halloween

I just don't get it.

I mean, I like pumpkins--as decorations, in pies, and as the flavor of most desserts but I HATE carving them.  They smell weird once they've been carved, then they sit and rot on your front porch and get scorched by the candles you put in them and I shudder just THINKING about pulling out all the seeds and slimy innards....GROSS!  I can't do it.

I also love candy.  Obviously.  (Which, P.S.  I just spelled Obvioulsy as Abviously.  Abviously it's time for me to go to bed...)

But I don't do all the scary, horror stuff, and I don't like all the creepy dead-ness that usually goes on around this holiday.

Also, it's really weird--if you stop and think about it--to get dressed up in a costume and go door to door begging your neighbors for candy.

Plus, I only got about 6 trick-or-treaters this year.  So glad I bought that super expensive, big bag of candy...

But, now all that craziness is over and it's time to start the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season!!!

For some reason this year I am super excited for Christmas.  Not sure why, but I found myself wanted to listen to Christmas music a couple weeks ago.  Those of you who know me, know what a stickler I am about listening to Christmas music.  NOT UNTIL AFTER THANKSGIVING.  I had to tell myself that five or six times and finally got over the unnatural urge.  But the countdown has begun!


Here are some pictures of things that happened today:

At work today my department had a Fall Festival.  Each team (if they wanted to participate) had to come up with a festival/carnival booth.  My team decided to do a tattoo parlor.  It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.  I came up with the name: Apollo Ink, which I thought was pretty clever.  The cute little lizard tattoo was one I couldn't pass up.  We'll see how long he lasts...

I finally got to go meet and hold Megan!  She's such a cutie (and no, I'm not just saying that because I'm biased)!  She was making all these really funny faces while she was sleeping and smiled a couple times.  She didn't wake up while I was there, but I got to sit on the couch and hold her for a while.  Good job, Steven and Kristen!  And welcome to the family, Megan.  <3 p="p">

baby megan is here!!

Just got the word: Megan Sharise McLaws was born today at 8:03pm.  She weighed 9 pounds, 1 ounce and was 22.25 inches long.


Pictures will be forthcoming I'm sure.  I can't wait to see and hold her!!

the circle of life

Just got the news that Hairy, the family parakeet  died this weekend.  :(  He's been slowly going the last couple months--getting more and more quiet and lethargic and deaf.  I'm actually surprised he's hung on this long.  It was a good six year run!  Bye, dude.  Hope you're having fun now in heaven...

What's that old saying, "Where one door closes, another opens"?  This weekend I think is going to be, "Where one life ends, another begins" in our family.  We lost Hairy, but we're gaining Megan!  (A much better trade, in my opinion--sorry Hairy!).  Kristen is being induced tonight.  Hopefully sometime tomorrow I'll be any aunt again and have a cute new niece to gush over and about!  I can't wait!!

quote of the day

My best friends are pretty funny.  They regularly crack me up.  Today, Katy, busted out this line that literally had me laughing out loud at work.

"I have so much love for that I cannot even express it without a feather quill and a sonnet!"

HA!

What was she so in love with, you ask?  This picture:

Seems like a normal meerkat family portrait, right?  And it is, but there's a twist.  My team at work is being spotlighted in next month's department newsletter (they pick a team every month) and we have to submit a team photo.  We decided to submit this one as our team picture instead of us actually posing for one. (I have the best manager that lets us get away with crazy things like this and is more often than not the instigator of the crazy plans)  LOL!  I sent the picture and explanation to Katy and she presented me with the above comment.

Best. Comeback. EVER!

Katy,  here's your feather quill.  I'll be expecting a sonnet soon!

tried something new today

I'm lazy and poor and trying to be gluten-free so I had to get creative today when it came to packing my lunch.  I decided to try tuna on rice crackers.  I mixed up the tuna like I normally do with some mayo and then put it on the white cheddar rice cakes that I bought a couple weeks ago and had in the cupboard.

It was surprisingly delicious!

Who knew??

i couldn't make this up if i tried...

...okay, maybe I could.  I AM a writer, after all.  But that's beside the point. What am I talking about, you ask?  Let me tell you...

