Category Archives: fun

my pet

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From my darling son, a gift…a pet rock. My pet rock has green eyes, which Daniel reminds me is my favorite color. He also points out that my pet rock has a butt and then turns it over to show me. He laughs hysterically because he is a ten year old boy. I imagine that if my pet rock just now farted he would have then laughed all the harder until tears rolled down his face because he does do that often…laughs until he cries.

Not only does my pet rock possess a butt but he has a name too. Lucky pet rock! His name, you ask? It’s Yo Yo Boy.

Of course it is.

Yo Yo Boy now sits on a position of honor on my bedside table. I assume to keep watch over me while I sleep…like a good pet rock does.

Don’t you wish that you had a pet rock as awesome as mine? Well, you can. Daniel has directions on how you can make a pet rock for your very own…or, perhaps for someone you love.

How to make a Pet Rock

  1. Find a round rock or stone.
  2. Clean the rock with soap and water.
  3. Let it dry.
  4. Choose the paint you want.
  5. Paint it all one color…if you wish.
  6. Paint eyes, nose and a mouth…and a butt, if you wish.
  7. Put your pet rock to work as a paper weight or decoration.

learning

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We’re always learning…aren’t we?

This weekend my younger sister, Ange, received her Masters of Science in Natural Resources Wildlife at Humboldt State University. That means there has been a whole lot of learning going on for her. She’s not done yet though. Remember, we’re always learning. But this weekend was for celebrating Ange’s hard work and achievement so far. She so deserves it.

Holly, Fallon, my Dad and I traveled to Arcata to celebrate with Ange, her mom and her friends. That means approximately 360 miles and over six hours of drive time….according to Google maps. Let’s just put it out there right now that Google maps lied! Of course we traveled with a five month old infant and my Dad.

Such an adventure will seriously test your sanity and make you desperate for a drink…a very strong drink. My sister forgot to warn us about that part…or perhaps we weren’t listening carefully enough. Personally, I am a learn by doing or seeing kind of learner so now I know.

I also learned:

  • when you have three iPhones with navigation capabilities it doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be a navigator assisting the driver because the battery of one iPhone will die, one iPhone will belong to the driver who is unable to navigate because she is driving (and her phone is playing AWOLNation for the baby to keep her sort of, kind of happy and calm) and the owner of the iPhone riding shot-gun (which is where the navigator traditionally sits at least in my car that is how it works) can’t seem to use their navigator…or pass that phone on to someone who can…like the passenger in  the back who is managing the baby who hates to travel. So, no, navigation won’t be easy as one passenger declared before we even began our road trip.
  • Apparently feeding a baby a bottle or changing them is a skill that is forgotten, you know like riding a bike is not forgotten. Good to know for when I am 25 years older and perhaps a great-grandparent.
  • Cleaning bug guts off your windshield with brackish water from a gas station in some Podunk town in Humboldt County will only smear the dead bugs across your windshield AND when you drive into the setting sun will make the windshield opaque…even if your glasses have Transitions lenses. My Dad explained that my problem was I didn’t have Transition lenses. I do and they do indeed transition from clear to dark as the light changes…all the time. The transitioning lenses is a good thing, a very good thing; but it does nothing to help when the windshield is pretty much opaque. So. Much. Fun. Definitely fun winding along the Redwood Highway at sunset. At least for the driver it is like that. It was all clear on the passenger’s side. Bugs like to commit suicide on the driver’s side of the windshield.
  • My daughter is an excellent driver.
  • My daughter is a very patient, excellent driver…driving with her grandfather (finally actually navigating when Holly, the driver, asks for information) and her mother (having a MAJOR anxiety attack as a passenger which is what her mother does on road trips) and her baby (having a screaming get-me-out-of-this-damn-carseat-now fit).
  • Apparently my Dad traumatized my daughter for life when it comes to riding/driving in a car over bridges. There were a lot of bridges we had to traverse along the way. Knowing this helped to distract me just a little from my own backseat anxiety attack…just a teeny-tiny bit.
  • From Manteca to Arcata on a Friday during prime commute, get-away traffic drive time it ONLY takes one nearly eight hours. That would be factoring in three stops to change diapers, go to the bathroom, buy two smoothies at the slowest Burger King ever and to clean a windshield.
  • But at sunset, driving along 101 as you approach Arcata, you get this view.

Makes it worth it…right? Even better we got to be here.

And celebrate my sister and all her hard work.

And have some cake.

And enjoy some celebratory hugging.

