Successful Blogging 101

It has come to my attention by one of my faithful followers (thanks Mom!) that I have been slacking when it comes to updating my blog. This is not out of lack of information or things going on. It seems as though there is always something going on, so I will now describe a typical week during the summer for the Partridge family. Get ready for high action, drama, and maybe even tears.
This summer is the summer of Dillan. I know, he's the oldest. always gets the most attention, is our "break us in" child, but this summer has really been devoted to improving his abilities. The other dear children have not been neglected, as you will see, but Dillan has had the lion's share of enrichment activities. Monday -Friday this is where Dillan started his morning at7:45:

This is our community pool known as Melrose, no relation to "Melrose Place" as some fan of the show from the nineties may wonder. It is super great and fun for these guys as it brings our community together with swimming, Foosball , basketball, barbecues, and movie nights. This is our first year being a part of the club, because in years past our children have swam with the city league, which is much less expensive, but unfortunately closed this year. Chloe is on the swim team as well. We tried having Olivia on the team, but she did not fare as well. I guess we will allow this since she's four, but next year, NO EXCUSES!
Next event was Dillan's summer school at Brophy Preparatory Academy, which is a parochial high school for boys. He took speed and strength, arithmetic, and study skills. I kept asking him to ask his coach when the mom/ son day was for speed and strength, but he just rolled his eyes at me. That's my boy! You have never seen such a sea of boys as when it's quitting time there. Lots of rough housing.
After taking CHloe to and from swim, Blake got a nap, mommy ran on the treadmill, and Olivia went to and from art/ music school, it's lunch! I do not excel at my lunch making abilities. My goal is fiber. Increase every one's fiber intake. Call it my nursing instinct taking over.
Usually, at this time, a dip in the pool is warranted. Now for me, my first real venture into the pool did not come until the last week in June. THE LAST WEEK IN JUNE! We live in the hot desert, and it was not warm enough for me to get in our pool. This was a first for us to have such temperate conditions to prevent me from swimming.
Dillan and Chloe are taking piano lessons and violin lessons in the evening. It warms me heart so much to hear them. It warms my heart to hear peace too. It warms my heart to hear cooperation. OK, I'll take plain old getting along.
I have begun my job, as I have mentioned before, so three nights a week I work from the comfort of my home and go in to the office on Saturdays. So fab that I have this job. And I haven't killed anyone. Yet. That I know of.
Kevin's days go like this. Leave the house when he's good and ready. Get hot and sweaty, or enjoy a lovely lunch appointment. Sometimes he does both in the same day, enjoying a hot, sweaty lunch. I sure am loving tree trimming season though. Until it came to our trees getting trimmed. Last ones to get done.
So maybe the reason for my small fan base is that I am not as adept at blogging as I originally intended. There is always room for improvement. And material. Have I mentioned that I am going to Utah in a little more than a week. Not only will I have sisters who don't read this, which means I can say whatever I want as long as you people SWEAR not to tell them, I will also have all those Utah Mormons to observe their peculiarities. Thus begins my improvement in my blogging skills. And again, you can throw out criticisms of me for not gettin' 'er done, but this is MY BLOG. If I want to let it be a failure, well it's my prerogative (feel free to sing Bobby Brown).

How Well Do You Know Me? Answers Revealed

Many of you (who am I kidding? There aren't "many"people who read this) may be familiar with the social networking site known as "Facebook" which is a great tool for reconnecting with former friends and flames, and it also serves as a narcissistic outlet with such things as 25 Random things about Me and How Well Do You Know (your name here)? Recently, I engaged in said self serving behavior and made a quiz about me, aptly titled How Well Do You Know Kim Partridge? If you haven't taken the quiz , please stop reading this and return to facebook and take the test. I mean it, sisters. The only one excluded from this is Mom and that's only because she doesn't belong to facebook. Okay. Now that you're back and have taken my entertaining, yet educational test, here are the answers revealed.


1)What is my favorite store to shop at?
a) The Home Depot
b) The Gap
c) R.E.I.
d) Williams Sonoma
e) Victoria's Secret

The answer is D. Home Depot is Kevin (and Olivia)'s favorite store, Gap is not fashion forward enough for me, REI is purely utilitarian, as for that matter so is Victoria's Secret, but Williams Sonoma entices me every time! I love to cook and especially all the tools that go with it.


