whew!...it's Friday

I have had a test every day this week except Thursday. It has been crazy!

On Tuesday I had drama with Pyscho Lady. She thought she saw me talking about her to the girl next to me and saying that Psycho Lady was cheating. Psycho Lady approached me and accused me, I snarled back at her and she backed off. But she left a parting shot. "I STILL don't know why you don't talk to me anymore..." I wanted to yell, "Because of things like this!" but I refrained. Drama.

Thursday night I went to a Relief Society function where we talked about journaling and personal history. We got some really great ideas for making a personal history for our children. We got this great flier with questions about our lives to give us ideas on what to write about. As an activity, we had to draw the floor plan of a house from our childhood and then talk about it. As I was drawing, I remembered how we had a gardenia bush right by the front door. When it was blooming, it smelled so good. Whenever I smell gardenia, it always takes me back to that home with the gardenia bush. That is probably my favorite home. I was young, Dad was healthy and happy and times were good. We had a huge yard and I had the freedom to run all through the neighborhood because we lived in a cul-de-sac and knew all our neighbors. We had a vacant lot next door and my friends and I had fun adventures and make believe all through the trees, and all over the property. It was a large lot.

Today at the end of class, I was talking with some of the other kids in class. They are all Brett's age and they are hilarious because it's like talking to my own kids. One of the girls was talking about how hot Zach Ephron is. I told them he is probably the age of my sons and it would be sick and wrong for me to think he is hot. We looked up how old he is and one of the girls said, "He was born in 1987. How old is he?" Well, I knew that answer. Taylor was born in 1987, so Zach Ephron is 23 years old. Daniella, the air head of the class (who got almost 100% on the SAT!!) said, "YOU have a 23 year old?! Yeah, that would be GROSS if you thought he was hot." I had to laugh. These kids make me laugh.

Emeli and I went walking today before she went to Brooklyn's house. Emeli has decided (for the time being...it could change tomorrow) that she is going to stay with me during the school year and with her dad during the summers. I'm okay with that because Robby's job is very demanding during the summer. I can help him with his job and not worry that I'm neglecting Emeli. Not only that, but I will probably be doing my externship and not home a lot. Emeli told me she has 16 friends and that is WAY more friends than she had in Washington. In Washington, she had 0 friends. We talked about how much fun she would have on Trek. At first she was very hesitant about going, but as soon as I told her it was stake wide and that there would be lots of boys, she was more keen to go...hahaha!

I love having Emeli here. I love hanging out with her and joking with her. She is fun, compassionate, supportive and a great little friend. We get ready for school together in the mornings and get in each other's way in the hall bath putting on make-up. We share make-up. She uses most of mine. I am so grateful for the time I have with her.

yikes, to put it mildly

So today I took THE most hellacious math test I have ever taken. The only ones that have come close are the geometry tests I had in High School where I did not take the time to memorize the theorems. I would just leave the entire page blank--and surprisingly enough, I failed geometry. I also have had hellacious algebra tests at BYU to the point where I had to drop the class and opt to take it later and hope I got smarter in the meantime. Today's test was right up there with those. It was 200 problems of crazy fractions with answers like 3/200 or 14 14/45. huh?! Those are the kinds of answers that make you doubt whether you are answering correctly. Then we had to convert our stupid American way of measuring (gallons, quarts, pints, etc) to the metric system that the ENTIRE world uses, except us. As if that weren't enough, I also had to figure out what and how much medicine to give a patient and convert it from mg to mL. By the time I was done, my brain was FRIED!!! I told my friend, Angel, that I was going to go home and drink a long, tall Diet Coke and eat a candy bar. I deserved it. Instead I opted for a banana dipped in nutella and a long, tall Diet Coke. Just as good.

