What now?

I'm sure everyone reaches that point in there life where they wonder, "What now?"

There is also a point where, usually as a teen "that knows everything" that you had a plan for life. As far as I can remember here was my plan.

1- Graduate high school  (check)
2- Go to college (check)
3- Get married in the temple (check)
4- Graduate college (check)
5- Get a job using your degree (check)
6- Get a house (check)

My 5-10 yr plan for my life from high school has basically be fulfilled. No it didn't happen exactly as I planned it, in the order I planned it but what really ever goes according to plans?

I got another email saying it was my "last chance" to purchase my pictures from college graduation. I look at them every time, even though I have no intention of buying them. Today I noticed that in the 3.5 yrs since graduation I've gained weight. In fact I can tell you that I have probably gained 30lbs since that picture was taken. Just a realization that kicks you in the gut. It made me reflect on my last 3.5 years of life. What have I really done? And what do I do now that I have reached all my goals?

Set new goals you say? I kind of feel like Charlie Eppes from the show Numbers when he is faced with writing a letter to whoever takes the big fancy office after he does. He realizes he doesn't really know what he wants in life and thus finds it harder to write this letter. If I don't know what I want how am I suppose to set new goals?

I think part of me fears new goals because that means I have to accomplish something and that I might fail along the way. In fact I feel like I have failed at almost every goal that I have tried to set the last few years. It is like I have lost my goal setting skills. I use to have them, they existed... I'm not sure where they went. Maybe they dwindled with my passions in life. I use to love life and everything about it.Oh, my passions? What were my passions? Waterpolo, swimming, dance, running, going out with friends, feeling like I had the world at my fingertips, designing things...

but wait... aren't you a graphic designer? Why yes, yes I am, but the dirty truth they don't tell you in college is that not every graphic design job is treated equally. There are jobs that are titled graphic designer but really you are just a production artist... basically a production artist is almost like a CNA of the design world, appreciated because they clean up all the poop, etc that those above them don't want to. I got moved to a new position in my company that I thought would provide more creative opportunities but, alas, I was wrong at least so far. Creativity isn't just a thing, it is more like a muscle. If not used it will shrivel. I feel like my creativity muscle is becoming severely atrophied. I'm not ready to give up on my job just yet so I've been looking for other, personal projects to get back into constant "creative juices flowing" status.

In design school I felt like a creative genius all the time. I was the bomb! I feel like getting my creativity "back" will help with other things in life. I'm sure creativity, or lack thereof, isn't the only prob. I am slowly trying to identify what seems to me holding me back and tackle those things. This takes patience. My brilliant, lovely mother will be the first to tell you it is not my biggest virtue.

I need to get back to my goal setting ways. I just have to. I also have to realize that I am no longer 16 or 17 when I could easily do 25 military push ups without batting and eye and 500 yards of swimming was only the warm up. I am no longer 168lbs of mostly muscle from swimming 3-5 hours 5-6 days a week. I am now 168lbs of what feels like half muscle and half fat. I can no longer get away with only 4-5 hours of sleep each night and just be a normal human being. I need like 7-9 or I'm kind of raunchy. I can no longer just up and run a 10k with 0 preparation this 28 yr old body needs a month for that... probably.

I do have a lot of things, that I am truly grateful for. I have an awesome family. I have a great mom that I have decided knows how to do everything and is willing to help me even when it is me being a baby because I can't seem to get my crap together to organize my office. I have good genes. Ex: I look about 10 yrs younger than I am... at least to people older than me, I don't think the teens are fooled. Also, I don't get sick very often *knock on wood*. I can run. I can swim... well I'm pretty sure I can. I am able to laugh at myself (and I do more than I probably should... great I'm going toe that person that laughs at their own jokes, all alone lol). I am most grateful for my fantabulous husband that puts up with me and eats whatever I cook no matter how crazy it gets. He cracks me up and can always make me smile when I am blue. Sometimes I wish I had a brain as logical as his, but then I wouldn't really be me and all the whimsicalness that entails. I am just glad he found me and I found him and that we can be weird together =)

So here's to whatever my "what now?" mind journey finds me. Here is to creativity and new adventures that I happen upon. I hope I can restart the passion for life that I once had, and if my old loves don't hold the same allure for me that they once did, then I hope I can find whatever they will be replaced by.

Go team!

I'm addicted to Racing

I signed up for another half marathon. This will be my 4th...I think(read about my first one here).

