Re: Walmart Story

Somehow Seth did not know the Walmart story. I don't know how anybody who has ever met me or my sisters does not know about this experience, since it is so freely shared with, well, THE WHOLE WORLD. But, for the record, here is the pot where I did my best to explain the "incident".

http://bergcircus.blogspot.com/2008/02/tagged.html

A "Walmart" story for ya. AND IT WASN'T ME!!!

My friend Seth makes me laugh. Really hard. And today he popped up on Facebook chat and made my whole day with this lovely little tale that's NOT ABOUT ME! He knows how to perfectly weave the details in a way that has me doubled over in laughter. Details that most people might not find amusing. Details that some people would find offensive. But, again, IT ISN'T ABOUT ME! Any story about somebody else pooping their pants is a story that makes me smile.

So, here's the whole chat between us. I hope that in the future, when I have an "unfortunate incident", that we can now call it a "Seth at EFY" moment, instead of a "walmart moment". Do you hear me, sisters?

Seth: dude! i went into the bathroom at work and had this flashback memory

and i immediately wanted to tell you!

Amy: ohhh kaaay

Seth: dont sound so happy to hear from me!

Amy: i'm scared! it's a bathroom memory!

Seth: yeah, i wish it took place in the bathroom

the time

at EFY

when i pooped my pants

Amy:NO

YOU

DID

NOT

That's MY job

Seth: i did. it was the worst

on the LAST day of EFY

the morning we were leaving

I get up out of my dorm bed. my roommate for the week was currently in the shower

i had some gas. time to get rid of it

bad choice

the next thing i know...

a whole gravy train of chili like beef stew going down my legs

Amy: TMI TMI TMI TMI

no, it's not. go on.

Seth: sorry. i love telling the details

and im in my boxers. so there is NOTHING stopping this

its going down

im just staring straight at the wall.

"NOo.. NOOOO!!!"

i start freaking out. scrambling!

what do i do!????

my roommate will be back any minute!

the room is stinking

my heart is racing

there is poop all over my legs

Amy: what did you do?!?!

i grab my favorite pair of pj pants

and start wiping it off

scooping it up

i throw the pj pants in the trash in the room

BURY it under the pizza boxes

Amy: grossgrossgrossgross

there is still more everywhere on the floor. i grab my only white towel for the wekk

start sopping more up

the towel gets used up

but its still all over

the key is beginning to unlock the door!

my roommate is coming in!

i run and push the door back!

he says" I need my towel, i forgot it!" he was in a robe

i see his towel

and stuff it under the gap in the door

"here! take it!"

he goes away

zoom i find more clothing to wipe it up with

now its this nasty brown, wet stain on the floor

my roommate comes in. i put my suitcase over the stain

i had opened the windows

HAHAHA

he DIDNT smell nothing!

Amy: did you know this roommate?

Seth: no

i met him that week

i take his towel to go shower off this crap all over me

i covered my legs so no one could see the brown trails still visible even after wiping it off with the pjs

i took the shower. dumped BOTH THE POOPY PJS AND POOPY TOWEL into the laundry shoot!

left the spot! got the hell outta there!

and made it back home to washington for dinner

and what was it? my mom's homemade beef stew

THE END

Is it just me? Is that right up there with our Walmart experience? I declare that it IS. I love it. People should soil themselves more often. It makes for a good story.

Again with the genetics

My son had an All About Me poster due today. We've had it for weeks. In a shocking turn of events I just remembered it last night and we were still working on it this morning, but that's not what this is about.

This is about his answers to the All About Me questions.

Not all of them. Just two of them. His acceptable answers were:

Favorite food: Chocolate chips
Favorite book: Anything about Cheetahs
Place I'd like to go: Hawaii
Thing I like to do: baseball

The two that caused me to make my "where have I failed as a mother" face were:

What I want to be when I grow up: A newspaper deliverer. So that I can always live at home with my mom and never have to move out.

AND

Something you might not know about me: I really love my mom. I love to sleep with her.

I didn't let him answer that last one like that. I think I made him wonder what he had said wrong, though. The way that I buried my face in my hands and shook my head back and forth while moaning might have given him that impression. Hopefully I fixed it when I forced a sweet smile and said that he was a little angel, but how about we just tell them that you have a dog named Max?

