So if you peruse the internets, you’re likely to find a million posts in which people are detailing their resolutions for 2010. I think that’s kind of silly, to be honest. I mean, if you are serious about making a change in your life, why do you need to wait until January to do it? I have things that I want to accomplish over the next year, but they are the same goals I have had for the last several months — mainly to get my shit together, be healthier, and be a better Mom to Lauren. Easy peasy, eh?

Nevertheless, I understand that some people may not be as together as I am, and might just be struggling with their making their own resolutions. Perhaps they don’t know what goals to make, or how to go about achieving them. Well, people — as always, I am here to help. I have made my list of all-purpose resolutions. Feel free to choose any or all of them for yourself.

• Stop driving slow in the fast lane. That is the left-hand lane, for those of you who don’t know. I realize that you believe that you are setting a good example by going EXACTLY the speed limit in that lane, but I like to go a little faster. And that’s just between me and the Highway Patrol, so let it go. Move your hiney over and let me pass you. Thanks.

• When shopping, please be mindful of where you are in relation to the people around you. It’s not polite to stop your cart in the middle of the aisle while you flip through your massive stack of coupons, making it impossible for me to move around you. And when you look up and see that I am coming toward you, do NOT go back to your coupons, thereby forcing me to announce my presence by saying “Excuse me!” You will only piss me off.

• If you suffer from allergies or any other upper respiratory ailment, please do not snort, hack or gag on your secretions in my presence. I am a nurse and can deal with bodily secretions on a daily basis, but that grosses me out, dude! Knock it off!

• Pull up your pants. No one wants to see your underwear, and that look is so 2000 anyway.

• Just make an ATTEMPT to act like a parent when you’re out in public with your kids. I’m a parent and I take care of kids for a living, and yet I still want to smack the crap out of yours when they scream in the middle of the grocery store. Ignoring them isn’t going to make the situation any better, and it’s going to make you look like an idiot to me. I would appreciate a “shhh, honey” so I can tell that you are at least aware of the situation.

• Stop making screwed up faces in pictures. You are not a gangster and it’s not sexy.

• When you are waiting for an elevator, please allow the people to exit the car before you enter. Trust me, you will make it on before the doors close. And if you don’t, just push the button and WHOA! They will open again. There’s no need to crush the poor occupants of the car because you have a panic disorder.

• Stop using Facebook to a) declare your love for your significant other in EVERY SINGLE STATUS UPDATE, and/or b) describe in detail what you are doing. I don’t care what you’re making for dinner, or what you’re watching on TV. If you violate this rule more than once, you will be hidden from my feed.

• Stop complaining that your husband wants to have sex with you. If it’s that excruciating, one or both of you is doing it wrong. Be grateful that you have someone to share your life with, and if it’s not as awesome as you want it to be, get some help. But stop whining to me, your only single friend. Thanks much.

• And last but not least, ENOUGH WITH THE TWILIGHT CRAP! First of all, neither of the actors that play Edward and Jacob are even REMOTELY attractive (ripped abs do not a sexy man make) and you should be embarrassed that you are acting like an idiot over FICTIONAL CHARACTERS that were written for teenagers! Meanwhile, you have a flesh and blood man in your house who would love to have even a fraction of that attention. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Ok, so there you go. If any of these apply to you, please PLEASE pick one of these resolutions and stick to it like glue, ok? You’ll be doing me (and everyone else) a huge favor.

Much love,
Andi

Number of items of Tyler’s that I have collected in a large garbage bag because I don’t want to see them: 8

Number of times I have told myself that if he doesn’t want to be with me, I’m better off without him: 1000

Number of times I have cried on a good friend’s shoulder: 1

Not bad, considering that I just lost my best friend. Anyone up for some ice cream?

They call it the SCAT bus.

I started laughing hysterically, and my poor Mom was a little surprised by my reaction. Confused, she asked me what I found so funny. I know there are other definitions for this word, but the first thing that popped in my head wasn’t jazz. Don’t organizations think about their inevitable acronyms when they come up with names? I mean, Van Halen knew what “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” would end up being called. This isn’t rocket science, people. Do you know why the people in Fresno decided to call their local transportation Fresno Area Express, or FAX?? It’s because Fresno Area Rapid Transit would have been just plain wrong!! Nobody wants to ride the FART bus, any more than anyone wants to ride the SCAT bus.

And yet, the SCAT bus is helping my Mom. So she’ll giggle every time she gets on it, and I will sleep at night knowing that I corrupted my mom’s innocent brain just a little more.

If you want to have a good laugh, read this (quite serious) article about the SCAT buses. And don’t blame me if you pee your pants a little bit.

I might never get to live in a mansion, I realize this. But by golly, someday I will have a Tiny Grocery Bag Door. CCB promised!

