For the Birds

Remember when we found the bird's nest in our Christmas wreath last May? Well we never did take the wreath down. Every time we thought we'd take care of that, we discovered that there was another family of birds flying in and out of the wreath. I figure that Christmas decoration housed four bird families over the length of the summer.

Finally we decided we might as well just leave it up for this Christmas. After Christmas, each time I thought about taking the wreath down we'd have more snow and an icy driveway, so we didn't want Bruce climbing the ladder right then.

Now it's spring, the wreath is still there, and we've seen birds checking it out.

A few weeks ago, in the nice weather, I decided it was time to start grilling again. Burgers, chicken, kebabs . . . Yum! But when I went to light the grill it was full of weeds and grass. Naughty kids! In fact, it looked like just the kind of thing Rachel or Jessica would do. I pulled out as many as I could, then lit the grill and burned up the rest.

A week later, when I went to use the grill again, it was full of weeds. Grrrrr! I guess I didn't say anything about it to the kids the first time. Again, I took most of them out and burned the rest. When it happened a third time I made sure to tell the kids not to pile weeds into the grill! They all denied doing it—and with such innocent faces too!

Yesterday I caught the culprit red-handed! Or should I say "red-billed?"

As I was sitting here at the computer I saw a starling land on the deck-railing right next to the barbecue. It was holding a red ribbon or paper in its beak. It looked around a little, and hopped along the rail behind the grill. After a minute, it hopped along the rail on other side of the grill without the red thing. Hmmmm. I started thinking about those weeds I'd been finding lately. After the bird flew away Bruce and I went to look and, sure enough, there were some weeds and the red thing sitting on the grill. But how did it get in? On further investigation we discovered that when the lid is closed, there's a two-inch gap on the hinge side. Aha! (Bruce says, "I thought there was bird-poop in there the other day, but I couldn't figure out how it got there!")

I've been watching this morning. Sure enough, this little bird and his friend have been coming and going from my barbecue grill all day long. They are very sneaky, looking around carefully and frequently stopping in the branches of the nearby maple tree—no doubt to throw those horrible, nest-burning humans off the trail.

I'm sure to the starlings this must seem like a marvelous nesting place—safe from the weather, dogs, cats and people. They're not going to give it up just because their stuff keeps disappearing.

My question is, how do I keep birds from nesting in my barbecue?

p.s. 2 1/2 weeks left to enter the fabulous poetry contest!

Caucus Race

Last night I attended my first political meeting ever. Well, not the first ever. I did go to a Democratic Party dinner/rally thing once because Bruce had to go video-tape it, and so we got free tickets for the dinner. The dinner was good; I don't remember much else about it.

I heard recently that by the time we get to the polls to vote it's too late for us to make a difference; the preliminary preliminaries are the place to be. So Bruce and I went to the caucuses.

The first thing I ever learned about a caucus was from Alice in Wonderland:

" 'What is a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

`Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.' (And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, `But who has won?'

This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, `everybody has won, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and all must have prizes.' "

Lewis Carroll's political commentary here is quite funny.

But our caucus wasn't run by a Dodo, it was run by a good friend of ours. And we did manage to be pretty orderly about it, on the whole. I believe we chose some good county and state delegates for our precinct. I believe I have done my civic duty for now. I don't believe that I'll ever be super involved in politics. But it was an interesting experience.

2010 Poetry Challenge

After the fun and the wild success of last year's poetry contest, and after I realized my contest just happened to take place during National Poetry Month (April), I decided that this really should become an annual competition.

This year I am taking a slightly different approach. I have here a short poem—only four lines—by a famous author. It is titled: A Thought. I will give you the first line except for the last word, and leave the rest up to you. The rules are:

• The poem must be only four lines long.
• The last words of the first and second lines must rhyme.
• The last words of the third and fourth lines must rhyme.
• All the lines can rhyme with each other, but they don't have to. Just first with second; third with fourth.
• It must have good meter.
• It can be sweet, silly, sappy, sad—any sentiment you choose.
• Contest ends Saturday, April 17, 2010 at noon (Utah time).
• Submit your entries as a comment to any of my blog posts between now and April 17.
• All entries will be posted, and the winner will be announced on Friday, April 23, 2010

Ready? Here's the first line of your poem:

