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NORTORIOUS
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Oh, also, I'm famous!  Tee hee yippee!

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La Brisa Photo

http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-c-family-joy-session-hawaii-b.html

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE PARTY!

WELCOME TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

YOU’VE SPENT YOUR LIFE PREPARING FOR AN EMERGENCY.

HOW WELL WOULD YOU SURVIVE?

 

You have thirty minutes to complete the following to survive the zombie apocalypse. Capture all ten pictures including three members of your group WITHOUT any of the zombies photobombing them, or your pictures will be disqualified. DECAPITATION OF ZOMBIES WILL LEAD TO IMMEDIATE DISQUALIFICATION.

Text each picture to me at 925-*******. Your survival will be evaluated and rewarded when you return to my house.

1) In the event of a zombie apocalypse, or any other emergency, it is recommended that you make contact with a relative from out of town to let them know you are alive. Go to the Mothership and let my parents know you’re alive. Take a picture on the porch.

 

2) In the case of a serious emergency, or extremely serious zombie attack, you will likely have to drop off someone at the ER. Go take a picture carrying your wounded into the ER at the SR Regional Medical Center.

3) If zombies really were to attack, the Elder’s Quorum Presidents and the Emergency Preparedness Committee would coordinate emergency efforts with the assistance of the Relief Society President, assuming they are not already eaten. For the purpose of this activity, the RS President is Marilyn Monroe and she lives at the Rasmussen’s. Go take a picture with her there. 

4) In the case of zombie infiltration, home teachers should determine the safety and needs of their home teachees, as well as wield the machetes. Mark Maher happens to be an excellent Home Teacher. Go to his house and take a picture with Griffin (mini Mark) teaching you a home teaching lesson.

5) When all are accounted for (plus or minus limbs) a priesthood leader will contact the stake leadership with a report. The Stake Emergency Center will be in front of the stake office Sycamore chapel. Go take a picture desperately trying to break into the Stake Center. (Look for the sign)

6) If the zombies have already chewed through the telephone wires and eaten all available cell phones, four runners (pairs of two) should be sent with a report to the Sycamore Stake Center. Have two group members dress in running outfits (the more spandex the better) and take a picture of them running across Sycamore/Greenbrook crosswalk.

Apparently Will borrowed a singlet from my dad – a stranger – and rocked it.
7) The bishop will take care of his immediate personal family needs and then will proceed to the Ward or Stake Emergency Center. In this zombie apocalypse, the bishop has already been captured and taken to the Qs’ house. Go take a picture trying to save him.

8) When the zombies attack, you may have to hide out in your house for three days or more. Go to whomever’s house in your group has the greatest food supply and take a picture of yourselves with the food storage actually eating something from it. Aren’t you glad you’ve been moving with it for ten years?

9) Cops and security guards are usually zombie’s first targets. Assuming they are able to evade clever brain-eating zombies, they will have primary responsibility for coordinating disaster relief efforts. Get a picture with a person of authority (police, guards, someone with a badge, OR a picture of their car).

10) One way to get zombies to not eat your brain is to prove you have one. Put your thinking caps on and go take a picture where the caption could be, “I can’t believe we all fit in here!”

11) LASTLY: You and your loved ones are all present and accounted for with the proper authorities. Go now to check on the singles (Me) and the fatherless (My kids) to make sure they have not been turned into Zombies while you were all busy saving yourselves.

RETURN TO MY SAFE HOUSE WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED.

FIRST GROUP THERE WINS EXTRA POINTS.

 

A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO PARTICIPATED AND HELPED!!

 

Photos from Twilight and her friends playing Zombie the following day:

Vegetarian zombie.

Twilight was a big helper making the t-shirts and decorating.  She was a total sport and got real into dressing up as a zombie which surprised me because she’s such a girlie girl.  Little Me is becoming such a grown up little girl and a real asset to me.

Party on Wayne

Song:

‘Thrift Shop’ chosen because it makes my kids and me dance and want to party.  Try not to dance to it.  I dare you.  “They had a broken keyboard?  I bought a broken keyboard.”

CLEAN VERSION (but doesn’t show the video, which is hilar.)

NOT CLEAN VERSION with the hilarious video.  Skip to :40 and it’s clean enough.

