Dave's new TAT

Dave did it again--marathons are in his blood and now on his leg. One of Dia's friends said, "Your dad has the biggest, biking calves I've ever seen." And so there's a lot of space for more tally's.

4:12 finish time. WOOT!

Okay, the company party for 150 people was crazy. The 13 cakes were too many, 6 were left over. If it had been an alcohol-less party, I'm convinced that dessert would have been a bigger success. There was too much refried beans and rice, and believe it or not, too much beer and margaritas.

But there was not too much fun, Dante Schmitz played wonderful music and we shared delightful conversation. To quote a Summit County Bee-ism, I think a good time was had by all.

And the 72 luminaries in the front yard really should have been photographed for posterity. Sad that I was too darn busy.

And there was a dang cute wreath on the front door. I'll be eating peppers for weeks.

Our Halloween Answer to Candy

I think it was successful. The kids loved it. Even the little ones chose an eyeball over playdough.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Aidan's costume was "The guy who follows your kids home from the bus." He wore a hoodie. What could be scarier?

Book Recommendation

Unvarnished Truth! WOW, For the first time. I was looking for a book at my library download and ran into this unvarnished, unblemished, and edgy review.   Obviously published before everyone could be cancelled.  

"At HarperCollins, we are committed to customer satisfaction. Before proceeding with your purchase, please take the following questionnaire:

1. Which of the following do you appreciate?

A Women with somewhat horse-ish facial features.

B Women who, while not super Jew-y, are more identifiably Jewish than, say, Natalie Portman.

C Frequent discussion of unwanted body hair.

2. Are you offended by the following behavior?

A Instructing one's grandmother to place baked goods in her rectal cavity.

B Stripping naked in public–eleven times in a row.

C Stabbing one's boss in the head with a writing implement.

3. The best way to treat an emotionally fragile young girl is:

A Murder the main course of her Thanksgiving dinner before her very eyes.

B Tell her that her older sister is prettier than she, and then immediately die.

C Prevent her suicide by recommending she stay away from open windows.

If you read the above questions without getting nauseous or forming a hate Web site, you are ready to buy this audiobook! Please proceed to the cashier."

ABOUT DANG TIME SOMEBODY WAS TRUTHFUL ABOUT THE CONTENT OF A BOOK! YAY!

No, I'm not telling you the name so you can read it. Think of it as saving you from yourself. You can thank me later.  

"If the women don't find you handsome..."

He actually said that when I happened upon this.

"If the women don't find you handsome..."

We had to carefully and judiciously edit the photos 'cause it's against his company's policy to have their logo associated with asinine behavior.

Yes, that is a wet/dry vacuum dangling 30 feet up.

"...they should at least find you handy." --  Red Green

Happy Labor Day everyone!

Beautiful Children's Books

Once upon a time, a long time ago, one of my Utah neighbors wrote a book and her husband illustrated it and it was beautiful. It was a fanciful little tale of Fanny (another neighbor sat as the model) whose fairy godmother always showed up late. So while she waited, Fanny was talked into marrying Heber and she set about making a life. When the Godmother finally showed, Fanny had to decide whether to leave Heber and her little boys to go live her dream.

I won't spoil the ending, but to hear my neighbor retell the signing with the publisher, she said that one of the editors at Dial books in New York recommended a total rewrite--with the opposite ending, because one should always live one's dream.

My neighbors were Caralyn and Mark Buehner and now they have a website. Visit their site for me as a favor so their blog will begin to move up the list on google. (hits means placement).

Buehnerbooks.com P.S. Scholastic published a book of top illustrators for children's books and Mark was on the list!! WOW! I just checked it into my school's library. Another famous Mormon, cool huh?

Their other books are wonderful too, but my little girl was raised on the reality of this fairy tale and it's one of our favorite.

Max the Taxi Dog, Escape of Marvin the Ape, Balloon Farm are some of our favorites. Snowmen at Night is about our neighborhood in Salt Lake and the neighbors who would go out at night and move people's snowmen around. Look for them at the Library.

These books have some of the most entertaining illustrations I've ever seen in children books and the dialog teaches great values. Oh, PS, there are spotters on every page for the kids to search for.

Chim, chimminey, chim chimminey, achoo!

Ian is so handy around the house, and on the house. This was his job this summer and he did it marvelously.

