Merry Christmas, I'm an Idiot!

Our Christmas morning started off perfectly. Nate was able to hold the kids off until just before 7 am before the unwrapping frenzy began. Everyone got what they were hoping for and we spent most of the morning getting the presents freed from there fort Knox packaging. The kids played with their new stuff and ate tons of candy while I went back to bed. We were having company over for Christmas dinner, so I had a few things I had to get done before we went to the 1:35 showing of the "Bee Movie" at the dollar theater. I had placed an apple pie on a cookie sheet to bake. It was the kind of cookie sheet with a lip all the way around it. Anyway, the cookie sheet was cold when I put it in the oven therefore - no pot holders. I had to take the pie out to add the crumb crust and did so with the aide of pot holders. I added the topping while telling the kids to get ready to go to the movie -- brain turned off---- picked up cookie sheet----no potholders-----pain receptors turned on too late----extreme pain------Nate's on the phone with parents-----trying not to scream------finished baking the pie, loaded kids in the car, sent Nate upstairs for the burn cream and bandages and he wrapped me up and off to the movies we went! This is what I looked like at the movie theater substituting clothes for jammies.

I had Nate keep filling up a cup with popcorn and I ate it straight from the cup. Have you ever smelled burn cream? Not good! I think people could smell me from a mile away and it didn't do much for the flavor of my popcorn either. We got home and still had work to do for dinner, and I could do nothing but sit on the couch with ice bags on my hands. My hands are covered with some pretty sweet blisters, but I couldn't stand not being able to do anything involving water (I couldn't wash my own face or hair, try using the toilet like that! brushing my teeth with my thumb and ring finger only as well as taking out my contacts, no dishes or cleaning up messes etc...), so today they are off and I am just super careful with my hands. All in all I am fine and the dinner went great- with the exception of the lost pan of funeral potatoes on the garage floor of Jenny's house. I guess what "burns" the most, is knowing that I am an idiot!

Customer Service?

I have decided to rant about my latest encounter with non-existent customer service.
O.k., let me set the scene.
It's Friday night and we are all upstairs playing Excite Truck on the Wii. Jordy, by the way, was surprisingly good for not knowing what the heck she was doing. We finally realize that we are hungry (we had fallen into the black hole of video game playing) and decide to order pizza from a new place that opened up. I place my order and right away I'm feeling a problem coming on because the coupon I wanted to use came with an order of bread sticks and I wanted to change out for the cinnamon ones (which a chain competitor lets you do). Well, apparently the computer wont let you make the switch, ok fine- no coupon. Next I order a small pizza for myself with some actual toppings on because after several years of suffering through plain pizza, I've had enough. I ordered their version of a deluxe minus the green peppers and onions, add olives. Nate kindly agreed to go pick up the pizza (still too cheap for delivery) and came home with my pizza with......you guessed it green peppers, onions and no olives. I decide not to let this go like I normally would because let's face it, it's generally not worth the hassle and I'm not opposed to green peppers and onions, usually. However, they were finely minced which didn't at all excite me. So...........I decided to call. This is where I really get peeved. The line is busy for 5 minutes (no exaggerations) then I finally get through and I'm asked to please hold--ok-----6 1/2 minutes later they return to the phone which I have had ample time to work myself into a frenzy. Could I maintain composure at this point? Nope! I said "are you kidding me? you seriously left me on hold for 6 1/2 minutes?" For which the boy replied, "sorry we're really busy right now." I explain the problem and he says that he can give me a discount on my next order. Seriously? Seriously?! I don't want the flippin' pizza with onions and peppers on it to which he replies that they are too busy to deliver me another pizza. What?! Did I ask for you to deliver another pizza? Can you make me a new pizza and I can drive myself over and pick it up? Yea, we can do that, was his reply. So I decided that I would go back over and just try to get my money back because I am fairly certain that at this point they are doing the spit conga on my pizza. Are you still with me? I know this is seriously long. Sorry. Anyway I get there and ask to see the manager, and frankly I shouldn't have expected less ---19 year old (maybe early 20's) said that he was the manager. Seriously! Ok- fine.
I was wondering if I could just get my money back?
Sorry can't do that, I can replace it.
Frankly I'm worried that you spit in it.
Ma'am we would never do that
I know you would "never" do that, still.
I swear we would never do that
ok fine give me the pizza
insert lecture here.......Oh yes I did!
I have to tell you that as a person that has worked in the customer service field their whole life you are totally missing the mark.
First of all you are a pizza joint whose customers call in their orders for which they cannot call in because the line is either busy or you're placed on hold for an obscene amount of time.
2nd, not good problem solving skills when someone has a problem with their order. Come up with solutions not sorries!
3rd when I came in here there were all sorts of employees standing around and no one acknowledged my presence. When a customer comes into your establishment you acknowledge them to let them know you'll be with them. It's a courtesy.
I then closed with how if he wanted customers to come back and tell their friends they had some serious work to do.
The phone rang while my lecture ensued and he had to put that poor sucker on hold while I finished. This is the insane part. Why is the guy at the cash register also answering the phone?

Now, before you think I judged too harshly on one experience it was our 3rd with them and the other 2 were only marginally better than this one. I have spent a major part of my life in customer service and had to kiss some serious customer booty, therefore it is extremely frustrating to get crappy service. They do have some pretty awesome pizza though. For the record I didn't scream my lecture at him and I kept the volume down so I didn't look like too big of a lunatic. The kid just had this dear in the headlights expression on his face and sent me off with a final sorry ---no coupons --no nothin', only my spit riddled pizza. :)

Aloha!!!!!!

I am finally getting around to posting pictures from our recent trip to Maui. It has been hard for me to post the pictures because I hate the way I look in them. My smile is just all messed up from the surgery and I'm beginning to think that I am stuck with it forever. I think I resemble "the Joker" from Batman. All the stitches run along the gum line of my upper lip so my lip is still tight and numb and doesn't quite move like it should. Plus more of my upper teeth are revealed now than I used to have. I've never enjoyed looking at myself in pictures, but this is far more painful. I figure it is better to just rip the band aid off, right--so here they are. Having said all that did ya see the above picture of my Zip line guide?! Let's just say that it was a very enjoyable day! I thought he was pretty hilarious too, but Nate didn't seem to think they was that funny. I guess my judgment was a bit clouded by the view. Nate was sweet enough to take this picture for me so I could remember it always. I can't even remember the guys name he was just fun to look at. Now did ya see the dorky hats they made us wear. They told us they made us wear them for their own enjoyment since a helmet wouldn't do much to save us from a fall off the line. Nice! We got to go on 8 lines that zigzagged down the mountain. This is the halfway point where we stoped for breakfast.

