I'm Hungry For More!

Man guys, man! I started reading Hunger Games this week and you weren't kidding when you said it was awesome!!! I LOVED it, and immediately went out and bought the second one, which I finished. In. One. Day.

Seriously, I can't stop thinking about the story and the characters and the story...and the characters... gush...

Real quick, some of the things I was so happy about was there wasn't any cursing. Not one word! And there was no sex--awesome! And even without that stuff that people think is so necessary, it was SO AMAZING!! The story was creative and interesting, the characters were lovable and engaging, I'm ready to start reading it over again.

The only drawback? The next book doesn't come out until August. Boo hoooooo...

So...need some more suggestions for books that are good like these ones. I do have a pregnancy book I need to read, but how can I go from Hunger Games to THAT? I can't, give me some suggestions! :)

This Should be for Serious Sunday, but its SATURDAY instead!

I was all ready to do a post about driving in my car yesterday which was going to be extremely hilarious, but after checking other blogs and getting sucked into CJane's comment sections, I'm...well, I'm depressed.

Have you guys been over there? The last few days have been a vortex of emotions and opinions, and hate and love, and confusion and contention. Honestly, it makes my heart hurt a little. And yet, I can't look away or hit the exit button and just forget about it.

I want to, but its so sad.

Its so sad what some people really think of the LDS religion, that they HATE it. They actually hate it. And they don't even understand it, or what they're complaining about. And I want to stand on a big box and explain to them whats really true and fix it all. And then I think, it doesn't matter WHAT I say, they don't WANT to know. They want to be angry, they want to hold on to that. I could talk myself blue in the face with all the logic in the world and it wouldn't mean anything to some of those people. And it makes me sad.

So, more than anything I want to say that I love my religion (and not because I'm some mindless idiot that doesn't think for themself), and it hurts to hear people misconstrue things. Not because I can't take the heat, or because its obviously flawed and I can't defend it, but because people don't want to understand it. And it sucks. I'm trying very hard in my life to stop worrying and judging people for things that just don't matter (like what they feed their kids, or how they clean their house, or whatever bull people--or me--get worked up over) and just being HAPPY. I just want to be happy and worry about whats really important.

Blogging is a wonderful thing, I love it in a million ways. It helps me through things and makes me happy, but in the regard of leaving comments about something people might disagree on, its brutal. Because people don't have to actually see your face, or watch you cry, or edit themselves like they would in real life. And that part of blogging and/or the internet is really tragic.

And in the famous words of, oh I don't know, some famous person, "Can't we all just get along?"

(My first thought is to apologize for the seriousness and content of this post, but I'm not going to, nope, not at all. So yeah.)

The Lost...Trash Bag?

So I taught Relief Society on Sunday. Crazy huh? Its been awhile since I taught Relief Society. I taught the Young Women every once in awhile but its different (mostly the Young Women just stare at you). It was a good lesson and I'm happy to say that I think it went really well. In fact, it was sort of even fun! Weird huh? Anyway, the point I'm getting at is not that I'm an amazingly awesome teacher (because you could've guessed that already right?! ha. ha ha ha.) but that it was a real pick me up and I've been feeling pretty good this week. YAY!

But I want to complain about something (boo!). Not that I'm really super annoyed or whatever, more than anything I'm confused...

Somebody keeps putting their trash in my trash can.

I KNOW!

I don't get it. I just really don't get why you would take the trash bag out of your house and walk outside, see your trash can sitting there and then walk over to my trash can and put your crap inside. I just don't get why someone would need to do that, because if its one of my neighbors their trash can isn't full. Maybe I would get it if the can was like overflowing, but its not. And if they're not one of my neighbors, who the crap is walking around with a garbage bag just looking for a place to throw it away and keeps picking my can?! More than anything, I'm worried there's like something illegal they're putting in there (you have no idea what kind of neighbors I have. But in a nutshell: bad.), or that they're going through my can and finding things I haven't properly shredded. I don't know, I'm just so confused.

Whats better is that I'm constantly going out there and putting my son's stinky diapers in there, so I hope they get a big whiff every time they dump their garbage in there.

I know, I'm evil. Or immature. Whatever.





p.s. I started reading "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. I had to stop reading it about 3/4 of the way through. Its much more evil than I am. Like horribly so. Maybe I'm really sensitive but when the main "villain" started trapping animals to sacrifice their blood so he could get a high off it, I thought "hmmmm, this is really satanic." Other reasons too, but that was enough to turn me off to it. Sad, it was just coming together.

p.s.s Do you think after reading that, I should start reading "Hunger Games"? Because thats what I got the other day and now I'm sort of scared to read it.

p.p.s I found my husband's little pellet handgun thing, and now its by my bed so I can REALLY hurt anyone that tries to come in and bludgeon me to death. I feel so much safer.

