don't say anything...unless...

sometimes i feel like i have nothing nice to say...so i say nothing at all...on my blog...to myself and friends and family, i say all kinds of not nice nothings! so, instead of saying all my not nice things, i thought i would say all the nice things right now.

i am loving the fall weather. though we live in colorado and our fall lasts approximately 2 weeks, and of those weeks there are really only about 5 hours devoted to fall weather each day, i am enjoying the chill! i love sweaters and socks and bundling up. i think i just like to feel cozy. i also look good in fallish colors!

i am too loving all the halloween and autumn decorations going up all over the neighborhood. even the neighbor i don't like too much put up something fallish - so, see she can't be ALL bad then! i have gourds on the front porch, pumpkin spice candles inside, and a bag-o-halloween decorations in the closet ready for our halloween party.

i went to estes park with loo loo and kel bel and have a marvelous time. it was quite possibly the most picturesque day of my life. let me take you there...it was a beautiful drive up - not many people on the road (except once we got into town), bright yellow patches of changing aspens dotting the mountains with hints of not often seen autumnal red leaves sprinkled here and there too. it was the elk festival, so of course, there were a million people out and about. we easily though, thanks to loo and kel's expert knowledge of the area due to a summer/fall of working up there, found a parking spot and a cozy chinese place to eat. we ate delicious food and chit chatted about everything. then we went off to explore the town and the festival. we walked by the river behind all the shops to avoid the hustling bustling crowds as long as possible and admired the houses whose porches hung out over the rushing water. the air got chillier and chillier as we walked and ominous dark grey clouds started to build to the west. we stopped in to a few stores and even bought some touristy shirts - "got oxygen?" we walked and walked occcassionaly stopping to comment on something in a shop window. we finally came to the park hosting the elk festival where there were tipis and camp fire cooking, stations to learn how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together, racoon fur hats, and lots of mullets and tight wrangler jeans. there was only a half an hour left of the festival so the crowd was thinning. then we saw the wolves. real live wolves! there were two massive wolves in a pen pacing and staring down the gawking onlookers. then came a voice "move back! moving wolves! get back!" and from behind the pen came a man and two women guiding two even bigger wolves on leashes to be put back in the truck. they were terrified with tails tucked and it made me a little sad that this was i how i saw wolves in real life. we then continued on to our favorite estes haunt - a little place only the locals know about - perhaps maybe you've heard of it - starbucks! as we walked down the crowded street, a gust of wind came and blew tiny yellow leaves down upon our heads. we all stopped - blocking the walking traffic - and stared up at the rapidly greying sky with hands outstretched as the leaves fell against our faces and palms. we walked on to get our coffee and made it in just before a rush and snatched up the last table. then it started to rain. sprinkles at first and then not quite a downpour but no longer a drizzle. we waited it out sipping on our cups of friendship and warmth. we moved on once the rain subsided some, but were quickly pushed back under cover and sat for a few minutes outside a local real estate office's overhang and perused the for sale homes that we will never be able to afford. we left our shelter and made our last major stop at the candy apple store and then it was off home. there was more traffic on the way down which helped to bring us all out of our reverie for our perfect fall afternoon and soon we were back in longmont and we'd missed the eastern traveling rain clouds by a only a few minutes.

it's nearly time for christmas music - and that always puts smile on my face!

we're going on a vacation of sorts to visit my family in IL next week. we have one of those rare families that actually all get along with one another and genuinely enjoy eachother's company and don't fight when in tight quaters with eachother - perhaps it is because we only see eachother once a year. nonetheless, it will be 6 days of kickball games, pots upon pots of coffee, hardee's breakfasts, guitar playing, children laughing, home cookin', and love.

ok, that was enough to cheer me up subtantially and forget at least for a few moments that i have not nice things to say too - but i'll focus on my nice things today at least!

