Okay, everyone does it. The lurk. The ninja-read. You jump onto someone’s blog and you read (maybe you even read for quite a while), and then you leave without commenting… like nothing ever happened. It’s okay sometimes. I do it occasionally. But for all of you serial lurkers: you’re being called out! Don’t be shy, tell me what you think! Click the “comments” button and let ‘er rip.

Normally, I like to keep things pretty light here on my blog. I don’t like getting into any excessive, unnecessary drama. But something happened a few days ago that I just had to write about. The situation has been literally screaming at me to flower it up a little and add some wit where wit is so desperately needed. Written correctly, when I or my posterity read this—decades from now—the situation may not seem so heavy and bleak. The following is a true story, with a dash of humor thrown in just to keep me from getting overly serious or sad. (I’m not much fun to be around when I’m either of those things.)

Quick back story: My family is riddled with drama; deeply carved emotional scars, absolute allegiances to one side or another, years of not speaking to this person or that person. My family is sort of like Days of Our Lives, only with a slightly less attractive cast. Not that my family is not attractive, but soap stars tend to be obnoxiously attractive. Funny enough, I do have a sister named Sammy, but she is much less conniving and manipulative than her soap-star counterpart. My Sammy is very sweet natured… and has never killed anyone, never turned (even briefly) into a man, never driven a wedge between two love-struck brothers, or any other horrendous, soap-ish type thing. But short of those things, my family is actually quite nuts.

For reasons too ridiculous to disclose here, one of my brothers and I have not spoken in nearly 4 years. Which is such a shame because he’s my brother. Hello, my brother. And he and his wife—I’ve heard—just had their first baby. And I’m thinking that it’s high time for this stupid feud to be over. But I remembered that he was the one who was upset with me, and I remembered that it was sort of his choice to not speak, but I started thinking about how really pointless the whole thing really was. And I thought that, surely, enough time had passed to allow all parties involved to stop and say, “Wow, that was dumb. Are we finished being mad?” To make matters a little tricky, though, my brother had done a fairly good job of staying hidden. I had no contact information on him other than a private MySpace account that I had heard about from a less jaded and pissed off brother. So I broke down and sold out and got a stupid MySpace account. (I know I just lost a lot of readership with that painful confession.) I sent him a message saying “Are you finished being mad, because I pretty much am.” I sent it and I waited. I waited quite a few days. And just when I started thinking that maybe I wasn’t going to get a response, I got a response.

Man, did I get a response.

I was told to “eat crap.”

I hadn’t been told to eat crap since the third grade. I didn’t think anyone really said that after the third grade, but there I was, not in the third grade, reading it. And, contrary to not being in third grade, it really hurt my feelings. After the whole “eat crap” part, it also said some other things that I can’t really put here because I told my husband that I was going to clean up the language a little on my blog. But, basically, I was told that my brother was—emphatically—not finished being mad. And that he thought that he never would be. And that I should never talk to him again.  And then, strangely, at the very end it said “Peace”, which was very contradictory to the whole feel of the rest of the message. But whatever… I guess he didn’t want to totally bum me out.

After having a few days to think about it, I just can’t get this image out of my head: There I am, hat in my hand, heart on my sleeve, olive branch extended, (several other cliché metaphors)… and there before me is my sweet brother. And he smiles and he gently takes the olive branch like all is well… and then he repeatedly bashes me over the head with it.

*sigh*  I guess, like an idiot, I’ll try again in couple of years. Only when my head—and pride—are sufficiently healed.

First, and most importantly, today is my BFF Diana’s birthday. I will spare her the embarrassment of telling you how many candles are on her cake this year, but I will just tell you that she is a titch older than me and a good great bit younger than my grandmother.  J  Happy Birthday, Diana!! Love you!

Secondly, my husband put up pictures on his post yesterday from Jachin’s birthday. Slide on over to Gale Force to check them out.

Thirdly, it is raining here today which makes me feel like curling up in bed (with a bowl of the awesome fudge my husband made) and writing the afternoon away. So watch out! I may post the crap out of my blog today.

Okay, okay… so it’s my sister. But I’ll take the nomination, nonetheless. “Hottest Mommy Blogger”. It really strokes my ego and I think every mom needs a little of that every once in a while. I think every mom blogger out there should get a nomination and be able to put the little “brag button” on her site, so that at the end of a long day of dishes and diapers and carpooling the neighbors’ kids, she can pull up her blog and see that brag button, and know that someone thinks she’s hot. (Even if it’s her sister.)

So last night after my sweet hubby put my little brag button up there at the top of my page, I clicked on said button just to see where it would take me. There are literally hundreds and thousands of blogs nominated for different things. It was pretty dang near impossible to find my site in the sea of  hot mom bloggers. But I finally did. So if you, like my sister, want to stroke my ego (sure, the narcissistic half of me would appreciate it) here’s how to do it:

Click on my little button up there in the corner, login to Blogger’s Choice (or create an account if you don’t already have one), and then search for my full name: Suzanne Gale. That’s the only way I’ve found to get to it. (Oh, I was just told you can also search for theworldaccordingtosuz…all one word.)  FYI, Dooce, the current leader in the hottest mom category, lives only 30 miles from me. (I wasn’t aware that there were so many hot moms in Utah, but who am I to argue with Blogger’s Choice?) I only need about 400 500 1 million votes do dethrone her… so get on it! J

And by the way, while you’re on the Blogger’s Choice site, go ahead and cast a vote for Nathan Fillion’s blog. He seems as funny in the blogasphere as when he’s in “Mal” character.

