I'm freaking out!

So we have an overabundance of nursery kids in our ward. That is where I come in. In the Primary presidency, I'm over the nursery and the sunbeams. I thought it was a great idea because at the time C was in the nursery. She's now going to be a sunbeam! and A will hit the nursery around Feb/March.

Well at this time we have 27 kids in the nursery. We've been told at the stake and ward level that we need to have only 10 kids per nursery. So that means that we need to have 3 nurseries. By the end of the year, we'll have around 42 kids in nursery. (we have a young families ward) So by the end of the year, we'll need to have 4 nurseries.

The problem is that we don't have room for that many nurseries.

So we've been searching for answers. We thought maybe we could switch one of our nursery rooms for the bigger YW room. They weren't all that excited to move though. And they would have to use the kitchen for a classroom. We would have to help them move the piano every sunday, and also buy them pictures for the walls out of our budget.

Also, the YW pres is harder than hades to get a hold of. So for the past week, I've been trying to talk to her. I finally cornered her Christmas day at church. She wasn't excited about the idea at all. She wanted me to solve all her problems. That's how we came around to the list of things for us to do above. I told her I would call her monday, but wasn't able to before FHE time came around.

I also wanted to put it off until I verified that this was our absolute last resort.
I went to the church and listed all our current classrooms, and how many classes we had. I also was able to look a little more into the possibility of using 2 classrooms that we already have. They have a divider and would be a perfect nursery. But that would leave us short a classroom. I talked it over with the Primary Pres and we discussed a few things. Anyway I called up the Sunday School Pres. and was able to find out that they had a classroom that no-one was using. So Voila! Solution.

The funny part was that I haven't been able to get a hold of the YW pres to tell her the heat is off, for now. Come fall when we hit 40, I'm not sure what we'll do. Maybe we'll have to up the limit to around 14 in each nursery. That's better than the 20 each that we were carrying at the end of this year in each of our 2 nurseries.

Anyway, now I need to call a few people to finish this thing off.


I'M SICK OF PHONE CALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It drives me crazy

It drives me crazy that we can have an argument about whatever, and then he'll just go to sleep in the middle of it.

I hate that when I get so upset that I leave the room he never follows me. It's like he could care less.

The thing is, he is normally very caring. Why can't he see that this would make a big difference to me?

Tonight we were arguing about where to go for Thanksgiving. My family is huge and normally has to reserve a church building for our meal. This year, it looks like it will be a small gathering for a change and my parents decided to have it at their home for a change.

I would like to go. My husband wants to go to his parents. To be fair, it is our year to go there.

I hate this whole your parents my parents split the holiday thing. I really just want to stay home (at OUR house) and enjoy the holiday.

In the middle of the argument I threatened this. He didn't have any comment.

He says that I don't show any enthusiasm to go to his parents house at all. Ever.

I do though. There are things that I don't like about it though. I will admit that.

First off, his parents live in a doublewide. No big deal. We have a small kitchen and living room to hang out in. But to stay there for long periods of time can be claustrophobic. Especially since his father is an invalid and has huge sores on his legs that smell. I guess being around that smell is something I don't look forward to. His dad lives in the living room. That's also where everyone eats. Tne kitchen is just to small to fit around the table. Their house is also the reason I will never like the smell of Febreeze again. Febreeze mixed with smelly mediciney smells aren't very nice. And don't get me started on the bathroom. Lets just say that I make every effort to go before we get in the car to go to their house.

I also don't look forward to keeping C and A out of what they are supposed to stay out of and confined into that small area. I don't mind it for Sunday visits.... I wonder how long we would stay for Thanksgiving? 4-6 hours? It was only a few years ago that we were there... Why don't I remember? Did we leave early to get in some Thanksgiving at my parents?

His parents are very nice people, and I don't mind talking to them at all. I don't mind talking to any of his family.

But I was trying to explain this concept to him earlier. If I have a choice of course I'm going to choose my parents. That's my home. That's what I'm familiar with. Unless you had a horrible childhood, that's what you do. I tried to explain this to him and he totally didn't understand.

ARGH.

He thinks I have something against his parents, their trailer, etc. He says, "Why do you even mention the smallness if it doesn't matter?" Well that would be because it's slightly claustrophobic. But I can handle it. No Big Deal. FOR HIM I WILL DEAL WITH IT!!! He doesn't get that though.

ARGH!!!!

This whole argument started when I said that he seemed to care deeply where we go for Thanksgiving, so I said we'll do what you want to do, I don't care about it as much as you seem to. Then he got all argumentive. I still don't understand why.

I hope whoever might stumble upon this blog won't think that we argue all the time. Only occasionally. And it's true what they say. The 3 things you will argue about in a marriage are family, money, and sex. So far, family is a big hitter in our house.

Whoa, it's been a long time

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Ok, enough of that.

Lots has happened in the last few months.

For one thing, I sort of lost my desire to blog. Life is going to fast and I want to get off!

The primary program is this Sunday. The neighborhood association has asked (well they didn't ask, they just did it) me to be the beautification committee head. I've been having play dates with 2 of my neighbors twice a week (Tues & Thurs) and a primary pres. meeting on Wed. Friday seems to be the only day I stay home anymore.

It's crazy.

I'm now a year older, and A is now 1 year old. C will be 3 in a few months and my hubby is going to be hitting the big 3-0 soon. We're all getting so old :) !

Well, the phone is ringing, so I should go.

Bye!

Bad Dream

I just had a really bad dream.

I was staying on the coast, in a little town where my family would vacation while we were growing up.

Someone I knew came and got me. They took me to one of the houses that we would vacation at. Although I didn't recognize it. We had a conversation as we walked over about how it would be nice for me to be able to vacation there again.

Turns out this lady was from another branch of the family. These were all people I didn't know. As soon as I arrived I remembered that I had left my kids at the motel.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about them, but since it was around 6pm, maybe they were sleeping? Then I remembered that I had been engrossed in a book all day and must have forgotten about them.

The person that brought me over, wanted me to meet everyone before I left. I agreed, but was in a hurry. I met about half before I just said I had to go.

As I was leaving the house, Somehow it was a motel or something? Anyway I saw C sitting on the floor playing with another little girl. I was surprised and then all of a sudden She was 50 feet away and in the middle of me and this other lady who was claiming to be her mommy. I yelled at the lady that she was my child and then she said that she was hers. C of course came when I called for her. the lady said something like oh well and ran away.

Then somehow she had a guy with her. I chased after them and caught the guy. All of a sudden my hubby was there and I was yelling at him to call the police on a cell phone. He was trying, but kept saying stuff about the service. I was pleading with someone to call the police as I sat on this guy and wouldn't let him up. Then I realized that I didn't know where A was.

the guy said that they had done a little number on A. I don't know what that meant but I couldn't leave to go look in the motel room for her fast enough. I told hubby to sit on the guy and not to let him go. Hubby wasn't taking me seriously. Not until I told him to sit on him again.

Then I was looking for my key, I asked a employee who was right there if they had extra keys. They did, but I didn't know my room number. Finally I grabbed hubby's bag and took his.

I didn't get to my room before I woke up.

When I woke up, I was so disturbed. I thought I heard noises in the kids bedrooms, and had to go make sure they were ok.

They were.

Of course I can't imagine going back to bed. I'm too worked up.

A will wake up in about an hour.

I should probably go and lay down though. Otherwise today will kill me.

I hate dreams like this.

Why am I so paranoid?

About 9 months ago someone broke the window out of our car and stole some things from inside it.

Right before I fell asleep last night I was thinking about how we had left a portable television in the trunk of our car that was sitting in the driveway.

About 5 hours before bed someone doorbell ditched us. I think anyway. I was kind of slow getting to the door (thought it was a salesman) so maybe they just left. But when I went outside I didn't see anyone, and when I went to the upstairs window I didn't see anyone anywhere walking away, or to another house.

I wonder if the dream was because I still feel victimized about the window being broken out of the car thing.

Here's hoping that when we buy and build on that acre, that I'll feel somewhat safe. (crossing my fingers). The acre wouldn't be on a street. Its off of a back street, behind another house. People would see this other house, then walk down the lane, see ours, walk down the lane a bit more, and see my parents. I want to build the house in such a way that its not easy to pick it out as new(new means rich to some people) We want a nice country style laid back house. But one that will match with the other two homes near it. They both have a pinkish brick outside. I wonder how expensive brick is? That's the way I would love to go.

Every few months or so, in our neighborhood, we have a rash of those car burglaries. So can you blame me for being paranoid?

the dog(s)?

So last Saturday night I stayed up until 2am working on a project for Primary. chair covers.

I haven't been up that late for a while. I was tired and a little punchy. Well, I went downstairs, and got ready for bed. It took me forever to relax to the point where I might fall asleep. All of a sudden there is a "whumpa whumpa whumpa and then what sounded like our back gate opening and closing really fast.

That freaked me out. My first thought was that someone had run down the side of our house, went through the gate, and was now in the back yard. So of course I had to go to the back door and peak out. I looked and looked, and finally put the back porch light on. I didn't see a thing.

I got back into bed. I was freaked and didn't want to go to bed with potential robbers trying to get into the house.

Then there was more commotion at the side of the house (which by the way was right next to my head because of where our bedroom and bed are situated)

Then there were more running sounds and a crashing sort of sound, then a high pitched, noise. I woke up my husband in a panic.

He agreed that there were some strange noises coming from the side of the house. He thought it sounded like a dog whining. We both went to a window or door to look out. Neither of us saw a thing. But the high sound was still coming from the side of the house.

So we think that it was most likely a dog whining. There are some dogs in the house behind ours. So the thinking is that some dog was in heat, another dog tried to jump our fence to get to the dog and hit the fence instead.

So somewhere around our neighborhood a dog owner is trying to figure out where his dog got hurt.

