It's true, Xanax has made me so much less of a b@tch

I know I joke about the Xanax use and in all honesty I don't use it that often. I have a prescription for 30 pills that has lasted me almost a year. I got it after Evie was born and it literally saved me from going crazy and never leaving the house again. Now I just use it when the anxiety creeps up again which isn't that often. Today was a day where I had to dip into my precious supply. Yesterday we accepted an offer on the house and today the family who made the offer came over and signed their papers. This looks like a done deal and I'm completely freaking out. The last ten months I've been focusing on trying to sell our house, thinking it would never happen, and now that it's likely sold I'm realizing what that means. I know I bitch about Santaquin a lot on here but I do love many things about it. It reminds me of the small town I grew up in and I like that in many ways. I have great friends here. I have a good job and I know most of the teachers at the school. I now like our ward. I could go on but what I'm saying is that the good outweighs the bad most days. Mainly the bad is the people who annoy me and being far away from the city. I'm remedying both by moving but I know there will always be people that annoy me. I'm me! I'm trying to adopt Hanna's attitude of excitement. She is "excited to meet knew friends!" That this child came out of me is some sort of crazy cosmic mix-up. Grace, my kindred spirit, doesn't want to move and Ryan is starting to feel sad also. We put a lot of time and effort into this house to make it a home and it's painful to leave. I've never moved from a place I liked before except when I was seven and I got over that pretty quickly. Well, anyway it's going to happen and it's a good thing for our family. That's what I've got to keep telling myself. I wanted to add that the only things that made me feel good today were Hogi Yogi frozen yogurt and watching Grace fall asleep on Ryan as he read us some Little House on the Prairie. Because frozen yogurt is the shiz and kids are cutest when they're asleep.

Hide thy nakedness!

I thought of something today that I haven't thought about for years. We were driving home from Hanna's basketball game with Ryan's parents and we started talking about gym. When Ryan's parents went to school, boys and girls had separate gym classes. Brent brought up that he never knew what the girls were doing in their gym class. We started joking that they were being taught "showering" or "tickle fighting". I told them that I never showered in our school's locker room and that I never witnessed anyone showering in it. Good Mormon girls did not shower in public unless they were wearing a swimming suit. We also did not get naked when we changed in public. We all had a mysterious ability to change while remaining fully clothed. I can change out of anything without showing you an inch of scandalous flesh. I'm pretty sure my entire girls basketball team had this talent. I have never seen any of my school friends or teammates naked. I had never seen another female naked until I went away to BYU and moved in with my "shameless" or normal roommate. We were getting ready to go out (probably to The Palace) and I turned around to see her topless! For shame! Didn't she know how to mysteriously change clothes so that we didn't see each other naked? She had grown up in Virginia so maybe they didn't teach girls modesty out there in the mission field. I've since grown up and realized/decided that nakedness among friends in some situations is not so abnormal. Who knew?

Grace is eight!

Gracie is very excited about turning eight tomorrow. As we were walking out of school today she was singing and dancing to a song she made up about tomorrow being her birthday. Grace is a happy kid who likes to sing, dance, play and just enjoy life. She's been a good kid since day one when she came out and immediately fell asleep, which is what a good baby should do. I had to call the nursery at the hospital in a panic because she was gone for over six hours her first night. They told me she was just as happy as could be and they didn't want to bring her back. I told them that the kid needed to eat, happy or not! The nurses told me she was voted "cutest baby in the nursery." She is cute and she's smart, so she has it all. Her only fault is I think she has inherited my laziness. Her motto: "Do what you can to get by and make people happy while doing it." We are kind of kindred spirits, Gracie and I. I'm so glad I get to be her mom and that I get to see her grow up into such a great girl.

Gracie's first day home from the hospital. She was jaundice so she had to lay in the sunlight a lot. She is laying on "blankie" which she still has and is quite dependent on.

Always such a happy baby.


First year portrait

The many poses of Grace. She's practicing for her career as a superstar.

Today has not been a good day

Ryan and I had a fight today. That's right, the perfect couple fights. I won't get into the fight other than to say it was started by something stupid (surprise) and ended with some really hurt feelings on both sides. Whenever we fight I always think the same thing, "that was so idiotic." We don't really have a lot to fight about so it seems we pick really trivial things to fight about. "You were breathing too loud." or "You ate the last grapefruit." I guess when your relationship is usually quite good, you have to pick these stupid things to fight about or you'd be like Mike and Carol Brady. That made it sound like I enjoy fighting and the Brady's are lame because they didn't. This isn't so, I hate fighting. It can leave me feeling nauseous. It can also give me crazy thoughts like, "That it! I'm out of here." For the first time ever, I got so mad today that I didn't remember what happened. The rage was so bad, that I couldn't control my actions. That left me feeling scared. I'm usually a pretty easy going person, so when I get this way I end up feeling humiliated. My thing with fighting is, I want it to be over quickly. I want to fight and then an hour later I want us to be happy Ryan and Shea again. Ryan doesn't get over it so easily and I find this so hard to understand. Why prolong the misery? Then I wonder if I'm some sort of robot who doesn't feel? I guess I don't mind the fight, but I hate the aftermath. I hate the angry silence and then the talking where we talk in circles about the same things we always talk about. I love Ryan, he's my best friend, so it really hurts me when he is mad at me. Plus we usually get along so well, that the contrast is hard to bear. I don't like people being mad at me in general. I'm sure I should be bringing this up in therapy (I don't go anymore. I'm cured!) but instead I tell the world on my blog. Actually writing is therapy so maybe I'm heading in the right direction. Tomorrow will be better.

