Top 50 Mommy Bloggers - Please Vote For Me

A beloved reader, Catherine, nominated me for the Top 50 Mommy Bloggers contest thingy. I would sincerely appreciate it if you would click over, dig through the nominees and tell them you like me.

Why should you? I'll tell why. In a list. Of about 5 reasons.

1. I love my blog. I am passionate about it like it's my child. In fact, it is the only thing in this world that I've made all by myself. I have to tell everyone everything. And then I'll never really be gone. I'll live in your memory. I'll be like the song that never ends (it just goes on and on, my friends).

2. I need people to know that people of faith are not crazy wacknuts. Well, not anymore so than the rest of everyone else.

3. I need people of faith to know they can doubt, question, disagree, and make mistakes and God still loves them.

4. Crichton needs a bigger audience for his movies.

5. Somewhere, out there, there is someone who has the magic bullet for getting Canon to wear clothes and poop and pee in the potty and someday they will tell me and then I can cross that challenge off my list of challenges to overcome. The only way to find that person is by increased exposure. The best way to increase exposure is to win wacky popularity contests.

Please.
Click through,
find The Mysterious Mrs. B. Roth
and
VOTE FOR ME!

Brain Hurts Too Much To Blog

Ow.

1. Skeet Shooting? Is that code? I think it's code.

2. Bras are for shmucks who think getting out of bed is important.

3. I'm not pregnant. So not pregnant.

4. I got a 5 minute massage and it was not terrible. I think I'll try a real one. For reals.

5. Why can't I just have a staff to bring me food. STAFF: I'd like some food now.

6. I'm really easily entertained. It's a good thing.

7. Someday, when I'm rich and famous, I will gag and hogtie people who irritate me. No, I will have my staff take care of that.

8. I think "become a decent masseuse" should be part of the wedding vows, dammit.

9. Revenge sucks. Don't be all revengey.

10. I am SO sorry.

My head hurts.

It Tastes Like Sparkly Fun

I've been trying to get my kids to brush their teeth. Twice a day. Like they say your s'pose to. I know families who are very very good at tooth brushing routines. And they still get cavities. And I know families who rarely, if ever, brush their teeth. And they have no cavities. Either way, we brush our teeth, every night. Together.

I'm trying to do things a little differently here.

I want to change the world.

So I bought new toothpaste.

I Gotta Run

I have the shoes. Now I am a Runner.

I really like the shoes. They are Asics (something about Gel ... called Dedication) and people who know say Asics are good. Look at that arch support, baby!

"And what will Brandy do with these lovely shoes?" you ask. "Another 5K coming up?"

"5K, pshaw," Brandy scoffs, arrogantly. But you notice a strange look in her eye, briefly - the look of panic mixed with mortal terror.

(Now look, Brandy, we know that just because you blog something doesn't OBLIGATE you, NEVERTHELESS, writing down a goal and sharing it with people does increase the likelihood of actually accomplishing said goal.)

Yeah ... so I'm thinking SLC 1/2 Marathon.

(Breathing through it ... ha ha hooooo ... 13.1 miles.)

Training. Running. Eating. Yeah .. I can do it.

And Once My Mother Microwaved My Kitty.

In about 1 minute in a microwave, a hot dog will cook, split, and start to explode a little.

My brother loved hot dogs. He was crazy about them and ate them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. He was often in such a hurry to eat the hot dogs, he would fail to shut the microwave door before he began chowing down.

(Hot dogs are high in fat, cholesterol, nitrates, and evil, and if I were you, I wouldn't let your children eat them very often.)

The light in our microwave was burnt out.

I'm more of a cat person.

Nathan and Samantha Allen gave me a polydactyl kitten. At the time, I was in a play called Rumors, by Neil Simon, and I named the cat Cassie, after my character. In that play, a horrible boy, named Greg Roth, played the part of my husband. He was SO annoying. I really hated that guy.

Cassie was a runt; small and sweet.

One cold night, my father told my mother to make him some tea, as he was feeling ill. My mother took a coffee mug, filled it with tap water, dropped in a tea pouch, put it in the microwave, and rotated the dial to cook for 2 minutes. The she stepped away from the microwave so she could watch TV as she waited.

About 1 minute later she realized something was pounding around in the microwave. Very strange behavior for a nice cup o' tea.

