My New Debit Card is WORKING!

Yay! The new debit card I have had for a couple months is working! I haven’t had any issues with it, other than forgetting to slip it in the chip reader instead of swiping. On days when I should be napping, but am shopping, I still revert to the late 80s and hand my card to the tellers. These young whippersnappers have no clue that we have been handing over our cards for decades only to be retrained to swipe …. and now chip read. Good grief. I’m starting to believe that old-dog-new-trick-deal is real.

My new card is working so well, someone else decided to start using it too! Oh goodie!  Share the wealth! And Bernie isn’t even president!

Sitting on the couch, reading aloud Where the Red Fern Grows, our homeschool bliss was interrupted by my cell phone ringing. I only answer during school for the Principal of our homeschool. My sweet husband asked in a remarkably calm voice, “Um…. are you going all crazy buying things online today?” No, I hadn’t. But had I known he would respond so calmly about a $269 Zulily purchase and $170 of new Nikes, (plus a few other purchases) I might have considered a spending frenzy. I was just looking at Zulily a few days ago and they have some cute turquoise lacy tops that I would totally buy!

So, as you may have guessed, I called my bank. It’s my most unfavorite pastime. They can cancel a card in mere minutes. It’s remarkable! 1/100 of the time it takes them to get you a working card over the phone! And there were no security questions that I couldn’t answer. They didn’t even ask for my pin… THAT I ACTUALLY KNOW! And since I am smart to their ways of sending my new cards by tortoise, I asked where a local branch was that I could drive to TODAY to get a new card. BAM! The guy delivered three addresses all within ten minutes of the house! It made my pulse race.

Today I’m not wearing my “okay-to-be-viewed-by-strangers” clothes. I’m wearing my “wake-up-at-7:10-and-get-in-the-van-in-10-minutes” clothes. But I did not care that my attire and appearance might embarrass a child of mine in public because I did not have a working debit card!!!!! (Let’s switch things up for once, kiddos!)

Getting the new card at the bank was almost painless. The kind man, who gushed that he frequently gets mistaken for the Property Brothers, asked it I had recently shopped at a “large chain hardware store with an orange logo”? (He simply blurted out Home Depot, but I’m being all careful now.) YES! I just bought the new door handle for the front door that is the wrong size but my son installed anyway! However, his Property Brothers comment made me thankful that our bank services seeing-impaired individuals.

Use cash, people. Or barter. They’re the only safe ways nowadays.

Elderly Laughs

I should seriously get out more.  I have been thoroughly entertained by elderly people these last few days in my journeys around town.  Laughter is good for the soul…. and my soul has been well nourished!

Walgreens.  Change for a $20 and some red and green MnMs.  That’s all I was after.  Standing in line behind one elderly gentleman, I assumed it would be a quick ride as he was only holding a Hershey’s bar with almonds.  And the almonds shouldn’t take any extra time!  No.  It was anything but a quick ride.  I could have walked all the way back to the pharmacy waited in line behind two people getting multiple prescriptions and it would have been faster!  The gentleman was a little hunched over… I wondered if it was due to hearing loss and his tendency to lean toward anyone who was talking?  He was a cute grandpa: matching light blue jacket, polyester pleated pants and tennis shoes.  His gray hair was a bit long for his conservative dress… maybe he was out strolling for a lady friend???  The also elderly cashier rang up the candy bar and pronounced, “$1.09.”  The customer replied LOUDLY, “That sign right there says it is only fifty-nine cents!” The cashier asked him to punch in his phone number so he could get the store discount.  Ain’t no way on God’s green earth was he going to share his private information with a dang computer!  On and on he ranted, “You don’t know who is going to be getting that information!  The government is trying to take our money, take our medical, and now they want to call us at home!  I’m not putting in my number!”  I felt sorry for the cashier, who tried to explain that the overpriced candy bar was only going to be on sale with a precious phone number.  “NO WAY!  It says FIFTY-NINE CENTS!”  Around and around they went like Elf in the department store rotating doors!  At that point my MnMs were starting to melt in my hand and not in my mouth.  I volunteered to put my phone number in so the man could save fifty cents.  I stepped around the man and typed in my digits.  Both elderly men thanked me, as did the next three people in line behind me.  The happy, candy bar-carrying man then warned me about government intrusion. I secretly reassured him, “It’s our old home phone number that has been disconnected for four years.”  And then my secret was out.  He laughed so hard while telling everyone in the store, the parking lot and driving by on the street that I outsmarted the government by using a phony phone number!  I couldn’t quit laughing!