regrets

what do i regret? well, let me set aside a whole day's worth of hours to start recording them all. i regret loads! loads and loads of stupid things, loads and loads of rather important things, loads and loads of unfortunately life changing things. right now though, i am regretting not praying for some of my friends more. now i know prayer changes things and god really truly does listen to our requests, but we also have a a free will and prayer alone will not change someone from a selfish liar into a loving devoted friend again...but maybe if i had been praying earlier or kept my eyes open to some of the signs better, there would have been a better chance for change.

i am excellent at cutting you out of my life if you hurt me too much. if you cross the line that i draw in the circumstance, i won't let you back over. i reget that i did that to my friend...my best friend at the time. i knew her faults. i enabled most of them because i'm in general non-confrontational. i saw them get more and more out of control, but never said anything to voice my concerns. as a friend, that was not how i would want to be treated. i want my faults voiced and brought out so that i can work on them, accept them as faults and move forward. now, she too knew some of her faults, but never wanted to work on them. she expected us to live with them because "that's just how she is". i deeply regret i didn't stand up for what's right and say that NO, just because you know you have a problem doesn't make it ok to keep living like that and treating people like you do. a friend should sharpen you, make you want to be a better person every time you're around them - not just spiritually or morally, but physically, mentally, athletically, scholarly and the list goes on - in every way, you as a friend should sharpen those around you. i chose to let her get dull in some ways because it was too hard or uncomfortable to try and sharpen everything. what a shame - what a regret.

i saw the signs of lost interest, of flippancy, of annoyance. why didn't i ask her about them? why did i listen to her speech of love of a lifetime, perfect match, and marital bliss? why didn't i say anything about the slow but steady change i was seeing? why didn't i question her actions? regret, regret, regret...

she stood by my side on june 11, 2005 and told me that marriage was the best thing that ever happened to her, that she knew that i had found my one true love just as she had 10 years before - but she was already planning the break, the deception, the cowardly and manipulative betrayal - she had already begaun the unimaginable process in her heart.

she betrayed a lot of people - i am not even high on the list of those who were most hurt i'm sure. but this hurt has affected so may layers of my life and i regret that i let it. for a while i was terrified that i would do the same thing - let myself change so subtly that after ten years, i was such a different person that i didn't care about what was right anymore. but then i realized, i have a choice. AND I CHOOSE TO STAND FOR WHAT IS RIGHT. i choose to keep myself around people who will sharpen me, who will tell me when i am screwing and when i need to make a change for the good.

I CHOOSE TO NOT REGRET MY LIFE AND THE DECISIONS I MAKE.

the healthiest me i can be

so i've been reading several books lately that ... gasp ... aren't fiction! i know, so shocking! i never ONCE read a text book in college (except for my literature classes, but those were fiction or poetry so that doesn't count - i wanted to read those) and in high school i literally just skimmed. so for me to pick up 4 non fiction/text book type books in the past month and devour them is practically unheard of!

the first book i went through was YOU on a diet: waist management. this is a hilarious book that really teaches you how your body works - why eating one thing could cause another part of body to not work/function at it's full potential. it's not really a diet like the title suggests, more of a guide on how to optimize your body's performance. this is an amazing revelation if you are interested in better nutrition whether you're "big" or "little" already.

then i received a book from my mother-in-law called The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood by Dr. William Spears and his wife and two sons who are also doctors (pediatricians). if you have or are ever planning on having children - PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! i cried several times because i want to give eisley a better chance at being healthy and having a better body image than i received from my parents and i want to be a role model for her. Now, i'm not saying my parents did a bad job AT ALL! i can't remember a time when i was in school that we kept chips or cookies or soda - or anything like that at all in the house. in fact, i distinctly remembering training myself to like soda - it hurt sooooo bad at first to drink it - then of course it became easy :) so actually my parents gave me an incredible advantage starting out in that respect, but we also ate lots of mac-n-cheese and loads of other processed things with more salt or sugar per serving than one needs all day! i am an admitted salt junkie - if it's salty and has partially hydrogenated soybean oil in it, i probably like it! i can give or take sweets, but salty is where it's at. this book really has given me a new outlook on my role as a parent. the book mentions that we as parents naturally want the best for our children and also ourselves. we give them the best toys, the nicest clothes, want them to attend the best schools and get the best education, so why would we feed them sugar loaded breakfasts right before school that inevitably cause them to act out, fall asleep, zone out and not get the full experience at school and why would we feed them foods that break down their immune systems instead of fueling them so that they don't get sick as often? Since we as a family, my parents and shane's too, have been eating healthier, i can't tell you how much better i feel - more alert, happier, more energetic, i really like life again! If you never read this book, but i wish you would - remember these three things:

