Ohhhh shiny.......

I have realized I am a victim of a four letter word. Fads. Hmmm. Well, not your typical fads I guess. Just my own personal ones. I start something - I think it's awesome and in a few months I am sick of it and move on. Mostly because I over do it I think. I am that kid that played the cool new tape over and over just switching it's sides and listening to it again. I wore out the video of the Last Unicorn as a kid. Now I have it on DVD.

Kind of like when I picked up cross stitching. I thought - hey this would be a great Christmas idea. I had only done one wizard at that point. So I searched online and bought a bunch of patterns for male Disney characters for my nephews quilt. Great fun. Well the first ones were, but trying to get them all done during my lunch breaks and between housecleaning, kids, laundry etc., was stressful. So of course I had to do a pillowcase with a big Cinderella crosstitched on it for my niece. Well, at 3:30 Christmas morning I finished. Phew! For 6 months I stitched and then I was done. I bought an awesome dragon one a year and a half ago. It's 1/4 done I think.

After cross stitching I turned to puzzles. I love/hate puzzles. I like the ones that are made of tons of tiny pictures. I have decided that I very much dislike the ones that are all angles without the little hookies. They are too hard because any piece could fit. After doing a holographic/3D one of clown fish I am not sure I would do that again. It took almost a month. I glued it together. You have to understand - it was just clown fish, not a reef, no background, just clown fish, 3D clown fish. This ended my 5 month obsession with puzzles.

I think after that I just stuck to reading for a while. I love to read. Always have, always will. I think Hell for me would be no books. Then I picked up scrap booking but that just didn't last long. Basically because I suck. Then I went through a cooking thing. New things, strange things. Why not? My family was grateful when that toned down.

The thing is though, I cycle through them so I don't have to feel bad about having bought stuff for them. Because after cooking I went back to my dragon, did a Captain Jack puzzle, read a book. So I guess I don't drop them completely, they just have seasons. :)

I think I have found a new one. This one might stick. I bought a sewing machine in May. It's homemade Christmas year and I was not borrowing one like we did last time for the fish pillows. It was a good deal, and it looked cool. I didn't really know much about sewing machines so I just picked it by price and how cool it sounded. Which surprisingly turned out really well for me. I like it. It has cool feet that do neat things. I especially like the drop in bobbin and the button hole foot. Just push the buttonhole setting when you put the foot on and it does it all by itself. Sweet. So while doing Christmas projects I discovered 2 totally awesome stores. The Fabric Center on 90th and Redwood behind the Albertson's and by the movie theater and The Quilt Shop on 8790ish and State street. They both had the fabric I had been searching searching for that Joann's and Walmart never did. And they had this totally cute super awesome dragon quilt kit. It's my next project after Christmas. I'm excited. I bought it, wrapped it, and am going to put it under the tree from Aaron. :)

I am no seamstress, I have my share of uneven buttons, crooked seams etc, and I still don't know what half the words on the pattern mean, but I can figure most of it out. Here's hoping I don't mess it up too bad. :)

Vegas, Football, & Halloween

So, I am really bad at this blogging thing I have decided. I have lots of fun reading them all but just don't write them. I don't know why. My life is just not all that interesting I guess.

I sent Curtis away this morning to Las Vegas to play football. I know he is with his team and coaches so technically he is not alone. But I feel like I sent him alone. It totally sucks I couldn't go with him. Not because I wanted some kind of vacation or anything but so I could cheer him, so I could hug him, so I could take his picture and be on the sidelines you know? *sigh* I hope he behaves.

I don't have any pics of him in full uniform yet. Here is one of Josh.He looked so cute. His team was pretty fun to watch. They didn't have much talent and didn't get a lot of the plays but man they had heart. Full of passion. It was fun. Curtis' team was more intense, they had more on the lin since they were older. They were fun and I cheered and yelled. But Josh's team was pretty fun.

For a fundraiser to help go to Vegas Curtis's team worked one night as server's at the Golden Corral. So of course I harassed him. When it got to the point I asked him to go get me 9 green m&m's he just looked at me and said no. Ha Ha Ha. But he still had to clean up the mess I made with crackers. Hey -- if he wants a tip he needs to earn it I say.


