I heart Audible.com. Seriously. I’m having a love affair with it.
So far I’ve “read” The Help, STori Telling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), and now Bossy Pants.
Seriously, people. Check this site out. Who has time to read anymore? Download this gem onto your ipod, plug it into your car, and ditch the annoying morning announcers on the radio.
You’ll thank me later.
They say your dog takes on the personality of their owners.
I resent that.
My dog has an attitude, she doesn’t wake up in the mornings, and she has a pretty decent case of separation anxiety. I believe that I only share….. all of these qualities.
Allow me to demonstrate via iPhone time lapse photos Molly in the morning:
7:45am: Alarm has been going off for 20 minutes. 1 person out of bed. Molly: "Don't bother me"
8:05am: Out of shower. Dog still shows no sign of movement. Molly: "Don't bother me"
8:36am: I need to leave for work. It's time for the dog to get up so I can let her out. She's not interested. Molly: "I'll pee in your closet later."
8:42am: After an hour of no movement, I force the dog to get out of bed. Molly: "You promised me cookies, bitch"
8:43am: Molly: "Get the camera out of my face until I can comb down this bed head"
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart
-Confucius
This weekend I went home to Colorado to lay my grandfather to rest. While extremely emotional, the ceremony was beautiful and a wonderful tribute to a wonderful man.
While at the church, I saw the bench in the garden that my grandpa had the church place in tribute to my grandma:
And I was able to reflect upon some of the wonderful moments that I was able to share with my grandpa in my short time with him:
Baking bread
The last time that I saw my grandpa I spoke with him about all of the “signs” that my grandma has given me that she’s still around. He agreed that they sounded like her and we shared a fun moment dancing at the end of my brother’s wedding. I can’t think of a better memory to leave with.
He passed away while I was in Puerto Rico for the holidays, and I came home from that trip to a box of Harry and David pears, exact in fashion to the ones my grandpa was notorious for mailing to family at Christmas. Only these were delivered to my house on “accident”. Meaning, the real address was nearly 20 minutes away from my house.
After speaking to my grandpa about all of the subtle signs that I’ve noticed, I don’t believe that this was an accident. I look forward to what he has in store for my future.
My uncle spoke at the funeral service about how my grandpa thought that my grandma’s passing was her gift to him to be able to know his family better. I think there’s a lot of truth to that.
After the service, the family went over to his house for the evening and as we crammed too many people around a small kitchen table I couldn’t help but think that the person who would love this the most was the one who is no longer here. Then it occurred to me that if he thought my grandma’s gift to him was family, then this was clearly his gift to all of us.
You started a good thing, Papa. We are a family who laughs, a family who supports, and a family who will carry on what you created. May you rest in peace, Papa, right where you belong.
Saw a pregnant lady at the car wash and didn’t automatically hate her. Small victory that I now get to celebrate
Head is winning today
I need a housewife.
I said this to my husband and he responded with “So do I!” as I attempted to find my socks this morning in 4 different piles of laundry on the floor. As it turns out, more space in the new house just means more space to expand upon my bad habits.
“Maybe it would be easier to find something in the closet if you didn’t have so many Coach purses that you don’t even use”
Gasp “I do too use them” He didn’t mean that, girls as I admire my wall of purse beauty.
“When’s the last time that you used this yellow one?”
Wait, when is the last time that I used that one? “I use it, and you know, this isn’t helping me find my socks.”
Then I decided to go sock commando before he could inquire over more purse usage.
I went downstairs to grab a bottle of orange juice on my way out the door and couldn’t find one because my fridge is full of Thanksgiving left overs. I’m so not kidding there. That’s about the time I realized that my house still has Christmas decorations up that would rival a housewife on Black Friday, my pantry is empty, and my trash is overflowing on top of the dirty dishes that don’t fit in the sink. Who’s house is this?
Thus, I leave work in 2 hours for the rest of the day. I plan on taking down Christmas, cleaning out my fridge, doing laundry and dishes, maybe clean a bathroom or two (or three), and pack my suitcase for my trip to Colorado tomorrow.
All of which would be easier to do if I had the help of a housewife.
…Know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind.
The kind that blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
-Baz Luhrmann
I’ve thrown around sharing this with the blogging community for quite a while or keeping it to myself, and believe me there are positives and negatives for both. However, it’s something that I have been struggling with and the positive moments are hard not to celebrate while the difficult moments are getting harder and harder not to talk about. I know that it’s not a topic that is openly discussed, and believe me when I say that I completely understand why. Those who are bystanders don’t know what to say, and those who are living it may just be trying to get through the day.