I love races. Training isn't always my favorite, it does take time and energy, all of which I feel like I have little of already. I can't think of a race that I have turned down in the last 3 years because I didn't want to. If I do turn down a race, it is because I am lacking funds or I am already on another team for said race.

Races are awesome, running is great (even though sometimes I forget that I love it) and people's reaction to the fact that you are running a half marathon is great, for the most part. I think part of why I love races so much is....well several reason's actually.

1) the "herd" of like minded racers at the start line all doing their pre-race rituals. Everyone has their thing they have to have or do to really feel like they are starting a race. My race M.O. is a banana and PB with some stretching. There is just a buzz of excited energy. There is usually music pumping, people talking and some dancing. It is just awesome to be a part of it all.

2) Running with a bunch of people. It is just fun. People cheer you on along the way. If you stop for any reason, other than at a water station, about 20 people will ask you if you are okay

3) The signs people hold up to encourage runners. My favorite, to date, "Don't poop your pants." If you aren't a runner you may not really find the humor in it.

Races are awesome.

I am lucky to have a husband and parents that support me in my running habits/addictions. When taking on anything new or doing something so "crazy" it is so nice to have support and people to cheer you on. Having running buddies has always helped too, whether they are ones you actually run with or just talk about running with. I'm grateful that the people closest to me don't roll their eyes and my dreams and goals or talk to me with a voice of doubt in my abilities.

Big thanks to my support team!

I feel like I'm taking Crazy Pills

You know how sometimes life just seems to get out of hand?

I'm there now.

There are several factors.

1) I still have boxes of crap our belongings in several rooms in the house. Everything doesn't have a place therefore everything can't be in its place. It drives me bonkers but I feel like the only time I have to conquer the box beasts is Saturdays and Sundays. And Sundays I try to treat as the day of rest, as I have been taught... but I'm finding it more difficult to do so.

2) I have a puppy. LOVE HER! But she is kind of crazy, as is expected with a 4 month old pup. She is growing fast. She is in the teething stage of life and although I haven't suffer many casualties by way of shoes or things being completely destroyed my hands have suffered from her biting. I've tried the holding her mouth closed, yelping like a puppy and tucking her lip under her teeth so she is basically biting herself. All of these methods seem to get her more excited and more mouthy. I seriously feel like the worst puppy mom ever. She seems to have gotten worse the last few weeks, but we have also gotten of our routine. I'm hoping that getting back to that routine, hoping that she gets more sleep, etc, will help. I am get frustrated and like I said I feel like I am doing something wrong which makes me feel like the worst puppy mom ever.

3) Church. I feel that I am failing at church. Moving to a new ward has not really helped. We have been in our house 2.5 months. We go to sacrament most Sundays, we know like 2 people in our ward that we talked to while we were fixing the house and they moseyed on over to say hi. Maybe I have just been spoiled with awesome wards thus far in my 27 years of life but I really find it weird that no one has reached out to us in that 2.5 months of time. No phone call, no coming to our house, nothing. Well I did get a belated bday present from the relief society but unfortunately I wasn't home when they brought it so I didn't get to meet them. I have a hard time going to places where I don't feel like I know anyone and church is becoming one of those places. I mean no one even talks to us when we go to church. It's weird to me! It really makes me wish that I were a super extrovert and that is was easy for me to just talk to people and make people be my friend but I can't muster the courage to do that. Its just not a natural easy thing for me.
I know there are things that I could/should be doing for my own personal spiritual growth and those things have fallen by the wayside as well. I have noticed a difference in myself, I don't like it. It isn't helping me and it isn't helping my husband either. I have made a mental note of the things I need to get back in to my routine that I know will help me to feel better about myself, my life and well just all around better.

4) I've lost my journal. Okay it isn't exactly lost it is just lost in the mess of item #1. Having a journal has always helped me sort out stuff, get over stuff and just get things off my chest and brain. I guess I never realized how important is was to me (cause I am not the most consistent journal writer) until I have gone without it. Now I miss it.

5) My to-do list. There are so many things that I would like to get done, that aren't housework, but I just can't squeeze them in. Lets be honest, not even the regular house hold chores are getting done because I feel I have so little time and things that are more important. So my house just looks like a pig sty most of the time. A lot of "little" projects at my house seem to unravel into much bigger things. Example: I have a crap craft table that I want to move to our 2nd kitchen easy enough right? Wrong, in order to move it down there I need to move some cupboards that are sitting on the floor, which I need to decide if I still want them downstairs, really I would rather have shelving ceiling to floor where they use to be. So just build shelves? Well currently there is a dryer and unused washer in that space. We have a washer upstairs in our garage that we use and plan to put the dryer up there too BUT that takes some electrical rewiring or wiring which we (by we I mean my hubby cause I know nothing about that stuff and he is genius, I just flip the breaker switches and bring tools or beverages) haven't had time for. So at our house, one does not simply move a table to its new home.

