The Happy Post

There are a LOT of things I've been happy about lately! I'm feeling the need to document them (more :)

1. THE WEATHER!! I can't tell you how much I'm adoring the weather! It's probably one of the biggest factors in my huge mood improvement, which is kind of surprising to me. It's been cloudy and windy the last few days and I STILL love it! I seriously need to live in a place with weather like this year round!

2. I can still sleep at night. I have many, many pregnant friends who are already having sleep problems. Most of them are due around the same time as me and they just can't get comfortable or the kid is moving in such a way that it prevents them from sleeping. This is not happening to me, for which I'm eternally grateful. His movements still aren't painful or uncomfortable either (unless he's playing with my belly button from the inside, which is another story). I'm still getting all the benefits of him moving around with few of the downsides!

3. I got TWO new pairs of maternity jeans from the huge tub of clothes given to me from the woman at church. Most of it doesn't fit and even more of it is dressy work type maternity clothes, which I really don't need, so I'm going to pass them on to someone who will benefit more from them. ALL of the maternity jeans I have were given to me, for which I'm also eternally grateful, since that has saved us SO much money! Most of them don't fit quite right, but get the job done and they were free, so no complaining here.

4. I had to take my wedding rings off a few weeks ago, but my Mom found one of my grandma's old rings that is big enough probably to get me through the end, so I don't have to go buy some cheapie ring either! I don't know how many people really understand how much I hated the idea of taking off my wedding rings but I didn't want to have them cut off later if I have too much swelling, so I did it anyway. I really don't want to look like I'm 17 and pregnant, so at least having a ring on shows I'm at least married.

5. This one is possibly the biggest and most exciting :)
Friday, we drove up to Alma and spent the night with my parents after Adam got off work. At the buttcrack of dawn Saturday morning, we got up and drove to Oklahoma City to SEE DAVE RAMSEY LIVE! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!! OKC and Nashville were the two closest events and the Nashville event was already sold out when I heard about them, but OKC wasn't. To make things even better, Adam found a coupon and we saved $25 on tickets! I love love love his books and the radio show and the live event was like combining all of them! It lasted 5 hours and he went over just about everything under the sun! SO motivating! We've started this business twice and then quit for no good reason, but now we're back on, this time for good. It's going to suck and be amazing all at the same time!

I am definitely enjoying the overall good mood. Pregnancy hormones see to it that it doesn't last every single second (I average crying over something once a day or so!) but I feel like I'm so much better off than I've been the last four or five months. I hope the trend continues the closer we get to May!

Things I've Discovered About Pregnancy

The last time I posted, I thought pregnancy would NEVER get any better...but surprise! It has! It is by no means my favorite cup of tea; I'm never going to be one of those women who could be pregnant all the time. I still have plenty of crappy symptoms, but I've happily traded in the nausea and vomiting for a killer backache (in ONE spot where my hip and spine meet) and MIND NUMBING FATIGUE. I'll take the backache and the fatigue over the nausea and vomiting ANY day! :)

A few other nifty discoveries:

*Standing up straight means I can no longer see my feet!
*I outgrew Adam's jeans. I knew I'd outgrow mine and I swear that I don't think of Adam as the size of a pregnant woman (I love you honey!) but it never occurred to me that I'd outgrow HIS jeans! Wow!
*Those stretchy bands on maternity jeans are SO worth it! Those and yoga pants!!
* I'm not complaining about my waistline though, since it's now rounded out and I FINALLY look pregnant, instead of like I'm having an affair with Ben and Jerry's!
*I can technically snap my own shoes, but it's much more convenient for Adam to snap my shoes for me. It's kindergarten all over again!
* You should never tell a pregnant woman who could technically be feeling her kid moving around that when she does eventually feel said kid that she'll wish she didn't. That was seriously the most annoying thing people told me! I'm FINALLY feeling him move around and despite when he plays with my belly button (Trippy, people! TRIPPY!) I LOVE LOVE LOVE feeling him moving around. It's kind of familiar in an other-worldly kind of way (it'll never make sense if I attempt explaining it) and it's so entertaining! Too bad you can't feel them from the very beginning.
*I took my wedding rings off Sunday morning and you can still see the indention where they were. Adam also suspects that my feet are swelling. My obsession with salty food must now end. :(
*Cooking or baking feels like running a marathon now. We all know I suck at doing anything productive in the kitchen, but now it's exhausting too!

