Change

Ugh. I hate change. I resist it at all costs. Change is often thrust upon us with no regard.  It makes me grumpy and ornery and critical. I currently find myself in the middle of change that was entirely brought on by ME and MY OWN decisions. You would think my reaction would be different since it was my own choosing. Wrong. I am still grumpy, ornery, and critical. Weird.

 

Some of you may have already caught wind of this, so this may not be the sweeping grand announcement I'm pretending it is. I have decided to go back to school. I've been stewing over it, seriously, for about a year. It's always been in the back of my mind that I would do it SOMEDAY, but never really considered it until a year ago. The game changer was finally deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up. That was my problem my first go around with school. I had no ambition, no goal, no direction. I was smart. I got good grades. My friends were all choosing fields of study and I even chose one too. Looking back, I really shouldn't say I chose it. I kind of fell into it and followed what the other students in my classes were doing. I figured I was in the same classes, pulling the same grades as them, so I figured I would just do what they did. I was part of something really cool and almost unprecedented. The following fall, 4 of 20 spots available in the Pharmacy Program at the U of U were awarded to graduates of Snow College. I still don't know if it was really THAT big a deal but the other Snow College grads were sure proud of themselves and celebrated as if it was an amazing feat. So I bought into it and felt really proud of myself.

 

Then reality set in. The classes were really hard. The professors were really smart. One would lecture all day about pathology, physiology, etc. and not one single bit of it would be on the tests. I struggled. I hated going to school. I resented it. I did bare minimum just to get by. Problem was, doing the minimum doesn't get you by in Pharmacy school. I endured two quarters. I did end up failing one or two courses that last quarter, so my spot in the program was definitely at great risk at this point. But I had already decided Pharmacy was not the road for me and I wasn't continuing. So, I did drop out, but I also failed out. I couldn't have continued if I wanted to at this point, but it didn't matter because I didn't want to continue anyway.

 

I worked. I dated. My parents moved away. I got married. I focused on having kids and supporting my husbands career. I worked part time at a couple jobs. 

 

I have been so focused having a family. Something that has not come easily to Matt and I. After experiencing a ectopic pregnancy, and a then a year later learning I have one collapsed tube and endometriosis setting in, I have come to terms with the fact that my two boys are probably all I'm going to get. I am finally at peace with this. I look at my little family, my miracle boys, and am so proud and happy. I am completely at peace with the possibility that this may be it for our little family. I am ready to move on to a new chapter and a new focus. Kooyman is in 2nd grade and Peyton is starting preschool. It's time for this momma to set some goals.

 

A game changer was meeting someone who inspired me. I got a job as a teachers aide, then the following year, a job working with a 4th grade girl with Down Syndrome. Working with Morgan has been an incredible experience. One I will never forget. We have just started her 5th grade year, since she'll enter middle school next year, I'm sure it will be my last. The teacher's whose classroom I was in last year totally inspired me. I watched her everyday, watched her make a real difference in those kids lives. Not just academically either. Teaching them how to be good people, how to treat one another, molding their minds to be proud of who they were, on how to be a team player.

 

I watched her every day and said to myself, "I want to do that. I want to do what she's doing. I have what it takes to do that. I could be good at it. I, too, could make the difference in people's lives." So, I'm going to get my a Bachelor's in Elementary Ed. I enrolled and started class last Thursday. I figure it's going to take me about 3 years to finish. That's okay. Three years will pass by anyway, might as well be working towards something.

 

I have finally found something I know I want to do and I know I could be good at. I know what I want to be when I grow up! I am a late bloomer. But I figured it out.

 

Some people might judge, I might have a year or two ago, but I am going to the University of Phoenix. I talked to several people who got their degrees from there and have decided that it is a good fit for me and my family.  

 

Going to college means change. Change in schedules, priority's, how I spend my time, etc. It's uncomfortable. I hate it. But I want to do it. It's a weird feeling to feel.

 

Matt got released from working in the Young Men's (finally!!). He's served in some capacity for 7 years. I am sooooo ready for that part of our life to be over. The first 5 years were ok, but the last two I have struggled to me the amazing supportive wife we are taught to be. I am happy that Matt's focus will be 100% back on our family. We have lots of goals and projects in mind, along with my schooling.

