That’s about it.

I’ve been kinda lazy when it comes to writing here lately, although I’ve had PLENTY of time!  Work has been crazy slow the past few months.  Well, really just every other week.  Because of the way Semi-Monthly payrolls have been falling on my regular busy week for Bi-Weekly’s, I’ve ended up having on insanely busy week, then the next is totally dead.  I’ve had a lot of people say “that would be so nice” or comments about getting paid to do nothing, etc.  Well no, it’s not nice.  It drives me insane and I’ve been in almost a non-stop bad mood for the past month 1/2 LOL!  It just makes me grumpy when I have nothing to do and sit here literally doing NOTHING but trying to kill the time by playing on Facebook or whatever, which after a while gets annoying in itself because there’s really nothing entertaining.  If I didn’t feel guilty about it because of co-workers, I’d probably leave early every day of the slow week or literally not work at all.  I absolutely hate it.  So the way it’s been falling on top of the few clients we’ve lost because of the economy… well, it’s just been frustrating.  Anyway, it should kinda go back to normal after December, so I’m trying to be optimistic.  I’m actually looking FORWARD to 4th Quarter and processing W-2’s.  I miss the crazy hectic “stress of having tons of work” feeling.

It’s amazing how fast this year is going by… I can’t believe November is already half gone and before we know it, Christmas will be here.  “2010” seems just the strangest thing to me.  I remember entering “2000”, which of course was crazy for probably EVERYONE… but for some reason, 2010 seems like… I dunno… almost “futuristic”?  LOL  I don’t know how to describe it, but it’ll just seem weird.

So, I actually wrote the two above paragraphs over two days ago and never ended up having time to finish it, which is funny since I said how slow work has been, etc. and then in the middle of writing, I got slammed.  It’s a good thing though… one of my clients who left us to go to *another payroll company* (probably shouldn’t specify their name :P) ended up calling us this week and saying he wanted to come back.  He said “this has been hell”.  It was kinda nice, because he told me he had a whole new perspective of what I actually do and that he “didn’t know how good he had it ’til he left us”.  It was kind of nice to hear for once, just someone acknowledging that my job maybe isn’t as easy as it appears to be.  I’m glad to have him back, honestly, because he was one of my favorite clients, but it’ll take quite a bit of work to get him back to smoothly functioning since we’re about two months behind now.  Gotta catch up on those payrolls we missed for tax purposes, etc. and hopefully it’s running smoothly before I have to run W-2’s at the end of December. 

Well, I’m exhausted.  Physically, emotionally, inside and out… I feel exhausted.  It’s so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t lift my own body enough to walk, or like I could fall asleep at any given time if I wasn’t focusing on staying awake.  I have not been sleeping well the past few weeks and although it might not seem like being woken up 6, 7, 8, 9, maybe 10 times per night would be that harsh on your system… it is.  Every time I’m woken up, it takes me at least 15 minutes to fall back asleep, often times I’m woken up again right as I hit that tiny little point between awake and asleep.  Not quite awake and not QUITE asleep… and I’m woken up again.  That’s the most frustrating feeling of all.  Last night that happened about 4 times (being “woken” back up before I was even back asleep) and that’s AFTER being woken up at least 5 times before that, where I was fortunate enough to actually get back to sleep for a while before I woke up again.  I don’t know what time it was, because I didn’t look or even grab my phone for my alarm, I just jumped out of bed, grabbed my blanket, closed our bedroom door and went downstairs to the couch.  Sleeping on the couch is ok for a weekend nap, but my body doesn’t handle really trying to sleep on the couch very well.  It’s not quite long enough for me to completely stretch out and it’s too squishy for me to really get comfortable.  I think I ended up on the livingroom floor at least three times, then back on the couch, then into the kitchen for a drink of water at least three times, bathroom twice, back to the couch… I literally have no idea how much sleep I got last night, but today, I feel like “living dead”.  What a strange saying… “living dead”.  Well I totally get what it’s meant to portray now… because if you looked at me, you’d understand too.  I’m living.  I’m breathing and alive, but I don’t look or feel it.  I don’t know how much longer this will go on before I try to find the strongest sleeping pill and ear plugs that will just make me 100% unconscious at night.  I’ve been worried about trying sleeping pills thus far because every time I’ve taken any in the past, I always feel like I have a hangover the next morning.  I am going to go buy some ear plugs today though and we’ll see how that works out tonight.

I think I had more I wanted to write, but I’m kinda drawing a blank right now.  Maybe I’ll write later.

Birthday weekend

So, Monday was my 24th Birthday.  I think I can say it was one of my best birthdays for a while.  I just felt relaxed all weekend!