Oh, my boy, I know I'm full of pure awesomeness, but that doesn't mean that you can stay with me forever. Someday, you'll have to find you're own super hot amazing woman to marry. Somebody not named Mom.

Mackenzie does not support this post

Mackenzie just pulled a frozen dinner thing out of the freezer because she's "starving" and there's "no food in this house". Then she scrunched up her eyes and wrinkled up her nose and asked us how long this thing has been in the freezer and whether or not she was going to get sick. Of course not.

Chris: Wait, unless there's chicken in it. There IS chicken in it? Hmmmm....well, you probably won't DIE or anything, but you might get a tad sick. Just sick enough that you'll need to wipe with an ice cube.

Kenzie: Why an ice cube?

Chris: Because your diarrhea will burn so bad that the touch of toilet paper will make you scream cry.

Kenzie: Oh. Well, I've never had diarrhea that bad.

Chris: Have you never eaten at the fair?!

Ooooh, that made me laugh so hard. And I was all,  I'M BLOGGING THAT and Kenzie was like,  I do NOT support you blogging that. Good thing I'm the boss.

Hereditary Addictions

And another generation of our family becomes addicted to books. Hopefully their spouses won't hate it as much as mine does. It shouldn't be a problem as long as they don't let it interfere with cleaning, cooking, laundry, bathing, and everything else except for breathing and whatever book they're currently living in. Just look at the joy on their faces! I might have to read the book they were reading, if it's THAT good.

When Chris gets home and wonders what exactly I did all day...

He might look back at Black Friday a few years ago and regret getting me my Cricut. Here are just a few of the things it made for me today...



It didn't make this. I did. But isn't it SO CUTE?! IKR?! (I know right?...I just made that up. I'm so starting something with that one)



After I decorated that composition book, Kenzie asked me to decorate her binder. That's it so far. My Cricut made those letters for me.

Then I made these painfully cute little trick-or-treaters. I'm going to use them together on something bigger, but for now they're occupying my entry table with all the other autumnal cuteness.

And then it cut me out some black vinyl bats and such to decorate my hangy-downy light. Those are pretend spider webs, btw, I got rid of the real ones and replaced them with fake for the photo op.

 And, THAT, my friends, is what I have accomplished today. I do have the handy excuse that I'm ill...just in case he points out that the house is worse than when he left this morning instead of better. For some reason we just can not seem to agree that "cuter" IS better, he always thinks "cleaner" is better. Whatevs.

Ooooh, I think I love this one!

I'm not done crafting yet. I feel a few more projects brewing. Like this "Treats" sign.I apologize for the poor quality of this photo, but just go to her blog to see her real post. I love this and I think I know what I'll be doing tomorrow! I just can't help myself when it's all objects that I have around the house. Lets look at it as therapy for my Target withdrawals. If I can't spend money, then I might as well make cute stuff, right?

How many crafts have YOU done this week?

 Betcha NOT as many as I have! Here's the rundown of my autumn extravaganza of crafting...

My Fall wreath that nobody loves except for me. I love it mostly because it's made using 5 items from the Dollar Tree. If you cost Five Dollars I'll love you no matter how shabby you look.

My FAVORITE thing. My candy corn topiary. Again, almost free. A handful of candy corn from the bulk section at Winco, some eyeballs from the same section, a dowel that I already had, paint that I had, an old Christmas ornament as the ball that the candies are hot glued to, a canning jar that I already had. You get the picture. I love love love it. Can't wait to try a Christmas candy one next month!

OK, no, this is my favorite. I already had these blocks from an old, boring, Easter block set. I just spray painted them black, distressed the edges, bought 3 pages of Halloween paper for 41cents each, and started mod-podging. The kids even pitched in on this one! 

I made good use of the left over paper scraps and made these flowers. I used more dowels (painted white and wrapped in orange ribbon), some bedazzles, and a bucket I had in my cupboard. I love that it was free and took about 15 minutes!

My for real favorite thing is all of the old Halloween pictures that I pulled out to display with these new crafties. I love Halloween pictures even more than matchey-matchey Christmas jammy pictures.

