EDIT AND DELETE~


sometimes, when i have nothing better to do (ha- when is that???) i read past entries... and i am so appalled by my editorial mistakes that i am inches away from spending the next year just sitting at my desk correcting them!

i can't believe how many times i find things like the word YOUR mistakenly used for YOU ARE... or a run-on sentence that rivals a jack gantos novel! it's sick i tell you!

although i never professed to be a writer-- story-teller maybe-- skilled writer, not even close! but that doesn't mean that i don't cringe every time i see a big mama of a mistake out there for all to see-- i still have a little pride that doesn't want people to think i am that in need of an english 101 class. meh- maybe i am and i'm just delusional!

well it's okay their seems to be the write way to do thing's and a wrong way- its all a matter of how won looks at it-- write???

i think i just need to hire a personal editor for future posts-- anyone game for the job?

mmm... PANCAKES!

this morning on my way to work i craved pancakes something fierce! i even started salivating as i imagined myself showing up to work with an electric griddle, a spatula, a box of pancake mix and syrup. i am so doing that one day!

then, of course because this is how my brain works, i started filtering through the words that had come up-- thinking:

pancake mix-- yeah that one i bought the other day is really good. i should have pancakes for dinner tonight

syrup-- oh but don't forget to stop at the store and get more mrs. butterworth... oh and maybe some turkey sausage links too... YES!

griddle- oh it's too bad that i don't have a griddle. that reminds me of a story (doesn't everything remind me of a story??) yeah COPPERTON PARK!

do i have to coolest parents or what-- check this out:

every so often, usually on a really early saturday morning in the summer, my parents would pack us in the car with loads of food and drive 20 minutes up bingham canyon to copperton park (located on the west side of utah valley).

situated in the heart of the town was copperton park, with fantastic swings, huge tires to climb on and little fake pyramid types things that had little tunnels in them. we LOVED this park!

so we'd all pile out of the car with our bags of food, dump them on the chosen picnic table and race each other to the playground. and while we were off chasing each other down the slide or singing camp songs at the top of our lungs on the swings, my parents would cook up the BEST breakfast EVER!

cooked on the gas-lit griddle were pancakes, sausage, bacon and eggs. then we also had cut fruit and fresh orange juice. man- i pay good money to have a breakfast like that these days-- but this... this was just a typical saturday morning in our family!

i can still feel the cold morning air on my legs in shorts- i can still hear roger yelling at me to come check out something weird he found in one of the tunnels or my dad and that whistle of his to tell us that breakfast was ready. and nothing tastes quite as good when you are eating it on a splintery picnic table on paper goods surrounded by the best family ever!

ahh the memories. now i've made my cravings unbearable... dinner tonight is going to ROCK my world!

THE TALE OF MY SCALE

i've gained weight.

no this isn't some lame girly attempt at being told "NO WAY- you're so skinny!"

it's just the reality of my world right now. i got on a scale a week ago- for the first time in probably 5 months and wa-ho there tiger... looks a tiny bit different than the last time i checked... and not in a good way! oops.

but rather than boo-hoo in the corner and wish things were different, i've decided to own up to my horrible eating habits, take responsibility for the fact that i haven't been exercising as much as i should... and use my blog as a way to have a little accountability!

so how to make the change???

STEP 1: own up to your crap!
i noticed that when i was working on peter pan that i had THE WORST eating habits known to man- mainly i developed the habit of eating at my desk-- all the time. i always had some form of food item open in front of me and with all the stress i was under i was shoving it in as fast as i could... NOT OKAY.

i also noticed that i wasn't leaving my desk for literally hours at a time. i would begin a project and continue working on it until it was done... by that time, my joints were stiff and my bladder was full to capacity. also, NOT OKAY.

and to top it off- i was working so many hours i had ZERO energy or brain matter left for the thought of exercise. you can call it an excuse if you want- but honestly i just dropped dead every night after work. again, NOT OKAY.

so all these behaviors + 4 months of doing it = weight gain. obviously.

however, knowing this is really half of my battle... cause now i can see how to correct it.


