Service Stress Assignment

I love the service projects we are given in my MCOM class. I hope when my husband starts teaching at a University that he will incorporate some service assignments into his classes.
For this assignment our professor chose the most stressful weekend for us and asked us to find someone more stressed then we are and do something for them. There is a couple that used to be in our ward, they have a baby and the mom is leaving town for a little bit and the dad still needs to go to work. They were looking for a sitter for this week.
My husband and I have a busy week next week (lots of papers and projects) but I am really looking forward to helping them by watching their son. So, I wont have performed my act of service over the weekend, but I signed up for it and am excited to see how it goes.

Beauty and the Beast Biker Shorts

I was with my family over Thanksgiving and as we were sitting in my grandma's living room, someone lifted a family photo off of the coffee table. It was a photo of all of grandma's grandchildren (my cousins) taken over 15 years ago.
The first thing everyone noticed was how much the fashions have changed. We laughed at the huge bangs, the slick hair, and the big glasses. Then my girl cousins and I reminisced about our horrific outfit choices during that era.
We started talking about the scary looking bangs in the picture. My mom would start my bangs further and further back with every haircut. Eventually my bangs started in the middle of my head and were very thick - yikes!
The other fashion faux-pa I remember from my childhood was the biker shorts and stretch pants. The stretch pants I would wear were black and had a strap on the bottom of the legs so that you could hook them under your foot. These would inevitably be paired with a large Christmas sweater.
I also mentioned biker shorts. I believe my favorite outfit in elementary school was a Beauty and the Beast outfit. The shorts were purple biker shorts with little pictures of characters from the movie all over it. The top was also purple (a color I despise now) it had a large picture of bell on the front. I wore the outfit often and might have worn it everyday if my mother had let me. A purple biker-shorts outfit, and bangs that started in the middle of my head; thank goodness we all grow up.

Children's Books

Childhood Books I Remember from My Childhood:

1. The BFG (Big Friendly Giant)
2. The Farthest Away Mountain - my favorite book growing up. I loved it because my cousin read it too me.
3. Edward the Emu - in the "big book" section at BYU HBLL
4. Frindle - I remember my mom reading this book to me and my brothers one summer out on the front lawn. My mom loves books. She has helped me love books.
5. Coderoy - a book about a bear, who I believe lives in a hotel.
6. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. The Magic School Bus - I still love the one about caves.
9. The Mitten
10. American Girl Series
11. Amelia Bedilia
12. The Journal Books by Marissa Moss - I fell in love with these books because they had a ribbon bookmark.
13. The Very Hungry Caterpiller

Jacob

I have a little brother, who is not so little anymore. Jake has grown up and is much taller than me now. He is in the Marines and is gone again for another training. I visited home this weekend and we watched the movie "Fox and the Hound". The movie sparked some memories of Jake.
Jake and Kyle watched "Fox and the Hound" a lot. There is a small clip before the movie starts that the boys really liked. It was about a lion that got dropped off by the stork to a lamb. So, the mama lamb raised the lion and the lion never fit in. The lion finally earned his respect from the lambs when he saved them from a wolf. The clip is called “Lambert the Sheepish Lion”. And I still have the song stuck in my head. The boys loved that clip.
Whenever Jake would watch a movie or the TV he would often be sitting on his tricycle. So picture a short boy with chunky legs and a round face with blonde, bull-cut hair and big eyes sitting on his tricycle watching the TV.
I can’t explain any more of the little Jake memories because if he ever reads this I will be toast.

