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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Weird Today, Bewitched Tomorrow

Is it still April? Fer reals? Because I have consumed more water and accomplished more reading and writing and achieved more domestic nirvana in the past 26 days, than I have in the past 18 months.


What's up with that?


Dummy Boot Camp, that's what's up with that. And guess what? I'm going to ROCK ON, peeps!


I'm extending boot camp through May. That way I can squeeze three years worth of accomplishment into two months.


(BTW, look what I accomplished this weekend):



This is where that old empty fish tank used to sit.


ROCK! ON!


So you wanna hear my weekend in a nutshell? Or should I say "eggshell?"


(Ba dum bum)


First, there was Renaissance Fair at the elementary school, in which I was unaware that my services would be required to assist in both the acquisition of two old English costumes . . .



145 Burger King Crowns . . .



and in the construction of one old English booth . . .



until the night before acquisition and construction was to commence.


Next, my Gigi, bless her heart, (literally), had a heart attack and landed in the ICU.


My daughter ditched class and we rushed to the hospital, where we found her in a delirious state, in which she looked at my daughter and told her how beautiful she is, and how gorgeous she is, and how spunky she is.


"You could be Miss America," she told my daughter.


And then she looked at me and said, "My, what big hair you have!" "I've never seen you with such big hair!"


Ain't it such a shame how old age can mess with a person's perspective? (BTW, she is recovering nicely and going in for pacemaker surgery on Friday.)


Next I got a surprise visit from my daughter's hoity toity English teacher from Hawaii. Remember Mariko?


Well, she had a cute baby since we moved, and now she's all humble, but her voice is still smoldering and she still wears tie-dye, so all is right with the world.


Next, my hub rushed to Las Vegas for the weekend to watch my oldest boy play basketball. He was travelling under very precise time constraints, as the first game started at 6:50 p.m. and he wasn't slotted to leave work until 2:00 p.m. You do the math. Even with the hour time change, he had to travel at lightening speed, without stopping, in order to make the tip off.


Being the good little Stepford wife that I am, I aligned the moon and stars to make this happen. I got the car lubed, topped off the gas tank, and refilled his 45 oz. Harts cup with Diet Coke.


I purchased potato logs and chicken tenders, and a whole bag of sunflower seeds, which I neatly arranged within arms length of the steering wheel, along with a spitting cup for the shells.


I secured extra cash, and Google mapped directions to his hotel.


I tucked treats and snacks into his bag, as well as a sweet card which read in effect: MISS YOU. LOVE YOU. WISH I WAS THERE WITH YOU. OR YOU WERE HERE WITH ME (since I'll be watching Mr. Darcy tell Lizzy that she has bewitched him body and soul.)


(Body AND soul? Fer reals? I would be happy if I could just bewitch my hub's little finger.)


My daughter and I dropped the car off for my hub at precisely 2 p.m. (Or was it precisely 2:15 p.m)? We even left the motor running and the door open so he could jump in and zoom away without delay.


My phone rang some time later and I smiled, ready to hear those three little words I have come to love so much: "Thank you, but . . . "


"Hey," he said instead, "You didn't put any CD's in the car? Where are all the CD's? What am I supposed to listen to when the radio cuts out?"


They say love means never having to say "I'm sorry." I guess it also means never having to say "Thank you" or "You have betwitched my little finger."


Love is super rad like that. Once you've shackled yourselves together, love becomes telepathic. In fact, I bet Lizzy never heard Mr. Darcy say the word bewitched ever again, once they tied the knot and the camera stopped rolling.


"I'm sorry honey bunches of oats," I said, (because apparently I don't love him as much as he loves me), "But I did include one CD for your listening pleasure."


(Mwuahahahahaha)


The Secret. You know, law of attraction and all that jazz. It was the only CD I left in the car. I even pushed play on the way out.


(snicker snicker)


Upon his return I asked him how he enjoyed it.


"It was weird."


