My Big Fat Greek Friday

In case anyone was wondering what I did for fun last night... I'll tell you. I went out with some girlfriends for Greek food and it was fan-freaking-tastic! Oh my gosh.... so so so so good! (And I have leftovers. I think I'll break them out as soon as I post this, actually.) We went to:





This time we got smart and ordered two plates of bread/hummus when we got there. (Last time we ran out before our food came and we had to fight over the last piece of pita bread. It was a black day, let me tell you.) This time we had enough to last until our hot plates of yummy squewered chicken and lemon potatoes got there. Oh my gosh. It was, in a word, divine. For dessert we ordered the flambed baklava. Which, I am bummed to have to tell you, was not as delicious (or exciting) as I had hoped it would be. The baklava itself wasn't fantastic (you can't beat good baklava - but bad baklava is just... well... bad), and our waiter was new (and nervous) so he brought it to our table already on fire. (I like it when they light my food on fire table-side. It's so much more exciting that way.) The good news there is that the table across the way from us had a different waiter, who did know how to light stuff on fire, so at least I got to see one good flame go up - even if it wasn't for the dessert I paid for. Oh well.... :) After dinner (because we were bummed that we didn't love the baklava) we went and got





and a movie, then went back to Jo's so she could put her kids to bed (her hubby was out of town on a scout campout) and watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding and laughed ourselves sick.



(This is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Oh my gosh, so blinkin' funny. The way she says "hor-mon-ees" gets me every single time. In fact, I giggled just now as I typed that out. Are you kidding me? Who talks like this? Seriously.)






Oh, it was a fine fine Friday night for me. I didn't get home until after 1:00. We just sat and talked and laughed.... it was a great night. And now I'm gonna dig in to my leftovers. Oh, heck yeah - good times!

FFA: Write a letter to someone apologizing for something you're not really sorry for.

Dear Sister So-n-So,

I'm so sorry I had to miss the baby shower thrown by the ward for the triplets you're about to deliver. I know the invitation/sign-up they passed around Relief Society on Sunday suggested that you were in need of diapers, binkies, wipes and... well, everything. The thing is - I wasn't sure exactly what to get you, since you already seem to have an endless supply of baby supplies and boy clothes - what with the 4 boys under the age of 7 you already have. I thought about buying a big pack of diapers, but then I remembered that you like the old-school cloth kind, and wasn't sure where to go to buy them. Besides which, I had something come up (can we all say "SATC came out this weekend"?), so I was otherwise occupied for the afternoon. My apologies and deepest regrets that I couldn't be there for you and yours. Keep me on your mailing list, though. Hopefully I'll be able to make it next time.

Sincerely, Laurie

Kindred Spirits

I just finished re-reading my book club's book of the month, and I must say... I love this book more than I'd remembered that I did. (And I'd remembered that I loved it quite a bit!) This time it was more poignant than funny, which surprised me. I'd read it beginning to end twice, and little pieces of it at a time over and over again - and always, I'd found it laugh-out-loud hilarious. This time (while it was still funny, don't get me wrong), I found myself pondering my own early childhood more than I previously have. Today I've been relfecting on my early years, on so many of the fantastic and not-so-fantastic things that happened in my own childhood in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I've been incredibly blessed in my life to know a lot of amazing people - and a lot of those people are from home. I'm incredibly grateful for my small-town heritage, for the town that raised me every bit as much as my own parents did.

For any of you out there who haven't read Zippy... do yourself a favor and check her out. Haven Kimmel is a gifted writer. She can write about nothing - compellingly, for 200+ pages at a time. Which, as you can imagine, I think is totally awesome!

FFA: Who should play me in the movie version of my life?

Easy-peasy. Vivian Leigh.

Hahahahaha... I'm laughing out loud at that one. Hahahahaha.... Wow, that was funny.

Okay, back to reality. Uhhhhh... me, of course. Anyone who knows me knows that I know no bounds when it comes to what I'll do/say/tell to get a laugh, let alone the fact that I crave an audience. (Besides which, I know the material better than anyone else.) Forget that I'm not a famous actress, I hereby nominate myself for the role of... myself. The End.

