Chunk

Ok, the other day, I watched “The Goonies” for the first time ever. Bart thought it was amazing that I’m 23 years old and I’d never seen “The Goonies”… so, I had to watch it. It was on TV, so we recorded it. I liked it! My absolute favorite part of the movie was the scene with Chunk confessing his “sins” to the bad guys who have basically kidnapped him. I was laughing so hard, I was crying… and still laugh when I think about it. LOL

Francis: Tell us everything! Everything!
Chunk: Everything. OK! I’ll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max’s toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog…

Chunk: When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out… But the worst thing I ever done – I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa – and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.

Christmas Time

It’s Christmas time, the gifts are wrapped
And piled beneath the tree
Yet every year there’s an absence
That is only felt by me.

I prepare the table for the feast
And bow my head in prayer
I try best to hide my grief
For the child that is not there.

We raise our glasses for a toast
To family and to friends
But all that I am wishing for
Is to hold you once again.

So amidst the Christmas joy
Is an emptiness I bear
An ever present heartache
For the child that is not there

And when I see children laugh
With that twinkle in their eyes
I cannot help but wonder
If you think of me sometimes

And when the day comes to an end
No grief can quite compare
To another Christmas yearning
For the child that is not there.

by Linda J Schiltt

Scrambled Egg

Well, I feel like one.

The past few weeks have been… scrambled.  Confusing.  Busy.  Frustrating.  I don’t even know if I can “fill in” everything between the last time I posted and now and I don’t know if I want to actually go into detail and talk about everything.  Just a recap, to get it out of my mind and into words.

It’s been almost a month since I wrote.  The second week of November (11th to be exact), a good friend of mine that I went to school with, committed suicide.  We were shocked, to say the least.  It will sound cliche, but no one had any idea things were as bad as they apparently were.  I knew that he had some problems after returning from Iraq, but other than that, I don’t think many of us could see it coming.  The funeral was probably the largest I’d ever been to.  I’m told the viewing was packed as well, with people lining up, literally around the block from the mortuary.  I didn’t go to the viewing.  I think I may be glad that I didn’t, because my last image I have of him is NOT him laying in a coffin.  Whether it’s a form of denial, I don’t know, but I don’t want that to be my last memory of him.  Anyway, that’s that.  I’m done talking about it.

That same weekend, Emily ended up in the hospital.  That’s too long of a story and it hurts to think/talk about, besides, I don’t know if she wants the imformation shared.  She lived, but barely.

Work has been insane, but still loving it.  I can’t believe the year is almost over and I’m getting ready for W-2’s in January *Deep breath*.  Hopefully it will go smoothly.  I plan for it to!

Last week Nick and his wife were visiting his family for the Thanksgiving break and we hung out together on Wednesday night.  I had tons of fun with them and discovered that his wife (Megan) and I have a TON in common.  Just as I thought things were great, Megan stormed out almost in tears and to make a long story short, apparently Bart informed her that his first impression of her was that she was a controlling bitch.  Woooonderful.  Unfortunately, this upset Megan so much that she didn’t give him the chance to complete what he had intended to say.  To be honest, none of us had a good first impression of her, but I think it was just surrounding circumstances that made it that way… BUT, after hanging out with her half the evening on Wednesday, we both quickly changed our opinion of her.  She’s NOT the person we got the impression she was and I was really looking forward to getting to know her.  Fortunately for me, she doesn’t hate ME because of what Bart said, which I appreciated… I hate when people hate someone for something their spouse/significant other did or said – we are separate people you know.  Anyway, I’m really hoping we can clear the air between them.  She and Nick are supposed to be moving up here sometime at the beginning of the year, which we were WAY excited about, but I hope she doesn’t still hate Bart :(.  We shall see…

We had a long break last week.  Bart and I both had Thursday and Friday off, so we got Wed. night, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Woooo it was nice!  We spent most of the time over at Zack’s and yesterday we worked on our safe, which is still sitting in Zack’s garage.  We should be able to paint it and have it ready next weekend.  I’m excited to bring it home and I know I’ll feel a lot better having somewhere safe to put my scrapbooks.

