i am participating in throwback thursday this week. it is hosted by the fabulous women over at pinks&blues check out their blog, it is great!


My nana passed away yesterday and i have been reflecting today on so many fond memories with her. i searched and searched and was unable to find the photos of her that i know i have somewhere, so i decided to post some pictures to honor my own wonderful mom. i love her and my heart is with her at this time of loss. my nana, such an extraordinary person, has left quite a legacy. I have had a feeling of peace today because i know my nana knows that i love her and i know she loves me. i am who i am because of who my nana was and the way she lived her life. thank you nana. you will be forever loved and missed...

my mom holding me when i was an infant



i love my mom

chadder's restaurant: where you definitely are not In-N-Out...

this is the menu for chadder's restaurant where dave and i went for dinner tonight:


look familiar? this menu is almost identical to the menu at In-N-Out burger. i had to get blood drawn today and just basically had a lousy day, at least the bandage they wrapped my hand in was pink...anyway, because dave knows i love In-N-Out burger, he thought it would be fun to drive to american fork and try this new restaurant that In-N-Out has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against. In-N-Out says everything from Chadders building to its menu is a rip-off of In-N-Out Burger. We decided to stay in the car and go through the drive-thru to order our food. it took over a half an hour to even get to the window. they messed up our order three times before getting it right. we had to explain our order six different times, two times each to three different people, including the manager...remember this is only an $11.00 order total for two people...to quote dave, "let's take this from the top...again" honestly i have never had such a frustrating or lengthy fast food experience. i think we would have preferred driving to las vegas and back for the real deal...at least it would have been quicker.

good thing we are going to california in august...In-N-Out, here we come...

empty arms...

I am once again awake when it seems the rest of the world is sleeping. it is quiet, and this is the time i reflect on things...i hear the crickets outside my window. i read yesterday that crickets are a good omen...i hope so. today was a hard day for me. time was dragging on at work and i started to have some pain in my abdomen...while this is common for me, today it was a little more intense and i breathed slowly and prayed that time would speed up so i could go home and rest. dave and i had planned to go to the gym again after work, even brought our gym clothes with us so we wouldn't have to go home first, but by the time five o'clock mosied up to us, i was doubled over in pain. dave did not think working out was a good idea, so we stopped to pick up some dinner and headed home. i have taken percocet and tylenol pm and they have not helped to ease the pain or induce sleep. when i am in physical pain it is much harder to deal with sadness, add exhaustion to that and you have a recipe for the mean reds(breakfast at tiffany's is one of my all-time favorite movies)and in addition, tomorrow is the day our baby that we lost in december was due. i think emotionally i have been feeling better each day, but i am still struggling with my health and it doesn't seem to have improved much at all. I go in to take some blood tests on tuesday and i am just praying that everything will be okay and we can get some information on what is happening...i love babies, i always have. i have loved babies since i was a baby. here are a couple of my favorite babies(even though they are not babies anymore):

summer of 1982 holding baby rachel, i'm almost three and now i am a big sister
- quite certain she is the first baby i ever held



thomas is born. i distinctly remember that rocking chair and how each child in our family took their turn sitting in it to hold my baby brother...and i remember the moment he was placed in my arms for the first time. i remember thinking how special that moment was and that i had to be very careful because he was a new baby...


today my arms are empty. it is hard to think about what might have been...it feels as though i am constantly being subjected to tests of my strength and courage. i look forward to the day when i will be holding my own baby, but for now i enjoy the memories of babies i have loved and taken care of and the wonder and joy of seeing who they have become. oh the possibilities that life holds for each one of us...

our first anniversary...

Dave sent me these flowers at work and when the florist walked in i just gasped at how beautiful they were, when he said they were for me i just about started crying. Dave always makes me feel so beautiful and special. all day people walked by me and said things like, "i'm so jealous" or "someone loves you"...i felt like zuzu in "it's a wonderful life" when she didn't care if she was sick and needed to go to sleep, she didn't want to because she just wanted to look at her flower. that is how i felt all day today at work...i just wanted to look at my flowers.


