Unfulfilled Expectations

While attending the family ward for the area I lived in, I was invited by the bishop to attend the singles' ward. If you aren't LDS, wards are where areas are divided up into congregations. I really had no desire to attend but decided to give it a try. There was a chance I would meet some people I would like and maybe I would enjoy the change of scenery. So...I decided to go one Sunday.

Sacrament meeting was fine, though a little strange since there were no babies crying, no kids fighting over crayons in loud whispers, no mommies or daddies standing in the back rocking a child, or all the other things that were so comforting to me about a family ward. The family ward had all the right sounds as far as I was concerned.

I remember nothing of Sunday School that day, but in Relief Society (women's organization within the church), was a lesson I will never forget. The topic was on "Unfulfilled Expectations." Truth is, we all go through this in our lives. We all have times that we expect things will go one way and they go another. Learning to deal with these with faith and grace is something most of us desire. Did I mention I was 21? That is an important piece of information in this story. At this point in my life I had had my fair share of disappointment, not more than most, just the average amount. There was much for me take from this lesson until it turned into something else all together.

As there were many women in this Relief Society approaching 30, the lesson turned into "Why am I not married?" At 21, I knew why I wasn't married. It was because I didn't want to be yet. Besides that, I had to wait till I was 22 to meet Prince Charming. Though now, with maturity, I can clearly see why, within my religion's culture, that would put some into a certain amount of distress. At the time, I could not wait to get out of there. I had a whole life ahead of me filled with twists and turns and accomplishments and, yes, unfulfilled expectations. I had plenty of time to find the person I wanted to build my forever with.

Which brings me to this.......I will be 38 in January. I am OK with that. (Well mostly) Maybe I am having a mini mid-life crisis. The doctor whom I renamed suggested that I had 'til 40 to try and have biological children. After that, he said we are pretty much done. So now I am wondering, if I think I am happy just having the 4 beautiful, amazing, though somewhat feral children, or will I later find myself with unfulfilled expectations? If I have another one or two will it be more than I can handle? Is it worth all the heartache and the emotional roller coaster that is the treatment for infertility? Will I regret not trying everything under the sun to get pregnant? Will I be OK not knowing what might have been? I have children, so I fulfilled that expectation, but still, all the other questions I don't have answers for, threaten my peace of mind.

So my real problem is this: I am fence sitting. With things like this, taking no action and not making a choice almost always leads to Unfulfilled Expectations. You are left feeling like you had no control in the situation or you had control and forfeited said control. I want to make a choice, and know that I made the right one, so that I don't look back with regrets.

So, there you have it. My unwelcomed deep thoughts for the day. I was hoping for a light and funny post, but this is what came pouring out. Huh.......

Dreams of a Crazy Woman

Thank you friends for all the well wishes. The Rocket Scientist is back at work. The 1st One is back to school. The Wild Child has bronchitis, but is now on the mend and My Son and the Little Jamaican, it is believed by the doctor that, they have allergies. So things are looking up around here.

When the alarm went off this morning the first thought in my head was something left over from a dream. Not a pleasant dream, not really a nightmare either. It was just enough to make me question taking Benadryl before bed. The thoughts going through my head when I awoke were these: "It is so sad that Mick Romney is dead." I need to disclose that I know no one named Mick, not a Romney or other wise. So as I am trying to get conscious I realize this and wonder if something happened to Mitt Romney. Fortunately after scanning the news for 10 minutes, it would appear that the previous presidential hopeful is just fine.

There have been other times that in a dream my Rocket Scientist has done something unsavory and I have awakened very angry with him. Why is that? I know that it was just a dream, though, I am still furious with him. Poor guy, he has to pay for what my mind makes up at night.

