So, I have lately fallen in love with a few classic Sesame Street songs.  "I don’t want to live on the moon," by Jeff Moss and "Imagination" by Joe Raposo, along with "Frogs in the Glen" by Tony Geiss.  I was thinking today that I would love to tell these men thank you for these wonderful and beautiful songs.  And when I turned to my internet today, I discovered that two of these men, Jeff Moss and Joe Raposo, have passed on.

I was sad.

And I really hope that someone told them how lovely their music is before they left.  I guess no one could have thanked them for how deeply their songs would touch me, but they have.  And maybe in Heaven they have access to the internet– and maybe they will come across this and know what their works have meant to me.  But I hope they knew what an impact they have had on so many others.

*I sometimes wonder if my standard of cleanliness is only one degree cleaner than "light-a-match-and-walk-away."  I was at a friends house the other day and she told me I should keep my shoes on because her floors were "filthy".  Her floors were cleaner than mine after I clean them. 

*I’ve recently become addicted to this. Who knew even grown ups still like dressing up dolls?  Of course, this one is good too.

*Last week while Sugar was at a friend’s house I got so much done!  My house was so clean until she came home and thwarted my efforts.  This week when we went to pick her up, Engineer says, "No!  She’ll be all crazy when she gets home."  Indeed.

*Sorry I don’t have more.  I have been doing makeovers (on real people, thank you) all week to finish a goal.  I will be done today and it feels good!

Every night I go to bed without a plan.  Every morning I wake up and fiddlefart around, not knowing what to do thus wasting many minutes of many hours.

Of course there are things on my SCHEDULE.  There are things that MUST BE DONE, but I otherwise don’t have a plan for my day.  Most often I am just kind of winging it and I waste A LOT of time doing stuff that is of little importance.  I fritter away the morning, and then by afternoon, I am tired and want to relax.

And what gets accomplished?

Not much.

And it occurred to me the other day that being a Mom is my JOB.  If I worked for someone else, I would get up, shower, get dressed and go to work.  I would work 8 hours with maybe an hour and half max of "break time" and then I would go home to do whatever needed to be done at home.  (Sleep included).  With this in mind, I keep thinking I need to take this attitude about my home/mothering job.  I should probably have a plan, get up and get dressed.

The problem with this idea, I have determined, is that at a J-O-B someone else is telling you what to do.  You never have to come up with what needs to be done, except within the parameters of what you have already been asked to accomplish.  At home it’s just me.  With the exception of the occasional request for soynut butter and jelly sandwhiches, no one is giving me the slightest suggestion of what should be seen to that day.  There isn’t even anyone telling me that I need to get dressed.  (My children, fortunately do have someone telling them this.)

But I am a big girl, and I should be able to shower and dress myself by 9 (at least) without anyone telling me to do so.  I know how to use and alarm clock.  I even know how to make a plan.   

Well that’s it then.  I am vowing RIGHT NOW to turn it around.  To make a concious effort to get up with a plan and not waste time.  Right after I read a few blogs…

Says Charming.  But oh no, popcorn is not what he smells, though I would agree it does smell like burnt popcorn.

Sugar is NOTORIOUS for getting into stuff, making messes and being generally destructive.  This morning was no exception.  However in rare form, she came to confess the deed before I discovered it.  Probably because when she put the oatmeal, water and METAL spoon in the microwave, she got scared because of the "popping."

"Mom," she says.  "I put the oatmeal in the microwave and I pushed the wrong buttons and it was popping."   I of course had to record her saying this because it was really cute the way she said it.

I did not however take a picture of the "oatmeal" but the scene I came upon can be described as thus: crispy fried oatmeal in a bowl, with a metal spoon, and the microwave set at 84 minutes.  When I pushed in the crispiness with the spoon, black ooze.  And the smell?  Burnt popcorn with a hint of stainless silver. 

The children insisted on candy the other day.  Feeling generous, I gave them both a whopping two skittles each.  Sugar started tantruming and demanding more.   A more experienced Engineer, sat back and watched.

me: Okay, then give them back.
Sugar: waaaaahhhh! I want more skibbles!
me:I already gave you two, but if you’re unhappy I’ll have them back.
Sugar: waaaahhhhh! I want more skibbles!
me: Sugar, how would you feel if you gave me a present and I said, "waaaaahhhh!  I want more!"  Would you be sad?
Sugar (making pouty sad face): Uh-huh.  (pause)  I want more skibbles!  WAAAAAHHHH!
me: You are making me so sad.
Engineer: I didn’t make you sad!  I just ate my skittles!
Sugar: waaaaaahhhhh!!!!! 

How often do we do this as grown-ups?  How often do we receive bounteous blessing from our Heavenly Father, and rather than being thankful and content, we whine and ask for more?  Sugar didn’t need the skittles, nor did I need to give them to her.  I wanted to give her more, but more wouldn’t have necessarily been good for her.  And I definitely wasn’t going to give her more after she threw that fit.  And yet she was getting something special that she asked for, and didn’t usually get and she was unhappy with it.

