my babysitter is more awesome than yours....

            Growing up we had many babysitters come and go at our house. Mostly because my siblings and I wrecked havoc on them as soon as my parents were gone long enough that turning around was not an option....

              The first babysitter that I can remember that came back more than once, ended up being tied up in my living room floor after me and my sister had attacked her. We called our mother to let her know what we had done. She told us to untie the babysitter and we wouldn't. She couldn't leave work so the babysitter stayed tied up pretty much all day.


                The next babysitter only came once and we locked her out of the house. She cried. We laughed. Mom was not happy. The next babysitter that came along tried to keep us under control. It failed. I locked her keys in her car after I turned the head lights on so her battery was drained. I also believe that we chased her with the paddle until she locked herself in the bathroom.
               
                  My mom always tells us that when she called people to babysit it was like Denis the Menace. She could usually only get out the words, "Hi, this is Darla." Then she got hungup on. Until she found a girl that was crazier than all four of us put together. Her name was Leann and we had definitely met our match. She came back not once but EVERY TIME my mom called her. We tried our shenanigans and she would pull one on us twice as bad. Needless to say, we were stumped. So we decided that maybe if we joined forces with her it would be more fun. And we were right. I absolutely loved when my parents had to be gone because I wanted to hang out with my babysitter. I actually think that sometimes we did just hang out with her because she was that awesome.

             Some of my favorite memories with her would include the summer trip we took to Louisiana. Our parents left us at the hotel with her all day. We took advantage of the pool but not sunscreen. I don't think I have ever been more sun burnt in my life. I also loved when she would babysit us at her house. There was a bowl of jolly rancher that I am pretty sure we could have and it didn't matter but we turned it into a secret mission to get them without being seen. She saw us every time. That is why none of my siblings are secret agents and why my babysitter is more awesome than yours. 

the reason I love basketball....

                       My sister was a basketball freak. She played basketball rain or shine. The small concrete slab in front of our house was her "court" and we had a hand-me-down goal that she wore out. I never really had a choice of weather or not I was going to play with her, she made me play. She is four years older than me, so she had quite a bit more strength than I did so making a shot in a ten foot goal was nothing to her. However, for me ten feet might have well been a mile. I couldn't even hit the net when I shot the ball, so my sister had the idea to stack five gallon buckets up and make me a goal. This did give me some what of an advantage, or so I thought. My bucket goal was only about five feet tall but what I now realize is that a basketball is a tight fit in a five gallon bucket and I had no backboard. My chances of making anything in that bucket were slim to none. I don't even know if my sister realized this or not either.
                     She beat me every single time we played, unless we were playing teams and Ross was on my team. Ross was much bigger than Ashley and he made ten feet seem like ten inches. Ross would pick me up and let me make it or let me throw the ball and then he would give it a boost to the goal. When we teamed up, Ryan was on Ashley's team and Ross wouldn't let them steal the ball from me, which always happened when it was just me and Ashley. Teams were the only way I had a shot a winning. The older I got, the better I got. Eventually, I was able to make a shot in the ten foot goal and my fundamental skills were getting better. My sister was also getting better so the games were starting to get more intense. I think that I probably only beat her 2 or 3 times but I wouldn't have traded our driveway basketball games for anything. When I was playing those games I didn't think about how close my siblings and me got from playing them, but looking back now, we spent a whole lot of time on that court and my brothers didn't even like basketball. They just played with me and my sister.
                      I think my love for basketball all started by being forced to play for hours on that little concrete slab at my house. I credit my sister for making me better but I would also like to take the credit for making her better because I rebounded the ball for countless hours, let her use me as an practice dummy, and steal the ball from me all the time. I would also like to say that Ashley was rarely a humble winner so she taught me to be a somewhat graceful loser. She went on to play college ball so I would say that I was quite the practice partner. So, you're welcome Ashley.

whiskey, whiskey, whiskey

My father and I had quite a few rituals and games we played when I was growing up. Some of my favorites were being thrown sky high, or so it seemed. My dad always caught me and I thought he had super strength. I always had to fight off the gooler duck (goolers are actually the bottom part of your chin.) and the brain sucker. My dad would transform his hand into many characters just to make me laugh. Every time the brain sucker attacked my dad would say "He's starving" insinuating I had no brains. I think my all time favorite of our games was what we called whiskey. Whiskey was when my dad would rub his whiskers on my face and say whiskey, whiskey, whiskey. I LOVED to tell people that my dad gave me whiskey. I know I wasn't very old when this occurred because I told my daycare lady that my dad gave me whiskey, which brought a lot of questions to her mind and a lot of explaining for my mom to do when she picked me up that day. 