2) What time am I usually in bed by?
a) 8 p.m.
b) 9 p.m.
c) 10 p.m.
d) 11 p.m.
e) It's an all night party for me

The correct answer is 9pm. Now I am not ASLEEP by that time, but I am in my pajamas by 8 and in my bed at 9, usually reading or posting on my blog.


3) What am I scared of?
a) Spiders
b) Snakes
c) Paper
d) Lizards
e) Hair

This was like a freebie because if you know me at all, you know I am TERRIFIED of spiders. Even writing the word give me the creeps. I threw hair in there because out of all the blood and guts and poop and phlegm that I've seen/ handled, hair BY FAR grosses me out the most. THe first time I had to give a patient a bed bath and I shampooed his hair with a shampoo tray and all this hair came out I was dry heaving. Seriously, I can't stand my own hair coming out.


4) What is my favorite movie?
a) The Princess Bride
b) The Notebook
c) As Good As It Gets
d) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
e) Twilight
This was disappointing to me. 79% of you (well, I guess now that will be different after all of my sisters take the quiz) said that The Princess Bride is my favorite movie, but alas, it is not. I enjoyed The Princess Bride, but only one person, Cady Jardine, got this one right. I love As Good As It Gets. Whenever it's on TV, I have to watch it. The Notebook I did not like, although, surprisingly, Kevin did, and I appreciate those who thought that One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (shout out to Nurse Ratchett!) and THANK HEAVENS no one thought that Twilight was my favorite movie. Haven't even read the book yet, but I do have juicy gossip on the author.

5) What did I want to be when I was little?
a) Teacher
b) Beautician
c) Broadway actress
d) Nurse
e) Office Babe
Yep, it's nurse. When my youngest sister, Kellie, was born and we went to the hospital to see her, I remember thinking what a great job the nurses had and I wanted to be a baby nurse when I grew up. Now I have nursed babies and I have been a nurse to people who acted like babies, but I haven't been a baby nurse, still a dream of mine. As you may have guessed, beautician would NEVER have worked for me. I would love to be a Broadway actress, but I do know my limitations.

6) I am most happiest when ________?
a) Sleeping
b) Eating
c) Running
d) Playing with my children
e) I'm always happy
I know, this one was super cheesy, but I am happy. I think I get that perspective from being a nurse and seeing people in terrible health and social/ economical situations, so I am acutely aware of all that's great.

7)What song would I choose to sing at a karaoke bar?
a) Stop! In the Name of Love
b) Bad Medicine
c) New York, New York
d) Stayin' Alive
e) Oh baby! You better keep me out of that bar!
I have a dream and it involves me and a karaoke machine. My parents gave me one for Christmas before I was married and I believe that was one of the stipulations that Kevin have was that I left it at home. So now, I have to wait until the Guthries annual Halloween party to get my fix. I feel comfortable posting this since Kevin doesn't read it, but I have big plans to sing him a special number this year and it's one of the options above.

8) Who is my favorite sister?
a) Jen
b) Nikki
c) Stephanie
d) Kellie
e) Julie
Alright, this was a trick question. It was meant to stir up trouble with my sisters and I in anticipation of our annual pilgrimage to Utah for family togetherness, but since none of them took the test, they don't know that I put this out there, so the gathering will have less sparks than I wanted. I put Julie who is technically my sister in law, although I consider her my sister, and fortunately, she got this one right.

9) What am I currently addicted to?
a) The Real World
b) The Bachelorette
c) McDonald's Vanilla Ice Crea, Cones
d) Coke
e) Facebook
Only two people didn't say facebook. Really. I know that it would seem as though I am addicted to facebook since I did the quiz on facebook, but I don't know what to do on there except for look at what friends are doing and that takes me a couple of minutes, then I'm done. But, I NEED a McDonald's Vanilla Ice Cream Cone every day. It's 150 calories and 6gm of fat goodness. The Sabbath is the only day I don't enjoy one, but maybe I could get two on Saturday and freeze one.....

10) Which one of these insects have I NOT had in my hair (that I know of)?
a) Cockroach
b) Spider
c) Fly
d) Beetle
e) Earwig
The answer is beetle. Let me tell you how the cockroach got in my hair. When I was doing a home visit for a baby from a teenage mom that lived in a trailer with her parents, I usually don't sit down because a lot of times there isn't a clean place to sit, but I had to assess the baby and the only place I could do that was seated on the couch. The grandma of the baby was fascinated with my hair because I had it in a french braid. I was wrapping things up when she smacked me on the back of the head. I turned to look at her and she said Oh, I think I saw something in your hair, and that's when I saw a huge cockroach running away. I don't think I ever packed up my things as fast as I did that day.

