Someone stole my cart!

Story for Sisters in Seattle

 

I will share this story in a different format -- I will let my sister be the author and I will let you see how our editing exchanges took place at the end. Read ON:

Melissa, Marci, Janie, Jess, Colette - Seattle Temple
LOVE these Ladies

 

Janie's Perspective on our trip to Costco

 

Colette, Jessie and I stayed in the car while Melissa and Marci ran in to Costco. They were taking FOREVER so Colette kicked back in her seat and tried to snooze and we talked for awhile. Melissa and Marci kept texting saying things like "Marci is loving it in here -it's her first time in Costco" and then they'd send us pics of clothing items to ask our opinion. They finally said they were getting close to coming out, so we found a parking space near the front of the store and watched for them to come out.

 

Then the following happened: A man came out of Costco with a full cart. A woman pulled up and opened the trunk. As the man put his first load of groceries in the trunk, his cart rolled backward across the parking lot, and, get this - right into the cart return!! At that same moment, a van pulled up and stopped right between the man and his rogue cart. He couldn't see his cart due to the van, and as he turned to get another load, he threw his hands up and grabbed his hair (he was kind of a Norwegian ski-bum looking guy, longer blonde hair, big build) and yelled "SOMEONE TOOK MY CART!" Then he banged on the driver's side window where his woman was sitting and yelled again, "SOMEONE TOOK MY CART!" Then he kind of started running around, back and forth, yelling "SOMEONE TOOK MY CART!" in his Norwegian ski bum accent. If I remember correctly, there were a few swear words thrown in there too. Colette and I decided to help the poor man out and rolled down our windows to tell him. I said, "It's over here!!" but he was kind of frantic at this point and just looked at me and kept yelling "SOMEONE TOOK MY CART!" Then, Colette, in her gentle voice said, "Sir! Sir! Excuse me! Your cart rolled over here!" He heard her, finally and went over to get his cart, parked right in the cart return, still full of groceries. He just kept swearing, and didn't even turn to tell us thank you or anything...

So there you go. Don't let anyone take your cart

 

Jess the Queen chimes in:

Jane, thanks for retelling this story. I love it! However, do you think Colette could have yelled to a point where that man could hear her with her soft voice? I think that part might be a little off, but no worries that my name was replaced with Colette's. I love it anyway.

 

Back to Jane

Oh no! Sorry I messed that part of the story up. As I was retelling it I felt like a person trying to describe a criminal event (am I getting the details right?) Anyway, sorry.

Jane the insane

In talking to Jane the Insane about this after the email exchange, I stood up for myself (and my quiet voice) when Janie told me that Jess was the one who yelled out to the guy by telling Janie, "Jess probably had to clear her throat before yelling to the guy."

 

 

One last funny for the day, Marci told us to smile for a picture at the pier. We pulled a "Marci" -- look at our eyes. Hahahaha -- we love you Marci!

Time for Dandelions

I wish I could just freeze time -- often. The other day my seven-year old matter-of-factly announced, "You know Mom, it is getting to be time for me and and my friend to start picking dandelions again."

This one is from last year - girls are still friends, such cute girls

Last year, the girls picked dandelions every day on their way home and refreshed the bouquet on my table. Dandelions are such a happy flower don't you think?

Well, I do feed 'em . . .

I sat back at my daughters' violin recital yesterday and just enjoyed the beautiful music and appreciated all the time and effort every student put into their performance (including effort of parents).

Then, afterward I happened to notice one little detail about daughter-in-black's leggings:

 I'm not kidding. That is scotch tape. She has been in the habit lately of mending her clothes with scotch tape. This isn't the first time I've noticed her resourcefulness, I think I've seen her self-mend four pairs of pants in the same way. Just look below for evidence of that :-)  however, I definitely wouldn't have approved of her wearing scotch taped-leggings to her violin performance, had I known.

I mentioned my observation to the violin teacher who just laughed and said she noticed the tape and just thought, "Well, I guess she wanted to tape her pants."

Then, this morning, on the way into church, I looked at my son walking in front of me. This is what I saw: 

Can you see the tag?

We were within a hair of being late for church and I know how long it takes this kid to get dressed each morning. So, I just let him go in this way. I wondered if people would really be able to notice. From the front, it wasn't too obvious.

Don't worry though, the nice person sitting behind us in church pointed out the tag :-)  

Chuckie Cheese

Have you ever been to Chuckie Cheese?

It is the kind of place I heard about on television commercials as a child. It was in the "city". Like, not Preston, but Salt Lake City.

Once I moved to the suburb of a really big city, my time had arrived. Keep in mind, this was about eight years ago. We went to Chuckie Cheese with some friends. I couldn't figure out (while I was there) who in the world would take their kids to this germ-infested, chaotic place.

Oh, that would be me. Too many times.

We went there for my son's birthday a few years later. And, again as rewards for becoming potty trained. Sheesh, I was a pushover for Chuckie's toothy grin.


