How to become white trash.

I am learning a lot from living in Tooele. One thing is that I am learning how middle class my neighborhood was growing up. There were no big swimming pools in people's driveways with the teenagers 'laying out' on top of the cars in the street to tan. I never saw a dog left on the roof for no apparent reason. Where were the chickens raised in small wire cages in the front yard - moved around every few hours or so to stay in the shade of a little stick tree? Man, all the fun I must have missed. And that is just on two blocks of my street! How about couches out on the dead front lawn so you can sit out there while your laundry dries hanging from the gutter of your house? No one cut trucks apart and then welded them together on their front lawn. Why didn't we think of these things in Sandy?

Well, whatever I didn't learn in my youth, I am learning now. Take a look at the temporary fence I put up in the front. It used to have two pieces of PVC pipes on both ends of the metal post with string strung across them to keep my kids off that side of the lawn. It was up for one night. The next morning, Jacob and Cameron took out their light sabers and "saved the world" from those posts (aka knocked them down and walked through all the string). Note the light saber on the ground.

Yesterday our swamp cooler broke AGAIN right before church so Ryan and I climbed on top of the roof to see what was wrong last night. We salvaged our current swamp cooler parts from a neighbor's old swamp cooler about a month ago, but didn't use their motor. So, at around 10:00 pm Ryan went and got the neighbors motor and we stuck it up there and it worked fine. Well this morning, it wasn't working again. Since our house was already 80 degrees (it was 7:00 am) with the fans running all night, I went into panic mode. Ryan didn't have time to look at it and it was going to be a hot day. My house faces west, so the back of the house gets the sun full on in the morning. Here was my solution.


Oh yes, that blanket in my kitchen above my sink is actually pinned up with push pins. There is also a piece of cardboard behind the blinds to help block the light.

I actually got tinfoil out to begin pasting it to every window in the house, but changed my mind after tearing off a big piece and realizing what I was doing. I wasn't willing to go quite that far.

I would show you Matthew's room but to all those who helped me make it cute, I couldn't disappoint them by letting them see how the cardboard didn't fit in the window and instead of cutting it, I just set it up so it is sticking way out on both sides under the blinds, which is covered with a blanket.

My garage that is so full of kids things I can't pull my suburban in and adds to the overall feeling of the house - along with the marijuana we are growing in the flower beds (just kidding about the marijuana).

Since our sprinkler system was struck by lightening last year and we are too stupid to figure out how to fix it and too poor to pay someone else to fix it, we water our lawn with a little cheap attachment. And since our dog for some reason likes to chew on the hose, it usually has a few small fountains of water spurting out of it when we turn it on. Our grass is green in some areas only because the morning glory is so thick it makes it look green.

And this is the fun of owning a house. A list of things that need to be fixed longer than the house itself was not part of the deal. (Wait!!! Maybe it was in that 150 pages of paperwork I signed at closing and I missed it.)

Back to the swamp cooler. (I would hate to leave you hanging). I fixed the swamp cooler motor. I fiddled with our old one and unscrewed things and screwed them back in, oiled things and then oiled them again. I cried and complained a little and then called my friend Julie. Julie is about as handy- if not more - as any husband and can do just about anything that needs to be done. She and I got on the roof after dropping the kids off at school and put the old motor back on, tightened the belt to where we thought it should be, and WHAM! The swamp cooler worked. Don't worry though. Ryan made sure to leave the big old swamp cooler parts on the roof because he doesn't know what to do with them. We do have an image to uphold.

WHEW!!! Another romantic night on the roof, another lesson in swamp cooler parts and problems, another way to look like white trash. I think my work is done for the day!

p.s. Just a note, I did get dressed before going to Walmart today though. I even wore a non-see-through shirt AND a bra. Maybe I am more classy than I thought!