THANKSGIVING 2011

Yesterday was the BIG “T” Day, my second favorite holiday of the year (NOTE: any holiday that involves good food is on my list of favorites). Due to the fact that I live near my family and my in-laws, Thanksgiving always involves more than one holiday meal… usually more than two. This is what Thanksgiving looked like for me yesterday:

8:30 a.m.: Penelope and I were in the kitchen diligently following the recipe of what looked like a fabulously delicious batch of pumpkin cream cheese streusel muffins for my family’s Thanksgiving breakfast. We spent an HOUR measuring, sifting, and stirring, and the muffins ended up tasting… um… let’s say they were “okay”. They tasted too much like flour and not enough like pumpkin and spice. They were kind of dry and the streusel didn’t brown and crisp like I thought it should have. Once again, the universe has shown me that I cannot bake. Now I’m not recipe illiterate… I know the terminology. I know what the terms “cut in”, “fold”, and “sift together” mean. I can follow a baking recipe to the letter, and my end product simply refuses to turn out the way it should. My cookies inevitably burn, my biscuits could be used for hockey pucks, my cakes are dry and my pie crusts are chewy. Conversely, my sister, Emily, can make the same recipes and her end products are heavenly… divine… fit for the gods. Just another reminder to me that I shouldn’t waste a perfectly good hour of holiday sleep time on a baking recipe. Ever. Again. The End.

10:30 a.m.: Despite my failed attempt at a Thanksgiving breakfast treat, my family’s Thanksgiving breakfast was extraordinary. My sister, Emily, and her husband, Dirk, put on a delicious holiday meal for everyone. Pumpkin pancakes with buttermilk/caramel syrup; regular pancakes and a variety of syrups; mini spinach quiches; scrambled eggs; bacon; link sausage; biscuits and gravy; coffee bar, complete with a variety of flavored creams and syrups; hot chocolate; and our family’s traditional holiday drink, homemade grape juice with Sprite. Of course Emily made pie (pumpkin, pecan and chocolate silk) for dessert. Because what is Thanksgiving without pie??? Just plain wrong is what I’m thinking…

1:00 p.m.: Back home whipping up a quick batch of my spinach dip. Now, we’ve already concluded that Lyn. Cannot. Bake. And so, henceforth and forever, I will leave the baking to those who are far more capable than I. Lyn can, however, make a very mean spinach dip. Luckily this is what I am usually assigned to make and bring to family gatherings, like my in-laws’ Thanksgiving dinner. And it’s a nice ego boost for me to hear everyone rave about how delicious and fabulous my spinach dip is, especially after my most recent botched muffin attempt. And the very best part… 15 minutes of preparation time, and then it gets thrown in the fridge and I get to take a nap.

3:00 p.m.: Maya, Penelope and I drive to Provo to my wife-in-law’s family Thanksgiving dinner. Now this may be confusing to some people, so I’ll try to explain the relationship. My second (ex-)husband (Maya and Penelope’s father) was previously married to Nicole and they had a daughter, Indigo (my step-daughter). Nicole and I became good friends and Indigo lived with me from the age of one to seven. We call each other “wife-in-law” because there really is no term for what we are. She is “Aunt Nikki” to Maya and Penelope, and I am Indigo’s other “Mom”. No one knows “the ex” better than the two of us, and because of that we have been able to support each other without having to explain ANYTHING to each other about him. Besides Nicole being family with the girls and me, her family members have treated all of us like we’re part of the family also. Nicole’s mom is “Grandma Sindy” to my girls. Her sisters and brothers are “aunts” and “uncles” to them. To some people, it may seem strange or kind of “Jerry Springer”, but who couldn’t use more family? Who wouldn’t want more people out there caring about them? Maybe I have a far more liberal definition of “family” than most people due to a lot of factors in my life, and I consider myself very blessed to have so many caring people in my vast and ever-expanding “family”. Anyway… the girls ate Thanksgiving dinner and I chose to just hang out with everyone because I was still full from breakfast, and there was another dinner coming up in a few hours.

6:00 p.m.: At my in-laws (also known as “home” for the last year). My mother-in-law shows me (yet again) how to make her famous homemade noodles. Everyone shows up and it’s a houseful! Lots of kids of all ages and lots of traditional Thanksgiving food. My mother-in-law makes the BEST homemade stuffing and homemade noodles in the world! I don’t think anyone in the family would even notice if there was no turkey… as long as there was a big pot of chicken and noodles (think chicken and dumplings, only longer, thinner noodles instead of rounded, thick dumplings).

8:00 p.m.: Back in our basement hideaway… watching one of my favorite Christmas movies: “Elf”. I think I fell asleep (or slipped into a tryptophan coma) around 9:00.

