?# 17 from My Sister’s Jar - The Next Decade

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Egads.  I’ll be 52.  That’s just after old age sets in.  Wow.  Don’t worry, that won’t be me… I can’t play the accordion.  :o)  Whenever I look to the future I figure out how old my kids will be…. 25, 22, 20 and Zaza in her upper teens.  Wow again.  Larisa could be married and Aus and Keeve in college or on NHL teams, as they’ll tell you.  Well, thanks to Zaza I’ll still be homeschooling.  (For those new to MSJ, Zaza is the nickname for our daughter we are adopting from Colombia… any day now.) 

I hope to have AT LEAST two more books published by then, one on marriage and one on the joy of weighing yourself daily.  I’ve got them inside of me…. I simply need the time to get them out.  I also see myself speaking to more women as my time will be somewhat more flexible with most of the kids out of the house.  That’s so sad.  Gone.  I think I need to go find them and hug their necks right now.

I hope that Rick’s schedule will be far more loose by the year 2018 and we can do homeschool high school with Zaza traveling the world.  (Oh, the joys of the baby of the house, eh, Christy?!)  I also secretly hope to either have a summer homewhere it isn’t 120 degrees or to be completely moved to somewhere else with four seasons and a winter home here in Phoenix.  So I guess I’m trying to say that I DON’T see myself as full time resident in Phoenix in 10 years.

This was short and sweet. 

www.LindaCrosby.com  BAGS -> www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com

?#17 from My Sister’s Jar - 1st Morning Thoughts

What was the first thing you thought about when you woke up this morning?

I appreciate straight-up questions with easy answers… especially after the weaknesses question yesterday.  Brother. Last night bedtime was 12:15… so I’m still working at it.  0 for 2.

Tapping woke me up this morning.  LOUD tapping.  My first thought was, “What in the world is Austin building?“  He is our early riser and also our BUSY, almost-12-year-old son.  He could’ve been building a birdhouse on the table in the loft right outside our bedroom door.  He’s made bike ramps, chicken coops, a dog house and various shelves and boxes.  I assumed he was hammering something… which is also not unusual for him.  He has more power tools and projects going than Ty Pennington.  He’s currently building a walk-in shed for his tools.

As I lay there listening to the tapping I slowly realized it was coming from the window.  OK, our bedroom is on the second floor…  and in Arizona there are retarded woodpeckers that for some unknown reason like to peck the METAL frames of our windows.  So it wasn’t Austin, although he was already up.

Not part of the question, but my second thought of the morning was… “Oh yeah, the toilet!”  Which is also a retarded Arizona problem of a different sort.  We have lived in this house for three years.  It was brand spankin’ new upon our arrival.  I’m not sure if it is Arizona’s unnatural heat, the dryness, the lack of clear water, cheap deteriorating rubber rings, or what, but our toilet in the master bedroom started having issues about a month ago.  The magic flusher was becoming increasingly more difficult to use.  It got to the point where I was bracing one arm on the wall, using the heel of my hand and using force usually reserved for administering the Heimlich maneuver. 

My husband is a busy man. (Could be where we got the busy boy?!?) Since he also uses said commode, he was WELL aware of the need to be bionic to flush the toilet.  However, I, being the kind and supportive wife that I am, would remind him often of said commode’s issues….. silently.  Why state the obvious?  I would come out of the bathroom holding my flushing hand as if it were wounded… which could have easily happened.  I also started doing these made-up exercises with my hands and wrists… telling him that I was in training to flush the toilet.  Hubby did make a trip to the hardware store and purchased an “Easy to Install” toilet tank apparatus… that is still in a tidy green box on his dresser.

So two nights ago, the water in the toilet started running continuously.  Rick got up in the middle of the night and turned off the water line to the toilet… but did he TELL ME?  No.  So the next morning I am in bracing position to flush the toilet, arm on the opposite wall, knees bent, back straight, heel of my hand resting on the lever and I almost dove into the toilet as the handle flipped down with remarkable ease.  That’s when I discovered the water was missing from the tank. 

