Quaker oats.

My husband, myself and our four lovely children were walking home from church on Sunday. It was a beautiful day and we were enjoying the sunshine and having a nice talk about philosophy and the hardships of being the nursery leader and teaching the Young Men in the ward (that would be me and my husband, respectively.)

Thomas was fussy and wouldn't sit in the stroller, so I was carrying him and Joseph was casually hanging out in the backward facing sitting position of our sit-n-stand, and the girls were running too far ahead, as usual. Suddenly, a man stopped us as he was walking by.

"Quakers!" He exclaimed. "I used live out in Pennsylvania! Man, I never thought I'd see one of you guys out here!" No, really, he only spoke using exclamation marks.

Now, yes, my husband does have a beard, (picture courtesy of my daughter, the mustache is gone now, a condition I placed on Don when I decided I really do like kissing him...) but I was dressed somewhat less Quakerish. I had on a dress more reminiscent of the 1970s than the 1640s, and Abby was wearing her usuall pink princess polka dot dress that she adores so much. In other words, we don't really look like Quakers. But all this man saw was the beard.

Don quickly replied "Yup, I'm just lookin for my horse 'n buggy." but the man quickly scoffed at that idea.

"No, that's the Amish!" The man exclaimed. "I know that much!" and then we were passing each other, and he continued on to his destination and we to ours. We looked at each other and just laughed.


This happens to Don all the time.

Plant stealer

I had a plant stolen from me, either last night or early this morning. It was there when we got home from church yesterday, and it was gone this morning. Just a hole was left as the only proof that I ever had such a pretty hostas.

I'm so mad about it. Don is laughing and saying that it's just crazy to steal a plant, but I'm really mad. I'm surprised at the level of anger I'm feeling right now. I feel like the plant thief is saying "You don't deserve it, and I will take better care of it. I deserve it an you don't."

I'm sure it's been transplanted very lovingly into someone's garden. I hope they enjoy it, because I sure as heck did.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day.

Today I got to sleep in till 10am. That's the best part about Mother's day. Don also brought me hot chocolate to help me wake up. He can be really thoughtful and sweet sometimes... ;)

So, after much stress and bribing the kids to let me type in peace, I finally finished my latest entry for the tourney at http://community.livejournal.com/sg_fic_uoa/

And there was much rejoicing.

At one point I was complete stuck. I asked Don "Do I write 'boring explanatory part' or should I skip to 'exiting action scene'? He said "Write what's easy and then go back and fill in the rest."

But here's the thing... I can't write like that. I'm very much a "Write this part, and then this is what's going to happen, and then the third part" writer. I can't skip to part number three if part number two is not finished yet. My brain doesn't work that way, and I don't really enjoy writing out of sequence. Unfortunately, this means that if I'm stuck on one part, then nothing gets done.

So, next time I'll *try* it Don's way. Who knows, maybe I can find a way to make it work.

(Also, I realized that if I, the writer, thinks a part is boring, I just shouldn't write it at all. So that's what I did to get past the block.)

Random Thoughts to start my Blog

Hello! Thought I'd jump on the Blogger Bandwagon (Yeah, I'm years too late, what of it? I only got on Facebook a few months ago, too.) and try to keep a Blog updated.

We spent today at my parent's house. We took over 4 loads of laundry because our front loading washing machine decided to spring a leak. We showered there, also, because the gas company really likes it when you pay them regularly, so we currently have no hot water. We're just at the time of the year when the savings from the previous year's cooler season is drying up, so we're having to stretch to make ends meet. It's really fun, let me tell you.

I've determined to write at least 100 words of my story tonight. It's a trick, you see. I can blink and there'll be 100 words. And then I'll get on a role and write 500, which turns into 750. It's just getting started that is the tricky part. I have a story deadline coming up on the 27th and I'm supposed to have 5000 words by then. I have about 150. Woops. Better get the kids to bed and get cracking!

I am the queen of waiting till the night before the deadline to write the story. But at least I'm writing!

Edited to add: well, I got 500 words written and I watched the latest episode of Lost. Woo!