Not Reverent

Maybe our family needs to be better about turning off our phones during Sacrament Meeting.

There was a talk about service and doing your duty.

 The message was a little lost once the giggling started.

Matt post--weekend items

Not necessarily items of interest, or even the most interesting things that happened this weekend, just the unusual ones I was involved in:

• picked up 2 of 3 Olson girls for the weekend (Kate is with friends for the holiday)
• right after school instead of waiting until 6 pm, without aid from police
• watched state high school rugby playoff game (Kid lost but fun)
• Noodles and Co dinner
• Watched Craig Ferguson standup on Netflix and fell asleep
• sprayed weeds in yard
• took Other kid to work at amusement park
• went to Walmart, wished self dead (OK, maybe that's pretty common)
  
• ate Dubliner cheese with crackers
• purchased graduation gift for Other other kid
• played Beatles Rock Band on Wii with Other other other kids (broken yellow cymbal, no fail mode required)
• Did neighborhood watch patrol with wife at midnight while listening to Harry Dresden audiobook
• kicked some college kids out of the parking lot for “Parking” as opposed to “parking” in said lot. It was at the park. They were Parking-not-parking-in-the-park-parking-lot.

And we're not even halfway through yet! And that's just me!!

Party at the Olson House

Romy had a slumber party last night.

15 nine and ten year old girls.
Only 12 of them made it the whole night, but it was still a lot of giggling girls.

My eardrums may never be the same.

Pedicures, manicures and facials.

High School Musical and Labyrinth on Netflix.

Nine pizzas, a dozen bags of popcorn, Pixie Sticks and six bags of Hershey's Kisses, in every flavor

Late night stories about "Bloody Mary" and a bra in the freezer.

The house is a disaster.

I'm going to crank up some old school Madonna and get it back in shape.

Lessons I Learned While Being Stabbed In The Face

Well, that was crummy.

But not as bad as I thought it would be that first night.

That first night was bad.

There are some mean people in the world and sometimes they are related to you.

What did I learn?

I am stronger than I think.

People can think what they want, it doesn't make it true and when your conscience truly is clean- it doesn't even upset you after the initial attack that they think bad things.

We have a finite amount of energy and it can get used up by people who don't deserve it, we need to be wise about where and who we spend our energy on. (Thanks, Mom Olson)

We have an infinite amount of love within us and when we are down, there is even enough love to give yourself.

Good friends who love you can help you get through anything.

God loves us all, even jackasses.

And.....

The sun always--always rises.

----

A new morning

of a

new life

without you.

So?

There will be others,

much finer,

much mine-er.

And until then,

there is me.

And because I treated

you

well,

I like me better.

Also, the sun rises.

-P. McWilliams

In spite of this hurt I was dealt by these two women, my heart is full and I wish they had made better choices, but they have their own lessons in life to learn and I wish them peace and love.

Of course- I wish it far far away from me forever, but my  personal journey matters more to me than focusing on those two creeps.

So there.

Now- back to the important stuff.....

...did you know Revlon makes SCENTED nail polish?

LOVE this.

My fingers smell like fruit candy.

I am so ready for summer, Yo.

Wolves

A Cherokee elder was teaching his children about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to them. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

 

The grandchildren thought about it and after a minute one of them asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The elder simply replied, “The one you feed.”

----------------------

What do you feed?

I recently made an attempt to extend an olive branch to a family member I had a troubled relationship with.

This person reacted by saying this was hard, but they wanted to heal the rift. Not minutes after saying this, they decided that what they wanted to do was get revenge over hurts they felt I had caused them for the past 30 years.

This person contacted a person who despises my husband and I and the two of them have both been having a field day together.

Then she called me and acted like she still wanted to work things out. I noticed as she spoke she kept baiting me and throwing things out there she knew were hurtful, just to get a reaction. I didn't take the bait and kept trying to just say "Let's have something better. I am sorry for the things I have done that hurt you and I believe you want peace, too."

She didn't want peace, she wanted to hurt me as she felt she had been hurt.

Congratulations, Mom, you did it.

You and your new friend joined together and fed one another your favorite meal...me.

I spent a few hours crying and reeling from the sucker punch.

It's 5am and I'm still awake.

And how do I feel?

Sad.

Creeped out and burned, but mostly sad.

The one you feed is the one that will live.

This relationship is over. For the past year I have processed it and worked very hard to figure things out. It was hard for me and it hurt to hear that even without my doing anything, everything I said and did was being snooped on, picked apart and twisted. I just kept my distance and hoped that her anger would subside.

But she kept feeding that wolf.