I’ve been in third world countries so I was prepared for this situation.  I emptied the powder room garbage into the bathroom sink garbage and filled it with tub water to manually flush without force.  Then being trained for this scenario in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1986, I again filled up the garbage can and set it in the bathroom for next time.  I’m hoping busy husband has time between 11:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. to install the easily installable dealie on his dresser.

All THAT from my first morning thoughts.  Wow.

?#16 from My Sister’s Jar - Weaknesses

Ouch.  The title says it all.  Analyze the weaknesses…. AWKWARD!

One of my weaknesses I want to improve on is ___________________.  Jot down some ideas to move you toward your goal.

Why not just ask what size underwear I wear?  Just as painful… and private.  The only comforting word in the question is the first word… ONE.  That eases the stress a wee bit.  I don’t know if this is truly a weakness or not, but I’ve been doing some serious thinking since last Friday night’s Mom’s Night Out dinner about my bedtime.  My highly organized friend mentioned a book that described the value of every hour you sleep before midnight being worth three that you try to get after midnight.  Who comes up with this fluff? 

I’m a night owl with macrame owls with wooden bead eyes hanging in my bedroom.  (OK, not true, but you get the point. Can you believe I found that picture!?)  In college my classes hardly ever started before 10 a.m.  My best study hours were when the dorm was quiet…. 12 a.m. to 2 a.m.  I still got eight hours of sleep, but obviously not the most productive hours at my disposal.  And we think we know it all in college.  Hardly.  That was when I figured out just how much I didn’t know.

My most productive hours sewing, writing, planning, etc. are from 9 p.m. to midnight.  My friends explained that I conditioned my body to this, but it is the most beneficial to follow the clock God set in the sky.  Sun up to sun down.  What?  I don’t even know what time the sun comes up.  Sometime before 7:00… and the only reason I know this is because I swim on Tuesday and Thursday mornings… with an accountability group… or I wouldn’t show up.

Anyway, like I said, I’ve been dong some thinking about bedtime.  I’m thinking I might try to move it back thrity minutes at a time for a week… until I hit 10:00.  Who knows if my eyes will actually fling open of their own volition at 7:00 a.m…. or even earlier.  We’ll see.  This is not going to be easy.  But nothing worth its muster is easy.  (Remember, I’m reading the book Do Hard Things.) I think this might help for homeschooling… being up BEFORE the children.  Wow.  Novel idea.  That hasn’t happened since…..  OK, it never happened.  They were my alarm clocks from when they were babies and toddlers. 

My Goals for lights out:  This week:  11:30.   Next week: 11:00.  Sept. 1-6 10:30.  OK, I’m gone on a scrapbooking trip for four days that week, so I’ll try 10:30 until Sept. 13.  THEN 10:00 starting on Sept. 14.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress.  My husband is going to be in for the shock of his life.  He is my evil night owl twin.  Before children we played cards in bed until 3:00 a.m.  Oh boy.  Good night.

?#15 from My Sister’s Jar - Ministikwin Lake

OK, I realize this blog is called My Sister’s Jar… and I haven’t pulled a question from the jar in three months.  Either I had to go in WordPress and figure out how to change the name of the blog OR open the jar and get with the program.  Even though I’m reading the book Do Hard Things, I chose the easy route this morning.

Tell about a time you accepted change and how it impacted your life.

It was the Christmas season of 2004 and my sister’s family had arrived from Washington to spend three weeks in Phoenix with the rest of our extended family.  They only come every other year, so we were all looking forward to games and food and fun, especially the nine grandkids.  About a week before Christmas, my dear husband told me that he had a Boxing Day surprise for me.  (That is a Canadian holiday on Dec. 26th.)  Anticipation and glee filled my heart, as I LOVE surprises.  Not knowing makes my mind go WILD with wonder and it simply causes life to be extra exciting.  That was all blown to bits when he told me that my surprise was a family road trip to Ministikwin Lake, Saskatchewan…. an 1890 mile ONE-WAY trip straight north from Phoenix to Canada’s frozen tundra.  Rick’s parents rented a teeny log-cabin on the frozen-solid lake and his brother’s family was also going.  Now, Crosby family get togethers are filled with fun, laughter and frivolity, but keep in mind it was December…. AND MY SISTER’S FAMILY WAS VISITING. 

