SEE.....I have pics now too!

I was just messing around tonight and figured out how to do this...so forgive the boo-boos.

This is Cam with the other girl I used to babysit...see how well they get along now?

Cameron with the little girl we babysit.They're cute now, but just wait...they can be terrorists.

Don't hesitate to Comment

For those of you who haven't read a blog before...or are new to mine...there is something at the bottom that is kinda fun. You can make any comment that you want. Please let me know what you think...I think I'm pretty tough and I can take the criticism or the praise. Comment away!

I love RAIN!

It's been raining on and off all morning here and I LOVE it! This winter was strange for our area. Christmas was clear and not cold at all, but the last two months have been bitterly cold and snowy. I'm just glad that it's raining now. For some reason I've just always felt peace during rainstorms. I think the sound is one of the best things to hear when I'm frustrated or stressed out and the smell......oh, I just love rain!

I think the rain today should help me out. I've been stressing over babysitting again. I say again because I tried to be a permanent babysitter a few years ago for my cousin, but their schedule was so much different from the one I wanted for Cameron that I just couldn't handle it and I quit. Now I'm feeling that stress again, and it's not because the two families schedules are that different, I think it has to do with me not feeling completely in control of my son. I had a rough day yesterday with Cameron and the little girl we've been watching. Their behavior was awful! I had to go and visit someone and while we were at their house Cam tried to run up and down their stairs, pulled the little girl over and attacked some other kids. I was mortified. Anytime I told him to stop what he was doing he'd laugh at me and continue on. When we got home I was so mad at the boy that I immediately put him into time out, which didn't work like it was supposed to because the little girl I watch was upset he was not playing with her. I was at my wits end...I tried time outs, I tried talking to him, I tried ignoring it, but it only got worse and worse until I finally broke down in tears. I love my son, and I love this little girl, but I don't know how much more I can handle if my son continues to be so blatantly disobedient. I want to teach him how to be a nice boy, how to share, and those kind of things, but I don't know if he'll ever get it. I know I'm not alone in this fear either...I was talking to someone whom I look up to on the way she handles her kids and she's also commented on how her boys don't listen to her either. Is this just a boy thing, or a kid thing? What can I do? I hope that this day off from babysitting will help me mellow out and maybe calm down over the situation. I don't want to have to stop watching this little girl just because I feel crazy. Oh, I just need my vacation!

Funny story....

I am wiped out from Primary today! The other chorister was sick and the person she asked to substitute for her was uncomfortable with the songs and the things she had planned, so I helped out and just did both Junior and Senior Primary for today. Lately I've been going to a marriage and family relationship class which has been immensely helpful, but today I had to miss it because of the music times. Anyway, during the sharing time portion of the time they were discussing the gospel standards which is a new thing that they have for the little kids which helps them know what the church believes. One of those is I will not eat or drink anything which is harmful to my body. They were discussing how alcohol is bad and you shouldn't drink it and a small kid (I hope it wasn't Cam) piped up and said, "My dad drinks alcohol!" Most of the teachers had to choke back their natural response to laugh out loud. I was saying I hope Cam didn't say it only because he likes to say that we do things that we don't really do only to be a part of the conversation. Then the teacher who was in charge of the lesson thanked the kids for listening to her and Cam chimed in with a loud, "WELCOME!" I definitely got a good laugh out of the whole thing!

Life really is good

I went to a WONDERFUL women's conference at our church today. When I woke up this morning I was VERY tempted to stay home and sleep in, but I had canceled some other plans to go, so I got ready and went. I got to the chapel and ladies from my ward immediately squooshed on the bench to make room for me. I chatted with some of the people that I hadn't seen for a while and then the meeting started. Reading the program I thought it would be long and boring. I should really learn not to judge things by their covers! They had a main speaker from the local leadership who was the featured speaker, but he was last on the program. They had 3 musical numbers and four speakers who were before him. I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the women who spoke more than the featured speaker. They spoke directly to my heart. I was so touched and felt the motivation to change myself to become more like them. It was so great. While I was at the meeting I finally felt the peace that I've been searching for.