And I am not wolf food.

This is an ugly, painful thing and it is not something I want in my life. It is not something I believe God wants in my life and I will not feed it.

It is over.

If you cannot love me and support my decision, please go in peace and find things that make you happy. 

My dumb blog is not a secret message to anyone, it's just my dumb blog.

Nerdlove

This evening we took our tired jell-o legs downtown to the Weller Bookstore to spend the evening with Nerd-God, John Scalzi.

He's an author we both really enjoy- he wrote Old Man's War and the series that followed as well as some other books that Matt has read, but I have not.

He did a reading for everyone and then a short question and answer bit. Matt asked him a question that wasn't quite as clear as Matt wanted it to be (must have been nerd nerves) but John still spent almost 5 minutes answering Matt's question.

The room was filled with a crowd where there were lots  of people who I suspect  know their way around a Ren festival.

When it was all over, he signed books- we had him sign his new book for Matt and a copy of Old Man's War for Greyson.

Anyway- it was cool to hear him speak and meet him. I'm a fan of his work as well, even if I don't own an pair of  eight sided dice or play World of Warcraft.

The 5K

We did it.

We did our little weenie 5K.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

I'd pretty much decided I wasn't going to do it yesterday, but then Matt came home with our racing numbers and said we had met out pre-race mile requirements in order to qualify for the T shirt/prize.

I have a million T shirts, big whoop. I wasn't doing it, but I could play along and pretned I was going to do it, just to spare Matt's feelings.

It's been so cold and my arthritis has been so bad the past few days. It is so hard to even function when it hurts this bad. As I slept, I told myself I wasn't going to do it. I didn't have anything to prove to anyone and this wasn't a big deal.

 I was not going to do it.

When I woke up, I grabbed my shoes and started to get ready.

I wasn't going to do it, but I was going to show up.

 Maybe I'd cheer Matt on or something, but I wasn't going to do it.

When I showed up, I KNEW I wasn't going to do it.

All of these skinny athletic types were out front loading up on carbs. I did not belong there.

No, I was NOT going to do it.

Okay, maybe I'd just walk part of it with the lady with the two kids in a stroller in the back. I could get in the group and at least cross the street, but I was not going to do this, I wasn't.

After the starting shot rang out and we began to race UPHILL I told Matt "You run ahead, I'm going to quit soon anyway." He didn't ditch me and just said "we'll do as much as you can."

Then as we walked this woman passed us.

This is terrible, but I have to be honest.

This woman gave my husband this creepy smile and then gave me a sort of dirty look.

This gross troll woman with a bad perm and meth teeth from the call center was giving my husband sweetie eyes, right in front of me.

Matt didn't notice her, but I saw the look she gave him.

That "You're my imaginary boyfriend" look.

That "I have a collection of paper cups you've had a drink from at work" look.

The "I have your name written all over the inside of my trapper keeper" look.

Yeah, THAT look.

She and her hairy stump legs passed us and I thought "I don't think so."

But I was in so much pain and it was so cold and rainy.

I had already given myself permission not to finish.

She got pretty far ahead of us. (Matt was so sweet and stayed at my pace the whole time, he didn't have to do that, but I'm glad he did.)

I watched her choose to run up the hills and be tired and walk down hill. I did the opposite, I walked in long strides up the hills and did my running on the decline. At about mile 2 I passed her.

She actually grunted and started running when I did.

She never did catch me and I ended up finishing the silly race.

Our time was embarrassing to people who actually run, but we finished in the middle of the pack.

For whatever petty reason, I could not let that woman finish before I did. It isn't like she is some threat or anything, she looked like she was straight out of the People of Walmart, but she hit a nerve in me and petty as it was, it got me to finish.

I also never finish anything, like, ever.

Today, I actually did finish something. It was a new feeling for me and as silly and small as this race may have been, I'm keeping my race number and I think I may just do another one when the weather is better.

And if I see that woman there at the next race, I'll leave her in my dust, Yo.

Questions for My Readers

Is there a relationship in your life that is a complete mess?

One you have tried to fix and no matter what you do, it always ends up in the same disastrous place?

What do you believe the Lord expects out of you regarding those relationships?

How do YOU find peace, knowing that there is a contentious relationship in your life, even if you are removed from it now?

I'm doing some thinking and processing after having an experience this weekend where I had a major personal spiritual growth spurt afterwards.

I'll talk about it later, when I've figured it all out, but I was wondering how you all deal with those relationships that are not healthy, and yet there are still ties to them in your life.

Sweet Babies

We were finally able to go out and meet Z and Aaron's new baby, Casimir.