The toilet... again

So C tells me she has to go poo poos. So I tell her to go sit on the potty. She has done this before with no problems. She was starting to grunt, and I urged her to go in again. She went into the bathroom and I heard her moving around. She's done this plenty of times before with potty, so I thought she made it onto the potty. Hubby goes into check on her. I hear a horrified "Oh NO!!!"

C had pooped in her panties, and pottied. The potty was all over her and the floor. The poop seemed to be contained in her panties. Hubby was able to get her out of those. Whats funny is that when she sees the poop she panics and wants out of them as soon as possible. So here's how it went down. Hubby gingerly grabs the panties and stretches the leg holes so that she can easily get her legs out. She pulls one leg out and then sees the poop. She couldn't get away from it fast enough. Unfortunately for hubby, one of her legs was still in the panties.

PLOP

You guessed it. A nice big pile of poop on the floor. Fairly contained. A lot of it too. Imagine a medium sized, somewhat slushy, snow ball and picture it dropped on the floor. That is about what this looked like. Anyway, hubby grabs the panties, grabs some more dirty clothes, and puts it all in the washing mashine for a wash. In the meantime I get to mop up potty and poop and give the kid a bath. Why Oh why?

I love the fact that hubby helps so much around the house, but when it comes to the kids, sometimes I feel like I'm the only show in town.


Argh!!!

Anyway, it all cleaned up well, and I can't wait to clean that floor like crazy. YUCK!


We went out to my parents new place tonight. They have 2 horses, 3 goats, and 2 bunnies that they "inherited" from my brother and his family. C is thrilled because she got to pet the goats and help feed the horses carrots. She loved picking and eating blackberries also. What she didnt' like was when she walked to close to some rose bushes and they kept grabbing her clothes. She would panic and start crying. So I would help her get untangled. She did it two different times. She also fed some bread to the bunnies. I doubt they will eat it, but she had fun!

The Toilet

So I've got the kids fed, A is in bed. All that's left is C. I've got her in her bedroom, I'm changing her into a pull-up for her nap and I ask the fateful question. "do you have to go potty?" She says "nooooyes" I ask her again. This time the answer is yes.

I bring her into the bathroom and as she lifts the lid of the toilet she says " umhgj fjaefjlkew (gibberish) comb" I only understand Comb. Oh no I think. I'm going to find a comb in the toilet. Great.

Sure enough. There are not one, but TWO combs in the toilet. I grab the nearest fishing tool (my crochet hook) and fish them out. I liberally soap everything including my hands.

Just another day in this Mom's life. :)

By the way, C just told me that she is done. She didn't go potty. But now she's in bed.

YAY!

and on and on and on

My Reggae Name http://www.irielion.com/israel/reggaename.html
Sheba Nancy

My Mormon Name http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/mormon/
Heavenly Melanie AldaVern

My Smurf Name http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mule/smurfgen.html
Fictitious Smurf

My Matrix Name http://matrix.orb6.com/name_generator.php
Eos the Glitch Chaser

Here is my Indian Name

Abigail Blackhearted Barnstormer

And my husband's

Johnson Blue Velvet Jackal

For your's, go here http://www.aspalta.cbc.ca/deaddog_asp/aininfo.asp

C's
Delphinia Neon Chicken

A's
Charlotte Unhesitating Weasel

My Sister L's
Naomi Makeshift Scallion

My new nephew's (Who was born 2 days ago and is as cute as a button)
Randolph Antibiotic Hyena

I could go on forever! But I won't. To much fun!

Whoa

So life has gone crazy in the last month. It seems like forever since I last posted.

We're in a bit of a houseing dilemma.

Hubby's Dad had to go to the hospital. He is quite overweight and has poor circulation in his legs. He is a veteran, so he gets to take advantage of the veterans services in our area. Such as monthly doctors appointments to monitor his health. He has poor health, I'm sure they don't do this for every veteran unless needed :).

Anyway, because of his being overweight, he spends most of his time sitting. He has back problems (never has seen a chiropractor.um, ok?) that have caused lying down to be painful, so for about the last 15 years he has slept in a recliner. This has caused bedsores all over his legs and backside.

These sores were getting really bad. They admitted him to the hospital, and then to a care center. He should be at the care center for something like 4 weeks.

So this got hubby and I thinking. His parents live almost 2 hours away from where he has his monthly doctor visits. Is it time to think about moving to a home where his parents can live with us?

So we thought about this, and started looking at possibilities. But when we approached his parents, they said, thanks but no thanks. They are quite comfortable where they were. Also his Mom is working and didn't want to commute 45 minutes every morning. I guess she doesn't want to deal with early retirement? Anyway, They make as much if not more than we do, but have a lot of debt. So hubby also offered to help them get organized and out of debt, but they refused that also. So hubby has organized a meeting of some of the siblings tonight to discuss the situation and see if we need to do anything, or if we should just leave them be.

Can I just say the debt thing drives me nuts. According to hubby's Dad it's all his wifes fault. She is always buying things. That leads me to say, um, ok, so you didn't tell your wife after this many years of marriage that she should cut down on the spending? Being a victim is ok I guess, but for over 25 years? At this point I say its both their faults. In my book its not ok to play victim for this long. I'm not explaining myself well. But hopefully you get the gist.

But the whole houseing thing got us thinking. The land and home prices around here are going up. We would like to buy around an acre, so that means what we can afford is getting smaller and smaller. So I've been anxious. So I've been looking.

Meanwhile another situation is going on. My brother, who runs a picture framing business (although it's much more than that!) decided that he wanted to do something else for awhile. I'm not entirely sure of his reasons, but that isn't really my business. So My parents, who also own a piece of this business have offered to run it for a while. So they are going to sell their home, and buy my brother's home (the business is run in his back yard). Their home is on 2/3's an acre and my brothers home is on 2.? acres. My parents are getting older (mid 60's) and were having problems taking care of their 2/3's an acre. So my brother's land was worrying them. So they heard we were looking at land and approached us! They want us to buy around an acre. So yay! C and A love Grandma so this will be great. But it needs to happen quickly. We want to pay fair market value to avoid any bad feelings, and the land prices are going up up up!

The other thing that's great is that if there is something we want to do (such as a huge garden) and there isn't room on our land for it, Mom and Dad are ok with us doing it on their land. Of course we wouldn't do anything permanent, like a shed on their land, because we would want it on our land in the event of either of us selling our home down the road.

The other thing that makes this great is that Mom and Dad are planning on a mission in about 2 years when mom retires from her job. So at that time, we would be here to watch over the house, and maybe the business. I'm not sure if they will have anyone stay in the house. We'll see in 2 years. And the thought of working the business makes me nervous. But my sister L lives near and has a lot of interest in the business. So it could all work out.

It could all explode too.... so I just try not to think of it. :)

We're going to go look at a home building company today. They say that they can build a home more efficiently than other companies. They only build 7 designs. This makes me a bit nervous. But they also say that they save money without cutting corners or using inferior materials. That sounds good. But we won't make any decisions without a LOT of thought.

crossing my fingers!

Nobody Likes Me, Everybody hates me

Guess I'll go eat worms!

I've e-mailed several people and had no responses. I think I'm developing a complex!

If you happen to have received a plea for help from a somewhat random person that you sort of met one time at Lon's in Provo, please answer their e-mail. The dang family website needs your help!

Primary wipes me out

Totally.

We rotate conducting and sharing time. Every 3rd month I conduct, Every 3rd month I do sharing time, and then I get a month free.

This month I've been doing sharing time. I show up 30 minutes before church to help set up the primary room, and get everything out for my lesson. Then I get to enjoy Sacrament meeting. Then comes 2 hours of primary. We do opening exercises first, until 2:40, in the chapel. then we send the sr. primary to class, and the jr. primary to the primary room for sharing time. Then at 3:20 we do a switcheroo.

By the time its all over I'm ready to take a nap or something. Yesterday, I helped put everything away in the primary room, and then went out to the foyer where Hubby and C and A were waiting. I sat on the couch and couldn't find the motivation to get up and go out to the car. It took at least 5 minutes and a fruit snack for me to get moving again :) Then when we got home, hubby said he had a headache, so I made dinner, we ate, and after a plethura of chocolate, I came out of my tired place.

I can't wait for next month. It's my free month. I plan to enjoy! Also, I think I'll find ways to help the other women in any way I can so that they don't get wiped out.

Well healthwise, I've developed - well - something under my left eye. It's a series of red bumps. One day I think it's gone, and the next its inflamed again. At first I thought it might be skin cancer because my dad gets spots on his face that he has to get frozen off. But he said that when you touch a spot of skin cancer it burns like crazy. This doesn't. It is just sore. It's not pinkeye. My eye is not pink at all. My sister suggested it might be a allergic reaction to something. she said try Cortizone. I've tried that, somewhat irregularly. I can't tell if it has helped at all.

I'm thinking about going to the doctor. Problem is I don't really have a regular doctor. just an OBGYN. We do go to a big building full of doctors for the kids pediatrician. I could go to a GP there. But I hate going to the doctor when its not necessary. Not worth $20 for them to say It will clear up on it's own. It hasn't cleared up on its own for about a month now. I'm not sure what do do.

Any ideas?

