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Showing posts with label History Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History Day. Show all posts

Saturday, February 21, 2009

A.D.D.D.


Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness!  

I feel like taking a long winter's nap.  Guess why?  

Because History Day is over!  Wahoo!  

And the brainchild made it past Districts.  She and her group will be going to the state competition in April.   

I'm such a proud grandma!  

And not just because my daughter's group is going on but because my son's group is going on too.  I never talked about my son because John Adam's (my daughter's project) was a much harder birth than Father Damien (my son's project). My son had an epidural for his brainchild and didn't feel any pain. 

(If you want to know what the what I'm talking about read this post.) 

So, at your request I'm now going to post my never-before-seen-by-human-eyes draft about my domestic disorder. It was written on October 11th, 2008  (And I've glammed it up a bit since).

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My name is Dummy and I have Attention Deficit Domestic Disorder.

At least that's what I said at my last ADDDA meeting. (Hey, why do they call it Attention Deficit Domestic Disorder Annonymous if I have to tell my name?)

ADDD is often confused with ADHD (Attention Deficit Housecleaning Disorder) but it is a far more serious problem.

ADHD is the simply the inability to focus on basic housekeeping tasks because you are allergic to brooms and dustpans.

But ADDD encompasses so much more. Your ears zone out when your child says the word homework, your eyes fog up when you try to alphabetize the piles of clutter on your countertop, and your brain freezes when your husband says, what's for dinner?

A few nights ago, while I was rebooting my brain, my husband told me it was time for an intervention.

I had never considered the possibility that I might have ADDD. I always thought I was just really good at multi-tasking and that one day all my tasks would be complete, but apparently I've been suffering from accute denial, which my husband says is not the same thing as cute denial.

"There's nothing cute about denial," he said when I put on my high school cheerleading skirt, grabbed my pom poms and grinned widely while chanting, "Push it down, push it down . . . waaaaayyyyy down!"

"You should be chanting "Give me an A! Give me a D!" he told me.

My ADDDA counselor says that education and support are key to coping with and managing my disorder, so I've organized support group.

If you are displaying five or more of the following symptoms, you too may need divine intervention.  Meet me (and the universe) in my comment box and I will take care of it.

The first step to coping is recognizing and taking responsiblity for your disorder. You may take responsibility for my disorder too, (if you feel so inclined (because it is kind of your fault, don't you think?)).

  1. Has your smoke alarm ever gone off while you were making dinner because you just had to finish a sadoku puzzle?
  2. Do you ever find rubber cement in your spice rack and blame it on Jackie Robinson?
  3. Do you ever feel an urgency to count and wrap your penny collection as soon as you begin scrubbing the kitchen floor?
  4. Do you ever fantasize about sticking the ethernet cable in your ear so you can blog while your husband is talking to you?
  5. Do you ever kneel down to pray but then remember you need to check your comment box real quick, (but hold that thought God, because I'll be right back to say amen, I pinky promise) ?
  6. Do you ever open the dishwasher then wash all the dishes by hand before loading it.
  7. Do you only get an overwhelming urge to clean your during Sacrament meeting or while you're grading research papers?
  8. Are you the only mom who blows off last-minute, optional lunch-on-the-lawns at your child's elementary school?  (Okay, I just added that one).

If you answered YES to at least five of these questions you too are suffering silently from ADDD.

It may be time to come out of the closet, ladies. (Unless that's where you hide your chocolate.)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

I'm a grandma!

My husband lubbed my last post so much he says I can count it as my valentine to him. (YAY, I'm off the hook.)


He said that post made him want to give me 100 fortune cookies just to see which ones will actually come true.


But he thinks that should count as his valentine to me. (cheap skate!)


It didn't take me long to figure out that he didn't actually read my post, he skimmed it and missed the whole point.


He thought I was seriously going to put on my flawless bronze legs and my thong and call him Jack in a Brazilian accent.


HELLO! I thought I made it perfectly clear that I left my flawless bronze legs in my pre-mortal life. I haven't seen them since 1967. And the only body part that has ever worn a thong is my feet.



Hey, guess what!? I don't need thereapy afterall. I found a Jack that I'M NOT IN LOVE WITH.


Jack Weyland. I don't love Jack Weyland!!!


When I read his book Sam in college, I tore it to pieces, poured Mountain Dew all over it and started it on fire. That was during my feminist phase so I threw my bra into the fire too.


And then I made s'mores.


When life hands you lemons, make s'mores. That's what I always say.





So peeps, I've been absent yet present again. It's because my daughter has been in labor.


It's so hard to watch your daughter in labor.


She's only 14 so of course it wasn't baby labor, it was mental labor.


But giving birth to ideas is exactly the same process as giving birth to babies.


An idea must be conceived then carried in your mind while it grows and grows until it makes you crazy uncomfortable and crazy cranky. Carrying an idea around wears you out. You begin retaining water. You get heartburn. You can't sleep at night.


And worst of all you can't fit into your old ideas anymore.


