When I was a kid sports meant gym class and gym class meant humiliation. I was the kid who always dropped the ball or more accurately ran away from the ball. I was the kid picked last for the kickball team. I never understood why they let kids pick teams in gym class. It’s so embarrassing for the people that no one wants to pick. The only time I excelled in an athletic activity in school was during a game of capture the flag. I managed to run unnoticed into the other teams territory. Unfortunately, I was being chased by a bee so I ran right past the flag and into the school.

I’m older and wiser now, but I’m not any more coordinated than I used to be as a child. I still suck at sports. Because I’m not good at it I don’t like it. The other day I encountered a sport that I enjoyed. It’s called disc golf. Have you ever played it? It’s like golf but there are no holes, clubs, tees, sand traps, or balls. Doesn’t that sound just like golf?

Instead of holes, there are baskets, and instead of balls, there are Frisbees. I’m not sure if anything that involves a Frisbee can really be classified as a sport, but I’m sure it can be called fun. Here’s a picture of someone playing disc golf:

He doesn’t look like he’s having fun, but that’s because even though he’s supposed to be a professional he’s obviously doing it wrong. He should get a few lessons from me. While I do approved of the raised leg technique, I definitely don’t approve of the frown.

When I get back to the UK I’m going to make my own disc golf course. I think I can make the baskets out of twigs and yarn. I’m also pretty sure I can use a dinner plate as Frisbee. That should work just fine. Right?

Photo by USACE-Sacramento

I wasn’t the kid who desperately wanted to get rid of my glasses so I could be one of the cool girls. I though glasses were cool. I thought I looked great in them. That is until my husband got lasik eye surgery.

I would never get an eye operation. Just mentioning eye operations now is making my eyes tear up, but I don’t want to wear my glasses any more. I’ve decided to deal with this problem by trying Bates Exercises.

The Bates Method is a series of exercises that are supposed to improve your eyesight. The theory is that the muscles around your eyes can change the shape of your eyes to improve your ability to focus. Bates developed a series of eye exercise you could do to train the muscles around your eyes improving your vision.

I decided to start doing these exercises. Well, that’s not exactly the truth. I’ve decided to make up my own exercises because I’m too lazy to look up what the Bates Exercises actually  are. I also really like making things up, like stories, dances and dessert recipes. My made-up cookies are pretty darn good, I think I could accomplish equally good results with made up eye exercises.

When I’m in the car with my husband at night I take off my glasses and concentrate really hard on seeing. I’m not driving when I do this my husband is. It’s a good thing too because as soon as I take off my glasses all I can see is a bunch of streaky lights that look like snow flakes. I’ve put myself on a strict eye exercise routine. My husband says that the exercises just look like I’m making a really serious face, but that’s because he can’t see the tiny movements that are actually going on in my eye muscles. I do this for about 1 minute twice a week.

Is it working? Of course it is. Now when I walk around without glasses, I can see slightly more detailed blobs of color in the distance. Okay, that’s not true either, but I figure that if I pretend it’s working it will work…eventually.

Last Sunday as I waited for my husband to come home from work, I decided to teach myself the Deseret alphabet. Why not waste my brain space with something completely useless? As a child I would’ve loved it for writing secret messages, but as an adult, I’m just doing it for the laughs.

In case you didn’t know:

In the mid 1800′s, under the direction of Brigham Young a committee of folks created a new alphabet. The purpose of the alphabet was to make it easier to read and write English phonetically. Apparently, the Latin alphabet everyone already used just wasn’t good enough. The alphabet didn’t catch on. There were only a few books printed using this new alphabet among which were The Book of Mormon (of course) and an English-Hopi dictionary (makes sense).

When I explained the alphabet to my husband and showed him how to write his name using it he said, “That’s so Mormon.”

