Oregon Snow days.

Rules for an Oregon Snow Day

1. If the Media outlets alarm people with an impending snowstorm, it will not happen. Real snow storms sneak up on you out of nowhere, usually in the middle of the night, several weeks after the news suggested it would happen. 
2. If during the night a snowstorm happens while your family is sleeping, Your children will somehow magically wake up an hour and a half before they normally do and be up and ready to be out the door within five minutes.  Mind you it takes them an hour and a half to get ready on a regular day. 
3. Speaking of the news, they will give you lots of useful tips on how to cope with and handle snow, such as "don't shovel snow too quickly, it might cause a heart attack." Because you know, its awfully cold in Oregon at 30 degrees. You better be on the safe side and just leave the snow in your driveway. 
4. A tree will fall in your yard. But before it does, it will scout out your back yard to find the best thing to fall on.  Particularity the thing that matters the most to you in your yard. 
5. Although your children might think they are ready to go outside, they aren't.  They think that a long sleved t-shirt and sneakers is enough to go out into the snow.
6. They will cancel school, because that's much better than salting the roads. Of course. 
7. You will spend the rest of the entire first snow day searching for gloves, boots and socks, over and over again, and cleaning snow off the floor. Because they loose them every time they come in and out. And you loose them too.
8. Men everywhere suddenly realize that they need more power tools to clean up their yard. Then they risk their lives to drive to the hardware store because they now have an excuse to get that saw they've always been dreaming of getting and now have an excuse to exert their manliness by cleaning up the yard.
9. The school board will cancel school for the rest of the year, just in case.
10. You eat a lot of eggs from your yard because you can't freely go to the grocery store. Deviled eggs, egg casserole, baked oatmeal bars, so on and so fourth.
11. You will forget that there are other people in the world than your family. 
12. You lay awake at night thinking wondering how you might keep your children occupied for one more day indoors, possibly without electricity. 
13. After five days, (which is an usually long snow day/week around here) it will be mostly safe to drive. You might think its safe to get into your car and drive somewhere, and will be excited to do so.  However, everyone else in the entire city is thinking the same thing, and they are all driving around with snow flying off their automobiles.  Whoo hoo look at all that stuff fly! 
14. You might try to get groceries only to find that there is no where to park and everyone in the whole city is also at the grocery store. 
15. If you happen to be from Florida, you will be astounded at how something falling so quietly could cause so much ruckus. 
16. Nothing in the world like a snow melt will encourage you to feel grateful for routine, sunshine and the sight of neighbors. 

A Music Review

One of the beautiful (and not so beautiful) things about the modern invention of you-tube is the newfound ability to instantaneously listen to AND watch embarrassing music you once thought was cool way back in your younger year. Its quite amazing to me just how many times I have seen a video of a song I once thought was incredible and couldn't believe how weird the video was.  Almost ruined it for me.  Almost. 

Speaking of silly nostalgia, today I am going to write a review about boy band songs from the 1990's. In the current culture with all the turmoil in the world,  this is a very important topic to be addressed. Perhaps the most important.

When I first started this blog years ago, every time I thought of a blog topic, I realized I was making all sorts of embarassing confessions. I thought I should change the name to "embarrassing confessions."  That didn't happen.  

However, I'll have you know that I am confessing something today. That is that boy bands were, once upon a time, a very intricate part of my life. This type of  music brings back fond memories full of adolescent goofiness. 

If you are interested, you might enjoy going down memory lane with me by watching this youtube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDcCSiakaU4

Funny thoughts even at that time came into my mind about boy bands singing songs. For example, five handsome men singing a love song at once?  Who are they ALL singing to?  Me? My friend? All five of them? Wow! Are they really all professing their forever undying love to the same woman? Will she have to pick between the five of them? Poor her.

It is a lot of fun to watch boy bands singing with these questions in mind.

And now as a grown up, have a few even more important questions for these guys who are professing their undying love:  Will they wash the dishes for her after she's had a long day? Will they make good fathers? Will they be wise with their money? And, most importantly, will they promise to not wear their hair like that in their 30's and beyond?  Its pretty embarrassing.

On another note, as goofy as the 1990's boy bands were, its interesting that they still talked about undying eternal love for one girl. We've really digressed since these days. 

Millennial-ism

All year long the boys have been waiting for the end of the year school Jog-a-thon.

Today it finally happened, and my middle son joined along, even though he is not in school yet. I counted how many laps he ran, and it was about eight laps in about fifteen minutes or so, which I thought was a good amount for a five year old. After the Jog-a-thon, I told him that I was proud because he ran eight whole laps in such a short amount of time. Instead of receiving my complement, he began insisting to me that he actually ran 20 laps. "You have it wrong, mama", he says. So I asked him, "how do you figure that you ran 20 laps, when I was watching you counting the whole time, and I counted eight?" He replied "I was just running SO fast that I skipped all the other laps all the way to 20."

