Mental Health Day

When I FINALLY heard my alarm this morning, it was already 6:40am. By that time of the morning I'm usually putting on the finishing touches and on my way to the kitchen to make my daily cup of ice water for the commute to work; I love to chew on ice. Infer what you will here, I'm sure you're correct!!! :-)

My alarm is set for 5:45am and I usually roll out of bed a few minutes after 6. I'm not sure if I unconsciously kept hitting the snooze button until I finally woke up, or if I actually slept through almost an hours worth of incessant beeping. Both are quite possible. I've been seriously stressed lately and stress, as the name implies, stresses me out, body and soul. When under a lot of stress, my body gets to the point that all it wants is to rest and what my body wants, my body gets. I have no say in it whatsoever!

Work has been seriously stressful for the past two weeks and I believe this morning my body decided that it had had enough and went into shutdown and repair mode. After grabbing my blackberry and firing off a quick email to my boss and coworker, I rolled back over and slept undisturbed until 9:30. I think my three hours of bliss was due in large part to my cat. I laid my BB down on the bed beside me thinking I would answer any emails as they came in. Reilly, my cat, decided it was something she wanted to lay on; successfully muffling any beeping noises my BB makes! I did feel a little guilty, but I squelched it by getting a pedicure and having them paint cute little flowers on my big toes.

The rest of the day has been spent doing almost nothing! I did stop by a friend's home to drop something off and visit for a few minutes, but other than that - NOTHING! Zero, Zilch, Nada!!

Happy Mental Health Day, too me!!

My two cents

As most of you know, I work the Wednesday evening shift at the Houston Temple. This past week some of us were assigned to watch training videos. President Bradford, the Temple President, was there to facilitate and answer any questions we might have after watching the videos. At the end, he stood up, answered our questions and, in response to one of the questions, proceeded to tell us that the church could be run on two cents (pr. sense): common sense and horse sense!! I loved it!

If common sense is so common, why doesn't everyone have it?

Patience and Purging

Update below

I’ve been keeping mental and written notes since Bro. Harolds spoke Sunday on patience. I really only caught bits and pieces of it. I was busy making eyes at the cute boy in front of me (Stacey’s E), but what I did hear brought a lot of things to my mind. Most of the talk I kind of tuned out because it was a lot to do with having patience with your spouse and teenage kids. Not that that isn’t really good stuff, but in my world it’s a whole lot of BLAH…BLAH…BLAH! Yes, I can switch it around to fit my life and say that I need to have more patience with friends, co-workers, fellow drivers, etc., and believe me, I do need more patience. I can sometimes be the most impatient person; especially with myself.

But then he moved into different territory and spoke of different times in our lives when we need to cultivate patience. Times such as trials, adversity and plain old life in general. I’ve had my share of trials and adversity. Less than some people; more than others. God gives us what we can handle.

It’s life in general that I need the most patience for. As with probably everyone on this planet, life has not played out the way I thought it would. Not that my life isn’t great, it’s just not what I thought would happen. I read my Patriarchal Blessing and it’s sometimes hard to reconcile the words I’m reading to my life as it is now.

Want to know something funny? I always knew, from the time I was a little girl, that I was going to be in the military and that I was going to serve a mission. Read my blessing and see if you can find anything that says I will do either. You can find things that allude to a mission, sort of. Basically it says I’m “to help teach the children of our Father.” But danged if it don’t say I’ll get married and have kids!!! Go figure!

I got my PB a couple of days before my 17th birthday. I was so excited. I was a year away from graduating and wanted to know what my future life could be. Truthfully??? I couldn’t wait to read the “marriage” paragraph. Give me a break, I was 17!! After about two weeks I finally got my copy in the mail. I read the front; ok, all is good here. Flipped it over and almost immediately saw “IT!” I was so excited! What did it say??? I slowed my reading so as to savor each word, but immediately my heart sank a little.

“As you go on in life…”

“…you will meet many wonderful and great people, children of our Heavenly Father, and there will be one who will be reserved out, a chosen young man, who will be honorable and will be just and true and faithful, and will desire to take you into the temple of the Lord to be sealed for time and all eternity.”

That’s not the entire paragraph. There’s one more sentence, that’s just about as long, telling me to keep the commandments and if I do, I “may” get married and have kids. For years I couldn’t get past the “As you go on in life…” part. Deep down I always knew it meant that I would be old before I got married, but I’ve lived in denial of that for the past 18 years! LOL

I know this post is wandering a bit. I’m not sure it has a set course. I’m just purging the thoughts that plague my mind on occasion by typing them out for you to read (lucky you). You’ll think I’m funny, but I’ve been typing for about a week now! Yes, I type faster than one paragraph a day, but if you could see all the stuff that’s been added or deleted, you’d surely know how crazy I am.

I’m not bitter about my life, but to be completely honest, I do sometimes get a little envious of some of my friends. Not because I think they have better lives than me; by no means am I naïve enough to believe that marriage and kids is blissful 24/7, but there are things I miss out on by being single. Two things in particular come to mind:

1) A built in best friend. One that you can reach over and wake up when you’ve had a nightmare or just be comforted by the fact that he’s there close by. Someone to talk to. Someone you trust. Someone to read scriptures and pray with. Someone to sit next to in the Celestial Room. Someone to have babies with. Someone to cleave unto.

