Undone

isn’t this required. I think so. First of all, my goals for 2008: (courtesy of my old blog ;))

Goals for 2008
Church attendance should go up. Muchly so. – I would say in the latter part of 2008, we have been doing pretty well.
Go with my Aunt to the Temple – Uh. Sorry no. I suck
Spend more time with Scott 😉 – Yes, I always have this Goal I swear, but I don’t want to be one of those people who grows apart slowly from their spouse. I make an effort (? It’s not hard, it’s just important) to talk to Scott every day, about whatever I can think of.
Lose more weight – This will take SOME major restraint on my part. – Uh, no here too sparky. And on account of me gettin’ knocked up again– I’d have to say I’m gaining weight. Slow but sure.

Spend time with my friends (that I’ve known PRIOR to my marriage) – While this one is a failure for the most part, I have to say that at least I saw Amerlee outside of a wedding or a baby shower. Also I communicate with pre-marriage friends on facebook. I’m shameful.
Give Katie a good first birthday party – I would say her party rocked my socks.
Be supportive – I wish I had wrote down more what I had in mind here, I did my best to be supportive. I’m also working on having more faith.
Gossip less (I do have a daughter watching me now) – Yes? I try to discourage it. I admit that sometimes I vent, and the things I say aren’t nice. I should keep working on this one.
Start Family Home Evening with Katie – Better But not perfect.
Pray nightly – Still need to keep working on this.
Be less paranoid – HAHAHA! yeah right.
Show my love for my family more – I think so? I genuinely do love my family, I am pretty pathetic at showing it.
Complain less – NOPE. I’m horrible at complaining, especially when pregnant.
Finish unfinished projects (quilts, sewing, Dolls, etc) – Finished two quilts (yay) however I still have 3 quilts in the wings.
Learn how to Crochet – Nope. I tried, I’ll try again.
Stay on top of housework (weekly) – Kind of. I have to say I’m doing alright, except for on dishes.

2009 Goals:

Increased Church and Temple attendence.
Have a happy Baby in July
Attend The Specialist’s wedding
More Crocheting
more Quilt work
Get Katie’s Big girl room set up
Have a great 5th anniversary

That’s all I can think of right now, I will do my recap of the year later 😉 Keep an eye out for that. It’s time to go have fun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A girl on my message board just asked if any of us had prepared taxes professionally for a tax prep company. Which obviously, if you’re reading my blog you know I professionally get yelled at by people. It’s a job. 😉

Anyway. I responded that I usually do Turbo tax, but that my SIL (Sister In law for those who don’t chat in girly forums often) has done it for me before and that she works for a company doing accounting stuff. (This is Sukie, in case you’re dense) And then I said something that had never really occured to me. (you know just one of those things you never really think about) I said, that I am really proud of her. 🙂 It’s the truth. I don’t spread my affections too much to her (or for that matter any other SIL’s as I usually just stick with reminiscing about my brothers and how they picked on me, but have also been really sweet.) but it’s true. Sukie and I have had rough patches, but really, I love her. She’s an awesome SIL, and I know even if we’re fighting, I can call her and if I need something she’ll be there for me. She’s always very thoughtful of others, she loves to laugh, and have a good time. I really appreciate her.

🙂

I am the queen, today, of being icky. I feel icky. My back kills.  I don’t know why my back hurts so bad this pregnancy. I would mention it to my doctor if it didn’t mean another battery of tests that are completely unnecessary and painful…. and expensive. My doctor is cautious. Which is great to have in a doctor. But it’s also horrible when this baby wasn’t really expected and you don’t have $5000 saved up for tests and such. UGH. I bet my back just hurts because 1) Overweight, duh. 2) I injured my back in the 90’s babysitting, and 3) I’m pregnant. So there you have it. I hope it goes away. I will admit I haven’t taken anything for the pain today– but (!) I am planning to later after I’ve ate something.

