Looks like I made it.

I survived the back to back shoots. Woo. There is still one more but it's not heavy. Just a show up and do make-up kind of day. So I feel like snuggling down in my house and sleeping until roughly May. I've missed out on a lot while I was working, like AFV. So I'm catching up right now. Aw, dogs in shoes. Ow, dudes hitting stop signs. Ew, birds going poop on toddlers.

We have a cat now. Her name is Jane. We call her Friskers Meow. Brett hates her. It's a surprise to me how much I like her. Pugmann wants her to be in his mouth at all times. Pugmann now weighs 300 pounds from the eating of Jane's food. (Side note: My daughter said a funny thing while watching Beyonce's Single Ladies video on You Tube with me. She asked if one of the girls in it was my friend Jane Black. I couldn't figure it out but I think she knows the girls are black and I have a friend named Jane Black and did the "math".)

My Grandma broke her hip. And that commercial where the old woman falls and can't get up that we all made fun of is now not so funny. She fell while alone and wasn't able to move until my Cousin Elizabeth came home from school and found her and called for help. I will bawl if I think about it. So the package I just sent will not get to Grandma because she is in Hospital. I love saying that. So Brittish. Can't we bring that around?

Brett was given the job of putting up the Christmas lights three Saturdays ago but the weather was just too nice and he had to be indoors playing WOW until a massive storm today finally drove him out of doors to do the lights. Wha?? Poor man.

We are asking for heart felt prayers. It's super selfish to ask, I know. But. A good friend that produces commercials told me he is doing an infomercial for a tool that is great for remodeling. He came and took lots of pictures of our torn up house. He thinks that they may use it to shoot some before and afters. They will supply the afters. So I am begging that they find many, many rooms that will work for their commercial. The client flies into town on the 22nd to look at our house. Even if they just do our cabinets I am happy. But I can't help wondering, what if they do more?? But I'm not counting any chickens. Trying not to count chickens. No chickens.

I have shopping done, and the tree up and now I need to go do a cross-stitch due Tuesday and a few returns and get ready for the Ward Christmas Party so no one thinks I'm a Jack Mormon again. Which by the way used to be a term for people friendly to Mormons. And with that I leave you again until after Christmas. Or until something interesting happens.

Crow.

I'm eating it. I am actually working a lot this fall/winter. There are a slew of these great spots being written by Jeff at Reister for Pacificorps. We shot these amazing Linemen. (Power line workers.) I was told that the prettier my assistant and I could make ourselves the better they would co-operate. That they are real men and won't like wearing make-up. I'm expecting trouble. Nope. These men are...amazing. They are all laughing at one another and threatening to post pictures on the internet but it's all in love. They all mostly did it for kids and grandkids, so they could see them on TV. Awww. They all thanked me and one guy actually thanked me for talking to him like I would a normal person. Wha? I was honored. It's like a Fireman thanking you for your contribution to society. I seriously teared up a few times. One single dad shared his story with me about raising his girls and I bawled like a baby. His girls are AMAZING by the by, he showed me pictures. Movie star beautiful these two! His good friend was in the chair after him and told me when we were alone that he really was an amazing father and did a bang up job with his girls and got misty. Another guy told me their job was the coolest job in the world even though people die all the time doing it. He said there can be thirty teams all out with their spotlights shining up the poles while the snow comes down. He said no one else sees this and it's stunningly beautiful and makes it worth every minute. The only thing I can compare it to is my stringing Christmas lights in a snowstorm for a Check City shoot with Ryan Little and Tyler Measom. No lives were saved in my helping advertise for 26% interest plus fees on your emergency cash advance. And I was on a ladder, not a 75 foot pole.