I was invited to a wedding last night and I had a rough time accepting the marriage. This is my aunt's third marriage and I felt he was the biggest loser of all of her previous husbands. The thing is that a few years ago she lived in the same apartment building as we do, and one morning I got a frantic call from her to come and help her and bring someone with me. So I hurried upstairs to wake my husband up and we RAN down to her place. Long story short I saved her from being beaten up by this guy. He even tried to convince me that she was the one who was beating him up. Ever since then I've been struggling with her choice of this guy and my hatred of him. I know that I shouldn't be so unforgiving and stubborn, but I feel a protectiveness over her that is hard to ignore. I've been praying and praying for help to overcome my feelings for this guy. My aunt is constantly telling us that he's changed and that they are working together to fix their problems and that he's a completely different man. So when I found out that he was going to marry her I can't describe the feelings that I felt. I was so upset with her for going back to that loser and mad that he was still such a big part of her life. I finally have come to terms with the choices that she has made and I think I can finally forgive her husband and move on with my life. I've decided that I can't judge him. I believe that Christ atoned for everyone's sins and if I truly believe that then I have to give my aunt's husband the benefit of the doubt and hope and believe that he has truly changed and is responsible for his own actions. And today,at the meeting I went to,I felt the rest of that hatred that I was clinging to leave me. I can't describe the peace I feel. Forgiveness doesn't just feel great when someone forgives you, it can feel just as wonderful to forgive and release those burdensome feelings.

Friends in space?

I know I just keep going on and on about the memories I have with my friend, Carrie, but most of my memories come with her attatched (hence, the rubbaundiesluva.) Here's another one that shows we had very overactive imaginations and how strange we were growing up.

We were lucky enough to be able to be next door neighbors and therefore, we were able to be in the same schools growing up. We were thrilled when in the fourth grade we FINALLY were in the same class. I think that's when it all started. We'd go out to recess and stake our claim on the monkey bars. (One friend told us that his first memory of us was of Carrie shoving him out of her way going to the monkey bars .) Anyway, we'd climb up and sit on top of them instead of swinging our way across them. Then once we were on top we'd imagine that we were in outerspace. But to be "astronauts" we'd need a good education, and we'd imagine that we needed diplomas to be in space. Carrie came up with the idea of "storing" our diplomas in our hands. She had this fancy swishing and folding motion that she'd do with her hands to either pull out the diploma to show it off, or to store it back in her palm. I guess you could call it our old school palms. We'd sit on top for the whole recess pretending that we were seeing things going on from space and we'd comment on how everyone looked like ants. (I think we were actually looking at the ants.) Who knows exactly what we were doing? I just know that from that year I have very fond memories of bullying other kids out of their chance to play on the monkey bars. I know that if you were to ask Carrie, she would probably quote that very intelligent person I mentioned before by saying that looking down from space the duty aide's leg was shiny. (If you haven't picked up on my sarcasm when I write...the very intelligent person that I talk about is me.) She remembers all of my embarrassing moments. I guess that's what good ol' friends are for, right!

Brownies that we HAD to eat

Carrie just reminded me of another time when we have very vivid memories. One night while we were in high school we were having a sleep over at my house in my tent (which was "planted" in our garden.) I had many cats at the time and they lived outside of our house, well while we were in the tent they kept creeping in and wanting what we had been eating, my mom's homemade, to-die-for brownies. My sister was also having a sleep over at the same time in the backyard and she and her friend were just a few feet away, sleeping on the trampoline. But while they were giggling away, we were lost in our own world of cat-problems. We tried many different things to keep the cats away, but none of them worked. And my parents had told us not to go into the house again for the night, so we were stuck. Finally I was frustrated and I told Carrie, "We have no choice, we have to eat all of the brownies." We were stuffed and there were lots of brownies left on the plate, but it never occurred to us that we could give them to Michelle and her friend, so we stuffed our faces until we were sick to our stomachs. As soon as we finished, I asked Carrie why we didn't just give the extra brownies to Michelle and Jenny. We were so sick, we just didn't care. That night we laughed, but not as hard as we can now!

