"the clarification you require to get through your day"

a thought occurred to me in the car yesterday.

on our little road trip to explore the miles and miles of country roads we've so nicely transplanted ourself in to.

on our way out to visit our friends bill & tammi and their kids mckenna and grace.

on our way out to surely overstay our welcome by not leaving until 8 o'clock last night.

on our way out to sponge pizza and cheesey bread off of them.

on our way out to hug their necks and tell them how much we've missed them.

on our way out to laugh manically at everyone who chooses to remain in frozen colorado while those of us with two brain cells to rub together have moved ourselves to the land of warmth and fire ants.

on our way out to sit on a swing underneath the oak trees, to feed deer, watch our kids play in the sand, and to plan gardens.

this is the very thought that occurred to me and the very one that i must now convey to you.

urgently.

riley is NOT the boss of wyatt's belly button.

how do i know this?

because wyatt informed us of this exactly 3,963 times in the car yesterday on our 160 mile roundtrip roadtrip.

so allow me sum it up for you again - in the event you're still operating with the confused notion that riley is, in fact, the boss of wyatt's belly button.

RILEY IS NOT THE BOSS OF WYATT'S BELLY BUTTON.

now you may get on with your day.

sweet sweet revenge

this is what happens to naughty dogs in the Jackson household:

superhero costumes.

plastic-y vinyl vests.

masks with your ears pulled through the eye holes.

belts.

and you’re all like “WHAT? that patio furniture deal was like MONTHS ago.”

and i'm all like “yeah, and I’m STILL ticked off about the cushions. i am so leaving you to the mercy of the kids.”

i'd suggest gettin' your POWER RANGER ON there aunt bea. and be happy about it.

p.s.

oh, the new site will be conveniently located at:

www.lorijackson.net

you're probably wondering right now how i came up with something so incredibly spiffy, descriptive, unique and creative.

and the truthful answer is this: i don't know, sometimes i stun myself with these flashes of brilliance.

that and lorijackson DOT COM was already taken.

we're not live yet but when we are we will be live.

how's that for setting the bar high?

it's the fingernails

so it's been kind quiet in blogger world lately.

i'm chalkin' it up to 2 things:

first, i'm having a nice, pretty new site made just for me.

my own little home on the web. that's been an interesting exercise though 'cause it feels a little like i'm decorating my own little corner of the World Wide Web so it's been wildly important to me that it be JUST PERFECT. that's the kind of functioning obsessive compulsive person i am.

plus, i don't want you talking behind my back about the dust bunnies hiding under my navigation bar.

but really it's been all about the fingernails. this is point number 2, in case you didn't notice already.

i can't type with 'em, and i can't find the clippers.

i blame it on ms. boucher.

as she's dead and all i'm not implying that her spooky aparition visited my bathroom and took the clippers. most likely it was a kid - one of mine - who's lost all 200 pair of scissors in our household and is now using my fingernail clippers to give the stuffed shrek doll that screams "DONKEY" when you grab its foot a haircut. not that shrek needs one or anything.

ms. boucher. miss boucher. mizz boucher. mizzzzzz martha boucher.

old maid piano teacher extraordinaire.

there's more to be said about ms. boucher but today we're just going to talk about fingernails.

she hated 'em.

and no, they did not have to be long and sparkly to incite her white-hot tweed-suited anger.

even a nub could set her off.

it was a quiet anger, though. one that would begin percolating as i would arrive for my lesson in time for the prerequisite "sight reading" practice over on the tiny electric piano while patrick, the prodigy student, was finishing up his lesson.

patrick never let his fingernails get too long. he had weird hair though. kinda scoopy and floppy and too styled. like an unwarranted combover to cover an imaginary bald spot.

anyway, i'd be sight reading away the theme from "Ice Castles" on the tiny electric piano and the click click click of my barely there fingernails would give me away.

then i'd get THE LOOK and i just hated THE LOOK because really, down deep, i'm a pleaser so while my brain was busy calling ms. boucher names like "you big giant booger head" i was quietly dying a thousand deaths over disappointing her with my evil fingernail growth.

as time passed i got better about clipping my fingernails regularly. this always bought me a few extra minutes to read Archie comic books before my piano lessons. which is always a good thing.

and then i got used to them being short. really really short.

my productivity depended on it. especially when keyboards became an integral component to my day-to-day life.

let's face it, long fingernails really can hamper certain activities like typing, gardening, and picking at blackheads.

so that's my excuse.

i can't find my fingernail clippers and you CAN NOT imagine how painful it was to even type this latest installment when "this" comes out as "5y8w" because my fingernails are now too long to hit the right keys.

so, in closing, let me say this:

i yqtei o9tn r8qjwefwoq!

and i mean every word of it.