Well, this is exactly what my daughter's group has been going through with their history day project on John Adams. They have had the longest, hardest labor--with no epidural. I was tempted to perform an emergency C-section because John Adams is a huge baby! (And he has bad teeth too). He almost broke their poor little backs on his way out of their brains.


Once I got to help my neice give birth--baby birth, not idea birth. She was pushing that baby out for so long I thought her face was going to pop off. Because I hate seeing anyone curse, instinctively I jumped up and put my hands on her head and pushed down as hard as I could. Every time she pushed, I pushed.

To this day she says it didn't help her get that baby out, but I know it did.


So that's what I did for my daughter and her group last night. They were sweating and cursing and swearing they would never have another idea ever again, so I jumped up and put my hands on top of their heads and I pushed down as hard as I could until their ideas popped out.


My daughter and her group are now the proud parents of a brand new history day script.


And I'm a grandma!


(btw, love being a grandma! They have to perform it, block it, dress it, feed it, burp it and teach it how to walk. Hee hee All I have to do is sleep through the night and spoil it. I think I'm going to buy it an XBOX 360 next week. And Rock Band too, of course.)

My daughter took a sick day today but should be fully recovered shortly.

No gifts necessary, but thanks.

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p.s. Here's a birthday shout out to one of my very favorite blogging buddies ever. You go, LoW. You're almost over the hill. LY, LoW!!!

Friday, January 30, 2009

Peeps Patrol

Okay peeps, mark your calendars because the Crash Test Dummy is coming to Utah on July 10th. If you want to meet me at the airport with banners and balloons I'll send you my itinerary thingie.

And hey, maybe if I start jogging 10 miles a day I'll be able to fit into my HS cheer skirt so we can have a little pep rally by the baggage claim.

Let me know if you want me to bring my playlist and do a Kung Fu Panda workshop for your Young Women or teach your crazy bored friends how to survive 60 mph impacts w/o airbags.

Or, if you want, you can just take me out to lunch at the Olive Garden. (I accept Jamba Juice cards too.)

OR, OR, OR, we can have a quilting bee. I don't quilt myself, but you guys could quilt while I blog about it. And I can serve you chips and salsa while you quilt and I blog. I'm good at serving chips and salsa.

Dead serious--not about the chips and salsa,but about the quilting bee--thanks to Wendy @No Botox Allowed for giving wings to my magic quilt idea.

I've got a MIND BLOWING PLAN to heal the world (one quilt at a time.) Click here to read my plan and see my new site.



And you know what else I've been thinking about? Anjeny and how she nominated me for best blog of all time and how I giggled and called her a silly silly goose.

But why shouldn't I be best blog of all time? Why should I be intimidated by Pioneer Woman? I mean, true, I don't have any votes yet, but I'm only 20 votes behind pioneer woman and 24 votes behind Dooce. And I'm only 130 votes behind the real best blog of all times.

I still have time to catch up if I blog my brains out 24/7 for the next 300 days or so.

Maybe I could get Jack Johnson to write me a magic theme song that hypnotizes readers into voting for me . . .


The possibilities are endless.


I mean, I know by myself I'm not best blogger of all time, because, well, let's face it, I don't have a Marlboro man. My man doesn't even smoke. But I do have a happy German.

And a tremendous Austrian.

Seriously, what does the Pioneer Woman have that I don't have (besides a chain smoking husband)?

I may not have cows or horses, but I have cockroaches and geckos.

I may not be able to cook, but Mariko can and Damaris can and Amanda can.

Does PW have a published author who sold her first novel out of print in less than 2 months? Well, we do, thanks to Miss D. and Miss HeiD.

I may not take stunningly breath taking photographs, but Alyson does and so does Shelle.

PW has a mentally retarded brother, but I bet she doesn't have an apostate brother. And I bet she doesn't have a yellow submarine. And she probably doesn't speak to the universe or make magic quilts.

WE CAN DO THIS THING, girls!

All I need is 21 votes and I'll be on page one. And if I'm on page one, then we can make a gazillion quilts and heal the world a gazillion times faster. Then maybe we could get sponsors for our Blog-Across-America tour and we could write books about all the crazy people in America and go on Oprah and David Letterman and Regis and Kelly.

And then we could all get our hair Japanese straightened.



Are you as pumped as I am right now?





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Oh, and about my daughter's hoity toity SS teacher . . . I didn't end up busting a move on her because I had to give her the Heimlich instead. She was seriously choking on her words that she would shave her head if my daughter's group made it to the History Day district competition.

They did make it--(4th place so there's room for improvement, but STILL!)

And can I say something to my daughter's friends who also made it. Sydney/3rd place essay, Josi/3rd place performance, and Josie/2nd place documentary. WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!

You go, girls! Seriously, SO TAMN Proud of You! (Don't tell your parents I said that.)

(Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Josi! Can everyone leave some cake in my comment box. Wolfgang, will you bring your honey and granola frozen yogurt? And will everyone wear blue today in her honor.)



MAHALO!

You guys are da bomb!


And remember . . . A vote for Crash is a vote for Crash-n-Friends! Click on one of the blogger's choice buttons on the left hand side bar to vote. You do have to sign up and log in.

LY Friends!