Chuck E Cheese Phobia

A few weeks ago it was my grandaughter Alexandra's birthday. It was on a Saturday. When it comes to my four oldest grandaughters, there is usually no need to ask where they would like to go for a bit of celebration.

Chuck E Cheese.

I am pretty sure that if little Elisabeth, my baby grandaughter, was able to voice an opinion she would also say Chuck E Cheese. She can't of course. But I think she still enjoys when we all go there.

Well, as I pointed out, Lex's Birthday, sadly, just happened to be on a Saturday. I'm pretty sure that any of you with children can see what I'm getting at here.

You do NOT go to Chuck E Cheese on a Saturday.

If you value your sanity, this is one of those things that you just won't do. I guess it had been a while since the Sorenson Family decided to brave going there on Saturday. We (mostly Lisa and Donald, it was their idea) had totally forgotten what a mad house that place turns into on the weekends.

Due to a series of unforeseen circumstances, Courtney and I ended up being the first ones there. Courtney wanted to go next door to check out some new little store that she had never noticed before. She promised to join me at The Cheese when she was done.

I hate entering that place on my own.

Being the doting grandma that I am, I steeled myself and went inside to stake out a long table in the back party room. The party room, for the most part, is the only space in the place that I can tolerate for any length of time.

It's usually fairly calm in there. If you can ignore the silly looking animatronics of all the C E C characters who come to mechanical life every few minutes.

Other than that the back party room isn't too bad.

After all, what sane child would be happy with cheap looking, animatronic characters, singing ridiculous songs, that you can barely hear over the mechanized movements of their, badly in need of a good oiling, joints and limbs.

I mean, really?

The rest of the place after all, is one non stop collection of games, rides, tickets, noise and more commotion than the Senate floor while debating Health Care.

I was worried when I walked into the party room and saw that there were at least seven different parties going on already. Fortunately (I thought) there were quite a few empty tables. I went to the first one to put down my purse and jacket to show that I was claiming some Sorenson territory.

That's when I noticed that the table was sporting a smallish white RESERVED sign. That's ok, that's alright, there are a few other empty tables I'll just go grab one of them.

Next table? RESERVED sign. And the next and the next.

I finally saw that the last one didn't have a RESERVED sign. I raced over to claim it. As I was sitting down and trying to take up as much, stay away from here, room as I could with one jacket and one purse,

( I even considered using my shoes too. Hey, those are long tables)

just as I was getting ready to call Lisa and declare victory, I happened to look a little bit closer towards the other end of the table.

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

There it was, tipped over so I hadn't noticed it, the dreaded RESERVED sign.

I wasn't sure what to do with this information. Alexandra really had her newly 6 year old heart set on spending her big day with Chuck and Friends. I decided to make the supreme sacrifice and go to the BIG room (the one with all the fun and NOISE) and score a couple of booths for us all in there.

We need at least two of those booths to hold us all.

I entered the torture, er, Fun and Games room. After the fourth of at least twenty kids had rammed into me, I saw, (to my great relief?) that there were not only not two booths together, there wasn't even a two seater available.

Oh so sad.

I called Donald and Lisa. Thinking I would never catch them before they left, thinking they might even be just pulling into the parking lot by now. They weren't. They were still home.

I have forgotten just how long it can take to go somewhere with three young children, one of them a baby.

Lisa answered, and I gave her the, um, unfortunate? news that good old Chuckie had NO room for us.

I admit. I did feel sorry for Lex, not getting to do the Cheese thing on her birthday. A plan B was definitely needed here. It was decided to go to one of the girl's other favorite places.

IHOP.

Courtney (who had joined me by now) and I didn't really feel like making it an IHOP night.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Shawn and Don were coming separately in Don's car. I had to call Don and tell him Chuck E Cheese was a no go. Thank goodness he actually had his phone turned on.

If this is starting to look like everything was about to get very complicated you would be right.

Let me put the whole situation in easy to follow terms:

Courtney and I were ready to leave C E C to go to IHOP.
Courtney told me that she just wanted to go home. She was NOT in the mood for IHOP.
Don, by now, had gotten my call and was headed to IHOP.
Donald and Lisa were, just now ready to leave home and drive to IHOP.
I caught them right before they left.
I told them that Courtney and I were most likely going to go home instead of IHOP.
Alexandra was not happy that I might not be there.
Don called and told me that he and Shawn were waiting at IHOP.
Believe it or not Donald and Lisa had arrived at IHOP at the same time I was talking to Don.

Obviously Donald was driving.

I told Don that Courtney and I would join them in just a few.
Courtney and I arrived at IHOP.
Courtney let it be known again that she just wanted to go home.
Shawn on the other hand had been promised an evening out at IHOP. He wasn't going anywhere.
After much discussion, it was decided that Shawn and I would stay and do IHOP.
It was further decided that Don and Courtney would go home.
Don't feel bad for Don.
He endures eating out, but if given the chance to escape, he will take it.

