My time in Purgatory

About four weeks ago I was happily minding my own business on a Tuesday morning.  It was shortly after 7:00 a.m. and I had just hopped out of the shower, and the 7:25 a.m. news break was just starting as I was drying off.  (I have a TV in my bathroom.  Now don't laugh, honestly it makes a lot of sense.  I spend a minimum 90 minutes in there each day between getting myself ready and the kids ready, so its a handy place to keep myself abreast of current events while bathing the kids and myself.) 

The lead story for the 7:25 news break was the arrest of a large counterfeiting ring in Hurricane Utah.  I listened and watched as they listed off the names of the three individuals arrested.  As the last individuals mug shot was posted on the news I recognized him.  My brother. 

So here I am standing naked, wet and stunned in my bathroom learning my brother was currently in Purgatory.  (Yes, ironically it is the name of the Washington County jail.)  I have to say I was not surprised.  He has a history.  I have suspected for sometime he was probably up to no good, but as far as he is concerned I had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  I am sure if I had asked he would have told me, but honestly I didn't want to know.

I also knew I was going to be making a trip to St. George.  With both my parents deceased I am the parental figure.  In addition to suspecting he was up to no good, I also suspected he had a drug problem.  So I decided to let him sit there for a week before I went to see him.  I figured he was pretty mad about being caught, and that I needed to let him sober up, and work through some anger before I saw him.  Rick offered to take the kids and I left on a Sunday afternoon.  I really enjoyed my drive down.  It was three and a half hours in the car, with NO KIDS!  I could actually think a complete thought. 

The first place I wanted to go was the place where my brother had been living.  He had been living in Hurricane, and since that is on the way to St. George, I decided to do a "drive by" of where he was living, since I knew I would be going inside th next day.  I knew that he had rented a hotel, as in an entire hotel, because he told me he was using the first floor for business and sleeping on the second floor.  He made it sound really creepy to me, and in "The Shinning" creepy.  So I have in my mind that it is the big huge 20,000 square foot building, when in reality it was only about 5000 square feet at best.  Smaller than my house. 

When the cops arrested him they had executed a search warrant, and seized a bunch of his property.  Since he did not own the "hotel," the landlord was less than thrilled with his activities and once the cops were done, the landlord wanted the remains of my brother's stuff out of the building.  Within 48 hours of his arrest I got a call from his CRAZY girlfriend, all in a panic about everything.  She said the cops trashed the place, which I am sure they did.  And then she went on and on and on about how this was the worst thing that has ever happened to HER!  How he was HER best friend, and he didn't have anyone else in his life but HER. (Hello???!!!! He has three sisters and a step mother who care a whole lot about him.)  How HER parents told HER not to be involved with him.  (I already like her parents) But "how do you stop loving your best friend?"  In a nut shell, she wanted me to feel sorry for HER.  I shut her down.  I was not buying the drama she was selling.  I needed to asses the situation, and determine how much property of his remained, and what I needed to do to get it packed, out of the house and up to Provo.  She finally got to the relevant facts, and I knew that I would have sufficient room in my Jeep for his stuff.

 I killed a poor birdy on the way down.  Sad.

Paper covering the windows, its so classic my brother.  Like the tin foil wrapped gifts.

I spent Sunday night with my cousin Brooke, who lives in St. George and made my entire trip worth it, by having so much fun girl talk on Sunday night.   I awoke on Monday morning to face my brother's music.  First stop his "hotel" and the CRAZY girlfriend.  Now I had expected I was going to have to spend a good majority of the day sorting and cleaning his stuff.  I will say this at least the CRAZY girlfriend cleaned and sorted.  (Honestly I am sure she did it to take ANYTHING of value before I got there)  So here are a few pictures of where he was living....lets just say its telling.....

 Yes, you can tell he was living there, by the tell tale signs of his food preferences.

 Monica , Bill and a cigar clock.

 Ok, at least he properly posted his business license.

 Dead, stuffed squirrels, posed and ready for action.

An outside garden, where he liked to eat.

After seeing his house and obtaining basically his clothes from his CRAZY girlfriend, I ventured to the jail to see him.  He had no idea I was coming.  He had not called anyone from his family, so my visit was a complete surprise.  He was sober and looked better than I had seen him look in several years.  He proceeded to tell me his legal strategy for getting out of all his charges, which I smiled politely and nodded my head.  (I decided I would let his court appointed attorney be the bearer of the legal news...., but a law school graduate, nor a realist, my brother is not.)  It was a nice visit and I am very glad that I went.  He needed to know I was there for him.

