The Geyser In My Front Yard.

This post was originally written and posted on June 20, 2009.

I came home from work on... Wednesday?

Yes, Wednesday.

I'd been to Casey's funeral.

West had fallen into the basement of the house he was framing and messed up his foot, breaking his toe.

I came home and turned on my sprinkles... only to discover a geyser next to my front porch.

Wednesday was a good day.

I checked it out and it wasn't a sprinkler head.

I stuck my hand into the hole the water was gushing out of to feel for a pipe... no pipe, only the strong rush of water coming from off to the side, and that rush of water was washing out the dirt from under my grass.

I was suddenly very concerned that the geyser that I was finding to be somewhat entertaining, was going to make my grass cave in.

I called Mark.

My neighbor across the street, the one who always saves me in my single motherness (do you have a ladder so I can take down the Christmas lights the previous owners left up? How do I set up my swamp cooler? Do you know how to turn my outside water on? Mark, there's a geyser in my front yard.).

Every single mom needs a Mark.

I now know how to fix a crack in poly pipe. Something every woman should know how to do.

While Mark was working in the geyser-turned-crater, we had a visitor...

Too late, the geyser is closed for sight-seeing.

Insta Friday (Introducing The Gnome). Friday Brain dump (We're Spur of the Moment People). And Weekend Plans (Learning How to Lip Sync).

Welcome to Insta Friday, where I'm linking up and telling the stories behind my instagram pics.

(I'm thecircus6 on instagram if you want to follow).

And then, just as a warning, you get a brain dump of the tidbits that I haven't blogged about yet.

Totally worth it.

On our bi-weekly grocery shopping trip we found the most awesome gnome.

We bought it for pranking purposes.

The first day of school happened.

In the middle of August.

I swear it gets earlier every year.  But this is so the kids can have more time off during the school year, which used to stress me out when I was a working mom of young children.  Like, stress me out.  But now that they're older it's just like, just keep the house clean, yo.  And don't leave Cali alone.  Word.

Speaking of getting older... I already shared these pics but I'm sharing them again because I love them.

You all can officially stop growing right now.  I didn't want to pause them as babies or toddlers, but right here would be a good place to pause them.

I hear a lot that Brynn is my mini-me.  I don't usually hear it with the other three.

But when I posted this picture of Casidee people thought it was me at first, which makes me happy because I kind of  wish my daughters did look like me.

That random plant growing in our yard that we didn't plant, but let grow out of curiosity sake, and I really wanted it to be a pumpkin in my front yard? (here)

So is. (Eek, shriek, and jumping for joy).

But it only has one pumpkin on the entire vine.

I ran to the store to get Brynn a specific notebook that her teacher was requesting.  The ones we'd already bought weren't the "right" kind.

The Man sent me a text to grab something for him while I was there, only to have my phone go off right next to him on the couch.

I'd forgotten it.

When I got home, my background was The Gnome.

We're getting our money's worth with it already.

A new semester started for me this week too.

If I have to get up and take a math class before work, at least I get to be greeted with a sunrise like this.

The first day of school is for moms too.

Here we go again.  But I graduate this spring from the community college and will head up to the U of U to finally work on the fun classes for my bachelor's.

My first day of school selfie.

Mornings wouldn't so bad if it weren't for the waking up part.

They were really pretty this week.

I was clearing of Pioneer Day photos from my phone to (finally) blog about it when I found this one that one of The Circus had taken.

My cutest friend Jen found this picture frame and bought it for me.

I printed off one of the pictures from our family photoshoot that just happened a couple of weeks ago and set it up on my desk.

I can't wait to see the rest of the pictures.  This was just one she sent me as a preview, to tease me and get me all excited for the rest.

It worked.

And, Jen, I love the frame, thank you!

Now for my friday brain dump:

I had Chick-fil-A for lunch because I received an email inviting me to apply to be on a panel of mom's for them.

Which I really want to do.

So if I eat Chick-fil-A right after filling out that application then it's like bonus karma points, right?

And also, the Chick-fil-A by my work serves breakfast.

Shut the front door!

Also, we are a very spur of the moment family, but it occurred to me why this week.  I've been making plans with friends to head up to the Fairy Forest and see all the wonders there, and in so doing have changed the day of our outing twice.  And now we have it set up for another day, except The Man just planned a camping/riding trip for that weekend and booked our spot and all so... I get to change my Fairy Forest day again.

