Skillman Scuttlebutt

Christmas in January?

2012-01-23T16:58:00.000-08:00

The rapid decline of my aging brain--a worsening condition which only serves to remind me that the inevitable descent into one of those 55 and older communities may be looming in my not too distant decrepit future.

Today I bought a secret little gift for an upcoming holiday. I thought about where the perfect place to hide it might be and scanned the house for that gem of a spot. I zeroed in on what a thought would make the perfect hiding stash and went to put my surprise something there...

Lo and behold I found not one but THREE Christmas presents I had previously hidden months before! Apparently this wasn't the first time I'd decided that this covert spot was the perfect hideaway! Several months before Christmas I had bought a few things for the kids and hid them there. And yes indeed it was a safe spot--even safe from me apparently. By the time the holidays rolled around I didn't even remember I'd bought these silly Christmas treasures.

Luckily there was a little gift stashed away for each one of my kids still left at home--no kid had been left out of this little scandal. I brought the gifts downstairs and handed them each a crumpled shopping bag and simply said:

"Merry Christmas, your mother's an idiot."

They didn't even ask for an explanation as they opened their bags. This wasn't the first time this sort of unfortunate thing has happened and they know better than to upset an aging parent with questions that will only result in embarrassing confessions of senility. And perhaps this was not a bad snafu after all since they would have thought these gifts were stupid had they opened them with all their more resplendent stuff on Christmas.

Connor got a new U of O hat:

Chloe a fortune cookie key chain she'd been wanting for her back pack:

And Mitchell an orange leatherman's tool:

While they were happy with their unexpected surprises I was definitely not happy with my unexpected lapse in memory!

But what can you do? Except for maybe ask someone out there to call me sometime before Valentine's Day and remind me that I've stashed away some secret somethings in my oft-forgotten hideaway!

Yes, that might help, that is unless I've forgotten where I've put the cordless phone...unfortunately that happens a lot lately too.

Eight Dryers Drying

2012-01-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

How to tackle Mt. Everest?

Things got a little hectic over the holidays and the laundry got seriously avoided. More avoided than usual. And now that the holidays were over, the ornaments put away, and the lights taken off the house, there was one gargantuan task left...
a monumental mound of laundry. One that reached so high it should be named and given a proper elevation.

It can't be underestimated--my complete loathing for laundry. I've been doing laundry for well over 22 years and I've yet to finish it. I'd rather scrub a thousand toilets because at least for a moment, that kindly porcelain is courteous enough to stay clean and polished for a while. But laundry, that great evader, it never seems to get that way. The moment you discover the bottom of a hamper there is yet another hamper somewhere in the house belching at you with a full belly. When it comes to laundry, there is never a gold star, a check mark, or crossing off the list. Nope, there's always some dirty sock hidden somewhere under a child's bed perniciously wafting its stench as if to say, 'You're not finished, you've got another load left to do...'.

The never-ending-ness of it all slays me. Which is why I'd never be very good at that job where you collect shopping carts in a parking lot. There's a job that's never finished either. That sort of thing would drive me to insanity. I need gold stars and check marks.

So how do you tackle Mt. Everest? The scale and breadth of my laundry piles spread its dense blue jean and prickly sock forest out the laundry room itself and upward into a high mountain that reached the thin white altitudes of my ceiling.

Yet, despite my loathsome attitude on the subject of laundry, I usually keep the "L"word well under control and rarely reach the limits of excess overflow. Rarely. But on occasion, once or twice a year, it becomes the neglected hedge that grows far too wild to prune back without the use of heavy machinery. And when that happens, when things get out of hand, we've built in a panic button of sorts, for when the laundry just gets way way too overwhelming.

It was Mark--who had probably ran out of socks and underwear, that raised the white flag of surrender and ventured to push the panic button first. I was still in a state of denial about the situation, and being competitive, as if you can compete with laundry, I was yet unwilling to surrender defeat to a pile of dirty clothes. But for Mark--It was time to push the PANIC button on our laundry issues.

When it gets that bad we've learned that we can solve all our problems in under 90 minutes. It's called the laundry mat.

Mark rallied the troops and in no time he had one kid sorting, one kid bagging, another loading it in the car, and a couple more scrounging up every single quarter from every change jar, junk drawer, and couch cushion in the entire house.

Armed with detergent and fabric softener, our family descended upon the local laundry mat like we were seizing a beach at war-time.
An epic battle between the Skillmans and their laundry.

Ten wash loads and eight dryer loads later, we had won--though a few of our troops suffered though the combat with a frown or two. In the end, everything was folded, matched, and clean and we were headed home in less than 90 minutes!

The battle was won! I got home and took a victory lap in my laundry-free laundry room and felt the sweet rush of victory!

A gold star!

A giant check-mark!

That was until something at the bottom of one of the laundry bins caught my eye...

yes, of course.

11 Lessons Learned in 2011

2012-01-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

1. Perhaps a green zone should be established when Nerf Wars break out inside the house.

2. Buying a label maker isasking for trouble.
Once all thepeople who live in a house with a label maker get their hands on this revolutionarythingamajig...an insatiable label-affixing crime spree will ensue and it justcan’t be stopped.

Over the holidays I was doing some cooking and happened catch a little white something under my stove's hood...

Upon closer inspection this is what it said:

(definitely the nefarious workings of a teenager.)

Then while mopping the floors I flipped the chairs onto the counter top and discovered this little beauty:

The whole label maker idea sounded like a great idea at first...

3. Turning into a grandparent isn’t so bad.
Especially if your grandchild is one of thecuter 2011 models that comes with hair long enough to comb into a plethora ofweird hairdos. I’ve never been moreamused by a slobbery little thing in all my life.

That said, it’s the idea of being married toa grandpa that’s the hard part—especially if said grandpa thinks it’s okay to startreferring to his wife as "Grandma". Definitelynot okay.

4. Men suffer from cramps too.
Just ask Mark. Twenty miles intohis first marathon his legs cramped up and he had to limp into an aidstation. Once he got there he said thathis cramps hurt so bad that he “didn’t even mind that two dudes were rubbinghis legs down with Icy Hot.” I shouldhave sent him to his race with a couple of Midol--that would have done the trick, as I know a thing or two about cramps.
(TMI yes, I know.)

But, just to cover my bases after my grandpa remark in lesson #3,
for an old guy "Ojii" (that's grandpa in Japanese) runs pretty darn fast.

5. Everyone should have anextra hand.

Seriously two are notenough. But the third hand has to be
afake foam one that looks real enough to creep people out. You’ll be amused for months on end freakingpeople out with it. I’m not sure how Iever lived without one. Life is so muchmore enjoyable now.

6. You can use a piece of seaweed as
a tow rope.
Yeah, that one surprised me too. But when Deanne's quad wouldn't start and we all forgot to bring a tow rope, you gotta get creative. In our case the creative one was "McGuyver Mont" who seems to always come up with ridiculously insane ways to turn problems into genius solutions.

I must admit I was laughing at him when I saw him grab a long seaweed kelp-ish thingy and drag it over to the quad! But Mont, of course, had the last laugh. It totally worked! Way to go Mont! Lesson Learned!

You can barely see the slimy tow rope but it' there, and it got us out of our little sandy pickle!

7. Connor may have beenSpider Man in another life.
Over thepast year I keep catching him hanging out on rooftops.
Is that a sign of some serious malady that Ishould have him checked out? You just can't keep the kid off the roof...of anything.

Here he is in the red shirt enjoying a sunny day at the dunes.

How do you get your chair up there??

Over the summerI repeatedly heard loud banging on my rooftop and discovered it was Connor playing catchwith his trusty football
on top of the house.

I’mnot sure why but the kid seems to like the roof. Go figure.

8. Your sink can sink.

I came downstairs one morning to findmine had settled into the abyss of the cupboard below. Who knew that could happen?? Certainly not me. It went down like the Titanic--full of chinaand silverware and less than a third of its contents made it through safely. Unfortunately both were thought to beunsinkable.

9. Never pave an extra-widewalkway to your front door.
Your teenage driver will use it as aroad.

I think every kid has a full time job, which is, to scale all chores down to the least amount of exertion for every required task. They are masters at this. In Mitchell’s case the twenty extra steps from the driveway all the way up thefront walkway was way way too far to carry some stuff into the house—so he just popped his car inreverse and backed it right up to the front door. Yep, this year I learned that a WALKway is not just forpedestrians.

10. If it has an engine in it,
the Skillmans will race it.

11. People should never move away.
You just miss them too darn much.

And yes after all these years we still even miss these people...

The things you learn.

Italy Scores

2011-12-24T19:30:00.000-08:00

Our nephew-in-law Andrea decided that we all needed to get together over the holidays and play a little football.

This kind of football:

Andrea is Italian and the man needs his football--the Italian in him also makes him affectionate enough to love us all by referring to it as "soccer" as he is always kind to the uncultured Americans that we are. He talked us all into an indoor game of soccer and then set out on a mission to find a ball at a nearby store--since none of us had one. (oh the shame.)

Poor Andrea, at our local store what he found was something more like this:

A kid's toy, not a real athletic ball. It was some sort of cheap ball that barely held its air for the duration of our game. But Andrea is good humored and the shabby ball didn't phase him. He was just happy to play.

We divided ourselves into two teams:

The Old Team

vs.

The Young Team

Uh, yeah, and don't ask me how I got assigned to the young team.

But I'll tell you what; when you get assigned to the "young" team at my age you don't ask questions, you just roll with it.

As you can tell by my lovely Uug footwear, I wasn't planning on playing. I came to watch. But once teams started forming both Wendy and I couldn't resist a little competitive challenge. My footwear wasn't really good for running to I played goalie.

Here's what I learned: When Americans come running toward you ready to shoot the ball at your face, don't be afraid. Most of the time they don't know what they're doing. The ball could go anywhere. HOWEVER, when an Italian comes at you with the ball...trouble is coming with him!

In the end we had one flattened soccer ball, six winded old people, one hilarious time, and a serious defeat of the younger team who were whipped by the old people. Yes, sadly, my young team lost. Apparently the older team has got a lot more energy and
a better goalie than we have, not to mention an Italian who loves his football!

I hope our Christmas Soccer will be a new tradition. In the meantime I've got some serious goalie practice to do. Perhaps I should start with proper footwear...

Thir-TEEN

2011-12-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

Today Connor officially became a teenager and literally celebrated it with a bang. First it was celebrated with the ultimate gift Connor could ever receive...

For Connor, there's no better way to turn thirteen than to celebrate it with your very own private stash of thirteen boxes of your very own cereal.

Then, with the help of our friends the Sharps, he was inducted into his teens in a swirl of gunfire and gas.

First on the birthday agenda was some serious go-kart racing.

Earlier that day, Mont set up a challenging race course at their family's tarp shop and turned their massive warehouse floor into
a giant slick kart track.

The boys division was a serious event...

Between the Sharps and Skillmans go-karts, there was always one that was pulling into the pits for repairs. It seems they weren't really designed for the aggressive rough-housing we put them through over the years.

Among the aggressive racers, Connor and Rob are all-stars. Here they are after they crashed while trying to squeeze each other out in a tight turn. They knocked the conveyer belt down and one of them ran over Rob's sleeve...

Which somehow managed to rip off his shirt sleeve but leave his arm unscathed!

Rob then decided his sleeve made a nice racing headband.

And the girls races were even more competitive...

Let's just say that you do not want to underestimate the moms.

Deanne and I were willing to run over more sleeves

if necessary to cross the finish line FIRST.

After a serious battle of go-carts it was time for Nerf Wars!

Here's Team Skillman:

...and Team Sharp:

oh, and thanks guys...

nice touch shooting me right after I took this photo.

But I suppose that's what happens when you're embedded

in a war zone, there's a large possibility you'll get shot

by UNfriendly fire.

Chloe and Mark were locked and loaded...

Kayleigh uses the shop supplies as a barricade:

Brock Sharp hides in the industrial shelving:

While Nick prefers an all out assult:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Chloe:

Mitchell prefers a high point from which to snipe:

(he was pretty good at picking off people

with his homemade blow dart contraption.)

Connor chose a unique way to

both conseal himself from the enemy

and shield himself from darts:

No surprise here,

The Skillmans win the battle!

Round two, three, four, and five got more serious:

More sniping was involved:

This time by Brandon on the scissor lift.

And really really long range missile launching

by Mont was involved too:

This method was FAST and FURIOUS.

But once again, the Skillmans prevailed.

Our little Nerf-Capture-the-Flag ended in Skillman victory!

Not a bad way to turn 13.

Happy Birthday Con-Man!

The victory feast was pizza and an awesome ice cream and oreo cake made by Deanne. Once again, the Sharps know how to throw an awesome party!

Fifty

2011-12-22T22:00:00.000-08:00

Yep, Mark just turned 50. 50! Whoa! So in an attempt to go easy on the old guy I thought I'd jot down 50 cheerful things you may find interesting for such a melancholy milestone...

First off...Fifty can't be that old.
These young bucks are turning fifty right along with him...

Eddie Murphy
George Clooney
Michael J. Fox
Laurence Fishburne
Ralph Macchio
Wayne Gretzky
Vince Neil (of Motley Crew)
Fabio
Dennis Rodman
Steve Young

And here's ten reasons Mark sure doesn't act like a 50-year old:

He can wakeboard 360 degrees around the ski boat.
He can ride a wheely on his quad for miles.
He's pulls off some crazy moves on the trampoline.
He skateboards around the house (yes inside the house!)
He's placed second in his age division in every triathlon he's entered.
He was just three minutes shy of qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
He can jump wake to wake on his wakeboard.
Connor's baseball coaches had him pitch to the kids during practices cause he's still got a mean fastball.
He's always the first to propose a game that involves danger and the possibility of trauma, scars, and or bruises.
He avoids buffets like the plague. Old, cranky, senior-discount plagues.

But then again,
there's ten reasons we can't deny that he really has gotten older:

At 50, he's actually old enough to join AARP.
All the LITE radio stations are programmed into his radio's auto-tune buttons.
When he grows a beard it comes in gray. I rather fancy it though.
He wears his readers anytime, anywhere, and doesn't care who sees.
Slippers have become his favorite footwear.

He likes to wear his noise cancelling headphones even when there's hardly any noise to cancel out.
He lingers longer when flipping channels and pauses on trivia game shows. It's only a matter of time before he just tunes in for the whole show and shouts out the answers.
If you write him a love note, better do it in large print. Or at least scan it and send it to his ipad.
He's rather fond of the weekend nap.
If someone teases him about his age he turns into Mr. Crankypants. We tease him anyway.

Although, turning 50 does has its advantages...

You're actually old enough to join AARP.
Krispie Kreme gives you 10% off their donuts.
You can save 20% off your monthly Gold's Gym membership.
Sea World gives you $3 off a one-day ticket.
and so does Busch Gardens.
You can save 25% off at National Rent-a-Car
You now qualify for K-Mart's "Gold K Prescription" discount program.
Every Tuesday you'll save 10% at Goodys.
and 10% off on Tuesdays at Michaels Craft.
and now you can dress like your always on an African safari with your 10% discount at Banana Republic.