I could probably go on more, but I think I'll leave it at this for now. Maybe I should start updating more frequently, since that seems more of a possibility than it has. Part of me feels bad that I haven't documented more of my pregnancy, but at the same time, I promised myself I wouldn't use the blog for whining, so I just decided not to say anything at all. I can say that I love this kid and I can't wait for him to get here (well, when I'm not busy being terrified of having a newborn, hahahaha!)

Hurry up May!! :-D

Sunshine and Roses

I feel really bad about never updating this blog. I have a list of blogs that I follow regularly, and it drives me up a freaking wall when people don't update. One person hasn't updated her blog in 18 months! Why even have a blog?! Now, I'm one of those people who never updates!

It's been really hard coming to terms with the fact that pregnancy isn't all sunshine and roses for everyone. I assumed that since I wanted it so badly, and waited so long, that I would automatically love it. I've watched people get pregnant and have no idea what loss feels like; I've watched them take it all for granted and complain until the world looked level. I swore every which way that I would never, EVER be one of those people. An Infertile just knows not to take it for granted, and I generally consider myself to be of the Infertile frame of mind, even though I've never participated in the (huge) blogosphere there is for infertility. I knew that when it was finally my turn (this is yet something else that I still feel guilty about, but that's an entirely separate post), I would enjoy every second and it would be perfect and I would be different.

It's not. I feel like I'm just like the average pregnant woman, taking everything for granted (nothing like compounding the guilt, eh?) because I just want to scream that pregnancy sucks! My nausea not only didn't go away in the 2nd trimester (which has sometimes been referred to as the 'honeymoon' trimester--I'm assuming by some academic somewhere who's never experienced this before), but it's gotten worse!! I am nauseous all the freaking time!! I've vomited more in the last 5 weeks than I did in the entire first 13! It's supposed to be going the other direction! :( Food aversions are a touchy subject. The kitchen is the ground zero of WWIII every single day, when--no matter how full of food it may be--there is nothing that sounds good and I don't know what to eat. My stomach has felt like I've been doing crunches and sit-ups indefinitely for four weeks now and I can't even feel chicken nugget moving around in there to boot!

There is more, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that I am not turning out to be one of those women who just loves every second of pregnancy, and this has been a huge shock to my super naive system. I now know that while they still may take everything for granted, all those women who complained before have been way more justified than I ever imagined and I really need to cut them some slack. I am grateful, I really am. I've just been having such a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that this is for real that I don't know how to feel it or express it and it's been easier not to write anything than to be even more whiny than I already am.

I've heard that your pregnancy will be similar to your mother's, and my mom told me she didn't feel any relief until her 5th month, so if mine is similar in that regard, relief should be on the horizon. They said the 2nd trimester would be better, so I held out. Now I'm holding out for the next few weeks to see if I'm like my mom or if it seems that this will be how it is until May. I just don't know how anything is going to go and I don't like the limbo. If I can think of anything intelligent to say and save enough energy to actually post it, I might start posting more again, but that's just another wait and see situation.

Coming in 2011--The Grand Reveal

Wow, I didn't realize that I didn't make a single post in October! Poor October--usually it's one of my favorite months, but I'm guessing surely most of you have figured out the reason for the blogging hiatus.

If you didn't, here's a clue:



If that doesn't help, maybe this will:)

To say we were caught off guard is in the running for the understatement of the year. It's kind of hard to get pregnant if you don't ovulate, and ovulation has never been a specialty of mine. Not to mention that I haven't taken thyroid medication since April (until August! I am taking it now!) I was on all my medication perfectly the last time this happened and tater tot never even had a heartbeat, so to say I was pessimistic about this going anywhere is also in the running for the year's understatement.

Right now, everything is swirling. I can think of about a bajillion women I think deserve this more than me and I'm struggling with the obnoxious fact that life is indeed not fair. It's not fair that they have to wait for their baby when I thought I was going to have to wait much longer than I actually did. Why can't it happen for them the same way it happened for me? My hormones are all over the map and Adam has been a champ about it all. He takes such wonderful care of me that I can't complain for a second! He should be in the running for the husband of the year! :)

So, now that the secret is out, hopefully the end of the year will see some more regular blogging again! I kind of miss it!

The Great Trek Out West--Part 1

It's time I finally updated the blog with my recent trip to Utah and back. I am super lucky I got to go and SO very grateful!


