Guess I needed something to blog about.....

Yes it has been a long time.  Did you miss me?  Probably not.  Well this last week has been soooooo much fun I just wanted to share.  I know this is going to be long, but hang in with me ok?

So Scott started 8 day break last Sunday.  I know 8 days, it was AWESOME.  We did "Spring" cleaning in February.  Who knew we had so much junk, i mean stuff, that needed to leave our home and find a new one via the DI?  Wow!!  Anyway we spent 3 days sorting and organizing and going back and forth to the DI, then on Thursday we went snowboarding at Beaver Mountain cause it was Bowen's 12 birthday.  I have a 12 year old, how crazy and surreal is that?  Anyways for his bday he got outfitted for snowboarding.  He got pants, a cool coat, a used snowboard from a pawn shop and used boots from the DI.  He loved it.  So Thursday we took our kids and a friend and a niece to Beaver Mountain.  What a beautiful day.  I even hired my private instructor to teach me how to snowboard.  According to Scott we paid him to hold my hand for 2 hours, but I disagree.  By the end of my 2 very tiring hours (legs are out of shape) I am able to snowboard down Little Beaver backwards (on my toe side).  Yes I said Backwards.  I am all kinds of messed up, but in a short explaination my calf muscles are stronger than my quads so I am unable to stand up facing forwards on my board when I fall down.  I am only able to get myself up without help from my toes, so that is why I snowboard backwards.  I fully plan on torturing my quads into shape for the next few weeks so when we go again for Scott's Bday (in March) I may be able to actually see where I'm going.

So Friday we recover from Thursday cause I am sore.  I fell a lot but I took a few "flyswatter" falls on my bum and bruised both my right and left cheek (TMI I know) .  So Saturday rolls around and I am SUPER excited cause this is the day we leave for Wendover. 

Back in December Tamy decided for her 30th birthday she wanted a party with her family and friends in Wendover.  So she booked rooms and set the date.  I have been looking forward to this for sometime, and saving up for it.  So our day started with packing for our 1 night trip, but since the kids were going to Grandma Kathy's we all had to pack.  Then we dropped off our kids, waved goodbye, and very happily turned up the radio and left Cache Valley.  We stopped at Maddox for lunch, can I just say YUM, cause I knew the casino food sucks, and we were throughly stuffed and sated for our long drive.  Then we stopped at Amber's to see her.  She had surgery on FRiday and she was also in possession of the gift we bought Tamy.  We filled up with gas in Layton then we're off.  It was a beautiful day and we had a blast with that time to visit and talk like grown up's are suppose to do.

So we are literally just 1-2 minutes behind Tamy and Rick, but we never caught up.  Dang BMW is faster than our Tahoe.  We go to check in together to have the hotel not find our reservations.  SO while Rick is working that out we sat and just chilled.  Finally they found them and we were off.  Our rooms were nice and ours was very very purple.  Tamy's was teal, i am not sure which one was better, LOL.  Then off to the floor to play while we waited for dinner at 7.  We went to the Nugget and signed up for the poker tournament.  THat's right you all heard me POKER TOURNAMENT.  This is what I had been looking forward to.  One small fee gets you lots of chips and hours and hours of competative poker.  But first we had to have our birthday dinner.  RIck had reservations for us and all 25 people at the cafe with Rick once again picking up the bill.  THANKS RICK.  Scott and I had to leave a little early to get to our tournament on time.  We checked in and there was 75 people and only 3 girls!~!  I was a little nervous but once I got started I was unstoppable.  I took out so many guys it was almost laughable.  I even made it to the last table.  Now Scott was trying his hardest but only made it to the 3rd table.  So I am playing and having a blast.  It took over 2 hours, but I ended up coming in 6 place.  I can't believe it 6th place!!  The bummer is they pay $$ to the first 5 places, so I was soooo close to getting some extra moola, but not quite.  So just to quote my brother-in-law Rick "I am still a looser" but it was sooooo fun loosing.

Scott and I hung around and played real poker until after 1 AM and then we hit our totally uncomfortable and lumpy beds.  I did win more and was up $100.  Here comes morning and it's breakfast with the group and then we go back to the Nugget with Tamy and Rick where Tam and I play Blackjack while Scott plays Poker until it is time for checkout at 11.  Tam was low on chips so I kept her in teh game for a while, then we both had enough to keep going.  Overall it was great.  Aside from the smoke, which made me cry the entire time, it was a great weekend.  THANKS TAMY AND RICK.  We will always remember the adult weekend.

So there, I had someting to blog about.