Next stop: Kohls.  Black socks.  That’s all I was after.  This time I ended up in line following two elderly women… as opposite as they could be.  The first gem that drew my attention was leaning heavily on the counter in her black bling-bling velour sweat suit.  Her thick, black-rimmed glasses were perfect circles approximately four inches across each heavily make-upped eyeball.

She was adorned with hot pink lipstick in the same shade as a swatch of her used-to-be-gray hair.  She was loudly protesting that the store didn’t carry the cappuccino machine that was in the advertisement she was waving over her head.  The woman who was assisting her was on the phone asking for someone to come to the front from housewares to help the flashy lady.  “Yes, could you please have John come to the front,” she asked and the bug-eyed lady leaned forward to yell into the phone, “IMMEDIATELY!”  This caused involuntary bursts of laughter from me and the modestly dressed elderly woman in front of me.  Our giggles were not appreciated by the cappuccino-less lady.  She turned to us and hissed… seriously hissed, “This is NOT funny!”  In my head I was answering her back, “OH, this is Hysterical!  I think this is SO FUNNY! You just barked at me for laughing!”  The other laughing culprit was much more kind than I.  She apologized and went over and put her arm around the pink-haired yeller, telling her that she knows this can be a stressful time!  Pinky did calm down quite a bit.  But I couldn’t quit laughing.

Bring on the Christmas cheer, old folks!  I love it!

Pandemonium at Petco!

Again, back story first. My car collision was more than two months ago, but I am still “enjoying” the pain-numbing effects of a Fentanyl patch, such as lack of energy, emotional instability, forgetfulness that my arm doesn’t work right yet and frequent break-outs as a sweaty mess when I do too much.

Fast forward to yesterday when I attempted a fieldtrip because one dog is late on his rabies shot and the other dog is due.  The close and handy Petco (read: not in the ghetto) only has a shot clinic on Friday night and we had a conflict. SO, my two daughters and I along with the two pooches planned a mid-morning trip to another not-so-handy and not-close-at-all Petco (read: in the ghetto).  Little did we realize that everyone who lives in the slums also decided to get their dogs’ rabies shots yesterday morning.  The pain patch + 2 squirrely dogs + Petco full of dogs and “interesting” people = pandemonium to the third degree.

We parked in the lot and discussed who would hold the leashes while we crossed traffic and entered the store BEFORE we opened any of the doors.  That was the only moment when things went down as planned.  Being unable to hold a yanking-leash in my right hand, I held onto my little girl’s hand.  My big girl held the wiener dog and had the rat terrier on a leash. So far. So good.

As we entered the store, Ringo, the wiener dog decides to announce our arrival with his big-dog voice and won’t shut up, which invited all the other dogs in the store to welcome us as well.  I glanced to my right and saw the clinic table set up and three people in line. We made our way down the center aisle of the store with our heads glued to the right as we were overcome row after row at the length of the line. Finally toward the rear of the establishment, we discovered our place right behind an over-fed and under-socialized huge yellow lab.  At our arrival, the lab went ballistic barking and pulling his owner off balance (a full grown man) to get to our puny doggies.

Breathing deeply though my nose to gain composure and accept the fact that we were in for a long wait, I suggested to my eldest that she get a cart to put our doggies in for their own protection. In the blink of an eye, the red leash on the rat terrier was handed to the little nine-year-old hand that didn’t close in time to stop the escape of Trixie.  Without thinking (obviously) I screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” which was pretty obvious….. she was not holding the dog leash.  It has been many years since I have moved that fast.  Trixie was running with her ears back and her tail tucked and was bee-lining for the front door. It must have been quite a sight for all the people standing in line seeing the teeny white dog dragging a red leash followed by the flash of a woman at the end of the row. Near the registers I was able to step on the end of the leash and clothesline the AWOL fugitive.  Trixie’s head stayed in place and I’m sure she was trying to figure out why her tail just passed her head. While reaching down to grab the red restraint, my sun glasses tumbled out of my purse and made a sizable raucous to draw more attention to the woman who couldn’t control her tiny mongrel.