She screamed. I ran out of my bedroom where I was hiding from the insanity that was my home life doing my homework. My father ran in from the front room. My mother opened the microwave and my kitty kind of fell forward and out of the microwave.

She was steaming.

She couldn't meow, but she looked like she would really like to.

My father and I took her to the bathroom and doused her in cold water in the bathtub. She was limping and struggling and ... can you even imagine? Microwaved 'til your guts explode, then drown in cold water ... ... ... my father thought it would be best to put her out of her misery and took the cat out to the backyard with an axe. (An axe, how quaint.)

I, of course, cried. A few minutes later, he came back in with the kitten, head intact. The kitty had "looked" at him. So. We started a more careful examination of the poor creature. One foot pad had pretty much burnt off. There was a 90 degree kink in the tale. She couldn't walk forward. I snuggled Cassie all night, expecting to wake up with a dead cat.

But she didn't die.

We took her to the vet. He gave us an ointment for the foot and told us she would probably die with in the week.

She didn't.

She still wouldn't walk forwards. Or meow.

Eventually, I married Greg.

One day, he called me at work to tell me he found my cat dead by the garage. He wanted to know if he should bury her or wait for me.

Bury her.

It was about 10 years before I owned another cat.

They say you should forgive and forget ... how do you forgive and forget when someone microwaves your cat?

I have issues.

But feel free to buy these for me .. funny ironic joke thing ...

What I Hate About Other Blogs

Yeah. So I could either keep start altering the publish time information on my posts or just confess that I didn't blog this weekend. I'm sorry. I'll try to not miss anymore days. (Did you even notice? You didn't did you? You never notice anything, do you?!)

I read a lot of blogs. These days, I would rather read blogs than books. I love the on-going, real-life sagas. I love being able to communicate with the authors. However, I feel really hungry all the time and also very bitchy there are some things that kind of bug me about blogs.

1. Blogs that have a daily theme thing and actually manage to be consistent with it. I can't even do ONE themed day a week for more than one week before I just forget or find it to be too much trouble or have run out of ideas for it. And the few that I read who do this, they do it really well, it's funny every damn week. Jerks.

2. Blogs that ask their readers for suggestions on how to improve the blog. The readers don't want to design a blog or they'd be bloggers. No, we bloggers can't be catering to the readers, we write what we write how we write and if they don't like it, they can SUCK IT!

3. Really cute blogs that look like a handcrafted scrapbook. Any blogger that goes above and beyond the basic template clearly has no idea what blogging is about. It's not the pretty pictures, it's the content (unless it is actually a picture based blog ...). Most people google reader the blog anyway, so why are you bothering wasting time with fancy pants hard stuff that might involve learning HTML blalblahblah!

4. Bloggers that have their posts published elsewhere on the vast intertubes and they give you a little snippet and a link and you have to click to finish. If I like you, I click ... but I grumble when I do it. Because I bet you're making money for your efforts over there, or at least increasing your publicity. And I'm too lazy to seek out alternate venues. That might mean meeting deadlines and taking editorial criticism. And if you don't give me a snippet to draw me in, I won't click, baby. Can we just assume I won't click any link without some enticing summary or something to go along with it? Yeah.

5. Blogs that are always happy and only complain about the weather. And wow, it is freaking cold today. I had to volunteer at the school this morning and my feet are STILL freezing. Complaining about the weather is stupid.

5. Blogs that I really love that are SO sporadic and sparse that I forget about them then read one and wish there was more! Grrrr. They're not like this hunk of poo ... their writers take time. Find inspiration. And, in turn, Inspire. And the have this clever way of ending on same random topic whence they began. It's called .... I don't know .. but it is very satisfying to read stuff like that right?

My feet are cold. Tune in tomorrow for the story of my microwaved cat which I may have already blogged about but I don't care. It's probably my best story.

Matchless

Last year I wanted to read a book a week. I know bloggers who do this with ease, but I haven't finished a book for a very long time. Last night I started AND finished a book.

Fine. It had a lot of pictures.

And I might not be the intended demographic.

But it reignited the desire to read books.

The little book was Matchless by Gregory Maguire. It is a retelling of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen.