Dave had made reservations for dinner and he would not tell me where we were going because it was a surprise. It was such a fun, romantic dinner. i am sure we will be going to dinner there again. everything we ate was so delicious...


the first anniversary is paper traditionally and for him i printed out some of our wedding photos and framed them in a black frame collage frame with white matting and a gift certificate to REI so he could buy some fun new cycling stuff. he gave me tickets to go see mamma mia when it comes in august and a body pillow to help me sleep at night. it was really a red-letter day for me.

June 20, 2006

my sisters in the bride's room before the ceremony


here comes the bride


dave


julie


kate wants to hug the bride


our wedding cake


after the ceremony

"everybody's working for the weekend"

well the last week at work has been painfully slow. i am an assistant and my boss was out of town on business last week. i finished the work she gave me in half the time i was scheduled to work so ended up losing hours and money going home early. last week i realized that my boss would only be in town one day this week and i was going to run into the same problem. oh man, i only work three days a week as it is. the company i started working for has had a high turnover rate for the receptionist position. they have had a temp filling in because they have been through so many...i started thinking that maybe i could fill that position and still accomplish the things i help my boss with...i could get full time hours, and it wouldn't matter if it was a slow day because i would be doing another job as well. i pitched this idea to my boss today and i start full time tomorrow. it all fell right into place. it will be nice to be working full time again and to have some extra money for the weekends...and it means i get to spend more time with my husband(he works in the same office) talk about a win-win situation...

fun new game

A Meme of Fives

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.


1. Relaxed Parents

2. SusieJ.

3. 3 Boys and a Lady

4. Pinks & Blues Girls

5. pinkmorning

Now for the fun part — the questions:

“What were you doing 10 years ago?”

i had just graduated from high school and was on my senior trip on a houseboat in lake powell...

“Five snacks you enjoy:”

1. apple slices
2. string cheese
3. sugar snap peas
4. chips and salsa
5. dried mangos

“Five songs to which you know all the lyrics”

1. you've got a friend - james taylor
2. total eclipse of the heart - bonnie tyler
3. just a friend - bizmarkie
4. american pie - don mclean
5. america - neil diamond

“Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:”

1. buy dave a new car
2. pay off our house
3. go back to school
4. spend some time with dave in brazil
5. give fun gifts to all of our family members

“Five bad habits:”

1. picking at my nails
2. scratching(i have eczema)my legs too much
3. Spending too much time on the internet
4. playing bejeweled on my phone (i have gotten a little better)
5. brushing my teeth too hard(they just don't feel clean with a soft head)

“Five things you like doing:”

1. listening to music
2. going out with dave(especially to movies)
3. making people laugh
4. Having great conversations
5. blogging(writing in general)

“Five things you would never wear again:”

1. pegged leg jeans
2. two pairs(contrasting colors)of socks.
3. white eyeliner
4. skorts
5. mile-high bangs

“Five favorite toys:”

1. ipod

2. internet

3. kitchen aid electric mixer

4. digital camera

5. rummikub game

the tapestry of my life

so many mixed emotions today...life will always have it's ups and downs, sometimes you are high and sometimes you are low. what amazes me is the ability we have as humans to feel the contrast of opposite emotions at the same time. our one year anniversary is quickly approaching and three days later is the early delivery date of the baby that we lost in december. winter and december are words often used to describe the dark and difficult times in songs and poems, boy what a perfect fit in my case...it was the winter of my discontent, a cold and lonely december for me. earlier today i was thinking about this time last year, when dave and i were caught up in love and the excitement of our joyous union and dave's father died unexpectedly after a routine procedure eleven days before the wedding. it was such a tragedy, one that can only be understood if you have experienced it. there is something about losing a parent, maybe because of everything they are and have always been to you, because you associate your own identity with who they are, it is like losing a part of yourself. i think i cried as much as dave did, partially for his dad, partially for the loss of my own dad and a lot for dave and the pain he was feeling at such an enormous loss. i remember feeling bewildered as well. why did this have to happen now? why couldn't he at least be able to see us get married? the juxtaposition of these two events so close together made it hard to distinguish some of the tears shed at our wedding...some were happy tears, others tender tears of sadness at saying goodbye to the person who had raised this amazing man that i had the blessing of now having as a husband.

