On the eve of my twenty- . . . uh, third birthday

Wow, I can't believe I'm already going to be twenty-three.

My close friends and family know what a big deal birthdays are to me. More specifically, my birthday. I whole-heartedly embrace the birthday month approach with a special focus on the birthday week. It has been a pretty sweet week. I love spoiling myself and letting others do the same as they see fit. It's the little things . . . like when I was frosting the brownies the other day, I was going to hand the spatula over to my husband to lick. But then I came to my senses. "Birthday week," I thought to myself. And we all know what happened next. (Except for my husband who had no idea there was ever a frosting spatula to be had.) And I slept in a day or two this week, took extra long showers, had a Coke, spent time with some close friends, had my hair done, and watched Leave it to Beaver whenever I felt the urge. All of this and it's not even my birthday. I can't wait to see what I have in store for myself tomorrow on my actual birthday.

This year for my birthday, I got a house. At least that's what my husband keeps telling me. And I tell him that I can't wait to see how he plans on topping that next year. Tomorrow we will have been in the house for two weeks. It has been an exciting, tiring, frustrating, and blessings-filled two weeks. We feel really lucky to be in this house in an area that we really love. It's not perfect, but it's wonderful. Being the planners that we are, we've been planning for and looking at houses for two years. And, just like everything else in my life, I had plan A in mind all along and ended up with plan B, which is exactly what we needed. It's amazing how quickly this house has felt like a home. But maybe that's just because it's something I share with the person I love where other people we love come and visit.

I love yard-work husband. I see him tooting around on his lawnmower, digging all around with the shovel. I hear power drills and roto-tillers running on evenings and all day Saturday. I love it. And he does, too, which is great. It reminds me of my dad, and for some creepy reason, I love that my husband reminds me of my dad. Now I just need to get him some Hawaiian shirts and a straw, wide-brimmed hat for the summer and the resemblance will be uncanny.

I'm actually having fun working on the inside of the house. I hate decorating; it stresses me out. But the place is getting really clean and organized. And every once in a while I find myself able to buy a decor item and place it without too much stress.

The biggest problem in organizing the home is trying to figure out what to do with all of my books. I think I counted over ten boxes of books when we moved. And then . . . there are all the boxes of my teaching stuff. More and more boxes of other books.

As I was packing the books at our apartment, I came across this book, coincidentally during the same week of Maurice Sendak's death.

I love this book, always have. But I really love this particular copy of the book. This was the first book that a teacher of mine ever gave to me. It was Mrs. Casteel in first grade. I loved her so much. I still have such vivid memories of her face, her clothes, her words, and how she made me feel (and that one time I got in trouble for talking when all I was doing was telling the people by me to stop talking). In my mind, she was the world's greatest teacher. 

She gave me this book as a reward for reaching my goal of reading 100 books . . . I think that was in one term. I don't remember for sure. But for the sake of making me seem like a brilliant six year-old, let's say it was in one term. I read that book over and over and over and each time I read it, I would remember the pride I felt in reaching my goal. I imagined that my teacher had gone to great lengths to purchase and choose this book for me. Though, after teaching school myself, I realize it was probably a freebie book she received from the book orders. But again, let's choose to remember the glorified version of the story. 

I love Where the Wild Things Are. I love it because it reminds me that I love reading, school, teachers, and the positive impact that teachers can have on children. Mr. Sendak may have been sick of the book and sick of being known for the book, but I love it. I love books, all ten+ boxes of them.

Life lessons . . . Again and again

Adulthood is just a series of life lessons. In my early 20s I learned that life never turns out how you plan. It took me a really long time to learn this lesson, being the planner that I am. But the bigger lesson learned here was that things always work out like the should, and often even better than you'd planned. So I still make plans, but I keep them flexible and *try* to roll with the changes that inevitably come up. I'm a work in progress. But I am getting better at it all the time. I am so grateful for all the things that have happened the way they have up to this point. I am so happy.

