Keeping teens out of trouble

I've figured it out. It's banana cookies.

I don't have very much motherhood experience yet, but it wasn't very long ago that I was a teenager myself. I was a pretty good kid. I cared a lot about making my parents proud. And I only snuck out once.

(Since my parents are going to read this... Mom and Dad, that thing about sneaking out once was just a joke. Nicole and I never snuck out of her house and we absolutely did not let Robyn's car roll down the hill before we started it so their parents wouldn't hear.)

During my later high school years I ran with a pretty tame crowd. The boys did rent an R-rated movie once (and I made them take me home, thank you very much), but that was about as edgy as we got. We had a lot of crazy, goofy fun (taking any opportunity imaginable to dress up in our tackiest thrift store ensembles, etc.), but we were a pretty well-behaved bunch.

And I think it's because of the banana cookies.

Jodi's mom made these delicious frosted chocolate chip banana cookies, and they were always available. Sister Traveller would make several batches at a time and keep them in the fridge in a big plastic container, stacked with wax paper. There was never a day without banana cookies at that house, and it was one of the reasons we spent so much time there.

Jodi's house was usually the main gathering location for our group of friends. And it's not because her parents let us get away with anything. It's because of the banana cookies. We watched movies, we planned out our student government campaigns, we did algebra homework and we ate banana cookies. And when the boys weren't there, we talked about boys. And Jodi's mom was audience to all of it. She deserved to be a part of everything because she kept us all full of banana cookies.

So if you want to keep your kids and their friends on the straight and narrow, follow these simple instructions:

Ingredients:
2.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp. bk.pwd.
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp. bk.soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
Mix and set aside

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup mashed banana (aprox. 2.5 bananas)
1 pkg. choc. chips

Mix butter and sugar 'til fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Alternate dry ingredients and mashed banana. Stir in choc. chips. 350, 10 mins. (I had to bake mine longer.)

Frosting:
2 tb. butter
1/4 cup mashed banana (aprox. 1/2 banana)
2 cups pwd. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Whip until smooth. Frost cooled cookies.

Things that could have gone better

Since Sue announced that she was going to do "Very Funny Friday," I wanted to participate (Even though Sue doesn't know who I am).

I wondered how I could be sure I was "very funny." But THEN!

Wonder Woman posted about a very embarrasing date story, and that made me think, "Hey! I've made a fool of myself LOTS of times!"

Story #1 (inspired by Wonder Woman's story): I was dating a boy in college. After we said goodnight after a date, I was walking backwards as I smiled, waved, batted my eyes, and fell down the stairs backwards. That could have gone better.

Story #2: This happened just two nights ago. I attended a recipe group which was held at a home in a very nice neighborhood. As I was outside gathering all the things I needed to make the drink, another car pulled up. I didn't recognize the woman who got out of the car, but I'm new to the ward so that was no surprise. She asked me if I needed help, and I told her, "Nope! I just need to lock up the car because we are in a pretty scary neighborhood." I sensed she didn't know I was joking. When we both walked inside, she introduced herself as the host's mother, and I realized that I just told her that her daughter lives in a very scary part of town. That could have gone better.

(Note to self: Don't try to be funny if they don't know you. People don't always get it, and then they think you're weird. Like the nurse at the doctor's office last week. As she was trying to lace up an ankle brace that wasn't going to fit because your leg is too thick you said, "It's the same reason I can't wear tall sexy boots." She didn't care about that.)

Story #3: My mother-in-law told me she loves my blog but wondered why I chose such a demeaning name for it ("Good Frau"). I told her it's because that is what her son calls me all the time. That could have gone better.

That will have to do for now. I like to keep things short around here, AND I have to write a talk for Sunday. And the sooner I get that done, the sooner I give myself permission to go to Costco and to go shopping for some sexy jeans.

My magic red coat

I am in love with my new red coat. After a tireless search, I finally found the perfect coat. And did I mention it's red? I love it.