...so here we are one year later getting ready to celebrate our love and marriage and in the same breath sadness for loss and heartbreak of things that might have been. it is hard for me to think that we would be welcoming a new addition to our family right about now and all the joy and excitement that comes with a new baby...a very tender time for me and as i think back on my life some of my most painful moments have been paired with some of my greatest joys and accomplishments. it is something that i know i can not now, or probably ever, understand, but it is the way life seems to happen for me. i know that it is through adversity that we become strong, and that our past experiences and the way we personally choose to deal with them are key elements in shaping who we are and who we will become. it is the things we experience, good and bad, weaving tightly together that form the tapestry of our lives. i like the image of a tapestry, because it is the contrast of colors that make it beautiful. you would never notice how vibrant the yellows or pinks are if they did not have a contrasting dark color to make them pop. i was thinking about that today, about all of the struggles that i have had through the years, and wondering what i would be without them. if you take the painful experiences out of my life, i would cease to be me. the last six months have been a time of great self-discovery for me and i like to think that maybe i will be a better mother(when the time comes) because of it. not a better mother than anyone else, but a better mother now than i would have been if i had not had to walk this hard road. maybe i will be a little kinder, a little more gentle, maybe i will be more patient...but i know that i will cherish my babies, where i may have taken motherhood for granted if it was something that had come quickly and easily for me. life is sure a school of hard knocks. it always amazes me when i am, or anyone really, is crying and hear or see something funny and then laugh through the tears. maybe that is the only way to survive. maybe it is not so much that a bad thing happens at a happy time, but that bad things happen and we create happy happenstances to be able to make it through, like a survival technique, so we can laugh through the tears...

i am participating in "throwback thursday" which is hosted on Pinks&Blues
(love their blog)...i loved this idea. i love looking at old family pictures. they bring back so many memories and emotions for me. the idea of having a set time to do it so that those albums don't ever accumulate dust is ingenious...

halloween has always been my favorite, i am sure it is the dreamer in me....a holiday so full of possibility, where the only limit is your imagination...





(left to right)i am the pot-bellied ballerina, melissa, eliot and laura



(left to right)eliot, melissa, laura and julie

Personal DNA

this is a really cool personality test that I am borrowing from a fellow blogger. thank you like a star! i found the test to be interesting and fairly accurate. you can scroll the mouse over each color to see the results of my test...



want to read more about my personal profile?

My personalDNA Report
see if you agree...

tickled pink...

here is a list of my ten favorite things that are pink:



1. my pink(well, pink and splotchy) husband(see previous post)
-not pictured pink


2. my pink sapphire wedding ring(represents the love my husband and i have for each other)
3. my pink ipod(well, my pink ipod case that protects my ipod)

4. my pink nalgene bottle(helps me to drink more water, leak-proof, fits in my purse)

5. my pink beauty rush lip balm(my favorite lip balm in the world)

6. my pink swiss army knife(use it nearly every day and let's face it, it is cute)

7. my pink digital camera(i love pictures, taking them, looking at them, hanging them up)

8. my pink flip flop slippers(my feet stay cool and no footprints on our hardwood floors)

9. my pink carabiner clip(so my keys don't get buried in my purse)

10. my pink cell phone(i do not love the razr phone, but i love that mine is pink)

"pink and white dalmation"

dave took me to skool lunch yesterday for a bite to eat. he ate the cashew chicken salad. after lunch dave started to have an allergic reaction to something. he was pink and splotchy. he called the doctor and was told to stop taking his antibiotics, take a benadryl and avoid heat and humidity. this morning his lip was swollen and he was covered with pink bumps...he described himself as a "pink and white dalmation" and left work early to go to the doctor's office. the doctor was great, gave him some new antibiotics and some medication to control his allergies and now he is home and we are watching tv. i guess that the combination of his antibiotics and cashews was not good. cashews have histamine in them...who new? the doctor told him he should feel better soon after taking his medication, i hope so...

what flower are you?