I know what my current life lesson is, but I'm also having a hard time learning this one: be grateful for the things that you do have instead of focusing on the things you don't have. I have a body. I am also having a really hard time being grateful for the body I do have. I have a lot of physical limitations. I've always had some, but right now I have more. I have been really lucky up to this point, because even though I have had some limitations, I have still been able to do most of the things I wanted to do. The past eight monts I have been severely limited in what I can do. This is really hard for someone who is used to being as busy and active as I am. I watch a lot of TV now. I used to hate TV. Now I hate that I like it and that I have "shows." I'm crying just thinking about it. I want to go, run, weightlift, do yoga, go, go, go, but I can't. And if I do, I can't walk for the next few days. I want to have babies- lots of them, right now. I can't. I want to hold a crying baby and change poopy diapers. I want to teach a child to read and share my hundreds of books with them. I want my days to have meaning. Instead I keep waiting. And I know that this will all make sense someday, because it always does. That's the beauty of faith. So for now I take it a day at a time and try to enjoy want I can do, while plotting to kidnap other people's children. I can walk. I can do water aerobics with the women over 70. I can do Zumba, which is surprisingly fun. And I can take advantage of all this me time to write a thrilling romance novel about vampires. Maybe I'll write an entire series and someone will turn my series into blockbuster movies. Who knows?

Why is it so hard to be content with what you do have? I'm trying so hard. I even force myself to smile when I feel like crying. It doesn't do much for my face since I'm an ugly crier. I take a mental inventory each day of my many blessings and then I feel so silly for ever feeling sorry for myself . . . Until the next time I feel frustrated with my situation. I feel really silly publicly admitting to this weakness, but I know I'm not the only person who goes through these emotions. Sometimes even knowing that everything will turnout okay doesn't seem to make things immediately better. And the truth is, as soon as you make it through the current trial, there's a new one waiting for you. So maybe I am grateful that I have this trial and not a worse one. And I should be grateful that my Heavenly Father thought highly enough of me to send a trial my way. Maybe I even chose this trial before I came to Earth. Even as I'm typing this I feel a little bit better. So, thank you for taking this journey with me through this sappy post. Here's to being strong enough to handle any trials that come our way!

Days of my life

Now that I have a lot of free time, I've been working as a substitute teacher for some of my friends and former co-workers. It helps me feel like my brain isn't turning into mush. And it's great because I hardly ever have to sit down, which is what I try to avoid most of all. But mostly, it's been really, really fun. It really makes me homesick for teaching. But this way I get the teacher fix without having to sit for hours planning the curriculum or dealing with parents.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't use my last name on my blog. I don't even use my husband's name. It's a small effort to try to maintain some sense of privacy from would-be serial killers. If you do know my last name, you know that it's not very common and that it might sound silly to some people . . . some very young people. Last week when I entered a second-grade classroom, I introduced myself and the entire class burst into laughter. Sadly, I had the same reaction when my now-husband first introduced himself to me.

Things that I miss about working in an young elementary classroom:
1. The calling out of "teacher, teacher" whenever someone wants your attention.
2. The line up of kids waiting to hug you at the end of the day.
3. The boys in that line up who wind up to give you a super hard high-five slap.
4. Pretending that the high five really hurt your hand.
5. The copycat stories. One student raised her hand last week to tell me that I remind her of her aunt. Then consequent responses from multiple students followed. I reminded someone of their mom, their cousin, their sister, and so on.
6. How every unfamiliar noise kids hear sounds like a fart to them. This is followed by endless giggling.
7. When talking about the north and south poles of the earth, Santa is inevitably brought up.
8. Kids aren't afraid to dance in music class.
9. Young kids grab my hand to get my attention before telling me about something they have that's contagious.
10. "Are you a teenager?" I always say yes.


I've also been filling up a lot of my time lately with baking. This too keeps me busy while not having to sit down. But I think I'm going to hang my chef's hat up for a while. I have wasted one too many bags of M&Ms or chocolate chips on cookies that go flat. And you can't give flat cookies away (though I tried), so you just end up keeping them all and eating your weight in flat cookies. So I'm taking a break because I'm a quitter. Kind of always have been.

