Despicable Driver

Interesting, I can blog from my phone, but only in html... okay lol. Except my phone doesn't have some of the symbols I need for html, so this will all be one paragraph. Lol... So despicable driver... yes. So this guy totally cut me off. He looked right at me then pulled out right in front of me! Then, it just so happens that we both pulled into the gas station, and he pulls up go the first pump and stops - didn't pull forward, just stops so I have to go around. The guy was a total jerk. Okay, rant over.

Good thoughts from a good friend.

I'm going to be honest, I had a rough week last week, especially the weekend, and I'm really glad it's over.  I vented/counseled with one of my counselors last night and this morning she sent me this e-mail.  It was just what I needed.  Thanks, Hanna! :)


A young lady confidently walked around the room while leading and explaining stress management to an audience with a raised glass of water, and everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, 'half empty or half full?'..... she fooled them all... "How heavy is this glass of water?", she inquired with a smile.


Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.


She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." She continued, "and that's the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on."


"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden - holding stress longer and better each time practiced. So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don't carry them through the evening and into the night... pick them up tomorrow.


Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment. Relax, pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it and the now 'supposed' stress that you've conquered!"



1 * Accept the fact that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue!

2 * Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

3 * Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

4 * Drive carefully... It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker..


5 * If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague


6 * If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it..


7 * It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.


8 * Never buy a car you can't push.


9 * Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.


10 * Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.


11 * Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.


12 * The second mouse gets the cheese.


13 * When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.


14 * Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.


15 * You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.


16 * Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.


17 * We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.


18 * A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.


19 * Have an awesome day and know that someone has thought about you today.


20 * It was I, your friend!


*Save the earth..... It's the only planet with chocolate!

In mourning.

Yesterday, in Relief Society, we talked about sacrifice. One of the things we talked about sacrificing is our pride.

check.

Growing up, I didn't care about sports. I still don't care about most sports. But I LOVE football. I really do. I love watching the game, I love hard hits, I love amazing plays... it's not even about the guys in tight pants anymore (which was the best part about going to high school football games back before I cared about the actual game). ;)
I especially love Patriots football. I really, really, do. I think we've got great players. I think Belichick is a genius and Brady is brilliant. I love that we don't have one or two guys that we always go to for great plays. We have so many great guys, we use them all. Our defense is young, but they are learning and growing and doing pretty dang good in the meantime. The Patriots are a really good, solid team.

Except for yesterday. There was no fire, no excitement, they were going through the motions but no one brought their heart. It wasn't just one person - I don't even think it was all Brady's fault this time. Balls were dropped, defenders were let through the line, stupid violations were made... it was a mess. I hate it when we lose. I hate it even more when we lose to the Jets (come on, ANYONE but the Jets!!! ... Okay, or the Giants cause I still hold a grudge there, too. lol). But I hate it most when we lose and deserved it. And yesterday, based on how they were playing, they totally deserved to lose. I think that's what bugs me the the most.

Hey, I showed up. I was here, cheering, wearing my red, white, and blue... excited, hopeful, talking smack... but it was as if I cared more than they did. I know that can't be true, but they sure played like it is. They let me down. Big time. I'm mad... I'm hurt... I'm seriously disappointed.

I'm stressed.

This is it, the most stressful time of the year! (At least, it is for me.) And I find myself... stressed. Too many projects, too little time...

So, don't mind my messy house, malnutritious meals (and I use that term loosely), neglected calling, abandoned blog, etc. I will be back... in just under two weeks. lol

This has gotten me to thinking... next year, for my birthday, all I want is help for THIS WEEK. Like a promise to make one or two (or seven!) dinners, or an offer to watch kids, be the taxi, do laundry, or clean house, etc. Yeah, that would pretty much be THE BEST gift ever! lol

Every year I say I'm going to plan ahead just a little better. I say I'm going to begin compiling my dvd as the year goes instead of waiting for this week, I'm going to finish my homemade gift and get my family's homemade gifts done early, etc. Yeah, it never happens. lol Perhaps NEXT year will be THE year. You never know. lol

In the meantime, please do not let me near any chocolate. ;) See you on the other side!

Why procrastination is a bad idea.

