I NEED A VACATION


dudes... i'm on overload.

i need quiet.

i need to be by myself.

no kids tattling on each other.

no birthday parties.

no wet ball games.

no more 8 hour car trips with other people in the car.

i want a quiet place, all to myself.

i want to run away to a place no one knows my name.

i hate the sound of my name.

i want to lie in bed all day long, order room service and maybe go for a quiet walk.

or a swim all by myself. yeah... a swim.

vacation? what's that?

bar harbor is beautiful... i do love going... can't wait... but there are people in bar harbor.

i am going to ut... but i have to actually see people in ut.

no relaxation... just running from one lunch appointment to the next and then so and so's house.

people are noisy.

kids talk loud. sometimes cry and scream too.

people expect me to talk back... when they ask questions n'stuff

i don't want to use words... can't i just smile and say nothing?

do you think i could hitch a ride to outer space on the next space shuttle?

there are no people in outer space.

what about a lake house... even better... an abandoned lake house.

wait a minute, that sounds kinda scary... better take a boy with me, just in case.

now i need to find a boy.

preferably one that thinks i'm cute and wants to kiss me n'stuff.

where can i get me one of those?

just as long as he doesn't expect me to talk to him.

we'll just be very quiet.

maybe go fishing... you have to be very quiet when you are fishing.

yeah... abandoned lake house, cute boy that kisses me, fishing... sounds great.

i have church tomorrow.

i know a lot of people at church.

i talk to a lot of people at church.

i don't want to talk tomorrow.

i will look like a jerk.

people always hunt me down anyways.

should i talk... or run the other way?

tough choice.

i want to go where people don't know me... where they can't tell that i typically LOVE to talk.

maybe i can find a cave somewhere.

bears live in caves... do you think they would care if i tried to join in?

they seem really snuggly.

and it's dark in caves... think of all the sleep i could get.

as long as the bears didn't growl in their sleep... i think we could get along just fine!


YEAH I NEED A VACATION... nuff said.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY!!!


so we surprised mary last night... it was so much fun.

we told her that we were taking her to TERRA MIA, a fancy restaurant in the NORTH END. she was so excited about going, that i almost felt bad. but not too bad. she was in for a HUGE surprise. we also told her that we were taking our good friend CHRISTY.

so got to CHRISTY's house and we told her that she had made something special for her and that she needed to go inside to see it.

so MAR jumps out of the car, trots up the stairs, rings the doorbell and immediately starts singing out... "CHRISTY IT's MY BIRTHDAY... COME TO THE DOOR, CHRISTY... IT's MY BIRTHDAY"

my only regret is that we did not have a camera ready to capture her reaction when the door swung open and a chorus sung out "SURPRISE!!!" she was adorable.

BUT

not as adorable as when she opened the BIG gift of the evening. a bunch of us pitched in and bought her a long-desired IPOD VIDEO... she nearly peed her pants!

what a rush and a great way to celebrate someone who is so giving and insightful, one who is so kind to others and would do anything for a friend.

WE LOVE YOU MARY... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

RED RAIN IS FALLING DOWN!

so i'm walking down YAWKEY WAY, headed to GATE C and i am taking it all in. the sights (old, fat men wearing jerseys), the sounds (street vendors yelling in my ear asking me what i want) and the smells (the mix between sewage, sweat and a braut with mustard)... I'M ON MY WAY TO A RED SOX GAME! and i couldn't be happier.

i meet mary and her dad and we proceed through the gate to the FOOD... one foot long and a diet coke please! i'm ready for the game! i find my seat and begin SCHNARFFING my hot dog... i skipped lunch today because i was way too busy.

and then... the rain.

at first it wasn't too bad... just a light sprinkling... and i'm not squeamish about the rain... so i continue to enjoy my dawg. then, it gets heavier and now people are squirming like ants back down to the cave of dryness. mar and her dad head for the john hancock sign and find cover with about 30 other people. just as i am finishing dinner, the clouds decide to part like the red sea and take us all for a swim! down-pour like i have never seen in my life.

for a while our little 30-something group is rather enjoying the rain, laughing like little kids running through the sprinklers, but then the lightening came and it was no longer safe to stay in our little hide-away. i look over and see a guy who had dyed his hair red for the occasion, go from looking like a die-hard to night of the living dead and i realize just how dumb it is that we waited as long as we did before seeking cover! so with a little encouragement from the announcer, we all made our way to safety... with about 800,000 other people... that were dry... remember they were smart and got out BEFORE they were sopping wet!

and there we stayed for 90 minutes. then the rain stopped. lots of cheering. and we're headed back up to root, root, root for the home team!

the loud speakers were blaring one of my all-time favorite hits...

YOU'RE THE BEST AROUND (karate chop to the right)
NOTHIN'S EVER GONNA BRING YOU DOWN (yell out... "get him a body bag!")

okay... so we're still wet, the game has been delayed by 2 hours and we have to get up early the next morning so we can take john (mary's dad) up to maine for the bluegrass festival.

we stayed til the 5th inning... much to my disappointment...

7th inning stretch we all sing: "take me out to the ball game"
and bottom of the 8th it's: "sweet caroline... good times never seemed so good... SO GOOD, SO GOOD, SO GOOD!"
those are the best parts of fenway... and we missed them.

but i guess it's just as well... the sox lost miserably to the angels! but we still had a good time while we were there. cheering for big papi, ramirez... yelling out YOU and seeing the surprised look on the lady in front of us (who was from TX) who thought we were booing our own team... and giving CABRERRA a standing ovation... we miss you! oh and seeing just how excited we all get when we start the WAVE and it finally makes it all the way around the stadium... it just doesn't get much better than that!

I LOVE FENWAY... I LOVE THE SOX... I LOVE LIVING IN NEW ENGLAND!

FAREWELL TO MY BRAZILIAN BOYFRIEND!!!


it was a sweltering summer day, the sky was full of clouds and smelled of rain. yet russ and i decided we'd swim anyway. so we head for the country club to splash in the cool pool. we sit down at the cafe, just outside the pool and ordered lunch. he'll have the tuna fish and i'll go for the Caesar salad. then we wait. we begin playing a sophisticated game of "eye-spy." enter... my boyfriend. he is with his brothers, LUCA (4), PAULO (7) and their nanny. they choose the table next to ours and order their lunch. from across the way floats a smooth british accent.