We got home around 10:30 last night and after getting messages from Sam, I checked my email where I found out that Emily is in the hospital, again.  Apparently (or as far as I’m understanding), she did not react well to a Lunesta pill that she took to help her go to sleep.  Fortunately, she was at Sam’s house when it happened, but Sam woke up in the middle of the night, thinking Emily needed another blanket and found her almost dead, lips purple and barely, barely breathing.  I don’t know much more right now, but Emily is still in the hospital and will be for at least the rest of today.  She’s lucky to be alive, especially after the episode a few weeks ago.  I’m going up right after work to see her though.  So of course today feels like it’s going slow.  Not to mention today IS slow (work wise) so that isn’t helping.  I wish I was busy.

Christmas is coming up, which means all the regular to-be-expected emotions of a birth mother come up as well.  Logically, I don’t think I could really understand why the lonely feeling is so much more significant around Christmas.  Maybe it’s because immediately after Christmas, is his birthday!  I don’t know.  I was stressing majorly about what to give him this year and Bart had a really great idea.  I’m knitting hats!  I’ve made him a hat and one for his brother as well.  I’m going to make scarves as well, but need Lisa to show me how to croche.  That should be interesting.  I still haven’t decided what to give him for his birthday and I prefer to send his Christmas and birthday presents at the same time (mostly so I don’t have to make two trips to the agency and then neither do his parents.)  I’m trying to remind myself not to be stressed – I still have a few weeks before Christmas!  I was proud of myself for making the hats though They’re cute!

Our “Birth mom Buds” group is doing a “Secret Sister” gift giving.  Names were picked at random and we basically get a stocking and give little treats and gifts for that person who’s name we get.  I got Coley!  I was SOOO excited, I literally squealed like a little girl.  It’s random picking, so it was just coincidence.  I’m SO happy!!!  I already basically have everything that I want to send ready, but I haven’t gotten a stocking yet!  Hopefully I can this week.

I’m not feeling well today.  I really haven’t been feeling that great for quite a while, but today, I just wish I could go back to bed.  My stomach is killing me and lets add killer, nauseating cramps on top of it!

How does she do it?!

So, I’m staying down at Lena’s house until Monday with the kids while she and Ryan are on their cruise to the bahamas (lucky!  psh)  I stopped on my way down last night and got my hair cut and highlighted.  I cut it shooort!  (Like almost chin length) but it feels so good to have it cut again.

I don’t know how Lena can get three kids ready for school every day (and still make it to work on time!)  Last night while we were getting ready for bed, Kaitlyn said “I bet you miss Bart.  I’ll sleep with you so you’re not lonely”.  LOL I was a bit lonely though!  I’m not used to sleeping alone.  I already miss Bart, so I think 5 nights apart will probably be good for us.  We got to bed around 10:30, then Kaitlyn was chattering about school and her mom’s cruise, then what her teacher was planning for what they were going to do for Valentines Day and then about what she’s learning in school, etc.  As tired as I was, I really was enjoying listening to her.  She LOVES school and it’s so adorable.  I don’t want to discourage her from talking about it.  Every few minutes or so, I’d say “ok, it’s time to close your eyes”… well, she responded with “ok they’re closed.  I can still talk with my eyes closed though”, so… I had to rephrase “Ok, you should try to fall asleep now”!  hahaha.  So, we didn’t get to SLEEP until at least 11:30.

I had to wake up at about 5:45 (I usually get up between 6:45-7:15, depending on my laziness) and Kaitlyn was snoring and practically laying on top of me.  hahaha.  So, I took a quick shower, got dressed (partially) threw moose in my hair and flund it around, woke up Jairus (I was very grateful that it was so easy to get him up), then got Kaitlyn in the bath while trying to do my hair and throw the rest of my clothes on, meanwhile going downstairs every ten minutes or so trying to get Jake out of bed… He kept saying he didn’t feel good (they kind of have all had colds and still have coughs) and that he didn’t want to go to school.  I was about to let him stay home, mostly because I was starting to stress that I’d be late for work, but I told him I wasn’t going to let him stay home because Lena would probably be upset at me.  He seemed to care enough about that so finally got out of bed at like 7:30 (I might mention here that his bus comes at like 7:15-7:20… so….) then Kaitlyn didn’t know where any of her clothes were, couldn’t find underwear, etc. etc. etc.  So, we were looking for her clothes, which for some reason seemed to be at all areas of the house (and Jairus was very helpful and got ready really fast, then was helping her find her clothes) and then had to get Kaitlyn breakfast.  I really love that they have uniforms for school.  It makes it a little easier to avoid the “I don’t wanna wear that today” “No not that” “I don’t know what I want to wear”… They basically have options between Navy blue, White and khaki.  Jairus has blue slacks and khaki slacks (wouldn’t be crazy enough to give a 12 year old WHITE pants) and and then polo type shirts in each color.  Kaitlyn has the same color options, but since she’s a girl, it just makes it funner.  She wore a white polo shirt with a navy clue, adorable, classing “school girl” jumper and white tights.  I guess they have to wear those colors for uniforms, but the funny thing is, they can wear any shoes they want… soooo… Kaitlyn insisted on wearing her bright pink sneakers.  Yeah.  Seriously though, I really do love the idea of uniforums because it almost completely eliminates kids making fun of other kids for their clothes or kids not fitting in and stuff.  If parents can’t afford fancy designer clothes or something, that’s not a problem because everyone wears the same thing!

