"I Fell In Love in the Back of a Cop Car"

Yes, that's right…..oh! Keith Urban, how could you let this song out into the universe???  I have no words.  You've betrayed me:(  I heard this song while driving into Twin Falls, ID where I was helping my mom after her surgery.  (2 broken arms, plates & pins)  Crazy accident.  I always love seeing the FLAT fields with the big sprinklers.  We've lived back east for about 17 years now, but sometimes I still miss being able to see more than 10 feet around me because of the trees here.  I even miss the constant wind that whips across the sagebrush and carries away the elderly and small children.  My mom's friends don't go outside when it's windy because they're afraid they'll blow over.  You gotta have a healthy respect for the Idaho wind:)

As soon as I had made plans to go help my mom I knew I would be in Salt Lake so I emailed Leslea's Mission President and asked if I could run by and meet them.  When I flew in I went straight to Twin Falls because my mom's aunt that had been helping her was flying home the next morning.  So the only time I could meet them was on my way back from Twin Falls to Salt Lake to fly home.  I think I talked to her Mission President for about 10 minutes, but it was enough time to take a picture.  I didn't tell Leslea I was going out to help my mom, so I thought it would be funny to just email her the picture with no explanation.  So yesterday I happened to be at the computer when a bunch of emails came in from her.  This was our exchange:

Leslea:  wait...who are those people?!

Me:  I'm hurt…you don't even recognize me anymore :( 

Leslea:  WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE??  THE PICTURE IS TINY!

Me:  Sorry!  I thought you were kidding about not knowing me:)-- I'll try to send it bigger.

Leslea:  MOM?

Me:  Surprise!!

Leslea:  MOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!   WHHHHAAAATTTTTTTTT oh my goodness!  When did you meet them?!  Whoa!  Cool!  That picture made my day :) what did you talk about?

Me:  How awesome you are.  Sister Awesome, that is:)

Leslea:  Haha--good. I'll be looking forward to a long report in your email next monday then :) Love you!  

So, the 10 minutes with the Mission President was worth it:)  I still really miss her, but Mother's Day is coming up, so--Yay!

Sleep Donation? Sign me up!!

**From the author of the New York Times bestseller Swamplandia!, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an imaginative and haunting novella about an insomnia epidemic set in the near future.

A crisis has swept America.  Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep.  Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac.  Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps' reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city.

Sleep Donation explores a world facing the end of sleep as we know it, where "Night Worlds" offer black market remedies to the desperate and sleep deprived, and where even the act of making a gift is not as simple as it appears.**

Why didn't I think of this?  All these years of trying different things to cure insomnia and all I had to do was create a black market sleep ring.  I think I'll get started on that right away.  Anyone willing to donate sleep-let me know:)

(I think I'm going to buy this novella-get some good ideas.  Maybe there's also a "Sleep on the Black Market for Dummies" I can get on Amazon while I'm at it.)

Tiptoe through the….daffodils

I really hope we are done with snow…I don't want to jinx it and say we are done for sure, but it has been pretty warm (meaning more than 32 degrees) this week, so the flowers are starting to bloom-yay!  Bigfoot doesn't look happy but I assure you he is:)

Surgery may cause…..vegetarianism???

Let's start this post with a little backstory.  When I was younger I had a period of time where I really wanted to be a doctor or nurse-from when I was about 4-8 years old.  I think I was a doctor/nurse for Halloween a couple of times in that era.  Anyway, my mom wrote down this story:  One day while my mom was in the shower (I was about 4) the phone rang and I answered "Hello, this is nurse Nancy, do you need help?"  Luckily it was a good friend of the family and he played along and later told my mom.  Apparently I had done this a few times before when the phone rang and my mom was busy.  I'm not sure why I picked the name Nancy-maybe I saw it on TV or something.

Fast forward---a few weeks ago I had a surgery.  They had to do a few things beforehand, so a nurse came in to ask me some questions/take blood/start an IV--she said her name was Nancy.  I thought hmm-that's kind of funny.  So when I was out of recovery and back in the hospital room my nurse (a different one) came in and said, "Hi, I'm Nancy and I'll be the nurse helping you today."  I just about lost it even in my still drugged haze.  It was awesome.  

In the first week or two after I didn't really have much of an appetite and almost nothing sounded good. I have found that I now have some aversion to almost all meat.  Chicken still seems ok, but kind of iffy.  I have never had surgery before, but I guess this is some strange side effect, (probably just for me) which is fine--I have nothing against vegetarianism.  Juke has been a lifelong vegetarian (of his own choice) so I guess maybe I've joined him.  Below are some signs from my hospital room--notice the name of my nurse:)  Oh, and I had to get up and walk over to the door to take a picture of these signs--despite the "Fall Alert."  When nurse Nancy came in to get me up to walk around I didn't tell her I'd already been up and out of bed to take pictures-haha--but I didn't fall.

Now, another crazy medical moment--this one from my mom:

  On Sunday, March 30 she fell into a door in the garage and broke both of her arms.  Yes, both.  Her left arm is worse than the right.  Right now we're hoping she will not need surgery on the left arm, but she is going to the doctor today to find out.  Unfortunately, she will have casts on both arms for sure.

I have started a blog to send out information about her progress since she can't use a phone or email and there are tons of people calling/emailing and she just can't talk to everyone right now.  If anyone wants to keep up here is her blog:     joansbrokenarms.blogspot.com

Here we go...

Hello everyone-

Well, I had never done a blog until I started the one for Leslea's mission but I feel like I'm just putting random things about all of us in there so I decided to do one for the family (and no, this is not an April Fool's joke!)   People have been telling me they like keeping up on what we're doing so hopefully this blog will tell you all you need to know about our exciting life:)

So, we have been able to see some long, lost pictures from Paul's childhood and it's been awesome!  Here is my favorite picture of Paul so far and then a picture of Juke.  If Juke was a little younger in this picture it would be perfect:)  Notice any resemblance?  I think Paul perfected the "petulant pout" an an early age.

Here is a book that our friend (a lady Paul works with) gave me recently.  We had brunch at their house a while ago and of course Bigfoot came up-as it does in casual conversation-and I was telling them how I had been into the show "Finding Bigfoot" lately.  It's ridiculous and you should definitely watch it:)  They did a show in Pocatello, ID last year when Leslea was at BYUI and there was this college age guy in it.  I told Leslea to watch the show because maybe he was a student and she could look him up and they could bond over shared Bigfoot sightings.  Of course, the only sighting she has had was the one in our backyard, but that was probably about as real as anyone on that show has had.  "I believe there's a Squatch in our woods."

Now, on to the ghost in the house…over the last couple of weeks we have had strange things going on here.  Lights on when none were on when we left the house, Paul's computer just coming on when nobody is in his office…etc.  So, in the spirit of ridiculous TV shows, I think if this continues I will have to call the team from "Ghost Adventures."  Oh, by the way, Leslea and her friends used to watch this show (for fun they said, but later I got it out of them that they thought the guy in the middle was cute)

Or maybe I could track down the small lady from "Poltergeist"  if she's still alive, that is.  "THIS HOUSE IS CLEAN!"