So I hope he has tons of fun. And behaves. If you can do both in Vegas. If not..well then I root for behaves. *sigh*

So Halloween was fun. I didn't have to do anything. How awesome is that? Curtis went to a friends house for a party and Aaron took Josh to his parents. I put a bowl of taffy (leftover from last year but really..they are kids, they wont care) on the porch and put on my headphones to listen to my book and sewed some Christmas projects that maybe possibly if I'm lucky I can finish by then. The kids waited until the night before Halloween to get costumes. I took Josh but Curtis still had homework so I told him I would get him something and he would be stuck with it. Josh picked out his stormtrooper one and I found a banana for Curtis. I laughed and knew it was mean. He would hate it. I big yellow banana. Ha ha ha.I was looking forward to the nast look. (I know I'm a sadistic mom. I get it from my dad.) I got home and showed it to him. He took one look at it and SWEET! He loved it. Go figure.


Also, I took them to go see the symphony just before Halloween. Curtis has to see a concert a quarter for his music and guitar classes and I thought this would be fun. It said Halloween Hijinks. I figured we could go, listen to some classic Haloween music and stuff. They could live through that. Little did I know that we were actually going to see Hansel & Gretel the OPERA. Ha Ha Ha. Oh the nasty looks from both Curtis AND Aaron. You know that look - the one that says

What have you done??

Or more importantly

What have you made ME do?

Ha Ha Ha.

Boo

It's Halloween time again. Time to buy (or make) costumes once they finally decide on what they want to be. It is also time for scary movies. I admit I really like a good scary movie. However I am pretty picky about it. Slasher flicks simply don't count as a scary movie. Startling, disgusting, shocking, but not scary. To get the best ones you need to go back before too many special effects were around. When you have that creepy music, you see the person go into a room and maybe see some shadowy movement and a scream. It's so much more effective when you have to imagine it. Much like an almost naked woman is sexier than a totally naked one. (I know a lot of men might deny that just in the hopes you will show them a totally naked one to prove your point, but they know I'm right.) Your imagination is better. Which is why seeing some crazy person cut someone into pieces is bloodier, more shocking, and definitely more gross, it's just not as scary as if something from the shadows took them and you hear screams and sounds form the dark but don't see it. At least in my opinion.

So here is a list of really good scary movies. Anything from Hitchcock. We watched the Birds one Halloween when I was little. It was a Saturday night. On Sunday we wake up and outside our bedroom window there are hundreds of birds. All on the fences, the trees, the power lines, everywhere. We are totally freaked out. Out of nowhere a pigeon flies through the bedroom window and lands on my brother's bed twitching. We, of course, screamed like Hell just walked in. My dad runs into the room ready to kill whoever broke the window. We are all huddled up as far away from the twitching bird as possible. My dad just stands there for a minute,looks at the bird, looks at us and laughs! Laughs!!He takes the bird and says

Oh good! Lunch!

Yes, I promise this is a true story.

Also, the original Haunting is a good one. Yes it is black and white. But when they make the walls breathe --- oh man, very creepy. The Shining is a good one. Also The Changeling from the 70's. It's slow but trust me. The Silver Bullet by Stephen King, mostly because of who the bad guy was. It didn't seem right. Psycho of course. The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I watched that when I was about 8 or 9. My bed was about 1 1/2 to 2 feet off the floor. This, I decided was the perfect size to hide a pod under. I don't think I slept for a week. My brother was maybe 12 or 13 when he saw The Fly. I admit I have never seen it, but he didn't sleep for a while unless my dad was there to periodically slap him with a flyswatter. No really.

Now the Body Snatchers took first place for a long time. But recently I watched an episode of Doctor Who. (Yes, I am I sci-fi/fantasy geek.)The story seemed cool, but the more and more I thought about it (and I couldn't help it) the scarier it was. It was about lonely assassins. They were aliens of course. They came from the empty places in space. They were called that because they could only move, only be, as long as no living thing could see them. This included each other. They looked like statues of angels and they always had their eyes covered. Now I know this doesn't sound so bad. But here is this girl staring at this statue that wants to kill her, and in the background she is remembering the doctors words.

They are incredibly fast, don't turn around, don't even blink.

How can you possibly run from that?? How long can you go without blinking??? How do you hide from that? I know I am not explaining it well but trust me -- just watch it. It's in Season 3 I am pretty sure.

