Papa Smith’s Pizza November 14, 2009

     Since Kenny was working late tonight, the kids and I decided to be lazy (I am raising those kids RIGHT!) and order a pizza for dinner, instead of going with our planned menu meal.  We have this really great pizza place right up the street from us, and we order from the establishment frequently.  I won’t tell you how often, because you’d be shocked and I’d be embarrassed.  Suffice it to say, our frequency cards keep us in free pizza every month or so…

 

     (Free pizza!  Mmmm…)

 

     Oh yeah, I was talking about tonight.  So, I left the three oldest playing Wii, Nintendo and computer, respectively, and took Anthony with me to get our doughy goodness.  I pulled up next to a small black car, and I just happened to glance over at the driver.  Imagine my surprise when I recognized him– it was my dad! 

 

     Now, we live fairly close to each other, but not so close that we frequent the same pizza restaurants, so it was quite remarkable and extremely unexpected to see him there.  Anthony was screaming, “Grandpa!  Grandpa!” from inside the van so loudly I think my kids at home probably heard him, and my dad smiled a huge grin and hopped out of his car to greet us, leaving his hot pizza to grow cold on the front seat. 

 

     He followed me into the pizza place and pulled out his wallet to pay for our dinner.  With my coupons (thank you again, frequency card!  or should I say, thank you again, inherent laziness!), our two pizzas and an order of breadsticks came to a whopping $6.50, and Dad still insisted on paying.  It was such a sweet gesture!  I know it made my night, and I have the feeling it made his, too.

 

     After a hug and a kiss, we parted ways;  me to my hungry kids, and him to his.  I think our chance meeting made the pizzas taste EXTRA good tonight. 

 

     So, what do you say, Dad?  Same time next week?  Or, pick a night.  Any night.  (Every night?)    :D

White Trash Wall Art, Sutton Style November 4, 2009

     During my two-month absence from the blog, I was (fortunate?  cursed?  humiliated?) to have experienced several situations that put me in a special sort of category.  A People of Walmart category.  A take-your-kids-to-work-with-no-pants sort of thing that morphed from the mortifying into the hilarious, at least for those who happened to view it.  Us.  Whatever.  (Trust me, those stories are coming.  And you will LOVE me for them.  Just not tonight.)

 

     I try to adopt the “laugh so you don’t cry” mentality, which may be a sure sign of my descent into full-blown white-trashiness (“Hi, my name is Kemi and I have no class.”   “Hi, Kemi.”), but I’ve found that it helps me retain what little sanity I have.  Especially when dealing with my husband  children  family.  Perhaps the ability to embrace the tackiness that makes up my life is somewhat like Prozac, only without the pharmaceuticals. 

 

     So, my life being what it is, after I got all the kids to school this morning, and Abbie went off with her dad (*insert your own title-related joke here*), I noticed a two-inch spot on the wall in the hallway.  Upon further investigation, I saw that someone had used my wall as an artist’s canvas.  This someone, when interrogated after her Kindergarten dismissal, said that she didn’t have time to grab a sheet of paper, and therefore felt completely justified in using the wall.

 

     Also?  This is not her first time.  Nor is it the first (or second, or hundredth) conversation we’ve had about what markers and crayons are SUPPOSED to write on.  And yet?  I find mini masterpieces on her limbs, her clothes, her sheets, her books, MY books…

 

     Who needs wallpaper (or nice paint) when you have an artiste  living under your roof?  Perhaps I should charge for her services and fund my retirement.

 

Living Room Abstract

2′  x  3′

Hannah, age 2

Dry erase marker on white paint

(faded paint courtesy of magic eraser)

Composed while artist’s mother was nursing artist’s infant brother

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Hallway

2″  x  2.5″

Hannah, age 5  (three weeks shy of 6)

Red felt tip on white paint

Composed covertly while artist should have been in bed

 

 

 

 

     Oh my goodness, we’ve turned into this: 

 

Kemi: The (Hopeful) Return November 1, 2009

     When I was a little girl, my journal read something like this:

 

October 19, 1983

Grandma Smith bought me this new journal for my eighth birthday!  I am going to write in it every day.

 

January 1, 1984

I haven’t been very good about writing in my journal, but I’m going to start now.  I’m going to write in it every day.

 

August, 1984

Wow, I wasn’t very good at writing in my journal.  I need to be better.  So much has happened, but it’s late tonight and I need to sleep, so I’ll write tomorrow.  PROMISE.

