Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Don't start clapping, I didn't say that I was the winner.

That's right, Sego Lily declared the winner today and alas, it was not I.  Jodi won and will be the official Sego Lily blogger, and I can say in all sincerity that I'm quite happy to be finished with this whole process.  Remember in high school when you ran for class office, had to go around campaigning, then spent that fateful day of voting just sick, wondering if you won or not?  I was fortunate in my campaigning experiences in HS and only had to taste the bitterness of defeat once, but let me tell you, it sucked - big time.  (Liz, we're still lifelong friends, even if you were Jr. Class President and I was not...)

I have been worrying about this thing for months and I'm glad to have it behind me.  Sure, I would've really loved to have won, and while an honor to be nominated, now I know for sure that all those Oscar contenders are seriously depressed when they lose, despite the twinkly smiles.  Nonetheless, I can't thank you all enough for your support and votes.  I know that many of you did everything in your power to ring this in my favor and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Darn it - I would've been so pretty with all those treatments.  And my day sucked rocks today; I could've used a photo facial on the horizon.

Losing blows.

Pigged Out

There will come a day when your children will want a guinea pig for a pet.  They will have seen Bolt, or love The Wonder Pets, or even the upcoming G-Force starring some pretty amazing digitally spawned g. pigs sporting gun belts and space gear.  You will wonder if it's a good time to get them a pet.  Pets teach responsibility and every one of us remembers our childhood charge named Buttercup or Snowball or Rick... yes, I had a fish named Rick, because why are the Ricks, Randys and Jims underrepresented in the pet world?

Regardless, you'll consider it.  Guinea Pigs are so fluffy and squeaky and really more the size of a small cat than a rodent.  They do things like "popcorn" and "wheak"; these habits sound ever-so-darling and sure to entertain your kids for hours, right?

WRONG!

Guinea pigs suck a**.  If you're a member of the Guinea Lynx Society (real thing) or from Peta, save it.  No tiny mammal lives as well as my guinea pigs, but every morning I wake up I hope is their last day on earth.  They stink.  They throw, physically, with their little clawed hands, heaps of pine shavings and straw from their cage.  They eat their poo.  They pee every twenty-seven seconds.  They have to have a little hay stall on the side of their cage so their teeth don't grow into their brain.  (And yes, I've thought of that, but because I believe in a higher power, I can't be a willing accomplice to anything that will bring me hellfire and damnation in the afterlife.  When they go, it has to be nature's call.)  They eat a salad comprised of fresh spinach, red leaf lettuce, garden carrots and perhaps a sprig or two of basil each day.  They eat alfalfa pellets, but they don't like the cheap kind with the round add-in that resembles dog kibble.

We've upped the ante on the pigs' head.  It used to be we'd adopt a kitten when they turned belly up, but now we've promised a puppy.  Seriously, two dogs has to be better than these little neurotic balls of allergens.  Did I mention their traumatized?  We adopted them from the shelter and apparently their last owner beat them into submission and then made them think it was their fault.  They winced at sounds for the first year we had them, though now they only wince when I cut their hair.

That's right, I cut their hair, bathe them in rodent shampoo, and clip their gnarly little fingernails.  The above picture is today after I did my best with the craft scissors.  They twitch all over when I groom them causing their cute Jennifer Aniston shags to resemble an angry teenage hatchet job.

My daily prayer is that the Lord will call his furry servants home.  If not, someone will deem me unfit and come take them into guinea protective services.

Back in Black

Quite literally; I'm wearing a black twirly drirt (that would be a dress/skirt combo) today that I bought after stealing my ingenue Katie's look.  JCrew.  Deeply discounted.  Knit with a breath of spandex.  I'll wait while you run and get yourself one...

I've been gone so long and there's much to tell you, but frankly, you're probably not that interested in the minutea of my last week.  Camp was wonderful - I love teenage girls, always have.  I used to teach high school, you remember, so I feel comfortable with that age demographic.  They are funny.  They giggle - a lot.  They take themselves very seriously.  And apparently they really do all love Edward Cullen - go figure.  I convinced them to join me in building a four-teir people-pyramid á la cheerleader style along with a camp cheer and crowd pleasing facials; I find if all else fails, few girls will turn down the opportunity to build a human pyramid.  And I wasn't even a cheerleader, but my drill team skillz came in handy nonetheless.

