Weekend Math

I found out important things this weekend.  One is that on a gloomy day sometimes you need to do some addition.  For example:

Popcorn +

Chocolate Chips =

Yummy Goodness!

Who can feel sad about that?  I also found out that yummy goodness + someone who loves you enough to bring it to you and giggle with you = being very blessed.  Who knew math could be so fun?

Quite Possibly The Nicest Thing Anyone Has Ever Said to Me

Tonight I was at a Mary Kay function.  It was Girl's Night Out.  We feed you dinner from Olive Garden, Wax your eyebrows, give you a facial/makeover, and then give you dessert.  All for $10.  Not to shabby if you ask me.  Anyway, as I said before, I was there tonight.  I have an Amy friend there.  Only the Amy friend I'm referring to is not this Amy friend:

That is my Amy Haider friend what that is my bestest Amy friend.  (On a totally nonrelated issue--I'm pretty sure that is a darling photo of the two of us.)  As I was saying before being distracted by the cutness of that photo, the Amy I am referring to is my Amy Walker friend:

She and I were cutting up the cake to serve to the guests and she out of the blue asks me, "Shan, have you ever met anyone that doesn't like you?"  I wasn't sure what she meant so I asked her, "What do you mean?"  She replied, "It's just that I can't ever imagine anyone not liking you, so I thought I'd ask if you knew of anyone."  Like I said, quite possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

Street Cred.

I hate to hurt Hank's feelings, but I have to call a spade a spade...He's a big boy.  Fourteen pounds of big boy.  It looks like he ate another cat.

He also has big claws like these:

And big, sharp teeth like these:

However, today he met his match.  A foe so fierce that Hank ran out of the room with his big, fat tail tucked.  I was able to catch a photo of this beast:  Don't be frightnened:

I'm embarassed for Hank.  I think he just lost a lot of street cred to the 2 pound kitten next door.  He spent the rest of the afternoon like this:

At Least I Didn't Hit Someone on a Motorcycle

I got pulled over again today.  Only he didn't give me a ticket because I just barely got one on Monday.  This officer looked a little more like this:

I'm pretty sure I need to just stay off the road...forever!  My only consolation is that I didn't hit anyone on a motorcycle and none of my teeth fell out.  That's an improvement from the last 2 days.

Alliteration

Monday -motorcycle mayhem.
Tuesday -tooth trauma.
 Wednesday -????????

I'm not sure what all kinds of alliteration goes with Wednesday, but maybe I should stay home in bed tomorrow just to be sure.  Tuesday's tooth trauma is that I have a cracked tooth that sends me through the roof when something cold hits it.  By cold I mean anything below 98.6 degrees.  It will require a crown, but thankfully I can wait until after I get back from New York to take care of it.  Speaking of New York, maybe you need a tiny little sneak peek:

 This is our Hotel:  Portland Square Hotel

Wicked

Statue of Liberty

Ellis Island -I don't think these people will actually be there, though.

Ground Zero

Times Square

Empire State Building

I know that Kesk will not be excited for this guy, but I am.  I feel like I need a hot dog from a street vendor to have the true NYC experience.  Good thing for me that I like hot dogs.  This guy's name happens to be Ernie.

Motorcycles are NOT My Friends

So, today I woke up under the assumption that it would be a pretty good day.  I had reasons to believe that because for one thing I didn't have to go to school and teach all of the squirrely kids.  I had a workshop in Springville that I had to go to, and I was pretty excited because it was going to be done a full hour before I would have been done at my school.  For the record, that part of my day was pretty good.  I only had one major computer catastrophe but as I mentioned before, I got to leave early so I didn't mind so much.

