Sunny Day, Sweeping the Clouds Away!

I haven't exactly kept it a secret that 2007 has not started well, but things seem to be turning around (knock on wood - yes I'm a bit superstitious). The co-worker changed her mind. The unethical company ended up revealing their bad selves and ruining their reputation with the potential client. Lexi's daycare had also made some new policies that were making me insane, but they quickly fell by the wayside and things are better than ever with them.

Life is looking up for the moment. I don't want to think about the known and unknown challenges coming up next. I'll just enjoy today and all the little things.

Non-Typical Mormon Mom

I have been thinking a lot about my mom and the fact that she is a TBM (true believing Mormon), but that she is also so different from the stereotypical Mormon Mom.

1. She never makes casseroles. She cooks, bakes, and once in a while makes Jell-O, but casseroles are/were never on the menu.
2. She definitely doesn't live for her family. She always had her activities, hobbies, and even a few vacations that did not involve the rest of us. She was the kind of mom that pushed independence so she could have a life.
3. She claims that she was the first woman in Spanish Fork, Utah to demand that the phone company put her name in the phone book with my father's. They were only listing men (or unattached women) at the time.
4. She took a karate class in the late 70s without any women in the class. Karate wasn't a "female" activity at that time. One guy resented having a woman in the class so much that he kicked her in the ribs hard enough to break a few. She continued to go to class.
5. In the 80s, she signed up for massage therapy school in Gainesville (we were living in Melbourne, Florida). She got her certificate and started working at a huge exclusive fitness club. She had no problem massaging men, which would probably make a lot of Mormon women uncomfortable.
6. When we moved back to Happy Valley, Utah, she got a call that Hall and Oats were in town for a concert and Oats wanted a massage. She gave him a massage and not only got paid, but got free tickets (she took me).
7. She never really enjoyed being friends with other Mormon women. For the most part, she found them boring. Most of her close friends over the years have been non-Mormons.
8. When we lived in Texas, she decided that she wanted to be a drug abuse counselor. She took classes and then got a job in a bad area of town. Most of her patients were right out of prison. She also did AIDS counseling.
9. She definitely wore the pants in the family even though my dad just wanted a happy little subservient housewife.
10. She has never been interested in what other people think of her or even at gossiping, which is what Relief Society is often about. **I find gossip amusing and tried many times to get her to spill some, but she always refuses.
    

Double the Birthday Merriment

The perk about having a kid near your birthday is that you can really play up the partying. It lasted from her birthday on Friday until mine on Sunday. In fact, I am still not ready for the fun to end.

Much More FUN

Today is a BIG TGIF! Actually, more important than Friday, it is Lexi's first birthday. Time really flies. A year ago today, I was in the hospital giving birth to little Lexi, two days before my birthday. I love her with all my heart and that was a wonderful day, but I am thrilled to be celebrating our birthdays not in pain. Taking a cake to her daycare and then heading out on a trip to Disney's Animal Kingdom is certainly more FUN! I can hardly wait! Of course, there will be loads of pictures next week. Have a great weekend everyone!

(perhaps 2007 isn't so bad).

Snow in Miami?

Yesterday, I made a quick trip to Lexi's daycare during lunch to give her medicine. As I was getting out of my car, I felt the heat and humidity hit me and thought about how nice it would be to experience a little cooler weather. I happened to glance across the street and was stunned by what I saw. There were 2 mounds of snow on the bright green grass and lots of kids playing in it. The kids were wearing short sleeve shirts and laughing. Their daycare had rented a snow machine. How silly is that?

2007 Sucks

So far, 2007 sucks. It seems like a millions things are going wrong. I decided to wake up with a new attitude. Lexi turns 1 on Friday and my birthday is Sunday (34 – ouch!). We are going to Orlando to celebrate, so I should start being more cheery, right? Wrong... I'll have to try again tomorrow.

For now, I'll post a video of Lexi on her rocking Charlie the Caterpillar:

Bad Start on a Monday Morning

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a migraine. As I lay in bed, I wondered whether I should stay home with a wild and crazy baby or drop her off at daycare and go to work. I figured the work option would be the calmest, but with a headache that bad driving is out of the question. A few hours later, I tried to call my work. I couldn't even think of the phone number (after 5 years of working there). I actually had to look it up on the internet. Can you believe it?

I spent the morning trying to get Lexi hooked on television. She doesn't watch very much of it, so my little plan did not work. I suffered through the morning and felt better around 1pm. I actually enjoyed spending time with Lexi and felt sad that we only get to do this when we don't feel well.