Thanks, Sam, for the nominations. You’re a cool sister. Start a blog and I’ll nominate you!  

Here are two questions posed to me, in earnest, by my children:

Jachin: “Is there such a thing as a super-hero eventually retiring?”

and

Zoe: “Mom, do you have the biggest butt in the world?”

How I answered: “Yeah, I think so.” and “Gee, I hope not.”

This is one of my favorite family pictures. I don’t know why. The kids are just hilarious here.

*big exhale*

14 children (half of them, possibly, with ADHD) just exited my house. One of them—we are not sure which one yet—apparently walked home without shoes. (If you are reading this and your child is missing a pair of dark blue, size one “crocs”… call me.)

Several hours ago we kicked off a Super Mario Brothers themed party for Jachin. My husband was the creative mastermind behind the whole Super Mario thing.

 Being one of only a handful of non-Amish children growing up without a Nintendo system, I know absolutely nothing of it—other than Mario wears red and his skinny friend Luigi wears green. But apparently there is a whole thriving civilization of little squid looking guys, and little mad mushroom looking guys, and little turtle guys (whom I kind of remember), and other various cute but sometimes menacing characters. So when my husband told me that I needed to come up with a piñata resembling a “chain chomper”, I gave him a blank stare. But he got me a picture of one and then I went out and bought a regular old yellow smiley face piñata and painted all over it to make it resemble what I now know to be a chain chomper. The whole time I was painting, I was thinking No one is going to know what this is… this is a whole ‘lotta work for nothing. My cynical feelings lifted when the cute little neighbor boy, Mikey, walked in and took a look at the piñata, looked back at me like I was a rock star and said, “Woah! You got a chain chomper piñata?!? Cooooool!”

 My husband made two cakes this year. Many people will remember that my husband is somewhat of an amateur cake decorator. Self taught. (Previous years’ cakes have included a Chewbacca cake with brown coconut hair, a Deathstar cake with green spaghetti “lasers”, and a very cute Hello Kitty cake, just to name a few.) This year the cakes were the brown mushroom-looking guy with the big angry eyebrows, Goomba, and the white squid-looking guy whose name I can’t remember and probably can’t spell anyway. The piñata treat boxes were decorated to look like the question mark coin boxes. The kids played pin the star on the star, and then there was a pulse quickening contest to see who could finish world 1.1 the fastest. (The neighbor kid, Trevor, took that title at 38.4 seconds. Brothers Jamus and Jaron rounded out the top 3.) Anytime the kids started looking bored, we would throw candy at them, and that usually livened things up. When in doubt, throw chocolate.

The party went off without a hitch. Kids would come up to me and enthusiastically tell me about Mario games and I would nod and smile real big and act like I understood their excitement. But it was a very successful party, despite the fact that I don’t know much about Super Mario Brothers.

Bowzer, Master Big Hand, and Chain Chomper what? …they,  huh?… yeah, awesome, buddy… here, have some chocolate.

Most people who know me know that I have on-again, off-again bouts with insomnia. On the nights when sleep just completely eludes me (tonight is one such night) I either get in some quality reading, quality writing, or quality crappy-TV watching. Tonight I’ve decided to combine the watching and writing in order to bring you a list of the things I never would have learned tonight, had I been sleeping like a normal person.

* Dennis Quaid confessed to suffering from “manorexia” in the late 90’s after losing 43 pounds for a movie role.

* I can get rock hard abs in just 20 minutes a day, three days a week, without ever having to step foot in a gym.

* Vivaxa improves timing and control, while also enhancing the experience for her.

* The jaguar has the strongest jaws (in relation to head size) in the feline world.

* If you are ever in Austin, Texas and find yourself dining at The Broken Spoke, have the chicken fried steak.

* K-19: The Widowmaker is a very depressing movie. (I already knew this, but had forgotten until I flipped past it again.)

* The LandRider bike is the only bike with Auto Shift technology.

* Some sad, sad woman in Dallas is pregnant with her third consecutive set of twins. Oy.

* Dolly Parton never tires of Tennessee, and suggests you call right away for your free vacation planning guide.

* Currently in Provo it is 54 degrees, with 54% humidity

* Today (yesterday?) marks the 40^th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper album. (I HATE the Beatles.)

Not sleeping rocks! I wouldn’t trade this newfound knowledge for all of the restful sleep in the world.

Thanks, Insomnia!

The world can often be a disheartening place. Turning on the news can be distressing. Sometimes it’s completely natural for a mother to worry about the future of her children. What will the world be like in another ten years? What problems will my child have to face as a teen? It’s all very overwhelming.

So imagine the relief that flooded over me when I received my issue of Reader’s Digest this month.

There on the cover–in bold letters–was all the reassurance I could ever ask for.

Angelina Jolie: Saving the World One Child at a Time 

I’m sleeping a little easier tonight, folks. Who knows, I may even leave the front door unlocked tonight. I may start easing up on the whole “seat belts save lives” thing. And are bike helmets really necessary? And now that I really think about it, maybe my kids could start riding home with strangers… I mean, only if I’m kind of in a jam, or if I don’t really feel like picking them up myself. The world’s looking like a better, safer place already.

Relax, kids… Angelina’s on it…

Today is the US release date of Day Watch, the second movie in the Russian fantasy trilogy entitled Night Watch. It isn’t playing anywhere near me, not even in my state. But as an Ode to Night Watch–a trilogy I am pretty in love with–I  have done a movie review on my Movie Review Page. —–>  Check it out. Buy the movie. Read the book. It’s uber-cool.