My problems started after I left that workshop place.  I had a million of errands to do so I headed up to Provo to begin those errands.  Only too bad for me, because there was a policeman on the side of the road just waiting for me.  I wasn't even speeding.  I'm careful not to do that so as not to draw attention to myself because I don't want the police to notice that my car should have been registered in July.  He noticed.  He was nice about the whole business.  He didn't even write me a ticket for the fact that my driver's license was invalid.  Neither one of us could figure out why so he told me to call the DMV to see why they didn't want me to drive so much.  He even told me that if I'd get my car registered in the next 2 weeks, the ticket would be reduced to 20 bucks.  I think it was this guy that pulled me over:

After I left the policeman I was a little rattled and couldn't decide if I still wanted to go to Provo/Orem or just go home, put my head under a huge pilla', and pretend like today never happened.  I started back home and then thought to myself, "Self, you've got a million things to get done before you go to New York on Thursday, (Oh, by the way, did I mention that I'm going to New York on Thursday?  Because I am.) and if you don't do them now, you'll never have time to get them done."  Again, too bad for me that I didn't do the head-under-the-pillow thing.  I got off of the next exit to turn around.  I had to make a left turn to flip a U-turn so I put on my left signal.  However, I had to lean a little to the right to make enough room for me to flip around.  Some guy on a motorcycle saw me leaning to the right and decided that I was probably only kidding about the left turn signal so he tried to pass me on the left.  Guess what, I turned left, as my signal indicated and hit him!  Or rather, he hit me.  He bounced right off of my front fender.  Lucky for him, he didn't get dead.  My favorite part is that he had the nerve to try and tell me that I shouldn't have been leaning to the right if I wasn't going to turn right.  I told him that it doesn't matter which way I lean, he should probably look at my signal and think that there is a strong possibility that I'm going to turn that direction.  No real damage was done, thankfully.  My hubcap is cracked a little and I have a small scratch.  I'm pretty sure that this is the motorcycle guy that hit me:

The next time that the Holy Ghost tells me to go home and go to bed, I'm going to listen.

Public Service Announcement

DON'T READ THIS BOOK!!!

I guess you could read this book if you want to hear a pitiful story about a 7 year old boy that is beaten so badly on a regular basis that he almost dies.  I am team teaching a class with another teacher at my school and she wanted to know what we should teach next.  I've never taught 7th grade so I asked her what she usually teaches 'cause she's taught for about 30 years.  She said The Lottery Rose.  I'd never read it so I said, "Okay, but I should probably read it before I try to teach it to the kids."  I've found that it usually works out better that way.  So, Sunday I read it.  I didn't love all the yucky stuff, but I told myself it'd be okay because it had to end happy, right?  Nope.  In fact it got worse...there is a little retarded boy in it that the abused boy, Georgie, absolutely loves.  The only person he's ever really loved.  (I'm going to tell you what happens because you should never read it, anyway.)  The little retarded boy dies!!!!!  Not only that but they never tell us if anybody ever loves Georgie enough to take him home or something.  It just ends.  My feelings at the end of this book put Petey in "Touched by an Angel" to shame.

Bug Problem

For some reason I have HUGE bugs at my house.  I didn't take a photo, but I came home from school a few weeks ago and there was a grasshopper the size of my door knob.  Plus, also, if you don't remember the humongo wasps nest outside my door, what that humongo wasps lived in, I'll remind you:

Then one day I walked out of my door and saw this guy staring up at me:

What is he anyway?  An albino Preying Mantis perhaps?  And just incase you don't believe me that he was huge, I've given you a point of reference:

Almost as big as my glasses, I tell you.

One night a week or so ago I saw this thankfully dead guy on my rug:

Yup, one inch with all of his dead legs crumpled up under him.  I don't want to think what he looked like when he's legs were fully functioning.  I think Hank should be earning his keep and killing those kinds of critters.

This green thing was on my door frame:

I don't know for sure what he is, but since he looks like a big leaf with legs, I'm calling him a leaf bug.

Then, if you think all of those things are scary, hold on to your britches because I found the biggest varmint I ever met in my house.  I put it next to a ruler so you could see how gigantic it really is:

St. George

On my way to St. George on Friday I took this photo from the car window:

How beautiful is that?! 

