Here’s this week’s column. It came in the mail, and next week I’m posting my miraculous before and after photos.

“There is a reason cable television sells things in the middle of the night.

I’m a nursing mother. Last week, 3:00 am came and my usual Law and Order rerun was not to be found, so I did the one thing you should never do in the middle of the night: I decided to check out the infomercials. And what do you think I found? An industrial strength, life-changing, figure-modifying girdle.

This baby was nothing short of miraculous. It was taking women from a size sixteen to what appeared to be a four faster than you can say Jenny Craig. And to top it off, the first 50,000 callers would receive the bottom half of the girdle (two pieces!) for FREE. But wait, if I called within the first minute, I’d receive an entire additional set in black for FREE. Three free girdles for the price of one? It was too good to be true!

(No really, it was too good to be true.)

“Thank you for calling this morning, can I get your name?” said the cheery midnight operator.

“Hi, I’m calling to buy a girdle.”

“Congratulations on being one of our first callers, this qualifies you to receive the original garment at the reduced price of $29.99, plus a ten dollar processing fee–” wait, what? “with three more additional pieces, including the set in black, all FREE, plus an additional ten dollar processing fee per garment.”

With my sleep deprived math skills working against me, I realized that I had better do some fast editing or I was going to be spending a small fortune on underwear.

“Would you like to receive the three additional pieces for FREE, plus the ten dollar processing fee per garment?” the operator asked.

“You know, I think I’ll be good with the first two.” Free my soon-to-be-much-smaller rear end.

“No problem, ma’am. And congratulations, it looks like you qualify for a FREE 30-day trial from Coupon Plus, including a $50 gift card to Wal Mart. All I need is a credit card number.”

“For a free trial?” I asked.

“Yes ma’am. If you keep your membership, a small fortune of $24.99 will be withdrawn from your account each month. Should you cancel in the first 30 days, you will still receive the FREE gift card.”

I’ve got four kids and Christmas right around the corner. This wasn’t a hard decision. “Fine, sign me up.”

“Wow,” she said, “this is certainly your lucky day, it looks like you’ve been randomly selected to receive another FREE 30-day trial to Value Plus’ competitor, Free Coupon Plus, with another FREE $50 gift card to Wal Mart. If you cancel within the first 30 days, you will still receive your gift card. All I need is your credit card number. Again.”

Wanna guess what I did? Come on, we’re talking about free money just for being awake at 3:00 am, people.  No one else wants to pay me to  nurse.

“Can I be done now?” I asked.

“You should buy a lottery ticket,” she said, “because you’ve just been randomly selected to receive a FREE trip for two to Bermuda. All I need is your–”

“Credit card number,” I said. “Do I have to go to Bermuda?” At this point we were rounding on 4 am, the baby was fast asleep, and I was throwing money at the telephone like some kind of talking zombie.

“Well, no, I suppose you don’t have to go to Bermuda,” she said.

“Great. Can I go to bed now?”

Right before hanging up, the operator told me that at least one out of every four callers is a nursing mother. Those girdle people, they know their clientelle.”

Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

I know I’ve been painfully quiet this week, and there’s a reason. I’ve been suffering under a collasal case of writer’s block. It has been excruciatingly painful.

I think the reason behind my silence is tomorrow’s rapidly approaching deadline. It’s my first week writing for my new column (front page of the Plus’s section for the Standard Examiner) and I’ve been panicked that I couldn’t come up with anything appropriately entertaining. What if I’ve used all my good nonsense words up? What if nothing interesting ever happens to me again? What if I break all my fingers???

Thank goodness this morning provided enough material to produce 700 publishable words. Hallelujah.

Okay, just had to get it off my chest. The ice is broken, I’m alive again.

Please enjoy the highlights of my weekend, plus some of Veronica’s handiwork on Gigi’s behalf.