(Anderson is my maiden name. Hans Christian Andersen's family believed themselves to be descended from Danish Royalty and my family believed themselves to be descended from Hans Christian, who was never married, had no children he knew of, and may have been a little gay. I don't care, I still like believing we are bastard descendants.)

In The Little Match Girl, a little girl loses one shoe and a boy runs off with the other, she can't sell her matches, and ends up freezing to death on New Year's Eve. Like many of Andersen's tales, modern audiences get a nice white washed, happy ending version of my great grandfather's stories. (The Little Mermaid, The Red Shoes, etc.

Maguire is a writer after my own heart. Some people can come up with characters and plots, but he tends to take well know stories and twist them a bit to tell a slightly different story (Wicked, etc.). In this story, we meet the little boy who ran off with her shoe. It's not a long story, you should read and or listen to it.

A Goal For Thursday

Ok.

Look here.

I am going to just kick the crap out of this Thursday.

I'm gonna put the baby down for a nap, put on a serious bra, and be a super fast and efficient cleaner upper.

AND take a shower.

ALL before baby girl wakes up.

It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ... It is not hard to keep the house clean ...

And I'll even get the guest room set up.

I WILL!

In fact, I'll start now. I can clean all the upstairs bedrooms in 5 minutes each.

I'm jinxing myself, aren't I? Something's gonna happen. Gonna ruin my beautiful plan. Curses. Ok ... how do I unjinx it?

From the internet:

[C]lose your eyes count to 17 then take 5 paces backwards while chanting,

Bad luck gone forever,
Bad luck gone forever,
Bad luck gone forever,

[D]o this three times, open your eyes and you should be cured.

[O]h and also avoid thi[n]gs that give you bad luck such as crossing on the stairs, walking under ladders, opening umbrellas indoors.
GOOD LUCK!

What is "crossing on the stairs"? There are a lot of stairs in my house ... a lot ... 24 stairs, to be precise ... wow, that's not a lucky number ... I need 25 ... a multiple of 5 ... a nice good solid number ... not some frivolous even thing.

I don't know what to do now ... HELP!

What To Do With 13 Lemons??

The Universes Most Amazingly Delicious and Simple Lemonade Recipe!

Dissolve 1 cup of sugar in 1 cup of HOT water. Add 1 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice (preferably from your sweet father-in-law's AZ backyard lemon tree). Add 3 more cups of COLD water and die happy and lip smackingly refreshed!

Also - make an exfoliating scrub. Because the weather is hard on a girl's soft smooth skin. See?

I used 1 cup of sugar, a few blobs of honey, a couple dollops of oil (I went EVOO), and a few spoonfuls of freshly squeezed lemon juice (from my sweet father-in-laws AZ backyard lemon tree).

Shiny and smooth!

I'm gonna hop in the shower and exfoliate ALL of me now. Some people think they have to PAY to have this done ... can you imagine the torture of some stranger ... gah ... makes my skin crawl to think about it.

Finally, freeze the rest and add it to everything. I'm making some lemon pepper Chicken tomorrow! MMMmmmm.

I love lemons. I want a lemon tree.

Seriously, I Am SHOCKED He's Still Alive!

HAPPY

BOOFDAY

CANON ROTH

FOUR YEARS!!! You have no idea how relieved I am EVERY time this kid has a birthday! Whew. OKAY! Lets shoot for 5! (oh my gosh ... someday he's gonna wanna drive my car!)

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True

I used to think there WERE good deals to be had. Sometimes, things work in your favor, you catch a break, you get lucky, and life is easy.

I no longer feel that way.

"Luck" is a dirty whore.

Today husband and I met with a guy about a thing and it all sounds like it will make our lives ... perfect. Like all my dreams come true perfect. But I never get my hopes up. But ... maybe ...

If I were to get my hopes up, this is what my hopes would be:

1. Great new running shoes and SLC half marathon entrance fee.
1. My last class and then my bachelors degree.
1. A college savings account for each of my kids.
2. A family vacation to California.
3. A family vacation to Europe.
4. A mommy only trip to breathe free.
5. New carpet/flooring.
6. A great vacuum.
7. Great, eclectic but durable, and beautiful furniture, esp book shelves.
8. Amazing landscaping in the backyard, with lots of big tall trees.
9. An amazing hot tub.
10. An emergency fund.
10. A fridge with water and ice in the door and a flat top stove.
10. A little kitty door to the garage so the litter box and food can be out there.

