What's My Name Again?

I'm not sure if I should call this a "continuation post" or "homage post" to my friend, JD.  His post about people not being able to spell his name ("Joseph"), especially Starbucks workers, came rushing back to me this weekend.

When I moved to China lots of people had trouble understanding me when I introduced myself. 
My Texas pronunciation of "Jan" as a two-syllable word just really throws non-Southerners off. 

We moved back to Texas and I never had problems with my name, but our now stint in Colorado leaves first time introductions awkward again.

 All that backstory to say...While in Vegas, Cassidy and I stopped to get Starbucks.
I ordered and the girl asked my name.

"Jan." I said.

Starbucks worker: "Jan, Are you visiting from out of town?"

Me: "Yes, from Colorado."

Starbucks worker: "Oh nice. Have a great stay, Jan."

I was so excited.  She understood me. She got my name right...twice.

And then my coffee came.

Sigh.

Reason 463 I Don't Like to Cook

I'm a much better planner than I used to be.

Having 3 boys tends to require some pre-planning to even leave the house. (Although I still never seem to have snacks, juice, Neosporin, or the occasional change of clothes at the ready.)

But I'm a terrible planner when it comes to cooking.
I always get right in the middle of it, and then I don't have something I need.

So reason #463 I don't like to cook: too much prep work.

(AKA: I'm never prepared!)

I bought some red velvet cupcake mix thinking I might make some for Valentine's Day.  I didn't buy cupcake liners because I was sure I had a million in the pantry.

I didn't make the cupcakes for Valentines, but I did need cupcakes for Cub Scouts last night.
(They decorated cupcakes to celebrate Scouting being 101 years old.)

 I started making cupcakes about 2:00 PM yesterday (during nap time, of course).  And guess what I didn't have?

Yep. Cupcake liners.

And since I had 2 children sleeping, and the grocery store is more than just a little jaunt from my house, here's how the cupcakes turned out....

Naked cupcakes!

I'm guessing this is why God gave me boys.

Little girls would have wanted to match their frosting and sprinkles to the cupcake liner.

I don't think the Cub Scouts slowed down long enough too even notice the liners were missing!

Go Ahead and Laugh

So I have pushed the boundaries of Cub Scout activities, (hand print Santas as a "useful gift") until I can push no more. 

I have studied "Achievement 5" in the Wolf Handbook looking for a way to "Jan-it-up" until I might have made myself a little nauseous.

There's just no way around it.

Achievement 5, Tools for Building and Fixing, you got me.

Guess what the first requirement is?

 Tool naming.

They have 7 certain ones listed, and you should have seen me digging around Jason's tool box trying to find them! 

I literally had the book in one hand looking at the pictures.

(Yes, you may laugh at that visual.)

I was almost giddy when I thought I found an "awl" (apparently you use it to "punch holes"), only to discover I was actually holding a soldering iron.

This is killing me. 

The only tool I ever use is a hot glue gun...and it's not even on the list!

And no matter how many times I read Achievement 5, I know there's no way I'm going to be able to fake my way through teaching a pack of 7-year olds how to properly use a pair of slip-joint pliers.

But I have a plan.

This plan has served me well for almost 10 years and I think it's going to come in handy tonight:

You see, I'm not the best cook. 

And Jason?

Well, Jason's a great cook. 

So if I go in the kitchen and start banging lots of pots and pans around, he'll usually come and help me.  And, of course, 'help' means he just does it himself.

So if I get up there tonight and flail around, make some loud noises, and drop a couple of tools, I'm hoping some of the dads will come to my rescue. 

That, or I'm informing Jason he's teaching when he shows up.

Oh, and here I am getting ready for tonight. 

Take a good long look cause I'm not exactly sure what all I'm even holding.

It's A Big Day

So do you know what today is?

It's a pretty big day.

I have officially been on the wagon for one month!

Oh yes, I have.

Not one Coke product has touched my lips.

(I miss you most, Vanilla Coke Zero.)

Has it been easy?

No way, Jose!

I may or may not have actually bent down and sniffed Jason's Diet Coke the other night. 

And I also may or may not have gotten so close to it that the little carbonated bubbles might have almost touched my face.

And let me just say, if I did bend down for a sniff....It smelled A-MAY-ZING.

