Snowfall

Snow is really pretty.
It's a nice change from the super hot weather.
I am not opposed to snow.
It is beautiful, white and it is like a big blanket.
I am opposed to the cold weather.
I wish it could snow 70 degree snowflakes.
Everyone could love it so much more.
Snow is still really pretty.

Remember Fall?

Fall was yesterday, remember the sun and burnt colored leaves? I do.

I'm Dead to the World

I'm sticking strong to my no Facebook for two weeks, but it's extra hard today.
Work is slow. I spend so much time waiting for stuff to be downloaded.I could be looking at Facebook right now, judging people and feeling inadequate. Oh, wait no...
My phone is acting weird too, so no texts or phonecalls today. For the next five hours it's me, NBC and the seven infomercials I have to record. Lots of waiting, lots of time to think and lots of time to wish I could scroll through seven pages of Facebook. I have a lot of reasons for getting rid of Facebook. I'll make you a wonderful blog list.

1. Hypothyroidism-It seriously blows, guys, you don't even know. Let's just say it's an all around kind of problem. I'm so unbalanced right now, it's crazy, but not in the I'm going to run out screaming through the mall with a giant gingerbread kind of crazy. This awesome unbalance means physical and mental fluctuations. I'm not complaining because it's getting taken care of, just means I've got to stop looking at everyone else and take care of myself.
2.  Jealousy- I've been a part of Facebook since 2008, that's more than four years I've been scrolling that blue bordered page, stalking my friends and family.  Since 2008, it's changed a lot. It's become very much a show among everyone, including myself. This show is so irritating to me because I'm constantly comparing my life to that of the online variety, which I learn is typically not true. Despite knowing better, I really have a hard time with jealousy. Especially since no one really talks to me outside of Facebook, so I don't see problems people are having, the only thing I see is vacation pictures and your super perfect baby or lovely decorations. I'm eliminating that factor for a while so I can start recognizing what I have instead.
3. Productivity- I started writing again and although I've only written 15 pages. This time I mean to finish it and find a place for it on the bookshelf and not just in my computer. I easily waste more than three hours on Facebook. That's three hours of my creativity wasted online.
4. Break from the Online Grind-  I read a list somewhere of "Ten Ways to Be Happy Everyday" or something like that and one thing it listed was calling someone you care about every day. Not just text them or put something on their Facebook wall, really call someone you love. That's super hard to take. When's the last time I had an honest to God conversation with someone outside of the online world. I feel incapable of having them anymore and that's sad. It's time to reconnect with LIVE people and build REAL relationships instead of online ones.

Those four things seem so small but I could expand each point into many more sub-points. It really doesn't matter why or how I'm really going to accomplish this. I am looking at the end result. Hopefully in two weeks time I will feel more aware of my surroundings, happy with what I have, lots of novel progress and refreshed with reality and building friendships. Feel free to join me on this journey and make it your own. Two weeks are going to fly by, hopefully, because I'm dying to update my status.

Halloween Costumes

Halloween came and went pretty quick this year. October started rough, cruised into peace and shuffled through a wedding.
If my kid ever stopped moving, I would show Cameron as a super cute pink Batgirl, but she doesn't stop moving and ripped her ears off before I could pull out a camera. In lieu of something extremely photogenic, I'm opting for reality.

Sheloved the moving witch at my mom's house.
That's not the story I wanted to tell.
I LOVE Halloween so so much.This year was super exciting because it's our first Halloween in our new house and our neighborhood is heavily populated with children. We went through more than 6 bags of candy before we turned off our lights.
The most awkward story of the night wasn't from a kid at all.
This random parent hopped up on our porch ahead of all the children and started taking pictures of me (in costume) before any of the kids could get to the door.
Husband likes to make inappropriate jokes about this story, but I'd rather not put them on the blog. Suffice to say some stranger has a picture of me in Victorian era costume barefoot at the front door of my house. I hope he hasn't set up some in the windows. Creeper.

Carnival Cruise Bathroom Venture

I don't usually share tales from the bathroom, but I have to include this story.

 Dave and I just spent a week aboard the Carnival Legend. We left out of Tampa, Florida and landed in Cozumel, Belize, Mohagony Bay and the Grand Cayman. The trip was fantastic! 

 The story that sticks out in my mind doesn't occur on any of those gorgeous ports. We were on the boat and after a long, boring day at sea the Dave, Brad, Jaycie and I opted for a little excitement at the formal steakhouse. 

Brad made the appointment and we dressed up accordingly. 