STEP 2- change
a) eat only at meal times and allow myself 1 afternoon snack a day
b) get up and move around while at work. eat lunch in green room. get outside at least one time a day
c) cardio 2 times a week- toning 2 times

i've heard people talk about lacking will-power... i guess that could be true... but for me it's more about what motivates me rather than will-power. and the fact that my jeans aren't fitting they way they used to, coupled with summer is on it's way... means i am highly motivated to make these changes... like... ummm... now!


STEP 3: follow-through
this is the hardest part for me. sure i am motivated today... i probably will be motivated through the next two weeks. but then what? will i still be plugging along, doing pilate's and not eating all the time? i don't know. exercise is probably the hardest part for me... not that i don't love to exercise- it's making the time to do it! okay and sometimes- truthfully- i'm just not in the mood and would rather watch a movie snuggled up in my bed.

so the biggest part of my goal is to keep in the game... even weeks from now. so let's check in with each other from time to time, okay?

my goal is to lose the 10 superfluous pounds that i gained this past winter by the time i go to visit my parents in may... i can totally do that!!!

8 1/2 weeks and counting!

I JUST CAN'T COMMIT!


what message am i sending when i continue to change my mind on what my blog looks like?

the problem is that i get tired of the same old colors. sometimes i'm not even sure i was into the template when i picked it. then i look at other templates and think i like them better. then when i have made the switch... boom... i'm tired of the change already.

this creates a lot of problems in my world.
it creates extra work- now i have to re-add all of my links and such.

ummm... please don't be surprised if you see more changes on here... this is hard for me.

KIDS SAY THE MOST INAPPROPRIATE THINGS:


i'm so sorry for the subject matter of this blog-- but the story is just too too good to not blog about it!

for those that don't know, i teach children's theater at a family theater here in beantown. i love what i do... sometimes (said with a smile of course). for those that also don't know, i LOVE being around boys... there is just a different energy about the way they play and talk and interact... when i have kids, i want a whole slew of boys {ostentatious put me down! for you mary}

anyway, this particular week of school vacation week camp has been so much fun. we have 13 kids in the class and 6 of them are boys who have grown up together and gone to the same school together since pre-k. they also happen to be good friends with russell- the love of my life... so most of them i have met before when they have come over to have play-dates with russ.

i find that most of these boys and i get along really well and what makes it even more comical is that even though they are of the male gender, they are just as cuddly and in need of physical attention as they girls... and it's so funny. at any given point in my day, if i am sitting on the floor, i have about 3 boys climbing on me, sitting on my lap or spontaneously hitting me... what can i say- they love me!

now i don't mean to have favorites, but i must admit that there seems to be certain kids that just make me smile more... you just can't help it! mr zach just happens to be one of the favored. part of what i love about zach is his adorable lateral lisp [you know how you say rice is nice and the "ce" sounds more like they are trying to spit out of the side of their mouth]... mixed with his mischievous little smile- the kids has me wrapped around his finger.

yesterday, we were working on designing a back drop. i had the kids sitting with me in a circle and each was drawing a picture of what they thought our backdrops should look like. as always, some kids finished more quickly than others... zach chose to use his free time wisely by crawling all over me like a jungle gym. at one point he came up behind me and put his arms around my neck and put his face next to mine. instinctively i bent down so he felt like he was going to fall over. he giggled and as i was letting his feet come back to the ground he said

[don't forget to picture this with his lateral lisp]

"peggy i can see your boobs"

"uh oh" i said causally while i quickly glanced to see if my cleavage wasn't going out of control... it wasn't... he just happened to have a good angle.

"peggy you have really big boobs"

laughing to myself: "oh okay zach, that's enough" trying to maintain the causal i'm not shocked sound in my voice.

"no peggy- they are like the biggest boobs in the whole world!"

now struggling to not laugh out loud: "ZACH... you can't say things like that- it's not nice to say things like that."