There is this psycho lady who is in my class. I won't tell you too much about her, but I will tell you that she is THE queen of inappropriate things to say. Example: we were given a flier on the different positions we have patients assume on the examining table depending on what the patient needs to have done. One of them has the patient leaning on his elbows, butt in the air. Psycho lady turns to me and in a stage whisper says, "That is MY favorite sex position." and laughs really loudly and then slaps me HARD on the back. TMI. Another time we were learning the muscles and there was a drawing of a body with just the muscles showing from behind. Of course, you could see the gluteus maximus. Psycho lady turns to me and says, "My husband's butt is just like that...high and tight." and again slaps me on the back and laughs super loud. Once again, TMI. I DO NOT want to know her favorite sex position. I DO NOT want to know what her husband's butt looks like. Last example: she told me one morning that when her husband dies, she has told him that she is going to bronze his "member" and hang it above her bed. WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THAT?!!!! So today for the math test Psycho lady brings a jar with lavender scent beads in it. It is so that she can sniff the lavender when she starts to panic during the test. All I can say is, "Wow!"

So today I just came home, ate the nutella and the DC and made a cute little recipe card thingee. Tonight I will study for the quiz we have tomorrow on terminology. But today I gave my brain a break.

Emeli called me up from her friend, Brooklyn's, and told me she has an assignment due in Health tomorrow. She has known about this assignment for at least a week. She is supposed to decorate a shoe box that explains her personality.
Emeli: Mom, since you have all that cute scrapbook paper, can you cover my box for me while I'm gone?
Me: no, but I can show you how to do it.
Emeli: well, I won't have time when I come back from Brooklyn's.
Me: I will not do your homework.
Emeli: we are going to be going exercising when I get home and then I won't have time to do my box.
Me: you will. I will not do your box for you.

Emeli cracks me up because she thinks I am a novice parent with my finger up my nose, fumbling my way through parenthood. She has no idea that I have been completely broken in by her three older brothers (especially Freddy!!). I think she thinks that if she tries to come in through the back door and ask things, I won't figure it out. What she doesn't realize is that I tried the same things on MY parents, Taylor, Freddy AND Brett tried before her, so now I am a veteran and I am wizened. She is always shocked when I figure it out.

Today I got home from school and Robby had little Oliver out. Oliver thinks our room is paradise. He loves to go under our bed and explore through all the things under there. He loves to crawl through all of Robby's paperwork. I have a drawer that slides out from under the bed that I store my pajamas in. We didn't hear him for a while or see him, so we thought he probably fell asleep somewhere. Sure enough, he had climbed into my pajama drawer and was all curled up in my pajamas. It was very cute, but I did not want to have the smell of ferret all over my pajamas that I would smell all night as I slept. I picked him up very gently, while he breathed loudly in his sleep (cute!!!) and put him back in his cage. He is hilarious.

Louie

My little Louie who began as Lulu, but then we found out that she is a he, so I changed his name. He acts just like you would expect a Louie to act. He is THE most stubborn, strong-willed little bird, but it's hilarious. In six months, he has managed to snag a huge place in my heart.

We keep his cage door open all the time because our house is safe enough for him to just wander where he wants. He doesn't leave the front room, anyway. Sometimes I will walk in the door from school, and he will be walking across the front room floor. It's hilarious to see him walk across the floor because he's so little and he's so cocky when he does it. He acts like he owns the place. Occasionally, we will have younger guests and so we close his cage door. He DOES NOT like that. He will flap all around his cage, hurl himself against the cage door and squawk loudly.

I had him for about two weeks when Emeli and Brett came for their summer visit. Soon after that, Taylor, Emma and Freddy came too. Emeli and Emma hand-trained Louie. I had tried and tried, but they accomplished what I was struggling to do.

His wings have grown back now, so he feels that he is an eagle and he will take these little solo flights and circle the front room, dining area and kitchen and crash land on his cage. We have a tree that I added a perch to and we hang millet seed from it.

When I leave for school in the mornings, it's still dark, so I don't take the cover off his cage. That's not a problem for him. He will climb out of the cage, through the fabric cover and fly to his "treat tree". I come home from school and he is usually sitting in the tree babbling. Sometimes if I don't say, "Hi" to him when I first walk in, he will squawk a short little screech to let me know he is in the tree and I need to notice him.