That's all he said. Which we all know is secret code for, "You are weird."


Weird today, maybe. Bewitched tomorrow? (Maybe?)


(A girl can dream.)


Speaking of bewitched, Lulu is still in heat. UGH!



She has definitely figured out the secret to the law of attraction because every k-nine on the block is under her spell. You should hear the little Maltese across the street whining and panting as he scratches on our sliding glass door all. night. long. It sounds just like a his whining and panting as I drop-kicked him across our yard after he figured out how to take off Lulu's chastity belt.




Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Wonder Years

So you know I've been reading a lot lately, right? Well one of the things I keep coming across as I read is how important it is to find the wonder in everything around us. The wonderful, if you will.


Not to brag, but this is so easy for me. I am full of wonder on a regular basis.


Like for instance, just yesterday I was wondering why I am the only woman in Utah County who doesn't wear stilettos to the dentist. Did I miss a memo, because I also don't wear stilettos to my twin's baseball games either, yet other women of Utah county do. Quite gracefully. I witnessed one tonight step effortless from her little black Mercedes Benz and proceed to kick her daughter's trash at a friendly game of soccer behind the dugout.


In stilettos!


Am I in the Twilight Zone, or is she in the Twilight Zone?


I also wonder why anyone would buy sugar free cool whip? Cool whip without sugar is just whip. Not cool.


(I wonder why I didn't notice this until I was half-way through the container?)


Right now my biggest wonder is why didn't we get Lulu spade? Were we experiencing temporary insanity? Fer reals! Is a litter of puppies cute enough to endure 21 dayz of Romeos outside my Juliet's balcony, waiting with baited breath to dash my dreams of raising a dog worthy of being sealed to us for time and all eternity in the temple?


There are only two words to describe heat: EWWW! and EEEEWWWWWW!!


And p.s. EWWWWW!


I don't even know my own dog anymore. Is she lady or is she the tramp?


We are in day 1 of stage 2, which, for those of you who are unedumacated in the art of animal instincts, means, unlike stage 1, where she became itchy with a "b" as soon her male suitors made advances, stage 2 is awakening her to her inner Lady Gaga.


And EWWWWW, it isn't very lady like at all. In fact, it's more gaga like, even . . . dare I say . . . tramp like?


But let us not go down this slippery slope of a topic, let us go down a different slippery slope. A holier slippery slope. Let's talk about the scriptures.


You know my daughter has read the Book of Mormon eight times, right? (Such a goody goody) Well tonight she started seeing the wonder in 2 Nephi 12:22 and she called to me from her bedroom.


"Mom, come help me understand something," she said. (Wonder runs in the family.)


Upon my arrival she asked me to explain a verse of scripture to her, and then she commenced to read it aloud to me, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils . . . "


"That is a . . . wonderful question," I began. "I think it probably means . . . don't put your trust in man, but in God."


"Why, how does God breath?" she asked.


Hmmm . . . I see she is entering her wonder years.




Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Anyone wanna buy a prom dress? Anyone? Anyone?

Remember the prom dress that never came? The one we ordered from China and paid $45 to have expedited?


In English expedited means super fast delivery. But the super fast part was lost in translation over a month ago.


In fact, prom was over a month ago.


Well the dress finally came, and besides the color, fabric and style, it's exactly what we ordered.


We ordered a hippy, flowy, chic dress, but got a movie star dress instead. Which is to say it makes my daughter look 10 lbs heavier than she does off camera. Which is also to say there is something nostalgic about it, like it's been hanging in a costume room off set for the past 30 years.


Other than that it's gorgeous. A bit faded and dated, but otherwise gorgeous.


Anyone wanna buy a size 6 prom dress that makes you look a size 8?


I can have it expedited to you for only $45.


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Your Grief

You know how I've been going through all the various stages of grief over the past 18 months after being yanked out of my native homeland, Hawaii, and forced at gunpoint to move to the mainland?


