Moses supposes his toes are roses...

I come for a line of snorers. We like to be heard even in our quite time. Just a little reminder to all predators that we don’t back down, we sounds vicious even in our sleep. Yes, it also means we can never go in hiding, but we aren’t ninnies!! We roar like lions even when in full relaxed repose. It was part of the noise of the house as you fell asleep growing up. You came to depend on it, as long as it was at least 2 rooms away. We all have limitations. You didn’t realize the intensity Dad had until it was in a room with you. The man is the Niagara Falls of snoring!

At about 16 my family went on vacation, we had the biggest hotel room I have ever seen. It was ginormous! How my Dad managed to find rooms that could sleep 7 people makes him a hero! The sleeping arrangements were creative. Mom and Dad had a bed, I was sleeping with Sister in the other bed. One set of brothers on the pull out sofa and the youngest brother on a sleeping mat on the floor. When you travel with Dad the goal is to fall asleep before him, or suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, I was wound up. I was on vacation!! Sister and I had the giggles. Midnight had rolled around and everyone was asleep except Sister and I, who were now stuck in the vortex of sound that is Dad’s snoring.

Sister said in her whispered voice: “Psst…Ellen, I read somewhere that if you make a noise louder than the snore, the snoring stops.”

Ah Ha!! We had a hypothesis!

Our first brilliant attempt was to flush the toilet. Cause we all know hotel toilets are darn loud! Not Squeeky the Magic Toilet loud, but loud. So I scurried across the room in the pitch dark hurdling brothers, made it to the bathroom and flushed the toilet. To no avail Dad kept it up. So for good measure, I flushed again. Even the double flush was not stopping him. I crept back to bed.

Next we tried to make something fall louder than the noise. I remember jumping on the bed, dropping a shoe, and tossing a tissue box. Nothing. He was in the groove!

Feeling defeated I tried to will myself to fall asleep. And then like a bolt of brilliance out of nowhere Sister just snored as loud as she could. “Waaaaaa! Chooooooo!!” I mean it echoed around the room it was so loud. The ensuing silence was inspiring......unbelievable......hysterical!! We climbed under the sheets like five year old children laughing and giggling and trying to stay quite. She had snored so loud it woke him up. He stumbled around the room for a few minutes, got a drink, settled back in bed and immediately started up the concert again. But we had proved it!! Hypothesis confirmed. A louder noise will stop snoring. This episode of The Wizard of Haws brought to you by Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Style

All long time ago (almost 2 years now) in a sandwich shop far far away(2 blocks from work), I waited in line with the dear friend GPJ. We stood in line approving of our ability to pick a sandwich shop where all of the Tempe police officers had chosen to come have lunch because let's face it, sandwiches taste better when surrounded by cute officers, am I right ladies??

So we are already girl giggling and as we inch to the front of the line when suddenly the customers part like the clouds in the sky, a ray of light breaks through the window and somewhere a baby smiled. There behind the counter at this little out of the way sandwich shop stood the most attractive courteous sandwich-order-taker boy I'd ever seen. All pierced, tattooed, courteous and minimum waging it. And completely oblivious to his pizazz! So before I can say anything to my girlfriend, it's my turn to order.

Being fully 100 percent in love with my husband, he's a gem - check 3 post back, I wasn't about to make a move. Straight up. But apparently somewhere inside of me just felt the young man deserved to know that he was one heck of a rooster. I placed my sandwich order and then suddenly I said, "I like your overall personal style." Bam! I'd just thrown it out there as he made the change for my meal. It was a totally awkward moment, one of the most awkward of my life as he sort of laughed, thanked me and told me my sandwich would be ready in a minute. I just took my receipt and sort of ran away.

Being as this was all witnessed by GPJ, it's become a legendary Ellen story. We all laugh. Compliment each other's personal overall style when we get new clothes. I still cringe a little every time it comes up...until last night.

We were out for St. Patrick's Day and as we are leaving the pub we pass a pretty handsome little man and no lie, he says to our friend, "I like your style." SHUT UP!! He stole my line! I thought about stopping the train and telling him, "No, no sir. The phrase would be I like your overall personal style." Sheesh, Rookies.

Way to go Mario!

Frequently asked questions....

1. Where did you get him from? We found him in the paper from a lady whose mother's dog had become too friendly with the neighborhood dogs and they'd found themselves in quite the predicament. There were 3 pups in the litter total. Mario has the birthright (firstborn son) and was the largest of the litter.

2. How long have you wanted a dog? We've been talking about getting a dog for probably about 6 months. I wanted a bulldog - english or french - but man are they spendy. So we started looking for cheaper dogs. I am opposed to buying a dog from the mall, personal opinion, I just don't trust mall puppy stores so that left us with breeders or dogs in the paper. I started checking the paper daily and we really liked the sound of a springador. Once we talked to the lady and went to meet him we were sold!

