My F**K-IT List

A lot of people have been making bucket lists, you know… things that they want to do/places they want to go before they “kick the bucket” so to speak. First off, there are far, far too many things that I want to do before The Grim Reaper comes to collect me. Secondly, doing bucket list type things usually involves spending large quantities of money, and my finances are now, and probably will forever be, in the toilet. Let’s face it. Even if I were to begin planning and scrimping and saving for my bucket list RIGHT NOW, there’s no way I will be able to do even a handful of the things that I want to.

I have decided that I am now old enough to just say “NO!” to some things that I dislike and/or have no interest in, and that is almost as good as saying “Yes” to a bunch of awesome things that I’ll probably never be able to do. So… instead of a bucket list, I’m writing a f**k-it list. This is a list of things that either:

(A) I have done in the past, but now choose to never, ever do again because doing them was so unbearable; or

(B) Things that have never appealed to me in any way, and given the choice between having a root canal without anesthetic or doing them, I would choose the root canal.

Lyn’s F**k-It List

1. BELONG TO ANY ORGANIZED RELIGION. I have enough guilt, shame and fear left over from growing up in one, thank you very much! So Mr. Clergyman who lives across the street from me… although I think very highly of you as a person and enjoy chatting with you when we’re both out collecting our garbage cans on garbage day, please, Please, PLEASE stop trying to get me to come to church. I am so far beyond organized religion that I cannot even feign interest in it, but I hate being rude. So please, for the love of all that is holy, stop pestering me about it!

2. TRY TO LEARN ALGEBRA. I knew I’d never have a use for it when I was ripping my hair out in high school trying to learn it. Guess what! I’m now middle-aged and I have yet to come across any real life situation in which I needed to figure out what “x” or "y" are! And since I don’t plan on pursuing a career as a rocket scientist/civil engineer/algebra teacher in this lifetime, I choose to never look at an algebraic equation again. HA!

3. CARE WHAT MY MOTHER THINKS ABOUT ME. I love the woman, and she was a good mom to me when I was growing up, but she fails to accept the fact that I am now 41 and haven’t lived under her roof for nearly 24 years. She still insists on treating me as if I were ten years old. And she’s the most manipulative, passive-aggressive, judgmental, self-made martyr I have ever known.

4. ALLOW ANYONE (WHO DOESN’T HAVE DIRECT AUTHORITY OVER ME) TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO OR HOW TO MANAGE MY LIFE. My husband, ex-husbands, and parents do NOT have authority over me. I am a grown up. I have lived through shit that my parents would never even comprehend. I have SURVIVED things that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I may not always make the best decisions, but I do NOT need anyone ordering me around like I’m a toddler. I will listen to suggestions, advice, even criticism, and take it under advisement. But I will not take ORDERS.

5. GO TO A DANCE CLUB. Lyn. Doesn’t. Dance. I have let people drag me along with them to dance clubs in the past because said people wanted to get their “groove on” and didn’t want to do it alone. These evenings would always involve me feeling completely underdressed, frumpy and old in the midst of the young, beautiful, trendy and cosmetically enhanced patrons, and being subjected to "music" (and I use that term very loosely) that sounded like the same exact techno beats played for a solid three hours accompanied by two racoons getting it on in a metal irrigation pipe. I didn’t dance on these outings because… Lyn. Doesn’t. Dance. I couldn’t drink because I had to drive home afterwards. I would spend the entire time wishing that I were at home curled up with a good book… or watching the tube… or sleeping… hell, even doing the laundry would have been more enjoyable! Never again! LYN. DOESN’T. DANCE!

6. BUNGEE JUMP, SKY DIVE, OR HANG GLIDE. I live my life in fear of getting maimed in a car accident. Why would I PAY my hard-earned money to exponentially increase my chances of bodily damage, dismemberment and/or death?

7. TRAVEL TO ANY THIRD WORLD COUNTRY. I can get sick enough just living here in the U.S.A. I don’t need to contract parasites, malaria or dysentery in a country that doesn’t even have the polio vaccine yet.

8. GO HUNTING. Because I have lived in Utah my entire life, I accept the fact that people like to hunt. I have even eaten venison on more than a few occasions. But it all boils down to three very important factors for me: 1) I don’t like being out in the cold weather; 2) I don’t like camping; and 3) I don’t want to kill any living thing bigger than a spider. Enough said.

