USA

John Denver

John Denver is the man!

When I found out that LG shared my love of John Denver, I KNEW he was the man for me. I thought that I had an unusual upbringing because my parents were always exposing us to JD’s music. Come to find out, my upbringing was pretty normal. LG was growing up 2,000 miles away and he had just as much exposure to the King of country-folk music.

While I lived in Alaska, mom and dad would put us to sleep with John Denver. They would play him as loud as he would go on their little portable battery operated tape player.

I still love John Denver. LG and I carry on tradition and listen to him while we take road trips with our girls. We teach them to sing the lyrics to his songs, which are quite uplifting. Here is one of my favorites:

Perhaps love – 1980

Perhaps love is like a resting place,
A shelter from the storm,
It exists to give you comfort,
It is there to keep you warm,
And in those times of trouble
When you are most alone,
The memory of love will bring you home…

Well, I was grief-stricken, like many others, when Denver died in a plane crash, October 12, 1997. I was mostly bummed because I never got to see him in concert.

At the time, I was taking a course in college, Public Speaking. Each student was to give a speech on a self-chosen topic. I did a bang-up job with mine on the life of John Denver. Did you know that his birth name was Henry John Deutschendorf Jr.?

Well, during my speech, I touched on Denver’s act of adopting two children with his first wife, Annie. In explanation of the adoptions, instead of saying, “They thought that John was sterile.” I said, “They thought that John was impotent.”

Hello, they THOUGHT that John Denver was IMPOTENT…isn’t that something that someone either knows or they don’t?

I still got an A on the speech. No one even snickered when I said it. I didn’t even realize what I had said until I was doing my mental speech replay later on during the day. I was mortified at what I had done. Luckily, most of the students in the class were really naive 18 year old Mormon girls. But, surely my hot young male professor from Michigan realized what I had done. I couldn’t believe it when I got my grade. Either the teacher was really impressed that I was the only student who accompanied my speech with a Power Point presentation, or he was so entertained that he decided to let my mistake slide.

WT

Abigail’s “Barbie” blanket

Here’s another confession. Not a proud parenting moment.

When we moved with our three kids to Tennessee, I was plagued with anxiety about how people would view me and my family of 5. I think I was justified, as to the fact that we live on $12,000 of student loans a year + whatever wages my husband can scrape up in his spare time during the school year and summers. [The big fat greedy lawyers do not pay clerks enough. Whenever LG is high and mighty, he is going to fork over some cash to those starving students. Or, maybe he won’t, maybe it is some kind of passage of rite: if you can make it through law school alive, then you deserve a decent salary.]

Well, embarassingly enough, I was heard to encourage my children not to do certain things in fear of fitting into the “poor” role. I would give them good advice like: wear your shoes, brush your teeth, comb your hair, don’t say bad words, be nice to your friends…..all good pieces of motherly advice. Sometimes, I would put a little add-on at the end, “Now, you don’t want people to think that we are white-trash.”

One night, we were all taking a late drive home. It was a sure thing that all the girls would fall asleep on the hour and a half drive. Abigail had gotten her pants really dirty or wet so that she didn’t want to wear them on the long drive. We were caught without a change of clothes and so we told her to just take her pants off and put her blanket (pictured above) over her legs to cover her up. She was satisfied with the solution to the problem.

Well, we ended up needing to take a potty break and a stop for some more baby formula. We stopped in at the local grocer. I wrapped Abigail up and told her to keep herself covered as we ran into the bathroom. Abigail was only about 4 at this time. When she finished her business, she caught me completely off guard when she said matter of factly to me:

“Mom, now, cover me up good, we don’t want anyone to think that I am white trash!”

J.D.

The ONLY tractor

Images Copyrighted by Historylink101.com & found at Story of Farming Page

When you apply for Law School, you have to submit what they call a “personal statement” Well, a friend of ours on a Law School acceptance committee advised LG to do something different that would make him stand out as an applicant. Much like what you see Elle Woods do on Legally Blonde. Now, LG was not about to jump in a hottub in his bathing suit, much less, talk into a camera, tape it, and send it to actual living breathing people. But, we did come up with something to start his statement out with a bang. It is based on a true story.