I’m totally related to those two beauties.

Congratulations Ange! Love you!

This week’s Focus 52 Project assignment was shooting whatever you like, wherever, whenever, however. So much awesomeness and inspiration to see!

that’s what friends are for

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You gotta love social media. Yes, I know some days you can’t help but hate it…the drama, the “vague-booking”, the time suck. But some days you just have to love social media. The last couple of days I have loved it.

My friend, Tracey, was running her very first marathon back home in Pittsburgh. She trained well for it and, thanks to Facebook, I was able to follow her in her training all along the way. I was so excited for her…her very first marathon!!! I was also a little nervous for her too…a worrisome foot injury late in her training schedule and the typical race-eve freak out…I couldn’t help but be worried a little…it’s what I do. More than anything, I wanted to be there…to cheer for her at the start, along the route and at the finish…because I know how much fun it can be…but more importantly, because Tracey is my friend and I wanted to be there just as I have felt like I have been throughout her training that she has shared. I set my alarm to remind me while at work early, early Sunday morning, west coast time, to send out a shout out wishing her luck and I began to follow her posted split times as well as #PittsburghMarathon live tweet updates.

Okay, fine. It wasn’t like I was there but then again it was…kind of sort of.

It was then on my Instagram feed I saw my friend Kim had posted an amazing shot of one of the elite runners running past her. It was a great capture indeed…air under the guy’s feet as if he was running through the air rather than on the pavement…you know, like us mere mortals who try to run. I KNOW that it had to be exciting as I once got to see running greatness run past me…in the opposite direction…while running in the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon. Excited I messaged Kim and told her how Tracey was running in the same event and just might be running by her soon…okay, later…still Tracey was headed her way! Kim messaged me back asking, “How can I spot her? I’m at mile 16. Would love to cheer her on.” Kim and I send back and forth messages with me trying to describe Tracey and then I send her a screen shot of Tracey with her running bib. An hour later I receive another message, “We just saw Tracey! I think we gave her a nice boost at mile 16!“, followed by, “Wish I could have lined up a few more folks to cheer for her.“

Oh yeah, Kim is good people. She even came to my aid during BlogHer 11 with a dose of Tylenol…yes, it was part of her calling card but it helped me out and how can one ever forget that…oh, and I enjoyed sitting with her and sharing during a session or two. Even better, thanks to social media, I get to enjoy Kim’s company a lot and get to remind myself of the wonderful things that I miss about back home in Pittsburgh and that which makes Pittsburgh Someplace Special. Some pretty good people live there…like Tracey…like Kim.

It was after the race that I saw a posting on her Facebook wall from Tracey:

I’m home, icing every part of my body, reflecting on the day. A marathon isn’t fun or easy but parts of it did rock…My teammates, friends, fellow athletes! Laura Scarborough Setting up a surprise cheering section from 3000 miles away! The band at mile 9.29 playing Take the Skin Heads Bowling! Getting hosed down by a hot fireman in E Liberty! Knowing my Dad was with me every step of the way! My coaches Phil Thompson & Drew McCabe crossing the finish line with me! Best running partner Kathie O’Donnell finishing the last mile together!

Reading that made me cry…cry happy tears because although we can’t be face to face every day and we can’t just hop in a car and drive on over to be there for one another, I have some pretty amazing friends out there and thanks to the interwebs and a whole lot of social media I know that we can and are there for each other to support and encourage each other…to cry together…to pray together…to laugh together…tell me how and where to bury a body, you know, if I had to…to just be there for each other. It’s a small circle still it is a circle that has expanded my world in a way that I could never imagine…even when I am feeling alone here in Manteca. I have some pretty awesome friends…friends like Tracey, like Ann, like Kim, like Kari, like Kale, like Jenn, like Bill…I am so lucky…even if you all aren’t physically just around the corner.

Love you Tracey! Love you Kim! I hope that someday I can hook you two up…perhaps while taking in a game at PNC Park.

And one more time, congratulations Tracey!!! I am thrilled and honored to have cheered you on this weekend. You. Are. Awesome.

community of mud

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If you aren’t a friend of mine on Facebook, you might be wondering “how did the mud run go for Laura?…did she survive?”

Well…

I was ready and especially inspired when I received my race packet.

Beer! There would be beer at the finish line. Knowing that I was even able to forgive the fact that they got my age wrong. Oh well, I will be 51 soon enough…next year.

