Tonight the house is buzzing with energy. Caroline (who is 18 now.... Can you believe it?) is downstairs playing games with her last Sadie Hawkins dance date. Jessica (16) is upstairs with her first. (Plus several other fun couples, too!) I wish I could say where Susanna (14) is right now... I know she told me, but as happens more often than not, I forgot. [Jayden (12) and Dad are hiking, in the dark and three hours late, to a scout over-nighter... But that's a story for another post.] I'm luckiest of all. I get to relax in bed next to my date for the night, Andrew (10). He's playing Minecraft while I'm trying to resurrect this blog.
As is usually the case, I have so much to say but the words don't seem to come. So much has happened in my little family. Diabetes, IBS, food intolerances, learning disabilities, severe anxiety attacks, and a painful miscarriage... Life changing, mission altering, anxiety inducing moments that have redirected the course of our little clan; yet still tonight, like most nights, all seems normal -- peaceful and content.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
To Be or Not to Be (like me)
I have a daughter who has been struggling for quite some time with an eating disorder. I first noticed the signs when she was about three years old. She would chew her food and spit it out. She knows she has a problem and has sought out help from a few trusted people, me being one of them.
I never really thought about the cause of this, seeing as how she struggled for so long and started so young. But last week, being the good dietitian I am, decided in order to conquer this, knew it was time to discuss why she feels she can't eat.
Wow, I never expected what happened next. "Mom" she said, "I don't want to look like you". Tears wanted to flow, anger wanted to explode, but truth told me I couldn't be sad or upset. Truth told me, I don't want to look like me either.
This particular child has been told from the day she was born that she looked like just like her mother. She had my eyes, my coloring, and my smile. I remember thinking as a young mother how much I wanted a child that looked like me, because I wanted to be able to appreciate the beauty other people saw in me that I couldn't see through all the stereotypes of beauty I held.
I never imagined the result. After years of hearing me say, over and over again, "I am ugly", "I am fat", "I will never be worth anything" because of my weight, she has adopted that as her problems now, too.
I know we will conquer this eating disorder, we have seen so much progress in just the last year, but I am not sure how either of us will recover from the lasting effects of the words that have been spoken.
I never really thought about the cause of this, seeing as how she struggled for so long and started so young. But last week, being the good dietitian I am, decided in order to conquer this, knew it was time to discuss why she feels she can't eat.
Wow, I never expected what happened next. "Mom" she said, "I don't want to look like you". Tears wanted to flow, anger wanted to explode, but truth told me I couldn't be sad or upset. Truth told me, I don't want to look like me either.
This particular child has been told from the day she was born that she looked like just like her mother. She had my eyes, my coloring, and my smile. I remember thinking as a young mother how much I wanted a child that looked like me, because I wanted to be able to appreciate the beauty other people saw in me that I couldn't see through all the stereotypes of beauty I held.
I never imagined the result. After years of hearing me say, over and over again, "I am ugly", "I am fat", "I will never be worth anything" because of my weight, she has adopted that as her problems now, too.
I know we will conquer this eating disorder, we have seen so much progress in just the last year, but I am not sure how either of us will recover from the lasting effects of the words that have been spoken.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
What's Up with the New Title?
Had I sat down as a child (which I never did, sit down I mean) and made a list of the "perfect mom", it would've gone something like this...
1. Pretty
2. Fun
3. Rich
4. Popular
5. Clean and Organized
6. Good Cook
7. Did I say Pretty? I meant Beautiful!
8. Fun, Fun, Fun... in case you didn't get it the first time
I'm glad I didn't make the list, because it would have given me one more thing (or 8 things to be exact) to beat myself up over for not doing right now. I'm sure you've NEVER felt that way...