Just Memory Laning

Now that I'm over my whole issues that I was having, I can reflect on some of my crazy memories.

I've already talked about the rubbaundies, but I didn't mention all of the things that Carrie and I actually did when we were younger. We used our front yards as the boundaries for our imaginary houses/mansions. We would make up new floorplans almost daily, but we had fun. Our young minds would imagine HUGE mansions. Then we would imagine our future (or what we'd hope would be our future) families would be like. I remember having lots of kids and "driving" a minivan. Well, all I need now are the other kids. People would drive down our road while we were pretending in our front yards and I know they thought we were crazy. Who sees little girls walking down the sidewalk with fisted hands in front of their belly buttons? I wouldn't know what to think if I saw that now. At least we had fun.

I do remember having a very good imagination experience one time though. We live in Idaho, where the wind blows all the time and it's usually cold. One time I was riding my bike home from school and it was windy, like usual, and it was cold. My friend suggested that I pretend I was driving down the road in a car so the wind couldn't get to me. So I tried it. Either my imagination was good, my memory is bad, or the wind just happened to stop at that moment, but I remember suddenly being warm and not being blown by the wind. If you were to ask Carrie, she'd probably quote a VERY smart person who once said, "The wind will kill you, as long as you are not moving." That pretty much sums it up!

Have you ever had the feeling you were being picked on?

I love my family, don't get me wrong, but whenever I'm with them I just get picked on. Last night I went to my parents' house and my brother who is normally at college was home for the holiday. Things were fine and then another one of my brothers got up to get a drink of water from the fridge. My mom has one of those fancy fridges that has a filter for the water and when its time to change the filter a little light on the sensor panel changes color. It's been red for quite a while and no one in their house can seem to figure out where the filter is to change it. So a few weeks ago right after it changed colors I was telling my college brother not to get his water from the fridge because it wasn't filtered. He laughed so hard at me...none of the water in my mom's house is filtered (just a perk from living in Idaho.) Then he said, "Yeah, because the water from the sink is so much better, right?" So since then I haven't really heard from him because he's normally not there. Anyway, when my youngest brother went to get his water from the fridge last night he said in a high pitch voice, "Don't get the water from the fridge, it's not filtered." My college brother almost spit his food all over the place keeping back his laughter. He wasn't the only one laughing either, everyone who knew the joke was laughing. Then I told him in the same high pitched voice, "Shut up!" To which everyone laughed even harder. I was so embarrassed, and I squealed in the same voice, "Leave me alone." My dad told me to stop while I was behind and the whole incident slowly settled down. I just always am the butt of the jokes in our family, and my college brother is usually the one to instigate the picking.
Then last night I was IMing a friend and she started to pick on me. What she was doing wasn't any different from what she normally does, but I was a bit tired of the whole thing. (So if you're reading this, don't feel bad, I was just tired and had already had more than my fair share at my parents' house.) I guess it was just one of those days.
Things really are fine, I just wanted to write about that story. I love my brother and my friend. They both make me laugh pretty hard. And like I said yesterday in the forgiveness blog, I am happy and can't get rid of the grin on my face. Things are great!

Forgiveness is the mightiest sword

I can't tell you how happy I am right now. I think I worried about my friend not responding too much. I got a call from her last night. She told me some very personal experiences and then turned around and told me that it was unnecessary for me to beg for anything from her. When she said that a HUGE weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I felt free. Free enough to almost fly. The wonderful thing about the whole situation is that we immediately picked up where we had left off in our friendship. I know that God had a hand in the whole thing and I am so grateful right now that he does look after us and helps heal our aches and hurts.

I need some advice....

