And God saw that the Wickedness of Man was Great....

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.


And it repented the Lord that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”

These were the feelings of God just before he sent the flood to the earth. As I web browsed the daily news today I wondered what He might be thinking today. Here are some of the things I saw-

Military suicides higher than combat deaths and threatening to surge higher, veterinarian euthanizes her pets in office and takes her own life, another teacher arrested for sexually abusing children in his classroom, man shoots others in bar and is killed by police, another realty TV show is scripted and staged, (big surprise there), newborn baby abandoned and found protected by a dog( has anyone else noticed the growing trend of animals becoming more humane and humans becoming more animalistic?), a 93 year old man stabs his 95 year old wife to death and tries to take his own life but fails (he said he just couldn’t take another day of nagging and fighting), Boy Scout ban on gays might be lifted, and of course, several headlines involve the Kardashians ( does anyone really care?).

There are the usual how to have better sex articles, beauty tips and a slew of plastic surgery articles. I sometimes amuse myself by imagining what their “What We Did with Our Life on Earth” essays will look like. Especially next to an essay by Mother Theresa or someone like her, that thought motivates me to make sure my essay will have some meat to it!

The truth is that so many of us don’t want to believe in God. We don’t want to believe in an accountability for our life here. Again, the scriptures describe today accurately when they say- “And they deny the power of God, the Holy One of Israel; and they say unto the people: Hearken unto us, and hear our precept: for behold there is no God today, for the Lord and the Redeemer hath done his work, and he hath given his power unto men:

Yea, and there shall be many which shall say: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it will be well with us.

Yea, and there shall be many which teach after this manner, false and vain and foolish doctrines, and shall be puffed up in their hearts, and shall seek deep to hide their counsels from the Lord; and their works shall be in the dark.”

After Sandy Hook, it was said that many today don’t believe in a hereafter so they are not afraid of what will happen to them other than getting caught by the police. Since killing themselves is usually the plan they go into the situation with nothing to lose. I agree with this.

I also think that not believing or knowing enough about God is behind the hopelessness that leads so many to commit suicide and many other of the ills today’s society suffers. Not knowing that our lives are for an eternity makes this short earth life feel so very overwhelming at times.

Is there anything we can do about it? I think so. We can share our knowledge with the world in whatever ways are available to each of us. Don’t give up- ever! Remember that it took one last little Who to add to the noise that saved Whoville by allowing those who did not believe to hear and believe. Maybe in your realm of influence you are that one Who- yell now as loud as you can – “We are here!!!” You never know who might be listening! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Me....a hypocrite?

My daughters love the TV show “Glee”. While at my house this summer they staged a “Glee” marathon thru Netflix. I watched a few episodes with them and have to confess that I see the attraction. Although I feel that the story lines are barely a step above a soap opera, the music performances are enticing. I did, however, get sick of the “drama” at one point and forbade them watching anymore while here. I got sick of walking in to my living room to see kissing of all kinds going on. There was boy/boy kissing, girl/girl kissing, boy/girl kissing, girl/man kissing, well, you get the picture.


My asking them to stop watching did NOT go over well. It led to a rather intense discussion about values. I shared that there were so many other things that were more worth spending time on. I explained that watching things like that make them more acceptable. I agreed that watching the singing was fun but that was such a small part of the show. I explained the difference between things that entertain us and things that uplift us. Oh, I was on a roll that day for sure. The ban on “Glee” remains in effect to this day.

And then came the new fall lineup on TV. I saw the enticing ads while watching “Dancing with the Stars” online. I was not enticed by shows with names like, “Revenge” or “Scandal” but there was a new show called “Nashville” that looked good. I love country music! So I started watching it. Yes, there was a lot of drama. Yes, it was very soap opera-y. But the music was so good and watching the behind the scenes of how music is made was fascinating. And I really wasn’t paying attention to all the kissing and sleeping around. I was watching for the songs and ………..halfway through the season I realized…..I sound just like my daughters defending their desire to watch “Glee”. Oh, no!

If I thought that “Glee” was just a soap opera for teens and “Nashville” was an adult version of “Glee” and I won’t let my girls watch “Glee” but I want to watch “Nashville”…….OMGosh….I am a hypocrite!!! This is a disaster!! Either I have to give up “Nashville” or let the girls watch “Glee”.