Oh, that's not what we were going for? You wanted an actual celebrity? Okay... well, if I can't get Vivian Leigh, and if we lived in an alter-reality where Rosie wasn't so butch, and so well known for.... well... being butch (because I most certainly am not butch, by anyone's definish), then I'd take Rosie O'Donnell, hands down. Not only do I think she's so stinkin funny that I know she could play me well (note: this is back in the day when she was known for stand-up, and/or when she had her talk show, which... to this day was about the funniest day-time talk show I've ever seen in my life... I do love Ellen, don't get me wrong, but... dang, Rosie was funny back in the day when being funny was what she was known for), not to mention (and I hesitate to share this with those of you who didn't know me in my 20's)... back in the day I use to get told ALL THE FREAKIN TIME that I looked like her. I mean...strangers would tell me this...all the time. A lot of it was our coloring, more than that was the fact that we had similar hairstyles (it was the early 90's - who didn't have wacky hair?), but I like to think that a most of it was that she was absolutely hysterical. She had a way of saying things off the cuff that would make people laugh out loud - and I like to think that I can (and do) the same.

Yeah, that's right. I'd pick a comedienne (back in her glory days), rather than a famous actress, to be me. What does that say about me, I wonder? Whatever, I don't even care. I'm about the laughs, anyway. So yeah, I'll take Rosie. Hands down. Just make sure she's wearing make-up and that her hair is properly Laurie-fied, y'hear?

Rosie & Me circa 1993.

Rosie and Me circa 2006.

We don't look as much alike as we did back in the day, but still....

Apparently I'm the Inspiration (insert background music by Chicago)

You Are An ENFP

The Inspirer You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends. You are also unconventional, irreverent, and unimpressed by authority and rules. Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives. You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're quite the storyteller! In love, you are quite the charmer. And you are definitely willing to risk your heart. You often don't follow through with your flirting or professed feelings. And you do break a lot of hearts. At work, you are driven but not a workaholic. You just always seem to enjoy what you do. You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist. How you see yourself: compassionate, unselfish, and understanding When other people don't get you, they see you as: gushy, emotional, and unfocused

What's" Your Personality Type?

Blustery Days & "Stolen" Trampolines

Yeah, so... check this out. My parents' trampoline got blown onto the top of the house on Friday. Yup, a gust of wind picked the sucker up from the back yard and hurled it onto the roof. In-freakin-sane.... My mom and Ty had gone to the store, and when they came back the tramp wasn't in the back yard. It was totally gone, only one leg left standing. My mom thought "who would steal a trampoline and leave one leg?", and then remembered that one of the legs had been bent, and then it made sense that they'd leave that leg. ( Well... not really, because the thing wouldn't be able to stand w/o the 4th leg, regardless of whether it was bent or not. ) Anyway, she just chalked it up to "random people stealing random things" and took the groceries into the house and forgot about it. A couple hours later, the next-door neighbor called and asked my mom why the tramp was on the roof. Uh.... bizarro!

The truly freaky thing is that Friday was a NICE day - not a windy day. She said there were a couple gusts of wind, but not the typical all-day-long wind that's usually happening in Taylor-town this time of year. How insane is this?

FFA: What Family Traditions Could I Live Without?

Okay, seriously... I've been giving this one a lot of thought - all week long - and I cannot come up with a thing that I'd change. Our clan is a little, well... nontraditional, I guess, when it comes to traditions. We do our own funky things - kind of a lot of funky things, actually - but I wouldn't change them if I could. Nope, I thought of a lot of funny stuff this week, but I didn't think of one thing that we do that I wouldn't want to do, given the option. Here's just a little sampling of what we think is fun at our house during the holidays (or, uh... any day, frankly):

We eat the rolls as soon as they come out of the oven, while they're still hot and yummy. And we do the same thing with the turkey. And with the mashed potatoes. Really, Thanksgiving and Christmas (or any other random day of the year that we're home and Mom chooses to cook a bird, and/or bread), it's like a free-for-all when it comes to the food. If you're not comfortable pulling the turkey right off the bone, dipping it in the gravy that's cooking on the stove, and stuffing it into your mouth like it's the last thing you're ever gonna eat... Well then, you might not get any. Period. I'm not kidding. More than once, the potatoes and gravy have made it to the dinner table but the turkey has not. We're pigs, we know, but we love us.

