Opportunity

"We will open the book.
Its pages are blank.
We are going to put words
on them ourselves.

The book is called Opportunity and
its first chapter is New Year's Day."

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Minnesota Fun

Application for Minnesota Citizenship

Personal Information:

Name: ___________________son

Sex: ___ Ole ___ Lena

Home Address: ________________

Cabin Address: ________________

Religion: _____ Lutheran ______ Catholic

Income: ____We do OK. ____We're Blessed. ____Mind Your Own Hotdish.

Qualifications: (check all that apply)

___ I own a gas powered ice auger.

___ Fargo floods hit a little close to home.

___ I can name a dozen celebrities who've stayed at the Mayo.

___ I can name a dozen celebrities who've stayed at Hazelton.

___ I've been trick or treating in two feet of snow.

___ My grandmother made me eat lutefisk.

___ I liked it!

___ I've been to a block party.

___ My first beer was an Old Milwaukee.

___ My snowmobile has more miles on it than my car.

___ I have a back up set of jumper cables in my trunk.

___ Despite what everyone else says I DON'T HAVE AN ACCENT!
(Yah! For sure, you betcha I don't.)

True/ False:

___ I actually listen to telemarketers.

___ "Have a Nice Day" is an ORDER!

___ TV news anchors are celebrities.

___ Part of my tongue is on a flagpole somewhere.

___ It's not a rubber binder! It's a rubber band.

___ They mistake pop for "soda" or "coke" in most other states.

___ Hot Dish is neither a beautiful woman nor an overheated plate.

Multiple Choice:

It's time to wear a hat when:

A) The temperature is below 10 degrees.

B) Your mother tells you to!

C) The temperature is -10 and the wind chill is in double digits.

Essay Question:

What "UFF-DA" means to me: _____________________.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You know you're from Minnesota when...
Your idea of a traffic jam is 10 cars waiting to pass a tractor.

"Vacation" means going to Brainerd for the weekend.

You measure distance in hours.

You know several people who have hit deer more than once.

You often switch from "heat" to "a/c" in the same day.

You use a down comforter in the summer.

Your grandparents drive 65 mph through 13 feet of snow during a blizzard, without flinching.

You see people wearing hunting clothes to social events.

You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both doors unlocked.

You think of the major food groups as venison, walleye and Old Milwaukee.

You carry jumper cables in your car and your girlfriend knows how to use them.

There are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at the grocery store at any given time.

You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and flannel p.j.'s.

You know all four seasons; almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction.

It takes you 3 hours to go to the store for one item, even when you're in a rush, because you have to stop to talk to everyone in the store so you appear to be "Minnesota Nice".

You actually understand these jokes...

You Noticed Me! You Really Did!

Oh! I didn't see you there at first. I've been so busy baking Christmas cookies for the last two weeks that I've hardly had time to think about this blog, much less it's readership. So you'll understand my surprise when I checked my stats and discovered a rather large and glorious upswing in my page views. Specifically, it went from "none" to "some".

I've had these odd little blips before and I know it doesn't lead to sustained, long-term readers but I thought I would throw out this offer anyway: If you come back, I can promise you lots of stories about boobs and poop and crazy children antics. And I'm sure my long time readers (Hi Dad!) will vouch for and tell you that I can occasionally be amusing or interesting.

I'm like a car wreck where the cars are driven by clowns. You can't look away and you feel a little bad for laughing but come on, it's clowns in a car wreck! There are giant floppy shoes all over the highway.

Okay, I lied! I'm nothing like a clown car wreck. I'm more like a housewife who's trying to avoid her domestic responsibilities.

Doesn't that sound fun?

Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

Too Much Info - You Have Been Warned

CHILD WARNING -- Do not proceed if your child can read.

There is just NO TIME for love in the morning! Not to mention... the need for "porno sex" (definition: NO KISSING) due to horrific morning breaths on both parties! UGH!

Sigh... it is sad when sleep takes precedence over sex. But it happens! And as a parent of several children, I am here to warn you that sleep will ALWAYS take precedence over sex to this mommy.

I remember when I first met Hubby a bazillion years ago. We could be spontaneous and carefree and... and... often. It was nice.

I miss those carefree days of getting naked at a moments notice and playing a little grab ass for hours on end. Sleep?! We didn't need no stinkin' sleep.

Okay. Er, well... let's be honest. Perhaps Hubby wasn't up to hours on end, even back in The Day -- but it was more than it is now from BOTH of us.

Several years and several kids later, things are just a tad different. Let me start by saying while my desire for Hubby has not waned [much - we are being honest, right?!], my energy level sure as hell has. Particularly shall we say in the morning. Let me say it LOUD so there is no mistaking.

I DO NOT LIKE SEX FIRST THING IN THE MORNING! I really don't get it. Yes, I know that most men are, shall we say "at attention" first thing in the morning. But surely, my finger-in-a-light-socket hairstyle and morning breath should fix that little problem.

What's that you say? I should get up and brush my teeth and fix my hair.

"What you say, Willis?!?"

What's the point?

By then I'm up and if I'm up, I need to be getting ready for work or start fixing breakfast, or begin tending to little ones. Mornings at my lovely estate do not lend themselves to quality lovemaking. And while a quickie every now and then is supposedly okay, I'm more about the quality loving.