Well I'm happy to announce that I think I'm in the final stages of grief--the flower arranging stage.


And the recycling stage.


Did you know you could recycle your grief? Well you can. You can make a million bee-U-tiful things out of your grief--when you're ready--and right now I'm making flower arrangements.


In short, you can live vicariously, not to mention metaphorically, through your crafts:


(What is that old proverb again? The one about how you can take the girl out of the sand, sea and sun, but you can't take the sand, sea and sun out of the girl. Or at least not out of girl's flower arrangements.)


Behold the sand. And the sea . . .



and the sun . . .



Sand, sea, sun . . . You get me?


How about my craft? Do you get my craft?


Let me speak plainly then. For Martha. Sand, sea and sun preceed all beauty.



Okay, I don't get it either, but this is my grief so I can do what I want with it.


BTW, the recycled sand in these photos is 10 years old and 100% authentic--straight from Kawela bay, via our 50 gallon fish tank--(which hasn't been up and running since I accidentally killed all the fish after scrubbing their tank clean with a brillo pad five years ago.) (But that unfortunate event hasn't kept us from keeping the empty tank on display, in all of it's uselessness.)



The sand is useful, but the empty tank is not. But no worries, it's number 10 on my list of tasks to complete before April is over.


Which reminds me, can I segway to the subject of Dummy Boot Camp? It turns out I've been wrong about a lot of things lately. Dummy Boot Camp isn't a boot camp at all. Rather it's a place of refuge. And after spending two days with my top three frenemies, me, myself and I, I discovered that there are no bears on the bear hunt neither.


(Are you disappointed?) (I know, what a boring bear hunt, huh?)


Our bears are just little girls hiding behind scary masks. You don't need to hunt them down, just offer them a cup of oolong tea and tell them they're safe and they'll show you what they're hiding from you. While I was in the slammer I had tea with two of my bears. (Well, I had soggy, homemade chicken soup with two of my bears, but same dif.) When they pulled off their masks I discovered two things I didn't know I had.


Allow Kelly Rae Roberts to illustrate:



I have a pair of un-broken wings!


All these years I thought all my wings were busted so I've been duct taping them together just to get my feet off the ground.



I also have a whole heart.


Did you hear that peeps? I have a whole entire heart. It may be stone cold heart, but it's a WHOLE stone cold heart. And I can use ALL of it. If I want to.




I probably won't want to, but it's nice to know I have it in reserve, just in case.


If I do decide I want to use it, I will start with my magic quilt project. I've been posting over there lately, and my magic traveling baby quilts are in the works. So far I have received seven donations from mothers and grandmothers and aunts who have lost a child-loved one. I can cut 2o blocks from each yard of flannel, which means each donation of one yard of flannel will be sewn into 20 baby quilts. That's 20 mothers who will be comforted from one single donation.


If I can get five or six more donations, my sister and I will have enough material to make 20 magic traveling baby quilts to send out to mothers who have recently lost a child. And then, when they are ready, those 20 mothers can cast a love spell on their magic quilts and send them on to 20 more mothers. And so on, and so on, and so on.


Is there a better way to reduce, reuse and recycle your grief.


There are three ways you can help me make this happen:

1. I am compiling a list of names of mothers to send a magic quilt to, so if you know of someone who has recently lost a child, please send me their name and contact information.

2. If you, or anyone you know has lost a child, and you would like to donate a yard of flannel in memoriam, that child can be part of the magic which brings comfort to other grieving mothers Email me @ ctddiaries@gmail.com for my address.

3. If you have magic in your fingers and would like to help sew the baby quilts together, email me at ctddiaries@gmail.com



Saturday, April 16, 2011

Baby Steps

I was wrong. I was oh, so wrong. Being locked away in isolation for two whole days and three whole nights did not allow me to work like a hare on Crack. I got it all backwards. It allowed me work like a hare on tranquilizers.


All that peace, man. I just wanted to eat it.