The Christmas Eve pizza trees. We've done this one since we were tiny little kids. We were poor folk (I mean P-O-O-R, remind me sometime to tell ya'll about how once a year we'd get to go out for a fast food meal and we'd get to share fries... we thought we were the luckiest kids in the world when we'd get half a small order of curly fries all to ourselves... but that's beside the point). Anyway, we were poor. To the point that, uh... we did not eat a lot of meat. Why? Because it cost money, and we were short on money. But wheat we always had. And like any other good mormon mom of her day, Mom had a wheat grinder. So, we had bread. In spades, we had bread. Which meant we ate a lot of things that centered around bread. It was cheap, Mom could make it to suit, and it would fill us up. Enter the Christmas Tree pizzas... On Christmas Eve, Mom would make about four pans of pizza with "tree" (read: triangle) shaped pizza crust, and then we'd get them all saucy and cheesed up, and then we'd all get to decorate them to look like a Christmas Tree. We'd cut green bell peppers and onions in strips and lace them like garland, dob on bits of pineapple for the star, add bits of tomato and olives for trim, and oh... glory-be-that-it-was-Christmas-and-we-would-have-meat... we'd put on pepperonis and ham pieces as ornaments. Oh man, it was like heaven, to have actual pizza toppings. (Usually we had cheese and other random toppings - only at Christmas would we be guaranteed PEPPERONI & HAM.) Seriously. H-E-A-V-E-N. To this day, I love going home and making the trees on Christmas Eve. So stinkin fun...

Uncle Remus. Oh heck yeah, we love Uncle Remus. He's the guy who always knows exactly what to give you for your birthday and/or Christmas. So much so that it's like you bought it yourself... Okay, it's exactly like you bought it yourself, actually, because that's what you did - but instead of looking like a pig who bought yourself something and then just threw it under the tree with a tag "from: me, to: me", you throw it under the tree with a tag that says "from: Uncle Remus, to: Laurie" - and then you get what you want, and you get to open it on Christmas morning and get all the ooh's & ahh's from the spectators in the familial holiday crowd. How could it get any better than that?

Coloring Easter Eggs. Yeah, in our family, it's not just a Springtime event. (Especially now that there are grandkids.) Mom has always great at buying things up when they go on post-holiday sale, and Easter Egg dye kits have always been one of those items. When they go down to .10 a package, she can't help but buy them - and then store them. For years. What this translates into is that you can dye an egg (or a dozen) just about any day of the year. And esp now that there are grandkids, we do. We've dyed eggs at Easter, Christmas, May 15th, July 23rd, Nov 12th... (Okay, I'm making these dates up now - I don't remember the actual random dates we've done this - but you get the picture.) We dye eggs. On a whim. Whenever we want. And then we hide/find them. For hours, sometimes. Isn't that awesome?

The Sunday afternoon bake-off and/or popcorn & homemade ice cream extravaganza. Oh yeah... that sentence pretty much defined my childhood and adolescence. Mom was not a big Sunday Dinner cook. She was more a "come home from church and have some fruit & toast - and then you kids can have a baking contest and we'll all make ourselves sick eating brownies, cake and ice cream" kind of cook. Oh yes, we did love our Sunday afternoons. This is when Spencer and I (and later Ty got into the mix), would head into the kitchen and see what we could find in the cookbook that we actually had the ingredients for - and then we'd bake our brains out. Enter Dad's eternal need for salty & crunchy food - the popcorn - and the fact that when I was a kid we had raw milk (read: fresh cow's milk that we bought from a neighbor down the street who got it straight from the cow herself, and then sold it to us for $1 a gallon in a big jar), so we had an endless supply of cream. And what do you do with cream? Well... you make ice cream with it, of course, on Sunday afternoon - just about every Sunday of the year. Ahhh... again, heaven. Cookies, brownies, popcorn AND ice cream... all in one day. It made the "no playing with friends" and "no watching tv" Family Day fun, if you can imagine.