Scripture:  Not going to link a scripture with a song that has a few questionable lyrics, so you get a quote instead.

“We do not remember days; we remember moments.”  ~Cesare Pavese

Picturessssss:

Twilight’s 6th Birthday Party last Friday. A zillion kids and me partying it up.

Story:

I’m throwing a party this weekend and it is stressing me out.  It’s a Zombie Apocalypse party for the couples in my ward who I see all the time with kid stuff.  Funny how your friends become the people who have kids your kid’s ages.  I’ve thrown big old parties once a year for the last few years and have some amazing memories.  For my 30th birthday I did a Minute To Win It party, a few years before that I did an Amazing Race.  My friends are really competitive and it makes for an interesting event. 

The Zombie Apocalypse was inspired by an Emergency Preparedness FHE that my little sister Camille put on at BYU.  I made some adjustments.  But I’m not going to tell you all about it until after it goes off.

 

Makin’ Zombie costumes.

It’s weird to throw a couples party without being a couple, but I don’t really care.  Whatever.  But it does leave ALL of the planning and preparations up to me!  It’s a lot of errands and planning, but I LOVE doing it because parties are FUN.

I always wonder why people don’t throw more parties.  I come from an epic party family.  We do blow outs.  Just a few I remember include a Superhero Party for Camille’s birthday, the 1999 End of the Century New Year’s Eve party, Nate’s Death party (oh, wait, that was a funeral but everybody was there so it kinda felt like a party), Phil and Aub’s wedding, Camille’s line dancing wedding, Paige’s 30th birthday 80’s party (highlight being Ellie dressed as business casual) Jim’s 1960’s 60th birthday party. 

Yeah, it takes planning and doing.  But the memories make it all worth it.

Party on, Wayne.

Mormon Mother Misfit

Song:

“you say i’m out on a ledge, come stand with me.  i need the company”

Scritture: Ecclesiastes 9:11

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Pitture:

Story:

So, blogging.  I was on the fence about coming back on here.  Blogging had left a bad taste in my mouth – what with the drama up in P-town and the upheaval of the last year.  I found I was experiencing trials that were all the more challenging because I felt obligated to either confront them in this public forum or to pretend like everything was la-ti-da fine and lovely when it really wasn’t.  It was a tightrope.

But then there was the allure of having a daily audience of about a thousand people.  What attracted all those people to read this?  Why was that popularity such a gratifying experience?  It took me five years and a ton of life crises to build that readership and the numbers became important and satisfying to me.  It was easy to consider blogging popularity as validation.  I had a forum to explain myself which worked for me because I’m kind of contradictory.  Liberal, feminist, brash, punk, smart, pink, LDS, mother, closet dork, suburbanite, professor, morally conservative, and a lot of other words all define me.  I needed a way to explore how they could all line up and work out because for a long time I didn’t even make sense to me. 

I am one of those people who is blessed/cursed to see both sides of every situation and I am drawn to both.  I can see all the wonderful reasons to live a tame life here in the suburbs.  I can see all of the excitement and diversity a big city (LA, my home away from home) offers.  I see the merits of normalcy, I am drawn to the creative weird parts of life.  I’m a free spirit who wants to drive BMW’s.  I want my kids to have a stable friend group and I want them to be able to grow up as vagabonds traveling from country to country.  The gospel is a non-negotiable: I am firmly rooted in the gospel of Christ, but it is because I fight every day to endure to the end and not skip merrily into religious ambivalence and call myself a buddhist or mystic or some other cheery-easy sounding morality.  I want to check the natural man and I want to suck the marrow out of every adventure leaving no stone unturned – and I’m trying to do so as a mother/Mormon/misfit.

It’s a conundrum.  I see so many ways to live this life.

But it’s one thing to navigate life privately, another entirely to do so in a public space.  I know why I’m here, but why am I HERE?  In bloggerland?  It’s not just a journal, it’s a public journal.

I think it’s because I like to see the process.  I prefer it to personal journaling because it provides me with an external system of checks and balances.  In my journals I can be as inconsistent and flighty as I please, but in a public arena I have to make sense and use reason to write my thoughts.  Things have to make sense.  I can’t just bitch and moan, I have to find positive things to say. 

