I need a nap...

I'm exhausted! I've spent pretty much every day at Lisa's house over the past week or so, helping her clean and unpack and paint and take care of her kids. Hunter, her 7 month old, is incredibly cute, but he's a needy little boy. If he's not being held, he's screaming bloody murder. That makes for slow going. The past couple nights I've been there past midnight trying to get Annabelle's room painted (stripes of two colors of pink and white stripes, and we had to paint over a horrible blue wall). So that's why you haven't seen any new posts from me. Lisa is great. She and I are a lot alike and get along like we've known each other pretty much forever. Our kids play really well together as well. I feel really lucky to have met her. But I am exhausted. It'll be nice when life gets back to normal a little. Her husband gets home this weekend from an almost 6 months away doing training for his job, so she won't need me as much then.

I taught Relief Society again on Sunday. It went really well. I'll try to post some of my favorite quotes from my studies tomorrow. They'll be appropriate for the day.

It's a small world after all...

I went to help a new family move into our ward this afternoon. Well, the Elders Quorum did the big move on Saturday, but this woman's husband is across the country doing job training, so she is doing it all herself, with a 3 1/2 year old girl and a 7 month old boy, so I went to help her unpack today. We got to talking about where she was from and what her husband did. She mentioned her husband went to school on Bainbridge Island. "WHAT? What is your last name again?" Dahlstrom. Ken Dahlstrom and his family just moved into my ward! The world seems so small inside the church.

He happened to call while I was there and asked my maiden name. When he heard it, he immediately went into stories of scouting with Ben. I just had to laugh. You never know who you'll run into or what distant memory will suddenly turn up in your ward! I was just going to help a woman alone with her move, and suddenly I'm taken on a trip into my past. This is weirder to me than driving down Meridian and having Alan Cleaver driving right behind me.

Catch Up

Just a few random oddities of my life so y'all feel caught up:

1. Tyler had his birthday party on Saturday afternoon. It was the easiest one I've ever put on, and he loved every minute of it. He looked so handsome in his new church clothes from Grammy and Grampy today! (picture to come)

2. I got my first "excellent!" out of my piano teacher on Saturday afternoon. He was very pleased with how far I'd come on a song we've been working on. That was really exciting for me.

3. I badly twisted my ankle Saturday night and can hardly walk.

4. We had a storm come through here this afternoon. I LOVED it. The colors in the clouds were amazing (as were the greens of the trees against the dark sky) and I've come to love thunder and lightening. I'm so glad my kids love storms too. They ran around, loving every second nearly as much as I did.

5. I still don't love my new medication. I'm still having side effects, but not as severe as with the other one. But I'm not sleeping as well either. I'm leaning towards forgetting meds all together and just suffering through my insomnia, but I'll talk to my doctor once more before I make that decision.

6. I have about 10 loads of laundry that need to be folded. My kids are finally out of school for the summer. I'm supposed to be at Activity Girls Day Camp on Tuesday and Wednesday, but I'm still not sure if I can make it. I promised to help a new woman in our ward unpack tomorrow since she has 2 small kids and her husband is out of town. Scott is going out of town for the weekend with his dad and brothers. I'm having a fondue party one night he's gone (Jenn, I could use some help on this!). What happened to the LAZY days of summer?

That's about it for me for now!

TYLER

Happy Birthday to Tyler!

In honor of Tyler's 6th birthday, I thought I'd take a moment and write down a few of the things I love about my son.

1. He loves a good joke.

2. He's smart as a whip.

3. He has a sensitive spirit.

4. He loves to learn.

5. He's concerned with people around him, and wants everyone to be happy.

6. He makes sure he acknowledges as many people he can, and doesn't leave anyone out.

7. He wants to be just like his daddy.

8. He's a great soccer goalie.

9. He's willing to compromise in order to keep the peace.

10. He is so proud of himself when he learns something new.

11. He loves to ask questions.

12. He'll tell his life story to anyone who will listen, or at least anything interesting that's happened to him recently.

13. He has an amazing imagination.

14. He wants to be in the middle of whatever is going on.

15. He saved his tooth fairy money for more than 2 weeks until the ice cream man came to our neighborhood because there was no question but that he was going to buy ice cream from him.

