Stupid college girl

Let me tell you a story.

One time when I was a sweet little college student at BYU, I was walking to my car after a big group hang out.  It was late (probably close to midnight) and I was walking to my car by myself.

#1. I was not smart.
#2. I lived in a bubble world in a bubble college, which reinforced my view that life was safe and happy and everyone was basically kind at their core.
#3. I had not a single thought about how maybe I shouldn't be walking to my car late at night by myself.
#4. Nothing really bad happened to me because I was walking to my car by myself, I just look back on this story and realize how utterly and completely naive I was.  About everything.

So, I'm on my phone walking to my car, minding my own business and feeling pretty happy about life.  A car passes going the same direction as me, and as soon as they pass their brake lights turn on and they begin a slow turn and head back toward me.  AGAIN, I FELT NO FEAR.  No thought crossed my mind like "this person is going to abduct me" or "something bad might happen."  Nope.  My only thought was, "hey!  It must be a friend!  They are turning around to say hi."

Seriously!!  WHO WAS I??!!  If that happened to me today I would be speed dialing 911 as soon as I saw the brake lights.  I might have swung to the other extreme in my old age.

Anyway, this car turned around so they are now heading towards me on the opposite side of the road. I see the back window roll down.  I see a person lean the top half of their body out the window.  I raise my hand to wave (because obviously these are friendly strangers).  The car speeds up and swerves towards me.

WHACK!

I got nailed.  Hard.  With a flying object of some kind.  In the nether regions.

IN THE NETHER REGIONS I SAY!!

Whaa?  How?  Who? What just happened???

The car sped off (presumably full of laughter).  I was in shock.  I looked down, and on the sidewalk was a Hostess cream pie, chocolate to be exact, smooshed into a million gooey pieces, the remnants on my pants and dripping down my leg.

I got Hostess cream pied.  At about 35 miles per hour.

And I laughed.  I wasn't upset.  These guys were dill holes, yes.  But hey, it could have been a lot worse.  At least it didn't hit me in the face!

Don't you worry though, I had a huge bruise on my lady parts for a week.

Did that stop me from being a stupid idiotic young adult and walking to my car alone?  Nope.  Sure didn't.

But I will never look at a Hostess cream pie the same.

Lorde - Royals LDS Parody

Here it is folks!  The reason for my messy house for the last month.  Enjoy :)

The tornado

I had a pride shattering moment yesterday.

If you're like me, then your house goes in cycles from clean to slightly messy, to more messy, to junkyard in a hurricane messy, and then back to clean.  It stays in the clean phase for about a nanosecond.  I usually run around like a maniac cleaning up barbies, dirty socks, stuffed animals and/or food wrappers all day only to have my house still look like a complete wreck by five o'clock.  Sometimes life takes precedence over being the maid, and on those occasions my house gets uber neglected.

This past weekend was one of those times.  My sister Calee and I are filming a music video (you definitely don't want to miss it), and it has been kind of all consuming the past few days.  We are filming part of it at my house, but I don't have a blank wall/nice background so we took the classy road and tacked a sheet to the living room wall.  I have a tripod and props laying around.  We have filmed the same song about a billion times, and I've listened to it and watched the footage about a billion times a billion times.  (Yes, I am also editing this beast.  Did I mention I'm not an editor?  That makes it fun.)  Then Saturday we were gone all day filming at other locations (in 30 degree weather wearing short sleeved dresses.  It was the best day of my life).  Then Sunday I had choir practice then church then to my dad's for a birthday celebration. Monday I was gone all day.  Tuesday I was gone all day.  I finally got home Tuesday afternoon, ready to do some cleaning.  FINALLY.  I put baby down for a nap, when I heard a knock at the door.  My 9 year old clears a path to the doorway and answers it, and I hear someone asking for me.  I go to the door and see my visiting teachers.

OH NO.

OH NO OH NO.

(For those of you who may not know, visiting teachers are two women from my church who come visit me every month and chat and bring treats and leave me with a nice little message.  I have ladies that I visit teach as well.  I love the program so much.  Except when I have a tornado house.  Then I don't love it so much.)

