Guilty

Saw this funny on my sister Crissie's blog.

Oops.

It's me.

I hear you.

I know what you have all been saying.

Suzee, where are you?

We simply adore your creativity.

Your wit, humor, and ability to entertain our hum drum lives for that brief moment when we find ourselves drawn to your blog.

Well my adoring fans/blog stalkers.

I assure you I am alive, warped, and dreaming up ways to entertain the masses.

What is your quest?

I grew up in a very twisted house.

Actually, our house was quite normal. The family living inside it....Very strange!

I was number three of four girls.

We had a passion for memorizing and reciting movie lines, comedians, Monty Python, and Saturday night live, to name a few.

No seriously, there were few chat sessions where movie lines didn't make their way into the conversation.

Sunday nights (after 8) were spent in various rooms of the house listening to Dr. Demento on the radio. Do you remember The Dr. Demento show? All those great songs...Dead Puppies, Fish Heads, oh and what was the name of the kiddie lovin' clown?

Hindsight, I wonder what in the world my parents were thinking exposing their daughters to such warped things.

I think I always assumed we were like any other self respecting family on the block/in the Ward. It wasn't until I was married to Jim that we would be talking and the perfect movie and line would come to mind. I would automatically throw in a quote, and he...well he would just give me a blank look.

Perhaps they weren't really blank looks. Perhaps he was wondering just what sort of mad woman he had married.

I would tell him "My sisters would know exactly what I was talking about. In fact they would be able to say the line that comes next!"

Jim "Sure they could...." with complete doubt in his inflection.

At that time he didn't believe me.

Now? After almost 19 years of marriage and who knows how many Lundberg family get togethers...He believes!

I remember Sarah coming home from school one day and telling me that they were watching "Better off dead" in her french class. I'm sure she was the only one in her class who had been hearing half of the lines in the movie since she was very small. She told me that now she knew what my sisters and I were talking about.

John Hughes provided an astounding amount of dialogue in my house. Oh, and let us not forget the repertoire we learned from Mel Brooks!

A couple of weeks ago Kacie expressed a desire to see Monty Python's Holy Grail. She had heard a number of her friends talking about it.

A trip to the video store soon followed.

The entire family (minus Sarah, of course) gathered around the tube to view what, despite being one of the lowest budget films ever made, is a classic.

When it was over Jim couldn't believe he had sat through the stupidity.

I enjoyed reliving bits of my youth!

A few night ago, Kacie and Sam were sitting at the table after dinner. Jim was gone, and I was lingering to listen their chosen topic of conversation.

Suddenly, it was as though I had never left my childhood home. My own children were were spewing the inane frivolity of my past.

"Coconuts don't migrate!"

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries!"

And many others...

Sniff...

wiping a tear from the corner of my eye

I'm so proud!

Fuzzy Socks

I have a confession to make. I am addicted to fuzzy socks. You know the kind I'm referring to. They are often sold as "socks to stay home in". Every year (winter time) I find more to add to my collection. These little black and white ones are my personal favorites. Can you guess why?

Hmm...could it be because they look an awful lot like the socks worn by the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz?

These are just some of my socks. I have bright pink, canary yellow and many others. I will live in these socks for the duration of the cold the days left here in AZ.

Yes, I know that people living in actual states where winter is a real season are laughing at my reference to cold months here. Maybe I just have poor circulation, but my toes are always cold in the winter.

The great thing about these is I hate to wear shoes. Since I work from home I can run around all day in these. If I actually have to go somewhere I can slip on my (shh...don't tell Carrot Jello, she did whole blog entry on these) ugly crocs with my fuzzy socks and go! I have even put my tennis shoes on and gone out with these funky socks to a movie.

Hey, it was dark, okay. No one saw my goofy socks when I was sitting in the theater!

Maybe you all won't want to be seen in public with me any more now that you know I'm actually flawed.

Just helping out

Did someone say to put away the toys?

Sarah

Today my baby girl moved out.

Ok, so she's not really a baby any more

Still, it was a milestone in my life as well as in hers.

How do I feel about this?

Mixed emotions

I discovered that all the things I ever heard or read were true. The closer your children get to the age where they move away, the worse they seem to behave towards their family. I heard that it is their way of making it easier to cut the apron strings. You're glad for them to go away and learn to be an adult.

Then there is the mommy side of me

The mommy remembers Sarah as a little curly haired girl, who would try to "take care of" her baby brother Sam, and then baby Kacie. Once, after I had told her over, and over, not to carry Kacie, she dropped her on the floor in the kitchen. Kacie had a small flower imprinted in her forehead from the pattern in the linoleum.

