Lucky and Shiz Stanley

This is the story of two Flat Stanleys: Lucky Stanley and Shiz Stanley.

Lucky Stanley, like Black Eyed Peas, had a feeling that tonight
would be a good night.

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, started the evening off with
some creepy-looking stuff.

Lucky Stanley took a ride on Destiny, and sipped a refreshing
CapriSun. Lucky!

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, somehow found himself inside a Coke bottle, being sipped by Destiny. Shiz.

For dinner, Lucky Stanley had some delicious Taco Bell. Lucky!

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, had to fish through the garbage
for some scraps, becuase he forgot his debit card in his OTHER pants.
Shiz.

After dinner, Lucky stanley found the men's room unoccupied! Lucky!

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, upon finding the men's room
occupied by Lucky Stanley, had to sneak in the women's room, where
there are no urinals, and hope that nobody would see him. Shiz.

Lucky Stanley caught a plane and visited beautiful Barcelona, Spain! Lucky!

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, had to wait on standby, and then his flight was cancelled, and had to trade his ticket for the only destination left. Canada. Shiz.

Lucky Stanley found a happy family of statues and frolicked with them! Lucky!

Shiz Stanley, on the other hand, got picked up by a creepy
mummified girl statue. Shiz.

And then he got mugged and stabbed. Double Shiz.

Meanwhile, Lucky Stanley headed home on his new bike! Lucky!

Since Shiz Stanley is still a FLAT Stanley, Lucky Stanley didn't
notice that he had run over Shiz Stanley. Shiz.

After a hard day, Shiz Stanley lay down on a barbecue grill to relax.

Things were starting to heat up for Shiz Stanley!

Shiz.

Pros and Cons

I had some really exciting things happen to me lately.
Then some not so exciting things happen to me. I will not name them all but I will share some.

We had a code blue at the hospital. For those that don't know, code blue is usually a cardiac arrest. Some times it's something else, but the main idea is a heart attack. Now, usually I am never there, but this time I was. Not only was I there I got to direct people, tell the defibrillator carriers where to go, and let the doctor in through the locked door, I also got to know everything about it because I was so close. How cool!

I am an official at work that gets benefits and paid time off. Yeah! This officially happened today, and currently Jack and I are reviewing what we need for our benefits.

We used the last of a gift card from our wedding for a dishes set that is square. Unfortunately, they don't fit in the cabinet.

I am now feeling so much better from being sick.

George-Michael the fish is really trained to eat when I tap the glass.

Now for some unfun things.

The house is still a mess.

I have had to work 6 days in a row.

Our window in the front room still doesn't close properly, so every once in a while it blows just right on the curtain, and makes a moaning noise like its haunted in here.

I dumped my DIRTY mop bucket water all over my feet. My feet were bare in my flip flops, I had already changed my shoes.

I have really grown to love milk in cardboard cartons. I have them a lot for breakfast at work. I think I know what I am going to be for Halloween. It's silly its going to be a secret, but I am at least proud I figured something out. I was also thinking a lot about blogging lately, I need to do it more.

Flat Stanley in Houston!

As luck would have it, the day after i got him in the mail mom and i took the girls i babysit to the museum. That's right, Flat Stanley visited the Natural Science Museum and got close (maybe a lil too close) to some of the earth's craziest predators as seen in the pics (couldn't pick which one so you can just pick which you like). He also inspired the creation of another flat stanley by greta (one of the girls) so he was quite busy during his stay here in Houston.

whit

Flat Stanley

This summer due to the distance between me and my friends, I solved my problem. I couldn't visit them, but Flat Stanley could.

For those that don't know what Flat Stanley is, he is a little paper man that uses the mail to travel. He is taken to amazing places and then sent somewhere else.