Apparently there was a miscommunication and they were under the impression that they were coming to visit me.  In my putrescence. (Look it up.)

I should mention that these ladies are new to me, and have only visited me once before. At which time my home was pristine and smelled like apple cider and all my children were sedated in the basement.  JK.  My older kids were at school and my baby was napping.  Planned it.  Nailed it.

I had no choice.  I was standing there at the door.  No excuse would have worked, although I ran through a list of them in my brain:

I'm not home.
I'm asleep.
Who are you again?
I'm not Nikki.
I'm leaving.
You're leaving.
Visit?  We just finished the visit!  Thanks for all the great conversation!  Buh bye!

Instead, I let them in.  They stepped over piles of jackets and backpacks and small children.  They brushed crumbs and toys off the couch so they would have a place to sit.  And they warily eyeballed my sheet covered wall.

It's just a dead body behind there.  Don't worry about it.

We chatted and I made up some lame excuse about my house, like that I've been filming a music video.  I'm a 32 year old Mormon mother of 3 and I'm filming a music video.  Sounds legit.  I'm sure they recognized that it's a perfectly valid reason to have my house looking like it did.  Doesn't everyone film music videos instead of doing the dishes?  No?  Hmm.

They left me with a sweet message on prayer (all the while offering silent prayers for my sanity which had obviously left me, I'm sure) and went on their merry way.

After they left I laid down on a pile of fruit snack wrappers and licked my pride wounds.  That sentence is so gross I can't even handle it.

They left.  I was embarrassed.  The end.

Buttface + Siri

So my 9 year old has an iPod (let's not get into it).  One of her favorite things to do is to play with Siri.  For those of you who may not know, Siri is "an intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator which works as an application for Apple Inc's iOS.  The application uses a natural language interface to answer user questions, make recommendations, and perform actions delegating requests to a set of web services."  Basically it's a voice operated search engine.  You can ask Siri all kinds of things, from what date is Thanksgiving, to tell me the newest movies playing, to write an email to grandma.  You can change the language and voice, male or female.  You can say, "call me Nikki," and it will start doing so. I don't really use it, but my goofy 9 year old sure loves to play with Siri.

My daughter has naturally requested that Siri call her Buttface.  Naturally.  Siri will answer her questions and say, "I'm not sure about that, Buttface," in this weird robot voice.  Some of her more recent questions have been:

How many days until my birthday? 220 days until your birthday, Buttface.
Will you sing me a song? I don't know about that.  (But if you keep asking, Siri will indeed sing you a song.)
Will you marry me? We hardly even know each other!
What does the fox say? (Just ask Siri this one for yourself.)

The other day we were playing with Siri together.  She has it set up to be a man's voice, and I suggested she change it to the woman's voice because I thought she would find it more appealing.  She said, "I like the boy's voice.  That way I can flirt with him.  I need to practice my flirting."

So my friends, there you go.  9 year olds flirting with electronic devices.

Buttface + Siri = L.O.V.E.

10 things smart husbands will say

Want your woman to be head over heels for you? Here are 10 classy lines that a smart husband will have in his back pocket at all times.  You're welcome.

1. Sweat pants are so classy these days!
2. The musk of your unwashed hair is delicious.
3. Of course you should have another serving of chocolate cake.  No one deserves it more than you.  In fact, have four more servings if you'd like.  And here's a Dr. Pepper to wash it down.
4.When you wear no makeup it really reminds me how much I love your personality.
5. Honey, that outfit looks even better today than it did yesterday!
6. Your furry legs make me feel so warm and snuggly!
7. I love when you wear your glasses and teeth whitening retainers at night, it really brings out your eyes.
8. You're tired tonight?  Let me rub your feet in a non-sexual way and then you go straight to bed.
9. I'd love to go pick up some tampons for you.  Would you like me to grab anything else?  Like a treat?  Or my dignity?
10. Of course I don't mind that you put a little ding in the car.  The fact that it's from you will be a reminder of how lucky I am to have you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a shower not to take.

