Monthly Archives: November 2012

My dreams are paying me back for being mean to rodents

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I just spent the majority of the last 24 hours in bed with a migraine.  It sucks but is a fact of life for me.  Right now, I feel fine but weak.  Knock wood, this one is gone.

I had one crazy dream while I was asleep.  I am a vivid dreamer.  Sometimes I dream these really complex story lines.  I wake up and think, “Wow, if I could just write that down, I would make a million dollars from being an author.”  Sometimes, I compose music in my dreams.  It is always really beautiful to me.  For the first 10 minutes or so after I wake up, I can usually remember it, but then it is gone.  The 99% of my brain that I am not using is f’ing brilliant, people.  The 1% that I am using–meh.  So-so.

This afternoon, I dreamed that Matt and I went to this party.  It was what I would describe as “New Age-y”, if I ever got invited to a New Age party.  The hostess broke us up into teams and we played word games and such.  It was not a mix-n-mingle party.

The hostess, in my dream, had 5 pet squirrels.  When we finally broke for snacks, the 5 squirrels attacked me.  I learned (via my dream) that I can not protect my face from 5 squirrels.  Four squirrels, yes; but I am overwhelmed by five.

I never had an unhealthy dislike (or fear, it would seem) of squirrels until I met Matt.  He detests squirrels.  Hates them.  Tries to run over them with his car and laughs with glee when he is successful.  He deemed our wedding day a “lucky day” because they hit a squirrel on their way to the church.

I sent him this picture once that I found on the internets and it may be his favorite:

Another one bites the dust.

Now, my subconscious is paying me back by sending me dreams of squirrels attacking my face.  *sigh*  It’s true–no snarky deed goes unpunished.

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On a different note, I’ve been working on our Christmas card for this year.  I showed it to Matt tonight for his thoughts and we changed a few things around.  I dumped it into the cart for checkout and then had a reality check when I saw the final bill.

I love my friends and family, but I really don’t need to spend that much money so that you can get a Christmas card from me with our picture on it.  Do I?  I don’t think so…so, you’ll be getting regular, non-photo-ID Christmas cards from me.  Maybe with a picture of Jesus on them, instead.

Here’s a screen shot of what the card would have looked like so you don’t feel like it’s a total bag of coal Christmas.

Merry Christmas from the Elders (seems a little ridiculous to also sign)

Cross-country chronicles

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As a lifetime resident of the same state, I just spent my second Thanksgiving away from home.  The first time was during my semester abroad when I had a good excuse for not flying home for Thanksgiving.  This year, Matt and I decided to fly across country to visit my sister and her family.

I have only heard tales, urban legends, about holiday travel.  The lines, the delays, the crowds, oh my.  It wasn’t that bad, but I am very grateful that we got to see my sister and her family with relatively minor incidents.  Some, though, are just worth repeating.

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Scene:  Flight from Charlotte to Salt Lake City; 7:30AM

I am reading my SkyMall magazine, doing what I always do–wondering if people actually order things from the SkyMall magazine, like the $300 Star Wars chess set.

Matt:  They are taking us back to the terminal because there is a medical emergency on board.

me:  Really?  What’s going on?

Matt:  See the guy two rows behind us?  He’s unresponsive.

Flight attendants are standing around the guy, asking him, “Sir, sir!  Can you hear me?”  The guy said something that I couldn’t hear, but then I heard the attendant say, “How much did you have to drink?”  It became clear that the guy was just stinking-ass drunk.

Drunk guy:  I need to get to Seattle.  I’m going to Seattle.

Attendant:  No, we’re taking you back.  You shouldn’t be on a long flight.

We waited and waited to go back to the terminal.  Then they had to pull us to a gate and people with a wheelchair came on board to get the Drunk guy.

Attendant:  Sir!  Sir!  Can you hear us?  We need to get you off the plane.

Drunk guy:  Where are we?

Attendant:  We’re in Salt Lake City.  You took quite a nap.

Drunk guy:  I gotta get to Seattle.

Captain (of the plane, y’all):  No, you gotta get off this plane.  (You could almost hear the ominous music).

Attendant:  Come on sir!  (Pulling him up.)

Drunk guy:  DON’T touch me!  I’ll go with you, but don’t touch me.

It was the Perfect response.  Have you ever noticed when someone is drunk and someone gets too close to them (in a non-sexual way), everyone always pulls out the “Don’t touch me!” line?  Like, “hey, everyone….I’m being all reasonable and stuff and it’s this asshole who is touching me that is crossing the line.”

After they got the Drunk guy off the plane, they had to put more fuel in the plane because turning back to the terminal used so much fuel that we might not have made it to Salt Lake City.  Wha?  Isn’t that cutting it a bit close?  I could have totally lived the rest of my life without that bit of information.

