"E" like Extraordinary "Liza" like Minnelli

*She's the only person I know who will submit a jar of homemade pomegranate jelly to the state fair.

*She looks like me - lucky girl

*She read the Twilight series in less time than it took me, which says a lot for someone with 4 kids

*She makes cute babies

*She likes the same reality shows that I do and will call me to gossip about our favorite players.

*She made her 12 year old put on 5 hours of Pride and Prejudice on a Saturday when all he wanted to do was play video games

*She would be my phone call home if I were ever on Biggest Loser

*She totally just ripped up her carpet because she was sick of cleaning it

*She goes to the gym daily and does water aerobics and yoga (secretly I think she just goes for the free day care and for the chance to get away from babies)

*She laughs at my blog posts, even when they aren't funny - now that's love

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISTER!

America's next Top Psycho?

When I was younger I went through several different phases of trying to change my myself. In 8th grade I wanted to change my handwriting and I began writing in all caps, but I had to stop because my English teacher didn't like it. Then for a while when I was in 11th grade I started writing my 'A's different (like how they show up when typing, but people don't actually write that way). Anyway, I was thinking about those various "me" make-overs that I've done in the past and I've decided that I need another one. This time, I must make a change to my face. Not like plastic surgery or anything - although my nose would be the first to go. No I mean the actual way I look to people: my expression - it's got to go. There have been several instances that have lead up to this conclusion and I'll let the rest of you decide the best way to go about making this change.

Exhibit A. I went into a gas station for my receipt because I bought a car wash and the dumb receipt printer wasn't working at the pump. I told the clerk I needed a receipt and he looks at me and says, "You look like you're having a bad day." Actually no, I wasn't. Do I really look that bad? It was a perfectly normal day. I just needed my receipt. What do you say to that. So I lied, "Yeah, I'm just a little tired." Now give me my receipt stranger and stop talking to me.

Exhibit B. I went to a different gas station, I know what you're thinking "Pay at the pump already Sara!", I do, but I just really needed some diet coke. So I went inside and my efforts were wasted anyway because they only had Pepsi. Ugh, as if! But I found some Gatorade to bring to my honey while he was working. I walk up to the counter and the lady looks at me and says, "Are you OK?" Yeah, actually I am, thanks for checking. I found myself once again stumbling to find an appropriate lie. Seriously, what does my face look like? "Uh, yeah, my dog just died so I'm a little sad" Give me my receipt stranger.

Exhibit C. I walked into the president of the company's office to drop off some papers and he looks at me and says "Are you OK? You're all white, you look like you've seen a ghost." Lies weren't coming fast enough so I just replied, "Yea, I'm good. I'll keep my eye out for any ghosts though". Come on people, do I look that bad?

I got back to my office and took out my camera. I wanted to see what THEY were seeing so I didn't smile and did my best everyday, relaxed expression.
Here she is:





No! Seriously, that can't be my everyday normal face. I look like my dog really did just die. So I tried again.


Are you kidding me. This is what I look like? So what if I smiled all the time?


Yeah, right! Like I'm going to be sitting at my desk, going through reports like this. How about a half smile?


Ok, that one doesn't work, it looks like I've swallowed my upper lip. Try again.


That's better. If you count looking like a stoned alcoholic good. Are eyes supposed to look that droopy? So why not try "Smiling with my eyes" Like my good friend Tyra always says.


YIKES! try again.


Yowza! I'm either plotting revenge against some unsuspecting innocent person or I've just swallowed a chicken whole and it's trying to get back out through my eye sockets. This modeling stuff really is hard, I have a whole new respect for all those size -2 high fashion drug addicts, oops I mean models.



What am I supposed to do? I've only got so much to work with here. Any suggestions on how to keep myself looking like the crypt keeper?



PS. I just realized as I was looking at those pictures that I completely forgot to put on make-up today. I wasn't in a rush, I'm not making a statement, just flat out forgot. Maybe that's why I look like I've seen a ghost.

All dogs go to heaven, but will I?

Is there a place in heaven for the frustrated Young Women's leader who accidentally on purpose strangles one of the young women she is supposed to love?

Just a hypothetical question to throw out there. Of course I would never even consider such a thing.

Nope.

Never.

Thought never even crossed my mind last night at mutual.

I'm way above those kinds of thoughts.

Well, maybe it was just a quick thought, but I quickly shoved it out of my head by humming my favorite hymn (which coincidentally happens to be the primary song "Hum your favorite hymn") After all, I would never actually want to cause physical harm to one of these girls. Right? Of course not, they're all so angelic and considerate.