There is a picture of me coming in for a landing. The landing was pretty easy, you just had to start running before you hit the the angled landing and then keep running so you wouldn't end up going backward back out on the line. The guys were there to catch you so it was no big deal although they loved messing with us. One time the guide didn't catch me just to see the expression on my face as I started heading back out on the line. Punks! This poor couple that we were with just couldn't get the concept of how to stay facing forward while you are on the line and came in backwards for their landing every time. All you do is steer with your hand in the opposite direction your body his heading and voila (sp?).

Here I am on my horse, Valentine. She was a very impatient horse which suits my personality. There were only 6 of us on the ride so our guide said we could run if we wanted to, so with all in agreement off we went on one of the stretches of trail. Can I just say holy cow, what a rush! I could not stop from laughing uncontrollably while I was bouncing around in the saddle feeling that any moment was for sure my last moment when I would go flying right off the horse and to my death. You are supposedly supposed to use your legs to grip the saddle so that you don't bounce around so much and get a pretty serious beating in your rear. Obviously this didn't quite work out for me. All my horse wanted to do was run. So we would hang back a bit from the group and then Valentine would take off running. It was a total blast. I could hardly walk the next day, but it was a blast.

I don't know what it is about sea turtles, but I love them. They are just so darn cute. This picture was taken at the aquarium. I did get to see a turtle in the ocean which is far more exciting than spotting one at the aquarium. I almost lost my life trying to get a good look at the one in the ocean. We saw him (all turtles are a him to me) when we were at the place we took the next picture.

We were driving around and went pretty far north this time to a beach with a name that I don't remember. Anyway we stopped along side the road for this awesome lookout and I discovered a muddy little steep trail leading down to this rock in the ocean, so I said let's go! We headed down and it was so amazing down there. This picture didn't capture the huge waves that were crashing on the rock, but they were every minute or so and it was a site to behold. You can see some water behind us on the rock from the waves crashing. When we first got down there we saw black crabs crawling on the black rocks and then in the cove where that kid is standing a turtle was swimming around. You can't tell from the picture but the rock we are standing on is pure mud which is very slippery. We aren't sure what happened, but I fell and about broke my thumb and the camera and almost went off the cliff in the process. This guy and his kid came down to fish while we were there and was kind enough to take this picture for us. I can't remember what he had us say, but it obviously wasn't "cheese".

There you have it. Our trip to Hawaii. I forgot to put a picture of Iao National state park which looked like a rainforest. Oh well, I guess you'll just have to visit either there or here to see it. We had a blast and dream of going back again. It's a pretty spendy little trip though so be sure to bring lots of cash.

And So It Begins.........

This weekend was our Ward's annual Turkey camp out. Now this isn't just some last minute get all the men and boys rounded up and head off to camp for the night. This is the 9th annual Turkey Camp out complete with T-shirts and a schedule that is strictly adhered to. This is one of my families favorite times of year. The boys talk about it and count down the days until the next one while they are at that years camp out. They love camping and especially having Dad all to themselves. Jordyn got really mad that she couldn't go this year. Both of my girls love camping and think that it's not fair that they don't have a daddy daughter camp out as well. Anyway, while the boys are away the girls will play. Us girls equally look forward to this time of year to have our girls weekend. This year we went to dinner at TGI Fridays and to see Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium. We had about an hour to kill between dinner and when the movie started so we decided to go shopping in one of our favorite stores, Old Navy. While we were in there Emma found and fell in love with a shirt that she wanted me to buy. I was already buying her and Jordyn and Megan (we had my niece along for the fun) a Christmas shirt that they all saw and fell in love with. We decided that since the boys got Turkey Camp out shirts to commemorate their time together that we would get Christmas shirts for the same purpose. Anyway, we were standing in line and Emma decided that she couldn't live without this shirt and that she had money with her and wanted to know if it was ok if she paid for it herself. I said to her "you want this shirt so bad that you are willing to spend your allowance on it?" This has never happened before. My kids always make plans for toys, ipods, video games, candy etc... for their money, never clothes. Luckily my sister-in-law Jenny was there with us or I just might have started crying. And so it begins.......growing up. Wanting to use your own money to buy clothes is the beginning of the end of childhood. Emma happily handed over her hard earned cash and has been proudly wearing and displaying this shirt she just had to have. We also had to go on the hunt for the perfect boots. Her cousin Ally got some cool boots while they were visiting and so we had to find some just like it. The only way I know how to describe them is UGG type boots, only more stylish than that.

Every time Ally comes to visit, Emma seems to grow up just a little bit more. You know how it is when your 10 and you get to hang out with someone who is 15. All the mysteries of being a teenager that seem so far off are on display right in front of you reassuring you that you will in fact be there some day. You actually get to test out living in that world when you have such a nice cousin that is willing to take you along for the ride. Ally gets to do all the things that Emma dreams about, wearing makeup (for real), having cool hair, cool clothes, a cell phone, talking to friends via email (Emma and Ally email each other now) you get to drive a car, read cool books, watch adult movies, talk to boys, freedom, etc.... I was asking my friend Emily who has a soon to be 12 year old daughter what it was like. What do you do with a 12 year old. It's not like you can say go play in your room to a 12 year old. I just can't even believe that Cassandra, Emily's daughter will be in YW with me in December. How freaky is that? I would have had a girl in YW if I hadn't have had a miscarriage. It makes me shudder at the thought. She did say that Cassandra is a bit of a pain in the butt. That in between being a kid and a teenager is a rough stage of life.

Hopefully Angie and Ally had a good time while they were here. I know we had a blast and were so sad to see them go. My energy level has been on the low side lately which was proved to a painful level when I tried to go "running" with Angie. I put running in quotations because that is what we were supposed to be doing, or what Angie was trying to do. I felt like I was going to die and mostly walked and then the next day I could hardly move. I was thinking that it had only been about 3 months since I have exercised, but it has been more like 8 or so since I have actually tried to run. With all the problems with my jaw I had to cut a lot of things out to make sure that I wasn't making things worse by jarring my jaw with exercise. Then add a second surgery in 2 years on my jaw and you get a problem with getting enough energy to do much. So there's my excuse and I'm stickin to it. :)

So, while my daughter is rapidly growing up I am slowly becoming an old lady. The older your own kids get the more you cant deny just how long ago you were a teenager. Trying to run with Ang didn't do anything to help me feel not so old. :)

The House

Well, here it is! This is what my house is going to look like from the outside. I am pretty excited about everything but the 3rd car garage. I'm sure that Angie has plenty to say about it! :) If you look at the picture below you can see that there really isn't much that can be done because there are 2 bedrooms with window and a balcony above the 3rd garage. Anyway the picture above doesn't really show that the front door is recessed and under a fairly large covered area. Below is the side of the house with the garage and the kids bedrooms and the theater and guest bedroom with the bathroom that leads outside. You can also see the balcony from the master bedroom on the right.

