News You Can Use

Please click here and grab a tissue.

I Di

Wow. This has been an eye opening week. You wouldn't believe the amount of vegetables I've consumed this week. Seriously, this never happens. I have a fear of veggies. And fruit. Especially fruit. Unless it's in a shake or baked into a pie. In those cases I love it! But veggies are scary. I'm so afraid that they will taste warm or gushy or rotten. It only takes once, people.

But this week has been one for the record books. I think it has to do with cafeteria salad bars. I've been frequenting those as of late. We even ate outside at the hospital yesterday, how very Grey's Anatomy of us. But this doesn't just end with my consumption of veggies. I know! It gets better.

I ran today. And no, I wasn't being chased. I deliberately ran. I think I got my heart rate up and even perspired a little too. But oh no, there is more! I deliberately ran, and then people, I got on my bike and rode! Oh, yes I did. And I plan to ride again later today. I know! So, if only I could swim a few laps today, I would have done the lazy white girl version of a triathlon.


So if I only do two of those events, does that make it a Di? I like the sound of that.

Things That Must Go {Episode 2}

• Toilet paper on rolls so tight, you can only get off 1 square at a time. By the time I have an adequate handful, I've drip dried sufficiently.
  
• White sunglasses on men. This is a la Meg, because I'm definitely not that fashion minded.
  
• WiFi that takes an eternity and 4000 steps to hook up to. Really, if I have to reprogram my entire hard drive, give blood, and hop backwards at sunset to surf your free internet, I'm just not that interested.
  

Things That Must Go {Episode 1}

• Tip jars at the drive-thru of creepy Mexican fast food places. I'm not tipping you for doing your job properly, thankyouverymuch.
• Toothless renegades that can't make eye contact while counting back your change at the Dollar Store.
  
• Squeaky movie theater chairs. Twice now I've had to remain virtually motionless during a movie. It's very exhausting.

That is all. Stay tuned, because I think of these things during the day, but then as soon as I sit to write them down, I get UHHHHH, confused.

I'm A Sucker Like That

I admit it, I've seen this movie twice.

And I'd see it again.
Seriously, there is nothing sweeter than sitting with my two older girls (the baby is grounded from the theater), and watching a great feel-good movie while eating my very own package of Raisinets. Add some Joan Cusack, and Julia Ormond, with a side of yummy Chris O'Donnell, and you have yourself one happy woman.

And I like to be happy.

Conversations

Setting: Watching TV last night. A commercial for some anti-aging miracle face cream comes on. It's the one with Diane Keaton, whom I love, by the way.


Maggie: Wow, mom, you should try that stuff for your face.

Me: Oh yeah? Why?

Maggie: Because then you wouldn't get all those moles on your face.

Me: Really? What moles?

Maggie: You know, pointing all over her face, The ones right here and here and here and here, and everywhere.

Me: Oh, you mean zits.

Maggie: Yeah, zits. Long dramatic pause. Mom?

Me: What?

Maggie: Will I get lots of zits when I'm a mom, too?

Me: Nope. You'll always have perfect skin. Sigh.


I guess this is where I 'splain 'bout my face. I'm stressed. Waaayyy stressed. And we all know what comes along with stress. Zits. And then I eat crap like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and Noma's home made awesome chocolate chip cookies, and drink too much Diet Pepsi. And I wonder why I have zits? Maybe I should get some of that magic face cream.

Let's Get Off This Sad Train

Okay, I'm terribly sorry about the melancholy mood of the blog as of late. You can certainly understand, but we all know that is not my nature. So let's go, and get off this sad train, and have some fun, shall we? I borrowed this from Carli, thanks to her, and I think it should conjure up some wickedly fun comments.

Please comment below, and include your favorite memory of me. I realize some of us haven't met, or haven't seen each other in years, so feel free to make something up, or to reference your favorite post of mine. I realize this may take some work, but I need some serious comment mojo right about now.

Whaddya Think?

My Mom Got Cancer, And All I Got Was A Stinkin' T-Shirt.

It's in the works. I like it.