"i'm MATEO"
"hello Mateo, i'm peggy... this is russ"
"where are you from?"
"utah."
"utah?"
"yeah... what about you?"
"originally i'm from london... now i live in brazil."
"wow" "do you speak Portuguese?"
"yes.... do you only speak american?"
"yup." (spoken like a true american)

his questioning went like this til our food was ready. he quickly finished his lunch and made me promise him that i would come and find him in the pool once i was done. i promised. and this handsome, 5 foot nothing, olive complexed, brown hair, sparkling blue eyed, nine year old boy ran off to jump in the chilled bath! i laughed to myself. i had a new crush.

then russ and i slowly made our way to the pool. the moment i stepped in, i heard my name being called out with the most beautiful intonation...

"peggy... watch me."

i turned my attention to Mateo and his brothers flipping off the diving board. i cheered with each attempt made and smiled back at Mateo once he surfaced from his "daring plunge."

we played there for a few hours and before we knew it, our time was up. we had to leave and say goodbye. Mateo was by my side in an instant.

"are you coming tomorrow?"
"yes, i think we will be here."
(geesh... this kid could get anything he wanted with a smile like that) "good, we'll be here too. will you come and find me?"
"of course i will."

throughout the week, we would run into this little family. each time, Mateo was by my side, asking me question after question about himself. i was quickly falling into puppy love.

but today i said goodbye... probably for good. Mateo and his brothers are headed home tomorrow. Mateo and i took one last meaningful dive for the water torpedo and then... we left. i wished him well. told him to come back soon. told him i would come and visit. and knew that it was all wishful thinking.

GOODBYE MATEO... i shall never forget you. be good. i'll miss you!!!

SOMETIMES IT's GOOD TO BE A CRIPPLY


HOW RUDE... i know that's what you are thinking right now... it's so NON-PC... it's so degrading... it's so MEAN!!! yet would you believe that it was my paraplegic older sister who coined this phrase??? yes... she is the one that calls herself cripply.

this post is dedicated to WHITNEY and was born of our conversation from the other night.

i'll start with the background:

the first three kids in the family go as follows
JOHN
CHELLY
SUSAN

then there is 11 years followed by

WHITNEY
ROGER
me
AMY
DOUG

yes, same insane parents... just two different lives, as it were.

it's at this point (when i am telling this in conversational form) that someone will always ask... "so what happened to her... was she born that way?" and who wouldn't, it's definitely a curious subject. but because of all my years of being best friends and sister to this cripply of mine, i have mastered the art of telling her story... in its most concise form. so here goes.

when whit was born she had problems with her heart (skipping those details), at the age of two, she underwent surgery at the local naval hospital (my dad being a marine at the time) to correct the problem. this being a naval hospital and not having a pediatric surgeon, they weren't FULLY equipped to perform this surgery. sadly, the surgery lasted longer then it should have and oxygen starvation killed some very important motor nerves in her spine... those being the control of her legs.

yes, it truly is a sad story, but talking with her... you wouldn't pity her situation one bit. my parents were smart enough to raise this fiery red-head to be independent and head-strong... and boy is she ever! in fact, after about 5 minutes of knowing her, you somehow forget that she is even in a wheelchair... that's just whitney. this girl can do anything she puts her mind to. she plays the violin beautifully, she skis, rides horses and not that i'm really biased... but she is a terrific writer. WHO NEEDS TO GET HER ACT TOGETHER AND PUBLISH SOMETHING ALREADY!!! and she can and did the most amazing of all acts one can do here on this earth... and that is to give birth to a healthy baby girl!!!

but really this post isn't going to be about how sweet and wonderful she is... oh no... this post is about how horribly MEAN and CONTRIVING she is... because behind that innocent, beautiful smile... lurks the BLACK heart of a monster... who likes to make her sister... me... look the fool!

let me explain.

so you remember that story i told you about my trip to SUU for the shakespearean competition... right? yes, and i also mentioned that whintey came down as a supporter. and a great supporter she was. but then, she morphed into cruel sister and made a scene i'll never forget.

there we all were, a million high school students, lounging around the "common" area, where we waited those horrible 3 hours for the awards ceremony. we had all eaten dinner and now were left to alone to goof off and distract each other. i was off flirting with someone one and making jokes with this person or that when whitney, who had been in conversation with a few of my friends, calls for me to come to her... and like the lemming i am... i obey. she looks at me smiling and says

"hit me on the shoulder."
"what?"
"just do it."
"ooookkkaayy."

so i slowly pull my arm back and lightly (emphasis on LIGHTLY) hit her on the shoulder. and before i can even FATHOM what was going on, whitney is throwing herself to the ground screaming out that i've pushed her out of her chair.

so you know how in movies when someone throws a sucker punch and all of a sudden the music stops and all heads are drawn to the action in one swift motion??? yeah... that was me... 5 million eyes on me as i stand next to my "helpless crippled sister" as she "writhes in pain."

AND I'M THE JERK???

oh and let's not forget about the time that we went to temple square to see the lights (at christmas) and we stopped in the mall to get ice cream. as we're strolling along, she turns and asks my boyfriend at the time to push her. i should have known something was up, because she NEVER lets people push her... it's the independence thing. anyway, before we can even prepare for it, whitney starts singing out... as though she had "other disabilities"

"IIIICE CRAIIIIM"

at the top of her lungs. and she's looking at innocent bystanders and telling them that she has ice cream. and of course i am caught between a fit of laughter and trying not to look like a total JERK by laughing at the "sweet" wheel-chair girl who is so excited that she has some ice cream

isn't that sweet, Steve... that little mentally challenged girl got some ice cream?

and it's not like i could have called her out on it... people would think i was an abuser or something if i tried to tell her to "act normal." or if i tried to point out to everyone that she was a wolf in sheep's clothing they would look at me as the worst person in the WORLD.

yeah, whit's a jerk. okay, okay... i guess there were moments of pay back... i am the one that hit her with her own car (NOT INTENTIONAL... story for another day) after all. and when it's all said and done, i am grateful to call her my friend. besides, there are perks to being related to someone in a wheelchair... you get to cut line at disneyland... parking is always in the front, and best of all were the seats we had at the U2 concert... DUDE!

which is actually when she came up with the phrase...