16. He loves to help Daddy barbecue.

17. He gets super excited over little things.

18. He's been telling people the countdown to his birthday since June 1st.

19. He's so ready to be a grown up.

20. He wears his heart on his sleeve.

21. He thinks school is the best thing EVER!

22. He does a great "ready Freddy" ball catching position.

23. He finds humor in the inane, just like his dad.

24. He likes his hair spiky.

25. He is quick to smile and laugh.

There is so much more I could say about my wonderful son, but for now I'll stop and just say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TYLER! I LOVE YOU!!

Enough

I've been on the antidepressant my doctor prescribed for almost a month now, and I have to say, I HATE it. The two main purposes of this medication are to relieve depression and to relieve anxiety. I feel like it's CAUSING both. I've had occasional bad days before, but never this often, and not this bad. And I've never had issues with anxiety before. Sitting in church yesterday was almost torture for me. We sat in pretty much the very middle of the crowded chapel. The normal me wouldn't have thought anything of it, but yesterday it was terrible for me. I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like the longer the meeting went, the louder the room got, and the noise was oppressive. To make it worse, I felt a constant pressure pushing in on me. It was like I was being compressed and I could hardly breathe. Sunday School wasn't quite as bad as it was a smaller group in the gym, but it was still hard. I had to leave Relief Society early (which was a huge relief) because Tyler was giving a talk in Primary, but the primary room almost did me in completely. I was a mess by the time we got home. Even in smaller gatherings this week, I had a very difficult time being in large groups. At a movie night with some women in the ward, I couldn't sit in a room with 10 other women to watch a movie. It was too confined with too many people. Anxiety is a completely new experience for me, and I do not enjoy it at all. Add in that this is the most depressed I think I've ever felt, and you can guess I'm pretty miserable right now.

In general I think antidepressants are a great thing and a much needed help for a lot of people, but I don't think it's what I need, at least not right now. Fortunately I have an appointment this afternoon to talk to my doctor about this. Hopefully I come back with good news!


UPDATE:
Of course my doctor immediately took me off the offending medication I was on. She was amazed I stayed as long as I did on it. She'd never seen it cause anxiety to the degree I had it. It is a known side effect of the drug, but a very very rare one. She's given me something new to try instead, but is starting me on just half a dose for now. It'll also take a few days to come down off the old medication, but within a week I should be feeling MUCH better. If I don't, she wants to see me again. I didn't sleep quite as well on the new medication, but I woke up already feeling a bit less anxiety. Not a lot, but some. And every little bit helps. And once the old medication is out of my system, I can increase my new one to a full dose if I'm not sleeping enough. So things should be getting much better!

By request

A few pics from Pearls and Gloves:

This is me with Melody, holding the carebear that represented Deborah.

Mel is quite talented at self portraits. :)

We took off our gloves to eat dinner.

I thought this was pretty cool...

Last night's Enrichment night had something so cool, I had to tell y'all about it.

One thing I don't have in my emergency supplies is a way to cook. I don't even have a camp stove. Last night I learned about a really simple and easy way to solve that problem. You need just 4 things; an empty gallon size paint can, an empty quart size paint can, a quart of rubbing alcohol, and a roll of toilet paper. You smush the toilet paper to get it through the hole in the smaller paint can, then pour the entire bottle of rubbing alcohol into it. It'll take a little time for the toilet paper to absorb it, but it will take the entire bottle of alcohol. You then seal the paint can. Punch holes in the larger can around the top and bottom (for ventilation) then seal the smaller can inside the larger one. When it comes time to use it, open up both cans, put the smaller can onto the lid of the larger can, light the alcohol, then cover it with the larger can to give you a cooking surface. Apparently it's hot enough to boil water within half an hour. The heat coming through the holes punched in it is enough to warm you, and to roast pretty much anything you might toast over a fire. It lasts 6-8 hours, and can be replenished just by adding more rubbing alcohol. How easy is that? And if you have the storage space for just a can of paint, you have a makeshift stove!

Great weekend!

It would be silly for me to not blog about my weekend. It was great!

First off, this is just a silly thing, but it was important to me. In my piano lessons, we've been working on Fur Elise. There are two parts that have been giving me trouble, but this week Ashton was able to walk me through one of them, and in practicing the other with him there, I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong on the other one! I'm still not anywhere close to perfect, but at least I know what I've been doing wrong and can try to correct it. I love when a light bulb goes on in my head like that! That's my fizzy joy for this post.

