The Exterminator Strikes Again

Hot Mom spots a cricket in house.

Hot Mom rushes to get vacuum.

Hot Mom attempts to suck said cricket in to said vacuum with hose attachment.

Hilarity ensues.

Let me digress for a brief moment to set the appropriate scene. Hot Mom is mortified of all creepy-crawlies and generally leaves that job for Cool Dad. Generally speaking, Cool Dad and Bubba are professionals at eliminating creepy-crawlies. We don't mind the tough hours and the on-call status, but for some unknown reason, tonight, Hot Mom flew solo.

It began with a brief but well-executed "Ooh" followed by another "Ooh" and then an "Ooh, ooh!" Then silence.

I was mildly curious about the "Oohs" but not curious enough at this early stage to get off my fat backside and investigate.

A few moments later, the sound of a vacuum emanated from the family room followed by another high pitched "Ooh". Then a quick "Ooh! Ahh! Ooh!"

What the crap! Was she dancing on hot coals or something?

"Ooh! Ooh-ooh-ooh! No! Oh, no! Ooh!"

I panicked. I ran in expecting...what? I couldn't even imagine the scene I would encounter.

I arrived to see this:

Hot Mom in a cold sweat holding the vacuum hose attachment like some meth-addicted Darth Vader with a light saber, parrying it in to the carpet with wild abandon while shrieking like a crazed Banshee.

"Ooh! Ooh, ooh!"

I nearly fell over. At that exact moment, Hot Mom plunged her weapon in to the carpet with singular focus and...

...the vacuum came unplugged and the cricket jumped away.

"PLUG IT BACK IN!"

Pie looked at her Mom like she was a cross between June Cleaver and Linda Blair and quickly plugged in the vacuum.

"Ooh! Ooh...ooh...ooh...oh, look, got him! Whew!"

Good times.

Good times.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

I have a sweet niece. We will call her Lou. Lou has started texting me on a regular basis and informing me of the number of days until Christmas. You might be asking why she does this. Well, the first reason is she and her Mom are fanatics about Christmas. I am willing to bet that they have already started listening to Christmas music this year. Some years they don't ever stop. It is not unheard of to go to their house and hear Christmas music at Easter. The second reason is that she knows it drives me crazy.

I love Christmas just as much as the next person, but I am an organized freak. I used to think I was a failure if I was not done with my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. I have since given that up to the chaos that is my life. However, that does not mean I am any less stressed when the text comes in telling me there are only 89 days until Christmas.

After the text came in the other day I decided I better get busy, and start asking the kids what they want for Christmas.

Here is Bubba's list:

horse
race car
boat
4-wheeler
jet pack
reindeer with butterflies shooting out of his antlers
slippers
new shirt and tie for church

I really don't want to think about how many days until Christmas. It is giving me a headache.

Giving Blood: The Experience

"Have you had sex with twins hanging from the rafters of a medieval church within the last three years?"

"No."

"Have you experienced malarial symptoms in European countries while tying your shoes?"

"Ummmm...no!"

"Do you feel well enough to eject blood from a perforated vein while squeezing a sawed off piece of PVC pipe while looking at a 200-pound Hispanic woman sipping on an Icee?"

"Ummmm...yes."

"Very well, Cool Dad. Come over here and sit in this aluminum lawn chair while Dana jabs a needle in to you arm at least seven times before calling for her supervisor."

"Can I have something to eat?"

"After you are done, you may have all of the shortbread cookies, Juicy Juice, and trail mix you can stuff in your ample craw, but now you have to sit down here and squeeze the PVC pipe while we conveniently forget that you are the only blood donor at our station."

"So how often can I do this?"

"Oh, once every eight weeks whether you want to or not. Now that we have your phone number we will never let you forget the great service you are sure to provide for the rest of your life."

"Ummmm...my pleasure?"

"No, sir, its my pleasure. Now this may hurt just a little."

"A little?"

"Mwahahahahahahaha!"

The Big Bang

What do you get when you take one of these?



Add it to one of these?



Don't forget one of these?



What do you get?
A loud bang, and one of these!!



His fingers were a little black, and he was a little startled, but otherwise ok.

He Did It!!!

Cool Dad is never one to disappoint his fans, and he didn't on Friday night. I say fans, but I am not sure who that really includes. As he was preparing for the dive our fourteen year old babysitter and her friend we standing behind me begging him not to do "it". What is "it" you ask? DISROBE!!

Exhibit A



Yep, Cool Dad stepped up to the diving board clad in my robe. (Please forgive the picture quality. One of my lenses is giving me huge fits on auto focus, and of course that is the lens I had on the camera, and I didn't have a chance to change it.)

What comes after exhibit A? Exhibit B of course.




Ok, by now you are wondering, how did he pull it off? How did he jump, clad in a Speedo no less??


Apparently he just needed the very clever Hot Mom to come to his rescue.

Speedoville

As many of you know, I am a Mormon. No, I am not on a television ad nor do I have multiple wives (I can't handle even one), but I go to Church and participate on a regular basis and enjoy the sense of community and common faith.

Well, in the Mormon Church, members often participate by either teaching a lesson, offering prayers, leading group discussions or giving talks. Generally speaking, every member has a "calling" or a responsibility to fulfill in order for the congregation to function. In our congregation, Hot Mom and I are in charge of the "Activities Committee". That means we plan the Christmas Party, the Halloween Party, the Winter Social and about a dozen other functions. We cater the food, we decorate the facilities and we do the publicity for the event (i. e. we publish a flier and distribute it on Sundays and call everyone to remind them of what they should bring)

So...this month, we are planning the "Back-to-School Luau". Pulled pork, sticky rice, fruit, green jello and red Kool-Aid. All the Luau fixings you can imagine. Hot Mom is planning up a storm. She even considered having a pinata shaped like a palm tree (cause nothing says "Luau" like a pinata). It will be outstanding and I'm pretty sure that everyone will love it.

