Hey there ! Thanks for dropping by Just Call us " The Hecks " ! Take a look around and grab the RSS feed to stay updated . See you around ! We have some " interesting " neighbors that have moved in that have made us more vigilant when it comes to making sure things are locked up when we leave , etc . I hate feeling like this in my own home . It didn 't used to be like this . Well we are very active in our church and attend meetings every Sunday . When you live in the type of neighborhood I live in , most people know when you are gone on Sundays and at what times and for how long . This is information that you really don 't want people knowing if they want to break into your house . Two weeks ago , we came home from church and I had just come out of the bathroom . I was singing The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald , or at least trying to because I couldn 't past " Chippewa on down " because I couldn 't remember the words . So I was in my own little world trying to figure out what the next words were . I came around the end of my bed and turned to go out the door when something grabbed my ankle from underneath the bed . I really shouldn 't have to explain my reaction . It was like having a near death experience . I screamed for at least 2 minutes before I heard my daughter laughing . She is lucky she started laughing or the adrenaline might have jumped and I might have started kicking her in the face . I seriously had to sit down after this . Have you ever been scared so bad that your heart hurt ? My heart was pounding so hard it hurt . I sat there breathing hard and holding my breath . Like Fred Sanford does when the " Big One " is coming : So my first two children were girls . Girls were so much fun . I could dress them up and they got along most of the time . Rarely did I have a smack down between the two of them . My next two children were boys . Boys are an entirely different species all together . When my boys were younger , they got along great together . Better than the girls . As they grew into teens , I started noticing BIG differences in their behavior . I am not sure where in the genetic code of humans that the burping and farting in public gene mutated in males . This is hard to understand as a female and one that I will never understand . For some reason the teenage … and I might add , older aged male , seem to think this is the best way for impressing the babes . Let me put that myth to rest right now . That would be no . When my youngest son turned 13 something changed . Not only did he change , but he passed whatever he had on to my son that was 15 . My polite 15 - year - old son suddenly started farting wars with the 13 - year - old . Two years later despite my constant nagging things have not changed . This is not the only problem with teenage boys . The burping and farting they are constantly doing seems to drown out common sense or deadened it . I am still not sure which . I truly believe they will do anything to embarrass me even if it isn 't on purpose . Don 't get me wrong . I love my boys and they make me laugh everyday . They are hilarious , but they come with horrible side effects sometimes . Take my trip to town a couple of days ago . We came to a store where they were selling newspapers outside of the door . I am sorry , but I hate this . I hate being jumped at a store door without an exit route . I have told these guys over and over that I do not want a newspaper . As I sat in the car looking at the front door and trying to figure out how to get into the store without getting a sales pitch , my son says this " I got an idea , I will just go up and " pants " him and then when he is distracted you can go into the store . I bet he will never want to sell anything to you after that " . After I recovered from envisioning this scene , we opted to go through the garden area and avoid him altogether . I wasn 't sure my son wouldn 't try something . Amongst my purchases at this store was a toilet plunger . As I am getting into the car , I find that my car has a new hood ornament which took some doing for him to get it off after he put it there . I seriously counted my blessings that I saw that before I got going down the road . Once we get going down the highway he then proceeds to stick the plunger on the roof of the car to pretend it is a police siren , you know like in the movies . I had to put up with this for 7 miles . With my neighbor driving right behind me the whole 7 miles . Then he has the nerve to tell me that he wants to make a bow that will shoot one . Guaranteed , I will be the first to get it in the face . Then the other day we went into a store . I was stuck there with him again despite the many times I have told him he is not coming with me ever again . We came out of the gardening area and started down an aisle where we both saw this really cool green glass looking ball . We both reached for it at the same time to feel it . After touching it we realized it was plastic and that is was a toy ball . My son quickly grabbed it and started reading the label . " Hey " , he says " this says this ball can bounce 150 feet in the air , I don 't believe it " . As soon as the , " I don 't believe it " came out I knew he was going to see if the claim was true . The first words out of my mouth was , " Don 't do it " . He must have turned off his " hearing aids " and decided that not only was he going to bounce it on the floor , but he better make sure he gives it enough