Hey, I'm Still a Mom!

Awhile back, I got on a frugal kick. My efforts included signing up for newsletters and going to blogs aimed at helping mothers save money.

They included freebies, coupons, giveaways, announcements of sales, and so forth. I was quite excited over the prospect of getting great deals and saving money for our family.

But as the months went on, I found these lists less and less useful. As the mother of four, how is that possible?

Turns out that these money-saving services aren't really aimed at mothers in general. They're aimed at new mothers, women with children who cannot use the toilet, feed themselves, or read.

If I still had the need for cheap diapers, strollers, board books, car seats, booster seats, high chairs, building blocks, bibs, bath toys, and videos with bouncing shapes and characters singing mind-numbing songs, I'd be having a ball.

But I don't, and I'm not.

See, my children are older than that. They're not only potty trained and can feed themselves, but they also dress themselves, one is learning to drive, another babysits for the neighbors, another is on a dance team, and the youngest steals my Kindle to read novels.

Since these newsletters and blogs are pretty useless to me, I've unsubscribed from several of them and delete the rest. (Those I haven't unsubbed from I hang on to with the dim hope that maybe, just maybe, I'll find something useful.)

I wish they were honest about what they're offering. They are not catering to moms. They're catering to mothers of babies and young children.

Based on their definition, I don't qualify as a mom. But I am most definitely a mom, and if I've learned anything in the sixteen years I've been one, it's that children get more, not less, expensive as they age.

Some ideas (a small but growing list, I'm sure) for making a useful mother's deal site:

• Trade-ins for new jeans in the men's section because your son is having yet another growth spurt and the ones you bought two weeks ago are too short but look brand new.
• By one, get one free, scientific calculators (with a bonus graphing calculator) for teens taking upper math.
• School-supply sales that go beyond crayons and markers (my suggestion: case lot sales for pallets of binders).
• Inexpensive locker decoration ideas (mostly for daughters).
• Frequent-customer punch cards for local orthodontists.
• Make-up sales (again, for teen daughters).
• Rebates where you get college tuition instead of cash.
• Notices on sales for hair products since all the kids now use not just hairspray, but mousse or gel.
• Also sales on shampoo and conditioner, since with puberty, they need to wash their hair more often.
• Giveaways on hair dryers, straighteners, and curling irons (with bonus entries if you have multiple daughters, since those things are dang expensive).
• Two words: free gas.

And finally: deep discounts on massages. For Mom, of course. She needs it.

Book Signings: The Truth

Oh, my laws. I laughed so hard when I saw this video, I just had to share it.

My kids see me go to book signings. My youngest was born right after my first book came out (and 3 days after my last book signing for it), so she literally has not known a mother who doesn't do these things.

But somehow, even though they live with me, they don't grasp what a book signing IS. They envision something along the lines of Stephanie Meyer or J. K. Rowling, with crowds of adoring readers desperate to buy your book and get your signature.

My son once even wished me luck . . . that my hand wouldn't get too tired from signing all those books.

(Not much chance of that, bud. But thanks for the thought.)

Book signings are exhausting. You're "ON" for two hours (or however long) straight, trying to be energetic and chipper and helpful. And all the while, you feel a bit like a used car salesman trying to convince customers (who are trying to avoid your table as if you have leprosy) to buy your book.

Not all signings are that bad. I've had some nice ones. But the video below shows what most are like, and it gives me giggles every time I watch it.

The Zoo Field Trip: My Brush with Insanity

A couple of weeks ago I promised to describe the zoo field trip I went on with my first grader and how it surely cut some years off the end of my life and made me want a padded cell.

My group consisted of four cute little first graders: two boys and two girls, counting my daughter.

I volunteered all year, so I knew the kids; they were a really smart set. I was lucky. Or so I thought.

All goes well for the five minutes we took at the school for potty breaks. Then we head out to the buses. They aren't all there yet, so we have to wait.

Boy 1 proceeds to run around the grass, this way and that, joining other groups and coming back only when I herd him back to our little group so he won't board the wrong bus.

In spite of my efforts, he gets away for probably the 9th time and head-butted Girl 1.

G1 bursts into tears. B1 apologizes profusely, and I can tell he means it; he was messing around and didn't realize that the things he sees on TV can oh, HURT. I comfort G1.