So, in all of this, I think the scariest things come from our own imagination. Also, the scariest stories are not really about monsters, or men in with chainsaws, but from the unknown. The bogeyman in the closet you never see, but can hear. The whispers in the dark. The things you can't hide from, you cant even find, until it's too late. Then ..... Gotcha!

Happy Halloween

My Family As A Sitcom

So my Auntie Robin (my parents good friend, our babysitter, and one of our very favorite people) came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We all came over for family dinner (once a month 2nd Sunday tradition) and started just talking about stuff since we had seen her. Told some fun jokes, talked about funny stuff we remember from childhood. She looked at us and just started laughing. She said "you can't make stuff like this up! This is like some TV family show". This comment came after several remarks about my father's finger. For anyone who doesn't know my father these make interesting tales. Due to an accident (he cut his hand with a skill saw) his finger was amputated just before my 16th birthday. He kept it in a jar in the freezer for a while. At first he would ask us to go scratch it for him. Um...no. Love ya, but no. On my first date he took it out of the freezer to show it to the guy -- "This is what happened to the last guy who brought her home late." You know that AT&T commercial where the dad is going around knocking on cars and he tells the camera - "Sorry dear - now come Monday you are going to be the girl with the crazy father no one wants to date"? Yes- that was me. Except I was already weird so having a crazy father didn't much surprise anybody.

Then he took it to the Natural History Museum and they freeze dried it for him. So he put it on a necklace with all of his teeth on the string. Yes, his teeth. (yes he wears dentures and does not put the necklace in his mouth. I know you didn't ask but it had to have crossed your mind.) We have some great pics of the kids picking their noses it I will have to find. We have a lot of moments like this. Kind of like -- Mom where is the ice cream? Mom says, in the downstairs freezer under the badger." Now to us this makes perfect sense but to others -- maybe not so much. So I started thinking about my family, and thought -- she's right! We are a pretty strange bunch. We talk in movie quotes, dad tans his own leather, he has a tipi, we have body parts on strings, can jerry rig anything! Sometime we spontaneously burst into song and everyone knows all the words. We toss around phrases like - "you should have seen his face as we snuck around the deer at the bottom of the stairs" and have the deer not actually be part of the punchline. And you know, that makes me feel pretty cool.

(This is all of us with our boo-boos we got in one month. Trying to be cute with the hear no evil see no evil thing. I think we were actually saying see no ouchies, hear no ouchies etc etc. The ER just started reserving us a bed)

For my science project in 6th grade I decided to do a report on how to brain tan leather.(And for those who don't know - it is work!! Lots of time consuming work! How did those women do it with all those buffalo??) I thought it was a pretty cool one and I could gurantee no one else would be doing it (unlike the baking soda volcano). So we had the hide, stretched it out and boiled the brain. As a side note - deer brain smells like turkey when you boil it. It does NOT taste like turkey though. Just FYI. I took it to school explaining the whole process and everything you have to do after you brain it and brought samples of the one we did. I also brought a new hide with a boiled brain so people could smear some on if they wanted. What was funny was how many girls did it while the guys looked like they would pass out. I got an A. And a note never to do anything like that again. But I got an A.
( Yes the snake is real. Dead and stuffed with wires but real.)

And the time we had a new neighboor move in next door. A nice sweet little old lady. A day after she gets settled she wanders into her back yard. We just so happen to have the tipi up with our horse tail scalp hanging off the top, a couple skins stretched out and were boiling some buffalo skulls to get all the tissue off and bleach them white. Now to us that was normal. She almost had a heart attack -- what devil worshipping monsters had she moved next to???

Lots of fun moments. The kids playing dad's teeth. A picture of everyone squeezing in a four seater out house. (Because who doesn't want someone next to them in the outhouse??) Me catching a fish with my feet. My dad with a fish hook in his nose trying to catch the damn fish that jumped off the hook that is now in his nose. My cousin Kristy and I getting stuck climbing up Pig Pen, then getting bored of waiting for someone to rescue us so we found a way to climb down. Christmas time with all 80+ of us Sqeezing into my Uncle Clem's house so we can listen to my totally awesome Papa talk. (and of course presents. Some normal, some not so much. Who doesn't want their own fish pillow made with personlized fabric huh? Everyone needs those googly eyes staring at them on their beds.)

