Registering and stuff

Tyler and I need to register for wedding gifts this weekend, but I feel weird about it.  Somehow it seems tacky, like we're saying you need to buy us a gift and this is what you're allowed to buy.  I guess it's not much different than Christmas lists, though.  And I get that it's helpful because people want to get you something that you'll actually use and they obviously have no idea what you have and don't have, but you're both assuming and expecting that people are going to buy you things.  Not that such a thing would be completely out of left field, given the situation!  I would probably be way more into it if we were a younger couple and just setting up a household, but I've been living on my own for years and he's been married before.  We have two already set up households.  Well, one and a half, I guess, considering most of his things are now either at the dump, being given to the ex or after all this time, need to be replaced.  And technically, while I do have an already established household, it is established for a small grouping of people, not 8 people.

Plus, and this is going to sound really selfish, I have nice things and I have carefully chosen these things over the years and spent lots of money on them and I know that they aren't going to last long with six kids around, so I really just want to not unpack them and hide them away until the kids are grown.  My decor, housewares, etc., have never needed to be kid-proof or kid-friendly, so pretty much they aren't.  I'm having visions of the heads of the dolls my grandpa bought in the 50's and 60's while stationed overseas being ripped off like Barbie heads.  What if one day I stumble across a cemetery of doll parts from around the world in the back yard?  Oh look, there's a head from Okinawa!  And there's half of the body of the doll from Peru!  And the legs of the flamenco dancer from Spain are just barely sticking out of the ground!  Ok, that may be a little bit dramatic (and slightly creepy), especially considering that all of those things have been packed up and in my parent's shed for the last 15 years, but you see what I mean!  Is my "Original Art Work Collection"* going to end up being drawn all over with crayons?  Is it silly that I'm even worried about it?  I think maybe this is just the way the fear of my impending complete 180 degree change in lifestyle is expressing itself.  But seriously . . . if my complete collection of 1937 Harvard Classics or my signed Amy Tans are destroyed, we're going to have some problems.  I feel like Mel Gibson in Braveheart . . . They may take my sanity, but they'll never take . . . MY BOOK COLLECTION!




*That is now its' official title.

freaking out a little

There may not be a wedding happening anymore because unless something gives, I'm going to a.) lose my mind and be institutionalized, b.) physically assault the next person who irritates me and be in jail or c.) both.  I found out last night that up until the weekend before the wedding, my parents are going to be in town for a grand total of like a week and a half.  This means that I will have to do all of the following pretty much on my own:

• Find a wedding dress, shoes, etc.  Find someone to do alterations.
• Find someone to make the wedding cake and pick something out.  
• Pick out and order invitations.
• Address and send out said invitations.
• Find matching fancy outfits for all of the kids.
• Follow up on everything for the reception.  (Flowers, candy buffet, cake decorations, etc.)
• Figure out what the heck we're doing for the ceremony.
• Pack up my entire apartment.  Also, I probably need some boxes for packing. I could be doing the packing little by little every day, but I'm house and dog sitting for my parents instead.

 Then there's registering and getting a marriage license (which has to be done in Utah) with Tyler, who works 7 days a week.  Plus I have to actually move up there (my parents will be gone for that too) and hope that I have a house that is livable.  I have been assured that the house will be done by then, but unfortunately I live in reality and not the land of make-believe.  I also have to train my replacement and finish up with work.  Oh, and then there's planning the whole open house in Idaho, which doesn't even have a date yet.

So yeah, I'm a little irritable right now.  And I realize that I can have friends help me with some of these things, but stuff like picking out a wedding dress and cake and announcements and ceremony/reception plans would be nice to do with my mother.