Charter schools don’t serve school lunch, so they have to bring lunch every day.  Along with something for lunch, Kaitlyn has to have at least 2 snacks for herself during the day.  Lena has these little sticky notes on the fridge and instructed me that Kaitlyn is supposed to have one note from her and one from Ryan every day, so she puts them in her lunch box every day before school.  She looks forward to the notes and I think it’s a cute idea.  It reminds her that her parents love her and are thinking of her all day!  She wanted me to write her a note too, so I did.  lol.  I got them to their school (as well as the neighbor boys who Lena takes to school every morning and then their mom picks them all up at the end of the day) and then to Payson to drop Jake off at the Jr. High.  I’m surprised I wasn’t late for work!  It wasn’t too bad though… it only took about 20 minutes to get from Payson to AF.  The kids will be on their own between 3 and 6 ish, but I’m actually going to try to get off a little early and avoid a little bit of the traffic.

Yay, I get to do it all over again tomorrow! 

Happy Birthday (Better late than never?)

Yesterday was Kaitlyn’s birthday and I did try to post this yesterday, but had issues with the internet and it kept deleting it.  Anyway… we went down to their house to have cake and ice cream.  I can’t believe she’s already 6 years old.  It almost feels sad when I think about how fast life goes by.  I still see all my nephews and nieces as little kids, even the teenagers.  Why can’t they just stay babies?

2nd Birthday:

3 Years old:

5th Birthday:

6 Years old!

T.G.I.F

I always feel one of two things when I hear “T.G.I.F”  #1 being me in like… 5th grade?  My friends and I yelling that on our way out the door the second the ending bell would ring.  Then #2… T.G.I.Fridays… mmm they have really good Jack Daniels chicken.

I feel relieved that I lived through this week.  My final week of cleaning up the black sheep of my Quarterlies (finishing my LAST one yesterday at approximately 16:48 – 12 minutes before I leave work.  Talk about cutting it close.)  I went home after work yesterday and did a vigorous 45 minutes Turbo Jam and then I don’t even know how many crunches… I somehow had my mind a million miles away and then realized I had lost count probably 50+ crunches ago.  I dunno.  Washed the dishes, had dinner, went to bed.  Mostly. I’ve been feeling fairly dull lately.  In my mind.  I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I don’t like it.  It’s almost as if I just want to completely be alone, which seems strange considering how much I’m craving attention right now.  Is this my way of subconsciously protecting my feelings?  I want attention and I’m not getting it, so instead my mind reverts to convincing myself that I want to be alone. Sure, that makes sense.