My brother got his mission call back in May and for whatever reason, wasn't called to go into the MTC until August. It very unfortunately fell on the day before the first day of school, which is inconvenient, given that my Mom is a teacher and my Dad is a school bus driver. I tried to convince them Mark and I could drive out ourselves and that I'd be okay on my way back through, but they weren't having it. We ended up compromising on Dad missing the first two days of school and the 3 of us going together.

Mark scheduled his farewell a week ago Sunday, the 15th and we scheduled ourselves to leave bright and early Monday morning, the 16th. Everybody had a blast and a half at his "wild" farewell party and he hugged every Mormon girl in Crawford county, I'm pretty sure. I would be uploading the photographic evidence, except I unfortunately left my camera at my friend's house in SLC and she's mailing it back to me, so no pictures now :'( SAD DAY!

We got up at 6:00, since Mom had to for teacher in-service stuff anyway. In true Neely fashion, we were running about an hour late by the time we frantically got on the road. We had planned on taking my Mom's Focus, but she heard some funny sounds on Friday afternoon, and by Sunday afternoon, we decided to take the F-150 instead. SAD DAY AGAIN! I'm familiar with the Focus and it's of a similar size as Frances, but the F-150 is NOT! That pretty much stunk, because I was crazy nervous about driving that gigantic behemoth! :( Dad drove through Tulsa and somewhere in between Tulsa and Witchita, Mark took over and drove through Witchita and then some. Out in the sticks of Kansas, I took over and drove through the rest of Kansas and some of Nebraska. I can't tell you how much I love the out-in-the-sticks-USA! I have sworn I will never drive in a city bigger than Little Rock, and this trip totall reaffirmed that. Dealing with that dumb truck was enough; throwing in traffic would have been system overload for me. Mark and Dad split the rest of the driving. Our goal was to make it to Cheyenne, Wyoming, which would put us about 6 hours from SLC, which seemed perfect to me. The day had been completely (wonderfully) uneventful thus far, but when we got to Cheyenne, we discovered that every.single.hotel. in the freaking city was booked. Every.last.one.of.them. Lovely. We ended up driving another 45 miles to Laramie and squeaked into one of the last open hotels, an hour later and MUCH more tired than we planned on.

Tuesday morning, we got up and hit the road as early as possible and still ended up being half an hour later than we wanted to be. Mark drove out and I drooled over the scenery (even though I've since been told there's nothing there) I am TOTALLY in love with the Cheyenne/Laramie area now! Rawlins is not quite the half way point through Wyoming, so I took over there and drove all the way into Lyman, with the farther I got the worse the drive got. I had to deal with construction zones AND a few cities with traffic enough to make me nervous. I was FRAZZLED by the end and Mark was NOT helping at all. The day got progressively worse for me, starting with the driving in western Wyoming. We stopped at Lyman in particular, because that is the very first teaching job my Mom got, waaaaaayyy back in 1983! We ate at Taco Time, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, so all told Mom about it when we got to talk to her after school. She ate there herself, back in the day, which I thought was pretty cool. I also never realized what a hole in the wall Lyman was; for some reason I thought it was much bigger than it really is. Mark drove from Lyman all the way into SLC; looking back on it, he really should have given in to Dad just before we got into town, but oh well! Too late now! Mark didn't know how the streets work in SLC and we were looking for this clothing place one of his friends went to a few months ago. I had no idea they didn't know where the place even was! We ended up driving in circles around Temple Square for the large part of an hour until we accidentally found the place. My nerves were shot by this point. I was SO over the construction and traffic of Temple Square and SLC in general and ready to leave just about as soon as we'd gotten into town. I called my friend, frazzled, tried desperately to get her to where we were, which was its own adventure. Finally, she found us and I tried to come up with a plan for the rest of the day. I had made plans previously, but they were shattered into smithereens, when (in Kansas) I realized I forgot my temple bag, which contained...my temple recommend (I contemplated not telling you, because seriously...I am probably the only Arkansasan Mormon moron who goes all the way out to Utah without a temple recommend; at least I can say I've eaten my humble pie for the day...). I thought the plan had been to go visit our aunt who lives in Riverton Tuesday afternoon/evening, but by the time we got Mark and Dad a hotel (another detail I thought had been worked out, which hadn't...) we made plans to go out to eat and then try to magically get me into the SLC temple and do a session. Then my friend's husband pointed out we wouldn't have time to do both, so Mark and Dad chose to go on and do the session. I chose to go out to eat with my friends (I thought they would go to the temple with us, but forgot to ask beforehand, which adds ANOTHER detail I thought was worked out, but wasn't; this one was my own fault too! Oooops!) Mark guilted me about not going to the temple with him and I cried, but still went out to eat, since I was too embarrassed to admit I'd forgotten my recommend. I discovered In N Out Burgers are a small slice of fast food heaven.What I wouldn't give to have had one of those for dinner tonight. I also discovered the large slice of heaven that is named IKEA; my only complaint is that there isn't enough time in the day to explore it all.