But she's crying so hard that within seconds, every mother in a 30-foot radius freaks out and wants to know what's wrong. This sends G1 sobbing and wailing. (She's getting all kinds of awesome attention. Can't let that go to waste!) I assure them she's fine. Then I assure her that she's fine.

Five minutes and enough melodrama to fill an episode of Day of Our Lives later, her sobs are sniffles.

After eight more cycles of, "B1, Stay. With. The. Group!" we board the bus and sit on three close benches. So far Boy 2 has been quiet. He has strayed a couple of times, although not nearly as Houdini-like as B1. Overall, he's well-behaved, and my daughter just holds my hand and grins because her mommy is there.

Surprisingly, no members of my group misbehave on the bus ride. Head-butt notwithstanding, I have hopes for the excursion.

After arrival, as we leave the bus, both B1 and B2 announce in no uncertain terms that they really, really have to go potty. (Forget that we took a potty break not 45 minutes ago.)

We wait in line to get into the zoo.

"I gotta go!" B1 says. "Like, REALLY BAD."

"Me, too!" B2 insists.

They both start the try-not-to-pee dance and hold the front of their pants as I calmly explain that we'll get to a restroom just as soon as we get inside.

Thanks to my visit here last summer, I remember some bathrooms inside the nearby giraffe house. I pat myself on the back. This will be a piece of cake.

We enter the park with renewed choruses of, "I gotta goooooooo! Nooooooow!" from both B1 and B2. G1 admits that she kinda needs to go too.

No sooner have we gotten past the entrance, however, than B1 races to a chain link fence. "There's a wolf in there! Check it out!"

B2 goes over and clings to the fence. "Where? I don't see it."

"The sign says a wolf is in here." Then, to me, rather annoyed, "Where is it?"

I smile. "It's probably hiding somewhere. We can come back to look at it. Let's get you guys to the bathroom."

B2: "How far away is it?"

"It's really close," I assure them.

We head down the paved hill toward the giraffe house. The boys stop to watch tigers pacing, a bird, and other animals. I wonder what happened to their bladders. The moment the giraffes are visible (they're outside rather than inside their house), the boys squeal.

B1: "Giraffes! Cool!"

All four kids race to the giraffes. They discuss the spots and heights, analyze what a blue hanging thing must be, and more. Again, I feel pleased. These are smart kids. Then . . .

B2: "I GOTTA PEE!"

B1: "If I don't go NOW, I'm gonna pee my pants! You said we were going to the bathroom!"

"I was taking you to the bathroom, but you kept stopping to look at the animals."

My logic is not accepted, and I get some rolling of the eyes. I round them up and lead them toward the giraffe house. We reach the doors, and as they go in, I count: B1, B2, daughter . . . where's G1? I look around, panicked. I can't see her tow-head anywhere. "You three stay right here," I order. "Don't move."

As I race off to find G1, I hope they understand that "don't move" doesn't mean they can't do their anti-pee dance.

G1 is found gazing longingly at the giraffes. I about fall over with relief, hold out my hand, and she reluctantly leaves the fence.

We use the facilities. The boys are too old to come into the women's side, and I can't go into the men's, so I hope for the best. Everyone emerges unscathed with pants dry. Crisis averted.

But with the wolves, tigers, giraffes, and bladder emergency, we've just wasted 20 minutes. We're required to be at the elephant show with the rest of the school in less than 10 minutes. I inform the group that we'll check out all the cool exhibits AFTER the elephant show.

But B1 isn't happy about that, because to get to the show, we're passing a bunch of cool stuff and we aren't stopping. Every time we pass an animal (or anything of interest), he races for it.

"Bridge!"

"Water! Look, I'm throwing stuff into it! You could drown down there."

"Stairs!"

"Penguins!!!"

"Monkeys!!!"

"Rhinos!!!"

Each time I chase the kid down and hope the other three don't get lost meanwhile. "PLEASE can we just look at the rhinos?" B1 begs.

"Yes, but after the elephant show," I tell him.

We're already 5 minutes late. I guide him with my hand firmly on his shoulder, something he hates). But it's that or find a collar and a leash. The audience seating is packed. I almost cry when I realize the kids might not have seats. This would mean chasing them during the show.

Fortunately, first graders have small rear ends, and others were able to squeeze together. For about 20 minutes, all was well. We saw an elephant do tricks, including paint a picture. By this point, my blood pressure had returned to normal.

All is well. No one is lost. They are contained and happy.