On Thursday I'm off for four days to Virginia for a major slew of meetings and cocktails parties.  I get to pack up all my "business casual" and enjoy a plane ride in each direction.  I've said it before:  No mama is going to complain about flying to a 5-star resort hotel for morning yoga, haute cuisine, a deluxe gym and pay per view.  Oh, and some meetings, natch.

On my final note, I found a little something I want to share:

"Everyone of us is called upon, probably many times, to start a new life.  A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job... And onward full tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore.  To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another - that is surely the basic instinct... Crying out:  High tide!  Time to move out into the glorious debris.  Time to take this life for what it is."

-Barbara Kingsolver, from High Tide in Tucson

And there it is:  Rabbit number 2.  I am not afraid of snakes, rodents, witches or heights.  I'm not afraid of new foods, new countries, new people or social settings.  I'm not afraid of getting old, I'm not afraid of homosexuals, I'm not afraid of Muslims, and I'm not afraid of nuclear bombs or global epidemics.  But I'm very, very, very afraid of the unknown.  I'm afraid of all the new things I want to try but may suck at.  I'm afraid of all the ways I will fail in the future.  I'm afraid of the friendships that will have awkward moments, I'm afraid of the trials my family will face, and I'm afraid of the ways my kids will mess up their lives at some point.  I'm afraid of being poor, terminally ill, and lonely.  I'm afraid of my mother dying, my children dying, my husband dying, my sister dying.  I'm afraid of my guinea pigs dying, even though I will them to daily, because I'm afraid of my kids having to deal with death, firsthand, for the first time.

All this fear can't be healthy, therefor I'm willing myself to stop being afraid.  There is so much living I shy away from because I don't know if I can be the best, or at least really good at something new I want to pursue.  There is a litany of scenarios that keep me up at night because I'm terrified of how I'll survive if ________ happens.  In the end, there's no stopping __________.  It's coming, whether I like it or not, but somehow, we all lift up our twirly drirt hems and wade out into the sea foam, hoping for the best, all the while terrified.  In the end, more times than not, we make it back to the shore in one piece - the salt water in our hair and the gulls screeching, and we feel more alive than ever.

Headless

Indulge me for a moment as I tell you that I'm out of control today.  Well, I'm actually out of my version of control, which means I'm very structured and organized complete with lists about my out-of-control-ness.  Comprende?

I'm in charge of my ward's (congregation) youth camp for girls this year which means tomorrow a handful of a other women and I, along with a gaggle of teenage girls, are heading to the mountains for four days to bond, giggle, craft, s'more, hike and talk religion.  Good times.  This isn't the youth camp of my teenage years - we had showers and cabins and a mess hall.  This camp has a hose, a few tents, and a fire pit.  Double good times.  I hate to smell badly.  Really, smell is my "thing".  I shower daily - always, I wear perfume - always, and I like clean hair, clean clothes, clean teeth and cleanliness in general.  I do love the outdoors and camping, but in my version you eventually have access to water and a bar of soap.  Not this week; how traumatizing, on a scale of 1 to 10, would it be for these young women to see me sudsing up and nude, splashing away under the hose?  (My husband totally just got turned on, by the way...)

This means that for the last few months, especially the last weeks, I've been crazy with the planning.  Today, I have lists for my lists and now I'm just ready for it to get here so it can be over.  We leave early tomorrow morning - I'll be back with stories on Monday.  My next big news is that the Sego Lily Blogger contest is finally closed and we are all awaiting the results on Friday.  If I could send each of you a prize for you voting efforts, I would.  If I win, I'm going to give away something awesome as a thank you.  

