Today: Riding Mass Transit And Freezing My Face Off. Don't Underestimate The Power Of A Kind Word. Youth Christmas Party.

I've taken to riding mass public transportation for my daily commute.

Mostly I think it's awesome.  I used to ride the bus a lot when I was a kid, so it's something that's familiar to me.  Saturday plans usually consisted of hopping onto the bus to go hang out at the local mall.

I'm not entirely sure how my parents were okay with this, but the said mall also held a dollar theater so I was pretty much set for the Saturday for less than five bucks.  I also rode the bus clear into downtown a few times when my mom worked there to meet her for a lunch date.

I was telling Brynn about this, and she thought it was pretty cool and started getting excited about the possibilities of trax/bus riding, but then I had to emphasize that this was before we had to worry so much about people kidnapping kids.  To which Brynn replied, "Kidnappers suck.  They ruin everything."

I would have to agree with that statement.

Normally if I catch a certain timed train, it arrives at my stop at the very time that the bus leaves.  So I hop off trax and get right onto the bus which takes me pretty much to the end of the street that my office building sits on.

Except today that bus decided to pull away right as the trax train came up to the station.

I watched it pull away through the window with a dropped jaw.

Over and over my co-workers have told me to call them and they'll come pick me up from the trax station.  But I don't feel like my decision to ride trax should become their problem.  Especially once I figured out that I can also take the bus and end up within a five minute walk from the office.

So I got of trax, pulled my coat close around me, and started walking.  It's only a 20-30 minute walk, and there's sidewalks the entire way so it's really not a big deal.  Except it was 30 degrees this morning.

Halfway through my walk my face lost all feeling.

I broke down and called a co-worker.  "Are you at work?"

"Yes..."

"Have you guys left on your morning drink run yet?"

"No.  Do you want one?"

"How about you leave right now for your drink run and pick me up while you're at it."

Done and done.

They chewed me out for not calling them earlier.  And then made fun of how red my ears were.

Stupid bus driver for not waiting a whole 3 minutes for the trax to stop so I could get on his bus.

Seriously.

I think this will be a smoother process in the summer when I won't mind if I end up walking, because it won't be cold enough to make my face fall off.

Also, today I sent out a round of cards and notes for the Snail Mail Society.

Honestly, I don't think we can ever underestimate the power of a kind word.

Do you need a kind word?  Do you know of someone else who needs a kind word?  Are you willing to send a kind word to someone who needs it?  Send an email to hellosnailmailsociety @ gmail.com for how you can get involved on either side of that project.

The stories that come in for why people would like letters sent are heart touching.

And to round out the day we held our Christmas party with the youth of my church.  We played this game with them,  but we're mean leaders so we made them start our a few rounds with gloves on, which was hilarious, and then did a round of white elephant gifts.

We gave a $1 limit so the gifts are usually pretty funny.  I've learned, though, that I need to start aiming for Caitlyn's gift.  Two years in a row now she's simply wrapped up a dollar.  It's genius.  That's a McD's Coke just waiting to happen.

Next year.

The Things I Will Never Live Down: The Childhood Years

You know those things that you do that you will never live down?

Like ever.

I know there's a couple in my life that I feel I need to defend because comments about them are never going to go away.

Like ever.

And I need you to know that it was a very honest mistake.

To make sure I covered it all, I asked on Facebook what were some of the things that my friends and family feel I will never live down in their eyes.

My word.

I have a lot of explaining to do.

*crack knuckles*

Let's begin, shall we?

Growing up I had the privilege of living next door to my grandparents Martin, who were the most amazing people in the world and will continue to be heroes and examples in my eyes.  Their influence on me as a child directs me still as an adult.

They had the coolest tree in their front yard.  It was huge.

Ginormous even,

It had a perfect flat base at the top of the trunk, in between where all the giant branches started breaking off into separate directions.  Two branches, one on either side of the tree, branched out just vertically enough that you could lift your arms above your head and wrap them around one of those branches, and walk your feet up the trunk until you were in the middle of the tree.

I spent pretty much every day of my childhood in that tree, and so did most of my childhood friends.

And childhood boyfriends.

I was reminded, on this quest of things I will never live down, of a time when I was up in this tree with one of these boys. Who knows what game we were playing.