SOMETIMES IT's GOOD TO BE A CRIPPLY!

DO I SOUND LIKE RACHMANINOFF TO YOU???


DUDES! i took my very first piano lesson yesterday! it was so much fun!

so a while back i was coming home after a very long day at work, my spirits were low and i was tired. as i climbed the four arduous stairs that lead me into the bowls of my ugly house, i heard a sound that was more beautiful than anything i had heard that day. i stopped. i stood still, trying to decipher if the sound was coming from a radio or television. after a few moments of listening to the quality of the tone i determined that yes, indeed, it was a real live piano. so i sat on my top step and soaked in each and every note that floated from my next door neighbor's house to my eager ears. I LOVE LISTENING TO BEAUTIFUL MUSIC!!! especially when it is live and in person.

i knew that a woman lived in the house next door and we hadn't had a great past with her. there was the time that our tarp, that was hanging on our banister to dry, had fallen into her garden... she was not to pleased about that. and the nasty note we had gotten after one of us had parked our car too close to her driveway. oh and after the big snow storm, someone had already shoveled our driveway and so we decided to "pay it forward" and shovel hers and she poked her head out of the window and said "who are you and why are you being so nice to me?" LOL

but to be fair, a few of our friends had come over that night and talked with her and she seemed to warm up to us and the next day she came over to the house with a plate of brownies... how sweet. but even still, I WAS a little scared of her.

so back to my porch. as i was listening, the thought occurred to me that i should befriend her. maybe i would go so far as to say that it was a prompting... so i was determined that this woman and i would be BFF.

a few weeks went by and i never quite seemed to find the time and there was one time that i was at my kitchen window and i saw her come out of her back door and i said HI and she didn't respond. (honestly, i don't think i would have either... it was kind of weird)

so a few sundays ago i went outside to take a phone call and as i was finishing up i looked over and saw the NDN's dog standing in the driveway. so i began a conversation with it. then around the corner comes the NDN. so i direct my attentions to her... i had my chance. we talked for a while and in that conversation i asked her who it would have been that i heard the other night. she shyly mentioned that she played the piano! then i asked her to play for me and she humbly declined. then i asked her if she taught lessons... LUCKY ME... she does. then i asked her, if she would teach me... LUCKY ME... she would! then i asked her when, she was open this whole summer... wooo hooo! i was so stoked!

side note: for the longest time, almost since i can remember, i have wanted to play the piano. i love music in all its forms and would have KILLED to have the chance to play. sadly, my parents sold the piano when i was 4 and so i would have to live with the disappointment that i would never learn. BUT NOW, the dream is mine to fulfill! and FULFILL I WILL!

by the way, she was so sweet during our conversation and talking to her was really easy, so we set up a lesson for a week and a half from then... i couldn't wait.

yesterday was a long day and i was sooooo tired and almost didn't go, but i decided that it was only a half an hour of my time, i could be a big girl and go anyway. and that's what i did.

CARLA (NDN's name), was dressed up so beautifully and her house felt like a real home... not like my ugly, college student place. and after talking to me for a bit about my extent of musical knowledge, she sat me at the piano and we began talking keys and notes and stuff. i was giggling like a school girl... and carla was giggling right along. then she got out a book and i played my very first song...

SPRING LILY

it was such a pretty song and carla played the teachers line and it made it even prettier... I WAS JUMPING up and down like a little kid. i walked out of there feeling so happy. not only was i doing something positive for myself, buy i was making a dream of mine come true.

so there you have it... one day, i will have a recital and you are all invited!

ODE TO MY AIR CONDITION UNIT


there i lay, nice and cool
instead of lounging in a pool
of my sweat because it's hot
and cool myself, oh i cannot

so i turn you on to 6o degrees
and you send a rush straight to my knees
i let the cool air fall all around
and jump into bed with a bound

i am all smiles and a giggle too
cause i am not sweating in my own hot pool
i'll sleep well tonight and have no fear
it'll feel like winter all the year

as i drift i thank my lucky stars
because outside it's as hot as mars
and i am lucky that you're there all the time
to calm me, comfort me... so i won't whine

thank you, thank you-- i sing your praise
what would i do without you on these hot, hot days
never leave me, until the fall
then i guess i really won't need you at all

but i won't forget all the comfort you gave
my knight in shining metal... you are oh so brave
you are my AC, i'll forever be true
my heart i give... only to you.

I GET PAID TO PLAY!!!


two, four, six, eight... what do i appreciate?

i appreciate getting to go to WALDEN POND on a day like yesterday and spend all morning swimming with the fishies... eating turkey wraps and white cheddar cheezits... squirting innocent children in the face with a water gun and topping it all off with KIMBALL FARMS ice cream.

i appreciate going to the MUSEUM OF SCIENCE and learning about the human brain and how to make lighting.

i appreciate going on all sorts of adventures with the kids (i.e.- FENWAY PARK TOUR, GEORGE'S ISLAND, THE BEACH, SWIMMING AT THE county club) all expenses paid and goofing off in public like i'm 10. in the next few weeks i will also appreciate driving a nice 5 hours of good alone time up to God's most beautiful creation-- BAR HARBOR, MAINE.. to help out with the kids. there i will get to play at the beach, go on hiking adventures, explore local islands and eat pizza and ice cream and play MONOPOLY til i win all the kids' money!

i appreciate going to the theater and turning up my favorite music and dancing around the room with 20 children, scarves in hand and moving my body in ways no adult would dream of. i appreciate crawling around the room like a cheetah or making the sound of rain with a string of beads and then painting a large sheet to look like a beautiful countryside.

i appreciate the sound of a child at play... that unadulterated laughter and the imaginative sounds they make.

i appreciate answering questions to life's biggest mysteries.
"why doesn't a dolphin have fur?"
"why is a fire hydrant not called a hose?"

i appreciate watching a child learn something new, accomplish something hard and be able to laugh at his mistakes.

