Memories

Recently I happened to be driving near my old neighborhood and decided to drive by the house that I grew up in. There were workers outside who were fixing the mailbox. They were doing brick and cement work to enclose it.

When I lived in that house (my whole life until I went to college) the mailbox was connected to a large planter that was made out of brick that matched the house. Every year I planted flowers in it with my mom. I used to play there with my friends. We would try to jump off of it with our roller skates on. Every now and then some ants would start to build ant hills there and I would have a lot of fun pouring water over them and flooding them out.

But the best memory I have of that mailbox happened when I was in high school. Bob, my step-dad, had been doing yard work one night. He was pulling out some bushes that lined the driveway but had become overgrown. Bob tied a rope around the roots of the bushes, tied the other end to the back of his truck, and then would floor it to rip the bushes out. In order to do this, he had to move our blue Subaru station wagon back several feet to make room for the truck. (My first car, aka: the gutless blue-wonder- I still miss that car!)

Well, Bob never pulled the Subaru back to it’s usual position when he was done that night. The next morning my mom and I were running a little late to get me to school. This was before I could drive, so I must have been in 10th grade. We ran into the car, my mom gunned it, and crashed straight into the mailbox, hitting the mailbox's planter.

Then, one of the funniest moments of my life occurred: My mom said, “SHIT!” I guess this is only funny if you know my mom. She has been a dedicated church employee for almost 20 years. She is the relief society president in her ward. She probably has never seen an R rated movie. She was raised in a very proper home where good etiquette was strictly enforced. She is one of the most faithful, well-mannered, and even-tempered people I know. Now, that’s not to say that relief society presidents and church employees don’t swear, it’s just that this is so NOT my mom!

Bob ran outside to see what all the commotion was about. He asked, “What happened?” My mom got out of the car, tearfully ran to hug Bob, and sobbed, “I said a BAD WORD!”

Never mind any damage that the car or the mailbox may have incurred, the real tragedy in this scenario was that a cussword escaped.

From then on, every time I saw the spot where a couple of bricks were broken off the mailbox, I had a good laugh. It reminded me of my mom and Bob, and of the good times that we had.

Bob died two years ago. About 6 months before his death, he and my mom sold that house. Because the house was sold and Bob died so closely together, I tend to lump those two events together in my mind. Not only is Bob gone, but the house that we shared together, the house that we fought in, the house that we learned to love each other in, the house that Bob caught me sluffing school with a boy in (whoops!), the house where all of my memories of the life that we had together is gone.

So when I saw them covering up the mailbox, I got a little teary-eyed. It was hard to see. But I guess that’s life.

Sometimes I think maybe we should tell the new homeowners about our dog that we buried just next to the swing set…

No, if they are going to go around messing up all of my memories, they deserve to come across a dog skeleton or two.

My High-Spirited Child

I haven't had too much going on lately, and so haven't posted. But it's been too long, so I thought I would share a small sampling of my daily life.

People always say that boys are 'easier' because they are less emotional, and girls are 'more difficult' because they are too sensitive/emotional/high maintenance, etc. And I always brushed that off as being a load of crap. Well, fate stepped in to teach me a lesson. McKenna is the most emotional person I have ever met. She is so emotional and her mood swings are incredibly abrupt. I know that some of this comes with the territory of a one year old, but she's taking this to a new extreme. Here is a video of McKenna where she is upset that JJ has a box of raisins and she doesn't. WHY doesn't she have any??? Because she had already just polished off a box of her own.



(Notice how she snorts into her bunny? She is so cute, even when she's naughty!)

On Monday at playgroup, the kids got to play with a parachute for a few minutes. McKenna was having a great time and then something made her mad. Maybe she wanted to grab the parachute just when we were pulling it up, maybe someone got in her way, I don't know. But SOMETHING made her mad! She dramatically collapsed onto the ground right in the middle of all the playing kids, covered her eyes and proceeded to scream like it was going out of style. I just stood there observing this (And trying not to laugh, which is my usual response to such a dramatic display of human emotion.) The other moms were looking at me like, "Hello- pick up your kid, she's hurt!" Umm, nope, she's just mad.

Sometimes it gets old, but usually it is just funny. And although the tanturms occur quite often, they never last too long- especially if bunny is nearby. And I can't stay annoyed, because she is just as funny as she is dramatic.





One thing is for sure- this little girl is going to give us a run for our money!

Hair

I really like my new hair cut.





But McKenna's not too sure.


All night she's been looking at me like, "What have you done with my Mommy?" Daddy is clearly her favorite tonight.

This Week

We had a busy and fun week. My Mom got tickets for my siblings and our families to go to the Bees game. I knew that JJ would love it.


And McKenna liked it about as well as I thought she would.

Shortly after we took this picture we discovered that as long as she had some licorice to eat, she was totally fine.

JJ watched the game intently for about the first hour or so, and then he spent his time playing with cousins.


