Excuse Me While I Vent

I want to wake up tomorrow with a much more positive outlook on life. Tomorrow I want to see the silver lining and so therefore, today I must vent just a little.

I have a sweet friend who often calls and says I need to vent - can I just vent. I do the same to her. We vent and then we are done. We move on because we can. We have purged ourselves of some of the frustration. Sometimes it works wonders.

So please excuse me while I vent my way through a couple frustrations.

1. I hate this weather. I am sorry but I am tired of being cold and wet. I am tired of white and slush and running errands in the snow. I really am not a winter person. And I honestly fight off depression with a giant shovel all winter long. I long and I mean pine to see things growing again.  Yes I know it has its pretty moments. But if only they were just moments and not a growing wall of snow drifts lining my long icey driveway.

2. I am really frustrated with the lady I carpool with and while I told my children we were going to no longer say bad things about her but chalk it up to different life philosophies, I am going to cheat for just a moment. I am really sick of my children being late to school because she picks them up as the school bell is ringing or she calls and says she is on her way as I am walking out the door (tired of waiting for her to show up) or she doesn't show up at all -- like today. She asks me to have my children ready by 7:45 and she shows up somewhere between that time and 8:25. And then when I am supposed to pick her daughter up -- I sometimes wait or have to go look for her daughter only to discover she has pulled her out of school early and then called my home to tell me while I am waiting in the carpool lane at the school. Seriously, I am done. This is no longer working for my family. We are going to break free of the carpool.

3. I am overwhelmed. I did it to myself. I started a huge project that requires an intense amount of TLC and love and writing and editing and planning. I am exhausted and I have only just begun. But I will get on track, I will be motivated tomorrow. But today the thought of crafting a well- researched article makes me feel like burying myself in a snowdrift for a day or at least under my covers, oh that's right I did that yesterday.

Now I feel better, a little, and I can go to bed with a clear head and a hopeful heart that tomorrow it won't snow, my kids will be to school on time and I will be a clever writer again.

A Love Note

I spent a lovely Valentine's Day greeted early in the morning by these lovelies from my hubby. I am not really a rose girl and I think that is awesome that he remembers that. Aren't those stargazers stunning. They have a fragrance that can knock you out from across the house, which is why they have to be in the dining room but they do certainly keep me from staring at the dismal snow outside. Tom also got our girls a flowers. Cute daddy.

Later that night we sent the kids to bed and I served Tom a delicious dinner of lobster and shrimp fra diavolo, focaccia bread and asparagus. We played a little Wii bowling, which frankly is exactly what I asked for this Valentine's day.

We spent a lovely day together as a family.

I love my children. They drive me to madness some days but there are moments when I wish I could just freeze them all at these ages. I have never felt this way before. I have always been anxious for the next stages, the older child. But I have to say I am pretty content with 11, 8 and 4. Aah but life plods on.

I love my husband too. Tom is not overly demonstrative with his words but he has a way of making me feel beautiful around him, eventhough I know I am not as gorgeous as I once was. You would never guess it from the way he treats me.

And those are my love notes to my family this year. I love you all despite your imperfections and mine.

36 years

I turned 36 yesterday. And I have to say I don't feel a lot older. That's why I am not embarrased to say my age.

Birthdays and years don't really make me feel older.

• The gray hairs I keep finding every week make me feel a little older
• The 30 pounds I need to lose make me feel older and unhealthier -- that is my gift to myself this year -- lose the weight.
• The fact that my son is going to be a deacon in four months makes me feel a little older.
• The fact that I am afraid to go sledding down a hill makes me feel older. Although Tom remedied that last time I took the kids sledding. I sitting down on a sled and he snuck up behind me and pushed me down the hill, Turkey.
• The fact that I have absolutely no fear of being hit on by another man makes me feel old. I almost laughed Tom into oblivion when I walked into one of the sport's bars at the resort in Costa Rica (I needed a late night snack) and Tom said "don't let anyone hit on you." That was funny because. . . seriously, do I need to elaborate why.

And yet there are some things that remind me I am still young.

I can still learn new things.

This year I learned to bake bread and paint. It is never too late to learn a new skill

I can still pursue my dreams:

This past year I started my own business.

I have a very silly four-year-old and am therefore sometimes surrounded by her friend's young moms.

Sometimes I catch myself dancing in the kitchen and I feel young again.

Really, 36 is not that old.

I'm back, Kinda

I am so sorry. I know some of you have been checking in to see if I have posted. I have been a little preoccupied. I have been ridiculously swamped trying to pull off my February issue of Alive! and I was perilously close to slitting my wrists with the keyboard at one point. But it is up and although there is a ton of work to do on it still I am taking a break from that place, kinda. It is a little bit of an obsession.


