Radio Time

While listening to NPR:

RadioVoice: "This is The World..."

Mom changes the channel.

E: Mom, you changed the channel because we already know this is the world? Right?

My sister's keeper... but the other way around...

Tomorrow is my sister’s birthday.

When I was little, we shared a cake. Birthdays went by months in my family, and so we blew at the same time. But that was not the only thing we did together.

Not to say that my sister and I are close in age. When I was born, my sister was fourteen. In Junior High. Busy hating math, and doing all those other things that Junior High kids do. Needless to say, we were on slightly different levels.

I only cared about eating. And sleeping. And having my diaper changed. (I don’t actually remember, I’m just assuming.)

But Emily was good with that. When my mother came home from work, she’d bring me from the sitter. Then she’d feed me once. Then she’d go to sleep. She worked full-time. She had five kids. I would go to sleep too, if I were her. Anyway, Emily stayed up with me. I don’t remember this, for some reason, but I’m sure we had a great time together. After all, I was very cute. And in the process of it all, I guess she got in the habit of having me around.

So, she kept with it.

You see, when I went to college for the first time, I went with Emily. I remember standing next to her in the student section cheering for Aggie basketball – my feet on the seat beside her, so I could see. When I was in a Singles’ Ward for the first time, it was with Emily. She brought me to Volleyball games on weeknights (I read a book – never very athletic). She let me stay for game-nights (my first experience with “Spoons”). And often she brought me to church on Sunday, where she played the piano.

But it didn’t stop there. When Emily went babysitting, I often went with her. I picked cherries, and braided garlic, and played with the children who were her charges. When she worked in New York, she brought me a lunch-bag. I used it faithfully all the way through fourth grade, until I tragically left it on a bus. When she graduated from college – an official math teacher – she skipped her graduation to come with me on a school trip to Rhode Island. Upon arrival, she granted me immediate coolness by telling the fortunes of all the other kids with a stack of playing cards. To a shy girl, with two friends, this meant everything. Later, when I graduated from highschool, she took me on a massive East-coast trip. She even drove miles out of the way so I could visit Prince Edward Island –not much there folks, when it really comes down to it.

We went to movies together.

She took me to Yosemite.

We picked cats together.

She let me hold the kittens.

And then she moved away.

And I did too.

But even so, she finds huge ways to change my life. Flying down to see new babies, organizing family reunions, sending a complete wardrobe – with matching shoes and socks – for my newest little one.

She is a mother. A wife. A daughter. A cousin.

She is my sister.

And I say thank you to her, for all she is.

Happy Birthday, Em.

This Morning At Breakfast...

Says Mom: E, please move your doll. Her hair is in my cereal.
Says E: But Mom, I don't mind if her hair is wet.

I guess it didn't occur to her that I might mind if my cereal has synthetic Barbie hair in it?

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Yesterday we went and watched "Up" at the $1 theater. It actually went really well considering we had a 4 year old, a 1 year old, and a 2 month old. One of my favorite parts was when one of the characters, whose name just happened to be Ellie, chattered on at the other character for a major segment of the movie. At the end she said:

"You don't talk so much, you know.... I like you!"

I know someone like that.

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Another quiz for the road:

What made M throw up in the car this time?
a. The macaroni and cheese from lunchtime that I got to clean off the carseat?
b. The stop and go traffic on the way to pick up Dad?
c. GQ paid her in hopes we'd stop driving around and he could get out of his carseat.

Public Service Announcement

I had some people say they wanted to write who haven't shown up on the other blog. No big deal if you changed your mind... I just wanted to say here that we are getting started over there.

I make so much sense it's hilarious.

Markers

So, M has been doing okay with E's "ColorWonder" markers.... so I bought her a set so they wouldn't fight.

It's been an hour.

M has already bit the tip off the pink marker.

I didn't know you could bite the tips off markers.

Apparently you can!

Moving

I'm moving discussion of "One Page A Day" to the "One Page A Day" Blog.

http://onepageadaygroup.blogspot.com/

So, any questions/statements from the comments section or e-mails will be there.