The day after I bought it, I couldn't wait to leave the house, just so I could wear my coat. Dave asked me if I had planned my clothes around my coat. Of course I had. He told me he thought so.

So while I was all gussied up, he took a bunch of goofy pictures of me. Dave is an excellent photographer, but I'm afraid the coat is not actually magic, and it didn't actually make me look 40 pounds thinner. So you don't get to see those ones.

Instead, I took matters into my own hands (really... I had the camera in my own hands), and I took a few glamour shots of myself. You can see one of those.

You're welcome. Oh, and look. My new red coat makes me irresistible.

Eager

That's me. Eager.

I'm in a new town and a new ward, and I've moved around a lot since I got married almost 8 years ago. It's been hard for me to adjust to all this moving.

Now that we're in a place we plan to stay indefinitely, I've decided I'm going to throw myself into whatever I can. I am eager to make friends. I'm eager to make casseroles. I'm eager to bring a bag of chips to your humanitarian effort. I'm eager to stalk my neighbors' blogs (and even leave comments!) to get to know some girls around here. I'm eager to take my son to a Mom & Tot tumbling class. I'm eager to stop you at the dollar store and introduce myself because I recognize you from church.

So if I seem a little too eager, well, I am. But I'm really glad to be where I am, and I'm excited to finally settle down.

Maybe they should re-think this one.

Last week, my husband stumbled upon possibly the worst invention in the history of mankind.

Let me tell you the story.

My dear, smart, hard-working husband was in a meeting at work. While someone else was speaking, my husband was fiddling with a dry-erase marker, pushing the cap on and off. He noticed the marker had an appealing apple scent, so he gave it a couple good whiffs.

This is the point when his participation decreased significantly, because he was high.

I couldn't stop laughing when he told me the story, picturing my young professional husband in a corner sniffing markers. He said it wasn't quite like that and that I have nothing to be embarrased about.

He said he felt sick all day and he was still a little light-headed when he came home.

So why would someone think this is a good idea? I have lots of good ideas. In fact, I am going to be a millionare someday with one of my good ideas... wait and see! My ideas are GOOD for you and won't even get you fired!

His biggest fan

If you know me or if you ever read my other blog (the one that's private now), you know that during the last season of American Idol, I was a huge fan of David Archuleta. As in... chasing him down with a bunch of 12-year-olds outside his high school while I was carrying a 1-year-old. I am not proud of that. Or am I?

(This was obviously before I attended the SLC auditions and realized the whole thing is a big SCAM! No, just kidding..... but why did they let me sing so long? WHY?!)

Anyway.

Apparently I'm not as big a fan as my little brother (a 26-year-old father of 1.5), who gets David Archuleta fan updates texted to his phone frequently. He said it was by accident that he signed up for the updates.

Sure it was. I also accidentally voted for him like, a ka-trillion times after the finale.

I spent my extra second...

Happy New Year!

I read a story on KSL.com tonight (still haven't learned my lesson) about how the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service decided to add one second to the end of 2008, meaning that the last minute of 2008 was actually 61 seconds long. It's to adjust the time to the earth's slowing rotation, apparently.

I did some math, and I decided it would be more efficient to add a whole minute every 8,640 years.

Now, how do I get on that committee?

Excellent talk on creativity/education

My friend Annie posted this on her blog. Everything he says rings true to me and I think he presents very valuable ideas. It's about 20 minutes long and worth the time.

But before I post it, I've always thought I would love to be involved with my kids in some kind of charter school or something that only taught the creative and active parts of education, and especially the parts that benefit from a group. I would love to homeschool my kids in math, science, languages, social studies, etc., and then take them to school for choir, orchestra, band, football, drama, etc. And if there were enough kids involved, then maybe this school's sports teams could play against the other area schools.

I don't know enough about how the system works to know if it's a feasible idea, especially within the timeframe it would benefit my kid(s). But I think it would be so wonderful. Thoughts?