This looked fun

Found this in one of the blogs I read.

ten random things about me:
1. Maturity-wise I feel about 18, even though I'm well into my 20's
2. I have a weird lump on my foot.
3. I'm 5'6" and always wanted to be taller. But it was for the best. Hubby is 5'8".
4. I'm currently crocheting my way through a baby blanket pattern book.
5. I'm trying to find a market to sell my blankets.
6. Hubby doesn't like the way I drive, yet it was the first thing he ever complimented me on. It was the night he first asked me out though...
7. I'm about to crochet my second BYU themed blanket. On a baby blanket!
8. I haven't been to one of my hubby's softball games this year. You try chasing a 2 year old around for 1 1/2 hours. Its horrible. Did that last year. No thanks.
9. I don't drink enough water and am secretly scared that I'm going to be sick because of it.
10. I'm fat

nine places I've visited:
1. Hermosillo, Mexico
2. Canon Beach Oregon
3. Pheonix Arizona
4. Manti Utah
5. Payette Idaho
6. West Yellowstone Idaho
7. Idaho Falls Idaho
8. Salt Lake City Utah
9. Boring Oregon (seriously! They even have "The Boring Burger"


eight things I want to do before I die:
1. Have grandkids!
2. Be successful in some sort of stay at home buisiness that doesn't involve a pyramid scheme of some sort
3. Help my children gain strong testimonies.
4. See my children meet their true loves and marry.
5. Be a good parent
6. Be a good helper with school work.
7. Be a good wife!
8. Have a huge garden!


seven ways to win my heart: (Hubby! Please read!)
1. a back massage
2. A foot massage
3. A back scratch
4. comb my hair
5 hold my hand
6. change some diapers
7. make dinner

and just a note. Hubby does this well. He is always helping me with #6 & 7, but if I could have my perfect world I would have to do less of them. :)


six things I believe in:
1. The church
2. That the Lord loves all of us. Even if we're 3 year old kids who are pests and won't sit down or be still during sharing time.
3. There is no baby cuter than A, and when C was a baby, she was the cutest. Now she is the cutest toddler :)
4. I love my hubby
5. you have to really love soccer to watch a game in spanish (when you barely know any words in spanish)
6. The best invention was a car adapter that allows you to watch movies/play games using your car's power. I don't know if those dvd players use it, but our little tv/vcr combo does and it's great. As long as you don't mind listening to 5 hours of the Bear in the Big Blue house potty video.


five things I'm afraid of:
1. Spiders
2. The unknown.
3. burglary
4. falling down (the reason I really can't skate or ice skate)
5. the scale

four of my favorite items in my room:
1. Any of my books by Clair Poulson
2. the Mrs. Pacman console (Mappy!!!)
3. Any of my books by Betsy Brannon Green
4. all of my books!

three things I do everyday:
1. Change at least 2-3 diapers
2. Make at least 2 meals (as long as cereal counts)
3. Kiss my hubby

two things I'm trying to do right now:
1. Trying to finish this list so that I can hold A
2. Listening to a soccer game in Spanish that hubby is watching :)

one person I want to see right now:
1. Love to see my Mom. She is C's absolutely favorite person.

The Opposite Sex

So I'm watching a June Allyson film called "The Opposite Sex" on TCM. About 30 minutes into the show I realize that I'm watching a remake of a film I saw just last week - "The Women" - on TCM. How's that for coincidences? The worst part is that I still watched the whole thing. There was nothing on, and the baby was taking a nap on my lap. I didn't want to disturb her, and I had to watch something. but it was mildly entertaining. :)

"The Secret of the Old Clock" is coming out tomorrow. From www.herinteractive.com . It is a Nancy Drew computer game.

I was a huge fan of the Nancy Drew series when I was a kid. So these computer games are a great way to relive my childhood :)

This company publishes 2 games a year. I usually buy them as soon as humanly possible. but this time, even though I would like to, I'm not sure I even have time to play it if I were to buy it. We'll see.

C is now mostly potty trained. She finally got it while we were in Utah for a family reunion. The thing that did it for her was being able to use a big girls toilet. Go figure. We're still working on the poop thing. I think that's because she has a hard time sitting for very long on a toilet. And she doesn't relax enough. both of these things are necessary for pooping. I'm toying with the idea of reintroducing the potty chair. I don't want to go backwords though. I'm sure we'll figure it out. Right now she usually waits until she has a pull-up on.

A is almost crawling. she mostly goes backwards, but is slowly figuring out going forward. She crawls "catapiller style". She gets up on her knees and then lays down. This pushes her forward about 4 inches at a time. Occasionally she will roll. she's in the experimental stage :)

Oh, and I just wanted to say "Bernard for Heisman!"

Man I am a whiner

I have to clean the house today

Ugh.

I don't like cleaning the house. Its a pain with 2 kids. Spend 30 minutes on the kitchen, and A has no patience left. So now I'm a slave to her crankiness. So where's my break? Where's my reward for cleaning? A cranky baby who wants to be held or just played with.

Ugh

Oh well. That's life I guess.

so hubby and I have been thinking about buying a larger piece of property. About 1-2 acres. We want to have a huge garden and some fruit trees. I want a small green house and he wants a shop for his tools, etc.

Well, the company he works for has just announced that next year they will be expanding into China.

It didn't occur to me until he mentioned it, but there is a possibility that his job could go to someone in China.

I really would like to think that this company wouldn't do that. It is a local company, that has been around 25+ years. I used to work there before I had C. It doesn't seem like something they would do.

but the possibility is there.

so we're holding off.

We weren't looking to spend lots of money, but we would be increasing our mortgage.

We're still keeping an eye out for a piece of property to build on. If the right one comes along, we'll look. But most likely, we're in this house and neighborhood for the next 2 years at least.

Halfway house update!

I thought a while ago it wasn't happening, but I was wrong. Its still there. In fact, I found out on Sunday that it has it's first resident. Our own resident ex-con. He served time for grand theft. Lock those doors and cars!!!

Speaking of ex-con's I've found out more info about my sister's ex-con boyfriend. Leadro is on the run. Recently we learned that the reason he cannot use his real name and social is because he skipped out on his parole. How stupid is that? You only have to check in with someone and you skip out?

Stupid stupid stupid.

hmmm

create your own personalized map of the USA

Here are the states I've visited. I've also been to Mexico, but this map wouldn't let me do countries too.

I've never been on a plane. Yes, I know at my age that is somewhat unique. I've always traveled in a car. I've never even had the option. When I was a kid, we were to poor to fly 10 kids anywhere, and utah - where both sets of grandparents, and a good deal of the aunts and uncles were - was a 1/2 day drive. Much cheaper to drive.

As an adult, we've never gone so far that we even considered flying.

The furthest my husband and I have gone was the coast. About 11 hours away. We went in order to be at my sisters wedding at the Portland temple. Then we had a week of fun at the coast. C was only about 18 months.

Anyway, that is the strange fact I share about myself this morning.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

I pity the fool who has to work today!

Garage Sale Saturday!

I'm nowhere near ready for the garage sale on Saturday.

About 3 months ago I had a brilliant idea that our subdivision should have a garage sale. Since I was the one pushing the idea, they put me in charge. So while cleaning out my closets, I've also been in charge of placing ads, posting signs, and on Saturday I'll have to put signs up at all the major cross streets.

Just thinking about it makes me tired.

I still have to do so much stuff. I haven't priced a thing, and I've still got a few more drawers left to go through.

I also wanted to have a lot of baked goods to sell. I need a list!

- go through drawers in bedroom
- get a babysitter
- find out if a goodwill truck will come by afterwards
- Make signs and arrange for hubby to help me put them up
- buy donuts and drinks to sell the day of
- make a lot of baked items to sell the day of
- price stuff

Is that all? And its already Wednesday! Ugh

My Dad is planning on bringing more stuff over tomorrow night.

I'm tired!

I think part of the problem is that since the weekend I haven't been able to drag myself to bed before 11. I need to go to bed!

Oh well.

You know what's strange about this whole garage sale thing?

Growing up my Dad worked for the DI as a production manager. He retired about 4 years ago and has worked a couple jobs since, waiting for my Mom to reach retirement age in about 2 years. Its nice because he's been able to choose jobs he enjoys.

But the whole time growing up, I thought it was a sin to have a garage sale. I thought you should donate to the DI.

I still am somewhat of that mindset, but I no longer think its a sin if you choose to have a garage sale first. :) I still think its important to donate to the DI, so most likely will have less than 5 garage sales in my lifetime

C has been running a fever on and off all day. Her body is a little different in that instead of just getting sick sometimes, She just gets a fever and fights the germ off. I'm not sure what she has now, but am sure it came from nursery. I hope she sleeps well and feels better tomorrow. I hate seeing her sick. She starts wanting to be cuddled and not wanting to play. I love the cuddling, but it gets a little tiresome when I'm breast-feeding the baby. For some reason it really bothers me to be breastfeeding, and then have C crawl all over me and pull on me. Only 4 more months or so.

Well I'm going to bed now. I've discovered when I post late at night, or in the middle of the night :) I sound stupid. I read my posts the next morning and the thoughts don't sound completed and in some cases what I thought I said, isn't what I said.

Oh well.

Lately I've become overly concerned about how many people read my blog. I guess it's part of the evolution of blogging. Actually I think I just wanted to know how many people thought that picture of my hubby was as funny as I did. :) But I've decided that I've got to get back to the mind-set of "I don't care if anyone reads this". This writing has to be for me. I need to have a place where I can think through things and vent if needed. And I think I enjoyed writing more.

So Me, this is your lecture! Just write! Don't be overly concerned about anyone who might venture onto this page.

I can't turn my brain off

So here it is, 4:30 in the morning and I'm posting on my blog.

Sad, Eh?

I'ts weird. Lately when I get up with the baby, I have a hard time making myself go back to bed. I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think of, is that maybe its because I enjoy having the house to myself? That's weird though. Oh well. At least she's starting to sleep through the night. At 8 months, its about time!

Hubby got home safely. It's nice to have him back. He had a great time at the Real Salt lake game. He liked the Men's national team game better. He said it was awesome. He said the Real game was a little slow, but that was because most teams were missing a player or two.

He also said that the lines at the stadium were out of control. Long lines for food, and even lines for the Men's bathroom. That's almost unheard of.

