Why you shouldn't mess with Shauna in the morning.

I was RUDELY awakened this morning (I usually don't get up before 9:30). My poor mother came rushing into my room and threw open the door at about 7:40AM:

"Shauna! Get up, I need you to keep an eye on something while I drop Stacey off at school. Put your contacts in!"

"WHAT IS GOING ON MOM??!!" I say somewhat annoyed, somewhat worried.

"There's a scorpion that I need you to keep an eye on. Dad can't come home yet to kill it."

"OK, ok. Where is it?"

"On the ceiling in my bathroom." So we have a peeping Tom on our hands eh?

"Fine, I'll be there in a min." I proceeded to put on some thick heeled, close-toe shoes, put my contacts in and groggily go into her bathroom. The ceiling is vaulted in there, at least 12 feet high. At the corner of one wall and ceiling and above the sink area, there it is, my nemesis of the morning. It's only 3 inches long, but it's the reason I'm up so early...THE SCORPION MUST DIE!

Courtney is up also, so I enlist her help. I send her to get some thick leather working gloves from the garage whilst I grab the telescoping window washing rod from the laundry room. I also make a quick run into my room where I grab one of my biggest and widest school textbooks, "Broadway" (so fitting). I run back and the scorpion has moved about a foot to the left from where it was before. I can't risk it going too far to the left otherwise it will land on the ledge above the doorway to the toilet room and I'll have to climb up there to get at it. Ain't no way I'm gonna let that happen.

I devise my plan. I must knock it down with the rod onto the sink counter a couple of feet to the right of where it is currently, then slam the book on it. It must have psychic powers because as soon as it started thinking the plan, it suddenly started to move in the opposite direction of where I need it to go. "STOP you son of a...." Courtney walked into the room so I didn't finish what I was going to say, which of course was 'biscuit'. As a safety precaution, I put the stiff leather gloves on my hands in the possibility that A) the scorpion jumps either onto the rod, B) it falls down on the carpet, or C) if it jumps at me, hopefully I can swat it with my super-fast Jedi reflexes (ha) before it can sting me. "Courtney, I may need you to throw the book onto it once I knock it down. I don't know how fast it will be. You have to literally slam it down like you would a pog. Got it?" She nods her head.

My heart starts racing as I build up courage (and adrenaline). I pause and tell Courtney 'I'm saying a little prayer in my heart." to which she chimes in the song "I say a little prayer for you!" Thanks Courtney, real sacreligous and way to kill the moment. I take a deep breath and....Oh crap, it's on the move again! Didn't your momma tell you to hold still during prayer! I shout out "Die you scorpion scum!" and take a swipe at it. Crap again, it fell on the ledge, no! But wait, it's back on the wall again, racing over above the sink. I got you now! I take swipe number two......... It hits the surface of the bathroom counter top. Courtney spryly tosses the book onto the monster. I pause for a moment, breathing quickly, focusing on nothing but the book. Did she get it all the way? Is it going to crawl out??

I take two tentative steps toward the book. I don't see it trying to sneak out. For good measure though I make my gloved hand into a fist and pummel the book three times. 'Ain't no one ever gonna come back from that sucka'!' I yell in my head. It HAS to be dead now. Not 2 seconds after that I start giggling. Y'know, like the 'I super high on adrenaline right now and had a close encounter with something sinister' giggle. I sound crazy. Courtney sort of starts to join in.

My mother timidly calls out "A-a-are you g-girls ok?? D-Did it move y-y-y-yet?". Unaware of my supreme hatred towards anything/anyone who gets me up early and frightens my mother, she has no idea that we have killed the beast.

"Mom it's ok, we killed it."

"WHAT??!! Y-y-you killed it? Are y-you ok?? Did you really d-d-do that??"

"Yeah mom, every thing's fine now. The scorpion is dead."

HUGE SIGH AND EXHALATION OF BREATH. Poor mom, she was so scared! "Oh, my goodness. Oh my goodness. (tears start to well up) I hate scorpions and your father is at an appointment right now and wouldn't have been able to come home right away and (at this point I almost couldn't hear what she was saying she was crying so hard) I was so scared. I HATE scorpions" I put my arms around her. Oh mom, I didn't know you were that afraid!

"It's ok, Courtney and I will clean it up."

"Ew, ew ew ew ew ew, where is it?"

"Well uh, whatever's left of it is underneath that book."

"Ew ew ew ewwwww. Here, use this fly swatter, or paper towel." She hands me both then runs over and opens up the toilet lid and then runs back to the entrance of the bathroom.

