What a 4th of JUUUULY!

Life happens and sometimes you can't control it. You just have to go with the flow. And so it was that this 4th of July weekend found me with 4 days off work and 2 weekend days sandwiched in between them.

Thursday we went to the zoo. I like the zoo. It's fun to see the animals and the twins are old enough to get out of the stroller more and they thought that was great. Of course their favorite thing was the snake slide in the kids playground. Michelle wanted to get there early and we did, arriving around 10am. We were done and had lunch and were out of there close to 1pm. Well what's across the street? "This is the Place" State Park. So we went over there and got to look at some of the old buildings and learn about pioneer days and gave my kids some appreciation for how much house we actually have. Michelle loved it because they have spinning and weaving there. I'm fascinated by the architecture of the old buildings. We went into the ZCMI store just as the storm blew in. So we got to sit and watch it dump rain and when it let up a little we darted across the street to the Huntsman Hotel and got ice cream. At this point I was tired and the twins were driving us crazy so we hopped the train to the entrance and came home.

Friday I don't remember much of what we did during the day...quite possible lazed around. That night we had the Round-about of Fire in our neighborhood. Only one announcement was made in Priesthood meeting and a flier was distributed 2 hours before it started and we still got 145 people there. Better attended than some of our more organized ward functions! We had some hot dogs and chips and desserts and watched a great fireworks show considering when the whole thing started we had 5 fireworks. Big thanks and shout out to the Hardy's for donating their stash and to the Wards for sharing the awesome finale.

Saturday we went to Michelle's brother's house for yet another 4th of July celebration. I was surprised at how many people were there...a lot more than last year. It was fun. Rob and Heather did a great job. I was disappointed by how many of those people left before we did fireworks but we still had a great show without them. :) The only thing I wish we had done was bring bug spray.

Sunday we had nothing planned...thank goodness because....

Monday we packed our minivan to capacity and went camping with Michelle's siblings and their families. It was fun despite the chaos of 3 families with 5 or more kids and trying to keep the twins from killing themselves. However, the grand tally of casualties was high in the bug bite department. Ethan and Adeena got eaten alive on their faces. While the rest of them were staying until Wed, we had to get back on Tuesday so I could go to work. Totally worth it. We got to stay the whole day and hang out but still slept in a real bed that night.

While we were there I had a couple of growing experiences as a parent. I tend to be over-protective as a parent knowing what kind of child I was. But Michelle's bro-in-law had brought a big ax and BB guns. So of course they pulled out the big ax to chop wood. Ethan asked and I said NOOOO. But as I watched and knew that this bro-in-law was supervising really well and had taught his kids the correct way to do it, I felt more comfortable. Not enough to let Ethan use the big ax but when another bro-in-law brought out his hatchet for the younger kids, I let Ethan have a whack at it...literally. I also relented and let him shoot a BB gun, much to his surprise. These are good life skills you may never know when you need them. And this bro-in-law, while kinda crazy sometimes is quite safety conscious and has been in scouts for a long time. I think that trip did me some good and helped me to see that my kids aren't going to be 4 or 5 forever. I have some very capable older children and I need to let them grow up like my parents let me. Only I'll do better when it comes time for them to leave home and I'll accept that they may not come back.

As birthdays go

Yesterday I officially turned 32. And boy did I make it hard on my poor wife. I haven't really thought about what I wanted for a birthday or Christmas very much, if at all. Michelle will attest to the fact that I'm the hardest to shop for. She has been pestering me for a while about what I wanted for a present. Then she asked what I wanted dinner and what kind of cake was my favorite and what kind of ice cream....if I wanted a party or not. It took me a long time to figure out answers to those tough questions.

But I did finally come up with some answers and she delivered wonderfully on all of them. And she was happy despite the intense effort the twins put forth to wear her down and make her cranky.

So I took half a day off work and went golfing at WestRidge Golf Course. It's a nice course and they have monthly specials for Mon-Thurs 9-3 play. Because I played as a single I got paired with a 2-some and another single. The first 9 holes took over 2.5 hours because we were all a little rusty and not doing quite so good...me especially. But then I was playing from the white tees for the first 3 holes while they played from the blue. I decided that wasn't really social and I was just out there for fun so I played the blues from there on out. For the golfing uninformed tee color determines length. Red = Women's tees(shortest distance to hole). White = Men's and Blue = Pro(longest distance to hole). I'd never played the blue tees before but found that the farther tee box also meant a little more elevation which increased my drive distance. And the second hole after teeing up at the blues, I found my drive. While my putting stunk, I had great drives from that point on for the most part. And the weather was perfect...hot but otherwise fantastic.

Then I went home and had a great time with my family and spent the time after kid-bedtime watching a movie with Michelle. As birthdays go, this ranks in the top 5. I even had two of my brothers call me to wish me a happy birthday. Thanks Glen and Kent.

Clubs(and not golf sadly)

Ever have a goal or project that you know is going to take a while and the motivation to just do it seems lacking? Join the club! No seriously. Recently a neighbor of mine suggested we form a writing club to help us both try and make some progress on our works in progress. Brilliant! I love to write and have 3 stories in the works plus some back stories for some role-playing characters. We just need more people to help the motivation.

My wife finds this helps her as well when she is knitting something that will take a while, she logs into her knitting forum and joins a knit-a-long where everyone in the group is knitting the same pattern. Then they all post pictures of where they are or of the finished product when they get there. Along the way they chat and encourage each other.

