If I Could Be Anywhere

There isn't much going on today. It's 1:30 and I'm still in my PJs. Saturdays are the best. Actually if it were a perfect world I'd be far away from my computer right now and with my family in Richfield. It's my favorite time of year up there right now. Today my mom is getting bushels of tomatoes and will spend the next week canning. I'm really in the mood to be in a cold, almost dreary place surrounded by the routines of childhood. I guess it's a good thing I have a job or Troy would be a near-bachelor during certain parts of the year.

Toot Toot

That's right, that's the sound of me tooting my own horn. I just repaired my toilet. Okay, it wasn't anything too rough, just replacing the flapper, but I'd never done it. My landlord suggested that may be the problem, I looked it up on the net, went to the hardware store, picked one out and came home to replace it. Hooray for home improvement! The funny thing is that when I was talking to my landlord he asked if Troy was home to fix it. Excuse me? I told him Troy's even more clueless about stuff like that than me. Although one good thing I must say for my wonderful hubby is that he'll figure things out fast, that smart boy. Anyway, I digress. I fixed the toilet so now I don't have to listen to it run 24/7 or turn on and off the water everytime it gets used. Gold star.

P.S.--This isn't my toilet. Just an example of my skills. Oh, and it's a lot harder when the front of the tank isn't cut out. I'm lucky I don't have fat man hands. He he.

Kids Make Life Hard

Well, I was just reading up on my regular blogging friends and when I read Michelle's I just about lost my dinner. Her blog is very funny, but WARNING: do not read the posts for September 22 and 24 if you have a weak stomach (much like I do). Okay, it really wasn't that bad, just stories about kids pooping and puking and I've definitely heard worse, but icky just the same (and funny because it didn't happen to me). Feel free to visit at http://shelle.wordpress.com/ Love ya, shelle!

Peterson Update

Well, I guess the biggest news is that we've decided not to buy a house. We've decided to hold out and make sure Blythe is really the place we want to be. We're just gonna save, save, save. Hopefully I can become a miser. That might actually be kinda fun.

Other than that, there isn't much going on. It actually felt like fall today. It's 4:24 and we've yet to hit 80 degrees. If you're going by my mom's rules when I lived at home, that's not even warm enough to wear shorts. The kids were so funny as school today. They were complaining, "It's cold, it's cold," when it was never before 70 degrees after 8 o'clock this morning. I should send them to Utah. It would be very entertaining.

Today I'm making cupcakes to take to work tomorrow because one of my TAs is turning 17. Yay! Actually, I just want an excuse to eat cupcakes all day long. What fun.

Nothing much to say . . .

Well, another weekend is almost over. Very sad. I went to the JV and Varsity football games on Friday. Good times. JV lost but varsity won, which was a happy surprise. Go Jackets!

Do you ever have those days you just want to curl up and disappear? That was me today. It hit me as we drove to church and if there was ever a Sunday I was not up for wrestling four-year-olds, this was it. I won't go into what nearly put me over the edge, but I really hope that I'm more perceptive and can read other people's moods better than one or two people I dealt with today. I would think that red, swollen eyes and brief responses would give people the idea that now isn't the best time, but maybe I didn't look as bad as I thought I did. Anyway, I stayed at church and chasing Sunbeams did take my mind off things for a while, so it turned out okay.

A Big Step

Well, I haven't posted for a few days but that's because we've been BUSY! Busy and stressed. But guess what . . . we put an offer on a house! I'm excited, but not too much just in case things fall through. Who knows. But I'll keep you posted!

P.S.--I'm anxious for any advice anyone has!

Yet another Saturday

Well, it's been a not-much-going-on Saturday. Troy went to the UCLA-BYU football game and I knew I needed to get out of the house or I'd only think about stressful things (e.g. house buying), so my best option was hanging out with my mother-in-law. We looked at model homes and browsed through a couple stores. I didn't buy anything because I'm trying to cut back on spending, but she did buy me Wendy's. Umm. Anyway, when I came home to drop off my car before our outing, my neighbors were parked in my spot. Uh, thanks. So I had to go all the way around and park on the street. Really it wasn't a big deal, but that was pretty much the biggest thing in my day. Now I'm back home and prepping for my Sunbeam lesson tomorrow. I'm learning all about how to be a better friend. :) Actually, I really do need to be a better friend. I mean, I think I'm a good friend, but I'm not good at calling someone up to do something. I'm always game when someone calls me, but I never had any good ideas. So for any friends reading this, please know I value you and your friendship.