On Friday, Sheri brought in pizza and cheesecake for lunch, which I wasn’t expecting because we had all talked about it and since Becky wasn’t going to be here, I thought everyone had decided not to… anyway, so that was really cool.  When I got home from work, Bart almost immediately said “ok you can open your presents whenever you want to!”  I don’t think he’s EVER waited until my actual birthday to give me a present… he doesn’t have the patience to keep things secret!  LOL!  I love him though and it always makes me laugh that he can’t wait to give me my present.  He gave me a new coffee maker (SWEEEET!) and Wii Fit *Plus*!  I actually knew about the coffee maker because he had asked me a couple weeks prior if I wanted a new one… but I had NO idea about the Wii Fit and was SO excited (and yes, surprised! so he accomplished some surprise!)  I didn’t take a picture of the Wii Fit Plus, but here’s my new coffee maker (grinder included IN it!)

Grinding Coffee Maker!

On Saturday, Lisa, Zack and Xoe came over and we had pizza (yup, again!) and ice cream cake and played games (Pictionary was HILARIOUS and we played for hours).  Then on Sunday my family all got together at Heather and Christopher’s and had dinner.  Natalee also came down with her kids and went with us there.  Harmony made a SUPER yummy (and of course, as usual, super PRETTY) lemony kind of cake, which Lena got a BETTER picture of, but the picture I have will do for now. It was a lot of fun!  Heather and Christopher gave me a necklace with a little purple charm on it and little tag that said “Love”.  She said it was made by a woman who is currently trying to raise money for an attorney because the birth father of her youngest (adopted) son is trying to fight for custody.  It meant a lot and I really love it.  Sometimes I’m really bad at saying simple “Thank you” in person, but hopefully Heather especially knows how much she means to me and how much it means that she still acknowledges Dustin and acknowledges that he is still a very large part of me, forever.  Anyway, here is a picture of the necklace,  ice cream cake from Saturday and Harmony’s lemony one:

"Love"

Icecream Cake

Lemony goodness

I also received a present from Jimmy last week, which I thought was pretty impressive actually… He made it:

Teddy Bear

I took Monday off, since it was my birthday (and Mangrove gives your birthday PAID!)  It was nice to just sleep in on what would be a work day!  Bart made me breakfast then he went to Sandy to get his oil changed and stuff and I went to American Fork and Lisa and I went and had a pedicure and manicure.  It felt SO good!  I painted my toenails and fingernails purple  hehe.  Too bad flip-flop season is coming to an end and I can’t really wear them anymore without getting my feet wet and cold.  After that, Lisa and I went up to Sandy to have lunch with Bart, because he was stuck up there for hours because of miscommunication at Subaru… anyway, we went to this Italian place on 106th.  It was really good!  I can’t remember what it was called.  After lunch and getting back down to AF, Bart and I went to Firehouse and got both of our cars cleaned inside and out.  My car was SO disgusting, especially after driving through Washington, Oregon, Idaho AND Utah all in one weekend.  Ew, muddy!  It’s clean now, but of course now it’s raining.  lol.  It still feels nice to have the INSIDE cleaned.  Monday evening/night we spent the REST of the day with no phones!  Bart put mine and his cell phones on the kitchen table and we just hung out together, without phones.  It felt good!

Alright, one last thing for today.  Gram and Pop were visiting for a couple weeks and we were able to take a family picture.  My Mom posted it this morning, so now I have to share.  Of course this picture obviously is missing some people.  Bart, who basically refused to be in the picture and sat in the house.  Skylar (no idea where he really was), Addie and Sage.  I look like I’m scowling, but hey, it’s a pretty good picture considering all the people you have to make sit still at once!:

September 27, 2009

Seattle trip

I finally feel like updating a little on our trip this past weekend.  Like I said, we kinda made a last minute decision to drive up to Seattle to visit Heidi.  We left Thursday night, got there Friday morning and spent the whole day together, then got to hang out Saturday morning/early afternoon, then Heidi had to go to work around 2 and we kinda headed out after that.  Well, I say “kinda” because we took our sweet time driving around looking for a Denny’s, finally found one, then drove around looking for last minute “Bubble Tea” before we left Washington, so where we normally would have left around 2, I don’t think we left Seattle ’til around 4:30 or so.  haha.  It was a lot of fun.  It was a really good weekend FULL of almost non-stop laughing, good talks and all around quality time, just us four sisters.  It’s really the first time I recall (ever) having quality “sister” time with no kids, spouses, friends or parents.  It was very much needed and I feel like it brought us just a little closer.  At least for me, it really was a big reminder of how much I love my sisters.  Here are a couple random pictures from the trip:

Walk around the lake

I named him Charles

The lake

Addie removing her splint - I just love the face she's making!

My sisters playing Mario Kart (Lena royally LOSING)

I have no idea...

Deadman Pass - we didn't want to go there... (Or "Coffin Road")

La Grande = Hell. We don't have good fortune in this town.

The $97.00 baby deer. Lena got pulled over (because we stopped and took a picture of this deer) and got a ticket.

Idaho on the drive back to Utah - Ew snow.

My car hit 52000 miles on this trip! Still cute :)

Yay!

