The lazy housewife's black friday shame.

Brace yourselves. 

 This year, I actually put some serious thought  into joining the crazy group of people that go out at midnight after Thanksgiving to fight to the death for the last half-priced whatever at Wal-mart. I even almost made arrangements to meet my brother and sister-in-law so I'd have some buddies in the ring with me.

 This is so not like me. I'm the type that will pay more than I should for anything just to avoid the inconvenience of crowds or actual bargain hunting. I'm a store-window shopper. I see an outfit in the window then go to the store clerk and say,

"That outfit in the window there. I need that exact thing in about five sizes larger, ASAP."

But I guess after eight years of being married to the king of basement bargain shopping, the thrill of the deal is finally rubbing off on me too. In fact, Nate usually does the Black Friday shopping while I'm snuggled up cozy in our bed. This year, however he had to work in the morning and had to skip it, which is most likely the only reason I even thought about doing it myself. 

In the end I was, as with most of my endeavors, all talk and no action when it came to this middle of the night shopping crap.

 I chickened out. 

I don't like the cold! And last night in Utah it was really freaking cold!

 I also value sleep -- a lot! Being the mother of four young children, sleep is a precious comodity that you don't squander easily. It would be the equivalent of the US passing up some free oil drilling sites or something. It's just not done.

Of course now I'm thinking -- with deep regret-- about the deals I passed up for my laziness. I could have gotten a Kung-Zhu for only four dollars! Four dollars! There were other values I found in the newspapers that I don't remember entirely, but thats just because my short-term memory is shot. I'm pretty sure I had my eye on a Bakugan thing-a-ma-jig and some board games as well. 

To lessen my guilt, I'll just do what I attempt to do every year:

 Convince my children and myself that Christmas isn't about how many presents you get, but about the birth of baby Jesus. It's never really worked before--they're way too greedy for that crap, and I'm not spiritual enough to make them believe it, but if I really put my mind to it I'm sure I can ham it up pretty well. Maybe I'll pull out the old Ten Commandments movie from the storage shed and everything. 

If all that doesn't work, I'll just do what I usually move on to :

CHARGE IT!

All Humans Should Be Hibernating right now.

 My big brother once told me that humans had the same capacity for hibernation that bears do and that we are therefore meant for it. I don't know for sure if he is correct or not, but I've never questioned the logic of Troy because he's one of the smartest people I know. And even if I did question his logic about some things, I wouldn't question it on this particular subject because I rather like the idea. So, I did some research and discovered that bears don't hibernate in the same way that squirrels or hamsters do but that its more like denning or shutting themselves in for the long winter. Squirrels and hamsters however fall into a deep, almost comatose like state that other mammals are not designed for.

 Anyway, the point to all of this is that I want to start a petition, based on the evidence that I've both read about online and learned from my big brother (because those are both scientific methods!) about the human's capacity for hibernation-like sleep, to have a world-wide human hibernation during winter. I propose that we, humans of the world start hibernating New Year's day. (That way we can all enjoy Christmas and drink ourselves into comatose-like states on new year's eve. Plus, the Christmas dinners are the perfect way to stock up on the body fat we need to get us through a long winter's sleep).

I'm practically a genius.

The reason for the proposal? Well, I have plenty. In fact below is a list of the reasons I think humans should hibernate.

awe. don't you want to be cute like him?

Reasons Humans Should Hibernate:

Its too damned cold to be awake

Its dark outside way more than is mentally healthy

There would be no snow-related accidents

We all get crabby in the winter anyway

January and February are extremely depressing and ugly months.

Couldn't we all use a good nap anyway?

bundling up in coats and hats and scarves and gloves is a huge pain in the ass.

No one likes Valentine's day anyway - its stupid.

If any of us don't want to hibernate we should be issued government winter homes in places like Florida

and that would only be good for boosting the economy in those places, right?

I'm sure I'll think of more reasons humans should hibernate and if anyone else thinks of some good ones that I have missed you may leave it in the comment box below. 

Lets start this thing!

Uncle Paul and Char: The tragedy that didn't need to be

I've been hesitating to write this blog because the subject material is touchy. However, after some good thought, I've decided its what needs to be said then, perhaps we can move on to sunnier stories.

This week I attended my uncle's funeral. Funerals are never happy occasions but this one was tinged with an extra dose of tragedy considering that his death was both untimely as well as unnecessary.

I got the call on the evening of Friday, November 5th. My mother was on the other end, she was obviously upset.

"My little brother, Paul, (his wife), Shirlene, their son Cameron and his fiance were just in a terrible accident in Wendover. Some of them were life-flighted to the University of Utah hospital. I don't know any other details yet."

I told her to call me the minute she heard more. Anxiously I awaited her call, all the while hoping and praying that everyone in the car would be alright.

"Don't let them die this way, please. It's just not right." I thought aloud.

several hours later, as Nate and I were just crawling into bed, the call came. My mother could hardly talk through her sobs.

"Paul didn't make it." She finally uttered. And I didn't know how to react, or what to say, so I just didn't say anything.

The next morning I drove my mother and father to the hospital in Salt Lake to see my aunt Shirlene who was badly injured in the accident. Once we talked to her and her other two sons we learned that the accident was a result of a faulty gas petal.

Remember the Toyota recalls a few months ago? Well, Paul and his wife owned a Toyota Carolla. Once the recalls came out they did their due diligence and took their carolla in to be inspected. Apparently, Toyota cared enough to fix half the problem and leave the other half to chance. Telling my Uncle that yeah, the entire problem isn't going to be fixed at Toyota's expense, but that the chances of the other part of the problem actually being a problem was slim to none.

Unfortunately, Toyota's half-assed job at fixing their mistake caused my Uncle, and as we were soon to discover, his future daughter-in-law's life. Soon after my Uncle was pronounced dead in the ambulance, my cousin's fiance, Char, was also pronounced brain dead due to severe head trauma and the choice was made to take her off life support. Char was thirty-eight years old she leaves behind two teenaged children, parents, and of course my cousin, her future husband.

My Uncle Paul was sixty-six years old and full of fun-loving life. He leaves behind his wife of forty years, three sons, two daughters-in-law, four grandchildren, and two older siblings, one of them being my mom.

I suppose I've hesitated writing this blog because my sadness is equally matched with anger. And anger won't do anything to bring back the lives that were tragically lost. However, I finally decided that people should know the truth. That despite their claims to care so deeply about their customers' safety, when all is said and done, Toyota is just a very large, very successful and very insincere business that cares about one thing; The bottom line.

Buyer beware.

Eve's autumn time description.

My friend, Eve, is a gifted comedian. Its not that she tries to be funny, she's just naturally gifted in wit. It is

 Eve's description of my favorite season, autumn, that I find to be both, humorous as well as very accurate at the same time. I wanted to share it with all of you today.

"I like fall, but I almost don't like it at the same time. Fall time is like a bad boyfriend, seducing you with the cool, crisp weather and beautiful colors then just when you start to really like him, bam! He changes and here's winter!"