksgiving-ness has gotten me into a Thankful spirit, so I decided to come up with a list of five, totally random and totally routine things that I'm glad to have in my life.

1. Bubbles. They're the only way I can talk Riley into taking the occasional bath. If it was not for bubbless, Riley would be a filthy savage 100 percent of the time, instead of just half the time as he is now.


2. Hard Frosts. The hundreds of plants in our front and back yard have survived the thus-far mildly cold weather we've had here. When we arrived home from Thanksgiving though, everything looked like this:

Why, you may ask, am I greatful that a spell of freezing cold weather killed all my beautiful plants? Good question. Now that my plants are dead, I can neglect them without feeling guilty. We inherited a beautiful yard from a retired man who had more spare time than I do. My neighbors have gotten used to the standard of beauty he set for this place. Periodically over the summer, I'd catch them glancing at my sprouting weeds with raised eyebrows. So......Cold weather=dead plants=no more judging=no more feeling guilty.

3. Cleverly disguised medicine.
Also courtesy of winter weather, Riley now has a perma-snot nose. He's not so much a fan of the traditional cold medicine. That's why I was so excited when I discovered this cold medicine disguised in sucker form. Apparantly, they taste good because Riley is always asking for them. And now I don't have to feel guilty for letting him eat candy. After all, these suckers have Zinc, Pectin, and Vitamin C. They're good for you! Except for all the refined sugar, of course. It's kind of like how you talk yourself into thinking carrot cake is healthy.

4. Cell phones

I heart technology, for all of the traditional reasons. But the reason I love my new cell phone has nothing to do with the fact that it helps me keep in touch with family and friends. Thanks to my cell phone, I now have a new boyfriend from the William S. Keyes Correctional Facility.
I really have T-mobile to thank for my potential new relationship. When I switched carriers a few weeks ago, the salesman conveniently forgot to tell me the number used to belong to the ex-girlfriend of a hardened con.
My new boyfriend has been calling me collect from prison dozens of times over the last few days. I've almost worked about the courage to accept the charges. After all, it'll be good to have someone on the back burner in case things don't work out with the hubby (kidding, kidding...of course I'm kidding.) That is, assuming my new bf isn't a lifer.

Book of the year

I'm going to keep this very brief.

I just finished reading:



I am pretty sure that it has officially blown my mind.

Have any of you out there read it?

Would any of you like to discuss it?
Because, if so, we could theoretically get a forum of sorts going in the comments section.

Speeding Ticket Taser

All you Basin natives out there, here's the latest scandal to come out of our area. You will probably recognize Lauren Massey (Whiting) and her husband, Jared from the video. I want you guys to let me know what you think about this. It seems like the cop was way, way out of line. At the same time, I guess he possibly could have construed Jared's actions as aggressive. Still, I say he overreacted big time and should be disciplined.
If you're upset enough about this, you should write in or call Uintah Co. Commissioner Mike McKee.

This is how we roll

Riley and his posse have been getting together Mondays at the park while the weather is still nice. As I mentioned before, there are two other Laceys that go to my church and they both have little boys about the same age as Riley.

The terrible trio seem to have a ton of fun together, probably because they have similar interests (i.e. eating dirt, burping, playing with stick guns and cars, shoving sand and leaves down each other's shirts, wrestling, trying to destroy the world).

Us Laceys seem to have a lot in common too (i.e. what it's like to be called either Lassie or Lazy by people who think that is a clever nickname for Lacey, trying to figure out how to parent little boys who are trying to destroy the world).

Future Kiddies Beware

I found this pic on the blog of a family member of a family member. She, in turn, had found it on someone else's blog . I just about died laughing when I saw it and decided I had to post it. I'm sure my future kiddies are in for treatment like this, courtesy of Riley.
I'm not sure how ethical reposting other's photos is, but I think this one has been circulating around the blogosphere enough that I'm safe.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

This week, Sam and I were asked to give the obligatory, "You've moved into the ward so we want you to speak" talks in church. I was fairly calm and composed (minus my overwhelming urge to vomit) until we got to church and I realized there was only one other speaker besides us.