And if that's not cool enough...here's ten more interesting things about 50:

50 is the score on the center of a dartboard known as a "bullseye".
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim retired the number 50.
50 is the atomic number of tin.
An ant can lift 50 times its weight.
The Roman Numeral for the number 50 is "L".
The 50-move rules in chess: if there have been 50 consecutive moves of white and black chess pieces without any piece taken or any pawn moved, then a player can claim a draw.
Back in 1986, Nevada’s Highway 50 was named the “Loneliest Highway in America” by LIFE Magazine.
The U.S. Senate vote result in a tie 50-50 is the only situation that the U.S. Vice-President has a chance to cast his vote to break the tie.
The critical speed in the movie “Speed” is 50 mph.
Londinium in Britain was founded by the Romans in the year 50 AD.

Happy Birthday Mark!
You're still young to me.

I'll Be Home for Christmas!

2011-12-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Justice and Cheyenne surprised us last night by sneaking into town a day early! What a surprise to find the them bursting into the house with my grandbaby!

Mitchell got home last Saturday. Here he is travelling home from college surrounded by all his worldly possessions in the back seat of Rob & Kayleigh (Sharp) Ferrel's cozy little car.

Thanks Rob and Kayleigh for bringing our boy home!!

Looks like everyone is home for Christmas! Yay!

Dear Santa

2011-12-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,
I'm happy to report that this year I've been really really good. That is if we're grading on a curve and comparing the last few years that are still on my official transcript. I've had:

No speeding tickets.
No arrest warrants issued with my name.
and I have resisted the temptation to declare myself a sovereign nation and move to another country (a hard urge to resist considering my genetic make-up).

I'm also happy to report that I have really stepped up on doing good deeds this year too:

At great personal peril, I helped a friend overcome the wretched plight of owning a car with a missing hubcap.
Three times this year I 've braved the wildly overcrowded school parking lot just to pick my kids up, sparing them a dreaded bus ride.
I attempted to sort socks once or twice this year--a true act of heroism if you ask me.

Here's my official

Christmas Wish List:

First and foremost, would it be at all possible for one of your little elves to get the loose screw outta my car's dash board? It's driving me crazy. I'm beginning to avoid driving anywhere that would require me to make a left or right turn--which honestly, put's real a damper on the number of places I can go.

Also, I would really looooove some dark chocolate covered pretzels.

They're the perfect blend of salt and sweet and instantly put me in a mellow mood, but I just can't seem to find them anywhere. I was hoping you had an in with a chocolatier or perhaps had an elf who could whip me up a batch...or two...or three. I'll really need them if you won't be able to help me with my loose screw, a little chocolate salty goodness will help calm my irritation on the matter.

Expandable jeans.

No, not for me! For my son. Connor seems to be on a little growth spurt and manages to make "high waters" out of his jeans every two months. I'd send the kid to school in shorts and just take a leave of absence from denim but it's winter and I'm afraid the school will think I'm abusing the poor kid by sending him out to wait for the bus in freezing winter temps. I think the solution would be to have your elves invent some sort of expandable pant leg jeans. Couldn't be too hard could it? It would save me some serious cash.

Also, would it be possible to make that hair feather trend to go away. Or at least pass the message along to women over 30 that it is not a pretty trend to look like a molting chicken. I can understand little girls following this hair craze but it's just too much seeing everyone you meet sporting feathers in their hair like they'd slept the night on cheap down pillow. Chloe's been wanting to get "feathered" and I can only hold her off for so long--so please just make this trend go away. I'd rather she got tattooed. Seriously Santa, you'd make ME and all the fishermen out there really really happy this year if you'd give them back their feather lures.

I could also really use More space on my DVR.

I'm a total nerd and love to record all kinds of stuff on the history and discovery channels--yes I know, an unmistakable sign I'm getting old. You'd think with one hundred hours of recording time there'd be no problems recording anything you want but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a digital hoarder. My recordings are beginning to look a lot like my bookshelves--overstuffed with things I can't bear to part with. How does one find the courage to completely erase 'Lost Cave Temples of the Himalaya" or Michael Buble singing "Ham and Bubbly" on SNL?

An appliance that will last longer than six months. I'm having horrible luck with appliances. I've replaced a fridge and dishwasher this year...and my brand spankin' new dishwasher went kaput! Please find me an appliance that will last longer than the round of therapy I need to treat my angst over this matter. I'd even take an old harvest gold or avocado green kind like my parents used to have.

I would also love to have some snow on Christmas. Honestly I hate the cold but if it's gotta be so stinkin' freezing then we might as well have it snow. Perhaps you and the weather man can work out a deal. Yes, please, please, please, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

On a travel note, I have two wishes. I would love to go and watch the
Palio di Siena. It's on my bucket list.

I would also like to see the
sun set at Machu Picchu.

it's another bucket list place. Speaking of which, so was a Space Shuttle. I put that on my list last year and I know you worked really hard to make that one work. But timing just wasn't right. Instead of watching one of the last shuttle launches, I got to watch my very first grand baby launch into this world. Not a bad trade.

Oh, and one last request:

If it's not too much trouble, could you send some more elves (not the ones locating the loose screw in my car's dashboard, nor the ones sewing expandable pants for Connor) but a few of the others--could you send them to the house and have them
take down my Christmas tree? It never seems to get done on a timely basis.

Thanks again Santa.
I'll leave the cookies in the usual spot.

'Tis the Season

2011-12-12T00:01:00.000-08:00

Each December we pack up the car: with cousins, and hot chocolate, and chainsaws, and mittens, and snow sleds, and ski ropes--all for our traditional family Christmas Tree hunt.

But this year wasn't like all the others.

First, Mark went for an unexpected jog just before we were to take off for the woods. He is never late for anything so our Shumway cousins weren't sure if we should go looking for the man (since, after all, there is a bonafide killer on the loose in our poor little town at the moment) or if we should just settle in for a long winter's nap while we prayed for his safe and timely return.

We decided to wait...
So while the older cousins hung out in the Shumways truck, the little girls and I hung out in the truck parked alongside and whiled away the time listening to Christmas music.

Did you know Neil Diamond put out TWO Christmas Albums??

Well he did. And we can sing most of his songs to you now.
The things you learn while your practicing your patience!

Finally Mark returned home with the mother of all unprintable albeit hil-ar-ious excuses. Relieved at his safe return, we headed for the woods.

In the mountains we tragically discovered there was hardly any snow this year.

Just a light frosting on the ground but none in the trees!

This even more tragically meant that there would be no chance for my favorite Christmas Tree Hunting tradition: Luring small children under snow filled pines in order to fool them into shaking the snow off 'because I need a better look at the tree' in my demented ruse to trick them into sending snow down their own shirts.

A fine Christmas this is turning out to be so far.

Nor would there be our traditional and wildly hazardous snow sledding with ski ropes behind the trucks either. What's the season coming to??

Thankfully the teenaged cousins found some new snow-free activities in which to entertain us all in the woods. They found plenty of green moss with which they could spruce themselves up with, then lurk about the forest in a harebrained attempt to scare the rest of us with their ill-gotten Sasquatch impressions.

Seriously, they ran around the woods like this...

Our cousin Tanner found lots of loose bark with which to practice snowboard stunts upon...

And he got his first ever crack at using a chainsaw...

And while there was hardly any snow, there was plenty of family!

And plenty of forest shenanigans.
'Tis the season.

Undeterred

2011-12-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Sadly, winter is officially here. The means one thing around the Skillman house: A nice cozy fire.

Chloe was just begging for someone to start one but no one wanted to brave the drizzle and cold and go get wood from behind the barn. It's quite a jaunt.

Usually the kids drive the riding lawnmower down to the barn and fill up the mower's trailer with wood. But Chloe doesn't weigh enough to push the seat down far enough to override the seat sensor which is supposed to keep young drivers from operating these sort of gas-powered blade-wheeling contraptions. But the geniuses who invented the seat sensor forgot that kids know how to add. One plus one is not a hard equation. It didn't take long for Chloe and Connor to multiply their weight by simply riding the mower together. Their combined weight easily allows them to bypass all safety features.

That said, on this particularly blustery and chilly day, there was no way Connor was going outside. That left Chloe with only one option:

the Wheelbarrow.

So what's a girl to do when it's the "perfect day for a fire" and no one heeds the call? She does it all herself.

This wheelbarrow full of wood weighs twice as much as she does. How she managed to push it down the long path to the barn, fill it up, and push it back without losing it all is impressive.

This girl is Undeterred.
...and of course, shortly thereafter, she got her cozy fire.

That's some real tenacity. Let's hope she never gets it in her head to do something like get tattooed and join a biker club! We could all be in trouble. I'm afraid there's no stopping this very determined girl. Until then, we'll bask in the heat of her cozy fire.

A Little Thanksgiving Afloat

2011-11-22T09:51:00.001-08:00

We decided to head out on a little sailing adventure with the kids and some friends for the Thanksgiving Break...We put a little blog together for it which you can check out by clicking here...

Nothing Says "I Love You" Like a Hubcap

2011-11-21T00:01:00.001-08:00

Ever love someone so much that you'd do anything for them?
Like even search the world over for the perfect hubcap for them?
Well, that's how much I love my friend Whitney.

Poor Whitney lost her hubcap. And, well, to be perfectly honest, it made her car look like a total beater. And that just wouldn't do.

I first met Whitney at the baseball fields this past spring. At the time she was a college student and local basketball phenom to boot. Whitney is the kind of gal that makes friends everywhere she goes, which is why I like her. She started showing up and watching almost every baseball game Connor's team played because she knew some of the kids he played with. From her gregarious grandstand antics, I could tell right away we were gonna hit it off.

Whitney's so likeable that in my cell phone's directory she's listed as "Whitney Awesomeness".

So when I spotted her car with a black eyesore where her hubcap should have been, I sprung into action. How hard can it be to find a stray hubcap?? These little auto accoutrements seem to lose themselves all over the place and there's some unwritten car creed that if you find one by the road side you dangle it like a piece of jewelry from something high to attract the owners attention should they come looking for it. And I was now looking for it.

I can't think of anything that says "I love ya" like a hubcap. (Except maybe dark chocolate.) And so began my serious cap quest.

Shockingly, once I began looking for stray caps I never saw any. Some sort of freakish hubcap shortage has overtaken the Northwest. A solid week past and not a single cap in sight.

On the second week I finally spotted my first lost hubcap. It had been propped up in the middle of a median strip. And not just any median strip. It happened to be the mother of all median strips if there ever was one. This little concrete oasis harboring the hubcap was ominously dividing SIX lanes of traffic. Smack dab in the middle of mayhem.

This would require planning and expert stealthyness...and perhaps a trip to the ER should it go wrong. But I was undeterred. Undeterred because by a stroke of luck I happened to have a passenger with me in the car! Poor Nick didn't know what hit him. I made several U-Turns and circled the cap like it was some sort of prey and began to discuss a little "strateg-ery" with my unwilling companion. Then all of a sudden the traffic eased for just a brief moment--it was now or never! In a moment of impulse, I swerved to the little island, jammed on the brakes, and shouted "Go! Go! Go!" at Nick. Panic struck, poor Nick hopped out of the car in a state of shock and awe and ran for the safety of the median.

I circled several more times before finding the right time to come back and pick the poor guy up. He was a little freaked out by the time he made it back to the safety of the car and once inside he gave me "the look" for pressuring him into such a crazy stunt. But I could tell, underneath his anxiety, it was the most amusing thing he'd dared to do in a long time.

When he handed over the hubcap and I immediately knew...but I just didn't have the heart to tell him at that very moment...that upon closer inspection the darn thing was obviously way way too big to fit on Whitney's car. I'd find a time to tell him later after he'd calmed down, that he'd risked his life for nothing. [sheepish grin.]

While he caught his breath and his elevated adrenaline levels subsided back to normal, I drove to Whitney's place, stuffed the giant hubcap in her little porch mailbox and left her a note that said, "I love you this much". She'd know it was from me. Who else loves people with hubcaps?

Another week went by before I found the second one. Again I had to circle around. By this time I should have had a bumper sticker on the back of my car that says, "I brake for hubcaps" cause that's about all I did when driving. My eyes were surveying the roadsides for her illusive cap. This time the second one I found was just a block away from the coffee shop where Whitney works.

Look at that beauty! I swerved off the road and grabbed it and delivered it to her ASAP. Her break wouldn't come for a while so we'd just have to wait for the moment of truth and see if it actually fit.

Two hubcaps. That's an unmistakable friend right there don't you think?

Turns out, the second time's the charm. It fit!
(okay, okay, I do realize that they don't quite exactly match, but it stinkin fits and looks waaaay better than the hub-less eyesore of yesteryear.)

And now, her car looks just as legit as her friendship is.
A happy ending indeed.

Let's just hope she never loses her muffler. I draw the friendship line there.

A Toe-Nail Fairy?

2011-11-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

We live by a very serious creed around here at the Skillman house:

If you lose a body part, stick it under your pillow and see if you can get some money for it.

This dogma originated from deep contemplation when I was about 6-years old . An enlightened thinker aren't I? Yes indeed.

When I was a kid I wondered why some fairy would pay money for a junky old tooth that fell out of your head. Doesn't really make sense does it? But the tooth market went gangbusters and seemed to be a big cash cow for a kid like me and I began to wonder why teeth were the only body part that had a fairy on duty doling out the cash.

I decided to test my little theory that teeth can't be worth more than any other body part lost, so when I was set to have my tonsils taken out, my young mind was abuzz with a plan. I simply asked the doc to put said tonsils in a jar and I took those suckers home and tried my luck by putting them under my pillow.

All I got was a sore neck from a large lumpy pillow--Apparently there ain't a tonsil fairy after all.

Then about a dozen years ago Mitchell was bit by a dog in the forehead. I'm not really sure what happened because a great mystery-ridden cover-up shrouded both the affair and the abrasion. The bite was concealed with an extra large bandage by someone with a history of unorthodox behavior. Several days later, after the bandage was removed, it was discovered that indeed the wound was more serious than the "bandage brandish-er" had thought and that something incredibly huge was lodged into the poor kid's forehead.

Fast forward a creepy month later and out from Mitchell's very own forehead I literally wiggled loose (with a pair of giant tweezers)
a very large dog's tooth! Which explains his ultra cool Harry Potter-like forehead scar.

This event was sure to both literally and psychologically scar the kid for life...until I suddenly thought of a great plan...

"Why don't you put it under your pillow and see if the Tooth Fairy will take it?" I suggested. Then I built a brilliant case for the payment of any tooth lost from anywhere on one's body; kid or canine. A tooth's a tooth right??

And so Mitchell tried his luck and put it under his pillow. The next morning he discovered he had received a windfall of cash for one of the most epic tooth losses of all time.

Ever since then, we've been putting all kinds of lost body parts under our pillows: gum ridden clumps of hair mostly. Thank goodness no one around here has had an appendix removed because I'd try extorting a few bucks for that too. A loss is a loss, right?