I cautiously pry the book from the counter and try to peek underneath it before possibly releasing the creature if it isn't already toast. Ha, yeah, that thing never had a prayer. It's flatter than a pancake and any liquid contained in it's body it ALL over my book. Great. 'I hate you, scorpion. See what happens when you mess with Shauna Smith early in the morning? It earns you a ride on the porcelain express. Later sucker!!' I think to myself as I put the paper towel containing it's remains in the toilet bowl and flush it to eternal sewerness.

THA' END

An Omen of Things to Come

Here's the basic low-down on why I've been a no-show around town lately.

- Went on a semi-annual camping/shooting trip with some of mis amigos to our regular spot just outside of Payson.

- I started and finished all required courses for becoming a licensed real estate agent in just 5 weeks. most people get it done in 8 weeks. I've been a little busy.

- I took a weekend trip up to Provo to visit some friends and old acquaintances up there. Wasn't as cold as I was expecting it to be. However, my 3rd nephew, Carson Daniel Green, was born just hours before my flight was supposed to take off. I got to see him as he was given his first bath. So cute!

- After I finished real estate school, I went on a much needed vacation...to Mexico...on a cruise...for 7 days. Yes, that's right, a whole lotti-freakin'-da week! It was amazing. I will post pictures and all of the details I can remember (it was like being in Shangri-la, some of the details are a little fuzzy) in my next post.

- Now I have to start studying all the real estate materials again to complete the school and state exam. Pray for me that I will pass on the first try.

- I am in a new ward, High Groves, making it the 6th singles ward I have been in since I turned 19. 3 have been just in the past year. Interesting thing is, I've never moved once since I started going to a singles ward. That's Mesa for you!

- I got a new calling in my new ward. I'm now on the FHE committee.

That's basically the basics (as far as I can remember) of what I've been up to. Like I said, my next post will be rather lenghty as it will be an exclusive of my maiden cruise voyage to Mexico.

I hope all of you are doing well and happy.

Back in my geekier days (when I was actually proud of it) I used to subscribe to a daily email of Good Clean Jokes. There's nothing inherently wrong with that except for the fact that I would actually TELL people the joke of the day for that particular day. Sometimes when I tell jokes, it's not always a pretty sight. I used to be really bad and would start laughing before I even got to the punch line. They're not kidding when they say timing is everything. I spent many an awkward moment looking around the group for even a pity laugh. Way to go Shauna-O. Being as it may, I have however saved a few choice emails from back-in-the-day and will share one with you because it should apply to a wide variety of my readers (since I have a plethora of them).

These are all actual statements that have been spotted on t-shirts, signs and various other places:

"Real Men Don't Waste Their Hormones Growing Hair"
(seen on bald man)

"Upon the Advice of My Attorney,
My Shirt Bears No Message at This Time"

"That's It! I'm Calling Grandma!"
(seen on an 8 year old)

"Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I
Wanted to Be When I Grew Up"

"My Husband and I Married for Better or Worse

He Couldn't Do Better and I Couldn't Do Worse"

"My Dog Can Lick Anyone"

"I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts -

Do You Want Fries With That?"

"Party - My Crib - Two A.M."
(On a baby-size shirt)

"STUPIDITY IS NOT A HANDICAP.
Park elsewhere!"

"The trouble with life is there's no background music."

"Suicidal Blond Kills Twin Sister By Mistake!"

"Two rights do not make a wrong.  They make an airplane."
(if someone gets this one, please clue me in)

"My wild oats have turned to shredded wheat"

"Automobile - A mechanical device that runs up hills
and down people."

"MOP AND GLOW - Floor wax used by Three Mile Island
cleanup team."

"Filthy-Stinking-Rich ...Well, Two Out of Three Ain't  Bad"


"A hangover is the wrath of grapes"


I hope maybe even just one of those was palatable for
you fine readers.

Cheers!

Kuumbo has come to town!

As you probably noticed, I changed my blog look just a lot bit over the past week. I think this one is definitely spunkier and sassy, yet cool and calming. This is not at all a metaphor of me.

It has been months since I've posted anything on here and seeing as it's nigh 2 in the AM, I will make this quick and give you the rough draft of the first portion of my story. Let me warn you that although this may be a story about a giraffe, and stories about animals are generally categorized as children's books, this, however, is probably not a good book for kids, at least sweet innocent ones anyways. This is probably the kind of story that I would have loved when I was younger. It reminds me of the twists in Roald Dahl books ("Esio Trot" was one of my faves).