While growing up in the lush foothills of Northeast Tennessee, I had a small lawn mowing business. The pinnacle of my mowing career was purchasing the Cadillac of lawn mowers, a John Deere. Even today I reminisce about the power of my John Deere and how at ease I would feel at the wheel of it. Shortly after the birth of our second child and several months before graduating with my Bachelor’s, I told my wife I wanted to get a J.D. Initially she thought I intended to discard my degree in Computer Science and become a professional lawn mower. I quickly assured her that what I meant by J.D. was Juris Doctorate, not John Deere.

That’s so Special!

It’s a GREAT word

We have taught our kids to use the word special. They each have a SPECIAL drawer where they can put their SPECIAL things. We have taught our kids that each one of them is SPECIAL. Each of them are different and they each have SPECIAL talents. They have their favorite SPECIAL clothes and toys. You get the picture. The word special works for almost everything.

Special didn’t work out so great last year when we were at Dollywood. We were all walking past the River Raft ride, trying to work our way through the crowd. Right next to us, there was a man with a wooden shoe. You know, one of his legs was shorter than the other and he wore the shoe to correct the difference of height in his legs.

My daughter was staring this shoe down, and I was trying to drag her away, hoping that she wouldn’t embarass this man. She was so very observant and didn’t appreciate my gesture; she said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “Mom, wait, I am trying to see that man’s shoe. He has a SPECIAL shoe!”

What do you do? She was 100% correct. The shoe was very special. She may never see one like it again in her life. I just smiled and said as softly as I could,”You’re right, he does have a special shoe.” and we kept on walking, this time a little bit faster than before.

Tennessee Judiciary

Courhouse for the 6th Circuit of the Eastern District of TN

Alright, here’s another funny story.

My friend had knee surgery on Monday and because her husband was unable to go with her, I offered to accompany her. She gladly accepted my offer, so I got my mother-in-law (she is such a saint) to take the kids.

When we got to the same-day-surgery unit, I instantly realized that these people were all thinking that we were a “couple”. I had just had my haircut short, we both had wedding rings on…etc.etc. When I went in with her and she had to get her gown on, it became a little too much for me to keep quiet about. I just HAD to tell the nurse that, “I AM HER FRIEND, her husband couldn’t be here today.”

When the orthopedic surgeon came out and called for my friend’s family to come and get the scoop….I stood up. He had a VERY surprised look on his face. My friend is very wholesome and innocent and I could see the look of utter astonishment in his eyes. My husband got a chuckle as I told him the first words that I said to the surgeon (we’re going back to my obsessive need to explain myself). I said, “I am just a FRIEND of hers; her husband had to work today.” The surgeon looked somewhat relieved, but also dissapointed…go figure?

Well, I went and sat back down in the lobby, waiting for my friend to come out of her anesthesia (they said they would call me). I decided that after two hours it was time to strike up a conversation with the man sitting closest to me. He looked in his 70’s or 80’s. I asked him who he was waiting for. He said, “My wife is having surgery on her breast today.” (I guess when you get to a certain age, you don’t blush saying the word breast to a woman who is a total stranger.) He went on to relay that him and his wife were in the their 60’s and then he proceeded with their whole medical history. His wife had a tumor in her breast and he had lung cancer in 1996, but came out just fine. (I was astonished when he went for a smoke break a little while later)

Well, as he was talking on and on about his family’s medical history, I thought to myself, “Oh no, I am going to be stuck hearing all about this for the next hour.” I then caught a glimpse of his baseball cap…it said, “Tennessee Judiciary”. Then, I thought, score, I may have just made my husband a contact with a judge or somebody important. I then proceeded to tell him that my husband was in Law School and I made reference to his hat. He said, “I worked for the TN Supreme Court for 29 years.(or some high figure like 29)”

I said, “Oh yeah, what did you do?” He said, “I was in the maintanence department.” Well, there went my contact, unless LG wants to clean the floors of the courthouse for the rest of his life….I don’t think that would pay off the student loans, though.