We're spur of the moment people because even when we make plans, other things come up spur of the moment and I have to change plans.  I don't like planning, it's a lot of work to coordinate and be annoying and change the plans, again.  I don't even want to tell my friends that I need to change the Fairy Forest date, I feel slightly embarrassed.  I'd rather just send out texts a day in advance, or a couple hours, and say, hey, we're going, come if you can.  And then if they can, they can.

Because, you know, people should be waiting around for my spur of the moment invite...

Dear friends, I'm sorry.  I know I have issues.

Also, life just feels so full and so exciting right now.  It's like I'm walking on super charged cloud nine.  Everything is so beautiful and perfect and full of promise.

I don't know how I got on this ride, but I don't want to get off anytime soon.

Weekend plans:

Make a lip sync video with The Circus.  I want to learn how.  They're my guinea pigs.  Anyone have any tips?

Church carnival where I get to help with both the cake walk and the face painting.

Possibly the Fairy Forest?  But Jayme will be with her mom so probably not because we want her to go too.

And that's all I have.  I guess we'll have to make this weekend up as we go along, you know, spur of the moment.

What are your weekend plans?

Friday Brain Dump. And Weekend Plans.

Welcome to my Friday brain dump.

On this Friday I'm thankful for a husband who looks forward to date weekends as much I do.  I think that's a good sign.

Lone Ranger anyone?  It's on our plan at some point in the next two days.

Also, we'll be buying more plants this weekend and finishing up our new front garden, which is super exciting.  Except we have some random vegetable vine plant that sprung up on its own so we're waiting to see if it's a pumpkin, a squash, or a watermelon.  I've ruled out cucumber because we planted a cucumber and the leaves are different from the one we actually planted.  

Of course I'm hoping for it to be a pumpkin vine because how cool will Halloween be with pumpkins growing in my front garden? 

Otherwise, we'll be eating a lot of zucchini bread...

I jumped at a dream, with a little trepidation because it's easy to dream and say, "I would be awesome at that," but it's a whole other issue to actually go for it.  When you go for it you face the possibility of facing rejection and being told to keep dreaming, honey, because you're just not going to cut it in reality.

Except, thankfully, I wasn't told that.  But I have two months for that dream to fully materialize and then I can elaborate on it more.  I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched.  Mostly I'm just thankful that I wasn't told I'm not good enough.  

That makes me a happy girl.

Have you heard the new Miley Cyrus song?  It came on the radio while I had The Circus in the car and Brynn asks, "Is this Justin Bieber?"

I can see how she made the mistake.

Lately I've been itching to push my body again.  I was thinking of getting back into a routine to train for another half marathon but then I had a fabulous idea.  Hey!  I know, because the half marathon didn't kick my trash enough, maybe I should train for a triathlon?

But then luckily I remembered I don't own a bike so that saved me from that insanity.

Half marathon training it is.

Maybe next year I'll actually make it to Vegas to run with my cousin in the Rock and Roll Half.

Also, RIP fish.  We had good times, didn't we? (Here).  It died peacefully in it's bowl on my counter in it's sleep, and not on a camping trip, just in case you wondering.

This weekend is busy

Lone Ranger

Finish planting garden

homemade ice cream with my parentals and hopefully siblings

Girl's Camp meeting yo

The Man's tux fitting for his sister's wedding

Group project meeting for communications 1010 blah

dentist for the entire Circus

The great clothes clean out... times six.  Or in other words, the beginnings of school clothes shopping

What's on your plate this weekend?

Happy Friday ya'll.

Looks Like We Have Our New Project

Once upon a time I used to buy a lot of floor plan magazines.  You know the type where it shows you all sorts of houses and what the floor plans are and then if you love one, you can buy the blueprints for them.

I was fascinated with these magazines and bought a good handfull of them over the space of a few years.

I was looking for the house.  My house.

The hard part was trying to get my ex to agree with me on the houses I found I was drawn to.

Every magazine, without fail, I was drawn to the two story houses with dormer windows on the second floor and a giant porch with pillars.

Every time.

I never got that house.  My ex and I decided on buying a prefab house, it was cheaper and would be so much faster.  So we went to the lot and picked out a house.  We had a guy in our church who sold us part of the field next to his house and after jumping through this hoop and that, we had a hole, and then a foundation, and then our house was delivered pre-made in two pieces.