Tonight I noticed that he had a little owie above his beak. It looks like he might have crash landed and bonked his beak. I found a dish towel and came up to him in his tree. He could sense what I was about to do because he saw the towel. He flew all over the place and finally landed in an open dish. I tossed the towel over the opening. He was squawking loudly at me. I wrapped the towel around him, found his little face through the towel and applied neosporin. He screeched and squirmed the entire time. After I was done, he flew straight for his tree. I went to say sorry to him. He was glaring at me, breathing loudly because the neosporin was covering one of his little nose holes. I will probably have to go through the whole ordeal tomorrow, too. Poor little guy.

Saturday is a special day...

So I have been super busy today. I got so much done. Here's my list:
homework
painted toenails (badly in need of repair!)
gave myself a pedicure AND shaved my legs
re-dyed my hair
waxed my eyebrows and mustache
put music on my ipod
vacuumed
cleaned the ferret cage
cleaned the master bath
laundry all done!!
made cookies
made chicken pot pie for dinner!!
The reason I got so much done is because Robby was out driving around and working and Emeli has been hanging with a friend all day, so I have been all by myself and getting crap done. What a wonderful day!!!

So this week has been kinda busy. On Saturday we went up north to the Layton Hills Mall. We bought Emeli another pair of jeans, a pea coat ($20 at American Eagle!!) and some stuff at Bath and Body Works. She was so excited to get some perfume there. As we were just walking around, there was this kiosk with scarves and a sign that said "All scarves $5 today". They had pashmina scarves, so Emeli and I snatched up one each!! Of course mine is pink and Emeli's is bright purple. It was really fun. Poor Robby had to drive around and check sign routes while we shopped. I'm pretty sure he preferred what he had to do rather than walk the mall with us.

Robby had to work on Sunday, so Emeli and I went to church without him. We came home after sacrament meeting because we both felt sick. We ended up watching "Lord of the Rings" and laying around.

Emeli gets homesick for WA when she talks to everyone out there, especially since Ralph was born last week. She was really down about not being there. But last night there was drama on the phone with Maddie, so at times I know she is not missing that.

We have been learning about the lungs, asthma and emphysema. I don't get how someone could smoke after knowing how smoke can cause so many diseases. Emphysema is TERRIBLE! I couldn't think of a worse way to die. You literally suffocate. You expend 50-80% of your energy all day long just trying to breathe. Not a great life. I also learned how blessed I was to think quickly last year when I had to give myself the heimlich. That could have been a really bad situation.

Work for Robby has been super stressful. He has had to drive all over the place, clean out the storage and make new signs all in 10 degree temperatures! It has been so cold and it doesn't show any sign of getting better. Yesterday we were in the storage at Lehi (10 degrees!!) and breaking down signs for Fieldstone homes. They want all their signs on metal stakes instead of wooden stakes. So we had to pull them off the wooden stakes one by one (almost 100 of them). I found the best way to do that was to step on the back of the sign and just tear them off; however, it pulls ALL the muscles in your hip and thigh. So today I feel like I got beat up. Last night we were making the signs in our small condo. It looked like a little factory in there. Huge pain in the butt. To see Olly run around through all that mess is hilarious. Today has has to pick up his boss from the airport and drive him all around parts of Utah today and tomorrow. Then his boss flies back to CA. Robby is a little worried about that.

On Monday, I had an appointment with the dentist for a tooth that has been bugging me since Christmas. It has really been bugging me since Halloween, but it has been painful since Christmas. For the last week and a half I have been steadily taking ibuprofen all day long. I'm sure my liver and kidneys love that! I went into the dentist hoping he could either pull the tooth (my last choice) or give me a crown. When he found out that it has been hurting and waking me up at night with the pain, he wouldn't touch it. He sent me to an endodontist for a root canal. That costs $800, but that's just the preparation for the crown that the dentist is going to do. That will cost another $800!! So I will have a crown for each child. I think each child should pay for one of my crowns! hahaha!! The root canal was not bad at all. I had laughing gas and I lay there kind of in and out of it the whole time. He told me that I wouldn't care what they did to me and time would pass quickly. He was right on both counts. I asked him if I could have laughing gas every day. That night, still numb, I was eating dinner. Emeli was laughing so hard at me because my expression was so funny looking. When Robby saw me, he started to laugh too. I went into the bathroom to look and I had to admit that I looked pretty hilarious.