9. GO SKIING. I know I’m a really poor excuse for a Utahn, but I have never had the desire to try my hand (er, foot) at skiing. I repeat, I don’t like being out in the cold. I repeat, I don’t want to suffer bodily damage, dismemberment or death. I don’t want to drive on snowy, icy roads up the side of a mountain to get to a ski resort. And then there’s the fact that most of the people who ski at the resorts here are of the young, beautiful, trendy and cosmetically enhanced variety. BAH!

10. OWN A DOG. If I wanted something that would take up that much of my time, energy and attention, I would have had another kid! Dogs smell. They take dumps and pee all over the house. They’re always jumping all over people and sniffing crotches and butts. They’re constantly barking at the least little noise. They dig through the garbage cans in the house and outdoors. They have to be bathed. They eat their own and each other’s crap. Good grief! I just realized that another kid would be LESS trouble than a dog! I’ll stick with my independent, self-cleaning, quiet, sleep-all-day, house-trained cats, thank you very much.

I'm very sorry if anyone out there in blogland was planning on inviting me to a disco at a ski resort in a third world country and planned to bring their dog and my mom along for the ride, but I think I may have a couple teeth that need root canals!

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it’s the end of one year and the beginning of another, and everyone’s asking me what my New Year’s Resolutions are. And my answer: “Lyn doesn’t make resolutions.” (Sometimes I like to speak in the third person, ya know.) It’s not that I don’t think there are approximately 4.23 gazillion things about myself that I should change. I KNOW there are. I live with myself, okay? However, I have found that I’m just not the kind of person who can resolve to do a bunch of things just because of the change of a calendar, and then follow through on those things. Change is difficult, and we all know that Lyn absolutely loathes change, and doesn’t get very excited at the prospect of doing anything difficult.

So what would be the point of my making New Year’s Resolutions? To feel like a failure at more things in my pathetic life? To have several more reasons to self-flagellate? Thanks…. but no. Just as an example for all you resolution-making people out there (and more power to the people who can resolve to do things and actually follow through with them!)… if I were going to make the typical resolutions for the beginning of a new year, it would look something like THIS:

1. Stop smoking!.... er, at least switch to the electronic cigarettes.... ok, switch to the electronic cigarettes and only allow myself one real cigarette a day.... to be more realistic, let’s make it two real cigarettes a day.... and cigarettes at social gatherings.... and by social gatherings, I mean anytime I’m around someone who’s smoking and I feel the urge to partake in the inhalation of carcinogens with them.

2. Lose that pesky 50 pounds that I’ve been carrying around on my body for the past several years!.... 40 pounds would be an improvement.... honestly, I would be happy just losing 30 pounds and fitting into a size 9 again.... make it 20 pounds.... or, hey… even If I just lost enough to fit into the jeans I was wearing last summer, that would be awesome.... let's say I’ll try to not GAIN anymore weight this year!


3. Remember all the birthdays of my close friends and family members and send cards to everyone the week before their birthdays!.... or, remember the birthdays and get the cards mailed within a week after their birthdays at the latest.... send e-cards to those that I manage to remember.... call my immediate family members on their birthdays.... write “Happy Birthday” on the Facebook page of my friends and family members who have Facebook profiles.... that is, if I happen to log on to Facebook on their birthdays and it reminds me to.


4. Volunteer somewhere at least once a week!.... I mean a month.... I would be more likely to do it, if it was quarterly.... I’ll do something next Christmas season.... how about I donate my old stuff to Goodwill.


5. Make a home cooked dinner five nights a week!... three nights a week... does Hamburger Helper count?... what about TV dinners twice a week?... greasy cheeseburgers for dinner no more than twice a week, and more “healthy” fast food the rest of the week.


6. Stop procrastinating!.... I’ve already got too much on my plate this year. I’ll put this one on next year’s list.

Christmas Wrap-Up

My Christmas was a whirlwind of organized chaos. That may not make sense to a lot of people, but the description fits my holiday season perfectly.

1. The girls made their Christmas gift lists before Thanksgiving. I like their lists, especially this year. They didn’t have anything too outrageous on them, and they each only listed 13 items.

