Princess Sweet Pea of the Garden Gnomes

An Open Letter To Potential Owners of My House

2010-06-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

We just put our house on the market.

Here's a link to the show our realtor put together but I thought I'd also share a couple of tidbits you won't find on the MLS::)

It gets hot in the garage. Really hot. Do not store food there unless you would like to be able to eat warm spagettios without heating them in the microwave.

For optimal internet awesomeness your best bet is to run a wireless router from the upstairs bedroom. For a full price offer I will gladly leave my wireless network intact. It is named 3Princesses thanks to my sweet Bro-in-Law.

Swallows will want to raise babies on the front porch. It's very cute to see them emerge from the nest. It's less cute to clean up their poop.

If you ever find a stray cat in your garage and you know the garage door was never opened it probably got in from the neighbors garage though the ceiling.

The screen in the master bedroom window is minimally bent. This is because one day I had to climb the fence, onto the roof and break into the house. I left for a run and didn't put a key in my pocket. There is now a keypad on the garage door.

The nameplate on the front door says Barnett. My last name is not Barnett. The previous owner also was not Barnett. The Barnett in question is a sweet woman who lived here 2 owners ago and who now lives in an end unit across the street. Her name is not Barnett anymore either.

I will end with one of the things I love best about the house - There is a large jetted tub in the bathroom with a skylight above it. There is nothing better than pouring hot bath when it's raining out side and listening to the pat-a-pat of the rain on the sky-light. For an even better effect you can open the windows and get the smell of the rain and a cool breeze.

Water, Food, Shelter and Clean Underwear

2010-01-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

It is such a simple thing - a basic human necessity - the need for clean underthings.

Yesterday morning as I dressed for work I realized that I was on *gasp* my last clean underwear. It seemed unthinkable in a civilized world that my life had come to this. I made a mental note that I would have to get caught up that night.

My day then devolved into a nightmarish software release at work, a scheduling problem in picking up my kids, a fun, yet long and stressful, trip to a far away city with 4 whining kids in a mini-van... then a bright spot when I got to spend time with my sister...then more ornery kids in a van and finally culminating in the destruction of the bumper of the aforementioned mini-van as I violently backed it into a the tow-hitch of a very large truck.

This morning I awoke and immediately realized that I had not taken care of the laundry issue from the day before. Almost despairingly, I decided to check the drawer to see if I had missed something. To my great surprise the drawer was no longer empty. As if by a miracle it had been filled with clean things to wear! I nearly cried.

I got married 3 months ago and I now have the dearest, sweetest, husband on the planet.

This may not seem like a big gesture but I honestly cannot remember the last time in my life (childhood included) that laundry appeared, clean and folded in my drawer (not to mention in my desperate hour of need) without me putting it there myself.

Why my sister is better than Superman

2009-04-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

Sure Superman is faster than a speeding bullet on land and in the air but how does he stack up against my sister, Angie, who just finished the SLC 1/2 Marathon with me last weekend?

Lets see...

Did Superman ever run a 1/2 Marathon? I don't really know for sure, but it seems awfully likely that he has - or that he could.

Did Superman ever run a 1/2 Marathon with Kyptonite in his back pocket - 'Enduring to the End' despite sleep deprivation, asthma and an injured foot?

I think not.

And this, my friends, is why MY SISTER is much more impressive than Superman.

Congrats Ang!!!

Look Ma! I'm an Impressionist!

2009-04-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

New obsession : Oil Painting.

My favorite little-sister-that-has-a-name-beginning-with-'H' came over tonight and gave me a primer on oil painting.

OH MY GOODNESS! I am so hooked!

Here is my first meager attempt. I joked once to a friend at work that if I ever really took up painting I think I'd be an Impressionist. Sure enough...that is what came out of the brush - something that looks vaguely Impressionistic.

I love Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books and have been making sketches of his pictures for a while. Today I did a simple painting of our dear sweet "Toad". I'm hoping over the months and years I'll improve to the point where this stuff is actually show off-able. But I'm still pretty darn proud of myself.

Forgetting - and Hope

2009-04-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

http://xkcd.com/379/

About 2 months ago I…. well… for the purposes of this post we’ll just call it a ‘loss’ - I suffered a rather major loss in my life. Odd thing was, other than a very few tears this “loss” didn't seem to affect me much. I went on with my life and honestly had 2 of the most peaceful, productive, athletic, creative and spiritual months I can remember for a very long time.

Looking back on it now it seems like the content censor in my brain (and yes, I’m sure I have at least 2 of them. One for input, and a very lazy one for output) saw the fateful message come across his desk and decided, "Nope- you now what? She’s really too fragile to handle this at present. I mean look at this place! Work is stressing her out. We’ve just come out of 3 straight weeks of migraines and there are chemical imbalances EVERYWHERE! Serotonin production and retention are at an all time low while cortisol is out of control! Nope, nope we are going to heavily redact this one before sending it for processing. It will be like nothing ever happened..."