So final score.

Donald, Lisa, three little girls, Susan (or should I say Grandma) and Shawn. IHOP.
Don and Courtney. HOME.

We had a lovely time at IHOP by the way. The waitress was wonderful. I told her a very short version of the story of, why we were there and not at Chuck E Cheese's. So she spent the whole time making our visit as wonderful as she could.

She was tipped accordingly of course.

We ate. Alexandra opened presents. Lorelai was a very good girl and didn't get too jealous. Elisabeth was as sweet and dear as she always is. We had lots of lively conversation. We had a really good time.

And then we went home.

Next year Lex's birthday will not be on a Saturday. I believe that will put it on Sunday. (Is it a leap year? I never know these things.) If it's on a Sunday I guess we will most likely go see Chuckie on Monday. Lorelai's, (again assuming no leap year) will be on a Monday too. So I guess October of 09, Chuck and Co. will be seeing a little bit more of our family.

Until then I will just keep cutting out those C E C coupons that are so often on the back page of Tuesday's D section.

After all, you never know when everyone will suddenly decide that an evening out at the Cheese Place would be a good thing to do.

Why even vote?

There is something about today's political process that really alarms me.
First though, I need to make it clear that even though I tend towards being a Republican, I consider myself more of an Independent.

Any of you who follow my son Donald's blog have no problem knowing where he stands on political issues. It sometimes amazes me when I find myself agreeing with him, because even though I think we fundamentally agree on quite a lot, I usually think he goes to extremes.

My two oldest, Donald and Heidi, are both very interested in current politics.

Heidi sees things from more of a liberal to middle of the road view and Donald is pretty much a rabid conservative.

And me? Well I usually don't know enough about what's going on to have many strong opinions.

Politics are just one of those things that I have minimal interest in. Kinda like sports. I really have no idea, nor do I care to know, who plays in the Super Bowl, the NBA Playoffs or even The World Series, (that is baseball isn't it?).

You see, this is how I choose to look at it; I think that Don and I live a pretty average life. There are actually several versions of what I would consider an "average" life.

We have lived through a bunch of them.

First, we got married. That put us in the"young marrieds with no children" category.
I got pregnant almost immediately. We had no insurance to pay for any of it. I looked into Government programs to see if they would cover us and was told no. So we spent our first year of marriage saving our pants off.

We lived on such a tiny shoe string budget, that my big present to Don that Christmas was a six-pack of Pepsi.

We got through this time just fine. We had saved up enough by the time I gave birth (to Donald) that we were able to pay off the entire Doctor and Hospital bill on our own.

Fast forward five years or so.

We had three children and a Mortgage. Believe it or not, right now, isn't the first time that banks have offered really sleazy home loans. We fell victim to one of those loans where we paid so much in interest that after three years we not only had no equity, we owed more on our home than the day we had signed the closing papers.

We were eventually able to get a "Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure" that got us legally out of the house, with fewer black marks on our credit rating than a straight Foreclosure would have.
This is when we also found out that just a few months after we got our loan the powers that be decided to make those sorts of loans illegal.

Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Around this time, we found ourselves up to our eyeballs in debt. Some of it had been for frivolous spending, but much of it had been to keep our heads above water because our house payments had gotten so high.

We never went to a debt management place, we just got rid of our credit cards and payed them all off.

So after eight years of marriage and five years of being Home Owners (our first house was sold to buy the house with the bad loan) we found ourselves renters again.Renting a house put us into another "average category".

I guess it could be called the "Married, four kids, one income, no equity" category.

We have, over the years, (sometimes through no fault of our own, sometimes) been in many different versions of normal.

We have had, all in all, a pretty darn good life together so far. For this we are very grateful.

My point of all this, is that I can't really think of anything that any sitting President has ever done, to drastically affect my life. I'm sure that there are many people who don't see it this way. As far as I can see though, my life has been much more affected by: my children, the schools they have attended, our church, Don's job, and the many mistakes that we have made and the many good things we've done.

I guess a stickler could say that every one of these elements I have mentioned have been affected in some way by whichever President was serving at the time. And I might even be able to agree with that to a certain extent.

I can honestly say however that I can't think of a single thing that has ever happened, because of a President, that has profoundly changed my life. Feel free to be appalled by this reasoning. I'm just telling it the way I see it.

Well that has been how I have seen things for most of my adult life. I have just recently started rethinking the "No Interest In Political Issues" attitude.

There is an issue that affects our political system that really does anger me.

It would be the Media.

I can't seem to get through the day without hearing, either on TV or while listening to the radio, that Obama is leading by ten points in this poll. Or that after "this" latest action, McCain is up in the polls by three points.