 

I am supposed to be preparing a rough draft on personal responsibility. I am blogging, doing laundry and talking on the phone instead. Hmmmm. So the procrastination begins already. Shoot. I was hoping to get through the first class before that set in. Oh well.

 

 

 

A Pseudo Birthday

Tonight we went to Matt's parents house for our monthly birthday party. This month we celebrated our nephew's birthday and KOOYMAN'S! We had pulled pork sandwiches, potato chips and pasta salad. The best part for me was my SIL bought Diet Coke just for me and I got to bring home what was left of the 2 liter bottle. Score! These kind of things are most amazing when trying to live on $58 for two weeks and its already gone.
Kooyman got the Avengers DVD. We are watching it now. Turns out I do blog more often now that I can do it on my phone. I just don't know how put pics in between the words...right now they just stack up at the end. Any tips would be welcomed.
Today was an amazing day at work because a) the teacher whose classroom I work in bought me Cafe Rio, b) all I had to do at work was make sure M got where she was supposed to and behaved. ie: I didn't have to make her do any work and c) it was short day and I was home by 2.
This weekend includes a viewing of Breaking Dawn 2, a couples birthday dinner for a friend, teaching sunbeams, and hopefully watching my fantasy football team win so I can move up in the rankings. Crossing my fingers!!!

Well, whoop dee do!

Its the holiday season....well-a whoop dee doo. I sing that song all the time but rarely hear it played. Weird. I'm gonna DL it to my phone and put it on repeat.
I don't have much to say right now. We've been practicing the art of surviving a whole pay period on only $58. And of course, $10 of that has to go towards seeing Breaking Dawn this weekend! Whoop! Whoop! Those movies are like a train wreck...a total disaster but I can't look away.
Christmas is coming and I'm too depressed to get excited about it. I'm hoping once I get the tree up next week it'll help. Matt hates the holidays so he's no help. But Christmas is for the kids and I'll make sure they'll have the best one yet.
I love my job. My cute little Downs girl melts my heart AND drives me crazy everyday. I'm lucky to get to be with her everyday. But every day I still wish I could just stay home and hang with my Peyton. I guess that's normal.
My life has become so routine. That's good I suppose. The kids have been behaving better and the homework fights have all but disappeared. I think we are all getting more sleep too thanks to the time change.
I'm getting bored with this post. I found the blogger app for my phone. My first post from my phone. Monumental day!! Makes it easier to do and easier to as photos from my phone.
We'll see how this goes. I like blogging but it seems like with already doing fb and instagram, there just isn't much left to share here. And I think it will take days before any one reads this.

This one time....

This one time I was dreading summer. Dreading all the neighborhood kids being home. Dreading the problems that often occur when kids just run wild in the neighborhood, in and out of each others houses, someone being left out, someone not being nice, someone not wanting to play with my kid but will play with all the other kids, having to talk to other moms when fights occur, each of us thinking our kid is an angel and the other's to blame, the heat, not going on any vacations because we are broke, blah, blah, blah. All in all, I hate summer.

But then this other time, I looked at the calendar. I mean, I look at my Google Calendar everyday because it's my homepage, but this time I REALLY looked at the calendar, and realized that summer is over in a week and a half and I can't believe it went by so fast! This is great news! I survived it and you know, it really wasn't bad at all.

 We spent several days and evenings at grandma's pool.

We had an impromptu Whitney family reunion. We were all medicated so everybody had a good time. Next time I want to plan ahead a little and do real family reunion stuff like...go to Lagoon, go camping, go to Minnesota and rent a party boat on a lake, etc. That would be fun!!

Matt and I got to go to a Toby Keith concert. We should have drank the beer and got plastered like Toby and the rest of the crowd. I guess we were too Mormon that night.

We took the boys to the Ward Campout solely because it was the only camping trip we could afford this year. It was free and so was the food. Except it was B.Y.O.M. (Bring your own marshmallows) so we did spend a lil bit o' money.

I mostly just played Words with Friends on Matt's phone the whole time. In this picture Matt may have said something mildly suggestive and I was looking at him smiling and thinking "Did you really just say that?" and he's looking at me with a sunflower seed in his mouth thinking, "Yeah, I said it. Whatcha gonna do about it." This really happened. What I can't confirm is whether or not this is a picture of that moment.

Kooy learned to rock climb...for real. Not on the rock walls they have at the 4th of July party.



