Validation is great. All the tension is gone!

Thanks Tambra!

don't forget to post about the good things too!

I've been given this council by good people with good intentions, so I figured i'd give it a go. However, I don't feel like being grammatically correct. so no capitals! ha! that's right i'm sticking it to the man!!

giggle, giggle.

I slept in today. Whoops I guess my typing at work is helping my capitolization... i'll let it pass. (I will also let pass the many funny spelling errors. :D )
When i woke up, Scott was already awake and out of bed. I reallly slept in today. I was having this amazing magic dream. The part I remember most vividly at the moment was the baddie from the other camp, we were not quite at war yet, was making magical brass cross- thing that would make their arrows un breakable. But he was spinning them out like a machine gun. My tutor was showing me this because I needed to get my magic up to par. It was fun and dramatic and I have not had a dream i rememeber nor a magical dream in way way too long.

Around two we got together with Ken and Miranda Erickson who live across the street and went to their friends house. It turns out that (I hope I'm getting names right) Matt Stevens and Houston Harris were mission companions. Small world, eh? He and his wife, Jessie, (who is my age)are a really fun couple. We hung out at their house until another couple arrived swapping 'how we met' stories. then everyone loaded into cars and drove back to our apartment and we fired up the grill and had delicious bacon wrapped shrimp and hotdogs and pork chops and fajitas meat and pistachio jello salad and strawberry jello salad and this most delicious potato salad and chips and guacamole and the generic condiments and cool beverages, I had this yummy high fructose corn suryp free cherry drink, and I feel like I am missing other foods because we all ate and were full and the Skembo's joined us and ate and then all the boys had seconds and there was still leftovers! It was pretty freakin great food.

The party finally broke up after the pool lights went on, everyone was tired and hot and cooled off from the pool and heated back up again from the hot tub and cooled off again by the breeze. Which is just about the perfect temperature to be. Now we are inside and I've gold bonded myself and when I don't move i don't itch. I'm pretty ready for bed.

Ah sleep is most beautiful!

PS Goldbond is REALLY stinky!

Arren, speaking in the 3rd person, does not do Benedril

Arren cannot even spell it.

I have been having problems with itching. It reallllly sucks.

About a month ago I shaved my legs and had this huge itch attack. Broke out in a rash the length of my legs, the works. When I started shaving way years and years back, I had this issue EVERY TIME I would bring a razor to proximity to my skin. I've got scars in my armpits from attempts to be a presentable teen... vs myself.

Not those kind of scars.

Just the kind where I had to plan when I would shave, time it out just right, and then do it the night before so I could be done with the blood spots from where the skin was cut along with the hair.

I'm not dumb. I had a doctor look at it and I was not shaving wrong. Or with a dull blade or whatever. I just have a problem with my skin. and my hair. and sharp shiny things.

Any whoo, I don't have those scars on my legs because I actually have a remarkable skin regeneration rate. Akin to Wolverine. Perhaps that's why I like him the best...

I've never had a really lasting problem with simple self mutilation, because I heal fast and don't scar easily. But that is not the point. And neither is the fact that I have scars under my arms because I'd get good and gory from shaving and then keep it gory by friction and moisture.

Nope, the point is that I dealt and dealt with my shaving experiences for so many years that I had learned how to get around the rash attacks. If I only shave this far up, then I have no problem. When I shave, DON'T put lotion on after... Never allow fabric or any amount of friction to come into contact for about 10 hours after shaving. etc.

Competive swimming was an embarrassing and uncomfortable 9 years. (Eventually I found out that plucking, while it does sting a bit more at first, can be a blessed alternative to shaving certain areas. Yeah it's gross. I could go into more detail, but I don't want any unnecessary puke. You're welcome.)

So I have not had a rash in over 4 or 5 years, Until last month.

SUCK!

I though it was a fluke because I did everything wrong. I had not waited long enough since the last time I shaved and I was cold etc.

Because most of my clothes are in the laundry I only had pants to wear, so I didn't shave for a month. My legs had gone from smooth to prickly to so much hair it's 'soft' again and all the way back to prickly. The rash had finally calmed down (it took the entire month) and I though it was safe to shave again. WRONG!

