Can't talk now STOP Gotsta go to bed early so I can start my Dummy Boot Camp in the wee early morn. STOP Soooooooooo dang excited STOP Will tell you alls about it tomorrow STOP
P STOP S STOP FYI to those of you who have joined team Dummy STOP You don't have to do a single thing STOP Except shake your pom pons when I want to give up STOP
Later gators STOP
P STOP S STOP S STOP Sandi says she has a crush on me STOP
I can't post the stuff I've been writing about my dummy boot camp because I'm in jail right now. I broke the law, peeps.
And I didn't even know it.
It all started when I ordered this cake for our tri-ward youth activity tonight on flag etiquette:
Our special guest speaker just so happened to know the flag laws inside and out like the back of his hand.
Did you know that it's against the law to recreate any image of the flag that will eventually get discarded, tossed out, thrown away, or chucked? Flags silk screened onto swim suits. Against the law. Flags on grocery store bags. Against the law. Flags in magazines? AGAINST. THE. LAW.
"Can you wear an Old Navy t-shirt with a flag on it?" asked one teenager.
The flag expert shook his head.
"Can you make little flags out of toothpicks?" asked another teenager.
The flag expert shook his head again.
That's when I raised my hand. "Can you . . . eat a flag?" I asked.
Apparently you can't eat a flag either. And since I commissioned someone to create a flag for the sole purpose of consumption, I am an accomplice to a very serious crime.
I tried to make it right by peeling the flag off the cake and tossing into the bonfire with all the other, less edible, flags we were retiring.
But now I'm in jail.
(Fingers crossed I'll be in here for at least 30 days because just think of how much peace and quiet I would have to focus on Dummy Boot Camp!)
Okay, prom really is over and done with, so let's really move on to the next topic.
Dummy Boot Camp.
I'm officially declaring the month of April National Dummy Boot Camp month. Or at least local Dummy Boot Camp month. Extremely local. Like within the confines of my own thick skull.
I'm going on a bear hunt during the month of April. A bold, brave, treacherous bear hunt. Deep into the recesses of my own mind.
Wanna come?
I wasn't gonna ask you, but I need someone to talk to about it, being as I can't talk to my hub, since every time I mention it he begins to chuckle.
See I've been on this bear hunt for a long, long time--years in fact, and I've slowly been moving towards this enormous, great wall in front of me. It was very far away for a long time, like Cleveland far away. Like when you're walking down the strip towards Excalibur far away. But I kept taking baby steps toward it.
And now I am standing right in front of it.
And I'm shaking in my boots. Mostly because I don't know what it's made of, or how many bears are guarding it. And also because I don't know how to get to the other side.
I can't go over it. I can't go under it. And I can't go around it.
Gotta go through it.
I hope Dummy Boot camp will whip me into shape so I'll be ready to skin me some bears.
I also hope it will sharpen my vision so I can see not only what the wall is made of, but also where the secret passage is that leads to the other side.
I'll explain everything later, but who's with me, peeps? Huh? Team Dummy? Huh? Huh? Huh?
(I'm afeared of bears, btw! Are you still with me?)
Hands in the middle . . . Goooooooo duMMy!
Prom is over and done with, and now it's nothing more than a twinkle in my eye. (Speaking of which, my daughter had a little twinkle in her eye when she came home from the prom. Ummhmmm.) (Her hair still had a little twinkle to it too. In fact it looked prettier than when she walked out the door.) (Thanks Bobbi!) (It looked pretty the next morning too.) (And so did her make-up.)
(It's amazing how long you can stretch prom out if you want to.)
But Prom is over and done with, and it's on to the next topic . . .
Nah . . . let's keep talking about prom.
You guys wanna see the dress we ordered from China that hasn't arrived yet?
So while I was telling my daughter all of my prom dress nightmare stories from my own high school years, we had an epiphany together. One of them AH-HA moment thingies. Well, actually I had the epiphany. She just prompted the epiphany. After she declared, "I can't believe you ever got asked out at all, Mom!"
As the words fell from her mouth it dawned on me the reason my hub always says "because you had potential" whenever I ask him why he fell in lub with me. I think maybe I was never quite finished.
In other words, I was a little rag-a-muffin.
When your dad up and dies, leaving your mom to raise seven kids all by her loneliness, you gotsta get creative when it comes to dressing yourself for prom.
Besides, in my day there was no such thing as a pretty prom dress. We cut holes in garbage bags and promenaded up hill in the snow both ways.
