From police to thief

Ruby is obsessed with shoes.
We used to refer to her as the "shoe police" because she never let anyone leave them out. If she found shoes anywhere left out, she would pick them up, bring them to whoever they belong to, and demand that they put them on. Sometimes she would even find them in our closet, bring them to us, and demand that we wear them. She hated to see shoes off of someone's feet.

Ruby Clark, shoe-sheriff deputy

Then one day she changed. She had given up on shoe patrol and decided to become the shoe thief.

Disguised thief steals ten pairs in one hour.

Now every time she sees that our shoes are on, she takes them off and then wears them herself. She often leaves us with her shoes as if that makes it ok. "Don't worry mom, we'll just trade."

Eavesdropping

This time I am the guilty one (as opposed to the last time I wrote about eavesdropping). I just have never heard this joke before and I thought it was really funny.

Camm, Ruby and I were coming out of the local hospital (we wanted to see if the hospital cafeteria has as good of shakes as our hospital in UT--no it doesn't).
We saw an old man approaching an old woman:
"Hey Lady! How's it going?" the man was excited.
"Oh hi, whatcha up to?" she responded.
He poked out and patted his beer belly, "Oh about 200".

I stifled my laughter and tried to get away as fast as possible. It was just so unexpected coming from this old man.
Has anyone else overheard a joke and had a hard time not just busting up?


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Totally unpopular

My conversation with a man giving out samples of his home-made peanut brittle at the Farmer's Market.

"Oh, yum. Peanut Brittle!" I was excited.

"Yes," he replied, "And do you like organic?"

Without thinking about the fact that I was at a Farmers Market and that organic is really cool among people there, I replied "Oh I don't really care about organic so much."

dead silence

I'm sure he contemplated kicking me out of the market, but realized he didn't have authority to do that. His mind was racing with what to say. I sat there stunned, wishing I hadn't been so blatantly honest. Finally the man cut the silence with, "Uh, well, you can give it a try."

"Thanks," I took the peanut brittle and walked quickly away. I had just committed social suicide.

But, I still don't think having organic PEANUT BRITTLE makes it healthy. Trendy, maybe. Healthy, no.

The sound we all hate: and our compromise

Everyone I know hates the sound of the alarm clock.

But everyone seems to have a different way of coping with the annoying sound.

There's the unintentional coping method that has happened to everyone at least once. The alarm becomes part of your dream. Maybe you're dreaming that you're making cookies and suddenly the oven timer starts beeping (really your alarm clock) and you are fighting to get the cookies out of the oven but an alien is attacking your house and it is impossible. Meanwhile you hear the beeping constantly and wake up an hour late.
Luckily this event is more rare in our house (good thing or else we'd be late to everything). So how do we cope with the sound we all hate? Camm and I have very different regular methods.

Camm's method ~ We'll call it "Love the ZZZZ's" or maybe "Snooze away!"

Camm likes that ease from restful sleep to wakefulness. He could go on and on with the snoozers until the very last possible second he can safely get ready.


I can't handle this. It  quadruples, quintuples, or hextuples the number of times you have to hear that horrible sound. And to me the "ease" from rest to wake is 30 minutes of anger that you aren't sleeping deeply.
I've got to do it at once. I set my alarm for the last possible second before I need to wake up. Then, one second I am awake, the next second I hear that terrible noise, hit it off as fast as I can and vow to not have to hear it again for 24 hours.

To make our methods work together, Camm has cut it down to 1 snooze which I can handle.

What methods do you have for dealing with the most annoying noise in the world?

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18 years later...finally getting this off my chest

I came from a family with five kids and a Dodge Ram Van. I was the youngest.

As a kid, my family took a road trip in that Dodge Ram Van all the way from Seattle to Yellowstone. I remember very vividly the trip home. My dad was driving, we got caught up in bumper to bumper traffic, had the windows rolled down, and were sweating so much that our legs were sticking to the plastic covered seats. I was seven years old.

I looked out the window and saw a semi truck towering above me. In my seven year old mind it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some excitement. I raised my hand to the window and made the honk sign right as the grizzly truck driver looked my way.

