Random Acts of Shifeness - Happy Anniversary

• Happy anniversary to my lovely wife.
  Mrs. Shife and I are celebrating our 13th.
  It seems like yesterday that I was told to take some shots to calm my nerves before I walked down the aisle to wait for the love of my life.
  That's a true story.
  Friends of the bride saw how nervous I was and made me take two shots to help me become less nervous.
  It worked. I think only fumbled one of my lines. 😅
• It looks like lace is the gift to give when you hit 13. I found a nice little outfit that I will wear for Mrs. Shife. What color do you think I should get? I'm leaning towards the light blue. I think it will really make my blue eyes pop.

• We will probably go out for dinner or catch a movie to celebrate. Having someone watch the kids and put them to bed is a pretty darn good present. 
• Speaking of movies, I was looking for something to watch because Mrs. Shife thought beer and popcorn sounded like a good idea. We have two theaters in town where can enjoy a film and an adult beverage. Unfortunately, most of their choices are not that appealing. I'm still trying to figure out why this theater is giving a VIP 21 experience for the new Lego movie. I mean it makes sense if you can take your kids with you into these special balcony seats but only those 21 or older are allowed.
  "Hey man, you want to go check out the new Lego movie and drink beers at 11:30 in the morning on Saturday. It will be totally awesome."

• Have you heard of the mad pooper? You're welcome. 
• And my GIF to you. And you're welcome again.

• Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend and I will talk to you soon. 

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream. 

Random Acts of Shifeness - So Long Summer

• I guess summer is over. Woke up this morning and it was barely 50 degrees. It was a shock to the system since we were in 90s earlier this week. 

• Somebody is ready for fall weather.
  Or she's working on her shiv to take me out later this month. 

• Kyle and Hayden did get to enjoy one more day at the water park before it closed for the season. 

• One thing I have noticed with Kyle and Hayden is how they like to spend time together after school. It's not the best picture because I was being sneaky and didn't want them to see me. But one of them will sit on the "cube" and the other one will be in the swing and they just talk. My theory is that really miss each other during the day and reconnect after school. Or they are working with Frizzle on taking me out later this month. 

• Recommendation of the week: "Red Oaks." It's on Amazon Prime and I really enjoyed it. I guess that's obvious because I probably wouldn't put something I didn't like as a recommendation. I can't quite put my finger on it but it likes a combination of a John Hughes movie like "Sixteen Candles" and a Savage Steve Holland film like "Better Off Dead." A lot of 80s nostalgia. Maybe that's why it grabs me because I was a teenager in the 80s. 
• Quote of the week: You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. - Evan Esar
• Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you soon.

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Random Acts of Shifeness -- Bear Butts

• How's the weather in your part of the world? We are feeling the effects of all of the forest fires in the West. Our air quality was purple this week, which I learned isn't good. And I didn't even know purple was an option. I would think that they would choose a different color than purple because it really doesn't convey a sense gloom and doom to me. But it turns out they really don't give a bear's bald behind what I think. And here's a visual of bear's derriere without hair in case you needed it. Bonus points if you know what the movie this scene is from. And the scene if you want to watch it. I will have to write about my memories of this movie sometime.

• I got the labs back from my doctor last week and it turns out that I am just cuckoo for cocoa puffs. No thyroid or testosterone problems. I have depression/anxiety. Since it seems to be getting worse as I am getting older, I am going to have to be medicated for the rest of my days. I wish it was as simple as having decreased testosterone but that's not the case. 
• We gave the kiddos a nice surprise over the Labor Day weekend and got them season passes to the water park for the rest of this year and next year. They take after Mrs. Shife and just love being in the water. 
• Has anyone seen a good movie lately? I am looking for any recommendations. Mrs. Shife thought it would be nice to watch a movie together this weekend. I suggested we plant our butts on the couch and watch nothing but football but for some reason she didn't like my idea. 

• I have written exactly 0 pages since I shared my new literary adventure with you. I'm not sure where my motivation ran off to but I look forward to it returning soon. Maybe I need to find a new way to inspire myself.

• Hope all is well in your part of the world. Thanks for stopping by. Talk to you soon.

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream. 

Revisiting Labor Day 2006

Looking back on an old Labor Day post and boy, oh, boy how times have changed.

No kiddos. We had a life before Kyle and Hayden? 
I used the word "so" a lot. Is that good or bad or who cares? 

A portable DVD player. Do they even make these anymore? 

I was wearing underwear. What? When did that happen? 

I updated it with some awesome GIFs and I apologize for the lack of originality this week but I am just starting to feel like myself after a difficult week adjusting to new anxiety meds. More on that some other day. Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Talk soon.

Well I have been meaning to share this story for a little bit now, but a little thing called work has kept getting in the way. For the Labor Day weekend, Mrs. Shife and I went to her parent's house over the long weekend. It is roughly a little more than six hours. We hit the road after work and were on our way. Mrs. Shife drove, and I enjoyed some fabulous cinematic adventures on my portable DVD player. 

Well as the miles started to rack up something strange started to manifest itself in my pants. I am not sure if it was because I was sitting in the same position for hours or if there was sudden change in cabin pressure or if I had a dormant case of crotch rot that only surfaced in eastern Oregon or if I just suffered from itchy butt syndrome. 

Whatever the heck was going on in the Fruit of the Loom kingdom is still a mystery but somebody was going to get hurt if there was not a resolution to this drama. 