Somewhere, in the middle of January, Tom wisked me off to Costa Rica. It seems like it may have been a dream. We came back to such massive workloads that it was easy to forget that for hours at a time I had almost no thought in my head except, "look at how gorgeous the ocean is today."

We had a very relaxing visit, barring my sprained ankle and the incessant mosquito bites. Everyone wants to know what we did and although we did have some serious play time, we spent a lot of time lying by the pool or playing in the ocean. We rested. Because we needed it and we knew we had a few hectic months ahead where there would be little or no rest and very little time together.

But here are a few pics of our visit.




I loved the thrill of the canopy ride but this wall freaked me out a tad.

The resort

I know you are wondering about the pic of the John but Tom and I thought it was hilarious that there was this pic of the brahma bull greeting us in the bathroom every day. These white cows are everywhere in Costa Rica. I just didn't expect to have one staring at me in the bathroom.

My first zip.

One day we had an all out adventure that included zip lines, rock climbing, horseback riding, a sprained ankle, a trip down the rapids in an inner tube and a mud spa treatment at the hot springs (the mud spa was a little wierd. But hey we did it and now we never feel the need to coat ourselves in lava mud again.).

We saw a few wild animals, including this porcupine at the resort. We spotted a few monkeys in trees too.

We had some questionable Costa Rican meals (Okay I had a questionable meal)

We had some good meals too.

ALIVE!

Alive is Ready. We are soft launching my new online lifestyle magazine for Southern Utah today.

What does that mean?

The site is functional, it has some fun articles but it is still going through some growing pains. There are some major design elements and even a few story elements to incorporate into the site but we are ready for our friends to take a look. In a few weeks we will tell the Press all about it. That is called a hard launch.

Here is what I hope you will do.

Take a look around: http://aliveutah.com/

Give me feedback. What do you love, what do you hate, what do you want to see on the site, what isn't working? Email me at editor@aliveutah.com

Join the community: Alive! is more than just a website it is also an online community. Create a free account and then you can post comments, participate in the forums or post classifieds. We really want to get our community started at this point.

Spread the Word: If you like what you see, tell your friends about the site. Get them involved. Digg us, stumble upon us all that good stuff. if you don't like it make sure you check back in a couple weeks when things are running a little more smoothly.

p.s. I am already looking for some content for my February issue. Do you have a funny romantic story that will work in our giggle section? email me.

Deep Breath, Here Goes

I took a deep breath and Christmas came.

We had family, and way, way too much food, and more family and more food (thanks for all the goodies everyone. I am five pound fatter)and tons of video game playing and sledding and sitting by a fire and laughing and sleeping and baking and eating. And then I slid into the New Year and I have barely had a moment to breathe. Tomorrow I am soft launching my new online magazine. I have been busy with that and cleaning and making New Year's resolutions. I am finally taking another short deep breath to give you a little update and post some photos.

Christmas Eve

I made two types of Roasted pork loin. Neither one turned out perfect, but they were OK and we were stuffed.

The cousins get pajamas from Santa, we read the story of the birth of Christ in Luke and then the kids play some duck duck goose or snowman, penguin as they dubbed it.

Next Santa comes

My parents come and visit for 4 days. I am sorry to say that we were pretty laid back. There is not a lot going on in Cedar in the freezing weather of winter. But we really loved having them here. I hope they had as much fun as us. My brother Nate and his wife, Elise came to visit too. So fun. We have not seen them in forever and they are such great sports with the kids. The kids basically follow them around. I had to keep saying give Elise some space. OK Isaac does not do that anymore. But the girls adore their Aunt Elise.

We had a great week that ended with a day trip to Vegas on New Year's Eve day. We had to drop off my parents at the airport and we stayed a while to visit the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was really awesome. My kids loved all the sharks, jelly fish and stingrays. We then hightailed it out of Vegas before all the party animals hit the streets. We dined at the new Brick Oven in St. George. I love, love love their pasta bar. We finished up the night in front of the TV trying to stay awake and occasionally catching a glimpse of the Vegas party. So happy I was not there. I am not a crowd lover.
We kissed and toasted the New Year and promptly fell into bed.

Can It Still be Christmas?

A short short post letting you know that I am not ready to come back to real life yet. I am happily ensconced in the bosom of my family this holiday season. I would really like to pretend as if I have no other obligations. Can I do that? Can the holidays last a little longer -- at least until my parents leave and my kids go back to school? I promise I will be a better blogger when I am done hiding out with the fam and kicking back after Christmas. I will be back but not quite yet.