On the Today Show. On The View. On Fox News. On CNBC. It doesn't matter what source you are getting it from. They all have polls and they all seem to be insinuating that the contest is already as much as decided.

I hate that.

Yes, I happen to be one of those who is aware that most people in the News and Entertainment Industry are liberal thinking Democrats.

I'm also smart enough to have figured out by now that a large majority of people are "sheep". I'm not saying they are stupid,( although I'm also not saying they aren't) but I think too many people prefer to not have to think for themselves. I addressed this in my last post on gas prices. Most people seem to be more than willing to follow anything that employs some kind of gimmick.

Gimmicks aren't always limited to stupid Grocery Store or Radio Station promotions.

Here is how the Dictionary defines gimmick (I love my dictionary).

Gimmick: CONTRIVANCE, GADGET, An important feature that is not immediately apparent: A catch: A new and ingenious scheme.

I don't know about you but that definition sounds to me like a gimmick is more than an annoying marketing device. I think that these daily Presidential polls are nothing but gimmicks. It seems to be pretty much common knowledge that numbers can be skewed to show any result you want them to show.

That of course would include polls.

So if these current polls showing, at the moment, Obama ahead of McCain by quite a lot, I think it's reasonable to assume that they are being used, by the Media, to discredit McCain. There are probably also polls out there showing McCain pulling out in front.

Those are usually shown on FOX News.

Well who cares? Who is going to look at these Polls and think to themselves, "Hmm, it looks like the race has already been decided, what's the point of voting for my choice of candidate when it looks like he has already lost?

Who would think this way?

A LOT of people would think this way!

In recent years this has been shown to be true by the media announcing early polling results on election day. The more the polls show one candidate clearly coming in with the biggest numbers, the more the supposedly "losing" candidate is likely to lose votes. Votes he would have gotten without the interfering media. I'm pretty sure that "new rules" have been put in place to not allow early poll results to be shown, so as not to affect zones where voting has not yet finished.

This proves that people can quite easily be swayed by what they see and hear over the TV or radio.

I'm sure that is why there are so many new polls every day. This year's Election is being decided now. By the Media. It's looking more and more to me like there isn't much point in regular citizens voting on November 4th.

If the situation continues, I'm starting to feel that there really is no point to voting. Maybe we should just give each candidate a few months to court the media, and whoever can do the best job will be our new President. Chosen for us by TV reporters and Newscasters.

After all, aren't they the ones with the finger on the pulse of the Nation?

Yeah, I know.

That would be absolutely Outrageous!

What sane country would ever choose their leaders that way?


Ummm, America?

Let's be rational here.

You know, I have noticed something that is so silly and irrational that I simply have to address it. Now I am more than willing to agree that gas prices have gotten quite a bit out of control the last year or so. I do not like paying more than 4 dollars a gallon for gas.

I am also very aware of how, high gas prices, can create havoc with people's budgets.

My husband Don and I disagree a bit on the higher prices. I tend to agree with many of the "experts" who point out that if gas had kept up with inflation over the years, we would be paying 3 plus for gas and not thinking a whole lot about it. If you look at the facts, and adjust for inflation, an argument could be made that gas is cheaper now than it was thirty years ago.

Luckily (for my own peace of mind) I'm not a fanatic about this. Don cares a lot more about our Country's current gas woes than I ever will. There is something about his intense interest and disdain of the whole situation though that makes NO sense to me.
There is a service station in our nice homey little town of Kennewick that Don always patronizes. Now knowing how crazy he gets about high gas prices, one would think that his favorite station would be the one that consistently had the lowest price.

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, every time he needs gas he heads to this quaint little service station named Mike's Exxon. Now let me tell you a bit about Mike's Exxon. Don loves this station because it is "full service". They not only pump your gas for you they also wash your windows and check your oil. At least that's how he sees them. I've gone there before and all they have ever done for me is pump my gas.

So yes, I do have to admit to having a bit of a grudge.

That is neither here nor there of course. My point about my husbands favorite station is that they charge anywhere from 7 to 13 cents more a gallon than anywhere else.

I ask you, does that make sense????

Here we have a man, who daily expounds on the oil industry. And yes, I am absolutely aware that prices are coming down quite rapidly. I don't think that means much to Don. He just can't help being angry about gas prices no matter what. I don't think he will be happy until prices hit the 2.50 range.

So why on earth, does this man of mine, insist on going to a place that charges so much more.

It makes no sense to me. But do you want to hear the really ridiculous part of it all? I point out to him that he has no business complaining about high prices when he continues to go to Mike's Exxon and continues paying some of the highest prices in the whole Tri-City area. And he says to me (absolutely unaware of how ironic he is being) That the difference he pays is so small that it's no big deal.

Can you believe this guy?

If Don was the only one who was this irrational when it comes to gas, I would probably not be able to work up enough interest to write this post. Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to gas, people are simply not capable of being rational.