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

You Are a Snapdragon
"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

"let me call you wheatheart" and other favorite songs

i adore music. i love all different types. today i was searching for some of my old favorites, the songs that take you back to yesteryear...the ones that are reminiscent of a more innocent, joyful time and i did a search for "let me call you sweetheart" on itunes and was surprised when the search yielded no results...i then looked at what i had typed in the search field. I realized that instead of sweetheart i had typed wheatheart and i laughed out loud. my sister laura used to sing this song with the enthusiasm and joy of a young girl without the S. it is one of our family stories that is always remembered with a sweet poignancy. it wasn't until i read "let me call you wheatheart" on the computer that i realized why i love this song so much. i love this song because i love laura so much...and when i hear it i picture her in her "do it with gusto" t-shirt and coke bottle glasses singing it sweetly to express her love for her family. it is funny how a song can be a vehicle to take you to a different place in time.

about eighteen months ago i was spending some time with my nana at my aunt rosemary's house. it was about a week before christmas, and i had been reading her some of my favorite christmas stories. i could see she was getting tired and had become bored with television, so i put on a dean martin cd that i had packed in my purse to play for her. the cd had not been playing for long when my nana reached for my hand. she had a look of peace and contentment that i had not seen in her in quite some time, and though i never have met him, i could feel my papa in the room. dean martin isn't what made my nana happy, it was being taken back to being with my papa that made her sparkle. some of the songs i love are my favorites because of who and what they represent to me.

some things never change

ten things about me that have not changed since high school (in no particular order)

1. running errands in my pajamas
2. making fun of the sad parts in movies that make me feel like crying(and sometimes while I am crying) to lighten the mood and make others laugh.
3. laughing at my own jokes(i think i am the funniest person alive)
4. saying someone doesn’t like me if I don’t know how I feel about them(maybe as justification, who knows?)
5. singing out loud to songs while I am driving alone
6. feeling better when the magic 8 ball gives me the answer I am looking for in my moments of serious dilemma or sadness...(putting my faith on a plastic toy for my most difficult moments... i guess i am a kid at heart, or an idealist)
7. visiting my father’s grave when I am feeling hopeless about something and need a pick-me-up
8. being prepared for any given situation, whether packing a backpack, glovebox or handbag…always carrying the essentials(everything is essential, by the way) such as: tylenol, toothbrush, toothpaste, mini hairbrush, visine, bobby pins, elastic bands, floss, chapstick, lotion, bandaids, tweezers, mini notebook for interesting thoughts, pen, mascara, sunglasses, camera, cell phone, kleenex…you get the idea, almost like I am channeling ally sheedy’s character in the breakfast club
9. listening to punk rock versions of classic old songs or musicals like less than jake’s rendition of the grease soundtrack, stand by me by pennywise, or you are my sunshine by screeching weasel, to name a few. It is like two different parts of my personality are fused together to create a fun new sound to some of my old favorite songs.
10. bargain or thrift-store shopping(i usually like the good deals i get better than the actual items)
11. making random lists of random things that I find interesting or amusing in some way(this list is proof, and it makes the grand total eleven things about me that have not changed, not ten... but if i did have a number twelve it would probably have to be pointing out the obvious)

a disposition free of stress or anxiety

today was a hard day for me, a lot of painful cramping in my abdomen and a general feeling of wooziness all around. i had been anxiously awaiting dave's arrival home from work all day, now that we are working together it is hard for me to be apart from him, it was the first time in days that i haven't been able to see him all day and i was really missing him. i have been doing a lot better lately in general. work has helped me feel useful and i have already lost four pounds in the four days that i have been on weight watchers, but for some reason yesterday was brutal. one of the women that i work with is due four days before i was due and looks ready to pop and another co-worker has a wife that is due that same week, and yet another co-worker had an appointment with his pregnant wife to find out the gender of their baby, so it seemed that all the conversations at work were centered around pregnancies and babies. i did a good job of focusing on what i was doing and remained composed and friendly, but i started crying on the way home. it is hard to know that our baby would be due in about two weeks...so dave came home and had me shut my eyes and when he told me to open them he was holding this willow tree figure that is titled "serenity" and tears filled my eyes at the outpouring of love dave always shows me. dave told me that when he saw this figurine he really was struck with the feeling that everything would be alright...like our baby was saying, "be still, mommy, be still." i looked up the definition of serenity and it is "a disposition free of stress or anxiety" what a beautiful message to me sent with such love from my dear husband. i really couldn't ask for a better husband or a truer friend. i love him more than i could ever express.

where does the time go?

