Thanks for being patient.

Thank you founding fathers for giving the ‘metaphorical finger’ to good ‘ol Georgie Poo (King of England) and helping us start what would be soon be a very strong and wonderful nation!

To John Adams… Thank you for authoring the Declaration of Independence even though you never get any credit because it’s in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting… it’s ok… You were an awesome senator.

Thomas Jefferson - You were a good president… you probably should have given John Adams the credit he deserved though. That would have been cool of you.

George Washington - You were very wise! You told us to stay away from defined political parties because it would only turn out badly and did we listen? NO! Now come election time our country is divided which kind of defeats the purpose of calling ourselves ‘United’. You also told us to not depend too entirely upon ‘foreign relations’ as far as help goes and where are we now? Gas prices at a very high price of over $4 a gallon! Ridiculous. If only we would have listened.

Benjamin Franklin - You were a shady, shady man. But a smart one! Thank you for discovering electricity without which my blogging would never happen…

Finally John (Herbie) Hancock - Thank you for having the balls to write your signature so large that George would see it without his glasses. You are a stud! Way to not care whether or not you got shipped home and hung by the neck for all to see.

There were more of you but these are the ones I remember. Again thank you!

There are three major holidays in my family: Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday and 4th of the July. The kids in my family learn how to use lighters (and proper safety precautions) at very young ages because the older people in my family are too busy lighting every illegal firework known to man. It is quite a display! The ‘Jarvis Family Fireworks display’ definitely holds it’s own to fireworks displays around the United States. Sometimes if you have lame fireworks that make their way into your stash, you have to save them by doctoring them up and making them cool. This was also a crucial part of my education growing up.

One of the most depressing days of my life is when they stopped selling M80’s in Washington State. Living in Oregon, we just hop the border and in Vancouver we stockpile fireworks like mad. When there is something we can’t find, living only 5 minutes from the borders of the Indian Reservation (where every firework known to man can be sold) is definitely a plus.

One of the best stories I have is when I was lighting a ‘Roman Candle’ and at the last moment it tipped over shooting balls of fire underneath my Uncle Jeff and his van and almost blowing him and the car up in the process… That was a great show!

A couple of years later I happened to procure a couple of propeller looking things that ended up being a ¼ stick of dynamite with propellers. When lit, they would fly up in the air and explode… very cool. Unfortunately we learned this after a few tries and almost blew up a couple of neighbor’s cars… They weren’t too happy with us.

A couple of years ago we were over at the home of one of my parents friends; they happen to be massive pyros too. One of their sons and I were ‘fixing’ ground blooms and turning them into UFOs and in the process accidentally lit the field on fire… needless to say, my daddy was proud.

Sadly this 4th of July I am neither in Oregon with my family nor with copious amounts of fireworks… this was an unfortunate oversight and hopefully it won’t be held against me… sorry dad.
To my father and my father’s best friend Thonus G Signog I owe most of my knowledge in terms of getting the best and the most explosive… I have many stories of my family and our pyro-ness but I promised my mom that I wouldn’t tell you the story of my Uncle Earl lighting the Highway on fire using Calcium Carbide and Water…. .

As I sat on my couch watching ’27 Dresses’ pondering life and whatnot, I realized that I have learned a lot in my life, and the life lessons that I’ve been learning as of recently are starting to become one of my favorite pastimes since they happen upon me at least twice a week. Here is a list of my favorite things I’ve learned over the month of June.

• Mormon wedding receptions are extremely awkward and uncomfortable, especially if you’re single… believe it or not but I don’t really like being set up with the bride’s ex-boyfriend.

• Who ever said ‘you can never go home’ clearly wasn’t from Oregon… I never feel more relaxed then when I’m in my home state, even if I’m being exercised on a street in Portland.

• When you take wit and sarcasm out of my dialog, I have very little to say… surprisingly.

• Every time you say… ‘I need to blog’ and set down time to do so, something will always come up making it impossible to do so.

• I’ve been living in Provo Utah for 5 years… I have also been a bank teller for 5 years…. I’m thinking something needs to change if not both.

• You should never date a guy that is exactly like your brother… it’s too weird.

• Surprisingly enough, finding out a former professor was stabbed to death by his son does have an effect on you.

• Sometimes you want to blog about something but because friends and family read your blog, it is rather difficult to just ‘go off’ about certain subjects in front of certain readers. Crap.

