Author: alicewgold

I would like to state that I am a brunette, but now I am a mix of grey, white, brown, and blonde. I would also like to say that I am 150 pounds, but that would be a boldfaced lie. How about I say I am work in progress because that is the truth? A beautiful work in progress. I love the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard and my greatest hope is that something that I write will lift someone else on their journey.

The River Rampage

Abigail: “It was almost time to go home from Dollywood, and I begged dad to go on River Rampage (a water ride) with me. When we got there, Sophia and Bella wanted to go on the ride too, but (you know where we are going with this mom) Mom said, (hm hm hm) ‘No way, you guys are not going on that water ride! You will get wet and cry all the way home’.”

Sophia: “Mom said, ‘Because you will get soaking wet and it is freezing out here’.” (about 50 degrees to be precise) Mom, next time I am going to listen to you when you say not to go because I got soaking wet that time, and I don’t like getting soaking wet. ”

Bella: “I had fun even though it was wet. I liked it even though mom told me not to, but I still liked it even though mom told me not to. So, I went on there with Dad and Abigail and Sophia. I still likedid (her actual pronunciation) it, and I loved it.”

Abigail: “Sophia got in the jackpot seat, and every time we went down a water hill, she was the first to get wet. After the ride, I wanted to go again, and Dad said, ‘I’m not going because I am not getting wet again.’ So, I said, ‘o.k.’ and went by myself. I was proud of myself because I did not get as wet as Sophia. I knew better than to sit in the same seat as Sophia did the last time.”

The Motherly Wisdom

I found a way to blog and interact with my children at the same time…..WOW! Check it out. What a great Sabbath Day activity. I am following the advice of our Sunday School lesson: helping my children to record their experiences. I am very proud of their work…they created their own blog, all on their own! I just acted as their scribe, as you will see.

Lookee Here

Look at the empty laundry baskets.

This one is for Chrys…No, I don’t think I can live up to your systematic way of life, (although I am impressed) but, I give you the highest kudos for your amazingness and for motivating me enough to catch up on my laundry this week! (If any of the rest of you have no idea what I am talking about, read this)

It has been a very long time that on Saturday night I am DONE with the laundry! And guess how I did it? I folded them while waiting for the pics and video to upload to my blog!

And, to all the rest of you that felt my pain: ladies, be of good cheer, I am now living proof that we can all still blog and keep up with our housework…as long as you’ve got four hours to give every Saturday.

No pile in front of my dryer. WOW!

27 Chicks

Every day between Sophia’s kindergarten pickup and Abigail’s pickup, I go over to the Aders, and Valerie and I walk while we let the kids play. We want to show up her hippy sons when we hike with them on the Appalachian trail for a couple of days. (they don’t think we can do it)

On Thursday, the Aders added 28 baby chicks to the 4 baby ducks that I already posted about. Abigail was heartbroken after hearing Sophia and Bella tell her all about the chicks, and so after school yesterday, we all went back to the Aders so that Abigail could get her turn to see the baby chicks.

I was heartbroken to hear that my runt (the first one that Valerie put in my hand – what a great first experience – it kind of convulsed and pooped on me) had died in the night…Valerie gave her a proper burial by chucking her over the back fence into the BEYOND at the beginning of our walk. Later, I realized that we should have at least given the runt a name before we disposed of her…as an afterthought I would like to affectionately call her Chicken Little.

As you heard in the video, as of yesterday at 3:00 the chickens had no names. Me, being the animal lover that I am, can not let any living thing go nameless. Valerie’s sister gave her the idea of painting the baby chicks toenails to help her differentiate them while they grew.

So, yesterday, every one of the chicks got their toenails polished (Abigail was a great help with this task) and a name….here they are:

1- Mary (she is calm and peaceful like the Mary’s in the scriptures)

2- Janice (she is loud and annoying, like Chandler’s ex-girlfriend on Friends)

3- Deeny (she was an escape artist just like Hoodini)

4-Henny Penny (she is a gold chicken with silver nail polish – she had to be named after money)

5- Strawberry (she is a sweet chick with red nail polish)

6- Diana (gold chick with purple nail polish – Purple and Gold were my HS colors and the Lancers were our mascots – we named her after royalty)

7- Big Momma (she is one big chick)

8- Angelina ( she had pink nail polish with feathers stuck to her toes, she is named for the ballerina)

9- Jo (she’s the little tomboy)

10- Shaniqua (she’s the black chick)

11- Frances (she’s got the French manicure)

