Thursday, February 18, 2010

A Birthday Giveaway!

Auntie Anne and I go waaay back! I met her one day as I was walking thru the mall in Florida. One of her friends offered me a taste of her yummy original pretzel. Ahhh...it was love at first bite! I started finding excuses to go to the mall so I could have more. I even shared the love with my family. Now, my daughter insists that we get a pretzel every time we go to the mall. Imagine my surprise when we moved to Texas and discovered that Auntie Anne had placed one of her stores at MY local Wal-Mart! Wasn't that just so thoughtful of her? She must have known how much I would miss Florida and remembered how much I dislike going to Wal-Mart so she put it there to say "good job, Shanon, for making it thru this place...here have a pretzel!"

Auntie Anne considers me one of her best friends! She sends me emails all the time with special coupons and free stuff. She knows that I am having a hard time with the loss of my sister so she decided to let me have a free pretzel on the Saturday before my birthday. Isn't she just the best friend ever?!!!!! She even said that I could share with all my friends! Soooo, in honor of my birthday, she is offering everyone a free cinnamon or original pretzel! You get a pretzel, you get a pretzel, you get a pretzel, you get a pretzel........don't you feel like you are on the Oprah show?!



Oh, and don't be jealous of my friendship with Auntie Anne. You can be her friend too. You can join her facebook group. She probably won't build a special Auntie Anne's just for you in Wal-Mart, but I bet she'll send you coupons! One more thing, if you do get a pretzel (or even if you don't) you must remember to wish me a happy birthday on Feb. 22. I guess she forgot to put that on the notice. Just an oversight on her part, I suppose, because I know she will feel so terrible when I point that out to her. Be grateful that this giveaway does not require any effort on my part because we all know that it would not happen if I was in charge!

Enjoy and no need to send thank you notes...the smile on your face and the chub on your cheeks (from the pretzel) is all the thanks that I need! You are welcome!

Auntie Anne + Shanon = BFs 4 ever!

Monday, February 15, 2010

Do They Celebrate Birthdays In Heaven?

I've been celebrating my birthday with the same person since I was just shy of my second birthday. My mom went away for a couple of days and came home with this baby right before I turned 2. Can you believe that?! I don't really remember much about her coming home, but from the pictures I have seen I was not very happy about it!

Every February, even though I was the oldest(!) we would celebrate her birthday first. That was so unfair! I would ask my mom "why does she get to celebrate hers first? I am older!" I'm sure my mom looked so forward to February. I know she couldn't wait for the yearly argument over why Lori got to be first!



We have had fun over the years celebrating together. Sometimes we had birthday parties together like the surprise party that my older sister and her friends planned. We were very surprised and had a great day. When we were older, we would go on a shopping spree. We had great fun picking out things for ourselves and having my mom pay for it. That's the best way to shop!



I turned forty a few months after we moved to Texas. I was feeling sorry for myself with no plans for a celebration. I wasn't even put on the RS newsletter birthday list! Poor Gary had to comfort me while I cried on his shoulder about how I was invisible to everyone in the ward. I moped around for a few days, quit cleaning our house and quit taking showers. I was in this awful state of filth one night when the doorbell rang. There on the front porch was my family! My mom, dad and Lori with her 2 kids. I was so excited to see them (although I wish I had known, I would have cleaned my house or myself) and we had a nice birthday celebration! I think we even went shopping!

Lori would have turned 40 today. She told me that if she made it to 40 she would have a big party. I would have even gotten over my fear of flying to be there! I wonder if they had a big party for her in heaven today. I hope so. She has a few friends and lots of family there. I can't believe she left me here to celebrate my birthday alone. Maybe she got tired of hearing me complain every year. I hope that next year I will be able to celebrate her birthday without crying so much. I miss her alot!



Happy Birthday Lori!

I love you!

Friday, February 5, 2010

A very sad tale...

Once upon a time, there was a teeny, tiny girl floating around in a world of amniotic fluid. She was very happy and content in this place. So content in fact, that she decided to stay in an extra 22 days. She was hanging on until her mama could come up with a different name than Cecilia Leigh (you should hear the six girl's names she had picked!) Oh, boy did her daughters dodge a bullet!

This teeny, tiny girl's dad was a police officer. One day this officer pulled over a girl named Shannon. He thought that she was pretty and he liked her name so he came home and told his wife that he thought that instead of Cecelia Leigh they should name her after the pretty girl (who probably drove away with a warning, not a ticket). The mama thought that was okay so they named her Shannon Del. This was a fine name except that the police officer thought that the extra "n" in the middle of Shannon was not necessary so he threw away that pesky extra "N" and spelled it Shanon Del.

The teeny, tiny girl decided that Shanon Del was much better than Cecilia Leigh so she made her fashionably late appearance on Feb. 22, 19-- (no need to share ALL the details.) She weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs and 15.5 oz and was 20ish in. long. She was the most beautiful baby girl in all the land (hey, I'm writing this story!) with the most beautiful red hair anyone had ever seen.

This teeny, tiny girl was very happy until she was 9 months old. She decided at that point that this place called earth wasn't that great and she was ready to move back to her previous home, a place called Heaven. Everyone kept telling her that she had to stay and endure to the end. That sure did get her fiery red-headed temper going! There was nothing she could do though so for the last ?? years she has been enduring well. Some might disagree, but as I said before, I am writing this story!

Things got worse for the girl named Shanon when she started a horrible thing called kindergarten. That was when everyone started spelling her name wrong (or right if you are in the majority of the population). She has corrected the misspelling of her name more times than she can count. Over time, though, because she is such a pleasant person she finally learned to let it go...she even started to like the spelling of her name. That is until she saw this on facebook:

Go to urbandictionary.com, type in your first name, copy and paste this as your status, and put the first entry for your name under comments.

The beautiful, red-headed girl decided to go look up her name so she could see what her wonderful, uniquely spelled name said:

Shanon: Great pride and loyalty. Leader among all and soft hearted. Fun loving, exciting, interesting, worldly, hard working, masculine male figure.

Very nice.....if you are a masculine male figure. Last time she checked she was a feminine female figure. She then wondered what urbandictionary.com would say if her name was spelled with that extra "N".

Shannon: irish for little wise owl. Someone who is beautiful, inside and out. She's down to earth and crazy but you can't figure her out, which makes you love her all the more. She's also fun and funny and someone you can defiantly trust. They usually have red or dark hair and have beautiful natural highlights that others have to buy in a bottle. They are truly a unique person and one of a kind.

Look what she could have been. How unfair that the girl had missed out on all of those wonderful qualities all because her dad thought that pesky little "N" didn't matter....and she lived regretfully ever after murmuring "I knew it was somehow my daddy's fault!"

The End

The Sad, Sad, Sad End

The moral of the story: always check urbandictionary.com before naming your baby and make sure you spell it correctly. Unless, of course, you find pleasure in ruining a girl's life!