2. The weekend after Thanksgiving, the girls walked a couple blocks to our local ShopKo and purchased two Wilton gingerbread house kits. They brought them home and with just a little assistance from me (mixing the icing and loading it into the bags), they were off and running, building and decorating their adorable, little houses.

3. We got the tree up about a week after Thanksgiving. It was a practically painless project for me. I put the three pre-lit tree pieces together and plugged the strings of lights together and the girls did the rest… fluffing up the tree branches and hanging the ornaments and candy canes. I put the star on top and the skirt around the bottom. It took us about a half an hour total, and I was fixing dinner for most of that time…

4. I started my Christmas shopping on Saturday, December 10, which was the day after payday. I spent pretty much my whole paycheck on gifts for the girls, but it only took me one afternoon and I had most the gifts on their lists checked off. I also had a blast doing this shopping with my dear friend, Caren, whom I rarely get to “go out” with.

5. I crocheted a little pink hat for my granddaughter and tied a small “silky” quilt for her on December 18.

6. We took the girls to the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork on December 20. This is one of our Christmas traditions. It’s the best! It’s not too far from where we live, it’s only $5 per carload, and you can drive around and around the park as many times as you want.

7. I made a “tacky” Christmas sweater for my work party that was held on December 22… and won the “Ugly Christmas Sweater” contest!

8. I took the afternoon of December 23 off work. It was payday, and I finished most of the rest of my Christmas shopping. Then it was off to my biological father’s family Christmas party in West Jordan. That house was so packed full of people it was difficult to move, let alone chat with everyone. This is the first Christmas since I found my father, so it was nice to be invited to share in one of his family’s traditions.

9. First thing in the morning of Christmas Eve, I ran around town picking up the last few gifts I needed to buy. I picked up the girls and we went out to lunch. Then my little elves wrapped all the presents (except those from Father Christmas of course). Our little cat, Maddie, tried to be an elf also, but she was, in truth, a destructive, gift wrap tearing, ribbon eating little beastie. I tidied up a bit and the girls went to bed after I read them “A Visit from St. Nicholas”. Then Santa got to work. It only took about 15 minutes to stuff stockings and wrap gifts in the special Santa paper. I got to go to bed at 11:00! I believe this was the first Christmas in about 22 years that I have made it to bed before 1:00 a.m. It was a Christmas miracle!

10. Christmas morning started dark and early… 6:30 a.m. The girls were very happy with their gifts, and I’ve got to tell you… they were more excited to see me open my gifts than they were to open their own. They even let Corbin and me open our special gifts BEFORE they opened their gifts from Santa Claus. Another Christmas miracle! The girls played their Wii games for awhile and let the adults rest a bit. Then we all got ready and made the trip to my parents’ house. We were the first ones there… another Christmas miracle!

11. Almost everyone in my family was there. Most importantly, my son, Anthony, had flown in from Nevada for Christmas. I hadn’t seen him since June. We made and ate smoked turkey and/or ham sandwiches, baked potatoes and pie… lots of pie. We all exchanged gifts and watched as everyone took turns opening (my family’s tradition). There was a lot of laughter and love, as always.

12. Left my parents’ house and went to my wife-in-law’s parent’s house in Provo to drop off their gifts. My girls got to spend some time with their sister, Indigo, and their “Aunt Christy”, “Aunt Nikki” and “Grandma Sindy”. We hung out for awhile and then headed home for another round of family togetherness.

13. We live with my in-laws, so my husband’s family party is where we live. My mother-in-law made some spiral cut ham, homemade mac and cheese and potato salad. A lot of the family showed up and the girls had a lot of cousins to hang out with for a few hours. Then we dragged our exhausted selves to bed.

14. I took a bunch of “kids” to Jump On It in Lindon the day after Christmas. Anthony, Danielle (and her husband, Tyson), Maya, Penelope, my niece, Serenity, and my granddaughter, Addalie. The girls had a blast. My adult kids… not so much. They are realizing that you can’t do as much when you get older without it causing aches and pains in your aging body. LOL! It was good to all be together and for all my kids to get to spend some time together doing something fun.

15. Later that night some of the family went out to eat at Village Inn. Delicious comfort food as always… and pie! It was the last time I’d get to see Anthony, as his flight was the next morning at 6:00. I’m glad we got a chance to spend a little more time with him.