I got out of the shower and was in immediate discomfort. I put cooling lotion on and danced around on one foot and then the other to no avail. Finally I just sat down and scratched everywhere I itched. I had to clean out my nails about three times before Scott saw that I was about to start bleeding from the amount of scratching and made me stop. He suggested a Benedryl to stop the itching.

I popped two tiny pink pills and tried not to scratch. It was hard. We went to church and I sat down in the foyer. There were people playing with babies and chatting and I sat and watched them. I could hardly do more than that. If I moved I itched and I had agreed to not scratch off more skin, so I just didn't move.

Some people said hi... I think Mike asked if I was being anti-social, because I was not standing around, standing, hah!, and talking about some crap I don't really care about (<- evidence I'm still in a bad mood). I told him I was sleepy. I really was. Very sleepy. I slept the last two hours of church in the foyer and six more hours in my bed at home after that. And when I woke up I STILL ITCHED!!! AAAHHHH!


I'm terribly and completely frustrated with this body, why can't I have one that works?


However there is no evidence of the 1/8" of skin I lost earlier in the day. And the Case's let me borrow their Paul Mitchel tee tree lotion stuff and their Gold bond anti itch stuff to see if one of those help. I'm terribly skeptical.

AND I slep for about 12 hours last night and I'm STILL tired!!! Stupid crap Benedryl making me sleepy on my first day off in 3 freaking months!

Itsa post

Dad wants to talk about our travel plans to UT for our family reunion. Bleh. I don't want to think about it.

I popped on to say thanks to Scott for getting us our washer and dryer.
I was pulling out the clothes from the washer and putting them in to the dryer. Something felt weird... I couldn't figure if it was the lack of softener or what.
Then I realized it was that the clothes are already mostly dry! from the spin cycle! Woo!

Back to Cleaning.

Colors!

They have little descriptions written on them... But here are the digital descriptions.

Aidan's Room:

Geryson's Room:

Ummm. I think this one is James' room. Yes, Jame's room colors. But the colors are a little off... the tip bedroom color is not pink... it's an off white and the one that says bathroom is all wrong! It's teal in real life.
This picture gets the hues more correct. The 'bathroom' and the 'kitchen' are best in this picture... however the kitchen colors are not for James' kitchen... They are the colors I want. I'm still working on James' kitchen. I'm thinking bright beachy colors... and the bathroom is for the one he will redo. It's an accent color that will be matallic in real life and go on the wall behind the sink. I saw a cool rope net thing that could go over a shower curtain... I'm going crazy with ideas.

I 'memembered!!

James said he'd take a peek at my blog... I hope I can get home and upload the colors I picked out for his house today.

I went to Sherwin Williams which is accross the street and the guy there gave me a color book thing. Cool. I hoep I can scan it alright. He also said that generic stores like Walmart have more selection on types of paint. Like Metalic and textured and stuff. Hmm. I went to WalMart, but I was un impressed, however they did have ultra reflective aluminum paint. Cool. Perhaps we could mix in a bit of color and get just what I want... Next on the list of paint departments is Home Deopt.

I 'membered that great idea I had the other Sunday.

Background: Janika and I were talking and she was telling me that when she was in Young Women's, she had a really hard time with personal progress because, correct me if I'm wrong, her effort was not grand enough. For instance if Mom said she could check off reading scritures because they read them as a family (or whatever, now I'm into my own spieal, thanks Janika!) she would not check it off because she felt she needed to do MORE.

I catch myself doing this a LOT! I get so busy with all the hundreds of millions of things to do and the tons of ways to do them more right than last time, that I forget that family scripture study meets the requirements for reading in your scriptures everyday.

I also had a hard time checking off the goals, for the same reason. And unfortunately I got them 'done' when I didn't care so much. Backwards, huh? When I felt like I was slacking off ("meh, I read SOMETHING in the scriptures everyday this week... I'll check it off 'cause I TECHNICALLY did it even if I didn't do it to my standards")I passed off more goals. When I put energy into it and applied my standards, I was good for a day or two and then ineviably I'd 'drop the ball', and be back to technicallities. And since I knew I COULD do it and I felt I SHOULD do it 'my' way I did not want to accept less than my best.

