Up to snuff...

I used the phrase "up to snuff" in my last post, does anyone know what this means or more to the point, where it came from? Maybe it's something like a group of guys passing around a can of snuff and they were "up to snuff" if it was their turn for the can. Who knows.

And by the way...you have E. Coli

The nurse from my doctor's office called yesterday. She told me I have E. Coli. How strange is that? I went for a UTI and found out I have food poisoning. I guess this explains why I felt sick all weekend and am still not feeling up to snuff.

I was down and feeling sick both Friday night and Saturday day, so I can't even blame McKenna for choosing Joe's Crab Shack for her birthday dinner. Darn it! You know I love you Kenna, I've never stepped foot in there for anyone else!

Luckily the doctor seems to think that the antibiotics I'm already taking for the other infection should knock out the E. Coli too. Perhaps my body has sort of malfunctioning reject chip that causes it to get strange illnesses no one else around me seems to get. I thought I should be grateful for the UTI since it's how I found out about the E. Coli, until I read on the CDC website that some strains of E. Coli can actually cause them.

Just call me I.P. Orangeley

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning Monday morning, randomly. There was nothing out of the ordinary about that or the fact that I laid in bed and read my book instead of going back to sleep like a normal person would. However, I realized after a while that I felt anything but normal.

For the last couple of days of my weekend I felt nauseated and had a horrible headache, but just figured it stemmed from staying up too late and lack of sleep. Nausea gave way to a urinary tract infection and all its miserable glory!

I've finally learned my lesson about waiting to take care of it after several UTIs turned to horrific kidney infections, the last resulting in my miscarriage last November. So I got into the doctor first thing and got antibiotics and that sweet little brown pill that makes your pee look like orange Kool-aid or Tang.

When our friend found out the medicine has the interesting side effect of altered urine color, he was sorely disappointed at it being spring and therefore no snow on the ground. (Boys!) Whatever silly side effect, I was grateful that its other side effect is that my pain went away and I could finally cope.

It's 3:45 Wednesday morning, again I can't sleep, but at least it's not frequent/painful urination keeping me awake this time.

How to get kids to eat their vegetables

If vegetables tasted like this, I would totally eat them!

My co-worker was craving sugar and thought it would be a good idea to bring us each a "single serve" brownie cake. "Single serve" is what they call it, I think 4 people could get their fill on it. It's pure evil, dang it!

Bake Sale

Today there was a bake sale at our work in order for the incentive committee to raise money for our summer party. My mom decided it would be fun to make some more pupcakes. They're so cute and easy, but time consuming and make your hand hurt from all that piping. So after a dozen of them we decided to do something different with the other dozen. I made cute sunflowers by piping sunny yellow petals and filling the center in with mini-chocolate chips.

I also made a giant cupcake. When I couldn't figure out how to decorate the whole thing I decided I'd make a giant Hostess cupcake. I scooped out the center and filled it with whipped cream, then frosted the whole top chocolate and did cute white swirls across the top. Kenna suggested last time I made a giant cupcake that I should put something next to it to show how big it is, so I put the regular Hostess cupcake next to it. Problem is, if you hollow out the center of a cake and fill it with whipped cream you need to put something over that hole. Whipped cream is obviously not a strong enough base for frosting.

With baking you live and learn.... and you get to eat your mistakes! (clearly I make a lot of mistakes!)

Next time, how about a big NEON sign with flashing lights?

Heavenly and I did something very adult and very scary tonight. We put an offer on a house, our very first house. I'm a little bit of everything (excited, nervous, settled and terrified) all rolled into one. I thought making a decision to buy our first car was difficult enough and it was about 10 times cheaper than a house!

We talked about it and thought about it, we prayed about it and stewed about it, we went to the temple to serve others and hoped for answers to our questions. I didn't feel at all settled after the temple, I felt peaceful like I always do after I leave the temple. I just didn't feel like I got a concrete answer from my Heavenly Father. At least not the kind of answer I was looking for. I wanted a solid "Yes" or "No," seriously I would have settled for "Not right now." I just didn't feel like I got any of that. My real estate agent, who is also my cousin and has been excellent to work with us, called a couple of times to find out if we'd decided anything. He told me to pray hard and that it never hurts to "sleep on it." I just didn't know how long he'd wait for me to make a decision and I didn't want to make a decision if I wasn't getting an answer from Heavenly Father because I didn't want to give the wrong one.

I added up our monthly income and subtracted all of our bills, even factoring in tithing, groceries and gas for the car. Having it all in black and white helped me to see if we could really do this. Heavenly shook his head a lot, but didn't say much other than that. I didn't know if he thought what I came up with meant we could afford it or if we should keep looking. (Men are so annoying sometimes!) Yesterday I was talking to my sister Haha, and told her about my findings. I told her we still have money left over every month after gas and bills and food. She was much more positive and said that it sounded great, that we could easily do it. (I don't know about easily, but I appreciated her enthusiasm.)

After talking to Heavenly about Haha's reaction, he told me that's how he felt too he just hadn't said anything. (See what I mean about how annoying men can be?) So I called Brandon and told him the decision we'd come up with, that we'd like to put an offer on the house.

As soon as I made the decision and said it out loud I felt the wave of relief and positive assurance I'd been waiting for. Sometimes our Father in Heaven doesn't tell us "yes" and he doesn't tell us "no," and he doesn't even tell us "not right now." Sometimes he allows us to make a decision for ourselves and then he tells us whether that decision was the correct one. Our Father in Heaven helps us to grow by allowing us to make our own decisions and then rewards us with warm fuzzies afterward.