Harmony, Lena and I went to Seattle this weekend to hang out with Addie, even though it was only really for a day.  We left Thursday night and got there Friday morning, spent all day Friday and then half the day Saturday with her (she had to work at like 1) and then headed back.  I’ll have to post maybe tomorrow or something after I upload all my pictures from the weekend, then I can provide a full update, BUT… we went to Addie’s mall with her on Saturday and while we were there, I got to see the Miche bags (and shells) in person.  Seeing them online does them no justice, they’re SO cute!!!  It made me even more excited to get mine AND seeing the different shells in person… YAY!  This one was a shell I really wanted and had excluded because I wasn’t sure if it was too girly for me… however, seeing it in person this weekend, I discovered it has SKULLS on it!!! hehehe, now I DEFINITELY have to get it!!!  I didn’t notice the skulls before, just seeing it online.  Now that I’ve seen it in person, of course I notice them now.  Of course now that I know they’re there, I think it’s hilarious I didn’t notice them before… DUH!

Crystal shell

I did get my Miche bag though!  Dianna got it on Friday, but of course since I wasn’t here, I didn’t get it ’til this morning.  It’s SO CUTE!!!!!!!!  I may never need to buy another purse as long as I live, so I’m SAVING money!  (Right???)

The picture of the brown one is colored weird… it really is brown, although to me in that picture it looks yellow-y.  It’s not at all!

Even cooler – Heather read my previous blog and emailed me to inform me that she has a friend that sells Miche bags… and that her SISTER is the CREATOR of Miche bags!  How awesome is that?!  She should get an award for the smartest woman alive!

In Love

Yes, with a bag.  I can’t help it, but my co-worker showed me this bag a while ago after she attended a party with one of her friends.  She bought one and got it quickly.  Ever heard of a “Miche Bag”?  O.M.G.  I’m completely girly when it comes to this.  There can’t possibly be a better bag!  You can change the skin every day if you want, so it’s like having a different bag every day!  Yes, I ordered one.  *Sigh*  I couldn’t help it really, because the price was $59.95 for a bag and two skins, where I could EASILY spend $50.00 on ONE bag alone from a regular store.  There are tons of skins (or I believe they actually refer to them as “shells”) but these are the two I picked:

"Tiffany" shell

"Lydia" shell

Yeah… it’s ONE bag and you just take the “shells” off and you can change them!  The next ones I wanna get are:

"Brittany" shell

"Hannah" shell

"Darla" shell

There are so many more, but these were the ones I was trying to decide between today.  The “Hannah” one is actually the December special, so I’m gonna wait ’til then to get it.

It’s not very often that I’m a total “girly girl”, but every once in a while, particularly when it comes to bags, I am.

Only in America

Brittany posted a blog today that hit spot on with my feelings this morning.  First of all, it started when I left home this morning.  I was in the turning lane to turn left at the light near my house and a car, which was in the lane to go straight, swerved over and cut me off to turn left right as the light turned green.  Not only was that EXTREMELY rude, but really dangerous.  What if I hadn’t noticed them?  Yeah, if I had gone through the light at the speed I normally would have, they would have hit right into my passenger side door.  There is no where you HAVE to be that can be so important that you’d risk wrecking your car (therefore preventing you from getting to your destination all together.)  And I literally mean no where.  If your wife is in your passenger seat, in LABOR, you still have no reason to dangerously and rudely “push” someone out of your way.  Honestly if I was the person in the lane going straight and realized I wanted to turn left, I’d continue through the light in the lane I was in and make either make a U-turn as soon as I could, or simply go straight and use a different route to my destination.  Not that hard.

Brittany’s blog made me agree and think that it’s true… there really is not the type of respect that people used to see.  I almost said “the old days” and thought that seemed kinda silly because I’m only 24 years old and “the old days” wasn’t that long ago, but I realize that is exactly it.  It WASN’T that long ago, which proves how quickly it’s going downhill.  It wasn’t that long ago that you were still taught to open doors for other people.  I think most people think they only need to open doors for old ladies or people in a wheelchair, etc. which you absolutely SHOULD without question, but what’s wrong with opening a door for Joe Shmo, or simply whoever happens to be behind you?  The way I see it, if you get to the door first, you should automatically open the door for the people following you.  Why?  No reason.  There shouldn’t have to be a reason.  It’s just courteous.  A small sign that your parents raised you to respect people.  I don’t necessarily recall my parents sitting me down and making a written list of things you should and shouldn’t do.  I imagine everything I know and habits I’m used to doing all come from observation.  I don’t recall my parents sitting me down and saying “when you have kids someday, don’t hurt them”.  No, I’m pretty sure I just KNOW that because my parents didn’t hurt me.  My parents loved me and my siblings and I learned through observation.  You hug your children, not hit them.  You tickle them and make them laugh, not starve them and lock them in a basement.  The lack of respect and courtesy in this country and in the world maybe (I’m sure it’s a million times worse in the U.S. than anywhere else) goes all the way from not opening doors for people, to intentionally speeding up on the freeway so the person in the lane next to you with their turn signal on CANNOT get in front of you, to abusing your children and most likely causing them to grow up to do the same things.