“Davy, Davy Crocket! King of the wild frontier…” I had to listen to Harrison and his cousin sing this song for 17 minutes straight one afternoon in the car. This was Jason’s Halloween costume 25 years ago, same jacket and everything.

Ragtime Cowboy Joe. And his snake. And his whale. Because what’s a cowboy without his whale? (ps – I made the chaps and the vest. His costume cost me a whopping $4.40. I love Wal Mart fabric center.)

Annie Oakley, minus the gun. Please do not give that girl a gun.

Finally, here are the belated newborn photos of my beautiful little Georgia peach. Veronica Reeve, my go-to professional for all photography needs, took these when she was two weeks old, sorry it’s taken me so long to post them, I’m lazy. We blessed her yesterday and I made the gown. As soon as I take photos I’ll post them. Hopefully before she turns eight.

If you check out Veronica’s blog and scroll down a bit, you can get a sneak peak at my Christmas card. It’s about three posts down. (And no one should have managed to get such an amazing picture of Rexy, he was being an absolute stinker that day. Refused to take off the stupid hat and scarf.)

Here’s the original post on how I got/get skinny. I wrote this two years ago after June was born and swear by it’s powers. I call this the Salami Method.

As of this morning, I’ve lost eight pounds in the last three weeks. My goal was nine by Halloween. I’m fasting until tomorrow.

Here’s this week’s column, for those of you who want to join my “let’s talk about dieting every four minutes” club.

“Two weeks ago I emailed one of my favorite relatives/ex-college roommates for a little emotional dietary pick-me-up. Due, in large part, to her response, I shall now lay down the number one rule of successful weight loss (actually, salami is the number one rule, but this is a close second):

1. Have a friend who is just as obsessive as you are, because they’ll give you the perfect advice.

Truly, I was kind of freaking out when I emailed her. All I could see was October 31st and a previously set goal slipping through my fingers like some kind of spaghetti brains. Every Starburst I shoved in my mouth brought me agony, the second-hand crusts that kept making their way through my lips made me want to cry within ten seconds of swallowing, and the scale was acting pretty concrete in its feelings towards me.

And then, my sweetest relative in the world put my brain right where it needed to be. She reminded me of the secret to weight-loss happiness: patience.

See, those of us who are vain and obsessive about how we look like to see instant results. We want weight loss to work like an ATM. It should be fast, convenient, and allow you to sit on your rear and still burn calories.

Unfortunately, being healthy and fit usually involves words like broccoli, and steamed, and denial. This is the mantra of the skinnies. In my case, during the past year my favorite words have included buffet, and donut, and are-you-going-to-eat-the-rest-of-that-Snickers-bar? It’s taken a mental shake for me to remember that the only way to be happy, healthy, and thin on a permanent basis is to make the transition gently.

No, I will not be in a size four tomorrow, next week, or by Thanksgiving. And you know what? Who cares? (Okay, I kind of care a lot, but we know that.)

After my third child, it took me six or seven months to get where I wanted to be, and I worked hard to get there. It didn’t happen overnight, and Starburst candy was not part of the routine. It took deliberate actions and non-actions, and the patience to let my body figure out the losing part without giving up on it.

Sometimes in Diet Land, the only part of the equation we’re missing is long-term devotion. That mental state alone will bring more peace of mind than any little old number the scale might spit out at you.

For some reason, this reminder smoothed my ruffled stretch marks and gave me the breathing room I was denying myself. Two days later, I woke up one morning, and I knew: it had begun. I was ready to chase that wagon and ride off into the protein shake sunset, where almonds grow in rich clusters, and salami is most plentiful.

It’s been two weeks. I’ve lost six pounds.

Bring on the skinny jeans.

(Okay, not quite yet, but by Christmas for sure.)”

My daughter is a cowgirl for Halloween. She’s two. Yesterday we picked up her horse–the kind that goes over their shoulders? She’s been running around the house all morning yelling, “Ni Hao!” Apparently, that’s what cowgirls say in China.

