Memory Monday: Scanner Girl, Part 2

Wanna hear more memories about my current job?  Well, then, you're in luck! (My first post of memories is right here.)

The summer after my senior year I worked by myself.  And actually, I worked 10-hour days.  Sure, it could get boring, but I kept myself occupied.  And I was trying to save money for college. I went in right after showering, with my hair still wet.  And even though it was summer, that would make me get cold.  So I would crank up the heat in that room, and dry my hair in front of the vent.  I would bend at the waist, with my long long hair hanging almost to the floor. Then I usually would pull it up with this purple scrunchie that I had.  I loved that thing, and had it for a million billion years.

The summer before, I didn't pull in quite that many hours, but my sister and mom and I went to deep water aerobics early in the morning, which I LOVED.  Then we'd get ready and go over to work.  It was so awesome.  One of these days, I would love to do the deep water aerobics again.  I tried a couple of years ago, but it was at night, right when I was trying to get kids in bed, etc. etc.  Maybe in a few years when my kids are all at school.  There are a lot of things I want to do when my kids are all out of the house.  Like, read.  Go to the temple often.  Exercise.  Grocery shop.  Scrapbook.

When I was scanning in college, my sister Brianna started scanning with me. At the time, my dad's office had a client that wanted some of their stuff scanned.  It was a doctor's office of some sort.  Our scanning room had been moved again, this time upstairs at the end of the hall.  While scanning the doctor's office stuff, we discovered that they had pictures drawn in their files, about people's ailments.  It was to show where or what was wrong, but...some of them were really funny.  Like cartoons.  There would be a phrase written, like "jambed thumb", and a picture of a hand with a REALLY over-sized thumb. Or they would have funny phrases (well, funny taken out of context).  Like "Man says there is metal shrapnel in his head."  Whenever we came across crazy things like this, we would scan them, then cut them out and tape them to the wall above our scanner.  We taped other things up as well, like outsides of thank-you notes or whatever that would have flowers on it.  We had quite the collection.

Along with the crazy pictures, the same doctor's office had these files on REALLY big papers that were all linked together.  You know that old type of printer that had the rollers on the sides, and the paper would have holes on the edges that you would hook onto the rollers?  And each page was hooked to the next, so you'd have to pull it apart?  There were boxes and boxes of these kinds of files.  And the pages were too big to put into our scanner.  So we had to get creative.

Sometimes we would take the pages and photocopy them but reduce it so it would all fit onto a page, then scan that.  Other times we could cut the edges and bottoms of the pages to make them page-sized.  When they had the normal-sized paper that was hooked together, our scanner was able to grab the first page, and keep going, sucking in page after page in a big stream.  Brianna was really good at getting the machine to do that.  I wasn't very good at it-it gave me paper cuts, and would start scanning crooked, and then it would jam.  So, yeah, I had to tear the pages and scan them separately.

Scanning -and prepping- the big pages took FOREVER.  So my sister and I decided to come in at night a few times and just prep so that we could scan during the day.  We would take a couple of boxes into the conference room, where there was a TV and cable.  There was a TV movie on, called "Au Pair" (which means "nanny" in French).  It's kind of "The Sound of Music" meets...any makeover show like "Pretty Woman" or "She's All That".  And even though it was cheesy, it was strangely addicting.

At that time, Brianna was also into country music.  We'd sit and listen to Z103, but after a while I'd get SO sick of their rotation of songs, so much so that I agreed to listen to a country station with her instead.  Although I could only take so much of that before wanting to switch back, or just not listen to any music whatsoever.

This was also about the time that we met Jack on Crack.  One of my dad's colleagues had a son that..."worked" there as well.  I honestly don't know what he did there.  Shred?  Yardwork?  Or maybe he just hung out there or something.  We could never remember his real name, so we called him Jack on Crack.  Because he was a WEIR-DO!  Very spazzy, and weird. Sometimes he would try to hang out with us and talk to us.  We would keep our door closed in the hopes that he would leave us alone, but even that didn't work with Jack on Crack.  I really hope he grew up to become somewhat normal.

I also scanned with my sister Alexis, when I was pregnant with Troy.  We were more hit and miss, because it was during the school year.  I went in on Friday and Saturday mornings.  We were in a different room-again, and this time had cubicles.  At this time we were scanning pension files, which didn't have cool pictures like the other files.

And now I scan alone, at night.  I'm back in the room where I used to dry my hair.  Life tends to come full circle.  Or maybe it just seems like that because right now my kids are watching "The Lion King".

Memory Monday: Working Girl

Man, it’s been a LOOOONG time since I’ve done one of these!  I haven’t been blogging as much, I think in part because I’ve been working so much-teaching piano, helping with three kids’ homework, and, of course, working at my Dad’s office doing cleaning and scanning.

Which brings me to today’s Memory Monday topic: scanner girl memories.  Oh, where do I begin?

I’ve done scanning on and off for a very, very long time.  I swear I was only 13 or 14 when I started scanning there.  It was my summer job all through high school, and then again in college (summers of ’99 and 2000).  Oh, and not to mention the time I worked there when we first moved to Idaho Falls before I had Troy, so in 2005-2006.

So.  When I was 13-14 years old, we had this REALLY old scanning machine.  It had its own set of discs that were humongous, and very unlike normal computer discs.  It was probably 5”x5”, and an inch thick. Somehow they were able to convert the Beast Discs into CDs or something.  If we wanted the machine to read a page as front-and-back, we had to put in a special paper with little squares colored in for it to do it right.  Same with if the page was too dark or too light-same special paper, but with a different square colored in.

At the time, the scanner was set up in the same room as the kitchen area stuff, so we were right by the fridge.  There was a lady that worked there at the time who was addicted to Diet Coke.  During the time that we (we meaning my sister Karlenn and I) were there, which was maybe half a day of work, this lady came down to the fridge to get a Diet Coke about 5 times.  And each time she came down she would ask, “Having fun?”

Now, Diet Coke Lady wasn’t the only one to frequent the kitchen area.  She was there the most, but she was not the only one.  And each person would ask the same question: Having fun?  We never quite knew what to reply to that.  “Yes, yes I am.  Scanning is a dream job!”  “No, not really.  I hate being here.”  “Not only am I having fun, but I’m working hard, too!  Two thumbs up!”  I mean, what DO you say in response?  So usually we’d just laugh a little, but I think that egged The Question on.

At that time, we were TERRIBLE scanners.  If it missed a page (sometimes the machine would suck in two or three pages at a time), we would just let it keep going, pull out the pages that it missed, and just stuck them in wherever it was most convenient.  I’m sure we missed backs of pages a lot.  And we had no idea what to title things.  I think at the time, though, we would just put it under the client name and the year.  So when the accountants went to find things, I’m sure it was a nightmare, because there would be 10 different files all under the same client and year. 

Oh, and it’s not like you could just look it up any old way, either.  We had these printouts of what was on each Beast Disc, and which Beast Discs were on which CDs.  So we’d have to look at this teeny tiny print to try and find out where the file was at, and then hopefully it was labeled with the right year and the right client.  Good times right there.

The summer after my junior year, I was still working with Kar.  We were in the kitchen for part of the time, but then we moved into an office across the hall when a dude moved out.  His name was Oak.  Not even joking.  My dad has had several randomly-named people work for him: Clain, Oak…okay, I know there’s more, but that’s all I can remember right now.  Clain had a cool last name, too – it was French, but I’m omitting it now for privacy purposes.

During that summer I was dating Ned.  Ah, Ned.  More good times right there.  Anyway, our scanner machine totally broke.  Just…wouldn’t scan, wouldn’t suck up pages, nothing.  So we had to call an 800 number.  We reached a guy named Dave that worked in Salt Lake for the Scanner Fixer Company.  So he came up to fix it, and it was kind of awkward.  We just sat there and prepped files while he cleaned the machine, etc.  By the way, he was really young, I think just fresh off his mission, which at the time seemed really old to me, but whatever - I was 17.  (I’m 17.  I’m 17!  -What movie?)