Enjoy your weekend!

Like a Story That Had Just Begun

Although I do have other things to talk about, today's blog is a special one for my sister Carrie. Today it has been 6 months since she was killed in a car accident. I miss her so much. I hadn't seen her since my brother's missionary homecoming last July. She had just moved away to go to school and had started dating a guy who later became her fiance. There was so much ahead for her. Anyone who's been my to MySpace page knows I've had "Who You'd Be Today" on my page for a long time. It's the perfect song for how I feel about Carrie. She was about to start a new life, one we never got to see her experience. I can only imagine what it would be like for her. I didn't see her with her fiance, except for that one day last July. I don't know if she'd be working now or pregnant with her first baby. There's so much unknown.

I just miss her. It's that simple. I miss what she could have been. I miss the excitement in her voice when she had good news. I miss her stories. I miss her smiles. I'll miss her when my brother and other sisters get married. I'll miss her being there when I have children. It's weird for me to know they and their cousins will never know their Aunt Carrie--that she'll just be an unknown character in too-old stories. For someone so full of life and so much a part of my memories of my family, I feel cheated that she will be held to such a small role in the long stories of our lives.

I've never been able to succinctly say what makes me who I am and what motivates me to do what I do, but now I feel like the loss of my sister defines me. At least it does to me. It's one of the few things I don't think will ever leave me. Remembering the moment my dad told me she had died. Seeing her lying on the cold metal table. Wanting to reach out and touch her delicate hands, the only part of her that was still her, but fearing what my fingers would find. Feeling a desparate final need to straighten her dress before we closed the casket so she would be forever perfect, just the way I wanted to remember her. Wishing everyone would just disappear so I could be with her, telling her how much she meant to me and how much I would miss her.

I hope she's happy and knows how much she means to us.

I am NOT thankful for ants!

Oh my gosh, I'm going to go CRAZY!!!! My life is a constant battle with out little six-legged roommate. Well, make that dozens or hundreds or thousands or millions of them. Who knows when it will stop. In the interest of keeping this short, I won't go into the whole story, but lets just say that pre-July we'd have occasional ants, but nothing too bad. Then we came back from a month's vacation and they've taken over. I promise my house was clean when we left and I still keep it clean, but they are resilient! They showed up in the pantry (where else) and once we got rid of them there they disappeared for a while, but then we found an actual anthill at the base of our toilet after we returned from our A/C outage. Today I had a loaf on banana bread on the counter, properly stored in a bread bag and discovered the little buggers had eaten hole in the bag and were all over the counter. I got rid of them but still feel like I have ants crawling all over me. Oh, and they bite, too. NOT COOL. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, baby powder works wonders. It kills the ants (I read is eats away their exoskeletons--sick) and keeps them away. Plus you just have to vacuum it up. Needless to say my kitchen and bathroom are covered in white powder. At least it smells better than Raid.

I am Thankful for Labor Day

In case you didn't catch it, the title of this post is a throw-back to Sunbeams. Teach enough lessons and your sentence structure becomes very simplistic.

Anyway, we survived the weekend. Okay, Troy did. I didn't really do anything that was too difficult to make it through. After three nights of football games, Saturday's JV game ended with a mega thunderstorm during halftime. Now the floor mats of my car are filled with Arizona sand. But, as is always the case, as soon as Troy crossed the Colorado River, the pounding rain stopped. Arizona gets all the action. Anyway, shout out to the PV Yellow Jackets for tromping Parker. Hopefully the domination will continue this week when we take on Horizon!

As for me, I got in my PJs at nine on Friday night and didn't get out of them until 7:30 Sunday morning. I really have no idea what I did during all my pajama time, but I LOVED it. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, just enjoying time to myself.