So, you see, as messed up as we are... I can't get rid of any of the non-traditional traditions in my family (and, really, I only named a few - I could go on, but I'll spare you). Now, if I had some in-laws that felt the need to dress up for Thanksgiving dinner and/or go and visit the sick and afflicted on the sabbath (versus staying home and eating myself silly), there might be some things I'd need to change - but my family, with all of its nonsensical ways, is mine. And I love them. As whacked out as we may be, my childhood was (and adulthood, thus far, has been) absolutely delightful - in a "Hey! I called dibs on the drumstick! Let go! Drop it... Drop it now, or I'm gonna take the wish-bone! I'm not even kidding... Drop it now!!!" kind of way, of course. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

An Ode to Ude

I've been thinking a lot today about how blessed I've been, and how grateful I am, to have had Judy as my mom. Truly, she is an angel. For those of you who are lucky enough to know my mom, this goes without saying. For those of you who've never met her, you'll just have to believe me. She's unlike any other person I've come across in my life. She is the epitome of the word kindness, and I think if you looked up the term charity, there'd be a picture of her posted there as Exhibit A. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who has been quoted as having said "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother". Amen, Abe.

My Top Five Faves of things my mother has given to me thus far: (in no particular order, of course)

1) My laugh. When I was a teenager, I'd cringe when my mom'd laugh out loud in church when the High Councilmen would make bad jokes. I was mortified that not only was she laughing, everyone could hear her. Now I hear my own laugh ring out over the crowd in church on Sunday and I know that it's poetic justice that now I'm the one that makes people wonder "what's so funny, really?" when someone tells a dumb joke. The difference is that now I'm not embarrassed. No, I'm just grateful that no matter where I go, there is a part of me that is the same as my mother.

2) My fingernails. They've been long & painted for over 20 years now. They hardly ever break, and I rarely have to shape them. I have people ask me all the time who does my nails and/or if they're real. I'm always happy to say that I do them, and that yes, they're real - they just grow right out of my hands. Of all the tricks that time has played on me (now that I'm officially into the meat of my 30's), the trick that gets me every time (and never makes me mad, unlike some of the other nasties that Father Time likes to play on me...), is when I happen to glance down and see my hands doing things the way I grew up seeing my mom's hands do them. Whether it's scrubbing a sink, cutting a piece of bread, or holding a baby, few things make me so happy as to get lost in the moment as I realize that my hands look to me now the way my mom's hands looked to me when I was a child.

3) The ability to just sit. I don't know if it's nature or nurture, but either way - my mom knows the value of just sitting - sitting & talking, sitting & reading, sitting & sewing, sitting & watching a movie, sitting & thinking... or even just sitting and looking out the window without a thought/care in the world. And I am lucky enough to have inherited that ability from her. Life is too fast, it's easy to get caught up in the things that keep us busy. I'm incredibly grateful that I am not one of those women who need to be busy, who need to be doing something "valuable" with their time. I value sitting. Yup, sitting time is valuable to me. I love to just sit and... be. I actually schedule time to sit. I sit and read or I sit and think - whatever - the point is, I sit. And I love it. I got that from my mom. Isn't she great?

4) My hair. (While, technically, my gut tells me the hair came from Rachel Hodgeson... it came to me through my mother.) From generation to generation, this wavy/curly/crazy hair has been traveling down the line on my mother's side of the family. I'm the daughter in my family who got the crazy curl/body that cannot be controlled. I have a total love/hate relationship with my hair, but one thing no one will ever be able to call me is "mousy". Thanks, Mom, for that. (And Granny Rachel, too.)

5) An absolute sense of self, and the knowledge that I'm okay just as I am. (Okay, I'd said these were my random top 5 in no particular order. That was a lie. This is the very best thing I have, and I owe it to her.) My mom always let me be who I wanted to be - always. From the time that I threw down the law that I wouldn't speak in Primary unless the leader called back and spoke with me personally (I was 4), to when I was in High School and wanted to take the 32 yards of blue/flowery crepe fabric and make a "Scarlett O'Hara dress", to when I was trying desperately to decide between moving here or to Kentucky (to fulfill a childhood wish of living in the heart of horse country... honestly), she has always supported me, letting me be who I was and do the things that made me happy. Growing up, I thought that this is just what parents did... accept their children for who they are and love them. Now that I'm older, I know that not all children are as fortunate as I was in this regard. I'll never be able to thank my mom enough for letting me stubborn and silly, for not trying to tell me how to feel, look or act. I'm incredibly grateful for the absolute knowledge that she loves me for who I am, as I am. Knowing that my mother loves me so completely and unconditionally has helped me be able to love myself. And that, I believe, is the greatest gift a parent can give a child. So thanks, Mom. Again. And forever. I love you!