• Swear jars do NOT help!!! Especially under extremely stressful circumstances… being around little kids however… Hello filter! Don’t ever leave me!

• I love seeing old friends… just not when they try to kiss you. Awk.ward!

• Climbing in and out of living room windows to try and avoid awkwardness is much harder then it looks!

Little life lessons are great. It has been quite the random and awkward month but it has set me up with blog fodder for months.

It was in 1920 when the greedy Harry Frazee, owner of the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, the King of Crash, the Colossus of Clout, the Colossus of Clout… The Great BammBeenO, to the New York Yankees. Little did he know that Babe Ruth would go on to be one of the best players to ever play the game, setting the record for most home runs in a single season (60) until 1961 when Roger Maris broke the record. With the sale of Babe Ruth to the Yankees came a terrible curse that kept the Red Sox in the gutters until 1934 when they became decent again, but still never winning a World Series. Meanwhile, the New York Yankees brought in 26 World Series wins with 39 American League Pennants. Ever since the trade it’s been a clash of the titans.

My point is this. With the whole Yankees vs. Red Sox… Whose side is right? Who’s side is it better to be a fan of? Both teams have had amazing players through the years, but say that Babe Ruth was originally playing for the Yankees and traded to the Red Sox? Would it have been different? Would Yankee fans instead of being apathetic towards the Red Sox, would it ignite the passion needed for being a true fan? Being a 3rd generation Yankee fan (starting with my grandfather) I’ve grown up in a world where the Yankees rule the world and being a fan requires a sense of entitlement because lets be honest, they have, up until recently (and a very short time in the 1980’s) been one of the best teams in MLB.

As sad and pathetic as they are, Red Sox fans are some of the most pure, wholesome and devout fans you’ll ever find. For 86 years the fans of the Red Sox have watched their team fight for the World Series title. They sometimes would make it to the World Series but would always choke and lose… Meh Heh. Even in the disgrace of all this, they all held fast until their prayers were finally answered in 2004 coming back from a 3 game deficit and defeating the Yankees and then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals. Much to the chagrin of the Yankees fans… This was a really bad week for us. Some of us needed therapy after this. Tragic.

So, what about the Yankees now? Granted most of their players are extremely overpaid (Thank you George Steinbrenner) and have egos bigger then their stadium but does that mean that just because Georgie-poo’s son is turning the Yankees into the biggest joke since the Cubs walked on the scene, does that mean we as Yankee fans should just turn our backs on them? And why do the Red Sox complain incessantly about the Yankee’s payroll when they themselves have the second highest payroll in the MLB? Answer me that one? As long as we’re talking unanswered questions, as long as Alex Rodriguez remains on the Yankee payroll, will his self-induced curse keep us from winning another World Series? I know, let’s trade him the Red Sox as a token of our appreciation from receiving the defective product aka Johnny Damon… Thanks so much for that one! Next time you want to take out the trash, take out A-rod first…. Maybe the Cubs can use him, but looking at the standings I think that A-rod will only hinder their rise to the top of the NL Central (National League Central)
I don’t consider myself a fair weather fan, so do I take a page from the Red Sox guide to being a fan and humble myself until they are good again or new owners present themselves?? What is one to do?

OH-MY-GOSH!! You have got to be kidding me! This is just like the woman who sued McDonald’s because their coffee was too hot. What is with all the frivolous lawsuits? I know people get bored and think, “How can I make some easy money? Hey, I’ll get myself knocked out by my underwear and then I’ll sue Victoria’s Secret.” I mean really, if you did indeed have a wardrobe malfunction, and say it did actually cause some damage, most people would write Victoria’s Secret and say ‘Hey, this is what happened, would you mind paying for hospital bills and maybe the time I missed work…’ and then be done with it. Most people wouldn’t keep this ridiculous lawsuit going for an entire year and even stoop so low as to advertise it on the Today Show. I wanted to high-five Meredith when she was merely stating the obvious with her comment about ‘people rolling their eyes’ because that’s what everyone is doing right now. I don’t know how her case hasn’t won what with the content as well as her obvious talent for public speaking and all…

That poor lawyer! You can tell he thinks this case is beneath him and that his client is an absolute moron! Here’s a tip lady! When you wear underwear that fits, you usually don’t have your underwear attacking you! For crying out loud, it’s a tiny piece of metal that isn’t made to receive the abuse you’ve just given it. No wonder it snapped and flew in your eye. If I were that underwear hook (shudder) not only would I have flown in your eye but I probably would have smacked you too! There is no way you are going to be winning this lawsuit. I’m pretty sure not even ‘Denny Crane’ could win this one, so go sell crazy somewhere else!