That was day one. Day two was a slew of vignettes. Blenders, toasters, shovel phones. Yep, shovel phones. Everyone would walk past and then back up and look at me taping phones to shovels and post hole diggers. Then scratch their heads. "Call before you dig", I'd say and they'd go, "Oh. Got it!" The next one involves a ninja. I am dying to make and/or buy a ninja outfit! Jeff said they have 9 more coming up. Nine. N.I.N.E. And I'm shooting for Mountain America this week. I am thinking that the timing couldn't be better. I will hopefully have a good chunk of our debt erased by February. Because I believe in divine planning, I will either be Pregnant next year or unemployed. Either way I will be prepared. I hope and pray it's the former. I love my job. LOVE my job. Love it!! It completes me.

The only bad thing about working so much is that this house is going to be a giant mess for much longer than anticipated. And I will miss Aidan's 9th birthday. (I was in charge of all the other 8 so I don't feel too badly...) And that we will have Thanksgiving at Chuck O' Rama. No, really we will, I am not cooking in a kitchen without a floor. I guess that last one is not so bad, I like Chuck O Rama. So I may go blog M.I.A. for a while. I should wish you to Have a Happy Turkey Day and Merry Christmas and possibly I should wish you a Happy New Year as well. Martin Luther King Jr Day? I'm pushing it...

Everything and Nothing

This time of year is just dismal. I stop working. The weather changes. I get fat. I am left to actually spend time in my house and with my kids. Neither of which I'm used to. Both seem to be beyond repair.

Don't get me wrong, I feel like I have a lot of blessings. I can see God's hand in my life helping things along in spite of me. I now have good friends and a great husband and a fun job and a house. But I am still left wondering sometimes, when does my life begin? When will I get to start having many babies and stay at home and walk my kids to school before I sit down with a Sarah Lee pound cake and watch my programs? When will I put my kids down for a nap, wrap up in a blanket in front of a fire nursing a fat baby reading Twilight for an hour while dreamily thinking about being in love with a Vampire all wistfully full of longing and romance? Then make dinner while the kids play Xbox. Put my kids to bed and rub Brett's shoulders while we watch Leno. My biggest concern being which pictures I should use for our Christmas cards, the ones of us in reindeer sweaters or where we're all in white...

I always wanted a normal life. I only wanted a normal life. So I used to lie. A lot. About stupid stuff. I told my friends I was in a dance troupe, that I took violin lessons. I so deeply wished my Mom didn't work for the National Enquirer, General Hospital, A Country Radio Station. I wish she didn't wear cut off short shorts, flirt with men, miss all the landmark occasions in my life. I wished my Dad would step up and call her out. Leave her, tell her no. I wished she didn't spend money we didn't have. Pay her mother's huge phone bills. Have huge phone bills. I vowed I would never be like that.

But I am forced to see how I am just like my mother. I work a job that takes me away from my kids. Makes me miss important events. A job that is kind of embarrassing for my children in it's frivolity. I have a house that has hundreds of incomplete projects. My kids go to school in clothes that are too small for them, or the wrong season. They need haircuts and smell bad. I spend money I don't have and assume irresponsibly that I can just Ebay to make extra cash. Or start selling dresses or make kids clothes or jewelry or open a business or patent a million dollar invention or write a screenplay. My mother is in her mid sixties and says she isn't worried about retirement because she will just write a best selling novel. She can't decide if it should be about her sex life or helping people die or being a lesbian or...

Can I still dream? That after this Saturday when we all finally get sealed in the Temple I will magically fix this house and make a million dollars and get pregnant and live forever in perfect, normal bliss? Or is that just the equivalent of lying about being on a swim team? I think what will really happen is that I will have a great day and be thankful for my family and we will all feel really great. And a great weight will be lifted off my shoulders. And then Bella will have had a long morning and get crabby and need a nap, so Brett and I will kiss everyone we love goodbye and come home. We will then sit on the couch on his and her's laptops while we ignore the overwhelming amount of things around the house we don't have the ability or means to do while I worry endlessly how I will pay my minimum amounts due November through February. And when my real life will begin.

