But It Was Punny, Right?

Hello friends! I have something special in store for you this week. Devree has taken over BlogAway! Yay! It's a guest post from America's smartest, wittiest, bravest, most amazing, recent high school graduate! 

Not only is it fun to hear from someone else, it also gives me a little extra time to work on other things. Is there anyone else out there who wants to help lighten my work load? I've got some laundry you could do. Or some toilets you could scrub. Anyone? ........

(Um ... this silence is very awkward.) 

I guess I'll move right on to the guest post. Take it away Devree! (And warning readers: don't drink milk while reading this post or it will come out of your nasal passage.)

I know everyone has come across some just plain awful puns. My dad is the pun master. Since I was little we would be driving somewhere, and he would break the silence with a pun. That or singing. His favorite puns are these:

Why’d the girl eat bullets? She wanted to grow bangs.

How do you make time fly? Throw a clock out the window.

What happened to the frog that died? He croaked.

What happened to the frog that died?  (You’re going to answer “He croaked” right? WRONG! ) He got towed away. 

How do you catch a unique rabbit? You ‘neak up on him!

How do you catch a tame rabbit? The tame way! (You have to tell the rabbit ones  in this order or it loses all the hilarity.)

What do you call a cow with three legs? Lean beef!

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef! 

What do you call a cow that just had a baby? De-calf-inated!

Those are his puns. He cycles through them so it’s not so awful because you could forget some of the answers.  But after you’ve heard them for almost 18 years you know all the answers.

Also for many years I would go through everyone’s Halloween candy and look at the jokes on the Laffy Taffy wrappers to find a good one. I found one good one amongst all the groaners;

What do you call a sleepwalking nun? A Roamin’ Catholic! I thought that was pretty good!

My Uncle John is a dentist and he likes to tell jokes. Because he would tell so many jokes, his kids started to make up jokes. Matthew, who is 4 or 5 now, made a knock-knock joke:

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Island

Island who?

I land on your belly! HA! He would say the punch line really fast and let out a deep HA!

Uncle John had one that went like this;

What do you call a boat going up a river with no oars? Brown, pancakes are flat! This was his way of saying some jokes are just stupid and don’t make sense. He probably came up with it when they were kids and his brother, Jeff told this joke;

Why did the car drive up a tree? It ran out of gas!

I want everyone to share the worst puns, jokes, groaners, kid’s jokes, whatever, that you’ve ever heard as well as some of the best.

Well you heard the girl: let's have some pun! (That's my worst.)

And here is my second worst: 

 Ha ha. Now it's your turn!

(And BTW, If you want to be eligible to win this month, you need to comment by Wednesday night. I will announce the monthly winner and prize on Thursday.)

To Read Or Not To Read; That Is Not The Question

Hello Blogawayamily. (That word combo doesn't quiet work, does it?) Today is your lucky day! Do you know why it's your lucky day? Because you don't have to listen to me yak! Yay! We are honored to have a guest post by our own faithful follower Nicole Jessop.  She's the gal who leaves the very first comment about 80% of the time. She gets a star for promptness, and one for loyalty, and one for wittiness, and one for .... K, you get the idea: I like this gal A LOT. She also happened to marry a super cool dude. So give her your undivided attention as she tells you about a topic that is near to all our hearts--books! Make sure you leave a comment since she has an awesome prize in store! Take it away Nicole!

Ever since I can remember, I have loved to read. I remember only being 5 or so and being so frustrated with my 3 year old brother that he had no desire to learn how to write his name, even though I had traced it out perfectly for him to copy, or to look at my very basic dictionary. My grandma use to always tease me as an elementary student for having to have something to read while I was eating breakfast (or any meal but my books were forbidden at dinner) because I was just like my grandpa and my dad. Even today, it doesn’t matter what is in front of me – a magazine I got in my mailbox at school, the news on my phone, just random bits of newspaper, or cereal boxes – I need something to read while I eat.

I think that’s what led to my decision to be a teacher along with loving to work with kids. I want to be able to help kids realize their passion for reading, to discover whole new worlds and to fall so in love with a character or a book that they can relate to the character and empathize with them. Steve always makes fun of me when we watch Harry Potter (or even as we read it) for crying every time loved characters die. Just the other day as we were reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I began crying when a character died *no spoilers here*. He looked at me and said, “How many times have you read this book and seen this movie?” I responded that it didn’t make it any less sad no matter how many times we read it.