Wrong Era

Like a HUGE number of Mormon housewives, my mom was a talented seamstress. I see it as part of the Mormon heritage, but my mom does have a knack for it. I remember when I was very little, other Mormons hiring her to make fancy beaded wedding dresses for them. Until my teenage years, she made a large portion of our clothes. Although the clothes looked great, I was always embarrassed because in my mind she was doing it mainly to save money. As a teenager, she taught me how to sew, but it never became a passion for me. I probably just wanted to distance myself from the whole housewife scraping to make ends meet image.

A few days ago, I discovered that there is a whole community of sewing moms who make unique outfits and then re-sell them on Ebay for a surprising amount of money ($40 – $100). Some even make “custom” outfits to sell. I saw a few going as high as $150. I now realize my mom could have made a killing if she was a sewing housewife now.

Part of me feels a little guilty that many of the skills my female anscestors had might fall by the wayside. I don't quilt, can food, or sew. I guess the best way to have those continue would be to send Lexi to visit my mom for a month every summer. ...hmm something to think about.

Irreplaceable

Last Friday, I wrote about karma. Sometimes getting to the point where good things start coming back around takes time. Sometimes you have to go through more pain before that starts happening.

Unfortunately, as a spin-off of that situation, one of my favorite people in the company decided to resign. In reality, I have spent the last week stressed out about her stress. I tossed and turned at night worrying about her. That actually bothered me more than whether or not we get the contract. She was the only female working here when I started and I always assumed she would be here long after I leave. I feel a deep sadness that she will not be a co-worker anymore. I truly enjoyed her friendship and the dynamics that she added to the firm.

We are all taught that everyone is replaceable in a company. While, I believe that to be true of the actual work, it is simply not true of the friendship and dynamic elements a person creates. For a person like me, who loves change this is a powerful statement. My normal reaction is one of excitement to see where things will lead, but not this time. I selfishly want her around.

Strange Dreams

Last night, I had a dream that I was tagged to write about ending relationships. I was trying to figure out what to write about. All I kept thinking was this should be an easy topic for me because I have definitely been a dumper rather than a dumpee. Perhaps, it was my joy of changing and moving on or because I could always see that it wasn't meant to be or because I was just non-committal. Before I really got into figuring out what I was going to write, I was saved by Lexi's crying.

She fell asleep fairly quickly and then I did too. This time I had a dream that I had to go back to high school to take Calculus. There was a girl I never really liked (or hated) that was sent back too. We were the only ones our age so she asked if we could be friends. Mainly, I was just wanted to hurry and pass the class.

That is me, the strange dream queen. During my freshman year in college, I had a few friends that would get a kick out of hearing about my dreams. I was taking a psychology class back then. If I read the book before going to sleep, my dreams would be really wacko. I remember one where I was sent to another planet to run through a rat maze.


Tags: strange dreams

Clutching to My Belief in Karma

I won't give any details about my job, but I am the marketing person, so my job is to go after new contracts. For a couple months, I worked on creating a rather large proposal (the equivalent of a 100 page report with intricate graphics). The future client received proposals from two companies and asked each to come in for an interview/ presentation. We ended up blowing the other company out of the water. Our hard work and preparation was evident. As we were leaving, the other company congratulated us and left. My company was on a high; we were all thrilled.

Little did we know that the other company was known for playing extremely dirty. It is not always easy to take the high road when lies are being flung like mud, but I truly believe that is the only way to handle this situation. It is the time to graciously address each issue, while refraining from slinging some of that mud back.

I have to say that this week has been a rude awakening and a reminder of why business ethics are so important. A quick search on the internet revealed that the other company is riddled with lawsuits over this exact same type of scenario (and others). No matter what the outcome, I will hold on to my belief that what goes around comes around.

Silly Girl

Someone I know was in the hospital recently. Nothing serious, she was in a car accident & was getting thoroughly checked out. However, a strange scenario took place there.

There was a 15 year old girl in the bed next to hers. The girl's parents and boyfriend were also in the room, when the doctor started asking the girl questions. She asked her if she was pregnant and she said no. She asked if she was sexually active and she said no once again. She asked when her last period was and the girl couldn't remember. She asked her a couple of more times if she was sexually active. The doctor had her take a pregnancy test anyways. About an hour later, the doctor returns fairly upset.

She said, "Why did you tell me you weren't sexually active?"

The girl said, "I'm not!"

The doctor said, "Your pregnancy test came back positive."

The girl blurted out, "I just lay there, my boyfriend is the sexually active one."

I would like to know if she could really be that naive.

Tags: teen pregnancy, naive

Tourist Time

I moved to Miami 8 years ago this month. For anyone who knows me, that is an insanely long time to live anywhere (about 7 years too long). Anyway, one thing I have come to appreciate here is tourist season. I believe that it is the one time of year that I can go to the beach without being (dare I say it)...the whitest one there.