"okay."


later he tried to grab at my chest... ZACH!!! wich i had to very nonchalantly tell him that that was my body and he needed to be respectful of it. then he stopped.

it starts early doesn't it??? sheesh.

so later, as i was telling this story to a friend of mine here at the theater, she mentioned that she figured i could include that as a selling point for my future classes... something like this

PEGGY: teacher extrodinare
you'll laugh, you'll create, you'll learn to become other creatures

"she's the funnest teacher i ever had!"
- sally sweety

"she's got the biggest boobs in all the world"
- zach bladiblohbloh

what do you think?

BUSY-NESS + LAZY-NESS BEGETS A MESSY ROOM


i just walked through the door from a very long very eventful day, open my bedroom door and WHAMO- the mess of my room blinds me with brute force. clothes strewn about from the last week's race to get dressed and out the door, papers that i rifled through and didn't put back are still on my bed, two mostly empty cans of diet coke are on my night stand... and on and on goes the list... right now i'm a messy slobby mess.

yet here i sit, blogging instead of cleaning. and i have no intention of doing anything differently. what is that? why am i so lazy? i'm absolutely embarrassed when people see my room in this condition- but apparently not enough to do anything about it... sad. and the fact that i cleaned my room on monday makes the fact that it looks hideous in here just a few short days later- a little more pathetic.

but i promise you, i've been non-stop on the go for this entire week- spending an average of 9.72 hours at home (with the majority of hours being in sleep mode). by the time i get home the thought of cleaning my room is as appealing as kissing john mccain on the mouth. {where did i get that analogy???- oh well- i'm keeping it in} i get home and i just want to crawl into bed and not think about doing any more things. i want to veg-out... to sit and be... anything but DOING... no doing... just existing... is that so wrong?

who am i trying to convince anyway? you or me? your right... you don't care if i have a messy room and the majority of you wouldn't even ever see my room... so you didn't ask about its current state of cleanliness.

okay gotta go find a few other ways of being lazy before not cleaning my room.

THE BIRDS

i saw alfred hitchcock's movie the birds when i was in high school and i scoffed- it was really dumb- birds....ooooooo scaaarrrryyyyy. as if!

never in my life would i have thought that scoffing at such a thing would come to bite me in the butt. but it did.

saturday morning, i was coming home on the train from teaching my "tiny dancers" class. i got off at the government center stop and promptly walked to the dunkin donuts kiosk that's located in the center of the train station. grabbed myself a hot cocoa and a donut and happily made my way outside.

as i made my way down the many steps from government center toward the haymarket i enjoyed the somewhat warm air and my luscious boston creme donut. i turned to see that there were a few seagulls that spied my food and came to beg for a bite- i did not oblige and continued on my journey.

the gathering of birds seemed to increase with each step i took and i have to admit it did start to make me a little nervous. at one point i abruptly ran at a group of them, in hopes that they would get more nervous than myself and run away... nope.

it wasn't until i heard the swooshing of wings near my head that i got panicky... and whereas i should have just ignored them and continued on my way, i hated the idea of getting pooped on. after a long moment of fighting the urge to look, i finally looked around and was terrified to see that more than 30 birds surrounded me... some waddling along side me, some hovering over my head. my step quickened... as did my heart rate... and the pace at which i ate my donut. this was not okay.

just then, i felt the light brush of air close to my face, peered to the right to see a seagull no more than an inch from my face... I FREAKED!

at just this moment i let out a scream of fear, turned and chucked the remainder of my donut as far behind me as i possibly could and quickened my step. i looked up, and the 3 people that were walking ahead of me had turned around to see what i was freaking out about...

the only thing i could do was smile nervously and say "birds" as i pointed my thumb behind me... put my head down and continued walking... then reminiscing... then laughing...

