missing ire

look here ... 

if anyone knows a way that i can just be so rich i can do anything i want ...

well, let me know a s a please (duck dynasty anyone?)

im just saying if i could do anything right now.  i would move back to ireland.  just pick up and go.  travel ... relax ... travel.

so. just putting it out there - if you  have a way for me to get there, just hit me up!

catch up

oh the dreaded catch-up.

you know a lot happens in four months. 

we took marlene to disneyland.

and she went to homecoming.  well i mean they didnt actually go TO the dance and DANCE at the dance.  but they had a party bus, and she wore a dress, and they went to dinner and show. sooooo...apparently thats what "going to homecoming" means these days.  

we took marlene to the grand canyon, salt lake city, los angeles. 

then we had thanksgiving with my family.  and christmas with the dees.  

another trip to brianhead to ring in the new year.

and a final trip - to san francisco. 

after that - marlene had to go home to germany. and we were sad. we still are.  we miss her mucho.

and i think thats how you sum up 4 intense crazy months into 10 sentences or less.

here is to blogging more often! 

as always ... 

mom stuff

being a mom is hard. 

its probably not as hard for you.  why?  no idea.  i just think that.  i think that i cannot figure out what im doing every single day.  and that probably youre at home baking cookies, making arts and crafts, while the floor is shining and mopped.  and ps your kids can probably read.  and youre probably "pinning" all about it on pintrest. 

me?  oh. well you know.  totally flailing about.  lost at sea.  lbj hates to listen.  is as stubborn as a mule.  and i cannot fathom a guess at where he got it ... because its too hard to tell.  is it the dee "i hate authority" stubborn.  or just the derosa, "im stuborrn and i like it" variety.  

i cant tell you.

what i can tell you is that if you are struggling. ever.  on any day.  i can virtually guarantee you that i am too.  

like this morning, when lbj woke up he was crying.  why?  because he went to bed crying last night and thought it was THE SAME DAY!  literally woke up crying and apologizing for why he had to go to bed early last night, as if it were only 5 minutes later.  

so, take note - lady at walmart who scolded lbj for crying in line yesterday - i have no earthly idea what im doing.  but im trying my best.  

and if youre having one of those days too, just know, i feel ya, sistah!

also.  just as a side note there are good things that happen.  

like last week, when lbj got up from his nap. he snuggled on the couch with me. he laid his head on my chest, and then looked up into my eyes.  and with the sweetest expression said, "mommy.  i like your private parts"

seriously classic ladies and gents. 

shopping

last weekend we took marlene homecoming dress shopping.

it was very fun.  and the truth is, the girl is an easy shopper.  we only went to two stores and tried on maybe - maybe - 15 dresses.  and i dont know about you, but that did not seem like too much at all.  she quickly narrowed her choices down to two.  and so of course, we went to lunch to discuss.  after lunch we bought some jewelry and then headed back to try on the dresses again.

and then she made a decision...i think she picked a great dress. and i am so happy that i got to go with her and see her get excited for the dance. 

nathan and i were talking about it later - and we just said how much we enjoyed the experience. because the likelihood of us having that experience ever again is pretty slim.  as nathan said, "uhh. im not going to go tux renting with lbj".  it made me think about all the things that we will miss out on by virtue of having a son.

but, having lbj also means having a boy around the house full time to capture any bugs that might appear.

and having a boy means a lot of quality lego building.  and as he gets older, i am sure that i will appreciate the things that i get to with lbj, the boy, that i wouldnt get to necessarily do with a girl.  

as far as the homecoming dress goes - dont worry, we also picked out two - TWO - pairs of shoes that marlene can choose from on the night of the dance.  and i will be sure to snap an annoyingly amount of pictures.  (because im already crying as i write that sentence, let alone how emotional ill be when she goes off to her first dance)  (yes, i know im not her mum) (but i just love the girl!)

in other news ..