So when our cousin Madi spent the night over the weekend and she lost her entire big toenail I knew exactly what must be done. The poor girl, just weeks earlier, had cut her big toe so badly that half the thing was stitched back on so it would stay put. And while Madi's toe was miraculously saved...her toenail was not. It barely hung on after "the storm grate incident" and her nail finally gave up the ghost and fell off at our house.

Chloe, who's very familiar with, and has been well trained in
"the art of extracting money for lost body parts" quickly sprung into action and ran and got an envelope for ravaged nail and plunked it inside, insisting that Madi write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining her little mishap.

It was placed under her pillow that night.

In the morning, low and behold, we were elated to discover that there is a Toe Fairy! and she's/he's ready to pay out! (and we noticed this fairy is not as forgetful as the Tooth Fairy has been of late.)

So a word to the penny-wise: If you lose it, and it came from your body, find an envelope it'll fit in and try your luck. You'll be amazed at what you'll get paid for these days.

Sadly though, tonsils need not apply.

Eleven Reasons...

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

Happy 11-11-11,

It's Veterans Day and the kids are all home from school today. This sort of epic numerical date just begs to be celebrated. I think we'll take some cookies to a couple of my favorite Veterans that live nearby and then commence with a little 11 weirdness.
I made some giant loaf sandwiches,
bought some licorice and Kit Kat bars. Perhaps we'll play some Uno (twice), and watch Ocean's 11.

meanwhile, here's
Eleven Reasons your the One...

Mark-

You're always up for an adventure.
Anything you put your mind to, you do really well.
You can run a marathon faster than a lot of guys half your age.
The way you designed our house so that the heater vent would blow warm air on my toes when I'm at the kitchen sink and my bathroom counter.
You're always willing to paint Chloe's toenails for her.
You always see the glass half full, even if the glasses are all dirty and loaded upside-down in the dishwasher.
You never ever stink. And you don't mind that I'm always sniffing your neck like you're some sort of scratch & sniff book.
You celebrate every milestone, big or small, with a speech.
Your the kind of dad every kid dreams of having and every mother is afraid to leave unsupervised with the kids. [Case in point: "rooftop football".]
You always warm up the car and turn the seat heaters on for me when it's a cold day.
You've still got all your hair. hehehe.

Cheyenne-

You are very very thoughtful.
You make me look really shy and quiet.
You always ready to tackle a crazy grandiose project with impassioned and reckless abandon.
You're impetuous, which means adventure awaits.
You love games, but hate to lose.
You'll throw a party to celebrate anything.
You're the first to volunteer to do anything.
After your car crash, you still drive like a delicate little old blue-haired granny (which amuses me unless I happen to be driving behind you).
You never seem to get bummed out by your diabetes, even when I do.
You include everybody.
You mother your brothers--even better than I do.

Justice-

You're a prolific non-fiction reader. I love that.
You love my Chey Chey
You know a lot about everything but never flaunt it.
You're not a fan of the Twilight Series.
You're willing to put up with your wife that is a fan of Twilight.
You trust me enough to try my bizarre bowling tips. a.k.a "The Suitcase"
Unlike Mitchell, you don't make fun of Mac-users.
You act like you and Mitchell have been brothers forever.
You love a good card game.
You moved my daughter back up to Oregon.
You're good to your mother-in-law even though I'm a freak.

Baby Kendra-

You're so stinkin' cute.
When you get stinky or fussy I can hand you to your mother (even though I usually don't)
I can stick my tongue out at you and you don't get offended.
I don't have to comb my hair when I Skype with you.
You don't tell on me when I accidentally cuss.
You're squishy and giggly.
You'll clap for me no matter what I do.
You let me pinch your bum.
You've got scrumptious toes.
You've got hair long enough to try out freaky hair-dos.
You're never embarrassed about being stinky.

Mitchell-

You can crack a joke without cracking a smile.
You can eat a horse, which is admirable for such a skinny guy.
You make the best delicious chocolate awesomeness.
You're never too old for costumes.
You're a great writer.
Your insatiably curious and like to discuss things that are waaaay too hard for me to ever begin to understand.
When you have a need for something you don't have, you'll rig it up like MacGyver.
You're a hard worker.
You're not afraid of heights and like to scare people who are.
You're ALWAYS kind to people.
and, of course, because you fix all my electronic issues.

Connor-

First and foremost, the eyebrows.
You're a stud on first base. (baseball people, baseball!)
You're not a quitter.
You love the ocean.
You've got mad wakeboarding skills.
You're a horrible liar, and you know it.
You always open every door for your mother.
You idolize your dad.
You can quote the perfect movie line for the perfect situation.
All on your own, you voluntarily hug your mom in public without ever caring what your friends think.
You're the only one in the house that openly admits to being afraid of the stupid cat beside me (and you know there are others, they're just too embarrassed to say it).

Chloe-

You are my second brain.
You're also my third brain, since mine repeatedly fails me.
You appreciate a fabulous pair of shoes just as much as I do.
You're willing to pop your dad's toes even though it grosses you out (even I don't love him that much).
You're not afraid of the stupid cat, when everyone else is.
You are very determined and there's no stopping you.
The freckles on your cheeks make me smile.
The way you can organize things in no time flat.
That you're so ready to be in braces that you'll recklessly wiggle and extract your 5 remaining teeth so that you can speed up the process.
When Mitchell's not around, you're great at trouble shooting my computer problems. (embarrassing but true.)
You write the best love notes, sometimes bizarre, but always the best.

Nick (my pseudo-son)-

You've got the best laugh I've ever heard.
You can reach the highest shelves in the house, the ones I can't even reach when I'm on my tippy toes.
You're great at mowing lawns.
You're an awesome "Big Brother"
Your passion for Pro Wrestling fascinates and bewilders me, and amuses and slightly scares Connor.
You don't like me shuffling playing cards because you recognize my amazing Karma when it comes to touching a deck of cards. I love superstitious people!
You're not embarrassed if I dance in the car...or if you are, you don't ever say so.
You're very thoughtful, even if you don't like to admit it.
You give Connor serious football workouts.
You're lethal with a nerf gun.
Even though you always smash my chip bags, I'm impressed that you can carry a dozen grocery bags in the house in ONE trip.

Tooth Fairy Layoffs?

2011-11-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's happened again. The Tooth Fairy has made yet another bicuspid blunder.

It's the same ol' problems I've blogged before. But this time we're getting quite worried. It's one thing for the Tooth Fairy to be forgetful once, or make the exchange in the wrong location twice, but it's starting to get a bit ridiculous.

Once again Chloe left a tooth under one pillow and in the morning when she checked under it, the tooth was still there. THEN after filing her complaint with a parent and getting a little "search" help, we discovered there was indeed $2 left under two other pillows. Hmmmmmm. Sounds like a problem with redundancy now.

Chloe and I have discussed it and decided something must have happened to the poor little fairy. Our theory is that perhaps under these hard economic times there's been a little downsizing going on at the 'Council of Legendary Figures' department (that's what Wiki calls it cause we looked it up hoping to see what the deal was with all the missing loot), AND, in order to keep things in the black we think the Tooth Fairy may have recently suffered a lay off and now the Easter Bunny is doing double duty.

The reason for our suspicions is that most of the time Chloe has to hunt for her money. It's not always directly under her pillow. The Easter Bunny would certainly fit that bill. Perhaps forgetting these are not eggs to be hid, just money to be placed--and under the right pillow to be very specific. All issues that point suspiciously toward fairy downsizing and Easter Bunny behavior.

Whomever is doing the Tooth Fairy's job, it certainly is not the T.F. herself. Far too many mix-ups or just plain omissions if you ask us. Which may be why she got downsized. We're just not sure what is going on.

Meanwhile Chloe just recently lost 4 teeth in a row. She's got one left before braces. And recently she's expressed a sigh of relief saying "It's a good thing I won't be needing the Tooth Fairy for much longer, cause she's losing it."

And I agree. I've been saying all along that I think all our little overwhelmed fairy needs is a nice vacation or a massage or something. That should help her get her mojo back.

Picky! Picky!

2011-11-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Chloe.

She's our little fastidious child. She may come in a small little body but she's surely the most persistent of our progeny.

She decided her dad had a few premature grey eyebrow hairs and that just wouldn't do. And so, like any emboldened and meticulous child would do, she took matters into her own hands and rid her father of them.

This is the frightening little scene that I walked downstairs and saw:

Thank goodness for my iphone camera! I keep it on silent just for this purpose. Silent Mode = Stealth picture snapping.

She enlisted the help of her cousin Madi to hold the light on her
dad's face so that she could get down to the very important and ultra serious business of "feral-freefacescaping".

As for Mark, he's either one brave dad, one desperate grey ridden man, or simply a whipped father. Most likely a combination of all three.

And poor poor Chloe. Should I tell her that her dad's about to turn the big 5-0 this December and that it's only gonna get worse? Very soon this old man is gonna start needing more than just tweezers.

Face Painting or Graffiti?

2011-10-31T22:01:00.000-07:00

We always know when Halloween is coming. The hype usually starts the very first of October when a handful of folks, including myself,
all start slyly trying to figure out what in the heck Mark has planned for the kid's costumes. Unfortunately over the years he's gone costume crazy and has developed a bit of a reputation. I think all the interest perked a few years ago with Chloe's shower costume which marked the onset of Mark's infamous decent into costume madness.

Originally, his odd costume quest was his way of doing anything but help the kids carve up their slimy pumpkins. His repulsion for all things squishy has driven him to become the Calvin Klein of Costumes and go into Project Runway mode. The very moment we grab a piece of cutlery remotely sharp enough to whittle a vegetable, Mark gets a bizarre urge to get the glue gun out and preoccupy himself with a sketch pad drawing up detailed plans and schematics for the making of an unorthodox contraption he calls a "costume"---a complex but surefire ruse to get him out of scraping pumpkin guts.

So this year while the rest of us were in the house chiseling our pumpkin masterpieces, Mark was out in the garage with some old moving boxes and spray paint (and yes, a glue gun). This year it was Chloe's turn for a "Mark Masterpiece". After an hour or so he emerged with this bizarreness for Chloe:

He made Chloe into a Arcade Crane Game.

Where does he come up with this stuff??
Perhaps the paint fumes.

Meanwhile, after I played the role of "stable single parent" by scraping and carving pumpkins with the two kids, something I rather enjoy,
I still had to come up with a costume for Connor. Mark had suffered some sort of glue gun or scissor injury that prevented him from making another glorious albeit unconventional costume for the Con-man.

So I grabbed a few wigs, lightened some dark jeans (boy did that take me back to the 80's), and dressed up Connor and his friend Severin:

Nobody under the age of 35 knew who they were. But everyone who grew up in the early 90's knew right away and gave them a costume 'thumbs up' by quoting a favorite line from the movie. Party on Wayne.

Then it was off to our church carnival. Here Chloe had a hard time Trick-or-Treating due to a design flaw in her costume which caused a major technical difficulty: No arm holes=No Candy Bag. A real deal killer there. Always the quick thinker, Chloe propositioned a friend into holding her bag, by luring her with some sort of complicated candy trading payment proposal. Problem solved.

Next it was off to the Halloween carnival. Here she had to ditch the costume. Kinda hard to get your face painted when your behind a glass panel.

It was at the that very face painting booth that Chloe ran into more trouble: Trouble by the name of Sheralyn, one of her older cousins.

Here's Sheralyn in Costume.

She's in charge of the face painting booth:

Don't let the pink bunny costume fool you.

Under that rabbit exterior is a sly little fox.

Apparently Sheralyn has forgotten how to paint flowers, rainbows, and cute colorful butterflies on happy little children's faces. Perhaps another bizarre case of paint fume foolery, much like the demonized one Mark suffers from. This year a peculiar design emerged from her paintbrush--a sign that she may have been working the face painting booth for far far too many years...

Chloe was all excited to have me tell her what "surprise" her cousin Sheralyn painted on her face, and here's her reaction after I tell her:

Uh yeah, I'm thinking this is more like Graffiti than face painting. Especially when all her handiwork began being plastered all over the clueless children that night:

Soon, Sheralyn's friend Molly was perniciously emboldened and everyone who dared to visit the face painting booth was branded by these two wayward girls:

The paint fumes have apparently taken their toll on poor Sheralyn over the years. I think it's safe to say it's probably a good thing she's off to college next Halloween where she will be safely away her all carnival paint booth duties.

In the meantime, Mark has no plans for college which means he'll still be around next year for costume bizarreness.

Grandma Can Do Hair!

2011-10-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, hairdos have never been my strong suit. Never.
My poor daughter Cheyenne grew up sadly lacking the latest fashionable hairdo trends. I was awful with a curling iron, even worse with a hair straightener, and don't even mention the "f-word"...
french braids. I've been doing this mom thing for twenty years now and I just recently discovered there's an actual difference between a ponytail and a pigtail. Where was the memo on that? I thought they were interchangeable terms. Then there's the subject of bows and ribbon. And all I can really say on that is: absolutely not gonna happen. This house has had a strict no-bow policy for two decades.

While Cheyenne always went off to school with a homeless hairdo, Chloe did a little troubleshooting and always sports great looking hair. But quite honestly, it has absolutely nothing to do with me. Nothing at all. She figured out at an early age that if she wanted nice fashionable hair she'd better figure it out herself...

...or outsource her do's. She borrows other peoples mothers who have amazing hair skills or she seeks out friends and family. Here's Chloe her cousin Sheralyn Shumway and our friend Amanda Petersen trying Amanda's famous "Manny Bun":

But now that I'm (gulp) a grandmother, I thought I'd better try a little harder to develop a few basic mom-ish skills that I've so wretchedly lacked with my own kids. And since my first grand baby is a girl, what better skill to try and tackle than the hairdo?!

And with a little gel and I think I've got something...

Not bad eh? I'd even be willing to compromise on my "no-bow" policy. It might add that special delicate touch to the Mohawk giving it that "My-Grandma-did-my-hair-but-really-I'm-a-girl-and-this-is-the-only-hairdo-she's-good-at-so-far" look.

This most successful hairdo really boosted my confidence. I may start working on my other motherly shortcomings like scrap-booking with my kids.

Then again, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Pan Plundering & Marker Misdeeds

2011-10-17T19:10:00.000-07:00

There are a few things in my life that are absolutes. It's my personal addendum to the Ten Commandments. "Self-evident truths" for a quality well lived life. And thus far, I've always optimistically assumed these tenets were basic ideals readily held by all non-cave dwelling peoples. But sadly, it has become apparent that some folks just never got my memo. And the ones that did, they like to vex me with their feral misdeeds.

Here's my little list of absolutes:

Chocolate will make anything better.
Never put Ketchup on your eggs.
Never use the words "Jello" and "Salad" together.
Plastic cups are for camp-outs.
Forks are the superior utensil for eating everything.
Corelle is not fine china.
Never, ever, label your kitchenware with your last name.
and ALL pets should be released into the wild--most especially Edward Scissorhands, our cat.

