Why do pastel M&Ms taste better than regular M&Ms?

And could someone edit this picture to flip them all the same direction? I suppose that's the price I pay for jacking someone else's M&Ms, but I already ate mine.

Summer+ime

and +he living is easi. Unless u're +rieing +o +ipe on mi poor lap+op. +ee, whi, +ab, lef+ shif+, page down, and backspace; all missing or nonfunc+ional.

o+her +han +ha+, +he girls have been going +o +hea+re camps, we've been hi++ing up +he librari, and jus+ chillin' ou+ awai from +he ho+ sun. And ge++ing readi for our grea+ +rek nor+hwes+ward in a li++le less +han a mon+h. 18 dais of driving, hanging ou+ wi+h famili, more driving, hanging ou+ wi+h friends and famili, Pioneer Dai in SLC or Logan, more famili in Logan, +hen home again, home again, jiggi+i jig via Carlsbad Caverns (from hubbi's bucke+ lis+, if he had one).

+he smalle+ one is asking me how do I spell "boi +oi" which he apparen+li learned from +oi S+ori?

+iping +his is wai more annoi-ing +han fun.

In the interim

Things that have gone on since December:
*not much.
*school is going fine and it's almost done for this semester. Two more tests, two more assignments and maybe 2 more at home tests that are really more like quizzes but the teacher in that class is so far behind that I doubt she'll get both ready and posted before the end of the semester.
*we've been making plans to visit family far and wide this summer, but I said it out loud and jinxed it, so that's probably not really going to happen. Really.
*my sister found out that she's having another boy and my sister-in-law found out that she's having another girl. How convenient for both of them, though I doubt that my sister has much left from the last one since he's almost 8-1/2.
*my youngest/last baby is potty-trained. It happened in a day and not because I wanted it to. I wasn't ready, but he wouldn't leave his diaper on anymore so I said, fine then. I think this is probably the last of my gifts-from-God-because-you-had-this-kid-even-though-you-were-so-totally-done-at-4-kids because mostly being potty-trained just means that he runs around naked anytime he can get away with it and at least I don't have to worry too much about him making messes while he's doing it, but I do have to worry that he's going to just whip out his junk wherever we might be. Today he was jumping on the trampoline and had to go, so he dropped them and peed through one of the holes in the mat. His sister says he made it straight through the hole without getting any on the mat, which is great for his aim - not that it matters since he's too short to reach standing up yet - but isn't exactly what I was concerned about. I guess the bright spot is that he night trained the same time, which is a great big miracle. Seriously.
*my oldest is starring in her first play. It opens tonight. I'm not there because I have to work AND we couldn't afford a babysitter this week so I might as well work. I'm going tomorrow night and Daddy is getting her the appropriate opening night flowers tonight.
*My inlaws are moving to Logan, Utah. Kind of ironic (at least in the Alanis way and I don't care enough to figure out if it's true irony) since we moved here from Logan to be near them. Ha.
*That middle one over there is turning 8 in May so we will have parties and baptism and a visit from my parents.
*I'm spring cleaning in preparation for the above which includes Kilzing and painting my cabinets. I'm debating between using the color I bought back in December and heading out to the Lowe's to find the color I really want.
*I am, in general, feeling much better lately - less tired, less stressed out, less blah. This probably means that something is about to hit the fan. See, I'm still pessimistic at least.
*I am also, in general, having a lot of dejavu. Someone once told me that this means that something big is going to happen in your life and though I know that I've had other periods heavy on dejavu, I can't remember if they preceded big events so that's no help at all. I've also been randomly remembering things, events, etc. from the fairly distant past (not childhood or anything crazy like that - those are still mostly gone except the ones from pictures), which is extremely weird since my mind has been a deep, dark hole on all that kind of stuff for a long time. Curiouser and curiouser.
*I just realized that I'm like 3 episodes behind on Project Runway and so that's what I'm going to do tonight - fold clothes, veg and watch a bunch of Project Runway. Awesome.
*We took family pictures on Easter and there are several pictures of the children that I don't hate, two that I love, and even one of ALL OF US that I kind of love too, which is pretty cool, 'specially since we were using a tripod.
*And that's all the news from here.

Realized just now, while I was mopping the kitchen floor

I've often felt, I don't know, guilty or silly or lazy or lame that I didn't go to college right out of high school. I could have been DONE by the time I got married, but I let various things get in the way - moving in the middle of Junior year and no longer caring about school once we moved, boys, not caring enough to figure out the money, etc. But here's the thing about waiting until now to go to school - I know what I want to be when I grow up. I guess it's fairly likely that I would have figured it out and changed my major, but do you know what I probably would have majored in if we hadn't moved and I'd gone to college right away?

Technical Theatre.

