The girl fell at preschool yesterday, ripped a hole in her pants, and skinned her knee up pretty good. She insisted that Grandpa was the ONLY person around who would have a band-aid to suit her. So Grandpa whisked her away to doctor her. He did tell me that the minute they got to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, she suddenly forgot all about the Band-Aid situation.
I suspected she might…

While she was gone, I took full advantage of my time with my little man.
“What do you want to do?” I asked him.
“Make Froggy in da ho’e!” he said. I guess I knew he would say that. I talked him out of it (we had JUST had it for breakfast!), and he decided on playing cars instead.

My husband has selective hearing. When he’s playing his play station, he doesn’t seem to hear me when I say “craft this-and-that” or “house work this-and-that” or “clothing this-and-that” BUT Cars?
Cars?
Where?
He set his game down and got down on the floor. Suddenly, I became entirely invisible.
This one is my favorite. Notice how their cars are racing toward each other and both of the boys are making sound effects.

The race track I had made out of books was completely deserted.
Save for one lonely skateboard.
Mine.

Can’t just just HEAR the coyotes calling in the background of the ghost racetrack?

I finally gave up on trying to force my way into being popular with the boys.
Anyway, my mom always taught me that trying to be popular with the boys wasn’t always the best idea.
They should like me for my brains, she said.

So I started digging through my son’s car bin and pulling out stray toys. In the process, I started noticing a worrisome trend…

Immediately, I wanted my girl back.
I can’t BELIEVE I used to be so boy crazy.

Oh, wait. Yes I can. Bloody good looking, that one.

While I was on the phone last evening, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. At least: I THOUGHT I saw something. I prayed I didn’t see it, but then it happened again and I knew for certain that I did. It was Blu, the parakeet being THROWN.
“Here ya go,” I heard my daughter cooing in the special high-pitched voice she saves especially for animals and babies, “Aaaaaaand… fly!”
And the poor wing-slipped bird was hurtled, angry-bird style across the room. I quickly excused myself from my phone call and ordered my daughter to put her bird away and then come talk to me.
“Birds don’t like to be thrown,” I said, chalking up another sentence to my list of Things I Thought I’d Never Have to Say… And Then I Had Childrens, “Look at Blu. She’s is terrified! She’s shaking! I’m afraid I’m going to have to ground you from Blu for one day. She needs a break and you need to not be throwing her.”
“Okay,” my daughter said, her head hanging.
Not even an hour later, the girl pulled the bird from her cage and began playing with her.
“Don’t try to sneak that bird out,” I warned, “You’re grounded, remember?”
By then, my husband was home from work and he started to get after her too. In our defense, our angelic daughter has taken GREAT pride lately in her “sneaking” abilities.
“I’m a great sneaker, Mom,” she tells me.
But before her Dad could even finish getting out his reprimand, her eyes grew big, they darted back and forth between her father and I, and she burst into big, fat tears.
“I forgot,” she tried to explain, “I forgot about the grounding.”
She honestly had. I pulled her in my arms and apologized for accusing her of sneaking. But she didn’t stop crying. I felt terrible about it and I tried to think of something to cheer her up.
“Hey,” I said, wiping her big tears away, “I need to go to the store. Get your boots on and come with me.”
“Okay,” she nodded and ran off.
As we drove the ten miles to the store, I asked her the same question I ask her at the end of every day.
“Sooo,” I looked in my rear view mirror at her in her booster seat, “What was your favorite part of today?”
“Having Hailee come play,” she answered.
“And did you have fun at school?” I asked.
“Yeah, but…” she paused and then her voice got choked up, “Someone just talked mean to me…” the tears come rushing out, “I just felt SO yucky inside and I don’t think ANYONE wants to be my FRIEND!”
She cried and cried and cried and cried and suddenly the bird situation made perfect sense. Normally something like forgetting she was grounded from her bird wouldn’t hardly faze her, so I was really surprised when she burst into tears over it.
Now I understood.
Let the records show that Lacy Deets has officially had her first Bad Day at School. As we talked about it, she began to feel better. I just ACHED for her because I know exactly what a Bad Day at School feels like (don’t we all? I mean, those of us who “survived” Junior High). When we got to the store, I got out of the car, got her down from her seat, and just held her and hugged in the parking lot.
Then we went inside and she was a different kid entirely.
She just needed to TALK about it. But you know what? She didn’t really know she needed to -she’s still figuring all that out. She’s learning the hard way what it means to be an emotional female, and I don’t envy her. I’m just grateful we took a little alone time together.
Anyway, SHE may not know how to handle a Bad Day at School, but I do.
As we walked around the store, I let her pick out something for herself and then I picked up something for her without her knowing. It’s the universal cure for Bad Days at School… chocolate.
When we got home, she settled in with her self-chosen Lunchable and hefty bag of chocolate.