I have now experienced both sides.
Ultimately, the decision to share my painful story is for a few reasons:
The last one is what inspires me to share my story in case anyone is quietly going through this alone. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I wish I had internalized that sooner.
At first, I honestly believed that I was okay to talk about it- and some days I certainly am. But when I was blindsided by the topic I instantly burst into tears. So please understand that I’m not being rude when I say that I’m talking about it now, I’ll probably bring it up from time to time in the future, but this topic shall forever remain on the top of my “Don’t Ask Me Unless I Brought It Up” list. I also appreciate not being the topic of dinner conversation.
Angel and I found out in early November that we were expecting a baby Rivas this July. Naturally, extreme excitement was replaced by extreme freak out, before we settled into a healthy level of worry. The worry is what held me back from telling every stranger asking me to move my cart in the grocery store that I was pregnant. We closed on our new house, moved in, and started calling the empty room “the nursery.” We thought about adjusting summer travel plans.
And then as quickly as it all happened, it was gone.
I miscarried on December 2nd and was sent to the hospital for surgery in concern that my health was at risk if left unchecked. December 2nd was the hardest day.
I spent the rest of December physically feeling like I had been hit by a Mac Truck. Mentally, I had tunnel vision on holiday travel and family. Now that the holidays are over, I’ve been struggling with balancing the good with the bad. I would like to think of myself as a relatively positive person, “happiness is a choice” I say, but some days I struggle with who’s in control of that choice: my head or my heart.
Most days, my head wins. God has a plan I think.
Yesterday my heart won. A friend of mine announced on Facebook that she and her husband were expecting and their due date is on the exact day that ours was supposed to be. This is when I decided that it was time to share my story.
I ask for prayers of strength as I continue to cope with the loss and I ask for understanding as I still lack appropriate emotional responses to seemingly everyday events.
Supportive comments to this post are welcomed.
Like I said below, I have been enjoying finding creative outlets for myself lately. One of the more fun ones has been making diaper cakes for my seemingly endless supply of pregnant friends. Ladies- stop drinking the water.
One of my good friends is bidding farewell to Arizona so that she can go deliver her spawn closer to family. Since she’s been the most supportive of my diaper cake side business (aside from my awesome husband who finally convinced me to sell them), I naturally had to make her a cake for her going away.
"This was by far the best one you have done!"
Laura, you will be missed and I require you to bring Kyle and baby Hailey back at least once a year.
P.S. I packed extra baby caps inside the diaper cake so that you can cover your baby’s cone head before you start snapping away with the camera. You’ll thank me for that some day.
A while ago a pile of boxes fell over in the middle of the night that instantly woke Angel and I up and we tried to shove our “guard dog” out into the hall to check it out. She wasn’t interested.
Thank you, you've been helpful
Fast Forward to when our house was broken into through her dog door in early October. It took the police nearly an hour to find her hiding spot between the couch and wall, and that’s about when we decided that she was more of a liability then home security asset.
Since then, Angel’s agreed to installation of a security system (I’m pretty sure it was out of annoyance to my complaining, actually). So on New Year’s Eve we had a system installed.
Last night around 1am I got a phone call from ATD telling me that they got notice of a power failure in my system but not to worry because the alarm would still be monitored by battery until power was restored. Almost immediately the alarm starts beeping like crazy. I go downstairs to see why and see there’s a notice that the “living room 1” window has been tampered with. WHAT….THE….HELL
I call ADT and they tell me to go check my windows “What am I paying you for?” before it’s determined to be equipment failure. No luck in arming the alarm until it was fixed, but I was assured that it wouldn’t continue to beep and “We’re sorry for the inconvenience”
We go back to bed. Whatever.
2am. The damn alarm is going off again. I don’t know why since it was NEVER ARMED. Call up ATD: “sounds like we’re going to have to send someone out to fix it.” “Again I ask, what am I paying you for?”
We purchased the security system so we could sleep better at night. I think we can say this is a smoking success thus far.
Well, hello there. If you’re reading this, I take it to mean that you like me enough to reroute my emails from the junk mail folder. I thank you for that.
It’s a new year and I’m investing serious calories in finding some new outlets for myself and refreshing those which I once enjoyed. I don’t know, maybe I’m having a quarter life crisis. As far as my blog is concerned, this means leaving behind the old posts: site, name, and all. I’m also going to do better about posting. Maybe it’s a quote or maybe it’s a chapter, but its coming at you in greater quantities.
You’re welcome world.
What Lies Within 