Fun with $2

First of all, I feel like I need to say that I am not a practical joker. I have never seen the humor in rolling someone's house or scaring the pants of someone. In general, if a prank has been pulled, I am not behind it. I have aided in a few, but I'm never the mastermind. This really is an exception.
I was at Walmart and noticed that they had those little stick figure family stickers on clearance for only $2. I don't typically put things on my car windows, but I know a few people who do. This is when I remembered something I saw on Pinterest. A guy had taken an extra woman sticker and placed it on his neighbor's car making their stick family look like a plural marriage. It took the neighbor weeks to discover it. Que the evil laughter.
My first victim was my friend Tiffany. Her family likes a clear car window as well, but after running a half marathon she put a 13.1 sticker on her back window. I happen to know exactly where her car is going to be at a certain time on a certain day of the week because she is in the running group I quit shortly after I started. So, while Tiffany was out training for a new level of sticker, I added a cat to her window.

Part of what makes this funny is that she has a cat that spends the night mousing in the garage with the car. It was my deepest hope that, if even for a fleeting second, she'd consider the possibility that the cat put it there.
It took her 2 and a half days to find it. Not bad actually.

My other victim was one of my dance mom friends. She already had a stick family on her car, but they were a different size than the ones I had so adding an extra kid (my first choice) was out of the question. Instead I gave my friend a cute little purse. I always love the purses she carries, so it seemed fitting. How long did it take her to notice? Well, let's just say I will soon find out if she reads my blog.

Tonight's sticking was for a single friend of mine. (singularly awesome) This is my fun way of saying that this is the only man she needs. I know she reads my blog so if she doesn't see it tonight, she'll get a laugh tomorrow. I was going to behead the man, but there is a good chance her ex will see this and I don't want to start real trouble.

Mainly I think this week has been so hard for this country that I needed a few minutes of silly. I needed to smile at something completely stupid. It was a good distraction for me, and I hope it has lightened the mood of others as well.

Animal Family

I took a psychology class half of one year in high school. I didn't learn much in that class, but I do remember a couple of very useful things. For example, the first day of class the teacher wrote a number on the board, told us all not to remember it, and then erased it. That number was

34 

I wish I was kidding.
I also learned that in any crowd of people there is always one person thinking about Abraham Lincoln.

Now, that person will be you. That is unless I am there because this little nugget worms it's way to the surface much more often than it should.So really I learned more about needing a psychologist than I did any real psychology.
One fun assignment we had was to draw our family as animals. My family looked something like this:

My dad is tough, but kind so he got the smiling rhino. To me, kangaroos are the picture of motherhood. My brother was actually in college at the time and taking a repelling class and cave exploring and it all just seem kind of monkey like to me. I actually meant it in a  nice way... I think. The tiny bird for me is pretty clear even if you haven't had my level of training in psychology.
I was talking about this with Rocky and the kids. We all took turns talking about what animal each of us should be. What you pick for yourself is always so telling. I think the animals we picked for each other are much more flattering, and probably truer. Here is how we ended up

Rocky was probably the hardest and we are still on the fence between bear and wolf. Either way I think it lands on cuddly and yet fierce. Rocky picked fox for me, and the kids chimed in saying that was perfect. We all quickly agreed that JD is our little capuchin monkey, and Nix is sweet and cute and caring like the river otter.
I'm working to embrace the idea of being more of a fox, but often inside I still feel like a little bird.

Rookie Mistake

Today I found that Walmart still had some of the classic hollow chocolate bunnies left over and were selling them for 25 cents. I bought 2. What can I say, I'm a splurger. The fun part is that I bought them for my husband and me, not the kids. While they were at school I took off the ears and delighted in my ability to eat chocolate in peace. It was glorious. Then, as we finished up dinner, my husband announces, "I'm going to go eat the ears off my chocolate bunny." He knew that they did not have bunnies of their own. He knew! I just shook my head. Rookie move there my friend, rookie move. The pleas started instantly.

  "Can I have one ear?"

        "I'll take the other!"

I love my husband very much. I'd take a bullet for him. Well, maybe a rubber bullet. My point is, I would and have gotten him out of holes before, but he was on his own with this one. He must have noticed my mix of smirk and glare because he did not mention the fact that I had my own bunny stashed in the back of the frig, and I was certainly not going to offer it up to sacrifice. 

To his credit, Rocky kept his head after the initial mistake. He pointed out the mound of Easter candy still sitting in each kid's basket. He declared that it was his special bunny because I had bought it just for him, and he was going to eat it. Then he took a big chunk out of the ears as they watched. To my surprise, they cheered him on. They even made suggestions on how to keep the rest of the bunny safe from them trying to sneak a piece. The best idea was to just lick the whole thing, but he decided that placing it in a ziploc on the back of the top shelf would do. 