Everything in Utah is...so...Mormon. I know this comes as shock to most of you, but even trying to prepare myself for the Mormonness, I was still shocked. The entire trip, I felt like country mouse in the big city....very slow and southern. I got a huge kick out of seeing a guy sitting down at In N Out and his garment band showing over the top of his khakis; that's not a sight you'll see in Arkansas anytime soon! It drives me up a wall that Draper, Oquirrh Mountain and Jordan River temples can all be seen from the interstate (we just want one! Why is that so much to ask!?!) Utah drivers have rightfully earned the title of "Utard" because they are the worst drivers I've ever seen. I know I haven't seen it all, but that just makes me more afraid to see any drivers worse than the Utards.

I think I will leave Wednesday and beyond for a second post after all. I hadn't planned on doing so, but it looks like I really should have!

Hello August

It's August now! Can you believe that? I both can and can't. It's not quite the October I was looking for, but it's hard to believe it's already been six months since the $5 footlong insanity (I don't think I ever told you about ALL the craziness)

August should be a really fun month! Lots of birthdays (including Adam's!!) a few anniversaries (both of our parents), and my last day of work. Mark is leaving for the MTC and I get to go with him! I am so excited! I haven't been to Utah since I was 12; there is a LOT I remember but I there is even more that will be completely different as an adult now. Mark will be gone--for good (two good years, anyway :-p ) It's both crazy and exciting.

Adam and I began August perfectly. We were almost late for church, but made fabulous time. Primary was pretty good for both of us (probably better for me than him, but I have 5 year olds and 4 of them at that. No such luck for Adam) After church, we came home, watched a race and took a three hour nap! I didn't mean for it to be three straight hours, but I definitely enjoyed every one of them. After the nap, we got up and cleaned frantically* before one of our home teachers and his wife came over to bring us cookies (thanks guys!) After they left, we cleaned for real** and then Adam fixed mac and cheese. This is fairly ordinary in itself, but we ate dinner at our new table and chairs (oh yeah--we found a full set and it's beautiful. That should have been in m y photo update, but I just realized I don't have any pictures yet). I cannot tell you how blissful it was to be normal and eat dinner at the table, just the two of us. I could totally get used to this. After dinner, we sat on the couch, where I proceeded to knit and Adam started a game on the Wii. I could totally get used to this! It really has been a fabulous day for us!

I keep joking that with all the heat and humidity, I vote that we go straight to October and stay there for a while, but so far it hasn't happened yet. I can't wait until everything is settled and we are making more progress. Less heat and humidity will just be a bonus.

I can't wait to see what you have in store for us, August!




*frantically cleaning--throwing everything on our bed and shutting the door
**cleaning for real--trying to figure out where it all goes

5 Things That Make Me Happy

The inspiration for the post came to me a few weeks ago, but I'm only now getting around to it. I was thinking back on the last time I made the blog into a wordle, and how most of it was sad. I decided I would have to make a lot of posts with a happy theme in order to get the whole wordle to change, so this is one step.


5 Things That Make me Happy (in no particular order):

1. Frances Marie--my baby is such a wonderful car. I am grateful for her every single day. She is the cutest, most functional thing I own.
2. Scriptures--I printed off a chart and I'm keeping up with reading the entire Standard Works. I hope to have read the entire Bible by the end of the year (we'll see!)
3. The internet--I'm horribly addicted :( I love finding new information and quirky cute websites
4. My phone--It's my lifeline. I don't use it for the internet (though I technically can) but it connects me to everyone. When we switched to pre-paid, I tried going with the 1k minutes, messages and MB plan first, just to see if I could do it. I didn't use any of the internet and I was even within the 1k messages, but I blew through one thousand minutes in about two weeks. I am undeniably my Irish father's daughter.
5. The radio-- I can't live without music in some form or fashion. Losing my hearing is going to suck!