He was a youth speaker, and he breezed through his talk in three minutes. That left 40 minutes of time for Sam and I to fill. Let me repeat that for dramatic emphasis. 40 minutes.

"No problem," I thought. "I'll just wing an extra-long introduction about our family."

Not so much a good idea, as it turns out. I completely lost my train of thought, forgot what I was going to say, got really really flustered and could not stop the flow of brain rot from seeping out of my mouth.

Among with other nonsensical comments, I also combined the chronology of our wedding with Riley's birth and said that Sam and I had been married for 2-years-old. Then, I tried to hastily amend my comment by stammering, "Oh, I'm sorry, we've been married for two years [So NOT true...four years is the right number] and Riley turned two in July." This will, no doubt, lead oh-so-many people to draw some rather interesting conclusions.

It was a few minutes later, when I was well into my talk on agency, that I realized what I had said. By that point though, I thought it might be a little awkward to suddenly blurt out, "Oh, by the way, I know I said before that Sam and I have been married for two years, but we've really been married for four years. Just thought you might like to know."

Yeesh.

Don't worry though. I've drawn comfort from a couple of conclusions.

1. Maybe no one was listening. After all, it was Church. I mean, who listens in church anyway?
2. The sheer brilliance of the rest of my talk overshadowed the initial 45 seconds of introductory brain rot (Wishful thinking, I know.)
3. I can always clarify things next Fast and Testimony meeting. I'll simply stand up and say "Just wanted all of you to know that I got married in 2003. Thank you." Then I'll sit down.
What's that? You don't think it will work? Well I do. I've heard weirder testimonies than that before.

Anyone else out there have any embarrasing talk moments they want to share to ease my mortification?

Pay attention people, there will be a quiz.

I have been tagged on multiple occasions for the "All About Me" meme. I have chosen to ignore those tags on all occasions (not really sure why). Yesterday though, I started thinking that I had made a mistake. After all, this is a chance to talk about my favorite subject (ME) in front of a semi-captive audience. The questions on this list come from a dozen different memes. Plus, I've thrown a few Lacey originals in just for funsies.

Worst Jobs Ever:

• Light bulb changer at Brigham Young University. I was the fastest light bulb changer in the West.
• Sweat sweeper upper at the basketball games at Southern Utah University. I wore a red vest and ran onto the court in front of thousands of people during time-outs to sweep up the sweat that had dripped off the basketball player's smelly bodies. I won two weeks of college campus notoriety during one game. I was in la-la-land, heard the time-out buzzer sound and headed onto the court with my freakishly large dust mop. Unfortunately, I failed to notice the cheerleader running past me rushing to perform a routine. I ran my broom right into the back of her stick-thin leg and knocked her flat on her chest in front of a sell-out crowd.
• I'm cheating a little on this one, because it wasn't a actual job I was paid for. But it was a job I was assigned to and graded on, so it's close enough to count. In junior high, our shop class collaborated to make these wonderful little hot dog sticks we were going to sell at the end of the year. After several minor mishaps (blast my debilitating klutziness) my shop teacher took me aside and said, "I think we better find a special job just for you." He then assigned me to be the safety inspector. Trust me, the name is misleading in its importance. My sole job was to install carboard over the stick's prongs so that no one would poke out an eye. My parents were so proud.

Fictional couples I have watched actual U-tube tributes about
Jess and Rory
Jim and Pam
Anne and Gilbert Blythe

4 Fave TV Shows:
The Office
Ugly Betty (Lovin' it lately)
Heroes
King of Queens (No more new ones...too bad).

Most Embarrasing Moment
Back in 7th grade, when I was a band nerd, I was sitting in class right next to a boy I had had a fat crush on for approximately two years. Unfortunately, back in seventh grade I also had fat warts all over my hands. I had had them frozen with some sort of liquid junk, and as a result they were larger than normal and filled with pus. Anyway, on this particular day, I just could not resist squeezing one of them. My boy crush must have been leaning over towards me, perhaps to get a closer look at the disgustingness. All of the sudden, one of those warts popped, shooting a stream of liquid straight up into the air. The boy then jumped up and ran out of the room, screaming at the top of his lungs, "My eye! My eye! She got wart juice in my eye!"
Oddly enough, he never did seem to reciprocate my feelings of affection after the aforementioned incident.

