gone crazy?

Amanda Lonsberry, school board candidate.
No, seriously, it's true.
I'm #7 on the ballot. Seven people running for three spots. My chances are slim, but I figure why not? I gathered my petition the weekend before it was due because only one person had turned in a petition to serve with three spots to fill. That didn't seem logical with all the issues facing the district I live in, including massive cuts to state and federal funding, declining property tax values, a newly resigned superintendent AND consideration of a consolidating districts. Good people NEED to be at the helm of this ship.
Crazy times, and my kids will be in this school.
They're the ones who will be affected long-term by the decisions this school board makes.
So, I'm running.
The way far back black sheep, the lady not from here, the lady married to the radio guy.
And I managed to draw #7, which everyone else sees as a sign of doom. Because people are only smart enough to vote for the candidates in the 1, 2 & 3 position, apparently.
Do they not know that I am from Nevada, home of lucky 7s, born in '77, played 7 as my Keno number forever (don't ask)?
I see 7 as a good omen...if I believed in such things. :)
So, you can follow my school board thoughts over at the blog I started for that little venture. Who knows if anyone will look at it, but I figured I needed to cover my bases. So, www.mmschoolboarder.wordpress.com.
Thoughts, opinions, ideas that would make a good school board member are welcome.

Jeska

Have you ever realized that you didn't know you missed someone until they walked through your door?

That's how I felt about seeing my friend, Jessica Stowell, this weekend. Actually, seeing her made me miss all the friends I left behind in Washington when I got married in 2004.

I've been blessed through the years with many wonderful friends. In fact, I told my husband this evening that many of my friendships among the deepest joys of my life. Forgive me as I indulge a walk down memory lane to a great time I had six years ago. Literally, to the day, exactly, six years ago.

In 2002, I left my home state (Home Means Nevada) for Washington. Imagine my shock upon moving to the "Evergreen State" to find the massive Columbia River lined with rock and shrubs. Nary a natural born tree anywhere nearby. Orchards, grape vines, hops, yes. Trees started growing in the Cascade foothills somewhere west of the Yakima Valley and before the great volcano peaks of Mts. Rainier, Adams and Helens.

I loved it there. I met some amazing people there. Moving there helped me heal some personal wounds and work on improving myself in so many ways. I worked for a newspaper in a bureau office. Can you imagine! A bureau and I LOVED it. I loved being able to wander in to the main office when necessary and pretend phone trouble when I was too busy to deal with my hoovering boss. ("Shoot Craig, I've got a, a, uh, an interview in two minutes. I'll call you later...") I taught primary and came to love every six-year-old child in my huge ward. I was part of the local musical theater company. I prepared for and ran a marathon there under the cheering and guidance of wonderful, caring friends -- the gang at work Coach Frank Purdy, Mark Morey, Ross Courtney, Phil Ferilitto, the Cook, Yoakum, Potter & Stoddard families who took me in as one of their own. And, of course, by virtue of being the two single girls in the family ward, Jessica Hileman.

We were very different. Jess: shy. Amanda: outgoing. Jess: organized. Amanda: uh, not. Jess: Methodical. Amanda: uh, not. Jess: cautious. Amanda: carefree. Jess: white socks. Amanda: anything with color. But we got along and I coerced her into becoming a hiker. We learned that just because something has the name "Huckleberry or Blueberry" in its destination title, that didn't exactly mean you could find such a berry there. We learned to hate the Little Black and White mosquito. We cursed the people who drove to the top of the mountain it took us four hours to hike up. Apparently, although I do not remember this, I gave her a pair of argyle socks of which she now has 50 pairs. I now wear almost only white. Ironic, yes, but it's just easier.