16. And it’s not over yet! My brother, Brandon and his fiancée just flew in yesterday, and I need to get over to my parents’ house to see them. And, my birth mother and her husband are coming to our house this Saturday to exchange gifts.

It was the best Christmas I have had in a long, long time. I even managed to mail out all my Christmas cards in time for everyone to get them BEFORE Christmas. And with the girls doing most of the “grunt work”, I was able to relax and enjoy more of the season than I have in years! I would have taken pictures, but my camera’s been broken for awhile now. I took a few with Maya’s new camera, and maybe I’ll post them sometime in the near future.

How I Feel This Week

Evocations of Christmas Past ~ December 20, 1999



"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


Some memories don't fade.
Some wounds don't heal completely. Ever.
Sometimes there aren't "do-overs".
Some choices haunt you for the rest of your life.

More Random Christmas Memories

My siblings and I used to put on a Christmas pageant for our parents. I was always Mary, my brother, Joel, was Joseph, my brother, Brandon, was usually a shepherd, and my baby sister, Emily, was Baby Jesus. We wore robes and tied bath towels on our heads. The manger was our red vinyl beanbag chair. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.


Here are the four of us on one little sled: Me, Joel, Brandon and Emily






My dad always used his pocket knife to unwrap his gifts, and offered it to anyone who had trouble with ribbon on a gift or tape on a box. Nothing says “Christmas” like a small, sharp knife.

Santa Claus always put fresh oranges, pears and apples in our stockings, along with nuts still in their shells. Inevitably, our stockings were full of a rotting, gooey fruit and nut science experiment about the middle of January.

My mom would usually put away one gift for each of us until New Year’s. I grew up thinking that everyone got a gift on New Year’s.

My dad would take us caroling around the neighborhood, and then make his famous hot cocoa for us when we got home.


Dad pulling me on a sled in the back yard ~ 1973




We children usually all slept in my room on Christmas Eve. A couple kids in the bed and a couple in sleeping bags on the floor. Lots of giggling! Chidren's anticipation of Christmas morning so thick you could cut it with a knife (maybe my dad’s pocket knife). I don’t know how late we usually stayed awake, but I do remember how difficult it was to go to sleep on Christmas Eve.

Our family always had Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve evening, and cold turkey sandwiches on rolls on Christmas Day.

Watching all the Bass/Rankin stop motion Christmas specials on television… and the cartoons (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol…). This was back before people had VCR’s in their homes, or cable television for that matter. We waited all YEAR to see these specials, and if we missed a special, we MISSED it until the next year.

My mom’s side of the family always had a Christmas party in December. Everyone brought pot luck to eat. We all SANG carols together, while someone in the family accompanied on the piano. We drew names each year for who we would give a gift to the next year. Santa Claus almost always showed up to these parties. No one sings at family Christmas parties anymore. Maybe that’s a tradition I can start with my kids and my siblings (hint, hint).

Ice skating at the Provo Boat Harbor.

Sledding down the hill (road) in front of our house.

Tubing by the beaver farm across the street from our house or Japs Hill. (Sorry, I know that’s politically incorrect, but that’s what that hill has been called since my dad was a little kid in the 1940’s.)

Building snowmen with my dad in the back yard and not thinking anything of the fact that he NEVER wore gloves.


Joel, Frosty and Me ~ 1977






And Christmas music... so much Christmas music! Jim Reeves, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, Burl Ives, and on and on, and it was playing in our house beginning November 1. I know this is where I got my love for Christmas music.


Dad (without gloves OR jacket) building a snowman with Joel and Brandon ~ 1979

Christmas Morning Traditions ~ So Many Christmas Memories

Christmas morning was full of traditions in my family. As a kid, a lot of these “traditions” seemed more like “rules” though. Once I had walking, talking kids of my own, who were very literally bouncing off the walls on Christmas morning, chomping at the bit to get to the presents… well, I suddenly understood my parents’ traditions.

First rule, er... I mean tradition: We children waited in our rooms until after we heard dad go downstairs to light a fire in the fireplace. This kept all the kids under control and out of my parents’ hair until THEY were ready to start the craziness.

Second tradition: The family ate Christmas breakfast (cinnamon toast and orange juice) together. This gets something besides candy (although cinnamon sugar on toast is a little iffy here) inside the kids’ tummies before they dump out the stockings and start gorging on chocolate and candy canes.

