Random Thoughts for a Random Day

I haven't blogged in a while and since I have a bunch of stuff has happened.

My son turned 2. That's incredible. We still haven't had his birthday party. We were going to have it on the Saturday after his birthday, but my husband left on a last minute trip to South Florida to buy us a van (which is the coolest van ever!!) So we post-poned it for the following Saturday, but everyone was sick, so now it will be this Saturday and it's going to be a combination party for him, myself and Nana Faller.

We have a new van that is the coolest! I love it. I wish I could find my camera to take pictures of it and brag to everyone else about how my van is cooler than all the other vans out there, but alas, I am still without a camera. Maybe me losing my camera is Heavenly Father's way of keeping me humble.

I don't know how my mom did it, but 4 out of 5 of her children eat vegetables (Way to ruin a perfect statistic, Dennie). I remember growing up and being excited when we had spinach or beets with dinner. I remember the best part of Sunday Dinner (pot roast, mashed potatoes and some sort of vegetable side) was when she made green beans with bacon on top. I hope somehow that super power was sent to me and I can make my children love vegetables. I think I'm off to a good start because my two year old son will eat more vegetables than his father, but his father doesn't like corn, sweet peas or other fall-back-because-who-in-the-world-doesn't-like-these vegetables, so it's not hard to eat more vegetables than him. He has tried to pass of the fake chives in Top Ramen as a vegetable before. He will eat lima beans (yuck. city.) and asparagus though. I know, it makes no sense.

I still hate moving.

We apparently aren't supposed to have a Yard Sale before we move. One Saturday we were sick with an insane cold snap that froze the iguanas out of trees. Next time it rained and rained and rained and rained. Then we were sick with congestion and fevers. Then it rained and rained and rained and rained again. So we are 0-4 on possible Yard Sale Saturdays with only three left. This next one my husband is working so I'll be at it alone for most of the time. The next one we are probably going down to Palm Beach to visit his brother's family one last time before we leave and the last Saturday is two days before I move and the day I pick up the moving van, so not the most convenient of days. I really hope we sell a lot this Saturday or else I think we'll be moving stuff with us and selling it out in Utah.

I promise I will blog more when I am past all this moving nonsense. Until then, just bear with me.

My house has a blackhole

Let's call it Aiden, ya know, just for kicks. This blackhole has swallowed my DVD remote, rendering my husband's X Box a glorified DVD player for most of the day. It has swallowed some of my favorite not-maternity clothes. It has even swallowed about half of my left shoes, but one thing I'm super perturbed about is that it has taken in my camera. I keep telling myself that they will turn up, but that'll probably be when I pack up my house and that's not much of a consolation because I really dislike packing.

Since this "blackhole" has taken in my camera and misplaced it, I had to rely on my sister in-law's camera to take pictures for Christmas and I have yet to see them, hence the absence of a Christmas post.

It was wonderful, by the way. Aiden took time to play with each and every toy, which made it well worth the while.

So I'm just going to publish my Christmas post on Little Christmas and say I was planning on doing that the entire time.

New Year's Resolutions

I've been thinking long and hard about what I want to accomplish this upcoming year other than the ubiquitous goal of being a better mother, wife and spiritual person and I think I have it narrowed down to a few attainable things:

I wish I could say I am going to lose 25 lbs by the end of the year, but it seems that the only way I can do that is to get pregnant, gain 20-50 lbs and then lose it in the following months and then be at a stand still about five pounds under pre-pregnancy weight. So, I'm just going to say that I'm not going to gain any weight and if I lose some, then bonus. So it looks like 2010 will be a pregnant-me-less year.

I am going to eat healthier... Right after I eat all my clearanced after-Christmas candy we splurged on.
...
And I don't think that will include the after Valentines Day chocolate, either.

I will potty train Aiden. Does this even count as a New Year's Resolution? Aren't those supposed to be something that you do to better yourself? I'm sure this counts because smelling his poopy diapers up close and personal on a daily basis can't be good for my health.

I will pack my house up before the last week before we move, minus essentials, of course. I hate moving. A lot. I moved once the entire time I grew up, and I was 6 so it doesn't really count. I didn't do anything to pack. The only thing I remember around that time in my life has nothing to do with boxes and packing tape and moving trucks, but instead my dog being ran over by a car, being excited about my first plane ride and being terribly upset that I was missing my Christmas Concert at school. Really, why couldn't we have moved our entire family a week later so I could sing with my other classmates for 20 minutes? That's not irrational, 6 year-old mind reasoning at all.
But anyway. I moved when I was 6 and that doesn't really count as having to deal with the moving process, but then when I was 19, that was across country from New Mexico to Florida and that was a process.... And again when I was 20, not across country, but I had "grown-up" stuff that made it a process that was moved in the back of my brother in-law's pick-up truck, load after load after load ..... And then again when I was 21.... And then when I was 23, with a 14 month old and 7 weeks vomiting-pregnant.... And now again when I will be 24, across country, from Florida to Utah, with two children and my husband staying behind for an extra month or so. I hope I won't have to move again for a while after this one because I'm tired of it.