This is why I wanted to elope and not worry about any of this.  I want to be happy to get married, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Year in Review

It's that time of year again.  Part of me says thank goodness this year is over and part of me is sad to see it go.  Then there's the biggest part of me that really just doesn't care either way.  That is definitely the dominant part.  Nevertheless, as I have been horrible at blogging lately, this is the perfect opportunity to compose a blog post that will hopefully entertain, enlighten and perhaps cause a few tears to be shed.  Haha, not really, but that was quite dramatic!  And now I shall commence with the discussing of me and my year, as that is what is truly important tonight.  :) 

Highlights of 2012

• Moving closer to my family.
• Every single moment in Paris, even the ones I didn't absolutely love because hello, it was Paris! (Except for the one lowlight, see below.)  I can't pass this one by without mentioning a few specifics:
• Sharing the experience with my family.
• Seeing works of art that brought tears to my eyes and are some of the clearest examples of the influence of the Divine that I have ever seen.  It never ceases to amaze me how the arts can be such a spiritual experience.  
• Pastries!  Glorious, glorious pastries!
• Weekends spent in Wyoming.  
• The fact that the moments where I felt like all was right in the world far outnumbered the moments where I felt like everything was wrong.
• My daily email and text conversations with Traci, who saved my sanity many, many times.
• My apartment and the solitude, serenity and pants-free environment that it offers.
• Antagonizing people on Facebook for sport during the election season.  I really felt like it was the only way to make those few months before the election bearable.  If any of those people are now reading this, I apologize if you were really and truly offended.
• Temporarily living with BFF Amber after I moved back to Utah. 
• Discovering Homeland, Misfits, Iwan Rheon, Harlan Coben and Lee Child. 
• Taking my client that had cancer for a CT scan a few weeks ago and finding out that there is no sign whatsoever of cancer!

Lowlights of 2012

• The whole Wyoming exodus.  Leaving my friends and clients was heartbreaking and many tears were shed.  Then there was the whole having to give my dog back to the shelter drama.  I still can't speak of it. 
• Moving three times in one year.  I don't want to move again any time soon.  As I wrote that I felt like I was jinxing it and condemning myself to move again in 2013.  Nooooooo!!!!!!
• Having my car stolen.  I still can't quite believe it actually happened.
• The slight (meaning major) nervous breakdown I had early in October.  It was the perfect storm of events and circumstances that caused me to question every single thing in my life; not eat, sleep or bathe for a while; and watch an excessive number of episodes of Roseanne.  Very glad that it's over and that there were people around that I could lean on for support.  On the other hand, it was this event that led me to make my plans for Dublin and London because I needed something to look forward to, so I can't complain too much!
• Being in Paris and having massive blood blisters on the bottoms of my feet that caused excruciating pain with every step I took.  I had to pad and tape my feet every day, but then it would all just come off with all the walking around.  :(  
• My client being diagnosed with cancer and the subsequent treatment.  Taking her to radiation every single day for weeks on end was definitely one of the lowest of the low moments of the year.  And I wasn't even the one with cancer! 

I know I'm forgetting many things but these are the things that immediately came to mind.  There were so many other awesome events, people and moments throughout the year and also several other really crappy moments, but all in all, I consider 2012 to be a success.  I have learned much and experienced much and I am ending the year feeling more content and secure with myself and my life than ever before.  Thanks for reading and being part of my journey!

I never thought this day would come.

I have a complaint about Old Navy.  I placed an online order on November 23 and was told that my stuff would arrive in 7-10 days.  I finally got an email tonight that my order had been shipped and will arrive by December 7.  I don't understand why Amazon can sometimes ship my order within an hour or so of me ordering it, but it takes Old Navy this long to get it in the mail.  I realize there was probably a significant increase in business for Black Friday, but shouldn't they have anticipated that and put more people on the job?  I've already received things I ordered from Amazon three days ago.  I feel like Amazon should just take over the world at this point because then things would actually get done. 