How about the next time you’re in the grocery store checkout and the person behind you has less than half of the items you have, let them in front of you.  Or when you see a woman with a baby in a stroller, struggling to get through the doors at the mall, go out of your way to walk over to where she is and open the door for her.  If you’re across the parking lot loading your things into your car even… stop what you’re doing, cross the parking lot, and help her open the door.  I think people focus WAY too much on the “I’m way too busy” mentality.  You’re NOT too busy to open a door.  You ARE NOT too busy and in too much of a hurry to slow down a little and let the person on the freeway get in front of you.  You’re not too busy to say “Thank you, have a nice day!” to the person who served you your food at lunch, or rang you up at the checkout.  People SERVE us every single day, but people are too busy with their own lives and too focused on themselves to even let that person know that you appreciate them being there.  That gets me started on another thought… why is it that people look down at the people working at McDonalds or Wendy’s, but we sure as hell don’t complain that we can get food in less than two minutes BECAUSE that person is working there.  You look down on people that are “lower” on the food chain than you are.  Maybe you make more money than they do or you have nicer teeth or maybe you’re skinnier and prettier than the girl working at the McDonalds register, but have you ever appreciated the work that they do that makes it possible for you to run to lunch during work and get a meal in 5 minutes, allowing you to RUSH back to your busy day of work, but all you think about is how busy you are.  Do you realize THEY’RE busy?  That’s their “office” and they’re busting their ass to get you your food within 5 minutes so you don’t freak out and yell at them for slow service.  You know if you made that burger and fries yourself at home, it’d probably take at least half an hour, if not more?  Be grateful people.  If you have to sit at the drive-thru window for :heaven forbid: an extra FIVE minutes, I truly don’t think that you’re going to DIE of starvation or be so late for life that it gives you reason to yell at the person at the window and make them feel bad about themselves because you’re in too much of a hurry to appreciate the work they’re doing so that YOU can have your “fast” food.

What is WRONG with our country?  WHY are we called a “civilized” people, yet we treat each other like shit?  Yet the people living in Africa that live in huts and bushes and barely have enough to feed themselves… they are not civilized.  They’re not considered “civilized”, yet they treat their neighbors with love and respect, even to the point where they’d probably sacrifice the one piece of bread they have to give to the single mother next door.  THAT is “civilized”.  They greet each other and take the time to ask about your family (and really care about your response), but since they don’t have cars and big offices and fancy clothes… they’re not civilized.  WE are.  LOL

Just take a step back and open your eyes.  It really, truly does not matter how much of a hurry you’re in… you can still take a few extra seconds to let your ‘neighbor’ go before you, or take a few seconds to open the door for someone and let them pass through before you do.  Say “Thank you” to the next waiter/waitress or fast food employee that serves you and really make the effort to think about and realize what they do for you.  Don’t hurt your children when you’re frustrated with them.  Take the opportunity to teach them something about how to deal with frustration.  Your children learn from observation.  If you hurt them, they’re going to grow up thinking that’s how things are solved.  Just step back and take a few minutes to realize how lucky we all are to have the things we have and live in a “civilization” that allows us to be as rude and disrespectful as we WANT to be.  In some countries or back in the old days, if you treated people like that, you probably got beheaded.  Why don’t we just do that anymore?

I got an email today that I found humurous AND very true:

Only in America ……do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in America …..do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Only in America …..do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in America…..do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Only in America……do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in America …..do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

De-ja-vu

Harmony finally moved into her house!  She got keys on Friday, Saturday we went up to Sandy to try to help her get things together out of my parents house and went down to Santaquin to help a little (ok, I really wasn’t any help at all other than transporting her computer).  Then Sunday I went up to Sandy to get Harmony and David (and Jaxon) because they were stuck up there with an overheated jeep, and dropped Bart off at Zack’s on the way up there.   I’ll have to take a picture of her house next time I’m down in Santaquin.  It’s funny that after my entire family moved AWAY from Santaquin, seems like everyone is slowly migrating back down there.  I, for one, have no intention of ever moving back there.  I think Springville is probably the farthest south I’ll ever agree to live, unless it’s outside of Utah.  Anyway, her house is way adorable and I’m still way excited for her.  I think it’ll be good for her to be closer to friends (Lena and Janice in particular) and for David to be closer to cousins and of course C.S. Lewis Academy 😛 (Harmony has practically already put him on the waiting list!) I gotta share a quick picture of Harmony’s new baby, Jaxon:

Jaxon

After running Harmony from Sandy to Santaquin, I went back up to AF and we had dinner and hung out at Zack’s for a while.  When I got there, Bart informed me that we got a check in the mail (since a lot of our mail is still being forwarded to Zack’s) from Aflac with a check.  I was thinking “oh cool, spiffy”.  I truly had it set in my mind that we may get $50, $100, maybe even $200 from Aflac just to “help out”, since that’s what they’re always advertising… Aflac “helps out”.  What I WASN’T expecting was a check for $885.00 that pays for 2 of my medical bills in full and more than half of the third.  I now have the Anesthesiologist paid off completely, plus the Surgeon (plus the Dr. bills before, which Lisa kindly paid for me since it was only $91) and still have about $300 I can put toward IHC and after all that, I’ll only have maybe $300 left.  I TOTALLY was not expecting to have these bills paid off before the end of the year, but now I think it’s totally doable!  Way exciting.  I don’t feel nearly as stressed about it.