Well, I didn’t want to make the man feel bad, and so I said,”That is what my dad does for a living. He is in maintenance.” [My dad is a contractor and can do or fix anything, but he maitains all of the LDS church buildings in Southern Utah]. He smiled as if to say, “Well, I am glad that you understand.”, but he didn’t say another word until I probed him for more private family information. It is amazing what you can learn about a person in one hour. He turned out to be a really nice guy; the best guy I know in the Tennessee Judiciary.

Wal-Mart Proposal

Boys, you gotta have the flowers

Alright, it’s about time that I tell on myself again. Here’s the latest episode of brain lapse or “talk b4 think”.

I went to Wal-Mart late Saturday night. While I was checking out I noticed a cute young couple behind me in line. Of course, I had a LOAD of groceries, and so my check-out took a while. I was brought up to be TOO friendly to strangers and of course I decided to strike up a conversation with these two.

The young girl had a dozen roses in her hand. She was standing behind the guy. I said to her, “Are those for you?” She replied with a yes. I chuckled a bit and looked at the guy and said,”Is she showing you what kind she likes?” She said, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

I said, “Funny, I just called my husband on the phone and told him that roses were finally coming down in price after Valentine’s Day. I asked him if I should buy some for myself.” I continued,”Now you shouldn’t have to buy flowers for yourself until AFTER you are married.” They laughed.

I then looked at the guy, elbowed him, and said, “you know what that means for you, huh? Guess you might be married real soon.”

The girl then decides to pipe up again. I think that she was trying to save her new fiance from my torture. She said,”Actually, he just proposed tonight.”

Everyone in line gave the oo’s and the aw’s….all I could think about is how absolutely crappy I had just made this poor guy feel. He proposed and then his new fiance had to go and buy herself some flowers to remember the night by.

Moral of the story: Never propose without flowers. Just do like my husband and don’t propose at all; then you won’t have to worry about it.

The Roadtrip

Ford Pinto

Posting my family up has got me reminiscing. Here is one of the GREATEST roadtrips that I got to share with my family.

When I was 5 or 6, my parents decided to take an 8 hour roadtrip from Carlsbad to Sacramento, CA. We were going to go and visit my Grandma Dorothy (mom’s mom).

Of course we were excited. As kids we had no idea that we didn’t have a car suitable for the trip. In fact, we probably, didn’t have a car suitable to drive around town. But, we had a really GREEN Ford Pinto. You’d have to ask my dad for the year and model.

My dad (AKA MacGyver) jimmy rigged this Pinto, so that we kids could be comfortable (ha) for the trip. He got a piece of plywood and custom fitted it to the back of the Pinto. He hung it with wires across the top of the car to form a nice little bunkbed in the back of the car. Remember, this was before the seatbelt or carseat laws. (what would that be like?)

Well, us kids thought it to be the most wonderful fun idea at first. The two boys were on the bottom, the three girls were on the top, and baby David was in Mom’s lap, probably. (Renee wasn’t born yet). I am sure that it only took less than an hour into the trip for all of us to realize the HUGE discomfort that this set-up was causing us. OUCH!!!!

I don’t remember how we made it through the trip, but I do faintly remember the plywood being ceremoniously removed at some point. My oldest brother, Erick, who was probably about 12 laid long ways in the back and the rest of us younger children were to find a way to make ourselves comfortable around him. I have NO IDEA how in the world my parents survived.

Yes, this story is a family jewel, (trust me, there are many more) and I am sure that anyone in my family will have to correct me on some of the finer details. Be kind guys; I was only six; it was hard for me to grasp the details. The only thing I remember was…..SQUISH!

The Family Feud

The Wills Family 2001

This is my mom and dad and brothers and sisters along with their spouses and kids. We took this picture at a favorite beach in Carlsbad, CA, where I grew up. I had a really bad haircut just days previouslly. We called it my KD Lang cut.