In the middle of dinner I got that awkward feeling. You know when you gotta go, you gotta go. Walking in heels on the boat was fine, except for all the slick flooring that my old made my old stilettos slide all over the place.
I slowly walked down the stairs and finally found the bathroom.
Restrooms on the boat could be quite the experience. You had to heft a should inward just to get in a small foyer and another hefty door shove to get into the actual bathroom containing three or four stalls.
The steakhouse was pretty empty so I was surprised to see a woman standing in the foyer between the outside and the room with the stalls. She looked at me with that dull, irritated look my mom gave me a thousand times when I was a preteen, "They won't let me in."
"What?"
"They are holding the door shut."
Almost as if she heard us talking, a middle-aged woman with mousey brown hair with a fancy dress and shawl came out laughing hysterically.  In the restroom, you could see four or five other middle-aged women laughing at the sinks.
The woman with mousey hair felt the need to explain to me, "They restaurant is so formal and they want you to be so good--so serious. We are all so naughty--loud--funny. These girls--."
She whips out an old digital camera to show me a picture of her friend (with a shawl over her head), peeing in the sink. Did I just enter Bridesmaid's 2, Middle-Aged Cruise?
I couldn't stop laughing. This middle-aged woman with greying hair was giggling like a teenager and showed me, a complete stranger, a picture of her friend peeing in the sink. It's just too awesome.
I want to be that awesome when I'm in my elder years. Here's to you, middle-aged woman peeing in the public sink, YOLO.

My Suburban Chicken

Normal people have normal pets. My friend next door had two dogs and my friend Stacey had a lizard. I didn't ever feel weird until my friends came over just to stare at the shed with peeling red paint.  I started to feel like my house was closer to a zoo than a house.
I grew up in Sandy, Utah. It is NOT a farming town. Sandy is very much surburbia at it's finest. You would have to drive a few miles to see anything besides houses and brick school houses.
We were the only family with pets that were a little different. We had a cat, a yellow canary and a chicken.We had a chicken that didn't produce eggs or do anything normal chickens do, besides cluck sometimes when she was nervous.
The story is good but it gets better. Not only did we have a chicken in suburban Utah, the chicken's name was not Florence or Betsy. The bird was appropriately named Ugly. She was missing a ton of feathers from close calls with neighborhood cats.  She also had a beak the seemed to frown all the time and only clucked when she felt nervous. Ugly chicken stopped laying eggs before I was born, but we still nurtured her in a shed in the back yard. She was a pet and part of the family
In the summer, my mom let her out of the shed to wander our large backyard and pick at bugs in my mom's garden.
The worst part about having a chicken in the backyard was feeding her. After dinner my brothers and I would take turns leaving bowls of appropriate dinner leftovers for Ugly. Those moments are still terrifying to think about. The backyard had exactly one light that pointed towards the back of the house towards the trees, not the shed. So I spent the time looking down the back of the house for murders, shuffling to the shed, dumping the bowl of lettuce for Ugly and sprinting back to the house before someone could kidnap me.
Terrifying.
Even though I hated feeding Ugly. I was fond of the awkward chicken.
When I was in first grade, I got this assignment to draw a picture of my family. Like every six year old I included my pets: Butterscotch, the best long-haired tabby cat in the world;  Tweety, originally named yellow canary that appropriately used only the swing in the wire cage; and I couldn't forget about Ugly.

Bachelorette Lingerie mishap

This year has been full of weddings for Dave and I. This means lots of bridal showers, bridal picture sessions, bachelorette parties, set-up and take-down of all those things and then there are the weddings.
My favorite part of these events is the bachelorette parties. I love an excuse to shop for "fun things" and play "fun games" with friends--even if the friends are my sister-in-laws.
Last night was the last one. I got a super cute purple number that was cute and hot at the same time.
The day before said party was very busy and I shoved the lingerie into the gift bag in a big handful; running out the door literally with my child screaming from her carseat.
We played a game of guessing. The guests lined up panties they purchased on a line and the bride had to guess who gave it to her. I didn't want to buy a new pair so I separated the set. The panty hung on the line and I put the rest in a gift bag.  When gift opening began. She pulled out the number with praise.
I quickly explained that it didn't have a tag because I had to rip it open for the panty game and I didn't wear it.
Laughter all around and I demonstrate a little shimmy to go along with it.
Then she says, "Oh, wait there's something else."
My eyes went wide, wait what?
She pulled out my purple ruffle tank top. It's roughly the same color and was probably sitting too close to the lingerie on the bed.
Someone on the couch was pretty witty, "Maybe she did try it on."
I can't make this stuff up.
I brought a gift bag of scented hand sanitizer (matching with the bride's lotion) and my own purple tank top. True Story