Laundry Queen

I'd like to offer up a little tribute to my mom.

A song I made up for her in the car that I now feel inclined to share...not sure why.

I've taken liberty with the words of the song "Dancing Queeen" by ABBA.

Here's to you... my laundry queen.

and here's why... my mom is obsessed with doing laundry. she claims that she doesn't enjoy it, but secretly we all know she does. why else would she get up in the middle of the night to switch loads? who does that???? It is the first thing she does when she get up and the last before bed. EVERY DAY. There are always clean socks and underwear and towels and growing up I just never understood... now I do. soemtimes I secretly leave thing around the house to see if they will magically turn up in clean folded piles in the guest room.

they do.

She will wash!

She will dry!

having the time of her life!!!

OhhhH OHHHH see that girl!

wash that thing!

she is the laundry queen!!!!

random bits***

Have you seen this child?

...
I am super tired of being busy with no end in sight. busy summer. busy to get ready and get all my work done so I can go on another vacation. busy on vacation. busy catching up when we get back. busy with Derek back in school. I sometimes want to be Amish and live on a farm with no distractions. is that weird? I am not complaining by the way.


...
I absolutely loathe finances. Derek likes all things balanced and is constantly creating spreadsheets and goals sheets for us. I think it is to torture me. I know it is important and such... but I really passionately detest Excell. I wish I were smarter with money and I need open an IRA. any tips?


...
Easton is pretty great. he is my little buddy and I am so grateful for him. There are times as a mother that I feel totally frustrated and drained... and then there are days like today that are filled with 10-20 funny conversations and about a thousand sentences that start and end with Mom. he uses the word Mom like a punctuation mark. Momcan I have a drink mom? Mom why do girls like to wear makup mom? Mom how big am I getting mom? Mom how many days until we go to Utah mom? Those are just a few samples. I also love his prayers. Sometimes he really hates to pray and other days he is so so sweet. I love it when he prays and says, "thank you for all that this is given." It makes no sense but I know exactly what he means. And I am thankful for all that this is given. how is my baby so big? time goes fast.


...
Ok... that's the randomness for tonight. I just wanted to add one more silly thing:

if you are reading my blog and have a blog that I don't have a link to will you re-send it to me? I am behind and it will save me time from having to track down the comment if you left it and I really need to update my blog links... thanks!

to my papa:

hey dad.

I miss you. how about a daddy daughter date next weekend? I need a big bear hug. I want to get lost at Ross or Sam's club or go see a movie or just veg and watch CMT. I want to steal your toast and stay up late talking. I can't wait to see you- I know you have been working way too hard and you need to talk a 3or 4 day weekend so we can play. For some reason I feel like you have gotten put to the backburner the last couple times I've visited so let's bond. We can talk about books or Bob Jovi or whatever. I just miss ya. I wish you could take Easton fishing. Sometimes being so far away really, really stinks. I want to go camping. Thanks for being such a great papa. call me. I miss & love you.

love char

what a croc.

Ok. I am laughing my butt off right now. seriously-- I don't mean to offend, but I hate- HATE these shoes on adults. {I do have to add a disclaimer that I think they are acceptable on children. and practical. and I bought a knock off pair for Easton in Puerto Rico*} however, I found this article so, so funny. I literally had tears streaming down my face as I read. I have taken the liberty of pointing out my favorite parts. talk about some insight. croc haters will enjoy.


Make. It. Stop.
The case for ending our long national nightmare.

By Steve Tuttle Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 1, 2008 Updated: 12:42 p.m. ET Aug 1, 2008

I like to play a game with my son, Joseph. We sit on a bench in touristy Old Town, Alexandria, Va., and we're not allowed to get up until we see a dozen pairs of Crocs. It usually doesn't take long. But the other day we were stuck at eight after a few minutes, and I was getting a little concerned. Just then my boy leaned over and said, "Don't worry, Dad. A family of dorks will come along any minute." To paraphrase Hank Hill, if he wasn't my son, I would have hugged him right then, I was so proud.

I know what you're thinking: what kind of sick father lets his impressionable young son call people dorks because of the shoes they wear? Well, who else will teach him that wearing sweaty bright purple clown shoes in public is not OK? He certainly won't learn that lesson at school. Teachers seem to be some of the biggest abusers of this horrid fad.

I know what else you're thinking: "I like Crocs … they're so comfortable. I'll tell you who the dork is … the guy writing this story, that's who! And who died and made him the fashion authority anyway?" Well, no one. I own pitted-out T shirts that are more than a quarter of a century old, and I've been known to strut around town in some pleated khaki Dockers. I own one belt. A female colleague even told me once I'd be a "perfect candidate for 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy'." I think she was trying to be helpful. My complete lack of fashion sense actually supports my theory, because even I know these things are an abomination.

