And there's reason to believe

I am watching my sister's kids for a few hours this morning.

So, rather than actively engaging with them and enjoying these last few wistful years of their childhood- I have decided to zone out and update this blog!

The Michigan Years

We moved to Michigan when I was 11. 

My dad didn't want to keep his business (he was a pool plasterer) and he wanted to spend time near his family.

We moved to a town in Southeastern Michigan called Tecumseh.

 One town over from the town my dad grew up in- Adrian.

Tecumseh was a famous native American.

 Tecumseh is also the refrigeration capital of the world.

 I bet you didn't know that. 

Here are the things you need to know about Michigan. 

Michigan was like living in a different country.

They had soda I'd never heard of.

They had a very distinctive accent. 

They all could point to where they lived in Michigan by holding up their hand and saying 'I'm from..." and then pointing to some spot.

 Apparently Michigan is shaped like a hand.

 If you ever run into a Michigander
 (they call themselves that)

 ask them where in Michigan they are from.

I promise you they will do the hand thing.

There is some kind of odd rivalry between lower Michigan and the 'UP'. (upper peninsula)

 My dad still refers to UP people with scorn, calling them "upers" (pronounced you-purrs)

The winters were nuts.

 Like 10 feet of snow nuts

. School was NEVER cancelled because they were used to driving and walking in the snow. 

Speaking of walking, we walked to school.

 Most kids did. 

Tecumseh, Michigan is everything you think of when you think of an American small town.

Everyone loves high school football, there are old fashioned ice cream shops downtown, and you walk to school. 

I felt like I was living in the 1950's. 

It was a very hard time for our family though.

It took my dad a while to find a job. 

We lived in the shadiest house ever.

 I wish I had pictures. 

My mom wasn't very happy.

 She isn't super close to her family but I don't think she had ever lived that far away. 

She didn't like the Michigan way of life. 

It was a weird few years for me.

When we moved my parents decided to put me into 7th grade, instead of 6th. 

I did really well but eventually the school decided to send me back to elementary school.

So, that was an odd transition. 

We started paper routes as a family to earn extra money. 

 (the beginning of the 'normals and weirds')

The best memories that I have are:

Getting to spend time with my grandparents.

 Both have since passed away.

 My grandfather took me flying in a small plane.
(He was a pilot in WW 2)

Watching weird late night soap operas from Canada.

 There was one called "let the blood run free" and it was about a crazy hospital.

We were close enough to Canada to get some of their strange shows. 

They do bottle recycling in stores in Michigan.

 It's like 10 cents a bottle.

 So we would run around, collecting bottles and drag them all down to the convenience store for money. 

This strange drunken guy would frequently ride his bike down to our lawn and crash there, asking if we had a bathtub that he could borrow for his next kegger.

 I'm not sure why he asked us so many times.

Our elderly next door neighbors- Gene and Bea- were nudists.

You had to be careful walking by their house. 

There was some kind of purple flower that grew in the front yard.

I don't know what it's called- maybe it was lilacs.

 But it was the best smell in the whole world. 

Once, my parents were away, and we got so freaked out being in that weird house on our own that we performed some kind of weird exorcism because we thought the devil was in our bedroom.

We had the green nova.

 That car was epic. 

I fell in love with my 7th grade math teacher- Mr. McDowell. I changed the way i wrote my 8's to match him.
 (two circles instead of a figure 8). 

I started writing weird, emo poetry. 

I got to go to Disney world again with a family that I babysat for. The Wagners. 

I could go on and on.

 It was a weird, hard, interesting few years.

But it did not prepare me for the years ahead. 

The Jersey Years. 

Lori Ann

p.s.- Talking about Michigan always makes me feel so tired. I don't know why. 

When I want to run away

The Dublin Years 

I lived in the red brick house across from the Dairy Queen in Dublin, PA for 6 years.

 From age 5 to age 11. 

I still remember our phone number. 249-0889.

They were, by far, the most stable years of my entire childhood. 

My dad had his own business and my mom got to be more of a stay at home mom- although she still worked some of the time- and things were somewhat ok. 

