I know who you are

My friend Lisa and I were talking about blogs the other day. We decided that since most LDS people keep journals, a fair number probably blog as well. So today I decided to hit next blog when I was done reading blogs and see how many I had to hit until I found someone who looked like they were LDS or else lived in Utah. I hit next blog 3 times and then found someone who is LDS. I know they are because of the picture of Moroni and the missionaries and temple. Unfortunately, I couldn't read anything from their blog as it was in another language. (I want to say Swiss or Finnish, but really, I have no clue. So I left them a post. They probably don't understand English, but if they do how cool. So give it a try. Pick a criteria (loation, age, religion etc.) and count how many times you have to click next blog until you find someone who meets your criteria.

Kicking and Screaming

UPDATE: this post is meant to help some family members new to posting. It it NOT meant to reflect on the ablilities of previous posters. Sorry for the confusion!!!
I understand how hard new technology is. Shawn is often explaining new tech stuff to me, usually many times. So, I am leaving the most direct directions I can for how to leave a comment on a blog. Each entry is called a post. At the bottom of the post is a time stamp. It says posted by meredith and shows the time I posted. One the right it says a number of comments. (Like 3 comments) To leave a comment you left click on the number of comments. This will bring to a new page. That page will show all of the comments and have a empty box under the words leave your comment. You click in that box and write what you want to say. Then, you will see a bunch of random letters. You type those in the box marked word verification. After you do that you click on leave anonymous since you don't have a blogger/google account. Then click post your comment. You will get a comment that tells you that your comment has been saved and you are done. It's very easy and a lot of fun- it's also cheaper than calling me and telling me what you think of the blog. :)

Washington D.C.

Shawn took a trip to D.C. a couple of weeks ago. He keeps meaning to blog about it, but then he forgets/gets busy. So, I decided to blog for him. The problem is that he showed these pics at about midnight on the day her got home (he got home after 11 p.m.) so I honestly can't remember much. Some are from the National Zoo, some are from the National Aquarium, and some are from the Smithonian. My favorite is of the guy at the Smithonian because when we said , oh who's that guy? Shawn's answer was "I have no idea, he was just in the picture". We're glad he's home and if you have questions about the trip feel free to comment, he's more likely to explain if I'm not the only one asking.

People who shouldn't play with knives....

When Eric and Vanessa 1st moved to town, Eric managed to cut himself enough for stitches opening a slice of cheese as he showed off for his kids. A year and 1/2 (or so) later, Vanessa cut herself enough for stitches making food for a party at her home. Tonight, Shawn cut himself on the final cut of carving his pumpkin. My 1st thought was, "I wonder how long he's going to drag this out before he finally just goes to the E.R. My gues was at least an hour, so imagine my surprise when within just a few minutes he says, "This is really deep, I'm going to the E.R." The irony of this injury is of course that i had spent about an hour and a half with about 30 preschoolers and their parents (who included both Eric and Vanessa) and no one cut themselves there. Better luck next time I guess. So, my new thought is, who ended up with more stitches?

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

We have been learning the Five Little Pumpkins at preschool all month long. (If you don't know it you can google it, but having done it so many times, I just don't want to say it again. ) We are performing it at our pumpkin carving party tonight for all of the parents. Lily, who is in my class on Thursdays and Fridays, has practiced very hard at school as well as at home. All of the children have been eagerly waiting for the party. One little girl was absent today and I thought , "wow, what a hard day to be absent from school, she must be very sad to miss all the fun." And, it will be very sad for her. There's only one thing that i can think of that's worse and that's when you get sick at school and find out that not only are you not going to the party, but your mom, one of the preschool teachers, still is. This of course happened to Lily today. She gets full marks for 1) telling me she needed to be sick a full 90 seconds before she was, and 2) for actually being sick in a the lined garbage can at school. Lily rocks, but is very sad because she'll now miss the party. I of course feel incredibly guilty because I will still be there. It really doesn't get much worse-unless one of us comes down with this on Halloween......

Pro Flag Football

We went to a party on Saturday to "play a little flag football." I knew I was out of my element when I saw that they actually had lines painted on the ground, goal posts, a sound system announcing all of the plays and a concession stand. It was a ton of fun and we're looking forward to playing next year. The kids loved

the trampoline, horses and chickens and the younger kids loved making up a half-time show. Shawn was a super hero on the field and was very impressive. Unfortunately, he's still paying for it today as he limps around. Still we can't wait until next year. The flag football "season" runs mid August through mid October, so we're planning on getting a lot of games in next year.