Who does, right?

But, (and this is the lesson)I never remembered to look at myself from a higher perspective. I was doing good things. I was doing all the things I was asked to do. Sometimes I was even doing them super well! But the point is just because I was not constantly preforming at my level of expectation, does not mean I was not preforming / doing well in the sight of God.

We're about to leave so I'll finish this later.

I popped over to James' blog.. and had to run away fast. He has pictures of the boys up and their adventures and I welled up REAL fast.

Without permission and or an idea of what their rooms actually look like here are my ideas for their rooms. More ideas to be forthcoming.

Grey's room:


Skipper's room:


Sorry their so sketchy, I whipped them up while Scott's student was doing his final.Aidan's is more object focused... Grey's is more about the colors and decorating the existing stuff (thus all the misspelled words).

Aidan's wall under the chair rail gets to be a grassy green, The dresser is red with black drawers and the toy box is... *shrug* red too... or wood... whatever.

Grey's desk and dresser are blue and the drawers and writing space on the desk are decoupaged with old comic book pages. The wall to the garage will be an accent of bright blue with superheros painted on it.

Like my ideas?

food poisoning and design ideas

While I was sick in bed yesterday* I dreamed up design ideas and decorating schemes. Wen I woke up I asked Scott to get a sketch pad and a pencil. Space always seems SO much bigger in my dreams.

We went to the Skembo's for dessert** and Mike asked if I dreamed up ideas for my plot to decorate James' home when I visit. Um nope, but I sure did after that. James if you get this gimme a call. Right now. Don't dally and get distracted! I need your permission to go crazy with ideas... and room sizes :P

*it was probably more a emotional poisoning than food...
** Andrew was baptized and Craig and Concie were in town, so even ash faced as I was we went to say prayers and give talks at the baptism and eat pudding afterwards.

'Tag' is a game you play on the playground as a pipsqueak. Everyone runs around like crazy. One pipsqueak decides they have a crush on another pipsqueak and they say "I'm it!" Then they commence to chase their crush until they 'tag' them; transferring the 'It' status to their crush. Invariably no two pipsqueaks have a crush on each other so the new 'It' chases their own crush. Occasionally some of the less intelligent or more daring pipsqueaks will run too close to the 'It'. When that happens 'It' has the option to tag this other individual. Thereby keeping his or her real crush a secret from society and transferring the dreaded 'it' status. No one wants to be 'it'. That rule is hard coded into the matrix of the game, so don't question it.

Internet tag is similar. Everyone sits at their computer, all alone, and is very still while their fingers fly over the keyboard. Can you see the resemblance? I'll continue. One person decides they have a crush on themself, so they make a list of questions and answer them. ("Humans used to sit around and stare at themselves. Dat very boring.") To break the monotony they ask their crush from pipsqueak days to answer the questions they were so clever to write up. However, because this group of people are far more sophisticated than pipsqueaks, ie using computers alone in a room by themselves, they ask other unassuming interneters to answer the same questions; thereby effectively making their crush from public knowledge. Everyone who is tagged is required by the hard coded matrix to copy and paste the questions to their own space and re-write the answers that apply to them, and tag other interneters NOT including the interneter who tagged them.That would defeat the purpose. As sophisticated interneters the possibility of having a crush on an interneter who has a crush on you is great, an if your 'tagged' your crush and they 'tagged' you back then the whole of the internet would know who your crush is. No one wants others to know who their crush is. That rule is hard coded into the matrix of the game, so don't question it.

Got it? Ready, set, play!