                I feel as though quite a few of stories my dad told me left a lot of people asking questions after I repeated them.  For example, when I was in kindergarten my dad told me he played football for the Dallas Cowboys. At this point in my life, I believed EVERYTHING my dad told me, including this far fetched tale. I went to school and told everyone and then I was taken as a liar for a short while until that story was explained. My dad also told me he shot a buffalo between the eyes with a bow and arrow, obviously not true but to this day he will still tell me he did. He still tells me fibs every now and again, the biggest being "it will only take 15 minutes." For anyone who knows my dad and he tells you this, it is a LIE. Chances are you will be there for a good three hours, at least. This statement has become a joke around our house, but I truly think my dad believes there is truth in it. I will give him credit because regardless of the tall tales, he has told me things with some validity to them, but, Dad,15 minutes is not enough time for everything. 

safety, punkin, safety

                  When I was in kindergarten, the school gave bike helmets to students. I don't exactly remember why they gave them to us or if we got to pick our own helmet. What I do remember is that the helmet that came into my possession that day, did not fit my head. The helmet only sat on the top of my head and my family thought it was HILARIOUS to make me wear it, which probably explains why every time I can remember getting hurt, I was wearing it.
                 The older I have gotten, the more I have realized how funny and odd the things my father says are. My all time favorite of his quotes from my childhood is when he would tell me "safety punkin,safety." (my nickname was punkin, why I have no idea) Usually after he said this, he handed me the bike helmet and he would make sure I strapped it on the top of my head. To this day, when he tells the story, he dies laughing.
                  No matter how ridiculous I looked, I am almost sure that the helmet did save me some what of headache on a few occasions. One of the times that stands out to me most with beloved bike helmet, would be with my roller blades. I may have been in first grade when this happened but I'm not really sure. I begged my parents for roller blades. My mom was rather adamant about me not getting them because we had no where for me to roller blade at. Our road was gravel, our drive way was gravel, and there was no concrete other than a 10' by 5' slab in front of our house. Somehow I convinced my sweet, lovely mother to buy me some roller blades at the thrift store. I think she did this just to prove a point to me but I didn't care, because I got them. I skated around for hours on the little concrete slab until my sister would make me take them off and play basketball with her.
                These roller blades were awesome until...my brothers came up with a wonder idea. We had a John Deere Gator that was "supposed" to be for farm chores but my brothers used it for a lot of other things. They decided to talk me into putting on my roller blades and bike helmet and giving me the end of a rope and pulling me around our huge yard behind the Gator. Needless to say, this was a horrible idea and more than likely one of the reasons my mother wouldn't buy me roller skates. 

this is the story of a girl....

I have decided recently that writing is a new stress release for me. I have also discovered that I enjoy writing about things I have done or that have happened to me. So after all this deciding and discovering I made it a goal of mine to start a blog of stories or experience or just things I want people to know.In a sense, I will blog my life story. so here it goes.....

I was born the youngest of four children (2 brothers, 1 sister). Ryan, Ross, and Ashley. Growing up we were all pretty close. We lived on a creek that was dry most of the time unless the lake got full enough to open the flood gates. Most of my childhood was spent playing in that creek. There were a few other kids that lived around us and sometimes they would join us on our adventures in the creek. Our favorite game was cowboys and Indians, which really consisted of throwing dirt clods at each other from opposite sides of the creek. My sister and I would make sure my brothers had enough ammo for my brothers to dominate the neighbors and for safety my brothers made my sister and I wear ice cream buckets as helmets. When we grew tired of playing cowboys and Indians, my brothers would think up crazy stunts and use me as the trial run before they themselves would do it. Most of the time, they never attempted the stunts because after I tried them they found out it wasn't going to work. The first of these stunts that I can remember involved an ice chest with no lid, my beloved bike helmet (story to follow) and the creek bank. My brothers put me in the ice chest with my bike helmet for safety and pushed me down the creek bank. Let me clarify that this creek bank was rather steep. Half way down the creek bank, my brothers yelled "don't look up." Of course I did and the ice chest flipped, scratching my face to pieces. My sister who had to have a roll in this stunt, carried me to the back door and knocked and ran. This was a regular routine at our house. My mom would find me wounded on the back porch and my siblings would be no where to be found. They would always show up for dinner and have some polished up story of what according to them, actually happened. Normally these stories were pretty far from the truth. Weather or not my mom believed them, I don't know, but I do know that she had to get tired of this at some point when emergency room visits were becoming rather frequent. 

I would like for you to also remember that we lived on a farm so there was a never ending supply of things for us to do and new and fun equipment for us to try out, but the most loved and my brothers personal favorite was duct tape. I would like to personally thank duct tape for saving my life a few times but also say that I hate duct tape for some of the pain that I suffered due to its super strength. The most creative uses I can remember both came from my brother Ross. He took it upon himself to teach me to ride my bike. I had had this bike for one day when he decided to take off the training wheels and tape my hands and feet to the bike and took me to the top of  the hill and make me learn. This hill was close to 250 yard and the path down this hill was a gravel road. At the bottom of the hill was the creek. To survive this I had to master bike riding by the bottom of the hill and either turn into my driveway or make the sharp curve onto the bridge. Needless to say safety was important to my brothers because once again I was wearing the stupid bike helmet. After I was taped up and my helmet was strapped on tight, my brother counted to 3 and pushed. I made it about 10 feet before falling over. Ross was relentless and sat me up and pushed again, no count to 3 just push. This cycle was repeated until the bottom of the hill and I mastered the bike and turned into my driveway. I would almost bet that this is a record for mastering bike riding....... 

they say there is a first time for everything...

there comes a point in every one's life when they look up at the sky and realize that they are part of something so much bigger than themselves, then they look down at their feet and see all the little squirming ants and realize they are just a little bigger than they thought they were.

listen to Jack Johnson- Hope