Trick Or Treat!!

While I am at a dance competition in Harrisburg this weekend, Eric will be taking the kids trick or treating with our friends and neighbors, the Clearys. Here are a few pics from years past...(this is also a reminder to Eric to take a group photo this year while I'm gone)

If You Don't Behave I'll Trade You In For A Plastic Cup

Eric watched his first episode of A&E's Hoarders with me the other day. He was absolutely horrified. If you've never seen the show, you've got to watch at least one episode. It will blow your mind. You know, lots of people go through a "messy" stage in their life, I certainly had a long one (my husband would say I'm still in it, but he has no idea...). Depression can certainly cause someone to stop cleaning for awhile. And some people can live with more clutter than others, but these hoarders go above and beyond anything you've ever seen.

We watched an episode where a couple had lost their two young children because of the woman's hoarding. A neighbor had taken pictures of the interior of the house, and CPS came and removed the children, placing them in the grandparents' home until the house was cleaned. When the "hoarding interventionist" and the cleaning crew came to help this woman, it was unreal how difficult it was for her to throw things away. She freaked out when some of the cleaning crew threw some bags of trash away into the dumpster without her approval, and jumped into the back of the truck and started digging through the bags. She pulled out a used plastic slurpee cup, and held it in her hands as if it were the family jewels, trying to decide if she could part with it. After all, she "might need it in the future".



Eric was yelling at the screen at this point. "Look lady, do you want an old plastic cup, or YOUR DAUGHTER?? How is this hard???" Meanwhile I just wanted to jump through the screen and punch this woman in the face. Yes, I realize that hoarding is a mental disorder. But when someone is trying to decide between an old popsicle stick and their child, it's a little maddening...

(And oh yes, she ended up choosing the slurpee cup. She just couldn't throw it away. It went into the KEEP pile.)


After the show was over, Eric said, "I get upset when I see a little ink on the couch...can you imagine if I lived with a hoarder? Instead of yelling "Why is there ink on the couch!!!!!",I'd be yelling, "Why is there an old tractor trailer on the couch!!!??""

In the future, when he yells about ink on the couch, I'm going to remind Eric that slurpee cups don't ever draw on furniture. These hoarders might be on to something....

The Old Man's Story

Finally! Here it is folks, Bob Lewis's testimony, given at Tri-County Bible Church on September 19th, 2009. (Excuse all the peripheral noise in the beginning, I had forgotten to set up the camera on the tripod beforehand)

Bob Lewis Testimony from Suzanne Mosley on Vimeo.

(Keep an eye out for Jan's testimony, coming soon to a blog near you.)

It's A Bird, It's A Plane.......No, It's PAM GIRL!!!!

The following is a true story:



While my best friend Melissa was paying for her groceries the other day, she heard a child screaming. She looked around, and noticed a crowd of store employees around the DVD rental machine.


She decided to walk over and investigate, because this unseen child was screaming as if he/she were dying. When she got through the crowd, she saw a scared little boy, about 4 or 5 years old, with 4 of his fingers stuck in the DVD return slot. He couldn't pull them out, and his fingers were swollen and bleeding from trying. The mother said that the boy had asked if he could return their DVD, and while he was putting the DVD into the slot his fingers got stuck. She screamed for a store employee, and the employee called the paramedics, who were on their way.

Melissa was shocked because, first of all, the mother was a complete useless wreck. She was standing up with all the store employees, blubbering and wailing about her poor son, while her poor son was scared out of his mind because a machine was eating his fingers. Melissa was also shocked because no one else was doing anything either. The employees were just standing around talking and waiting for the paramedics. No one was paying any attention to the little boy.

In the 30 seconds that it took Melissa to assess the situation, one of the managers had a semi-coherent thought and ran to get some Karo syrup. He came back with it and tried to use it to free the boy's fingers, but as you can see from the above pic, a DVD rental machine slot goes IN, not DOWN. So obviously the Karo wasn't getting into where the boy's fingers were, yet this manager kept pouring the Karo all over the boy's hand, just watching it drip down and puddle onto the floor. Melissa was watching in complete irritation at this grocery store manager's ignorance of the laws of gravity, wanting to grab the Karo syrup and pour it down the back of the guy's pants, when......suddenly......



....the force of Melissa's shock and irritation at these complete fools caused a chemical reaction within her, sort of like how anger caused a chemical reaction within the Incredible Hulk, and she immediately turned into......Pam Girl! (In my imagination, she spun around three times and, in a swirling cloud, turned into a 7 foot tall Glamazon with shiny red boots and a cape, high breasts and a 15 inch waist, and a pissed-off glint in her eye......but maybe that's just me)

She turned around and ran to her shopping cart, searched through her bags, and grabbed the can of Olive Oil Pam that she'd just bought.