Those who know me well, know that in high school, writing wasn't a problem. Not only did I have classes that required it but I was in a groove. I tried writing for a local newspaper but they wanted facts and unbiased writing...meh, I put my emotions into everything I write. I think it's what makes it worth reading. I didn't last long. I still occassionally write poetry when an image or phrase grabs me. I've written lyrics to several songs. But the time commitment is small. And right now time is precious. Most of my writing has to do with school work on predefined topics with that logical, just-the-facts element. Most novelists seclude themselves and spend all day immersed in the medium. My work, school and family won't permit that currently. So when Ryan suggested we start a writing club, I was all-in. Although we both realized that it would be limited at the moment but the potential was there. Hopefully, this will mean more than a couple of paragraphs with appear in these stories.

Now if only there was a "putting up your vinyl fence and installing a retaining wall club". Oh wait, I don't seem to have the time for that either. :)

Days, Months, Years

Long road walked,
empty gas can in hand
desert stretching out on either side
of lonely pavement.
White and yellow lines
dragging onward
as they disapear over the horizon.
Cold nights, burning days
distance unmarked,
untracked,
wearily trekked.
Days blur into months
as knees sore from crawling
get rest on the sand
with the scorpions
as sleep, dehydration,
time consume the almost corpse
lying empty-handed on the side of the road.
Nobody else
has passed
because when his spiritual tank
went to empty
and he set out alone,
he stayed on the road
that got him to where he was
instead of looking for another
where friends,
family,
waited to refill his soul.

Grass

I posted more before I joined Facebook. Then after a while on Facebook I realized I wasn't updating MY status anymore, I was just reading everyone else's. Perhaps I find my life too mundane...maybe the writer in me is struggling because working with computers for so long has made me dead emotionally? Well, I doubt that. So my family has been dealing with a fair amount of drama lately between my mom going in for yet another hip replacement(on the same hip) and my brother's baby girl being born with a heart defect. And between everything that happened I found myself feeling again. Pulling out the pain and anguish and sorrow that fueled so much of my early work. So here I am to blog about none of that. I'm writing about grass.

When we had our house built it came with a "landscaped" front yard. Three bushes, grass and sprinklers. I ripped out their bushes and planted roses because both my wife and I like them. My neighbor's house was built a little bit after mine and when they finally put in this front yard his grass looked beautiful. Then I looked at my grass. We used the same builder, right?? Well, it turns out the the "company" they hired to do the landscaping on my house and several others bought the cheapest(and don't think I'm joking) sod they could, skimped on the sprinklers, pocked the extra and skipped town. So my yard looks like garbage 6 days a week until I mow it and then it looks ok for 1 day. But really this isn't quite the problem either.

I seem to be getting grass everywhere. I dug out an island in our front yard and we planted iris'. There is grass everywhere in there. We have a front flower bed where our beloved roses live that is half lawn. And yet when I look at some of the places where the grass SHOULD be, it's not. The lawn is patchy and inconsistent. So it feels a need to expand?? Can't it just grow where it's supposed to? (I ask the same question of my hair) Sadly, this means I'll be digging the iris' out of the island this summer, expanding it, tilling in something that isn't clay and putting some of that plastic edging stuff to try and keep the grass out. Unfortunately, I can't do that with my roses. They have struggled for so long. We have lost 2 and almost lost a third. I'm slightly beside myself with how to fix that but I bought some plastic edging for that too. Eventually we'll put in some pretty scalloped concrete but this is to stop the grass.

I've decided not to dwell on the grass/gravel that is supposed to be a lawn in my backyard. That takes too many deep breaths to think about.

The Cigarette Tax

I just read the article posted here: Cigarette tax and was glad to see it. Then I started reading the comments left by people. No, I didn't read the 279 pages worth but some of them were just....I couldn't believe it. So I posted my response and then realized that with it buried so deep it might never be seen but I feel so strongly about it that I'm posting it here as well. Why am I so passionate about it? I have asthma. It sucks and it isn't as bad as it could be. I hate to think that kids could suffer the same way because their parent's smoke. It's not fair. So here it is:

"Smoking is not only bad for your health it's bad for all of those around you. 2nd-hand smoke is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Yeah, not the guy smoking the cigarette, it's his wife, children, their friends. It those of us who have to walk out the same doors you spend your time puffing it up outside of. And good grief the stench! I hate getting in the elevator after someone who has just smoked was in it...the whole thing stinks! Luckily I'm only going up 3 floors because I can't hold my breath much longer than that.
If you could smoke yourself to death and never affect other people because of it, more power to you. If you could drink yourself to death and I could guarantee you'd never get behind the wheel with alcohol in your system, I wouldn't care. But this does affect other people. Innocent people. The ones who die are more often those who never smoked or drank. The lives of families are destroyed when none of them did anything wrong. Console yourself however you want but the truth will always be here staring back at you.
I want to be there when you tell your kid dying of lung cancer because they rode in the car with you while you were smoking when they were younger that you're sorry. I want to be there when you look in your grandchildren's eyes and tell them it's your fault their parent is dead. And then I want to see the hate on their faces as you leave the hospital for a smoke."

That's all I have to say about that.

April Fools gone very wrong

So this is how sad I have become. It was going to be a cleverly titled post about an event that could have happened. But I stopped mid-flow to go play ping-pong and I lost it. I sat down to continue and had nothing. My brilliance zapped by 4 games of intense, victorious paddle-swinging. Oh well. I needed to get some work done today anyway. :)