A THOUGHT

It is very nice to _________
. . . . .OOOOOOOOOOOOO.
. . . . .OOOOOOOOOOOOOi
. . . . .OOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Now, finish it in any way that you feel inspired to. :-)

Post your poem in the comments to any of my blog posts at any time between now and April 17.
The winner will be chosen based on the feeling, rhyme, and meter; but mostly at my whim.
If the winner lives in Utah, he/she will receive a fabulous dessert, made by my own lily hands, and a lovely certificate.
If the winner lives out of state, he/she will still receive the lovely certificate, and a fabulous prize that can survive being mailed out. ;-)
AND the winning poem will be posted in the sidebar as my Poem of the Week (which really means "Poem of However Long it Takes Me to Remember to Change it"). How's that for exciting?

Good luck!

p.s. The entire four lines of the original poem, and the name of its famous author, will be posted on April 23 when the winner is announced.

A Day in My Life

Bruce suggested that I map out an average 24 hours of my life, so the world could see what a person with eight kids does all day long. Apparently some of the people he talks to about me are amazed that I can even get out of bed with eight kids. Sometimes this amazes me, too. So I thought I'd take him up on that challenge.

But first I'm going to gripe about my laundry again. You know, I made up a list of the clothes we would use in a week—if we were nice people who changed our clothes every day, instead of sleeping in them and wearing them the next day: 7 shirts each (70 shirts), 2-3 pairs of pants each (50 pants), 7 pairs of socks (140 socks), 7 pairs of underwear (70 underwear), 2 towels each (14 towels). I didn't include Sunday dresses, or dish-towels and rags, or floor-mats that the dog threw up on. Then I figured out how much stuff could go into one load of laundry, and came up with 16 loads of laundry a week. From sorting, to washing, to folding, that translates into 32 hours of laundry a week! A part-time job. No wonder I'm always drowning in dirty laundry!

Anyway . . . ahem! A day in my life:

2:30 a.m. I get up to use the bathroom. This has got to be leftover from all those pregnancies. I don't even really have to go that badly.

5:20 a.m. Do I really have to go to the bathroom again? Probably not. I think I'm just aware that my boys have to get up for early-morning Seminary now. They get themselves up, but I wake up anyway.

5:56 a.m. I'm awake again—or did I ever really go back to sleep? Bruce has to get up soon.

6:00 a.m. Now the alarm is going off for Bruce to get up. Can I sleep for another hour?

7:00 a.m. No, there really is no rest for the weary. Time to get the kids up for school. I go to their rooms and flip the lights on. "Time to get ready for school!" I sweetly croon. (Really! I usually do say this very nicely; it's just with the light-switch that my cruel nature shows through.) I also turn on all the lights in the house so that my carpool boy knows we're awake and doesn't go back home.

7:08 a.m. Tucker's barking; Benjamin must be here. I let him in and check to see if all the kids are out of bed.

7:12 a.m. I go get dressed for the day.

7:20 a.m. Brandon, Ryan and Lindsey are dressed and in the kitchen. I send Lindsey to hurry her sisters along—it doesn't usually work.

7:25 a.m. "Everyone grab your scriptures and get into the living room; it's time to read!" I go down to see how the girls are doing. Kaylie is dressed and getting her shoes on. Rachel is sitting on her bed with her shirt on, but no pants; she's reading a book or coloring. Jessica is still in bed. When I ask why they're not ready they say they can't find their clothes. Wonder why? So I find shirts and/or pants for them and tell them to hurry and come read with us. By the time I'm back upstairs Michael and Jason are home from Seminary.

7:40 a.m. We are finally sitting down to read scriptures. As we're reading the little girls mosey on up and put their shoes on. I brush their hair while I try to listen to the scripture-reading and assign the next kid some verses to read.

7:55 a.m. Wow! We're making good time today! We have a family prayer and I send the kids out to the van, except for Jessica who can't find her socks. I rush around to find any socks that might fit her—clean or dirty—and tell her to put them on in the van.

8:02 a.m. And now we're off to pick up Paul's kids.

8:07 a.m. I'm waiting for Paul's kids to get in the van. By the time I have all the kids with me I've loaded my 12-passenger van with 13 people. Will we make it to school before 8:20 so my little ones can get breakfast?

8:16 a.m. We made it. The kids all say their goodbyes to me and head into the school. Benjamin informs me that now it's time for the most boring part of his day: his four-minute ride to school alone with me. Poor guy!

