There's always room for one more.

When Brett was a couple of years older than this picture, he spent the night at a friend's house on a Friday night. We knew the family well and we went to pick him up the next morning. The family had the exact floor plan our house had and early in the morning, Brett sleep walked into the parent's bedroom. Without waking up, he crawled onto their bed and snuggled in between the two parents and kept sleeping. Hating to wake him, knowing he might be shocked and embarrassed, they went back to sleep until an hour or so had passed and they both sneaked out of bed to begin the day. Lots of laughter was had when he finally awoke in a strange bed in a strange house. That's what I call making yourself at home.

If you've got it... flaunt it.

Some people are hat people and some are not. Cassie always liked hats. This is the most famous of her hats. An old ball popped and a new hat was born from the tragedy. She put it on her head every day. It accented her ears. It also hid the fact that she was very slow getting hair. I can't wear a hat of any kind and be taken seriously. I look awful in every hat I have ever worn. When I had long hair, I could wear them but ever since I cut my hair 30 years ago, I have been cursed with an unadornable head.

Mojave is hot but 'snot as hot as Redhots

When our family lived in Bishop, we went south to Los Angeles one weekend for a visit. On our way, we stopped at at Taco Bell in Mojave. While standing in line, Brad was studying the menu while eating Redhots. He had a few in the palm of his hand when he had to sneeze. Without thinking, he put his hand, with the Redhots up to his face to block the spray of his sneeze. After the sneeze, he sniffed before removing his hand from his nose and face. He got this concerned look on his face and his eyes got great big. He said, "I think I sniffed a redhot up my nose!" He was looking in his wet hand trying to remember how many Redhots were in his hand before he sneezed.
We started laughing and thought he was just joking around. But, his eyes were watering and his nose was beginning to run pink!!!! His nose was stinging like the Dickens and he was getting panicky. He finally figured that he needed to blow it out and was eventually successful in getting it out. However, his nose continued to leak red snot for a little while.

How to avoid the Dole 101

When I was a young mother, I had a problem that cropped up because of the fact that my children didn’t appreciate the benefits they were receiving. We provided them food, shelter, clothing recreation and love. (They knew we loved them most days.) They knew that their father worked long hours to pay for food, shelter, and clothing for them and that I spent long hours washing their clothing, cooking and cleaning up after them. They were asked to keep their rooms tidy and do a few chores when they were old enough.
By and by, I discovered that there were clothes in the hamper that were not dirty. They decided it was easier to throw clean clothes into the hamper than to fold them or hang them up when I asked them to clean up their rooms. So, I decided that I should teach them to wash their own clothing. When the kids were about 12 years old, they were old enough to be taught how to wash clothing. I never got any complaints that they didn’t have clean underwear after that because they knew it was their own problem. They didn’t put clean clothes in the hamper, either. When I saw that they were being very responsible, I would reward them with some assistance in folding and putting the clothes away for them, occasionally
When my children began complaining that we weren’t buying designer clothing that was popular with their age group, we decided on a plan to make their dreams come true. We started giving them a generous allowance so they could purchase their own clothing. They had a tally sheet showing earned cash and we had pay day at the end of the pay period. They got paid for completing their chores and got paid very well for doing extra chores. We even paid them for brushing their teeth just so they’d have enough money for basic clothing. This really worked well. They started taking better care of their own clothing so it would last longer and they started looking at the price tags on clothing they were buying. In short, my kids became happy misers. They shopped the sales racks like pros. They also were dressed more stylishly because I didn’t know what was in style and they did.
There is a principle that is at work here and it is this: When someone is doing their own work and using their own money, they don’t waste. And conversely, when people are using other people’s money and having someone serve them, they are usually wasteful.
It makes you think. When the government starts giving you free this and that….how many resources are we wasting and how many lazy people are we creating. AND how many of us will be getting healthcare that we don’t want instead of shopping around for good deals and getting what we want. And don't forget, nothing is FREE!! SOME HARD WORKING PERSON IS PAYING FOR IT. Beware the nanny state! It will be chaos.

More Job Follies

I had a great job for two summers during my college years. I worked in the first visitors center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We did office work, helped people in and out of theaters, helped with noon organ recitals at the tabernacle, and kept things organized in the first floor desks. I even got to give the accoustics demonstration in the tabernacle and walk into the attic of the tabernacle for an inside look at the materials used in the building such as square nails and plaster with horse hair in it to add strength. I was lucky to have the job.