Victoriously I gathered my glasses and my hound and casually walked back to the rear of the store not making eye contact with anyone who just witnessed the overthrown departure (read: hot sweaty mess, shaky hands, emotionally volatile).  A ten-year-old terrier wasn’t going to get the best of me.  No sirree.

As previously planned, my eldest went to retrieve a cart to protect our pets.  Meanwhile, back in the ghetto, Jim Bob’s homemade collar on the fat yellow dog gave way and the mutt pounced on my pup.   His owner sluggishly slurred, “Well, how’d that happen?” as he slowly made moves to re-tethered his pooch.  That dog was going to have to get through ME to have one mini sniff at my dog’s rear end!  Not happening.

At that moment, I didn’t care how lofty the fines were for not meeting the deadlines for rabies shots.  “We are leaving NOW,” slipped out through my tight lips and we made our way back through the shop, crossed the poorly planned parking lot traffic and went home.  Before collapsing on my bed I took three ibuprofen (because stabbing pain was searing through my arm) and two stool softeners for good measure.

Come back next week for Friday night’s version of Rabies Shots 2nd Attempt.

 

DRE-E-E-E-EAM, dream dream dre-eam

When you grow up, you assume your life is the normal life of all the other kids in the world.  When you get older, you realize just how non-normal your growing up actually was, well, compared to all the other non-normal lives you learn about as time goes on.  Confused yet?

All that to say, I grew up thinking everyone dreams in color.  I do.  Of course I’m not the weird one, am I?  Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that more than 80% of people dream in color.  Not so weird after all, thankyouverymuch.  Yet another fact caused me to pause and consider my abnormalness once again…. 95-99% of people forget their dreams. What?  Almost every night I have vivid dreams and can tell the tales of them the next day.  My children take great pleasure in asking me what I dreamt last night and then rolling on the floor holding their sides due to laughter induced dream tales.  Some dreams have stuck with me for years… for 24 years, in one case… like it was yesterday.  Some are so real that I write them down to ponder later.

While we were away at Christmas I had this great dream (that my children loved) about my husband wanting to redo the greenhouse (that we don’t have) on the back of the house (that we don’t live in).  He was all inspired and wanted to show me his plans, but he insisted the best view was from the neighbor’s back driveway.  The only glitch was that he was naked and I wasn’t walking outside with him.  I’m the modest one in the family, for goodness sakes alive, even in my dreams.  So he talked me into driving over to the neighbor’s back driveway in our station wagon with tasteful “wood” paneling on the sides.  He drove me over there and proceeded to do a 13 point turn in the little driveway until the car was facing our greenhouse (sideways on the driveway.)  But the inevitable happened and he backed up too far and we went down into the ditch and got stuck.  I told him I would climb out the window and go call AAA but he yelled, “You cannot call Triple A, I’m naked!”  And that was the end.  I did not find deep meaning in that dream.  I pray we never own that house or car!  But it WAS funny!

Sixteen years ago, after watching Father of the Bride 2, my husband decided we should move from Spruce Grove, Alberta to Phoenix, Arizona to be near my parents.  I whole heartily agreed.  We put the house on the market and prayed for a quick sale, it was winter after all. Then I had a dream about a lady coming to buy our house. I awoke quite relieved and explained in detail what she looked like to my husband. For ten long months, our house sat on the market and many people came to see it.  Every time I opened the front door, if it wasn’t the lady in my dream, I was disappointed.  Phoenix was calling my name, after all.  Finally one day she came.  I recognized her.  And she did buy our house.  Truly, I think God gave me the picture of her as a sign of hope that there was someone coming.  It gave me a measure of assurance.

Do you remember your dreams?

After ALL These Years….

After all these years, I have finally figured something out.  Please don’t hold your breath too long waiting in anticipation for this monumental, earth-shattering news.  The back-story first.

With two bathrooms upstairs and a newly acquired princess from Colombia in December 2010, I decided that she could brush her teeth and bathe in the master bathroom, so as to leave more room for her three siblings.  How nice of me.  I’m the nice mom, remember?  I figured it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle due to her usually preening at different hours than her father and me.  Fast-forward four months to me being completely grossed out by the blobby toothpaste all over the cap and drawer where the Crest is kept.

The gross-out feeling is mutual between my new daughter and me.  She is grossed out that hair is stuck in my hairbrush.  I am grossed out by dried, globby toothpaste on the cap and in the drawer.  Deciding not to mention the blue blobs, I got myself a brand spankin’ new tube of Crest ONLY for personal use, and cleared a spot in my medicine cabinet for MY toothpaste where it would remain clean and blob-free.