After Dave fixed the machine, it broke, like, 2 days later.  We called back down to the Scanner Fixer Company, and once again it was Dave that came up.  This time it was way different.  We totally talked to him, and kind of made fun of him for being a tech nerd.

I’m pretty sure the machine broke again, because I remember we called the place again and requested Dave to come up.  Hm, maybe he was trying to make the machine break so he could hang out with us.  Because even though I was 17, my hot sister was 19, so maybe he was trying to bust a move or something, though he never asked her out.

You know what’s funny, though?  A year or so later, Dave got married in Logan, Utah, and he sent us an invitation to the reception!  And…yes, my sister and I TOTALLY attended!  It was very awkward, trying to explain to his new wife that he had “fixed” our scanner, and that’s how we knew him.

One more point from this summer, and then I’m going to have to make a Part 2.  After we moved into the other room, we didn’t have to deal with The Question any more, which was nice.  Our office was next to a guy named Robert.  We teased him ALL the time, just by calling him nicknames.  He’d be all, “My name is Robert,” all deadpan.  And we’d be all, “Hey Bobby?  Question for ya.”  And he’d be all, “It’s ROBERT.”  (Has anyone seen the movie-I think it’s called Office Space?  I caught it on TV once.  There’s a dude that’s all quiet, and people always steal his stapler.  At the end he goes all crazy and, like, blows stuff up or something.  I could totally be making that up, because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that movie.  Anyway.  Robert was like that dude.)

Okay, THAT tangent over.  Anyway, we gave him other nicknames like Bobert, Robbie, Rob, Bob, and Robert Probert.  The last one is someone’s actual name that at one point had been a client of my dad’s firm.  (Hm. Wonder if he’s still around somewhere.)  We thought it was really funny that someone with the last name Probert would have no creativity and name their child’s first name Robert.  I mean, come on!  There was also a client named Thomas Thompson.  Seriously?

Anyway, since we moved into a more secluded room, we could have a radio.  We listened to a station called Z103.  We would keep tally of which songs got played the most, aptly named The Most-Played Song of the Summer.  One of the songs that was big at the time was called Butterfly Kisses.  It’s a REALLY cheesy song.  So we were listening to that, and we both started singing at the TOP of our lungs.  “BUTTERFLY KISSES, in the blah blah blah!”  Okay, totally don’t remember the lyrics now.  Anyway, a lady named Maggie that worked upstairs paged down to us on the phone, and was all, “Um, we can totally hear you up here.”  So funny.

Another song that was in rotation at the time was a song called “I’m a B----“.  So one day my sister started singing that one: “I’m a B, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner I’m a saint…”  And Robert came over, stood in our doorway, and just stared at us for a while.  I think he was trying not to laugh, although I couldn’t be sure, because I don’t know if he was capable of laughing.  But it was totally funny.

Alright.  This post is CRAZY long, so I’m going to go.  But don’t worry, I have plenty more where that came from!

Oh, and enjoy this cheese-tastic blast from the past:

Memory Monday: Part-Time Model

My freshman year of college was oh-so-fun!  We would stay up till all hours, and do some of the craziest things.

During that year, I started to wonder where I would get the funds to keep going to college.  My freshman year I had a one-year scholarship to get me in-state tuition.  But I had no idea if I was going to stay and apply for residency (the rules were a lot less strict then than they are now), or...what.

At one point, I had a note up on my cork board.  It looked a little like this:

How to Pay for College 

sell a kidney on the black market

get another scholarship

take a year off and work

marry a Utah resident

convince my parents to move to Utah so I can get residency

rob a bank

Our school's joke of a newspaper would run help wanted ads, but sometimes I wondered if they were jokes.  There was always one for posing nude for an art class.  There was another for milking cows on someone's farm.  And the one that my roommate, floormate, and I decided that we'd actually go and check out.

The ad said, "Models needed!  All shapes, all sizes!"  Something like that.  We decided to call, just because.  We knew it would never turn into anything, but we were curious.

Between the three of us, we had the "all sizes" part of the ad down. My roommate, Stacy, was super tall and very athletic. She was from Las Vegas. The floormate, Becky, was teeny tiny-maybe about 4'10".  A lot of people thought she was, like, 12, because she looked really young.  She was from Fargo, North Dakota.  And then there was me-somewhere in between the tall and the short.

Becky from Fargo, ND

 

Me and Stacy from Las Vegas

We went down to where the "try-outs" were at.  They wanted us to bring a picture of ourselves.  Of course, not knowing how it all works at the time, we just brought little wallet-sized pictures, instead of big 8x10 head shots in a portfolio.  The "studio" was in the basement of some random building.  We walked through a hallway, and into the first room.  In there was a catwalk.  There was a really tall guy, walking back and forth on it.  He was practicing his turns.  It reminded me of Zoolander.  Then we went into the next room, which was an office.

The lady had us fill out all this paperwork.  And then she asked us for our pictures.  The whole time I had to hold back my laughter.  But I'm sure when she saw our "head shots" she had to hold her laughter back as well.  After we were done with paperwork, she began her interviews.  If you can call it that.

She started with Stacy.  She basically called her fat (which she wasn't) and told her that she might be a good plus-size model.  Ouch, right?  Then she moved to Becky, who she told could maybe model little kids' clothes.  Ouch again.  And then it was my turn.  She told me I was too short to model, but I should try acting.  Yee-haw.

What. A. Joke.

"All shapes, all sizes"?  They should have said, "All shapes and sizes if you want us to insult you".  Or "All shapes and sizes if you are between 5'9" and 6'2" and weigh 80 pounds".

We left, and just...started laughing hysterically.  We thought the whole thing was so funny.  Becky was all, "How about I chop my hair extra short and model 10-year-old boys' pants for JCPenney?!?!?"  And I was all, "Yes, I'm going to win the next Oscar!"

Good times, my friends.

I did end up getting a summer job at Zuka Juice in Logan, which helped take care of my financial woes for schooling (earning money in a legitimate way, and getting Utah residency at the same time).  I'm glad I didn't have to be a part-time model.

Memory Monday: Appliance Gratitude

This last week, our microwave decided to die on us.  (This isn't the "memory" part of my post.  This is just the setup of what brought back this particular memory, or memories, if you will.)  One minute it was working, the next minute there was absolutely no heat emitting from its...micro waves. 

The appliance fixer guy came out and said a piece wasn't working.  I keep wanting to call it the Megatron.  The...Magnavox?  The...MAGNATRON!  Yes!  I remembered!  (Seriously, my brain goes to Megatron first.  I must have boys in my house.)  Anyway, that's the thing that makes the microwave work.  We could either replace the part, or get a new one for the same exact cost.  I went with a new one, because why not?

While I was looking around the store, I saw some really fancy appliances.  It's only been 5-ish years since I've done some appliance shopping, though at the time we had Budget X to work with because that's what our home builders told us we had.  Of course we could have gone over Budget X to get fancier things, but we didn't have more money with which to spend on the fancy, so Plain Jane is what we ended up getting.

But now?  There are microwaves that have grills inside of them.  Crazy, huh?  And there are ovens that have a smaller oven door, which totally fits a 9x13 pan, but you only have to heat up the smaller one (and then there's a full-size oven underneath), so it's more energy efficient and all that jazz.  (Here's a picture of one.  Awesome, huh?)

And then there's the fancy, roomy dishwasher. *sigh*  Of all my appliances, I would want my dishwasher to break.  It's short, and small, and the utensil holder is in the bottom instead of on the door so it takes up a ton of room, and then it has that spindle thing in the middle of the bottom and top that shoots water up, so you have to work around it.  And because my dishwasher is short, if I use a normal-sized skillet, I have to lean it over, so it takes up more than half of the bottom of the dishwasher to clean it.

I was coveting, my friends.

However.  This experience brings me to my Memory Monday.  And because it's late, I'm sure I'll forget all sorts of descriptive details about it.  Though, I think for Memory Monday's sake, I'm going to just stick to the appliance section of this time in my life.