June has also taken to blaming Jesus for things.

“June, where’s your vest?”

“Jesus hid it!”

“June, did you pee on the floor?”

“Jesus made me do it!”

Etc.

And while we’re on Halloween related topics, Rex (5) is quite fascinated with his new best friend, his skeleton (meaning the one inside his body.) The other day he fell off the couch and banged his ribs.

“Skeleton! Skeleton, are you in there? Are you broken? SPEAK TO ME SKELETON, SPEAK TO ME!” He and his skeleton are tight like that. I guess it finally responded, because eventually he stopped yelling at it and asked for a hot dog.

We’re blessing the baby on Halloween, and I made her blessing gown. If it sounds ambitious, it isn’t. It’s stupid. If you could see the current state of my house, you would probably think that I’m on vacation in Bermuda and left the trolls in charge of housekeeping. There’s a campfire happening in the living room, two new tree houses have cropped in the family room, and the kids are literally scaling the laundry pile to get to their very empty dressers.

But Georgia’s got a blessing gown.

Since it’s Halloween, I made her a vampire gown. We’re going to paint bite marks on her neck and put some little fake vampire teeth in her mouth for Sunday. It will be so adorable in sacrament meeting.

There’s something to be said about going to church, and I’m going to say it: Getting four kids ready for church is a crap load of work.

Here’s the thing. When you have four kids and one o’clock church, your entire Sabbath is spent getting the children ready. Instead of only needing an hour, the time/space continuum devours every precious moment and manages to still make you late. Also it could be the devil’s fault.

On Sunday morning, by ten o’clock I had bathed all four kids, nursed the baby twice, pressed church clothing, cooked and cleaned up a massive breakfast for Jason and his morning meeting of eight guys, and still managed to kiss him on my way out the door to choir practice.

By the time I got home and loaded the kids into their Sunday wear, I had just over an hour to go. Of course, the second I jumped in the shower the baby started to cry for lunch, which meant I had about four minutes to wash and condition, shave my legs, and relax. I got about five deep steamy breaths before my exit.

At 12:50, I stood in the bathroom desperately trying to finish drying my hair, and my husband walked in. He looked at me with a sly smile.

“You plan this, don’t you,” he says all coy like.

“Plan what?”

“This whole, wait until the last minute to get ready so I have to do everything.”

Oh no he didn’t.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, feed them lunch, find their shoes, all that before church stuff. You just love getting out of it.”

Yes, my friends, he did.

I cannot properly relay to you my reaction, but it would be safe to say there was much spitting and biting, foot stomping and hair brush throwing. I also yelled. A lot. So much in fact, that Rex finally came in to tell me that I was scaring “the kids”.

See, apparently the only reason women wait to get ready for church is so they can get out of the Great Sunday Shoe Hunt. While I’ll admit this is not my favorite sport, I can tell you in total honesty that my last minute mascara smudges have more to do with relay runs to the kitchen than laziness.

These wonderful men have no idea how much we do. They simply have no idea.

I think next Sunday I’ll be sick.

(Jason was quite appologetic by the time I cooled off, and happily buckled and snapped everyone into the car so I could find my heels. The ones I threw at him.)

Here’s this week’s column. I’m seriously hoping it doesn’t come with hate mail from all the truck owners who think I’m disloyal. I’ve had about enough of that this week.

“Today we sold our truck, and I cried.

I’d like to blame this on hormones, but since my husband got a little sentimental as well, I’m pretty sure my eyes would have leaked no matter what my body was saying.

The thing is, we’ve been dying to sell the truck. It’s been around for eight years, is a total gas hog, and doesn’t have 4WD (which in Utah is nearly as unusual as being a Husky fan). No matter what its condition, it has to go before we move in nine months. A car deal came up that we couldn’t refuse, so the truck went up for sale.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had bad luck unloading this thing. Six years ago, while living in Maryland, we tried for an entire year to sell it and didn’t even get a nibble, no matter how low we priced it. It might as well have been free. We were trying to live frugally and needed a family car, so upgrading to a station wagon seemed like the best financial decision.