As evidence to back the theory that I'm a quitter, I'm going to quit this blog post with out a concluding paragraph.

A Change of Pace

Has it really been months since I've posted? Because honestly, it feels like even longer! The last few months have just dragged and dragged and dragged. Many things have happened that have turned me from a manager at an educational publishing company to a stay-at-home wife (which is what I've secretly always wanted to be). But the road that lead to my new position wasn't quite the way I planned things.

About five or six years ago I have a disc in my lower back that ruptured. Surgery fixed the disc and life was to go on as normal . . . until about six months ago. I started having consistent lower back pain again. I ignored it, like I do most pains, thinking it will eventually go away. Well, it didn't and turns out that same disc is giving me problems again. Except this time, the disc can't be fixed the same way. The long and short of it is that if I want a "quick fix" for the pain, I have to have a major surgery that will likely cause a domino effect of surgery on other discs in my spine over time. I could potentially be a 40-something mother with multiple discs fused, mobility limited, and a sucky outlook on life. So, I'm taking the alternative, less medically-intrusive route: quit my job since it's too painful to sit all day and make my new full-time job my back. I do physical therapy, I'm about to start cortisone shots in my spine, and I'm doing lots of things that keep me from sitting in a chair at a computer all day. All this in an effort to fix my skeleton so I can start doing the second thing I've always secretly wanted to do: pop out some kidlets.

So, here I am in my velour suit (dubbed my official uniform of stay-at-home-wifeness), witnessing my brain slowly turning to mush, and watching a whole lot of Rachel Ray. She really is every bit as adorable as the middle-aged women claim she is. Here's to a healthy 2012!

Where is my mind?

 . . . aaaaaand we're back.

I apparently had a bit of an emotional breakdown/identity crisis yesterday. That might have been apparent in my blog post asking for new friends. I don't know, maybe normal people do that. But I'll tell you what normal people don't do: make plans to move across the country to New York City, a place they've never been. But I found Dan a job, and a job for me at a large publishing company. I was going to start wearing Spanx and eyeliner and cut my hair into a sleek bob. I was ready for the museums, and restaurants, and "culture." I just kept saying "culture." I was there. In my mind, I was there.

But here I am today, wearing sweat pants, one of Dan's T-shirts, a long blonde pony tail, sans bra, and working for an independent publisher struggling to make a place for itself in this digital world. I live near a Target and an In 'n Out Burger. I guess some might call that culture. This isn't "the life," but it's my life. And, after eight hours of sleep last night, I'm happy to be a part of it. Until the next time that I get only a few hours of sleep.

Sleepless in the suburbs,

I need new friends

I need new friends. Preferably friends that live in the same state—same county, even. My single friends are too busy doing single people things to hang out with me more than once in a blue moon. Trust me, I understand. My married friends all have kids and are never available when I want to hang out.

Sooooo.... I am now accepting applications for a new friend. Only one, actually. I've never been good at juggling multiple friends.

Please be married.

Please don't have kids.

Please don't be freakishly attached to your  husband so you can't go with me to get a pedicure on a whim.

Please work regular business hours.

Please don't be a flake. I've had enough of them in my life. If you're going to call, call. If you say we're going to hang out, show up. Make me a priority, dangit. Cuz I'm a dang good friend.

And please be funny. If you're not funny, don't bother.

Qualified applicants should send me cookies and flowers.

Don't call me. I'll call you.

TMI?

Sometimes I make the 60 second drive to my mom's when I need to use the bathroom at work. It's just nice to use soft toilet paper sometimes.

Never too late . . .

. . . to set a New Year's resolution. I finally decided on mine. I want to be a published author by June 2012. They say that when you write your goals down, you achieve them. Don't fail me, Internet.

Also, it's never too late to answer my poll in the right side bar here. Just a little tip, if you're in Utah, you're technically in the Southwest. Crazy, I know. You now have that excuse you've been looking for to eat more salsa.