So along with a blog award comes a meme, and this one was no different. I am supposed to list five of my current addictions, and tag five other bloggers to do the same. But I decided to do it a little differently. I will list my five addictions, and then I challenge you to list yours in the comments. For all of my friends who did not comment on the previous post about their dream vacation “because it’s just so hard to narrow it down to one place”, there are no excuses this time. You can reveal one or ALL of your addictions, I don’t care. Just speak up, cuz I loooove to hear from all of you!!

So here are my five addictions, in no particular order:

1. Kisses from my daughter. I only have a few years left in which it’s acceptable to nom on her cheeks and I take full advantage of that.

2. Pepsi. Specifically, Diet Pepsi with Lime. I don’t drink much of it (sometimes don’t even finish one can a day), but I absolutely need it every single day.

3. Online Poker. I have played cards all my life, but never really got into poker until Tyler explained the game to me. And now I’m a total shark. Even he admitted that I’m good. So look out Vegas, cuz I’ll be seeing you in a few months to pick up that cash you owe me.

4. Organization. There is nothing more soothing to me than cleaning up chaotic messes and seeing everything in its place. The tranquil, harmonious organization makes my heart sing, ya’ll.

5. Facebook. When it first came out, I was all “what’s the point of that?” and although I had an account, I really did nothing with it. But then my friends started “friending” me, and little by little, I got hooked. I can’t go through a day without checking my news feed, and I’ve gotten so addicted to it that I now update Facebook more than I update Twitter. If you are on Facebook and you haven’t “friended” me yet, what are you waiting for? The link is over there to the right!

So there you have it. My five vices. Now it’s your turn… what are YOU addicted to???

So yesterday I mentioned on Facebook that I was having a craving for Tsunami’s Don Juan roll and minutes later, my dear friend and neighbor Naomi responded by inviting me out to dinner. As we lingered over our yummy rolls and caught up on all the neighborhood gossip, she mentioned something her cute daughter (and Lauren’s favorite babysitter) said to her. Apparently, after watching an LDS video featuring only Caucasian actors, she wondered why there weren’t any ethnic people in it. Her comment was something like, “Jesus was from Israel. Do they really think he’s white like them?” And that got Naomi and I thinking. What DOES Jesus look like anyway? According to the LDS church, he looks something like this:

According to Mel Gibson, he probably looks like this:

As for me, I’d be totally cool if he looked like Sayid:

So what do you think? What Would Jesus Look Like??

“N” spent the entire time with me, corralling wayward 7-year-old girls and trying to stop the neverending-oh-for-hell’s-sake-what-are-they-crying-about-NOW tears. We later estimated that 80% of our girls burst into tears at some point over the weekend. For things such as “I lost my Dream Box!” and “She has my pillow!” and my personal favorite, “SPIDER!” I consider myself to be a fairly patient person, as I’m sure “N” does as well, but by the end of the weekend we were both a little snippy when the water works began. Sue us.

“C” on the other hand, was the lucky one who got to go to work during the day and only join us at night. Unfortunately, that also meant that she had middle-of-the-night latrine duty because “N” and I had HAD ENOUGH! Thanks, “C”, for letting me sleep.

The weekend began innocently enough, with “N” and I loading our respective cars with enough provisions to last us a year, and driving up Provo Canyon to the beautiful Trefoil Ranch. It took us a while to get from the gates of the ranch to our actual campsite, and much to my dismay, it was like 400 miles up a steep rocky hill from the lodge. A hike that we probably negotiated upwards of 3,000 times a day. Ok, maybe I exaggerate a little. It was really only 1,000 times a day. And I don’t know if I have mentioned this or not, but I am not what you would call “Physically Fit”. I am, in fact, squishy and soft. CCB likes me that way, and Lauren thinks I’m fun to cuddle with. But Squishy and Soft do not lend themselves well to “hiking up a damn mountain a billion times a day”. I think it’s safe to say that I was tired.

But I brought my Ambien, and after all was said and done the first night, I climbed into my sleeping bag, zipped myself in, and waited for the pill to kick in. I don’t remember anything else that night, but apparently there were many trips to the bathroom with the girls, and also a wet sleeping bag/pillow/stuffed animal incident (from a water bottle, not man-made) that required intervention by the other two women in my tent while I snoozed blissfully away. Apparently I was so sound asleep that I was making moaning sounds. (This is not a surprise to me — I have been told that I talk and moan in my sleep on occasion.) I assure you that these moans are not in any way associated with the quality of my dreams (if you know what I mean), but they probably appear that way. When “N” and “C” overheard said moans, they tried to wake me up and tell me that I was making noises. I think they are big liars, too, because they insist that I told them that I was having sex dreams because “my honey doesn’t live with me”. I think this is false, and entirely unlike me, but they maintain that I said those very words. And they apparently laughed hysterically for upwards of ten minutes when I said them. Whatever.