Ahhhh family. The more other family's I know the more grateful I am for mine. No offense to my friends or in-laws, they are all good people. But I wouldn't trade my crazy fam for anything in the world. Love ya guys!!

Um Really? He He

Ok so I saw this quiz on my cousin Angelic's page and said why not? Except I am not sure what to say. I really did think he was hot and kinda still do. But do I admit to that???

Your 80s Hunk Is

John Stamos

Who's Your 80s Hunk?

Football !

So it's football time. Yay. No really though, I have never been more interested. My husband calls me a Giants fan now although I don't consider myself that dedicated. (in his family fan leans more towards fan-atic) I watch with him because I could read a book snuggled with him on the couch while he cheered and yelled. Last year I actually started watching though. I wanted to understand what was so fascinating. That meant I had to learn the rules. I stopped him from teaching me the actual plays because I just don't want to care that much. But the rules were fine, then I could know why he was cheering or yelling. So I started rooting for the Giants one week they were playing the Cowboys. Mostly because my husband hates the Cowboys, not because I particularly liked them Then I just kinda stayed rooting for them. I'm not sure why. Maybe because they seemed like an underdog. Maybe because Eli was Peyton's little brother and all little brothers should get a chance to shine. Anyway - just kept rooting for them, and hey, they won. That was fun. So yay for football, something we can watch together.


But now, I have signed up both my sons to play football. This is something I struggled against for a very very long time. I thought it was too rough, would teach them to be mean jerks, make them more violent, coaches would be mean, I hate cocky jocks etc. etc. Then I realized that I have seen way too many football movies, and I don't live in Texas so I am probably ok. Josh who is now finally 8 and can play sports in leagues is loving it. I think it's pretty cute to see these kids in pads running around, practicing catching and stuff. They are just starting and learning and it looks fun. I don't know what will happen when they actually have to play a game and can't just randomly tackle people but it should be amusing.


Curtis however is definitely a teen. The 13th birthday just made it official. Anything that takes effort and isn't electronic just isn't fun. And let's face it -- football is hard! He has 2 hours of practice 6 days a week,(which since I go to all of these have to ask myself -- what was I thinking??) running, learning etc. He is the only one on his team who has never played before so he is doing double catch up. But you know, apart from some grumbling in the beginning about how I was forcing him against his will, it has been amazing to watch. He hurt his ankle the second week so we had to ice and soak it all week after practice but he just kept going out there and doing it. He never asked to quit. He told me he had to prove to my us and himself he could do it. And he is.In 3 weeks he is 10 times better than he was. He goes out and always listens to his coach (who is marvelous and teaches exactly the way Curtis learns)and does what he is asked, changes what he is told to change, and doesn't quit. Is this my kid??? Well yes as soon as we get home the teenager comes back. No - actually he is better at doing what I ask him to do and doesn't argue as much. Holy cow. This is great! If this does nothing else but teach him self-confidence then it is worth all the ungodly amount of money we have put into this. So then I listed all the good things this could teach him - play as a team, work together, listen to your leaders/teachers/parents, follow directions, not to mention the benefits of being physically fit, and that life outside of video games is good too.


So now I am an official fan of football. Even if it means my schedule is now full from now until November.

Book Clubs -- Can I take one and beat you with it???

I don't know about anyone else but I love books. (I think this is not a surprise to anyone who knows me.) Mostly I love sci-fi/fantasy (Orson Soctt Card and Anne Mccaffery are my two favorite) but I am certainly not limited to it. I generally don't read romance because I consider it porn for women. There are a few notable exceptions though such as; Victoria Holt, Madeleine Brent, Dorothy Keddington and I'm sure a few I cant remember and will kick myself for later. Also, Kathleen Woodiwiss who is pretty explicit sometimes but the stories themselves are so fantastic that those spots are not distracting, and certainly not the basis for the book.

So, of course I found an interest in book clubs. I had no idea that it would be so difficult to find one I liked. And that the trick is really finding one with people that you like, and that those people like the books that you like. There is one that I go to now where I think most of the people are nice. I do. But the last time I went I wanted to strangle them. I have no idea how people can live in such a narrow world sometimes.