LOVE a little Late

I'm totally wasting my whole Saturday doing nothing, I haven't showered, still in pajamas, eating chocolate. I have lots of other things I need to be getting done, but for now, I'm blogging. I wanted to do this post last week for Valentine's Day, but I was having a mental breakdown then and didn't get around to it.

So, I wanted to make a list of some things that I love right now, I know it matters so much to you so now I'm doing it! For you! I know, I'm such a giver.

First up:

We had family pictures taken this last August, this picture is what I have for my desktop and I LOVE looking at it. It makes me happy. :)



I LOVE this sweater and necklace set from DownEast, SO super cute!


I so have a thing right now for flowers on necklaces, LOVE it!



Okay, I know I can't ever wear this, nor would I want to. But I think this is the sexiest thing I've ever seen and I LOVE it.



So want this ring, I would wear it every day. Especially when my kids were being terrible I would knock them in the back of the head with it. LOVE.



I've been wanting to decorate so bad lately, and even though I can't paint and do all the fun stuff, I LOVE these colors and I'm so going to paint my crib this next week. Wait for pictures!



I would really LOVE to have some cute expensive maternity clothes (especially dresses for church) but I just can't spend money on something I will wear a couple times over a month and a half, and who knows if I'll get pregnant again? But this outfit is so cute!




What I would LOVE more would to be skinny and get the regular Shabby Apple dresses!




Absolutely LOVE this puffy baby quilt I found on Etsy--so fun!




I am so happy I finally got a letter from my husband with his address, so we can start writing him! Maybe some LOVE letters?



Let's face it guys, maternity clothes suck. I went into Motherhood Maternity the other day, and all I could think was "these clothes are so...frumpy!" The one thing I'm really happy about though, is finally there's a somewhat comfortable jean. I LOVE how this band works, its soft and stretchy and you can fold it over to wherever you feel comfortable. So nice.



Okay, besides putting up pictures of chocolate and candy and all kinds of food; these are some of the things I love right now! How about you, what do you LOVE?

A Knee Up

So, last night was a real winner for me. I don't know if you're familiar with dislocations, but I am. I so am.

When I was 10 and in the 4th grade, I was at recess. And my friend and I were playing a fantastically clever game of "run along the bench and jump off the end." It was thrilling. Well, when it was my turn to jump off the end, my friend said, "Wait Melinda, I don't want the duty to get mad at us, come get down." So what did I do? I got down. And in the process of getting down I twisted my leg at some odd angle to cause my knee cap to come out of place = dislocation.



I spent a horrible long while of agony laying on the ground while the duty ran up (I'm sure she was real happy then too) and some teachers brought a stretcher out and carried me inside to the nurse and the nurse cut my brand new black stretch pants (I was not happy) and then called an ambulance, and then rode in that ambulance very slowly all the way to the hospital, then waited for the doctor to finally "re-locate" my knee cap. It was hellish.

Since then, my knee has dislocated about nine other times. I hate to sound dramatic or exaggeratory, but I would rather go through a hundred pregnancies and labor than to have my knee dislocate. The thing is, it is a paralyzing pain. Every muscle in your body wants to freeze because every movement is agonizing. And not only is it agonizing, but its like something out of a nightmare. It is horrific.

Last night, I went to get in bed to read a book. I set my son down on the bed and then turned to sit myself. The turn did it to me like it always does. And I fell halfway on the bed and halfway off, and partways on my son. The thing is, I'm big. And my pregnant body just doesn't want to move the way I want it to. So not only did I have to heave myself up higher onto the bed (Oh gosh its horrible just thinking about it...), I had to find the strength to somehow replace my knee. So as I lay on my back I had to pull my leg up high enough to grab somewhere near my ankle (can you picture this pregnant?) and lift the bottom half of my leg high enough for my knee to reconnect where it was supposed it. I almost couldn't do it. Somewhere in my head I was screaming. (Lucky I don't scream outloud when I'm in pain, don't ya think?) When it was all said and done, I laid on my bed sobbing. For awhile. And then I called my mom. Because I'm a baby. And I wanted my mom.

The thing is, at the time it really did feel like a nightmare and I couldn't fathom anything worse happening to me at that moment. I kept thinking, my gosh what else could happen to me? When are things going to get better instead of worse?! Etc. etc. etc. And even though I still really am not happy it happened and had a hard time this morning feeling alright, it did force me to think that things really could be a lot worse. I may not be happy with some things right now, but I'm healthy. My kids are healthy. My baby's healthy. I have a place to live. I have food and I can pay my bills. (I think.) I have family that loves me and I have friends that are good to me. I have the gospel. What else do I need?