Of course, I have evidence of this which I plan to share.

Every Wednesday, when the newspaper has the grocery ads, I can't help but scoff at Safeway's ad. Apparently, they are so concerned about your bottom line, that they have a program where, for every 100 dollars you spend, you will get 10 cents a gallon off on your next fill.

This is a really clever and rather duplicitous gimmick to my way of thinking.

When I need gas, I will wait until I'm almost empty, so when I get gas it is usually a full tank. The most it has ever taken to fill up my tank would be around 16 1/2 gallons. Therefore the biggest savings I would ever realize with Safeway's generous 10 cents off a gallon would be a dollar sixty.

A dollar sixty!

Wow, doesn't that just help my weekly budget?
And even if you have a big enough tank to take, oh say, 25 gallons, what have you really saved? Two fifty? Sorry, but to me, that lands flat on it's face in Oh Big Woop territory.

And please don't forget how much money you will lose by doing 100 dollars worth of shopping at Safeways in the first place. There have been times when I have had no choice but to buy needed items there, and trust me, we are talking prices more than double what they would be at Walmart or Winco. So for me to save that ten cents a gallon on gas, I would probably have to spend twenty dollars or more on whatever I buy to make it to 100 dollars.

The really sad thing though, is that people must agree to play their game, because they haven't discontinued the program. Do you see my point?

When it comes to gas, people are just plain irrational!

To further prove my point I have another example. Several years ago, when two fifty a gallon sounded outrageous, there was a radio station that had some gas gimmick going on. I don't completely remember how it went so if I get it wrong (local readers) feel free to correct me.

Anyway it pretty much went like this; At a given time each day they would tell you of a participating station that was taking, I think, maybe 20 cents off a gallon. You had only an hour to get there to take advantage of the "incredible" offer. Oh yeah, you also needed to listen to the station for a big part of the day because you never knew when the announcement would come.

Just in case you were wondering what was in it for them.

Well there came a day, when I had the radio turned on, and turned to the right station, and I heard the announcement, aaaand I just happened to be within a few miles of said gas station, with an almost empty tank no less.

Talk about my lucky day.

Naturally, I wasn't going to miss out on such a deal as 20 cents off a gallon. I headed right over. And guess what? There must have been at least twenty people in line already. Not to be deterred from such marvelous savings I joined the throng.

I waited. . . . . . . and waited. . . . . . .and waited a little bit more.

The longer I waited the more I started to notice the other sheep, um, I mean people, who were waiting right along with me. There were several very nicey, pricey cars there. And sitting in those cars were some very nicely dressed business people. And several of those nicely dressed business people were drinking 3 and 4 dollar cups of coffee.

This got my mind working.

I realized that I was sharing company with people who probably paid to have their lawn mowed. People that most likely splurged on dining out at the best restaurants on a weekly basis. I'm sure that they never colored their hair at home or cut their children's bangs themselves.

But here they were wasting their entire lunch hour to save 20 cents a gallon on gas.

Suddenly it made no sense that I was still waiting after more than 15 minutes to save what might have been three dollars on gas. And you know what? I bet ya anything that these same people, if someone had come up to them, and offered for 4 bucks, to wait in that line for them, they would have considered it a bargain. In other words they would have paid the amount they could have saved on gas (who knows, maybe even a little bit more) to not have to spend their lunch hour waiting to buy gas.

That was one of the greatest revelations of my entire life.

I got out of that line as fast as I could and went up the street to pay the going price. And I was suddenly happy to pay 20 cents more for gas. That was also when I realized that when you make a game out of something or make it sound like a special treat that only certain people will be privy to that you can scam just about anybody.

I learned a valuable lesson that day.

If there is ever a time when I am tempted by these silly offers, I quickly calculate the savings, and then I can rationally decide if it is worth it or not.

And you want to know something?

Most the time I realize that I would pay the amount I would have saved (sometimes even more) to not have to play the silly game. So please take my advice, (that is if you haven't already figured it out yourself) pay close attention to what you would really be saving when one of these special offers comes your way.

You might just find that you are being played for a bit of a fool.

Oh, and back to Don and Mike's Exxon. I would say that at least 60 percent of the time he gets out of his car and follows everything the pump jockey is doing. He looks at the oil stick as it is pulled out by the other guy. He looks at the tires, just like the station attendant will.

I think it's even hard for him to let some other guy wash his windows.

But, that is why he insists on going there.

For the great service!

New Callings

This post will have quite a few words and ideas that you might not understand if you aren't a Mormon. So, in my usual way, I am going to explain it to death. I hope you find it interesting and stick with me because I do have something I will talk about, after I have brought you up to speed on a few things.

In our Church we don't have any paid clergy. We all have callings, which is just a fancy way of saying that we all have a church job. This keeps the church running smoothly. A calling can last for up to five or more years, usually bishops serve in their position for at least five years. Then there are the people who are teachers.