And what would I have done with this degree? Probably the same thing I did with no degree - had kids and worked mostly part-time in various retail and clerical and childcare and healthcare type jobs.

The moral of the story is NOT don't go to college right out of high school. It's that sometimes things happen for a reason. I wouldn't say EVERYTHING happens for a reason and I'm pretty sure that hearing crap like that wouldn't have mattered a bit to my 16-year-old self who was pretty ticked that we moved in the middle of Junior year, but I think I'll let go of that not-going-to-college-sooner regret. It's not doing me any good anyway.

Hopefully if/when we decide to move (it's planned, but not decided, if that makes sense), my daughter, who is already pretty ticked about the idea and it's still 3 years off, will someday forgive us when she meets her soulmate/figures out it was the right thing to do/lives happily ever after. Of course, I really hope that she will be pleasantly surprised and delighted by our new home, but if not, then someday forgiving will have to do.

A dream from which I did not want to wake

I dreamed that we were living on a street like 1600 East in Spanish Fork (in Utah) with houses all in a row and sidewalks, which is the street I lived on during junior high and most of high school. My BFF from lived at the opposite end and across the street. In my dream, we lived about 2 houses in from the middle road (Utah grid system, would be about 550 South I guess - stalk it if you want, none of us live there anymore) and in the dream my BFF from high school lived in what would be the house next to her mom's and then her mom still lived in her house and her cousin lived across the street.

Some of the houses were the same or similar to the real street:















The house where her cousin lived looked literally just like this. I don't know the address of this house and it's been 20 years almost, but given the placement of the mountain behind, this could be the very house, or the next street over. I think. My house and my friend's house also looked just like this (except hers was floor-plan flipped) - for reals and in the dream. This one is for sale; I should buy it. I love these houses. Does that look like a 6 bedroom house? But it is.
Basements, I love them.



but some were a totally different style, kind of like my grandma's house:















This isn't my grandma's house, but it is probably 2 houses down the street from her house (also for sale and surprisingly in the same price range as the above house - um, surprising because this house is in Washington state, home of sky high real estate). I'm not buying this house. Love my grandparents, but they don't even want to live in this neighborhood anymore. Plus, this house does NOT have 6 bedrooms (it does have 4 - attic!!, but if it is really like my grandparents', then the bedrooms are tiny).

Anyway, I walked down to my friend's house that night to watch her kids for a bit while she went across the street to her cousin's house to see her new baby (a boy - it was her first). My friend's husband got home before she left and took over the kid duty and so I went over with her. Her mom was over there already. We helped clean up her kitchen while mom held the baby, then we all kind of crashed in the living room and I got to hold the baby while her cousin slept and I think my friend went home to take care of the kids and her mom stayed on the couch and we talked/dozed. I remember telling her cousin that she could call me any time, even in the middle of the night, to come help with the baby, etc. The baby was so cute and sweet.

So, this dream apparently manifests both my desires to live on a street with sidewalks (desperate desire) and to hold babies. My life is completely devoid of babies right now. I don't want my own (REALLY), but I would like to be near some. This is probably brought on by the birth of my niece almost a week ago and several friends posting new baby pictures this week.

Hey, if we did buy the house by grandma's, I could hold my niece at least. On the other hand, I hear there are babies here and there in Utah too.

(ETA: While I was editing this, the price of the first house dropped $19,000. I couldn't find it when I went back to look at it again.)

Unexpected

I had a surprise email tonight - a friend add on Facebook. Actually I had 3 today, which made me feel almost popular, except that one was my sister and I already knew she loved me; another was a guy I knew in HS that I always kind of thought was a little creepy but thought hey, maybe he's not creepy anymore - but it kind of looks like he still is; and the unexpected one was my best friend from junior high.

I don't even remember how we met or got to be best friends, not even a little bit. I don't think we were friends in middle school (yes, we had both a middle school and a junior high - they were connected but separated). I moved to that school halfway through 6th grade - from an elementary school - and I don't remember much of anything except surviving the rest of that year - and that there was this girl who dyed her hair green for St. Patrick's Day with either Kool-Aid or Jello, which was right before we moved in, and so her hair was fading shades of green for the whole rest of the year.

Anyway, we were bestest-estest friends. Which probably freaked my mom right out because, although she was really not "bad" on the inside, she really liked to look scary. She was a big fan of vampires and was 5'10" (in 8th and 9th grade!! - actually, both of my bestest friends were 5'10" to my 5'3" - we would walk down the halls with me in the middle and they would tease that they couldn't see me -hahaha hmm). We wore a lot of black and black nail polish and stuff like that. Oooh, we were scary.

Then during the summer after 9th grade, my parents were working with the community theatre's summer musical and I decided I wanted to be in it. (probably I thought there would be cute boys there who could sing - it may even have been that I knew a specific boy was going to be there, but I don't really remember) So I was in the chorus and rehearsing that at night and still hanging out with my friend during the day, including riding my bike 5 miles each way to her house (by myself down backroads - I don't know if I'd do that today, even if I was in shape). And then my mom's best friend needed help with a children's show during the day and I think she volunteered me. Which turned out fine with me, there was a super cute guy there and a bunch of other kids from the summer musical were there and we all got to be good friends (including the guy - who wound up later being my first husband and my first kiss - in that order, neither official, which is a story way too long for this post). But I had a lot less time to hang out with my bestest friend. And I was kind of making new bestest friends.

I think that I even missed her birthday that summer. Which is bad, I know, but her birthday was the same weekend as the performances for the musical.

When school started back in the fall and we were in high school and everything was crazy, we kind of tried to keep hanging out - but then there was the fall musical and that was the end. I was firmly in the drama crowd and she was so not and I think we might have had a fight about it, but most likely not because that's kind of my way apparently. You know, nonconfrontational. We never even had a class together after that, but I heard through the grapevine that she hated me - which brings me finally to the point that I was super surprised that she wanted to be my friend on Facebook.

But then, our interaction so far has been for her to say hey, how's it going? - Fine, how about you? - Eh, fine. Did you hear about that guy you had a crush on all through junior high? (he's now a gay porn model, I kid you not. Still smokin' hot though. I'd link ya, but ya know, I'm not going to facilitate your porn habit.) - Yep, I saw that. - Okay, well, have a good night.

And that was it. Anticlimatic, but eh, what else is new?

And I was totally going to do my assigned letter from btb's, but I saw that I had a draft in edit and decided to finish it instead. So, when I say "tonight" above, I really mean 3-4 weeks ago probably?? I'll get to the P post later today or tomorrow. Right now, I have to P (and clean the house for home teachers tonight, bake cookies, do homework, and work).

ETA - I mean tonight means February 21st. Which is my sister's birthday and much more than 3-4 weeks ago. Oops.

Wahoooo!

The Queen won her first acting award tonight. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical, along with the other 2 girls that played her sisters in the Christmas show, which they all lost to the lead from the adult musical. But the director likes to give awards to the kids (keep them coming back!) and the 3 sisters had a surprise nomination for Best Ensemble. They were up against the Winter Wind (OTG was a WW), the Jitterbugs, the Toy Soldiers, the Toys (Vatican was a toy), and the cast of In Sam's Head. The 3 sisters won, which is a good thing - they really were spectacular (ahem, better than the grownup who won. I'm biased, of course, but I'm also right.) So, anyway, it was a lovely evening - SE's ex-boss made the usual "traitor" dig, all of the volunteers were awarded, OTR fell asleep in SE's arms, and the Colonel was a pain in the butt until I decided to sing The Wheels on the Bus with him, which was MAGIC. I'll be whippin' that one out again, you can bet on that.

Fetch in a handbasket, I just realized that I have an essay due by midnight. Fortunately, it's about 2/3 done, but um, I'm supposed to be working right now. Ack.

Dear American Idol:

I reluctantly admit to watching this show sporadically. I really kind of want to try to watch this year, but here are the problems. a) the show is boring as fetch. I like it in the beginning, but I'm not really that big a fan of cover songs, so week after week after week, well ya know. I just have a hard time getting personally invested in the people. b) if you're going to put through the annoying person (you know who I mean, actually annoying PEOPLE this year), I get it, it's supposed to be more interesting. But you're going to have to tell them to tone it down. It's too much, I can't watch an hour (or even a minute) of that crap at that level.

Thanks,

EF

Yesterday I had to write a letter to my congressperson for Government 2302 (I picked KBH and wrote her about supporting #s-374). I guess I'm still in the mood.

Speaking of the mood, I'm not in the mood for tomorrow. I usually go all out with the monkeys, so they are all looking forward to it. I gotta snap out of it. I have a date tonight, so maybe that will help.

Speaking of my date tonight, he had his (insert technical term for end of the year) evaluation this week and rocked it. Conditional contract signed for next year (he still has to finish the stuff for certification, but can't do all of it until the school year/his internship is done). Woot said that he would have made it a multi-year if he could and will next year. Phew. I wasn't worried that he wouldn't do well on his eval - he really is a frickin' awesome teacher - but ya know, budgets and all. I'll say it again, phew.

Wish I rocked that hard at my job. Oh, right, that's why I'm in school so I can do a different job. Patience......

Did I mention that SPY's appointment with his kickA cardiologist is March 12? I don't really know if his cardiologist is kickA, but positive reinforcement, right?

I think I've procrastinated enough for this morning. Finished most of my homework/tests last night but still have 2 discussion posts and a reading assignment to finish today - and work - and get the house babysitter-ready.

DATE TONIGHT. Yeehaw.