Hello Blog World!

Yes, I haven’t been around MSJ for a bit.  Here are the recent headlines of the summer life of the Crosby clan.

46 Year Old Housewife Drops 80 Pounds:  Wise choices for health over the last year have produced remarkable results for this average housewife, who is now above average in weight loss success. (Yes, that’s me, but didn’t that sound headliney?)

Water Shortage in Desert Leaves Dying Remains:  This simply means that Rick isn’t watering the backyard grass this summer and it’s all dead.  Why is that headline news, you ask?  Because the wiener dog likes to roll in the dead grass and then come in and roll on the used-to-be-clean carpet.  This is a new cleaning issue this summer that we have never faced before.  It is a constant source of time and energy expended on STUPID stuff. 2012 will go down in the Crosby History Book as the summer of the dead grass. (Hopefully not of the dead dog!)

Summer Movie Fun is Proving Successful:  Yes, I bought the summer fun pack of $7 movie tickets again.  So far, I haven’t seen any of the theatrical selections!  So it’s ALL fun for me!  This week is Mr. Popper’s Penguins.  If you have been an MSJ reader for several years, you will recall how we tortured our children with a sound recording of Mr Popper…. so I’m looking forward to finding out all the information we missed from the skipping CD… IF they followed the book.

Full Time Work is Stressful:   Hahahahaha!  This one makes me laugh.  Our 18-year-old, soon to be college-bound daughter, is working “full time”….. HARDLY!  I think in her first two weeks of “full time” she put in one, maybe two 8 hour days.  This is exhausting!  Never has she been asked to do unpleasant tasks for EIGHT straight hours!  Well, except for school and chores!  She has never taken so many naps.  She came home after a grueling six hours of scanning and filing files to exclaim, “I cannot imagine working eight hours a day, doing something you don’t like FOR FORTY YEARS!?!”  hahahah… real life, baby.  This is it!  See why we have tried to steer you to a career that suits your interests and talents????

Unpaid Worker Scores Big:  This is the story of my life.  I finally found a part-time opportunity that allows me to help others and make cash at the same time.  It is the exact antithesis of my daughter’s job.  In ten hours per week, I’m helping people lose weight and get healthy, get off their meds and live longer!  And they pay me!  It reminds me of when my husband started his initial job as a pilot and he couldn’t believe he got paid to fly a plane!  I handed my first check to my husband, who has been the primary bread earner in this household for 16 years, and he spat out in astonishment, “This is the most money you’ve made in …..   Y E A R S !”   haha!  God provides!

Lagging Teacher Delivers for Hopeful Students:  This simply means that I finally got my American History grades done and sent to my high school students whom I haven’t seen in 6 weeks!  Better late than never.  My child was the only who needed the grade for a transcript, so it’s all good.

Enjoy the Fourth of July, America’s birthday!  God bless America!  Land of the brave and FREE!  yah, baby.

Dilly Bars

In the van on the way home after the fireworks display on the 4th, our daughter says, “The only thing that would make this night better is if we had Dilly Bars!”  These are fine delicacies from Dairy Queen, in case you haven’t tasted the ambrosia offered on a stick at DQ.  I immediately pulled out the handy-dandy yellow pages that I keep under my seat in the van.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have my glasses with me and could not read a blinkin’ word on the page.  Larisa came to the rescue and started listing the addresses for DQs. Thankfully she came across one that was four blocks from where we were!  Sweet victory!

Dairy Queen on 27th Avenue and Camelback Rd. is not in the nicer part of our fine city, Phoenix.  As we pulled into the driveway, my brave husband spouted, “Let’s go in!”  Three of the four of us simultaneously responded, “NO!”  To match the neighborhood, the drive-through speaker is not of the best quality at the aforementioned DQ either.  We gave up and drove to the window to order our Dilly bars.