Disneyland

I love Disneyland. It is such a happy place. I am amazed at how well the workers at Disneyland make sure to give you the happiest experience. My husband and I love Disneyland so much that we went there for our honeymoon. It was a blast, just as much fun as I remember it being as a kid.
When I went as a child my parents really made it a great memory. We saw Mickey mouse and we bought hats with our names embroidered on them. I remember going on Space Mountain a million times. The line was short the day we were there and it was my favorite ride!
My brothers really liked Disneyland as well. My littlest brother loved it! Jake had so much fun on the Indiana Jones ride and as we walked around the shops near the ride he found a wooden rifle that he fell in love with. Since it was only the beginning of the day, my dad told him to keep looking and if he didn't find anything he liked better we would go back and get it at night.
Jake was in love with the gun the whole day so we finally went back to get it at night and the store was closed! Jake was heartbroken and my dad felt like the worst father. We were leaving the next day and there was no way that Jake could get that gun. Dad walked to the store next door and asked the worker if they had any guns like it. They didn't. The worker asked what the problem was and my dad explained the situation.
With no second thought the worker got a key for the store with the guns and let my dad in. Dad was able to get the gun for Jake and it ended up being one of the best vacations we have taken as a family.
I am just so impressed at how well Disneyland does at making it the happiest place on earth. I love Disneyland.

The Trampoline

Breaking only one bone in your life is quite an accomplishment. I broke my arm when I was young; too bad it is not a great story. I was simply reaching off of the trampoline to get my shoes from the ground and fell. I landed on my arm and broke it.

My mom didn’t believe me. She wiggled my arm around and told me to clean my room. The next day when we went to the doctor and we found out it was broken, she felt pretty bad (don’t worry mom, I forgive you ☺).

The best part about the broken arm story is that it involves a trampoline. My family loves trampolines. My brothers and I always had so much fun on them.

Favorite Trampoline Activities:

* Putting the sprinkler under the tramp and jumping in our swimsuits.
* Having sleepovers on the tramp with Lizzie to protect us. The sleepovers only lasted until about 2:00 am, by that time we were freezing and would come back into our own beds.
* Slip-and-Slide when the tramp was wet after the rain.
* "1,2,3,4, I declare a bum war. Go!"
* Dead man, dead man come alive, before I count to the number five.
* Crack-the-Egg. A much better game when my dad and his brother's would play :)

Pets

Here is my childhood pet inventory:

- 1 Hamster: lost under the fridge, never found.
- 1 Canary: "Sunny". I remember putting her in a shoebox when she died. My dad helped us burry her at a park near our home.
- 3 Guinea Pigs: All three were Jake's pets and we did not have all three at the same time. They came in succession. Each had a severe encounter with our dog and would be replaced until we decided Jake should not go through the trauma any more.
- 1 Black Lab: "Lizzie", had her forever. She was the best dog. It was really hard when my mom and I had to take her to the humane society to put her down. She was really old.
- About 30 Cats: "Blackie" was my favorite; there was also "Rascal" - who abandoned her kittens after they were born. "Blackie" adopted them and nursed those plus her own kittens. Most of the other cats we had were just kittens. We would keep them until they could eat dry cat food and then we would give them away.
- 1 Lizard: "Shades". We caught a lizard up at Jump Creek Falls and kept it as a pet. I remember buying it a cage and a heating rock. It was really fun to go to the pet store and buy live grasshoppers for it to eat. Shades died also. My brothers and I must have heard of embalmment somewhere because we stuffed Shades with rosemary and then buried him in a purple velvet jewelry case.

Side Note - Class Assignment

This week's entry doesn't correlate with my blog's topic. Instead, our professor gave us an assignment: "Buy a stranger a 'coke'" and write about it in your blog.

It has been a great day today. One of my classes was canceled so I took the extra two hours and went to the testing center to take my religion test. The test was very fair and only took me 20 minutes. I turned in my bubble sheet and headed down the stairs so that I could receive my score on the monitor on the first floor.
When you head down these stairs you pass a window on your left. The window has a ledge that has become a favorite spot to leave people notes that you know are taking a test that day. The note is a little pick-me-up before you see your score. I have never been the giver or recipient of a note on this ledge, until today.
I walked down the stairs and there on the ledge was a note just for me! The note was from one of my very good friends from home. She had seen me in the testing center and left me a short note to say hello. What a great pick-me-up!
After the note and seeing a fantastic score on the screen, I headed out of the testing center feeling fabulous about life. While this happy feeling was still inside of me I remembered the assignment that we had been given by Professor Clarke. Our assignment was to buy some stranger a coke or a candy bar, or anything we wanted.
I wanted to pass on the good feeling that I had been given by my friend so I headed back into the testing center and bought a Twix candy bar. I walked back outside and saw a girl sitting on a metal bench. She was obviously studying for a test and she had lots of notes and books spread about her. I knew she was the one; she was my stranger.
As I walked toward her I practiced what I wanted to say in my mind. The practicing must have gone well because what I practiced is what I said. "Hi, sorry to interrupt your studying."
The girl looked up with a very kind smile and said "No problem."
I continued, “My name is Kendra, and for one of my classes we are supposed to give a stranger a candy bar. Do you like Twix?"
She smiled even bigger and said thank you. As I walked away I smiled too.