We have a program called Primary for children from three to twelve. Each age has a separate class of their own with their own teacher.

At the age of twelve they graduate into Young Men's or Young Women's.

Young men's and Young women's are each their own separate groups. The groups are each split into three groups depending on age.

The young women's start out with Beehive's. This is for the girls 12 to 13. After Beehives they go into Mia Maids. That's for the 14 and 15 year olds.

And, you didn't hear this from me, but Mia Maids are sometimes one of the hardest groups to be in charge of for the simple reason that they are 14 and 15.
When they turn 16 they go into Laurels and they stay there until they turn 18.

The boys are set up the same way. They start as deacons at twelve, move on to teachers at 14, and become priests at 16.

Let me also explain that the teachers don't actually teach, and I don't think a priest has ever officiated at a wedding. Those are just their titles at those ages.

Each of these groups from the 3 year olds to the 17 year olds have their own teachers. The only thing is that when it's young men's and women's the teachers are called advisers.

Then we have the librarians, they hand out teaching materials, chalks and erasers, pictures, easels to put the pictures on, and they also run copies of whatever needs copying.

For the adults, that would be the ones not teaching in Primary or Young Men's or Women's, We have our Women's group, known as Relief Society. There is a Relief Society President. She has two counselors. They have their hands full with quite a lot. It's their job to make sure that all the families in the ward are receiving help if needed. When someone is hospitalized, or has a baby, the Relief Society is in charge of phoning around and having members bring dinner in to help those families.

They do many good works. Too many to list here.

The men actually have two groups. There are the Elders. They are mostly the younger men (Younger as in mostly under 50.) This group has an Elder's quorum President. He has two counselors. My husband Don was Elder's Quorum President for a few years when he was in his late forties. He was very busy. I sometimes didn't see him as much as I would have liked, but I did try to support him in his calling.

In our church we don't just serve each other, we try to help out people and organizations in our community that need help.

Now the other men are in a group called High Priests. These are the older guys. There can be quite a few young guys in this group too though. You have to hold the office of High Priest to be made a Bishop or one of his counselors. There are also some Stake positions where you need to be a High Priest.

The High Priest's leader is called the High Priest Group Leader.

Okay. I believe this should be sufficient background for my dear friends who are not members of my church.

My husband Don and I were called into the Stake President's office almost a month ago.

Oh, oh, I guess a little more background might be necessary here.

The Stake President is the one who is in charge of a bigger geographical area, we call it a Stake. A Stake is made up of several wards. Think of it like a school district that resides over all the different schools in a certain area. You can compare the district to the Stake and each school to a ward. You go to which ever Ward who's boundaries you live in. If you move to a different part of town then you would most likely be in a new Ward.

Possibly even a new Stake.

All right, back to my story. Like I said earlier, Don and I had been summoned to come meet with our Stake President. You aren't usually told why. That might seem somewhat ominous, but it's just the way they do things.

In a way it kinda feels like being sent to the Principal's office. Don't worry though we weren't in trouble.

Not in trouble at all actually.

As it turned out we had been asked to come see the S.P. because he wanted to give Don a new calling. The new calling was for Don to be our Ward's new High Priest Group Leader.

(From here on out I will just say the HPGL. Much easier to type.)

We were really quite surprised to have Don given this calling. The leadership callings are usually pretty labor intense. Don of course accepted the calling very humbly. I was, maybe, slightly less humble. I was thrilled for my husband. He is such a good man and an extremely dedicated leader. I knew that he would do a really good job as the new HPGL.

The thing that was hard for me was that you aren't supposed to talk about the new calling to anyone, until he or she is officially given their calling in Sacrament Meeting. That would be our main worship service.

It is really hard to not tell people that you talk to all the time about the new calling. I was so proud of what a great guy he is but I was expected to keep it to myself. I know I have heard the reasons for this required secrecy, but darn if I can remember what they are. Nevertheless, I was good. I didn't squeal. Well one teenie-tiny little bit.

I told my daughter Heidi. After all she lives two hours away in Spokane. Who is she gonna tell?

Yesterday in church it soon became very clear that Don wasn't the only one receiving a new calling. They were releasing people from their old callings left and right. And then giving those same people new callings. It doesn't often happen this way. Changes are usually made one or two at a time. Like say a family is moving out of the ward. They need to be released from their callings.

Yesterday just happened to be one of those times when several changes are made at once.

So now Don is our ward's HPGL. I don't need to be told that I won't be seeing quite so much of him. I already know that he will be gone quite a lot because, after all, he has already been an Elder's quorum Pres.,

I am so proud of him. He is very firm and steady in the church. I'm not nearly as good as he is. I sometimes tend to be a little rebellious, and I have a tendency to be overly critical at times. I am working on doing better, but compared to my husband I have quite a ways to go.