The moment the show is over, B1 insists that NOW we must see the rhinos. They're close by, so I agree. As the kids cram into the rhino exhibit, I hear someone calling me through the crowd. Another mother is trying to tell me where the milk for the lunches is.

If she hadn't found me, we wouldn't have known, and that would have been ugly.

When the four were happy to be done staring at rhinos, we got our lunch milk. This is the first time I've had to gather my group without herding them. Probably because it involves food.

B1 was dying to see the snakes, the King Cobra in particular, because that is the animal he did his report on. But B2 and G1 agreed that they wanted to eat first. We find a table with an umbrella top and had lunch.

This was the best part of the day. The kids were polite as they ate. They cracked jokes, made insightful conversation, and were a pure delight. These kids really were SMART.

But no sooner had the trash hit the bins than the chaos returned.

"PENGUINS!!!!" And whoosh. B1 races off. It has begun again. We follow.

"Llamas!"

"Let's go see the snakes!"

Okay, so the snake house is apparently my Achilles' Heel. It has several interconnecting rooms with doors and an open aviary in the middle.

Our trip into the snake house looked like this:

B1: "I think I remember where the King Cobra is!" RUNS through a door.

Me, trying to keep the other three from falling behind. "B1, come back. Wait for us!"

We get inside. B1 sees just about every kind of snake (including the poisonous one he told me about over lunch), but no King Cobra. He seems horribly offended.

He races around a corner. B2 is quietly and attentively admiring a huge snake in a corner. I think he was even reading the signs. (Like I said, smart kids.) But when the girls were with me in the center and B1 is racing off to Kansas alone, I couldn't leave B2 to read and learn. Hating that I had to rush him (but terrified what would happen to B1 if I didn't), I urged him to follow and stay with the group.

The rest of the snake house was a blur of going into and out of all the same rooms multiple times (B1 refused to accept that they didn't HAVE a King Cobra) and my adrenaline levels spiking as I inevitably lost sight of every kid regularly (except my own, because she was still so thrilled I was there. I couldn't have peeled her off my side if I'd wanted to).

After the snakes came the gorilla exhibit, which was closed. Then the camels. And then B1 seeing a peacock that had escaped its pen. He decided that walking right up to it and petting it was a great idea. As I was frantically calling him back (envisioning him getting e. coli or some other infection and his mother blaming me for his untimely demise), another mother was saying, "Way to go! Good job!"

Be proud of me; I didn't slap her.

Next I tried to get them all set up for a cute picture by the giant elephant statue, but they're crawling under legs and whatnot, so I end up with one that shows just one child clearly: mine.

But this is also when G1 announces that she has to pee. BAD. I know she went at our last potty break and at the school and determine she must have a bladder the size of a pea. We hunt down a different bathroom for her, and while we wait, the other three fight each other as they climb a rhino statue. (But hey--they're all together, even if they are fighting.)

It starts raining. I almost curse the universe, but then learn that it is a blessing: to my relief, they asked to return to the bus a little early because the rain was making me cold.

"But I'm not cold," B2 pronounces. "My body must be stronger than everyone else's."

Moments later, he asks for his jacket back from B1 and bundles up. Yep. Strong dude.

We return to the bus. I sit on a bench and breathe while the other four make the interior a playground by running down the aisle, climbing benches, and playing horsey on a spot that jutted out in the back.

I decide that I didn't care. They're contained and not bleeding, right?

I'd spent hours preventing B1 from taking off like Magellan. I felt bad that I couldn't let B2 soak in everything he wanted to (like in the primate house, which was packed with people and strollers: he wanted to stand at a window and watch the sleeping orangutan, but B1 was already flying out the doors).

I do love those kids. They're all so curious and eager to learn.

One mom handling them all, though . . . oh, heavens. This is the kind of exploration each one would have thrived on had they been there with ONE other adult. Instead, pandemonium reigned.

I'm betting that in 30 years, those kids will have made their mark, and when they do, I'll point to the TV and a few gray hairs and say, "See him? I took that kid on his zoo field trip, and this is the gray hair he gave me."

In spite of the challenges these kids brought me, I will say that riding a bus with noisy first graders knocks the socks off of riding the bus with 5th graders, who sing rousing renditions of "Boom Chicka-Boom" and "We Are the Champions."

One of the 5th graders in the back seriously knew all the verses and sang them at the top of his voice: "You got mud on your face. Big disgrace. Kickin' your can all over the place . . . "

That.