Above is the back of the house. You can see the master bedroom with the windows to the tub and toilet on the 2nd level. On the 1st level is the door to the garage, the kitchen nook windows and the slider and window for the family room. You can also see the railing for the princess balcony on the side of the house that leads out of the sitting room in the master.

Below is the left side of the house. You can see the front entry and the balcony for the study. You can also see the courtyard. The princess balcony from the master and the windows in the loft overlook the courtyard area. I think the rest is pretty self explanatory.

So, there it is. This stage of building a house really is more stress than fun. I just have this huge expectation building in my head and I am starting to get a bit freaked out that I wont really like the house. When I went through the 2 story house they just got finished building to look at some ideas for tile work and kitchen space, I got really excited. The guts of the house is more my thing and that's where the true excitement comes for me. I have far more confidence in my abilities to make the inside look good, it's the main structure that I am less confident about. It's just scary being given the opportunity to build exactly what I want ............what exactly do I want? Yikes!

Anyway it's too late and I'm too stressed to be chipper tonight. I have bathrooms waiting for me to clean in the morning so that on the off chance someone wants to look at my house they can. BTW the house is finally listed on realtor.com and on craigslist. Cross your fingers for me that we can sell this house and sell it for a decent price.

The Floor Plan

Ok, so there's my totally wicked awesome floor plan. Me, being the total computer wiz just figured out that if you click on the image it will in fact enlarge the image so you can actually tell what is what on the floor plan. So, some cool things about the house.
1st Floor
My entryway. Way cool! It will have tile and mosaic tile to accentuate the oval and then it will go to hard wood in the dining room and a 3' boarder in the family room with carpet inlay and then through the kitchen area. The gallery may have a mixture of tile and hardwood. I've seen that done in a pretty cool way. There is also a courtyard that will have a fireplace that you can access from the family room and dining room. Did ya see the pantry! It's huge and it will have a fridge or a freezer in it. The closet outside the bathroom is being changed to a built in desk area. The guest bath has outside access for people using the swimming pool (the pool is getting built with the house). Did you see all the storage in my garage! We have a nice little cozy Theater room that will just fit the huge new sectional and the tv. The kitchen is showing a raised island, but I think I am just going to keep it flat since it is my only island in the kitchen. It will make the room feel larger and give me more work space. The pantry is showing a pocket door, but it will be a regular door more centered on the wall. The bottom of the picture shows a very dark picture of an estimate of what the outside of the house will look like. The 3 window area is a balcony which is practically another room. You can't see from the picture, but in between the arches there is iron railing. That window that looks like it is in between floors, is, and it is the library.
2nd floor
As your walking up the steps you come to the library that has a princess balcony. I'm not sure how often that door will get opened, but it is pretty cool just knowing that it can be. It will have the cool "belly bar" railing, which means that the iron railing curves out like a belly. Love it! You can put money on me opening the door and saying "Romeo, Romeo, where for art thou Romeo." :) Pretending that I am Rapunzel is probably going to happen as well. Ok, so can you tell that I am just a wee bit excited. I can only get excited on my blog, because it's my blog and I can say whatever the heck I want without fear of appearing to gloat or brag. I have to have an outlet for my enthusiasm! I figure that the only people that will read this blog will be excited with me and wont take my enthusiasm wrong! So, where were we. Ah yes, the top of the stairs. As you finish ascending the stairs you come across a half wall and then you're in the loft. This is where there will eventually be a pool table. The sitting area in the loft will have a built in desk area for the kids and we are taking down the additional 2 half walls. That area was originally a wet bar for which we have no need. From the loft you can look down on the first floor to the left or go right to the master suite domain. I am feeling a bit saddlebaggish with the size of the master area. I have my princess balcony again in addition to a huge balcony which will have the most amazing view of the mountains. Then you go back into the bathroom area which pretty much speaks for itself. In case you are wondering Nate called dibs on the bigger walk in closet because he actually has way more clothes than I do. Now, going out the other side of the loft you can reach the rest of the bedrooms and my laundry room upstairs. How exciting is that. No more lugging laundry up and down the stairs. The washer and dryer are being reversed from the picture. The original plan had all the bedrooms with their own baths and that was just too excessive for me, so we made a really cool jack and jill bathroom with access from the hall as well as the kids room and I did do the pocket doors so that we weren't constantly fighting with the doors. The original plan also had bedroom 4 all the way over to the wall with private access to the balcony. We shortened BR #4 to make a hallway out to the balcony instead. I also have some nice skylights in that hallway as well as my master bathroom. Hopefully all my ramblings made some sense.
Let me know if you see any additional changes you think I should make before this goes to blue print.

It's Offcial

I know that everyone is been biting their nails in anticipation of the official announcement........will they, won't they? Just kiddin', practically everyone knows already anyway, but for those that need a phone call to keep appraised of my latest adventures----we pulled the trigger and are building the house. We made some pre final changes to the plans and handed over a wad of cash. It is both exciting and nauseating at the same time. I don't take major decisions very lightly even if I manage to pull off looking like I am taking it lightly. This decision has kept me awake many a night wondering what I am doing to the fate of my family. The usual stuff to worry about, schools, friends, ward, money, is a pool too dangerous, what if I hate my new kitchen, will I really like living out in the middle of nowhere when right now I am 2 min from everything anyone could ever need in life...............the list goes on and on.......Oh! How could I forget.........the whole selling my house burden. Yikes!

As if all this were not enough to send a person into a major fit of anxiety alone there's more, oh so much more! Nate's business partner is out of town for nearly 2 weeks, so Nathan is getting slammed at work which is getting him sick, then right when Chad gets back they are opening a practice here on the west side just down the street from our current house. Because they will have 2 practices in town this means also 2 overheads so, they need to hire another Dr to work at the east side practice with Nate. That is in negotiations currently. Let's see, what else. I am supposed to be getting my house ready to sell and we are leaving for Hawaii on the 26th ( I know, I know poor me right). I swear, everything in my life happens in a cluster.

So, do you wanna see a couple of pictures? I would scan the plans if I thought you would be able to catch the vision, but we have made so many changes to the small plans that I have that I don't think it gives an accurate depiction of the final house. I need to be able to shrink down the larger final plans to make them available for viewing.