I’m 13 weeks now. And it depends on who you ask if I’m still in the first trimester or not. Either way it should be done SOON. Which means it’s 7 weeks (approx.) until I can find out what I’m having. IF you want it in days, it’s about 48 days. 🙂 or 49. I’m not sure which, my pregnancy tickers can’t agree with how far along I am. I have had two headaches in the past week, but neither seemed to be high blood pressure related. I am trying to keep my salt consumption down, and my fresh fruit and veggies consumption up. Just to keep everything on an even keel. It’s hard though– I won’t lie. I’ll also let you know I’m seriously pumped up about eating some chinese chicken salad. I’m planning on putting some together with my Christmas Cashews. YUM YUM YUM! (yes I know this blog post is all over the place)

I’m going to go off and play for now. 🙂

Derringer Meryl [Something Silly] Out

So. Having a birthday on a sunday sucks. SURE you’re almost pretty much (and very definately at my workplace) guarenteed the day off (YAY For that) but it’s a sunday, and if you’re religious and are in a fairly religious family and have fairly religious friends… well it sure makes the day kinda blow chunks. Scott got me some AWESOME geeky amigurumi patterns. I love researching and working on crochet. The odd thing. I don’t know how to crochet. I have stupid hands. I’m pretty handy at knitting, I just need to buckle down and figure this out. I want to make some cute things. PLUS, I have a lot of cute yarn to use. I would like to make a slime first. The look like this:

Also if we have a little boy I want to do his room with dragons and knights and such… I think it’ll be cute. One of the patterns he got me was for a little dragon, so i’m excited. Hopefully I can work on getting some of these done! 🙂 Cute!

DQ (who is living in our basement now, yay!) gave me a pudding of hers for a present, which she says is a crappy present, but I say, it’s not. I was pleased. Scott and DQ really let me have it easy yesterday … which was nice. I was doing my 24 hr urine collection. I have to say, not the funnest thing to do on your birthday, but life goes on. I just need to turn that in. We watched a lot of How I met your mother, my mom and my brother called to say Happy Birthday.  Then Scott’s family came over and baked a cake, and cooked dinner. I have to say Midori did a lot of work (as well as Lorna and Qwserty)  to make my birthday rock. We had pizza and a really yummy chocolate cake. Also Midori did a bunch of my dishes, which is awesome, because I was dreading them. It’s tough to get around to stuff like that, you know?

We had a good evening, and even played a little Monty Python Fluxx. I enjoyed it. Finally I was so flippin’ tired, I had to go to sleep. I drank a TON of water yesterday, I need to keep drinking because when I do go back to turn my sample in, i have to get blood drawn. 🙁 I hate getting blood drawn. But, it’s a fact of life, that when you get pregnant, they pump blood out of you like republicans pumping oil out of alaska. HAHAH!

Katie has been completely pacifier free for weeks now. I am shocked, and somtimes I miss it. Like when she is being loud and I need quiet time.  or if she’s being grumpy and I need her to nap. She had quite the melt down yesterday, and spilt a lot of juice and spaghetti. it wasn’t a big thing. She just needed a nap really bad. I’m thinking the rocking chair needs to go back upstairs for when I have the next baby, but at the same time I’m thinking, maybe I can find a new one to get on craigslist or something. I love rocking chairs…. by which I mean recliners that rock. Sometimes you need to put your feet up and relax, and other times it’s nice to rock.  Hopefully things work out. Anyway. I had a good birthday, thanks to everyone for all the well wishing. 🙂

Derringer Meryl [crochet, why I never!] out

Within even hours of each other? I know, I’m crazy like that.

Also I want to annoy my husband’s RSS reader. Also. I found myself pondering a rather morose topic in the car while some good ole Nirvana on the way back from work. They were on a Nirvana spree this afternoon. Oddly I find I do some of my best thinking when listening to products the grunge era. Anyway. I was thinking about people who think Depression is all in your head. Psychologically speaking of course. Physically speaking they would be correct, usually the cause of depression (in most people) is a problem with Serotonin. Sweet eh? I am the only person I know who took chemistry, and did lots of bio chem work while in it. I delved really deep into the causes of depression — it related to me, and knowing about what caused it really helped me feel better.

still.