Never eat anything with these ingredients in them and you will be 90% of the way to eating very heathfully:

1. partially hydrogenated soybean oil


2. high fructose corn syrup


3. any dye/color followed by a number; red 40, yellow 5 etc...

then the next book i picked up was No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running by John Bingham. lauren, me, my mom and shane are going to run the bolder boulder in may (national pickle month by the way) and we are starting our training now. my mom and dad were runners before i was born and up until i was about 3 - they even wrote a running book - i can't find it anywhere online, but we have a copy somewhere in the basement. my dad has for probably the last 7 years been running again - on a treadmill because his knees can't handle concrete. my mom however, has not run since i was three - she actually ran the bolder boulder while she was pregnant with me! this is a great book too if you want to get into running - it lets you know it's ok that you're not going to be a marathoner overnight or even after a week's training for that matter. it's very inspirational and has lessons from everyday people like us that haven't been running that long and the changes it has made in them. The book has a quote in it that goes something like this, i don't have it in front of me so this paraphrased: when you untie the "nots" (reasons you are NOT capable, good enough, etc) you learn that you can change and you can change into the best you you can be. you may not be the best runner ever, but you can become the best runner you can ever be. as your outside changes you start to notice your soul change as well.

the fourth book, i'm still reading, is another running book called The Complete Book Of Running For Women by Claire Kowalchik. i just started it, but it's just geared, obviously, towards issues women face while running.

i'm excited to start my life, with the support of my family and friends - to become the healthiest me i can be!!!

the grieving process

it's funny...no, not funny at all, it's scary actually how random moments in life spark back into life emotions from long ago. i've been wanting to write about this for a while but at the same time haven't because i know it will be a tear filled experience, and as i am at work when i write these, i don't really want to be caught bawling in my office.

friday, june 16th, 2006. shane and i had just celebrated our first wedding anniversary on the 11th and were planning on taking the week after off from work due to some scheduling problem with his work. so on friday after work we went to the olive garden and enjoyed a nice meal together and talked of what we would do during our week off. we were poor back then, still are for that matter, and we couldn't afford to do anything too "fun" so we were just gonna hang around the house and maybe go to the zoo or something. on our way home, i specifically asked shane to go a certain way home. we couldn't though because of a police barricade obviously blocking us from an accident up ahead that was just out of sight. i immediately said a prayer for the people involved like i always do -it's something my mom always did in the car when i was a kid so i guess i picked that up. so we went the long way round instead. then we came across another police barricade blocking off a large section of highway. down the other side of the road we saw an ambulance coming - not racing - with its lights off. shane said "bummer, it's never a good sign when you see an ambulance with its lights off going to a car crash." i had no idea what he meant. so i asked "why?" "because someone died" he said. wow, if i had only known then.

we continued home and spent an hour or so goofing off and just laying upstairs talking. then shane's phone kept ringing, but we were on "vacation" so we weren't gonna answer phones. i purposely left mine downstairs so as to not be bothered at all. shane got a voicemail. his mom wanted him to call her and for me to call my dad. i knew then and my heart dropped that something bad had happened. i called my dad back after missing 4-5 calls from him. he didn't say hello, he didn't say anything reassuring like i wanted him to. he said "sit down. betsy died." i dropped the phone and screamed - one of those screams from a movie when a parent loses a child - one that you think they are making up, because no one really makes that noise. but they do, and so did i. shane called my dad back a few minutes later and put him on speaker and he told us what happened. betsy - my beautiful little betsy boo, her brother and her mom had been hit by truck while turning left across highway 287. betsy died instantly - thank god. joan was in the hospital barely alive. and marky was going to another hospital with some bad cuts and such. so i called everyone i knew, once i had it together a bit more, and asked them to all pray for them. i called lauren, it was her first day back to colorado - in fact she was still in the car. i called jenna and kathryn to see how they were. they didn't know yet. i couldn't be the one to tell them. i couldn't. they called me back frantic because no one would tell them anything - they knew someone died but they didn't know which someone. i couldn't tell them. i couldn't. shane and i held each other crying till we fell asleep. i woke up in the middle of the night screaming again.