You may wonder what we are spending all our time on. Well I am up at 5 AM to get up, get puppy up, walked, fed, and pottied. Then I have to get ready for work, feed myself, make lunches for me and hubby. We also play with puppy and do some training with her. Takes me about 45 mins to get to work, sometimes I workout at lunch, 60 minutes home (yay traffic), make dinner (hubby walks and feeds the puppy), eat, clean up (dishes by hand, no dishwasher), play/train puppy. Usually by this time it is 7:30 or 8, I'm EXHAUSTED and I really just want to go to sleep but I still haven't accomplished anything on my to-do list.

In my mind, once I get all those boxes cleaned out and everything has a place then that will solve a lot of this. I am staying up til about 10:30 or 11 trying to get things off my list and get organized.

A New Family Member

Friday the hubby and I picked up our puppy. It was awesome! I was happy, excited and nervous. Here I am taking home this little puppy that I am now responsible for the outcome of this puppy's life. The way that she acts will be my responsibility. Everyone told/warned me how hard it is to have a puppy, like I've never had one before. I've had dogs most of my life so I know what it is like having a puppy... but did I really? When you have a puppy as a youth typically your parents end up taking care of it. You get to pick up the poop and that is about it, well for me anyway.

Our puppy's name is Isis, no not after the terrorist group but the Egyptian god of family, love, and marriage. My weekend with Isis, and the dog we were puppy sitting, was pretty awesome. We had some potty accidents, which is to be expected, but I was to impressed some cousins when I told Isis to go potty and she did so immediately. She is so smart after only this weekend she is getting the hang of sit and go potty. She has made it a full 3 hours in her crate, and she hasn't made a mess in her crate, yet.

Her first night away from her mama and siblings her little whimper was so sad, it actually made me tear up a little bit. Sometimes she whines when we put her in her crate sometimes she doesn't but he does not whine nearly as much as I expected. And she is more mellow then I was anticipating.

This will be my test to see if I can handle being a mom. Children sort of terrify me. Being the one that has to take care of this lil fur ball all the time also kind of terrifies me. I mean I'm in it with the hubby so I am not alone. Sometimes it is hard to say no to her adorable little face and sometimes (after little sleep Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) I get stressed cause she just peed in the same room 3 times within about an hour. In my tired little mind it was like, "great she is peeing everywhere! I can't do this, I don't remember how to potty train. I am the WORST puppy mom EVER!!" My hubby reassured me that I am not the worst puppy mom ever and calmly removed her from the room and cleaned up the mess.

She is uber adorable and fairly mellow. We took her to a family party on Sunday and she was so good just hangout while everyone greeted and pet her. With all that interaction she was pooped! I'm so excited to have her in our little family and can't wait to see her grow and learn more.

If you are getting a puppy I would recommend Cesar Millan's Short Guide to a Happy Dog. I haven't even made it all the way through the book and I feel like it has helped me a lot. I feel like I understand dogs better than I have.

I just love her to pieces and can't wait for all the crazy adventures that our ahead of us.

Keeping up Appearances

I'm sort of awful at this blog writing thing these days. It has been 2.5 months of craziness! It has been full of burning the candle at both ends working late at the house, carpooling to work with the hubster, fighting of the feeling of absolute overwhelming-ness and chasing deer out of our yard.

I had a co-worker that told me to expect to see deer on a daily basis, just about. I didn't believe him. Now I do. Almost everyday that we pull up to work on our house there is a deer or 2 or 7. Last night we had 2 bucks and about 5 does. I chased them away from our cheaply protected veggie garden. I don't care if they are in my yard just don't want them eating my veggies... well they have already consumed some of my plants beyond repair. I think I might get cucumbers. Anyway when they originally got into our little netted off garden I cried. I had so much hope and excitement and they ate it all. Lets just say Bambi and I aren't on good terms this year. Our goal is to save money to build a fence that is "deer proof" but that can get expensive so we will see. On a positive note, they cleaned up all our fallen, and no good, apricots.