8:22 a.m. Benjamin's at school and I can go home. :-)

8:30 a.m. A leisurely breakfast while I read my emails. Aaaahhh. I just wish the kitchen wasn't such a mess.

8:50 a.m. Time to check my bank accounts, budget sheets, and menus and then make a grocery list. I look at my email first. Oh, crap! I didn't see the homework notice Rachel's teacher sent me last night. Oh well.

9:45 a.m. I want to bake bread today. Should I start it before or after I go to the store? Today I think I'll start it before I go. Oh. But the kitchen is dirty. Why don't the kids rinse out the sink and wipe down the counters and table when they clean up the evening dishes? >:-( I guess I'd better start on the kitchen. And put in a load of laundry, too.

10:25 a.m. I get a call from the school; Lindsey forgot her book for English class. She needs it after lunch; I can take it when I go shopping.

11:00 a.m. The kitchen is clean, I have my list, and I have Lindsey's book. I'd better get going, since the day is flying by and I prefer to have all my running around done before lunch. I wish I'd had time to get the bathroom and living room clean this morning, too. I'll tell the kids to do it when they get home.

11:15 a.m. I'm at the store: 7 gallons of milk—I'll have to come back in a few days and get more; three packages of cereal; four pounds of cheese; a few canned goods (maybe 20 cans); some chicken, beef, hamburger; 30 pounds of fresh veggies; about 15 pounds of fresh fruit; odds and ends. And, oh yeah! I'm out of flour. (How did I let that happen?)

12:15 p.m. I'm in the check-out lane. And I'm starving for lunch!

12:45 p.m. Home again, home again. Can I wait to bring in the groceries until after lunch? It's 40 degrees outside—it'll probably be OK. I go into the kitchen only to realize that there's no bread and I forgot to buy any. Oh, man! Now what'll I have for lunch?

1:10 p.m. I found some good leftovers—I'd rather have that than a sandwich any time. And with lunch inside of me and the kitchen straightened up again I can get back to the groceries. I start hauling them into the house, tripping over Tucker every time I go in or out the door, or up or down the stairs. Dumb dog.

1:20-1:30-ish. I start putting the groceries on the shelves and in the fridge. Shoot! I forgot about the frozen veggies; well, they're probably OK. And, dang. I've got to clean the fridge—the shelves are looking pretty grimy. Another day.

2:15-ish. The groceries are all put away. Now . . . do I start mixing the bread dough or just forget it? A little clock math: If I start mixing it now it'll be ready to start raising around 2:40. Raise for an hour . . . that means I'd have to shape it by 3:40. I won't be back from picking up the kids until 4:00, but that's OK. But then I'll have to start making dinner. What's for dinner? Oven-fried chicken. I guess I won't be baking bread this afternoon.

2:30 p.m. Since I'm not baking I can take a little break—reading, blogging, or maybe re-balancing my accounts since I went shopping this morning. But when I sit down I realize that I'm about to pee my pants. Wow. Have I even been in the bathroom since first thing this morning? Well I've really got to go to the bathroom now. No wonder I wake up thirty times a night—I'm making up for what I miss during the day.

3:00 p.m. Time to go get the kids. I get to the school by . . .

3:10 p.m. Right on time! And I wait. And wait.

3:25 p.m. Everybody in? All seven of my kids? The DeArmann's? Good. Let's go. We drive off and take Jacob and Alyssa home. Then we turn around and go get Benjamin from his school. He's in the van by 3:50.

4:00 p.m. We're home! Time to start issuing orders: "Change out of your school clothes . . . and put them away! Meet me back in the kitchen so I can boss you around. Find your library books—tonight's library night. Clean the living room. Your bedroom is a wreck—clean it!"

4:20 p.m. Now I can get started on dinner. What to have with fried chicken? We'll go the KFC way and have mashed potatoes and a salad. Maybe a hot veggie. As I work on dinner, kids periodically come up to talk to me about school, about scouts, or ask where to put the paper they found in the living room. They throw field-trip notes at me to be signed, or important school notes that I'm supposed to read. They still haven't gotten the message that I really can't read or sign papers when my hands are covered with flour and chicken-goo.