And one day when I casually said, "I think I want to go to Switzerland. Or Mexico", she actually looked up ticket costs. And by jove, we ended up in Mexico six years ago yesterday. I'd traveled she had not. She was an over prepared nervous wreck who packed (and I mean PLANNED for any event) the week before we left. I was not at all stressed until I had to pack the night before we left. We flew to Cancun, stayed the night at a hostel and caught a bus for Merida, the inland capital of the Yucatan. Can I just say we had the most amazing time? From the crazy hostel, to rip-off hammock salesmen to swimming in underground cenotes (sorry, those pictures didn't really turn out, but that was CRAZY!) to climbing ancient Mayan temples, to lounging on the beach on a tiny island it was just a trip to remember. Recently, Jessica asked if I could email her a picture of her bag of wonders. This trip was one of the last captured on my old film camera so, naturally, I had to go grab the album to scan the picture in. I marveled at my skinny post-marathon, carefree self. What the heck was that girl doing just wandering around Mexico, standing at the edge of sacrificial centoes, inhaling pollo yucateca and banana liquados as if she had nothing to worry about? Didn't she know family life was looming and this time would end?

She had no freaking idea. Neither did Jessica, who succumbed to the lure of marriage a year later. So, I scanned in her picture, then scanned in a few more. And now for your viewing pleasure, and because it pleases my memory, I present a glimpse of our tour of Mayan ruins and a Caribbean beach, 2004:

The hammock salesman in Merida (fun Spanish-style city) was a former migrant worker turned hammock hawker. Total scam artist. We recognized it and bought hammocks from him anyway. We ignored his attempts to sell us copies of the "Hammocksutra." The rest of the photos were taken at Uxmal, sort of like the famous Chichen Itza, but older, more remote, fewer tourists. I love listening to Mayan words. It's a whispery language "Uxmal" looks harsh but in Mayan, "x" sounds like a soft "sh" to think "ooshmall." Just sounds nice. And indeed, it was wonderful. We went to church in Merida and the people convinced us to take a trip to this old hacienda to swim in the cenotes. A side note: There are no rivers in the Yucatan. All the water runs underground from hole to hole: cenotes. Some are open like the massive sacrificial one at Chichen Itza or like the ones outside Merida, underground caverns accessible by, uh, we'll call them ladders through holes in the cavern ceilings. Or, you could just jump in or climb down the tree roots that dropped 30 feet looking for water. It was so stinking fun: Take a mini bus (read, minivan crammed with people) to this little town. Pay a boy a dollar to pedal you in a rickshaw thing to the hacienda. Pay a man with a rail cart and a skinny horse to haul you to the cenotes. Climb down, swim. Jess is afraid of water, and dark small spaces. I did good to get her down the ladders. Even for me, though, swimming in that dark water was pretty freaky. Then, return. Pray you have your own toilet paper, because no one in town did. Except Jessica the Prepared. :)




You can't visit the Yucatan without visiting the well-preserved Chichen Itza. Here, Jess and I sit on top the Temple of the Sun (which took forever to climb up), take the classic, "Oooh, look there's air below our feet!" shot, goof off and pose for what I call "Tall girl in a little door" or "The Mayans wouldn't have known what to do with me." It would be unfair of me to mention the bus ride from Merida back to Validolid: Jessica the Prepared felt queasy. Naturally, she had packed Pepto Bismol, a substance to which she had an unknown allergy. Mexican buses have TVs for which there is no option but to watch the show. Jessica got sick and vomited for two hours straight. And we got to watch the horrid, oh so horrid "Hypercube" the whole way. And then her bag leaked. Poor thing. And my most miserable two hours ever prior to 2007's JFK airport incident (seven hours stuck on a runway with a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. I will never fly through JFK again.)

We were not the Cancun party types, so four two days to relax before heading home we went to Isla Mujeres, an island a few miles off shore from Cancun five miles long by oh, one mile wide. A spit of sand encircled by the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean. Oh. My. I fell in love with beach life there. We biked around the island. Jessica is, as above stated, afraid of water, so I snorkeled alone (I've been obsessed with snorkeling in Belize ever since...some day...) There was this ridiculous zoo in the middle of the island. The picture above of Jessica with the spider monkey was taken moments before the creature wrapped its tail around her legs, grabbed at her clothes and tried to pull her into the cage. I stood there stupefied thinking, "Monkey attack? Nope, nothing in my life tool box has ever prepared me to deal with this..." Fortunately, she got away.