my dishes are not coming clean.  in fact we've been having this problem for a few years.  we even bought a new dishwasher a while back because i was getting frustrated.

and this morning it just came to a head.  so i started reading up on it and read that dishwasher soap is phosphate free, and makes them less effective.

so i ordered some bubble bandit.  with phosphates.

and im REALLY excited for it to arrive so i can try it. 

yes...i am just that dorky.  

but in the 5 weeks since marlene has been here, we have eaten out maybe 2 or 3 times for dinner.  i am making dinner basically every night.  im on freakin fire!  and i need to have clean dishes.  so .. i will let you know how it goes next week.  

because i know you care!

and then they grow up

i dont think it ever occurred to us, as we planned to have marlene come and live with us, the difficulties that would arise from her just being a teenager.

and teenagers like to hang out with other teenagers.

we knew this of course.  and we knew she would want to go out with her friends and hang out and have fun. i dont think that we thought it would happen so fast.  as i mentioned before, marlene has quickly made friends here in vegas.  and that is awesome.

what we didnt know was how protective we would feel, almost immediately.  like most other people who have met her, we really like marlene.  and we want her to have fun. but we also want her to be safe.

we have a responsibility as her host parents to make sure she is safe.  and in addition, we have a responsibility to her parents back home that she stays safe.  

and suddenly ... every maternal instinct that i thought id never have kicked into full gear.  and someone i never met before, namely "Dad Nathan", emerged.  what happened to us?  we are too young to be weirdos! oh, but we are.

we want to know who marlene is hanging out with.  where she is.  what time she will be home.  you know, all those things my mum, and your mum, wanted to know.  back when we thought our parents were SUPER annoying.  

luckily, marlene is a sweet girl, and understands our concerns (or at least smiles to my face when she says so).  so, yesterday i met some of her friends. and tonight she is out with them to a centennial football game.  "our" little girl of four weeks is grown up and out with her friends. 

probably having a way better time than me and nathan.  because ... 

we grew up too. and we are our parents. old. and lame. in front of the tele.

all about marlene

the last three weeks have been so awesome.  and so busy!  

i have much to blog about - we have gone up to the cabin in utah, headed out to the movies, and to a volleyball game at unlv.  we went down to the strip. we had the new student orientation for all the exchange student.  and meanwhile, school has started, marelene has been very lucky to make some good friends already, and has been out and about doing activities with friends and with the church youth group. 

thats three weeks in a nutshell.  but i want to be able to get into the habit of writing down things that are going on, but also how everyone is "feeling".  

so far, nathan and i are loving having marlene with us.  she is a super sweet girl and very very fun.  we have a good time together even when we are just sitting on the couch watching tele together.

one of the things we were most nervous about, logistically, was what do we do at night.  when lbj goes to bed, nathan and i just "veg out" on the couch and watch mythbusters, top gear or some other goofy show.  we wondered whether marlene would want to watch tv with us.  if it would be weird.  would she get bored?

but as it turns out, she has a few american shows she likes to watch already (how i met your mother) and has come to like a few other shows that are new to her (craft wars and face/off).  so nights arent nearly as awkward as we thought they might have been.  plus, lets be honest.  shes a teenager, and as soon as dinner is over she spends most of the time texting her new american friends.  :o)

another thing we've learned about marlene is that she is very honest girl.  if she doesnt feel like playing a game, she will tell us.  i appreciate so much that i generally know what she is thinking because she just tells me so. 

in fact, on the subject of talking. she is very open and communicative.  when we sit down to dinner and ask her how her day was, she starts by saying "yes. well i went to my first class photography and we ..."  i am so happy to have someone in our home who loves to talk and tell us about things that are going on.  and i hope that when lbj is older he will be similarly open and talkative (based on his current amount of speaking, i dont think we will have a problem in that area).  

she has let us know who she is making friends with and tells us all the funny and interesting things that happen at school.  when i was a kid, this is how our dinners went, as well. so for me this is awesome (but normal).  nathan did not have exactly the same type of communication - but that might be the difference between a house of boys and a house of girls!