Heaven help me be more aware lest I don’t even realize my child is hurting inside.
And Heaven help the state of the world wide economy that it never reaches the point where chocolate becomes unavailable.

This last weekend, we made a really quick trip to visit family in the city.

Now: Arizona is a fancy state. Outside my window is miles and miles of desert, interrupted briefly by a few distant plateaus and one dry river. Then an hour to my east and an hour to my north are thick pine forests and beautiful mountains. Beyond that, if you chance to travel further, you will find palm trees and citrus groves. This weekend we got the FULL experience. We drove to the palm trees from the desert by way of the pine trees. We’ve made the drive hundreds of times, and it is beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful, especially right after a good rain.
Lately, we haven’t had the good fortune to take the drive during daylight hours, so we’ve missed all the scenery.
But we didn’t miss out on EVERYTHING. When driving through heavily wooded areas, it is impossible to miss out on the the vast amounts of wildlife it holds. We didn’t miss the wildlife. In fact, we smacked it with our jeep.
Yes, sir, we smacked an elk.

At the risk of sounding a lot like Mrs. Bennett, I have to say: I have weak nerves. I always have had. After we hit the elk, the first thing I did was make sure my kids were okay. Then I tried to pull my phone up to make sure we had service, but I was shaking so bad I couldn’t. Maybe if my phone wasn’t a touch screen… but it is, so I was pretty much out of luck. After the big “THUD” we had on impact, my husband and I both had matchy-matchy thoughts (we’re SO united. har, har).
The jeep is toast.
There goes the paid-off jeep.

My husband climbed out into the cold night wearing all black. We were parked on the side of a busy highway. He was using what little light he had from the flashlight app he had installed on his cell phone, and I waited nervously for a damage report.
He couldn’t find anything. He couldn’t find a smash or a crack or a… anything at all. I made him put on my grey sweater before he went off looking for the elk, and I folded my arms to pray as my husband bounded across a highway in the pitch dark to look for an elk.
“Where’s dat donkey?” My son asked.
“It wasn’t a donkey,” I replied, “It was an elk.”
“Was that nelk scary?” He asked.
His cuteness soothed my nerves and made me smile.
“No, I think we scared the nelk more than it scared us,” I lied.

My husband came back with no report to offer. He couldn’t find the nelk, and we started back on the road, ever so carefully. It didn’t take long for us to realize that the car was riding a bit rougher, but nothing so rough that we were scared we were going to fall clean apart. So we picked up speed, and we drove into Palm Trees and Citrus Groves with no problems what-so-ever.
I asked my older brother (the one who took our pictures) to come and take a look at our car the next morning. Mike is an expert. Period. If you need anything done, he can do it. He’s amazing! He knows SO much about SO many things. He was nice enough to come and take a look at our jeep (which used to be his jeep) and the verdict?
The jeep was thrown out of alignment.
Isn’t that amazing?! It is a large sort of miracle. I mean, we SMACKED that nelk. It wasn’t like we grazed it or anything. We HIT it. It’s head made contact with the driver’s side mirror. The driver’s side mirror popped in and popped right back out.
All we have to show for it is a small dent on the driver’s side fender. Can you see it? Barely?

We also have elk hair stuck to our siding which I can’t help but love.

