When I was little, I was an exercising fool.
Yep. And I don't mean that I ran around a lot outside. Okay, I did run around a lot outside. But that wasn't the coup de gras of my exercising.
I did calisthenics. A. LOT.
My sister Jennilyn and I devised a whole routine. We did leg lifts, scissor legs, back bends, and lots more. I can't remember exactly because it's been like, I don't know, THIRTY years. Suffice it to say, we probably invented Pilates.
But here's the real secret. We shared a bedroom and we did these exercises at night. In bed. You know, when we were supposed to be sleeping.
We both had a favorite exercise. I don't think it has an official name, but let me explain it to you. Our beds had headboards. We would lay in bed, reach up and grab the headboard. Then we pulled our legs up and put our feet up to where our hands were. We then would do gravity-defying crunches--basically we pulled our butts up as close to our feet as we could. As kids, this was easy. I remember trying it as a teenager and finding it nearly impossible.
So, a couple of days ago, Jennilyn (my co-exerciser) called. She had been reading to Malena at bedtime a few nights earlier. Malena was laying in bed, enjoying the story. Partway through the book, she reached up and caught hold of her headboard. Minutes later, she pulled her feet up to meet her hands. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what happened next. Yep. She began doing the infamous crunches. Jennilyn stopped reading and asked Malena what she was doing. "I'm exercising," Malena replied. Duh, Mom!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
If you want to laugh at me,
Read this (from my friend Lucinda's private blog):
Yesterday at church I had a note passed to me from Stephanie, (see Steph and Darrell blog) and the giggles got the best of us. Because of the pew bouncing from the giggles the note was shared and the pews were positively levitating. The note said the following...
"Megan lifted her dress to show me her new underwear. I whispered that we don't show off our panties. She then lifted my skirt to check out my panties!"
The note answered why Stephanie's face was red and Megan came to sit by me!
If you want to laugh at Darrell, keep reading.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to Glendale (and came back in under 4 hours!) to visit Darrell's aunt Paula. She was in town from DC helping her son and daughter-in-law welcome their third child into the world. We ate yummy dinner and were sitting in the family room, talking. I held baby Landon for awhile (he was only three days old and tiny). I then told Darrell it was his turn.
He was scared to death.
He is afraid of all children, but particularly those that are helpless. He knows he will break one.
He sat in the rocking chair and held out his arms to take the baby. He was rigid! I told him he could pull his arm closer into his body, which would make things more comfortable. He agreed and ended up not breaking anything.
After about 15 minutes, I asked him if he wanted a break and he said he was okay.
About 15 minutes later, Darrell started squirming and panicking. The baby had a leaky diaper! Darrell was wet.
He handed Landon to mom Amanda, who changed him. Darrell went into the bathroom and washed his hands.
Amanda came in and told us Grandma Paula had mis-diapered. The "hardware" was all out of the diaper.
That would explain why a three day old baby had drenched Darrell's pants and shirt.
Oh. It doesn't end there.
A couple of days later, I remarked on how brave he was. I wouldn't have been able to stay an hour longer with baby pee on me.
He said, "It's not like he ate anything weird!"
I said, "Amanda's breastfeeding."
Darrell freaked out, "I thought he had just been drinking water! That's gross!"
Yesterday at church I had a note passed to me from Stephanie, (see Steph and Darrell blog) and the giggles got the best of us. Because of the pew bouncing from the giggles the note was shared and the pews were positively levitating. The note said the following...
"Megan lifted her dress to show me her new underwear. I whispered that we don't show off our panties. She then lifted my skirt to check out my panties!"
The note answered why Stephanie's face was red and Megan came to sit by me!
If you want to laugh at Darrell, keep reading.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to Glendale (and came back in under 4 hours!) to visit Darrell's aunt Paula. She was in town from DC helping her son and daughter-in-law welcome their third child into the world. We ate yummy dinner and were sitting in the family room, talking. I held baby Landon for awhile (he was only three days old and tiny). I then told Darrell it was his turn.
He was scared to death.
He is afraid of all children, but particularly those that are helpless. He knows he will break one.
He sat in the rocking chair and held out his arms to take the baby. He was rigid! I told him he could pull his arm closer into his body, which would make things more comfortable. He agreed and ended up not breaking anything.
After about 15 minutes, I asked him if he wanted a break and he said he was okay.
About 15 minutes later, Darrell started squirming and panicking. The baby had a leaky diaper! Darrell was wet.
He handed Landon to mom Amanda, who changed him. Darrell went into the bathroom and washed his hands.
Amanda came in and told us Grandma Paula had mis-diapered. The "hardware" was all out of the diaper.
That would explain why a three day old baby had drenched Darrell's pants and shirt.
Oh. It doesn't end there.
A couple of days later, I remarked on how brave he was. I wouldn't have been able to stay an hour longer with baby pee on me.
He said, "It's not like he ate anything weird!"
I said, "Amanda's breastfeeding."
Darrell freaked out, "I thought he had just been drinking water! That's gross!"
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Me times twelve
I've seen this on numerous blogs and had to add it to mine.
Just call me a lamb!
First, the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your nickname.
Now the answers:
In case you can't tell from the photos, here are the answers in writing:
1. Stephanie--duh!
2. Chocolate--double duh!
3. Kaiserslautern American High School
4. Green
5. Aaron Eckhart
6. Dr. Pepper. Although I'm totally off it now. See two posts down.
7. Fiji
8. Brownie Sundae. Or anything with chocolate and ice cream, really.
9. Hmmm...I can't remember what I chose! Oh yeah--HAPPY! Not that I'm unhappy now.
10. My family. Especially Darrell.
11. Fabulous!
12. Ladybug--that what my grandmama calls me. I always think of her when I see one.
Since I still can't figure out how to make a link, if you want to add this to your blog, you'll have to look elsewhere. I really do need to figure out how to do all the fun stuff with the blog, but that's for another day.
Just call me a lamb!
First, the questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your nickname.
Now the answers:
In case you can't tell from the photos, here are the answers in writing:
1. Stephanie--duh!
2. Chocolate--double duh!
3. Kaiserslautern American High School
4. Green
5. Aaron Eckhart
6. Dr. Pepper. Although I'm totally off it now. See two posts down.
7. Fiji
8. Brownie Sundae. Or anything with chocolate and ice cream, really.
9. Hmmm...I can't remember what I chose! Oh yeah--HAPPY! Not that I'm unhappy now.
10. My family. Especially Darrell.
11. Fabulous!
12. Ladybug--that what my grandmama calls me. I always think of her when I see one.
Since I still can't figure out how to make a link, if you want to add this to your blog, you'll have to look elsewhere. I really do need to figure out how to do all the fun stuff with the blog, but that's for another day.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Cutest Niece in the World
Look at the cute outfit Malena is wearing:
I don't mean to brag, but I bought it for her!
Ok. I guess I mean to brag. But that's what aunts do.
Duh.
I don't mean to brag, but I bought it for her!
Ok. I guess I mean to brag. But that's what aunts do.
Duh.
Tip to self
After giving up caffeine because of all the side effects, don't drink 64 ounces of Dr. Pepper in a 12 hour period.
You won't sleep for about 483 hours.
You won't sleep for about 483 hours.
Monday, September 8, 2008
I heart Aunt Spicy!
I just found my favorite aunt!
Ok, she isn't my aunt, but she's my favorite blog-friend!
Since I don't know how to link to someone else' blog, just go to auntspicy.blogspot.com and check out her site. It's great!
Plus, I won a yard of this fabric:
She had a giveaway for her 100th post and I was one of the lucky winners! I was even luckier, since I discovered her blog just hours before the deadline.
I hope I can be as good of an aunt as Spicy is!
Ok, she isn't my aunt, but she's my favorite blog-friend!
Since I don't know how to link to someone else' blog, just go to auntspicy.blogspot.com and check out her site. It's great!
Plus, I won a yard of this fabric:
She had a giveaway for her 100th post and I was one of the lucky winners! I was even luckier, since I discovered her blog just hours before the deadline.
I hope I can be as good of an aunt as Spicy is!
Friday, September 5, 2008
This one's for Freaky
Ok. So in my family we have really weird nicknames for each other. We'll start from the parents and go in sequential order of age and I will list some of the nicknames:
Dad--Lou; Pappy
Mom--MAHW!; Penny; Mumsy
Stephanie (me)--Sis; Sissy; Stepharennapey
Jennilyn--Nee-nee; Jen-jen; Neen
Todd--Todd-a-rina; Toddy; Superboy
Julie--Juge; Ju-ju; Jingermanson
Emily (she has the most--probably since she is the youngest and we ran out of kids, but not nicknames)--Freaky Friday (Freaky for short); Ma'am; Carolina Gadget; Me-me; Meemers; Ems; Uuh-emleay
So the topic of this post isn't really about our names--I'll have to explain those later. I read my sister, Emily's blog earlier tonight. She cracks me up. Go to the Geeks in Love link to the right and see what I mean.
Well, she talks about how sheltered we were in relation to the "bad" words. We grew up in a home where, I kid you not, dumb-dumb and poo-poo-head were the worst of the worst. It is actually very difficult to type those words. Not because I can't figure out the question of to hyphenate or not to hyphenate. It's because they still carry a sort of power of being "bad" words.
Now, you must know that Emily and I are 11 years apart. So by the time she came around, the majority of the family knew there were words worse than the above-mentioned two. Like "stupid" and "shut up." Ok. And the four letter words that can take a G rated movie to a PG and a PG movie to an R. (PG-13 didn't exist yet). But, they were banned from our home. (Except on the rare occasion when a parent-who-shall-remain-nameless would get really mad and utter a profanity. We would all get eyes as big as saucers--the flying kind--a wish we could become invisible and slink into the other room. I can still remember one such occasion in El Paso, TX, in pre-1983 when this occurred. Yes, they were that few and far between.)
I think I have sufficiently set the tone for the following event.
When I was old enough to attend Senior Sunday School, in the days before the block, I remember thinking it was pretty cool that we would sit with our Sunday School classes and have opening exercises. We'd sing an opening song, have a prayer and then take the Sacrament. Yea, for all you too young to know. We had the Sacrament twice each Sunday.
I remember that I was just getting to the age where I could pay attention enough while singing to make it through the whole song--yeah, all four verses. Well. If you have never noticed this before, all LDS hymns are pretty tame. Except for Sacrament hymns. I hear you asking yourself what I mean by this. A large percentage of the Sacrament hymns in the rotation during the late-70's and early-80's contained some choice "bad" words. Like "hell" and I think even "damn."
I was shocked!
What was I to do? I knew these were words that were off-limits. I got my mouth washed out with soap (dirty Lava, even) and got hot sauce poured on my tongue for words that were far tamer. (I was a back-talker, not a swearer!).
I was supposed to sing. But I couldn't use "bad" words. What to do?
I devised the perfect plan. I would sing along and then sing "H. E. Double tooth-picks" in lieu of hell. Yep! I was plenty pleased!
Until I realized that I just missed my opportunity to say "bad" words WITHOUT the hot sauce.
I was always so disappointed. I would resolve to sing the words with gusto next week. But I always forgot. I think the Lord tried to keep me from developing a love for colorful language.
Even now, when singing one of the few remaining songs with hell in it, I sing that particular word a little louder than the others.
Dad--Lou; Pappy
Mom--MAHW!; Penny; Mumsy
Stephanie (me)--Sis; Sissy; Stepharennapey
Jennilyn--Nee-nee; Jen-jen; Neen
Todd--Todd-a-rina; Toddy; Superboy
Julie--Juge; Ju-ju; Jingermanson
Emily (she has the most--probably since she is the youngest and we ran out of kids, but not nicknames)--Freaky Friday (Freaky for short); Ma'am; Carolina Gadget; Me-me; Meemers; Ems; Uuh-emleay
So the topic of this post isn't really about our names--I'll have to explain those later. I read my sister, Emily's blog earlier tonight. She cracks me up. Go to the Geeks in Love link to the right and see what I mean.
Well, she talks about how sheltered we were in relation to the "bad" words. We grew up in a home where, I kid you not, dumb-dumb and poo-poo-head were the worst of the worst. It is actually very difficult to type those words. Not because I can't figure out the question of to hyphenate or not to hyphenate. It's because they still carry a sort of power of being "bad" words.
Now, you must know that Emily and I are 11 years apart. So by the time she came around, the majority of the family knew there were words worse than the above-mentioned two. Like "stupid" and "shut up." Ok. And the four letter words that can take a G rated movie to a PG and a PG movie to an R. (PG-13 didn't exist yet). But, they were banned from our home. (Except on the rare occasion when a parent-who-shall-remain-nameless would get really mad and utter a profanity. We would all get eyes as big as saucers--the flying kind--a wish we could become invisible and slink into the other room. I can still remember one such occasion in El Paso, TX, in pre-1983 when this occurred. Yes, they were that few and far between.)
I think I have sufficiently set the tone for the following event.
When I was old enough to attend Senior Sunday School, in the days before the block, I remember thinking it was pretty cool that we would sit with our Sunday School classes and have opening exercises. We'd sing an opening song, have a prayer and then take the Sacrament. Yea, for all you too young to know. We had the Sacrament twice each Sunday.
I remember that I was just getting to the age where I could pay attention enough while singing to make it through the whole song--yeah, all four verses. Well. If you have never noticed this before, all LDS hymns are pretty tame. Except for Sacrament hymns. I hear you asking yourself what I mean by this. A large percentage of the Sacrament hymns in the rotation during the late-70's and early-80's contained some choice "bad" words. Like "hell" and I think even "damn."
I was shocked!
What was I to do? I knew these were words that were off-limits. I got my mouth washed out with soap (dirty Lava, even) and got hot sauce poured on my tongue for words that were far tamer. (I was a back-talker, not a swearer!).
I was supposed to sing. But I couldn't use "bad" words. What to do?
I devised the perfect plan. I would sing along and then sing "H. E. Double tooth-picks" in lieu of hell. Yep! I was plenty pleased!
Until I realized that I just missed my opportunity to say "bad" words WITHOUT the hot sauce.
I was always so disappointed. I would resolve to sing the words with gusto next week. But I always forgot. I think the Lord tried to keep me from developing a love for colorful language.
Even now, when singing one of the few remaining songs with hell in it, I sing that particular word a little louder than the others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)