This is NOT current... fyi

Frustration abounds with it's sometimes sweet sometimes bitter flavor. And the burning question is why. why. why. why. why not you ask. because the effort on my part and the tragic irony to effect all my energies spent. Minds race but the speed of mine is hindered. by what I know not. ooze and slime, molasses or honey. but per the irony it is crystallized and bespotted with mold. witty. perhaps at one time, but not now. pretty. perhaps as a child but not now. happy. I was thought to be, but not now. and here in lies the crux. For what is happiness? why do some struggle and never quite grasp, some achieve and others accept as a part of their being, put there with the spark of life and as removable as a fingerprint. That is you can scorch it off but it will always grow back, and quicker than you think, happiness. Ah!, it is a choice. If I am not happy it is my choice. True... And then the way to happiness is to choose never to be unhappy. So simple until the simplicity becomes complex. Like walking a straight and narrow path, as narrow as a knife's edge. If you slip, the unavoidable cut. The bigger the slip the deeper the cut. and while my life force slips away I hear that all I need to do is to choose to be happy. Happy that I die? Happy that I have slipped? or perhaps, happy that I am not yet dead. and that thought until I am. but until eternal twilight, there is the chance of another knife walker, with better balance than my own to come along and assist my wounds. And lo, though my vision is weak, I see a figure who helps me up and shares a pill that masks the pain, that bandages the blood. As I look harder I see he is covered in scars of trips down the knife blade, much deeper and ragged than my own. Stories are shared and a illumination surrounds him. He has learned how to choose happiness, how to live with a crutch and how happiness and putting one foot in front of the other elevates him enough that the simplicity of walking the straight path is not lost. Oh! the admiration. And when I start to progress the encouragement of praise. And when I stumble, there is no praise and I try herder. The words 'Well done' are so enticing, addicting. I try to please. Perhaps if I just live as if I belonged. And the fantasy is created, played out and just shy of perfect. I play it so well that my puppets become real. My blue robe and glittering wings give them life. But I hav not forgotten, this is not real. So I try to break free of the spell Ihave ceated. I try to live the way I should. I get back on my knife.A few tentative steps and I am reminded why I slipped in the first place. but before I fall, a conversation restores the good humours. And life progresses along quite happily. We are lerned in the ways of choosin to be happy. My mentor fills so many roles I cannot express my gratitude. So I will show my gratitude. But I am not as pretty as she, as flexable or athletic as she, not nearly as wise as she, my bread does not rise, the crayons ruin the wash, and to top it all off I still battle zits. I pray and cannot hear. perhaps my prayers are too loud. to soft? am asking for that wich the Lord will not grant? I ask again and answers come. Flying and poisioned. the little arrows are everywhere I turn, family? no and no. Friends no. But then if these good people who have fallen from their knifes and are invarious stages of getting back on, have the same cryptic answer... what then? The answer I understand, choose not to be unhappy. The application I cannot fathom. Must I jump fom the bridge just because everyon else is jumping. Once i was so happy to live so far from the edge. Earthquakes brought the edge to my front door. So now I must jump? And those others who have found their way out the back door and lived on solid ground forevermore? Am I not to be given the same chance? Or has my choice to bed in the front room bared all doors going back through the house?



But perhaps all this are the foolish immagionations of my mind, when in reality my slip on the knife-path was greater and more deadly. I create a fantasy to obscure the truth from myself, from you, but mostly from me.

Oh, Jamies... did'ja know you are the first person to ever tag me?!?

All those long hours practicing at recess for naught...what has the world come to when 'tag' is a game played virtually?

Anyways, I'm not one to pull a Nell Fenwick and allow myself to be tied to the tracks of progress... so here goes:

5 JOBS I'VE HAD IN MY LIFE

1. Deli meat and cheese slicer... and fuit tray maker
2. Aunt, sister, friend (probably the hardest and most rewarding jobs ever...)
3. Swimming instructor/ lifeguard
4. Data input / report runner / general office slave
5. Massage Business Manager


5 MOVIES I WOULD (OR HAVE) WATCHED OVER AND OVER:

1. It started with Eve
2. Baby Einstein
3. The Saint / VanHelsing
4. Muppet Treasure Island
5. Princess Bride



5 PLACES I'VE LIVED:

1. Ohio, Cincinnatti
2. St. Charles, MO
3. Sugar Land, TX
4. Salt LAke City, UT
5. I guess I'm not too exotic... Ft. Lauderdale, FL

5 PEOPLE WHO EMAIL ME REGULARLY:

1. myself... I have a fear of losing e-mails sent to my work address so...
2.
3.
4.
5.