Then there is the dream I had when we were still somewhat newly-weds. The Rocket Scientist's mom had passed away in November and his dad decided that a family ski vacation to Mammoth was in order. So in January, we joined his family on said ski trip. We all stayed in a condo in the area. The second level of this condo was a loft that was open to below. There were two queen size beds up there. So the RS and I took one bed and the RS's younger brother and the love of his life took the other. Below in the family room, my FIL slept on the couch and a couple of the RS's older brother's kids slept in sleeping bags on the floor. I am dreaming away one of those nights about having to make it to my best friend's wedding and that I can not get the Rocket Scientist off the mountain so that I can go get ready. I continue to plead my case. As the dream goes on, the RS is now driving me to the wedding and even though there is still time for me to shower, he is ignoring my requests. I become more persistent that I want to take a shower. I begin repeating over and over again, "I want to take a shower! I want to take a shower! I want to take a shower!" In my dream, I get louder and louder as it seems that my demands are falling on deaf ears. It wasn't long after that I was awakened to my husband trying to quiet my yells, my SIL snickering, and my BIL telling me to take a shower then. Fortunately, I woke no one below. To make this story complete, I need to say that, yes, I was mad at the RS all day long that day. Yes, I was allowed a shower, but I was already ticked, though not his fault.

My question to you now is, do others pay for what you dream about?

Conspiracy Theory? or Not?

Do you remeber the movie the Pelican Brief? I loved that movie. And, I can't help myself, I love a good conspiracy theory. Ya, I don't know what that is about, but there are others of you out there that like 'em too. You know who you are. So when my brother and his wife suggested we read a few books, it got me thinking. Something that at the times I truly neglect to do. (think about money and how it works)
As I read some of these books I began to look at money differently. Enough so, that I quit freaking out about money in general and read everything I could get my hands on the topic for about six months.
Then a few weeks ago, my brother sent me this link. Which really got me thinking. So I started surfing the web and found these:

and this:

So tell me, what do you think? Is it a conspiracy theory of fact? If it's fact, we can't live like that. Can we? I thought slavery in the the United States was abolished in 1865.?

Humor me please......I would love to hear what you think on this topic. If you don't want to share your perspective on this issue, I undrestand. Maybe then you could tell me what your favorite conspiracy theory of all time is. You know you want to. Tell me, already.

Sunsets....

Another picture taken from my back porch. We really did do well to buy this house sight-unseen. I'm not a photographer so please excuse the quality. Still, I love the colors.This sunset happened sometime this past week. I love the sunsets this time of year. The warm and cold colors contrasting. What is your favorite part of winter?

Knees should not look like basketballs

I may have mentioned before that the Rocket Scientist has an auto-immune disorder. Yeah and it's great fun to be had by all. No....not really.


The first time we became aware of it, we thought he had injured his foot. The doctors couldn't find anything wrong with it, yet it was swollen and extremely painful. Now my guy's tough rarely breaks. If he is wincing in pain.......it's bad! So, back to the doctors he went for some blood work. They thought maybe it was gout. They sent him home, told him to call back in a few days for the blood work results. You know....it came back inconclusive. The doctor told him to avoid red meat and get in shape. We wanted to do what was best. So we cut out all red meat and most meat in general. Trying to be a good wife I put him a vegetarian diet. Well..........not the right answer. The swelling got so bad and so painful. Both his ankle and knee started swelling. Eventually it went away and he went back to eating red meat. There were a few recurrences over the next year. Then we moved to Kansas. Can you believe the entire time we lived there......not one bad "out break."

I could drag this out.......but you all really don't want me to do that. Turns out soy is the trigger for him. His body just can not process it. Do you have any idea how many things have soy in it. Try to eat out and not consume soy or one it's products.

Over the years I have gotten really good at avoiding soy. Sometimes we miss something and the man ends up in extreme pain. Of course then I feel terrible for missing it.

Last week the RS's knee started bugging him. It wasn't long until it was as big as a basketball. The poor guy spent the last week in bed. I have been through everything. I can't figure out where he got the soy. I'd say this is one of the worst cases he has ever had.

So I'm back to the drawing board. I wish there was just a test that would say this is the thing that causes your knee to look like a basketball, but once again, no. We get to do trial and error. My next best guess is "high fructose corn syrup." Fortunately this is a bit easier to avoid. Sorry, Babe.....no more Soft Drinks for you.

Second guessing my words

You know I have started many posts in the past couple of days, only to abandon them. Some because I can't find the right words to express how I feel. Others because, I decided they have no relevance to me or most people. Then there is the one that I think I sound whiny and well, I'm not a fan of whining when it comes to me doing it. I have way too much to be thankful for.

So, this brings me to a question. Do you have posts you start and never finish? Post you finish that you never actually post? Posts that you delete? I guess that is more than one question.