I GET PAID FOR THIS STUFF!

i realized my fortune when, yesterday, i was on the phone with mary and she asked how my day was and i told her that i was enjoying myself in the shade of a tree at walden pond and was just about to go for one last dip before the ice cream and she appropriately retorted... "i hate you." images of her sitting at her desk, behind her computer flashed across my mind and i realized... it may not be the most revered job in the world... but it sure is the most FUN!!!

sometimes.

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW


ha... you are confused by my outrageous oxymoron, are you not? yet, when you look at it like this: it's 94 degrees and 1,000% humidity, all i can think of is pure, luscious snowy goodness.

be it known to all the world that i prefer winter to summer...yup... you heard that right. get this, you can always put more layers on to get warm... but when it's hot... there's a limit to how far one can go, if you catch my drift (pun intended).

so as i think of snow, my mind drifts (wow i am full of the same lame pun today, aren't i?) to a rather funny scenario that i will share with you all... the BLIZZARD OF OUGHT 3.

here goes. it was early december in the year of our Lord 2003 when the clouds opened up and vomited snow all over boston... we were on the brink of turning into antarctica. i was new to the commonwealth and had never seen snow like this before... and had never experienced "humid cold" before either. DUDE!

anyway, it was a saturday and we had been told that they would declare a snow emergency later that evening, which meant a few things. 1) church the following day would be canceled and 2) all those things i needed to get done should get done now, before it was too late. one of which was mailing some very important docs. to my daddy in ut, the other was stocking our barren shelves with something edible or we starve.

at this particular time, i lived just outside of teele sq. in somerville, which is about a 10 minute walk to davis sq. (where the UPS store was). i was in an adventurous-type mood and decided to go for a walk and my then newly found friend and roomie, MARY, decided she would head out with me. good exercise before we would no longer have the chance. so off we go.

at first it wasn't that bad, well... it wasn't unbearable... okay let's be honest, after about 10 steps in calf-high snow... you begin to rethink your decision. but too late, you made your choice... get on with it. so about 40 minutes later in our 10 minute walk, mary and i stomp our way through the doors of the ups store and i "do my biz-naz." then back out we go. at this point, mary and i are used to the trudge and are making enough jokes to ease the pain... we're doing okay.

we decide to head back up to teele sq. after making a quick stop at a local "qwick mart" which had nothing desirable and we would have paid $8 for a can of soda... no thank you habeeb, i will take my business elsewhere.

THE FOOD MASTER-- i hate the name of that store... it makes it sound like some store in vegas that sells scary touristy pornographic paraphernelia.

like i was saying our local grocery store was about a 10 minute walk in the other direction from our house so by the time we reached our street, we decided "if we don't just go now, we wouldn't find the strength to donn our layers again..." so we began walking down the slight incline to "JOHNNY'S."

20 minutes later, we make it. we quickly grab our cart (they call them carriages out here) and begin speeding down the first isle. we have truly worked up an appetite by now and it was truly amazing to see how swiftly our cart was filled. but we were happy and had gotten all of the important comfort foods necessary for when you are snowed in.

beep... beep... beep-- ahh the beautiful, obnoxious sound of the cash register as it tallies the amount of all our wares. we soon start to realize that not one thing on the conveyor belt is of any nutritional value... hmm... cookies- check, doritos- check, diet coke- double check... okay anything else? yeah-- popcorn, well that IS like eating corn on the cob, right? and twizzlers, strawberry flavored... strawberries are healthy. okay what about the ice cream... it's important to have dairy! see, there were SOME healthy things. alright, maybe we did splurge on the calorie counter with the extra rich hot chocolate mix and the package of miniature reese's peanut butter cups! but hey... we could starve... it was a blizzard and who knows the next time we would get to the store to buy the essentials!

so we're giggling to ourselves and trying to justify each and every choice and decided that we NEED all of these things and refuse to put anything back.

excuse me? i'm sorry mr cash register man... i don't think i heard you correctly. i thought you said the total was $80.00. i guess i wasn't paying attention... could you repeat how much the total is just one more time please? eh hem... oh... i see... well so that's 80... not 18... riiiiighht. for one second i can see the loser that i am in the reflection of mr cash register man's glasses and decide... what the hay... i could be dead by tomorrow and by that time the calories wouldn't have time to coagulate yet anyway.

ALRIGHT MR BAGGER MAN... LOAD EM UP! 20, 40, 60, 80... who needs all that hard earned cash for something reasonable anyway... right? can i get an AMEN?

$80 worth of junk food people!!!

okay, so back to the blizzard. there's something really funny about buying groceries and then realizing that you don't have a trunk of a car to stow them while you make the journey to your house. in fact, you didn't even take into consideration that you would be walking through a foot and a half of snow and hey captain amazing... did you bother to look outside... it decided to vomit again and is now adding inches by the second... oh... goody! oh and one more thing... MISS UTAH here doesn't own a pair of gloves. well, i owned a pair of really thick ski gloves... but i didn't want to bother with them at the time and didn't have those cute cotton gloves that everyone sports out here (cause they are actually intelligent). and in utah i never had to worry about my finger falling off like an icicle because it was exposed to the frigid new england weather for more than 5 minutes... so you see... i was so innocent. but i paid a price.

so there i am, standing outside of the food master with 4 bags in each hand (each weighing in at 90 pounds) and i am looking at my wonderful california-bred roommate and we just start to laugh. WHAT ARE WE DOING??? now because mary is a saint... she takes one look at my naked hands and realizes that there is no way i would make it and takes off one of her gloves and hands it to me... we'll share. MARY... YOU ROCK!

one deep breath, a comment about how lovely a day it is and we're skipping off to our humble abode. 2 minutes into it... i decide i want to die. i realize that i probably looked like i was practicing to be in a marching band for the mentally retarded... but it didn't matter... just get me home.