Was.

Loud.

School is out, so no more field trips for several months, at least.

Yay!

WNW: Overheard

Still recuperating from the LDStorymakers Conference (short summary: BEST ONE EVER).

So in lieu of a regular Word Nerd Wednesday post, here's a video discussing, among other things, me as the Word Nerd.

The video was made by J. Scott Savage for the class he and James Dashner taught together at the conference. It supposedly shows how they came up with their topic.

(Pay close attention from 0:53 to 1:10. So. Awesome.)

Kristina, I'm Playing

Kristina P posted a Glamor Shots photo of herself and invited her readers to post really awesome (read: laughable) pictures of ourselves from the same era.

I never did Glamor Shots (darn it!), but I did do a buddy picture with all three of us wearing the classic (cliche?) denim shirt and sporting the big, permed hair (with matching bows the size of rodents, no less).

Here I am around 1992. (Pardon the blur. It's a photo of a color photocopy. Lame, I know.)

Sheryl, in the middle, is the friend people have assumed is my sister, my twin, or even ME literally since kindergarten. More than three decades later, we still get it. (I don't see it, but whatever.)

Thora, on the left, is the one everyone in our large group of friends knew people (read: GUYS) meant when they asked who the "hot" one was. There was never any question; guys always meant her. (Great for the 'ol self-image, I tell ya.)

S & T, don't kill me for posting this, k?!

Motherhood: Rocking It Out

There's a reason my children know all about Ed Grimley, Footloose, Anne of Green Gables, and so many other parts that make up the mother they know and love.

(It brings me no end of joy that my two oldest daughters adore Hitchcock. Hitchcock! I could sing!)

I show them older (as in 80s) TV shows, movies, and even YouTube clips under the guise of "educating" them so they'll be culturally literate. It's proven helpful for them when watching other shows or reading books and they get the inside joke, when none of their friends did, all because two months ago, Mom showed them whatever movie was referenced.

Totally rocks. (Kinda makes me look cool in their eyes, which doesn't hurt.)

And in some ways, it's made a difference with school: they see the point of studying Greek mythology and other subjects, because those things are referenced all the time in other things, and to "get" them, you have to know the original source.

My kids' first contact with musical indoctrination was with ABBA. I believe they all heard ABBA Gold in the womb. Recently my 9th grader had a teacher who offered a prize for any student who could name the song he was about to play on CD.

Within a couple of bars, my son's hand shot up. No one else had a clue, but he knew immediately not only that the group singing was ABBA, but that the song was "Voulez Vous." Had there been a piano in the classroom, he could have played it from memory (not even almost kidding).

He won the prize. (See, son? Cultural literacy totally pays off. Also, put your nose back into that geography textbook.)

The classic rock group Journey was their next big musical experience. It came in the form of Max singing "Lights" on Jillybean's blog. (GO NOW to listen to it. SERIOUSLY. NOW. SO WORTH IT. Then come back.)

To have my kids fully appreciate Max's rendition, however, they had to know the original first: Steve Perry. Trusty YouTube did the job. We found a video there with Journey performing "Lights" and Steve Perry crooning out his classic tenor soul.

Since then, my kids have been Journey fans. They were amazed to realize that a lot of songs they recognize are, yep, Journey songs. Somehow they missed the fact that on and off for their entire lives, Journey's Greatest Hits CD has been playing in the minivan.

They noticed that Randy on American Idol talked about being in the band. Then Glee made "Don't Stop Believin'" a return hit. And suddenly Journey was everywhere. My kids love, love, love Journey.

And then . . . the other day, my 5th grader came home from school ready to pass out with excitement.

One of her teachers had told the class about the time she had a backstage pass to a music group that she was sure the students had never heard of: Journey. Mrs. Miller had even gotten to talk with the lead singer, this great guy with beautiful long hair named Steve Perry.

My daughter gasped. She cried out that she knew who Steve Perry was, but Mrs. Miller didn't hear. Instead, she continued her story about what she and Steve had talked about, blissfully unaware that one student was sitting in her seat, frightfully near hyperventilation.

"Steve Perry, Mom!" my daughter practically yelled when she got home. "Mrs. Miller got to talk to STEVE PERRY!"

Moments like this make me realize that you know, I'm doing okay on this motherhood thing. My kids are learning the really important stuff.