In the unpredictable future, I will do variations on the theme. It should be a nice little change :)

Choices

I am still feeling down. Ugh. It's nothing specific, life is just blah right now. Bah. I shouldn't complain.


Has anyone else ever made plans only to change them at the last minute?? I have been planning on going to my friend's wedding for months now. I haven't seen her since I moved away at the end of 7th grade. She was my BEST friend EVER. We took piano lessons from the same teacher. I conned her into starting quiz bowl with me. We planned everything together. Then my family moved away and I didn't hear from her for YEARS until I randomly found her on Facebook (go Facebook!). I was so excited to hear she got engaged last year and we wrote back and forth a few times; in the last message, she promised a wedding invitation and I've set the date aside ever since.

This morning, however, a friend from church called and asked if I was up for babysitting her kids. I L-O-V-E her kids and jump at the chance to watch them whenever I can. Queue indecisiveness here! Adam and I are in the middle of a little tiff (which probably explains while I'm still feeling down). I am truly excited for my friend, but I am in no mood to go to a wedding. When we DO ever get to see each other again, I expect there will be lots of picture taking and I am NOT in the mood for picture taking. I am bloated and pimply (tangent: I think the Slimfast is working. ONE pound!) and feeling reeeeeallllly ugly right now. It is stupid, but I feel like I'd uglify her wedding. The reason the friend from church asked me to watch her kids is because her husband is going to the temple, with or without her. I know he's in sales and does a lot of traveling and has a pretty hectic schedule, so I got the impression that him going to the temple is a big deal. (Well, let's face it, we're in Arkansas; ANYONE going to the temple is a big deal because it's such an event to get everything aligned) Me watching her kids is enabling her to go with him and I know she's excited about that.

The whole point of this post is to ramble about my feelings of complete and utter indecisiveness. The plan was originally the wedding, but I just don't see me going. Right this minute, I don't see me doing ANYTHING though. Have you ever visualized your plans? That is not working for me. Maybe it's a stupor of thought or something. Both events are a big deal. So why has it been so hard to pick one over the other? I am glad to help one friend; I hope I don't disappoint the other.

I guess we will see how tomorrow goes?

Feeling Down

I had the realization a few days ago that I only ever feel the urge to post when I'm feeling depressed. No wonder nobody reads this blog! I wouldn't read this blog! :-p


I am feeling down now, thus the post. I thought I had friends who would be there for me, and I've recently discovered that they're not. It's not a pleasant feeling to find that you're not needed or missed. I'm feeling awfully isolated right now.


Adam and I had the chance to go to the temple with my parents last week, and we even decided to drag along his mom, which was nice. It was SO nice to FINALLY go. I don't know when we would have gotten to go this year, if it hadn't been for them. I was a little let down when I didn't get any specific direction for some problems on my mind. It feels like I've been placed on a spiritual hold. I guess that just means I'll have to go back again :)

And in exciting news, my parents loaned me their Wii for the next several months. My mom is hoping it will help me lose some weight, which was why I asked for it in the first place :) I'm also trying Slimfast. I figure it's worth a shot, and it will be beyond exciting to say that I've lost weight (any weight at all). A pound a week is the surest way to keep weight off, so that gives me until our 4th anniversary to lose a large chunk of the weight I've always wanted to lose. If Slimfast doesn't get me all the way there, maybe it will get me started on the path.

Also in the exciting news section is the completion of Financial Peace University. It is by far the best $100 we have ever invested. We paid off a little under $7500 during the 13 week course. My only complaint is that there isn't another class starting for quite some time. I had dreamed of being able to turn right back around and stay in a class, to keep the motivation and group accountability. We've tossed around the idea of starting our own class at our ward, but I don't know if anyone would attend. I mentioned it to the bishop, but only in passing. So, we shall see. With Adam's overtime (finally) going away, we're contemplating the multiple jobs route. The original goal was to have Frances paid off for Christmas, but we've adjusted that a bit with the acquisition of Daisy May. This time next year though, we should have nothing but Daisy May's payment and the student loans. At the end of next year, the student loans will be nearly gone. That thought is what keeps me going. It often seems impossible to fathom and other times it's so real I can taste it.

I hope this post hasn't been a complete downer, but maybe this blog should be repurposed to be an outlet for sad feelings. Maybe I'll get a new one, who knows. But, now you know why I haven't been posting as much.