This week I was asked to help with a training class at work.  The training department wanted to pull a few of us who are out on the floor and who know what we're doing and are good at our job to come in and help answer questions while the trainees are working on all their practice files.  I volunteered (at my manager's suggestion).  It's been mostly boring, and we all know how much I hate to be bored at work.  It's probably the thing I hate most.  Besides people who treat roundabouts like four-way stops.  Or Dr. Pepper Ten.

Anywho, Monday morning I walked in and decided to sit at one of the desks at the back of the room thus making it easier to see when people raised their hands and needed help.  I thought this was a brilliant plan.  And it mostly was.  Except I chose to sit by one of the two nut jobs in the class without knowing it and was stuck.  Because, I mean, come on.  How rude would it be to suddenly get up and change seats for no apparant reason after spending all day sitting next to someone?  So I just told myself to smile and nod and hope he didn't have a complete mental breakdown and snap on me.  I quickly discovered he has the tendancy of getting VERY frustrated VERY quickly when faced with something he doesn't understand.  It does no good to try and remind him that this is something new and he's obviously going to have a learning curve.  His response, "I didn't even want to be here in the first place!  I was volun-TOLD I had to be here after telling my manager three different times I didn't want to do re-eval...*grumble* *grumble* *grumble*..."

Whenever I tried to explain something to him, or try to help him with his file, he would sigh heavily and dramatically, put his head in his hands, and tell me, "Nevermind.  You don't understand what I'm asking."  At which point I would look at one of the other processors that was there helping and get them to come over and see if THEY could help and understand him.  Oiy.  Luckily he graduated from training today and won't be coming back!  This morning, however, he came in with a doosey (dewsy?  dousey?)...a whopper of a tale that just made me want to laugh, but I was afraid to--not knowing what he would do to me as his emotions tend to balance on a VERY tiny wire.

The story was this: last night his roommate's girlfriend (who was sleeping over) had a nightmare and in her half-asleep (and still-intoxicated) stupor picked up her cellphone and called the police.  The police showed up and angry dude (that's what I call him) was woken up suddenly from a sound sleep by an officer shining a maglite in his face.  (They were checking the house after receiving the call alerting them to a potential crime taking place which was really just a dream.  Are you keeping up?)  In reflex to being woken up so suddenly, and unexpectedly, angry guy gets out of bed, grabs his three-foot sword that he has leaning up against the wall by his bed, and goes to lunge at the officer.

Yeah.  That's right.  Angry dude is one of those crazy medieval guys who has swords and knows how to use them.  Who saw that one coming??

According to him, his fiance (who I guess was in bed with him?) said something (I don't know what, and I didn't ask), stopping him before he actually DID run the officer through with his sword.  So that's good.

I just...

What do you say when someone tells you a story like that and it's something that really happened?!  I had no response except in my head I thought, "Angry dude should NOT have access to medieval weaponry.  That's just not good for anyone's health and safety."

Two more days (hopefully everyone will be graduated and done with their practice files by Friday) and I can go back to my nice, quiet cubicle where the only people who have swords are the hero's in my audio books--men who SHOULD have swords.

time for some changes

It's been two years and four months since I moved into my house. It's time to change things up a bit.  I was hesitant to do anything because I've been waiting for my roommate to finish moving in the pieces of furniture that she has but...she's been paying rent since March 15th and has yet to move any furniture in.  So, I decided today to just make the changes I wanted and when she finally decides to finish moving in, I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I went around to about four different furniture stores today looking at couches and living room sets.  I found a really pretty rug at Fry's Marketplace and a couch and loveseat set that I really liked as well.  I bought the rug, but since I don't have a truck I decided to wait on buying the couches.  A few hours later I was looking at more furniture online and I got a text from Esther asking if I wanted to meet up with them for dinner.  I met J.R., Esther, the kiddos, Steven, and Kristen at Barro's Pizza.  We had a fun impromptu pizza party, and the gluten-free pizza was surprisingly good!  I asked J.R. if he would be willing to help me go get the couches (that I decided I wanted to buy) with his truck.  He graciously said yes, so after dinner we drove over to Fry's Marketplace and got the set.