Come Sunday I was properly hydrated and ready, really ready for this event. It had been an especially stressful week juggling life here and this run was going to be a much needed outlet of a lot of that stress and frustrations…plus there would be beer. My planned strategy was to not die of course and to blind everyone with my camouflage RunTeamSparkle running skirt (what else would a lady wear to a mud run?) and my blinding white legs. Some friends wondered if I was wearing shorts under the skirt and even dared to ask. Um, yes! My husband is the Scotsman, not I. Blinding white legs was more than enough to share.

Coated and layered up in waterproof sunscreen from head to toe, I was hoping to at least not burn out there at Dell Osso Farms. I might die from heat exhaustion but I would not burn…hopefully.

With just a little bit more stretching, warming up, hydrating and applying of sunscreen and eye black my team (Ben, his lovely mother and his sweet and super-athletic sister) was ready for our 12:30 PM start time. According to the weather app on my smart phone, it was 93° when we lined up at the start line. Ready or not for the race, we were definitely ready for the first muddy obstacle. By the time we reached the third obstacle, it was clear that this was going to be a pretty tough muddy hot run. All of us found the heat and some of the obstacles challenging but we stayed together, helped each other out, cheered each other on and promised that what happens on the mud run stays on the mud run. We were determined to finish together the four of us…even if we had to drag the body of one or two of us across the finish line. Yeah, we joked about that making comparisons to Harry Potter bringing a dead Cedric back from the maze…you know, so that he could become a sparkly vampire named Edward.

Yeah, the heat was getting to us.

Onward through the mud and obstacles we pushed through. I was really impressed with the community of people running around us. There was a lot of helping hands if you couldn’t get out of the thick mud or struggled scaling the rope ladder and there was a lot of slipping, sliding and tangling of limbs in the mud. Thank goodness we all got along and laughed…laughed a lot. It was definitely good, muddy fun.

Crossing the finish line we were covered, caked, coated with mud…everywhere…yes, everywhere…but we all were very much alive. Yes, we were survivors of the Survivor Mud Run.

Surprisingly, no one wanted to hug any of us. We were offered a banana and a bottle of near-boiling hot water along with a pretty cool medal. All of it soon became covered in mud because we all were covered in mud. It was definitely time for a shower which consisted of lots and lots of muddy people lined up on a platform standing under pipes of water flowing freely and water trucks driving by and hosing us all down. Yes, there were more helping hands and community. We are bonded…all of us…for life…I think…we were all that close!

Thank goodness my medal and racing bib washed clean. More for my collection. I really need something to hang all my race medals on…ahem…Mother’s Day is coming!!!

Nevertheless, it was a great day spent with family…covered in mud.

crafty as I want to be

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You say crafts I say “Meh!” I don’t see myself as a crafty-type person. Sure I love to take pictures. I have dozens and dozens of photo scrapbooks (last count 78). There is this blog. I love to paint walls. Truth is I get so much joy from putting blue tape all over the place before I put the paint all over the walls. I’m actually nearly done with my bannister project and having fun with that. It’s the painter’s tape I think…or perhaps it is the lacquer fumes. But that is about as crafty as I can get. I think of being crafty and I see yarns and ribbons and threads…bits of paper, modge-podge, sewing machines and crochet hooks. That is so not me.

Not.

At.

All.

You should have seen me last night sewing a simple hook and eye on one of Jodie’s competition costumes last night. Comical and sad all at the same time. At least it holds together her lyrical costume.

But Valentine’s Day is coming. Daniel has class parties to attend and exchange Valentines with 50 of his fellow students. Yes, fifty thanks to his Special Day Class, speech and his mainstream class. I cringe. Daniel rubs his hands with glee just thinking of all the sugary-sweet, ooey-gooey, chocolate-ly Valentine’s treats he will receive. I could have taken  the easy way out and bought a few boxes of those cheap-assed Sponge Bob Valentines at Walmart but…LAME! Only babies give those away my 10 year old tells me. They certainly won’t impress a certain girl.

That’s right fans of Daniel. There’s this girl… Our little man is growing up!

So now to get crafty but keep it cheap and simple.

Hello Pinterest!

So easy!

Get Daniel to pose with his outstretched fist.

Check.

Add a little message with Photoshop.

Check.

Order some 4 x 6 prints using a coupon so I only have to pay 7¢ per print.

Check.

Using sharp scissors cut a small slit at the top of the fist and the bottom of the fist in the picture.

Check.

Insert a tootsie pop and secure on the back with a little bit of tape.

Done!

Oh yeah! I am so crafty!