i love marlenes sense of humor.  she has quickly learned how nathan likes to joke around, and we just seem to have a lot of fun together.  she especially likes to see people freak out.  we watch pranks on you tube together sometimes.  or nathan likes to scare me in the car by being crazy.  and the three of them (lbj, marlene and nathan) get a good laugh out my outbursts.  she can also laugh at herself - just last night she fell straight off the couch while reaching for a cookie.  and im just saying, it was pretty funny.  we all laughed. and then nathan posted about it on FB, and she still laughed.  

speaking of cookies - the girl loves her sweets!  we've been having cookies on a pretty regular basis these days, as well as some yogurt land.  in addition, i see her swipe marshmallows from time to time. and when we went to the movies, she opted for kettle corn, not butter popcorn!  

marlene likes to play board games with us (win for me!) and she likes romantic movies (win for me!) and  so nathan, being the awesome host dad that he is has been doing things that are out of his comfort zone (win again!).

for me - having marlene with us has made me get up earlier in the day (win??).  i get more done around the house (win!) and am doing a pretty good job of making home made dinners for us to eat (win!).

these are just a few of things that we love about marlene and what having her here means to us.  but mostly i just know that we all seem to be very happy. and we couldnt have gotten a better girl to come and live with us!

her bedroom

it was really important to me, once we knew we were going to have an exchange student live with us, that we do something special for her room.  i want marlene to feel comfortable here, like it is her very own home.  and i want her to have a space to go to when she just needs some time away from us crazy americans! 

i emailed her mum, and asked what marlenes favorite colors are so i could make sure to get some bedding and things that would fit her style.  its a good thing i did, because what i had originally had in mind for the room would have been awesome for ME at 15, but not at all what marlenes mum described.

so off to craigslist i went to find some pieces.  and with the help of my friend katie, we refinished some pieces and got the room going.  

(fyi ... i made that lamp out of an old easter basket...what what!)

hopefully marlene will enjoy her new room with us!  

our first meeting

remember that one time, about three years ago, i begged and begged nathan to let a foreign exchange student  come and stay with us? 

well ... i finally wore him down!

her name is marlene (pronounced marlena), and we are very excited.  but first i want to write down for the ages our first contact with this sweet 14 year old girl.

it was my annual july 4th weekend festivities with the dc girls - and this year we were actually celebrating the upcoming wedding of our friend renni.  the week before nathan and i had received marlenes packet of information, and decided that on monday we would send her and her family a little introductory email.  nathan had already typed it up, and was ready to hit send, come monday morning.

i went out on thursday night and had a great time.  i went out on friday night, and had yet another good time.  come saturday night, it was time for the "real" bachlorette party to begin (because thursday and friday were just practice runs).  we had a pre-party in jojo's room, complete with a panties game, and then headed out for some dinner.  and then of course, it was time for dancing.  my favorite part of the weekend!  please give me 10 cokes, and then set me on the dance floor around 1 am and see what happens :o)!

fast forward to 6 am and the sun rising.  where am i? oh, just in cab on the way back to the hotel where my car is parked.  SIX IN THE MORNING!  i get home at 630 or so, get into bed and fall asleep near 7 am.  

cue ringing phone at 8 am.

nathan answers and its marlene, "hi. this is your exchange student. marlene.  do you want to skype?"

what!?  let me just say i had worn some red RED lipstick stain the night before.  it was still on, and "stained". i had smokey eye all OVER my face.  suffice it to say, i looked like once messed up prosti.  (thats what we call prostitutes.)

of course, the only thing i want to do at that moment is get on the computer with my 14 year old exchange student and her mother. why not? 

i told her we were in our pjs and give us a few.  so i jumped in the shower trying to wake myself up.  cleaned off the smokey eye, and as much of the lip stain as possible.  

we both put on "nice" shirts. but left our pj bottoms on. and hopped on skype. 

it was a great conversation. and she seems like a really sweet and nice girl.  hopefully, my lack of sleep and prosti face didnt make her scared to come to las vegas.  really.  this is not how i normally "live" in vegas.  no. really.  i swear.  and to marlenes mum, i promise i wont let marlene stay out till 6 am with prosti face either.  