When you are cursed with neon white skin that mostly burns and will only tan a few measly shades (not to mention freckle), a nice glistening tan is beyond your reach. Winter tourist season means I can compete with people who live somewhere the sun rarely shines. So, I would like to officially welcome tourist from the northlands with only one stipulation, please don't make trips to the tanning booths before you come.

Tags: Florida Tourists, Miami Vacationers

Hoping for an Uneventful Year

I am behind on the whole ending last year and looking forward to the coming year post, but life has been hectic lately.

Looking back, 2006 was quite a crazy year. In January, I was very pregnant until the 26th. Then it was all about Lexi and (insanely) trying to work full time at home while on maternity leave. February was about adjusting to the new baby, visiting my MIL in the hospital, and Steve losing his job. March was more of the same stresses, but my husband had a temporary job. April was about fixing up the house and Steve landing a great job. My sister, Paige, came in May to be our nanny and I went back to work. We put our house up for sale in June and later that month my MIL passed away, which sent Steve into a crazy funk throughout July. At the end of July, we went to Tallahassee to see my family. Paige left for California and Lexi started daycare in August. We got a contract on our house in September and had to find a place to live. October was all about moving and enjoying our new life on the beach. In November, we had a wonderful trip to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with Steve's relatives. December brought Christmas parties and a trip to California to spend Christmas with my family.

Fortunately, the last 2 months were quite nice. I am hoping that momentum swings into 2007. There are a few things I would like to happen this year that are mostly out of my hands. I will be doing what I can and keeping my fingers crossed. As far as my resolutions, my work started an incentive program for weight loss. It is mainly to motivate those who really need it, but I signed up because there is a reward (gift certificate) for accomplishing the goal and I'd like to shed 10 lbs anyway. That is basically my only resolution. This year, I am keeping it simple because that is what I want out of life.

Funny How Things Happen

The way back from our wonderful vacation in San Diego was less than pleasant. Our day started at 4am, which is never a good beginning. I had booked an early flight thinking it would be nice to get back to our house in the early evening. We had a little hopper flight from San Diego to LA and were told that it wasn't necessary to get there really early, which is probably true most of the time.

My mom & sister dropped us off about 5:30am. We walked up to probably the longest line the airport had seen in a year. By the time we got to the front, we couldn't check luggage in time for our flight, so they booked us on the next one that was only a half hour later and still gave us plenty of time to catch our next flight. When we got to the very empty security line, the girl that looks at the IDs decided that I was a security threat because my driver's license still has my maiden name (I hate the local DMV) & my passport had expired recently. She made us go back to the airline counter. The airline people didn't understand why the security girl had a problem and they sent us back. We went back and forth and missed the next flight. Finally, the airline printed a boarding pass that said I needed to be patted down so she let us through. That took about 2 seconds.

The airline person at the gate told us we just might be able to catch our regular flight IF everything goes very smoothly. Fortunately, it did. We bolted across LAX and made our connecting flight. Lexi was asleep for the first hour and a half, which was great since I had bronchitis and was not feeling up to entertaining her. She woke up fussy and restless. The five hour plane ride was horrible from then on (for us and those around us). We tried walking her down the aisle, when we could. There was quite a bit of turbulence, which meant we had to sit with our seatbelts on (joy).

We finally got to MIA to discover our bags (all five, including Lexi's carseat) had not made it. While standing in the mile long line to fill out the paperwork, Lexi fell asleep. When I couldn't hold her any longer, I handed her to Steve. After about 2 minutes, he suddenly looked at me and said, "Take her, take her, take her!" He had a pee spot on his belly from her leaking diaper. I grabbed her and the diaper bag and headed for the bathroom.

That's where/when it happened...I had Lexi on the changing table and I heard a voice say, "You're Stephanie and that is Lexi, right?" It was the last thing I expected. She told me her name and it took me a while to jump back to reality. I actually had a real life encounter with a fellow Miami Beach blogger. Hi Sofi! Funny that this happened at the airport instead of anywhere on the beach.

I have to say that was the highlight of the day, because we ended up being in the baggage claim line FOREVER only to be told the bags might be on the next few flights that were in another hour. We ate airport pizza and waited to find that they weren't, so we headed home at 9pm (4 hours after we landed). Can you say Happy New Year's Eve? Our bags were located the next day, but 2006 ended with a day from Hell.

Tags: MIA, lost bags, airports

Conveying Cheesiness

Lexi with cousins

Whole Fam Damily

Yes, I'm back. So much happened over the break that I don't know where to start. California was amazing and we had too much fun (the kind that makes it difficult to return to real life). I feel like being lazy today. I probably should ponder over the last year & figure out my New Year's Resolutions. Since it is all too difficult to think about and put into words, I decided to post some of the photos we had taken (a family full of cheesies).