That Little B*tch

The tooth that I had the root canal on today has now officially been dubbed "That Little B*tch."  Why, you may ask?  Don't worry, I shall tell you!  Not only did it have hook-ended roots, but the roots were also abnormally long, which meant that it was really hard to get it numb.  Do you see where this story is headed?  It's headed towards PAIN!  The fancy dentist told me about my root problem and then conveniently added that for $55 extra I could get nitrous.  I figured they were just trying to get more money out of me, but let it be known that I will never turn down something that will make a root canal slightly more pleasant.  It turned out to be a very wise investment.  Even with the nitrous and the initial numbing of the tooth, I nearly jumped out of the chair when he started drilling.  Given the shooting pain, he said we were going to move on to Plan B.  Plan B turned out to be him telling me to suck in hard on the nitrous while he hurriedly drilled through the tooth so that he could shoot extra anesthetic into the inside of the tooth.  I was not happy at this point, but then they upped the dose on the nitrous and I was ok after that.  So that is why my tooth shall now be referred to as That Little B*tch. 

I am nothing if not consistent.

Ok, so I'm really not very consistent at all, but in this case I am amazingly consistent, which just goes to show that I am in no way consistent.  I am currently counting down the minutes until Homeland is on and I need to kill time, so I turned on He's Just Not That Into You.  Big mistake.  Big.  Huge.  Except for those moments when I was mesmerized by Bradley Cooper's eyes, I was irritated by nearly every single character.  And then I remembered that back when this movie came out, in 2009, I did a blog post about it!  I just reread the post (which you, too, can read here) and discovered that I was thinking the exact same things I thought then, only a little less bitterly, because I've totally mellowed since then.  True story. 

***I have a nagging feeling that this is probably the most useless blog post I have ever written and I am now making this face:

thoughts and an update

• Remember my client that has cancer?  Well, we had a check-up with the surgeon yesterday to and . . . the tumor is gone!  Whoohoo!  We still have to do a CT scan to make sure it didn't spread, but thank the Lord, I think we're going to be ok!
• The surgeon we saw is a colon-rectal specialist.  How do you decide you want to spend your day poking, prodding and looking at people's butt holes?  I mean, seriously, he had to suction away poo before he could fully examine the tumor.  What kind of person wants to spend their day doing things like that?  In case you were wondering, he was definitely a little weird.  And he flat out lied to us.  My client was supposed to be sedated for the exam, but when we got there they said they couldn't do that.  The PA said the notes from the referring doctor said we would need sedation, but the PA didn't know where the miscommunication came from since they're not equipped to do that in the office.  Fine, whatever, mistakes and miscommunications happen, not a big deal.  I didn't appreciate it, though, that when the surgeon came in he totally pawned it off on the first doctor and said yeah, so and so didn't tell us she would need sedation.  Oh really?  That's funny, because your PA already told us it was in the notes that he did.  It's not even a big deal, but don't blame it on someone else, just say sorry about the miscommunication, let's see what we can do to make this easier without the sedation.  
• My poor dog, Lizzie, tore her ACL and is having surgery on Monday.  When my dad called to tell me about it I though he was going to say they were going to put her down and I immediately started crying and getting all dramatic because if they have to put Lizzie down, then it'll only be a matter of time before Darcy goes because because he'll be so lonely and he'll die of a broken heart and then we'll have two dead dogs.  Fortunately my dad had already decided to pay for the surgery and my sanity and the lives of our two dogs are safe again.  
• I hate it when I come to the last of an author's books.  When I find an author I really like I usually go read all of their books and get all obsessive about it, so it really sucks when there are no more new books.
• Why is it that books at the DI in Provo are so much more expensive than anywhere else?  The books that sell for one or two dollars at the DI closest to me are four and six dollars at the DI in Provo. 
• As I've been sitting here writing this, the tv show I was watching ended and Saved By the Bell came on.  I can't bring myself to change the channel.

I find it irritating when . . .

• I get really into a book only to find out it's part of a trilogy and the second book isn't even out yet.  
• People post excessive amounts of political stuff to Facebook.  Facebook was designed for you to 1.) post pictures of yourself looking like a duck doing a kissey face, 2.) post cryptically worded status updates so people will ask you what you mean and if you're ok, and 3.) post completely useless information about yourself that no one cares about.  What?  You had a dream about an ice cream cone?  Sweet, let me go ahead and "like" your status because it's so relevant and meaningful.
• You complain that I'm not giving you enough hours at work, but then you call out half of the time and when you are there, you spend your time on Facebook and Craigslist.  Browsing Craigslist for a hot @ss pounding does not equal working.  And yes, I check the browser history. 