Who knew that chimney sweeps really got that dirty--completely unintentionally.

Darcey Push Mowers - Summer 2010

Darcey Boys idea of push mowing:

Farewell Ian

We were at a party and while leaving, we noticed a foreclosure house next door and went by to snoop. Aidan said, "Why are you looking at that? Are we moving now that Ian's leaving for college?"

Ian responded, "Yeah, they're moving, cause you've been bad, to someplace with a really, really small, nasty room just for you."

Aidan shot back, "Like a dorm?"

Ah, I'll miss the witty reparte between those two!

College Guy

Farewell Tulsa photo.

Dia packed the van to bursting and it took three days to move her into her dorm. No so for a guy. Ian's done in a day of packing and into his dorm in 15 minutes. Which is good, because we have to go clean Dia's dorm. It takes two days to clean it!!!!!

Women's Conference

Last speaker, first day, I giggled 'til I split.
The Ugly Truth About Beauty
by Dave Barry

If you're a man, at some point a woman will ask you how she looks.

"How do I look?" she'll ask.

You must be careful how you answer this question. The best technique is to form an honest yet sensitive opinion, then collapse on the floor with some kind of fatal seizure. Trust me, this is the easiest way out. Because you will never come up with the right answer.

The problem is that women generally do not think of their looks in the same way that men do. Most men form an opinion of how they look in the seventh grade, and they stick to it for the rest of their lives. Some men form the opinion that they are irresistible stud muffins, and they do not change this opinion even when their faces sag and their noses bloat to the size of eggplants and their eyebrows grow together to form what appears to be a giant forehead-dwelling tropical caterpillar.

Most men, I believe, think of themselves as average-looking. Men will think this even if their faces cause heart failure in cattle at a range of 300 yards. Being average does not bother them; average is fine for men. This is why men never ask anybody how they look. Their primary form of beauty care is to shave themselves, which is essentially the same form of beauty care that they give to their lawns. If, at the end of his four-minute daily beauty regimen, a man has managed to wipe most of the shaving cream out of his hair and is not bleeding too badly, he feels that he has done all he can, so he stops thinking about his appearance and devotes his mind to more critical issues, such as the Super Bowl.

Women do not look at themselves this way. If I had to express, in three words, what most women think about their appearance, those words would be: "not good enough." No matter how attractive a woman may appear to others, when she looks at herself in the mirror, she thinks, "woof." She thinks that at any moment a municipal animal-control officer is going to throw a net over her and haul her off to the shelter.

Why do women have such low self-esteem? There are many complex psychological and societal reasons, by which I mean "Barbie." Girls grow up playing with a doll proportioned such that, if it were human, it would be seven feet tall and weigh 81 pounds, of which 53 pounds would be bosoms. This is a difficult appearance standard to live up to, especially when you contrast it with the standard set for little boys by their dolls . . . excuse me, by their action figures. Most of the action figures that my son played with when he was little were hideous looking. For example, he was fond of an action figure (part of the He-Man series) called "Buzz-Off," who was part human, part flying insect. Buzz-Off was not a looker. But he was extremely self-confident. You could not imagine Buzz-Off saying to the other action figures, "Do you think these wings makes my hips look big?"

But women grow up thinking they need to look like Barbie, which for most women is impossible, although there is a multibillion-dollar beauty industry devoted to convincing women that they must try. I once saw an Oprah show wherein supermodel Cindy Crawford dispensed makeup tips to the studio audience. Cindy had all these middle-aged women apply beauty products to their faces; she stressed how important it was to apply them in a certain way, using the tips of their fingers. All the women dutifully did this, even though it was obvious to any sane observer that no matter how carefully they applied these products, they would never look remotely like Cindy Crawford, who is some kind of genetic mutation.

I'm not saying that men are superior. I'm just saying that you're not going to get a group of middle-aged men to sit in a room and apply cosmetics to themselves under the instruction of Brad Pitt, in hopes of looking more like him. Men would realize that this task was pointless and demeaning. They would find some way to bolster their self-esteem that did not require looking like Brad Pitt. They would say to Brad, "Oh YEAH? Well what do you know about LAWN CARE, pretty boy?"