My main event for the weekend was going out to a play with some friends. My friend Melody started a little group she calls Pearls and Gloves. We dress in black dresses and wear (you guessed it) pearls and gloves and go see local plays. The plan is to do a combination of full blown professional stuff in Seattle and smaller local stuff, but the idea is to support the theater. We had our very first outing Saturday night. We went to Everett to see a local production of Guys and Dolls. How is it I've never even seen this movie? How did I not know A Bushel and a Peck was from this musical? or Luck be a Lady? They're songs I grew up with and yet never knew their origins. Our night out was so much fun! Our original dinner plans ended up not working (Wait, we're in Everett? We passed Lynwood??) so we went to Olive Garden to eat. The food was excellent. The play itself was very well done. I was impressed. The actress playing Sarah Brown seemed a touch old for the roll, but she sang VERY well. We got pelted with eggs (plastic ones with candy or dice in them) and the band came walking down the stairs through the audience. It was well cast, well acted, and well sung. Overall I was impressed. We're planning on returning to that theater to see Annie in February. But our next definite outing will be Into the Woods at the 5th Ave. Theater in Seattle in November. As good as all of that was, really the best part was the company. This is a remarkable group of women and I am incredibly lucky to count them as friends. We had such a great time mostly because of each other! (But we REALLY missed Deborah who had a family medical emergency and couldn't make it.) Ok, that's my other fizzy joy for this post. :D

Then came Sunday. For just the third time in my life, I was asked to substitute for Relief Society. (I was also asked 3 separate times to substitute in Primary this week alone as well!) Normally that's something I like to do, but this time I was STRESSED over it. I didn't have the time I needed to prepare the way I wanted. Right before Relief Society was supposed to start, you would have found me pacing the halls shaking like a leaf. I can't remember ever being that nervous before! Fortunately it went well. The women seemed responsive, asked good questions, and made insightful remarks. It was a great lesson. But I came home absolutely exhausted!

That was my fantastic weekend. :)

Where are my sisters?? None of them have been on in forever!

It's Done!!

It's official. My back yard is fenced in once again. After losing a huge chunk of our fence to winter storms, my very handy husband and our neighbor have succeeded in getting it all repaired and replaced. No more stray dogs, no more bratty neighbor kids, no more unwelcomed visitors in my back yard. It took a while because we had to work around weather (pouring cement in the rain doesn't work) and schedules (8:00 PM in the dark doesn't work either), but it's done now. And it looks great! Scott and Randy did a fantastic job; better than the original builders in fact. I think I'm really lucky to have a husband who is able to do these kinds of repairs. They did it for about 5% of the estimate we got when we looked into having it fixed by a contractor. Well done, gentlemen!!

Sunday Post

Today may have been one of my favorite sacrament meetings ever. Instead of the usual speakers you'd expect to hear, the meeting was opened up to the congregation, sort of like a testimony meeting, but instead of bearing our testimonies, we could request to sing a particular verse of any hymn in the hymn book. Most people would give a short explanation of why they chose that hymn or what it meant to them before we sang it, so it became a meeting filled with testimony and a very strong spirit. There is so much truth and love in the hymns, and being able to sing so many of them was a really beautiful experience. It was a little surprising to me what was chosen. When one sister asked to sing the third verse of If You Could Hie To Kolob, I was really surprised. I didn't think anyone but the Sauters knew that hymn! It was really a very special spirit in that room, and I am so grateful I was there today to experience it. In case you're wondering, I did go up and ask for a particular hymn. It was really tough for me to pick just one hymn. There are so many hymns that I love and wanted to sing. For most of the meeting I was leaning towards Lead Kindly Light, but couldn't decide on one verse over another. Ultimately I chose the 4th verse of hymn #86; How Great Thou Art. If I were ever required to choose just one verse of one hymn that was truly my favorite, this is it.

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,

And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.

Then I shall bow in humble adoration

And there proclaim "My God, how great thou art."

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Green Thumb wanna be

The Prophet said to plant a garden.

Oh won't you plant a garden too,

and share the many joys

a garden brings in health and love

to happy girls and boys!

My "playgroup" on Thursday was at my house. It was a beautiful day so we worked outside. One of the things we did was to clear out the area I used for a garden last year. I hadn't touched it at all since last year, so it was pretty overrun with weeds. But we got it all cleared out! It's a bit late in the season to be planting seeds, so I bought a few actual plants to transplant into my newly cleared garden. I'm kind of excited at the prospects. If it all goes well, I'll have zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant and watermelon! I hope they all survive the transplant process and give me some decent results. If so, next year I'm clearing out an even larger area and adding onions, peas and cantelope to my garden. I hate the work of the garden, specifically the weeding, but I sure love having home grown fruits and vegetables to eat. They just taste better. And the price of produce has gotten so high, I think a little work is worth the effort. Anyone know what it takes to grow jicama? And I'm thinking about asking Scott how he feels about planting apple trees...

