She's cursed...and other fun facts

I was shocked today as I read my favorite blog, V and Co. to learn that her husband will no longer be employed at his current job, and therefore they will most likely have to move.

That's what happens when you live in the middle-of-nowhere Utah and you're not there because you grow hay, or whatever it is those people do for a living in the middle-of-nowhere. He is a therapist/counselor at a secluded school for troubled teens, and apparently they are closing their doors. Not due to lack of troubled teens, I'm sure. I'm sad for her and her family. The middle of nowhere utah is a great place to raise kids. Heck, if I knew how to make a living down there, you can bet your hayfield I'd be living there too.

My shock turned to sadness when I realized that yet another friend of my sweet cousin Faun will be moving away.

Her husband thinks she's cursed; I'm inclined to agree with him. This will make the 8th, or is it 9th friend that I know about who has sold the farm and moved on to greener pastures. It was just 2 weeks ago that she was lamenting on her blog about one of her good friends moving, and now this. It's just to much to bare.

I'm not sure why her friends feel the need to burrow into her heart, then pull up the stakes and move, leaving bleeding holes behind for me to repair when she calls and cries on my phone on my shoulder. I'm far away, and can't give adequate comfort. So please, if anyone out there in middle-of-nowhere utah reads my blog, I plead with you...read on so you can make an educated decision.

To convince all future wanna-be-movers, I've compiled a list of fun Faun facts that I'm hoping will convince you to stay.

1. She's a great photographer and can make your wrinkles disappear, your teeth whiter, your flab firmer!

2. She bakes homemade bread and will gladly share.

3. She paints on walls too. With permanent paint. So unless you figure out a way to take the wall with you, you'll be wanting to stay and look at the pretty painting she did on your wall.

4. She's funny. She can make you laugh. Hard. Don't drink carbonated drinks when she's telling you about one of her funny stories; it hurts going out your nose.

5. She's engaging and can talk to anybody. I've seen her make friends with the salesclerks at Kohls and...well that's the only place we go to. But I'm sure she makes friends everywhere she goes, cuz she's really friendly, and funny. Did I mention that?

6. She's a great storyteller. She can make a trip to the library sound like fun. Oh wait, that's because she works at the library and does make it fun because she's a great storyteller. Go figure.

7. She walks and talks in her sleep. That makes for really fun sleep-overs. Just beware of where you leave your clothes lying around. You might wake up and find them on her. Upside-down.

8. She has a hot-tub underneath a gazillion stars. But I guess if you live down there you have a gazillion stars too, so that's not a good selling point. But the hot tub part is still cool.

9. She loves to shop and is a good bargain hunter. She will even let you have the $10 pair of brown skeechers, even though she found them and they're her size, but you are so jealous and she's nice like that to give them up.

10. She has a heart of gold, a soul of an angel, a mind of a comedian, and a face of a Rodeo Queen. (I almost said Dairy Queen, but thought you would get the wrong impression).

Doesn't she sound like the worlds Best-Friend? Don't you just want to stay there and grow old with her? (I do)...cuz you know if she's anything like her mom, she'll just keep getting more hilarious as she gets older. (love ya aunt owena)

The truth is...I'm so jealous of all you people who live down there in the middle-of-nowhere. You get to see her every week at church. Everytime you go to the library. At the grocery store, at the track meets, at every random field that there's a deserted vehicle (she'll be there taking pictures in case you couldn't find her at all those other places). You are so lucky that she's your friend! I was once her best friend too, but she moved away, leaving me behind. All alone.

So I cursed her.

Just kidding...I didn't really. But just in case I accidently did while I was having a pity-party, I remove the curse from you. No one that you love will ever move away again!

(Effective right after your daughter moves to South Carolina)

It started with a sneeze...

...and ended with a bang.

Let me explain.

Thursday morning I receive a call from Tary to inform me our daughter has just been in a car accident. But not to worry, she's ok, but her poor little car is not so fortunate to have survived. After the policeman has finished his paperwork, and she's called work to let them know why she's not there, she calls her mom to cry on her shoulder. I'm happy to oblige, and a sappy "are you ok?" from me let's loose the damn of tears.

Poor Kayla has been fighting one of those box-a-day kleenex types of colds, so it hasn't been a good week from the get-go. She was on her way to work, and stopped behind a truck at a stop light. As the light turned green and Kayla was preparing to accelerate, she felt a sneeze coming on. Keep in mind, she has a bad cold, so this isn't going to be a dainty little finger under the nose 'choo', this is a full-blown throw the kleenex under the nostrils cuz here she blows 'A-A-A-Choo!'. Apparently, her whole body got in on the action, cuz when she sneezed, her head went down into the kleenex, and her leg went down on the accelerator, and if you've ever tried to sneeze with your eyes open, it just doesn't work. So although she didn't see what happened next, she could only guess by the sudden impact of a huge kleenex being shoved in her face, wiping the remnants of her sneeze that the first kleenex missed.

It took a few seconds before she came to her senses and realized it wasn't a ball of tissue that attacked her, but her air-bag. What the crap just happened?! One second your sneezing, and the next second you've got your hood embedded in the car in front of you. The guy whose truck she hit was really nice and was more concerned for her and her car, than his own. Lucky for both of them, she smashed into his the back of his hitch, which crumpled her bumber, radiator, and hood fairly nice. His truck suffered only a minor scratch.