OH MY GOSH- i was just bullied out of a donut by mean and horrible boston city birds. i can't believe that just happened... and i am totally miffed that i don't have my donut anymore... and i just totally embarrassed myself in front of total strangers acting like tippi hedren in the birds.

for the record, it really is as scary as it looks in the movie.

STUPID SEAGULLS... I WANT MY DONUT BACK!

OH MY GOSH


i don't watch american idol. but when i heard about this 17 year old kid from utah that was making a splash, i thought i would look him up.

all i can say, is that i am jealous of this kids voice... AMAZING. if you haven't already, take a look:

TO MOM.... (you put a lot of thought into that one)


most of you won't get my title... but my mom will. i know it's not even close to mother's day- but i don't need no stinkin' day to celebrate my mom. besides, she's been on my mind lately.

{crap i'm already starting to cry}

if you try to sum up my mom in a few words, it would almost be too hard. but i'm going to try anyway.

she's very sweet- yet sometimes deviant (in a good way)
she's a fantastic listener- yet sometimes has the most profound advice
she is super creative- yet a total perfectionist
she's had tremendous trials in her life- yet laughs through it all
she likes to work with her hands and get dirty- yet totally girly
she loves looking for deals- yet makes anything she buys look amazing
she has an amazing testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ- yet shares it in a very quiet and powerful way.

yeah- and so much more- but i want to move on.

my mom fostered our imagination in so many ways- mostly just by the way she lived her life. she was always thinking creatively- always finding the next great story or adventure.

because we had 5 kids, 1 really heavy wheelchair and 1 not so strong mom... we were often stuck with a station wagon as our means of transportation. even as a kid i thought station wagons were ugly... they just are. and did we ever have two very ugly station wagons... one was wood panelled and the other was maroon.

i have this amazing memory of being in the maroon car with my mom on a hot summer's day. we were driving home from a doctor's appointment she was saving on gas and didn't run the air conditioner... so she rolled down all the windows-- including the back one and as the wind whipped through our hair and we couldn't hear the music from the radio, she threw her hand out the window and exclaimed that we were in her shiny red convertible miata (her dream car). just the way she said it, i believed it. it didn't matter that the paint was fading or that the carpet had dirt embedded in it from the many dirty shoes climbing in and out- for that moment, i too believed that we were in my mom's dream car and that we were two of the prettiest and coolest chicks driving down the street. these days- now that i don't drive my car, i often think back to that moment and what a fun memory that it was. i would give anything to be in that station wagon with my mom again.

++

as an adult, i can appreciate the need for quiet time. when you are around kids, times for thinking and quiet are few and far between. my mom, however, found her quiet time in the funniest way.

i am sure you are all familiar with a little outdoor tool known as the WEED-WACKER. well my mother was our very own human weed-wacker. if ever we needed to find my mom and she wasn't in the kitchen, her room and the car was still in the garage, the next most obvious place was to check the perimeter of the yard. inevitably, we would find her, kneeling over the edge of the lawn with her trusty pair of orange kitchen scissors, trimming away at the unkempt grass.

it was there that she had a chance to soak up the sun, keep the yard that she and my dad spent hours on looking nice and tidy-- but most of all, time to herself and to her thoughts. i'm sure she put up with a little friendly ridicule from the neighbors, advising her to make my dad buy her a weedwacker... but we had one... she just didn't want to use it.

i remember there were a few times that i would find my own pair of scissors and join her. those moments were precious to me as i remember having that one on one time with my mom. it was time to talk about the boys i liked or the troubles at school. by the end of it, my hand was cramped and my shorts were stained green the in bum... but i had had good quality time with this amazing lady. looking back i wish i had joined her more often.

this post is already long. i could go on about her. there are plenty of great memories and stories to share. maybe on mother's day.

but really i wish you could all know my great mom. for those who have had a chance to meet her- you already know what i am talking about. she's just so stinkin' cute.

mommy- i miss you. and i love you. and i am grateful that you passed on some of your amazingness to me...

and i know you are crying right now- and i am laughing just picturing it.