UPDATE.....Hallujuah.....Not Depression

More details but i'm not depressed.  THe meds I wernt on thinking i was depressed were BAD for me.  I am now back to myself and have tons to do to catch back up.  But we are now exploring a hormonal issue that may be related to my hysterectomy i had while livingin in Washington and forgot to tell my Family Doc.  So on monday I am going in to tell him that I messed up.  This isi great news really.

My Hiatus

Ok, so it has been a long time since I have blogged.  So here is the short of a long story and why I am taking a break.  I am pretty positive I will resume my blogging once again I just need some time.

Yes the rumors are true, I am going through a little depression right now.  Yes I am getting help for it.  Yes I will be okay.  Yes my husband still loves me.  I like to point out the fact that I had 4 kids and 1 miscarriage and NEVER suffered any post-pardum depression.  This is the FIRST time in 13 years (can you believe it?) that I have ever had a problem such as this.  We will make it through.  With the help of the Lord, modern medicine, and family we will make it through.  So yes if I seem a little down it's cause I am.  If you are wondering where "chipper ole' charity" went?  Well she is still here somewhere, we are just working on getting her back out here.

So no comments on being sorry for me ok???  That isn't what I want to hear and it will just make me mad.  I am okay and I am working through it.  My sisters are helping, most of the time, JUST KIDDING!!  My husband still loves me and my kids think I am lazy and sleep a lot and let's be honest right now that is a pretty good description.  Oh and I did loose my job on Monday, so that did not help much either, and now my van is permanetly out of commission.

 So now it is literally hour by hour for me.  If I do not have a reason to move or do something I don't .  Right now I am getting kids ready for school then I will probably hit teh bed again.  Why you ask??  Well doesn't it sound like the best thing to do??  It does to me.

I will be back.  I know I will.  This cannot last forever.  That's what I tell Scott and I think he believes me, well I hope he believes me.

Thanks for understanding guys.

Baby it's cold outside...... Have we just lived through the Worst Decade Ever?

Seriously it's cold outside.  Wow!!  So after my much thought out previous blog post I just don't have it in me to do that much thinking again.  Though I must say I have been reading Time Magazine at work and it does have some thought provoking articles.  The one I read today states that we have just finished up the WORST decade ever.  Ever?  I wonder if I agree with that.  While I agree the first 10 years of the 21st Century (2000 - 2009) probably haven't been the best, but I wonder if they have been the worst ever?  I think back to the era of the Great Depression and the many wars we went through.  Granted we are now fighting a few wars and 2 major ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have not had a draft and for that I am thankful.  If you compare money spent on war and troops these have been worse than the previous ones, but call me dumb and blind but it seems that we as a country are handling it better that we did in earlier years. 

So while this has been a trying decade as a whole and as a family we have lived through prosperity, poverty, health, illness, murder and everything in between and for some reason I don't know if I agree with the name of Worst Decade.  I may feel differentaly if I was older and had lived through some of the earlier conflicts but as I see it and studying history with my son I think we held our own.  I think we learned from our history and while we had bigger struggles like never before seen (9/11) I think that we made it through.

So I am going to say that I don't think that last 10 years have been the worst to live through, there have deffinately been worse, but I guess if you look at $$ and the economy and markers like that then yup we are in trouble, but that isn't me.

Do you think this last 10 years deserves the title of Worst Decade Ever?

Life is what you make of it

I am a firm believer that your life is what you make of it.  I get down sometimes but that is because I allow it, not because others cause it.  I totally get and accept this.  Life is going good right now, I have barely anything to complain about except the normal, my kids didn't pick up their toys and we have Way to may extra-circuricullar activities, but otherwise we are all healthy and happy.  It has been an adjustment getting used to Scott's new schedule.  Even though he is home every other day, he isn't really "here" because that is his re-coup day and he mostly sleeps and does laundry, but at least his body is here right?  We look forward to the 4 and 6 day breaks and that is when he is really "here."  So I just go on with out life as normal on days when he is home and he can choose to join in if he can and if he can't we just go about our plans.  It seems to work fine.  The only problem is when he is home for 1 day and isn't tired and wants to do "something" he doesnt' know what it is but he wants to do "something" so then it throws a wrench in the plans, but I am good and just going with the flow.  We are soooo extremely blessed to make it through these last 2 years and now we are getting rewarded for it.

So what do you make of your life?  Are you a positive person?  Are you negative?  Do you call yourself a "realist" and see the negative in all things just claiming you are trying to be "real" about the situation? 