My dad will be cooking a traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday for all of us. YAY! Let the feasting continue!

No better way to kick off the holiday season: a day full of food, family, more food, naps, more food, holiday movies on the tube, more food… and a week’s worth of leftovers to look forward to!

Hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving too!

I’m NOT STRESSED! Really, I’m Not!

"Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are."
Chinese Proverb

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once."
Jennifer Yane

Apparently I have stress. Who knew? No, really. Everyone has stress. I honestly didn’t think that my stress was so bad that my blood pressure would try to kill me because of it. Seriously, I don’t think my stress level has very much to do with my current blood pressure situation. I think that is mainly genetics and possibly something funky going on with my body that the doctors haven’t figured out yet. I’ve been WAY more stressed out in the past than I am now. I look at my life now, and it’s pretty good. Especially if you compare it to the years 1999 to 2006. Now THAT was some serious stress! Maybe my mind has evolved and adapted to the level of stress out of sheer necessity and my body is paying the price. Family and friends keep telling me that I’m stressed.

I don’t FEEL stressed out. Okay, in the mornings (5:30-7:30), getting ready for work, getting ornery kids ready for school, packing their lunches, finding their shoes, jackets, etc. (usually in the dark) – but that’s a short-lived period of stress. It is the most stressful and despised part of my day, but it’s over quickly. Once I’m on my way to work (even through rush hour traffic), I’m good. Work doesn’t stress me out. It’s just work. It’s not personal. However, STARTING new jobs stresses me out to no end. I’ve started three new jobs in the past two years. That’s never happened to me before. Also, LOSING jobs stresses me out to no end. I’ve lost three jobs in the past two years. Another strange occurrence for my life.

If you read my last post, especially as an outsider, you may see a lot of stressors in my life in the last two years. If you know me personally, then you know all the intense stress (hell) I lived through from 1999 through 2006 makes the last two years look like a day at the beach. I have grown accustomed to the PTSD, the depression, the anxiety, to the point that I barely notice it anymore. Except for the constant and unyielding fatigue. Everything feels like too much effort and too much energy for me to exert. I wonder if I’ll ever again get to a point in my life where I want to do anything besides lie down and rest. Right now, my main goal is to live as much like a hermit as possible.

I strive to live in denial. Let me repeat that… I STRIVE to live in denial. The more I think about the stressors in my life, the more stressed out I become, and that can’t be good. So I don’t think about the stressors. I pull a Scarlett O’Hara. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Here’s the twist. I have gotten so good at not thinking about the things I can’t change, I don’t even give much thought anymore to the things I actually CAN change. Dirty dishes and laundry? Bills piling up? Dinner? Trash can overflowing? I don’t have the energy to care. I’ve even given up on wearing makeup and doing anything with my hair besides brushing the snarls out of it before work.

Work. W-O-R-K. What a glorious word. I love having a job. I am so grateful that I am employed again and that I feel comfortable and capable and appreciated where I work now. All those months of being unemployed, I knew that a JOB was not going to magically fix everything in my life, but it sure does fix a lot of things. It may add a small amount of stress to my days, but it relieves a huge amount of stress from my life.

I now have INCOME. We will be able to get our own place again and move out of the in-laws’ basement. We all have medical and dental insurance again. I will no longer feel like useless lump of parasitic flesh. I no longer feel as if I’m in some long-term limbo, never being able to plan past tomorrow. I’m getting into a daily routine, and for ME and my personality, that’s a very necessary thing. I need structure and stability in at least one part of my otherwise chaotic life. This is all good.

If I could just get my blood pressure to believe it.

Catsup? Ketchup? Catch Up?

I haven’t really written anything here in over TWO YEARS! Not that I have much of a following, but I know it felt really good for me to blog frequently. It is good for me to write. Too much has happened to truly “catch up”, but I’m going to try to at least give a brief rundown of the high points and low points of the past two years without many details, of course.

08/30/09 – My husband, Corbin turned 32

09/03/09 – My oldest daughter, Danielle turned 19

09/09/09 – Corbin and I got married in Las Vegas. We took Anthony, Maya and Penelope with us for a small vacation. Dirk and Emily took a vacation in Vegas the same week and brought their girls with them. They also arranged for a condo in the same unit as theirs for my parents to stay for a couple days. Corbin’s mom, sister and brother-in-law also came for the wedding. Our good friends, Burton and Julie travelled down to be there with us also.

09/14/09 – My youngest child, Penelope turned 7

09/16/09 – Corbin’s father died suddenly and unexpectedly

10/07/09 – I “celebrated” my 39th birthday

10/24/09 – Danielle and Tyson were married in Spanish Fork, Utah

11/09/09 – My oldest child, Anthony turned 21

11/23/09 – I lost my amazing job

January 2010 – Our car was repossessed for the first time. We managed to get it back.