The year span was 2002-2005.  Pete and I got married in June of 2002, and we moved into married student housing on campus at Utah State.  I think these beauties were built in, like, the 1940s or something.  There were plenty of things wrong with the Aggie Village apartments, but for two really poor college students, they were just fine.  Here's a pic of one of the buildings:

Sweet, sweet cinder block walls with no air conditioning.  Very cold in the winter, warm like unto an oven in the summer.  (And then being SUPER pregnant during one of those summers!  Yikes.  Bikes.)  They were cheap, but a great deal because our water, cable, internet, phone, garbage, sewer, and electricity were all included in the price.  The downside: no appliances to be had.

Laundry machines?  We were lucky enough to have the laundry building right next door to our building.  Microwave?  Pete's siblings all pitched in to get us one for our wedding gift.  It sat on an old desk that Pete had had in his single days.  Dishwasher?  I called my dishwasher my hands, my sink, soap, and a towel.  We had a dinky little gas oven in which only one of my cookie sheets would fit all the way.

Our cabinets had sliding fake wood doors.  Our "pantry" was maybe a foot wide and maybe two feet deep (I'm being generous on the measurements).

One day in Sunday School during church (which was basically our whole ward, because there were, like, 5 kids old enough to be in nursery while the rest were all brand new babies, and that was the entirety of our primary), someone made a comment about our fake wood sliding cabinet doors, and our lack of counter space.  And I think every woman in the room started fantasizing about real wood cabinets, and appliances that were younger than she was.  And our teacher (I can't remember his name, but he had red hair, if I'm remembering right) made this comment:

If we can always remember our fake wood cabinets during this time in our lives, we will always be grateful for what we have.

That really hit me.  I think he was trying to say a few things-or, I interpreted it a few different ways.  One, that someday we'll look back and realize how poor we were in college, and that hopefully we'll be better off in the future, but we need to be grateful for how far we've come.  Two, that aren't we lucky to even be in college, and that we even have cabinets in which to house our food and dishes.  And three, all we need are the basics, and our happiness doesn't come from material goods.

So yes, I coveted a new dishwasher last week.  But then I remembered what life was like without one, and I realized how great I have it.  I am so blessed, and not just with appliances.

Memory Monday: Roadshow

Sorry I've been hit-and-miss on Memory Monday lately.  I'll try to do better.  However, one of the reasons I've been so sporadic with posting at all (and, in turn, reading and/or commenting on others' blogs) is because of my current church assignment-our ward's roadshow.  It's a lot more time consuming than I originally thought it would be.

But more about that later.  This is MEMORY Monday.  So I'm going to write about one of the roadshows I was in when in Young Women's.

The year: 1996.  Me: in high school drama, thinking that I knew everything there was to know about acting, and writing a script, and all that jazz.

Somehow, the Laurel class got put in charge of writing our ward's roadshow this time.  For whoever doesn't know what a roadshow is, it's essentially a play that a group of people perform in different locations, like three different church buildings. We had roadshows in our stake every other year, so this one was my third.  Anyway, because I thought I was all that and a bag of chips, I kind of took over writing the roadshow.

Our theme had to do with time lines, or something, and it was our stake's 50th...anniversary?  It had been 50 years since its creation, so whatever that would be called.  So we chose doing a Back to the Future theme.  The main plot was that Biff (guy in the middle in the picture, who I dated for a while, actually) went back in time and ruined some roadshows, so Marty (guy on the right) and Doc (that was me, if you couldn't tell from the costume) had to go and fix them.  We went to the 50s, and the 70s, and...is that all?  That's all I'm remembering.  Our youth group was really big, and we had them do some dance/singing numbers with the words changed to songs that were from the different eras.

Yes, it was cute.  But, I was really selfish with it, and because I was so full of my drama self, I thought that my ideas were the best, so I kind of ended up writing it myself.  Also, the lady that they chose as director wanted the guy on the right to be Doc.  But because the script was my baby I wanted to be Doc.  So I kind of forced her hand.  Which, now, if a youth were to try to do that to me, I'd be like, step down, punk.  I don't know why she didn't do that to me, but oh well.
So, very fun.  Well, I had fun, anyway; I have no idea if anyone else had as much fun.  But the other roadshows we did as youth were fun for me as well.
Fast forward to January of this year.  Our 1st counselor pulled me and Pete aside and asked if we would be in charge of our roadshow.  And we gladly accepted.  We wrote our script in about a week, and we've been full steam ahead ever since. 

We've had a couple of dance practices with the youth, which has been fun, and it looks so great.  Of course, we have a lady in our ward who does choreography at a dance studio all the time, so she's made it look great. 

The biggest obstacle we've come across right now has been music.  We picked some different songs, and some of them don't have instrumental versions available.  So I've been trying to write in some accompaniment to one of the songs on the piano, and then I'm going to have to figure out how to record it.  (My piano can record, but for some reason I can't find the cords that connect it to a computer to get it off the piano.  Neat, huh?)  But it's worth it for this specific song.

I want to write more about our show, but I don't want to give anything away (in case there are roadshow spies out there that may come across my blog and steal our ideas or something).  I can tell you that each ward got an assigned time period (ours is Book of Mormon) and a theme (ours is missionary work).

There is still SO much to do, and SO much to think about.  And the show is at the end of April, so YIKES!  BIKES!  Hopefully it just all comes together, and ends up being as cute and as funny as I am envisioning.  I mean, just because I think it's funny, doesn't mean it necessarily is funny, you know?

So, that's my current time-sucker.  Like I said, way more time-consuming than I thought it was going to be.  But it's been fun.  And I'm sure you'll hear all about it in a couple of months!  In the meantime, I'll try to keep up with my blog.  For real, yo.

Thought-filled Thursday: Training Day Part 4-the Final Chapter

I didn't know I had so much to say about poop.  But here we are again, reading about my last potty training adventure with my only girl.

Sadly (fortunately?), I don't have a picture of Ivy potty training.  Because once again, it went so fast.  The reason I have a picture of Tinkerbell was Ivy got to have a Tinkerbell sticker if she went poop in the toilet.  And she loves Tinkerbell.

Let me start from the beginning.  I got an awesome book from my friend Chelsey, who used it while training her triplets.  She said it worked like a charm.  It's called Potty Training in Three Days, or something like that.  You're supposed to train your child when he/she is 22 months old, which would have been super awesome.  But that time came and went for me, and I had just trained Troy, so I was ready for a break, and I didn't feel like Ivy was ready to train.

However, she started doing the same thing Troy had done, and sat on the little toilet before bath time, and went pee almost every time.  So that was good.  That meant she knew how to let go when she wanted.  She did that for a few months, at least.

I tried to start taking her in the mornings during the summer, but she would just sit on the toilet and cry and whine.  She was so miserable, so I gave up on that one after just a couple of days.

Then she started showing more signs, like wanting to sit on the toilet, and going and getting a diaper when hers was wet.  One day in September or October, I asked her if she wanted to go pee in the toilet all the time, and wear big girl undies, and she said yes and seemed super excited.  So one morning I had her go pee and we put the big girl undies on her.  A half hour later, she had peed in them, but didn't tell me or even react to it.  So we cleaned it up, and put new undies on her.  Which she peed in them about an hour later.

After I cleaned her up, I asked if she wanted to wear big girl undies still or if she wanted a diaper, and she tearfully asked for the diaper.  She wasn't quite ready, and neither was I.  And I really do think that the mom has to be ready as well as the child, because the mom has to deal with cleaning the accidents and helping that child run to the bathroom and all that jazz.

For the next couple of months, I could tell that Ivy was becoming very aware of her diaper and its contents.  She would poop and get this really squirmy uncomfortable look on her face and ask to be changed immediately.  She would even bring me a diaper after peeing.  She's always been a great talker, so I knew that we would be able to communicate about going potty, which is also a great help.  Not necessary, but nice.

I knew we'd have a week off of school and all our activities between Christmas and New Year's, so I decided that that would be our potty training time.  I made a little sticker chart for her, and we started the Monday after Christmas.  She had little rainbow stickers for peeing, and Tinkerbell for pooping. 