In our house adventures I have learned I never want to hire another contractor so long as I live. It is not that our contractor was horrible, he was nice, it was the people that he hired that weren't my fav. Because of the way our loan was we didn't have control of the money it was the bank. If I did I would have paid the sub-contractors myself and they could get paid when they did their job right. I am not a professional and it is sad when I can do a job better than someone that gets hired as one. I felt like all we could do was complain to our contractor. Our plumber was the WORST. I think he ended up coming back and fixing almost everything thing that he touched/installed. We are finally near the end. All that is left is fixing a hole in the wall that had to be made for the plumber to fix his mistake. hopefully they can handle doing a good job on fixing the wall. We have moved most of our stuff into the house we are just waiting for a certificate of occupancy from the inspector. It has been a roller coaster to say the least. I am just excited to move in and live there!

Come the 2nd week of August we will have a little furry addition to our family!! We have a female Greater Swiss Mountain dog reserved in a litter that just turned 6 weeks old yesterday! Except for the last 5 years I have had a little furry dog companion in my life. I'm excited to have that again and be sharing it with my husband, who will be a first time dog owner. I am excited and nervous cause it has been 15 years since I have had to handle the puppy stage. Granted my last dog acted like a puppy up until the last few days of her life. There are a lot of things that I want for this dog that I didn't have for other puppies in my life. Crate training will be a new thing, most of my dogs growing up were outside dogs, except when too cold in the winter. However when Abby slept inside I could hear her sneaking around checking out places she wasn't normally allowed. Now that I have my own house I get to get a large dog, like I have always wanted, and it can sleep inside every night. I could go on and on about how excited I am to have her in my life. I also found out there is a chance I may be able to bring her to work with me. I'll have to get another crate for under my desk but I kind of really hope it happens. I will create a presentation to argue why we need dogs readily available for a pet items team to utilize for their products. =)

There are times I am really super grateful to have certain people in my life. I know I should feel this way all the time but you all know how life goes and we take things for granted. I am grateful for my mom. The reason that is sticking out right now... well there are several. First, she is super handy and has helped the hubby and I A LOT when it comes to our remodeling project. Her skills and knowledge have been priceless, well technically she has probably saved us money with her knowledge. I am also very glad that she is willing to spend hours of her time helping us. She has been out at our house almost as much as we have. I honestly don't know how she does all the amazing things that she does. I'm convinced she is super woman and has just kept it secret this whole time. Another reason i am grateful for my mom is that she lets me run my own life, and has for a long time. She taught me right from wrong and let me govern myself. I had rules and I knew that breaking those rules had consequences that never ceased. I'm sure if you ask my siblings I had less rules and got away with more, and that may be true, but I'm going with I was just more angelic (sshh don't tell them). Seriously though, the only things my mom pushed me or nagged me about was cleaning up my room (and after myself) and doing good in school. When she didn't agree with choices I was making in my life she would let me know she was concerned and why and that was it. I will admit now I probably should have listened but I didn't and I learned my lesson. Other than that she just let me do my thing. She never bothered me about when I was going to get married, get a Phd, get a job or have babies. She just accepts that I will get there and do that when it is my time. I LOVE IT! I love my mom. She is the best.

Well that is all for now.  =0)

Reality Check?

Wow! 7 months can fly by quickly. Nutshell update:

Got a new job 7 months ago

Signed for a new house 3 weeks ago

Lost my best friend's mom (so my other mother) 2 weeks ago

5 days ago was my 2nd wedding anniversary.

Been working 8-14 hour days every week day and then (on those 8 hour days) going out to the new house and doing manual labor to get some things improved.

At the end of the month my hubby and I are going to be foster parents to a kitty names Eva

Nutshell update done.

Sitting in the lender's office signing paper after paper after paper made me realize that I am no longer 20. I tend to forget that I keep aging each year. Also, that after 2 years of marriage I still suck at signing my last name.

I love our house. In all of it's need for love glory. We have land and a decent sized house. And I love all the work and would rather do that than my paying job. The thing that I think has been the hardest for me about the house is all the help people offer but don't follow through with. I don't know why it bothers me so much. Probably because for me when I offer help or say I am going to do something I do everything in my power to get it done or anything I need to in order to be there to help and I don't get why other people are like that. I've had tons of people offer their help but only 5 people actually show up and help. What the heck? I know there are some that want to but can't because they have a new house of their own that they have to handle or are dealing with other life crisis things. Shrug another thing in life I don't understand.

I am excited and nervous to be a kitty foster parent. I've never owned a cat personally but I love animals so it should be really interesting.

Well, back to work

Peace out.

