You've heard this old wives tale right? A woman cooks a ham and instinctively slices both ends off before putting it in the oven. At the table, her kids begin wondering: "Why do you do that?" and she says something like Well I don't know, my mom always did it. Let's call my mom!

Anybody that has come to this blog for second helpings should know who the following guy is. If you're here for the first time, welcome! and please meet Rainbow Girl's first crush:

Glen Hansard. Musician. Irish. And one-time movie star in the indy film "Once" (p.s. Rainbow Girl saw the TV-version...she's seven for crying out loud).

It kindof reminds me of my first crush when I was her age.

Reminds me as far as they both have tousled shaggy hair (how cute) and that moms safely allow these crushes because it's impossible these TV studs to be in 2nd grade, chasing girls, and passing love notes.

As a kid, I didn't need love notes anyway. I had a Luke barbie-doll. Is that possible? Doesn't barbie-negate the luke? Anyway, he was the stud among the blondies and drove a cool black jeep all over my smurf blue carpet in my bedroom. Luke was amazing, passionate, and as a bonus? He had The Force. What more could a girl ask for?

For Rainbow Girl, her crush doesn't have The Force so she can't drive him around in a toy jeep. But his presence is definitely known. After Rainbow Girl showed off her favorite tune (that she finger-picked out on the piano) she discovered an unsuspecting accompanist in her Uncle Jackson. Here they are recently performing for the Olsen Clan. And in honor of shaggy TV crushes the world over, please enjoy:

Time to sign up the kid for piano lessons, eh?

See what life is like in the Amazon, where all the women in the family are six feet tall...

When my two brothers married tall, thin, gorgeous, athletic, six-feet-tall Amazon women, then Mrs. Olsen officially became the troll of the family. Whenever we get together for the girls weekend, the sissies-in-law, together with my own blood sister Niki (also six feet tall) generate mall buzz from every trendy male wondering if they all play basketball. The troll (me) and the runt (my littlebig sis Monica) go in for the sales after sending in the Amazon league in for the block.

Where they dazed civilization like giant stunners from the jungle, Mrs. Olsen merely seemed to be raised by monkeys.

Meet Keri. She was the first person to marry into my Apache Avenue clan. She dated my brother when I was a wee girl of eleven or so. The first time he brought her to meet the family, I sat on her lap. Farted. Then licked her forehead.


Oh sorry, you don't speak monkey? Right. So Keri, that actually meant that I thought you were funny, beautiful, smart, witty, and I wanted you to marry my brother. Thanks for taking the time to catch the translation.

Keri? This public humiliation trial is allowing you to heal right? How about the Olsen's? Are you still there? Do you still love me?



Sooo...Derek and Keri. What makes their love unique? He's a tease, but not in a mean way. She's got wit sharper than a two-edged sword. This smalltown Idaho boy stunned the family when he decided to be a doctor. She wowed the planet by working her way up to Chief Financial Officer of the University Hospital, slashing the bro's tuition while earning several digits herself. I mean, I don't know whether to groom the locks for lice or take up note-taking on my clipboard whenever I see Keri. Needless to say, when the bro finished his forever tenure as overworked student, Keri stepped away from the glory and fame of being tall, gorgeous, and corporate and started raising up giant offspring that dominate the basketball court. The brother's adorable goofiness, combined with Keri's wit, makes for the most beautiful duo. And amidst their many talents and experiences, you'll usually find them away from the hoity-toity board rooms and running to the next game of their kids.


Mrs. Olsen has to add, that when I finally got this picture, and started doing a little cropping and tinting on Picasa, I was smiling the entire time. Just look at my brother's smile! I can hear his weird laugh just looking at it. I'm so excited to have this picture on my kissing wall, because I know it will cure the blues on a bad day.

Thursday's kiss comes all the way back from 1981...

Behold the woman that gave me life. Here she is blowing me (and you) a kiss in 2 pictures, each twenty-six years apart!

Yes mother, I practiced the piano.

After hearing approximately three anecdotes of young girls getting unauthorized backrubs from friend's fathers, brother, or peers, Mrs. Olsen established the NO SLEEPOVERS rule for her family. We make exceptions for Grandma's and close girlie cousins, but for the most part, it's just a part of life that will hopefully be norm when we make it to the dreaded teen years. Which is why it was such a rare treat for Rainbow Girl who got to have a sleepover with our little friends, Mabel and Nell.

Apparently, we also make exceptions for soul sisters who are desperately ill with a husband on a three-day business trip. Sally, I love you and you are in my prayers.