And we liked it!
And anyway, so what if I had to treat my chronic allergies and cold sores with home remedies! That's right, I went around town with Kleenex stuffed up my nose and deodorant smeared across my lips. What of it!?
But fer reals, my dresses were never quite finished when my prom date arrived. I always had a roll of tape, a bag of safety pins, and a stick a butter in my purse, in case of a wardrobe malfunction.
But the worst dress story of all is the year I got asked to the Senior Dinner Dance by a preppy, rich boy. He was in my foods class and we once made a hamburger cake together for the class cake decorating contest--with real lettuce, cheese and tomatoes. Hee hee. I bet Cake Boss never thought of that. We thought it was stinkin' heelarious, but our teacher never cracked a smile.
He was an older boy, who also asked me to my Junior Prom, but instead of taking me to the dance he took me to his house to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
That was pretty much our last date. And I never kissed him neither.
But it wouldn't have worked out between us anyway, because he had a very strong aversion to Lionel Richie.
So when he took me to the prom I borrowed one of my cousin's bridesmaid dresses. She shipped it all the way from San Diego and it arrived like two hours before the dance.
EEEEEEK! I'm pretty sure I added the hat. (My daughter thinks I looked like Little Bo Peep.)
But his Senior Dinner Dance was way way worse. I was still out shopping for the dress when he arrived to pick me up!
As I recall, cash was very short that month. My mom had a beauty salon in our house so that Saturday I was frantically waiting for her to finish a perm so she could slip me some cash. There was no car either so I actually had to RUN the five blocks from the ghetto to down town Provo. My choices were JCPenny or Lerners. I picked Lerners, due to proximity, where I grabbed the best dress I could find before running all the way back home, huffing and puffing. My date was sitting in my driveway waiting upon my arrival.
Awkward.
I'll never forget his mom's face when she laid eyes upon me in my plain, cotton, Lerners dress.
Hee hee
Okay, you wanna see me and my hub before we were hub and wife? My hub also took me to my Senior Dinner Dance and Prom. (The next year.) (Only I did kiss him.) (Enthusiastically.)
Oh dear, I made this dress and it was completely duct taped together. I kid not.
I have no earthly idea where I got this dress. Probably from the drama dept. But YES, I spray glued ALL that lace to it to glam it up. (I figured since he gave to me his leather, I should give to him my lace.)
Are you guys too young for Stevie Nicks?
Anyways, my daughter got a HUGE, GIGANTIC, deep belly laugh over these dresses, but besides all the duct tape and spray glue I guess I kinda did have potential.
And guess what! Guess what! Guess what!
She wore the heels.
Or as my niece who did her hair called them, the "training heels."
I have never seen my daughter wear heels before. (I have never seen my daughter wear pink toenails before either.)
Everything was soooooooo perfect, from her hair . . . (thanks Bobbi!)
Crazy teenagers.
K, gotsta go get my girl gussied up.
Woohooo!
And how cute is she???
Being a prom mom is so dang much fun!
Be back later with the AFTER shots.
You know what I hate?
I hate it when I'm driving my boys to basketball practice and I get off at the same exit I usually do, but someone has switched all the landmarks to the next exit.
Grrrrr . . .
You know what else I hate? When I come out of Costco and there's some guy sitting in my car. So I walk up to the car and I'm like "DUDE, why are you sitting in my car? And what have you done with my dog?" Some people think it's cute to switch cars with you in the parking lot while you're in Costco eating samples.
I also hate it when I go to the temple and they've switched the zipper from the back of the dress to the front of the dress without even telling you. Until you're walking around in public. And they have to send some sweet little worker lady to give you the memo.
I hope you don't think I'm a hateful person though. There are things I lub too. Like being a prom mom. Eeeeeee! Prom is tomorrow night. So. Ex. CITE. eD.
Best thing about Prom is that my daughter is wearing a pink dress.
She's wearing pink! She's wearing pink!
Wanna see? I just picked it up from the dry cleaners.
You don't understand how monumental this is. Not only that I took something to the dry cleaners, but also that my daughter is wearing pink.
See she's been boycotting pink since she was a little girl. Don't ask me why. She's just a weirdie like that. Being a girl who refuses to wear pink is kinda like one of those Mormon mommies who refuses to drive a mini-van. It makes too much sense.
Except that pink is girly, and my darling daughter refuses to be an adverb. Until now. (hee hee)
Her dress from China didn't arrive on time so she had to either beg, steal or borrow. Being the goody-two-shoes that she is, she chose to borrow. And her choices were pink, or pink.
