I’m Exhausted but Pretending I’m Not (and ten other random facts)

Fact #1: I’m quitting soda… today… again…

Fact #2: Our first tulip bloomed yesterday! Ours are always a little later than everyone else’s because they are in the shade. 

Fact #3: A couple of weeks ago I got a mysterious chunk stuck in my hair. I think my curling iron may have touched and melted something plastic, and then when I used it, it came off in my hair. I couldn’t get it out without ruining my hair (I won’t give you the list of things I tried, but it’s long). I ended up having it in my hair for over a week, and I just worked around it. Finally I went crazy and ripped it out. 

Fact #4: My in-laws have the creepiest basement. Wanna see?

Fact #5: I did a pick-up order at Walmart yesterday, and they gave me some free Dude Wipes. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about that.

Fact #6: I realize that’s a very unattractive photo of me, but I kind of don’t care. Allow me to explain my state of being: I’ve had terrible allergies this season, and my eyes have watered incessantly. Today I went make-up free and spent all day rubbing and wiping my eyes without care.

Fact #7: In my last post I shared a text message about our theory that our neighbor has a secret horse. 

It turns out, he’s dating someone who has a horse. But not just a horse… an entire farm, pretty much (also turns out, Scotty and I know his new girlfriend, and it’s a freakishly small world after all). 

BUT… with this animal-loving girlfriend has also come a few little perks: 

Secret Lamb

Secret goat

Fact #8: I’m always troubled when I find stuff like this on my walks:

At some point that was a perfectly good piece of pizza. What happened?

Fact #9: The other day on the way home from work I got hit with the biggest bird turd I’ve ever seen. I was on the freeway and just coming around a bend and about to merge when WHAM!!! It scared me to death, and I almost swerved into the barrier.

Took this at a stoplight a while later

Fact #10: I mentioned this recently, but I’m going to do it again. Lately I am realizing how blessed I am in friendship. I have such a strong circle of friends. It’s not a friend group, but a collection of individuals I love dearly (not that there’s anything wrong with a group, per se. It’s just not what I have). 

In my younger years, I measured friendship by the amount of social invitations I received. If no one was inviting me to do things, I perceived that as not having any friends. Now I view it differently. I rarely receive or extend social invitations, but I feel rich in friendship. It comes in different forms - quick little memes sent on messenger, treats shared, rides given to children, seats saved at events, packages grabbed off porches, or even waves from across a busy intersection.

Hey over there, Christie!

Sorry/Not Sorry

Me to my daughter: Slow down, there! You do not need to text your friends every single detail and thought that comes into your head!

Also me:

Spring Break 2024

This past week was spring break for our school district. I always struggle a bit when my kids are out of school. I wish that weren’t the case - it’s one of my greatest shames in motherhood, that I have a hard time managing my kids at home for long periods of time. I love them fiercely, but I get overwhelmed and overstimulated by them very easily. I had a couple of days this week where I about lost it, but I tried really hard to give my kids a decent spring break. It wasn’t anything super amazing, but we all survived it. 

Here are a few things that happened while the kids were out of school:

Nicky and Daisy performed at the high school dance concert

Daisy did two dances with her junior high dance company, and Nicky was in a partner dance with the high school dance company (it’s been pretty funny to see how often Nicky ends up in dance performances).

Nicky went to Disneyland for theatre and was gone over Easter. 

Bounding with his boys

We celebrated Easter.

We celebrated April Fools’. 

April Fools’ dinner

Zoe pranking me with a dish of “brown E’s”

I worked two days (this was a bit of a trial run to see how my kids would do at home without me).

We tried to fly kites, and it didn’t go very well.

Three minutes into the event 

We went on a DI shopping trip and then to Wheeler Farm.

We went to the pet store and didn’t buy a bearded dragon (or any other animals).

I went rock climbing with the Young Women (and by that I mean I sat in a bench and watched).

Zoe and Lydia

Nicky’s “not girlfriend” (who has “not” been his girlfriend for about a year and a half now) turned 16 while Nicky was in California. I was in charge of delivering 16 roses to her on her birthday. They tipped over while I was driving, and the water from the vase “glug, glug, glugged” all over the floor of my van where there happened to be a sweatshirt and jacket to absorb it all (perks of having a messy van this week).

We went to see Kung Fu Panda 4.

We went to the Manti temple open house.

While we were in the area, we made a surprise visit at my parents’ house to take my step-mom her birthday present. We got to see lots of animals between theirs and their neighbors’ homesteads. The highlight was the baby bunnies.

Dear little bunnies,

Please don’t be dead after we touched you

Zoe and Eva slept over at my mom’s house one night. The rest of spring break they slept in their own tents in our family room. They loved it because it’s the closest they’ve ever been to having their own rooms. I’m not opposed to making it a permanent arrangement.

Nicky and Zoe had orthodontist appointments, and Nicky officially graduated. No more orthodontist appointments for him unless he has an issue.

We did baptisms for the dead and then went to Red Robin for lunch.

We went on another DI shopping trip (since Nicky was in California for our first round). 

We listened to General Conference. 

We played lots of board games and watched some movies. 

When I look back at this post, it seems like we did so much! But even with all this, we endured hours and hours of boredom, and my kids spent way too much time on electronics. Zoe and Eva fought incessantly, and it felt like spring break was three months long. It ended with me being a bit of an emotional mess Sunday night. 

My Bird Era

There are a lot of memes and jokes about how you start to like birds when you get old. I didn’t think it would happen to me, and yet, yesterday I found myself slowly creeping toward the bay window in my living room to get a closer look at a downy woodpecker in my tree without startling it.