Oh some other happiness – I got an email update (which I do every couple months) from MyFico.com informing me that my credit score has increased 12 points since July :).  Woohoo!!!  I still have shit for credit though and only God knows how long it’ll take before it doesn’t look like a psycho person’s credit.  Ugh.  It drives me crazy.  If only there was a “Redo” button for specific parts of life, huh?

I feel like I’ve been working non-stop lately.  Working regular 8:30-5:00 every day, then going home to work on files for CT just seems like I haven’t had much time for anything fun.  Fun… Heh.  That brings me to my thought process of today.  For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I’m fairly sure I’m either about to go head on into a mid-life crisis, or a simple phase of wishful thinking.  Sometimes I’m sick of being “responsible”.  I’m sick of focusing on doing what “has to be done” to get through life… Car payment, mortgage, bills, work… work, work, bills, laundry, dishes, work, work… Everything is work.  I wanna have some fun.  I want to pierce my nose, but “can’t”, because it’s not allowed in the office.  I’m tired of feeling like I need to buy clothes to specifically cover my tattoos, because it’s not acceptable in the office.  I wanna go be ridiculous and get drunk and dance, but my first thought is “gotta be to work at 8:30 tomorrow morning!”  Why is work always my first thought?  Then again, without “work”, I wouldn’t have any of the things I have right now, but because of it, my life is slowly becoming more and more boring.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to spread depression and whine about how bored I am, because I make my own choices and I chose to be where I am now.  I choose to work, I choose to have the car I have, I chose the house I live in, I chose to own the things I won, therefore, I choose to work full time to take care of all those things.  I find myself OFTEN during my work day, thinking “I wanna go to the zoo” or “hiking sounds really fun right now” or go lay on the grass in the sun and read a book, or go to the art museum since it’s less than a mile away from me now, or go visit friends I haven’t seen in years.  I want to spend more time with my nieces and nephews.  I wanna go camping more, or go bungee jumping.  I’ve always wanted to go bungee jumping… never have.  I live in UTAH, yet I never go skiing or snowboarding.  I’ve never even SEEN a ski resort in person.  I could make a huge list of things I want to do, but it would just go on forever and make me more depressed about the things I don’t do.  There’s no point in making myself depressed because I CHOOSE to work as much as I do and that sacrifices the opportunities to just play all the time like some people do.  Maybe I’ve just mapped out my life to have success… not necessarily to have fun.  I should make a “Bucket List” LOL

Have you ever gone years and years without seeing or talking to someone, only to have them pop back into your life, even if it’s not in person.  What if that happens to be a person that was a HUGE part of your life years ago?  Someone who contributed to making you the person you are today.  Someone you would have willingly given your life to if things had worked out differently…  I can say from experience that it kinda messes with your mind.  I wish I had more control over my thoughts, but after last night, I’ve discovered I definitely do not.  I had very clear vivid (yet completely unrealistic and ridiculous) dreams last night of this person and woke up in one of those “can’t tell what’s real and what’s not” states.  It’s extremely frustrating that I’ve been thinking about it all day and can’t seem to ignore it.  Frustrating that I don’t even have THAT much control over my OWN mind.  You’d think that you kind of have physical control over your own thoughts, right?  SO wrong.  At least not “conscious” control.  Having even the briefest conversation with this person threw me for a loop… if you can even call it a conversation.  I’ll admit I think about him every once in a while… just in the sense of “I wonder how he’s doing” or just hoping that he’s happy and found someone to treat him well.  Now that it’s clear and presented to my face, part of me feels happy that he found that and part of me (the part that frustrates the hell out of me) finds myself missing him.  Yet, it’s not ME… it’s the “me” that I was 8-9-10 years ago.  I have no regrets about my choices and I completely love my life and who I’m with, but the illogical part of me can’t let go of that.  It’s completely true – at least for me – that you never forget your first love.  He absolutely was my first love.  My first everything.  I think in a lot of ways, he has stuck with me throughout the years even more than the father of my child.  Isn’t that even more insane?  Maybe it’s because he was literally the ONE guy that didn’t make me feel like shit about myself.  The one boyfriend I had as a teenager that I ever really felt loved me for who I was, not just getting in my pants.  I’ll admit that teenage girl was heartbroken when we were torn apart… and I felt like we were… torn apart.  It was painful to look at him… me being pregnant with someone elses baby… and not simply saying “I’m sorry” to him.  I’ll probably never really know, but I always felt like I hurt him so much.  I’ll never have the courage to ask though.  It isn’t relevant.  That’s why I’ll remind myself that I’m so glad he found someone to make him happy.  He has the most beautiful little family and I’m so happy that he didn’t end up the way half of our old friends did.  The past is a funny thing, isn’t it?  Can’t change it or go back, but you can’t ever get rid of it either.