I know I do this in my life. I have so many blessings, and few of them are actual "needs" and yet sometimes I still want more.  Sometimes I neglect to be thankful for what I have.  Sometimes I forget that Heavenly Father is in charge, and he wants to bless me, but he does it in the way that is best for me.  Sometimes I am a whiny three year old.

And that’s all I have to say about that. 

Did you know that a toddler can actually suck the color out of a washable marker?  In the mouth long enough, the tip of a red marker becomes white.  It’s true.  I witnessed it today.

I also learned today that in a relatively sterile looking environment, such as the Jiffy Lube, that small children can make incredible messes?  They WILL dump water all over the chairs and suck color out of markers.

In case you were wondering, small children will also color their entire legs with marker in the car.  One year olds intoxicated with washable ink will unravel all the toilet paper in the public restroom while you wash your hands.

I used to think it was difficult to take three children out in public.  I now know that it is not the number of small people that accompany you, but the specific individuals that you bring along that make the difference in your ease of excursion.  Two children in public can just as tricky as three if you take the right ones with you. 

I got the best phone message the other day.

My little sister who I had seen a week earlier called me and said, "Hi, I am calling because I missed you and want to hang out with you this weekend.  Call me back.  Bye."

THE BEST PHONE MESSAGE EVER.

It is soooo nice to be near family again.  It is so nice to be around people who not only want to hang out with me, but actually make the first move and call me first. Wow.  Amazing.

So today, Charming, Aunty Jessica, the kiddos and I piled in the car for a tour of a few of our local farms.  It was wonderful.  The weather was inconsistent, but it was sunny for our hayride where we enjoyed gorgeous views of the valley and only rained when we were in our car driving.

We ate corn and we saw pigs. 

A good day.

P.S.  Check out Sugar’s coat.  She put it on this morning and said, "Mmm.  Cozy." 

Well, I have had a request for pictures.  So here are some of the things we’ve been doing since we’ve come to the new house.

We had a birthday and got the best present ever!  (WE even opened it before anyone else was in the room!) 

We’ve been eating breakfast in our usual, glamorous fashion: 

We went to the beach again:

We went to a baptism for Aunty Jessica:

And we’ve been just hangin’ out:

Okay, now don’t ask me why I was doing this, (because I am happy in my current faith) but I did an internet search today on churches in my new town.  I scrolled through the list, there were just a handful, and the fifth listing was… duh, duh, duh… Safeway.

You may know this already, but Safeway is not a church.  Safeway is a grocery store.  Safeway does not sell Jesus.  Safeway sells bagels.  Safeway does not stir people’s hearts.  Safeway stirs up cheap chow mein that they serve in the deli.  Safeway doesn’t ask for a tenth of your income.  Safeway has ten for ten sales.  (Oh wait, that’s Albertsons.)

Well, maybe Safeway is a little like church. Let’s see… By the time we are done at Safeway, my kids have lost their minds and are crawling all over the place.  By the time we are done with sacrament meeting, my kids have lost their minds and are crawling all over the place, so there’s a similarity right there.  Hmmm… a lot of people do congregate there on the Sabbath.  I pore over their weekly ads like I would my scriptures, because I am really concerned that I save, and we all know that church is all about saving. 

So yeah, I can see how the internet might get a little confused.

Not. 

Seriously.  The Church of Safeway?   Well maybe.  Churches are generally SAFE and do lead you on the WAY to truth and righteousness.  But personally, if any of these "churches" are going to get my money, it is going to be the Church of Tarjay.  (I know I am sooo posh).

We are in our new house.  And for a just a few hundred thousand dollars we have acquired this:

This is what I see every single morning.  We have named him Mr. Boogs.  I have not fed him, I have not touched him, I have not encouraged him in any way to stay.  And yet he never leaves.  He tries to come inside.  Probably to pee everywhere like the previous owner’s cat did.

I am an animal lover.  Mr. Boogs is starting to grow on me.  I have in no way a death wish for him and so I refuse to call animal control.  I already have a cat, so I don’t want to adopt him either. 

And today, I just wanted to go out and pet him, but I couldn’t do it.  He looked so sad and in need of my loving touches.  And I couldn’t help but think of this line in the book The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle.  It happens when the talking cat is explaining why he won’t let the Lady Amalthea (aka, the unicorn)touch him.  I can’t quote it exactly because my book is on a truck somewhere between here and Vegas, but basically he says he won’t let her touch him because then he would belong to her and would no longer belong to himself. 

And that is why I couldn’t touch Boogs today.  Because if I touched him then he would be mine.  And I have a cat.  Besides, Kathryn said she’s going to spare me the guilt and call animal control for me on some random day without telling me.  So he will be gone eventually anyway.

And I might actually miss him.  And I still really want to give him a love.