Circumstances.

Do not, under any circumstances, dye your own hair.  Especially when you are getting ready to leave for a trip.  Or, especially if you are going to be around people.

Case in point:

Me

So I used to dye my own hair.  Many years ago.  Before I had a real-life-card-holding-certificate-on-the-wall hair stylist of my own.  So sometimes my hair was brown, sometimes black, often reddish pink, which you may say should be orange, but no, not orange, reddish pink. And usually it was the very same box of dye.

Then I got a life.  And a hair stylist.  And good hair color.

But, through no fault of my stylist, and very long to-do list, I haven't had my hair colored, or cut!, for about 3 months.  I have gray hair.  I nice little patch of it right above my right temple.  Cute!   

Not.

So I grabbed my little ol' self a box of home color.  And then proceeded to apply it to my hair.  Which could really use a good haircut rather than a box of natural hair color medium auburn brown.

I paid particular attention to my roots and the patches of grayness.

After rinsing I realized a horrible mess.  My roots are still dull and brown and lined with gray and the rest of my hair is, wait for it, reddish pink.  Yuck.

The picture so doesn't do it justice.

So it's in a ponytail every day.  Will be in a ponytail every day until after our long awaited vacation and then I will go see Shelba, my sister in law who will fix my color and give me a cute cut.

Until then, please don't look at my hair.

ALSO:

Do not, under any circumstances, even hard core chocolate withdrawals, DO NOT buy, bake or eat Low Fat Brownies.

So not worth it.

Trust me.

Hair Faux Pas

This morning I was getting my hair done.  I sprayed the GEL into my hair.  You know, that little, clear bottle of hair GEL.  As I dried my hair, it was sticky and hard to brush through.  Good Gravy!  I was ready to go buy a new product.  Dumb GEL.

After running the straightener through my sticky icky hair, I reached for the hairspray.  You know, the taller, can't see through it bottle.  DUH!!  It was the same bottle I'd sprayed the GEL from.  Oh my sweet hair dumbbell moment.  I sprayed HAIRSPRAY in my wet hair instead of GEL! 

I think this hair-brained moment should take care of any further faux pas in my immediate future.

And my hair is like sticky cement today. 

Salt-less.

It finally happened.  I never expected it to.  But it did.  My salt container became empty.  So I headed down to the food storage room.  And it happened.  No Salt.  At All.  In all of my vast food storage I have neglected the salt.  In all of my 41 years on earth and in my 13 years of running a household, I have always had salt.  Until now.

So I ran to the store and bought some more. 

 It was just strange that I had actually run out.  Have you ever been out of salt?

From The Drat Files. Just In Case.

I've got 2 July 30ths on my calender.  Just in case I missed it yesterday, I've got anther one today.  I hope August still starts at the right time.

Tomato Juice And Pretzels.

I canned tomato juice last week. The jars have been sitting on my counter for that long. So yesterday I decided it was time to get them to food storage. When I got there I began to put them onto a shelf. Then it happened. They fell and one of the quart jars broke. Shattered actually. Tomato juice everywhere. I eventually got it cleaned up. But man it smelled tomato-y. Then last night I was walking along in the family room on this very rug and something crunched underneath. What could it possibly be? Um. That's a pretzel. Stashed under the rug. And I stepped on it and crushed it. Thank you. Bye.

From The Drat Files.

I can't see my eyebrows to pluck them. And I never think to ask my sister in law to also do my eyebrows when I go get my hair done. And the hair is still frumpless, thank you very much! So I sometimes, sometimes, take the little clippers that I use to clean up the boys' necks to just go down the middle of my eyebrows and just get rid of the fluff. I'm in the process over the past several years of thinning my brows. Not by choice, mind you. They just do it on their own. So this morning I took those clippers and went down the middle there and then moved my hand, with the clippers going, and got my eyelashes. If you look just above my pupil there in the eye on your left, you will see a very faint red mark just above my lash line and then NO LASHES right under it! I have a bald spot on my lash line.

I really hope they grow back.

And is it just me, or does my nose look really big?

See No Weevil.

