I Have An Exciting Announcement!

I have some BIG news.
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Something very exciting.
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Something I've been waiting over 2 1/2 years to say.
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It will change our family. Mostly me. Cause it will affect me the most.
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Of course, this big announcement won't come to full fruition for months. For now, it's just the promise of what is to come.
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Who wants to know my secret?
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Ok, enough with the suspense....
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BECK POOPED IN THE TOILET! (What were you thinking I was going to say?)

It's thrilling. But it has only happened twice. Mostly he doesn't want to go in the big potty. But if he's done it twice, we're on the right track. Hopefully I'll have him out of diapers in a few months. Yeah!

Sorry if you were expecting an announcement of a more maternal nature. Not yet!

I Heart My Bed

The family came, saw and conquered.

We rocked out, we dance-danced, we boomed blox, we swam, we ate (a lot), we stayed up late, we chatted, we went to the dinosaur museum, the fish museum, and the farm. Mostly we stayed up late and had a LOT of kids running round us at all times.

I am tired.

Dog tired.

Dead tired.

Put them together, and I am Dead Dog Tired.

What does that call for? Several days of naps. I love naps. I don't get them nearly often enough. But after the huge lack of sleep lately, I am going to have to rearrange my schedule to work naps into every late morning and early evening for at least the next 5 weeks. Priorities!

So my question is, are you a napper? Can you lay down in the daytime and crash out? Or are you one of those go-go-go types who only sleeps at night? Do tell. I'll read your responses after I have logged at least 16 hours of nap time.


Zzzzzzzz.....


p.s. I saw a dead beaver on the side of the road in town today. It was the size of a large pig. HUGE. I've never seen a beaver before. Now a very large dead one right in town. Is it morbid that I pulled over to take a picture? (Don't get your hopes up. My camera battery was dead.)

Glitter Toe Party!

A few years ago....Ok, I guess it was a lot of years ago...I had a friend Christine who moved to Washington. And a few years later, while I was in Oregon visiting relatives, we got together. She brought me a little gift bag of various girly things, and I opened it in front of her and my brother in law. Inside was purple nail polish, purple lipstick, and some purple body glitter. My brother in law asked, "Body Glitter???" And my friend's matter-of-fact response has always stayed with me: "Yes, everyone needs their body to glitter!"

So true, Christine, so true.

So in the spirit of glittering bodies, I'm having a glitter toe party. Remember me blogging about glitter toes? Well, both my sister and sister in law who are in town wanted some. So I'm having the glitter toe lady come on Thursday 7-9 to my house. If you know me, or wish you knew me, or just want a screaming deal on some glittery toes, email me at hot booty mama at gmail dot com and if I deem you worthy to receive my personal information such as the privilege of knowing where I live, I'll send you the details. If you don't hear back? Well, just assume I think you're secretly a serial killer.

p.s. You know me well enough to know that there will be lots of delicious eats while we sit and chat and get beautified. So even if you don't want to become be-sparkled, come and get be-stuffed.

Happy Seventh Of July! (Random Version)

Thanks for the tips on doing fireworks pictures, Kami. I got some really fun shots!


HAPPY FORTH OF JULY/INDEPENCENCE DAY! (LATE)

For the first time ever, my kids were old enough to do something other than cover their ears and cry. Daphne loved the "sprinklers" (sparklers). Beck tolerated one and then his curiosity was satiated. But at least they participated and enjoyed themselves. (FINALLY)

My whole family is in town. My brother and his wife and their kids from Oregon. My sister and her husband and their kids from Texas. It's been a madhouse around here. MADHOUSE. (Awesome, fun, wonderful madhouse).

Someone may or may not have gotten some really excellent fireworks that may or may not be illegal from another state that may or may not border on this one on their way here. Said alleged fireworks may or may not have shot several stories high in the air before showering down hot chunks of ash on us. WORTH IT.

We had family photos yesterday. And the husbands only bitched and moaned a minor amount. MIRACLE. (Pictures forthcoming).

We took my brother and sister in law to dinner last night at the Foundary Grill up at Sundance. The food was, as usual, completely delicious and very plentiful. The company was wonderful. My body? Still full the next morning. STRONGLY CONSIDERING BULEMIA.

Was it really 103 yesterday??? That's what the outside temp read on my car dash. FRIGGIN HOT.

I woke up a few day ago in the middle of a dream where Tom Selleck really wanted to get to know me. We were hanging out. He was persuing me. It was awesome. Thanks for waking me up out of that dream, Daphne. BUMMED.