Three of us were pregnant in this picture, and there have been a lot more pregnancies and births since this time.

During this same family reunion, we tried out for the family feud. We made it and returned to CA shortly after to tape the show. We were on the show during Louie’s last season. He was very nice to us. We beat the other family (I am not too sure they were really a family, because I caught a glimpse of one of the contestant’s groping his supposed cousin.)

Well, my brothers lost the money in the final round. Their answers were entertaining. One answered that he would pack a “lei” to take on his trip to Hawaii. It took a few weeks to recover from the loss. As the real family feud began before the taping when we all discussed at length who would get the money if we did win. It was somewhat of a relief when we didn’t win because then we could all go back to wishing we had more money and we didn’t have to worry who in the family deserved or needed the money more than the others. After the show, we still feuded. My very pregnant sister and I were very moody the whole 12 hr drive home and we faught with the guys, telling them that they should have let one of us sisters have a go at the final round.

All and all, we did have a great time! It is trips like this that make memories. I have to say that feuding can make a family stronger, as long as you are willing to laugh with or AT each other. This is something that everyone in my family can do well, even the in-laws. We all love to laugh! And, we always love each other and we usually make up after the feuds.

Nightgowns

Abigail, Bella, and Sophia
Sophia is wearing one of her new nightgowns

All little girls love nightgowns. Why didn’t I know this before I bought so many pairs of cotton pants and tops? Between my three daughters, we probably own 50 pairs of pajamas. [25 are being stored waiting for someone to fit into them] I rotate according to size and yes, the poor younger two get mostly hand-be-downs.

Well, about two months ago Sophia decided that she would wear nothing to bed but the one nightgown that she owned. After about three weeks of “Mommy torture”. Sophia would beg for her nightgown every night. I would explain it was dirty. It would have to be washed sometime. Sophia would cry and cry and sometimes throw temper tantrums (she is 3). I would try and convince her to wear one of dad’s cool T-shirts or her pretty p’j’s with the flowers or, better yet, her new ones from Christmas. Usually, nothing would work.

After dad witnessed this enough times, he gave me permission to buy her another nightgown. I was elated. We went to Wal-Mart that day to see what we could find. I tried to sell Sophia on the $5 after -Chrismas-specials, but she wanted nothing but the pretty Princess and the Pauper one. I told her that she could have the P&P nightgown or 2 TWO 2 of the other ones that were on sale. She only wanted the P&P. So, I let her get it. Well, now Abigail was jealous and she wanted a P&P. I caved and let her have one of the $5 deals, thinking I was pretty nice, since she already had three nightgowns at home and we weren’t even shopping for her.

Well, on with the saga, that night, Abigail starts having a coniption fit because she doesn’t have the nightgown. We sat her down and explained that she was lucky to have a new nightgown at all and that it was Sophia’s turn to have something new. We can’t afford to buy all the girls a nightgown. [this may sound mean, but trust me when I say that our girls have plenty]. We told Abigail that she could do extra chores around the house and buy herself a nightgown. Did she ever pick up one toy, NO! And to this day, I am still reminding her that if she will pick up some toys she could get a nightgown.

The saga continues….LG has been encouraging me for quite some time to become familiar with E-bay. He wants us to start a business there. I thought that this was a perfect oppportunity. I bought Sophia a few more gowns, and when they started coming in the mail, Abigail was crushed. Then I bought Abigail a few and when they were delivered Sophia was crushed. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I think that kids will be kids.

When it comes to nightgowns….we just can’t WIN!

The Pink Tile

The shower and removing the wallpaper

Ever since we have moved into this house, we have affectionately called the bathroom that we are remodeling, the Barbie Bathroom. Our three daughters prefer this bathroom. Of course, it is so feminine. It also stays a whole lot warmer than the other bathroom.

Now, the only thing that remains of Barbie, is the shower tile. We have even removed the whole top layer of the pink flowered wallpaper.

We have decided to leave the pink shower tile for just a little while, as to not place too much change on the girls all at once, and because we can’t afford another project right now.