I've been busy and lazy, so for the last couple of weeks I have delayed uploading some recent pictures I had taken. Pics of Rori at soccer, swimming, along with some pics I took/NEED for a project I'm working on for RS... Yesterday I took a couple more pictures of Rori at swimming. And then two minutes later, my camera died. Like dead. Dead as a door nail.

And because I had the memory stick in it that is not formatted, I can only access those photos while it is in the camera, not on my card reader. And now I cannot access the camera, thus, I cannot access the photos. Great.

I am hoping I have a friend who has a camera that uses this same kind of memory stick so I can access my photos using their camera. But in the meantime, no updated pictures for my blog.

I'm also planning on buying an inexpensive point and shoot camera to replace this one. This kills me though! I had already planned on buying a digital slr in another year or so. I am planning on taking photography classes when Rori starts kindergarten next year and I planned on getting a new camera either around then or as soon as we could afford it after the WDW vacation. I wish we could just buy the digital slr now. But I don't want to spend that much money when our vacation is already in jeapardy. :S

We are planning on getting a new camcorder (in leiu of Ryan and I exchanging anniversary and Christmas gifts) and I could postpone that one instead, but I think I'd rather have the new camcorder before the digital slr.

Why, oh why, couldn't my camera have waited just one more year to die? Bummer. Huh. I guess I wish that the camera had been the procrastinator, not me! ;)

Downside to school being back in session.

Actually, two downsides.

1. The alarm. It goes off WAY too early! lol Starting this year, the whole family is getting up by 6am to read scriptures before Ryan goes to work. In the past, none of us were up that early, but now that Cadi has to be ready for the bus by 7:30, it doesn't hurt for us to be up and going that early. And since nights can be hit and miss for Ryan and will be getting more busy for Cadi as she gets older, it works better to have scriptures in the morning. It's working well... but it is a lot earlier than we were getting up last week! lol

2. No more chores. It's all on me! Boo. I almost called out, "Cadi, the dishwasher needs to be emptied," but then remembered she was already out the door. Rats. I have to clean now? ;) She'll still have to keep her room clean and do her laundry, and occasionally I'll ask her to help with other housework, but during the school year, I don't assign regular chores. She gets to focus on school work, piano, violin, and reading instead. Especially now that she's in middle school ... and in Excel. It will be a much heavier load than she's had before.

But other than that, I'm excited for school to be back. Cadi loves to learn. We have a great school district and Cadi gets lots of different opportunities at school. I'm so glad she is learning violin - for free! ;) And we tend to prefer having a routine. If there's no routine, little gets done, but with a routine, it's easier to be efficient and consistent. Even if that means I have to do my own chores now. :P

Awww, shucks!

After a frustrating two days of having squirrels eating my corn right off the stalks, I made sure that WE got to eat some of it, too!  The squirrels ate most of the corn that was actually ready to be picked, so I picked the best of what was left.  It left me with some cobs that weren't quite done, but still had some DELICIOUS sweet corn for the eating.

YUM!  YUM!!!!

The nursery suggested using a pepper spray to keep the squirrels away.  I applied cayenne pepper this afternoon and as we sat and ate our corn with dinner, I watched a horrible, wicked, loathsome creature make it's way into the garden.  He actually went for a cob that was on the ground from an earlier raid and I got some pics as evidence.  Exhibit A:



Proof that it WAS Mr. Squirrely with the ear of corn in the garden!  Aha!

After it snacked a bit on this ear, he did head over to the garden to get a new ear or two.  He nibbled at one before I could run out to chase the monstrocity away.  I guess the cayenne pepper was just too good to be true.  Of course, it has to be more difficult than that, if it's even possible to keep the beasts away at all!  I was frustrated.

But later, after dinner, I looked out and found THREE squirrels each sneaking up to the garden from different directions.  (It looked almost comical.)  And somehow, none of them ended up in the corn, at least that I saw.  Whether they chased each other off or the cayenne chased them all off, I don't know.  But I do know that I have a sliver of hope again and will be anxious to see what happens in the next couple of days.  In the meantime, I'm heading to the store to get some cayenne in bulk because even if it doesn't work, I love me a good cayenne kick!  ;)

And at least I got to eat some of my own home grown corn - and it was wonderful!  If I can figure out how to keep these nasty critters away, I definitely plan on planting corn again.  It is SO worth it!!!  :)

Monday, Monday...

