Love Lockdown

Every night before bed I lock all the doors. I LOCK all the doors. If it has a lock I turn it. Maybe it's because I am from Pittsburgh and I don't trust people. Even in Idaho Falls. I am pretty sure Ken would sleep with everything open and unlocked and would feel safe. Whatever. I, on the other hand, lock up.

Our front door has one of those chain locks (from old 80's movies) in addition to a regular lock. ( I don't know are they called dead bolts?) Anyway, Ken is always heckling me that I don't need to do such a thorough job and that chain doesn't do a "darn" thing. I do it anyway. Every morning Ken undoes the chain before he leaves (which is before I do) so he can get in at lunch time.

Do you see where this story is going?

One day last week we both left at the same time. I was wanting to get an early start on my day so we left simultaneously with a good bye kiss. The chain remained in lock position.

I get a call about 12:45:

K: "YOU DIDN'T UN-DO THAT STUPID CHAIN AND NOW I AM LOCKED OUT!"

P: Can't talk because she is laughing too hard.

K: "QUIT IT! What am I supposed to do! I'm hungry! I need lunch! Rusty's in there!"

P: (Through laughter) "You normally un-do the chain it's not my fault you can't get in."

K: "Oh yes it is! You lock it every night so no one comes in, not even your own husband! And this morning you distracted me because you left at the same time I did. I wasn't focused."

P: (Still laughing) "Do you want me to drive home or something?"

K: "Quit being stupid." Ranting and Raving

P: "Hey! I know! I'll push the garage door clicker and maybe it'll open!"

Click.

He hung up. He was mad. I thought it was so funny! The garage door opener. Ha! From Rigby! I am more like my mom every day.

I Need a Hearing Aid

Ken is always saying that he married an 80-year-old woman. He is referring to me. I am incredibly hard of hearing. I had this problem since I was but a child. I flunked every hearing test from kindergarten on. Every one! When I was in 3rd grade I had tubes put in my ears. They should have just installed permanent hearing aids. The classic "deaf" moments of me when I was little are:

Mom: "Patty, there's the tape. On the table."

Patty: "GIRLS! GIRLS! THERE'S CAKE ON THE TABLE!"
(yeah... I got a bad sweet tooth on top of it all!)

Mom: "Uncle Thom is getting a divorce."

Patty: "Yay! Uncle Thom's getting a horse!"

You've got to admit- what I heard was much more exciting than what actually was said. The problem has stuck with me right up to the present day. And it's getting worse. A few weekends ago Ken and I went to Action Motor Sports to look at the motorcycles, snowmobiles, and quads. On the way home:

Ken: "Do you want a snowmobile?"

Patty: "Sure, I'll snuggle a little."

Snowmobile. Snugglealittle. Sorta NOT the same. I need a hearing aid.

Hey Hernandez

Andi girl made this "self-portrait" for a visual design project. It's so true though. How many different personalities are in all of us? Sure we are basically the same steady personality. But for me, there's "work Patty," "Grumpy Patty," "Silly Patty," "Serious Patty." The list goes on and on.

I really wanted to showcase her work. I like the second Andi from the left. Her face and complexion are gorgeous!

The Newest Yogi

So, a yogi is one who practices the art of yoga. That "one" is me. I started a week ago today and am literally hooked for life. I promise not to turn all granola and quit wearing deodorant- so, please erase that stereotype. It is incredible what it has done for my body in just one week. I still have my jelly rolls so you don't have to worry about that. But my muscles have become more toned. My mind is more clear. I am more relaxed as a person. I am really shocked.
I wasn't sold when a friend of mine told me to try it to relieve stress. I thought it was a big crock of malarky. But I tried it and I'm a believer.
Everyday I do a little warm up and then sun-salutations. It's a lot of deep breathing and listening to your body. Coming to "heart center." The stretches and poses I do are basic but I feel like all of my joints are open. Not all clogged up.
The benefits are far reaching. Farther than just stretching and getting toned muscles. I am moving at a more appealing taste for me. I feel lighter. I am learning how to "let things go." My appetite has changed. I don't want to snack as much. I have more energy. I am happier. And believe me it's all from yoga.
AND! Before bed I do this meditation thing. You lay in corpse pose (which is basically on your back arms and legs out) and breathe. That's it for 10 minutes. Just listen to your breath. Feel it move through your body. After that 10 minutes... I am stress-free. I can get in my bed and fall right to sleep instead of tossing and turning for hours and thinking about my day and the next day.
So, if you're in a rut. Yoga is the answer. It will change so much in your life.
And believe me it's for everybody and every body.