Now go make some crafties and post them!!! Maybe you'll inspire me with even more ideas. I'm sure Chris would LOVE to see more craft crap around the house.

I should also mention...

That last post, the one with the first day of school pictures? Look at Kai. Notice anything missing?!?! No more glasses! She has contacts now and is ready to play volleyball without her  glasses flying off and getting stepped on. Pretty hot, isn't she? Pretty scary, isn't it? At least we can hold out on makeup for a little longer, I don't even want to think about adding any more cuteness factor to that child. Again, it's just not fair to those other kids at school. And she can't date yet, so that's just torturing all those hormonal middle school boys pointlessly. Let's go get her so new, ugly, glasses and some braces with head gear. That's more the look that I have in mind until she's...let's see....Um, 25. Think she'll go for it?

First Day of School for those other kids...

Kiki's LAST first day of school!!! Poor mom isn't taking this very well. Kiki, on the other hand is ready to make the most of her senior year and then move on to bigger and better things.

Kai's LAST first day of middle school!!! AND she made the 8th grade varsity volleyball team! We're so excited for her.

Mo's last first day of Primary school! Next year she's on to the Intermediate school, so this is her year as the big kid on campus. She's been great looking after little brother and I'm glad she's there for him this year!

Little dude goes to school

You were right. Boys get home from school and have no interest in talking about their day. Having been through Mackenzie, Kaila and most of all, Morgan, it was the strangest thing I've ever seen. It was like he had just run a half marathon and I was asking him what all he saw and did along his route. The exhaustion that he expressed at the thought of answering my queries was very real. Poor little guy could only say Mom, can we just go lay down for a while? I need a big drink of water and a rest. Later he added that he wishes he were still 3 years old so he could stay home because its just TOO long of a day before school gets unstarted.

I don't know how anybody could have less than a perfect day looking as good as he did, though. If I looked that good...well...I don't really know what I'd do. Walk around letting people bask in the glory of my cuteness? That might be inappropriate in Kindergarten. Makes all the other kids feel insecure about their own mediocrity.

By the time his dad got home he was ready to talk. He talked about his day. Lunch was his favorite thing about school. He liked recess, but No, I didn't play with any humans on the playground. Freakyyyy...

Now he doesn't have school again until next Wednesday because we're not on the half day schedule, we're on the Monday/Thursday/every other Wednesday schedule. I look forward to seeing when he'll make friends with some of those humans. That will be pretty cool. That will make me feel more happy about him leaving me all day.

Hello Juneau part 2

Back to why we went to Juneau! Grandma's wishes were that she be cremated and her ashes be spread where Grandpa's were. Some of their friends made arrangements to take their boat out, down the channel, past Taku Glacier, to the beautiful spot that she had requested. Here is a shot of the place where we stopped to spread her ashes. I don't think it captures the beauty of the area. Or how green the water is. It was breathtaking.

 
We all toasted her with her favorite drink, vodka. Ok, not all of us. Us non-drinkers and the children (hopefully non-drinkers as well) used Coke, but I'm sure she'd approve.

 Dusty spread the ashes

 I loved the shape that they made as they drifted. I think it looks like a sting ray.

 We had flowers to spread, as well as pictures from Stacy and her family and almonds with m&ms, something she always had available for visitors.


This is Romer and Lorraine (that spelling might be totally wrong). She took care of lots of things for Grandma, including being her pet taxi when Grandma's guinea pig needed to go to the vet.

 The boys and the friends enjoyed lots of great stories about her life.

 That's a familiar sight, Chris and Dusty laughing. I bet she loved seeing that.

 Dave telling a great story. Something about Grandma being a drug mule? Good stuff.

I loved being out there in that boat, enjoying the scenery that Grandma had spent her whole life around and remembering her like that. It was a great way to say goodbye to a great lady!

A is for Awkward

Things that my nephew has said to me so far this week. Things that I should be highly praised for not reacting to. It has taken all of my limited self control and I think it has contributed to my migraine today. I'm not used to holding back so much. Maybe you've noticed.

An example:

Me:Has anybody seen the power cord for the laptop?
Him:What does it look like?
Me:It's a big black thing.
Him:Oh, that. It's in my pants.