But sadly, my drinks still look exactly like they did a month ago.

Clear.

Sad.

Depressing.

and the worst of all....

Healthy. 

Bleh!

The Reason For Reno

The real reason I've been in Reno for the last few days was to see Sarah Palin speak.  Now I know I have many readers that aren't Sarah fans (Hi JD!), but not to worry, this post won't be about politics.  Think of it as a cross between fashion police and my commentary on our fantasy friendship.

(And if you are a Sarah fan...you know I'm going to do plenty of fawning!)

I've actually known I was going to see my fantasy BFF since I was home at Thanksgiving.  JD helped me pick out my dress, and if JD says 'wear it'...I wear it! 

Trying to do my best celebrity red carpet pose.

Sarah was speaking at the Weatherby Award, which is a big deal in the hunting world. (Jason's dad won it about 20 years ago.) 

These were the table centerpieces.  I loved them!

Here's what the room looked like. Since Jason's dad is a past award winner, and now on the Weatherby board of directors, we got to sit right up front!

And here's my girl. 

She was about 20 feet away from me...with 3 huge bodyguards. 

She mostly spoke about her love of hunting, the outdoors, her parents (who were there) and her TLC show. 

So let's talk fashion.

She really looks just like she does on TV.  She's little and skinny.

She wore her hair down, leather jacket, and I'm thinking it was a suede skirt. And, of course, those great high-heeled leather boots.

Front view of her ensemble.

BFFs together at last.

The end of the evening...

My hair is a little flatter, but I can't wipe the smile off my face!

I Miss You Sweet Friends

I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions.

But I made one this year.

And today is Day 3.

I've given up some dear, dear friends of mine.

And I miss them terribly.

Here they are. Three of my besties.

Aren't they cute?

Aren't they fun?

I miss them.

Especially my friend on the far right. She's the best!

Now I'm not saying I've given up my friends forever.

I'm not sure I even have a timeline.

I just need to take a little break from them for awhile.

So, I've started hanging out with a sad, little acquaintance.

She's so pitiful.

Cause even when you dress her up in a cute party outfit, and give her a fun hat, she's still the awkward, boring wallflower not having any fun.

*Sigh*

I'm not too good being away from my friends, so I thought I'd hold myself accountable to you guys.

  I'll let you know when I cave and join up with "my girls" again!

Witty Titles Aren't Coming Easy Either

I really can't seem to get it together this Christmas. 

 Even though I've got all the kids' presents bought, (did I mention I was also in charge of buying the kids' gifts for all the grandparents?) my to-do list seems to get longer each day, and I'm not even sure how it's happening.  

My reaction when I discovered JR didn't have spelling sentences this week was nothing short of ridiculous.

"You don't have spelling this week! Ohhh! Did you tell your teacher,"THANK YOU!"?

(And I may or may not have said "Woohoo!" and done some form of a little happy dance.)

With all that said, the side of my brain that crafts amusing stories about the family just isn't working like it should. 

So today you get some pictures of us before Jason's work Christmas party. Even with two pictures combined, you still won't see each kid looking at the camera, not rubbing their face, or standing still so as not to be blurry.

Oh, and I think the House Fashionista approved of my dress.

 It was covered in large sequin discs, (JD helped me pick it out in Houston. You can read about his take on that day here.) and Kyle couldn't help petting it.  I'd say that's a seal of approval! 

(And yes, he's wearing his Halloween costume....again.)

What a Way to Spend an Evening*

*Please sing the title as if you were singing the 2nd verse to the chorus of 9 to 5.

My friend, JD, said it better than I ever could, so I'm stealing this straight from his blog:

 "If you’re not a Dolly Parton fan, then don’t continue to read. (Actually, if you’re not a Dolly Parton fan then we probably shouldn’t be friends.)"

And really, truer words have never been spoken. 

I love Dolly. I love to hear her sing. I love to watch her act.

(There are about 5 movies that I will always watch when they are on TV.  Dolly is in 3 of them.
Steel Magnolias, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and 9 to 5.)

And speaking of 9 to 5, Jason took me to see 9 to 5 The Musical on closing night at the Hobby Center in Houston. 
I knew it was going to be good since JD and Shelley (TX Shelley, not CO Shelly) had already told me I would love it. But I really tried not to get my hopes up. I was super excited to see it, but at the same time I didn't want to be disappointed if it wasn't gooooood. 