Hearing that there are people who think Depression is all psychological really chaps my hide. Seriously. I had several serious bouts of depression (clinical, I was diagnosed by a family practitioner at 15) through out my high school (and junior high school) career. While I no longer manage my depression through medication I am aware that not all depression sufferers are able to do so. I don’t like to think that they are “dependent” on the medication, though I will admit that I was dependent at one point. The withdrawal of the medication (even when done correctly tapering off over time) caused myself serious (well serious to me) physical problems, such as night tremors which lasted a year after I stopped the medication. I believe that there are people who have a problem that can’t just be helped to get over it. Some people need the medication to function normally. To feel normally. It’s hard.

I like to think that people who think depression is all psychological are simply happy naive people. People who don’t know what it’s like to lay in bed at night trying to convince themselves that God would be ok with them dying because God ultimately wants them to be happy. I imagine they don’t know what it’s like to look in the mirror and hate yourself for no particular reason at all. To hate the fake smile you plaster on all the time. To feel like you’re numb from it all.

I remember it all.

I don’t feel like that anymore. Scott and I have been medication free since we’ve been married (For me it’s almost 6 years. I’m really actually very proud of that) I would never belittle or excuse someones depression. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who is progressively sad. It’s hard to know how to help them. Just be there. let them know you’re there. Call and chat with them. Let them know you missed them if they’re away. Be Supportive. I had/have an amazing  support structure of friends and family. I know that it’s why I’m so mentally healthy (HAHA!) today. (And to all of you who are saying “THIS IS HER HEALTHY?” the answer is, aren’t you glad  you didn’t see me when I was mentally ill?)

Derringer Meryl [HEY HEY, I got a new complaint] Out

I don’t aspire to much now days, I work 40 hours a week, have a loving husband and a beautiful daughter– and a new baby on the way!

But I dream of a day that I can review video games for parents. I realize that this seems silly, there are lots of game review sites out there, I would say A LOT. But once upon a time i wrote a feminist review of Legend of Zelda Wind Waker, and have loved writing introspective pieces about video games as a woman ever since. Now as a mom, and as a former gaming associate I am aware of how blissfully unaware most parents are. Some parents just don’t care about what their kids play and others really read and review and scrutinize games.

I want to help those parents. If I were to “dream big” i would quit my job, mommy full time and play video games all the time to support us by selling my reviews to a magazine. HAHAHA! yeah, that’s dreaming big. Once upon a time it was my goal to work at GS for 7 years and intern at GI as a writer. HAHAHAHA! To be honest, I did work for GS for about 6 years and really while it’d be awesome to write for a magazine and work from a cozy office in my house with slippers on– I realize it’s MUCH more of a pipe dream than I know. I need to play more games. However the circle of life is this:

fun stuff takes money
serious stuff takes money
serious stuff is more important than fun stuff.
there is no money for fun stuff

which is sad, I remember the days of playing games on my Xbox and having a really GREAT time with it, and on my game cube, and even more recently my Wii and 360 (ahh I miss you 360, at least I know you have a good home!) I wish that we were rich and could have all the awesome stuff in the world… but instead– I have an awesome house, an awesome husband, and a super sweet and awesome daughter. I wouldn’t give them up for any amount of 360’s and I have to say I certainly wouldn’t get myself into debt for one. Sorry, but no.

that’s my dream though. I imagine days of waking up and fixing breakfast, playing a few hours of games, taking notes, playing with  my kids, gardening, cooking lunch, doing dishes, more games, more notes, playing some with my kids, discussing the game and it’s aspects, letting them play for a bit to watch how they handle it… whoo. Dinner, hang out, bed for kidlets and typing up my notes and writing a witty and insightful article for a gaming magazine. Or a parent’s magazine! Either one!

In all of that all I would change about my life (not my house not my kids, not my husband, nada) I would only change my life to  my dream job. I miss writing. I miss gaming. 🙁

Derringer Meryl [le sigh] Out