I love our ward so much!!!!!

I just love our Ward! When we lived in Cedar City we had a really great Ward! When we lived in Pleasant Grove you could say we weren't so fond of our Ward. We absolutely adored our Ward in Salem! It was just wonderful! We feel the same way about the Ward we are in now. Loving our Ward makes such a huge difference in our lives. We actually look forward to going to church. We go to activities. We feel the spirit at church.  We have a calm, comforting feeling that we don't have when we don't love our Ward. We feel like we are part of a Ward FAMILY. We matter, you know?! It adds to our joy.....

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me....., scripture marking, that dadgum tooth fairy!, Brian's delicioso burritos

~As a parent you I feel the magnitude of the responsibility I have to raise good, decent, humble, active participants in church, and successful, upstanding citizens of this crazy world. I realize that I have to be a good example to them in every way because they learn so much by watching others. Now that I have a daughter I feel this responsibility even more than before! What she sees and hears me do will shape the kind of person she will be, just the same as it will shape her brothers. But it will also shape the kind of wife and mother she will be. Kind of mind blowing for me! She truly watches EVERYTHING I do. She is so cute to watch as she does stuff I do. She loves to help me with every task. She is a hard little worker! Her favorite way to help is to hand me the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Today I got out a towel to dry the dishes with since I usually use plastic cups and they just never seem to dry in the dishwasher. Well, Gracie got herself a towel out of the drawer and came over and started drying off dishes too. Oh my goodness! It was adorable! She melts my heart! She.is.JOY!!!
~So I went to that little scripture marking class last month and the teacher gave us a piece of paper with all the scripture mastery scriptures on it. She said she figures that if the youth of the church need to memorize them she should probably at least have them marked in her scriptures. She marks them in a rainbow of colored pencils so she knows when she runs across them she will remember that they are scripture mastery scriptures. I have been marking them in my scriptures since Brian got them for me a few years ago and I haven't marked very many scriptures in them yet. Although, Gracie has done her fair share of marking them!  ;)   I have so enjoyed marking these scriptures because they are just wonderful, inspiring, faith building, thought provoking, scriptures! I don't really take time to read scriptures on my own. We do as a family and that is wonderful but I really feel like I need to make more of an effort personally to study the scriptures on my own. I am so grateful for the scriptures! What a wonderful gift we've been given by our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ!  The prophets in the scriptures had such courage, such faith, such obedience. We can learn so many things from them!!!
~K, soooo, my face had been feeling like I was having birthing contractions for a couple days. So intense and unbearable! I don't think I've ever cried from the pain I have there before. I just try to be tough but that pain had me curled up in a ball on my bed, crying like a baby!!! Then my last tooth on the top on the right hurt so badly it's ridiculous so I went to the doctor. The crappiest part was that my T.N. could be causing that pain or it could just be a rotten tooth. My dentist said the only way he could tell if it was the tooth was to remove the filling I had in that tooth and basically do a root canal which would cost like $1500 and it could just be the stupid nerve causing it in the first place and I would have wasted $1500. I just had him pull it. He said it's really not that important of a tooth anyway. So, now I've had 3 teeth pulled. And not once has that dadgum tooth fairy brought me so much as a penny! Can you believe that?!?!  :)
~Brian makes these AMAZING pork burritos! I mean seriously TO DIE FOR!!! They are super easy to make too. And the smell fabulous!!! Ok, so this is what he does....

Brian's Delicioso Burritos

*Place a pork roast in the crock pot.
*Pour a can of that green chili verde enchilada sauce over it.
*Cut some onion up and throw that in. Brian cuts it into pretty big chunks so the kids can easily pick it out.  :)
*Cut up an Anaheim pepper and throw that in too. We didn't have one last time and it was still fabulous!!
*Let it cook in your crock pot for  like 6-8 hours from frozen.
*Put some on a flour tortilla and roll it up and ENJOY!!! We put cheese on the kids' meat in their tortilla because they'll pretty much eat anything that is covered in cheese! :)

YA THINK, NANCY DREW?!?!?!

K, so, I have had SO much pain lately and the last thing I want to do is wash my car but it was so dirty I decided I just couldn't take it any longer. I washed it on our driveway and I was drying it off with a towel when this lady pulls into the driveway and stops her car. She was super skinny. She had bulgy eyes and long, stringy, yellow hair and was smoking a cigarrette. She kind of reminded me of a witch on a movie or something. I walked up to her car and asked if I could help her and she said, "I called the police!" I was like "Why, what happened?" She looks at me like I'm stupid and says, "Well, you ran into my car at the stop sign getting off the highway!"  I was all, "NO I didn't!!!" And she was all, "Yes you DID!!!"  I was like, "When did this supposedly take place?" She said, "About an hour ago." It was around 4:00 at the time. I was like, "Well, I haven't left my house since noon!!!" She was all, "Well, I drove by a few minutes ago and you were washing your car and it looked suspicious." Since when does it look suspicious to wash your car?!?! She said,"Well, the lady sure looked like you and the car looked just like yours!" I drive a silver Ford Windstar. I said, "It's a VAN, we live in UTAH, they're everywhere!!!"  I was all, "I don't appreciate you coming here, accusing me of something that I didn't do!" She said, "WELL, can I LOOK at your car?"  I was all, "Go for it!!!"  So she looks at my car and of course she saw nothing and said, "Well, you aren't the one!"  YA THINK, NANCY DREW?!?!  Then she said, "I'm sorry but I am just so upset and I thought you were the one who did it."  I said, "Well, I would be upset too but you really shouldn't accuse people of things they didn't do." She said that the police got the other lady's license plate # so they would be able to find her. They also told her that the lady lived on Rose Avenue. I was like, "Well, this isn't Rose Avenue! It's over..." She interrupted and said that she knows where Rose Avenue IS! Right about that time she noticed Zack, then Gracie walked around the car with our dog and Max was walking around and she just said again that she was SO sorry, that she was just upset. I told her again that I understood and that I would have been upset about her situation too if it were me. Then she drove off.