This is what I looked like before the curtain rose.  This would be my I'm super happy to be here face.

And that smile didn't leave my face through the entire performance.

It was SO GOOD!

I loved it, loved it, loved it.

And I think the best way to describe how much I loved it would be to recount my phone conversation the next day with my friend, Caroline. (Caroline and I love all the same things.)

Me: Caroline! We have to talk about 9 to 5 The Musical!

Caroline: Ohhhhh! Was it so good?!

Me: It was amazing!

Caroline: Was the Violet and the candy striper scene in it? You know that's my favorite part! 

Me: It was! Everything we love was in it! But you're not going to believe this. They wear the same costumes as the movie. THE SAME COSTUMES, CAROLINE!

Caroline: You're kidding!

Me: No! But listen.

(Dramatic pause)

The Doralee character wears the blue leather coat with the white fur collar.

Caroline: Nooooo! I love the blue leather coat with the white fur collar!

Me: I know!

And the conversation went on like that for about 30 minutes. 

And if you're thinking "I have no idea what coat Jan's talking about." 

Well, as a little girl I thought it was the most beautiful coat I had ever seen in my life. And let's just be honest, if I could find that coat I'd put it on and strut around town today.

I had a hard time finding a picture of the blue leather coat. I could only find this one of Dolly wearing it, so I also included a picture of it from the musical.

 And if any of you would like a full reenactment of any scene, I'm happy to oblige! (blue leather coat optional)

I'm Election Day

Seriously. 

I really am Election Day. 

Well, I was for Halloween, at least.

(My Beijing friends will recognize this little ensemble as my costume for the 1776 Ball.  But that's the great thing about having a prop closet, I just grab something and rename/reuse for another occasion.)

Now, as you can imagine, I didn't get many compliments on my outfit.  In fact, I got quite a few stare-downs.

I honestly thought I was being on my best behavior. Not wanting to offend 98% of the attendees at our neighborhood Halloween party, I went as nonpartisan as I could.

I thought it was very nice of me not to go in with my conservative guns blazing.

But speaking of guns, I did add this one little button that I figured would sum up my election day choices.

But I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.

So we'd been at the party for about five minutes and a man I didn't know walks up to me and says,

"Who are you? Sarah Palin? All you need is a hockey stick."

 I looked right at him, and in my most sweet and sincere voice said,

"Oh no! Sarah Palin is much too beautiful for me to try and be her!

I could never pull that off,

 I'm just... Election Day."

 I thought his head was going to explode.

He looked at me completely dumbfounded, and then turned away and walked off.

Not. a. word.

I was so proud of myself.

I've never left anybody speechlesss before!

The Funny Pages

I usually don't mix my Facebook updates and my blog posts.  I like to keep them in two separate worlds.  But one of my status updates has had me thinking. 

Here's what I said:

Not a fan of The New Scooby Doo's "upgrade" of Velma. Velma doesn't need (nor would she want) fringy bangs, new glasses, or a bow in her hair! I've always identified with Velma. Although, in college, a guy told me I looked like Peppermint Patty. (I think I still may need counseling for that one.)

Here's the new Velma

And here's the old Velma, as modeled by me, on two different Halloweens.

I'm a Velma, right? 

I mean, there's no way anybody would ever mistake me for Peppermint Patty. 

 Please, the girl wears sensible shoes...she doesn't even own a pair of platforms.

But, as we women sometimes do, I started to obsess.

I couldn't help but replay the Peppermint Patty Day over and over.

*Flashback* 

I was finishing up getting my teaching certificate (I was already teaching, just needed my certificate) in a summer school "technology class". (Which is now laughable. I think we learned how to do email and power point.) This was before digital cameras, so we had to take a picture of ourselves with the computer camera and then print it out.  There was a guy standing behind me in line at the printer, and when mine came out he said, "Wow. You look like Peppermint Patty." 

No laugh, no giggle, no sarcasm. Just fact. 

It was like he was thinking "This chick looks like a cartoon character that may, or may not, have gender identity issues."

 *End Flashback*

Now being that I'm such a mature adult, I knew there was no way I really looked like Peppermint Patty.

  Too bad I didn't have any pictures from that time to confirm. 

And then I remembered.