Immediately he honked. Loud and Clear. And boy was I proud of myself.
But that pride was short lived. My excitement came to a painful halt when I looked to the front of the van at my dad who was driving. He was angry. Phrases like these began coming out of his mouth:

"What on earth is that truck honking for?" "He already knows we're stuck in traffic, what good is honking?" "Is he just trying to get attention?" "What does he want me to do?" "How can someone be that stupid?"

I watched my dad get more and more worked up about it. All the while I knew exactly what had happened. Yet I said nothing. I just let my dad be upset. And I never said a word, until now, eighteen years later.
Sorry dad.

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Surprises, or trying to at least.

Do any of you struggle to keep a surprise? If you're like me, I can't keep one past 24 hours. If I buy Camm a present, I give it to him that day. If I have something special planned, I can't keep it in. Surprises are just too hard for me.

Camm's birthday happened while I was still in Utah but he'd already moved to Oregon. I felt badly that he had to spend his birthday alone in a town where he really didn't know anyone. I wanted to make his day special, but I didn't know how (being that I was 693 miles away). I had forgotten to send him something in the mail to arrive on his birthday. I couldn't send him flowers...he's a guy. My mom suggested I order him pizza and pre-pay over the phone. Genius! I called the pizza place and arranged to have it delivered at 11:45am.
I called Camm before I went to work that day to wish him a happy birthday.
"So I got out of the shower and realized I had absolutely no clean underwear," he explained, "So I'm in a towel until the laundry is done." I laughed it off and we ended the conversation.

Then, on my way to work I began to panic. I glanced at the clock: 11:30am. If the doorbell rang, there's no way Camm would answer it naked. But I couldn't tell Camm because it was a surprise.
I called Camm back, "Uh, Camm, you have to get dressed RIGHT NOW!"
"But you know I have no clean underwear," he was confused at my forcefulness, "It'll be ready before too long."
"Go without, or wear it wet, I don't care. BUT GET IT ON NOW!"
"Moll, why do you care so much?" my mind raced but I couldn't figure out how to keep it a surprise but still get him to answer the door.
"Consider this your 15 minute warning. Camm, get it on," I hung up the phone. Had I done it successfully? Had I kept it a surprise but made sure that he would answer?

15 minutes later my phone rang.
Laughter followed by laughter followed by laughter. He couldn't even talk. Finally he came up for air, "Thanks Moll. Great job."

I did it! He wasn't expecting anything, just thought that I was crazy, but when the doorbell rang, he knew it was time to answer. Success!

Am I the only one who has a hard time keeping surprises secret? Tell me about your experiences!

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How to get free stuff

As I mentioned before here, I am a cheapskate when it comes to buying milk for Ruby. So when I first started supplementing the boob with formula, my main concern was the cost. How was I going to make expensive cow powder the same price as free human milk?

Here's how:

I called up Similac's office. Ring Ring

"Similac, this is Sherry, how can I help you?"

"Hi, I have a little baby, and I am really concerned with whether or not your formula stains will stain her clothes. I just really don't have the time to be scrubbing out a formula stain from her cute little pink onesies," I acted as concerned as I could--somehow forgetting to mention that I wear stained clothes all the time and could care less whether my baby has stains.

"Um, I don't actually know. I've never gotten that question before. Let me ask my manager."

I sat patiently listening to the sounds of elevator ringing in my ear. 

Five minutes later she came back, "You know what, I'm still not really sure."

"Oh, really? You don't even know? Well, I don't want to spend any money on a brand until I'm sure that it won't be staining the onesies," I acted serious and disgusted, yet calm.

"Well, here's what I can do," Sherry sounded like she was following orders from her Similac manager, "I can send you a free sample so that you can test it out for yourself."

I gave her my information and hung up the phone.

I hung up for only a minute because I had several other places to call: Enfamil, Parent's Choice, Gerber, Kirkland Signature, and some kind of all natural place that I forgot the name. 

Four out of the six sent fairly large samples.

As Ruby drank, I forgot to pay attention to whether it stained or not. oops! But at least I didn't have to worry about the cost!

Have you used any crazy techniques to get free stuff? Stories, please!

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PS--I'm now ranked #41 on Top Mommy Blogs. My goal is the top 25. Click here to vote for me. Remember, you can vote once per day by clicking the brown banner on the right side of the page. Once you click, your job is done--they just tally how many people get to their website from my blog.

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