11) If I was running out of my burning house, what item would I grab?
a) The remote
b) Violin
c) Make-up
d) Bra
e) Clothes
After reading the question again, I realize why there were a lot of wrong answers. I pictured myself running out of a burning building in the middle of the night since that's when I have imagined it happening. So you all get credit for this one. Which brings me to the answer I put which is bra, because I don't wear one at night and I would hate to have the firefighters see me unkempt. Many of you said makeup and while I do love makeup, again, I saw it as the middle of the night and really nighttime is when I rest my face. And by the way, I wear pajamas because I believe that it is part of emergency preparedness. I would hate to have the firefighters see me in my garments only.
So now you know more about me and you read it on another narcissistic forum.

What I do when I have to wait

I am not a fan of waiting. I haven't seen that option on facebook yet, but when it's there, I will add it as my first "fan of" thing. So, since I am waiting, I decided to catch up on the fun that has been going on here in the PHX as the school year, et. winds down and summer winds up. P.S. I got a new camera for Mother's Day, so there are a significant increase in pictures due to me using it more often.

This picture was taken after Dillan and Chloe's violin recital on Mother's Day. It was held in their teacher's lovely church. This is Dillan and Chloe with their teacher, a.k.a. Miss Shari. She is truly a gifted teacher. I owe all of my children's abilities to her. She loves each child individually and motivates them to develop their talent. And, yes, I see that Dillan needs a longer tie. Every time I turn around that boy has grown an inch!

This is Chloe during the performance:

It's the one moment that I caught her just sitting there, not talking to her neighbor, who she hadn't met before, but decided that they were now friends and had a lot of things to discuss. That's my girl!
That's the darling children in front of the beautiful stained glass window in the church. It is so beautiful, and we are so lucky to get to go there twice a year for these recitals in the afternoon when the sun is hitting it. I think it makes the children sound ten times better.
This is Kevin and I on our way to one of our combined best dates ever. I mean, we both enjoyed our time together, not that we don't enjoy each others company, but you know, sometimes a date is enjoyed more by one party than the other. We went to the Scottsdale Gun Club after Kevin had gone to the N.R.A. Convention earlier that day and had an itch for a new firearm. I'm not at liberty to give you all the details, I was merely a bystander in a foreign world. But the things really kicked up a notch when we went to Sur le Table! I could spend hours in there looking at kitchen/ dining things. I came out with a new potato masher, but the damage would have been greater had Kevin not been with me to say things like "We just bought new dishes." or "Why would you need another hand mixer?" So I will go back when I don't have a culinary novice in tow. Then of course to the Cheesecake Factory.

This picture is a correction for Myrissa. The picture I posted for her on her birthday was when we were in the botom of the Grand Canyon, so we had just finished hiking for three hours and were attempting to refuel at Phantom Ranch. But in my defense, it was the only picture I had on this computer. So for her birthday dinner, I took the camera and got a few shots. The meal was lovely and I guess even at upscale restaurants they'll sing Happy Birthday. Who knew?

This is Myrissa and her husband, Brad. That Myrissa is such a saint for marrying a mentally challenged individual. He functions at the level of a ten year old, so needless to say, she has her hands full with that one. We have two new dogs. They are Frenchtons which is a designer breed of French bull dogs and Boston terriers. We did not purchase these, but were given them by our friends, the Guthries, who were unable to be around enough for them. Their names are Jacques (left) and Pierre (right). They are brothers and act it every bit. If I give them both a toy, they will want the one the other one has, and then fight about it. But then they snuggle up to each other to sleep. Jacque is older but smaller. Pierre has gotten a bad rap for being a bully, but I believe that Jacques is the instigator and Pierre just gets fed up and fights back. We enjoy them and they seem to be working out well.

This is us on our way to bowling for FHE. Olivia thought that it was for her birthday, which had been celebrated in preschool that day since her birthday is in the summer, hence the crown. These are some action shots of bowling:

Bowling is so great when they put the siderails up. No gutter balls! I don't know what I will do when all of our children are old enough not to have them.

So then the missionaries came over for dinner. They had a presentation for the children about putting on the armor of God. This is them putting it on Olivia.