We decided to sell our Tahoe. The tranny went out on our Saturn so we needed to sell the Tahoe to pay for that repair, then we would just buy another car next year with our tax return.

We went to the Days of '47 Parade. We go every year though, so no news flash here.

Peyton decided he didn't need floaties anymore and took to doing front flips into the pool. He's gotten pretty good at swimming with out them. I don't sign my kids up for swim lessons...I just throw my kids in the pool and let them figure it out. So far it's working.

We went to Lagoon on our Stake Lagoon day. It was just the

right amount of fun. Kooy loved finally being tall enough to ride the big rides. Wicked is his fave. Matt and I talked and decided that we got a little Lagooned out last year with our Season Passes. We thought about going again today with our Bounceback passes, but decided that one trip to Lagoon is enough for this year.

Then decided not to sell our Tahoe. We LOVE our Tahoe. We had no real bites on it and since we figured out that the value of our Saturn was only $500 more than the cost to repair it, we decided to keep the Tahoe and just give the tranny repairman the title to the Saturn. We don't know if it's the best decision in a perfect world, but our world isn't perfect and we don't have too many other options at this point in our life. We'll buy Matt a little car next year. We are lucky to be able to have my FIL's pickup truck to use while we are only a one car family.

And now I'm thinking of making this my new profile pic on Facebook but I can't decide. I like my eyes but my nose looks really big. Is it a little creepy or a little artsy? I can't decide. I'll probably just stick with me in the sunglasses for now.

So, all in all, summer was pretty good. And all the neighborhood probs I was expecting just didn't happen.  Kooy starts school on the 20th and I got a call for an interview for an aide position at some elementary school I've never heard of. So here we go. I love the fall.


Post Edit: Ok, So I'm gonna use it on facebook. Sorry if it creeps you. 

Post Post Edit: Nevermind. I put it up and when really tiny I just look mad so I took it off again.

AirShow

So I did some scrapbooking.

Now we are Having Some Fun

The fun has been nonstop for Kooyman this week. And it is wearing me out trying to get him where he's supposed to be and getting everything he needs. I am exhausted!!

Memorial weekend was actually pretty relaxing for ME. I stayed home while Matt entertained the boys. I went shopping and watched movies.

Saturday Matt, his dad, the boys and our best buddy Landen went to the Air Show at Hill Air Force base. It was rainy and they spent a good hour and a half inside the fire station on base, but once the rain stopped and most the crowd left, they had a great time.

Then on Memorial Day the boys hiked up to Donut Falls. It was really muddy and they saw a deer.

Tuesday night Kooy preformed his play he's been practicing four months for. It was really cute and he did a fab job! His Kindergarten teacher also runs a childrens theater troupe on the side. They hold rehearsals at the school, although the program is not at all affiliated with Channing Hall. Kooy caught wind of it and really wanted to be a part of it. We weren't sure how it would all play out but it went great. Kooy conquered his fear of being up on stage with everyone looking at him. He delivered his line perfectly. We were very proud.

Wednesday night we crammed for his Shark presentation and he did that Thursday at school. I call him my Shark boy now and asked him if I could be his Lava Girl...he said no.

After his presentation they went to recess and I got some shots of him and all his buddies in his class.

Friday was the Fun Run at his school. He says the best part was the fire truck that sprayed all the kids before it started. I stayed for a bit but left his as they went to the Health Fair at the park down the street. He was so excited to do the rockwall.

Friday night: Kindergarten Graduation. What a stud!!

Can I go take a nap now??

May 13-19

My husband makes me Eggs Benedict on Mothers Day...just like my dad always makes for my mom.

Whew! What a week. I'm glad it's over. I told myself, all I had to do was get through that week things would be better. So far...so good.

I've been on a roller coaster about last week ever since September. First it was a high. I was gonna have a baby that week. And it was our anniversary too. Then I miscarried. So I was low again. Then we planned a big trip to Disneyland for that week to celebrate our anniversary and so that we could be gone somewhere having fun when my due date came. HIGH!! But then, devastatingly, our tax return we were planning on using for this big trip got garnished. Yep. GARNISHED. It's what happens sometimes. It all goes back to choices we've made and now we have to pay the consequences. No one to blame but ourselves and it totally sucks. It was a lot of money. And I grieved for a long time about it. Still do sometimes. All the bills we were gonna pay, the fun we were going to have, the catching up our bank account we were going to do...GONE. So...LOW. And that's pretty much where I've been since then. No baby, no Disneyland, overdrawn bank account, unpaid bills, etc. I've been dreading last week since February.