I get made fun of all the time for these simple standards of truth (mostly by cave-dwelling ketchup people), but no matter how badly I get mocked, I never budge. [And yes, it does seem odd that most of my ideals have to do with food or it's consumption, go figure.] Immoveable as I may be, sadly it is my fine moral standards that have resulted in a series of serious pan persecutions.

Over the years I have brought serving dishes or cookie sheets full of homemade something-er-other to some event and because I didn't label the pan with my name, I got back the most wretched baked-on greasy pan that ever existed. And yes, I know that if I'd just abandoned my ethics and succumbed to the pressure from that do-gooder pan-labeling coalition, I'm certain I'd still have my lustrous well-cared for pans.

It appears that everyone is under the false impression that their pan is the next cover model for a Williams and Sonoma catalog, and the end result is that I always get stiffed with the one from hell's kitchen. It's happened so often that I am now the owner of eight of the most dodgy looking baking sheets you've ever seen:

A crust-ridden crisis to be sure. My poor sister-in-law has suffered through my fowl cries over this awful plight of pan-handling far far too many times, but still I refuse to label them. I think she's had enough of my ranting because recently someone with her EXACT handwriting tried to help me out and slyly grabbed a marker when I wasn't looking and did the unthinkable...

Clearly, HER handiwork. A nice and kind sister-in-law to be sure, but a violation of my absolute #7. Poor Wendy knows me all too well and surely won't be surprised when I scrub it all off with a Magic Eraser and then keep on complaining when I end up with an even crustier looking pans, if that's at all possible. But it guess things could be worse, it could have sparkling pans with my name on them. Ewww!

Sometimes, when I have trouble sleeping at night, it's because I know somewhere in a kitchen nearby, some pan-plundering homemaker is making a jello salad in one of my pristine shiny pans! [shutter]

More Magazine Mayhem

2011-10-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've got more troubles in the loo.

I thought the "issues" from a previous post had been long ago resolved but it appears my tank side trouble is back.

More bathroom beefcakes! And instead of smirking and pointing at me, this new guy's scowling at me.

It seems cover-boy and I are at odds with one another and I can't quite say with a 100% confidence which one of us is more disapproving of the other. I'm not sure what he's upset about, though my guess would be that perhaps ending up on the backside of my toilet instead of some posh lobby at a doctor's office has got him a tad bit cranky. I'm none too pleased about it either.

It appears as though Mr. Beefcake and I can come to an agreement on our most disagreeable situation; that neither of us are happy about his present location!

Perhaps I'll set him free next time I go in for a check-up.

Favorites

2011-10-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of years I've been feeling sort of guilty that my own husband was not #1 on my cell phone's favorites list. As you can see, that honor went to our son Mitchell who has really been my go-to guy when most of my phone calls are made...

I've sort of hoped Mark would never catch on to the fact that he wasn't "El Numero Uno" and have worked very hard to keep my phone out of his hands so he would never discover the shameful truth.

Then recently, the depth of this scandal was wholly exposed. It was while Mark was running his marathon, when he gave me his phone to hold while he ran his race, that things took a different turn. At some point I decided to make a call from his phone.

I pushed the phone button

Then, because I didn't know the number I needed to dial, I pushed Mark's Favorites button, assuming there was a good chance the number I needed would probably be listed there (I was looking for Cheyenne):

...and this is what I saw...

Apparently I'm not his #1 favorite either!

A big grin spread across my face, what a relief! We've both listed each other as our #2 favorite. How beautiful is that! And even better, Mitchell ranked #1 on both our phones. Two years of guilt totally gone!

Then suddenly, I realize that now a new quandary now arises. Clearly this list will get us both in a wee bit of trouble with the rest of the folks who made the list and a few who did not. I can just see an argument brewing on the methods each of us used for our individual ranking systems-- which should land us both in hot water.

But before our daughter Cheyenne starts crying fowl that Mitchell is clearly both her parent's favorite child, (should come as no big surprise really, perhaps she should learn to troubleshoot more of her parents electronic problems--a surefire way to up her ranking),
I would like to point out that at least Chey made it onto my list. While she may be ranked fourth behind my good friend Kathy I would like to call her attention to the fact that she tragically doesn't even make her father's top 8 list of favs. And, even more scandalous, Mitchell is listed TWICE as #1 and #7.

It looks like my 2nd ranked husband has some explaining to do.

My 'Icy Hot' Hubby

2011-10-07T11:06:00.000-07:00

Mark just ran his first Marathon. After doing Triathlons for the past few years he decided to park his bike for a season and focus on his footwork. He decided he wanted to run in the St. George Marathon and finish with a 3:25

On race day, he was off to a great start and ran with the 3:15 pace runners for the
first 22 miles--something I couldn't do even if I was in a car. Then, at 22 1/2 miles his calves started cramping up and it was all he could do to walk slowly to the aid station up ahead. When he limped in under the canopy, it was there that Mark learned the miracle of extra strength Icy Hot.

He said the best part of the race was there at that aid station when he got his calves slathered in icy hot. He was in so much pain he said he didn't even care if he was getting a calf rub down by "two dudes".

At this point, I will tell you that this is exactly why you aren't gonna catch me running a full marathon anytime soon. When the best part of your race happens at an aid station, that should tell you something. And although getting my calves massaged by "two dudes" does sound enticing to me, it's just not enough to lure me into the whole deal. SO, as for me and my muffin top, we shall remain happily contented at the finish line with camera and sign in hand. And as an experienced race sign holder, let me just say that cheering on racers is a highly under-appreciated job. It takes a lot of stamina to stand in the hot sun and hold up a sign while you wait for your man to come through the finish. Next time I'm bringing more electrolyte drinks to power me through that whole ordeal.

Once Mark got his calves massaged he was off and running again. His finish time goal had already slipped by from having to walk, or more like limp into the aid station, but he was determined to finish the race with a decent time.

Here he is crossing the finish:

...and not a bad time either...

Here's Mark after downing several ice creams, a chocolate milk, and a gallon of Gatorade after his finish.

As fit as my Marathon Man seems to look in this picture, Mark was so sore it took him a half hour to walk two blocks to our rental car. It seems he only moves fast when there's a shiny metal to reward him. Meanwhile, I was so hot and sweaty from waiting at the finish line I wanted to pick up the pace and get in the air conditioned car. But not Mark, he could barely walk. So next time I plan on getting him to the car faster by bringing a dollar store medallion and luring him to the car faster by telling him he can earn a metal if he can get there in under two minutes--and if he can do it in under one, I'll throw in an ice cream. That should do the trick.

My favorite memory of the whole race adventure was back at the airport two days later on our flight back home. After they announced our flight was ready to board they invited anyone who needs assistance or extra time boarding because of disabilities to come forward and board first. That's when my 'Icy Hot' hubby slowly rose to a decrepit standing position, muttered "I think I qualify today for that", and then shuffled his way forward towards the plane while I followed behind carrying his bags!

Do Not?

2011-10-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

Connor and Nick were super excited when they spotted this in the store recently:

It's a Double Barrel Shotgun that loads up like the real thing.

Apparently they've been watching re-runs of Elmer Fudd or something because they got really excited about snapping the thing in half to load it up as if it were "Wabbit Season". As soon as they spotted it on the store shelf, Connor and Nick were unloading their pockets and pooling their money together to buy it.

Before we even got to the parking lot the boys had the thing torn out of the box and had it loaded and ready to go just in time for a shooting spree inside my car-- which I might note, made for a lovely drive home. If lawmakers think cell phones are the number one distraction for drivers they need to think again. They've obviously never tried to navigate a car while it's "Air Warrior" passengers were engaged in "double barrel dart blasting" practice.

When I got back to the house, I picked up the box the boys had carelessly discarded inside my car and I noticed this little warning printed on a small area on the back of the box:

Within the first ten minutes of shotgun ownership, these boys had defiled Do Not number 1, 3, 4, and Warning numbers 5 and 6.

Apparently the makers of our fine new shotgun DO NOT have any experience raising boys. If they had, they would know these warnings highlight the exact reasons why kids like Connor and Nick love to buy stuff like this.

...Meanwhile, the people and animals mentioned in DO NOT #1 have all run for cover until target practice is over or, blessed be, when all the darts have been safely lost--whichever comes first.

Blog Bashing & Care Package Wars

2011-09-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Apparently as my children grow up and move out of the house they consider the best part of their new found independence to be the freedom from the tyranny of my blog. They realize that the farther away from home they are the less likely they are to be embarrassed by the scandalous postings that oppressed them back at home. And now, apparently, they have each experienced the same earth shattering epiphany: they have discovered their own voice and have decided to turn on me with their own blogs! Imagine that.

Recently Cheyenne posted incriminating photos on her blog of some silly motorcycle stunts I attempted in the yard. Then just a few days ago, Mitchell, (who calls himself "Justin" because, well, that's really his name and he's decided to use it again) wondering why he hadn't gotten his first college care package from home yet, decided to take it to his new blog! Can you believe that! My own children mocking me on their blog! What's a parent to do when that happens?

...Well if you're me, you'd wipe a sentimental tear from your glistening eyes and blush with pride! Indeed, it was surely
a proud moment when I discovered my children have realized how fun it can be to pester loved ones with their very own blog!

So Mitchell's recent blog post gave me a virtual smack down--albeit a hilarious one, on not promptly sending my poor "homesick" child a care package. [Nice move son. Your most impressive literary work to date.] A move which was sure to heap such unbearable parental guilt that it was sure to quickly garner him a prompt shipment of tasty goods. Well done! A quick read of his post and it appears as though his room mate Taylor had a sweet and loving family back at home who missed him so dearly that they were kind enough to send him a trove of treats to show they cared. And poor Mitchell, he was left with an empty dorm room mailbox.
[cue sad music--perhaps, "Everybody Hurts" by REM]

His sinister scheme seems to have worked, since I quickly shipped him off a box of his favorite goodies; microwaveable brownies, hot Cheetos, and Rice Krispie treats (sorry no diet coke, I've discovered the hard way that it doesn't take well to shipping and handling):

Then I studied the photo featured on his blog of his room mate Taylor's care package and tried earnestly to send similar items,
but with a more unique touch.

So instead of sending him a graphing calculator (any parent can do that), I decided to send him something that would make math more fun: Strawberry Shortcake Flash Cards...

Some unique school supplies like:

this giant eraser...

and instead of sending just an ordinary Popular Science magazine, I decided to mock up a special one just for my wiz-kid blogger of a son (click to enlarge):

His Roommate's Magazine: Mitchell's Mock Magazine:

I also noticed Taylor's parents sent him a framed family portrait and thought I'd better send a family photo for Mitchell's desk too. But, of course, I just couldn't send a regular one:

Then, probably the most thoughtful and revered gift a college student could ever receive was lovingly placed inside his package:

Taco Bell Gift Cards

So there you have it. Secret message received, care package sent!

Now...if I can just get the phone number for Taylor's parents so I can call them and insist they WARN me before they send another care package and spare me from being censured in another scandalous blog post by my pernicious progeny.

...Because that's supposed to be my job!

Shopping with Boys

2011-09-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Just a few days before school started I decided I'd better get serious about back-to-school shopping. I'd put it off long enough, which is a classic move on my part. I always seem to wait to the very last minute to shop for school because I detest it so much. The reason? This loathsome ritual is the horrific sign that the end of summer is near. And while most parents loooove sending their kids back to school, I rather like having mine around and being free from school schedules that seem to get in the way of fun family adventures.

But school was just around the corner and some shopping needed to be done.

This year's Back-to-school shopping quest was quite different because I had no daughters with me--this time it was just the boys. Four of them in all.

Mark (playing the part of 'mature parent')
Nick (cast in a supporting role as 'helpful friend')
Connor (playing 'the little brother' in this scenero)
Mitchell (cast as the lead as the 'college bound student who is in desperate need of some new jeans').

Oh yeah, and me (playing the part of 'woman perilously trapped shopping with F-O-U-R boys')

Our first stop was for, of course, for jeans.

No sooner had I zero-ed in on the size we were looking for and had forced Mitchell into a dressing room with a pile of pants to try on, I begin to hear a ruckus coming from somewhere in the store. Naturally I ALREADY KNOW who's probably behind all the noise and I go to investigate. This is what I find:

Nick ('supportive friend') is outfitting Connor and making him pose with the store mannequins. Mark ('mature parent') decides he's not letting Nick outfit him in real clothes but eventually agrees to try on the entire mannequin by posing behind the headless ones. By the time Mitchell found the right jeans Nick had Connor in several outfit combinations and paraded him around the store to pose by the remaining mannequins and scare the customers.

Then we were off to the shoe store. How much trouble can you get in there??

The answer is: A LOT. We weren't even in the store for more than two minutes when this debacle happened:

The pairs that fit Mitchell's enormous feet were
a wee bit too high up for Mark to reach:

And instead of him smartly asking Nick

who stands at 6'4" and CAN reach the box...

(apparently Nick was too busy trying to get Connor
to try on the goofiest looking shoes in the store.)

...Mark just tugs at the lower ones...

Mark spilled the entire stack of shoes! Unfortunately my stealthy i-phone camera skills didn't reach the crime scene in time to capture all the shoes that fell to the floor. Mark had managed to stuff a few back before I got there because he knew I'd be coming with my camera. [These folks have been blogged too many times to let their guard down anymore-dang it!]

I may not have gotten the optimal photo shot but I did get the last laugh...

When we went to buy the shoes, the lady at the checkout, with a scoffing look, loudly told all the boys that 'this is the very reason why, when customers buy a pair of shoes, we always check that both shoes are the same size.'

[secret message received.]

After that crazy outing I made the boys take me out for some chocolate. It was while sitting there eating chocolatey goodness amidst a pile of shopping bags I realized that while our summer adventures may be over, I've learned that if I'm really in the mood for an escapade, and school's still in, all I need to do is take a bunch of boys shopping...and bring my camera. Almost as entertaining as a summer road trip.

Caution: Baby

2011-09-22T00:47:00.000-07:00

Cheyenne and Kendra were here visiting recently and when that happens Aunty Chloe gets all excited and hogs all the baby holding time she can as if Kendra were her own personal American Girl Doll. Chloe will hold her non-stop and only put her down to sleep.

The other day I walked into my bedroom and found this:

Apparently when Chloe put her down for a nap on my bed, she was so worried that because Mark and I are now decrepit grandparents, that our declining vision would obscure the fact that our granddaughter was asleep on our bed. So she solved the problem by making us this nice sign. A sign in large print no less.

Cautious Chloe--and a little life saved by a pink marker!

Bucket Boarding

2011-09-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

A freakish summer rain came through in a deluge and dampened Connor's skateboarding plans until he decided on a simple way to stay dry...

That's a true Oregonian kid right there! Always prepared for rain.

Creepy Hand

2011-09-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

Mitchell may have left for college, but his stuff hasn't. And although most of his stuff got packed up and stacked into a large pile of boxes in the corner of his room, he left behind two bizarre things that I'm not quite sure what to do with.