How I Changed The World For Womankind

I've done it. I complained and was listened to. CHANGES HAVE BEEN MADE! Oh yes. And you can thank me. I am the voice of the people!

Some stand around and tell the emperor how much they love his new clothes, but I am not afraid to tell it like it is.

I have never been shy about telling you how I do not love LDS Garments. It's is known far and wide.

On Friday, I took my handy dandy temple recommend and headed forthwith to the LDS Distribution Center to purchase me some new underwear, having heard rumors that they were discontinuing my current tolerable type.

But when I got there, it was as though they had read my very blog. The lady said they had done an extensive world wide survey (another reason for not skipping RS, sisters) and changes were made to reflect the wants of LDS garment wearing women.

AHHH ... so nice to be heard! The waistline of my underwear no longer goes up to my ribs ... it hits just below the belly button. And the recommended size FITS. Nicely. Snug.

I have no issues with being modest. I prefer modesty. But modesty doesn't have to be super mega baggy granny panties. I feel much more comfortable in this updated pattern. In fact, I'm blogging in them. And see how happy I am.


It's true, you may see the actual skin of my back as I bend over to pick up a wounded, crying child, but I assure you, I'm not trying to incite lust or flaunt my love handles. I'm just doing my job. Really. It's not a big deal.


NOW: Daylight Saving Time ... I have my eye on you!

A Post for Saturday

I know ... a post a day, that was the promise. Ok ... but I had a crazy good day yesterday and the day seeped into night and it was the kind of break I needed and haven't really had for a long while. And then I was sleepy and my fluffy blanket and the dulcet voice of Joshua Jackson (Fringe) lulled me into a blissful unconsciousness.

*****

Baby girl woke up around 3 with a fever ... so we stayed up a lot last night (and no one lost their temper when Greg got up to put Canon back to bed and I asked him to grab a drink of water for baby girl. And the Ibuprofen. Oh, and the medicine dispenser thing. And it'll need cleaned out.)

So she and I are in our underwear with Pandora pumping out great music. We never get to do this ... sigh ... we're liberated! There is a mega murder of crows flocking around on our front yard. Sagan is mesmerized.

Sing it Mr. Mayer, tell us girls all about Daughters ... mmmmm :)

*****
I watched Julie and Julia ... I also have the book. It's about a blog. (I HAVE A BLOG!) The blog turns into the book, and then, the book into a movie. The special features ... sigh. The movie people just wanted it ... and they made it ... that's crazy, right? Wow. Hmm ... do you suppose? NAH!

*****
Now I will tamper with the laws of Time and Space so you can't prove I didn't post on Saturday. I AM ALL POWERFUL!

I Always Wanted A Girl

Sagan is an amazing little creature. Twenty months old and already a great communicator, observer, and cutie pie. (I wish I could find the video camera's battery and memory card ... you would be INSPIRED by her brilliance and eloquence!)

I love doing her hair. It's getting long and it's so soft and curly and she'll sit still for entire fractions of seconds!

She's at that really awful-at-church age. She has less than no desire or ability to sit still for an hour! She is a very busy girl. She observes and analyzes and explores at the speed of light!


She's a daddy's girl, too. Long ago, before I had children, when I was a very insecure little wife, I thought I might be jealous of a daughter. But we had the boys first and they love me so much (too much) and tend to reject their dad a little. I really like that Greg now gets to feel that warm smugness you get when a child expresses their preference for you.


Her brother's love her a lot too. I don't think they have much sibling rivalry (yet?). Sometimes they all wanna sit on me all at the same time and there is muchness of pushing and pinching as they vie for position. Crichton sometimes gets a little too snugly for Sagan's liking and she punches him. She has also been know to hit Canon in the head with a wrench if he steals her toys. The world is a crazy place ... a girl has to be able to defend herself.

She sings, she dances, she loves to read. She laughs and giggles and goes right to sleep. She poops in the bathtub. She loves puppies and babies and is always on the lookout for both. She is fearless! And a great climber. She loves shoes and dresses and eating dirt.

I look forward to being her mom. I love my daughter.