Insanity

It's Monday.  Here are some things I'm thinking about:

1. I'm hungry but I don't feel like eating.  This happens to me every morning.  Lest you assume there are some positive counter-chubby benefits to this phenomenon, let me assure you there are not.
2. I posted on my blog EVERY DAY last week!  Are you impressed?  I am.  First time in years that I've done that, and it absolutely filled my soul with sunshine and glitter and skittles.  I need to keep it up.
3. I've got some new things ahead for Have Joy happening this week in collaboration with my sister Calee Reed.  Stay tuned.  No seriously.
4. My house is bordering on hoarder status and I am so good at thinking of reasons to let it stay that way.  Why is it that Sunday thrashes my house?  What is it about Sunday that is so ridiculously messy?  Come on, Sunday!  Give a girl a break!
5. The Mister ran to the store on Saturday and I told him we needed toilet paper and diapers.  Turns out we didn't need either.  Someone has misplaced my brain.  It's probably in my Sunday hoarder piles.  I'm never gonna find it.

And with that, I will leave you with this:

Have a good day, friends!

Tender Moments

I was able to go to Time Out for Women a few weekends ago, and it was wonderful.  I felt uplifted and encouraged and inspired.  I was able to watch my amazing sister Calee Reed perform, and I couldn't help but think about how happy our mom must be to know that Calee is passing on the legacy of music.  Calee is so talented and I bawled the whole time she was on stage.  She is living her dream!!  It is so beautiful to watch and I am so proud of her!

I also saw Mercy River perform, and was especially touched by a song they did called "Walk You Through the Night."  It's a song about motherhood, and about how although as mothers we do not have all the answers, we can walk our children through dark times and love them perfectly.  I thought not only of my own children but also of my mother.  It has been almost four years since she passed away.  Although my mom was not perfect, she was the perfect mother for me.

I spent the next few days thinking about that song, and thinking about how I could overcome my own insecurities and shortcomings as a mother.  I bought the Mercy River album (duh) and was listening to that song when my 2 year old came into the kitchen with me.  She grabbed my legs and we started to dance.  My heart about exploded with love for this tiny human that is a piece of myself.  I bent down and picked her up in a cradle-style hold and began to rock her back and forth to the song.  My eyes welled with tears as I was filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be her mother.  She looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said,

"Mom?"

I looked down at her sweet face as she continued,

"PUT ME DOWN!!!!"

Moment ruined.  

RUINED.

I put her sassy face back down and she ran out of the kitchen to play.  And that about sums up my experience of motherhood.  Tiny, fleeting moments of tenderness interrupted by crazy, frustrating, not tender at all real life.  And I'm so incredibly thankful for every single part of it.

Kids Gone Wild

One of my favorite coping mechanisms is laughter.  No matter what is going on in life, if you can figure out a way to laugh about it you will be so much happier.  Reminds me of a quote by Marjorie Pay Hinckley:

The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it.  You either have to laugh or cry.  I prefer to laugh.  Crying give me a headache.

And so, in the spirit of laughing when something horrible happens, here is a link to pictures of a bunch of rotten kids right before they were severely punished.  (Note:  No children were harmed in the making of this post.  Although I cannot speak for what happened after these pictures were taken.)

Enjoy (click the link below):

LAUGH SO YOU DON'T CRY

Laughs in Your Face

Sometimes when you think you're finally past the hardest of it, life laughs in your face.

You guys.  LIFE LAUGHS IN YOUR FACE.

Life's all like, "hahahaha!  You thought I was done with you?  When are you going to learn?  I'm taking away your Dr. Pepper next."

And we're all like, "Whoa, whoa, Life.  Chill out.  Just give me a minute to breathe."

And Life's all like, "You're an idiot."

And then we cry. And then we read posts like this and laugh.  And maybe cry some more.

Sometimes life is kind of heavy. 

And that's ok.  We are building emotional muscles.  I'm pretty much an emotional bodybuilder at this point. 

But sometimes I wish I wasn't.