I need some help. I just got a message last night from a former friend who I would very much like to be friends with again. Let me set up the situation...
When I was in school and dating my husband I had some very good friends who lived in the same dorms as me and we did everything together. (They were even there with me and Steve on our "first" date.) Anyway, one of my friends was a friend I had in high school. She was always bubbly and happy and I enjoyed being around her. Well, once I became serious with Steve I asked her if she would help me by doing my makeup and maybe massaging me before the wedding. She agreed. Here's where the problem lies....she took what I asked to mean, "will you be one of my brides' maids?" I took it to mean, "will you help me by being close to me on my special day?" So our versions of the story are very different. When it became official I invited her over to see what I had planned so far and I showed her the patterns for the bride's maids dresses and she told me that the sleeves were all wrong for her and wondered if I could change it. Needless to say there was a very awkward pause while I told her that I hadn't planned on her being one of my bride's maids. Since that day I haven't heard boo from her. I had heard from other friends that she was VERY upset with me, but that was it. I saw her once in the 6 and a half years since that day, but she completely ignored me. I thought it was over and decided to move on with my life, hoping that if I ever heard from her again that I could find a way to apologize to her and beg her forgiveness. I realize now that what I asked was not what she'd expected, and I have felt horrible about it.

So, last night I got a note from her (to my husband while he was working) and in it she told me that her life has changed for the better and that she is now dating someone and is very happy again. At the very end of the note she gave me her email address. As soon as I saw that I turned the computer back on and immediately wrote her that message that I've been anxious to give to her since I hurt her feelings. I had hoped that she would have written me back, but she hasn't. I feel like she may still be mad at me, but I don't want to continue to write to her and beg to be forgiven and sound insincere. What would you do if you were me? Please let me know!

Sick....sick....sick.....

I was so sick yesterday....it wasn't funny. Steve tried to make me laugh, but I was feeling too lousy to laugh. When I get sick my body goes into hibernation mode. I was awake for a total of 7 hours yesterday. So I missed most of the day. Luckily I didn't have to babysit and Cam can pretty much entertain himself.

I wish I could find decent prices for medications online. I think my computer is too slow or something, it's just not giving me the information that I want. I have found some good prices, but they are from Canada. I guess it's good to be Canadian! (There was a time that I almost considered that possibility!)

Okay, now I've got my memory juices flowing...I have to tell you about Dale. When I was 16 and had my hormones running rampant I was head-over-heels for this guy I met in a small town in northern BC. His name was Dale and looking back he was a weirdo. He was the only guy around and in my mind the cutest guy I had ever met. Luckily I was very wrong, but he and I would write letters to one another, talk on the phone, and I would drive my friends crazy with my talking about him constantly. I even asked him to go on "virtual"dates with me. I would write them in letters and he would have to do what I wrote...I know....I was weird. From what I've heard about him now he's on his second marriage and may not even be married to the gal he's with now. I'm so glad my life took me down a different path. Have you ever heard the song "Unanswered Prayers" by Garth Brooks?? My husband had me listen to it right after we had married and told me that he was grateful for them, well, I too, am grateful for those unanswered prayers!

What a Valentines' Day...so far....

I have just gotten back from getting the new van tweaked. My friend, Carrie, told me that I spent a lot of time talking about the little things in my last blog, but not the things she really wanted to hear about. Our "new" van is a 1998 red Ford Windstar. It looks really nice (especially covered in snow, like it was this morning.) The only problems with it were a long crack in the windshield and the door sensor has a short in it. It's being fixed right now and hopefully we can have it all done by the time my husband has to go to work. I was sitting in the waiting room reading and just about fell asleep. I was very relaxed. I'm sure that Cam and the little girl I babysit will remedy that shortly.

I ordered my husband a balloon bouquet yesterday and he'll be getting it at work. I don't know what kind of balloons they will be giving him, but I know they'll be fun. I ordered 2 "singing" balloons. When I find out what kind of balloons those are I will let you know. I figured that the kids at his work would like the extra noise...and be entertained as well.

My husband gave me a love knot that he wrote a beautiful love note on and a CD that I have been wanting for a while. That may be the extent of our celebrating of this holiday. I think that if you can't show love and gratefulness throughout the year, why jam it all into one day? Our celebration will be ongoing!

What a weekend!!