Things still on the itinerary for my family being in town?
Laser Tag
Cowabunga Bay
Shopping
Pizzeria 712
Swimming
Spark
Lagoon
Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house

AWESOME.

Men's Only Classes! Meet at the Sauna!

I work out. You can't tell, but I do. And though I mostly hate it, I do love my one day of the week that I do water aerobics. It's a good work out. If I weren't wet, I'm sure I'd be sweaty. I huff and puff. I get sore. But I never really feel like I'm about to fall down dead like when I do aerobics classes on land. And it's a good thing, 'cause if I collapsed in the pool, I'd drown on top of everything else.

My one problem with the water aerobics class is the location--the pool area. It's not the pool itself that's the problem. In fact, it's kind of an integral part of water aerobics. My problem is with the sauna(s). The pool is a long, 3 lane pool. Half way down it, a few feet away, there is a hot tub. And behind the hot tub, there are two glass doors. One is the dry sauna, the other is the steam sauna. And as far as I can tell, they are pervert magnets. Not once, not twice, but THREE times I've had run-ins with sick-o losers who think it's arousing to stand inside the sauna(s) and do creepy things to get the attention of the ladies in the water aerobics class. In fact, it has gotten so bad that any day I expect to see this sign posted on the gym classes sheet:

New! Men's Only Pervet Classes! 4 Exciting New Offerings:

1) Learing! Wanna get the attention of the ladies in the pool without the work of actually talking to them or approaching them? This class will teach you how to stand in the doorway and stare, glare, and lear at them with just the right mixture of gross and creepy.

2) Lingering! Want an excuse to check out the pool girls when you don't have any real reason to be in there? This class will teach you all the made up excuses you can imagine to walk through the pool area, linger in the sauna, drinking fountain, and hot tub areas, and even how to master the art of pretending to be reading the newspaper at the INDOOR pool-side.

3) Obscene Gestures! This is the perfect class for taking your sick-o status a step further. Not only will you learn the fine art of learing, but when you're sure that a woman in the pool is actually looking in your direction, you'll be able to practice moves that mean "I want to do _____ to you" and "you can make friends with my __________ any time." This will really get the ladies staring!

4) Indecent Exposure! Learing and gestures not getting you the attention you want? This advanced class will teach you how to show off as much of your anatomy as possible without taking off your clothing. The ladies will definitely notice your manliness after you take this class. And you can do it all from behind the safety of the glass sauna room door!

Extra Workshop: Peeping! Just not getting enough naked time with the lady in your life? No problem. This class will teach you how to take advantage of the half-wall separating the pool from the shower room. Note: A ladder is required and will be provided by the gym.

Come on, Gents. Who's signing up?


(BLECH!)

Impaled

I have several talents, gifts, and life skills which I can say, with all possibly humility, that I am quite good at.

One) I can tread water for an extremely long period of time despite always being fairly out of shape and despite the fact that the kind of swimming I’m capable of is the type that attracts sharks to wounded and dying animals.

Two) I am excellent at remembering numbers. I can recall off the top of my head: my social security number, my passport number, my drivers license number, my three bank account numbers and pins, my husband’s social security and drivers license numbers, his bank account number and pin (very handy), the birthdates of nearly every person whose birthday I’ve ever known, including friends from as far back as first grade, and their phone numbers from as far back as first grade, and the number of almost every person in the neighborhood I’ve ever called. Am I good at working with numbers (a.k.a. the nightmare that is math)? Nope. Remembering them? Ya, somehow they just stick.

Three) Tying a sari. Yes, a sari. When I lived in southern India, saris were the thing. I suppose I could have dressed like a tourist and just worn jeans (Are you kidding me? HOT!) or a long frumpy skirt (they did abound since it was the 90’s). Shorts were out of the question. Legs are NOT to be shown in India. Bare midriffs? Sure. Occasional old lady breasts who forgot to wear a shirt under their saris? Yep. But legs? Oh no. So I wore the sari. It was like dress up. For 4 months. And it was fun. And despite the fact that the women in the village untied and retied my sari on a regular basis whilst rolling their eyes and speaking quickly and discouragingly to each other in Tamil to indicate the stupidity with which I had tied my sari, I WAS good at it.

One thing that is not a natural gift? A talent I was not blessed with? Something that I am downright horrible at? Stomaching the sight of wounds. It’s not the blood. The blood certainly makes things worse, but just knowing that someone or some thing has a wound makes me go a little weak. And then I get this funny feeling in my knees where they sort of shiver down the bone. Then this ache radiates out from my chest, kind of like heartburn but hotter, and it shoots down to my feet and hands. Blood pumps to my face. It’s not pleasant. I try to avoid it. Despite an otherwise very hearty constitution, I could never NEVER work in a medical field.