It’s not really that hard of a decision. I meant the things I said to my daughters about carefully choosing to spend time with uplifting things. I will give up my guilty pleasure. No more “Nashville” for me. And since I really do like the music I should get by just fine with buying the soundtrack, right? Maybe this isn’t going to be so easy after all. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Extended Breastfeeding

Not too long ago, the world was drawn into a discussion of how long is too long to breastfeed your child. I found it to be a very interesting debate. Before I go any further, I want you to know that I breastfed all but one of my children. I believe in breastfeeding. It’s healthy for mother and child. It is natural. It is inexpensive. The list goes on in behalf of nursing.


Watching a four, five or six year old still nursing is a sweet sight to some. To some it is disgusting. To all I ask the question, what if that same four, five or six year old was sucking on a bottle or a pacifier? What is your reaction to that image?

Personally, I don’t feel that the argument is against extended breastfeeding as much as it is against extended “babying” of a child. It is disrespectful to do for a child what it can do for itself. Children thrive with encouraged independence- they want to “do it myself”.

Dependence on a breast or bottle or pacifier is not helping them to grow. It is holding them back. Let’s look at the animal world. That’s easy for me to do- I live in Farmville, USA. We have a mother dog who has decided that puppies big enough to eat don’t need to nurse. She lets them suckle standing up for a few minutes each day and then either lies down on her belly or runs away. Those who run after her or forcefully nudge her are rewarded with a growl or a sharp nip.

Our mother cats do a very similar thing. I have noticed that they tend to make themselves rather scarce during the process. They are teaching their kittens independence from not just mother’s milk but mother as well.

Birds just push their fledglings out of the nest when the time is right. Something more of us need to learn to do! And while I have seen an occasional calf or colt still nursing when they are as big as their moms- it is very rare.

Let’s remember that the process is called weaning-“ to transfer from dependence on it’s mother’s milk to another form of nourishment.” Maybe we could add to that definition- “and for moms to begin to learn the never ending process of letting go.”

That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Will you stop or not?

I’m going to ask a question that I asked my daughters this morning. If you are driving in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and you reach a stop sign, do you stop? If your answer is yes, the reasons are usually- it’s the law, it’s the right thing to do, I don’t want to get caught. If your answer is no, the reason might be- no one’s around so it doesn’t matter.


We had this conversation because of internet pirating. Trying to explain to a 14 year old that everything online is not legal is a big mountain to climb. If it’s on Youtube or a few others sites it’s got to be okay because it gets filtered. Well, yes, but there are literally millions of things being posted and they don’t always get them off the site immediately.

Then I tried to explain about pirating music and movies. I agree it is a confusing subject. It is one I had to delve into not too long ago when a niece told me about a great movie site. I logged on to find movies that were currently in the theaters. This didn’t feel right so I tried to investigate. I found that there were a number of similar sites. How did they get away with this? How is one to know what is okay and what is not?

I finally called a son who works in the upper echelon of Blockbuster. He broke it down simply for me. If you have paid for the movie service (Netflix, etc.) you are safe. If you are watching a TV show or movie from the originators website (ABC, CBS, Disney, etc.) you are safe. If you are watching from other websites you have to be careful. If you are on a website that takes you to another website and maybe even another, be very careful. It is probably not an okay site. Besides, I am told, visiting these sites is a great way to pick up a unwanted virus!

Those websites are not legal. So using those websites is not legal. It is however like the stop sign question- is anyone going to know? Does it matter?

I am a stop at the stop sign kind of person. I am that kind of person because I choose to be. I have a wall plaque that reads- “Integrity is doing what is right when the only one who will know is God.” I used to tell my children that integrity was about the choices you made when no one else was looking.

Technology has put into our hands the means to do many, many things that no one else may know about. We are faced each day with choices that test our character. We are the “masters of our universe”. Our small choices of each day determine how we will choose when the stakes are higher. Will we stop at the stop sign or not? The majority of people will not. Who do you want to be? That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

The Death Penalty Issue

When I was young, many years ago, I didn’t support the death penalty. I thought that an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, would as Tevye says, “leave everyone blind and toothless.” I didn’t see much point to execution over life imprisonment.


As I grew a little older, more religious and hopefully wiser, I changed my views. Since I firmly believe in this life being just a tiny part of our eternal life, letting them move on instead of keeping them in a place of hell seemed the humane thing to do. There are worse things than death and to be held captive in a small cage is one of them. At least it is to me.