LoveLoveLove

I can sometimes hit a golf ball over a water hazard. I look at the flag, put my club next to the ball, wiggle my bum a little, breathe in, exhale, and start telling myself why I can hit this ball over the water:

1. I have given birth to THREE amazing children.
2. I fed those suckers for a year each from my own breasts.
3. I trained for and finished a 5K race in a decent and respectable amount of time.
4. I have an internationally read blog, Utah's Top blog, in fact, and I have 1,150+ posts to date.
5. I have, on occasion, beaten the best scrabble players I know. (This guy and this guy)

I can hit a stupid little ball up and over!

Sometimes.

Good psychology tells us that self esteem comes from DOING things; setting and achieving goals; accomplishing what we once thought was impossible. Mom and Dad can't simply tell the kid how good and smart and pretty she is and hope to produce a confident woman. That girl has to try things, and possibly fail, and try again so she can learn that she is, in fact, of worth.

Most of the time, I think I love myself. I've done stuff. I can DO stuff.

But there is a part of every person that wants and needs to be loved unconditionally. Ideally parents are able to fill this need, but not always, and probably never enough anyway.

One never feels more inadequate then the mother of young and vocal children.

Some people are able to feel that unconditional love from God. As a devout, albeit not good, Mormon, trying to feel love this way is both extremely effective and completely useless. Church has made me far more aware of the things I ought not do, lest I make Jesus cry, than made me feel loved for the perfection that is me, as a daughter of divinity. I never feel quite good enough at church.

Maybe God and I feel the same way ... I love my kids with all my heart. And it's never enough.

A spouse sometimes makes us feel unconditionally loved. And sometimes they can make us so acutely aware of every misstep we've ever made, of every flaw we have yet to overcome. Spouses forgive a lot, but there is so much gravity, goods and bads ... they know all the stories and patterns. They know how you get so excited about a new project and then never follow through ... they no longer share the excitement. There's no one who will love you as much as a beloved spouse, but one person can't be everything for you.

I think friends (and blog readers) provide bite sized morsels of the unconditional love we crave. Friends are not around us so much as to know how truly awful we are (like when we are PMSy, tired, hungry AND don't wanna cook because there are no clean dishes and there is a SOCK ON THE EFFING FLOOR FROM LAST FREAKING NIGHT WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DO ANYTHING AROUND HERE???!). Friends can be objective, tell us we are stupid, and love us anyway. There's is something very nice about having people who can simply love you. You can't mess up their bank account; you probably won't ruin the transmission on their car by putting it in drive while still reversing a little; you'd never yell at them to change a freaking diaper; it's not your fault if they have no clean underwear.

Sigh.

Friends are good. I vote "YES!" on friends!

Be my friend.

God Continues To Pull Stupid Pranks On Me

My mom is my visiting teaching partner.

I am not amused.

Thanks God.

Such an inspired choice.

No REALLY!

There is nothing in the universe going to make it HARDER for me to do a job I really don't like than FORCING me to do it with my mom.

SERIOUSLY!

Because I don't desperately need and want a female friend, around my age, maybe in similar circumstances, to hang out and bond with. Someone to rescue me from the insanity that is my home life ... a few moments to relax ... get away from my life and difficulties ... open up with people and be honest about stuff ... vent.

Yeah. I have a blog ... who needs real, tangible people? Right, All Knowing One?

Who the blazes do you suppose, in all Your Wisdom, is going to watch my kids so I can GO visit teach? Greg? Yeah? Because he is always around to help out. So I get to waste my babysitting co-op coupons to spend MORE time with ...

Will I burn in hell if I just call the RS President and opt out en-freaking-tirely? No one visits me anyway, so that lifts the burden of me for two other sisters ... they can just as easily not visit my sisters, too.

(so frustrating)

Like my Grandma Anderson used to say, "You're not funny McGee!"

Super Mom to the WHYBRERRY

Ha! I was a great mom today: paid my kid's school lunch (only $2.75 in the negative!), bought yummy healthful wheat bread, put away ALL the laundry, changed all my bed linens, vacuumed the ceiling fan, AND took the little ones to our public library for story time.

(SEE! And I took pictures of the library in case you thought I was just making it up!)

AND LOOK! Canon is wearing PANTS! I love that kid. (He's not currently wearing any bum covers, but he was fully dressed for at least 45 minutes today!)