After having such a great vacation last week, it was a bit disappointing to have SUCH a Monday yesterday. It started out fine... But then... My aunt's car broke down, so I offered to drive my cousin to her eye appointment for her. On my way there, I blew a tire. What are the odds? I mean, REALLY!?!?! What ARE the odds??? But thankfully, these things happened here in town, and not on our way back from our beach trip. :) My sweet husband replaced it with a top of the line tire (as well as the other front tire) and it cost a pretty penny. But I've got good tires now! lol

Then, my cousin was editing and piecing together the music video we made at the beach and realized that she accidentally deleted the scene that Ryan and I made! It was such an awesome scene, too!!! I'm totally, TOTALLY bummed. I mean really, I'm embarrassed at how bummed I am at losing this one scene. lol But it really was awesome!!! :(

However, on a good note, I totally dominated Middle Earth last night during LOTR Risk. ;)

And in other news... I'm seriously considering some drastic changes in my on-line activity. This summer I've spent so much time off-line and each time I've come back on-line, I almost dread it. But I don't want to stop blogging... I like a lot of things about the internet, but I hate how it can just start to take over so much of my time. Time that I really don't have to waste. So, I think I'll cut back on the blogs I follow and I may start hiding a lot of the people I have on my FB. I want to stay in touch with family and close friends... but I need to lose some excess baggage. Time to simplify some things and I hope it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings.

Well, that's just swell.

On Saturday, our computer caught a nasty virus. Ryan worked on it, and thought he had gotten rid of it. The computer was working great... for about a day. Then the virus came back and I'm without a computer now. (Using Ryan's work laptop since we loaned out our other laptop.) It's amazing how much one can get done in a day when there's no reason to plop down in a computer chair to check e-mails, facebook, blogs, or play games. ;) On the downside, I had some things I wanted to work on this week that may or may not happen now. (Projects with photos and such.) I also missed sending an e-mail to my brother serving a mission in Canada. (Today was his P-day.) Hopefully, the computer will survive... hopefully Ryan will be able to get whatever he needs to really fix it this time. We shall see. :S

I also just learned that blog-city will be shutting down in about 18 months. I have a subscription paid for another 10 months or so, so I'll hang out until then, but will likely move over to another blog at that time. It's either that or close my doors too. I don't think I'm ready for that. I doubt I will be in 10 months either. ;)
I may get opportunities this week to use Ryan's laptop but I'm not sure. If I'm absent, that's why. Let's hope it doesn't take too long to get back up and running! :)

I just want my movies!!!

Is that too much to ask?

A few weeks ago, I purchased 3 movies on-line. They shipped the next day and should have arrived within a week. Two weeks later I still did not have my movies. I searched the tracking (which I should have done earlier) and found out that the package ended up missing only to turn up later at the shipping facility, opened and empty. A report was filed and a notice sent to the store I purchased from. BUT NO NOTICE WAS SENT TO ME! The store didn't resend the items or notify me of the problem! By the time I found out, it had been nearly two weeks, they were clearly not planning on doing anything to replace the items, or refund my money, or anything!

I called them immediately and they did agree to resend the movies right away, no hassles or anything, but it just irks me that I had to ask! Again, the movies were shipped the next day, and were sent via a quicker shipping method so I would get them within 3 business days. Which meant, I should have had them by yesterday. Still no movies. Once again, I tracked my shipment... it had been incorrectly routed to the wrong location! What is with this order and why can't it seem to get to me?

Thankfully, it does show the shipment back on track and now I've been given a new delivery date for this Thursday. I really, really hope I get my movies! Seriously... Is that too much to ask?

Not quite what I meant, but it will do.

Rori has an odd habit of wanting to lay on the kitchen floor when I'm in there trying to cook. It's frustrating. She's in the way and I worry that she could get hurt. I wouldn't mind her being in there, I just don't like her laying on the floor. So, today when she did it AGAIN, I told her, "Rori, get up off the floor and get out of the kitchen, it's not safe!" So she got up, took one step out of the kitchen and laid back down on the dining room floor. lol

Apparently, not so "resolute".

And this is why I don't like "New Year's Resolutions". It's better just to have goals and then try to reach them. When you add "New Year's", it implies it's something that you are supposed to do religiously for the entire year and can't miss a single day.

Well, OOPS.

Cause I missed yesterday. On TWO of my resolutions.