Over the course of the last few weeks he has sent several messages to me via, people who were in jail with him and then got released, and he so kindly provided them my telephone number.  I now have new and colorful friends thanks to my brother!  I put money on his jail account, I would much prefer the old fashioned idea of letter writing.  Its that too much to ask?

Finally I found this sign on his desk at his "hotel."  Humm....25% of the time?  I would have thought it was less.





Good Grief....

Good grief, I have nearly forgotten how to blog.  Not kidding, I went to down load this picture and had forgotten that blogger changed its picture upload format shortly before my last post.  I guess its been a while, so pardon my rustiness. 

Ok, in the last three weeks the following things have consumed my life:

1.  One hundred and twenty two cases, yes I said 122.  The picture above represents 52 that I did in one week alone.  It went something like this...44 the first week, 52 the second week and 30 the third week.  (My staff wanted to make sure I EARNED my two weeks off that I took after the third week)  That many cases in such a short amount of time nearly wiped me out.

2.  Nice little vacation/family reunion with the kids and family in Idaho.

3.  My brother got arrested, and I have been attempting to untangle the sorted mess he now finds himself in.  (That will be a blog post in and of itself.)

4.  The month of August....well and technically speaking August is not over.  Every year since 1995 the month of August has been in one word HELL.  For all sorts of reasons.  In a nut shell, every year I find myself significantly busy and sleep deprived in the month of August.  This year is no exception.

September 1 can come soon enough.

Mother necessity.

For reasons too complicated to explain, I am going to start using my formal dining table for every day dining.  Now the challenge this presents is that the seats for the chairs are fabric, and a cream color fabric at that.  If you have met my children you are fully aware that they are sloppy eaters.  (Well Lauren not so much, but Mark and Katie....they keep my washing machine in business.) 

Knowing the messiness of my children, without some intervention, I knew my chairs would soon resemble a calico fabric littered with all sorts of colorful stains and textures.  So this is what I did....

This is the plastic wrap that you see covering traffic patterns on carpet at home shows to protect it from being soiled as half a million people tour the house.  Well just in case you wanted to know, Home Depot will sell you a roll or two.   I first bought it two years ago, because the new Jeep I purchased has a light tan interior, and the third row seat in the back that folds down, had carpet on the back of the seat.  I knew the seats would primarily be folded down as I hauled stuff around, and that I would have black car carpet if I did not take measures to protect it.  Its worked like a charm for the last two years. 

So I thought why not cover my chairs?  I did just that.  It too worked like a charm.  I had to place it over the chair and then trim to edges to fit.  But now my chairs are safely protected from impending damage my children could do.

Katie loved the scraps I trimmed off.  She stuck them together and made a gate for the stairs.

This is the face you make when your brother sees your gate and decided to bust on through, breaking your gate.  (Can you blame him???!!!  Its wayyy tooooo tempting.) 

This is the victory stance when you have rebuilt your gate. 

As for me, apparently my actions of covering the carpet in my car, and the seats of my dining room chairs, makes me one of those crazy people who cover their furniture in plastic..... I would recommend long pants if you don't want to "stick" to my furniture...  See I am just encouraging people to be modest.  Really I am not crazy.

Cinderella

This is the big box of shoes.  Also know as the shoes Lauren has outgrown, that are waiting to be re purposed.

Cinderella (aka, Katie) was in need of some new shoes. She out grown all her others. So we got out the big box of shoes to see what would fit.   She loved this pink ballet slipper shoe, but it was a little too big, much to her disappointment.

Yeah, she has the attitude to pull off these shoes...., that scares me a bit.

This shoe fit her perfectly, she loved it, but alas just like Cinderella there was only one shoe in the box.  We are currently waiting for prince charming to come on over with the other shoe. 

Bubblishious

Love Macy's, can't resist a good sale.....definitely could not resist these fancy plates.  Now before you think I have gone all fancy schmancy, these plates are PLASTIC!  Yes I said plastic.  That fancy melamine dinner wear that my children can't break.  Its very easy to find in the summer, since it is popular for outdoor parties and picnics.  And right now all the stores are clearing out their summer merchandise in anticipate of fall.   I paid $1.80 per plate.  Now Macy's only had 6 plates at the store and I wanted 12, so they had to order additional six plates, and even at the reduced price agreed to ship to my house at no charge. 

The plates arrived last week, wrapped in bubble wrap.  I have to say I am not quite sure why plastic plates need to be wrapped in bubble wrap?  Isn't the whole point of purchasing this product the fact it is indestructible?

That being said, my kids LOVED  the bubble wrap.  After popping all the bubbles they could stand, the bubble wrap suddenly became a fashion accessory.  Katie wanted to sport a rooster tail.

Lauren went for the high end look.

Oh, yeah we got our model pose down.