I admit -- I found it through church so maybe that should have prepared me, but still. Can you seriously read nothing but self-help books and scriptures? Not that I am knocking self-help books. I have a mind/body bridging one at home that is really helping me sleep. However, let me relate my last experience. I went to the first meeting in December where we all got to pick a book. Mine was April's. For January we read a book called The History Of Love by Nicole Krauss. Its just a general fiction book and not what I would normally pick up. But I loved it!! I thought, cool, this might work out great. Then I go to the meeting, and everybody hates it. For almost the same reasons I love it. So....crap. But sometimes I just like to argue. So I go back. I missed February and March for illness reasons but man I was excited for April!

I picked Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. Yes it's fantasy, but its not complicated and really easy to read. It is the story of Sleeping Beauty, starting with the kiss. Also, because it's Orson, it has a twist. He (Ivan-the hero) is from 1970ish (it doesn't say but that's the impression you get) and she(Katerina-the sleeping princess) is from 900 something. But of course the place in the woods she is trapped in sleep until kissed is magical and not really a part of time so of course that kind of thing can happen. Anyway, I love it. It's one of my favorites. I was so excited to talk about it. So I go to the meeting and guess what? They changed the book to The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. What???? Then they talked all about how its so spiritual and just like God. You pray, and he helps you. What?? I couldn't help it. I told them what I thought. I said I thought that it was full of crap and it was harmful by giving people a false sense of entitlement and made everyone lazy. After all, you dont have to plan anything do anything, work for anything etc.. you just have to want it and its yours. I was always taught that slothfulness was a sin and God helped those who helped themselves kind of thing. They didn't like that. So I talked about my book anyway.
One other person read it too and said how upset they were with it. After all Orson is LDS and there were a couple swear words and they were naked. I said what?? First off, Orson is LDS and an author. That does not automatically make him an LDS author. He doesn't write just church books. (He has a couple about bible characters but thats all compared to the very great many sci-fi/fantasy ones where bad guys actually do and say bad things. wow- what a concept) The swearing were little words and the nakedness was nothing sexual. When you shifted through time - your clothes didn't get to go too. Like on the Terminator right? Then they just looked at me a little offended and said how could you watch something like the Terminator? That's it. I'm done. Ok, so LDS or not there are far far too many great and wonderful books, people,music, and movies out there that I would be sorry to miss out on and feel as I was cheating myself by missing just because they are not G rated and sung in Primary!

Dreams

Ok so this picture has nothing to do with I am talking about but that's all right because it's cool. Well maybe it does. You know those dreams where you are being chased and you just can't get away? Either because your legs don't work, all the sudden you feel like you are running in sand or water or something? Well I think this picture is kinda like that. How fast can you paddle?

Well I have discovered a couple of things. First: not everyone dreams like me. Second: I have really really strange dreams. I have really vivid colorful dreams. Sometimes they fade in an hour or so, sometimes they stay with me for a couple of days. I have one dream I had in 8th grade that I can still remember like I just had it. It's one of those really truly strange dreams. The nazi's were invading and they had these house size lunchboxes that would open and killer Hi-C fruit drink boxes would come out and kill people. But the rebels (including me of course) had these robots that would turn into pizza's so we could deliver them the nazi's then they would turn back into robots and kill them. We also had these bombs that when you shot them into the air they would come down screaming neener neener neener.
You see what I mean? There are lots of times, most times I think where I am not even in my dreams, I'm just watching like its a tv show and sometimes I'm one of the charachters. Or I have dreams that I have had before, and while I'm dreaming I know that I have had this one before and think "oh man - a rerun" but I still can't change them. Or new dreams where you know you are dreaming so you think that you should be able to do cool stuff since its a dream like fly, or will your pants back on after you realize you went to school naked. But its a dream so you should be able to make your clothes come back or at least make it so that no one notices. But no - you still can't. Knowing it's a dream or not. That really bites.
Then you have the roller coaster dreams -- not where you are on one but where everything changes every 30 seconds. Or seems to anyway. For example last night I was on an island but the sun started to explode so we rode over the lava in a pirate ship but it got stuck on the lawn of my parents house where we were filming a movie (and I was no longer me) in the desert etc etc. I know what you are thinking but no I am not crazy just strange.
So it was really interesting to learn that lots of people don't remember ever having dreams. Ever. Or just a couple here and there. Lots of people dream in black and white. Some people remember them for a while, some forget them before they are all the way awake. They know they dreamed but can't catch it anymore after the alarm goes off. Huh. Interesting. So am I just really weird then? I don't know. But if so, thats ok.