But now I’m much older. I might not have more wisdom but I certainly have more knowledge. I find myself still supporting the death penalty but for different reasons. I now know how much money a life imprisonment can cost. I know how few inmates ever truly change. I know how rampant murder has become without the death penalty as a deterrent. And thanks to the details of ID television I know a lot more about how gruesome many murders can be.

As a matter of fact, I not only support the death penalty, I want to see it notched up a bit. After a decade of watching and reading about real crime cases, here’s what I’d like to see. Not only would I want the death penalty reinstated in all 50 states, I want it to be more personal. I’d like to see convicted murderers in certain horrific cases be executed exactly the same way that their murders were committed. Maybe just maybe some of these sociopaths would think twice if they knew they would die the same way their victims did.

I think of the man that kidnapped, raped and brutalized a young 12 year old girl. He wrapped her up in plastic and buried her beneath his mobile home. She was still alive. Years later his lawyers tried to get his execution stopped because “lethal injection” was cruel and inhumane. REALLY?? Let’s rape and brutalize him, wrap him in plastic and bury him alive because that is soooo much better. Maybe he’d have thought twice if he knew what was in store for him.

How about the dad that beat and starved his son to death? The boy was kept in a cage in the living room, next to Daddy’s computer desk. He played solitaire while watching his 12 year old shrivel up to nothing. Let’s take dad’s three square meals away while he is in his prison cage. Everyone can ignore him as he slowly starves to death. Maybe he would have found some mercy in his heart for his son if he’d known what his own death would be like.

There are unfortunately, way too many horrors like these to share here. An elderly couple duct taped and thrown in a pit to be covered with mud and muck just for the pin number to their account. When their bodies were discovered, they were holding hands while they drowned in dirt. Woman kept as sex slaves and tortured to death. Babies left to die in hot cars. People set on fire for the “fun” of it………

And if the murderers had know without a doubt that they would die the same way when caught, well, I think it would be a huge deterrent or at least enough motivation to kill their victims mercifully (if there is such a thing). And we would stop hearing the complaints about the cruelty of injections and electrocution. They seem downright gentle in retrospect, don’t they? That’s the (somewhat gruesome) view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Politically Incorrect?

Have you heard this one? A valet parking a car wrote a three word description of the owner on the back of the parking ticket. I am assuming that this is a common practice enabling the valets to make sure the right car got to the right person. It’s a security measure. The words were “play, fat, red”. The woman who owned the car was indeed going to a play and was dressed in red. Apparently, she is disputing the fact that she is fat.


The hapless valet left the ticket in her car. She found it and well….all hell broke loose. She took the fight public and accused the parking garage of all kinds of prejudice. Is there now a politically correct word for fat? Or are we not allowed to use it as a description? I wonder how she would have felt if they gave her car away to someone else? Or how she feels now that the whole world knows she is fat?

If it bothered her so much maybe she should do something about it. I mean change her weight not the valet’s description. Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. I once asked a young woman when her baby was due- only there was no baby. Six weeks later she looked pretty darn good. Not too long ago, my youngest daughter was asked if I was her Grandmother. I overheard this. I didn’t blow up and be offended but I did buy some hair dye on the way home.

Is it okay to call someone a fat slob or to demean them because of their size? Absolutely not! But is it prejudiced to give an accurate description of someone? I think not. What other descriptive words can’t we use anymore? I can hear it now…..Officer: “Ma’am, can you describe the perpetrator who stole your purse?” Victim: “Yes, he was tall, I mean, not short, I mean, well, he was black, no, I mean, didn’t have light skin, he was very skinny, no, I mean, not fat, ohhhh, he didn’t have any meat on his bones. His hair was very curly, no, I mean, not straight, his nose was large, well, not small…….to hell with it- he can keep the damn purse!”

I am short, fat, red- haired, fifty-somethingish and I know it. Getting pissed off because someone describes me that way is just ridiculous. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

The Green Thing

Have you heard the one about an elderly woman telling a store clerk, “We didn’t have the “green thing” when I was young”? At which point the young store clerk berated her by saying that was the reason our planet is in so much trouble now. The story goes on to list the way things were back then and to show that we didn’t need the “green thing”. I thought about this for awhile comparing the world of my childhood to that of today. Here are some of the things I came up with.


Milk and other beverages came in bottles which we washed and returned. They were then refilled. When thirsty we drank water from a fountain, faucet or hose. Most of us didn’t even use cups. We put our mouths to the faucet or hose and drank! If we were really lucky our water came to us mixed with Kool-Aid, the other summertime drink.