You Know You Go To Disneyland A Lot ..

when LBJ knows the whole first verse of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride song. 

He just busted it out today while eating lunch.  so - i made him do it again on camera for me. 

Since his ability to say words like "pillage" "plunder" and "ravage" has yet to be fully honed yet, I've provided some subtitles.

I submit for your consideration:

words hurt!

i watched the new bristol palin reality show last night.  and let me tell you something that i did not like. in a clip for an upcoming episode, her son is throwing a tantrum. hes two and half - par for the course, people! she seemed to be holding him, trying to calm him down. and then he screams at her.  LBJ also screams.  we actually call it turning into the hulk now.  but thats another story.  tripp screams the statement "i hate you!".

no. no. no.  one) i dont even think LBJ knows the word hate. and two) he definitely does not know the phrase "i hate you".

that phrase is reserved for when you are a teenager and i wont let you borrow the car to go see whatever newest vampire movie is out.  and when that happens i will cry.  

im not saying that i think it is appropriate for teenagers to say they hate their parents. but, ahem.  i was a teenager and i "hated" my parents.  and i told them so.  so im pretty sure that karmas a ... you know what ... and i will hear that phrase down the road.  

bristols son only knows to say "i hate you" as a two year old, because he heard someone else say it.  it doesnt surprise me.  bristol was just a teenager ... like yesterday.  she hates her baby daddy.  and tripps been around bristols teenage siblings for a couple of years now.  so there you have it.  

it doesnt make me cringe any less.  and i think i would be horrified if LBJ told me he hated me now.

as it is, when he says "dont talk a me. im talking a daddy" it breaks my heart a little.

like i said, karmas ... rough.

ps when LBJ says "dont talk a me" i privately think he is working on his spanish and already using the personal 'a" rules

in case you didnt see it on G+ ...

guys.  why does my kid look like hes in a musical when hes running?

second story love

when i was ten, we moved to a new house - the churchill house as we call it.  i was, to put it mildly, upset about the move.  our previous home had been on a cul-de-sac, with 15 other kids just on our street. not to mention the kids who lived on the street over that we would sometimes see.  it was a veritable childrens paradise.  

the one thing that made me happy about our move was the fact that our new house had stairs!  all ten year olds want stairs.  not only that, but my second story bedroom had a window seat that looked over our new street.

even at ten, i was a romantic.  i envisioned the boys that would come to my house and throw rocks at my window.

oh the romance!

i had an imagination.  a wonderful and romantic imagination.  the boy would throw the rock. and i, sleeping in my beautiful four poster bed (yet another plus to moving into our new house), would rise and walk to my window seat.  opening the window, id play demure.  but by the end of the day dream, i was basically engaged to that rock throwing boy.

as i got older, my daydreams evolved. and that rock throwing boy would ask me to sneak out.  i had planned many ways of jumping from my second story perch to the waiting car below.  it was a convertible.  and i was going to have my hair flowing behind me as we zoomed away from my oppressive parents 
(you know the ones ... the ones who never gave me a curfew. so oppressive).  

alas.  in the eight or so years we lived in churchill, not a single rock was ever thrown at my window.  what a tragedy.

tonight, after a small disagreement, nathan had to run to the store.  as he pulled out of the driveway, he beeped his horn.  i stepped out on to our second story balcony and he professed his love for me.  

maybe its nearly 20 years later. and maybe it was a horn and not a rock that grabbed my attention.  

but it sure was romantic.

(no snide remarks tonight)

10 Shots of Tequila Later

have you ever downed 10 shots of tequila?  well, I did not do that last night.

but, I sure as heck felt like it.