My trip to St. George went well.  I felt honored to be there and grateful to say my good byes to Dad Ence.  The funeral was beautiful.  I was surprised by how difficult it all was for me.  I think I've figured out why.  I believe it was because I could feel Dad Ence's spirit so strongly during the funeral and the graveside services, and the last time I felt that feeling was at my brother, Larry's funeral.  I remember not wanting to leave the funeral when Larry died because I knew that he'd leave and I'd never feel him like that again.  It was like he was there with me.  If I could stay in that building, then maybe he'd stay there with me forever.  Just like with Larry, I knew Dad Ence was there and I desperatly wished that I'd seen him before he passed away.  He was so sick for a while before his death and I was afraid of being a burden on the family, so I stayed away.  I'll not make that mistake again.

On a happier note, Mom Ence invited me to come back for Thanksgiving.  She even told me I could have my very own gravy boat because it is my favorite.  Who can say no to that?

Dad Ence

Once, a long time ago, let's say 12 years-ish, I met a girl named Heather Ence. Mostly I call her Inkey, but that's another story for another day. Inkey and I were mission companions in the MTC in June of 1997 because we were both going to be serving our missions in Los Angeles. The moment we met we became bestest friends. I personally believe we loved each other from the first moment we met because we were both so relieved that the other one wasn't some skinny little 90 pound waif that we'd be stuck standing next to for the next two months. However, I think you'll agree that we were both pretty much hotties, anyway:
This was taken in Los Angeles while we were being missionaries. Oh how I miss that skinnier version of me. Anyway, Inkey and I really did become the bestest of friends and after our missions we roomed together while going to BYU. Part of the good news about being Inkey's friend is that her family came with her. I immediately loved her mom and dad the second I met them just like I did Inkey. Maybe it's something in their gene pool that makes you love them best right off the bat. Regardless, of why, I decided that they probably needed a 6th black headed child and they loved me and let me pretend that I was theirs. Inkey and I took many trips down to St. George to visit. My favorite trips were the Thanksgiving ones. Mom Ence makes the best dang gravy I've ever eaten.

On Wednesday I got a phone call from Inkey delivering some bad news. Dad Ence passed away earlier that morning. I was shocked and then very sad. Since then I've spent a lot of time thinking about what he meant to me. First of all, here is a photo:

As you can probably tell, this was my graduation from BYU. Mom and Dad Ence drove the four hours up from St. George and watched me graduate. That's the kind of people they are. You can also probably tell that Dad Ence is in a wheel chair, so you know that trip wasn't an easy one to make. I wasn't able to have any of my family there and it meant the world to me that they were. I don't know if I've ever told them that, but it really was the most special part of that day for me.

I never really met my real dad and my step-dad and I didn't get along, so I loved that Dad Ence let me adopt him, so to speak. What I probably remember the very most is all of the games of Go Fish we played together. Here's what I don't understand about those games...How does a man that doesn't really have use of his arms, beat me 9 times out of 10? For heaven's sake, I was the one that actually controlled his cards, yet he beat me most every time. I'll never get that one. I think it must have been all of his smack talk and insults of my poor playing ability that threw me off psychologically. That's the story I tell myself so my self-esteem doesn't suffer, anyway.

Aside from harassing me, Dad Ence also made me laugh. It cracked me up that when you fed him cookies or crackers, or something smallish like that he liked to have a certain number of them in his mouth at a time. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe he liked some in each cheek. He also used to swing his arm up, hit me in the gut and say, "Don't pat the fat!" I still say that if someone touches my belly.

Dad Ence taught me quite a bit about love, humility and patience. I never met a family that loved and cared so much for him and he for they. He spent a lot of years in a body that didn't work and he had to rely on others for his everyday needs. I try to remember the amount of humility and patience he must have had to develop. When I get frustrated with others or upset that I can't do something myself, I try to remember that. I also try to remember the amount of love and patience Mom Ence had all of those years to provide those services. I always said that I hope Mom Ence will put in a good word for me when she gets to the Celestial Kingdom, because she's got a ticket straight there.

I will always cherish my memories with Dad Ence and I wish the whole Ence family peace and comfort. I know they will miss him as he continues to watch over them and care for them from the other side.