Race

Do you remember being that one girl who either had a bra before others did, or DIDN'T have a bra when others did? And do you remember wishing you could hurry up and be like the rest of them (or in my case, wish you could slow down to meet them)? That's how I feel right now.

I have friends buying homes, having children, and settling down. I wish they could all just slow down and be like us! Still trying to conceive, I want to tell my pregnant friend over there, hold in that baby for a few more months so I can catch up to you! My friends who are buying homes- Wait until I can find a cheap house around here, since there's no way we're leaving Southern California, I want to go through this with you!

Perhaps it's because of my lack of girl friends, that I wish the few I had would progress right along with me. I'm being selfish again, aren't I? When we were getting married, I longed for any friends who were doing the same. Now we're the only married couple amongst our friends, and since a baby is now hopefully next on our list, I'm going to be alone with that as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm super grateful for the family and friends who have gone through what we have (and I appreciate the hand-me-downs, as well), but there is nothing like a buddy to commiserate with during the actual hard parts.

Oh well, I'll get there. And when I do, I can either be the advice giver, or the advice taker!

Notes from Me

Not much going on here, just counting the days until Hawaii (three!!), hustling to get all my work done, month end, and quarter end done, and trying to get all things around the home in order.

I know she's probably soooo busy right now, but Beth- your invitations are stunning. Seriously. I rubbed my cheek on one page, and I plan on sending you the RSVPs (yes, late) from Hawaii (which is okay, since we knew I wasn't going anyway).

Anyway, to Beth, if she has time to read this: Have the best wedding of your life (hopefully you'll understand this). Enjoy the day, remember those who couldn't be there (not too much, though, it's all about the present!), and be blissfully happy knowing all the details and do-dads you've been slaving over will be appreciated and adored (Or I'll have to come over there).

Happy Wedding, Beth!!!!

From a distance

Everyone is allowed a little down time, right? Not like, "powering down" and taking a vacation, but just "I honestly don't feel like I can pretend to be happy anymore" downtime. Like, I'm feeling down. I've always been impatient, never would patience be considered one of my virtues. Despite that, I don't believe I'm OWED anything in life, I don't DESERVE to have everything I want.

I have a great husband who I love, a great dog I love, parents who support me, extended family who loves me (and I love in return), but I feel like I've been moving along in my daily life with a lump constantly in my throat, a tight feeling in my chest. I'm not quite sure why I feel this way, perhaps it's hormones? I don't know. All I know is that I'm tired of the waves of jealousy and envy that flow through me. I'm tired of forcing myself to be chipper, and fed up with having to be the usual Amber. Sometimes I do want to cry about random things, and yes, I know it's okay to stop being happy for one day (hell, more than one).

I think what bothers me is that I don't like this feeling. I hate myself for being jealous of friends who have everything I want. I wasn't raised to be bratty, I was happy being poor but loved. Why now, is it different? Why can't I just be HAPPY without being envious? I love my friends very much (even those I haven't met in real life), and I swear, I am supportive and will back them up should other people try to cut them down (I'm a walking and talking hypocrite), but still, I envy. Is there a difference between a friend being envious and an enemy? I hope so.

So for all the people I seem a little distant to: I'm sorry, I'm busy wallowing in self-pity. I'm having an adult sized temper-tantrum. Pity party for one. This is me, being down. I apologize, because I'm as tired of this as you are.

Life is What You Make It

Those who know me know that I'm usually optimistic. Sure, I crash every now and then, but mostly I try to be happy. I'm not quite sure why I'm like that, perhaps it's just part of my "baby of the family" role. With only ten days left until our Hawaii trip (and yes, I am VERY excited), I'm anxious with the money issue (our spending whilst there), our scheduling plans, and our poor poor Woofie who will be spending the week with Grandpa. With my dad losing his job, he's had a lot of time on his hands, and I think he's lonely (oooh, Karen, perhaps he can spend some time with you and the kidlets some day?), so Woofie should cheer him up. When we had him watching Woofie for our brief honeymoon in Vegas, he offered to keep him a little longer. Once we took him home, my dad mentioned a few times, "Ya know, it's kind of empty here without the sound of Woofie sneaking around looking for scraps. You don't realize how used to him you get." So, I assume that dad will just fall in love with our little guy all over again. I'm sad to admit that it's a treat for Woofie just as much as it is for dad, this vacation away from mom and dad, as he gets to go to bed later, and get up later.

In the last couple days, I've found out four friends of mine are pregnant. Isn't that a shock? Yes, I love the idea of being Auntie Amber, but I so long to be "Mommy". So it's slightly disheartening to hear about these ladies who weren't planning, but somehow got pregnant, while I'm waking up at 6am every morning to check my temps, and plan my life around what could possibly happen. I'm being selfish, but I just want it so badly.