we picked them up the next morning at the airport and now my vision of airports being happy places has changed. not everyone flying in is greeting friends and family and is excited about their stay - we ran to each other and cried for a long time holding each other. people stared, people shook their heads like we were ruining their happy time in the airport...whatever. that week of "vacation" was the most exhausting and emotional week of my life. i can't even imagine how much more exponentially hard it was for betsy's immediate family. they are the strongest family i have ever met and i greatly admire them all.

i went through a grieving process - i cried everyday for weeks about it. about all of our happy times, about regrets, about her lost future. i thought i was mostly over it. i started to only occasionally cry. jenna had moved back and i saw her a lot and that made it easier. then i hadn't cried in months. until we tried to watch the movie disturbia. if you've seen it then you know there is an horrific accident at the beginning and the boy's dad dies - i couldn't watch the rest - i again started to scream. it was too realistic - it was too much like what i thought she might have seen just before she died. it all came back too fast. i again cried for days - not as long as when it first happened, but a long time.

our good friends' puppy died this week. another little life taken too soon. so much potential so much promise. life is too short already and sometimes even shorter still. i've again cried for days and maybe that's ok.

warm and fuzzy

what does the phrase "warm and fuzzy" bring to your mind? it used to bring images of little kids holding squirming puppies or how full my heart feels when i see a man holding his baby and smiling. those seem like good illustrations of the phrase "warm and fuzzy." and until recently, i held only good ideas in mind of that phrase...

the other morning, after the baby had an uncharacteristically bad night - waking up every hour on the hour - when i finally did get to sleep i was OUT! so, when i felt shane snuggle up close to me, like he does sometimes early in the morning before his alarm goes off, almost pushing me out of the bed, i didn't mind and got that "warm and fuzzy" feeling. "awww my hubby wants to cuddle me after a long sleepless night" i naively thought to myself. now, shane normally moves some so that i can actually pull my arms from the covers, but this time, he would not budge! i pushed and pushed and even groaned "move honey!" but to no avail. he wasn't going anywhere. so i rolled over as best i could and opened my eyes to a warm and fuzzy butt. yes, lewy's butt...not shane's peaceful sleeping face but a warm and fuzzy smelly butt. i was so asleep that shane's alarm went off, he got in the shower and lewy took his place and i didn't even notice. i immediately said very loudly "GET OUT LEWY" to which he, instead of getting out, played a dangerous game of peek-a-boo with his tail and the place the most heinous gasses can emerge. and that's the reason "warm and fuzzy" doesn't always bring good things to mind for me anymore.

he did eventually get out of the bed - but only with lots of brute force and threats of never seeing his kong toy again.

blood on the ice

last night i went to my first ever hockey game. it was so much fun and we won!

i don't know what it is, but lately i have just been wanting to do stuff that is totally off from what i normally like to do. going to a sports game is definitely out of character for me. watching grown men fight like school boys over a poor call and getting paid way too much money for it usually doesn't sound fun. but, lately, it has...i got completely drawn into the world series - i even painted my fingernails and eisley's toenails purple to support the rockies...although it didn't seem to help them at all :( shane and i stayed up late watching the games and even went out to buffalo wild wings to watch the first game with a group of friends!

so at shane's work they drew names for four tickets and a parking pass to last night's avalanche game against the calgary flames (i know absolutely nothing about hockey, but i had actually heard of the flames before, so i felt pretty good about that). shane didn't win them, but our good friend emily did and invited us to go with her and her hubby chris. so we got a babysitter and had a mighty fine double date! the parking pass was for the VIP lot - sounds way cooler than it was, but it was very close - and the tickets were amazing!