Congratulations, son, you are officially a millennial!!

The Dishwasher Saga Contines

I am currently hiding in my room as I type this.  I am wondering how long it will take them to find me.  It is 5:42.  

The dishwasher saga continues.  

I never dreamed that little children would like a new dishwasher so very much.  Had we realized this, we might have waited a few months and just gotten them one for Christmas. I would dare say that they are even more fascinated by it than I am. They haven't seem to have left its side for the past several hours, and they have asked me about ten times what each button does. I am not even sure what each button does. But I tell them, "they do what you want them to do, they make beeping noises and start water running and flash little lights." 

This afternoon, I finally had enough dishes to load in the dishwasher and use it for a full cycle to see what kind of magic it would produce. After leaving the kitchen for a few moments to take a pause to check my facebook, (least I miss out on what everyone I have ever known has done in the past twenty minutes), they had opened the washer in the middle of the cycle and dumped a bunch of extra soap in it, just for good measure. Realizing that this might be too much, they were scooping it out of the hole and dumping the excess off onto the floor.  Because that's what you do with excess dishwasher detergent, naturally.  

At the end of the day, my middle child handed me a green cup, and marveled about how well the dishwasher cleaned it. He was truly mesmerized by this machine's remarkable abilities to clean. This was after a fun afternoon of playing with their brand new dunk tank/rocketship that floated to the ceiling (large empty dishwasher box.) So anyway, that's about it for the dishwasher saga, until tomorrow.  I have to go now, for I have been found out.  6:10, and I am being ambushed with a dishtowel. 

How to tell if you are a grown up.

You know you are a grownup when you are giddy about a new dishwasher.

Although, as our dishwasher arrived in a very large box, I realized that our five year old is just as giddy as me.  In fact, as I am thinking about it, he has been telling everyone we run into that our dishwasher makes terrible noises and we need a new one. And yes it has been screeching and yelling at us, and is covered in stickers that won't come off.

So, the poor little guy  has been staring at this box for a full day now, asking over and over when we can put the new dishwasher in. I am sure some of it has to do with the box he will get to play in after, but you know.

If you can't take the heat, get out of Miami

Hello.

I was born and raised in the strange town/metrapolis/suburban spraw/big city of Miami, Florida.

Oh Miami, one day I will write a book about you.  I'm not quite sure there is a city on earth as amusing as you.

When I was little I loved splashing in the ocean and spending my entire summer with my head under a water hose.   I love listening to the thunder, laying in the road in the middle of the night staring up at the stars, counting them for hours, feeling the tropical wind around me, and pondering the mysteries of the universe as I looked at the expanse of the heavens.

I splashed barefoot in rain puddles all year long. I went to the beach.  I swam in swimming pools. I walked up to the 7-11 to buy candy. I praised God when it got to be warm enough to turn on our little space heaters, which were probably fire hazards.

This summer I had the opportunity to go to my home of Miami to visit my family.  In August.  Who goes to Miami in August?  Only crazy people apparently.  I think even the people who live there don't go in August. It has been over 10 years since I've visited my home town in the middle of the Summer.

I had....forgotten......ugh.

And here I was, in the land where makeup melts off your face in a puddle. Where even when you try to cool off by going to the beach, you realize that the water has been baking in 90 degree weather plus humidity for two months and isn't quite that refreshing.

It is a time of year when you either sit in your air conditioned house, or go to the air conditioned mall, or swimming.  And....that's.....it.

No wonder when we were kids we coined the term "Fall Fever" as opposed to "Spring Fever."

None the less we managed to have a great time reuniting with our long lost family.  We watched movies and attempted at going to David Fairchild Tropical Gardens in the heat (traumatizing our poor children ha ha.) and we went to Aunt Mary Lou's swimming pool. Oh how grateful I am for her lovely pool!

Some silly observations.

We live in a very weird world. Think about this:

We spend most of our days staring into little boxes, scrolling around with our index finger.

We often bring everyone we've ever known along with us to experience what we ate for lunch, dinner and we sometimes bring them on our family vacations.

We are able to experience tragedy that happened around the world, often before we even recognize the tragedy that might be going on under our own roof.

Everyone is famous, at the click of a button.  What does it mean to become famous if pretty much everyone is famous?

Our guiding light in the world is based on the next trending thing that is going to shock us, make our jaw drop, or our blood boil.

Everyone is out fighting for a cause. And I mean fighting.

People read books on a screen.

And best of all, today I saw kale super food lotion at the store.

Yes, we live in a very weird world indeed!