The Time I Tried to Teach Myself How to Yodel

April 20, 2018 valmanwillLeave a comment

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I can’t get enough of the video of the yodeling Walmart kid. Buuuut at the same time, it’s been kind of bringing up a lot of repressed memories…

Mostly this one.

I just randomly ‘get into things’. Like when I tried to memorize Hamlet. Or when I tried to teach myself how to dance to house music. Or when I spent like two months watching Cleopatra documentaries every day. I just get really excited about niche stuff.

So one day I was like, yo, I’m going to learn how to yodel.

I hadn’t really imagined the Hank Williams covers at Walmart. Mostly, I wanted to do like an Appalachia mountain kinda thing that I could use to call my kids to dinner with.

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Anyways, so in case you didn’t know… yodeling is switching back and forth in between your lower register and falsetto voice. Your voice makes a “break” and that’s where the yodeling sound comes from.

So basically, the way to practice yodeling is to do these weird freaking scales and strain your voice like Scooby Doo after he’s had some bad Taco Bell.

eeeeh EEEH! eeeh EEEH! eeeh EEEH! And you can’t do it quietly either or your voice won’t break as well. Okay… yeah…

Well, around this time I was asked to help clean my local church building. It was like eight in the morning on a Saturday and the other people they asked were young single adults with lives. So obviously, it was just me that showed up.

Just kidding. It was me and the guy who asked me.

So I got to work cleaning my half of the church building. The classrooms. All by myself. But hey! That wasn’t such bad news. I mean, golly gee, what a PERFECT time to practice my yodeling scales.

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I straight up practiced yodeling for an hour. THAT – IS – NOT – A – JOKE. I started to lose my voice before I finally finished up.

I wound the cord up around the vacuum and hauled it out into the hall… when I saw this other GUY. This effing latecomer that had UNBEKNOWNST TO ME been helping me clean my side of the church building. The whole time. The. Whole. Hour.

Oh my gosh, can you imagine this poor dude waking up early to clean a church and having to listen to this girl go “Eeeeeeeeeeuugughghh! Eeeeeeeeeuuughghghg!” for an entire hour. OH MY GOSHHHHHHH.

I think I honestly could have just buried down into the ground like a mole. I DIED.

Stopped yodeling after that traumatic experience I assure you.

All the BIG LIFE CHANGING NEWS

April 5, 2018April 5, 2018 valmanwillLeave a comment

Hey, so it’s been a million years. Did you miss me? I basically ended up scrapping March, because my morning sickness was soooo harsh that I couldn’t even look at a non blue-light computer screen for more than 45 minutes without puking. I went from the best productivity of my entire writing life to the lyrics of “Lump” real quick.

Oh yeah, but did you catch that? I’M PREGNANT Y’ALL! BABY NUMBER TWO IS DUE IN OCTOBER!

That’s only the first announcement.

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I knew 2018 would be crazy. I sensed its scent like a lion crouching in the savannah grass. I just didn’t know it would be this crazy.

Don’t get me wrong, the baby was in no way an accident, but it still was a surprise. I had been having some health issues with my ovaries and infertility runs in my family. In fact, I was scheduled to check my egg supply and some other things when bam! Turns out I’m more than fine.

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I can’t think of a clever transition into the next big piece of news, so I’ll just blurt it out instead. WE’RE MOVING TO ARIZONA Y’ALL!

Dan is graduating pharmacy school in May aaaaaaand he got offered a residency position at a Banner hospital in Mesa.

I thought that I would be really scared to move far away, but it turns out that I’m actually really excited. And I can tell that I’m really excited because I do what I always do whenever I have a new adventure, or a book project, or a crush or something… which is bite my lip on baited breath waiting for someone to bring up “the thing”.

Plus not to mention the awesome job opportunities that will be available to my post-resident-doctor-husband.

YAAAAAAS

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Things are good. And exciting. And also terrifying… but like a rollercoaster terrifying where you still want to ride it. I don’t know, it’s great! But it will be even better when I’m not a lump sitting alone in a boggy marsh. Now excuse me while I go toss up my lunch. 😷

PS Check out this weird Easter Egg from the photo I used for our Christmas cards…

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FATE KNOWS!

Accidentally Feeling Up a Football Player

March 15, 2018March 14, 2018 valmanwill1 Comment

Hi, welcome to last week’s blog this week. Does anyone even notice stuff like that? Oh well, here’s your embarrassing story…

I never really had crushes on jocks growing up. I think probably because they weren’t geeky enough for my taste. But I guess that’s some typical girl thing? I mean I only see it in EVERY SINGLE TEEN ROMCOM EVER.

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Well anyways I guess after seeing the personality-less jock trope for the 500th time, it got me really thinking… Like, have I ever had that kind of crush though? I had to push through a lot of band geek / theater boy memories but then I REMEMBERED THIS THING THAT HAPPENED.

I can safely say that no, I’ve never really been that interested in a sportsy guy. But there was this one football player that I recognized to be quite a pretty man.

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For the sake of this story we’ll call him… ‘Stallion’ haha. (I never had enough of a crush on him to make up a proper codename at the time.)

So Stallion and I always had the same gym class. It was weird. Like no matter what grade, semester, A day B day, we always got put into the same gym class… maybe the school had to make up for my lack of physical skill by putting in an athlete like iono.

Anyways, we’re playing flag football. Woo hoo *sarcasm*. As soon as I left my high school theater room I was pretty much out of my elemenet for any other skill/interest. So just like any other boring gym day I casually stayed the furthest away from the game, while still trying to look like I was actually doing something.

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I was having a great time daydreaming UNTIL Stallion intercepts the ball and starts running in my direction for a touchdown. He had red tags and I had yellow tags. Which meant that NOW instead of avoiding the game it was my responsibility to pull the flag off this guy that played for the school team.

I made the most half butt attempt to stop him. I reached out and ran like four steps. See, coach? Go sports! Don’t fail me okay? He made the touchdown. (Big shockeroo there)

He walks towards me and he says something like, “Hey you almost got me.” Yeaaaah *shifty eyes*. But this is like the first time I’ve ever even heard Stallion’s VOICE so I’m intrigued enough to engage in this conversation.

As I took a step towards him, I stepped into a freaking hole. My toe caught the side and my knees just buckled from under me.

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Honestly, if I had just fallen on my face that would’ve been okay. I would have gladly taken that over what happened instead. Instead, Stallion reached out and tried to stop me from falling.

It wasn’t a good catch at all. He just kinda limply held me in his arms as my knees continued to buckle. AND the thing is that when you feel yourself fall you put your arms out in front of you right? Yeah. So I put my arms out in front of me as he stepped forward and ‘caught’ me.

My palms slid all the way down his freaking torso. Slowly too. Creepily slowly as I fell. Like if I had been in a cartoon it would have made a very loud squeegee sound.

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The game is just halted as everyone watches me seductively slide down this poor boy.

My friends even asked later if I had tripped on purpose to be able to feel down his rippling abs. It was all horrible. I spent the rest of the semester pretending to forget my gym shoes and hiding in the supply closet.

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