A Little Too Revealing?

I think I have stumbled upon what could be a breakthrough in the study of personality orders. Or perhaps in my case, the study of personality DISorders. (Calling Dr. Freud! Calling Dr. Freud! Emergency! Emergency! Come right away!) Read on.

We picked up a bit of salsa along with our take-out from Rubio's. Yeah, yeah. Back off. We really don't eat out that often. Remember this? Good job. Besides, on Wednesday's particular detour, we were simply trying to support the babe-a-licious American Fork Marching Band with the generous help of Rubio's. {Shout out!} So anyway. We came home with this funky salsa. And here's where things veered smack dab into what has to be a gleeful psychoanalyst's idea of heaven: We three musketeers each had a drastically different take on the aroma of the salsa. (By the by. Did you know that aromas can conjure up much more poignant stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks memories than even sight? Smelling that same odor I whiffed in the hallway that particular day in fifth grade at Rock Canyon Elementary brings memories of sad little Mark McK*** rushing back much stronger than seeing him again ever would. That poor janitor with his sawdust and mop. How did he bear up, I wonder?)

Here now are the very telling results of our funky salsa sniff test:

CHRISTIAN: "This smells a lot like coffee."

DAVE: "Nope. It smells kind of like Honey Smacks.

ME: "You're both wrong. It smells exactly like pot."

Sigmund? Your thoughts?

The. Best. Day. Ever.

As if I needed any more reminders of how extraordinarily kind and indulgent my newly minted high school senior is . . . wait a minute! JUST WAIT A DING DONG MINUTE! Huh? High school senior? How did that happen so soon? I never gave my a-okay for that to happen. I gotta speak to whoever is in charge here. Stop it. Just stop it. Right now. A high school senior? Really? Rats. Anyway, (a senior? seriously? pout, pout) he went and proved his awesomeness all over again by spending his very last day of freedom with his mama while looking at lots of purty flowers. And lots of grass. And lots of fountains. And lots of oldish bones. Because she wanted him to. And so he did. And he did it with a glad heart and a bright smile. And that's one of the reasons why I love him so.

Farmer Dave and His Harvest!

I don't know about ya'll, but I'm already stuffed right to the gills just looking at that bounty! I've got all sorts of plans for these two awesome carrots! Carrot cake! Carrot muffins! Carrot bread! Carrot coleslaw! Glazed carrots! Ginger carrots! Maple carrots! Goodness, who knows what else; I'm just giddy thinking about it all! Good job, Farmer Dave. Looks like you could teach the Jolly Green Giant a thing or two! (Apparently, Little Green Sprout seems to disagree. He was reportedly overheard saying, "Ho, ho, ho." Now, now, Little Green Sprout. Remember, if you can't say somethin' nice . . . )

What Are the Odds?

Take a minute to thoughtfully consider the sticky wicket situation of a raffle and/or lottery being held in a state where such nefarious activity is widely known and understood to be against the law aka eeelegul. As in, NOT legal; as in, banned; as in, criminal; as in, crooked; as in, don't-do-it-or-you-might-find-yourself-in-the-pokey-sharing-a-5X8-cell-with-some-big-bruiser-named-Bubba. Hmmm, let's think. Who in their right mind would dare do such a thing and risk getting caught by the cops for both organizing and facilitating said shady behavior?

Ah.

I see.

Click on image to read about my awesome PD

Sorry 'bout that, Chief. Trust us, it'll never happen again . . . as far as YOU know.

This Will Just Take Me a Sec . . .

Pardon me for just a wee bit while I have an itty bitty teensy private pity party for myself:

OKAY! I'm good! I'm good now! Good to go! I had to give in to it for just a jiffy, but I'm good.

(Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. k. I'm good now. Waaah. Seriously. I'm fine. I'm just dandy. Waaaaah. Totally good.)

AJK Update: For those of you who also read Ashley's blog, I'll tell you that she is without Internet service for the moment so she can't post anything quite yet. I'll just give you a quick update and let you know that she, Jordan, Kimball and Dave all arrived safe and sound in La Jolla, and from the sound of things, they must have landed in Shangri-La-La-Land. No joshin'! I won't steal her totally awesome news, but I will tell you that it doesn't sound like her Relief Society ladies from her church congregation go about business as usual. Rather, how does a Relief Society Mid-week Surfing Club grab ya? No lie.

Aaaannd, They're Off!

The bad news:

Our last hoorah

The good news:

They are moving to . . .

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDE!

LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA!!!

"The Jewel of San Diego," as they say!

Seriously. If Ashley & Company had to leave me, they definitely chose the perfect place with which to entice me for a visit, especially during Utah's "Months of Hades" as I like to call them, i.e., November, December, January, February, March, April, and more often than not, May, and sometimes June--I like it HOTTER THAN HADES don'tcha know. Southern California's happy sunshine will lure me like a moth to a flame. Sort of like Rod Blagojevich being lured to the paparazzi. No. Sort of like Rod Blagojevich being lured to lots of hair product while preening in front of the paparazzi. {And let's just cross our fingers and toes that Rod's mothy hair isn't lured to any sort of a flame shall we? Yeow! Clang, clang! Sirens! Head on fire! Head on fire!}

All of this as if getting to see Kimball wasn't enticement enough! Duh.

I feel a road trip comin' on!

Who's in?!!!!!!!

Heaven Help Me

I'm stuck. Totally at a loss for the perfect words. (And for those of you who regularly read my ramblings here, I'm quite confident you deem me so annoyingly verbose that as you read each post you simply want to slap your forehead and shriek at me through your monitor to JUST CLAM UP AND GET TO THE DING DONG POINT ALREADY! Heads are nodding at that.) (Ooh! While we're on the subject . . . I know, I know, I'm only digging a deeper grave for myself. But anywho! Just gotta point out that now you might understand why I haven't even entertained the notion of being a tweeter. It would probably take up to eight, maybe nine tweets for me to merely inform ya'll that I'm STILL stuck behind check-writing-granny at Hot Topic (say what?) in the University Mall. 140 characters per tweet? Uh, no. 14,000? Now you're talkin', mister.)

But, this time around the words aren't coming.

My precious Ashley and Jordan and Kimball will be leaving in two (waaahhh) days. Leaving. As in, U-Haul leaving. As in, moving far away. Far away from me.

My feelings about this are all a tumble-jumble. I am so happy that they have the opportunities to continue with Jordan's schooling and further him on the path to his awesome dream job. But, then.

Yes, then.

So, yeah. They will be moving far away. From me. How do other moms/grandmamas do it? My heart is so tender right now, and I seriously have no words . . . except to say with a little catch in my throat: Oh, how I love them so! My oh my, how I love them. With all of my heart. And all of my soul. I love them so.

Hey? Do me a huge-ish favor and indulge me? Watch these videos I put together of my sweet Ash and her little fam. These will rip your heart right out of its socket. They do mine.

If you click on the four-arrow icon, it will show in full-screen mode. Sorry I couldn't stream them together--I'm just not that tech-savvy. IMPORTANT: Sorry about the third video, cuz apparently I'm treading on somebody's music copyright (Hey, Sony! Loooove you, David Gilmour!), so if it doesn't play for you, you'll have to do some heavy lifting, and click on the arrow as if to start the video, then click where it will subsequently say, "Watch on YouTube." Do that, and it'll take you right to it. No detours, I promise.

"She's leaving home. Bye, bye."

--Lennon/McCartney

Heaven help me.

Sigh.

So. It Is Confirmed.

I am a nerd.

If you want proof positive that I am, in fact, a nerd, I'm going to give you all of the proof you could possibly need. After that, go ahead and laugh and point fingers at my latest in nerdiness nerd-dom. And, I know you will, so don't try to be coy about it as if you were a 16-year-old girl slyly whispering behind her hand to her friend that their other friend ("friend?" yeah, right) has ugly bangs. You all know what I'm talking about--don't deny it.

On to the point. I preface this by defending our household's eating habits, and I state for the record, Your Honor, that we rarely dance the Fast-Food-Tango. We eat fast food about as often as I get a new pair of shoes. No. Wait. That's way more often than what I mean. Rewind: We eat fast food about as often as Dave has heartburn. Stop. No, no, no. That's almost every night, and we don't do fast food almost every night. Okay, everybody! Back to your places and let's try this again from the top: We eat fast food about as often as Christian has the rare evening without girls knocking down our front door in a swoon. And that's about once in a blue moon. Cuz if we're going to eat out, I want service! I want silverware! I want plates that don't say C-H-I-N-E-T! I want finger-bowls! I want a linen napkin placed in my lap with a snap and a flourish! I want a crumb-sweeper-waiter-dude-guy-person! Certainly not too much to ask.

But on this occasion (after I was struck loopy with a flash of genius for this experiment), I insisted that we stop and pick up fast food . . . ON PURPOSE!!! I know! Livin' life large here, people! And, get this! Not only did we go through one drive-thru, we went through three!

Whoa. Is the apocalypse coming or what???

It just so happens that I had this excellently brilliant idea of performing our own non-scientific experiment in our own kitchen non-scientific home lab using our own non-scientific equipment. Brilliant, no? (Don't you love that word, "brilliant"? You could also substitute the words "nerdy, nerdy, nerdy" for the word "brilliant" in this particular case and still be completely accurate. Go back and try it.)

My "brilliant" quest was to determine which $1 cheeseburger from the three major fast food chains reigned supreme in terms of taste, ability to satiate, and heft. Yeah, yeah, nerdy. (Greasy spoon joints like Ripples in Provo or the grill at Downata Hot Springs in Ideeeho are not a part of this equation because we all know that the greasier, the better, and they would win {greasy} hands down.)

Here are our extremely unscientific methods:

And here are our extremely unscientific results:

Nummiest Tasting: McDonald's

Most Satisfying to the Palate and Tummy: McDonald's

Portliest (meant in the kindest way): Burger King

*A special shout-out goes to Dave and Christian for being my lab partners/cohorts in crime. They have gradually resigned themselves to the fact that I will drag them from here to kingdom come in my nerdy quests, and they have long since learned that, in the end, it is just better to roll with me and my ways; it is so much quicker and a ton less painful for everyone involved if they just buck up and do as I say. :)

NEXT UP: French fries, baby! (Stop it. You have your hobbies, I have mine.)

Scrumdillyumptious!

You saw this. Now have a go at this video and simply imagine how many foreheads were slapped before this thing wrapped for good. Also check out the dude getting attacked by a little sapling at the :30 and the 2:22 mark. Do you think he scored an extra ice cream cone from the BYU Creamery for that sacrifice? Oh, the price of fame.

(I love the U of U shirt serving as the understudy. Didn't quite nail the audition, apparently.)