Well, I have been mulling this over for a long time. I always wanted to blog, isn't that what the "Cool Mom's" do? They post pictures of their kids in brand name clothes, playing and smiling, looking like they came off the cover of a magazine. Crafts of all the cute things they make in their spare time. Vacations on the beaches of Hawaii where they announce in the sand their joy of being "preggers" for all to share. Gourmet dinners on the table every night, and even the kids lunches REALLY! You know, we've all seen them. Well, I wanted to be that mom. Who doesn't? Reality hit when I realized I had no time for crafts, no money for vacations, and no cute pictures of my kids. (Don't get me wrong, I havecute kids, just not cute pictures.) Well, after my first attempt at blogging I quickly realized I am just not that good at coming up with the cutesy, crafty, perfect life... because, well, I don't have that life. I love those moms, and if you are one of them please don't be offended, I want to be you, I just can't. So, I decided, in an effort to keep my blog going, I would have to change it up, and for me, that was to stop trying to be someone I am not, and just be me. Just be real. So, here it goes... wish me luck.
1. Pretty
2. Fun
3. Rich
4. Popular
5. Clean and Organized
6. Good Cook
7. Did I say Pretty? I meant Beautiful!
8. Fun, Fun, Fun... in case you didn't get it the first time
I'm glad I didn't make the list, because it would have given me one more thing (or 8 things to be exact) to beat myself up over for not doing right now. I'm sure you've NEVER felt that way...
Well, I have been mulling this over for a long time. I always wanted to blog, isn't that what the "Cool Mom's" do? They post pictures of their kids in brand name clothes, playing and smiling, looking like they came off the cover of a magazine. Crafts of all the cute things they make in their spare time. Vacations on the beaches of Hawaii where they announce in the sand their joy of being "preggers" for all to share. Gourmet dinners on the table every night, and even the kids lunches REALLY! You know, we've all seen them. Well, I wanted to be that mom. Who doesn't? Reality hit when I realized I had no time for crafts, no money for vacations, and no cute pictures of my kids. (Don't get me wrong, I havecute kids, just not cute pictures.) Well, after my first attempt at blogging I quickly realized I am just not that good at coming up with the cutesy, crafty, perfect life... because, well, I don't have that life. I love those moms, and if you are one of them please don't be offended, I want to be you, I just can't. So, I decided, in an effort to keep my blog going, I would have to change it up, and for me, that was to stop trying to be someone I am not, and just be me. Just be real. So, here it goes... wish me luck.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
I LOVE this GIRL!!!!!
I love you Caroline. Happy 13th Birthday! (Actual Birthday was October 22)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Ready, Set, Go!
We spent much of Labor Day weekend at our lot. Gerald mowed the weeds with our old, rickety lawn mower, laid out the footprint and got everything ready for the excavators to come this week. Andrew was so excited for the project to get moving he even helped by cutting the weeds with scissors and starting the hole. Despite his enthusiasm, I still think we better use the professionals for this job :)
Ironically enough, as Gerald was mowing the park strip, a baby snake jumped out of the weeds and slithered down the gutter. Hopefully, this is a sign that we are through with snakes (in more ways then one). I think if I see another one I will put the lot back up for sale, bring the snake back to our rental house to eat the spiders, and crawl under my covers until the second coming. Yuck!!!
I drive by the lot at least twice a day taking the kids to school. This morning I was excited to see that the excavation team is ready to go... they had blue stakes out before 8 am this morning.
Prolouge (or perhaps more aptly titled "Three snakes in the Grass")
Finally, after 6 months of tears, frustration, and soul searching, the excitement begins. (I know this is long, but I also know many people have been asking what is going on with our home, if you are one that wanted to know, read on, if not, my feelings will not be hurt.)
Many of you know that we decided it was time to move last October, and began looking for a new home in November. Our house went up for sale in April, sold in June, and we have been "homeless" ever since. On June 27th, knowing we had to be out of our home in 2 days and desperate for a roof over the kids heads we signed a lease on a home in Clearfield (about 1 mile west of where we lived for the last 10 years). The home is in ill repair, bug infested, and only has 3 bedrooms so we are anxious to make this stay as short as possible.
