Tomorrow Is a New Day

Well, November has come and gone. That went by rather quickly. So did October. I hope December lasts a little longer. I really love the Christmas season and I just want to savor it this year.
Our week was a bit up and down. If you read my previous post you know that the boy child was sick for a few days. He was all better by Thanksgiving. But then I got sick the day after. Not the same kind of sick, luckily. Just a cold, and fortunately it has about run it's course and I am feeling better now.
Anyway, besides the illnesses the week went well. Wednesday we had a get together at our house with some new found friends. I made some homemade cheesy potato soup and rolls and Mike made some chicken kabobs. Our friends brought salad and beverages. It was a fun night and Mike was excited that he got to play his Risk 2210 A.D. game with a group of people (finally.) Smiles were had by all.
The next day was Thanksgiving, and somehow by some miracle we slept until 10 a.m. Well, the boy child DID wake up around 5:30 or 6:00 the first time, but we managed to get him to go back to sleep until 10. It was a leisurely morning. I was happy that we made all our Thanksgiving food the day before (pie, salad, cranberry relish.) The only thing I had to do was bake some rolls. Lesa, who invited us to her house made the rolls but needed us to bake them in our oven since hers was occupied by a turkey. I am thankful for John and Lesa for inviting us to their home for Thanksgiving so we wouldn't have to spend it alone. Although their entire family was there, we had a good time and it wasn't as awkward as I imagined. It was a pretty stress free holiday, which is more than I can say for the host. How are you holding up anyway, Lesa? Their family has a tradition of playing family bingo every year and so we participated in that and went away with some pretty awesome loot for prizes.
It was so nice to spend the rest of the weekend with Mike. I really love any time that he is home and the boy child loves it too. It actually hurts my feelings sometimes because if Mike is home, it's like I don't even exist to the boy child. :( He just loves his dad so much and loves hanging around with him doing "man" stuff, whatever that is.
Anyway, tomorrow is the start of a new week and a new month. I hope it's a great one!

For the Love of Humanity!

Well, it seems that Vessel has caught a bug. For the past 2 days he has had severe diarrhea. Let me just tell you about my life these past couple of days. Okay, so I wake up to the sounds of my son crying because his tummy hurts. I go in to change him and unzip his pajamas to find that he is in a sea of liquid poo. That's never a good sign right? Somehow the fabric of his pajamas keeps the liquid inside instead of soaking to the outside. It's like he's swimming in it and covered from head to toe! Then he is crying because his bum hole is so raw from the poo that I can't even wipe him down. Then I give him a bath and slather him with A+D diaper rash ointment and put a new diaper on him, only to hear the explosive onslaught of diarrhea start all over again. I go through about 3 or 4 pair of clothes a day. He won't eat or drink anything but somehow still manages to poo so much that it explodes up his diaper and into his shirt sleeves! I kid you not! I feel so sad for him because I know he can't control it and I'm sure his tummy feels really sour and gross right now. But I'm suffering too! Today I threw up from changing him. I have not thrown up since I was pregnant more than 2 years ago! So you know it's gotta be bad! He hasn't had such anal leakage since last December around Christmas when he got sick. Poor kid. I have to give him 2-3 baths a day because the poo just gets all over. It's like creamy yellow soup. I know, you wanted to hear that right? Well, you need to know what I have to deal with! I called Mike at work today and told him he owes me big time. While he's off enjoying his cushy office job I'm here cleaning up a mess that could only come directly from the depths of hell!! Okay, that was harsh. I just wish my little boy would get feeling better soon and I could take off the hazmat suit I've been wearing around the house the last few days just to endure the toxic smell of poo.

True Confessions by "Mick"

So I was reading up on Pat and Jauna Cabbage's blog and found a "True Confessions" post, detailing all the dirty deeds from their pasts that they'd hid from others (mostly the 'rents). I thought it was sweet enough to justify making my own. Anyone else who feels the need to air out their dirty laundry, make sure and leave a comment so I know aboot it!

Here goes:

1) When I was a kid I had a fascination with egging things. I probably threw a couple hundred eggs off our deck onto the neighbor's patio and hot tub. One time when the urge to egg came on and I knew the 'rents were on to me, I went and egged my own bedroom window so they wouldn't suspect me. I'm pretty sure my bro Dave took the heat for that one.