Don, of course, never nags me about things like that. He knows I have a tendency to sometimes see things my own way. He just loves me anyway. We have carved out a really nice relationship for ourselves over the last almost 32 years. He helps me with some things and I help him with others.

I love this guy of mine. Sometimes I could just scream at him, which I don't, because that would give me a headache. But I have to say that most the time I realize just how lucky we are to have each other, and then I am happy.

And I know that he will be one of the finest High Priest Group Leaders ever!

How can I be happy when I am so sad?

After 51 years of being alive (June 6 1957), and almost 32 years of marriage (Oct 28 1976). After giving birth to and then raising five lovely children. After several varied (some enjoyed others barely tolerated) Church callings. After having my tonsils out when I was six, and having my mangled ( a slight exaggeration, but not by much) chin sewn up when I was twelve, and so many bouts of flu, colds, plenty of cavities, and on top of all that, coming down with childhood diseases that are now relics thanks to immunization.

After all these things and several more, I have finally learned the BIG SECRET.
No, not the secret to become wealthy, or to live a long life.

Nothing that glamorous.

I have simply learned the secret of how to be happy.

The big secret to happiness is really no secret at all, basically I just learned to start listening to the advice that people older and wiser than me are more than willing to share.

That would be to stop thinking you can only be happy when certain conditions are met. To stop thinking, "Well, when I drop those last fifty pounds THEN I will be happy". Or, "I will be happy when we finally get that new house that I want so badly".

These things can bring short term happiness, but if that is how you decide to interpret happiness, you will never be truly happy.

Look at how many people there are who seemingly have everything their heart desires. They are no happier than we normal people and quite often much less so.

So really, there is only one way to be truly happy. And that is to just plain decide to be happy.

Think about all the blessings you have. Think about the people you love that will never desert you. Think about the things you know and the things you can do. And then realize that no matter how many strengths and weaknesses you have, it doesn't matter, it is entirely up to you how happy you choose to be.

All right enough preaching, and sorry I got off on such a tangent. My point is simply that I decided quite a few years ago to be happy.

I like being happy. It makes me happy to be happy.

Not that there aren't times when situations come about that make me deeply sad. Do you realize that it's actually possible to be happy and sad at the same time. It is. I have actually been experiencing quite a lot of the happy-sad thing lately.

This is what I'm really writing this post for.

I'm going to be a little gloomy now, so if you don't want to read any farther I guess you can stop now. I doubt you will though, because I have noticed just how loving, helpful, and encouraging most people really are. And don't worry. I'm not asking for anything (well maybe prayers) I just mostly need to vent. Venting is a really important thing to do sometimes, I feel.

First sad thing, and actually, right now, the biggest thing preying on my mind.

My daughter Heidi called yesterday in the early evening. She mostly talked to Don. I was sitting right beside him though so I could tell something was really wrong. It turns out that when she came home yesterday after running a few errands, her husband Jeff was at home. She asked him why he was home so early. It was really hard for him to tell her, but it turns out that he had just been informed that he was being laid-off.

Poor Heidi is devastated. Of course Jeff is too. They have really worked to get to the point in their lives where things are running quite smoothly. They were able to buy their first house about two years ago.

That house has been such a blessing for them.

Before, the girls really had nowhere to play. The apartment they were living in had nothing in the way of a play area. It was not a good situation at all.

Heidi has loved having her own home. She has worked so hard to decorate it and make it a warm, cozy, haven for them all.

Now they don't know what is going to happen. The sad thing is, Jeff was so good at his job. He has worked for the Red Lion Co. for I think at least nine years now. He started off as a lowly front desk person and within just a few years they moved him to Salt Lake to be second in command of their big Salt Lake property.

Hotel management and Jeff just really clicked.

For the last few years, since they came back to Washington to live in Spokane, Jeff has been doing Revenue Management. It looked like his job was as secure as any job could be.
On top of that, the head management really liked him and were really impressed with what a competent and capable employee he was.
He was told yesterday that they weren't happy at all to have to let him go. They have no choice however. The whole company is struggling and they have had to lay off a large number of people.

Heidi is so scared about what will happen to them now. Jeff has already started looking into new jobs, but with the economy in the shape it is (after all, that's what has caused this whole thing) they just aren't sure at all what to do.

I am so sad and troubled by this. I don't think I've had more than an hour or two today when it hasn't been on my mind in a big way.

Sad thing number two. My mom.

My mom has been having horrible pain in her hip this last month or so. It has gotten so bad that she couldn't even come with me last Thursday, which is the day I always get her and take her out to lunch and then out to do whatever shopping she needs to do.

Our Thursdays out, are always one of the high-lights of her week.

I have taken her to her orthopedic surgeon at least three times in the last month. She has had two different cortisone shots, one of them needed to be done in the hospital it was such a delicate procedure.

