Valentines and dreams.

our view from our balcony! 

This past weekend was a dream. We spent our nights in the Little America Hotel tower suite, eating treats (an embarrassing $40 worth from Gourmandies), wearing our hotel robes, swimming in the pool and simmering in the hot tub. During the day we shopped, ate delicious food at new hole-in-the-wall places (the best kind), and laughed at the otters and penguins at the aquarium. Even though we were just in Salt Lake, it really felt like an escape and it was much needed. Ed is awesome for planning it and surprising me for Valentines Day.

Last week we looked at houses to buy because we know we will be staying here for the next two years, but no luck. It doesn’t look like it is possible to afford right now, so we will just keep draining our money spending $625 in rent for our crappy, basement apartment. Sure, we have spent over $20,000 in rent since being married, what’s another $20,000! Ughh. We did find the cutest house though with a huge yard in a great neighborhood. I totally saw us living there for a moment.

I had a terrible dream last night, I won’t even go into it. But I’m also having these reoccurring dreams of seeing and holding miniature animals. Like really small animals, fitting in the palm of my hand. So far, I’ve dreamed up (all miniature) a hot pink flamingo, a billy goat kicking it’s back legs up, a jaguar, a metallic horse, and moles poking their heads out of a meadow. They were all so tiny and in the dreams I am totally entranced and fascinated by them. It’s cool, I like those dream and I’m crossing my fingers that I have more of them. I also dreamed the other day that I finally confronted our neighbors about their rampant sexcapades three times a day, how they wake me up every morning at 6am, their obsession with cooking fish and stinking up the entire house, and chanting loudly while meditating. Oh gosh, if only that dream were real, but I don't have the guts, so I will just continue to curse obscenities at them from downstairs and knock on the vent when their porn making is getting too much for me to handle. Okay fine, they aren't making porn, but it's close. And disturbing.  

Anyway, I'm excited tomorrow is Friday. It looks like BYU is losing to Gonzaga right now, so I need to switch my attention to this game. By the way, the other night at Carrabba's I saw Abouo! Then the night got even better holding sweet Ellie and seeing my family. Alright, Goodnight!

So I wrote this post yesterday and let's just say, it doesn't apply....I'M IN!

Well, I'm alive!

The past week has been by far one of the most anxiety-ridden weeks of my life and I'm glad that applying for grad school is almost over. Even if I don't get in, I'm glad it's over.

Yes, I survived the interview. It was sucky and I never want to do it again, but I think I did pretty well. I feel good about everything I've done for grad school up until this point, so I'm just telling myself that if I don't get in, they are just idiots. Just a warning, if I don't get in, I will be really embarrassed. Bottom line. Yeah Yeah, I got an interview. Yay. I can be proud of that for the rest of my life. But if I get rejected now, I don't know, I will probably just do a post with one line: My future dreams are ruined. And then I will sulk, trying to find a purpose in life for the next few months. It's not like I wouldn't finally move on and decide to do something else or reapply for next year or have a baby (ha! that's last on the list for sure), BUT I know I will be sad and I know I will feel like crap.
So in case that happens, I may ignore any consolations or praise. It may be best to just leave me alone. Actually maybe it's better to build me up, you know, think of any compliment you can give possibly give me and maybe I will feel better. Who knows. 