NOTHING gets past her big brown eyes!  NOTHING!  She asked me THE NEXT DAY, “Why do you have toothpaste up there on the shelf now?”

In a sweet voice (because I’m the nice mom) I replied, “It’s because someone left toothpaste on that tube in the drawer and I don’t want to touch it.”

Her response made me burst out laughing, “Maybe DAD left the toothpaste all over the cap!”  Hahahaha!

Her father and I have been sharing the same tube of toothpaste for 23 years.  If you are a germaphobe, I’m sorry that you now look down your sanitized nose at us.  We are what we are.  So, YES there were new clumps of toothpaste.  YES, the Colombian princess was the culprit…. but not the culprit willing to admit to the messiness.

So what did I figure out after all these years?  My husband is a very neat toothpaste user, for which I am thankful.   I would not be harboring these thankful thoughts if it weren’t for our Colombian Princess joining the family.  :o)  One more blessing of adoption.

 

Nine-Year-Old Tales

I bring to you today MORE Nora-isms.  Our beautiful little Colombian princess says PRICELESS tidbits daily!  They bring joy to my heart and a smile to my face…. and often a giggle to my lips.

1.)  Nora, to her 7-year-old cousin, Luke, “Hey, my friend’s dad has a truck just like that one!”

Luke, “Which one, the Dodge?”

Nora, “No, the blue one.”  (Same truck!  hahahaha!)

2.)  When we just had Christmas in July with family friends, Nora opened the fantastic purple girl’s Lego car from the Friends collection and was THRILLED!  When asked how much she liked it she replied, “A million!”

3.)  Tonight at the dinner table Nora said, “I was looking out the window and I think that giant white rat, Stuart Little, is out there watching us.  I think he is saying, ‘That is a nice family!’  Mom, we should adopt him.”

4.)  Nora:  Mom, did you just say anniversary?

Me:  No, I said birthday.  Do you know what an anniversary is?

Nora:  Yea, it’s a big party with rocking and roll.  (She experienced our 25th Anniversary party!)

5.)  Nora tells me her dreams often…. her latest one:  “Mom, I had a dream that you were down in the ground and we pulled you out and you had no legs but you were still alive.  ……..  Do you like that?”

6.)  “Mom, I’m going to ask God when I go up heaven why we have dreams.  Dreams are awkward.”

 

Churchy Lingo

As we were sitting in church this last weekend, Nora was with us in big church because we were running late and didn’t want to take the time to run her all the way over to kid’s church and check her in.  Our services are one hour… if you are ten minutes late, you miss the whole music section!  She watched as her daddy wrote a check and stuck it in an envelope.  She asked what he was doing.  I explained checks…. the same as money, but you don’t have to carry the money.  Then I explained tithing… giving your money to Jesus.  She was aghast… “You have to give ALL your money to Jesus?”  No, if you have ten dollars, he asks us to give one dollar back to him.   Her eyes squinted slightly and she stared off into the distance while the wheels were turning in her little brain.  Finally she asked me in a whisper, “How does Jesus get the money? He’s in heaven, right?”  Yep.   :o)

I love Little Kids

Luke, our nephew, came for a hike with us last weekend.  I am SO entertained by the sayings that come out of his little 7-year-old mouth!  This was a hike on a preserve where there are also mountain bike riders as well as people on horseback pounding the trails with us pedestrians.  Nora and Luke were hiking a bit ahead of my husband and I, when we noticed that they stopped and were analyzing something on the trail that lay between them.  As we approached, we saw the it was horse poop.  I asked, “What in the world is that?”  Luke answered right away, “It’s poop from a cow.”  We have never seen cows on the hills behind our house!  Ever!  And we’ve seen the horses getting in and out of their trailers at the trail head.  It made me laugh.  Obviously a city-fied boy…. once you’ve seen a cow pie, you could hardly mistake them for horse droppings!

A half hour later, we had come to a T in the path and turned west, having never gone that way previously.  My husband suggested that we take a picture of the trail map (from the trail head) when we get back so we could figure out where we had hiked.  I remarked that the trails are probably on a state website and we could just look them up on the computer.  Luke chimed in stating the obvious that I had obviously missed, “Auntie Linda, there aren’t any computers out here!”  As if to say DUH!