They say expectations can play a big part in determining how things will go sometimes. It was pretty bad. Thursday, the actual due date, was theeeee worst. I had been wanting to at least be pregnant again by this day, to soften the blow, but that kind and gentle Mother Nature had other plans. I started my period just after lunch. Insult to injury. Thank you very much!!  Kooy went to school and Peyton and I fought the whole afternoon. I finally took him to get ice cream because I felt so bad for the little dude. It wasn't his fault. I don't know why he chose that day to refuse to use the toilet, refuse to believe me that there was no cereal (the biggest fight we had was about that. Even when I actually showed him the cupboard was empty and we had NO CEREAL, he still didn't believe me), and refuse to take a nap. Usually he's so easy. He'll play by himself and just toddle around the house. Not that day of course. Matt was going to go work with a friend that night but he wisely cancelled on him. When he got home I went downstairs to our guest room and slept for almost 3 hours. Then Matt and the boys came down, jumped on top of me, and started giving me kisses all over my face. Matt took the boys to get some Arby's then we all went to bed.

Friday night Matt and I celebrated our 12th anniversary with Sushi and a drive in movie. All I have to say is thank goodness for our anniversary. It saved the week. Something to look forward to. It wasn't the same as riding the Toy Story ride with Peyton at Disneyland or riding Space Mountain with Kooyman, or walking down Main Street Disney with Matt just like we did 12 years ago on our honeymoon. But is was still a great evening.

I may have been behaving badly the last few weeks. Snide comments at family parties, throwing a fit in sacrament meeting because someone stole our bench, among many other things may have not been my finest moments. But I think I'm allowed. I've been in a bad place for awhile.

Today things are looking better. A bit brighter. I feel like singing some Barry Manilow right now....

I made it through the rain
And found myself respected
By the others who
Got rained on too
And made it through. I made it THROUGH!!!

Good ol' Barry Manilow. He just nails it sometimes.

P.S. I take it all back. Right after I posted this I left to go donate plasma so I would have enough gas money to get us to payday. The transmission went out on me half way there. So, now we have no car and no gas money. You'd think it would all even out but both cars needed gas. :( Cut the music Barry, it's still raining.

Speaking of Dieing

I have a friend. His aunt just died. It's was a pretty tragic circumstance. I don't know her. But I know him and have known some of the details of her situation. I feel for him and his families loss. She sounded like a wonderful person.
Life and Death. Things can change in an instance. You just never know what is coming around the corner. I've been feeling pretty craptastic about myself lately. I verbally summed it up once by saying I suck at life and  I'm doing it all wrong. When I said this I was thinking of our financial situation in particular. It's pretty desperate. We've got backed up bills, we don't pay rent, I started working more and we are still hundreds of dollars overdrawn each pay period. What kind of person am I if I can't keep my personal affairs in order? I felt like I was living some lie. Pretending to be just like everyone else but really I'm a big fat mess.
Then my friends aunt passed away. I read on facebook some pretty wonderful things about her. And I started thinking. No disrespect, but what if this lady had huge backed up bills, never bought a house, and was repeatedly overdrawn each month? Does any of that matter now? No, of course not. All her family and friends remember about her is her sense of humor and wonderful personality and fond memories. What would people say about me if I died? I'm pretty sure nobody would think less of me because of my financial stituation. I hope they could find nice things to say about me on facebook.
I'm trying to not define myself by this. I am still a good person, who has value, contributes to society, and has something to offer other people.
I will keep trying to make our situation better. I am not giving up. We will work on a budget and try to cut back expenses, etc. I'm just gonna try to stop worrying so much about it and getting depressed about it. Because, afterall, in the end it all doesn't matter.

Life Sucks...then you Die :)

This kid loves trying to make me laugh by making faces...sometimes it works.