It's sad that I can't think of any crazy mishaps that happened on our first day, but maybe that's because we really didn't have any.  I know she's had accidents, but really, we worked on it that week and that's about all it took.  She would have good days with no accidents, and then days with four accidents.  But overall, she did really well, and started taking herself to the bathroom by the end of the week.

I think it helped while we were potty training to have both me and Pete around.  Because when I had to run an errand, Pete could be home with her, and vice versa.  For the first few days, we would ask her almost nonstop if she had to go pee or poop.  I'm sure she got sick of hearing us ask, but then I think it helped to keep the subject in the forefront of her mind.  Also, it helped that we didn't have to drive to preschool, or gym, or wherever else, and I didn't have piano lessons.  We could concentrate on her instead of being pulled in 50 directions.

I do remember when we started back into our daily grind, we drove Troy to preschool.  I dropped him off, and got back to the car, and Ivy was scream-crying.  I asked her what was wrong, and she cried, "I go PEEEE!!!"  I was like, oh great, she just had an accident in the car.  I felt her bum, though, and she was dry.  So I asked, "Ivy, do you need to go pee?"  And she was all "YEEEEEESSSSS!!!"  So I took her out of the car and asked Troy's preschool teacher if we could use the bathroom.  She held it all the way in to the house, which was awesome, and then went pee there.

Also, I didn't think that aiming for girls was a big deal.  They just sit, right?  Wrong.  Well, wrong for Ivy, anyway.  Because when she sat straight up, the pee would go in the gap between the seat and the bowl, and get all over the back of her pants, or the floor.  So then I had to work on having her bum hang down lower into the bowl, and lean her clear forward.  And now that's kind of how she sits by herself, which is nice.

Another time, like a Saturday night, I noticed the bathroom door was shut, and the light was on (this is after the kids were in bed).  I opened the door to smell that really yummy smell.  There were some undies in the sink, with poop in them, and the toilet was filled with toilet paper and kleenex, so much so that they were sitting in there dry.  So poor little Ivy was trying to take care of her poop all by herself, and tried cleaning it up and stuff, and had apparently run out of toilet paper-hence the kleenex.  The next day I told her that kleenex is for noses and toilet paper is for bums, and if she runs out of toilet paper to come get me and I can get her more.

And...that's about it.  I think she had an accident on Saturday, but before that it had been...who knows how long since the last one.

So hopefully my potty training stories were interesting, or helpful, or...something.  If not, at least I have them written down.  Because you can never type too much about this subject, apparently.

Non-Forgetting Friday: Training Day Part 3

This is the only picture I have from Troy's potty training experience, because his training time was so stinking fast.  Well, kind of.

Our little potty was pretty much a permanent fixture in our upstairs bathroom by this time.  Once trained, all of my kids have wanted to use the "big tow-wet" (big toilet), but have all trained on the little one.  So, for a long time, Troy would use the little potty before baths at night, and actually go in it (just #1).  But I couldn't get him to use it any other time.  I didn't try to force him into it, though.  (See?  I'd learned.)

So that went on for a couple of months.  Then I had my hysterectomy (this is Oct. 2009).  So, just so I have it straight in my head, Jake trained in 2006, Brock in 2008, Troy in 2009, Ivy in 2010.  While I was healing from surgery, my mom came over a lot and helped me out with things.  And Troy LOVES my mom.  He loves cuddling with her, and he'd do anything for her.  So she would ask him to go in the mornings, and he would.

A little over a month after I had my surgery, I went to my doctor's appointment to get checked to see how I was healing.  And Troy had preschool-just a neighborhood thing that a few ladies and I did for our 3-year-olds.  Troy was the youngest in his little group, and, incidentally, the only one not potty trained.  So I took him over to preschool and left for my appointment, leaving my mom behind.

After preschool started, Troy pooped in his diaper.  The poor mom was trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.  When she found it was Troy, I guess a few of the other kids were all, "You still wear diapers?"  And he was soooo embarrassed.  The mom called my mom, but she couldn't go get him, and by the time I got back from my appointment the preschool was almost over.  So the poor mom had to smell him the whole two hours, and Troy had to sit in it and be embarrassed for two hours.

It definitely had an effect on him.  He talked about it for a few days after.  And that's when I decided he was ready.  That was his button-being a Big Boy, and keeping up with his peers.

I made a potty chart for him.  We started December 4, apparently.  I kept him in diapers, though, because I wasn't wanting to clean up messes.  The first day he went in the toilet only in the morning and before bed.  The next day he did the same thing.  But the following day, at church, no less, Troy told me he had to use the bathroom.  I took him, and to my surprise he went. 

And...that's that.  He was good to go from then on.  I put him in undies after a couple of weeks, and he's been dry ever since.

Which takes us to...part 4, Ivy's story.  Stay tuned.  That is, if you want to hear more about poop.

Tell-It Tuesday: Training Day Part 2

And now Part 2 of the Potty Training Chronicles: Brock's turn.

(The undies on his head?  His idea, not mine.  Don't worry-they were clean.)

After our rough time potty training Jakob for six months, I was worn out, and was totally NOT ready to potty train again.  But time marches onward, so it had to be done.

Which, P.S.-poor Jake!  The first kid really is the Guinea pig, huh?  When you just don't know what to do, and so you flail around, and try all sorts of things, and then afterwards you figure it all out, and then it's a lot easier on the next kids.  If only it didn't have to be that way.
One thing I had learned is that I started Jakob on potty training too early.  He had no idea what was going on, or how to do things.  I think I started him so early because I didn't want the three kids in diapers, but then after I did it that first time, it's wasn't the worst concept in the universe to me.  So when I was pregnant with Ivy, I had zero drive to try with Brock until later.
Another thing: when I was training Jake, I brought up the fact that it was taking a million years to train him to my doctor.  He suggested having Jake clean out his own undies.  I was like, I can't do that to a 2 1/2 year old!  So I didn't ever try that with him.  But as I started contemplating training Brock, it sounded like a better idea to me.

Ivy was born in May 2008.  I started training Brock sometime in July 2008, so he was a little over 3 years old.  Hence, I did the three kids in diapers thing for a few months again.

Brock has always liked to be pampered.  He loves getting sun lotion put on him because it's like a massage.  He loves getting his back rubbed.  And, by extension, I think he really liked getting his diaper changed, because it was a form of pampering.  But I could tell he was aware of his diaper and his "system", because he'd pause while playing for a minute.  That was one of the signs I knew he was ready, but I knew I had to force his hand a little because of the pampering thing.

So, we started, and we did cold turkey, meaning just straight into undies.  I think because he was older, he did a lot better than Jake did at first.  I still had him sit on the toilet often, but I didn't do the hand in the warm water thing or the sticker chart.

I did, however, have him clean out his undies whenever he had a poop accident.  And he HATED it.  I'm sure most kids would, but he especially did because of wanting to be pampered and clean.  We would have him take off his undies, and put them in the sink, and rinse them out really good. 

There was one time I took him to clean them out, and he was shaking, and he just reached one little finger out and just...touched the poop.  I'm like, no, you don't have to touch the poop part, just the undies, but we need to make sure the poop gets rinsed out.

He did really great-it took about 3 weeks for him to be trained.  But after no accidents for a while, he pooped in his undies at my parents' house, on my birthday at the end of July.  I played the birthday card, so Pete ended up cleaning him up.  And to do it, he had Brock stand outside naked while he hosed him off.  A little cruel?  Yes.  Effective?  VERY.

A couple of weeks after that Brock had a pee accident, then two the following day.  I was like, dude, no WAY are we going to regress.  So I told him, "Well, we need to get you cleaned off because you peed in your undies."  I put him in the tub, turned the water on super cold, and started dumping it on him.  He totally HATED that, but while I was doing it, I said, "No peeing in your undies."  He was like, okay okay okay!  He's been great ever since.

Lessons learned this time around: making the kid clean it up works very well, wait until you see some signs (like that they are aware of their diaper and their poop) works, and kids hate cold water.