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On my flight from Salt Lake City to Seattle, I sat beside an extremely gawky and large 12-year boy.  He picked his nose a lot.  Matt asked me what he did with his “findings” — I had to admit that I didn’t know because I was trying to avoid looking.  I hope that he wasn’t flicking them my way.

Then the little girl sitting behind me threw up.  A couple of times.  It was righteous.

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It was very wet in Seattle.  A lot of rain.  Did you know that they just voted to legalize marijuana?  But I still had to go to the pharmacy to get my Advil Cold and Sinus with pseudoephedrine.

I’m a fickle dog person.  Ashleigh and Dan have a French bulldog, Lola, and she was a sweetie pie.  So, now I want a Frenchie.  A bulldog, people.  I’m too tired to be thinking about anything else.

Lola, the Showgirl

Grateful that I don’t have to be grateful any more

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Today I am grateful that it is not a law that I write a blog about being grateful every day.  It was sucking the fun out of writing a blog.  I was beginning to approach blogging like a chore, a drudge, a (*gasp*) job.  Enough’s enough!  This is supposed to be fun.  No more self-imposed blogging every day.  I’ll write when I have something to say, whether it’s interesting or not.

But I do have a month’s worth of things for which I am grateful.  I’ll just list them instead of writing about each:

  1. Family and friends
  2. Sister
  3. Chocolate soy milk
  4. antidepressants
  5. Elastic waist bands
  6. Digital libraries
  7. Harry Potter books
  8. air conditioning
  9. hugs from my husband

Actually, I’m having a hard time coming up with my list.  I think that I’m distracted by hunger because I just started to list “Cinnamon Life Cereal”….

I’ve had several bad days recently–no sleep, a cold, work-related stress.  I have a picture that perfectly expresses my mood.  It’s a picture of my roommate from freshman year in college, Grace* (*not her real name).  She was in the middle of what we called an “all-weeker” (instead of an “all-nighter”) during finals week.  I’ve never sympathized with Grace more than this past week.  I’ve wanted to give the whole world the bird.

Grace, I feel your pain.

Second Chances – Day 11

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Today, I am grateful for second chances.  If some people had not given me a second chance, they would not be in my life now.  And vice versa.

What more can you say about second chances?  You really can’t, so I’m going to move on to another topic.

I’m having such a difficult time sleeping recently.  I have recently had a change in medication and I’m blaming that.  The result is that I am as exhausted as I have ever been.  I am so tired that I have actually become stupid.

I noticed it yesterday while I was getting my hair cut.  As the stylist was cutting my hair and trying to talk to me, I was having a hard time concentrating enough to come up with an answer to her questions.  A typical sentence would go something like this, “Matt bought a dirt bike [long pause] sometime this year and he wrecked it and he got hurt.  It was bad.”  This was in reply to the question, “Have you done anything fun lately.”

I’ve never been stupid.  I feel like I’m inhabiting someone else’s body.  Or really that my brain has been replaced with someone else’s brain.  Maybe I’ll try what George Costanza did in an episode of Seinfeld — if I give up sex, I’ll get smart.

This is a pretty lame blog.  I hope you will give me a second chance after I get smart again.

Mama Mia — Day 10

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Today I am grateful for mothers.  Specifically, I am grateful for my mother.  She’s a pretty darn good mother.  My sister and I turned out well.  We’re kind, responsible, competent women.  My biggest issue is that I tend to put a lot of people into the category of “Idiots”.  Matt might argue that I have more issues than that, but I think that is idiotic.

I am especially grateful that she taught me that I shouldn’t take myself too seriously.  She is the kind of mother that won’t be mad at her daughter at all for posting this picture of her in a blog.  A picture that she hates.  She will laugh and laugh and say, “I’m not going to take myself so seriously!”  Cause that’s the kind of mother she is.

I love this picture.  She was 17 at the time, competing in a beauty pageant.  And I love to think about her that young, that carefree, that bold.  Go, Girl!  You are as beautiful today as you were at 17.

Gut Busting — Day 9

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Today, I am grateful for belly laughs.  You know, those laughs that have you bending over, wiping tears from your eyes, putting up your hand, pleading “Stop! Stop!”.  Those laughs where you worry you’re going to pee your pants, where you do pee your pants.  Those laughs where you end up saying, “Whoo!  Oh my god, that was funny!”, and then you start to giggle again for several minutes.

I am grateful for those kind of laughs.  They cleanse.

Walking into my Surprise 40th Birthday Party!

