Your Hand-Book of Everyday Quoteables

If you are anything like our family (and if Pinterest is a honest witness, you are), there are certain quotes from movies, books, and the like that have so inbred with the life of your family that you can hardly tell where they came from in the first place, and why they're still here. In an attempt to find the history of these phrases in our own family, I have compiled in this post a "Hand-book of Everyday Quoteables". These are catch-phrase we use everyday (or frequently), and I hope they make you laugh.

"Lively as a cricket."

"P.J....I like that, you know I do."
"Stop sniveling and hold still."
"Fortunes, forecasts, lucky charms!"
"Mama said you and Robin Hood are sweethearts."
"Hiss. You deliberately dodged."

"I'm the leader, I'll say when it's the end."

"Pennsylvania Dutch? Saxony German."
"But don't go by me...I broke a shoelace this morning."
"Albuquerque. See, I can do it too. Snorkel."
"Hold on one second, let me just take in this moment. This is cool. Is this how you feel all the time? Well, except now."

"I got that reference!"
"You and I remember Budapest very differently." 

"Who's got worts?"
"To which of my fair cousins do I compliment the cooking of these excellent boiled potatoes?"

"Oh, the usual. Chocolates, flowers, promises you don't intend to keep..."

"I ripped this right out of a library book!"
"I'm getting prunes and denture cream! Who ARE they??"
"My knee hurts. Which knee? My elbow hurts and I gotta go to da bathroom."
"It's like America, but SOUTH!"

"Mr. Holmes, it was the footprint of a gigantic HOUND!"
"I can't just turn it on and off like a tap."
"One mention on Twitter and they're off."

"One, meat, two, beer, three, vegetables....four---what's number four? Oh yeah. PUDDING!"
"I must have money. And since I can't beg, borrow, or steal it, I must marry it!"
"Ever since I came to live with the Boffins I've been constantly avariciously scheming."
"I was THAT scary."

"I'm a Heffalump!"

"We're not destitute--not yet."
"Let's see what they do..."

"Where are you Poppet! We know you're in there..."

"Crikey."
"You are sailing perilously close to the wind, O'Brian."

A tale of pocketwatches

"The stars in their courses plot against us!"

Once upon a time there was a family who was perfect in every respect save one: They could not reconcile their schedules to their pocket-watches.

"We shall be there promptly!" they swore to each event. And they meant to. They really did.

"We shall be a tad late, actually." The Outsiders learned to watch for this second alert--indeed, they came to expect and to plan thus, for the family always followed up the former with the latter; they were quite punctual paying this compliment.

More often than not the family rang up the Outsiders again: "If it isn't too much of an inconvenience we'll be there...well...to put it quite frankly, rather late." Which the Outsiders learned to take as a sign that the family wouldn't be there at all.

 In the end the Outsiders were always right, which vexed the family to no end. They certainly didn't like this brouhaha between schedules and pocket-watches. It was the family curse--how could they help it? They couldn't. So the family continued to make their promises and swear to timeliness and get everything prepared in advance, but still their schedule moved at a tardy lounge and their watches flew till you'd think the gears would fly off, and late the family continued till the Outsiders never expected them at all.

"Wait for us!" the family shouted. "We'll be there! We promise!" And sometimes when the family held on with their teeth and dug in with their heels and slapped everyone and everything together with peanut-butter-and-jelly so they wouldn't slide about so, the Outsiders would glance out their front windows and nearly have a heart attack to actually see the family coming up the walk at a fashionably flustered pace.

The Aged member of the family no longer checked her pocket-watch and merely waited for the summons-or-not which came unfailingly.

The Seasoned members of the family learned to formulate plan B's and C's and D's and E's and F's (and even H's---just for good measure) and never to fret about the Plan A which hardly ever came about.