5:00 p.m. I wonder when Bruce will get home. I wonder, why does it take so dang long to make dinner every night? Hmmmm. Two whole chickens to be breaded and baked, a big salad, a 2-quart pot full of mashed potatoes . . . and do I really want a cooked veggie that badly? Why does it take so long?

6:00 p.m. At last! The kids have cleared and set the table, dinner's ready . . . where's Bruce? I save him a plate, we have a prayer, and dig in. When I sit down I realize that I'm totally exhausted.

6:10 p.m. The kids have just about finished eating. Why does it take two hours to cook dinner and ten minutes to eat it? And now Bruce is coming in. I sit with him and finish my dinner while he eats his.

6:30 p.m. I call the assigned children to clear the table and wash the dishes tonight. "And please wipe the table and counters when you're through. And don't forget to wash the pans." I also send the rest of the kids to finish gathering the library books.

7:15 p.m. The table and counters haven't been washed, but if we don't go to the library now we won't be back by bed time. At least the dishwasher is running. We pile into the van and head off to the library.

7:50 p.m. I've finally rounded up all the kids from the far corners of the library and they're all assaulting me for their library cards (which are always in my wallet for safe-keeping). While I'm trying to check out my books, they come up one by one and hand me their cards. Do I have all of them? And all the kids too?

8:00 p.m. We're in the van and headed back home.

8:10 p.m. "Go get ready for bed!" Bruce and I put on our jammies and collapse on the couch to start a movie. Mistake. We'll never get the kids to bed on time.

8:50 p.m. Well, family prayer is only 20 minutes late tonight. Hugs, good-nights, and send the kids to bed. Start the movie again.

9:00 p.m. Half of the kids are out of bed watching our movie with us. Do we fight it or ignore it? We make a half-hearted attempt to send them back to bed.

9:25 p.m. I've fallen asleep in front of the movie.

9:45 p.m. Bruce turns off the movie and we all go to bed. Why is it that taking out my contacts and brushing my teeth wake me right up? And now I'm thinking over the day. My room is a mess; I washed that laundry but never even dried it; I didn't work on that sewing project.
Did I get anything done today?

10:00 p.m. I say my prayers and lie down. Oh, it feels good to be in my bed; it's almost worth being really tired just for this. I start reading my book.

10:09 p.m. I'm asleep with my book on my face. Maybe getting ready for bed doesn't wake me up so much after all.

10:12 p.m. Put away my book; turn off my lamp; kiss Bruce good night. Is this the first kiss we've had all day? Still . . . just a kiss tonight, please.

10:15 p.m. Sleep, sweet sleep.

11:50 p.m. Got to go to the bathroom. My bladder must be the size of a grain of salt!

2:30 a.m. Bathroom . . . again?!

OK. I don't do exactly this every single day. On the days that I don't have a major shopping trip I might do this instead: Run to the store for the two things I forgot the day before; actually bake the bread; do some sewing that I'd promised to do for a friend. Some days I teach piano lessons; go to Relief Society meetings; drive kids to various activities. Sometimes I squeeze in time to run errands for other family members. Sometimes I can blog too. :-)

Twenty-four hours in the life of Loralee North.

The truth comes out

I have almost no memories of my Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. I don't even know how old I was when they died; only that I was very little. But I was talking to Melanie about them the other day, and I shared this memory with her:

One day we were visiting at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and my mom had to change Denise's diaper. (This would have made me about 3 1/2 or 4 years old.) In my memory, Mom asked me to take the cloth diaper into the bathroom and rinse it. Well, I'd seen Mom swirl the dirty diapers in the clean toilet, and even flush the toilet while she held onto the corner of a poopy diaper. So I did this. Unfortunately the diaper went down the toilet too, and Grandma and Grandpa got really mad at me.

As I told this story to Melanie, she laughed and said, "I know! That happened to me too. Grandma and Grandpa were so mad!" 

She elaborated: She knew she was in trouble, so she didn't 'fess up to actually flushing the toilet herself. She told them that something had fallen from the lid of the tank and hit the flush handle and the diaper went down.

"Yeah!" I reminded Melanie, "It was a big jar of Pond's cold cream." I remembered this part of the story vividly.

"That's right!"Melanie laughed.

Huh! Now there's an amazing coincidence! That is exactly what happened to me. I took the diaper into the bathroom to help my mom by rinsing it out in the toilet. But when I flushed it, the diaper got away, so I told the grown-ups that a jar of Pond's had fallen onto the flusher.