La di da, I'm ready for my angel wings any minute because I only have good thoughts towards every single girl in my charge.

Yep, that's me, waiting for translation.

Any day now.

Until next time...unless there isn't a next time because the Big Guy decides I'm so righteous that he needs me in heaven right away. In that case,
Goodbye.

Queen Martha

As I was perusing the dollar tree store on my lunch hour today, I glanced quickly at the book bin which is usually filled with cheap editions of The Bible and I recognized a familiar face.

Not my Martha! What was she doing in the dollar store. Someone of her caliber, her class, and her creativity should be reserved for such elegant shopping experiences as Kmart and Macy's. My hand was magnetically drawn to that face as familiar as my own and I quickly snatched up the closest copy. As I was thinking about how this book may have the potential to change my life and increase my homemaking abilities with the use of vanilla beans and tissue paper, I noticed the tag line and my hopes and dreams were dashed into little pieces.

10 Essentials of Achieving Success as you Start, Grow, or Manage a Business

This wasn't a crafty book at all. Um, business... Pah-LEESE, Martha, stick to what you're best at. Remember how you were incarcerated? For your business deals?? And illegal trade deals??? I threw the book back in disgust, no wonder this one ended up in the dollar store bin.

Then I started thinking... 10 things huh? And I made up my own list for her. I didn't take the time to see what she had actually written about, but here is my list of what Martha most likely put in this not-so-much-a-best-seller book.

1. Avoid getting caught doing illegal business trades, espionage, murder, and washing a colored shirt in a load of whites. All of these are just dirty acts that will be discovered eventually. Especially if it was a red shirt. Faded pink socks are just not a good thing.

2. Name everything after yourself. Creating a brand from a name is the most successful way to increase revenue and maximize ROIC. Especially if you have a famous name like Martha Stewart (sorry, that one's taken) or Walt Disney. I bet if John Pemberton had taken that advice when he invented Coca-cola, we'd all be drinking diet-perbertons by now. That rolls off the tongue so nicely... humph, his loss

3. Don't throw anything away. Unless of course they are incriminating documents that could be discovered by a court-ordered search of your files and computer. Be sure to throw those ones away, however I have excellent origami ideas to recycle the paper with.

4. Always pretend you can rap (that's rap, not wrap) when making guest appearances at award shows. My stock when up 2.3 points after that event. Now that's the dil'-y- o!

5. Conduct all business meetings at a formal garden party. You'll find that the ambiance of fresh vegetation is most soothing to the senses and allows positive energy and ideas to flow. Don't forget to match your shoes to the napkin rings. That's critical if you want your partners to take you seriously. Now THAT is a "Good Thing".

6. Bring fresh muffins to the office daily. Keep in mind to use fresh berries you've grown in your garden and if you want truly rich flavored vanilla, you will have to soak the vanilla bean and vodka for months before hand. Imitation vanilla flavoring is an abomination!

7. Recycling staples can have a positive effect on the environment, not to mention can be used as a trendy paperweight when enough have been collected and glued together with lead-based glue. Elmer's just won't work with this project. Think of the money you're saving by re-using office supplies. That kind of stuff can add up!

8. Talk about your mom a lot. It makes you seem less criminal-like and more relatable to everyone since we all have moms. Plus it helps if your mom is super-human, like mine was.

9. Gift-wrap important memos and phone messages. You want your employees and clients to know you are important and loved. If the gift wrap is home made and all natural it makes it all that much more special. Try weaving together strips of palm leaves. Everyone is "going green" now days and this can be your way of showing others that you are hip to current trends.

10. Always have a billionaire, live-in partner/romantic companion if those first 9 steps don't help. You don't have to marry them, but it's nice to have someone else pay for dinner once and a while.

She is so smart that Martha! I get warm fuzzys just thinking about my staple ball paperweight I've already started to make.

Losing Big Time: A Phone Call

ring ring
E. You watching?
S. Yeah, can you believe those guys?
E. I know, hello!!!! $5,000
S. Seriously, I mean, first is obviously immunity but then the money.
E. Totally.
S. Get back to the sweating and throwing up, this medical stuff is boring.
E. They want to show how sick they are.
S. I know, but this biological age stuff is boring and doesn't have the same effect.
E. Yeah, it's dumb.
S. Did you see that one guy with the spit hanging from his mouth.
E. Yeah, that was gross.
S. They could have at least shown him throwing up, the left over drool hanging down was a little over the top.
E. Seriously disgusting. Oooo, I don't like them.
S. Yeah, I like that one team, with the biggest girl. And the pink team, cuz I like pink.
E. (fake laugh)
S. I can't believe how much they're whining. They're so not even working hard.
E. Yeah I know.
S. I could totally do that.
E. Babies.
S. K, I'm going to eat my icecream now.
E. K, bye.