When we set out on this process we had decided to only look at existing homes. We know how particular and strong headed both Gerald and I can be about things we want and felt the best way for us to reach a compromise on a home and keep our marriage intact would be to know we would have to both make concessions and find a home we could both agree on. Well, after looking at 150+ homes in Davis County, we still stuggled. For Gerald either the location was not right, power lines in back yard, high water table causing flooding in basement, not large enough yard for the garden he wants, or the dining room was too small for our table. (Yes, he measured each home with a tape measure when we got there). For me it was not enough bedrooms, too small family room/kitchen, poorly designed floor plan, or just plain homes that were not taken care of and had way too much repair/cleaning work.
Many well meaning family and friends would call with a listing they knew would be just "perfect" for us. Unaware that we really have looked at EVERY home in the area in our price range (even many above and below) that came up for sale in the last 10 months. In other words, if it had a for sale sign up (or even if they were thinking of selling it, we had ALREADY been inside). Despite the most patient realtor ever, a 12 year old daughter that spent many, many, many hours babysitting, and a computer that had 3 or 4 different MLS sites running simulaneously a minimum of 4 hours each day, our house simply wasn't out there.
Mostly out of frustration, we began looking at building our home. We began talking to the bigger builders, learning that pretty much all we were able to get through them was a tract home similar to the one we had before. Then we then began interviewing custom builders. To our surprise, not only were they better priced, but allowed us the flexiblity to get exactly (to a point) what we were looking for.
We settled on a price, lot, and builder, and began designing our home. Or so we thought. Each time we called the owner of the lot (snake #1) to place an offer he 1)would tell us either he had another offer and we had to raise our offer to match, or 2)he would raise the price of the lot the day our offer came in. I suppose he thought we wanted it so bad we would pay anything. Well, the lot is still available if anyone wants to play his games. (Not to mention, the beautiful view that sold us on the lot has been now blocked by an enourmous "monument" of a home so I anticipate the lot sitting vacant for many years to come.) Not getting that lot, our builder (snake #2) convinced us our only option was to build in Layton. The whole purpose we had wanted to move was to get to Kaysville and cut down on my 6 x per day commute there. Feeling defeted, we agreed, signed an intent to purchase agreement on the new lot, and began the count down to start. In the mean time we began doing some research on our new lot. We found out the now quite area was soon to be surrounded by 2 major collector roads to the freeway and a new highway that is being built in our area. About 3 weeks into this process I got a call from Gerald early in the morning. He was driving by Kaysville on his way to work and felt very strogly that we needed to cancel the contract on the lot and look in Kaysville again despite the financial hardship of increasing the price of the home 30K.
By that night we had found a new lot, verbally set a contract and were off to the races... or so we thought. Our contractor sent the offer in then began acting very strange. After making several concessions to him already to get this project started, (such as paying $1700 for house plans my archetect sister-in-law and structural engineer husband were working on for free), he began changing the game. He began conviently forgetting things like the bedrooms and bathroom he had agreed to finish in the basement, the fact that this was a custom home meaning I was able to pick out things like faucets and lighting that I liked. Then the kicker, as he began removing all these items... cutting the carpet allowance in half, and making it all but impossible to meet the budget and have the house we had envisioned, he raised the price $15K. Even if we wanted to, we could no longer afford the home... and the new lot.
Gerald set up an appointment with him to go over the budget to better undersand his numbers. (To this point we had priced out 2/3 of the home already and couldn't understand why his numbers were coming in so high.) The appointment was for 4pm on Monday, by 1pm I received a call from Gerald that the contractor had decided he could not build our house. The excuse he gave was that if he only had to work with Gerald it would be okay, but because I cried at our last meeting and voiced my opinion that I felt he had been dishonest with us by suddenly changing the game at the last minute, he could not work with me. I felt this was interesting, because he had only met me twice, and I mostly let Gerald do all the talking. Now, being without a contractor meant once again being without a lot because in our contract he was the one carrying the loan on the lot. (I could get into all the legaleze here of how he was in breech of contract by terminating the agreement and our legal rights to sue, but we just wanted to purchase the lot, move on and build our home.)