Side Effects

Ok, I've been on this new medication for a few days now and I'm not sure I'm noticing any change as far as the real reason I'm taking it, but I'm definitely noticing some of the side effects. I'm having occasional dizzy spells. They're not major, but they come from time to time. Also, I'm dried out. Dry mouth hardly covers how it feels. If I don't have a glass of water by me, I'm not happy. And I'm hungry! I see why they use this to treat eating disorders. This is not a good medication for someone trying to lose weight. I can't seem to stop eating. I'm as bad as my kids; almost the minute I'm done eating a meal, I'm wondering what I'm going to have for a snack. I am definitely not enjoying this particular side effect. The good news is I do seem to be sleeping a bit better. In fact, every day seems a little better than the last as far as my sleeping goes. I guess I'll give it a few more days and see how I feel then.

Huh...

After quite a bit of prodding from Scott, I finally went in to see my doctor about my insomnia. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. After talking about my symptoms and what I've done to help (like not reading in bed, giving up caffeine, and exercising regularly), she decided I didn't need a sleep aid. Instead she prescribed an antidepressant. I can't decide how I feel about this. I'm not sure I would have said I'm depressed. But she may be right; this may be the elephant in the room I've been ignoring. At this point I'm just not sure what to think. It's the same antidepressant I was on for a month in college, so I know I won't have any weird side effects, and I know it'll help me sleep. I guess there's just such a big difference between taking an occasional sleep aid and being on a daily dose of antidepressants that I'm having a hard time adjusting to it. This isn't what I expected to happen.

The one part of this that made me laugh was reading what else this medicine is used for. Here are a couple highlights;
bedwetting in children
migraine headaches
chronic pain
eating disorders
OCD
panic attacks
premature ejaculation

Sounds like just what I need! :P

Lesson Time!

Becca was in charge of the lesson for FHE last night. I asked her several times during the week when she wanted to work on her lesson, and she told me every time that she didn't need my help. She was sure she wanted to do it herself. She also kept telling me it was going to be "so cool, Mom." Being the independent girl she is, I decided for once I'd let her do it herself. Maybe I should have pushed her a bit harder. Our lesson was on...

...toilet paper. Yep, an entire lesson on toilet paper. Somehow she missed that the lessons are supposed to be spiritual in nature. But she'd planned her lesson, so we let her do it. When she went over the different ways of wiping your bottom (demonstrating over her pants), I couldn't help myself. I laughed. A lot. She'd actually put some thought into her lesson. We also talked about other uses for toilet paper (like wiping noses and cleaning mirrors), as well as things not to do with it (like playing with it, leaving it around the house, and cleaning trees with it). Little Becca did her very first solo lesson, and she was as proud as can be of herself. :) It's times like these that make me LOVE being a Mom.

Check it out!

Since I'm one who rarely looks at what other people have linked to their blogs, I'm sure none of you look at mine either. There's a real gem out there I want to make you all aware of. My friend Deborah has a blog all about the amazing food she cooks. When we hear Deb is bringing food to any gathering we have, we all start to cheer and drool. She's amazing. Y'all should check out her blog, and tell your friends. Everyone should have the goodness of Deborah, but since you can't have her (lucky me), you can at least read her blog and try out her recipes. I particularly recommend her trifle and spinach artichoke dip. Oh, and you have to try the cheesecake fruit dip. It's heaven! :)

Let's all share the goodness that is Deborah!

http://deborahsw.blogspot.com/

Mothers Day

As with my birthday, my family did more for me this Mothers Day than they've done before. I chalk it up to my kids being older and more involved.

My morning started at about 7:30 with Tyler plopping a bowl on my tummy and telling me I get breakfast in bed. He decided I should have a bowl of cereal so he took the crumbs from the bottom of the bag of shredded wheat and poured in my (expired) milk. My kids drink 2% milk, but I drink nonfat, so he was being so good by using my milk. He had no idea it was sour. It was such a sweet gesture.

Scott then went downstairs and let the kids know Mommy wanted to sleep in a little bit, so they needed to be quiet and leave me alone. They did. About 9:00 they came up with my second breakfast in bed; peanut butter toast and pineapple juice. It was very good. They also came up with gifts; a beautiful, bright spring bouquet of flowers, a cute balloon, some sugar free candy, and a poem and recipe holder Rachel made at school. It was all very wonderful.