Take for instance this thingamajig:

Seriously, what it that? Okay, I know it's a wired marker taped to a test strip bottle but what the heck is it for? Dare I hook it up to a "C" battery and find out? I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try.

Then there's this:

Yes, you're seeing it right, it's a creepy hand. Mitch got it as a "bonus" after doing some I.T. work over the summer for a medical company that makes braces for things like knees, backs, ankles, wrists, etc. And along with one of his final paychecks, he was ever so thoughtfully awarded with a foam hand.

The thing is really creepy. So, as you can imagine, that has made it a prized possession around our house.

This thing has revolutionized our lives. Here's just a few ways this remarkable gift is so darn handy:

A great way to safeguard your leftovers in the fridge.
Giving a gentle nudge to wake the kids in the morning.
Creepy bookmark.
Easy way to pet a MEAN cat without having to risk touching it and getting scratched.

Holds Chloe's nail polish while she paints her nails.
Giving your reach an extra stretch by using it to hand your change through a drive-thru window.

The thing has provided so much entertainment that we're glad Mitchell left it behind. And it just might come in handy
if and when we decide to hook up that bizarre wired-up thingamajig to a battery.

How To Pack a Plane

2011-09-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. Mitchell has left for college.

And it seems all his stuff left for college too. All of it. His room is cleared out. Two computers, three monitors, an enormous computer parts collection, tools, a modem (yes, the modem that used to get us on the internet here at home), and a bunch of other electronic gizmo thingamajigs that I have no clue what they're called.

I think the only thing he left at home was his clothes. He had very little space in which to fit all his worldly possessions and I guess his clothes were less important.

Here you see what looks to be a moderate stash of treasured goods that Mitchell intends to take to college. The small red duffel bag in the very back of the truck there--that's his clothes. The rest of it is computer related.

And here's the space he has to transfer all his stuff to and fit somehow in this tiny airplane:

Mitchell's using his origami skills to make things fit...

If at first you don't succeed, take it apart and try try again...

hope nobody needs to move their seat back...

So somewhere out at a college near you, there's a naked freshman who brought all his electronics to school but had no room for his clothes.

Here's Mark and Mitchell taking off for school. No room for me, the back seat was completely full. Which left me on the tarmac taking video.

We're not sure if the wing tip was indeed an official "wing wave" or the overloaded plane having trouble with a takeoff. I'm betting on the latter...

Luckily they weren't so overloaded that they actually made it to campus.

...and naturally, before unpacking clothes, he unpacked his computers.

But really, so what if he is ill prepared to clothe himself adequately for foul weather and ends up freezing this winter at school...at least with all his computer stuff he'll be able to remote access my computer back at home to fix all my computer issues. Frostbite will heal, the sting of computer trouble back at home, that could leave permanent scars.

Weening Myself From My I.T. Tech

2011-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to ween myself off of my need for our official Skillman Family I.T. Tech. That would be Mitchell who unfortunately will be leaving for college this week. You know the old adage, "you don't know what you got till it's gone", well, quite sadly, I DO know how good we have it around here with that boy and I bust up in tears that Mitchell will soon be gone.

Sadly, I'm not actually crying that my son is leaving for college. Secretly I'm excited about less laundry, having his room stay eternally clean, and not smelling Mitchell baking some satanically evil chocolaty goodness downstairs at midnight beguiling me into coming downstairs to enjoy a deliciously fatty a late night snack with him. No, I will not miss that.

What I am going to miss is the horrifying fact that I'll have no one to turn to amidst all my electronic and computer woes. The kid's a computer genius and he's always fixed all my problems--and all my friends problems too, for that matter. Case in point, the other day a good friend of mine had the nerve to call the house and when I answered she gave me a quick "how-do-you-do" and then asked for Mitch. She hadn't called for me. The next thing I know the kid is remote accessing her computer and fixing her dilemma in a blink of an eye.

I've been using Mitchell to solve all my technical tantrums for so long that I've become totally inept handling any electronic crisis on my own. The past couple of months during his senior year of high school, my dependency on the kid almost got him kicked out of class. Often in the middle of the day I would need some serious help with some sort of demonized electronic issue and so naturally I'd call my I.T. Tech. Unfortunately my I.T. guy happens to be in high school where it is strictly forbidden to answer your phone. But is it really my fault that my gadget guru is somewhere in the middle of a high school spanish or chemistry class? Noooo. So since it's not my fault, I call him anyway. I figure I pay for the kid's gas and insurance and in exchange he helps me with my computer woes. Shouldn't I be able to get in touch with him at anytime then? Yes, I think so-contrary to what his teachers say--after all, they're not paying his auto insurance premiums.

The poor kid started getting so many texts and calls from me during the day that the teachers finally gave in and let him take my calls. I guess he explained that it was his mother was psycho and probably wouldn't stop calling until the problem got fixed.

My weekly (okay, sometimes daily) calls usually went like this:

Me: [pushing the speed dial for Mitch--he's the first one listed under "favorites", even before my husband Mark]

Mitchell: [whipering] "Mom, I'm in class right now. I can't talk."

Me: "I know but I have a really big problem."

Mitchell: [still whispering] "Mom, can I call you back after class? My teacher is looking at me."

Me: "Tell your teacher I have a very serious problem and that I need you for a second."

Mitchell: "Seriously mom."

Me: "I can't get my printer to print."

Mitchell: "Hold on mom." [long pause] "Okay, I'm out in the hall. But you have to make this quick. My teacher knows it's you on the phone and she said to hurry."

Me: "Okay I'll try and make this quick. My stupid printer isn't printing."

Mitchell: "Is it plugged in?"

Me: "What do you mean 'is it plugged in'? Of course it's plugged in! ...oh wait...uh yeah....oops...your right. Someone unplugged it from my computer. Okay. Uh thanks son."

Mitchell: "Seriously mom, you're gonna have to start figuring this stuff out on your own soon. You're gonna get me kicked out of class."

Me: "I know, I know. Thanks son."

Mitchell: "Next time just text me okay?"

Now that he's leaving I've got an even bigger problem on my hands once September comes and he's safely tucked away in a dorm room somewhere and refuses to take my calls because he no longer lives at home where I can threaten to deprive him of gas money.

So when he recently spent a week up in Portland 'writing code' for some website (whatever that means) I decided that I would try to solve any electronic problem that creeped up--all by myself. To sort of practice my new Mitchell-free electronic life. Here's a list of life-threatening techno tragedies that I was proudly able to solve all on my own:

I reprogrammed a remote I for one I couldn't find. Though I must note that by the time I programmed said remote, it was too late to start the movie I was hoping to watch.

My iphone's clock was 6 minutes behind the real time which was making everyone late for everything. After failing to fix the problem on my own, I did what any reasonable person would do...I handed it to my 11-year old daughter Chloe and she fixed the problem for me. I'm not sure what the heck she did but all I know is that it tells the right time now. And while Technically you might think I didn't solve the problem on my own, I disagree. I figured out, all on my own, HOW to solve the problem. Which was to give the phone to Chloe and have her fix it for me. Problem solved.

But, once Mitch got home I had issues waiting for him that I could not solve:

Namely, I couldn't get my ipad to relay video while I was trying to Skype. After earnestly trying to "resolve my issues" on my own I finally yelled for Mitchell. The kid had the gall to get it fixed in under two minutes and then handed it back to me without a word. RUDE. The kid could have at least held on to it for ten minutes to make it look like it was a serious and legitimate problem that took some time to solve.

As you can see, once this kid leaves the house, I'm dead.

Maintenance Required?

2011-09-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Maintenance Required light is lit up on my Camry's dashboard these days. The "maintenance" that it's referring to is pretty dang obvious so I think it's just plain rude that my possessed car thought it would be appropriate to blare this warning light right in my face while I drive. Only an idiot would not to know what the problem is.

The light came on right after this happened...

...as if I needed a light to tell me there's a problem. And seriously, I think in this particular situation, there's more than a little "Maintenance Required" here. Why isn't a "Seance Required" light flashing?? That's the light that should have come programmed on my dashboard.

My poor dang Camry has been the subject of many a blog post. And not positive happy blog posts either. For a new-ish car, the poor thing has been featured in way waaaaay too many crash and ding kinda posts--exxxpennnnsive kinda posts.

The car's maiden voyage into crash-dom happened on the eve of our daughter Cheyenne's wedding. When the car was brand spankin' new. Cheyenne was running an errand the night before her nuptials and absentmindedly made a wide sweeping turn inside our garage gashing the front bumper on the wall on her way out. The car didn't even have to leave home to suffer its first blow. The gash was fixed not long after but the whole experience was hardly forgotten. All children have since been banned from driving my car on or near their wedding day. Not a real problem since we don't plan on having another family wedding for years to come.

The Wedding Wipe Out was just the start of a series of bangs, dents, scratches, and loathsome lacerations the poor car has suffered since that fateful day. And after each crash we fork out the cash and have the ill-fated thing patched up, buffed out, and painted over. Happily the car looks brand new after each repair, and the only folks who know its dirty dinged-up secret is me and my body shop guy...and, well, my loyal blog readers who are forced to read all these Crash Chronicles. But to everyone else, my secret is safe, my car still looks shiny and new...until now, when, oddly enough, there was in fact ANOTHER FAMILY WEDDING. Hmmmmm.

Since this latest crash, word has gotten out that my car is a magnet for mayhem. I've noticed as I drive around people steer clear of me and avoid me if at all possible. But as I see it, I'm starting to think there's a WEDDING CURSE on my car. Lucky for my children, none of them crashed the car during this recent family wedding. It was our poor friend Amanda that was the latest victim of my Camry's famously sadistic maneuver...the "Wedding Whack".

Amanda is one of my favorite teenagers of all time (and still is, even after crashing my car!). If I could be a teenager again, heaven forbid, then I'd be AMANDA! She's the prettiest tom girl you'll ever meet but she'll pummel you up if you give her any crap. That goes for boys or girls. And at 5'10" tall, she's still willing to rock a pair of killer stilettos if the occasion requires fancy footwear. I love a girl who loves to wear great shoes but will beat you with them if you make her mad. That's Amanda.

But as fate would have it, I asked poor Amanda to drive my Camry on the day of my niece Danielle's wedding. I had completely forgotten my possessed Camry's prior record for such events and tossed her the keys to my car and asked her to bring the little kids and meet us there at the wedding.

Poor girl, it wasn't her fault.
I think she was doomed the second she took the keys to my cursed Camry. That car has a mind of it's own, kinda like Herbie when it turns into an evil car hellbent for destruction.

Just five feet from the entrance to the parking lot where the wedding was taking place, a car in front of her suddenly jammed on their brakes without warning and Amanda slammed right into the car ahead of her. I'm sure she wanted to die right then and there! Nobody ever likes crashing a car, let alone someone else's car. And just a few feet from her destination!

Amanda pulled the car into the parking lot and I'm pretty sure she was mortified--poor thing. Then she saw Mitchell whose eyes were wide in disbelief. Amanda got out of the car and had that look on her face like, 'Your mom is gonna kill me!'

But I don't think Mitchell was even the least bit shocked that my Camry had gotten into yet another skirmish. He just looked at her and said, "Don't worry about the car, what you need to worry about is my mother blogging this...that is much worse than the car."

Seriously people. You have to laugh. What is this now? The 5th crash? Sheesh. It only serves to confirm my suspicions that there is indeed a Wedding Curse on my car. Or perhaps a car curse just in general.

...then again maybe my car has a crush on my auto-body repairman. Whatever it is I know one thing for certain...

Mitchell was right. Amanda need not worry about my car. This blog post full of colorful pictures of that fateful day, maybe. Hopefully she'll forgive me. My summer's been so crazy I haven't posted on my blog in a while. I need to post something, and this is just the thing.

I love you Amanda! Not my car so much, but I definitely love Amanda.

Hey Kid, I Found Your Missing Scooter

2011-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Um, you know that missing Scooter you've been looking for?? Yeah, well I found it. Not sure keeping it in the driveway swamp is really the best place to keep it, but what do I know about storing toys??

Yeah, it's in there...

Look closer...

There's a great place to keep in the garage, might make it easier to find, but from the looks of things the birds don't mind if you keep it outside in their marsh!

Cart Cardio

2011-08-08T00:04:00.000-07:00

Went to Target the other day to pick up just a couple of things--certainly not enough to merit using a shopping cart. A handled basket would have worked. But it seems Chloe had other plans.

Chloe, who had convinced Mitchell's friend Nick to come along with us, decided she wanted to ride in a cart. And not just any cart, mind you. Chloe wanted to take the HUGE ride in cart for a spin around the store. So she talked Nick into pushing her around in one while they followed me in the store. Nick, being a good adopted big brother to both Connor and Chloe, caved into her request and strolled her around.

You know the summer doldrums have finally hit when your kids look for entertainment by doing random weird things. Well that's what happened with these two. One thing led to another and soon the two of them convinced me to push them around the store.

I think I've discovered the perfect workout for mothers. All you need is a a bored little girl, an extra large teenager (also suffering from boredom), and a ride-in Target shopping cart. Your calves will be sore the next day but they're sure to get all nice and toned! It was excellent cardio AND it amused some bored kids.

Turncoats

2011-08-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yet another confession...which comes in two parts. First, the easy one: Mark and I graduated from the same high school--not much of scandalous confession there, right? Then comes the second part of the confession where I tell you we never even knew each other in high school because we didn't attend it at the same time. While Mark was courting the ladies at his senior prom I was still in the sixth grade sporting pigtails and twirling on the monkey bars. How's that for some scuttlebutt?

But, despite the humongous chasm in the particulars of our graduation dates, we are both Grizzly alumni. And proud of it too. Or at least I thought we were until Mark recently had what I hope was just a momentary lapse in loyalty.

This freakish display of temporary treason happened last Friday night. We took the family down to the high school's football field to watch our Grizzly's play a highly anticipated football game that only happens every three years--and only played every SIX years here on our home field. It's the local but legendary Pacific Rim Bowl. Since 1988, our high school has been shuttling back and forth every three years to play against an all-star team from, of all places, Japan.

And this year it was the Grizzly's turn to host the games. Mark gets especially excited about the Pacific Rim Bowl because it means
one thing: plenty of victims in town to practice his scarcely used Japanese on.

So when we showed up on Friday night, paid our entry fees, and headed to the crowded stadium to sit with all our fellow Grizzlies, Mark shocked us all by walking right past the stadium steps and veered sharply to the right to the bleachers on the other side of the field. ENEMY TERRITORY.

Huh?

About that time he muttered something about how there was no one over there to root for team Japan and that our family needed to take up the cause. Translation: He wanted to practice his Japanese.

With that our whole family followed him to the front of the visitors bleachers where Mark sat front and center right next to a very sparse crowd of Japanese supporters; about five in total. And among them was a nice Japanese lady and her son.

A very dubious Mark unabashedly trading in

the nicely shaded bleachers full of Ashland Alumni

for a sparsely populated bleacher in enemy territory.

Notice Mark sitting opposite what looks to be the

entire town of Ashland.