power that it will do what it claims . He was standing at the top of one aisle and I started down another aisle just as he bounced it . I looked up to see the ball go through the ceiling tiles . This was a good 30 feet up . The ball hit those tiles just right that it lifted them up and turned them enough that they fell out of the rim they were sitting in and came down on his head . I personally did not stick around for the whole thing to play out . When I saw the sky falling , I wasted no time in disappearing . When my son finally caught up to me , he begins to complain about the paper cut that one of them gave him on his face . No , " sorry mom , I should have listened to you " . No , nothing . It has been 3 days and still no apology . Perhaps someday when he has a son I will get an apology . Because despite my hopes for change , I think the gene will mutate in his future sons also . To understand how funny I find my husband , I have never seen anyone as tenacious as he once he starts mowing . We live on a five acre piece of land which gets covered with field grass . One day he was out mowing our regular lawn and he disappeared . I found him clear out in the field mowing . He is the kind of guy that once he starts going , he will find anything that needs mowing down and go at it . A couple of years after we were married he was out mowing with the riding lawn mower and I looked out to see nothing but a giant ball of dust . All of a sudden I see him running toward it and in the middle of this dust ball was the riding mower climbing a fence post . I stood there with mouth open trying to figure out how the mower got up the fence post without my husband on it . I still to this day don 't know and neither does he . He is as tenacious with the weed whacker as he is the mower . Many times I have seen him in the field chopping away at anything that looks like a weed . I have lost many of flowers and plants to that thing . May they rest in peace . So a couple of days ago he was mowing the lawn . I went to the kitchen sink to get a drink . I looked out the window and saw him mowing the lawn in shorts and snowboots . Earlier that day we had been hauling stuff to a recycling place and he had stepped in a horse size pile of dog poop . We don 't have dogs that size , nor do our dogs ever go in the front yard . So stepping in it was an unpleasant surprise . So he put them on to mow the lawn to keep from getting dog poop on his good shoes . It was nearly 80 degrees outside , I don 't know how he could stand it . I was on the phone to my sister and told her that she needed to see what he was wearing . She wanted me to upload the picture to my facebook page for her to see . Well I decided that that was too boring so I was going to have some fun and I Photoshopped him into mowing The White House lawn . Home remodeling is not for wusses . During my growing up years , there is only a couple of houses that I recall not being involved in a remodeling job of some sort . My mother had this innate ability to take something ugly and make it beautiful . I remember one particular house that I went with them to look at . I remember walking into this four walled container of fecal matter and telling my parents that I would not move into that house if they decided to buy it . It seriously looked like someone had urinated on the walls or something in the front room . The toilet was so disgusting . The house smelled horrible . My parents bought the house because they got a great deal on it . I moved in kicking and screaming . The house did have to be cleaned up before we moved in which helped a little bit . When my mother was done with it , it was beautiful home . I will be the first to tell you that I hate remodeling . Mostly because I hate things being in chaos and it would eventually lead to not having a bathroom in the middle of winter . Utah winters in the past were not kind . You would sometimes have to plow a walkway to the car through 3 - 4 feet of snow . This year it has been 3 - 4 inches . When my grandmother passed away , the doctors did not want my grandfather living alone . He was pretty feeble . So my mother and father sold our home and we moved into my grandfather 's house . It was a two bedroom , 1 bathroom home . There were 5 of us . My parents made do until we could remodel the home to have 3 more bedrooms and a bathroom . See , I told you all remodeling leads to being without plumbing at one point and time . This remodel job started in the summer and went into the winter . My grandfather had a greenhouse that he had made that was in his backyard about 200 feet away from the house . When it came time to install the new toilet , shower and sink , the water had to be shut off to the bathroom . My father built us a porta - potty of sorts in the greenhouse for privacy . Unfortunately it was in the winter and we had a lot of snow . I remember a few mornings making the trip out to the greenhouse dreading the frostbite I was getting braced to receive . This makes you pretty tough . I am about to " out " my mother on this and may she forgive me . I did not understand her situation then like I do now that I have had four children . The birth of children seriously damages anything related to the bladder and the lack of control thereof . Did not understand this at that time . I am a lot more sympathetic of her situation now . One particular morning when our bathroom was still located in the great outdoors , she woke up and had to go out