Well, Anyway

Today we're finally meeting with our Realtor. We're going to start searching for a piece of land to buy for our dream home.

Unlike most people's dream home, ours will not be huge. It will not be a castle. It will be modest and fill our needs. Mostly the dream is living on a piece of land that is larger than the .18 of an acre that we currently occupy. Our front yard and our neighbors front yard are not separated. This would be fine if we both had similar landscaping tastes. but we don't. Hers involves a couple fountains, an arch, lots of roses, not much grass. Very very busy. Everyone comments on it. Not because they like it. They always say stuff like "that is busy". and these are pretty small front yards.

Oh well.

I was very disturbed yesterday at church. We have a family in our ward that is a bit unique. I don't know that you would find this in any other ward out there.

Both of the parents suffered from an accident when they were children. Both came very near death. The result of these accidents was that they are both somewhat... I want to say simple, but I don't think that is right. They can both function normally, but don't have normal intelligence. They have 3 children. 2 sons and a daughter. The sons are very hard to handle. They don't respond well to dicipline. I don't know if this is because they don't get any at home, or what. But we are slowly coming up with ways to handle it in primary. We've found that the younger boy responds well to classes that are mostly male, and a male teacher.

On Sunday I dropped C off at nursery and then left for the usual Primary round up, get kids where they need to be. The nursery teacher ran after me and told me that these two boys had broken into a couple of nursery cabinets and eaten a whole box of vanilla wafers. The food didn't bother me. That is only a couple of dollars. What bothered me was that a)these kids had willfully broken doors and locks on ours and another wards nursery closets, and b) Why do these kids think this is acceptable behavior?

How did this happen? Is an easy question to answer. The children are allowed to explore the building while the rest of us are attending Sacrament meeting. We go to church at 2 so there are no other wards in the building at the time we meet. These kids have been known to run through the gym during sacrament meeting. yes, while the curtain to the gym is open. One time the younger one (who is about 7) ran up from the gym and down the aisle. I assume trying to make it to the stand? Anyway, the Primary president at that time was able to dive out of her seat and grab the kid when he was about 6 rows from the front.

The mother, during most of this, sits calmly in her seat. Occasionally you will see her drag one of them out, but not often. Her husband has to work some sunday's, but I think they do a little better when he is there.

I have slowly come to the realization that what they need is a male role-model in their life. A strong father type figure that they can model their behavior after. You know, Someone they like so much that they want to be just like him. Someone that has time to spend with them.

Trouble is, they are so wild, not many people want to be around them.

Anyway, I'm in a quandry as to what we should do about the whole cupboard situation.

Do we hold them responsible and make them pay for the damage? This damage involves the locks and hinges. Do we have them work off the $$ ? I'm glad that this is not my decision. The Primary president will be speaking with the bishop this week to see what direction we want to take.

There is a part of me that can't stand these boys.

There is another part of me that really wants to find a way to reach them.

The one is me before this calling.

The other is me after this calling.

I realize that some kids are just rowdy and you need to lovingly help them. Then other kids need the iron fist.

I don't have enough parenting or teaching experience to figure out which is which.

I'll take any suggestions if anyone has them.

I'm really learning a lot from this calling

Time for bed now!

I have no life

Today I caught myself checking the blogs I read for updates. Twice. Kinda sad :)

I don't know. Its kind of like reading a book that is never finished. There are a lot of bloggers that have a great writing style that I enjoy. Then, others where I can only read some of their posts. They get to longwinded.

So I have a cute picture that I think I'm going to post. I'm just hoping that hubby doesn't get upset at me :)

deleted! Sorry!

I about died laughing when I noticed that both my 2 year old and my hubby were having the same problem!

Here's a pic of the green piano we sold.

deleted! Sorry!

See, not so bad. Kind of a sage green. I love my new piano by the way. And I rearranged my family room so that it looks great! And I moved it around by myself!! I didn't have to call 5 guys to come over and move a heavy piano!

And here's the picture that my Aunt and Uncle who are currently serving a mission in the Phillipines sent.

deleted! Sorry!

They woke up one morning and noticed this huge spider in the window. They thought it was outside, but were shocked to find it was inside. Generally spiders over there are harmless. However they decided to kill it with a fly swatter and ended up feeding it to the semi-tame cats living near their back door. Their house help told them that these spiders generally eat insects around the house, so are good to keep around. But I agree with my Aunt on this one. If that thing crawled across me while I was in bed, I'd die from a heart attack. Uggghhh!!! Gives me the creeps!

Anyway, I've got to go to the store for diapers. I went earlier, and you guessed it. I forgot the one thing I had to get. Oh well.

Great Week

Well camping was awesome. We had so much fun.

We arrived at the camp Wednesday afternoon. We were able to get the best cabin where there were springy type beds. Also, all the cabins had electricity. So we plugged in the tv and let the girls watch the Wiggles while we set up the cabin. Then I was able to go and explore all the rooms and places they never let us go when I was there for girls camp. It was cool!

Anyway, we parked all of our food in the vast kitchen. That night we ate hotdogs and smores. We actually had that the next night also. I started feeling a little sick when thinking about hot dogs after that, so no more! I did eat a few marshmallows Friday night with the rest of the ward when they came up though...

The whole thing was a blast. C had fun playing in the dirt. She's an outside girl, so she was in Heaven. A had fun to. She loved being outside the whole time.

Well we had a sort of family give away yesterday. Everyone was invited to clean out their closets and bring it. Mom invited everyone over for a Memorial day breakfast. Then we all went to the driveway where the stuff was, and had at it. I thought I was getting rid of stuff, but ended up bringing home about the same amount of stuff I brought. That was ok though, because I had uses for the stuff. Overall I think it was the best idea my parents have had yet. They are planning on having another one in a few months. Basically because my sister A and her hubby are moving in with mom and dad, they are cleaning out all the closets. In a way, its forcing us to take our stuff home with us! :)

This week I might try potty training C again..... we'll see...

packed schedule

Yesterday was my Mom's birthday. Before I realized that, I had a full day planned of errands, etc. to get ready for a (sort of) camping trip. My sister Wendy called and reminded me that it was Mom's birthday in the morning, and then invited me to go to lunch with everyone to celebrate. Lately, when someone has a birthday, we've all been going to lunch together to celebrate, so we shouldn't leave Mom out! When I say all of us, I mean all of us. Most of my Sisters and Sister in laws are stay at home mom's and a few of my sisters who work, are usually able to get away for lunch. So potentially for lunch, we could have a crowd of 18 women and children, if everyone were to show. Yesterday only 10 could make it. We had a fun time. Its great to have a bit of a "hen's party" as Mom used to call it when we were younger and all the women got together.

So today, Hubby and I will be going up to a church camp that our ward has rented for the ward campout. This church camp told the ward though, that for their $$ they have the camp from Wednesday until Sunday. So the ward said, hey if you want to go up early, go ahead. So we are! It should be really fun to. I'm pretty sure that we will be the only ones up there today. Their will be an elderly couple coming up tomorrow, and the rest of the ward will be their Friday night. We will have a huge church camp to ourselves! This is the same camp where I went to girls camp. So I will be able to explore like I was never able to back then! All those places I wasn't allowed to go! It should be fun. I haven't been up for about 5-8 years though, and my sister who was up their as a leader 2 years ago said that they have made lots of improvements. So new places to explore. yay! It won't be real camping though. I suppose I should be thankful of that - with 2 small kids. They have a huge lodge (basically a huge gym with a stage and everything. It has a nice big kitchen and if they haven't changed things to much, separate mens and womens bathrooms with showers! My sister said they had remodeled the showers, but she couldn't remember if they were still seperated into mens and womens bathrooms and showers. That would be a little scary to bump into another ward member in the shower. I'm sure most won't take one when just going overnight. But I would be a little disturbed to run into someone from the ward in the shower, much less a member of opposite sex! They do have curtains and everything. But still! I'm sure they're seperate. They have to be! If not, I might have to enlist hubby to guard! :)

We'll get back on Saturday and that night I need to go to a baptism for a new member of our primary.

Then on Monday it's over to Mom and Dad's for a Memorial day breakfast with the family and an "Exchange". This is what Mom and Dad have named it at least. Basically we are all supposed to bring stuff we don't need/want that we think others might need/want and exchange stuff. I'm interested to see what will happen. I'm not bringing much just because we're supposed to participate in the neighborhood garage sale in about a month, and I don't have much to begin with. I'm the chairman of that comittee so I HAVE to have a garage sale. :), amd Dad said I could take the leftovers from the giveaway.

They're basically having it because my sister and her husband are moving into their basement. Dad's taking the opportunity to give away tools and stuff out of the garage, and Mom's cleaning house and giving away old books and movies. Things they dont' really need anymore.

My sister who is moving in is about 24 weeks pregnant. She's the skinny mini of the family. She's not gaining a bunch of weight, but she is constantly hungry. My single sister L said that was what bothered her about them moving in with the parents. Now when she went over to visit, my sister usually has eaten everything in sight, and that would bug her, she said. I think it's funny. I kind of thought that she might be exaggerating a bit, but when the pregnant sister came over last night, the first thing she said was "do you guys have anything to eat?" It was so funny. I don't ever remember being hungry while pregnant. But I don't have a very good memory, and I'm fat, so I guess if the baby was hungry she went after my stored fat (YAY!) .

I only gained 29 lbs with C. The last 9 pounds was in 1 week, so easily explained as water weight gain. And just over 10 pounds with A. Now, lest you get on me about not gaining enough weight when pregnant, My doctor approved. He said that as long as I wasn't losing weight it was ok if I gained very little. I should explain that I'm fat. We'll leave it there. I need to lose weight. I really dont want to get pregnant again until I've lost some weight. I really need to get on the ball if I want to be healthy as I get older, and if I want more kids. Which I'm pretty sure I do - eventually.