It took him all of three seconds before he introduced

himself to this lady sitting next to him.

Soon she and Mark had our family cheering in Japanese...

loud enough for the other side to hear us.

"Nippon!" [clap, clap, clap]
"Nippon!" [clap, clap, clap]
"Nippon!" [clap, clap, clap]

With no competition for good seats on the enemy side,

we were close enough to see their game plays.

My inner Grizzly was wishin' I had a set of two-way radios so I could alert my REAL team in on their secret plays. Though not much good that would have done since I can't read Japanese and Mark was not about to squeal.

The game got so crowded that eventually our meager little bleachers started filling up with REAL Grizzly fans. Which gave our fellow townspeople a close enough range to identify the whole of the Skillman clan as traitors.

Here's Mark and his new friends.
They talked all night but I have no idea what about.

Connor was so excited he stood at the fence
the whole night long.
(or maybe he was embarrassed that
he was being forced to sit in cheap-side?)

Once we got there and Mark beguiled me into cheering for Japan,
I stayed committed to the cause. I shouted cheers that I had no idea what I was cheering, yelled stuff I had no idea the meaning of, and made gestures I've never made before. (I had no idea what Mark had me yelling, and a few times, from the looks the sidelined players gave me on a few occasions, I don't think I even want to know. Knowing Mark, I probably got tricked into saying some really random stuff.) Yes indeed, for a few short hours, I sadly became a willing accomplice, a traitor to my own kind, and it was kinda fun.

The only time I slipped up and broke ranks was when my nephew Tanner made two AWESOME plays. First when he tackled the receiver who had just caught the ball and then later when he rushed the quarterback and plowed him down--after they picked all the heavy brutes off the two of them it was then that we discovered skinny Tanner was at the bottom of the pile with the football clutched in his arms! A stupendous turnover! I just had to cheer! Even a diehard defector has her limits.

But sadly, all our cheering was for naught. The Grizzly's won 26-0. A crippling defeat for a couple of first time turncoats like us.

Although...the inner Grizz inside of me...she was Elated!
And now, I've officially retired from messy business of mutiny...
at least for six more years anyway.

Diabetic Rum Runner

2011-07-28T00:04:00.000-07:00

My son's become a rum runner of sorts. The booty was just too good to pass up for Mitchell. He even lured his cousin Kyle into being his accomplice.

This particular scuttlebutt begins with a confession:
Around our house we're big diet coke drinkers. Sad but true. But with three kids with diabetes sometimes the precarious haze of blood sugars we marinate in every day just won't let everyone have a snack at the same time. And when they all want to eat something but they can't, a glass of water seems like a final insult to their cancelled-out calorie cravings. So whats a family to do? Well this family turned to the drink, Diet Coke that is. All of us, diabetic or not, have become "drinkers of the diet". We call it that because it makes our little habit sound kinda shady, which it is--being DIET and all. But these sorts of things are a slippery slope. Over the years Mitchell and Chey spun out of control and soon they were drowning their diabetic doldrums by drinking harder stuff like Diet Dr. Pepper. And soon it became their favorite among syrupy swigs.

So recently, when our local grocery store had this sign out front:

I knew I needed to send a picture text to Mitchell ASAP.

Now usually when I text this kid, it takes a while before I hear back. And sometimes my texts get ignored completely. But as you can imagine, he instantly text me back:

Mitchell: "huh?"

Me: "For real."

Mitchell: "really??"

Me: [picture text]

Mitchell: "Where??"

Mitch grabbed his cousin Kyle and headed for the store. They parked just yonder and eyed the booty--it was ALL DIET DR. PEPPER. Not only that, it was late in the day and there was A LOT of soda left and as Mitchell said to me later, "There's just a small target market for this kinda stuff mom".

I don't even wanna know if they made a million discreet trips or if they just pulled up and loaded the car. There are some things a mother just shouldn't ever know. But what I do know is that the Rum Run ended with the sound of my garage door opening and my kid backing his car into the garage whereby conveniently locating the trunk end nearest the garage's refrigerator.

This is what I found in my garage:

And what ended up being stashed in my garage fridge:

And here's the younger cousins all enjoying a bit of bribed boot-er-y in return for their hushed silence on the matter:

A Rum Run for Diabetics.
Now go and brush your teeth!

Skillmans Don't Fish! ...right??

2011-07-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

Growing up, Mark and his brothers spent most of their days out of the house and as far away from a summer chore list as they could get. They'd climb trees, scour the beach for sharks teeth, and hang out with the neighbor kid who later grew up and became a serial killer
(no kidding there, just ask "Snapper"--that's the nickname our little serial killer called Mark) but for most of the summer you could find the brothers out fishing.

Fast forward a few decades and everyone's still fishing except Mark. For him, it was just something to do to in the summer, but for his step-brothers it became their passion. And when I dated him and first met his family I met them on a family campout. When we first arrived at the campsite the tents were all abandoned because they were all out casting lines at the waterfront. And my first glimpse of my soon-to-be niece Dominica was of her smashing a fish on a rock and asking me if I knew how to gut one.

Now when you picture the family I married into, don't be picturing a bunch of red-necks with mullets and hats with fishing lures hooked to the brim. These boys all grew up to be very successful businessmen who travel the world. In fact, if you ever sat next to one of them on an airplane, you'd never guess that under their professional exteriors, lies a bunch of guys who pine at the smell of fish bate.

Recently, the brothers all came out for a visit. And while they were here, one of our kids let the brothers in on our dirty little family secret: We don't fish. They were horrified to hear that Mark lived right next to a lake but that he'd never ever taken his kids fishing there. Silly us, we thought the lake was for wake boarding!

When Uncle Don heard the offending facts, he came marching in to the house and said, "What do you mean you've never taken your children fishing?? Then he raised his hand high above his head and bent his hand to show a level threshold and then added, "That is just one step below child abuse."

He then quizzed the kids who led him out to the barn to scrounge up fishing poles, lures, and tackle boxes that had never been opened since the day they were mistakenly inherited.

It was a sad little scene as I watched my little band of wake boarders cast off the family speed boat for a day on the shore just to hold a stick. With a jumble of fishery stuff they all headed off for the lake. I grabbed my camera and walked up to the lake to take a peek at the messy business of fishing my innocent children had been so easily seduced into. I crest the dam and what do I see? A bunch of turncoats happy to be on the mucky shore.

Uncle Don setting things right.

My progeny of Benedict Arnolds...

Then to my horror, ol' "snapper" caught the fishing bug.

I kid you not, this boat here, it's full of our friends

who normally see us out skiing on the lake.

They stopped to see if their eyes were fooling them,
they thought they saw The Skillmans
ON THE SHORE

They fished till it got too dark to find their way back down the trail to the house. And get this: They never caught a fish! But they came home all hopped up on stories of the fish that got away.

I thought that was the end of that until late in the evening I looked outside and saw strange lights on my lawn. Uncle Don had them all out hunting by flashlight for night crawlers...

What's worse, is that they woke the next morning and when we asked who wanted to go out for a morning ski, they all snubbed their noses and then asked "Can we go fishing instead??"

We haven't used the boat all week. Mark's scallywag brothers are now all officially banned from my house! I'm totally up for posh vacations with them, but they just aren't allowed to come over here anymore.

The Stare

2011-07-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

It was a bad idea. Right from the start, it was just not sound thinking. Connor decided that it would be really cool to buy a couple of Mexican wrestling masks and give one to Nick to make their periodic rough housing more official.

More official? What are you thinking kid??

Problem is, once Nick put on the mask, he got totally into character by invoking these seriously crazed eyes and began to stare down Connor. It even freaked me out and I wanted to scream like a girl and run from the room (which saying somethin'). Apparently Nick's got an inner pro wrestler that's been waiting to get masked.

Good Luck Connor. It was your idea. You're on your own son.

I've Got a Screw Loose

2011-07-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, many of you who know me are not surprised by the frank confession that I've got a screw loose. But I'm not talking about myself. No, it's worse than that.

Regrettably the offending loose screw can be found inside my NEWish car. The same dang car that has been shamefully featured in previous postings for it's malady of mars, plague of punctures, and rash of recalls.

And one would think that since all the dents and dings have been removed, all teenage drivers have been suspended from driving or even looking at the car, and all it's peevish recalls have been adequately addressed, that this would finally put an end to my freakish car crisis once and for all.

Not so.

It seems my car and I are just not destined to live happily ever after. I've chalked it up to a case of bad Carma and I've determined that my Camry is possessed and may indeed be in need of a séance. Can you do that to a car? because seriously, I think my car is in need of one. If by chance I can't find someone to perform this sort on thing on a car, then I am seriously considering putting some holy water in the wiper fluid container and then dousing the thing by spraying the windshild with a liberal push of the wiper's spray lever thereby giving it a cleansing bath and ridding it of the demons myself.

In the meantime, this latest transportational torment is that my car's got a freaking screw loose. What's worse is the location of the darn screw which is heckling me from somewhere under the dashboard--and not just the dashboard but the dashboard area located on the driver's side where, I might painfully add, the DRIVER is in the best position in the car to hear it rattle in mocking tones, back and forth--back and forth, with every sharp turn. AHHHHHHHHH!

So a few days ago while stopped at an intersection I couldn't take it anymore and ripped the underside of my dashboard off in a fit of clink-clank induced rage. Of course I found nothing and got honked at because I wasn't paying attention to the light when it turned green. All I could see was red. I of course missed the green light entirely and forced a whole slew of cars behind me to miss it as well but I didn't really care. I was having a serious car crisis.

Finally I abandoned my errands and headed strait home where I informed Mark with all seriousness that my car was possessed and that a random screw needed to be purged from my demonized car before I drove it off a cliff in a frenzied fit. (Sadly, it appears as though loose clanking screws are not within my scope of reasoned thought or mature behavior. Who knew?)

First Mark was suspicious of my analysis and took the thing for a test drive. Testosterone is always suspicious of a diagnosis made on a car by estrogen because estrogen can't possibly know much about cars.

On his first drive around he heard nothing and naturally determined I was crazy. And he was right as I then got a crazed look on my face and banished him to yet another test drive and threatened him not to come back until he heard the darn screw--even if it took all day.

Within a short while he sheepishly returned and confirmed my suspicions.

He then determined the screw was somewhere in a pipe-like thingy running the length of the dashboard just above the drivers knees. He was determined to stop the madness (mostly my madness and not the screw's) and came up with a plan.

First, Mark decided to put a giant magnet on the pipe in hopes that the metal screw would slide on by and stick to the magnet and never move again. He put the magnet on and then drove like a mad man around town trying to slide the screw back and forth until it stuck. The result: absolutely nothing.

Next he decided to drill a giant hole into the pipe and then drive erratically throughout the countryside until he jiggled it out as if my car was like those little maze-like games kids play trying to get a little metal ball from one end to the other. The result: screw still loose, car warranty now completely voided.

For his Third and final attempt, Mark decided to spray foamy stuff inside the pipe, drive the car around until the screw slide into the foaming trap and stuck there forever. The result: screw sound disappeared but the stench of chemicals stung our eyes every time we drove the car. Worse yet, for the first two days I swear our family got a little tipsy in the car while driving it. Even on our trip to church no less. How's that for awkward? Our whole family inhaling intoxicating fumes on the way to church and as a result, we arrive all smiley and giggly. That said, under the influence of our chemical car ride, it was probably one of the best sermons we've ever heard at church. Nonetheless, I don't think it's really a good thing being sauced on the Sabbath even if it was accidental.

For a solid week that car stung our eyes and gave us headaches and a mild case of the giggles. But still not so much as a Clink or a Clank of a loose screw could be heard from that car. Just splendid screw-less silence. The headaches were a small price to pay to have our sanity back. Happily the smell is now dissipating and so is the memory of that evil loose screw.

On my way home last night I was happy my car and I were at long last content. I made a sharp turn into my driveway to confirm the last of my auto aggravations were finally behind us...I heard nothing. Just me, my headache, and a saucy smile.

Then as I made another sharp turn into my garage...
CLINK...CLANK...
My loose screw is back.
My sanity...completely gone.

A Birthday Conundrum

2011-07-10T22:15:00.001-07:00

Seriously, I'm totally confused by the odd collection of birthday bestowals I received today.

First, a card featuring my all-time favorite greeting card characters Hoops & Yoyo:

who sang a delightful birthday tune called "You're Hot"
Uh...not sure what that had to do with my Birthday, but thank you Hoops & Yoyo, awfully kind of you to sing so.

Then next, I got an ipad.
Awesome so far, right?

agreed.

Followed by the kids showering me with fatty goodness.

Then, most curious of all...I got this:

Huh?? A Good Housekeeping Magazine? Sheesh. Have I been too lax lately in my domestic duties?

(don't answer that, it was rhetorical.)

Okay, now I'm totally confused. Do they really expect me to

'lose 42 pounds' while I'm sitting on the couch eating Oreo's, M&M's, and Dark Chocolate as I'm surfing the internet on my new iPad??

Really?

I'm hoping they didn't buy the magazine to subtly hint that I should embark upon a serious weight loss regimen. There's a slight chance my family was just hoping I'd be making more easy summer dinners for less than $5 a serving. Or maybe it's my wrinkles or acne, or worse, my #1 clutter problem.

Yes, a Paradox of Presents.

All I'm sure of at this point is that Hoops & Yoyo think I'm hot.
And that's not bad at 42.

A Fossil-Fueled Fourth

2011-07-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

The birth of our nation was celebrated around here in a classic American style: by consuming an obscene amount of fossil fuels.

For the 4th of July we decided to do a little stay-cationing and invite our friends all over to camp out here at the house. And unfortunately, because we live right near a well attended lake, many of our other friends who did not get invited, drove past our place and saw the mass of trailers, boats, motorcycles, and go-carts spread out like a used car lot on our drive and our little secret was out.

First thing on the agenda was the dirt bike track over at our friend Haedon's house. I was smart enough NOT to ride but instead I took pictures of all the boys racing the track so as to insure that the first of our weekend events DID NOT find me ending it all with a new set of crutches. But the boys--they weren't worried at all and threw caution to the wind and pretended they were Evil Knievel. But old age caught up with the dad's because later that afternoon both Mark and Mont were all complaining of stiff joints, sore shoulders and backs, and drowned their woes with a cocktail of ibuprofen and Tylenol so that they could endure the next phase of planned activities.

Happily the only daredevil shots I got were of Mont and Haedon. Mark didn't do anything terribly radical because he said as soon as he headed for a jump, he suddenly remembered all the mortgage payments looming in his future that would be way easier to make if he was healthy enough to get himself to and from work. This backed him off the throttle.

Mark, Brandon Sharp, and Haedon Shields

Connor

Mitchell

Mont

Haedon

and Yes, injuries abounded...

Here's Broc after his track mishap

Then to wash off from the dirt track, we soaked in a warm bath at the lake at speeds up to 22 miles an hour behind the ski boat with lots of wake boarding, which of course required a bit more fuel.

Afterwards we dried off by gassing up the go-carts for some drag racing on the driveway. And that wrapped things up for Saturday.