I need to be happy. I need to change my attitude. So I'm trying, I'm trying to figure out how to be happy even when things are hard. I'm trying to figure out how to turn things over to someone better, who knows how to handle things much much better than I do. I'm trying to have better faith.

How do you guys keep a positive outlook when things get tough?

Blah!

Sooooo... I may have had a breakdown the other day and cried for a couple hours.

Haven't been really feeling up to blogging, mostly because I either feel incredibly frustrated and upset/angry/annoyed at my kids or incredibly sad and tired/pathetic/silly at myself. I'm trying though, I'm trying.

I never really finished any of my "love" stories, but eh, I'm over it.

And I'm about ready to erase this post right now! Wish I could think of something hysterical to write about right now, but I can think of not a thing.

What do you guys do when you're alone 24 hours a day and are pregnant and have three other kids? Oh, oh! I thought of something you could help me with! I want to read some books, could you leave a comment for me of a list of books you've read that you would recommend to me? I would appreciate it so much!

Kissy Lips

I'm just going to keep riding this love boat until I can't think of any more stories; maybe I'll even come up with some nice ones and not all embarrassing. But not this time, this story is still on the embarrassing end.



When I was a Junior in high school, I started dating a boy who I will (un)affectionately (actually I don't care either way. Meh.) call: Man-Whore. The goal of this boy was to date as many girls as possible, and to get as far as he could before he had to talk to his bishop before he dumped them. I was oh so fortunate to be one of his victims. The very first time I met him was at my best friend's birthday party. He was very forward. I mean VERY forward. It was the very first time I'd ever laid eyes on this guy and he was grabbing my butt and sticking by my side like you wouldn't believe. We were all hanging out in someone's car listening to music when all of a sudden someone shut the door and the lights went out. And all of a sudden Man-Whore had his mouth on mine. It was pretty much my first real kiss and I had no idea what I was doing. A few seconds later the lights came back on and everyone else in the car was all "OOOOHHH!" and I was totally embarrassed. But it went from there into a relationship. He was my boyfriend for two whole months after that (the longest he had ever dated anyone--what a loser). Our whole relationship was pretty much just making out. In fact, the highlight of our relationship was when we made out so much that I got a fat lip. Yes, a really big fat lip.

You see, I had braces at the time, and I suppose the friction or something caused the braces to rub my lips pretty much raw. Explain that to your parents ha? "Uhhh, mom? I think my braces are rubbing against my mouth...yeah." My mom couldn't just leave it at that though, we had to go to the doctor and get medicine for it! And then to have to face the Man-Whore, I thought he would for sure break up with me. But no, he thought it was AWESOME! He thought it was so awesome that he had kissed a girl so much she had a fat lip from it, SO AWESOME in fact he told his dad who also thought it was SUPER AWESOME! (I wonder where he got his man-whorish behavior from, hmmm?)

So yeah, good thing that ended sooner than later right? Stay tuned for another installment of "Melinda's Sad Run-ins With Boys."

And then I was CRUSHED

So I was over at Navel Gazing, (who I'm totally obsessed with) (which I think terrifies her...)(...or maybe I think too highly of myself that she even knows who I am?) and in honor of Valentine's Day, she's writing about some of her relationship mishaps.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone funnier or who has better stories than Sue about crushes or dating or relationships, she is hysterical (which she is in pretty much everything she writes--see = obsessed)! So, she invited bloggers to share some of their stories, and I thought about it and thought maybe I can come up with something somewhat funny too. Maybe.

After reading her first story about assuming she was getting a kiss, it reminded me of this kid I had the most hugest crush on in the whole wide world. I don't think anyone can top it. EVER. I met this boy in 7th grade, we sat next to each other in band class (Oooh! Band love). By the time 9th grade hit, we were actually pretty good friends and I was absolutely in obsession with him. We hung out with the same group of friends and since I had worked really hard to actually become somewhat cute that year, I thought he was starting to feel my vibe. So one day after school, I'm at my locker and he comes up to me (immediate flutters...I so love you) and grabs my hand and pulls me aside away from everyone (OH MY GOSH! HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME! HE'S TOTALLY GONNA ASK ME OUT!!!!!! BLIIIISSSS!! Black out inside my head), he looks really nervous and I have the most goofy, scared, blank look on my face while he tells me "I really like your best friend Erin, do you think she'd go out with me?" (Sound of a really big balloon losing all its air), I can't even remember how I answered him, but I was crushed--obviously.