The assignment was tougher than I would have guessed. It is awkward to walk up to someone and just give him or her something. You really feel like you need to justify yourself. But, as you walk away you feel good, you know it was a good thing to do and that the assignment made you look outside of yourself. It is certainly a stretching exercise.

Unconscious

The gash in my elbow was still oozing yellow puss when I woke up the day after the bike collision. All I did was run into a parked car. I must have been going fast enough though, because there was enough force to open a gash in my skin the size of a quarter.
Even though I was banged up a bit, I went to school the day after I wrecked my bike. The only noticeable owie was the open wound on my elbow, so I would be fine at school. The only problem with the wound is that it made me queasy. It didn't hurt; I just couldn't stand the sight of it. At recess I took one peak at it and I started getting light headed. It was almost time to go inside so I walked in a few minutes before everyone else.
Once everyone else came in Mrs. Harvey (my teacher) started explaining the next subject of the day. I got about the first sentence of what she was saying until..."whack!” I blacked out just long enough to topple out of my chair and bang my head against the teacher's desk. The hit to the head rendered me totally unconscious.
I woke up in Mrs. Harvey’s arms and she was running! She ran to the nurse’s office and was very relieved to find my eyes open when we finally got there.

Dandellion Fight

On the day of the dandelion fight Christina and I both wore a white shirt. We went to recess and picked all of the dandelions we could find. Then we marched towards the fence of the playground, dandelions in tow.
We headed to the spot on the playground where no teacher or duty could see us unless they were really looking. The spot was between the schoolyard fence and a small pine tree. Being only in third grade, Christina and I were small too so the pine tree shielded us just fine.
We divided the pile of dandelions in half and then the fight began. We tried to smear as much yellow dandelion pollen on each other as we could. At the end of recess, we compared shirts. The person whose shirt stayed the whitest won!
The yellow stains never came out of my shirt, but what a great memory!

Orifino

Before I started first grade my family moved around a lot. If you list every tiny town in the northern panhandle of Idaho, I have lived in most of them. My daddy was working for First Security Bank and so we moved with his job. Orofino is the town that I remember the best. If I close my eyes I can see many specific parts. There was our white house; inside was the kitchen that had a window peaking out onto the street. I remember the window because it was right above the sink. My daddy and I would stand side by side and do the dishes together at that sink--I of course had to stand on a chair to reach. Most people would think that I loved doing the dishes, I never complained about doing them with my dad. The real reason I didn't complain was because I loved that window. At night when we would do the dinner dishes it would be dark outside and the window turned into a mirror. I didn't care about looking outside--I liked looking at myself!

I thought I was cute and I am sure my parents never disagreed with me when I was that young. There is a song that goes something like this, "Skip, Skip, Skip to my Lou. Skip, Skip, Skip to my Lou. Skip, Skip, Skip to my Lou. Skip to my Lou; my darling." During this young phase of my life, here was MY rendition of this song: "Skip, Skip, Skip to THE loo. Skip, Skip, Skip to THE loo. Skip, Skip, Skip to THE loo. Skip to THE loo; I'M darling!" Not only does the last line reiterate what I said in the story of the window, but I was also singing about skipping to the bathroom in the first lines (the loo is another word for the bathroom or an outhouse).

When the darkness didn't turn that kitchen window into a mirror, the window looked out onto an old dirt road. The road ran parallel to our front yard and the next building it passed was my school. In Orofino I started Kindergarten. I would not finish there, but I would remember the classroom and my friends. A chain-link fence separated my house and the school, and the only entrance through that fence was all the way on the other side of the schoolyard. My older brother and I were told by the school and my parents to not climb the fence; we were supposed to go around to the entrance. Of course we never listened. I remember one day, after finishing school, my brother and I walked to the fence, which we always hopped, and we began scaling. I don't remember who went first; all I remember is that we both ripped our jeans that day.