Sunday we decided to calm things down a bit and played games at the house. Thanks to Sharie Petersen who gave me the idea a few years back, we played a hilarious round of Human Battleship which required no fuel at all but an intensive round of water balloon making.

On the Fourth of July we headed downtown for the parade. Incredible as it sounds we all rode our bikes. Yes, under our own natural powers, but don't tell anyone. And actually, for the record, we did drive our bikes in a trailer which was hooked up to "The Beast" so we could start riding a little closer to town. So there was a wee bit of fuel involved there.

While peddling my way to the parade I may have had a little skirmish with a car that decided to rudely and vigorously brake suddenly--not that I was following too close behind it or anything. Thankfully no pictures were taken so lucky for me my oldest daughter, who's suddenly decided to start blogging the embarrassing stunts of her mother, can't post any photographic evidence of my little brouhaha with a stupid hybrid.

Our hometown parade was full of the ~~usual~~ unusual flavor I love about our freaky little town. I took many a picture of crazy parade outfits but, because this is a family sort of blog, I dare not post any of them. You can thank me later for not subjecting you to shock therapy treatments to rid yourself of the mind boggling display of fleshy fanfare.

The weekend's capstone was the most traditional American pastime of all...by almost accidentally lighting on fire the driest parts of our
'land of the free home of the brave' with a slew of unauthorized fireworks.

And that is how we celebrated our nation's birth!
Indulgently American.

Little Miss Sunshine--Almost

2011-06-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Chloe's 11th Birthday brought a freakish summer deluge of rain-two inches of it to be exact. Not a good thing when all she wanted for her birthday was a brand new bike. And when she got her wish, the poor girl was left sitting on the thing under the eaves of the house longing to take it out for a spin. But Chloe's never been one to be impeded by anything. She might be small but she's a tenacious little bugger.

After about an hour she couldn't stand it anymore and decided hell or high water, she was gonna ride her bike no matter what. And so she did. She rode down the driveway in no particular hurry, getting totally soaked but ever so determined to have her day in the sun regardless of whether the sun actually showed up for it or not. She took her sweet time and then returned home with a converse skunk streak on the backside of her new birthday clothes.

The next big rainy day birthday hurdle was her party plans. She had decided she wanted a campout in the backyard with a few of her friends complete with tents, flashlights, and smores--and again, despite the weather, Chloe was completely undeterred. When there was no sign of the downpour letting up she simply insisted the garage be cleared of cars and left us with instructions to pitch the tent in there. (She also left us with a directive to plug in extension cords, a TV, DVD player, and a fan. Chloe displays true Skillman style--we like to camp but we certainly don't rough it when we do.)

Nothing seemed to deter her birthday splendor.

...That was until Little Miss Sunshine didn't get enough beauty sleep.

One thing that has been consistently Chloe is that from day one she has always gone to bed early and gets up waaay waaay too early--just like her dad. But her friends at her slumber party had other plans. Imagine that?! A gaggle of girls NOT wanting to go to sleep at a slumber party?? This was the only glitch in Chloe's plans that she could not outflank.

Very early the next morning, Chloe was the only one to arise and head in for breakfast. She deserted the tent and it's slumbering contents and came in the house and made a most serious proclamation like she was channeling the fervor of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the church door:

"Mom, I will NEVER do that again. Nobody wanted to go to sleep. I have tried and tried but no matter what I do, I am just NOT the sleepover type."

Apparently our birthday girl has a limitation on how many tragedies she can overturn.

Gone European

2011-06-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

We've gone European around here lately.

No, no. Mark hasn't switched to wearing Speedos or Man Capris. Nor has he been sporting a Messenger bag to work.

What we have done is go ice free. Something I vowed I'd never do since I'm hopelessly addicted to ice. But when our fridge went on the fritz, life deteriorated into a loathsome and iceless existence. Everything we drink nowadays is tepid--which, I might add, would thoroughly please our European counterparts.

When traveling abroad, it's always easy to be picked off as an American. The tell is that you've ordered a diet coke and asked for ice. Usually this sort of pitiful shenanigan merits a wrinkled brow and mildly perceptible scoff from your waitperson. You have just declared yourself hopelessly American and it's just a matter of time before your waiter expects you to ask for an offending bottle of ketchup.

Once, on a particularly hot day in Edinburgh, I was served a warm glass of coke. Just coke. Strait up from the can. I took it over to the bar and ever-so-politely asked for ice. I was rewarded with what could only be described as a disdainful glare as if I'd just knocked over a helpless old lady and begun stopping on her head with my foot. The man behind the bar didn't say a word. He didn't have to. He reeked of disappointment and shame at my willingness to wallow in such icy squalor with all the other foreign human debris. He grabbed some silver tongs and dropped a single cube of ice into my warm coke. One cube. Apparently he momentarily forgot I was American and that Americans are notoriously wasteful consumers who don't do just "one" of anything (just watch us shop at Costco).

Now I'm not sure if they've got refrigeration problems overseas or perhaps suffer from severe dental distress when drinking cold drinks, but the whole of the European block, these otherwise fine and lovely folks, all have a strange contempt for cold beverages and for anyone who drinks them.

So when our fridge's ice maker died we were all left dying for ice. I must confess that I slowly got used to it. Like a slow arsenic poisoning. Shamefully within just a month I was sloshing back water and coke--all at room temperature without even batting an eye.

But now that summer is here and the temperature outside is getting hot, we just couldn't take it anymore. I went out and bought a new fridge just for it's ice-making capabilities. We got it home and plugged the sucker in and waited. After about an hour a strange thud belched from our new appliance--the melodious sound of Heaven (the American version anyway).

Ice!!!

Ahhhhh. God bless America...and Whirlpool.

What Would the Amish Think?

2011-06-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it. My kids could never be Amish.

With just one week into summer the kids have run out of stuff to do. Thankfully this is not really a problem for me because I have trained my children not to ever ever utter the words "I'm bored". They know if they do, and I happen to hear them, they'll end up wearing rubber gloves and getting reacquainted with a toilet bowl scrubber. (Stealthy parenting, I know.)
So if in fact they are bored, they'll keep it to themselves like it's a dirty little secret.

Last night the teenagers at the house were looking for something to do--while avoiding at all costs mentioning the B-word. After a while they disappeared and soon I heard an unusual commotion outside.

Away to the window I flew like a flash, 

tore open the shutters and threw up the sash...

blah, blah, blah...

to what to my wondering eyes should appear? 

But Mitchell and Nick out racing John Deere's!

Seriously, that was the scene, I kid you not. The teenagers were out on our driveway drag racing our two riding lawnmowers.

How bored do you have to be to think of that?

Must have been fun because they raced them again the next day.

This time Connor (who is now at long last heavy enough to weigh the seat down in order to engage the driving system) decided to get in on the contest.

So while other kids are making dirt forts, fighting pretend wars, and running in sprinklers...mine are racing grass cutting contraptions.

I'm wondering what the Amish would think.

The Brave Boy with the YouTube Crazed Mom

2011-06-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

My latest confession is that I've become a serious (though often misguided) fan of YouTube these days. But not really for the reasons most people would think. I don't really watch trending videos, crazy home video stunts, or even those silly animal videos my kids love to watch so much. With the exception of Brian Regan stick cartoon videos, which crack me up, my "youtubing" is serious business.

So what am I watching? The truth is I'm a nut for video tutorials. Seriously, you can learn anything on YouTube. In fact, I'm afraid the schooling that can be had on that crazy website will one day make college obsolete. Here's a list of very oh so important things I've learned recently:

How to remove an image using Photoshop
How to remove and replace tile grout
How to dance the Thriller
How to make zipper flowers
How to get smoky eyes

My veneration for these videos all started last year when Connor's baseball coach asked me to help keep the score books for an upcoming game. I refused to admit that I had no idea how to use a score book so I made a beeline for home and began searching YouTube for:

"How to use a baseball score book"

A few video tutorials later and I was a baseball stat queen...and royally won over by tutorials!

It's totally revolutionized my life. And unfortunately just recently it revolutionized Connors too, poor guy.

These last few weeks of school have us so busy that Connor's hair has gotten way to shabby but I just didn't have time to run him into town and get his hair cut. So what's a youtube loving mother to do? I grabbed my waaaay underused hair clippers and my trusty laptop and fired up a tutorial. Poor Connor got a little freaked out that I was watching hair cutting demos on my laptop and about to make my barbershop debut on his head.

I think his hair turned out pretty good considering all the cuss words I may have used getting it right.
not only does the kid's now sport a nice new haircut, he also learned a few new colorful words to boot.

I'm thinking about posting my own tutorial on youtube now...I think I'll call it:
"How to freak your kid out" and there will be an uploaded video of me cutting Connor's hair.

A Grizzly Graduates

2011-06-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

One more for the books. Mitchell has officially graduated from high school!

Matthew and Mitchell on Graduation Day

The Family
[three proud Grizzly Graduates wearing Red]

Top 10 Memories from High School:

Mitchell made the best of a class scheduling snafu by schmoozing his sewing and cooking teachers with his mad homemaking skills after being forced to take these two classes when he ran out of other options. Like they say, "If you can't beat 'em, bake and sew with 'em."

Mitchell setting an archery record in P.E. Oooh-da-lolly.

A science teacher telling me that if she could combine Mitchell's brain with his cousin Bryce's ability to hand his papers in on time, that she would have the PERFECT student. Quality work actually being turned in on time apparently doesn't happen very often.
Mitchell getting barred from using the school's internet system for the remainder of his High School years because their system had been hacked and they believed he was the culprit. Mitchell denied doing so and was eager to tell them that their system doesn't offer much of a challenge for any would-be hacker. Mitch took it as a compliment that they implicated him first.

Mitchell and his buddy Nick winning the school-wide doubles pickle ball tournament and then proudly displaying the freakiest hot-glued championship trophy you've ever seen. Thank goodness he had to turn it back in for next year's tournament. And thank goodness he won't be there to win that beastly bestowal back again next year.

Mitchell's english teacher, during a parent/teacher conference, giving me an A+ on my blog. She admitted she would read it during Mitchell's class and decided to actually grade me on it. Lucky me got the better grade than my own kid that semester. How sweet is that? I got to tease him about how his own mother was getting a better grade in HIS english class!
One of Mitchell's teachers, during a parent/teacher conference telling me my son liked to catch up on his sleep during her class and that he reads weird books on math and science for fun.
Mitchell wooing the attendance lady by working for her in the office. After that semester he never again had to bring in an excuse note from a parent. She just signed him off on whatever excuse he gave her.

Mitchell being awarded a leopard print Snuggie during a school-wide assembly. He proudly wore it the rest of the day to all his classes. He reported that for the rest of the day there were a lot of high fives and fist bumps from fellow classmates in between classes. Pure Microplush Jealousy.
Mitchell wore his full scout uniform to school for a presentation and when I asked him if that would be embarrassing to wear around the high school kids he answered, "Mom, since when have I cared what my peers really think?" Good point kid.

Happy Graduation Son!
a.k.a. "Mom"

A Problem with Primates

2011-06-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, the end of the school year is here and Chloe is enjoying her last few days of elementary school. Next year she'll be in middle school with Connor, but for now, she's enjoying the fanfare the comes with the glorious long-awaited end-of-the-year grade school wind down: School Parties.

Today she and her head of three precariously perched ponytails bounded off to school for "Crazy Hair Day" and she's got all sorts of plans for tomorrow's "Backwards Day" but it was last Friday that really got me shaking my head. Friday was "Pajama Day", basically a day the kids all get outta bed and just head strait off to school. But everyone knows that there is one all-important tag along item on Pajama Day: the stuffed animal. Each year the kids show up in PJ's and slippers and clean out their backpacks to make room to bring along their favorite stuffed animal.

The first year Chloe got to do this she shrewdly asked her teacher what exactly qualifies under the term "stuffed animal" to which the teacher, falling into Chloe's baited trap answered, "whatever stuffed animal you like to carry around with you."

Bad answer.

This girl might be one of the smallest kids in the class but she is very capable and extremely willing to carry around the mother of all stuffed animals. One that, for most of Chloe's life, was bigger than she was. Her preposterous penchant, yes indeed, was that little ol' Chloe loves her giant sliverback Gorilla.

Yes, alarming I know.

And especially nefarious since the one and only fear that I have had since childhood is an irrational fear of gorillas. In life's classic list of scary things, it is the Gorilla that has the dubious distinction as being my Achilles heal. The Boogieman, spiders and snakes, dark alleys, jumping from airplanes, you name it, I am not afraid. But show me a Gorilla and I will scream like a girl.

In a bizzare twist of fate that happened to me around the tender age of two, I have a distinct memory of being assaulted by, of all things, a Gorilla. Years later I would discover it was indeed not a real Gorilla at all but a prankster neighbor who happened to work for a Hollywood Studio in their Costume Department. And through some sort of not-so-funny ruse, this neighbor and my father concocted a plan whereby "costume boy", who'd taken a full-fledged gorilla suit home from work, would swing by our house on his way to a Halloween party and scare the living daylights out of my mother by ringing the bell and then going all-out berserk once she opened the door for what she thought would be just a gaggle of harmless little trick-or-treaters. Unfortunately when that fateful ring happened, it was more trick than treat: I was the one who answered the door.

Flash forward to the wretched scene where you find my two year old body curled up into the fetal position and screaming bloody murder and you have discovered the origin of my life long irrational fear of Gorillas.

This is a picture of me just one year later...

Yes, my parents, knowing my profound displeasure for hairy beasts, thought it'd be a real hoot to take my photo next to the Gorilla statue at the San Diego Zoo. As you can tell by the matching expressions on both my face and the Gorilla's, neither of us thought the idea was all that funny. That was the last day I ever had anything to do with Gorillas or monkeys. To this very day I've never even watched the Wizard of Oz in it's entirety. Once the flying monkeys come out, I get the heebeejeebees and flee the room. I've sworn off ALL hairy beasts-which includes a stern warning to my husband to never let his back get hairy!

Admittedly, if you're going to have an irrational fear of anything, Gorillas would be a good choice. I rarely run into them-which is to say NEVER. I am very careful at the zoo staying far far away from any anthropoid areas and that seems to be the only place that poses a primate problem.

That was until Chloe came along.

This dangable girl, for reasons unexplainable, zeroed in on the whole of the primates and decided that her favorite thing in the whole wide world was monkeys and gorillas. Over the years she has amassed a whole collection of them in stuffed animal form.

But the one she loves the most is a giant four-foot tall silverback gorilla. She's had it since she was little and spent most of her napping and book reading hours engulfed in it's arms. Tender, yet hairy isn't it?

And ever since she tricked her very first elementary school teacher into letting her bring it to Pajama Day, she has lugged the hairy beast to PJ Day every single year since. This year was no exception. When I drove to school to pick her up she wasn't all that hard to spot in the mass of school children waiting on the curb. I drove past all the kids with the cute little bears and bunnies and doggies and headed strait for the kid overshadowed by her beady-eyed thug.