If I had the Strength of a Pioneer! & Buckskin Gulch

Last Sunday my father-in-law invited me to go on a hiking trip with him and some of his family. He was going to leave on Friday and mentioned that since I didn't have a job I already had the time off. I agreed to go wondering if I was crazy. Oh I forgot to mention this hike is about 20 miles.

We left for Kanab, UT to stay the night and start out hike early Saturday morning. We weren't sure if we were going to be able to do our hike with all the government shutdowns and what not. This hike is called Buckskin Gulch and is part of the Escalante National Monument, even though it was seemed it would not work out we decided to meet in Kanab and if it didn't open up then we would hike somewhere around Kanab. Fortunately it opened up and we were able to do the hike (not that there were barricades or anything to stop us).

The hike was BEAUTIFUL! I'll post pictures as soon as I get some from my father in law. The first 13 miles are mostly slot canyons. There are parts that open up and there are little grassy/weedy sand bars. There were muddy puddles that we had to wade through and hope we didn't lose our shoes in the mud. There isn't much elevation change, except when you have to climb rocks. There are some parts that you have to find your way around, over, or under gargantuan boulders. The formations that the canyon walls make are amazing, sometimes they appear to be straight up and down while others times they are wavy and bubbly looking. After the 13 miles you have to wade up river for a little bit and then the trail ends up going from one side of the canyon to the other. Our group kept track and we crossed water 150 times within out 20 mile hike.

It was kind of funny, I could estimate how far we had gone based on the things that started hurting. Since I have done half marathons (13.1 miles) I knew which of my body parts start aching at certain times. About 10 miles my knees started hurting. It's just a little spot on the outside and below the knee cap. They always ache at that point and certainly after the race. Once my knees started hurting I knew we were close to the end of the slot canyons and I ended up being right.

The water was a little chilly and we were burning daylight. The way my feet are built the bottom of my pinky toes tilt in towards my "ring" toe so I often get blisters where they are squished and rubbed by my "ring" toe. I tried to help that with moleskin. With 20/20 hindsight it was pointless to put on moleskin before spending 7 miles walking in and out of water, but it helped for a little bit. Once we crossed the river a ton of times and with the water being the temperature it was my feet were slightly numb so any pain on my feet didn't bother me much. My only problem now was my knees. Both knees hurt but my right one hurt much worse than my left. As we trekked on the sun started setting, my right hip joined the painful club. It hurt to walk on land and it hurt worse to walk through the water. There was nothing I could do, I had already taken all the ibuprofen that is allowed according to the bottle directions. The only relief was to stop and stopping meant the trek would last longer so I forged ahead, bit my lip when it got really bad and held back my tears. I was going to make it through.

I wasn't the only one hobbling along, thankfully, my father in law had some pain in his foot so he needed the pair of hiking poles we had, that I had been using. My aunt (in-law?) was having her lower back tighten up with made it hard for her to lift up her legs. It got to point were I would tell my leg to lift so it could clear this rock that was sticking 2 inches up from the ground and it lifted up only about a 1/2 inch. That was kind of scary only cause I've never had an experience where my body didn't do what my brain was telling it to do.

As the sun disappeared behind the mountains, we were still in good spirits, however they seemed to fade as the sun faded. Once it was dark it seemed to make the trip harder. We couldn't clearly see where we were going and we had to make sure we were staying near the river. Each bend of the river we hoped would reveal the end of our hike. Part of our group went ahead to get the cars. They marked the place were we needed to get off the trail with a flashlight and a glow stick. I have never been so happy to see a glow stick in my life.

I am glad that I did it, and survived it. Will I do it again? I am not sure at this point. I am still healing. Most of my muscles are fine now, I can walk up the stairs like the average human being. My biggest pain now is one of my little pinky toes. I think if I were to do it again, I would go the other way. Start with most of the water wading and finish in the slot canyons. That way I could wear one pair of shows that get supper wet and muddy. Once I got to the convergence I would switch to another pair of shoes and socks so they can be dry for the rest of the hike. Well most of it, we went through water 9 times in the slot canyon and I am sure that number changes with each year.

After this hike I have a whole new appreciation for pioneers. I did a trek when I was in young women's. We had to wear pioneer dresses, aprons, bonnets, and used handcarts to haul our stuff. That was kind of tough. We were out for 3 days and I don't think the total number of miles we went was more than 13. For me I know it wasn't because I got some beastly blisters and they wouldn't let me walk on the hardest longest day. But to go 20 miles in one day I was done and to think they would do that, go to bed, wake up and do it again the next day, some without shoes! Props to the pioneers.