When I question Hubby's rationale for waking me up at o'dark thirty for a little mattress mambo, I truly believe that somewhere in the depths of his mind, he thinks maybe I'll come around.

To which I say with utter defiance - As if! Not likely!

Try to catch me in the afternoon. Perhaps, catch me just before bed. Hell, wake me up in the middle of the night with a nice round of foreplay. At least then I'll know I can get a few more winks of beauty rest before I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to face the perils of each day.

So Hubby, my parting words to you are this, tread very lightly when it comes to morning lovin'. The next time I feel that familiar poke and/or the familiar boob grab while slurpin on my neck and the birds are simultaneously chirping -- don't be pissed if all you get in return is loud snoring or more likely, are met with the stinging of a king size pillow smack dab on the side of your cheek.

Don't say I didn't warn you...

If the birds are a chirpin', don't come a slurplin'!!!

Strange, Freaky Phenomenon

Wow... there have been quite a few friends with serious martial problems recently. I swear that divorce (and babies for the newlyweds) have been in the water. SIGH!

It's so devastatingly sad. Each time I hear about the struggles of couples who seem to have it all together and have been together for a while, it breaks my heart and makes me question my own marriage. Will we make it? Do we have the strength, proper communication skills, trust-worthiness or whatever magic ingredient it takes to stick it out? We certainly take each other for granted and bicker quite often -- and that is when we are on speaking terms. I don't know.

Divorce is one of those strange, freaky phenomenons that you think will NEVER EVER happen to you. It's the adult form of naive-ness. Teenagers think nothing bad (at all) will ever happen to them. Adults believe they are Divorce-Proof! Then, one day, BAM! You wake up next to a stranger who is supposed to be your life-long partner...

For our gossip-happy, celebrity-crazed reading pleasure, here is a list of some memorable Celeb Splits from the 2000's.

http://www.totaldivorce.com/blog/2009/12/21/decade-of-divorce/

P.S. Can you believe we are almost into a brand new decade?!?!?!

Borrowed Material

As a parent who has children who refuse to sleep and are just plain ol' awful sleepers, I was thoroughly amused by this Daddy-Blogger's (Dorky Dad: Where testorerone and hope go to die) post about "The Child Wake-Up Theorem".

The Child Wake-Up Theorem

I need to talk about a serious problem that every parent faces. It's a problem that they don't tell you about in parenting books or in seminars or in the media. Nobody talks about it, because they know the moment they say something about it, you'll take a vow of celibacy to avoid having any children -- which, by the way, is the same reason nobody talks about potty training to would-be parents.

I'm talking about the fact that kids never, ever sleep in when you want them to.

This is the Child Wake-Up Theorem: The likelihood that a child sleeps in decreases the more that child's parents want them to sleep in.I had to wake both of my kids up this morning. They slept in because I didn't want them to. The Boy had a bus to catch, which provides me with a nice, stressful deadline, which is just what I need in the morning. (For those of you who do not know, I'm what one would call a "night person." And being a "night person" makes me "grumpy" in the mornings. Ergo, a deadline makes it worse.)

The Sequel was relatively easy to wake up. I just lift him from the bed and he is virtually helpless, especially when I'm an uncomfortable ride because I'm jogging from one room to the next trying to get everything done before I have to go to work.

The Boy is not so easy. When he decides it's time to sleep in, it frequently takes a series of pulleys and a team of big horses to extract him from bed. And you'd better make sure that the straps are on tight, because the skinny little thing will find a way out of them if you don't.

This never fails. When I need them to wake up, they sleep in. When I want them to sleep in, which is on most weekends, they insist on getting up as early as humanly possible, assuming they went to bed in the first place, so they can get their full day's worth of shouting and jumping and laughing and crying and leaping upon Dad's sensitive body parts.

I should be used to this by now, for I've had offspring for five years. But my body still expects to sleep in on weekends and on holidays and I feel cheated when I don't get to.

(By the way, I also feel cheated when I have to wear nice clothes to work on Friday, when we normally get to wear jeans; maybe I could just change whenever my dressy-uppy meeting is over ...)

So when The Boy or The Sequel wakes me up early on a weekend, he reduces me to a whimpering mass of humanity, a sad spectacle for anybody who holds fathers in high regard. I do what comes naturally -- I whine, I cover my head with the pillow, and I dive underneath the covers, all the while begging the kids to please, please, for the love of all that's right in the word go ... back ... to ... sleep.

But it never happens, and I'm afraid it never will. It's our curse, as parents, to this fate.

So maybe I should get to bed.

Brethren in the Trillions

I don't like snow. That is to say, I don't like large amounts of snow. It's the inches and inches and inches and feet of the stuff that we get here in Minnesota that I'm not so crazy about.

On an individual basis snowflakes are ok by me.

It's much easier to appreciate them when they each look like a unique, individual piece of art than it is when they (and 140 trillion of their brethren) are blocking coating your sidewalk.

P.S. This is a photo from last winter because I have been too lazy to suit up and take pictures yet. plus with Christmas, my excuse is life was just too busy. Now I need to find a different excuse...