The first one, I don't mind because realistically, you need to cut yourself some slack sometimes. And it's good to have a "cheat day" once in awhile, to keep your sanity, if for no other reason. Well, it started off like a good day, but at some point, I was derailed. I blame Ryan. First, he called me to meet him for lunch. We went to Mongolian Grill, which could be fairly healthy, depending on what you put in your stirfry. But come on, I like the pasta, I like the chili oil... it wasn't veggies only in olive oil for me. ;) Then, dinner was less than outstanding, for which I also blame Ryan, in a round-about way. Two days ago, he asked if I would help wash some clothes for his friend. I said yes. 15 loads later... no joke. Yeah, so I did laundry ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY yesterday (minus our lunch date) and was tired and not in the mood to be fabulous in the kitchen by the time dinner rolled around. It was an okay meal, just not thought out and not super healthy. The kicker though... last night Ryan asked if we had any munchies (do we see a pattern, it's ALL RYAN'S FAULT! How's that for being accountable for my own choices? lol) and instead of saying, "We don't want munchies, have a carrot," I said, "I think we have tater tots and egg rolls in the freezer." So, yeah.

The second one, truthfully is ALL MY FAULT. When Ryan asked if he could use my camera at work, I told him no because at some point during the day, I needed to take a picture. I even had it planned out. I would take a picture of Cadi helping with the laundry. (She had expressed interest in helping the night before.) Of course, I failed to recognize that she expressed that interest at BEDTIME. Hello, she didn't want to help with laundry - she just wanted to stay up later. Of course, when she got home from school and I asked if she still wanted to help she said, "Uh, no," then ran off to play at a friend's house. No laundry helping pics and no Cadi around to take any other cute Cadi pics.

We're barely a week in and yesterday was a big, fat, FAIL. Now I need to pick myself back up and go on. I think it's the only way I can attempt to recover from it. For the first, well I'm just going to have to be very good with my eating through the weekend. And for the second, do you suppose taking two today will be okay?

Stinkin' New Year's resolutions... :S

*** Correction***

I just noticed a picture on my camera that I DID take yesterday, of Rori playing with the toy dog. I totally forgot about that. *whew* Okay, so yesterday wasn't as big of a failure as I first thought. ;)

Technical Difficulties

Yeah, remember when I said that I was done stressing because I think I had everything under control? Uh... well that was before my computer REFUSED to burn the dvd I made! I've tried several times today, all were big, fat, FAILS.

But I'm trying again and I have one more trick up my sleeve if it doesn't work this time, so I'm not completely devoid of hope quite yet. Just nervous.

Is it silly to pray for a software program? Cause I just did. ;)

Frustration

It's been two weeks since we took Simon to the vet and we've been giving him his medications but I'm not sure he's improved all that much. There is a little improvement, but I wouldn't exactly say that it was even significantly better, like the vet was saying the meds would do. I'm going to move on to the next stage of his treatment, mostly because it's not as expensive as the medications for the last two weeks, and hope that it'll just keep improving, even if slowly.
But this is frustrating. And I don't know what we'll do if he doesn't keep getting better. :S

Ryan has created a monster.

We absolutely love living in this great state of Washington.  And we LOVE celebrating the Fourth of July here because you can really celebrate in style; just about everything is legal and it's a BLAST! (Literally! lol)
Last year, we were smart and went to the Indian Reservation the day after the Fourth to buy all of this year's fireworks ahead of time.  We got such a good deal!  And we were set.  :)

As the Fourth has approached, Ryan started getting that look in his eye and all he could think about was blowing up stuff.  He started to get crazy ideas, like buying MORE fireworks.  I made him promise that he would pull out the supply he had stored up from our day-after shopping trip last year before he went out shopping, because I was confident we had enough and something of everything he wanted to have.  Thankfully, he agreed.  And when we did pull out all of the fireworks this week, I was right (of course *wink*) and Ryan had to admit it.  We did good!

But there was just one more thing he'd really like to get.  Just a few aerials, you know, fun little stuff for the kids.  Uh huh.  So, I went with him.  Ryan unaccomanied in a fireworks tent is NOT a good idea.  Even with me being "the mean lady who holds all the money", he still managed to get another set of tubes for his finale.  But we left spending less than $100 so I was happy.  We both got what we want.

*whew*  Crisis averted.

Or was it?