Checking everything over with brother Mike:
See my boy in his PJs? He’s holding his bows. They’re his constant companions these days. I took this before we met the nelk.

He always keeps one pink bow nearby because, he told me, it’s the Pink Panther bow. And then he sings, “dun dun dun duuuun….. dun dun dun duuuuunnnn….” He once sang the Pink Panther theme song to me while I cleaned the kitchen because he KNEW it would help me clean faster and more better.
Right after my husband made it back to our car safely and without any luck of finding the elk, we said a prayer of gratitude. We thanked Heavenly Father was watching so carefully over us. We then turned out gratitude to our 1996 mini Jeep tank and vowed never to part with her.

Years ago, my mother chanced to kick my other older brother’s shin. It broke her toe even though her toe was inside of her shoe. My brother’s shin showed no evidence of having been touched. My mom pulled out the camera and took a picture of her toe and then a picture of his shin for posterity. I thought about those pictures as we continued down the highway.
Somewhere out there is a nelk… with a broken toe.

You have a one year old daughter and you take a pregnancy test and it surprises you by coming out positive, and in an effort to calm your shock, you take yourself over to the store and buy a preemie-sized outfit. You get a blue one because you KNOW, you somehow just KNOW that the cells multiplying in your uterus are of the male variety. The outfit is only $1 because it’s on clearance. You purchase it, take it home and hang it up in your room where you can see it every gestational day. It reminds you that you’re okay. That there are good things to come. That even though pregnancy wreaks havoc on your body, mind and marriage, it is WORTH it in the end.
And then the day comes when you get to use the outfit. In fact, you get to bring a baby home in it.

Oh it was a magical day. Pregnancy was over. All of those MONTHS of staring at the preemie blue outfit paid off. He was such a heavenly little thing.

And then he grew and grew. Every few months, you would go through his clothes and box up what didn’t fit… only you couldn’t bring yourself to EVER box up the blue outfit. Every few months, you would pull it out, lift it to your nose, inhale, and promptly shove it to the BACK of your son’s drawer and curse yourself for ever imagining you might be strong enough to box up all that sweet goodness. You know you are weak. You are comfortable in your weakness.
Sometimes you’re so weak that you rationalize skipping laundry day.
And your son has to reach into the BACK of his drawer to find something to wear.

… and that’s what happens when…

He’s still a heavenly little thing, that one.

Remember how we got a new mattress?  Yeah, I’m still recovering from that trip.  The next day my husband had a cold which he loving passed to me.  We’re both on the mend, and hopefully soon we’ll both have enough energy to do something more than lie on the couch and try to persuade the other one to make dinner.

Please, husband?
Please, wife?
Please, someone, open an eatery nearby that delivers?

We’re slowly becoming accustomed to the new bed. The day after we set it up, the girl came bounding in our room and jumped on the bed. Then she jumped off. Then back on. Then off. Then back on.
With her eyebrows knit and her head tilted ever-so-thoughtfully, she rocked back and forth on all fours. Finally she looked up at me, “Heeeey, where’s that little tiny bed that just goes reeeeeeeeeeecky, reeeeeeecky?!”
“On the porch,” I said.
She was just filled with glee to find a mattress on our porch.
I am filled with glee over the fact that I can breath in my bed without it announcing it to the rest of the house. The littlest movement on our old bed would set it to screeching and creaking in such a way as to put any old man’s joints to shame.
Please understand that when I say “joints” I’m talking about his knees and NOT his medical mary jane.

The girl has decided that the bed is sort of HER place. Every little chance she gets, she sneaks away and snuggles up on the bed. Yesterday, she made my bed (making beds is sort of her THING. Just ask anyone who has had Lacy over in the past 6 months. I guarantee she’s snuck off and made their bed). Then she picked up all of our dirty clothes from the floor and FOLDED them neatly on the bed.

Oh my girl.

Nevermind my completely unmatched bedding (and giant striped socks, ha). My money has to go other places right now, all right? Now. Excuse me while I go eat gummy bears (which take precedence over bedding, obviously. I can live without a cute bedspread, but I need my gummy bears).