Memory Monday: Training Day Part 1

Now that I am TOTALLY COMPLETELY DONE with potty training, I'm ready to document my diaper days.  These are the stories of my adventures in potty training.  We'll start with the oldest, which I should probably title "How NOT to Potty Train Your Child", or "First is Worst".

Here is a picture of me, pregnant with Troy, and CRAZY to boot.  And yes, that would be Jakob, asleep on the toilet.  Isn't he just so stinking cute?

So.  I started potty training Jakob the day after Easter, when he was a little over 2 1/2 years old.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I had heard, "Oh, you'll know when they're ready", and "Just wait until they show interest", and "Bribe them and celebrate any time anything goes in the toilet!"  Okay, then.

We bought the little toilet, and some cool superhero undies so that he would get excited.  Then I put the little toilet in my kitchen, and vowed that we'd spend the day(s) in there until he got it down.  Oh, and I only bought a 6-pack of undies.  Little did I know.  Or maybe I was being optimistic.  Either way, I definitely was not prepared.

The first day he went through all 6 pairs in the first two hours.  He would just go a tiny bit, and would always get this look on his face like "What in the world is traveling down my leg?"  After that, I put him back in a diaper for the rest of the day, until I could clean the undies and try again the next day.

The next day was a little better, but not by much.  But, I was also sick of spending time in the kitchen.  I tried giving him a lot to drink, but the kid could only take in so much fluid.  After a couple of days I got the brilliant idea to put his hand in warm water, to see if that would help him get going.  We did the sticker chart, which he cared about for the first 3 stickers.

One day (I have no idea where I was, but I was gone, or downstairs doing laundry or something), Jake went poop, and it ended up EVERYWHERE.  I think he was trying to get to the toilet, but didn't quite make it, so then he was trying to clean it up himself, but it got all over the floor in the bathroom, and of course all down his legs, and he stepped in it and ran down our carpeted hall...just, everywhere.

Eventually, he got pretty good at peeing in the toilet, but pooping was a different story.  We bought a toy for him that he had picked out and said if he went poop 10 times in the toilet (not even in a row, but just 10 times), then he could have that toy.  It took him, like, three weeks to finally "earn" it.

There was a day, after months of cleaning poop out of undies, that I just lost it.  Now remember, I was pregnant with Troy, which was my crazy pregnancy.  Not that I'm trying to make excuses for myself, but I had just had it.  Everyone always says not to punish kids when they have accidents, but Jakob at this point was very aware of his BMs.  He would run into a corner and stand there and poop instead of running into the bathroom.  So he had done that, and I just started yelling at him, like, crazy yelling. 

Every time I flipped out during this pregnancy, and there were a LOT of times, it's like I was watching myself be crazy.  It's like I was flipping out, and couldn't stop it from happening, but at the same time my sane brain would be like, dude, what's the big deal?  Just chill out already.  So, this was one of those times.  I was wiping Jake's butt with wipes, and...I remember just doing a lot of yelling.  And he was just so scared of his crazy mom.  Not one of my best parenting moments.

At that point, I decided that if I had to clean poop out one more pair of undies, I would probably either kill my child, or kill myself.  Neither option was good.  I didn't want to go back to diapers, though.  I settled on Pull-Ups.  I still called them "undies", but if he pooped in them, I could just throw them away, and I was okay with that.  Then things felt a lot better, but Jake still had a bunch of accidents.

Well, Troy arrived in August, and we had been potty training for 4 or so months by this time.  Which sucked, but oh well.  Troy was a super easy baby (thank goodness).  We just kept on keeping on with the potty training.  One night, in October, inspiration struck.  We were getting the kids ready for bed, and we said, "Look at Troy.  He's a baby because he pees and poops in his diaper.  Jake, you must be a baby, too."  And the now 3-year-old said, "No, I'm not a baby!  I'm a big boy!"  Us: "No, Jakob, you must be a baby, because you pee and poop in your undies."  Jake: "NO!  I'm a big boy!"

It was literally the next day that Jakob had zero accidents from then on.

I think, for him, he had to really see what he was doing, and realize that he could go in the toilet.  He had to make up his mind that this is what he needed to do.  And knowing that he was a Big Boy instead of a baby was the kicker for him.

So yes, I had three kids in diapers at one time-well, technically, Jake was in a Pull-Up, but who am I fooling?  Tons of people have asked, "Wasn't that the worst thing ever, to have three kids in diapers?"  Nope, it wasn't.  And I did it again, too, after Ivy was born.  It was more like an assembly line-just line 'em all up and change them all at once.  No biggie.

Lessons from this: don't rush your child into doing it on your time table, find the little button that pushes your kid and not what has worked for others (because it's different for every kid), and you probably shouldn't potty train a cute little kid when you're pregnant and CRAZY-if you can help it.

Thus concludes part 1 of my Potty Training Chronicles.

Memory Monday: Reuben (Knuckle) Sandwich

When I think of the worst dates that I've been on, this one is probably the worst one.  Well, maybe not the worst one, but definitely in the top 5.  I was a junior in college, so fall of 1999.

There was a guy in my ward in college named Reuben.  I called him Ruby, I think mostly to bug him.  Nice guy and all.  He lived with about 8 guys in a house that they had dubbed the "cinna-batch".  I have no idea why they called their house that, but whatever.

So Reuben asked me on a date for a Friday night, which I gladly accepted, because he was a really nice guy, right?  Um, yeah.  Right.  I mean, he is.  But just not on this date.

He picked me up, and when we got to the car, he said, "You can get your own door, right?"  1st wrong step of the night.  I was like, "Uh, yeah, I guess."  For dinner, he took me to a stake barbecue.  We got there late, so there were slim pickings on the food.  Come to think of it, I don't even think it was our stake-I think he just heard about it from who-knows-who, and decided, hey! free food!  2nd wrong step of the night-free food for a date?  Not that I expected a super fancy expensive meal for dinner, but dinner together would have been nice instead of with 100 other starving college students.

Going back to the car (and every time we got in or out of the car that night), Reuben again said, "You can get your own door, right?"  One of the times I replied, "Um, no, I can't.  Would you please get it for me?"  Which he grudgingly did that time, but dude.  It ticked me off.

We went back to his apartment, and we watched "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".  And I totally kept falling asleep.  Reuben was in love with that movie, and so of course he owned it.  (Free movie.  Hm.)  And it was fine to sit and watch, but when he was reciting every line along with the movie, it got a little old.

Right before the movie, we went to the store and got some dessert/snacks to munch on during the movie.  I'm remembering ice cream, which I think I might have gotten one little scoop out of before he hoarded it away in his freezer.

Then we went to an Institute dance, where there was a band that was playing Beatles songs.  I thought maybe the date would improve at the dance, because I love the Beatles, but I was wrong.  So we were hanging out and dancing and stuff, and then he decided to start chatting up some random chick.  I went and called my roommates, and begged them to come to the dance and crash my date, essentially.  So my date with Reuben became a date with Reuben, Random Chick that he was flirting with, and my two roommates. 

Eventually, it was time to leave, so we left...and walked Random Chick home.  She didn't live that far away, but dude!  WE WERE ON A DATE!!!  We got back to the car, and he had the decency to walk me to my door after the date, which was the first gentlemanly thing he had done all night.  I might have given him a high five (no way was I going to hug him-I think I would have strangled him if I had gotten that close), because by then I had HAD it.

I walked in the door, and was like "WORST DATE EVER!!!" to my roommates.  They all agreed.

Reuben ended up asking Random Chick to Homecoming.  And we stayed friends, but there was no way I would have ever gone on a date with him again.  Though apparently, he felt the same about me, but before our date even started.

(I just looked to see if I had a picture of Reuben in my scrapbook.  That would be a big fat no.)

Memory Monday: Cookie Monster

First off, here is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've come across.  The cookies stay plump and soft.  Though, after this post, you might not want to use it.  D'oh.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Combine in bowl: ½ cup butter, ½ cup shortening, ¾ cup sugar.
Add: ¾ cup brown sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, 2 eggs.
Then add: 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. salt, 2 ½ cups flour.
Stir in: 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Spoon onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes.


