Post Secret - My Mental Image

There is an amazing website full of little art projects that I like to go to each week. This is the web page: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/.

The picture above stood out to me because the woman had such a kind face and because everybody's mental image of God is probably a little different. I'm surprised by how many people think he would look mean. I always think he looks very kind.

This picture also reminded me of when I was a little girl and thought that the Holy Ghost was a super tiny man who wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and cowboy boots. He had to be really small because he had to fit in my pocket so he could always be with me. At night I would imagine taking him out of my pocket and setting him on my nightstand next to my Raggedy Ann lamp so he could watch me all through the night. I'm not really sure why he wore cowboy boots and blue jeans instead of a robe like Jesus, but it made sense at the time. It's a mental image that I've never really been able to break.

Who wants to play Ro-Sham-Bo?

" Let's play Ro-Sham-Bo Nanny," my cousin Riley declared, sitting down in front of me with her legs crossed and putting her hand out flat. "Don't play it with her, " my brother Rusty said, "she cheats." I looked at Riley with a suspicious eye. "Is that true? Are you a cheater?" Riley thought about it for a second and then replied, "Yes... I am."

"I've never heard of this game before, is it like rock paper scissors?" I asked the 3 year old sitting in front of me. "What you do," she said "is you take your hands and you shake them up and you say Ro-Sham-Bo, and whoevers hand looks like this (she made her fist look a little like a firecracker going off) is the one who wins." "Let's play" I said.

"Ro-Sham-Bo" we both chanted. She made the sign for 3, something she has just learned because her third birthday was last week. I made the sign for paper. "I win" she declared. "Why?" I asked. "Because I'm 3!"

"Ro-Sham-Bo" we chant. She made the sign for 1 and I made the sign for scissors. "I win" she says. "No, I win." I say, pretending to cut off her finger with my scissor fingers. She looks at me stunned. Then she laughs like a mad woman and replies, "That is winning, Nanny."

"Ro-Sham-Bo". I put in my fist for rock, she sticks in her foot. "I win" she declares. I bite her foot and the game dissolves into a tickle fight. Rusty walks in to find the two champions of Ro-Sham-Bo. He has refused to play the game with the 3 year old anymore because "it just doesn't make any sense, and you can only win because you cheat at it too." So be it.

Life Lessons While Driving

While driving my two year old cousin Riley around in the car I often discover fascinating things about myself. I am a songwriter and a brilliant joke teller. Given such directives as, "Nanny sing me the song about teeth." I can come up with brilliant and witty lyrics like "You have teeth, chomp chomp, I have teeth, chomp chomp, Baby Soren doesn't have teeth, wah wah!" (You might be more impressed if you heard the melody.)
I am also excellent at explaining the laws of motion. "Nanny how does that train move?" "Well, it makes the choo chooing sound and the conductor who drives the train pushes the button that makes the chugga chugga sound and the train keeps moving. Also, don't play on the train tracks."
I am NOT good however at explaining death and loss, which is also something that one can view while driving along the highways of Idaho. On a recent trip home Riley and I viewed a most horrifying event. A horse had been struck by a vehicle and then, being too big to move a bullodozer had to be called in to pick it up and then hoist it HIGH in the air and dump it into the back of a pickup truck. Even I at the mature age of 24 was truly shocked by the event taking place before us, but Riley slowly removed her sunglasses and stated with much upset, "Nanny, WHAT are they DOING to that horse?"
How to answer such a question? As the horse was hoisted high above our heads, right in the middle of our path, it's legs stiff with rigor mortis, I turned to see Riley's eyes light up just as they had at spud day when I took her on the pony ride. Then, in one awful moment, the bulldozer released it's bucket and the horse fell, making a horrible THUD onto the back of the flat bed truck.
The THUD was too much to bear. Hitting reverse we flipped around on the country road, Riley beginning to squeal in excitement at the accelaration. "Nanny WHAT were they DOING to that horse? WHAT were they DOING to that horse?" Some sort of explanation needed to occur here. Did I need to explain death? That seemed to hard. Was the horse asleep? That seemed horribly implausible. Maybe she hadn't gotten as good a view of the event as I had.
"Well Riley, the horse was training for a trick where he jumps really high in the air and then onto a truck." "Like my daddy's truck?" "JUST like your daddy's truck!" "I love my daddy's truck."
Problem solved.

I Scored Big with Juannonhot

I was recently introduced to the game of scrabble. Rachel and Nick both raved about how fun it was, but didn't know what a great competitor I would be when I played such words as ZIGATO, JUANNONHOT, WHIZ (def: to pee). Only when I played the word VEINS did Rachel say, "I'm not going to let you cheat anymore."