Somebody stop me!

Hopefully I have something interesting to blog about soon.

A little somethin' to make you smile

I know it won't make Karen smile but who else can resist a cute, fat kitten? I needed this today after being single parent and sick for the last week.

The Lawrence Welk Show

I was laughing so hard I was crying when I saw this last night. Those little hands were genius!

Pizzeria Seven Twelve

There is something fantastic in Orem and it's name is Pizzeria Seven Twelve. Nancy had heard about it and tonight she took us out to thank us for looking after her dogs while she was in Dallas. Grace and I had the Margherita pizza and I was in heaven. Thin, oven cooked crust with hand pulled mozzarella, olive oil and basil. I could have eaten the entire pizza but I held back because I wanted leftovers to enjoy tomorrow. The pizza was fantastic but let me talk about the dessert because it was really what made my day. Fresh out of the oven, peach and raspberry cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream. Perfection! My only complaint was that my leechy family ate about half of it after I let them have a taste. Do your taste buds a favour, do not let another day go by without trying this place. It's a little pricey if you take the whole family but if you went out with your significant other and shared a pizza/dessert, it wouldn't be too bad. I had to laugh when we walked out because in the parking lot there was a Mercedes G55 Kompressor and a Maserati which means rich people have given it their stamp of approval. So be prepared to be eating with a lot of conspicuous consumption Utah County douches. The food makes up for it though.

Pizzeria Seven Twelve Blog

Salt Lake Weekly Review

The dump

Ryan just left to take the girls to the dump. My kids have never been to any sort of dump so I insisted that he take them today. You can't call it a childhood unless you've been to the dump with your dad. I grew up loving dumps. It's true. I have fond memories of my childhood trips to the dump. My Grandma Wilde lived on a farm and her property bordered the Welling dump. Oh man, that place was a treasure trove of unspeakable delights. We would wander over there unsupervised and dig through trying to find the perfect thing we had to have. Then we'd take our treasure to one of the old grain bins we used as a fort and "decorate" it with our finds. I remember one time finding a box of rotten tomatoes and we had a blast throwing them at things. We were easily entertained.

When I worked for the Town of Magrath in the summers, one of our jobs was to empty all the town trash cans. This meant we got to go to the dump about once a week. By then Alberta had converted all their dumps from open holes to a building that had a trailer at the botton. So you back in, dump your trash over the edge into this trailer that would be taken to some mysterious "super dump" or whatever. Harry the Indian (yes, we were very PC back then) was the "dump master" and I think he liked the dump just as much as I did. He had a little table set up with his best finds on it. His favourite cowboy hat was actually one my friends dad had thrown away. He had a Book of Mormon (he wasn't Mormon) on the table and it had another fellow worker's name in it. My favourite was a picture of the Alberta temple in a puffy cloth frame, the kind we all made in Young Women at one time or another, and town worker Deanna recognised it as hers. I know others out there have similar great memories of trips to the dump, so feel free to share.

My brother was kind enough to send me a picture of the Magrath dump. Thanks!

Here's a tip

If you are going to be the owner of a dog, make sure you actually want to interact with that dog. Nice weather has drawn us out of the house and into our yard which means we will now get to hear the neighbor's dog bark at us incessantly. We've been out all morning putting mulch on our beds and the dog barked at us the entire time. Ryan is still out there working and I can hear the dog barking at him. Seriously? I know they hear their dog barking all the time but I guess they just think we all want to listen to that melodious sound. There are five houses on our street and four have dogs. Ryan's mom is the only one who keeps her dog inside. All the other dogs either live in kennels and are rarely seen out of them, or are tied to the house. I bet that's a lot of fun for those dogs.

Action pants

I was teaching grade one the other day in my $100 jeans. That's right, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on a pair of jeans. I think I'm having some sort of mid-life jean crisis because my mom wouldn't buy me $40 Jordache jeans at Eatons when I was nine. Instead, my mom made my jeans and embroidered rainbows or put stop sign patches on them. Which I now realize was very hard and time consuming for her, so thanks mom. Anyway, back to my $100 jeans. I was lining the kids up for lunch and one of the boys said, "are those Hannah Montana jeans?" "What? No!" That's right, my $100 jeans apparently look like something a tween pop star would wear. Whatever, I still love them.

I was searching for "Hannah Montana jeans" on Google and I came across the greatest thing ever. Action jeans! Chuck Norris is awesome! I'm going to invent a time machine so I can travel back in time and buy a pair of these because I hate it when my jeans bind my legs.

