12 Lessons Learned in 2008

1. As far as navigation systems go, the shortest route is not always the best option.
This is a very important lesson…If your car’s navigation system asks you if you want to AVOID unpaved roads, quickly push the YES button! The term, “as the crow flies” is really best left for the crows to fly and rarely ever a good option for humans, with or without four-wheel drive. You know that expression “leave it to the birds”? Take that one seriously.

2. ALL new household appliances are built to last about 7 years.
Yes, and you guessed it…our house is now about 7 years old. It’s a tragedy of gigantic proportions. If you’d like to see our bank statement you will see why. This household is sporting some lovely new major appliances, of course we can’t pay for food and heat now, but we can wash our clothes and enjoy cold milk again on our cereal!

3. If you want to see bears, don’t look for them in Yellowstone.
Buffalos? Check. Biting squirrels? Check. Long wearisome traffic jams? Double check. Bears-zilch! Yogi bear and Boo Boo must be stealing picnic baskets somewhere else.

4. Diabetes sucks to the 3rd power.
So Cheyenne, Mitchell, and Chloe have all joined the club. Connor’s the last man standing…so far. We thought keeping track of one kid’s blood sugar was crazy but this year we took it to a whole new level. We affectionately call the kid’s our Three Bears cause usually, as far as blood sugars go, one’s too high, one’s too low, and one’s usually just right!

5. Mr. Clean’s magic erasers are really magic!
Seriously, they are. It took the crayon off the wall, the blue streaked door ding off my car, shined one of the kids sneakers to a new white luster, took the scuff marks off the baseboards and bedroom doors…forget Houdini, this is real magic!

6. Children really do grow up and move away.
They take your money with them but they do actually go. We just hope they write every once in a while…er…text and facebook us. We miss our Chey Chey!

7. It can be embarrassing when you’re almost 40-year old to get caught practicing drums on rock band in the middle of the afternoon.
The house is always full of teenagers but when an unsuspecting friend of the kids stopped by and caught me practicing my sweet skills with Pearl Jam in the middle of the afternoon with no one else at home (and the laundry and dishes piling up), lets just say I lost a little authority that day. Hey, whatever keeps us young right?

8. Nit picking is an art form.
Okay, quite frankly, it is rather embarrassing to admit this life lesson, but these are lessons the Skillmans learned, warts and all, not some family off the cover of The Saturday Evening Post! My whole life I thought this term meant you were apt to point out someone’s flaws but now I sadly know the real truth. This calamity of gigantic proportions started when our daughter “jane” (names have been changed to protect the innocent) came home from a friend’s house with, well, a few friends in her hair. Soon after, I quickly got schooled in the art of “nit picking”. Yes, I’m talking about the “L” word, the mother of all icky words, and ridding a child’s head of these demons is a task that can have even the most prudish parent cussing like a truck driver. I am happy to report this was a onetime issue and we have been free of these vermins for months and our house is cleaner than it’s ever been. You sort of get the heebie-jeebies from an ordeal like this and start on a cleaning frenzy that could rival any séance! May you NEVER have to nit pick…but if you do, call me, I’ve got some handy tips!

9. A pack of gum can break your nose.
Seriously, it can…and it really hurts. But not as bad as fixing the broken nose does! Imagine the conversation I had with my health insurance:
“I’m sorry ma’m, did you say a flying pack of gum?”
“uh, yes I did.”
Silence…”uh, and you’re saying it broke your nose?”
“uh, yes I did.”
“well, that’s a new one I’ve never heard before.”
“glad I could give you something to laugh about in the break room.”
“oh, we’d never do that.”
“sure, right lady. Go ahead, everyone else is laughing. But hey, if it means anything, it was a pack of “EXTRA” gum and if I were you, I’d never take for granted the extra part.”


10. Before leaving shore, always make sure you’ve got all your stuff.
While sailing the San Juans this fall, this lesson was learned the hard way and by departing this information it just might save you a lot of ridicule and embarrassment. You see, two sailors went to shore one day for some hiking and mischief, we’ll keep their names private so we don’t embarrass them, let’s just call them dummy #1 and dummy #2. So after dummies #1 and #2 frolic and explore a quaint little island they shove off and head for the boat anchored in deeper waters. Dummy #2 doesn’t realize he’s left his neon yellow jacket (that doesn’t resemble any of the mute colors on or about the island) on a log. So the intelligent ladies on the boat wave at dummy’s 1 & 2 and but they proudly misinterpret that we’re fondly waving at them and so they wave back. We wave again and but this time add pointing fingers, their response? They wave again and point back. So we patiently wait for them to get within earshot and yell, “Hey dummies, you forgot your jacket!”. Dummies #1 and #2 head back to shore much to the amusement of all the boats anchored in the bay. Who needs TV when you’ve got these guys along?

We can't even explain the lesson we learned about avoiding the need for a tow! We're just glad dummy #2 has his jacket!


11. Your friends really get offended if you ignore them by doing sudoku.
Plain and simple lesson here, the best thing to do in this situation is to tear out a page, hand them a pencil, and see if you can get them addicted too.

12. Never play speed scrabble with Mitchell.
The kid’s a speller, what more can we say? Don’t even get us started on his Q-words. As parents we’re befuddled at whether to feel embarrassed that were getting out-spelled by our 15-year old son or the pride that comes from knowing that one of our offspring can actually spell! A gene pool surprise!