Ahem.

Writing Journey: Writer Weirdness

Being that it's New Year's Day (and I'm out of town), I'm cheating by re-posting from my archives from when I literally had what, two readers? Below is literally my very first post, and since it happens to be writing-related, I thought it'd be a good fit for my Writing Journey series.

(As a side note, the scene I refer to the beginning was for Hannah's injury in Spires of Stone.)

Enjoy!

*****

Not long ago, I pulled one of my many reference books from my office bookshelf so I could get a few details for an upcoming scene I’m writing.

Holding the book in my hands, I immediately felt transported back to the time I first read it, and I had to smile. Suddenly I felt sentimental.

It was the Christmas holidays, visiting my in-laws, during the time I was still a hopeful writer who hadn’t yet been published. I remembered the manuscript I was working on and why I needed this particular book to help me with certain details—and I still remember what those details were. Snow fell; holiday cheer abounded; carols drifted through the house.

And here I was engrossed in Body Trauma, where every chapter follows an organ system, explaining injuries and how they affect the human body—and even better, how those injuries can be used by writers in their work.

I know; you don’t have to tell me. I’m morbid.

It’s great to be reading along about blood and guts, then have the author insert something along the lines of, "Use this injury if you need your character’s future to be uncertain," or "This is a good one to use if a character needs to be ill, recover, and then relapse."

Okay, so I’m not just morbid; I’m weird.

I’m aware of that.

But sometimes I forget that others don’t share my bizarre curiosity.

You should have seen the faces of my brothers-in-law when they saw the book. "Light reading, huh?" they asked as they inched away from me.

"No, really, it’s so fascinating," I said as I stepped forward, eager to share gems I had just learned. "Did you know that if someone has a bad impact—say they fell from a cliff—and it’s so bad you can’t tell where their face is, you look for air bubbles?"

They sank into the couch, eyes wide with horror.

The reality is that I am weird.

I’m a writer. That makes me a little bit off the beaten path.

How many other people do you know who have conflicts appear in their imaginations in the middle of the night? Who else hears people talking in their heads (and no, they don’t need medication or a strait jacket). Who else finds joy in the discovery of new information that will help make their pretend world a little closer to reality?

And how many people do you know who are so obsessed punctuation rules that they cringe when they see a T-shirt with a comma splice?

So yes, I’m weird. And I celebrate that weirdness.

Weirdness is the quality that brings me the wonder of the written word, characters, story lines, creation, and so much more. It’s what brought me to the place of—finally—getting published.

And yes, in case you’re wondering, that first manuscript I read Body Trauma for did end up published several years later, complete with injuries for three victims of a drunk-driving car accident.

That book is now known as At the Water’s Edge.

A few months after reading Body Trauma I brought my next bit of light reading while visiting family—Cause of Death. I had to chase people around the house so they’d pay attention to the diagrams of autopsies. "No really. Check this out! It’s totally cool!"

They’d block their eyes and run the other way, saying, "Man, are you kidding me?"

Sheesh. Some people just can’t appreciate a good reference book.

(Originally posted July 21, 2006)

Six Bits of Monday Randomness

Random Bit #1

I've been out of town and computer-less since Thursday, spending some much-needed (and enjoyed!) time away with my husband. It. Was. Awesome.

As a result, however, today I opened my Google Reader to find 254 unread posts. Did you get the full impact of that number? Let's spell it out:

TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-FOUR.

Holy schmoly, you people are prolific!

Um . . . I don't think I'll be getting to all those posts. Just a tiny little guess. Don't take it personally or anything. I'm just not Super Woman.

Random Bit #2

Yesterday the lesson I got to teach the Sunday School class for the older teens was about . . . get this . . . the Salt Lake Temple and its foundation. I'm so not kidding. Ya think that's a topic I know a tiny bit about?

The point of the lesson was about the importance of building your spiritual foundation on Christ, and it compared the Salt Lake Temple foundation to that, including the original sandstone foundation that cracked and needed to be replaced with something stronger so it could hold such a large and magnificent building.

I knew so much more about the story than what was in the lesson because of my research, so I basically tossed the manual aside and had a ball. I don't think I've ever enjoyed teaching that class quite so much.

Random Bit #3

The only down side was that one of my students skipped out of Sunday School after sacrament meeting. He was one of the youth speakers and did a phenomenal job, and I wanted to give him some praise.