Room and Board

I have to send a shout out to my in-laws for putting me up. Or is that putting up with me? Either way, I don't think I could have done this last 2 weeks of craziness without them.

I have officially been away from home for 1 month. That translates into the following:
Bullets!

• Flying into SLC, then driving 6 hours to Vegas the very next day.
• Living out of a suitcase in Vegas for a week. The hottest week of my life, I might add.
• Driving 2 hours to St. George from Vegas, in a car with Utah plates, with and Illinois drivers license, packed with suitcases with 2 kids in addition to my own, and getting a nose bleed at 75 MPH. If I had been pulled over, how fast would I have been sent to jail? Yeah.
  
• Living out of a suitcase for 4 days in a St. George condo. The second hottest 4 days of my life.
  
• Driving to SL from St. George in my dad's sweet new truck. Oh, and the muffler has been, shall we say, altered, so it is about as quiet as a bullhorn on a Sunday afternoon.
  
• Finding out about "the cancer", which seems to have taken on a life of it's own. The longest night of my life.
  
• Spending that first week at my mom's, feeling like my world was crashing down, until Sugar Daddy showed up to rescue me. The best is having a spouse who loves you.
  
• Spending the remaining 2 weeks here, at Hotel de Clayton. Wonderful diggs. But I'm still living out of a suitcase. One thing I have learned from all this is that my needs are simple. My family. A few changes of underwear. Oh, and the internet.
  

And what makes this post even sweeter, is that Sugar Daddy sent me a package today. Would you like to know what was in that package? I'll give you a hint. Best Buy, White, and I'm typing on it as we speak. Yep, a new MacBook. He knows how I likey me blog.

Thanks, honey. And thanks, in-laws. You guys are the best!

Quick, Speedily, Rapid

There are few things in this world that I sincerely love. My family, of course, is number one. The other thing I honestly cannot live without (ha ha) is food. I love food. I love to eat. I love sitting and chatting and laughing and eating. Seriously, it's one of my favorite activities.

But that brings me to tomorrow. Tomorrow I am giving up one of my true loves. Tomorrow we are beginning a fast for my Mom. At 6:00 PM we will open our fast surrounded by friends and loved ones, and of course with a pleading prayer to our Heavenly Father. We all have our own beliefs when it comes to spirituality, and whatever your beliefs are, I ask you to please join us in our fast. Please, do whatever you feel you can, and please do so with a sincere prayer of comfort in your heart. I understand that fasting may be a new concept for you, for whatever reason. You can read a story about it here. Mostly we are just fasting as a way to enhance our receptiveness to the Spirit, and to more fully understand our roles pertaining to my Mom's illness. There may not come a cure, there may not come a vision from Heaven, but there may come the still small voice reassuring us that we are doing what we need to. And that's enough for me.

We will close our fast on Sunday night at 6:00 PM with a prayer of thanks. Feel free to fast the entire 24 hours if you can. If you cannot, just do what you feel you can do, and if you cannot or choose not to fast, please just keep a prayer in your heart. If you'd like to read more about our gospel, and our law of fasting, you can read it here.

What can I say?

I feel like a small comment to the wonderful comments I've received wouldn't be adequate enough to thank all of you that have sent well wishes my way. I am sincerely grateful for every word that has been written on behalf of my mom. You will never know what a difference it makes to my day seeing how many of you that have never even met my mom are so concerned about her. Thank you again, from the entirety of my heart.

And for the record, I hope to be back to my irreverent self soon. Or, as my dad put it, my vile realist self.

The smell of roses

Here I sit, late at night, smelling fresh cut roses. We have dozens of roses throughout our house right now. Doz-ens. You would think some one had just won the Miss America pageant or something. But this is a memory I want to keep forever. The smell of fresh roses permeating my mother's house. It's a smell I always want to associate with her, and the feeling of love and appreciation I have for her. I don't want to seem sappy, and use all the usual stereotypical euphamisms about roses, and thorns, and whatnot, I just want a simple, fresh, beautiful smell to keep her memory in my heart forever. I want the smell to bring to life the wonderful family times we've shared this last few days. The "Elizabeth Smarticle", and "A-Prayer-Ican Idol". The tears of joy and utter devastation that have flowed freely from each and every one of us. I want this wonderful smell to help me to remember my mother, and her way of making even the most upset visitor laugh, and leave her room with a smile on their face, and her imprint on their heart. I vow to always go back to these wonderfully tragic days each and every time I smell a fresh cut rose.