Sarah also cut hers and Sam's hair once. Of course she cut a slice into the back of Sam's head at the same time. She also knocked out Sam's front tooth when he was 2 years old, playing ring around the rosies with him.

Poor Sarah was always my clutzy child. I think it was because she grew so fast. It took her mind time to catch up with her body.

Now she is all grown up and moved into an apartment with a friend. As of today she learn how tough it truly is to be a grown up. Paying rent, buying all your groceries, cleaning supplies, electricity, insurance, etc.

Gone forever is the frivolous spending of her youth. Perhaps she will start to wish she had stayed at home. She will learn that she truly had it good while here.

But she will never decide these things are true until she she learns for herself.

Kacie is probably dancing a jig over having her own room!

I wonder what Kacie will find to complain about now?

Jan 27th

Today is my Mother's birthday. Although she's been gone for 5 years now, I thought I'd be like Margaret, and write just a little something about her to commemorate her birthday.

Holly loved her family. She loved to talk to her girls and loved for us to come and visit. When I would try to leave, she would often follow me to my car, still talking. I would get in anyway and roll down the window so she would know that I really needed to go.

Still talking.

I would start my car so Mom would know that I really needed to go.

Still talking.

Finally I would begin slowly backing out of the driveway.

She would walk down the driveway, beside my car, still talking!

I miss that.

I remember the way she would look at me when I was telling her about something. She would tip her head back just a bit, looking down her nose as though she had on her bifocals, and really study me.

She loved color! Every room in her house was painted. Her taste and decorating skills were impeccable.

She was a perfectionist.

She would be in my house and say "Suzee, that picture is crooked." To which I would reply, "I know." I could see it was crooked, I just didn't care to do anything about it. But mom would always see the details and be bothered if they were out of whack.

Mom loved to receive a corsage to wear on Mother's Day. This was something that my Dad never seemed to remember to do for her. When I was grown, I took it upon myself to make this part of my gift to her every year. I loved making sure she felt special that day. Like the rest of the Mom's at church.

She taught me to be a voracious reader, to love the theater. She taught me to sew, and I inherited her sense of color, and decorating skills. For that I am very thankful!

I have her hands! Seriously. They look exactly like hers.

Mom loved going to the movies! She was my movie buddy. We saw many movies together in the early afternoons, while my children were in school.

In January of 2004 I was very pregnant with Dan. She called me to tell me she had just seen a commercial for a movie and couldn't wait to go and see it! I was getting ready to take my maternity leave from all my nail clients, and told her the movie would have to wait until next week when I was no longer working.

She passed away that Friday.

We never did get to see that one last movie together.

I regret that.

Life is fragile. Never put off spending time with your family. Work can be put aside and wait. You never know when it will be the last time you see someone here in this life.

I miss you Mom.

What field trip?

Today was supposed to be Dan's preschool field trip to the Wildlife World Zoo.
I guess you can tell by the photo that he didn't go.
He has had a cold for almost a week now. He ran a fever for a few days, and then just couldn't seem to get over the cough. I kept him home from preschool on Friday, and from church on Sunday. No sense in sharing his cooties. I figured with Monday being a holiday and after all that time at home he would be right as rain by now.
Then a couple of days ago he started complaining that his head hurt. When I would ask him to show me where it hurt he would either rub the top of his head or point to his forehead. He would even wake up in the middle of the night and come and tell me that his head hurt.
This morning I took him to urgent care and had them take a look at him.
The PA looks in one ear and says "Buddy, doesn't your ear hurt?" Exclamation point!
Dan "No."
PA "Are you sure this ear doesn't hurt?" Can you hear the doubt in his voice?
Dan "No."
Now looking at me he says "He's got a major infection in that ear."
I'm just sitting there looking foolish
dumbfounded
feeling guilty
saying huh?
He walks around the table, looks in the other ear
"How about this one? Does it hurt?"
Dan "No."
Tell me, how can a child have a raging double ear infection and his mother not know?
Do we not reside in the same home?
Are his ears maybe in some strange way wired to his headache sensors?
Or am I just one of the worlds worst moms?
Two prescriptions later
One for the cough
One very expensive antibiotic
$70 and yes that's the generic

Penance perhaps.

Restitution paid for lack of knowledge.

Silly kitty

Indy finally discovered the fish Dan got for Christmas.

Now this is where he spends all his time (when he's awake).

He just can't understand why he can't touch the fishy.

The plastic fish tank is beginning to show very fine scratches.

I wonder how that could happen?