04/06/10 – I started a job as a store manager for a dry cleaning chain

04/24/10 – My second daughter, Maya turned 10

May 2010 – Our car was repossessed for the second time. Once again, we managed to get it back.

07/30/10 – I lost my job at the dry cleaners. It was kind of a relief because I absolutely despised the owners and believe that they have no business trying to run a business.

8/30/10 – Corbin turned 33

9/03/10 – Danielle turned 20

9/09/10 – Corbin and I had our first anniversary

9/14/10 – Penelope turned 8

9/17/10 – Anthony had to move to Henderson, Nevada, to live with his dad and step-mom because he needed insurance coverage due to his medical problems, and his step-mom has great benefits through her job.

September 2010 – Corbin, Maya, Penelope and I moved in with Corbin’s mom and step-dad. We had barely made rent since November, and with my being unemployed yet again, we knew it would be impossible to keep up with any bills and also pay as much rent as our duplex was. We stayed one month past our year lease. I really miss living in my old neighborhood close to my parents’ house and close to the elementary school the girls liked so much, but you do what you have to do.

10/07/10 – I turned the big FOUR-OH (40)

11/09/10 – Anthony turned 22

12/25/10 – Welfare Christmas for the girls yet again… My whole family was together for Christmas though, and that was fantastic. Brandon flew in from Wisconsin and Anthony was in town with his dad and step-mom.

January 2011 – Our car was repossessed for the final time. We called the finance company and told them to come get it. Then it was about two months of walking and riding the bus in the middle of a pretty harsh Utah winter.

02/28/11 – With some of our tax refund, we purchased a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am. It was great to be mobile again.

03/19/11 – I met my biological father, Lee, for the first time. I also met his wife, Kate, and his mother, Shirley. This is definitely something I will elaborate more on in the future.

04/01/11 – Danielle had her baby shower on April Fool’s Day. At this get-together, I got to meet my half-brother, Todd; his wife, Liz, and their kids.

04/02/11 – I met my step-brother, Peter

04/15/11 – Danielle gave birth to Addalie Martha Sabin, my adorable granddaughter. I was lucky enough to get to be in the room when she was born.

04/24/11 – Maya turned 11

04/24/11 – Easter Sunday fell on Maya’s birthday this year. It turns out that April 24 is also my father, Lee’s birthday. We had an Easter/birthday dinner at his home and I finally got to meet my half-sister, Brandy, her husband, George and their daughter. I also met Jenni and her daughters. Jenni is married to my step-brother, Phil, who was recently deployed.

06/05/11 – I broke my own arm while trying to open the blocked storage unit door in order to retrieve Danielle’s old blessing dress that she wanted Addalie to wear for her blessing the next week.

06/12/11 – Addalie’s blessing at my parent’s house. I invited my “other” family also. Lee, Kate, Grandma Shirley, Pete, Todd, Liz and the kids came. Anthony and Brandon were both in town also. Big family get-together with my dad’s awesome Dutch oven baked in the fire pit in the back yard.

07/10/11 – My mom fell and broke her arm/dislocated her shoulder. She ended up having surgery on it and now has a couple plates and numerous screws in her arm. She had to spend a couple weeks in a rehabilitation center after her surgery also.

08/08/11 – I started working at Provo City. I thought this job was my dream job. They didn’t even give me a chance. Three full days of training, and they gave me the boot because I wasn’t as good at this new job as the woman who had worked there for three years. Ummmm…. Three days…. Three years…. Can you say “learning curve”???? I’m still bitter about this whole thing.

08/25/11 – I interviewed for an office position with the Department of Corrections

08/29/11 – I was pleasantly surprised by being offered the position with the Department of Corrections

08/30/11 – Corbin turned 34

09/02/11 – My dentist couldn’t perform a procedure on my tooth to get it to stop aching because my blood pressure was too high (170/105). He instructed me to see my doctor ASAP.

09/03/11 – Danielle turned 21

09/04/11 – My brother, Joel (who is a paramedic) took my blood pressure for me and told me to go to the hospital because it was unbelievably high (216/120). I went to the hospital and they told me to get in to see my doctor ASAP.

09/06/11 – I started working at the Department of Corrections

09/07/11 – I saw my doctor about my blood pressure. He put me on some meds.

09/09/11 – Corbin’s and my Second Anniversary

09/14/11 – Penelope turned 9

09/15/11 – Another doctor visit about the blood pressure. It was still in the 165/110 area after a week on medication, so he doubled my doses.

09/24/11 – After a week on double doses, my blood pressure finally got down (one time) to 131/92. Hopefully it will continue to go down into the normal range.