I attended Bedminster Elementary with both of my sisters.

Jr went to another elementary school because they had a better special education program. 

I have so many amazing memories of those years. 

Playing outside until it got dark. 

My dad playing catch with us 3 girls for hours. 

The shoelaces in the bike chain incident. 

Being in love with my next door neighbor Kevin. 

Having some of the best missionaries ever. Including the one that would eventually get my dad to join the church- Elder Gibson

My mom would sew us dresses. 

We ate dinner together at the dining room table. 

I took piano lessons.

We got our first computer. 

(which I destroyed by pouring baby powder into it)

My dad's sister, my aunt Robin, lived with us for a little while.

 She always had us do funny skits. 

My parents surprised us with a trip to Disney World. 

I started to fall in love with American history when I went to Jamestown and Gettysburg.

Sleeping at the firehouse the night the barn burned down. 

I remember playing softball.

 Joining a bowing league.

 Trick or treating for hours and hours.

 Watching Disney's Sunday night movie and sleeping in the living room.

 Building forts out of wood.

 Riding our bikes to the IGA.

Watching Girls just want to have Fun over and over one summer. 

My parents took away the TV and I started reading, reading, reading

 A little too much VC Andrews unfortunately.

 I got my stuffed rabbit Peachy.

 I broke my arm roller skating.

My sister Erin and I got baptized together when I was 8 and she was 9.

I played the friar in my 4th grade production of Romeo and Juliet.

 We got sealed as a family in the Washington DC Temple. 

There were hard times too. 

I don't like to think about the hard times.

Especially not the really hard times. 

 So, I hold on to the good times. 

The day my dad explained the cold war to me while we listened to Leningrad on Billy Joel's Storm Front album.

The nights my dad would wake us up at midnight and we would all go down to the Souderton Pizza Hut and help my mom close it down so she could come home and go to bed.

 And we would always listen to 'in your eyes' by Peter Gabriel on the jukebox.

 Whenever I hear it, it takes me back to that place of mopping floors and rolling silverware in the middle of the night. 

The time my mom bought me a sparkly new outfit for my 4th grade Christmas concert. 

My mom getting us lost in Boston while we were site seeing. 

Listening to Neil Diamond and drinking kool aid at my aunt Debbie's house in Allentown.

My parents dressing up and scaring us on purpose. 

My sisters being mad at me because I chose "fairy land pink" as the wall color for our room.

The "michael jackson" room in our basement. And all the random chocolate recipes we would find. 

The end of the season ice cream from Dairy Queen.

My dad turning up his music so loud it would make all the floors in the house shake. 

And a million, billion other memories. 

Lori Ann

p.s.- Next installment- the Michigan Years. AKA "the dark times".   :) 

Is to save every day

Ok, so the next chapter in the thrilling life adventure of Lori Ann!!!

Grab your popcorn as we delve into...

The early childhood years!

So, the years I don't remember?

 Birth to 5?

Apparently they were fairly chaotic years. 

We moved a lot. 

Lived in some motels, apartments, and various houses. 

My parents still tell the stories of 'the yellow house' or 'that one house in Jersey' or wherever. 

Places I have no memory of. 

I think it was a hard time for my parents.

 They didn't really have support of any kind from their families. 

In part because we lived far from my dad's family (and they were never super close anyway) and in part because my mom's sisters (the ones who weren't 6 and 4 years old) were all having kids at the exact same time.

 Literally.

 I think the first 10 grand kids on my mom's side were born in the span of about 5 years. 

So, my parents had 4 kids, aged 3 and under, and were pretty much on their own. 

Both of my parents worked on and off.

 I know my mom wanted and tried to be a stay at home mom, but she sometimes had to work and my dad's work has always been seasonal.

So, those were the early years. 

As a therapist I have learned that ages birth to 6 are some of the most important years in a person's life. 

"The wonder years" they are called. 

They affect your sense of self, your relationship with others, how you see the world. 

It's odd to know that I have been deeply affected by years that I don't even remember. 

There aren't even that many pictures.