A perfect Saturday

I woke up this morning in a bad mood and thought arrg, what a crappy day. Then, I realized it was after 8 and everyone else was still sleeping, friends showed up with donut holes just to say they were thinking of us, I not only thought that I could get my lesson done for church tomorrow in the hour everyone was gone, but iIactually did get it done in an hour, we spent the afternoon playing flag football-and it never rained and was actually warm despite the forecast, (The craziest -in a good way, thing you've ever seen, look for the post and pics tomorrow), the kids spent a ton of time jumping on the trampoline, feeding the horses, chasing the chickens and playing in the hay loft and weren' ever bored at the party, Em had a friend sleep over and Charlie got home super late from her activitiy- and they were all asleep by 11:30 and we had friends of for a game until about 12:30. So, Shawn and I are sore and tired and glad to go to bed. We're also grateful for the wonderful friends we have and our fabulous family as well. It was a perfect Saturday. I'm so glad my grumpy thoughts this morning were wrong. :)

Cyberstalking definition

I was at a party and 2 things happened. 1st someone asked me if I made up "cyberstalker" and second someone told me that me definition was wrong and that you are only a stalker if you read blogs of people you don't know. So, I am going to assume that I did make up the term and am therefore entitled to define it. If you read a blog and never comment you are a cyberstalker. It does not matter if you know the person whose blog you are reading or not, just as it doesn't matter if you know the person stalking you in person. So if you are reading this right now and you have never commented then you are a stalker- especially if you are using it to gather information.

Now, before all you cyberstalkers get mad, I want to make sure that you know that I love cyberstalkers. If any blogger wants their blog to only be read by people they know, then they make it a private blog. Any open blogs are fair game and are there to be enjoyed. I know of a couple of stalkers who have private blogs but who stalk mine and I'm fine with that as well. (Yup, someone totally ratted you out by mistake.)

So if you read a blog and NEVER comment you are a stalker- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Liars had better not change their minds

Lily is experimenting with lying. It is either a preschool age thing or else a preschool attending thing as she is telling the same kinds of lies as all of the kids in my preschool class. My personal favorite lie is when a child walks across the room not paying attention, trips over their own feet or another child and points at the closest child and says, "teacher, he/she pushed me!" So, Emily was blamed for knocking Lily down several times this week. I explained to Lily that it is wrong to tell lies. I assumed that this would take several more attempts before she really understood it. So, imagine my surprise when Lily asked me a question, I said no, and then changed my mind. Lily immediately responded, "Mommy, why are you lying? Lying is wrong and I don't like to be lied to." I tried to explain that it's not lying if you say no to a drink and then change your mind, but Lily wasn't buying it at all. I'm sure when it suits her she'll come on board, so I'll let you know the next time I tell her no lying and she says she just changed her mind. For now in our home, apparently you get one shot at a drink, and them you had better stick with your answer.

Almost Home/rock solid marriage

Phone conversations that start off with "I have some bad news" never go well. Shawn called Thursday night to say that due to some complications with his trip he would no longer be home Friday night as promised. Instead, he would be home around noon on Saturday. Well, I didn't have to pay for his ticket so really, there's not much I can say. So imagine my surprise when he calls on Friday afternoon to say the Sat. A.M. flight didn't work out and now he's on a Sat. evening flight. He will land around 10 p.m. and hopefully be home by 11:30 p.m. So, while none of this is his fault, I've got some cranky children at home. It has been a LOOOONG week.

On the plus side, I have informed him that I will never divorce him. (In the past I had always said that if he cheated or hit me I'd divorce him.) My new stance is if he ever does those things I'll make him live in the basement and eat cat food , but I'm NOT doing the single parent thing. Especially since as I typed this, Lily has just song out, "MOOOOMMMMYYY, I POOOOOPPPPPPEDDD!!!!! followed by "DaaaaaDDDDDYYYYY is the BEEEEESSSSSTTTTT!" I'm off to wipe a little butt.