I was nauseous, sick, and the room was spinning.

downside was I hadnt got my party on right before. so, a bit more lame than that one time I really did do 10 shots.

im just waiting patiently now for nathans return. and LBJ gets to watch youtube videos. wish me luck the rest of the day!

supermoon:superfun

LBj has been a bit under the weather this week. this morning i woke up and had to skip a lunch date with my bestest pen pal, because i was not feeling well.  LBJ and i took naps. and didnt wake up until 530!  so of course, i am up now, after midnight.

around 715 LBJ and i took off, with my camera, two tripods (one for LBJ, of course), and NashDee.

i decided to try and photograph the supermoon tonight. we were waiting patiently for it to rise over the mountains.  i was expecting something big and orange. but as it popped over -  i almost didnt see it!  it was nearly the same color as the sky.  it did get orange, as it rose.  and then it became white.  

we drove around and got a few shots here and there.  and then we headed to the temple.

i wanted to take a couple of shots up there for #sacredsunday on g+.  im trying to get more involved in the projects that exist on there.  and it makes me take pics outside my comfort zone. 

then LBJ saw a mcdonalds and let me know i needed to go the other way after passing it so we could get french fries.  so, as a dutiful mother, i of course stopped so we could have some fries.  at 9pm.  yupp. mother of the year, right here.

heres a couple of the pics of the supermoon, which i already shared on g+

and then a couple of shots that i may post for sacred sunday...

and just a quick shot of NashDee getting excited to see the supermoon!

bad news thursday

i just read the most unbelievable news today.

matterhorn has been down for months for refurb work.  a big refurb.  

this is exciting.  

until i read ... dun dun dun!

new bobsleds!  one person only!  height requirements are going up! to 42 inches!

42 inches!?!  LBJ will be 8 years old by then (ok maybe thats an exaggeration). thats higher than both space mountain and star tours.  

how do i tell my little LBJ that he cannot ride his favorite roller coaster?  the one he talks about all the time.  

seriously.  im laughing at myself for being this upset.  but it is going to suck to have to tell him its a no go, even though hes been on it 10 times before.  

lame, disneyland.  lame.

dearest blog.

its been too long, again.  

we recently watched midnight in paris.  one of the lines struck me:  “nostalgia is denial — denial of the painful present.  the name for this denial is Golden Age thinking: the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one [that] one’s living in. it’s a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

i dont have a particular problem coping with what is the present.  in fact, in no other time than the present do i seem more able to accomplish things.  i can order pizza online. even speak to a bank representative via an IM chat.  i can order a mattress, or a book, even groceries!  when i need it most, technology is there to help me cope with my present.  when i am at my weakest, technology can deliver most things to me, without the anxiety of human interaction.

oh. the humanity!  please re-read that last line.  

(okay its true. NashDee really is my best friend simply because hes not a human)  

that i struggle sometimes with this anxiety is perhaps why i long for another "golden age"

for me - it would be the edwardian era. i do love me some victorian romances, though. ive just been watching larkrise to candleford.  and ive been crying.  i just love it! 

but i think,  since all i watch or read can really be found in the "romance" section of the library, i best not try and make that time machine yet.  

romance is just that.  romance. an idealized vision of time or place.  and i probably wouldnt fare too well without google. or amazon. 

and without technology, i never would have met nathan.  and live out my own true romance with him. 