Pam Girl ran over to the crowd of people, and inserted herself into the situation. She knelt down to the little boy's side, looked him right in the eye and said, "Hi! I want to try this spray to help get your fingers out. Would that be okay?". The little boy whimpered a yes, and Pam Girl went to work. She started spraying into the slot, making sure lots of Pam got in between the boy's stuck fingers. After 10 seconds of spraying, the boy's fingers were freed!

The useless mother started hugging the store employees, and the store employees started high- fiving each other. Again, no one acknowledged the boy. So Melissa hugged him and told him how brave he'd been. She handed him the can of Pam and told him he could keep it, and told him to make sure to tell all his friends the cool story about how a machine had tried to eat his fingers, but a can of Pam had saved him!

At this point Melissa walked over to her cart of groceries, minus one can of Pam, and casually pushed it out of the store.

(...my imagination takes over again here, and I see the little boy looking out the window at Melissa as she pushes her cart of groceries to her car, and he wistfully whispers..."Goodbye, Pam Girl....thank you......")

When Melissa called to tell me this story, she ended it with, "So you see, I may not crochet socks for orphans all the time, but I do nice things once in a while!!"


p.s., Sorry about the preggo pic, Liss...it was the only one I could find where you were by yourself and had a free hand for your prop.

All I Want For Christmas...

Eric asked Zachary what his Christmas list was. Zachary immediately listed the following:

1. Marbles

2. Cowboy guys, just like his army guys

3. For Gramma to live with us

4. For Papa to live with us

5. To be a grown-up


A few of these are going to require more than just a trip to Toys 'R Us....

Monday Mornings With Zachary

Better late than never...

Monday Mornings With Zachary

No Zach video today until later. I'm having some camera issues. Stay tuned....

Ava's Fashions

Ivory scotty dog sweater with a fur Peter Pan collar, $15. Black tulle skirt, $12. Plaid tights, $8. Red wide grosgrain ribbon bows, $4. The perfect Christmas outfit paired with a happy toothless grin, Priceless.

Color Me A Winner

Ava's first big win. In November of 2006 she won a coloring contest at the Friendly's restaurant in Quakertown. We had dinner there one night, she and Colson each colored a picture to submit, and they called us a few weeks later to let us know Ava won. She got to come pick a prize out of a treasure chest, she chose this puzzle. She's been winning contests ever since...

First Time For Everything

Wow, I guess I have to finally admit that my life is incredibly busy right now. I've forgotten to write a blog post for today. Wonders never cease....

H1N1 tried to ruin my day today, but I fought back valiantly and lived to tell. One of my Agora teachers called out sick this morning with what is probably Swine Flu. And then the Fire Chief who was supposed to bring a fire truck out to Agora Day Out this morning called an hour before his scheduled time to say he probably shouldn't come, since his wife has H1N1 and he's been exposed. Fortunately 3 of his volunteers called in and offered to come out with the truck.

Swine Flu, you didn't crush me today. Feel free to quit while I'm ahead.

My Dream House

While my brother Eric could vacation in Google Earth, I could vacation in this Lego Castle. I'd could spend hours in the Solar and the Lady's Garden, and the Alchemist's Laboratory would keep me intrigued for hours. And the Inn Of The Jumping Fish?? Are you kidding me with all of this coolness???

I have no doubt that tonight I'm going to dream about shrinking in size and having adventures in this castle....

I'm In His Head

Driving to church the other morning:


Me: Wow, you sped right through that yellow light and I didn't even have to shout, "Go, Go, GO!"

Eric: Oh, we've been together so long now that when I see a yellow light, a .wav file of you shouting "Go, Go, GO!" automatically plays in my head.

How To Scare Me

Late Thursday night the kids and I drove to pick Eric up at the LVI airport in Allentown. On Friday morning, right before I woke up I had the most horrible nightmare. It went something like this:

Eric was unpacking, and he said, "Honey, I brought you a gift from England! I spent all of our savings on it!!". Then he handed me this big pizza-size box. I opened it, and inside were hundreds of earrings. Each set of earrings was incredibly tiny; each individual earring was about the size of a grain of salt. Some were fancy and were like 4 grains of salt clustered together. I just looked at these earrings thinking, "What in the world has he done, and what do I say?? Has this man ever LOOKED at what I wear on my ears? Anyone who knows me for a minute knows that I don't wear anything smaller than a softball in each ear".