Patters

So, call it vanity if you want- but it feels wrong that I didn't blog about the best of the Bradley girls (wink wink), Patty. Even though she is the middle child she was always considered one of the "Little Girls." The Little Girls did everything together. Patty liked it that way. She started the infamous Yob Club. "Yob" is boy spelled backwards. 3 guesses what the club focused on. The Yob Club had Olympics, Christmas parties, field-trips, service projects, secret passwords, secret knocks, secret meeting places. And we talked about BOYS all the time.
In 2nd grade Patty got glasses. She picked plastic frames that had a light blue and lilac flower collage on them. In 4th grade Patty got a perm. A real, tight-curled grandma perm. Patty can't figure out why she thought she was so cool back then. When Patty was in 7th grade she got contacts and was allowed to wear make-up. She was in the gifted program and won the school 3 awards at the Creative Convention for the state of Pennsylvania. (Hold on... let me get that dirt of my shoulder.)
Patty was kind of friends with everybody in high school. Didn't follow the clique rules real well. And that was well-accepted by the school. Popular by no means but known by all. She cut her hair her sophomore year. Not to her shoulders or anything.... to her scalp. Over the next three years it was blond, red, white, and black. She likes variety.
10 days after high school she flew to Idaho to go to school at Ricks. Actually in 2002 (which was the year she graduated) it officially became BYU-Idaho. (cue confetti!) Although there were a lot of weird things about Idaho Patty thought she'd never get used to- she found a home here. 2 years later her parents found a home here too. That was weird.
After a year and half of school, Patty was asked to leave BYU-I and never go back. They thought she was a bad person! (The nerve. And don't look forward to hearing why... that's confidential.) Patty- feeling quite liberated and quit like a loose cannon took her first big tax refund and flew to Germany to be a nanny for a family there. Her love for kids and adventure drove her ambition to get there. She stayed for 6 months and started her life-long love affair with Europe. It's truly a different and magical place. To me it feels somewhat biblical or medieval or just not quite this century. I/she loves it.
Patty's mom told her she had to date 100 guys before she could get married and she had to write about all of them in a notebook. Give Patty a challenge and she can't back down. She went through 84 and refused 2 marriage proposals before she met Ken. Lucky number 85. That's another post.
I am a peacemaker. I hate confrontation. I avoid it any way I can. Even when it ends up being detrimental to me. I love to dance to booty shaking music. Especially when I am wearing really shiny lip gloss. I could spend years in my garden and never realize a minute has passed. I like to listen more than I like to talk. I can't pose like a model but I love my smile. LA-HOVE my smile. I think catching a fish is the biggest high out there- even when it's only 4 inches long. I love thrill rides. I like to party. I like to party. I like to party. I'm okay spending time alone. I have a few solid friends and I know that's all I will ever need.

Krissy

Krissy is the oldest. Need I say more?