Like myself, Sally has a NO SLEEPOVERS rule, so I was actually flattered that we could break our rules together. Ssshhh! Don't tell our kids, we think they haven't figured it out. And would you just look at them? Amid the vomit of patterns in this picture, you will find 3 little girls who each found a soft friend to snuggle them through the night : unicorn, puppy, alligator.


Back in Rainbow Girl's bedroom, her usual snuggle buddies had a cold night alone on her bed.

Plushie on the left? From Grandma Anderson. On the right? Grandma Cozy. And in the middle? Mrs. Olsen's first love.


As a kid, my family squeaked out of Apache Avenue to visit our big city cousins in Albuquerque. While there, we visited a rare building called..... a mall. And for some unknown reason to me, my mother pointed to a huge wall of stuffed animals and told me and my sister Niki "Go and pick whatever animal you want!"


I couldn't believe it. There were rows and rows of squishy animals that weren't boring teddy bears! I swiftly picked this monkey and christened him with what I considered to be the coolest and funniest name I could come up with. First, combine two gross and hilarious words: Zit &Wart; then create your own groovey moniker : Zort.

Niki, my stretched out sissy, chose a boring teddy bear and named him Chubby. Together we loved those guys night after night. It became such a habit, I had that guy cranked under my sleeping chin all the way up until high school. We had sleepovers back then (without a hitch thank goodness) so there's many witnesses to me and Niki's madness: Hackworth, Little Red, Toley, Paula, Sop, and our born as a grown-up sister Monica.

I was cured of my cuddling sesssions with Zort after winning a student election in High School. Cranked in the fetal, I laid in bed curled up with Zort under my chin only to have the covers ripped off while still in the middle of my REM cycle, by none other than the cooler older girls that were leaving office. Surprise! Early morning breakfast for the new student officers!

Dazed, I shot up in bed and swung Zort desperately on the ground against the wall. I said a quick prayer that coolgirls Liz Moss and Missy Thatcher didn't see my monkeychild, and stepped out of bed, onto Zort's head, and changed into my clothes.

My mother was warned ahead of time to make sure I was wearing PJ's and didn't shock innocent Idahoans with a sports bra and panties. Apparently she didn't think about Zort and the possible persecution I could have received when the high school learned I still cuddled with my stuffed monkey. Lucky for her no one mentioned anything, but there was still a price for this folly.

I vowed to myself my monkey love was over. Over dammit! Then I relegated him to the shelf for many many moons. And just look at that sweet face? Do you think he's forgiven me?

I eventually let him back in the bed while serving 18 months in the nunnery for my church. Three months into the mission I wrote home:

Enough is enough! Send me the monkey!

He was later replaced by a Mister of the House, and so Zort became resident plushie to Rainbow Girl. He's currently enjoying prime real estate on her bed, but he knows all too well how quickly that can change.

And Mrs. Olsen will be quick to squeeze in a one-night stand should Rainbow Girl ever. Thoughtlessly. Chuck him on the floor then step on his head before shelving him for life.

Back in 1962, just before getting a major value shift with hippies, woodstock, and Vietnam, my folks insulated themselves from the upcoming generational chaos by settling down as husband & wife. Now I'm not saying my dad was not hip, or even that he was your standard 20th century male-chauvenist pig that the feminist movement despised. I'm just giving a disclaimer for this picture taken on their wedding day, on a warm summer's day back in 1962.

Curvy Bride: Oh honey, tell me all your secret family recipes!

Tall/Dark/Handsome: You are so beautiful today, and this is the last time I'm touching this pot.

Curvy Bride: It shall shine this bright on our ten year anniversary, I promise!

Now in actuality, this photo embodies more of a closing era than it does my actual parents. If a photog tried to pull this off nowadays, he wouldn't be in business.

And yet...something about this picture, this bygone era is so bittersweet for Mrs. Olsen. It seems to be a time when people took the loving, scrubbing, and feeding of kids a little more serious. And if you were a woman that loved to cook, to snuggle babies, and decorate...it was enough. Unfortunately, like our good earth, women have seasons in their lives. Which is why I'm going to be a pro volleyball player after my kids are all grown and out of the house. {concerned pause while soft body morphs into a blob on the office chair}. So anyway!

What was started back in 1962, was a beautiful family soon to have five kids who, for the most part, are all handsome, tall, funny, unselfish, and motivated people. The key to our success? My mom's diligent search of bargain racks so we had the latest fashions for the post-game Victory Dances! Okay, okay. The thing is: they were there. There wasn't a game, recital, gymnastics routine, swimming lesson, or military haircut they weren't there for.

So in honor of this 1962 miracle, I'm asking for a Caption to the Above Photo or a link to visual delights you enjoy on the web. Do I really need to have a giveaway for this people? Come on!