TEELE SQUARE AUTO... the half way marker and there we were standing in front of the sign. we need a break. we put our bags down and decide it would be a good time to switch gloves so that my hand that now resembles a block of ice can somehow thaw out before the frost bite really sets in. we make the switch and once again pick up our pounds of CRAP and begin again to our destination. then i hear a cry out that sends chills down my spine... it's mary... the bag with the 4 liters of soda has given up and decided to go to plastic bag heaven right then and there... with all of it's contents strewn across the powdered pavement. i turn to see mary scrambling to pick up all items and find places for them, i rush to her side to help and just like out of the movie BORN ON THE 4th OF JULY she screams out...

"no... go on without me... i'll be okay... save yourself!!!"
"NO MARY... I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU... OR THE DIET COKE!!!"

and just as if we were dreaming, a man who had stopped to get gas, was by our side with a new, used plastic bag from his car. his halo was glowing as mary took the bag from his saintly grasp. she quickly loaded up and once again we were off.

ENDICOTT... we made it!!! now we are just yards from home and i feel like crying. but not now otherwise the tears will join with the snot and freeze to my already wind-burnt, frost-bitten face. but i'm so tired... i want to give up... yet we're at the home stretch (literally)

must... keep... going.

but i can't, i just can't take another step. i turn around to see mary a few feet behind me and realize that it's easier to walk backward... yes, now we're getting somewhere! and then, as if i had been given an early christmas present... i'm home.

our astonished roommate elizabeth can do nothing but giggle as we enter the house... peel off the layers of wet, freezing clothing, lay the oodles of bags in the kitchen and sprawl out on the living room floor. WE MADE IT! 14 ENDICOTT I LOVE YOU!

ah yes... you may have laughed at this story, but it was we who were laughing all the way to 200 pounds as we delighted in stuffing our faces with our treasured delights. and we had a snow day the next day, which was even better.

okay, i'm feeling a little cooler now, are you?

MORE PICS OF BABY HALEIGH

WELCOME TO THIS WORLD
HALEIGH ANN DEMING
JULY 14, 2006
7:05 PM (MST)
6 lbs 5 oz
28 in

i am so excited to meet you little girl. i will teach you all about singing in front of a mirror, painting your toenails, the perfect tea party with your stuffed animals and your cousin MADDY and most especially how to beat up older brothers who try to push you around! (i know all about that one)

you are a lucky little girl. you have the two best parents in the world. your mommy is going to teach you all about making things pretty and decorating with style. you two are going to LOVE going shopping together to find pretty dresses to wear to church. your daddy is going to love teaching you the finer things in life, like BYU football and how to play sports. oh, and he will also teach you about how to laugh at life and especially the tv... i hope you get your daddy's laugh. you also have two of the best brothers in the history of brothers. they are going to take care of you, little princess... but they're not gonna go easy... they want you tough, like them, so you can play batman and spiderman. they will teach you very important things like how to wrestle with daddy and the perfect timing for finding trouble. on top of that you have a HUGE family of amazing grandparents, loving aunts and uncles... and lots of eager cousins. we are ready and willing to play with you, teach you our favorite songs and help you find a voice... cause little one... you are going to need it in this family.

WE LOVE YOU and we are so excited that you are finally here!!!

TO WIN OR NOT TO WIN...



so i have been struggling with what to write these past few days and coupled with my insanely busy schedule it makes for an empty blog. but as i was taking a 10 min cat-nap while i waited for the guy that's fixing my boss' air conditioner i started thinking about one of the best moments of my high school career and it made me smile... so maybe that's what i will share today.

i attended BINGHAM HIGH SCHOOL, a rather large school in it's day. also back in the day, we had a pretty hard-core drama dept. fully equipped with 2 full-time theater teachers and an intern. before i entered high school, the drama teacher mr. jolley had spent years perfecting our high school's theater dept. and so our troop was one of the top competing schools in UT. they took it pretty seriously.

and every year, towards the beginning of the school year, our little group took the 3.5 hour bus ride down to the SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY campus to compete in the SHAKESPEARE COMPETITION. schools from AZ, NV, parts of CA and of course UT were all invited to join in the competitive rush to see which school could best spit and sputter one of the greatest poet and author's immortal libretto. it was one of my most favorite things we did all year.

it was my senior year and i had spent all of the previous summer falling in love with my most favorite of all SHAKESPEARE's plays... MEASURE FOR MEASURE. i loved the heroine and felt that not only was she powerful but she stood for a type of morality that is quickly fading from today's moral code. i had decided that i would play her this year and compete with a very poignant piece, the scene in jail with her brother as he asks her to give her virtue to save his life... MAN that's a GREAT scene!!!

so early into the year i grabbed one of my good friends chris and told him which scene i wanted to do and after reading it, he was sold! i just knew it... we were going to WIN. we spent most of those next few months perfecting our piece and we felt pretty confident that we had something pretty solid... i was so ready to take it all the way to the bank.

autumn filled the air on that beautiful campus and as buses full of kids polluted the grounds, excitement joined right in and filled us up.

the first day of competition was the ENSEMBLE round, where schools presented a 15-30 minute interpretation of a scene from one of the plays. we had done a scene from "love's labour's lost" which, if you asked me, didn't hold a candle to the impressive piece that cottonwood high school did of "macbeth." but that didn't bother me, i still had the next day to prove to myself that i could do it this year.

the morning started early and i got dressed as quickly as i could, ran to meet my sister whitney (my good luck charm), who had driven all the way down so that she could watch me and then to meet chris by the common so that we could go over each and ever last step and psych each other up to go in there and kick some shakespeare booty. we found our teachers and were given our competition sheet which assigned us a number and also told us which rooms and their corresponding buildings our three rounds of competition would be in. and we trotted off with a few other supportive friends to our first room.

it was a small space, your typical school room and all of the chairs had been pushed to the side which made a mock stage. the judge had put a desk in the front and center and asked everyone else to sit off to the side, so no one could peek over her shoulder and see the scores.