I don't have pictures. You may be pleased that I don't. Tonight's dinner was homemade mac and cheese. yummmm. I made. I served. I began to eat. So did the kiddos. Then I saw it. A whole and plump weevil. In my mac and cheese. So I ordered everyone to stop! Stop eating! Take your plates to the sink. I then went to the flour. No weevils. I went to the macaroni. Weevil flakes. You know. When weevils die they turn a bit flaky. Weird. So I ran down to the food storage and opened the big bucket of macaroni. Weevil flakes. Darn. All the macaroni is gone. I just made a box of regular mac and cheese. Not as impressive. But no weevils!

While we're talking about gross food... Last Saturday up at the Ranch I had all the lunch fixins out on the table. Peanut butter, honey, jam, ham, cheese, mustard, mayo and ketchup. Ketchup? It was requested. These are 2 of the sandwiches made....

Bread/honey/peanut butter/ ham/ketchup/bread

Bread/peanut butter/honey/cookie/Cheetos/bread

My children are strange.

But we saw no weevils at the Ranch!

The Drat Files. Period.

Some weeks ago there was a run of vandalism in our neighborhood. Some of our school's windows were broken. Some of our church's windows were broken. Trees were uprooted in our park and there was damage done to the restrooms at the park. Inside the house part of the neighborhood there was mailbox destruction. And then this... The nice tree in our front yard.

But this wasn't done by vandals. This was done by Mother Nature herself. Rats! The wind cracked our tree. Oh, and the our flag pole. So, no, we haven't gotten stagnant on our patriotism. The pole is just busted. And the tree is gone. Drat!
That weekend we went to a local demolition derby. We LOVE these things. Destruction. Noise. Dirt. Fire. You know. Just the normal stuff. But before this one even got started, the sun was beating down and we got cranky. It was flamin' hot and miserable. Our water got drinked really fast and so we left early. So. Yeah. Drat!

Even though there will be more drat to come, there is lots of fun coming!! Just you wait!

Thursday. Now And Then.

Let's cover the Now first. Ruthann lost a tooth and put the tooth in a baggie and then into an envelope. She wanted to write a note to the tooth fairy. I guess she didn't trust me to get the message to her. Thursday morning she woke up to a one dollar bill under her pillow. From the Drat Files: We went to the school carnival on Thursday afternoon and saw our little next door friends. After a while one friend came running in and said, panicking, "Your fence blew down. It's broken. The goats got out. You're really gonna have to get a new fence!" So I grabbed my kids and we were off. By the time I got there, Isaac and our friends, who gave Ike a quick ride home, had gotten the goats in the back. Jeff, their dad, was looking it over and passed by me as I ran over to assess the damage. He said he would get some fence posts and fix it up. Here it is all "fixed up". Daniel's pretty sure he can switch a top post with a bottom post and fix it.
And Then...
On Thursday we remember the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane. We ate some unleavened bread and lit our lamp and talked about the Sacrament and Jesus' suffering in the Garden. We discussed the importance of taking the Sacrament each week and remembering that Jesus loves us so much that He bled from every pore in our behalf.

Many thanks to Amie, Jeff, and their kiddos, who helped save the day.
And we are eternally grateful for our loving Savior, who bled and died for us. And who rose the third day. He lives!

Food Storage?

Again. From the Drat Files. Look what I found today. Look at the year.

2009?!?!?!

Goodness sakes.

I believe I did a wonderous job of planning and plotting and using my food storage in 2009.

I mean, I still have a beautiful food storage.

Don't get me wrong.

It's gorgeous.

And plentiful.

But have you seen the price of gasoline?

And what's happening in the Middle East?

And our very own economy?

Food storage will be needed.

Desperately needed.

And so I guess I should change the year to 2011 and update all I have in my records.

Because I want to look good for all of you.

But most importantly, I want to make sure I can keep my family eating and help those around us if need be.

If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.

The Last Picture.

From the Drat files:

Last night we were preparing for another family movie night. All was going well. We decided to make the Jiffy Pop we got at the family Christmas party the night before.

Getting the Pop stuff ready to go...

Then. The burner was preheated and the Jiffy Pop was set down.

So far, all is well.
It begins to pop and grow.
So exciting!!
Please don't focus too long on the grime around the burner. It may cause problems for you.
It gets really big and the pops are coming fast.
We can't wait!