At church, instead of the usual mums or pansies we're given, our ward gave out pies. Yes, pies. Full size 9 inch apple pies. I was impressed.

When we got home from church, I got to sit on the couch and watch a movie with my kids while Scott made dinner. He did a great job of it, and he did a full on dinner. He made a roast, baked potatoes with all the fixings, and asparagus. It was all delicious. And with the apple pie, dessert was covered! Of course, you can't eat pie without ice cream, so we pulled out my new ice cream maker I got from Mom for my birthday and made homemade ice cream to go with it!

It was a very nice Mothers Day for me. My family really made sure I felt loved and appreciated.

Happy Birthday to me!

Yes, the candles say 21, but really I'm 31 today. Between Activity Days, gymnastics, and my normal busy day I'm not sure we have time to celebrate today, but it is my birthday. So happy birthday to me!

A Mommy First

Today was the first time I've ever had to take one of my children into the emergency room. Rachel was riding her bike and fell down, splitting her chin open. It required 4 stitches. (The stitches are blue, something she's not happy about as blue is a BOY color.) She was incredibly brave through it, even though she said she was sure she wasn't that brave. She did NOT want to go in, and was sure stitches just weren't for her, thank you very much. She was actually fine when we could get her distracted. She played with a little magnetic table with sand and frogs for quite a while in the waiting room, and even worked a word search with me. It was only when a medical professional came near her that she got scared. When it was just us, she was happy and laughing and cheerful as can be! I did take a couple pictures with my cell phone (who would think to bring their real camera to the ER?), but I'm just too tired to deal with that tonight. I'll try to get them up tomorrow so you can see the injury. It wasn't pretty.
It was a long evening, but she's fine, and the stitches will come out in about 5 days. Hopefully the scar isn't too bad! Overall, my first ER trip probably could have been a lot worse. And she was wearing her helmet which I'm sure saved her from a worse injury.

Besides the injury to Rachel, the worst part of this was the 5 hours I lost in preparing my talk for church tomorrow! That's why I'm still up at 2:00 in the morning. But my talk is printing as I type. Now I just have to stay awake long enough to give it! Wish me luck.

Here are the pics:

My Not Date Night

Last night was supposed to be date night with Scott. We'd been planning it for a while. The original idea was miniature golf, but with my arm being the way it is, that was obviously out. We ultimately decided on dinner and a movie. But I had a bunch of girlfriends doing a movie night that I was supposed to be a part of, so we decided we'd stop by that before we went out. I talk about these girls all the time, but Scott doesn't really know them and he wanted to be able to put faces to names. Or so he said.

I walked in to find not movie night, but a surprise birthday party for ME! I was SHOCKED. I had no idea. And it wasn't just a party with the girls, they invited people from all areas of my life, getting them all together in one place. It was an amazing night. The food was excellent, the company even better, and the activities of the night were hilarious. I had an amazing time. But most importantly, I feel loved and appreciated by an incredible group of people. This is a huge change from a year ago where I didn't really have any friends to invite to a birthday party. I have amazing friends. And I am incredibly touched by all the effort and love that went into planning last night. My birthday is still a few days away, but already this is the best birthday I've ever had.

I don't get it.

I'm curious about something. When did women become PROUD of being irrational and difficult? When did that become something admirable? I have a friend who posted something about women and the "funny" things they do, like when they say "fine" it means they're right, they just want you to shut up and "that's OK" means she's just still thinking about what your punishment is going to be. There were several things on this list, all of which were negative female stereotypes. Within minutes of her posting it, three more female friends posted it as well. They think it's funny. Perhaps my discomfort and lack of sleep are restricting my sense of humor, but I didn't find it funny. I found it embarrassing, mostly for the women who take pride in being that kind of woman. I recognize women in general have their shortcomings, and I probably more than most. But instead of doing something to make that better, most women I know seem to enjoy being able to get away with their irrational and silly behavior because "it's what women do." I don't understand taking pride in shortcomings. I don't understand celebrating irrationalities. If we as women enjoy and promote our faults, how will we ever improve? If we laugh at our failings, who does that help? And what are we teaching the next generation of girls if we applaud this kind of behavior? Perhaps I'm ranting over nothing and I need to lighten up. I just don't understand celebrating such negative behavior.

OK, rant over. :)