They had a lot of fun and Kevin was shooting the fiery darts at her. Great object lesson.

I am still waiting. Ugh! I could have taken a nap!

She Works Hard for the Money

I have a new job. It pays me money and I get benefits, like health, dental, disability, etc. This is exciting because for the past year as I have been on my leave of absence from nursing, I have been Kevin's "office babe" i.e. accountant, and I never received a paycheck. I did have other benefits such as new plants and trees and an endless supply of toilet paper, but that doesn't help when the children need a check up or stitches, and since Kevin's company does not offer benefits, I decided to check out what was available for me to do from the comfort of my own home as a nurse. I know what you are thinking, isn't one of the key factors in nursing having physical contact with the patient population which would require one to leave their home because who wants a clinic in their front room. Oh no, there are jobs that are nursing jobs that allow one to be at home. I was looking around the Internet one evening, just seeing what was out there, when I came across a job posting for a home infusion company for an after hours triage nurse. Now, I have done this in the last home infusion company that I worked for where if a patient/ family member had issues, questions, problems, or concerns, there is a 24 hour phone number they can call to receive assistance. I was paid very little for this service when I first started 10 years ago, and I had to answer phone calls while driving around the valley doing patient care and teaching patients and family members how to do their own IV infusion. Not fun. So when I saw this job only involved the phone aspect of it, I was intrigued, plus it said that there were benefits with it. So I applied that night, got the phone call the next day to come in for an interview, and the two nurse managers were so impressed with my skills that they hired me on the spot! Crazy. But truly, it was a perfect fit. I mean, after all, the reason I work is for benefits until the "office babe" job has a health plan. I am on call 5:30 pm to 8 am four evenings a week, with an alternating Saturday day shift every other weekend. Now, I'm not necessarily working the whole time, it's just when patients, family members, or nurses for the company call in, which could be all evening, but most likely only until 11 or 12 at night then the phones may start ringing again at 6ish, with the occasional middle of the night call, but hey, if I can do it in my jammies, fine by me. I am really excited for this job and how it will allow me to home with the little ones during the day. Now if I could only find a replacement for my "office babe" job...Anyone willing to work for no pay, but you do get plants, flowers, and trees (this year I got three almond,one apricot, and one peach tree).

Happy Birthday Julie!!

Today is Julie's birthday. Wait a minute. Maybe I better call her to make sure since her husband has me convinced that it's the 15th and not the 12th. On seveal occasions, I have called her on the 15th wishing her a happy birthday only to be told I was a few days late. It really is today. It says so on her facebook.
Julie and I were roommates at Snow College during a crazy first quarter living situation where we had nine roommates in our apartment in three rooms. Not pleasant. There was a fierce meeting within the first two weeks of living together, and it went downhill from there, so we met under some tense circumstances, but grew to love each other and became inseparable. My favorite memories of that first year are when I woke up from a nap and she was sitting on the bathroom floor crying with a washcloth and red nail polish all over the bathroom floor and toilet. She had broken a bottle of nail polish and was trying to clean it up. I don't think we tried nail polish remover, but the polish remained there after we left. Another is us taking our jogging class together. It may sound crazy that we took a class in jogging, but it was taught by Coach Tidwell who was well worth jogging behind. Why run in front of him, you couldn't admire his, um, physique.
The second year there, we were even more inseparable. We shared lots of great and not so great times, but lots of fun. She taught me to make her mom's waffles, which I made more often than I can remember. We had fun times with our Pine Tree boys and crazy night drives on the back of a pick up shooting rabbits and birds into dust. Julie was there for me when I was not accepted for nursing school (later recinded after WSU discovered their terrible mistake) which was the hardest thing I had suffered at that point in time. One of my favorite memories of Julie that year is when we all went to Dixie College for a basketball game and after the game went "hot tubbing" (I use that term lightly since it was maybe lukewarm at best) with our friends, Dave and Doug. Julie told us that to make the water feel warmer, we should get in the swimming pool and then get back in the hot tub. I didn't do it, but Dave and Doug jumped in the ran back in the pool, but not Julie. She swam a lap in that freezing water, practically yelping the whole time, then got back in.
After college, of course we still kept in touch, not the same as living together, but still bonded forever. I was so happy for her when her and Adam were getting married, but I knew, this would change things forever. I didn't know how much I was effected by it until I was driving back to Weber with my dad and he accidentally smashed my fingers in the window, and I cried the whole 45 minute drive back, not because of the fingers, but my best friend now had her own eternal mate. I knew that things would not be the same and I would miss the closeness that we had.
Now Julie has her two beautiful little boys, who were blessed to come to their home. She's a fabulous wife and mother and I admire her immensely. Having her as one of my best friends make me a better person. Julie has shaped me into who I am today. Without her, I wouldn't be the same. She is understanding, caring, a great cook, fun and adventurous. I love her with my whole heart and I am so blessed to have her. Love ya, Julie!!