Dilly Bars are $1.29 plus tax….. OR six for $6.00 plus tax.  Yes, there are only five Crosbys at the present time.  Yes, that was a steal-of-a-deal to which my dear husband succumbed.  We were happily devouring our Dilly Bars when one of our sons asked who got the sixth stick of ice cream dipped in chocolate?????  And thus began the Dilly Bar Quest for Gold.  “Here’s the rules!” my husband declared.  “I’ll put it in the freezer right in front on the middle shelf.  The first person who wakes up after 3:00 a.m. without an alarm can go to the freezer and move the Dilly Bar to a hidden freezer location.  This way, they can save it for later. If you go down and the bar is moved, DO NOT EAT IT! or you will owe $5 to the winner of the Dilly Bar Quest for Gold!  Remember, you have to sleep first!” The scheming began.

One son said he would eat it all right when he won at 6:30 a.m., our early riser.  The other son said he would save it to eat in front of the rest of us losers.  (How nice!)  Our daughter just sighed, as she is a hard sleeper and late waker.  I thought I stood a good chance as I awake every morning at 5:00 a.m., just to look at the clock and go back to sleep. Just my luck, it didn’t happen last night.

The next morning, at 9:30 a.m. I came out of my bedroom to hear my sons arguing…… “You set your alarm!”  “No, I didn’t!”  “How could you wake up right at 3 a.m. then?”  “I just did!”  “I dreamed of ice cream, but I didn’t wake up!”  and on and on and on it went.  So, the son who wanted to eat the golden Dilly Bar in front of us, did so at breakfast.  Congratulations!

Independence Day!

Fireworks shows are hard to come by in Phoenix, land of the flammable landscape with heat and wind to keep the fire crews busy eternally. Permits are required for pyrotechnics.  My children have never had the thrill of holding a sparkler in their hand, or shooting off bottle rockets, or lighting those gray growing snake dealies or even witnessing the smell of a fireworks stand.  However, we do the best we can to be patriotic and go out of our way to see Chinese-made fireworks in our fair city.  My parent’s church always puts on a grand display so that was our intended destination at 9:00 p.m.  As we were climbing in the car at 8:38 p.m., my dad phoned to tell us the fireworks show was half way through….. it was a 15 minute drive and would be over by the time we arrived.  So we drove a mile from our house to where we could see the tiny fireworks in the distant and stood on a curb watching them in disappointment.

Our youngest son has a gifting toward music and with that came sensitive ears.  He is 11 and has only enjoyed the Fourth of July without a pillow wrapped around his head for four years now.  Finally he enjoys the BOOM in his chest from the firepower, just like his mama.  I have semi-fond memories of sitting in the car with him with his pillow around his head when it was 105+ degrees even at dark, while the rest of the family sat on cool grass to enjoy the show.  Last night he kept asking, “Where are more fireworks?”  and “Can’t we go somewhere else to see fireworks?” and “Are we going to see more fireworks?”  You get the picture.

At home, after the miniature disappointing distant display, my husband scoured the newspaper for fireworks show listings.  I searched the web.  We discovered that the BIG Phoenix display was downtown at 9:30!!!  We could make it! We jumped back in the car again, with our 3-D glasses for fireworks enhancement, and headed down the highway.  We arrived just in time and after three or four attempts at finding the right side street that faced the display area, we scored!  Only one billboard slightly off to the left, but we had a grand view.  The picture above is proof that we were in Phoenix, see the flammable palm trees??

Fourth of July checklist:  watermelon – check, bbq burgers – check, cheesy $4 Walmart flag shirts – check, fireworks – check.  Job well done.

Happy Independence Day!

One of our finer selections of reading material in our downstairs bathroom is a book about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Talk about a group of men with convictions!  Talk about independent!  Holy Smokes!  They basically signed away their wealth, homes, families and property.  I don’t think any of them lived a long, happy life, like we are privileged to do today ONLY because of what they did 233 years ago.  We are indebted to these men.  Amazing men!  Men who knew the true value of freedom and liberty….  priceless!

Enjoy your day of food and fireworks… and don’t forget the fathers who made it all possible.