Sure, sure, yesterday I stayed in bed until 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon, got up, ate some bacon, eventually fed my kids hotdogs for dinner then locked myself in my room again, ran a few miles on the treadmill, took a shower, helped my beloved the kids to bed, and watched TV with Greggie Poo.

Everyone needs to take a personal day now and then, as long as you are super amazing the next day (which I am, today, see? I am even BLOGGING!).

NOW, what would an amazing mom make for dinner tonight? THAT'S RIGHT: TACO TUESDAY! DA DA da da DA DAH! OLE!

I Need To Scream But Have Nothing To Wear

My favorite dresses are too big due to my highly effective "eat less, move more" diet. I have one little brown skirt that fits, which I can wear to church. But I like variety; I like choices. So, several weeks ago, I bought a few new dresses.

I was gonna wear one to church* on Sunday.

I held two of the new dresses up for Greg, my beloved husband, who not only never lies to me, but also never sugar coats things for me. (What more could a little wife ask for?).

One was an Eddie Bauer normal looking brown dress (brown is the effing new black!). The other, frilly floral Jodi dress (I can't quit those babies).

"I think you should burn both of them."**

Gasp.

I hugged the dresses to my chest and opted with the girlier one. Because I'm nothing if not happiest in a dress I can twirl in.

"It looks like something they wore in the 70's or 80's."

"Yeah, it's kind of cute retro, huh." I say smiling.

"No, it looks like the stuff the dorky unpopular people of the 70's and 80's wore."

"Oh." I pause briefly as disappointment overwhelms me. "Ya think?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

I take off the dress and grab my brown skirt and a cute purpley pink button down top. The one with the doily looking front.

"That looks like something a retarded grandma would get from the DI."

Blink, blink.

Wow, my husband has a way with words, doesn't he?

"I don't care what you think! I like the way I dress."

"You asked."

So, in conclusion, I dress like a mentally challenged and dorky grandmother of the 70's who gets weird crap from thrift stores.

That's still cool right? Do I need help? I'm okay. I AM. I look cute. I DO not need intervention. Do I?

I haven't gotten dressed yet today. It's 4pm.

________________
*by "wear ... to church" I mean, I planned on going to go to church but did not, in fact, go to church at all. And I'm sure it had almost nothing to do with Greg telling me I don't know how to dress myself.

** this transcript should in no way be taken as a verbatim court authorized record of conversation, rather, it is my emotional impressions of said conversation. Except he really did say all that.

Thinking Canon

Canon, Canon, Canon. You are my sunshine. Such a fearless wonder. Why no pants? So much better things to do than bother with peeing in the potty. My heart is overflowing with love and fear for you safety.



He borrowed my mascara. Isn't he pretty? There was also mascara on his bum ... that's no good. I'm usually fine with sharing ... but too much is too much. Also, if mommy pauses to take a pic, she loses her spanking rights!

Who gave that kid a battle axe? We named him CANON for a reason ...

I love that kid!

I Don't Know Why I Ever Make Plans

Vacation! (Oh the irony)

Two December weeks in beautiful, glorious Arizona. Golf! My Favorite Mall (and I hate malls)! Hikes, walks, jogging! PARKS! The Phoenix ZOO! Swimming? The Temple. BOARD GAMES! And Christmas, too.

But the thing is, if you wanna do stuff, you have to make plans. Making Plans is not my strong suit. In fact, it would be fair to say, "Brandy sucks at making plans." I wouldn't argue. It's the research and the follow through that tangle me up. And the deciding. And the getting others to agree to my idea. And the getting myself and the kids all together and in the car and on the road.

Doing stuff is hard.

As a result, I didn't DO much in AZ. And it's no one's fault but my own; not complaining, just observing. I did wanna go to the zoo. Sagan loves "puppies" (which are all things that move that are not people or machines, even ants). Who doesn't love the zoo. Everyone had the day off ... the boys went golfing in the morning ... home at 1. But, beyond getting the address of the Zoo, I didn't get any other pertinent information. Little helpful things, like entrance fees or the 4pm closing time.

We got everyone (4 families worth of people totaling 13.5 people - no easy task!) all to the zoo at 3pm.

Sigh.