But the Youthful members of the family (not the Infantiles--they were too young to have pocketwatches) would not give up despite the wisest counsel. As a result they were the voice the Outsiders heard on the other end of the phone, or the senders-of the texts and emails expressing regrets, and over time they became quite a bit jaded with it all.

"Why can't we ever be on time?" Some of them grumbled.

"Better not to plan things at all," the Thunderous one suggested.

"We can still make it if we all leave NOW!" the Optimist would say.

But inevitably one or another of the Youthful Members would find they had lead and steel in their shoes instead of leather, or their watches had sped along in a way abnormal even for them, and the jading continued because they had been going about this way for so long.

Then one day, ONE DAY, the family had had enough. More than enough. Several of them were in tears over another aborted mission. (though this time the abortion was aided by an Outsider.) One of the Seasoned Youthful Members cracked her knuckles. She cleared her throat. She straightened her spine and Harrumphed at the pocketwatches and the digital watches and the mickey-mouse watches which all conspired against the family.

And do you know what this Seasoned Youthful Member did? She sat down in high dudgeon and wrote a blog post. And she hoped that someone in the wide wide world of blogging might have a wee spot of sympathy for the family and their timely curse.

The End.
(but she still thinks her family is pretty lovely. :)

Family Facts: Guess Who?

Today's Family Facts post will require some follower help. ;) Here's the deal:

Below is a picture of every person in our family and a list of all of our names. Your job is to match them up as best as you can. :) i.e. #1 is Susy, #2 is Peter, etc. Leave a comment with your guesses, and let's see who does the best!

The People

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

Not the best pic of this person...:P
#7

(The person on the right.)

#8

#9

#10

#11

The names:

 Levi

Sarah

Dad

Benjamin

Rachel

Abby

Anna

Daniel

Grace

Mom

Leah

Alright! Start guessing! :)

-Sarah

Family Facts from our side :)

1. What are some of your family's favorite phrases, exclamations, or sayings? Let's see.....where to start? "For Pete's Sake!", "Jiminy Christmas", "Great Scot!", "Golly Day!", "Goodness Gracious", and TONS of others!
2. What's the number of boys to girls in your family? 3 against 6--they've got half as much as we do. ;)
3. What is your favorite tradition your family has? Thankfully our family has always loved holiday traditions, so I guess any of those would be favorites. :) (see this, this post, or this one)
4. What do you call the midday meal at your house? Lunch. What else do people call it? :)
5. Is the majority of your family morning people or night owls? hm...I'd say about 1/2 & 1/2. 
6. What is your favorite vacation location? :P Well, in our family the favorite (and pretty much only) vacation we go on is camping at State parks and the like. We all LOVE it! Especially when the mosquitoes aren't full tilt, we don't get rained out, and it's not too terribly hot. ;)
7. Are your family's weekends usually full of activities such as sports, parties, and outings, or are they more of around the house, fix-it-uppers? It probably depends on the time of year....in the summer you'd more often than not, see us fulfilling garden needs, cleaning the house, doing projects outside, etc. But in the slower seasons, we don't mind having a party or get-together to go to. ;)
8. What is the nationality/ies your family comes from? (i.e. Scotch, Russian, etc) We are a big mixture of English, Irish, Scottish, Choctaw Indian, Dutch, and who knows what else! It's kind of fun to be able to claim all those as our heritage. :)
9. Do you go away for holidays, or celebrate at home? Usually the holidays come to us. :P But seriously, for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas most of the extended family will come to our house to celebrate! (which is real fun)
10. How did your parents meet? At Busch Gardens, believe it or not. :D They were both musicians in the bands around the park. (Mom in the Raggamuffin Band and Dad in the Boogie Band.) A friend kind of hooked them up. :)

Levi's 9 months old....

Yep. It's official.

 This baby is finally crawling!

p.s. I apologize for the lack of our own pictures on this blog. Our computer's hard-drive is entirely full and can't take one more picture.[besides the fact that my battery charger isn't working, making it impossible to shoot any..:(]