Diapers were cloth. We didn’t throw them away. We washed them and used them until they began to fall apart. Then they were tossed in the ragbag to spend their afterlife dusting furniture or washing baby butts because there was no such thing as wipes. Baby and maternity clothes were used time and time again shared among family and friends.

Food was cooked from scratch eliminating today’s growing pile of trash from packaged goods. We all ate what was put in front of us or we went hungry. Going out to eat was a once or twice a year special treat. Paper towels and napkins were a rarity as were tissues. We had cloth napkins and hankies. We used rags to clean up other messes.

Hand-me-downs were a way of life. As soon as an older sibling outgrew something it was passed on to the next in line. Moms usually made that decision while doing the laundry. We’d get home from school and some new old clothes would be waiting on our bed. It was great!

TV was available to us but mostly in black and white. It was strictly limited to possibly an hour a day. Outside play was encouraged strongly. Actually we were usually kicked out the door and told not to come back in for at least 2 hours. I think this was probably for the mom’s sanity as well as for our health.

We rode our bikes or walked everywhere. Moms rarely gave us rides. If we asked we were guaranteed to get the old standby, “What’s the matter with your legs, are they broken?”

In summers we sweat. No one had air conditioning. We were lucky if we had a fan for our bedrooms. We slept outdoors a lot. We played in water a lot. We went to the library where it was cool and read books sprawled out on the floor.

In the winter we froze. Some of our big century old homes had central heating but bedrooms were never heated. We brought hot water bottles to bed to warm up the sheets. These were made of old cleaning supply bottles. A glass of water left on the nightstand would be frozen by morning.

We washed dishes by hand, clothes dried out on the line, phones were used for messages not endless talking, and microwaves were non existent.

The list is endless. We didn’t grow up in this “disposable” era. We grew up in the “use it up, make it do or do without” era. We were raised by the kids of the depression. You can’t pin the “planet trouble” on them. We were the generation that rebelled against the “establishment”. We were going to change things. Well, we did. I’m not sure that it was for the better. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Knitting Lessons

I knitted scarves for Christmas presents this year. Two of my daughters watched my fingers flying and asked me to teach them how to knit. I was reluctant due to the fact that I only had the one set of needles and I was halfway through a scarf. As they persisted and declared that they had been watching me so they knew that they could do it, I recognized a good teaching opportunity.


The older daughter watched me carefully as I showed her step by step. She then took the needles and began, she had understood the process and did well but she was frustrated that it felt so awkward and she had to do each stitch slowly. She wondered why she could not hold the needles the way I did. Each stitch was painfully made but I encouraged her telling her she had the concept but only practice would bring the grace and speed she desired. She continued for about 6 rows.

The younger daughter didn’t even want instruction. She insisted that watching me was good enough! I cautioned her that anytime we watched experts do their “thing” effortlessly it meant that they had worked really hard at it. It didn’t change her mind so I handed her the scarf and needles. She took them with an air of confidence that quickly dwindled as she realized she didn’t know what to do. I asked if she wanted me to show her. No. She became frustrated. I offered help again. Reluctantly she agreed.

I showed her step by step several times then handed her the needles again. She became increasingly frustrated with her inability to “do it like Mom”. My encouragement and advice to be patient increased her frustration so I left the room. She struggled along for 1 ½ rows. She dropped it all where she was sitting and stomped off in disgust.

Some time later, the older daughter picked it up. She held it up and exclaimed in horror, “Mom, look at what we’ve done to your scarf! We’ve ruined it! The part we did doesn’t look anything like the part you did!”

We then had a discussion about perfection and expertise. We talked about dancers, musicians, athletes and others who spent hours, days, years, and even decades working to achieve the level of perfection that made what they did look so simple to do.

In this day and age of “instant” everything with a general expectation of “faster” is always better, I’m afraid that we are forgetting that simple principle “Practice makes perfect”. Or maybe we’ve just decided that perfection isn’t desirable anymore. Are we all settling for “just good enough”?

I hope not! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Why we watch Honey Boo Boo

O.K. I’ve decided it’s time for me to take on the “Honey Boo Boo” thang. I have watched the phenomena over the past year. I joined with the jokes about the ratings beating out election stuff. I watched clips from the beauty pageants. I watched clips from the show. I’ve followed the “news” coverage about her family. I think I know why they are so popular.