to the " greenhouse " . She realized as she got up that she had to go pretty bad and wasn 't sure if she was going to make it . She had a pretty steep flight of stairs to go down and realized when she got to the bottom that there was no way she was going to make it without having an " accident " . So she made an executive decision to just step off to the side of the steps and go . She hit a patch of ice which caused her to go down along with her pants . Even now , 25 years later , I still laugh at the picture this paints in my mind . I envision Bambi when he first stepped on ice . Now thank goodness Google wasn 't around to do a drive by " shooting " . I would hate to find her on a Google map search somewhere . I could not stop laughing that entire day . I had graduated from high school and was at home so I was stuck there painting all day . When it would get quiet … you know the 7 minute lull … . I would envision my poor mother in her predicament and start laughing . She would just look at me and give me that " I know what you are thinking about look " and then proceed to tell me that she wishes she would have never told me what happened . Well today I almost had the same experience she did , only I kept my pants on and ice was not involved . The first house my husband and I lived in had to be completely remodeled for it to be livable . I decided after the 10 years of that that I would never remodel again . I will paint , but I won 't tear the entire house apart . So for the last couple of months , I have been giving my walls a fresh coat of paint after 7 years . Today I decided that my children 's bathroom needed a new look . I have unfortunately been smacked with the short stump and am at a huge disadvantage at reaching ceilings , let a lone vaulted ceilings . I have not to this day spent money on a step - ladder . That is probably why I have nearly died a few times . Today I had the can of paint on the bathroom sink and I was standing on the side of the tub trying to paint around the ceiling . I had a chair in between me and the sink so I could just step around to make things easier . I stepped on the chair with one foot to reach the paint can and for some reason the chair slid , thus causing me to do the splits . I am sure even when I was a baby that I could not do the splits . I am not genetically built for them . My sister tried forcing me once which , quite frankly , I was lucky I could still have children afterwards . Anyway , as the chair slid I felt the muscles pulling in places that no woman wants muscles pulling . My daughter and husband was on the other side of the house discussing bikes and handlebar tape . I yelled for help , groaned for help , prayed for help . No one came . I managed to grab on to something and get myself pulled back together . I had a flashback to when I was 24 months pregnant with my youngest son ( not really , but it felt like 24 months ) , I went to kick a ball and missed . Couldn 't walk for weeks from a pulled groin . I do not think that I will be walking the same after today . There is something about pulling the groin muscle that just messing everything up . I nearly crawled into the kitchen to where the beloved family with hearing problems were . No comments like , " sorry , we didn 't hear you " or " are you OK " . All I got was laughter . It haunted my ears as I am sure it did my mothers years ago . Why did I even tell them . Everything you do as a teen comes back to haunt you as a parent . At least I was within the privacy of four walls and my pants were stretchy . About a month later , my husband sat on the bed and the board broke off . We were so grateful this was not during the night . We tore the bed apart and put one hundred ( not really that many ) screws in the board to hold it together . We were impressed and thought it should do until we could get a new board . My heart was pounding so hard . This by far is not a good way to get woken up . We scrounged through the house and found some food storage cans to hold up the side of the bed which broke , which also happened to be my husband 's side . It was not level and leaned too much to one side , but it was the best that was going to be at 1 : 00 in the morning . Can I say that memory foam is the best kind of mattress in situations like this . It acted like Velcro and kept me from rolling completely over my husband side up and over him and down onto the floor . My body imprint held me in place . My daughter 's dog , on the other hand , which happened to be in our bed last night , kept rolling on top of my husband . We were both too tired to get her out of the bed and I felt my husband shove her more than once " up the hill " during the night all the while mumbling unintelligible words . Honestly . . I don 't think I wanted to know what he was saying . I grew up in a family that enjoyed having a good time . My brothers were constantly pranking us five girls . Of course we would always pay back . One particular week stands out more than others when one of my brothers was off work and made our lives miserable . In the process we all started pranking each other something terrible . My father even got in the action . Which was out of the norm . Usually Mom was the one who would go toilet papering with us kids and other " various activities " , all good and legal fun ( at least it was legal back then ) . Toilet papering was our favorite thing to do . If you got toilet papered , you were the coolest people on the block . I remember my friend and I saving up tons of paper towel and toilet paper to get a boy 's house that I had " liked " . I remember one buying spree prompted the store checker to ask us what we were up to … . we just smiled . Admitted nothing . This particular week off for my brother was a nightmare for the rest of us . We would find the neck and arm holes of our pajamas sewn shut when we put them on . We found the legs of our nylons sewn together . My mom found her clothes missing ( that was my dad ) , my brother found a brazier in his gym bag while he was in the boys locker … ( this was a good one ) . My sister found a fake snake in her bed and we found fake spiders ( that looked very real ) hanging from our ceilings . We were renting this home and the basement was unfinished . My father had been in the military and somewhere my parents had picked up military cots for us to sleep on . We came home from school to find all of these nailed to the beams on the ceiling . We came home and found our beds outside . . this was in the winter . We got my brother back by hanging all of his clothes off the roof of the house , including his tidy whiteys . We put vinegar in his cologne … . ( I think this made my extremely patient brother upset ) At this point , things were getting out of hand . We knew my father had had enough when we built a snowman in the front yard and instead of using a broom , we used a toilet plunger . This did not sit well with him . One prank that went bad was my sister had put shoes above a door that led downstairs hoping that she would nail someone in the head when they opened the door . Well she did alright … . the telephone repairman . Nailed him good she did , then she blamed it on the younger , less - defensive siblings . Anyway . . this is kind of the way my family is . One of my sisters imparticular will call and give any child of mine that answers the phone … including my husband … . a good teasing about one thing or another before asking for me . I pretty much do the same to her children or my other sister 's children . There have been times when she or I or another sister will pass on the street and pull the old " finger up the nose " gag to be funny . These types of things are just normal for us . The other day , my sister called asking me to help my nephew do his taxes . She gave me his cell phone number and I gave him a call . I was half way through giving him crap about how I work cheap , etc … when the voice on the other end told me I had the wrong number . Well … that was embarrassing . If we weren 't always trying to pull one over on each other , then things like this wouldn 't happen . Take today for instance : I went to help my sister do something for my father . She left before I did , but I came upon her at an intersection . As I came closer , I decided I was really going to get her good . She was directly behind a truck that was waiting to make a left hand turn . There was no one in front of me and I was going straight . I went really slow and stopped right by her . I stuck my finger up my nose as far as I could get it and put the stupidest look I could conjure up on my face . I sat there right next to her knowing full well she would see the color of my car and turn and look . Sure enough , when I turned to see the look on her face half expecting her finger to be up her nose too … I came face to face with an irate looking woman who did not resemble my sister at all . I don 't think I have ever covered my identity as fast as I did at that moment . I sat there thinking to myself … " idiot , idiot , idiot " . How could I mistake that car for my sister . I ran through my head where the car was exact make , model and color . Her big hair looked like my sister 's big hair from the back …… yada yada yada . . If I was not constantly trying to pull one over on somebody , stupid things like this would not happen to me . Next time , I will be more cautious . I will drive up slowly take a good look to make sure it is who I think it is … then I will shove my finger up my nose . Problem solved . So the saying " Jumpier than a one - legged man in a butt kicken contest " could not describe me more . I don 't like being scared . Nothing is worse than watching a scary movie and having someone scare you just before you are " supposed " to get scared or having someone come up behind you unexpectedly . I had an incident that happened to me a few years ago that almost ruined my life as I know it . I used to walk religiously at 6 : 00 a . m . everyday , 6 days a week . Never missed . With this came the ability to recognize cars and know when they pass . Most of them would pass me at the same time of morning . One particular morning I was walking and I came upon this really sharp corner . I heard this truck coming and I knew how this particular driver drove . I decided to cross the street rather than run the risk of this kid hitting me on the inside corner . As I crossed the road and turned the corner , there sat a car that was not supposed to be there . I immediately recognized it as a car that should have been passing me about 30 minutes later from this time . I didn 't realize that someone was in the car until I walked by . Thanks to the crazy kid driver in the truck , I was not forced to walk directly by the car , I was on the other side of the road . When I realized someone was in the car and it was parked behind some piles of dirt , things started feeling weird to me . All the hairs on my neck