My opera singer buddy, JD, had posted some pictures of his birthdays past on his blog this year.  There was a picture of me taken the exact summer the Patty comment was made! 

With excitement I went to check out the picture again...knowing there would certainly be no Peppermintness in me at all.

Oh. my. goodness.

I did look like Peppermint Patty.

 Same hair cut, same baggy shirt, and since it was summer, I'm sure the exact same freckles. 

(Why did I ever think XXL was an appropriate T-shirt size for me?)

And besides my Peppermint Pattiness, I have two other things to say about this photo:

1. (And most important) Praise the Lord for highlights.

2. Is it just me, or do all of us in this picture look the same age?

JD is in the front and it was his 14th birthday. His brother, Matt, would have been 17ish, and I was 24.

(And yes, You're right! If I was 24 then the picture was taken last year!)

It Really is a Conspiracy!

Alrighty.

So this has now escalated to ridiculous.  And when I say 'ridiculous' I, of course, mean it should definitely be one of Wendy Williams' Hot Topics. (How you doin'?)

Remember my post about how Hobby Lobby refuses to supply products for us I People?  How I really wanted one of their cute, decorative, initial pumpkins (which were 75% off this week, BTW) but they didn't order any 'I's'. (After my post both my mother-in-law and my friend, Adrienne, went to the Hobby Lobbys by their homes and came up 'I' empty handed.  Adrienne even asked the manager and was told "we didn't order any I's...and lots of people have asked for them."

Well, that was just the tip of the iceberg, my friends!

Because I have the inside scoop on what's going on over at Pottery Barn.

Oh yeah, I do.

My opera-singing-boy-BFF, JD, works at Pottery Barn as a side gig, and just check out what was on his blog yesterday. 

To summarize:

Pottery Barn has been and will again be selling Glitter Letter Ornaments (a circular ornament with letters at the center) and there was a directive from the top with the following statement:

Glitter Letter Ornaments should be organized alphabetically in red shelf organizers. …

NOTE: Due to small projected sales, the following letters will not be produced: I, O, Q, U, X, Y, Z.

Um-hum.

So that puts you on my list too, PB.

Watch yourself.  I have a few phone calls to make.

Excerpt From My 'How to be an Amazing Mother' Class

I see you're all back for some more of my incredible mothering stories.

Well, let's dive right in, shall we? 

Take a look at this picture and tell me what you see.

Two tennis shoes? Yep.

Two different size tennis shoes? Yep.

Two tennis shoes, that while both Sketchers, look absolutely nothing alike? Yep.

Cause those would be the shoes JR wore to school yesterday. 

All. day. long.

And I had no idea until I saw him taking off his shoes when he got home.

So remember class:

Work hard!

And you can possess impressive mothering skills just like me! 

A Sit-Down with Hobby Lobby

Soooo, Hobby Lobby, let's have a little chat, shall we.
Now, you know I love you. You are truly one of my favorite stores. But I've got a real issue here. Besides having no reasonably priced flocked Christmas tress, (And by 'reasonably priced' I mean, priced where Jason wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary on the credit card bill so he wouldn't notice the new flocked tree hiding in the garage. And no, I'm not hiding spending money from him, I'm hiding the actual Christmas trees!) you have also blatantly discriminated against my kind.
And what would 'my kind' be exactly?
Frequent jazz hands user?
Fan of feathers and sparkles?
First one to suggest costumes for the slightest of occasions?
Well, yes.
But, Hobby Lobby, you have those demographics covered. 'The kind' I'm talking about are those of us with "I" last names. Because apparently, Hobby Lobby, you don't think we I-people are worthy enough to supply for.

Case and point:


Hummm.
What's that letter that seems to be missing? The letter that comes between 'H' and 'J'?
Oh that's right.
It's "I"!
I guess we I-people don't like decorative initial pumpkins.
Well that would be where you are wrong, Hobby Lobby. I would love a decorative initial pumpkin! And if it weren't for your amazing fabulosity in every other way, I'd be deciding who would be the recipient of my first phone call. Nancy Grace? Geraldo? Gloria Allred?
Consider this your warning, Hobby Lobby. I'm watching you...and the prices of your flocked Christmas trees.