Ah, so this Saturday is Lisa’s birthday (49th!  Muuuahaha) and we’re taking her to “Texas Roadhouse”.  I’ve never been there, but have only heard good things.  She’s been wanting to go since it opened too, so… hopefully it doesn’t disappoint!

Robin’s birthday is on Sunday (had the same problem last year of their birthday’s interferring with eachother’s!) and they’re going to the cabin Saturday night.  Depending on when we take Lisa to dinner and when we’re done, hopefully I can make it up there to hang out with her a bit to celebrate her birthday.  We’ll see how the weekend goes!

Taisha’s birthday is next Wednesday.  It’s INSANE how fast time goes by.  She’s going to be 18!  Geeeeeeez.  Can’t believe Nevaeh’s going to be 1 in December too.

Last night I went to the group meeting at LDS Social Services with Melissa.  I was nervous as hell… I’m always nervous going into that building, no matter how calm I try to make myself be.  I was even more nervous going into that room where I spent almost ever Tuesday evening during my pregnancy.  It brings up a lot of emotions to see young girls going through the exact thing that I did years ago.  I had to throw aside how it made me feel and focus on being there for Melissa.  She has every intention of keeping her baby and parenting him/her herself, but she doesn’t fully grasp the reality of what a baby brings.  I truly don’t see how she’ll do it without tremendous suffering on both her part and the baby’s, not to mention the risk she’s putting a child having the father that it does.  (Sorry, but that’s my view on it!)  Yet she doesn’t understand adoption either.  I do not want to pursuade her either way and refuse to be part of “making” her place her baby for adoption, but at the same time, I DO believe this baby would be better off with a stable and able family to take care of it.  She asked if I’d continue to go to the meetings with her.  They’re every Tuesday, so I may talk to my boss about just getting off early every Tuesday for a while.  All the girls there were asking me to bring in my pictures of Dustin next time, etc. and they referred to me as an “Adoption veteran”.  Come on, am I that old?! LOL  I still see Dustin as a baby, so  until someone actually makes me focus on the fact that he’s almost EIGHT years old, I still see him as the baby I had in my arms the minute he was born.  Maybe it will help for them to hear how it is for me, almost 8 years later.  At the same time, I really don’t feel like I’m “worthy” of having that placed on me.  I don’t feel like I’m a good example of that.  Especially right now, when I’m an emotional rollercoaster of psycho, constantly thinking about Melissa’s pregnancy and situation and the fact that I have NO control over what she chooses for herself and this baby.  I can’t even describe how that feels.  I am just scared to death for her.  I’m scared for her either way.  If she really does keep and parent this baby, I’m scared for her.  If she chooses adoption… I’m scared for her.  I would never WANT anyone, especially my life long best friend, to go through what I have, but I can honestly say that regardless of how much I’ve hurt throughout the past 8 years, I still do not regret my decision to place Dustin for adoption and 100% KNOW that it was the best thing for him.  Even if I don’t get the updates I was promised, I can still feel assured that he is completely taken care of, loved and doesn’t have to suffer through things I did.  Sometimes I still wonder how it’ll be in 10 or so years and wonder if he’ll really understand and believe my reasons.  I try not to get too caught up in that though.  Heh.

Anyway, this is definitely long enough and my hand hurts.  I might need to go see a Physical Therapist soon and ask their opinion on my progress.  Bleh.

Baby Steps

Today, I lifted my 44 oz. water mug with my right hand.  That might not sound that impressive, but I was very proud.  It hurts, but I can now physically DO it, whereas last week, I could not.  I’m slowly getting strength back in my hand and it’s really encouraging.  Even just last week at this time, I was feeling like I was doomed to have to go to the physical therapist and still REALLY didn’t want to.  I can make a fist now and almost use it fully, I think now I just need to focus on strengthening the muscles now.  It seems weird to talk about “muscles” in a hand just ’cause it’s such a small thing, but you don’t realize how much muscle you have in your hand until you have NONE!

Today Harmony and Brian closed on their house!!  I’m SO excited, it’s ridiculous.  I don’t know if I’m just way excited because I know how badly Harmony wants a place of her own, or more selfishly because she’ll be a lot closer to me now, or what, but I’m WAY excited.  I can’t wait until she gets keys and can officially move in!  *Hee*!