None of this did any good at all.

Well, my sister Janice called me Sunday morning and asked if I had talked to mom yet. I told her no I hadn't. Apparently mom was in such bad shape that she hadn't been able to even get out of her bed that morning. When one of the nurses came to check on her (she hadn't gone down to breakfast) she saw that mom couldn't move at all. They (her retirement home) called 911. She was taken to the hospital.

Janice and I didn't know what to think of that.

It turns out that it was the best thing that could have happened to her. A new X-ray was taken and finally a hairline crack showed up in her hip. We learned that this was what had been causing her all the pain. It was decided that surgery would be necessary. A couple of pins needed to be put into the bone to heal the fracture.

The problem now was a big debate among her doctors..

Mom has a weak heart. She actually needs heart surgery but her cardiologist says that it would most likely kill her, so it's not really an option. The Orthopedic Surgeon who was given mom's case, (not her normal Dr) looked at her heart pictures and said that it wasn't as bad as everyone thought and that he felt the odds of her surviving the hip surgery, were actually quite high. This was a real relief to Janice and me.

Now please understand, we are not ghouls, and we don't have a death wish for mom, but we did feel that the surgery would be a win-win situation. Either the surgery would succeed and the pain would be relieved, or she would die during the operation and her mortal problems would come to an end.
Ever since a little over a year ago, when my dad died, mom has been especially depressed and is constantly saying she wishes she could just die and join him. Her life isn't a total picnic. She is on dialysis three times a week. She has arthritis in just about every joint in her body, causing varying degrees of pain. And she lives in a Retirement home.

She has a really hard time finding happiness.

I think she still has a lot of things to be happy for, but she just can't seem to see it that way.

Well the surgery went well. The doctor was quite encouraged. We were very relieved. And mom is even in better spirits. Janice has pointed out that we aren't in the clear yet though. Mom has had quite a history of pulling through surgery's only to have other serious problems develop a few days later. I guess you could say that we are cautiously happy for mom, at the moment. I guess this isn't such a sadness anymore. I just hope that she can get back to the mobility that she enjoyed before all this came up.

Well here I have come to sadness number three. This is one that many of you are already aware of.

My sweet baby grandaughter Elisabeth.

I love this little angel with all my heart. She is such a precious little spirit.

I know that we should be thrilled that she lived to be born and that we just celebrated her first birthday. And we are.

Believe me we truly appreciate every second with this special little girl.

It's just that she has been having these horrible infantile spasms for many months now, and every remedy that has been tried has failed. It is just so hard to love a little person so much, and to know that things are going so poorly for her. Donald and Lisa are wonderful as you probably know, but it doesn't stop us from being discouraged when each and every treatment fails and the ones left, have more and much worse possible side effects.

I love this sweet baby grandaughter of mine though and whatever happens I know that God will help our family through it.

Well, these are the problems that have been concerning me lately. I'm sorry for such a long gloomy post. The thing is though, I am still a mostly happy person. I find things in my life every day that bring me joy. I love my life. It isn't perfect at all. I need a lot of work on becoming a better person. I need to learn to not have a quick (maybe volatile would be a better description) temper. I need to be more patient with the ones I love.

I need to work on all these things and more.

But somehow in spite of all these things, I still think of myself as a mostly happy and content person. I just really believe that,

LIFE IS GOOD!!!

Shawn's shopping list

I decided it has been awhile since I have done a Shawn post. So, I am going to do a Shawn post. I have mentioned in other posts, at least I think I have, that Shawn loves to go out with me to run errands. One of Shawn's favorite places to go is Walmart. Well I had gone (with Shawn, no less) to Walmart on Monday.

I thought I was good for the week.

Apparently not to Shawn's way of thinking. Yesterday, early, he came to me with the disturbing news that we had run low on sausage patties.

Low mind you. Not out of. Just low.

To Shawn a less than half full bag of something means an emergency that must be attended to ASAP. One of his favorite breakfasts is a sausage muffin. That would be an English muffin with a microwaved sausage patty in the middle.
He has quite a few other favorite breakfasts, but this week he seems to be stuck on having a sausage muffin every morning.

I told him that we could go to Walmart and get some more when I got the chance.

The problem with telling him this, is that to me "when I get the chance" could mean anywhere from a day to a week from now.
Unfortunately, for Shawn, any positive answer at all, even if I was to say "next week" means, "why yes Shawn what a good idea, we will leave immediately".

In other words he hears what he wants to hear.

So by not giving him an absolute "no", I had left the door open for him to assume that we would be leaving soon.

Today.

I really didn't feel like going to Walmart again. But Shawn had other ideas.

An hour later he came and knocked on my bedroom door. (I had just gotten out of the shower.) "Yes Shawn, what do you need. You can't come in right now I just got out of the shower."
Shawn's line: "Um, I'll come back later".