Well anyway, the Friday after Memorial day, hubby is going down to Salt Lake to attend a Real Salt Lake soccer game with his brother. They usually go to some game or another about once a year. It doesn't bother me. I encourage it. Hubby brings home the bacon, and he works hard. We all need rewards to keep us going at work, and other stuff we don't like to do. Just as long as he lets me come to a BYU game with him occasionally. :) We went to the BYU BSU game when I was 37 weeks pregnant with A. It was great. We had ok seats, and I was able to exchange them for seats closer to the ground by explaining my condition :) Also, the walk clear across campus took me from a 0 to a 1 dilation. So I was pretty happy about that! It just about killed us though when that guy missed the kick (fieldgoal? don't remember) The new seats put us in the BSU season ticket holders section. There were 2 other guys rooting for BYU about 4 rows down from us. It was an interesting situation.

So we have an adventurous few weeks planned. Its going to be fun!

The Piano

About 2-3 years ago we bought a piano. It was an old upright that weighed about 1,000 pounds. It was green. So you could say that it was unique. It wasn't ugly though. It was uniquely attactive.

However it was not my ideal piano. for one thing I did not want to have to worry about getting 6 guys together every time I wanted to move it across my living room. Also, the green color kind of limited what colors I used to decorate.

So when a couple of people admired it, I mentioned that I would be willing to sell it. Well one person acted really interested, but I didn't hold my breath, knowing that she most likely didn't have the $$ to buy.

The other person I mentioned it to, said that she had a friend who was looking to buy a piano. I didn't think twice about it, because even if this friend was looking to buy a piano, who knew if she wanted a really heavy green piano?

Well, this past Tuesday, this person called me and asked if I would still be willing to sell the piano. I was like, "Well, yeah I guess so". Within 10 minutes, the friend was on the phone with me arranging a time to see the piano that night. That night the friend came and saw it. She liked it and tried to make a deal. We bought the piano for around $450 and that was all that we were asking for it. We told her that we just wanted our money back from the piano so that we could go out and buy a different piano. She acted very interested, and left after telling us that she would most likely take it.

That night she called and said that she wanted the piano, and that she would call me the next day to arrange when she would pick it up. We had mentioned that hubby could help move the piano any day this week after 5:45. Well the next day around that time, a van with a trailer pulled up. So she forgot to call, but it worked out for the best.

The next day I already was missing that darn piano. My living room looked very dowdy without it. It's weird that a piece of furniture can make such a difference.

Well I started looking for another piano the same day they picked our old one up. There wasn't anything I was interested in that day, but the next day, Thursday, their was a new Thrifty Nickel coming out. It it was this ad.

"WURLITZER UPRIGHT piano/ bench, excellent condition."

Well, I was a little skeptical about the piano, because it said it was an upright. That usually means that its a really tall, really heavy piano, just like the one we got rid of. But I googled it using google images, and what came up were pictures of smaller console pianos. So because of that, and the fact that it was smack dab in the middle of our price range, I called and left a message.

They called back and they assured me that it was a smaller console type piano. We arranged a time for us to go see it tonight. They lived in the next town over, in the middle of the country, so we also benefitted from a chance to drive through the area where we want to buy a few acres of land in the next year or two to build our dream house on.

We got there and the people were really nice. they had horses and dogs. C was in heaven. The dogs were very nice and gentle. One was huge and named "candy" and the other was mini and named "Sweetie". C got really brave and pet the big one quite a few times. I can't wait until we have some land and can have dogs! The only thing that I don't know if I would do, is they allowed the dogs inside, which I'm usually for, it just seemed weird to have this huge dog lumbering around inside the house. :)

They led us to a separate entrance, what looked like a mother in law apartment. The woman had mentioned that the piano had belonged to her husbands mother who had passed away something like 6 years earlier, so I would assume that was who had been living there. It currently looked unoccupied.

The piano was great. It was in good shape, and had great sound. I liked what I saw and played all the keys to make sure they all worked. I also played a few chords and part of an Enya song to get an idea of what the sound was like.

The lady left us alone for a few minutes to talk. We decided to make an offer. I should mention that before we left to go see the piano, I called my mom. She has a sister who buys and sells pianos, and Mom had at one time attempted to make a buisiness out of it also. It didn't go very far though. I just don't think she had a passion for it. She ended up buying 2 pianos. She sold the one to my sister, and restored the other and I think gave it to my brother. Anyway, my point is that she knew some things about price. She said that they were really asking to much for the piano and that we should offer about $100 less. I guess this time of the year is not the best for selling pianos. She said the time to unload a piano is in the fall when parents are starting their kids in piano lessons.

So when hubby and I finished discussing the piano, we went to find this lady. She was just across the yard feeding the horses. C was in heaven. When I asked her if she would deal with us, she said to make her an offer. Hubby said would you take X amount ($100 less than asking price). She went and discussed this with her hubby and came back. We got the piano!!!

So we are going to pick it up on Saturday!! YAY!

I'm so excited to have a piano that isn't so unique. One that won't force a certain palatte of colors on my living room. It is beautiful though. A perfect color of finish. Not to light, but not super dark either.

Speaking of that, I forgot to mention that the lady we sold our original piano to has a love for the color green. I guess that she parts of her house decorated entirely in green. So the piano has finally found its proper home. Let me say at this time that the piano was sort of a sage-y green. Not horrible at all. Just that you had to choose colors to decorate that went along with it.

But anyway, everyone is happy!

What a weekend

Wel, all four of us are sick, and the computer needs a new power supply. So here I am typing along on hubbies laptop. This post will be short due to the fact that I'm not used to this keyboard.

We stayed home from church yesterday because we all have bad colds.... well most of us. I'm nearly over it, A is towards the end of it, hubby is just starting it, and C, well, C has just had a high fever for the past few days. Today though it looks like the fever is gone. I just wish I knew if she was going to get the cold?

A got this cold in the nursery last week while hubby was subbing. He let her sit on the floor and said that a couple of the kids kept giving her hugs. Totally fine with me, I just wish someone had kept their sick kid home.

I'm going to suggest that we get a "no bugs allowed" sign for the nursery door for those parents who are to stupid to realize that the rest of us don't want the cold their kid has.

Well, already I'm tired of this keyboard, and a is crying.

So long

Pictures!

Well, I finally decided that it was time to post a picture.

Sorry, deleted!

Aren't we all cute? I realize that hubby isn't in this picture, but I couldn't find one where we all looked good. You know how picky we women are.

Anyway. I hope I don't regret posting that picture. I've been putting it off for a while.

Well, Mia slept through the night last night. She seems happy today. Yeah!!!

Nothing else to report.

Another Wednesday

Lets see, Nothing to exciting happening in my life right now...

My little sister L is now living in her own house about 5 minutes down the road from me. She has a job where she doesn't know if she has to work until the afternoon/evening before. She's a court reporter. She does depositions and stuff. Anyway, we went to lunch on Tuesday and it was a bunch of fun. My sister S is also now working about 10 minutes away from my house. So she came to lunch with us also. She also likes to come to my house about once a week for lunch. Sometimes I feed her a sandwich, and other times she brings her own lunch.

Anyway, it really is great because it breaks up the day for me. Also, it motivates me to clean areas of my house. Like, today she came over for lunch and so I deep cleaned my kitchen! Yay! Tomorrow, my goal is to pick up the rest of the house and maybe do some laundry.

I really need to make a schedule for my day. I do well when I have goals.
Maybe this?
6:30 - wake up, work out, shower
8:00 - get the girls up. Feed C a banana (her favorite breakfast food)
8:00 - 9:00 let Cecilee watch the Wiggles or Maisy (basically one of her shows)
9:00 - 11:30 clean the house, play with playdo, do puzzles, read books, do stuff with the kids.
11:30 - Sesame Street
12:30 - A's nap time, feed C lunch.
1:00 - C's nap time
1:00 - 3:30 or so - Clean house, do laundry, watch tv, whatever I want
3:30 - this is where I get lazy. I usually just let C play while I watch the West Wing or some other stupid show. Maybe once she stops trying to dig up the garden I can eventually let her play outside during this time.
4:30 - 5:30 make dinner - A usually cries through the last half hour. I hate that.
5:45 - eat dinner.

So my chores during the week are Laundry, kitchen, Front Room, Family room, bathrooms,

I would also like time to do primary stuff, and crochet, also play games and read cougarboard.

I also need to set aside a day for errands... but maybe I could do those on Mondays when hubby is home.

So everyday I should clean the kitchen. Tuesdays I could do the laundry. Wednesdays Frontroom, Thursdays Family room, and Friday Bathrooms.

So my ideal schedule would be:
6:30 - wake up, work out, shower
8:00 - get the girls up. Feed C a banana (her favorite breakfast food)
8:00 - 9:00 let Cecilee watch the Wiggles or Maisy (basically one of her shows)
9:00 - 11:30 clean the kitchen, play with playdo, do puzzles, read books, do stuff with the kids.
11:30 - Sesame Street
12:30 - A's nap time, feed C lunch.
1:00 - C's nap time
1:00 - 3:30 or so - Clean the area for that day, read cougarboard, crochet, play games, IM with hubby
3:30 - Not sure what to do with this time. Play outside?
4:30 - 5:30 make dinner - I can't wait until A starts crawling so that she can amuse herself during the last half hour that she gets cranky.
5:45 - eat dinner.

Well anyway, thanks for letting me think out loud.

A has a cold that is scaring me a little. She has had a runny nose with green snot for the last 2 days. A little cough, but nothing extreme, or different from a basic cold that she's had before. But today when I got her up from her nap, I could here the congestion in her chest. She was actually breathing a little differently.