But onto the most important ones:

I resolve that I will not be so desperate for the lime-light that I will pretend my son is caught in a homemade balloon that is drifting away.

I resolve to keep my threats away from the "shove a ball down your throat" path.

I resolve to not be, in any way, shape or form, like Kanye West.

I resolve to keep my congratulational gestures to hand shaking when it comes to blind people. That way my high-five won't be left hanging.... on national television... on one of the most watched shows.

I resolve this year that I will not marry someone, have twins with them, try for just one more and end up with six more and drive them so crazy by my constant nagging and stupid hair cut that they are driven to cheat on me with someone way younger just months after renewing our vows and telling the world that you are doing this so your children will know that Mommy and Daddy will always be together, no matter what.

I resolve to only fly US Airways through a flock of birds if Chesley B. Sullenburger III is my pilot.

I resolve to keep being a homebody instead of turning myself into a famous golfer that then cheats on their spouse with more than a baker's dozen of women.

I resolve to not take fertility drugs and end up pregnant with 8 babies.... especially if I already have 6 at home.

I resolve that when I win a record number of gold medals at the Olympics, I will not find myself in a huge controversy because a picture of me smoking pot surfaced.


I resolve to never help Drew Peterson with anything. Especially anything that involves disposing of blue barrels.

I resolve to stay home instead of flying on any commercial airplane if I have tuberculosis.

I resolve to not help a pimp and prostitute in their endeavors to open an under-aged brothel.

I resolve to leave the biggest carbon footprint possible, now that we know that Global Warming isn't real.

And last but certainly not the least:

I resolve that if I find myself attending a Midnight Mass with the Pope, I will not attack him because no matter who you are, or what you believe, that cannot be a good thing.

Seriously, how could you see this and think, "I'm going to attack that man."

Hope 2010 brings you all the best!!

Notice how I didn't mention anything about Michael Jackson? That's how it should be...

Today I will do my laundry...

Since I was called to the Stake Young Women's Presidency, my life has been full of loading kids to drive to other towns to visit with the Ward's Young Women's Presidencies and every spare moment my husband and I have no obligations, we are out at his parents spending time with them before D-Day comes and we have to move.

I am holding up mentally, emotionally, and physically wonderfully until I factor in the fact that my house is a mess. My dishes are perpetually piled up in the sink, my clothes are clean, but piled into our giant tote that we keep our Christmas Tree stored in for 11 months of the year, my dog is probably underfed and likes to compensate by trying to eat used paper towels that end up shredded all over the floor.

This morning I participated in our Stake Pioneer Trek Youth Conference. I was an "angel" that came at a trying time for the girls to help push their handcarts. A more detailed post will come later when I can figure out in my mind how to do that experience justice. But one huge lesson was learned after my 3 minute short burst of an incredible amount of energy. I helped them push the handcart up a sugar-sand hill and through loose sand after that for only about 50-60 yards. By the end, I was exhausted and felt like I literally could not walk another step and then it hit me that as exhausted as I was, these teenaged girls had been pulling these for an hour or two at that point and still had half the day left and that they are doing this trek because for thousands of people, some of them my ancestors, this was their life for months. They pushed their handcarts and held their children when they were exhausted and at the end of the day when they had a break, they had to cook and clean for their families and make everything in order because they would be leaving in the morning.

If they can do that, then I can fold my loads upon loads of clean clothes and put them away where they belong... all in the same day.

And tomorrow I will do the dishes.

My children have colds and I hate it.

For those of you who have read Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, remember the part when his father had to suck the mucous out of the little boy's nose (for the life of me I can't remember if it was Frank McCourt or his brother) using his own mouth because the boy couldn't breath from being so congested?

Well, when I first read that part, I was so disgusted and said I would never be able to do that and that I was glad I lived in a day and age when there are nose aspirators and saline spray. Never did it cross my 15 year old mind that those things wouldn't work. What happens when that doesn't work?! Oh, how having a baby changes things.

This morning I was about ten seconds away from doing that myself with my two and a half month old daughter and then she threw up because she was gagging on the post nasal drip and the most incredible amount of mucous came out with it. My hand was covered in it and once relief washed over me, all I could think of was Men in Black when Tommy Lee Jones is inside the cockroach at the end and shoots the cockroach from the inside and the mucous blasts out all over Will Smith.

Just so you know, I am not a bad mother. I had been using the nasal aspirator all night long, it just was going back down her throat so it wasn't as effective as it could have been. It's the pits when you can't do anything for them and you had to hear their little tiny body coughing. I'm sure you can imagine how many prayers I said last night.