Not really, but I'd feel bad if I didn't. Krissy has a real dynamite personality. She is the center of attention wherever she goes. One thing that draws people to Krissy is her openness. There is no holding back with Kris. This makes her ideal for karaoke parties, dances, and improv. She just gets up there and shines. She do whatever... whatever it takes to get a laugh out of a crowd. A party is not complete without Krissy.
Krissy is the sister who has provided me with nieces and nephews. And, as all of you know, I love children and try to kidnap them and take them to my house- so I am very pleased that Krissy has 3 beautiful kids. A set of twins (Evan and Bradley) and a baby girl (Josslynn). They all look exactly like their father. Krissy likes to plan activities for them. Like she'll set up a treasure hunt for her boys, who are seriously into pirates right now. She'll hide little maps and clues around the house and actually bury a tin box full of old change. The kids love it!
I can honestly say, Krissy is crafty. And not in the sense where she goes to Robert's and buys a book and reads all about how to do something and then practices and practices and finally nails it. Krissy goes to DI buys an old bed frame for 10 bucks and makes benches and coat racks and booster seats. It's incredible. Her house is incredible. It's like stepping into a magazine.
Krissy has the weirdest nickname of us all. My dad loves nick names, so, we all have them. I am Moby-meister (for reading Moby Dick when I was 12), Julie is Jules-a-bug-stinkweeder. Andi is Andi Candy Princess Girl (hers is cute....hmmm), Vicky is Vic-tori-boos and Krissy is... Teener Wiener. ? Yeah. Don't know. But I Love calling her Teener Wiener. She's been telling me for years that it's not funny anymore- but I'm still laughing!

Victoria

Victoria is the second born. I have no doubt in my mind that she was born as willful, determined, and strong as she is now. I mean, no matter hard a person tries they can't "become" that determined over night! When Victoria goes for something there is no looking back. Which is why she will be running a marathon in Hawaii this spring. (See what I mean? Not only running a marathon but doing it in Hawaii! Top of the top.) When Victoria was younger she was Vicky. She claims she's been asking us to call her Victoria since she was 10. But, I just started in the last year or two. Vicky and I shared a room for most of our lives. Every night before bed Vicky wanted me to sing to her or read to her until she fell asleep. For those of you out there who don't have sisters this might seem weird. Maybe it seems weird to people who do have sisters. It was always nice for me and her. She loved the songs from the Broadway musical "Ragtime." And her favorite book to listen to was Mr. Popper's Penguins. We must have read that book 75+ times. It's a "novel" by the hugest stretch of the word. More like a novella, but charming and warm all the same.
Vickers is extremely ambitious. As a pre-teen she advertised to get as all of out babysitting clients. And these people weren't one-night gigs. Vicky had a contract written up binding the client to our services for "x" amount of time. Very professional. Vicky also headed a number of clubs we started as sisters and with a few neighborhood friends. Namely, The Oreo Club (not hard to guess what that was about) and The Super Sister Club. We had ID cards and meetings and drawings. Each club had a goal. The Oreo Club's goal was to practice enough to win the Oreo Stacking Contest at Foodland at the beginning of summer. The Super Sister Club's goal was to go on a train ride (and do service for each other). Victoria was always the president of these clubs, and that title suits her.
Today, Victoria is a writer. Really talented. She still lives in Pittsburgh. (Lucky.) She has promised us that she won't move and I know that she won't. She is Editor in Chief of the magazine she works for and recently started her own- Edible Allegheny. It's a food magazine based on the regional foods of Pittsburgh, which is in Allegheny County. Hence the Allegheny. Her magazine recently took home a swarm of awards from national critics. She's on a roll.
Like my other sisters, Victoria is gorgeous. She has this hair. Wow. It falls over her face and shoulders and always looks super hot. Plus, Vicky is really good at making the "perfect face" for a camera. Like in "serious pictures" I always ALWAYS looked pissed off. But Victoria shines. Constantly.
On top of being a fantastic writer, a devoted sister, and a super-model she knows literally everything about pop culture and the latest news. It just soaks into her I guess. She knows who is dating who, who had a baby, who is breaking up, what movies to go see, etc etc etc. But (!) on top of that she also knows the current state of the union. She knows all about the president/president-elects goals and plans for the future. And she has a very well thought out opinion on it. You know those people who have an opinion about everything and sometimes you can just TELL they just thought of it? Totally not Victoria. She is opinionated. But they are smart opinions. Thought-out. It's amazing.
In closing, Victoria is an amazing conversationalist. She can talk to anyone about anything but any period of time. It puts me at extreme ease- because I am a bit of a stutterer. But with V- all is well.