(what is left of my bunny)

The kids did tease him a good bit about not sharing and there was some good sarcastic "How could you?" cries. Nix brushed it off by saying, "It's cool. I still have my peeps.", which was made funnier by the fact that she didn't seem to get why we were laughing so hard. It was probably because these are the peeps she meant.

Stay in the lines!

I was a slightly obsessive little kid when it came to coloring. Before I colored a flower, I wanted to know what color a real flower could be. Before I colored a bird, I wanted to know what kind of bird it was so that I could color it the right color. I didn't always stay in the lines, but if I went outside the lines it was with a purpose. I'd add in sky or grass or whatever I felt was missing from the picture. So, I did color outside of the lines but in a very controlled manner. Also, I like to put my crayons in the box in rainbow order, but that is a different story.
Our society has become one that greatly encourages people to color outside the lines, but that is mostly metaphorical. I'm all for thinking outside of the box, but there is one time when it is vital that we all stay in the lines. WHEN YOU ARE DRIVING! There is no room for free thinking on the road. You can not just decide to break free of the man and leave the constraints of conformity while driving down the road. Especially when there is on coming traffic on one side and a drop off into a stream on the other.
My town is full of twisty narrow roads, and not a day goes by that I don't see someone drifting over the line. Yesterday a mini van managed to get fully into my lane while  coming around a corner. Watching someone drive into your lane knowing that you have nowhere to go and no way to dodge them is a terrible feeling. She corrected just in time... this time.
This has become such a frequent occurrence on one particular road that I am giving serious consideration to taking an alternate route to my daughter's school. It will take me several minutes more, but minutes verse a head on, or even seeing a head on crash happen, seems like a fair trade.
I was recently explaining defensive driving to Nix, and I think she summed it up nicely when she asked, "So driving is like a very dangerous game of dodge ball where you try not to hit someone or get hit?"

Bank Shot off Grandma

It is not unusual for old southern churches to have a cemetery next to the church. With the way our small town has grown in the past decade, several of these small old cemeteries have become landlocked. In normal circumstances that just means that no one else can be buried there, but one local Methodist church has other issues.

(click the image to see it larger)

If you look at the picture above you will notice that from left to right you have the church, a preschool playground, the graveyard/ parking lot, and then the soccer field.
I occasionally have a dark twist to my sense of humor. It is those days when I start to wonder if this arrangement has been problematic for them. Do the kids run out on the playground and say, "I see dead people"? If you get a bad parking spot on Sunday do you say, "I had to park way out by old man Holbrook, God rest his soul."? If you kick a soccer ball and it misses the goal, but then banks off a headstone and rolls in the back way, is the point good? Are the little kids afraid that misbehaving children end up on the other side of the fence? When you reserve a grave plot do you get to park there until you die?
I can't be the first person to wonder these things. The church should consider adding them to it's FAQ page on the website.

The Prayer Competition

We have family prayer time each night before bed, and like everything else, my kids have to try and turn it into a competition. The first issue we ran into was who was going to pray in what order. They created unofficial rules. The same person can't be first twice. You can't keep picking the same person to go last every night. JD thrives on patterns and order, so he would have some idea of how he thought the order should go, which was often a bad thing if he wasn't doing the picking. Finally the parents had to step in and create actual rules. If you get picked last tonight, you go first tomorrow. We will go in age order from youngest to oldest in a loop. I can not believe I have had to make up rules so that we could pray peacefully.
It was at this point that I started questioning if the kids were taking prayer time seriously. We all had a good long talk about how it was talking with God and a special time. I decided that they had become too repetitive as well and required them to add one thing different each night. It could be something they were thankful for, a friend in need, or a personal request. I wasn't picky, I just wanted them to really think through their prayers. That started out as a great success. I was all ready to congratulate myself on a stroke of genius when JD ended his prayer, "Amen. Ha! I got 3 extras. Top that!" After which Nix proceeded to add 5 things to hers. On the one hand, they were thinking through things and really had nice long prayers, but on the other prayer is not a competition! Time for yet another talk.
We've been on a good run lately with the exception of the night Nix prayed for rain and JD prayed for no rain. That night added the no contradicting each other clause. I'm starting to really understand how the Jewish law grew from 10 simple commandments into the rather lengthy combination of Levitical law, Mosaic law, and tradition. Maybe those children of Israel were just as competitive with each other as the children of our house.
One kind of cool thing has come of this though. Being picked last at prayer time is a place of honor in our house. So, if you are a guest and are picked last to pray it means that the kids want you back tomorrow so that you can lead prayer time, and choose the order.  JD has tried to use this as a tactic to get grandparents to stay an extra day.