Have a Nice Trip! See Ya Next Fall!

Before I begin this sordid little tale, a big HIGH FIVE to LORE for inspiration on the title! Thanks for the funny this morning.

Ahhhh, the second Thursday night of the month...YAY Bunko!!! I hadn't really been out since my surgery and was so very excited to have some time giggling with the girls! I knew I wasn't going to be able to stay and have some laughs the whole time, but you would be amazed how much I can fit into a short period of time.

I got to Liz's house and as usual the house was filled with exotic and delicious smells (Liz is a FAB-O cook, chef really). While the final preparations were going on, we chatted in the kitchen waiting for the stragglers and finding out if everyone was going to be able to make it.

People (except for those who were going to be really late) had arrived and the food was ready. After a blessing on the food, it was time to dig in! Curry chicken, yummy sauce, fruit, salad the works! I love bunko...really, it isn't about the game, it's about the food.

Because I am a separatist eater, I like to get my food relatively close to last. Before everyone thinks I am a food bigot, I like to mix my food too, just a little bit at a time. I have a sensitive palate...OKAY? I got a little of everything, neatly organized on my plate and began to head down the stairs to the group.

I made it down the first few stairs...NO PROBLEM. Somewhere in the middle, something went horribly wrong. I felt myself rapidly falling backwards and so like any normal person, I threw everything in the air, grasped for something to hold onto and then enjoyed the ride of my life on my bum.

THUD, THUD, THUD

I remember three hits to the tush, could be more, could be less. I was there, but wasn't planning on counting anything so I didn't.

And then I saw the mess in front of me. Food everywhere. Ice water covering the floor. A red plastic cup...but where the heck was the plate? It really did take me like two whole minute to find the plate. It was behind the chair near the open top lamp. Oooohhhhhh, that reminds me... Note to Liz: Check the lamp for bits of food.

Thank goodness for my friends who were overly concerned about my clumsy self. Thanks for the laughs. And thanks for loving me even though I am a total dork.

Lessons Learned
1. Ow.
2. I am SO grateful for my cushy bum.
3. Friends love you even when you are a dork....a really, really big dork.
4. Laughter (again) is really the best medicine.
5. When going to friends houses that have wood floors, wear gripper socks.

The Great Fruit Fly Invasion of 2009

Fruit flies are common, not so common you see them every day. Common enough, that the occasional piece of fruit gone bad (so sad) brings them out and annoy you until you have cleaned the mess and swatted at them until you are so irritated you can scream....and then they are gone.

Last week we asked Savannah to empty the garbage in one of the bathrooms. She had a fit because there were fruit flies around the garbage. World War Three ensued and eventually the Allies (Mom and Dad) won and Savannah took the garbage out of the house screaming that they were following her and somebody open the door.

I decided to go see how bad it was. It wasn't and then I lectured the kids about taking food upstairs and throwing food away in the garbage cans that WERE NOT emptied every day. After my superior lecture on the proper care of garbage, Noah and Baylee both looked at me and said, "Did you look up?" Huh?

I go back up to the bathroom, look up and find like millions, OKAY, hundreds of fruit flies. GROSS. I almost felt bad about Savannah screaming at that point. ALMOST.

So I opened the window, took off the screen and tried to shoo them out. It didn't work. No worries, I'm a fighter. I grabbed my environmentally friendly bottle of Windex made with vinegar and went after the buggers (get it? buggers).

After half a bottle of Windex, nearly an entire roll of paper towels and after 125 captured or killed, I stopped counting.

By that time I was a bit cheeky. In my best accent (of which I have none), I meandered around the bathroom telling the evil doers "Say 'ello to my leetle fren'." I would catch them, squish them and show them to the remaining fruit flies with the understanding that they were next.

Eventually, there were but two left...until I went into the other bathrooms. Savannah and Felix had been doing research at this point and found the best remedy for capturing fruit flies.

Put about a half inch of apple cider vinegar in a cup, cover REALLY TIGHTLY with plastic wrap and poke with small holes. Place the cup where the fruit flies gather and they will crawl through the holes and get trapped. On occasion, the nasty critters will find a way out, but overall there is a 90+% success rate.

AWESOME!!!

Lessons Learned
1. No one is eating upstairs again ever...especially fruit. Fruit is a kitchen only food.
2. The internet really DOES have all the information you could possibly imagine.
3. I think I may have a dark side when it comes to critter killin'.
4. We all have to do things we don't want to, but in this case I WANTED TO.
5. We are down to about 2 in the whole house and they don't have long to live!

I'll Save You!!!

