This is me

I am so proud of my class. They totally rock!

Our school participated in the Utah Jazz reading competition. When it comes to competition, well...I really like competition. So, I decided to compete against my class. I told them that recently I hadn't been reading a lot and that I would like to start reading again. I told them anyone who read more minutes than me would get a king-sized candy bar of their choice. The school goal was to have each student read 1000 minutes, any student who read at least 1000 mins got to wear their hair crazy, so I told my kids that if the class average per student was 1000 mins that I would do my hair crazy - try to get it in a mohawk.

Well, that was 5 weeks ago and my students totally rocked the contest!!! My class read over 36,000 minutes!!! I only had 3 who didn't participate. The class average ended up being about 1600 mins/student. So, I knew what I had to do. I called my little sister up, who does hair, and asked her if she would get up early yesterday to do my hair. (When it comes to doing hair, I'm not good at it). She agreed - awesome sis! She tried to get my hair to stand up straight like a mohawk so she improvised and this is what she came up with.

in 2 months...

...the world will stop turning
...life as I know it will stand still
...I will actually enjoy watching Qubo with Jenna
...I will not allow the calories on a very good looking Snickers bother me (but I won't eat 2)
...I will appreciate what I look like
...I will laugh when Jason's snoring wakes me up instead of grumble that I lost 2 hours of sleep
...I will stop and smell the flowers that will hopefully start blooming by then
...I will no longer stress the small stuff
...I will be

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Doris!

You are a Doris -- "I must help others."

Dorises are warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific.


• * Share fun times with me.


• * Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours.


• * Let me know that I am important and special to you.


• * Be gentle if you decide to criticize me.

In Intimate Relationships

• * Reassure me that I am interesting to you.


• * Reassure me often that you love me.


• * Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me.

What I Like About Being a Doris

• * being able to relate easily to people and to make friends


• * knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better


• * being generous, caring, and warm


• * being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings


• * being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor

What's Hard About Being a Doris

• * not being able to say no


• * having low self-esteem


• * feeling drained from overdoing for others


• * not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish


• * criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should


• * being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them


• * working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings

Dorises as Children Often

• * are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism


• * try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding


• * are outwardly compliant


• * are popular or try to be popular with other children


• * act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention


• * are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Dorises), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Dorises)

Dorises as Parents

• * are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't)


• * are often playful with their children


• * wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?"


• * can become fiercely protective

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

my new addiction

Jenna got these from Santa for Christmas and well, as a good mom, I help her quite a bit to accrue more Kinzcash. I love playing Cash Cow and making her webkinz going potty (don't know why that is but I find it amusing).

Christmas was great, we got to relax and play with our family. Hopefully in the next couple days I'll post some of our pictures.

my next house will be a rambler

In one weeks time two separate set of stairs have attacked me. yes, both times I was holding onto the railing I've learned that it hurts less if you attempt to pull the railing down with you.
My mom suggests I scoot up and down the stairs on my butt.

For all of you

I love my job!!!

Yes, it is the week before Christmas break. And yes, I did have to threaten my students today with extra work. But, I can honestly say that I still love my job! My kids are so awesome and they make me smile everyday. I love to see them when they really want to succeed and they are so proud to show me their scores when they do well on the computer math and reading. I love seeing at one moment how grown up they can be and when the recess bell rings they are out on the snow pile playing king of the mountain. I can see some of myself at that age in everyone of them.

On Monday I was having a really bad day. I was stressed, my kids were out of control and I was so overwhelmed. I called my mentor and she brought me the simplest thing...6 Dove chocolates!!! It made such a difference. Even on that horrible day though, I knew I still finally chose the right profession.

Another thing that makes me smile is when I'm walking down the hall and so many children know me and will call me out by name and want to give me a hug.

Even though I am excited for 2 weeks off, I am going to miss them.

In the spirit of me being goofy...

I'm doing my first ever blog contest. The first person who can tell me how many surgeries I've had will get a prize from me. We were talking about this last night and my brother-in-law told me I've taken all the good excuses for not going to certain family functions. So, it got me thinking...how many surgeries have I really had in my life?