In order of appearance we have, our lot. The angle of the picture is obstructing the fairly close mountain range right behind the mound of dirt. Where our house currently is we have an awesome view of the mountains, but they a farther away than they are in this lot. There isn't much we can do about being fairly close on each side to our neighbors (if we want a paved road, water instead of well and sewer instead of septic), but we have a 1/2 acre lot with no one behind us ever. 2nd Picture is the view of the mountains while standing in either the back of the house or the backyard, not really sure which. 3rd picture is just a representation of the style of kitchen that will be in my house. I am doing a stucco hood and I really love the color of the granite and cabinets and the tile work. 4th picture is the front door I want. I love the color, style and size. All of my interior doors and moldings will also be in this color and style. I will also have a tile mosaic in my front entryway. The entry way is an oval and then the rest of the flooring will be a dark hardwood.

There are many more fun features, but I don't want to bore anyone. It gets me gitty just thinking about it. Oh, the style of the house is Spanish Colonial if I didn't mention that before. I really need to get back to trying to clear out my office (my nemesis)to get it show ready.

Facebook

I am finally slowly resuming my duties in YW. I feel like I have so much catching up to do. I didn't really get to start my new calling before my surgery so it makes it a bit harder. I have pretty much been every calling in yw now. I was the Camp Director, Personal Progress leader, and Sports Director and then I got released from all 3 of those to just be the Laurel Advisor. That calling lasted for 2 months until the 1st counselor got snagged by the stake yw, so.... calling change again to now the 1st counselor in yw. I guess I technically haven't had a calling to work specifically with the beehives yet (thank goodness). Both other times I have been in yw in WA and in our other ward in Albq I was the Mia Maid advisor. I must say that working with the Mia Maids is my favorite in yw with Laurels being a close 2nd. The Laurels tend to be a little more closed off especially their senior year, but they are the most mature which leads to some awesome spiritual growth experiences. The beehives are by far the least mature and trying to bring the spirit in is neigh unto impossible sometimes and they don't really get the whole service thing and they are just plain wild! It is that horrible awkward transition time when they are trying to find their "style" and deciding that bathing everyday is necessary, they are figuring out that they might like boys but don't know what that means and they haven't quite figured out what being a friend means yet........the list goes on and on. One word pretty much sums up the beehives, drama! This is not to say that I don't love them dearly, I'm simply stating the facts that make being their leader a bit more challenging. Now the Mai Maids are a bit transitional as well. They can now go to stake dances and being old enough to legally date is within reach. I have found that the Mai Maids tend to really love their leaders and are still open to coming to activities and looking for those spiritual experiences while also knowing how and when to have fun. This age is also the most susceptible to getting obsessed with boys so you usually have about half obsessed and the other half on their way to being obsessed. All in all, I love all of the yw as if they were my own girls. There is something about service that really helps you see people the way our Heavenly Father sees them. I think that yw in general, no matter what position, is the best calling in the church. I have an absolute ball and there is just something different about say a primary age child running excited to see Sister Ivey and giving me a big hug and one of my yw running down the hall to give Sister Ivey a hug. I guess it is because primary kids are still pretty unconditional and with the yw they are more sceptical of you caring about them.

Anyway, my YW pres informed me that she just learned from the girls that most of them are on a site called Facebook, much like myspace. Facebook is supposed to be less frightening than myspace as far as the crap that is out there. So, I set up my account so we could communicate to the girls in this new age of computers for everything. Hopefully knowing that their leaders will be checking out their pages to see what they are up to will help them think about what they and their friends are using the sites for while also being able to post little notes of encouragement on their "walls." They think that it is totally cool as of right now, but most our girls are so good that they wouldn't dream of being annoyed that their leaders were saying "hi" on their sites where their non member friends also would see.

So, first I got sucked into the whole blog thing and now I have an account on Facebook. I am also totally addicted to my Ipod and I enjoy text messaging. It takes a lot to keep up with kids these days and stay informed and be able to talk their language. Speaking of talking their language my girls started laughing at me on Tues night because I said that one of their cell phones was mack daddy. So I have to take some lessons in proper verbiage. Apparently I was supposed to say something like "who has the down phone?" "Down" is better than "mack daddy" apparently. Two years ago I was trying to incorporate "shiz" for awesome. Basically I look ridiculous no matter what I say. :) I am definately in an awsome training course for when my own children actually become teenagers! Heaven help me!

Moonlight

For all of the fan's of the twilight series of books, there is a show on CBS on Friday nights called Moonlight that can help the time pass until the next book comes out. I wasn't sure I wanted to watch the show about a Vampire detective after loving the way vampires were portrayed in the books. I set the DVR and decided that they would at least be there in case I caved and actually watched. The show has been on for 2 weeks now and I just watched both episodes today. I must say that if you can get past a few of the changes in vampire mythology that were created in the Twilight series the show is quite good. At first I didn't think that the vampire Nick was that attractive, but he has the tendency to grow on you quite fast and the "Bella" character (I can't think of her name in the show) looks like Kate Winslet. It has the human Bella ingredient and the super hot, didn't take too long to figure out your a vampire Edward, a more twisted "family" for Nick than Edward and Nick gets blood from his friend at the morgue to feed on while the main guy that is Nicks kinda family prefers the good ole fashion form of feeding, humans. I haven't been able to figure out if the "food" dies or not because the 2nd episode had Nick killing a bad guy with fangs to the neck, but got interrupted and the guy didn't turn into a vampire and didn't die. In the books a bite would immediately put poison into the blood and turn you into a vampire if the job wasn't finished. So, like I said, don't get too caught up in the details and take it for what it's worth. Total hot vampire guy solving crime and protecting "Bella" a lot. He also has a lot of the same qualities that Edward had, He can hear really well, he jumps and runs super fast, He can see things (Edward couldn't), he has the conflicting feelings of being a monster that Edward had and his personality if very similar. So, all in all, I think I am really diggin' the show. Who knows, maybe being cooped up in the house and spending a lot of time on the couch watching tv has tainted my view of the show especially in comparison to the books. If anyone else has seen the show I would love to know if I am way off base and if you haven't seen it yet, see it! :)
BTW Nate saw that there was now a show about vampires and just rolled his eyes at me. :)

ok total side note, Ethan is sitting on the desk next to me looking at the screen saver slide show on Nate's computer and there was a picture of me when I got my braces off and he said, " there's a picture of mommy with gum in her mouth when she talked normal." He is making comments on each picture as they come up and another one of me just came up and he said "mommy talking normal." Jordyn will sometime clench her teeth when she talkes to me and I'm trying to decide if she is making fun of me or trying out my form of communication. Out of the mouths of babes.............