Without further ado, I give you the first tid bit of the story of Kuumbo, The Spotless Giraffe:


One day, on the grassy flat lands of Africa, a giraffe was born. As you may very well know, this is not an uncommon event in nature. Babies are born every day. What makes this newborn giraffe so special that I would deign write about him? Nothing. That's right, absolutely nothing. Nothing as in the little fella had no spots. Never before had anything like this happened in the whole history of all giraffe-dom. Not even in the time when the trend among them was to get themselves so caked in mud, none of them could tell their mother from their cousin (they did this because they thought it was an entertaining thing to do, much like going to a masquerade ball. Giraffes love playing games with each other. This, however, caused some serious problems whenever their herd leader tried to give orders to the rest of the group. They all thought it was someone else pretending to be the leader so nothing ever got done. Needless to say, this fad only lasted a few years). The fact of the matter was this: a giraffe without spots is no giraffe at all.

There's two things that giraffes pride themselves on most in the world. First is their long necks, then their spots. This little baby's parents both had beautiful long necks and wonderful spots shaped like stars. When his parents realized that Kuumbo, which means "blank canvas", had not spots, his mother went into hysterics while is father hung his head in shame.

"What do we do?!?! What do we do?!" Jiihare screamed. "I don't know, I just don't know." Blaa muttered while shaking his head.

A few minutes passed in the same shameful manner, neither coming up with anything more intelligible to say. Finally, Blaa turned to Jiihare and he said, "The herd will be expecting a very beautiful calf. We CANNOT show them this....Kuumbo." He said with disgust. "We will just leave him, return to the herd and tell them it didn't work out."

Jiihare's breathing started to become more regular and her heart slowed down to a calmer beat. She regained a little bit more composure as this suggestion of Blaa's echoed in her mind. Finally she said, "Alright, excellent idea."

I will tell you something now which may come as a shock (or possibly not after what you just read); giraffes are not the most loving parents in the animal kingdom. Like koala bears, they look cute, but their not as nice as they appear.


Ok, there's the tragic beginning to this sad tale. Please please please please, constructive criticisms are greatly welcomed and desired. I still haven't figured out where I want the story to go at this juncture. I hope that you liked it just the tiniest bit though. Um, so yeah. And here is also the first picture of Kuumbo I made for this story.

Oh and to give an update on myself (this is for you Big10) I graduated! Yay! That's right folks, you're eyes aren't deceiving you. I finished my last every (or so my bank account hopes) class at ASU last week and now I'm official. I guess it's on to growing up eh? Meh, maybe a few months down the road.

Werx part 2

So FINALLY I put the pen to the paper to map out the adventure of my new little friend, Kuumbo the giraffe. I was sitting at a very unusual clarinet performance last night and felt inspired by the music. I normally wouldn't admit that the sounds the performer was making would be music, it sounded more like he just barely learned to play it that day (I guess that's how it's supposed to sound. Apparently he's been perfecting that technique for the past decade. Go figure!). Anywho, it sounded like the perfect "noise" to accompany the setting that my stories will be taking place in. I'm so excited to get this going! I'm still trying to enlist my sisters help in layering the image I've drawn, but I promise, he's going to be adorable.

In the mean time, I do have something else to offer for your ocular pleasure. Again, it is the product of having to sit through another concert at school. (Just so you know, I don't waste all my time and money going to concerts I don't really pay attention to. It's a requirement for my degree. I have to attend 12 "approved" concerts throughout the semester. Most of them are classical performances by guest artists, but some of them are more "modern" in taste and therefore less easy to fall asleep to.) This concert was part of a Bass festival at ASU and it was "jazz night". I have one observation that I will offer about Jazz Musicians: They have no sense of time. I don't mean that they don't have rhythm (they have that in barrels and heaps). Just that they get so caught up in the music they forget that people, like myself, have short attention spans and that after playing a passage after so many times, if you don't have a great idea next, just end the $%@^ song! Sheesh. These songs only take up 1 page of music but these people drag it out to the equivalent of 47 pages. I'm not against jazz music, don't get me wrong at all. It's just there comes a point in the song when all they're doing is just beating a dead horse.

OK, now I'm really going to get started on the goods for today. While being subjected to this, I realized some things about different genre's of music. I'm going to compare/contrast, classical, jazz, and rock audiences. I got a kick out if it. I hope you do too.