So, go ahead and guess while I try to remember. I'll keep this open until after Christmas

Christmas last year

I wanted to share with you all again how gorgeous Jenna is and what a wonderful photographer Jason is. This picture was taken last year for our Christmas card. Jason took Jenna out to the Great Salt Lake shores. It was freezing outside and about every 3 or 4 minutes Jason would put Jenna in the car to warm up for a minute. She was such a sport. You can't even tell that she was cold. You can see the snow on the ground, that kind of gives you an idea.

Anyway, I love this picture. Jason entered it into a contest online with Circuit City and he won 3rd place with this awesome picture. He didn't photoshop it at all. He did digitally develop it using Lightroom - that will mean something to you photo people out there.

The reason for the season

I almost teared up today as Jenna and I were driving to dance. She was telling me that her two friends were telling her that Christmas was all about presents. A normal 4 and 7 year old response, in my opinion. This is wear the proud mama moment comes in. She said, "but mom, Christmas really isn't about presents, it's all about Jesus, isn't it?"

I hope she always remembers this. Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season. What a wonderful example she is to me. She reminded me what I really should be thinking about.

ok, I'm going to admit it...

I bought the new Miley Cyrus CD for me, not Jenna. And I'm not ashamed to say right now I am rocking out to it. It's actually pretty good.

A really grateful thanks

To my cyber-friend, Kristi, for this awesome header for my blog! You rock! Thank you so much

Notice Anything Different?

Little Miss Jenna lost her first tooth today!!!

Here's the story I just found out...
I asked Jenna where her tooth was and she said that it was in the office (at school) and that she was going to go on a tooth hunt tomorrow. I thought, that's cute, her teacher does a tooth hunt when a kid loses their first tooth. So, I went to my mom's - who is the school secretary - figured she would know about this. My mom had no idea, and Jenna sees her before she leaves from school.
So, we start asking questions. Apparently Jenna lost her tooth right when the bell rang in the AM - she was with my mom in the office. So, instead of telling g-ma Mary that her tooth fell on the floor and ask G-ma to help find it she runs to class without telling anyone. Why? Because the bell rang, she had to get in line or she'd get in trouble
My mom said she'll look tomorrow, but more than likely it'll be vacuumed up. There goes scrapbooking that tooth, huh?
So, we just wrote the tooth fairy a note to tell her where to go to pick up the tooth. I'll have that to scrapbook and the picture she's drawing because she heard that when you draw a good picture you get $5 (it is down to $5 now).
She is worried that the tooth fairy won't come because she won't know the tooth is missing since it's not under her pillow. Thankfully, after explaining, she knows that the tooth fairy hears everyone including the people who speak Chinese.

Not so Shaggy

Sorry, this pic is off my PhotoBooth on my computer - so it's not the best quality, but you can tell that Shaggy cleans up nicely. I swear when I picked him up from the groomers that they had given me the wrong dog.  He is adjusting quite nicely to our home and even starting to cuddle. He seems to have good manners, he dropped a toy when asked to. He is really mild - the yorkie side. But, he doesn't allow Bear, my parents dog, to beat him up. He has a great personality and I love getting to know him more.

pure begging

I need a header for my blog - I know someone out there is dying to make me one. This is me down on my knees begging for a header...

Fibromyalgia

I don't think I've mentioned this here before, so I thought I would let you all know...

some of you know that I was finally officially diagnosed with fibromyalgia about 5 or 6 months ago - I've known for about 2 years. I always thought that everyone felt like their nerves were "on end". Whenever I mentioned it to my dad, (who always understands the feeling of being in constant pain) he sounded like he understood. A while ago he mentioned that he had never had that type of feeling. So, it made me wonder.

Now, I have found a couple new explanations to explain how the nerves being on end feels.  You know how you feel right before you get the flu, how your body just aches?  That's it. Or the feeling of a ponytail headache.  That's it.  Thanks other fibro-friends for giving me those definitions - they are much more understandable than my previous explanation.

I also always wondered why I was so tired, I thought that it was due to the depression, which runs in my family. Again, I ignored symptoms. I knew I wasn't lazy, but just figured I didn't have the gusto to do all those fun things that so many of my friends do. 

I seriously just thought that I was crazy and that the symptoms were in my head and that I somewhere, subconsciously, was just really lazy. Does that make sense?