Bentz Family Vacation Do-Over Contest

So I know I'm not a Clark Family member with a blog readership of over six hundred but for those few of you that do read, please go to www.parentingextras.com/familyroadtrip/ and vote for the Bentz Family. Brett's sister is Tiffany Bentz and their dear family had a way worse time on our family trip then I blogged about previously. I was only miserable and hot at Sea World. They were miserable and hot and had barfing kids. Kids that barfed on their DVD player. Kids that barfed up their Anti-Biotics for their painful ear infection. Kids that decided they would just not take meds no matter what. I feel for them, they SO deserve a do-over! I hope they get it. I don't know how they mantained their sunny cheerful attitudes. VOTE VOTE VOTE! And thank you for your support.

Scary.

I had a baaad dream last night. And I haven't been watching scary movies or anything. Scary dreams leave me with that weird emotional hang-over like scary movies do. I judge a scary movie on how long that hang-over lasts. Top five scary movies according to Amelia in no reasonable order:

5. Twilight Zone:The Movie. My sister Jen was having a sleep over for her birthday. They were in the TV room in sleeping bags and decided to watch this movie. She told me to go and get her and her guests stuff from the kitchen, I don't know, chips or something. I did and came back. On screen two men were talking about something. I handed the stuff over and when I turned back around a guy in the driver's seat asked his passenger if he wanted to see something really scary. He hid his face and then turned back to his friend as a hideous monster and ate him. I was so unprepared for it I almost soiled myself. I had to sleep with my Dad that night and even then I kept thinking he was going to turn over at any moment and say, "You wanna see something really scary?" The next day I avoided people. I replayed it in my head in a million different scenarios. My mom handing me a piece of bread, my sister passing me in the hallway, friends walking with me to school. Each ended with them asking me the question before turning in to monsters. I came around the corner of our house a few days later and my Dad had a running chain saw in his hands. When he just went to a tree and began to saw some limbs I knew I was going to be fine.

4.Seven. (Spoiler alert: I tell the ending but if you haven't seen it already, wtf??) I saw it with my first husband the first night it came out. We heard some DJs talk highly about it on the radio. They mentioned it was intense but I think they underplayed it. I was a mess through the whole thing. I almost cried when they open that room with the thousands of little scented trees and when Brad opens the box and finds her head and then shoots Keiser Sose I was shaking like a crack fiend. Devin and I apologized to each other over and over for not finding out more about the movie before we went so we would have been better prepared. I had nightmares for days. I liked it the second, third and forth times I saw it, though.

3.The Descent. Brett and I went and saw this together. It's hard to go and get a sitter and plan a night you're both free and then go to a little old theater in Murray and see a movie that makes you want to go home and sit in the shower, rock back and forth and cry. I have never loved a movie I hated so, so very much. I want to tell everyone to see it so we can talk about how wonderfully horrifying and awful it was. If you love scary movies, it's one to watch. If you don't? Dont.

2.Signs. I know everyone hated this movie. I know that people wanted it to be something it wasn't. I know there are aliens at the end that no one wanted to get a good look at. I do not care. I loved this movie. I saw it with my Mom and when we came out of the theater I was going over it and over it in my head. "Swing away, and he was a batter and could only...and the waters all over the house and the thing with the breathing and they were things that made them weird but the mom knew it was for a reason and in the end saved their lives and..." I was shaking uncontrollably while I smoked what seemed like eleven camel lights back to back outside the theater to calm my nerves.

1.Nightmare on Elm Street. I saw this in the theater. Do the math and you will see I was WAY underage. I'd had a dream months before the film came out about a boy in a wheel chair. He was in an old school late at night. He was wheeling down a long hallway that came to a T. He was looking for his family that were there for teacher conferences. As he wheeled along three cuts appeared on his back as if slashed by three knives at once. The cuts just appeared and began to pour blood. He fell forward in his chair. It began to wheel its self down the hallway faster and faster until a locker opened up in front of him, unseen hands shoved his body and the wheelchair into the locker and slammed it shut. Then three people that I knew were the boy's family, Mom Dad and sibling, came around the corner talking about how well the boy was dong in school after the accident. Mom and Dad then received the same three slashes on their backs and fell to the floor in a heap. My minds eye zoomed in on the last survivor and they mouthed the words, I'm next. Then I woke myself right up. So when I saw a preview for a movie where school kids get cut up by a guy from their dreams that has a handfull of blades, I had to go see it to be sure this guy wasn't real and I wasn't next.