This look resulted in Mark saying to Katie "Nice pioneer hat Katie."  Well he had a point.

Flowers

Home grown, and hand picked by my kids!
They love their mommy, what can I say, I have brainwashed them well!

Mannequin.

Katie is obsessed with mannequins.  As in she immediately seeks out the mannequins in any given store.  And really what's not to love?  They have the perfect figure.  They usually are elevated on a platform, dressed impeccably, and accessorized to the "nines" 

 Upon locating the mannequin she hops up on the platform and begins to pose with the mannequin.  Of course singing is usually involved too.  Its the ultimate in DIVA behavior, and lets face it, a DIVA she is.

 This time she got Lauren and Mark in on the act.

Oh yeah, hugging the mannequin.



I can't believe I talked Mark into a mannequin pose. 

Can you separate the children from the mannequins?

Oh a pretty dress.

We like casual too.

Swim wear, a must.

Finally a mannequin shorter than Katie.



She really wanted me to talk the Old Navy people out of their dog mannequin.

So anyone looking for a birthday gift for Katie, think mannequin, or better yet, just take her to the mall and let her engage in the DIVA behavior of posing with all the mannequins, while you photograph her.  Its cheap entertainment. 



The dress.

Score!
Found this lovey beauty of a dress on clearance at Dillard's for $24.99.
I think she looks fabulous! Not that I am biased or anything like that......

Bananas.

Before.

After. Yes it was a yummy as it looks. (I put two loaves in the freezer, so someone better come to my house and help me eat this problem.)

Activity Days

Lip Gloss. (homemade)

Feather woven into the hair.

I am wondering what exactly its going to take for Lauren's activity day leaders to believe that I am a 10 year old girl eligible to come to activity days. Seriously. They do the coolest stuff.

I WANT TO PLAY TOO!

Last week Lauren came home sporting a feather woven into her hair, and they made homemade lip gloss. The theme was grooming, and learning how to take care of yourself.

Sometimes being an adult sucks. (Ok, well at least they sent the lip gloss recipe home, so if lip gloss mysteriously arrives on your door, you know I have been playing......)

My new cleaning lady.

She does sinks.

She does toilets.

She does not complain.

As I mentioned last week, I am a busy person. I have lots of demands on my time. I hired a chef, and now I have a new cleaning lady. Although she is a little young, she is always willing to help, and with supervision she is actually pretty good.

The compensation is the best part. She is willing to work for sugar. Any sugar will do, whether its in the candy form, cookie form or ice cream form.

Now if I could find a child willing to do laundry......

Needing some imput....

4-H grand champion clothing construction, August 1985.

First place, Humorous Interpretation, National Forensic League, April 1986, (Qualified me for the national tournament)

4-H grand champion fashion review, August 1984

In high school I was know to have a trophy or two, between speech and debate competitions, and 4-H. I have long since parted with all my trophies but three. I am now trying to decided what to do with the remaining three.

Recently I have been working on down sizing my life. I have been sorting and cleaning like no-ones business. I want to live with less stuff. I want to manage the stuff in my life and not let stuff manage me. I want to live a more simple life. I want to focus on the moments, the memories, not the stuff.

So in the process of cleaning I came across these three trophies. They have been in a storage room in my basement, basically collecting dust, and over the course of 20 some years have become broken and scratched.

Of course in high school I had them prominently displayed in my bedroom, and was quite proud of my accomplishments. But since then I have gone on to do all sorts of other things, and while I am still proud of my accomplishment, it does not define me as it did in high school.

So what the heck do I do with these trophies????!!!!!

Clearly its not something I use. Clearly its not something I show off. But they do represent a memory, a memory whose value is primarily to me.

So I am asking you, what do you think I should do? The way I see it I have several choices, although I am open to any other ideas that anyone else may have....Here they are:

1. Throw the trophies away.
2. Keep the trophies in the storage room in the basement, waiting someday for my kids to throw them away.
3. Throw the trophies away, but use the picture to write a story about each trophy and the memory associated with it.
4. Give the trophy to the Deseret Industries, and let some other person re-purpose the trophy and wonder about the story behind the trophy.

What say you?

Fingers

Fingers are good for a few things....including puppets.
How many can she get on?

Oh, yeah Mark needed to be involved too.

A personal chef.

I am a busy woman. I really dislike having to cook and fix food. I decided to employ the services of a personal chef. (We are still negotiating compensation.)

Here is the breakfast and lunch menu choices.
Of course, drinks, and the sides. This chef is a little particular and temperamental. She refuses to make desserts. I am on my own for treats.

Meet my chef!

This is the first meal I ordered. A lunch of peanut butter toast. Complete with a floral garnish. I am so stinkin spoiled!