CRAZY!!! 

I needed this one...

My friend Holly posted another good thought on facebook. I really needed to read this one!

Don't lose hope. When you are down to nothing, God is up to something. Keep your faith strong! ♥

Welllllll....

I went to that Dr's appointment. The first lady that came in acted like I didn't even have TN and was trying to diagnose me. I was like I know what I have I just need further treatment...HELLO MCFLY!!! So she finally got her superior who knew a lot about TN and she came in and was like yes, I totally think you have TN. She said that she thinks I should just keep trying to find the right medicine and the right dose for me and if I ever get to the point where I don't get relief from medication anymore then I should consider surgery but otherwise it should absolutely be a last resort. She said that she understands my desire to get off of my medications and not have to take them forever but since TN can go into remission and since I am much younger that most people with it I should just patiently wait it out. Most people who get it are in their 60's or 70's but you can get it at any age. She said the surgical treatments are fairly new and they can be scary. They can cause you to have even more problems than you already had in the first place. Or the problem can happen all over again. I have heard some real horror stories so I suppose it is best to not have surgery. BUT since November, when I FINALLY had a diagnosis from 3 different doctors and I started researching treatments and stuff I have just been dealing with the pain the best I could knowing that there was an end in sight. I just KNEW that I would go to this appointment that I have been on the waiting list for all of this time and they would tell me which of the procedures they thought would work best for me, I would have it done and then I would be all better. I could be the mom and wife I really want to be again. So today I have been very upset. I just can't help it. Now that I don't have an end in sight, no motivating factor, what do I do. Am I strong enough to endure this crap? It seriously sucks! I don't want to have Trigeminal Neuralgia!!! I just want it to go away! I don't want it to continue robbing me and my family of ME!!!! I know that this stupid thing gets progressively worse and I am really scared about that. The fact that they call it "The Suicide Disease" because it just gets so horrid that you just can't take it anymore terrifies me. I have tried so hard to be as positive as possible. People are always surprised when they find out what I have because I try so hard to not let it show. But right now I just want a whole day of just staying in bed, just sleeping and crying and wallowing in self pity. Just accepting it fully as something I will have to endure the rest of my life and trying to get all the negative feelings out. Then the next day I can just get out of bed, dust myself off and go forward. But instead I have to just keep going and that really sucks. No wallowing in self pity for me. Ok, so I am still wallowing today but I just can't do it while laying in bed. :) I get to do it while I clean the house. Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully I have a new attitude because today's attitude really bites!!!

Yeah, right! In your ever lovin' dreams!!!!

So, I'm officially old and all. It's my 20 year high school class reunion in August. I already have trepedations about attending the reunion anyway because of things like:

~my fatness

~the cost of attending (especially the dinner...WOW 50 bucks a couple at the Country Club)

~my fatness

~not sure if any of my friends will attend anyway

~my fatness

~what if nobody even remembers who I am because I only attended school with them for 2 years since I       moved from Kansas just before my Junior year. That would be so humiliating!!!

~my fatness

~what if nobody recognizes me because of my fatness and all and even if they would remember me they just don't recognize me because I weigh like 100 lbs. more than I did in high school. (not quite but it sure feels that way!)

~and oh yeah, have I mentioned my fatness?!

Imagine the laughter that ensued as I read the schedule of events for the reunion and saw where they are planning to have us all meet at the pool that Saturday afternoon and swim....I honestly cannot think of anything more humiliating than showing off my flab-alanche, farmer tanned (mostly ghostly white), stretch marked from having 4 babies, 38 year-old, "booty"licious, boob hangin' low, body at the POOL at my HIGH SCHOOL class reunion!!!! WHAT can they POSSIBLY be thinking?! I know there isn't much to do here for entertainment but PUHLEASE! I'm thinkin' I'll take a big ol' pass on that one. Thanks anyhoo though! "major rolling of eyes"

I'm so excited!!!!

So, I've been on a waiting list with University of Utah Neurosurgery since November. I could have had an appointment a long time ago if I wanted to go to just any old doctor but this is my HEAD we're talking about here! I want to go to someone who knows what they're doing. Since I've had this Trigeminal Neuralgia diagnosis I have heard many a horror story. Most likely I'll have to have surgery where they cut into my skull and treat the nerve so I really don't want to just go to some Joe Shmo that wants to use me as a guinea pig or something. It's been SO tempting to just go to someone else, especially lately since my medicine hasn't been working so well but I am SOOOO excited because they finally called today!! I have an actual appointment on July 11. I am so happy I could cry. I'm also more than just a little bit scared. I mean, surgery is scary!!! I'm hoping and praying that they can help me and I can be a little bit closer to normal.  ; )