In the meantime, here is a list of photogs who are sure to stay in business in the new millenium:

• Justin Hackworth Photography of all the mission mail I enjoyed during my time as a nun, I'm sure that I enjoyed JH's the most. Visual Delights!
• Amelia Lyon Photography she has no idea who I am, but she married the waterboy to my High School Volleyball Team. Random. Her pics are beautiful.
• Heathernan Photography fellow Idaho Girl turned photog. The eyes! The eyes!
• What It All Looks Like. Photos by news journalist Mike Terry.

With all the running, eating, praying, playing, yelling, crying, dreaming and thinking...you have to wonder, how are my kids processing all this and how will it all end when they're done growing? What will be their personal evolution. Let's explore our possibilities shall we? Our guinea pig? Vanilla Wafer. In desperate need of a haircut.

Once upon a time I was in "the know" about great music. Basically, it was the time I was sponging off the Hackworth Family and absorbing all of their recommendations. If any Hackworth's are out there reading this post, please forgive me, I have only purchased 3 cd's in the last ten years. Back in Idaho, around the Hackworths and potatoes, I was still spazzing off in the high school scene but I caught glimpses of what a cool college girl could be at the local pizza joint, Craigo's Sourdough Pizza.

It was the college hangout, and we pre-empted our grooviness by nibbling pizza amongst the college boys, even though we were still lil' High Schoolers. On night, they had an open mic night, and this beautiful girl with long straight hair with golden highlights, blunt straight bangs, wearing a groovey scarf and perfectly worn jeans took the mic and sang "You Fill Up My Senses" by John Denver. She closed her eyes and yearned above the mic. After that, I spent about 5 years fostering a secret desire to once, just once, be awesome and sing with a small acoustic band on an intimate low-lit stage in the back corner of a coffee shop or pizza parlor.

The closest I ever got was singin' Bodeans, Indigo Girls, and Sun-60 with one of the Hackworths (usually Kristi) around the campfire. I would rock it until my voice cracked. Back to reality of a one-octave range and plus-size jeans....oh well.

So now...with babies, car payments, and kids, the groovey music scene has taken a back seat. But there's two things you see, and they all got stirred up when The Mister of the House brought home the TV-version of the movie Once a couple of weeks ago.

• Thing One: This movie absolutely took me back to when I was a little more sunkissed, and a little more music-wise. I loooved the music of this flick and my secret desire to be the groovey girl at the coffee shop was stirred up all over again.
• Thing Two: It is inevitable that my little lover of music, Rainbow Girl, will soon be sucked into the adolescent vortex of make-up, boys, and music, music, music. Aaaahhh!

Me and The Mister of the House put the kids to bed, and then sit down to watch Once. Here's the gem of the flick and winner of 2008 Oscar for Best Song. I chose this youtube version on purpose because you're not distracted by the video, just appreciate the melody and lyrics of this beautiful tune.

Ten minutes after this song debuts, we hear Rainbow Girl (not asleep) humming this song in her bedroom. Her music radar zoned in right away. Good stuff!

A few days later, we ingest all of the music from the movie and Rainbow Girl sighs Oooh. I just love his love songs, don't you mom?

Why yes, yes I do. [pause] How old are you?

And the music keeps running and running through her head. A few more days later, after plucking out the tune on the piano, Rainbow Girl exclaims I was made for music.

Now I'm not off to push my kid onto the Disney Channel, teaching her disturbing sexy dances, or forming a band...but I will admit, it's a pure delight for anybody, let alone your own kid, to have a sense of purpose in life, a sense of a special little spice given by a loving Heavenly Father. A genuine love of music.

Aside from Christmas songs, the music from Once was our primary muscial diet over the holidays. And little by little, Rainbow Girl, in all her seven years of innocence, interpreted these songs about love: mostly about love lost, life gets sad, hoping for love again...this way:

Rainbow Girl bounds into my bedroom early in the morning and says Mom, I want you to read this!

My life has changed. Oooooo. Yeah.

What can I bo [do] with out you.

Soooo, thers soon gona be

thing's un ushuwall, and that's

is why my world is goin wrong.

and my ooooon, suff [stuff], is goin some

where. So Life is hard

Mrs. Olsen, [disturbed and worried]: Why did you write this? Is this written for someone?

Rainbow Girl [huge innocent smile]: I wrote a love song. I want you to hang it on your wall!

So there you have it folks (is anyone still reading this freaking long post?). After a promise of a dark and private showing, I talked Rainbow Girl into singing it for me. Please enjoy!

Ten minutes later...

Mom, can I start hanging posters on my wall?

I think I'm in for it, what do you think?