So you can imagine my horror today when I stepped on this:


Here, let me put it into perspective for you:



There. Now let me explain. I walked out of my bedroom, took one step, and felt a sharp pain in my foot. I looked down to see about ½ inch of metal protruding from my heel. (You’ll notice that that piece of metal is about 1 ½ inches long). I went to flick it out of the surface of my skin as I have done hundreds of times before after stepping on a sand burr or the pickery horse chestnut things that fall from my horse chestnut tree or a tack. But this one didn’t fall out. So I pulled, and ONE FULL INCH OF THAT THING PROCEEDED TO COME OUT FROM MY HEEL. You can't even imagine how many milliseconds that took. It felt like FOREVER that I was pulling and it was still coming out. Do I need to describe to you again the sensation that came over my body? The tingles? The aching heartburn, the knee twitches? No? Well, then I'll just say that
I felt like I had just removed my own liver. GAG.

And now I am hobbling around on one foot because, dangit, puncture wounds KILL. I have cancelled my work out. I have cancelled my dance class. I am currently negotiating the cancellation of all my household chores and dinner making. ( I’ll keep you posted on how that turns out. ) In place of all that loveliness, I have scheduled a visit to my lovely doctor’s office for a lovely tetanus shot. Guess how much I love shots? Yep. You guessed it. They’re my favorite. Maybe I’ll describe THAT in detail to you tomorrow. Assuming the ordeal doesn’t just do me in.

Now, who is bringing in meals?

Triple Movie Review

So I've seen three movies in the last month that I thought were worthy of reviews. Two are new, one is a little older but I just got around to renting it. So here are my reviews of Up, The Proposal, and Seven Pounds:


Up. In a word, "cute." It's Pixar, so of course it will be a creative, well-written, charming movie. I can't say this was my favorite Pixar ever, but it was definitely cute. I think the character that stole the show was neither of the main characters, but the big bird-creature in South America. And the dogs with the human speech collars...well, that was ingenius. It gives you a glimpse into what dogs would talk about if they could use our words. As for the 3-D option, don't bother. It's not traditional 3-D, with the blue and red glasses. Only a few of the scenes are actully in 3-D. I spent most of the movie with my horribly uncomfortable glasses (which don't fit children, by the way...what were they thinking???) off. Only for a few scenes did the 3-D turn on and I had to wear the glasses to get the full effect. And the full effect was, to be honest, only about half full. Or would that be half empty? It didn't pop out of the screen and come at you like you expect 3-D to do. It was more of a really sharp, clear picture with a bit more roundness to the objects. Honestly, just go see the regular version. You'll like it and you won't have to deal with the awful glasses. I give this movie 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.




The Proposal. I have to admit, the commercials for this movie did nothing for me. I thought, "Oh wait. I've seen this movie before. A couple of times. Mix together Sanda Bullock's movie Two Weeks Notice with Green Card and you get The Proposal." But I won free tickets, and so I went. And I have to say I was actually pleasantly surprised. The dialogue wasn't as trite as I'd expected, Ryan Renolds did a suberb job both of acting and looking hot, and there were quite a few funny parts where I laughed out loud. Far more than I'd expected from this movie and worth going to see if you like light romantic comedies. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.




Seven Pounds. This is a movie that looked interesting to me when it first came out and then I didn't hear anything more about it. It seemed to stay a very short time in the theaters. When I saw it at the video store, I was intrigued, so I checked it out. But Big Daddy told me when I got home that it had gotten terrible reviews and was supposed to be very confusing. So I went into it with pretty low expectations. And I have to say, I liked it better than I expected to. In fact, I'm surprised so many people hated it. Yes, there is a bit of enigma in the first 1/3 or 1/2 of the movie because there is a twist. They can't reveal it too soon or it will lose its punch. So the viewer has to suspend her curiosity for a while, wondering how the events are going to be pieced together eventually. But once they are, the movie all falls into place and becomes a lot more satsifying. The end of the movie also got a lot of flack from critics. It's a controversial ending, it's true. It isn't necessarily a fairly tail ending like you get in Hollywood a lot. But I like that sometimes. It's nice to have a movie make you think and depict people who might make different choices than you would. Or to present you with philosophical ideas to chew on. This one definitely did that. It was somewhat dreary at times, but I still give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen any good movies lately, or are there any you are looking forward to?