So, I'm thinking about taking her to the doctor this week. But I keep thinking about all the times I've gotten the "you're stupid" looks from the doctor when I brought C in when she'd had a fever over 100 degrees for 3 days. (hello!!!) I think I'll just watch her and if she starts having any sort of problems breathing (not just heavy conjestion) I'll start calling ask a nurse and make an appointment with the doctor.

Right now we've got the humidifier going in her room and hopefully that will break things up.

I'm coming down with the same cold. I've been sucking on those awful orange vitamin C's all night because my mom has always sworn by Vitamin C for colds. She also keeps telling me that if I take them, it will get to A through my breast milk. Well, it should at least boost our immune systems.

Bath Time

So this morning we had bath time. At our house (for the kids) it usually happens on Wednesday, and then Sunday morning.

Yesterday at the store we bought some bubble bath for C. She has had mixed reactions to it in the past (love and hate), but the last time she liked it. So we bought a big bottle of it at the store yesterday. She seemed excited. But this morning when I put it in her bath she kept saying "no bubbles, no bubbles". Since I had already added the bubbles, I couldn't take them out. So I put her in there. She was totally freaking out. Over some bubbles. I don't get kids sometimes. Needless to say she wanted out of there asap. So we soaped, rinsed and were outta there. This is a kid who usually loves to play for a good 20 min or so in the bath. I don't know what the issue was. But she might be coming down with the cold that A has. She is a little cranky this morning.

Friday

So I was just reading over what I last wrote and realized that I sounded sort of negative about being in the primary presidency.

To clarify, my only gripe is how they have changed some of the song tunes from when I sang them as a kid.

I know that there is some reason for my being called into the presidency. I'm slowly figuring out that I'm happy I was called. It sounds like it will be some work, but a lot of fun.

So today is Ae and Ar's birthday. We are all taking them out to lunch. Mom, S, W, L, and my sister J. Some chinese restaurant we've never been to. Two of my sisters work over here and I and my sister L live over here, so its more for convenience that we go to this particular restaurant than anything.

So I've been watching this stupid movie on IFC yesterday and today. Its called the Happy times Hotel. I haven't seen the first 30 minutes, but caught the middle 40 minutes or so, but then had to leave. So I found it on again this am, so plan on catching the last 30 minutes or so.

Its a sad story. A girl who is around 18 is blind. When she was young, her mother died, and after that she developed a brain tumor and lost her sight. Her father married a woman, but they fought so much that he left and I assume got divorced. He left his daughter with the woman and she treated the daughter like crap, while treating her own son like a prince. Its a sad story and I feel for this girl because being blind, she can't do the things she wants, and can easily be taken advantage of (people doing things, taking things, tiptoeing around her, counting on her not knowing they are there). That would freak me out!

Anyway

Went to a primary training meeting last night. It started at 7:00 and when I dropped C off at my sisters house I told her I'd be back by 8:45, 9 at the lastest. When I got to the training, they said, We'll separate for classes and then break at 8:45 for chips and salsa. Ugh. That is late. I also had A, whose bedtime is 8:30. I could tell this would be a long night. All in all it was enjoyable and we got a lot of good info and ideas. But A had had it by the time we left. When I got to the door on my way out I discovered rain was coming down in sheets. I had parked clear across the parking lot, so pulled a blanket over A and walked briskly to the car. By the time I got us all in the car and situated I was pretty wet. I think A stayed pretty dry because of the blanket though.

So I get out on the roads and because of the rain, and it was also dark, I found it hard to see. The rain was pretty deep on the road also. so I felt a little out of control. I hate driving in snow and ice, and this experience was a bit like that. I got out onto the interstate to go home (our stake center is in the middle of no where) There was a ton of standing water on the freeway. I was going about 45 mph, and there was not a lot of traffic (I was passed by one car) but because of the slow going I was afraid that someone would come up behind me going really fast and I would cause an accident. I also felt the car hydroplaning a bit. So I got off at the first exit for the next town over from where I live. I drove through that town, and got over to L's house to pick up C. It was 9:25. Way later than I ever could have guessed. Anyway we were all pooped by the time we got home. I put the kids to bed, and once hubby got home from class, went to bed.

What I don't understand, is why after a late night, the kids didn't wake up later. A woke up about an hour earlier than normal, and C woke up about 45 min later than normal. I was able to get A back to sleep, but that only lasted for 30 min or so.

Oh well. I guess we just need to get to sleep at our normal time tonight.

Well, enough complaining for today.

Life is great. The kids are great. I have many blessings, one of which was finally getting home last night!

What a week

So on Sunday I got called into the Primary presidency. I'm not sure why. About a month ago they called me to be the Valiant 9 teacher. That was the first time I had been in primary since I was 12 and graduated from Primary.

Things seem very different from when I was in primary. First off, I remember it being more structured.

My biggest gripe is that as we have practiced the songs for the Mothers day program, I realized that they changed the way one of the songs was sung. Hubby was trying to convince me that it made it easier to sing. Then I pointed out to him that we didn't have a problem singing it when I was a kid. Just weird.

So I have my first presidency meeting today. It was so weird on Sunday. I don't really know the new president that well. I have only talked to her twice, and one of those occasions was to schedule a visiting teaching appointment. The other time, it was a pretty basic Hi how are you conversation.

So on Sunday it was like I didn't know where to look. And at out Visiting teaching appointment, We sort of talked about it. I guess I really don't know how I feel about it yet. I really don't know what I'm in for. If I'll enjoy it or not. So I don't know what to say yet.

So am I the only person who feels like they are a teenager in the world of adults?

Here I have 2 kids, am married, and doing all the adult things that adults do, and I still feel like I'm a kid. Its weird. I guess I thought being an adult would feel different somehow.

Well my fondue pots should come soon. I bought some off of e-bay on Friday, but haven't been able to get a response from the seller. I'm a little worried. The seller had some negative feedback, but most seemed to be regarding communication or lack thereof.

I can't wait!

My sister L moved into her house on Monday. She lives about 5 minutes from me now. I'm looking forward to a family member living so close. Most of them live about 30 minutes away.

I've been eating to many whoppers today.

fights over

Hubby realized he was being overly sensitive after we went over our conversation as well as we remembered it.

I apologized for being rude in some of my comments.

I told him about my feelings about apologizing for reasons that were unknown to me. He said not to apologize for that then. Totally fine.

We resolved it.

I hate when we are fighting. It feels like the world is on its side and things reek.

ugh

Hubby and I had a fight today. While IM'ing each other. He was at work.

He says I was being a jerk.

I say he was being too sensitive.

Now I'm wondering if I was trying to make waves cuz life is sort of boring right now.

Maybe I've been spending to much time thinking about this.

This is the first fight where I can't figure out what I'm apologizing for. Yet I have to in order to keep the peace.

He says I didn't thank him for the anniversary gift, which was for both of us. (I distinctly remember giving him a hug and kiss and telling him how awesome it was) And he says that a box of chocolates was not a real Valentines gift. And since I haven't had a chance to use the spa day gift certificate he gave me for Valentines day I must not like it. He also said that my reaction to it was less than favorable.

What is going on? Am I being rude? I don't think so. I am having my period, but I don't feel hormonal. Do husbands get hormonal? Could he be having his time of the month? LOL

I totally don't get this fight. How did it even start?

I don't even remember. yet he seems to have a perfect memory. He keeps saying things like "You really hurt my feelings with some of the things you said" and then of course I ask what did I say? And he tells me.

Thats right. He wanted to get me a pair of BYU shorts for Mothers Day. He has a pair of them that I loved to wear when I was pregnant with A. They have a soft stretchy wasteband that is nice, and they are knee length, so also modest.

Well, he couldn't find that exact pair and so suggested that he buy a new pair of shorts of the byu website for him, and give his old shorts to me. for mothers day.

I jokingly said I don't want hand me down shorts for mothers day. He took it the wrong way. Then I said, come on, just admit it, you just want a new pair of shorts. Lets cut to the chase (or something along those lines). So I finally figure out that he's not laughing with me, and is getting angry from some of his comments. I said come on you're not going to hold this against me like your sister would are you? lets just say that little comment didn't help (by the way, his sister is notorious for holding senseless grudges. Like when she was moving from one city to another, she wanted hubby to drive 1/2 hour, disconnect her computer, yes, the cords from the screen to the CPU, the mouse cord, etc. Then drive 1 1/2 hours and hook it all up for her at the new place. When he said he had other things he needed to do, she wouldn't talk to him for like 4 months. Finally she told him she would forgive him for some reason or another.)

Yeah, he is still mad at me. For some reason I don't want to grovel. Because let me tell you I'm not feeling it. I don't know why he is mad.

So should I grovel?


I hate this.

Another day, not another dollar

Well, I finally got my first non-family comment. Yahoo!

I don't know how to answer comments yet, I'm sure there is a way. Until then...

I found out that my possible buisiness opportunity wasn't possible.

I e-mailed deseret book (Mormon handicraft) and they replied saying that basically at this time they weren't looking for people who crochet.

So I've been playing around with the idea of selling my crocheted items on my own website. That way I would get to keep all the money... but could I keep up with the (please!)demand.

I don't know.

Anybody want to join me in creating stuff to sell on my website?

So right now I am crocheting in my spare time and just building an inventory. I just hope I don't get invited to a bunch of baby showers in the meantime. I think my ward is starting to catch on to the fact that if I get invited to a baby shower I usually give a crocheted baby blanket. :)

To buy a .com domain name it would cost $8-9 and then you have to spend around $5? per month to host it.... it wouldn't be all that expensive if I were able to make and sell enough.

It just seems like there ought to be an easier way to make money than this at home.

I don't go in for those strange pyramid schemes. My parents bought into 2-3 while I was growing up, and they never panned out. I can't see myself ever doing that.