TWO-YEAR RECAP: Got married; oldest daughter got married; lost THREE jobs; started THREE jobs; car repossessed THREE times; son moved out of state; moved into in-laws’ basement; met my biological father and that side of the family; became a grandmother; broke my arm; mom broke her arm/dislocated her shoulder/had surgeries; found out my blood pressure is suddenly unbelievably high…. any connection?

AWOL

Wow. I just looked at my blog for the first time in... oh, I don't know... about a year and a half... and have decided to start writing again. Since last writing, I got married, lost my great job, got a crappy job, lost it (thank goodness) and am struggling with the worst case of depression and non-motivation I have experienced in decades.

Look forward to writing more!

A Funny Thing Happened at the Prison

About a week prior to the X's birthday, I figured out that his big day fell on a Saturday... visiting day at the prison. Back in June, I had decided not to take the girls to see their father for Father's Day as he had requested due to the fact that I was busy helping my own dad with his house addition, and felt that I should spend Father's Day weekend helping the man who has been there for me through thick and thin and has sacrificed so much for his own children rather than taking my girls to see the man who abused me and neglected them and sold us all down the river for his own hedonistic desires. Now that his birthday was approaching, I thought that I would be nice and take the girls to visit him as a surprise.

I dreaded the visit the entire week. We drove the hour and a half to the prison and then entered... the Karma Zone.

The guard at the front desk looked up X's rap sheet. She said to me, "He was convicted of violation of a protective order." "Was that against you?"

I answered yes.

She said, "You're a victim."

Now this is where I would normally vehemently deny that I was a "victim". I would proudly state that I was a "survivor". But I wasn't in the mood to argue symantics with this tough looking female guard. I knew what she meant. I HAD BEEN a victim of X.

I told her that when I had filled out the request to be on X's visiting list, I had marked "YES" on the question that asked if I was a victim of this inmate.

She said that if she had been the one to intially approve me as his visitor, then she deserved to be kicked. She got on the phone and had someone pull X's file. The form I had sent did indeed have a check mark beside "YES" on the victim question. However, she hadn't approved me... someone else had. She then proceeded to inform me that I should never have been approved as X's visitor, and she would remove me from his list.

Then she said, "He was also convicted of domestic violence in the presence of children." "Are these the children?"

I again answered yes.

She then informed me that she would also be taking them off his visiting list. I think she thought I would be disappointed or try to talk her into leaving us on the list. I think she thought this would be bad news. I told her that this was great. Now I wouldn't have to take them to see him... and I couldn't even let his mother or other member of his family take them to see him. They COULDN'T visit him. And best of all... I wasn't going to be the "bad guy" in this. The system would be.

She walked me out to my car and apologized for breaking the girls' hearts. I looked in the back seat of the car, and they didn't look the least bit brokenhearted. They were playing and laughing. I think it was a relief for them also.

She and I had a smoke together and discussed domestic violence and our experiences with it. I gave her the URL for Our Place and told her that it is a great resource to pass on to victims of abuse.

The girls and I had a pleasant drive home, and I felt very relieved. I only had a tinge of regret that we didn't get to see him because, after all, it was his birthday. But it wasn't MY doing. Yay! I get to let someone else take the blame.

Karma is sweet!

More Thoughts on Moving Home

There are so many things I love about my hometown. I had forgotten a lot of the individual things over the last nine years I had been living elsewhere, but I needed only to sit on my back porch my first night there to remember many of them. It was dark; darker than the city I had been living in; and I could see so many more stars in the sky. I could actually find more constellations than just the Big Dipper and Orion. The semi-rural smell of the air. The lack of traffic noise. And the grand finale... the sound of a train running along the nearby tracks!

I've missed you, my old friend. There truly is no place like home.

There's No Place Like Home - July Highlights

The big event in July for our family wasn't the Stadium of Fire (yes, I did pay for and endure the torture that is the combination of the right-wing schtick of Glenn Beck and the whiney, breathy, pre-pubescent, bubblegum-pop stylings of the Jonas Brothers for my little girls -- I AM a good mom, damn it!)

No, the really big event in July was a move back to my hometown... not just my hometown, but my childhood neighborhood. It's a three-bedroom with a huge utility/laundry room and a cellar for storing all my sentimental crap. It's huge compared to the place where we had been living the past 18 months. It's just blocks away from my parents and older two children. And the landlord completely gutted and remodeled it just before we moved in. Beautiful!

We are no longer forced to hide our cats from a landlord. This is a cat-friendly home. We no longer have to hide the fact that we are smokers. The landlord is a smoker too, and has no qualms about our smoking on the patio. In other words, the place is about as close to perfect as it gets. Except for the spiders... lots of creepy spiders... ewwww.