DOUBLE THE TROUBLE!!! Cute boys.




Also, I have recently come to terms with the fact that we will probably be living here for at least another three years or so. And I'm actually excited about it. We'd like to accomplish a few goals, and get into a pretty good financial position before we move again. But in the meantime we're going to have to be creative about where we store things, and be careful about what types of things we can keep since we are getting short on space. (My Mom has given up on trying to talk me into getting a 'traditional' food storage, and is helping me look in to dehydrated meals since they are so much smaller, and more realistic for me to store.) We may end up needing to rent a storage unit for a while- seriously where are you supposed to put that darned exersaucer when baby doesn't need it anymore? The thing is so big it practically has it's own gravitational pull!

Anyway, as a token of my new commitment to our townhome, I have decided to make it more 'our own.' I spent the weekend painting our bedroom. It was a lot of work, but we're both really happy with it. I thought the color was going to be kind of a dark brownish grayish color, but it really just looks more grayish bluish to me. But we still really love it.

A Classic

While trying to become motivated to clean my house, I remembered THIS gem:

If you have little ones around you may want headphones- he says H E double hockey sticks.

Ok, as I re-read my post from last night, I can see that I was pretty harsh. Here are some clarifications.

1. I don't hate the people who run the HOA. Like I said in the post, all they are doing is enforcing the rules that are already in place. And I understand that they have a very difficult job, and that they put in a lot of work on our behalf.

2.Really, I just hate it that I am living where there is an HOA. If I had known what an HOA really was when we were looking for homes, I wouldn't have lived here. I thought that having an HOA just meant that I wouldn't have to do yard work. I am the type of girl who likes to handle her own business, and the lack of control that I feel about where my money goes, how the rules are enforced, what the rules are, how difficult it is to change the dumb ones, etc. frusterates me to no end. It is a control issue for me.

3. I do agree with almost all of the rules. But I do not agree with many of the measures the HOA takes to enforce them.

4.I do not hate the stupid guy. Maybe he just needed to blow off a little steam. I really don't know what he expected though, living around this many people. Did he think he would never hear anyone? Oh well, he probably thinks I'm stupid too. That's ok.

In case you missed the HOA meeting...

I do not have adequate words to describe the level of hatred I have for the Home Owner's Association here.

I hate it that I cannot park in front of my house. I know it's against a fire code. I know that it is for our safety. I don't care. I still want to park there. Get over it.

I hate it that even though the insurance premiums the HOA pays for will be going down considerably, our monthly payment will not. (Because the money needs to be saved for future projects such as roofing, repaving, etc. All things that will probably happen when I no longer live here, so frankly, I don't care about them. This probably makes me a big jerk, but I don't care. It's further proof that I am not ready for the Law of Consecration.)

I hate it that although the people running the HOA hold some opinions that represent the VAST MINORITY, they are the only ones actively participating in it, and therefore hold all of the decision-making power.

I hate it that I have so many intelligent, level-headed neighbors who could really make a positive difference, but they don't show up to the meetings, and therefore have no voice.

I hate the stupid guy who spent 20 minutes at this meeting complaining about the fact that his neighbor drives a car with a loud diesel engine, and who wonders if there is any way that the HOA will make a rule about this. SERIOUSLY??? You can't tell people what kind of car they can drive! If you are that annoyed, then just move. (But I guarantee that wherever you move there will be an even more annoying neighbor with an even louder car. Murphy's Law.) Should we really spend 20 minutes entertaining such a stupid idea? Am I the only one here with better things to do?

I hate it that the HOA president asked someone to TAKE PICTURES of people who do not have their dogs on leashes, or whose dog's poop is not cleaned up. And then plans on fining these people with $100 fees. Yes, I know that those are the rules. And I totally agree with and follow them. But whatever happened to just being a nice neighbor and just ASKING the guy to please put a leash on his dog so that he won't get a fine? (When I asked this, everyone said, "I wouldn't talk to these people unless I had a police officer with me. You don't know how dangerous they can be." I don't buy that for a minute. I really and truly believe that most of my neighbors are not violent people who would cause me physical harm if I tried to help them avoid a $100 fine.)
I guarantee that whenever I see the tow truck, I run outside and start banging on doors to warn my neighbors that their car is about to be towed. (Probably much to the chagrin of my across the street neighbors who have more than once seen me running around late at night like a rabid madwoman in ugly pj's and Where's Waldo glasses panting, "Is that your car? Is that your car getting towed?") I think it's the decent thing to do, and I wish that someone had done that for us when our car was towed.

Yes, the HOA committee is just following the rules. I guess the main problem here is that I really just don't want to live where there is an HOA. I want to live in a house where I can plant a whole bunch of ugly plants all over the place, paint my front door florescent orange, let my dog run around and crap everywhere, and park diagonally in the middle of the street if I feel like it.

The End.