I made a quick run to the grocery store. As usual, I was living in my own happy little world. I made my way to the car pondering the plight of the world. As I got closer to my car, I noticed a particularly still body, yes a body, in the car parked in front of me. Thinking that someone had left a child in the car (and having been in that situation before), I completely flipped out, grabbed my cell phone to call 911, and ran to the car.

Though it was only 15 feet away, I arrived breathless in anticipation of the horrid scene I would see. In a panick, I peered through the window and made eye contact with the glazed eyes of a lifeless mannequin.

Reality is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Wish you were here.

Lessons Learned

1. Being alert is good.
2. Pretending to be alert is bad.
3. I was just trying to help.
4. Thank goodness I didn't dial, but I WOULD HAVE.
5. There is no cure for stupidity.

It Might Be a Monday If...

It might be a Monday if...

...a friend wants to know who eats the 'bread butts' at your house.

...you find a corn cob holder (with the really long pointy things) in your bed.

...you receive a dissertation on why 1 is NOT plenty.

...you are bombarded with questions about the accuracy of pinpointing meteors and asteroids and their current trajectory towards earth (yes, he is 9).

...there is an argument over whether the earth revolves around a particular person OR the sun.

...you keep finding blown up pool rafts all over the house.

and finally, it might be a Monday if...

...you have to tell the 4 year old to take the underwear off of his head before he says prayer.

Lessons Learned

1. I suppose Monday has its' perks.
2. Still not a fan of Monday.
3. Maybe I need to find compassion for Monday. I mean, if I am this complainy, imagine how Monday feels when EVERYBODY hates it.
4. It is nice to know that humor doesn't pause on Monday.
5. I'm glad it's Tuesday.

Ten Reasons Why a Hospital Stay IS a Vacation

It was a given that Hawaii was just not an option this summer. With all of the broken people (me included), we really were just facing survival. However, I decided to make the best of a frustrating situation and decided that my surgery and way to brief hospital stay WAS my vacation.

Here's why:

10. Anesthesia is probably the best sleep you can get.
9. You don't have to cook.
8. You push a button and people ask you what you want instead of telling you to give them the remote.
7. You get to lay in bed and no one around you complains about it.
6. People bring you food on a schedule.
5. When you have visitors and you get tired, you just tell them it's the drugs and close your eyes...they go away.
4. Someone else cleans the bathroom.
3. All the diet coke (caffeine free, of course) you can drink...with the good ice.
2. Wearing a hospital gown means less laundry.
1. You ask for drugs and people BRING them to you.

All in all...vacation is, well, vacation is what you make it.

Lessons Learned
1. While I can turn it into a vacation, I wouldn't want to do it on a regular basis.
2. I'm still not gonna vacuum.
3. The world doesn't stop turning if the mommy doesn't do EVERYTHING!!!
4. Sometimes 'vacations' help people realize they are more capable than they think they are.
5. Sometimes 'vacations' help people realize they don't have to be everything, to everyone, all of the time.

1/2 a Tank of Gas and Intestinal Fortitude

Ahhh, another relaxing, quiet Sunday afternoon. Just what we needed. With how hectic this summer has been and the past two weeks in particular, a family drive sounded like a brilliant idea. BRILLIANT IDEA!!

We headed up American Fork Canyon, with the plan to do our usual Alpine Loop run. We decided to take a little detour and head towards Granite Flats, just to see the little reservoir. As we were turning around in the parking lot, Felix said, "Hey do you want to go down that road a little ways?" Sure, why not. It was rocky, bumpy and I had abdominal surgery 2 weeks ago, but SURE, let's do it.

We began to meander down the very rocky, very bumpy road and we turned it into an adventure by telling the kids we were on the lookout for the PERFECT camping spot. Everyone had their eyes peeled and we were finding all sorts of that beautiful nature stuff to point out to one another.

After about 45 minutes (maybe an hour), the roads got to be very narrow. Very few cars, and the only ones we did see were either Jeeps or those little Polaris, Honda 4 wheel drive golf carts. At first it was no big deal to pull off to one side and let the car on the outside pass. That is until we were on the outside, about 1000 up and I discovered my irrational fear of heights and falling to my death one death spiral down the canyon after another. Whatever.

After about the third time, I started bracing myself everytime we saw someone coming in the opposite direction. I pretty much stopped doing the whole courtesy wave thing because I decided everyone that was up here was either crazy or stupid...us included. I was still panicking (on the inside because I didn't want to freak the kids) even when we were only maybe 500 feet up from certain death.