Back to Life

Well, it is time to get back to life I suppose. This last week and a half have been pretty much unequivocally the crappiest of my life. Thank goodness for an awesome husband who takes such good care of me and for a sweeter than sweet Mother-in-law that also takes good care of me and props to some sweet drugs to get me through. My initial thought process in preparing for my recovery was that Nate's Mom would come and I would be all better and she would have nothing to do. Boy, was I ever delusional. Now, in complete fairness to my delusional state of mind I must say that surgeon was partly to blame for my delusions. He seemed to think that this surgery would be a lot easier on me than my previous lower jaw surgery. His line of thinking was that I would be able to open my mouth and move it around much sooner than when my lower jaw was done and he also thought there would be less swelling. Respectively he was correct about the lower jaw feeling much better and moving around. Last time I couldn't even open my mouth far enough to get an empty spoon in there and it was always feeling like it could just snap off from my skull and fall onto the ground at any moment. That is rather nice to not be feeling that this time I must say, however, the amount of swelling and pain far surpass what I felt last time. I finally feel like I don't look like some sort of deformed chipmunk now and pretty much resemble my former self. My upper lip is still pretty swollen and I can't quite get it to move like it should and there is a little bit of swelling left in my checks. I was feeling pretty good that I was able to get make-up on today. I had to try because we were going to look at a house with a Realtor.
Yep, you read it right, we went and looked at a house. I don't know if it will work out or not, but we would not only like to get into a bigger house but we would like to put in a swimming pool in the house we would want to live in for a very long time. We got drawn in by a 4711 sq ft house that needed some work. I spent nights awake dreaming of the renovations and how I would feel about moving the kids to a different school and ward. I asked the kids what they thought and they are totally excited at the thought. Emma said, cool I can make a whole bunch of new friends while keeping my old ones. What a stealer attitude. Jared doesn't give a flying rip nor do the 2 little ones. The thought of leaving my girls behind in my ward, I'm the 1st counselor in YW, makes my heart ache. I really love those girls and I'm having an absolute ball, on the other hand I am thrilled to get my kids into the Rio Rancho school district and there aren't really any bad Wards on this side of town, so we can't go too wrong there. I have spent nights dreaming of what I need to do to get this house ready to sell in a buyers market. The prospect is a bit scary with the amount of homes on the market, but I have a plan. My restless nights do produce results. We are going to sell our homes with only the help of a broker (I think that's what they are called). We will pay a flat fee for the paperwork of selling a house and then I will list the house with a selling agent bonus of a couple thousand dollars, and all my watching of Designed to Sell are going to pay off. I think that with the selling bonus to entice the foot traffic, maybe a website (Oh Shayla....) and my ability to properly stage the house, I don't think it should take too long and we can hopefully get what we want for the house. So all this planning and dreaming happened before I even stepped foot in the house. Anyway they are selling This bright pink monstrosity for practically nothing, however when we actually got to go inside and asses the amount of work we realized that it was not worth it. :( Everything in the house was crap! Every detail every everything total crap. So we decided to go see one of Nate's patients that builds houses and has been wanting to show us his model home and some plans. This builder and his wife were on a trip to CA looking for floor plans and immediately thought of us when they saw this particular floor plan. Long story short, we met with him yesterday (Friday) and I fell in love with his designs. We picked out a lot and we are going to meet with him next week to go over some designs to start the process. I didn't think that going the custom home route was going to be affordable with the prices of land being so expensive right now. But after we met with him and got a pretty good estimate of the cost of the house we want to build with him we came home and crunched the numbers and it will totally work. He showed us all of his "standard" features by going thru the 3 homes and what the price per square foot to build with those features are. His standards are amazing. Granite counter tops and awesome tile in bathrooms, the carpet the flooring the cabinets, light fixtures, faucet fixtures, all Bosch stainless steel appliances, the railing for the stairs, etc... I mean you name it and it's standard. Plus he includes the landscaping for the front and back yard and the fence. There should be no surprises when it comes to the final cost of the house. I don't really see a need to upgrade anything. I can actually afford my dream home. It will be on a half acre and he said that he would throw in the pool if we let him build the house. The market is pretty slow for the custom builders too right now. We got to walk through 3 of his houses and he does amazing detail work. I will actually have a pretty house. Very exciting. Anyway, that means I've got to get into the mode of getting my house ready to sell. It helps me keep my mind off how crappy I feel. I think I veered way off topic........anway.....Back to life.

Projects

I recently came to the conclusion that my happiness depends largely on my ability to have a project of some sort. I really love the creative process and the buying of the materials ( I should have included on my favorite list going to Lowes and Home Depot). I could just wander around for hours if I didn't have other things keeping me from doing that. Anyway, the bliss continues when I arrive home with all of my material to make my masterpiece and then a bit of panic creeps in when I realize how deep I got myself committed to my latest renovation. I am the kind of person that cannot stop in the middle of a project. I will go like crazy and about kill myself trying to complete my project in the shortest amount of time as possible. I blame this crazy obsession on my mother. Her quest for perfection left her with every project unfinished, so I have a must complete my task fervor that keeps me going until I'm done. The fact that my house gets completely torn apart compounded by the no time to clean up after the kids while I am working leaves me crazed. I can't stand it when my house is a mess. I also usually pick the most stressful times in my life to decide that I HAVE to do some sort of project. Like this week. I am having surgery on my Jaw next Tuesday and my week is literally filled with Drs appts and volunteering at school and YW and about a million other things and I decided that I had to put shelves in my playroom closet THIS WEEK. I know, I'm crazy, but there is always a good amount of logic to my craziness. You see, we are having this gynormous sectional delivered for the playroom around the beginning of October. This couch is going to take up the majority of the room upstairs so a complete overhaul of the playroom is required. Now, I couldn't be sure that I could take on such a massive project in the midst of my recovery and you now know that I cannot live in chaos with stuff everywhere to get the couch in there so........it had to be done! The couch I must say is 11 feet by 11 feet of microfiber reclining heaven! Yes, squishy let your body melt down in and form concrete reclining heaven! When the couch arrives I want to plop down on it with a couple of great movies and never get up. Anyone want to come and watch movies with me in October? Anyway I thought I would put up a picture of my closet and my girls rooms that I just did. I know that anyone that is reading this already saw the girls rooms, but it is part of my project craziness so I thought I would include it here.