started standing up and I knew that something was not right with the situation . I immediately pulled out my cell phone and called me sister who lived across the street from me . My husband was at work and I needed someone quick . While not letting this guy know I suspected anything , I kept walking in the same direction . He pulled out and turned the corner only to turn around and come back up the street behind me . I held my breath and walked as fast as I could , all the time waiting for my brother - in - law to show up . The car drove by me slowly and as soon as it was a hundred feet or so in front of me , I turned and hauled butt so fast that I nearly sat the road on fire . My brother - in - law was just up the street and got me just seconds from the time I turned around . I learned from this experience to never be predictable in some situations . I also have become extremely jumpy and I blame a lot of it on this situation and also from a lot of break - ins or attempted break - ins to the homes I lived in as a kid . I have many weapons by my bed and my husband is scared to come into the house unannounced . We were going to go look at a couch a lady was selling and my son was riding with me , while my husband was riding with our neighbor . We were at our the house just getting ready to leave when my sons says , " Mom , did you check the car to make sure no one was in it ? " I told him no , that dad had just been in the Durango and I knew no one was in there . " Still " , he said , we should check . This was more for his benefit I think . He turned on the inside light while we sat in the seats and looked behind and then turned off the light . All the while telling me that I should check things like that . While we were thus having this conversation , unbeknownst to me , my husband had walked up to the truck and knocked on my window . It was dark outside and I could barely see him . Can I just say that I absolutely needed a new pair of pants . I nearly jumped into my son 's lap . My husband was lucky I wasn 't packing any " heat " . We were a couple of miles up the road before my heart stopped pounding . This little side effect I have has been a joke in the family . A couple of Halloween 's ago , I was at my sister 's house and we had just got done doing the whole trick - or - treating thing . We walked out the door to leave and me being completely stupid did not notice when my husband opened the door that my nieces husband was hiding in the back seat with a mask on . I was laughing and joking with the family and jumped in the car . No one else got in . I wondered for a split second what was taking them so long . I looked out my window and then turned to look at the driver side door to see where my husband was , when I came face to face with " The Mask " . I screamed a blood curdling scream , leapt out of the car nearly slamming the nephew in the door . This nearly killed me . I cannot begin to tell you had long after this incident I shook . The closest thing to a near death experience he and I may ever experience . Try as I might , I cannot overcome this problem . I just get more weapons to add to my arsenal . I really don 't think this is helping the situation . A jumpy woman with loads of weapons is an accident waiting to happen . Perhaps someday I will be the one getting the last laugh . Perhaps … . . Today was a very stressful day . In the area we live in , we have been receiving a lot of rain instead of our usual snow . It made for some very scary roads . This morning the sun had come out and the roads were wet , but not icy . Or so we thought . My daughter came home from school yesterday telling her father that her car acted like it was overheating . So this morning he put some antifreeze in it and took it for a spin to see if the problem was taken care of . He hit an unseen patch of ice and totaled her car . He is O . K . , but the car was not . My husband was so broken hearted to have to tell his daughter what he had done to her car . Kids have this ability to be so resilient when as adults we worry ourselves into the ground . I happened upon the following entry that my daughter wrote in her blog . I have to share it with you because it brought a huge smile to my face during an extremely stressful time and put what is really important into perspective . My family . BENSON , Utah - 1996 Dodge Intrepid " Sparky " , 16 , met his demise Jan . 20 , 2012 after sliding across an icy road and slamming into one heck of a mailbox post . His bumper was torn to shreds , his lights were shattered , and both of his airbags were ejected . Due to my family 's inability to pay for his medical bills , he was euthanized at Cache Valley Metals the morning of his accident . Sparky left us with a rich legacy of driving into ditches and growling like a hungry grizzly bear . He was a morose individual , always snarling unhappily when his engine came to life , skittering across the road when the snow was falling . Sparky hated winter and winter hated Sparky . He would be glad to realize that he no longer has to deal with snow again . Sparky was adopted my junior year in high school after my parents ' Intrepid exploded on their way to get him , thus , forcing them to bring him home . He was a carefree car at one point of his life , his power steering ripping you across the asphalt , his engine a gentle hum . Sparky and I had many adventures together , such as driving to BYU on the freeway for the first time and that time when I