Now, keep in mind - it’s not that I actually had forgotten anything. I was sad. I thought about what had happened and had tangible reminders of it every day. For some reason, however, there wasn’t as much sting as I would expect. I even remarked to friends and family that I was a little worried that the other shoe was waiting to fall.

Well, it did. Last Friday I got a rather strong reminder of what happened in February. It hit me with much more force than I would have ever anticipated. Mr. Censor (don’t ask why my female brain has a male censor, I don’t know why.) took a look around my brain and saw how much healthier I’ve been lately. I’m running, meditating, eating better, drawing, painting, writing, going to church, reconnecting with friends, (breathe!) and finding some balance with work and home. Well, I suppose he decided that it was time. Not just time to deal with Friday’s news – but time to finally read and process the entire first message.

It’s been a rough couple of days. I have to say, though, I am starting to feel hopeful. Hopeful that now I can *finally* (I said FINALLY…dammit!) begin the process of putting this whole sad chapter behind me.

Hopeful.

Hopeful that there really is a new better chapter waiting to be written.

Where the Wild and Busy Things Are

2009-03-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

One of my fave books ever is 'Where the Wild Things Are'. It's one of the few things I fought for in the divorce (the other was the Dyson vacuum...but I digress)

This morning when I got into work there was an email from one of my best and favorite friends, Chelsea. I am posting it here with her permission.

The morning Corissa wore her jogging suit and ran laps of one kind and another Chelsea called her "Busy thing!"
And Corissa said, "I'll call you up!"
But she went to bed without doing her homework.
That afternoon in Corissa's room an office grew And grew And grew until the ceiling was partitioned and the walls became cubicles squared around And a desk folded up with a PC for Corissa and she booted up through Windows and Office
And worked through lunch and almost through the day and ran to the office meeting where the Busy Things are.
And when she came to the conference room where the Busy Things are they lolled in their favorite chairs and drank their caffeinated drinks and blinked their bloodshot eyes and talked to their nearest neighbor
till Corissa said, "Let's Focus!" and silenced them with her laser pointer and well-typed notes following her Power Point and they were impressed and called her the Busiest Thing of all
and named her Supervisor. "And now," Corissa decreed,
"Let the debugging commence!"------Interlude-----Play good debugging music here------
"Now retest!" Corissa cried and sent them back to their cubes without a meal break.
And Corissa the Supervisor of all Busy Things was stressed and wanted to be where someone had a large TV and surround sound and Lord of the Rings on Blu-Ray.
Then from a cubicle across the floor she heard a good soundtrack play and caught a whiff of chocolate so she resigned as Supervisor of where the Busy Things are.
But the Busy Things said, "You can't go- the developers will want to release, you know!"
But if Corissa heard, it didn't show.
The Busy Things lolled in their favorite chairs and drank their caffeinated drinks and blinked their bloodshot eyes and turned to their nearest neighbor but Corissa shut down her computer and said, "Good-bye."
And filled out her time sheet for attending the meeting and working almost all the day and through her lunch

Then found herself back in the twilight of her very own room where she found her cellphone

And she had voicemail.

Nature or Nurture

2009-02-10T17:59:00.000-08:00

I am your classic type A personality. One of the symptoms thereof is my desire, nay, need to write lists for EVERYTHING. Life goal lists, To-do lists, shopping lists, project lists, people to throw water balloons at list... you get the picture.

It appears this trait is rubbing off on my impressionable children. They currently refuse to clean their rooms if they do not have a list to follow (for more details on the room cleaning drama see post on dramakazeandtheredcurse.blogspot 'Just Clean Your Room')

A few months ago Sydney (who is now 9) wrote us up an itinerary for a mini vacation she wanted us to go on. It was fantastic.

4:00 Leave School
4:30 - 5:30 Go home and pack
6:00 Drive to hotel
6:30 Check in to hotel
7:00 Play with toys
8:00 Watch a movie
10:00 Go to bed

and so on and so forth for 2 days worth of activities. (I have it on my 'To Do' list for this year to actually do that vacation)

Today, I'm realizing I've created a monster. Sydney sat down before dinner and wrote up a list for her play date with her best friend, Anna, tomorrow.

1. Listen to Abba (2 songs) (Don't blame me, Grandma let her watch Mamma Mia!)
2. Listen to HSM3 (2 songs) (That's High School Musical 3, for those uninitiated)
3. Beat Neil at Wii tennis (The friend's brother)
4. Beat you (Anna) at Wii bowling (again) (the previous parenthetical remark '(again)' is what she actually wrote)

She is still working on it. There are a further 14 blank lines she intends to fill in. We had to have a talk about being flexible.

Then she asked how to spell 'flexible'....

"Favorite People"

2008-12-06T15:12:00.001-08:00

My entire adult life I have used the term "favorite people" to refer to those who touch my life in some way. Some people use the term 'kindred spirits'. These are those people that I just *click* with. I think it started as a way to describe a guy-friend I had in high school. We never dated - he was just a really great person and a wonderful friend. Since then I've had several people that I've felt that way about - relative strangers, co-workers, friends, family and I've even fallen in love with one or two.