As we have made our way through the series, it’s been so fun to see how he has grown to like reading more. He’s never been one to sit down and read and when I was kid, if given the choice, that’s all I ever would have done. The other night he told me he was one of those kids that would read but then decided he would rather be outside in the real world. Being the ever-faithful Potterhead I responded, “Just because it’s happening in my head, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” Now, let’s all say it together: “touché.”

One of my all-time favorite books as a kid was Purple, Green and Yellow by Robert Munsch. Here’s the book summary from Amazon: “Brigid is on the trail of the ultimate felt marker. At first, she's satisfied to be drawing wonderful pictures. But soon she must have the markers that wash off with water. Then she needs the markers that smell. But she's happiest when she gets the super-indelible-never-comes-off-till-you're-dead markers. She draws brighter-than-real lemons and roses and then goes too far: Brigid draws on herself. Nothing will remove the color, so Brigid reaches deep into the box of markers, finds the people-colored marker, and covers up all the other colors. She looks better than before, too good to be true.”

Hilarious. I don’t know why I haven’t bought it yet. Some other loved favorites were Encyclopedia Brown, Babysitter’s Club, Bailey School Kids, and Boys against Girls. Unfortunately, my Mom ended up giving away or selling most of my books, so I’m in the process of finding my most loved ones and collecting them all again. I’ve also discovered many new children’s books through my college years that have become favorites. You’re never too old for a children’s book.

Have you ever had a book that just touched you or that you read a hundred times and it never got old or stopped being funny? What was your favorite book as a child?

A Long Distance Winner

I SO loved reading about JazznJenna's life, didn't you guys? She's got the power of positive, that's for sure!
And not only is she positive, she's positively talented too! Just look at what she makes:

You can see more of her cards here. I love the s'mores one ... and the bear in the tent too! So cute!

Jenna is giving away five handcrafted cards (might differ from the ones pictured) and five envelopes so that the winner can keep connected with friends who no longer live near. How fun! If I won the cards, I'd want to frame them and put them on my wall, next to my Wall Graffiti. (OK, truth, my Wall Graffiti was from Christmas, and I don't still have it on my wall. But do still have some Christmas candles in my window. Eek! I need to order something from her etsy. I love those owls ... or do I like the monkeys better?)

This week's winner is #3 Kats Kradle! How fitting that someone who tied for moving the most is the winner. Email me your address, alrighty? (I was just one away from winning. Drats!)

Thanks for playing along everyone, and a special THANKS to Jenna. She'll be posting part two of her blog post about moving in her adult life on her family blog. Make sure you check in a couple of weeks and read that too. Jenna, wave at all your new friends you made without even having to move! :)

Who Moved My House?

BlogAway family: you are in for a real treat this week! JazznJenna has submitted a guest post for our reading pleasure. Not only is this a great topic, but it's a cool way to get to know each other better. Would you like to write a guest post? Email me!

Take it away Jenna!

I confess, I've yet to read the book "Who Moved My Cheese", although it is on my long want-to-read list.  Nevertheless, I thought that would be a good idea for my post title, as I share with you some of the reasons I'm a fan of MOVING.  No, not moving one's body parts around in an aerobic manner--although that's a great thing to do 5-6 times a week, or moving from one's assigned seat at the dinner table to another--a faux pas in our house...rather, I'm talking about moving out of one house and into another, and particularly when those two houses are in different cities, states, or countries.

I have lived in 8 different states, 1 district, and 1 country other than the U.S.A.  My father was in the navy while I was growing up, and that accounts for over half of the states that I lived in.  The rest of my moves were attributed to my marrying an eternal student who started his college career in 1993, and is currently still a student (I feel it's okay to lovingly use that term of endearment "eternal student" for my dear hubby until he actually receives his doctoral degree, sometime in 2012 if all goes well!).  I must not neglect to mention however that he is now a student who has full-time employment (hallelujah!), hence our most recent move to Pennsylvania. 

