I’m flying my freak flag again

There is more…I knew it… to put on my freak flag.  I love junk mail.  Well, really just the catalogs.  The other stuff, like credit card applications I could do without.  For some reason catalogs give me some strange sense of comfort.  Maybe it stems from when I was a kid, pouring all over the Toys-r-us catalogs, dreaming and drooling.  Now as an adult, I do the same and I get to window shop without leaving my home, um, minus the drooling.

Just the other day I got a big treat.  There were two catalogs in my mailbox on the same day!  Yahoo!  I had some good reading material.

What I get a kick out of in the wonderful catalogs are the numerous T-shirts with various sayings on them.  I have no desire to own or wear any of them, but none the less, I do enjoy them.  So here are my favorite T-shirt sayings, yet another quilt square on my freak flag:

• “just be happy I’m not a twin”
• “Don’t make me get the flying monkeys!”
• “National Sarcasm Society…like we need your support”
• “You probably don’t recognize me without my cape” (I would wear that one on Halloween)
• “I like cats I just can’t eat a whole one by myself”
• “Everything I say is fully substantiated by my own opinion”
• “I respect your opinion even though I think mine is better”
• “Almost as smart as my phone”
• “No earpiece no cell phone I really am talking to myself!”
• “Powered by bacon” (I just might wear that one especially if it was cheese)
• “Handyman’s rule: Cut to fix, beat into place” (It all makes sense now)
• “I’m not bossy, you just can’t take direction”
• “So far this is the oldest I’ve ever been”
• “Never be afraid to try something new.  Remember, amateurs built the Ark.  Professionals built the Titanic”
• “Work for God.  The retirement benefits are great!”
• “I like small furry animals…with fries on the side…small coke…”

Halloween spookies

This is the day to celebrate the scary.  I began to think about what I am scared of.  Aside from the serious stuff, like cancer, car accidents, or being victims of natural disasters, I wondered what are my other fears, you know, the stupid fears? 

I never really was afraid of spiders until I took a first aid class.  In that class, the instructor, who I am sure had a phobia of spiders, really scared the begeezes out of me about Hobo spiders.  Now, I am scared of  vicious eight legged biting spiders who carry their gonads on their heads.  That is by the way, one way to detect whether they are genuinely a Hobo or not.  I dunno, they all look pretty goofy to me!

I am scared of encountering skunk in the night, well okay, anytime of the day.  I am scared of face-ripping-off-ferrets who make their home in my garage.  Oh, and I am of course scared of rattlesnakes, which I haven’t seen one yet in this area, where they are supposed to be.  I am also scared of stepping in the deer poo that our backyard is riddled with, or that my two-year old will think that they are a bunch of little balls and play with it.

I used to be scared of the wind.  It isn’t so bad anymore… well until a tree fell through my brother’s house.  Thankfully all are well, and now I am glad that we cut our trees down before they got a chance to blow over.  I am scared of lightning.  You are sure to find me under the bed with the dog when there is a storm because I know those bolts are going to seek me out like  heat seeking missiles.  Well, I am not that bad… but you won’t see me out in the open, or sitting outside on a metal lawn chair during a storm like some people I know. 

I get scared when people come up behind me and grab me, which never ends up well.  I usually end up giving a pretty good wallop, fueled with pure fear-induced adrenaline, and with excellent aim. 

I have a fear of saying dumb things.  That fear constantly comes true, unfortunately.  I don’t know what it is, but I cannot get common idioms straight and subconsciously find all kinds of ways to creatively, and embarrassingly mess them up.    Generally, I try to stay away from them.

I fear spit coming out of my mouth, or snot coming out of my nose when I talk to someone.  I fear  something even worse.  Something bigger… public farting!  You know, those sneakers that come without warning.  It is hard now that my kids are getting older.  I can’t blame it on the baby anymore.  Just kidding.  I don’t really do that… public farting… ha!  Oh, and I am worried about being in front of a whole college class with my pants zipper down.  Wait.  I did that already!

So tell me, we are all human.  What are your stupid fears?  Common… you know you have some.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Moonshine

A few weeks ago, one of my kids brought home the book Pumpkin Moonshine.  My eyebrow immediately went up in suspicion… was that a children’s recipe book for making strong, illegal alcohol?  What the heck?  After reading the book, I realized it was either an old way of calling a jack-o-lantern, or it is a regional name.  Not a region that I am from, obviously.  The book was copyrighted in 1938, and was first checked out of the school library two years before I was born!  Now, that is an old book! 