My younger sister L is in the process of buying a home right now. She is currently getting yanked around by her loan guy, and her realtor is kind of being clueless about the whole thing and letting the loan guy yank her around.

She was supposed to sign on the house today. They told her yesterday that it would have to wait until Monday, and her realtor is trying to push it to Tuesday. These people are just yanking her around much more than necessary. I think some of it has to do with the fact that she is very busy and not able to keep bugging them all the time.

But she's moving here on Saturday. So I'm excited. I'm really excited about the fact that she will be living about 10 min away. I think it will help me feel less isolated from my family, most of whom live 30 min away.

Don't worry, I don't plan on using her for free babysitting.

Although that brings up a story....Last Saturday hubby and I both had places to be in the morning. I had to be at a primary activity. I took the baby. Hubby wanted to go to softball practice. I called my brother C to see if his oldest daughter could babysit our oldest, C. He lives about 20 min away, but hubby's practice was near there. So that is what happened. It went well, we all had fun. But when hubby went to pick up our daughter, my brother C wouldn't let him pay for the babysitting. My brother said it was because of all the free babysitting I did for him when they were a young broke family. This was great, We had the money, but its always nice to save $$ here and there. What I didn't like was the fact that I don't think my brother told his daughter who did the actual babysitting the reason she wouldn't be paid. I feel bad, and will most likely give her a special treat the next time I see her... Maybe I'll invite her over to play a nancy drew computer game or just give her a king sized candy bar.

Well, enough for today, The Apprentice is about to start!

I think

I think I've finally found my buisiness opportunity.

Lately I've been thinking about ways to make some extra money. Not that we need it, just that I want to feel somewhat useful and that I'm contributing something.

I've explored buying another buisiness making salsa. I've thought about launching my own web site selling crocheted items.

Then it hit me last night. I had a vague memory of reading in a Deseret Book catalog about how Mormon Handicraft was looking for crafters. Problem is that I don't remember how long ago that was.

I sent them an e-mail inquiry.

I found an article from about a year ago that stated that that they were always looking for crafters and they charged them $25 per year and paid them 70% of what their crafts brought it. That seems sort of a rip off, but I wouldn't have the cost of maintaining a web site, and I wouldn't be the only person contributing to my inventory... I'm seriously thinking about it.

More later.

Today is bath day

OK, so I hate coming up with a new title everyday.

So I was reading back through some of my blogs and I realized that there has been a ton of stuff that I haven't completely told you about.

So the first thing that comes to mind is that we have stayed with Dish Network, just upgraded to local channels. I think we may go down to the lowest package they have soon also. I just can't stomach paying that much each month.

We renegotiated the golf clubs and they turned into a laptop. Hubby finished up his class and it became apparent that he really could use a laptop. So he got it last week and has already been doing lots of programming and stuff for his current class on it. I think it has turned out to be a good decision.

We gave up on potty trainng. C never even had an accident in her potty chair so after 2 1/2 days of sitting on the potty for about 10 hours total, we decided to take a break. Maybe she's not ready yet. So I need to find situations for her to sit on the potty. Maybe right before baths while I'm bathing A. And I'll talk to her about it a lot. Yesterday I mentioned going potty on the potty chair and she changed the subject and said she was ready for bed. This doesn't happen all that often, so maybe she does remember how boring that was. :) I just hope we haven't done anything damaging. She got to watch and listen to the Wiggles the whole time she was sitting there! :)

Last night A woke up about every 1 1/2 hours. She has a cold and I assume was having problems sleeping. Hubby was very supportive and after the first few times of me getting up, offered to get up and even slept in our easy chair with her (allows her to sleep upright and her nose to stay somewhat clear). I don't want to do this because with C I spent so many nights sleeping in that stupid chair that I would be more than happy to never do that again.


So one thing I have not blogged about at all. We had a neighborhood meeting last Wednesday. Found out that some lady wants to open a halfway house in the home that is right accross from our subdivision main entrance. Within 500 feet of my home. She says that she can't have any violent offenders or sex offenders. Notice the "can't" She wanted to and the county said no way. This lady says that she wants to become part of the solution in our city by bringing offenders from our city back ito our city. The problem with that is those people's bad friends that influenced them before are here and will most likely influence them again. I say this thinking about hubby's brother R. He keeps having problems because of the negative influence of his friends. In the past he has wanted to change, but he still has the same friends.

Right now the county has brought an injuncion against her, so now we have a little time to put up a major fuss and let these people know we don't want this halfway house in our neighborhood.

The main thing that freaks me out is that if this house gets in, and the lady initially wanted violent criminals and sex offenders, she will keep pushing and possibly eventually get them in there. I don't want that. There are 3 bus stops for kids nearly in front of that house. Scary.

Anyway, I've written e-mails to everyone that I can possibly think of, but recently found out that the only way to contact the people who will really make a decision about this I can only contact by phone. This bugs me because when I get on the phone with some people I tend to sound stupid. Who likes to sound stupid?

There is a lady in our neighborhood who has been calling the news stations and has so far gotten two stations to cover the story. Problem is that I have no idea how to get ahold of this lady. Her number is unlisted. But I think if we were to work together we would get more done. You know, act as a group.

Another thing that I forgot to mention is that the lady that wants the halfway house is only renting this home. She is not the owner. But she wants to charge $30 per day per offender. There would be 10-12 offenders in the home for a maximum of 90 days. And she wants to get a local church to donate the food for these offenders. So say that she has 12 offenders for 90 days. In that time she will make $32,400. Thats $10,800 per month. Pretty lucrative. Lets say that she pays out $3,000 for expenses. Thats still $7,800 and in a year she would make $93,600. Dang. In 2 years she could way more than buy that home. (home is probably worth around $150k because it does sit on 3/4 an acre) I believe she wants to make a difference like I believe that I need a hole in my head.

Anyway, someone mentioned that we should investigate her loan and she if she is allowed to 1) rent the property and 2) use it as a buisiness.

I need to call around about the loan today, and try and contact that lady in our neighborhood. I promise to do this today.

Tuesday morning

So here I am writing without my contacts. Its weird. But truly the only thing that is different is that I have more spelling errors.

So I just visited my sister L's log. She already has had 21 visiters. Is it wrong to be slightly jealous? I shouldn't be. It's not like I want lots of visitors to read my innermost thoughts... but on some level I'm a little jealous :) Oh well.

So yesterday we got lots of stuff done. It was hubby's day off. He tilled the garden by hand and we planted Onions and garlic. We also had lots of seeds from years past, so I decided it couldn't hurt to plant those. I mean, if we get some to come up, then we've saved money. And if nothing comes up, then we didn't waste any money. I also planted some Violas and petunias in some planters in the front. I love violas. We planted some last spring and they are still alive. Well, until recently. Recently they started dying. It occured to me yesterday that maybe I needed to start watering them again. I didn't water them all winter and they lived! Anyway, this is the reason I love violas.

So Seagull book is opening a store locally. This is the first store of theirs that is closer than 4 hours away. So I'm excited. I visited a Deseret Book that is about 1/4 mile from where they are opening and they have a mormon handicraft. So I wrote to Seagull book with a great idea about how they could carry similar stuff but cheaper (since Deseret book has it way overpriced) they responded with an email about how I had to have at least 10 (or was it 15) different products to even be considered by them. If I didn't have that, they suggested approaching a distributer. Of course my response was "Um, no". so I'm back to thinking about buying a domain name from godaddy.com and selling my crocheted baby blankets through that. But that would cost around $60/year to get the name and to have it hosted. I'm still thinking about it. I would really like to do this from the space that our IP gives us, but we don't know how to use it. Hubby said something about having a web page editor or something. I guess I need to look into that more.

Why

Why does potty training have to be so hard? I've spent the last day and a half of my life sitting with my 2 year old in the bathroom. Her on the potty, me on the edge of the tub. So far the only thing that has happened is that I've been discouraged and brought to tears. She has been very sweet and cooperative. Except for the using the potty part. So far nothing in that dang potty chair, and She's spent a good 10 hours on the thing. Been pushing lots of fluids, and lots of salty foods so that she'll want more. Tonight, She sat on it from around 6 until after 11 (when she finally was to the point where she was tired and wanted to go to bed. Before that she was willing to sit on the chair and watch the wiggles in order to stay up) I was ready to go to bed around 9, and am currently wasting time until I'm sure she is asleep.

The baby woke up around 11, and I'm sure she'll be up again around 3. For the last few nights she's been back to only waking up once. That is nice, and I hope that it continues. Typically they don't backslide, right? She started out only waking up once a night, and occasionally slept through the entire night. When she started waking up 2x a night I was doing ok, but as it continues, I get worn down and hubby really doesn't understand it. He doesn't know why I'm more tired and have less patience. Get this, the other day she woke up right after I got her down again. It was the weekend so I woke him up and asked him to pat her on the back and she would likely fall asleep again. Well it took about 10 minutes, and he did have to get her up and pat her on the back to get her back to sleep. Well this one instance and the next day hubby was cranky and tired. Yeah there bucko, it can make you tired when you don't get to sleep 8 hours straight. I really would love for him to just say Thanks (sincerly, not just in passing) or even how much he appreciates me doing that. Lately I've been very tempted to just say "you know what? Lets trade places" I would totally love to go back to work just for a week and let him realize how hard it is to take care of 2 kids, try and keep the house clean, make every meal, with a nice meal for dinner. And find time for making out with him :) and time for things I want to and like to do. I am lucky in that I usually can get the kids down for naps at the same time for 2-3 hours. So I have that time. The dilemma is what to do with that time. I would like to spend that time on me. But when I do that, the house never gets cleaned well. With the kids up, I can do about 30-40 min of cleaning in the morning before A gets tired of watching and wants attention and to be held or fed or something. She is getting somewhat better, but to look at my house, you couldn't tell. I hate living in this pig stye. I want to keep it clean but who has the time with a husband and two year old to cook and clean for, and a baby to take care of. I feel like I'm burning the candle at two ends. Now hubby does do things around the house. He does the trash, and general maintenance things. He likes to vacuum. But the things that really need doing are a deep clean of the kitchen, bathrooms, kids rooms.... etc. I think what I need is a really deep spring cleaning....at least once a month. I definately need a total house reorganization. The clutter is driving me mad. I guess I feel so overwhelmed with everything that I have kind of given up in a way and am just in survival mode. I hate this. I just want one day where I don't have the kids and I can clean the house. Then another day where I don't have the kids and can just organize, but that would take about a week worth of those days. And since I'm breast feeding the baby I'm really limited to what can be done in reality.