But that boy tried to kiss me.

And I resisted.

And I fell out of the tree.

Apparently one of my friends is still telling this story to people she knows.

And I guess I don't really have a defense to this except if you don't want to be kissed, then you certainly shouldn't have to be kissed.

At any cost.

Growing up next to my grandparents also meant that we had a huge backyard.  The two backyards were left open and connected between the two houses with a swing set on one end, and a sandbox under an apple tree on the other, and a huge stretch of green grass in between.  There was a cement path that led from the driveway of my house, to the back patio of my grandparents house.

My parents, Dick and KC, like to tell the story of how one fine summer evening we were all sitting together on my grandparents patio, when, for whatever reason I decided I needed to run home for something.  In the awkward stages of pre-teendom, I tripped over my own feet and somehow, in one fall, managed to scrape both the front, and the back of the same knee.

Talented, I know.

In my defense:  when I realized that I was going to fall from my trip, it crossed my mind that I most certainly did not want a scraped knee.  So I stuck my hands out and as soon as they hit the ground I flipped myself over on my butt to avoid hitting my knees on the cement.

I think this is a rather clever thought process.

Unfortunately, by the time I had fallen enough for my hands to hit the ground, my knee did too.  And when I flipped myself over, "mid-fall" as I used to describe it, I went over the small lip of cement that was between the path and the patio, and it then scraped the backside of my knee as well.

Can you blame a girl for trying?

This post is getting long and I still have a few to tell from when I was a teenager and then some to tell as an adult.

I think I might need to turn this into a series.

But these means if you have stories of things you feel, in your eyes, I will never live down, please tell me.  I would love to defend myself.

Tomorrow:  The things I will never live down: the teen years HERE
The things I will never live down: the adult years (so far) HERE

shining mountains

Recently I told The Man that I was going to have a breadbox for our grandkids, the way my grandma had a breadbox.  I don't think it was necessarily for the grandkids specifically, I think it was for Grandpa and herself, but she certainly never turned us down when we wanted to get into it.  And it was always fully stocked. My grandma kept candy bars in her breadbox (just don't eat all of the Almond Joys, those are for Grandpa), and I fully intend to do the same.

I can't remember how this conversation started.  It might have been brought on by the recent funeral of West's grandma so we were swapping grandparent stories.  It got me to remembering...

I grew up next door to my grandparents.  Our backyard was one giant backyard, connected with theirs.  We had a swing set on our end, and they had a sandbox under an apple tree on their end.

I loved that apple tree.  Every summer in my childhood memory has that apple tree in it. 
It grew next to my grandparent's garage, and though we didn't make a habit of being on top of the garage, the times we did climb up there was by way of the apple tree.  I'm wondering with it really being so easy to get up there, why didn't we do it more?
We sat in the sandbox, digging, piling, burying toys, filling the box with water, all in the shade of the apple tree.  The only rule was not to get the sand on the grass, and since the explanation was given that the sand smothers and kills the grass, we were actually pretty good to watch out for that and kept the sand contained inside it's wooden frame.  I've learned from experiences like this in my childhood, that if I take the time to tell my kids why we have a certain rule, they'll be better to adhere to it, same as I was.  It wasn't just a silly way to control me, it made sense, it had logic.  We listened.
In my mind's eye I can still see the dapple shade on the sand, the rays of sun squeezing past in places. 

I remember Grandma, crazy hair standing straight up, standing on her front porch on Halloween night yelling "Merry Christmas" as she passed out candy. 

Or on a summer evening she would be out on her porch taking a picture of the Oquirrh Mountains.  She would tell me that "oquirrh" was an Indian word that meant "shining mountains."  She would click a few pictures and add, "And aren't they shining now?"
As a kid I would turn and look at the mountains.

Thanks to my sis in law Jess for taking this pic for me (she lives with my brother a street away from where we grew up)

And I would think in awe and wonderment, yes, yes they really do seem to shine.  And I thought the Indians were so clever to have named them shining mountains.

Until recently I discovered that the Goshute Indian word oquirrh actually means "wooded mountain"... now those Indians aren't so clever because it would seem they may have missed the times when the mountains shined.

But my grandma saw it.  And she taught it to me.