I’d like to report that I smiled and said, “Sure, honey!” but it didn’t go down that smoothly between us.  In fact there were several lively discussion behind closed doors.  With tears in my eyes, I found my carefully prepared Christmas list in Rick’s wallet.  I crossed out everything on the list, wrote PARKA in big letters and handed it back to him.   (This was the ‘accepting change’ part of the story.)

Anyway, we drove for three days through rain and sleet and even snow to a 700 square foot cabin where 13 of us stayed for a week.  It was cozy, to say the absolute least.  Did I mention that it was MINUS FIFTY DEGREES? An “arena” was cleared on the lake and the men and kids were captivated with hockey the entire week.  I did a puzzle.  Pictured below are five cousins from three families and Jennie, my sister-in-law, the black scary-looking-bank-robberish one from www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com   NEW BAGS up TODAY!

There are about 27 blogs that will eventually be written from our time on Ministikwin Lake (a claustrophobic attack at 3 am, the Canadian candy bar taste test, the faiwwies, THE trek to the remains of the EP club, the missing tooth, the frozen blanket stuck to the wall, the tip jar, the garage sale on top bunk #2, just to name a few), but onto the second part of the question: how did it impact my life?  Well, we’re still married.  The forced trek north did go down in the family history books as “the maddest I’ve ever been” but, like I said, we’re still happily married.  Sometimes you just have to give in and do what you DON’T want to do to keep the peace. It’s like my momma used to say, “Do something you don’t want to do every day.  It makes you a better person.” 

This is Aus right before frostbite set in.  His face was frozen like this.  (kidding)  The moral of the story is “when life hands you snow, make snowballs with rocks in them and annihilate your opponent.” (It really does make you feel better.)  Great family memories were made… and I have a really nice parka out of the deal.

Waddya Know! NO Info on BigFoot!

Along with half the nation, I was holding my breath at 12:30 today awaiting the “revealing” of a dead BIGFOOT that was found in Georgia a few weeks back.  But alas, the press conference only resulted in national news coverage of the biggest and most famous Bigfoot hunter showing nothing (except promotion for his website) and postponing the real evidence.  Come on!  If you got the goods, let’s have ‘em.

As a homeschool mom, I need to be up on the news especially about new species or endangered animals or missing links or delusional grown-ups running through the forest in gorilla suits.  So I did some research this week, as all good homeschool moms do.  I had only heard of BF in the Northwest, so I wondered how he made it across the Midwest to Georgia without being seen…. there’s no trees there in the middle of the nation to hide behind???  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?  Did he only travel at night?  We’ll never know.  But pictures don’t lie… do they?

Here is the actual untouched photograph of the remains of BF. Impressive!  Yes, it’s a deep freeze.  Yes, that’s a garden hose.  All highly scientific apparatus to handle the most rare of rare evidence in the science field.  And are those my grandma’s false teeth in that monkey suit?  I can’t quite make out the black item on the top right of the photo, but I believe it’s a Samsonite suitcase that was used with a gorilla suit in a commercial a few years back???  And the fake entrails.  My goodness.  That’s a squid from China Town.  I’ve been around the block a few times.  I know squid when I see squid. That’s a squid.

And the casts of the gigantic footprints.  Holy Toledo!  Shaq is down here in Phoenix now, so we could make some of those casts here too.  Big feet are just that… BIG.