We spent our afternoon making pumpkin moonshines.  I love to watch each individual child’s way of attacking the job.  Two out of three kids couldn’t stand the slimy insides.  One of the kids (the boy) figured that he could pour the goo into a bowl… that didn’t work.  The other (a girl) pouted…um that worked.   Mom came along and did the dirty work for her.  I know I shouldn’t have given into the emotional sit-in, but I so desperately wanted to make this a fun activity, not a lesson in behavior. 

I love the shape of this pumpkin.  It looks like a skull. 

The skin on this one was really tough!  The half-moon shapes to the sides of the mouth are cheeks.  I love how creative kids are.  The teeth look like hobo teeth.

We have an abstract artist in the family!  This is a two-year old’s interpretation of a jack-o-lantern.  There is a really big circle and a smaller circle next to each other which are eyes.  The triangle is a nose, and the line below of course, is the mouth.  What gets me is that you can’t see it too well here, but there is another big circle to the side… maybe another eye?  Then, the little guy seemed to really enjoy stabbing the poor pumpkin with his kid-safe carving knife.  Should I be worried?

Let nature take its course

Two of my long time ponders have come together recently.  I have been thinking a lot about immune systems, more now especially because of the H1N1 virus lurking about.  Seemingly healthy people are dieing from that virus.  That got me thinking about my own family.  Just recently I took our two year old to the ER and discovered that he had the beginnings of pneumonia.  He is all healed up now, in case you are wondering.  He is the third out of the five of us who now has had that nasty ailment.

I started to look for a common pattern.  Our middle child gets sick from time to time, but really, has an amazing immune system and is usually very healthy.  I am the same.  Neither of us have had pneumonia.  The common factor that we share is that we both sucked our thumbs when we were  younger.  The other three did not.  Granted, I strengthened my immune system while working  with children for 18 years, but still, I think there really is something there.  When I worked with children, oddly enough, the ones who were very oral and stuck everything in their mouths were actually very healthy.  The common theory now days, is that when people get sick, they get really sick because our environment is too clean, not giving our immune systems a chance to fight off germs and get strong for when a really big and bad virus comes along… like the H1N1.  My theory is that thumb suckers and toy tasters constantly introduce their immune systems with germs, making it stronger.

My second long term ponder is I have noticed that we tend to have social rules that encourage going against the grain of nature.  For example, waking children up from sleep because for some reason it is just “time” to get up, preventing valuable brain development.  Or those silly baby products that claim to enhance baby’s development, but in reality, harms the development.  There is a reason why nature has baby develop in certain stages, yet we have to have baby walkers that disrupt the natural system, therefore creating problems.   The new “thing” are silly little rubber-like chairs (I don’t remember what they are called) that are supposed to teach baby how to sit on their own, long before they are ready.  I am not sure why we have to hurry our kids along, possibly because we selfishly need our babies to develop faster and smarter than everyone else’s, but that major pet peeve of mine is a whole other (very long) blog entry. 

So, how does this all intersect?  Well, when I was a kid, and even now with our middle child, society frowned on thumb-sucking.  For some reason we figure that thumb-sucking is bad and we force our kids to give it up before they are ready.  Again, we mess with nature and it creates problems.  When the child could be building the immune system, they are actually missing a great opportunity when forced to give the habit up.  Even the very popular psychologist, Freud believed that when the natural progression of development is disturbed, or even omitted, then problems in adulthood will arise… but again, that is another blog entry.  Granted, I think that there are things in nature that should be changed for the sake of better development, or health in children, but in terms of thumb-sucking… let nature take its course.

Another of Laura’s life’s lessons…

When you purchase a new and fairly popular vehicle, memorize the license plate.  You never know when you walk out of a well known grocery store only to find four of the same kind of van to choose from.  If you don’t memorize the plate, and this happens to you, and your husband is waiting in the vehicle, lets hope he is nice and waves you down instead of hysterically laughing as he watches you act totally confused while trying to find the right one!

Words, words, wonderful words, part II

I have been thinking a lot about how powerful words are when it comes to selling products.  This deep thinking started when I noticed, while taking a shower, that one of my shower gel bottles had the label, “for adult use only”.  I wondered what exactly did that mean?  Putting aside my first thought that it was growth stunting, therefore not good for children… but good for adults.  Who wouldn’t want to stunt the growth of the extra tire?  Something that most adults worry about acquiring on the midriff.  I concluded what it really meant.  It was all a trick to suck people into buying something so-called special, just for themselves.  It was designed to make adults, mainly women, to believe it was something to help get them away from the kids and treat themselves to a nice, especially good, smelly, relaxing shower.  That particular bottle of soap was a gift, so I don’t know if the words would have worked on me or not if I were to actually purchase it.