Day 8 — Payday is Tomorrow

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Today I am grateful that I have a full-time job.  A job that pays my bills and allows me to do extra stuff, like take a vacation to Ireland, use a Keurig for my coffee, buy organic milk at the grocery store and to go out to eat at restaurants when I feel like it.

In fact, I’m having dinner tonight with a friend that I haven’t seen in a few months (*waves* “Hi, Nikki”).

Source:  http://footage.shutterstock.com/clip-1974787-stock-footage-group-of-young-people-working-in-office.html

I’m grateful that I have a job that takes up so much of my time that I find it hard to write a grateful blog everyday of the week.

Elder grateful month — day 7 — written word

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It’s been a week, 7 days, since I started blogging about one thing I’m grateful for per day and I’m beginning to wonder if a month is too long.  Maybe it should be Elder Grateful Semi-Month.  I’ve never written every day….this shit’s hard.

Regardless, today I am grateful for the written word.  Without it, I couldn’t tell you that this shit is hard unless you were sitting in the same room with me or we were on the phone together.  The written word, the ability to communicate through 26 little letters arranged to form words, astounds and humbles me.

I have always been a voracious reader.  Probably the biggest single milestone of my life was when I learned to read — it changed everything for me.  (Wow….I peaked at 6….)  From that point forward, my favorite thing to do has been to read.  I will read anything:  books, magazines, brochures, pamphlets, cards, whatever has words on it.  If there is a moment of down time, I’m looking for something to read.  I may learn something, pick up some new knowledge or entertain myself for a moment.  They were right!  Reading IS FUNdamental!

I can’t imagine life before the written word.  I’ve read (!!) about how many cultures and civilizations lasted for centuries with their mythologies and stories passed down from generation to generation simply through memory and story-telling.  How??  I can’t remember what to buy at the grocery store without writing it down and I buy the same stuff every week.  How did Gawain and the Green Knight survive the Dark Ages?

With the written word, we can share ideas, knowledge, facts or fiction without ever being located in the same place.  It can be shared over distant times.  A story can last forever.

That is simply ….. well, I just can’t find a word for it.  But it’s big.

Elder grateful month — day 6 — X marks the vote

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I didn’t even have to choose the subject today.  The day elected (get it?) the topic.  I am grateful for the fact that I live in a country where I have the ability and the right to vote for my leaders.  As long as I am not convicted of a felony, I can vote in every election until I die.

The amazing thing about this is not just that I can vote.  There are lots of countries around the world where voting takes place.  What is so astonishing and unique about an American’s voting rights are many:

Get Out and Vote

  1. My right to vote is not based on race, gender, religion or socioeconomic status
  2. I can vote without fear of retaliation against me or my family
  3. I can vote at polls that aren’t surrounded by soldiers with automatic weapons
  4. I can vote knowing that the “winner” is not a forgone conclusion and my vote is meaningless;  i.e., my vote counts
  5. I can vote in complete anonymity
  6. I vote on a predetermined schedule (every 2 to 4 years), not every time there is a coup
  7. I can belong to a political party but still vote for the other party’s candidate

And when it’s all said and done, I can complain, in the office, in a blog, in a letter to the editor of my local paper, at a city council meeting, wherever, that I am not happy with my leaders.  Even if I voted for them.

Elder grateful month — day 5 — Sleep

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Day 5 of Elder Grateful Month and there’s no slowing me down.  I’ve still got plenty for which to be grateful….and today, I’m grateful for sleep.

Sleep, catching some zzzz’s, hitting the sack, sawing some wood — whatever you call it, you gotta have it.

Source: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/files/2009/09/picture-of-sleep-6.jpg

Did you know that chronic sleep deprivation can increase your risk of:

  1. heart disease
  2. heart attack
  3. stroke
  4. diabetes
  5. high blood pressure

And it dumbs you down.  Makes it harder for you to concentrate.  And causes, ummm, I lost my train of thought.  Oh yeah, 100,000 traffic accidents a year are caused by sleepiness.

In fact, I would be grateful for more sleep.  I have suffered from chronic insomnia for about 10 years now.  I was such a champion sleeper before I hit my mid-30s, too, that becoming a sleep-challenged person was a shock. I used to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime.

These days, I take sleeping pills and melatonin and wear a CPAP for sleep apnea.  I find myself talking about the pros and cons of different sleeping pills with people — I am firmly entrenched in middle-age.  I am so Team Jacob, but would become Team Edward solely to eliminate the need to sleep.

When I have a good’s night sleep, I feel like a MILLION BUCKS!  Those are the days where I sparkle (like Edward), I am a warrior woman, I can take on the world.  So, I am so grateful for sleep, and if you’re listening, Mr. Sleep, I miss you.  Come visit more often.