Down a little further on that dirt road was a pasture of horses. Next to the pasture was Melissa's house. Melissa was my best friend from school. We were positive that we were twins and had been split up at birth. Melissa was Jewish and celebrated Hanukah with her family when mine celebrated Christmas. She had a wood stove and a mother with long, black hair. Her mom, Eve, loved to garden.

I don't remember ever going to my dad's bank and I don't remember what it looked like, but I remember it was further down that dirt road. I remember because my mom would let mike ride his bike down to go see dad when dad was finishing work at the end of the day. I am not sure why I never went to visit dad. Maybe it was because even at that age I was bad with directions, or maybe just because Mike was older.

The White Purse

Tuesday was popcorn day; every student at McMillian Elementary knew that. One quarter on Tuesday morning, given to a PTA member, meant one brown paper bag full of buttery popcorn in the afternoon. Every Tuesday morning I would remember to ask my mom for a quarter... right before running out the door to catch the bus.
Fridays were a whole different matter. You could buy a red licorice rope on Fridays after lunch if you had the patience to wait in a short line at recess. I had never tasted a red licorice rope before, but they looked even better than popcorn.
The licorice ropes cost a whole dollar. I didn't have a steady source of income when I was seven so I tried what worked on popcorn day - I asked my mom. She said that would be fine and handed me a faded green one dollar bill.
The next morning after I ate breakfast and changed into my school clothes, I went in search of something very special in my dress up box. My dress up box was a large cardboard box sitting in the corner of my closet. The box held moms old high heels covered in pink satin fabric, some Halloween costumes, many old sunday dresses, and a few garage sale treasures.
I dug threw all of the dresses and costumes until I found what I was looking for at the bottom of the box; a white vinyl purse. The purse was bigger than a shoe box and had a hideous gold broach on the front. With my one dollar bill bouncing around in the extra large purse I trotted out into the living room, ready to go to school.
As my mother looked me up and down, this is what she saw: A three and a half foot tall girl with a two foot wide purse.
I remember exactly what I looked like that day, and I know I looked ridiculous. But, my mother didn't say a word about the purse, she just told me to have a great day at school and helped me catch the bus.
The whole day my purse and dollar bill waited in my backpack. The backpack was stowed in the cubby at the back of the class; the cubby with my name on it. At lunch time I slung the white purse over my shoulder and feeling like I was the most sophisticated person in the whole world, I strolled down to the licorice line.
Standing at the back of the line I noticed no one else had a purse. Some of the kids gave me interesting looks as I waited my turn that day. I got to the front of the line and pulled out my one dollar bill. May I again remind you that my large dress up purse was the size of a saddle bag and could have held a cinder block along with my one dollar bill!
I received my very first licorice rope and walked over to a grassy spot to eat it. At the end of recess, the bell rang and I returned to my classroom. I stored my white purse in my backpack again and it never returned to school.
I was not teased about the purse and I didn't get a million odd looks in the licorice line, but somehow my second grade mind figured out that my white vynlpurse was not as cool as I thought it was.

Two Inspirations

There are two simple inspirations for this blog:

1. I am currently reading the book, "She Got Up Off The Couch". The book is a biography; the woman writing tells stories about her life as a young girl. Each chapter is a different memory from her life. I have loved the book and am excited to record my own childhood memories.
   
2. The other inspiration for this blog happened during the Fourth of July weekend. I was with my husband and his family for the weekend. My husband, three of his siblings, and I, all decided to go to the fireworks show on the river. It was exciting to get there early and wait for the fireworks to begin; there were tons of people crowding the bank. Before the fireworks began, the four siblings (my husband included) began to reminisce about the fun things they did as kids. Many specific memories came up and they chatted all the way through the fireworks show. It was a great insight into their lives and I really enjoyed the night.
   

So, there is the background behind the blog. I just want to preserve the memories.