Past Dreams, Present Dreams
When most kids are little, they want to be something grand when they grow up, like the President of the United States, a movie star, or a professional athlete. Me, on the other hand, when I was a little girl, I used to dream I would grow up and work in a shoe store. Not really sure why....I just loved the smell of new leather and neatly stacked boxes. And yes, I was a boring child, in case you're wondering.
Now that I'm older and the shore-store career route didn't work out, I would love to write a book. I wouldn't even care if it was never published, although it would be a nice bonus to make millions and be interviewed by Oprah. The major thing currently blocking my career path to literary stardom is the fact that I can't come up with any sort of decent plot. Maybe I should write about a girl who works in a shoe store.


Oh, and i'm not going to tag anyone, but if any of you want to answer any of these, please do.

I'm a copycat, so what?

A few months ago, I found this copycat recipe site that I fell in love with. You should all go check it out. The address is http://recipes.robbiehaf.com/Copycat.html
This guy is a genius. I have tried at least a dozen of his recipes and have never been dissapointed yet. Some particular favorites: Cinnabons knock off-recipe--these are literally to die for. Well, okay maybe not literally. But close. Very, very close; Salad dressing like Olive Garden--tastes just like the real thing; Baked Chimichangas like Chi-Chis; Blondie Brownies like Applebees. Yum, yum.

Hello, my name is trouble

For those of you who haven't yet had the joy of spawning offspring, I have a shocking bit of information for you: Kids can drive. you. crazy. I'm not just talking, "Oh wow, I feel a little stressed today," crazy. I'm talking straight-jacket wearing, pill-popping, must find a happy place A.S.A.P crazy.

A few weeks ago, I decided to do a little experiment and keep a journal of all the trouble Riley managed to get into in a five-day period (And, yes, I do realize this makes it oh-so-painfully apparant to all of you out there that I do not actually have a life.)
Still, I proudly give you a little somethun' somethun' that I have named Riley's Log O' Trouble.

Day 1:
4:15 p.m. I'm dreaming of long serene white sand beaches and quiet candlelit dinners filled with nothing but some intellectual adult conversation. I'm ripped out of my lovely dream when sticky little fingers start rythmically tapping my forehead. Riley throws a now completely empty bottle of children's Tylenol on my bed, makes the sign for candy, and demands more. My groggy mind does not really comprehend this situation. Riley is supposed to be napping in his bedroom, and the children's Tylenol is supposed to be safely tucked away on the top shelf of the cabinet.

I jolt upright and frantically place a call to poison control. The phone rings, and the Poison Control Man picks up.

PCM: Poison Control. How can I help you?
Me: (Frantically) My little boy just ate an entire bottle of children's Tylenol.
PCM: Okay. How full was the bottle and how long ago did he eat the pills?
Me: Well.. um...hmmmm. I'm not really sure. You see, I was sleeping. I really thought he was sleeping too. So basically, I have no idea.
PCM: Oh, I see. Long pause. A painful, awkward moment of silent judging ensues.
PCM: Can you give me your best guess of how many pills he ate?
Me: It was a small bottle, so probably not more than 15.
PCM: Okay, and how much does he weigh?
Me: Well, ummm, let's see. It's actually been quite a while since we've taken him to the doctor's office and we don't have a scale here, so I'm not really sure. He definitely weighs somewhere between 10 pounds and 50 pounds though.
PCM: Longer pause. More judging. I'm sorry, but you're really going to have to give me a better guess than that.
Me: Okay. Umm, 30 pounds? Does that sound right?
PCM: Hold on just a minute while I do some calculations. Long Pause Again. Acoording to this, if the pills were junior strength and he really does weigh 30 pounds, he can eat up to 75 of the pills before you have to worry about toxicity.
Me: Wow, 75 huh? That's a lot. Good to know. I'll keep it in mind for next time.
PCM:Hopefully there won't be a next time though, right?
Me: Oh, yeah. I didn't mean, well, all I was trying to say is that it's good to know. Now it's my turn to pause. I've got to go now. Thanks for all your help. Bye.