Then, as if rear-ending somebody wasn't bad enough, when she got out of her car to inspect the damage, by habit, she locked her door. Now she's standing in the middle of the road, her car smashed in, looking like she just lost a fight with a punching bag, bright red with bag-rash, and no way to get in her car to move it off the side of the road. Did I mention the guy was really nice?

He came to her rescue with a crow-bar, but she used up all her luck that day by running into a nice guy and didn't have any luck left over to unlatch her door lock. Feeling pretty desperate at this point, the guy suggested that the car was pretty much toast, put a crow-bar to it's temple and finish it off. After 3 years and countless miles, she just didn't have the heart; so he did the dirty work for her and smashed in her window.

The police came and wrote her up, giving her a citation for a moving violation. He didn't even ask if she had been on her cell-phone or texting, which is usually the first thing they suspect from young girls. I think he felt bad for her as well and didn't question her sneezie story; afterall, she sounded eerily similar to snuffulufagus and had a pile of well used tissues in the passenger seat that confirmed her story. Good thing for her she was only a block away from her apartment, so was able to coax her car back to her apartment, where she called to tell her sad tale.

What a sob story...so Paisley and I drove up to Weber to pick her up and bring her home safe and sound, so she could rest and recooperate from her woes. All stories need to have a happy ending, so here it goes...

I'm hoping to give Kayla my white Chevy prism, with it's missing hub-cap and defective door latch, complete with the un-scented flip-flop car scent hanging from the rear-view mirror so she'll be able to tell it apart from the million other white prism's out there. Then I can get a new car!

And to think all this time, I thought you had to rub a magic lamp to have your wishes come true, when in reality, it all started with a sneeze!

Bless you Kayla, bless you!

This is dedicated to the one I love

Just a shout out to all my favorite March Birthdays! My Dad, sister Wendy, Bro-in-laws John, Guy, Paul and niece Amber...Happy Birthday!


But this post is dedicated to a special birthday boy, my main man and hot hubby, Tary!




He turns 51 today, not nearly as dramatically as last year when he turned the big 5-0. Last year he was feeling it. He was hobbling around on crutches after snapping his accillies tendon, not able to do much, and probably feeling every gray hair and wrinkle catching up to him.


This year, Tary and I celebrated by going to Mesquite for the weekend where Tary played in a softball tournament. They bombed, but that's ok. It got them out of the tournament quicker, leaving us more time to play, which is why we went down there in the first place. Or truth be told, that's the reason why I went down there in the first place. I think half his team had the same idea as I did, as several of them stayed up all night on Friday partying/gambling, and were pretty much worthless on Saturday. But heh, no complaints heard here.



We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the lovely weather and activities that abound in beautiful Mesquite. We left a chunk of change at the....



Bowling alley, where Tary always amazes me with his hook shot. As the ball rolls precariously close to the edge, just when you think it's gonna tip into the gutter, it breaks toward the middle of the pins and gets a strike! He stayed consistent all 3 games and ended up in the 150'ish range each time. I started out ok with a 128, really kicked it into gear with a 168 in my second game, then humility had to teach me a lesson, so I finished with a pathetic 103 in my last game. My arms were tired.



After bowling, we did something naughty. I knew I would regret it later, but we just couldn't resist. We had...



Ice-Cream! And I didn't even get the fat-free kind either. It was so yummy! Mint Chocolate, my favorite, and fun to try and eat while feeding quarters into the...


Air hockey game in the arcade. Tary smoked me, as usual. Although I think I scored half his points for him by ricocheting the puck from my blocker into my goalie.


After bowling and a little ice-cream, we headed for a dark destination where we could snuggle under a blanket and...


watch a movie. Yes, I actually brought a blanket into the theater. They always have the air-conditioners cranked up and I end up freezing and wishing the movie would prematurely end. We went and saw 'Unknown' with Liam Neeson. I loved it. It had a nice little twist at the end, which I expected there would be, but didn't expect it to go that way...Tary didn't even figure it out. You know it's good if he can't solve the plot within the first 10 minutes.


After the movie, we went to the crap table.


I mean the crab table! Casablanca was having their Prime Rib and King Crab legs buffet for only $15/person, so we loaded our plates, again and again, and ate ourselves silly. It was good. Almost worth the 5 hour drive just for dinner.



After dinner, we headed back to our lovely, understated room. We had every intention of taking advantage of the beautiful pool and nice weather. We brought our swimsuits, I even shaved my legs. But when reality hit, I just couldn't bring myself to stuff my 44 year old, crab and beef bloated body into my one-piece granny suit, while all around were the 20'ish ball playin' boys and their teenie-weenie girlfriends and wives with their pre-pregnancy bodies, bouncing around in their even teenier-weenier bikinis. So instead, I made my own hot-tub, in my teenie-weenie bathtub, and had a nice long soak. Sadly for Tary, it was a one-person hot-tub, so he made himself comfortable on the double bed with no bedspread (did I mention the room was only $39, lacking in amenities, like bedspreads) and watched endless amounts of college basketball. It was a good day.


I told Tary next tournament, he needed to join up with the 50 and over league so I could feel like the young hot-thing among all the older women, and happily strut my stuff to the pool. I hate getting old.


Oh wait...I'm not the one getting old, he is! Just one of the advantages of marrying an older man; he makes me feel young, in more ways than one. Love you hun. Happy Birthday!


Birthday wishes to be filled later.

Yep, you guessed it, ice-cream cake. And not the fat-free kind.