On the 24th of July Pioneer Day, the parade went past the square and while everyone attended the parade, not many people came through the visitor's center. So, we had a little break in the back room for refreshments. We were sitting on a counter eating sweet rolls and a girl was pouring orange juice for everyone. I held my glass out to the person pouring. There was a girl sitting between me and the pourer. I saw that I had enough in my glass and pulled my glass out from under the pitcher and the pourer kept pouring onto the lap of my friend. I have no idea what made me lose my mind and leave her covered in orange juice. Of course she had nothing to change into so we found something to wrap her in while we washed her skirt. Susanne forgave me. He had a good sense of humor about it. That is a vivid memory.

On the country's bi-centenial, July 4, 1976, there was a bomb scare on temple square while I was working. They evacuated the area except for security personel and ME! They needed someone that was expendible to help them look through the visitors center to see if anyone looked out of the ordinary. We went room by room looking at and in garbage cans and shelves and corners for anything out of place or foreign. In the end, it was proven to be a hoax, but it was pretty exciting and what a great story. I figure I have but one life to give for my country....just kidding.

My next job and the last job I had before I began teaching school was my job at the Park City Golf Course. They called me the Greens Queen because I drove the machine that said "Greens King" on the side of it to mow the greens. When I was learning how to use it, my first time on it, I drove it into a little stream. It had no brakes. So when I started rolling backward, I couldn't get it to stop and I rolled backwards into the creek. I can still remember the helpless feeling I had rolling into the drink. No harm was done to the machine or me. So I got back on and learned from the experience.

I later drove the same machine into the lake when I was mowing an apron of the green that was inches away from the edge of the lake. I also drove a seven gang fairways mower that was a BIG machine. I could lower each set of blades one at a time or all at once. I could mow a large swath in one pass. It was pretty fancy. I had a cage-like seat area that protected me from golfers hitting balls at me for good reason. It was target practice many times. I had a tractor that dragged a 5 gang mower behind it and it was tricky to back up. I got a little too close to some little saplings sometimes and nearly took out some larger trees when I misjudged how close I was getting to the rough. I learned to back up in tight places and manipulate the blades after much sweat and nervous moments. But I never lost a tree. I surely got a great tan that summer.

What could be worse than a raccoon attack?

We were camping at Refugio a couple of years ago. Cassie and Hayley were in the tent with Glenn and I. We were about to go to sleep when we heard rustling in the garbage hanging to the side mirror of the car next to the tent. We had forgotten to take it to the dumpster. We had seen some raccoons around and thought we had one sharing our garbage. It walked up next to our tent and we could see a small body pressing on the tent. I gave it a good swift kick with the side of my bare foot and launched it a couple of feet away. It still continued making noise so we found a flashlight and unzipped a window slightly. To our shock and horror, our intruder was a very large skunk. I can't believe we weren't sprayed after I kicked it. Needless to say, we didn't pester it any further.

LIGHTENING THE LOAD AT A REST STOP

The bridge was out on I-80 eastbound in Nebraska. There were no hotels except a scary smokey dive that didn't look clean. So, we drove on, finding an alternate route that the locals suggested. The state detour would have flung us way off course. When daylight hit, I was driving. We were back on I-80 and I spotted a rest stop. I was falling asleep and everyone in the car was asleep in the back of the van. I put the seat back and started to doze but Glenn popped up and said he was rested enough to drive. He decided to go use the restroom before setting off. We were about 1 1/2 hours from Omaha.
Just as Glenn strode off, I decided I'd better go to the restroom myself. Knowing that Glenn was faster than I was, I hurried. I was just steps behind him and I quickly washed my hands as I exited, not even drying them on a paper towel.
I looked up to see the van driving past me accelerating toward the freeway entrance. Not caring how foolish I looked, I took chase using my very loud whistle to try to flag him down. I was running after him in the on-ramp to the freeway waving my arms and being glad I was in a red shirt. Finally, one of the kids recognized my whistle and they stopped the van or maybe Glenn saw me in the rear view mirror. But, I can't help but wonder what all those people back at the rest stop thought when I livened up their Sunday morning and woke all the sleepy travelers taking a short nap. Glenn says he thought I crawled in the back of the van and went to sleep. Likely story......hmmmm.