And remember how I said that in my real life I normally work like a tortoise on tranquilizers . . . I got that backwards too. In real life I work like a tortoise on crack.


You get me? Slow and frantic.


There's no need to be frantic, peeps. We've got all the time in the world. At least that's what my MIL always says when we're at an all-you-can-eat-buffet.


Exhale . . . Inhale . . . Exhale . . . . (I didn't get that part backwards.)


So, you wanna hear all about my time in the slammer? Do ya? Do ya? Do ya?


Well, I drove four hours to an undisclosed location. I didn't stop once on the way. I just kept driving. And driving. And driving.


And when I got there I hunkered right down. First things first, I set up my PC at the kitchen table. How cool is that. I brought my PC. Hard drive and all. That's how old school I am.


I did not have internet access either, and I never left the house once in 60 hours. Not even to walk outside and get a breath of fresh air, or a bite to eat. I just ate what I brought--soggy homemade chicken vegetable soup, cabbage and cranberries salad, a handful of Costco rolls and muffins, and three fresh California oranges.


I took five piping hot baths--with the door wide open--and a couple of cat naps.


I cried a little bit--when I finally unpacked my son's backpack from his last day of school in Hawaii--and I laughed a little bit, in my sleep. No idea what I was dreaming about, but, I woke up on the last morning of solitary confinement giggling and smiling like a school girl.


But mostly I wrote. And I wrote. And I wrote. Much about the magic quilt, but other things too.


I got lonely, and hungry, and stiff, but it felt so very good, so very very good, to make quick bursts of progress. Although I will admit I look forward once again to making slow and steady progress. In between my daily grind.


So thankful for my daily grind. It is the stuff my days are made of, after all. And besides, the daily grind is what inspires and incites my material. (Plus it includes candy.) (And internet.) In fact, I rushed home. All four hours. Without stopping once. Straight into the arms of my daily grind.


I read a lot during my solitary confinement. I've now completed 6 of the 7 books on my boot camp booklist. My highest recommendations? Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnack.


I read through some of these old CTD posts as well, (ones I had saved in documents) and frankly, it made me laugh. Who is that girl, Crash? I know her not? I am certainly not that girl. I pinky swear.


(Kinda wish I was though. She's got sass. And she's dumb. I long to be dumb like her.)


So, do you wanna see what was in the infamous backpack that I was FINALLY able to tackle after 18 months?


Stuff. It was full of stuff. Not even one single scary monster.



Self portraits and autobiographies and PTCO ballots. (The Mom, do you see your name anywhere on here? Sorry I never voted for you. Especially after all the times you voted for me.)



Awards. He received the Inspirational Student and Top Athletic Award. All this time, my son has been inspirational and athletic, and I couldn't even face it.



Fish art. Lot's and lots of fish art.



And finally . . . a single pog. And a single shell.


Which is basically his childhood in a nutshell.


Sigh


(BTW, cleaning out the backpack was number nine on my "Twenty Tasks to Accomplish During Boot Camp" list. Number eight was to throw away all my hub's clothes, because really how many ratty gray t-shirts can one grown man own? Raise your hand if you think 13 is too many? And FTR, he hasn't even noticed that all of his clothes are gone.)


(So, anyways, that puts me at 9 tasks down, 11 to go.)


Baby steps.


Speaking of baby steps, this same son had his first bleed in years while I was hibernating (he's a hemophiliac), and now he's taking baby steps too.




p.s. Still speaking of baby steps, Lulu is in heat, so she has to wear diapers now so she doesn't get pregnant. hee hee hee


She's also taking "baby" steps.


Get it? Baby steps?


Sometimes I crack myself up.


p.s.s How cute is my baby, catching some rays with her daddy?

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Slammer

For some reason my twins talk about jail quite a bit.


Like last week, it was snowing, and twin number one said. "Man, I feel so bad for all the hobos." (Hobos? Who says hobos anymore?) "If I was a hobo, I would just do something really bad so I could go to jail."