Here's the final effect:

I moved my old couch and two chairs that were in the front room into the Family Room area in the kitchen, along with the new rug I bought today.  I think the new sitting room area is really cute!  Barbara told me it was a "nice place to sit to warm yourself by the fire when it's cold."  I just need some art to put on the wall behind the couch.

And here's my new living room set!

The next thing I want to change is my bedroom.  I found an awesome bedroom set online today that I really, really want!

sleeping with crickets...or...beef week

Monday morning Mom, Faith (who flew home last Saturday for a quick weekend visit) and I left bright and early to drive up to Utah for the week.  On the way up we listened to this book:

We discovered that audio books make the 10-12 hour drive between here and there MUCH more enjoyable and seem not so long.  Faith and I had both read and/or listened to this book before and both love it, but mom hadn't.  Her review: "It was a cute story, but mostly improbable because guys don't change."

LOL!

We got up to Kaysville, to Jeri and Chad's house, about 7:30pm.  Mom had brought up some hamburger patties for dinner, so we heated them up and had a quick supper then unpacked.  Mom and I slept on a couple of mattresses down in Jeri and Chad's unfinished family room in the basement.  Normally, I don't have a problem with basements.  However, because it's unfinished (and because of where they live) these guys were all over:

*Shudders*

Mom killed several of them (and kept killing them all week) and I thought I was safe.  But when I was in bed Monday night one jumped onto my head--totally freaking me out!

Tuesday morning, while I was getting ready for the day, one jumped onto my shirt when I was sitting on the rocking chair.  I HATE CRICKETS!!  After recovering from being attacked by the crickets, Mom and I drove Julia in to her school (LDS Business College in downtown SLC), then drove down to South Jordan so Mom could pick up some family history pictures and papers from Uncle Bill.  On the way back up north we stopped at two D.I.'s, a Savers, and a Goodwill.  Mom was on the hunt for some wooden hangers for a Christmas present she's working on as well as Christmas houses (which she is always on the lookout for).  We didn't find any hangers, but each found some other little treasures.  Then we picked up the girls from school and drove up to Farmington to say hi to Grandpa and Grandma Matsen.  We stayed and talked for a few minutes then went back to Jeri and Chad's for a few hours.  Later that evening Mom, Faith, Julia, and I met Jeri at In-N-Out and enjoyed our second night of hamburgers.  Then we went and saw this play:

It was the musical and it was FANTASTIC!  I love that play.  I can watch it a million times and it will never get old.  It was so much fun.

On Wednesday the girls had school.  Mom and I got up and went to a few stores (Michaels, another Savers and another D.I.), then went back to Jeri and Chad's for the rest of the afternoon.  While I worked on handouts for my Relief Society lesson on Sunday and helped Mom with her Christmas present project we watched these two movies:

Both movies are funny and crack me up.  The girls came home then we met Grandpa and Grandma Matsen at Crown Burger for dinner.  (Are you keeping track?  That's day three of beef for dinner...)  Julia went to Mutual and Mom, Faith and I went back to the house.

Thursday (yesterday), the girls didn't have school so we went and had a fun day in downtown Salt Lake.  We parked at the girls' school then took Traxx up to the new City Creek:

It's an awesome new shopping center right downtown where the ZCMI center and old Crossroads Mall used to be.  We walked around, looking at the creek and all the stores (the Deseret Book is HUGE and AWESOME), had lunch in the food court (Julia and I had beef and broccoli from an Asian restaurant---day four of beef), and bought some treats from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  I tried the chocolate covered bacon:

It was...interesting.  I liked it!  I also bought two caramel apples (because they're my weakness and I can't pass them up).  I got the apple pie and chocolate pecan:

The apple pie was my favorite!  After enjoying our treats we walked across the street to Temple Square.

We walked around for a few minutes, touched the temple, then decided to head back to the car.  We rode Traxx back to the school and then headed over to meet Grandma Matsen at Grandma Joy's condo.  We visited with Grandma Joy (who we haven't seen in years!) and had a nice time seeing her and catching up.  Exhausted, we headed back to Jeri's house (stopping first at a scrapbook store and one last D.I.).  We had chicken stirfry (along with some rice noodles Julia made and some shrimp) for dinner and watched a new movie that Mom bought at Deseret Book:

It was a cute movie!  Then we went to bed.