Sigh.

It's happening again. I'm feeling antsy. I need a change. I'm on vacation in California right now and getting some distance from Wyoming has made me realize that I don't really want to go back, but I don't know if I don't want to go back to the job or the state. I definitely want to go back for the people and the scenery. Maybe I just need to change my hair color or rearrange my bedroom. I don't know. I went through this a couple weeks ago and was trying to decide if I wanted to move back to Salt Lake or stay in Wyoming and I decided on Wyoming, but now I'm not sure. There was a job factor that was making all the difference, but now I don't know if I want to deal with the job factor. I don't know what I want. Sigh. I know, my life is super difficult-I live in a gorgeous place, I have awesome friends, and I am gainfully employed. What's a girl to do!?! Anyone have any suggestions? Please, solve my life's problems for me in the comment section!

thoughts

• I have so few Facebook friends that it would be sad to lose any, however, every time I log on I want to delete people based solely upon the number of times they update their status each day.
  
• I went to a class on autism this week and it's pretty fascinating. I plan on doing a lot more studying up about it. Now I have to go and teach all of the staff I work with about it.
• The place I work was having a yard sale as a fundraiser, so I went through all my stuff and got rid of quite a few things. Why does it look like I haven't even made a dent?
  
• Have you seen the new show, "Roseanne's Nuts"? I love me some Roseanne. She's crazy, but in a good way.
  
• What is everyone thinking about this season of So You Think You Can Dance? I haven't been feeling it so much this season. There are a couple of people I like, but I'm not really connecting with anyone. It's all just kinda meh to me.
• I heard last week that the first snow is predicted for six weeks from now (or rather, from last week). Upon hearing this news, I vomited a little in my mouth.
• One of my best friends always says "To be truthfully honest . . . " Is there any other kind of honesty?
  

so dramatic

I feel unsettled and anxious. This is not good. When I feel this way I start to think and question things and want to make changes. Nothing good has ever come from a decision I've made while feeling like this. And I don't know why I feel this way. I think it's partly because I have discovered that a relationship is not what I thought it was. And maybe partly because I am finding that I am not willing to do some things that are expected of me. And also a little bit because my work schedule is such that I have far too much alone time.

It is always unsettling when you find out that the relationship you have with someone is possibly not what you thought it was. What makes it really suck is when you find this out through information that wasn't meant for your eyes. This means you can't question the person about it without bringing up the fact that you read something that was supposed to be anonymous. And I'm probably over-analyzing what happened (ha! imagine that!) and taking it the wrong way, but that doesn't change the fact that now I'm wondering if things are not what I think they are with other people as well. Maybe I don't have people figured out quite like I think I do.

Someone has asked, or rather told me, that I need to do certain things, and this person is holding future opportunities over my head if I don't do these things. It's nothing horrible, but it's definitely stuff that I think is unnecessary and I don't want to do it. I think that it will turn me into someone I don't want to be. I have already dabbled in this endeavor and was far from pleased with the outcome.

I work from 4 until midnight, Monday through Friday. My roommate works pretty much the exact opposite shift as I do. We're lucky to see each other for about an hour each day. I know very few people in the area and am not sure how to go about meeting people, given the hours that I am available during the day. This means I spend all day by myself. It's never good to have that much time on your own. Or at least for me it's not. Normally I would have the weekends to go do things, but it seems like we're always short staffed, so I end up working part of the weekend. And my roommate has her daughter, who is disabled, at the house most weekends, which I love, but it also means we don't really go anywhere. And I think people here are all kind of in hibernation for the winter. Everything closes earlier in the winter and it's dark and cold and snowy, so really, why would you even want to leave the house? So I guess the rambling of this paragraph can be summed up by saying I'm a wee bit lonely.