When we were pulling into our driveway at 1:30 in the morning Monday night/Tuesday morning, there were two men talking on the radio.  They said something that made my husband and I laughandlaughandlaugh.  They said that it was the anniversary of John Belushi’s death, and then they said that it was also the birthday of the oreo cookie.

“Speaking of oreos, can someone please explain to me the whole ‘resealable package’ thing?  I never reseal.  I open and I inhale.”

We couldn’t stop laughing, mostly because it was 1:30 in the morning.
Last night I attended a DIFFERENT kind of birthday celebration. Every year, the LDS Relief Society celebrates the birthday of Relief Society. This year, we gathered all three wards together. I love it when we do that. I was raised on the “other” side of town, and I miss seeing many of the ladies from my old home ward. Why is it that they only live two miles away but I never see them? We’ll meet by chance in the city and laugh at how it seems like we have to leave Joseph City to actually see people who live on the other side of town.
In any case, we were able to eat dinner together.
The tables were decorated adorably -red gingham squares over white tablecloths. A basket full of bread (a combination of fry and corn) and an oil lamp served as the centerpiece. Our dinner was stew served from a crock pot, we ate out of tall pie tins and drank from mason jars.
It was like country heaven.

Before dinner, we were able to check out a display. I added a few items to the display, and I feel really dumb about it now. In hindsight, I can see they needed HAND MADE items. My hot pad and washcloth were handmade, but the aprons I set up? Machine y handmade. I don’t think anyone really cared.
As I started looking at all of the displays, I realized there was some FAMILY HISTORY involved, and I kicked myself for not bringing my camera. I did the next best thing and pulled my phone out.
These white shirts belonged to my great-great grandmother. How TINY!

I think this dress was my great-grandmothers, but I could be completely wrong. I’m often completely wrong.

After I took pictures of family history worthy things, I found I couldn’t stop… there was endless inspiration! My favorite piece was this quilt:

The bright colors! I want something like this for my living room. I was planning on making a colorful granny square quilt, but after seeing that quilt I thought I might try it. I’m awful at quilting, by the way.

This blanket is one I could TOTALLY make. It was made from old suits. I’ve always held powder blue suits in high esteem, but the idea of chopping one up and using it for a quilt makes me dizzy with excitement. If I can’t get away with WEARING one, I’ll sleep with one instead! Oh, forgive me. That sounded sinful.

There was a giant quilt made by my great-grandfather’s sister when she was in her 90’s.

And it looks like:

After looking at the amazing displays, we were able to sit and view a slide show depicting past Relief Society Presidents in Joseph City. Again: I took a couple of pictures.
This is a photograph of my great-grandmother’s grandmother. My great-great-great? Follow? Incidentally, my great-grandmother was best of friends with my husband’s great-grandmother. They died and we got married. I like to think they had something to do with our meeting.
Anyway:

She served as the Relief Society President for 17 years! Couldn’t you just die? 17 years!
This is a different great-grandmother.

She held the calling twice, and isn’t she just GORGEOUS?! I love her! She’s the great-grandmother I am named after.
After the slideshow (and dessert -Texas Sheet Cake!) I helped take things down from the wall. As my hands caressed the beautiful creations, I couldn’t help but pull my phone out AGAIN.
One piece in particular held me captivated for longer than I’d like to admit. Because it’s a flour sack.

There’s something different about flour sack towels from decades ago. They seem more… I don’t know, sturdy? Mine are great, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think they’re going to last through the ages. The embroidery on the towel made me want to sit on my couch in a clean living room (ha, if I’m sitting around, the living room WON’T be clean) on a nice sunny day and embroider.
So, this summer, I think I will.
Embroidery is “in” right now, you know. Have you perused Anthropologie lately? Well, me neither. But I have seen their embroidered flour sack towels advertised in Country Living Magazine.

photo via HERE

I also spotted some flannel sweaters for infants. They were handmade AND embroidered.