I’m anxious for today to end.  I’m basically done with all work that needs to be done this week and now the remaining 3.5 hours of my work day very well may consist of me sitting at my desk, browsing through Sparkpeople recipes until I find something I can make with what I have in my fridge.  I’m leaning toward Lena’s “Italian Meatloaf”, mostly just because I’ve never made meatloaf before and I wanna feel cool.  I’m really trying to find some variety with dinner, because really I think we eat the same stuff all the time.  Basically.  I’ve discovered one thing, just by reading articles and then googling like crazy.  I think my problem with losing weight (or I guess the fact that I’m just not losing as QUICKLY as I should be – according to my doctor) is that we eat way too many “Empty carbs”.  Mostly consisting of white flour = ie. white bread, pasta, potatoes, white rice.  I’m gonna have to sit down and talk to Bart and hopefully he’ll be on board with me, because I don’t know if I could stick to it if he doesn’t.  I’m basically wanting to convert everything we eat to whole wheat.  Whole wheat bread (which I’m sure he won’t object to), whole wheat pasta (don’t think he’ll care TOO much) and brown rice instead of white.  That’s where the main problem is!  Bart LOVES white rice.  Sticky rice.  I don’t think brown rice is “sticky”.  We eat rice a lot, not to mention we still have like a 50+ lb. bag of it, so I don’t know about this.  I need to focus more on fruits and veggies and I would have no problem with it.  I love almost all fruit and really, really not too picky with veggies.  My problem is mostly that around this area, it’s kind of hard to get GOOD fruits and vegetables.  I should just grow a garden on my 5 foot patio.  Yeah, that’d be cool.  Or a house.  That’d be cooler.

I got a paper cut on my hand, in between my thumb and pointer finger… and it hurts.

I’ve been trying not to stress about Christmas coming up.  I realize that it’s still 2 months away, but I should have started Christmas shopping months ago.  I tend to get a little overly worried about getting Dustin a present.  I don’t like getting him toys or things that he’s going to grow out of or not need, etc. so I have a hard time thinking of things that I really want him to have.  I think I may have decided for this year (and this depends on how much it ends up being) but I want to get a puzzle done out of a picture.  What picture?  I don’t know yet.  I want to find a good book too, maybe something about Birth mother’s/birth son.  I want to get Shelton something as well, but it’s a little easier because I don’t need to be sentimental with him.  I just don’t want him to be left out.  Then Dustin’s birthday is only a couple weeks after Christmas, so I usually send both gifts together.  I haven’t made up my mind yet.  As for everyone else (family)… It’s money that I’m stressed about.  Blaaaah.  Maybe I should just admit defeat and tell everyone that I can’t afford Christmas this year and Dustin will be the only one that gets ANYTHING.  lol

So, I have to admit that I am fairly nervous about voting this year.  It’s only about a week 1/2 away and to be honest, my decision on who to vote for (McCain or Obama) has changed every week.  I still haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for because the simple fact is, I don’t like either of them at all!  I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons and figure out which one I dislike the least and maybe stick with that one.  The debates thus far have been almost comical and more than half the time I feel like I might as well be watching high school cheer leaders fight over who’s prettier, or a “he-said-she-said” bickering married couple.  Oh, I don’t know.  I feel like I need to vote, but I’m so stuck.  Maybe I will just vote for Joe Shmo so I can feel like I contributed, but won’t have a part in either of the whining babies being put into the office.  I better make a decision fast.  *Sigh*

Winding down

The past week or so has just been REALLY busy at work with Quarterlies and everything… I’ve had major issues with one company in particular, trying to balance UTSUI.  It’s a problem with our system preventing me from completing it, but it’s still driving me insane that it’s not done!

Yesterday was insane.  Of course it was “Busy Tuesday”, so yeah… Busy!  I’m worried that I’m not going to get my Quarterly bonus, because I discovered yesterday that I still have one company (excluding that one I just talked about) that I haven’t done.  How did I miss it?!?!  GRRR!  I’m trying not to stress about wondering whether I’ll get my bonus or not.  I think I’m just stressing because money has been so terrible lately.  Either way, things always work out.  Bart always tells me “it’ll work out.  It always does” and he’s always right.  So, why is it that I still allow myself to feel overwhelmed?  Heh.

So, last week I went up to my parents house and watched the kids (Jairus, Kaitlyn, Eli, David and Isaac) and it was really fun.  The kids were all super good all evening and played with each other nicely and everyone had fun.  My dad recently redid the deck in the back and added a SLIDE that the kids just love.  They played on it for HOURS until I finally made them come in so they didn’t freeze to death!  I got a LOT of good pictures and was way happy, but here are a few:

There were TONS more, but those are a few that I already had saved on the desktop.  haha.  Isaac didn’t want to go down the slide, but kept sitting at the top like he was going to and then he’d change his mind and turn around.  It was cute.