Ja-Wools!

Next up in line, is Julia Alyce. Jules-a-bug Stinkweeder. Julie- Ooley. Ja-wools. Julie. The 4th of 5. She has always been the most fashionable. Yes, even more than Andi. She has the perfect body. Literally, this girl has a 6 pack. She's 6 foot and has that incredible athletic look to her without looking boyish. Julie is also unbelievably smart. Naturally smart. I mean I can study my buttocks off and appear to be smart but Julie can look at a problem and go "Oh! The answer is 7 > x squared over the logarithm of y (z cubed)." Yeah. Smart. Julie laughs constantly. I find it admirable. When something is funny to her- she laughs. Right. Out. Loud. (Emphasis on loud.) And she laughs at herself which is a great quality. Sometimes people can be too reserved and something is funny but they just giggle a little. Not Julie. She lets out a whole-hearted laugh. To me, that's proof that she enjoys her life. Julie served a mission in Peoria, Illinois and got back this last July. She was a stellar missionary. All of her companions, her mission president, and her converts loved her. The above was the picture on her missionary plaque. Bold, huh? My sisters- don't do the average thing. A great thing about Julie is she can make a game out of anything. She loves playing games. She is also very competitive. I think those two are intricately connected. When we were growing up Julie had two favorite games Monopoly and CLUE. When we played CLUE she always had to be Ms. Scarlet. She claimed it gave her an advantage. And in Monopoly she had to be the car, she had to sit in front of St. James Place, with the Go arrow facing her. Silly, huh? You know in Monopoly you can have "house rules?" One of ours stemmed from an actual rule in the game. You know when someone lands on your property they have to pay you rent or some type of payment. We made a rule (don't control your laughter) that people still had to pay you for landing on your property but if you landed on your own property the back had to pay you whatever was due! Cool rule! Needless to say, the bank was always running out of money so we had to manufacture our own and the game lasted days. Julie has always been the family clown. She's taken a bit of a back seat recently but man is she funny! She likes to tell jokes. I'll end with one of her (and my) favorites.

Q: What's Snoop Dogg's favorite type of precipitation?

A: Drizzle.

Family Affair

I have been thinking about my family a lot. Because we are all grown up now. We don't live together. We don't share rooms, or clothes, or late night secrets. But, I have been working really hard to stay connected with my sisters. It's important to me. Last night at a baby shower we got to talking about our families and a woman said my sisters looked like models. (My sisters... not me.... thanks.) In all honesty, they do. But more than their good looks- they have really extraordinary personalities. I find it so interesting that we were all raised by the same people with the same rules and all turned out really different. Over the next few posts I am going to blog about each one individually. Give them a spotlight. Maybe it will lure them onto my blog and they will actually read it! I'm starting with the youngest: Andrea Danielle.


Andi girl. The baby of the family. Andi was 11 pounds when she was born and always had the chubbiest little cheekers. She has gorgeous olive skin. She looks more Italian than the rest of us. Andi's logic is totally whacked but it is so funny. She has no shame in telling embarrassing stories about herself and I love listening to her tell me about her life. Her perspective on things... astounds me. Example: Andi failed her statistics course at college because she "didn't believe it." To her everything is 50/50. Ev-er-y-thing. I asked her what if you have a white shirt, a black shirt, and a red shirt. What are the chances you'll pick the red one? (Answer: 33.3333%) Andi's answer: "50/50." Me: "Wrong." Andi: "You're wrong. It's either yes or no. Will I wear the red shirt? Yes or no? 50/50. " So simple. So wrong! And so funny. Andi is extremely talented in multi-media.... stuff. (I obviously am not.) She makes movies. She "started" her own company called DoubleClick Productions. I say "started" because it's not a real company per se. No paperwork has been filed she doesn't have a tax ID number- but she makes movies and at the end of all of them she puts her logo and it says DoubleClick Productions. It's cute. She does wedding videos and she's made some for my young women with the footage from camp. Andi also knows the words to every single song. She loves to sing. Loud. But more than singing she love to choreograph things. She has this innate rhythm. She's always bragging she's never had a dance lesson and can spin circles around those who have. My favorite choreographed dance was one she made to "Last Christmas" by Wham!. (Last Christmas I gave you my heart but the very next day, you gave it away....) She does that to be funny but seriously that girls got a lot of soul for a white girl. On top of that, Andi, has incredible style. Do you ever look at a magazine and see the new "fashion trends" and it looks so ridiculous and you say, "Who could wear that in real life?" Andi. And she makes it look effortless.