Alright, so there's my little pity party, written out for everyone to read. I'm going to try to go ahead and get over myself now. :)

some stuff and some grrrrs

• My friend, Emily, came up for the weekend and we spent most of the time up in Jackson, seeing as how there's pretty much nothing to do where I live. Jackson was fun, though. We ate some good food and did some good shopping. At one store we did both. There's this cool new place called Vom Fass that sells flavored vinegars, oils, and spices. Jars with spigots line the walls, and you can taste whatever you want in cute little miniature Asian soup spoons. I bought several vinegars and have spent the last couple days dipping lettuce leaves in vinegar. It makes me feel very cool to have specialty vinegars. It's the little things.
• I just colored my hair again. The color I used is Chocolate Cherry, which sounds like an African-American-themed porn to me. Bow chicka bow wow!
  
• I'm getting a little tired of picking up extra shifts at work. I had a date tentatively lined up for Saturday, but because we are neverendingly short staffed, guess who has to work on Saturday! My boss keeps saying we have to make do until we can find a new employee. I didn't realize that making do was secret code for "You are a peon and as such, you have to work everything that no one else will work, which, by the way, is everything involving a weekend. So pretty much say good-bye to any little shred of hope you had left of having a social life." At least I'm the lead peon, though, right?!? I can't decide if that makes it better or worse. Oh, and all of those people in my company who complain all the time about wanting extra hours, but then will never work extra hours if it's a weekend, are little bitches. (I would apologize for the unladylike language, but I feel no remorse whatsoever.)
  
• I'm off the meat again. I am now taking spirulina for protein. It's algae and it's 60-70% protein, verses the 22% protein content in meat. It comes in powder form and is a gorgeous dark green color. Unfortunately it smells like pond scum. Fortunately, it doesn't taste like pond scum if you add it to carrot juice or Vitamin Water. Unfortunately, it does taste like pond scum if you burp within a couple hours of drinking it.
• I swore I would never be the kind of person that wears Uggs. They're far too trendy and really, they're pretty unattractive. I've been sucked into their web of fugly comfiness, though, and they're all I wear now. My reasoning for succumbing is threefold: 1. They're really comfy, obvs. 2. They're really warm, which is of the utmost importance, here in the frozen tundra of Wyoming. 3. If I wear them under my pant legs instead of having the pants tucked into them, then you can't really see them. Oh wait, there are actually four reasons: 4. As long as I don't wear them with cut-off jean shorts to the gas station to buy Cheetos (with my nasty weave showing, btw), then I feel as though I'm rocking a much classier Ugg-look than Britney Spears, which is who I think of when I think of Uggs.
• I got an AeroGarden for Christmas. I like it a lot. I want like five more of them with which to grow other things since the growing season in Wyoming is about 3 days long.

Grrrrr . . .

I went to get my Wyoming driver's license today and since I wasn't born in the USA, I couldn't get it without my birth certificate or passport. Nevermind that I have a valid Utah driver's license and wasn't required to have anything extra when I got it. Grrrr. Plus, the DMV here is only open on Thursdays and Fridays and apparently there's only one person who works there. And the line was long. And I was stuck behind an old guy with an oxygen tank.

tired . . . tired . . .

I apologize in advance if this is not an upbeat, funny post, but I'm tired. Things at work have been crazy and I've been picking up extra shifts right and left. It's only Wednesday and when I finish my shift tonight, I will have already worked over 50 hours this week. For someone who was used to working a maximum of like 10 hours per week at BYU, this has been interesting. Fortunately, for the next two days, instead of working from 9 am until midnight, I'm only working from 4 until midnight. I've been thinking the last couple of days about how exciting it will be to sleep in tomorrow morning, but then I remembered that the cable guy is coming tomorrow morning to finally set up our cable. So yeah.

the extent of my laziness

I just realized that in the last week or so I've only been on YouTube once and Facebook maybe twice. Know why? Because the shortcut buttons on my taskbar all of a sudden stopped working and it just seems like far too much effort to actually type in the web address.

pardon my ranting . . .

I just saw the most offensive commercial ever. It's for Wonderful pistachios and shows Levi Johnston (Bristol Palin's baby daddy) with a bodyguard, eating a pistachio, and the tagline is "Now Levi Johnston does it with protection." I've written him a little letter.