You are probably wondering what brought this about?  Well I read a report in Time magazine about people with low self esteem and that have thoughts about themselves that are less than favorable and people who choose to see good in life, in the world and in themselves.  They took these "sad" people and had them write in journals for an hour at a time once a week and during that week they did exercises we have all heard of, look in the mirror and repeat after me "I am a good person.  I am beautiful....." and then write in the journal.  They were also suppose to stop intermittantly while writing and repeat those self-affirming words and continue to write.  You know what they found???  It doesn't help.  Seriously.  You know what they found does help???  Taking these people with low self-esteem and with less than favorable thoughts and perspectives about themselves, life in general and the world, help them to accept their feelings and move on with it.  In other words it's okay to feel that way!!  Can you believe it?  It's okay to have low self-esteem.  So now that you have accepted this what do you do with it?  Well they then teach them how to deal with it.  How to work on raising your self esteem, but in little steps and in such a way that it does not seem they are actually "doing" anything.  In the end, though it took a considerable amount of time their journals started to become more positive and they actually changed their outlook on life.  All this from accepting who you are, what your life is and either deciding to change it or not.  But the big point in my mind is it did not come from standing in front of a mirror and saying "I am beautiful.....I am a good person...." 

So I am here to say I am not a strikingly beautiful person, I have never been.  I accept myself as I am.  I actually think I have my days where I look ok and I am good with that.  I do think I am a good person.  I do not think I am a great person most of the time, but I am fine with being good.  I have accepted my life, the good, the bad and the ugly.  There was a time when I did try to force myself and my family to change who we were and it was not pretty.  We all rebelled.  I thought what I was doing was right and basically I stood in front of the family and said told them this is how we were going to be.  We were going to do this and that and look a certain way and on and on and on and I thought that by reaffirming this everyday it would work, well guess what???  It didn't.  So I accept my family and my life for what it is and I love it.  We are soooooo far from perfect and we may never be where we want but we are always striving and I have learned that change in moderation is the way to go.  Small steps that are barely noticeable and it doesn't seem like we are trying to hard.

So if you get nothing more out of this rambling you can just know that I dont' think I am pretty, and I am an ok person.......JUST KIDDING.  That isn't what I want to you to remember.  Please sit back and look at yourself, accept you for who you are and then decide where you need to work and do it slowly.  Look at your family and also love them for who they are and then go about change in a slow manner.  Remember life is what you make of it, but you can't make it how you IDEALLY want it all at once.

I love you all.

PS I dont' even have a good picture to put with this one.  Sorry.

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.........

You may think I am refering to my job at Lynn's Audio Video, but no I am refering to my "real" job as a mother to my 4 wonderful kids.  Today is just one of those days where I walk around the house reminding myself to take deep breaths and muttering to myself "I love my job"  "I love my life"  "I love my children"  "I wish Scott were coming home.......I love my life"  Nothing BAD has happened today just a lot of odd things that have made the day wear on and on.  So let me start with this weekend.  My birthday was on Saturday and I spent most of the day feeling sorry for myself and crying.  Really please don't feel bad, I am over it and there wasn't anything anyone of you wonderful people could do.  It all boils down to one simple thing and I am trying to fix it I swear.  I don't have any friends.  And even though I use that word in the plural form, I really just want 1 good friend, is that so much to ask?  You will all have to agree with me that there is a difference between family friends and friends who don't "have" to be nice to you.  Thank you all for being nice to me, but I just wanted another girl to go to the movie New Moon with me.  I was happy that Scott went, but it was ovious he was tired and wanted to sleep and he was only there for me.  He even took me out to sushi for dinner before hand.  What a great man.  He knew I was sad and there wasn't anything he could do.  You have all heard me say I get sad at times, I miss my friends in Washington.  They didn't have a lot of money but for my birthday we got together for lunch and a girl time at a lunch space, it was great!!  I Guess I just miss that companionship. It also doesn't help that my best friend in Washington makes me sad when she says how much she misses me, I wish I could just jump a plane and rush right up there.

 So I forgot to mention that it is basketball season and we are having our own little struggles with basketball this year.  This is our first year playing at Mt. Crest and let's just say I am less than impressed and basically threw away $100.  That's right you heard me it was $50 a kid for basketball.  But I was all for it if they liked it and it was a good program.  Boy was I let down.  First off Colton's team didn't have a coach.  THe first game came and we were told they had a coach, we get to the game and no coach and only 4 boys, that isn't enough to play.  So a dad and myself decide to coach.  We had another boy show up so we finally had 5 but it was sad.  These are 3rd grade boys and most of them have never played basketball with rules.  Colton has, but he was less than impressed.  He is so grown up sometimes.  He hasn't had a single practice and he did not want to go to his game this last Saturday and I can't say I blame him.  Believe me that lady in charge is getting an earful from me.  Now I come to Bowen.  HE has been playing basketball since 3rd grade.  He is good.  In 4th grade he played on a competative team.  He is tall and talented.  I don't say this being his mom, but it is true.  I put him in the Aggie basketball camp this summer to help him improve and get ready for the fall season.  Well he is on a team that also had no coach, then a dad stepped up who does not know how to play basketball but thought "how hard can it be?"  Well Bowen is teh only kid who has played before so the other boys cannot even pass teh ball correctly.  So we spend the entire game watching them try to pass teh ball and it getting taken away.  Poor Bowen is very discouraged but this is a good lesson is patience and helping others to learn and grow.  It just frustrates me that I spent money on this.  Here are some fuzzy pictures of Bowen.