Rants In My Head

My mind is going crazy with so many thoughts. Last night I felt so many things: anxious all around, angry with situations, hopeful for mine and others' futures, sad for a few realities, awkward because of an unusual experience, scared because I looked up way too much information on cereal killers, and happy to spend time with my sister and have her be my therapist for the night. Oh a therapist. What is that anyway? I'm supposedly going to be one, shouldn't I know? I work with a bunch of them and interact with them on a daily basis. I encourage everyone I know to go to therapy or to trust the therapist they already have. But I've been telling myself to go to my own therapy for over two years now and still haven't. What is that all about? I tried once, but I couldn't schedule an appointment for three months so I just gave up. And now I get to go sell myself next Monday in front of a bunch of experienced therapists with PHD's from 9 am to 5:30 on how much I want to learn to be a therapist just like them. I do believe that anyone and everyone can benefit from therapy and that no one is too good for it or should be ashamed for going. We all have problems, inadequacies, and the need to feel heard. Even me. Especially me. I love that everyone always says the people who go into psychology/therapy are the ones who have problems themselves. Well that may be so, but I think it's also the people who care about human behavior and how to maximize on that behavior to help create the best possible situation for someone else. We will see. I know I'm just second guessing myself because I'm scared I might fail. You know that thing where you think you might fail so you start thinking of reasons why you may not even want to succeed anyway, so that you might feel better when/if you do fail. There is a psychological term I learned in social psych to define it, but I can't remember. Yeah, I'm definitely doing that. I do want to be a therapist. I want to help others, bottom line. I want to help myself build a career and provide for my family. I want to learn from these experienced professionals and work my butt off to write a thesis and discover something important. I want to do something that means something to me, and I think this is it. I know if I don't do it I will regret that for the rest of my life. I'm not the stay at home mommy type. Not right now at least. I need something for myself, my own little project. My dream is to be the official therapist for something like The American Ballet Theater because I know for sure that every professional ballet dancer could use a little bit of mental help. But realistically, that dream is not going to happen. Instead I'll have my own small ballet company and do probably 15 hours of therapy a week. Kids will get thrown into this mix eventually and probably take over my life. I will probably devote all my time to them and by then I'll and have some very large dogs and a grassy yard with a fence. Ideally a horse ranch. Well, ideally my horses will be living at Tess' horse ranch nearby my beautiful house with a wrap around porch and a swing. I wouldn't mind living in the house my parents live in now, but who knows. Anyway, I'm ending this post. I miss my husband right now, but luckily I've got Tess. I feel better now. Time to start a new week. Goodnight!

Life in 2012

I decided to make Ed's dreams come true for Christmas and I bought him an Xbox with Kinect, so as you can imagine, we have watched 6 seasons of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix and lots of Downton Abbey. I started my new job as the Study Hall teacher and I'm floating right along, trying to get used to working there every day instead of every other day. Sometimes you need a major break from those kids, but I will get used to it. I actually like it a lot, it's relaxed and I feel more helpful because I can actually see their progress more concretely. Today was not the best day at work, but most days are really good. I got bangs again and I like them a lot better this time around. They are fun to have and don't take near as much work as I expected. I'm slowly changing my diet back to the healthy stuff and using myfitnesspal again and it's working so far. I've just got to get the habit of working out every day after work. I became a real BYU Employee, parking in A lots and retirement benefits included. Yes, it's pretty official. I started teaching my ballet class and the first week was terrible, they barely knew what plie's were, but we're working on it. The second class went way better and they decided they want their recital to be black swan-ish so that should be fun. I love ballet, have I said that before? Just showing the simple combinations of plies and fondus made me happy again. Now can I have a trumpet sound effect? The greatest of all, I got an interview for the MFT program at BYU! I am beyond nervous, but it does give me a boost of confidence to know that if all else fails at least I've made it this far. The best part about 2012 is having no homework. I never realized how great it would be to see all the students walking past my house every day and laughing at them because they are still in school and I'm not (evil laughing). More news, we may go to St. Martin again this summer with my parents! It will depend on cost, but it would be so fun if we could go yet again for our third time together reliving our honeymoon. Another less wonderful thing, our new neighbors. I could literally PUNCH them (Tess has been teaching me some pretty intense Muay Thia punches). One of these days I'm going to snap and cuss them out, I'm sure of it. I realized today, I am around a whole lot more males than females on a daily basis and I hope I'm not losing my girliness, if that's possible. I mean, I'm still having Bachelor parties on Monday nights and putting on makeup, but without ballet or any constant interaction with females from school or my coding job, I feel I'm becoming even more boyish than Ed! I've always farted, burped, put off shaving my legs, etc., but I'm not really getting my girl talk on as much as I'd like. It's hard to explain, luckily I've got my sister and two amazing friends that I see every week. Sometimes I just talk to Kona and pretend she's listening to me. Ed does it too, I can sometimes hear him in the other room chatting to her. In fact, he just said in a whiney voice, "Kona, you're making me sad because you're being lame. You're just like mom, so stubborn. You're both stubborn ladies" (yes, I am "mom"). Oh yes, a small diamond fell out of my ring. No worries though, I've got a lifetime warranty on that baby and they will definitely replace it. I'm writing the randomest of things in this post so I'll wrap it up.

Life is good. I miss my parents. I will be skinny. I will conquer the world with my MFT skills one day. I love Ed. That pretty much sums it up.