The way the Valentine cookie crumbles

I must be really tired today. I find myself saying really sappy things to people and pouring my heart out to them about how much I appreciate them. Then there was that embarrassing moment while I was in Walgreen's and I realized, after it was too late, that I was enjoying the cornball song that was playing. It was like I couldn't stop listening to it. The sane Megan was fighting the tired, cheesy Megan, and the end results weren't pretty.

Before I left for work I thought, "I should grab a stack of cards and put notes on everyone's desk to let them know how great they are." Then, in a flash of rational, I realized that I no longer teach in an elementary classroom.

Yesterday, throughout the course of the day, I ended up talking on the phone to each of my sisters, which is rare. It was just fun to talk to each of them. Everyone in my family is so unique and just really, really fun. I ended my final sister phone call yesterday, and a sappy song began playing on my radio. I just let myself cry—the good kind of cry—thinking about how much I love my family. My brain began to play a video montage that highlighted each person in my family like it was their final moment and song after being voted off American Idol. I think this moment could have been controlled simply by not playing sappy music in my car. I blame my friend Michelle for that. She makes the more incredible "mix tapes" and sneaks in a sappy song here or there to catch you off guard. Why I oughtta . . .

I think this is all just my body's way of preparing itself for Valentine's Day! I plan on sleeping for three days straight this weekend so I can come back to real life next week and not be such a basket case. Can you say HEART-SHAPED SUGAR COOKIES?!?

Some people never grow out of nerdom

You know, in all my growing up years I dreamed of all the exciting things I'd do when I was a grown up. Well, today I am writing a glossary. I can just see little brace-faced, freckly, chubby nine year-old me crying as tears drop on my stretch pants with stirrups just thinking about writing a glossary. What about my hopes and dreams, my castles in the air? Well, nine year-old Megan, I don't know how to tell you this, but you might actually enjoy writing a glossary. But you won't understand until you get older and have had more experience in having your dreams crushed. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you also like rearranging the things in the cupboards.

I dreamed a dream

Last night I had a dream that all members of the Rat Pack were alive and well. I knew this because they joined my family for our Fourth of July celebration. And, for some reason, we sat them all down on the couch at the end of the day and made them watch hours of family video footage—much to my dismay because most of the footage highlighted my eight-year awkward stage. This really put a cramp on my style since I have a crush on Dean Martin (zing-a-zing-a-zing-boom). Oh yeah, and there was that other part of my dream where I kept trying to smooch Dean. Minor detail.

Agent Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde

I so often underestimate the power of shaving my legs. It's almost as if the hairy-legged Megan and the smooth-legged Megan are two completely different people. What? You've had a horrible day at work, your head hurts, your makeup just didn't stay fresh, those pants make you feel fat? I know just the remedy. Spend five minutes (or more, depending on the leg hair length) on yourself and shave those legs. Suddenly you're that tall glass of water you've wanted to be all week. You're ten pounds lighter, your pants fit better, and everyone in the world was just given a puppy. It's almost as if you were a contestant on that one show that's not on the air anymore—Extreme Makeover: Self Edition. Hello, world. Feel my legs. And then, just when you thought your day couldn't possibly get any better . . . clean sheets! This is how I was born to live—prickle free.

Some things I wish I could forget

During my first, or possibly second year of teaching, I signed up to take a class called "Beginning Guitar for Teachers in the Elementary Classroom." I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn some fun tunes to play while kids sang about times tables, counties and county seats, and so on.

I began the class with a borrowed guitar. I can remember learning very little. There was very little method or even skill taught. But, I did learn how to mimic my teacher's hand placements on the fret board as he taught us "The House of the Rising Sun" over an eight-week period. He told me I was a natural. I was excited about this until my dad explained that the only song my teacher had taught me was about a whore house . . . and that wasn't nearly as useful in an elementary classroom as I'd hoped it would be.

Although I learned nothing useful, I got a free, new guitar from my creepy teacher. Sometimes being a natural at playing whore house-themed music pays off.