5 OF MY FAVORITE FOODS/RESTAURANTS:

1. Le Madeline's Tomatoe Basil Soup
2. Jack in the Box
3. Steak N Shake
4. Pho
5. Mac and Cheese

5 PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:

1. Home
2. With James and the boys
3. in UT
4. dancing
5. getting a massage


5 THINGS I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2008:

1. Visiting the Evergreen state / re-decorating James' new digs
2. Summer with the boys!
3. Miles coming back from Brazil
4. Family reunions
5. Continued deals on homes, it's a buyers market baby!


5 FRIENDS I WANT TO TAG:

1. Mike
2. Janika
3. Birdie
4. Michelle
5. Alicia

Have at'chee

Don't gimme no lines and keep yo hands to yerself

I heard that song on the radio coming home from 1 1/2 or 2 hrs of Scott's intern's massage (which has no other relevance to this post).

MAN! I miss country dancing. I started boogeying in the car... Quick! where's a country bar!?! My favorite are the ones that have a dance lesson before the dance hall opens....... yee haw!

Yesterday Tara and I were doing Zig Ziglar and Franklin Covey. Good times, but the homework was to tell yourself affirmations in the mirror every morning and evening.

Um. I really have problems doing that. A lot!

I guess it's just a testament to how I feel about myself but I cannot look myself in the eye and give myself a complement or tell myself that I am good. I don't believe me and I have always, always, always ended up in a horrible mood with or without some form of self inflicted physical punishment.

I was thinking about my dilemma and I had an awesome thought. I was rolling it around and it was going to be a profoundly new way of seeing things, and then someone said something and I lost my train of thought!! AHHH! and I have not been able to think of it again. I promise you it was really good. I remember thinking right after I lit upon it that it was so good I could use it to teach other people and help them grow and over come problems like my own... pity I can't remember it...

And so I'm still stuck...

Yesterday I did baby showers and kids until I crashed and burnt.

Today should be blessedly my own. What a joy to have so many resources available for my amusement.

'... and breaking up is hard to do...'

I mean 'waking up is hard'... wait I mean "Growing up is hard to do."

When I was in kindergarten I would play outside and chat with our neighbor when she came home from work. I told her that I wanted to be an adult already. She suggested I would not like it because I'd have to work all the time. Hmm, so now I'm an adult and I work all the time. I totally enjoy it. Going into the office, using ofice equipment, writing things on my white board... it's the fulfillment of a dream I've had for a long long time.

Now Time Management is kicking my trash.

My responsibilities are stressful, I'm not at the level of proficiency that I'd like to be and blah, blah, blah. When I had certain special people in my life, the tolls were not so strenuous, and I could remember to make time for doing fun things. And they usually worked out really well. And I made time to exercise. Now I'm feeling good just to do 20 push-ups a day... and my hips are showing the effects of the stress and neglect.

So I'm ready to move on again. Actually I was ready in High school to move on the the next big thing: parenting. I baby sat and read all the books I could find about kids, pregnancy, you name it... I talked with ladies who have kids. But I guess I'm still in 5th grade. Years past the conversation about wanting to be an adult, but still no where close to achieving it.

These things, these milestones in my life, that I have pined over for years on end are always so rewarding when they do happen. I don't regret wanting it and I really truly enjoy living it. Knowing that I can wait a bit for the next one.

But I was wondering what will my next milestone be? I'm putting in a vote at death...
Mile stones that other people have: baptism, driving, dating, graduation, college, marriage... not even on my milestone radar... so I'm assuming having kids grown and out of the house, travel or missions with Scott and whatever else will also not quite make the radar.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before but there is another dream I've wanted so much tear up just thinking about how much I want it.

"I love having a big brother who loves me, and helps me cook dinner, and gives me honest, good advise, and knows my husband, and let's me mother his boys when they come over, and teaches me about money, and teases me , and gives me honest compliments, and can share meds with me, and plays keep away and cheats so bad that his son says : "your not very good at this game" and is generally awesomeness personified. Having a dream come true feels good!" - thanks James for being my dream brother.