2) When I was in the fourth grade I was pretty resistant to the idea of doing homework, and apparently my teacher thought that marching me to the library and calling my Mom every day would help in that process. Instead of just doing my homework like I should have, I ended up taking our phone off the hook every morning before I left for school so my teacher would just get a busy signal when she called. Yeah, she was pretty ticked.

3) I peed my pants in the fifth grade. It was the end of the day and everyone was reporting the number of pages they'd read over the previous month, and I really had to go. I wanted to just sit down and focus on holding it, but the pressure of standing up was just too much for me. I ended up peeing and then try to convince Dave on the way home that I had been playing in the snow and that's why my pants were wet. Wadayagonado.

4) When I was around nine years old I used to test out the saying that cats always land on their feet by tossing the neighbor's cats off our deck whenever they wandered into our yard. I discovered the saying only held true when I softly lobbed them off, but not when I totally chucked them straight down. Yeah, maybe I'm lucky I didn't grow up to be a serial killer, eh?

5) About a month after getting to the first area on the mish, I really had to duke it but my companion was in the shower so I ended up lining an office trash can with a Wal-Mart bag and took care of business. That event marked the official end to my self respect....

Ok, I'm thinking on that note I'll call it good. Don't judge me.

Meh (Randomosity)

~I am so tired today. I just want to go to sleep......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

~But I can't because 1.) I have to type this post :) and 2.) I have to clean my house after I type this post.

~I am having my aunt over for dinner tonight, and I still don't know what I'm going to make.....

~I wish I didn't hate cooking so much. I think I will make Mike cook something on the grill tonight.

~I feel so blah today. Maybe if I took better care of myself I wouldn't feel so grotesque.

~Speaking of feeling so blah, I had a good, long, productive talk with Mike last night and we set some goals to get healthier. I love Mike. He's a great husband.

~We sent out our Thanksgiving cards last week. Yup, Mike won. No Christmas cards this year. So far we've gotten mixed responses to our card.

~I hate it when the weather is so dreary like this. Maybe my MIL is right. Maybe I'm already suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Or maybe it's something else....

~Yesterday Vessie went in for his 2 year check up. He was such a good boy and everyone loved his little fauxhawk. They decided to do a blood test to find out more about the alleged peanut allergy. He was so brave throughout the whole procedure. They stuck one arm and couldn't find the vein, so they had to stick his other arm too. Poor guy. I just held him and sang to him to try to keep his mind off of it. But I almost started crying too! He was such a sweet-heart and kept saying "hi" to all the nurses. They let him pick out some bandaids (which he LOVES) and a lollipop, so all was well in the end. I love that kid so much. :)

~Oh, by the way, it turns out that our kid is healthy. He is turning into a really lean boy though. He's not so chubs anymore. :( But when I think about it, I was a lean child, and I believe Mike always was too, so it's probably just genetic. I wish I was still lean.....

~So, this week someone told me I must be vain because of the car I drive. Whoa, pass the judgment pudding, please! If they only knew.....

~The 80's are really coming back strong. Even music lately sounds like it came straight out of the 80's era. Examples include Spiralling by Keane, Dawn of the Dead by Does it Offend You, Yeah?, Electric Feel by MGMT, just to name a few. It's fine by me. I LOVE 80's music. Check this out. Oh wait, this is better. Swwweeeeeet.

~That was just the jolt I needed. Now I must go clean. Faretheewell....

~I just realized I use "......" at the end of my sentences quite a bit, and I don't even know why....

Movies

So we've watched quite a few movies lately and since I don't have time to give a huge review for each of them I'll just give a few brief comments instead.

The Love Guru----Okay, normally I'm a fan of Mike Meyers. I used to be big into Austin Powers and stuff. But apparently something has changed inside of me and I have a hard time finding penis jokes funny anymore. I'd say there were more offensive things in this movie than truly funny things.

The Great Debaters----Mike and I really liked this movie. It was fairly clean and had a good story. I thought the acting was good. I felt like it brought out something good in me. I've used the word "good" too many times describing this movie, haven't I? It was just one of the better flicks I've seen lately.

Baby Mama----Seriously, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are really funny broads. The movie seemed to be inter-weaved with part funny and part serious moments. I thought there were some humorous scenes. Definitely not as crude as The Love Guru.