The closet looks boring in comparison, but I look at it and it just makes breathing easier. I have wanted to put shelves in that closet since we decided to build the house and just never made it a priority. We had an inefficient storage system in there and still a lot of toys out in the room. I can put tons and tons of stuff in the closet now and it just makes me deeply happy. The girls rooms were more of a creative fun and a joy that I was able to give them something fun. Next I need to put shelves in the end of my oldest daughter's closet. Again something that no one will ever see, but the fact that everything can have a place to be brings on a sense of peace. OK now I have to get off to the million and a half things I should be doing right now. :)

Family Search Indexing

Just thought I would jot down a little something about my latest obsession. We had a YW night where a return Sister Missionary from Temple Square came and taught us about family history and the need the church has for indexing names. It looked fun and it was a good way for me to fill my time with some service and help others do their family history since I haven't started mine yet. Baby steps! Anyway I came home and signed up and downloaded the software and got rolling. My first batch of 50 names took the longest just because of the learning curve and trying to decipher handwriting. Most of them I can just roll through now and I can keep a pretty good rhythm when there is legible handwriting. I do slow down when I get drawn in by the potential story that is there. It ranges anywhere from girls getting married at 16 which most of those were black females to quite a few 30 year old single white males and females. Some families had all their adult kids in 20's and 30's still living at home and single. Some huge age differences again mostly in the black (I will not use African American because the race is technically black)race with 16 year old girls marrying 60 year old men. The census was also used to track number of children born to a mother and the number of living children. This one always gets me sad. There was almost always never the same amount born to living. One woman went from 11 to 3 and then there were quite a few couples that had been married for 20-30 years never having had any children. This last one I did was crazy. They were all immigrants from Japan to Montana or somewhere (I can't remember because I never had to type it). Anyway the "Head" of the household was a 26year old man and 49 other immigrants were "boarders" at the same address. There could have been more, but that was all that was on my page. That gets you wondering. The ages varied mostly in the teens and 20's with the occasional 50 year old. That gets the old imagination flowing wondering what they were doing there. Why such a large group had hooked up. Did they come over together, they must have because they all had only been in the states for 3 months, so what were there plans? What ended up happening to them? I also got to do some Land Warrants and Revolutionary War pensions from the 1700's and birth certificates from Salt Lake for 1900. The birth certificates fascinated me because a good portion of the births were done by a physician in a hospital and not as many were done by midwives in the home. I don't know when I thought the hospital birth was introduced, but I guess I didn't think it was in 1910.

So, does this have anyone interested? If so, go to http://www.familysearchindexing.com/ and sign up. The cool thing is is that anyone can do it and you don't have to worry about not being able to read the handwriting. You do the page of 50 names and someone else does that same page and then another person looks at the 2 and makes the final call, so there is really nothing to fear. I mean I guess you could get an email saying that you are so terrible at it that we want you to stop, but I'm not thinking it is possible to be that bad. I have indexed 718 names so far and I hope to make it to 1000 before my surgery. It is probably a long shot since my week is crazy busy, but I figure that I will aim high and see what happens. I figure with all 4 of the kids out of the house on Tues and Thurs morning it is a wise use of my time so that I don't take up shopping as a hobby. :)

A Very Ariel Birthday

Jordy just turned 3 on the 30th of August and I decided that this year we were just going to celebrate it as a family. Keep it small, keep it simple. Jordy is obsessed will all things Ariel and Hello Kitty. So we made the trip to good 'ole Wal Mart to pick out the cake. She saw Ariel and would think of nothing else so we put in the order. Well, my brain was apparently on feeding the cazillion family members that we have here so I ordered the 1/2 sheet cake. Holy huge for a family party. OOPS! The kids have had fun trying to devour the entire cake so not that terrible of a mistake. I had plans for cutting it up and delivering it to family members, but that required actual effort so....sorry! :) It was Nate's usual Thursday late night and so I decided to brave Chuck e Cheeze by myself. Jordy was talking about going all day and I wanted to have 1 celebration this year and not multipule ones like we usually end up doing, so we went with out Dad. It turned out fine and the kids had a ball. By the time we got home Dad was there and we opened presants and had cake.



Jordy lovingly looking at Ariel in this picture


Jordy all decked out in her Ariel dress and shoes, princess gloves and High School Musical microphone.
She wore this outfit for 2 days straight until the lace trim gave her a rash and the shoes made her feet bleed. She has to fight Emma and Ethan for the microphone because it has 2 of the High School Musical songs on it to sing along too. All in all I would say that this little princess had a pretty excellent birthday.

Crazy Dreams

Ok, here are my 3 most vividly crazy dreams. For whatever reason, my dreams are filled with celebrities. Sometimes I dream in tv show or movie format with these actors and sometimes they for whatever reason know me and are a part of my life in my dream. Like, my dream with Matthew Fox in it was in "Lost" format and I was running through a jungle trying to decide if I could trust him or not. The other style I only vaguely remember and most of the time they make no sense and like right now I know I had 3 dreams last week with actors or singers in it, but I can't remember who they were or what was going on in the dreams.

The 3 dreams all happened several months ago and fairly close to each other.
1st dream
I had apparently promised the lead singer of a band that I would sing with them. Who this was in my dream is hazy, but I can only assume that it was my crush. Anyway, the lead singer of Maroon 5, Adam, had heard of my talents and was trying to persuade me to sing with them instead. I of course was loving the attention and Adam was making a persuasive argument, but I knew that I wouldn't sing with him because of my commitment to the other group. The other guy witnessed our conversation and got in a huff thinking that I was going to go off with Adam. I had to tell him he was being a baby and that I always keep my commitments. Can't a girl feed her ego every once in a while? So, with that I ended up meeting up with Nate. We got in a car where I was driving and he was sitting sort of behind me and sort of beside me. I was horrifyingly pregnant in this dream for some strange reason and I turned to Nate and told him that I was going to die today because I had just had the best day of my life. I had received 2 of the best compliments that anyone could ever receive and 2 totally hot guys were fighting over me to sing with them. What else does a person need in life? So I reached behind me, sort of, and held Nate's hand and proceeded to tell him that I loved him and that I could not have asked for a better husband and friend and that I was going to be ok and he needed to find a mother for our children etc..... then we got hit by another car and we started spinning and I thought "well, this is it." The car just kept spinning and I was thinking "man, this dieing thing is taking for ever!" Then I woke up.

The 2nd one happened not too long after the 1st one. This one I was strapped in this shopping car/roller coaster type car that was in this vastly huge warehouse. There was one person per car and we were slowly moving along through this warehouse. I'm not sure why we were being sent to die assembly line style, but I decided to try and get out. I tried everything I could think of to get myself unstrapped from my seat. I was thinking it sure would be nice if Jack Bauer were to show up. After much struggle I finally succumbed to my fate after realizing that even if I could manage to unstrap myself I most certainly had no other way to escape. There were guards everywhere and for all I knew this warehouse was in the middle of nowhere. So I accepted my fate. I suddenly felt calm and reflected on the strangeness of knowing without a doubt that your life was over. While I was sitting there the lady in front of me turned around and was completely hysterical. She said that she had written a letter to her family and wondered if I would please get it to them for her. By this point we were getting closer to where the method of death was visible. It was a huge square piece of metal suspended from the ceiling which would then drop on the car containing the person and flatten them. I looked at the girl in front of me with bewilderment telling her that I was headed for the same fate as she. Duh! I didn't say duh, but I'm sure my expression did. She got this horrified look of shock on her face and returned to sobbing uncontrollably. Well, this made me feel like a huge pile of crap and I thought to myself that I didn't want my last moments on earth to be acting like a crap head. I found my heart and tapped on the girls shoulder and told her that I was mistaken and that I would be most happy to deliver the message to her family. I took the note from her gratitude and now Serene filled face and waited for my turn to die. I could now see in front of me people being squashed by the huge hammer like piece of metal and then the girl in front of me and then it came to my turn. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and then all went black and I felt this tingling that started at the top of my head and traveled down my body and then I was enveloped in warmth. It was a feeling that is almost indescribable. When I woke up the best way to describe what I felt was that I wasn't afraid to die. It wasn't a scary thing and the transition from life to death was actually a very pleasant one.