We use our communities as external barometers while our internal thoughts are private.  My blogging is a bridge.  It’s a way to link the “everything is fine” exterior with the “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing” interior.  This challenges me.  It helps me figure out what the hell I’m doing and also, I hope, provides a glimpse beyond the smiling faces at church where everybody just seems flawless and untroubled (though we know they’re not).  Oh, you have trouble sometimes too?  Welcome to Team Unicorn, where we don’t pretend that life isn’t kicking our butts.  Come stand with me.  I need the company.

So I’m here.  I’m working it out.  I’m muddling through.  You get to participate if you wish.  Thanks for helping and your feedback is always welcome.

Paralysis of Choice

Song:

Scripture:
3 Nephi 6:8  And there were many highways cast up, and many roads made, which led from city to city, and from land to land, and from place to place.

Picture:

I can't even successfully pick one ice cream flavor.

Story:
Last fall I applied to law schools.  I'm starting to hear back from them and my options are opening up.  It's giving me paralysis of choice.  You know how it is when you have a million possibilities in front of you and each one looks good in it's own way?  That's paralysis of choice.  It's a privileged problem, but one that I'm facing.

Should I go to law school?  If so, which one?  Can I actually raise three kids by myself and put myself through school?  If I CAN do it, do I want to?  Is this the best long term choice?  Should I wait a few years until my kids are in school?  How is this going to effect the possibility of having more babies?  Do I actually want to do law work?  Should I stay and teach college next year or pursue a different profession?  What are my motives for going?  Is it worth leaving my kids with child care?  Will it make me a better parent or worse?  Should I move my whole family to LA or Utah or the east coast?  Why would I ever intentionally leave my current perfect town?  How am I going to set up a whole new environment for us including community and schools? 

I'm seriously about to grab strangers on the street by the lapels and ask them what to do.  Somebody make these impossible decisions for me.  Or better yet, God please send me an email telling me exactly what to do.  Are you there God?  It's me, Nor.  Tell me what to do! XOXO.

Things that I Hate this Week

Song:

Scripture:

Psalms 139:22 “ I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.”

Pictures and Stories:

Enough with the Niceties.  Bring on the nasty!

1.  I hate this area of my house.  It’s that one place where my stuff without a home lands.  I can see it from my bed and it makes me mad.  Clean yourself up, stupid flat surface.  You’re a mess.

2.  Hitler.  Not One Direction, I don’t know why Hitler’s face is on this photo.  But I really hate Hitler this week.  I’m reading a most fascinating book called Under the Wings of the Almighty by Walter Rohloff.  Walter was a German soldier in WW2.  What’s that you say?  A German soldier?  Weren’t they all Nazi’s?  Walter wasn’t, but he was drafted into Hitler’s army to fight for Germany.  Walter is also an active Latter Day Saint.  I have long lumped Germans into a big “If you made it through WW2 then you must have helped Hitler somehow” group, but this book presents a completely unique perspective.  For the first time I’m reading about German soldiers in foxholes on the Russian front and hoping that they don’t die.  I’ve never approached WW2 this way and it is enlightening.  Walter’s story is nothing short of amazing and inspiring – he got shot, he was in a POW camp, his dad was captured by the Russians, he was harassed by the SS.  He now lives in Bountiful Utah I believe.  Here’s a link to an article about him: LDS author Recounts Life in Nazi Germany.  You should buy and read his book, but the only way to get your hands on it is by emailing him or calling him.  Isn’t that adorable?  To buy it, call Rohloff at 801-292-1969 or email him at wkarohloff@aol.com.  
Read more: The Davis Clipper - LDS author recounts life in Nazi Germany

Anyway, I hate Hitler for fighting a losing war when he knew they were going to lose and carelessly sending soldiers to their deaths.  Hitler, you’re such a bastard.

3.  Packing tents.  It’s intense.  My kids had colds last week and so I set up our giant tent in their room as a humidity Vicks Vaporub tent.  When I was repacking it I got it all zipped up, just barely, sitting on it to make it fit.  And then I turned around to see the stupid cover.  Who in the world makes the tent bags so small?  They should be sacked.  Would it have killed them to make it just a little bit larger?