Okay... watch this! Especially if you're interested in children's potential. :)

The way the West Side does it

Here in Utah, there seems to be an attitude that living east of I-15 is most acceptable. The closer you are to the mountains, the higher your actual personal worth. The west is crime-ridden and downtrodden while the east is rich and cultured.

(Speaking of such attitudes, it seems like there are a lot them here in Utah. Bad attitudes from both sides of the east/west issue, the Mormon/not-Mormon issue, the Ogden issue, etc. But I think I would be blissfully unaware of all of these attitudes if I would just stay off the stupid KSL message boards. Or if my husband would stop talking to his co-worker, Adam*.)

But as much as we like to dismiss such attitudes, we couldn't deny that there was something fishy happening on the west side when we witnessed the following:

One night as we were house hunting, we were kinda out in the country when we saw two cars pull over to the side of the road. Far from curious eyes (or so they thought) the drivers stepped out of their cars. Both well-kept women. Probably Mormons. One carried a pizza box while the other carried a Krispy Kreme box. They met in the middle, quickly made the swap with little or no words, and both left the scene as quickly as they had come.

To the unsuspecting witness, it looked as though they traded pizza for doughnuts. But why would they meet that way just to exchange delicious junk food? WHY?!

I have some theories.

Perhaps the pizza box was filled with cash and the doughnut box carried black market Young Women medallions. I could use one of those.

Perhaps they were swapping secret family recipes. You know... the ones that are really supposed to stay secret.

Maybe one of them is running an illegal coupon-clipping ring.

Whatever it was, I bet they got away with it.

We did end up buying a house on the west side. So far we feel completely safe and happy in our surroundings. But we are keeping our eyes wide open, and you can bet we won't be quiet about it next time we see a suspicious swap. We don't want that kind of thing in our neighborhood.

*Name changed for my husband's protection.

Perfect Christmas

I have been thinking a lot lately about how great Christmas was as a kid.

I think my parents handled Christmas just right. We always had a beautiful Christmas tree and a lovely Nativity set on the piano. We'd had that set as long as I could remember and it was a beautiful reminder of why we were celebrating. I always looked forward to unpacking it and setting it up just the way it had been set up the year before and the year before that.

But what I'm really thankful for now is that I never learned from my parents that Christmas was "the busiest time of the year." I'm sure that behind the scenes there was some stress about getting everything together for four kids every year, but as far as we could tell, Christmas was always a peaceful, happy time.

My parents didn't send Christmas cards every year. We didn't always make gingerbread houses. But we DID always use our special Christmas placemats! Last year my little brother dug those placemats out. I think we had kinda forgotten about them (but not my brother, because he remembers EVERYthing). But as soon as they were out, we were so excited! We put each one where it went when we were kids. Each of us (including my parents) had our own Christmas placemat. Mine was the gingerbread house. My sister's was the teddy bear. My older brother had the candy canes and my younger brother had Santa Claus. My mom's placemat was a Christmas wreath and my dad's was toy soldiers. Of course! The memories of how excited we were to use the special placemats came rushing back.

But it was such a simple joy. It didn't take a lot of money or preparation. It was just a simple tradition that we loved.

My family has some other special Christmas traditions. Every year we play Christmas carols on the homemade chimes. It started at my grandparents' house, and now my parents have carried on the tradition and I even have my own set of chimes now. Along with this tradition is the tradition for the older kids to complain that we have to play the chimes (even though I know they love it). Those older kids are now in their late 20s and 30s. They still complain. And then they still sit down with a chime and a butterknife and play their part at Grandma's house.

And who could forget about Christmas pajamas?

One very special and simple tradition we have is singing our favorite Christmas songs together on Christmas Eve. Sometimes with the piano, sometimes without. It's wonderful either way. We take out the hymnbook and sing through our favorite songs about Christ's birth. Christmas doesn't get better than this.

My parents didn't throw or even attend fancy Christmas parties. Sometimes we had Christmas lights on the house, and sometimes we didn't.

But by not worrying too much about making everything perfect, that's exactly what they did. Christmas was a special, peaceful time. Perfect.