3. Why did you pick a springador? Josh grew up with a labrador on the farm. A black lab named Abu. I think secretly he was sold on the springador because of his good experience with Abu. I wanted a smart dog, that wasn't going to get too big. And Josh really didn't want what he lovingly refers to as a "rat dog." So we were looking for something midsized. We both agreed that we wanted a dog we could train, fairly extensively. When we saw the ad in the paper we did some reading up on springadors on the internet and they seems like a good fit for what we had agreed on in our dog compromising process.

4. What will Mario do when you are at work? We are kennel training Mario. He can go most nights, full night, in the kennel with no crying and no potty problems. The plan is that once he is trained he'll get up with me in the mornings, he'll get about an hour and a half of play time in the morning before we both leave and then he'll be kennelled while we are at work. Then freedom and walks and love until bedtime. But for now while we are training him it is a bit more intense. We are lucky that Josh is working from home right now and can do the training. Lucky.....

5. Who walks him? Right now we both do, because we are ridiculously in love. As soon as he gets bigger and better on his leash I'm going to use him as part of my weight loss program and start to jog with him. Check out Mario in walking action....



6. Who cleans up? We've split the duties. I'm the pee cleaner, Josh is the poopsmith.

7. Are you taking him to doggie training classes? Yes we will be. We want him to be awesome! I want all visitors to my home to never be afraid of my dog. I think for that to happen, people need to see that when I say, "sit." Mario sits. And when I say "stay." Mario doesn't move until I say, "okay." I want to be a total stickler about it because Mario has the ability to learn this because of his breed. Also I'd love for him to be a therapy dog. He's such a love, it would be selfish of me not to share.

Mario

For probably a whole summer of my marriage Josh and I would go over to the Wixom's house pretty much nightly, wait for them to put their kids to bed and then the four of us would run downstairs and play Mariokart. It rocked!! Josh always picked Mario as one of his drivers because when you pick Mario, he would taunt the other drivers with, "I'm a Mario! I'm a gonna win!" Josh still pulls that out from time to time.

Well, Mario wins again! He has found a way back into our homes as the names of our new puppy. Mario is a 10 week old Springador (half Springer Spaniel/half Labrador) puppy. I've attached photos so you can see our handsome little devil. I'm totally enamored with him. As a matter of fact, as I type he sits in my lap with his chin in my left elbow, just chilling.

Welcome home Mario. Any dogs who would like to challenge Mario to a foot race, give up now...He's a Mario! He's a gonna win!!!

Testing 1,2,3

I've been taking my final for my leadership class for 2 hours now. I just came upon this question.


"Provided a “perfect world” explain the leadership theory that you feel best suits you and how you could utilize that theory in both your professional and personal lives. Give specific examples and use theory as presented in the book. "


You know it is time to stop for the night when the first thing that came to mind was PAPA SMURF and transformational leadership!! Granted it might be an interesting break for my teacher to read a short essay on how I would follow the leadership skills I learned from Papa Smurf and his ability to help the Smurf's reach their goal all the while becoming better Smurfs while at the same time become a better Papa Smurf himself each episode. I mean I could use really specific examples of the time they saved evil Azrael even though he's an evil kitty.



I'd give me points for creativity... throwing the hat in for tonight.


Smart Alec Smurf aka Ellen

Nerd Joy

Ellen: Hey everybody! Josh is a college grad! Good story -

Josh: Is this going to be a long story?

Ellen: Josh finished his classes for LDS Business College in 2004. However, he graduated in December of 2008 because he never filled out a piece of paper.

Josh: I did so fill out the piece of paper. I got it filled out like 10 times, I just never got it signed by everybody. And the certificates says that I graduated in 2004.

Ellen: True dat. You just waited four years to get it. I still love you my little procrastinator. Readers, here is where Josh would respond usually but he's busy, because he got a graduation gift from his parents. What you might ask? Think long and hard folks. What would be Josh's dream idea of how spend extra cash. That's right ladies and gentlemen, meet our newest family addition....

Josh: It doesn't have a name yet. It's beautiful, she will have a name though.

Ellen: Josh bought computer parts so he could build a new computer. Did you know the average gestational period for a new computer in the Haws household is about 2 weeks? It was news to me cause I'm sitting here working away at a few things and he suddenly starts to dance the overbite white man boogie. And he says, "Oh yeah! That's sexy!" The tongue sticks out, the thumbs go up. He pranced down the hall and back up. I grabbed our camera to take a few pictures for documentation. (Honestly folks, I wish you were here cause as I'm typing this up there are random "so awesome!" "Yes!" "Oooh yeah!" coming from Josh's drooling mouth....sigh.....where was I) I snapped a few photos and then decided, oh no filming this moment would be much more fun and in true nerd fashion Josh delivers.

Shhhh....Don't tell the truck.