Right as he asked me if I liked my present, Eric-in-real-life woke me up. I looked at him, with drool running down my chin and said, "Oh, I just had the worst nightmare!" I told him about it, and he said, "Well you're in luck! You can stop worrying, because I didn't bring you anything from England".

I've never been so relieved in my life.

Monday Mornings With Zachary

Today, Cole and Ava ask Zach some questions....which quickly deteriorates to Cole and Ava just trying to get air time.

My Wood Nymph

There need be no explanation as to why this dress made it into Ava's Fashions. But of course I'll give you one. The crispest of white cotton. The square neckline. The scalloped hem with the large eyelet cutouts. The puffy short sleeves. The pale blue silk flowers at the empire waistband. And to top it off, the satin ribbons hanging down the front. Be still my heart. Paired with naked baby feet, this dress could be the stuff of fairytale dreams...running through a field of tall grasses with dandelion puffs floating in the air...unicorns grazing by the stream....dryads dancing around a maypole...a faun playing a woodpipe in the distance....oh, sorry. Was having a Labyrinth/Legend moment.






(It's still hanging in Ava's closet, it's one that I can't bear to part with or even pack away....)

I Can Draw A Stick Figure

Today I share with you the strangest, most creative thing I've seen on the internet recently, and I have no idea what it is. It's like a flip book on crack, or a spun stop action animation. (...that's right, I watch Intervention, I know my drug vocabulary.) I don't know what's crazier about this video, the technique the artist used and the amount of time it had to take to execute it, or the subject matter. Be forewarned, the video contains violence and nudity...But the creativity will blow your mind.

VIDEOGIOCO by Donato Sansone from Enrico Ascoli - Sound Design on Vimeo.

Aim High

Colson: Zach, what do you want to be when you grow up?


Zach: God.

Plastic Vs. Plastic

When Eric and I were shopping for my new minivan, he used a great analogy to help me understand the difference between the Honda and the Dodge Grand Caravan. I could tell that there was a huge difference in the interiors, in terms of appearance and feel, but I couldn't explain it.

Eric said to think about a Dollar Store toy truck, and a Hess truck. Both are made of plastic. But the quality and construction is completely different. Because of that, one is more attractive and lasts much longer than the other.

This was a perfect analogy for me, because my mother has been buying the Hess trucks for Cole and Zachary every Christmas since they were born. And I've been buying them Dollar Store trucks since they were born. The Dollar Store trucks end up in pieces in the trash within 24 hours. The Hess trucks are still in their closets.

I love that my husband knows how to speak Analogy.


(Of course, there is a price to pay for better plastic. A Dollar Store truck is, well, $1. A Hess truck is about 24 times that price.)

Cuter In Death

I adore this dead fly art. It could be the cutest thing I've seen in months. I hope the artist graduates to larger animals soon...

Fight Or Flight

My husband hates it when I shriek while he's driving...you know what I'm talking about, when you're riding in the passenger seat, and you see something that you think the driver doesn't, and you gasp or grab the dashboard.

I did it in the car the other day, and Eric jumped. "Don't DO that!!". He said, "You have no idea what happens to me when you scream while I'm driving. Adrenaline starts racing through my blood and my testosterone levels rise sky high. When you yell like that, I turn into the protective caveman who sees his woman about to be attacked by a tiger. I go into fight or flight mode, and I'm ready to fight!!".

I said, "Who are you kidding, you'd choose flight over fight every single time..."

Eric: Well yeah, if my opponent is a tiger, of course I'm going to choose flight!

Me: Um, you think you can outrun a tiger?

Eric: I've got a car, I can beat the tiger every time!

Me: Your analogy is existing in two different ages now, which makes it invalid.

Monday Mornings With Zachary

No one wakes up from a nap like Zachary....my favorite part of this one is him bringing up Eric's and my worst accidents, and saying they were cool.

Ava's Fashions

Sometimes it's the simplest things...a cream turtleneck with a baby pink fine wale corduroy skort, and fat baby legs in ribbed tights. It's the kind of outfit that makes you want to grab, squeeze and repeat. This was Valentine's Day, and the flowers were from Ava's Pop in Florida. Matching roses never hurt an outfit.

Why Did I Buy Them Toys...

When Cole and Ava were little, we kept their toys in a cabinet in the family room. They loved to open those cabinet doors and move enough toys so that they could actually get in the cabinets and sit. They'd play in that cabinet for hours. It was their first fort.