First of all, let’s face the bare naked truth- other realty shows are mostly about the super rich or the super famous. Watching them can make us feel less than we are even if we disdain their lifestyles. We know we’ll never have that and it makes us uncomfortable.

In steps Mama June’s clan, instantly we can feel better about ourselves. We are better, smarter, richer, whatever, more than they are. That makes us feel better for awhile. These are people we can identify with even if it’s just to make jokes at their expense.

But that’s not what keeps us watching. What keeps us watching is the pure joy we see them having with their life experience. They are a loving, accepting family who back each other no matter what. They like who they are and are unapologetic for their lifestyle. They are comfortable in their own skin and we are captivated by that.

I know a family like them. They are not attractive. They are not well off. They are not educated or refined. But they are the purest hearted people I have ever known. In over a decade of knowing this family, I have never heard any of them say a negative thing about anyone. I’ve watched the children grow up and have children of their own. The family is still as tight as when they were younger. They love each other’s company. A very favorite pastime is spending a whole day playing board games together.

And from where I sit with my attractive, intelligent, educated family in shambles all around me, I am envious of their simplicity and joy. A good friend said this about this family once, “One day in Heaven, a beautiful family with shining countenances will come to give us a hug. We won’t know who they are until they speak. It will be this simple, honest, faithful, joyful family.”

We tune into to Honey Boo Boo to see what the fuss is all about but we stay because they really are what family and love and joy is all about. And we need that today. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Angels Around Us

There was a day, about five years ago, when I was feeling especially alone. I had given custody of my two youngest daughters to their father. Their older siblings had chosen to alienate themselves from me. My husband was on a long haul trip and I was miserable! I decided to try pulling myself out of the dumps by going to one of my favorite stores and getting something special. It had helped in the past.


Soon after entering the store I realized that this was a bad idea. The store was full of things I love- music, books, pictures, etc. The problem was that everything was about family. Plaques read “Families are forever” and “Families are like quilts” or “My forever family”. These things probably should have given me comfort but the wounds were still too raw. Each thing I saw seemed to scream- “You don’t have a family anymore!”

I struggled to keep from falling apart in the middle of the store. I hurt so very much. Wasn’t there anything I could find to hang on to? Was I always going to hurt this badly? I didn’t even know where some of my grown children were or if I would ever see them again. I felt so very lost.

I hid in a corner and poured my pain out in prayer. I asked, “Who am I now? What am I supposed to do with all this love no one wants and all this pain I don’t want? Is there anything left of me? My family was everything! I am so lost.”

I opened my eyes and began to head for the door when I saw a small wood plaque all by itself on a bookshelf. It looked as if it had been laid down for a moment and forgotten but I knew better. It had been laid there for me. It was exactly my style and taste. It had a drawing of a quirky angel on it. Below the angel were these words- “We are never so lost that angels can’t find us.”

This statement comforted and assured that not only am I not lost neither are my children. I might not know where they are but my Heavenly Father does. He can send them angels. He can send me angels. He can send you angels. No matter how lost we might be or feel.

That plaque is on the wall directly behind me as I write this. I look at it often. It has brought comfort on numerous occasions but never so much as that particular day when a broken heart needed direct intervention and received it. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

"My daddy was a mean old mister.."

Have you heard Carrie Underwood’s newest song called “Blown Away”? Its powerful message resonated with me from the first. I was raised by a “mean old mister” and it has taken years to blow away the “sins of that house”. As a matter of fact, I’m still working on it. There are many days when I feel that there is not enough “wind or rain” to wash the memories clean.


My step dad, (the only dad I ever knew) was evil. If he ever uttered a word of truth it was by accident. He was a con man filled with what he would call “a bit o’ the blarney” from the “old country”. As a matter of fact he was very good at falling back on the “old country” bit when caught at his many discrepancies. He would plead ignorance of American ways. He had lived here for decades but it usually got him by.

True to his Scottish/ Irish heritage he loved “a little nip now and again”. It was more often now. As with many, alcohol increased his capacity for evil. He was a predator of the worst kind. No little girl was safe from him, his own daughters, me, cousins, friends; all have stories to tell about his “touching games”. He would conduct them in crowded rooms of adults, trips to the store, in the middle of the night after his wife went to sleep.