we were up first. my nerves were dancing around behind my knees and i felt a little light-headed... but there was no time for that... take a deep breath and just do what you have spent months preparing for... you know this character... you know this scene... just have fun.

and we were off. letting each moment happen and filling each beat with life and intensity. it felt great. and when we were done, we came back to earth, quickly grabbed our set pieces and moved to sit by our friends. i knew something must have gone right because as we were sitting down, i heard a girl from another school say "wow" in a hushed tone. it felt good and now the adrenaline was rushing through my body. i sat back and watched my competition and couldn't wait for round two.

and just like that we were ushered into the next room, this one considerably bigger with more space and stadium seating. the judge started us off with a little speech about "giving him all we had"... oh believe me dude, i was so ready for that. this time, we were last in the round. we watched eagerly as each group went. with each one, the judge (who was one of the shakespearean company's lead actors) would follow up with the group and give them notes about what he saw. with each one he impressed that it was so important to make sure that you never left a scene until you felt like your character had made his/her objectives VERY CLEAR. so clear in fact that the audience would know that your character would be willing to die to achieve his/her objective. he was intense and passionate about his request and reminded those of us that still had to go that he wanted to see more.

it was our turn. already we were behind schedule, because the time allotted doesn't usually allow for specific notes from the judge, we were going to miss lunch and be late to our next round. but no time to worry about that now... just focus.

get ready dude, i'm about to slap you in the face with my objectives!

we started off soft... as if we were playing a beautiful song on the piano... and then as we worked toward the climax of the piece, something hit me. it was a numbness, a cold chill that ran through my body and seemed to light on fire... it was electric. in that moment, i was in a whole new dimension that my small and weak acting muscles had never before experienced. i was in the ZONE. i could tell that i was no longer "acting" but that i WAS isabelle and as i passionately berated my brother for selfishly thinking of his own life rather than my eternal salvation i looked outward and happened to make eye contact with the judge (which is typically bad news... don't break the 4th wall)... he was crying. ZING! that moment compelled me to give it all i had... and boy did i give it. as we finished the scene... an electric silence seemed to fill the air and chris and i looked at each other in disbelief... we had no clue what had just happened to us.

the applause filled the room and the judge wiped away the remaining tears as he took his place on center stage to give us our notes. i truly wish i could remember everything this man said to us. i wish that we had a video camera to capture his reaction as he excitedly talked to us about our objectives being through the "#$%! roof."

it was amazing yet we had no time to revel in it... it was time to panic. we were already 10 minutes late to our next round and that was bad news. we sent a friend ahead of us to tell the judge of our plight and made it there as quickly as we could.
wait a minute... did we have the wrong room? this was the same judge we had for round 1 and that's not supposed to happen! we double checked the sheet... indeed the room number and our number matched up. okay... i guess that's not a problem, she seemed to be impressed by our first attempt so maybe it's a good thing... no worries.

the third round was a blur. i was still on cloud nine after round two and felt like i could do no wrong... and honestly speaking... i think round 3 was pretty darn good too... not as amazing mind you, but i walked away from that day of competition feeling like i had given all three rounds my best effort... and then some.

now we wait... for three hours... as we eat dinner and try our very best to keep our minds off of the award ceremony.

then it was time. we were rushed into a very packed auditorium full of loud, obnoxious theater kids who were not only filled with their usual "flair for life," but with adrenaline and nerves... bad combo. our group sat relatively quiet (we were kind of snobby about being too "crazy"... real actors don't need to be on stage all of the time). i sat next to chris and we held hands as the announcer began the program and took time thanking everyone for the hard work and the help... yadda yadda... okay dude get on with it. i was so out of tune and only came to when they announced that one of my best friends MEGAN had not only placed 1st in her category of competition, but had been awarded a scholarship to the summer camp that the shakespeare festival holds every year... YAY MEGAN!!!

then it was our moment of truth... they were finally going to announce the winners of our category... i was numb... sound faded and all i could hear was the man with the mic. they called out the 3rd place... not us... good, we didn't want 3rd. i came here to win. then 2nd. again not us... i was so nervous i must have put a permanent indent in chris' arm... are you serious? they really are going to call our names aren't they?... we really are going to place 1st.

in a flash of a moment it was over... they didn't call our names... someone else placed 1st. we were stunned. i looked to my left and saw my teacher MS. BERTLESON's face drop with confusion. what? we didn't even place? not even 3rd? i just couldn't believe it... it must have been a typo or something. so i shed a few disappointed tears and ran to hug MEGAN, for her victory was truly worth celebrating.

later that evening, as we were boarding the bus, my teacher let out a gasp and then i heard her say "i don't get what happened?!" i walked over to her, she looked at me with sympathy and said "this is one of those things we'll just never understand." as she said this she handed me the score sheets that the judges used to score our performance and write notes for things we could improve upon. i looked through all three score sheets and immediately was more confused than before. let me explain.

the judges are given a sheet that has a list of ways one can be judged, like: memorization, understanding of plot and text, characterization and the like. with each item the judge is to rate it from SUPERIOR, EXCELLENT, GOOD to FAIR and put an X in the corresponding box. at the end of the round the judge is to count up all of the SUPERIORS, EXCELLENTS, etc. and then give the team an overall rating (if the team got mostly Superiors, then that would be their overall rating). then the judge is also to rank the teams in order from who they thought was 1st, 2nd and so on... from the round. so ones score could be... 1 (placement) S (mostly superiors) and that is the highest score one can receive.

so now let me give you a rundown of our score sheets.