And six years later, she and her husband Aaron, got on a plane again. To visit her brother in NYC. To go to Washington DC for a a couple days. And to come see me on a very, very fast trip.

I was honored to see them. Sad to see them go so quickly. And now I want more people to come visit. With three kids, its hard to get out much. But I find that real contact, hugging, reconnecting with words, seeing the people of your life fill in your new space, that's a salve the soul that I didn't know I needed.

So, here we were today -- heavier, travely weary, wind blown -- at the Smith Farm in Palmyra, NY where our church was started:

Oh what a night...

As there is opposition in all things on the Earth (good vs. evil, light vs. dark, you get the picture), it seems fair to blog about those days that just don't go as planned.

Bob works a lot. And serves on the village board. And is now the local scout master. We rarely see him for more than a few moments at a time. So, Friday is kind of our night. We either eat in, watch a movie, play games or we go have Chinese food and wander through the Tractor Supply store in Geneseo. Lame, we know, but that's how we roll. The point is it is our one night that doesn't usually get interrupted.

Which makes the events of this evening all the more galling.

I found a free picnic table on Freecycle. Freecycle is a great place to find things (I've found two pianos for people looking for them. And a couch. And a freezer.) More importantly for someone like me, it is a place to get rid of things without having to throw them in a landfill or drive to the Salvation Army. We just bought some land out in Allegany County and there is a tree with shade that would suit a picnic table quite well. Especially a free one that aside from needing some paint, the lady assured me, was in sound condition.

So the Friday plan: Mix it up. Drive to Pavilion. Pick up free picnic table. Drive to Warsaw. Try a different Chinese buffet. TWO friends told me the Ho Ho Chinese Buffet was fantastic. Tammy even rolled her eyes heavenward when she said it.

Excited, Bob and I both limited our eating for the day to save calories for Chinese. Perhaps we should have listened to Ellie who cried the entire way, "I don't want to go to new Chinese! I don't want to go to new Chinese!" times 40 minutes.

In Pavilion, in the snow, we trekked over to our new picnic table, which came apart in every place I tried to pick it up. I wanted to leave it there, and call it good. Bob's courtesy chip went off, and he insisted we take it. Why? It is BROKEN in three places...and not the kind you can fix easily. The wood rot kind of broken. Sigh. Waste of energy and gas money.

But dinner was on the horizon. I tried to cheer the kids up by telling them how good Ms. Tammy and Ms. Rachel said it was. It had the words "Ho Ho" in it. That had to be fun, right?

Actually, it's short for ho-ho-horrible. Honestly, it was terrible. The kids actually like Chinese food but they couldn't stomach it. Bob and I who have a far greater tolerance for weird both ate a mediocre buffet plate, bemoaning that we didn't just scrap this plan and go to Geneseo.

And it cost us $10 more than a night in Geneseo. Not to mention the consolation french fries from McDonalds since the kids couldn't eat any of that rotten food...and I couldn't begrudge them the treat. Not after all they'd endured. :)

To add a insult to injury, Here was my fortune...from a very tasteless, plastic-y fortune cookie:

To recap: We drove more than 50 miles through three counties wasting gas in two vehicles to pay twice as much as necessary for a crappy dinner to come home with a busted picnic table that we will likely just turn into bonfire fodder and wasted three hours doing it all.

Indeed, I am truly smart.

Easter recap

Hunting:

Dyeing:

Finding:

I know there doesn't look like a lot of loving on Jesus in these pictures. It's hard to take a photo of a child mangling the words "Gethsemane" and "resurrection." Rest assured, at our house, we believe.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

Uh-oh

Note to self: your children are small. April Fool's Day is something they will understand when they're older. Meatloaf and mashed potato cupcakes, even with the potato frosting dyed blue and purple, was probably a bad idea.
Especially for Jack who thought he was really getting a cupcake for dinner. His mom was so cool!
And then...oh my...Ellie discovered that it wasn't frosting.
And then...oh my...the crying started.
Sigh.
Next year I think I'll stick with the kids' favorite joke of the day: "Mommy! There's a monster behind you! April Fool's!"
As long as he's not eating meatloaf, I'm cool with that.