Next week I travel for business, which as I've said before, means VACAY!  I've said it a million times - sometimes to the disapproval of men who travel a lot for business:  When a stay-home mom gets to travel for work and stay in a hotel (which by the way - this time it's a "resort hotel" complete with yoga in the morning, healthy food, and nature walks), have room service, get ready for the day without kids under foot, and have a king sized bed to herself, she is in essence, on vacation.  Sure, I'll be working and busy in the day, but until you've spent years rising at the crack of dawn, cooking three meals a day plus snacks, changing what must add up to a million diapers, wiping bums and bumfingers, coloring with crayons, wiping said crayons off the wall, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning and cleaning, comforting, negotiating, planning, organizing, driving, dropping-off, picking-up, and only sitting once throughout said whole day, your definition of "work" changes a bit.

Phew.

Until we meet again, my peeps.  Oh yeah, and I've been so cheery today it's almost frightening.  Still working on it; when I'm back I'll have goal #2.  

It Ain't Easy Being Cheesy

This almost looks painful for Brandon, doesn't it?

Turns out "cheery" is tougher than all you cheery people make it seem.  I'm learning that I am really good at being cheery to complete strangers, to the cashier at McDonald's - even to the father of the little girl Isabel made friends and exchanged numbers with from the Playplace; he with his face pierced SEVEN times.  Me:  All cheery!  But where I struggle most is within the confines of my own home.  Isn't it interesting that we often reserve our best behavior for the people who know us the least?  And don't even get me started on how I treat my husband. 

 Okay... you got me started.  My husband is not what you'd call, well, overly cheery - to anyone.  He's friendly, people like him, and his clients pretty much promise him their first-born by the time the deal has closed because he walks across fire to make things happen for people.  But cheery?  Not so much.  And at home, he's definitely the grouch, which I suppose is a good thing because on my worst day I still seem pretty sunny compared to him.  I have found that I'm very reactive to his mood.  I try to be all smiles from morning to evening but if he comes home all curmudgeony and irritated, I immediately get all, "What do YOU have to be all curmudgeony and irritated about?" and then the Pissy Wife kicks in.

No one like Pissy Wife, not even me.  But Pissy Wife and Sullen Husband are married to each other and inexplicably linked till death do they part.

I already know what I'm going to work on next - you know, as far as "rabbits" go.  I'm going to give myself a few more days of solidly trying my hand and cheeriness and seeing if I can make some it, any of it, stick.

Question:  Do any of you perennially cheery people walk around wishing you were more sarcastic or opinionated?  Tell me you do; let's hope this isn't as one-sided as it feels.

Rabbit #1

My first rabbit, my pre-rabbit, my bunny if you will, is to be realistic about some changes I want to make in my life.  It is my past habit, my tendency, to go big.  Old me would probably grab a lined notepad and make a list of 25 things I need to do differently.  I would re-write the list a few times to ensure it was as neat as possible.  If it got crumpled on an edge, I'd re-write.  If I crossed anything off, I'd re-write.  I love crossing off but I love re-writing even more.

So in an effort to break with past actions that don't always bring me success, I'm sticking with five things I'm going to do differently and see what happens.  Maybe nothing, most likely something, hopefully something big.

Today is number 1:  Be cheery

I've decided that pessimism is soooo 2008.  We were all there; you remember, right?  The crash, the companies going down, the bad, bad news that kept coming, coming, coming.  Despite the glimmer of hope ushered in by President-Elect Obama, there was so much ugly going on one could hardly celebrate accordingly.  I don't think of myself as a negative person, but I definitely consider myself what I've liked to call a "realist".  I don't like sales people who push, I don't fall for scams, I don't listen to telemarketers, I read the fine print.  Somewhere in all this practicality and reality I got a little grumpy.  I'm never going to be that girl; you know, the one in your neighborhood who is always smiling with perfect Chiclet-teeth, who waves with her whole shoulder, who has that trill in her voice and says, "He-loooow!".  That's not me - I don't do saccharine.  But I do do warm.  And I definitely do funny.  So I think it's time I throw cheerful in the mix and see what bubbles to the surface.  I'll never be one to lose the sarcasm and edge - that's what my people do, we snark a little.  But the older I get the more I appreciate a cheerful person, whether she be a sales clerk, a fellow driver, a bank teller or a friend. Cheerfulness isn't necessarily happiness, but it's the decision to let your outward self manifest your inward decision to be optimistic, to be sunny.