Aren’t they to DIE for?! Can you imagine how much they would sell for? When I was a little girl, I took dance lessons (they did me NO good, by the way. I’m absolutely hopeless) and as I was looking at the little sweaters, my old dance teacher walked by and said, “Aren’t these adorable? They’re just so fun to make when you’re in that fun nesting phase of pregnancy.”
Oh how right she is. It is so much FUN to sit and make something and think about the baby that you’re making it for! Thank goodness we don’t have to be pregnant to do it! There are pregnant women EVERYWHERE! We can make them some of those sweaters! In any case, just looking at those little sweaters and the beautiful flour sack towel, I longed for 1949. I often do.

Don’t you ever want to take it back to then? Don’t you ever want to plug your cell phone in and leave it on the wall so it can’t pester you when you’re outside doing yardwork? Granted you can CHOOSE to do that, but more often than not, I keep my phone with me constantly per habit and for safety.
I should say: for safety and per habit. Safety is more important than habit.

I miss the simplicity of the days before we knew about triglycerides and the internet. I miss the days of actual books instead of ebooks. I miss the styles, the class, the social skills… and I miss the divorce rate.
As it is, the present isn’t total hell.
But I do think I’ll forfeit my internet for a few weeks this summer in exchange for an embroidery hoop.

As brand newlyweds, we slept wrapped up in each other’s arms every night. Before you go getting mushy (or barfing, whichever comes first) please know that it was NOT purely out of love… it was more like absolute necessity. All we had was a twin mattress. Our landlord happened to walk in our studio apartment and see what we were sleeping on. He immediately retrieved the full-sized bed from their family guest room and loaned it to us, much to his wife’s dismay. It turns out her mother was coming into town the next month. We promised to find a bed before then, and we did. For $40 we were able to get a queen-sized mattress, box spring, head board, foot board and bed frame. It was like Christmas! We set it up in our apartment and felt like royalty. And then we laid down. The bed creaked and moaned and felt like… plywood.
We laughed it off because we were just happy to have a bed.
Then I got pregnant and the plywood feeling WASN’T so laughable anymore. As the years wore on, my husband kept swearing on his aching neck and back that HE WOULD buy a mattress! Two pregnancies later, I had mastered the art of the creaking plywoodesque mattress. I didn’t mind it, and truth be told: I sleep like a baby on the floor. But any normal person would hate the mattress like my husband did.
Every year at tax return season he tried to squirrel enough away for his coveted mattress. Every year, something more pressing came up.
This year? He made it happen. And I’m still a little dazed by it all.
It went a little something like:

The mattress he had his eye on was an hour and a half away. He got off work late and we didn’t leave town until 6:30 PM. The store we needed to get to closed at 9 PM. We had to drive 60 mph to keep from wrecking our Jeep Cherokee and flat bed trailer. Man, this is starting to read like a fifth grade story problem.
Anyway, we got to the store 45 minutes before closing time. As we picked out a mattress, I tried to convince my husband to get a queen. He went into the store with one mind-set: get a plush pillow top King sized mattress.
It took me a few minutes to convince him that while a plush pillow top might be nice for ONE night, it wouldn’t be nice for every night. I also explained to him that were we to get the plush pillow top, I’d be a regular at the back cracker doc.
We went for something more firm -something with more support. And as all ladies know: more support is ALWAYS better.
Something else all ladies know? When it comes to size, men are a force to be reckoned with… you will not win any argument.
“King!” He cried.
“But queen,” I reasoned. I pled with him to consider: we already have a queen sized head board. We already have queen sheets… not to mention the $170 we would save.
He told me getting a queen would be a waste of money since we were GOING to get a king eventually anyway.
I told him I didn’t agree. I told him I didn’t want to do it, but that the decision was his. He obviously cared more than I did.
And guess what?

We got that king mattress. I bought the absolute cheapest sheets I could and still had to fork over $36 for them. We got home at 1:30 AM. I was exhausted. My husband was determined.
“I didn’t come all this way to sleep on that old mattress! Let’s get it outta here!”
Oh, by the way, there’s a free mattress on my porch. Tell your friends. Be sure to warn them about how soft it isn’t.