School is getting a little intense. I had a spelling test today. I have a test on Friday, a quiz on Monday and then a test on next Friday. The following Monday after that, I have another test, then a quiz the next day and then a spelling test the next day. Whew! But I still love it and enjoy what I'm learning.

Valentine's Day, my favorite holiday is coming up and I'm planning some hearts in our window. Emeli was making fun of me last night because I was busy digging in my paper and looking at shapes to cut on my Cricut. I know the second I start making something cute on our front room windows, she will join me and put something in her bedroom window. hahahaha!!! And she says I'm a dork. She is one too!

new year

It is a new year and time for me to start posting again! I haven't written in my journal for a long time, either.

Emeli is living with me and all is right in the world. I can't say how happy I am to have her at home with us. She is a great little companion and I love hanging with her in the mornings. We try to say a little prayer, hugging each other before we go out the door together. Emeli to Jr High and me to my little College. It's so nice to hear the bus pull up outside and know that Emeli is on it and coming home again. It's also nice to have her help in the kitchen, her companionship at the gym and to laugh with her and have her do my hair (although she probably gets sick of doing it!!).

Las Vegas was wonderful. It was warm and I got to see skinny Taylor. I am really proud of how he is taking care of himself, reading labels, running and determined to keep it up, even when he is tempted by a huge buffet at the Luxor. It was good to just chat with him, listen to his music and to hug him. He has grown up to be an amazing young man. I'm grateful that Emma shared him with us. It was very nice.

Today I went to a funeral for a 7 month old baby. The mother went in to get him from his crib and he was dead. That is every mother's nightmare. As she walked into the chapel following the tiny, white coffin, my heart split in two. I stood there watching her trying to be as brave as she could, but she broke down. I don't blame her. It was so heart wrenching to watch her shoulders shake as she cried. I found myself quietly crying as the tears ran down my face and down my neck. I can't imagine how she feels with empty arms and a silent home. I sat there thanking Heavenly Father that I never had to endure that pain. At the grave, she kneeled by the tiny coffin and cried again. It was the hardest thing to watch. I hope my children never have to endure such pain.

I am grateful that my children are alive and healthy and I have had the privilege of raising them and being called Mom. I have never had a desire to be anything else and I am grateful that I had that opportunity four times!

March 15, 2010 Monday...

March 15, 2010
It’s time for me to count my blessings…

My husband…because of him, I can finally be myself. He supports me 100% and allows me to speak my mind. He doesn’t judge me. He is my best friend.

My children…I have learned many life lessons from them. The biggest thing I have learned as a parent is the importance of free agency. As a parent, it is so hard to let them choose for themselves. I have also learned how to love unconditionally.

My parents…My father was always there for me, protected me, and sacrificed for me. I could tell my dad anything and knew he would never judge me. He was very wise. He would tell me all the time that I was a good mother. I miss him. My mother is 100% behind me. I could tell her I am going to dye my hair blue because I feel like it and she would support me and tell me I need to do what I feel is best. She gives good advise.

Jesus Christ…He has always been there. That cheesy poem about footsteps in the sand is true. Many times I have felt Him right next to me when I am struggling.
Heavenly Father…He has taught me how to be a better parent. I feel his love for me. I know He loves me no matter what.

The Holy Ghost…He guides me. He has been a huge part of my ability to mother my children. He has always let me know when I need to be aware of my childrens’ struggles. He has never failed me. He gives me a quiet assurance that everything will be okay.

My talents…my ability to play the piano and create art has saved me. It allows me to process things that are happening. I play the piano and my mind sorts through all my troubles. I create art and I heal.

My testimony…my belief in God, Jesus Christ and the doctrines that Christ taught are my core. I can’t imagine not having that belief. It carries me through rough times. It helps me have perspective.

My health…I am healthy, strong, able to work hard, and function. I am fortunate that my health has never been something that keeps me from enjoying life and all the opportunities I have.

My childhood…I had a very protected childhood. I lived in a safe place. I always had a roof over my head. I never went hungry or wanted for things. I was indulged often. I struggled like everyone, but I knew my family loved me and they would always be there. I had a good life.

When I stop and think about my blessings, it puts life into perspective. I can see how much Heavenly Father has blessed me. I see how I need to help others. I am grateful.