The noise was coming from the bathroom. It sounded like someone had left the sink running. When I opened the bathroom door there was a pool of water on the floor and the toilet tank was overflowing. “Help,” I yelled and my husband came rushing in to see our toilet which had suddenly transformed itself into Victoria Falls. After briefly considering how much I might be able to charge people to see the wonder that our toilet had become, we sprang into action.

When we removed the lid from the tank we saw that the pipe that fills up the tank had water gushing out of it at an incredible speed. I flushed the toilet to empty the tank and within a few seconds it was full again. I just sat there flushing the toilet again and again and asking my husband what we should do. Unlike normal toilets, our toilet has no shut off valve.

My husband stuck his finger in the pipe which of course sprayed water all over us. If that had indeed stopped the water, I wonder if he would’ve sat there all night with his finger in the pipe.

The only way to turn off the water to our flat is by uncovering a hole on the sidewalk and reaching your arm all the way down the hole to turn off the valve with a screwdriver. Eventually, my husband did that, but the problem with doing that is that it shuts off the water for the whole building. That means the people who live upstairs don’t have any water either. Not so good, huh?

Our plumbing problems were fixed this morning. Not only did the plumber fix the toilet, but he put a valve in the pipe that leads to the toilet so we can turn off the water if we need to. But, this experience left me wondering something. Why do toilets run for so long when the tanks can be filled within a few seconds? Wouldn’t be nicer if the tank filled more quickly? I think I’m on to something here. Maybe I should get into the toilet making business.

Anyway, when she was prosecuted for her crimes she received several psychiatric evaluations. One of her diagnosis was that she had a puff of madness–meaning she was mad for a short time, but now she’s fine. Can you believe that? You could use that excuse for almost anything.

“Sorry, about that. I just had a puff of madness.”

“You didn’t take me seriously when I said that, did you? I was having a puff of madness at the time so I really didn’t mean it.”

If she could get only five years in jail for killing a man because she had a puff of madness, I should be able to get out of a few small mistakes using the same excuse.

All of this aside, I thought goats and chickens could be a good addition to our household. We could have free eggs whenever we wanted and I like egg. We could also have free milk for making kefir and yogurt and butter and cheese and whatever else I can make with milk. I even picked out the ideal goat breed. Nigerian dwarf goats would be my goats of choice. They’re suppose to get make enough milk to feed a family and they’re small. I would have two. They would need to keep each other company.

My passion for raising goats has waned recently. Not because I realized I’d have to milk them every day–imagine me milking a goat–or because I’d have to clean up after them, or because they’re smelly and they make that goat noise all the time, but because I tasted some goat yogurt.

I bought some goat yorgurt. I like to try new things. We can eat some yogurt on out exciting Candida diet to try to get some probiotic into our systems. We can also have a moderate amount of grains so the other day I had oatmeal for breakfast. I mixed it with some goat yogurt and blueberries. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t try this at home. It was disgusting. Goats don’t make the same nice tastey yogurt like that cows do. Instead, goat milk makes something similar to goat cheese. Goat cheese is good, but it’s not good in your oatmeal.

Anyway, I’ve had it in for goats ever since they ruined my oatmeal. I’ve decided there will be no goats for me because I just can’t put up with that kind of unpredictability in my dairy products.

I’m still considering chickens. I’ve recently found out that you can tell what color eggs a hen will produce by looking at her earlobes. I didn’t even know chickens had earlobes. Maybe they have lips too.

Photo by Just Chaos.

Today on another blog I saw this video and it reminded me of that idea. Isn’t the idea of making a book fascinating. Maybe not to you, but to me it definitely is.

Apparently, the musicians in this area wonder about what their jobs would be in alternate realities too. There’s a list that gets passed around that suggests possible alternative professions for area musicians. It’s good to have options in case the whole music thing doesn’t work out.

My husband recently saw the list and of course he was on it. His suggested profession is rodeo cowboy. He seems a bit disappointed by this, but I think its perfect. I can picture him in a cowboy hat and boots.

What do think?