Classical
-Audiences
-Smell good, shower daily

-Do not clap until entire song, including all movements, are finished

- Musicians
- Wear all black

- Best all around tone and intonation

-Both
- Hold completely still during entire show, even while clapping


Jazz
-Audiences
-smell REALLY good, superb taste in cologne

-Clap or yell after every solo and at end of song

-Musicians
- Wear all black

- Best at sight reading and improvisation

-Both
- Bob their heads like they have a twitch, tap their toes


Rock
-Audiences
-Don't remember when they last showered. What's cologne?

- Yell along with singer during entire song

-Musicians
- Wear all black

- Don't care about tone or intonation, just play

-Both
- Look like they're having an epileptic seizure, that's why there's Paramedics at all of the shows

The End

I'm sure there's other observations that I could make based on my concert attendance experiences, but I thought these were pretty funny and almost entirely true too!

In the 'werx'

I've been thinking about what kinds of other epic posts I can put up here. My friend and I were sitting in church last week and she, being a sufferer of ADD, could not sit still, so I told her to draw a giraffe. From that I gave it a name, a story and that's what my next post after this one is going to be about. Don't think I've forgotten, it's just taking me a while to draw the character and stylize it correctly. Tonight I plan on doing some color rendering on it and you all will soon be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors.

I hope you all are well with school and that you're not having to run around like a chicken with it's legs cut off yet. Yes, I did mean to type legs instead of head. I think it's a much better descriptor of what stress does. ;-)

The usual new years update

Yes, like all those people who send out "what's gone on in our family for the past year and you wouldn't really know this unless you have actually talked to or seen us in the past year" letters that often are included in Christmas cards, I too will give all of you, who I am sure have been sitting on pins and needles waiting for my next post, an update about myself. My friend, Mindy P., did something similar to this and I'm going to copy her idea. Some of this will be true, most of it won't, and some things I wish were true but haven't happened yet. So, in the spirit of those letters we love so much, I will also write one as if it were coming from my "family":

Hello Friends and Family!

We hope you had a fantastic holiday and hope that this
letter finds you in good health and spirits! Things around here have been so busy that we were a little remiss in getting these letters out in time for Christmas, but we still figured you'd like to start your year reading about how we're doing.

My husband, James, just finished law school at ASU. We're so proud of this accomplishment. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of time for him to take a break from school though since he will be taking the bar exam next month. He has been working for the District Attorney and will be promoted after we find the results from the bar exam in a few months. We know he will do a great job on the test! He is also serving as executive secretary in our ward and enjoys his opportunity to serve.

In October, I helped to start up a charity organization called "The Cinderella Project" where we collect donations of formal gowns to give to underprivileged young women so they can attend high school dances. It has been a roller coaster but once we get further along in it, I know we'll be able to help out more girls in the area. Like James, I too will be graduating from ASU in May with a bachelors in interdisciplinary studies in business and music. This degree has been a long time coming and my last semester I will spend interning for LuckyMan Productions, a.k.a. The Marquee Theatre in Tempe. This was my ideal intern site and can't wait to get started there.

Little Jaxon is not so little anymore, he turned 4 this year and is turning out to be a great help to his momma. He just loves to take care of his younger brother and makes sure that there's never a dull moment in the house. Jaxon would like you to know that "Trains are my favorite thing in the whole world." What a goofball (like his dad)! Jaxon also was a very good boy this year so Santa gave him a skateboard for Christmas. Not a day has gone by since that he hasn't begged and pleaded to go outside and play on it. His daddy keeps the video camera ready and films our "future Tony Hawk" in action. Boys will be boys.

Conrad is 2 now and certainly makes sure we remember that. He loves to play with our dog, Pilot, and the two of them are sometimes inseparable. He also loves to help mommy fold clothes and vacum the house. Like his mommy, he is a very musical little boy and is almost always singing a song of his own.

This space will be filled in next year for our next little one who is due in June. We don't know if it will be a boy or a girl, but the older brothers are very excited for its arrival, as are we.

We hope that things are going well for all of you. God bless!

Love,

James, Shauna, Jaxon, Conrad and (insert baby's name here) Marsden

The boys on the 4th of July. They love America!

Shauna and James at a Halloween "Hairspray" party. Isn't he dashing!

Now back to reality, but I must admit, wow! That was a lot of fun to write! Man, I'm going to have to remember that when some of these things actually start coming true. Really though, I hope all of you are well, drop me a line, or a comment, or a dime, anytime.

Cheers!