Thomas Edison would have loved hanging out with us

Two nights ago I video chatted for the first time. 
Naturally I shared this moment with Katie.

Seeing how Katie and I invented video chatting, I’m surprised it took us this long to actually use it. Did you know we invented it? Well, we did. Way back when we were the tender age of ten, we decided somebody needed to invent a phone with a tv screen “or something” so we could see each other while we talked. We had a lot of new Lisa Frank paraphernalia and trying to describe it over the phone just wasn’t working.

The internet may give you another version of how video chatting/Skype was invented, but I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily true. Obviously such a popular form of communication was developed by two young girls living on the east coast who liked to compare their sticker collections.

Did you know we also invented a little thing called CDR? CDR stands for Compact Disc Ring, a highly cutting-edge, fashion-forward device that looked like a ring but was in reality a teeny tiny cd player. The ring was about the size of a penny and the cd’s the size of a dime. We founded a multi-million dollar operation through which we sold CDR’s as well as a large selection of mini cd’s. We even designed our own letterhead and sent letters to our most loyal customers (aka my aunt and uncle). It was all very entrepreneurial. We had very few sales, but that was most likely due to the fact that our prices were something like $542,580,126.02 per CDR. The cd’s were priced at around $558,042.01 which we felt was A REAL BARGAIN.

We also invented a brand new design for toe-socks and sold them through another of our large corporations.

Obviously we kept the patent office HOPPING.

Monday musings

* After two weeks of stalking Facebook everyday patiently waiting, this picture taken by one of Christopher’s classmates at the branching ceremony has finally made an appearance. 
I am a fan.
* I got to talk to Christopher for a whole hour over the weekend! 
* I like this little design. Maybe I’ll make it into a shirt. I’m ALL ABOUT rhinestones.

* Grandma’s 84th birthday party yesterday was highly successful. 
* The TIRE PRESSURE LOW came on in the car again today. A funky new light called the electro-mechanical power steering assist failure light came on too. I won’t even pretend I know what exactly that means. I foresee another trip to the mechanic in our future
* Today I’m calling realtors about apartments for us to live in after Christopher graduates. When did I gain such responsibilities? It seems like just last month I was starting second grade. How time does fly.
* I’m challenging Aaron to a game of Burnout tonight. Two things are almost certain:
1) I will crash
2) I will lose

At least I won’t be responsible for getting the car fixed after I crash it. 

I don’t think I have a future as a mechanic

Monday afternoon I took our car, Gretchen, to the car doctor. She had been suffering from tire air deficiency issues and I was tired of going to the gas station every single day to fill up the tire. So, I drove down to the car place praying all the way that the tire wouldn’t go flat on me.

I had never taken a car to the mechanic own my own before, a fact which I hoped wouldn’t be too obvious to the whole place. I hoped in vain. I explained to the guy what the issue was and sat down in the waiting room. He popped back into the room and the following conversation transpired:

*

Him: “Do you have a reela key?
Me: “A what key?”
Him: “A reela key.”
Me: at a complete loss over what a reela key was but pretty certain I did not own one “Um, no. I don’t think so.”
Him: realizing he’s dealing with a complete novice in the car world “That’s ok. It’s probably in your trunk.”


I went back to reading about winter fashions (for less than $600 per outfit! What a bargain!) all the while wondering what a reela lock key was. Maybe he meant rear lock key. In that case, I could have informed him that the key on the car remote unlocks ALL the doors in the car. I don’t know what was going on; it was all very confusing.

Just as I started reading where Angelina Jolie wants to send her children for high school, Mr. Main Mechanic came to the doorway and asked me to step into the garage. I’m pretty sure everyone working there knew they were in for some form of entertainment courtesy of the girl who doesn’t know about cars, because all four people crowded around to see what would happen. That’s when this conversation happened:

*

Mr. Main Mechanic: “Did you run over a pothole?”
Me: thinking back over our driving during the last 8 months “Nooo, I don’t think so. But maybe. I’m not sure.”
Mr. Main Mechanic: “Well, I can’t find any leak here. It seems pretty full.”
Me: trying to say something helpful and intelligent “Would that be because I just put air in it today? I’ve put air in it every single day and the screen in the car says it’s still low. My husband said to put air in it until that little air tire thing (I demonstrated by moving my pointer finger up and down very energetically) says it has 35 whatevers in it.”

