How I Give Directions

The short answer is: I don't. At least not well.

I still don't know my left from my right when asked quickly. I have to think about it. We'll be in the car and I'll say go left when I really mean go right.

I did this in the woods this weekend, luckily that was an easy enough turn around and we didn't have to dodge other cars,

I also get very easily distracted,

I love Christmas and seeing decorations. Pat and I were driving down to my house in December. We were at an intersection we needed to turn at but instead of telling him to turn I said, "Oh my goodness, look at the Christmas lights." We are not halfway through the intersection and I turn around and say, "Oh, we were supposed to take that right." It's a good thing he loves me. We had to turn around in another parking lot. 

Tsum Tsum Tuesday: February Edition

I'm a little...okay VERY... late on my February Tsum tsum postings. Please enjoy the following pictures.

It's a stack of Ewoks!

 This was organizing day,

Who wore it better?

Thor HAD to come see Deadpool.

And the boys love them too!

Mackenzie

How to Get Lost In the Woods: Nanny Style

My friend and I decided to go search out a haunted place in Massachusetts. Dogtown. Where there are rocks engraved with sayings and numbers where houses used to be. There is claimed to be a woman in black but if you follow her she just disappears.

The map is the utmost helpful thing...not. We start down the main road. Now Dogtown is probably not on the main path so we just turn into the woods at random. Great idea. We follow a rock wall until we can go no further because of thorns. So we turn and go a different way and follow a somewhat path. After much dodging of tree branches and holes we come to the Babson reservoir.

I take out my not so handy dandy map and see that if we follow the main path it will lead us to Dogtown square...perfect. Until the path is cut off by an unexpected waterfall...

So not helpful. So what do we do, we climb the steep path next to the waterfall.

After this I pretend I know where we are on the map and make a lot of stuff up as we go. We are stuck in the woods with no trail and no direction. Until we realize how the mossy rocks are. We google (yes we still had wi fi???) what side of the rocks moss grows on. It's north in case you were wondering and we head opposite that because south is the parking lot. Makes sense, right? Our other instinct is to always go up. So we climbed up an awful lot of rocky hills. We find another rock wall and decide to follow it because it will lead us somewhere. Well guess what. There's rock walls everywhere and apparently they lead to nothing. Not even to each other. We find some trash and think we must be near a trail because that's a lot of effort for teens to go through to get drunk. Nope. Those teens are just idiots and spent a ton of time walking through the woods to get drunk because there was no trail nearby. Only a handwritten sign that says Sasquatch Den 0.7 miles with an arrow pointing both ways. Genius. On we go. There are white and red dots on trees so we decide to follow those. Well they kind of led away from where we wanted to go and they went in a circle.

Finally! We see life. The crane from the construction site. Well it turns out we have to climb up a massive hill of rotted leaves and a Christmas tree graveyard.

We climb down and back to civilization. It may have been instinct it may have been luck.

Right before the car, we run into a man who apparently does free tours of the rocks. Not like that's at all creepy. He gives us his card and tells us to call him next time. He was very impressed we managed to find none of the rocks. NONE. As he was talking I kept my hand on my pepper spray pocket. So we were almost nannynapped and survived the wild. It was a good day.

Mackenzie

I Hate The Turkey

Where I live there are lots of animals. And I love the animals. I walk down to see them almost everyday. I grew up an animal lover. But there's this one turkey that drives me crazy! I hate the turkey. My landlord sells turkeys for Thanksgiving. This one is still alive because the woman who ordered the turkey died right before Thanksgiving. So he is kind of a remembrance turkey.

As you can see the turkey is not happy to see me either.

Every time I drive by the turkey rushes at my car. He likes to think his reflection is another turkey that he must battle to the death. If I see him making a beeline for my car usually I speed up and get away. If he's too close I slowly inch by and try not to hit him.

The day before Christmas I ran into a problem. He was in the middle of the dirt road as I pulled up.

Tough guy was challenging me. Well at this point I had no idea what to do. I tried inching forward and he walked closer. I honked my horn and he gobbled gobbled right back. Finally I decided to stop inching forward and just hit the gas a little. Well THAT got him out of my way after about fifteen minutes of being perplexed by this turkey.

Mackenzie

Roy Mackenzie

Roy and Mackenzie are interchangeable for first and last names. I have gotten are you Roy a lot throughout the years.

First days of school was always traumatizing when the teacher would do role call and call out Roy Mackenzie. I then had to correct them. The worst was when my teacher went on and on about how he thought Roy might have been a family name when he saw a girl in his presence. He then asked if I was sure my first name wasn't Roy.....really?

At doctor's appointments I'd show up and they'd say you're not a boy. Well thanks for noticing. And my mom would get countless calls asking if Roy Mackenzie's mother was there, including from my primary care's office.

My two favorite stories have to do with when I turned 18.

The first thing that happened was I got a package in the mail. Upon opening I noticed it was from Gilette. It was a razor and said in big letters, "Welcome to Manhood" Well the razor was really nice but I was unaware I entered manhood but thanks for trying. I kept the razor.

The second thing that happened was I got a letter in the mail. It was from the army saying that Roy Mackenzie had failed to sign up for selective services. Well Roy Mackenzie doesn't exist and Mackenzie Roy doesn't legally have to sign up for selective services yet.

But if I ever need an alter ego, you'll know how to find me

Mackenzie or Roy

St Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Here are the reasons I love St Patrick's Day:
Green is my favorite color.
I'm Irish
It's the one day a year I eat cabbage.

Oh and all the crafts!

This is the craziness that commenced with my NKs (Nanny Kids)

 We made rainbow binoculars to find Leprechauns with. Clearly Rooster (left) mistook me for a leprechaun.

 Rooster and I like to go on shopping trips together, where I entertain myself by putting silly hats on him.

 They both made rainbows and pots of gold. B with his finger prints and Rooster with his little hand.

We made shamrock outlines with our finger prints.

 Then to end it all we turned into leprechauns. 

Mackenzie

P.S. We were supposed to make gold out of rocks but it rained all throughout our St. Patty's Day craftings so we couldn't hunt for rocks.

Enjoy Today

A lot of people struggle with living in the moment, myself included. Even though I'm always telling B to slow down and focus on what he was doing I couldn't seem to follow it myself. Today I tried.


All B wanted to do was snuggle after quiet time so we snuggled because tomorrow he may not want to snuggle and all too soon he'll be grown.

After work, I took the day to explore the property I live on looking for the mysterious kittens under the chicken coop I have yet to find. (Apparently there's more than one chicken coop down the road a ways).

I spent a lot of time with the chicks that are growing far to fast. I picked up and cuddled as many as I could. (One bit me, we're not friends anymore)

I even admired the beauty of the spider webs in the coop. And I hate spiders!

On my walk back I jumped in the puddles because life is to short to not get a little dirty and have as much fun as kids. And although my rain boots are very holey that didn't stop me. A little mud never hurt anyone.

This blog is supposed to be about bettering myself (and telling funny stories) and today I took a step in the right direction. So slow down and do what makes you happy. Feel childish joy.

Mackenzie