Well, I was talking to a daughter of a neighbor/friend. I went to a class with her at a women's conference that talked about dealing with depression. So, we started talking about meds and things of that nature. I was mentioning all these weird symptoms and she looked at me and told me that I needed to have my dr check trigger points for fibromyalgia. I went home and did some research of my own - thank you internet and WebMD. I also found a fibromyalgia site. As I started talking to people, I realized that I wasn't alone. There are people out there in this constant pain and it felt good to know that I wasn't alone.

Why am I sharing this now? Well, part to inform people about fibromyalgia, because some don't believe in it. They think it's in our heads. I won't go on about that, but suffice to say that IT IS NOT IN OUR HEADS!!! IT'S NOT JUST IN MY HEAD. 

Another reason is because I wanted to say how grateful I am for friends who are so understanding, even though they may not know what's going on. I'm grateful for friends who don't become bitter because I missed their baby shower (I really, really wanted to go - I'm so sorry Kerst). I'm grateful for friends who understand when I can't commit to anything, because honestly, I don't know how I'm going to feel tomorrow or the next day. I feel bad if I commit to something and then have to say I can't go and end up sleeping all day (which I totally hate - I have so many things I'd rather be doing.)  I'm grateful for family who is understanding and supportive. Who stand by me when they don't understand what's going on. They just know that I don't feel good.  They take Jenna for me when Jason is at school and I'm not feeling well. I am so blessed.

I am also thankful for a doctor and his staff who believe in me when I say that I'm in need of pain medication. They understand the pain and know that I'm not an addict. They understand that just like a diabetic needs their insulin to function normally and survive, there are days that the daily medicines are not enough.  I'm thankful for the new technology that brings daily meds that I have the hope will help me and make me the me I know I am inside. 

Here's a link that kind of gives you more information about Fibromyalgia.

And last but not least, thank you Jason for understanding and letting me sleep. It means the world to me.

por favor

If any of you have a link to my blog from yours and have it linked with my last name, will you please change it to something else? Thanks so much

p.s.  If I don't have you on my links, remind me to to add you...I've lost my mind and don't know what it's going to return (I'm thinking about Christmas break time)

Happy Halloween!!!

Just thought I'd share my pic with you all! Jenna has been trick-or-treating for 3 hours now - she should sleep well tonight. I took her out for a little over an hour and a half, then DH did, and now my sister-in-law aka Hannah Montana has her.  Don't you just love our little Toto?  

In other news, Jenna has her first loose tooth!!! My baby girl says that the tooth fairy will leave her $10 if she draws a picture and leaves it with her tooth. I'd like to know who this tooth fairy is because she must be rich!

I couldn't wait

Yes, I said I was going to wait until Christmas break to get a new dog. And I really was trying to do it, but when Jason came upstairs today with the internet open to a picture of  a dog, I realized I wasn't the only one missing Fez. 

Meet Shaggy. He is a yorkie/shih tzu mix and 4 years old. We got him from a local rescue. He's quite different than Fez, personality wise.  Hopefully he'll open up some when he gets comfortable with us. He rode the whole 1 1/2 hours quietly after we picked him up. I still haven't heard him bark. He hasn't wanted to play with the toys yet. But, he is a wonderful, cuddly dog - just like Fez. 

Hopefully next week we'll get him in to get his hair cut. He's pretty matted. We'll probably keep his hair short if he looks ok. Yes, it defeats the purpose of his name, Shaggy - but Jenna wanted to name him and it wasn't a completely silly name, so we said ok.

And I would be bad if I didn't mention

Jason, you are so wonderful! You put up with me...and I couldn't ask for more!  You put up with the fibro flare ups and all the sleeping I have to do. You put up with my non-house-wife-ed-ness (my own new word). You aren't to manly to do the dishes or the laundry and yet you still take out the garbage every Weds night.

I know we joke that I came to you already broken since I had kidney stones before we were married. But, you still keep me even though I'm broken. 

You did the most wonderful thing for me two days ago, it was small, but means the world to me...you went to Petsmart and bought a small dog tag (shaped as a dog bone) that says "Fez, Fezzie, Fezzie Mutt". And you had it given to me in the most sweetest way possible. I had to hold back my tears when I opened my eyes to see what Jenna had "found under her bed". It is a beautiful reminder and the only piece of anything that I will purposely carry that is the gold color.  (I would take a picture of it, but I can't get the camera to focus)

Did I mention I love you? Can I keep you forever?