 

September, 1987

Wow, look how long it’s been since I’ve written in my journal!  I’m in eighth grade now, can you believe it?

 

August, 1992

So, I was packing for college and I found the old blue journal that Grandma gave me when I got baptized.  Since only two or three pages were written in, I decided to bring it along, just in case I wanted to write in a journal.

 

 

     And you know what?  I did write.  EVERY SINGLE DAY for two years.  Going back and looking through that big, blue journal makes me smile.  Things that happened to me, boys I had a crush on, the friends I made and the experiences I had (both good and bad) are all there for me to browse through.  I LOVE that I was so diligent at keeping a journal.  It’s funny– the primary reason I did it was because I wanted to tell my mom every single thing that happened when I was away, and it was too expensive for me to call long distance every night.  (Feel free to laugh at my dependency.  Some of my roommates did, often.)  I filled that journal, plus two more, over the next 2 1/2 years.  Ironically, I stopped writing nightly around the time I met my husband, and just between us, those are the times I SHOULD have been writing regularly.  (He remembers our history just a *teency* bit differently than I do, and it would be so helpful to pull out my journal and show him just how wrong he is.)

 

     Anyway…

 

     Some of you probably noticed that I have been absent from my blog lately.  (Some of you may not have, and I’d rather not have you tell me you didn’t notice.)  Without going into too much detail, let me just say that life seems to have hit me squarely between the eyes when I wasn’t looking, and I have been feeling slightly (read:  SLIGHTLY!!!) overwhelmed by it all.  Some of it is funny (in hindsight, of course);  some of it is sad.  Some of it is touching and sweet, and a good share of it is frustrating and cringe-worthy. 

 

     All of it is mine.

 

     It stands to reason, then, that it deserves to be written about, rather than avoided and/or forgotten.  At some point in the future, maybe one of my children will have a child who acts like another of my children (although having TWO of them in this world will signal the apocalypse, I’m certain), and it would be nice for them to read that while their mom’s head did, in fact, explode with frustration on a regular basis, it managed to grow back every single day.  Perhaps they’ll find themselves lacking faith, or unsure about the future, and they’ll take comfort in the fact that someone else has been there and made it through.  (Please, God, let me make it through.)

 

     If nothing else, I hope to be able to look back on this time in my life and be reminded of who I was and how far I’ve come.  It might also be nice to keep count of how many times a mother’s head can explode before it fails to regenerate.

 

     I’m up to 174.

All (good?) things must come to an end, eventually. August 16, 2009

     I was released from my calling in the Relief Society Presidency this morning.

 

     After nearly four years of (barely-attended) Enrichment activities, welfare meetings, Sunday lessons, planning sessions and a whole (WHOLE!) lot of murmuring– Bad Kemi, I know–, I am done.

 

     Yesterday, before I knew it was coming, I thought I’d be elated.  It turns out I loved it more than I realized, because today I can’t seem to stop crying.  I choked up when I got off the phone with the Executive Secretary this morning.  I sniffled through our RS lesson on (how fitting!) the organization and history of the Relief Society.  I cried when we gathered up the tablecloths and decorations for the last time.  I sobbed when my name was read over the pulpit, and the tears just kept coming during Sacrament Meeting, at least until Anthony wet his pants on the padded bench and I had to take him out to the van for a complete change of clothes.  (It wouldn’t be Sunday without my family providing comic relief for the ward.  Also, do you know how hard it is to quietly blot urine out of upholstery when you’re sitting on the FRONT ROW and your kids keep asking, Did Anthony have an accident?  Eeeew!  No one sit there!  Anthony peed his pants!)  The new presidency is going to be wonderful, but a little (big) part of me wishes I could start the whole calling over again.  (I KNOW!  I am clearly MENTAL.)

 

     In the five years and three months we’ve lived in this ward, I’ve gone a total of two weeks without a calling.  I feel like running a side bet to see 1) Which new calling I’ll get, and 2) How long it will be before it’s issued.  (Feel free to leave your guesses in the comment section, but please understand that if you guess Gospel Doctrine teacher, we will no longer be friends.)  

You can’t take me anywhere. July 6, 2009

 

      (Say hello to my leetle friend!)

 

 

 

     I went to the library today to pick up some books I’d put on hold.