2) A mother’s love. I’m not sure I know or understand how to explain this one. Every Sunday I sit behind this family and I watch their interactions; sibling to sibling, parent to child, child to parent, spouse to spouse and I am in awe of the love that I am witness to. The mother is so loving with her touch and her words. You can tell that she has a profoundly deep understanding of what her role is as a mother and wife. She has gentle hands and loving eyes. The way her children respond to it makes my heart ache with wishes and longings to have the same thing. I hope for the day that I can, like this mother, begin to understand the love that Heavenly Father has for us.

I’m not sure I was able to explain my two things sufficiently, but words are hard to come by when feelings are what you are trying to convey.

I am blessed in my life. I’m blessed with good friends and in case it didn’t come across, I really enjoy my life.

Okay, I think that’s it for now. Purge complete. :-)

I've had a couple of friends say something along the lines of, men in the church have fallen down on the job. I appreciate what they are saying, but I would like you to know that I don't blame the men. I truly believe that if I were suppose to be married, I would be. As my Christian friend at work would say, "It's a God thing." I really believe it is. I believe that Heavenly Father has a plan for me. I just wish I knew what it was. All I know is that for most of my adult life the callings I've held the most have been in Primary and now Nursery. Maybe His "plan" is to laugh at me!! LOL Most days I laugh with Him!

The Three Amigos

Happy, happy birthday Naomi dear.
Happy days will come to you all year.
If I had one wish, then it would be,
a happy, happy birthday to you from me!!

Stacey and I took Naomi to Johnny Carino's for her birthday. We had a blast!!

Naomi, you are awesome!! I love you and hope we are friends for a really long time!! One day I hope to be able to apply some of the Mom Skillz I've learned from you. Oh yes, I've been watching and learning. Don't get freaked out, I wasn't lurking outside your windows or anything (Stacey would call it being "stalker-ish" hehehe).

There's lots of other things I'm feeling right now, but words aren't adequate. I hope our mansions in heaven are close by so we can visit often. Granted, you and Stacey's will be up in the northwest and I'll be down here, but heavenly travel will be quick and easy. I'll just close my eyes, think of you and *POOF*, there I am on your doorstep with a lemon cake!

WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY - with an unexpected invite to dinner

Birthday celebrations started the night before. Robb and Stacey celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary on the 16th and I volunteered to watch the kids while they went out to dinner. The kids sang to me while I blew out the candles on my pan of birthday brownies! I couldn't have asked for a better start to my birthday!!!

My friend Gwen took me to dinner and a movie. We went to see Under The Same Moon (La Misma Luna) and I loved it. I totally recommend it, but beware it's in Spanish with English subtitles. I would love to tell you about it, but I really suck at trying to explain stories from movies or books. That's why I linked to it so can go check it out for yourself. Gwen is the best!!

During the movie, Stacey dropped off a cute little bag with the most perfect goodies in it. Several vanilla scented items. I LOVE VANILLA! It is my absolute favorite scent!! I can't decide if I somehow inadvertently mentioned that I love vanilla or that she's just seriously psychic. I'm leaning towards psychic since I can't recall ever having a "what's your favorite scent" conversation with her.

Also while I was in the movie, my brother Houston called to wish me happy birthday. I have to tell you that had I been the one driving, I probably would have driven off the road when I heard the message. It's been around two years since I've seen or spoken to him. Not because of anything bad that happened between us, just that we live such different lives. He has a lot of self inflicted problems that have estranged him from the family. He and my brother Beaumont don't get along at all! Anyway, he called to ask if I would like to go to dinner with him. Honestly? I didn't want to. These self inflicted problems have shaped him into a person that I don't like to be around and the thought of having to interact with him for an extended period of time was making me feel sick to my stomach. I said yes because even though I don't like him, he's my brother and I love him very much. I'm glad I did. We had an enjoyable dinner. He even had a present for me!! (I'm not convinced I wasn't in some sort of Twilight Zone episode)

It was a truly wonderful birthday!!

SHAMELESS PLOY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR, MEEEEEE
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

I'll be honest. I really want to have a good day today and getting my friends to say nice things about me will sure go a long way to making that happen. Lie if you have to, it's my birthday!!

Now for some vanity laced levity

At work over the weekend, about 60 people and their computers were moved into my building and this morning I had to go around and "fix" whatever the movers screwed up or flat out broke. Thankfully, the moving company that was hired did a fairly good job. I only had to do a few minor monitor configuration changes and move a computer into a more convenient location for a customer, but it was this computer move that prompted my funny little post.

I am not a vain person. I know that to my mother, I am beautiful, but to the rest of the world, ...? Jane Austen would use the term, undistinguished features! :-) But, I have one vanity. I love to grow my nails long and keep them shaped. I broke two of them while moving that blasted computer!!! LOL Earlier in the morning I was thinking just how nice they looked!! POOF! Back to having stubby little fingernails! ROFL Guess I gotta stay (h)umble somehow! HEHEHE