There is another fellow blogger who had an opinion about this as well Check out ‘Wronged By A Thong‘ if my rant isn’t enough for you.

I would get so excited to see a ‘moderate comment’ notice in my e-mail. ‘I’m loved’ I would cry out. I would quickly go to my admin page, and lo and behold there would be 4-5 comments for me to moderate. I was so excited at the anticipation… until I clicked on the ‘moderate comment’ and noticed that it was all Spam. ‘I’m not loved’ I would say as I sighed to myself. This vicious cycle continued on for over 6 months until my friend Nate came over and told me about this wonderful Spam collector. ‘You’ll never go back’ he said with a smile on his face… of course he also said that about the Mac Book, but at least he was right about the Spam collector. Most of my problems were solved in less than 5 minutes.

If you have a wordpress blog, go to your plug-ins and look for ‘Akismet Spam’ and hit activate. This will only activate if you have an account with wordpress (which takes 3 seconds to set up and costs $0). After that, you will be able to moderate actual comments without feeling the displeasure of being led on by false notifications. You’ll never go back and it’s one less thing you have to worry about!

I love summer, but the one thing that is the hardest for me to do is sleep. Because it’s nice out even when the sun goes down, people are still awake and doing things even if most of us have to be at work early the next day. It’s like we’re all still kids and we can’t go to sleep until the sun goes down and there is no more noise. I used to look out my window as a kid (when the sun was still up mind you) because I had been sent to bed at an unfortunate hour. My friends would still be playing in the street and I would get more and more jealous by the hour… it’s ok because I would just read with a flashlight until 11 or midnight anyway because really, what kid can sleep that early? I was really good at pretending to be asleep, mainly because for two years I slept in a little space between the wall and my bed. All I had to do was be face down and my parents couldn’t tell.

After many moons, I’m sad to tell you that my mentality hasn’t changed much. Only when I’m dead dragging tired can I make it to bed before midnight. It’s the summer! The only thing about that is the older I get, the harder it is to recover from a night without sleep. In high school, due to all my extra curricular activities, I would run on about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. NOW almost 10 years later if I don’t get at least 7-8 hours I have to ante up the caffeine and drink it like it’s going off the planet. Gallons and gallons of Dr. Pepper just to get me mobile (note how I didn’t say awake). It’s funny how when we’re kids we never want to sleep. When we are adults, we can’t get enough of it. I always tell myself at work that I’m going straight home and going straight to bed… This of course never happens because, after all that caffeine, I’m wide awake by the time I get home. It’s a vicious cycle. My only hope is to have kids and have their natural ‘crack of dawn’ wake-up call be MY body’s internal alarm clock reset. Until then I have my liter to get me going!

My friend Nick draws cartoons for our ward Newsletter… I think he nailed it on the head with this one.

I’ve learned many things from my father. Like how The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd were what God was listening to when he created the PAC-10 on the 6th day. He taught me most of what I know in regards to pranking and outdoor survival. I don’t know how my mother felt about her very impressionable 10-year-old daughter being taught the fundamentals of short-sheeting a bed as well as the proper way to make methyl blue/Ex-Lax brownies, but at least learning how to survive outdoors counteracted that. Thanks to my dad, I’m an absolute pro at both.

Aside from the crazy things I’ve learned from my dad I’d like to offer up a very well deserved Thank You. Father, thank you for helping me to not ever have an inferiority as well as an image complex. You always helped me feel beautiful even when I was thin and gangly. Thank you for treating my mother with love and respect so I would have a basis of comparison so as to not accept anything less in the men I date. Thank you for being a mediator through out my teenage years and helping me learn how to calm down before I go into a situation with ‘guns blazing’. Thank you for never pulling a rifle on any of my dates and showing me the fine art of spilling food on myself any time I eat ANYTHING… I am my father’s daughter, and I’m utterly proud to be so!

Dad, thank you for being so stinking cool and for never asking me to turn down my music as a young adolescent, even if it WAS barely music. To you I am eternally indebted. You’ve been a pillar of strength through some pretty rocky times and I love you! You’re amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. Happy Father’s Day!