Easier said than done. After several phone calls to the owner of the lot, we felt safe that we could still move on, and purchase the lot after the contractor cancelled our contract. In fact, more than once a verbal agreement was made that the lot was ours. We went forward, applied with 3 banks for construction loans, and in the process agreed to the appraisal of the home (built on that lot). Then the kicker, the appraisal came though and the owner of the lot would not return any of our calls. Finally, a week later and after several attempts on our part, he called. Knowing all we had already invested into this lot, he saw the oppurtunity to take advantage of us... (third snake in the grass!!!) He informed my husband that if we did not increase our offer $5000 he would not sell to us. (Here I could go over all the issues I now have with this man's intregity, and all the opputuntities he had to increase his asking price over the previous 3 weeks before we invested so much money into the process, but again, we knew he conciously made the decision to take advantage of us... the phrase "kick a horse when he's down" applies very well... even his wife admitted how uncomfortable she felt with the situation, but that is a whole story of it's own. However, if anyone is looking for a financial advisor in Davis County, I know who NOT to reccomend.)
At this point, we called up our very kind, and very patient realtor again, looked at all the homes that had come up on the market during the last 3 months hoping to find an acceptable compromise. Unfortunately, we were just left with an even stronger impression that we need to build, in Kaysville, on that lot. All our prayers that this man would decide to be honest, uphold his verbal contracts, and be blessed for it were for naught, and we ultimately felt that perhaps we would be blessed for giving in, tightening our belts and moving forward, knowing we did all we could, and cannot change the situation.
Last Tuesday we were informed our construtction loan was approved as Gerald as our contractor, by Thursday we had closed on the lot... and now the fun begins.
(I must add here, we looked at many beautiful homes in Kaysville that are and were for sale that someone will absolutely love... perhaps even you... but they were simply not for us for one reason or another.)
Many of you know that we decided it was time to move last October, and began looking for a new home in November. Our house went up for sale in April, sold in June, and we have been "homeless" ever since. On June 27th, knowing we had to be out of our home in 2 days and desperate for a roof over the kids heads we signed a lease on a home in Clearfield (about 1 mile west of where we lived for the last 10 years). The home is in ill repair, bug infested, and only has 3 bedrooms so we are anxious to make this stay as short as possible.
When we set out on this process we had decided to only look at existing homes. We know how particular and strong headed both Gerald and I can be about things we want and felt the best way for us to reach a compromise on a home and keep our marriage intact would be to know we would have to both make concessions and find a home we could both agree on. Well, after looking at 150+ homes in Davis County, we still stuggled. For Gerald either the location was not right, power lines in back yard, high water table causing flooding in basement, not large enough yard for the garden he wants, or the dining room was too small for our table. (Yes, he measured each home with a tape measure when we got there). For me it was not enough bedrooms, too small family room/kitchen, poorly designed floor plan, or just plain homes that were not taken care of and had way too much repair/cleaning work.
Many well meaning family and friends would call with a listing they knew would be just "perfect" for us. Unaware that we really have looked at EVERY home in the area in our price range (even many above and below) that came up for sale in the last 10 months. In other words, if it had a for sale sign up (or even if they were thinking of selling it, we had ALREADY been inside). Despite the most patient realtor ever, a 12 year old daughter that spent many, many, many hours babysitting, and a computer that had 3 or 4 different MLS sites running simulaneously a minimum of 4 hours each day, our house simply wasn't out there.
Mostly out of frustration, we began looking at building our home. We began talking to the bigger builders, learning that pretty much all we were able to get through them was a tract home similar to the one we had before. Then we then began interviewing custom builders. To our surprise, not only were they better priced, but allowed us the flexiblity to get exactly (to a point) what we were looking for.