Up top is a picture of my Isabel.  At five, she continues to reign as the cheeriest person in our family.  Though being five has ushered in the WHINES and TEARS era, she smiles all day long, is always game for anything, and has a lilt in her voice that lets you know she's a happy clam.  While she inherited none of this exuberance from either myself of my melancholy husband, a genetic miracle occurred and we got this little ray of sunshine.  And for the next week, she'll be my model.

Chin up, smile on, happy voice, go to it.  Most people in my neighborhood and such probably think I'm pretty cheerful for the most part, but man they haven't seen The Beast at home.  Girl can launch into a tirade at a moment's notice.  But for this week, I will try a smile.  Probably fake sometimes, I'm hoping my insides get the message my outside is sending.

I'll return and report.

Something New

 "Do the same thing you have always done and get the same things you have always gotten."

We parent the same way and expect more from our kids.  We put the same old energy into our marriage and expect it to be more fulfilling.  Or if we're single, we continue in our same old routine and wonder why we never meet anyone new.  We work the same hours doing the same things and thinking the same thoughts and wonder why we aren't promoted. We go to the same places all the time and expect to be inspired.  We eat the same things and wonder why we weigh the same and have the same lack of energy.  We read, watch, and listen to the same kinds of things and wonder why we don't feel more creative.  We do the same activities all the time and wonder why they aren't as fun.  We get mad or frustrated by the same stuff and the same people, without ever concluding that perhaps we are the common denominator in that equation.  We do the same workout, run the same routes, and wonder why we are stuck in a fitness and morale plateau. We live and love and give in the same way and wonder why we never grow. 

-Kristin Armstrong, from her blog "Mile Markers" on runnersworld.com

Whoa.

I mean, really; Whoa.

Does this resonate with you?  I read Kristin's blog all the time because I admire her and am interested in what she has to say.  Please, the woman brought Lance Armstrong back from the brink of death, bore his three children, left her career and was his wingman/pit crew/cheering section for years until he moved on... to Sheryl Crow.  Yeah, yeah, I don't really know their story and it's none of my business, but she's a good writer and a smart, interesting woman.  The above segment is from a post reflecting upon an experience in yoga class.  It speaks to precisely where I am in my life.

I live a small life, really.  There is little flash, no huge changes or surprises, our days are very routine and familiar.  But day in and out I struggle, to the point of guilt and frustration, that the things I wish were different, aren't.  I'm not talking "the Secret" here - I certainly understand the power of positive self-thought and self-concept.  I'm talking about the conversations we all have in our heads:  "Why can't I lose those last ten pounds?  Why do I never have time to finish the laundry/dishes/cleaning?  Why am I always so grouchy with my kids/husband?  Why don't I foster my creative side more often?"  These are a smattering from my inner-dialogue, but the problem is not the questions, the problem is that eventually you get sick of asking them.  It then becomes, "I'm so sick of hearing myself complain about not losing those last ten pounds.  I'm never going to do it, so I ought to just shut-up about it.  I can't follow through.  I have no will-power."

Right?

Well, that's the case for me.  It's exactly as if I want the change to occur instantaneously - with little or no hard work on my end.  Why can't it just POOF! and be different, just by wanting it to be so?  I process by writing and talking, and this blog serves as my journal and outlet, so I'm writing this today to express my unwaivering understanding and acceptance of the necessity of change.  In this respect, inertia is my enemy.  I need some momentum.  I need some fresh eyes.  I need to try a few things differently and shake things up.  Be bold.

I'm going to pull a few rabbits from my hat in the next few weeks and let you know how it goes; if you have any little secrets about instituting change, breaking bad habits, I'd love to hear them.  I really think it's all about being willing to try something different and sticking with it when it gets tough.  On that note, behold my two-something year-old waterskiing for the first time on the lake the other day.  She got almost completely up a few times and definitely skied along for awhile, albeit on her tush here and there.

Guts.  Commitment.  Something new.  She's a better girl than I.