Naughty Number Nine

1. I know I've mentioned many-a-time before that I am not a math person.
2. I have also mentioned that I'm thankful beyond measure that JR seems to have inherited his daddy's math brain.

So with those two issues reiterated, here's how our dinner conversation went last night:

(Quick backstory: JR's been working through some cheapy workbooks I bought so he could keep his reading and math skills up this summer.)

Me: Can you believe JR can count by 9's? I couldn't count by 9's if you made me.
Jason: 9's are easy. It's just 10 minus 1, right JR?
Me: (I think for a second.) Yeah, that doesn't work for me. 20 minus 1 is 19, not 18, so that doesn't even make sense.
Jason: Where did you get 20?
Me: You told me it's tens minus one.
Jason. No. Just think logically... (I tuned out the "logical" explanation, but then he proceeded to count by 9's up into the 100's)
Me: No really, stop. I don't want to learn to count by 9's. I just want you to be impressed that your son can do it. Go ahead JR, show Daddy.

JR does.
Reed begins counting his fingers.
(At this point my heart starts racing since waaaay too many numbers are being shouted out for my math-phobic liking. My baby, Kyle, knew better than to upset me with numbers. He just kept eating his 4th pickle of the night. )

Jason: I am impressed. That's awesome, JR.
Me: Good job, Reed.

Later, after JR is gone:

Me: Okay, so I know you're going to laugh at me, so just go ahead and laugh, but division is next in JR's book. And, um, so division is just the opposite of multiplication, right?
Jason: Do you know how to divide?
Me: Yes, I know how to divide! I'm just not really sure how to teach it.

Jason then starts giving me examples of division problems. Of course what I heard was The Peanuts teacher's voice, 'waa. waa. waa. waa. waa.' Although I did hear something about 12 divided by 4, so I was quick to holler out '3!' since I knew that was right. (And please don't comment if it's not.)

So what did all that math talk teach me? (Besides how to count by 9's.)
Basically, that there's really no need to rush division. I mean, the summer's almost over, right? I'm thinkin' we can just make some more decorative cookies instead!

Not So Dorky, But Pretty Embarrassing

So I was at The Children's Place with JR trying to do some school shopping. I promised him we could have all his shopping done in 10 minutes. But of course JR was trailing behind me saying, "It's past 10 minutes. It's been like 100 minutes. I think it's been like a million minutes, so we are done!"
I was showing him shirts which he would either ignore (I take that as a 'yes') or tell me were "hideous". I was throwing the 'yes' shirts over my arms or shoulders and trying to get out of there as fast as possible (for both of us). After we checked out we headed down the big, fancy- shmancy mall (Oh how I love going to a real mall. Have I mentioned in the last 5 minutes that the closest real mall to Durango is 4 hours away?) and headed into a few more stores. We covered quite a distance and even had to use the escalator. As we were walking back to the playground to meet up with the rest of the family, I looked down and noticed that I still had a Children's Place shirt draped over my shoulder. I stoped and said, "Oh no! JR, look! I've been walking around with this shirt over my shoulder! I walked out of the store with it."
JR: Oh no! You stole it! The police are going to arrest you!
Sadly, I wasn't as concerned about my new life of crime as I was embarrassed that I'd been walking around the mall with a T-shirt slung over my shoulder.
I went back to The Children's Place and announced "I'm here to pay for the T-shirt I stole from you." The girl behind the counter laughed and told me it happens all the time. Although it's usually because moms hang clothes from their strollers and then forget about them!

Wow, This is Dorky

Before I start I just want everybody to know that, yes, I'm very aware of the nerdyness of this post.
My obsession all started because JR really loves puzzles. He's good at them, but it's hard to find ones that are challenging enough without being crazy hard. I bought him a 750 piece puzzle for his birthday thinking it might fit the bill. He had fun working on it, but there was no way he was going to finish it anytime in the next 5 years. So while JR was visiting the other grandparents in Houston, I decided that I'd do most of the puzzle for him, then he could just swoop in and finish it up.
Yeah, um, I got a little too into this puzzle.
I literally had dreams about it. The night my mom and I finished it not only were we crawling around on our hands and knees looking for missing pieces, but I had her lift the dinning room table up so I could look under the base. (She's surprisingly strong for a woman her age. Which since I was 25 this year, makes her 40. Sorry, Mom, if I made you too old.) Oh, and did I mention that we were doing all this at 1:30 in the morning. Yeah, I'm admitting the craziness. Obviously there was no JR swooping in at the end, cause I was finishing this baby. We never found 7 of the pieces (not that I was counting or anything) but with two little ones that also love to "help", I think we did pretty good!