Why didn’t I think of putting an ape suit in the deep freeze so I could be on national news???  Some guys have all the luck, especially the off-duty officer who found the body.  First he gets shot in the hand chasing a fugitive of the law…. then he is on medical leave with WAAAAAAAAAY too much time on his hands.  So he calls his buddy who works as a correctional officer with people who display gorilla type behavior and says, “Hey, whattaya doin’ this weekend? Wanna get a monkey suit and be on the news with me?”  It was pure genius.

My kids asked if BF is real.  Of course it is…. look at these pictures.  That’s a real BIG foot isn’t it?  It reminds me of when we watched Water Horse: Legend of the Deep and I kept telling the kids repeatedly that the movie was based on a true legend.  :o)  Stay tuned.  The “scientific” autopsy is on Monday… just as soon as they suck on the hose to get all the water syphoned out of the freezer and find the rubber gloves, safety goggles and tweezers.

The Newly Released Female Phone-etic Alphabet

After yesterday’s comments about the phonetic alphabet and some back-chat from friends and relatives, I have discovered that the phonetic alphabet was created by a MAN at NATO.  (Benjamin Franklin actually came up with the idea, but it was shot down along with his idea of having the turkey as our national bird.) It was quite obviously a man as words included were bravo and whiskey.  I never understood foxtrot or tango???  Undoubtedly he was a dancing man who considered himself a Romeo and traveled to India to play golf under the code names Charlie and Mike.  Sheesh. 

Here is the NEW and IMPROVED FEMALE VERSION for those distinguished women who know what really matters in life.  Yes, I came up with this on my own.  See how valuable my college education was??? Please forward to any female pilots that you may know.  It should stir up some testosterone in the skies.

Aerobics, BlingBling, Chocolate, Diamonds, Earrings, Facial, Girlfriends, Handbag, ILoveYou, Jewelry, KissyKissy, Luncheon, Manicure, Nailpolish, OversizedPurse, Pedicure, QueenOfItAll, Rhinestones, Shopping, Telephone, Underwire, Vavoom, X-Your-Heart-Bra, YoMama, ZebraPrint

And thanks to my sister-in-law, Jennie, of www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com, here are the numbers in the female version:

Onesie, Twofer, Three’sacrowd, Fourtunate, Fivefofum, SixyPixy, SevenEleven, Eightalltheicecream, NineIsTooLateToStartTryingToMakeUp, Tenuous

It just makes so much more sense, doesn’t it?

BlingBling YoMama Earrings! (The Navajo Code Talkers had nothin’ on us!)

The Life of a Pilot’s Wife

Fort Vermilion Air Strip c. 1991

The life of a pilot’s wife seems to invoke visions of grandeur in the minds of those who have never been a pilot’s wife.  I’m here today to disprove inaccurate information and lay the truth out for all to witness.  First of all, just have a looksie at the harsh weather conditions we were faced with for three years!  I’m a California girl and that’s a parka with fox fur trim, moose hide mitts (made by Rick’s grandma, Googum) and Sorels!  I’d never tried on boots that came in two parts until we moved to Fort Vermilion, Alberta.  Luckily they came in hot pink!  I guess that the weather was not due to being a pilot’s wife… it was due to a newbie pilot putting in his ‘time’ in the North before heading to bluer skies in warmer climates. 

Just a few glimpses into the strange happenings of a pilot’s family are indeed overdue. 

Glimpse #1.  We were driving our 1971 Toyota Corona Deluxe late at night when the dash lights cut out.  Rick yelled, “The instrument panel is offline!”  I yelled back, “Luckily we’re safe on the ground!”  Made me wonder if he thought he was flying a plane…. they don’t have to pay quite as close attention when they’re up in the air… hmmmmm.

Glimpse #2.  It was the middle of the night and I was stirred from blissful sleep as Rick sat up in bed and yelled, “More left power!”  I replied, “Roger that,” and he laid back down having never woken up at all.  :o)  I wonder what would have happened if I yelled, “Man overboard?”