12- FloJo (she is black, fast, and has fancy silver nails)

13- Whoopi (black and full of life)

14- Dora (the boys named her – she’s got a spot on her neck, totally irrelevant)

15- Jemima (another black chick)

16- Addie (she’s a crazy chick we added the I E to the A D D)

17 – Decrescendo (when you pick her up, she’s really loud, and then she quiets down)

18- AnnaBelle (she tried to eat Valerie’s hand)

19- Molly (she wanted to get back in the pack with all the other chicks real bad, we named her after all the other Molly Mormons that we know who are tryint to keep up)

20- Jane (she was just a plain old not exciting chick)

21- Ruby (the boys named this one)

22- Ginger (she pecked some red nail polish onto her beak and it made her look like she was wearing lipstick – we named her after the Gilligan’s Island star)

23- Fiona (she had bed head and was real grouchy- we just liked the name and thought her characteristics were in sync with an hogre)

24- Dorothy (she’s got a dot on her beak – we named her after my Grandma who hated to be called Dot for short)

25 & 26- MaryKate and Ashley (they’re identical twins)

27- Lucy (she got the sparkly nail polish, so we named her after a stripper – I wanted to name my Bella Lucy so badly, but my mother and another friend both told me that Lucy was a name for a stripper – I don’t agree but it ruined the name for me. But, HA, I showed them, I now have Bella and an adopted chicken named LUCY..and everyone LOVES LUCY)

Thanks for the memories Valerie! I cannot wait to keep painting toenails every Friday. And, I also can’t wait to get farm fresh eggs for real cheap!

A Tennessee Spring
These pictures are for all of you to enjoy (and be jealous, if you will)!

But, these photos are especially for my anonymous naysayer who thinks that I am a Utah snob.

I remind you all that I am 2/3 California, 1/6 Utah, and 1/6 Tennessee.

But, I can’t wait to be mostly Tennessee…I love it here.

How can anyone NOT love Tennessee in the Spring?
I dare to say that there are not many more prettier places throughout the country, during this time of year.

Now, August in TN, with all it’s humid glory, that’s a different story.
Stay tuned for the dogwoods…they aren’t out yet. And, FYI, if you plan move to Tennessee, you better learn the name of lots plants and trees, or YOU will be the ignorant one. Everyone here knows so much more about nature than I do.

But, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it or appreciate it! Because I do SOOOO much!

Here’s my version of Spring mixed with one of my favorite hymns.

For The Beauty of the Earth

For the beauty of the Earth,

For the beauty of the skies,

For the love, which from our birth,

Over and around us lies,


For the beauty of each hour,

Of the day of the night,

Hill and vale, and tree and flow’r,

Sun and moon, and stars of light,

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth, and friends above

For all gentle thoughts and mild,

Lord of all, to thee we raise,

This our hymn of grateful praise.

She’s just so cute and funny

Bella: “Dad when you buy me a new bike, you need to get me a basket and a bell. Right now when I am about to hit someone, I just have to yell, ‘Coming through’!”

And, this sentence speaks volumes as to the girl’s personality.

She will accomplish whatever she desires in this life.

And, look at how photogenic she is…the girl can’t take a bad picture.

DUCK!

Our friends, The Aders, got four baby ducks a few weeks ago. It is so funny to hear Valerie’s two grandsons repeatedly remind everyone, “We are going to eat two and keep two.”

I guess they are learning the facts of life while they are young. Surely they don’t know all of the facts of life yet.

The other day, Valerie and I looked out the window to see all three of my girls jumping on the trampoline, with her two grandsons who had stripped all the way down to their underwear.

All of the kids seemed totally oblivious. They were just laughing and having a good old time…that is a story that will be fun to tell in a few years.

Going back to the ducks and the Aders. Kristy says that duck tastes sooo good. They bought the ducks for the sole purpose of having a gourmet meal. I think I will have to bribe Kristy with a paid ticket to her favorite restaurant, so that she can spare the lives of these ducks….No wonder why they call it a DUUUUCKKK! My only unasked question is this, “How can vegetarian Uncle Brian stand to live in the same house as all the carnivoric savages?”

Oh…the laundry!

To start a long post, and hopefully motivate you to keep reading, here is a joke I read recently:

Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, “What setting
do I use on the washing machine?”
“It depends,” I replied. “What does it say
on your shirt?”
He yelled back, “University of Oklahoma.”
And they say
blondes are dumb…

Warning this is a loooooong post…but it just had to be done all together, and if you want to know why, you must read the whole thing.