Day Two:
9 a.m. Walk into bathroom. See a razor and large clump of Riley-colored hair sitting on the sink. Apparantly, hubby forgot to put his razor away this morning after shaving. Find Riley. Work on arranging his hair into a perfect combover so that clump of short stumpy hair does not show.
2:30 p.m. Emerge from the shower to find library book ripped to shreds. Drive to library. Write out a $20 check for a book that probably cost $6.

Day Three:

3 p.m. Watch as Riley proudly walks up to me to display his artwork.

Investigate further. Discover that said artwork also extends to my best rug, a throw towell and Riley's dresser.
3:05 p..m. Listen to Riley scream after it becomes apparant that I am not able to remove permanent-marker black streaks from his leg immediately.
Day 4:
Noon. Hear my cell phone ring and become distracted for five seconds from my constant Riley vigil. Look up to discover that Riley has ridden his scooter up the ramp onto the playground equipment and is now hurtling at break-neck speed towards the steepest slide in sight. Breathe a sigh of relief when a large burly man catches him at the last second and prevents Riley from launching himself into the air.
7 p.m.
Walk into my bedroom to discover that Riley has dumped out all the coins in our change jar. He has also found my jewelry and is attempting to make an eye-ring out of my earring.
Day 5:
7 a.m. Wake up to a chocolate covered Riley and a chocolate-covered living room. Realize I will have to find a higher spot to hide the Slim Fast powder.
9 a.m. Prevent Riley from eating a bottle of shampoo. Decide to jump in the shower. Realize that Riley watched where I hid the shampoo and is now squirting it all over my rug.
3 p.m. Hear that Riley has woken up from a nap. Open his door to find a open tube of diaper cream that I didn't even realize we had. Greasy creme is in his hair, on his clothes, on his blankets, and carefully rubbed into nearly every square inch of our brand-new carpet.



This concludes this week's portion of Riley's log-o'-trouble. Just so you know, there were multiple other incidents I could have chosen to include, but I am now tired of typing. Luckily, Riley seems to have realized that he was dangerously close to pushing me over the edge and has finally calmed down a bit (in other words, he is now four times more wild than most other children rather than six). And just in case any of you are wondering, let me assure you that we do love Riley and find him to be a usually-delightful source of entertainment and excitement. Really. We do.

So, next time you see me, and I have glazed eyes, a confused look on my face, and am mumbling something about preventing a disaster, you won't have to wonder if I'm going crazy. My friends, it should be obvious that I went crazy a long time ago.

Those Lazy Crazy Halloweens

I grew up with a kid who dressed as a ghost every Halloween. You must know the costume I'm talking about---white bed sheet, with holes hacked out for the eyes. I finally got the courage to ask him about his repetitive costume choice and it turned out his mom was simply too lazy to buy him a real costume.

I am absolutely, positively, 100 percent certain that I'm going to end up as that particular brand of Halloween mom.

I very nearly did not buy Riley a costume this Halloween. Last year, I found him an Old Navy purple dinosaur costume on Halloween day that was marked 80 percent off. As respectable parents had already purchased their offspring's costumes weeks ago, it was pretty slim pickins. Riley ended up with a costume two sizes two big.

So this year, my plan was to have him re-wear last year's ensemble and change said costume's name from "dinosaur" to "dragon," just to mix things up a bit.