Iron Man----This had some good action and some humor. I thought Robert Downey Jr. was great for the part. I'm not big into action films, but I still enjoyed it.

Indiana Jones----Okay, so I actually wasn't paying much attention to this show while it was playing. I was working on some mind boggling brain puzzle. I just remember the ending being kind of weird and trippy and....lame.

The Eye----Typical scary/thriller flick. It was interesting though and now I'm curious to know if this kind of thing could really happen with an organ transplant. I liked this movie because even though it was kind of frightening, it had a happy ending. Not like some of the scary movies these days where you think it's over, but it's really not.... or it leaves you with a ton of unanswered questions. This movie had none of that.

The Other Boleyn Girl----This movie wasn't too bad. There was kind of an uncomfortable love scene there in the middle. And basically the movie was about trying to "bed" the king of England. So that's a plus, right? This was kind of a tragic film in so many ways.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan----It's an Adam Sandler film, need I say more? I guess I'm just not into crude sexual humor lately. And there was quite a bit in this film. Too many disturbing things for me to really enjoy the funny parts. Lots of pelvic thrusting, bare bums, body part references, the list goes on and on. Too bad that producers think the only way to make movies funny these days is to talk about penises non-stop. (p.s. Dave Matthews had a small part in the movie, so that was a bonus.)

The Wellness Company

Some time ago (about 7 years in fact) I worked for a company called Melaleuca. And though I really didn't enjoy my job as a "wellness representative," I can't deny that I really REALLY LOVED their products. As an associate I received a "product check" (approx. $80) every month along with my actual paycheck. The "product check" could be used to buy items from the store. This was so that associates could try the products themselves and be able to talk first hand about them to the customers. Good idea, right? That was one of the main reasons I chose to work there for soooo long. I loved the product check. The Melaleuca vitamins are the best vitamins I have ever taken. When I was taking their vitamins every day, I rarely got sick and my hair grew crazy fast and and I just felt better and healthier overall. Now I am desperate to get my hands on a bottle of their vitamin supplement, but you can't just order them without having a membership. In order to get a membership you need to be referred by someone building their Melaleuca business. I don't want to order a certain amount of things every month. I just want some vitamins! If anyone can help me out on this I would be most appreciative!

Randomosity

~I really need to get my diet under control. I consume WAY too much sugar.

~Okay, so my thyroid sucks. Yes, that's right. I went to the doctor last week and had some blood drawn. Turns out my TS4 levels were high again. And I knew it. I could tell just from the way I'd been feeling. Anyway, my new doctor adjusted my prescription and we'll see if it helps. I sure hope so.

~On a related note, I feel like people generally know if there is something wrong with them. We live with our own bodies day in and day out. So it bugs me when someone comes along and tries to blame how I'm feeling on things like stress or sleep deprivation or other external factors. How would they know? I know my body and I can tell when my feeling like crap is a direct result of "external factors" or something else. Thanks for the advice though.

~Depression is a real thing. Anyone who disagrees or wants to argue that it's just a figment of a person's imagination apparently has never experienced first hand what depression is.

~I finally found my keys! Where were they you ask? In Vessel's toy box....

~I've decided that I want to live on a ranch someday and have a huge orchard. It would be sweet.

~I'm ashamed to say this...but I don't let others change very easily. I guess what I mean by that is that I expect people to always stay the same. Like if you tell me you feel or think a certain way, you better not ever change your mind, otherwise I'll just call you a fickle, contradicting, hypocrite. :) Okay, I'm really not that bad. It's just that lately I've had discussions with people and I have to silently ask, "Who are you? I don't even know you anymore" because they have changed their minds or outlooks on certain issues. I need to realize that people have experiences that can change the way they think and feel. It happens to me all the time. We are all changing, so I just need to let others live their lives.

~I feel like I have been maturing spiritually and emotionally lately. I think this is a very good thing.

~I just discovered that cloves and cinnamon are incredibly delicious in a cup of hot cocoa.

~I don't want this to come out the wrong way, but ever since moving to Montana I don't feel such a need to "keep up with the Joneses." Like if you're poor and don't have a nice house, car, boat, ATV, etc., you're usually not alone and nobody judges you for it. People here seem less materialistic and more concerned with other things. I don't feel like I have to compete so much here.