Ok, now a non death dream. I had decided that I wanted to play the guitar since I have a love/hate relationship with the piano. I really hate that I stopped playing and that I really need to just start from scratch and I just don't have the patients for that. So I decided to start with an instrument that I had to start from scratch legitimately and maybe I would be less hard on myself. Well, I bought a cheap guitar in case this was some short lived obsession of mine and started playing. Let me just say that the guitar is not easy. On the piano when you hit the key the piano obliges and makes the sound. On the guitar, however you have to meticulously place your bloody finger on the string just so and then strum with your other hand to hopefully get the right sound out of it. This process really didn't bother me as much as the actual sound of the cheap guitar. It was horrible. I hate that guitar and I want a real one! It makes me want to smash it against the wall so I have an excuse to buy a different guitar. So with these thoughts I drifted off to sleep. I for some reason had some sort of relationship with Keanu Reeves. I think we were some sort of friends. In this dream he was somewhere between Bill and Ted and the Lake House guy. Anyway, he came to me and told me that he bought me a new guitar. This made me confused because it was too expensive of a gift for a friend to give and I didn't know why he would buy me it in the first place. So I explain to him my discomfort and he proceeds to tell me about how he bought it and why he chose the one he did. He was rambling on about how the guitar matched his shirt and the lady that was selling him the guitar had some sort of attitude and he got mad at her. It sounded to me like he was the one being unreasonable and I told him so. He got a look on his face like I had betrayed him or slapped him or both. All this time he had never made a move to actually hand the guitar to me. I said to him "or not" referring to his bad behavior at the store and told him I had somewhere to go and to "have fun with my guitar because it looks so good with your shirt."

So, I think I have confirmed that I am crazy. At least my dreams are anyway.

Wonderful

Ok, so this blog this is kind of fun. It's kind of nice to have an out let for all the stuff rolling around in my brain. I have a couple of crazy dreams that I will blog about next time. I seem to be on a song kick right now, so I will roll with that.

I think that a lot of my feelings of isolation and loneliness stem from having a completely different upbringing than everyone else around me. Although, I do know a couple of "dark" people with no apparent reason for being such. so I guess my own theory is blown but, In my youth I lived a life of survival and suffering that has added an extra layer that the people around me just don't seam to have. Now I know that everyone feels lonely, in fact my favorite cd for knowing that I'm not alone in my loneliness is the "Nothing is Sound" disk by Switchfoot. Anyway, I don't often talk about what it was like for me growing up with 2 parents that were so busy hating each other that they barely noticed we were there. We had a few good years before everything fell to crap and I could no longer have friends over because I was ashamed of my drunk father and my crazy mother. The police visited our house often and my Dad spent time in jail more than one time for either domestic issues or driving while intoxicated. I lived a life of walking on egg shells and because I was the oldest I bore the responsibility of taking care of my 2 brothers and trying to shield them from the craziness. When my parents finally decided to go their separate ways My Mom got a scuzzy boyfriend and my Dad wouldn't let go of the relationship and I just wanted to run or spontaneously combust, but I knew I had nowhere to go and felt too big of a responsibility to my brothers.........My story sounds the same as anyone elses that went through a similar situation, I just find myself the sole one in my present circle of people. I am surrounded by people with solid upbringings, strong relationships with parents, basically so perfect that they had to go out looking for trouble. So, long and boring story short, this song basically sums up the feelings of my youth. It is called "Wonderful" by Everclear.

I close my eyes when I get too sad
I think thoughts that I know are bad
Close my eyes and I count to ten
Hope its over when I open them
I Want the things that I had before
Like a star wars poster on my bedroom door
I wish I could count to ten
Make everything be wonderful again

Hope my mom and I hope my dad
Will figure out why they get so mad
Hear them scream, I hear them fight
They say bad words that make me wanna cry
Close my eyes when I go to bed
And I dream of angels who make me smile
I feel better when I hear them say
Everything will be wonderful someday

Promises mean everything when youre little
And the worlds so big
I just dont understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
Tell me everything is wonderful now
Please dont tell me everything is wonderful

now I go to school and I run and play
I tell the kids that its all okay
I laugh aloud so my friends wont know
When the bell rings I just dont wanna go home
Go to my room and I close my eyes
I make believe that I have a new life
I dont believe you when you say
Everything will be wonderful someday

Promises mean everything when youre little
And the world is so big
I just dont understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
When you tell me everything is wonderful now
NoNo,
I dont wanna hear you tell me everything is wonderful now
NoNo,
I dont wanna hear you tell me everything is wonderful now
I dont wanna hear you say
That I will understand someday
No, no, no, no
I dont wanna hear you say
You both have grown in a different way
No, no, no, no
I dont wanna meet your friends
And I dont wanna start over again
I just want my life to be the same
Just like it used to be
Some days I hate everything
I hate everything
Everyone and everything
Please dont tell me everything is wonderful now...

When I hear this song and remember the feelings and thoughts I had while I was growing up. It was such a turbulent time and I would lay on my bed alone in my room wondering if my life would ever be normal or if I were destined to repeat history. I would day dream about what I thought the perfect life would be like and what kind of relationship I was going to have with my husband. I was determined to do it (life, marriage, kids etc) right and not follow the horrible example I witnessed. So, how does someone who spent their days dreaming of a different life and finding themselves standing in the midst of that dreamt life not fill fulfilled? Absolutely crazy! This is my greatest torment in life. I have all I ever wanted and wished for. I have now surpassed the length of time my parents were married by 2 years and my children have never witnessed one shred of what I witnessed. By all accounts, I'm doing it "right." I think I am probably painting myself in a horrible light of a deep dark state of depression and unhappiness. I am not, however, I am pretty mellow dramatic and as I stated, these are the thoughts that roll around in my head. I guess what I am really saying, is what is happiness? I do also live in fear of being too happy, like it will all be ripped away at any moment, so I have a hard time feeling comfortable with happiness. Blah, blah, blah.....Would someone just slap me already!?!