He was also one of the band members coming home when the bus crashed last week, and he told some of his personal experiences related to that and connected them to his faith. I won't share the stories here, because they're his and rather private, but I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Let's just say he's a remarkable young man.

Stinker for not coming to class so I could tell him so.

Random Bit #4

My kids are getting really good at teasing their mother and enjoying it. Last night at dinner, one of the girls said a real zinger (I don't remember exactly what it was now), and I about busted a gut. It was so on target that I laughed to the point I couldn't breathe.

The whole family was laughing, and when we calmed down, Dad said to her, "You do realize that I could never have said that and gotten away with it."

#3 then goes, "Of course not. You're the husband. But I'm a kid. Kids are cute. We can say all kinds of things and can get away with them."

They're awfully perceptive, those little people. I warned her that it won't last forever. She's 10. In 5 years, such a comment won't be so cute. (But holy cow, it was hysterical yesterday.)

Random Bit #5

As dinner ended, I was informed that I would be playing Monopoly with the younguns, mostly because #4, the baby of the family (now 7), had never played it. I braced myself, knowing just how long that game can run, and told them that it's going to end at 8:00 when it's time to get ready for bed, regardless of whether it's really over. (They tried to hide the clock from me during the game. The fact that I was wearing a watch somehow slipped their notice.)

It was the most bizarre game of Monopoly I've ever played. I went around the board twice, literally landing on every space my youngest had right after she did, and therefore owing her rent on every single turn and never getting to buy my own property. So bizarre. It took three times around the board before I managed to buy the one piece of property I ever bought. I ended up bartering for another, and I got that only because #3 (who'd mocked me so well two hours prior) took pity on me.

Who won? By 8:00, the 7-year-old had the most assets by a landslide. She was so excited about it (and not exactly a good sport, apparently) that she walked downstairs to get ready for bed, chanting, "Burn, burn, burn!"

Aw . . . what a sweetheart.

Random Bit #6

Mom and Dad come home from Helsinki in eleven days. (Squeeeee!)

My kids have this little habit now. Anytime someone mentions how many more days until Grandma and Grandpa come home, it's followed by them all saying in sync, "Not that we're counting," and then lots of giggles.

We all know full well that we are counting . . . and have been for several months.

In fact, today for family night, we're making a paper chain. I know they're coming home, but I don't really know it, if that makes sense. They've been gone on missions since right before my second book came out, since my baby was 2 years old. To think that they'll be home, just twenty minutes away . . .

Okay, I better stop, because I'm getting weepy again.

I'm Almost Back!

If all goes well, I'll be turning in my chocolate cookbook today.

The stupid school district up and made today a professional development day, which means the kids are home right when I need them to not be.

Luckily, my sister-in-law's kids were dying to have mine over to play, and since she knew I had a deadline, she thought that heck, let them hang out there for most of the day.

Boo. Yah.

So in a little bit, I'll be driving the munchkins over to her place and then settling my behind into the chair to write. The cooking part is done. (Can you hear the angels singing? It's truly a glorious sound.)

I've written down the recipes as they've succeeded, but I still have a lot of other stuff to work into the book about ingredients and chocolate (lots of stuff about that) and a glossary and a bunch of other fun stuff in between that I hope readers will enjoy reading as they run into.

After turning it in, I'll have to celebrate, but it can't be with chocolate (I had no idea that it's possible to get tired of the stuff. It is! Who knew?! After six months of constant chocolate experimentation and cooking, my entire family is about to gag.)

I think I'll grab a bag of corn chips and salsa (Salt! I need salt!) and curl up with a book. So I'm not quite back to my regular blogging schedule, but I'll return soon. Ish. I promise. I just need to take a deep breath once I turn this puppy in.

(Oh, and I'll probably get the edits on my next novel soon and may have to break briefly for that, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there . . .)

But today I thought I'd leave you with an actual, unedited e-mail exchange between me and my 12-year-old daughter. This is the girl my husband says is a miniature version of me because she's so stubborn. (Thanks, babe. Okay, not that it isn't completely true or anything.)

Just the day before, she'd prepared a lesson for the junior high's writing club on how to get ideas to write stories. Ironically, she then e-mailed me the following. The exchange covered a few days. Her e-mails are in red, mine are in black.

mom i want to write a story but i have no idea's

Give yourself your own lesson about coming up with ideas. :D

i did, but i wouldn't listen

Man, that stubborn self . . .

i know!!!!!!!