Of course many women will argue that the reason they become obsessed with trying to look like Cindy Crawford is that men, being as shallow as a drop of spit, WANT women to look that way. To which I have two responses:

1. Hey, just because WE'RE idiots, that does not mean YOU have to be; and

2. Men don't even notice 97 percent of the beauty efforts you make anyway. Take fingernails. The average woman spends 5,000 hours per year worrying about her fingernails; I have never once, in more than 40 years of listening to men talk about women, heard a man say, "She has a nice set of fingernails!" Many men would not notice if a woman had upward of four hands.

Anyway, to get back to my original point: If you're a man, and a woman asks you how she looks, you're in big trouble. Obviously, you can't say she looks bad. But you also can't say that she looks great, because she'll think you're lying, because she has spent countless hours, with the help of the multibillion-dollar beauty industry, obsessing about the differences between herself and Cindy Crawford. Also, she suspects that you're not qualified to judge anybody's appearance. This is because you have shaving cream in your hair.

Family Skiing

New Post

Ian Senior Pictures

Arylamide??? What happened?

I did some research in September on acrylamide, a known carcinogenic in foods caused by cooking starchy foods at high temperatures in artificial fat. Highest levels are in french fries and potato chips.

National Cancer Institute http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/risk/acrylamide-in-food WHO (world health org.) says it is a significant risk.

I found a great website warning about it and identifying the government study that was to come forth in October. Then I get on that site to see what the study said, it's been dismantled! A new site is in it's place. My guess is that when this site was purchased by the Grocery Manufacturers Group, oddly enough, all of the study stats that warned of carcinogens in food are gone!

http://www.acrylamidefacts.org/Perspective%20on%20Acrylamide.aspx

Rest assured, there are still 200 international studies on acrylamide to come out soon it's so dangerous. Meanwhile, avoid french fries and potato chips for kids, because it's inordinately higher in acrylamide than any other food.

What's really going on? During my research, I read this article warning the food business that if consumers found out that potato chips and french fries were carcinogenic, we would balk at feeding them to our children?

http://www.bakingbusiness.com/news/headline_stories.asp?ArticleID=105596&e=tdadee@sbcglobal.net

Sacramento Examiner

http://www.examiner.com/x-7160-Sacramento-Nutrition-Examiner~y2009m6d15-Does-the-acrylamide-in-French-fries-potato-and-tortilla-chips-cause-cancer

Harvard study 2003 deadly cancers caused by acrylamide

http://www.cspinet.org/new/200301281.html

extra articles

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Quality-Safety/Acrylamide-study-suggests-new-formation-pathways

Why is the public avoiding this issue? Are we just too tired of worrying about food?

Whee Ski Vacation

Pictures should say it all!

SKI SKI Ski

Wow, I saw these photographs and thought, "What great fun skiing is."

Look at that beautiful mountain.

Guys on the ski lift, gently swaying, listening to the silence of a beautiful ski day.

Then I remembered. I don't like skiing. It hurts, it's cold, and here is how I would look if I were skiing with them. Aidan must be channeling me.

Arms & Legs In

Flight of the Bumbles II

One of the treatments for phobia is immersion, so I'm headed out to fly.

I'm at the airport hearing a faux voice over the loud speaker... "We are at an extra high security level," and despite it's monotone calm, my guts begin to unravel.

In my extra high state of insecurity, I perch at the edge of my seat and listen for the next announcement. My nerves are at a matching extra high level, and my reaction is knife sharp. I clutch at my husband, "Did you hear that? Did you? Extra high!"

He mumbles something from under the newspaper that he customarily settles over his face as soon as we alight in any of the world's waiting areas.

"We are currently at orange."

"Orange?" "Orange," my nervous twinge morphs to an outrage that is noticeable to other passengers, except to the husband who is still under his paper. I'm off on a tirade.

"Orange?" I repeat the comment giving it the correct emphasis, "Orange?" "It's apparent that TSA has never raised children! Do they not understand the fine art of threats?" And the monologue begins.

My verbal soliloquy to the newspaper covered lump continues, "Do they not know that you have to hold back. When you issuing threats, you must reserve something for "RED". The human psyche becomes inured to the constancy of empty threats."

"What are they going to say when it's red? Explain that? Does the lack of government vision extend even to the airlines?" I continue with rhetorical queries, but it works whenever government is involved.