 I think I have maybe 5 pictures of me before the age of 5. 

Maybe that's why I have always taken a million pictures of my sister's kids.

 I want them to see their lives from every age. 

My favorite stories that my mom tells about those years are the following two:

She said I used to just go around and open drawers and look at things but I would never get anything out.

 It's not so much the story but how she tells it that I love.

She said that I would never let her brush the back of my hair and it would be nice and combed in the front and a 'birds nest' in the back. 

Apparently I had a strong sense of style from a young age as well.

 (I lost that somewhere along the way)

And I may or may not have buried a doll that everyone called "big foot". 

That's three stories. 

I know these entries are kind of boring.

 But the unexamined life is not worth living, right?

And we're about to head into the crazy Dublin, elementary school years.

 The years of the awesome biker dudes, the good and plenty trade, trips to Disney World, and taking bowling lessons. 

So, there is that to look forward to :) 

Lori Ann

p.s.- I've now lost a total of 169 lbs. Only 31 lbs to the 200 lbs lost mark! I am going to have a GIANT party when that happens. But just no cake because on April 1st I am giving up sugar for one year. It's time to break the addiction.

p.p.s.- Less than a week until my half marathon. Yikes. It's starting to get really, really scary.
 (but awesome!)

Holding on too tight

So...

Lately, in therapy, I've taken to asking people to write me or tell me the story of their lives.

It has a lot of therapeutic benefits which I won't list because this blog can be something of a snooze fest as it is.

This blog is, in a lot of way, the story of my life.

 At least the story since the day I turned 30 anyway.

One of the things we are asked to do as Mormons is keep a journal.

 Keep a record of our lives and our thoughts.

And I don't really have any records.

I have destroyed every journal I've ever written out of fear of my sisters finding it.

 How dramatic, I know. 

So, this blog is really the only record I have. 

So, I thought I would write the story of my life here.

Starting from day 1.

Not all at once, of course.

That's insane.

Here is the beginning....

I was born on a snowy Sunday- October 7th, 1979.

 Conference Sunday.

I was the youngest child of David and Terry Hinsdale.

 She was 23 when I was born.

 He was 29.

They didn't know my gender.

When I was born by c-section my mom remembers saying "Now I have 3 girls" and the doctor said "I have 3 girls too!"

My siblings were at home being babysat by the missionaries. 

(It was the seventies, people)

My sibling's ages were as follows:

David Allen Jr.- 3 years, 2 months, and 4 days old.

Danielle Christian- 2 years, 2 months, and 2 days old.

Erin Leigh- 9 months and 27 days old.

That is what my family looked like the day I was born in Doylestown, PA.

I was the only one born in PA.

 My siblings were all born in Bridgeton, NJ.

As a matter of fact, James Ray (my nephew) and I are the only PA babies in our whole family.

That means a lot to me.

Pennsylvania has always been home to me.

 I've lived in 8 other states and when I am gone from PA, I feel lost.

I was born with almost black hair.

Not like my siblings

. And blue eyes.

 Like my siblings.

My parents had met in church about 5 years before this day.

 My dad is from Michigan and my mom lived all over the country before her dad retired from the Air Force.

 How they met in Jersey is beyond me.

My siblings have some small memories of me as a baby.

I don't remember anything until I turned 5 or so.

Riveting, isn't it?

Wait until we get to the next installment- Lori- the early childhood years!

Lori Ann

Pass you by

Here are some things you NEED to know about my life at this very moment.

Katy puked at the Wawa this morning.

I felt so bad for little Katy.

 She is really a trooper and handled herself well in a difficult situation.

I, on the other hand, am most likely going to be picked up by CYF any time now.

As she is puking, I am in line, surrounded by wild children, I am yelling "puke into your shirt", while wearing my sweats and a stained t-shirt and you know what I am buying???

Donuts and red bull.

I like to keep it classy, people.

Next thing you NEED to know is that DIVERGENT is actually coming out TONIGHT!

 I am going to the 9:30 showing.

 It's going to be epic!!

It's gotten bad reviews on Rotten Tomatoes but how bad can it really be?