But suddenly, after all these years, I see this story in a new light: It wasn't the four-year-old who was asked to take the diaper and rinse it in the toilet; it was the nine-year-old—Melanie!
Whew! What a burden off of my mind!

Grandma and Grandpa Johnson
that's me in the bottom right corner, probably about 2 or 3 years old.
Grandma is looking at a poodle that's next to her left foot.

Playing Dress-Ups

Ever since Lindsey has gotten taller than me (5 feet, 6.5 inches to my 5 feet 3 inches), it occurred to me that this is the only time she might come close to fitting into my wedding dress. And what good is my big, froufy, $500 wedding gown if all of my girls will be too tall to ever wear it? (Or if they think it's too 1990 to ever wear it?)


So last Friday evening Lindsey and I played dress-ups. I curled her hair and brushed a little mascara onto her lashes, and then we hauled out the dress.

Check this out:

It's almost a perfect fit

Lindsey was two years old when she started asking me if she could have flowers for her wedding. And, wow—look at her now! She looks amazing! But she's still got a wait—her wedding is at least ten years away. She is only 13 1/2!

Kiss and Tell

In honor of our 20th wedding anniversary, which was this past week on March 2, I'm going to tell you what Bruce and I did on the first night of our honeymoon trip:

Bruce and I, being kids, decided we would honeymoon in Los Angeles and go to Disneyland together. We borrowed my mom's car—which we thought would survive the trip better than Bruce's '69 Cougar—and drove away. That first night we stopped at the Peppermill in Mesquite, NV (which, by the way, was a new—and almost the only—resort there at the time). So we got a little room, and I went to draw a bath and slip into something a little more comfortable. While I was in the bathroom, Bruce was in the bedroom getting ready for bed. After a minute or so I could tell that he was a little frustrated so I stepped out to see what was wrong. It turns out that he forgot to bring something very important: his contact-lens removing tool.

When Bruce first started wearing contacts, he was given this little suction-cup thing that would pull his lens off of his eyeball. The idea was that he could use it until he learned to blink the lenses out of his eyes, but he just got used to using the suction cup all the time. And now here we were, in Nevada, and he didn't have it. He tried and tried to get his contact lenses out, but to no avail. Pretty soon I was there trying to help. I was poking my fingers around in his eyes, and pulling on his eyelids, and doing what I could to help get the lenses out. No good. We both tried and tried and tried, but couldn't get those lenses out of his eyes. We worked at it for nearly 45 minutes, and we were both getting more daring about how I touched him, but no luck. Finally, during a brief rest, Bruce had a thought: He was used to using suction to get the lenses out of his eyes; what if he got a drinking straw and I sucked the lenses out?

OK. I can totally understand that this is not how he wanted to spend the first night of our honeymoon. (Me either!) But that straw idea convinced me that he'd gone over the edge; that he'd lost his marbles. Still, we were both tired and frustrated and neither of us could think of a better solution. So Bruce went off to the bar and asked the nice bartender for a straw, and then came back with a fat, red drinking straw. He gave it to me and said, "Put one end in your mouth, then center the other end on my contact and then suck." I told him he was crazy, but I figured we'd already tried everything else. What else could I do?

So I've got this red straw in my mouth, and I'm looking down it's length into Bruce's eyeball. And here was Bruce's perspective: He could see my face and the straw in my mouth with one eye, and with the other eye he had a bird's-eye view straight up the straw and into my mouth. I began the procedure with much trepidation; put the straw in place and sucked on it. And . . .

It worked! He says my eyes got wide, and I looked really surprised, and with the straw still in my mouth I squealed, "Ooooo!" and dropped the lens into his waiting hand to be cleaned and put away for the night. And we both laughed and laughed. Then the other eye. Ah, sweet success! Oh, relief! And lots of giggling.

That's how we removed Bruce's contact lenses every night of our honeymoon. When we got back home he practiced—and became very good at—blinking them out of his eyes.

And that is the story of our first honeymoon night—or at least as much as you get to hear about it. ;-)

It ended well

So, all's well.  The neighbor came over yesterday—on a different errand, actually—and asked me if everything was cool.  I said yes, she said it was with her too, and she said, "How about if we just start over?" 

Whew!  Sounds good to me. I'm very glad.