I’m going to Heather and Christopher’s tonight to play with the boys while they go to Home Depot or something… I really need to see the boys again!  Sometimes I can start to feel when it’s been too long and then once I can play with them for a bit, I cheer up.

I’ve really been feeling like I need a vacation lately.  I feel stressed and overwhelmed about everything right now.  I can’t even pin point each item of stress, it just feels like EVERYTHING.  I was really getting my hopes up to go to Seattle next month, but it’s impossible at this point.  I’m hoping we can get caught back up and things will be ok financially so I can plan to go in maybe February.

I’m going to stay at Lena’s November 6th thru the 10th while her and Ryan are on a cruise (going with Lena’s company) and I’m actually looking forward to it.  I’m not necessarily looking forward to driving from Santaquin to American Fork those days, but just the time away from the every day norm might be nice, plus, getting to spend time with the kids.  I feel like I never see them and I really don’t make it down there often enough.

Kaitlyn’s birthday is next Thursday!  She’ll be 6 years old.  Holy cow.  I always say it, but kids sure do grow fast :(.  I still have a hard time believing that Dustin will be 7 years old in January.  It’s just surreal.  *Sigh*

Ok, enough yapping.  Back to work.

Awesome weekend

I had a great weekend, starting Thursday night.  Bart got home a little later than usual (he told me he had to go to Zack’s) and when he got home, I discovered that he had gone over there because he had to wrap my birthday present(s).  He couldn’t take it very long though and ended up wanting me to open them almost right after dinner.  LOL!  He got me a Wii and Mario Kart!  hehehe.  I’ve wanted a Wii for quite a while and Mario Kart is one of (if not my most) favorite games.  It’s so much fun!

Friday night we just stayed home, had dinner together and played Wii almost all night.  LOL  Then Saturday we went to breakfast, played more all day, then went to dinner with Lisa to Olive Garden (now open in American Fork!!!)  Sunday, I discovered that in the Wii box, there was “Wii Sport!”  (I’m glad I didn’t throw the boxes away!)  It has baseball, tennis, golf, bowling and boxing.  It’s so fun!  I haven’t played the baseball yet and I really suck at he golf, but the others are fun!  Boxing is a bit of a work out too 😛  lol.

Yesterday we went to dinner at Heather and Christopher’s and it was a lot of fun.  My mom gave me a pair of earrings and a necklace from Lia Sophia and Lena gave me weighted gloves (YAY!) and some of her home made peach jam.  I “earned” weighted gloves in June when I hit my goal weight for that time, but never went and got them, so I’m really excited that she gave them to me and I’m gonna use them tonight!

Alright, well I better get busy on finishing my quarterlies.  I have to have them done and filed by at least next Monday!

Quarterlies ‘n Miscellaneous

Yes, it is that time of year again.  Quarterlies!  I’ve said it before, but I actually really like doing quarterlies, but I don’t really know why.  It gets way busy and hectic and scrambled and everyone in the office is often grumpy and snappy, but at the end of the day I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot and I’m working hard.  I like doing them!  I don’t, however, enjoy filing them.  *Sigh*  I don’t know why I hate filing so much.  I always have, for as long as I can remember (not just at this job).  It’s weird.  I’m looking forward to the quarterly bonus though, as usual :).

This week (Tuesday to be exact) was the start of “Biggest Loser Challenge #8”.  I was really disappointed and getting really down on myself for the lack of results throughout “BLC#7”, but since about 6 of those weeks were me with two cracked/broken ribs and I couldn’t even exercise, I’m going to start this challenge out fresh, stick to my work outs (and try my hardest not to hurt myself anywhere else) and I WILL hit my goal.  My goal for this 12 week challenge is to lose 15 lbs.  I think it’s more than do-able.  I’ve decided that in order to actually do my work out and not allow myself to get side tracked, I have to do it immediately when I get home from work and I have to lock my bedroom door.  For some reason, if it’s not locked, I don’t do a whole work out and I find myself slacking a little.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m self conscious and don’t want Bart to walk in or if it’s somehow a mental thing of being “locked” in there until I finish my work out!  Regardless… it works.  I don’t know why it works, but it does!  I just feel bad that I lock Bart out of his own bedroom 😛 lol.  I would so love to have a house and have my own work out room so I wouldn’t have to do that.

I’ve got a lot of work to do so I better get at it.

Milestones of a 7 year-old