This statement feels 100% true to me lately. I could go on a pretty good rampage right now listing everything that sucks about my life right now. But I'm not gonna. Not going to because most of what I feel depressed about is a direct consequence of some choice I've made in the past. No one to blame but myself. I can own it. I just don't know how to fix it. Then the other stuff is completely not my fault and it just plain sucks eggs. I've been wanting to blog a lot lately. I've been following this blog for a year or two. It's pretty unremarkable as far blogs go. She hasn't had some near death experience, no child of hers died or suffered any debilitating accident or disease. She does sell jewelry and has an etsy shop though. So that's cool. I can't remember how or why I came upon her blog but something about her clicked with me and I could totally relate to what and how she wrote. She's not LDS. I don't in fact know what her religion is but her family does attend church each week...without her, of late, but that's not the point. ANYWAY, she kind of tapered off with her posts. Instead of everyday, maybe just two or three times a week. Well, finally she posted something about how she has been having a pretty shitty time lately, has gained lots of weight, doesn't go to church with her family, and has been wanting to post about a lot of this stuff but feared being completely honest and putting it out there. She announced that she was going to start being more honest about her life and TURN OFF the comments. Now I look forward to her posts.
I used to write in my journal a lot. It was therapy. Sometimes just writing it all down, sorting through it all helps. I haven't written in my journal for six months. And before that like four or five months. And I've had a lot of crap go down in those 10 months then I have had in my whole life. I've learned a lot of life lessons. I've re-evaluated about every aspect of my life it seems. Every aspect. Even the ones that seem steady already. I've done the evaluating, come to some conclusions and now the hard part. Doing something about it. I've been down this road before and this is that part where I always stop. I can't do that anymore. I've got to make some changes.
I've been majorly depressed lately. About nothing in particular...just about everything in general. That's usually how depression goes if you aren't familiar. I've considered going back on meds. I even did for about a month. But they were Matt's pills that he wasn't using. But now he needs them back so I'm back off. I know, I know. I should go to a dr and not mess around with other peoples rx's...blah blah blah. I will probably go see my dr in June now that I think about it.
This post is reeking of vagueness and no details, just like 90% of all posts on facebook. My bad. Just stay tuned. I'm going to post more. Be more honest like that blogger girl I follow. I'm sure it'll all come out eventually. Sometimes it'll be negative. Sometimes it won't be. Just like real life.

OMG!!

I've gotten in the habit of saying that. Like actually saying, "O.M.G". The letters, not what it stands for. It started out as a joke. You know, like to sound like I'm young and hip and "with it". I was just trying to be obnoxious, because I like to do that sometimes. But now I say it like it's normal and when I really mean to say it. For example, like when I couldn't get Club Penguin to work on our desktop computer. It said to load the latest flashplayer. So I did. Then it told me to load the lateset flashplayer. I was all..."O.M.G! Why isn't this working?!".  I think I need to stop. Pretty soon I'll just be saying "L.O.L" instead of actually laughing out loud. And that would be Lay-ame!

Anyway, so OMG!! I'm doing a blog post. Life has been interesting since my last post, literally. Five days after that post things went downhill. I'll make a long story short. I was pregnant, but now I'm not. Boo-yah! I told you it would be a short story. Oh, okay. I'll embellish a little bit more. It was an ectopic pregnancy. I had surgery but (insert another long story here), so I ended up getting two rounds of methotrexate to end the pregnancy instead. I like telling people it's a chemotherapy drug because, #1- it is. And #2- everyone knows how rough chemotherapy is on cancer patients and it's the only way I can explain how sick the drug made me. I had two weeks of feeling like I drank poison and it was killing me slowly. But, I'm all better now and we can start trying again in January.

Christmas. Last Christmas was a total bust for me. This Christmas is making up for it 100 fold. Christmas miracles, administering angels, and overwhelming sense of peace has come into my life. I know it will be one of the Christmas's I remember the rest of my life. I have never been so excited to see the boys open presents this year. I think I'm going to be crying.

My parents are coming for Christmas. It might be better explained that they are coming to Utah for my niece's baptism but are then staying for Christmas. They arrive tomorrow night. I've planned a week of relaxation for them and lots of hosting for me. This is their 4th extended trip out of town in the last three months. I'm sure my mom is tired of all the travelling and I am prepared to make this visit her easiest one.

We aren't doing Christmas cards this year. So just know that the Curtis family is ready to celebrate Christmas and quickly move on to the new year. We want to leave this one behind us and start anew. We are full of promise and hope for the new year. We think it's going to be a great one!!

Merry Christmas!!!
Lisa