That plan held up until two weeks ago, when I was perusing the merchandise at Goodwill and saw a blinding light and heard an angelic chorus. I had seen it....The Chosen Costume. It was a black leather biker jacket, size 2T. It could be mine for only $4.99.
From there, the biker costume came together easily--I borrowed a do-rag, purchased a baby-sized wife beater, and found a horrendous, "BLING" chain necklace at the dollar store.

Despite the utter perfection of such a costume, my laziness still found a way to come back and bite me. I found a skull patch at Super Walmart to attach to Riley's jacket and decided to rubber cement the thing on, since sewing was so obviously too much work and therefore out of the question. In case you're wondering how well rubber cement works on leather, let me fill you in. It doesn't.

The patch disappeared forever on a pre-emptive trick-or-treating night Saturday. So yesterday, I drove the 15 miles through traffic back to Walmart and bought another one. Again instead of taking five minutes to sew it on (well okay, at least five minutes to thread the needle, five minutes to curse my utter lack of sewing skills and five minutes more for the actual sewing process) I opted for the rubber cement again and watched the thing fall off a mere two hours later. Tonight my plan is to carry the rubber cement in my purse and keep my eyes carefully trained on Riley's coat at all times, re-gluing every 15 minutes or so as needed.

Oh laziness, sometimes you can be such a curse.


Notice how the patch has miraculously re-appeared, after I whipped out my rubber cement.

Hay maze at HallowZOOween.

P-A-R-T-Why?

Seeing as how I am now a medical school widow, my mom and sister took pity on me last week and decided to come and visit. It was great fun!
Just as they were heading out the door to leave for the airport, I decided to protest their departure by contracting the stomach flu. On the down side, I didn't eat for three days. On the up side, I lost three pounds. On the down side, I am now so ravenous from not eating in three days that I am currently eating everything in sight and am well on my way to gaining back at least six pounds.
Anyhoo, we had a wonderful week together. It feels mighty lonesome now. Here's my list of the top ten things I learned during our adventures last week.
1. It does not matter how old you are or whether or not you are safely "established" with your own house, husband, and baby. You still want your mom to come visit because you know she is going to take you shopping.
2. There are a million and a half germs crawling all over every surface of the zoo, children's amusement park, and Chuck E. Cheese video games.
3. Zoo monkeys do not like fruit snacks.
4. If a zoo volunteer happens to nearly catch you in the act of trying to feed a monkey a fruit snack, he will get mighty suspicious and follow you for the next ten minutes, under the guise of his burning need to cite a million useless facts.
5. Zoo monkeys can catch a disease from eating off a person's hand. Or so says the zoo volunteer.
6. Zoo volunteers really,really, really do not like it when you try to feed the monkeys.
6. The Cheesecake Factory is seriously overpriced. In the case of great cheesecake though, sometimes paying too much is so worth it. Especially if your mom is the one who is treating.
7. Skeet ball at Chuck E Cheese's is still fun.
8. It still takes a million of the reward tickets to buy one eraser.
9. My mom and sister are the greatest.
10. It's harder to come up with a list of ten things than you might think.

What the??? $1 Make-up?

So as I was making my blog-stalking rounds, I found a blog that talked about this site, www.eyeslipsface.com where they sell make-up for $1. Have any of the rest of you heard of it?
I went and checked it out and everything looked really good. So I bought stuff. I hope that it won't end up being a scam, or really really crappy make-up. But the site was featured by both Oprah and People magazine, so that has to give it some credibilty, right?
The way I see it, I'm only out $10 bucks if it ends up being lousy. And since Riley either flushes my make-up down the toilet or smashes it all over the floor, I'm all about the hunt for cheap stuff. You guy should all go check it out and let me know what you think.

In other news.....I was playing in the front yard today with Riley and some lady rolled by on her wheelchair and asked me how long I was babysitting for. Grrrrrrrrr.......

Spencer Who?

I've only ever watched one episode of The Hills. Not because I think I'm too good for it, but because we only get five channels on our $12 a month basic cable plan. Sigh. I just can't help but feel my life is woefully incomplete.