A few years ago, I decided to come up with a way of explaining what the phrase 'Favorite People' actually means to me. I devised the following metaphor. It's not something I believe in literally, just a way of expressing what I mean when I use the term. It goes something like this:

One day in heaven before you were born God came up to you with a pen and a piece of paper and said, "I want you to make me a list of all of your favorite people up here. I know you're about to go to earth and it's may be scary to be cut off from all you know. I want to make it as wonderful an experience for you as possible. Now, I can't guarantee that you will get to spend mortality with everyone on your list. Some may be in your family, some may be your life long friends but many you will only meet for 5 minutes while waiting for a bus or standing in line at a grocery store.

What I will promise is this - when you do meet one you will just know - this is one of your favorite people."

This is the part where I make disclaimers and invoke all sorts of copyright, trademark, patent and magical protection clauses:

The preceding is an original work and is entirely metaphorical in nature. No actual doctrine was invoked in the writing of this post. Any similarities to actual doctrine, past or future, are coincidental. The author claims protection by whatever international, national, maritime,state, local, metaphysical and eternal laws are applicable. The use of this material in talks, fast and testimony meeting, marriage proposals (etc) without prior written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. And, so help me, if this shows up in my email inbox attributed to Maya Angelou, Mother Teresa or Eleanor Roosevelt...... (oh OK, I'll just be honored)

Why I Want to Be a Nun

2008-12-02T21:26:00.001-08:00

I have often wanted to spell out my list of pet peeves with online dating (and dating in general).

One of the first items to make my list is "People who use their profile greetings to air pet peeves". All that it accomplishes is making you sound like a negative jerk. I have to admit, I've been somewhat guilty of this in the past but I am now fully repentant and putting these thoughts in a blog where they will be read by nobody and can hardly be of any consequence.

These grievances are in no particular order.

1 ) Men who post pictures of their ex-girlfriends and/or wives in their photo album. It's a big advertisement of their expectations or possibly their insecurities. The way it reads to me is "If you are not at least this pretty do not apply" (perhaps that shows *my* insecurities... hmmm...). At the very least it makes it seem that perhaps they aren't quite over that previous relationship. It was so wonderful they want to recreate it with none other than YOU! Doesn't that sound fantastic? You can just cut the ex's face out of the picture and replace it with your own. She probably has a better body anyway.

2) The 24 Year old. For some reason, especially recently, I have been attracting the just barely legal crowd. And... *sigh*... it more often then not includes some sort of NCMO invitation. (as a side note, I had no clue what NCMO even meant until the first creepy invite) I've been told I should be flattered. I'm not. I'm told that making out with the young ones somehow will prolong my own youth and vitality (ewww! yeah, I loved Twilight, but I'm not really into the whole vampire thing.) I generally want to tell them, "Call me when you're no longer living in Mom's basement." or "Let's try again when your frontal lobe is fully developed." I want to say that but usually all that comes out is, "Sorry, I'm not comfortable with the age difference."

3) As long as we're on the subject of age differences.... The 50+ year old. I have some general rules of thumb about what age difference I think is appropriate. For instance, if the gentleman (and I use the term loosely) is biologically old enough to be my father - it's a no go. If I am not biologically old enough to have mothered his children - also not happening.

4) The ignorer. The online world depersonalizes what should be a very personal interaction. Some people think that since you aren't actually dealing with a person face to face, you do not have to extend them common courtesies. Acknowledging a person and politely telling them you aren't interested doesn't take all that much time. I don't chat with every guy that shows interest, I don't go out with every guy I chat with, and I don't accept every invitation to a second date - but I always let them know politely, and in a timely fashion, when I am not interested. It's entirely possible that most of the guys don't even care if I respond. But, there may be a few who are like me and put a ton of thought into who they bother to contact and really hate the ambiguity of an unanswered invitation.

4a) A subset of the ignorer - the "I'm not *not* interested" guy (we'll call him INNIG for short). This has only happened to me on a few (3) occasions (to varying degrees), and it's a good thing because this is much more insidious that the straight 'ignorer'. The INNIG is friendly and funny and even flirts, but he never initiates. If asked point blank if he's not interested he will avoid the question and make vague references to "liking to take things slow" or being "busy at work". INNIG will promise to talk to you later - but he never does, unless you initiate again then he returns to being all cuteness and fun. This scenario, of course, is only troubling because at this point (for some dumb reason) I've become (to varying degrees) invested in the sick 'relationship'. I wind up feeling like I'm some woefully unpopular girl who has a crush on the always affable but entirely inaccessible student body president. Guys! Give a girl a break - if you aren't interested enough in a girl to do at least some of the pursuing - LET HER KNOW!

All of this combined makes for one extremely overwhelming experience for little old introverted me. (INFJ Myers-briggs personality type). I would eschew it entirely, but my bishop says I can't actually become a nun.