Yes, I'm really, really late to the Crocs-bashing party. Really late. Plenty of fashionistas have written screeds over the years. But the damn things are still here, so this is no time to stop fighting. To quote the great John Belushi: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"

I've been following the good work of Web sites like I Hate Crocs Dot Com for some time, even going so far as to submit a photograph of a stuffed skunk spraying a pair of pink Crocs. The fantastic Best Page In The Universe posted a hilarious rant a while back joking that people who bought Crocs on Amazon.com also bought frozen corn dogs, Pabst Blue Ribbon Light and trucker balls, as well as the CD single "Hey There, Delilah" by the Plain White T's. The rant's author, Maddox, writes: "People who wear Crocs go on and on about how comfortable they are, and how it's supposedly odor resistant because it's made out of some kind of anti-bacterial foam … You know what else it's resistant to? You getting laid."

A popular YouTube video called "Dorcs" parodies the trend: "Wow, but they're so ugly," says an office worker to her friend. "That's how you know they're comfortable," he says. By the end, she's a convert: "I've given fashion the finger, and joined the Dorcs revolution!" The Crocs Empire is acutely aware of us haters. Even their own commercials make fun of the irrational and over-the-top rage their shoes instill in people like me. In one, an unshaven lunatic holds a neon blue Croc in front of his face and screams, "Why are you wearing these!" for 30 seconds. I only wish I'd known about the tryouts for this commercial.

Crocs's stock price has cratered of late, so there is hope. According to the Rocky Mountain News, the shoes, "which were once so popular that the company couldn't keep pace with demand, are now piling up in warehouses." Maybe the company's just a victim of its own success. If practically every person in the U.S. already has a pair and they're indestructible, how many more can you sell? The same thing happened to Wham-O back in the 1950s with the Hula Hoop.

But the company isn't giving up. They've been diversifying, sponsoring Olympic teams and veering off into sandals and other designs, trying to fool us. They've even gone so far as to create a high-heeled Croc. OMG, as the kids say. These have to be seen to be believed. I recommend only the strong of heart should attempt to Google "high-heeled Croc." The company Web site has this ominous warning for us: "Today, Crocs™ Shoes are available all over the world and on the internetas we continue to significantly expand all aspects of our business" (italics added). That sounds like a threat to me. They're even suing other companies like Skechers for allegedly stealing their great idea. Skechers says the lawsuit is "baseless," "outlandish," and "ridiculous." I'll tell you what's outlandish and ridiculous: that these things sell so much that another company would feel compelled to copy them, allegedly. Don't we have enough eye pollution with just the originals still out there? Don't be fooled, America! Soylent Green is CROCS!!!

If you think about it, the Crocs company should really be admired. P. T. Barnum would be proud. They've managed to separate money from the wallets of millions and millions of seemingly sane people who wake up, look in the closet, and actually decide: "Today I'll leave the house wearing these neon-green Dutch bubble shoes with Swiss-cheese holes in them. Maybe I'll even buy some little plastic strawberries or bananas and jam them in the sweat holes, just to jazz things up and make the bacteria incubate faster." That's fine. I say do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home. Let your Crocs freak flag fly. But don't make the rest of us watch.

I realize this article might not go down too well even in my own editorial office and certainly not in our ad sales department. My boss in Washington read an early draft and said it was funny, but that I had a "somewhat demented obsessiveness." At least he threw me a "somewhat." Another editor wondered aloud if I had perhaps been trampled by Crocs at some point in my life. I also worry about writing this because some of my best friends—and their sweet, innocent children—wear them. One of my dearest—the sister I never had—introduced me to the shoes years ago when she waltzed into a garden party in a pair of bright hot-pink Crocs. I couldn't stop staring at them. "What are those things?!" I whimpered nervously, hoping maybe she was rehabbing from some sort of strange Achilles mishap. "Oh, they're called Crocs … I got them for gardening," she said, so innocently.

Oh, if only we'd known what a tsunami of fashion idiocy was about to be unleashed, maybe we could have stopped it somehow, and they would have stayed in the garden where they belong, covered with manure, a trendy item to be featured on www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. If only. Then they wouldn't be out there in the American mainstream, that big, vast, sweaty mainstream traipsing through our airports and over our beaches and around our great shopping malls. Plop, plop, plop, they go, stuffing their Crocs faces with ice cream and Doritos and giant sodas. Plop, plop, plop. Stuff, stuff, stuff. Yuck, yuck, yuck. And the rest of us have to watch. I spent eight hours waiting on a flight at Dulles over the 4th of July week and I was just minutes from tackling the next group of Crocs ploppers I saw. Luckily for me—and the ploppers—my flight finally arrived and I wasn't arrested for assault. Knowing my luck, I'd have shown up in court to find 12 pairs of Crocs sitting in the jury box.

It would have probably been better for my career if I just posted this as an anonymous Craigslist rant as CrocsHatah35 or something. Plenty of others have spouted off about Crocs there. And sure, I would have had a lot more readers. But Craigslist doesn't write my paychecks, and this is just too important to ignore another day. Some times you just have to make a stand, even if it's a few years late. Do we really think we're going to stop global warming if we can't even end this fashion Chernobyl once and for all? I think the U.S. government should institute a Crocs buyback policy, like they do in the inner city for guns. It would do more to beautify this great land than Lady Bird's highway beautification program ever did.