Maybe my cute sister Brianna can help me with the timeline on this story.  I'm going to say early teenage years for me, and she's 3 1/2 years younger than me.  So if I was 13, she'd be 9 ish.  Beej, if you read this, maybe leave a comment if you remember.
My family often made little goodies to munch on. Lemon bars, Mississippi Mud bars, No-bake cookies, etc.  And cookies.  I love me some cookies.  And now I'm getting all hungry thinking about cookies.  They are a definite weakness of mine.

After devouring one (or most likely more than one) cookie, I had a bit of phlegm built up in my throat.  Anyway, Beej and I were being dorks, and I was telling her how to make a loogie.  It's like that scene from Titanic.

So, I was joking around, and was like, "Dude, what if I spit a loogie at you?"  And she was like, "No way!" and started running off.  So I grabbed her, did the whole Leonardo DiCaprio loogie-making moves, and had a humongous loogie in my mouth.  Brianna goes, "Nooooo!" with her mouth all wide. 

And I spit.  And it landed right in her mouth.

I promise I wasn't aiming.

Of course she ran over to the sink and tried to clean her mouth out.  I felt bad, but it was also really funny (well, to me, anyway).  I've never been able to get that good of a loogie before or since.  And I've never been able to spit very far at all, except for that one time.  I attribute that to the cookie phlegm in my throat.

So there you have it.  Fun with phlegm.

(Go to about 1:15 on this video to see how I normally spit.  Not that I'm all out there practicing or something.)

Memory Monday: Christmas Misunderstanding

I'm trying to remember how old I was for this one.  I'm going to guess about 4th or 5th grade, so 9 or 10.

Christmas traditions in my house growing up were plentiful.  Which was awesome.  My poor kids-I feel like we have no traditions whatsoever.  But Pete and I can never agree on what we want to do with our little family.  Growing up, though...Christmas Eve we would go skiing, unless the weather was extremely awful.  It was great, because there was hardly anyone there, so we didn't have to wait in line for the chairlift.  After skiing, we would come home and light luminaries (which my kids and I have done, but this year I'm feeling very Scrooge-like, so it may not happen-we'll see), which are paper sacks with candles in the middle of them.  Supposedly it is to light the way for the Christ child to come.  Then we'd open a family Christmas Eve gift, which was always some sort of game, like Sorry or Apples to Apples, that kind of thing.  We'd play the game, then the girls would all sleep in the same room together downstairs.

Christmas morning, bright and early -too early, usually- we'd get up, and then cover our eyes as we made our way upstairs and into our parents' room to wake them up.  We would all go in together to see what Santa had brought for us, which was usually a big gift sitting by our stockings, and then stocking stuffers like CDs and Lip Smackers and chocolate oranges.  (As we got older, college age, our stocking stuffers morphed into things like toothpaste and socks.  Now my kids get a mixture-still the big Santa gift by the stocking, and in the stocking things like a movie or books, and socks or undies.  My kids love the new clothing-or not.)  After spending time doing the Santa stocking thing, which was in the family room where the fireplace was, we'd move to the front room, where the tree was, and do the family gifts.  We'd also take turns opening gifts, which Pete thinks is so weird.  His family does the mass opening/chaos, which I think is weird.  We still haven't decided on that, but so far Pete is winning, though I end up not opening up anything and just stand there cleaning up wrapping debris.  Which kind of sucks.  I might put Pete on garbage duty this year, since he wants to have the chaos.  That's fair, right?

Okay, so that's kind of how it went for us.  So one year, we got up, and went in to see what Santa had brought us.  I located my stocking on the couch, but...no big present.  Hm.  I sat down, and started looking at my stocking stuff, and watching my sisters enjoy their "big" presents.  By this time I knew the whole Santa secret.  And I didn't know what to think.  A couple of thoughts crossed my mind: one, that my parents didn't have money to buy me a big gift, and two, that I got overlooked.

I didn't really feel sad.  More like disappointed.  And then content.  I thought, "I'm okay without a big gift.  Maybe next year.  And I can watch everyone else enjoy their gifts."  Which is what I like about taking turns opening up family gifts-you get to see what everyone else gets, and you get to see people's reactions when they open the gift that you got for them.

So, like I said, I was sitting on the couch, looking at my new socks or whatever it was, when my dad said, "Nat, aren't you going to look at your Santa gift?"  And I looked at him like, um, what do you think I'm doing, Dad?  Suddenly I realized that he was pointing to the new glittery purple ten-speed bike that had been standing near my stocking.  I had totally thought it was for my mom.

Then I got all excited, because I had asked for a ten-speed bike for Christmas, but didn't think I would get it.  And I knew that my parents hadn't forgotten me.  I took it out to ride that day, on the icy roads, which was so super smart on a ten-speed.  If anyone remembers, ten-speeds had super skinny tall wheels.  Yikes.  Bikes.  Literally.

That day I realized a couple of things about myself.  I realized that I liked getting Christmas gifts, but if there came a day when I couldn't have anything for Christmas, then that would be okay, too.  I realized that Christmas is a small fraction of what you get, and a bigger fraction of the joy that comes to those around you, and basking in that feels just as good.

Now hopefully I can try to find some of that Christmas spirit in me this year.  Brock asked, "Mom, when are we going to make our house a Christmas house?"  Because I haven't pulled out my nativities, or Christmas lights, or stockings...We have the tree up, and that is all.  I definitely have "Bah! Humbug!" at the tip of my tongue this year for some reason.  I just need to shake it off and get with the program.

Turn Back Time Tuesday (Because I Missed Memory Monday)

This one is for Jakob, because I recently found out that he's being picked on at school again this year.  Sheesh.

I was a nerd growing up.  Okay, I'm still a nerd.  The only difference now is I've come to terms with it.  I was also very smart growing up.  It's not like I was the smartest kid in class.  There were other kids that were just as smart, if not more so.  But I think I became known as "Brain", because of the whole nerdiness.  Maybe it was my appearance.  In 6th grade, the year this story takes place, I had awesome feathered bangs (which were in style), a fabulous perm (also very "in"), an A-line hair cut (NOT cool-and yes, a permed A-line is a not-so-great combination), glasses the size of half my face (seriously, whoever came up with that concept needs to be shot), and a super cool headgear.  I also had braces on my front four teeth, but you couldn't see them under the headgear.  I had to wear the headgear thing pretty much nonstop, too, which meant during school.  Yee-haw.

So, basically, with the combination of the glasses and braces and headgear and big perm and feathered bangs, I don't think you could touch any skin on my face without some serious maneuvering.

Good times, my friends.

Anyway, we did a rotation in 6th grade, and Mrs. Nickerson was our science teacher.  Oh man.  Back in the day, I always thought "how old is this woman?"  She had neat 70s polyester pants.  She had a big chin wart complete with sprouting hairs.  And her hair was always a shade of blue, purple, or pink.  I think there's a theory that when you get gray hair, if you dye your hair with an undertone of one of those colors, then you don't look as gray or something.  Which is true.  You just look like you have blue, purple, or pink hair instead of gray.  (Now when I think about Mrs. Nickerson, I realize that's probably what I'll look like in the future.  Though, having never dyed my hair, I don't think I'll ever be convinced to do "gray with a pink undertone".  I'm hoping to get gorgeous silver hair like my grandpa, or platinum white hair like my grandma.)

Now, science has never been my strong suit.  I've had one class where it kind of sort of made sense to me.  Two of my sisters got all the science proficiency in our family.  So, even though I was known as "Brain" to my classmates, I really did not deserve the title when it came to science.

For some reason, Mrs. Nickerson thought it was a really good idea to read our test scores out loud after they were all graded.  If you got below a 70%, though, she wouldn't read it out loud.  How merciful.  I usually did well, but there was one test that the info just was not clicking in my mind. 

So, she went down the list, and...I got a 70% spot on.