As I got home I was thrilled at the notion that there would be no more stuffed animal-toting PJ parties for Chloe at the Middle School next year. And I grinned an evil smirk knowing the Gorillas Days would soon be numbered. Chloe would soon be distracted by other things and grow too old for hairy beasts and I would soon be rid of the thing.

Then I discovered Chloe has other plans. Devious ones. She has decided to woo another generation into her monkey madness. I came into the living room yesterday and saw this horrible scene:

She had swaddled her little niece Kendra into its arms!

Then she propped a baby bottle

into the beast's hairy hand and let King Kong feed her!

Then, to my horror,

my own grandchild tenderly fell asleep in its arms!

Seriously folks, I HATE GORILLAS. Can't a girl just have her little irrational fear without provocation?

A Manly Meal

2011-05-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

Connor's one of the shorter boys on his baseball team and he's been wondering if there's anything he can do to grow faster.

We've pointed out to the kid that the cause is likely his pernicious penchant for cereal--gross, stale, cardboard tasting, cereal--which has probably stunted his growth. Turns out lucky charms ain't so lucky. Connor would be happy eating cereal for every single meal. I don't even buy the massively sugary kind either. But it doesn't matter. If you turn your back, he'll eat it for lunch and dinner and for the four or five snacks Connor inhales each day. Life for that sneaky boy is Cereal, Cereal, Cereal. The kid has rarely used a fork.
(I just know that his terrible taste buds are most likely the result of a young and naive parental proclamation: I once swore I'd NEVER have a picky eater.)

But recently we've decided to draw the line and made a bold declaration: If the meal doesn't start with a B, it ain't coming out of a Box. At the Skillman house, there's now A prohibition on any food that's doused with milk.

And it seems to be working--at least we think it is. With Connor's new-found interest in health, chiefly his height health, he's recently heeded our admonition to expand his palate and eat more manly meals which will make him grow.

But from the looks of things, apparently he didn't hear the part of our rally speech that included the words "leafy greens" as his first foray into a real man meal was to broaden his gastric intake with meat. Just meat. This was his idea of dinner last night, in which he made claims that he thinks it'll make him grow...

One bun, hold the mayo. Big beef patty, eight bacon strips (which were mostly eaten before I snapped a pic). Oh, and cheese, all on a very macho paper plate.

Our next declaration may have to be for meals that require a fork. But I guess we're making some slow progress. It's better than cereal.

Label Lunacy

2011-05-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

All I really meant to do was to tame my rag-tag spice cupboard.

I got tired of mismatched slapdash spice bottles cluttering my shelves. It seemed I could never find the spice I was looking for and ended up buying another bottle only to discover not only did I have that particular spice the whole time, but that I had at least two or three opened bottles of it crammed toward the back of the shelf. Argh!

I commenced a surefire recipe to subjugate my spices:
I bought a bunch of deli containers from the local restaurant supply store and then went out and bought one of those new-fangled wiz-bang label makers and (this next part was a big mistake) plenty of extra label cartridges.

Then in a fastidious fit that lasted a mere half hour, I conquered the cabinet:

But of course I couldn't just stop there. My little pantry project escalated into a label mania. No sooner had I finished making my spices all neat and tidy, I was overtaken by an unexpected new passion and became ~~enchanted~~ beguiled by my new label maker. Soon I was labeling things that didn't even need a label.

Then the kids got bewitched by the machine and started labeling things of their own:

Connor labeled his baseball collection:

Mitchell labeled his collection of computer parts:

and Chloe even labeled her phone:

Quickly everyone in the family discovered that it was possible to be the author of a label and remain blissfully anonymous--impossible to trace. With this new revelation we were soon all fighting over the sticker spewing gizmo and found all kinds of things that had far too long gone unlabeled:

How have we ever lived this long without this extraordinary contraption? It's revolutionized our lives...anonymously.

Commitment-Phob

2011-05-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

I must confess that I have serious commitment issues. Long term relationships are just not my thing. The one exception is for my husband Mark. Bless that man. I'm not sure any other guy could put up with me or my bizarre shenanigans so I'm fully committed there. But all other commitments I am quite terrible at. This is why I don't have a manicurist, a hair dresser, or even a doctor that sees me regularly. I just can't commit to seeing other people on a regular basis--even my extended family only sees me on the rare occasion. So my nails are boring and plain, my hair gets cut on a whim by any hairdresser that's open (which occasionally goes really wrong like the time a lady mistook the word "LAYERS" for "MULLET"), and my doctor only sees me when I get sick--which is never--because I can't even commit to having the flu for more than 24 hours. Appointments looming in the future just freak me out. The fact that I've promised to see someone at a specific hour and date sometime in the future just makes me squeamish. Weird, I know.

But it seems that life over 40 is soon going to force me into going steady. I keep finding gray hairs and I worry that this sort of demonized lamentation will eventually force me to succumb to a rolling appointment schedule with a hair-colorist. I break out in a sweat just thinking about having to schedule time to do this every six weeks. With the SAME person no less, because she's the only one who knows how to "mix my color just right" or so I'm told. But what's a graying girl to do?

Most gals love having their hair done but I've always been one of those awkward no-fuss sorta gals. I like to wear make-up and look nice to some degree but I just don't like gossiping with a gaggle of girls in a salon permeated with stink while I forge my meager attempts to get pretty. But the gray is coming in and I fear a crisis is unavoidable, my care-free non-committal days are numbered.

Unless I just go gray.

Seriously, it's been done. But really? Has it come down to that? Personalities like Stacy London embraced the gray with that bizarre streak in the front of her head but I think she looks like Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd--and she's MY age for pete's sake. Doesn't Stacy know that those misplaced gray patches bring to mind folks like Bill Clinton's mother NOT forty-somethings--and most especially NOT for forty-somethings named Stacy.

But Lady Gaga even went gray and so did Kelly Osbourne, some sort of weird trend that seriously just made them look drab and old. Even Pink did it. But in my opinion they crossed the line into decrepit agedness waaaaaay waaaaaay too early.

But with all this gray-gone-wrong...Maybe it's time to c...c...c...I can hardly say it...(gulp) ...commit.

But then my mind starts to invent all kinds of random scenarios on why seeing a hairdresser on a regular basis could be bad. Like the whole prison issue, for one. What if I start coloring my hair and then end up in jail? Seriously, this sort of possibility is no laughing matter. I've seen women on TV doing interviews from jail with 3 inches of ghastly grow-out upstaging their prison-televised diatribes. And while I certainly have no plans to break the law and end up with a parole officer, these sort of problematic possibilities creep into my graying head. WHAT IF? Because once you start coloring your graying head of hair you are in for life. There is no parole there, jail or no jail. You've got to maintain it FOREVER.

Or what if you color your hair for so long that when your eyes go bad you don't even know you've turned yourself into a certified real life blue-hair? This is all seriously dangerous territory.

So here I sit, totally indecisive, on the border between my carefree days of non-committal youth and a wretched future of appointments with a slew of folks I pay to help me curb the rapid decay of old age that is suddenly creeping up, growing out, or sagging.

There are lots of decisions to make. Grow old GRAYsfully or fight it all the way? And of course, I just can't seem to commit to either plan.

The Tooth Fairy is a Slacker

2011-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Seriously, what is up with the Tooth Fairy these days? If you or a loved one has lost a tooth recently, perhaps you've noticed she has gotten a bit scatterbrained. The Tooth Fairy I remember from my childhood was a fairy that was on top of her game. Always prompt, always had cash, and always showed up in the right place and always right on time. But nowadays it seems to me that she has lost her toothy touch. My poor children Chloe and Connor have seen a far cry from the one I remember. Of late, she's visited the wrong room, suffered some confusion on exactly which pillow to look under, and even skipped over them entirely, only to shamefully show up after three or four attempts on our part to leave a dang tooth. It is all very disturbing.

Take our last dental dilemma for instance. Chloe lost a tooth and straightaway put it under her pillow. She even popped it into a cute little envelope and wrote a note on it--albeit a passive-aggressive note from a kid who appears to be destitute for a little extra cash:

Now perhaps the confusion over our latest tooth submission may have started because Chloe has a guest sleeping in her room and so she was sleeping in Connor's extra bed. However, bed swapping or not, according to Chloe this shouldn't have caused even the slightest of problems for our fairy-ed friend since she had heard from several sources that "the Tooth Fairy has "X-Ray Vision". I've heard this little tidbit myself many times and I'm inclined to think it's reliable information. Everyone knows the Tooth Fairy has stealthy eyes and can see really well in the dark. But x-ray vision or not, the Tooth Fairy missed Chloe's tooth completely. We were both bewildered in the morning when poor Chloe discovered she had completely forgot her sealed up tooth. It was very disappointing. Chloe was sad because she'd been skipped over, and me--quite frankly, I started to get a little worried about the mental clarity of our little tooth taker.

As I pondered the dilemma, I felt a little empathy for the Tooth Fairy, it certainly can't be an easy job. So I suggested to Chloe that we should cut her a little slack--perhaps she may not be getting enough sleep these days. I even proposed to Chloe that she might brighten her evening rounds by leaving her some chocolates along with the lost tooth and see if that doesn't help put us all in her good graces and solidify us as her all-time favorite donors. I assured Chloe that she would likely never forget us if we give her a little incentive.

But this tooth tardiness was serious business and Chloe and I came up with an equally serious plan to remedy the situation: we decided to write a "strongly worded note". The Tooth Fairy probably needed a little direction and should clearly be told that Chloe had a guest sleeping in her room and that she and her lost tooth could be found in Connor's room. I had Chloe go and find me some paper DOWNSTAIRS while I grabbed a writing utensil UPSTAIRS, and then upon Chloe's return we began our lengthy epistle to the Fairy. As I was writing, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the Tooth Fairy may have simply left her dental deposit beneath the wrong pillow. I told Chloe to go and check under her guest's pillow in her bedroom--just in case. Sure enough, as I was penning the words "cease and desist", Chloe shouts from her room that there was indeed two whole bucks under the wrong pillow! [heavy sigh.] What a relief! She had not forgotten at all! She had just had a momentary lapse of x-ray vision. And believe me, this can and will happen as you get older. It is something I have in common with our mysterious fairy.

Luckily it turns out that the Tooth Fairy may not be the biggest slacker after all. Bad vision? Yes. Occasionally forgetful? Yes. Suffers from pillow confusion? Yes. But I have a feeling she'll be more prompt next time now that she knows there's a little dark chocolate incentive waiting for her on her next pick up.

Shot Bloks and Big League Chew

2011-05-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ever since Mark started competing in races and triathlons and finishing with pretty impressive finish times (for a grandpa), Connor has dubbed his dad his own personal sports guru and he's been keeping a keen eye on exactly how dad manages to stay on top of his game. Unfortunately Mark, aka "Mr. Guru", has a dirty little secret. Often times Mark's races start in the wee hours of the morning when all the participants are forced to take 4am bus rides out to the starting line. In order to jump start himself at such a groggy hour, he's has been known to drink a Red Bull to get him up and going. Then, at several times during the actual race he fuels himself with Shot Bloks. Mark's teetering on becoming our family's resident Barry Bonds and poor Connor's been taking notes.

This baseball season Connor's suddenly got the big idea that his mid-game could use a little oomph too. So on his way to baseball he's gotten in the habit of asking his dad for a few Shot Bloks to keep in his gear bag just in case his energy dips during a game.

About the 4th inning you'll look into the dugout and see Connor chewing on "electrolyte chews" and I'm wondering if I should be worried. First it's Shot Bloks and next he'll be hooked on Big League Chew, which we all know leads to an even greater addiction: sunflower seeds.

I've decided I may have to implement some sort of random drug testing program around here in case the kid decides to move past shot bloks and sunflower seeds and begin the slippery slope to a stint in rehab by enhancing his game with Red Bull. While he could use a little 4th-inning electrolyte oomph for his swings, the one thing this kid certainly doesn't need is wings.

Quotable Connor

2011-05-09T12:15:00.000-07:00

Mark: "Lets let mom pick a movie and we can all watch it tonight and hang out together for Mother's Day."

Connor: "Great. She's gonna pick a yoga video, I just know it."

Premature Granding

2011-05-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Old people. I really never planned on being one. Unfortunately it happens without your consent and in my case it officially happened four weeks ago, the day my oldest daughter Cheyenne turned me into the "G" word.

G-G-G Grandmother.

Honestly, it still stings to say it. My ears ring and my vision worsens and the only thing that makes it feel better is holding my new grand baby. And frankly, when this little baby is near, in the swirl of my new Senior-ity, it's actually pretty sweet--just don't tell anyone I said that.

My Premature Granding began with a phone call. Chey rang to say the doctors had decided to induce her labor two weeks early because she was showing signs of pre-eclampsia. As a result, Mark began running around the house groaning with his own set of pains which he then described as an acute case of pre-GRAMPsia. (Good one honey.) With one phone call I suddenly found myself packing up my car and heading south, literally and figuratively. I was officially becoming old. And I actually had to get in my car and drive to it--my official old-ness. After 10 hours speeding my way to a far off delivery room, narrowly escaping the mother of all traffic tickets, I arrived in time for the big moment.

Little baby Kendra was born. 7lbs. 4oz. 19-inches.

This grandmother thing, it's terrible. It's turned me into a complete and utter sap. I coo, and fuss, and even occasionally talk baby talk. It's totally pathetic...and yet absolutely wonderful all at the same time. Who knew?

While I held this tiny little girl, somewhere in a glorious intoxication of new baby smell, a small hushed whimper, and a loud boisterous baby burp (a belch that completely outmatched her size), I realized something. This grandma gig ain't that bad after all. It was then that I had a vision--albeit a blurry grab-your-reader-glasses kinda vision--but a vision nonetheless. I began to picture a whole new me. Far from the pragmatics of parenthood, being a grandparent allows you to loosen up a bit. Bedtimes, well-rounded meals, these things aren't my problem. The whole idea of breaking all the rules from regular parenting and spoiling the child rotten has real appeal. An evil grin spread across my face and I realized I could do this grandmother thing. Like Michelangelo painting the Pope's ceiling, this could be my greatest work.

With that thought in mind I decided that from day one this little baby and I were gonna have some fun. And although we spent the first couple of weeks with poor little Kendra in the NICU (which would explain my long neglected and barren blog) I didn't let it stop me from enjoying my new found calling: Gregarious Grandma.

For the first few days Kendra had to wear an eye mask...

...so I stole a Sharpie off the nurses desk and made it prettier,

then I told everyone she gets her eyes from her grandma:

And when they finally let her wear clothes,

I fished through the NICU's pile of onesies and

decided she needed something adventurous to wear:

Any baby girl can look cute and precious,

but I thought she should sport a little attitude.

Soon I became known as "that grandmother" amongst the nurses. But I left a little levity in an otherwise gloomy hospital, and little baby Kendra and I were having as much fun as you could possibly have with a PIC line in your head.

Happily little Kendra has been paroled from the hospital and is healthy and dreamy as ever. And me? I'm finally back home and indulging in my new found hobby: Unorthodox Grandma.