row 13 (our heads were just above the glass) and just off to the side of the goalie - perfect for watching all four of the goals the avs made last night. there was a bloody fist fight and shane caught a pretty lame t-shirt! all in all, it was a great game, even though i didn't have a clue what was going on half the time.

it was a great night with people i love. i like trying new things and stepping out from my norm every once in a while. i am gonna start doing that more often!

fairy tales really do come true

once upon a time

a girl fell in love with a boy

they got a dog

they had a baby

their life is splendid.

the end.

poop breath when shane's gone

shane is home and i am happy. this has been a hard month for us. he has to go to trade shows for his job about 6 times a year and they are usually pretty spaced out. this month, however, there were two trade shows with only a week in between. this is how it usually works: he leaves early in the morning -giving me a kiss before he goes - and i am usually too asleep to say more than a mumbled "luhhbbuuuu honey"(i am sad that i never get it together enough to wake up with him and make him breakfast or do something special for him - my excuse lately is "the baby" - but bologna, she is the best baby and doesn't wake up till 6 or 7!) everyday i get up, take lewy out, get baby up, feed baby disgusting pureed things, and wait for shane to call. the entire time he is gone i wait for him to call or text me. i try and pass my days as quickly as possible. i miss him like i would if i had lost a lung or some other vital organ. it's hard to breathe when he's not here. i feel out of breath like i am running a marathon at 15,000 ft - well, just walking at that altitude will wind you! when he is gone, i realize how much he does for me (see below) and how much god desires us to be united with someone. it's also impossible to fall asleep quickly when he is not there next me. i am cold - and usually smelling dog farts, because lewy sleeps with me when shane is gone and prefers his butt to be in my face - not that his face would be any better - he has poop breath and snores - anyways, i am cold and my mind races with every strange creak or sound. so i usually turn the light back on, try and get lewy to reposition himself, and read something until my eyes are so heavy that i have to sleep. making dinner is not fun either without someone to share it with. so i usually just eat something microwaveable or ramen noodles. life is not nearly as fun without my hunny bunny there by my side.

but strangely enough, most times when shane gets home, i treat him horribly, like he went away on purpose just to make me feel lonely and inadequate at doing a two person job. i know this isn't the case and that he is heartbroken whenever he has to leave me and the baby and even poop face lewy. but for some reason i retaliate to the wrong person and treat him like dirt. i am working on being loving and respectful when he gets back, because i love him and truly never want him to feel unloved or unwanted! i don't know why i wrote that - i guess i just need to put down a visual reminder to myself to not take out my frustrations on him.

so now life is back to normal. my feet are warm at night and i only have soft breath on the back of my neck and i can make dinner for two!

things shane does that i take for granted (a partial list):

• takes lewy out everyday before i get up
• turns the bathroom light on AFTER he closes the door
• wakes up every other morning to feed the baby
• buy dog food on the way home from work so i don't have to make a special trip
• picks up milk or some other various grocery
• rents me movies on saturdays when he is gone most of the day to keep me occupied
• gives me his onions and pepperoccinis (sp?) from salads
• calls me everyday on his way home for lunch
• texts me every afternoon about 3 to say he loves me
• takes the baby on a walk when he gets home from work so that i can have 10 minutes to do whatever the heck i want
• folds the laundry - i help too
• does dishes - again i help too
• rubs my back
• plays with my hair
• makes up silly songs and jokes to make me laugh
• works at a job that he doesn't love to make enough for us to live on
• remembers my favorite thing at restaurants and orders it for me
• doesn't complain about how things are going - even though sometimes i wish he would
• whispers or mouths "olive juice" and funny weird times
• gets along with my parents like he truly is their son
• can't cook but for boiling water but would try if you asked him to

i could and should write more but it's time to go home - you get the idea i'm sure - he does everything for me!