I need help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

super quick post

So how can you tell if a noise late at night is a gun shot? Having only heard them on TV shows, i have no idea. but I think I might have heard some about 10 minutes ago.

Anyway, update on the Flu. turns out it was food poisoning that I got at a baby shower along with 5 other women. Feeling great now.

Life feels like its going at 100 miles an hour right now and I don't have time for all the things I want to do. And when I try and make time, my relationships suffer. C was really needing a lot of attention today. But that was my fault. I was spending way to much time on an internet Bulletin board. I like the board, but don't need to follow it quite as closely as I have been the last few days.

Hubby finally talked me into a laptop since its become apparent that school will be much much smoother for him if he were to have a portable computer strictly for schoolwork. I hope he gets great use out of it for what we've paid out for it. Thank goodness for tax returns.

Don't know if anyone is reading this blog, but my site counter keeps going up now and again. Probably just the occasional visitor who was looking for something else. Works for me because this blog is purely for me to get my thoughts/feelings out.

Lately I've been feeling like I could do a lot more with my day if I was more organized. I've resolved to make a schedule, and attack one room in the house and clear it of clutter every day. I was able to do that 2 days this week and the rooms I attacked still look great. If I were to do this every day I would have a great looking house 80% of the time. Still working on writing out a schedule. But I've been taking C to story time and am finding more and more reasons to turn off the TV and do other things.

Well I'd better get to bed since it's nearly midnight.

sicker than a dog

So I've been sicker than a dog today. I woke up at 3 to feed A and after about 5 minutes it was apparent that I would have to use the bathroom before I finished with her. So I put her down and used the bathroom (very loose).

I fed her some more and I thought she was on the verge of being asleep. But I knew I had to throw up. So I ran and put A in her bed and rushed to the toilet to puke my guts up. My husband woke up because he heard me running from A's room to the bathroom and was concerned. He found me in the bathroom. I told him what had happened and asked him to check on A. She wasn't asleep so I sent him back to bed after he made me promise to wake him up if I had any trouble with getting A back to sleep.

It took me awhile to get her back to bed. Anyway after that my sleep was interupted for many trips to the bathroom for liquid movements (if you catch my drift).

When I woke up I still felt awful and called hubby to beg him to come home from work early. He came home around 11, changed the kids out of their pajamas, sent me downstairs for a shower and sleep.

I'm feeling much better now. I feel bad about getting hubby home from work early because I feel pretty good now and he would be at work for another 1 1/2 hours. But he had time off he could take and keeps telling me not to worry about it. So I'm going to stop.

I think I got this flu at the dentist. But that's another story that I won't dwell on now.

Here's hoping none of you get this flu

Tuesday night

So I realized tonight that it had been a few days since my last post. I've had to many things on my plate these days.

I've been working on geneology, keeping up with Cougarboard.com, taking care of kids, taking care of hubby, dads birthday, Sister is in town.

I guess I'm just making excuses. Oh well

We went over to my parents house on Sunday to celebrate my Dad's birthday, that is actually tomorrow. I got to talk to Ae and also my brother J and Dad. Mom got to play with all the kids. But I have to say that it was extremely crazy. My sister W, Sister J, brother J, Brother C all there with their kids. So a total of around 17 kids, and about 10 adults. That house was packed. Good thing we were able to send all the kids down to the basement to play.

It was great to see my sister L who was in town from Idaho Falls. It was great to talk to her. Before she came we were talking on the phone about once a day. Basically because we were both lonely for someone to talk to. Hopefully we'll get back to that now that she is in Idaho Falls again. Its weird that we weren't able to have such great conversations in person :) It must have something to do with the fact that on the phone we are just wasting time, and in person we have things to do.

She loaned me "Wives and Daughters" . I would recommend it. It was an excellent movie.

L is doing great right now. She is a court reporter and has hopes of going into captioning. She is scheduled to take a test in July. Once she has passed the test, she will receive a license to caption and she can get a job in it. She has a company in mind. If she were to get hired on, she would be able to work for a few hours every day from home. She wants to be a writer and would be able to use the rest of the time writing. So she would be able to support herself while she writes. I sure hopes it works out because she has worked hard and deserves it.

Enough for today. Gotta go.

Ae

If I was using names I would have put my sisters name in there, but since I'm trying not to use personal info, I use the abreviation Ae.

Ae one of my youngest sisters. She and Ar are twins, and the youngest of the family.

Ae has made some horrible decisions in the past few years... her latest has me shaking my head and saying things like "Well it's her life. But I sure wish I could give her a good talking to"

Ae first off is a somewhat easily lead person and I would call her naive. She has this thing where she'll get a job and then quit it a few months later because it isn't working out for some reason or another. Now, if it had only happened once, maybe twice I wouldn't think anything of it. But it has happened numerous times. I guess that doesn't have anything to do with her current situation, other than it points out her immaturity.

I need to say one thing. I do realize that I am picking Ae apart and dwelling on her negative traits and judging her in this post. And I don't mean to justify. But I really just need to rant, and nobody reads this site anyway... so no harm no foul.

Almost 3 years ago Ae started working at a local tortilla manufacturing plant. This place had many people working for it who were immigrants. Not just from Mexico (I know you assumed it :) mexican food = mexican workers) but from Romania and I'm sure other countries.

Well, while Ae was working for this company she started hanging out with a mexican guy. We were all a bit worried, but Mom correctly pointed out that she was 21 (or 20? don't remember) and could make her own decisions. Ae started dating this guy, who I should mention was a non member. She started dating him and - it came out later - eventually starting sleeping with him. Other things came out also. Along with the announcement that she was pregnant. We found out that this guy was an illegal. He had fled the US when he was supposed to be in jail (if I remember correctly) and came back into the country under another name. I will tell you this name because I don't care about it at all Leandro Marban. His real name is Jose something or other. Anyway, he is using a fake name and fake social security number. And yes, we tried to report him but found that nobody really cared. Hows that for national security? Other things we found later were that he had a gun in his car from time to time and had drugs in the car at times. All this while Ae was in the car. Ummm... how can you say RUN!!!!!! Anyway, after the announcement of her pregnancy they got married. Most family members really wanted her to adopt the baby out and lose the guy, but it was not to be. So they got married when she was about 3 months along. They moved into his apartment and she quit her job (big surprise!) Well, 3 months later they opted for a divorce. Saying neither of them were happy. Did I mention that for a lot of this time his brother was living with them and he would go on the occasional trip to California to buy hub caps for his car. OK either these were drug trafficking trips or he was totally into his car. I don't know for sure. Also, he spoke broken English and Ae didn't know a lick of spanish. So, they got divorced when Ae was 6 months along. So she moved back in with Mom and Dad. She thought about getting a job but it didn't get much further than her thinking about it. The good thing that came out of this time that she had was that she decided to adopt the baby out through LDS family services. She found a family that she felt very good about. She asked me to be her coach, and Mom and I coached her into motherhood. The baby arrived healthy and happy. Ae spent 2 or 3 days in the hospital with the baby getting to know him, spend time with him, and overall saying goodbye. Many pictures were taken, and all the family visited at Ae's invitation. Oddly enough the baby's daddy only visited once. He didnt' come to meet the new parents on the day the baby was handed over. And may I say that they stole our name that hubby and I had chosen if we were ever to have a boy? I told everyone.... and even though her baby was adopted and given another name (but they used Ae's chosen name as the middle name) she still won't let me use the name! She says she would feel weird about it. Even though she and everyone else refer to the baby as the new name. This annoys me. But whatever.

Ae seemed to be getting her life on track. She was receiving counceling through LDS family services and had worked through things with her bishop. She seemed to be getting her life back in order. She got a job, moved out, things were looking good. Then I heard from Ae's twin that life wasn't all rosy. Ae was still seeing her ex. Hanging out and stuff. A few months ago I found out that they were dating again. (um, ok, they got divorced?) A few days ago I found out that it was with all the former benefits. That really made me sad for my sister. When I heard that I couldn't believe it. Mom said that she wasn't attending church or paying tithing and had told her twin Ar that she didn't believe it any more. Wow. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

So here's what I think. Leandro was the first guy she ever dated. The first kiss, the first everything if you get my drift. I think that this is all she thinks she can get guy-wise. I think that is what got her in the first place.

I think that what is getting her now is baby grief. I think that she wants another baby. She thinks it will help her get over the first one if she has a second. But it won't. It will just add to her grief in the long run. I'm just so sad for her. I keep thinking I need to call her... but I think I need to process this more. I don't want to have more emotional diarhea on another family member :)

One thing that bugs me is that she hangs out and lives in a house with a girl from her birth mother group from LDS family services. This girl seems to be a bad influence on her... Wish there was something I could do besides the recommended "just keep loving her and keep talking to her" that I get from my Mom.

It all boils down to the fact that it is her life and she has free agency to make her own choices. Sad but true.

Next time I will pick myself apart... oh wait, I did that a few entries ago :) Ahh life. I wish it was a simple as a game of say Kings Quest. Point and click, accomplish certain tasks and win. Life is way to complicated sometimes! :)