I think every single friend I have has sent me this at some point. It makes me laugh so much every time!

When I was a teenager, and Scotty was on his mission, his mom would often take me on bird watching adventures. We went to the Great Salt Lake, the dump, Tracy Aviary, and various bird refuges. I don’t know why I went - I had no interest in birds, and honestly, I suffered. I must’ve been bored and lonely.

I never thought I’d give a hoot about birds (see what I did there?) but then in 2020, I ordered the bird-inspired board game Wingspan for myself for my birthday, and a pandemic hit and made life so slow and boring that birds suddenly became one of the most exciting parts of my existence. I downloaded the Wingsong app that lets you scan the cards from Wingspan and hear the bird calls. Then I downloaded Merlin Bird ID, which helps you identify birds by either sound or photo. I started going places to purposely look for birds - like the Great Salt Lake Shorelands and the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. I even went to the dump and got an annual pass at Tracy Aviary.

We put birdhouses and bird feeders in our backyard. We ended up getting rid of the birdhouses, though, because we had a few batches of baby birds die in them, and we felt like murderers (and cleaning them out isn’t fun). So now we feed the birds, but we don’t provide them with lodging.

I’ve also become very set on taking photos of uncommon birds, as if I’m going to need to prove someday that I saw a grey heron by Target (true story). There’s a technique that anyone who takes photos of birds can relate to. You have to start taking pictures from way far back just in case the bird flies away. Then you sneak closer and take another photo… sneak closer and take another photo…sneak closer and take another photo… until the bird flies off. Which it will. Because birds do that sort of thing. 

Absolute truth.

So I unintentionally became a bit of a bird nerd. In fact, my friend Lynsie gave me a bird themed gift for my 40th birthday with a Bird Nerd shirt, a Nice Tits mug, and a bird sticker pack. 

But here’s the thing… sometimes I still hate birds.

Like in the summer when there are hundreds of them in our front tree every morning, and they chirp for two hours straight (4:00-6:00 am). 

SHUT UP, BIRDS!

And when magpies perch on our window frames and peck at the siding of our house.

And when geese leave their big, green, juicy turds all over the sidewalk and grass (sorry I got so graphic there).

And when robins dart at my head and ruffle my hair because they laid eggs in my yard, and I have the audacity to go outside and try and water my garden. 

And I really don’t like grackles. Them and their weird, beady eyes, and their parking lot lifestyles, and their annoying screeches. 

Ugh. Birds. The relationship is complicated. 

One thing I have to say about birds, though, is that love them or hate them, I really stink at identifying them. Thank heavens for the aforementioned Merlin Bird ID app because without it, I’d just call everything a penguin, much to my mother-in-law’s dismay.

The app is probably what has made bird watching the most exciting. It’s really fun to walk through a park or other bird-y area and scan for bird songs to see what’s around. A few years ago at Young Women camp I got out of bed really early and was tiptoeing around camp between everyone’s tents like a creeper holding my phone out as it scanned for birds. To anyone who doesn’t know what I’m doing when I’m scanning for birds (which is mostly everyone) I probably look like a total weirdo.

So even though there are some things about birds that still annoy me, I’ve mostly crossed over to Bird Enjoyment. I guess you could say I’m in my Bird Era. 

Easter 2024

For memory’s sake, I thought I’d do a little Easter re-cap. 

We started our Easter festivities a week early this year with a party at my mom’s house. I failed to take any photos, but BeReal went off during the party, so here I am with my giant egg:

Behold the giant egg

That night we had a stake fireside where the youth sang songs about the Savior, and it was really good. I know a lot of you were there, so hopefully you enjoyed it as well. 

The Saturday before Easter, we usually have an “egg roll,” a tradition started by Scotty’s grandma and continued by Scotty’s mom. The weather report wasn’t looking too good, so she ended up canceling. We took the opportunity to go to Lagoon in the rain instead. 

Rain hair, don’t care

I had to take a selfie in front of this ride to send to my friend Christie because she hates it so much!

That morning we dropped Nicky and his friend Addie off at the high school at 5:30 so they could leave for Disneyland. 

Nicky and Addie

As a long standing joke, they always take photos like this together.

In the afternoon, we had Scotty’s dad’s Easter party. 

Eva

On Easter morning, the girls got some things from the Easter Bunny - dresses for church and knock off LEGO flowers (that are actually really good for non-LEGO). 

We usually do Resurrection Rolls for breakfast on Easter, but I wasn’t prepared (I kind of forgot), so we told the girls we were going to have eggs and toast, and they weren’t happy about that. I improvised and made bunny toast.

Coloring before breakfast

Bunny toast

We went to church and attempted a photo afterward. I didn’t realize how tall Zoe has gotten. We need to reconfigure our photo formations for the future. 

Easter dresses (some years we do dresses, some years we don’t)

That evening we had an Easter party at Scotty’s mom’s house. I made funeral potatoes and finger Jello. 

Funeral potatoes (75 % corn flake coverage)

Chicks and bunnies

I took a poll on Instagram to see who is pro-corn flakes and who is anti-corn flakes when it comes to funeral potatoes. It turned out to be 50/50. Even as the participants increased over time, it always ended up equaling 50/50. 

(I’m pro-corn flakes, no doubt).

In summary, Easter was fine. We missed having Nicky with us, but we’re starting to come to terms with the fact that our family has reached the phase where our kids are going to be missing things more and more frequently. We’re trying to adapt. 

Now if I could just muster the energy to get these Easter decorations put away…