$46 for an hour?

Blah.

I take ALL the blame. Sorry everyone.

But there were some groovy mountain cave things JUST a little ways away. My kids like playing in (and sometimes eating) dirt and climbing on stuff. "Let's go THERE!" I pointed. After much squabbling and I over powered them all with my charm. Or poutiness. One of those for sure.

Shockingly, a few of the members of our caravan opted out of mountain climbing (as if a 2 weeks old baby and his mom can't hike a few miles?! Or a pregnant woman recently off bed rest! Some people are so difficult.)

**Another sincere apology issued here and now. I am so so sorry I messed up with the zoo thing and then made everyone go to an activity not everyone could do. I suck. I'll try to be better next time.***

But is was SO nice. The sun and the air. The beauty of the desert. Possible hobos (Crichton has some interesting theories about desert hobos and I think he might think hobos are a high functioning form of Zombie).

It was great for my soul.

I don't know, sometimes the best things are unplanned.

(As long as no one dies.)

New Year's Baptism By Ice Water

My second favorite part of my Christmas trip to Arizona was New Year's Day. The night before, I broke my personal Anti-Barbie/Sagan Treaty and had a lovely time playing "Superman-Naked Barbies-Rubber Chicken"; I beat my brother-in-law soundly at Scrabble; and oh my heavens, you should try the bacon wrapped water chestnuts! Midnight smooching, staying up lateR to discuss boring adult matters; kind of sleeping, kind of trying to keep the kids in their beds.

The next day, Greg got up first (his bladder is a big whiny baby compared to mine!) and I hid under the blankets. NOTHING was gonna get me up until I was good and ready (or my bladder ruptured).

Around 9ish Greg wonders in and makes me an offer I can't refuse:

The water was about 54 degrees Fahrenheit, if I recall right. (Cold is usually defined as 70 or less).

"One. Two ... on three or after? One, two, three, jump. OK? Don't not jump, Mr. I mean it!"

"Holy .... Moses on a pancake!" were my exact thoughts, I believe. It was a spiritual experience.

Sagan peeking at us - What the wha ...? I wanna play in the pool too!

Well, that was fun. If you zoom in, you can see Crichton filming the whole thing on his Flip Camera from Santa, but he deleted the footage to make room for the new Star Wars movies he's working on. I went in to shower and I used all the hot water (sorry Arizona, I know you're a desert and we're supposed to conserve water ... but wow, I was cold.)

Tune in Tomorrow for my #1 favorite part of Christmas Vacation to Arizona 2009 (that I took pictures of).

Naked Truth

(oh how I'd like to have a tasteful nude b&w of myself to go with this post. Maybe one of those artsy pregnant ones ... wait .. hold on ... ... ... )

Here's me, naked!

Why do parents do this to their children? The Infamous Naked Baby Picture, indeed. I'll tell you why: The body is a miracle. A beautiful, exquisite miracle of pure divinity. And when you make one, when you create a person ... that creature is exponentially more amazing then anything that ever existed previously.

To be honest, I'm a modest girl. And an exhibitionist.

Naked is not bad. Just not too much nor too often.

Trying to incite feelings of lust in others is probably not a good thing.

But naked isn't so bad.

I watched a documentary last night about Spencer Tunick. He goes around all over the world taking pictures of naked people. Even in Utah. Not naughty pictures, not at all. It was interesting and beautiful. If I thought Greg would let me, I'd sign up. Maybe.

However, nudists. Whew! They seem a little over the top. Pockets are handy sometimes. Janglie bits get in the way when your doing the Tug-O-War. Bacon splatters! I like clothes. It's cold!

And kids ... sigh. My Canon is an unabashed naturist, I swear. When company is over (or we spend two weeks at grandma and grandpa's house) pants are not optional. But at home, we lower our standards. It's supposed to make it easier to potty train. (Wow, I'd like to be able to post how Canon is officially 99% potty trained. Or even 73%.)

I wish naked wasn't offensive. I wish people could calm down and grow up. But no. We all have to be ashamed. Or aroused. Yes, the body is a sacred, holy temple for your soul, but appreciating it is not an evil thing.

What do you think? Prefer a fig leaf at all times? Let your hair down at home? All I know is, as far as I can remember, I hated my body. Through my 20's there were moments of love and hate, mostly hate. But, in my 30's, I'm finally feeling more in control and much much happier.