So at 1:30 AM, we made the switch. As it all played out (and my husband’s wedding band somehow made an appearance from behind the head board prompting my husband to say “THERE it is!” and me to say, “When were you going to tell me you lost that?”) my husband started to realize something… the bed was enormous.
He wriggled our free-standing bed frame out farther and farther… each notch not quite far enough. Finally, after pushing it out as far as it would go, he scratched his head.
“I didn’t think it was this big…”
As we hauled the box springs and mattress in, I again thanked Jillian Michaels for working me like a mule. We unwrapped them and laid them down, and then I shot my husband a look that MIGHT have killed him had it not been 3 AM at that point.
“Are you mad?” He sheepishly asked.
“A little,” I sighed, “I mostly love you, but babe. You gotta remember that my input CAN be valid.”
And then we both turned our gaze on our new monstrosity of a mattress… it seems to swallow up the better part of our room, leaving little room for well, anything that needs doing outside of a mattress… like LIVING.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “We can take it back.” I didn’t think it was possible, but my glare got meaner.
After ALL THAT, we are NOT taking the monster back. And come pregnancy, I’ll be a happy camper since I tend to sleep the better part of 9 months away.

Men…

I used to pride myself on being a low-maintenance woman. Aaaaand then I turned into putty in my husband’s hands when he had 12 roses delivered to me.
It turns out I LOVE having flowers delivered. Pricey wife, I am.

I do still take some pride in the fact that I’m not a full-fledged high-maintenance woman. For example, I don’t buy things for myself, um, ever. UNLESS my husband gifts me with a gift card and ORDERS me to use it.

This week, I hit a point where I just wished for roughly $1,000 to spend frivolously on myself.
The last time I bought jeans, I bought them at Savers. They don’t fit quite right, and let’s face it: they were half way to their grave when I bought them.
My legs are not easy to shop for. They are SO LONG, and jean shopping was the cross my father hereditarily (not a word) handed to me.
“Here, daughter, these are for you,” he said and then somewhere between 4th and 6th grade?
*BAM*
My legs started growing, and growing and growing and growing. I love my legs, really. But shopping for them? I’d sooner wear skirts every dang day of my life than go jean shopping.
Long jeans are so pricey! Cute long jeans? Sheesh. But if I had $1,000?
I’d buy a few pair in a heart beat.

These are $57 from DownEast Basics. I need to branch my fashion out a little. About 1/2 of my entire wardrobe is DownEast clothes I bought on sale or clearance.  But when you’ve got a good thing, why stray?
The other half is used stuff I’ve picked up from Goodwill, yard sales, and the free clothing swap the church does every year.
But back to these:

36″ inseam? come to Mama!

I’d also get my hairs done again. Remember back in August when I went to a retreat for women? Remember how I saved for an entire year to go with my mom? I absolutely loved that retreat, and I love what they did to my hair! I have a card that has the formula the girl used to do my hair, and I have an Aveda salon just over an hour away! It’s just… I don’t have $200 to cover the cost of it all. BUT if I had $1,000, I’d get my hair done again. I’d also buy all of the products to go with it. Haven’t you ever wanted to do that? I’d also get a massage while I was there. Because I could.

As it stands, I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t even trimmed my hair since August. Ouchies.

The last thing I would do with that money? Buy a fancy-pants printer -an HP printer that doesn’t eat my ink, that prints without jamming up every time and one that treats me like a lady.
Whatever cash was left would be spent on my house. Which isn’t actually MY house but my DAD’S house that we rent from him.
There’s so many improvements I’d love to make, but they’re not necessary. They’re just the kind that haunt you when you’re a stay-at-home mom who spends  entire days in the same house.
I get itchy to improve! improve! improve!
I think it’s a woman thing.
Just ask any husband out there.

Speaking of husbands.
I just asked mine what he would do with $1,000. He grinned like a little boy.
“Save it. Then when I had enough, I’d buy me a big fat TV.” He then made a sound effect and pretended to plaster a giant TV on the wall of our modular home (that, remember, is a rental).

