Never sleep late into the afternoon...

bad dreams will ensue:

I was sitting outside of our apartment complex and everything seemed a little more intimidating than usual - just one example of this is that instead of dad's playing with their kids in the yard, there were men playing fetch with their dogs using lion-sized drumsticks (meat and bone and all).

This stranger came up and sat on the porch with us and introduced himself as my neighbor. I was holding our snake in our hands at the time and there was a mean cat on the porch too. Anyway, he kept talking to me and eventually became really creepy. Everything he said was threatening but he said it in the most gentle and friendliest of voices. One of the things he said was "I'm going to follow you into your house when you're not looking and stare at you when you can't see me."

I was trying to call David out to the porch to deal with him, but somehow his name never came out of my mouth. Then our snake lunged out and tried to bite the mean cat (which I knew would kill Snakey in return) so I caught snake's neck mid lunge, and instead he turned and bit my free hand. So now both my hands were tied up, and the creepy man doesn't notice or care and keep rattling on about his plans to rape and murder me. I'm still screaming David's name but my voice is horse and he can't hear me. I finally get the door open, but forget to close it behind me in my rush to find David. We get the snake off, but instead of listening about the man, he scolded me for hurting Snakey.

Later that night it occurs to me that the man could be in our house since the door had somehow closed itself. I told David all about the man and he was listening this time, getting really creeped out too, but then after I told him everything, I heard the creepy man's voice coming out of a floor vent saying, "I can hear you talking bad about him, and my wife and child don't appreciate it!"

I start feeling like maybe I was mistaken and try to explain that I've been raped 3 times and enough is enough but he doesn't believe me and calls my bluff. Then David and I decide to get out of the house to be less creeped out, so we follow this train to the industrial part of the city and find more men with big dogs all eating huge torn animal legs raw and bloody. Our car somehow is transformed into a rattly old truck with a wooden buggy (like horse and buggy) instead of a truck bed. I realize that Theora is back there all by herself, so we either lose Nola or left her at home.

I go to the back to check once we get away from the dogs, but then David disappears, so I at least have to drive Theora home safely. I start driving and suddenly the forest lights up in flame around us forcing us to stay near the center of the road. That's fine for a while, but then further in the distance the road starts becoming soggy, like the pavement is melting, and I guess the city knew this would happen because they sent pavers out to repave it (which makes no sense now that I'm awake). The only problem is that it wasn't one guy sitting in a big slow truck - instead it was like 20 big star-wars-esque machines that each had one major pod and 6 legs that spun and clamped beneath it. They moved in such an erratic way that you couldn't tell which way they were going to move next, causing me to spin off the road and into the burning forest.

Then I woke up.

Calling All Douchebags:

If you hit my blue Honda Odyssey today and failed to leave a note, then you are going to Hell! (Pssst... God told me to tell you to sleep with one eye open.)

Unexpected Fun.

David had the day off of work today, so we thought we'd treat the girls to a day at the Children's Museum, but when we got there, it was closed (duh! Holiday!!!). Instead of just going home, we decided to walk around the downtown area for a bit, and on our walk, came across this wonderful snake bridge!

The Head

The Body

The Tail

Here are some better pictures at night:

And inside =)

Anyway, it ended up being tons of fun. When you walk through the tail of the snake it starts hissing and rattling at you unexpectedly! I jumped =).

At the head of the snake is a pretty nice playground that the kids loved.

All in all, it ended up being a day that started with disappointment and ended with satisfaction!

Back!

I'm finally back from Georgia! I had a great vacation with my family, and I had the extra bonus of spending all those days with my brother Jeremy and his wife (also my best friend) Tara. It was so nice having them in the house because I didn't have to leave my parents to hang out with them.

I would have posted pictures, but my camera is absolute crap and I'm pretty sure there's not one decent picture in the bunch.

We went to Monkey Joe's which is one of those big gyms where they have all the blown up slides and jumping castles, and the kids had a blast!!

We also went to a local puppet show at the library where the focus was of course on Christmas. The fun part about this particular show was that it was a one-man act, so it was interesting to see him doing all of the characters (including my particular favorite: a daredevil Santa dressed up as Rudolph).

Mostly though, I just stayed home. I felt really bad about that, considering I was supposed to meet up with at least 4 people that I'd previously committed to seeing, but something about this trip just screamed "family only" so that's what it stayed. I just wanted to spend every minute I could with those closest to me.

Every time I visit my parents, I always make a special effort to spend time in LaGrange with my grandparents. It's kind of a long drive, but it's totally worth it. They live in the middle of nowhere and to make that even better they live right off the lake, so you can just take a walk down the hill in the backyard and suddenly be at the dock. Besides all of the ticks and spiders that you inevitably pick up along the way I love going down to the water.