After all of my moving, I have learned to love it!  I say "learned to love it" because of course it wasn't always easy.  The most difficult move for me emotionally was probably when I was in the middle of 6th grade.  I thought my life was over, and was sure I'd never be able to make new friends.  But sure enough, I have been able to make new friends everywhere I've lived, and I can't imagine missing out on all of the amazing and wonderful people that have made my life so rich. 

And even though it's more the people and not the places that have taken permanent residence in my heart, I'd love to share with you what I remember and love most about each of the places that I've lived.

I was born in Virginia.  I can't claim any memories of VA because we moved from there when I was 2 months old.  From there, I believe we moved into my grandparents' home in Utah for awhile, which I also don't remember (I remember the house from my older childhood memories, but don't remember living there).  Then we lived in Washington D.C. for a few years, where 2 of my 5 siblings were born (I'm the 2nd oldest).  But the first home I really remember was in South Carolina.


South Carolina was palm trees, swimming at the beach and enjoying all of the tiny sea creatures there, beautiful brick homes, rain that brings frogs all over the road, and missing my dad while he was away on a navy ship for several weeks.  Collecting locust shells from the trees and sticking them all over our shirts.  Pine needles all over our front yard, and prickly "gum balls" all over our back yard. My last 2 siblings were born in South Carolina.  We lived there for 5 years, and moved on to our next state of California when I was 10.



Southern California for me meant hot summers, orange trees and lemon trees and lots of other kinds of yummy trees right on our property, avocados that were free because they had dropped on the side of the road, green rolling hills, and having lots of bilingual friends.  I began learning Spanish at this young age and even got to star as "La Caperucita Roja" (Little Red Riding Hood) in my school play in 3rd grade.  I also started my singing career in 3rd grade, when I sang "Over the Rainbow" as my first solo in front of the whole school.  Hooray for encouraging music teachers!  This is the town where I started to gain a little independence as an older child, and I loved being allowed to walk into town with my girlfriend to use my spending money at Pizza Hut and the Hello Kitty store.

In the middle of my 6th grade year, as I mentioned, we moved to Nevada, which I didn't actually learn to pronounce properly until we got there (you'd think that Californians would know that the "va" in Nevada rhymes with "hat", and not "hot").  Our town was a farmland in the middle of the desert, and is one of my favorite landscapes in the world.  I love the rolling tumbleweeds, the sandy light beige dirt we all had for front yards, and best of all, being able to see for miles.  None of those tall leafy things to obscure our view : ).  With my town being partly a dairy farming community, the smell of cows always makes me feel at home (as do Wrangler jeans and bales of hay).  I was blessed to live there long enough to graduate from high school, so I did a lot of growing up there.  High school in Nevada for me was a happy time.  It meant becoming a musician as I developed my singing voice, played a few different instruments, and furthered my Spanish-speaking skills.  I did a little dating but mostly in groups, and I had the best group of friends (many of them from church, most of them from band and choir), that anyone could ever ask for.  Nevada also gave me my first jobs, babysitting (which I loved), and working at Burger King (good times).

From Nevada, I headed off to college at BYU in Utah, but I'll save those stories and my other adult living-location adventure stories for the next post. 

I'll finish up with the top 5 reasons a child can love moving:

1.  Once the house is all packed up and cleaned out, it's really fun to run around and act crazy in the empty rooms.

2.  If there are any big giant furniture boxes, maybe Mom & Dad will let you use them to build forts later.

3.  Pen pals.  Who doesn't enjoy getting long-distance love in the mail?  I have one childhood friend that I've stayed in touch with for going on 30 years.  Whether they be hand-written or e-mailed, getting letters from friends is the best.

 4. Being the new kid in school can make you the cool kid that everyone wants to get to know.  And after the novelty rubs off, at least you can still wow your friends with stories of this mysterious unknown land that they've never experienced.

 5.  Okay, the truth is, children don't really love moving.  But in hind sight, it's awesome!  I LOVE that I got to experience all of those different places in my growing up years. 

Thanks Jenna! That was very moving.  :)  I'm stuck on the part about the free avocados. Heaven!!!

If you want to visit Jenna's blog, click here. She also has a business blog since she's a Stampin' Up! demonstrator. Click here for that one. 

So tell me guys: How many times have you moved? And, if you had to move right now, where would you want to move to?