Obviously if either of us had $1,000 we’d hoard it and save it for a house.
*sigh*
Making mature decisions can be SUCH a downer. On second thought: thank goodness we don’t have $1,000.

Anyway.
What would you do with $1,000? Don’t give me a mature decision answer, either. Give me your frivolous answer.

I love tuna.

I realize tuna gets a bad rap, and truth be told: I never order tuna when I’m eating out. Who does? I don’t know a single person on earth who orders tuna when they eat out. But there must be people who DO because they haven’t taken it off the menu anywhere. Yet, anyway.

My husband hates tuna.

Because I want to please him and make him the hap-happiest man of them all, I just quit buying it. I once bought a few boxes of tuna helper and when I pulled them out of the grocery sack was met with distinct face from my husband… it’s his grossed-out face. I don’t think it’s changed much from 1982.
“Babe, really?”

Babe. Really.

He isn’t a helper-snob. In fact, he requests Hamburger Helper ALL of the time, and then I’m the one turning up my nose.
“Babe, really?”

Babe. Really.

I had Hamburger Helper SO much growing up that I’d just as soon eat, well, TUNA than ground beef! It’s true, dang it. But, again: I want to make him happy. So after 3 years, or so, when the boxes of Tuna Helper had finally been all used up… I quit tuna. And then I grew up a little, realized that if I loved tuna and wanted tuna, he could get over it.

Then I went bulk on that bizznass. I went to SAM’S CLUB (my favorite place in the shopping world, retail and pet stores included) and I bought 10 cans of tuna fish. And then I bought two boxes of club crackers. I didn’t have to worry about the Mayo or relish situation because (you guessed it) my husband hates sweet relish.

Sometimes I wonder how we even MAKE it together.  I won’t even get started on how much I love sour cream and how much he hates it.  Or how much he loves guacamole and how much I’d rather slit my own wrists than be compelled to eat anything avacadoish.

I digress:
For the past two weeks, I’ve been basking in a wonderful sort of Tunaissance. My husband has even stooped to eating tuna sandwiches on occasion and, since I omitted the sweet relish on his part, refrained from up-chucking.
Want to know how much tuna is left in my pantry? One. Stinking. Can.
In 14 days, I have eaten 9 cans of tuna.

In the smack-dab middle of one of these cans, I told my husband about my rule of not ordering tuna when I’m eating out. He told me he has the same rule.
“Why?” I asked, “What’s your reason?” I don’t know why I asked because I really already KNEW the answer. He hates tuna. I sometimes think I ask pointless questions for the sole sake of hearing (read: MAKING) him speak. I like to hear his innermost thoughts, even if they center around the all-revealing subject of tuna fish.
“It makes you dumb,” He shrugged while I nearly choked on my cracker.
“WHAT?!”
“You know, tuna makes you dumb.”
“I’ve never heard that.” I laughed.
“I thought everyone had heard that.”
“No,” I shook me head.
“Well why don’t you order it?” He asked.
“I just assume I’ll get food poisoning.”
“Why?”
Oh, please. Like I need to explain myself to the person who once heard sometime from someone, somewhere that eating tuna makes you stupid.

Anyway, I googled it. Tuna DOESN’T make you dumb. They researched it.

In happy news, I’m headed to Sam’s club in the near future for my bi-weekly shopping. Guess what’s on the tip top of the shopping list?

After publishing today’s post, I checked my email. My mother had just emailed me a quote that aligned perfectly with today’s post. I read it, wrote it out, and copied it onto my hacked up piano-turned-chalkboard.

“Another way to wake is to accept who we are, imperfect but unique. Once you realize that since the beginning of time there’s never been anyone like you, that the world will never again be touched by that very voice which is yours, by just these views, by this special tenderness, this particular insight, you will not want to spend your life following others. Look for the glimpse of your true self. Spend time alone: identity is found in silence and solitude. Risk fulfilling what you really are.”
~Reader’s Digest, Nov. 1977

Now. I’ve googled the crap out of this quote to find it’s original source -the full article it originally came from. I can not find it. My apologies.
Enjoy the quote anyway, won’t you?