What a sweet, little boy.

His big brother, Rocco is pretty amazing, too.

We love these little ones.

Hooray! Another Rugby Post!

Rugby is wrapping up and they had the playoffs today- two games.

We crushed Cache Valley in game number one.

Game number two was against Highland..

This Highland:

They are a seriously tough team, but we also beat them in the regular season.

Today.....they didn't show up for the game.

They must have had the wrong information or something, but it was a regulation game and they officially forfeited and we advance to the semifinals.

We'll take it.

Zane is on the JV/B team because he is just a Freshman and only Varsity gets to participate in the finals as a general rule, but Zane made the varsity team for the playoffs,so even though he is the biggest kid on the team, he's the youngest. There are no other Freshmen or Sophomores on the playoff team except Zane.

We're super proud.

When we had that crappy game against that team that cheated, I was really upset and discussed with Zane making a change next year and for whatever reasons, that motivated him to give it even more effort and he started pushing his teammates harder and getting in the middle of the rucks more aggressively.

Good for you, Zane who does not read Mom's blog.

Thanks to all of our family who came out to support him this year, and if you weren't able to make it...I didn't attend every game myself and I'm the mom, so no worries.

Matt was there for every game-- he is so over the moon having a son to bond with over sports. It's been fun to see them connect over a love for the game and grow closer.

He's a good dad, Zane is a good kid.

All of my kids are good kids, but only one of them makes me proud when he makes other people fall down and bleed. :)

Stuff To Do

Today I have been bitten by the Slugmonster.

I know I promised I'd do it, but I just don't see myself getting around to dealing with this:

It's my bedroom sofa.

Very relaxing atmosphere, I know.

Anyone want to come help me clean my room? I'll take you to Leatherby's afterwards.

Bonus if you organize my scrap room- did I mention I moved it upstairs again? The scrapcave was too depressing and as much as I enjoyed the quiet, I felt like I was in a crafty prison.

I know for some crafts and prison are kind of from the same family.

FYI those are almost all MY clothes.

I don't wanna do it, but the folks a Hoarder's are bound to catch me any day now and I don't want them to see just how many long sleeved stripey Old Navy shirts I have in my collection.

Yesterday I was much more productive.

Strawberries are $1.50 a pint so I made some jam.

We actually have jam and fruit syrup coming out of our ears in the food storage.

My take is that this stuff counts as a sugar in the year supply and I'd much rather have oatmeal or pancakes with fruit syrup than sugar any day.

This batch was made for our summer trip to NYC though. I made this for Jen and Adrienne.

Adrienne told me that in the city, this stuff is gold and people pay top dollar for genuine homemade canned goodness like this. I am gifting her some of my best because I love her.

I am so excited for our vacation to NYC this summer, I can't stand it.

Another one on my bucket list and I finally get to meet some of my Internet friends I have known since forever.

I "met" these gals 12+ years ago back when AOL had message boards and we all were discussing MTV's The Real World. It was the year the girl from BYU was on and they booted her from the school for it.

While I think they overreacted- it's a private school, they get to make the rules.

She's married now with kids and I'm sure she got over it.

Anyway--I've been in touch with these women, as well as about 10 other friends since then and this is the first time I am meeting any of them.

I hope to eventually meet the rest of the crew, Wedgie, April, Allison, Jeff, Deb, Robyn, Lisa, Kathy, Melanie and Mary.

If I left anyone out, they don't read my blog anyway, so we're okay.

My "nice to meet ya" gift will be a basket full of good old fashioned homemade Mormon Mom goodness.

very interesting to me, notsomuch to blogland, I know.

I usually mess up my jam by adding the sugar too soon or by using an electric Braun thing to crush the fruit- even though I know I'm not supposed to.

This time I did it all right and it is chunky and set perfectly.

The NYC gals will love it.

If anyone comes and cleans my bedroom, I will give them a jar, too.....

I could even be convinced to make some homemade bread, anything but cleaning.

I am going to purge one thing from my home today though.

I love you so much, Matt.

You are the dearest thing to my heart and there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you.

The gifts and cards you gave me on Mother's day were so sweet. The flowers were so beautiful.

But honey, lilies smell like pee when they bloom.

I love you, but they have to go.

In other news, yesterday my Sister in law gave birth to a healthy, happy baby boy!!

Welcome to the roller coaster ride, Baby Caz!!!

Your Auntie Chris loves you already and can't wait to meet you.

Thanks, Delta!

This weekend was Mother's Day....ugh Mother's Day.

I am not a fan and I wanted it to be as low key as possible.