Merry Christmas

I'm just sitting at work. 7am on Christmas morning and waiting for my boys to wake up. Ed woke up early with me and presented me with a stocking full of surprises. My favorite was an Elton John Greatest Hits album with 30 songs, Ed knows me so well. He is showing up in about an hour in a Santa suit to wake up all the boys here and yell "Ho Ho Ho! Meeeeeerrrrrry Christmas! And happy Hanukkah!" (because lots of them are Jewish). Yes that's right, we landed a Santa suit from our bishop, beard and all. Except the pants are like capris on Ed and he will have to do some major stuffing with pillows to not look like such a twig. Don't worry, lots of pictures will be taken. When I leave at 11 we are driving up to Heber to be with Ben and Amy all day. I can't wait to see their dog and baby Ellie and cook like a real adult. For the first time, I kind of feel like an adult because we are making a complete Christmas meal today! Yesterday I make my best blackberry/raspberry pie, cake balls, and jello salad (Utah style)...even though everyone makes fun of those jellos with everything like cottage cheese and nuts, I absolutely love them! And this morning Ed is starting on the bacon wrapped weenies for me and we will make a whole pot of beets up at Amy's. Have I said anything about my recent cravings for beets on this blog yet? I can't remember, but it's a craving like I've never had before for anything, I can not get beets out of my head! They are so delicious and luckily, nutritious. Last night was awesome, we stopped by the Huntington family Grease Fest to chat with Grandpa and the rest of the family. Grandpa gave me another hand-made necklace with a marble stone that kind of reminds me of leopard print. It's beautiful and he said it is from a rock from his front yard. I like that because when he is gone and his wonderful house with literally THE best view in Utah belongs to someone else, I will always have a piece of it in this necklace. Then we went to my sister-in-law, Cindy's house for clam chowder and lasagna. She has four beautiful little girls who were so entertaining the whole night. We got to chat with Cindy about everything under the sun, as we always do and then Ed and I participated in the girls' nativity play. I was the donkey and Ed was a Wiseman. It was so much fun to see them excited about Christ's birth and setting out cookies for Santa. Oh to be a kid again! When we got home, Ed and I entertained ourselves with the Christmas gift we bought for Kona, but it's more like a gift to ourselves because it's so much fun. Who knew a laser pointer could please a cat and us on Christmas Eve night so completely? All in all, it has been a great Christmas so far and I know it is just going to get better. My heart goes out to those who can't have a Christmas like mine and I feel so lucky to experience these blessings. I am so thankful for my Savior and all that He has done for me and the hope He brings to all of us. Merry Christmas everyone!

December 9

Last night was awesome. Ben and Amy came over with sweet Ellie and their new Mystic.  It was so much fun to see them all. We ate a delicious dinner (thanks Amy), watched some Youtube, introduced Kona and Mystic, and topped off the night by watching the new video of Christ's birth.  It is really touching.  This last picture is my favorite, it was hilarious to watch Kona's reaction to Mystic in her domain, but she was nicer than I thought she would be.  She was definitely intimidated, but couldn't resist sneaking up on the unsuspecting Mystic. 

This week was a blur of writing papers, working, and going to my last classes of my undergraduate career! Weird, but good. I'm not really sad at all to be almost done with school, which is surprising because I'm usually overly sentimental.  Did anyone see Modern Family this week?  If you haven't you should because it's Modern Family in general, but also when Cam saved that wine cork to give as a present I was laughing so hard! If you watched it you will know what I'm saying.  Anyway, he reminded me so much of me and how I save every little thing that I can possibly attach to a memory.  I'm kind of a hoarder. 

Okay wives, what are you getting your husbands for Christmas!? Ed keeps saying he has all these great ideas for me and I can't think of one single thing to get him! I hate shopping for boys. This post is getting to be pretty random, but I'll just go with it. Christmas is going to be very different this year. I'm working Christmas morning, not seeing my parents at all (first time ever), and we really don't have any plans. It's just going to be me, Ed, and the cat so we'll see what we can think of that's fun. Ed says we can maybe go to Cheesecake Factory to celebrate graduating. The original plan was to go on a cruise for graduation, but hey, we just bought a new car so Cheesecake Factory will have to do.

I have nothing more to say except happy holidays and congratulations to all who just finished another semester!

Regret

Should have started these papers earlier. 

I've got 1 paper down. 

And I'm on page 5 of the 10 page research paper.

What do I have left you ask?

5 pages of this one

One 8 page research paper with 16 sources, don't even know my topic yet

Three 4-5 pagers

One 2 pager

Journal entries for every day of Deviance class since October

Four 1 pagers for Anthropology

Two more grad school application papers

and then I'm done. 

A couple stupid finals that I refuse to study for and I'll be graduated! 

Now if I can just survive until then. 

Luckily Rhodes rolls are in the oven and I had my fair share of beets today to keep me somewhat healthy.