On other news, Paul has already asked for Halloween off. He plans on using the day as an anniversary trip to Disneyland. :) We had a great time there a few years back on Halloween, and this year it should be great.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Eureka!

Fear not, I have found my candies. Yesterday I tried out the local Rite-Aid, and what did I see? FOUR medium bags of the mint crisp m&ms. And what did I do? I bought them all.

The insides are very light and crisp, the mint not too powerful, the candies are perfect. When I came home lugging four bags of candies, Paul just laughed. I suppose he knows me well enough, eh? I plan on saving these guys in a tupperware container in a cool dark place. Who knows when they'll be gone forever? Listen to me, it's like I'm creating an earthquake kit, only it's just candy. Quite sad, isn't it?

I need you, Minty!

As anyone who knows me knows, I LOVE candy. I'm a candy freak. Paul's students come to me knowing I'll have some kind of candy or gum in my purse, and they just love to see what they can find.

It comes to no surprise, then, that I'm always on the lookout for new kinds of candy, special limited editions and the like. Along with candy, I'm a huge fan of mint. I'll try anything with mint and chocolate. This is why it's KILLING me that I'm unable to find the new Indiana Jones themed Mint Crisp M&Ms. It's funny because my favorite M&M was always the crispy ones, the ones that are no longer available. :(

Now, there are the new "limited edition" mint crisp variety, which is nearly impossible to find. I've looked everywhere: CVS, Longs, Albertsons, Rite Aid. NOTHING! Can anyone help? Tell me where to look!

Six Words Isn't Easy

Well, I have received my first tag ever. Karen over at Mummy Blog (love the babies!), has tagged me to answer the question, "Which six words would you choose as a memoir?" If anyone knows me, I'm a jabberer. Wow, I don't know if that's a word, but whatever. :) Anyway, I can barely make a six word only sentence, much less sum up my whole life in six words. Luckily I've only lived 28 years, and have no kids to claim, and really, we all know one of those words is LOVE.

So, it is with trepidation that I accept this challenge, Karen!

Now, my six words:

Struggle, laughter, loss, joy, scapegoat, love.

I would like to reserve the choice to change these, since the rules aren't really stating I shouldn't!

My reasons why I chose these:

Struggle: I had very bad asthma growing up. Because of this, it was a struggle to breathe, to play sports, to do well in school since I missed so much of it, to be NORMAL. When I'd have an attack, I was incapacitated for days. I missed out on school assignments, I wasn't able to play sports like a normal kid, and it was just so hard to see what my sickness did to my family. All because of my illness, many things were affected- our bank accounts, holidays, birthdays... a chance to be at the LA Zoo with Sesame Street, but noooo... I was not breathing. DAMN.

Laughter: despite the unhappiness of my parents, we had a great deal of laughter in our lives. Our extended families, both maternal and paternal, were usually quite jokey, with many inside jokes "outsiders" (used loosely, as many who started as outsiders quickly became insiders!) had a hard time understanding. We were/are a close family, and I think a big part of that is due to the laughter. There were many hardships our families faced, and in my humble opinion, I think laughter helped. Three or so days before Christmas, my grandma passed away. Christmas day was usually spent at her house, the family gathering together for our annual get-together. Needless to say, that Christmas after her death was not a good one for us. My cousin Mike brought something to cheer us up: the rarely seen South Park Christmas Card (he had connections). That Christmas we watched the filthy-mouthed children on the program and laughed harder than we had been able to for years. It's ironic, as one of the South Park producers is a parent at Paul's school, and I have been able to thank him and his buddies for giving us a reason to be happy that Christmas.

Loss: I think every life is tainted with loss. Whether it be a sibling, a grandparent, a pet, a friend; due to death, fighting or distance. I know my own life has been touched. I've lost a few pets to death, both long time pets and sick birds that landed in our yard. I've lost friends to misunderstandings, and sadly a few to death. I've lost my brother to a whole different country on the other side of the world, along with that I've lost the ability to get to know my niece as well as I'd like. I've also lost my grandma, the matriarch of our family to an illness that robbed the family of the essence of her many years before her death. I'm not angry about losing people or pets (although one frog's death haunts me: RIP-ibit Frogwarts!) or friendships, after all it is part of life. As you can see, it was a big part of mine.

Joy: I've been told that I have a joyful personality. Even when I'm down, I try to bring others up. I've always been happy, always had a smile on my face or a laugh in my throat. Sometimes I feel it's my personal duty to make people happier. Maybe this is why I love Disneyland so much, people are always happy there (give or take the tantruming children and the exhausted and snippy parents). I love to make people happy. I love to laugh and to smile, and to make others laugh and smile. Although sometimes I get down, it's easy for me to get up again. Sometimes, though, this need to make others happy leads me to:

Scapegoat: Growing up in a turbulent family, I learned to project any and all squabbles to me. Someone was fighting? Oops, look what I dropped on the floor. Someone else getting punished? No, I was the one who ate that candy. I still do that sometimes, deflecting. I do it at work, I do it with friends, I even do it with my parents.