There are all sorts of adjectives that suck us in: Juicy, light, surprisingly wonderful, low fat, simple, slimming, fresh, free, large, unbeatable and delicious (that’s for you Anne and Kirstin).  Get this, one of my body cream bottles is called, “without a care, cream”.  Haha! I really like that one; reverse psychology.  These are all wonderful words,well, almost all if you don’t like the word delicious.  All designed to entice even the toughest customer.

Then I wonder if the sale of the product is so enticing after all.  Some things just pass over my head until I stop and ponder… now just what are we supposed to think that means?  For example, I noticed the other day, a commercial that I have seen over and over again, but didn’t really soak in what they were trying to say.  The catch phrase was, “we captured it at the exact peak of freshness”.  You know, that sounds good at first… fresh food, yummy and extra healthy.  But when you start really thinking about it, how do you capture things at the exact peak of freshness?  How do you know it is actually at the peak of freshness?  If the peak of freshness is right at the moment of harvest, then how on the earth can it be at its peak of freshness after being processed, packaged and sent to the grocery store? And then, if it is at the peak of freshness at harvest, the very next moment is the beginning of the rotting process.  Ew.  So, they got it at the peak of freshness when they harvested it, then they proceed to sell rotting food.  Now that commercial doesn’t sound so good after all.

Another “thinker” was an advertisement that would say, “our hard to find locations are at…”.  I had to listen to that one over and over again.  I wasn’t sure if I was really hearing that right.  If you want someone to come to your store, wouldn’t you try to make it easy to find?  The same company, a mattress store, used the saying, “it’s not too late to sleep like a baby”.  What the hey?  Anyone who has had a baby knows how a baby actually sleeps, and will run, run, run away from that store!  If they guarantee that you sleep like a baby on their mattresses, that means you will wake up every 2 to 3 hours!  Nope, that doesn’t sound so good either.

There have been some double-take kind of commercials, like the bread commercials… the ones where the bread is baked by their master bakers.  Wait… what did they just say?  Maybe I really don’t want master bakers baking my bread… it sounds questionable. 

While I am on the negative side of the advertising words realm, how about the guilt trips or the threats?  You know, “limited time only” don’t miss”, “you must”.  Or rather, “you better not miss your chance or you will be sorry!”  It’s like you are stupid if you don’t participate; or you are sure to end up with a black eye if you ignore them.  I also get a little lost when the ad says, “your choice”.  Huh?  If I want to buy something, isn’t it usually my choice?  What if it wasn’t my choice?  Would that mean that I had to buy something that I really didn’t want because it wasn’t my choice?

What really hooks me is in, is the humorous commercials.  Now, who wouldn’t be sucked in by “no bull” and “trunk monkey”?

Sometimes the packaging has to be fixed, well, maybe just simplified a little more, or rather laura-fied.  I must have been really tired one morning because again, as I was taking a shower I was reading the shampoo bottle and read that it was special for mula.  Who or what the heck was mula?  I stood there for a long time trying to figure it out.  DUH!!! what it really said was, “special FORMULA”!  There must have been just enough of a space between the first two sylables for me to make that mistake.  Shesh.

So, what have I learned from all of this?  Well, it’s that I watch way too much TV, read too much in the shower, and think way too much about silly things!  Life is fun!

A totally rad weekend

Let me explain the title.  One of the reasons that I had a totally rad weekend is because I went to a 80’s theme party this weekend.  For those who don’t know, the word “rad” was an 80’s term for excellent, or wonderful.  It is amazing how much I have forgotten about the 80’s.  It was a hard time for me, especially the early 80’s.  I am one that has a problem with big change and moving from New Zealand to the States in ‘81 was a big, big change.  The 80’s is when I had the most trouble with my migraines.  Thankfully, anti-inflammatories such as Morin was made available in the 90’s and I can function normally now.  There were also good things about the 80’s that were dug out from the dusty archives in the far back part of my brain.  My friend from high school, the hostess of the party, had poster boards hanging on her wall with questions asking what our favorite bands, movies, and shows were in the 80’s.  We generated a long, fun list… thanks to a walking encyclopedia of a friend of ours.  Depeche Mode and Erasure were my favorite bands… and still are.  I still love the movie Overboard, although I think that I discovered that movie way after the 80’s were over.  One of my favorite shows was Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and my favorite cartoon was the Smurfs… funny little shirtless, blue creatures.