 

4.  Fuzzy camera shots.  I HATE these.  Above is an amazing impromptu whole family dance party, immortalized in fuzzy.  Below is that one day I actually looked like a grown up at preschool pick up.  Hold the camera still and frame the darn picture. Get your fingers out of the way.  Click the button three times to get at least one good shot.  Learn the rules. (I don’t care if you’re five, Mimi. ;)

5.  These shorts.  They look like tan shorts with an old fashioned menstrual belt.

6.  Glenn Beck.  He is a fearmongering jerk.  I do, however, love this clip of him being blissfully unaware that he is describing his own style of commentary.  Do you have to be LDS?  You’re embarrassing me.

7.  These people.  I had a lot of this on NORTORIOUS.  It was always hilarious when someone got their panties in a bunch thinking I was writing about them.  If I’m writing about you I promise to ask your permission. 

8.  People in cheesy love.  Not people in real love, I love them.  But saccharine BS, no.  You bug me.  Bad time for hating this as Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.  I like funny love and deep long non-demonstrative love and straight up “I love you, that’s how it is” kinda love.  But “He asked and she said yes” generic nonsense?  Annoying.

9.  Chevrons.  Yeah, I said it.  I try to like Chevrons but my eyes can’t focus looking at them and they make me dizzy.  They’re like an optical illusion that I don’t get.

 

10.  Weeping Angels.  So there’s the episode of Dr. Who wherein they run into hundreds of Weeping Angels statues.  When you blink they move and try to kill you.  They’re terrifying and I hate them.  Ask me how many times I have seen a weeping angel picture and had a staring contest, then closed one eye at a time to rest it.  The answer is all the time.  Don’t blink?  I have to blink.  Curse you Weeping Angels.

Trouble is a Friend

Song:

Scripture:

Joshua 14:11-12 As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day.

Picture:

Trouble. 

(with a capital T that rhymes with P and that stands for pool, as in the tide pools we were sitting next to when this photo was shot, hence no g’s.)

Story:

That’s me and Niya my BFF.  Niya and I have both traveled very interesting paths to get where we are, but we are both staying out of Trouble’s way at present.

I met Niya at church in WC.  I was 9 months pregnant with my first kid and had some kind of wacky colored hair.  Niya was a newlywed supporting her {deadbeat} husband and going to art school in SF.  We met at church.  I walked out of Sacrament Meeting and there was Niya, standing against the wall waiting for me.  She said, “You look like you could be my friend” and we have been BFF’s ever since. 

Together we have seen some serious Trouble and we have climbed some mountains.  Niya had married the missionary, from whom she learned about the LDS church, in the temple after he had completed his mission.  Unfortunately, he was not everything he said he was . . . to say the very least.  He was addicted to pornography in a paralyzing way.  Niya speaks freely about this topic because while she was dealing with it she had very few female confidants.  Pornography is such a shameful addiction so it’s very difficult to find other women who admit that this is a problem in their relationship.  She’s walked that ugly confusing path, living with the influence of Trouble in her home.

I remember the blessing Niya received when she had just,  basically gone into hiding from him and it distinctly said that she could walk away with a clear conscience.  In the words of Yoda, “The force is strong with that one.”

In order to get this hurt woman back on her gloriously long legs, I marched a reluctant Niya into a modeling agency in SF and they signed her on the spot.

Then came the reign of Trouble for both of us.  The ordeal with her new husband as a new convert left her spiraling, as you can imagine.  I watched Niya rebuild her modeling career which launched her into Parisian society and hooked her up with a lot of interesting people who did not share her same moral code.  We connected regularly during these times and it was kinda scary to observe her venturing in some very dark places.  It’s hard to watch your friends float away from their anchors. 

When I visited Niya in LA I marched her (willingly) back into church.  She does a lot of marching at my behest.  Once there I reconnected with old friends and introduced Niya, but I never anticipated how effortlessly she was able to make friends and find a support network down there.  Since that time she has been off Trouble’s radar.

Of course during this time Trouble was kicking my ass too.  Three babies and the great vanishing husband? 

Niya and I were able to attend the temple together this time last year.  We’ve crawled up many mountains together – trouble with men, trouble with friends, trouble with choices, trouble with faith.   When I stumble she helps me back up. When she is feeling crushed I help her out. 

Trouble always comes my way and no matter what I feed it it always seems to grow.  But I have a buddy walking with me, beating Trouble into submission.

I used to be afraid of Trouble, but now Trouble should be afraid of me.