Love: Needs no explanation. I am loved, I do love, I have loved.

Now, I tag you, Tricia, Beth, Limoncello, Anita, and Pinkblot.

If you aren't interested, that is okay. I know many of you are busy, are planning your own weddings, or helping to plan others' weddings. You don't have to do this, I just know many of you are so eloquent and have so much to say. It's harder than it sounds!

The King Of Kong

A fistful of quarters. One of the best movies ever, I swear! This movie is a documentary of the battle between good and evil, right and wrong, modest and smug, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. Yes, this is a documentary about the top score for Donkey Kong. Sounds silly, and while it almost is, this movie is fantastic.

Anyone who grew up in the 80s knows Donkey Kong. They know all about getting to that final level, which is unattainable for a majority of us. Billy Mitchell scored the top score in 1982, and had yet to be beaten. Until Steve Wiebe came along, a man who had lost his job, lost his ability to play his beloved sports due to injury, and needed a boost. So, he took up Donkey Kong in his garage, and set his sights on beating the record.

Now, I'm not going to tell you the ending, but this movie is seriously a delight to watch. Karen, you listening? :) I think your husband would like it!

Sun Shines

Despite the cloudy, overcast day today, the sun has been shining on me for the last couple of days. I truly believe Sunday was such a great day for me. No, Paul and I didn't so anything special, we didn't go anywhere fancy (although Dad and I did have a great time at the Cheesecake Factory on Friday!), and really spent a majority of the day lounging about.

No, the good news began Friday night, when Paul spoke about certain dates, and possibly taking a vacation. Stop the presses. What?! Well, that parent I spoke of previously forcefully emailed Paul dates and locations we could travel to. The locations are as follows: Acapulco, Cancun, Dominican Republic, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, and Kauai, HI. The dates ranged from mid-June to August. Each trip was for 8 days and 7 nights. A week long vacation, offered to us. We checked out flights to Kauai, which is our dream trip, and we couldn't find anything less than two thousand dollars. This was on Friday, after we received the dates and everything. So, I checked out my fellow Bee (Miss Lovebird) who is getting married in Cancun and saw that it looked just like Hawaii, but down below a bit. :) Sooo, we looked into it, and saw flights for 1600 for the both of us. And well, we made the decision to go to Cancun June 28-July 5. Until we realized we needed passports. DANG.

So, I checked and found we could either expedite the passports and get them in three weeks (possibly), or go to the passport agency and get it ASAP (for a fee of course). We were all set, had Paul's mom searching for his certified birth certificate, when we found out it was missing. We began to think everything was against us for this trip. Until I decided to search for fares to Kauai again, one last hope. Well, we found flights for 1700.00. We'd spend at least 300 dollars on getting passports and birth certificates, so we bit the bullet, let the kind parent know we're accepting Kauai for the week up to the fourth of July, and booked the tix.

We are now taking a trip to Kauai, our dream honeymoon, for a whole week. This is such a dream for us, and yeah, it's a bit of money for when Paul won't actually be IN school, but we figured that this may possibly be our last vacation if we get pregnant- why not actually take this couple up on their offer, since we'll never get this lucky again. We will be staying at the north shore of Kauai, in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo with two decks and a kitchen. Welcome to heaven. Luckily, we'll be able to cook dinner a few nights, and hopefully make breakfast a few other times. There is a Wal-Mart and Costco on the island, as well as a bunch of other markets, which will save a bit of money there.

In other news, I've been rationing my Advair asthma inhaler, since I wouldn't be covered by Paul's insurance until July, and I needed two puffs a day. Then, we received insurance cards in the mail, one for each of us. I was perplexed. So I had Paul talk to his insurance lady at school and she said it was a miracle, but I'm insured as of June 1st! Now I can call to have my prescription refilled, and I won't have an asthma attack in Hawaii, free to breathe.

In other good news (see what I mean about the sun shining on me?), after months of our garbage disposal being kaput, I was on the phone with my dad, who mentioned all garbage disposals have reset buttons. When I found ours, I hit it and gave the switch a flick. It was actually making noise now instead of just dead silence. My dad mentioned it may have something stuck in it, and recommended I get a broom handle or something and use it to move around the blades (turned off, of course). Well, I used the handle of our plunger, and got those blades a movin'! He said many times that's all that needs to be done, instead of needing a new disposal, as the machine can get bound up easily. Well, I turned it on after moving the blades around, and what do you know? I WORKS! I AM A MASTER OF PLUMBING. I was sadly so proud.

Anyway, that's my update. Good news abound. Next month at this time, I'll be in Kauai, hopefully making a baby. Yes, I will be ovulating at this time, which will also be our 8 month married anniversary (well, on the Third). Couldn't be better timing. And yes, you DID need to know that. :)