So I'm begging you, America. Just stop. When you wake up tomorrow and look at your options, choose flip-flops. Go barefoot. Wear boots. Anything but Crocs. By next summer—if we all work together—we can have this plague of bad taste virtually eliminated. Yes! We! Can!

He. He! HA! HA! HA!

the update...

I have been wanting to update...but I got a little sidetracked...

My friend Julie and I are dorks. it's official- and we are proud. so proud that we made t-shirts to attend the Breaking Dawn Release Party at Borders. I totally had a blast with her! ha! ha!

Her shirt says: "I'm in the Twilight Zone" and mine says "can someone feed my child? I'm reading Twilight."We won buttons. It rocked. Not to mention that we got to be some of the 1st proud oweners of this:

yep... that's what I look like at 1:00am. If I am up that late I am usually a spaz as most of my friends and family are aware. I stayed up until 4:00am reading... My dad... I mean Derek had to come out and get me and tell me to get to bed. Well... as of yesterday I am finished and I acctually really enjoysed the story despite mixed reviews. no spoilers spilled- but I liked where she went with it and I thought she was super creative. I really am one of those dorks who blogs about Twilight aren't I? hmm...


Ok... in more important news... Puerto Rico was a total TOTAL ONCE- in-a-lifetime b.l.a.s.t.!!! I can't believe I did that...wow. I am really happy I want and also a little sad it's over. We had so much fun and it was really one of the best weeks of my life. First off- thanks so much to the Lofgrans for being the best family ever and making us feel so welcome and at home... we really couldn't ask for better friends- you guys kick butt!!! Also thanks to Adam Taylor who gave us the opportunity to go by flying us there with his stand bye tickets- we really have the best friends in the world!

Although flying standby made it possible for us to go... it certainly added an element of stress and anxiety. luckily we were so blessed and go on every flight and even got to fly home FIRST CLASS!!! Wahoo for that!!!

WE had so many great experiences- it was so great to get out of the airport and have our friends there to greet us! Gotta love reunion hugs- right? Then off to Aquatica we went... this is where the Lofgrans had been living for the past three months during optometry rotations. Just picture paradise and that pretty much sums it up. Seven Pools, beach front property, lots of other things we didn't even use such as a mini golf course and clubhouse... it was wonderful. The boys swam and we just hung out and decompressed the first couple days. I read an entire book.(Austinland...great quick fun read) I also tried (and failed) to do my hair curly. man- humidity. words can't express how it cramps your style. so we just pretty much partied for 8 days straight... we went to a movie and then Adam watched the boys while Megan and I had a girl- day in "Old San Juan". Megan almost choked to death at lunch... but I saved her life not with the Heimlich but with pure evil "you are really choking aren't you- that's hilarious" laughter. This place is a photographers DREAM. Oh to have better lenses and more skills... but I still got some beautiful pictures. This place was awesome. SO much architecture and history unlike anything I've ever seen. It was beautiful.

We also took the boys for a hike through the El yunque Rain forest... actually two hikes. The first was a pretend hike to nowhere (thanks again Megan) and the second was a beautiful hike to a waterfall where we let the kids swim. there were hundreds of people there and it was CRAZY!!! but so beautiful. I have a whole new appreciation for humidity and the earths many ecosystems.

we took a ferry ride out to an island called Culebra... not sure why I didn't take too many pictures this day... I was too busy swimming I guess. And fearing for my life in the taxi-bus with the door that was held closed with a bungee cord. I tried to take Eaton snorkeling which resulted in him being scared and dropping the snorkel gear and me having to dive 10 times to the bottom of the ocean to get it. Every time I went down it was JUST out of my reach and when I came back up for air Easton was drifting in with the current. Do that 9 times and you know what you get? A Charley horse and a four-year-old who doesn't want to snorkel any more. It is funny looking back... but it was frustrating at the time. Anyways... when we went back in there was a huge school of fish and we had a great time feeding them and letting them swim around us. Talk about cool.

We got a girls night with Megans mother-in-law and saw Mamma mia- which was very funny and better than I anticipated. Then it seems like it went so fast. I had to start packing for home and that was a bummer. Funny story about my last night there: Adam and his mom accidentally let an iguana into the house and we tried to set bait for it and catch it all day to no avail. Well, I packed up and was all set to go and when I went into my room for the night the nasty green mean looking thing was ON TOP OF my SUITCASE. Yay! Just what I want as a souvenir. It really scared me and it was all I could do not to scream. I mad Adam come catch it and luckily we were able to this time. Whew- I have to say I had a hard time falling asleep though. It gave me the heebie jeebies.

Peurto Rico is so beautiful. It's a little sad that the people don't take better care of it. I feel so blessed that I was able to take this trip... it isn't exactly the season of our life to be world travelers... I felt like I got to bond with Easton in a really special way and it was great to see him so happy with his friends. Porter and Jackson had really been more like brothers to him and we have really missed them since they moved away. There was one night in particular when everyone else went in to be and just Easton and I were swimming and he was floating on his back and we started talking about the stars and why Heavenly Father made them and having a really heart felt moment. I was just so filled with love for my little boy and the opportunity we had to experience this together. I hope he remembers pieces of our trip and the experience we had together. It truly was amazing.