Thursday, September 30, 2010

Oh baby!

I recently had a dream that I had a baby. My little girl, whom I named Andi, was only a week old but could hold a bottle and had two teeth. When I woke up, I realized that that is completely unrealistic. Or so I thought.

Then I received this email. Maybe I could get that baby after all. And without the 9 months of misery OR the labor.

This picture of this adorable child arrived in my email yesterday, courtesy of Fred Meyer. I'll take him.

This was the subject line of the email:
And in the body of the email:


I'm not really ready for a baby right now, but maybe they'll have this sale again in a few months. I mean, who can beat that. Not only are their babies on sale, they even give you an EXTRA SAVINGS COUPON. Sounds like a bargain to me!!! "Yes, ma'am, I'd like the deluxe version that comes already potty-trained. Oh, you're sold out? When will your next delivery arrive? Perfect. I'll be back next May!"

What is this world coming to??

Note: The rest of the email talked about clothes, etc, so it probably wasn't as misleading as I would like to make it out to be. It just tickled my funny bone. :-D

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

To Whom It May Concern

Lars is completely fictional. I have only been wedded in blissful union one time, and that is to Cameron. :-D If you are still worried about me for making up fictional husbands, you probably have every right, but please begin worrying about the mass consumption of chocolate by all females instead. Thank you.

Have you ever stopped and considered what people would think if they saw you doing your laundry? I hadn't before last night. We have the perfect view of a laundromat out our back window, and I often people watch as I do dishes (or simply stand gazing out the back window - it's much more fun to gaze than to wash dishes!). You may not be able to judge a book by it's cover, but you can certainly judge resident or vacationer by their vehicle. For instance, the Mercedes owner I saw parked out there one day. Definitely an out-of-towner. First of all, there are very few people in this town who can afford that kind of car (or people who live here year-round anyway) and plus, if you CAN afford a Mercedes, there is a good chance you can afford your own washer and dryer too! And then there is the much loved camper that I see parked behind the building every couple of weeks. There are usually curtains hanging in the windows, but yesterday, I saw a heap of stuff inside of it. Definitely an Idaho redneck resident. No question. And then the man who pulled up in a huge truck with a four-wheeler in the back. He was wearing (I'm guessing on brand) Carhartts and a khaki button down shirt. He only had one small bag of laundry. That concerned me. From the dirt on his truck and the four-wheeler, I would assume he spends much time outdoors, thereby generating many dirty clothes. Why wasn't he washing all of them?? I would say he probably is a resident too, but I want to reside as far away from him as possible. Anyone who doesn't wash their clothes probably stinks!

I don't know if I am as meticulous at folding my laundry as some of the people I have seen in there, but I do have some weird habits. For instance, my towels and washclothes must have the tag folded inside and not showing. I want them all facing the same direction when I put them away, and if I let myself be really OCD, the stripes need to be all the same direction as well.

What weird laundry habits do you have? Or, like Four-Wheeler Man, do you just wear your clothes till they can stand alone? If you do, please don't tell me! I like you as you are and don't want to know that! And if I knew that, I would probably feel compelled to do your laundry for you. Just sayin'.

For those of you wondering about our house plans, we discovered that they are really expensive last night. I think I will frame them and hang them on the wall once they are completed. They will be the pricey-est art we own. We are thinking that the house we can afford will look something like the picture below. Please feel free to come visit often - I'm sure we will be able to find someplace for you to sleep!


Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Truth or Fiction?

We met with the draftsman last night to get started on our house plans! We showed him the house that we like as well as our property. (Which officially belongs to my father-in-law now. Can I still call it mine? It will actually be ours after the house is built and we join the ranks of mortgage debtors...) He said that he is pretty sure he has plans like our house and will be calling today to get this project moving along. I'm praying that God holds off winter till we get this project started. Rumor has it that the snow might fly on Halloween.

In other news: For those of you who are curious, my old husband is a Swiss banker named Lars. Or he was a banker before I took all of his money. We maintained a long distance relationship for a while, but then I met Cameron and decided that I was bored with not being able to communicate with someone I couldn't see. I took all of Lars' money and changed my email address, and now he can't find me. Poor Lars. I'm sure he found some more money somewhere, so I don't feel terribly sorry for him.

I am discovering some interesting things about what it means to be a North Idaho wife.

1. I was perfectly content to eat vegetables out of cans and that could be purchased at the store before I moved up here. That is SO Oklahoma, circa 2009. Present day Idaho dictates that a large garden is grown and that you learn to can produce. Thank goodness for apartment living!!

2. Expect various guns and gun cleaning equipment to become part of your household decor. When you ask your husband why he can't store them someplace out of sight, he reminds you that you live in said apartment.

3. It is common to clean dead animals in your kitchen. While I fought against this tooth and nail, cleaning birds at midnight in the rain was just not something I had a heart to make Cameron do. He got to use the kitchen. (I went to bed so I didn't have to know what grossness had occurred.)

4. Idaho wives are expected to know how to cook all manner of animals. While I knew these animals existed (hello, I have visited the Zoo a few times), I did not know that they would become a part of my diet. (Actually, they haven't yet. I tasted the birds, but couldn't bring myself to eat them.)

5. I thought that this list should have five items because that seemed like a good number. I can't think of a fifth thing. Other than: expect to be completely out of your element in every situation. New stores, new people, new town, new recreational activities, new clothing malfunctions... It's great. As long as you act like you know what you are doing, you can usually fool 99% of the new people.

Check back often for more rambling nonsense!

Note: No Swiss bankers were harmed in the writing of this blog. In fact, I don't even know any Swiss bankers. Really.

Monday, September 27, 2010

International Disaster


If you have ever seen a Whitetailed Deer, there is a good chance you have also seen the above sight. Recently, Cameron and I went for a walk in a recreational area. We came around the corner on the trail, and saw the backside of two Whitetail as they leaped into the brush to hide. I had no idea as we kept walking that I would soon be mimicing those agile animals.

I was sitting in my pew at the back of the church yesterday, on what felt like a fairly normal Sunday. I was wearing a cute long shirt with a brown skirt and some adorable sandals. I felt very chic and knew from the compliments I had received that other women liked my outfit. Halfway through the message, I felt the hook on my skirt digging into my back, and reached back to try to make it stop. There was a gap under the hook where the zipper should have been holding my outfit together. It wasn't. "I can't believe my zipper came undone. I have probably been flashing Braden (my brother-in-law) this whole time." Talk about uncomfortable. My vigorous amens became distracted head nods as I discreetly tried to rezip my skirt. I couldn't. My zipper had exploded. There was no way I was getting it fixed sitting there in service. And there was no way I was parading to the bathroom with it the way it was. I tried to continue to pay attention to the sermon while deciding what I was going to do. "Fasting and prayer...this is drafty...commit thy way unto the Lord...and show not thy neighbors thine undies..." I finally decided that as soon as everyone stood up to sing the final song, I would make a run for the sound room where Cameron (my husband) was recording the service. The stairs were only 3 feet behind me, and if I pulled my shirt down really far, it might keep people from noticing my cute undies peeping out the back of my skirt. They should all be facing the front anyway and wouldn't notice my white tail waving as I dashed for cover.

It worked. Braden told me later that he thought I just really needed to talk to Cameron, or that maybe I was under conviction and was running away from it. :) No one else noticed the strange way I was holding my shirt. I waited in the sound room until everyone had left the church, and then wrapped a t-shirt around me that Cameron happened to have up there and went to the car. 

Life is definitely an every day adventure.