Happy Mother's Day!

40 Tips for a Better Life

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
3. Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows and get more sleep.
4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to ______ today.'
5. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
6. Play more games and read more books than you did in last year.
7. Make time to practice meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
9. Dream more while you are awake.
10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds and walnuts.
12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.
14. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, OR issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the NEGATIVE BLUES away.
18. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
20. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
21. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
22. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
23. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'
26. Forgive everyone for everything.
27. What other people think of you is none of your business.
28. Remember, God heals everything.
29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
30. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
31. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
32. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
33. The best is yet to come.
34. No matter how you feel - get up, dress up and show up.
35. Do the right thing!
36. Call your family often. (Or email them to death!!!)
37. Keep your body healthy, but make peace with its imperfections.
38 . Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished __________.
39. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
40. Enjoy the ride. Remember this is not Disney World and you certainly don't want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.

The valuables, obviously.

Okay, so the FFA question of the week is: What do you, or would you, hide from your kids?

Huh... interesting question. Sadly, I have no concrete answer, as I do not actually have children from which to hide anything. So, I guess that translates into, as of now, I am hiding the following:

1) Their mortal bodies. (As I don't have a man-person with which to create said children, I am currently witholding from them their own temporal selves.)

2) Their father. (Except that I am more prone to think that he's hiding himself from me, rather than that I am hiding him from our said future children.)

And I think that about sums up what I am currently hiding from my non-existant children. Now, if I did have kids, there are a few things I would definitely hide from them:

A) The Good Chocolate. (Yes, I felt that both Good and Chocolate deserve capitalization, as both words signify that I am talking about The Good Stuff - which is a proper noun. A kid can be happy with a package of smarties. I am in love with Ferrero Rocher. They are both candy, but they are not created equal. I won't give good candy to a kid, it's a waste.)

B) Super Glue. (Just in case there's a familial affinity for glueing one's person to one's self... I wouldn't want the stuff to fall into the hands of the young and innocent. I think, for obvious reasons, that there should be a minimum age cap on the use of Super Glue. I'm thinking 12, for the average bear. Of course, this translates into.... oh, 35, hopefully, for me.)

C) Money. (As I used to steal from my mom's stash of silver dollars, I know that kids can be theiving little wretches. Of course, as I was a stealer (and then a subsequent spender) of several silver dollars, I know how fun it was to steal/spend them - so maybe I wouldn't really hide those, so much as just make it a challenge for a kid to find them. Who knows, really?)

D) Doggie Treats. (I know. Who'd have thought that you'd have to hide doggie treats? Uh, I would. And why would I think this? Because I was the kind of kid who fed doggie treats to her younger brothers. Now that I'm an adult, I know that's gross. (Back then I just thought it was pretty darn funny.) So, I'd hide them from the kids so they couldn't give them out like candy (or, uh... jerky, actually) to their younger siblings.)

E) Girl Scout Cookies - Thin Mints, esp. (This is what I learned from my mother - buy cookies from every Girl Scout who comes to your door, and then hide them in the storage closet so you can eat them while your kids are in school/asleep/outside. You get the picture.)

And probably a slew of other things that I'd hide from the little monsters - mostly stuff that I don't want to share, or I'd want to keep clean. I'm kind of a pig that way. (Surprise!) :)

Things I love about living in the big city

Panda Express.
Barnes & Noble.
24 hour stores (heck, anything open past 7:00 pm is a treat to me!)
Drive-thru mexican food.
ColdStone.
Greek food. (I'm in love with hummus these days. I know. Who knew that ground chickpeas could be so good?)