(the rest of the pics are blurry, can't remember why)

Calling Jenny Craig

Zach and Ava were playing a game in the car that consisted of finding certain things that had point values attached to them. For instance, if you saw an American flag, you'd get a point. If you saw a silver car, you'd get 10 points. If you saw a gas station you'd get 5 points. You get the point.

At one point, I overheard this conversation:


Zach: Hey Ava, if you see a Big Fat Momma, you get sixty eight hundred million points.


Zach: Hi, Mom! (while waving at me in the rear view mirror)


Zach: Ava! I just got sixty eight hundred million points!!

The Annals Of Andrew, Part 2

Now for the Commodore 64 Summer Olympics story...

As you learned yesterday, my brother Eric gave me a portable C64 when I was in my preteens. Along with the machine, he gave me tons of games. One of those games was Epyx's Summer Games. In this game, you'd choose a player and the country your player was representing. Then you'd take the player through a series of Summer Olympics competitions.

The game featured an opening ceremony with doves, and at the end your players would be ranked and the Gold medal winner's national anthem would be played as they all stood on the podium. That is how it came to be that Andrew and I could hum the national anthem of most every country in the world. Of course, we've since forgotten how they all went, except for one country. Epyx. Oh, Epyx isn't a country, you say?? In this game it was, and we'd fight over who got to be from Epyx, because their national anthem was the coolest. It had a syncopation, which wasn't easy to accomplish back in the days when songs on the computer were made up of blips and beeps. (in the link above, you can see the Epyx flag)

Andrew and I played this game for hours on end. We'd play until our fingers were bleeding, and I can't believe that the A and D, and J and L keys on my keyboard survived the beating. You see, that's how your player would run. You'd hit the A and D or the J and L keys, depending on which player you were, as fast as you could, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The faster you could hit the keys, the faster your dude would run or swim. I'd practice so hard when Andrew wasn't around. I'd play a one player set, and try to figure out all the tricks. But of course, Andrew always won.

Now, if you saw the picture of the C64 screen, you can imagine how funny it must have looked...the two of us, him over 6 feet tall and me not far behind, sitting in front of that tiny screen for hours, hunched over and sharing one keyboard, hitting those keys as fast as we could over and over.


I'm sure Andrew's got some funny Summer Games memories, maybe he'll post some in the comments...

An Eric Episode

If you've ever wondered when or how my computer love originated, you need look no further than my brother Eric.

Eric has always been into mechanics and electronics, always loved taking things apart to find out how they worked. So it was only natural that he had an interest in computers and decided to make his living in that field.

When I was very young, Eric gave me a computer he'd built. All I remember about it is that it had this hose/tube thing that reminded me of a vacuum hose, with that accordion pleating. It was huge, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I don't remember playing on that one much, but I'm sure I did.

But it was the portable Commodore 64 that Eric gave me in my preteens that really got me hooked. I loved that machine like it was my soulmate.

Summer Olympics (which Andrew and I played for hours, and is deserving of a blog post all to itself), Blue Max, Beach Head 1 and 2, I could list the amazing C64 games for hours. My favorite was the Alice in Wonderland game. It served as the precursor to my obsession with adventure games like the King's Quest/Police Quest/Space Quest Sierra series. When I would play Alice in Wonderland I would get swept into that world, and I never wanted to leave. It's true that you never forget your first love...I still get a little misty eyed when I see a DOS prompt.

When I went to stay with Eric and Sue for a summer a few years later, that's when I first played a King's Quest game. I don't know if Eric already owned it or if he bought it for me, but I fell head over heels in love. Eric was a huge fan of Whoppers then, and he always had a paper milk container full of them near the computer. So for that whole visit I ate Whoppers and played King's Quest. That was also when I learned that the game manual had a phone number in it for the "Hint Line". (What I didn't learn was that numbers starting with 1-900 weren't free...)

I remember that when I'd have a problem on the computer, and Eric would come in and sit down to fix it, I would just watch in complete awe of his power over the machine. I wanted nothing more than to be able to manipulate the computer the way he did.

Looking back, I guess at that time it was pretty unusual for a 12 year old to have a personal computer. But it was (and still is) pretty unusual for a girl to have a brother like Eric Lewis, so you gotta throw "usual" out the window.

Cut 'Em With Adverbs

The following conversation took place in the car the other night:


Zach: Mom, guess what? C makes the sound "ssss"!

Colson: You're wrong, Zach. MOSTLY, C makes the sound "ck".

Zach: Yeah? Well MOSTLY I don't like you.


(after which I busted out laughing, and Cole started crying and saying he was going to tell on me.)