Last year when Luke was in kindergarten, every time I saw him I would ask him if he went to school that day (even on holidays and weekends.)  Did his teacher show up?  Did she teach him anything he didn’t already know?  And I tried with great effort to get him to raise his hand in class and ask, “When are you going to teach me something I don’t already know.”  I coached him.  I prodded.  I modeled. But he never asked.  Smart kid.

Only at MY House!

Yesterday, one of the items that topped my To-Do list was to phone our health insurance company and figure out if my husband could get a physical and medical update for our adoption BEFORE September 16th.  Last year he had one on September 16th and his doctor was going to slap on an extra $200 charge because the dates weren’t a year apart. 

Here is a brief sidenote on Rick’s doctor:  I used to go to this same doctor.  I liked him alright, but he seemed to be a bit heavy-handed with his prescription pad.  I would return home from his office and call a friend of mine in pharmaceuticals and ask which of the four scripts I truly needed.  Anyway, I don’t have to do that anymore because I coincidentally happened upon aforementioned doctor at a local resort.  Brace yourself.  He was donning a purple Speedo, sunglasses from the 80’s and had the solid white sunblock on his nose.  It did me in.  I could no longer use ‘Purple Speedo’ as my physician.

Back to yesterday.  I did not have my glasses within reach when trying unsuccessfully to read the phone number on my health care card.  I handed it to my daughter and asked her to read me the number.  She started reading, “9-1-1-8-4-5-3-8-5-3-2-0-0”, and I obediently dialed…. until I realized there were too many numbers and hung up. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “that is your group number.”  I retrieved the card and found the PHONE number myself and dialed correctly.  The phone call lasted about ten minutes, but at minute number nine, there was a knock on our front door. 

Another side note:  my two nephews were over at our house along with my three children…. and I was still in my pajamas with decidedly Ace Ventura bed-head hair going on.  Not exactly the get-up to be answering the door.

Back to our story.  I peaked through the eye hole and saw a police man standing on our front porch.  I remembered my hair and attire and made a dash for the back of the house.  All five kids met me there, with the phone still stuck to my ear, and I told my 16-year-old daughter (yes, the one who read the group number to me) to go answer the door while  I hid in the laundry room.

Mr. Police officer asked the five children staring at him if everything was OK at the house.  “Yes!”  they all answered in unison.  Mr. Police man continued, “Someone dialed 911 from this house and hung up.  We were unable to call back so we came to make sure everything is alright.”  I’m sure he got responses that included but was not limited to: “Sure!”  “Yeah, that was mom calling her insurance group number.”  “She’s in the laundry room in her pj’s.”  “She couldn’t answer the door because her hair is scary.”  “She’s been on the phone all morning.”  “We are waiting for her to make breakfast.”  “We’re all OK!” “We’re hungry.”  “Is that a real gun?”  And the nice police officer left the premises, wondering what in the world just happened.

I tell you that story to report that I’m impressed with the police service in our area!  In less than ten minutes from the 911 call, there was someone at my door to protect me and my children.  Or is it protect my children from me?  Anyway, thank you, Phoenix Police force!

Last Night was a GAS…. the good kind.

We drove and drove and drove out to Surprise, AZ to see Tim Hawkins at Radiant Church.  It was supremely HiLaRiOus!  Oh, my tummy is tender this morning from laughing so hard last night.  A couple weeks ago, I saw him perform at the D6 conference, so a lot of the material was the same…. it’s just so stinkin’ funny even the second time around.  One new topic he brought up that just made us split a gut was GAMES… of today and yesterday.  He talked about his kids having all kinds of electronic stuff… and what did we have?  Nothing!  Each other!  Remember the game “Stare at the lightbulb”… and then closing your eyes for your own light show in your head.  I’m not even sure if my kids know you can do that? 

He also talked about the myriad of things we did as kids… and we’re ok.  We rode bikes without helmets.  We ate trans fats.  We drank out of the hose.  We rode in the Stationwagon without seatbelts.  We took candy from strangers… and it was delicious.  hahahahaha

I’ve not heard the extent of his guitar abilities until last night, and he is simply amazing.  Wow!  Anyway, if he’s in your area, GO SEE HIM!  And if he’s not, watch all his videos on youtube.  We’ve spent many a Tim Hawkins family night in front of the computer screen.  Good, clean, rich humor.  Five out of five stars.