1st round- 1S
2nd round- 1S
3rd round- 5G... 5G!!!

i was stunned. and remember, we had the same judge for the 1st round that we did for the 3rd. now i can understand if she felt like we weren't the best team in that round... so a 5th placement may have been totally fair... but to change from a superior to a good was totally mind-boggling!!! and it stung. and then to read her notes from round 1 to round 3 was even more upsetting... round 1 was full of praise and excitement about how much work we had done and then round three was MR. HYDE... she was writing all of these weird notes that shouldn't have had any bearing on our score... like our choice of set piece and chris not "connection to the literal chain that bound him to the bench." it was so weird. and so disappointing.

so why, after this proved to be so tragic would i consider this to be one of my greatest high school experiences? well my friends... i walked away with a memory that i wouldn't trade for the world. if i could relive round 2 of that competition just one more time, i would die a happy girl. it's been rare in my career as an actor that i have had such an intense and satisfying experience. yes, there have been moments where i felt really good about my work and walked away happy and fulfilled, but that one solitary moment in time is one i ache to duplicate and don't know that i ever will. but that's okay, a girl can sure try, can't she? and if i never do, that's okay too... cause when we get to heaven i'll invite all of you over to my mansion and we'll relive my moment of glory on my earth video, together!

no 5G will ever take away from that!

MY HEAVENLY FATHER LOVES ME


whenever i hear the song of a bird or look at the blue, blue sky
whenever i feel the rain on my face or the wind as it rushes by
whenever i touch a velvet rose, or walk by a lilac tree
i'm glad that i live in the beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me

he gave me my eyes that i might see
the color of butterfly wings
he gave me my ears that i might hear
the sound of magical things
he gave me my life, my mind, my heart
i thank him reverently
for all of his creations for which i'm apart
yes, i know Hevenly Father loves me

this little primary song has been running through my head the last few days and i can't help but feel like they sum up all of my feelings in one simple little lyric. i truly have been so blessed and i am even more grateful for the perspective to be able to see that.

my list is so much longer than this, but i wanted to share with you some of the reasons why i feel so lucky for all that i have:

+ my best friend from the 7th grade just told me that she is expecting her first baby in february, and because i know how much she has always wanted to be a mom, i am so filled with excitement for her

+ speaking of babies, my beautiful sister-in-law will give birth to a beautiful baby girl this week, this little angel will be the 10th niece/nephew that i have been blessed to call one of "my babies" and i am so excited to meet her.

+ in studying my scriptures, i have been blessed to receive a lot of tremendous answers to prayers and questions that i have posed to Heavenly Father. there is no cooler sensation than to be reading a random scripture and fall into a verse that has meaning in it that you never expected.

+ i get to watch some of my most beautiful and dear friends who have waited so patiently to have someone amazing come into their lives and sweep them off their feet, actually have someone amazing come into their lives and sweep them off their feet. it truly is an answered prayer.

+ i have peace in my life and in my heart. and because i have that, i feel the spirit stronger than i have in a long time.

+ i have been blessed to be guided to new friends that i will have the opportunity to share my testimony with and i know they will also bring their own light and knowledge to my life and help to shape it.

+ i have a great mom and dad that are valiantly serving their mission in nauvoo, IL and i love them because i know that they pray for me and i know that they love me and i know that if ever i need to talk to them, that they will put it on speaker phone and let me cry and get it all out and then after my dad is done giving me advice my mom will follow up with a bunch of i love you's... that is such a blessing.

i'm so happy, i'm at peace, i'm blessed

BUG ON A BEACH a parable

i went to the beach today. to sit. to listen. to write.

i sat. i listened. i snoozed. i wrote.

then came bug.

bug was on a journey. he was about a foot away from me and what caught my attention about him was his struggle. whatever kind of bug he was and wherever he came from, he was not meant to be in sand. his short legs and

stiff shell of a body was not conducive to sand walking.

so i sat back and observed my new little friend as he made slow progress across the "miles" of land before him. it was sad to see him skitter across a few millimeters and find himself, once again, flipped onto his back and struggle to right himself and start again. i soon found myself cheering him on. hoping that with each new try he would find steady footing and move onward with more ease. no such luck.

then, he somehow stumbled upon the rock path. YES! now he was really going to get somewhere. i watched him swiftly make progress to his unknown destination. i was thrilled and almost directed my attentions to the ocean, when, out of the corner of my eye i saw him deviate. headed back toward the sand. i almost shouted out "No go back to the rock" ... but how silly. by the time he slipped and flipped the first time, he had already gotten far enough off course that i was sure he wouldn't be able to find the solid terrain again. this time i offered help.

i secured a small stick and held it out underneath his path, in hopes that he

would grab hold and allow me to help him back to the easier path. nope. instead, he froze. he was so paralyzed by fear that not only did he not recognize that i was trying to help but he couldn't even trust that what he saw was my effort to do just that. i waited. i was patient. i even nudged. nevertheless, he was so frozen that for a minute i thought maybe he had died.

by this time, i was completely involved and felt like this little friend of mine was teaching me a very valuable lesson that i was grateful to be learning. i finally picked him up. moved him a few inches away from me, so he wouldn't feel so "surrounded" and left him to his devices.

i chose not to move him to the stone path again, because i guess i felt like even if i had done so, he couldn't recognize it for what it was and wouldn't choose to stay on it, inevitably he would leave it again and be back in the same predicament. so i watched him for as long as i could see him. watched him make the same mistakes and fall in the same way, over and over again. it was sad. it was hard to see him waste so much energy righting himself rather than progressing forward.

i saw a lot of myself in bug. choosing to stay on the sand when the clearer choice is the rock. not recognizing when God is trying to help or intervene, being paralyzed by fear. fear of the unknown, fear of making the wrong choice. fear that i don't recognize well enough the spirit so that i can discern between the answers that i do recieve.

so many times i have been guided to the rock and the path is ALWAYS easier, progress is always swifter and my burden is lighter. so why, if i know all of that, do i still choose the sand???

yet, i am so grateful for each breath granted and one more day to live to do it better. Heavenly Father isn't going to pick us up and put us on the rock... that would interfer with our agency. but He can and will do all He can to guide and direct and cheer us on and help us each step of the way.