 

     When I opened my wallet to retrieve my library card, a giant (and I mean GIANT) earwig crawled out of it.

 

     It wasn’t a cockroach, so at least there was that, but still…  what sort of person (unknowingly) transports icky bugs to public places, only to have them crawl across the checkout counter while dozens of  (two)  library employees stare at it in horror?   (*shudder*)

 

     I was MORTIFIED.

 

     So, I did what I thought would be least embarrassing (although in hindsight, stripping naked and doing the hula might have been the safer choice):  I smiled, brushed it off the counter with my bare hand and stomped on it three times so it was good and mashed into the carpet.

 

     I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!

 

     I make my family proud.

When You Burn a Girl a CD (Or, Why I Have a Slight Crush on Jason Mraz) June 11, 2009

When you burn a girl a CD, she will listen to it every single moment she is awake.

After she has listened to it approximately 25 times, she will ask you to print off the lyrics for each song.

After you print off the lyrics, she will sing along.

As she sings along, you begin to pick up the lyrics as well.

After you can sing every song on the CD, some phrases begin to stick out.

As you ponder those phrases, you begin to apply them to certain life experiences.

Those life experiences remind you of other songs, which makes you go to i-Tunes and download them.

After you’ve downloaded those other songs, your daughter hears them and asks you to burn her a new CD.

And, when you burn a girl a CD, she will listen to it every single moment she is awake.

 

 

 

Fourteen June 10, 2009

     Fourteen. 

 

     You may think it’s the age of my emotional maturity, or the number of times I start a sentence- and a paragraph!- with the word “and” in my posts.  (I DO know better.  However, in my opinion, technical writing and blog writing don’t really belong in the same space, unless you’re writing a technical blog.)  Perhaps you’re counting my parenthetical asides, but you’d be mistaken.

 

     Today is my

“Steal from Wal-Mart. Not from people.” June 8, 2009

(Lest you flog me verbally for suggesting such a thing, I want to defend my title choice by saying it was a comment response to my sister’s Facebook status, and it was one of the only things that made me giggle today.  I don’t actually think people should steal from ANYBODY, or anything.  Fair enough?

Carry on.)

 

     I had hoped to write something funny and/or charming for today’s post, but the morning got off to a rough start, and instead of cute, you get scary, gritty and sad.

 

     (You  may be asking yourself why you continue to read my blog, and I assure you that very soon, I will be back to my usual witty and hilarious self.  Perhaps even by tomorrow.)

 

     This morning started off the way Mondays usually do– my alarm went off at 4:30 AM, I staggered to the front door to unlock it, rubbed my eyes, got a drink and waited for Kristi to walk in with Abbie.  Right on cue, at 4:35 the door opened, Kristi carried Abbie inside, took off her sweater, kissed her, put her in the playpen and said goodbye, then walked out the door.  Abbie fussed for a minute, and I told her it would be okay, that Mommy was going to work and would be back soon, and I reached behind me to dim the lamp.

 

     All of this took three minutes.  Five, tops, but that’s stretching it.

 

     Suddenly, the front door flew open, swinging so hard it slammed into the door stop.  Kristi yelled, “Call 911!  I’ve just been robbed!”

 

Skirt, squared June 6, 2009

     I wanted to post pictures of the twirly skirts I made for Kendra and Hannah.  They were really easy, even for a novice like me, and my girls love them!  Kendra wore hers for Friday’s talent show, and Hannah can’t wait to wear hers to church tomorrow.

 

     I printed off step-by-step directions (with pictures!) from this website.  When I make these in the future (I’m even considering one for me!), I will make them just a few inches longer to compensate for the “twirl” factor and inevitable underwear flash, but other than that, the pattern was perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New bathroom! June 3, 2009

     I had a crazy, busy, fun day today, in which I neglected to do anything productive, but found important ways to share my time with people I love.  The best part of the day was watching Ella Enchanted with my kids on our new couch, where we all fit and no one had to sit on the floor or wiggle around on my lap.  It was heavenly! 

 

     Now that the kids are in bed, I’m too tired to do a “real” post, so I’m going to take the advice of the comedian on my NaBloPoMo badge below and not overthink things.  Since it’s clean and there are no more boxes to unpack in it, I will unveil my new bathroom to you.  I think this is my favorite room.  Seriously.  I might just paint my bedroom this color.

 

For comparison purposes, here’s the old, yucky bathroom: