To Wave or Not to Wave?

My kids very possibly have the nicest bus driver in the history of the world. When I went into the 1st grade and started riding the bus my bus driver's name was Mrs. Horn. The name was fitting, and I was terrified of her. You know the bad guys' 'Mama' from Goonies? Well, she wasn't quite that bad, but to my already-terrified-and-anxiety-ridden self she might has well have been. She was not warm and fuzzy, she didn't smile and learn your name, she certainly didn't hand out candy every Friday, and I'm not actually positive that her name wasn't granted to her because of her very loud, very commanding voice.

(Now that I think about it, I may have my older brother and his friend to thank for Mrs. Horn's presence on our route. They were not good bus passengers. For instance, there was some song {Van Halen maybe???} in the '80's that started with the sound of a train whistle. Well, remember the boom box? My brother and his friend had one, and they decided that it would be an awesome idea to cue the tape, turn up the volume, and hit play just as the bus was passing over the railroad tracks...)

(I think that may have been the last time they rode the bus in their high school careers, but they still claim that it was worth it.)

Anyhow, Mindy is not Mrs. Horn. She gives candy. She smiles. She ALWAYS pulls over when there is a car coming from either direction. (Seriously, I've been completely spoiled, and I now have no patience for driving behind a school bus. I can also always tell when she has a sub because apparently she is the only pull-over-and-let-the-cars-pass bus driver in the world.) And despite pulling over she always gets my kids to school on time. And she always waves.

Always. Which leaves me to the question at hand: how many times in the same day do you have to wave at the same person when you pass them on the road? And I don't mean 'if you pass them and wave in the morning do you have to wave again in the afternoon,' I mean within a five-ten minute period.

See, it's like this: My younger kids' school (which is out of district, so they don't ride the bus) is west of my road, and my older kids' (who only ride the bus home from school) is east. When I drive west to drop off the younger kids, Mindy is driving east. We wave.

Then I drive east and (often times) have to go back up my road to pick up my older kids, or get something that one of us forgot. On my way up my road Mindy will be driving down. We wave.

Then I'll be going back down my road and invariably catch up to the bus (because it keeps stopping to pick kids up) and of course Mindy pulls over to let me pass. As I pass - we wave.

AND THEN, after I drop my kids off at school and head west for home, Mindy is driving east (because I passed her on the road and got ahead of her again, remember?) AND WE WAVE AGAIN!

Do you think she gets as tired of waving as I do? (And have any of you had to draw a map to keep all of this straight yet?) I admit that sometimes I'll put my visor down or pretend to be texting because waving repeatedly gets SO AWKWARD! I begin to feel like an idiot. In the meantime, I pass my sister when I leave my younger kids off and she's on her way to drop hers, and we wave, and then after I drop my older kids off and head back home we usually pass again and I have to wave again.

And there are at least three other moms I dance this I-pass-you-a-million-times waving dance with, and I keep wondering why we're all still waving.

I also have to admit that occasionally I'll be driving a car no one's familiar with and I blithely make my entire drive without waving at any of them, all the while feeling so happy that they don't know they passed me. It's so much easier. Am I the only person in the world who has ever had this problem? (Other than the poor people who have to keep waving at me, of course.) Do other people just hit their limit and start refusing to wave on principle? Can I do that?

I don't feel like I can. I feel compelled to wave. I tell myself I won't and then my hand flies up on it's own and does it anyway. After all, they're all still waving, right? Are they just nicer and more polite than me, or are they rolling their eyes when they see me and quickly pretending to tune their radios so they can get out of at least one of our morning waves?

Okay, this is kind of going on and on. Enough. Enough with the waving. For now, anyway. I'm sure that by Monday morning I'll be right back at it again...

What If I Posted Something on My Blog??

So, I'm up here at my mother's house looking at my very neglected blog, and I'm wondering. What would happen if after almost an entire month I were to post something?

For instance, what if I decided to inform Blogland that my husband finally got a job? Or that it ended yesterday, but he has another one coming up in a week? Would anyone even care that he'll spend the entire summer driving at least five hours a day in a car with no air conditioning?

Maybe people would assume that thanks to our state of employment I am now saving for a computer.

Unfortunately, this would not be a correct assumption. Often times when large, critical pieces of information are missing we make these incorrect assumptions, so I forgive any of you who may be guilty of this. How could you possibly know about the vacation I locked my family into back in February? This would be the one where Annie called me and practically forced me to take a seven day opening at a two bedroom condo half a mile from Disneyland for $250 for this coming October.

Of course in February we had a job. And a computer - which is why none of you know about this vacation. At the time, my husband was known to occasionally glance at my blog, so I didn't dare mention the vacation I locked us into without telling him. Now, however, since we're computerless and there's no chance he'll ever see my blog, I can tell you.

That's right, he still doesn' know. At the time, seeing how he hates Disneyland, hates crowds, hates flying, and loves taking a week off every Fall to go elk hunting (which he will be foregoing in favor of our California adventure), I decided back in February that it would be better if I didn't tell him until I purchased our plane tickets and there was no way out.

Then came the layoff. And now, although we may be currently employed, due to the hit our finances have taken I'm not sure now is the time to lay it all on him. Especially since I just purchased five non-refundable plane tickets, and five four day hopper passes to Disneyland.

Possibly it would have been much wiser to take the loss on the $250 for the condo, but somehow I just couldn't stop myself. As a family, we have never taken any real vacations. We have no debt but our house, and sink most of the spendable portion of our tax return into fixing the house. And now my oldest is ten, and I'm feeling a bit desperate. I want this vacation. I'm determined to do it, and one way or another I will make it work.

But when do I have to tell him? I thought waiting until it was fully paid for would be a good idea, so meanwhile I'm prepping him with conversations like:

Me: Wouldn't it be fun to take the kids to Disneyland?

Him: No.

Me: Why not?

Him: Disneyland is dumb. Besides, it would cost a fortune.

Me (carefully sidestepping the issue of cost): Seriously honey, you would have fun! We really should just take a week and go to Disneyland.

Him: A week?!? What would we do there for a week? I mean we only need one day to go to Disneyland.

So do you see the kind of progress I'm making? It might not seem like much to the pessimists out there, but to me we're making some significant gains here. Did he not just say he'd go there for a day? This is progress. Pure, unadulterated forward progression.

Maybe I just won't tell him till we board the plane - you know, "Surprise! We're taking a complimentary airplane ride! I wonder where they're taking us?" or something like that. It could work...

Right?

Rejected

I confess. I've been in a bit of a blog funk lately. Have you noticed? Does it show? (Does it make me look fat?) You can all lie and say nice things, but now I know the truth.

It shows.

How do I know? For the first time since the stupid "Follower" thingy appeared on my sidebar, I lost a follower. That was this morning. Tonight? Another one G.O.N.E. gone.

This is not good for my blogging morale.

What is it about blogging funks, anyway? One day I was blogging like mad, with more posts rolling around in my head than I knew what to do with, and the next day there was nothing. Nodda. Zero, zip, zilch. Not only was there nothing, but I didn't even want there to be anything.

I was this close to blog suicide. (Fine. Blog neglect. SERIOUS blog neglect. I don't think I could ever actually terminate my own creation).

I really did consider just stepping semi-permanently away from the whole blog-thing during that absentee week of mine. Why? I have no idea. It's not like I've lost my life to my blog - I know this because that survey "How Addicted To Blogging Are You?" says I'm only 67% addicted, and those surveys are like science. And seriously, 67% is not that bad.

But despite the odds, I rallied the old brain, revved up the computer, and muscled through the funky feelings. And I have to say it is working. Apparently just not fast enough for two of my (un)devoted followers.

Who un-follows, anyway? (And no, I have zero idea who either of them were, although I do know which page of "manage your followers" one of them left from. Just call me Super Sleuth). I mean, as if the whole "Follow Me" thing isn't designed to make people have feelings of self-doubt and desperation. If I didn't love all those little faces (not to mention dogs, cartoons, tools, etc.) staring at me as if crying in unison "WE LOVE YOU!" I wouldn't even subscribe to the dang thing.

But now two of them have left. And I feel the loss. It's kind of like a gaping hole in my monitor's heart. So before any of the rest of you make your grand exodus, and decide to un-follow me, I just want to plead for patience. I swear I'll be totally non-funky sometime in the near future. (It would probably be nearer if people would stop causing all this blog-stress by un-following me. Seriously. Aren't they at all concerned about my emotional blog-state? In fact, there should be a blog-etiquette rule that you never un-follow anyone whom you suspect to be suffering from blog-funk, as this might just push them over the edge and cause blog suicide. All un-following should be saved for stellar posts with record breaking comments to ease the pain of rejection. Don't you think?)

Okay, really, I'll shut-up now. I just had to get that off my chest, and I really am feeling much better. And next time I see you, I'm sure it will be because I'm sharing one of those stellar posts with the record breaking comments.

Wish me luck.

Sisters, I Have Sinned

We had a Relief Society sleep over this weekend. For those of you who don't know, the Relief Society is the women's group at our church. It was fun, and I enjoyed myself, but it was rather disconcerting to learn something critical about my personal salvation. I think I'm going to Hell. Maybe not "Outer Darkness" Hell, but definitely someone as shallow as me doesn't have much chance at Celestial Glory. This depressing revelation presented itself the moment I walked in the door - starved and ready to eat - and discovered soup was on the menu. Healthy soup, to be exact.

I looked for the chips and cheesy-bean dip we always have at our "unofficial" girl's nights - nothing. I looked for cookies, cake, brownies, or any other fattening, desserty type foods - again, nothing. I finally went as far as asking very nonchalantly if I should be "saving room for desert." The answer - THERE ISN'T ANY. I know. Whoever heard of a girls' night without dessert?! And then I learned the cold, hard, truth.

I was at a HEALTH FOOD sleep over. We were "eating light." And as my subconcious mind screamed "NOOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!!" I was suddenly faced with the fact that what I've always suspected, but never truly admitted about myself is true - I was there for the food. I'd thought all day about the food, and even ran possible menu items through my head as I starved myself at lunchtime to justify the binging I was positive would happen at the sleep over. It was depressing.

And then, just as I'd hit a junk-food low at the prospect of having nothing but vegetable soup to quench my cravings, I realized the eternal perspective of my situation. Surely, anyone who attends a spiritual Relief Society retreat just for the food is going to Hell. All through dinner, there I was thinking about beanie weenies. The get-to-know-you game was witnessed through a sugar-crazed haze. Finally, during the big activity I broke down and asked if there wasn't some kind of chips in the house. I know, I'm totally shameless. But I was desperate! It was so bad I was almost ready to steal my mother's car and drive to the nearest Taco Bell. Instead I had to make due with those veggie rice chips from Costco. Yes, you read correctly, both "veggie" and "rice" came before "chips".

So sad.

And then came breakfast. I would tell you how it consisted of english muffins and fresh fruit (sans whipped cream OR sugar), but it would just be too painful to talk about it. Or how all the other women raved over the strawberries, grapes, and melons, while I sat dejected, trying to imagine there was sugar on my strawberry, while taking what comfort I could from my butter-drenched muffin.

I'm so ashamed. (And apparently, so shallow). But I want to proclaim to all of Blogland that as of this moment, I am going to repent of my obsession with fattening, sugary, deep fried snacks at Relief Society functions, and become more like all the rest of you. I too will be content with the fun games, good company, and barrels of laughter provided by my fellow sisters, and cease to allow health food to come between me and a good time.

And then I'll start planning a girls' night of my own...

To Whom It May Concern:

I have a confession. I'm reading.

I know, I know, I should be doing laundry, dishes, the vacuuming, family history, or any number of other, more worthwhile pursuits - yet here I sit, completely ensconced in the throes of a novel.

I didn't mean to do it, I swear. I went to work this morning to sub for the digital communications teacher (i.e. extremely boring and laid-back day), and innocently went in search of a book to read. I was looking for my usual fare, which would be anything I can a. finish reading during six periods of school, or b. something that's good enough to read, but just barely. That way it won't hinder my abilities to feed my family and assure they have clean underwear.

And then I succumbed to the dark side. As I was rifling through a fellow teacher's plethora of books, I had the misfortune to come across Bresingr, aka the third book in the Eragon series. I tried not to take it, truly I did, but it just sort of jumped into my hands.

All 748 pages of it.

And so here I sit - worthless to my children, deaf and dumb to my husband (who finally gave up and went to bed), reading my book. So don't expect to hear from me this weekend, because I'm also worthless to blogland. The friend I borrowed the book from needs it for students on Monday, so unfortunately (imagine that spoken with COMPLETE sincerity) I pretty much need to read it non-stop in order to ensure its prompt return. True, I'm already half-way through, but what if there was an emergency and I had to take several hours off from reading time?

No, I am all about getting the job done, and so I read. Now stop interrupting me - I have a book to finish.