Books!

So my mother and I have been consumed with a new book series. Along with many many others I am sure. We try to get everyone we know to read them. It is the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyers. Yes, its about vampires. But they are so good! Even if you don't read that kind of book, you will most likely still like it. I am counting down the days until Breaking Dawn (book 4) comes out in August!! They are so easy to read but they suck you in. One of the coolest things I have learned from the authors website StephenieMeyers.com is that all of her places are real. Forks is a real town in Washington. La Push is a real indian reservation and the Quileutes are a real tribe. With the exception of the vampires (of course) the legends she tells of them are true. Thats so cool to me. I was debating if I should review them on here or not but I don't think I will. But I just had to add my blurb about them. When I was going camping with my family I put it on to listen to for the four hour drive. And instead of whining about it they listened. And liked it! This from an 8 yr old, 12 yr old and 31 yr old. I had to burn it on to CD's from my MP3 player so they could finish the story when they got home. The movie is coming out in December and Josh (the 8 yr old) says we have to go see it for his birthday. I said yes sir!

Oh crap

This was so funny I couldn't help but add it.

So i realize that I am so bad at this. I started out ok, but then you know life gets busy and I don't actually spend much time on the internet so of course I don't write. It's like your journal you know? When stuff is actually happening you don't write, then when you do write you have 6 months or so to catch up on. Or be like me and have 2 years to catch up on. Oh well. So April was ok. I had my birthday. I worked did laundry etc. Just another day. And one more year past 30. That's still young right? But I did get to go to the Five Alls for dinner. I love that place. The food is awesome, the atmosphere is awesome, it's all awesome.
Then came May. We were told our baby hopes are simply not going to happen. I apparently have no good eggs anymore. I'm not sure how they know this but somehow they can test for it. So that sucks. A lot. I had a really hard time with it. It's diffficult to go from 4 years of trying to suddenly be told you can't and your new treatment we suggest gives you all the same symptoms as menopause. WHAT? No, I don't think so. Then my grandfather passes away. I didn't feel bad for him. I didn't cry for him. He was 82 and had a marvelous life. He was the greatest man I have ever known. Ever. If I could only live up to 1/8, or a 1/16 of him I would be set. No, I didn't feel bad for him. I felt bad my dad, I felt bad for my grandma, for my cousin Jennifer, for my uncle clem, for everyone else left here without him. For all of who will miss him. I cried for my dad, for my family, and those left behind.But it was the coolest funeral I have ever been to. My hisband said it was by far the healthiest. My father made the coffin. My mom and my sister in law helped make the lining. It was beautiful. Made of Thousand Lake wood and cedar. With old iron pipes for the handles. They let my uncle drive him down to freemont in the back of his suburban. My dad dug the grave with my grandpas backhoe (one of his favorite toys in life) with the help of the male grandkids evening it out. We all wrote on the coffin any little messages we wanted to say with sharpies and then put him into the ground ourselves and buried him. They had to cut off the handles with a saw at the gravesite because it wouldn't fit. I know my grandpa was in heaven laughing at us. I know he loved it all and thought it was perfect.
So now June is almost over. And now my year is almost half over. And what have I done? Not near what I wanted to. I lost 4 pounds by starting to get up at 5 am and go walking with the super cool Kimber. But it's only really been 3 weeks. Ok 4. Instead of 6 months like it was supposed to be. But hey, better late than never huh?