The cutest part was that she was embarrassed to tell her date she was wearing pink. Hello! She's a girl. He's a boy. To a boy, girls are PINK! Am I right? Or am I right? But still she apologized to him. For being a girl. Luckily he didn't seem to mind at all.
Just between me and you, I have never ever seen my daughter look more beautiful or gorgeous or exquisite than she does in that pink dress. Which is why I'm so excited. I can't wait for her cute date's eyeballs to pop out of his head so I can say, "I MADE THAT GIRL!"
Last night she let me gussy her up. I got to paint her toenails, and her fingernails. PINK. And she let me pluck her eyebrows. She even let me practice her make-up. I did one glam eye and one smokey eye, and let her choose. She didn't like either, so I did a natural eye and she loved it.
The only downer about prom is she is refusing to wear heels. She's never worn a pair of heels in her life and she's not about to drive a mini-van now. Not even for the prom. Oh wells, one step at a time.
So in Utah the Prom is an all day affair. They do a day date and a night date. The day date is something fun and creative and casual and guess what my daughter is doing?
FESTIVAL of COLORS!
This is my daughter's PERFECT date!
If you wait right here I'll be back tomorrow with photographic evidence.
Gotsta go. Prom mom's need their beauty sleep too.
P.S. Guess what I got in the mail from my dental hygienist today?
Prom dress secured for my daughter. Check. New Beginnings complete for Young Women. Check. Flynn Rider Barbie purchased for my niece. Check.
(It was a risky birthday gift, but I went with my gut.)
All that, plus I had my teeth cleaned since I last posted.
My dentist hired a new hygienist though and she's kinda messing with my dental mojo.
She calls me Miss Debra.
Who does that?
She also says rad ALOT. And puuuuuurfect. And she told me I'm a phenomenal brusher.
Phenomenal? Really?
I don't trust this lady. If I was a phenomenal brusher I woulda heard about it before my 44th birthday.
You get me?
She talks real sweet, but I think she's got a dark side. Sweet people tend to be that way. I mean, fer reals, when someone gets too excited about your brushing abilities, there's something lurking beneath the surface. Especially if they nearly yank your tonsils loose while they're flossing your teeth.
"So, Miss Debra," she cooed, as the little water spout thingie in my mouth sprayed water all over my face, "Are you happy with your smile?"
Am I happy with my smile? If I'm not mistaken, that's code for "you could use some professional help." Am I right, or am I right?
I know what she is. She's one of them gardeners. Planting seeds.
When I was in high school I once went to an ear, nose and throat doctor because I found out I was allergic to Utah. The doctor told me that I would be pretty if I got a new nose. Then he handed me a catalog of new noses and told me to circle the ones I liked.
I didn't let anyone look at my profile for years.
"Yes, I'm happy with my smile," I told her.
"Does this chip right here in your front tooth bug you, Miss Debra?" she said to me as she was measuring my gums and trying to find a nanny at the same time. She's a multi-tasker, that way. "I mean, it's not that big of a deal. I only see it because I'm right here, but does it cut your tongue at all?" And then she paused. "Oh wait, you said you were happy with your smile didn't you."
How brilliantly she waters her garden.
"What about these silver fillings, back here," she asked a few minutes later. "Does it bother you that people can see them every time you open your mouth? Not that it matters. And besides, I know you're happy with your smile."
And then she said "Wow!"
That was it, just WOW. Followed by some intense scraping.
When she finally spoke it was to tell me that one of my molars was really annoying her. "Do you pack a lot of food back here?" she asked.
If I had a peanut butter sandwich for every time someone has told me that . . . well then . . . I would have a peanut butter sandwich. And she would have a peanut butter facial.
But alls I had was my pointer finger. So I poked her eyes out.
(Two words: safety. goggles.)
She got the last laugh, however, when she told me that I have two cavities.
TWO CAVITIES!? But I'm a phenomenal brusher!!!!!
(Btw, you guys are happy with my smile, right?)
(Do you think my smile makes me look fat?)
P.S. GOOD LUCK TO THE BYU-Hawaii basketball team tonight. They're in the FINAL FOUR! Woohooo!
And GOOD LUCK TO THE BYU-Provo basketball team. They're in the SWEET SIXTEEN! Woohooo! Go JIMMER.
P.S. Is it just me or does anyone else think Jimmer looks like a younger (cuter) (more betta three-point shoota) John Goodman?