There are more. One involving asking me to pet his meat. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Hello Juneau. Goodbye Grandma Part one: Chopper ride

Thank you Sis!

At Temsco Helicopters. If you're ever in Juneau, I highly recommend them for their helicopter tours.

Beautiful blue glacier water.

Looking down on the Juneau airport. All three gates of it.

Aunt Stacy took this picture and now it hangs in Tempco's lobby!

The brothers and their step-sister, Stacy.

Mendenhall Glacier.

Craptastic

Yesterday I lost my mind. Not because of anything huge. With huge stuff, I'm okay. My coping mechanism kicks on and I do what needs to be done. Yesterday, though, yesterday just generally sucked. All the way around. If something could go wrong it did.

And Chris was in bed sick.

And I had just gotten over being sick.

And I was out of Thyroid Meds. And out of refills.

And it was the final tball game of the year. In the rain. And I was snack mom.

And kids needed to be picked up here and dropped off there and then get to that place across town...etc...

My favorite part of the day o' craptasticness? Let me tell you what it was. It was pretty awesome.

I was up to my elbows in sugar cookie dough. Dough that required me running to the store with toddlers to buy flour, because this recipe calls for 6 cups of flour and I had...oh...none. The dough was coming along well. I didn't even have kids "helping" me. They were outside playing in the rain. The rain that hasn't stopped since October. At all. Not helping the mood, Mr. Weatherman.

While I was rolling out dough, they came tramping in. Covered with mud, but, hey, what's a little mud going to hurt? Is it going to mess up my house? Hahaha. No. It's fine. But, wait. That doesn't smell like mud. That smells like somebody managed to find that magical spot in the forest that Max goes to to poop (thank you again, Maxy Waxy, for not pooping in our grass. you are a magical beast of love and you are my favorite, but don't tell the children. oh, wait, they know). Investigation revealed that Grant had a definite poop smear up the leg of his dressy-casual Adidas swishy pants that match his beautiful blue eyes just right.

Cleaning up dog poop is so much less appealing when you're in the middle of making adorable baseball sugar cookies for the final T-Ball game of the season. Cookies that OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN will be eating. Dog poop didn't seem like something that should be added to the 6 cups of flour.

Ewwwww...

Now I started wondering how he managed to get dog poop on his pants, but not on his shoes. That's weird. Not on his shoes, but ALL IN HIS UNDER WEAR. Nice. That's not even dog poop. That's your own poop. Where, son? Where did you take a dump? Oh, don't worry, mom, it's somewhere that nobody will ever ever find it. Really? That's great news, son. Now, how about we NEVER DO THAT AGAIN.

Looking back on it, I should have known right away that it wasn't from the dog. Why? Because I only wrinkled up my nose and cringed when I smelled it. Dog poop, on the other hand, dog poop will make me immediately projectile vomit every time. The slightest hint of that smell and I'm a puking machine. I find that it adds such a nice scent sensation for those present to be able to enjoy, not only the dog feces odor, but my vomit as well. Did I mention that this was a huge factor in us getting rid of Sadie Dog so quickly? The fact that she pooped outside of our bedroom door every morning and then I opened the door, smelled it, and threw up all over the house. Eventually, I learned to hold my shirt up and throw up IN MY SHIRT to save Chris from cleaning up both.

On that happy note, y'all have a great day. Mine is bound to be better than yesterday. I have my pills refilled, no games, no carpools, no cookies. All is well.

I could have a blog dedicated solely to the Pierces

I had ANOTHER child get their finger stuck beyond belief in a hole smaller than their phalanges. This time it was Grant. The hole was in the lid of a sippy cup.

We tried ice.

We tried butter.

We tried soap.

We tried vegetable oil.

We listened to Oak Tree scream-cry because her brother was crying. She was screaming so loud that Chris told her to take it outside. Her crying was drowning out her brother's and it was just too much.

Finally, Pierce came to our rescue with his bolt cutters and released the finger. Honestly, I don't know what we'd do without them. Yes, I do, we'd be at Urgent Care sheepishly asking them if they carry hack saws.

In case she was too fast for ya

Here are some pictures of Kai at her race...