ripped off his BYU tramp stamp with a spatula . He got the nickname Sparky after his battery died at Steve 's house and the jumper cables nearly electrocuted poor Steve . His battery failed him two times that night . I thought I would lose him . Every neighborhood has one right ? … The dog that won 't stay out of everyone 's garbage ? We happen to be so lucky as to have two . The other day I happened to look out the front window and saw one of the critters actually inside of my garbage can . A few years back , the county I live in went to what we call the " Black Beauties " . Everyone has these huge plastic garbage cans with wheels . Anyway I am not sure if the dog tipped the can over or if the garbage truck did when it put it down , but all I could see was the dog 's butt . That was a new strategy , I have to admit . Our nightmare happened on Monday , January 2 . We thought the garbage people had the day off to celebrate the New Year . No , they showed up and half the street didn 't have their cans up to the road . This was right after Christmas and everyone had extra garbage . So we had to take to inconspicuously stacking it by the side door until the next week 's pickup . Unfortunately " Sherlock and Watson " found the garbage yesterday . I wasn 't sure at first it was the dogs until later . When leaving for school , I saw a box where it shouldn 't have been . I came home , picked up the box and stuck it in the garbage . Later that afternoon I left to run my son up the street and saw a somewhat nicely laid out buffet on my front lawn . Salsa , oranges and chocolate milk . As we were pulling out of the driveway and seeing various pieces of garbage scattered up the driveway , I was mumbling and threatening the culprits . As we got to the top of the drive , I saw " Sherlock " making her way down the road . My son had made the comment that the two of them were " working " the street . One on one side and one on the other , although we only saw " Sherlock " . I watched her as I pulled out of the driveway and sure enough she returned to the scene of the crime . I floored it to get back home before more garbage was strewn up the driveway . When we returned " Watson " had showed up , thus verifying the " working the streets " theory . When she saw us , she hauled butt out of there . One time " Sherlock " left a cow head on our lawn . Yes . . you heard me right a cow head . My husband threw it in the trash . Do you know how many times I was startled by that head when I opened that can ? I would like to hide something in the garbage can that would literally scare the crap right out of the next dog that attempted theft . Something spring - loaded , so that when that lid was moved … . Although , I think I would be the first to get it right in the keester . I would forget and open it . I know I would . Got to put the mind in gear to come up with something to deter them . I will market it with my crapapult and make millions . My Mother , may she rest in peace , had an immaculate home . Nothing ever out of place . It was not always like that . There were seven kids and she had her moments . I remember a story she told of getting a call that someone was coming over and the house was a mess . She had to " cram for the examine " so to speak before the company arrived . She found the closest room to get rid of things and stuffed everything inside . I guess that the company complimented her on how well she kept the house up with so many little kids . This particlular incident made my mother into the " Clean House Nazi " . She taught us kids to be clean , neat and organized . I used to be , until I had children . I do know that over the years of having kids , I have gained a lot of patience and I tolerate more than perhaps what I should . Case in point : A couple of months ago , we bought an electric scooter from a thrift store to help save gas . It is mostly for the kids to get to their friends house , etc . My son came flying through my kitchen on it the other day , almost running me over . I just looked at him with that look that says , " Really ? " . He informs me that there aren 't many mother 's who allow their children to drive the scooter through the house . What I didn 't tell him is that He has taught me more patience than my other children . Well , this lead to a choice that I made that should have put me in the child category instead of parent category . I walked through my house and saw the scooter plugged in . I decided to climb aboard and just sit on it . Then the thought occured to me that perhaps one of my dogs would love a ride on this thing . I called one of them and stuck it on the foot rest and gassed it . I didn 't want her jumping off while I was going . Well … . that was a stupid thought , because she did jump off . Out of fear of smashing her flat , I swerved and lost control of the scooter , flew down the hall and into my daughter 's bedroom hitting her keyboard and almost knocking it onto the floor . In the panic of everything , I forgot it had brakes . I wish I would have been alone when this happened , but my 19 year old daughter was in her room next to the room I went plowing through . According to her … " All I saw was legs flailing and heard screaming " . Dang it . I didn 't want an eyewitness to this at all . Not even sure what possessed me to try it to begin with . It goes about 15 mph . I probably topped off at 17 through the hall judging by how long it took me to stop and how much damage I did .