He was a first class manipulator. It was a rare time that he could not work things out to his advantage. One event has him drinking with his wife and her brother. He invites his brother-in-law to stay the night to “keep him safe.” After all are in bed, he calls the sister-in-law implying that something terrible has happened to her husband. He promises to get there as soon as he can. He makes the 45 minute drive in 30. The distraught wife is waiting inside. He hurries in. And begins to seduce her!! No, probably seduce is to kind a word. I think assault would be better. She manages to get him thrown out and keeps her husband from killing him when he found out.

There are dozens of family stories like this. My mother even caught him in incidents with me. It was many years before I could gain any understanding into the events that followed or maybe I should say the events that didn’t follow. He managed his “blarney magic” and stayed.

In his older years when it became more and more evident that he couldn’t keep it in his pants ever- many “other” women stories began to emerge- he admitted to being a sex addict. Really??? Is that what you call it? He went to wife ordered therapy because his infidelities with other women seemed to bother her more than his inappropriate actions with children.

And I received a therapy ordered six line apology for “anything he might have ever done to hurt me”. This was more than his other victims got but it was insulting and degrading. Years of painful extraction of emotions, memories and fears…………there is not enough “rain to wash away the sins” in Oklahoma or anywhere else …….it takes courage and a lot of work to “blow that house apart”.

One early morning I picked up the phone to hear my sister say, “Dad is gone.” I answered, “With who?” It took a few minutes for my brain to grasp what she was telling me. He was dead. He died of a heart attack on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He died while trying to pull up his underwear, head on the ground and naked butt up in the air, mooning all who entered the room. I wished I had been there to place a “kick me” sign on it. I felt the ironic justice keenly. I also felt safe from him for the first time since I was 8. If those thoughts put me on the naughty list in Heaven, oh, well. The smiles that image brings to my face on the few occasions I think of it are worth it. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Snow Day

On New Years Day, we decided to spend the day playing in the snow. This is no easy task for us. We live in a desert type area. We do get a dusting once in awhile but it rarely lasts more than a day. For real snow we drive about 1 ½ hours to a mountain top. Ok, not too big a problem. The big problem was getting ready. We don’t have the typical snow gear you know, snow pants, waterproof gloves, insulated boots, sleds, etc.


Not willing to purchase stuff for one day we improvised. I showed my family tricks I had learned from my childhood. They couldn’t believe anyone ever lived that way. First, dress in layers- my daughters had on a pair of leggings, a pair of jeans and sweatpants. I wore stockings underneath my jeans. Next, extra socks under the only two pair of waterproof boots I had, worn by them. I put on a pair of black suede boots that had the advantages of flat heels and come up to my knees.

Plastic bags slipped over our hands and under our gloves to waterproof our hands. We each had on long sleeved t’s under long sleeved tops under hoodies under our coats. Hats and scarves finished us up. Well, sort of, now what were we going to use for sleds? Kelly was sure that boogie boards would work just fine. I stated that we used to use flattened boxes. We loaded both in the car trunk, packed up some food, peeled off several layers so we wouldn’t over heat in the car and headed off.

We finally get to the sliding hill, get out of the car, re- bundle up and trudge off through 3 feet of snow. My daughters are carrying their boogie boards. I am carrying my big piece of cardboard. My husband is following far enough behind us to not look like he belonged with us. He had good reason. We stuck out like sore thumbs among the other LLBean / Cabela dressed crowd. It was going to get worse in a few minutes.

Kelly (age 14) was walking a little ways off scoffing at my flattened out box. True to her age she had to tell me how embarrassed I should feel and how ridiculous I looked. I answered by asking if she was sure the boogie boards would work. To prove it she stopped halfway up the hill and went for it.

The board stayed put but she didn’t. She “biffed” big time. I just added that word to my vocabulary yesterday. We used to call it “plowing snow”. Off course we were laughing like crazy which really bugged her. So she turned around and challenged me. No prob!! I threw down my cardboard and very confidently sat down. One good push and I was off……well, not… one more good push…one more……pretty soon, I looked like I was rowing myself down the hill. We are all laughing pretty good by now. We were also trying hard to ignore all the stares. Especially as we picked up our failed “sleds” and walked giggling down the hill.

My husband was standing at the bottom, not sure what to think or do until he decided in typical fashion to try to fix the situation. He took the boogie board to a small snow pile and kneeling tried to slide. Nothing doing. He then grabbed the cardboard and repeated his actions. Nope, that didn’t work either. People were still staring as we trudged off.

It might not have been the most successful sliding party we have ever had but I’ll bet it will be the most memorable! And I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard. It was great! That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?