Now You Wait Here

I am not a patient person. Never have been; probably won't be for at least the foreseeable future. So, it goes without saying that I am struggling right now.

1. My brother--my baby brother who's all grown up now-- is waiting for his mission call.
2. Adam is waiting to find out what's going on at work and what it means for us.
3. I am waiting to find out what's going on (wrong) with my body and what I can do about it.
4. My Mom is waiting for her shoulder surgery, so she can live without constant pain.
5. My sister is waiting for the one year mark of the beginning of her breast cancer adventure.


Waiting, waiting, waiting (and probably more; if I missed your particular situation, I'm sorry)

I am far too much like my Dad--"Just do something, even if it's wrong" so this waiting is particularly trying for me. I'm sure Adam isn't enjoying it, but he's more of the let's-wait-and-see (oh ironic world) so he has that envious ability to go with the flow. I am really trying to not wait-away my life. My impatience ebbs and flows and right now it is definitely flowing.

Patience is a virtue; it was a virtue when I was three and my grandfather tried to teach it to me. It will still be a virtue when I finally catch on and grab some for myself.

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It's definitely time for some happy posts. It's not as bad as it could be, but it's definitely time for some happy posts.

A Room With A View...

...is really one of the saddest movies I've seen in a long time. In fact, I think it is #2. The number one saddest movie I've ever seen is The Painted Veil. I still get goosebumps just thinking about that movie.

The reason I mention all this is that I checked out the title movie from the library earlier this week and sat down and watched it last night, just before Adam got home from work. I was totally unprepared for the ridiculously sad ending and I was so shocked, it took 20 minutes for me to start bawling my eyes out. I never used to cry at movies and now I do it all the time. It's almost embarrassing. Some are worse than others. I still tear up at Roman Holiday but it's NOTHING like A Painted Veil or A Room With A View.

When Adam walked in and I was still sniffling over it all, I had the realization of why it is I cry so much, at least with these two movies. I can't handle movies where the spouse and/or lover dies (sorry if you're going to watch them, but at least you're more forewarned than I was). I have this morbid fear of Adam dying young and trying to imagine life without him is beyond my ability. I'd like to think I'm independent enough that I'd survive if the worst ever happened, but it doesn't seem to be that way. I don't want you to think that I think about Adam dying all the time. 99% of the time, it never crosses my mind and I'm fine. It's just when I watch movies like that & I try to put myself in the movie and I end up in a blubbering mess.

I'm also reading Stop Whining, Start Living by Dr. Laura and in it, she talks about not taking loved ones for granted, so it's already fresh on my mind. Suffice it to say, I am definitely not taking Adam for granted. Even when we argue about money. Or motorbikes.

I think, though, that I had really better find something HAPPY to post about soon. Tomorrow is our primary activity. I think primary kids should do the trick :)

My Mood

Today has been less than stellar. Adam and I are having what you might call a Visa Fight about the budget hairiness. It's been overcast and cloudy all day, which is reflective of my mood. The nurse from the doctor's office called (heh, that's something else I never got around to telling all of you). Long story short, a certain hormone level (that affects my mental and emotional capacity, for what it's worth) that should be in the .5-3.5 range measured around 31 yesterday. No wonder my life is a mess! Granted, it's my own fault it got there, so I can't complain. (For the record, I got it measured because I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to, so this should change within the next 6 weeks.)


This song describes what I'm feeling perfectly right now. Agh! It's from the most depressing movie I've ever seen! So, for whatever reason, I thought I would share. I guess I'm sweet like that. I'm going to curl up on the couch. Yesterday and today are the first times this winter I've been incurably cold. I wish I could hibernate. Nobody would be mad at me for doing nothing that way and I would probably be warm to boot.

Happiness will (hopefully) resume in the near future. Carry on.

March 1st

When I clicked 'New Post' it was still March 1st.

I am excited about March because March means our tax refund is coming, which will completely eliminate one debt & shave the next one nearly in half.

March means the weather is going to get continually warmer. In my school days, March means Spring Break, which doesn't technically apply this semester, but it's still the spirit.

March is said to either come in like a lion and go out like a lamb or come in like a lamb and go out like a lion. It was cloudy today, but I wouldn't say it was very lion-y, so I can't wait to see what the rest of the month is like :)

Was Gonna

I tried to pull some pictures off my memory card, but my computer keeps freezing. I don't think it's been shut down in quite some time, so it's probably getting frustrated with me. So no pictures for you.