This was one of her engagement photos. Not your typical "sitting by a pond on a sunny day" feel to it, huh? They are quite the couple.

Chill in my Bones

Last night, after Young Women, I decided to walk Rusty. Normally I wait for Ken and we go together- but he was going to be at church until 10 or 10:30 and I wasn't wanting to wait that long. Also, the night before Rusty McGrew was up every two hours walking around making noise doing his little whining thing. In short, keeping me awake. I was determined to walk that pup into a good night's sleep! So, I strapped on my boots, put on a hat, gloves, scarf, and ear covers and headed out into the night. I bet none of you actually stepped outside last night because it was so FREAKING cold out. But it was worse than it looked.

The first couple blocks were fine. Serene even. The snow made everything quieter. No one was out. Not even cars. There was some snowy rainy mixture falling and it was just me and my pup. I was ready to walk for hours! Then we turned a corner. Into the wind. Not good. It burned it was so cold. I figured 'it's got to get better.' Didn't. The wind didn't let up. Soon my eyes were really hard and I started seeing little ice crystals forming on the corners of my eye! My eyelashes were frozen! I examined the rest of my attire. I was a walking sheet of ice. My coat had a thin layer of ice on it- the kind that covers your windshield and my pants were totally stiff. I looked at Rusty. Frozen- but smiling. My hair that was coming out of my hat? Frozen. White. After the initial shock and convincing myself that I was not frost bitten... I thought it was kinda cool. And, I think I am pretty much the only person who experienced that last night. But next time I might try to get Rusty on the treadmill with me. Much warmer.

Auld Lang Syne

"Auld Lang Syne" means "old long since" or "long long ago" or "days gone by." The modern day expression might be, "for old time's sake" or "the gold old days." It all captures the spirit of Auld Land Syne. To me, it's letting go of the old and facing the new.

Ken and I are old fogies and spend our New Years Eve at home, alone. We've started a little tradition of going to the grocery store and getting something "special." Something that is rarely on our menu and we have a nice dinner together (by candlelight ooo lala) and watch movies and play games and just be. One year we have big rib-eye steaks. One year we had big clams and clam chowder with shrimp and scallops. This year- I got to pick and... we had Appetizer Night! The main attraction were huge rock shrimp. But I thought of every appetizer I loved and we stocked up. It didn't really flow but man was it good! Shrimp and cocktail sauce, jalapeno poppers, chips and guacamole, veggie tray, 3 different cheeses and pepperoni, spanish olive dip and crackers, oh it was awesome. I ate snacks for 4 days! No guilt! It wasn't as elegant as eves past but it was just what the doctor ordered. Maybe you think we are dorky for staying in and not going to parties- but I really want to spend my time with Ken. He is the most important person to me. I'd be with him at midnight anyway- so why not be with him at midnight... just the two of us?

New Years Day we lounged around and snacked... and talked about resolutions. Ken has got us all beat already. He lost 18 pounds in December! Talk about the biggest loser! He said he wanted to get a head start on his resolution. 18 pounds! He's looking mighty fine. Mighteeeey fine.

I read over the last week that an optimist stays up until midnight to welcome in the new year and a pessimist stays up until midnight to make sure the old one leaves.

2009 is here. Tabula Rasa.