And a slew of other things. Seeing freaky cars on the freeway whilst stuck in traffic among them. Yesterday was the first time I ever saw a Smart car. I was driving along, happy as a clam, singing at the top of my lungs (yeah, I'm one of those people... the ones who head bang with their mouth wide open, singing a happy song during the rush hour drive), and I look over to my right and do a literal double take. There was half a car driving next to me. Literally, half a car. Like, the car was cut off behind the back seat and then rear wheels were just mounted to the back of the seats. Oh my, holy weirdest thing I've seen in such a long time... so I'm passing it on. Have you guys seen these things? They're so tiny... Weird.

FFA Followup

So, tonight I was going through some old photos and was laughing out loud at how cool I thought I was as a teenager. I'm going to go ahead and attach some photos for ya'll to enjoy. Go ahead and laugh at me, I totally deserve it.

Gosh, these are funny...

So, here I am at the ripe old age of 16. I (gasp!) wasn't asked to Prom my Junior year in High School, so I threw a party for myself and my other friends who didn't get asked. (I know, it's hard to imagine that dudes weren't drooling after me. Check out the pegged pants and the Sally Jesse Raphael glasses... How did they ever resist?)

And then, amazingly enough, I wasn't asked again my Senior year. I pulled out all the stops on my second year of The Un-Prom Party, and actually made this dress. (I know, the mind wonders at my innate mad sewing skills.)

Seriously, aren't these about the funniest pics you've ever seen? Oh wow, I was so stinkin funny... Geez.

And here's the thing... like my teen years weren't enough to bury myself socially, check out this beauty from my twenties. My cousin Julie and I were driving from AZ back to UT and we were tired (and obviously slap happy), so we pulled over to take a break by the side of the road. Somehow a short break turned into an hour long photo shoot. The beautiful woodland crept right into our psyches, and before we knew it, we were sticking pieces of wood in pigtails and posing like "forest deer". Pretty sweet, huh?

And then one (okay, two) more... This is me wearing candle wax. Yup, you read that right - candle wax, I'm wearing it.

I had a lilac scented candle that I was absolutely in love with. I burned it into oblivion, and then was heartbroken when the wick burnt to a crisp and I couldn't get any more burn out of the candle. There were a few scraps of wax left in the bottom of the jar, so I got a spoon and dug them out so I could smell the candle one last time before it went the way of all burnt out candles. As I was smelling it off the spoon I thought "huh... I wonder how it would be if I actually put the wax on my nose?". No sooner did I wonder, than I was wearing a wax-mask and my cousin/roommate walked in and laughed out loud. Of course she wanted to take my picture, and who am I to pass up an opportunity for a silly photo-op? So, here I am with lavender scented wax molded to my face. Classy.

The List Goes On & On, My Friends

For those of you who are not FFA-ers (and no, I do not mean Future Farmers of America), let me introduce you to the joy that is Friday in the world of me. For some time now I've been reading the random (and absolutely hysterical) Friday musings of four of the funniest girls ever. Now that I have a blog, I have been allowed to join FFA (which was always a dream of mine in High School, so you can understand how exciting this is for me). Here's the dealio - we each blog a response to the weekly challenge. Points are awarded for creativity and good story telling. (Kidding, there are no points. Dangit! ) For more information on FFA or links to other bloggers who participate in the madness (or if you just want to see a really sweet header), go to: http://fridayfreeforall.blogspot.com/

This week's topic: What is the lamest thing I ever did as a teenager that I thought was SOOOOO cool?

Oh geez... This list could go on forever, I'm sad to say. Let me hit the highlights. (Or would that be lowlights? I'm, frankly, not sure...)

All things Allen B. Allen was this guy that I loved in Junior High - to the point of absolute distraction. And who could blame me? Not only did he have absolutely dreamy blue eyes (ala Frank Sinatra), he was the only boy in school taller than me. I loved him so much that I would sneak up to the band room on lunch break and put (anonymous, of course) love notes in his trombone case. I would follow him around campus hoping he'd talk to me. I made friends with his twin brother, and then would "milk" him for information on my beloved, all under the ruse that "my friend really really likes him". Oh man, no wonder I'm not married... it's all becoming very clear.