"Me too," said twin number two. "Jail is cool. You get to eat three square meals a day. Plus you get to watch t.v. and play video games all day long."



I could see from twin number one's face that he was imagining what a square meal would look like--he's literal like that--but he shook it off and and said, "And you get to go to recess in jail too."



Recess? In jail? Who is picturing inmates on teeter totters and merry-go-rounds right now, raise your hand.



"Yeah, " said twin number two, "it's called outside day."



Is it weird that my first thought was, I wonder if they have inside day? For those of us who do not have the luxury of living in jail. Like could we go to jail for a day if we needed a place to get away for all of our freedoms and choices?



See I have a dream. That one day all the mothers in the world will be able to sit down together at the table of prisonhood. And eat three square meals. As play video games all day long while their hubs and cubs clean up their own messes.



Really, I do have a dream. I could care less about the square meals, or the video games. It's the hours of uninterrupted time to read and write that entices me. All the best ideas were written on a napkin in jail, or in exile. Am I right, or am I right? Martin Luther King Jr's, "Letter From Birmingham City Jail," Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Cervantes', Don Quixote. Even John Bunyon's Pilgrim's Progress was written from jail.



You get me?



Neither does my hub. But guess what he gave me anyway?




Woohoo! He's sending me to jail. For two whole days. Im going to do a read-and-write-a-thon in an undisclosed location. Twelve hours a day of just reading and writing. On a napkin. (Wasn't that how Harry Potter came into the world?)



My goal is 12 hours a day of straight pure writing. I'll squeeze the reading in on the side. That's 24 hours, peeps! In the ZONE.



Woohoo! I wonder will come out of the zone.



I may or may not get one phone call from jail, so I may or may not be in touch.



Laters gators!



P.S. BTW, who wants a Dummy Boot Camp report? A fer reals report?



Dummy Boot Camp is da bombdiggity. I highly recommend it. It's April 12th and I've been faithful and diligent thus far, except once, when I skipped the whole day because I was ticked at my hub. Negative energy is a downer, folks. I say don't do it! Just roll with the punches.



On the day that I didn't do boot camp, the difference in my will and focus towards my goals was like the tortoise and the hare.



(In real life most of us have to work at a tortoise pace, slow and steady, but sometimes I work like a tortoise on tranquilizers. That's why I'm so excited to go to jail. I'll be like a hare on crack!)



But anyways, as Gad as my witness, I will NOT miss another day of boot camp as long as April lives. (I totally get Scarlett O'Hara.)



My original goal for the month was 20-4-7. Twenty tasks accomplished of things I've been putting off for months, four trips to the temple, seven good books. So far I've accomplished 6/20 tasks, 1/4 temple trips, and 3/7 good reads.



And it has made all the difference. (Someone should use that line in a poem.)



My means to accomplish all this was through a little 1 and 1/2 hour routine each morning that includes reading B.O.M, yoga stretches, prayer, writing in my gratitude/insight journal, exercise, visualization/meditation and 7 glasses of water a day (plus four vitamins).



Surprisingly, the most difficult part for me has been the water and the meditation/visualization.



And btw, the routine takes 2 full hours, so I've had to start at 5 a.m.



If you decide to try this at home, I give TWO thumbs up. You will be amazed at the ability you will have to focus and accomplish tasks that seemed daunting and overwhelming before. And boot camp even vicariously rubs off on your children. At least your female children. (Does anything rub off on your male children?) My daughter has hurdled a few of her own barriers since I started boot camp.



But don't forget the power nap! Without rest, boot camp can be hazardous! To your hub's health. hee hee hee



Hasta la vista! Wish me luck in the slammer.



Thursday, April 7, 2011

Your Friendly Dumb and Dumber Guru (and company)

This just in: My daughter has been promoted at the flower shop! She is no longer a bucket girl, she's a flower girl!