Glimpse #3.  Anytime you call a pilot for an address or a name they always spell it in the phonetic alphabet.  Over the years I’ve gotten used to it, but it was a surprise for others when Rick said we lived on Yankee Uniform Charlie Charlie Alpha Street.  I’ve still not figured out the numbers… niner, niner… whatever.  I just add er to the end of all of them.   Oner, Twoer, Threeer.  (mockful, I realize.)

Glimpse #4.  We needed a new washing machine and were sitting together, husband and wife, reading washer reviews online.  I would suggest a model.  He would say, “18 cycles!  How many did our old washer have?”  “12″  “Why do we need 6 more?  Our clothes were clean with 12.”  I explained that the new and improved cycles were for specific washing cycles that would be useful.  He didn’t get it.  This went on and on for about an hour.  Finally I lovingly explained, “When you buy an airplane, do you want me sitting there saying, ‘Ailerons?  How many ailerons did your last plane have?  Did you use both of them?’ “  And he let me pick out my washing machine all by myself.  You gotta talk to a pilot in pilot smack.

Glimpse #5.  I asked Rick to put in a load of laundry.  We have a new fangled LG frontloader that lights up like a cockpit when you hit the magic button.  I heard the laundry basket hit the floor.  The door opened.  Loading.  Door closed.  And then there was silence for about four minutes.  He eventually hollered, “I’m not checked out on this machine.”  WHAT?  There’s only 5 buttons on the washer.  How many are in the cockpit?  Laundry Flight Training followed.

Glimpse #6.  Important Terms to Know:  Gas is for cars.  Fuel is for planes.  We saw a bumper sticker that said, “I love the smell of Jet A early in the morning.”  Rick chuckled.  I didn’t get it.  Jet fuel stinks.  My pilot tried to explain that it is such a familiar smell that means good times are coming.  I guess it’s like the smell of the glue gun??  The sunscreen???  The movie popcorn????

And no, I don’t get to fly with him in his current job, something to do with insurance.  No frequent flyer miles here.  No jump seat privileges.  It’s a glamorous life, for sure!

The New Kids on the Block

Bags for Zaza, the fundraiser for our adoption, has four new kids up this week, Junie B. Jones, Pudd’nhead Wilson, Caddie Woodlawn and Danny Lynn!  The FIRST REVERSIBLE wonder of a tote bag created by my brilliant sister-in-law, Jennie!!!

A go-go wooden-bead surprise, by yours truly.

Dellynn, eat your heart out!  Thank you to all the faithful fans, bidders, watchers, linkers and word-of-mouthers.  We are so appreciative of everyone’s support for Zaza.  www.BagsforZaza.blogspot.com

We’re busy this week preparing for school starting.  Larisa starts on Aug. 22 and the boys start on Sept 2, the day after Labor Day, when school is supposed to start.  Remember?  Back in the good ol’ days?  This is my first year teaching homeschool high school, so I’ve been prepping for a while so as not to feel quite so utterly inadequate.  You’d think with a teaching degree I’d have some moxie, but no.  It made me feel even more incompetent reading a recent study that showed homeschooled kids with non-certified moms do BETTER than my kids.  Great!

As I’ve been previewing the topics and objectives for History of the World 1 (HOW1) from www.Konos.com I was elated and jubilant that my Art History class knowledge and text from college are actually going to be useful!  Dust off the expansive volume Art History by Janson.  I never thought I’d be looking in that creaky old book in this lifetime, especially to teach my kids!  If wonders never cease.  Janson has since improved the blue canvas cover of old (of mine!) to this spectacular man wearing an entire king-sized red bed sheet on his noggin.  Impressive.  Especially if you like turbans.  There, my friends, is a knot tying class in the making.