So I was faced with a bit of dilemma: Do I ask my lovely wife to pull over so I can further investigate to see if I am smuggling carpenter ants in my pants or do I just take matters into my own hands? 

Mrs. Shife's reaction looked a lot like the following GIFs so that might give you an idea of what I decided to do.

I pulled down my shorts, grabbed my underwear, and started pulling. It is amazing how easily those cotton nut huggers fall to pieces when you pull hard enough.

I yanked, tugged, heaved, ripped, jerked, wrenched, cried, etc. and after about 10 minutes the only thing left was an elastic waistband. 

I could have easily said, "Mrs. Shife can you please pull over. I am experiencing some mild discomfort south of the border." 

But since I am stubborn man, I decided I would rather pluck those panties off right then and there in the thriving metropolis that is Milton-Freewater while we were cruising at a speed of 70 miles per hour. 

So I am down one pair of skivvies, but the joy I felt after being released from my undergarments was almost indescribable. 

There you go; the highlight of my Labor Day weekend, but please do not shed any tears for the shredded Hanes because those undies died an honorable death. I do believe that my violent behavior towards my intimate apparel makes me ineligible to be an underwear model, but damn it, the truth had to be told to prevent this from happening to another innocent victim. Yes, it is true, underwear are not always fun to wear.




I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Random Acts of Shifeness - Waiting

Waiting on the eclipse.

Waiting on her brother who was busy ...

Waiting for the right moment to do a flip (which I didn't capture on film).

Waiting on the photographer to quit taking pictures.

Waiting to play fetch.

Waiting for the school bell to ring.

Waiting for Hayden after her first day of kindergarten equals a happy moment. 

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend.




I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

Random of Acts of Shifeness - C is for Crazy

• So much craziness to talk about. Where do I start? I will also be showing off my thesaurus skills. Prepare to be amazed. When you hear the word thesaurus does it make you think of a dinosaur joke? No. So it's just me?

• It's going to be bonkers to the berserker degree here in Idaho. They are expecting up to a million people to visit us over the next few days for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse. I think it's nuts that people are going this cuckoo over the eclipse but I think it's because I am slowly become more and more like the Clint Eastwood character in "Gran Torino."
  
  
  



• How can this be? It's insane to think that my Hayden Belle will be going off to kindergarten next week. Her world is going to get a lot bigger now. I know I have to let her go but I don't want to. Where is that pause button?



• And this guy will be in 3rd grade. I am going to be nuttier than a squirrel's breakfast. 

• And the straw that might break the one-humped camel's back and make me looney tunes is that Ms. Frizzle turned 1. The past year seemed to fly be. It feels like we went from this 

 to this in a blink of an eye.

• Well that's enough talk about my mental facilities and the march to madness. I hope you have a great weekend. Thanks for stopping and I will talk to you soon.

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.

It's Go Time

Well, it's time to jump back on that horse.
It has been almost 3 years since I published my book and now I think I am finally ready to work on something else and something completely different: a love story.
More details to come but below you will find the first 497 words.
Let me know what you think. Or not.
If you don't want to read it, you can just scroll down to the bottom and look at the picture of Ms. Frizzle being a model for the "Dog Days of Summer" catalog, which will not be appearing in your mailbox anytime soon.
I'm excited to embark on another literary journey and I look forward to sharing it with you.

"Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.” ― Elie Wiesel

I think I always knew I would out live Jack. Morbid as this may sound now –  it’s not something that I dwelled on – it was just something that I knew. Still, I never thought of how lonely it would be without him. He had filled my life for so many years. Sixty-four of them to be exact, and to not be able to talk with him, ask him questions, have a hug or a kiss seemed more than I could bear lately. I revisited some daily diaries I kept to look back on our lives together to see if that would help my loneliness. Unfortunately, most of the diaries just documented all the illnesses, accidents, and medical problems he had towards the end of his life.

I then remembered the metal box in my closet that had been there for so many years. This box contained the letters Jack had written me when he was in the Marines during World War II. Over the years, I had opened it and reread a few but had never read all of them. What bothers me now is that it never occurred to me to get them out and for us to read them together. How much more meaningful they would have been to see his reactions to his words all these years later.

Nevertheless, I hunted down the box. Of course, it was locked. I couldn’t find the key so I pried it open with a screwdriver and immediately started reading the 290 letters it contained. After reading them all, I felt I couldn’t just lock them up again and never share their contents. What I am doing may not mean a thing to anyone else but me. It is his side of our lives for three years, and I can only guess what I was writing back to him. This is a compulsion of mine as I feel driven to get this all down in some order so that I can have our love story saved and maybe it will make its way to someone else. I thought reading the letters would me make very sad, but they have had the opposite effect. I have had a lot of good laughs out of them. They have also brought back many cherished memories that were buried very deep. And, of course, it made me grateful that I got to spend all this time with the love of my life, Jack Anderson.

Words cannot ever express the emptiness I feel without Jack, but these letters have filled a large void. Ours was a love story like no other. I would like to say unique, but then everyone on Earth is unique and their love story is solely theirs. Ours just happens to be ours. And I hope our story will help you remember yours.


All my best,

Elizabeth Anne Anderson

Ruff day at the home office for Ms. Frizzle. 

I will persevere. I will keep moving forward. I will be the stream.