Or as the French would say, she's a floral arteest. A floral arteest who works regular shifts and gets to train the new bucket girl. At least that's what she keeps telling us over and over, with a big ole' grin on her face, as she shakes her little booty around the house singing, "I got a promotion!"


In other news, remember the night I got thrown in jail for breaking section 004723892 of the flag etiquette law? Well today I picked my 14-year-old son up from school and, to my utter shock and awe, he came out of the school, in slow motion, wearing a flag. Honest Abe, he was wrapped in a flag. The whole world stood still as he sauntered towards me like a caped crusader (minus the crusade) with an American flag fluttering behind him.


Obviously he wasn't in attendance at flag etiquette night when I was escorted out of the church in handcuffs.


Where did he come from? And why couldn't he be a floral arteest like his sister?


"WHY, son, WHY do you have a sacred, reverent, holy, consecrated, hallowed, sanctified, uncorrupted American flag tied around your freakin' neck?" I asked him (from my hiding place beneath the dashboard).


"I'm the badminton champion!" he said.


He's the badminton champion.


"But . . . but . . . but . . . you're giving the flag police the finger!" I said.


"Whatever, champions wear flag capes all the time in the Olympics!"


That's what he said to me, like, hey, if its good enough for the goose, it's good enough for the gander.


Sigh!


When will puberty be over?


My sweet, innocent twins are in puberty too. In fact, I caught them mocking my blog today. I walked into the room whilst they were reading my blog out loud to each other in THAT tone of voice. That listen-to-THIS tone of voice. And that mom-is-so000-dumb tone of voice.


Actually, come to think of it, it was their words which communicated these thoughts even more precisely than their tone of voice.


In my defense, I am going for dumb. And boot camp is definitely making me dumber. Case in point; yesterday I bought groceries. Checked out. Pushed my cart into the parking lot. Opened my trunk to load my groceries. Only there were no groceries in the cart. I walked out without my groceries!


You'd think they would chase me down or something, but no, I had to go back into the store, with my tail between my legs, and search for my missing groceries. I finally found them at the returns desk.


"We thought you'd probably return, " said the smarty pants returns clerk.



P.S. Would you like another tip from the dumb and dumber guru?


Never drink 7 glasses of water before attending the temple.


Amen!



Wednesday, April 6, 2011

My top three frenemies

Can I be frank?


For just a moment?


Dummy Boot Camp ROCKS! I don't know why I didn't get down to bizness with the Universe earlier, because you know what? The Universe has a big mouth. And the Universe is well connected. It can hook. you. up.


If you ask it. Nicely.


Imma witness. Just sayin'.


Okay, so before my boot camp started I told you I was going on a bear hunt, right? Gonna catch a big one, and all that jazz. And then I designed a 20-4-7 routine to help me prepare myself to find and catch those bears that are in my way and keeping me from scaling the big wall in front of me.


Then yesterday I gave a cryptic, coded, enigmatic, shrouded clue about the first bear that I found on my journey. But Martha didn't get it, so I'm just going to spell it out.


The first bear was my hub.


I KNOW! I couldn't believe it either. Why would my hub stand in my way?


But then I looked closer and I saw that it wasn't my hub at all, it was . . . gulp (me).


GASP!


I am standing in my own way, peeps!


I can't believe I would do that to myself! And then blame my hub.


Shame on me, huh?


So now I'm mustering up the courage to have a little heart to heart with my top three frenemies. Me, myself and I.


In the meantime, I've received a few insights during my early morning boot camp hours:

  • You don't need 30 days to prepare yourself for scaling the wall. And it doesn't take a month to find your bears neither. You ask. You receive. And then you do. It's that simple. The Universe if very prompt. If you're tuned in. The questions don't have to be difficult either. Where are the bears? Who are the bears? How can I get over this wall? Show me the door? The ladder? The secret passage? And, p.s., while you're at it, would you mind walking with me around the dark side so they don't beat me up? And p.s.s Can I borrow some money? (hee hee) Once you receive the answer, there is nothing left to do, but to do. Do, or do not, there is no try. (Someone should quote me on that.) Just DO IT! (Seriously, is someone writing this stuff down?) In summary, you can only ponder for so long before you have to put your shoulder to the wheel and push a long. (There I go again!)