And then the camera fell on to the floor.

I picked it up.

The lens was busted.

Really.

Busted.

The camera is no more.

Drat.

I don't know why these stupid things keep happening to me.

But I'm sick and tired of it.

And somebody better do something about it.

Oh Drat.

We interupt The Cruise for the following announcement!

What could possibly happen to make a normally beautiful gal look like this:

A. No make up

B. Undid hair

C. Car accident

D. All of the above

If you picked D. All of the above, you would be correct. I was rear ended with 2 of my kids in the car. An F-150 with a huge full trailer on the back did that. I may just get my Suburban sooner than we had planned!

Just so you know, my worst fear ever!! is that my kids would be in the car and I would be hit on the side. Luckily he hit the back and wasn't accelerating. We are grateful we weren't hurt!

Oh yeah. And that broken window at the church? My son did that!

Were you to ask what happened to the window we would answer heartily, "It was broken by the power of the word of God!" And thunder would roll.

He hit the window with his scriptures.

Oh Drat.

Oh, right. I have this blog. I assumed I would have all this time to just....um. Blog. Not.
So I sat down just a bit ago to put all the pictures and update on the last few weeks. But I realized something. Many of my pictures are gone. And Isaac isn't home to ask. He had my camera for a while. I have no idea what happened to all the pictures. But these are the ones that are still there. Mostly what he took on his field trip.

So consider this a catch up. But not really. I had pictures of my latest updates to my family room. From Mother's day. The baptism. And other such things. So it's just a filler. Unless I can't find my pictures.

Isaac's field trip to Promontory Point. 4th graders smell funny. I've gone on all but one field trip with these beasts. They smell funny. Ever hear of showers? Deodorant? Toothbrushes?? At least I got to sit by Isaac the whole time. He doesn't smell near as funny. He just is funny!
The kids did a reenactment of the marriage of the rails. Isaac got to be the rail worker. He so efficiently got to drive the last spike into the rails. He's so awesome!

Isaac took this picture of the 2 original trains. The Juniper and the, um, something else. I apparently was too distracted other things. I don't remember what the other train was called. But I liked it better.

Last Friday night, Daniel took the boys on the Ward's Father/Son Camp Out. It rained, snowed and was freezing. But they had fun. Sam refused to put pants on. He's so strange!

Isaac crossing his eyes? Why? No idea. Ruthie and I went to Applebee's for dinner then stayed up late and watched Hannah Montana the movie. We had a fun slumber party and were really warm.

The snow. The cold.

The new Primary President and her first counselor/my previous first counselor stopped by last week with this book and a gift basket. They had all the kids write letters/draw pictures for me. The basket had lots of chocolate and relaxing stuff just for me.

This was my favorite page in the book. There isn't a name on it, so I don't know who it's from. It says, "Hi, you were a good teacher and now you have a breake from being a good teacher." Thank you. I needed a break!

For mom's day, Daniel set a precedent last year with the blog books. This year I got volumes 3 and 4. Yep. That's me driving a tractor. These books are wonderful scrapbooks of our family. All I had to do was update my blog. Hmmm. Maybe I should be doing that more for the next volumes!

And that's all my pictures. You know what I've been doing lately? Reading. A book. I know. I actually haven't been able to just sit and get involved in a good book for 2 and a half years. Whenever I would try, my mind would run through all the myriad of things that needed to be done. I didn't realize how much of my life Primary took. I am enjoying a great book and have purchased more books from DI.

I have a new calling! I'm the Wolf Den Leader. yahoo! I am loving it! 8 year old boys smell funny, too, but I can handle it better than 50 10 year olds on a school bus. Daniel is still the Cubmaster, so we actually get to kinda work together again. I love it!

In 2 weeks, Daniel and I will be sailing through the great state of Alaska! I went to get me cute shoes and some rain ponchos today. Now I need to start making my lists. Lists of stuff. Kid stuff. Mom and dad stuff. Grocery stuff. House preparing stuff. Packing stuff. Stuff. And then there's all the other stuff.

There are only 4 days and 15 minutes left of school. Then I will have a 5th grader, a 3rd grader and a 1st grader. Man! They're getting old!

So I think I have caught up on most of what's been going on.