Short, pointless venting:  I’ve been working on deposit refund files for the company I used to work for (and sometimes do on the side work for them still) and to do this, I have to remote into their computer after hours to do the work.  Well, I’ve been doing it for the past few weeks, almost a month now and a couple times a week, I’ll be remoted in, working along, la de da and I get kicked out.  To be completely disconnected from the remote session means that someone else has logged in, even though they know I’m on there working!  Besides, who the hell is using the office computers after hours?  9:00, 10:00 even!  It’s just be-noxious.

Have you ever felt like life is just going WAY too fast?  Like you’re busy busy busy all day and then all of a sudden the day is over and you don’t even really think about it, but next thing you know the week is over, then the month, then the year.  Life just goes too fast.  When I was younger, I used to think that adults exaggerated that when they’d always say how short life was and how fast everything went… well it’s true.  I guess I started realizing that when Dustin was born… because you don’t realize how fast life is going until you’re watching someone you love so much grow so quickly, then you start noticing how fast everything else is going by.  Sometimes, if I let it, it actually depresses me.  I almost feel like I’m half dead.  Like I’ve accomplished almost nothing and I’ll be dead tomorrow.  I worry about what I’ll leave behind, what bills, what mess, who I haven’t talked to and the people I’m always telling myself I’ll call tomorrow, or I’ll see them later, ’cause I’m too busy… what’s even sadder is that although I realize this and OFTEN think about it, I still feel too busy to do anything about it, so I’ll end up dying with a whole bunch of things incomplete.  *Sigh*  My mom says I think too old.  I think about things that people my age shouldn’t be thinking about.  I don’t know if that comes from having a young pregnancy, because having a baby definitely opened my eyes to a LOT of things in my life… or if it’s because I’ve had to watch so many of my friends and close ones die around me, which only reminds me over and over how fragile life is and how quickly it goes.  I think we all *think* that we have plenty of time left… like yeah, I’d like to think I’ll live at least 60 more years, but truthfully, I could die tomorrow… and even if I don’t, 60 years isn’t very long at all.  That’s like… tomorrow.   Anyway, random thoughts… and I could go on forever.  I just feel old!  I don’t play enough!

Ok, my next rant:  Utah sucks at recycling.  It’s pretty much non-existant.  I guess I don’t know how it is in most states, but I think it’s ridiculous that you have to pay like $70 extra per year to have a recycle bin at your home.  Why is it EXTRA?  You should be given a DISCOUNT if you use it.  If it was free, more people would recycle.  Plain and simple.  I’m not saying giving a free recycling bin to everyone would resolve the world’s issues, but more people WOULD do it.  I know this because I would do it and I’m a person.  My co-worker has talked about it in the past too.  If it wasn’t so much extra, she’d do it.  She has a family to take care of and $70 is a lot of money.  If it was free, I’d recycle EVERYTHING I was able to recycle.  I don’t want to pay $70 extra per year to be ABLE to recycle.  If they don’t want to provide a free bin to every home, then I think they should make neighborhood recycle bins available.  How hard would it be to put a recycle dumpster at the end of the block or somewhere nearby that people can use?  Instead, we have to pile up our recyclable things and when we get time, drive 5-10 miles to dump it all in the closest one we can find, which I haven’t discovered yet for Springville… maybe Walmart?  Does Walmart even have one?  Our garage is basically full of boxes and paper and stuff because I can’t bring myself to just throw it in the trash and waste it.  *Sigh*  It’s just ridiculous.  I think I’m going to write to the mayor.  LOL

Eureka!

Meh, that was the first thing that popped into my head.

FINALLY, after literally at least a dozen attempts and redirects and being transferred here and there and everywhere… we have officially found out who holds our mortgage.  Funny thing is, I had called them a few days ago because I was directed there by someone else and the girl I talked to said she did NOT have us in her system and she couldn’t help me.  Funny.  Well we ARE in their system, got the new loan number, registered online and made the payment!  This is probably the latest we’ve ever made our rent, like ever.  I feel much better having it submitted and taken care of so I can stop worrying about it.  Phew.

Yesterday I discovered my other half lives in Iowa.  Marilee, who joined the birthmombuds forums a couple months ago, apparently is almost exactly like me.  LOL  We talked on MSN yesterday and discovered that all the things I thought were crazy about me, she’s the same way.  It just felt really cool talking to someone that didn’t think all my “weird” things, were that weird at all.  I love you Marilee!!!

I LOVE my new boss.  Don’t get me wrong, I totally love Kent as well and he was a great boss, but with all the changes that have taken place with the “new” company, I’ve been feeling very optimistic.  I talked to Bruce about some of my “issues” in the office and first of all, felt great that I felt comfortable talking to him about it and secondly, he addressed it almost immediately.  I guess for the first time, I actually feel like I’m wanted here in this company.  That sounds bad… but I mean, like they want ME, not just any person that’s willing to take the job.  Everyone’s replaceable and that’s just fact, but for the first time, I FEEL like I’m not.  It’s a good feeling, whether it’s just for my benefit or not.  I’m just feeling very optimstic about my future here, rather than wondering if I have one.