What a Difference 10 Months Makes

I really don't like having my picture taken. I especially dislike having pictures taken of JUST me. I'm just not photogenic, I never have been. I promise, I'm much cuter in person. But, now that 10 months have passed since I had a couple of bridal shots taken, I can actually look at them. Really. So, for those of you that have requested (and for those of you who couldn't care less), here are some of my 10 month-old bridal shots.

Yes, the flowers are fake. And, yes, I was not aware a picture was being taken as I was laughing and brushing my bangs out of my face with my bouquet.

Hold the phone . . .

I think a clarification needs to be made about the last post:

I am NOT pregnant. I repeat, I am not pregnant!


Thank you, and goodnight.

MIA no more

You know, you're right. It HAS been a very long time since I have posted anything. In case you were wondering, you have missed out on innumerable exciting things in my life. Here are just a few I'd like to highlight.

On Sunday, a sweet, older lady in my ward who I see at least twice a week asked me if I was pregnant. And just in case you are wondering, I'm not. I just so happen to have a large quantity of empire-waisted shirts. They're in style, people. So, that was a first for me, and most likely a last . . . the last time I wear that dress.

The other day my sister stopped by my office with her kids to say hello. One of my nephews pulled down his pants and underpants and said in his "old man" voice, "I need to go potty."

Visit teaching (Can you stand the excitement in my life??!)

Church stuff

My husband has all but commandeered my iPod for his e-hunting pleasure.

Oh, yes. I sent a horrendously behind schedule project to press only a day late. (Hence my MIA behavior.)

I gave my husband a blender for his birthday because I'm the best wife ever. ("What is this? The 1905s? Give the little wife a blender?!") — Name that movie!

I had a sleepover with all the "'big kid" nieces, nephews, and myself while Dan was away hunting. I actually slept.

I saved the world in under an hour and a half.

I had lunch with one of my longest running friends and I laughed so much and so hard my face hurt the rest of the afternoon.

I  killed a spider all by myself.

I got to be with one of the cutest families I know as they were sealed in the temple. I cried a lot.

I ate a lot of Neilson's Custard.

I spent lots of time at Dr. appointments and with old people.

That pretty much sums it up. Stay tuned for what will no doubt be a very exciting early fall.

To Buy, or Not to Buy...

Something in my gut tells me that I own more than one dress that is similar to this one. But I love it so much! I might die if I don't get it [pouty face].

I have arrived.

Well, how 'bout that? I am the proud owner of a Rolodex. As a young child I used to covet my grandma's Rolodex that sat on her desk in the purple bedroom. It was big, and ornate, and made her seem all sorts of important... she must have been. Why else would she have needed a way to keep track of so many peoples' contact information? And now I am officially important. And, not to make you feel inferior, but I have at least a dozen people in there... soon to be a baker's dozen.

Just to satisfy your curiosity, it's black, plastic, and the letter separators are a shade of ocean blue. Someday I hope to upgrade to a metal version. Something a little fancier, like that of my grandma's. Possibly with some form of flower decoration. That would be nice.

Welcome to the big leagues, Megan.

It's good to be here.

Doppelgänger Day

People I've been told I look like lately...

Brittany, the Chipette

... according to my childhood friends

Miranda Raison from the British TV show "Married Single Other" 

... according to a former coworker

Carey Mulligan (not sure what she's in)

...according to my aunt-in-law

Erica Durance 

...according to my husband, an ex-Smallville watcher

Hello again.

Please excuse my absence from blogging these past few weeks. I have been very busy, uh.... doing some thing... uh, awesome. Including my secret military spy missions, of which I cannot speak. But let me reassure you that is was very Bourne-esque.

All that's really on my mind today is this: My boss, one of my bosses I should say, is stuck on a buzz word that he completely overused in a meeting. Jettison was used at least ten times during a PowerPoint presentation. AT LEAST. I lost track after ten... or possibly I tuned out. But the point is that now I have that word stuck in my head. Is it possible to have a word stuck in your head?!? Welp, I do.

I would like to jettison this word from my life.