Anyway, I've been hearing the buzz about this Spencer Pratt guy and what a jerk he is. Now, I too, have a reason to loathe him. Check out this article from people.com, with a little bit of commentary from me inserted here and there. And yes, you caught me. I occasionally read people magazine online, while taking brief breaks from devouring acclaimed literary masterpieces (Translation=I check it faithfully every day for updates. You can judge me if you want.)

Spencer Pratt's Goals: Billionaire By 30, on TV Forever

TUESDAY OCTOBER 16, 2007 02:40 PM EDT

By Kristin Boehm

Spencer Pratt Photo by: Fitzroy Barrett / Landov

Spencer Pratt wants to be a billionaire by the time he turns 30, but is also quite content entertaining Hills viewers as reality TV's most hated villain.

"The bottom line is I'm making people react and ultimately not think about that we are in a war in Iraq and are trying to pick leaders," he tells the November issue of Radar magazine. "The Hills is good breath for people. I do not take it a little bit seriously. I'm an entertainer."
(Yes, more reality television is just what we apathetic Americans need to take our minds off the burden of correct sentence construction, "picking our leaders," and the war in Iraq.)

What he does take seriously is his future. "I'm trying to be a billionaire before 30. Once you find an open market, that's where you can make billions to trillions of dollars," he says. (Sounds like a pretty solid plan there, Spence. Find an open market and cash in. Wish I would have thought of that.)

The 24-year-old, most famous for being Hills costar Heidi Montag's hateable fiancé, also admits to political aspirations and tells the magazine that his antics are for show, but his love for Montag is the real deal.

"She is an angel, and I'm honored to be with her. People don't even know!" he says of the 21-year-old singer. "I'm the new villain, and that's hilarious! It's so cool to be alive ... I would be on reality TV until I am 100. It's the coolest thing in town." (The coolest thing in town? The coolest thing in town? Did he seriously use that phrase?)

Pratt added: "It's so much cooler to have people come up to me and be like, 'Spencer Pratt!' and know my name, than to be Orlando Bloom, who's famous for being some pirate." (Hmm... You just keep telling yourself that.)

Who knows, maybe this whole thing was a publicity stunt. But if not--his comments really annoyed me. I'm not sure why I was itching to pick on him so much, nor am I sure why I decided to write about it. But it's my blog. And I can do whatever I want. So take that.

The Vermin Wars

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the office working on an article when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. A Big. Fat. Freakin'. Beady-eyed. mouse was four inches from my foot, staring at my toe like it wanted to take a bite out of it. Maybe because I had on orange socks with cheese-like holes all over them.
Anway, I screamed so loud I scorched my throat and nearly gave Riley a heart attack. The terrified mouse ran away, probably to tell all its friends the red brick home was inhabited by some crazy lady wearing cheese socks.
Since then, I've been engaging in some diligent psychoanalysis, trying to figure out why it is that women are so bugged by the fact there may be a mouse or two running around in their house (It's not just me, is it?). Any ideas? Anyone? The best theory I came up with is related to some painful, mice-related suppressed memories, which I will be happy to share if anyone is interested.
The news of the mouse sighting didn't seem to bother hubby. When I told him, he said, "Come on. This is OKLAHOMA. Every house here has mice AND roaches in it." Gee, that information would have been more useful BEFORE we moved here.
Sam did consent to set a few mouse traps for my sake, all of which had unfortunate victims in them before the night was over. That was enough to turn our house into a war zone. And, as we know, all's fair in love and war.
My first trick was to lure the buggers away by constructing an intricate cheese and peanut butter trail leading to my neighbor's door, on which I had posted a sign that read: "Attention, mice. Please help yourself to our plentiful supply of easily-accessible food." (Okay, so I only played out this scenario in my head. You caught me--I've been watching far too many reruns of Scrubs).
To win this war, I've done things I never imagined I would do. I bought a caulking gun and some steel wool. I crawled around in gross, confining crawl spaces looking for holes that needed to be plugged up. I went to Home Depot approximately a thousand times, where I asked questions that clearly exposed my stupidity. (Example: I don't really want to buy any new tools. Do you think I could fix a hole under a sink with my glue gun?)
I had an extremely uncomfortable conversation with an oldie who shall remain unnamed which went a little something like this:
Me: What do you think is the best type of mouse poison?
Oldie: Oh, there's this brand that I started using in December of 1990. That's when it first came out. It works great. I don't remember the name, but it comes in a green package. You can buy twelve of them in one bunch. It used to come in a red package, and you could only buy six at one time. I think it was a few years ago when they changed it. I remember because I was at the store and it took me 30 minutes to find what I was looking for. This conversation lasted for another 15 minutes.
My mouse battle has taught me a couple of very important lessons. 1-I have zero home-fix-it-up skills. Actually, scratch that. I have negative skills. 2. Necessity is the mother of invention, and even sucky inventions can serve their purpose.
For example, I noticed our outside dryer vent was just loose enough that flexible little mice could easily squeeze their way in. After painstakingly constructing several different elaborate prototypes, I came up with this solution:

Sheer genuis. A spool of chicken wire securely fastened with some handy-dandy bricks.

Even though I have negative skills, it appears that I have won the war. Our house has been mouse-free this entire week. And the best part of this whole thing is that because 99.9 percent of Sam's time is occupied in learning about crista terminalis and septomarginal trebecula and other interesting medical tidbits, I can completely claim this victory for myself.

At least until Christmas break, when Sam actually has time to scrape off the caulking that I leaked all over our brick walls, sand down my bumpy drywall patch, and fix the dryer vent for real.

But for now, victory is mine, and mine alone.

The 'Ol Yummy Eye

Overheard, on one of my many trips to Target, out of the mouth of a 4-year-old: "Dad, did you know your eye tastes like a potato chip?"

All these years, I've been sitting right on top of a non-caloric gold mine and I never even knew it.

Oops, You Better Not Go There

Bad, bad things are going to happen if I hear one more news anchor introduce a segment on Britney Spears' latest exploits with the phrase, "Oops, she did it again!" I'm pretty sure that lead-in stopped being witty and creative after the millionth time it was used.
Has anyone else been bothered by this, or is it just me? Maybe there aren't enough things in my life to be annoyed with right now, what with the fact that I never have a husband around to fight with, so I'm casting stones at poor helpless newscasters.

All Aboard the Rip-off Train!!

Over the past six months, I have become an expert on all things related to Thomas the Tank engine. I can identify any one of the dozens of trains on the wonderful Island of Sodor by sight and number and give a brief biography of each train's life and major accomplishments. Awesome, right?
In the hundreds of hours that I have spent trying to NOT listen to Thomas the Tank Engine while Riley watches completely captivated, I have learned that every single episode can be easily condensed into a thirty-second summary, which I will consent to share with you now.
Narrator: Thomas is a cheeky engine. He's been asked by sir Topham Hat to shunt a dirty, heavy load of train-like cargo to some undesirable destination.
Thomas: I really don't want to complete this unpleasant task. I'll pull some sort of crazy shenanigan to try and get out of my work. But in the end, I always do what I'm asked because if I'm really, really lucky, Sir Topham Hatt will tell me I'm a really useful engine, and hearing that particular phrase seems to be the sole purpose of my existance.
Those of you who have never seen Thomas the Tank Engine, so sorry if I ruined the ending for you.
Thomas came to a nearby city last week, and I decided to take Riley, even though I knew it would be a highly-overpriced event. We went with my friend Lacey (yep--we have the same name--) and her little boy Chase. In the end, it was probably worth it. Riley had the time of his life, and I got to show off my newly acquired knowledge when I ripped it up in the Thomas Trivia portion of the day.


For once, Riley was completely rooted to the spot when he saw Thomas come rolling around the bend.


Thomas and his great big, fat plastic head. The kids whose mothers weren't cheapskates got to have their pictures taken on the other side of the ugly orange fence for the mere cost of $15 smackaroos.





The two Laceys unable to contain their excitement.