I appreciate the opportunities God gives me to learn and grow by testing my faith, but next time I wouldn't mind a great big NEON sign with flashing lights! (Just once.)

No hope for the future...

I answered a 911 call and a timid little voice on the other end of the line said, "There's a car outside that wrecked, can you come fix it?"

"There's a car outside that's wrecked?" I confirmed, "How did it get wrecked?"

"It wrecked into a fence." She said matter of factly.

"A car wrecked into a fence, is anyone hurt?" I questioned.

"Uh-huh. Can you come fix it?"

I started a call on my screen of a car accident and at this point felt like I needed to get some more information and hopefully talk to an adult.

"Can I talk to your mommy or your daddy?"

"She told me not to stay on too long." Click.

When I called back it was an older gentleman who answered the phone. I informed him that a cute little boy or girl had called 911 and said there was a wreck, that a car had crashed into a fence outside of the house and people were hurt.

"There's a car wreck in front of the house? Hang on, let me see." (Um, not exactly what I expected.) When he got back to the phone he told me there was no car wreck in front of the house or anywhere that he could see, so I explained to him that it was a child who had called and perhaps it was just a prank. So he told me his granddaughter was there and perhaps it was her, "Here, can you tell her mother what you just told me?"

Another voice got on the phone, I explained again how her imaginative little girl had called 911 and told me that a car had wrecked into a fence in front of the house and people were hurt.

"Oh, I didn't even know she knew the number for 911," was her reply.

When I have a more intelligent conversation with a 5 year old than I do with her mother, I worry about the future. Or, maybe it means I should worry less about the future and wonder how that little girl came to be as bright as she is with such little help.

Happy Un-Mother's Day!

I thought I hated Valentine's Day when I was single, but I've come to realize that Single Awareness Day was never as difficult as the Un-Mother's Day I'll be having tomorrow.

Every Mother's Day my church has a small gift for all of the mothers in the ward. Not wanting anyone to feel left out they include all women 18 years old and older. I've always hated this, always, even when I wasn't married and fighting with infertility. When I stood up I could feel the stares of others upon me as if to say "You're not a mother." Of course these curious glances were innocent eyes stopping at the face of each standing woman as they wandered around the congregation. Innocent or not, I could not escape the way they seared into my soul and made me feel completely inadequate as a woman.

Tomorrow if I wake up early enough after my grave yard shift to go to church, I will encounter similar inquiring eyes. Except in this "multiply and replenish the earth" community that is the Mormon church, I feel much more pressure to be a mother than I would receive from the outside world. Outside of Utah it is perfectly acceptable for a couple to be married 2 years without having a child, and perfectly acceptable for me to be working instead of being at home raising children. In fact the only thing the outside world might find odd about my marriage is that even though I married at the ripe old age of 25, it's still much younger than many outside of Utah choose to get married.

I'm certain you mean well with your well wishes and words of encouragement, and I'm not sure how to gracefully accept them and still tactfully tell everyone that I'd rather not have any of it. A kind word of encouragement to you may buoy you up, a card may wish you well. I'm not a mother and I'd really rather not be reminded of that fact. What works to comfort you does not work for me. Please don't offer to have the baby for me, it seems very generous to you, to me it is a reminder that not only can you have your own children, but you can have mine for me too.

I'm grateful for a mother-in-law who brought up a son who is gentle and kind, caring and compassionate. For teaching him hard work, responsibility and selfless service. I'm grateful to my mother-in-law for teaching her son to respect women and treat them properly and most of all to love me fiercely and unconditionally.

I'm grateful for a mother who, when it comes to me, has always celebrated this day with great sensitivity. Her presents and cards have always reflected on my worth as a daughter and gratitude for making her a mother and making her role as a mother easier.

But Officer, I had the munchies!

"Two Weeks Notice" starring Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant, has a great conversation outlining what defines an emergency.

Sandra Bullock: "You said it was an emergency! And didn't I memo you as to what constitutes an emergency?"
Hugh Grant: "Yes, large meteor, severe loss of blood and what was the third one again?"
Sandra Bullock: "DEATH! And you're not dead!"

A call we got last night has kept these comedic tag lines swirling through my head all day. Surely more people should take Sandra Bullock's advice when trying to determine whether their complaint warrants a call to 911.

Sometime after 1 AM a female called from one of the rest areas in our area. Her cell phone kept cutting out and my partner was barely able to ascertain her location, let alone what the emergency was. He called back after the phone disconnected and what he found out had me flabbergasted! The woman was calling 911 because the vending machines at the rest area were not working properly.

I've tilted and shaken, bumped and pounded on a vending machine. I've even contorted, however unsuccessfully, my arm in an attempt to get that ungettable snack food. In all the times I've punched my selection only to watch with disappointment as the corner of the packaging snags on my delightful 75 cent cupcake, not once did it ever occur to me that I should call the police! After all, what more could he/she do, shoot the dang thing?

THIS POST INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

Have you ever seen a page in a training manual or text book that reads:

"THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK"

And except for that sentence the page really is blank. Would someone look at that same page, sans warning, and worry what they might be missing? And isn't writing the message on the page sort of an oxymoron anyway? It's no longer blank once it has writing on it. If it's supposed to be blank, leave it blank!

I feel the same way about people who write blog posts to inform their readers they have nothing to write. Write when you have something to write. There's nothing I hate more than getting to the end of a post that's several paragraphs long, all the while hoping if I keep reading they'll eventually get to the point.

If you don't write anything I'll understand you don't have anything to say or write about, most of your readers are smart enough to make the connection too.