Resolutions

So, how are yours going? Mine suck, as usual. You know the "eat healthier, exercise more, and this year I will finally be thinner" stuff? Yeah thats not working out so well. Oh I had good intentions, as usual. I went to the gym every day for a week. I cut down on my soda for 2 weeks. I started to drink more water. That I am trying really hard to stick with.
But then I had this problem. Someone with a handful of nails reached into my guts, grabbed and twisted. I thought I was going to die. It went on for hours, then finally it dwindled but didn't go away. The next night it gradually started to get worse again so I went to the E.R. Big fat lot of good that did. They did an ultra sound because I thought it might be cyst. Since I have PCOS I thought it likely and thats where the pain was. But no -- no cysts. Well thats great but whats the problem? The ER guy tries to tell me its a UTI. Yeah right. I have zero symptoms! None! And I have had plenty so I should know. But do they listen? Of course not. How could I possibly know my own body? SO they send me home with an antibiotic. Great. So I take the stupid pills as directed and drink my gallons and gallons of water as directed just so when I tell them they are full of crap they can't say I'm wrong because I didn't do what I was supposed to.
So then I go to my own doctor who told me to take the pills and if I don't feel better call him. So I call him and say -- I took the pills, I still hurt. It went down after the ER but has never gone away. And its still pretty bad. Bearable with drugs but still....thats not the point. They re-look at the ER tests and say wow... you are right, it wasn't a UTI. Gee...really? He does his own exam and says no its too high. It's not gynecological. Fine I will see a GI guy. But do lots of blood tests too. Enough to feed a family of vampires. Meanwhile symptons get worse and now I cant stop puking and am puking up blood. Joy.
Now we go see the GI guy and do an upper endoscopy. You know -- the scope down your throat thing. And we find some pretty bleeding ulcers, lots of them in my throat and a hiatial hernia. Not that I know how to spell that. This I already knew from daily acid reflux. Got meds for that -- thats good, that needed doing anyway but explains nothing about pelvic pain. So I go back 2 weeks later for the colonoscopy. You know the scope up the other end. Joy. And they biopsy my intestines and colon and all that. Apparently thats all in good shape. And my blood tests come back. She says everything looks great, thyroid, blood sugar, metabolics, etc. She says I am remarkably healthy. Well thats great but ----- what the H*** is wrong with me?
I really, really hate that feeling like they don't realy believe you and are just going through the motions to make you happy. I wanted to scream. I am not a hypochondriac, I dont limp around the house in tears of agony because I stubbed my toe. I have a pretty high pain tolerance level and it drives me nuts to tell them that this really f**ing hurts and have those condescending smiles and the "poor dear" pat. Pisses me off. I dont want more pills I want it fixed so I dont need more pills!!!! Anyway, I asked my doctor (who I really do like its just his nurse who blows me off that I want to strangle) to do an exploratory laparoscopy. Just go in and look. And if you dont find anything I will punch you in the nose and say you didnt look hard enough! Because something is wrong.
And joy of joys they looked, they found, and they fixed!!!!! It turns out I have endometriosis. 2 months and lots of money later we finally find it. Part of me just wants to say ha! Told you something was wrong. The other part is feeling just a bit irritated that I end up having both Endometriosis and PCOS. Like God really doesn't want me to have another baby. But I cant really complain. It's not cancer, and they did find it and cut it out. So yay!
So now -- maybe I can get back those resolutions. And while I probably wont be skinny by Christmas -- hopefully I can at least be skinnier than I am now.

Kids

Kids are fun. This is what I decided the other day. Oh, they have their days when you just want to smother them or sell them to the gypsies but overall they are fun. Last weekend it was just me and Josh at home. Aaron was working on his mom's basement and Curtis was at his dad's. So Josh decides he is bored. (Not that this is a hard state for him to be in.) So he gets out this puppet theatre I got him for Christmas with all these little hand and finger puppets. I wish I had a picture. And he proceeds to put on a show. In this particular one he has an alligator and a duck puppet. They are friends and laugh and play and tell stories to each other. Then one day the alligator gets hungry and decides to eat the duck. The Possum puppet pops up and tells him how naughty that was. He was a bad alligator because they are not supposed to eat their friends. So the alligator feels bad and throws up the duck. And they are friends again. I wasn't quite sure how to react to that one so I just said good job buddy. After all there was a moral right?? Not like the next one where the possum is a vampire and preys on all the little finger puppets because after all -- even vampires need to eat. What? Again I just said good job buddy. Maybe I have been reading him too many bunnicula books?? Kids are fun, give you all kinds of new ways to look at stuff and think. :)