1433 Jan van Eyck - Man in a Red Turban
Oil on panel. The National Gallery, London, UK.

www.LindaCrosby.com

Blundering Butterfingers

Yesterday I did a Coupon $ense Safeway run.  The targets: Charmin TP, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Nature Harvest bars and eggs.  Of course I also picked up a few dozen other on sale items, but always the pull is the outstanding prices on the C$ Hot Deals.  I mean, please.  The Cinnamon Toast Crunch is normally priced at $2.89 a box.  Safeway had a special for 4/$10.  Then I had a Safeway flyer coupon making them 4/$6.  On top of that I had 75 cent coupons for each of the four boxes…. that are “doubled” to $1.00.  And the grand total for each box was a mere FIFTY CENTS. (An 83% savings) Why don’t they just hand them out on the street corner???

Onward to the broken egg picture.  The 18 count eggs were on sale B1/G1  (buy one, get one free), so 36 eggs were placed delicately in the cart.  At the check out stand, the eggs didn’t fare so well.  They were the last items I was pulling out of the cart and somehow the edge of the top carton caught the side of the grocery cart and out they plopped.  Trying to correct the situation, I gripped the carton firmly enough to hang onto it, but too firmly for the eggs in my G.I. Joe kung-foo grip. 

I have never broken a single egg in a grocery store in forty-two years.  That should count for something.  But no.  I looked up from the slimy mess that was dripping through the cart onto my Charmin TP, and said to the checker and the bag-girl, “Clean up on aisle 3…. I just broke a bunch of eggs.”  The bag-girl immediately grabbed a roll of paper towels and was heading around through an empty check-out lane, but then she disappeared???  What in the world??  Not a good time for a potty break.  She returned a few moments later and said, “I just went to aisle 3 and there weren’t any broken eggs.”  Oh.  See the drippy mess by my shoes???  I kindly replied, “It was a poorly timed joke,” and half smiled at the poor girl as we started wiping together.

The egg shells were still in the bottom of the cart so I picked up each goopy mess and dropped them back into the carton.  But, when I finished there was a vacant spot in the carton.  One egg was MIA.  How could that be?  They wouldn’t fit through the cart slots??  I looked all over and finally lifted up the carton to reveal the culprit, hiding from me!  Eleven or twelve of the 18 were smashed and oozing.  BUT, the whole mess was cleaned up in time for me to pay and run from the store red-faced.  “Did you need help out, Mrs. Crosby?”  Not today!

When I retold the entertaining story to my family, my daughter asked, “Did you have to pay for them?”  “No, broken eggs are absorbed into the dumb shopper fund.”  :o)  Thank God, Safeway has a dumb shopper fund.

My Stellar Green Thumb

I just had to share my fabulous sunflowers from the backyard.  Why I think they’re so fabulous is because they are actually growing in the SUMMER in PHOENIX!  Only the strong and drought-resistant brave the hell-like temperatures here.  Behold, The Ochre Goddess tasting the morning light:

And her six inch tall sister, Sunny Delight:

Yellow is such a happy color.  Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to sunflowers.  Now, before you go on thinking I’m a stellar gardener…. I must confess to smoke and mirrors with my photography.  Here is the truth for all to see.  Not a blade of a bad weed is growing in my “flower bed” (term used loosely) under the palm tree.  Even the third flowerless sunflower plant is on the outside of the brick that borders the “flower bed.” These beauties seeded themselves and are growing in the rocky border of our yard. 

But hey, any flower is good in my books.  Please stop by in November when my real green thumb is a bit more evident. Oh, and here’s Lizzy, one of our family of lizards that eat the bugs in the yard.  She is hiding on the wall behind the oleander, but I spotted her.  Her scales are amazingly colorful… well, for a lizard in the Sonoran Desert.  Aren’t they supposed to blend in for safety?  There are teal scales above her arms and the yellow scales seem to be in perfect patterns like the horse moves in chess.  God is so cool.

Here are two other happy flower pictures from Bishop, California…. on our 15 hour drive to Tahoe.  The first, The Lone Giant. 

The second, A Bashful Hollyhock hiding from the afternoon Sun.

Garden Strong, my Friend.

www.LindaCrosby.com     www.bagsforzaza.blogspot.com