  • The bears are always in disguise, either as your hub or your kids or your job or your calling or your weight or your parents or your frizzy, dry hair, but when you unzip the bear suit, the bear will always be . . . gulp (you). (Bless your heart.)
  • Through small and simple things on a daily basis--20 minutes of yoga, 4 minutes of conversations with the Universe, 7 minutes of reading conversations with the Universe, 20 minutes of aerobic exercise, 4 vitamins, 7 glasses of water--shall great things come to pass--great conversations, great friends, great ideas, great opportunities, great accomplishments, great hair.

You're welcome!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Who Says!? (anthems and boot camps and bears, oh my!)

Good news! I have kicked my cold to the curb and I'm back in the game. HA! Take that dark side of the Universe! Four fresh California pomelos, three bowls of homemade chicken vegetable soup, two eyes of the tiger, and one raw eagle egg. That's all it took to restore myself back to health.


And it looks like I'm not allergic to Utah neither. I woke up this morning feeling mighty fine, so I went ahead and rolled out of bed at my usual 5:30 a.m., and went through my whole boot camp routine. I think I'm getting into a flow, because I'm beginning to understand the Energizer Bunny a lot better. 


And it's EXCITING!  (Although, for the record, Fuji outlasts Energizer by 1 hr and 45 minutes. I have my son's science project to prove it.) 


I am overwhelmed with things to tell you. It's almost frightening. I am trying to widen my arms to receive all the incoming information, but it feels like holding water in a net. Luckily I'm writing it all down in my Dummy Boot Camp notebook so I can give a full report. 




For now I need to digest it all before I regurgitate it.


More good news! I found my first bear today! It was in Park City. I was on a date with my hub at the time, having a loverly time of it eating generic brand fruit snacks and Ande's mints and Twizzler red vines and Chips Ahoy cookies when I ran into my first bear. In broad daylight.


Look at me, I'm like "Here he is!" And my hub was like, "Here he is? That's it? You caught your first bear red-handed, and you're just sitting there with his arm around you like he's you're best friend? Let's get PHYSICAL, babe! Show him who's boss!"


"That's more like it," he said, but not before I had an aha moment. Sometimes we snuggle up to our bears instead of slaying them. 


There's a moral here. There's a definite moral here. Never trust a friendly bear. Unless his name is Yogi. Even the friendliest bear will claw your eyes out in a pinch.


You get me? 


And never trust a friendly moose neither.


Such a hypocrite, my hub. 


But fer reals, have you ever heard of "sleeping with the enemy?" Your bear might be your hub. Or at least you might think it is your hub. I would never think it was my hub, but you might. And then upon closer examination, you might realize that it's not your hub at all, it's actually . . YOU, disguised as your hub! 



What if YOU are are the one guarding the secret passage leading to the other side of your wall? Only you're dressed up as your hub.


I'm sorry for you, if that's the case. I personally could never do that to myself. 



Anyways . . .


You guys wanna see Park City? 


First, if you ever go to Park City go to the Stanfield Fine Art Gallery on Main Street. BEST ART GALLERY EVER! I would marry half of those paintings if they asked me.


Especially this one:



Or maybe this one: 

 
Just joshin' peeps! But I would seriously live inside that first painting. 


Okay, now are you ready for some Park City flavah?


But first, can I just say that this is my kinda boot camp!


Hee hee 


Okay, Park City! Flavah! Coming right up: 

























P.S. Iwa says I need an anthem for my Dummy Boot Camp. Thanks to Disney, I've got two:





My daughter keeps playing this song (below) over and over so if it's my daughter's anthem, it's my anthem.