As fate would have it, it never sold, we paid it off, and I’ve been glad ever since. You’d be amazed at the things you can do when you’ve got a truck. (You’d also be amazed at all the unexpected “friends” you find that need to borrow it.)

In the past month, we’ve had and accepted six solid offers, then never heard from the buyers again. I now understand why car salesmen are so anxious to close the deal while you’re on the lot. If they don’t close the deal when you’re hot after a car, you’ll probably never be back. We were so sale-happy, we stopped bartering after the second offer and decided to take what we could get.

Finally last night, Mr. Truckmeister found our golden ticket, so today we met at the DMV to transfer the title.

When I pulled up and saw my man standing next to that big hunk of silver junk, filling out the paperwork, all I could see was Harrison being carefully loaded into the backseat as a newborn on his trip home from the hospital. I could see his little toddler bed in the back after leaving Ikea. I saw camping trips, and garage sale Saturdays, and Daddy pulling in at the end of the day. For years, just the sight of that truck has made my blood run wild because it meant my man was home. (That news was always either really good, or really bad.)

Quite frankly, I feel like we’ve sold one of the children.

I don’t get sentimental about objects very often, and you’d probably all be horrified at the quantity of memorabilia I’ve tossed over the years, but seeing our truck drive away without any blond heads in the back just about did me in.

I guess sometimes it takes a loss to make us look back and remember all the good times we’ve shelved. We’ve fought in that truck, made up in that truck, gone to the drive-in in that truck, ignored the movie in that truck…it’s been one of us longer than any of our babies. I’m sad to see it go.

Change. Inevitably, it happens.”

I’m happy to report that my skin has grown incredibly thick over the past year. I’ve had a handful of emails from bad-wishers, and find that I’m surprisingly resiliant to their venom.

In case you’re someone who has to deal with haters, virtual or other, here are five things to do when you get a hateful email.

1. Send them an E-card with a singing Elmo on it. Because Elmo isn’t at all irritating.

2. Report them as Spam to your email server. Trust me, getting reported as spam really sucks. I accidentally reported my old account and now I can’t send any emails to anyone.

3. Give their email address to your favorite computer-happy grandparent and tell them this is a long-lost “cousin” who “really likes to receive forwards”.

4. Don’t write them back.

5. As one of my girlfriends once suggested (I can’t remember who it was), print off their email and back over it with your car. Very refreshing.

Honestly, I’ve found the don’t read/don’t respond method works best. The thing is, it’s so easy to hate someone you don’t know. It’s why the Savior says that to know someone is to love them. Even the crustiest people in the world are lovable when you get down to the nitty gritty of who they are and why they do what they do. Understanding a person’s motives really changes how you view them, and you have to really know them to piece it all together.

So I don’t feel bad when someone judges me based off of a 700 word article, that just means they obviously haven’t tasted my homemade bread, or had a good visit with me while stranded at the DMV.

I’d like to think that I’m big enough to seek for understanding and try to change their opinion of me, but quite frankly, at this point in my life, I just don’t have time. And that’s okay.

Alright, I’m off to nurse the baby. Again.

So, I’ve had a ridiculous amount of feedback for this week’s Standard Examiner Top of Utah Voices column that came out this morning. Thank goodness for the feedback, I totally forgot that I wrote it.

This is my last week with the Top of Utah Voices section, I’ve been given a promotion! Starting next month, I’ll be writing a column for the front page of the Pluses section every other week. Phew. It’s more my style, less pressure to be obstinate in my view points. Heck, I don’t think I even have to have a viewpoint with the upgrade. I can write the same kind of crap I post here.

Oh, and I am purposely not reading any of the comments in the paper, so don’t tell me what they say. Please. (Just in case they all hate me.)