Ah, the sounds of a new season of Biggest Loser. Thanks Eliza for making it oh so much more entertaining!

I. Love. Her.

I may stalk you too someday

I've been so desperate this week to find an appropriate "blog-worthy" event to brighten my life since, let's face it, I judge myself by the coolness of my blog entries. I always carry a camera with me in an attempt to capture something brilliant to post and I'll see little things that might capture my interest and then mentally take a picture (always completely in focus with the exact amount of editing to make it spectacular). After the picture in my head is clear, I form my clever entry which is always filled with appropriate jokes and sarcasm that I just know everyone will understand and laugh at and think I'm the coolest person ever and deserve a gold medal and then some unsuspecting publisher will stumble upon my blog and beg me to write a book which will of course be on the NYT best seller list for 13 weeks in a row and I would become a millionaire and never have to work again. None of this actually ends up happening because of course, I never take my camera out of my purse, that would require more than just mental power which is all I've been using these days. OK, maybe I'm not even using my brain lately since I drove home yesterday and realized I didn't remember ever leaving my office. To my defense I was probably daydreaming about some really clever blog that I was going to post after seeing a really creative picture in my head and it was going to make me rich... vicious cycle!


So today I was once again struggling to come up with something to post. Something that would make my life meaningful and would cause a chain reaction. Then maybe, someone would do something nice for someone else, and that person would do something for someone else, and someone else, who would eventually do something good for me. Like make me a millionaire.


Anyway, I left for lunch today, not expecting to find anything noteworthy and I discovered something quite amazing. I don't have to seek these special happenings. I can create them! (Even unintentionally) This is what happened. I pulled up in the left hand turn lane behind a small car. This wasn't at a stop light or anything, we just had to wait for the oncoming traffic to clear out and we could cross. By we, I mean me and the spunky blog writer who lives in my head - and you thought you hear voices... The car I sat behind had a really clever license plate frame and I thought, this is it! This is what I'm going to blog about! I can think of something cute to say about a quirky little saying on the back of this car. This means my life has meaning! I immediately started to mentally write my cute blog that everyone was going to love and then I stopped myself and realized that I was going to make it real. I quickly searched for my camera in my purse to capture the license plate so everyone would know what I'm talking about and think me unimaginably creative and then I could be rich! I found my camera and pressed the power button. I had to be fast here if I was going to capture this Kodak moment before the traffic cleared up. I held my camera in position as I waited for it to start up. This was taking an unusually long time and I was getting all flustered. Meanwhile, as I'm holding my camera up, facing the car in front of me, I had a major realization. I'm NOT invisible, as sometimes I tend to think. The person in the car in front of me had noticed that I'm very obviously holding up a camera and aiming it at her car. Crap! So then I pretend to be looking through my pictures on the camera because doesn't everyone just take a gander through your digital pics while waiting to turn? I know it's a common pastime for my family, uh, yeah, um, so anyway.... OK, I'm ready, I've got power and my ancient camera has finally turned on. I unsuspectingly zoom in on her license plate (she has no idea that's what I'm doing because she thinks I'm looking through old pictures remember?) and I think to myself, Ah ha! I got it! I hit the shutter button and viola, FLASH! Well double crap, I guess I wasn't as incognito as I had thought. Now I've really freaked this woman out. She's decided that I must be a serial murderer by way of digital camera and she's not waiting anymore for traffic to clear. She guns it through the opposite lanes and barely misses being hit by a not so happy Ford truck. Wow, I must be wearing my stalker shirt today so I completely understand why she would risk her life to get away from me and my trusty camera.
So here are the fruits of my labor. It's an out of focus picture of a cute license plate frame. The debris you see in the picture is obviously particles floating in the air, there's no way my windshield is that dirty! If you can't read the frame it says "2 Blessed 2 B Stressed" I was going to write this nice little blog about how inspiring this message is and how it made me realize that I truly am blessed.... Instead, I turned into a creepy stalker and almost got this woman killed. All in a short lunch hour. At least I blurred out her license plate right? You know, like how they do it on "Cops" and "Keeping up with the Kardashians". Not that I ever watch those shows or anything, but you know, I've heard that's what they do. I'm not sure why, but I would hate to get sued or anything. Sure am glad this blog is going to make me rich someday, otherwise it just wouldn't be worth it!