This obsession went on and on and on. It was ridiculous to where he would act like he liked me and then get all mad and rude to me and not talk to me anymore. It was such a weird "relationship", I mean like he wrote in my yearbook at the end of 9th grade that he wasn't going to the big dance, but if he were he would've wanted to go with me. (! ! !) And then talked to me pretty much everyday on the phone that summer. You can't tell me that when you're in love with a kid that that wouldn't have kept the obsession alive. Then we went to the movies together with my friend and her boyfriend, and I'm like "Oh my gosh, we're freaking on a date together!!!" except a popular kid came up and talked to him while we were there and he acted all embarrassed to be seen with me and didn't talk to me for like 5 months after that. What a d-bag. (oh yeah, I said that.)

I could give you example after example where he would act like he liked me and then would get mad and stop talking to me. So dumb. The worst part is though, that its hard to stop obsessing over someone when you did it for six or so years, and every once in awhile I still have dreams about him. But the best part is, in these dreams its not about me being obsessed with him, its him chasing after me! (tee hee! *giggle* hahaha GFAW!! I'm sorry, it just tickles me so!)

Magic Chocolate?

I'm having a downer of a day. (So what else is new?)

I started out the day trying to do what I needed to do and then things crap it up and I'm slowly sinking down into eating more and more chocolate. Honestly, I eat so much chocolate. I got off the phone with a bill collector and my biggest urge (well, after crying) was to eat a chocolate donut. So I did. I ate the stinkin donut. Son has a poopy diaper, I eat some peanut butter cups. Daughter won't stop throwing fits, I snarf down some M&M's.

Its my coping method I suppose. Good thing I'm pregnant and am supposed to be fat, no one will know right?

The one thing that sucks is that the chocolate doesn't actually fix my problems (probably causing new ones huh?), why doesn't it do that? I thought chocolate had magical properties or something. I'm pretty sure I read in Harry Potter that chocolate will help you feel better after being attacked by Dementors or something...I think those bill collectors are much scarier than Dementors...can't I go after them with a wand and some chocolate?

And the worst part is I'm not even excited for our taxes anymore. It feels like every bit will just go towards stupid bills. And even though I know thats not true, its not even fun now to think of things I might could get. I just want the money to get here, pay things back, and not have to worry about whats in the mail or who's calling now or how I'm going to pay for diapers. Waah. Waah, waah, waaaah.

Whoever Said "Money Doesn't Buy Happiness" was Never Poor!

Since I've been married, my husband has always taken care of the bills. I mean, heck I was 18 when we got married, I wouldn't have trusted me either! But now that my husband is gone (are you getting sick of hearing that yet? Four more months of it, get used to it.), guess what? I have to take care of EVERYTHING.

There's a couple problems with this though.

I hate calling people. I don't even like calling most people I know, and now I have to call people in much more uncomfortable situations. As in calling about bills, or the stupid shirts we bought from my daughter's stupid school three months ago and they still haven't come. Not to mention the fact that there is no way I'm answering a number I don't recognize, and of course they never leave a message (not that I would call back anyway, but no message = no guilt for not answering.) Its been rough trying to push myself out of my comfort zone, really rough. Someone called today asking for my husband, I told them he wasn't here and if I could take a message. They said "oh, we'll just try and get him at home." and I said "He's at basic training in South Carolina." and the moron said "Ohhhhh, well...we'll just try him later at home." Can't say I was very polite when I started laughing and said "Alrighty then! BYE!"

The other thing I had to do was our income taxes. Boy was that a joy! I've never had to do them before, and thank the Lord for TurboTax because I would've been a big pile of goo by the end of the process without it. I do have to say though, the nice thing about doing the taxes and being the only adult around to decide how to spend it is pretty awesome. I'm so treating myself to something awesome when it gets here! I mean, after I pay back my mom and pay our bills and get the stuff we need that I've been holding out for...so something awesome after all that.

Oh February 12th you can't get here soon enough!

Crush--and Not the Soda Kind

So its been a week, one week since my husband left. And in that week I've been on a roller coaster of emotions, feeling fine to complete breakdowns. Blue's to red's. Its been a ride.

But I've gotten one overwhelming notion throughout this last week: I'm a teenage girl again.

I am obsessed with a boy. I feel the same as when I had my first boyfriend, where I couldn't get enough of him, where I would wait for his phone call and feel moody and sad when he didn't. And then elated and giggly when he did.

That is how I've felt this last week.

Seriously, its bad. I went to the grocery store, with two of my kids and my big belly looming ahead of me, you'd think that would snap me out of it, but no. I'm going down an aisle and what do I see? A bag of sunflower seeds. And the brand? "David." (Thats my husband's name if you didn't know.) And my heart fluttered and I felt sad and I missed him and I wanted to cry. Over SUNFLOWER SEEDS.

Do you remember the silly roller coaster ride of a crush? I'm right there baby. Right there. Hopefully it will pass soon and I'll be an adult again.