Now I'm sure my little 11-year-old self blew the reaction of my classmates way out of proportion, but I saw everyone turn and stare at me, and whispers of "Brain got a 70???"  "Natalie did so bad!"  "Wow, I can't believe it!"  I sunk down in my chair, but the taunts kept coming.  And, because I'm a girl, I started crying.

And then I ran out of the room.

I know-take something not so bad and make it into a huge deal, right?  Right.

I ran into the bathroom, and just cried and cried.  I was so embarrassed, not only for the bad test score, but now for running out instead of blowing it off like no big deal.

Anyway, I waited out the rest of the class period, which wasn't super long.  When the lunch bell rang, I decided to go back.  Luckily, there were a couple of girls that were nice enough to come looking for me, and assured me it wasn't a big deal.  And there was one boy that was super nice to me, too.  So that made me feel better, that people would make sure that I knew that no one really cared what my test score was, that being upset was okay.

So Jakob, if you ever read this, know that it's okay to want to get good grades.  And know that you get your perfectionism from me.  And hopefully, you have some little friends at school that will take your side and put their arms around you and make you feel okay.  Also, you will live through the bullying, and hopefully be a stronger, more compassionate person because of it.

Memory Monday: You Spin Me Right Round

Sorry it's been nothing but Memory Mondays around here.  I promise I want to post more than once a week.  My days keep getting away from me...

I was traveling back to school from either Thanksgiving break or Christmas break my junior year of college...give me a sec to think of the year...late 1999, or barely into 2000.  Now that I think about it a little harder, I think it was back from Christmas break, because I remember that a couple of guys my roomies and I hung out with, Shawn and Sheldon (brothers, from Hawaii), had stopped by our apartment and left us a note, along with one of their new roommates Morgan.  Little did I know that Pete was going to be their other new roommate.

Dun-dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!

The drive from Idaho Falls to Logan is not too bad.  I would get some Alanis or Phantom blasting in my little Neon, and sing at the top of my lungs.  I no longer do this, mostly because I don't drive alone.  Because alone, I have a fabulous voice and can hit the notes as well and as high as Sarah Brightman.  But when I'm in the car with, like, Pete, I realize that he has a better voice than I do, and so I just hum quietly along to myself, usually.  Unless by some bizarre twist of circumstance we'd be playing some Beatles music, then I be-bop along as loud as I please.  But Pete hates Beatles, so it doesn't happen very often.

Now that I've derailed twice from the topic, I'll get back on the story.  So.  Driving along.  It's only a little bit over 2 hours from one destination to the other.  I was singing along, and noticed my exit coming up.  It had been snowing, but the road was mostly dry, with just a few wet (not icy) patches here and there.  Snow was blowing every so slightly across the freeway, but there was no reason to fear the weather on this particular day.  I turn on my blinker to indicate my exit from the freeway, and...then totally lost control of the car.

I don't know if I hit an icy patch, but it seemed unlikely since it wasn't icy.  But my car started spinning.  I can't remember if it started spinning to the right or to the left first, but it ended up doing both.  I was spinning onto the exit ramp, toward a lamp post.  Suddenly, I was spinning the other way, back on to the freeway.  Suddenly I was spinning between the freeway and the exit ramp.

I swear to you I wasn't touching the steering wheel.  Well, I'm sure I was touching it, but I wasn't steering, or over correcting, or...anything.  It's as if my car was driving itself, and I was on a horrible car roller coaster ride.

I kept thinking: oh no!  I'm going to stop on the freeway and someone is going to bash right into me!  Oh no! I'm going to run into the exit sign!  Oh no!  I'm going to fall in between the two roads and the car is going to roll! 

I kid you not that my car made at least 10 full circles.

Suddenly, and I mean SUDDENLY, my car stopped spinning.  I was sitting in the middle of the off ramp, car facing the right way.  As if I had just stopped a little early of the stop sign at the bottom of the exit ramp.

You know on "The Wizard of Oz", where Dorothy is in her house and it's spinning around in the tornado, and the furniture is moving around, and it's super windy and loud, and then instantly it all stops?  All the wind and the movement, and the house just lands there?  It was like that.

I know, absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt, that something-more like someone-stopped my car from spinning.  Someone saved my life.  Someone reached down, grabbed my spinning car, and placed it in the right place, without any harm done to me or to my car.

Of course I started crying.  I immediately said a prayer of gratitude for being safe on that day.  Because things could have turned out really really bad.

Now, I know that people have been in more dire circumstances with their cars than I was on this day.  They'd be like, spinning around?  Psh!  That's nothing!  And hey, I've ridden in cars where the driver is doing donuts in the church parking lot, and that's basically what this felt like.  But the instant stop, the instant safety, this little miracle in my life, is what was so wonderful about this memory.

Memory Monday: Window "Pain"

Sorry my Memory Monday is a bit late.  It's been a bit crazy today.

See that scar on my finger?  You know, the scar that I circled in bright red?  This is the story behind that scar.

It was wintertime, January of 2006. We had lived in our current house for all of 5 or 6 months.  I was about two months along in my pregnancy with Troy.  Now, this is important.  Because I honestly was super crazy the whole time I was pregnant with Troy.  The kids would walk by me, and I'd be like, "DON'T WALK SO LOUD!!!!  AAAAHHHH!!!!"  In that spring we had planted some grass, and I went out and used the weed wacker on the weeds growing above the new grass on the whole entire lawn.  And we have a big freaking lawn.  Everything made me mad, everything made me sad.  I was the epitome of crazy.

So that day, my sister Lexi and I were going to get together to scrapbook.  You know, back when I had time to do cool things like that.  I went to the store with my two kids in tow, bought some stuff, and when I came home I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if I shoveled the snow off the walk for when Lex comes over before starting dinner?  Look at me be productive while having morning sickness!"  I had set the meat out on the counter, along with our other groceries, and went outside to shovel.  It wasn't quite dark out yet.

So I shovel-shovel-shovel, and then I went to go back inside.  Right as I reach for the doorknob, I hear a "click".  Jakob, all of a little over two, and Brock at 9-ish months old, had been inside.  And...Jakob had just locked the door on me.  Of course my keys were inside my house, and of course we hadn't made a copy of our key to give to anyone else or to set outside the house for just such an occasion.  In a nice voice, I said, "Jakob, honey, open the door for Mommy.  Just turn the little, um, thingy, the other way."  And my 2-year-old tried flipping the dead bolt part of the door.  Then I go, "Jakob, honey, keep trying.  It's the bottom one."  Of course he didn't get it.  I mean, he was two.  So then I knocked on the door, and the urgency built in my voice.  "Jake, please open the door.  You just have to turn the thingy on the knob.  Please, Jakob.  Wait-I'm going to the back door-please let me in."

And Jakob then ran downstairs.

I kept knocking.  I checked the front door.  I checked the back door.  Everything was locked-including windows.  Tight-like unto a dish.  Which, normally, would be a good thing.  On that day, not so much.

I ran around the house.  I rang the doorbell, and heard Jakob run upstairs.  I begged at that door for him to let me in.  He ran back downstairs to watch TV.  I climbed down into our window well and banged on the window, hoping he'd peek through the blinds at me.  Nada.

I sat down to try and figure out what to do.  Now, a normal person would think Hey!-run next door and ask to borrow their phone and call a locksmith!  But remember, I was not a normal person at this time.  I was Crazy Pregnant Nat.  I thought about going next door, but to call Pete, but knew he couldn't get to me for another two or three hours because of traveling back from work.  I thought, hey, I could just hang out over there until Pete gets home, but no, that would leave my kids in my house all alone.  Hmm, what in the world should I do????

I did the only "logical" thing that I could think of.  I would just have to break in.  Literally.

I grabbed a big hammer thing, and tried to find a suitable window.  Which one?  I didn't have a ladder (hm, still don't), so it would have to be one into which I could easily climb through.  The only one that I could see that would work was our big sliding glass door in the backyard.