(so many snide remarks i want to make in response to my own writing)

("your  mom had a true romance")

(i couldnt help myself. im just not that romantic in real life!)

eye on the prize

"i wish i could explain what its like to feel the anxiety i do.  i wish i had words to describe what my mind and my body do. i wish i could explain how it creates intense self-loathing after the fact, that only makes matters worse. i wish that i could explain to my two year old why we have to leave somewhere. and why im crying when we do. 

but most of all ... i wish i could just make it not happen at all."


i wrote the above last thursday.  it was not a good day for me.  i have good days and bad days when it comes to this particular struggle.
this one was especially bad.  and i fell into a deep "self-loathing" period.

i go through this feeling of hatred.  i hate myself for allowing my emotions get the better of me. i hate that i cant just "get over it".  i hate myself for embarrassing myself. and i know that when i get like this, LBJs energy feeds off it. and he acts a triflin fool (haha! did i just write that?!).  i have said it before, and i know it is true. we feed off each other in that way.  and then i get embarrassed and sad that he becomes unbearable too. i just hate myself for it all.

the one good thing about me when this happens, is i retaliate by cleaning.  deep cleaning.  i took a toothbrush to my baseboards on friday morning.  i spent most of the day on my knees, crying.  LBJ was good enough to spend most of the day out in the backyard enjoying spring.  and i scrubbed and scrubbed.

and then i prayed.

it just so happened that this past weekend was our church's general conference.  i am a huge fan.
one - it means our semi-yearly tradition of big fatty sub sandwiches.
and two - it means uplifting messages from the leaders of our church.

elder holland gave a talk on envy and forgiveness (both which happen to be issues i have. thankyouverymuch.)
but he said this:

"...let the distress of earlier hours, real or imagined, fall away in the abundance of the final reward. don't dwell on old issues and grievances. not toward yourself, nor your neighbor, nor even, i might add, to this true and living church ... don't hyperventilate about something that happened at 9 o'clock in the morning. when the grace of God is trying to reward you at 6 in the evening."


for me it was an answer.  it was the message to forgive myself.  i already "know" this.  but, who doesnt like a reminder?  this is my struggle.  but i can work through it, forgive myself and move on to bigger and better things. keeping my eye on the prize, as they say.  

nerd alert

nathan kindly purchased a new computer for me.  with a lot of storage and ram and all that good stuff.  i said i needed it for photoshop.  but secretly i saw a commercial for a star trek online rpg that i reallllllly wanted to play.

so i spent all day cleaning off the old computer and then setting up my new one.  

then i took a shower.  put on my acne medicine. took out my contacts and put on my glasses.

and started downloading star trek:online.

if only i had a retainer.  it would make the visual so much better, eh?

to compensate, i did put my hair in two braided pigtails. 

(and yes. i purposely chose particular effects to hide my aforementioned acne. thankyouverymuch.)

wass up

LBJ got a special "prize" today.  

(please ignore the bed head)

we potty trained over the weekend.  it was (knock on wood) pretty successful.  with only one accident.  and we were able to go grocery shopping during the day. and out to dinner at red robin at night.  

so since it was so successful ... i thought, i better just send him to school with big boy undies on.

i sent him with three extra pairs of pants, in addition to the two he already has there.  and about 100 more pairs of big boy undies.  just in case.  when i dropped him off i only told him about a thousand times to tell miss aga, miss sarah, or miss violeta - whoever happened to be around - if he had to go peepee in the potty.

after i dropped him off this morning, i stopped at target and picked up a lego star wars pack.  i decided it would be his special prize if he had done as he was told at school.  but i was really thinking that there was no way i was going to be giving it to him today ... apparently im full of optimism.

a few hours later, as i was driving to pick him up i was hoping he was in the same blue shorts i sent him in.  but i didnt want to get my hopes up ....  its just better that way

when i walked in, there he was, in his blue shorts. i was so excited. and so happy i had that feeling to go get him a prize.

the whole reason im telling you this story is so that i can tell you that just now - LBJ has darth vader flying in an "airplane" with an R2 unit (who he calls "an alien").

darth vader flies around, and the pulls up next to R2 and says - "hey alien. wass up??"

im pretty sure that darth vader never ever said "wass up".  but to hear him say it, via my two year olds mouth is just about the funniest thing i ever heard.  

maybe this is just one of those things 'you have to be there' for.  

ps - guns sound like this "pjuuub! pjuuuub!"