All things Diana F. Diana came into my life in Junior High as well, and was my "partner in crime" for a good six years or so. (Until she married about the nicest guy ever and settled down and started a family - oh, and we grew up and realized that we had been complete idiots in our youth.) A brief list of some of the dumb things Diana and I did/got into while we thought we were being uber cool:

1) We (okay, Di) would drive up the biggest hill in town in her van, just so she could put it in neutral and we could coast down the other side. So you can get the picture here, let me tell you that she had to gun it and hit the base of that hill at 50, just to get a good head start, and then we'd climb slowly but surely up the last third of the hill, hoping we'd get to the top so we could go down the other side. More than once, she had to throw it in neutral so we could roll back down the hill so she could back up and get a better start, going even faster. Keep in mind that the hill was by no means "tree-free". There were bushes and trees (and who knows what else, really) all over the hill, we'd dodge them both on our way up and on our way down. And we did all of this without our seatbelts on. Yup, talk about dumb teenagers. We truly thought we were invincible - and we thought it was fun to bump around (read: get thrown around on a very fast and bumpy ride... think "Indiana Jones" @ Disneyland), so we didn't belt ourselves in. Dumb idiot kids.

2) The time we went on a school trip, fully intending to light the toilet in our hotel on fire. Yup, you read that right. Oh wow, we were such hooligans. We went on a school trip when we were sophomores and signed up as "roommates" with the intent to start a toilet on fire. We packed everything we thought we might could need to do such a thing (hairspray, rubbing alchohol, finger nail polish remover, cotton balls, newspaper... pretty much anything that we knew was a chemical and/or we thought would burn - heck, at one point we even tried the hotel stock shampoo & conditioner). We spent about 2 hours in the bathroom that night, trying chemical concoction after chemical concoction, but we got nothin! At the time we were incredibly bummed (embittered is probably a better word, actually), but in retrospect... halle-freakin-lujah! Can you imagine how much damage we could have caused? Stupid, stupid girls.

3) We'd dress up in her little brothers' clothes and become our alter egos (I was Tim and... unbelievably, I can't think of her name... rest assured, it was something good and nerdy), and then we'd sneak out of the house (dressed the the hilt as complete and total nerds) and we'd make public appearances. We had nerd voices that we'd use when we went out like this - we'd visit friends, stop by the grocery store (the only store in town), go to Maverick and get a frozen yogurt, all the while having "nerd conversation" in our high and squeaky, completely annoying falsetto voices. You name it, in a very small town, we did it - in costume. And then we'd go back to her house and begin the struggle that was getting back out of the clothes we'd so painfully stuffed ourselved into without laughing ourselves into oblivion and thereby ripping the clothes before we could get out of them. (Yeah, it happened, the ruination of many an article of clothing due to good and hard bursts of giggles. I recall a sudden burst of laughter that made buttons fly right off a vest and against a wall - 10 feet away. Of course, that only made me laugh harder.) Oh man, good times.

All things Cousinly. I have 4 cousins that are within 2 years of me, and we would hang out and eat junk food like none other (those of you who know me can imagine how bad it is when I'm with my kinfolk... we all have an unreasonably high tolerance for junk food, and serve only to egg each other on when it comes to downing entire pizzas and/or packages of cookies and cartons of ice cream). When Julie was old enough to drive, we finally had freedom from bondage (parents and younger siblings) and we'd leave our grandparents' house for "Cousin Bonding". We'd drive all over Provo yelling "View Haloo" out the rolled down windows (who had A/C back in the day?) randomly, to people in their yards, missionaries at the MTC field, really cute college boys. (Oh my word. I'm sensing a theme. First the Allen B. thing, then this... no wonder I'm single.) My favorite was when we'd pull up to a stoplight (always a treat for a small town girl like me - we had no stoplights at home, so they were a bit of a novelty) and Greg would roll down his window and say "Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?". We'd all burst into laughter, and then drive away...

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that my entire life has been a series of me thinking I'm cool, and then in retrospect realizing that I'm such a dork... In the end, I can't think of one single event that I thought was cool, but in reality was lame. Maybe that's because I'm always lame, or... maybe it's because I'm cool enough to find joy in the lame things. I'm not sure. Either way... I've laughed a lot. And now, I hope, you have too. :)