As much as he loves me and spoils me, Matt knows I do not want it to be a day full of stressed out kids and hubby who are feeling like they need to please Mommy. For Mother's Day each year I want people not to remember it as a crummy day. I can choose to have it be something that's about just being happy as a family, not raising some glass to me as a Mother.

 I know what kind of Mom I am, I'm secure in that most days.

 I accept that I've made some good choices and some bad choices and I have my Supermom days and my Poopermom days.

Mother's Day Shmother's Day.

But that doesn't mean I don't want a present.

:)

This year, Matt surprised me with a full spa treatment at Snowbird resort.

You can bet I LOVE that present.

I also got a telephoto lens for the new camera.

(New lens happiness as well as a giant card made by Romy that borders on creepy.)

Matt was asked to speak in church yesterday, breaking my 10 year run of missing church every Mother's Day. He was asked to speak about......me.

Eek.

There was a moment when I sat there, staring at him with the "don't you dare finish this story or I will cut you" look. It's not every Sunday that your husband stands in front of everyone and relays that you accused him of "smoking the crack" but the guy after him talked about his ugly inbred grandmother and how shocked everyone was when anyone married her at the age of 50. Between Matt and brother Groathouse, we were laughing so hard. It seems the Bishopric wanted a meeting that wasn't dripping with sentiment and guilt for a change- and I appreciated that.

The husbands who spoke did make sure to add the words of love they felt for the wives, don't get me wrong, they got us all crying. I lost it when Matt mentioned that not all Mothers are the nurturing, nice kind. Not all mothers love their children unconditionally and how it damages their children. Those children grow up and  he knew many women who chose to break the chain so that their children never doubted for a second that they were loved and wanted.

 He said that sometimes, we get lucky like I did and that he knew I'd want him to mention the "other mothers" who came into my and showed me what it means to love with all of your heart, without strings and to be a good parent. He thanked the women in the ward as well as his mother for the support they have shown me.

(Crummy cell phone picture of some of the most wonderful women I have ever met)

I was sitting between two of those women when he said that and we all started to cry. I looked over at two of my other mothers and saw they were crying, too.

Good job Matt- you made the knit night brigade bawl. :)

(Preparing his talk, or playing Angry Birds)

 Thank you so much Matt- you really are the most amazing husband on the planet

Okay- now for the Delta reference in my title.......

My dearest cousin, Marla, had a conference in Dallas this week.

 She lives in Japan with her cute as a bug daughter, Jessica, and he sweet husband, Paul.

She had a layover in SLC and at the last minute, it was exteded so we could meet up and I could take her to the Holy Temples of Paper Crafts all over the valley.

This stuff is impossible to find in Japan and unless places ship USPS, she can't order much of it. I was more than happy to avoid all of the Mommie Dearest in the air and run around to craft stores with her and take her out to eat and terrible fatty American dives.

The first stop on our Retail Tour was Target.

I don't know how I'd live without Target.

We had so much fun, spent too much money and ate too much crap, but it was so good to see her.

She was a person who always treated me with kindness and she had this ability to look at me when i was a kid, know by my face I was having a hard time and she'd load me in her car and we'd go do something fun together. She knew how to heal a "yellow."

(Mother's Day Smashburger...so yummy. Did you know the ice cream in their shakes is custard based? Move over JCW's I have a new favorite shake place)

I love Marla and it was such a nice surprise and visit.

This was one of my best weekends ever.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way To Ross....

Well, not on the way but IN Ross.

I as looking for some new bedding and this woman and her husband kept giving me funny looks.

I checked to make sure I didn't have toilet paper streaming from my shoe or that my shirt wasn't tucked into my drawers and everything was in check.

Weird.

I kept shopping, they kept looking and hovering.

Did I know them?

No- thanks to facebook, it is impossible to have any long lost relatives.

Last week while shopping in a boutique I was shadowed by security because I was dressed like a homeless person. Normally security doesn't work in a husband and wife team though, but I figured that had to be it.

Finally, as I was browsing through the racks of mismatched shoes the woman approached me.

"Um, Hi.....um....I read your blog."

I wasn't expecting that and I stumbled to know what to say. I always feel the need to apologize to people when I hear they read the blog.

So, sweet lady at Ross, I am sorry I seemed out of sorts when you talked to me. I am just always shocked to learn anyone but my husband keeps reading after some of my super boring posts.

Thank you for saying hi to me and for letting me know I didn't look like a shoplifter yesterday.

Now......

I'm ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.

Also, Wednesday Matt and I went to see the PTC production of Sunset Boulevard.