Ok, I have a follow-up appointment with the Doctor for my hand on the 14th.  At the last visit (about a week ago) he was really unhappy about the lack-of progress in movement and basically because I begged – gave me until the 14th and if there wasn’t improvement, I *had* to go to a physical therapist.  Well, I don’t know if there’s been much improvement.  I still can’t make a fist and it hurts pretty badly when I try.  Bart really thinks that it’s gotten a lot better and unfortunately I can’t really tell because it doesn’t FEEL like it, but he says when I’m trying to make a fist, I’m bending a lot further than I was before.  It made me feel a little more optimistic because I’ve kind of been concerned about it… ok not kind of… I’ve been REALLY freaked out about not being able to use my hand fully.  If I can’t make a fist by next Monday, I’m not even going to go to the appointment with the doctor, I’ll just make an appointment with a physical therapist.  I don’t like the idea of having to do physical therapy, but I won’t just let my hand be handicapped the rest of my life if I can do something to prevent/fix it.  Our Aflac agent has been SO great too… I filled out the paperwork necessary for the claim, which was REALLY simple and then he sent it all in for me and basically I just sit back and wait for a check.  lol.  If they need more information (or copies of the x-rays or what not) then that might come up, but other than that… nothin.  Too simple!!  It at least looks better, right??

Labor Day is Monday!  YAY!!! No work   We don’t even have any specific plans, but I’m excited for a long weekend.  It’s always nice to have an extra day off to sleep in :P.

Oh!  Jake and I went to see “Taking Woodstock” last weekend.  It was a hilariously weird movie, although we expected nothing less… afterall, it was WOODSTOCK!  Definitely not a movie for kids though LOL.  It was a lot of fun though and really nice to hang out with Jake, just us two.  Afterwards we went to ihop and hung out before I took him home.

This was his creation with the leftover food LOL.  I’ve named him “Phil”

Things have just been really good lately.  I feel good in general and I’m happy and excited that everything seems to be looking up and working out smoothly.

And I love Bart so much, I just wanna tell everyone! He’s so awesome and I just don’t want to imagine my life without him.  😀

Walking dead

We’ve been in our house for about a month 1/2 now and our first mortgage payment is due September 1st.  I made myself an assignment on Monday to figure out how we were supposed to go about paying it (online payment, over the phone, take a check in, etc.) Well, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker had sent us a billing statement and on that paper was their contact information, so I called.  Their 1-888 number provided a pre-recorded message that said “We are experiencing a high call volume at this time.  Please try back later” and disconnected.  I tried calling this number about 5 different times on Monday, trying to wait a good while in between attempts and continued receiving that message.  Tuesday as well.  I then looked up the local number for their office in Midvale (Murray?  I dunno, one of those “M” cities) and it was busy.  I was getting pretty frustrated at this point and even a little stressed.  Long story short, I finally discovered (by desperately asking the loan officer that helped us with the house) if she knew anything about it.  Just so happens that she has her mortgage through them as well and she hadn’t learned until a few days ago that Taylor, Bean & Whitaker no longer exists (basically).  So, we found out who are loan is now through and I called and we’re actually not active yet, so we CAN’T make our payment and I have to wait until we get a letter from them in the mail giving us our new loan account number.  *Sigh*  I didn’t know it’d be so hard to make a bank take our money :P.

Last night Bart and I went down to Santaquin and watched Kaitlyn’s soccer game (or, the last 20 minutes of it I should say).  It was HILARIOUS!  Watching 5-6 year olds chase after a ball in a big lump of kicking legs and flying arms is the funniest thing EVER!  I took a few pictures, but forgot to upload them last night.  I’ll add some here as soon as I do.  Most of the really good moments ended up too blurry in the pictures, but there were a few times that I was laughing to tears.  Anyway… very entertaining.  I’m looking forward to her future games.

I really haven’t been sleeping well lately and I don’t know why.  It’s been a couple weeks I think and this past week especially I’ve been noticing it even worse.  Like it’s catching up with me slowly and now I’m just tired ALL the time.  I feel like I’m a zombie (oh, hence the title of this entry).  I wake up probably 10+ times in the middle of the night and every time I wake up, it’s as if my brain never quieted to begin with and it just restarts right where it left off… 100 mph.  I think me not sleeping is contributing to me feeling not so great… like headaches, nauseous, etc.  I feel like I need to be heavily drugged and left alone in my bed for an entire week or something.  No matter what I do, I can’t sleep.  I’ve even stooped to trying those silly things like “sleep lotion” and “rub this on your wrists and inhale”.  I don’t think it made one bit of difference and I still feel the same.  I dunno… hopefully it stops soon.  I’m not sure what else I can do about it.  *Shrug*

I’m too tired to finish this.  I’ve seriously had it open for about an hour now.  LOL