ADVENTURE #1

Boise, Idaho to San Fransico, California

Flat Stanley enjoying the flight from Boise, Idaho to Sacramento, California. Flat Stanley meeting his first deer in Manteca, California.
Flat Stanley meeting his first armadillo also in Manteca.
Flat Stanley sneaking up on a duck (Manteca).
Flat Stanley being hunted by a racoon (Manteca).
Flat Stanley swims with some BIG trout (or whatever - in Manteca).
Flat Stanley gets stuck in vintage CocaCola product (also Manteca).
Flat Stanley drives his first boat (guess what, in Manteca).
Flat Stanley gets ready to go inside the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, California.
Flat Stanley takes a tour of the Jelly Belly Factory and enjoys his complimentary Jelly Belly Beans.

On Flat Stanley's first day in San Francisco he meets the San Francisco Fire Deptarment.
Also on his first day in SF, Flat Stanley takes his first ride on a cable car (the only moving national historic monument).
Before boarding the cable car, a cable car operator (remarkably resembling Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid) wants a picture with Flat Stanley.

While walking the streets of SF, Flat Stanley comes across a store with a very confusing, and probably misspelled name.

After breakfast on Flat Stanley's second day in SF, he meets some friendly pigeons.
Flat Stanley journeys closer to the Bay and sees the biggest, most pirate-looking ship he's ever seen.
Flat Stanley goes swimming with some prettier fishies.
Flat Stanley prepares to ride his first subway.

Flat Stanley enjoys his first professional baseball game (Giants vs. Diamond Backs) at AT&T Park.

He had a wonderful trip! But the adventures aren't over! Stay tuned for the next adventure of Flat Stanley! Who knows, maybe he will turn up in your mail box!

I didn't have a good day

I am tired of mean people. Especially those with no reason to be mean.

I went in to get a spouse USU card. The room had 4 employees and they were all huddled around a computer. I was the only one in there, so I walk up to the counter and they all ignore me. I looked around the room for anyone else, but it was only them. So I sat and stared until one looked in my direction. After telling them what I wanted, all four looked at me like I told them all they were ugly. One woman says "how long have you had your number? because if it's new we can't help you until tomorrow." I said I have had it since Jan. The woman told one kid to go help me and that they would wait for him to come back, because whatever they were doing was SO important. After telling me my number wasn't coming up in the computer (he tried once) he told me to come back tomorrow. I was a little mad because he didn't try so I got a little testy with him and said "well how am I supposed to prove that I already paid you for this?" He was a little scared I think because he backed off a little and wrote a reciept. However, I wasn't done so I interrupted them again and asked if they had a list of things that the spouse card does and the woman looks at me and says "NO we don't have a physical list." she then rattled off what it did and then looked away from me.

Jerks

Dear Lorena and family

I spent many of my life min. with the Dayley/Davis clan in high school. While I have a ton of embarrassing moments with them all and I could go on for many days of experiences, I am going to focus on 3 physical activity memories.

You see this wonderful family loves physical labor and hard work. I learned fast to buck up and deal with it when I was around them. There is no room for ninnies, and while they may love you despite your lack of physical drive, there is also no room for failure.

Physical feat #1

I learned to move pipe at their house.

Being only 111 lbs in high school I looked very silly in those giant rubber boots. I looked even more silly the first time I tried to lift the pipe and it didn't to anything. But I was tough and I imagined my non-existent dying children trapped under the pipe and lifted those pipes full of water. I think it was on the second one I was shown how to drain them first. Even then I didn't always wait to empty them because I was a slow worker. Like I implied before, an attribute such as this wasn't the most valued. So I grew some muscles and carried those water laden pipes because I wasn't about to fail, because FAILURE is unacceptable.

Physical feat #2

I learned to survive.

In an effort to do activities more like the boys, Katie and I formed a coalition to backpack like scouts. We worked together, with help, and put together a backpacking trip that the scouts had been on before us in search for a trail to the lake. Never having found the lake, we too were subject to the hard work of 14 miles through the brush, trees, bugs and mud. This first trip was littered with beehives. Lucky for all of you, I can only guess which ones came. If I rack my brain, I think I could get all your names, but I am choosing to just leave these up for the imagination.