Something about being at my grandparents house is so peaceful. It's almost like there's no time, and if there is time, then it revolves around meals more than a clock. I swear my grandmother lives her life according to breakfast, lunch and dinner. She always has something delicious on the table, and it seems like as soon as she's done eating lunch she's on to cooking dinner. I love all of her recipes and I hope that one day she'll compile them all for the family to treasure.

Even though I was there for 3 weeks, it went by way to fast. Thank you Mom and Dad for bringing us out there!

Routines

I hated 2009. It was easily the worst year of my life. Not 2009 especially, mainly just my 25th year. In all seriousness, almost as soon as I turned 25 my life started falling apart. I don't want to get into details, but around the time I turned 26 it seems like my brain was restored and things started to get better. Weird huh? Quarter life crisis maybe?

I don't know, but when looking at all of my problems during 2009, I realized that my life lacks routine. I mean I have NO routine. I stopped the bedtime routine for the girls, I have no hygiene routine - I just shower when I stink, and that's just not often enough! I have no plan for meals, which causes me to get things that are fast and more often than not unhealthy. I certainly have no routine when it comes to working out and that's painfully obvious these days. As mentioned in the previous post, I don't have any routines when it comes to reading scriptures or praying or even FHE. There are so many things in my life that would improve if I could just get myself on a schedule!!!

So my goal for 2010 is to create and follow a schedule that includes all of the things I mentioned above and more.

It's only one goal, but it's a big all-encompassing goal that I know I can achieve, and I can't wait to start!! I come home Thursday, and the following Monday is when I'm starting. Wish me luck!!!

Testimony

So bearing my testimony has always been really hard for me. I don't have the strongest testimony, and I've done a lot of things that I'm not proud of in the last year or two, so I feel like a hypocrite when I do think I have something to share, which makes me never want to share it.

That said, it's been somewhere along the lines of 8 or 9 years since I've born my testimony in a testimony meeting. I've said it to my mom once and in a letter to a friend once but I'm not entirely sure that counts, and even if it does, twice in 9 years isn't really something that makes me happy.

Out of nowhere this past Sunday right as the meeting was closing (yes, I'm THAT person) I knew I had to do it. So I got up having no idea what I was going to say, but as soon as I got to the podium it all came flowing out, pretty well organized even. It's amazing that it was all there just waiting and I'd never even realized it. Anyway, I figured since it's such a rare occurrence that I would do it again to maybe up the odds of it happening more often. I'm going to just recap what I said on Sunday, but that's better than nothing. And honestly, this is basically my journal, and I want a record of what I said so I'll never forget it.

Here goes:

My entire life I've been really lazy about religion, be it baptist, seventh-day adventist, or Mormon. I never felt anything in the first two churches, but in the Mormon church I knew something was different. I never dug deep, but I always felt that when I was ready, it would be there, and I always knew that what I found would be true. It's an irrational feeling that I can't explain, but I know the church is true. On that note, I've spent the last 12 years of my life floating through the church never really giving much to God, but always expecting to feel a witness or experience some miracle or to just have great faith without trying. I can't believe it took me until I was 26 to realize that it's not something I'm entitled to just because I believe the church is true. That's not enough. It's not enough to read the scriptures for 20 minutes once a month, or to remember to pray every week or so. It's not enough to depend on the testimony of people around you to keep you afloat. The past couple of years I've seen a lot of people very close to me fall away from the church, and a few of them really shook what I thought was my testimony. I was depending on them to keep me strong, and when they fell, I fell with them. I realized I had no base to stand strong on. I've never worked at building my testimony, and I didn't deserve a base. I know that this year I'm going to work hard to build my faith and my testimony, and in doing that, I know I won't fall if others around me decide to leave the church. I finally know that I have to build a personal relationship with God on my own. It took me long enough. Now I just have to find the inner strength and endurance to follow through and read and pray and include God in my life every day.

I am allergic to my drivers license.

I have this really bad habit of losing my license. By bad, I mean lost at least 7 times in one year bad. It's bad.

Anyway, as tradition dictates, every time I go to GA to visit my family I have to lose my license, and then order another one in a panic a few days before it's time to board my plane. Of course this happened again this year. So I ordered one 2 days ago, and then of course found my original (and by that I mean number 6) license right before church yesterday. So that was a waste of money, but at least I had my license to drive to church.

And boy did I need it.

I got pulled over for speeding on my way to church. It figures. I actually feel positive about going to church in I don't know how long and I get pulled over on the way there. I somehow remained composed and handed her my information, and when she came back to the car she actually gave me a warning! I was shocked! So of course I asked why (stupid in retrospect) and she said I was "very polite" =). And then she looked at the girls in the back seat lol. I was SO glad they were with me and that the officer was a woman! WHOO!