The laundry that a mother of 3 has to gather, treat, wash, (and sometimes rewash) fold, and put away is NEVER ENDING. My friend Tracy told me that if you ever want a glimpse of eternity, you should just compare it to laundry. Eternity will be different and hopefully a lot more fun than laundry, but the cycles will probably very similar. Clean, put away, wear, dirty…you get it.

I have posted about laundry before…here and here (for the more spiritual side of laundry). It shouldn’t surprise you that the subject has reared its ugly head again. I am a mother. And mothers are made of the stuff they learn while laundering. Some of us glean more lessons than others. That is why I like to take so long to do my laundry…I have the opportunity to learn so much more this way.

A couple of weeks ago, Faye and her mom, Grandma Henderson stopped by. They were on their way to go and help a very pregnant cousin, but some bad weather gave them a “wait out a Southern storm” pit stop at my house. They were greeted by my 10 loads of laundry waiting so patiently on family room floor to be folded. The pile had been growing for at least three days.

Grandma didn’t even try to contain her amazement, as I kept bringing her basket upon basket of clean and wrinkly clothes (the only way we fold laundry around here is wrinkly). I have to give Grandma credit though, she was so cute, as she just kept folding steadily and cheery.

Grandma grew up with 10 siblings in a log cabin in the hills of North Carolina. She also raised 4 children. In response to the hour of the 3 of us folding constantly (except when I stopped to snap photos) Grandma said with all seriousness, “I have never seen this much laundry in my life. It reminds me of when I was growing up and my mom didn’t do laundry between Christmas and Old Christmas, and even then we didn’t have this much.” (Grandma didn’t know what Old Christmas was, but you can read here for a good history lesson…so interesting)Yep, I can always amaze people; even when they are aged and think that they have experienced everything, they really just haven’t spent enough time with ME!

Well, I have to say that I was kind of embarrassed, and partially relieved…luckily, there was no lingerie in the pile. Faye also did my dishes; it was lucky for her that they had only been piling up since that morning. (did you know that I have NO dishwasher? – married for ten years and I have only had a dishwasher for a total of 10 months – and THAT is something to brag about – my hands are even still soft at times)

It was so nice of Faye and Grandma, especially considering they were only here a total of 2 hours. What can I say though, LG is a product of some of the best women in the world? I hollered out as they were leaving, “Any time you want to come and do my laundry or my dishes, just stop on by.”

It can probably go unsaid, but laundry is always something that I have NOT mastered. What can I do to make it less torturous…I have no answers…yet.

So, when I was out with some girls the other night, we sat and talked and talked. We had so much fun, even if The Olive Garden fed us “puke dip”(affectionately named by the one and only Cally) OG’s new Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta Dip is NOT good. That was an understatement..it was nasty (what a bummer) And, yes, I took a picture of it. (Keep reading this does have to do with laundry)

If you want to read from the girls I was with, go to Cally, Lori, and Mandy. Sorry, Rachel doesn’t have a blog (what is she thinking?) I had no idea that Cally and I shared an affinity for Black Tie Mousse Cake….YUMMY! But they changed the crust from Oreos to cake. I hope they go back, it used to be so much better; I was so disappointed.

Come to think of it, I was disappointed with the only two things I ordered that night, between the girls and the bread sticks, I didn’t even notice.

Anyhow, back to the laundry. Throughout the night, I was laughing so hard because it was as if we couldn’t start ONE sentence without the word blog in it. Here are examples of starter sentences. “On my blog”, “Oh your blog”, “Did you read that blog”, “That is some great blog material” or the best being “I have got to blog about that”.

On the way home, we were discussing how pathetically addicted we all are at the moment…and it only makes it worse that we feed off of each other.

To change the subject, I proposed the question, “Can anyone help me with my laundry dilemma?”

We had a great lengthy discussion of many great ideas that I am too lazy to try and have already ruled out. The discussion really led to my confession of forgetting to stay on top of my laundry because of my blog. The girls and I all decided that they should send me random “do your laundry” reminders in the my blog’s comments from time to time. This way I couldn’t conveniently forget. You can imagine my delight, when a week later, Cally posted this. (She has a way with surprise…she waited just long enough for me to forget the conversation…the Cruze’s are so good with the element of surprise)

This is what the boys did while we went out. ..

Maybe I should have taken over my laundry for them..surely we would have got home before 2 am if they were folding instead of warring….Man, I can’t remember the last time I stayed up until 2 when blogging wasn’t involved.