Third tradition: Dad, and ONLY DAD, went downstairs to get the home movie camera ready to go. This was not a video camera. This was an old silent home movie camera with a GIANT light affixed to the top for indoor lighting purposes. The kids lined up at the top of the stairs with mom supervising, and when dad had the camera rolling, we went down the stairs in a somewhat orderly fashion and checked out the gifts Santa Claus had brought. Let me tell you, that light on top of the camera made it pretty difficult to even make it down the stairs, let alone see what Santa brought for us. I think we all were seeing blue halos for at least a couple hours every Christmas morning. My parents wanted to get all our reactions on film. I’m glad they did. Those old home movies are so much fun to watch now.

Fourth tradition: We all sat together and each took turns opening gifts. This was so my parents could see our reactions to each of the gifts. And it made the whole holiday last longer than if it were just a big free-for-all.

Now I’ve never been as organized and with it as my parents were. I tried to make my kids stay in their rooms until I got up on Christmas morning, but around age six, they weren’t so compliant in this department. So Santa Claus started wrapping his gifts so the kids couldn’t just walk into the living room and see what they got. I don’t really do breakfast, so how can I expect my kids to, especially on Christmas morning?! I’m lucky if I can manage to make a cup of coffee before everything turns to chaos.

I’ve never had a video camera, so I try to remember to leave the regular camera in the living room on Christmas Eve so I can at least get a few snapshots to remember the moments as they fly past. The one Christmas morning tradition that I have held tightly to is the taking of turns to open gifts. I spend a lot of time and money picking out gifts, and I want to see my kids’ reactions to them.

Most people want to do “better” than their parents did. When it comes to Christmas, there is no way possible that I could do better. I can’t even do “mediocre” compared to them, they set the bar so high. Congratulations, guys! You’ve bested all of your children! And I love you for it!

My Mom (a.k.a. Mrs. Claus) ~ Christmas Memories Continued...

Mom and Me ~ Christmas Morning

These posts are pretty boring reading to anyone outside my immediate family, I know. I'm writing them mainly as a record for my children. I wish my grandparents and parents had written down their memories for us. “Why now?” you may ask... welllllll, I think there is something wrong with my body... the uncontrollable blood pressure, etc., and I have been thinking a lot about my mortality lately.


Mrs. Claus’s Workshop

I can’t forget to mention my mom’s love of Christmas. She did every bit as much Christmassing as my dad. My mom would usually have her Christmas shopping done sometime in October… yep, OCTOBER. That way, she could spend the holiday season in the kitchen. During the month preceding Christmas, our kitchen and dining room were transformed into Mrs. Claus’s workshop.

Mom would bake her pecan pies and sour cream cake, make caramel popcorn balls, peanut brittle, divinity, fudge, Chex mix, and this heavenly honeyish mix of cereals and grated coconut. And who could forget the date balls? I can just taste them now! We kids would all “help” her make sugar cookies, standing on chairs and kneeling on barstools encircling the kitchen island counter where mom would roll out the dough. We would each get to cut out cookies and place them on the cookie sheet, usually sneaking a few chunks of the surrounding dough into our little mouths while mom wasn’t looking. Although my parents gave plates of these goodies to the neighbors, there was never a shortage of sweets in our house during the holidays.

The dining room was Gift Wrap Central. Rolls upon rolls of Christmas wrapping paper stuck out of boxes on the floor. Several boxes full of pre-made bows and bow-making supplies. And enough name tags to last through Christmas 2050! It was here that my mother taught me everything I know about wrapping gifts. She showed me how to use a yardstick to rip paper in a perfect straight line, how to quickly measure the paper for a gift so as not to cut the paper too small or too large, how to fold the paper around difficult shapes, how to make bows and curl ribbon.

Mom was also our family’s chief correspondent. She had a big red address book that she kept updated with the addresses and phone numbers of our relatives and friends near and far. Many years she would type up a Christmas Letter to send out with our Christmas cards. This letter would give updates on each of us. She would let me draw holly berries and leaves on the corners of the pages with green and red markers. She would then address the envelopes by hand and send the cards to every friend and relative our family had.



Brandon, Joel and Me ~ Christmastime

My mom didn’t have many good childhood memories, and I know that she did all these things so that her children would have nothing but marvelous memories of Christmas. You succeeded, Mom!