"Has no one thought ahead? What are they going to say next?" I muse aloud. By this time, other potential flyers are overhearing, but I have my earbuds in, so they assume that I am accidentally speaking too loudly over my sound reducing earphones. They are wrong.

"What comes after extra high level? What can they say next? We are currently experiencing "PEE YOUR PANTS" security levels?" and finally I ease into my ending.

"Please. Anyone with children knows that you must reserve your hyperbole. Hold something back for heaven sakes! That's why my best threats start at one and count to ten. Heaven help the child that doesn't move by five or six. Even a teen knows that to get to eight is life threatening--because by then, Mom has to get up and enforce--and you'd better duck if you make Momma move."

And I settle back into my waiting seat, noticing out of the corner of my eye each head that nods, and eyes that glint. I have made even more converts to the paranoia that accompanies flight.

Another important part of fear therapy is rational thought. I need to admit that our flight security levels are never--not ever-- going lower than orange. Just admit to myself that flying "extra high security, orange level, ' is forever. 'Cause even if Bin Ladenis assassinated, we're stuck with TSA because no government worker is ever laid off.

And there I go. Off on another rant. Hey, it's therapy!

excerpt from the book: Arms and Legs In and Have a Nice Ride http://thatslife--armsandlegsin.blogspot.com/

Food Foibles

I am an authoritarian chef in my house. The children will eat what I fix and when I fix it--no variation. And so for the first ten years of my second son's life I choose tortillas and yogurt.

Jesting aside, I really had great intentions to start. I would involve my children in food, allow them to explore and expand their own food horizons. I have video of Dia at three discussing in long sentences why she doesn't enjoy Asian food, "I like it fine, but it's just so hard to eat with chopsticks."

Ah so cute. And there sits the brother, the baby hitched up to the table in the background with this steely eyed grin on his face, and one eyebrow cocked as if to say, "Really, really? You are such a suck-up and I am so gonna introduce this family to the real world."

From the time he turned two, the boy refused to eat. It was as if the world no longer made food to his taste and he wasn't going to bother. Then he turned six and discovered that non-food items were another way to tweek the mother food instinct, and so the boy snacked on paper, plastic and other interesting items--but still, nothing of any nutritional value and never enough of whatever it was, to appease the mother and assure her that at least he was getting full... of something.

I tried everything and every doctor. I sought the help of a dietitian who said it had become a control issue and to give the boy a multi-vitamin and back off. At that point, I was willing to settle for the calcium deposits in chalk. The meals at home ended in anger and tears, (mostly mine). And when the child was mistaken at the pool for a visiting albino Ethopian, I was sure at the time, that the whole world was eyeballing Mom! Feed That Boy!

Nothing worked and he wandered about for years with dark circles (the photo evidence) from inability to sleep and when the movie "Meet The Robinson's" came out, I was certain that they modeled poor depressed and exhausted Guber after my son.

The story has a happy ending, the food police didn't come and haul me away and we finally discovered that what his body was yelling was, "Just don't feed me stuff that makes me sick."

The boy now wakes up early in order to get first pickin' before he leaves for seminary, he gets home and eats another full meal before school, he cuts out early for elevensies, gobbles lunch, eats after school and again for supper.

And now when food or anything else is missing...

Ian Ate It.

…cooking al la queen

I love gluten-free cooking because the art responds well to my wit and whimsy. I have no culinary training, therefore I’m not constrained by any set of rules or recipes, and that makes my gf cooking always new and stimulating. This attitude keeps the repetition at bay and makes every meal exciting—for there may never be another creation quite like the last, and if there were, I have such a short memory, I wouldn’t recall it anyway.

Hey, I’ve salvaged another ruined meal. I decided to whip up instant potatoes for supper. I boiled the water, added butter, milk and salt, and then dumped in the last of the potato flakes. Oops, a little thin.

In retrospect, I should have added onion and parsley and called it soup, but I wanted mashed potatoes. So, I pulled out the few potatoes I had left and snapped off their feelers. After peeling, slicing, boiling, and mashing, I made the mistake of adding them to the soup. Still soup, yet even more of it!

Resolutely not wanting soup, I put them in the oven to bake off some of the water. Meanwhile I warmed tomato soup for supper.

The next morning when I turned on the oven to make muffins, I remembered the potatoes. Voila! They were just the right consistency for potato pancakes!

…welcome for dinner at my house anytime, Terina