And I keep the blinds closed.

Brandy's Tries to Clean House

AND NOW THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!

Did Brandy clean a room? Did she take pictures? Will she post them? Today?

YES!!

Let me first remind you what we started with:



And now!!!!!

And from another angle:

"SWEET AUNT JAMINA!" you say?

"Good work Brandy! Now, just keep it up." Pat me on the head.

I have to confess tho, this post has taken all day and now, I really need to work on the TV Room.

Want a before of that one?

"Of course we do Brandy. Seeing your deplorable cleaning skills makes us, at first, feel better about ourselves ("I'm not THAT bad"), and later gives us hope ("If you can do it, Brandy, ANYONE can!")

Thanks you guys!

Here's a before ... it's really bad:


You better give me at least 2 days to get this one taken care of.

Wish me luck.

Cleaning the house is fun to do, fun to do, to do, to do (vomit sound).

Routines: If I Have To Do It ONE MORE TIME (so help me)

New Year's Eve Eve: That was my hardest day of vacation (Roth Exodus 2009, Dec. 18-Jan. 3).

My mother-in-law asked what I'd like to do: shopping, maybe go to a store, shopping? I had no desire to take my kids out in public. Canon had been regressing (he was SO that screaming kid who peed his pants getting dragged out of the mall). I spent most of the day "home," crying. We watched "Up" 4 times in a row. Also, Canon pooped on the carpet (don't tell G'ma Roth, please) and Sagan put her stuffed kitty (named "Puppy") in the toilet. Greg went golfing (again).

The thing is, I didn't want to get my period on vacation (or ever, to be honest), so I jumped to the new pack of birth control. This delayed my period by about a week and, as a very special bonus, gave me "God, just kill me now" PMS. You take a vacation with 3 small children to someone's lovely, but not child-proof home for two weeks, PLUS you hate everyone and everything, AND your husband has mastered the skill of dodging your guilt trips and wants to have fun before returning to his 60 hour work weeks.

Issuing an official apology to all my in-laws, spouses, and children who's heads I may have bitten off.

(hangs head in shame)

I'm so sorry.

The day I got my period, it was like magic, I was happy and tolerant ... sigh.

Now I'm home.

Time to get things together.

Except, I'm going crazy here already, I confess. The piles of Christmas related crap, my mostly unemployed mother, the overwhelming belief that I have to do everything. Tho, I don't know how to get anyone else int he house to SEE what needs to be done and DO it and it would take as long to explain how to do it as to just do it myself.

What's the solution? Fine. I'll just get every room perfect and keep them up.

Alright. I'm off to get the house "salesman ready".

Here's a before pic:

Stop by tomorrow for the exciting reveal.

(note, my mother's head mostly covered by a pile of junk)

X

I have recently discovered that I have several secret super powers. NOT simply talents, I have super powers, baby.

I suspect one of my secret super powers is apologizing.

Back in 1997, my kindof friend Peaches Hendersen's dorm room was directly above mine. One day, Peaches was playing very loud Hip Hop while I was trying to take a middle of the day nap (tho I think back then we still called it rap music).

I grabbed the phone, dialed her room, and said, "PLEASE! Shut your effing music off!" Only I didn't say eff. I used to have kindof a potty mouth. It was college. There was a lot of Tarentino going around in those days.

Then, I heard my kindof friend Peaches Hendersen flip out. Something about "White Bourgeoisie something effing something. Gonna kick the poop out of that little" ... and on and on. Only one thing: she thought it was my sweet roommate who had called. My sweet roommate demanded that I call Peaches back and make it so she would not end anyone's life.

I did call back. I apologized and begged forgiveness. And all was forgiven.

*****

I am so sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. A lousy two posts for all of December? And only a few times a week for months before that? This can't go on. I need to blog. (Way more than I need to take down Christmas and unpack from the exodus to Arizona and back.)

You'll be getting a daily serving of Mrs. B for the rest of 2010. I promise. This year, I will master the concise blog post. Rare will be the long rambly tangent prone posts of yesteryears. We have minimal time and attention. We wanna get in, read the post and get out.

I love you 2010! I barely know you and I love you!