After hour number two, we took a quick pit stop so the boys could christen the tires with their bodily fluids, while we girls suffered in silence. About 15 minutes later, we finally saw our first sign in a good solid hour. It had letters and arrows and everything! One arrow pointed to Midway, the other pointed to Cascade Springs. We took a quick poll and Cascade Springs won. There was a method behind this madness...the road went down. We were ready to go DOWN. Felix voiced his opinion that we should take the other road, but we were a democratic car at that point and the DOWNs had it. (Later on we would discover how absolutely right Felix was, and how ABSOLUTELY wrong the rest of the car was).

We headed down for some time and the road got narrower and narrower and narrower. Ummmm, just so you know, Durangos are VERY WIDE. We had a lovely view of DOOM and DESTRUCTION on one side and on the other we could have rolled our windows down and licked the mountain. Finally we reached an area where there was ALMOST a whole lane of road.

And around the corner came flying a couple of ATVs. Quick question...why would you ride an ATV with a cigarette in the middle of the forest? Just curious.

So we continued on our trek, we were very exited about all of our butterfly sightings and then the dirt turned red. And then we were back on rocks at a four way crossing. We stopped...we looked...we pondered. Two roads went down, one went up. Abandoning my previous theory of DOWN, I said the last sign we saw said this way to Cascade Springs. If we were supposed to turn, wouldn't there be another sign? So I won the battle and we went up. About 15 minutes later we came to a round about type of thing. And we all lost it. We had been in the car for almost three hours. We had no idea where we were, and no idea how to get out of where we were.

We decided to press forward. Nothing SCREAMS stress like a narrow road, trees and bushes careening into the car and looking down, very, very down. Then we came out of the trees, the kids started crying and we realized our car might be too wide for the bloody road. Okay, it was too wide for the bloody road. We paused and pressed on. I watched on one side, Felix watched the other, realized not the entire tire was on the road. GROOVY. Then we had the fun experience of driving on the side of the mountain to avoid a boulder, and yes, I was totally doing the whole 'Speed' (the movie) thing of everyone lean to the side so we don't tip over thing. About 2 minutes later we came to a switchback and 2 minutes after that we were on a paved road.

Two minutes after that we were at Cascade Springs. HALLE-FREAKING-LUJAH.

Lessons Learned
1. Don't take the family off-roading (especially the 84 year old grandma...SO WAY NOT FAIR to her when it is a surprise).
2. Durangos are not good off roading cars...too big.
3. I don't like heights unless I am in a controlled roller coaster type environment.
4. ADVENTURE SUCKS!!!!!
5. Being bland and boring really works for me.

I Didn't Know Peace Was Wet

So, I was really looking forward to alittle bit of downtime yesterday. I desperately needed it. With surgery looming tomorrow and the hectic events to prepare today, yesterday was supposed to be my 'IT' day. You know, low key, no big, no stress, no nothing. Welcome to my world, where classic definitions and reality collide. The Morgan family has its' own personal take on the Big Bang Theory...it is what happens around here on a daily basis.

After church, which was edifying and beautiful, we came home to settle down to a finger food lunch. One of those lunches where you each all of the little bits left in tater tot bags, taquito bags, pizza roll bags, etc. After lunch, we though we would hook up the media server and watch a flick with the kids.

As Felix was attempting to hook everything up and getting frustrated by the mere fact that nothing ever worked they way it was supposed too, we had to take the TV off the wall to check some connections and settings. Well of course we did. Which I decided was a perfect opportunity to move the bracket so that the TV was FINALLY centered on the wall.

After some fun with power tools, we get the TV all hooked up and back on the wall, go to try the server and realize we need the wireless keyboard. Felix goes into the storage closet to get it and out loud wonders why he is standing in an inch of water. Stupid pump on the AC tripped the GFI and stopped pumping...I'm thinking all sorts of asterisks and ampersands in my head right now instead of swearing...just so you know.

So long story short, we rip out the carpet, the pad, the tack boards, throw bleach all over the concrete floor and baseboards to kill anything that might be growing (FYI...no mold, just mildew) and set the fans. Sigh...really, really big sigh.

We leave our basement, dejected and sad, but realize that there is a heck of a lot worse out there. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but there is. We are PRETTY DANG lucky.

Lessons Learned
1. I am having to stretch on these, so be patient.
2. I will NEVER do another addition, EVER, even if I live in a VW van on the banks of the river.
3. I will NEVER do another pump...drains only.
4. I will find the bright side...which is new flooring...eventually.
5. I think as frustrating as this is, at least it makes for good story telling.