Shawn prefers the face to face type of communication, which is kinda funny because he isn't comfortable looking you in the eyes when he talks to you. But I guess he likes the talking through the door even less.

I got dressed, I put on make-up. I watched most of the Today show. I watched part of the View. I got something to eat, and went upstairs to check out my blog. All in all it had been a couple of hours since Shawn had tried to talk to me through my door.

Don't worry, I hadn't left him hanging all that time.

He was in his room watching his morning shows. Sesame Street, Mr Rogers and what ever comes after that. He enjoys his morning shows quite a lot so I didn't feel too guilty for putting him off.

Side Note:
Shawn's TV watching is sort of funny. He loves most kids programing as I just pointed out. But after watching PBS Kids for a while he will then switch over to a channel like USA and watch something like "The Terminator".

He has a wide range when it comes to watching TV.

Don't worry, he only gets to watch the edited TV versions, even though lately they seem less and less edited. He knows if something gets too graphic he needs to turn the channel and most the time he's pretty good about it.

Back to our story:
I think it was around noon when Shawn came and found me to report that we were out of his "manly" body wash. Also his Dandruff Shampoo was down to it's last few ounces.

Panic Alert! Panic Alert!!!!!

I realized that no matter what I did, a trip to Walmart was in my very near future. He had also pointed out a few other things that we desperately needed.

Of course by now he was grasping for straws.

Whether he was willing to admit it or not, we still have about three BIG boxes of Kleenex.

I had a sudden flash of inspiration for holding him off until at least after lunch. I told him that since he was the one who seemed to know all the things we were in danger of running out of, that he should go make up a shopping list so that we would be sure to leave the store with everything we needed.

(This was mostly for my own protection. I didn't want him deciding that we needed still more items a few hours after we got home.)

He went into his room and shut his door. Then he went into the bathroom and shut that door. He was in the bathroom for a really long time. Nothing too off about that of course, Shawn is just a typical guy when it comes to bathroom time.

I had finished reading and commenting on my blog, so I headed downstairs. Before I got to the stairs however Shawn came out of the bathroom beaming. As usual I reminded him to go wash his hands. He told me he hadn't gone to the bathroom so he didn't need to wash.

So what on earth were you doing in there all that time?

This is when he presented me with his LIST. I love his lists. He always tries to be as specific as possible. This list was no different. And it also explained his long time in the bathroom.

He had been writing down the names of all the personal care products he felt we needed.

He had also gotten the sausage patties out of the freezer because he didn't know how to spell sausage. He had written down soup. I had bought him a few cans of Campbells newest all natural soup, and Shawn had really liked them.

Well by now there were no more stalling tactics available. We headed to Walmart.
Health and Beauty first. Looking for an appropriate body wash. Shawn, as I'm sure I have mentioned before, is NOT a fan of Store Brands. He hates the idea of buying or using something that doesn't have it's own commercial. Oh and as soon as a new product comes out, even if it's just an update or improvement of an old product, Shawn is hooked. He must have it and there is no reasoning with him.

So consequently we have quite a few New and Improved products around our house.

I still can't believe it. I got him to agree to a "never heard of before" Body wash. He decided it would be adequate since it had a pump. We got a new bath puff as well. Shawn was a happy camper.

On to Shampoo.

I actually had a coupon for the Pert Plus large bottle of shampoo. They had a dandruff PertPlus. Even better. He was happy with this good buy, after all Pert shampoo does have commercials.

Happy Shawn.

He did want me to buy a 10 pack of SafeGuard soap. I told him we had plenty down in my bathroom. I also tried to get him to tell me why we needed soap. After all, our sinks all have liquid soap pumps. No need for soap there. Shawn does think that the well dressed sink must have a bar of soap as well as a soap pump. I have told him several times to stop putting bars of soap at all the sinks. He obeys that order fairly well, but it probably does cause him some distress.

We finally escaped from Health and Beauty and made our way to Food. We got about six cans of the new Campbell's soup. A chicken noodle, some Mexican tortilla and he thought he would like to try the Italian Wedding soup, so a few cans of it.

It took forever to find those stupid sausage patties. I don't know why, but every time I buy them they are always in a different place. And when I finally break down and ask a worker to show me where their new spot is, they act like "this is where they always are".

Yeah right. Maybe this week.

We had gotten everything on Shawn's list. Except for the un-needed soap and boxes of Kleenex. I stopped in the candy aisle and got Don a few bags of Licorice, and myself a couple boxes of jujyfruits.

We were done. Shawn was happy. I was happy. Our shopping trip was a smashing success. And just because it was so accurate and so cute, I have put a picture of it right here for you all to enjoy.

Isn't it cute?

Oh, and for a quick update, I needed to go to the Pasco Walmart for my mom today. That makes three days this week and it's only Thursday.

Oh well, I actually do like Walmart. Just not in such big doses.