3 Nephi 14:24-27

GETTING STONED ON THE MYSTIC RIVER



you will never believe what just happened to mary and me!!!

let me set the stage for you first. it's a hot sunday afternoon and after watching america's longest movie and sitting in the stale, humid air for too long i decide enough is enough and i have to get out of the house. so i grab mary and my keys and we head out for a leisurely stroll. mary mentions that she knows this really great trail that goes along the mystic river and so we head over to arlington in my ugly car.

we find parking and get out and take a deep breath in. it was beautiful. I LOVE LIVING IN NEW ENGLAND!!! anyway, we start our journey and head down the little path that is running parallel to the river and we're talking about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. we come to a fork in the trail and i decide that we should continue to our right, because it's more scenic and closer to the river. all is well in our world and it couldn't be more beautiful.

so the trail is snaking us along through a rather thick wood and just ahead i hear voices, which isn't surprising, we aren't the only ones enjoying the great outdoors. we turn a corner and see a group of about 8-10 kids standing around talking and decide to follow a second trail that has us walking away from the kids. so far, not such a big deal, right? okay, we continue walking along and conversing about random things when all of a sudden a rock thuds down, just inches from mary's foot. taking a second look but not thinking too much of it, we continue on. then, in this very surreal moment another rock is flying through the trees, smacks into a tree branch and finds it way just past my head, and said tree branch grazes my shoulder.

at this point, it clicks. okay, this isn't a game. these kids are truly throwing rocks at us. wait... did i say that right? yes. ROCKS... being thrown at us... not a game...hmmm.

so very calmly and rather quietly, mary and i continue down the path and begin to laugh at this nonsensical experience and i can hear the kids yelling something at us that is inaudible. it takes us a moment to truly take in what we had just experienced, but the afternoon is in no way ruined and we finally reach the end of the trail and begin our journey back. this time, deciding that rather than retrace ALL of our steps, we'll forego that part of the trail and take the alternate route. good idea guys!

we turn a corner and for 2.5 seconds i was paralyzed with fear as i see all kids walking in our direction about 15 yards away from us. mary calmly reassures me that everything is going to be okay and without a glance we continue on our path. then, as if i'm in a movie i hear the kids scream out... "this place isn't for white people." WHAT? did i hear that right? it was so weird... to be that close to blatant racism. true, they were kids and as mary put it, they were just looking for a reaction or attention... but still.

my honest reaction was to go over to them and make friends with them and teach tolerance and respect... but then... i'm not michelle pfeiffer and this was no "dangerous minds" moment.

just totally weird, wouldn't you say?

LIMITED PALATE



so there i am in the food court in the middle of government center in downtown boston and i'm shoveling orange chicken and pork fried rice down my throat like a guy stranded in the desert that just found a lake... hey leave me alone, i was hungry. anyway, as i'm double-fisting each bite, i think to myself that it was only 10 years ago (yes, back in high school) that i wouldn't even touch chinese food. yes, you heard that right... wouldn't go near the stuff. sure i ate rice at meals and sometimes my mom made a homemade stir-fry that i loved... but i would rather die than be forced to eat chinese food. "well isn't that strange," you say to yourself... but not so strange if you realize the very limited palate by which i was raised.

WAIT A MINUTE: before i go any further, i need to clarify that this is no way a criticism of my mother... got it???

let me explain. 5 screaming kids at home, 1 hungry husband, 2 weeks worth of shopping to stretch before the next paycheck, and 8 zillion years of being a mother and cooking meals every single day of your life... and a partridge in a pear tree! yup... you are looking at my mom's reality. let's just say, when you are dealing with all of that, it's hard to keep it fresh! why not just cook the same 12 things and rotate them around so that no one will catch on to your blatantly monotonous menu. and i say this with no sarcasm because i can't promise myself that i am not going to be my mother in another 5-10 years.

so let me give you a quick glimpse at a typical week's worth of dinner:

MON- fried chicken (mom's was great), with potato salad and corn on the cob- DELISH
TUES- spaghetti or hamburger helper (dad couldn't eat tomato based food and worked on tues nights)
WED- tuna casserole
THURS- baked chicken with backed potato and green beans
FRI- dad would either take us all out to eat or it was left-overs
SAT- mom and dad's date night... pizza!
SUN- pot roast... YES!

every once in a while there was a splash of something different, like pork chops or fish of some sort. or if ever mom wasn't home to do dinner... dad would cook up steaks! but pretty much that was it for my food experience.

NOW, lest you are all thinking that this was only due to my upbringing... let me go a little deeper and a little more into the psyche of peggy, if you don't mind. you see, peggy is a strange girl and not only am i a texture eater (meaning oatmeal and cream of wheat or split pea soup... also shrimp or lobster which is too boingy-- YUCK) but somewhere along the way, i developed some rather strange ideas about certain foods and was very stubborn and wouldn't try them... even if it meant i starved.

i.e.-

bagels- once when i was young, my mother gave me a sourdough bagel and because it was so sour... i hated it and thought that that is what all bagels were like (by the way i love sourdough now)

chinese food- i remember as a child going to a local chinese place and someone ordered sweet and sour chicken... didn't like it and thought that that is what all chinese food was like (oh yeah... love the stuff now)

just to name a few.

then there was the tragic experience with the burrito. when i was 19 i was working as a nanny for a family in ut. one night, they went out to dinner and i stayed late to babysit. they went to get me dinner and said there were these great burritos at this mexican place down the street and pete would go out and grab something for me and shelby (the baby i was sitting). anyway, pete turns to me and asks "so what do you want in your burrito?"

now, i am kind of embarrassed to admit this, but i had only ever gotten mexican food from taco bell and thought that all burritos were made up of refried beans and cheese. so that's what i asked for. after giving me a look that said i needed to be committed, he asked if i was sure i didn't want anything else in it. i was confused and rather than looking even more stupid i said YES with conviction. little did i know. so about 20 minutes later i am standing in their kitchen and i bite into a very sad pinto bean and cheese burrito. i was sorely disappointed.

later, after confessing my blunder to lori (pete's wife) she promptly marched me down to the mexican place and made me order a "loaded" burrito... and not surprisingly, I LOVED IT!

thus began my journey of opening many palated doors. i now enjoy an array of restaurants and i have come to LOVE indian, brazilian, haitian, chinese, real mexican... the possibilities are limitless. granted, i still have my weird "texture" hang-ups, but i am happy to report that i stick by my new rule of at least trying one bite... rarely do i hate what i've tried and that makes me feel like a big girl!!!