We settled on a price, lot, and builder, and began designing our home. Or so we thought. Each time we called the owner of the lot (snake #1) to place an offer he 1)would tell us either he had another offer and we had to raise our offer to match, or 2)he would raise the price of the lot the day our offer came in. I suppose he thought we wanted it so bad we would pay anything. Well, the lot is still available if anyone wants to play his games. (Not to mention, the beautiful view that sold us on the lot has been now blocked by an enourmous "monument" of a home so I anticipate the lot sitting vacant for many years to come.) Not getting that lot, our builder (snake #2) convinced us our only option was to build in Layton. The whole purpose we had wanted to move was to get to Kaysville and cut down on my 6 x per day commute there. Feeling defeted, we agreed, signed an intent to purchase agreement on the new lot, and began the count down to start. In the mean time we began doing some research on our new lot. We found out the now quite area was soon to be surrounded by 2 major collector roads to the freeway and a new highway that is being built in our area. About 3 weeks into this process I got a call from Gerald early in the morning. He was driving by Kaysville on his way to work and felt very strogly that we needed to cancel the contract on the lot and look in Kaysville again despite the financial hardship of increasing the price of the home 30K.
By that night we had found a new lot, verbally set a contract and were off to the races... or so we thought. Our contractor sent the offer in then began acting very strange. After making several concessions to him already to get this project started, (such as paying $1700 for house plans my archetect sister-in-law and structural engineer husband were working on for free), he began changing the game. He began conviently forgetting things like the bedrooms and bathroom he had agreed to finish in the basement, the fact that this was a custom home meaning I was able to pick out things like faucets and lighting that I liked. Then the kicker, as he began removing all these items... cutting the carpet allowance in half, and making it all but impossible to meet the budget and have the house we had envisioned, he raised the price $15K. Even if we wanted to, we could no longer afford the home... and the new lot.
Gerald set up an appointment with him to go over the budget to better undersand his numbers. (To this point we had priced out 2/3 of the home already and couldn't understand why his numbers were coming in so high.) The appointment was for 4pm on Monday, by 1pm I received a call from Gerald that the contractor had decided he could not build our house. The excuse he gave was that if he only had to work with Gerald it would be okay, but because I cried at our last meeting and voiced my opinion that I felt he had been dishonest with us by suddenly changing the game at the last minute, he could not work with me. I felt this was interesting, because he had only met me twice, and I mostly let Gerald do all the talking. Now, being without a contractor meant once again being without a lot because in our contract he was the one carrying the loan on the lot. (I could get into all the legaleze here of how he was in breech of contract by terminating the agreement and our legal rights to sue, but we just wanted to purchase the lot, move on and build our home.)
Easier said than done. After several phone calls to the owner of the lot, we felt safe that we could still move on, and purchase the lot after the contractor cancelled our contract. In fact, more than once a verbal agreement was made that the lot was ours. We went forward, applied with 3 banks for construction loans, and in the process agreed to the appraisal of the home (built on that lot). Then the kicker, the appraisal came though and the owner of the lot would not return any of our calls. Finally, a week later and after several attempts on our part, he called. Knowing all we had already invested into this lot, he saw the oppurtunity to take advantage of us... (third snake in the grass!!!) He informed my husband that if we did not increase our offer $5000 he would not sell to us. (Here I could go over all the issues I now have with this man's intregity, and all the opputuntities he had to increase his asking price over the previous 3 weeks before we invested so much money into the process, but again, we knew he conciously made the decision to take advantage of us... the phrase "kick a horse when he's down" applies very well... even his wife admitted how uncomfortable she felt with the situation, but that is a whole story of it's own. However, if anyone is looking for a financial advisor in Davis County, I know who NOT to reccomend.)
At this point, we called up our very kind, and very patient realtor again, looked at all the homes that had come up on the market during the last 3 months hoping to find an acceptable compromise. Unfortunately, we were just left with an even stronger impression that we need to build, in Kaysville, on that lot. All our prayers that this man would decide to be honest, uphold his verbal contracts, and be blessed for it were for naught, and we ultimately felt that perhaps we would be blessed for giving in, tightening our belts and moving forward, knowing we did all we could, and cannot change the situation.