Money chain

Shawn took a trip to D.C. this week. It was very upsetting to Lily. She started to pack her own things in his suitcase. She packed clothes, P.J.s, her toothbrush and a pillow. When Shawn explained that he didn't have a ticket for her, she got out her piggy bank and showed him all of her money and told him she would buy her own. When I told her that I would miss her and needed her to stay with me and go to preschool, she told me that I had Emily and I could go to preschool by myself. Luckily, Shawn left early Monday morning when Lily was to tired to do more than give him a big hug. She has been fine without him, but we're glad he's on his way back.

Cyber stalking

Okay, I admit to being a blog stalker. I totally read blogs that I never comment on. Mostly, I follow the blogs of my friends (and very distant family) Lisa and Nessa. We try and walk several times a week and I read their family's blogs so that I don't spend all my time asking who's pregnant and who's kids did what. So, I just read one of lisa's sil's blogs. She has fabulous Halloween murals that she's painted on her windows. I want to say, "Hey, those are fabulous!!!" But then I'm afraid that she say, "Who is this crazy lady posting?" So I have no idea what to do. And, now I'm curious- is anyone stalking my blog? I have an idea that one person might be, but really if you're stalking let me know...........

The Pumpkin Patch

We went to our favorite pumpkin patch over the weekend. We had a great time with all of the activities- we went through the color maze, panned for gems, slid down an 80 foot slide, (well, Shawn and the kids did- I took pics from the bottom), dug for dinosaur bones, climbed a dinosaur, were human gerbils , went to the Enchanted Forest, played in harvest town(where after 15 years together Shawn finally beat me at checkers. I was distracted watching Lily dart in and out of the little buildings though). Eventually, we even took a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch and picked out pumpkins. This year, we skipped Dodge Town (old west), all of the shows, and the corn maze, after almost 4 hours we were exhausted and wanted to get a late lunch. If you're in Minnesota, you should try Tweite's Pumpkin Patch- it's definitely worth the drive!!!

Sampson and a pretty girl

Shawn hasn't cut his hair beyond a basic trim in months. He was seriously thinking about growing it out for locks of love. He finally decided that it just wasn't going to happen when he really looked at the hair of a great friend. She lost her hair because of chemo about 9 months ago- when Shawn started growing his out. Her's a quite a bit longer than Shawn's who had a head start of a couple of inches. So, with a trip to a warmer, more humid climate next week, Shawn cut off his fabulous locks. Along the way he shared what he learned- that he has curly hair- he never had hair long enough to know, that conditioner is actually an important step, that you really can't ever skip a shower, that product can be very helpful/important.

Lily learned something today. It's not a lesson that I really think she needed to learn, but it's been taught to her several times already. Pretty people get a lot of free things. As we waited for Shawn/ took his pictures, one of the stylists asked if she could curl Lily's hair. She went on and on about how sweet, smart and pretty Lily was and then curled all of her hair at no charge. She insisted that she loves to curl hair and told Lily she should never cut her beautiful hair. Lily just kept smiling.

Almost Home

There are things that are frozen permanently in your mind. Snap shots of how things looked, felt, tasted or smelt. The Sights, tastes, smells, and the feel of the warm sky that shouts New England October were all here on Wednesday. I might as well have been 8. The pictures can't do justice, but here is how our front yard looked yesterday. (BTW, if you look at the pics from the parade, this is the same tree) I hope that your October is going as well as ours!

What do you think?

Here are topics being discussed in our home. Tell me what you think.
Is the bailout needed to save our economy or a horrible way to let banks off the hook?
Are you going to vote for someone who voted against your view of the bail out?
When you vote for President, is your vote for someone or is it really a vote against the other canidate?
When someone really ticks you off, do you tell them or just complain to your spouse/friends? Is one option better than the others?
When someone has had an event and hasn't invited you and then mentions it accidently and you either don't care or are actually happy that you weren't invited, is it better to ignore it or tell them that you weren't offended/didn't want to go?

Life in a northern town

Okay, so I have that song running through my head. Still, it's great to live in a small town. One of the great things about our small town is the Homecoming parade every year. It goes right doown our street and is a ton of fun The kids catch candy and the moms hang out chatting-abd there are always a lot of dada as well. This year I got some great advice from Vanessa and left one of our cars parked on the road until right before the parade started. We had great seats and a lot of fun. Thanks to everyone who came. Now if only I could get the 4th of July parade to go down our street......