Anywho...I am in charge of promotion. To promote this event I volunteered (with tongue firmly in cheek) that I would be conducting a cliff-diving exhibition as part of the ceremonies. Now I said this in a Sunday School class hoping to get a laugh and hoping to encourage some folks to attend who wouldn't normally think a Luau would be fun, but apparently my innocent albeit idiotic quip has taken on a life of its own.

I don't know that anyone is really expecting a cliff-diving exhibition, but from the pulpit this past Sunday, the Bishop announced the Luau, informed everyone of the cliff-diving exhibition, AND mentioned that I would be sporting a SPEEDO. A SPEEDO! 265 lbs. of archaeological goodness clad in a SPEEDO! He said this from the pulpit!

I want to reiterate this: The Bishop mentioned FROM THE PULPIT that I, Cool Dad, will be wearing bum floss and jumping off cliffs this Friday at 6:00 PM.

I am curious if more people or less people will show up given that information. I guess we'll find out on Friday. Does anyone have a Speedo I can borrow?

You are Going to Crack Your Head Open

Bubba is a rocker. Every chair/stool he sits on immediately goes to two or three legs, but never four. It is literally impossible for him to sit still, and even more impossible for him not to tip his chair.

I must tell him at least a million times a day to keep all four legs on the floor or he is going to crack his head open. Does it help? No, it doesn't, but I keep saying it over and over again.

Yesterday it happened again. The chair went out from under him and he crashed to the floor. The absolute one and only thing good about carpet in the dining room instead of tile is that it didn't really hurt him. That does not mean he didn't wail and moan for a few minutes.

Me being the great mom that I am said, "I told you if you didn't quit rocking on that stool it was going to fall and you were going to crack your head."

So tell me, what kind of parent are you? Do you rush to their side with loads of gushy love, or do you say, "I told you so"?

Weekend Drive

I am currently in hot water with Cool Dad because we have been home from our Labor Day getaway for a few days not and I have not posted a thing.

Can you guess??

Drumroll please.......





We went to Tucson!!!!!

With our new residence we have a whole new area in which to spend three day weekends. We decided Tucson would be a great place to visit. We did quite a bit of research on the Tucson City website, which is one of the best city sites I have seen for visitors.

Here are some pics to show some of the beautiful things about Tucson.



There is a beautiful place downtown where they are restoring the old adobe houses. The colors were amazing.


It was also amazingly green there. Coming from the current brown/gray of our residence it was a welcome change. Although, we were told it was because they have had quite a bit of rain, and not to expect green all of the time.




Here is one of the little kids since College Daughter always accuses me of only taking landscape pics.







Finally, the token petroglyph pic since I am married to Cool Dad(I still think he is a little sad that he is know here as Cool Dad instead of Indiana Jones).






We had a great weekend, and really enjoyed our time in Tucson, especially driving to Mt. Lemmon ski resort and getting out of the heat. There are plenty of things to do in Tucson and we will definitely go back. I am hoping next spring when the cactus are in full bloom.

Tell Me I Didn't Just Hear THAT!

In Tucson, on vacation, watching The Food Network with Hot Mom, Pie and Bud (my kids are freaks and actually enjoy The Food Network) and in the middle of Chopped, I hear the following during a commercial break:

"Are you using a dirty catheter?"

At this very moment, I did my best version of a spit-take. About a million things went through my mind, but the first few things that went through my mind were these:

"Me?"

"Who uses a dirty catheter?"

"Why did the Food Network agree to allow this advertiser on their channel?"

"Seriously? A dirty catheter?"

"Ummmmm...NO!"

I don't really remember what else went through my mind but the visuals were altogether disturbing.

So...apparently...if you are using a dirty catheter (you know who you are) there is some help out there. Tune in to Food Network on Sunday nights and solve that problem once and for all.

P. S. You will all note that I did not post any photographs with this blog entry. You're welcome.

Hot Mom is Bursting with Pride, but the Good Kind

Hello,

I would like you to meet College Daughter.



She is amazing, wonderful, kind, and beautiful. She is an unbelievably great friend to me. This week she started her senior year of college. That is a awesome accomplishment considering she just had her 19th birthday, but she is just that kind of girl.

She is a great big sister who is adored by her brother and sister. She is the kind of sister who will still sit on the floor and play Candyland. She is a very popular swim teacher back at the old stomping grounds, and can hardly make it down the hallways at church without a million kiddie hugs from all of her students...she LOVES it. She is anxious to finish school and work with little kids.

She is extremely thoughtful, and a great listener. We talk on the phone every day sometimes a couple of times a day. She tells me about school, and boys, and boys. I love that we have that kind of relationship.

I love that she made me a CD for my road trip to he**, and that she included songs that were fun, or had special meaning for us. Her favorite song when she was four was Waterloo by ABBA. She used to beg me to play it over and over again in the car. I admit I cried when that song came on. I laughed out loud when My Life Would Suck Without You came on. Let's face it, my life would suck without her. It is a great CD, and I still listen to it a couple of times a week and think of my sweet girl.

That is all, I just wanted to the world to know how proud I am of College Daughter and what an amazing, wonderful, sweet, and great kid she is.

Love,
Hot Mom