My point, is there one? :) Everything is wonderful now.

Perfect Situation

A few months ago I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom listening to my ipod while my 2 little ones were taking a bath. Ethan and Jordyn where having a blast splashing and screaming while I was sitting on the floor with a pounding headache wishing that I could be anywhere but there. Basically I was feeling sorry for myself that this is what my life was. A dirty bathroom that needed to be cleaned. 2 other children that still needed help with homework and their showers. Dirty dishes scattered all over the kitchen patiently waiting for me to get around to them and a husband that would get home just in time to kiss the kids goodnight after all the hard work was done. From my vantage point on the fluffy carpet on the floor I was directly in front of the garden tub with a square privacy glass window above. The light filled bathroom reflected off of the darkly backlit window making it look like a portal into another dimension. As I was sitting there in my ipod induced coma the song "Perfect Situation" by Weezer came on. So while I sat there I dreamt up this crazy little music video to match my mood.

First off here is the song...

"Perfect Situation"
What's the deal with my brain?
Why am I so obviously insane?
In a perfect situation
I let love down the drain.
There's the pitch, slow and straight.
All I have to do is swing
and I'm a hero, but I'm a zero.

Hungry nights, once again
Now it's getting unbelievable.
'Cause I could not have it better,
But I just can't get no play
From the girls, all around
As they search the night for someone to hold onto.
And I just pass through...

Singing...Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh.
Singing...Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh.

Get your hands off the girl,
Can't you see that she belongs to me?
And I don't appreciate this excess company.
Though I can't satisfy all the needs she has
And so she starts to wander...
Can you blame her?

Singing...Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh.
Singing...Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh.

Tell me there's a logic out there
.Leading me to better prepare
For the day that something really special might come.
Tell me there's some hope for me.
I don't wanna be lonely
For the rest of my days on the earth.
Oh..!!
[solo]
Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh
.Singing...Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhh oh. Ooohhhhhhhhhh.
Singing...Ooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

So, basically here is the video. Same setup, Mom on the floor of the bathroom while kids are taking a bath wondering how life came to be like this when she looks up and sees the portal. She knows she should be happy with her life, but wonders what it would be like to be single and free and crazy. She glimpses this world through the portal and decides to venture inside. She slowly enters and begins to see all that she thinks that she has been missing out on and thinks that it is fun...for a while. Then the song turns and she finds herself trying to see back through to the other side of the portal because she is beginning to realize that she made a mistake. She stands there looking between this "exciting" life and the one she left behind and suddenly the panic of what she has done has set in and she begins to run back to the portal. She stands there and takes one last look before she enters where she finds her kids still playing wildly in the tub. With a renewed sense of purpose and happiness she decides to join her kids in the fun and splashes around with them realizing that this is where her true joy is.

Every time I hear that song I am reminded of my little music video and have to laugh. My little music video obviously isn't a literal translation of the song, but definitely matches the mood and the jest. What is the deal with my brain? Why am I so obviously insane?

Eclipse of the Heart

Well, this is my very first blog ever. I'm still not sure how I feel about this. It feels a bit self absorbed and self important- pretentious. I wonder about the authenticity of it all when you know that people are reading your blog. Your true feelings about certain areas of your life have to be masked and only partially revealed in order to protect those in your life that would be mentioned in a sometimes unfavorable way. So, what really is the point in all of this. I think others loose a sense of censorship in order to produce good blog writing in their search for their 5 min of "fame." So, in all honesty this is not a diary of sorts, but more of a record of events in my life that I feel so inclined to share with whomever is bored enough to read this. :) Now that didn't sound pretentious at all, did it?

So.......I just finished reading the Twilight series and I have a few thoughts that have been rolling around in my brain that I thought I would jot down to see if I could do this "blog thing." This is a series of books about vampires and werewolves. There is the all important ingredient of a love triangle between the human, vampire and werewolf namely Bella, Edward and Jacob. These books are highly addictive and most definitely mind candy and oh so delicious. So, true confessions----I'm in love with a vampire. Yes, a completely fictitious character that kills people to suck their blood. Crazy, I know. Now let me just say that he comes from a family of "vegan" vampires. They quench their thirst of blood on animals instead of humans, but vampires they are still. Because I loved the books I decided to go to the book club about them last night. Let's just say that it was all the confirmation that I needed to convince myself that I am not crazy. YIKES! There was someone there that has been to 4 book signings and 2 book parties one of which had a "prom" that you could attend where you got your prom picture taken with a models for Edward and Jacob and she has all kinds of trinkets that are too much to go into detail about. This has become a true obsession for this girl. We of course had to go into deep discussion about whom we would choose if we were Bella and there were actually quite a few supporters of Jacob there. It made me feel kind of bad for being in love with Edward when presented with their case. Vampire- cold, hard, seductive, blood suckers, killer of humans, deceptive, manipulator etc...... Werewolf-- sole purpose for existence is to protect humans from vampires, warm, still human, could live a full life with kids blah blah blah. Essentially that by choosing Edward you were choosing Satan. I know, a real self esteem booster right there. I should tell you that my very own husband has this very theory himself. I really don't know what got into me, but the writer did an excellent job of character development and I feel like I really know these characters and that I would sooooo run off with a vampire. I have post book depression now and miss my Edward. Silly, very silly. This however brought me to my next hypothesis. I like to call it desperate housewife syndrome. Just like this girl at book club is obsessed with these books (to the nth degree) I kind of have a mild to moderate crush on a real life rock star person and a fictional character from a book. While I have never gone to extremes, only indulging in my daydreams, my TVO, and 1 concert. My excuse for my boarderline ridiculous behavior is that I am so in the trenches of a sometimes mundane drudgery where you are nigh unto invisible that sometimes your only pleasure comes from fantasy and you have little choice but to develop crushes on fictional and nonfictional people. I make sure to tell my husband about all of my crushes to keep myself in check and hopefully not developing crushes on real people that could return the affection. This of course makes my husband feel like I'm not in love with him because I fantasies about being with everyone but him. I guess I just feel like a moon has crossed over my heart leaving a dark shadow there incapable of happiness. Why can't I just love the life I'm living and recognize it for the true gift that it is and take comfort and joy from the knowledge that my husband would go to the depths of hell to retrieve me if he had to. Why can I not find solace in the path of rearing 4 beautiful, smart and loving children. Why do I escape to an alternate reality. I do know without a doubt that this alternate reality holds no true joy for me there and I would miss terribly what I have, yet I find comfort there to make it through the days sometimes. I know all the fixes for what I am afflicted with yet I make no move towards them.

So, here I sit with my Eclipse.