Last Tuesday we were informed our construtction loan was approved as Gerald as our contractor, by Thursday we had closed on the lot... and now the fun begins.
(I must add here, we looked at many beautiful homes in Kaysville that are and were for sale that someone will absolutely love... perhaps even you... but they were simply not for us for one reason or another.)
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Road Rage and Cell Phones
While I have seen road rage occur, and been flipped off more than a few times, I have NEVER experienced what happened to me today.
I was driving home from work around 3:45pm. I had hit Bountiful when my cell phone rang. I make it a point not to carry on conversations while I am driving, but I do like my kids to check in so I know they got home from school okay and I can tell them how far I am from getting home. I had barely answered the phone when a car that was behind me and to the right apparently didn't like that I had answered the phone. He sped up and made his way into my lane directly beside me(until his car was taking up half my lane). I had no where to go. There was a truck immediately to my left. The driver of the car kept pointing at my phone and yelling... what I don't know... I immediately dropped my phone and floored the gas to get in front of the truck and over before I was pushed into it from the side.
I haven't decided if this jerk was trying to purposely cause me to be in an accident and hoping I would become yet another "cell phone" statistic, even though my driving had been safe up until his little antics, or if he thought he was saving the world from the devil and her 10 second phone call... but I do know, what I did was not illegal in the state of Utah and what he did was!
After I made it out front of the truck I reached to pick up my phone, which had fallen on the floor, swerving to get it... so yes, at this point, I was shaking, swerving, and freaking out, not because the phone call, but because the jerk almost killed me! I picked up my phone and immediately began dialing 911.. the only thing I could think to do... Unfortunately, either the jerk saw me dialing and guessed who I was calling, or in his haste to free the world of the devil herself--driving a mini-van on a sparse freeway, he quickly exited, cutting off 2 cars and barely making it off the ramp (way outside the road) before I could get his license plate number.
So, here is the question... was his solution worth putting all the cars in the freeway at risk because he was not happy with my 10 second call? I don't think so. Did he cause me to change my ways... he sure did... I picked up the phone and had conversations all the way home just to calm my nerves!
Please note... I do not advocate cell phone use while driving, never had, never will... especially texting!
I was driving home from work around 3:45pm. I had hit Bountiful when my cell phone rang. I make it a point not to carry on conversations while I am driving, but I do like my kids to check in so I know they got home from school okay and I can tell them how far I am from getting home. I had barely answered the phone when a car that was behind me and to the right apparently didn't like that I had answered the phone. He sped up and made his way into my lane directly beside me(until his car was taking up half my lane). I had no where to go. There was a truck immediately to my left. The driver of the car kept pointing at my phone and yelling... what I don't know... I immediately dropped my phone and floored the gas to get in front of the truck and over before I was pushed into it from the side.
I haven't decided if this jerk was trying to purposely cause me to be in an accident and hoping I would become yet another "cell phone" statistic, even though my driving had been safe up until his little antics, or if he thought he was saving the world from the devil and her 10 second phone call... but I do know, what I did was not illegal in the state of Utah and what he did was!
After I made it out front of the truck I reached to pick up my phone, which had fallen on the floor, swerving to get it... so yes, at this point, I was shaking, swerving, and freaking out, not because the phone call, but because the jerk almost killed me! I picked up my phone and immediately began dialing 911.. the only thing I could think to do... Unfortunately, either the jerk saw me dialing and guessed who I was calling, or in his haste to free the world of the devil herself--driving a mini-van on a sparse freeway, he quickly exited, cutting off 2 cars and barely making it off the ramp (way outside the road) before I could get his license plate number.
So, here is the question... was his solution worth putting all the cars in the freeway at risk because he was not happy with my 10 second call? I don't think so. Did he cause me to change my ways... he sure did... I picked up the phone and had conversations all the way home just to calm my nerves!
Please note... I do not advocate cell phone use while driving, never had, never will... especially texting!
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