Have a Happy Halloween and good luck renting one or all of the above.

The Literally Illiterate.

I love KSL.com. I found my dog there, Nigel Pugmann. I am constantly looking for things I can use for the house, like flooring, tiles, a way to eradicate dog hair. What I come across instead are examples of people's extreme illiteracy. There was a perfectly hilarious ad I came across months ago that sadly I didn't copy and save, but thankfully there is a wealth. Here are a few good ones I came across today.

NICE ANTIQUE SIDE BOARD. Ogden, Ut.

SIDE BOARD IS 48 INCHERS IN LENGHT
38 INCHERS HI AND 20 INCHERS WID
PLEASE CALL JACK AT 334 6287 PLEASE
CALL BEFORE 7 PM. Contact: Joann.

How many inchers in a foot, Joann?

TAKE ME HOME FREE
vally, UT 84763 - Oct 21, 2008
i am giving away my three english bulldog puppies out to good homes due to our transfered out of the state you will only pay for there shipping cost. contact roselin_lucas4@yahoo.com

How does one ship a puppy, exactly?

This next one is just plain confusing. I don't know whether to call and pick up the "little guy" or laugh at it's expense.

Frozen Kitten Deserves a Good Home
Heber city, UT 84032 - Oct 20, 2008
This little guy is about 5-6 weeks old. I found him at the back door of the restaurant where I work about 10 days ago. It had been one of the coldest nights we had, back when the snow was here. I don't know where his mother is or how he got to where he was. When I picked him up, he stayed in the same position, he was so cold. He wouldn't open his eyes and just kept doing the same cry over and over. After about 2 hours, he was finally warmed up and very wobbly. You could feel every bone in his body. For being so young, he has really had a rough start in life. The tip of one of his ears had been bitten off and the end of his tail is also bent from a break. It took a week for him to quit growling every time we fed him, he was so starved. I am happy to say that he has gained a lot of weight and no longer growls to protect his food. He is just the sweetest thing and loves to be with people. I really want him to have a good home with someone who can spend some time with him. I introduced him to my neighbor and her cat and he freaked out at the older cat. It may have been another cat that attacked him in the first place, so I don't know how he will do with other cats. My shi tzu licks his face constantly and he loves that. Please don't be offended if I ask about what kind of home you can provide, I just want to know he will be safe. Please call, he is the perfect age for enjoying all the kitten time out of him. He is litter box trained.

Awwwwww. I want to enjoy all the kitten time out of him...

$14000
Fisher wood burning stove
moroni, UT 84646 - Oct 21, 2008
Mr. Toone placed an add for a fisher wood burning stove and I told him to consider it sold I dont have your number please call call me with your number. or relist it.

The best part is that this has been placed as a classified ad. If Mr Toone was selling a stove he would not be likely to look through other wood burning stove ads now would he? Sorry you jacked the buy. Der.

Dont buy from the Herriman lady
Herriman, UT 84096 - Oct 21, 2008
I had planned to buy an outfit from her and bought all of the family matching outfits. She had a outfit it was a bee 0 to 6 mo she said she would save it for me. I called her to get it and she said she was in Provo, and that I can come pick it up from her. When I got there she said she sold it. I drove 45 min from my house, very unprofessional. I also went to her house prior and left my sons hate and baby blanket, she refuse to give it back. A lot of the costumes were very dirty and smelled of mold. There are a lot of other adds on here with nice honest people.

I am glad that after 45 whole minutes of unprofessional driving she still got there OK. But it is unfortunate that once she got there the Herriman Lady refuse to give her back her son's hate.

This may become a weekly thing. The KSL "Add" Spotlight. Vote yay or nay, all in favor say I.

I want to win a handbag.

Go to this site if you want to enter, too!  If I post this link I get 25 more entries automatically.  It should be a pretty cool site.  http://www.handbagplanet.com