So it is with my greatest pleasure I present to you: One Hundred Dogs and a Cat

Thanks for looking cause if I hadn't posted this, I might have had to glue it together and hang it on my wall.

I'm Too Sexy For This Blog

Now that I'm in my 20's *cough, cough* I've found I need to do a little 'maintenance' every now again. So when I was in Houston I stopped by my old nail shop to get my eyebrows waxed. I admit I was a little nervous when the oldest lady working jumped up to help me. Living in Asia taught me quite a few lessons, one being: The older ladies are good at taking money and yelling at the younger girls, not so good at administering actual beauty treatments.
Against my better judgment I went ahead and let her do it. I relaxed when she didn't hurt me, and thought I was in the clear. As the waxing ended I thought, 'Oh, she DID know what she was doing. Whew.'
And then she swiped the 'after-wax refreshing lotion' across my lids.
*Dramatic pause*
I literally jumped off the table since I was quite certain I was, in fact, on fire!
I'm pretty sure I didn't have any brows in the middle of my eyelids (and if I did, that's something you, as friends, should have told me) but now I have no skin there either! Huge red scabs (where my skin once was) are now front and center above my eyeballs for everyone to see.
Needless to say, I look awe-some.

So I'm a Bit Worried About Myself

I was so excited about the new double seat carts at our WalMart that I whipped out my phone and took a picture.
Oh yes, I did.
(That's Harry pushing.)

The first step is admitting you have a problem, right?
Hello.
My name is Jan.
And I was waaay too excited about the new WalMart carts.

My Hair Grew Back!

JR and I have both loved his teacher this year. Her teaching style reminds me a lot of my mom's...And just like my mom always did, JR's teacher made sure he had plenty of Mother's Day gifts to give yesterday. One of my favorites was a little book titled "Mom and I", and of course, I have the best pages to share with you.

I'll show you the picture first, and then will interpret 1st grade handwriting and give my commentary below.


You probably got this one: Ride Roller coasters
What's funny is Saturday night Jason and I had gone to dinner and I was telling him, "I'm so glad you're going to Fiesta Texas with us this summer. My stomach just can't take 5 times on Tony Hawk's Big Spin." And if you look closely at the picture, JR drew himself with a big smile and me with an "Oh!" face. We're also frighteningly tan.



My Mom and I watch: Extreme Water Parks. That would be a backward "P" that was somewhat corrected.
JR and I watch a lot of Travel Channel together, but we watch way more America's Funniest Home Videos (Praise the Lord it comes on right as I'm trying to cook dinner because all the kids love it!). Obviously JR has summer vacation on the brain.
From the looks of things I believe I'm about to go down the slide, as it seems JR is the one already upside down. Unfortunately, I might also be nude. Which I can guarantee would never happen.


And my favorite...

My hair is back! I'm bald no more! Sure JR has realized that at 5'2" he might as well go ahead and draw himself as tall as me. But who cares?! I'm skinny AND have hair. Not much hair, but it's there! Maybe this summer we'll practice drawing my hair more Jennifer Anistony and less Keri Russell When She Chopped Off All her Hair and Ruined Felicity.

I Did Yard Work

And shockingly my title is not a veiled reference for something else. I actually did yard work. There's not much yard work to be done when you live at 7,500 feet mountain elevation. Grass doesn't grow easily in such an environment, so our yard is essentially bark mulch. But my dad pointed out that if I would cut back all the brown, dead "leaves" from the giant monkey grass looking things, that the green would start to come in and look really nice. And since my dad should have his own TV show when it comes to pretty yards, (Yard of the Month should be his middle name) I took his advice. I got to work yesterday afternoon while everybody was outside playing, and Jason even noticed when he came in! He asked me what I used to trim the plants.
Me: scissors.
Jason: You mean like the ones in the kitchen?
Me: No, I found some in the garage, they're now our yard shears.
And you know I have a picture for you of my handywork. I'll be sure and update you as they grow big and tall thanks to my scissoring cosmetology session on them!