This morning, we got up early.  The girls got ready for, then left for school.  Mom and I packed up and hit the road.  We drove, without stopping, until Panguitch where we made a quick potty stop.  We stopped for gas in Kanab and then drove the rest of the way home without stopping.  While we drove we listened to this book:

We left Jeri's house at 8:30am (UT time) and got home at 6:15pm (AZ time).  Not too shabby!  It was a nice trip and I had fun spending the week with my Mom and sisters and having a break from my normal everyday routine.

my heart is full

I know my Savior lives and loves me!

best night ever!

Well...at least the best night in a really long time.  Why, you ask?  Because...

First, I went here:

Wandered around for a bit, looked at all the cute Christmas decorations, bought a new gingerbread tree and some gum drops for my Christmas gingerbread/candy village, then went here:

 For some:

Then I went here:

For a slice of:

Which I brought home to eat while watching the Season 4 premiere of this show:

All while hanging out with one of my besties: Katy!  Then to top it all off, one of my favorite authors has a new ebook available today!

Tomorrow is Friday and the start of my Fall Break (I'm taking all of next week off and driving up to Utah with my Mom to see the girls and have a vacation).  It's raining outside and is supposed to only be in the 70's tomorrow.  It's been a pretty good day!  :)

attitude adjustment

Attitude adjustment: I need one.

The last 18 months have been...well...hell.  Emotionally and mentally speaking.  I think I've been going through the grieving process over the last year and half--mourning all the dreams I had of being married and having a family by this point in my life.  Things haven't worked out quite like I thought they would when I was younger and I've had to come to terms with the fact that I'm 30, single, have never had a boyfriend, and have yet to be even kissed.  Two hundred years ago, if I were living in England, I would be considered a spinster and "firmly on the shelf".  Sometimes I wish I DID live back then, because then my unmarried status would be accepted and no one would think anymore about it--they would all move on with their lives.  However, in this day in age I feel like I'm constantly being judged and I feel like such a failure.  The question, "What's wrong with me?" constantly runs through my head, which has only been adding to my state of depression.

A couple weeks ago, at Kristen's baby shower, I was talking with my grandma and my aunt Christine and this topic (my being single) came up.  I joked around with them about it and told them about the blind date FHE that Esther had set up (which, by the way, he has yet to reach out to me so, I guess nothing is happening there).  I said that I was just going to be the spinster aunt of the family, to which my grandma said, "Don't say that!"  Then proceeded to tell me that, "There are some really great guys out there.  There are!  The problem is, you're related to a lot of them."

LOL

I love my grandma!  And she's right.  The guys in my family are awesome!  :)  But, that doesn't help me in my current situation.

A few weeks ago we talked about having a change of perspective in Relief Society--something that I've badly needed.  So I thought about what I could do differently to change my perspective in life and turn out instead of constantly turning in.  The first thing I decided to do was to rededicate myself to scripture study.  That is something that I've never been very good at.  I have yet to find a schedule or plan that I stick to when it comes to ready my scriptures every day.  I decided I would buy the audio version of The Book of Mormon and listen to it in my car every morning as I drive to work.  Brilliant!  I started on Wednesday and in only these few couple days I've noticed a significant difference in my attitude.

I feel happy again.

Which is something I haven't truly felt in a long time.

Yesterday I woke up with a splitting headache and killer cramps but I was happy and in a good mood all day.  I was still falling asleep at my desk by 1pm because I was bored, but I was happy!  And this weekend is General Conference, which I KNOW is only going to help add to my state of happiness.  Mom and I were talking about Conference last Saturday when we went to the General Relief Society broadcast.  We both said that as a kid General Conference is the worst thing ever!  But as an adult we're like sponges: greedily soaking everything up and there is never enough to fill you up completely--you always want more.  I can't wait to listen to the Prophet, Apostles and other General Authorities speak.  I know it's going to be a great couple of days!

knights of the rectangular table

These are a week old, but here are some pictures from Barbara's birthday.  I can't believe she's five!!

John having some Grandma cuddles...

The King, the Crown Prince, and the Duke of Chutney (aka The Knights of the Rectangular Table) playing a rousing game of Uno!

The Birthday Princess!

Pinata time!  Even Papa got in on the fun...