I didn't think my life would be this busy! It all started on Friday when I went to a wedding of a family friend. I went to the ceremony and then afterward I had to hurry home so that I could go to a doctor's appointment that I had to discuss my Insulin Resistance. Before I went there though I found out that we had gotten our tax refund and was very anxious to spend it. So I went out a splurged a bit. I had talked to my mom about going to this particular doc, and she said that there have been times when she goes there and has to wait for 4 and a half hours. I wasn't really thrilled about that concept, so I grabbed a book and headed out. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was ushered in quite quickly and the doctor was there within minutes. He discussed some solutions and has put me on a strict diet and exercise plan along with a medication that should help me overcome this part of my existence. (So far I've been an absolute flop on sticking to it...)

Then I went home and hurried with my boys to go car shopping. We have been looking at mini-vans for several days now and decided to try a few more places before giving up on the whole thing and buying one that we love, but may be more money than we could afford. So with Cameron and the little girl I babysit strapped in the car we headed out. We tried one place and found that the van was worthless...at least in our eyes, but they were willing to give us more for our trade-in. We hesitated, but decided to try a few more places. We went just down the street and found the van we've been searching for. We love it. It's not as nice as the first one that was expensive, but it's decent and within our price range. So armed with the papers we signed over our lives for the next 27 months and bought a mini-van.

Then we hurried home to drop our little charge off with her dad so that we could go do a bit of shopping before running off to 2 wedding receptions. We had to take my brothers with us, so we grabbed them and hurried off. Now, before I get too far into my story, I should explain what kind of brothers I have. I am the oldest child of 6 and I was lucky enough to be blessed with 4 brothers. Growing up with brothers was not fun to say the least, but I survived...barely. As we've gotten older, my brothers have seemed to shoot up way past where I stopped. They are all taller than me by a long way and they all have my strange sense of humor. Well, we rushed off to both receptions and then afterward decided that we were hungry and needed to eat. So being lazy we went through the drive-thru at Burger King (for my son) and Taco Bell for the adults. While going through Burger King's drive-thru my 23-year-old brother told us to ask the lady if they had any "King Kong burgers." He was referring to the one they have on the commercial that is bigger than the lady's head. Well, the people got a bit annoyed and hurried us to the window to pay. When we got there they asked us if we wanted any sauces to which my hyped-up brothers all shouted at once the type of sauces they wanted. At this time my husband got annoyed with the whole thing and quickly ordered crowns "for the kids in the back seat." The lady working the window speedily grabbed us 5 crowns and we drove off laughing!

That excursion to Burger King was NOTHING compared to what they did to us at Taco Bell. My 19-year-old brother works across the street from this particular Taco Bell and thought that he knew the guy running the drive-thru and instantly began yelling...."HEY CHRIS!!" To which the annoyed guy replied, "Please don't yell at me." We ordered and then my 16-year-old brother in the way back started yelling one of his favorite lines from The Family Guy, "I want 10,000 chicken fa-ji-ta's!" My husband started to whine that he didn't want to be kicked out of Taco Bell for life to which my 23-year-old brother said, "That's okay, there's another one just down the street!" At this point of the night I was so tired that I was laughing at everything!

The next morning I had a funeral to go to for my Great-Uncle where my dad was giving the life sketch that he had wanted me to type up for him. I spent most of the night before trying to figure it all out and set up our new printer, to which we were missing several pieces. After the funeral we came back and I waited for my husband to get off work and then we went and spent more of our tax money. Then I had to hurry home so that I could make phone calls to remind people of our church choir practice the next day.

Today we went to church and found out that instead of singing with the choir next week, we have to wait until the week after (which I was previously asked to form a women's trio to sing that week...but we haven't practiced, so we're gonna put that off.) Then we cam home for a quick minute and then I hurried to my mom's house because one of my uncle's was in town and wanted to have a get-together with the family who lives around here. We had so much fun tonight. In fact, I don't think I need to do my exercise for the next week because I laughed so hard my belly hurts!! I love hanging out with my cousins, they remind me of myself and the kind of person that I am. We're planning another get-together this weekend and I can't wait! I feel worn out, but happy.

While at the funeral on Saturday I was thinking about the kinds of things that people will say about me when I'm not here and I hope I've been a happy influence and lived my life instead of just letting life pass me by. I was even thinking about the way that my husband and I met and what a funny story that was, but I will save that for another time. The ride just doesn't stop! What a fun time.