ten years ago tonight i graduated from high school. although i knew this day was coming soon because i was contacted about three months ago for a reunion, i didn't realize it was upon me until today. early this afternoon i was at work(yeah, i work now) and i was entering in a stack of files into our system and for each one i had to type in the date. after i had written the date about three times i realized it was ten years to the date of the day my life as a person, not just a high school student, started. i mentioned this to my co-worker and she just laughed and told me if i thought ten years was weird, to wait until it was twenty. i couldn't help but think about how fast time goes. i have often thought about the way we define ourselves and today i started contemplating how the definitions and labels we give ourselves while we are young, basically still children can completely shape who we become. i started a new job this week and i am lucky enough to get to work with my husband. one of the women training me laughed and said that she always thinks about the first day of a new job like the first day of school and told me i was lucky because at least i knew someone, i already had a friend. i started thinking about that today. i know i am a very different person from the one that i was in high school. i have had many experiences that have made me examine what i am made of and what my beliefs and priorities are and that have just plain stretched me, and put me in a place of discovering not only who i am but what i have the potential to become. i never could have imagined the adventures(the good, the bad and the scary) that i have had in the last ten years, but in many ways i am the same. i still love to make people laugh...i still like to have many friends with a variety of different interests and personalities because i have so many different interests myself and i enjoy experiencing new things with other people...i still love reading, writing, singing and acting... i still love meeting new people, even though i don't know if i am as outgoing as i once was, i think that some of my travels have taught me to be cautious and not let myself be vulnerable, sometimes causing me to miss out on possible friendships, i guess i have to work on that one....i still love to learn and that is great because as long as i am living i will be learning. even though i am no longer in school, i get to be a student for life...

when the lights go out...

well i have not been feeling very good this weekend. the medication my doctor gave me has made me feel really nauseated and dizzy so dave went to blockbuster and got us some videos so that we could just relax in our nice cool air-conditioned house. we had just put in one of the videos and the power went out. we called the power company and they didn't have any answers for us. they let us know that about 175 people were without power but did not know why or when they would have it back up...dave and i decided to play board games. we play rummikub a lot, so we only played one round of that game, but then we decided to play monopoly. we bought this game when i was pregnant but we had actually never opened it up to play. it was so fun to sit and play the entire game from start to finish, i don't know if i have ever done that before. i remember playing it with my brother eliot a lot years and years ago but i would tire quickly and would want to stop playing. it was a fun way to spend our sunday afternoon and by the time we had finished playing, we called the power company again and over 1000 people were without power but the estimated time was down to under an hour....i was amazed at how fast time went by because we were so involved in our game. i was also glad the power came back on shortly after nine in the evening so we had some time to cool our house back down before bedtime... and i won the game(maybe that is why i found it so fun)

my ipod: the soundtrack of my life...

i just read about this ipod game on my sister rachel's blog and now i am a firm believer...i have always loved music and the power it has to bring me peace and inspiration and it is nice to know that my ipod knows me fairly well. i could not believe how well my ipod answered these questions about me...dave just laughed and laughed at every answer...check it out

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.

2. Press forward for each question.

3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn’t make sense.

How do you feel today? when velma takes the stand- chicago soundtrack

What's your outlook on life? myself - the ataris

What does your family think of you? I can’t believe - buck-o-nine

What do your friends think of you? stars - les miserables

What do your exes think of you? can’t buy me love- the beatles

How's your love life? understand your man - johnny cash

How will your love life be in the future? relax - frankie goes to hollywood

Are you good at school? I’m not dead - pink

Will you be successful? unsaid - mxpx

What song should they play at your birthday? butterfly - weezer

What song should they play at your graduation? superhero - ani difranco

The soundtrack of your life? the river is wild - the killers

You and your best friends are? number five with a bullet - taking back sunday

Happy times? believe - smashing pumpkins

Sad times? no good deed - wicked soundtrack

Every day? parallel universe - red hot chili peppers

For tomorrow? maybe I’ll catch fire - alkaline trio

Foryou? Ava adore - smashing pumpkins

What does the next year have in store for you? easier said than done - mxpx

What do you say when life is too hard? bridge over troubled waters - simon & garfunkel

What do you want as a career? beauty school dropout - grease soundtrack

Your favorite saying? new slang - the shins

How will you die? certain tragedy - saves the day

you should try this game. it is, at the very least, entertaining.