90210

You know how sometimes you can get lost in a TV program and completely forget all other responsibilities. You get the feeling as your sitting there eating popcorn that you really should be doing something else, something worthwhile with your time. Like maybe reading to expand your extensive knowledge on the migration of birds, or perhaps cleaning your bathroom that you haven't cleaned in oh say, 1 month... And then the program ends and you think to yourself, Wow, that was a waste of time. I didn't even like it. And you realize that you've just spent an hour making fun (in your mind) of the pointless predictable plot (1 point for alliteration) and the ridiculous lines and costumes. Yep, I feel that moment coming, only in the 2 hour season premier version. I'm anticipating it greatly and I know that somehow I will justify my time wasting session enough to tune in again next week. After all summer is over and my free time for working on the solution to end world hunger will have to wait until next year. I mean seriously, even CNN, a respectable source for current news and information says that this new 90210 will be even better than the last.

Is that even possible? Dillan, cover your ears, they didn't mean it!

THINKING

On Saturday, Alber's 15 year old brother Limhi was walking down a street in Guatemala with his brother and a friend when a car pulled over next to them and the people inside it decided to take his life. That's not really a decision that any person should be allowed to make, but they made it nonetheless and now Alber's family is suffering the consequenses of that senseless act. One day those horrible people will also suffer the consequenses of their actions, but probably not in this life. I generally try to keep my blog upbeat and humorous, but this event has provoked a lot of THINKING and I wanted to write down a few of my thoughts.


THINKING about the fact that my mother-in-law has now had to bury 6 of her 13 children. Does it matter that the other 5 died as infants? Does it make it harder when you get to spend 15 years getting to know your child, or is the pain the same?

THINKING about the saying "at least he didn't suffer" Is that really better? Is it really preferable to lose someone suddenly in a random act of violence than to have time to prepare for their passing. When I think of "suffering" I think of people with Cancer or other illnesses who are in the hospital and the family is gathered around and know the end is near. At least in a hospital bed, the patient is given plenty of medication to make them comfortable.

THINKING, does it even matter how people die? The end result is the same isn't it? Why then are some people killed suddenly in a car accident and some people are gunned down as they walk home?

THINKING do all those things people tell you to feel better like "It was his time, he had already finished his mission here on earth and the Lord called him home", do all these sayings really help the person mourning or are they used to comfort the person saying them.

THINKING about what I did on Saturday and how pointless it was that I worried about cleaning my house and getting all my laundry done when in another part of the world, my brother-in-law was getting killed.

THINKING about this country and the blessing it is to live in a place where I don't fear for my life as I leave the house and I'm not afraid of the police or justice system and that they are in some way corrupt and justice will not be served.

THINKING about immigrants that come to this country for a better life. When we think about immigrants coming to this country to find a better life, sometimes we focus only on the amount of money they can make here as opposed to their home countries, and forget about all the other aspects that make “life” here better.

THINKING about my other brother-in-law Juan Jose, and how he not only blames himself that he wasn't able to pull his brother fast enough as they ran from the killers, but how he is also afraid to leave his own house because he saw their faces and may very well be their next victim and he is also afraid to go to the police because who knows if they will even do anything or only put him in greater danger.

THINKING about how Alber and I sent money to his family so they could pay for the funeral and now we don't have the money to make our mortgage payment on time. (Is it selfish that I'm even thinking this when somewhere in Guatemala my in-laws are buring their son and brother?)

THINKING when was the last time I told my sisters that I love them? We are told all the time that we shouldn't let a moment pass without telling our loved ones that we love them, but how many times do I really do that?

THINKING about the small funeral procession happening far away and how it consisted of the entire family getting on a city bus and riding it for 30 minutes to get to the burial site.

THINKING about how Limhi won't have a fancy burial plot or headstone because his family can't afford it, but does that matter anyway? Do I even want one? What's the point? He's not there right? It's just a body.

THINKING that life really is precious and we truly are in God's hands. Only He knows the reason behind all my questions. Comfort only comes from Him as much as others try to give comfort, peace can only be found with our Heavenly Father and knowing that someday we will see all our loved ones who have passed on (why do we say passed away? what does that even mean?) to the next stage in the Great Plan of which we are all in various stages.

Now how am I supposed to end such a somber look into my mind? I guess I'll take the opportunity to tell all my friends and family that I love them very much. Who knows when I'll have another chance to do so...
With Love,