I'm an IM-aholic....

As I write in here I'm IMing at the same time. I think I have a problem. I like to put myself through torture with my fellow rubbaundiesluva, Carrie. Who, by the way, remembers every embarrassing moment in my life! Right now we're reminiscing about when my husband first fell in love with me. We met while doing a church musical...we were a part of the heavenly choir. After the musical ended we had a "party." The guys were asked to bring drinks and they ALL brought root beer. One of my good friends saw it and said that she wanted to have a burping contest....so I agreed. (Not knowing at the time that my future hubby was watching me.) There were 3 of us involved in the contest and we were downing the root beer as fast as we could. I drank 10 little Dixie cups in 2 or 3 minutes. He heard me belch and fell for me. He told me later it was because he'd never heard a girl burp like that before. So I won his heart. I lived up the hill from the building and after drinking so fast I was waddling pretty bad. Steve took me and walked with me up the hill. He's such a good guy! It's nice to have my son in bed so early at night. Then I can chat and not be bothered by him begging to play games on the computer. He gets to play on the computer at school and thinks that all computers have the same games on them. I really should get him some more appropriate games.

Welcome to the life of a RubbaUndiesLuva

If you are reading this and want to know exactly what a RubbaUndiesLuva is...you're in for some fun. Let me start with a quick introduction. I'm a stay-at-home mom with one little boy. For most of the time I'm a fairly normal lady, but when I talk to a certain friend of mine....I switch from normal to crazy. When we were younger we loved to pretend. We'd pretend we had families and mansions, cars, animals, and our favorite thing to pretend was that we were wearing GIANT invisible Rubber underwear. We would often walk to school with our siblings and we were usually the ones who got left in the dust. So we made a game out of it. We'd pretend that we were wearing giant rubber underwear where we would each be in a leg, and our underwear was being stretched between us and whoever was way ahead of us. We would slow down even more to stretch or break the underwear link between us and the others. Yes, I know, you're thinking we're crazy. We were and are still. That's basically the story of the rubbaundiesluva....which would be me. I am very imaginative and love being silly and having fun. My little boy, Cameron, is so much fun. He's 5 years old and keeps me on my toes. He has always been fun....for the most part. He has been diagnosed with Neuro Fibromatosis and has learning delays, and some small benign fibroids. We just got this diagnosis last year and it's been an adventure to learn about it and what we can do about it. He's been in developmental preschool since he was 3 years old and is already burned out when it comes to school. The poor kid is on his 3rd year of preschool, but he seems to be doing well. He is also in speech and occupational therapy which makes for lots of running around trying to keep up. Right now his favorite thing to do is help mommy babysit our neighbor girl. Sometimes he can be too much of a help, but we're trying to teach him what is the correct way to help. My husband, Steve, is a busy guy! He is working 2 part-time jobs right now and loves one and absolutely HATES the other. He is working fast food....which is the job he hates.....and is working with kids with special needs....which is the job he loves. He is also very involved in local musicals and has a beautiful singing voice...he just needs to use it more often. I am a twenty-something, stay-at-home mom who tries to keep busy taking care of my family, but often I find myself wandering the internet looking for friends to talk to and have fun with. I dropped out of college....twice, and eventually hope to go back and major in sign language interpreting. I'm also trying for baby number two. We've been trying for 4 years now and are hitting all kinds of walls that frustrate us to no end. I just found out that I am severely insulin resistant, and I'm hoping that taking care of that will help us on our task of baby number two. In trying to get baby number two we've tried all kinds of things that may seem wacky and often frustrating to us. I first tried taking Clomid...which made my hormones fly....and I was very mean. So after trying that, I went to an iridologist. This lady told me that she could help me with herbs and natural ways to get pregnant. I still see her and the last time I went in to see her I was given different herbs. We'll see what that does for us. Now I'm also seeing a masseuse who is helping my body cleanse and rejuvenate. I've tried and tried all kinds of things, so I figure I should enjoy myself while I'm at it. Hopefully anyone who reads this will find the humor in my life that I see everyday. Enjoy the ride....I know I will.