 Wait..didn't I say the same thing about Mortal Instruments...?

It's going to be a wild night, either way!

I am having my second pizza party of the week today.

Group therapy and pizza just go together.

 Like individual therapy and alcohol.

 Or individual therapy and jelly beans.

Or individual therapy and pictures of my cat.  

But on the up side, I won't have to run any groups until MAY!!

My DSM-V should be arriving in the mail today.

 I can hardly wait!!

I just want to lay on my office floor and sleep.

 Or cry.

 Or eat jelly beans.

But these evals are NOT going to complete themselves.

Lori Ann

Our song

Today was an amazing day in a lot of ways. 

I got to take these monkeys to the park for 45 minutes.

 We had to leave before frostbite set in. 

I got back on a swing for the first time in probably 20 years.

 This year I have sledded, got on a swing, and a few million other things that delight me to no extent.  
(ignore that I am dressed like an umpa lumpa.)

I don't normally take pictures in Sacrament Meeting.

 But I had to capture the look on the Kat's face.

 She is so funny. 

I know you've been missing the selfies.

 That's my work badge picture in the middle.

 From about 18 months ago.

 Hopefully in 18 months, one of the outside ones will be the new middle picture!

What made today the most amazing was the brief talk I had with my branch president.
(kinda like a pastor but volunteer)

I've always known that God hears my prayers and watches out for me.

 I know that.

 I see His hand in my life every day.

But I felt like what President Adams said to me was really God speaking directly to me.

 I think I've only ever had one or two moments like that in my whole life.

It was amazing.

So, ending on an emo note again. 

Yikes.

I think we've used up our emo quotient for the entire year and it's not even April.

This time two weeks from now I will be done a 1/2 marathon.

Wish me luck as I train HARD over the next two weeks!

Lori Ann

And, I know

Random Thoughts Saturday Night

I spent 5 or 6 hours at the office today.

It's like being in space.

 Time has no meaning.

 I left when my mom called and told me to come home. 

I couldn't motivate myself to walk today.

 Which sucks because it was a beautiful day and tomorrow is supposed to be freezing. 

Speaking of tomorrow...I am wearing THIS to church. 

Well, not the yellow socks.

 I will try and get someone to take a picture of me in it.

 I got it at the thrift store for $10!!!

 Its also a size I haven't worn since high school.
 (I literally just paused to clap my hands in glee)

This thing has been making me laugh lately. 

Yesterday, I gave all of my sister's kids a dollar at the Walmart to pick something out.

 Katy couldn't choose between skittles or this pink hotwheels car.

 So, she eventually agreed to 'babysit' Sugar in exchange for getting two things.
(which will be interesting, to say the least)

 But she was making me laugh because she was sitting in the baby seat of the cart, shaking her head sadly and saying "Aunt Lori, I'm just very, very poor". :) 

There has been something of a scuffle over candy being eaten in primary.

 I was allegedly spotted teaching class while eating a lollipop.

 In all seriousness, why do only upper middle class white people have gluten allergies?

 Lame.

 In response to the no candy rule, I have recently stuffed my treat jar full of candy.

Never let it be said that I didn't fight the man when it was really important :) 

This time two weeks from now will be the night before my half marathon.

 I have been googling "What happens if you can't finish a half marathon on time?"
 (because there is no way I am making the 3 1/2 hour cut off time).

 Apparently, there are 'sweeper vans' that pick up the stragglers. 

I do not want to cross the finish line in the back of a van with the elderly and dehydrated. 

Both of my groups are ending this week.

 I run a teen and an adult social skills group.
(for people who are mostly on the Autism Spectrum)

 Hallelujah.

 Although that means I have to run two pizza parties this week.

 Because group therapy should always end with pizza. 

I saw a shooting star tonight.

 And I couldn't stop making wishes. 

I'm tired.

 Like deep down tired. 

Not to be cryptic or self pitying but sometimes I wonder why I still crave the attention and approval of people who have made clear that they don't find me that interesting. 

Let's end on that emo note. 

Lori Ann