Yesterday when Ryan got home from work, the first words out of his mouth were, "How much do you love me?"  To which I responded, "I love you so much, I let you buy nearly $100 of fireworks even though we had a room full of fireworks already.  How much do you love me?"  "Well, uh...."  So, I worded my question differently, "How much did you spend?" 

"I stopped by this tent...  90% of the proceeds were going to soldiers (or their families, or something like that). And the family working the tent had a son/brother killed in action themselves.  Then, while I was there, my co-worker stopped by.  Turns out, his fiance is the cousin of this soldier who had died and it was her family working the tent..."

Again, I asked, "How much did you spend?"

"A lot."

*groan*

I committed him to staying away from any more fireworks tents/stands/stores.  "Even if there is a poor, starving, orphan getting all of the proceeds, YOU CANNOT BUY ANY MORE FIREWORKS!!!"

The survivalist in him flashed his smile (that he knows I'm a sucker for) and quickly agreed, along with agreeing that he totally owed me and was going to do some major kissing up.  He was done.  No more.  Don't worry.

Later that night, he and the girls went to return a couple of movies we had rented last weekend.  They took awhile longer than I expected and I suspected (hoped) that they were picking out a new movie or two to rent.  Instead...

The first thing I heard when the door opened this time was, "Don't be mad at Acadia, be mad at me."

"WHAT?!?!?!?!  Did she take her wallet with her?"

Acadia had spent her birthday money to buy more fireworks!!!  (He swears he tried to talk her out of it.)  I was flabergasted!!!  Are you kidding me?  We already have enough to have our own firework stand, why would she use HER money to buy more?  Ryan always lets her light some, so she didn't need to get her own for that.  And if she really wanted to have "her own", she could have given ME the money and we'd let her have some of ours.  This family certainly did not need more fireworks in this house!

But she didn't want to wait until Saturday, so she bought some to fire off in the meantime.  Last night she lit a few of them, but she saved most of them to light with her friends either tonight or tomorrow night.  She and I did have a little talk today about thinking things through and not just making decisions in the heat of the moment.  I pointed out that she could have gotten a huge Littlest Pet Shop play center, or several smaller toys, or cute outfits (she's getting more into fashion lately), or even taken a girlfriend to a movie and lunch or something... any of which would have lasted longer and probably been worth more to her in the long time.  I hope that next time she thinks a little more first.

I think she just got caught up in the heat of the moment.  Her dad's been going crazy over these fireworks and we are all looking forward to our own personal pyro show Saturday night.  I understand why she wanted to get them, I just hope she understands why she really didn't need to, and therefore it was a little foolish.  Harmless, but foolish. :S

Oh, and lest you think I'm exaggerating about how many fireworks we have...



Do you see what I'm saying?  No joke, we have PLENTY of fireworks and none of us need to spend a single dime on more!

But we are gonna have one heck of a firworks show this weekend! lol

Disappointment

Disappointment: noun

1.The act or fact of disappointing.

2.The state or feeling of being disappointed.

3.A person or thing that disappoints.

4.When you make your VERY FAVORITE meal for dinner, plus extra to freeze for another night of deliciousness, only to find that the pot you used was not properly rinsed after being washed and now your entire meal tastes like dishsoap.

"I need a holiday, a very long holiday." ~ Bilbo Baggins

Truer words were never spoken.

I apologize in advance for the rant. But the great thing about having a blog is that it's your blog to post whatever you want. Today, I want to whine and complain. If you're not in the mood to read it, I don't blame you. I'm not either. ;)

I am drained and burnt out. April has not been our month. We had fun when Ryan's parents visited and we loved being able to go to Sacramento for Andrew's farewell, but everything else has been miserable. Rori has been sick for three weeks now. She is ornery and disagreeable during the day and wakes up several times during the night. We don't get naptime anymore, though there were a couple of days that she fell asleep on the couch. (That was a week ago, no spontaneous naps lately.) Ryan has been sick for two weeks. He is slowly improving and did make it back to work yesterday. (I know I posted on Monday that he was back to work then but he ended up coming home by lunch and was home Tuesday, too.) He's still sick but goes to work and locks himself in his office. No one bothers him because they don't want what he has, so he actually does get some work done. But, he's up half the night coughing, which keeps me up half the night. (The other half that Rori's not keeping me up.)