The values of The Little Mermaid are not my values

Ryan's dad took us out for dinner tonight at The Brick Oven and near the end of the meal a balloon artist asked if he could make the girls something. Hanna chose a horse and Grace wanted Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Hanna's horse was pretty awesome but Ariel exceeded my balloon art expectations. The girls couldn't stop giggling when they saw Ariel's bosoms. It reminded of a story Monti told me about a family he knew on his mission. Apparently they didn't watch The Little Mermaid because her seashell bra was too revealing. He served his mission in Utah so I got the impression that all Utahns were psycho. Yet I still chose to go to school here and then ultimately live here. Who'd have thunk? Anyway, Kristin was here last week and she told me that there were people in her branch in Missouri that also objected to The Little Mermaid's lack of modesty. Then she told me a story that is still making me laugh. Sophie (Kristin's 3 year old daughter) had a friend over and this friend wanted to take the animated movie Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron home to watch. The mother said no because "the values of Spirit are not our values." Maybe they didn't like that the horses were naked.

Naked horse and scantily clad mermaid together at last.

Seriously?

This is what I saw when I looked out the window this morning. I immediately began searching the house for a loaded gun.


Luckily I also saw that my tulips had bloomed this morning which distracted me from my gun search. I bought these at Costco last week and I really like them. The girls regard them as some sort of science experiment so the money I spent was justified.



Hanna wanted to be in the picture and chose this pose. I told her that tulips don't really smell but that didn't seem to matter.

Kitties

This is too freakin adorable! I watched this yesterday and used the powers I have to translate what these cats are saying to each other.
"I'm bored, let's go over to Karen's house."
"Sounds good. We'll get in her car and wait for her."
"Purrfect! When she gets in the car we'll terrify her by sitting on the seat looking adorable."
"She'll pee her pants!"
"Exactly. Now lick this spot here."

Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!

Friday was Diffendoofer Day at school and I was lucky enough to be subbing in Hanna's class that day. It was Dr. Suess' birthday so the whole school was having a Seuss celebration. You were supposed to wear your clothes backwards or inside out but the girls also decided they wanted funny "Seuss" hairdos. I was kind of going for Who look with Grace but Hanna just wanted her hair "poofed" so I did it. I'm sure there is a Seuss character out there that has hair like that. I turned all my clothes inside out as well but at lunch I returned my jeans to normal. I think I was the only teacher in my part of the school who had done anything and I admit the peer pressure got to me. It was a good day to sub because the teacher had a lot of fun things planned and we spent the last hour watching Dr. Seuss movies. My favourite Dr. Seuss book is "In a People House" mainly because it brings up fond childhood memories. I read it to the girls a lot when they were little and both of them memorized the words and could read it with me when they were very young. What's your favourite Dr. Seuss book?

Hanna's got some crazy eyes going on in these pictures.

Three shows I like to watch

Our family has discovered three shows we all like to watch. I've been kind of disillusioned with tv lately and except for a few good shows, and a few really crappy (The Hills), I haven't really been watching lately. Our family used to be brought together by Ninja Warrior but we can't seem to find it on anymore. It used to be on right after church each week which seemed like a perfect time to watch Japanese and a few pathetic foreigners try to maim themselves. Alas it isn't on at that time anymore so we were fortunate enough to find two other shows we all like to watch. Mythbusters is an amazing show and it also teaches you things! Hanna and Grace love watching this show and I wish I had a video of Grace telling me what Adam and Jamie are up to. It goes something like this: "Then Adam did this and Jamie said this, then Grant made a robot, then Kari made this and it BLEW UP!" Ryan has a little thing for Kari and he is trying to convince the girls that science is the route to take.

The second family show we like is Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern which is on the Travel Channel. Basically the premise of the show is Andrew goes to different countries and eats bizarre foods. Hilarity ensues. It's actually a really good show and Andrew is a good host. I think it teaches the kids about different cultures and they like watching it.

I wanted to mention a show that I like watching but hasn't really caught on with the rest of the family yet. Anthony Bourdain is cool and I want to hang out with him but instead I get to watch him on his Travel Channel show "No Reservations" which is almost as good. I read a little about Anthony and I think he was immersed in the punk/music scene in the 80's plus he did a lot of drugs. I'm sure you could google his name and find more information. His show has a vibe that I just really like and it makes me want to travel more than I already do. I'm seriously considering running away to work as a mike grip on his show. I found a youtube clip with Anthony and Andrew on it together! It's like a foodie Christmas.

Frugal? That's me!