idk my bff leona

my good friend jenna has moved to atlanta - the ATL - the dirty south. she is gone and most sadly admitted, is the better for it. it was her time to move on and up in life and this was the most logical and promising step. but why, you ask, entitle this entry “Leona” and not jenna? well, to give you a quick and dirty break down, take out your cell phone. start a new text message and turn on the predictive text. now type in jenna or 53662. if your phone is like mine, it will instead produce the name leona. which in turn tells you that your phone believes it is much more probable that you know and correspond with a girl named leona and not a girl with the antiquated and almost unheard of name in this day and age jenna!
if you know jenna, and many of you do, leona just fits and it was a serendipitous day when we discovered this faux pas of predictive text. it takes time (that you somehow appear to not have when using T9) to save into the phone’s memory that in fact you, unbelievably enough, DO know a girl named jenna and actually talk about/to her more than that other girl leona. now up until now, if you are not intimately acquainted with jenna’s alter-ego leona, you have been saying it all wrong! the correct pronunciation is said in a east coast, sickly, old aristocratic woman’s voice…leeeoooooona – add in a daaaahhhhrling if you’re not already too embarrassed. now jenna is not limited to leona as her only amusing moniker. her other designations include, but by all means are not limited to: big red (i have never ever called her this), jennie joe, it’s evil twin yenna yoe, and my other favorite, mary.
big red speaks for itself when you look at the picture attached to this blog – she has very red hair. end of story. jennie joe, on the other hand, has a much more involved story. jenna is one of the many children of “the joes.” you must be inducted into this very elite family. my name being rather hard to come up with a good joe name, is still not officially associated with it’s own unique joe. my daughter, eisley, has been inducted and was christened joe-e or joey however you want to look at it. you know you’re “in” when you get your “joe” name. whoooooooaaa – if only i knew how to attach a sound byte and you could hear a joe’s “whoa.”
now we come to the story of jennie joe’s long lost evil twin yenna yoe. when jenna was applying for scholarships for college like most high school seniors, she decided to use every resource available to her. she even applied for an hispanic scholarship and won it – she is somehow within the qualifications of the scholarship just hispanic enough and she will prove it to you if asked to. this fact is pretty laughable in that jenna is the most “white” person i have ever met. we’re talking stereotypically vanilla. j.crew wearing, starbucks drinking, mayo on her wonderbread girl. but when you get her going, and yenna comes out, all of a sudden we’ve got jennie from the block on our hands! she turns her j’s into y’s and says “chure” instead of “sure” and “ju know” for “you know.” yenna yoe isn’t completely evil, just a little and unfortunately gets blamed for all the times jenna is just being plain ornery!
now for the final and most endearing, mary. this time, for reasons i can still not figure out, the correct pronunciation is maaaaaaahry…same as leona, but with a british flair. jenna has an obsession with the little house on the prairie tv show. jenna would even go so far as to auto-tune my tv to watch little house on the prairie when she comes over and looks at me with a look that pleads “pretty please with sugar on top” whenever it is listed on the upcoming shows. i inevitably allow her a (in my opinion a generous) minute or two before i can’t handle anymore and we simply must switch it back to something really good like, america’s next top model re-run marathons, or even the real world (actually anything on mtv is better). i’m sure you have all seen the show: laura ingalls with her orthodontia needing teeth, pa with his his goofy grin, big floopy hat and sound god-fearing advice on every subject from being honest to when to plant your wheat every year, nelly the town’s pretty, rich and stuck up girl who turns out to actually be ok in the end, and of course, mary, laura’s older sister and the only other way to remember her…the blind one. jenna has perfected and spread what is called the “mary stare” and we have many a picture to prove that it is a phenomenon sweeping the nation. i’ll tell you how to do it in pictures and you can start it in your own circle of friends too. first really try to embody the spirit of living in the old west – this is key. then look about a foot to the right and up from the camera. smile blankly making sure to let your eyes glaze over and not focus on anything. there you go, it is as simple as that. you can even carry on conversations with your friends in this manner…i’m sure jenna would love you to.





so that’s jenna explained in terms of her nicknames. she is my good friend…no scratch that…great friend… no, still not right…she is closer than most of my blood relatives…she is my sister. and i miss her…