Dear Levi,

Wow. You're such an ass.

It's nice that you are setting such a wonderful example for your child. I'm so glad that one day this kid will be able to look at this commercial and see his father making light of the fact that he got a girl pregnant and showing a complete lack of respect for the mother of his child. It will be nice for little Tripp to see that instead of spending time with him, you were living it up in Hollywood, filming commercials, going out with Kathy Griffin for press coverage, and oh yes, we can't forget posing for Playboy. Tripp will be so proud. Oh, I'm sure you're excusing your behavior by telling yourself that this money will pay for everything your child could need. Keep telling yourself that and while you're at it, keep pretending that whoring yourself out like this is a great substitute for quality time spent with your child. Because really, who needs a stable home environment and a loving father when someday, you can show all the kids on the playground your dad's nudie pics.

I can't wait until your 15 minutes are up and you slink back into the cave you crawled out of.

Sincerely (but not really),
Kim

And also,

Dear makers of Wonderful pistachios,

I will never ever ever buy your product, and I will take delight in preventing everyone I know from buying your product as well. Oh, and you should probably fire whoever authorized this ad because he (and yes, I'm assuming it's a he) is a douche and majorly failed at his job.

You suck.

Sincerely (but not really),
Kim

a warning

If you store your utensils in a crock (see below), please do not use it to store your super sharp meat fork, because inevitably someone will be putting other utensils in there and inevitably it will be overly full, so this person will have to shove them down in there to get them to fit, which will cause them to impale their thumb on said meat fork, which will cause them to utter many variations of four letter words (possibly in combination with the word mother), be in great pain, make them bleed all over the kitchen, and make them wonder all day long if they are going to get gangrene, because let's be honest, no one ever uses the meat fork, which means that it hasn't been cleaned in years, and is probably covered in dust, grease splatters, dog hair, and/or who knows what else.

That is all.

nastiness

So a week ago I discovered a couple of bug bites on my legs and didn't think much about it until they started getting all red and swollen and full of puss. Sick. I thought they had just gotten infected somehow, so I slapped some Neosporin on them and went on my merry way while occasionally wondering if maybe the bug had laid babies under my skin and they were growing. Well finally this morning I called the nurse at the health center and she told me to come in and have them checked out, which I did, wondering the whole way down there if they would slice my wounds open and spider babies would come pouring out. Fortunately, that was not the case, but unfortunately it turns out that my bug bites have turned into lesions. Nasty, infected lesions caused by MRSA, which is a kind of staph infection. Apparently this infection, which is really contagious, has been spreading on campus. Oh yeah, and it's some kind of superbug that doesn't respond to normal antibiotics. Good thing BYU is warning students about this, huh! Oh that's right, they aren't. But anyway, they gave me a shot of antibiotics, a bunch of antibiotic pills and antibiotic cream. Hopefully this will work. I have to check back with them on Monday. So yeah, that's the story of my nasty, puss-filled, weeping lesions. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I absolutely did take pictures just so I could post them on my blog. They'll be up later today. I know you can't wait.

Grrr

You know those days (or, in this case, like an hour) where everything just flat out irritates the crap out of you? Yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I really need to work on not letting things get to me because as soon as I let a couple things get to me, everything else just snowballs. Blah. Anyway, that's all.

ehhh

My 10 year high school reunion is coming up this summer and I'm a little freaked out by it. I guess I knew in the back of my mind that it was coming up, but now apparently there is an actual date set. This really shouldn't phase me as I'm like 115% sure that there's no way in you-know-where that I will be going. I think what freaked me out is that there's a group for this reunion on Facebook and I looked through all the pages of people who are members. It was weird to see everyone. Actually, no, weird isn't the word. Disturbing is more appropriate. For a moment (or ten) I felt like I was back in high school. I'm pretty sure I don't need to relive that misery again. So anyway, I don't know what the point of this post was supposed to be, other than now I'm having a slight panic attack at the thought of all these former classmates descending upon my town come July.