No Words

Hello, blog friends. I'm back for a short stint as a blogger again. Only this time I reappear a different woman. Remember all that mumbo jumbo about a creative renewal, blah blah blah? Yeah, do I have a story for you. I guess you could say I got what I asked for, and much, much more. Lucky me. And for the record, this computer has no spell check, so I apologize in advance.

Where do I begin? Should I get right to it or string you along with the memories that litter my brain of what went on that particular night? String you along, you say? Okay, whatever floats your boat.

Here's what I saw. Father's Day night. Around midnight, in fact. A very full, bright moon. Ants circling the kitchen floor. For some reason my eyes and brain were fixated on those ants. I couldn't tear them away. They just circled and circled, and had not a care in the world. If only I could have felt what those ants felt at that moment, instead of what was about to drop onto my soul. I heard words coming from the other end of the phone. I understood the words, but I didn't, all at the same time. I heard myself saying things like "how big?" and "where is it?" and "how much time?", but the answers didn't register. Honestly, that voice could have told me I'd won the lottery, and it wouldn't have mattered. My life was different. In a flood of nausea and pounding ears, I heard myself scream for my sister. I felt my feet on the floor, but nothing else. I felt my head in my hands, and the cold tile on my soles, and I heard the dog door swing as one of the poodles jumped exitedly through it. But still, I was numb. The details are easy to remember. They are burnt into my memory as fresh as the birth of my children. But it's the words, the reality, the knowing, that are all just feelings. I know I felt a strange sense of calm, and then a subsequent urgency to call my brother and sister to come and be with us, even though it was the middle of the night. We sat outside, smelling the damp summer grass, and hearing the swing squeak as we lightly rocked and reflected on our situation. There were many tears, and surprising bursts of laughter, dotted with bouts of anger and frustration. There was prayer, and more tears, and then finally exhaustion.

This doesn't happen to me. We are not those people. I am not the one whose children will be raised without a grandparent.

But it seems I just may be. And it sucks. I'm pissed. And yet, I'm well aware of a strange chain of small miracles that have been happening over the last year or so to prepare me just for this situation.

I don't understand why She has been chosen to travel this road. I cannot fathom that in the preexistence she would have chosen to leave her family at such a young age. And yet I can. I can't understand that she is fine with it. And for some reason I feel fine with it as long as I'm around her. How is it that she is the one with Pancreatic Cancer with Liver metastises, and she is the one buoying us all up? I know how, it's because She's just that way. She always has been.
She is the caregiver, not the care receiver. And even in her yellow state, she still wants to make sure we know where the money for groceries is, and that she needs a draw for so-and-so at the office. She's just that way.

I'm still numb. I'm still pissed. And I'm still in awe of Her strength and beauty. If anyone can make yellow skin fashionable, it's her. She is wonderful.

I love you , mom.


For an update on what's going on with the cancer situation, please check our new blog, Cancer Sucks, and feel free to comment.

It's not you, it's me.

My dear blog buddies,

As I write you this letter, I am torn inside. I am a broken woman. I understand that sometimes in life we have to do the right thing, and it's not always the easy thing. I only hope you can remember that as I continue.

I am embarking on a journey, of sorts. As I prepare to spend the summer abroad, and by "summer" I mean June, and by "abroad" I mean in Utah, I have a sense of a need for a new perspective. A creative rejuvenation, if you will. A rejuvenation that can only come from a fresh mind. A mind cleared from worldly thought. Okay, not really on that worldly crap, but it sounds good, right?

I guess what I'm saying is I need a break. I don't mean that we should never see each other again, maybe just take a step back to reevaluate our relationship. Get our heads on straight, and find out what we really want out of our times together.