I didn’t dare look at any of the other mechanics crowded around after that statement. I don’t think I could have said anything more 
unintelligent sounding than “that little air tire thing” and “35 whatevers”. On the bright side, I’m sure they appreciated my demonstration of what the little air tire thing does.

After that, Mr. Main Mechanic showed me two tires- the current one with absolutely no grip left and a newer one. He also showed me how the rim was bent which was making the air hiss out. Even I understood that’s NOT supposed to happen. 

Eventually Gretchen and I were back on the road with a new tire and a true appreciation for those who do the technical care of the car so I don’t have to. When I was telling Mom about the trip, she asked if they mentioned anything about “the tube”. 
Thank goodness they did not. Who knows what would have come out of my mouth! 

it was just a lovely day

What did you do yesterday? 

I dropped Christopher off at the airport (OH THE SADNESS), and got in an accident.

It won’t really go down in history as one of my Top Five days.


 As Mom and I were driving to church, we got rear-ended while sitting at a red light. We hit the car in front of us which in turn hit the car in front of it. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, but the lady in front of us left in an ambulance because her chest was hurting. 

Mom and I were very sore and after a few hours started having tingling in our arms so we went to the hospital. We expected it to be a relatively quick visit because we assumed we were just having muscle pain and not experiencing anything serious. Did you know that if you go to the hospital when a football game is on that the place is almost deserted? Apparently no one chooses to be at the hospital when they could be on their couch eating Doritos. I’ll have to remember that and schedule all my future emergency room visits around the NFL schedule.

I was in and out within thirty minutes, but unfortunately for Mom, her visit was anything but quick. After she had a CAT Scan, the doctors decided she needed to be put in a neck brace, strapped to a stretcher, and taken by ambulance to another hospital for an MRI. 

So that’s how I came to be standing next to my mother’s bedside at 12:54am in the middle of Urgent Care Room 6A. 
Under normal circumstances I would have tried to keep her spirits up by serenading her, but my sore self protested that idea. Instead, I played the people guessing game with her and Aaron asked questions that could be filed under “party ice-breaker questions”. I’m not sure where he got the idea that we were HAVING A PARTY.

We’re both at home now. The doctors think Mom already had something wrong with her neck but the accident accentuated it. (Side note- I AM so impressed with myself for using the word accentuated properly.) We’re currently on the couch discussing what movie we should watch tonight and looking forward to spaghetti with meatballs from Grandma. I don’t think our appetites were damaged too much. 🙂

there were way too many numbers involved in this shopping trip

I bought skinny jeans today. 

When they first became popular I swore I was not a skinny jeans girl. I believe it all goes back to a pair of pants I had when I was young that were such a terrible version of skinny jeans that I’ve had a bad opinion of them since. This week during one of my late night thinking sessions I decided that since I am in need of winter clothes and I saw skinny jeans at Forever 21 for only $10.50, I’d bite the skinny jean bullet. 

That is how I found myself standing in front of the jean section of Forever 21 at half past twelve this afternoon. To fully prepare myself for the life-changing event I was undertaking, I had made sure to wear my cute flats to the store so I could get the full effect of the outfit in the dressing room mirror.

I immediately ran into a problem while searching for my size- I had no idea what all their size numbers meant. I had been size 2 forever but recently I had to buy a pair of size 4 pants. (I got married and suddenly my waistline decided to expanded unnecessarily. True story.) Forever 21 only had pants that came in double digit numbers like 26 and 38. I KNEW that there was no way I had gone all the way from size 4 to size 38 in a matter of weeks, so I was very befuddled. I finally found a pair of size 28 jeans that, when held up to my unnecessarily expanded waistline, looked like they might fit. At this point I got up the courage to ask a girl about 6 years my junior to tell me what number a size 4 wearer should try on. She looked at me as if I had lost my fashion mind and said, “are you SURE you wear size 4??” in a voice that clearly meant she thought I was aiming too low. 


Was she really questioning on the size of customers waist?

“Well,” I said, trying to defend my waist, “sometimes I wear size 2. It all depends on the brand.” 

She told me what size to try on but failed to educate me on why someone who wears a size 4 (or sometimes 2!) should buy a size 27. A lady at Gap once told me that the numbers on their new jeans are a direct correlation to the number of inches around ones waist. I certainly don’t carry a tape measure tucked in my pocketbook for such a time as this because WHAT NORMAL GIRL DOES THAT? 

For better or for worse, for size 2 or size 52, I now own a pair of dark blue skinny jeans.

But I do hope I’m not size 52.