But I do have a request. Adam and I are discussing some weighty matters in our life and it's quite confusing and frustrating. And extremely personal. If you wouldn't mind, pray for us. I think we could use some extra prayers right now till we have things figured out.

Anyway, hopefully you'll have some pictures and a more exciting post tomorrow. Hopefully.

My New Favorite Day of the Week Is...

...Sunday!!

For some reason, I was in an extremely good mood yesterday--being at church was the best thing ever, even though nothing special in particular happened. I was just really, really happy to be there for a change. Primary is total chaos; it's a miracle. I love it--I don't know why, but I totally love it. 5 year olds are my new favorite crowd--don't get me wrong, I still miss my two year olds, but now I don't know why I was ever so panicky about teaching the 5 year old crowd. I even had my little solid ball of energy (seriously, he looks and sounds like every other child, but instead of bones and skin and normal bits, I think he's made of pure energy) and he didn't even stop my mood. Now, if I could just get better about preparing the lesson before Saturday night I'd be set...

As if church weren't good enough, Financial Peace University finally started last night. I've been itching to start for a month and it was AWESOME!! We signed up for a class at a Baptist church in Bryant, since it was the only class close enough at a time we can both make. The people there were quite welcoming to us, even though they all seemed to know each other already, which made it a bit awkward. The thing that surprised us the most was how young the class hosts are. We found out during the class that Jake (who is probably close to my age), the host, just started the whole program about a year ago and he and his new wife, Haley, got married in April, so they're still newlyweds. Wow! Adam told me after the class was over that he was expecting an older, established couple--not a couple my age who are still working the program themselves. I think it's going to be a fantastic next 13 weeks! I can't wait :)))

A Dilemma

We talked about trying to do the temple-once-a-month plan again this year to see how far we go, but we've already run into snags. Adam has worked every single Saturday this month, which really hampers our plans (especially when he has to be there at noon, instead of his usual 2:00). So, I was thinking about it the other night and I was wondering if going twelve times this year is equivalent enough to once a month, even if those twelve times are not in every month of the year. Seriously? Does it really matter if you don't make it once in, say, January, but go twice in February? I would think it counts, but that's also probably a sign of a less valiant soul.

And after a night like tonight, I am definitely feeling less valiant. Really tested tonight, but that's not even the worst of it; it's what's not going to happen which requires me not to be bitter about it is the real task . I must be making some progress of some kind; I'm feeling really tested lately. So hooray for doing something right :)

I'm Yours

I am really easily discouraged. Sucks, but it's the truth. But tonight, instead of getting super bummed with one of the many on-going problems I'm dealing with, I played this until I smiled.



It worked. This is a new talent for me--one that I am very happy to have and hopeful to share with you.

Where Am I?

I'm not exactly sure!

I've really been thinking about posting a confession, but I'm not sure if I'm ready or not yet. There's a lot I'd like to say. I've been thinking lately how ridiculously blessed I am and how charmed my boring little life is and then in the next breath how miserable things seem to be and how we're facing a lot of challenges. It's an interesting (sometimes guilt inducing) dichotomy of emotions (hah! I've also been wanting to use that word for a while! Totally succeeded!!)

Really, I really am blessed beyond all measure. I have a wonderful husband, a cute little apartment that more than fits our needs, food in our fridge and pantry, a gorgeous car, a decent job and family. What else does one need out of life?

And it's true that we are facing a lot of challenges. I'm uncomfortable because so much of everything is up in the air. If he gets this job then we'll do this or go here. If I get that job, then we'll do that or go there. I don't know where we're headed yet. I'd like to, but for now, I'm getting a monstrously huge opportunity to practice some faith.

And then, there are nights like tonight, where I want to just crawl into a hole and pretend I don't exist; give up my long-term goals to avoid short term embarrassment and awkwardness now. I won't, but it doesn't mean I don't want to. More faith practicing it is. And patience too (people amaze me...in that awful, you-totally-shouldn't-amaze-me-like-that kind of way).

So, there's some of it out without divulging too many details. :) I think I feel better already. While I am here, I will share a video the primary president posted on facebook that I have been returning to many times this week. Maybe I should start doing more stuff like this, what do you think?

The Painted Veil

You really should see this movie. Be ready for it, though.