The Hike started out well, everyone had energy and we worked well together. However, eventually the hiking went something like this:

in result, packs became heavy. At first we split the goods between the adults, however that only worked until they all had almost 2 times the weight they were supposed to be carrying. We had to make it work so Kate and I took extra weight as well. I remember it as a large amount more than we were supposed to have as well. We didn't have a choice we had to keep going because whether we made it to the lake or went back, we had to learn to survive. (ah ha! the magic lesson word!)

After splitting up some of the packs girls were carrying, we came up with a better plan for the hiking Kate and I were in the back this time setting the pace from behind. Efficiency. Beautiful.

This is where I mainly learned the "no room for ninnies" rule first hand because Kate was quite the slave driver. She did a lot of yelling/encouraging. But we got there! in just enough time to set up camp for the night.

This being my first backpacking trip, I learned how wonderful food is. It's amazing what you can survive on. It's also amazing how good bare essentials can be when you have been working so hard for them. I am specifically trying to get to squeezable peanut butter. We only brought one tube for one lunch of crackers and peanut butter. After the lunch was over Katie and I had the responsibility of holding it, which meant we ate it while we walked. I can't describe how fantastic it was to squeeze a strip on your finger and lick it off slowly. I've tried it since and clearly it's not the same. However! I can't shake the memory as one of the best things I have ever eaten.

The next trip Katie and I had to carry all our own food because we needed to be punished for eating all the peanut butter.

Physical feat #3

This has no lesson learned and doesn't really end all that happy.

Those that wanted to were invited to go on the 20 miler with the scouts out on the BLM land. For those of you who need to know what BLM land is

It's just like this. Its barren land that animals are allowed to graze on. The only water sources are large tractor tires full of water in the middle of nowhere. Usually they have dead rodents floating around in them because the mice are so desperate for water they dive in and then can't get back out.

Clearly you don't drink out of them.

It was hot and long and supposed to be done in one day. We didn't bring anything other than food and water really. Some barely brought that. In fact, many ran out of water. We were having to ration our water between all of us. I remember one person needed water so bad and then drank a whole bottle. All this no water business occurred half way through.

Those boys they trucked through without one complaint. Well, maybe that girls were out there and they had to share their water. Something stupid to say would be "well we created opportunities for them to be prepared little scouts." I guess we did do that, but I don't think in scouts they teach you to be prepared to give all your bare essentials to idiots that didn't bring their own.

In the end most of the girls got picked up with 2 or 3 miles left. One got picked up because of blisters that had popped and come back and popped a few times and had taken over her feat. All in all I did it, but it isn't a fond memory.

And there you go, a tribute to yet another of Lorena's posts. While I enjoy the physical activities, I hear ya sista!

I saw this today on failblog.org I just thought it was funny. I usually get a smile, this one I laughed at.

Things that I have been doing lately

Time goes by pretty slowly around here. I have had some interesting experiences that really only I appreciate fully. Here are a few of my favorites.

I am proud of the name wall. It took me a while because I had to make each one a file because I don't have any of those fonts on my computer. The flash caught the papers, but imagine it as I see it, it's almost like I used my bottle of whiteout to paint each one of those on!Yeah you see it now!

This is my first attempt at fondant. It tasted better than it looks.

A little bird decided it wanted to live here. I wouldn't have minded if he would have been quiet. I thought it was the smoke alarm with a dead battery. It was frustrating for a whole freaking hour of answering the phone and not finding the bad smoke alarm. When I found the bird all he did was hop away from me and not back out the door.

Once he got out of the door I stupidly left the door open and he came back in. Again the bird when out. I shut the door, but not hard enough because yes as you are predicting it opened and he came back in.

I didn't realized that we could rent more than I dwelling. I think that if a group of us get together we could rent some other place which would solve having to beat out people for an apartment because we can stay wherever we want, we are renting it.

This was the sign outside a preschool. I have nothing else to say.

I made this at work. It ruined my right thumb cuticle. But I used a whole box!

I do all the paperwork here and I got one of these in the box. It's not that funny, but I still giggle when I read it. HA