So, right now I'm making it sound like I was being all calm and collected at this point.  Far from it.  Which kind of goes without explanation, because hi-I was about to break a big glass door.  But my mind was all, "THE MEAT IS ON THE COUNTER-IT WILL GO BAD!!!!  BROCK IS DOWNSTAIRS CRYING-WHAT IF HE'S HURT?!?!?!?  I WILL NEVER REACH MY CHILDREN!!!  THEY ARE GOING TO DIE IF I'M NOT WITH THEM RIGHT THIS SECOND!!!!  AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!"  Kind of Mama Bear meets Axe Murderer meets Xena the Warrior Princess.

I took my big hammer, and swung at the door.  It hit.  And bounced off.  Nothing!  So, I try again, but a little harder.  Everyone and their dog was like, didn't you know it was going to shatter everywhere?  Um, no, I did not, having never broken a window/door before.  I actually thought I'd break a little hole right by the handle so I could reach in and flip the lock, and the glass would just have a little hole in it.  But no.  The whole entire pane shattered into little pebble-like pieces.  But then I discovered something else-our door was double paned.  So I had to do it again.

Each time I swung, I turned my face away and closed my eyes.  Smart point-the only smart point of the night-for me.  But, stupid point for me-I was holding my gloves in my left hand as I swung with my right.  Why I didn't put my gloves on while swinging my hand at broken glass is beyond me.

I hit through the second pane, and barely realized that my finger got sliced in the process.  I immediately started crying.  There was glass everywhere in my kitchen, and outside.  I went to the kitchen sink for my finger, dripping blood as I went.  And then I got on the phone, trying to find anyone that I could to come and help me.  I called my mom's cell, then my parents' house, then Lexi's cell, then my dad's cell, then my dad's work.  No answers anywhere.  I called Pete and told him what happened.  I went downstairs and said, "JAKOB!  Why didn't you let me in?!?!?"  He was calmly sitting on the couch, watching TV.  I think he thought he'd be in trouble if he came back up, which is why he was hiding.

I finally got ahold of my mom, and she came over.  In the meantime, I tried to sweep broken glass with a bleeding finger.  I tried to calm my baby Brock while bleeding everywhere.  We went to the urgent care.  My skin on my finger was hanging on by a thread, so they basically pulled it off and then sewed it back on.

For the next week I had a brace thingy that I couldn't get wet.  Showering left-handed (I'm right) was quite the adventure.  Then I had to take the brace off and could barely bend my finger.  That night my family had to stay with my parents until a replacement door got put in.  We propped up some cardboard to help keep snow out of our house.

And now I have a reminder of my Crazy Days.

And my glass sliding door doesn't work as well as the original.

Memory Monday: The Abercrombie & Fitch Party

My whole life, I've felt very much like Josie Geller in the movie Never Been Kissed.  But not nearly as much as when I went to the "Abercrombie & Fitch" Party.  At least, that's what I ended up dubbing it.

For some comparison photos, this picture represents me.  Josie's nickname: Josie Grossie.

Seriously, this is me.  Always.

Aaaannnnddd...here are some Abercrombie & Fitch models:

I finally found a pic of A&F models that were slightly more dressed.  Yikes.  Bikes.

Okay.  So, it wasn't a real Abercrombie & Fitch party.  It was actually a party at the Governor's Mansion in Salt Lake City. 

During the summer after I graduated from college (2001-which seems SO weird to me that it was that long ago), I lived in Idaho Falls again, working at a hotel.  You know, really putting my degree to good use.  Although, in my defence, I graduated in finance, right after the whole stock market bubble burst.  Jobs in my field were a little scarce.

Somehow, me and my good friend Chelsey ended up in Salt Lake for a weekend, with Pete, his mission buddy Myers, and a guy I knew from drama classes in college named Dustin, who had been home from his mission all of, like, three days or something.  Maybe that's why we were down there-to see him for some reason.  He was from Farmington (the city right next to Lagoon).

So, Myers knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone that had been invited to this party.  So we got invited to it by default.

There were so many beautiful people there.  Everyone was dressed in the perfect clothes, and saying the perfect things.  They were gliding around, chortling at each other's witty jokes, and having the perfect comeback ready.  They danced the perfect dance moves to the perfect music.  The party had the perfect lighting.  All the girls were skinny and had long shimmery hair.  All the guys had muscly arms and trendy clothes.

...And then there was me.

"Hey Guy.  Guys.  Guy's guys!"  hee-hee *snort!*

I remember trying to "flirt" with a guy.  I started talking about the bench in the hall.  I'm pretty sure I let out a few more "hee-hee *snort!*"s in between words. 

I also remember trying to talk to Dustin.  I asked him something about his mission-he had served in Zimbabwe.  I think I asked about the language, and asked him to say something.  And...he started singing some tribal song.  At the top of his lungs.  In the middle of the dancing area.  He was totally fine with it, like it was a normal thing to burst out in song in a different language.  I, on the other hand, was mortified.  Maybe I shouldn't have been.  But I think it was my own insecurities that brought that reaction out of me.  Like, don't draw unwarranted stares from the pretty people!  I'm trying to blend, not stand out even more!  His song was very Lion King, and I think in a different setting would have been awesome.  But not at the Governor's Mansion.

We left after a while.  I had never felt more...little.  And dorky.  Not that anyone was mean.  They were just all so....model-y.

We went to Dustin's house and watched a movie.  I don't remember which one.  Though, I think Never Been Kissed would have been appropriate. That, or Zoolander.

Memory Monday: Changing Room Surprise

During one summer while I was in college, I worked at JCPenney.  My manager was awesome, but the customers were awful.  They were always wanting discounts on everything.  "There's this tiny little snag in the fabric by the hem at the bottom of the pants; can I get this for 80% off?"  Seriously.  Or, they'd place the item on the clearance rack, then come up to buy it and say, "But I found it on the clearance rack!"  And I'd be like, but it's not marked down, and there's the rack that has 30 of the same item for the price that the tag says.  Good times.

I worked in womens, and juniors, and petites.  For some reason, I got stuck in the juniors department on a Saturday afternoon all by myself, and I hadn't been working there all that long.  It should go without saying that that's a really busy department at that time.  Maybe there was someone else, but everyone would take 2 hour lunch breaks when we were only allotted a half hour (they would clock back in and just hang out eating-it seriously ticked me off-and yes, I know that's time card fraud or whatever it's called).  Or, there was one girl that would wander off and go up in the attic area.  (Yes, there was an attic area.  I have no idea how to get up there anymore-I think up some random back stairs.)

So, we were supposed to go through the dressing rooms every 1/2 hour, just to clear all the clothes out.  But I got stuck at the register, and had a line for at least an hour.  Seriously, no stop whatsoever.  I think I had a line because they couldn't find anyone else in any of the other areas of the store.  Everyone must have been gone eating.  In the attic.

I finally had a break in the flow, and knew my dressing rooms were long overdue for some merchandise removal.  I started in, and I was pulling armloads out of each dressing room.  There are...4 or 5ish rooms.  I got to one of the last rooms, and it smelled really funky.  I just figured, whatever, let me get these clothes out and back to the racks.  I picked up a dress that was crumpled up on the ground, only to find...brace yourself...a humongous poop pile. 

It was green.  And not really solid, if you get my drift.

I immediately put the dress back down onto the offending pile.  I went to the next department over, and politely asked my co-worker what to do.  She couldn't believe that that had happened.  Then I called my manager.

I kept thinking, who would do that?  Even if you didn't want to confess, why put clothing on top of it?  I hadn't noticed anyone leaving all suspicious-like.  It just blew my mind.

Anyway, my manager came over, and she was the one that ended up cleaning up the poop mess.  Poor lady.  Although, I have to admit, if she had told me to clean it up, I would have quit on the spot.

None of the other workers had ever had that happen to them, and some of those ladies had been there for years and years.  I was the lucky one.  Needless to say, I didn't stay at that job for all that long.

You wanna know the sad thing?  Even though someone pooped a lot of poop in my dressing room, that's not even the worst job that I've ever had.  But it definitely made it memorable.