We totally have this book!

Ryan's Aunt Melissa or "Cat Aunt" sent this book to us a few years ago. Actually I think ours is just titled "Cats". My kids never came up with something this entertaining while reading it. Though I'm a little troubled that this child is still using the term "brainstorm" and not "thought shower".

If I'm going to feel this bad, the end result better be a baby.

Becky asked me how my acne medication was going. Well, not so good. I went on an antibiotic that gave me nausea, diarrhea, metal mouth and dizziness. I felt like I had morning sickness and if I'm going to feel that badly I want a baby out of it. I actually lost 3 lbs over the weekend I was taking it because everything I ate or drank had a weird taste to it. Note: weight did not stay off so I do not recommend this as a diet. I called my dermatologist and he put me on a sulfa drug that I am starting today. In the meantime I developed a sweet batch of new pimples on my back. "puke"

I did make a decision this week that I feel good about. I decided I will no longer participate in the Friday 5:50 am workout at the school. The "Year of Shea" has me realizing that I don't have to do something if it doesn't make me feel good. Now I know there are things I have to do that I'm not going to like but if there is a choice involved, I'm not going to do it. I was thinking I'd stick with it only because I didn't want to appear to be a puss, but then I thought, "I don't care if the people there think I'm a puss!" It's liberating I tell you. I now get up at 7 am on Fridays and run on the treadmill and when it gets warm, I'll run outside.

I'm now the seventeen year old Sunday School teacher at church. I've been the adult women teacher, six year old teacher, fourteen year old teacher and the twelve year old teacher. This one gave me the most anxiety. I remember being seventeen and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. Luckily my kids seem to be really nice, only really, really quiet. I'm hoping that they soon see how super awesome fun I can be and start to open up. I told them last week that I thought this job was karma because I was such an awful seventeen year old. I told them, "I know you think I'm really old but I honestly remember being seventeen." One girl said, "You're don't look old." (new favourite student) To which I replied, "Oh, I'm old sister."

I was going to end this post with a kitten picture to ponder but I decided on this t-shirt from The Onion instead.

Note to self: Stop. Doing. Anything.

Friday I went to my laser hair removal appointment. I can't remember if I've mentioned on here that I'm doing that? It is awesome and it's going to make hanging out at Seven Peaks Waterpark this summer, that much easier. If you need me to spell it out for you, I'm getting it removed from my "bikini" area. I have sensitive skin okay and it wicked hurts when I shave. Now the goal is to get my body to a place that will look decent in a swim suit. If you have any questions about the hair removal I'll answer them for you. I'll tell you all about the fun painful details in a private email.

After my lasering I went to my the dermatologist to finally see if he could help rid my back of my acne or "bacne". I don't think I've had a pimple on my back until a few years ago. It started right after one of my miscarriages and has become out of control in the last year. You know when your husband is grossed out by it, that it might be time to see the doctor. He put me on antibiotics and a topical creme. That's it. I've suffered for years and I could have just done that? I'm an idiot. He also mentioned a chemical peel that I might look more into at my next visit. So if you're suffering with acne, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT instead of waiting like me.

I started running again two weeks ago and things started to hurt. Running is seriously so hard on my body but I like how it makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something, so I keep doing it. I had asthma in high school and university so being able to run is kind of a big deal for me. Anyway the pain was really unbearable in my feet so I decided I needed new running shoes. Mine were a couple of years old and I use them for all my exercising which means they wear out quickly. I love getting new running shoes because it makes me feel like "a runner". I have to go to the running store and get expensive shoes because for me, that is a reward of running. I run, therefore I get expensive running shoes. I'm partial to Mizuno and bought a new pair of those that happened to be on sale so they weren't as expensive as they usually are. I ran the next day and did not feel any pain. I'm sure it will come back a bit but the new shoes do help. My old shoes were dropped in a bin that will be taken to Kenya so that they can continue to kick our asses in the Olympics. Ryan said we should be sending them defective shoes or clogs to improve our chances. I told him they'd beat us wearing no shoes.

So that's what my 35 year old self does. I get hair removed, go the the doctor for my "bacne" and buy shoes to ease my foot pain. Rock on!

My new shoes that are going to help me run my first 10K