Put the two together and that equals: I don't get much rest. I haven't wanted to leave Rori with anyone (I wouldn't wish this cold on anyone I like - or even anyone I didn't like!) and I can't really take her anywhere (though I have taken her to the store because we do need to eat). So, I haven't been to my workout class in three weeks, or playgroup. We did go walking yesterday because I thought it being in the open air, we shouldn't be that much of a threat to anyone. And I'm hoping to go to playgroup today because it's at a park, so again, I'm hoping the open air will keep everyone else safe. But beyond those things: I've also not been out to do my visiting teaching, I've not gotten together with my VT coordinater to do changes for next month, I've not even really started my lesson which I give in three days. I'm so far behind it's not even funny.

So you see, I need a holiday! It didn't help that when we went out to take Cadi to school, it was just a tad misty/foggy and made me think of camping in Fort Bragg, CA so much! I miss it. I would give just about anything to be there right now. Or, frankly, anywhere!

It really isn't practical to mail her to Siberia.

Interesting that right now on Olivia, she and her father are discussing the possibility of mailing her little bother brother to Siberia.  Interesting because I was just getting on here to tell you about this:

Rori's been a monster lately.  I mean, more than usual.  I don't know if it's her cold, or her adjusting to her new sleeping schedule, or what. 

On Friday, she dumped all of her dirty laundry as well as emptied every drawer of clean laundry and mixed them all up on her floor, then she got into my piano music and scattered my downloaded (legally) music which does not all have numbered/labeled pages, and just when I was thinking we had maybe survived the day, she took off all of her clothes (she's all about stripping these days) and got into my mascara:



I lost my cool and decided to ship her of to "somewhere far from here":



But like Olivia's dad, I realized it wouldn't be practical; the cost alone would be too much.  So, we kept her.  For now.

Burning the midnight oil.

Is it still "burning the midnight oil" if you went to bed but then got up again shortly after midnight?

Why is it that if something wakes me up in the middle of the night, it is impossible for me to get back to sleep? Thankfully it doesn't happen frequently, but it does happen occasionally and it's really annoying! Tonight it was just Acadia coming in because she was thirsty. Why she felt like she needed to come to our room to get a drink of water is beyond me, she usually is the queen of having umpteen glasses of water in her room when she goes to bed at night (okay, "umpteen" is an exaggeration... but at least a couple), and last I checked it is usually easier to get water from the bathroom or kitchen. But for whatever reason, it was our door that opened at 1:30 this morning, and so here I sit, two hours later, not able to get back to sleep.

I usually toss and turn for about an hour, then finally get up because what good is it doing me to lay in bed not sleeping? Usually at that point, I'm thinking to myself about all of the things I "need" to do the next day and "Great, now I'll be too tired to do anything." So, I get up thinking I might as well get started on some of them so I can just take it easy and maybe even nap during normal daylight hours. (Yeah right, like that would actually happen.... Uh, the nap part, actually the "taking it easy" part is probably accurate.) But then, when I'm up I'm not in the mood to clean the kitchen or sweep the floor... and that brings me here. Not sleeping, not working... great. :S

Swamped

Thanksgiving is in two weeks. For many, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is hectic, busy, and stressful. For me, that time period is a piece of cake - it's these two weeks that are hectic, busy, and stressful!

In one week and two days, we are leaving for Sacramento where we'll spend the entire Thanksgiving week. We are really looking forward to our visit; we love spending time with family and friends! And for me, if I've managed my time beforehand right, it's the end of my stressful season and the start of the holidays as a wonderful, enjoyable time.

Like I said, IF I've managed my time right. And that means, right now I am SWAMPED! Before we leave, I have to have all of our Christmas shopping done, secret (and not-so-secret) projects finished, gifts wrapped, house cleaned, bags packed, and nativities taken over to a friend to take to the Festival of the Nativities for me. Not to mention, I need to finish my visiting teaching (hopefully tomorrow afternoon), get my hair done (Monday morning), take the dog to the vet (tomorrow morning) and probably to a friend's house to watch while we're gone, put a vacation hold on our mail, and make sure I've done what I need to for Relief Society before I leave. All the while, I'm SUPPOSED to be getting ready for the 10K that is only TWO WEEKS away! I'm really starting to feel the crunch. For the last week, I've been "going" none stop. That is probably going to be the case until Friday night. I hope I get it all done!