Strange, But True!

This is a weird "Cluff Tradition" that was started by me a few years ago. Every month we decorate our front door. As I've mentioned before, our front door is on the side of the house, not facing the front and so the door is something just for us and I think we have all grown to like it. Some months we put up plain paper that we can write on about a certain subject like the one we have this month about what we are thankful for. Some months the door is decorated, but not necessarily interactive. This tradition relys on me not running out of ideas, Dollar Tree always stocking cute stuff and a whole lot of Scotch tape.

This is my favorite room in our house. It is our upstairs family room and it is well lived in. Yes, the walls are entirely covered by puzzles and I love it. They remind me of all of the time that we spent together as a family when the kids were all much younger. There really is no theme to the puzzles, just whatever we liked at the time or what we could afford. We almost always had a card table set up with a puzzle in progress. Some years were harder than others because some of our own little ones would "wreck" an almost done puzzle or a neighbor child would come over and scatter the pieces. We even have puzzles hanging that are missing a piece or two, usually because one of us would take a piece and hide it so that we could be the one to put the last piece in and complete the puzzle but then we would forget where we had hidden the piece or find out that we had put it in our pocket and it had been washed and dryed with the pants we were wearing at the time. How did we preserve the puzzles? With a lot of Elmer's glue. How are the puzzles attached to the walls? With thumbtacks, of course. Do you want to know the biggest secret of all? I don't even like doing puzzles if they are more than 100 pieces, but I do love spending time with my family.

What are these you ask? The same piece of a bran flake shown from two different angles. I found it as I was pouring my cereal this morning and the kids and I tried to figure out if it resembled anything amazing so that we could post it on e-bay and sell it for big bucks. Not really. It is a piece of cereal but we would never try to sell it and it did amuse us for a few minutes trying to figure out if it looked like anything but it really doesn't. So, if you look at it and see something, don't tell us because I already ate it.

Here are a few other strange, but true facts about the Cluffs:

1. Pomegranites remind me of my early childhood in St. George, Utah. The very best andbiggest pomegranites grew there along the ditch banks and I ate more than my fair share

of them. The juice stains your clothes and makes your fingers and hands sticky and if you eat enough of them they even stain your fingers a yellow color that make you look like you

have smoked your whole life. Most of the kids like pomegranites because I do, but they

sure aren't as good in Arizona unless you can find some good ones in a yard that still gets

watered by flood irrigation.

2. Cluffs like good quotes to hang on our walls and remind us of important things. We also

like to quote movies we have seen and we often play a game that we made up where

someone quotes a phrase and you have to tell them where it came from. Matthew is very

talented when it comes to remembering quotes.

3. We like to have fun and are easily amused. We are usually having the most fun when we

are goofing around with each other.

4. One of the Cluffs (who shall remain nameless, lets just call him Richard C., no R. Cluff) does

not share the other members of the Cluff family's love of wheat.

5. People often ask us what it is like having 5 girls and 1 boy. I tell them that it is like having 5 persian cats and then bringing a Saint Bernard into the family. Luckily for us, that is just

the right combination and it leaves us with never a dull moment and lots of laughs.

6. I am not a type A person although some of the other family members might be

considered a type A personality. The fact that I am having trouble alligning these

statements up evenly on the left side is not really bothering me at all and I probably

won't even think about it again after I click the publish post button.

7. Meagan is coming home today to be with us for Thanksgiving. I am a weird Mom and

actually start getting very excited when I buy milk and the date on the milk is about the

same time as she will be home for her visit. Strange, but true!

Here is our last strange, but true revelation for the day: We don't share our Jone's cousins love of cats. I'm so sorry, we really have tried to like cats but we don't and I don't think we ever will. However, we do love chickens and I think they are the best pets we have ever had. That's it for your quick glimpse into the life of the Cluff family. Happy Thanksgiving!