Loved it.

Didn't love the lady sitting next to me who had massive pepperoni burbs all through the first half of the play.

She definitely doesn't read my blog.

If she did, she'd know not to burp on a star of my caliber. :P

Dolly

When we were little, every few years all of the grandkids would get something grandma made with crochet. the boy's gifts were always a little but odd, but she would make cute dolls for the girls and two in particular have strong and good memories for me and all of my girl cousins.

One was a doll that had a blanket attached to her, I've never been able to find a pattern for it, but I think I have one that is close and I can modify it.

The other was this curly haired bed doll she made

She made the dresses in all different colors and the hair was either yellow or brown.

One time my sister Lindsey got mad at me and she took a pair of scissors to my doll and did one clean cut through the skirt, so years ago I tied it with a piece of lace and it has been kept in various storage boxes for the past 30 years.

This weekend my cousin,Taryn, wanted to make a doll like Grandma's and while none of us still have the blanket doll, I am the only one who still has her curly hair doll- and I even still have the hat.

We decided to see if we could figure it out and make our own.

Taryn is working on her doll and I finished mine this morning.

I couldn't find Kewpie doll faces anywhere so, a Cinderella baby doll I got at the thrift store sacrificed her life for this dolly.

I am not making matching booties for her, or underwear like Grandma's had, but I am happy who have re-created this memory from my childhood and thankful to have a Grandma who passed on her talents to me.

I already know who I am gifting this to.

Could it be you?

I Choo Choo Chews You

Another weekend gone, another weekend closer to summer break.

This school year has flown by, I can't believe there are only 5 more weeks until school is out for the summer.

We now have to plan graduation events and keep our fingers crossed that Mother Nature will stop dumping 4 inches of snow on us, like she did Saturday morning.

I was so annoyed I didn't snap a picture.

 I'm sick of pictures of snow.

I'm sick of snow, period.

Enough already, bring on Spring and stop being schizophrenic, Mother Nature.

We loaded up the kids and did an early morning McDonald's breakfast.

My nephew, Dylan, had stayed over the night before, so he had a great time in the play place while we waited for Sunnie to come pick him up and joked about disastrous McDonald's kid/hostage exchanges we'd done in the past.

Rugby was cancelled, so we went to the movies instead.

We took the kids to see Rango.

Eh.

I didn't love it.

Matt thought it was great and so did most of the kids, but I didn't like it much. if I'm going to watch a cartoon, I need the characters to be cute. There were a lot of uglies in this one, but the popcorn was fresh and I can always drown myself in a jumbo tub of popcorn with no butter. By leaving off the butter I lie to myself and pretend it isn't bad for me to eat half a tub.

Anyone who dares challenge that reality can bite me.

When we came home and I made apple pies with Roe and Jane.

We used filling we'd canned a couple of years ago from apples from our neighbor's tree and I taught the girls how to pinch the crust.

They made these with only verbal help from me.

I taught them that most women come up with a signature shape they cut in the top crust to let out the air, I always cut out a heart, Romy made an apple and Jane cut out a big letter "J."

Great job, Kids.

I made ribs for dinner and we all spent the evening watching Dr. Who like the nerds we are.

Today after church we had Family Home evening and Zane gave the lesson on Forgiveness.

We talked about how when someone does something crappy to you, it acts like a poison inside for you and as long as you choose to focus on it, as long as you are looking to the past in such a way, you aren't moving towards the future and you will keep feeling crummy as long as you harbor those bad feelings inside. You need to do what you have to do so that you get to a place here you're looking forward again and not focused on the offense that was done to you. that doesn't mean you just smile and take abuse like a chump, it sometimes means you make the hard decisions and end or change relationships when you find you are continually in a bad place because of your interactions with another person.

I know quite a few people who have active wars with someone else, and that other person has no contact with them. They have angry feelings and active fantasies of one day making everything right in the world based on their interpretation of what is right and what is wrong and it's is sad to see someone who is so addicted to their anger that they can't see they are having a one sided imaginary war with some who doesn't even talk to them.

You gotta do what it takes to not have that poison inside of you so you can forgive and move on with your life. Sometimes that forgiveness means washing your hands of a crummy relationship. We need to accept that just because a relationship ends, it doesn't mean it has to be a fight. Things end and when the ties get cut and the letting go takes place, it's as beautiful of a thing as any new beginning.

And there are relationships where I am not there yet, but I'm working on it.

It's a process.

For our activity, I gave everyone a giant gumball and we had a bubble gum blowing contest.

Emma won, Romy pouted and Matt got gum all over his face and hands.