The second day at camp was filled with activities (line dancing, anyone???) and more tears. At one point, “N” and I were perched near the fire pit at the lodge, which proved to be a lovely spot for people watching. I found it quite interesting that there are essentially four types of Girl Scout Leaders:

1. Super-cute crafty Moms who tie dyed t-shirts for all her girls to wear, and found color-coordinated bandannas to match.

2. Enormously overweight Moms (I am talking 300 pounds-plus) whose only activity is in searching out a place to sit down. I do not include myself in this category, for the record.

3. Very masculine Moms. I have never seen so many potential Lesbians in my entire life. It became kind of a sport for “N” and I to guess whether a given Leader was a woman or a man. The whiskers made it hard to tell.

4. Us and those like us. AKA “The Normal Ones”. I think it goes without saying that we were the minority.

The last day at camp, we were awakened by the sound of rain on our tent roof. At first, it was relaxing and tranquil. And then I realized that it was turning our entire campsite into a Roman Mud Bath. I have been home for five days now and have taken approximately 45 showers and baths, but I am still finding dried mud in assorted places. Oh, and let us not forget the rogue caterpillars who hitched a ride to the suburbs with us.

All in all, it was actually a splendid time. I bonded with my sweet little Girl Scouts (yes, even the ones who cried hysterically half the time) and killed more spiders than I have seen in a lifetime. I discovered that my dear Lauren is not willing to kiss and cuddle her Mom when friends are around (and that I can embarrass her without much effort at all). I also discovered that a cold Diet Pepsi with Lime in a camp chair with caterpillars in your hair is a pretty relaxing thing, believe it or not.

Oh, and I also discovered that camping is a LOT more tolerable with Ambien. AND good friends to share it with.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a mild dental phobia (in that I can’t handle the jacked-up grillz, ya’ll) so you can imagine how distressed I was to see my cute little kid turning into a Snaggletooth. Ugh. The tooth had to go! I tried to be aggressive with it, but as it turns out, Lauren has a dental phobia of her own (in that she is completely freaked out at the idea of anyone yanking a tooth from her head and making her bleed.) Go figure.

For a few days, the plan was that she would pull it herself. She tried, bless her heart, but it wasn’t budging. She did look pretty darn cute trying to pull it, however.

Then my lovely sister, Jen, who is my parenting mentor, told me that she always used Baby Orajel on her kids and called it “Sleepy Stuff”. As in, it puts the tooth “to sleep” and makes it sooooo easy to pull. Heck, I’ll try anything at this point, so off to the grocery store I went to procure some Baby Orajel. We tried the magic potion and it did indeed make her mouth feel “awesome”, in her words, but she was still hesitant to pull. I was able to convince her to let me slip a loop of dental floss around it, but then she insisted on leaving it alone and walked around for a full hour with a string of floss hanging from her mouth.

Finally, I was tired of waiting. Under the guise of “removing” the floss, I gave it a swift yank and the tooth came out. I know what you’re thinking and yes, I lied to my child. I set a sneaky little trap and I got her. I know. I saw the look of utter betrayal in her eyes when she realized what was going on. But sometimes, a parent’s gotta do what a parent’s gotta do. And it was relatively pain-free. There was a hell of a lot of blood and screaming, but in the end, Lauren had to admit that it really hadn’t hurt that much.

Lauren has a cute embroidered pillow with a little pocket that the tooth is inserted into, so with all the pomp and circumstance that losing a front tooth warrants, we tucked the little tooth inside and prepared for the arrival of the Tooth Fairy. But there was a little tiny catch. Apparently, when the Tooth Fairy comes to Mommy’s house, she leaves a respectable dollar for the tooth. But when the Tooth Fairy goes to Daddy’s house, she leaves TWENTY DOLLARS. I guess because the Tooth Fairy probably stops at the ATM beforehand and doesn’t think to buy a pack of gum to make change or something. In any event, when we stuck that tooth in the pillow, I tried to prepare Lauren for the inevitable disappointment in the morning. I offered to stash the tooth “someplace safe” so Lauren could take it to her Dad’s in a few days, but she was too excited to wait. Even with the knowledge that she’d be shorted $19.00, this was a big deal. She did ask me if maybe the Tooth Fairy would still pay $20 due to the fact that it was her first front tooth. I had to give her a mini-economics lesson and explain that due to the recession (Thanks again, Dubya), the Tooth Fairy was probably going to be cutting back this year. She nodded and said, “I guess it can get pretty expensive giving every kid $20 for each tooth.” And then I reminded her to not mention to her friends how much she got at Daddy’s house, because maybe the Tooth Fairy didn’t bring them as much. I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage First Graders in that manner, because next thing you know, they’ll be tying their teeth to doorknobs just to make a buck.

In any event, despite the fact that I lied to her face in order to pull it, and despite the fact that she only made a buck off of it, the whole thing ended up being a momentous occasion for my little girl. Can’t you see the glee???