~On a side note related to that last one...I didn't mean that as a slight to any of my former SLC friends. :) Oh, and I wasn't calling any of my Montana friends poor, white trash either. Geez, I probably unintentionally offended everyone I know. Ha ha.

~You know what quality I find important in a friend? Brutal honesty. Come on, I can take it.

~Okay, so here's a question...Do you have to agree with EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in order to not be labeled a bigot? Just wondering....

~Sometimes I wish I was more cautious with my words.

LOVE is an understatement

I have such a sweet husband. With how much I hate being in the kitchen, it's nice to have a guy that likes to cook (and bake.) Today he made these awesomely delicious orange chocolate scones from scratch. It was his first time making scones and I think they turned out very yummy. Thanks babe, for always making stuff for me to feed my face! I love ya!

Girls Night In Lives On

Last Friday I decided to continue the "girls night in" tradition here in GF. We had some good snacks and some good convo while we worked on our projects. I really missed having "girls night in" with my old friends and so it was nice to finally get together with some women here that I could actually talk to. Hopefully we will get together every month. Anyway, this is the project I worked on. Thanks to those who showed up!

Still Laughing

For my sister's birthday, Mike thought it would be funny if we got her a box of enemas because we're mature like that. (Don't worry, we still got her a *real* gift too.) She laughed like crazy when she opened it. I'm not sure why it was so incredibly funny to her, (or any of us for that matter) but we all got a case of the giggles.

Laughing

Still laughing
(I think at this point she saw the drawing on the back that indicated what position to use the enema)

Yup, still laughing....I think she was crying from laughing so hard. Whenever I hear or see my sister laugh, I have to laugh with her. :)

Disturbing

For the boy child's birthday my grandma sent some thrift store items along with his regular gifts. One of them was a toy box full of little Lego blocks. So last night I decided to sort through the blocks to make sure they were all safe (not too small, not broken, etc.) In my shuffling I found a lot of random little things among the blocks.

One of those things was this little treasure box. It rattled when I shook it so naturally I thought there might be a little Lego block in there or something.

But to my horror....

I found a human tooth inside! And it was not a kid's tooth either. It was an adult tooth with a huge filling in it. My sister and I were very GROSSED OUT!

Ewwww.....

My dad picked it up and started examining it. I didn't even want to get near it, let alone touch it!
Be careful what you find at thrift stores folks. :)

Giant Springs

On Saturday we took my dad and sister to some local sights, including Giant Springs.

Here's the boy child going down the slide at the playground there.

Here are just some beautiful shots of the park.

Halloween Festivities

This Halloween my dad and sister drove up from Idaho to visit for the weekend. Here are some of the things that we did:

We carved a pumpkin. This year we only carved one pumpkin that was given to Vessel. He most certainly DID NOT want to touch the pumpkin guts. That kid is so interesting to me. He really hates getting his hands dirty. He was more concerned with drawing. He desperately wanted to draw the face on it himself.

He also enjoyed putting the pieces of the pumpkin face back together like a puzzle.

Here it is. Nothing fancy. Just your run of the mill generic jack-o-lantern face. Vessel LOVED it when it was lit up though.

And maybe it's kind of hard to tell, but here he is peeking in the top to blow out the candle.

Vessel was a vampire this year. He was a good sport and let me put some make-up on his face. He kept moving though, so it wasn't my best work. It was so weird to see his hair black like this. But he was a cute Dracula.

We went trick-or-treating. But only to about 5 houses that we knew. Mike and I had fun taking him out this year!

Here he is standing in the Preston's corn.

Later, my sister and I rode bikes down to this crazy house that had a bajillion blow up Halloween decorations in the yard.

And then went to our neighbor's house which was awfully frightening....
After the festivities we gave Vessel a bath and he got to open more gifts from Aunt Stephie and Grandpa Hiner. Then we ordered pizza and called it a night. :)

Bugs

Vessie and I found these bugs when we took my family to Ryan Dam this weekend. (Unfortunately it was closed for the season.....BOOOOO)
Vess thinks bugs are pretty freakin' cool. I tried to get some pics of them on the rocks. We also saw some deer! But no pics of the deer....just bugs.