By Request From Washington

Emily says I'm a slacker and don't have new pictures up of GQ. Here's a video instead.





And here is a picture of E looking like GQ, or GQ looking like E.... however you see it.

Does that count? Does putting up a picture of E looking like GQ count as putting up a picture of GQ? Sad state of affairs for that third child, I'm telling you.

Group Project

I hate group projects. Let's make that clear. I think I'm just too OCD to trust anyone else with part of my job... that and I take a while to make friends. Just recently, my cousin, Laura, cleared this up for me. Apparently I'm slow at making friends because I grew up with an awesome family. I'm so glad it's not because I'm a dork :) Anyhow, group projects were never really my thing. But sometimes group projects are good things. Apparently.



So, about two weeks back, I tried to quit reading other people's blogs forty times a day in an effort to take back some of those precious minutes of my day for writing. The last time I spent any real time writing was about two months before GQ graced us with his presence. Since his arrival... let's just say the number one use of my free time centers around my obsession with sleeping. I knew I needed an intervention... and blog use was sent to time-out.



Two weeks into that goal and I still haven't written a lick. In fact, I think I've actually written less since my newfound goal, since I don't write real blog posts anymore either. And, after all, those are a type of creative writing, if maybe a little lazy on my part. (Not on everyone's part... don't get me wrong... just on mine.)



So, today I thought about what to do. And I came to this:



About three years ago I attended a writing conferance where I met a beautiful writer: Martine Leavitt. Some of her first books published were written, she said, in the bathroom while her children bathed. That was where she found her time, and usually it only resulted in one page a day. But, by the end of the year, she had a book.



And truly, a year is not so very long in the writing world, my friends.



I have decided this is an achievable goal for me. One page a day. One measly, teensy, tinsy, LARGE page a day.



But let's be honest, in the world of motherhood there are not many people around to point a finger at you when you fail. (Except all those children who didn't get fed and don't have clothes to wear.) And who is to say that two days into my goal I won't give up and decide to take a nap? Honestly, that is the likely outcome.



Which is why we need intervention. Which is why we need a group project.



So, calling all groupies to my crazy experiment. If you too would like to write one page a day and have a book by next September, please let me know. And you don't even have to be a crazy stay-at-home mother like me.

Here are the rules:

- Each day you must write one new page of your book.

- This page cannot be a rehash of the previous day's page.

- Each page should be part of the same story, even if you choose to take some fantastical leap because you're bored stiff with the way things are going. (i.e. I once changed a story about a girl grieving her dying mother to a story about traveling in a magical, underground world because I was sick of being depressed.) The point being, that we are trying to write one complete book. Of course, I don't know of any book police involved in this project... so do what you want.

- At the end of each day you will e-mail your page to:

onepageaday@gmail.com

- This is to give you some sort of reason for not heeding the call of the nap... or, additionally, to keep you from watching late-night re-runs of "Perry Mason" on Channel 7 while you shirk your duty.

- If you're a legitimate groupie member I will give you the password to the e-mail account so you can check up on me too.

- If you don't want people reading your stuff - just don't attach it, or put "do not read" in the header.

- If you do - because you think you just wrote the best paragraph in the whole world, seriously - then you will automatically be entered in the weekly "One Page a Day" blog contest. This is where I post - once, weekly - one sentence or paragraph that knocks our socks off, so that the world at large can know we are extraordinarily talented. (One must have an ego to write... it's there to off-set the certainty that everything you've ever written smells faintly of burnt toast.)

All the above rules/crazy ideas are subject to change based on how nutso you all think I am.

So, if you'd like to join up - send an e-mail to onepageaday@gmail.com Then check out the blog I'm putting on my sidebar and comment on what you think the nutso rules should entail. I figure I'll start my first page on Monday - I need a few more days to procrastinate - and that we'll have the blog/crazy rules up and running by next Saturday.

And if you don't feel like joining me... don't worry.... Laura says the reason I don't have friends is because I do have cousins. I'll just hunt them down and make them join me... they're family, after all.

By the way, I had to write this post twice because of a malfunction... so if it doesn't make sense, I absolve myself of all responsibility!!