Perspective

So I get grouchy a lot. It sounds bad but I do. Then I bite it off and try to be nice anyway. Otherwise I feel like a big fat hypocrite. See, I have no patience with self-pity, poor me whining. I feel like you either fix it or shut up. And this can get me in trouble as being insensitive. And I'm not really, you should be allowed to be upset when something is wrong or something bad happens. But wallowing in "I'm a bad person, nothing will ever go right, I'm a loser" etc. etc. etc. because you had a bad day just irritates me. Sorry you had a bad day but that doesn't mean your whole life sucks.
Then I have a bad day. You know those days where you are irritable and moody and you know it's irrational but you can't help it. So you have to try and suck it and be nice anyway or else you are just like the people you complain about. I got these pictures from my mother .. and they help me put all my own personal irritations into perspective. I used to get mad at people who said think of the big picture. Isn't my little one enough to deal with? It's like when Josh was born with all of his problems and people would come up to you and say -- it could be worse. I don't care if it could be worse. Just because it wasn't worse didn't mean it wasn't bad enough. People in general I think have a hard time moving perspective off of ourselves. After all isn't it OUR life we are living? So isn't it natural that we are focused on us? To think that life is bigger than we are - to think that we are a small bit of this universe seems to people to say that we don't matter. And I understand that but I think one of my favorite lines is from Contact when she says that the universe she saw showed her how "small and insignificant and rare and precious" we all are. So thinking of it that way, my problems in the scheme of tings are pretty tiny. But that doesn't mean I dont matter. Because in all of this ..
there is only one of me. I may be small, but I am also rare and precious. And I can make it through whatever I have to -- and not just make it but smile and make it the best that I can as I go. Does any of this make any sense? I don't know, but it works for me. I love my children, I love my husband, and I am blessed. The rest is all just a distraction to make me forget that.

Random Rants

So, what is a blog? Should it be a family update -- sort of a newsletter of myself? Or just a collection of random rants? Well I have to admit that I like my random rants even though a lot of times they don't make much sense and are often dark. For that I apologise. However, I will also make this a newsletter thing like the rest my very cool family who are much more creative than I am. And yes I did mean that and not sarcastically either. I have a very cool family. Weird, silly, strange, and fun. We all like each other and even get together for dinner once a month. Now - this is an old picture. I think it was taken in January of 2006. We have since added 2 new babies. One of them will be 1 this month and the other is currently being born today!! Yeah for babies! Those are nephews though -- not mine. Two of those little monsters are mine. Curtis and Joshua. They are 12 and 8. And yes I have better pictures of them I just think this one is cute. They fell asleep at Grandma's on the couch while the rest of the family was at a concert. We went to go see Peter Mayer. We love him. He is an independent singer/songwriter from Minnesota. He comes to Salt Lake every January and we go see him as part of our Christmas present from my parents. He sings Christian, Folk, and Silly stuff. Generally all around good guy.This is all of us (family, cousins, and friends) mobbing him for a picture. It's a little dark but it was lots of fun. We drag more people into it every year. Anyway -- here I am rambling again. So- bits about us: We are weird. That goes without saying. I am 30, obsessed with dragons and books. I'm married to a great, silly, strange man obsessed with animals, lizards and snakes and turtles in particular. We have been married for a little over 3 years. I have 2 silly strange but overall good hearted boys. They get in their fair share of trouble, Curtis for not thinking and Josh because some part of his scheme went awry. I worry about that one becoming the frat house con man and everyone will know about it but no one will care because he is such a charmer. I told my husband he gets to deal with the angry father's. Anyway - I love to read, the kids love to play video games, my husband likesto anything as long as he isn't required to sit still for more than 5 minutes because I think that might kill him. We are campers and fisher's. (Is fisher's a word?) The kids play sports of all kinds and we struggle and manage our way through life trying to teach and do the best we can. This is turning into a wierd journal/rant. I promise to get better at this though. :)

There are no phone booths in Antarctica

If Superman really did exist -- where would he change? Are full phone booths still out there? Or would he just have to find more of those spinning doors? Do any of us really care? See - I think that if Superman did exist it would be more like the Incredibles. Some people would be grateful -- others would just be peeved because he didn't save them too. How could you possibly save everyone or be everywhere? So how do you decide who to help? And who fixes all the stuff you break trying to save the world? Wouldn't you get just a bit sick of the ungrateful people who just want more and more and more of you? This is why Superman can't exist, not in a world of cynics and greedy bloodsuckers. Or at least thats why he can't admit he does. So instead of a Superhero who we would wear down we just get stuck with the SuperVillians who we (in our weird twisted people way) cry out about but can't seem to get enough of. People are strange. This is why SuperHeroes live in Anarctica, even though there are no phone booths there.