Sometimes a fresh perspective is just what is needed for a relationship to blossom. So I'll return in July for posting anew. Please, keep strong, and remember who you are and what you want out of life. Don't be surprised if there is a quick pop-in visit here and there, just to keep tabs and make sure we're still on track, but don't plan on anything substantial.

I wish you the best while I am away, and know that I will always love you, no matter what. If all else fails, we can still be friends.

Sincerely,
Keli.

Just You Watch

I'm bypassing Friday Fun in favor of Just You Watch.

Tornado Watch.

I don't like this. At.All.

And Sugar Daddy will be on the YM's camp out tonight. Which leaves me all alone, under a Tornado watch.

Did I mention I don't like this? At.All.

Re-Use

Remember these? Here's what they've become. A pretty good use of them, I think.


They are currently hanging in my laundry/mud room, and hold all the things that used to hang on my fridge. School notes and menu, VT route, the latest book report criteria, etc.



And look at this beauty I picked up yesterday. It is now hanging in the toy room. I absolutely love the colors, and of course the circles. For some reason I'm drawn to things with circles. I'll post about that another day. But take a guess at how much this baby cost me. Go on, guess.


*and after posting this, I realized the new bulletin board picture is upside down. Just use your imagination, cause I'm not going back in to fix it.

Grapes and Disney

My kids are kind of addicted to a couple of things.

Grapes.

Red.

Seedless.

They will eat a pound or two in a day. It makes for an interesting time finding a bathroom in random places, if you know what I mean.



And they are also addicted to the Disney Channel. I think I have seen every episode of Zack and Cody, Wizards of Waverly Place, Phineus and Ferb, and of course Hannah Montana. And the summer hasn't even begun yet.

Good times.

Many Pictures, Few Words

Memorial Day weekend was great. Busy, nice weather, and fun. Can't beat that. Here are the pictures from the ever exciting weekend happenings.


Gretta. Gotta love that face.


She likey her Diet Pepsi.


It was this contraption or a pool.



Maggie in front of the fountain at the Chicago Temple.


And she's off. Gretta loves to go fast in the stroller.



And the Ward BBQ. Hot dogs, warm mayonnaise based food dishes, and merry go-round, bad bad combination. Several kids ended up a little green. Not mine, though.

Emma is still recovering from her Strep. Gretta has learned how to go down the stairs, and Maggie thinks she can stay up late and sleep till 9 or 10. All good things, I think.

Friday Fun

Okay, here we go again.

What are you doing for the long weekend?

I'll start.

Friday night, hopefully a movie and dinner. Depends on the babysitter.
Saturday, primary activity at the temple, and then maybe the zoo after that.
Sunday, church?
Monday, BBQ and games at the park with the Ward.

*I'll also be missing the annual Memorial Day BBQ at Julie's house. And of course, the whole cemetery action. Be sure and tell everyone "Hi" from me.

Now you.

Post-Preschool

Yesterday was Maggie's last day of preschool. She was in a class with only 4 girls, all of them darlings, and the sweetest, most organized teacher EVER. They had an "under the sea" theme for the year, and every activity and story went along with this theme. They learned about recycling trash they find on the beach, and what animals live in the ocean, and colored all sorts of sea creature pictures.
Here is Maggie with Kaitlyn, Jenna, and Taryn. Taryn's family lives just across from our neighborhood, so she and Maggie play quite frequently. It's nice to have a good friend so close.


And here are the girls with their teacher, Kim. She's so nice, and seriously the most organized person I have ever met. And she has very shiny floors. All good qualities in a teacher, don't you think?


And here's Gretta mowing the lawn. She loves outside. Loves it. She will try and go outside the second she wakes up. She walks to the front door and tries to pry it open with her little baby fingers. And then of course, she cries when it won't budge. But this lawnmower kept her entertained for an hour. Although, she can push it, she can't turn it around. So she just walked and walked until she ran into either the street or the hedges. Then someone would turn her around, and off she'd go. What a kid. If only I could get that lawnmower to really mow the grass, I'd be set.