We were to dress the part for the party.  I lacked creativity and wore my highschool senior shirt.  It was funny, I got the same reaction over and over again, “you still have that shirt?” as if I was a senior hundreds of years ago!  Come on people, I am not that old!  I did have to wash the shirt though… wearing a shirt that hadn’t been washed in twenty plus years smelled a bit funky.  I was amazed with how many styles we sported in that decade.  At the party, we had a Madonna-like style, a preppy couple, someone with a mullet/puffy hair style, and a student-look directly from the show, The Facts of Life.  There was a person who put a penny in his loafer… he only had one penny, if he had another, he would have put one in each shoe.  The gal who dressed in the Madonna style, wore leg warmers… remember those?  Oh, I loved mine.  They kept my legs nice and warm in the winter.

Before the totally rad 80’s party, we had a totally awesome time at Bauman Farms, which is what I call an agri-theme park/farm.  For those who don’t know what the place is, it is a Farm that has a very nice, popular market year round, and they grow or make most of their products.  They also have a huge harvest festival in October.  I have been going to the harvest festival every year for a long time now, even when it is about 180 miles away from our new home.  Every year they grow and have something new upon the old, loved activities.  The new thing this year was the great pumpkin weigh-off, and the pumpkin drop.  I must say, the pumpking drop was a blast to watch!  The pumpkin drop was when a huge pumpkin was picked up by a helicopter, and was dropped into a pool of water and rubber ducks.  Previous to the drop, people purchased a duck to float in the pool.  Each duck had a number on the bottom.  Whatever duck flew the furthest when the pumpkin dropped, won a prize.  The money raised was donated to the Make-A-Wish foundation.  I swear that the activities were planned by an oversized boy.  The cool thing about almost all of the activities is that all ages can enjoy them.  This is not a festival designed for parents to just take their kids to.  It is designed for parents to take their kids and play along with them.  Here is a list of some of the activities we participated in:

• Apple cannon and apple slingshot.  We actually didn’t do the cannon, but they are side to side and are both cool.  The idea is to shoot apples at a target far out in a field.  If the apple shoots through a hole on the target, then there is a prize.  We didn’t win anything.  It sounds easier than it is.

• Zip line.
• Castle hay maze.  Made out of mostly bails of hay.
• Pedal carts.  That is a fancy way of saying tricycles for grown-ups and big kids.  They go crazy fast too!
• Jumping Pillow.  This is my favorite, although I am sooo sore, still.  It is a HUGE blow-up pillow, and is meant for jumping on.  It is funny to see the kids fly around on it when adults get on it and jump.
• Animal Zone.  This is pretty much a petting zoo.  The fun part about this is that the goats have a walking track that goes clear above everyone’s heads from the barn and into another pasture.
• Frontier Fort and Gopher Hole.  This was one of our little guy’s favorite things.  It is a smaller version of an old fort.  A few years ago when we still lived in Salem, we fantasized making one of these in the back yard.  The gopher hole is made from a plastic irrigation pipe buried in dirt, making it an underground slide going from the top level of the fort to ground level outside of the fort. 
• Hay rides that lead out to the pumpkin patch and the corn maze.

• Kids zone.  A huge slide made out of more irrigation pipes, swings hung from the barn rafters, big boxes full of hazelnuts and another of grains for the little guys to play in, and a small hay maze.
• Dark Hay Maze.  I went in this maze once, years ago.  I have never gone again.  It scares me.  It is dark, and I fear that I may not see the world ever again, however, people seem to get out of there eventually.  Roger and our oldest went though, and they got out.  Whew.
• Obstacle course.  This course really gets the blood flowing.  There is a lot of climbing and crawling.  This is where a horizontal motorized rolling pipe is located.  I tell you, a woman of my age has no business being in it!  I was tossed around in that thing like a rock in a rock-tumbler.  Yet another thing that I thought I would never get out of.
• Pumpkin weigh off and pumpkin drop.

• Teepee and peace drum.  The kids got to drum away.  It was actually quite therapeutic.
• Pumpkin checkers.  We didn’t actually do this, but I thought it was pretty cool.
• Carved giant pumpkin in progress.  The carver was taking a break when we were there.

I love the following photo…. a friendly reminder as you exit:

Head count!

