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A story of buying a toy:

My kids like to play with the old, real phones in the housekeeping area and also at our writing table (‘the office’, as they call it). The problem is that they holler at each other from across the room when they ‘talk’ and I just can’t afford to lose any more tooth enamel from the grinding.

I started thinking about the toy wired telephones from my youth that were both magical and horribly dissappointing. Then I wondered, ‘Surely in this day and age of cell phones somebody has invented toy phones that are wireless.’ Sure enough, one obscure company has!

So, I ordered a set. I justified myself by saying that they would help the children learn proper telephone manners and also help the shy kids learn to speak up, but really – I just wanted to play with them.

Guess when they arrived? When Lloyd was in Missouri visiting his parents. I was so excited to try them out!!!! With….. no one…..

(In jump rope chant rhythm, slowly. Lloyd didn’t get it, so I’ve bolded the words on the beat.)

(Jump jump jump jump)
One. Two. Three. Six.
Four more numbers join the mix.
Seven.Fourteen. Twenty-One
Factors are such mathy fun
End the string with Forty-Two.
Watch the birthday girl boo-hoo.
It’s your turn to write a line.
Doesn’t even have to rhyme.
(jump jump jump jump)

…. I control my little world.

(Our internet keeps going out, so if you read this and there is only a half-written post, it’s because it died while I was writing. I’m hitting ‘update’ after each sentence.)

Tonight I sat on my stool and refilled a prescription from my phone, ordered photos from my computer, and then filled out an online order for pizza. The world is doing such a great job encouraging my laziness.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. I ordered my pizza before I started to upload my photos, then as they uploaded the connection crashed. I got very flustered and re-uploaded all 29 photos and wound up with many, many extra pictures. Stupid time crunch!

I told Lloyd I was getting mad.

Lloyd: “You know how to tell if Lauren is mad?”
Lauren (glowering): “She’s awake?”
Lloyd: “She has a pulse.”

A friend of mine, who can reveal her identity if she so chooses, has a mother-in-law who apparently used to make ‘casserole’ for her family at the end of the week. That means that she would take all the leftovers in the fridge, throw them together and heat them up, and that’s it.

Hmmmmmmm……. sounds crazy, but it just might work!

When my friends from Colorado were here we went to eat at the only nice restaurant in town, Cafe on the Square, and they all had leftovers at the end that were in my fridge. (Macaroni and cheese, half of a french dip, half of a rueben.) Tonight when I came home from work, I looked at the boxes, and told Lloyd, “Let’s just heat them up together.”

So, macaroni and cheese in the pan with a little milk, all the meat pulled out of the sandwiches and diced up, add some tomatoes and viola’! “Casserole!”

Lloyd will eat anything, and in fact declared, “This isn’t bad.”

See? “This isn’t bad.” You don’t get a higher endorsement for my cooking.

(No photo of finished product. I forgot.)

Today, Saturday, has been crazy.

Lloyd drove down to Missouri after school on Friday to visit his dad and mom, and I stayed here since I had to work late on Friday and had some company coming into town on Sunday. I knew that icy weather was supposed to hit early Saturday morning, but I had some things I needed to do in Lincoln. I followed a foolish impulse and Pricelined a hotel room so I could do half my shopping Friday night (south of town), stop and sleep, finish up (north of town) Saturday morning, and be home before the worst hit.

I did not make it.

At 9:00 everything was just wet, but around 10:30 we had icy roads and slushy snow on top. Dang it! I drove very, very slowly behind the nice snowplow on Highway 34, then it had the nerve to turn and drive north and leave me and the truck in front of me alone. We both drove very slowly – not even 40 miles an hour – and I did my best to keep a big distance and follow his tracks. Then I hit ice and drifted a little left, then a lot right – over into the ditch, stopping with my right bumper bending the barbed-wire fence at the sod farm.

Dang it. Dang it. Dang it.

This is the first time I’ve ever been off the road, and much like when the truck broke down before, I had no idea what to do. I called Lloyd, who was – as you remember – in Missouri.

Lauren: “Guess who’s off the road?”
Lloyd: “Ummmmmmm…..”
Lauren: “I guess you can’t come get me, huh?”
Lloyd: “Guess not.”

Then I called Kate. Lloyd said I should ask her to come get me, but I didn’t want to ask anyone to come out in this weather. I was actually thinking that I could just start walking (by the fields, not the roads). I’m a good walker, and hey – it would just take a day, right?

Then suddenly there was a car that had stopped, and a young man asked if I needed a ride. Turned out that he and his brother were headed into Seward to their work – five blocks from my house. I was exceedingly grateful.

Once home, I tried to track down the company that was coming to my house to warn them that the roads were very bad. They are friends from my hometown who came to Seward for the Concordia Christmas Concert. They also got the extra bonus of experiencing terrible Nebraska winter weather. Yay! They came into town around 3 and we all agreed that they should just stay overnight here at the house instead of trying to drive back to Lincoln in the dark. Next, I offered them some of the delicious snacks….. that were in my truck.

Lauren: “Would you like some Dr. Pepper? Ginger ale? Wait, that’s in the truck. Pretzel chips? Cheese? Wait, that’s in the truck.”

Sigh. I guess I’ll go get my truck tomorrow.

Oh, and the fridge is still out back. Turns out it is a handy snow-measuring device.

Because it’s Saturday and because I have nothing interesting of my own to share with you today, I’m going to send you over to Catalog Living. You either won’t like it, or you will waste some good minutes laughing. (I lost it about five pages back.)