Corrections/ Addendums

Yes, I just posted, but I have been wanting to "fix" some things in previous posts and I have no idea how to do it except this. And since I have so many followers who have been waiting to hear from me, I will elaborate.
Livin' in the Southwest
There are a couple of things to add here. One is that in the summer, and by the way, that doesn't just mean June-August. May and September are included and some days in April and October. OK, in the summer, if you want cold water out of the tap, you have to wait a looooong time for it, if it even comes at all. When I draw a bath for the little ones, I have to let it COOL DOWN before I can put the plug in because it is so hot. And this dovetails onto my Nursing Excitement post. When I did home infusion, the hotter the water was coming out of the tap correlated with how poor the family was. Very hot = poor.
These Songs
In that post, I said that the song that reminded me of Julie my sister in law was incorrect. I remembered her song. When her, Lauren, Nick, and I were driving home from the beach and all of a sudden it was like someone had turned on the faucet on high it was raining so hard. We could barely see in front of us. We were listening to a Garbage CD and the song "I'm Only Happy When it Rains" came on. We both started laughing at the irony.
Emily Waldrom McKellar complained that I did not have a song for her. Well I don't, but my children do. It's "Beverly Hills" by Weezer because it was her ring tone when she was my little ones nanny. Plus, she's a little Hillish.
Myrissa's is "Peaches" by The Presidents of the United States because we got a ton of peaches from Utah to can and how can you have a ton of peaches around and not sing "Movin' to the country, gonna eat me a lot of peaches."
Now for miscellaneous Olivia stuff before I forget to put it down somewhere and forget all of the things that she says. As some of you know, Swine Flu, a.k.a. H1N1 Flu, has been going around the world and causing PANIC, though I am not concerned about it at all, but with all of the coverage, little ears pick up on the PANIC. So Blake threw up on Wednesday night before he went to bed and Olivia promptly diagnosed him as having Swine Flu. The next day she asked if he was better and I told her yes. She then congratulated Blake on getting over the Swine Flu. This week she informed me that she could speak Cowboy. I asked her how does one speak Cowboy. She said like this...goodnight, y'all or hello, y'all. She said she was going to teach Blake.
Olivia informed me on a different day that her "girls" (her privates) smelled like petunias. I asked her how she knew, to which she responded she had smelled them. Is kindergarten really ready for her?
I know that I am forgetting more things, so there could be an addendum to the addendum, but no apologies. This is MY blog.

Happy Birthday Myrissa and Sophia!

Today is two of my favorite people's birthdays. Myrissa Jeppson, whom I lovingly refer to as my nemesis, and Sophia, who is one of my daughter's dearest friends. That's all that I need to say, but once again, because this is a blog, I will elaborate.

Myrissa moved into the ward with her then three energetic boys and husband almost five years ago. I tried to get her kicked out of the ward for being too perfect. And I bet I could have succeeded except for I dropped my attempts when I realized she was irreverent, which I enjoy. But my husband didn't make it easy on me trying to live up to her when he would make comments like "Is that too heavy for you? Let me call Myrissa. She can do it." Or "I need to call Myrissa to see if she can sew my shirt for me." Not nice for a overly competitive wife to hear. She still is aggravating that she has it so together and now has four energetic boys, all of whom I love individually, but collectively...

Sophia is a joy. I met her for the first time at church as well when she was four and attempting to obscond some treats that I had for the MIA Maids. She is very spirited and vivacious. She is also very polite and has developed her talent on the violin. Around here we call her Petunia because I renamed her and Chloe after flowers, but Petunia just seemed to stick for Sophia. She's leaving with her family and I am going to miss her more than her mom, Laura.

So, Myrissa, as my nemesis and thinking of others, etc. threw a Rock Star birthday party for Sophia, since Sophia's parents are taking their belongings to Las Vegas while they go to medical school today. I was able to participate as the head stylist for the makeovers. This is the finished product:

Party on, girls!