Pioneer Days

Pioneer Days

I was going to tell you the rest of my internet story but I'm feeling distracted right now so I may or may not get around to it.

Yesterday was Pioneer Day here in my little town.  For those who don't know, Pioneer Day is a LDS thing where they celebrate Brigham Young arriving in the Salt Lake valley and proclaiming 'This is the Place'.  Its sort of like a founders day celebration but different.

There was a parade which we got to see.  They threw candy which of course my children (including Darling Husband) could not leave on the ground uncollected.  Mostly it was salt water taffy (from the Great Salt Lake maybe?), Bit o'Honey's (didn't know they still made those but much to my delight they do) lollypops and tootsie rolls. There were vintage cars and wagons like the one above.  There were horses and even motorcycles (that goes together right - motorcycles are iron horses - well go with it).  Of course no parade would be complete without floats.  I loved the floats there were some floats that had pretty girls in prom-like dresses.  I asked Darling Husband if they were like last year's homecoming court and he said, 'no honey, Pioneer Court'.  Really?  One of those lovely girls was going to be Pioneer Queen?  Holy wow.  And just when I thought I could bear no more a float came by with several LDS missionaries and one was shouting to the crowd from the Book of Mormon. Something about a pillar of fire bright as the sun.  *shrug*

After we got back into the van and tried to get home, which proved more of a challenge than we thought because of all the roped off side streets, I told my husband that I didn't understand why all those young mormon missionary fellas looked like copy repair men.  He laughed at me then. But for those who don't know, let me explain. They were all wearing white shirts and black neck ties.  Black pants and black shoes.  In my previous life I worked in an office and I swear I thought that was the copy guy's uniform.  Or maybe all my copy repair people were mormons and I just didn't know.  Hmmm....will have to ponder on that a bit more.

In honor of Lost's astute observation and because I can't post pics in comments here is an edit so you can see what I'm talking about.  

Geek Squad 

Mormon Missionaries

Do ya see the resemblance? Heeheehee

Divine Secrets

"Keep your face to the sunshine
and you cannot see the shadow.
It's what sunflowers do."
by Helen Keller

Yeah, okay, this post isn't about Sunflowers.  Well not exactly anyway.  

I find myself astounded when I think about how far electronic communication has come.  Not so very long ago, well, maybe more like nearly 10 years ago, I found myself a member of an online community.  A bulletin board.  The sunflower is a clue, I wonder if anyone can guess the board that I was on?  This was before Facebook and MySpace was just taking off to give you a point of reference in time.  I haven't been involved in one since. In fact, I don't know of any that are in existence.  Of course I haven't looked because I definitely don't need something else to obsess about. But like I always do I'm getting ahead of myself.    

And as I do everything, I was fully immersed in this board and the other people on it.  This wasn't a pass time where I checked in every week or even every other day I was on obsessively.  Several times a day.  And there were different boards within the main board. One page was for light and fluffy topics, on page was for political topics, one was for good thoughts and prayer requests, and one was for recipes.  You get the idea.  

What was truly amazing in hindsight was the cliques that formed within the online community.  There were those who aligned themselves with like minded people politically, and those who aligned themselves with others who shared similiar hobbies and likes.  Naturally it didn't take long for the board to develop its bullies as well and there were some serious snark fests  about everything from homeschooling, breastfeeding, to asparagus and peas.  Go figure.  

I was pretty much insulated from that because I fell in with a group who liked to drink more than the others, party more than the others, and have sex more than the others.  So we created our own little corner of the board.  Our very own ongoing thread that detailed our various exploits.  In time we started setting up 3 way calls and planning trips to meet each other.  

You know how all the 'experts' advise not to go meet people in person that you think you 'know' online?  There's a reason for that.  We were quite the motley crew.  The Voodoo Krewe is what we called ourselves.  We were all lushes for that weekend.  We drank to much, we ate to much.  We talked to loudly and laughed more than should be allowed.  It wasn't until we all returned to our 'real lives' that the bottom fell out.  But that's enough for now.  Maybe tomorrow you'll get....The rest of the story.  

The Honest Truth

*Disclaimer: No one in this story named Jeff but the picture is effective.

I realize that I flatter myself that any of you might have been wondering where I've been, but nonetheless I feel like an explanation is necessary.  You have become my cyber friends and family and I've removed myself from your presence for two months or more.  I've missed you all and it just feels wrong to show back up and start blogging like I haven't missed a beat.  I will be visiting everyone's blog and trying to get caught up on what I've missed.  

So I'd love to be able to say that I had the world's worst case of writer's block.  But it wasn't anything as grand or lofty as that.  I could say that I was busy, bored, or uninspired and that would be closer to the truth.  Even telling you that I've been on a vodka soaked bender for 2 months would be an interesting story.  But no.....

We met another family here in town.  And it was all consuming for nearly 2 months.  Until it wasn't.  Let me rewind a bit.....

I was invited to a Pampered Chef Party here in town.  I love Pampered Chef stuff and wanted the opportunity to get to know some people so I went.  I met some lovely ladies.  Ladies who were mostly like me.  They were opinionated, and nosey, and full of laughter.  One of them in particular I gelled with right away.  She invited us to church for the Friday night open gym for the kids.  Friday night arrived and we packed up the kids and went as a family unit to the local church.  Everyone was super nice, but wonder of wonders Darling Husband gelled instantly with her husband, their son who is the same age as our little diplomat middle child got along famously and even our daughter immediately adhered to their daughter.  It was a match made in heaven. 

For nearly two months we all talked and texted nearly every day.  We spent almost the whole of every weekend together, there was much livlihood and laughter.  More than I've had in a long time.  Maybe since before we moved.  Our apparent love for one another burned with the 'white hot intensity of a thousand suns" (no idea where that is from but it fits).  We were completely consumed with their friendship to the exclusion of nearly everything else other than work.  Including blogging.  

But then suddenly it cooled off.  We felt the change but couldn't put our finger on it. We didn't know what we'd done wrong, but clearly things were 'different'.  I will give them credit, when this has happened before with other friends they just went away and we were left to only speculate what or if we'd done something wrong.  They actually accepted our invitation to come over but mostly because 'we need to talk'.  Uh-oh.....

So we send the kids out to play and they sit on one couch and we sit on another.  And they lay out for us what their issues are.  Come to find out we are too 'worldly'.  We have our kids in public school because I just never wanted to be that person who home schooled my kids.  We have a large HD TV and we watch it....a lot - that is why we have it after all.  ***And as a side note, they didn't seem to have any problem watching it with us for two months.  We say curse words and we drink.  There are the two big ones.  Apparently those are deal breakers for them.  They told us "We love you guys so much....(wait for it) BUT.....(ah, there it is) we can't be around what you guys do or have our kids around it."  

I asked them flat out, "are you breaking up with us?" which I know is ridiculous for grown people to say but that's what it felt like.  So now it's now.  I don't bear them any ill will but clearly it wasn't quite the match made in heaven that it seemed at first. 

I have spent the last week or so examining our lives and our habits.  Okay, we drink.  Daily.  Do we get out of hand, sloppy, mean, or any of those things?  We do not.  We cuss....sometimes like sailors....but does that make us bad people?  It does not.  We don't home school and we have a lot of technology.  Does that make us abnormal?  I don't think it does.  What it seems to come down to is that the way we conduct ourselves and our lives is too much of a temptation for them in their walk with God.  And I don't want to be a stumbling block in anyone's walk.  I do try to be sensitive to those with addictive tendencies so I'm going to refrain making any statement about their character.  On the upside, I've realized through close examination that it isn't a weakness in or lack of character on our part.  

And that my friends..is the rest of the story.