Monday Mornings With Zachary

Another "after school special" with Zachary. Extreme eye rolling and dramatic hand motions abound in this video...

Ava's Fashions

Oh, this dress...it was a Gramma find. There's not much like icy saturated lavender on a pale blonde. I loved the unexpected pop of red on the lavender. Finished with perfect white sandals, which Ava has to have every summer, and a lavender grosgrain bow, you've got a look that couldn't get much cuter.

The Face Of Postpartum

These pictures were taken in March of 2003, I think it was a birthday party for Ashley. Why was I there? I'd just had a baby in November, and was probably looking for any excuse to get dressed and get out of the house...Amy called and said she was throwing Ashley her first "boy/girl" party, and I should come for the entertainment value, if nothing else.

The birthday girl

Brianne and Victoria

Brianne, Allyson, and random Ashley friend

How much do I hate post-baby pictures of myself...

Alex and Amy (and random Ashley friend again)

Victoria

NOOOOOO, DON'T WAVE AT THE HOG!!

When Eric and I were dating (you know, that 4 week period back in the Spring of 2001) he took me on his motorcycle a few times. The first time I rode with him, I noticed him doing this strange thing when we'd pass other motorcycles. At first I thought it was a coincidence, maybe a twitch or something, but the more it happened the more I realized it was intentional.

He'd take his left hand off the bike and make a peace sign, pointing it really low and shaking it twice. When I realized he was doing this in relation to the other motorcycles, I'd watch the other guy and he'd do the same thing in return.

It hit me what was going on, and I laughed out loud inside of my astronaut's helmet. If you recall my earlier post on my first date with Eric, you'll see a pattern in what happened next. I decided to start doing it, as a joke. So when we passed another cycle, I did the secret hand jive thing. Well, Eric grabbed my hand and yelled back that I was doing it all wrong. ALL WRONG, he said. 'Cause you know, insane secret hand jive motions have to be RIGHT.

He said you NEVER wave at a Harley when riding a sportbike. Well excuuuuuuuuse me. (And I was supposed to know that what we were on was a sportbike because why?) He then explained that different waves had different meanings, and that there was a hierarchy of waveability. At this point I lost it. I couldn't stop laughing. So as we continued our ride, I just started waving my ass off at any type of cycle that passed us. I was doing the Vulcan salute, Sign Language, Hang Ten, Heil Hitler...then I started doing classic shadow hand puppets, I just couldn't stop myself. It was and continues to be one of the most ridiculous things I'll ever see.

Eric was mortified...and yet again, I got another date out of it.

I still joke about it once in awhile, I'll give a secret hand wave to another minivan, and act horrified when Eric tries it on a sedan.



(...and yes, this IS my best song/blog post combination ever)

Make 'Em Laugh

For me, funny and personal feelings have nothing to do with each other. I believe this is the reason why I can laugh at so many things that others have a hard time laughing at.

I'm the Queen of Compartmentalization, there's no doubt about that. My file cabinets are sound proof, so I have the ability to acknowledge "funny" without having the joke permeate the file cabinet that contains information that might be offended by said joke.

For me, funny is black or white. Either something is funny to you or it isn't. But for lots of people, when they hear an edgy, inappropriate joke their feelings rise to the surface immediately, and that's all they can focus on. I can hear a joke and evaluate it's funniness, even if the topic is one that makes me cringe inside.

Now, you can't just spout off inappropriate things and be funny. To be funny to me, you have to be incredibly sharp and have impeccable comedic timing and delivery. But the content can be anything. You can joke about death, rape, homosexuality, race, religion, spousal abuse, incest, white middle income soccer moms with speech impediments, and be funny. You can joke about all of those things and NOT be funny.

Even though I have been a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I can still laugh at a joke about it, if done properly. I can laugh at jokes about my religion, if the jokes are funny. When I laugh at a joke, it doesn't mean I don't care about that topic, or that I agree with the comedian or the person speaking. I can think something is funny, and disagree with it. I can think someone said something funny and still hate that person. Laughter isn't synonymous with anything. Laughter simply means you thought something was funny.

Funny just IS, to you. Yes, everyone has their own personal taste when it comes to funny. But I believe that most people's "funny taste" is extremely tainted by their emotions. I believe there are plenty of times that people are afraid to laugh at something, for fear of looking like they are callous or in agreeance.

It's like that old saying, "Pretty is as pretty does". Well no, pretty is pretty. I can acknowledge that a bitchy girl is pretty. But I can also acknowledge that she is a bitch. The twain cannot meet in my mind.

So just go ahead and laugh...you know you want to.