Next time either ground yourself or bribe you with chocolate. That might help.

Tride, i am to stubbon, i wonder who she gets it from

My Clock Obsession: This One's For You, Hon

See, I have this problem.

Rather, I don't see it as a problem. The whole thing makes sense to me in my own little crazy wonderland. But five other people in this house have to live with it. The kids just have to suck it up; they're the kids, so they just have to deal with it. But it's a little harder to do that when you're an adult.

Like, oh, a husband.

Here's the thing: My poor man never knows what time it really is.

I don't recall exactly which recent event prompted the comment (I think it had something to do with setting my alarm earlier to reflect a different time for my snooze but not adjusting the actual clock time). It was something crazy and illogical but made perfect sense to me in a bizarro world kind of way when it was late and I was tired.

In a fit of laughter, he called out, "blog post!"

He was spot on; if he had a personal blog (which he doesn't), it would have made great fodder with which to mock me (which I know he wouldn't have).

So, hon, I'm going to mock myself here on your behalf. Because really, such great material can't be passed up, even if it is me making fun of myself.

The problem: I like to set clocks ahead. That doesn't make me too different from a lot of people, but apparently, I've taken it beyond a hobby and turned it into an Olympic sport.

With the exception of my husband's personal ones, nearly every clock in the house is set ahead by a different amount of minutes.

Contrary to what it might seem, it's not a bunch of random craziness. I do have a system. (I can already hear the men laughing. Shush. I do, too, have a system.)

The stove clock is set ahead by two minutes. I do that because when I'm leaving the house, I know that's the time it'll actually be by the time I get my shoes on, grab my purse, get in the car, and pull out of the garage. See? It makes perfect sense.

The clock on the mantel is set ahead by ten minutes. This is more for the kids' sake so they see it and think they're late for school and get moving faster. But it helps me, too. It takes them about ten minutes to finish brushing teeth, getting on shoes and finish zipping up backpacks, and for me to then gather the family for morning prayer and finalize all the little things. So if we're at the final "prep" stage when the mantel clock says it's really time to leave, I know we're right on time.

(Totally logical. Told you. Is, too! Okay, maybe it's a tiny bit weird . . .)

My nightstand clock is eleven (twelve?) minutes ahead. It tells me roughly what time it'll be if I hit the snooze once in the morning, crawl out of bed, and then stumble downstairs to wake up the kids . . . that way they wake up right at seven, but I've been up two minutes before that. (See? I'm such a genius . . . Or a nut case. Whichever.)

Setting my own clock ahead by twelve minutes also helps me know what time it'll be when I actually fall asleep, because pulling up the covers doesn't count as sleep, and I really do need over 8 hours to function. So seeing the clock ahead actually helps me get enough sleep; it encourages me to get into bed earlier.

My extra twelve minutes also help me get ready faster in the morning. If I need to make it on time to an appointment, I should be walking out the door when the clock says I should be there.

(Dang. The longer this goes, the nuttier I sound, even to myself.)

Then there's the minivan clock. It's set four minutes ahead. That's about perfect for letting me know when I'll be arriving at the school to pick the kids up or for other minor trips.

See? It all makes sense. (Shut up. Does too. Fine. I might be slightly off my rocker . . .)

I have two clocks running on exact times. One is above the pantry. It's a giant, decorative clock hanging so high up it takes a 9-foot ladder (and a death-wish) to reach. So half the year it's the right time, and the other half it's off by an entire hour, because I'm not about to risk breaking my neck to change it when daylight savings ends.

The other clock that's on time is the little one in the bathroom next to my sink. It's an atomic clock, so I can't set it ahead. I have to live with the insanity of the correct time on that one.

Darn it.

My downfall is the school clocks. The elementary school and the junior high school clocks aren't in sync with each other. One is supposed to have its five-minute bell at 7:55 and the other is theoretically at 8:10. But even adjusting for my clock resetting, one is really at 7:56 and the other is at 8:08.

What the heck?!

I recently ranted and raved about this disparity to my husband. My time-keeping system requires that other clocks work around the proper, exact times. Having the schools not run on the correct time seriously messes with my mojo. One is a minute late and the other is two minutes early?

Sheesh, people! Get your act together!

My husband looked over with a chuckle. With a smile, he said, "Welcome to a small piece of my world."

Ahem.