Here is where the slightly embarrassing-but-not-enough-to-keep-off-the-blog confession comes:
"We bought too many cups of soda, meaning the actual cups themselves."

So, me being the ever-frugal woman that I am, thought, "Oh, we'll be back, I'll just keep these in the cupboard until next time." Next time came. Again. And probably Again. And, either we'd forget the cups or we bought the package deal that already included drinks. Until this time - heh heh :-)

I'm not kidding. I kept those cups up in the top of my cupboard for years.

When my youngest child finally earned her "night-dry" potty training reward, I happily pulled out my Chuckie Cheese cups. To my suprise, I found about 25 tokens (coins) and a gift card for a bowling alley (??) in addition to the three cups.

I was careful to order non-drink-included pizza meals and I proudly marched my saved cups over to the soda fountain. The kids began their fun and I began the wait, I mean the fun, of watching them. My husband joined us about halfway through the adventure which sure made the whole thing better. Towards the end of the party, I told him about my great "find" in the old Chuckie Cheese cups. He then told me that one of the workers had incredulously asked him, "Where did you get those cups, we haven't sold those in six years?!"

What a great story isn't it? I am going to chuckle about this for a very long time. You can't ever accuse me of not getting my money's worth.

I will crush you

This one has been waiting in the blog "dock" for some time now, the problem being that I haven't felt particularly humored by it in the first place. However, my friend got me laughing about this so much that I just have to post it.

I will go through time backwards so you'll read this post and then need to re-read it so everything will make sense.

The other night, I got to have dinner with some friends and on the way to the restaurant the general bantering of our children went on for a few minutes. I casually gave my prediction of my youngest daughter's social life as a teenager (she is only four).

"She is the best hugger and can easily get people wrapped around her feminine little fingers. She'll get a guy on her devious little hook. He'll buy her all kinds of goodies and when she gets tired of him, she will crush him."

My friend chimed right in, "We know. We found out when your family sang in church. She looked around the congregation and individually crushed each one of us."

(Her comment is what brought on my laughing, belly laughing over the whole incident - and thus the swapasmile post).

Going back about six weeks, my little family - my children and I -- performed a musical number in Sacrament Meeting of our regular 3-block church time. I know we were quite the spectacle, which is why I have pushed it back in my mind and memory.

Two weeks prior, we got a "friendly" call from Sister So-and-So asking if we, I mean they could present the song, "I Lived in Heaven a Long Time Ago". I confidently assured her that my children would be happy to do so.

I immediately enlisted the help of a talented musician in the ward who might be able to help jazz up the song a bit so that my amateur musicians might be able to perform it. With two children playing the violin and one son willing to put himself out there for just about anything, I thought it would be a snap. I was SO. Very. Wrong.

The Talented Musician gave me three ideas of ways to perform the primary song. I immediately went to task teaching, cajoling the children for practicing this pieace. Let me remind you of my timetable -- TWO WEEKS. My youngest daughter immediately said, "Nope - I'm not going up there." My other children were OK with it. My daughter - the oldest - made such a valiant effort to learn the piece. My son gave me heartburn every time we tried to practice. His ideas were different than mine.

When The Talented Musician :-) agreed to accompany us on the piano, she suggested I sing with the kids, to which I replied, "No, they will be abe to do it." (I was secretly thinking, "there is no way I am going up there). She also suggested that since the youngest wouldn't play her violin, she could at least just hold a picture of Jesus Christ. I thought, "yeh, that could work".

Saturday morning, the day before the performance arrived and we were all (The Talented Musician, myself, three "happy" children, and a very nice violinist/techy guy in the ward) at the church building for a rehearsal. It did not go well. I knew, then and there, that I would need to get up on that stand and sing the song.

I don't think I have ever truly felt like I was going to throw up at the thought/idea of performing (my only comparison is high school track - the state track meet ---agghh). I called The Talented Musician and said, "I need a pep talk, I am really nervous about this." Of course, she reassured me and told me to just sing right in my son's ear and no one else would hear me (I don't sing soprano - let's cut to the chase here).

Fast forward to the Sunday performance: we went up there, all four of us. My violin-playing daughter, the happy one, sang her little heart out as though she were Carrie Underwood herself (our performance included one verse of all of us just singing and then two verses of just two of us singing while the other played the violin - the youngest child was the wild card who was supposed to chime in whenever she pleased and hold up a picture of The Savior, who Himself must have gotten a real kick out of this whole ordeal).

I kept my son in tune with the piano and violin (which is MUCH harder than I ever thought it would be - to help a child do this) and fidgeted with the picture the youngest was supposed to be holding up, all while singing with a smile on my face.

Believe me, there was no faking the HUGE sigh of relief I gave when that was over.

I later found out that my sweet, little, "Best Hugger" daughter, stood up there and scowled the entire time.  She didn't crack a smile.

Now you know why I have kept this under wraps. I think I am getting nervous hives just remembering it all.