Finally, here’s a map of the whole fun place…

The bright side of life… I like it there

Although I am a strong type A personality, I am still an optimistic, positive person.  For the most part, I see the bright side of situations quite naturally.  That, you may say, is my way to survive emotionally, not that I have had a tough life at all.   I have had an awesome life so far, it has had some bumps here and there, but who hasn’t?  I have found that things are a lot easier to deal with when you can find the silver lining, the positive side of life.  What always hangs above my head is a story that I heard when I was a teen.  It was about a young farmer long ago who finally became of age to fight in a battle, but when it was time to go to battle, he broke his leg.  The young man was devastated that he could not go to battle with his comrades.  Life was not bad for him for long when he soon discovered that the entire battalion that he was supposed to be in, was killed.  It turned out that breaking his leg, rendering him unable to go to battle was actually a blessing in disguise.  I do admit when something bad, really bad happens, it is very hard to find the silver lining, but there is likely to be one there, waiting to be found.

It is especially good when you can find humor in every situation.  One of my very good friends taught me that… or rather helped wake that up in me.  I think that I had it all along.  She and I were co-workers and at times would have up to 8 infants to take care of at one time.  That job is not an easy one when there are 8 little bodies with 800 needs, but I must say, working with her was the best time of my employed life.  We were both given the gift to laugh about even the smallest  things.  When one toddler came running out of the bathroom  trailing toilet paper clear across the main room, we laughed.  When another had a temper tantrum on the floor, we didn’t stress out, as we very well could have.  We would escape to an inconspicuous place and crack up!  I also remember when I was in high school, I was far from popular, maybe closer to the nerd status.  I ended up in a discussion group in english class that was to last the whole week.  The first day in that group started with a very popular guy making verbal jabs at me.  I responded not with negativity, but by small attempts at humor.  By the end of the week that guy was nice to me, and it seemed to me that I was accepted into his realm of someone who was just okay.  A much better place to be.

I have come across people from time to time who seem to dwell in negativity.  The world is after them, so they think.  I feel so sad and sorry for them.  What hell it must be to live a life in constant, heavy darkness.  It’s not for me.  I am sticking with my silver lining and my hidden humor.

Two-year-old logic, suggestion #1

When you are a two year old boy, and you are really mad with your mother, what do you do to get revenge?  Well, do a complete belly flop from the standing position into the dirt in the backyard of course!  The success rate?  Well, that depends on what reaction you are looking for.  If you are looking for the upset and rage reaction, just like yours, well the success rate is very low.  If you are looking for first, the jaw drop in amazement look, then the complete confused look, and finally the hysterical laugh reaction, then the success rate is very high.  But first, consider this… what the heck are you thinking?  That must hurt!  Sulking in the corner is way less taxing.  Oh, boys, boys, boys!!!

Words, words, wonderful words

What’s in a word?  I dunno, but  what I do know is that there are some that I enjoy more than others.  I like the sound of splurge.  I don’t know if the meaning has anything to do with it.  It just rolls off the tongue and sounds pretty goofy.  Speaking of goofy, I remember a long time ago, my brother Ben  brought to my attention the word, “flibbertigibbet”.  Now that word is just plain roll on the floor funny.  The dictionary says it means, “a silly flighty person”.  Hmmm.  Maybe there is something to why I like that word… maybe it makes me laugh because I am one. 

Then there are words that are unpronounceable.  I am a strange one when it comes to that.  I can pronounce aluminum and cinnamon, words that are commonly difficult for others, but I have a very hard time pronouncing Aurora.  A name that sounds very close to my own… strange, huh? 

Then there is the way we use words.  I remember being quite perplexed with the ”heads up!” warning when something has been propelled at a very quick speed directly towards your head.  You would think that the smarter thing to yell is, “heads down!” or “cover your head… NOW!”.  What is the sense of yelling “heads up!”?  Unless you don’t like the person and want them to become vulnerable to the fast moving object.  Even “duck” is a wierd way to communicate, “look out!”.  Who thinks of that particular animal when you have to move out of the way?  It’s just like saying, “you eat like a bird”, meaning eating very little, when in fact a bird eats half their weight each day. 

I have gotten e-mails from time to time that address the issue of how we use words.  Like how we drive on parkways, and park on driveways.  I just got an e-mail the other day that questions why the word abbreviate is such a long word, or why does the person who invests all your money called a broker?  Another was: why do we call them appartements when they are all stuck together?  My favorite was: if con is the opposite of pro, then is congress the opposite of progress?

Words are so funny.  So, anyway, what words tickle your fancy?