I found a new website that I'm liking a lot. Frugal Fashionista shows you outfits celebrities wear and then tells you where to get the clothes for "regular people" prices. This might even get me to enter Fovever 21 but there is no way I'm going into Wet Seal. I'd be afraid some over 30 alarm would go off when I enter and honestly there should be something like that to keep people over 30 out of Wet Seal.

Miserable Degrees

We have been having quite the cold and snow pounding in Utah for the last couple of weeks. It has seemed more like the last couple of months because every day seems like an eternity. Can it really be this gloomy and cold for this many days without one wanting to off themselves? The joy of joys is that I get to be on recess duty because our principal must have grown up in Siberia and thinks that staying inside when it's 10 degrees out is for pantywaists. I was reading Dooce today and noticed that her Daily Photo was of my fine area of the Wasatch Front. I live on the same mountains just a few minutes north of where this photo was taken. She is right on the mark when she described it as "MISERABLE DEGREES FAHRENHEIT."

This is dedicated to my fellow mall shoppers

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (just to clarify, this is NOT the real Brian Mulroney), Benetton, a guy doing The Robot, what more could you want? Throw in some Le Chateau and it's my teenage years summed up in a song. Sadly, my local mall had none of these stores. We had stores like Suzy Shier, Cotton Ginny, Mariposa and Bootlegger. I know a lot of you hung out at the Park Place Mall growing up so tell me about stores you frequented. Remember Freedom?

Proof that Gary Coleman lives here

Poor Gary is now having to sell his Saturn on Ebay. I love how in his description he says "you are looking at The famous Gary Coleman's Saturn." The first time I had a Gary siting he was driving this car. Apparently he has also opened up some sort of Christmas Boutique at his house. Hanna's friend has a mug he bought from Gary. I might have to check that out.
ETA:The monochromatic denim outfit and green Crocs are quite becoming.

Gary's Ebay Listing

If you don't watch "The Hills" this will mean nothing to you

Brilliant! I could go into a whole thing here about how I think JustinBobby is an idiot and Audrina a fool but that would just make me sound like a moron. I guess it's too late to avoid that. *Language Warning!*

Believe in Your Dreams!

Brain not working

The blog idea God's have not been smiling down on me lately so I'm "borrowing" an entry from Mimi Smartypants that I think is hilarious. If you don't read Mimi's blog you're missing out on some great writing. Santaquin doesn't produce the kind of moms she's talking about (yet) but we have instead, the ultra-competitive/screaming parent. I find that they both have their charms.

HERE COMES THE SNARK

Speaking of gender trappings, are women still supposed to be catty and judgmental? I will get right on that, starting now. Saturday I am standing on the sidelines giggling like MAD at the little-kid soccer, and this woman shows up late, sort of inserts her kid into the middle of a group drill without talking to the coach or anything, and then takes her giant Mary-Kate sunglasses and even more giant latte over to stand near me. She is holding a small pink-and-white basketball.

Basketball Lady: I brought a ball but they didn't want it! They said it had to be a soccer ball.
Me: WELL, DUH Yeah, every kid has to bring a ball.
BL: We signed up late, and then I got a call on WEDNESDAY NIGHT telling me to bring a soccer ball on SATURDAY MORNING. [ed. note: soccer starts at noon.] I said, How am I supposed to do that? I'm a WORKING MOTHER.
Me [nicest possible smile in an effort to control myself]: Oh, we just got ours at Target. They're actually pretty easy to find.
BL: But I WORK!
Me [another sunny, terribly insincere smile]: Me too.

I wandered off then, as I just couldn’t take it anymore, but what the hell? Does she work on an oil rig or something? She could not make a Target run with only two-and-a-half days' advance notice? The kids are too little yet to be embarrassed by things like this, but just wait until this mom is all like, "Oh, you're supposed to have a graphing calculator? Here's a curling iron, good enough." "Signed permission slip and bag lunch? I think I will send this rubber band and a few packs of cigarettes. What do they want from me? I'm a WORKING MOTHER!"

I win Safari!

One of only things I didn't like about Safari, other than most programs aren't written for it which means less little gadgety things for me to use, is that it wouldn't remember my user names and passwords for sites. I would have to use my own little fingers to type in my user name and passwords for the majority of the sites I frequent. Yesterday I took the time to look at Safari's preferences and low and behold there was a little box I could check in the autofill that was for "user names and passwords". It's like a internet rebirth! I can now get into the sites I really need, like Facebook and Blockbuster, without having to type anything. I'm telling you, I see big things happening now that I have this time to spare.