So here is what we do for entertainment while at Bowen's games.  Mt. Crest has these totally wierd hand rails and they are the perfect size for a 3 year old to climb in or for a 9 year old to get his butt stuck in.  What we would do for entertainment if we didn't have these guys around?

I digress, sorry.  So Saturday, crying, birthday cake (that Mason fed to Titan), sushi, New Moon.  Then Sunday came and Scott went to work.  We ran out of time on Saturday and were unable to get dinner ready for the guys at the station so I went to Wal Mart at 8:30 AM (please don't judge or yell at me) and got the ingredients for their dinner, then I put it all together and rushed the kids off to church.  Right after church we came home and got ready to head to Ogden to finish dinner for the guys.  IT just so happened this was right when the snow storm hit.  Oh well that is how my luck goes.  So I ran the kids to Amber's house to play (Thanks Amber!!!) while I finished up dinner at the station and ate with the guys.  It was a hit.  I made alfredo noodles with baked chicken breasts, green salad, french bread and a chocolate cake triffle (recipe at end of post).  Now it is really snowing.  So I go back to Amber's and grab the kids (Thanks Amber!!!) and we go home.  Luckily the storm had made it to Ogden and had left the canyon and Logan was clear by this time.  The drive home was uneventful.  We got home late and I did not pay attention to the time and made chex mix at 9:00 at night.  What was that about??? so since it takes an hour to bake i was up till 10 cooking.  Oh well.  Today has been odd but it is almost over and I am no longer sad.  RIght now I am a little lonely because Scott is working today so that is 2 full days with him gone.  I have been doing just fine with him gone 1 day at a time, this is my first 48 hour stretch.  I am sure I will survive. 

Sometimes I surprise myself

So yesterday I was making one of my standard dinner's for myself and the kids which was meatloaf and augratin potatoes.  Boring right???  Well I would say in the last 5 years we have really been expanding our foods that we have been including in our meals and adding new flavors.  Needless to say we have had great outcomes with this and now my children....read that again.....my CHILDREN love such things as Indian Food, Chineese Food, ARTICHOKES, and most any kind of peppers be it red, green, orange or red.  I have been loving it!!  We have also become conisures of such flavors as balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes and Umami.  Since you are just dying for my surprising meatloaf recipe I will share it because it turned out to be the BEST I have ever made. 

Ingredients:

Zucchini
Onion
Green Pepper
1 pound Ground Pork
1 1/2 pound lean ground beef
1 large egg
bread crumbs
salt & pepper
1/4 - 1/2 cup catsup
balsamic vinegar

I chopped up some zucchini, green peppers and onions and I cooked them on the stove top in a little olive oil to make them soft, set them aside and let them cool down.

Then you take 1 pound of Ground Pork (this is important) and 1 1/2 pounds of Lean Ground Beef and add the rest of the ingredients:  egg, salt and pepper, 1/4 c catsup 2 tbs balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup bread crumbs.  Mix well with your hands - Yes use your hands.

Now add the cooled vegetables.  It shouldn't be to moist.  If it looks moist and extremely "wet" then add more bread crumbs and make sure you mix them in well so you don't bite into a chunk of crumbs.

So now take your cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper or aluminun foil and plop the entire mixture out onto the sheet and form it into a wide loaf that looks like this.  The only thing I would do different is I would make it shorter and wider so that you get more of teh loaf covered with the glaze you will make.  And this recipe won't make a loaf this big!!

So now for the glaze.  It is an American tradition to put catsup on top of your meatloaf and who am I to mess with tradition?  I only ask that you take your 1/2 cup of catsup and spice it up with 1 tablespoon or more of balsamic vinegar.  When this cooks down it make the yummiest sweet and tangy topping on your meatloaf and with there being some vinegar in the loaf itself it just all comes together like a wonderful choir.

So I spent all my time on my wonderful meatloaf that I will admit to paring it with a box of Augratin potatoes but I have taken time before to make cheesy funeral potatoes or bakes sweet potatoes goes well with this.  I will do artichokes with this also to add in more vegetables and a good dose of fiber.

Let me know what you think.  Try it, your kids will love the flavor and won't know they are eating all those veggies especially if you chop them up small.